Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A few good things about being an unwanted orphan living in a van; absolutely nothing, there are no good things.

This was Skye’s thought process as she lay across the backseat of her van, desperately trying to drown out the noise of the city and fall asleep. It seemed louder than normal tonight, which was odd, because it wasn’t a holiday, at least not that she knew of.

Eventually, she accepted that she wasn’t going to sleep, pulled on a clean(er) shirt, and stepped out of the van, locking it carefully behind her.

Skye stepped out of the ally she was parked in, hands subconsciously rubbing her bare arms to try to keep out the late-fall chill.

Everyone on the street was staring at their phones, talking in hushed whispers, and glancing around fearfully. Something was going on, something big, something everyone seemed to know about except her.

Skye raced back to her van, fiddling with her keys as she unlocked it, and slammed the door behind her. She grabbed her laptop off the dash and opened it with more force than necessary, practiced hands flying across the keyboard as she entered the password.

The first thing she saw when she clicked into Google was a series of automatic notifications.

In order, they read:

Billionaire Tony Stark killed at the hands of a volatile Russian assassin.

Faceless government agency known as SHIELD acts rashly and it has huge consequences.

The rumors are true! Aliens walk among us!

Norse myths? More like Norse facts.

Delusional man known as ‘Loki’ claims us ‘Midgardians’ were born to be ruled.

The United Nations fall to otherworldly gods!

We are not alone in the universe, and we realized it far too late.

Brow wrinkled in confusion and disbelief, Skye clicked into the second to last link, her heart rate speeding up as she read the article.

In just one day and one night, the entire Earth had fallen prey to a man from myths and legends. To say things had changed was the understatement of the century.

Chapter Text

Afterlife was one of the last places on Earth still withstanding the invasion, and it was under attack.

Lincoln stood on the outskirts of the safe haven along with a few other fighters, watching as Chitauri hovercrafts rallied above them.

Experimentally, he sent a bolt of electricity soaring upwards, striking a hovercraft with enough voltage to short circuit an aircraft carrier. The alien craft veered to the left a little, but otherwise the hit didn’t seem to affect it.

“What was that?!” Gordon yelled from a few feet away, where he had just appeared.

“I don’t know!” Lincoln exclaimed, “They must operate on a different type of power source!” he sent another bolt of electricity, but got the same result as before, “We don’t know anything about them! I mean, they're kinda’ aliens!”

“So are we!” Gordon yelled back at him in clear exasperation.

The teleporter disappeared in a burst of blue light, reappeared on a hovercraft, pushed the pilot off, disappeared again, and reappeared right back next to Lincoln.

“Just target the pilots!” he said.

“Right,” Lincoln mumbled, already looking for an easy target.

He spotted a low flying alien, aimed his hands, and let a bolt loose. It arched through the air… and missed.

Lincoln cursed and dodged as the alien he had been aiming for swooped down, swiping its blade at him. This time, he didn’t miss when he took the shot, and the alien tumbled to the ground a few feet away.

“Gordon!” a voice rang out, and Lincoln turned to see a girl named Anika running up behind them. She was out of breath, and her dark skin was slick with sweat. “Jiaying says we have to evacuate!”

Lincoln didn’t catch Gordon’s response, because he had to jump to the side to avoid a beam of light from one of the Chitauri guns.

“Spark Plug!” Lincoln winced at the nickname and turned to face Gordon, who was now standing next to Anika. “Stay here, I’ll be back when all the civilians are out!”

Lincoln wanted to protest and say that he was technically a civilian, but he didn’t think that now was a great time for arguing, so he just gave a quick nod. Gordon and Anika disappeared in a burst of blue light, and Lincoln turned back to the fight.

About ten minutes later, it was looking hopeless. The Chitauri swarmed Afterlife like flies on roadkill, and Lincoln was only barely holding his ground. The other fighters were hardly doing any better, and it was clear the fight was already lost.

So, when Gordon showed up, literally out of nowhere, Lincoln and the others were quick to run to him, grabbing hold of his arms.

They disappeared, and there were a few seconds of tingling and mild discomfort as they went through the process of teleportation, which no one really knew how to explain.

The first thing that hit Lincoln when they appeared again was the cold. It was biting, all consuming, and much more ferocious than the usually warm climate of Afterlife ever was.

They were in a frozen tundra, with snow and ice covering the ground, turning everything a blinding white. Behind them was a sort of cabin, although it was much larger than a normal house.

Lincoln, Gordon, and the others hurried inside, and the rush of warm air was more than welcome.

Jiaying stood waiting in the entryway, and gave a slight smile when she saw them.

“Everyone’s out,” Gordon told her, “and they shouldn’t be able to follow us.”

“Good, and thank you all for defending us while we got away,” she nodded at them in recognition.

It was an apparent dismissal, and most of the group wandered away to find their friends and family, but Lincoln stayed.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Our last resort,” Gordon answered, “We’re in the middle of Siberia, at the edge of the Arctic Circle. The invading forces haven’t ventured here yet because of the lack of population and the extreme climate.”

“Yes, we should be safe here.” Jiaying smiled again, making the scarring on her face all the more evident.”

Lincoln nodded, then wandered away to try and find some warmer clothes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz had been at SHIELD Academy when the invasion started. Fitz was there to give a lecture on finite element analysis, and Jemma had tagged along to reconnect with a few of her old teachers.

She was now regretting that decision.

Jemma and Fitz had managed to escape the Academy and hide in a swath of forest behind it along with a group of twelve science and technology students, five communications students, three operations students, one science and technology teacher, and one communications teacher. Jemma knew that because she had counted seven times over the course of the last six hours.

All SHIELD agents were trained in basic combat, but it wasn’t a priority for anyone other than field agents, who trained in operations. Jemma and Fitz hadn’t even passed their field exams, and let’s just say this was the first time in her life that Jemma wished they had an operations agent with them.

“This really sucks.” Fitz’s voice broke Jemma out of her thoughts, and she turned to see him carefully stepping over a tree root.

“Well,” Jemma said, choosing her words carefully, “You have to be optimistic about it. I mean, we’re alive, and we’re not captured.”

“Yeah, and there’s a bloody alien invasion going on.”

Jemma sighed, “Yes, there is that.”

“Fitz, Simmons,” the two turned to see Agent Weaver, a science and technology teacher, walking towards them. “A few of the communications students had radios on them, and we managed to get a signal to the Triskelion. Apparently, it’s still holding strong, and they're sending an extraction team for us. They should be here within the hour, we just have to stay hidden until then.”

“Thank goodness,” Jemma breathed, and Fitz nodded in agreement.

“The operations students are going to set up a perimeter,” Agent Weaver continued, “and make sure we aren’t being followed. The communications students are on, well, communications with the Triskelion, and I’m afraid there’s not much use for science and technology out in the woods, but we all have to be on high alert. Us three are some of the only graduated agents out here, so we have to take initiative. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” Fitz mumbled, and this time it was Jemma’s turn to nod in agreement.

“Good,” the teacher said, “It’s only an hour.”

She then walked away to check on the operations students.

Jemma and Fitz glanced at each other nervously, unsure what to do next.

~~~~~~~~~~

Turns out a boat wasn’t a great place to be during an alien invasion.

Bobbi, along with all the other agents who had attempted to fight back and hadn’t been killed trying, was locked in the hold.

She had taken a hit to the head from the butt of a spear, had at least one broken rib, and everything hurt like hell. Those were the least of her concerns.

No one was entirely certain what exactly had happened, and theories were running rampant. Right now, the most popular idea was that aliens had been living on earth for years in disguise, and had chosen this moment to strike. Probably just a load of crap that some bored trainees had cooked up.

The facts were that two days ago the governments of the world were taken over by an extraterrestrial threat, which the crew of the Principia didn’t find out about until thirty hours later, when the ship was boarded and overtaken. No human on board knew the condition of the rest of the world. They could be the last people alive for all they knew.

But, they were SHIELD agents. They had been trained to deal with the impossible. It was practically in the job description. Bobbi wasn’t sure how, but she knew they were going to figure this out, because they always did.

“Bobbi,” a low voice spoke behind her, and Bobbi turned to find Agent Mackenzie, more widely known as Mack, standing behind her. “I managed to grab this,” he held up a flip phone, “before we were taken down here. Its barely got enough batteries to make one call, so we have to make it count.”

Bobbi didn’t stop to think about why anybody would have a flip phone, she just started thinking through the options of who they could call. Briefly, she thought of Hunter, but after their recent breakup… and, well, he wasn’t that big a fan of SHIELD. She quickly sifted through a few more options, discarding each quicker than the last. She eventually thought of Director Fury. He was in charge after all, and out of all the agents in the room, somebody had to have his number.

She relayed her idea to Mack, and he went off to ask around for the phone number, leaving her alone once more.

A few minutes later he came back, and the number was written down on a scrap of paper in his hand. He punched it into the phone and held it up to his ear, with Bobbi watching impatiently.

After nearly thirty seconds of nothing from Mack, Bobbi asked, “Well?”

Mack sighed and looked at her with a resigned expression on his face, “Nothing. Not even voicemail. It just keeps ringing.”

He handed her the phone, and she held it up to her ear, pushing her blonde locks back from her face as she did.

Ringing. Ringing. More Ringing, and then a beep, and the phone turned off. Out of batteries.

Bobbi lowered the phone from her ear, “Great.” She said, “Our best hope of rescue, gone.”

Mack pursed his lips, “There’ll be something else,” he said, “There has to be.”

Bobbi looked around the room and at all the desolate, hopeless faces it contained.

There has to be, she thought, right?

Chapter Text

Melinda May sifted mechanically through piles of paperwork detailing the Asgardian threat. As she worked, her eyes skimmed along the pages, taking in information to do with Norse Myths, enhanced abilities, and the ever-worsening condition of the human race.

May kept her eyes glued to the papers in front of her even when she heard a familiar set of footsteps approaching.

“Agent May,”

May glanced up for only a second before refocusing, “Agent Coulson,” she said.

“I could use some help,” her old colleague continued.

This time, she set the papers down and turned her stare on him, taking in his appearance, which hadn’t changed much since the time they had last seen each other. But a lot had changed, maybe not on the outside, but definitely on the inside.

“I’m not doing field work anymore,” She said it with a finality that would make most people back down immediately, but Phil Coulson wasn’t most people.

“I just need you to drive the Bus,”

For a moment, May contemplated it. It was actually kind of nice to see Phil again, even if she’d never admit it, but he, and being back in the field, could only bring back painful, long-buried memories.

“No.”

“Come on May, there’s a bunch of Academy students stranded, surrounded by Loki’s forces. The Bus is the only thing we have big enough to fit them all, and you’re the best pilot I know.

She stared at him expressionlessly.

“It’s a really nice Bus.” He smiled at her expectantly.

She sighed, already knowing she was going to regret this later.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fitz stared up through the trees at the cloaked but still slightly visible aircraft hovering above them. Jemma stood at his side, also staring up at their rescuer.

Agent Weaver stood over by the communications students, muttering furiously into one of the few working radios they had.

Suddenly, a twisting ladder dropped from the sky, seemingly appearing from nowhere as it fell from the nearly invisible plane.

“Science and technology students first!” yelled Agent Weaver, “Then communications, then operations! Teachers and agents go last!”

The science and technology students raced for the ladder, shoving and pushing one another out of the way in their haste to reach it. Meanwhile, the communications and operations students gathered behind them, impatiently waiting for their turn.

Although it only took a few minutes, it felt like forever before all the students had disappeared into the opening in the bottom of the plane, and Jemma and Fitz were finally able to board.

They entered the spacious aircraft and were silent as Agent Weaver directed the students to the main living area.

For about five minutes, they just stood, staring out the window at the landscapes passing by. If it weren’t for the constant chatter of the academy students, it would be almost peaceful.

This illusion was shattered when a window exploded suddenly inwards, a laser of colorful light narrowly missing a girl’s head.

There was instant chaos, students and teachers alike trying to scramble away from the window, and the oxygen levels were quickly dropping.

Through the chaos, Fitz watched Agent Weaver race up to the cockpit, yelling something that he couldn’t hear from across the plane. Suddenly, the plane’s airtight system slammed down over the windows, alleviating the oxygen levels.

The plane swerved around another attack, then picked up the pace and raced back to the Triskelion at breathtaking speeds.

When they got off the plane, the students were directed to go to a briefing room to have their next steps explained to them. Jemma and Fitz were going to follow them when they heard a voice behind them.

“Agents Fitz, Simmons,”

The two turned to see Agent Coulson, a man they had worked with a few times on updated non-lethal weapons.

“Yes sir,” they said at the same time.

“You know the new weapon that you told me you were ‘still working out the kinks on’? The one with the dendrotoxin?”

They both nodded.

“Yeah, I’m gonna’ need those kinks worked out as soon as possible.”

“Sir,” Jemma said, “How soon do you mean, because there are still quite a few things-”

“Agent Simmons,” Coulson interrupted, “I needed them, like, two days ago, so figure it out.”

He walked away and immediately got involved in a conversation with another agent.

Fitz looked at Jemma incredulously, they needed at least another week of work on what he had dubbed the ‘night-night guns.’

“Well then,” his partner said, “I guess we’d better get to the lab,”

~~~~~~~~~~

Jiaying stood on the porch of the Siberian safehouse, unbothered by the cold. She stared off into the white expanse of snow and sky, thinking about the situation they were in.

For a long time, she had considered the humans to be her greatest enemy. The one thing stopping her and the rest of her kind from taking what was rightfully theirs. Now, there was something else, another factor in the equation. People who came from space, who were neither human nor inhuman.

In the distance, she saw a flash of light, and she pushed her musings away in favor of watching it. As she watched, it came closer, until the outline of a hovercraft was visible.

Reflexively, she tensed, readying herself to cry for help if needed. Once she saw that it only had a lone rider, she softened her posture, for she knew she could easily take on one person on her own.

The man riding the hovercraft was tall, with dark hair slicked back against his head, and wore strange green robes.

He stepped down from his ride with a confidence that Jiaying often saw when looking in the mirror, at least when she wasn’t focusing on her awful scars.

“Hello,” he said, in a way that didn’t sound at all friendly, “I am Loki Laufeyson, prince of both Asgard and Jotunheim. You, human, have evaded my troops, and I am curious as to how.”

Jiaying smirked, human, this alien had called her. She was far, far from just that.

“Tell me, Prince Loki,” she said, “What is it that you want with Earth?”

The prince seemed taken aback by her failure to answer his question, but regained his composure quickly, “The people of Midgard, the humans, were born to be ruled. And I, am that ruler.”

“Well then, It’s a good thing I’m not human, isn’t it?”

He stared at her, narrowed his eyes, and said, “Kree. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Just a bit of their blood, really. But it’s enough to make me, make us, a bit something more than human.”

Loki’s mouth quirked into something that was almost a grin, “Perhaps, you and your people would make valuable allies.”

Jiaying responded with a grin in kind, “I suppose we could cooperate.”

Chapter Text

Skye was bored, and when she was bored she tended to do rash things. Of course, maybe hacking into the United Nations security cameras to see the alien take over for herself was a little more rash than what the average person would do, but hey, she considered herself above average.

Honestly, it was just a waste of time. She didn’t see anything that she didn’t already know. Loki and the Chitauri had entered the building while a meeting was in progress, killed everyone inside, and taken over the world. All of which was common knowledge at this point.

Skye slammed her laptop shut with a lot more force than necessary, then pulled open the van door.

“Aah!” she yelled, there was a man standing right outside her van, just staring at her!

“Hello,” the man said, “I am Agent Grant Ward of SHIELD, and I’m here to take you in.”

Skye stared at him for a moment, mouth hanging open, “T- Take me in?” she asked incredulously.

“Are you, or are you not the person that hacked into the United Nations about an hour ago?”

She didn’t deny it.

“Then come with me, or I’ll make you.”

Skye grabbed her laptop off the dash and silently exited the van.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was two weeks after the aliens had completed their take over of earth, and no one could glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel unless that light came from a train barreling straight at them.

About a week after the invasion had started, a new group had been revealed. They called themselves inhumans, and had abilities only found in dreams, and more often than not, nightmares. They were partnered with Loki and the Chitauri, and since then the resistance crumbled. Quite literally, actually.

There were many eyewitness accounts of crystals being thrown into throngs of protesters, blue gas exploding from them and turning everyone it touched into crumbling rock sculptures. Not everyone believed it, but no one was willing to risk it.

The only thing that was keeping Elena going was her faith. People told her that this man who came from the sky was a god, and maybe he was, but he wasn’t a capital ‘G’ God, and that was all that mattered.

So, she kept going, kept working, kept trying. She and her family did their best to look after their city, even if they were hopelessly outmatched.

Elena woke in the middle of the night to a knock on her apartment door. She jumped out of bed, heart already pounding in her ears, and reached around blindly for the nearest thing she could use as a weapon. Her hands closed around her Bible. It probably wasn’t the best thing to use, but it was heavy and she was desperate.

She inched closer to the door, trying to stay quiet and alert.

“Elena!” whisper-yelled a familiar voice, “Let me in!”

Elena almost crumpled to the ground in relief. She set her Bible down carefully and unlocked the door.

“Francisco,” she hissed at her cousin, “you scared me half to death!”

He grinned at her and said, “Still would be better than this place though, wouldn’t it?”

She ushered him inside and pursed her lips, agreeing, but not wanting to answer the question.

“Why are you here?” she asked instead.

Francisco's eyes fell to the floor and he took a moment before answering, “Jaun and Sandra Restrepo were smuggling supplies to resistance fighters. They were… Well, we don’t know what happened to them, but it’s been hours and they haven’t arrived.”

Elena swallowed hard.

“They have three kids at home,” her cousin continued, “I volunteered us to go get them.”

“It’s way past curfew!” Elena looked at her cousin in disbelief, “If we’re caught, we’re dead, no excuse will work this time!”

“I know, but we can’t just leave them! The youngest is barely a year old.”

Elena scrunched her eyes closed and sent a quick prayer to God, asking Him for something, anything to help them.

She opened her eyes and stared at her cousin contemplatively for a second before saying, “Let me get my stuff,”

A few minutes later, Francisco and Elena snuck quietly out of the apartment building and onto the streets.

The patrols were random, so they had no idea what to expect and just had to try to stay in the shadows.

At one point, they saw lights down the street, so they ducked into an alley, pausing for a moment before continuing.

When they stepped out, they were met with the sight of Chitauri, standing there staring intently at them.

Elena’s heart nearly stopped, and it was hard to breathe. Out of the corner of her eye, Francisco looked like he was in shock.

She glanced behind them, and hopelessness took over as she saw that they were surrounded.

Slowly, she and Francisco raised their hands, even though they knew it was probably no good.

Elena knew she would die one day, and she couldn’t wait to be taken away from a world of suffering, but she hadn’t expected it to be today.

One of the aliens grabbed her roughly from behind, prodding her in the back with a spear. Another was doing the same to Francisco.

They started walking.

Elena was only vaguely aware of the streets they were walking down. All she was thinking about was that this couldn’t be right. God had called her to help her people, to stop all of this, so why was she being escorted to her death?

In her heart, she knew that it was better this way. She could leave the fighting to someone else now. But that felt like giving up, and she never gave up.

After some amount of time that Elena couldn’t focus on enough to measure, they entered the National Capital Building, the invading force’s home base in Bogotá. From there, they were forced into a small office already full of panicked people.

Elena and Francisco gripped each other’s hands tightly, but Elena found no comfort in the fact that she wouldn’t die alone.

A low hissing sound escaped the ceiling, and blue gas started coming through an air vent.

They squeezed each other's hands tighter.

A broken sob escaped Elena’s throat and she choked out, “To live is Christ, and to die-” she took a deep breath as tears streamed down her face, “-to die is gain.”

In barely more than a whisper, her cousin said, “Philippians, chapter one, verse twenty one.”

The other people in the room were panicking, screaming, banging on the doors as the gas settled over them.

With her free hand, Elena gripped her cross necklace, then closed her eyes and waited for the cold grip of death and then the warm embrace of Heaven that she knew would follow.

Chapter Text

Grant Ward walked into the Triskelion with his target in tow. He still didn’t understand why they needed some random hacker girl when there was a literal alien invasion going on, but, like always, he followed his orders without question.

Coulson was in deep conversation with a small Asian woman when Ward approached, so he hung back a bit, waiting for the higher level agent to finish before he approached him.

“So,” the target said, waving her hand at literally everything in sight, “Men in suits, huh? Still don’t understand why I’m here, but…”

He didn’t respond, leaving her sentence trailing off into nothing.

“Cool,” The target said, “Great conversation. I mean, you haven’t even asked my name,”

Ward did his best to ignore her.

“It’s Skye, by the way. In case you were wondering,” She crossed her arms.

The Asian woman walked away from Coulson with an angry look on her face, and Ward grabbed Skye’s arm, ignoring her exclamation of “Hey!” and dragged her over to Coulson.

“Sir,” he said, “I’ve got the Los Angeles target you told me about,”

Coulson looked Skye up and down for a second before saying, “Great, bring her to the briefing room.”

“The briefing room, Sir?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

Coulson walked away as if he had more pressing matters to attend to, and Ward sighed on the inside before leading Skye to the briefing room.

~~~~~~~~~~

Coulson grabbed a bagel and scarfed it down before heading to the briefing room, because he hadn’t had a proper meal in days, and he was hungry.

When he entered the room, all the agents he had asked to be there, already were. There was Grant Ward and Melinda May from special ops, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons from Sci-Tech, and the newly acquired asset from LA, who called herself Skye.

“All right,” Coulson said, and all the agents sat up a bit straighter, “Our mission is to liberate a SHIELD ship, the Principia, from alien rule. We have many valuable agents on the ship, as well as objects that we do not want to fall into the wrong hands. Before I go over the details, any questions?”

Skye tentatively raised her hand like a five year old in kindergarten.

“Yes, Skye,”

“Why the heck am I here? I’m not one of you! I don’t do black suits and Sci-fi gadgets, and fighting aliens. I’m literally just a hacker.”

“Yes,” Coulson said, “but an extremely talented hacker, I mean, not everyone can hack into United Nations security cameras.”

Skye opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her, “Agent Fitz, why don’t you explain to Skye what her part in this mission will be?”

“Right, um,” the younger agent stood up to address the group, “So the aliens have found a way to encrypt the Principia’s location. Normally, we would be able to track it, but, uh, they have layered the code so much that it would take Simmons and I forever to untangle it, because we’re not professional, um, hackers.”

“The aliens are using code?” Skye asked incredulously.

“Yeah, ‘cause, you see, they use science too, just like us, except they're more advanced because they’ve had much longer to develop. Also they have help from the inhumans.”

Skye still looked unbelieving, “So you’re saying you want me to decrypt alien code in order to track your fancy little spy ship?”

Fitz looked reluctant to answer, so Coulson butted in, “Yep, that’s about it,” he said.

Fitz sat back down.

“Ok, Agent Simmons,”

Simmons stood up and said, “Fitz and I have been developing a new sort of non-lethal gun that uses dendrotoxins,” she held up the gun in question, “One shot will knock out your target for at least an hour, depending on where you hit them, and if they are human or not.”

“I call them Night-Night guns,” Fitz said.

The rest of the room ignored him.

“Why are we using non-lethal weapons on aliens?” Ward asked.

“Well,” Simmons said, “These guns are mostly for any inhumans you may encounter, although we’ve ran some tests, and I believe they should work on the aliens as well.”

“Thank you, Agents Fitz, Simmons,” Coulson said, “Now if you could please escort Skye to the lab and get started on finding that boat,”

The two muttered quick ‘yes sirs’ before getting up and ushering Skye out of the room.

Coulson turned to address the two remaining agents in the room, “Agent May,” he said, “As requested, you’ll just be flying the quinjet, no actual combat,”

His old partner nodded and promptly left the room.

“And Ward, you and I will sneak onto the ship, hopefully unseen, and get down to the hold, where they’ll most likely be keeping any prisoners. After we get the prisoners out, well, we fight, and we get our ship back.”

“Yes sir,” Ward said, then followed after May.

Coulson stared around the empty briefing room, wondering if he was actually about to try to liberate a ship from aliens.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fitz sat next to Skye in the lab, typing away at the lines of code they were supposed to be deciphering, while Jemma hovered over them, pointing out anything they missed.

He was amazed at the speed Skye went through her sections of code. She truly was a professional, and she seemed to be only half concentrating on the screen in front of her.

“So,” she said, “How long have you guys been working for the men in suits?” Her hands never faltered on the keyboard.

“Well,” Jemma said, “We started at the academy when we were sixteen, so if you’re counting our time there, eight years. If not, then seven.”

“Academy? You mean like, uh, Hogwarts?”

Jemma laughed and said, “I wish,”

A few minutes went by with no noise except for the clicking of keyboards and Jemma’s occasional corrections, and then Skye said, “I’m done with my part. We’ve got latitude at around 37.89046.”

Fitz stared at her in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting her to get it for at least another half hour.

“Great!” Jemma exclaimed, “Why don’t you take over Fitz’s part, then?”

Fitz tamped down his frustration and stood up to let Skye move over to his computer.

About six minutes later, Skye had made it through his code as well.

“Longitude, -142.93523,” She declared.

Jemma leaned down to look at the screen, “Well, that would put the Principia… a couple hundred miles off the coast of California,” She looked up and said, “Come on, we’ve got to tell Coulson!” and the three left the lab.

~~~~~~~~~~

Melinda May sat in the cockpit of a quinjet, waiting for someone to tell her where the heck she was flying to.

Coulson’s familiar footsteps approached, and without turning around, May said, “You got my coordinates?”

“Yeah,” her old partner said, then rattled them off.

May set the flight plan, and in about two minutes they were in the air, heading towards a battle with impossible odds.

Just like old times, May thought.