Lessons Learnt
Sometimes, Skye ruminated, it was odd how you could love someone so much – with your whole heart and soul – and yet still dislike them. Like, Skye loved Mattie, he was pretty much the only constant in her turbulent, lonely life, often times she would even fantasise about running away with him and living in some cliché suburban house in New Jersey, but then he did things like make her school fully assess her academic capability with IQ tests and standardised tests for all of the grades up until grade ten. It was at these times when Skye’s day dreams drifted more towards finding a rusty pipe and whacking her pseudo-brother around the head with it.
So what if she was a genius? School was still as boring as all hell, her headaches weren’t letting up any time soon – sometimes she even passed out when it all got too much – and to top it all off, she had literally just been sent back by another family.
The eleven year old had truly thought the Brody’s were different, the parents were nice – lovely, even – she got on swimmingly with their biological children, she was even stupid enough to think it was okay to call Mrs. Brody “mom”, completely missing how the woman’s vibrations sped up, breaking her harmony, and the way her eyes winced even as she smiled. Of course she was sent back the next day because Skye was only ever given something good if it would hurt to take it away.
So Skye had done the sensible and healthy thing, she took all of that emotion and rejection, balled it up, firmly stuffed it inside a box at the very back of her mind, and focussed all of her energy into acing these dumb tests. It’s not like she had a lot else going for her these days and damn if she wasn’t tired of her teachers treating her with pity just because she was the orphan.
Unexpected consequence of acing the tests that Skye should have, 100%, expected: she was moved to the local high school to share classes with a whole bunch of sixteen year olds, she was actually in the grade above Mattie, which, despite how much she hated the move, Skye would tease him about constantly.
And yeah, okay, school was actually a bit more interesting now and they had put her in an actual computer science class and let her use actual, honest to god, computers that weren’t scraped together from garbage diving excursions, but the actual people in her grade were either supreme dicks to her – about her age, gender, race, familial status, ect., take your fucking pick, they’d probably abused her for it – or they were overly nice to her in a condescending way purely to see if she would do their homework.
Due to this, most times the final school bell rung and students would charge out of the front doors, Skye was fuming. Sure, she was small and young, but, by god, when she was angry, she could be fucking terrifying. People would move out of her way when they saw her coming, avoid eye contact and once a freshman had even fainted from holding his breath as she walked past, but come rain or shine, day in day out, Mattie would always be waiting for her at the front gates, arm cocked and cane extended before him.
The old skate park having been closed off for construction of an apartment complex, the duo had taken to going to the warehouse district near the docks after school, seeing as most of them were completely empty and disused anyway, no one would care if a couple of kids threw around a few forgotten pipes or sat in the rafters.
But today? Today was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back for Skye. That douche Jimmy had knocked into her and made her spill all of chemicals over the desk in their assessed practical, even burning her hand slightly, then in gym everyone save for the new girl had ganged up on her in dodgeball – she had a black eye and a split lip to show for it – and finally, the pièce de résistance, someone had stolen her clothes – one of the three outfits she actually owned after charity distribution at St. Agnes – torn them up and thrown them over the powerlines going over the street outside school.
So she told Mattie as much, pacing frantically up and down the strip of concrete in front of the boy sat cross-legged against the corrugated steel wall, waving her hands in wild, violent gesticulations. She could feel the anger bubble up from within her, closing around her throat like a vice and plaguing her mind with dark fantasies, but more than anything, she felt the surge of power spreading out from her very core, like a swarm of wasps coursing through her veins, buzzing and buzzing and-
“-kye! Skye! We gotta go!” Mattie was shouting, straining to be heard over the cacophonous noise of- of- of the ground crumbing and building collapsing round them? The older boy was rushing over to her, frantic with worry, but Skye could only watch, mesmerised, as a symphony of destruction played right in front of her, for the first time in years she felt right, like this had been building and building for as long as she could remember only to be set free in a deluge, and just like that, Skye knew this was no natural earthquake, no, she could feel the power rippling off of her in commanding waves, tearing through the concrete to reach the earth it had so long been separated from.
She felt at peace, and strong like she never had before.
But Mattie was still looking at her with equal worry and confusion, his lips pursed and head cocked, but his jaw firmly clenched and she knew this couldn’t be good for his enhanced senses, so she focussed, focussed on the power rushing out of her, commanding it to stop, not to come back to her, but to slowly, calmly, fizzle out until, with one, weak quake, the ground settled and Skye fell to it in physical and mental fatigue.
Mattie was not long behind, carelessly dropping his collapsed cane to one side while he kneeled beside her, gently stroking the brunette’s arm with one hand while his other when around her waist to keep her upright as her torso swayed forward. He could hear her heart pumping in her chest, too fast for him to even distinguish an individual beat, but he smiled, he smiled because this was his little sister in all but blood, his strong, wilful sister who finally realised the potential Mattie had seen in her for years.
“We’re quite a pair, huh kid?” He whispered soothingly in her ear. The girl in his arms let out a weak, but amused, laugh, turning her lulling head towards him with a tired smile, though the joy and wonder radiated through.
“I can feel everything. It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Matt responded, pulling Skye further into his side as he listened to the far away waves lapping gently against the docks not two hundred yards away, “it really is.”
“The first and third are a lie.” Skye stated, bored, as she leant back from her concentrated slouch, using her hands on the floor behind her to keep her balance, “You know, this game is significantly less fun when we can read each other’s vital signs.”
Matt let a long suffering sigh from where he sat a metre opposite her in the condemned old ramshackle building they had taken to ‘training’ in. This was not the first time Skye had voiced this particular complaint.
“That’s because it’s not a game. I’m trying to teach you to protect yourself.”
“I still prefer the hitting you with sticks part of teaching me to protect myself, that bit is fun.” Skye shot back with an easy grin.
“I don’t mean just physically, Skye, you need to be able to protect yourself mentally and emotionally as well or the effects can be just as, if not more, devastating as a broken bone. I just-” the boy sighed, rubbing tiredly at his temples, and Skye felt a wave of guilt for belittling his help, scooting over to thrown an arm around his shoulders and lean her forehead onto his temple, “I just want you to be safe.” He whispered, barely audible.
“I know.” She said back, just as quietly.
“There may always be people out there who want to exploit you and your abilities, we can’t change that, but you can change whether or not you let them do it.”
“I- Thank you.”
“I love you, Skye, even when you’re a pain in my ass.”
“Hey!” The blind boy smiled as Skye jokingly shoved him away from her, “I resent that.”
“But was I lying?” He asked with a cheeky smile, only to laugh as he deftly dodged her lunge, rolling to his feet in a loose defensive stance, “ready for melee weapons training?”
“Try and make it sound as fancy as you want, Mattie, it’s still gonna be hitting each other with sticks!” Skye snorted.
With only a slightly affronted expression, Matt quickly spun away, grasping one of the less rusty pieces of thin piping they set aside for this purpose, then kicking off the wall to face the room again, keeping his senses open for any movement. He would almost have thought the room was empty if not for the slight creaking from above him, Skye had got worryingly good at masking her heartbeat.
He quickly brought up his ‘staff’ to block the attack, Skye’s pipe clattering against his as she brought it down with all the power from jumping down from the rafters gave her. Matt grinned as he pushed back and Skye only stumbled slightly.
“Still having a little trouble with the landing, I see?”
Skye snorted and spun her leg out, which Matt easily dodged stuck forward with his own ‘staff’.
“I think you’ve forgotten the definition of ‘blind’, Mattie.”
“Oh har-har, very funny.” He retorted, spinning out from his blocked attack, listening out for movement again. He jolted when Skye tapped lightly, from behind, at his shoulder, a mischievous smile adorning her young features.
“Yeah, I thought so too, glad we’re on the same page.”
Exactly one hundred and six minutes later, after ten minutes of stretching Skye had managed to complain all the way through, the two ‘siblings’ exited the building the only way they could: their school bags over their shoulders as they scaled the side of the wall, a mixture of drainage pipes and crumpling fire escapes helping them on their way down.
Matt reached the ground first, jumping the last ten feet and landing in a silent crouch, Skye descending into a similar crouch before he had even straightened up again.
“I swear,” Skye started, as they ventured out of the back alley into the darkened December afternoon, “I could become a spy with all the stuff you’re teaching me.” Though, as she felt Matt’s slight increase in heartbeat, she winced, “Or, you know, not.”
Subtly as he could, which was still pretty obvious to Skye stood not a foot away from him in the quiet street, he let out a relieved breath.
“I think, for now, you should probably focus on your academia. How’s that going, by the way? You enjoying your AP courses?”
Skye rolled her eyes with an indulgent smile, “They’re pretty cool, I guess. The people don’t judge me as much since they’re all really into learning it anyway, and the teachers are more excited about having students actually wanting to know about it all, though I still know most of what my CS course. What about you, English Prodigy? Still owning your AP English, waxing poetic about, uh, stuff?”
Matt chuckled, “It’s at times like this I’m reminded you have such a science brain.”
“Yeah, well, I figure together we make one whole genius.”
“Sure, whatever y-”
Whatever Matt was about to say was cut off when Skye wheeled around the corner into an alley opening, pushing her forearm against a neck and firmly shoving the connecting body into the brick wall. The figure didn’t fight back, only raising one immaculate eyebrow in question, their gaze briefly flickering to the relatively well muscled teenager standing strongly behind her captor.
“Nat?!” Skye whispered in shock, staring before she realised their positions, quickly releasing the slightly older girl and taking a step back, feeling Matt’s front pressed firmly to her back.
“That was unexpected.” The redhead drawled, all traces of an accent she had last time they met completely vanished, her gaze flicking back further into the alley then out to the street, searching.
“What- what are you doing?” Skye questioned, noticing Natasha’s slightly elevated heartrate and following her gaze, “What’s wrong?”
“I really don’t-”
“She went this way!” Came a distant voice, low and rough, from behind the fifteen foot wall at the end of the alley.
“You’ve got to go.” Natasha said- pleaded. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid, putting her soulmate in danger because of her ‘job’, yet the universe, being the bitch it was, seemed intent on having them gravitate back to one another.
“Why are they after you?” Skye questioned fiercely, roughly shoving Matt’s steering hands off her shoulders, “What did you do? What do you do?”
“I can’t tell you. You won’t- you won’t like it.”
“I don’t like not knowing.” the small brunette spat back, content to ignore the approaching footsteps on the other side of the wall, “I’ve seen you three times in the last six years, the first time you essentially tell me you don’t want to see me again and the next you’re perfectly content to spend hours with me?! I don’t even really know you! I have a name you probably made up and that you seem to attract thugs!”
Natasha took the barrage, her eyes wetting uncomfortably, before she turned her pleading eyes to Matt. He reluctantly nodded, like he’d rather do anything else, and gathered a struggling Skye fully into his arms, covering her mouth with a pained grimace, and shot Natasha one last, dark, look before he took off towards St. Agnes. That one look said more than words could have expressed in that moment, this is your fault, we were fine, she was happy then you came along, I hate you for making me do this.
Natasha followed the pair with her eyes until they disappeared from sight, then roughly wiped at her eyes, she wasn’t crying but they itched with the potential. It didn’t matter if her soulmate hated her, she told herself, she just had to make sure the Red Room never found out about Skye.
At the sound of booted feet scrabbling over brick and the thud of rubber hitting the ground, Natasha turned and steeled herself for her mission. Her employers wanted the Black Widow to escort these men to the docks, so escort them to the docks she would.
“I had hoped for more from you, Volkov practically sang your praises.” She taunted the group of a half dozen men, earning their ire once more before slipping through the back alleys and secret tunnel that lead to the docks, making sure to always stay in their line of sight.
Skye was safe, that was all that mattered right now.