The thing about Skye
Food is… complicated
The first time they have to call pest control, it's only slightly irritating. All the paperwork that needed to be drawn up, the NDA's signed, and then the actual black-bagging of the poor exterminator took a lot of time away from rooting out Hydra.
But it needed to be done to maintain the upkeep of one of the last remaining, active, SHIELD bases. And all because some idiot left a bunch of fruit and other foods in a janitor's closet. It might have stayed and rotted there forever if it hadn't been for the swarm of ants that acted as a trail right to it.
Why anyone would bring the food into the closet to begin with, Coulson hadn't the faintest clue, but it's not a great start to the first few weeks at this new permanent location.
The second time is several months later, when one of the spare, rarely used, vehicles is actually needed, only it doesn't start because a family of rats moved in and ate all the wires. He finds crumbs and wrappers littered across the back floorboards, and more under the seat where they must have originally been dragged from.
The same exterminator as last time is black-bagged, and more prepaid therapy sessions are secured for the man.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sets about mentally composing an email to be sent out to the whole of remaining SHIELD agents about the importance of not leaving food laying around.
Coulson doesn't black-bag the poor pest control man a third time. May comes storming into his office and slams a small plastic tub onto the top of his desk, narrowly missing his hands as he hastily draws them back.
"Skye is food hoarding. What are we going to do about it?"
Coulson's jaw snaps closed, the witty greeting he had been planning dying on his tongue. He reaches out and pulls off the lid to the tub. Various snack foods greet him, but there is also a bag of wilted pizza with the start of mold on it, and an apple just beginning to bruise on one side, and some stale bread rolls he recognizes from dinner the night before.
Coulson folds his hands and leans back in his chair. His throat feels tight when he swallows.
"How do you know this is Skye's?" He asks, but he already knows it's true. It makes far too much sense, considering the locations the food has been found. How many times have they found her hiding in a closet, or lounging in the back seat of the SUV. Living on the Bus wouldn't have allowed for bugs or mice to get in up there and reveal this habit until now.
"It's Skye's," May says, voice firm and face carefully blank.
Coulson sighs and allows his face to drop into his hand. It's not the first time they've had a recruit hoard food, but usually it's confined to their room and they find out about it fairly quickly- either when the bugs come, or the smell gets bad enough.
It's always a gut wrenching feeling, recognizing the symptomatic signs of neglect and abuse, but it being Skye makes it unbelievably worse.
"We'll handle it like we always do," he says, shaking his head regretfully. Make sure she continues to eat, and provide other food for her to squirrel away- food that doesn't have the danger of rotting or attracting critters. With the habit being anxiety based, trying to stop it completely only worsens the need for it. "Do you want to talk to her alone as her SO, or do you want me there?"
May dips her head in acknowledgment. "She'll only feel worse the more people that are there." Skye is clearly attempting to keep the bugs away with this sealable container. Her other stashes didn't have it. "I'll handle it." May turns on her heel and marches back toward the door without another word, as stoic as she entered.
Coulson sighs again, gaze dropping away from the closed door, down to the tub of snacks and rotting food. His chest twinges at the thought of the hacker girl he found living out of a van. After everything he's already learned about her, it's not really all that surprising, is it?
He can easily picture it- the Skye he originally found, hunched over a beat up laptop, not necessarily always eating, but squirreling away food all the same.
A/N: Eh, I'm not too fond of this chapter. Not sure why. Maybe I should have written it from Skye's perspective? I don't know, what do you guys think?
~Silver~