TW for brief mention of a car accident

It took a couple of weeks, but before long, everything around Skye began to settle into a new, familiar routine. While there were plenty of things about being in high school that were different from middle school, at the end of the day, school was still school. There were still classes and lessons and notes to take. There were meetings with Mr. Randolph and regular check-ins with Ms. Price to make sure she was "staying on track," which Skye felt was a little overkill, especially since she hadn't been back in school long enough to get off track, and there was lunch, which often got filled with club meetings.

Phil's AV club was a bright spot, not just because they got to watch movies at school, but because Phil and Bobbi were there, too, plus all their friends, which made the whole thing feel a little bit like some of the summer afternoons they'd all spent together in the den, laughing through some of Phil's cheesiest 80's sci-fi flicks when the weather got too hot to spend time outside. Even the Robotics team, with its somewhat rocky start, had evened out and become a decent constant, full of interesting – albeit challenging – work. Skye found she actually didn't mind the challenges that the BotLaws presented, though, despite their difficulty. At least those challenges felt like something she could eventually figure out and fix. It didn't seem pointless to wrestle with them the way some of the other difficult things in her life felt.

When Mr. Radcliffe came by the workstation where she and the senior boy, Trevor, were working together to start building the code that would program their robot and told them about new parameters they'd have to account for, she found herself feeling excited to try different ideas about how to make things work. When she spent yet another night lying awake, however, trying desperately to force her brain to think about anything other than the gruesome flashes of every bad thing and mistake that clung to her bones like a toxic smoke, twisting and clouding and choking her, she didn't feel anything but helpless frustration.

Angry nuns. Toss. Sneering foster parents. Turn. Dim warehouse, cold steel, red hands, red, red, red. Shove the pillow over your face and try to snuff the bad thoughts out. Try to sleep. Try and fail. Fail. Fail, until you eventually pass out for a few hours, wake up, and start a new day.

Part of her knew that she should tell somebody she was still having such a hard time, especially because it had definitely been getting worse ever since school had started up again.

Back when things had been bad before, last winter and spring, May and Phil had done their best to help her. They made sure she got plenty of time with Dr. Garner, who helped her not get so freaked out when they couldn't be together or when a door was closed. They listened and talked and shared and comforted, which was all plenty nice, and wasn't unhelpful exactly, but it never lasted. Once they were gone, once the lights were out and everyone else was asleep, all the old, bad stuff slunk back in and sliced into her brain with jagged claws.

She should have told them a long time ago, but she didn't want to bother them, not after everything they'd done for her, and especially not after they were so proud and happy every time she seemed like she was making progress, getting better. She didn't want to see their sad, disappointed faces when they found out she wasn't better, not really. And besides, it's not like there was anything they could do to really fix it. Nobody could. It wasn't like a bug in a line of code, that could be spotted and corrected, or like the door thing, which had a tangible problem and concrete steps to work on. It was just her stupid brain causing problems yet again.

The whole family history project for Ms. Price's class hadn't helped things, either, if she was being honest. Even if she wasn't going to write about her biological family, just having to think about the possibility was enough to add new images to her nighttime imaginings – jail bars, Cal's crooked smile, and the face of a woman whose features were too unfocused for Skye's mind to make out, save for her eyes, which gave Skye the uncomfortable, prickly-necked feeling of staring too hard into a mirror.

It was stuff like that that made Skye feel certain she would never tell another living soul about her hard nights. It was too personal, too private, too embarrassing, and too much like the kind of thing Skye was certain would get her sent to a doctor far more serious and far less understanding than Dr. Garner.

Still, she knew she just had to suck it up and get through the project. No way out but forward, because not doing it would only make things worse. Not doing it would mean more academic check-ins, more people getting on her case about school, more people prying into her heart to try and figure her out, more people asking if she was doing okay in that delicate little voice that Skye had come to hate. No, she just had to do the minimum, meet the requirements, survive and move on. She certainly had plenty of experience with that.

That was why, as she fired up her computer one afternoon to get ready for her tutoring video chat with Natasha, she had every intention of using her tutoring time to make as much headway on the project as possible. Natasha was always good at helping her get through the parts of school she liked the least. Natasha was how Skye had passed math last year, making worksheets full of fractions and ratios manageable, and how she had improved so much on her reading. So if anyone was going to help make this stupid family project bearable, it was going to be Natasha.

"Hey, Skye," Natasha said as her smiling face popped up into the video chat window with a ping. Skye couldn't help but smile back. Natasha was one of those people you just naturally felt safe around, no matter how rotten everything around you was.

"Hey."

"You look tired. Long day?"

"Long week."

"It's only Tuesday," Natasha teased lightly. "Must really be rough."

"You can say that again," Skye said. She propped her head against her fist and let out a huffy puff of air.

"Something specific weighing on you?" asked Natasha. "Or has the general drudgery of high school just already gotten to you?"

"Some of both, maybe," Skye admitted. "School's a lot. There's this big project we're doing for Freshman seminar, plus it's just a lot of long days, and all my classes are harder. Which I know is how it's supposed to work, and it's supposed to be a good thing because I did so much better than I normally do last year that I'm mainstreaming pretty much all my classes, but still… it's kind of exhausting to have to try so hard all the time."

"I definitely understand that. People see you can rise to the occasion, so they keep pushing you to be better," nodded Natasha. "It's fine for a time, but eventually it wears you out. I know it sucks to have to talk about stuff like that with people, but you should tell your folks at some point if it feels like you're doing too much. I waited for weeks to tell my cousins that I was in over my head with AP Chem, because I didn't want to let them down, but once I finally came clean about it and transferred into the regular chemistry class, everything got so much better. People are like rubber bands. Some stretching is good, but there's no point in stretching yourself as far as you can if it just means you're going to snap in two at some point."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Did I hear you say you're doing the big freshman seminar project? The family tree one?"

"Yeah." Skye cocked her head to one side. "How did you know it was that one?"

"Ms. Price has been assigning that project for years," Natasha smiled. "I had to do when I was in ninth grade."

"Did it suck as much back then as it does now?" It came out sounding more surly and rude than Skye meant it to, but it was truthfully how she felt about the project. Luckily, Natasha wasn't bothered by Skye's sulking, and she actually laughed a little as she answered.

"Probably so, yeah. I know it's not all bad, and I do remember actually learning a lot from it, but I also remember hating most of it," she smirked. "Family trees aren't always very fun, especially for people like us."

"How did you do yours?" Skye asked, suddenly very curious. She recalled some of what Natasha had shared about her family history with her and Jemma last year, and she had a hunch that Natasha probably had been directed to the "modifications" section of the assignment as well.

"I filled out what parts I could from my own memory," Natasha said. "I was 8 when I moved to the US, so I knew some stuff about my immediate family and a few of my grandparents, plus by then I had Wanda and Pietro who I could ask about some of our other relatives. The rest, though… Honestly, some of it I left blank. Some of it I just made up."

"You made it up?"

"Yeah," laughed Natasha. "Clint and I had a great time inventing wild stories for my distant ancestors. It's not like Ms. Price could prove me wrong. I'm pretty sure any record of my family has been long destroyed. Plus, it's just a high school project. Not really worth a whole lot of my energy or strife in the grand scheme of things."

"I wish I could just make stuff up on mine," Skye grumbled. "Ms. Price knows too much about our family for me to get away with that, I think."

That made Natasha laugh again. "That's probably true. So, have you thought about what you want to do? Since making stuff up isn't an option?"

Skye shrugged one shoulder listlessly. "Everybody keeps asking me like it's some big decision. Ms. Price said I could do the tree based on May and Phil's family, and since I don't have anything that I could fill out for my bio family, it seems like kind of an obvious choice."

"That's a fair point."

"I do think it'll be cool to learn more about May and Phil's families," Skye said, "since they're my family now, too. And I definitely don't want to have to talk about my dad or anything with him. Most of the time I wish I could forget he even exists. Which is weird, I know. For basically my whole life all I wanted was to know about my parents, where I came from. But then once I found out, all I've tried to do since then is forget."

"That doesn't sound weird to me at all," Natasha said. Her voice got a little softer, but it lacked the dripping pity that grownups usually carried in their soft voices, which Skye appreciated. "I think that sounds really understandable given everything that happened last year."

"The part that really doesn't make sense, though," Skye murmured, "is that there's still a little part of me that feels like I still don't have enough. Like, I got the answers I was looking for, but then that gave me all new questions, and I can't let them go. So no matter how hard I try to forget, there's always going to be a part of me that secretly doesn't want to. That always wants more, even though the wanting got me into so much trouble before."

"Can I tell you something? Something personal?" Natasha asked. Skye nodded.

"A few years ago," Natasha began, "my cousins and I had a chance to try and find out some information about our family – the people we left behind when we came to the US. Because of the way things worked out, once we fled our home, we had no way of keeping in touch, no way of knowing if our family was alive, if they had gotten out, or…not. Until there was this chance, this investigator who was trying to gather information on all the displaced families from our country during that time period. Pietro really wanted to find out. He kept saying he needed to know. The not knowing was driving him crazy, and he would rather know for sure, even if it was bad news. Wanda, my other cousin, was the opposite. She didn't want to know at all. She was afraid that she might not like the answer, and she would rather live in the not knowing – in the chance that the happier answer might still be a possibility – than the reality if the truth was grim. And I felt so stuck between them, because I could see both sides. Part of me really wanted to know, no matter what the answer turned out to be, just so I could have closure either way. But the other part of me was so scared that if the news was bad news, I might not ever be able to move past it."

"So what did you do?"

"We ended up not trying to find out," Natasha said quietly. "For Wanda's sake, mostly. It would have killed her to hear bad news, especially back then, when she was already going through a hard time. And it would have killed Pietro if Wanda was hurting because of something he'd done, so he let it go, for her. It was the right decision back then. We had worked so hard to move on and rebuild, and Wanda needed that from us. But sometimes I still wonder, and sometimes I still feel that part of me that's never going to be able to let it go."

"Do you think knowing would help you let it go?" Skye asked softly.

"I don't know," Natasha said, after a pause. "I'm not sure. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe there are some things you just have to carry with you, no matter how many answers you get."

"I asked May if she would help me find my mother's grave," Skye admitted. "I thought maybe if I could see it – see her, see her name – then that would be enough. Then I wouldn't have to think about any of it anymore and I could just move on for good."

"Worth a try, at least," said Natasha kindly. "I think if that's something you think you want – something you think would help you – it's definitely worth trying."

The sound of footsteps in the hall caught Skye's attention, and she swiveled around in her seat to see a red-faced and sweaty Bobbi poke her head around the half-open door.

"Hey," she grinned. "I thought I heard Natasha's voice. Can I come in and say hi for a sec?"

Skye nodded and scooted the chair over to make room for Bobbi. She was still in her practice jersey, and there was mud flecking up her arms and legs. They must have practiced on the bad field today. Bobbi always came home muddy after days on the bad field.

"Good practice?" Natasha asked. The video feed jumped a little and made her voice sound like a robot for a second.

"Not too bad," Bobbi said. After a beat, she frowned slightly. "There's this new player who's giving me a little bit of a hard time. We're not really clicking on the field, so it's just hard to run plays and execute when we're not on the same page."

"I'm sorry," Natasha told her. "That's never easy."

"It's okay, we'll get there," Bobbi shrugged. "We'll have to, if we want to win games."

"I miss you guys," Natasha said. "Everything's good?"

"Yeah. It feels weird to say it, but everything's good," Bobbi smiled.

"How's Mack?"

"He's good."

"And how's Hunter?" Skye could tell Natasha was teasing Bobbi a little bit with the way she smiled as she drew out Hunter's name. Bobbi's already red face went a shade redder, but she returned the smile and rolled her eyes in the direction of the computer screen, nonetheless.

"He's fine," she ribbed back, before changing the subject quickly. Skye had to admit it was sweet how easily flustered Bobbi still got when talking about Hunter, but it also made it almost impossible not to tease her good-naturedly about it. Clearly Natasha felt the same way. "What about you? How's life in college?"

"It's pretty great," Natasha beamed. "It's weird sometimes. Parts of it feel like a whole different world, but my classes are mostly interesting, and we've met some cool people already. Clint likes his teammates, and already hates his roommate. My roommate, Jane, is nice, though, and she doesn't mind that Clint's over all the time. She and her friends are astrophysics majors. Which reminds me—" Natasha said suddenly, turning her attention back to Skye, "tell Jemma when you see her that I've got a new practice packet that Jane gave me from her Geodynamics class. I'll email it to her this week and she can send it back whenever she's finished working on it."

"I'll let her know," Skye nodded, with a faint, playful smile. "She'll be over the moon."

"Where is Jemma, by the way?" Bobbi asked. "Doesn't she usually join in for some of the time while you two do tutoring?"

"She and Phil went to go pick up Fitz and Trip," said Skye. She did her best not to grimace. "They're coming over so we can all work on our projects for Ms. Price together."

"At least you'll have good company while you work on it," Natasha said sympathetically.

"Well, if they're coming over soon, then I'll leave you two to do a little more work together before they get here," Bobbi said, straightening up and making her way back to the door. "I should grab a shower, anyway."

"Yes, you should," Skye smirked. Bobbi made a face at her.

"Bye, Nat. I'll call you one night this week so we can catch up for real."

"I'd like that," Natasha nodded. "See you, Bobbi."

Skye and Natasha worked together for about twenty more minutes, before the sound of several voices coming in through the front door marked the arrival of Jemma and their friends. Natasha was able to help Skye go through the different pieces of the project and think about how she wanted to tackle each one, sketching out a game plan that broke everything down into smaller, less daunting steps. Skye still didn't really want to have anything to do with the project, but at least now she didn't feel like the whole thing was completely insurmountable. At least now she had some ideas about where to start.

"I think I have to go," Skye told her, craning in the direction of the noise from downstairs. "Thanks for helping me today."

"You know it's always my pleasure," Natasha grinned.

"You don't have to say that," Skye pointed out. "I know May and Phil pay you to still tutor me. But still, thanks. Not just for help with homework, either."

"I'd do it for free every time," she said kindly. "I hope you know that. I'll see you next week, Skye. Hang in there."

Skye said goodbye and signed off, just as Jemma, Fitz, and Trip all traipsed into the bedroom, backpacks in tow and mid-conversation.

"But think of all the practical applications x-ray glasses could pose," Jemma was saying as she led the boys in. "Engineers could identify structural damage in buildings or bridges and repair them before they collapsed, doctors could spot broken bones or tumors in a patient and know exactly where to operate—"

"Okay, yeah, I'm not saying they wouldn't useful," Trip grinned. He slung his backpack off his shoulder and let it fall to the floor before he flopped himself onto Skye's bed – his favorite spot to sit when he came over. "But just think about how much cooler a laser disguised as a pen would be. You could hide it, take it anywhere. People would think you were getting ready to write when instead, bam! You're blasting them with a laser beam. And not like a dinky laser pointer light, like a real laser."

"We're discussing which type of spy gadget would be best to have in real life," Fitz explained for Skye's benefit as he joined Jemma in perching on the edge of her bed.

"Are you team 'x-ray specs' or team 'laser pen?'" Skye asked.

"Well, I was team 'animal translator,' but I got outvoted," he grumbled.

"For the monkeys?"

"…yes, for the monkeys." Fitz threw up his hands in mock protest. "Who wouldn't want to know what's going on in those adorable little minds?"

"What about you, Skye?" Trip asked. "Best spy gadget?"

"How about a homework machine?" she said dryly. "Immediate life-improvement there, if you ask me."

"I don't know if that counts as a gadget," Jemma frowned. "It's more of a device. Besides, homework is important. It's how you practice your skills outside of the classroom."

"Okay, well that's a debate I know you're going to lose," Skye laughed. "Nobody likes homework, Jemma. Except for you, obviously."

"Which we love and appreciate about you," Trip said kindly. He paused for a beat, then flashed a cheeky smile. "We just don't understand it."

"Speaking of which," Skye said, remembering, "Natasha said to tell you she has new Geo…metrics homework for you from her roommate. She's emailing it soon."

"The Geodynamics class?"

"That sounds right," nodded Skye. "I knew it was geo-something."

"Glad we only have to work on a genealogy project and not a geodynamics project," Trip said in a pretend undertone. "I'm not sure I even know what that is… like rocks moving around or something?"

"In a sense," Fitz said. "It has all sorts to do with the dynamics of the Earth. Magnetic fields, seismic waves—"

"—Tectonic plates, mantle convection, seafloor spreading," Jemma continued, not missing a beat.

"And, of course, nearly any methods used in geodynamics can be just as easily applied to other planetary bodies," Fitz added.

"Of course," deadpanned Skye.

"It's key to understanding how a given planet functions," Jemma bubbled. "How it's formed, how it's deformed. How it changes and ages and adapts…"

"So, what I'm hearing is, I really wasn't too far off with moving rocks," chuckled Trip.

"No, you weren't," Jemma said, smiling.

They chatted for a few more minutes before admitting that they really did need to start working on their actual homework, not just talk about Jemma's bonus homework, and soon all four were chipping away at their projects. Fitz and Jemma had taken over the computer, heads together and huddled in front of the screen as they researched, while Trip and Skye found themselves spreading out across the floor, bouncing ideas back forth between them about what types of questions they could use in the interview they were supposed to conduct with a family member.

"I think we can scrap 'what's your biggest achievement,'" Trip said thoughtfully, dragging his pencil across the page and crossing out that question from their initial list of ideas. "I know my grandma would feel uncomfortable answering that one. She doesn't like to talk about herself that way."

"We could change it to something like 'what's something in your life that you're proud of," suggested Skye. "That way we could still learn something about their accomplishments, but it doesn't feel so braggy."

"That's good, yeah."

Somewhere from the other side of the room, Fitz spoke to Jemma: "…I don't know, maybe Skye can figure it out."

Hearing her own name, Skye's ears pricked up and she looked over at the other two, who were still hunched in front of the computer.

"What is it?"

"Well," Jemma began slowly. She chewed on her lip and Skye could hear the sound of her finger tapping against the desk. "We were trying to find out some information. Look something up. But we're having some difficulty."

"You know I'm, like, the queen of Google," Skye grinned, popping up from the floor and crossing over to the desk to join them. "What are we looking for?"

"My… my father," Jemma admitted. She wouldn't look at Skye when she said it, and Skye could see pink embarrassment creeping into her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I was hoping we could do this bit without needing your help…"

"Don't be sorry," Skye said gently.

She appreciated how sensitive Jemma was trying to be about the situation, about how she was including both of her families while Skye had chosen to only do one of hers, but Skye honestly wasn't upset at all that Jemma wanted to include her parents in her own project. None of Skye's frustrations and hangups with the project had anything to do with what Jemma was doing, and she had tried to explain that, but Jemma being Jemma, she couldn't help but still try and protect Skye's feelings.

"Seriously, don't worry about it. I love a good internet sleuthing session, so loop me in. What are you trying to find out about your dad?"

"I had this idea," Jemma explained, visible relief washing over her face at Skye's words, "that maybe I could learn more about his work. I thought if I could find some information about his company and the research he was doing, then that would help me learn more about him beyond the things I remember. He told me some things about his work, of course, but I was still rather small back then, so I don't think he went into much detail."

"Jemma remembered the name of the company he worked for," Fitz continued, "and we went to their website to see what info we could gather, but everything on there is current. Nothing about old projects or former employees. And a web search didn't turn up much."

"Challenge accepted," Skye grinned. "Somebody should time me."

She took her seat at the computer and scooped up the mouse with a surge of confidence. On the screen was the homepage for something called the Roxxon Corporation.

"This is your dad's old company?" she asked, clicking through a few of the promotional pictures. The page suggested a sleek, corporate image of advanced science and technology-focused research.

"I remembered the name," Jemma nodded. "He was a scientist for them, a researcher. I don't know what kinds of projects he worked on though."

"Probably something super smart, by the looks of this website," Skye murmured. She found her way to the company's About Us page and was met with a polished wall of text and a few more photos that looked like they could have been stock photos for 'research' with how clean and nondescript they were.

"'The Roxxon Corporation has long been a leader in the world of science, technology, energy, and manufacturing research and development,'" Trip, who had joined them, read over Skye's shoulder. "'Founded in 1901 by the prominent Malick family, it soon secured its position as one of the most respected and sought-after R firms in the world.' Wow, somebody thinks highly of themselves."

Skye furrowed her brow as Trip read. Something about the name Malick was sticking in her brain, but she couldn't put her finger on why.

"We probably don't need to know any of this 'glorious history' promotional stuff," she said, clicking away from the About page and over into the projects section. Her eyes widened as she scanned over the list of current projects.

"You can't deny their work doesn't sound impressive," Fitz said. "I mean, look at some of this stuff: Momentum Labs, pioneers in quantum technology; Project StatiCorp, development of a particle accelerator; Project Isodyne, zero matter; Project Asano, robotics… the sheer volume of cutting-edge projects…"

"Do any of those sound like something your dad would have worked on?" Skye asked.

Jemma shook her head. "No. He was a biologist by training. None of those sound like him."

Skey poked around on the Roxxon website for a few more minutes before deciding that the site was probably too current and too corporate-approved and commercialized to have any real information of value to them.

"I'm going to try some independent searches," she told the others as she began pecking away at the search bar, using as many tricks as she could remember from the data and information section of her computer science class last year to narrow and refine her results. Her first search, for Roxxon employee records, only took her a few seconds to find her way to the entry portal into what looked to be some kind of company-wide internal server. Unfortunately for them, it required a username and password to gain access.

"I bet that would have everything we'd need," she groaned as she glared at the empty password box taunting her. "It's all employees-only, and I bet even internally stuff is shielded by layers of admin access. Stupid company with its stupid security measures."

"So that means we're stuck?" asked Trip.

"No, that just means we have to go to plan B," Skye said. "Or plan C or D or whatever letter we're on at this point."

She backed out of the Roxxon portal and into the search program again, this time redirecting her search for archived Roxxon project promotional pages and coupling it with Jemma's dad's name. "Let's see if anybody at Roxxon cares about scrubbing their old stuff from the internet's digital archives."

The first several hits were quickly determined to be dead ends, but soon they started wading into materials that held some promise. The first was a link to an archived page from a Sheboygan newspaper. Upon opening it, Skye discovered that it was a snippet of an article talking about a car accident. She blanched as her brain caught up with her eyes as they dragged across the page. Not just a car accident. The car accident.

"Questions Remain in Fatal Crash," the article read. The words slipped around in Skye's head as she tried to catch onto them. A line a few rows down jumped out at her. "While no other vehicle was found at the scene, initial reports suggest that the crash may have involved another driver, however police declined to comment on a potential investigation. Dr. Simmons, who was a researcher with the Roxxon Corporation, and his wife are survived by their young daughter."

"We… we probably don't really need that," Skye spluttered, clicking away as fast as she could make her numb fingers move. "That didn't tell us anything about what he was working on."

"Does that mean… the accident wasn't an accident?" Fitz asked quietly.

"Not necessarily," Trip said. "It just said there might have been another car. It could still have been an accident. Maybe somebody else lost control of their car and hit them, and then they drove off before…"

"What's the next result say, Skye?" Jemma asked abruptly, her voice more stilted and louder than it normally sounded. Out of the corner of her eye, Skye could see Jemma's arm wrapped up tightly around herself, her fingers plucking at her shirt collar and drumming out an agitated beat against her clavicle. Not a good sign.

"Oh, um… yeah. Let's see, moving on," Skye said, rambling a little as she scrambled to find another suitable result to click on. "Okay, here, what about this? This looks like archived pages from the Roxxon site – old versions of the pages that are on there now. So maybe if we can adjust the date window…" She trailed off momentarily while she fiddled with the timeframe slider on the archival platform. "There. That should let us see what the Roxxon website looked like back when your dad was working there."

The webpage still bore some of the same hallmarks as the Roxxon website they'd been perusing earlier, but the logo was clunkier, the layout blockier, and there were hardly any photos. It almost felt like looking into a time machine, to see the website age before their eyes like that.

"They still have a projects list page," Trip said, pointing. Skye clicked on it.

"Any of these sound promising?" asked Fitz. "Project Cybertek, Project Centipede, Project Hydra—"

"Hydra," Jemma said suddenly. "That's got to be it."

"You're sure?"

Jemma frowned. "I'm not positive, I suppose. But we talked about cnidarians a lot when I was small – hydras, jellies, anemones. He told me all sorts of things about them, because they were his favorites. I remember we would look at the jellyfish page and the cephalopod page in my biology encyclopedia more than any other pages in the marine section. The jellies for him and the cephalopod page for me, because I liked the cuttlefish."

Skye knew better than to doubt Jemma's memory, especially when it came to important things like marine biology or her father, so she nodded and clicked the Project Hydra button. "Seems as good a lead as any. Let's see what Project Hydra's all about."

The link took them to a very small, sad-looking page with only a couple lines of text floating in an otherwise empty screen. Trip took it upon himself to read this one out loud for them, too, which Skye appreciated. It was nice to not have to spend the extra time wading through the swimming letters, made worse by the old choice of font, which made it even more difficult for her to focus on getting the letters to stay put. She also knew, even though he would never admit it, Fitz probably appreciated it, too. Reading too much for too long, especially on computer screens, still gave him headaches from time to time. Trip, gentleman that he was, never made a big deal about any of it, and just naturally had become their group's de facto reader last year.

"'Project Hydra uses cutting-edge technology and research to explore the limitless possibilities of stem-cell research and trans-differentiation in the animal kingdom. With an eye towards cellular regeneration, genetic self-repair, and…' okay, I don't know how to say that one," he admitted, pointing.

"Non-senescence," Jemma said. "It means not aging, I think."

"'With an eye towards cellular regeneration, genetic self-repair, and non-senescence, Project Hydra hopes to change the future of medicine with its discoveries,'" Trip finished reading, a frown on his face. "So your dad was working on a project about stem cells and not aging? I though you said he liked jellyfish."

"A lot of scientists think that hydras are functionally immortal. Their cells can perform self-renewal and their DNA can repair itself, so they essentially never age. And there's this one species of jellyfish, the Turritopsis dohrnii, that can revert itself back to a polyp state under stress. It's like it flips a reset switch and de-ages itself," Jemma said.

"So it turns itself back into a kid and does a do-over at growing up?" Skye asked. Jemma nodded.

"There's still a lot that's unknown about them, but if the project was interested in stem cells and regeneration, hydras and Turritopsis dohrnii would be a good place to start researching."

"And your dad must have known a lot about them," Fitz pointed out. "Which would make him a valuable part of that research team."

"I wish they gave us more information about the project," Jemma fretted. "It's a very generalized description. It doesn't even specify what specific goals they were hoping to achieve, or their methodologies, or their team, or anything."

"It's like a little promotional teaser, but not much in the way of real information," nodded Trip.

"Guess they didn't want too many of their findings getting out there for other researchers to poach from," Fitz said.

"I can try running a search with Project Hydra as one of the terms," Skye suggested. "See if there's any other records or reports or anything that might tell us more."

She tried for the next several minutes, using as many of her tricks and keyword variations as she could think of, but it soon became apparent that there was nothing to be found on the internet about Project Hydra or its team. Outside of that one archived Roxxon page, it was like Project Hydra didn't exist.

"That's so weird," Skye frowned. "There should be something else out there. But there's nothing. I mean, I guess the Roxxon guys could have scrubbed the project from the web once they weren't running it anymore, so people didn't stumble across it and think they were still doing that research, but why get rid of every single public record altogether? It's like they wanted people to forget that Project Hydra was ever a thing at all."

"If there even was a public record to begin with," Trip said. "Maybe there wasn't ever anything out there besides the one mention on the project list. Depending on how badly they wanted to keep the project secret from competition or whatever, they might not have let a lot of information about it get out in the first place."

"It's still odd, though," said Fitz. "Most big tech and R companies like that love publicity about their big, flashy projects. Looks good for investors and whatnot. And a project that's supposed to 'change the future of medicine' would definitely be newsworthy."

"Unless it wasn't going well," Jemma said quietly. "They wouldn't want that getting out if they weren't having much success. And they certainly wouldn't have anything to publish if they weren't making any progress or discoveries. My father was a lot unhappier after we moved here for his work. He never seemed as excited to talk about his studies once we moved. Maybe things weren't going as hoped."

Skye made a frustrated noise and clicked out of the web browser with more force than was probably necessary. "It's all too many maybes. There's way too much we don't know, too many holes. I'm sorry, Jemma, I really thought I could find some answers for you. All I got us was more questions."

"It's okay, Skye. Thank you for trying," Jemma told her, tapping gently on Skye's shoulder. "And we did find a few things out, at least."

"Do you think there's someone at Roxxon that we could ask?" Trip wondered. "Like, somebody who keeps track of company history or something who would be able to tell us more about old projects like Hydra?"

"Do you think they'd really just tell that kind of stuff to a bunch of kids?" Skye asked.

"Worth a shot," Trip shrugged. "Maybe if you tell them it's for a school project, or that Jemma's dad worked for them a long time ago, they'd be more open to helping out. My dad always says you never know until you ask."

"I guess it couldn't hurt." Skye reopened the internet browser and made her way back to the Roxxon website and began looking for a contact page.

"I suppose I could ask my aunt Sharon, too," Fitz added. "I mean, not that she knows a lot about tech companies or stem cell research, but still, with her job and everything… I'd imagine the FBI would have an easier time finding answers than some kids in a bedroom on a homemade computer."

"That better not be a dig at my computer," Skye teased, sticking her tongue out at Fitz. "My computer hasn't failed me once. It's not the computer's fault there's nothing to find on the web."

They found a place where they could submit a form to contact a Roxxon representative, and after some back and forth about the content of the message, the four of them eventually cobbled together something to send in.

"And you should be the one to sign it, Jemma," Trip said. "Since you're the one with the personal connection, and you know the most about hydras and stuff."

"We'll use your email for the contact, too," Skye agreed. "So you'll be the one they write back to."

"If they write back," Fitz clarified.

"Don't know until we try," Skye said as she clicked the 'submit' button. An automated message popped up in a window thanking them for their submission.

"It says you can expect a response in 1-2 business weeks," Trip read for them. "And look, it's signed by their Director of Public Relations and Communications. That seems like a good sign, that's a big, important person. So maybe somebody high up will see your message, not just some intern or something."

Skey squinted at the screen, at the name of the person who "signed" the auto response. That same tickling scratched at the back of her brain. Stephanie Malick. Malick. Why couldn't she remember why that name seemed so familiar?

"Well, I think that's more than enough homework for one day," Fitz said, getting up from the desk and zipping up his backpack.

"Agreed," Trip nodded.

"We could do something fun until you have to go home," Jemma said, following suit and packing up her own stuff. Skye thought her voice sounded a little off, in that far away kind of way, like she was trying hard to keep things together and wasn't so focused on what she was actually saying. Skye suspected that was probably true, but she opted not to comment on it. Better to let Jemma keep a good face up now, be distracted by other things, by their friends, and then give her a chance to open up and shed the composed exterior once it was just the two of them. Besides, Skye was still too distracted by the nagging feeling in the back of her mind about the Malicks to be much help right now.

"You know, I have been waiting for that Uno rematch," Trip said jovially, blissfully unaware of Skye or Jemma's inner turmoil.

"I'm in," Fitz grinned. "Let's get the cards."

The boys and Jemma started out the door, heading off to retrieve the deck of Uno cards from the games closet downstairs, but Skye didn't get up from her seat at the computer.

"Aren't you coming, Skye?" Jemma asked, lingering in the doorway and tapping a nervous beat on the frame.

"Um, yeah," Skye told her, giving herself a shake. "Yeah, I'll be right there. Just give me one second and I'll meet you guys."

"Okay." Jemma turned her eyes, large and heavy-looking, towards Skye's. "Don't take too long. I… I want… just… Just don't take too long."

"I won't," Skye said softly. "I'll be there soon. I won't leave you alone."

Jemma gave a little smile, relieved that Skye had understood what she was trying to say, then disappeared after the boys, leaving Skye alone.

Unable to ignore the bothersome itch of a missing piece she knew she should recognize, Skye's fingers started flying across the keyboard before she really knew what she was doing, and soon she was scrolling through the results page of a Google search of Stephanie Malick. A lot of the results were stuff related to Roxxon and Stephanie's job there – press releases, news articles, that sort of thing – but eventually Skye found a stubby, half-baked Wikipedia article for the woman.

The article itself didn't have much in the way of useful information. It listed Stephanie's birthdate, her job at Roxxon, and where she had gone to college, none of which Skye found especially helpful. Then she got to the Personal Life section, and something caught her eye.

Daughter of businessman Gideon Malick, she is a member of the prominent Malick family…

The Roxxon 'About Us' page had used that same phrasing, she remembered. By some stroke of luck, the words 'Malick family' were hyperlinked to its own article, and Skye wasted no time in clicking it.

This article was a little bit more robust than Stephanie's had been. Skye skipped over the History section, hoping that she wasn't missing anything important. She could feel her brain starting to slip, struggling to catch ahold of the words and letters, and she was trying to conserve her focus. Besides, she didn't think she really needed to know what the Malicks were up to in the 1800s or how they competed with oil barons at the start of the 20th century. Whatever it was that was bugging her about them surely had to be more recent than that, if she'd heard the name somewhere before.

She landed on a section with the heading Today and began to read as quickly as she could without losing track of the words. She found herself holding her breath involuntarily as she searched and scanned for anything remotely useful. Then, she found it, and it felt like her entire body had been filled with concrete, she was so frozen in place as the weight of what she was seeing set in.

The Malick family still retains control of several companies and organizations today. Nathaniel is listed as the CEO and is a major shareholder for Maveth Medical, while Gideon holds the same position for the revamped Roxxon Corporation. Gideon is also the owner and director of a network of hospitals under the Gothamite, Inc. umbrella including Calumet County General Hospital, Riverside Medical Center, Lakeshore Research Hospital, and Ames' Memorial Hospital, which was founded by Malick's father, Wilfred Malick, and named for Wilfred's mother, Eudora Ames Malick.

Malick. All the times she had trolled through the Ames' Memorial website, looking for answers about her birth family, his name had been right there. When she had tried to ask for records, she had been told that the director was very strict about what types of information were released to the public – a Mr. Malick.

Skye felt like her head was spinning. What did it mean? Why was the same guy who ran the company where Jemma's dad worked also the guy who ran the hospital where Skye had been born, where her mother had died? With a jolt, Skye remembered something else, something that had been sneered at Jemma in a cold warehouse months ago. 'I know things about your father that would make your hair curl,' Cal had said, when Jemma had tried to defend her family to him.

Skye pressed her fingers into her closed eyes, trying desperately to slow her brain down enough to make it all make sense. Except it didn't make sense, none of it. There were too many pieces that didn't seem to fit together, too many missing parts that left too many gaps for any of it to mean anything. Maybe it was all just one big coincidence. But even as she thought it, Skye felt in the pit of her stomach that couldn't be true.

No, there had to be some bigger explanation, some bigger picture that she just couldn't see yet. It was just like she and Natasha had talked about – how every attempt at finding answers just left her with more questions than before. Only this time, it wasn't just her who was impacted by the gaping, soul-sucking hole that all the questions left. This time, they were trying to suck Jemma in, too, but Skye knew she couldn't let Jemma get devoured the way Skye had been, chewed up and spit out and left with nothing but nightmares and emptiness. She wouldn't let it happen. She'd just have to put the pieces together herself.

Hi friends :) I'm sorry for being gone for so long, but I'm hoping I can be back with more consistency from here on out! Thanks for being patient with me :)