Previously: While the field agents are deterring Graviton, the rest of the team, plus Wolfe, Mack and Hunter, are hanging out on the BUS, where Wolfe has just asked Skye if they could chat.

Chapter Forty

As Wolfe didn't exactly know the plane very well, Skye took the lead from him. She brought them to the upper level and was intending to have them sit at the windows when she remembered the bar. Though the plane had never really been cleaned up from when Hydra had it, she noticed there to be some Bourbon left on the shelf.

"You want a drink?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible.

He shrugged, a small grin forming on his face. "Maybe one. We don't want to get too impaired before we have to help the others."

Spoken like a true responsible parent, she thought, and nearly said, but felt like it would be hitting too close to home for her. Somehow, it was very hard to accept this man to be her family, even though logically her mind knew it to be true.

"Right," she said instead, turning around towards the bar. Skye lifted the bottle from the shelf and grabbed two glasses in her hand, setting them down to allow a fair amount of alcohol into each one.

The weight of an awkward silence was beginning to settle into the room, so Skye kept the conversation going as she poured. "I'm sorry I've been kind of… rude to you." She paused. "Ok, so I've been kind of an ass. But I've just been having trust issues lately." And a hell of a lot of daddy issues, she thought only to herself, again wanting to keep the sarcasm at a minimum.

She grabbed the drinks from the table, spinning around to face him. He was much closer than she expected, so she jerked to a stop. She took a second to regain composure before offering one of the glasses.

Wolfe looked at the glass momentarily, but to Skye's puzzlement didn't make a move for it. His eyes did seem slightly unfocused.

She held it out a little insistently.

"Um… here's your- whoa!"

'Whoa' because he'd strategically avoided the glasses, leaving them still gripped in Skye's hands and then hanging over his shoulders as he squeezed her in a solid embrace.

"Twenty-five years… I finally found you," he mumbled against her.

Skye pursed her lips. The relief, excitement and nerves of the situation were rolling right off of him and onto her. She nearly allowed herself to hug him back, when she remembered: the emotions were not hers. The physical touching of the situation was tricking her mind, but she had to be sure to hold on to her own emotions, and what she thought about things.

Which Skye knew, for certain, that her actual feelings leaned towards uncomfortable.

"Aaaaand we're hugging. Hugs are good. Surprise hugs are sometimes good, preferably not when I'm holding alcohol." She tripped a bit. "And… spilling it on your back."

He drew back. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overstep any bounds."

"I know. I… can feel it. And I can feel how nervous you are too, which sort of doubled up in me when we touched and then made me super nervous so it's… it's really my fault." She sighed, setting the glasses back down on the bar. "I swear I'm not usually this awkward…"

"Well, it is somewhat an awkward situation," Wolfe conceded. "And you're feeling it for both of us."

"Lucky me," she deadpanned.

"You really are though," Wolfe urged, to which Skye raised a wry eyebrow. "You could have easily died by becoming exposed to the mists. The Skrulls certainly expected you too. And better yet, you've gained a power."

She scoffed. "A crappy one…" she mumbled, suddenly grabbing the drink back up and taking a swig. "Feeling people's emotions? I mean I hoped I could get something that would help the team. Like something fighty, maybe… super strength?"

She took another sip.

"But instead, now I'm just the girl that can't get close to people without invading their personal… space," she decided upon, not really know what else to call it. "Plus there's the whole color thing which is weirding me out, and I can't even turn it off!"

"Skye, we can work on it," Wolfe assured her, placing his hands on her shoulders, and her breathing slowed as a pleasant warmth crept up inside of her. Wolfe must have truly been trying to be calm about the situation, as the sense of serenity Skye was feeling, she realized, was coming from his touch. "When the powers manifest, everyone has a rough time controlling them. Of course we don't know for sure how much control it will even be possible for you to gain, but still, never resent your powers. They're a part of you."

"Easy for you to say… you can turn yours off," she mumbled. She caught a look of confusion in his eyes.

"You know about my ability?" he asked. This time he was the one to pick up his drink.

"I, uh… yes. I think?" she said uncertainly. Was this supposed to be a personal thing? Maybe it was wrong of her to know without him personally telling her. "The Skrull told me you can cause pain to people, but it causes you to get hurt too, so you became a soldier…"

He nodded vehemently. "Yep, that's about it." He paused, eying her skeptically. "And you really think inflicting pain on others is better than being able to sympathize with them?"

Skye bit her lip, adding another awkward gesture when she began to tap the drink in her hand with the other nervously.

"When you put it that way…" She sighed. "It would just be nice to be able to protect myself. And others. That is the point of this organization, isn't it?"

"You do though. You're a brilliant hacker, from what I hear."

"Well I wouldn't say brilliant but I am… ok maybe that's a pretty good word," she admitted. "But that can't protect me from when bad guys come in with big guns or super gravity powers!"

"That's field agent work."

"And I want to be a field agent."

"Do you?" he asked, a sense of pride seeping into his words. And then of course, her own head.

She nodded.

"You don't need powers to do that," Wolfe told her lightly. "Most field agents in SHIELD certainly don't."

"But what if they make me distracted?" she asked. "What if… what if I feel their fear, or their colors get too bright… it's just that this power could have helped or hurt me and right now, it seems to be doing a lot more of the latter."

Wolfe tilted his head, considering her words as a tiny smile painted onto his face. She could feel pity – maybe sympathy, but it felt more pitying - build up in him, and she opened her mouth to protest having such a feeling directed at her, but he spoke up first.

"You said you could tell when someone's a Skrull."

The words she was planning on saying morphed in her mouth. "I'm pretty sure. Seems to have worked out that way. They look different."

"And that's great! You know that will help you in the field. At least for now." His mood became very somber very quickly, and he swirled the drink in his hand. "You know, well you probably don't actually, but... I saw you on the ship."

"You did?" she asked, voice quiet. "When?"

"Not physically. They set up a video feed to your cell and played it in my own," he said, and Skye blanched with the realization. "They wanted to dangle you in front of me, constantly assuring me that you thought your entire family- that I – was dead. And they wanted to make sure I saw-"

"What they did to us." Skye gulped, her cheeks growing hot with embarrassment. Her father had watched her degrade herself over and over. He'd seen how foolish she'd been when they tricked her with Ward and Simmons…

"I wasn't sure whether to tell you or not but I think you deserve to know-"

"No, yeah, thank you for telling me."

She tapped on her drink again.

"Because…" he started, looking at his feet again.

God, as if meeting your long lost father wasn't awkward enough. Let's just throw in powers and being held prisoner on alien spaceship!

"Well, you deserve to know because I feel like I got to know you, somewhat. I hope you don't feel bad about anything that happened, because all they showed me was that you're very brave, Skye."

She looked up shyly at him from under her bangs, feeling as though the compliment was undeserved.

"I saw how you helped your friend. How you convinced him that you had to try and get off the ship. None of us would be here right now if it weren't for your bravery."

Her eyes drifted as she thought about it. "Ok… I guess that makes sense. Pretty heroic way to spell it out though; it's just how things went down."

"That's how heroes are made," he told her warmly. "Not all heroes are super."

That was true. Her whole team were heroes, and none of them had any special powers. They just cared. They were smart, trained, caring people who saved others. Who helped the greater good.

"From the feed, I heard you give Fitz a recap of what went down recently, including what Paibok did when he impersonated me. I'm so sorry you had to go through that, and I can understand your hesitancy with me."

"That wasn't your fault," she assured him. In fact, nothing that had happened was his fault. "God, this is so stupid!"

He'd obviously taken her words incorrectly as he turned to a dirty yellow color. He was anxious again. "I'm sorry-"

"No! Don't be sorry; that's what's stupid. That either of us are feeling guilty or ashamed for things that we had no control over."

Skye wasn't really expecting the cocked grin that made it's way up his mouth at those words, though she wasn't sure why. If there was anything she'd learned about this man, through the Skrull impersonating him or as she'd known him now, cheery smiles in any situation were his forte.

"You are a very mature person to realize that."

"I may be your kid, but technically I am an adult," Skye pointed out wryly.

"Well I am too, and I think you may have surpassed me in maturity level."

Skye was taken aback by that. Between Reddit, her attitude, her habit of looking up pictures of hot superheroes… she really didn't think she would ever be one to be called exceptionally mature.

He sighed. "And I'm so proud of you for all your qualities, you're honestly better than I could have ever hoped. And beautiful," he added, and she felt herself flush at the compliments. "But you had to grow up too fast and I'm so sor-"

She cocked an eyebrow, and he closed his mouth before the apology. She smiled.

"Hey, we can still do the whole father-daughter bonding shtick. I mean, we may look a little funny at the Cinderella Ball..." Ok, sarcasm was definitely showing up now. Take it back a little, Skye. "But seriously, I want to get to know you. We just have to get through… this, first."

And by this she meant the whole Skrulls-trying-to-kidnap-and-torture-her-for-a-weirdo-prophecy- (which should be void now, but they seemed to be persistent) - situation. She hoped he got that.

"Right," he said, just before downing the rest of the drink. "We should probably get back to that."

"One more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Can we try that hug again?" she asked shyly. He nodded and wrapped her up in his arms, but this time she allowed herself to press against him gratefully.

Hugs were kind of a big deal to Skye. She'd never allowed herself to get close to many people as a kid, and as an orphan, she didn't have any family that felt the need to encompass her like that.

Every time that she hugged Coulson, Simmons, Fitz… it reminded her that she did have a family. Now she'd finally found her biological one, and the realization made her feel like she had more luck than she could have ever hoped.