September 24, 2013

"Simmons."

"Yes, Sir?" The Doctor turned around, a falsely innocent look upon her face. Fitz stared down at the night-night gun, determinedly avoiding Coulson's gaze.

"Where is Agent Ward?"

"Oh," she said, turning and striding quickly to a table on the other side of the room. "Well, last I saw, he was tearing apart the bunks."

"The other Agent Ward," Coulson clarified, unamused.

Fitz and Simmons exchanged a glance, and Fitz looked up from his project, a screwdriver behind his right ear. "Samantha's safe," he said softly, grinning at Simmons. "She's in the one place Agent Ward won't be able to look."

Coulson blinked, looking between the two. A moment later, he nodded and headed back upstairs. Agent Ward was pacing back and forth, wearing a hole in the new carpet.

"Agent Ward," Coulson barked. He looked up, irate. "I need to have a word with Agent May. Wait for me in my office."

"Sir—"

"That's an order, Agent," Coulson growled. "Don't make me tell you again."

The two men stared at one another for a beat, and then Ward stalked upstairs, glowering the whole time. Coulson waited until the door to his office slammed shut before he entered the cockpit.

"May?" He knocked on the door before peering inside, and his mouth twitched at what he saw. Agent May and Samantha Ward were sitting in the pilot's chairs, both silently staring out the front window. The silence was not strained as he expected; rather, the two women seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

He shut the door softly behind him. "Agent Ward."

Samantha lifted her head from the chair and offered him a weak smile. "Sir."

"Your brother knows you're on board," he informed her.

She nodded slowly, silently acknowledging his words.

"He was looking for you." She nodded again. "I'm guessing that's why you're here." Another nod. "I think it's wise that you stay here at least until we land," he said softly. Agent May glanced sideways at him. "Maybe longer, if May doesn't mind the company." The slightest twitch of May's lips betrayed her thoughts. "I'll leave you two here."

When he stepped out the door, Samantha sighed lightly, then sank back in her seat, silent. May did not say a word.

"Agent Ward." Coulson entered his office and shut the door soundlessly behind him. The younger man had long since taken a seat and now sat up straight. "We need to have a little chat about your attitude regarding your sister."

"What about h—"

Coulson cut him off. "You don't get to speak. You listen."

Ward's jaw tightened, and he nodded.

"You claim that you don't want to hurt her, and yet you spend two hours tearing the plane apart trying to hunt her down. How do you think that makes her feel?"

"I was not hunting her," Ward bit out. "I was just—"

"I understand how you must feel. Your long lost baby sister, here at last—alone, afraid… You probably want to find her, apologize for abandoning her, for putting her in harm's way. But look at it from her point of view. She thinks you tried to kill her—she is terrified of you."

"It was an accident—I was a kid."

"And she was five years old, Ward." Coulson slammed his hand down on the desk, and Ward fell silent. "I spoke with Agent Barton, her SO, about her performance during basic training. His partner, Agent Romanoff, helped train her in the beginning and acted as her SO when Agent Barton was absent." He paused and scrutinized the younger man before him. "The horrors of her childhood have affected her more deeply than you could ever know. Samantha took her Simulation Exam a couple years back. She was placed inside a burning building, which collapsed on her when she failed to make it out in time. Less than six weeks spanned the distance between that examination and her first assassination."

Ward jerked, eyes flashing. The blood drained from his cheeks. "'Assassination'?"

Coulson leaned against his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "The girl you remember no longer exists, Agent," he said. "And I mean that in ever sense of the word. The teenager you apprehended two years ago is gone as well. The woman aboard this plane is a trained agent and assassin who will not fail to defend herself against those she sees as threats. Make no mistake, Agent: Once she shakes off her initial shock and fear, once she realizes that she is a match to you, she will be a force to be reckoned with."

"She's an assassin?" Ward ran his fingers through his hair once more before burying his head in his hands. "They turned my baby sister into a killer."

"Grant." Coulson's voice was softer now. "She's grown up. She's killed less than you have, and she always looks for ways to reduce casualties. When there is no other way, she makes sure her targets don't suffer. At least, that's what her file and SO say."

"Her file—" Grant's head jerked up. "Can I see it?"

"No."

"Can you at least tell me—when did she get away from our parents? When she was eight? Ten?" He leaned forward in his seat. "Please, Coulson."

Coulson shook his head. "There's no information on your sister beyond what she's chosen to reveal. That includes her birthday and name. Any other information is lost."

"Lost?"

"Gone. Erased. If you want to find out what happened to her…" Coulson moved to sit behind his desk. "You'll need to ask her yourself. You're dismissed."

Ward stood and made to leave.

"And Ward." The agent turned. "You're not to speak to Samantha 'til I arrange for you to do so."

Ward nodded jerkily. "Yes, sir."

Downstairs in the cockpit, Agents May and Ward were having a very different conversation. After the initial two hours of silence, during which Samantha seemed to have proven her worth by neither speaking nor falling asleep, May had spoken, asking her the reason behind her visit: When Simmons had barreled into the cockpit some two hours earlier, Samantha in tow, she hadn't given any specific reasons as to why Sam needed to stay hidden. May had just nodded her approval in letting the girl—who, with her large brown eyes and dark hair, looked disturbingly like another little girl May had once known—remain in the cockpit with her.

"I'm hiding from Agent Ward," she said simply. Wasting words was not something that either woman valued—for Samantha, it stemmed from having her voice taken from her for so long.

May's brow furrowed. "You're his sister."

"How'd you know?"

"You look alike." May glanced over at her and exhaled slightly, catching sight of her puzzled look. "Manifest."

"Ah." Samantha nodded.

"Why are you in here?" May asked again. "Family issues?"

"Something like that."

"No siblings are listed in your file."

Samantha didn't answer.

"You don't want them listed officially," May said. "Even your parents' names aren't listed. You don't want them to know where you are. You're running from them." Silence. "Do you realized what the odds are of the two of you being assigned to this ship?"

"Infinitesimally slim," Sam ground out. She and Steve had done the math the night before. She had had a better chance of winning the Powerball Lottery than being assigned to the same mission as him. As May watched, Samantha made a note to enter the lottery the next time they had a break. "Are you an assassin?" Samantha asked suddenly. May did not answer, and Sam nodded. "I am too." The corner of her mouth quirked into a smile. "It makes it scary, y'know? Knowing someone's after you. Because you know what's going to happen, and how." She looked at May. "Has anyone ever tried to kill you?"

"Yes."

"Did you stop them?" May gave her a look, and Samantha nodded slowly. After a few moments of silence, she spoke again. "How do you keep yourself from fearing someone?"

It was nearly a minute before May spoke. "You make them fear you."

Samantha settled into her chair, silent, mulling over May's words. The Agent to her left did not offer any more profound advice. In fact, she didn't make a sound for nearly two more hours, not until she spoke abruptly into the headset and began prepping for their descent. Samantha watched, interested, and studied May's every move as she flipped switches and pressed buttons and sent the plane into a controlled dive.

When the plane touched down, Samantha waited for May to give the all-clear before rising from her seat. Before she could make it to the door, May stopped her.

"Stay here."

Samantha nodded and moved back to sit in the chair once more. May pulled out her phone and spoke briefly with Coulson. "Ward is leaving the plane; we've locked on one of the Rising Tide's signals, and he and Coulson are going to apprehend whoever is on the other end of the signal. Coulson wants you to be present for the interrogation, should there be one."

"I understand."

Samantha left the cockpit ten minutes later and wandered down to the lab, where Fitz and Simmons were still bickering over the 'night-night gun.'

"Ah, Samantha!" Fitz looked up and grinned crazily. His curly hair stuck up in every direction, and his eyes shone brightly. "Come here, look! What do you know about engineering or biochemical reactions?"

"Not much," she admitted, striding hesitantly over to the table.

"Eh, ye'll do fine." He pulled her over beside him as Simmons strode back into the room.

"I really have no idea what I'm doing," She shrugged, trying to tug her arm gently from his grasp.

"Samantha!" Simmons smiled widely and wrapped her in a hug, effectively freeing her from Fitz's grasp. "He didn't find you, did he?"

"No, thank you." Samantha smiled softly and moved to push a loose strand of hair back from her face. The action allowed her to free herself from Simmons's grasp without offending the English Doctor, who turned to face Fitz immediately.

"Oh, Fitz—"

"Don't start with me, Simmons—I know I can get this to work—"

"I've told you already, there isn't enough dendrotoxin in the bullets to warrant complete or even partial paralysis—"

"So why don't you just add more dendrotoxin to the bullets?" Sam asked, leaning over to look at the bullets.

"Because, look—" Fitz scooped up one of the bullets and held it so she could look inside. "The bullets are hollow, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"So they can only hold so much dendrotoxin. If we were to enlarge the hollow to allow more dendrotoxin, then the density and ratio would be compromised and the bullets would shatter when the gun was fired."

"What if you were to change the size of the bullets?" Sam asked curiously.

"The gun has already been calibrated, and the ratio of gun to bullets has already been set in stone. It's the amount of dendrotoxin that needs adjusting."

"I'm not so sure." Sam frowned down at the bullet, thinking.

"You just said that you weren't an expert—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold on." She held out her hand for the bullet, which Fitz reluctantly dropped into her hand. "What was the purpose of this gun again? To paralyze?"

"To incapacitate without killing or wounding the target," Simmons interrupted, watching the exchange with some level of interest. "And to render the target unconscious for a short period of time."

"So shooting an actual bullet at them—that can leave a scar, or something, or hurt them. Why don't you enlarge the hollow to allow for more dendrotoxin—not enough for the bullet to shatter upon release, but enough that it would shatter or dissolve upon impact and release the greater levels of dendrotoxin into the person's system without piercing the skin. That way no one is seriously injured."

Fitz opened his mouth, paused, and then looked down at the bullet. He plucked it from her hand and waved his other hand in Simmons's direction. "Simmons, pull out the simulation, see if we can adjust the ratio of dendrotoxin to metal—" He looked at Samantha. "I could kiss you right now! Y'know, if it works."

The two doctors scrambled for supplies, working frantically to improve the specs for their gun. At that moment, Samantha caught sight of Coulson's black SUV speeding across the tarmac, and she turned to the doctors. "I'd better go."

Simmons glanced up, spotted the vehicle, and nodded. "You should. We won't tell Ward where you've been hiding."

"Yeah, your secret's safe with us." Fitz waved her out with a screwdriver before sticking it back behind his ear. "Better run."

"Fitz, Simmons." May appeared at the top of the stairs. "With me."

Sam did run—all the way upstairs to her bunk. The others left to check out the building that had gone up in flames the day before—Samantha hadn't heard about it because she'd been holed up with Steve in her apartment. She shut and locked the door, then waited for Coulson to call her. And call her he did.

"Agent. Come down to the interrogation room, but don't go inside. Just watch for a while. I'll let you know when to come in."

Samantha reached the cell right as the door swung closed and watched the proceedings through the screen on the wall. Her brother and Coulson were standing over a short, dark haired girl who looked to be only a few years older than Samantha herself.

"You guys are making a big mistake," she said.

"You don't look that big," Grant replied with a smirk.

Coulson shot him a look. "Sorry for the lack of finesse. Agent Ward here has had a little history with your group... The Rising Tide."

Samantha's eyes widened, then narrowed, and she crossed her arms as the girl stammered, "I don't know... what you're..."

Grant leaned forward. "Okay, there are two ways we can do this."

"Oh. Is one of them the easy way?" She fake pouted, tilting her head to one side.

"No."

Her smirk faded. "Oh."

"What's your name?"

She swallowed. "Skye."

"What's your real name?"

"That can wait," Coulson interrupted. "It's another name we need... a certain hero."

"What makes you think I know that?"

"Well, you made a little mistake. The phone you filmed the hooded hero with had the same cryptographic signature as a few of The Rising Tide posts."

Her smile was back, this time brighter and cockier than ever. "Wow. Yeah. Was that a mistake? Or am I now sitting in the center of your secret headquarters? What is this? A plane? I got inside. And by now, you've discovered you can't beat the encryption on my equipment, so you got nothing."

Coulson shook his head. "We have a talented hacker aboard the plane, so that's not a problem. We also have a fairly strong coincidence... you being on the scene right before it went up in flames. Want to tell me what my team is gonna find out?"

Grant interrupted once more, playing the Bad Cop. "How did you know the hooded man was in the building? Did you blow it up to draw him out?"

She leaned back, unamused. "Did you?"

"That's not our style," Coulson replied, his calm voice stark against Ward's grating one.

"I was just kidnapped by your 'style,'" the girl protested. "SHIELD covered up New Mexico, Project Pegasus. Of course you'd be covering up Centipede." All three SHIELD agents frowned, and Grant scratched his ear, mouthing the word back to Coulson, who shrugged. "Holy—no way." She chuckled disbelievingly. "You don't know what that is! Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal, and I beat you with a laptop that I won in a bet?"

"You need to think about your friend," Coulson drew her attention back to him. "We're not the only ones interested in people with powers. We'd like to contain him, yeah. The next guy will want to exploit him, and the guy after that will want to dissect him."

Grant leaned in close to her, his voice a growl. "What is Centipede?"

Skye shrugged. "Centipede… it was chatter on the web… and then gone. I traced the access-point MAC address to that building."

"What were you after?" Grant seemed to be incapable of doing anything but growling. "The truth," she shot back. "What are you after?"

"World peace," Grant bit out. Samantha choked on a scoff, which Coulson heard but did not comment on. "You pseudo-anarchist hacker types love to stir things up, but you're never around for the fallout. People keep secrets for a reason, Skye."

"Well, just because you're reasonable and... firm... doesn't mean that you're not an evil, faceless government tool bag."

Sam shrugged, conceding her point, and nodded along to her words.

Grant leaned closer to her. "Just give us your guy's name."

"He's not my guy!"

"You understand he's in danger," Coulson asked.

"Then let me go! Let me talk to him. Me, not the T-1000 here."

"You want to be alone with him. Of course." Grant turned to Coulson, not bothering to lower his voice. "She's a groupie. All this hacking into SHIELD, tracking powers... She might as well be one of those sweaty cosplay girls crowding around Stark Tower."

"What?! I would…" She sputtered, then looked down. "It was one time."

"Ward." Coulson barked at Grant, jerking his head towards the door, which swung open before Samantha had a time to disappear. Fortunately, Grant was too worked up to really notice her presence.

"Is it the girl? She getting under your skin?" Coulson was beyond frustrated.

"Sir?"

"Or is it the assignment? Are you so anxious to get out of this that you'd deliberately blow an interrogation?"

"Give me a minute alone with her, you'll have your answers."

"She's an asset."

"She is such an a... wait... 'asset'?" Grant blinked, thrown.

"We don't know anything about her. Do you appreciate how often that happens? That never happens. The last time that happened was with your sister." It was as though someone had thrown a glass of ice water in Grant's face. "We need... what she knows." Coulson looked over at Samantha. "Agent Ward. I want you to talk to her, try and get something out of her. If that doesn't work, we'll try something else."

Grant spun around at the sound of the door shutting behind him. His gazes quickly drawn to the screen, which showed another agent speaking to Skye. It was Samantha. It was as though he was seeing sunlight for the first time—his expression was full of wonder and longing—and pain.

Samantha kept her shoulders back and her head high. She didn't even look at Grant—she just brushed by him on her way into the interrogation room.

Skye tilted her head. "Good Cop and Bad Cop already came through, so…"

"I heard." Samantha sank into the chair across from Skye, then ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry for how you were brought in. You said you were kidnapped?"

"With a bag over my head," she bit out.

Samantha shook her head. "When I was first taken in, I was knocked out."

"When you—Aren't you a SHIELD agent?" Skye stared at her, an amused smile on her face.

"I am now." She shrugged. "Two years ago, I was a college student."

"Were you abducted from your dorm?" Skye leaned forward, interested.

"Almost. I jumped out my third story window and made it almost an hour without getting stopped."

"What happened?"

Samantha laughed as though the memories weren't painful and terrifying. "I beat up the agent trying to take me in."

"Please tell me it was Tall, Dark, and Handsome trying to bring you in." When Samantha grinned, Skye laughed loudly, grinning broadly. "That's awesome! And you got away from him?"

"I think I broke his nose." Samantha shrugged, smiling shyly. "It wasn't the best reaction, but I was scared. I just reacted."

"Alright. What's your name?"

"Samantha."

"Alright, Samantha." She sat back. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here," Samantha ran her fingers back through her hair once more, "to see what can be done for you to trust us."

"Just be honest," she shrugged. "Honestly, your tactics worked so much better than theirs."

"Did you really go cosplay outside of Stark tower?" Samantha asked curiously.

A flush crept up Skye's neck. "Once."

"Word for the wise: Tony almost never uses the front entrance. He usually just uses his suits to fly to wherever he needs to go."

"What, you're on a first name basis with him?" Skye asked, scoffing. When Samantha smiled and shrugged, her attitude changed immediately. "No way! How'd that happen? Are all SHIELD agents, like, BFFs with the Avengers?"

"I was on base with them prior to the Battle of New York," Samantha shrugged. "So I got to talk with a couple of them." The fact that both Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff had served as her SOs was not mentioned. "I've even gone on missions with one of them."

"Okay, you're cool, I admit it." Skye seemed far more relaxed than she had before. "So—"

At that moment, Sam's comms device went off. She paused, listening, and her face fell.

"What's wrong?" Skye asked, real concern in her voice.

"I'm being pulled out." She stood, glaring bitterly at the door. "My big brother doesn't want me messing with his interrogation."

"Your big b—He's your brother?!" Skye's jaw dropped. "Damn."

"Yeah." Sam shrugged. Her next words were bitter in her mouth. "I mean, I love him, but I'd prefer he not tell me what to do."

"You're lucky. Having a brother."

Sam had no response. She just nodded, then turned and left. Coulson and Grant were in the hallway, and she didn't spare her brother a second glance as she strode past him, waiting for him to return to the interrogation room. Coulson stepped back out into the hallway a minute later, leaving Grant inside with Skye.

Samantha was shaking violently, her eyes red with suppressed tears. "Hey." She glanced over at Coulson, and the movement of her eyes jarred a tear free to fall onto her lashes. "You did good."

"Permission to leave, Sir?" Her voice was raspy. "I can't be here when he comes back out."

"I'll contact you when you're needed again, but it'll be a few hours. Get some rest."