Chapter 43
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Everything belongs to their rightful owners and I am not making any profit from this.
AN: Thank you to all who have added to alerts, read, reviewed or any combination of the three. It means a lot to me.
AN2: Letting you all know I have now finished this series, there are 47 chapters plus an epilogue though I will update the epilogue and final chapter at the same time.
For the next few days Skye spends more time alone than usual. Clint talked to her and he discovered that she is still dealing with the shock of seeing Maggie, Danny and Anna again and dealing with the guilt of what happened to them, and the fact that she walked away from them even though she knows that they are safer as far away from her and the world she lives in.
Ever since they brought the van back to The Tower Bucky, Tony and Maria have been spending several hours a day working on it. They are doing their best not to change anything just get it back into working condition and they have surprisingly succeeded.
When Skye's birthday comes around everyone goes about their normal morning activities, no one mentioning Skye's birthday which because she doesn't realise that it is she doesn't find anything odd about it.
After the morning work outs everyone hurried to get ready so that they are all standing in the dining room when Skye walks in.
"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Skye, happy birthday to you." Everyone sings as Skye walks in.
"I've really got to stop forgetting when it's my birthday." Skye comments, "Did you make all my favourites of breakfast again?" Skye asks her father
"Yep. I figured we started a tradition last year." He tells her
"Thank you Daddy." Skye tells her father giving him a hug.
"You're welcome Baby Girl." He responds.
"Dig in." Melinda tells her daughter and that's what they all do.
"So what's the big secret thing you have planned for today?" Skye asks the group.
"What makes you think we've got something planned?" Clint asks.
"Because I know you." Skye tells her Uncle, "So what is it?" she asks curious.
"You'll see, but Bucky's got dibs on the first surprise of the day." He informs her.
"You do?" Skye asks surprised, looking at her boyfriend.
"Yes, I do." Bucky tells her, "If you would follow me downstairs." He requests and everyone heads over to the elevator.
"Close your eyes." Bucky requests when they almost reach the garage level.
"Why?" Skye asks.
"Just do it Kiddo." Tony tells her before Bucky has a chance to and that's what she does.
Once the elevator doors open Bucky walks her over to the van and stops her when she is standing right inform of it.
"Open them." Bucky says and when Skye does a look of completely shock takes over her face.
"Is that?" Skye asks barely able to get the words out.
"It is." Bucky confirms, "Tony, Maria and I have spent the last few days fixing it up, it should be in perfect working order now." He tells her.
Skye rushes over to the van, opens the door and makes sure that everything she left is still in there, when she finds that it is she is shocked.
"Thank you." Skye says rushing back over to Bucky and kissing him, "You have no idea how much this means to me."
"I think I'm starting to get an idea." Bucky responds, "Tony and Maria deserve just as much credit, we did it together." He reveals and Skye gives her Aunt and Uncle a hug.
"Thank you so, so, much." She tells her Uncle and Aunt.
"You're welcome." Tony and Maria responds.
"Come on Kid, we should get back upstairs you've got a tone more presents to open plus the day we've planned." Clint tells Skye.
"When do I find out what that is?" Skye asks curious as they walk back over to the elevator.
"Now if you want." Clint says and Skye nods, "All of us, plus Rhodey because we needed another person to make teams even, are going to play paintball." Clint explains as the get in the elevator.
"You remembered?" Skye asks remembering when she mentioned to Clint a while ago that a game of paintball between them would be interesting.
"Of course." Clint responds as the elevator door close.
An hour and a half after the group left the garage they are at the paintball arena when they get there they see that the place also offers a game called 'archery tag.'
"We've got to play that." Skye comments.
"No way, you and Clint will thrash the rest of us." Tony comments.
"I don't see a problem with that." Skye comments.
"Me either." Clint comments.
"Of course you don't." Sam says as the employee walks in.
"You're the birthday group?" He asks.
"Yeah, we are." Clint answers, "But we were wondering if we could have a game of Archery tag as well because a couple of us are expert archers as well a couple of games of paintball." Clint says to the employee.
"Yeah that will be fine." The employee responds.
"Which would you like to do first the archery of paint ball?" He asks.
"Archery." Skye answers.
"Okay well, you get three games of team battles as well as one round of every person for themselves as part of the deal, does that sound good?" He asks and everyone nods, "Good. Now while you may have some archery experience I have to run through the safety with everyone and I have to see you fire, you understand right?" He asks.
"Of course." Clint responds.
"Then follow me." The employ says.
"I'm saying it now, you two aren't allowed on the same team." Tony comments.
"Agreed." Everyone says as they follow the employee through the facility, which causes Skye and Clint to exchange an amused look.
Half an hour later the group have finished with the safety lesson and the practice shooting where it was clear Skye and Clint impressed the employee a lot and that everyone who had fired another time of weapon impressed him as well. They are currently in the area that is considered to be a locker room getting ready for the game.
"Everyone ready?" The employee asks walking into the room.
"Yep." Everyone responds.
"Have you figured out your teams or would you like me to do it for you?" he asks curious.
"We'vea already done it." Clint answers.
"Okay then can I get one team against the left wall and the other against the right." He requests and the two teams walk to opposite sides of the room.
One team is Skye, Coulson, Melinda, Bucky, Tripp, Sharon, Rhodey, Pepper and Fitz, and the other is, Clint, Natasha, Steve, Maria, John, Sam, Tony, Bruce and Simmons.
"Looks good." He says, "You're team A." He says to Skye's team, "And you're team B." he says to Clint's.
"If team A would come with me we can get you started." He says and Skye and her team follow him.
"Let me handle Skye." Clint says, "Focus on everyone else, and I'll handle her." He says.
"What aren't you going to go easy on her on her birthday?" Tony asks curious.
"No, why would I?" He asks confused, "She'd be pissed at me if I did." He tells Tony.
"Okay team B, are you ready?" The employee asks walking back in the room and everyone nods, "Okay, well I've got to go over the rules with you one more time, if you're hit with an arrow your out, if you catch one then the person who fired is out and one of your team is back in, the winning team is the team who manages to get all of the other team out in the time limit." He tells them.
"What neither team manages to get everyone out in the time limit?" Natasha asks knowing that it is a strong possibility.
"Then the team with the most people left wins." The employee says, "But that doesn't happen very often." He tells them.
"You've never seen us play." Maria comments to everyone else's amusement.
"Get ready the game begins in two minutes." He says before leaving.
"I don't think he likes us." John comments.
"Can you blame him, Clint and Skye out shot him on the range with their eyes closed when he was meant to be teaching us." Bruce comments, "Did you have to show him up that badly?" he asks Clint curious.
"After how pompous he was being, what he was saying, you bet." Clint responds.
"He did kind of deserve it." John comments as they hear a loud buzzing.
"That's the signal calling us to the arena." Simmons says.
"Then let's go." Clint says, "Let's win this." He tells them and they leave the room.
Unsurprisingly thanks to their Archery skill both Skye and Clint are very, very good at the game, also unsurprising anyone who has any kind of fight training are also very good. The fact that it is a group of highly skilled individuals makes for a very good battle.
In two very close battles Skye's team manages to win the first game while Clint's team wins the second.
The third is in progress and is it is incredible hard to tell who is going to win. There is only about a minute left as Pepper manages to hit Fitz at the same time Natasha manages to catch an arrow and Clint and Skye manage to hit each other which means both teams have the same number of people out and the whole game ends in a draw.
The next game they play is 'every person for themselves' which only last a few minutes before everyone is out, mainly due to either Skye or Clint.
"So paintball now?" Skye asks curious.
"Paintball." Melinda confirms.
"Same teams?" Fitz asks.
"Might as well." Steve comments and they head to the paint ball area.
Three hours after they finished archery tag the group have played several rounds of paintball and are now at a family style restaurant near the place.
"We thought you wouldn't like a fancy restaurant." Melinda tells her daughter.
"Thanks Mom." Skye tells her grateful as she plays with the heart shape locket that is around her neck which was one of the gifts from her parents.
"Hey James, can we talk?" Skye asks curious wanting to know something otherwise she is going to keep worrying about it.
"Sure." Bucky responds.
"We'll meet you at the table." Skye tells her family who nods.
"What do you think that is about?" Fitz asks Simmons curious.
"Not sure." Simmons responds.
"Our anniversary dinner is still going ahead right?" Skye asks nervous, "That wasn't just a lie to keep me from discovering all this was it?" she asks, trying not to let her worry, and hurt if it's true, show.
"Of course it wasn't." Bucky tells her, "Our dinner is still going ahead." Bucky tells her.
"Good." Skye says glad, "So we're going back to Nathan's right?" Skye asks.
"Right." Bucky confirms as they walk back over to the table.
"So what kind of food does this place have?" Skye asks curious as she sits down between her parents.
"All different, we arranged a smorgasbord, figured we would all share." Clint explains.
"Sounds good to me." Skye says as a wide selection of food is placed on the table.
"Dig in." Phil says and that's what everyone does.
For the next half an hour the group eat and talk until everyone is finished and a large, what looks like, chocolate cake is put in front of Skye, a cake which says 'Happy 27TH birthday Skye' on it.
"Oh wow." Skye says shocked, and she can feel herself starting to cry, both her parents who realise what is happening each put an arm around her, "What kind of cake is it?" Skye asks.
"Triple chocolate." Coulson says as the candles are lit.
"This is so amazing, thank you so so much." Skye tells everyone though she is looking at her parents.
"'We have a lot of birthdays to make up for." Coulson says kissing Skye's head as everyone begins to sing happy birthday.
Once they finish Skye just looks at the cake.
"Kid, this is where you blow out the candles and make a wish." Clint tells his niece.
Skye rolls her eyes at her uncle as she blows out het candles, the reason why she paused before she blew them out was because she couldn't think of something to wish for, so she decides not to wish for anything.
"Yay." Clint says happily, "Now we can eat our cake and get back home for a movie marathon before you date." He tells his niece and Skye can feel herself get embarrassed.
"Natasha." Melinda requests and Natasha lightly taps Clint on the back of the head, "Here don't let the knife touch the bottom." Melinda says to her daughter as she hands her a knife.
"Why not?" Skye asks confused.
"It's bad luck." Pepper explains and Skye starts to cut the cake.
For the rest of the day, after they eat cake, the group spends time in the Cinema room watching all of Skye's favourite movies until Skye and Bucky need to get ready for their date.
Once they are ready Skye and Bucky both go back down to the cinema room to say goodbye to everyone who is still watching a movie.
Forty minutes after they left the Tower Skye and Bucky are sitting in the same booth they had their first date at waiting for their orders.
"I have something for you." Skye tells Bucky.
"You do?" Bucky asks surprised, "We're we meant to get presents? I'm sorry I didn't realise." He says feeling bad about not knowing.
"Hey, it's okay." Skye says reaching over and grabbing his hand, "You fixed up my van, my house that means the world to me." She tells him, "Now I thought about waiting until Christmas but I realised now is better." Skye says handing Bucky a small box.
"A phone?" Bucky asks when he opens it.
"No just any phone." Skye tells him, "I know Uncle Steve has been showing you how to use a phone so I've simplified the setting a bit and added the best encryption I know to it." Skye explains, "It is completely un traceable and almost hack proof." Skye reveals.
"Thank you." Bucky says leaning across the table to give Skye a kiss.
"You're welcome." Skye responds as she leans back in her chair and the waiter arrives back with food.
The rest of Skye and Bucky's date goes great. After dinner they once more go for a walk on the beach and decide to try the Ferris wheel.
"You okay?" Skye asks concerned when she notices the look that Bucky has on his face.
"Yes, no, it's just that being up high doesn't end well for me." Bucky explains.
"What do you…..?" Skye asks but then she realises, "Oh god, I'm so sorry." Skye says, "You should have told me that you didn't want to go on." Skye tells him.
"You wanted to go on, I didn't want to disappoint you." Bucky reveals, looking away from Skye.
"Hey, look at me." Skye requests grabbing both of Bucky's hands which causes him to look back her, "Never not tell me when something makes you uncomfortable." Skye requests, "I wouldn't have been disappointed that you didn't want to go on the ferries wheel, I would have understood." Skye tells him, "Tell me next time." Skye requests.
"I will." Bucky says with a nod.
"Think you'll be okay until we get to the ground or do you think we should start thinking of creative ways to get out of here?" Skye asks curious.
"I'll be okay." Bucky tells Skye, "I should get used to it, I shouldn't let the fear take over." He tells Skye.
"Are you sure?" Skye asks concerned.
"Positive." Bucky says pulling Skye into his side, "And it helps that you're right here with me." He says as he puts his arm around her.
"In that case I'm happy to help." Skye says as Bucky bends down and kisses her as they ride the ferries wheel down to the ground.
It has been two days since Skye's birthday and Skye's and Bucky's date night, it is about one am and everyone in the Tower with the exception of one person is fast asleep.
Bucky is one of those people who is fast asleep, or that is he was asleep until he feels someone shaking him awake and when he opens his eyes he sees the light is on, wanting to see who woke him he turns over and is surprised when he sees Skye standing over him fully dressed.
"Skye? What's going on?" Bucky asks confused, though he is sure that she must have a good reason for waking him and if he had to bet he would bet that it means nothing good.
"I need to do something stupidly, dangerously reckless and I can't do it alone." Skye informs Bucky, "Will you help me?"
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