Agents of Shield One-Shots

When the world gets too heavy (put it on my back) - 2

I headcanon May plays the piano. 

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2. 

Skye sat stock still, looking at the pictures of the people her father had so gruesomely killed. She wasn't exactly supposed to be looking at them, but honestly? Coulson should have invested on better cyber security. 

When she was younger, and still actively looking for her parents, Skye would often imagine what they were like. She thought she had dreamed up all the scenarios, but never in her wildest nightmares would she have thought her dad was a psychotic murderer. But then she had seen the bodies he had carelessly left on the ground, and she could feel reality setting in. Her father was nothing like she had imagined. 

She didn't know what to do. 

Skye knew that there was nature vs nurture, that who her dad was didn't affect who she could be. She knew that she shouldn't even consider a man who hadn't taken care of her, who didn't watch her grow up, as a father. But even with all these logical thoughts swimming around, all she could feel was the rush of painful emotion for her childish dreams of a father who loved her. 

That wasn't Skye anymore. She wasn't the little girl who had imagined a father with a warm smile and proud eyes. She was an agent of SHIELD, and she had to act like it. 

Closing her laptop, she strode out of her room with purposeful steps, looking straight ahead. She stood tall, schooling her expression into one of indifference, like the ones Skye had thought May wore before she learned how to read her micro-expressions. 

But she couldn't seem to focus her thoughts. Her mind kept drifting back to the terrible photos, and in an effort to block them out, she closed her eyes. She bumped straight into Coulson. 

"Skye, are you okay?" he asked, his expression concerned. 

"Perfectly fine, Director!" she replied, putting a bit of false cheer in her voice. It couldn't quite cover the numbness she felt. 

Coulson narrowed his eyes at her. "You sure? You can talk to me, you know."

"Of course!" Skye said, inching slowly past him. She heard piano music in the background. "I've gotta go. I wanna ask May to teach me piano." It wasn't true, but a little white lie couldn't hurt. And she really did not want to talk to Coulson right now, no matter how much bravado she was faking. 

"See you," Coulson said, as she ran in the direction of the music. 

Since they had arrived at the playground, May had been making use of the grand piano in one of the break rooms. Skye hadn't known she could play, and was pleasantly surprised at how good she was. It was nice to hear the music after missions, and Skye suspected May felt it was therapeutic to play the instrument, with how she would come out of the piano room more relaxed than before. 

Skye really did want to learn how to play the piano when she was younger, but she had never had a chance to, with all the moving around and terrible foster families. She remembered that there was an upright piano in the Carson's house, but Skye had never been allowed to touch it. Now that she was at the Playground, she would sometimes play around on the keys, but always felt self conscious about it, so she didn't do it often. 

Skye was originally planning on going to one of the supply closets and sorting through it, just so she could have something to distract her, but she could feel Coulson's eyes watching her. She had no choice but to go see May. 

It honestly wasn't too bad, Skye supposed. May was the type of person who wouldn't ask her to talk if she didn't want to. 

Making her way towards the music, she ended up outside of the closed door, waiting for the piece to end. (She's been calling it a piece now, not a song, ever since May taught her the important distinction between the two.)