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The MayDaisy !!! Still as good as the last time I read it from your universe ! Thank you so much for all the crumbs !!
If you don’t mind, could I ask that you expand a bit more on Skye and May’s reactions to Skye getting powers ?? Like if Skye was worried about how May would react, or if May was worried that her little girl was gonna turn out like that little girl in Bahrain ???
Hi Anon! I'm not sure if you're the same one from yesterday, but you're welcome all the same.
Now to the main event: Skye's powers and how they come to light!
I don't especially feel like writing this, mostly cause I'm still a little blocked and I'm not really sure how it would go, but here's the next best thing (AKA me forcing the words out and hoping it sounds fine).
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(2x11: Aftershocks)
(In the quarantine room.)
"Hey."
Skye glanced up from her hands. "Hey," she croaked. "What's up?"
May slid inside the glass box. Skye wanted to protest, but the words died in her throat when she saw Fitz nod at her from the outside. May tapped her hand. "Feeling like you’ve been in that glass box your whole life yet?" her mother asked her. "You doing okay?"
Skye nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I- I just…" She sighed. "I feel isolated and exposed at the same time. Being a caged animal is no fun." She cracked a small smile. "I'm used to it."
"I wish you weren't." May held onto her hand gently, like she was afraid that Skye had changed in that chamber, like she'd become glass. In a way, she kind of had. "Fitz said that you had something to tell me."
Skye didn't need to look up to see the engineer sitting by the door, effectively guarding them inside the soundproof box. Instead, she looked up at May.
"Please don't be... I don't know, mad, or something. " I don't want you to leave. "I didn't hide this from you. I barely... I found out from Fitz maybe an hour ago." Please don't be mad. Please, please, don't be mad. Please don't hate me. Please don't hate me because I changed. Please don't flinch. You never flinch. Skye swallowed. "I, uh..."
May tilted her chin up so that their eyes would meet, gazing at her, through her, and Skye knew that the jig was up. May could read her like an open book. May knew that something was wrong with her. May knew.
Skye's eyes burned. Her lungs burned. She squeezed her eyelids shut as tears came unbidden to the surface, and she clutched May's hand like a lifeline. She couldn't breathe.
Please don't hate me. Please don't go.
"Hey, hey, angel..." May's quiet voice came to her like a light in the fog. "Hey. Can you take a deep breath for me?"
She gulped in air, but it only made her more dizzy. She held onto May tighter.
"Can you open your eyes for me?" The world was too bright. She hated the lab. She hated how pristine and bright it was. "Good, thank you. Can you name me five things you can see?" Stupid fucking bright lights, stupid lab, stupid powers, stupid brain. "Skye?"
"Fitz, the lights, the lab..." She squinted. "The potted plant over there. You."
May tapped her hand twice. I love you. "Okay," she said, "what's four things you can touch?"
They went through the exercise, and only when Skye finally forced some water down her throat, did May let them talk about it. Her. Her powers.
"So." Skye swallowed slightly. Cracked a smile. "Where were we?"
"Don't." May gave her that look. "Don't do that."
Skye let out a small breath. "Well, what do you want me to do?" she demanded quietly. "What do you want me to say? 'Sorry for having a panic attack, please hold, I'll be right with you'? 'I have weird powers that make things explode and I have both survivor's guilt and regular guilt about killing one of my closest friends'? 'I feel like a murderer and like I'm truly, truly, my biological father's daughter'? Do you want me to say that?"
The silence between them hung heavily in the air. Skye's chest was heaving. I fucked up. I fucked up. This is bad. Fuck.
When May didn't say anything else, Skye dared to look up, finding her mother just staring at her. No heat. No anger, no sadness, just her eyes boring into Skye's soul. Skye knew that look. It was the one May got whenever she was thinking about Bahrain. She used to babble happy conversations to that look, trying to ease it away from her mother's face in time for dinner.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "For becoming this way."
May's face slowly melted back into her careful neutral. She tapped Skye's hand, once, twice. I'm sorry. I love you.
"Don't be sorry," May said after another moment. She held onto Skye as tightly as she could. "You're still who you are, powers or no powers."
"I'm different now," Skye protested.
"That may be true, but that's not all there is to you, is it?" May studied her expression. Skye felt her eyes rove over her face. "You're not just your powers. You're my daughter. You're Phil's daughter. You run this base. You're a genius in CS. You're one hell of an agent." May squeezed her hand again. "You're still you. Now with added..."
"Danger," Skye finished.
"Impact," May countered. Skye could see her mother wavering. She hated it, hated that she was the cause of it. "Once we get these powers of yours under control, they're just another tool in your toolbox."
"I'm a ticking time bomb."
"You're more than just a ticking time bomb."
"I'm still a ticking time bomb, even if I'm more than that."
Skye tried to pull away, but May held firm.
"You can learn how to control them," her mother said firmly. "And you will. I have faith that you will."
"What if I can't?" Skye asked. There was a buzz underneath her skin, like everything had been freshly slapped and blood was rushing to the surface. She wondered what that meant. "What if I hurt people? What if I..."
Repeat what happened down in the underground city, destroy lives and people and beliefs, turn into the girl that you have to take out to save everyone else, force us into a second Bahrain. What then?
"We can get through this," May said, knowing everything that passed through Skye's mind. "I trust you."
Skye knew her mother wasn't lying to her, but it seemed as if that she had misplaced beliefs. It wouldn't be the first time. It probably wouldn't be the last.
"Okay," she said anyway. "I trust you, too."