I'm back! So glad that you all are loving this story. :) It makes me really happy! :)
Now then, here's the new chapter for you all!
Enjoy!
Staying in the shadows, trying our best not to be spotted by anyone, Ward and I approach the old, run down warehouse. According to him, this is the place where everyone has been meeting up to discuss things whenever they need to. There is food and water, ammo, medical supplies, and a few other basics. He says that even though there's quite a bit of everything, they have to ration out the food and water so that they don't run out too fast. They're trying to avoid going out into public, to buy things, as much as possible.
Approaching the side of the building, in a dark alleyway, lit only by the lamppost right on the sidewalk in front of it, Grant looks around to make sure that no one is around. He moves his hand towards a keypad on the wall and then stops, looking down at me.
"I just realized something," he says, "the system won't recognize you. The others didn't have your information put in because they didn't think that you'd ever show up here." He looks at me sadly.
"It's okay," I say, squeezing his hand gently in mine, "just do what you need to do. I'll take care of the rest."
"Okay," he says warily, and then turns back to the door. He inputs the code into the keypad and waits. A second later, a scanner pops out from the wall and a faint light appears, scanning the two of us. It scans Grant first, making a soft click when it recognizes him. Then it moves on to me and I can see Grant tense up out of the corner of my eye.
I stare at the light, squinting. My fingers twitch slightly, barely even noticeable, as a little bit of electricity sparks out of the end of my fingertips. Then I hear the same soft click that I heard when the light recognized Grant. A second later, the door clicks open, and I step forward, pushing it open all the way. Grant and I step inside, and I close the door behind us again. I turn around to see Grant looking at me with something in his eyes.
"What?" I ask him.
"What did you just do?" he asks me, curiously.
"Just a little trick I figured out that I could do," I shrug my shoulders.
"Well, whatever it was that you just did, it was very cool."
"I know it was," I reply with a smile. He gently grabs my hips and pulls me towards him into a hug.
"Alright," he says when he pulls back, "let's go and tell the team that you're back."
I smile up at him as he grabs my hand tightly in his and pulls me off towards a staircase at the back of the warehouse.
"I don't know if I can do this," I whisper to Grant as we reach the top of the stairs and stands just outside the large room being used as a Command Center.
He turns to look at me, "What are you talking about?"
"Seeing everyone again. I don't know if I can do it. It's been two years since I last saw everyone. What if they all hate me?"
"Why on earth would they hate you?" He asks softly.
"I don't know," I reply.
He sighs, placing his hands gently on my upper arms, "Skye, you will be absolutely fine. I can guarantee you that everyone is going to be more than excited to see you alive and safe."
"If you say so," I tell him.
He smiles, "I do. Now, just hang back here for a second, okay?" I nod my head and he drops his hands, stepping through the door right next to us. "I'm back," I hear him say, as he walks into the room.
"Grant." I hear someone say with a sigh of relief. I think it might be Coulson.
"Agent Ward," a few other voices say. I can't pick out anyone in particular.
"Hi Grant!" I hear a super excited voice say, but I can't place who it is.
"How are you?" someone asks him.
"Better than before," he replies.
"How was your trip?" I hear someone, I think it's May, ask. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I did," he says back, and I can hear the smile in his voice. "Excuse me for a moment." I hear footsteps and then Grant appears in front of me. "You ready?"
I take a deep breath, "I guess so."
He smiles down at me, "Come on." He grabs my hand and pulls me into the room.
"Surprise." He says to everyone in the room. I look around the large room to see all of my old teammates, and then a group of people who look slightly familiar. They are all sitting around a large table with a bunch of different pieces of equipment surrounding them. Everyone in the room turns to look at us, and the team's eyes all go wide.
The next thing I know, I'm being attacked by a blur of light brown hair; a pair of arms wrapping around me tightly in a hug. "Oh thank goodness you're okay." The very British voice says to me and I can hear the relief in the voice.
I pull back to see Jemma Simmons looking at me, a happy and relieved smile on her face, a few tears clearly building in her eyes. "Hey Jemma," I say back.
"We've all been so worried about you," she tells me.
"I know you have," I inform her, "Grant told me everything."
"Jemma?" I hear a small voice say, "Who are you talking to?"
"It's Skye," Jemma says to the person at the other end of the room.
Suddenly, I'm being attacked by another hug, "Skye!" the voice exclaims. "Skye, you're back!" the person pulls away and I look to see Leo Fitz smiling wide at me. "Skye Skye Skye!" Fitz exclaims excitedly, looking directly at me, "Guess what? Jemma got me a monkey! I love monkeys. And now I have one! Well, it's not a real monkey, but it looks like one, and moves like one and I love him a lot, and…"
"Okay Leo," Jemma cuts in, "that's quite enough. Why don't you go back and play with Steve, yeah?"
"But I want Skye to play with me," Leo whines. "I haven't seen her in ages! Everyone said that she wasn't coming back. But she's here. And I want to play with her."
"She'll come and play with you later, okay?"
Leo huffs, "Fine." He turns around and walks back to where he was playing with Steve earlier.
"What…" I trail off, not really knowing how to phrase my question.
"You want to know what is wrong with Fitz." I nod my head. "His mind has regressed back to being a child. My best guess is that it's trying to cope with everything he was put through, and this was the best thing it could do."
"So, how old is he?" I ask awkwardly.
"No older than 10, I think."
"Wow."
"I know. And I have to keep an eye on him all the time. He has a really hard time listening to anyone that isn't me. I think it's because of all the time that we spent together at the Academy, and then on the Bus; his mind is remembering how attached we always were."
"Skye."
I turn my head to see Coulson walking towards me, slower than before. I smile at him, "A.C." I say, and then carefully wrap my arms around him in a hug.
"It's great to see you alive and well," he tells me when we pull back from our hug.
"It's great to see you alive," I tell him, tears brimming my eyes. "I just wish that it wouldn't have to be in these kinds of circumstances."
"No one ever wishes for situations like these." I hear someone else say. I turn my head to see May coming my direction, in an automated wheelchair. She looks weaker than I remember her.
"May," I manage to get out, feeling the few tears streaming down my face. "Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry, to all of you. I never wanted any of you to have to go through what you did."
"It's not your fault, Skye," Grant says, placing one of his hands on my lower back.
"I know," I reply, "but it still feels like it. I get kidnapped and then all of you get tortured and beaten, and I just, I'm so sorry." I break down and collapse into Grant's arms, burying my face in his chest as I cry. I feel a hand on my shoulder and I turn my head to see Coulson looking at me.
"You have nothing to be sorry about," he tells me. "Please don't blame yourself for what happened."
I wipe the tears from my eyes and look at my team, minus Fitz, and see all of them smiling at me.
"Okay. I'll try to stop. I'm just glad that you're all alive."
"So are we," May says with a slight laugh.
"Now then," Coulson speaks up, "why don't I introduce you to some old friends of mine?" he smiles and then walks back to the large table at the other end of the room, "Skye, I'd like you to meet the Avengers; Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rodgers, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, and Thor Odinson. Also, Sharon Carter, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts, James Rhodes, and you already know Tripp. Everyone, I'd like for you to meet Skye."
"Wow," I say, looking at the group of people in front of me, "it's nice to meet all of you." I move closer to the table.
"The pleasure is ours, Miss Skye," Thor says in his booming voice.
"Coulson has told us a lot about you, Skye," Natasha says, standing up from her chair and walking towards me. "Including some of your abilities. Though at the time, it seemed that he didn't know a whole lot about what you could actually do."
"Yeah," I say, "I sort of got kidnapped, and then escaped, before anyone could really figure out what I could do. But over time, I was able to find out what exactly I can do."
"That's great, Skye," Grant says to me with a smile.
"Does this mean that you also have a control on them?" Jemma asks me.
"Yeah. I've learned how to control it all, and activate it, so to speak."
"What exactly can you do?" Clint asks as he moves to stand next to Natasha.
"Um, well, I'm not exactly sure what to call what I can do. But um, I can try and explain." I pause for a moment and then speak up again, "Okay. So I can't do a whole lot, but I can shoot this sort of electricity stuff out, and I've figured out how to channel it down to my hands, and from there, I can do one of a few things. I can stun people, I can control people, or if I'm not careful, I can kill them. Like if the shock is too much for their brain to handle. I learned that one the hard way." I pause for a moment, remembering that fatal accident. "I haven't used it that much though, because I figured it would draw too much attention towards me, and that was definitely something that I did not want."
"Wow. Anything else?" Jemma asks me.
"Yeah, I can also 'talk' to technology. That's how I was able to bypass the security system outside. Made it think that it already had my information programmed in."
"So does this mean that you don't need to physically hack things anymore?" May asks me.
"I guess so. But I still like to do it the old fashioned way sometimes. I only do it the other way if it's absolutely necessary. And I can also, sense things. I don't really know how to explain it, but I can kind of sense certain emotions from people. I can't really turn that one on or off, but thankfully it isn't super strong. That's how I always knew when someone else was chasing me. I could feel them coming after me."
"How long did it take you to figure out what you could do?" Steve asks me from his spot at the table where he is playing with Fitz.
"Not too long," I reply. "After I escaped from where I had been, I did my best to stay hidden, and eventually, I was able to figure out what I was capable of. I managed to figure out how to trigger my abilities, and how to use them. Once I knew I had good control of them, I began hunting down the people who were trying to hurt me."
"Why didn't you ever come and find any of us?" Tripp asks, "You had to have known that we would have helped you."
I look down sadly, "I didn't want to put any of you in danger. It was for the best."
"Let me make sure I heard you correctly, you've figured out how to control everything?" Tony asks me, after a few moments of silence, "Because I think I speak for everyone here, when I say that we don't want any mishaps happening whenever you get upset."
"Oh please," I scoff, with a roll of my eyes, "if anything happens to you, it's because I purposefully made it happen."
"Well then. I'll make sure to steer clear of you."
I just smile at him and then turn back to everyone else. "So. That's basically what I can do, are you guys, okay with that? You aren't going to throw me under a microscope to see how I work?"
"Why, why would we do that?" Bruce asks, stepping forward.
"Because that's what they did. So to speak."
"What did they do to you, Skye?" Grant asks me as he steps a bit closer, "you never told me."
"They uh, they, they tor—tortured me, trying to figure out how I could do what I do. It was awful. For days after, I kept having nightmares. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, and I'd think that I was still there. Over the next few months, the nightmares lessened, and I hardly get them anymore. Every once in a while one shows up, but not as much as in the beginning."
"I'm so sorry," Grant says as he pulls me into a side hug.
"It's fine," I tell him, "I've put it all behind me."
"Good for you, Skye," Coulson says to me, "we're glad that you're back. You're going to be a great asset to all of this that we're fighting for. Both with your abilities and as an amazing Agent."
"Thank you, A.C." I smile at him, "I'll do whatever I can to help takedown HYDRA."
"Good," he says back, "But first, we need a plan."
Pulling away from Grant and walking towards the table in the center of the room, I go to the head of it and turn to see everyone slowly making their way towards the table as well, all standing around it. "Grant told me a little bit about what has been happening so far, and I think that I have an idea. We need to attack HYDRA at its core. We take down the central part of HYDRA, we weaken the whole chain of command, make things easier when we take them down."
"How do we do that?" Jemma asks.
"Garret," Grant says, realizing where I'm going with this.
"Garret," I repeat. "Grant, you told me that Garret is the Clairvoyant. Therefore, he must be at the top of the chain of command. If we can take him out, then the guys who answer to him won't know what to do, everything will all into complete and utter chaos. And then, we can, hopefully, take down the rest of them, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to stop these psychos from coming back in another 70 years."
So? What did you all think? Did you like it? I hope so. Let me know in a review down below. :)
One more chapter after this, and then it's all done.
Until next time,
Jellybean96 out!