Marvel's Agents of Shield Fic: The Wheels On The Bus (Go Round And Round)

[hucknclem]

Title: The Wheels On The Bus (Go Round And Round)
Characters: Coulson, Skye, Ward, team
Rating: PG if you squint?
Warnings: Spanking and the usual gratuitous schmoop
Summary: There are way too many kids on this bus
A/N: Potential spoilers up to FZZT, whereafter this fits

Comments

Babbling, Part 2

[shotboxer]

Continued from Above . . .

Of course poor Skye eventually reaches the end of her rope.

Seriously, how many people would have lasted a whole *week*, in that situation? There's a reason being suspended from your job usually means you physically leave, or at least, if you're confined to a desk, you aren't constantly watching a tv feed of people out in the field doing stuff you can't contribute to. It really was a sort of emotional and psychological punishment, a particularly harsh one at that, given that she still had on the bracelet.

It could even seem like not only is she being punished by having the bracelet on indefinately and having to work "a long way to go to Level 1", and earning the bracelet being removed, she is now in a situation where her punishment can be added to, in harsh and isolating ways, at any point with no notice whatsoever. After all, Coulson did say that 'sometimes our actions have unpleasant consequences'. Those consequences are usually foreseeable with a foreseeable end. Or at least a concrete series of things that will lead to a foreseeable end.

It's remarkable that Skye takes her exclusion from the mission so well and agrees with, or at least faces up and acquiesces to, these new consequences for her earlier betrayal. She could easily have been much more hurt and upset and less mature about the whole thing and while Coulson privately gives her credit for that, he doesn't actually tell her how well she's doing. And he certainly doesn't make clear that, while, her exclusion is a natural consequence of her actions, that he doesn't want to be harsh, this isn't another/additional punishment and is really as much about protecting her from SHIELD as anything.

So of course finding out Ward is 'guarding her' is the final straw and she assumes the worst and goes off to 'prove herself' by 'taking one for the team'. The last time she did something similar and directly disobeyed Coulson (and roped Jemma into helping her commit a court-marshal-worthy offense no less), her actions ended up saving Ward and Fitz' lives and she was never reprimanded.

And her misunderstanding and acting out could have been avoided if Coulson had A. told her explicitly that she was the target/he was protecting her and B. told her that he was assigning Ward to stick close to her for her own protection and to give her something to do/help her focus on her training in lieu of participating in the mission.

I'm waiting for all of the above to come back and bite Coulson. Because he may not be actively manipulating Skye's issues to 'leverage her as an asset', but she is ripe for others to do so.

Coulson told her that they 'would be' ok, which she was, very luckily for him, resilient enough and emotionally adept enough to see as a positive sign that things were essentially now, already, ok between them. Whereas I imagine most people, let alone a person with Skye's background, would have trouble reading what he said as unambiguously positive, and be waiting for him to later tell them that the two of them, were, in fact, 'ok now', or feel as if, they had to work extra hard/be particularly good so that he would give them the 'ok, I trust you again, we're all good' signal.

All of which is to say that your character and relationship arc building is excellent and I think you've already set yourself up for a sequel, should you choose to pursue one . . .

Shot'