Chapter 7
"Oooooow" Skye groaned as she collapsed on the training mats. "I thought people in the 40's didn't hit ladies."
Steve laughed, "you're right, I don't."
Skye threw her shoe at him. "When May gets back I am so going to let her teach you a lesson."
Steve caught the shoe. Sitting on the mat next to her, he handed Skye a water bottle. "Technically, I didn't hint you, I flipped you onto your back."
Skye rolled her eyes. "Potato, Potahto."
Steve looked at her in shock.
"It's a song…" Skye began to explain
"Called let's call the whole thing off, sung by Billie Holiday." Steve smiled "I know it; I just can't believe you know it."
Skye grinned, "some of us like old fashion things."
"Well thank you for the nice warm up" Steve said stretching. "Now I can start my real work out."
"Wa…Warm up?" Skye looked at him in horror. "You call that a WARM UP?" Steve smirked.
"Remind me to introduce you to my friend Sam. I get the feeling you two would get along."
"Is there any more of that super serum lying around? I want some." Skye raised an eyebrow as Steve's shoulders shook trying to contain his laughter. "I'm serious. Captain, no, General Skye, has a nice ring to it." Steve burst out laughing. "Don't worry, I promise to be a just and benevolent leader."
"Skye" He said when he finally stopped laughing. "That's a really pretty name."
"Thanks, it's why I picked it." She saw his obvious confusion. "I grew up in the foster care system. No one had a birth certificate for me, so the orphanage made up a name for me…needless to say it was terrible. So when I got old enough I picked my own name."
"You chose well." Steve said, he turned away when Skye looked at him so she wouldn't see him blush. He cleared his throat.
"About what happened during the mission briefing." He began slowly.
Skye tensed, "what do you want to know?"
"This Ward guy, how do you know him?"
She looked at the ceiling, carefully weighing her words.
"He was part of our team." She murmured. "He was our friend and the whole time he was lying to us."
"Hydra." Steve said. Skye nodded.
"After S.H.I.E.L.D. fell it was chaos." Skye said. "We were running blind, fugitives from the government. Ward – " She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Our team was supposed to be the one thing we could count on, but Ward tried to destroy that. He killed people. He tried to kill Fitz-Simmons." Tears began rolling down Skye's face. "You may have noticed that Fitz has difficulty expressing himself or that his motor skills are slow. Ward did that to him. He trapped Fitz-Simmons in an air-locked storage compartment and dropped it into the ocean. There was only one oxygen tank. Fitz sacrificed himself for Jemma." She stopped again. "His brain was too oxygen deprived by the time Jemma got them both to the surface." Her expression darkened. "We were a family and he just tossed them out to their deaths."
Steve looked at the mats in front of him. "What does he want with you?" he asked
"He's convinced himself that he's in love with me." Skye shuddered.
Steve looked at her. "You cared about him." It wasn't a question, but Skye nodded anyway.
"That's what makes this hurt so much. I let him in, I trusted him, and the whole time he was Hydra. We weren't his family, we were his targets."
Steve looked at her. "You can't blame yourself for trusting him. It shows you have integrity and it's what separates you from people like Ward."
"I know." She sat up. "But those people in museum are dead because of his twisted affection for me." She stood up and began pacing. "The man downstairs is another one of Ward's 'presents'. Bobbi and Hunter were tailing him and Ward managed to escape, leaving this guy behind. He's a high ranking Hydra agent from the facility where Simmons and Bobbi went under cover."
Skye paused. "This slaughter at the museum is his way of attempting to redeem himself. He's sick, he's a monster."
"Would he hurt you?" Steve asked.
"Not intentionally," Skye said. "He claims to have seen the light after I got shot, but – " she stopped pacing realizing what she had told Steve. He looked at her in concern.
"You got shot?"
Skye looked at him warily, wondering how much she should tell him. Steve was clearly a good person and her friend, but something held her back. She didn't know if Coulson had disclosed the particulars of his resurrection, and she was afraid of how Steve would treat her if he found out she had alien blood in her system or that she might be part alien. Misinterpreting her silence Steve gave her a sad smile.
"Let me guess, this falls outside of reasonable questioning." He stood. "Well if you ever want to talk or need to punch something, let me know." He walked towards the door.
"It goes both ways." Skye blurted out.
"What?" Steve turned looking bemused.
"You said earlier that people like us sometimes need help…I want you to know that if you ever want to talk, or…I'm up for sparring and I've got Ben & Jerry's stashed in my fridge."
"Ben & Jerry's?"
"It's a type of ice cream. Jemma and I eat it whenever we have serious conversations, but don't tell May. She's not big on junk food."
Steve nodded and left. Coulson came in about a minute later.
"If you're looking for Captain Rogers you just missed him.' Skye said.
"I came to see how you were. I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. Having Ward on the loose…"
"I get it." Skye grimaced. "I wasn't thinking clearly and let my anger dictate my actions. But you can't always bench me because there might be a risk. Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent means sacrifice. I knew the risks when I signed on; I'm not going to back down because a situation is difficult or has the potential to cause me pain." Skye crossed her arms.
Coulson nodded. "So you and Cap are getting pretty close."
"Jealous?" Skye smirked.
"No" Coulson replied quickly "Maybe a little."
"He's pretty amazing." Skye said
"Yes, he is." Coulson said dreamily. "I mean um… how much did you tell him, about the writing and the GH 325?"
"I didn't. We only talked about Ward." Skye turned to face the wall. "I wanted to" She added softly.
"You're worried how he might react." Coulson said
"I'm potential part alien. Explaining the writing would have meant explaining why I wasn't affected in the same way you and Garrett were." She glared at the wall. "When Mack and I went to find you after you locked me in the holding cell we talked about the writing and it's alien origins. Mack said something that was…" She took a steadying breath. "he questioned whether or not we should trust someone who was an alien."
"That must have been upsetting." Coulson said
"It's not just Steve's reaction I'm worried about." Skye sat back down on the mats. "What if no one trusts me? There's a big difference between having some alien DNA in your system and being a fully fledged E.T."
Coulson sat next to her. "Secrets have a way of coming out and Cap is smart. When I first met him on the helicarrier he discovered S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets through investigation, while Tony Stark was forced to hack into the computer database. May and I know and we don't see you any differently."
Skye pulled up her knees and leaned her forehead against them.
"It's your choice." Coulson stood. "Also I think you should know that May confiscated your ice cream."
"Seriously?" Skye groaned. "Buzzkill."
"I keep some hidden in the med lab fridge. It's in the box marked Bio-hazard. Simmons and I came to an agreement." He smiled "Don't tell May."
Warehouse Basement.
Bucky woke up with blood on his hands. He had no idea where it came from.
"You did great work." The man…Ward? ...was standing in front of him. "Truly exceptional."
He tossed a newspaper on the ground in front of him. The headline read:
Senator and Parents Found Dead in Apparent Murder/Suicide
The front page also showed a picture; a picture Bucky recognized. It was the same man Ward had showed him. He had called him Bucky's…target. He looked at Ward in wide eyed panic.
"No" He said
"You did even better than expected." Ward grinned "You truly are the Fist of Hydra. In fact I've decided not to kill you."
Bucky felt his mouth go dry. "I didn't."
"You did." Ward pushed a tray of food across the floor towards Bucky.
"Eat up. I need my best asset to be in top shape when we meet with Hydra command."
Bucky looked blankly at the floor in front of him. He put his hands between his hands. He began remembering images. A bloody face, an old woman begging for her life. How was this possible? Yet there was the newspaper headline and the blood on his hands.
"How" he said weakly
"I picked up this when I was in Europe." Ward held up a device. "It was in the lad where you were created. It was meant to make you more…obedient."
Bucky looked back at his hands. He remembered Ward coming in and turning on the device. Then nothing. He started hyperventilating.
"Why?" he said
"Because Christian is the reason I am what I am today." Ward said, madness in his eyes. Bucky shrank away from him. "I eliminated him and you helped me."
He walked over to Bucky who backed against the wall.
"You did well." Ward said, placing his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I think we made a very decent team." Then he left.
Bucky began shaking. He had killed and worst of all he had not been able to stop himself. Ward had robbed him of his free will and forced him to be the monster that Hydra created him to be.
