Work Text:
When May tells the team they’re going to SHIELD HQ, Skye expects another Hub, all slick and high-tech looking. What she gets instead is a plain office space with cubicles and photocopy machines.
It’s a little freaky.
“That’s HQ?” she asks dubiously. It doesn’t look like much.
“The part you have access to, anyway,” Ward says and Skye sighs internally. Why couldn’t she just stay with the Bus if it’s going to be another one of those? “You can also get into the gym and the cafeteria – I think.”
“Awesome,” she snarks as the team breaks off, FitzSimmons making a beeline for the labs while May and Ward disappear in opposite directions, leaving Skye alone in the middle of a hallway.
“Not nice, guys,” she calls after them because what the hell is she supposed to do? Coulson would know but Coulson isn’t here and she has no idea where to find him. Somehow, she doubts SHIELD will let her use the intercom system.
Faced with her meagre options, Skye chooses the cafeteria. They probably have coffee.
It takes a few tries and she gets stuck at sections she can’t go through with the stupid bracelet more than once but she eventually makes it. The place is busy and she finds a seat in a corner, opening her laptop to pretend she is incredibly busy and not some sad loner abandoned by her team.
She isn’t really paying attention to the people around her until she hears someone say Coulson’s name. She perks up, trying to zone in on that conversation, and hey, what do you know? Some guy is talking about them, Coulson’s team, who just showed up at HQ. Skye grins to herself. It looks like they’ve got a reputation akin to celebrity status – or at least Coulson has. They keep referring to him as a LMD though, gossiping about whether his team knows, and Skye would be more than happy to tell them except she’s got no idea what a LMD is.
It sounds bad, maybe. Luckily she knows people she can ask.
It takes forever to find the right floor and since she can’t go in, she has to wait for someone with clearance to come along and agree to get FitzSimmons for her. There is a long moment when she thinks they won’t come, disappointment and resignation warring inside her, but then the door opens again and it’s them and Skye feels herself relax a little.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Fitz tells her and she rolls her eyes. Duh. That’s why she’s not.
“What’s a LMD?” she asks.
“A Life-Model Decoy,” Simmons says.
That’s… not helping. “Which is?”
Fitz takes this one: “Basically? A really cool robot that looks like a human being.”
Skye snorts.
Yeah, right.
“Oh, I get it. It’s another one of your pranks. Let’s feed the new girl some story and see if she buys it. Ahah, very funny.” She grins and they look back at her with twin expressions of bewilderment. “I’m onto you now, I’m not going to fall for it. No, sir.”
She laughs and then– stops. “You’re not laughing. Why aren’t you laughing?
“LMDs are no laughing matter,” Fitz says primly and Simmons nods.
“They’re a very precise and complex piece of technology,” she explains. “Do you know the amount of time and work it takes to create one? It’s nothing short of amazing.”
Skye’s smile falters.
“You’re… no. No, no, no. Nope. This is a joke. A very bad joke.”
“I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Fitz?” Simmons tells her and Skye contemplates whether putting her fingers in her ears will actually help.
“No, no idea.”
They both seem all kinds of confused and let’s face it, neither of them is that good an actor.
Skye feels a little light-headed.
“Did you know Coulson was a LMD?”
“What?!” “No way!”
Well, at least they both look as shocked as she feels.
“Wait, is that your way of getting back at us for the whole Cavalry thing?” Fitz says suspiciously and Skye glares at him.
“I heard people talking about it in the cafeteria. Apparently Tony Stark –” Iron Man, who was here less than 24 hours ago! Despite the circumstances, she can’t help but feel a little giddy about that. “– hacked SHIELD’s servers and found out all about it. He made a big scene, everyone’s talking about it.”
“You know what, it makes sense,” Simmons says thoughtfully, and both Skye and Fitz turn towards her with wide eyes. “Agent Coulson was very keen on having a physical a few weeks ago – ordered it himself. Maybe he suspected something was different about him.”
Fitz nods as if that makes perfect sense but Skye’s brain has stalled on:
“Wait, you mean you can be a LMD and not know about it?” She definitely needs to come up with some sort of protocol to check she is who she thinks she is. Maybe an EMP? A small one? Would that work?
“I suppose it’s possible,” Fitz says. “But if you heard about it in the cafeteria…”
“He definitely knows now,” Simmons finishes for him.
They all consider the implications in silence, and then:
“Do you know what this means?” Simmons says with wonder, and Skye doesn’t like the barely contained excitement creeping into her voice. Or the way Fitz is nodding eagerly along with her.
“The two of us, working with a LMD!”
“You see now, Fitz. That sort of thing would never have happened if we had stayed in our lab.”
“No, you’re right. Can you believe this? The technology behind it –”
“The neural connections alone would require –”
“An enormous amount of software –”
“And how do you think it creates DNA, or – oh! – blood cells? It must be –”
“Fascinating. And what about –”
“GUYS!”
FitzSimmons blink and turn towards her in unison, and Sky has to wonder if maybe they’re LMDs too.
“What do we do now? About Coulson?”
Silence, and then Simmons says brightly: “Do you think he would let me run some tests? Maybe get a few samples?”
Fitz nods along: “The scientific value would be –”
“Incommensurable. Oh, Fitz, this is so exciting!”
Skye gives up.
“You guys are so weird,” she mutters and gets the hell out of there before they start talking about dissecting their boss.
She gets back into the elevator again and:
“You’re not supposed to be here,” May says next to her and Skye yelps, almost jumping out of her skin. She could have sworn the elevator was empty.
When her heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to burst out of her chest anymore, she tries to explain:
“Yeah, I know, but –”
Melinda shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Her eyes flicker down to Skye’s wrist to check she still has the bracelet and Skye crosses her arms defensively. That’s not fair – okay, fine, maybe it is, given what happened at the Hub. But she was doing the right thing! They couldn’t leave Fitz and Ward out there to die, right? She thought May agreed.
Skye stares at the wall sullenly and she’s relieved when May gets out the next time the elevator grinds to a stop – or at least she is until a pointed eyebrow in her direction makes it perfectly clear she’s expected to follow. So she does, a small part of her worried that May is seconds away from locking her up in the basement and throwing away the key. She doesn’t think Coulson would let her but then Coulson is a robot.
Fuck, Coulson is a robot.
“Did you know Coulson was a LMD?” Skye asks, the words bursting out of her suddenly, and May’s steps barely falter.
“That’s classified information.”
“Wait, you mean you knew?” That stings more than Skye thought it would. They’re supposed to be a team, not keep secrets from one another!
May finally stops walking and faces her. She looks as unperturbed as ever and Skye envies her for that a little – it’s May’s superpower.
“No, I didn’t know. But what I do know is that you’re not supposed to have that information – and neither am I.”
Skye snorts. “People were talking about it in the cafeteria, I don’t think it’s that classified.”
May blinks.
“Stay where you’re supposed to be,” she orders, which is completely beside the point, and Skye opens her mouth to tell as much when May walks into a restricted area, leaving her standing alone in the hallway when the door shuts in her face.
“That’s cheating,” she shouts at the door before sighing and looking around to take stock of her surroundings.
Oh, great.
May’s deposited her right back where she started when they first got to HQ, and Skye mentally groans. No way is she staying there.
No, she needs to find Ward. He’s her SO, she’s supposed to report stuff like ‘our boss is a robot’ to him, right? She’s just following procedure. Besides, he’s her last hope for a sane reaction to the whole thing. She needs someone to freak out with.
Taking a wild guess, Skye goes looking for the gym, which she finds easily enough – she asks.
A man and a woman are fighting in the middle of the room and everyone else seems to have forgotten their own gym-related activities as they watch instead. Skye on the other hand has never been that much into people beating each other up – even when it’s for fun – and so she focuses on the audience instead, locating Ward easily. She makes her way towards him, flinching a little at the sound of a body hitting the floor heavily, and finally reaches Ward.
“I need to talk to you,” she whispers and he makes a vague noise of assent, eyes still firmly on the pair.
“Ward!” she says, louder this time, and elbows him for good measure.
That breaks his concentration long enough for him to glare at her.
“What?”
“We need to talk. It’s about AC.”
“Now? But Agents Barton and Romanoff are sparring.” There is a slight whine in his voice that makes him sound like a 12 year old as his attention wanders back to the fight, and Skye rolls her eyes.
Why are her co-workers all so weird?
“So?” she asks. Can’t he watch some other time?
But clearly not, because Ward turns affronted eyes on her. “You’re joking, right? They’re like, the best,” he whispers back and aw, isn’t that cute? Ward’s got a crush.
Skye is tempted to rile him up a little but she really needs to talk to him because Coulson is a robot.
Another loud sound of flesh on flesh makes her glance at the fight, and okay, fine, even she can see they’re impressive. The woman just did something with her thighs that shouldn’t be possible. Still:
“Come on.” She tugs on Ward’s arm and he looks like he’s going to protest until his expression clears suddenly.
“That’s Hawkeye and Black Widow,” he says and Skye honest-to-God squeaks.
“Seriously?” she says, louder than she intends, and a few people turn to stare at her.
Damn Ward. Now she doesn’t want to leave either.
“Coulson is a robot,” she retaliates.
“Yeah, right.”
Skye opens her mouth to argue but the woman on Ward’s other side beats her to it. “No, it’s true. Now will the two of you just shut up already? We’re trying to watch.”
Skye does shut up, but she still finds great satisfaction in the fact that Ward’s “Seriously?!” is a lot louder than hers was.
---
“I need a drink,” Ward mutters, staring morosely at the conference table.
A phone call got the two of them out of the gym and now they’re all in a meeting room, waiting for Coulson to show up.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Fitz says. “It’s an amazing opportunity,” Simmons concurs, and Ward looks like he doesn’t understand the words coming out of their mouth.
Skye knew she could count on him.
“Good, you’re all here,” Coulson says as he comes in. “We’re going to be stationed at HQ for a few weeks. I don’t know how long yet, so FitzSimmons, I’ve requested lab space for you. Ward, you can work on Skye’s training, and May, you…” he trails off, realising they’re all staring at him instead of listening. “What?”
“Sir, is it true you’re a LMD?” Simmons asks and Coulson blinks slowly. Skye wonders if that’s his programming going through contingency plans. Is he going to go Skynet on them and kill everyone who knows his secret? God, she hopes not. She kinda likes it here despite everything.
“I’m afraid that’s classified and I can’t tell you more at the moment,” he says and Simmons beams at him.
“Oh, that’s wonderful, just wonderful.”
“As I was saying –” Coulson starts again, only to be interrupted by Fitz’s and Simmons’s hands shooting up in the air. Coulson looks like he wants to sigh. “Yes?”
“Sir, we were wondering if we could have a moment of your time?”
“Whenever you’re free, really, any time is good.”
“No.”
FitzSimmons look crushed and then more determined than ever. If Skye were AC, she would keep a close eye on any fallen hair, cut fingernail and used tissue from now on. Which, ew, gross.
“Now, going back to the next few weeks,” Coulson says doggedly, and Skye mostly tunes him out.
She’s got things to think about.
---
It takes Skye a few days to wrap her head around the fact that Coulson is a robot.
FitzSimmons have tried to explain it to her – a LMD is not just a robot, it’s an exact copy of someone that mimics not only the person’s outer appearance but also their thought patterns, DNA and anything that can be tested for. They’re usually controlled by whomever they’re designed after through some sort of neural interface but they also have an automatic mode, and since the real Coulson most likely died during the Battle of New York, it must be how this one operates. That makes it easier somehow, knowing that the Coulson she knows has been a robot all along. In fact, it’s kinda cool. He’s gotta be superstrong and super…something. He could be a superhero and they could be his sidekicks – though not the kind that gets killed off.
While FitzSimmons are plotting how to best steal samples from Coulson – which will never not sound creepy – Ward’s gone insane with all the training he’s putting Skye through. She’d complain – hello, she didn’t go to GI Joe school! – but she thinks it might be Ward’s way of dealing with everything. She’s heard him mutter about contingency plans in case of an EMP and Skye needing to pick up the slack, so at least she’s reasonably sure he doesn’t think she’s going to need all that training when Coulson goes murderous on them. It’s kinda sweet. Also, progress!
As for May, well, Skye has no idea what she thinks but then again she rarely does. She’d worry, since May is the one who knew Coulson before and it’s got to hurt to know her friend is dead and a robot is walking around wearing his face and personality, but when Melinda May says she’s fine, no one is going to pock and probe her for more details, not even Skye.
In some strange way the whole thing has made the team grow closer together, which is why they’re eating lunch together in the cafeteria instead of doing their own thing in small groups. The only one missing is Coulson but he said he had other plans when Skye asked him if he wanted to join them earlier. Skye is pretty sure he’s got a date – he got all mysterious and tight-lipped when she asked but he had that little smile he gets when he’s ridiculously pleased about something. She decided to be a better person and not press (much) because if AC is getting laid, good for him. Wait, can LMDs have sex? Fall in love? How does that work?
Skye is about to share her thoughts with the group when all her questions fly right out of her mind because:
“Oh my God, that’s Hawkeye,” she says as the man enters the cafeteria, looks around and starts walking in their general direction.
“Agent Barton? Where?” Ward looks around and then stops abruptly when he realises he’s being less than stealthy.
“Do you actually know him?”
Ward shrugs in an attempt to appear nonchalant that only half-succeeds. “In passing, why?”
“He’s coming towards us. Introduce me!” she instructs and May snorts.
“Hey, Ward,” Barton says as he gets near and Ward nods at him.
“Agent Barton,” he says in that stoic voice he sometimes uses when he wants to appear all serious and grown-up – Skye thinks it makes him sound like he’s got a stick up his ass, but now is not the time to point that out. She kicks him under the table when it doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything more, and his effort not to wince makes him look vaguely constipated.
Barton’s attention moves on to May and crap, they missed their window.
“May.”
“Barton.” There is a smile lurking on her face and Skye stares a little. “I thought you had a lunch date?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know Phil, his meeting ran over. I’m just making a supply run. Is it okay if your one-on-one starts half-an-hour late?”
Wait.
What?
“Sure, no problem,” May answers easily.
“Thanks.”
Barton looks around the table and back at May and something must pass between them because the next thing Skye knows May is saying “Have you met the team yet?” and Skye wants to reach over the table and hug her.
“Ward you know, and this is Fitz, Simmons, and Skye.”
“Big fan,” Skye blurts out and Hawkeye blinks at her. Oh my God, Hawkeye is looking at her.
This is the best day ever.
“Nice to meet you. I guess I’ll see you guys around,” he says and heads back to the food line.
Skye stares after him, a little (a lot) entranced by the view – what? It’s a great view! –, until Fitz turns towards May and asks conspiringly:
“When you said lunch date, did you mean like an actual date? Are Agent Coulson and Agent Barton dating?”
“Fitz!” Jemma gasps, turning a little red. “That’s really none of our business.”
“Nonono, it totally is,” Skye says, leaning forward in her seat and looking at May expectantly. They all do – even Jemma and Ward –, but May just raises an eyebrow and doesn’t answer.
Still.
AC is a robot and potentially dating Hawkeye.
Skye’s got, like, the coolest boss ever.