Disclaimer: Still not mine, yada, yada
Thanks to Stargazerdaisy for beta-reading. She does so much to make these stories readable.
There will actually be two 1x05 oneshots for The Far Side Of The Looking Glass - one from Skye's POV (this one) and one from Ward's POV. the Ward POV one will be done after I finish chapter eight of Fine Dimensional Line. It actually turns out to be kind of an important episode in the development of the course of this AU. These Skye POV scenes ended up long enough as it is.
The Far Side Of The Looking Glass
By Kylia
"Full Disclosure"
Set during 1x05 "The Girl In the Flower Dress"
Skye was working furiously. When she found out which idiot was jeopardizing her entire mission, she was going to personally destroy their entire computer setup. Hydra has some nice viruses that can make any computer overheat and explode. And if they died when it happened, so much the better.
That Ward had been so supportive of her, believing her when she'd told the truth - for a change - was an encouraging sign though. Nice to have proof she really was getting to him, getting under his guard. Getting his trust, his support.
It felt good.
To be able to be doing so well in her mission, of course. It had nothing to do with the supportive smile from Grant feeling so much genuine than anything John had given her.
Because that's not even true! She slapped down that nagging little voice in the back of her head before it could even start down that path. John hadn't been the... softest or most expressive of mentors, but he cared about her, and he'd done more for her than anyone else in the world ever had.
He came first. The mission came first.
Grant was just another target.
This hacker was good, but Skye knew she was better. Besides, she had S.H.I.E.L.D.'s computing power to back up her skill. Bouncing the signal from Russia to Malaysia through China, to Somalia of all places, she finally traced it to Texas.
And along the way, she became increasingly sure she knew who the hacker was. Goddamnit. She recognized the coding language. Didn't mean it was Miles, not on its own; the Rising Tide shared programs nearly as freely as it shared data.
"Are we close?" Coulson asked, coming into the briefing room.
"Almost."
Fitzsimmons, in their unique half-adorable, half-annoying way tag-teamed an explanation of what she was up to.: "She's identified the remote access Trojan and the infected endpoint," Fitz started
Simmons picked up without missing a beat. "Yeah, and is searching for a TCP to correlate the hypertext with signature information and then…"
"Bob's your uncle."
"Viola!"
That is kind of creepy how they do that.
Coulson didn't follow, obviously. "You get any of that?"
"Only the uncle part," Ward admitted.
"Full disclosure, I recognize the programming behind this hack." Skye didn't even look up from the tablet as she said that, still working. "I know who wrote it."
"Then you know who did it?" Coulson asked, but Skye shook her head.
"Not necessarily. It could be the creator, but the Rising Tide shares programs and code almost as much as it shares information. I mean, we all keep our best stuff private - we're competitive like that - but this stuff has been shared. Narrows the list a little..." She finished her trace.
"And there we go. Traced the hack to an internet cafe in Austin Texas." Fuck. The last thing she wanted to be was face to face with - or even in the immediate vicinity of - Miles Lydon of all people. A cretin and kind of a creep and...if she hadn't needed to infiltrate the Rising Tide for John, she'd have knifed him in the gut for his bullshit. As it was, she'd had her fun messing with his computer system after their 'breakup.'
"Can you get us a name, or are we going to-"
"Miles Lydon," Skye said, pulling up his credit card transitions with the cafe. Idiot! "Of course he'd be arrogant and stupid enough to use his own credit card at the cafe." That last part was muttered under her breath, but the others picked up on it regardless. She brought up a picture of his most recent Driver's License.
"You know him?" Ward's tone made it clear he thought he knew the answer. Which is what you get when you say that out loud. Not that it hurt her cause any, which was why it had slipped out. Still.
Simmons answered before Skye could. "He's famous - he infiltrated the Kremlin."
"That picture of Putin shirtless, on horseback? That was his," Fitz added.
"Yeah, all that, but he's also my ex-boyfriend. And a Fucking Idiot at the best of times," Skye made sure the capital letters were there when she said it. Not only because that's how she felt, but she needed to make sure that the others - Coulson and Ward especially - didn't think she had anything to do with this.
"Is that going to be a problem? Your past relationship with him?" May asked, walking in, tablet in hand. "I've just set a course for Austin," she added, looking at Coulson, who nodded.
"Not even a little bit. One, his hack put an innocent guy's life in danger, and two, we broke up for a reason. A lot of reasons, actually." Again, she kind of muttered that last part.
"Do you think you could convince him to come quietly, given that you know him?" Ward asked, ever the pragmatic specialist.
"Maybe," Skye admitted. "I'd rather not, but it you want me to, I will. Our breakup was... unpleasant. I may have... set a virus loose in his system to wreak all kinds of havoc afterwards." Destroyed all his Minecraft server data, his save files for his precious video games - and she'd replaced all his songs with the most agonizingly awful and overwrought opera music.
"If we can get him to come in without a hassle, I'd prefer it," Coulson told her. "You and Ward will go bring him in, we'll see what he knows. See if you can't find out where he is on the way to Austin."
"If nothing else, he's probably still living in the same apartment." Skye started digging into all of Miles's records. "He's a creature of habit."
Grabbing Miles had proven even easier than she'd thought it would be. All it took was knocking on his door, a disarming smile and then letting Ward push the fucker against the wall and cuff him. And now here he was, in the interrogation room on the Bus.
She had to admit, it was hot watching Ward grab Miles so smooth and efficiently, and it felt good to see her disgusting 'ex-boyfriend' in cuffs and in a cell. Hopefully he ends up in a permanent one before this is over.
It would serve him right for jeopardizing his cover.
"So what happened between you two anyway?" Simmons asked Skye as she watched Ward get started in his interrogation through the camera feed. "Why did you break up?"
"He's a slob and a cretin, an arrogant ass... I'm not sure what I was thinking when I started dating him, in hindsight." I should have figured out a better way to get what I needed. But it had been so simple to get Miles to think she was into him, that she liked him. And... at first, all the attention and the fact that he'd liked her so much had been... nice. Flattering.
"Well, you had to like something about him, at first," Simmons pointed out, as if this was some normal girls-bonding thing... which maybe it was. Skye had no real idea. She hadn't done much bonding at St. Agnes.
"Probably," Skye admitted. Yeah, like his in with the Rising Tide. Getting Lydon to vouch for her had opened a lot of doors. "Just can't think of what they are now."
"It's information! It has a life of its own!" Lydon spouted when Ward asked him what he did with the information he'd hacked from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Hong Kong servers. Skye was busy digging into Lydon's life even more. There was something here - there had to be a reason he'd targeted that particular data stream... Lydon wouldn't have gone after something that obscure on his own.
Was it someone else in the Rising Tide, or some... outside interest? There were a lot of people who would love to get their hands on Mr. Chan, to use his powers or study them. Hydra would love them, but Hydra wouldn't be behind this - they had plenty of people who already had access to the Index.
They could have used the hack as a cover. Skye hoped that wasn't the case - she didn't need to stumble over some other Hydra cell's project. It would piss John off when word came down from the higher ups about it. John hated dealing with the higher ups.
"It's a bit strange, seeing you so... callous." Fitz said after a moment. "You really don't like him, do you? I mean, you used to be on the same side..."
Damnit. She didn't want them to think she was some fair-weather friend either. Skye the 'idealistic hacker' was a core part of her cover.
"The Rising Tide... we're like Anonymous, but without the trolling. We don't always agree about everything," Skye clarified. "We all share basic ideals... that I still mostly agree with, even if being on this plane and doing cases with you guys are showing me why some secrets might actually be good. But beyond that - there's a lot of petty bullshit inside the Rising Tide like you'd see anywhere. Is S.H.I.E.L.D.'s science division all one big happy family?"
"Oh god, not even close," Simmons scoffed, sounding a little horrified. "Remind us to tell you about 'Doctor Kody McRay' sometime."
"I'd rather she didn't," Fitz muttered a little sourly. "It was very pleasant forgetting that he ever existed."
Skye laughed, "Well, then I'm definitely going to have to ask you..." Skye trailed off as she found a hidden bank account linked to an alias she'd traced back to Miles.
With nearly a million dollars in it from a series of transactions.
Got you. Skye immediately printed out the transaction info, hurrying out of the lab without answering FitzSimmons's questions.
"I always thought you cared more about the thrill and the praise people inside the Rising Tide gave you, than the ideals," Skye shouted, bursting into the interrogation room without asking permission or even warning she was coming in. She had a lot of righteous anger to sell.
"But even for you," Skye snarled, "This is low." She slammed the bank transactions down on the table. Miles didn't look at them.
"So you've really sold out. You're accusing me of not believing in the Rising Tide's ideals when you're working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Miles laughed scornfully. "For big brother?! You've got what you're looking for, so-"
Skye cut him off. She didn't need him spilling the beans about her 'reason' for wanting to learn how to hack, her backup explanation for why she was on the Bus. That was suppose to come later... and he is threatening my entire mission, not just my timetable!
"No! You do not get to turn this around on me, Miles." Skye slammed her hand on the piece of paper again, poking in the chest with her other hand. "You have nearly a million dollars in a secret account, all given to you in the lead up to you hacking that S.H.I.E.L.D. data stream. You sold information and now an innocent man has been kidnapped because of it. I didn't think you could ever sink lower in my eyes, but congratulations, you managed to surprise me." It was amazing how little she had to fake here, when it came to just how much she loathed Miles.
Jeez, I didn't think I hated him this much.
"Skye," Ward cut in. "Wanna catch me up?"
Skye took a breath and turned back to Ward. "Sorry. I was digging into this... jackass," she jerked her thumb back towards Miles without even looking at him, "trying to find out who put him onto that data stream... I was thinking someone else in the Rising Tide, someone with enough brains to actually come up with the idea, had put him up to it, when I found an account belong to an alias I traced to him. 'Luke Milton' made some very large deposits recently. Nearly a million dollars by the end of it." She offered Ward the paper. He took it and started going over it.
"Well?" Ward lowered the paper and looked over at Miles. "You had to know people with good intentions don't pay this kind of money for classified information."
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Miles countered. He turned his gaze back to Skye. "It was a million dollars, Skye. I would have hacked it for free, but I wasn't going to turn down that kind of money. Not when it could-" Miles cut himself off and looked away.
"What-" Skye started, then she turned back to Ward, dropping into the role of trainee. She wasn't supposed to run the show in the interrogation. The Skye who was trying to learn how to be a good little agent could be forgiven for getting emotional on the new information, given the context...
But this was Ward's interrogation, and he should be giving the orders. Or at least that's how Skye the trainee should think. At the very least, she should let him tell her to keep going with Miles. Show him that she really was working on trying to follow all the S.H.I.E.L.D. rules and regulations.
"He's all yours, Skye," Ward said, with a smile - the third one she'd gotten out of him today, after the two during the Battleship game - playing across his face for a moment. And there was a note of... pride, in his voice.
Right. The S.O. proud of his trainee.
Skye ignored the slight warm feeling that pride gave her.
"What are you talking about?" Skye 'forced' herself to be more level, calm. "Not when it could do what?"
Miles said nothing for a moment, but Skye stared right at him, into his eyes, and he flinched.
"Not when I thought it could convince you to give me another chance," Miles said quietly, then, "So I could give you what you deserved, so you wouldn't have to live in a van!"
Skye stared at him, dumbfounded, then, without meaning to, burst into laughter.
"That's what this was about? Three years, and you're still hung up on me?" Skye had to take a breath, cover her mouth to try and control her giggles. Goddamnit, control yourself! "You - you," more giggles. "You thought it was money, that broke us up? That having a million dollars would get me to give you a second chance? If I wanted a million dollars, Miles, I could have stolen it myself! Easily!"
"Then why did you break up with me?!" Miles demanded. "Because I've spent the last three years trying to figure it out!"
"We don't have enough time for me to give you an itemized list," Skye spat. "But we could start with how your condescension, the way you acted like the fact that you, a kid from a well-adjusted middle class family dropping out of college and ghosting your parents for the pettiest of fucking reasons made us alike. The way you patronized me, the 'poor little orphan girl' when you 'taught me how to hack'... or how about the fact that everything you taught me about hacking was almost worthless."
That part wasn't entirely true. He had taught her a few good tricks.
"And now, well to add onto the list, there's the fact that apparently you think I'm a hooker or whatever - who will date someone just because they have money!" That part just completely baffled her. What would ever make Miles think money was what would win her heart?
Then again, if he's so dense to never get why I broke up with him... Technically she'd broken up with him when she did because she'd cemented herself with enough of the other pillars of the Rising Tide to not need him more, but she'd had tons of legit grievances with him.
"So, here's what's going to happen. You're tell me who paid you to hack that data stream, and in return, I won't tell everyone I know in the Rising Tide that you sold information. I'll will make sure everyone blacklists you, because you deserve it."
Miles said nothing for a long moment, and Skye reached for the paper, grabbing it and starting for the door - and finally, he spoke.
"Someone... she said she was a fan of the Rising Tide. Thought that people with gifts or talents deserved better."
"Who was she?" Ward asked.
"Some rich girl a flower dress. She pointed me to Chinese S.H.I.E.L.D. It didn't seem like anything the Rising Tide hadn't already released." He went on, trying to defend himself, "I traced the money, to make sure it wasn't some... evil corporation or whatever. It was from an eco-research lab."
Skye felt a pit in her stomach as Ward asked the obvious question. No...
"Ecological research? What kind?"
"Insects. Some... study with centipedes. What could be more innocent than that?"
Ward looked over at her, and Skye shared a carefully schooled look of realization with him, while internally, she seethed.
This had John's terrible sense of humor all over it.