Elemental
Skye had never met other people who could control elements. Some could control one or some could control four. It was strange, but walking around S.H.I.E.L.D, she found it more and more amazing. She would grin as people would play rounders with fireballs, the shouts of 'sorry!' faded into the distance as she easily dodge the fireball heading her way.
All her life, she had been afraid of her ability to control the elements. Those who grew up around her in the orphanage feared her, any new child that came in and found them cool, quickly learned to either not talk to her or learned to hate her. More often than not, they hated her. The nuns thought she was a product of demons which led to many, many exorcisms which still scarred her to this day.
Any couple that fostered her, quickly sent her back, deeming that her ability was dangerous to them and that she was a freak of nature. Skye was too young to really understand when it first happened, all she knew was that she had just woken up from a nightmare, scared and covered in sweat from the heat from surrounding her. It only took her a few seconds to register the fact that her room was slowly erupting in flames and that her foster parents were staring at her in horror from the door.
There had been one foster family that adored her, weird elemental abilities and the rest of the baggage that came with her. When they realised that the previous incident of Skye's room going up in flames in another foster house was the result of her nightmares, they quickly found a solution to that. They sent her to a therapist to help find the cause of her nightmares (that one wasn't to hard to find out once Skye had started talking) and took measures to insure that if she did have nightmares, she wasn't going to wreck the room.
Skye had adored them, more often than not, she would climb into bed with them when she woke from short nightmares and they wouldn't kick her out, just a simple kiss on the forehead and allowed her to grip onto them as she fell asleep and slept throughout the night.
That foster home was perfect and there was high hopes that Skye was finally going to get adopted until, what Skye soon referred to as the worst experience of her life, happened.
Someone in their community had somehow found out about Skye's abnormal abilities and invaded their home one night, tortured and slaughtered her foster parents and through some stroke of luck, was unable to kill her due to the police arrived and shooting him on sight.
Once again Skye was alone and unaccepted.
After that incident, Skye was even more isolated, if that was even possible. The orphanage had given her a private room that she wasn't allowed to leave unless a social worker was visiting, not that Skye has actually wanted to leave. She was dangerous and death,fear and pain clung to her like a cloak. No matter where she went, someone would be hurt because of her abilities or someone would hurt her, out of fear.
Either way, by the time she was 13, she had given up. She was sliding further and further into her depression, she wan't able to stomach food and she seemed to have a constant fever from the ability to control fire. The nuns referred to her as the walking hell. She felt like hell and no one cared.
At 13 she stood at the edge of the building, staring down on to the busy street and wondered if this is the way she should do it. It was public and a part of her wanted that, she wanted everyone to see how the world had failed her, but why should she hinder these people with witnessing death? She, herself, had never been able to fully recover from her experience with death. She had titled her head back, wishing it was raining instead of this unbelievable heat and sun. It was irritating, far too irritating. She had took a step back, deciding that if she was going to die, she was going to make sure that it impacted as few people as possible.
That day she sat on the ledge of the building, watching the world as it went by.
Surprisingly, the day that she planned to kill herself, was the day that her life actually changed for the better.
Skye had watched as the sun set and decided that it was best to start heading back to the orphanage before they decided to lock her out for the night again. She stood up and paused, silently taking in the long drop in front of her and wondered if she would ever reconsider this to be her choice of death. It was a pretty morbid thought, but she refused to die and be a burden on everyone, even after her death, it was something she could not physically handle. Skye had sighed and crouched down, silently observing the streets.
“I really hope you don't jump” a kind voice had sounded from behind her.
At that time Skye had been confused, she thought this building was just some random offices and no one would realise that she was on the roof. She had turned quickly to see a slightly ageing man smiling at her and behind him was a women with black hair and an emotionless face, but kind eyes as they observed her.
“I don't plan on jumping...I, uh, don't want to be a burden on society, at least more so” she had quickly explained, slowly moving off the ledge and trying to move around the couple.
“What's your name?” the man asked.
“Skye.” she replied warily.
“Nice to meet you Skye, I'm Phil Coulson and this is my partner, Melinda May” Phil Coulson told her, his smile never wavering from his face.
“Hi.” skye said flatly, not understanding why they were talking to her.
“You see Skye” he said, taking a step forward “We saw you on ours cameras and thought it was pretty weird that a kid was up on our roofs, so we did a facial recognition and found out who you are. Mary-Sue Poots. See, we specialise in finding people like you-” and with that said, Skye had taken off running, terrified that they were going to take her and lock her up for who she was. She would rather be dead than locked up like that.
Skye did not get very far as she was quickly intercepted by the silent women, Melinda May, who simply grabbed her arm gently and held up her other as an attempt to signal that they meant know harm.
“I told you she would take it the wrong way, you always make a variation of that speak and every time, they make a run for it. Honestly we should just go with showing them.” May had said, exasperated. Skye stopped struggling to look at them with confusing, what on Earth were they talking about?
Coulson sighed and ran a hand over his thinning hair “Yeah, I suppose you're right” he conceded, and then with a grin, held up his hand and make a tiny flame appear that slowly grew in size “You see Skye, we look for people like you, because, we are people like you” he seemed a little sheepish at that time, probably because he scared her into thinking that she was going to be taken away, but no, something so much better happened.
By the time Skye was 15, she was overcoming her depression, she was back to a healthy eating and sleeping routine and was slowly going back up to a healthy weight as well. Skye constantly said that she couldn't have done it without May and Coulson, but they just smiled and said they simply gave her the encouragement that she needed.
They had told Skye that they had a surprise for her, they were finally taking her to the place that they worked, S.H.I.E.L.D, a place were everyone was just like her, all ages, training or fully trained in their abilities and were out saving people on a daily basis. It was like those crime shows on the TV, but so much better.
Now that she was wandering through the halls, a smile on her face as she dodged fireballs from the younger trainees, May and Coulson trailing behind her with a smile on their faces, Skye decided she couldn't be happier, and she was glad that she never jumped.