Note: In case anyone's forgotten from season one, Skye was given the name Mary Sue Poots by the nuns; and since this beginning bit is when she was a child, and from her POV, she's referred to as that.

"I'm Poison"

Mary Sue Poots had lost track of her foster family. Again. This was family number… thirteen now? She looked around outside the restaurant, wondering where they'd got to, hoping that maybe one day she'd be Mary Sue Somebody's-Surname. Just `cause she didn't fit in was no reason to dump her, though. None of the other families had got rid of her that way; just sent her back to the orphanage, or arranged for her to be sent to another family, who'd just reject her in the end. They always did.

She slumped against the wall with a heartfelt sigh, and gave up looking. If they wanted to find her, they would eventually. As long as she didn't stray far, they'd come back, or get social services to come back for her. Mary Sue hoped she'd at least get to keep the things the Johnsons had bought for her.

Funny. She'd really felt comfortable with this name. Mary Sue Johnson. It felt almost natural to her, the way no others had felt yet. And wasn't thirteen supposed to be a lucky number? Come to think of it, today was Friday the Thirteenth. What if something bad had happened to her temporarily family? Maybe that's why they hadn't found her! And if no one knew where to look for her…

It still didn't explain them disappearing like that, though. Why did they leave?

Why did they all leave? Was it `cause of her words?

There was a clattering sound from down the alleyway, and Mary Sue poked her head around the corner, her eyes widening as she saw someone staggering along. Her heart leapt to her throat, and all the lectures about Stranger Danger came to mind. But this wasn't a big, burly man. Poor lighting from slats in the window of the restaurant's kitchen partially illuminated a definitely female face. She drew back around the corner, and waited for the woman to get closer. Some of the street light leaked into the mouth of the alleyway, and when Mary Sue moved so did her shadow, and the woman stopped where she was. Slightly emboldened, Mary Sue took a closer look, at a pale face, blonde hair streaked with red, right hand clutching her left shoulder, and… blood!

"Can I help you?" she said. "I can probably make a bandage outta my socks, or you could keep the pressure on with this." She lifted the corner of her jacket. "Let me get an ambulance?"

The woman shook her head, and backed up against the wall. Mary Sue started forward, but she was waved back. Why? The woman was hurt. She needed to go to a hospital and see a doctor. Wasn't that obvious?

"Don't come near me," the woman said. Her voice was breathy and strained. "Ever. I'm poison, and I'll only drag you down with me."

Mary Sue couldn't believe what she was hearing. Those were the words of her soulmark. One of her soulmarks, that is.

"You're my soulmate?" she said. Sure, as far as she knew she'd been born with her words, at least according to the nuns at the orphanage. But she didn't know her soulmate would be so much older.

"Fucking shield," the woman muttered, and Mary Sue gasped. She knew that was a Bad Word. And besides, the sentence didn't make any sense. "And government officials. Go home, little girl."

"I'm not little!"

"Go find your parents."

"I don't have any." She took a step back. "Not yet, anyway. But I will. I will!"

The woman stared at her, unblinking, and Mary Sue felt nervous.

"I'm Mary Sue Poots. W-who are you?" she asked to break the scary silence.

"No one you'll ever meet again. And if you're lucky you'll never meet our soulmate. Do you have another set of words?" She nodded, and her soulmate shook her head, her breaths growing heavier. "I hope they're not the last thing you ever hear. Maybe if you're lucky the two of us will die, and you'll get someone new." She wasn't looking at Mary Sue anymore. "Good-bye. Good luck."

"Wait!"

But the woman was moving fast, and disappeared into the darkness. Mary Sue returned to the front of the restaurant, and went back inside, needing the light and the warmth to make up for the cold and dark of the alley. And she felt dizzy.

Could she tell anyone about this?

"Mary Sue?"

She whirled around, and saw Mrs. Johnson. Her maybe-mom slumped, hopefully in relief, and held out a hand.

"We lost track of you," she said. "Good girl for staying here. Come on. Let's go ho… back to the house."

"Okay, Mom," she said, taking her hand. Mrs. Johnson didn't reply, but she had that pinched look around her mouth that Mary Sue had seen too often to feel comfortable about. Better to keep what'd happened from the Johnsons, just in case there was still the tiniest chance they'd want to keep her.

Many years later

HYDRA. Skye was sick of them. It was like none of the other bad guys got a chance these days. Skye missed those old days. Now they fought against the neo-Nazis-but-we're-not-really-Nazis on a regular basis (thanks so much, Ward), so they couldn't get anything else done. That was probably the point, but it was annoying nonetheless.

"Oops," Coulson said over the comms.

"What does 'Oops' mean?" Hunter asked. (Well, someone had to ask.)

"The Avengers are here. I have no idea how they found out—"

"I told them," May said.

"…That explains how they knew about the mission, but not how they figured out that I was alive—"

"I told them," Fury chimed in, startling the hell out of Skye. She'd had no idea he was on the scene. "Stark, that is. He alerted the others, I'm guessing."

"Great," Coulson muttered.

"Guys, who's got Fitz's six?" Skye said.

"Getting there," Mack said. "Gimme a…" There were a few shots. "Minute. Okay, I'm on my way. You okay, Turbo?"

"Uh-huh. Um, I think someone's hacking the, uh… the…"

"System?" Skye said.

"Comms," Fitz said. "Well, yeah, the system, too. Obviously. To get to the comms."

"That would be me," Tony Friggin' Stark said, and Skye may've squealed a little. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Skye said quickly.

"You're better at lying than that, Skye," Phil said.

"I'm sending people to your weakest points," Stark said. "Hello, Agent."

"Director," May corrected. Good thing, `cause Skye was suddenly tongue-tied for a number of reasons.

One, Tony Stark. Elaboration unnecessary.

Two, Avengers meant Natasha Romanov, who Skye was convinced was the soulmate she'd met long ago.

Three, she'd heard that Romanov and Bucky Barnes were soulmates. If Avengers meant one, it probably meant the other.

Four, it seemed that Ward had started employing Gifted people as well. One of them was someone Skye had tried to recruit a few weeks ago. Was he already working for HYDRA at the time, or did HYDRA have a better incentives package than SHIELD?

"Crap," she said. "Caleb's here."

"Caleb?" Coulson said. "Caleb the Carver?"

"…We need better nicknames for people."

"Listen, keep well away from him. That goes for everyone, Avengers included. He's a dangerous man if he's working for HYDRA. If he…" There was a faint sching-ing sound, and he paused. "That works, too. Nice work, Romanov."

There was one fear confirmed. Skye gulped down the feelings which wanted to pour out of her, and fired until she ran out of bullets. If only HYDRA hired ordinary people, instead of people with excellent reflexes. She pinpointed a location which was hopefully clear of civilians, and moved her hands subtly, feeling out the vibrations until she could bring a ton of rubble down on their heads.

"Anyone near the tailor's shop get the hell away from there in the next three seconds," she said through clenched teeth.

"Did you all hear that?" someone else said, a voice Skye vaguely recognised from… from the serials she watched as a kid. Captain America! Of course he was here. Why was she even surprised?

"Acknowledged, captain," Coulson said. "Let go, Skye."

"Roger that," she said, and she winced. "Sorry. Slip of the tongue."

Then she dropped the heap of concrete. No one reported injuries over the comms, so Skye scrabbled in her pocket for more ammunition. Someone settled beside her, and held out a handful of the right ammo. She looked up to thank them, and then realised who the metal arm belonged to.

"Good a day to die as any, don't-cha think?" Bucky Barnes said. Skye gaped at him, probably unattractively, and fumbled with the ammunition.

"I-if that's what turns you on," she mumbled, and she loaded as quickly as she could, registering his sharp inhale. Choosing to ignore this until battle was over, Skye returned her attention to the fight, tuning in to Coulson's instructions. With him and Captain America collaborating, everything ran more smoothly, especially with superheroes on their side. Some of HYDRA still managed to get away, but this time Bobbi and Mack had hit a few with trackers, and Fitz was already following them, chattering with Stark as he did so.

"Are you Mary Sue Poots?" Barnes said. Skye was dusting off her pants, and glanced over at him.

"I was once," she said.

"I think… Natasha will wanna see you."

"Why?"

"Clearly you can take care of yourself," he said. "She's on the side of the good guys now, and so am I." He paused. "Again. We'd met before you did, long before. She doesn't regret staying away from you then, but by the time she was working for SHIELD—"

"She's the reason I hated the government and SHIELD growing up," Skye said. "She hated them, and she was my soulmate, which meant I had no reason to trust them, either. Not that I knew what SHIELD was then; I thought she meant… you know, like Captain America's shield, not the acronym. Then I came across it again, and that's when my vendetta started, and… I'm lucky I got a second chance."

"What's your name now?"

"Skye," she said, and she shrugged. "It's the one I use. Better than the one the nuns gave me. No one ever adopted me, so I got to choose my own, like I can choose my own destiny."

"Do… do your soulmates feature in that destiny?" he asked hesitantly.

"I don't know." She took a step closer to the rendezvous point. "Do you?"

"I think I can speak for both of us when I say yeah, we'd like to."

"I'd rather hear it from the woman who called herself poison," Skye said. "Looks like this won't be the last we see of each other… what do I call you?"

"James?"

"Sergeant Barnes," she said, and his face fell. "See ya later."

"I'll find Natal… Natasha," he said.

"Looks like we all have our pseudonyms." She gave him a pathetic little wave. "Bye."

Natasha let James hook an arm around her shoulders as they watched Skye from across the restaurant. By a spooky coincidence, it was the same one where she'd met Skye out in the alley, wounded after a hit gone belly-up. She'd finished the job, but not without getting injured herself, and it was damn difficult to hide DNA as the crime scene methods grew more advanced. At least SHIELD had wiped that from her records as the Black Widow. Part of the incentive to join up; they'd done the same thing for Clint, and he gave her one hell of a pitch.

In that way, she felt unworthy of James. He'd been on the good side from the beginning, so it didn't take him any incentive to join the Avengers. He got help, and he got to spend time with Steve, not to mention seeing Natasha again and having a chance with her. She told him he deserved better, which usually led to a mutually self-deprecating argument about who'd done more damage. And that usually led to angry sex which they'd regret later, leaving them both wallowing in self-loathing until the pattern repeated.

Judging from what little they'd heard of their soulmate, her life had been pretty terrible as well, not that she'd killed as many innocent people as they had, and rarely directly. Well, there went any hopes that she'd be a beacon of light for them, if she was as inclined to brooding as they were.

"What do we do?" James whispered.

"I don't know," Natasha said. She hated that. "We're dangerous."

"So's she. She's the one with quaking powers. We're just enhanced killers. Sounds like she has enough enemies without adding ours."

"But she can handle herself, and take care of other people. Is it… is it wrong that I want a chance I have no right to?"

"Not any more wrong than—"

"Are we playing the pity game again?" she snapped. For once, he didn't rise to the bait.

"What d'you think it'll take to convince her to give us a—"

"You could start with asking her," May said. Natasha had met her a few times, but only nodded to her so far.

"She doesn't like surprises?" James said.

"No."

"Can you…" Natasha stopped herself, thinking this through, and then powered on. "Can you tell us if she'd really want…?"

"Not like you to be unsure," May said.

"We're destructive together," she said. "We don't want to drag Mar… Skye into it. But I don't know whether I want to try living without her, now that I've seen her in action, and now that I wouldn't be…"

"Poison?"

She blew out her breath. "I'm still that. But maybe she can handle it? I had every right to reject her when she was only a child and I was on the run from the law. And I couldn't find her when I wanted to, though now that we know who she is that makes a lot more sense. I still don't think we're safe for her—"

"Still, it can't hurt to ask," James added. "We can't take the choice away from her. The last seventy years I've had no control. I was completely unable to choose for myself, and any independent thought was wiped from me. Not entirely; I remember all too well some of the things I did, even though they usually only show up in nightmares. But I won't deny someone the right to choose for themselves." He snorted, and Natasha saw him look over at Steve. "Unless they're being a dumbass."

May studied them both.

"I'll ask if she wants to come over and talk to you," she said. "Remember that all of SHIELD is behind her, and if you hurt her…"

"I know," Natasha said. "The pain of a thousand suns, et cetera. I'm sure Coulson will give us the talk as well. Creative tortures and so on."

"We can imagine much worse than he could throw at us," James said.

"I wouldn't count on it," May said.

"Besides, I think she'd avenge herself," Natasha said.

May nodded, and walked over to Skye. Natasha couldn't watch, and turned her attention to James. That was safer than facing possible rejection if Skye indicated that she didn't even want to talk to them.

"She's coming over," James murmured.

Natasha risked a look and saw that he was right. Within seconds, Skye was in front of them, cool as anything, and waiting for them to start.

"Can we take you to dinner?" Natasha asked. Not her smoothest moment, blurting it out like that, but when Skye relaxed she wondered whether their soulmate had been as nervous as they were.

"Sure," she said. "Like a date?"

"That's the idea."

"I don't know when I'll be free – I'll have to ask Coulson – but when I am I'll call you."

"Would tomorrow be okay?" James said. "I only met you today, and I don't know whether that'd hold any weight with him, but—"

"I think we'll probably all be busy tomorrow night," Skye said.

"Oh yeah. With, uh, talking about…" He trailed off, looking embarrassed as he ducked his head, and Natasha noticed that Skye seemed to melt.

"Maybe connecting with the Avengers," she said. "I think tonight's mostly about people yelling at DC. I'm surprised you're not there with them," she added, looking at Natasha.

"I don't know whether to yell at him or hug him," she admitted. "I know I should thank him for taking you in and keeping you alive."

"Me too," James said. Skye blushed, and her eyes flicked downwards.

"Being in a relationship… if that's what you want with me, would be dangerous," she said. "I suck at relationships, intense emotions make me lose control of my powers, my psychotic ex-almost-boyfriend is the head of New HYDRA… and like everyone else on the team, I have major trust issues. My mother tried to kill me, my father tried to kill my friends, the guy who saved me from the other SHIELD is part of the reason Coulson lost a hand, Ward almost killed FitzSimmons, Bobbi and Mack were spies." She curled her arms around herself. "I know you've both had worse pasts, and we're all working hard to make up for the bad things we did, no matter how much autonomy we had or didn't have at the time." She glanced at Bucky, who nodded with a grim smile. "I can't guarantee that this'll work out. Only… that I'll try, if I think it might."

"That's all we're askin' for," James said. Skye smiled uncertainly.

"Okay then," she said. "I'll give you my number, and hope we have a night free soon."

Wasn't sure how to end this. Author is not feeling clever. Author will wait until we get to the headcanon chapter for this one and make something up then, preferably with a happy ending.

Please review! I started this as Natasha/Skye, and then realised I'd already done that in 'Love a Redhead'. But! Jocasta Silver asked for Bucky/Natasha/Skye, so I adjusted it as necessary, and then tried not to drown myself in the angst. Damned difficult, considering the possibilities. The only way these three would get a real happy ending would be with a ton of therapy or in an AU.