Hello dear reader, please ignore the fact that this chapter may seem like it's filled with unedited and unfiltered inner-monologues, that's cause it is. I wanted it to seem even more like we're in their heads, and at certain points I believe I may have gone overboard. Anyhow, hope you enjoy the second chapter of this story!
Summer update: there will be no change in my updating schedule, I do have a life and I don't think I will have much time to write two stories each week. It would get too much. So! We'll be sticking to the every other week schedule!
No beta for this chap, guys, sorry!
Now, on with the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel

Whitehall was furious.

It's been a few days since she told him about what happened at Union Station and he was still mad. He had her on desk duty and security check-ups since the morning after she reported back to him.

To make up for the screw-up at Union Station, she started searching for Mike Peterson on her computer, hacking into every security camera or phone camera or social media picture she had access to, so she could find him. Even that was fruitless, however, as it turned into a dead-end.

How could someone be so off the grid?

Sometimes she dreamed of an escape from that life… away from Hydra and death and security maintenance and power-level analysis… but she knew she couldn't. This was the only life she knew, and Whitehall was the one to make her into the powerful agent she was now.

She was the head of his security and field-operations, she was better than second-guesses and desk duty and-

"Quake, Whitehall says it's power-level analysis day for you. Now," an agent told her, and she sighed.

"Wasn't that last month?"

"He wants it now."

She really hated power-level analysis day.

This would turn into another bad day, she just knew it…

Skye didn't like having to use her powers, but if she needed to, she would. She was glad the mission in Peru didn't require her to use her powers, even if it was stressful. They managed to find the 0-8-4, but they were attacked by the Peruvian police, until Coulson recognized the Commandante, and they came to an understanding. To save them all from the rebels, Coulson had the scientists and Skye stay with May and Ward in the first SUV and the police followed them in other vehicles. When they finally reached the ramp on the Bus, everyone took cover behind something, and Fitz had his grip tight on the 0-8-4 – which they later found out was a Hydra weapon powered by Tesseract energy. The second the vehicles containing Coulson and the Peruvian officers reached the Bus, everyone ran up the ramp and Ward closed it to protect them all from enemy fire.

Little did they know, they had invited a second enemy onto their plane…

.

Everything seemed to be in order, Skye had joined Ward for a drink to relax, arguing that she was indeed 21 and could legally drink, when Ward noticed the Peruvians weren't drinking from their glasses and seemed suspicious. His instincts were validated, as one of the soldiers went to attack him, and another one grabbed Skye. She wanted to use her powers to help balance the fight, but Ward was there and she didn't want him – or the others – to know just yet. So, deciding to act like the supposed powerless hacker she claimed to be, Skye played along with the soldier that was manhandling her, struggling in his grasp like she would have done if she didn't have her powers. She watched as Ward was unable to fight off the soldiers and they were zip-tied before being sent down to the cargo area, where they found FitzSimmons and May, who were also zip-tied, though May was unconscious.

Soon enough, they were arguing about the best plan of action. Though it was really FitzSimmons not really approving of a plan Skye had come up with. She was glad though, that Ward thought the plan could work, and true to herself May hadn't really said a word. FitzSimmons, Skye and Ward argued about the best possible way of escaping the cargo hold, until a cracking sound stopped them mid-sentence; May had dislocated her wrist. She moved around smoothly up to the ramp and when the guard turned to look at them all, she slipped behind him and flipped him over the ramp before placing her wrist back into place. Once they were all freed, they all – except May – stood together and agreed on a plan of action. May, of course, had listened to the plan, but as they all tried to pump each other up on actually executing the plan, she was starting up the SUV to destroy the glass doors to the lab. Ward and Skye pushed FitzSimmons to the side so May could have the space needed to do her job. When that was done, Simmons went to open up a vent, Skye grabbed some equipment – ropes and harnesses – Fitz was getting the dwarf case, Ward was moving around, helping Skye in gathering equipment and May was opening the lab doors to the rest of the plane.

Fitz then activated a dwarf and sent it off into the vents so it could find the 0-8-4, and then Ward hooked FitzSimmons and Skye up together in the harnesses and ropes. The dwarf quickly found the weapon and Fitz sent a pulse from the drone, activating the weapon, which punched a hole into the side of the plane and sent a Peruvian soldier flying out of the plane. Having dropped pressure in the plane, the doors to the living area unlocked and the team could continue on with their plan. As Ward fought off the soldiers, FitzSimmons and Skye went to find the 0-8-4 themselves and May went right to the cockpit to gain control of the plane once more.

Finally, Simmons found the weapon and grabbed it, giving Fitz the signal to bring them back to safety. However, as wind blew into Skye's face, so did the emergency paper that explained where everything was, including a life raft. A new plan forming in her head, Skye moved to unbuckle herself from Simmons, which confused the scientist. Skye, using her powers as best she could to keep herself balanced without raising suspicion, went to open up the red case containing the life raft. As she did so, she saw a soldier grabbing onto the ropes tying Simmons to Fitz. Without thinking, she raised her free hand and sent the man flying into the hole, and then she set back to inflating the raft. Before Ward could join the soldier in a 30 000-foot drop, the raft inflated and covered the hole, which pressurized the plane again.

Hopefully, no one in the team saw that she was the one to push the soldier out of the plane, she wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do or not, but she did know one thing: her team was at risk and she needed to act.

Once they were all safely back on course, Skye mumbled an excuse to go see May in the cockpit, saying something about making sure everything was ok, and the team seemed to buy it, so she took her chance and went to find the older woman. Skye knocked on the door of the cockpit, and was met with silence. "May? It's me, Skye. Can I come in?" she asked, and May gave her an affirmation that she could come, and Skye did so. With a quick nod from May, Skye took a seat in the copilot's chair, looking out at the sky. "Is it…?" Skye's question trailed in her mouth, but May seemed to understand what she meant.

"It's secure, no one can overhear us in here," May assured her, and Skye nodded softly, letting a long breath escape her.

"I used my powers again…" Skye told her, still not giving the woman a look, but she knew May turned her attention away from the window and to her, from the flash of interested vibrations that escaped her. "A soldier was about to attack FitzSimmons… I didn't have a choice," she added.

"You did the right thing," May assured her, and the younger girl let the woman's calm vibrations wash over her again. "Why do you say it like you shouldn't have used them to save a member of this team?" May seemed genuinely interested, so Skye decided to tell her.

"I have this code word, for every time I use my powers… I tell myself that I was reckless again. And today, I was really reckless… I should have been more careful in using my abilities. What if they saw me? If the people who did this to me are still looking…"

"You think someone did this to you? Gave you these powers?" May asked, and Skye nodded weakly.

"Like I told you before… I have these gaps in my memory, things I should know… details I should remember, but… but I don't. The only way for this to have happened, is if someone did this to me without me knowing," Skye explained, and she let the silence wash over them for a while. "There is something else that I think you should know..."

"What is it?"

"When we were at Union Station, I felt something… there was someone else there… someone we didn't see. I felt their vibrations, but… they're not like yours or Coulson's or FitzSimmons'… they're more like mine. It was like feeling my vibrations from another perspective."

"What do you mean?" May asked, and Skye could feel May's faint curiosity in her vibrations and in her voice.

"I mean, there was someone like me there, and I didn't see them."

"Could it be Mike? He was enhanced as well."

"No, Mike was more volatile, this was different. The vibrations from the person felt like they were buzzing under their skin, or around them, waiting to be commanded. Kind of like mine. The only difference I could pick up was that the buzzing seemed more controlled and serious. What does it mean?" Skye asked, feeling confused about all that. She had been wondering about it since Union Station, but couldn't get her head around it.

"We'll figure it out, don't worry."

"Thanks..." The two then went back to looking at the sky. "The view is amazing here," Skye said, after a few minutes of silence, changing the subject.

"Yeah. It's peaceful."

"Will you… will you teach me to defend myself more? I don't want to feel useless again… like today. Plus, I need a cover if I want Coulson to let me fight," Skye said, smirking a little at that last sentence. "But I'm serious. I want to be in control…" Skye added after a moment.

"I'll have to ask Coulson, but I would like that," May said, making Skye turn to look at her. She had a small smile on her face that Skye couldn't help but reciprocate.

"Do you mind if I stay here until we land?" Skye asked, and May just nodded. The two stayed in silence until they landed at the Slingshot, where they all sat and watched the rocket launch the 0-8-4 to the sun.

She dodged a punch from an agent as he lunged at her, elbowing him in the back as soon as she was steady on both her feet. The agent stumbled back a little, and she turned to him, arm raising as she did so, before sending him flying with a shockwave and into the mattress set against a wall. At least she aimed for the mattress this time?

Another agent came at her, and she concentrated on his right knee before breaking it with a quake. The man yelled out in pain, and she sent him flying with a flick of her wrist, not strong enough to hit the wall, but enough for him to fall on his back and not want to even attempt to get up despite a broken knee.

There were two agents left to this part of the analysis, and she saw them both come for her at the same time. She used the momentum of the first one to flip him to the ground, and exchanged a few blows with the second one. They fought for a good five minutes, but the man was a level 5 at best, and she was the head of the department, he didn't even stand a chance in the first place.

She knew that Whitehall gave a bonus in the salary of those who fought against her during power-level analysis day – a big bonus to rival her own paychecks – which explained their enthusiasm to get their asses handed to them by their boss.

In a matter of minutes, she had the second agent in a chokehold, and used a minor quake to deprive him of air long enough to knock him down. She then turned to the first one and sent a shockwave at his head to knock him out. "Very good," the doctor praised, as she approached the table with the computer they used to monitor her vitals and powers. She never understood how they managed to do that… something about the vibrations of the molecules around her that change whenever she uses her powers? She didn't exactly have an education other than what Whitehall gave her and what she remembered from her previous life, so how could she understand whatever they were talking about?

"Thanks," she simply said, using a towel to wipe the sweat off her face. The doctor woman made her slightly uneasy, and she hated that. The redhead kept eyeing her like she wanted to dissect her, like she wanted nothing more than to cut her open and look at her insides. She shivered at the thought, ignoring any eye-contact from the doctor – Debby. It was the same doctor responsible for the Centipede project, and the Quake project, apparently. The two projects were directed by two different Hydra leaders, but she was involved in them both, just like Debby.

God, she wanted to quake her away from her…

Whitehall had her monitoring the Centipede project for him, from afar, since he didn't trust the man in charge of it, claiming that he was doing it for his own benefit, and not Hydra's. He was right, though, as usual, and she looked into the project even more closely than she probably should. It was how she found out about Peterson's rebellion; by placing one of her own guys on the inside, though everyone knew it.

"It was good, but…" Debby trailed off. Here we go. "But you should maybe use less power when sending a shockwave into someone's head. If you had used even a tiny bit more, he could have died."

"But he didn't. I know how much power to use to knock someone out, Debby. They're my powers, I know how to use them." She knew stupid Debby was right, but she wasn't going to tell her that. What was she going to do? Admit that she shouldn't have been rash? No! That wasn't her style.

"Alright. Now, I just want to check how much power you need to block an artery or vein. Just… do it slowly," Debby told her, gesturing to a contraption that was being set up in front of the enhanced woman. It looked like one of those water tanks with a tube sending water into another tank. She guessed Debby wanted her to stop the flow between the tube and the second tank, simulating how she would do so with a vein to the heart or any other vein in the body.

She concentrated on the middle of the tube, applying a little of her vibrations into it, seeing how the water would react. Sure enough, less water was starting to fill the tank when she did so. She then applied more, and it was like an invisible wall inside the tube blocked the water from flowing into the second tank. "Can you give me something a little more strenuous? That was too easy." she challenged the redheaded doctor, who just smirked. She learned how to do that when she was 17, and since then they asked her to do it on every power-level analysis.

"Actually… I know just what to do," Debby told her, the redhead signaling a scientist to go get something for her. "I want you to stay on target as long as possible. It'll keep the vibrations in, so there won't be repercussions, and we can monitor how much you put in and for how long." She nodded at the woman doctor, and stood in front of the target, positioning her feet in a hard stance. She held up both her hands and sent soft vibrations to test it out. When she found that it did what the doctor said, she added more power into the shockwaves. She wanted to ease into her maximum power, since she wasn't sure how long it would hold. "Go to full power," Debby ordered, and she groaned, pushing herself to send her most powerful waves into the target. As she did so, the ground underneath her started to shake, vibrations from the shockwaves escaping to the ground as well. She lasted a good 3 minutes at full power, until blood started to leak from her nose, but she tried to ignore it. She wanted to flirt with her limits as much as Debby wanted to see what said limits were. It was about a minute later that she hit the ceiling of her power-limit. Her nose was bleeding profusely, and her whole body was shaking.

She finally let go of the vibrations, falling on her knees, her breath hard and shaky. She heard Debby's voice call out to an agent to call for Whitehall before she greeted the darkness that came for her. She had never gotten this close to her limit, fearing what it would do to her body, but she was getting more and more curious about it, so she finally decided to do it at the analysis.

May came over to Skye's bunk a few hours after they left the Sandbox, the plane completely repaired. The pilot had left stick, having placed it on autopilot so she could speak with Skye. "I talked to Coulson." Was the first thing she said when she opened the younger girl's bunk.

"And you talked about…?" Skye asked, hopeful that she neglected to mention their resident hacker was a walking natural disaster.

"Being your SO. What else did you think we would talk about?"

"You know…" Skye simply said, gesturing to herself, but meaning her powers.

"I promised I wouldn't say a word to anyone, and I meant it."

"Thank you."

"Anyway, he agreed to let me train you. We'll start you on the basics, so it seems like you are just starting off with field training. If you want to spar, we'll have to go early in the morning. I also do Tai-Chi every morning at 5. We can spar after that." Skye nodded at that.

"You want to start now?" Skye asked May – her new SO – getting up on her feet.

"Sure. Change into something more comfortable and meet me in the cargo hold."

"Yes, ma'am." Skye did a mock-salute as May left, not missing the small smile that appeared on the older woman's face.

She made the freaking Cavalry smile! Success!

Skye quickly found some sport outfit she used when she would run on her more restless nights, and went down to the cargo hold. May was already there, training equipment already up.

When May spotted her, she gestured to the punching bag in front of her, so Skye walked over to her, taking the offered wraps her SO had in her hand. Skye twisted the wraps around her hands and positioned herself in a stance that was automatic for her at this point. To be fair, it was automatic to her the first time she remembered using it at age 14. May corrected the position of her feet, telling her they were too wide, then helped her position her arms better. "Use your whole body at every punch." She had told her, after she tried a few punches with her old technic.

Skye tried May's suggestions, and found she could have more power in her punches that way, without using a vibration boost. Once FitzSimmons were gone, she turned to May. "You know I could just use my powers and win the fight, right?" Skye whispered to her, leaning on the punching bag, just in case someone walked in while she spoke. She had checked for bugs already, so they were good to talk while they were alone.

"You're too reliant on them. You need to learn to fight properly without your abilities, so that if you get kidnapped again, or anything bad happens, you don't have to risk exposer," May replied, gesturing for Skye to go back to punching the bag. "That's good, just keep your guard up all the time. When you are against someone taller than you, like Ward or Mike-"

"A lot of people are taller than me, I am under the average size," Skye pointed out, cutting her off. May gave her a pointed look, as she was slightly shorter than the younger girl.

"My point is; if you go up against someone taller than you, use your agility and smaller figure to your advantage. Use every advantage you have in a fight."

"But if my powers give me an advantage, shouldn't I use them?" Skye asked lowly, confused that May was somewhat contradicting herself at the moment. Even if Skye did keep saying that she wanted to keep them a secret in case someone was searching for her, using her powers as a basis to find her.

"You keep saying that you want to keep your powers a secret." How did May do that?

"I do, but you contradicted yourself in saying that I shouldn't use them, but I should use every advantage I have. They are an advantage."

"I did say that, but you should still only use them when necessary, and become less reliant on them."

"Sure, fine," Skye said, going back to hitting the bag.

When she woke up, she could hear shushed voices arguing nearby. She felt very toned down vibrations, a mattress under her, an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, and wires attached to her finger, chest and forearm; she was no-longer wearing the large number of electrodes from earlier. "Regardless, you should not have pushed her like this! What if it has repercussions? We wouldn't be able to send Quake on missions if you have somehow rendered the girl's powers useless for weeks." The voice was one of a male, and she recognized it as Whitehall's once her mind had cleared up more.

"Quake will be ready to go back in the field in maybe a week. I will have the scientists and doctors here give her a full workup once she is awake and, on her feet, but I do need to return to the Centipede project, we are still looking for a way to make sure our soldiers don't explode." This was Debby who spoke, the image of the woman clear as day in the brunette's mind. No more words were exchanged after that, and she heard Debby leave the room. It was only when Whitehall was alone with her that he spoke again.

"Open up your eyes, I know you are awake." She guessed that her breathing must have changed and he noticed it.

"Sorry, sir," she said, as she opened her eyes and moved the hospital bed to a sitting position. "I shouldn't have let Mike Peterson leave alive when the Centipede agent failed to take him in."

"You are on very thin ice. Next time you fail a mission, there will be more than just a power-level analysis sent your way. You know what happens when you cross me more than once." She shuddered at his words, remembering a time before she was the best of the best, in the first few months after she'd woken up with no memory. She had refused direct orders from Whitehall multiple times and she still had the scars to remind her to never do it again.

She still hated the job sometimes, and being Quake, but she had to live with it, it was the only thing she ever knew – or remembered.

She also hated paperwork.

It was such a trivial thing, but here she was, hating it anyway. She was the head of security for Whitehall as well as the head of field ops for his division, which meant a lot of paperwork. If she knew it came with the job, she might not have taken it. She loved going on the field and doing the work that was asked of her. Now what was asked of her was to sign mission reports, disciplinary reports, any and all kinds of reports that one could think of related to field agents, security, or just work in general.

However, as much as she hated paperwork, she hated those power-level analyses. She mentioned that before, but it was true, so she repeated it over and over, every few months when it was time, she would mutter how much she hated it, and would still go and comply with their orders.

She did like that she could send lower-levels flying around with her power without fear of repercussions during those tests. She hated the sheer stupidity they all seemed to share, and the simple act of sending them flying with the flick of her wrist seemed to calm her down immensely. Well, that was until the next low-level agent pissed her off and she was back on square one. But that was an issue for another day. Probably the next day.

She didn't mind sending agents flying around. Cause as she said, she enjoyed it. She also didn't mind pushing things around, even got to blow some things up on some occasions, using her powers to accelerate the explosion process or trigger the bomb.

What she didn't like was the poking and prodding of the electrodes and the needles before and after the tests. She guessed they took her blood while she was still unconscious earlier.

After Whitehall left, she went back to sleep, hoping to feel better when she woke up the next time.

At their next mission, Skye didn't feel the mystery person from Union Station again, and in a way, she didn't want to, but she also did want to finally get to see them. She wanted to know why their vibrations were so similar to her own, how they seemed so much more controlled than hers. She was very confident that they had the same powers as her, with how the vibrations felt. Though they seemed very 'agent May' like, without the calming aura that came with the older agent.

Their next mission was to find Professor Franklin Hall, a Canadian scientist under SHIELD's protection. From what she could gather, FitzSimmons loved the man, if the excited vibrations emanating from them as well as the physical bouncing they were doing was any indication. Skye couldn't help but smirk at May, signaling her with her eyes how excited she knew the science twins were getting.

However, their excitement did tone down significantly when Coulson told them the man was kidnapped. Then, May was ordered to reroute the plane to head to the kidnapping site, where they could find out how it happened.

The flight to the site was uneventful, and Skye stayed with FitzSimmons in the lab, working on her computer to find anything she could to help. She did leave after barely a half-hour, though, claiming that it was to leave the scientists to whatever they were doing, even if it was due to the loud vibrations in the lab combined with FitzSimmons' worried/excited/chaotic vibrations making her uneasy.

She hid out in her bunk until they arrived to the site, feeling useless.

Skye moved around, trying to find something to do, maybe detect something's vibrations, if it was indeed invisible. She noticed Ward and Coulson asking questions to the agent driving the truck that used to contain Dr. Hall. Apparently, someone at SHIELD could have tipped off the people who did this, and that worried Skye. Who would do that? Who would have their own colleagues attacked, whether they knew each other or not.

She stopped thinking about it for a moment, when she felt a strange buzzing come from FitzSimmons' direction. It kind of felt like the normal vibrations she felt around her normally, but there was something about them… something that she couldn't describe properly. She moved over to FitzSimmons, where the weird vibrations were the most prominent. Apparently, a device in Simmons' hand had triggered something when it scanned what was around them. Skye saw the small rocks on the ground float almost as high as they were. The science twins then did something and the vibrations were back to normal and the rocks were no longer flying, meaning that it was fine again.

The team went back to the Bus and started to pull at whatever string they could to find Hall, May even giving Skye a huge binder to read the communications starting at the time of the first mention of moving Hall.

.

At the end of their search, there was a good news and a bad news. The good news was, they knew who had Hall; Ian Quinn, CEO of Quinn Worldwide. The bad news was, he was in Malta, a place where SHIELD had no jurisdiction.

That was very very bad.

If they couldn't get to Quinn, then they couldn't find out where Quinn had Hall kept prisoner.

The team suddenly started to argue, trying to find ways of getting in despite the fact that any SHIELD agent going in was illegal. "I could go in," Skye suggested, but she was completely ignored in favor of the 'real' agents.

"Drop me in the hills outside of Valletta. I'll spend a few weeks establishing a cover, gathering intel-" Ward said, but Coulson cut him off.

"Hall doesn't have a few weeks."

"And to restate, any agent of SHIELD caught on Maltese soil can be shot to death with bullets-" Simmons said, cut off by an affirmation from Fitz. As they spoke, Skye had taken out her phone. They had found out that Quinn was having a party at his mansion in Malta, and she knew how to get in to get in invitation.

"Yeah."

"Legally," Simmons finished her sentence.

"Not me. I could go in," Skye repeated her own words as she countered Simmons', not even looking up from her phone while working on the invite. Coulson seemed curious my what she was suggesting, but the others… not so much.

"Skye, this is serious." Ward apparently still thought she was useless. She had freaking superpowers.

"Wait. What are you saying?" Coulson asked Skye, cutting Ward off from saying anything else.

"Well, I'm not an agent of SHIELD, so I can go in without breaking all these stupid rules."

"International laws," Simmons corrected, though Skye didn't seem to care.

"This isn't something the Rising Tide can hack, Skye," Ward told her, clearly unaware that she was good at playing games with other, lying to them to benefit herself.

"Did you hear the deadly lasers part? Without a brave monkey-" Skye cut Fitz off before he could finish that. He really wanted a monkey, clearly.

"You said you could go in with a man inside."

"And you want to be that man?" May asked, silently asking if she was sure about it. The older woman knew better than the others that Skye was good at lying, despite what she could make them think, sometimes.

"Fitz-Simmons loved the guy, and he needs help. They could be torturing him, or worse, making him do strength-training," Skye said, letting her know that she was indeed sure about her plan. She finally stopped typing, having gotten in and out with the invitation.

"But you don't have the background or clearance or experience with any of this," Ward argued, completely against the idea of Skye doing this mission.

"I know," Skye said, showing off her phone with the invitation to Quinn's party clear on the screen. "But I've got an invitation. Well, technically, it's an e-vite." Ward wasn't sure, but the others all gave her impressed looks. She was pretty sure most of them weren't convinced she could pull it off, but Skye would prove to them that she could. She needed them to trust her, and she would get it, no matter what she needed to do.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was really a rollercoaster to finish it, I have been having some IRL difficulties with schools but I should be good soon to have a better work flow on everything. Also, I may or may not be obsessed with Skye and Daisy as twins, and may or may not have some more WIPs of those two. Tell me if you think I should post more once they're done!
Also, for those of you who don't know, on my tumblr (karasmoak01), I have opened my prompt ask thingy. So, that means y'all can either send one on my tumblr ask, or right here. I will look here, if you don't have a tumblr. It's for one-shots, moodboards, questions, anything not overly personal.
Please comment, I look forward to read what you have to say!
Until next time!