Complete silence is what Skye meets when she makes her comment, if it wasn’t for the fact that she can hear a faint sound of others moving around on Maria's end of the call, she would have guessed that her sister ended the call.
“You were the Rising Tied member they were tracking?”
Is the only thing Maria seems to get out, making Skye roll her eyes.
“Yes, and from the sound of it, you knew about this and didn’t even recognise the code words we put up if I needed a quick out, thanks for that Ria.”
“I didn’t, I had to much on my hand dealing with... what did you call him, T-1000 and Coulson, and the fact that the doctor isn’t happy about giving him a clear to be out in the field...”
Maria starts to explain, only to grow silent. Skye figures she had said more than she should have.
“Maria, what is going on here? First I found out he is dead, then you, Tasha, Clint and the rest of the Avengers confirms this and now I’m in a plane with the father figure I thought I lost. Or did lose, he doesn’t seems to recognise me.”
She starts to explain, only for her voice to shift in to a sad, pained one at the end.
“He doesn’t recognise you?”
She can hear the surprise in Maria’s voice as she asks that question and Skye shakes her head, only to remember Maria can’t see her do it.
“No, when he looks at me, it’s like he sees right through me. All he sees is a hacker they just picked up.”
She explains and Skye is quite sure that if she wasn’t stuck on this bus, in this room. She would take up a small corner of her van and hug Mushu until this feeling went away. That or she call Natasha, the only problem is, she is already out on a mission herself.
“Well, things are a bit, complicated. I can’t tell you over the phone but I’ll collect everything I can and send it to you as soon as I can. Just, don’t contact Natasha or Clint. This is all Fury’s orders and well, once you see what has happened you will understand why.”
Maria tells her and Skye gets a bad feeling about all of this.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“What have you done so far?”
“I played my part as the hacker they think that have brought in.”
“Good, keep that up. Hopefully May will recognize you.”
Maria says and before Skye has a chance to ask what she means by that, the call ends. Lowering her phone, she looks at the object as if she doesn’t know what it is. Melinda is on this plane as well? So many thoughts and questions are going through her mind in this moment and she can’t even figure out where to even start.
But hearing footsteps coming towards the door once more, Skye hides the phone once more and sits down on the chair. She has time to take a deep breath so she can try and get back into character as the door opens and Phil, followed by Ward enters once more.
“This is QNB-T16.”
Phil explains, holding up a small tube with blue liquid. Seeing it, Skye tries to rise from the chair, only to be hold back down by Ward. She knew the effects of that serum, she have heard all about it.
“It’s the top-shelf Martini of Sodium Pentothal derivatives.”
Phil continues and loads the small needle gun he brought along.
“It’s a brand-new and extremely potent truth drug.”
As Phil looks towards her, Skye is sure he must see the fear shining in her eyes. She tries to call for the training she was given by Natasha, but none of the tricks she has learned can help her now.
“Don’t worry. The effects only last an hour.”
Phil tries to assure her, an hour on that drug is far to long. One wrong question during that time and she wouldn’t be able to keep silent about everything she knows. All the secrets she has been keeping for years would be out in a matter of seconds.
“And you’ll have a nice little nap.”
Ward tells her, finally letting go of her shoulders and walks around the table to stand beside Phil, looking far to happy about this.
“And we’ll have all the answers to our...”
Ward continues to say, and for a tiny second, Skye get the feeling that Phil actually know who she is. He had given her a small smile before he puts needle into Ward’s shoulder and injects the drug. This sudden action wipes the smile of Ward’s face as he turns to look at Phil with large eyes.
“Hey! What the hell?!”
“I’m sorry. Did that hurt?”
The tone Phil is using makes Skye want to laugh, it’s the same tone she has heard him use so many times towards Clint and Natasha, on those rare occasions where he actually managed to get the upper hand on them. Something that doesn’t happen often.
“No. But have you lost your mind. You should never do that to a member of your team. And, yes, it did hurt a bit. But I always try and mask my pain in front of a beautiful woman ‘cause I think it makes me seem more masculine. My god, this stuff works fast.”
Ward says in one go. Skye looks at him out of surprise and with a glance towards Phil, she can see that he is almost pleased with himself for what he has pulled off.
“Don’t trust us? Ask him whatever you’d like.”
Phil tells her, his attention turning towards Skye before he turns for the door once more.
“Wait a minute. Wait. You can’t just...”
Wars starts to protect, but Phil opens the door and steps out.
“This is definitely not protocol-“
Ward calls out as Phil closes the door behind him. Seeing how Ward turns his attention towards Skye, she can see a hint of worry in them. If it had been Clint sitting in front of her, getting the same treatment, Skye knows for a fact she would have been more happy about all of this. But seeing the agent, she is worried what might come out.
“You seem nervous, Agent Ward.”
She points out as Ward ends up sitting down in front of her.
“I’m calling to mind my training.”
Ward points out, more to himself than her she is sure. Rising from her seat, she walks around him.
“There’s no way I'm gonna reveal classified secrets to a girl who’s hell-bent on taking us down.”
Ward continues to talk to himself and Skye rolls his eyes. If he only knew.
“Have you ever killed someone?”
She asks, surprising herself that this is the first question out of her mouth in a time like this.
“Yes, a few.”
Ward answer in a heartbeat and she can see how he regrets it a second later.
“High-risk targets. But they were terrible people who were trying to murder nice people. And I didn’t feel good afterwards.”
He adds, his tone forced as he speaks. Looking at him, Skye gets the feeling that even if he is on the drug, he is still able to keep quiet about the truth, which makes her uneasy. He had said yes far to fast after all, and something tells her to stay as far a way from this man as possible.
“And does your grandmother know about these things?”
She asks, making Ward look at her.
“Gramzy?”
He says in a broken voice, but the look of sadness in his face is all out fake and Skye takes a step away from him. She just want to turn around and leave this room right now, but she better keep asking him questions. She doesn’t need to ask him for any classified information, she can get all that whenever she wants after all. So she keeps asking one random question after another. And soon enough, Ward has fallen, resting his head on the table.
Taking in a deep breath, Skye backs up to the door and opens it. Happy that Phil never locked it when he left. Keeping her eyes on Ward as she steps out of the room, she quickly closes the door on front of her. Keeping her hand on the door handle, she leans her head to the door, in a try to collect herself.
Once she is calm enough, she starts heading down the corridor. Looking around herself, she tries to figure out where Phil could have gone. Following the sounds of a news report, Skye soon finds Phil, leaning over a table.
“Did agent Ward give you anything?”
Phil asks as she enters what she guess is a briefing room, not even turning to look at her.
“He told me he’s been to Paris, but he's never really seen it and that he wishes you had stayed on Tahiti.”
“It’s a magical place.”
Phil replies, making Skye turn to look at him with narrowed eyes. She can see that his eyes have lost focus for a few seconds as he spoke and she realises he didn’t even know he had said it. It was an auto reply, something she is very familiar with. It just didn’t feel right hearing something like that from Phil. Hopping she will get a proper answer on this from Maria later, Skye pushes that worry away for now.
“Ward doesn’t like your style. Kind of think I do.”
She adds, not laying. She might have been hard on him when he first took over after Melinda. But he had grown on her, sure, it was mostly thanks to Natasha and Clint, but he had been an amazing support in the end.
“What about this?”
He asks, nodding his head to the screen in front of them, turning up the volume in the process. Turning her head, Skye sees the news.
“...remains in critical condition. Employees could not identify the attacker, but security footage confirms that this man assaulted the factory foreman before damaging thousands of dollars’ worth of company property.”
The reporter says and Skye doesn’t know what to think.
“This is wrong. This is not... the guy I met. He was...”
She tries to speak, but she doesn’t know where to begin.
“With us here on KZQM25.”
The reporter lady says and Skye takes in a deep breath.
“He just needs a break.”
Skye says, looking up at the frozen picture of Mike.
“Then give him one. What have you got?”
Phil urged her, placing a hand over her pocket she let’s out a sigh. Fishing out Mike’s Id card, she hands it over to Phil who looks at her out of surprise. She can see that he wants to ask how she got it. Not feeling the need to tell him that Natasha Romanoff thought her how to pick pock people she shrug.
“This is the best thing you need to learn more about him.”
She tells him. Looking at the id card, he takes it from her hand before making a call. Seeing as she is not fully needed at the moment, Skye moves to stand in the back, waiting to see who Phil called. She didn’t have to wait long as Melinda, followed by two agents that looks to be around her age, maybe slightly older, enters the room.
The two younger agents looks at her with curiosity in their eyes, Melinda on the other hand looks right through her and Skye is happy she decided to lean towards the wall. She's quite sure her legs wouldn’t be able to keep her up otherwise.
“Good, we got some information.”
Phil information them as he places the id card on the table. Seeing how Melinda and the two younger agents turn their attention towards the screen, Skye moves. She starts to pacing around, she is also making sure she keeps in Melinda’s line of vision at all time. Knowing exactly where they are after the time she lived with her.