Awakening Quake
By Misha

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

A.N- This is pure fluff. The not so fluffy stuff starts in the next chapter, but I thought we needed some time to celebrate the engagement. This time without an appearance by our resident psycho. Enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-Four: Celebration

When Skye and Steve returned to the Avengers Tower, JARVIS informed them that Mr. Stark wanted to see them in his private quarters.

"I wonder what's going on." Skye wondered as she and Steve took the elevator.

Steve just smiled and kept his arm around her.

"You know something?" Skye accused, but he remained silent. A moment later the elevator doors opened and as soon as Skye and Steve stepped into the penthouse, Skye saw the big banner "Congratulations Skye and Steve!" and all their friends gathered around.

"Congratulations!" Pepper said, rushing to her. "Welcome to your engagement party."

"You knew?" Skye asked, giving Steve a look.

"Tony helped me get the ring." He told her. "And he insisted on throwing us a party to celebrate."

"What if I had said no?" Skye joked.

"Then we would have whisked you away for an intervention and told you that you were an idiot,"Natasha told her cheerfully. "But we all knew that wouldn't happen."

"No." Skye agreed. She smiled at Steve. "The thought never even occurred to me."

"It occurred to me." Steve admitted. "I was a little worried that you might think I was rushing you."

"That's because you're a worrier," Bucky said with a laugh, stepping forward to kiss Skye on the cheek, "Congratulations doll, though I should be saying that to Stevie—he's a very lucky man."

"Thank you." Skye said with a smile. "I think most people would say I'm the lucky one though."

"You're both lucky," Bruce said warmly, "It's a wonderful thing to find the person that completes you." There was a wistfulness in his voice and Skye felt bad for him. She knew that there had been a woman in his past, but she didn't know any of the details and she didn't want to pry.

"I wish you much happiness Lady Skye," Thor told her, "the Captain is one of the finest warrior's I have ever met and a truly honorable man. You two are truly a worthy match."

"That's his way of saying congratulations," Jane said with a grin, "and letting you know how happy we all are for you."

There was a wistfulness in Jane's voice and Skye squeezed her friend's hand, understanding where she was coming from. She knew Jane wanted to get married, but that she was still wary about going back to Asgard and Thor was unwilling to get married without formally present Jane to court and following all the Asgardian customs. So at the moment they were at a stalemate.

"I'm happy to host the wedding," Tony offered a few minutes later, once everyone had congratulated them and the women had all admired Skye's ring. "Whatever you want, it's yours. The sky's the limit, obviously."

Skye smiled at the pun and then looked over at Steve. "Actually, we want to keep it very quiet." She responded. "Just a simple ceremony. No fuss. We don't see the need for a big wedding. After all, neither one of us has any family, at least not any biological family." She refused to consider her psycho father as her family, which meant the only family she had were the people in this room and her old team.

While she knew the world would go crazy over the idea of an Avengers wedding, especially one featuring Captain America, she wanted nothing to do with that. She didn't want a wedding full of strangers and the idea of that much press and attention terrified her.

She knew they'd have to make some sort of announcement, but they could do it after the fact. Besides, she'd never been one to fantasize about getting married and the big, flashy wedding just didn't hold much appeal for her. She wanted something simple.

The only issue was the guest list. Ideally, Skye would like to have Jemma stand up for her and Steve wanted Bucky, but that presented a problem. Skye would feel bad inviting Jemma and not the rest of the ream and she knew that they would be hurt to be excluded from her wedding, especially Coulson. However, at the same time, they weren't supposed to know about Bucky and there was no way they could exclude Bucky from the wedding, which left them with a problem.

Still, it was a problem for another day, right now Skye was too happy to worry. She just wanted to relax and celebrate her happiness with the people she loved and that meant she had a phone call to make.

Coulson was briefing his team on the information that was in the HYDRA files that had been recovered from the women's mission.

"It seems to mostly be information about people of interest," he told them, "Assets and potential threats that HYDRA was watching out for, but there is a lot of information on gifted and potentially gifted people here, we just need to go through it all."

"Why do you think the Avengers gave us the decoded files?" Bobbi asked. "I thought we were going to have to decrypt them ourselves."

Coulson had wondered about that. He knew May found it suspicious and thought that the Avengers were hiding something, though she admitted that she didn't know what. He didn't know either, but it seemed likely there had been something in the files they had wanted them to know about. The question was what? Before he could answer Bobbi's question, his phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi A.C."

Coulson smiled at the familiar voice. "Hi Skye."

Jemma and Fitz both perked up at the mention of Skye's name and Coulson knew they would want a chance to talk to her.

"Can you put me on speaker?" Skye asked him. "I have some news to share."

Coulson was curious, but did as instructed. Skye was their only contact with the Avengers and he knew that any information, or gestures of good will, would come from her, though he assumed that they would be run by him first before presented to the team.

"Hi Skye!" Jemma and Fitz both called out and then the others added their greetings.

"Hi everyone," Skye said, "I wanted to call and share my good news with you. I'm getting married."

Coulson was stunned.

There was a squeal from Jemma and then a rush of congratulations.

"Who?" He asked and then realized that it was a dumb question. May had filled him in on the apparent relationship between Skye and Steve Rogers.

"I'm the lucky man." A deep voice answered, confirming Coulson's suspicions.

So Skye was marrying Captain America. There was something very comforting about that idea actually. Skye was like a daughter to him and he wanted the best for her, especially after the way she'd been hurt in the past, and well Captain America was certainly that.

There was also the added bonus that if Ward was still obsessed with Skye, and Coulson had no reason to think differently, then he would have to go through Captain America to get to her. It was a very comforting thought.

"I'm very happy for you, Skye," Coulson told her.

"Thank you A.C." She replied and he could hear the happiness in her voice and it made him smile. It also assured him that he had done the right thing sending Skye to the Avengers. It had been hard for him to send her away, but he had believed it was for the best. She'd needed a place where she would fit in instead of stand out and where she could learn to embrace her gifts and it seemed that she'd found that and so much more.