Hidden Villages
There is something intensely boring about planes. No matter where you’re going, how short the journey is, how excited or nervous you are, eventually, you get bored. When Skye first got on the plane, she wiped the live video feed from the quinjet, set in her location to the autopilot and disabled the GPS tracker. After that, boredom set in. That was until she became completely overwhelmed by all her emotions. For one thing, she was much more sober than usual, meaning her usual denial method of coping was failing, which meant everything was only just hitting her. Like how she had seen and spoken to her parents for the first time in a few years. That there was a chance she might actually find her real parents.
She might actually find her real parents.
The realisation hit her like a bullet to the chest and Skye found it difficult to breathe. She searched the area for any liquids she had, but only found empty bottles. Skye left the pilots cabin, still searching desperately for anything she could inject, smoke or drink. She wasn’t ready to be sober, she wasn’t ready to meet her parents.
She emptied her bags, trying with all her might to get the tiniest of drops from her bottles. Scouring the place she, she searched. Until she got to the first aid bag. There it was, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, a bottle of rubbing alcohol. A shaky breath of relief left her body. Opening the body, she went to take a long drink.
The smell hit her first. A nauseating, chemical stink reached her. Her eyes flew open at the mere smell of it. Skye threw the bottle away, but the contents was already partway down her throat and in her mouth. It was a vile slime down her throat while her mouth was practically destroyed. The taste was similar to gasoline and bad decisions.
Spitting it all out, she rushed to the bathroom, vomiting the small amount she had swallowed and what little food she had had. When had she sunk so low?
Admitting defeat, Skye sank onto the floor of the quinjet, tears streaming down her face, sobs racking her body.
“Why didn’t you want me?” she sobbed to no one. “Was I not good enough? Were my grades too bad? Was I too demanding? Why did you leave me mom?”
Skye sat on the floor for the rest of the journey, crying until her throat was raw and her eyes so puffy she could barely see. If she was honest with herself, and she rarely was, especially this sober, crying that much felt good. She was filled with so much rage and anger, like a fire constantly burning in the pit of her stomach. She kept the fire tame by pouring alcohol and drugs on it, constantly keeping it down.
It felt good to let the fire take over, inhabit every single part of her very being. Her veins white hot, her mind burning, her whole body aflame. And in every single tear, sob and cry, the fire came out, leaving her cool for the first time. It felt like breathing fire.
Once Skye was done crying, she was exhausted and fell asleep on the floor. She woke up several hours later as the quinjet landed in China.
Skye really wasn’t sure if she was ready to deal with going back to her birthplace, but her stomach made the decision for her. She was absolutely starving. It had never occurred to her to bring food. Taking a lungful of breath, Skye opened the hatch and stepped outside
May and Coulson were getting worried. After The Avengers had been debriefed about the situation with Skye, they had returned to Skye’s room. She wasn’t there, May, Coulson and Fury weren't surprised, the others were.
Not much had really happened. They all expected Skye to appear at one moment, make her introductions, glare at May and Coulson, get drunk and pass out. Well, that’s what Clint and Natasha suspected would happen.
Phil hoped there was still a bit of his little girl left that would be dying to meet Captain America. May thought for sure she would want to out hack Tony. But neither things had happened.
Fury had disappeared a few hours ago, claiming he had more things to do then to look at moping superheroes, and that he had a motherfucking agency to run.
“Guys, I think we have a problem” Tony’s voice called out, his head buried in a laptop.
“Stark, why the fuck are you in Shield’s security feed?” Coulson ran a hand down his face tiredly.
“Be glad I did, I just found this.” Stark opened a file and sat back allowing the file to play. There stood Skye, armed to the teeth, strutting onto a quinjet. When someone questioned who she was and why she was taking a plane, she glared. her whole body was filled with an unwavering confidence and a don't fuck with me attitude took over. After several words were spoken, Skye boarded the plane and took off.
“Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Can you track it? Get into the video feed?” Coulson’s voice was full of paniced worry.
Stark typed solidly for five minutes until he let out a defeated “No” and sighed.
Coulson looked at May and saw the same powerless, defeated look he had.
They had been living in a fantasy land. A land where it never dawned on them how much Skye hated them. A world where, they never realised how damaged and vulnerable she was. A world where they had completely overlooked that she hated the very thing that they both loved like a second child, Shield.
For the past few days, they lived in a world, where the impossible concept of being a family again, was an achievable reality. People like Melinda May and Phil Coulson didn’t get happy endings. Not after what they’d both done in the field. Not after what they had done to their child.
You couldn’t simply ignore, or deny what they had done. You couldn’t deny or ignore, that maybe if it was for the greater good, they had both taken and destroyed lives. Sure, the ends always justified the means, but that didn’t mean they were innocent.
Just because they felt guilty for walking out on Skye, and wanted to make up for everything, didn’t erase the fact that they destroyed her. It didn’t get rid of the drinking problem Skye picked up to cope with stress and anxiety because her parents never showed her the way. Just because they wanted a relationship with her, it didn’t mean she wanted one from them. It didn’t mean that they might run again as soon as problems came up. Skye couldn’t trust them, and with good reason. They had been selfish when it came to Skye, something good parents shouldn't do. Selfishly, they wanted a daughter back, not caring that she didn't want parents. It wasn't just that they wanted Skye, they wanted a little girl who would idolize them, be obedient, grateful and polite. Maybe if they had stuck around and raised her, set an example for her, she would have turned out that way. But they didn't, so Skye was stuck with her own shitty parenting skills and had to raise herself.
Skye braced herself for what was to come as the ramp of the quinjet opened. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths and wished with all her might for it to suddenly start raining liquor. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead she opened her eyes as a warm breeze swept across her face.
In front of her was the most beautiful landscape she had ever seen. Large, lush, green mountains surrounded her, trees grew at the edges of the field and she could faintly hear a flowing river. Skye was calmed tremendously by it all. She had always been an outdoors person, preferring nature over cities. She had spent much of her childhood in her garden, her parents rarely allowing her in actual forests. Too many possibilities, they said, too much noise and distractions, anyone could sneak up on you.
It made sense that Skye adored nature so much if she had spent her first few years surrounded by such beauty.
Tablet in hand, Skye begin her walk to her birth place. She didn’t really expect to find her parents there, more like a clue as to what might have happened there, and how she could track them down. Her biggest fear was that she’d find two gravestones instead.
So she walked. She walked in what she hoped was the right destination. For all she knew, the village had been completely burnt when it was terrorised, and there was no evidence of it ever existing.
She had been walking for a good hour when she first spotted it. Off in the distance, there looked to be a village. It was too far away to make out much, but she hoped it was either her home village, or a place she could eat and get directions. She hoped her Mandarin was good enough.
As she got closer, her hopes for a meal were swiftly crushed. The village was in ruins, with maybe one or two huts that were still standing. In the back of her mind, she knew, this was the place. This was where she was born, this was where she should have spent her life. A tiny part of her remembered the place. She wandered through hut after hut, occasionally finding skeletons, hoping to find some clue, something she remembered.
It was in the last hut, that she found it. A small blanket, in a room by the back. Completely damp and disgusting, but Skye knew without a doubt in her mind, this blanket was hers. Looking around the room, she saw an old crib. It was broken and rotting after 18 years of abandonment, but she recognised it none the less.
This place was her home. A home that had been destroyed. Realisation dawning on her, she frantically searched the hut for any skeleton remains. She sobbed in relief when none were found.
Skye had no intention of leaving anytime soon, but realised the place was completely inadequate to stay in for any amount of time.
Searching through various huts, she found a pot. Not quite ready to part with her blanket, she tied it around her waist and made her way to the stream she had first heard.
Once she arrived at the stream, she filled the pot, crouched, took out one of her knives and stood completely still.
After a while, a rabbit came into view. Skye chucked her knife, killing the rabbit. She made her way back to the hut with her water and kill.
Setting up a fire, Skye set the water to boil while she gutted and skinned the rabbit. Once the water had boiled, she sat the pot away to cool so she could drink it later, and started cooking the rabbit. She never thought her wilderness survival lessons would actually ever be of use.
Once she had drank and eaten her fill, she set about finding as many usable materials from various huts as she could. Once all the blankets had been gathered, she washed them in the river and hung them out to dry. Skye wasn’t really sure why she was doing it. None of this was going to help her find her parents. It wasn’t helping the Rising Tide, or the better of humanity. What it did do, was keep her mind off the fact that she was sober for the longest time since she was sixteen.
Using all the materials she had found, she made her hut as usable as possible. She ventured back to the quinjet to use whatever she could, tearing out seats, ropes, the med kit. For whatever god damn reason, there was an axe on board. She wasn’t going to question it, she just took it.
It took several trips to haul everything back to her hut, and even longer to set it all up. God knows why there needs to be a mattress in a quinjet, but she wont complain about it that night. Her blankets as clean as they can be, her fire still slightly lit, she slept.
She didn’t dream, and she didn’t wake screaming. She didn’t cry herself to sleep, and she wouldn’t wake up with alcohol poisoning.
She just slept.