TW for mention of death of a grandparent and for vague reference to drug use/addiction

"What do you think he's going to be like?"

Skye sat at the foot of Deke's freshly-made bed, which she'd just finished helping Bobbi and Jemma with, and swung her feet back and forth a little. Away from the kitchen and Phil and May's worried stares, she'd been able to calm herself down a little, although she found herself wanting to rub her thumb back and forth across the spot on her wrist where she'd rapped her knuckles. It felt like maybe it might turn into a bruise at some point, but she couldn't make herself stop fussing with it.

Jemma, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her, tapped thoughtfully on the bedpost and shrugged. "Who knows? Mostly like a little boy, I suppose."

"I've never really spent that much time around little kids," Bobbi said. "Did you two spend a lot of time with them at St. Agnes?"

"Some," Skye said. She ran her hand across the dark blue bedspread they'd just put on the bed, but she didn't find any loose threads to fiddle with like on her own quilt, so she went back to swinging her feet. "The really little ones have their own space, the nursery wing, that you stay in until you're old enough to go to kindergarten. Sister McKenna was in charge there. Then once you're five you move into the regular dormitories with the older kids. Those rooms are mostly split up by age, too, and the very oldest ones, like high schoolers, have their own wing." With a small lurch of her stomach, Skye realized that, if she had still been living at St. Agnes right now, she'd probably be in the high school wing by now, kept apart from Jemma for much of the day. Yet another reason to be grateful she was living with May and Phil.

"There wasn't a lot of intermixing encouraged," elaborated Jemma. "Besides mealtimes and mass, when everyone was together, we typically stayed with our dormitory groups."

"Which really sucks when you've got to share your room with somebody like Michaela Dodson," Skye grimaced, recalling their old roommate who took a special kind of pleasure in tormenting Skye and Jemma.

"Surely Deke won't be like that," Jemma murmured, tapping a little faster on the bedpost.

"I doubt it," Bobbi assuaged. "I mean, he's six. He's probably not going to be trying to push us around. If anything, he might be afraid of us."

"Or he could be a handful," Skye suggested. "That's what the nuns called me when I was six. A handful. Or difficult. They used that one a lot, too."

"What about you, Jemma? What were you like when you were six?"

"Sensitive. Or peculiar. I got difficult a few times as well, but I think the nuns meant it differently than the way they used it for Skye."

"They definitely did," Skye snorted.

"My parents didn't say things like that, though," Jemma continued. The frown she'd worn when quoting the nuns melted into a soft, faraway kind of smile. "I remember my mum called me 'clever girl' a lot. And 'duckie.' She liked to call me that because I loved to go to the duck pond down the road from our house with her when I was very small. I would try to study the ducks by mimicking them, waddling along behind them, you know."

Bobbi and Skye both smiled at that, and Skye got a sudden image in her mind's eye of a tiny Jemma toddling after a flock of ducks on chubby legs.

"My father always told me I was remarkable," Jemma said softly. "He loved to use that word, but he only saved it for really special things, like the stars or his research."

"And you," Skye pointed out. Jemma was practically glowing, but she still ducked her head bashfully.

"And me," she agreed.

"My dad still liked me okay when I was six," Bobbi said then, like she was remembering something. "He wasn't around a whole lot, but he liked watching Star Wars with me and playing sports. I think the fact that I could catch and throw a ball made up for the fact that I wasn't a boy, in his mind. I got on my mom's nerves a lot, though, I think. And they both thought I was kind of weird, maybe. I don't know, I don't actually remember that much about what things were like before my mom left. Just that they weren't great. But better than after she left, I guess."

"I'm sorry, Bobbi."

"It's fine," she said matter-of-factly with a wave of her hand. "It's long-gone. And it's not like I'm the only one here who had a crummy childhood."

"Fair point," Skye smirked. "That's not really a competition any of us needs to have."

"And things are good now," Jemma said with a contented sigh. She leaned back against the bed, resting her head right next to Skye's dangling leg and tapping softly on her own knee while Bobbi echoed Jemma's "good" a few times in agreement. "That's what's most important."

Phil's voice drifted up the stairs then, floating in through the open bedroom door and calling them to come down to the living room. Miss Hand and Deke were here.

Everyone was already seated in the living room by the time Skye, Jemma, and Bobbi came downstairs, May and Phil on the couch and Miss Hand in one of the armchairs. It took Skye a second to realize that there was someone sitting in the other armchair – a small, skinny white boy who Skye figured could only be Deke. He was all knees and elbows, with a sharp nose, thick eyelashes framing his light-colored eyes, and rumpled brown hair that was so full of cowlicks it looked like he had just rolled out of bed. His feet didn't touch the floor, but Skye knew better than to comment on that fact. She remembered the indignance she felt at that age whenever people – usually dopey adults who wanted to comment saccharinely on how cute you looked – pointed out her size.

"Hello Bobbi, Skye, Jemma," Miss Hand greeted them as they all squeezed onto the couch with May and Phil. "Good to see you all." She was using her work voice, which sounded almost foreign to Skye now, after she had spent so much time with off-the-clock Miss Hand. Not that off-the-clock Miss Hand was especially informal, particularly when compared to someone like Izzy, but still, Skye had to take a moment to reacclimate herself to the "strictly business" tone Miss Hand was using right then.

They all greeted her in return, but none of them had much else to say, since it had only been a few days since they last saw her and it was clear this wasn't exactly a social visit.

"Miss Hand was just introducing us to Deke," Phil said then, smiling wide and buoyantly filling the awkward gaps that filled the room as no one knew what to say. "Deke, this is Jemma, Skye, and Bobbi," he said, going down the line and indicating each of them in turn. They all waved, Jemma a little shyly and Bobbi a little unsure of herself, and Deke waved back. He flashed them a grin that was missing several teeth.

"Hi."

"We'd love to get to know you a little bit, Deke," May said kindly. "What are some things you like to do?"

"I like drawing, and computer games, and playing space explorers with my friends," Deke said. He lisped slightly around his missing teeth, and he talked like the words couldn't fly out of his mouth fast enough to keep up with his ideas. Skye could relate to that feeling. "And I like monkey bars, and swings, and building inventions with Bobo's tools in the garage. I like using Bobo's tools the best, but Nana doesn't like it when I use the saw or the soldering iron, so m'not allowed to touch those anymore, except on days she forgets. I can use 'em on those days."

"Sounds like you're a busy guy," Phil said, a little bemused at Deke's eclectic list of favorite activities. "We don't have a soldering iron, I'm afraid, but sometimes I like to work on the car or fix up things around the house. Maybe you could help me with some of those projects while you're here."

"I'm a good fixer," Deke nodded. "Really good. Nana says so. I'm her best fixer."

May and Phil asked Deke a few more questions, and soon they learned that his favorite color was yellow, his favorite food was ice cream, and his favorite superhero was a tie between Iron Man and some hero named Quake that Skye had never heard of before.

"I'm a big Captain America fan, myself," Phil told him playfully, "so I'll do my best not to hold your love of Iron Man against you too much."

Eventually they reached the point where there wasn't a whole lot more small talk to make with the little guy, and Miss Hand cleared her throat.

"Girls, maybe you could show Deke where he'll be sleeping. Deke, you can take your things and start getting settled in."

Skye wasn't surprised by the suggestion in the least – she knew it was Miss Hand's way of signaling to them all that it was time for them to leave the adults alone for a while so they could talk, most likely about Deke. She was more than a little curious what Miss Hand had to say about him, but she caught May's eye as she, Jemma, and Bobbi stood up from the couch and saw the look May was sending her way. One of those 'no funny business' looks May was so good at conjuring. It wasn't the first time Skye had felt like May could read her mind. Still, Skye wasn't interested in stirring up any more trouble that night, no matter how badly she wanted to know what Miss Hand was going to share about Deke, so she flashed May a small gesture of playful surrender – hands up and smiling – to signal that she heard May's silent instruction.

"Come on, Deke, let's go," she said, beckoning. Deke scrambled down from the chair and picked up a small rucksack from the floor, cradling it to his chest.

"Is this yours, too?" Bobbi asked. She pointed to a duffle bag that was closer to Miss Hand's chair and Deke nodded.

"Yep. All my clothes n'stuff. It's kind of heavy."

"I'm pretty strong," Bobbi assured him, swinging the duffle up in one fluid motion and hoisting it over her shoulder. Deke's eyes went wide.

"Super strong," he said in awe. Skye coughed loudly to cover the snort that escaped her. She knew Bobbi was strong, but she suspected that a duffle bag full of little kids' clothes wasn't quite as heavy as Deke thought it was. She didn't want to burst his bubble, though, so she forced herself to keep a straight face.

"Your room's up here," she told him as they made their way to the stairs. "Jemma can show you." She knew that it might take Jemma a little while to warm up to him and start talking, but she figured that giving Jemma an opportunity to show Deke who she was without having to say anything would be the best way for the two of them to get to know each other for now.

Before anybody realized what he was doing, Deke bounced over to where Jemma was standing and slipped his hand into hers.

"Okay, let's go."

Jemma stood frozen for a second, and Skye could see the muscles in her arms and shoulders tensing up at unexpected touch, from a stranger, no less. There was a beat where Skye wasn't sure what Jemma was going to do – pull her hand away, maybe, or flinch or tuck her arms into herself like a turtle in a shell – but then the moment passed, and Jemma unstuck herself. She still seemed stiff, like she wasn't super enthused about holding a stranger's hand, but she closed her fingers around Deke's small hand and began climbing the stairs with him in tow. Skye cut her eyes over to Bobbi and saw that she looked as surprised as Skye felt.

Upstairs, Deke seemed to be making himself right at home in his new bedroom. He hopped up on the edge of the bed and bounced a few times, grinning, before he flumped back down and popped over to inspect the rest of the room. He still clutched his rucksack in one hand and Jemma's hand in the other.

"This is all mine?" he asked, glancing up at Jemma.

Jemma nodded. "It's yours."

"Have you ever had your own room before?" Bobbi asked him. She set the duffle bag down near the dresser and leaned against the piece of furniture, watching him with a bemused sort of look on her face.

"I have my own room at my house," Deke said, like that should have been obvious. "I have my room and Nana has her room. She used to share it with Bobo but now he's gone and Nana doesn't know where he went, so she doesn't have to share her room anymore. I only have to share when I go stay at foster houses when Nana's sick."

"Nana's your grandmother?" Skye clarified. She remembered Miss Hand saying that Deke lived with his grandmother, but she wasn't sure about the other person Deke kept mentioning. "And Bobo is your…?"

"He's my grandpa," Deke explained, nodding. "He went to heaven when I was five and a half but now sometimes Nana doesn't know where he is, so maybe he's just at the store or something. Sometimes she thinks we need to wait for him to come back, but Miss Hand said he won't, probably. My mom might come back, though. Miss Hand said my mom is getting better and I can maybe see her again soon."

"That… that'll be nice," Bobbi said blankly. It was obvious that none of them really knew what to say to that.

"Yeah," he said with a happy sigh. "I love my mom. Sometimes she gets sick and it makes her feel sad, so she takes bad medicine. But when she's not sick anymore, we're going to play at the park, and she'll read me stories, and give me hugs and kisses again. It's gonna be so fun."

He seemed wholly unfazed by everything he was telling them, but Jemma's face pinched up with worry, and Skye could feel her own stomach tightening with discomfort as she put the pieces of his story together. She hoped for Deke's sake that what Miss Hand had told them, about how his mother was working to get custody back, would prove to be true.

"Do you want to unpack?" she finally asked, after the silence had gone on too long and left her feeling too uncomfortable. "Or we can show you the rest of the house. There're some toys down in the den. Phil pulled out his old Legos and Captain America action figures for us last year, but you can play with them."

Deke looked tempted by the offer of Legos, but he shook his head. "I'm s'posed to unpack first." He quickly dropped Jemma's hand and opened up the duffle bag. He grabbed out handfuls of clothes and shoved them haphazardly into the dresser drawer that Bobbi pulled open for him, not really paying attention to where anything was going. Jemma looked like she wanted to interject and sort his things out for him, but she held herself back. Skye noticed she slipped her hand into her pocket, probably to tap where Deke couldn't see, once Deke let go of her.

After Deke finished throwing his clothes into the dresser, he turned his attention to the rucksack, which he hadn't let out of his grip since coming upstairs. He took a lot more care with the contents of that bag, gently lifting each item out and setting it in a line across his bed. First came a battered, stuffed sock monkey with a slightly mangled tail that looked like someone had chewed on it years ago. After that, he pulled out a plastic keychain in the shape of a lemon, three rather nondescript gray rocks, a slightly tattered postcard with a picture of a lighthouse on it and a handwritten note on the back that Skye couldn't get a close enough look at to read, a dog-eared spiral notebook, and, lastly, an action figure of a superhero Skye had never seen before. She was wearing a black-and-purple suit with silver arm guards and had short, dark hair.

"I left a lot of my toys at my house," Deke said, carefully adjusting the arms and legs on the action figure so she was in the right pose. "'Cause I'm going back there once my mom's better. But I always take Quake. She's got earthquake powers and can blast the bad guys." He held out a hand, pantomiming a superhero blast coming from his hand, complete with sound effect. "She's the best."

"Earthquake powers do sound pretty cool," Bobbi admitted. "Dangerous, but cool."

"Quake would never use her powers for evil," Deke said seriously. "She's not dangerous, she's a hero."

Satisfied that his Quake figure was in the proper pose – feet planted heroically with one arm raised, ready to blast, Skye figured – Deke turned his attention to the notebook. He flipped it open to a page somewhere in the middle, which Skye could see was full of the same two words written over and over again: Deke Shaw.

Deke fished a stubby pencil out of the spiral and gripped it hard, concentrating as he painstakingly wrote out his name, extending the repeating chain of 'Deke Shaw's that filled the page.

"I have to write my name every night," he explained as he scratched his second 'e' onto the paper. "I'm s'posed to practice writing until I get really good at it and my letters look as nice as Nana's. I write my name every night and she writes her name every night for remembering."

"Like neurocognitive strength training," Jemma murmured.

"Or muscle memory," suggested Bobbi.

"There are a number of studies about the efficacy of—"

Not particularly interested in going down a rabbit hole of brain training or in getting too deep in a conversation that might make Deke feel homesick on his first night, Skye decided, almost instantaneously with the words flying out of her mouth, to change the subject slightly. If she had given herself a second to think about it, she probably would have found a more polite way to do so, but as it was, the question escaped her before she had a chance to soften it.

"So what kind of a name is Deke?"

Deke blinked and cocked his head at her, confused. "It's my name."

"I just mean, I've never heard anybody named Deke before," Skye backtracked slightly. "Where'd it come from? Your name?"

"It came from my mom," Deke said, unsure. He spoke like what he was saying should be obvious and he didn't understand why Skye would be asking something so foolish. "She gave it to me when I was born. That's how everybody gets their names."

"Not Skye," said Jemma quickly. Skye knew she couldn't help herself sometimes when she knew a correction to something. "Skye picked out her own name."

Deke turned his attention back to Skye, eyes wide. "You did? But what about when you were born? Didn't your mom give you a name?"

"She did," Skye said. She shifted her weight back and forth slightly, a little awkward under the gravity of Deke's undivided curiosity. It wasn't like she wasn't comfortable talking about her name or her past – she'd had a lot of practice over the years – but she'd only just met Deke an hour ago, and she wasn't sure he was quite old enough to fully grasp the entirety of her story.

"She gave me a name when I was born, Daisy. But she died right after and I got taken to an orphanage. Nobody there knew that I already had a name, so the nuns there picked out a new one for me. I didn't like it, so when I was five, I chose a different one for myself. Skye."

"Daisy's pretty, but Skye is good, too. If I could pick a new name, I think maybe I'd be called Megalodon," Deke said thoughtfully. "Or Ralph. But I think I like Deke best."

"Then Deke it is," Bobbi smiled.

"It suits you," agreed Skye, who was trying very hard not to laugh at the idea of calling the scrawny kid in front of her 'Megalodon.'

"I think your names suit you, too." Deke closed up his notebook and tucked it back into his rucksack, then turned to them all and beamed, flashing his gap-toothed grin. "Are we going to get to eat soon? I'm really hungry and something down there smells good."

Just wanted to say sorry for the long gaps between uploads the past couple of chapters! Life's been kind of hectic and I was sick all last week, but hopefully things will calm down moving forward :) Hopefully you all like this version of Deke okay, I know he's pretty different, but I tried to keep the spirit of him the same! Also, just in case it's confusing, Deke's grandparents are called Nana and Bobo (like the show), but they are not the same as Jemma and Fitz. In this story they're just random grandparents - no time-travel shenanigans in this AU ;)