Skye sobbed as she tugged in the rope that tied her to the chair. Her wrists had burns on them and her ankles were aching. "Please!" She cried out, as she watched Vince crack the whip over her brother's back. "Stop!"
Her pleads fell on deaf ears as Clint cried out in pain. The whip cracked as it fell on his back, leaving a new wound, a new injury, a new scar. Tears streamed down his face and he looked up at his little sister. Their eyes locked and he silently told her to stop struggling, that he was ok. Skye slumped in the chair, sobbing and watched as Clint's eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness. Then, suddenly, Vince pulled out a knife and stabbed it into Clint's stomach, blood spilling over and staining the floor.
Vince turned to her when he finally realised that he was out cold.
"Who broke the plates?" he said menacingly.
"I-I-I did," Skye stuttered.
Vince balled up his fists and began to hit the eight-year old. Skye closed her mouth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. Finally he seemed to get tired of hitting her. He untied her and dragged her off the chair and into his bedroom. He threw her on the bed and tied her wrists to the headboard. Skye cried all through the process and stared in horror as he began to take his belt off.
Skye jolted up, screaming. Someone was banging on the door to her bunk and she could hear the engine of the Bus humming.
"Skye!" called Coulson through the door. "Skye! Open up!"
Skye rolled over and pressed the button that would unlock the door, then pulled her knees up to her chest and began to rock back and forth, tears leaking out of her eyes.
"Hey," said Coulson, closing the door behind him. "Hey, are you ok?"
Skye looked up at him and then scrambled to her feet and pulled him into a tight hug, her face buried into his chest. "You guys won't leave me, will you?" She muttered. "Your not going to just drop me back in New York when your finished with me, are you?"
"What?" said Coulson, confused. "No of course not. You're part of this team."
Skye sighed in relief, her eyes filling with tears again.
"Why are you asking me this?" Coulson asked, pulling away from the hug.
"I had the dream again," Skye sighed, sitting back across from him. "Some of my foster homes weren't very accepting of a freak orphan child. But I had this friend in the orphanage and he always managed to convince the nuns to put us in the same foster homes. He was my brother. Not biologically but..."
"What happened to him?" asked Coulson.
Skye's eyes filled with tears. "One of our foster parents was particularly violent. He lost his temper o e night and my brother was killed. He had tied me up in another room and when I was finally let out his body had been moved. I escaped that night and he was arrested the next morning."
Coulson frowned. He was about to say something else when May knocked on the door and poked her head in.
"Coulson," She said, glancing between them. "We've got a new mission."
‼️
"Vince King," said May, pulling up a digital file. "He is a known rapist, and murderer. He escaped from prison last night. He was last spotted on a bus headed towards New York with a suspicious package."
Skye stared at the picture on the table, her hands curled into fists.
"How do you propose we catch him?" asked Jemma.
"I think we're going to need someone to pose as bait," said May. "If we can get him to target someone we can catch him that way."
"Who's going to be the bait?" asked Fitz, glancing nervously at the Cavalry.
"Me," said Skye, her jaw clenched.
"No," said Ward, looking from her to May to Coulson. "No. You can't defend yourself against him."
"I'll be bait," said Skye, looking at Coulson with a hard look on her face. "He'll come for me."
"How do you know?" asked Ward.
Skye glared at him. "He'll come for me."
‼️
Skye sat on a park bench, typing on her laptop. She had hacked Vince's burn phone and sent a message that said:
Central Park
New York
Park bench next to the fountain.
She doesn't know your coming.
"Any sign of him?" said Jemma's voice in the earpiece in her ear.
"Not yet," said Skye, barely moving her lips.
"Are you sure he'll come?" asked Ward, from the other side of the fountain.
"I'm sure," said Skye as she continued to type. "Give it ten more minutes. I'm tracking his burn phone."
The voices in her ear grew silent. She watched the small red dot that was Vince move across the map and stop at the fountain. She looked up and glanced around. Her gaze fell on a man with dark hair, hidden beneath a baseball cap, sunglasses and a dark coat. A scar ran from the corner of his right eye, diagonally over his mouth, his lips puckered. His eyes locked on hers and an evil grin spread across his face.
Skye pretended she hadn't seen him and closed her laptop, stood up and began walking again. "He's here," she muttered into the earpiece. She left the park and walked down the road to a Starbucks, buying a coffee and sitting down outside. She opened her laptop again and pretended to be busy working.
Vince walked up and sat down opposite her.
"That seats taken," Skye muttered, sipping her coffee, still looking at her computer screen. "Please leave."
Vince chuckled. "I can't sit here for a few minutes?" A noticeable lisp marred his words.
Skye glanced up at him momentarily. "What happened to your face?"
Vince's smile fell. "I got attacked by a homeless kid a few years ago. She had a knife."
"Strange," said Skye, reaching up to turn off her earpiece. "That's not how I remember it." She glared at him. "How did you get out of prison?"
"It pays to have friends, doesn't it," Vince said, his grin back on his face. "It's a shame you don't have any. Did you go back to the orphanage after I was arrested? It's a pity that boy couldn't go with you."
Skye scowled, closed her laptop and stood up to leave. She was walking away when Vince grabbed her from behind, his hand over her mouth and began to drag her away. She could see Coulson, May and Ward running in her direction, pulling out guns.
As Vince began to drag her into an alleyway, she elbowed him in the stomach, then the nose and then kicked him where the sun don't shine as she pulled away from his hold.
Coulson, May and Ward came running in, Fitz and Jemma behind them, lugging all of there equipment along with them. The three field agents pointed their guns at Vince and Skye slipped behind them.
"Mr King," said Coulson. "I'm going to have to ask you to come with us."
"Ah," said Vince, smiling. "I see you do have friends, flower. Where do you meet them?"
"Don't try to run Vince," said Skye. "You won't get away from them like you did the police. Or do you want another scar?"
Vince laughed. "I don't need to run, flower." He moved his coat to the side to reveal a complicated machine strapped to his torso. "Any of you take one step towards me, I kill everyone within two hundred miles."
The field agents stopped moving.
"That's not a normal bomb," said Fitz, eyeing the device. It looked like a canister filled with a yellow liquid, wires connecting it to the detonation system.
"No," Vince chuckled. "One click of a button and I can fry every machine, destroy every building and kill every person. Bio-weapons are a wonderful thing aren't they?"
Skye scanned the machine carefully. "Ward," she muttered. The only indication that he heard her was a slight tilt of his head. "Hit his foot, both hands and then break his knee. Trust me on that."
Ward nodded his head ever so slightly and moved like lightning. One bullet went through both of Vince's palms and another buried itself into his right foot. Ward then darted forward and slammed his foot against Vince's knee, a loud crunching sound echoing through the alley. Vince fell to the floor howling in pain, and Skye ran forward, ignoring Coulson's warning.
She pushed Vince onto his back and pulled his coat off of him. Fitzsimmons came hurrying up behind her, and both looked at the bomb. As Skye was examining it, they began tossing theories back and forth, trying to figure out how to disarm the bomb. Suddenly, Skye grabbed onto a few of the wires and yanked them out, then grabbed a vial full of blue liquid from Jemma's bag and poured it into the canister.
The liquid in the canister turned colourless and the detonation system beeped as it was switched off. Skye stood up, dusted off her trousers and glared down at the man on the floor. She raised her foot and stomped on one of his hands and he howled in pain. "That was for my brother," she snarled. Then she turned around and walked away from him, waiting for the rest of the team at the end of the alleyway.
‼️
"What was that?" asked May.
Skye looked up from her laptop to see the rest of the team standing there, staring at her. "What was what?" she asked, looking back down at her laptop.
"You know him," said May. "How?"
"You knew how to disarm him without setting off the bomb," said Ward. "How?"
"You knew how to disarm the bomb," said Fitz.
"How?" asked Jemma.
Skye sighed, closed her laptop and then pulled her knees up to her chest and looking at Coulson. "I told you that some of my foster homes weren't particularly welcoming." Coulson nodded and Skye sighed. "Vince was one of them."
Jemma sat down beside her on the sofa. "He took care of you whenever you were a child?"
Skye scoffed. "I hardly call beating me and raping me, taking care of me."
"He raped you?" Ward ground out through gritted teeth.
Skye nodded. "He would tie me to a chair while he beat my brother, and then whenever he was unconscious he would beat me. Once he got tired of that he would tie me to his bed and rape me."
Jemma covered her mouth with her hand in horror.
"Brother?" asked May.
"He wasn't my brother biologically," said Skye, looking down at her hands. "He was just a really close friend from the orphanage. He always managed to convince the nuns to jut us together in the same foster homes. I used to call him birdie." She smiled softly.
"So what happened to him?" asked Fitz.
"One night I broke some plates," said Skye. "And Birdie took the blame. Somehow Vince knew he was lying, but he beat him while I was tied to a chair. He had a whip especially for Birdie. And he didn't realise that Birdie was unconscious so he stabbed him with a knife. I was then dragged into his room and he raped me and then knocked me out. When I woke up it was about one in the morning. I managed to get out of the ropes and I left. Vince was passed out on the sofa in the living room and the only thing left of Birdie was- a huge blood stain- in the middle of the kitchen floor." She stopped talking when her voice broke. After a minute she looked up again, her eyes glassy. "I snuck out of the house and ran to the police station. So, a naked eight-year-old comes running into the police station and no one notices. If wasn't until I collapsed that they actually realised I was there. A woman gave me a coat and I told them what had happened. I was taken to the hospital, and Vince was arrested."
"What happened after that?" asked Ward. "I mean, how did you know how to disarm the bomb?"
When I got out of the hospital I was sent back to the orphanage," said Skye. "But I ran away a few days later. There were too many memories of Birdie there and I wasn't going to risk being put into another foster home like Vince's. I was on the streets for about a year. I would pickpocket people to pay for food. I never took more than twenty bucks from each person though. Then I won my laptop. I made a bet with a guy that he couldn't do a pull-up and I could. He was this scrawny kid, no upper body strength st all. So I won my laptop." She held up the laptop that was sitting on her knee. "I taught myself how to hack and I would hack into the security cameras for a nearby school. That was how I got my education. I did that for quite a few years. I have equivalent of a degree in engineering, computing and biology." She blushed as everyone stared at her.
"You have a degree in engineering, computing and biology?" asked Fitz, incredulously.
"Not legally," Skye sighed. "But pretty much, yeah."
Coulson was looking at her with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Skye," he said finally. "How would you like to make those three degrees legal?"
‼️
Skye stared up at the huge building in front of her. SHIELD Academy. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
As she walked through the corridors, looking for her dorm room she noticed a few people staring at her. She finally found room 28 and she opened the door with the key that she had been given. She looked around. There were two single beds on either side of the room, and door to a bathroom and two desks. One side of the room was obviously lived in, but meticulously tidy. A girl with auburn hair sat at the desk working.
"Excuse me?" said Skye, quietly. The girl looked up. "Are you Caitlin Ramon?"
The girl nodded. "Can I help you?"
"I'm meant to be rooming with you," said Skye tentatively. "I'm Skye."
"Oh," said Caitlin. "Yes. Make yourself at home." She gestured to the unused side of the room.
Skye nodded and dropped her duffel bag on the bed and sat down.
"So," said Caitlin, spinning in her chair. "What degree do you have? Everyone here has one."
Skye shifted uncomfortable. "Engineering, Computing and Biology. Or at least the equivalent of a degree."
"What do you mean the equivalent?" Caitlin asked, tilting her head.
Skye scratched the back of her head. "I, uh, couldn't afford going to collage. I could barely afford food, that's what happens when your homeless. So I hacked into the security cameras of a university and learnt that way."
Caitlin frowned at the illegality of her statement but nodded all the same. "Well then, welcome to SHIELD Academy."
‼️
Skye opened the door to the lecture room quietly. She looked inside and she could see two people talking to Professor McFall. A woman with red hair and emerald green eyes and a man with short blond hair and clearly the muscles of an archer.
"Ah, Skye," said Professor McFall. "Early as usual." She smiled. "These are Agents Romanoff and Barton. They are friends and were visiting."
"We were going to stay to here your lecture if that's alright," said Barton, smiling over at Skye.
Professor McFall nodded. "Of course. Skye is a new student in the Academy. She only recently joined us due to the fact that a few months ago she was working with the Rising Tide."
Skye nodded as she sat down in her usual seat at the back of the room. "Well, I don't work with them anymore, you don't have to worry about me leaking anything about this to them. SHIELD is the reason I'm alive."
Romanoff and Barton nodded as they sat down - in the back of the room as well.
Skye pulled out her notebook and began to draw again. It was something she would always do whenever she felt lonely. Draw her brother. As she was finishing the drawing the rest of the class filed in. She put the notebook away and put her head on her heads, leaning against the desk and looking towards the front of the room. Her eyes slowly closing as Professor McFall began to talk about coding - a subject that Skye was very familiar with.
She didn't notice Agent Barton doing the same.
Natasha glanced over at her friend as he put the picture he had drawn into his pocket. It was a habit of his, she noticed. To draw the same girl over and over, never missing a detail. He had never told her who the girl was. Just that she had died when she was eight. But Natasha couldn't help but notice a few similarities between the girl in the drawing and the new girl, Skye.
Speaking of Skye, she had fallen asleep. There was an upset expression on her face and she was whimpering slightly.
"No," she cried quietly. "No, stop! Please!"
Clint looked over in her direction as well, concerned. He reached out a hand and began to shake her awake. Not even a second after he touched her shoulder, she grabbed his wrist, pulled out a knife from nowhere, gripped his arm tightly so that he couldn't move and held the knife against his neck.
Professor McFall stopped talking when she noticed the commotion and the class stared at Skye who was currently holding an avenger with a knife against his neck. Natasha had pointed her gun at Skye's head and Skye had froze, her gaze fixed on a tiny scar on Clint's cheek, just below his eye. She dropped the knife, and backed away, her hands shaking.
Clint reached down and picked up the knife and looked down at it. As he didn't so, his shirt slid up a bit, revealing long scars. When he stood up, he pulled his shirt down again, momentarily revealing a scar on his stomach that was clearly a knife wound.
Skye stared at him, a look of horror on her face. "Birdie?" she muttered. Then everything went black.
Clint reacted instinctively, catching Skye as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed.
"We'll take her to the infirmary Hannah," he said to the professor, who nodded and allowed the two avengers to leave with one of her students.
‼️
Skye opened her eyes slowly. When she had adjusted to the light she looked around as she sat up. She was obviously in the infirmary because there was a heart monitor and an IV drip in the corner and she was on a hospital cot. Agent Barton was sat in a chair beside her, drawing.
"That's beautiful," she said looking at the picture of the little girl.
Clint started and looked up. "Oh, your awake," he said. "Uh, thanks." He looked down at the picture again.
"Who is she?" Skye asked.
"Uh, my sister," said Clint. "She, uh, died when she was eight."
Skye frowned. "I'm sorry. I had a brother. I actually draw him whenever I'm feeling lonely." She looked around for her bag and pulled out her notebook. She flicked through the pages, landing on one that she liked the most. It was of Clint laughing and you could see the sparkle in his eye. Written in the corner was the word Birdie.
Clint's stomach twisted when he saw the word. "What's this?" he asked pointing at it.
"That's what I used to call him," Skye smiled. "Birdie."
Clint looked Skye. Examining her more closely he could see now the similarities between his drawing and Skye. The same nose, same eyes, same smile. "E.T?"
Skye stared at him. "What?"
"What happened to your brother?" Clint asked, quickly.
Skye looked at him carefully. "He was killed when he was thirteen. Our foster parent did it."
"What was your foster parent's name?" Clint asked, beginning to get excited.
"Vince," said Skye. "Vince-"
"King," Clint cut her off. "We used to call him Slavedriver."
Skye stared at him. "Birdie?" she whispered hopefully.
Clint pulled her into a hug. "I thought you were dead E.T."
Skye hugged him back, tightly. Her eyes filling with tears. "H-how?"
"He threw me in the basement," said Clint, pulling away. "He thought I was dead so he threw me in the basement. Then when the cops came and he was arrested, they raided the house and found me and I was taken to the hospital. I asked them what had happened to you but no one told me. So I thought you were dead. When I was finally allowed to leave, SHIELD picked me up and I was put into the Academy."
"Agent Barton," Skye whispered. "My big brother is a big bad agent."
Clint smiled. "And my little sister was trying to get me out of a job."
"Rising Tide wanted to reveal the secrets of SHIELD to the world," said Skye. "At the time it seemed like a good idea."
Clint laughed.
"Barton?" said a voice.
Skye and Clint looked over at Natasha, standing in the doorway with a confused look on her face.
"Nat," said Clint, smiling. "This is my sister who I thought was dead. Skye, this is Natasha Romanoff."
Skye smiled at the female agent. "Hi."
Natasha nodded in greeting, a suspicious look on her face.
"Uh," said Skye, looking around for a clock. "How long have I been out?"
‼️
Skye opened the door to the gym, stepping inside and dropping her bag in the corner. She had black leggings, trainers and a sport's bra on, her hair tied into a ponytail.
Noticing that Clint and Natasha hadn't arrived yet, she began a couple of laps around the room. After about five laps she stopped. Clint and Natasha came through the door and smiled at her. Natasha had warmed up to Skye after a few weeks. They trusted each other. Skye knew that if something happened to her or Clint, Natasha would do everything in her power to help and Natasha knew that Skye would do the same.
"Hey," said Skye. "You're late."
"No," said Clint. "Your just early."
"Nothing wrong with that," said Natasha, smiling. "You ready?"
Skye nodded and both women went of to the May and began to spar. As they were doing so, Clint pulled out his bow. He had been teaching Skye weapons, while Natasha had been teaching her hand-to-hand combat. She had been learning quite quickly, and could already hold her own against Natasha in a fight. She was excellent with a gun and was adept with the bow. But she specialised with a knife. When she had a knife in her hand it was very hard to beat her.
The fight ended with both women panting, Natasha pinning Skye to the floor. Natasha grinned as she stood up, pulling Skye up with her.
"That was really good," said Natasha. "You last longer every time."
Skye smiled. "If I'd had my knife I could have stabbed you about ten times."
"You think you could hit a few targets before your next class?" Clint asked, waving his bow in the air.
Skye nodded and took the bow from him. She pulled the string back, aiming towards the target on the other side of the room and released allowing the arrow to fly straight at the bullseye. She did the same with four other arrows, each of them hitting the bullseye.
"Not bad," said Clint. "But you should get going. Your next class is in fifteen minutes."
Skye glanced down at her watch and nodded when she saw the time. She gave Clint the bow and grabbed her bag waving goodbye as she left. "I'll see you tomorrow."
‼️
Skye dropped down on her bed, letting her bag fall to the floor, absolutely exhausted.
The door opened and Caitlin stepped inside, uncharacteristically jumpy. "Guess who I just saw in the lobby?"
"Who?" Skye groaned, looking up from her pillow.
"Agents Fitzsimmons!" said Caitlin, excitedly. "And three other field agents. What do you think-"
Before she could finish her question, Skye had shot up, and sprinted out of the door, Caitlin staring after her confusedly.
Skye pushes open the door to the lobby and looked around. Spotting the team, she ran towards them, pulling Fitzsimmons into a hug.
"Skye!" cried Jemma. "Oh, we've missed you!"
"I've missed you guys too!" said Skye. "Why didn't you tell me you'd be coming?"
"It was meant to be a surprise," said Coulson, stepping forward to hug her. "How did you know we had arrived?"
"My roommate saw you," said Skye, pulling away from the hug. "She doesn't know I know you, so she was just fangirling about Fitzsimmons being here."
The team looked at her confusedly as she grinned at them.
‼️
Skye day in the back of the lecture hall as Fitzsimmons gave their speech. Her mind kept wandering to different things though. Clint, Natasha, training. And most recently the pool freezing over the night before while some people were swimming in it.
She was drawing in her notebook when she heard a loud scream. She looked down and saw that a boy was standing up as he began to freeze. Fitzsimmons moved forward to help and Skye jumped down from her seat on the top step. She looked around the boy, trying to find the source of the ice and stopped on a machine below his chair. She raised her foot and stomped on it, hearing the glass crunch beneath her combat boots.
The ice began to retreat and she stepped back so that Fitzsimmons could help.
‼️
"I heard about what happened today," said Clint, handing her the bow.
"Yeah," said Skye, pulling back the bow string and firing towards the target. "Fitzsimmons have been taking care of the boy who was frozen."
"I heard about what you did," said Clint. "Nice reflexes."
Skye smiled smugly. "Thanks."
They finished practising with a bow and moved on to a gun.
‼️
Fitz knocked on the door to Skye's dorm room. Simmons was standing beside him and the rest of the team were waiting at the end of the corridor.
The door was opened and a girl with auburn hair looked at them. "Can I help you?"
"Uh," said Fitz. "We were looking for Skye. Is she here?"
"No," said the girl. "She'll be in the gym right now."
"Ok," said Simmons. "Thank you."
The girl closed the door and Fitzsimmons went to the end of the corridor. "She's in the gym, apparently," said Jemma. "I don't know why though."
The team made their way through the building to the gym, which was hardly ever used. May opened the door and stepped inside, a confused expression on her face.
‼️
Skye dodged the punch that was thrown at her head and kicked at Natasha's legs. They had been sparing for about ten minutes and both of them were sweaty and breathless. About five minutes later Natasha managed to pin her to the floor and she laughed as she stood up again.
"You are definitely getting better," said Natasha, smiling.
"E.T," said Clint, tossing her a knife. Skye caught it easily, not letting the blade cut her. She spun it around her fingers, smirked, and then tossed it at Clint who barely caught it and cursed when the blade sliced his fingers.
"Your getting slow, Birdie."
"Skye?" said a voice. She glanced around and saw the team standing in the door.
"Oh, uh," she stuttered. "Hi guys. Uh, how long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to see you spar against the Black Widow, catch a knife that was thrown at your head, and slice Hawkeye's fingers with said knife," said Ward.
"Coulson?" said Clint, looking at the older agent. "Your supposed to be dead."
"Well, so was I, Birdie," said Skye, looking at her brother.
"You weren't stabbed through the heart, E.T," said Clint pointing at his sister with his good hand as he pulled Coulson into a hug.
"May," said Natasha, nodding towards her SO. "Good to see you."
"You too, Natasha," said May, smiling slightly.
"Am I the only one confused here?" Ward exclaimed.
"No," said Fitz. "I'm confused too."
"Guys," said Skye, looking at the team. "This is my previously-dead brother."
"Hawkeye is your brother?" said Ward, sceptically.
"Yeah," said Clint, glaring at Ward slightly. "Problem?"
"No," said Ward quickly. "No problem."
"Good," said Natasha glaring too. "Skye. You've got class in ten minutes."
Skye looked down at her watch and cursed. "Dammit. I'm going to be late." She grabbed her bag and ran towards the door. "I'll talk to you guys later and I'll see you tomorrow Birdie. You owe me twenty bucks, Nat. I told you he wouldn't be able to catch that knife."
Clint began to protest as Skye vanished, and Natasha smirked. Only Skye could get a reaction like that out of anyone.