Skye set her laptop down on the table and went to the fridge for a late night snack. As she grabbed the milk out and headed to the cabinet for her favorite crunchy dry good, she noticed the screen on her laptop come on.
Odd.
She grabbed the cereal bowl, dumped the spoon in it, and balanced the box in the crook of her arm before walking back to the table.
Swiping her hand across the pad, she woke it up.
The words plastered across her monitor said: TIME TO WAKE THE MONSTER INSIDE.
Skye felt the carton slipping out of her grip before she could even regain control, everything in her hands crashed to the floor.
"Dammit," Skye said.
She froze staring back at the message plastered across her monitor.
They'd just returned to the Playground after hunting down Ian Quinn. Raina had been with him. Actually, Raina had pretty much thrown Quinn under the bus to save her own skin. Kind of her style.
She had said something cryptic about a new friend and a new world, wondering off with the Gravitonium and leaving them to deal with CENTIPEDE soldiers and Quinn.
Who was strong and also, completely nuts.
Where was this coming from?
"Hey," Coulson said from behind her.
Skye spun around, her mouth open, not sure how to begin.
Coulson looked at the mess on the floor and over at the laptop. His eyes went wide.
"It just showed up a few moments ago," Skye said, finding her voice.
"Are you okay?" Coulson said, walking to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Concerned," she said, meeting his eyes. "Not every day the hacker gets hacked."
"Let's clean this up," Coulson said.
****
"You sure you're not hungry?" he asked.
Skye shook her head.
Coulson frowned a little and leaned back against the holodesk in his Director's office.
"Does it mean anything to you?" he asked her.
She was leaning forward in the chair, hands clasped together in front of her. Tense.
Skye focused her thoughts. "Ward," she started, staring ahead.
She let it hang between them for a moment. Because, Ward had gotten away. And despite getting Garrett and freeing MikeLok (that's what she'd been calling him these days), he had still managed to escape, killing an entire M.P. team in the process. Like the Nazi machine he was.
"When we tracked Garrett down, Ward said some things to me," she paused. "One of them was he wanted to 'wake up something inside of me'."
Coulson's face was in control. His eyes were not. He frowned, deeply. She could tell he was visibly upset. In fact, his hands were whiteknuckling the desk right now. This was the first time he was hearing this.
Skye took her eyes off of those hands and looked up at him.
"What else did he say to you?" Coulson asked, terse-toned.
Did she really want to have to repeat the words? It embarrassed her to have to say them, to him of all people. And, she had felt pretty brave and defiant in the moment, but now having some distance from it? She knew repeating it was going to stir up stuff she'd been avoiding. Definitely avoiding.
"He said," she started. "That I woke up a weakness inside of him," she swallowed. Thought about Ward, the conversations they'd shared, threaded with lies. How he'd played on her empathy for his childhood. That part of her that had wanted to see past the specialist, the S.O. His humanity.
"And that he'd found something he wanted for himself," she said, rolling her eyes to try to keep emotions in check. "For the first time, *in awhile*," she said through her teeth, the anger starting to build. And their whole conversation on the Bus came back to her. All of it. His whining and his threats and his total disconnect with reality. Like he was the victim in all of this. His insinuation of 'someday', like he'd never leave her alone. The touching, invading. It made her skin crawl.
Coulson let go of a breath he'd been holding. Just stared back at her.
Skye got up and turned away from him, wrapped herself in her own arms.
"He said maybe he would just take what he wanted," she stated, darkly, over her shoulder. "And wake up something inside me."
The tender touch turned her back around. The gentle arms surrounded her. His kindness and his shoulder and his comforting whispers were all welcome.
She let herself cry there.
When she had had about enough of it, feeling sorry for herself, maybe, she pulled away a bit. Not too much, still wanting the contact. She looked up at him, checking in. There was warmth in his eyes. He brushed some of the tears away with his thumb.
"You're going to need more thumbs, sir," she said. "I'm a mess."
"What you are," he said, "Is beautiful. And what that monster said..." he paused. "I'm not going to go there and ruin this, but, needless to say, when we run into him again and you start to feel too much compassion? Feel free to let me take over."
He said it like a promise.
A smile caught at the corner of her mouth. "Feel free to repeat that beautiful part again?" she asked.
"Skye," he smiled. "Even after all of this, I know you don't want him dead. No matter how much it hurt, how much it *still* hurts. And whether he's ever capable of understanding how wonderful that is, it's indescribably beautiful...and he never even saw it."
"But you do," she said, gratefully. Then, glancing at his now slightly parted lips. And back up to his eyes.
His eyes.
Wow.
A.C.
He took a deep breath, looked away chuckled. Because he was.
Caught.
And he knew it. His eyes said it all when they looked back up at hers.
They'd had many conversations like this in the past. Silly bantering, coupled with something there just below the surface. Unspoken and fond and curious.
Despite the difference in their ages. Or the fact that he was her mentor, her boss.
"Thank you," she said, nodding. Letting him off the hook.
For now.
She squeezed his hand.
"You okay?" he asked. He squeezed hers back.
"Getting there."
****
"What did she do to Quinn?" Skye asked Simmons.
"I believe," Simmons said, looking up at the monitor in the MedLab, "She was trying to replicate our research on the GH-325."
"So he lost it, like Garrett?" Coulson asked.
The team was assembled in the room.
Coulson thought it was a good idea to key them in on the recent turn of events. Bounce some ideas around.
"He keeps talking about the Gravitonium, sir, saying that it can speak to him. That it knows what's coming."
"Definitely sounds like Garrett," Coulson said, crossed his arms.
"And the monster comment?" said May, looking over at Coulson.
Coulson turned to Skye, who nodded.
Skye and May exchanged a look.
"What am I missing here?" asked Trip, glancing between the three of them.
"My secret origin story," Skye started. "My 084 status might possibly be kind of monster-y." She shrugged when Trip gave her a strange look.
"We don't know anything for certain!" said Simmons cheerfully.
"Hey," Skye said, waiving a hand at Coulson, "No one's freaking out because he's scribbling on the wall in alienese."
Coulson furrowed his brow.
May was clearly offended (on Coulson's behalf, she was sure) and Simmons and Trip just looked like they weren't touching that one.
"I'm not freaking out anyway," Skye murmured.
"Maybe we should talk about something more productive," Coulson said, pulling up the message Skye had received on her computer.
"We've had no luck tracing it," he added.
"Can we shut it out?" May asked, security-minded.
"It has some similarities to the HYDRA encryption," Skye added. "But, way more advanced. I was able to contact Stark Industries and it turns out that algorithm is connected to a guy named Arnim Zola, who was, like, a Nazi's Nazi."
"Literally," added Trip. "He was the Red Skull's right hand man."
"Well, turns out Zola was also some kind of A.I.," Skye put her hands on the holotable, dropping that bomb.
"No," said Trip. "Just a dude. My grandfather fought against him. I think you're talking about a W.B.E."
Everyone just stared back at Trip.
"Whole brain emulation," said Simmons. "Mind uploading?"
They all nodded then.
"So we think this is Zola," said May.
"No," Coulson said. "Captain America got to him first." He said it like that was just super-cool.
"Nice," said Trip.
"Something...else," Skye answered her. "But it's used Zola's algorithm and improved on it."
"Who has the capability to do this?" asked May. "Killian's people?"
"That's what we want to look into," Coulson said.
"Simmons, I need you to reach out to whoever is left from the Academy," Coulson said. "Someone you can trust. Find out if there was even a hint of someone carrying on Zola's research. Be discreet. Because, we don't exist."
"Right," she said dolefully.
"May, I need you and Trip out in the field," he went on. "We need to locate Ward's safehouses."
May's chin raised a little at the sound of the man's name.
"Is there a connection?" she said, looking over at Skye.
"Possibly," Skye answered. "He said something to me at Cybertek. Before you kicked his ass. Like, he knew things about me."
"And Raina had all of our research, your blood work," Simmons said, making the connection out loud.
"Find Ward, find Raina," said Coulson.
"Okay then," May agreed.
"What about you two?" Trip asked, looking at Coulson and Skye.
"We're working on building SHIELD. Whoever sent this message, wants us distracted. I don't like their playbook," Coulson said. "We should keep moving forward with ours."
"Besides," said Skye. "We have a habit of stepping on their toes."
****
EARLIER
Skye heard the tap on the door of her room.
"Yeah," she said staring down at her laptop.
Looking up, Coulson was standing in the frame of the door.
"Come right on in, A.C.," she smiled.
He stepped through.
"Team meeting at 0300," he said.
"Okay," she said, when he just continued standing there.
He motioned to the chair, and sat down when she shrugged back.
"I just wanted to give the team an update on that message," he said. "Find out what Simmons has learned from Quinn. Strategize."
"Sounds good," Skye said, waiting. Because, there was something else. Everything in his posture, his little silences, said there was something else.
"You're gonna drop a Philbomb, aren't you?" she finally said.
"What?" he asked, offended. That didn't sound flattering. 'Phil'?
"Every time you make this face," she said in a knowing tone, looking over at him. "I find out something horrifying like a whole village slash SHIELD team died to protect me or I've been injected with your alien-buddy-on-board."
"Yeah," he started. "About that..."
"Did the universe tell you any winning lotto numbers, by chance?" she asked, smirking.
"I know you think that's supposed to be funny," he started. "But..."
She pointed a finger at him. "And this is the part where you tell me how I think everything's a joke."
He snapped his mouth shut and gave her an unpleasant glare.
"Now we're getting somewhere," she said, sitting on the edge of her bed.
"And don't say, you're not sure how to say it, or you're sorry," she said. "Just say it."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm onto you, Phil," she said. "You're worried I'm going to hate you. And, I obviously don't hate you."
"That's not true," he said. "I worry...that I'll hate myself."
Skye's eyebrows raised a little. Not in surprise, but in sympathy. That made more sense, actually. All that he had been through. Some of the really unpleasant things he'd discovered about himself, about SHIELD.
"I told you about what May and I found out. About you. The village."
She nodded.
"I left something out. Something I, honestly, had put out of my mind until our conversation last night."
Skye's eyes narrowed. "Go on."
"The agent we talked to. He said that your parents. That they were..."
"Monsters," Skye finished, looking away from him, her eyes wide.
"Yes," he confirmed.
"All this time, you knew," she said, standing up, looming over him.
He didn't say anything.
She put her hand under his chin and tipped it up where she could see it. Searched his eyes. She found a lot of guilt. Maybe a touch of fear.
"What if I am a monster?" she asked. "What if I could hurt the team? Hurt you?"
His hand came up and touched her wrist, removing it from his face.
"No," he said, shaking his head.
She stepped away from him so he could stand.
"You don't know that," she said. "What if I'm just some ticking time bomb?"
"People call the Hulk a monster, Skye."
"I'm sorry," she said, frustration coming through. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?!"
"The Hulk saved New York. All of us, really," he added. "When people get scared, they tend to embellish."
"I can't believe I'm saying this," she said. "But you need to take this seriously. It wasn't just a bunch of tourists on vacation, it was a SHIELD team!"
"So, you're angry," he said.
"Yes, I'm pissed!" she growled, throwing up her hands for emphasis. "Why didn't you tell me this right away?"
"I wanted to and then a lot of stuff happened," he said with exasperation.
"Noticing a pattern here, Phil," she said.
"Stop calling me that," he replied.
"Phil. Phil.Phil.Phil.Phil." She said, finally stopping as he grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Only call me that," he said slowly, their faces a few inches apart, "If it really means something."
She nodded slowly, her hands resting on his chest, something rising to the surface in her. It came out softly.
"Phil."
She wasn't letting him off easy this time.
His grip on her loosened, his hands sliding down her arms. He closed his eyes.
"This is dangerous," he said, opening his eyes to look at hers.
But she could see in them; his mind was already made up.
"Outside of the box?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, her hand already on his tie.
"Way out," he said slowly, leaning into her, kissing her.
It didn't take much before she was up against the wall, and one of his hands was on her hip, the other flat against the smooth surface. Pulling her into him, holding steady. It was controlled, restrained, but that hum of something powerful and untapped running underneath.
Coulson.
"Good thing we live outside of the box," she gasped when he left her mouth and started on her neck.
"And in the dark," he smirked.
He tapped the light switch next to them.