Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a good idea, obviously.  

Skye knew that from the start, but it didn’t change the fact that they were standing there with a little container of fish oil, ready to down it.

If anyone had asked, which they wouldn’t, Skye would say that they were doing some hands-on testing of theories that were recently investigated but remained open-ended.  

That is to say, the answers were hidden deep in the servers of SHIELD, where Skye was working towards hacking into but hadn’t been able to yet, and they really wanted to know what was going on.  All of the reports they had been able to see had said that the fish oil was either harmless, or had an effect that still led to people surviving “the change.”

So. Personal testing it was.  Probably safe, unless those upper level reports were covering up more insidious aspects.

Skye eyed the fish oil dubiously.  It didn’t look appetizing or particularly life changing, more like a stupid idea.  

No matter.  They were ready to engage in the most noble scientific activity of all time: fuck around and find out.

Skye quickly dumped the fish oil in their mouth and swallowed as much as they could.  They waited for a beat.  Nothing happened.  They felt no “change” as had been mysteriously described; they didn’t explode, gain a sense of inner peace, or become able to spontaneously create cereal boxes.  It looked like either they were part of the very grand normal group of people who stayed the same or they had gotten the fish oil wrong.

Oh well.  Skye would just have to do more hacking to find out instead.  How horrible and sad - it wasn’t like that was their favorite activity or anything.

Skye had set themselves up behind their van, out of sight of any security cameras, in case, for some reason, people were looking into what happened there.  With the non-eventful moment, Skye tried to move toward the van door, but their feet felt like they were stuck in concrete.

Or maybe ash, Skye thought as they looked down to see some mysterious substance coating their feet all the way up to their thighs, climbing higher by the second.

What the fuck?

Their panic seemed to incentivize the ash-concrete mixture, and Skye was swallowed by it in just another moment.

Well.  This was what happened to scientists who adhered to fuck around and find out.  They found out.  

They had lived a life, Skye supposed.  Not a great childhood or anything, but maybe they had done some good with their data dumps.  They didn’t believe in God anymore, but for a second they fantasized about having good enough karma to get into heaven.

Their panic grew as they realized they might suffocate to death, and didn’t that sound unpleasant.

As their terror reached its peak, the world exploded around them.  

Skye had one brief moment of seeing their van crumple in half, flying away at great speed into the nearby building before they passed out.

———————

The Avengers weren’t all there all the time.  Natasha, Clint, and Steve often did work for SHIELD, Tony and Bruce had their science, and Thor regularly was in Asgard.  When JARVIS alerted Tony to a strange earthquake in the city, only Nat and Bruce showed up to meet with him.

Bruce looked just as bothered as Tony to be pulled away from his lab.  Tony had been in the zone, making improvements to his suit.  Nat might have been sleeping off some mission, given that she looked the least put together Tony had seen her in a couple months.  A piece of her hair was burnt up, Tony noticed as Natasha twirled it around her fingers in thought.

“What’cha got for us, JARVIS?” Tony asked.

“Approximately ten minutes ago, a localized earthquake happened nearby in Queens.  Based on typical earthquake patterns, it shouldn’t have happened.”  

“A bomb?” Natasha questioned, still twirling that curl.

JARVIS projected a video into the room.  “I was able to save this before the camera shut off,” he said.

A van sat in the center of the video, nothing moving for five seconds.  Then the van crumpled and began to fly straight at the camera.  Behind, Tony caught a quick glimpse of someone collapsed on the ground.  The feed cut out moments later.

“Hmm,” Nat said thoughtfully.

“It appears that someone was injured in the quake.  Additionally, the possibility of a bomb, as Agent Romanoff stated,” JARVIS informed them.

“Thank you, J,” Tony said.  “I’ll fly over, check it out.”

“I’ll wait here in the medbay.  Nat should go survey the scene too,” Bruce said.

Natasha nodded.  Ever efficient, the two of them were out the window in five.

“Fuck you!” Natasha screamed up at him as he dropped five floors before engaging his thrusters.

“I’m taken,” he told her gleefully, “but thanks for the offer.”

Before even touching down, Tony saw the damage.  There was a pattern of cracks stemming out from the center of the street, where a body lay motionless.  The buildings were standing, although windows were shattered.  The van from the video was on its side, a huge part of it caved in.  It wasn’t quite a wreckage, but qualified for concern.

He landed next to the body carefully and let Nat go.  She bent down over the body and felt for a pulse.  It looked like a teenage girl; the only visible injury was a set of bruises running up her forearms.

“Alive,” Nat said.  “Rapid pulse, bruising on arms, breathing normal,” she informed Bruce over their comms.

“Bring them back, Iron Man,” Bruce said.  “And carefully.”

He cradled her in his arms, lifting off with a much smoother method than earlier.  Nat shot him a dirty look that he gracefully ignored.  

He flew in the window of the medbay, depositing the girl onto a bed that Bruce had prepped, and flew right back out to help Natasha with her surveillance.

“There’s definitely something weird about this,” she told him.  “We found the girl right on top of the explosion so she must have set it off by accident, but I can’t find much of anything left as evidence other than the cracks.  It’s all been destroyed so the device must have self imploded.  This area has no ties to people who would be setting off bombs, and none of the people living near here are even profiled in SHIELD.”

“Well, shit,” Tony said.  “JARVIS, scan for irregularities in the ground.”

“Most that is to be expected of an explosion, sir.  There appears to be a sort of ash settled where the girl was.”

Tony walked over.  The pavement was dark and covered in rubble; he couldn’t see any ash.  Scooping a hand into the ground, he came up with a dusty clump of material.  “Did I get any?”

“Indeed,” JARVIS informed him.

“Thanks, J.” 

“Let’s go,” Nat said.  “No obvious affiliations here, or any targets other than the girl.”

“Run an internet search for that girl, J,” Tony said as they flew back to the Tower, wondering if this was the start of something big.

Chapter Text

Their forearms hurt.  That was the first thing that Skye noticed.  Then the soft, bed-like nature of the surface they were laying on.  Wait, what?

Their eyes shot open and they got ready to flee.  Something had obviously happened while they were out.  In no world did ‘soft bed’ belong to the category of surfaces they regularly lay on.  

A man in a white doctor’s coat darted over to them as he heard them sit up.  They were disoriented and their body felt weird, but Skye still had eyes.

“Bruce Banner?” Skye said in disbelief.

“Oh,” he said.  “You recognize me?”

“You’re an Avenger,” they said.  “What the fuck.”

“Lay back down,” Banner instructed them, tone turning strict.  “You’re hurt.”

Skye frowned.  “What happened?  Where am I?  How did I get here?”

“Lay down,” he said again and Skye did so.  “You’re at Avengers Tower.  You were injured after some sort of explosion and Tony picked you up.”

“Iron Man carried me here?” 

“He did.”  Banner gave them a small smile, as if he knew what was happening in their mind.  “What’s your name, kid?”

“Skye,” they said, not sure if they should really be giving him their name.  He jotted their name down on a clipboard by their bedside.

“Listen,” Banner said seriously, “you’ve got some stress fractures in your forearms and some serious bruising.  I didn’t want to treat you without your permission since you weren’t in life-threatening danger, so I haven’t actually done anything to you yet.”

Skye looked down at their forearms.  That would explain the pain, the aching that went deep.  But it didn’t explain the buzzing that was going on underneath their skin, all over.  

“So there was an explosion?” they asked, trying to make sense of what had happened.

“Yes,” Banner said.  “At the moment, we believe that you must have stepped on something that blew up, although the details are unclear as to who might have been the target.”

Skye must have somehow been the explosion, but how?  Then, a second thought occurred to them.  “My van, is it-”

Banner shook his head before they could finish.  “They said the van was crumpled in half.  The explosion hit it hard.”

Fuck.  They had killed their van.  They had killed their home for the last two years.  Gone, and for a stupid curiosity.

The room began to shake.  Skye could feel the buzzing rising in their ears, overtaking Banner trying to talk to them.  It rumbled through their body, their insides turning to jelly as they watched a thermometer shatter into tiny pieces.  Maybe that would happen to their body too. 

As they turned to Banner in a panic, they clearly saw him say, “What the fuck?”  He turned to look at them in question, searching for solidarity in shock over the situation, but he paused as he saw the fear in their eyes.

“Skye?” he said distantly.  His voice faded out in the background as the buzzing grew and grew.  It was less a crowd of bees and more of a gentle avalanche.  

“Skye!” came his voice again and Skye snapped back into it a little.  They couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

“What’s going on?” Banner asked more clearly, and Skye zeroed in on his voice.  Clearly, they must be causing this somehow.  The fish oil had done something to them, something that had changed them.  They were different.  Something was wrong with them that they couldn’t control, all because they’d done a little speculation and experimenting.

Skye paused for a second.  Technically, were they a mutant?  Were these powers?  Powers that they couldn’t control that were emotionally activated?  So-

“I’m Hulk,” Skye said.  

The room had settled down as they’d been thinking, so Banner’s full attention was on them.  He spluttered a bit.  “Excuse me? I’m Hulk,” he said, somewhat indignantly. 

“Oh, well, yeah,” Skye said.  “I’m like Hulk, is what I meant.”

“Was that you shaking us?” Banner said suspiciously, ignoring the Hulk comment.

“I think?” Skye replied.

Wait-  “Not,” they added firmly.  Talking about the Hulk brought back the memory that they were a hacker and they knew the Hulk was experimented on by the government and now they were going to be experimented on by the government and they weren’t even a doctor and so that was a big no.

“It wasn’t me,” they concluded.

Banner stared at them.  “Yeah,” he said slowly, disbelieving, “and that’s why it was tied to your emotional state?”

“A ghost,” Skye offered.  “Trying to protect me, but it doesn’t know how to do it.”

Skye could tell Banner was trying to suppress a deep frustrated sigh.  He was silent for a long moment.  “How can I help this ghost?”

Skye paused as well.  They hadn’t gotten that far.  “Help me stay calm and out of government hands?” they suggested.

Banner shot a look at them.  “Your ghost doesn’t like the government?”

Skye sniffed arrogantly, like they’d been followed by a ghost their whole life.  “My ghost was experimented on by the government, Dr. Banner.  Sort of like the Hulk.  So no, it doesn’t like the government.”

Banner winced.  “The government does like their experiments.”  He eyed them critically.  “They sure would like to get their hands on you.”

The room trembled again as Skye took a deep breath, not letting his comment provoke them.   “I don’t want that to happen, I’m sure you can imagine.”

He hummed in agreement.  They sat in silence for a minute.  Skye shifted uncomfortably in their bed.

Banner let out a sigh.  “Look, I hate all this subterfuge stuff.  I’m not a spy, I’m a doctor.  I just want to help.  Please let me help you, I promise I won’t tell anyone.  Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

Skye looked at him.  He seemed to be telling the truth.  “I drank some fish oil,” they started.  That was innocent enough.  “Then the world exploded.”  There was no need to note that it had been on purpose.

“Fuck,” Banner said with feeling.  “Okay.”

That wasn’t good.  “What happened to me, Dr. Banner?” Skye asked.

Banner groaned.  “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this.”

Skye nodded eagerly.

“You’re an Inhuman,” he said simply.

“I’m a what?”

“Yer a wizard, Harry,” Banner said reflexively.  “Sorry,” he followed immediately, “I shouldn’t have said that to you.  Rowling is such a transphobic bitch.”

“How’d you know I was trans?” Skye demanded, trembling.  No, the bed was trembling.  They steadied themselves.  That was ridiculous.  Skye knew they looked like a girl, even if they didn’t like it.  How on earth would anyone clock them?

Banner reared back, shocked.

“Shit,” Skye said.  “Shit,” they said again for emphasis.  That was stupid of them.  Then again, he had called out a transphobe, he was probably safe to come out to.  They clutched the sheets on the bed tightly.

Banner scratched his head.  “What are your pronouns?” he asked cautiously.

That was possibly the best way that he could have responded.  Skye peered at him curiously.  Did the Hulk have trans friends?  Had he attended some sort of diversity meeting for the Avengers?  For work?

Skye gathered up some courage.  “They/them,” they said.

“Okay,” Bruce said simply.  “How would you like me to refer to you around the Avengers?  They assumed you were a girl, but I can correct them.  My apologies for assuming as well.”

“No,” Skye mumbled.  “I don’t want more trouble.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Bruce began to insist, but Skye shook their head. 

“What’s an Inhuman?” they said instead.

“We’re not entirely sure yet,” Banner said, accepting the topic change.  “Each Inhuman has their powers kickstarted by the fish oil, which has a sort of contagion that awakens your innate DNA.  If I were to take basic body measurements of you right now, I would expect your pulse to be extremely fast and your DNA would have an extra macromolecule in it.  I’ve been contacted by some SHIELD scientists about analyzing samples and the Avengers were warned about new powered people.” 

“Wow.”  That was more information than Skye had been able to find out on their own.  Maybe this had paid off after all.

“You’ll have to learn to control your powers,” Banner continued.  “The Avengers can help with that if you don’t want to be referred to SHIELD.”

“No Avengers.”

Banner paused in his speech.  “What?”

“I don’t trust them,” Skye mumbled.

“They’re the Avengers,” Banner said.  “The Avengers!  I’m on the Avengers.”  His face would have been funny if Skye hadn’t been arguing for their life and safety.  

“I know.  I just want you.  Only your experience with the Hulk will be able to help me anyway so there isn’t even a reason to tell them,” Skye defended.

“The Avengers,” Banner emphasized.  “They won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m sorry,” Skye replied, “Mister ‘I am Iron Man’ can keep secrets?”

Banner winced.  “I’ll give you that, but if it’s important he will.”

Skye shook their head.  “You can’t tell anyone right?  That’s what you said.  Confidentiality.  You wouldn’t lie, right?”

Banner groaned.  “I can’t tell anyone,” he said.

“Well,” Skye concluded, “I don’t want to.  So it’s just you and me.”  They crossed their arms, looking very much like the eighteen year old they were.

“What are we going to tell them then?” he questioned them.  “They think a bomb went off.”

Skye shrugged.  “I don’t know what happened.  I was there and then everything exploded.  It’s not my job to figure that stuff out.”  

Bruce put his head in his hands.  “You know Natasha is a professional spy right?”

“I was hurt by the explosion and I just lost my only home.  Why would I have done that on purpose?”

“You lost your only home?” Bruce repeated.

“Ah,” Skye said.  “Umm, I sort of live, lived in my van.  That’s why I was upset about breaking it.”

“You- Okay.  I won’t tell the Avengers anything and I’ll help you with your powers.  You can move into my apartment in the city; I don’t live there anymore but I couldn’t sell it because it’s outfitted for Hulk.”

“And what do you want in return?” Skye said cautiously.

“For you to try to control your powers and to be honest with me.”

“That’s it?” Skye narrowed their eyes and squinted at him speculatively.  

“That’s it,” Banner agreed.  “I understand you might not understand my reasoning, but I’m not going to leave a child on the streets and I’m certainly not going to let a child live with an uncontrollable Hulk inside if I can help it.”

Skye hummed in thought.

“If you want to think about it another way, you can think that at least this way I know we won’t have a huge earthquake in New York, where I live.  That’s a pretty nice return for me.”  He gave them a small, unassuming smile.

Comforting that he thought they could cause a huge earthquake with their new powers.  That wasn’t scary at all.

“Okay,” Skye said.  “How do we get past the Avengers?”

“I cleared you, and then found out that you were living in your van.  I offered up my apartment as a temporary home while you find another place.  We’ve done nothing wrong, and I will escort you to my apartment.”  He smacked himself in the head.  “I haven’t cleared you actually, you have all those fractures.  Let me get you some arm braces and bruise cream.”

Skye nodded quietly, finally feeling the overwhelming fact that they were in way over their head.

Chapter Text

Bruce, as he’d asked them to call him, had a nice apartment, if you could call it that.  He had a whole two floors to himself in an extended penthouse type home.  

He had a large lab on the lower floor alongside a living room, equipped with a huge TV and comfortable looking couch.  The only door in the open layout on the floor led into a room that reached up to the second floor, far above Skye’s head.  It was so the Hulk would have more space, they supposed.

The second floor had a kitchen, usable but without food, and two bedrooms.  Bruce showed them to the second door.  “It’s yours now,” he said sincerely.

The bed started to shake and Skye took a deep, gulping breath and stopped the buzzing before it left their skin.  Bruises blossomed lightly along their forearms and Bruce grimaced.  “We’ll have to work on getting it under control so you don’t hurt yourself.”  

“Yeah,” they said, distinctively not crying.  “I’m gonna sleep in the Hulk room for a while.  I get nightmares,” they defended, when Bruce looked at them strangely, “and I don’t want to hurt anyone here.”

He conceded that point immediately.  “Just for a bit,” he added sternly.

The two of them tried a number of fixes over the next week.  Bruce made them meditate at least twice a day, trying to get in touch with their feelings.  Mostly, Skye felt annoyed, sad, and angry, none of which they really wanted to acknowledge.  Still, on occasion, Skye had to admit that they felt a little better after meditating.  Bruce visited them every day.  He brought them teas and provided them with much needed human interaction.  

It helped to an extent.  Skye wasn’t bringing the building down every second of the day.  No, it was just two or three times a day that they began to have a slight breakdown that spiraled into their powers activating and led them to rush into the Hulk room, where they could let their powers loose and not have to turn them inwards.  They’d had plenty of small incidents where they hadn’t bothered, so Skye’s forearms were pretty gruesome still.

Bruce had tried to get them to go out on a couple occasions, citing the need for human interaction beyond just him, but after Skye had accidentally shattered a few plates at the nearby coffee shop, they refused to go out recreationally.  

Instead, they told Bruce that they loved coding and would take some virtual jobs: creating websites and protecting them from malware and the like.  They wanted to pay for their own groceries, not that they were buying much more than snacks.

After they finished their legal activities for the day, Skye began the much more difficult task.  They were trying to hack into both SHIELD and Avengers Tower, to find who might have more information on Inhumans or how to control powers.  

So far, SHIELD had given no additional information.  Skye had gone over documents that they’d already seen with a more critical eye, knowing what Bruce had told them, and saw that the reports did note an elevated heartbeat for individuals who underwent “the change.”  The rest was hidden from them by high-level identification requirements that Skye hadn’t found a way past yet.  They would, though.

Avengers Tower might be the inroad for them.  Stark had already had his fingers in a couple of SHIELD servers, so if Skye could just follow him in, they might be able to access Avengers level documents.  If the Avengers knew about Inhumans, why wouldn’t they be able to access those documents?  They had to be able to.

In any case, it would take Skye some time to work their way into Stark Tower.  It seemed to evolve every time they tried to hack it, learning what they had done and countering.  Stark must be all over it trying to stop them.

Currently though, Skye was laying on their bed in Bruce’s guest room, waiting for some Avengers to show up.  The Avengers were living up to their do-good name, and they’d been visited out of concern by Natasha and Clint a few days ago.  They were pretty sure Bruce had put them up to it to give them more human interaction.  

It hadn’t been terrible, since they had figured Skye was still traumatized by being blown up and losing their home.  Skye, just off of a power blasting session in the Hulk room, had been in their feels and quickly got rid of them with that excuse.  This time, though, Skye wasn’t sure it would work.  They had a hard time portraying a scared little kid without setting off their powers from the mindset they fell into.

There was a knock at the door.  Three more quickly followed, and Skye rolled out of bed to greet them.

“Hi,” they said, stepping aside to let the two spies in.

Clint stepped through the door first, carrying two grocery bags and smiling widely.  

“Hey!” Clint greeted them, and Natasha nodded to them silently behind him.

“What’s in there?” Skye asked curiously, gesturing to his bags.  They did buy groceries on their own after all.

“We brought real food,” Natasha told them.  “You need to eat better if you want to recover.”

Skye winced.  That was probably true.  Natasha didn’t even know the extent of the problem, where Skye kept fracturing their arms and the bruises wouldn’t stop getting worse.  They couldn’t really protest it.

Clint levied a critical eye at them.  “You look like shit,” he said.

Natasha smacked his side.

“I know,” Skye said.  “I’ve been keeping odd hours.”

They didn’t look like that was the only problem, they knew, but it would be enough.  Skye’s hair was disheveled and there were bags under their eyes, but beyond that they had this overwhelming vibe that something was wrong.  They had to deal with the fact that they had to pretend their arms were healing, and not in immense pain despite their medication that morning.  Bruce had said their enhanced metabolism was running through the meds faster than a normal human would.  They couldn’t take enough pain meds to cancel out the feeling in their arm, since Bruce wasn’t sure if he could safely give them higher doses.

Skye tried to keep their eyes from darting around nervously, knowing that they were in front of two master spies.  They had lied to foster parents before, but they tended to be a bit easier to fool than world renowned interrogators.

“Well,” Natasha replied with a slight frown, “we’re here to help.  We can make you some meals to keep as leftovers.  Simple stuff, but better than 24/7 ramen.”

How had she- Skye hazarded a look over at the trash, which was full of instant ramen containers.  Ah.

“Right,” they said.  “That would be nice.”

Honestly, Skye would’ve done it themselves; cooking sounded like a nice break from the monotone of their days now.  There were only two small problems.  They didn’t want to buy food when ramen was a lot cheaper, and perhaps more of an issue was that Skye had no idea how to cook.

Clint set out ingredients for what he said would be a lasagna and directed Natasha and Skye to wash their hands.  He had Natasha show Skye how to cut up vegetables properly.  Skye nervously held the knife in their hand, trying to emulate Natasha, who seemed like the knife was an extension of her body.

“Can I show you?” Natasha asked, seeing their struggle, and Skye nodded.  She grabbed their wrist to position it correctly.  Skye couldn’t withhold their wince as Natasha pressed on their bruises.

“Oh, shit, does your arm hurt from the fractures?” Natasha quickly dropped their hand, grabbing the knife from them.  “From what Bruce said, I thought you would be fine with the painkillers and the brace.”

Skye nodded a bit.  Bruce had told them that too, that although they weren’t healed in the slightest, a normal human would be able to function fine at this point in their recovery if they were doing everything their doctor had told them to.  Skye didn’t want to seem incompetent in front of Black Widow herself, so they just nodded awkwardly.

“Just twisted a bit wrong,” they tried to explain.

“Does the brace not prevent that?” Clint jumped in, finished with his assessment of their kitchen.  He turned his eye on them, evaluating their words.

Skye froze minutely.  “Ah,” they began to say, trying to find another way out of it.  It did prevent most of their arm movements that would cause pain.  “Yes, but I forgot my painkillers?”  They hadn’t, of course, but the meds had definitely worn down by now.

“What?”

Skye cringed under the two spies’ heavy looks.  “On accident,” they defended, “and I didn’t want to get off schedule so I was just gonna wait until the next time that I’m supposed to take them.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Natasha asked, searching Skye’s face for something.  What, they didn’t know.

“I didn’t want to look weak,” Skye mumbled out.

“Asking for help is one of the hardest things that someone can do,” Clint told them.  He gestured for Skye to move.  “Sit.”

They sat.

Now, Clint and Natasha worked together, cutting vegetables so fast that they were done in what Skye would swear had to be three or four minutes.

“Show-offs,” they tried to tease them.

Clint grinned at them.  “You hear that, Nat?  Skye thinks we’re cool.”

“That’s not what I said,” they began to protest, but Natasha looked up at them with a smirk and Skye suddenly remembered that they’d had a huge crush on her for a while.  They quickly shut up.

“So, Skye, can we talk a bit about how you got your injuries?” Natasha asked delicately.

They nodded mutely.

“What happened?” Natasha pressed on.

“I don’t know,” Skye said.  “There was an explosion, I guess.”

“Yes, there was.  Can you think of any reason that someone would target you?”

Skye shook their head.  “Unless they hate houseless people,” they half-joked.

Natasha moved towards them.  She sat down at the counter as Clint began to throw vegetables into a pot.  It was a bit disarming, being interrogated while in their kitchen.  That was probably how they planned it out, Skye mused.

The three of them waited in silence for a few minutes.  Finally, Clint turned around and said, “Are you sure?” so sincerely that Skye stumbled over their lie.

“I- Yes.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow.  Even Skye had heard the mistake there.

“Are you really sure?” she asked quietly.  Her hand hovered over Skye’s arm, not wanting to cause them further injury.  Skye didn’t see the move coming before it was too late, distracted by how close Natasha was lingering.

Their sleeve was flipped up gently.  “If someone did this to you,” Natasha told them, but a muted gasp interrupted her.

“Skye,” Clint said firmly.

Confused, Skye looked at him.  His eyes were fixed on their forearm.  Oh, fuck.  The forearm was covered in bruises.  They yanked their arm away from Natasha, then hissed in pain at the move.

Natasha’s keen eyes followed the move all the way.  “Skye,” she said, warning clear in her tone.  “Why does your arm look like that?”

Skye took a deep breath.  They had to remain calm.  They had to contain their emotions.  

They almost doubled over as their arm throbbed.  “So,” they said.  “Maybe, I did get attacked.”

“Again?” Clint immediately asked.  “Are we safe here?”

“Uh, yeah.  Yeah, we’re safe here.” 

The spies exchanged looks.  There was a small rumble of the building.  Skye took another deep, deep breath.

“Do you know who?  How did they find you?  Why are they attacking you?” Natasha began to list.

Skye stuttered.  “It, uh- it was this person.”

“Okay,” Clint said.  “Do they have a name?”

“They called themselves Quake,” Skye began to invent.

Natasha looked at them skeptically, but Skye held firm.

“They did something, I’m not sure, but it caused all this impact bruising because I blocked with my arms.  I don’t know who they are or why they hate me.”  They jutted out their chin stubbornly. 

No, that was the wrong image.  Skye drooped a bit, weakening their body language.  They went to collapse into the coach.  

Natasha followed, but didn’t ask any more questions.  They sat there together, Natasha’s presence a comforting one in her silence.

Skye did their best to portray the wounded victim.  Instead, they drifted off to sleep as the stress and pain caught up to them.

—————

“She’s clearly lying, Clint,” Natasha said, a few minutes after Skye truly was asleep.

He nodded his head in agreement, placed the lasagna in the oven, and gestured for her to join him at the island.

“And yet,” he said.

“And yet, she wasn’t lying.”

“So, which part do we say is fake?  The part where she was attacked?  The name?  The not knowing each other?  Or not knowing how they did it?”

“Every sentence she said, it sounded like she was making it up.  But every sentence, there was something that rang so true in her voice.”

“They called themselves Quake,” Natasha repeated.  “That sounded true.  Entirely.”

Clint made a little noise.  “‘They did something, I’m not sure,’ also sounded true.  Or, true-ish.”

“She said she blocked with her arms.  That would make sense.  How else would she get that kind of bruising?”  She put her head in her hands.  “Why would she not mention that she was attacked again?”

“That seems key to our investigation and yet she only offered it up under duress when she couldn’t deny it anymore,” Clint agreed.  “So she’s trying to help this ‘Quake’ stay under the radar?”

“It could be a friend of hers that hurt her on accident,” Natasha thought out loud.  “No, but the first explosion, there was no one there.”

“An abuser?” Clint asked grimly.  “One that she’s dependent on?  They test her with a bomb after sending her out on the streets, she fails the test, and when she meets up with them, they punish her.”

Natasha turned that over in her mind.  “It lines up the most,” she said.  “When she denied knowing who it was, that was a lie.”

She looked over at Skye, crumpled on the couch.  “She didn’t seem as though she came from that sort of lifestyle.”

“Maybe that’s how good she is at hiding it.”

“If she has that kind of training,” Nat began.

“We’ll help her,” Clint assured her.  “I got you.”

They moved on to other topics for a while, before Clint pulled out the lasagna.  Skye shifted on the couch.

“Skye,” Natasha called and Skye bolted straight up, eyes wide open, arms ready.  She dropped out of the stance seconds later as she registered when she was.  

“Food’s ready,” Clint told her gently.

The three of them ate quietly.  Clint packaged up the remainder and stored it in the fridge.  They got ready to go.

Natasha made one last comment to Skye, but the girl just nodded blankly and shut the door behind them.  The locking sound was clear.

“Well,” Clint said, “hopefully we didn’t fuck that up too bad.”

Natasha groaned.  “That’s not how you felt with me, right?”

“Are you kidding?  That’s exactly how we felt with you.”

“Sorry,” Natasha muttered.

“Hey, I got you out of it so it was a pretty sweet deal for me.”

“Aww, how sweet.  Now let’s go tell Bruce that his patient is worse than she started and that she maybe got attacked by a child trafficker and abuser.  Dibs on not being the one to do it.”

“Oh, fuck.” Clint said with feeling.  

They pulled into the parking lot, dread mounting.

“JARVIS,” Clint asked the empty lot, “do you happen to know where Bruce is?”

“Dr. Banner is in his lab on Floor 84.  Would you like me to alert him to your presence?”

Clint shot a begging look at Natasha, who looked away.  “Yes, J,” he sighed out.

They boarded the elevator in silence.

Bruce welcomed them to his lab with a bit of confusion.  “What can I do for you?  Is Skye okay?”

“That’s the thing, Bruce,” Clint said.  “We’re a bit concerned, you could say, about her.”

“Oh?”  Bruce’s face contorted in concern.  “Why?”

“She got attacked again and her injuries are worse than before and we think she might have been trafficked,” he rushed out.

“Might have been trafficked,” Bruce repeated slowly.

Nat explained.  “She said that a person named Quake attacked her.  She definitely knew this person, but said she didn’t.  She was attacked out of nowhere by this person, after being homeless for some time.  Then she was attacked again when she went out.  They’re causing her harm on purpose, and yet she’s protecting their identity.”

Bruce buried his head in his hands.  “Right.  So, I should treat these extra injuries is what I’m hearing, and keep an ear out for other concerning information.”

“Yes.  And we’re not sure how dangerous she is, but you should be safe with Hulk.”

He nodded.  “I’d expect.”

Natasha trailed Clint out of the lab to run a search on everyone who went by “Quake.”

Chapter Text

Skye screwed up days later.  It was completely and entirely their fault.

Bruce had told them about what Natasha and Clint had concluded.  They felt bad, they really did, but not enough to tell them.  Once they had everything under control, they could just disappear, they reasoned.  

Which would just make them think that they’d died or rejoined their theoretical abuser, Bruce told them.

“I’ll figure it out.”

Bruce had shot them an extremely skeptical look, which was fair, considering how Skye had handled the situation thus far.

So, of course, they’d had to make it worse.  Bruce had said that the Avengers were speculating about Quake being earthquake powered because of the name, so warned Skye to avoid setting anything off if they could.

Skye had been cooped up for a week in self-imposed exile, and decided to go out again.  They were maybe a little more confident in their abilities to not cause disaster.

And they would have been right, if not for Steve fucking Rogers.

Skye only went around the corner to the Starbucks.  They were exercising restraint.  It was a simple little trip.  They were wearing a hood in case of any trouble, even.  They ordered their drink and sat down for a few minutes.  

Skye would even go so far to say that they felt pretty good.  This was ripped away when they glanced around to see Captain America out of uniform, casually edging his way into the Starbucks.

There was a tiny tremble in the ground.  Tiny.  Of course, Steve fucking Rogers had his stupid little super senses, so his head snapped up on guard.

From then, Skye carefully kept the tremors within.  They stood up when Steve looked outside and tried to barge past him at the door subtly.

Then Steve fucking Rogers’ stupid little super abilities struck again.  Skye forgot all about superstrength.  When they bumped into him, he moved, clearly not of his own will.  

Skye had kept moving but they instantly ducked around the corner and jumped in a garbage can as a commotion arose and faded away.  They stayed there for five long minutes before taking a peak at the empty alley.

Quickly, they took off their hoodie and darted in the back entrance of Bruce’s building.  They took the elevator up to their rooms and had dropped the hoodie off in the laundry when there was a knock on the door.

It was, of course, Steve fucking Rogers.

“Hey there,” Skye said to him, like they had no idea why he was there.  “What brings you here?”

He looked them dead in the eyes.  “Why do you smell like garbage?”

“That’s quite rude,” Skye complained.

“No,” Steve said.  “Not as in ‘you smell bad,’ but as in ‘you have a very distinctive combination of smells that can’t possibly be from you.’”

“Well,” they said.  “No reason other than compost.  I accidentally dropped some on my pants.  Was just about to take a shower.”

“Skye,” Steve said.  “Did you meet someone called Quake today?  I have reason to believe they were in the Starbucks nearby.”

“I did not meet anyone called Quake today,” Skye answered clearly.  “Please let me take a shower.”

“Do you need medical assistance?” Steve asked instead.

Skye paused for a second too long on that one before refusing and Steve gave them a look that almost made them cave.

“Bye,” they said, and shut the door in his face.

They shot Bruce a brief warning before diving into the shower gratefully and trying to forget the way they had made everything worse.

Skye hacked Tony to feel better after swallowing a bucket load of painkillers.  They snuck past his new code and began to investigate what the Avengers knew about them and about Inhumans.  “Quake” had a file, which made Skye a little proud inside, even though they knew that the file said that they were a genuinely horrible person.  

The problem with hacking Tony quickly rose again, as Skye was booted out and had to quickly defend against a trace to their location.

When Bruce arrived minutes later, they were just chilling on the coach.

“Care to tell me why someone called “hulkimitator” is hacking into Avengers Tower?”  Bruce said as he walked through the door.

“What?” Skye said, confused.  Then they realized that they had, in fact, named their new computer “hulkimitator” for fun.  “Oh, shit.”

Bruce sighed.  “Another secret identity, huh?  I take it you’re not just a coder, but a hacker?”

Skye nodded, looking extremely guilty.  

“Please tell the Avengers,” he said.

“I can’t.  My hacking, that really is illegal,” they told him.

“Kid,” Bruce started.  He didn’t even finish, just let that hang in the air.  

“Can we work on my powers?” Skye mumbled, and he nodded silently.

They moved into the Hulk room and Bruce grabbed a few wine glasses for them.

Skye managed to play a tone on the first one for a minute before it shattered.  She scowled and the other three crystalized instantly. “Shit.”  

“It’s okay,” Bruce told them.  “I left some more outside.”

“It’s not okay,” Skye said emotionally.  “I can’t get a handle on my feelings.  It’s like I’m constantly fighting myself.”

They looked at him with watery eyes.  “How do you do it with Hulk?”

“Well, I suppose I superimpose my state of being angry and my state of being calm and let the calm one dominate until I need Hulk.”

“So what you’re saying,” Skye said as the room started to shake, “is that you’re suppressing your emotions too and having them fight all the time and for what?  Why do you hate Hulk so much?” they shouted.  “Hulk isn’t a bad guy!  And you just keep him locked up inside?  He’s not even doing you any damage like my powers are!”

Bruce stared at them as they went on.

“You absolute fucking hypocrite!  How can you say that shit to me with a straight face?”  It felt good to let their emotions out, so Skye just kept going.  “You tell yourself that you’re such a good guy, such a great doctor.  And yet here you are, keeping someone locked up inside your mind and only letting him out when it’s useful to you!  You literally built a cage for him.”  They gestured to the room.  “I’m the one with the evil powers that are hurting me.  Hulk is nice,” Skye ended bitterly.

“I- I,” Bruce fumbled.  “I suppose you might be right.”

“Yeah?” Skye challenged.  “Talk to him right now.  I’ll leave if I have to.  Tell him that Skye fucking yelled at Bruce for him and that they’ll do it again if Bruce doesn’t shape up.”  They turned and left the room, calling back over their shoulder, “I won’t be working on my shit until you sort out your shit.”

They slammed the door shut behind them and plopped on the couch.  What a rush.  Skye had just yelled at Dr. Bruce Banner, their own personal medical advisor, for unethical treatment of the Hulk.  And it felt good as hell.

They sat there for what must have been only fifteen or so minutes.  It felt like hours crept by as Skye tried to sense what was happening inside the Hulk room.  They could feel the buzzing in everything outside, in their body and the room around, but the vibranium bounced the feeling off of the walls and didn’t let them through.

Bruce came out through the door wearing a different shirt and Skye snickered a little.  Maybe that was Hulk’s revenge, the destruction of all of Bruce’s favored t-shirts.

“So?” they asked.

“He said thank you,” Bruce said, looking guilty.  “And we agreed that if he can have a few play sessions a week, he won’t fight to come out and I won’t fight to keep him contained.”

“Wow,” Skye said, “that was easier than I expected.  Also, while I was out here, I managed to feel everything in this room without breaking it because I was curious.”

“I did happen to notice,” Bruce commented, “that while you got mad, you didn’t actually hurt me at all.  I don’t have a single scratch.”

“So I’m gaining more control, too.”

“Yes, and I think I’m getting close to making something for you,” Bruce told them.  

“Great,” Skye said, feeling better about the whole day.

They showed Bruce out and then passed out.

Bruce returned to the Tower in deep thought.  Skye had just completely changed his thought process about Hulk, and made progress with their powers in the process.  On the other hand, they were still hurting themselves with it and he needed to fix that.

The gauntlets he’d come up with, they were okay.  He thought they might work to direct Skye’s powers outward.  Still, they would have to work to control their emotions.  He hadn’t found a way to suppress the quakes yet.

Skye had made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks, even if it didn’t seem like it.  They hadn’t really processed the way that any negative emotion had set them off for the first day.  Anger, sure, but also sadness and fear.  Now, they were feeling all those emotions, channeling them, and still holding on to their destructive powers.  For the most part.

Bruce genuinely thought that Skye might have hit him in anger with a shockwave if they’d yelled at him like that on the first day, but instead there were just four shattered champagne glasses.  They were doing well.

Now, Bruce would do his part.

“Hey, Tony,” he called out, asking JARVIS to patch him through.  “Will you give me some insight on gauntlets to suppress Quake?  I’ve had some ideas but I’m struggling with execution.”

Tony showed up to his lab in five minutes, dressed in a t-shirt that looked as though it had recently been on fire.  Bruce decided not to comment.

“I’ve started out with absorption plates embedded in the walls.  I think that with some other aspects of them kitted out, we could stop or at least lessen the destruction that Quake could cause.  Once we catch them, of course.”

Tony nodded.  “Yes, yes.  Good thoughts, Brucie.”  He began to mumble to himself, turning over Bruce’s prototype in his hands.

“You’d have to add resonance processor units, of course.  Make sure Quake doesn’t just destroy them.”  Tony looked up.  “Can they do that?  Generate such a powerful earthquake that breaks through all the material we could make this off?  We don’t know much about their powers.”

“So we’d need something that can morph its resonant frequency,” Bruce said.  Now, that was an intriguing thought.  “Oh, or we could interweave two materials such that there are a few dominant atomic structures within the overall structure.”

“Yes, but cohesively, Bruce, it would still have the one frequency, wouldn’t it?  No, I think you were right initially.  We need something that almost reacts in response to the vibration output.”

“So frequency mounts throughout.”  Bruce jotted down a few notes on his design.

The two of them fell into a haze of invention.  He kept a careful eye out for any of Tony’s ideas that would enhance his version of the gauntlets, designed for stabilization and safety, as opposed to solely containment.

Tony left him with a mostly finalized product, saying he had to find someone online.  “We’re back to investigating ‘hulkimitator,’” he told Bruce cheerfully.  “Isn’t it nice that someone wants to imitate you?  You’ve got fans!”

Bruce nodded silently and shot a text to Skye to be careful.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t more than a few days after their incident with Steve that Skye was visited by the Avengers.  Again.

Natasha showed up on their door, alone, bearing a bag of containers.  “Some leftovers for you,” she explained.  How kind.  

It seemed a bit more like a bribe than a gift when Natasha began her next sentence.

“Skye,” she began seriously when they were sitting on the couch together, “what if you moved into the Tower?”

“Excuse me?”  Skye said.

“You’re clearly not safe here,” Nat continued.  “You keep getting hurt.”

Skye had no response to that.  What could they possibly say to defend themselves?

“If you moved into the Tower, you would have everything that you have here, plus, it would be much safer.”  

We could keep an eye on you, Skye translated in their head.

“I’m safe here,” they protested weakly.

Natasha stared at them.  “I’m sorry, would you like to show me your forearms again?”

“So what, you want to keep me locked up in a cage?” Skye accused.  “Princess in a tower?”

Natasha winced.  “We don’t like seeing you get hurt when we could prevent it.”

“I won’t.  Quake’s not going to hurt me anymore,” Skye bluffed.  “And,” their voice cracked, “I like it here.  It feels more like a home now.”  That should guilt trip her.

Sure enough, Natasha’s eyes softened a bit.  “You can find a home at the Tower too,” she persisted.

“I’ve been shipped around my whole life,” Skye said, “never belonging anywhere.  I got my van, but it got destroyed.  My whole life was there.  And now, I’ve just settled in here.  I don’t want to move again.”

They looked down at their feet and whispered, “Please don’t make me.”

Natasha raked a hand through her hair.  Her face said that she could tell what was happening, but she didn’t want to push Skye anyway.  “If you get hurt again,” she warned, and Skye cut her off.

“I’ll move.  If Bruce says I have to, I will.”  

Natasha sighed.  “Okay,” she said.  “I’ll trust you.  Stay safe.”  She left quietly.

Skye winced.  They better not get hurt again.  All they could do now was hope that Bruce would come through for them.

It was a huge relief to both of them when he came back the next day with the first trial run of gauntlets.

“Please don’t break them,” Bruce implored.  He glanced doubtfully at the gauntlets.  “Start off with weak quakes.”

They nodded, slipping the equipment on their arms.  They were mostly healed now.  Bruce had told them that they had an enhanced healing factor which had enabled them to recover quickly.

It was light.  That was the first thing Skye noticed.  They waved their arms around, testing the weight.  “Huh,” they said.

Bruce grinned.  “Cool, right?”

Skye didn’t respond.  They closed their eyes and focused on the buzzing, the natural frequency that everything had.  Peeking an eye out at the lone wineglass Bruce had placed on the table, they pushed out at it, felt it explode.

There was no pain in their forearms.  

“How did it feel?” Bruce asked quickly.  “Take them off,” he motioned at the gauntlets.

Skye let out a relieved sigh.  “I think you did it.”  They giggled madly.  “I think you did it!”  They bared their arms, revealing the same faded bruises as before.

“No extra pain?” Bruce confirmed.

“Nope.”  They looked up to examine the wineglass they had shattered and gaped.

The whole table was splintered apart, now lying as kindling on the floor.

“Yeah,” Bruce said.  “It looks like you were naturally restraining some of your powers so it wouldn’t hurt you as much.”

“Wow,” Skye said, a little awed.  Also, a lot terrified.

They kept testing, trying to see if anything would set Skye off.  They pulverized a steel rod and crumpled a gun in half, feeling just fine.

“You just have to keep your emotions under control,” Bruce said thoughtfully, “and I think that we should be good to go.”

“I might have to experiment with my powers a bit more,” Skye said with a gleam in their eye.  Now that it wouldn’t cause them immense pain, they were warming up to the idea of being able to blast anything in their environment.

Bruce nodded cautiously.  “Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word.

The next week they spent with Skye growing more and more jubilant as Bruce tested them.  What could they do with water?  With earth?  With air?  There was a quote that Bruce said to them, ‘Everything in life is vibration.’  How far could they go?

He had many, many questions.  Skye thought they did rather well in being appreciative and testing out his theories, staying cooped up inside all week like a lab rat.  He was well meaning and he had helped them a lot, so they figured the least they could do was to satisfy his curiosity.

Still, after a while, they began to itch with boredom.  There was only so long Skye could train before they started to get the sense that they knew what they were doing.  That was the point where they started to create problems again.

In Skye’s defense, which they had to make very quickly to Bruce, it hadn’t been their fault the first time.  It hadn’t entirely been their fault the second time either.  It could maybe be contrived that the third time, they had gone looking for trouble.

See, Skye had been out, seeing the sights like any young person should be.  They jaunted around town, happily not worried about potentially causing an earthquake.  They still were covering their face with a hood, but it was a precaution not a necessity.

Then they saw the girl in the alleyway.  A man loomed over her with threatening body language, and really, Skye wasn’t a monster, of course they were going to help.  They had been given a gift— they should use it to help others.

That was what they told Bruce, at least, and while it was true, it didn’t exactly explain the crumpled man in the alleyway or the police report from the girl.  Or the police report after that from someone who had been almost mugged.  Or the next one that detailed how a mysterious powered person had shown up and knocked out two homophobes outside a gay bar.  

“It’s fine,” Skye said, sounding not fine at all.  “Why would the Avengers care about some city level vigilante?  Who’s only just appeared?” they added.

Bruce stared at them, incredulous.  They were very, very familiar with this face of his by now.  “When they think that vigilante is also a child trafficker who hurt someone they care about?” he said, aghast.   

“Well,” Skye said.  They paused.  A vigilante who quaked people was likely to be distinctive.  “Maybe this will convince them that Quake is actually a good person?”

Bruce didn’t like that idea.  He presented the case for why the Avengers would think that Quake was evil and needed to be stopped, and why they had taken it on as their latest pet project nearby, in between the larger crises that went on worldwide: taking down Hydra bases, maintaining good press, keeping the world from dissolving into war, and so on and so forth.

Skye elected to ignore him.  Would it backfire?  Probably.  But they had meant what they had said to him at the start of their little discussion— however they had gotten it, Skye had a gift that they could use to protect others.  Beyond hacking for transparency, here was something tangible that they could do.  They could make a real impact, just like Bruce and the rest of the Avengers did.

So they kept going out.  Bruce saw that they weren’t going to stop and decided that he would be making and enforcing a suit after digging a bullet out of their arm for the third time in two weeks.  It was beautiful, for all he was against their activities.  

Skye was really going to need to get him a massive gift soon.  He had done so much for them out of the goodness of his heart, after they continually did the wrong thing in his mind, he pushed past it to support them.

Quake was brought to life over the course of a month, rumors spreading through New York about a new superhero in town.  Their ratings were fairly good for a superhero, focused primarily on shady actions in back alleys that protected civilians from other civilians.  They based their actions off of Spiderman, although they weren’t able to travel quite like he could.

They made sure to stay gender neutral in dress, with their suit binding their breasts down just enough to be ambiguous.  Most of New York went along with it, although they speculated wildly on whether Quake could be a man or a woman.  Quake had told the few who had asked the truth, but it wasn’t widely known.

The Avengers had been by about Quake too, checking in on Skye with great concern.  Skye proudly showed off their healed forearms to Natasha, Clint, and Steve, who dropped by together after Quake’s third appearance to get more information out of Skye.  Skye had been encouraged by their continued use of ‘they’ for Quake and their acceptance of the rumor that Quake was actually nonbinary.

Chapter Text

Still, good things don’t last forever.  In Skye’s case, they typically lasted about one to two months.  Quake was no different.

It was an unassuming evening when it happened.  Clouds covered the sky as Skye strolled through the streets in uniform.  They weren’t expecting the Avengers to confront them in full view of the people; it would be awful for their press as Quake was the new favorite superhero in town.  Plus, they normally hacked into the Tower before heading out to check on where the Avengers were.

Instead, they felt four people down an alleyway to their right.  Two larger figures surrounded one smaller one, and Skye bolted over and slid right into the trap.  As soon as they got through the entrance of the alley, they stopped dead at the sight of Tony Stark and Clint with Natasha waiting for them.  It might have been more appropriate to say that Iron Man, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow were there.  

Skye turned to run and went straight into a very, very familiar body.  Steve fucking Rogers.  Captain America stood strong this time.  He stared down at Quake with a disapproving look on his face and Skye wilted inside.

Skye let out a nervous giggle.  “Hey,” they said, totally casually.  “What brings you to this isolated alleyway so late at night?”

Captain America raised an eyebrow.  “Quake,” he greeted.  He sounded angry already.  “I’d like to have a bit of a chat with you.”

And see, Skye was smart.  They didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity to have that chat.  So they stalled for time while building up vibrations to push them into the sky.  “What kind of chat?” they asked.  “Not sure if that’s really my speed.”

“A chat about how you treat children,” Captain America said dangerously.  He took a step toward them and Skye powered themselves into the air, launching beyond the Avengers.

As they breached the top of the building, they passed the fuck out.  They had forgotten that Iron Man could fly and he took full advantage of it to knock them out.

—————

Skye woke up in the Avenger’s medbay again.  They blinked into the harsh light and finally caught a glimpse of Bruce, whose face had settled into a permanent exasperated look.
“Hi,” they croaked out weakly, then coughed.

Bruce whirled around.  “Sk- Quake!” he said.  “How do you feel?”

“Like I was drugged.”  

“Yeah, that would be the drugs,” Bruce told them unsympathetically.  “Tony got you pretty good with the jumped up dose for your metabolism.”

Skye grumbled.  They looked around curiously.  There were no Avengers in sight; maybe they’d gotten away with it.

“So,” Bruce said.  “The Avengers are a minute out from their very hostile interrogation of you.”

Skye’s hands whipped up to their face.  Their mask was still on.

“It’s bio-locked, remember?” Bruce told them.  “And I told them to give you a chance to explain yourself in good faith.”  He leveled them with a stern look.

“You want me to tell them.”

“Uh, yes!?” Bruce gave them another look, which was fair.  He had been trying to get them to do it the whole time and it was obviously the best choice for them.

“I’m afraid,” they began, but Steve, Nat, Clint, and Tony walked in, interrupting what was sure to have been a deep emotional talk.

“Quake,” Natasha- Widow started.  

“Widow, Hawkeye, Cap, Stark.”  Skye nodded to each of them to be respectful.  No need to make them hate Quake even more.

“Care to tell us what’s going on?”

Skye hesitated.  “What do you mean?” they said.

“You’ve been out there saving people, yes?” she said.  “You’ve been helping the city.  We’ve seen that you rescue anyone who needs it.  And yet, we have information that tells us that you’ve hurt a young girl.”

Skye’s face contorted.  

“I see you recognize what I’m talking about,” Widow said, misidentifying Skye’s wince at the misgendering as a confession.  She crossed her arms and waited.

“I couldn’t control it,” Skye tried to say.

Widow stared at them in silence.  Skye scrambled for a more in-depth explanation.

“Skye was helping me control my powers,” they said, “but I had a lot of trouble at the start so they kept getting hurt.”

Bruce nodded at the story, but Widow frowned.  “And why on earth would Skye not just say that?” she asked.

“Well,” Skye said, “Skye panicked because you’re the Avengers, and said the opposite of what they meant to- that I was hurting them instead of that they were helping me.”

Now, Skye saw Bruce facepalm behind the other three and shake his head at them, clearly telling them to cool it with the inventing.  They made a face at him in their head.  It was hard keeping two identities straight and remembering what each of them should know.

“Hang on,” Iron Man said.  “Where did you get those gauntlets?  I made those.  They’re supposed to suppress your powers.”

“They, umm, help me control them actually.”  Skye laughed nervously.  “I had a hacker friend plant the idea for Bruce to develop and then I snuck a model for myself.”

Widow’s eyes narrowed.  “Why did you call him Bruce?”

Bruce froze behind them and Skye froze with him.  They pushed down on the buzzing inside their bones.

“I relate to him a lot,” Skye threw out.  “And who’s to say I don’t call the rest of you like that?”

Stark raised an eyebrow at them.  “You literally called us Widow, Hawkeye, Cap, and Stark.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve met Bruce before and he said to call him Bruce then, so it’s just out of habit!”  Skye gave them a thumbs up and received four very dry looks and the typical exasperation from Bruce.

“Listen,” Widow said.  She sounded even more serious than before.  “Just tell us what you’re hiding.  Clint is going to go talk to Skye about your story anyway, so it won’t help you to lie.”

“Ah,” Skye replied intelligently, really defending their case well.  They locked eyes with Bruce as his medical instruments began to shake in their cases.  Skye took a deep breath as Bruce rushed toward them.  They had been doing so well too.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he soothed.  “Remember to take those deep breaths.”  He glanced around the room.  The rattling settled down for a moment as Skye closed their eyes and focused on not getting overwhelmed.  “We can run through a grounding exercise in a minute.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Widow said, not sounding very sorry, “but what the fuck?”

The trembling jumped up three notches.  One of the panes of glass in the window shattered.  Skye burst into tears, turned to tuck themselves into Bruce and sob.  They reached up and took off their mask, dropping it over the side of the bed, and then began to hyperventilate.

The bed was shaking too, and Skye would bet they’d shattered most of the glass in the room.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Bruce said.  “You’re okay.  Your gauntlets are on.  Let’s just breathe together and we’ll get through it.”

Skye gave a shaking nod and lifted their face up to see him better.

Natasha let out a gasp.  “Fuck,” she said.

The men stared at them, shocked into silence.

Skye tried, they really did.  They tried breathing.  They tried grounding.  They were just too stressed, the Avengers looking on in shock and horror.  So they reached out to Natasha's waistband to grab her gun.

As soon as they had it, Natasha’s training kicked in and she tased Skye into unconsciousness.  The room faded away into a blissful, stable nothing.

“What the actual fuck?” Tony asked.

“I agree,” Steve said, crossing his arms.  “What is going on here?”

Natasha stared at Skye’s unconscious body.  “I just hit Skye?  I just hit Skye.”

Bruce groaned.  “I knew this would end badly.”

The others focused their attention on him, very clearly demanding answers.  He gave a silent apology to Skye.  “When you brought Skye in,” he began, “they started with the vibrations almost immediately.  They had to bring me in on it because I was there.  They also used the fact that as Hulk, I have a lot of experience with being in control of my emotions.  That’s why I know.”

Tony’s face didn’t soften, but the other three’s did.

“You can feel however you’d like about me knowing and keeping secrets later,” Bruce told them.  “But right now we have a child to take care of.  Keep it together.”

Clint nodded.  “We’re the adults here.  We need to handle this.”

“It makes some sense,” Natasha mused.

“I don’t like all the lying,” Steve said.  “But Skye is a child and she was just trying to keep herself safe.”

Tony scowled.  “Skye is fine, but Brucie,” he said, “you lied to me about the gauntlets?”

Bruce stayed silent.

Tony turned and left.  “I’m going to go work on finding the coder,” he said.

“You’ve been using neutral pronouns for Skye,” Natasha commented.

Bruce stayed silent again.

“So, what are we going to do with Skye?” Steve asked.  “We’re not parents.”

“How old is Skye anyway?” Clint said.

“What was Skye planning on doing with the gun?” Natasha added, having finally grabbed it off the floor.

They all fell silent.  “We need to keep an eye on them for a bit,” Bruce decided.  “Maybe they can live in the Tower or one of us can move to my apartment.”

“We should train with them,” Natasha said.  “Make sure they can use their powers well.”

“They should possibly go to high school,” Clint said.

Tony burst into the room, interrupting their plotting session.  “‘Hulkimitator’ is ‘skyenet,’” he shouted.  “Just with a fake name.”

“Skyenet?” Steve repeated.  

The collective gaze turned to Skye, then Bruce.  He shrugged uncomfortably.

“So they’re a hacker,” Natasha said.  “They can help Tony while staying here then.”

There was a twitch from Skye and the Avengers quieted.  Bruce watched on nervously as Skye moved again.  They grumbled and reached up to rub their eyes.

“What the fuck happened?” they muttered to themself before finally opening their eyes to see five Avengers staring at them.  “Oh.  Fuck.”

“How do you feel, Skye?” Bruce began to ask, but Natasha cut across him.

“We’re not mad at you, Skye,” she said.  “We just want to help you.”

Skye looked down at their hands and said nothing.  They focused on staying calm.  Their secret was out anyway.  There was no going back.

“Please tell them what’s been going on,” Bruce pleaded with them.

“I didn’t want to get experimented on,” Skye began.

Nat exchanged a serious glance with Clint.

“And I didn’t want to get tracked and traced and I didn’t want to be hunted.  So I tried to hide but with Bruce’s help.  I guess I just kept messing up and making it worse.”  They looked up at the assorted Avengers with a wry smile.  “So here I am again.  Back to zero.”

“Not back to zero,” Steve said sharply.  Skye stiffened and he softened his tone apologetically.  “You have all of us, Skye.”

“Why did you grab for my gun?” Natasha cut in, interrupting the moment.  

“I just wanted it to stop.  I didn’t- I figured it was a tranquilizer.”

“Skye,” Bruce said, and Skye braced themselves.  “We want you to keep staying with us and training your powers.”  He glanced at the others.  “I’ve seen that you want to do some real good with them, and we can help you with that.  You have an incredible capacity to care for others, from random people on the streets to the Hulk, and now you have the power to back your ideals up.  But that care should extend to yourself as well.  You can stay with us regardless, but we want you to talk to a therapist.”

Skye recoiled back a bit.  “You all talk to a therapist,” they spat defensively.

“Okay,” Steve said.

“Sorry?”

“I said, okay.  I’ve been avoiding it, but if it will get you to accept it, I’ll go.”  He looked at the others.

Bruce nodded immediately.  “For sure.”

Natasha hesitated.  “I’ll try,” she said.  “For you.”

Skye stared at them and they all sat in silence.  “Why are you being so nice to me?” they asked.

“Skye, we like you.  We care about you.  We want you to succeed in life.”  Bruce smiled at them.  “I’ve seen your drive, your care, your intellect, your humor.  You are an outstanding person and I consider you a good friend.”

“But I lied.  I’ve caused you so much trouble.”

“You were trying to protect yourself,” Natasha said.  “You think none of us have ever done that?”

“You’re the Avengers, though,” Skye pointed out.  “I’m just another stupid kid.”

Steve gave them a smile.  “I was a stupid kid once,” he said fondly.  “At least, that’s what everyone else told me.”

“I was definitely a stupid kid once,” Clint said.  He glanced around.  “We’ve all been there.”

“Everyone is a child once, Skye.  And we all do idiotic things.”  Bruce grabbed their hand.  “It doesn’t mean we don’t deserve care or that we can’t be great.”

That was a very targeted statement, right at Skye’s deep rooted problems.  They scowled at the accuracy.  “I’m not a child,” they said.  “I haven’t been for a long time.”

“It doesn’t matter what your age is,” Bruce said instantly.  “What matters now is that you deserve to have good things no matter if you lied to us or not.”

Skye nodded wordlessly.  “I’ll stay,” they mumbled.  “Just, don’t treat me like I’m stupid please.”  It was a direct contradiction, they knew.  They had said a minute ago that they were just a stupid kid, but they weren’t really.  They weren’t a kid, and they weren’t stupid.  They wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did if they were.

Still, maybe what they had done was dumb.  They could admit that the whole thing had been a bit ridiculous.  Plus, with their new powers, they would need the education on being a superhero.

“Okay,” Bruce said, satisfied.  He smiled gently at them.  “We take good care of each other here.  You’ve helped me, and now I can help you.”

The other Avengers left, leaving Skye and Bruce to sit together in silence.  It felt like the days when Bruce had come by his apartment and read journal articles while Skye was on their computer, a comfortable togetherness.

Chapter Text

Skye’s stupid decision had paid off quite well in their opinion.  

They nodded to Steve as he strode into the kitchen for dinner, carrying his sketchbook in one hand, a pencil in the other, and a thoughtful expression on his face.  A few minutes later, Nat and Clint slid in through a side door, hair wet from showering.  They had been in the gym with Skye earlier, helping them practice.  Tony and Bruce came in after prodding by JARVIS to complete their dinner crew for the evening.

A comfortable chatter arose as they ate, lulling Skye into a gentle sense of home.

“I’m going out as Quake tonight,” they said.  “Spider-Man and I are going to be testing some new combo moves while we patrol.”

“Be safe,” Nat said simply.

“Oh!” Tony cut in abruptly, sitting up straight.  “That reminds me.  The info that Quake is actually non-binary went pretty well.  Did you see?”

“Yeah,” Skye said.  “I tried not to look too much, but I read some articles that were kind.”  They smiled.

As dinner finished up, Skye gathered their plate and put it in the dishwasher.  They headed out of the room.

“Don’t forget you have school tomorrow!” Bruce called after them.

“Ugh, I know!” Skye yelled back, but they couldn’t help a small grin.  Bruce really cared about them.  He was a strange mix between an older brother and a father figure to them, but it worked.  “Take me out early so I can meet Thor!”