TW for bullying
As they approached the middle of October, the autumnal weather finally decided to rear its head and chase the unseasonable warmth they had been enjoying the last few weeks out of town with a gust of crisp, fall air. As Skye, Jemma, and Fitz sat around their now usual meeting spot at the melted table, Skye couldn't help but be enamored with the puffs and curls of breath that danced around their faces in the chilly morning air. It wasn't cold enough to truly bother anyone just yet, but there was something about the way the breeze clipped across her cheeks and nose, carrying the familiar scents of fallen leaves and woodsmoke that she always associated with the arrival of fall, that made Skye feel electric and alive, even as the sky was overcast and drab above her.
"I'm just saying, I think a monkey would make an excellent lab assistant," Fitz stressed, puffing slightly onto his cupped hands. "Monkeys have gone to space, for crying out loud. And their sweet little hands would be so useful with all the knobs and buttons on the equipment."
"We've also sent fruit flies and samples of moss into outer space," Jemma reminded him pointedly. "But I wouldn't want either of those in my lab unless I was studying them."
"Well, fruit flies don't have prehensile tails or opposable thumbs, now do they?" Fitz challenged her, a delighted grin spreading from ear to ear.
"I guess the option of just having another person to help you in the lab is off the table?" teased Skye. "I've got opposable thumbs and I can talk, which I think gives me a leg up on the monkey."
"A lab is a sacred space, Skye," Fitz said, like he was explaining the obvious. "You can't just let anybody into your lab. Somebody might not respect your filing system, or they might misplace your samples or unbalance your centrifuge. A trained monkey, on the other hand…"
"Got it, message received," Skye laughed, holding up her hands in surrender. "You don't want me in your lab."
"What about me, Fitz?" Jemma teased gently. "Am I allowed in your lab, or is it just you and the monkeys?"
"Well," Fitz spluttered, his face going red. "I mean, you're certainly welcome in the lab… You're trustworthy, and you respect the sanctity of science… I was only trying to say that a team of monkeys could be very useful, if—"
"We're just messing with you, Fitz," Skye assured him. She nudged him playfully and managed to coax a smile from him.
"I knew that," he said stubbornly. "Of course I knew that."
Fitz was saved from further teasing by a loose basketball, which bounced over towards them and rolled to a stop at Skye's feet. A second later, a grinning Trip jogged over and scooped up the ball.
"Hey," he greeted them. "I can't talk long – the guys think I'm just grabbing the ball – but I have some mission updates. Save a seat for me at lunch?"
"Aye-aye, Agent Triplett," Skye nodded, flashing a mock salute. "Is that one of your slick double-agent moves? Losing the ball to cover a covert conversation?"
"Come on girl, you know I've got all the moves," Trip said with a laugh. "I've got to go, but I'll see you all later today, okay?"
He disappeared back into the throng of boys who were all whooping and jeering at him to come back and restart their game. Skye shook her head. She did not understand the appeal of group sports at all.
"What do you think Trip wants to talk to us about?" Jemma asked.
"Who's to say?" Fitz shrugged and began fiddling with the zipper on his coat. "Probably just that Grant Ward is planning to make me take his exams for him or he's going to jump me again or something."
"Fitz, don't talk like that," Jemma soothed. "Ward has been leaving you alone lately, hasn't he?"
"Yeah, I suppose. He could be planning something, though. He's been uncharacteristically reserved the last few weeks, especially considering what's been going on with my cousin."
"What do you mean?" Skye wanted to know. She remembered very clearly how tense things has gotten between Hunter and Ward's brother at the soccer game they had gone to, but she had assumed that things would have calmed down between them by now.
"He doesn't tell me everything, but I hear how he talks with his friends. Apparently there's a lot of back and forth between them. Last I heard, Lance and them had dumped a bunch of Jell-O powder into Ward's team's water coolers, which of course made all their water congeal by the time they got to practice."
Skye laughed out loud, and even Jemma smiled a little at the clever prank. "Okay, that's kind of hilarious," Skye said with admiration. She wondered if Bobbi had been in on the joke, or if she was leaving the pranking to Hunter. She made a mental note to ask Bobbi about it when she got home.
"Well, it would be if Christian Ward and his friends hadn't retaliated by cutting the nets on the football goals. No one can prove it was them, of course, so now Lance's team has to use the money they had raised for new uniforms to replace the nets. I heard him ranting about it to Mack after school one day in the car. He had a fat lip that day, too, so I don't think the nets were the only thing Ward was messing with."
"Oh." Skye's face fell. "Fitz, I'm sorry."
"He swore it was just from taking a ball to the face in practice, but I think he was lying. He doesn't like to worry my aunt."
"And so you think that if things are getting bad between your cousin and Ward's brother, then soon they'll get bad between you and Ward?" Skye realized. Now Fitz's gloomy prediction about Trip's intel was making more sense.
"It's the logical move," Fitz shrugged again. "Christian knows that he can get to Lance through me, and Ward already has me pinned under his thumb. Simple strategy dictates that the easiest way for Christian to get what he wants is to have Ward mess with me, which in turn—"
"Hurts Hunter," Jemma finished sadly. "That's horrible, Fitz. That ought to be against the rules, using people's family like that."
"What rules, Jemma?" Fitz laughed harshly, and it came out like a bark. His expression was darker than the gathering clouds above them. "It's not like they all laid out the terms of engagement before entering into combat with each other." Jemma looked a little wounded by Fitz's sharp sarcasm.
"You know what she meant, Fitz," Skye said stubbornly. "You don't have to be short about it." The angry look on Fitz's face faded slowly, and he returned to his coat zipper, chastened.
"You're right, I'm sorry," he apologized. "I just wish all the fighting would stop. It's exhausting being caught up in the middle of a war."
"Well, then maybe it's time to put a stop to it," Skye suggested. "Maybe it's time to make a plan."
"It's time to make a plan," Trip told them excitedly, as he slid into a seat at their lunch table. Skye, Jemma, and Fitz had all already begun eating, since they didn't have to wait in the hot line like Trip did. He speared a chicken nugget with his plastic spork and brandished it like a general with a riding crop. "Ward's getting nervous. He thinks you're all planning something, and he keeps asking me to pump you all for information."
"Are you serious?" Skye asked incredulously. "Why would he think that? I mean, I guess technically, we are planning something, but we're only planning something now. It's not like we've been cooking up a scheme for weeks."
"I think you rattled him," Trip told her. "He's not used to people standing up to him, Skye, and between you not letting him walk all over you and the work Fitz has been turning in for him—"
"All perfect," Fitz interjected, puffing himself up slightly.
"I think he's waiting for a shoe to drop. It's like he knows it's too good to be true."
"Well, he's not wrong there," Skye remarked. "So it had nothing to do with his brother, then? Just about us?"
"How do you know about his brother?" Trip looked confused. "I mean, don't get me wrong, his brother definitely has a hand in how Ward acts. He hangs around our football practices sometimes. He's hard on him – makes sure Ward is playing hard, owning the field, stuff like that. I guess his brother used to rule the school here and he wants to make sure the 'family legacy' is carried on or something ridiculous like that. But I don't see how that has anything to do with you?"
"It's complicated," was all Fitz cared to offer.
Taking pity on Trip, Skye elaborated. "We ran into him once not too long ago. Fitz's cousin is in some kind of grudge match with him. It's not pretty, and we just assumed that we were going to get pulled into it sooner or later."
"Family grudge match…okay," Trip nodded slowly. "An interesting new layer to add to the mix."
"Okay, well, if it's not his brother, then what's got Ward on high alert?" Skye asked. "We haven't done anything differently."
"You rocked the boat," Trip explained. "And he's trying to figure out how to right it before you tip him into the lake."
"That's ridiculous," Jemma scoffed.
"And paranoid," added Skye.
"That's Ward," Fitz said quietly.
"Fitz is right. Ward doesn't like curveballs, and you all are unpredictable for him. So, he's nervous," nodded Trip.
"So what are we supposed to do about it? We can't exactly incite open rebellion," Skye pointed out. "If we make any major moves, Ward will just flatten us."
"Or worse, make his friends do it." Fitz looked pointedly at Trip when he spoke, and Trip interpreted his gaze correctly.
"I promise, I'm not doing any of Ward's dirty work. And I'm certainly not going to be his hitman. You're my friends, and I'm not going to hurt you."
"We trust you, Trip," Jemma promised him. Trip flashed them a grateful grin.
"Who's ready to make a plan?"
They spent the rest of their lunchtime hashing out the details of their grand plan to take down Grant Ward once and for all. Skye was a little surprised by how hard it was to actually come up with something that was easy enough to pull off, complicated enough to not be figured out by Ward in advance, and effective enough to actually achieve anything. It didn't help that everyone had a different opinion about the best way to handle a problem like Ward.
Fitz was attached to the idea of forcing Ward into a confession, or of somehow getting him to agree to new terms with their homework arrangement, but Skye and Trip didn't feel like that was assertive enough. Jemma, of course, preferred a less confrontational approach that "minimized potential harm to everyone involved." Skye thought that sounded like a nice idea, but reminded her that it wasn't an especially realistic one.
"I do think you're onto something with the confession, though, Fitz," Trip said encouragingly. "I don't know if we'd ever actually get Ward to admit to doing anything wrong, mostly because I'm not sure he thinks what he's doing is wrong, but I think if we were able to catch him in the act—"
"Get proof of him messing with us or cheating on his homework—"
"Or get him to screw up in front of a teacher—"
"Then we might be able to put a stop to it," Trip concluded.
Skye nodded thoughtfully, mulling over the idea. "Just telling on him won't do any good," she said. "Grownups always listen to kids like him. But if had proof, or eyewitnesses, then we could get him in trouble."
"Don't you think that would just make him angry?" Jemma asked worriedly. "Even if he got suspended or something like that, wouldn't he just come back even more determined to… get even?"
"Maybe, but if he was caught, he wouldn't have a chance to get even. All the teachers would be keeping an eye on him after that," Skye said. She spoke from experience. Teachers watched you like a hawk after your first suspension.
"Plus, think about the message we'd be sending," Fitz said, warming up to the idea. Skye could see the gears churning away in his brain. "If we managed to catch him at it, it would be like we were showing the rest of the school that he's not untouchable. None of them are."
"It would show them that there are consequences for their actions," Trip nodded.
"Okay, so how do we catch him, then?" Skye asked. "What can we goad him into doing? I guess I could pick a fight with him in the hallway right in front of the principal's office or something…"
"Please don't," Jemma said quickly, wrapping a hand around Skye's arm. "Don't do anything that would get you hurt."
"He's too smart for that, anyway," Trip said with a shake of his head.
"I think we ought to take advantage of the fact that he already thinks we're up to something," Fitz said softly, after a moment of deep thought. Three faces all swung around to stare at him.
"What do you mean, Fitz?"
"I mean, if he's already nervous that Skye's going to challenge him, or that I'm going to ruin his homework, why not twist the knife a little? Use Trip, keep dropping hints that we're planning something, that sort of thing. He'll start to see every little thing as a potential threat, and eventually he'll go mad waiting around for our plan to happen and he won't be able to stop himself form coming after us."
"Fitz, that's… devious," Trip said, a sly grin slowly spreading across his face. "And brilliant."
"We just have to make sure we're in control of the situation," said Skye seriously. "We have to make sure that when he snaps, it's on our terms. Somewhere that people will see, somewhere we can be prepared—"
"Somewhere no one will get hurt," Jemma added.
"You guys," Skye grinned. "I think we're going to win this."
Trip kept his distance the rest of the day, returning to Ward's side in gym class and acting as though nothing was different. They had all agreed before parting ways at the end of lunch that it would be best if Trip avoiding being seen with them as much as possible, unless it was on Ward's orders. They didn't want to draw suspicion to their burgeoning plan. There were still a few details to be worked out, but Skye felt confident in the groundwork they had laid, and in Trip's ability to feed false information straight into the ear of Grant Ward.
By the time Flex Time rolled around at the end of the day, Skye was in high spirits – something Miss Hill noticed when Skye came to ask for what was now becoming her usual hall pass to the library.
"You're looking chipper, Skye," Miss Hill smiled, as she jotted out permission for Skye to leave the room and spend her Flex Time in the library. Skye had only realized the possibility possessed by the hall pass a week or so ago, but since then she had requested one almost every single afternoon, and Miss Hill seemed content to oblige her.
"Just excited about what I'm going to work on for computer science," Skye fibbed, taking the slip of paper from Miss Hill. She didn't feel too bad about the lie. It didn't hurt anyone, and she certainly wasn't about to start filling Miss Hill in on the details of the brilliant scheme she, Trip, Fitz, and Jemma were cooking up.
"Glad to hear it," Miss Hill told her. "Remember to be back here before the final bell." Skye nodded and darted out into the hallway, her steps carrying her as quickly to the library as she could go without running in the halls.
She knew it was probably cheating on her punishment from May and Phil to be using the computers at school every day, but Skye couldn't resist the enticing call of a computer, free from May's monitoring stare. She relished the opportunity for free reign, even if it was only for 45 minutes and on a school computer with a tangled net of safety locks and server blocks, and she eased her conscience slightly by reminding herself that she wasn't doing anything on the school computers that she wouldn't do on May's computer at home. It was just nice to be able to use one without being watched, sometimes.
The library was, unsurprisingly, quiet when she arrived, with only a few kids meandering around, picking out books or reading at the tables. Skye greeted Mrs. Bergmann, the librarian, and headed straight for her favorite computer in the back – the one that was tucked into the corner, so that the monitor faced the wall and Skye could see almost the entire library from her seat if she wanted to. She fired up the desktop and immediately made her way to the internet. She began by taking all of 6 minutes to zip through her computer science homework, and was pleased to check it off of her to-do list. The prideful part of her also made a mental note of the fact that she was, once again, able to do the assignment in a fraction of the time Ms. Amador had said it would take. What that fraction was, exactly, she couldn't say, but she quickly pushed the thought out of her brain. It wasn't time to think about math. It was time to think about babies.
Ever since May had told her that she wasn't having any luck finding anything about her parents, Skye had been using her precious computer time to continue the search herself. She knew that May probably didn't want her doing too much sleuthing of her own anymore, but Skye was growing impatient. The tantalizing tidbits of information she'd extracted from her files nearly two weeks ago had reignited her burning need to find the truth, and she didn't want to wait around for the grownups to get their acts together.
She trusted May, and believed that May was looking, but she couldn't shake the feeling that May was keeping something from her, or at the very least, wasn't trying as hard as Skye wanted her too. Logically Skye knew it was probably just because she was a busy person, with lots of other things to work on and worry about, but the slithery, cynical little voice in the back of her mind insisted that May was doing it on purpose. Skye hated that part of herself – the part that wouldn't let her trust May completely – but she couldn't get rid of it either, so she found herself, day after day, combing through google searches and newspaper archives, searching for even a shred of useful information.
Sometimes, when she found herself frustrated by the lack of leads, she would click over to the Ames' Memorial hospital website and scan endlessly over their staff directory, trying to find someone who looked like they might have been the doctor who delivered her. The Maternity page on the hospital website said that there were only two doctors who worked in that department. They had a fancy title that Skye couldn't read (ob-stick-something… she was sure Jemma would know what it was, but she hadn't told Jemma what she was up to), and she had run each of their names through countless web searches, but nothing had come of that either. Still, it was nice to stare into the faces of Dr. Neena Sethi and Dr. Larry Winstead and imagine that one of them might have known her parents, might have held her as an infant, might have known something about where she belonged.
"I know your secret," a low, sinister voice hissed, practically right in her ear. Involuntarily, Skye jumped, although she regretted it immediately when she whirled around and found herself face to face with a leering Grant Ward. He looked pleased with himself that he had managed to spook her, and Skye quickly arranged her expression into a scowl. She followed his eyes and realized that he was staring at her computer screen. Her ears grew hot.
"Yeah, you caught me, Ward. I'm about to have a baby and I'm looking for a doctor," she snarked. She had to play defense.
"Stranger things have happened in a small town like this one." Ward gave her a slimy grin that made her skin crawl. "But while I do find your viewing habits intriguing, that's not the secret I'm talking about."
"You don't know anything about me," Skye spat.
"I know you're not who you say you are," Ward said simply, pulling out the chair next to her and sitting down. He arranged his legs in such a way that Skye was trapped in her corner. She felt her pulse quicken, and she looked around wildly to see if anyone had noticed what was transpiring between them. She had no such luck.
"I know that guy who drops you off everyday isn't your dad," he continued, "and I know that you came here from an orphanage."
"That's some imagination you've got," Skye said uneasily. She had no idea how he had found out, but she was deeply unsettled by how much he seemed to know.
"You can lie all you want, but we both know it's true."
"So what if it is?" Skye set her jaw and tried to look as intimidating as she could, given her position. She didn't think it was particularly effective, and Grant Ward's smirk confirmed that suspicion.
"Don't you think people would be interested to know we've got a real, live orphan in our midst? A regular Oliver Twist."
"I'm not an orphan," Skye snarled, her temper flaring. "Just because I don't live with my parents doesn't mean they're not out there."
"Oh, so you mean, you're one of those kids that nobody wants?" Ward's eyes gleamed with malice. "Well, that's even better. That explains why no one hangs out with you except your weird little friend and that loser Fitz."
"She's not weird, and she's not just my friend, she's my sister. And Fitz is twice the person you are."
"You should probably shut up before you really start to tick me off, Skye," he growled. "You know, you wouldn't be half so bad if you didn't talk so much and you didn't spend so much time with those freaks. But then again, I guess being a throwaway kid makes one of them, doesn't it?"
"Is there some point you're trying to make here, or are you just trying to single-handedly deplete the earth's oxygen supply?"
"The point is, Skye," Ward said, leaning in close, his tone venomous and low, "unless you want everybody in school to know that you're somebody's unwanted, second-hand baggage, or that you go see a tutor every day, or any of the plenty of other things I know all about, you better think twice before you try anything with me. There's a certain way things work around here, and I'm not going to let some smart-mouthed castoff—"
"You better stop talking right now." There was a roaring in her ears, and her neck felt hot with anger. Skye stood abruptly, locking her eyes into Ward's to let him know she was deadly serious. She was using every ounce of willpower not to punch him right across his smug mouth. Unfazed, Ward stood too, quickly dwarfing Skye again. He scoffed as he looked down at her.
"You don't scare me," he said icily. "And I don't take orders from you."
"You took the words right out of my mouth."
Ward chuckled humorlessly, and turned to leave. "I know you're not the brightest bulb in the pack, but I'm asking you to be smart about this, Skye. I don't want to have to make things difficult for you."
Skye had almost let him go, but the question that had been burning in her mind since his arrival forced its way out of her mouth before she had a chance to hold it back. "How did you find out?"
Ward looked over his shoulder at her and flashed a wolfish grin. "Let's just say a friend of my brother's finds you extremely interesting, and she was more than happy to share when she found out I knew you." Before Skye could pump him for any further information, he turned back around and sidled out of the library, giving Mrs. Bergmann a charming wave on his way out.
Skye felt her muscles go limp, and she flopped back down into her chair. Her brain was spinning out of control, trying to process everything that had just happened. Somehow, Ward knew about St. Agnes, and about her going to tutoring. He knew all of her secrets, and he would have no problems spreading them far and wide if she so much as put a toe out of line.
She had no idea who he had been talking to, or why any friend of his brother's would find her interesting, but it unnerved her to think that there was some high schooler who knew every detail of her life. The only high schoolers she knew were Bobbi and her friends, but she couldn't imagine Bobbi talking to Christian Ward after what had happened at the soccer game. Her mind drifted to Natasha, and to all the things Skye had shared with the older girl. She had thought Natasha was trustworthy, especially after everything that Natasha had shared with her and Jemma about her own life. She couldn't believe that Natasha was the one who had been talking to Ward, either, but, then again, how many times had Skye been burned by putting her trust in the wrong people?
She turned her focus back to the computer screen, trying to calm down her frenzied thoughts. The happy faces of the Ames' Memorial doctors glowed back at her, but this time there was something almost mocking in their frozen smiles. She hated that she'd let him get to her, but Ward's words rung in her ears like a painful mantra, each one cutting into her heart with a jagged blade. Throwaway. Unwanted. Castoff. He had called her second-hand baggage. Was that how Phil and May thought of her? Like some burdensome hand-me-down kid they got stuck with? If he knew all those things about her, who's to say he didn't also know something about how her foster parents felt about her? She felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to find Jemma, to curl up into a ball and let Jemma hold her while she cried. A vision of Jemma's worried face swam to the forefront of Skye's mind, and she thought about how anxious it would make Jemma to know that Grant Ward had so much information about their lives. She couldn't tell Jemma. She couldn't worry her like that. This was something she would have to handle on her own – she wasn't going to be anybody's baggage anymore.
You guys. I have so many feelings about the finale. I'm so sad to say goodbye to Agents of Shield. This show has been a huge part of my life for 7 years. I first started watching it back in 2013, when I had moved away from home for the first time in my life and when I felt lonely and lost without my family, and now I've moved back home permanently for the first time since then, and am back with my real life family, but saying goodbye to my AoS one. There's so much I could say about how much the show means to me, but the biggest thing is just how grateful I am for the 7 amazing years that week got to spend with the team. I will always love how much hope and honor and goodness and courage and love our favorite family of agents always strove to put out into the world. For me it feels like a mission accomplished.