Skye's POV
A few more weeks past and I spent them throwing all my energy into my work so as to distract myself from thoughts of my run-in with the Winter Soldier. Every time I let my mind wander in that direction, I would be bogged down with worry and fear. What if he did go to find Steve and tell him about meeting me, and what if Steve then told Tony and the others?! What if Mr. Bald Eyepatch dude found out about our meeting?
I spent every waking moment paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder.
And then it all went to pieces...literally.
The building next to me exploded right as I walked by. Well don't I just have the best luck ever!
I glanced up as shouts and screams filled my ears. It was clear that there were people trapped in the upper floors of the building, which was slowly going up in flames. Now, any normal person would do the proper thing and run away from the chaos. But I wasn't normal and I certainly didn't run.
No, my kamikaze self decided to fly, and not away from the flames, but right into them. Yup, I'm insane, more of an idiot than those weirdos in their suits...
I used my wings, strength, and speed, to get as many people out as I could. But as I glanced around the room; which was filled with science equipment, I realized there wouldn't be enough time for me to save everyone.
Before I could begin to think of what to do, a window; which had somehow managed to stay in one piece, shattered as a dark skinned man in a hood crashed through and grabbed the nearest person before jumping back out the window. Who the hell is this yahoo?
I shook my head and focused on getting the last two people out safely before the place collapsed.
I blinked rapidly as I landed in the middle of the street, blinded by the bright flashes of cameras that greeted me. I ducked my head down as I hurried to make my wings disappear before looking around for an escape route. I spotted one and quickly darted off down yet another alley, making sure that no one followed me.
I sighed in frustration later that night as I watched the news at work and served my customers, all of whom couldn't stop talking about the mysterious new heroes in the city. I was definitely not doing well at staying under the radar! I'd have to leave tonight, or risk someone finding me. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that Hydra was still after me...along with Shield...and Tony...and his friends.
I went over to my boss and gave him the bad news before heading back to my van to study maps and plan my new destination.
But there was one more thing I wanted to do. I knew Shield must have information on the man who had helped me during the explosion, so when I had gotten "home", I had hacked into their servers and gathered what information I could before heading off to work. What I had found was heartbreaking. The poor man was raising his 8 year old son all on his own after his wife's recent death - and from the look of things, he wasn't doing so well considering he had just been laid off from work. That didn't seem right. That someone who was willing to help strangers couldn't find any help for himself! So, I gathered up the little money I had saved up over the last few months and put it in an envelope. It was a particularly nice night out - considering it was 3 in the morning, and I wanted to stretch my legs, so I decided to ditch my van and walk instead.
"Are you Mike Peterson?" I asked as the door opened slowly. I already knew the answer, but hey, he didn't need to know I was more stalkerish than he probably already thought - what with me knocking on his door at such an hour!
"Uh, yes?" he said slowly and suspiciously, not that I could blame him!
"Well, I know you don't know me and this might seem a little random, but I was trying to think of a way that I could thank you for helping me out earlier before I leave town. So I just wanted to give you this," I said, sounding like a crazy person as I handed him the envelope. "Don't worry it's not poison or anything! But you helped me and the rest of those strangers without hesitation and I know it isn't much - it was all I had, but I believe that your heroism earlier today should be rewarded, not punished, so...here I am. Like I said, I know its not a lot, but its the best I could do! I figured you could use it to help with the funeral arrangements - my condolences by the way, and the rest to get your son that Hulk action figure I saw him looking at in the store window. Anyways, I'm totally rambling like a lunatic, so I'll be on my way! I said, turning hastily and cursing my blabbering mouth.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Mike said, opening the door wider to look at me better. "The girl with the wings...the one they're calling Angel!" I frowned.
"That's not my name anymore!"
"Then what should I call you?"
"If you must, you can call me Skye, but like I said, I'm leaving tonight before the scary men in dark suits come for me, I'd suggest you do the same. You don't want them darkening you're doorstep, trust me!" and with that, I turned around and headed back to my van.
I had just gotten in and started up the engine when the door suddenly slid open and a bag was tossed over my head. What new hell is this?! Can't I catch a break?
I was lead into a car and then shepherded; with my hands tied and head still covered up, onto what felt like a plane.
My hands were then untied and the hood was roughly removed.
"Geesh, you people have no bedside manners!" I said under my breath before looking up to see two men.
"You guys are making a big mistake." I warned them.
"You don't look that big," said one of the men. He had a very sculpted yet handsome face and dark hair that was cut military style - and looked somewhat familiar.
"Sorry for the lack of finesse. Agent Ward here has a thing about hackers -"
"I don't know...what you're -" I started to say.
"Okay, there are two ways we can do this," the man called Agent Ward said, interrupting me. I crossed my arms and smiled at him teasingly.
"Oh, is one of them the easy way?"
"No." Ward said stoically.
"Even better!" I said, grinning widely at him. Refusing to let him intimidate me.
"What's your name?" said the other, older man.
I looked at the both of them. "Skye," I answered.
"What's your real name?" the younger man said angrily, not believing me.
"That can wait. It's two other names we need, two certain hero's," said the older one.
"What makes you think I know them?" I said, looking away.
"Well, you made a little mistake," said the older man as he sat down in the chair opposite me. "You didn't quite cover your tracks when you hacked into our system earlier today. In fact, it had the same cryptographic signature as a few other breaches in security we have been experiencing lately." He picked up a folder while talking and dropped it on the table in front of me.
"Wow. Yeah. Was that a mistake? Or am I now sitting in the center of your secret headquarters? What is this? A plane?" I said, arms still crossed as I looked around the small room. Add a two-way mirror and it would have been almost an exact duplicate of the room I had been debriefed in after escaping Hydra a few months back. I adjusted myself in my chair, a little uncomfortable as I noted this fact.
"I got inside. And, by now, you've discovered you can't beat the encryption on my equipment, so you got nothing." I stated confidently. As much as I hated what Hydra had put me through, they had trained me well.
"We have a fairly strong coincidence," the man across the table said, opening the folder and showing me a picture. "You being on the scene right before it went up in flames," he dropped another folder on top of the first one. "My team is currently searching your van. Want to tell me what they are gonna find out? How did you know the hooded man and the winged angel were in the building?"
I opened my mouth to tell them that I hadn't known the man was there when Mr. Interruptus did what he apparently does best.
"Did you blow it up to draw them out?"
I looked up at him in shock.
"Did you?" I responded, glaring at him.
"That's not our style," said the man opposite me. I narrowed my eyes at him.
"I was just kidnapped by your "style". Shield covered up New Mexico, Project Pegasus. Of course you'd be covering up Centipede!" I said angrily. I had learned a lot in the last few months. "And for the record, I was going to say - before I was so rudely interrupted, that I didn't know that hooded man was there until after he came bursting through the window!" I paled as I saw a brief smirk on the older man's face as we both realized I had pretty much revealed that I had been involved. Though I could tell it still hadn't occurred to either of them that I was the girl with wings - which, for agents of a secret organization trained to be observant, wasn't very smart.
I huffed, irritated with myself as I watched Mr. Rude mouth "Centipede" questioningly. Ha! Obviously he's not important enough to be in the loop on this one. I smiled and laughed.
"Holy no way. You don't know what that is? Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal and I beat you with a laptop I won in a bet?" I couldn't stop laughing at this. They were the ones supposed to be on top of everything!
"You need to think about your friend in the hood and the one with the wings. We're not the only ones interested in people with powers. We'd like to contain them, yeah. The next guy will want to exploit them and the guy after that will want to dissect them."
I grimaced at that as shivers ran down my spine. Hydra was run by a scientist who really seemed to enjoy opening things up...
"Yeah, already been through that enough times as is, thank you. It's not all it's cracked up to be! And no offense, but if Mr. Eyepatch couldn't get me to join, what makes you think you can?" I watched as the older man's eyes widened with curiosity at my mention of Eyepatch Man, clearly not knowing how I knew about him or why he had been trying to recruit me.
Mr. Brooding walked closer to me and leaned down close.
"What is Centipede?"
I stood up and began pacing around as the two men sat staring at me.
"Centipede, it was chatter on the web and then, gone. I traced the access point MAC address to that building," I explained, though not mentioning that I had decided not to pursue the matter when I had discovered the news a few weeks back. It was pure coincidence that I had been walking by the same building when it exploded. You can see how my desire to avoid getting involved had worked out!
"What were you after?" the younger agent asked.
"The truth. What are you after?" I asked back.
"World peace. You pseudo-anarchist hacker types love to stir things up. But you're never around for the fallout. People keep secrets for a reason, Skye," I looked up in surprise as he got to his feet.
He was now standing very close to me and towering over me, but I refused to back down. Instead, I put one of my hands to his chest and pushed him back a step.
"Well, just because you're reasonable and...surprisingly firm...doesn't mean that you're not an evil, faceless government tool bag. And for the record, I always seem to get stuck dealing with the fallout, not that you'd know that about me or care!" I hesitated, still trying to hide the fact that I was one of the two they were looking for.
"Just give us your guys name, and tell us where to find the girl!"
"He's not my guy!" I said, furiously, hoping they wouldn't notice I hadn't mentioned "the girl".
"You understand he's in danger?"
"Then let me go! Let me talk to him. Me, not the T-1000 here!" I said, motioning to the young agent who was getting on my nerves, not bothering to mention the "girl" they were looking for again, as she happened to be standing right in front of their faces and wanted nothing to do with them. If it wasn't for Mike, I would have tried busting my way out by now, but I wanted to make sure he stayed safe.
"You want to be alone with him. Of course!" Ward said, rolling his eyes as he glanced over at the older man. "She's a groupie. All this hacking into Shield, tracking powers, she might as well be one of those sweaty cosplay girls crowding around Stark Tower!"
"What?! I would never! Tony does not need anymore of an ego boost!" I exclaimed irritably. Hoping they wouldn't notice my slip up with his first name.
I watched as the older man opened the door and waved the other agent out, closing the door as they left.
It wasn't till several minutes had passed before the two men walked back into the room.
"Ya know, you still haven't told me your name. I can't keep calling you old man," I said.
"The name's Coulson, Phil Coulson," he said as he held up a tiny vial of green liquid. I eyed it fearfully, remembering all the injections I had been given in the past.
This is QNB-T16. It's the top shelf martini of sodium pentothal derivatives." Coulson placed the vial inside a strange looking gun. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, but Ward had his hand on my shoulder restraining me. I glared at him, fighting the urge to break his hand.
"It's a brand new and extremely potent truth drug. Don't worry. The effects only last about an hour," Coulson continued to explain.
"You can stop explaining any time now, I know exactly what that is," I said, leaning back as I tried to stop the memories.
Ward released me and walked to stand next to Coulson.
"Then you'll know that you will have a nice little nap. And we'll have all the answers to our – Hey!" I laughed as I watched Coulson turn toward Ward and shoot him with the drug instead of me; though my heart was still racing from the thought that he had been planning to use that on me.
"What the hell?!" Ward cried as I giggled.
"I'm sorry, did that hurt?" Coulson said with an innocent look on his face. I laughed again.
"No. But you've lost your mind. You should never do that to a member of your team. And yes, it did hurt a little bit. But I always try to mask my pain in front of beautiful women."
He shot me a look and my eyebrows raised in surprise. Ohhhh, I could work with that! Payback is going to be a bitch!
"Because I think it makes me seem more masculine. My God, this stuff works fast!" he finished saying as he sat down in the vacant chair.
Coulson looked at me. "Don't trust us? Ask him whatever you'd like," he said before heading toward the door.
"Wait a minute. Wait, you can't just – this is definitely not protocol!" I grinned as Ward looked at me nervously.
Coulson shut the door in his face though. I cocked my head to the side, looking at Ward. I smiled wickedly as I slowly took my coat off. Ward's eyes glanced down for a moment then focus on my eyes as I continued to grin at him.
"You seem nervous, Agent Ward."
"I'm calling to mind my training." Good luck with that! I thought as I stood up. I leaned over him as I whispered in his ear. I was definitely enjoying toying with him. I think I brought up his grandmother at one point. His face was priceless.
After I had my fun with him, I walked out of the room and into a room with a kick-ass holo-table.
"Did Agent Ward give you anything?" Coulson asked me.
"He told me he's been to Paris, but never really seen it and that he wishes you had stayed in Tahiti," I told him with a smirk on my face.
"It's a magical place," Coulson responded, though something about his answer seemed almost mechanical.
"Ward doesn't like your style," I informed him. I looked around the room with a smile. "I kinda think I do." He seemed like a pretty good guy, though that wasn't necessarily saying much considering the scum I had grown up surrounded by.
"What about his?" I looked at Coulson, not quite understanding what he was talking about.
He swept his hand along the table and a feed from a news report was shown on one of the TV screens.
It was a news report showing security footage of Mike attacking the factory foreman at his old workplace with a gas canister.
"This is wrong. This is not...the guy I met...he was...He just needs a break!" I said in frustration. I felt so bad for Mike. Something else must have happened since I had stopped by his place in order for him to go after the foreman like that.
"Then give him one. What have you got?"
I looked from Coulson to the screen then back to Coulson again. Trying to decide what to do. I searched Coulson's face and could tell that he was being truthful about genuinely wanting to help Mike Peterson, so I caved and handed him the drivers license I had swiped from Mike at the scene of the explosion.
Two females and a male entered the room as I stood back and let Coulson do the talking.
The adorable younger man with the sexy accent then pulled up security footage from the explosion, and we all watched in shock as we saw two men arguing. It was hard to understand what they were saying as the data was corrupt.
"I can't sync the timecode without -" started to say Cute Accent Guy; I think his name was Fitz?
I cut him off as I stepped closer to the table.
"What if you had the audio?" I asked.
Fitz turned to fully look at me, possibly for the first time.
I hesitated, trying to come up with a believable story to explain how I had gotten my hands on the audio, since I couldn't very well tell them that I had ripped it from one of the computers at the security desk in the building in between saving people!
"Uh, I was running surveillance on the lab. I had my shotgun mike pointed at the window before the blast. The digital file's in my van. There's too much background noise for me, but you could probably –" I said, acting as
confidently as possible to pull off the white lie.
Fitz and his partner, Simmons?, argued back and forth for a little while before turning to look at me and speaking as one as they nodded and told me that it would be great to get the audio.
"Your van's here, but you were right, we couldn't decrypt the files," Coulson spoke up. I nodded, and tried to give an explanation that would get me and my van off this plane as quick as possible. I generally liked to play around with GPS when I hacked, so I decided to go with that. My van hadn't been anywhere near the explosion, but they didn't need to know that!
"The encryptions coupled to the GPS. Get my van back to that alley and then I'm in business," I said, hoping that this would work. I just wanted to get out and warn Mike before getting as far away from this craziness as possible.
"Agent May will escort you," Coulson called out to me as I headed towards the door. I heard him then tell May to swing by and wake up Agent Ward on our way out. I grinned at that.
We eventually got my van back to the alleyway where I had been snatched but then I drove past it and off towards the ruins of the building so that they wouldn't realize I was completely fibbing about the GPS, I mean I did use tricks like that sometimes so it wasn't a toral lie, right? I began flipping switches while I talked on my cell phone - which was thankfully not a Stark Phone.
"Audio file should be coming through. It's not compressed so it might take a minute," I said to Fitz, who was on the call.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting it," I heard him say. Damn, that was a lot of yeahs, I thought to myself with a smile. I was starting to like Fitz, not romantically of course - though that accent sure was smexy.
"So, uh, when – when you get back, I'll show you my thing," Fitz said. Ohhh, can I keep him! I laughed as I heard him stammering.
"A thing, it's not...it's my hardware," man, this was just too much, what with that accent and the stammering! I grinned.
"That sounds worse," I told him, smirking.
"My equipment," he said, trying to recover.
"Not any better, Fitz!" I said, giggling now.
"Let's...hang up."
I continued to chuckle as I ended the call.
I glanced back over my shoulder and when May wasn't looking, I moved a pad of paper aside, to reveal three microchips I had been hiding. I plucked up the most important one and tucked it quickly into my bra. I couldn't risk them finding what was on here! It wasn't much, but it had all the information I had managed to gather from Hydra and Shield about myself and I couldn't risk it falling into the wrong hands.
"That should do it," I told May as I closed my laptop.
"Let's head back," May started to say, but the next thing I knew, she was falling forward into my van, having been hit by someone from behind. She was then grabbed and flung out and I could finally see that it was Mike.
"Mike! What are you doing?" I cried out.
"Saving you. From the scary men in dark suits. And you're going to help save us." I blinked in confusion.
"Us"?
Mike reached off to the side where I couldn't see. He pulled his son, Ace, into view by his arm, the poor little boy looked scared.
"Don't cry, okay? Stay strong for me, Ace," his dad told him.
I scrambled closer to my wheel as Mike lifted him and Ace into my van. He was speaking to his son about them being a team, but I wasn't really focused on that.
"Now drive," Mike told me. He had me drive to Union Station and pull over.
"How long's this going to take?" Mike asked as I pulled up his information and began deleting him and his son.
"This is top speed, trust me. It's not like I'm deleting a Facebook page!" I told him, opening a side window and hacking into Shield again and sending them my coordinates. I didn't like it, but it looked like Coulson and his team were going to be my best option for helping Mike, assuming he didn't do something stupid.
I could sense him looking over my shoulder nervously.
"I'm bypassing the license bureau's A.E.S. protected data stream. So, chill!" I told him.
"How do I know you can really do this?" I sighed.
"I've done it before." Well, technically I was still doing it. It was the only way I had managed to survive these last months on my own without Hydra or Tony tracking me down! I was constantly going through traffic camera footage and deleting images of myself where they appeared.
I looked over at Mike, who was currently trying to calm Ace down.
"We'll take the nice lady with us. We, we can't go to the airport, so we'll – we'll take a train. And there she'll – she'll help us start over, make a new life – a better life, like I always said." I really hoped that Mike and his son would get to have that, but it was looking less and less likely.
"Mr. Peterson, good morning," I heard Coulson's voice call out from outside my van. We're not a threat. We're here to help. But you're in danger and we need to take you in."
Mike looked at me. "What did you do?!"
His face starts to glow red. Shit! That can't be good!
He looked at me for a few moments, just staring, before suddenly grabbing me and forcibly throwing my van door open.
He hauled me towards the train station; using me as a human shield to get inside.
Mike lead me past a rough looking group. I took notice of them, looked at Mike, then back at the rough guy in the lead, a plan forming in my head, it wasn't the best, but it would be better than using my powers in broad daylight with Shield right outside! I pulled my leg back and kicked the lead rough guy in the crotch.
Mike looked back at me in shock.
"You're right, he is a little bitch!" I told the leader, hoping to make him angry. It worked.
The guy's friends rush at us, and I used the distraction to get out of Mike's hold on me.
I saw Ward sneak up on him as he looked around distractedly for his son, who I had noticed being escorted out by Coulson.
"Look, the stuff inside you is unstable. It'll kill you and everyone else in here!" I heard Ward tell Mike. So that's what happened to the building that exploded? It was caused by a juiced up man bursting from an unstable chemical reaction inside of him! My eyes widened in shock and fear as I worried about Mike. Yes, I know, he had just kidnapped me, but he wasn't actually a bad person!
I looked around wildly as Mike tossed Ward aside and landed in front of me, not at his actions, but at the bullet that I felt graze the side of my arm. I glanced up to see an unwelcome newcomer to the party. He clearly wasn't Shield, so who the heck was he?
I winced as I felt the wound in my arm start to patch itself up. I hastily wiped the blood away, hoping that no one had noticed, otherwise I'd be facing a ton of questions that I didn't want to answer just yet.
Mike continued to yank me forward.
"You've got to stop!" I cried out to him.
"These people can help you!" I said, pleading desperately for him to slow down and listen.
"The men in suits? They're your buddies now?"
He gripped my arm again leading me further into the room and I bit down on my lip to stop the scream of pain as his hand landed on the bullet wound.
"Where did they take my son?!"
"Get down!" Mike tossed me hard to the ground as we noticed the man from earlier shooting at us again.
Mike crashed into a ticket kiosk crumbling it as he was hit in the shoulder. I looked to the shooter. He cocked his gun and aimed again at me but May arrived behind him before I could even think of how to take the man out without revealing myself. I sighed, happy that I didn't have to worry about it.
I looked over the railing down to the first floor to see Mike talking to Coulson. Even with my enhanced hearing, I could barely hear what they were saying and just hoped that Mike would listen to Coulson.
From where I stood though, I could see Ward tightening his finger on the trigger of his sniper rifle. But he thankfully hadn't shot yet.
I suddenly heard a silenced gunshot and squeezed my eyes shut as I saw Mike fall back hard. I slowly peeked one eye open, dreading what I might see.
There were blue lines running down his face and the red was still visible under his skin.
Coulson and I moved in closer toward Mike. I smiled in relief as I realized that he was going to be ok. I glanced surreptitiously down at my arm as the Paramedics arrived, glad to see that it looked as good as new.
"I told him his father was coming home, I really hope I didn't just lie to a kid!" I told Coulson as I joined him a few days later. I had just finished talking to Ace; letting him know that his father was alright.
"He will. We have some experience with this," Coulson reassured me.
"He almost blew. We almost died." I still could barely comprehend everything that had happened.
"We have some experience with that, too." I couldn't help but think that even with all the craziness and the almost dying, I had still been through a lot worse than this. But I couldn't tell Coulson that.
"Don't have it all mapped out," I said instead, pointing out the fact that there were still loose ends.
"True. We didn't cut off the head of the centipede. Whoever sponsored that little experiment is still out there, among other things."
"It's a brave new world, and a really old car," I said, stroking the side of his car. I liked it. It was retro.
"Lola can keep up," Coulson said with a smirk as he got into the car.
"What about you?" he asked me.
I climbed in after him. Not wanting to answer, I stayed silent.
"Have you thought about the offer?" Coulson asked me. I rolled my eyes. What was with everyone wanting me to join up with them right after meeting me!
"Hitching a ride on the crazy plane? I'm not exactly a team player," I pointed out.
"We're not exactly a team. But we're in a position to do some good. You'd be a great help. And you'd be front row center at the strangest show on Earth, which is, after all, what you wanted." I laughed, knowing that he meant I could help with my tech skills, but knowing that there were so many other ways I could help him that he didn't know of. If I was being honest, I liked it that way. It made me feel like he wasn't using me the same way that Furt was trying to.
"I was able to hack Shield...from my van. You're gonna show me something new?" I said smiling.
He smiled right back at me. There was a beeping of a cell phone, and he pushed a button on his dashboard.
"Sir, we've got an 0-8-4." I heard Ward say.
I glanced sideways at Coulson, who looked surprised.
"Is that confirmed?"
"They want us to go in and confirm it."
"What's an 0-8-4?" I asked as Coulson started the engine.
"You've got exactly ten minutes to decide if you really want to know."
"There's no way we can make it to the airfield in –" My eyes widened in shock as he flipped a switch on Lola and suddenly we were flying. It wasn't the same as wings...but it was still pretty amazing!
In-Line Comments
- Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you thought about it now that it's really starting to get into AoS! I tried to add more originality to it but not sure how I'm going to do it for the next few episodes so if anyone has any suggestions of how i can incorporate Skye's powers into the scenes without her getting discovered, let me know! If I can't think of anything right now though, I'll probably just go back in and edit/add stuff in later that way I can get out the barebones and have something to work with so please don't hate me if it seems a little skimpy at times! I'm a perfectionist if you don't already know so it's kind of freeing to be able to just right with the knowledge that I can go back in and edit as new ideas come to me since that's how my mind works a lot of the time. I know it doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but all I'm asking is that you keep sharing your thoughts with me on the story in a constructive manner and that if you don't like it, you keep it to yourself and stop reading. I've been getting my first few negative reviews on my Harry Potter story from people threatening to have my story removed and I just want to make it clear that if you dont like something you dont have to read it! But for every person who doesn't enjoy, there are several who DO! So please don't ruin my stories for my readers!
- Stay awesome and positive my fellow peeps!