A/N: Here's a filler-ish sort of chapter. I had a rough night at work and I needed to decompress, and here this is.
Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, and/or favorites. I love getting your reviews and messages - they make me feel so special.
Next up: Thanksgiving! And an appearance by at least one more of our favorite Marvel characters... let me know who you'd like to see in the comments!
After fifteen minutes or so, Jemma realized Skye had fallen asleep on her shoulder. She shifted the other girl gently to a more comfortable position, and looked over at Wanda. Wanda had a small smile on her face as she watched the other girls.
Pietro returned to the room, carrying a glass of juice, and Wanda turned her head and spoke to him in Russian. Her brother smiled and nodded.
"I know you're talking about us," Jemma said.
"Yes, but only in very loving way," Pietro agreed, sitting back down on the armchair in the corner.
Wanda nodded.
"Our lives are so very different," Pietro said, "and yet always we have felt… uh… how do you say?"
He tossed a Russian phrase to Wanda.
"Protective," she answered.
"Yes, yes, protective. Protective of Skye," Pietro went on. "She is very lonely. People see it takes so much for to talk with her, they stop. They do not want to give effort."
"At school she has a whole group of friends," Jemma said.
"Good," Pietro said. "This is what we wanted for her."
The phone rang in the kitchen and Pietro finished his juice and got up to answer it.
"Skye told me… um… a little bit of what happened before you came to live here," Jemma said to Wanda.
Wanda froze, but only for a few seconds, as though she had to consciously remind her body that it was all right to exist in the present. "Yes. Was not very good time," she said at last, though her head remained bowed, looking at her knees.
"I'm glad you were able to become part of Skye's family."
"We are glad as well."
"She's wonderful. She's… she's different than anyone I've ever met, and I am really happy to spend time with anyone she cares about."
Wanda slowly brought her head up, and she gave Jemma a cautious smile. "For so long, it was just two of us. We fought for all the things. We did not understand what to speak, how to act. Was very scary. Then… all the bad things happened, made us feel unwanted. Still just two of us, afraid, nowhere to go. Hopeless."
She gave Skye a fond look. "Then they found us, brought us here, loved us. Let us be angry. Let us scream, yell, break things. Until we realized they were not leaving us like everyone else. They were ours. And… we were theirs."
Wanda's smile spread. "It will be same for you. You will be family too. Just wait."
"Mladshaya sestra, mamochka would like for to speak with you," Pietro said from the kitchen.
"Be back," Wanda said to Jemma, and she got up.
Jemma snuggled up against Skye and watched the snow fall just outside the window.
"I'm not afraid of you," Grant said to the one-eyed man, who was actually quite a foreboding figure in his leather ensemble.
"Unlike your mentor John Garrett, I don't desire your fear." Nicholas J. Fury, Private Eye, handed Grant a mug of coffee.
They were seated in a scummy diner by the highway. It was the kind of place no one would ever want to be in, unless their lives had led them to make poor decisions or their car broke down or they were looking to hire a prostitute/Mafia don/cheap clown for a child's birthday party. Somehow, Nick – as he'd asked Grant to call him – looked at home, just as much as he would have seemed at home in a palace or at a cricket game or in a boardroom. The man was just a chameleon.
"What do you know about John Garrett?"
"Enough to know he's not the son-of-a-bitch you want to spend your life in debt to," Nick answered.
"If this is about Skye…"
"This is about you, and the rest of your life," Nick said. "Life's too short to be under the thumb of anyone who's trying to lead you astray, and that includes John Garrett."
Grant looked side-wise at Nick and then took a long drink of his coffee.
"I also know about your father," Nick went on.
Grant nearly spit out his coffee. "You don't know anything."
"Again, I know enough," Nick said. "You're not stupid, Grant. You're the kind of man who could be anything he wants."
"How do you know this isn't what I want?"
"Because when boys chase girls around on the playground to pull their hair and knock them to the ground, they don't hate those girls," Nick answered. "They like those girls. They want to protect them. But men are stupid, and sometimes we don't lose that instinct. And when a charismatic, powerful man like John Garrett offers you the chance to assert yourself and find your own power, I can understand how that might seem appealing."
"You think I'm being a child."
"I think stalking, harassing, and intimidating a deaf girl who's done nothing to you is a bit childish, yes," Nick said. "Tell me, do you know anything about Skye, other than she's deaf and John Garrett hates her?"
He could see the tension building in Grant's face, knew he was hitting a nerve.
"I don't do this because John tells me to," Grant said fiercely. "I'm not a child."
He stood up, his hand clenched around his coffee mug. "If you harass me like this again, I will have you arrested."
"Think about the choices you're making, Grant," Nick said.
"Screw you," Grant said, and he slammed his coffee mug to the floor, then stomped out of the diner.
By the time Nick got to the parking lot, Grant had disappeared.
"Melinda, does Maria still have access to that 15-passenger van?"
"Phil?"
"No, it's Jimmy Fallon."
"I'm surprised you know who that is," Melinda replied.
"I watch the TV," Phil said. "Now, the van?"
"Phil, you can't start a cult. I need you here."
"If I started a cult, it would be somewhere warm. Not this snow globe," Phil said.
"I can ask her," Melinda said. "What are you planning?"
"I had to send Nick to deal with an issue, and I realized that our little family is somewhat fractured for the holiday. So I'm packing us up and we're going down to spend Thanksgiving with Skye and Summer and Jemma."
"Are you crazy?"
"The exact opposite – I'm lazy."
"What?"
"Audrey went to her parents' estate in New Hampshire."
"And you didn't go with her?"
"I wasn't invited."
"Ouch."
"Someday they'll accept that she doesn't want to be with Buff Biffington, or whatever that smarmy asshole's name is," Phil said. "So she's gone, and I'm absolutely hopeless at cooking, except for pancakes and pie."
"A true renaissance man."
"Maria doesn't talk to her family…"
"The smartest decision she ever made."
"… your mother is in Shanghai for the next six weeks…"
"A little creepy that you know that."
"… and that bizarre coworker of Maria's has probably worn out her welcome at every place she's visited thanks to her viciously energetic personality…"
"You want to take Natasha Romanoff on a road trip?"
"Speaking of Trip, his grandmother is away again, and Bobbi and Hunter were planning on spending Thanksgiving at the movies…"
"So you want us all to pack up in a van and take a road trip?"
"I can't think of anything better to celebrate Thanksgiving."
There was a long pause.
"Melinda?"
"Fine, I'll see what I can do. But Phil?"
"Hmm?"
"We are not singing songs in the van. Especially not '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.'"
"You might be able to control me, Melinda, but something tells me Natasha plays by her own rules."
Skye opened her eyes and looked around the living room. She couldn't feel any vibrations on the floor, which meant the twins had probably gone back out to the workshop. Jemma's comforting weight was on the couch next to her, her phone was vibrating in her pocket, and Little Bear was sprawled across her lap like a fuzzy, wiggly pillow.
"Wuv wittle bear," she informed the dog, and took the phone out.
All clear here. Come back whenever you're ready. Don't forget the cake pan!
I'm on it, Skye texted back.
She looked over at Jemma, and a slow smile spread across her face. Carefully Skye scooped up Little Bear and put him on Jemma's chest. Almost immediately the dog propped himself upright, putting his paws on Jemma's shoulders, and began licking her face.
"Mmmph," Jemma mumbled.
"Muh-muh Jemma," Skye sang in her best goofy baby voice, "Wittle Bear says wakey-wakey…"
"Skye, no," Jemma muttered, and put her hand over her eyes. "No kisses."
Skye laughed.
Little Bear took that as positive reinforcement, and energetically nibbled on Jemma's chin.
"Not… here," Jemma said, a little more forcefully.
Skye could hardly continue to read Jemma's lips through her laughter.
Eventually Jemma's eyes flicked open. Seeing the dog on her lap, smiling up at her, she immediately gave Skye a dirty look. What gives?
"Wittle Bear wuves you," Skye replied. And Summer says we can come back home.
You are impossible, you know that?
Impossibly beautiful, maybe.
Yeah, yeah.
Skye's phone vibrated in her pocket again, and she pulled it out, sighing. Summer probably telling me not to forget the cake pan again.
Instead it was a FaceTime request from Trip.
Skye accepted, and Trip's smiling face filled the screen. "Hey girl," he said, using both his voice and sign. "You'll never guess where we are."
At your grandmother's Red Hat club meeting?
"No," Trip said, and he shook his head. "Should I give you a clue?"
Skye nodded, moving the phone over so Jemma could see it.
The phone's camera moved, showing Bobbi's smiling face and a blur of movement. "Hi, ladies!" Bobbi signed and said.
Are you in a car? Skye asked.
Bobbi nodded.
"You and Trip are in a car," Jemma said. "Except someone else must be with you, because who's driving?"
Bobbi grinned. "Say hi, guys!" she said, using both methods of communication.
She then turned the camera and panned over the inside of the vehicle.
Skye's mouth dropped open. Maria was in the driver's seat, Melinda next to her, holding a large map; Phil was behind them, next to a beautiful redheaded woman, and in the very back of the van, behind Trip and Bobbi, Hunter was sleeping with his mouth open.
Where are you all going? Skye asked when the camera made its way back to Bobbi.
We're going to a friend's house for Thanksgiving, Bobbi replied.
Skye thought about this as Little Bear flopped into her lap. Mr. Coulson had said he would come to her house for Thanksgiving…
"Coming… here?" she squeaked out, her voice even more scrambled from excitement.
Bobbi nodded. We'll be there soon, she signed.
"We can't wait," Jemma chimed in, leaning towards the phone.
"We're excited too, girl," Trip put in. He beamed at the two girls and the dog. "Hey, this is gonna sound crazy, but…"
"But what?" Jemma asked.
"Is that dog… smiling at me?"
Translations (phonetical Russian)
mladshaya sestra - little sister
mamochka - a cutesy way to say "Mom"; what Pietro and Wanda call Summer