TW for blackmail/threats, minor swearing
The rest of the school day passed much more smoothly than the morning had. Fitz was allowed to do inventory on the basketballs and soccer balls while the rest of them played some demented kind of game that Skye could only describe as a cross between bowling, dodgeball, and shuffleboard that involved throwing hand-sized beanbags across the floor to try and knock down pins, while also trying to hit the shoes of the players on the other team to get them out. The rules made no sense to her, and she was exceptionally bad at skimming the beanbags across the gym floor, but at least there was no way Ward could bean them with the bags without being in direct violation of the rules (shoe-hits only, apparently), so that was a major plus, as far as Skye was concerned.
In fact, her afternoon had really been going about as good as a Monday afternoon could go, she decided. That is, until she went to tutoring after school and everything came crashing down around her ears in a horrible tidal wave of disaster.
Things had started relatively fine. Phil had picked them up and driven them over to the high school, as he so often did. Skye was excited to see Natasha, since she hadn't been able to go to tutoring at all last week, thanks to ISS, and Jemma seemed eager to start working on some special project Ms. Price had devised for her that had something to do with star classification, as far as Skye could tell.
"Jemma, Skye, hi," Natasha greeted them warmly when they walked up to her table in the library. "Long time no see."
"I had ISS," Skye admitted, a little abashed. "That's why we couldn't come last week."
"I thought I had heard something about you taking on a Ward," Natasha said.
"Bobbi told you?"
"She told me you kicked his ass," Natasha smiled. "Not that I'm encouraging you to get in fights, of course. Not a great life choice. But still, I have to admit I'm more than a little impressed, and Clint basically thinks you're a rock star." Skye sat up a little straighter in her chair and tried hard not to look too pleased with herself. She knew that getting in fights was wrong, but it felt tremendously good when Natasha looked at her with that much pride.
They tackled a science worksheet and half of Skye's math problems while Jemma sat beside them, working away on her own project. Every so often, Natasha would check on her and ask some questions about her work, but every time Jemma answered, the words went straight over Skye's head. The phrases protostar, nuclear fusion, and convective zone must have meant something to Natasha, though, because she always nodded along with Jemma as she spoke.
The math was slow going – they had recently started a unit on probability, but since Skye hadn't been in class for most of last week, she was missing a lot of the information she needed to understand the problems on her homework.
"I don't even know what this stupid thing is talking about," Skye huffed, glaring down at the page. "We were supposed be done with all the fractions and ratios, I thought, but they're still here, even though it's a new unit."
"Well, probability is all about ratios, when you really break it down," Natasha explained. "It's about comparing the number of times something could happen to the number of all the different possible ways something can go. Like, when I flip a coin, there are only two different ways that it can end up – heads or tails – so if I want to figure out the chances that it's going to land on tails, I take the one outcome I'm looking for—"
"Tails," supplied Skye.
"Right, I take tails, which is one outcome, and compare it to the number of different possibilities that might happen, which is…"
"Two?"
"Exactly, two. Heads or tails. So if I want to compare those two numbers to each other, the easiest way to look at them in relation to one another is to put them in a ratio. There's a one-in-two chance that I'll get tails when I flip a coin. 1:2."
"I still think ratios are annoying," Skye pouted. The corners of Natasha's mouth twitched.
"I won't disagree with you," she said. "I remember really disliking the probability units. I always felt like the odds were against me anyway, so why bother calculating the numbers? Either I was going to be one of the statistics, or I was going to beat the odds. I didn't need the numbers to tell me that."
Skye liked the way that sounded, and she found herself mulling over Natasha's words long after she had spoken them. She was sure Jemma would disagree, probably start talking about how statistical data could help you spot patterns and make informed decisions, but Skye had never felt like she belonged to any kind of pattern, and most of her decisions were informed by little more than her instincts, impulses, or spur-of-the-moment inspirations.
When their hour was up, Natasha walked them back to Phil's room. Before they made it there, though, Skye stopped in her tracks, realizing she had left her backpack at the table in the library.
"Do you want me to go and grab it for you?" Natasha offered.
"No, I got it. I'll meet you in Phil's room." Skye dashed back the way they'd come, taking a small sprig of pleasure from the fact that it was after hours and no one could get mad at her for going too fast in the hallways. She skidded a little outside the library, and popped inside to find that the table, and the chairs and floorspace around it, was completely empty. She looked around wildly, but there was no sign of it, which made no sense. She hadn't gone anywhere else in the library, and she didn't have it with her in the hallway, so there was no other place it could have been. She wasn't all that worried about losing her homework, of course, but she had had that backpack for a long time, and she wasn't ready to give it up just yet, plus it had the keychain Bobbi had made for her ages ago and her folded up list of names from the hospital that she now knew included the names of the people who might very well be her parents. Those things she desperately wanted back.
"Looking for this?" came a cool, coy voice that sent ripples of unease down Skye's spine. Every cell in her body was vibrating on high alert. She would know that voice anywhere, even though it had been weeks since she'd seen or heard from—
"Raina," Skye said, turning around to face the older girl, who was holding Skye's backpack aloft triumphantly. "Give it back."
"Of course," Raina said smoothly, sliding a patronizing smile onto her face. The kind of smile that grownups used when they thought you were overreacting and wanted you to calm down, but didn't intend on doing anything to actually help you get calm. She didn't make any move to hand over the backpack, and Skye bristled. "You really ought to keep better track of your things, Skye. How is anyone supposed to know what's important to you if you don't take care of it?"
"I just forgot," Skye insisted. "I came right back for it. Give it back."
"Let's get you back to Mr. Coulson's room, shall we? Wouldn't want you getting lost along with your backpack now, would we?" Raina held the backpack in front of her like a carrot on a stick, and guided Skye expertly back out of the library and away from the watchful eye of Ms. Price and the other random kids still milling about. Helpless to do anything else, Skye followed, trying fruitlessly to grab her backpack out of Raina's hands.
"Come on, let go."
"I've been wanting to talk with you," Raina said. She slowed to a lazy stroll, but kept the backpack out of Skye's reach.
"The feeling's not mutual," Skye scowled. "I don't have anything to say to you. You really messed things up for Bobbi the last time we talked."
"I just told the truth," Raina shrugged. "I always do. And Bobbi needed to come clean, don't you think? Besides, she kept interrupting us. We have unfinished business."
"No, we don't. I'm done with you."
"That's not something you get to decide on your own." Raina stopped then and leaned against the lockers so she could give Skye her full attention. Skye stopped too, and gave Raina a good look for the first time. She was surprised to see that, despite the confidence and control Raina was pouring into her voice, her appearance was a little more unkempt than usual. Her curls, usually sleek and shiny, were lacking some of their luster, hanging a little limply around her thin face. Grey shadows dusted the space under her eyes, which didn't seem quite as luminous as Skye remembered.
"Where have you been?" Skye asked, trying to turn the tables somewhat. "I haven't seen you at all since that soccer game."
"I have… other obligations outside of the life that intersects with yours," Raina said coolly. "In other words, none of your business. I have been to see your father a few times, though."
"I don't want to talk about him."
"He was so disappointed to hear that you didn't want to meet," continued Raina, without missing a beat. Her voice puttered in an almost pouting sort of way. "You really hurt his feelings, Skye. And from what I've heard, he's not the only person you've hurt recently."
"Cut it out. You don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure I do. I heard about how you attacked little Grant, how you landed your friend in the hospital, let down your foster parents. It's so sad how long this list keeps getting."
"It wasn't like that," Skye said weakly. "That's not how it happened. Ward was the one who—"
"Come on, Skye, don't you think it's time to stop lying?" Raina chided. "I know you've got anger inside you. It eats you up and churns away at your insides. I understand. You have a lot to be angry about, so who can blame you when it gets the better of you? Sometimes people get caught in the crosshairs and they get hurt, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Sometimes you're the one being hurt, sometimes you're the one doing the hurting."
"I don't hurt people. Not on purpose."
"I'd be angry too if people kept hiding the truth from me, keeping me in the dark. You and I both know you're so close to finally finding what you've been looking for your whole life. Funny how the closer you get, the more your foster mother keeps trying to distance you from everything."
"What are you talking about?" Skye demanded.
"Don't you think it's odd that she's a detective, but she never seems to have any real information for you? Everything you've learned about your father, you've uncovered on your own. She's obviously keeping you in the dark, keeping you away from your real family."
"May wouldn't do that," Skye insisted. "She promised to help. She's… she's told me stuff."
"Has she, really?" Raina pushed back. "Has she actually given you anything useful, or is she just trying to placate you so you'll stop looking? She has files on your father, but did she let you look at them – really look at them?"
"She didn't want to upset me…" Skye whispered, but even as she said it, she could feel the fingers of doubt curl around her heart and start to squeeze. "She was trying to protect me."
"Funny how people use protection as an excuse any time they really just want to control you," Raina smirked. "She's trying to cut you off from yourself, from your past, your family. She's trying to shape you into the kind of person she wants you to be."
"You're wrong."
"When was the last time you felt like you could really be yourself around them?" Raina asked. "The real you. The one who's angry and bold and a little screwed up. Aren't you tired of pretending to be their perfect little foster girl all the time? Don't you want a chance to be with someone who wants the real Skye? Someone who understands how you're feeling, who understands when you have to do wrong things to get the right results?"
"Stop it," Skye said sharply. "I've already told you; I'm not interested. You can't just twist words around and think that it's going to make me change my mind. Even if…" She stopped herself.
"Even if what?" Raina's face split wide with a gotcha kind of grin. "Even if I'm right?"
"So what?" Skye jutted out her chin and stiffened her shoulders defiantly. "I'm not doing it. I'm not meeting him. Not like that. Now give me my backpack!" She lunged forward then and got her hands around the bag. She gave a mighty tug, but Raina was quick and held fast. Skye struggled for a moment, trying to yank her backpack from Raina's grasp, but it was no use. Raina's eyes flashed dangerously at Skye's sudden attempt, and before Skye realized what was happening, Raina had pulled on the bag and drawn Skye in close. In a flash, Raina spun them both around so it was Skye whose back was against the lockers now, and she loomed over Skye, locking her gaze up with unexpected anger.
"Look," Raina spat. Her voice was coming low and fast, like she was trying to get her next words out with an urgency she rarely demonstrated. "Your father isn't making this a request anymore, Skye. He wants to see you, and Cal always gets what he wants. I… I can't let him down again." Skye did her best to mask her own fear at the sudden change in Raina's demeanor with cold hostility, but the desperation that raked through Raina's last words caught her off guard. Skye stared hard into Raina's eyes and noticed, for the first time, a flicker of something she had never seen cross Raina's face before.
"You're afraid," she breathed. "You're afraid of him. You're afraid of what he's going to do if I don't go see him."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Raina clipped. "I'm not afraid of him. Although I'd have every right to be. His reputation certainly warrants it."
"Because he's a bad person, who's hurt lots of people," Skye supplied.
"If you want to look at it in such black and white terms, then maybe so," Raina conceded. Something silky slipped back into her tone, and traces of the old Raina, spinning her webs, reemerged. "Cal's a powerful man. He knows how to get results. Plenty of people fear power, Skye. Of course, the truly impressive people don't fear power. They seek it. They harness it. People with power don't get pushed around. They alone control themselves. Sometimes they control other people, too."
"So my dad's controlling you, is that it?" Skye asked hotly.
"You've really got to open yourself up to more shades of grey," Raina tutted, honey dripping off her words. "Do you know what one of the most effective methods of control is, Skye?"
"I'm guessing you're about to tell me."
"Potential," Raina said. "It's all about what could be. The potential of what might happen if you follow a powerful person, the potential of what might happen if you don't. So many possible outcomes, each of them tantalizing and terrifying in their own right."
It sounded like a bizarre, twisted version of probability to Skye, and she could hear Natasha's opinion on probability ringing in her ears as she laughed in Raina's face. "You sound nuts."
"Not so nuts when you think about what meeting your father could do for you," Raina said with breathy superiority. "You could finally put the pieces of your life together, start building the family you've always wanted. You could share some of his power, never be pushed around by the system again."
"Don't hold your breath," Skye scoffed.
"Or," Raina cut back in, honey replaced with surgical steel, "you could continue to ignore him, make him angry. Maybe I encourage Grant to take another shot at you and your friends. He listens to me. Maybe your father decides to make an in-person appearance, do a little convincing of his own." She stepped in even closer to Skye, eliminating any space between them, wrapping her fingers around Skye's arm so she had nowhere to go.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, if you think your little friend Fitz going to the hospital with a concussion last week was bad, then you really don't want to see what Cal is capable of. He's cut down plenty of people in his way before, and who's to say that he won't do it again? Maybe he's tired of waiting, tired of watching your foster family pretend like you belong to them. Your friends, your foster parents, Bobbi, Jemma… those people don't mean anything to him, but they mean something to you, and he knows it. I told you Skye, Cal knows how to get results, and he always gets what he wants, one way or another."
A cold, sickening sensation oozed up into Skye's stomach as the weight of Raina's threats started crashing down onto her. She tasted acid in the back of her throat as she imagined one horrific scenario after the next. She had gotten a glance at those police files. She knew what Cal could do to people.
"You're bluffing," Skye said nervously.
"Maybe," Raina shrugged. "Or maybe not. I certainly wouldn't want to risk finding out the hard way. I can't say I like those odds."
"But I… I can't just go meet him, I don't even know where—"
"There's a park on Halifax Street, a couple blocks from the middle school. You can't miss it. Go to the picnic shelter at midnight tonight. He'll be there."
"Tonight?"
"You could have gone weeks ago, but you didn't. Now he's impatient, and he's not going to wait much longer. Halifax Park. Midnight."
Skye swallowed hard and squirmed a little against Raina's grip. She could feel hot panic replacing the cold fear as it flashed up through her ribs, chest, throat. She didn't know what to do. Her eyes burned with helplessness as she tried to wrap her rapidly misfiring brain around something, anything, that would point her in the right direction, get her out from this terrible mess she'd made. Just one more thing she'd screwed up, one more thing she'd gotten in over her head with, one more way she'd let everyone down, put them all in danger with her own recklessness and stupidity.
"Okay," she whispered, her voice quaking. A single hot tear slipped down her cheek and trembled on the end of her chin. "Okay. Just… just let me go. And promise they won't get hurt."
"Cal told me you'd be a smart girl," she smiled. There were knives in that smile, but there was something else, too. Something almost like a desperate relief. Skye didn't know what to make of it.
"Hey!" A sharp voice rang out, bouncing down the hall and off the lockers. Raina dropped Skye's arm instantly and wheeled around, while Skye craned her neck to see Bobbi and Natasha storming down the hall towards them. Her knees went weak with gratitude, and she slipped a little down the wall to where her backpack, long forgotten by Raina, sat on the floor.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Natasha asked fiercely, while Bobbi overlapped with a sharp "Get away from her!"
"Be smart, Skye," Raina hissed as she started to slink away. "Don't roll the dice against a gambler. The house always wins." She was gone, whipped around a corner, by the time Bobbi and Natasha reached Skye.
"Skye, are you okay?" Bobbi knelt down next to her and helped Skye to her feet.
"Your brace is gone," Skye blurted out, noticing that both of Bobbi's knees were clad only in blue jeans, no orthopedic plastic or Velcro in sight.
"What?" Bobbi blinked. "Oh, yeah, I had my appointment this morning. We're trying it out. Are you okay, what happened?"
"Jemma and I went to Mr. Coulson's room, but when you didn't show, Bobbi and I came looking," Natasha said. "What was Raina saying to you?"
"Nothing," Skye lied quickly. She knew they wouldn't believe her – her face was probably as white as a sheet, and it was hard to scrub away the tear track from her cheek or the fear from her eyes. "She had my backpack. Made me walk down this way with her before she gave it back."
"She didn't say anything?" Bobbi asked, narrowing her eyes. Skye looked away.
"She wanted to talk about what happened with Ward," she mumbled. That was partially true. "And she talked about… power. And probability. Potential, she called it. You control the potential. Or, no, the potential controls you? Gives you control…" Her words were coming too fast now, mixing around feverishly before she could straighten them out into anything comprehensible.
"Skye, slow down, you're not making any sense."
"What did Raina want, Skye?" Natasha wanted to know. "She always wants something. She always has an angle. So what did she want from you?"
"I… I don't know," Skye stammered. Another lie. This one was more convincing, at least. "I didn't know what she was talking about half the time."
"Was she trying to talk about your parents again?" Bobbi asked quietly. The back of Skye's neck went hot, and she glued her eyes on the floor.
"It doesn't matter," Skye muttered. "The stuff she said isn't the important part."
"What's the important part?"
"The important part is… is that she's gone. And that we're… we're safe. We'll be safe," Skye said softly. She cringed internally at herself, at the way she navigated around the truth. Maybe she should just tell Bobbi and Natasha, but the words froze up inside her chest, a block of ice around her lungs. She couldn't put them in danger. Her eyes burned with fresh tears. "I want us all to be safe."
"We're safe," Bobbi said softly, soothingly. "We're safe, Skye, I promise. No one's going to bother you here, no one's going to hurt you. Natasha and I, we won't let them." She was wrong, so very wrong, but how was Skye supposed to tell her that? How was Skye supposed to yank that rug of comfort and assurance out from under Bobbi's feet? Bobbi had waited so long to be in a house where she felt safe. Skye couldn't take that away from her.
"I want to go home." Her voice was small and childish, but it was the truth. All she could think about was getting as far away from this place, from Raina, from the horrible thing she had to now do, as possible.
"Okay," Bobbi agreed, taking Skye's backpack from her hands gently. "Let's go get Phil and Jemma and go home, okay?"
Natasha cast a wary glance over Skye, then shot a look Bobbi's way. She knew there was more going on, Skye could tell, but neither girl spoke or pressed her for more information as they flanked her back to Phil's room.
"Skye?" Phil asked, concern washing over his face at the sight of hers. "Are you all right? What happened?"
"She ran into someone," Bobbi tried to explain. "She got a little… spooked."
Phil's forehead wrinkled up in confusion. "Spooked? What do you—?"
"Somebody heard about what happened between me and Ward and Fitz," Skye said numbly. "They wanted to… we were talking. I want to go home."
"Okay," Phil said, the worry not leaving his face. Skye hadn't looked at Jemma once since coming into the room, but she could picture perfectly the fear that was undoubtedly plastered on her face – the anxious, pooling eyes and tight, puckered mouth. "Okay, we'll go. Just let me get my things." He bustled around quickly, throwing his stuff into his satchel, glancing up at her every few seconds.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow, Bobbi," Natasha said quietly from somewhere near the door. Bobbi nodded, not turning from Skye's side, though.
"We're going home," Bobbi murmured in Skye's ear. "We're okay. You're safe. We're going home."
The words plunged like a dagger into Skye's heart. They weren't safe, not really. But she was going to do whatever it took to make sure that they were. No doubt, no odds, no probability about that. She had to. There was no other way.
I know that was a terrible place to end, I'm so sorry! I'm going to do my best to get the next chapters out sooner, rather than later, so you don't have to wait as long with a cliffhanger like that :) Thank you all again so much for reading, reviewing, being here and being your lovely selves... I'm so honored to receive a part of your time and energy :)