Stepping out of the van, she walks around it to pull the side door open just as May leaves the passenger seat to place herself outside the door. Steeping into the familiar van, she quickly looks around herself, to make sure if anything that would make May realise who she is are placed in the small space. But she couldn’t see anything of the sort, which made her a bit sad.
Forcing the sadness away for now, Skye pulls out her laptop and starts it up. Activating the rest of her equipment, she sees how May is holding out a phone for her. Looking at it in surprise, she takes it.
“Hello?”
She asks, not sure why May have handed her a phone in this moment.
“Good, you have reached the location.”
She hears Fitz speak from the other end of the line and Skye rolls her eyes, happy she has turned her head towards the wall so May can see this.
“Yeah, I’m starting everything up now.”
She tells him, turning her attention back to her laptop to see she can enter her code, which she does. Turning her attention fully to her computer, she starts looking for the file, smiling when she finds it.
“Audio file should be coming through. It’s not compressed, so it might take a minute.”
She tells him, watching how the file slowly uploads.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m getting it.”
Fitz responds and she can hear him move about on the other end of the call.
“So, uh, uh, when... when you get back, I’ll show you, my thing. A thing. It's not... I-it’s my hardware. My equipment. Let’s... hang up.”
Skye blinks a few times as she moves the phone from her ear and looks at it, shock going through her body. She had not expected to hear something like this from Fitz and she can’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable. Even if she deep down knows he meant the equipment he rolls with in the lab.
Holding out the phone to May once more, the older woman takes it and puts it away. Seeing how the older agent is distracted, Skye pulls out a memory card that has been hidden under her laptop and hides it away in her bra. If May or Coulson were to find it, it wouldn’t be a problem. But she doesn’t trust the rest of their team to keep silent. Her siblings and aunt have worked hard to keep her hidden after all.
“That should be it.”
She speaks up, closing her laptop and turns towards May once more.
“Let’s head back.”
She orders and Skye nods her head at this. But before either of them has a chance to move, something or someone drops down behind May. Mike had dropped down from the sky, grabbing hold of May and throws her into the wall behind them.
Fear strikes Skye and she can hear how she whispers out Melinda’s name. The only other person she has ever seen come close to take May down is Natasha. Turning her attention towards Mike, Skye moves further back into the van.
“Mike.”
She managed to get out, her voice trembling, and she tries to pull herself together. This wasn’t the time to fall apart, not for her and especially not for May. Seeing how Mike turns his attention towards her, she can see that he isn’t all to sure what he is doing.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice was a bit more stable this time, but she’s still shaking.
“Saving you. From the scary men in dark suits.”
He points out and Skye is tempted to point out that he just knocked out a woman, her mother in fact. But the words never reached further than to her mind, stopping at the fact that she wanted to call May her mother once more.
“And you’re gonna help save us.”
Mike adds, pulling Skye back to the here and now.
“Us?”
She asks, suddenly on her guard once more. She didn’t like the way he said it and when he pulled a small kid in front of him, and Skye feels how her eyes grows large as the kid whimpers.
“Don’t cry. Okay?”
Mike tells his son as they enter her van, making Skye move closer to the wall, feeling unsafe. All she wants in that moment is for May to wake up again at take this guy out, even if it wouldn’t be the best moment to do so.
“Stay strong for me, Ace. What are we?”
“We’re a team.”
“That’s right.”
She watches the interaction between Mike and his son, and Skye can see that Ace isn’t all to sure about all of this and she can’t really blame him. This is a scary situation for anyone.
“Now drive.”
Mike tells Skye and she carefully nods. She doesn’t want to leave May knocked out in the ally, but she doesn’t want to disobey this man and make him angrier than he already is. Moving out of her van, she closes the side door carefully. Turning around, her eyes landing in May.
“I’m so sorry Melinda.”
She whispers as she walks around the van and enters it once more. With a deep breath, she starts the van and starts to drive away from the location. All she can hope now is that May will wake up and contact Coulson and the others.
As she drives, she can hear Mike speak to his son as she drives then towards the train station. Parking outside, Skye returns into the van once more, starting her laptop once more. She can feel Mike’s eyes on her as she starts working on deleting everything she can find about Mike Peterson, and at the same time sending a message to Fitz to tell the S.H.I.E.L.D team where they can find her.
She should probably be sending this information to her siblings, but since Coulson already knows about her and her involvement in all of this, it’s a risk.
“How long is this gonna take?”
Mike asks and Skye stops working for a few seconds.
“This is top speed. Trust me. It’s not like I’m deleting a Facebook page. I’m bypassing the license bureau’s A.E.S-protected data stream. So, chill.”
She tells him, her eyes narrowed as she works.
“How do I know you can really do this?”
“I’ve done it before.”
Her voice takes on a darker tone as she replied and she’s not wrong. When she first joined the Rising Tied, Skye made sure there was no information left about here that could be used against her or her siblings.
“We’ll take the nice lady with us. We... we... can’t go to the airport, so we’ll... we’ll take a train. And there, she’ll... she’ll help us start over, make a new life... A better life, like I always said.”
She hears Mike tell his son, but Skye can hear how he is uncertain about all of this. Looking at the screen, she can see that the message to Fitz has been sent properly and she hopes they have realised what is going on.
“Mr Peterson, good morning. We’re not a threat. We’re here to help. But you’re in danger, and we need to take you in.”
She can hear Coulson speak outside of her van and she turns her head in surprise. She had not expected them too actually fond her this fast. It most mean that May had managed to wake up soon after she left with Mike and Ace.
“What did you do?!”
Mike asks and she can hear the anger in his voice, and it makes her shrink down in fear. Seeing how Mike turns towards the side door and hits it hard, her eyes grow large as she sees how the door flies off without a problem.
“Come on. Come on.”
Mike tells her as the others are distracted, grabbing hold of her and pulls her out of her van, her home, alongside with Ace. Turning her head as Mike pulls her towards the building, Skye looks at the van, realising this is the second time in one day she is being taken away from it, and now it’s missing a door, Clint’s not going to be happy about this.
Mike pulls them into the train station and Skye can feel her fear growing stronger and stronger among all the people, not to mention due to the anger coming from the man holding onto her.
Looking around herself, her eyes lands on a group of men walking towards them. She gets an idea, a very stupid and dangerous idea but an idea, nonetheless. Taking in a deep breath, Skye kicks one of the men between his legs hard.
“You’re right... he is a little bitch.”
Skye says, turning her attention towards Mike and she can feel the grip he has on her lessen.
“Yo! Get him! Get him!”
One of the men calls out and the grip Mike had on Skye is gone when he pushes Ace behind him.
“Ace, get back!”
She hears Mike order his son as she starts to run away. It was hard to navigate through now scared people that are trying to get out of the building and each door she managed to reach was locked. Which lead to Mike reaching her once more. His grip around her arms is hard and she lets out a small whimper in pain, but the man beside her is too angry to notice.
A gun shot echoes through the building, throwing the people into panic mode. Mike takes the opportunity to kick down the locked door Skye had tried to get through and pulls her up the stairs.
“You have to stop! These people can help you.”
Skye says as she tries to pull herself free from the grip.
“The men in suits? They’re your buddies now? Where did they take my son?!”
Mike asks and Skye can see how is growing more and more angry. With a hard pull, he walks towards the balcony so they could get a better look on what is going on downstairs. Realising there isn’t much she can do, Skye takes in a deep breath to calm herself down enough to attack the man beside her, she had to get free after all. But before she has a chance, another gun shot is heard, this one hitting between the two of them.
“Get down!”
Mike calls out, pushing Skye away from him as he turns around to face the police that has somehow followed them. The man takes aim once more and this time hits Mike who falls over the railing, Skye’s eyes growing in chock at the sight. Turning her head towards the man, she forces all of the fear down and get’s ready to attack as he reloads and turns his attention towards her.
She didn’t get the chance to attack this man either as May show’s up behind him, kicking his legs out from under him before landing a hard blow to his head, knocking the man out. May lifts her head to look at Skye at this and Skye can feel all of her energy drain from her as she collapses on the floor. Now that the threat has been neutralised and May is right there, Skye can’t hold herself together anymore and she starts to crash. Lowering her head, she starts taking in a few deep breaths, using what May showed her all those years ago. It almost feels like a lifetime since that day now.
Feeling how May walks towards her, Skye doesn’t move, she knows fully well that the older agent won’t hurt her. With another deep breath, she looks up, eyes meeting May’s and she can see a mixture of surprise and worry in her eyes. The emotions were hidden deep in her eyes, but she can spot those emotions well. Forcing herself up, she can feel how her legs are shaking but she pushes through it.
“You alright?”
May asks once Skye is standing once more and she nods her head. With a deep breath, she lets all of the emotions showing on her face melt away, this wasn’t the time for this.
“I’m good. We should probably make sure Mike is alright, he was shoot and fell over the balcony.”
She says, hopping that May won’t ask more questions. She can see that the older agent has questions to ask, but Skye have made up her mind. She will wait for the information Maria is to send her before she starts digging through the pile of questions that is being created around her. Walking past May, she heads down the stairs Mike had pulled her up. She can hear that May is following her.
What happened next is all a blur from the moment she reached Coulson and Mike, all from how Ward shot him with a rifle that FitzSimmons have been working on, to S.H.I.E.L.D taking control over the situation and Mike being taken in to get the help he needs. How Coulson decides to take Skye with him when they drop of Ace at his aunt.
Waving her hand to the kid and the woman, Skye puts her hands back into her jack pocket as she heads for Coulson and Lola. Looking at the old red car, she can’t help but to smile slightly, it wasn’t until now that she realises just how much she have missed that car.
“I told him his father was coming home.”
She tells Coulson as she get’s closer, hopping that she hasn’t just told the boy a lie. She knows just how hard it is to lose the people closes to her.
“He will. We have some experience with this.”
“He almost blew. We almost died.”
“We have some experience with that, too.”
Don’t she know it, she has after all read one to many S.H.I.E.L.D files to know exactly what they have experience on.
“Don’t have it all mapped out.”
“True. We didn’t cut off the head of the Centipede. Whoever sponsored that little experiment is still out there, among other things.”
Coulson tells her and Skye takes in a deep breath, there is to much in the among other things category for her liking and one special part that is still giving her nightmares.
“It’s a brave new world.”
She says with a sigh, turning her head to look at Lola and she smiles once more.
“And a really old car.”
She adds, making Coulson laugh like she knew he would.
“Lola can keep up.”
He tells her as they enter the old car.
“What about you? Have you thought about the offer?”
He asks and Skye leans back in the seat. He had asked her to join them on the team and she wasn’t all to sure if she should or not. After all, she spends one day with them, and she breaks down and is close to get killed. If Natasha and Clint were to find out about this, Coulson would be in for an ear full.
“Hitching a ride on the crazy plane? I’m not exactly a team player.”
“We’re not exactly a team. But we’re in a position to do some good. You’d be great help. And you’d be front row seat at the strangest show on the earth, which is, after all, what you wanted.”
Oh, she got front row seat with her siblings on a daily basis, not that Coulson is aware of that fact.
“I was able to hack S.H.I.E.L.D from my van. You’re gonna show me something new?”
She asks just as his phone starts to ring, seeing the smile on Coulson’s face, he reaches for it to answer.
“Go.”
“Sir, we’ve got an 0-8-4.”
“Is that confirmed?”
“They want us to go in and confirm it.”
She listens to the conversation between Coulson and Ward, and she grows worried at what she hears.
“What’s an 0-8-4?”
She asks, acting once more that she has no idea of what it means.
“You´ve got exactly 10 minutes to decide if you really want to know.”
Coulson tells her as he starts up Lola.
“There’s no way we can make it to the airfield in-“
Skye starts to say as Coulson flips a switch and Lola starts to levitate.
“… 10 minutes.”
Skye finished saying, looking over the side of Lola and look down at the ground in surprised. She didn’t know the old car was able to do this.
“The tied is rising.”
She hears Coulson say beside her as he starts to head for the airfield. This day is just getting weirder and weirder.