AN: Hello! As promised, here we are again! And also as always, many thanks to MegaDiary123 for being an awesome Beta. Now... I guess a small warning? You'll see why, but if you need to skip the first part all the way until the line break, see the AN.2 below and you'll be good to go! I hope you enjoy and I shall see you again in a couple of weeks! Until then...

TW: Flashback / Panic Attack (cause I'm not really sure what it is)

All rights go to Marvel

Skye's POV

"So let me get this straight", my head in my hands as I talked on the phone in the middle of the table. "Mike Peterson, came in to help you out with a Centipede problem, where you not only encountered again the girl in the flower dress from our old mission in Hong Kong, but also got info about the Clairvoyant and found proof of how the people behind Amador and Raina are connected with all of that"

"Yes", came May's reply, who was on speaker.

"And after that, you went to go for an exchange between Mike Peterson and his son, without backup, which led to Coulson being taken instead. What the hell May?", I grunted out.

"Don't use that tone with me, young lady", even from a distance I could tell that she would be glaring at me if she were here. "It was not my idea, Coulson went over my head and cancelled everything before we even had time to convince him otherwise"

"How long ago did that happen?" Natasha took over seeing that I could not get my thoughts straight right now, as I started pacing up and down the room.

"About 4 hours ago. We are currently heading to Alaska to the Hub to pick up agent Hand and a team of hers. I just finished talking with HQ about what to do. Everyone knows what happened. Fury, Maria, everyone". She was tense. I could almost hear the leather of the planes steering wheel being squeezed under her grip. "The whole organisation is on this"

After that there was silence. There was nothing of importance to be said anymore, and everyone was still taking in everything.

"We will let you know as soon as we know anything, if we find anything out before you do", Clint supplied.

"Of course, same goes for me"

I could tell she was about to hang up the phone. "Mel?" I called out. "Please be careful, I cannot lose you too"

"You won't", she said so matter-of-factly that I almost believed her. "And Phil is not gone, Skye. We'll find him. Don't do anything crazy until we do". And with that the line went dead.

The beeping noise on the speaker was drilling in my brain. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shit. I kept picturing Coulson, as I knew him on the bus, and that image kept alternating with the one of him with the spear in his heart, staring up at me.

There was a ringing in my ears, as the images kept changing. Then, as I was piercing though his chest, seeing as he was dropping on the ground, I looked up and Ian Quinn was standing there. "The Clairvoyant says hi" he said and pulled the trigger. But instead of shooting me, the bullet found Coulson, right in the middle of his forehead, blood dripping out.

My eyes were glued on the mark as I felt my hands shake. Or was it my whole body? I couldn't really tell.

The ringing had never really left, but through it a new voice appeared.

"—breath. I nee— breath, Skye. Co— on, fo— me."

Then I felt someone holding onto my arms, it was faint but it was there. And two other hands were rubbing my cheeks. I looked up and, while blinking profoundly, Jemma's face started forming. I found myself frowning. What was she doing here? She was the one speaking but her words were broken, like I was listening to someone on the phone but the connection was bad.

"Look at—afe. It—eathe. Take—"

I was trying to follow on what she was saying, but I saw movement from behind her and my eyes locked onto Quinn. He was standing there, an emotionless expression on his face, as he started lifting his hand, the one holding the gun.

Whatever it was that Jemma was trying to tell me, stopped registering the moment the gun was trained at her. I pushed her on the side, lifting my hand ready to blast him off, but the shot never came.

But something else did. A pinch, on the side on my neck. It was like with it, the world stopped. I felt my limbs grow heavier, and the image in front of me started shifting. I thought I saw Clint, and a needle, but before I coul—

I suddenly was on my bed. At the homestead. The sun was coming in through the window, bringing in orange hues.

I had to blink a handful of times to understand what was happening. How did I…?, I thought as I pushed myself up. I found a glass of water on the nightstand and realised how dry my throat was.

What happened?, it felt like it was taking a while for my brains to understand what exactly happened. I was lethargic in a way I hadn't been in… only when I was coming off of strong painkillers from the hospital, or after I was put under.

Was I put under? What for? I was still very confused about what was going on, when I heard the door open. Or did I feel it? It was always very difficult to distinguish between my powers or my other senses when I was like this. I looked up and saw Natasha at the entrance of the room. "How do you feel?", she asked as she made her way towards me. I could hear the… concern?, in her voice.

Still confused, I answered. "Okay, I think?"

I was waiting for a clue, something, but instead she looked at me and then let out a sigh. Moving towards the window and nodding at something. "You feel good enough to head out? We're going to New York. We have already packed everything up" she said as she came to sit next to me.

Going to New York? Why would we— and then it hit me.

Coulson…

My head snapped to the window, and I quickly made my way there. I stumbled as a dizzy spell hit me from the sudden movement, but I refused Natasha's help and braced myself on the windowsill. I looked out, at the evening sky, before my eyes found the S.I. jet packed and ready to go.

"How long was I out?", I gritted out, as I triple checked that everything of importance to finding him was not in the room.

"About fourteen hours".

My head snapped in her direction. "Fourteen hours?! And why are we not already at the Tower?!", I stumbled out of the room. Whatever they had injected me with was still being flashed out of my system. My metabolism worked faster than normal and I normally needed less time for the drugs to leave my body… what concoction had they used?

Natasha came to help me down the stairs and I reluctantly let her so we could go to the jet and leave as soon as possible. "You needed the rest, and we didn't want to move you in case anything happened and you woke up in the middle of the flight. Safer to be on the ground", she explained calmly. "Stark already knows and is looking everywhere. But you needed to get some actual sleep, and not the kind that you were pretending to do while we were here. When we find Phil, you need to be on your A game"

When we reached the living room, I stopped Nat. "How bad was it?", I asked and she understood what I was talking about.

"The house was shaking, the whole area around it as well" she didn't sugarcoat her words.

"Shit", I said under my breath but she still heard me.

Her hand lifted my chin so I looked at her. Her green eyes shinning with love. "It's okay. It's why you and Clint chose such a remote location after all. But… we are going to have to talk about what happened, okay?"

I hated talking about these things. "Fine, after"

"After"

I felt like hitting my head on the table. It had been over two days since Coulson was taken. And we were running in circles. I knew that if we kept searching we would find something, but it was mentally exhausting.

Or exhausting in general, given that after whatever it is that was given to me I had been unable to sleep.

At that time, I felt someone close in and place a cup next to me. "Seems like you could use it", Tony said and pushed the coffee closer.

"Thanks", I replied with a raspy voice, making sure to whisper. Jemma had refused to leave my side, and was dozing off with a blanket draped over her. She claimed that I was bound to collapse at some point if I kept going on like this, but in all honestly, I have had worse. And after that long nap was forced upon me, this was nothing. It wasn't my first all-nighter and it wouldn't be my last. "How is everyone upstairs?"

"Pepper is trying to make sure no-one does anything rash. Romanoff is taking her frustrations out on Steve in the gym as we speak", he sat in his chair, eyes immediately glued on the screen, fingers typing away. "Any news here?"

I shook my head. The coffee helped clear some of the fogginess that had started to settle in. "Same old. I just got a call from May about someone called Vanchat, apparently, he was selling Chitauri metal that the newly experimented upon Super Soldiers had on them", I stretched my back and started typing myself. "I was about to start looking at any money trails I could find from him. Hopefully they will lead somewhere", exacerbation bled in my voice and Tony turned to look at me.

"You know you can go and knock Capsicle on his ass a couple of times, right? That's bound to make you feel better", he offered.

"Nah", I said but did look away from the screen. "I need to focus here and I think Jemma will have an aneurysm if she heard I decided to spar with Steve" I looked fondly over at her sleeping form. "It's just driving me nuts that he is somewhere out there, and we just cannot quite get there. I feel like I can almost touch it, but everything so far had been a dead end", I sighed.

He sat back on his chair. "Is it just this that's frustrating you, or also not being able to find Ian Quinn?"

I whipped around like… what? Where did this come from? "Well, you did say you were tired last we talked, and… well, I know the reason for your delay getting here. It was my jet that came to pick you all up, after all."

"Okay, no", I said with a finality in my voice. "We are not doing this now Tony. I don't know where this is coming from, but now is really not the time", I turned back on my laptop with a newly found energy to just continue the search.

"I did tell you last time that you don't have to suffer alone. Suffering comes in a lot of forms", he thankfully turned to his screen and started typing. "And you have been avoiding Romanoff and Barton since you guys got here".

I sighed. He meant well, I knew he did. "Look, I'm open to talk, just not right now. Let's find him first, and then, if things seem okay, we can talk. Let's just focus on the important things right now". It was the only olive branch I could offer right now.

As I was looking into the financial movements of Vanchat, they were all over the place. And while a lot of them were probably very interesting for the government, I was breezing through all of them, since I had done the same through every single person that May had found, or that Tony or myself discovered.

I was breezing through them, my whole attention was on the screen, taking in information and saving what might have been interesting for Fury. I was going through her files so fast, that I briefly passed through her information and then had to stop and scroll back up.

"Hello, Raina"

AN.2 (for people that skipped the first part): Basically Skye had a pretty bad reaction to learning about Phil being taken cause, well, she is a moving trauma at this point honestly. And because her powers were getting triggered Clint sedated her and they lost some time until then went to the Tower.

AN.3: Now, I know it might seem like we are going in circles with the whole thing, and might seem like a complete filler chapter, but there are plot reasons I promise!