Chapter Text
Skye typed with her left hand, Squeezing a stress ball in her right. The pain was less now as she squeezed it. The sharp pains weren’t as bad.
“We should focus on securing a place to rebuild, a base is the first step. We can’t have agents with nowhere to keep them.” Fitz pointed out.
“I’m working it out now.” Coulson replied, “Focus on tracking down agents we know are still with Shield and move from there.” He frowned but nodded, resting his chin in his palm as his gaze flickered across his screen. May was off tracking down whoever they had already found.
And Skye.. well, she had an idea.
She held her phone to her ear, staring at her screen as she glanced over the information she had gathered.
“Who is this?” She smiled a little, leaning back.
“It’s Skye, wondering if you’re in the spirits to join up.” The person on the other end of the line paused.
“You’re rebuilding Shield?” She asked, puzzled. “After everything that’s happened?”
“Coulson is, I’m following. You know he’s a good man Piper, he’ll do this right.” Piper hesitated for a moment.
“I’m in. I’ll ask Davis to come with too, so where are we heading?”
“New York for now, Coulson is figuring out a permanent location as we speak, are you two in hiding?”
“Yeah we’re being chased by some FBI agents. They’ve been trying to catch us. No luck for them yet though. We’re a few cities over.”
“I’ll send you some money to make your way here, so don’t stress about it too much, book a hotel once you get here, we should have something figured out by then.”
“Roger that, but I haven't given you any of my bank details, I’m under a fake identity-”
“I already transferred over some funds,” Piper blinked as her phone notified her of the transfer.
“Well shit. Alright, we’ll be on our way, see you soon.” She hung up, Skye letting out a soft breath.
“Piper and her partner Davis are in, I sent them some money to make it to New York, but we don’t have anywhere to house them yet.” Coulson nodded.
“I think we might have a place. The Lighthouse is a good spot to settle down, nearly no one except Fury knows about it anymore, it’s well hidden and has the facilities for a growing operation.” Skye smiled.
“Sounds perfect then. What do we need to buy?” Skye clicked her pen as Coulson winced.
“You sure you want to pay for all this?”
“It’s fine dad.” She rolled her eyes softly. “I don’t mind. So we’ll need to buy medical equipment, materials to manufacture icers and such, lab equipment- “ She looked up, waving to Steve as he paused, blinking a bit at the sight. Skye and Fitz were sat at the table, Coulson pacing a bit as he checked his phone, and Jemma sprawled on the couch doing something on her tablet.
“What’s going on here?”
“We’re hashing together some Shield agents to rebuild.” Skye hummed, squeezing her stress ball tightly, feeling the aching pain that spread across her hand as she typed with her left. “We’ve got two for sure, May’s out seeing who else we can nab.” Skye looked up, smiling as Natasha walked through the door, taking a seat beside her.
“I’ll help out.” Coulson’s eyes widened, his gaze snapping to her. “I want to live in whatever base you find, I’ll keep my involvement discreet, but I will help.” Steve’s gaze snapped to her, surprised at her decision as she gently held Skye’s right hand in her own.
After a while they dispersed to do their own things, and Skye found herself in the lab where Rhodey was pestering Tony about his latest explosion, Steve sitting with them boredly.
“Listen it didn’t cause that much damage- oh hey Skye, Steve.” Tony grinned as Rhodey turned, his expression smiling into a soft smile as she waved. He hugged her lightly.
“How are you doing kid?”
“Good.” She smiled softly. “We’re getting some things ready, preparing to move to a new base. Coulson has found a viable option.”
“What do you guys need? I can foot the bill.” Tony offered easily. Skye smiled, plopping down in a chair next to him.
“I’m sure Coulson wouldn’t turn that down.” She shrugged a little “So I won’t say no, but I’ve already started footing the bill for all that. There’s a lot of other expenses though and I can’t cover it all.” He hummed
“I’m sure, running a spy agency takes a lot of money. Even I can’t cover the full yearly expenses that Shield used to need.” Skye nodded a little.
“It takes a lot, and there’s not a lot of people willing to take a low-paying job with such a high risk anyways.” Rhodey nodded
“It’s a government salary for being a criminal, it’s not appealing unless all you want to do is help.”
“Well, those are the people we’re gonna have to look for.” She thought for a moment. Her mind flickered to Afterlife for a moment before she dragged her thoughts away. Gordon had been taking care of things well in her stead since she’d gone missing. She appreciated it, though she couldn’t help the way she considered lightly asking Lincoln to join.
It wasn’t a good environment for him though, it would likely be best to avoid asking. His anger issues were being managed well but the high-stress environment would not be ideal.
“I’ve gotta go kid, but take care and keep up with that physical therapy!” Rhody gave her a short hug, smiling widely as she nodded.
“I’ve got it, love ya uncle rhodey, I’ll see you later!” She waved as he left. Steve furrowed his brows, so Rhodey was uncle, Coulson was dad, May mom, so…. Was Rhodey related to May or Coulson? Happy and Pepper had to be too, since she called them aunt and uncle.
Why the hell were they around the age of Tony then if he was their…. Uncle?
He was getting a headache trying to put together this family tree. Skye smirked lightly, turning her head away as she noticed his confusion. She’d noticed it every time she called Pepper her aunt or Coulson dad and such, it was like he was trying to piece together a family tree that didn't quite fit together. Because well, only two of this entire family tree actually genetically fit together and even that was only half.
“How is your hand feeling today?” Bruce interrupted, gazing a bit worriedly at her.
“It’s not as bad as before. The pain isn't as much anymore.” Bruce smiled lightly.
“Good, keep up exercising it as much as you feel like you can. We’ll do some more scans soon to make sure the bones are still healing correctly.” She nodded a little, leaning back in her chair with a soft sigh.
“I’ll go get back to my recruit finding, we’ve got our first two but it’ll take a lot more to staff a base.” Tony groaned as Skye peeled away, heading back to the living room they had taken over on the same floor, smiling as she saw May.
“How many did you get?” She leaned in as May gave her a soft hug, smirking softly as she pulled away.
“We’ve got ten commitments. “ Skye smiled.
“That’s an amazing start, how’d you manage that? I was sure most on the list would be a rough maybe, probably a hard no.” May sighed softly.
“Fear.” she answered “They want to continue helping people, but doing that on your own while on the run is hard, nearly impossible.” Skye frowned, nodding a little.
“Yeah, we're only faring well because we have lots of resources.” She sighed softly. “ Tony wants to donate by the way.” Coulson smiled.
“I’ll follow up with him on that, we’ll take all the help we can get. How is Piper and Davis’ journey going?”
“Well so far, they’re getting closer to New York. A day of driving left and they’ll be here. Is the base secured now?”
“We’re going to go there soon and check it out, but for now, we take a break.” Fitz let out a relieved groan, shutting his laptop as he rubbed his eyes.
“Great, my vision was starting to get blurry anyways. We have another batch of people to check through but they’re shaky possibilities and there’s no way to fully know who’s really Shield and who is Hydra.”
“Yeah this is rather miserable,” Jemma muttered softly, shutting down her tablet and setting it on the coffee table before stretching her arms out.
“We’ll have to bear with it.” Coulson sighed softly, ruffling Jemma’s hair lightly as he sat down next to her on the couch. She just let it happen, giving a disgruntled look towards him at the mess he’d created as Skye snorted softly, plopping down on the couch to her left as she tried to sort out her hair as Coulson grinned a little.
“At least I can get back in action soon, it’s been boring sitting around squeezing stress balls and working out.” May rolled her eyes.
“It’s for your own good,” She reminded as she leaned over the back of the couch beside her, Fitz taking up the spot to Skye’s left as he grinned
“The new hand is awesome though! We got some say in the design.” Skye smiled softly.
“Tony told me.” She admitted. “I appreciate it.”
“Yeah the laser cutter was our addition, it’s like the mouse hole.” Skye blinked,
“The what? ” Fitz smiled nervously.
“We added a laser cutter like the mouse hole to your pointer finger, figure it would be nice for any future needs like breaking through locks or silently getting in places.” Skye laughed.
“No it’s nice I just- That caught me off guard.” She grinned, Fitz’s nervousness shifting to a wide smile as she grinned. “Tony hadn’t said anything about it, how do I even activate that?”
“It’s an internal switch, we were planning on trying to teach you the new muscle control to activate it but you were still getting used to being left handed and such for now so we shelved it.” Jemma explained, her smile light.
“I appreciate it.” Skye smiled back. “Now, I am going back to my room, I am exhausted.” Fitz looked nervous, following after her as she left the living room. She slowed her walking pace, waiting for him to catch up until he was walking beside her.
“I… I know it’s been hard, and I don’t want to be a burden on you but…” Fitz swallowed thickly. It had been a while since everything happened, with her recovery at the forefront, and rightfully so. But he hadn’t…. Really had the time to process, to accept fully.
Skye welcomed him easily into the apartment Tony had given to her and Natasha, sitting down on the couch there.
“If you want to ask about Trip that’s fine.” He hesitated, still standing near the couch as he opened his mouth.
“I saw all the texts…” He started slowly. “All the hatred, and I… what….” he hesitated.
“It was burning hatred, for my existence paired with extreme jealousy. Trip never chose to remain as my partner, he was ordered to, and I’m sure his dislike of me festered the more he was forced to be around.” Fitz’s expression broke, the betrayal and sadness clear.
“He was the one who did that to your hand wasn’t he?” Skye tried to swallow down the anger and the sadness before she opened her mouth to reply.
“I called him a sad pathetic jealous man so he would stab me. He had stolen the suppression gloves I built and I needed him to break the circuit.” Fitz’s hands clenched tightly at his sides, scowling deeply.
“So he’s a bastard.”
“A proper bastard.” She nodded. “I just… I should have been more open about all this, so you all could know the full truth but I-”
“You need to heal first, I understand.” Fitz smiled gently, finally sitting down next to her. “Thank you… for answering my questions. I’ll leave you alone about it now I just… I needed to hear it.”