Work Text:
The first person who ever saved Daisy, back when she was still called Skye, was a young Korean girl named Lyndsy. Well that was her ‘English name’. Lyndsy was born in South Korea to Korean parents and raised in America by white ones. She doesn’t know her birth date. She was an orphan. Or, she was called an orphan. She is not actually sure. She was too young to remember.
Her and Skye met at St. Agnes after a series of unfortunate events led them both there. They were the same age, so they shared a room. Now they are in high school, and have not seen each other in years. Lyndsy was adopted when they were kids, and Skye wasn’t. They remember each other though, when they see one another in the hall. St. Agnes kids stick together.
“You know I thought I was white till I was like thirteen,” Lyndsy says to Skye one day as they eat their lunch on the field under the trees. (They are fifteen now, but those two years are a long time.) “I mean, I looked in the mirror and for real thought I was white. Can you imagine?” She looks at Skye and pointedly adds, “Maybe you can.”
Truthfully, though, Skye can’t. The only people who ever look at her and think she is white are Asian. But every white person who looks at her knows she is not. She has always been acutely aware of every way in which she was not like everyone else.
Lyndsy explains it. How she had no concept of what it meant to be Korean. How she was raised white and so that was how she saw herself. Just like everyone else. She was just like everyone else. Until of course, everyone else made it abundantly clear that she was not. Then suddenly, she wished to take every part of herself that was different, and scrape it away.
“I went to Chinatown yesterday,” she says. “It wasn’t mine but it was something. And for a minute I could pretend.”
At least you know, Skye wants to say but doesn’t. At least you know you’re Korean. “What kind of Asian are you?” Lyndsy asked once. Which is a much better question than, “What are you?” or even “Are you Asian?” But it’s still annoying because Skye doesn’t fucking know. She is too white to be able to tell.
“Can you imagine,” Lyndsy asks, “what that would be like? Can you imagine going home?” But Skye doesn’t even know where that is.
Lyndsy is talking about her adoptive parents now. About how she can’t talk about this with them. How they don’t understand. How they ‘don’t see color.’ “How can they not see color?” she states annoyed. “They’re looking right at me?” Skye hears too, what she doesn’t say. How could I look in the mirror and not see myself?
But, still.
At least you have parents, Skye wants to say. At least you have people who wanted you. Even if they aren’t related to you. They want you. What is that like? But she doesn’t say that because she knows how much Lyndsy doesn’t know. She knows how wide that bridge feels, between the ‘real Asians’ and her. She knows that aching lonely chasm because so much of her identity is just, lost.
Lost.
She wonders if Lyndsy misses her birth parents. Skye does.
They are standing together, now. Or, Lyndsy is. Skye is sitting.
“Skye?” Lyndsy says her name slowly and carefully, as if it is an entire sentence- subject, verb, and object. “What are you doing.”
Skye is sitting on a ledge. She climbed to the top of the building all the way to the roof. She wanted to fly.
“You shouldn’t be up here.”
“Neither should you.”
Skye doesn’t look at her. She looks out. It’s a dull view. Nothing remarkable. A city street. Dingy buildings. No one noticed her yet. No one looks up. No one but Lyndsy. She walks slowly towards Skye.
“Don’t,” Skye warns.
Lyndsy pauses. Doesn’t come any closer. “I have a tattoo, did you know that? It’s a butterfly.”
Skye turns her head, and looks at her.
And Lyndsy starts talking. Rambling about butterflies, about cocoons, about change, about flying. She goes on and on and on. And then she says, “You don’t have to do this on your own, you know.”
She offers Skye her hand.
Skye takes it, and she doesn’t fly that day.
Skye is at a park sitting on a swing set. She is an orphan. Her mother is dead and her father doesn’t remember her, so that must make her an orphan. Maybe it just makes her bitter. After everything, isn’t she allowed it? Whatever Skye is, now, she is alone.
There is a young girl, climbing all over the playground equipment. A little Asian girl, and not that far, looking over her, is her white father. Skye wonders if the girl is mixed or if perhaps she was adopted. Skye remembers that when she was young, she used to look a lot more Asian than she does now. She always noticed, when she was a kid. She was never going to be a good fit. Eventually she stopped trying.
But she never stopped wanting.
Skye is twenty six years old, apparently. And she remembers being twenty one and thinking by twenty six surely she would have her shit together. Surely she would be less of a lonely insecure mess. If she just knew. If she had history, heritage, home. She hoped. That was the most childish thing of all. But it wasn’t something she knew how to outgrow.
Skye kicks her legs on the swing set. Kicks at the wood chips on the ground beneath her. She remembers being seven years old and thinking that when she was older, surely things would get better. Sometimes she hears the others talk about their childhoods with nostalgia, times of innocence and lighthearted fun, but she has no reference for this. Mack talks of his brother, Coulson of his father and their car, May of her parents and figure skating routines and martial arts competitions. Fitz talks of building and Jemma speaks of the stars. Skye is quite.
She remembers being twelve and looking at the youngest and newest kids and thinking that maybe when she was older she would be safe enough for their lightheartedness. For that innocence and pure joy. She used to hope, when she was older, maybe then, it would be possible she could have that.
She got a little older, and she sat on a rooftop and she hoped. She hoped.
Skye is older still now, and what she has is memories of cold hands on her face and snorts of distain in her ear and towering over her and touching her knee and falling into ice water. What she has is images in her mind that she has never seen- her mother cut to pieces and left like garbage. What she has is weight of traumas that she has never lived fitting into place with all of the ones she has living just underneath her skin.
What she has now, is an oddly disconnected feeling, as she watches that little girl play just a few yards away.
She used to imagine going to the park with parents. She wonders if there was another life where her family could have looked like the one she sees now. The girl giggles with laughter.
She hears footsteps in the wood chips next to her. May. Of course it is May. To her slight surprise, May sits on the swing next to her. She doesn’t say anything though, naturally. She waits.
“I’m Chinese,” Skye tells May. And even as she says it, she has to fight the urge to qualify it with half. “I was born in China.” May turns to look at her, listening attentively. “They brought me here,” Skye whispers. She whispers it like a confession, like a secret, like she is not allowed this. She is not allowed. But she wants.
“They took me here,” Skye tries again- with a little more volume and a little more force- to see if it feels better like that. “They saved my life. And they took-”
She stops herself. Is she allowed to be grateful? Is she allowed to be angry? Is she allowed.
Still, May says nothing. Maybe there is nothing to be said to that. Skye turns in her swing and faces her. “Sometimes you look at me like you think I’m a kid or something. I know sometimes I act-”
May shakes her head and cuts her off. “That’s not it.”
But if it wasn’t that then what was it? What was May seeing when she looked at her? If not a child? Desperate for answers when there are no answers.
“I trusted her,” Skye says, her voice full of all her regrets. She is sorry. And she wants May to know that. She is so sorry.
“You had good reason.”
And Skye thought she did. It seemed to make sense, at the time. When everything was going sideways with the Inhumans. With SHIELD. When everything was on the verge of falling apart. When men were hunting her through the woods. When they were shooting at her mother and at unarmed Inhumans. When they were targeting them. It all seemed to make sense.
But then Raina was bleeding. Raina was dying. And nothing made sense anymore.
“I wanted to believe her,” Skye admits. “I wanted her to be good.” And what a stupid childish thing it was, all that goddamn hope.
“Yes, and that made you easier to manipulate,” May says. Skye looks down and kicks at the wood chips. May continues firmly, “But, even if she hadn’t been your mother, if it had been someone else, who framed SHIELD the way she did, you would have made the same choice.”
The words ring true to Skye’s ears. Even if she is having a hard time seeing past her own shame.
“How do you know?”
“Because you always do what you think is right.”
May sounds certain. And Skye…she tried to. She tried so hard. She never knew how much it would cost her.
“I hesitated,” Skye blurts out.
“What?”
“I couldn’t kill her. I hesitated.”
May looks at her with something then. Not quite pity. Not quite amusement. Something a little deeper than fondness. Something a little more like love.
“That’s understandable,” May says.
“She just looked at me like I was a stranger,” Skye says. “I guess I was. Maybe I lost that, her, all of it. When they took-” Her mom looked at her and any part of her that was recognizable, was apparently, gone. And Skye doesn’t know what to do with that.
“You know so many times, I felt like a stranger here,” Skye admits. No matter where she went, how many families she stayed with, it never felt right. It never felt like it was hers. There was a connection that was missing, severed, lost. She remembered looking down at her SHIELD badge for the first time. Looking at the eagle, and knowing that she belonged to something. Until that all fell apart too. She wonders if May ever felt like that.
“I thought if I just knew, if I knew my ethnicity, if I knew my name, if I had answers, I would belong somewhere.” Skye shakes her head. She was stupid. She was wrong. She belongs nowhere. “I was born in China. I lived there for ten months. But if I were to go back there, I wouldn’t remember it. I wouldn’t look Chinese. I wouldn’t speak the language. I wouldn’t know…there’s so much that I wouldn’t know. I would still be a stranger. My own mother wouldn’t-” Skye cuts herself off.
May regards her carefully. So very carefully. “Some of that, you can learn. Especially if you have someone to teach you.”
And Skye looks at her and she understands what May is saying. You belong. You are welcome. You are wanted.
Skye blinks rapidly several times. And then she sees it. There, just over May’s shoulder, she sees it.
A butterfly.
“Come on, girl,” Trip whispers in her ear, the imprint of his hand held tightly in hers.
She lets out a long breath. The butterfly flies away.
“Skye-” May tries to get her attention.
Daisy turns to her and smiles.
“Daisy. My name is Daisy.”
Daisy is sitting in a bar surrounded by her family. She is sitting in a bar alone. She is sitting in the Zephyr across from Daniel Sousa. She smiles at him. Kora calls them over to look at the nebula.
“Amazing right?”
“It’s beautiful,” Daisy agrees. It is.
Daisy stands. In space. Surrounded by her family.
“NGC 6302,” says Daniel.
“What’s that?” Kora asks.
Daniel gestures to the beautiful multicolored cloud of space dust in front of them. “The butterfly nebula.”
Daisy smiles at that.
“What?” Daniel asks curiously.
Daisy blinks back the sudden tears. Looks from Daniel to Kora, and then back out to the nebula. “I knew this girl, met her in the orphanage. She loved butterflies…” her voice trails off into a whisper.
Daisy clears her throat. “She said butterflies were proof that we can have a second chance at life.”