Here Comes The Sun

A Little Bit of Love

Phil and Skye got to the Triskelion by the evening and met with Fury in his office.

"Phil," the director greeted. "Are you okay? You look exhausted."

Phil nodded to a sleeping Skye on his arm. "I'm fine. Napped on the plane. Ate something. Fed her. Changed her. Got her to drink water and not accidentally vibrate anything on that plane enough to kill us. All in all, not bad." He adjusted his daughter so he'd hold her more comfortably. "So how's the team?"

"So far, they've reported in twice; the last time was an hour ago," Fury replied. "I've called council on this mission, so you might get to meet the founder of SHIELD if you stick around."

"You called council?" Phil asked worriedly. "That's for..."

"Level eleven missions, yeah." Fury sighed and sat back in his chair. "Like it or not, I'm still a junior director. Council is to be called. I'm lucky I haven't been suspended yet."

"What did you do?"

Fury chuckled. "I brought in a KGB operative, Howard Stark died six months ago, there is a level eleven threat that I've sent all my best agents on, I lost my left hand to fatherhood, and one of my old protégés are slowly going batshit crazy." He sighed. "It's a wild world out there, man."

Someone knocked on the door and Fury jumped to open it. "Director Carter, you're early, ma'am," he said with a faint smile.

"Well, it would be worse if I was late, Nick, remember that," the revered Peggy Carter replied with a smile. "If I was, I might be dead." She noticed Phil. "Hello, agent...?"

"Director Carter, it's a pleasure to meet you," Phil said, trying not to wake Skye with his sudden turning. "My name is Phil Coulson. I'm a senior agent under Junior Director Fury. This is my daughter, Skye."

Skye woke up at her name, and blearily looked around the room.

Director Carter smiled and shook his hand. "Agent Coulson. I've heard nothing but good things about you. There's speculation that Nick is grooming you to be the next Junior Director, which of course, will be his choice." She looked at Skye, who managed a lazy smile. "That's a cute one you've got there, Agent."

"Thank you," Phil replied. "I'm just here 'cause I was supposed to be on this mission, but..." he nodded to his daughter. "Someone had to take care of this little one."

"Is her mother...?"

"She's on the mission too," he explained. "Well, technically she's not Skye's mother, but technically I'm not Skye's father. We found her as an 084 a few weeks ago and were placed in this mission to raise her until we can send her to the kids academy when she's old enough."

Director Carter nodded. "A good mission. Who's on this case, the one that we're here to observe?"

Fury walked up. "Agents Hill, Barton, May, and Romanoff." He checked the paper. "The relief team is on standby, and they're made up of Agents 19, 14, 45, and 33."

Director Carter sighed. "I don't like our number system as much as I did when we implemented them," she said. "It feels off to use numbers to speak of humans."

"We only use them in briefings and reports," Fury assured her. "We-"

Skye erupted into a bout of laughter as she felt her father surreptitiously tickling her.

"Sorry," Phil said lightly. "She does that sometimes."

Director Carter waved it off. "I've raised a few children myself. It's normal."

Phil nodded slightly.

Skye then fell asleep, and he went over to the couch to sit down and hold her so that she'd be more comfortable. The night didn't change much from there, and until Phil eventually fell asleep, nothing had been reported back.