It's Nice To Meet You Anyway (Kate/Skye)
Skye’s soulmark is the words “How much do you weigh?”
She’s resented them ever since she knew what they meant.
For a few years, she thinks maybe she’s going to be a model, her soulmate a designer.
Or maybe they meet at the DMV. Or a doctor’s office.
Or maybe, just maybe, her soulmate is an epic asshole.
Skye thinks with the way her life tends to go, the asshole option is much more likely.
…
Skye and Bobbi are eyeball deep in a mission that is quickly turning into a massive shitstorm. Bobbi is clear of the building, but Skye can’t get clear, and if she brings the building down, she’s probably not making it out, ever. She’s getting ready to inform Coulson of as much when his voice comes through clear and confident over the comms.
“Skye, we’ve got an extraction for you. Stay where you are, and if it’s purple, it’s friendly, okay?”
Skye doesn’t even have time to respond when there’s the sound of rappelling above her and a woman clad in what might be purple Kevlar zooming down from an air duct.
“How much do you weigh?” she hollers, shooting a few of the Hydra agents with—arrows? What the hell, Skye doesn’t even have it in her to be surprised anymore.
“One-thirty!” Skye shouts, just before thinking, oh, god, that’s the worst soulmark ever.
The woman makes some adjustments to her rig, shoots another guy, and shouts, “Come on!” Skye wraps her arms around the woman’s neck—and they’re gone.
.
“So,” Skye says, once they’re on the Bus and headed back home. “I gotta say, my whole life I’ve thought you were an asshole.”
“What?” Kate looks confused. “Um, why?”
“My soulmark.” It’s too low on her chest to be able to show it to her right now, but Skye puts her hand over it all the same. “’How much do you weigh?’ never once thought it would be in that context, you know? Sorry that yours is a number.”
“Oh, uh,” Kate looks a little green, and Bobbi looks like someone tightened everything inside of her a notch too much. “Um. I don’t have a soulmark.”
“Oh.” Skye feels horribly uncomfortable, like she’s walked in on a very private moment. “I’m—I’m—“
“No, it’s fine,” the other woman grins and shakes her head, “How were you supposed to know? Anyway, that can’t be a super common phrase for a first meeting, anyway. Unless you’re a model, or what, at the doctor’s?”
“That’s what I figured,” Skye shrugs with a smile, willing the situation to be okay.
“Um,” Kate peels off her shooting glove and offers her hand to Skye. “It’s nice to meet you anyway.”
They shake; only the minute Skye’s hand touches hers, Kate frowns and snatches her hand back.
“Ow, shit, oww,” she shakes her hand, the holds it out, eyes wide.
There are marks running down her fingers to meet in the center of her palm that look a little like—like Richter scale readings.
Next to Skye, Bobbi starts laughing. “Clint is gonna lose his mind,” she says between chortles.
“So,” Skye says after a pause. “I guess now’s a good time to tell you I’m half alien?”
Kate’s responding grin is dazzling.