Clearance
(Episode tag for The Hub 1x07)
It all went to hell when Simmons decided it was a good idea to shoot Agent Sitwell. Skye never liked the guy but still. All of the fun she had, had foreigning cluelessness has long sense left as Simmons all but scurries back to her.
"Was that alright?"
Skye held in the laughter that was bubbling, this was the absolute worst time to laugh. "That was terrible! You were terrible! That was a total meltdown!" Skye could clearly see now why Fitz-Simmons weren't cleared for the field, which assured her that shooting Sitwell or not she had made the right call. Technically, Skye knew she would take responsibility for the whole thing later, and she out ranked Sitwell, that didn't necessarily give her the right to shoot him, but she'd still say it was her who did.
"The night-night gun was right there and!" Simmons stopped to take a deep breath.
"We need help, you need to go get May" Skye knew going to her father was out of the question. He was too much of a company man to hear Skye just let Simmons shoot Agent Sitwell.
"May? No!" The fear was etched so clearly over Simmons face.
"Listen! That flash drive will only give me a few minutes to access the Hubs mainframe to find out what happened to our boys so just go get May, tell her it was an accident!" Skye urged her as she started to sift through the tablet.
"I'm gonna be court marshaled" Skye heard Simmons mumble as she walked away. Skye started tapping furiously on her tablet.
"I hope this works" She muttered walking to the nearest empty room she could find. She quickly logged into the hub. She had lied to Simmons, the flash drive was making her unnoticed but not because of her bracelet. There were only so many level nine Agents out there and markers always pinged when they logged on, especially somewhere they weren't supposed to be at the given time. Given that Skye was undercover, she should only be using her log in codes at her given check in times from a server on the bus. The flash drive was plugged in to simply show she wasn't there, just like the bracelet she wore hid her identity as an Agent at the hub.
"Oh my god" Skye stared at the screen but it didn't change the data that was given to her. "No extraction" She murmured, she was so shocked that she didn't react to the footsteps approaching her until her screen was forced shut.
"What did I tell you?" Her father demanded. He never did like it much when she broke the rules, though it always seemed to make him even angrier when she would tell him that technically she had access to all the files. She knew that wasn't how it worked, even as she had argued with Fitz-Simmons and Ward on the bus earlier this morning she knew that wasn't how it worked. Yes, Skye is level nine, she has more access to SHIELD data than ninety percent of all SHIELD agents, but that didn't mean she was privy to it. Every agent couldn't know everything, so while she could access the information easily that didn't mean she should, that was a trust that had to be embedded on a level nine agent from the Director himself. Come to think of it, Skye broke so many rules she wasn't quite sure why the Director did trust her.
"You told me to trust the system, and the system sent Ward and Fitz in there to die" Skye's anger was leaking out. Her father just grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the room. Skye knew he was leading her back to the bus, she had been on the receiving end of his disapproving looks long enough to know he was pissed, but she didn't care. If they didn't help, a third of their team would be dead.
"I told you I'd get answers about the redacted files" He bit out as he let go of her arm.
"That's not what I was looking for!" She seethed, she could care less about the two people on the other end of those redacted files at the moment. "I was trying to find out what was happening with Ward and Fitz"
"That's a classified operation" He snipped, Skye bit back the comment that it wasn't classified to her.
"It's a suicide mission! I saw it all! The troop placements, the aerial assault, once Fitz disables that device there's going to be a huge attack on that compound with no extraction plan and you hid that from us!" Sye exclaimed. She could see her father's expression getting stonier, she was pushing too many of his buttons. He gripped her arm tightly again and directed her down a deserted corridor, moved her in front of him and came to a stop.
"I didn't hide anything from you, you don't have the clearance to know that" He told her forcefully. Skye just scoffed at him.
"I do have the clearance! But apparently you don't!" She snapped. "Is that really what SHIELD is all about? Level fives are more expendable than level eight? Is that all they are just a number to you?" She had, had just about enough of her Dads good soldier routine today. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was the new Agent Coulson or the old one, apparently today it was the old one, and she didn't like it.
"Are you done?" Phil's anger at his own lack of knowledge was burning through. This was what he hated about the level system, mostly what he hated about each member of his family being on a different level of it.
"I don't know am I?" Skye challenged, so much like Melinda that in only angered him further.
"If SHIELD keeps a secret from us it's for a good reason"
Skye immediately interrupted him "What? So they can hold all the secrets?" Phil had enough.
"You know better than to interrupt!" He said sternly, his dad voice coming out clear, Skye's mouth shut. "You just hacked a level eight secure server! Don't give me the technically you have the clearance! You have no context for that mission! If details get out the whole operation could be compromised, lives could be lost, Ward and Fitz among them!" Both of them were losing their tempers trying desperately to get the other to see their point.
"Don't you think know that? I'm a SHIELD agent too! Those are members of our team! Two people we care about! You and Mom have always told me to think outside the box and that's what I did! I went off book because I was trying to watch their backs!" Skye knew she shouldn't raise her voice with her father but she most certainly wasn't backing down from something she believed in, he should know that, after all he taught her both.
"The reason we can go off the book is because there is a book, a hub, an organization watching our backs, you say you're a SHIELD agent so I know you understand that! You have a level of security clearance that most agents don't even dream of, Mae! They hand you SHIELD secrets and they need to know that you can keep them!" When he finished Skye knew the argument was over, the tone of finality in his voice meant that she wouldn't get away with anything else. He was playing the Dad card, not the fellow agent one to end this argument.
"Can I ask you one question?" She couldn't help but spit out as he turned to walk away. The fact that that he immediately did bite back 'you just did' left Skye knowing how much she really had angered her father. He just turned and looked at her.
"What?" He said stopping to face her again, his lips pursed into a thin line, Skye couldn't tell if the anger was with her, her actions, or with the system.
"Did you know there was no extraction plan for Ward and Fitz?" Her arms crossed and she looked defensive, after his death her father had changed, of course she knew things like that changed a man but he was so much harder to read, and he wasn't letting his face tell her anything. Skye felt bad for blatantly disrespecting her father, but she wasn't going to apologize for her actions.
"That's classified" He said his arms raising a little then dropping back to his sides before turning away and leaving faster than normal. Skye immediately knew the answer was a no. That also meant that he wasn't necessarily mad at her, he was angry with the system and with one Victoria Hand. Skye figured it wasn't that hard to be pissed at the woman, she spent well over half of the time as that womans rookie pissed at her for some reason or another she just hoped she could get through this whole thing without having to see the other woman. Skye wasn't scared of her, she just knew Victoria Hand was spiteful, in a way that she would blow Skye's cover just for kicks. Skye shook her head, she had more important things to think about and she turned and made her way to locate her mother and what she figured by now would be an extremely irate Simmons.
Skye wasn't surprised when she saw her Dad in the doorway to her bunk later that night.
"Hey, I was thinking about today and I'm really sorry" Skye started but Phil cut her off quickly.
"I just wanted to let you know that I didn't forget about what you asked me back at the hub" His quick change of topic surprised Skye. She still couldn't read his face, she didn't know if that meant she was forgiven, or if he was still so upset that they weren't going to talk about it.
"What do you mean?"
"The unredacted file about your past" he continued "I found it" Skye momentarily let her curiosity get the better of her.
"What did it say?" She asked as she scooted closer to her father, sitting on the edge of her bed.
"The document wasn't about you directly, it was about the person who dropped you off at the orphanage, turns out it was a SHIELD agent" Skye already knew everything they knew, they had told her weeks ago about how they had been recalled from a cover OP to extract her and blow up the personnel and the labs she was being kept in. This they must not have known.
"A SHIELD agent?" She asked standing up, her surprise clearly evident. She already had SHIELD agents for parents, could it be her biological ones were too? She voiced as much "Why? I mean, who? What does that mean?" Skye was very confused and her brain didn't seem to be able to process this information fast enough.
"The agent was unidentified, we don't know if she was your mother, or if she just found you on a door step" Saying the word mother in reference to anyone other than his wife felt bitter on Phils tongue, Skye thought it sounded weird herself but she couldn't stop the wonder in her voice.
"Mother? It was a woman?"
"I put in a request to dig further into the files and any related materials but right now that's all I have" Phil hated lying to her, he couldn't stand the unwavering trust in his daughter's eyes as she continued to nod at him. "I'm sorry"
"Sorry?" She whispered as she hugged him tightly. "Thank you, Dad" She whispered in his ear. "I know how hard this is for you, but you are my Dad, no amount of blood could change that, and I am really sorry about earlier" She finished with a squeeze and let go, her whispered words were rushed because she hadn't wanted anyone to see them, but she hoped her father understood how much she really meant them. He squeezed her hand quickly then made his way back to his office.
Melinda was waiting for him when he got back sitting in the chair in front of his desk, file still in hand, her feet propped on the corner of his desk.
"Finish reading it yet?"
"Mm" Was the only response he got as he came to lean against the desk in front of her, one of his hands reaching out to her calve. Finding reassurance in just touching her. "What did you tell her?" His wife asked. The file had less information than the one Fury had given them in that safe house all those years ago, but Phil and Melinda had decided long ago that if she ever found out they would tell her the truth. Now they found themselves doubting if that really was the truth, and if some of it was better kept a secret.
"The truth, I told her a SHIELD agent dropped her off at the orphanage" May tilted her head to the side, regarding her husband with a sigh.
"But you didn't tell her why"
"I can't" he said softly he dropped his wife's gaze to look at the ground "Some secrets are meant to stay secret, how can we possibly tell our daughter what happened when we're beginning to doubt if our own source of information is correct?" He looked at Melinda again and this time it was her turn to look away. "Will you help me find out what really happened?" Melinda's eyes shot right back to his.
"Dangerous waters" Her face showed she was considering it before she moved out of her chair, standing right in front of her husband. "But I can try" She said, resting a hand on his chest, Melinda's other arm moved the file on his desk, all the pictures of the dead agent glaring up at her. "For Skylar you know I'd do anything" She looked back up at her husband before pressing her face to his chest. She felt both of his arms wrap around her tightly before he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Me too"
AN: Hey guys! I'm so sorry for the wait! Life kept happening, between work and moving everything just snowballed from there. These three chapters I had already written but just had to finish, please forgive any errors, I probably read them all way too many times before posting! Anyway, hope you like them! Working on some more, in-between episode moments, some Philinda academy, and some Skye academy. All your reviews/follows/favorites make my day, ya'll are pretty awesome, thank you! Hope you enjoy!
