Turn, Turn, Turn (Part 2)
Skye’s POV
“The 0-8-4 specs, Asgardian weaponry, portal creation, Donnie’s weather machine. If they get their hands on Gravitonium in The Fridge –“ Ward was saying as I worked furiously on my laptop in the lab.
“It’s below The Fridge. No records,” Coulson told him.
“Okay. But on the off chance we’d give them the designs to weaponized it. The drug from T.A.H.I.T.I., sir? All here. If Hydra’s really about to seize this plane –“ Ward said ominously. I continued to type on my laptop.
“We should wipe the system,” Coulson finished for Ward as he looked over at me.
“I’m backing it up on this hard drive to keep our edge,” I told him.
“Then do it. Scrub the plane clean,” he instructed me.
“It’ll take some time,” I warned him as Garret entered carrying a large bag.
“We’re working on buying you some,” Garret said. I nodded and continued to type on my laptop, faster now.
*****
“It’s called a mouse hole. It cuts through anything, really. I designed it a year ago and submitted it for testing, but it never reached distribution,” Fitz explained his device as we walked quietly down the halls at the Hub, having managed to sneak of the plane right as the soldiers were coming to get us out.
“Top agents always hog the good stuff,” Garret commented.
“You’re right. The hard drive’s safer in your hands. You haven’t taught me how to hold up under torture yet,” I said as I handed him the hard drive. Though technically I knew how to handle getting tortured I just didn’t need him to know that.
“We’ll get to that. It’s real fun,” I frowned as he said that, definitely not looking forward to that lesson but hoping it would be different with Ward training me compared to Hydra’s torture lessons. They were less “lessons” for me and more practice for the trainee guards. I shuddered and decided to focus on the task at hand.
“All right, here’s where we split up. Skye and Ward?” Coulson said.
“Heading to the nerve center,” Ward confirmed.
“Disable their systems, most importantly their control of our plane,” Coulson ordered.
“Copy that,” I told him.
“Remember, these agents are under orders. Use I.C.E.R.s only. We’ll find Simmons, get her out,” Coulson reminded everyone.
*****
I panted as I jumped down and landed into what looked like some sort of janitor’s closet by dropping down from the ceiling. I looked up as Ward entered and dropped down as well. We got low in a corner by the door when we heard people patrol past. After they were past Ward cracked open the door and looked out in the hallway, I could tell it’s swarming with patrol soldiers. Ward grimaced as he looked around.
“Damn,” he cursed.
“That processing center is at the end of that hall,” I reminded him.
Ward nodded as I looked around the janitor’s closet.
“Give me your I.C.E.R,” Ward told me.
“What are you gonna do?” I asked nervously.
“Pave the way for you,” he said.
“There’s like a hundred guys out there!” I argued back.
“12. Level-five foot soldiers, basic armor package, and no other way through. The others are depending on us,” Ward stated.
“But it’s suicide!” I said as I stared at him.
He turned and looked back at me.
“Not if I don’t die,” he said. I rolled my eyes. I mean I know the guy is good but seriously! He turned to face the door again. “And if I do…” he added slowly.
“Wh – slow down!” I said reaching out to grab him by the shoulders.
“…maybe I deserve to.” I just stared at him, when he spoke again his voice broke a bit. “I killed an innocent man, Skye.”
“You didn’t know. You thought you were doing the right thing. You thought he was going to –“
“To hurt you!” He said as he stared me down. I looked into his eyes for a long time before he turned away.
After another moment he held out his hand to me. I got my I.C.E.R. out and handed it over to him. We both stood, Ward putting his hand on the door handle and heaving a deep sigh. He sucked in a quick breath and looked back at me.
“If we make it out of this, maybe we can…grab a drink, you and me.”
“Are you –“ I said as I stared at him wide eyed. Was he asking me out on a date? And if so, did I want to say yes? I was immediately conflicted as I thought about the avengers but then I remembered how they had all attacked me and quickly stopped myself.
“Remember when you were in that bar in Dublin, you offered to…talk? I didn’t want to talk. I needed to keep things compartmentalized.”
“Like with May?” I said raising my brow. “I’m not an idiot. We live on the same plane together, for God’s sake,” I told him rolling my eyes.
“Well, with her, I knew I could. With you…I didn’t want to risk it.”
“I was offering to talk, Ward, not to have sex with you,” I told him with a gentle smile.
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying…I want a chance to take you up on it, to have that talk.” He sighed and shook his head. “Look, I know I’m not that guy. I’m too locked down, too boring.”
“When we make it out of this…yes, let’s have a drink,” I told him.
We shared a smile before he turned toward the door and suddenly I gripped his elbow turning him back around. I had no idea what made me do it but I grabbed the front of his vest and pulled him close to me, kissing him. As kisses go it was nice. Definitely better than any experience I had so far, besides when I had kissed Loki. That was indescribable. I broke off the kiss and he just looked down at me.
“You said you might die, so…what the hell?” I told him with a shrug.
He laughed then turned back toward the door.
“Lock the door behind me,” he told me. I gave him a smile and watched as he took a deep breath before exiting. I quickly closed and locked the door as he had instructed. Closing my eyes in fear as I listened to the sounds of fighting in the hall.
I pressed my ear against the door listening to what’s happening in the hallway. There was a lot of banging, grunting and other noises. The I heard footsteps approaching and backed up as far away from the door as I could get. The door opened and a very beat up Ward stood there breathing hard.
I sighed and rolled my eyes with relief.
“Hey, you…you should really look up the word “boring” in a dictionary,” I breathed out.
“You ready to hack this system?”
I picked up my backpack and opened it showing him the C4 inside.
“Who said anything about hacking?” I said with a smirk.
*****
I frowned as a small explosion rocked the base and the electricity blinked then went out.
“Was that all of them?” I asked Ward.
Ward looked over his shoulder down the hallway then back at me.
“Wasn’t as big as I thought –“
A larger explosion goes off very close to us and I couldn’t help but scream a little as Ward turned to cover me with his body.
*****
I sighed in relief as Ward and I walked over to the rest of our team and watched the remaining agents who were still loyal to Shield walk a line of prisoners past us. I frowned as I spotted Garret down the line and saw Trip and Ward glancing at one another in shock, anger, and hurt. I patted Ward on the back, but didn’t know what else to say. It couldn’t be easy to find out that your former SO had been lying like that.
I suddenly paused and frowned as I overheard one of the agents mention that Captain America had defeated the Helicarriers at the Triskelion but that his status was unknown. I get my heart race suddenly as I thought about what might have happened to him. I quickly pulled out my phone and sent off messages to everyone telling them to stay safe and to please tell me if they were ok but given the circumstances I had a feeling that it wasn’t likely that I was going to get a response from anyone. Natasha and Clint were likely to go dark if they hadn’t been killed like Fury. My heart raced faster at the thought that they might be dead but I figured if Hawkeye and the Black Widow had been killed I would be hearing about it. Suddenly my phone pinged and I breathed a sigh of relief as I got 3 responses from the people I was most worried about.
Widowmaker: I’m ok but planning to go dark, stay safe, Krasivaya.
Arrowman: I’m safe but going dark, don’t do anything stupid, sweetheart.
AmericanPie: I’m alright, doll but I won’t be able to talk for a while.
I sighed in relief but it didn’t last long as I recalled that Shield had just fallen to Hydra. On my first fricking day of being a full fledged Shield agent…
I followed Fitz-Simmons back onto the Bus and watched as they sat down trying to comfort one another. I reached behind me and pulled out my bright shiny new badge from my back pocket, opened it up and stared at it before scoffing.
“It’s all gone,” I commented.
“In pieces, at least,” Jemma said as she and Fitz looked over at me. I could see May glancing around in anger at the destroyed cockpit as Coulson walked down the spiral staircase. I had to admit that he looked more like himself, in a clean suit which he was just finishing doing up the buttons on. But I could tell that he was still reeling in shock like the rest of us.
“Skye, try to restore some of the firmware in the plane’s systems. Fitz-Simmons, get a crew together. Help May patch the holes,” he said. I rushed off to go grab my laptop and get started. In the back of my mind, still worrying about the rest of the avengers. But they were the avengers - it looked like Hydra had primarily been after control of Shield so hopefully they were alright. I hadn’t heard anything about Avenger Tower being attacked which was a good sign, though I still felt a bit conflicted considering how our last interaction had gone but that didn’t mean I wanted any of them to die or get injured!