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Little Skye was definitely not supposed to be on this Quinjet. The team had gotten infinitely more protective of her when Big Skye had been kidnapped by the mysterious teleporting man, who was apparently something called an Inhuman. The man, Gordon, had taken Big Skye to “help” her with her powers, but he hadn’t actually asked her first.
Coulson had been understandably upset about this, and he’d ordered the other agents to make sure someone was watching over Little Skye at all times. Even after they’d somehow gotten Big Skye, along with another Inhuman named Lincoln, back, a tight watch had been kept over Little Skye.
Thankfully, once Bobbi and Mack’s other Shield friends had decided to officially come out of hiding and join Coulson’s Shield, most of her supervision had been delegated to Hunter, much to Little Skye’s delight, because he did not get along with the new agents at all. In fact, Bobbi and Mack had been forced to intervene multiple times when Hunter and Calderon almost got into physical fights.
Today, the agents had decided they were going to talk to Jiaying, Big Skye’s – her – mother, who led the Inhumans and had ordered Big Skye’s…relocation. They were hoping to peacefully arrange things between Shield and the Inhumans by sending Gonzales as spokesman and May and several Quinjets' worth of agents as backup. Big Skye had decided to go too, hoping to act as a bridge between the two groups, making Little Skye somewhat ironically wish she could be that brave when she grew up.
But when Little Skye had seen Kara, another person the team had sort of rescued, doing something to her face to make it look like May’s, she’d known something was up. So she’d ducked Hunter (well, more accurately, he’d decided to let her go after giving a utility vest full of helpful things) and sneaked after Kara. The disguised woman had tricked Bobbi into leaving with her on Quinjet separately from everyone else, and Little Skye had stowed away before either of them could see her, activating the camouflage feature of her vest.
At first, things seemed normal. Bobbi talked about Mack leaving and asked Kara if she’d ever thought about what her life would be like without Shield. Kara said she’d been thinking about it a lot lately.
What does that mean? Little Skye wondered. Was Kara a part of Shield?
Before she could think about it anymore, though, Bobbi went on to talk about how Hunter had once asked her to leave Shield to be with him. It was the only time she ever considered the idea.
The Quinjet’s movement changed sooner than Little Skye expected. This can’t be right, she thought. If we’re supposedly going to where the Inhumans are, it should take us a lot longer.
Bobbi had clearly come to the same conclusion. “Hey, May, the autopilot has us descending. You sure about those coordinates?”
From her position in the gear stows above the jumpseats, somewhere she was a bit concerned she’d actually managed to fit, Little Skye watched as Kara drew a gun on Bobbi. Great, she thought to herself. Not only was I right about something being off, I also got myself into a Hardy Boys situation.
“Funny how you’re so broken up about betraying Hunter.” Kara’s voice was deceptively calm. “Cause it seems like you couldn’t care less about what you did to me.”
“Kara,” Bobbi realized.
Finally, Little Skye thought.
Still holding the gun on Bobbi with her right hand, Kara reached up and deactivated the mask with her left. May’s face flowed away in a glowing honeycomb. “You just sat there, pretending to comfort me,” Kara said, moving to the right. Bobbi followed her. “But you were just trying to see if I remembered. Well, I do.” Her voice grew louder.
Bobbi suddenly grabbed the gun and yanked it up to the left. It went off with a bang . She kneed Kara in the gut before trying wrestle the gun out of her hands, then smacked it against Kara’s face, snapping her head back. Finally managing to knock the gun to the ground, Bobbi threw a fierce punch to Kara’s face. The force of it spun the face-shifter around. She ducked under Kara’s return punch.
Kara went for her again and Bobbi tried to pin Kara’s arms behind her back, but she pulled free. The two women exchanged strikes for a couple seconds. Kara hit Bobbi in the stomach, pushing her back, but Bobbi punched her in the nose. Bobbi grabbed her by the shoulders and both women crashed into the Quinjet wall right below Little Skye. Bouncing backward, Bobbi took advantage and threw Kara to the floor.
Kara kicked Bobbi backwards and both women got to their feet. Bobbi tried to kick Kara in the face, missed, and spun around, jumping to grab the handles above the jumpseats. Pulling herself off the floor, she nailed the left side of Kara’s face with a kick from both feet. Kara stumbled to the side and recovered, so Bobbi kicked her in the chin.
This time, Kara went down and stayed there. Panting, Bobbi pushed the hair out of her face.
That was awesome!
Bobbi left the Quinjet and Little Skye wanted to follow, but some instinct warned her to stay put. A moment later, the newly familiar face of Grant Ward appeared, an unconscious Bobbi slung over his shoulder.
Little Skye winced. That’s not good. She watched as he gently roused the Kara.
“We got her,” he said.
Kara smiled. “Time for payback.”
Distress messages came over the radio. Something’s gone wrong with the mission! Little Skye thought, watching Ward ducktape Bobbi’s arms and legs together.
“We good, baby?” Ward asked, standing up and moving towards Kara. “Fooled every one of them.”
“It was hard being away from you.” Kara’s voice quivered.
“It’s better when we’re together.” Ward reached up to inspect a small injury above Kara’s eye.
Yes, teamwork makes the dreamwork, Little Skye thought sarcastically. But this is not better!
Kara looked away from Ward back to Bobbi. “Why can’t we kill her now?”
Because I will kill you myself if you do! Little Skye sighed internally. That probably wouldn’t be the best idea.
“Closure’s about so much more than that,” Ward told her. Little Skye’s blood ran cold as he went on. “It’s about digging in, doing the work. I’ll show you what I mean.” Kara shifted. “And then we’ll kill her,” he promised.
Little Skye struggled to keep herself from leaping at them. That definitely wouldn’t be the best idea. Instead, she blindly pressed a button on the watch Coulson had given her. Hopefully she’d chosen the right one and sent out a distress beacon. It would lead Shield right to her and Bobbi.
* * * * *
She was really glad she’d turned on the beacon (hopefully), because Ward and Kara ditched the Quinjet immediately and switched to a new one. Naturally, she followed them and stowed away again.
I’m not letting Bobbi out of my sight. Moving as stealthily as she could, Little Skye crept after the two enemy agents. Don’t know if they’re Hydra or not, but they are definitely not friends of Shield.
Ward deposited Bobbi in a small chair, then strapped her wrists to a table in front as she slumped forward. “These are the most advanced ICER rounds yet,” he said calmly. “She’ll be out for another hour or so.”
“Are we staying to watch her?”
“Do you want to?” Ward clearly already knew the answer.
“No.”
Smiling, Ward said, “Then we might as well go get some food. Revenge is always better on a full stomach.” They turned and left the room.
Now’s my chance! Little Skye ran forward to get a better look at Bobbi’s situation. The straps were made of hard leather, but she was pretty sure they would be easy to get through with the laser cutter Hunter had given her. I still can’t believe he actually trusted me with this thing, she though wryly.
First, though, she pulled out something Jemma and Fitz had tried to explain to her, but she hadn’t understood. Hunter had eventually translated for her, describing it as “the stuff in coffee, but better and more effective if you’re in an emergency.” Even better, since everyone knew she wasn’t a fan of needles, Hunter had given her an airborne version.
“Please work,” she whispered, finally turning visible. She sprayed the “better coffee” in Bobbi’s face.
It took a minute, but Bobbi suddenly jolted, her eyes snapping open. “Where am-?” Noticing Little Skye, she cut herself off and demanded, “What are you doing here!?”
“Do you even know where here is?” Little Skye asked snippily.
“Do you?” Bobbi shot back.
Little Skye shrugged. “Some kind of abandoned building with Ward and Kara?” she tried, activating the laser cutter and freeing Bobbi.
Shaking her head, Bobbi laughed a little. “Nice try. Where did you get those?” she asked, pointing to both the laser cutter and the vest. Little Skye’s silence was all the answer she needed. “Seriously, Hunter?”
“Hey, you guys are the ones that stuck him on babysitting duty against your better judgement,” Little Skye reminded her. She led the way down the hall, trying to remember the way she’d come.
“Is there a reason you decided to launch a rescue mission on your own?” Bobbi pressed, following cautiously.
“I’m not alone!” Little Skye protested. “I sent out a distress beacon…I hope.”
Incredulity filled Bobbi’s eyes. “What do you mean, ‘you hope’?”
“I mean, I was invisible, but there are only like two buttons on that watch, so I’m pretty sure I got the right one. Coulson made sure I could use them by feel,” she added confidently.
“Ooo-kaayy.” Bobbi drew out the word, clearly unconvinced. “Well, if you did properly send it, then we should-”
“You should surrender. Good idea,” Ward suddenly announced. He and a May-faced Kara stepped into view, both carrying guns.
Bobbi shoved Little Skye behind her and got ready to fight. Meanwhile, Little Skye pulled out a small tablet from the biggest pocket on her vest. Tapping it a couple times, she found what she was looking for.
“Night-night, Not May,” Little Skye taunted. She activated the defensive measure Skye had added to the masks.
A buzzing and crackling sound filled the hallway and Kara let out a weak screech before collapsing unconscious to the floor.
“What was that?” Ward demanded, glaring in their direction before bending down to check on Kara.
“Skye added a new feature to those weird masks that allows us to incapacitate the wearer,” Little Skye explained cheerfully. “When you let the team bring her back, her mask automatically downloaded the update.”
Ward frowned and stood up again. “Who are you? Who’s the kid?” he asked, addressing the question to Bobbi.
“This is Alya,” she introduced, using Little Skye’s code name.
“Coulson and his strays,” he muttered.
Little Skye smirked. “Actually, FitzSimmons and Skye were the ones who took me in first,” she told him. “They saved me from the bad guy who was hurting me.”
“Bad guy?” he echoed. “And what bad guy would that be?”
“John Wilkes Booth,” Little Skye answered easily. Bobbi gave her an Are you kidding me? look.
“John Wilkes Booth?” Ward echoed her again.
This time Bobbi answered. “He’s a legacy. Hydra wants to take over the world and the original John Wilkes Booth assassinated a president. I assume the family were fans.”
Ward seemed done with the conversation and he lunged at Bobbi, who knocked the gun from his hand. While they were fighting, Little Skye ran over to Kara. She zapped her again, just to be sure, not afraid of hurting her because the defense mechanism was programmed to stop once the person wearing the mask was fully unconscious. Once Kara was definitely out, Little Skye took the zip tie cuffs from the woman’s belt and put them on her wrists as tightly as she could.
A sudden crash caught her attention. Bobbi had thrown Ward through a nearby door. “I didn’t turn Kara in on purpose!” she snapped. “She wasn’t supposed to be at that base. If I had known she was there, I would have told Bakshi something else!”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” Ward mused. “Well, I don’t. I think you still would have given up that information to Bakshi.”
He got to his feet and charged at Bobbi. She met him with punches from opposite sides. When he dodged the first, the other slammed hard into his face. Stumbling back, he barely managed to block her kick, which bought him just enough time to punch her in the stomach.
With both now hit several times from current or recent fights, the two began to fight more evenly. Punches were blocked or dodged, kicks were avoided, and Little Skye wished she could do something to help.
Then she saw Ward’s gun lying on the floor. She picked it and examined it carefully. Please be an ICER.
Bobbi and Ward broke apart, panting heavily. Ward was standing with his back to Little Skye and she didn’t stop to think anymore. She raised the gun and fired. To her relief, she caught a glimpse of the familiar blue glow, before something hit the wall.
Both of them spun around to look at her. “What was that?” Ward asked in a sickly sweet voice, seeing the ICER. He left Bobbi and advanced on Little Skye instead. Suddenly scared, she tried again to shoot him, but the gun only clicked. It was empty.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife, but before he could do anything, there was a loud crack and Ward grabbed the back of his head. Then, before either of them could process it, Bobbi appeared in front of Little Skye again, holding a piece of pipe.
“Don’t. Mess. With. The. Kid.” She swung the pipe again, this time slamming it directly his forehead. He collapsed like an evil sack of potatoes.
Footsteps sounded behind them. Did she seriously get free? Little Skye complained. That is so not fair.
“Are you guys all right?” Hunter called.
Oh thank goodness. “Uncle Hunter!” she cheered, turning around and running to hug him.
“Hey, kiddo,” he greeted, hugging her back. “It’s all clear over here!” he alerted the agents, who were combing the area behind. “Hey, Bobs.”
“Hi, Hunter,” she said, still sounding a bit out of breath.
Mack was the last one into the room. “You are in for a big talk when we get back,” he told Little Skye.
“It wasn’t just my fault,” Little Skye protested. “Hunter helped me.”
There were no words to describe the look on Mack’s face, and Hunter gave Little Skye a tighter hug, almost as if to protect her.
“We are so much trouble.”
* * * * *
On the bright side, no one was yelling. That’s a plus, Little Skye decided. On the not-so-bright side, the reason no one was yelling was most likely because the mission with the Inhumans had gone very south.
Jiaying, wanting to start a war, had tried to kill Gonzales when the Shield team got there. Luckily for him, the porcupine Raina had intervened, sacrificing herself in the process. Skye had confronted her mother while some of Inhumans, the ones who actually wanted a war, fought the rest of the agents. During the fight, Gordon had tried to take the contaminated terrigen crystals for worldwide distribution, only to discover that Lincoln, who’d chosen to side with Shield after Skye’s kidnapping, had switched out the crystals for fakes. The real crystals had been, and were being stored somewhere Gordon’s powers couldn’t breach.
Any thought the majority of the Inhumans might have had about going to war was immediately thrown away when Jiaying used her powers trying to kill Skye. No one had been able to get to or through to her, and it had taken Calvin’s almost miraculous interference to stop what her from killing their daughter. Jiaying, Gordon, and their supporters had been arrested and were being held in Shield cells until improved ones could be designed.
Now the other Inhumans were working out terms of coexistence that would allow them to maintain their secrecy and keep them from being put on the Index.
Little Skye didn’t understand all of this. She knew that most things were up to the adults to take care of. The discussion about her actions would come once things had calmed down a bit.
She finally made it to the medbay. It was devastating to see her sister lying so still, her breathing sounding almost painful. How could Jiaying do this? she wondered. Approaching Big Skye, she realized there was someone else in the room.
“Hey there, kiddo,” the person said, turning towards her. It was a man, with scruffy brown hair, and a sense of weariness about him. He looked sad. “What’s your name?”
Calvin! she realized. “Hi…Dad.”
Shock replaced the weariness. “Daisy – but how?”
“Daisy?”
“Skye, sorry,” he apologized quickly. “But you’re so young, and she’s-”
Little Skye froze, unsure what to tell him at first. “Time travel,” she answered eventually. “Somehow, some of the Shield agents time travelled, and they saved me from the bad Hydra man, and then they adopted me.”
“But when did this happen?”
“I was in 1996, and they brought me here a few months ago.” Little Skye answered. Sure wish I had all the big adult words to explain this.
Calvin nodded. “So you’re eight now.”
She shook her head. “I’m only seven.” He nodded, still looking sad. Not entirely sure if she could trust him, she went closer and gave him a hug. “Thank you for saving Big Skye.”
He shook a little and she pulled away, only to realize he was both laughing and crying. “Is that what you call her?”
“They started calling me Little Skye. I thought I’d return the favor.”
“Does Shield…do they treat you well?” Calvin asked quietly.
“No one has ever treated me better,” she said adamantly. They lapsed into silence. After a few minutes, Little Skye said, “I’m sorry about Jiaying.”
Calvin gave her a faint smile. “Me too.”
Neither of them said anything after that. Eventually, Jemma, Fitz, and cute Lincoln came into the medbay.
“There you are,” Jemma said. “We’ve been wondering where you went off too.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t run off on another mission,” Little Skye promised.
Fitz grinned. “We didn’t think you did. But Coulson says you should get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”
“Okay,” Little Skye yawned. She curled up in a chair next to Big Skye.
Lincoln raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the point.”
Little Skye shrugged. “Not leaving.” She yawned again. “ ‘m staying until she wakes up.” Then, she closed her eyes. She didn’t fall asleep right then, but no one tried to make her move. People came in and out, holding whispered conversations, but she ignored all of them. And then eventually, she did calmly, peacefully, fall asleep.