"oh my god, skimmons + who joins the pta!"

disclaimed

the one where skye hates the pta

...

"You can make it to the PTA meeting tonight, right?" Jemma asks, rifling through the vegetable drawers in fridge and writing down their grocery list for the week.

Oh, shit. "That's tonight?" Skye tries to keep from groaning, but from the look the Jemma shoots her, she thinks she fails. "I can make it," she assures her, looking up when Ada comes pounding down the stairs.

"Mama," she says, throwing herself onto the bar stool next to Skye. "Can you braid my hair?"

"'Course baby," she takes the hair band out of her daughter's hand before continuing her conversation. "What time is the meeting tonight?"

"Six. The paper's on the note board," she nods her head towards the front door, towards the cork board. "I think it's in the auditorium?"

Skye nods, focusing more on not pulling Ada's hair too hard while she plaits it. "I'll be there," she repeats, already dreading the sheer amount of bullshit she'll have to sit through. It's not that all the parents at Ada's school are stuck up, vaguely conservative assholes, but the majority are. But Ada had already spent most of the summer begging for one of them to join the PTA, complaining about her moms never being one of the parent chaperones when her class went on field trips, and for some godforsaken reason Skye had volunteered for it.

She blames the puppy eyes.

"Okay Adabug," Skye says, tucking in some loose strands. "Mummy and I need to get to work early, so are you okay with Pop Tarts?" Jemma makes a small noise of disapproval, but Ada whips around, grinning and nodding and already looking around for the tell tale box.

/

None of the cool parents are here. Gross.

Skye glances around the room once more before she starts to rifle through her purse, looking for her phone. It's literally twelve minutes past six. She has another seventy eight minutes to try to refrain from screaming. Like fuck all this.

She's just tapping out a save me text to Jemma, complete with about twenty knife and skull emojis, when Helen Anderson crawls out of hell and approaches her. Like—honestly. Helen is the absolute worst. While the other terrible parents are just generally suffering from a case of entitlement, Helen is blatantly homophobic and slightly less blatantly racist, but it's still there. And her asshole of a first grader—Leif or Leek or Leyton or something—spouts the same shit to Ada, always making fun of her for being adopted or for having two mothers or for whatever else his mother would rant about. In short—Skye wants to fight Helen Anderson so fucking bad.

"Skye!" Helen says, smiling artificially. "I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

How on earth does she make a greeting sound condescending?

"Yeah!" Skye fakes excitement. "Jemma wanted to be here, but something came up at the lab." Helen's expression sours infinitesimally at the mention of Jemma, making Skye bristle. She tries to remember that she's in an auditorium full of people, and that starting fights with other mothers isn't good manners.

"Oh, yeah, that must be hard," Helen murmurs. "It would explain Ada's behavior problems, with you two always working and all."

Literally what the fuck.

"Behavior problems?" Skye hides her sneer behind her drink, because, first of all, her kid is great, mostly because of Jemma, and secondly, even if Ada had behavior problems, it would not be because of their work schedules, like, they work the same amount as other parents. Jesus christ.

"Well," Helen says, grinning evilly, because the woman is a supervillain, Skye thinks. "As Room Mom, I'm in the classroom a lot, and I've seen Ada get into quite a few arguments with other children, and, you know, I'm trying to be sympathetic—I know that the lack of a strong paternal influence can really alter a child's perspective, but—."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Skye rolls her eyes. The auditorium falls silent. She may have said that louder than she meant to.

Helen looks shocked and offended, which—good, but she seems to bounce back from it quickly. "There's no need to swear, Skye—I'm just trying to help—."

"No," she cuts her off, tamping down the urge to throw her drink in Helen's face and seeing if she'd melt. "You're trying to get me to feel ashamed for my marriage. You know you're kind of a bitch, right?" She downs the last of her root beer before she crumples the cup and dumps it, trying really, really hard to not stomp on Helen's toes.

"Honestly, Skye," Helen hisses. "You're causing a—."

"Honestly, Helen, I'm not sure why you're pointing fingers over behavior problems, when your son has been in twelve mediations? Thirteen?" Skye grins. "And my daughter has been in how many? Zero?" Some douchebag near the back makes and ooh-ing noise, but when it doesn't catch on, he dies down quickly.

There's, like, a long list of things that she could add, including her collection of names for Helen, but the principal is starting to look like she wants to intervene, which is Skye's cue to leave. "Have fun with your divorce proceedings, Helen!" Skye smiles prettily, turning on her heel and walking away purposefully. She pauses by Principal Tanner. "I'm really sorry about that," she offers quietly.

Principal Tanner glances back at Helen, red faced and sputtering, and whispers, "I've literally been hoping that someone would take her down a notch or two since the first time she walked into my office." Skye nods, starts to walk away, but Tanner catches her arm. "However, I'm sorry, Skye, but you can't come back to the PTA."

"Oh my god, that's fine. Can Jemma, though?"

"Oh, yes, of course. She can run for president, if she wants."

Which she totally will.

Skye and Principal Tanner exchange goodbyes, and as Skye walks out of the auditorium, she can hear Helen running up and tattling like the big baby she is.

Once she's in her car, Skye calls Jemma's cell.

"Is the meeting over already?" Skye can hear Ada in the background, giggling and singing loudly.

"I—uh."

Jemma sighs. "Who did you fight?"