I have returned once more, and I hope all of you are holding up okay after that last chapter. I was a bit brutal, and I'm beginning to notice a few startling resemblances between this and the second season of Arrow.
Anyway, I'm introducing Skye's father in this chapter, and I'll leave it up to you to see how much you want to trust him. Very soon though, a certain specialist with killer cheekbones will grace our presence as well. But he'll be in prison...for now!
Chapter 7: Father
"Leo!" Skye shrieked as he crumpled to the floor.
She lunged wildly at Simmons, but the man with the gloves pulled her back and held her arms behind her back. The biochemist returned the gun back to the holster hidden by her lab coat. The party then turned the corner into long corridor.
"You killed him," Skye whimpered. "Oh my god, you killed him."
"I did no such thing."
'She's got to be undercover or something, she must be,' Skye thought. 'She would never do this anyone, let alone Leo.'
"So what did you do to him?" Skye snarled angrily. "Because it doesn't look like he's just taking a nap, Simmons."
Simmons stopped at a set of metal doors and pressed a code into a panel on the wall. Then she turned to face Skye, drawing her gun.
"This," she told Skye, raising the gun so she could see it clearly. It was exactly like the early Night-Night guns, except it was black and green instead of silver and blue. "This is like those guns that I helped Fitz make for SHIELD. However, they have been modified to have better aim and accuracy, as well as being more lightweight. The dentrotoxin last ten to thirty minutes, depending on the genetics of the victims. So in way, Skye, he is taking a nap."
The metal doors opened to reveal an elevator, and they all filed inside. The ride up was silent, and Skye tried to think of all the possibilities for Simmons's behavior. She couldn't decide whether she was undercover, or being controlled. The latter seemed more likely, given the surprisingly cold behavior that had been shown to her.
When the doors opened, Skye looked up and gasped. As they came out of the elevator, she could see cloudy blue sky through the glass wall in front of her. Simmons nodded at the man who was restraining her. He released her with an order of no 'funny business' and she bolted toward the window, curious to see how high they were. A small squeak escaped her when she saw the tiny speck of ground below. It must have been hundreds of feet until there was earth.
"Almost four hundred feet."
Skye whipped around at the sound of the voice. Simmons was standing nearby an open door in the wood paneled wall, and a new man stood in the doorframe. He looked to be in his early fifties with graying brown hair and brown suit that he wore a white lab coat over. With a kind smile, he walked over beside her. Skye noticed he was just a bit taller than her.
"We're nested in the side of a mountain. One side of the building looks out and down on the earth below, the other faces into the mountain. It took ages to find a spot that was both well-hidden and tall enough to permit a building of this size."
"Cool," Skye muttered sarcastically. "So do you want to tell me why I'm here? Or better still, who the hell you are?"
The man chuckled and shook his head. "You remind me of your mother. She always wanted to get straight to the point too."
Skye blinked, confused. 'What does my mother have to do with anything?' she pondered as the man went over to Simmons and the two guards.
"Head down to the main lab," he ordered Simmons. "Get things ready for the serum, and find a volunteer. It's time for my daughter to see the miracle she's a part of."
"Wait, daughter?!" Skye cried out, staring at them in bewilderment. This man here, he wasn't who she thought he was, was he?
"I might have just said that the Doctor wanted to see her," Simmons admitted, looking a little sheepish. "Sorry, sir."
"It's fine, Agent Simmons," he reassured her before turning back to Skye. "But yes, Tian Kong, you are my daughter."
"You're…you're my dad?" She couldn't believe this. Had she actually found one of her biological parents?
For her entire life, the one thing Skye had always wanted was to find her parents. She'd wished on stars, prayed with the nuns, and eventually learned to hack computers for this moment right here. She'd tried to imagine how she would feel, but anything she had ever expected was nothing like the reality of it all. Yes, she did feel happiness, a sense of completion. But there was also a sense of caution and wariness that filled her. Something about her father was unnerving to her and she couldn't shake it.
"So where the hell have you been the past twenty four years of my damn life!" fell from her lips.
Her father, 'the Doctor' Simmons had called him, turned toward Simmons. "Leave us," he said, dismissing her and the two others. He began to walk to the open door.
"Believe me when I tell you this, Tian Kong," he told her, gesturing her to follow him in the doorway. "I have regretted every single moment that I missed out on your life. But I'm going to tell you the events that forced us apart for so long."
"Over thirty years ago, I was scientist who was investigating ways to treat, cure, and even eradicate diseases," Darwin explained as he watched his daughter settle onto the couch beside the armchair he sat in. A pot of tea and two cups that he'd prepared before Tian Kong arrived sat on the coffee table in front of them. "It was through my work that I met your mother. She worked for the government, and they sometimes called me in for analysis and consultation. We met on my first visit there, and I asked her out for coffee afterwards. She told me she didn't like coffee, but she agreed to meet me. We started to date, and a year later, we were married."
The girl smiled down at the cup of tea he had just passed to her. Darwin breathed a sigh of relief. Things were going well so far, but what he'd already told her was the truth. From here, he was going to have to deviate quite a distance from what actually happened.
"Now, a few months in our marriage," he continued after a sip of tea. "I found out that I was ill, and dying. I loved my wife. I didn't want to widow her, or leave the child she was expecting fatherless. So I worked to create a serum that would cure my disease."
"I'm guessing it worked, 'cause you're still here," The girl said timidly.
He nodded. "Indeed it did, but it didn't just cure me. It enhanced my skills set. I was suddenly capable of so much more, both mentally and physically."
"I never told your mother about any of this; I didn't want to worry her. The last thing she needed during her first pregnancy was more stress. A few months after I was cured, we became parents to a beautiful baby girl, your elder sister Hua. She was a perfect blend of the two of us, but unfortunately, she had my disease. I was able to cure her using the same formula, although she also developed abilities. I monitored her carefully to make sure she was okay."
"So what about me? Did I have it too?"
Darwin nodded, feeling relief that she had fallen for the 'disease' ruse. You could argue that the current state of humanity was a disease. "I'm afraid so. Four years after your sister, you came along and I treated you immediately. Unfortunately, your mother had discovered what I was doing by this point. While she didn't say anything to me, I knew that she had found out, and she was not pleased with my work. I could tell she saw me differently by the way she always stayed close to you and your sister, how she'd flinch when I passed by. One day, I found out that she intended to run away, and take our daughters with her. She was going to turn you two over to her organization to be studied. I couldn't let her do that to you, but your mother was set on it. We fought about it one night, and the next morning she was gone. Vanished without a trace."
The reality was that there had been no fight. His wife had been suspicious and was going to run with the girls, but he had been the one to run with them first and vanish without a trace. He didn't know if she was even going to turn them over to her agency, but the more he could get Tian Kong on his side, the better. Turning her against her mother would allow him to succeed with her where he'd failed with Hua.
"How old was I?"
"Two, three months I believe." Darwin answered truthfully. "After she left, I moved to China with you and Hua so I could continue my research in a new department that specialized in genetics. They expressed great interest in the serum I had developed, and a group of scientists worked with me to find ways to improve it to extend to healing a wider range of people, even pre-determine the abilities that it gifted to them. You and your sister had impressed people greatly, but some did not share that view. I discovered this one morning when I awoke and found you and a lab assistant gone."
Tian Kong's eyes widened in shock, and Darwin knew that he was starting to get to her.
"A little digging into the assistant's possessions shed some light on his true identity as an undercover agent of SHIELD. I believe that SHIELD had learned about me, and the assistant intended to take you back to one of their bases so they could lock you up and experiment on you. Your mother's organization was all too similar to it, and it made sense to me. The assistant had taken a vehicle with a tracking device on it when he left, and I was able to activate it and track him down."
"I arrived at a small village an hour away from the base I was at. When I got there, the people living there were defensive about me entering, and were prepared to kill me so that you could be protected. I was so angry that you had been taken, so furious for the betrayals that I had suffered, and I lost control. The next thing I knew, I was standing deep in the bodies of the villagers, covered in their blood. I couldn't find you anywhere, and I assumed that you had died in my bloody crime. I returned to my lab and Hua with a heart full of grief. I changed my name to Darwin, and broke my ties with the company to travel the world. I wanted to learn more about my serum, and find ways to make it better."
"Have you?" Tian Kong asked quietly. She looked incredibly anxious.
Darwin paused and thought about his answer. Yes, he had done a lot of work with it, but it was still incredibly unpredictable. You never could tell if a person who received it would be gifted with great powers, or mutate into a hideous beast. For now, he would leave out that last bit. "We have the occasionally difficulty, but it's getting there."
"All right," his daughter leaned closer. "So what about Hua? Is she here? Can I meet her?"
He pressed his lips together firmly and clenched one of his fists. He would not tell her about Hua. She was too dangerous now, too much of a wildcard. Maybe if Tian Kong was fully on his side, he could permit them to see each other now and then. But allowing an impressionable mind like his youngest daughter's to become clouded with the rebellious thoughts Hua had recently acquired would be much too dangerous.
"I lost her," he told Tian Kong. It wasn't a lie exactly, and it wasn't the truth. "After losing you, I always made sure that she was safe and protected, even after she became an adult. One day, a few months ago, I let her go out too far beyond my protection, and I lost her."
"Oh," His daughter bit her lip, her face turning sorrowful.
He decided now would be a good time to take her down to the lab to see the miracle of the serum. "There's more to this story though, Tian Kong-"
"Is that my name?" She interrupted. "Because you keep calling me that. Does it mean something?"
Darwin chuckled a little. "Yes, it is your name. In Chinese, tian kong is 'sky'. Your mother chose it."
"You're kidding me!" Tian Kong laughed. "I've been going by Skye for years! It's seriously my name in Chinese? That's amazing!"
"Fate is a peculiar thing," he admitted. "But as I was saying, after Hua and I left, I began to develop a new idea for the future of the world. Over the years, I have amassed a group of supporters who have helped me work toward the goal I have for saving society. A few years ago, we were almost ready, but then I learned that the village whose residents I had slaughtered had one survivor, a baby girl. I tried to track you down, but SHIELD stood in my way, and then I lost the trail completely. Finally, you popped back up on my radar a few months ago, and now the final plan can begin. A plan that you will be a part of."
"What is it?" asked Tian Kong timidly.
Darwin smiled at her as he stood up. "Come with me, and I will show you."
Raina pressed in the code to her own private lab. As soon as she entered, she screamed at the sight of someone bending over as they riffled through one of her cabinets.
"I'm so sorry," Jemma Simmons apologized cheerily as she straightened up, a couple test tubes in hand. "Lab 4 is out of test tubes, and I'm going to need to draw some blood from someone later. I hope you don't mind me getting in here. I already knew the code. After all these years, you still haven't changed it."
"What. Are. You. Doing. Here." Raina clenched her fists, swallowing the lump of worry creeping up her throat. "You're supposed to be with SHIELD, not here!"
"Oh, you didn't hear the good news then," Jemma chirped as she closed the cabinet and walked over to her. "The Doctor called me in. I'm back here for a while. Isn't it wonderful! I get more free reign over projects now without Coulson or someone else shutting me down."
"What about Skye? And that boy you work with?" Raina asked breathlessly, blocking Jemma from exiting. "Where are they?"
"Oh, they've come along with me," Jemma sighed. "Fitz has proved himself to still be incredibly stubborn toward not listening to me. I've had to knock him out twice, and I think he's still out in his cell. Skye, on the other hand, is with her father."
Rain froze. "Her father?" she whispered. "No, tell me he's not…"
"The Doctor?" Jemma smiled darkly at her. "Congratulations. You have a sister."
She sauntered out the door, leaving Raina by all alone in the big empty space.
Once the door shut, Raina felt her legs wobble and grasped the counter for support. Tears began to fall down her face as she slid to the floor, breathing raggedly. Everything she'd ever done to protect her sister from the moment she handed Tian Kong to that assistant had failed. Tian Kong really was Skye, and their father was going to try to corrupt her to follow his twisted beliefs. This couldn't happen to her little sister.
She had to get her sister out of here, and she had to do it soon.
Dun Dun Dun! What's going to happen next? Will Skye trust her father? The next chapter will answer that for you!
Thoughts? Theories? Fears? Leave a review behind and tell me what you think of this!
