Two weeks ago
"Still typing, I see."
Miles chuckles as he watches Skye continue to completely immerse herself in her computer screen like she has absolutely no care at all about the whole world around her. His roaring voice barely made a dent on her code-riddled headspace. Hell, even after he closes the door behind him as loud as he possibly could, she still doesn't seem like she's noticed his arrival at all.
He clears his throat.
She doesn't even twitch.
He tries it again, a bit louder this time.
Still nothing.
He appears to be almost in the verge of giving up when suddenly, a brilliant idea hit him.
There's only one thing in this world that has never failed to capture her attention for all those years he'd known her, and there is no reason for it to fail this time around. Come to think of it, it's kind of silly he just remembered about it now.
With a smirk, he raises the brown paper bag on his hands and opens slightly. Just a tiny peek. "I brought Tacos."
The change in her expression happened slowly. At first, her fingers stopped moving. She then started blinking in confusion. It is as if she has just been granted the sense of smell and is not sure what exactly she is supposed to do with it. Carefully, she sniffs the suddenly changed air and looks up for the first time.
Miles opens the package further, unleashing an overwhelming explosion of Mexican spice.
He's got her.
It is only when the wonderful scent of her favorite snack wafts fully towards her that she finally registers that the earlier disturbance in her thoughts is an actual living person, and not a mere figment of her imagination. "Miles?" She asks.
He grins at her. "I'm not sure if I should be offended that these tacos appeals more to you than I do."
She ignores his quip and lays out her hand to accept the tasty treat he's brought. "Hand it over." Their poor lighting is clouding most of his features so she can't see him well, but oddly, she kind of prefers it that way.
"How many times should I tell you that you need to wear a watch whenever you're coding?" He says, surrendering his humble offerings to her waiting hand. "I've been gone for seven hours and you didn't even notice."
She shrugs and excitedly tears off the wrapper. "Thank you."
"The taco guy five blocks away thanks you too." He tells her jokingly. "You're the only one keeping his business afloat, you know?"
She takes a bite and moans, mentally thanking the ever elusive Lucio mid-munch. If she could only hack his secret taco recipe, she'd die a happy lady. Hell, even the mere meeting of the guy would do. She's been enjoying his well crafted treats for months and still she hasn't had a chance to see his actual truck. Or the actual guy, for that matter. They seem to constantly miss each other for some reason. "Where've you been anyway?"
"Nowhere as exciting as where your mind just flew off to while I was gone, I'm sure."
She notices how nicely he managed to evade her question. It's sending weird tingles at the back of her neck.
"Did anything interesting while I was gone?"
"Everything I do is interesting to you." She tried to make it sound like she was flirting with him, but in reality, she is holding back a shudder. Sure, everything she's doing is interesting to him. But not in a very good way. It's more like he's watching her every move. Like a hawk. A weird and obsessive hawk.
Well, in fairness to this hawk, at least he always sees to it that he brings food with him whenever he gets back.
"Is that so?" He mutters, almost seductively.
He must have seen some sort of trepidation in her features because he backtracks quickly right after stealing a brief glance of her. He averts his attention from her and gives it to the device in front of her instead. He jerks his head at it. "Let me guess, you're hacking the Pottermore website again, are you?"
"Er, no. I don't think I am." Her mind is too focused on her suspicious notions to realize that she's been absently typing away even while they're talking. She squints at black and white mess of text in front of her. She blinks dumbly at the screen. What is she supposed to be doing again? "Am I?"
Miles shakes his head and chuckles as he slides in to sit beside her. He follows her gaze and snorts. "I've known you for years, but not once have I ever pegged you as a bagpipe afficionado."
Thinking that she might have misheard him, she swiftly faces him and asks, "Huh?"
He gestures at the opened window. "You're hacking a website that sells bagpipes and other antiques made from the 60's."
"What?" Quickly, she returns her attention back to her laptop. It took a few seconds for her brain to catch up with her eyes, but when it finally did, she couldn't help but let out a curse. Did she really just spend time on this? The piece of program she'd created appears too much of a rubbish to be remotely salvageable. With a disappointed frown, she selects every line she has typed. She's about to hit delete when Miles flicks her fingers away from the keyboard.
"Oh wait." Miles remarks. "That's a pretty sweet '67 corvette you have there. And it's in my favorite color."
Skye stares at the black car. Something twists inside Skye's gut at the sight of it, but at the same time, she feels that there is something fundamentally wrong about it. Something different. It must be the price. What breed of weirdo pays that much for decades old set of scrap metal anyway? She shrugs, "It is also worth two of your kidneys." She pushes his paws away from her computer and hits the escape key.
Miles hums in assent, "and maybe a piece of my lung."
"That too." She agrees.
She has done it again apparently. Hours and hours of her life wasted on something worthless because her mind is always drifting to the most random things whenever she's coding.
And to make things worse, she missed her chance; Miles is back now and god knows when she'll get him to leave again. She can't exactly do anything with him around. He's always hovering around her shoulders, asking her odd questions, sniffing around her files… He's even checking her search history.
Something's off with him. She just can't figure out what.
And by god, that has to change soon.
She has to do something.
Earlier that day
"Anything to report?" The man appears out of nowhere, making Miles almost jump out of his skin. He isn't really fond of these spy people. Always slithering out of the dark at the most opportune moments, scaring the shit out of him time and time again. Walking movie cliches, these guys are.
"It's good to see you too, Agent Coulson."
The suit-clad man snorts. "We both know that that's not true."
Miles jerks his head towards the direction of an abandoned alley. Coulson, snorts at his antics but still chooses not to comment on it. He trails after him in silence.
Seeing that there's no point dillydallying, the former Rising Tide hacker goes straight to it. "She's fine. Poking around as always, but that's how she is. Nothing specific. She's off your scent."
The way Coulson stares at him makes him feel like he's some piece of gum stuck under his shoe. "I'm not worried about that. I got my best people keeping an eye on her electronic activities. That's not your job, Mr. Lydon. What I asked is if there's anything new with her? Is she doing okay?"
He scoffs, then retorts, "Of course she's not okay. You messed up her brain, remember?" They've been through this before, but that doesn't mean all is well and forgotten. The lengths these people go to protect their precious secrets is unfathomable. "I was right from the get go. People like you can never be trusted."
Coulson grits his teeth. Of all people, Miles has the least amount of rights to judge him for what he did. He did betray Skye over some payday after all. "I didn't ask for your opinion."
"You didn't ask for hers either, I assume."
Coulson merely glares. "I can't stay long. Our plane just stopped by to refuel."
"Then you better start going." Miles mutters, his smile borderline acidic. "We don't want to keep all the powered weirdos waiting, do we?"
Instead of commenting on the taunting jibe, the SHIELD agent hands Miles a nice-smelling paper bag. "You should give these to her." Coulson says. "She always forgets to eat while hacking."
"Oh, right." Miles, despite his anger, gets caught off guard with the gesture. He did forget to get her anything to eat. The frown in his face slowly lessens. The man may irritate him to no end, but at least he did save him another trip downtown. "Thanks."
"It's just food." Coulson shrugs. He hopes Skye knows what to do with this guy, because he surely doesn't. Miles seem to genuinely care for her, it's just that for some odd reason, he feels wrong. The only motive he had for seeking the guy's help is to use his prior connections with her to solidify the cover story they'd prepared for her. Coulson doesn't know anyone else who knew Skye before and after became involved with SHIELD, and Miles is the only one he could task to watch over her post protocol who wouldn't make her too suspicious. At least for the first couple of days as she transition. From what he knew about Skye, she is not too trusting with strangers. Especially strangers who tend to follow her around, watching her every move. She's definitely good enough to trace them back to SHIELD. He's seen her work.
Miles sighs. "You know what, I can't figure you out."
It takes a couple of seconds before Coulson responds. "Thank you… I guess?" He offers. "That kind of is the point of my job."
"I don't know why you are always trying so hard to look like you don't care." Miles says, "When it's fairly obvious that you do."
Coulson folds his arms across his chest. "I'm not trying anything."
"Sure you do. One moment you ask updates about her as if she's some secret experiment you've been hiding from the world-you act so detached and uncaring-then suddenly you morph into this doting guy who brings her lunches whenever she forgets it."
Coulson tilts his head. "You got that all from a bag of tacos?"
"You gave her a lot of other things." Miles says. "Hell, you even made a whole elaborate scheme of making her 'accidentally' find her old van, which, if I could recall correctly, she also conveniently won in a street poker tournament that simply appeared out of nowhere."
"I simply gave back what was hers to begin with."
"You could've simply given her money to buy a new one, god knows how easier that'd be, but no, this big bad super secret agent went to great lengths to make sure she gets her precious vehicle back."
"Our storage area needs more space."
"You care enough to know how much that van meant to her." Miles says, snorting at the man's perplexed expression. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that you are her dad."
Coulson narrows his eyes at him. "If I'm her father, I guarantee you, we'll be having an entirely different conversation." And it involves a knife. And a lot of pain.
"Then thank heavens you aren't then." He winks playfully at Coulson. He even wiggles his eyebrows for good measure. "That little minx is too sexy to refuse, if you know what I mean."
The agent's hand clenches just above the vicinity of his gun.
"Woah, woah!" Miles holds up his hands non threateningly. "No need to act so paternal and violent, I was merely trying to rile you up. It's all good!"
The innuendo doesn't go unnoticed. He growls, "You-"
"Woah… alright! Alright! Jesus!" Miles curses. "Don't worry, I know when to back off when my feelings aren't returned. I'm not some vile monster."
"Good." Coulson remarks. "But keep this in mind Lydon, if you so much as take a step in the wrong direction, monsters would actually be the least of your problems."
He grins. "I assure you, her virtue is safe with me."
The senior agent scowls. He isn't able to retort though. A soft ringing in his front pocket catches his attention before he had a chance to do so. "I got to go."
"Okay." Miles sighs. "I suppose we'll still be using the usual channels?"
Coulson nods. "You know how discerning she is." He types in a code in his phone. "Cover your tracks when you update me."
"Oh please, I practically taught her everything she knows. She won't find anything on my end."
"I sure hope so."
Present Time
"Lydon, where is she?"
Coulson hears a groan on the other side of the line. A couple of bottles being pushed around. "Hello?" The man sounds thoroughly hungover.
"Sober up and answer me!" Coulson snaps. "Where is Skye? Is she with you right now?"
The seriousness of the agent's voice momentarily jerks him into alertness. Coulson isn't supposed to call him directly on his phone. They have more secure channels than this. "Of course, uh, yeah, sure… She's right, uh, here." That was a lie. He hasn't seen her in weeks.
A relieved sigh can be heard across the line. "Give her the phone. I need to talk to her." He orders.
"Er, what?" Coulson's tone sends Miles' heart pounding harshly against his ribcage. Something's wrong. Very wrong. "You want to talk to her? Wh-what-why? What's going on?"
"Give her the phone." Coulson growls. "Now!"
"What happened to Skye must not know of your existence at all costs?" Miles asks. "Have you gone bonkers?"
"Yes!" Coulson impatiently responds. "Give her the damn phone."
"I can't do that."
"Don't test me Lydon." Coulson yells. "Hand the phone over to her."
"I-ah-" Miles stammers. "Uh, she's er, not here."
A litany of curses shortly followed from Coulson's end. Miles tries not to wince.
When Coulson finally manages to control his breathing, he stiffly mutters. "Please tell me you know where she is."
There is silence on Miles' end of the line.
"I haven't seen her in two weeks, maybe three." The hacker admits. "She once mentioned wanting to go to Tony Stark's leisure park in Northern California. I don't know; m-maybe she went there. She's probably crossed state borders by now. What's happening? Is she okay?"
All Miles heard in reply is the sound of his call ending.
begin rant I hope AoS gets a season 5. Hell, if it were up to me I'd renew them up to season ten. Or twenty. If you are reading this fic and you are living in America, then please, I beg you, watch the show live. DVR it too, or whatever, but please please please, for the love of god, don't let this show get cancelled. Watch them live. end rant Thank you :-D