"Not everyone is okay with living like an open wound. But the thing about open wounds is that, well, you aren't ignoring it, you're healing. The fresh air can get to it. It's honest. You aren't hiding who you are. You aren't rotting. People can give you advice on how to heal without scarring badly."

–Warsan Shire

Steve couldn't quite rationalize how they had gotten to this point. He remembered her going on about Erik and how he had confronted Steve, remembered the exact moment when her lips were suddenly against his, but couldn't seem to figure out when the one had become the other.

His hands were at the small of her back, pulling her ever closer to him, while her own were on his shoulders. One of her hands snaked up around his neck and tangled in his hair, her fingers almost touching where his blonde roots were beginning to show. And she was kissing him back. Her lips were moving against his, her tongue tracing the curve of his bottom lip tentatively. A gasp escaped him as her nails raked gently across his scalp, his hands tightening on her waist, and Steve had to remind himself not to hold her too tight for fear of leaving bruises.

It wasn't a fight for dominance when his tongue slipped past her lips, but a slow and tentative rhythm tinged with equal amounts of uncertainty and fervor, and it seemed to him that kissing her felt natural and almost familiar. She tasted of honey and black coffee and something that he could only describe as her. He wanted to tell her every thought that wouldn't form into words, every word that he just couldn't seem to say aloud without stumbling and stuttering them out. He wanted her to know exactly what he felt.

She gave a sharp gasp as he nipped lightly at her bottom lip, "Steve…"

He groaned as she said his name, the word barely more than a whisper. It was spoken like a secret only they shared. He opened his eyes just a fraction, memorizing how her dark eyelashes fanned over her cheekbones, and trailed his lips down to her jawline. Her grip on his hair tightened as his mouth met the hollow beneath her ear.

"Steve," she said again, but this time her tone was more steadfast. "Steve, wait."

She pulled him back gently, and he took in her flushed cheeks and swollen lips. Her chest rose and fell in deep breaths, her pupils blown wide, but there was also doubt mixed in her expression. She shook her head wordlessly as she worked to bring her thoughts together.

"I can't – I don't…"

Steve's mind inexplicably went to the different preferences he had read about since Freyja had arrived, who had gotten him on the whole topic to begin with, and took half a step back to look at her. He had gotten the sense that she was interested in him to some degree, but perhaps he was wrong. Or maybe it was more complicated than that. Either way, he would rather know her reason, as it would do no good to jump to conclusions and shoot himself in the foot.

"Is it because you're not 'into' this kind of thing?"

"No! Well, yes…I just," Nikki broke off with a frustrated groan, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. "I don't even know how to explain this."

"Just try," he said, watching as she put a few more feet between them.

"I think I'm demisexual."

She said it so quickly, Steve almost missed it. He had heard the term before, had even toyed with it a bit when trying to explain his own infrequent sense of attraction, but couldn't seem to come up with a response. Her worry was practically tangible in the air, and it made him try to think over his words more carefully to find exactly what he wanted to say without making her apprehension worse. But his silence was apparently only causing her to become more and more anxious.

"That was why Erik had the affair," she said, her words coming quicker now. "I hated that he did it, hated that he lied, but I could understand why. I wasn't attracted to him. I wasn't attracted to anyone. I tried to fix that, I did, and but I never…the whole reason I had Anya and the twins was because I thought I could fix myself. It didn't make a difference, in the end.

"I didn't know what was wrong with me. I thought there was something wrong with me, and for a long time I just kind of accepted it. Then we came here, and Douglas starting wondering about his own identity, and he showed me some of the terms he found. And I realized there was never anything wrong with me, that it's just how some people are.

"Then you showed up. You were compassionate and generous and so damn infuriating. I had no idea how to react with you, and then you look at me like…like that," – she gestured towards him with a kind of lost expression in her eyes – "and I think of how everything is absolutely mental in my life. I mean, I wasn't attracted to my own husband and then I think about you and I just…I don't even know how to describe it.

"And there's the timing! My kids are in danger, taken by some neo-Nazi group that's probably experimenting on them, and I need to focus on finding them, not on…this. But it just sits in the back of my mind, even when I try to focus – but I can't do a fucking thing to help anyone!"

"Nikki…"

He reached forward, taking a step forward, and placed his hands on her shoulders. She seemed to run out of words then, and her dark eyes met his with an unreadable expression.

"I just can't do this right now," she finished sadly.

"I know," he replied, his hands running down her arms to lace his fingers through hers. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't be," she interrupted, the corners of her lips quirked up in a half-smile. "Maybe we can take a raincheck…pick this up when we've fixed everything?"

Steve smiled in return, a part of him focusing on how she said 'we' and not 'I', as he now knew the answer to the question he hadn't found the words to ask. She wasn't saying nothing could ever happen between them – the exact opposite, he thought with a smile – but that they had to wait. It was for the best. Their priority was finding her family, and everything else could wait.

"A raincheck sounds perfect."

Skye sat on the lab table, using the actual chair for a footrest, as she watched Fitz pull out a case from the R&D department on the Helicarrier. Simmons was still studying the blood samples Nikki had given them. The Alchemist herself was seated not too far from Skye, listening intently as Fitz explained the mechanics behind whatever was in the case.

She was a little older than Skye had expected, as she had tracked any and all information on the vigilante since Coulson first made mention of another human 0-8-4, and a lot less intimidating than she had been in the few grainy videos. She actually seemed awfully nice for being the same woman who had put Ward out of commission. Actually, the brief times Skye had talked to her, Nikki had seemed downright friendly, if a little world-weary. But what else could be expected from a woman who had lived through Auschwitz and something she had called the Weapon X Project.

She did, however, look as though she was running solely on willpower and coffee. For a woman who had been taking care of a house full of abandoned teens, she certainly hadn't looked all that stressed when they first brought her in two weeks prior. Then again, those two weeks also marked how long HYDRA had held her family prisoner. Skye supposed anyone in Nikki's position would look a little worn down.

"But why gloves?" Nikki asked, catching Skye's attention. "Why not just make a uniform with sleeves?"

Skye looked up from her Stark-Tablet – because Tony had replaced her iPad the second he had the opportunity, but had the good sense to fill the substitute with all of her music – to see what Nikki was asking about. She had the sleeves of her S.H.I.E.L.D.-standard uniform rolled up almost to her shoulders to make room for the shiny black gloves. They were fingerless like Skye's or May's, composed of metallic plates that would limit the amount of radiation she had a tendency to give off, but they came to rest almost four inches above her elbow.

"You'll have to ask Stark," Skye said, drawing Nikki's dark gaze towards herself. "When he dropped by to speak with Coulson, he did a total overhaul of your uniform's design. Said it looked cooler."

Nikki raised her hand, flexing her fingers, "Wonder what the rest of it looks like…"

Skye smirked, tapping through a few files to pull up the 3-D rendering Tony had uploaded, and turned the screen over to show the older woman. Nikki squinted at the picture before raising her eyebrows.

"Is that a…cape?"

Skye hid a snicker, watching how even Fitz raised his eyebrows at the design and Simmons looked up from her blood samples. She and Coulson had exchanged incredulous looks at first sight of it. But Tony had waved off their skepticism, which was a surprising feat given how Coulson had looked at him, and stated that it was both practical and fit in perfectly with the rest of the Avengers.

"Well, at least I won't look like some kid's fantasy," she murmured.

Skye nodded, pulling up the files she had been looking earlier, "Yeah, he actually said that he designed it that way. After Steve said that you never really wore anything flashy, and Tony did a bit of research on the Romani people, he said he wasn't as inconsiderate as to put you in anything that might make you uncomfortable."

"That was considerate of him."

"It happens from time to time."

All four looked up as Coulson walked through the door, his eyes looking over each of them as if to make sure they were actually doing their work. Skye watched how Nikki smiled at him, one which was more comfortable than the polite smile she gave the other agents, and how he nodded in greeting to her.

"I see R&D scrambled to meet Stark's requests," he said, nodding to the gloves Nikki still wore. "How do they feel?"

"Surprisingly comfortable," she answered. "They're awfully lightweight, but Fitz tells me that they're bulletproof and can deflect a knife at certain angles."

Simmons looked up suddenly, turning to "Do they impede your mutation in any way.

Nikki shook her head, "They shouldn't, aside from tamping down on the radiation problem. As far as Charles and I could understand, most of my abilities are controlled through conscious thought, with only a few that rely on instinct."

As if to prove her point, she rolled her wrist, water droplets condensing on her fingertips as she loosely curled her fingers.

"Hey, there's something I've always wanted to ask," Skye said suddenly, watching as Nikki blew across her fingertips and the water droplets froze.

"Go ahead," Nikki said with a smile.

"Do you actually have to…" – Skye wiggled her fingers in a sort of lazy pantomime of what Nikki had done – "to actually use yours powers."

Nikki laughed at that, "Not really, no. But, when I was first really trying to get a handle on everything I can do, Charles helped me work out a few techniques to help me better manage exactly what I want to do. The hand gestures help me better visualize things, creating more focus and minimizing the likelihood of accidentally blowing things up."

"It seems as though a lot of your mutation is instinctual," Simmons said. "It's amazing, and I can't exactly explain it, but your cells have adapted to almost half of the simulations we've run it through. Your body protects itself from your own mutation."

"That would explain how you were unscathed the night you went nuclear," Coulson said. "Even Rogers had a few burns."

"To be fair, that wouldn't have happened if one of your agents hadn't shot me – with an arrow, of all things."

"I'm sure Barton will apologize when he returns."

"Where are the dynamic spy-duo?" Skye asked.

Coulson eyed her Stark-Tablet, raising his eyebrows in a silent question, but answered, "They're currently interrogating a few leads we've managed to bag."

"Any answers yet?" Nikki asked, immediately sounding more hopeful.

He shook his head, "Most of them have cyanide capsules hiding on their persons. The ones that are less inclined towards suicide aren't exactly talking. Clint and Romanoff are the best, they'll get the answers we want."

She sighed, "Any word from Dmitri?"

When he shook his head, Skye watched something dark cross Nikki's expression. She supposed he would look the same in the Alchemist's position. She knew what it was like to live without parents, but Nikki at least had found a father figure in Dmitri, and now he had disappeared again.

"We should have tried to stop him," Nikki murmured. "If HYDRA gets their hands on him, they could potentially reach the other universes if they can harness his mutation. And if there are mutants in mine, aliens in yours, there's no telling what could be in the others."

"You never saw any of the other worlds?" Skye asked.

Nikki shook her head, "No. I asked Dmitri to start looking for safer worlds long before I decided to stay here. There was a war brewing between mutants and humans, one that would likely start soon, and so my intention had been to find a home where mutants would be accepted. It was what Charles and I had wanted.

"But then there was…something that came up, and so I asked Dmitri to tell me about the most likely candidate, and he told me about this world. Charles tried to talk me out of going, but it seemed like there was no other choice at the time, so I took all of the mutants that didn't have families or had been abandoned and we came here."

"You were gone four days after the unveiling of the Sentinels," a deep, smooth voice said from behind them. "Didn't even say goodbye to anyone. Seems to be a habit of yours."

Skye turned to see a fairly tall ginger-haired man leaning against the open doorjamb. Erik, she realized, Nikki's ex-husband and something of an instigator, if Coulson was to be believed. He had aged well, since she guessed he was a little older than Nikki. Then again, if she counted all the years he had skipped, she supposed he looked excellent for an eighty-three year old man.

He was a classical sort of handsome. Were it not for the faint worry lines across his forehead and around his eyes, Skye would have thought he looked rather like the Greek statues in museums. But there was also off-putting about him, something in his gaze and stance that seemed more predatory than human, and then there was the ridiculous magenta-like purple body armor he wore. Coulson had said that he had refused to change into a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.

"Do you really want to analyze bad habits right now?" Nikki asked, pulling her gloves off gingerly.

There was no malice in her voice, Skye realized, but a sort of resignation as if she had given up fighting him. With Nikki's words, she watched the tension slowly disappear from Erik's stance. She couldn't help but wonder what bits of the story she was missing. Of course Skye had been filled in a little about the two mutants, and had even hacked into the security feeds to watch the argument that had led to an entire room's worth of electronics to be crushed like tin cans, but only so much information could be gleaned from second-hand sources. And it was painfully obvious that the two had a very interesting past together.

"No, I don't," Erik conceded. "I was hoping I could talk to you. Privately."

Nikki shook her head at that as she handed off the gloves to Fitz, "Whatever you want to say, you can say it now."

Erik looked visibly uncomfortable at that and, when he began to speak, his words were in a language that she couldn't recognize. Skye remembered how they had argued days ago in what sounded like German. This one was slightly different, the words less flowing and much faster. It was almost as though he was more familiar with this language than German. And, when Nikki spoke, her own accent was slightly different than Erik's and she often paused as though searching for the right word.

"How many languages do you speak?" Skye muttered, thinking out loud.

"Five," Nikki answered in English, her attention going to Coulson. "You restricted Erik's access to the kids' files?"

Coulson nodded, "You seemed uncomfortable with him accessing their files, so I revoked his clearance level."

"Oh, well…thank you," Nikki said slowly before turning to Erik. "Why do you want to help? You came to see me, for some reason, and all the sudden you want to help find the kids?"

"It's important to you," Erik muttered, his voice kept low as though he didn't want the rest to hear. "And I don't want them to go through what we did. You were right."

Nikki seemed taken aback by that, her lips parting as though she wanted to speak but couldn't find the words. Skye watched as some of the apprehension seemed to drain from the older woman. Turning to Coulson, as Skye had long since learned that he could read people much better than she ever could, she noticed that even he seemed surprised by Erik's admission. It was a minute change in his expression, the slightest quirk of an eyebrow and widening of his eyes. But she could tell he hadn't expected the mutant to say something like that. Even Fitz and Simmons were watching Erik and Nikki as though waiting for something.

The slamming of the door caused them all to jump, everyone's eyes suddenly turning to the agent in the doorframe. He was panting slightly, as though he had been running, and his eyes flicked from Coulson to Nikki and back. He couldn't seem to speak as he caught his breath.

"What is it, Harvelle?" Coulson asked, breaking the silence.

The agent looked back at him, "It's Maximoff, sir. He's back."

"And?" Nikki asked, taking a step forward.

"He's been shot."