FZZT
Skye's POV
"Sorry, Fitz. It's close, but it's just not right," I heard Ward say from my spot in the corner of the lab, putting down the gun he had been holding and looking at Fitz.
"Really? Cause Agent Coulson had no problems," Fitz replied.
"It's an ounce too heavy."
I turned in my chair to look at Ward in surprise.
"An ounce? Seriously?"
Ward shot me a look, clearly still angry for the whole Miles incident. He looked away, speaking to Fitz as he picked up the gun again, weighing it in his hand.
"It's the difference between success and failure. When you're on a roof-top with a 15 mile per hour wind, your target is 500 yards away –" Then I'll use my super strength to make up for the barely noticeable difference of a single ounce! Though I guess "normal" people like Ward might care about the difference - and by normal, I do mean extremely picky.
"Yeah, but we do have a rifle," Fitz pointed out.
Ward raised his eyebrows at him.
"Lose the ounce," he said, walking out of the room.
"Yeah, okay. I'm on it!" Fitz shouted at Ward's back. "Lose the ounce," I heard him mutter under his breath before changing his accent that I loved so much into that of an American as he picked up the gun - developing an old western style swagger.
"I'm Agent Grant Ward, I can shoot the legs off a flea from 500 yards..." he started to say before switching back to his normal voice. "As long as it's not windy."
I began to laugh, Fitz looking over to me and giving me a big smile. He set the gun down and turned to me more fully.
"Hey, there's a sound I haven't heard in a bit!"
"Yeah, well, you wouldn't be laughing a whole lot if you were living in Ward's doghouse," I commented, my smile slipping.
"You made the rounds, apologized to us all. What more can he ask?"
"I don't know. I have been busting my ass, memorizing every Shield protocol manual, following every order. "Yes, sir." "No, sir." I even let them tag me like a stray dog!" I said, getting more and more angry as I held up my wrist, showing him the bracelet I had put on a few days ago. I understood why Coulson was being precautious and appreciated the fact that he seemed to have agreed to my wish to not tell the team about my powers, but the bracelet reminded me way too much of Hydra.
"I mean, I know I lied to you guys, but I was trying to protect my friend, not that he deserved it..." I added, thinking back to what Miles had done.
"You know, we all make mistakes," Fitz said, leaning against a counter. Who cares about your ex-friend?"
I got out of my chair and stood facing him.
"It's not like I'm comparing Ward to Miles, but at least with Miles, I didn't have to worry about passive-aggressive stuff. There was no mind games!" I exclaimed, again thinking back to Hydra and having to stop myself from thinking about how similar Ward seemed to many of the Hydra guards I had known. Ward wasn’t Hydra, as much as he may remind me of them.
Futz nodded in understanding.
"We spoke the same language, you know?" I continued to ramble. The last few days of keeping quiet finally spilling out.
"Yeah. Yeah, a bit like we do," Fitz said, enthusiastically as he moved his finger between himself and I.
"Totally. You and Simmons are so tight, it's like you're psychically linked!"
Fitz made a face, but I didn't get why.
"No, you...No. Actually, no. I don't think so," Fitz stuttered. I couldn't help but smile at his antics.
We both turned to the door as Simmons walked in.
"So, Ward was here? Let me guess, the night-night pistol again?" She asked, setting her tablet down on one of the tables.
"Yeah," Fitz confirmed. "Oh, yeah, and he said it was off by an ounce."
Simmons scoffed and I couldn't help but smile.
"Of course he did." I watched in amusement as she put her hands on her hips and adopted an American accent as Fitz had done only moments earlier. I shot Fitz a look. Yeah, not psychically linked at all.
"I'm Agent Grant Ward, and I could rupture your spleen with my left pinky – blindfolded," she said. I giggled at her impression.
"That is dead on!"
We heard the door open once more and turned toward the noise as Ward walked back in.
"Hey, hustle up and grab your gear. We're on a mission," he told us.
Fitz-Simmons and I tried to keep a straight face after Simmons' impression of Ward, but couldn't resist snickering a bit.
"Something funny?"
We looked at each other shaking our heads.
"Poor, silly Fitz," said Simmons in her normal voice as she picked up the night-night gun and held it out to Ward. "He mistakenly left a dummy round in the pistol. Should be proper now."
He took the gun out of her hands and felt the weight. I watched as he paused a moment then looked at Simmons.
"Great, thanks," was all he said before turning and walking away as Fitz-Simmons and I chuckled together before leaving the lab.
********************************************
"Troop Leader's name was Adam Cross. Apparently he said he heard something in the woods, went to check it out. That's where the electrostatic anomaly occurred," Coulson filled us in after we had arrived on scene.
"What I don't understand is, usually, they're caused by a massive electrical storm," Fitz said with curiosity.
"But there wasn't a storm within a thousand miles of here last night," Simmons pointed out.
"This anomaly is different, it has a side effect we've never seen before," Coulson said as he pointed over to where May stood by the hood of a truck and commenting about how the battery had blown straight up through the hood.
"It landed over here," Ward called out to Coulson as I joined him as he kneeled down by the spot the battery had landed. "Hell of a force to create that kind of trajectory," he added as I poked the battery with a thick branch I had found. He stood up and I stood up as well.
"Huh." I copied him, putting my hands on my hips as he did, mirroring his every movement but accidentally bumping into him as he stopped turning; making him roll his eyes at me.
"What are you doing?"
I gave him the most innocent look I could come up with. "I'm shadowing my supervising officer."
"Shadowing, not smothering," he said as he walked off. I huffed in irritation but let it go as I followed him at a further distance.
"There's scorch marks all over that tree. Lucky the whole forest didn't burn down."
"I don't get it," I stated. "Seems to me like this electroshock thingy was some freak lightning strike. I mean, why call us? What's the big –" I stopped talking and stared in shock. "Never mind." I had entered the clearing where the rest of the team was to see the Mr. Cross that Coulson had mentioned was floating in midair.
"So sad a man died this way...and yet, so amazing," Simmons said.
"Fitz-Simmons, any idea what could cause an effect like this?" Coulson asked. I watched as they shared a glance and then began to talk over one another. Oh, great. This is not going to make any sense whatsoever.
"Well, okay, judging by the horizontal electrical discharge, it could be -"
"There's the solution hypothesis. Perhaps nanobatteries..."
Coulson made the "time out" hand signal that I had observed being used in football games that were always being played on the tv's at "Nights".
"Time. Let's try that again. Any idea what could cause an effect like this?" Coulson asked, looking at Simmons first and then Fitz.
"The hell if I know."
"Uh, no, no clue."
"Seems to me like we're either dealing with some freak natural event or a new high tech weapon," Ward spoke up after the two scientists.
"Or, could be someone from your uber-secret index?" I stated, hoping that Coulson hadn't added my name to the list.
"There's no one on the index with this type of power," May told me.
"That we know of. I'll contact Agent Blake at Shield H.Q., have him check it out. Whoever or whatever is responsible, we can't let this happen again," Coulson tacked on.
"Fitz, see his forehead? Look at that endothelial discoloration." I watched as Simmons got closer to the body; conversing with Fitz. I blinked in surprise as I saw a spark of electricity shock her, quickly followed by the loud thump of the floating body dropping to the ground.
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I glanced up as Coulson and Ward entered the Planning Room, where I was typing away on a tablet.
"You found something on Cross?" Coulson asked.
"Many things, actually, but you already knew that. Thanks to my fancy Shield house arrest gizmo tracking my every key swipe, my online activities, my cholesterol," I said, bitterly. Neither of the guys gave any real reaction. "Just wish it came in another color...or came off!" I added.
"The victim?"
"Adam Cross, single, no kids, originally from Wrigley, Pennsylvania, moved to Arizona in his late twenties," I told them, letting the matter of the bracelet drop for now.
"Been there. They have a nice little strawberry festival in the spring. Occupation?" I looked at Coulson.
"Phys-Ed teacher at the local high school and varsity baseball coach and troop leader and volunteer firefighter. This guy makes Captain America look like "The Dude". I said, trying to hold back the blush that threatened to stain my cheeks red as I thought about Steve and the others. I was still daydreaming about them; though I had no idea why they kept interrupting my thoughts when it had been more than six months now since I had met them! Why the hell was I thinking about them all the time! Out of habit, I scratched one of my scars as it prickled - they were still burning occasionally; I had noticed it tended to happen when my mind wandered to Tony or one of the others, but figured I was just thinking too much into it. Scars hurt, it’s what they do!
I laughed but Coulson and Ward still gave me nothing.
"The Big Lebowski," I waited a beat with still no reaction. "Seriously?"
"What about a criminal record, restraining order, something that might give us a suspect?" Ward said, ignoring my comments.
I hit a couple of buttons on the tabletop monitor.
"Nada, not even a parking ticket. I skimmed all his posts, anyone linked to his pages hoping for a crazy ex or superpowered stalker, and he's clean," I stated.
"Everybody looks clean on their first go-round."
I lowered my eyes at his barb, wishing that I didn't feel so guilty and thinking for the hundredth time how much easier things would be if I hadn't started caring what people thought about me.
"Ward's right. We're missing something, dig deeper," Coulson said.
I looked from Coulson to Ward then down to the tabletop monitor, nodding as I turned and walked out of the room.
********************************************
"Fitz, what's the latest reading?" Coulson's voice asked over the radio as I joined Fitz-Simmons in the lab a few hours later. They had notified me of the latest spike in activity and I had rushed down to see if I could help.
"Uh, we're at 324 magajoules and growing stronger. Dangerous territory, sir," Fitz told him as he looked at his tablet.
"There's a farmhouse a mile north of you right at the center of the signal. That's got to be it," I added as I examined one of the monitors.
"Skye, dig up everything you can on whoever lives at that farm." I nodded; not that Coulson could see, and went back to my computer as Coulson continued to talk. "I need to know who we're dealing with."
"Hold on. What just happened? Um, it's gone," Fitz exclaimed.
"What's gone?" Coulson asked.
"The electrostatic signal. It seemed to pulse then disappear," Fitz explained.
"Skye, we need real time sat surveillance on this area, right now," Coulson told me as he, Ward, and May investigated the farmhouse from their end.
"Hang on," I said; clicking some keys. Instead of real time surveillance feeds though, I pulled up a picture of some firefighters. "I think I found something you might want to see first. Sending it over now." I hit a few more buttons, sending the picture to Coulson's phone as Fitz-Simmons glanced over my shoulder.
"The guy who owns the farm's name is Frank Whalen. He's a volunteer firefighter at the same station house as our first victim, Adam Cross," I informed everyone. "They were both responders when the aliens crashed in Los Angeles. We're looking for a killer," I added.
********************************************
"Skye, what did you find out about the firehouse?" Coulson asked me once Fitz-Simmons and I had joined the others at the farmhouse to help examine our latest dead guy.
"It turns out they sent an engine to Los Angeles with a dozen volunteers after the Chitauri invasion, including Cross and Whalen. Maybe it has something to do with why they were targeted?"
"Or how they were killed," Ward added.
"You mean like, an alien weapon?" I said, frowning.
"Let's just make sure we get to those firefighters before anyone else does," Coulson stated.
********************************************
"What are you looking for?" I asked as I walked into the lab to see Simmons bent over Frank's body, examining his head, while Fitz looked around in the cabinets.
"A scented candle," Fitz responded.
"Not you," I rolled my eyes at him as I nodded over to Simmons.
"This wound, something doesn't quite make sense. Initially, I thought these were entry wounds, as if from a gunshot. But they're not, they're exit wounds."
"What if this weapon overloaded the brain past the threshold of its electrical capacity causing it to discharge like an E.M.P.?" Fitz suggested, and I was glad to find that I was able to understand the gist of what he said for once.
"You're assuming we're dealing with an external source," Simmons said, shaking her head.
I heard a beep in the background and turned to look at the computer.
"Somethings happening," I pointed out. "Satellite's picking up another reading. It's coming from the firehouse!" I exclaimed. Coulson, May, and Ward had gone to the Firehouse to question the firefighters, but it looked like they were about to deal with a lot more than ticked off firefighters! I listened to their feed in fear as Coulson talked to the firefighters while Ward kept a watch outside and May searched around.
"Coulson, I found it. It's a Chitauri helmet!" I heard May say.
"Fitz-Simmons, are you seeing this?"
We all glanced over at the big monitor where we could see a live video now on display.
"It's not a weapon, yet it caused a cranial discharge," Simmons mumbled, lost in thought.
We all distracted ourselves by keeping an ear
on Coulson's conversation with Tony; one of the firefighters.
"It had rust all over it. We were cleaning it," he was telling Coulson.
I stared at Simmons as her face glowed with realization.
"That wasn't rust!" She cried out. "May, don't touch it!" she warned as May made to pick up the helmet. "Sir, he's not using a weapon, he's infected. I think the helmet was the source of an alien virus!" Simmons exclaimed. My eyes widened.
"Sir, he's at 600 megajoules and climbing! Sir?" I glanced worriedly towards the radio, holding my breath in as I waited for someone to respond to Fitz’s warnings.
"Clear everybody out. Clear everybody out, now," I finally heard Coulson say. We could tell that everyone but Coulson had left the room, listening in on his conversation with Tony.
"Sir, you have to get out of there right now! He's going to –" Fitz warned him. I had a feeling that Coulson had taken his earpiece out though, since we didn't hear anything further.
********************************************
"All clean, no traces of electrostatic energy," Fitz said, checking us all over with some sort of device.
"What about the other firefighters?" I asked Simmons, glancing over to where they stood.
"They'll be quarantined and observed at a Shield biohazard facility," she told me.
Two men in hazmat suits walked out of the back room holding a big metal box between them. The team met up in the center of the firehouse, as I continued to stare at the men.
"Um, anyone else notice they're putting the infected alien thing on our truck?" I commented.
"We're flying it to the Sandbox," Coulson informed me.
"Sandbox?"
"It's a Shield research facility across the Atlantic. They specialize in hazardous materials," Simmons explained. I couldn't help the shiver that ran down my spine at first as I heard her say research, but I sighed in relief at the hazardous material part. Hopefully that meant no human subjects!
"If what you suspect is true, that this is a virus, then those firefighters could be infected, and they're gonna need a cure. Find one," I heard Coulson tell Simmons. I paled at the thought of what would happen if she didn't find one...turns out I didn't have to wait very long to find out - I joined Ward in the Planning Room as he paced back and forth with worry as we waited to see if Simmons would be able to save herself; having unfortunately contracted the virus herself...
********************************************
"Isn't that..." I declared, as Coulson and I watched Fitz hurrying through the plane with the box that contained the deadly helmet in his hands.
"Fitz!" Coulson shouted.
We raced after him in time to see him break the seal on the door and join Simmons in the lab. I glanced up as May and Ward walked down the stairs to see what was going on.
We all watched on as Fitz-Simmons tested out their device on a third rat to see if it would work - it didn't...everyone's faces fell as we watched the rat float up into the air.
Ward and Coulson headed back up the stairs to give Fitz and Simmons some alone time, but I hesitated; the last one to leave, wishing desperately to trade my healing abilities for Simmons' virus if it meant that she would survive...
********************************************
"What is that?" I exclaimed as an alarm sounded out through the plane.
May hurried over to the tabletop monitor and started hitting buttons.
"Someone's lowering the cargo-hold ramp!" she cried out.
My eyes went big as I realized what was happening and I dashed off down the spiral staircase.
"The antiserum worked, but she jumped!" Fitz shouted at me; holding up the device he and Simmons had made.
I quickly took the device from Fitz but didn't bother more than a brief glance at the parachute before jumping out of the plane. It wasn't like I needed it!
It was with tremendous joy that I unfurled my wings; using them to glide along the currents and steady myself in the air as I looked for Simmons. I spotted her falling and tucked my wings in tightly, streamlining my body to dive faster towards her. I got in close to her and spreads my wings out again to slow my decent. Her eyes were closed - I was pretty sure she had passed out.
I grabbed a hold of her, shocked her in the thigh with the device, flapped my wings hard, and held on to her. I closed my eyes and reveled in the feel of the wind on my feathers as we floated down to the ocean - a blue pulse emitting from Simmons just before we landed in the water. That had been amazing! Not saving Simmons, I mean, sure, that was great, but my wings! It had never felt like that when Hydra had made me use them. It would send stabbing pains throughout my body, my back would bleed, and I would tumble head over heels; but today, today it had felt like heaven...
********************************************
"Don't get me wrong! I'm happy your both alive, truly. And I realize you were trying to save the team. But, what you did today, that was not your call!" Simmons and I were both standing in front of Coulson's desk. We both looked contrite, as if being lectured by a parent.
My lingering smile disappeared.
"Just getting you out of the water, do you have any idea what a pain it is dealing with the Moroccan office? Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again. We'd hate to lose you, Jemma," Coulson said. I opened my mouth to apologize for not simply flying her back to the plane, but closed my mouth, as I didn't have any real answer. I had just been so caught up enjoying how freeing flying now felt compared to when Hydra had demanded it of me, to really think about anything other than floating in the water with a broad grin on my face and Simmons' limp body in my arms.
"Thank you, sir," Simmons said as Coulson unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down. I started out of his office.
"Oh, does that mean we're to leave now?" I rolled my eyes at Jemma - she had made me promise to call her by her first name from now on, as we exited the room.
"So, what did you think of your first time skydiving?" I asked Jemma, trying to see how much she remembered and if she had seen my wings...
She sighed.
"Honestly, I'd rather not think about it anymore," she responded.
"I thought what you did was incredibly brave," I told her.
She stopped walking to stare at me with surprise.
"Thanks for saving my life..."
"No problem, anytime!" I walked back to my bunk, my mind racing with worry and fear as I thought back over what had just happened, hoping that Fitz-Simmons wouldn't discover my wings. As scientists, they were likely to want to experiment on me...and I did not want to be put through that again, as I had already told Coulson.
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In-Line Comments
- Let me know what you thought!
- Taking a survey to see who wants me to use Fitz and who wants me to use Simmons as the first person to learn about her wings! I'm leaning towards Fitz bc he was the one to first accept Skye's powers in the show and i really found that part touching and or I could do simmons and they could bond more at the hub i guess? Just lemme know if any of you have a preference?!
- on a slightly unrelated note though, thinking of making simmons and fitz soulmates bc...come on they basically are, and thinking that maybe simmons should be the first one to explain what soulmates are to Skye? She still wont know that she has any but would love your feedback on whether you think Simmons would be the person to have explain or if I should wait till the Avengers and have one or all of then explain what a soulmate is to her? kinda want her to have a general sense before she meets them again but still not know she has any words but also dont know if I should keep that whole subject as much of a secret to her as possible for as long as possible if that makes sense?