#control fic

They’d rip her tongue out, for sure. Agents who are defiant, assets who spill Hydra’s deepest and darkest secrets. Garrett would personally take the knife and slice it out of her in one cut – present it as a trophy for Whitehall. 

Unconsciously, Skye’s thumb made it to her mouth, her teeth starting to work away at her cuticle. 

They’d rip her tongue out as a start. They’d torture her; they’d shove her head underwater, tease her with the white light – her chest would light on fire as it cried for air, her head would spin as it craved oxygen, but god she’d be so close to the end it would be euphoric – before dragging her back up, smashing her head against the bathtub. 

They’d strap her down to a table and poke and prod with all sorts of tools, ripping her apart and piecing her back together, draining her of life and everything that made her, taking what should never have been theirs. 

They’d start from square one - train her all over again how to do as she was told, no questions asked, and when she disobeyed they had their shock collar to put her back in her place, and she’d sit pretty and be their little brainless pet – oh god they’d figure out a way to truly brainwash her, to truly take away the one thing she’d always grasped onto desperately, because they couldn’t have a freethinking traitor in their midst, but wait they wouldn’t even need to because they’d simply extract her power from her and then dump her in her cell and hurt her and make her live a life of endless pain and suffering, never allowing her to truly let go but not allowing her to pay off her debt, and God she wasn’t strong enough she wouldn’t be able to how was she going to-

“Skye?”

Skye brought herself back down to earth, her eyes widening to see that all of the stuff on Coulson’s desk was shaking violently. She sighed, pulling the vibrations back towards her, and redispersing them to slowly trickle off of her, getting absorbed into the rug. Coulson’s eyebrows were pulled together in a worried expression and he put down his pen, giving Skye his full, undivided attention. “If something’s bothering you, you can tell me,” he told her, his voice soft and genuine. “Please tell me.”  

What would SHIELD do to her if she didn’t tell them?

Because surely when Hydra eventually made their move, it would be obvious that she’d known they had moles in SHIELD in the first place. Either way, she’d be a traitor.  

Oh god, either way she’d be a traitor. 

Betraying Hydra was a life sentence. But betraying SHIELD, betraying Phil Coulson… somehow felt like it would sting worse. 

Skye knitted her brows together, casting a quick glance over her shoulder before turning back to Coulson. Her fingers tapped a quick, anxious rhythm on his desk; little vibrations skittered across the wood. She opened her mouth, but that muddled jumble of words balled in the back of her throat, and her chest constricted, practically suffocating her. She closed her eyes, desperately trying to pull herself back down to earth.

She had to tell him.

Defy me and-

He deserved to know. 

After all he’d done for her, how hard he’d fought for her, she couldn’t betray him like that. 

She sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I-“ she started, wishing the words would rearrange themselves, hoping that maybe they would if she’d just let them tumble from her lips. “I need to- I have to tell you-“

“I’m listening,” Coulson reassured her gently. “Take your time.” 

Skye finally was able to look him in the eye – and when she did, she could feel her fear start to melt away. His eyes were kind and gentle and warm, nothing like the frigid dissonance of the superiors at Hydra. She felt her shoulders relax, letting the clarity flood her mind and allowing herself to accept with conviction that this was the right call to make.

He needed to know. He didn’t deserve the storm he’d get if she didn’t tell him 

“Centipede,” she began, the words still a thunderstorm in her mind but she needed to start somewhere. Get the keywords out, arrange them once they’d been released. “It’s-“ 

“Mind if I interrupt?” 

Her blood turned to ice.

“Garrett,” Coulson greeted the man standing behind her. Unable to stand having her back to the enemy, Skye forced herself to turn, peeling her eyes off Coulson and letting them settle back on Garrett. “Is it important? We’re uh, kind of in the middle of something.”

“I wanted to check in on our ETA,” Garrett said, a smirk playing on his lips as his eyes burned into Skye. “We must be nearing the Hub by now.” 

You are property of Hydra. Your life is not yours to take.

Before she could reign it back in, a nervous quake escaped her and shook the plane.

Garrett raised an eyebrow. “Turbulence?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Or is it the fugitive lapdog planning an attack?”

Property of Hydra-

Hydra’s lapdog-

“Garrett,” Coulson growled. “That’s uncalled for.” 

Garrett merely laughed. “You gotta admit, it’s pretty funny. Accurate. Hey, Skylar – sit, stay, be quiet.”

Sit. Stay. Be quiet.

Property of Hydra.

 Unconsciously, Skye clamped down her anxious tremors, pulling them in towards herself, suppressing a wince as her bones rattled beneath her skin. She barely heard Coulson correct him about her name – suddenly all she could think about was how he’d known, he must have known, that’s why he was here, and the second she did something wrong he’d whisk her away back to her cell and deal with her personally.

Sit. Stay. Be quiet.

She’d been talking too much. She’d been eating too much. She didn’t earn anything, god she was taking and taking and not paying for it. She was stupid to believe that she’d earned any of the team’s respect when she didn’t do anything to deserve it. 

“Skye.” 

Coulson’s voice cut right through her panicked thoughts and she froze, meeting his gaze. She hadn’t let any tremors out – she knew that much, she felt them in her arms – but she must have looked pretty freaked out, because he looked genuinely worried. She offered him a feeble smile in the hopes that if she pretended everything was fine then Garrett would leave, and she could breathe again, but Garrett merely narrowed his eyes at her which only made her more nervous.

Sit. Stay. Be quiet. 

“Got something to say?” he asked, not unkindly but definitely not warmly. “Or are you just gonna blow a hole in this puppy?”

“Garrett!” Coulson warned. Turning back to Skye, he evened out his tone and asked her gently; “Do you need to take a walk?”

Numbly, she nodded, though her legs wobbled when she stood. 

“Would you like me to come with you or would you like to be alone?” 

“God, it’s like talking to a toddler, asking if they want to drink from the pink cup or the blue one,” Garrett snorted.

A quake slipped from her control and shook the whole plane.

“Let’s take a walk, Skye,” Coulson said again, reaching out for her shoulder, but she immediately recoiled, taking a step back and her eyes trained warily on his hand. Her heart fluttered like a bird trying to escape its cage. He retracted it, watching her carefully. “Skye…” 

Sit. Stay. Be quiet.

“Anybody feel that turbulence?” A new voice made Skye flinch – at the doorway stood Ward and Fitz. Fitz eyed her with concern and Ward crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, his expression completely unreadable. Her heart raced and her mouth seemed to dry up completely; she took a step backwards, bumping into Coulson’s desk, her breaths coming out in ragged gasps.

“Woah, woah, woah, Skye, what’s going on?” Fitz asked. “Take some deep breaths, okay, breathe.” 

Skye just stood, blood roaring in her ears as her gaze bounced from person to person. All eyes were on her, they all stared at her, and the lights were so bright it was disorienting and the room felt like it was spinning and out of the corner of her eye she saw Garrett looking directly at her, practically seeing into her very soul and he lifted his hand to fix his watch and she couldn’t help it as the entire plane shook more intensely this time and she was losing control of herself and god he knew, he knew, he knew, sit, stay, be quiet, property of Hydra, your life is not yours to take, next time you hesitate, don’t ever show weakness, sit, stay, be quiet, sit, stay, be quiet, lapdog, property of Hydra, property of Hydra-

Skye hadn’t seen May come in. She hadn’t noticed her draw an ICER. 

Four months now. That’s what Polaris had told her. Four months since she had let her world go crashing down without doing anything about it and letting so many people get hurt and then just running from all of it. Letting the consequences go to others. Go to her brother. She had tried turning around, tried to find him again, but they took him. It was hard for her to fully remember who they were, especially as her body reminded her of its pathetic lack of food, but she knew that they took Dylan, somewhere that she couldn’t find him. 

No, she had to find him. She was going to find him. If Jesse was going to do one thing correctly in her whole stupid life, it was going to be finding him. Like the books she would read at school, usually when she was supposed to be “actively engaged” in her work: the older sibling goes through trials, goes through hardships, but with the help of a strange companion, always saves the day. What happened after the back cover, after the “the end” didn’t matter to Jesse at the moment. She had the strange companion, always hovering in her mind in the way that her mother would always hover over Dylan, giving everyone that would listen lectures on how he was going to be something great and that he needed to be protected at all costs. She certainly had the trials, running from city to city and hoping she didn’t die or that they didn’t find her. 

Jesse had to save Dylan. 

It was the thought that got her to push herself off of the wall, looking around to get an understanding of her surroundings. Should she have maybe checked her surroundings for danger before she ran into the shadowy alleyway? Possibly, but the chime in her mind that she still wasn’t quite used to reminded her that she had another set of eyes. Polaris would’ve warned her about any sort of danger. Just like she warned Jesse about not even daring to think about trying to find something to eat in the dumpster Jesse had spotted. But, as Jesse had learned, she couldn’t do much to stop her from doing things, especially something like deciding to dumpster dive for food. 

But, some things could stop Jesse from dumpster diving. Like the smell of freshly baked bread coming from somewhere nearby.

Jesse’s stomach growled again as she stopped, one hand on the cold metal of the rusted dumpster. It couldn’t have been her imagination, right? She looked around, almost holding her breath to see if she could find the source. Even if it was a terrible idea to try and snatch some food from a bakery, her hunger was preventing her from thinking straight. All she had to do was not get caught, right? She would make it seem like she was never even there. In and out. Surprisingly, Polaris almost seemed to agree with her idea, as Jesse’s focus was gently moved towards a slightly propped open door by the swirling chime that filled her vision. 

Obviously, Jesse went towards the door. 

The smell of the bakery hit her even harder as she peeked through the crack in the door, feeling the warmth of the inside brush against her face. She could hear someone somewhere deep inside, but she couldn’t see them, only the rack of bread that sat just a little out of reach for her arms. Of course. She would probably have to open the door more to even hope to get one of the loaves off of the rack. And if whoever was in there could just stay far away from the door, that could be her chance to get something. But it was only a chance, Jesse knew that. 

“Tim, come up front,” a voice calling through the bakery startled Jesse, but she managed to keep her focus and balance, trying to hear the conversation, “there’s someone I would like you to meet.”

“I’m still sweeping, mom,” Tim called back, still sounding far enough away that if Jesse wanted to try, she could’ve possibly had reached in and grabbed a loaf without the boy noticing. But she didn’t. She waited. 

“How long does it take you to sweep back there? Hurry on up and get over here, okay?”

“Yes mom.” There probably wasn’t a tone that Tim could’ve used to sound more bored, as the sound of a broom brushing against the floor gently danced out from the bakery. Jesse mentally kicked herself for not taking the bread when she had the chance, but she quickly realized that Polaris was yelling at her about something far more important, it seemed. 

That was when she heard the growling. And it wasn’t the growling of her stomach. 

Jesse was barely able to get out of the way of the dog that charged at her out of seemingly nowhere, pressing herself against the far wall of the alleyway in an attempt to stay out of its reach. Despite the scrawniness of the dog, and the way Jesse could see its ribs poke out as it took heavy breaths, it was a big dog. A big dog that wanted to tear her to shreds for some reason. 

Special, Polaris chimed to her, though she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But there was no time to play the normal game of “guess the meaning” at the moment, as the dog turned to look at her again, letting out a loud growl. 

Jesse was trapped. 

The only place she really had to go was the dumpster, which her hand reached out for as the dog poised to leap at her, the other hand instinctively reaching out to protect herself. As if she would be able to fight off a stray dog with one hand. She managed to pull herself up onto the base of the dumpster, where there was a ledge to stand on, but she couldn’t get high enough to stop the dog from getting to her legs. Jesse shut her eyes, and while her mouth opened, she couldn’t quite tell if she was screaming or not as the pain surged through her and sent her mind into a blank. 

But the growling turned into a whimper, and as the pain subsided for just a moment, Jesse opened her eyes slowly. The dog was lying further down the alleyway, as if something had pushed it back. Polaris chimed to Jesse, in a way that almost reminded her of a soothing song. Like a lullaby. Jesse could feel a weird bubble of energy around her fading, a feeling that she had had before but still didn’t quite understand. The “guess the meaning” game wasn’t working too well on that one for the moment. 

“Not you again,” a voice cut through the silence as the dog had just started to get up, almost sending Jesse’s flight response into overdrive. “Fucking stra--oh shit.” Jesse had tried to start moving, to start running far away, but before she had even processed the source of the voice around her, an arm wrapped around her shoulders, and the chill starting to creep up her legs was quickly turned into warmth as she was pulled inside. “Mom! Get back here now!”

Jesse had a difficult time adjusting to her surroundings, but when her body began calming down from whatever had just happened to her (like four months ago, the memories were blurring in her mind despite being so recent), the smell of fresh bread hit her again. The bakery. For a moment, guilt overtook her, at the idea that she could’ve taken the bread from them without them noticing. And at the idea that the people inside were going to see her as some precious, innocent thing, as if she hadn’t gotten attacked by the dog in the first place because she was going to steal from them. 

“Tim, what’s going on?” Jesse looked up just in time to see a woman walk into the area, watching her eyes go wide as she looked at Jesse. She was probably a sight to behold, with the flannel that was way too big on her, the blood running down her leg, and her hair matted and chopped so short because of some unfortunate moods and her inability to wash her hair.

“That stray again, I, I think he attacked her,” Tim responded, his voice shaking a little. 

“I can see that part.” The woman pulled a towel out of her pant loop, gesturing for Jesse to sit as she wrapped it around her leg. Jesse hadn’t noticed how skinny and frail her legs had gotten until then, especially as the woman tightened the towel to act like some sort of wrap. “Stay here with her. I’m getting an ambulance.”

“Wait--” Jesse tried to get something out, tried to beg the woman not to call anyone, but her voice was failing her. And the look in the woman’s eye told her that she wouldn’t get away with just a leg bleeding out everywhere. She needed medical attention. Even Polaris agreed about that. 

“We’ll focus on the complicated stuff later. Stay there. And, Tim, get the girl something to eat.” The woman hurried out back to the front before Tim or Jesse could even respond. 

Neither Jesse nor Tim spoke once the woman left, the only noise coming from Tim ripping a chunk off of a loaf of bread and handing it to Jesse. But Jesse could still feel the kindness. She wasn’t alone, despite the fear deep in her stomach that tried to convince her that she had to run from people, even from people that treated her with kindness. The way that she sat next to Tim reminded her of all the times that her brother would sit down next to her, hurt or scared or just needing the support of his older sister in some way. But she was the one that needed support then, she was the one that was leaning her head against Tim’s shoulder, as the towel around her leg slowly turned red with her blood. 

Just a trial, she kept telling herself, like in all of the books. She was going to get through this. She was going to find her brother and save him and tear the people that hurt her apart. 

She glanced up at Tim for a second, as he started to hum some sort of song. 

“Oh! Who painted this one?” a bright male voice asked to your left.

You turned your head just enough to see if he person in question was looking at one of your pieces, hope bubbling.

“That is by a local artist. You can actually buy any of her work that we have here, Mr. Hill.” The barista was familiar with the blond-haired man that was staring at your largest painting currently housed in the busy shop. His suit looked expensive, fit to him exactly and that spoke volumes about money. More importantly though, he smiled as he looked at your painting and it made your heart beat increase.

“Her? Hm.” He put a hand to his chin in contemplation, head tilted ever so slightly to one side. “I’d like to meet her.”

The need for validation and inspiration spurred you past your normal introvert shyness, and before you had a cognitive thought you were on your feet. ‘I’ll calmly walk over and introduce myself. No need to be weird or nervous,’ you though to yourself, attempting to pep yourself up.

But as you moved from the table, your foot caught the its leg. The entire thing shook, and your coffee spilled over. With a holler you snatched up your sketchbook, holding it into the air with one hand dramatically as the other hand fished for the napkin that had come with your pastry.

“Oh dear, are you okay?”

You jumped and your hip crashed back into the table edge almost causing another incident, but a big steady hand reached across you to the table and kept it in place.

The tall blond was leaned in close to your body and you felt your face turn hot. “Thank you,” you muttered out, realizing with embarrassment that the sketchbook in hand was still high in the air above you both.

He smiled and took a step back to give you some personal space. “Sorry about that. You just looked like you needed a hand.” You didn’t immediately respond but did have the mind to lower your arm back to a normal level, clutching the sketchbook to your chest. “A sketchbook? Are you perhaps an artist?”

You nodded remembering your miserable pep talk to yourself prior. “Yes. I actually painted the one you were just looking at.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise, and perhaps some other emotion you weren’t quite sure of. “So you’re the artist. It’s a lovely piece. I’m Pariston Hill. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he replied with a level of sweetness that your heart would have picked up pace if it wasn’t already setting land records.

You took his hand into yours, though really his hands were so big his overtook yours, and with as much confidence as you could gave him your name.

As you tried to take back your hand Pariston squeezed it lightly. “I would like to make you an offer.” He smiled again. Big, bright, and full of promise. His brown eyes held a glimmer in them that raised goosebumps on your skin.

  The pain on your wrist brought you to reality.

Your dominant hand was in such pain from overwork and just tapping it against the paint can had sent a shock so strong into your body that your head snapped up from the half sleep you must have dozed off into.

The dream of when you met Pariston was still playing hazily in your mind as you looked up at the half-finished canvas you were sitting in front of. The deep red pigment you had been working with was still staining your hands, the quality of the paints kept them from drying and flaking off quickly. You had grown used to his over the past month.

Month.

It had only been a month. Yet several filled canvases were surrounding you with many more half complete and blank ones taking up more space.

The door to the high ceiling studio shut with a slam and you could feel your body shake on some level, but your exhausted mind couldn’t actually comprehend the feeling behind the shaking.

You hadn’t even heard it open.

Suddenly you worried. When did you last shower? When had you last washed your hair and skin? How many days had you worn these clothes?

Warm hands touched the sides of your neck and slid up into your hair. Now that he was so physically close you could comprehend the adrenaline rush. Fear, excitement, need. It filled your senses as Pariston’s fingers slid through your hair with ease.

“This one looks good.” His smooth words made you shake again. But he didn’t say anything about your hair being dirty so you let out a breath of relief. “You should finish it today. I’d like to see it complete.”

You looked back up to the canvas. It felt like it was a fifty-foot square canvas in that moment. Unnaturally large and impossible to finish. “Pariston… I don’t know if I can today.”

The gentle fingers stopped on your scalp. “Why not? It seems so close to being done.”

“I just… can’t focus. Artists block again,” you explained, trying to keep the exhaustion out of your voice. In truth you were just too run through. Time had become an illusion and you couldn’t remember the last time you went outside. Everything was a blur.

“Artists block? Hm… that’s no good.” His hands gripped your hair tight and pulled your head back to look up at him. “Maybe I need to provide you with a little inspiration?”

Immediately your legs started to tremble and in the distance of your mind you could hear your brush hit the studio floor. His brown eyes were focused directly onto your face and you felt frozen. “I just need a rest. Then- Then I can finish,” you reassured him. One of your hands covered one of his own in a feeble attempt to physically rise some understanding from him.

Pariston smiled down at you, the same smile you had just seen in your dream. The same smile he had when he discovered who you were in the coffee shop only a month ago. Before you couldn’t identify the look in his eyes but now you could. Raw need, dark and controlling.

This man was going to choke the life out of you.