AN: editied and betaed 03/10-2020

Chapter 2: Problems in the Background

A few days later the plane is repaired and they are back in the air; Fitzsimmons is in the lab, Ward is in the cargo hold, May is in the cockpit, and Coulson is in his office.

And Skye, Skye is with Ward in the cargo hold, that so luckily for Skye is also a makeshift gym.

After the mission in Peru, Skye had agreed to train to be an agent. Of course, she didn't say that she didn't want to be an agent of SHIELD to Coulson and Ward when they talked to her about it. She was there to get answers.

While Skye and Ward trained, they received a message over the speaker system about a new mission, which turned out to be one of Fitzsimons's former teachers from their academy days, Dr. Franklin Hall. He had been kidnapped by Ian Quinn and was being kept in Malta, where SHIELD was not allowed to operate. During the meeting Skye kept catching May looking at her in an odd way, she knew that May did not like that she was there, but the way she was looking at her was not the 'I want you gone kind of way,' more like she was trying to find something. Skye could not be bothered by that now, so she took the initiative to go in and distract Quinn. Later in the lab, she saw Fitzsimons giving her the same look. Hall ended up dying and Quinn escaped, but they got ahold of the Gravitonium, which Quinn had found. It was also during this mission that Skye began to think about if SHIELD was as bad as she thought.

Over the next few days May kept looking weirdly at Skye, Skye was about to ask her what her problem was when a new mission came in. It ended up being that a former agent was now stealing valuable information, but as it turned out she was being controlled. They managed to save her, but weren't able to catch the people behind it.

It was evening when Skye was walking to her bunk. When she spotted May watching her again, she decided she wanted to know why and went over to where May was sitting at the bar, "Why are you watching me like that?" she asked.

May turned her head to look Skye in the eye, and for a few seconds she just looked, "I'm not watching you, I'm assessing you," she said and stood up and walked away, leaving Skye with a confused look on her face.

What is that supposed to mean, Skye thought. And went to her bunk to get some sleep.

The next morning after her training with Ward, Skye spent her time with Fitzsimmons in the lab. When the conversation on soulmates came up, "I don't know guys, I don't really know that much about soul marks, yeah I have one, and no I have not met them yet, if I ever do. How about you, do either of you have one?" Skye said after Fitz asked her if she knew if her soul mark and soulmate was a platonic or romantic, man or woman, because some people could sense that before they met their soulmate.

"Don't worry Skye, you will meet them one day. It is only like 7% that have a mark or marks, which do not meet each other. And yes, we both do have marks, we are a soulmate pair," Simmons said.

"What? Why did I not know that before now?" Skye asked with a shocked face. "Are you romantic or platonic?" Skye asked, the romantic part with a playful tone.

Both Simmons and Fitz chuckled at that, "We are romantic, have been for a few years now, I think 8 years. We met at the academy but we didn't talk to one another for the first year or so, then we became lab partners and were recruited for another project," Fitz said, the last part was said like he was not supposed to say it, or no one else could know about it.

"Wow, I knew you two were close, but not that you were romantic soulmates, maybe platonic, with that friendship vibe you got going on," Skye said.

"Yes, our bond can seem like a platonic bond, and we are also best friends and lovers," Simmons said.

"So you can say that you have like a double bond going on for you, if that is possible, and if so, that is so cool," Skye said.

Both Simmons and Fitz looked at one another, then at Skye like they haven't thought about that. Before either one could say anything more though, May came into the Lab and told Skye to follow her to Coulson's office.

When they entered the office, Coulson told Skye to take a seat. Skye had just sat down when Ward entered too.

"What is going on AC?" Skye asked.

"AC?" Coulson asked.

"Agent Coulson, AC," Skye simply said.

"Huh, okay, please call me Agent Coulson or Coulson," he said.

"Got it Coulson, so what is going on?" she said.

"Do you know a man named Miles Lydon?" Coulson asked.

All three agents could see that Skye got uncomfortable when Coulson asked her about Lydon.

"Why?" she just asked.

"Do you?" Ward asked, May was just watching her again, or as she said last night, assessing her. "We know you know each other, we have a picture of you two," Ward said and showed her the was of her and Miles in Miami two months before she joined SHIELD.

"Yes, I do know him, why?" she said, getting a bit nervous about what Miles had done and how they had gotten that picture. She didn't know that it existed, because if she did she would have deleted it a long time ago.

"What is your relationship with him?" Coulson asked, sensing that if he didn't stop Ward and Skye it would turn ugly. He knew Ward had some issues with the way Skye saw the world, and her values and morals, they were so different from his, and when Coulson thought about it, he too could understand Ward in his thought process, it was how he and himself were trained in the academy.

But Skye was different, that was another reason why he had recruited her, he knew SHIELD could learn a lot from other people to be better at their job.

"We dated for some time. We broke up about a month before I joined you guys," Skye said.

Ward gave a little huff behind her, "Where is he, do you know that?" Ward asked.

"No, I don't know where he is. What is this about, because I don't think we are here to talk about my love life?" Skye said in a slightly angry tone to Ward.

"He hacked our office in Hong Kong and leaked information on a powered man named Chan Ho Yin that has led to his kidnapping. He might be in danger, we need to know who Mr. Lydon leaked the information to," Coulson said, "so, do you know how we can get a hold of him?" he asked.

Skye sat a few moments and thought about what to do. On one hand she didn't want to betray Miles, and on the other she still needed answers and she could only get them if she was inside SHIELD. "Yes, I know a way to get to him, but you would not be able to just walk up to him and talk to him, he is, hmm, how do I say it, he is very paranoid and jumpy around cops and agents, he will run," She said.

"How do we do it then? Do you have an idea?" May said, speaking for the first time since this conversation started.

"Yes, I do," Skye said.