TW for bullying, minor violence
The next morning wasn't quite as hectic as Skye had thought it was going to be. Bobbi wasn't anywhere to be seen, and May explained that the older girl was still asleep, since she didn't need to be up early for school like the rest of them.
"We have an appointment with the physical therapist scheduled for ten this morning," she told Phil over her mug of tea, while he bustled around the kitchen, munching on toast and gathering up loose papers and tests to shove in his satchel. "We should be done by lunchtime, so I was thinking we could swing by the school then, maybe meet you for lunch, and then get her registered for class right after."
"Sounds like a plan to me, honey," Phil said. "I'm not on lunch duty this week, and AV club doesn't meet until—"
"Tuesday," May supplied. She held up a folder that Phil had been looking for, and he smiled gratefully. Watching the two of them work off of each other felt like watching an elaborate tennis match to Skye, who was enjoying the entertainment that came with her cereal.
"Tuesday, right," Phil said. "So I should be free to have lunch with my oldest gal and my newest one."
"Watch yourself," May warned, a playful look in her eye. "You almost called your wife old, there, mister."
"I would never," Phil assured her, leaning down to plant a peck on May's cheek. "I'll see you a little after 11:30, then?"
"It's a date."
Having gathered the last of his things and deposited plates and cereal bowls into the sink to be washed later, Phil turned to Skye and Jemma and flashed them an expectant grin.
"Are we ready to go?" he asked. Both girls nodded and moved towards the front door to collect their backpacks and shoes. May waved from the table and told them to have a great day. Skye and Jemma returned the wave before following Phil out to the car, and Skye hoped that May's optimism about their day wouldn't turn out to be misplaced. She had never cared a whole lot about school, especially compared to Jemma, mostly because it was easier to be thought of as a lazy slacker kid than a helplessly dumb one, but something about the confident steel in May's eye made her want to do better, or at least to try.
It was well before the first bell when Phil dropped them off a few minutes later, and the outside of the school was teeming with kids. Some were hanging out in clusters on the stairs and several bunches scampered across the blacktop. A big clump of boys that Skye was beginning to recognize primarily as members of the football team, including Trip and Grant Ward, were playing a heated game of basketball, which she and Jemma steered clear of. They picked their way through the throngs to a plastic picnic table at the back corner of the blacktop. One of the seats of the table was half-melted, caused, Skye assumed, by either some intense sunlight or (more likely) a bored vandal with a penchant for fire and access to a lighter. The table wasn't a particularly comfortable place to wait for the first bell, which signaled the time for them to go inside and make the trip to homeroom, but Fitz had told them last week that the melted table was "a prime location for a rendezvous," which Jemma had later explained to Skye meant he wanted to meet up there.
Fitz was already waiting for them when they arrived. The autumn sun glinted in his wiry hair, making it almost look like a halo around him, but the look on his face was anything but angelic. He wore the same surly expression they had seen on him when they first met, in the office when he had been sent to the principal by Mr. DeRosa again.
"Hello, Fitz," Jemma called, offering him a small wave and a smile. He lifted a hand halfheartedly, but his expression remained unchanged. Skye and Jemma drew level with him, and Skye plunked herself down next to him on the nonmelted part of the bench.
"What's up? Why the long face?"
"It's nothing. Just a disagreement with my cousin this morning, is all," Fitz grumbled. He toed at the ground, the tip of his sneaker scraping across the blacktop, and Skye and Jemma waited patiently for him to elaborate. Instead, he changed tact. "How was your weekend? What did you think of the diagrams for Mr. Daniels' class? Pretty elementary, if you ask me, but still a nice exercise to work out the orbital distances like that." Jemma nodded and her eyes sparked with excitement at the mention of orbits, and Skye just raised her eyebrows at the pair of them. It was conversations like these that made her grateful to be in Computer Science and not Astronomy.
"We got a new foster sister yesterday," she said. She tried to keep her tone casual, like it was no big deal, but Fitz perked up almost immediately.
"Really? Does it always happen that fast? What's she like? Is she from the same place as you? Is she at school here?"
"Whoa, slow down there, light speed!" Skye held up her hands in surrender. "We'll tell you about her if you tell us what's really bothering you first. What did you and your cousin argue about?"
It was almost comical how quickly Fitz's face puckered up again. It was like a seesaw with him, sometimes. He hunched his shoulders and scowled at the ground.
"He caught me doing something over the weekend that he doesn't think I should be doing. He tried to lecture me about it when he drove me to school this morning. We got in a bit of a row about it."
"What were you doing, Fitz?" Skye asked slyly. She cracked a playful grin and elbowed Fitz gently. "Making plans to build a giant rocket that'll blow up half the neighborhood if it doesn't launch the right way? Designing a monkey trap?"
"First of all," Fitz said, a teasing smile crossing his own face, "if I were building a rocket, it wouldn't have any issues with its launch, and even if it did, I would have calculated the potential damage and put contingencies in place to minimize destruction."
"Obviously," Skye smirked back. At the same time, Jemma offered a fully earnest "of course," which Skye had to laugh at.
"And secondly," continued Fitz, "it was nothing like that. It's not even anything bad, really. He just caught me doing some of Ward's algebra homework for him. He got all bent out of shape about and went on this whole speech about how I shouldn't be answering to someone like Ward and all this nonsense. He's only 16, but he acts like he's trying to be my dad sometimes, and it's completely irritating. He actually tried to convince me in the car this morning that I should stand up to Ward and stop doing his homework, if you can believe it."
"Well, he's right, isn't he?" Skye was incredulous. "Why are you doing Ward's homework for him? You're way too smart to be doing lackey work like that. You're ten times the person he is." Fitz looked taken aback. Clearly he hadn't expected Skye to take his cousin's side.
"It's not like I want to," he spluttered. "I don't enjoy seeing someone else take credit for my work. But it's better than the alternative. I thought you'd understand. You know how Ward can be."
"Yeah, which is why you can't keep letting him walk all over you," Skye shot back. "If you keep following his orders, he's just going to keep thinking that he runs this stupid school."
"He does, Skye," Fitz said. He said it like he was explaining to a little kid that the ocean is wet. "Him and all those people he hangs out with. The football team and all that. Doing his homework is purely an arrangement of survival. It's worked for years now."
"You've been doing it for years?" asked Jemma softly. She had a heaviness in her eyes, a sad, defeated look that Skye had seen anytime they talked about their bad foster homes or jerks at school. Her fingers were fluttery, starting to drum on the top of the picnic table.
"Since the fifth grade, if you must know." Fitz was starting to look genuinely upset with them. He raked his finger through his hair as he struggled to find his words. "It's… it's more complicated than you and my cousin are making it seem."
"Fitz, that's…" Skye caught herself and took a breath. Fitz was obviously unhappy, and the way she was responding wasn't helping. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make you mad. It just doesn't make sense."
"Will you explain it to us?" Jemma wanted to know. "Help us understand."
"It started out as a more mutually beneficial arrangement," Fitz said, drawing in his own deep breath. "We weren't friends, exactly, but we were friendly. He just needed help from time to time, at first, and in exchange he would be nice to me, and he would keep the others from teasing me so much. The longer it went on, the more of the work I started doing, and the less friendly he started acting. Eventually it became strictly a business transaction. His good grades in exchange for me not getting my face smeared across the pavement or my head shoved in a toilet every day."
"What a creep," Skye muttered. She glared over in the direction of Ward and the other boys, who were still playing basketball.
"And it's not like I haven't tried renegotiating the terms of the arrangement before," Fitz continued. "Once I tried telling him we should go back to the old way, of me just helping and him being my friend, but he didn't like that very much. A few days later he and some of his football friends found me walking home from school and… anyway, I haven't tried altering the deal since. And now my cousin picks me up every day, so I don't have to worry about that."
"Did he hurt you?" Skye asked. She was trying to keep her anger under control, but she felt her ears starting to get hot. As much as she didn't like how slimy Ward had been in gym, she was going to hate him that much more if she found out he was also the kind of jerk who hit other kids.
"Not him, no. He just watched. Some of the other ones, Alex Braun and Ian Quinn and a few others from the team did most of the dirty work. Still, message received." Fitz's mouth was a tight line, and a muscle in his jaw twitched lightly. Skye opened her mouth to ask another question, but a soft hand on her arm stopped her. Jemma, always keeping her from crossing the line. Skye closed her mouth and nodded. Fitz, lost in his own thoughts, seemed not to notice the exchange.
"Fitz, I'm so sorry they did that to you. They're jerks," Skye said finally. She looked into his eyes hard to make sure he knew she meant it.
"It's wrong, Fitz," Jemma added. "You deserve better." Fitz just shrugged, and Skye felt her heart twinge. There was something about his demeanor and the way he wasn't meeting their eyes that reminded her of Jemma, even more so than usual.
"If doing Ward's homework is what's going to keep the peace and keep you from getting creamed, then you do what you have to do," Skye told him. "If you decide you want to take your cousin's advice and stand up to him, we'll have your back." She knew better than to include the third option of going to a teacher. That was the choice grownups always tried to convince you was the best one, but Skye knew firsthand that most adults weren't nearly as helpful as they pretended to be, and kids like Grant Ward were exactly the kind of people that teachers always believed over kids like her, Fitz, or Jemma.
Fitz looked from her to Jemma, who was nodding beside her, before finally offering them both a smile and a word of thanks. All three sat in stillness for a moment, and Skye felt like her brain was recalibrating after the heavy conversation.
"So, what about your new sister?" Fitz asked, breaking the silence. "I held up my end of the bargain."
"Her name's Bobbi," Jemma began. "She's in high school. She's got a brace on her leg because her knee was fractured."
"That's not good, the structure of the knee is flimsy at best," Fitz piped.
"That's exactly what I said last night!" exclaimed Jemma, a real smile lighting up her face for the first time that morning. Skye had to bite back a laugh. Not at Bobbi's injured knee, of course, but at the astounding similarity between her two egg-headed friends. If she didn't know any better, she would have said they shared the same single braincell, but she knew they were both far too intelligent for her to ever claim there was only one braincell between them.
"She's from Two Rivers, I think," Skye chimed in. "And we're her first foster family, so she hasn't been in the system with us before."
"What's she like?"
Skye paused, unsure of how to describe their new sister. She looked to Jemma for an assist, which Jemma seemed content to supply.
"She doesn't talk very much," she said thoughtfully, "but when she does, she seems like she might be nice. She told us about how she got to make things in a woodshop class at her old school."
"Yeah, they're these cool wooden sticks that she spins around like batons," added Skye. "She got to use power tools and saws and stuff."
"Wish we could use tools here," Fitz muttered, almost to himself. Catching the girls' looks of confusion, he clarified. "We don't get shop classes until high school here. My cousin said there's a whole workshop and even a club that builds robots. He said he would never join it because it's for nerds and because his best friend hates robots, but I think it sounds amazing, plus who could ever hate a robot? They're amazing. Just think about how cool it would be actually be one!"
"Having a computer for a brain doesn't sound like such a bad thing," Skye mused. "At least I can understand computers."
"Robots are unreliable and corruptible," countered Jemma. "And the human brain is a biological marvel. You can't even compare the two. Brains are always better than circuits and hardware."
Fitz looked like he was about to respond with a passionate comeback, but he was interrupted by the tone of the first bell, which rang out across the schoolyard. Students began to migrate to the front doors of the school, the few teachers who had been supervising on yard duty starting to herd them all in.
"Looks like we're going to have to settle this at lunch," Skye said with a shrug, standing up from the table and shouldering her backpack. While Fitz looked a little put out that he couldn't continue their robot conversation, Skye was pleased to see that he seemed to be in an astronomically better mood than the one they had found him in.
The inside of the school building was just as raucous as the blacktop had been, and it took some considerable effort for the three of them to elbow their way through the halls and to the relative refuge of Miss Hill's homeroom. Skye was interested to see that their teacher was making her way around the classroom, setting slips of paper on each desk, rather than sitting in her usual chair as students trickled in.
"What do you think it is?" Skye asked over her shoulder as she, Jemma, and Fitz traipsed to their seats at the back.
"No idea," said Jemma. "Reading it will probably help."
Skye wheeled around and grinned. "Was that some sass I detected there?" Jemma blushed and shrugged, but Skye spotted a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Both girls began to laugh, and even Fitz seemed amused.
Skye felt the laughter drain out of her the instant she sat down and glanced at the slip of paper. She didn't take the time to read the whole thing, but the words at the top were clear as day: Parent-Teacher Conferences.
"All right, settle down, settle down," Miss Hill called as the last few stragglers came and sat down. "I've handed out reminder slips about Parent-Teacher conferences. Now that we've been in school for a little over a month, your teachers have gotten a chance to get to know you a little bit better as students. Make sure your parents–" She caught herself quickly and amended before continuing. "—or guardians get this paper. They'll use it to request a time slot to meet with your teachers next week. They'll also be getting email reminders, so don't think you can get out of this by 'forgetting' your papers." She said the last part like it was a joke, and a couple of kids actually laughed. Skye didn't think it was funny at all. Conveniently forgetting the paper had been her plan exactly, because the last thing she wanted was May and Phil coming to school and talking to a bunch of her teachers. Not only had she barely gotten to know any of them, she could already picture the way the conversations were going to go. Foster parents had heard the same things from all of her teachers over the years, and she didn't expect this time to be any different.
The bell rang, and everyone began to gather their things. Fitz wadded up his slip of paper and shoved it into his jeans pocket, and Skye had a feeling that a lot of Fitz's papers got misplaced or forgotten about that way. She and Jemma were about to follow Fitz out the door to social studies when Miss Hill stopped them.
"Jemma, Skye, could I speak with the two of you for a minute before you leave?" Fitz watched them with a wary look on his face, but Jemma waved him on. Skye wished she could have flashed him a look of confidence, but she was feeling far too nervous about what Miss Hill wanted to talk about to fake any kind of assurance for him. Jemma's breath hitched in her throat and Skye heard anxious tapping coming from Jemma's pocket, so she figured Jemma must be as worried as she was.
"I just wanted to let you know that I'm hoping your foster parents will still come to parent-teacher conferences," Miss Hill said once all of the other kids were out of the room. As nervous as Skye felt, she did take a moment to appreciate the discretion that Miss Hill showed when it came to her and Jemma's personal lives. "I know you haven't been here as long as the other students, but I know the other teachers and I would like a chance to meet with them, just to talk about your progress so far and how you're both settling into things here at MMS. Does that sound okay?"
Skye was so taken aback by what Miss Hill had said that all she could manage was a nod. Jemma, not surprisingly, offered a nonverbal confirmation as well, and Miss Hill looked pleased.
"Great," she said. "I'll be sure to look for those papers back this week, then, yes?" She finished with a smile, and Skye thought maybe she was messing around with them a little bit. Still, she wasn't about to take any chances with parent-teacher meetings so close, so she just nodded again dutifully.
"Good. I'll see you in English this afternoon. Have a good morning, girls."
The rest of the morning passed generally uneventfully, which was fine with Skye. She didn't exactly love it when school was boring, but it was better than the negative alternative. In social studies, Mrs. Henry announced that they were starting a unit on ancient Egypt soon, and Skye figured that the famous mummy project Phil had told them about was on the horizon. When Mrs. Henry split the class up into pairs, Skye found herself matched up with Trip. While she would have preferred to be paired with Jemma or even Fitz, Trip seemed pleased to be her partner, and she figured he might not be so bad. Plus, she noticed that Jemma and Fitz had been put together, something that sent the two of them over the moon, so Skye was glad she hadn't gotten in the way of that happy match.
"I heard about this project from some of the eighth graders I was on the football team with last year," Trip told her, a gleam in his eye. "It's supposed to be awesome."
"Just so long as we don't have to actually touch any dead stuff," Skye responded. "Or do a bunch of boring research or something like that. If I have to read too many books, I'm the one who feels mummified." Trip laughed, and Skye found herself pleased that she had amused him.
"Come on, girl," Trip teased. "History's not that bad. There's some cool stories out there. I'm sure we can dig something interesting up."
"A history buff and a terrible pun? Don't tell me that underneath the cool jock exterior you're actually a secret dork, Trip," Skye ribbed back. "You sound almost as bad as my… as Phil."
"Who's Phil? I can't tell if that's a compliment or not…" Trip was still playing around, but Skye felt herself go on high alert. She wanted to kick herself for slipping up like that.
"Me and Jemma are living with him right now," she said, avoiding the whole truth. "He's a history teacher at the high school here."
"Phil… Wait, you're living with Mr. Coulson?" Trip asked excitedly. "That guy's, like, a legend! All the older kids I know says he's basically the best history teacher in the whole school, and that he's really cool and relaxed and stuff like that."
"People think Phil's cool?" Skye was trying not to laugh. She really liked Phil, and he had been nothing but kind, plus he was funny and nice to be around, but she didn't think she would ever describe him as "cool." He made too many bad jokes and liked comic books way too much to be cool.
"That's what I hear," Trip shrugged. "I've never met him or anything, so I guess you'd know better, actually living with him. How come you get to stay with him? Is he like your uncle or something?"
"He's…" Skye hesitated. She normally tried to avoid telling most people about her situation, but she thought about how things had turned out when Jemma had told Fitz the truth. He had taken the news remarkably well, and it seemed to strengthen his friendship with them rather than weaken it. Trip was a part of the football team with Grant Ward, but he had been nice so far. Plus, there was something charming about his smile that made him seem trustworthy. Skye sucked in a deep breath and decided to take the plunge.
"He's our foster dad. He's taking care of us right now. Me and Jemma. People don't really know about it, though, so please don't go telling everybody, okay?"
"Hey, it's your life," Trip assured her. He gestured like he was locking his mouth up tight. "Your secret is safe with me. Thanks for trusting me." He flashed her a huge smile then, and Skye couldn't help but return it.
Unfortunately for Skye, her reasons to smile started to run out as the day wore on. The stuff they were supposed to be learning in pre-algebra still didn't make any sense whatsoever, and Mr. Bennett had done that thing she hated where he called people up to the board to solve different problems in front of the class. She didn't have a clue what to do when it was her turn, so she just stood up there looking stupid in front of everybody. Mr. Bennett had tried prompting her and had even said she could ask another kid for help, but Skye still didn't know anybody else in the class, so there wasn't anyone for her to ask. Eventually, she had just given up and stalked back to her seat, leaving the problem blank and blinking back tears. Mr. Bennett had tried to lecture her about not being a quitter or something stupid and cliched like that, but Skye couldn't hear him over the roaring in her own ears.
She was in a truly terrible mood by the time she met back up with Jemma and Fitz in science, and her mood wasn't helped by the fact that Mr. DeRosa sprung a pop quiz on them on all the DNA mumbo-jumbo he had been talking about for the past week. Fitz and Jemma zipped through the quiz, but Skye just stared blankly at the page, all the letters and words swirling around in a frustrating genetics-themed soup. She tried to focus on each word at a time, which sort of worked, except for the fact that she felt like she had forgotten every single thing she had ever heard Mr. DeRosa or Jemma say about DNA. She was so desperate to get the stupid thing over with that she ended up just randomly circling multiple choice answers without even bothering to try and get them right.
She felt kind of guilty about it, because she knew she wasn't giving it her best effort, but she figured there was at least a chance that she might end up with a few correct answers. Of course, she was too hopeless at math to figure what that percentage was, but she was sure Jemma would tell her if she asked later. She wasn't so sure that she wanted to know.
Lunch wasn't so bad, except that she noticed more acutely just how scrunched up and hunched over Fitz got when they had to walk past the table with Ward and all his football buddies. She had seen him do it before, but she had just figured that was maybe how Fitz acted in big groups of people. Jemma could be like that sometimes, so it hadn't struck Skye as particularly odd. Now, though, knowing what she did about the relationship that Fitz and Ward had, watching Fitz shy away like a scared dog made tongues of anger flicker up inside her like fire. Interestingly, Ward seemed to glower at the three of them as they passed, the heat of his gaze burning into Fitz especially. She forced herself to keep moving and keep up with Fitz and Jemma. She was trying to respect the way that Fitz was choosing to handle the situation, and she didn't think he would appreciate her picking a fight with Ward on his behalf.
The other two were eager to pick up their robot debate from earlier, but Skye's heart wasn't really in it, so she mostly listened as Fitz spluttered indignantly about the ability to manufacture perfection in robots and Jemma waxed on and on about the inherent beauty of brains as naturally created machines that worked in spite of their flaws. Skye forgot sometimes how poetic Jemma could be if she wanted to. It was so rare that she found something to be passionate enough about, but Fitz seemed to coax it out of her more naturally than anyone else Skye had ever seen. The pair of them talked so continuously it was a wonder either of them managed to eat anything before the lunch period ended, but somehow, they did.
The worst part of her whole day happened in gym class. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have been surprised. Nothing about gym class or Coach Garrett had given her any reason to expect good things so far, plus there was the unpleasant addition of Grant Ward to deal with.
Apparently Coach Garrett wasn't exactly in the mood for much teaching that day, because once they had finished their usual warm-up jog around the gym a few dozen times, he tipped an enormous basket of yellow foam balls into the middle of the court and grunted that today was going to be a free-for-all dodgeball day.
"And try to keep the noise to a minimum, pipsqueaks," he growled around the whistle he had gripped in his teeth. "The lights are a little loud for old coach today." Skye had lived with enough drunk foster parents to make the educated guess that Garrett wasn't just suffering from a migraine. The coach made Ward and Fitz team captains and told them to do the picking themselves before slinking back towards a folding chair he had sitting in a back corner of the gym and pulling his baseball cap down low over his eyes.
When Ward heard who the other captain was supposed to be, a wolfish grin slithered across his smug face, and Skye instantly felt a sense of foreboding settle in her stomach like an anchor.
"Well, Dr. Dweeb, how'd you like to settle this? Old-fashioned or with a little more style?" Fitz's whole face was red, and his eyes were boring into the floor. A muscle twitched in his jaw before he finally mumbled something incoherent. Apparently Ward had been able to hear him, however, because the hungry look on his face intensified as Fitz spoke.
"Whatever I want? That's so generous of you, Fitz. I'll take you up on that." In a flash, Ward had split up the teams himself, dividing them into generally the same groups that Coach Garrett tended towards, with all the athletic-looking kids on one side and the leftovers clumped around Fitz looking fearful for their health.
Skye happened to look over at Trip, who had been added to Ward's side, and he offered her a sympathetic shrug.
"Count of three, then anything goes," Ward crowed, kicking some of the balls around so that they spread amongst the rest of the kids. "Three!"
Before Skye could even register what was happening, Ward had scooped up about four balls at once and whipped them as hard as he could in Fitz's direction. They pummeled him in the face and stomach in rapid succession, each one making a muffled thwapping sound as it collided with his body. The force of the impacts caused Fitz to reel backwards and stumble over his own feet, sending him sprawling out on the gym floor. Ward laughed harshly, and some of his teammates joined him.
"Aw, captain's out first. That's too bad."
"What was that for?" Skye demanded. She marched up to Ward and glared at him. He laughed again and tisked, wagging his finger back and forth in a frighteningly accurate imitation of Sister Margaret.
"Uh-uh, Skye, you're not supposed to cross the center line. Unless you've decided to jump ship with those losers and join a winning team."
"I'd rather jump off a cliff," she sneered, taking a step closer to him. Ward held his ground.
"Look, Skye, Fitz just needed a little reminding of something that he'd forgotten this morning in algebra. I was just trying to help him out." Skye swiveled her head around to look back at Fitz, who was being helped to his feet by Jemma.
"I told you, it was an honest mistake," Fitz wheezed. One of Ward's dodgeballs seemed to have knocked the wind out of him. "It won't happen again."
"That's all I'm asking," Ward said, a smirk crossing his face. "Isn't it great how well my reminder worked, Fitz?" He paused for a minute, looking around to make sure he had the attention of the entire class. "Now can we play, or what?"
The next few minutes were just a few steps down from torture, as far as Skye was concerned. She was preoccupied with not only making sure she herself didn't get creamed by any of the flying foam that was zipping past her but also with trying to keep Jemma from getting hurt, too. Skye was reasonably nimble and was managing to evade the dodgeballs with some success. One particularly vicious throw from Ward came dangerously close to Jemma's head, but Skye deflected it with another ball in her hand. Trip seemed to have noticed what Skye was up to, and when he tossed a ball in Jemma's direction, it was a much gentler throw. Skye opted not to deflect that one, and the ball bounced harmlessly off of Jemma's hip, rendering her out and allowing her to go and sit on the sidelines with Fitz, who was still clutching his side, until the game was over. Skye gave Trip a nod of thanks, which he returned with the flash of a smile.
It was only a few minutes later when Skye herself got out, after Ward beaned her in the face with a fastball. Her nose stung where the ball had smashed into her, but it didn't sting nearly as much as watching Ward cackle at her as she traipsed off towards Jemma and Fitz on the sidelines. She swallowed the fury bubbling up in her throat when she saw the concerned faces of her friends watching her walk their way.
"Are you all right?" Jemma asked, brushing her fingertips across the bridge of Skye's nose, which felt tender and was probably turning red.
"I'm fine," Skye told her, resisting the urge to brush Jemma's hand away. "Fitz, what's going on? What was Ward talking about when the game started?"
"He's upset because the last homework I gave him came back today in algebra and I accidentally got a couple of the questions wrong. He thinks I did it on purpose to mess him up, but really I just mixed up where the answers were supposed to go. The math itself is all correct, not that he would pay any attention to that."
"So what? It's just a couple points off, isn't it?"
"That's not how he likes it. That's not our deal. He expects straight A's. Or his parents do, I don't really know. All I do know is he doesn't like it when I lose him points, and if he thinks I'm messing with him, then he messes with me back until I stop making mistakes."
"Fitz, that's practically barbaric," lamented Jemma. "You can't keep letting him hurt you like this."
"She's right," Skye agreed. "You can't let him push you around. You're too good for this."
"I don't exactly have any other options at the moment, do I?" Fitz said grouchily, his scowl returning. "Please, will you both just let it go? I'm managing the best I can, all right?"
"Hey losers," came the snide call of Ward from the other side of the gym. "Game's over, we're restarting. Get back out here for round two." When none of them made any sudden movements to get up and return to the court, Ward grabbed a ball and launched it in their direction as hard as he could. The ball steaked over to them, guided by Ward's deadly aim, and before any of them had a chance to react, the ball went careening into Fitz's face. He was caught off guard, and the force of the throw knocked him off balance, snapping his head backwards and sending him to the floor again. There was a sickening thud as he hit the ground, and Skye's vision went red. Before she knew what she was doing, she was on her feet and tearing across the gym towards Ward and his friends, who were all cracking up at the sight of Fitz splayed on the floor, massaging his head.
"What is wrong with you?" Skye had to fight to keep her voice from shaking with anger. "He hasn't done anything to you. Do you get some pathetic kind of satisfaction from hurting kids who can't fight you back? 'Cause that's pretty cowardly, if you ask me."
"He owes me," Ward growled, closing the distance between the two of them and jabbing a finger in Skye's chest. "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out if, and you'll think twice the next time you feel like calling me a coward."
"Just calling it like I see them," Skye heard herself saying. "Pretty sure that's what you call a guy who fights people who don't fight back."
"You're wrong," spat Ward. His eyes looked venomous.
"Prove it then," Skye said, jutting out her chin with as much defiance as she could muster. "Fight somebody who can fight back. Fight me."
"I'm not fighting a freaking girl," Ward sneered. "You're not worth my time. Learn to mind your own business, Skye, or the next time I go after your pal Fitz, I won't be using one of these." As he said it, he chucked another dodgeball over towards Fitz, and it landed squarely below the beltline, causing Fitz to double over in pain. The football goons howled with laughter and Skye lunged at Ward, not caring that Fitz had asked her not to intervene, not caring about the whole heap of trouble she would get into for fighting. She was stopped by a pair of strong arms, which wrapped her up from behind and pulled her away from Ward and his friends.
"Skye, seriously, it's not worth it," came Trip's voice, low in her ear.
"How can you let him get away with that crap?" Skye asked as Trip dragged her back towards Jemma and Fitz. "You're just as bad as him if you don't do anything to stop it."
"What do you think I'm doing right now?" Trip retorted. "You go after Ward like that and your life will be over, girl. I'm doing you a favor."
"And saving face with your friends, right?" Skye glared up at Trip. "You aren't ever going to actually stand up to them or do anything about all the stuff they get away with, you're just going to pretend like you're a nice guy who's friends with everyone while really—"
"Hey look," Trip cut her off, a hard look on his face that Skye hadn't seen before. "No offense, but you're still the new kid here. You don't have a clear beat on the way everything works around here, even if you think you do. I think you're cool, and I am trying to be friends with you, but you have to understand that I'm working with a bigger picture here, okay?"
"What does that even mean?" Skye scoffed.
"I'm trying to be real with you right now, will you listen?" Trip pleaded. "There's a way things work, and right now you're upsetting the balance. I'm not saying the balance is the best way for things to be, but it keeps the peace, and that's my main goal at the moment. So please, just trust me when I tell you that I'm on your side and that you've got to stay away from Ward right now." Skye opened her mouth to shoot back yet another angry reply, but something in Trip's expression stopped her short. There was something earnest in his gaze, something that drained the fight from her body and told her that the right thing to do was to let it go. She glanced over at Jemma, who looked petrified, and Fitz, who had that same scared dog look he'd worn in the cafeteria, and felt herself deflate even further. She had messed up, big time.
"Okay, you're right. I'm sorry," she said, her voice small. "I'll drop it, I really will. I'll be good." The last sentence slipped out of her before she could catch herself. Jemma's eyes, filled with disbelief, swung over and locked onto Skye. She was just as surprised by Skye's slip as Skye was herself. Trip looked puzzled, but thankfully chose to overlook the odd phrase.
"It's not about being good, it's about being smart," he said. He tried to put the three of them at ease with a smile, but no one seemed especially comforted. "Ward's got size, strength, and popularity on his side, so you all need to play the game smart if you want to stand a chance."
"And you really think letting him walk all over us is the smartest move we can make right now?" There was no snark or malice in Skye's question. The fear on her friends' faces had humbled her too much for her to take anymore jabs at Trip.
"Consider it a tactical retreat," Trip suggested. "I know you said history's not really your thing, but it's a strategy that's worked out a few times before." He smiled again, and this time, Skye managed to return it. "So you're good?" he asked.
Skye nodded. "I'm good."
"Great," Trip said. "Because now I've got to go and smooth some things over with Ward and the guys. Hopefully I can keep World War III from breaking out on the blacktop."
He jogged off then, leaving Skye, Jemma, and Fitz alone in their corner to collect themselves while he went back to chatting and joking with the football guys like nothing had happened. Gnawing guilt started to eat away at Skye's insides as an uncomfortable silence settled over the three of them. She was too afraid to look at Fitz or at Jemma, for fear she would see just how disappointed in her they both were.
Eventually, she mustered the gumption to speak. Her voice was as small as she felt.
"Fitz, I'm so sorry." A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed hard to clear it. "You told me not to get involved, and then I went and made things worse."
"It's okay, Skye," Fitz said after a long pause. "It was just some dodgeballs. The likelihood of long-term injury is minimal."
"It's not just about that, and you know it," said Skye. "I didn't mean to, I promise, I wasn't planning anything, I just… when I saw him ganging up on you like that, I… I lost control."
"It could have happened to anyone," Fitz comforted her. "Well, maybe not anyone. Most kids here don't pay me enough attention to lose control on my behalf." The half smile that crooked his mouth let Skye know that he was offering an olive branch, and she felt her shoulders slump with relief. She would never forgive herself if she cost Jemma a friend because she couldn't control her stupid temper.
"I'll do better," Skye promised, taking a moment to cross her heart. "But I hope you know that we won't hesitate to go to war for you." Beside her, Jemma nodded emphatically.
"You're our best friend here, Fitz," she said softly. She stretched out a hand and touched his arm lightly. Fitz smiled at the gesture. Skye thought it might have been the first time she had seen Jemma touch him. "We'd go to the ends of the earth for you."