Def. spoilers in comments. Read at your own risk.

[yisheng]

...You are that sure about her that you're willing to practically stamp it on your forehead?

[He leans back in his chair]

I can't decide if I'm impressed or disgusted.

[Tilting his head back he considers this before shrugging] ...No. It's a mixture of both. Im...gusted. Dispressed. I like that. We'll go with that. Dispressed.

[His smile is wide] Risking ridicule and embarrassment not to mention shame all because of one particular note. [He savors it] In one particular place.

[He shrugs then. Sitting up and slapping his hands on his knees.] All right. I have a few conditions...

No? I don't get conditions?

Have fun making an ass of yourself then. [Huff.] And don't blame me if I refuse to talk to any sudden daughter clones that show up.

I mean you only have one icon of me kid, talk about the worst first impression ever. [not to mention, everything else about this post but his mun is so sure about certain things that he had to make sarcastic remarks about it.]

Comments

[busdriver]

It wouldn't be your first impression. You only get one.

[Cold voice and an implicit challenge in her body language.

He's already met Dad. Here's Mom.]

[yisheng]

Aren't I glad then, that my baby isn't here? [There's an emphasis on that.]

[busdriver]

[Considering he already blew it, she's not sure what kind of difference it would make if Skye were here.]

医生. That's cute. [But it's not what she's inclined to call him. They've been throwing the word murderer around.]

What do you think you can give her?

[yisheng]

[Skye's opinion is the one that matters. He raises an eyebrow at her, hands crossing over his chest before he puts them in his pockets. Nervous energy is everywhere.]

Answers.

Truth.

Absolute unconditional love. I delivered her. I held her in my arms I brought her into this world-

[He flinches, looking away] I'm cool. I'm cool. No problem.

[busdriver]

[His agitation is noted. He flinches, she doesn't. He's volatile, capable of wrath, but who in their right mind would say that she isn't? He might've brought Skye into the world. He's not the one who's been teaching her how to survive in it.]

Ever think she might not want your truth?

[Has he entertained the possibility that he's too late on the scene? That all the answers Skye's spent her whole life searching for might be less important, now, than the person she chooses to be?

May's counting on it.]

[yisheng]

I have a right to tell her. At least. To give her another option. To help her make up her mind and to show her...things.

It's my-It's my fault I lost her but I won't again. Do you see?

[He tugs a hand through his hair] She may care about all of you but her mother...

God her mother.

[He looks burdened. Quiet.]

I loved her mother so much. And her. The day she told me we were going to have a baby was the happiest day of my life.

[busdriver]

[She thinks Coulson could have made a great father, if his priorities had been different. If he'd known how to give a little less to the world, and keep a little more for himself. If he'd taken as many personal days as he possibly could, and let himself spend more time with a woman like Audrey. It wouldn't have been the most natural thing to him, but he would've found a balance like he always does, and he would've been great.

But May? She's no substitute for a loving mother. She can't compete with that. Over a long period of time, she wouldn't even do well copycatting what her own mother did, what her own mother still does.

Up until now, no one's said anything about Skye's mom that wasn't baseless speculation. Suddenly, she's less of an abstract concept. May's chest feels tight. He gets more emotional, more involved, and she withdraws and closes the metaphorical blinds. She's just the S.O.

Even if not, even if she's just the S.O. in the same way she used to be just the pilot (an ostensible fact that unravels under close examination), she's SHIELD first. He's not a civilian. They're not a family of civilians. He's a criminal, and his daughter is a qualified field agent.

But he did ask if she could see, and she does in a sense.]

You believe what you're saying.

[yisheng]

[He straightens, looking back at her.]

Mr. Ward talked about all of you. He said you took care of her. That you loved her. That's nice. [His nod is slow]

But I'm her father. and I deserve a chance to try.

[busdriver]

[She's closer now, alertness in the hard lines of her body. She's ready, whether it's to defend herself or to move against him. It's understood that taking him into SHIELD custody wouldn't really pay off around here.

Her neutrality slips at the mention of Ward, but she's still almost inscrutable. They weren't gentle with each other, May and Ward. They're both cut from the same cloth, black kevlar. They didn't hold back. Those memories make her doubt his ability to be gentle at all, combined with everything he's done since. It all makes her seriously question his restraint. May's experienced enough to know what she wants from a lover, how to make sure she gets it. She can't say whether that's also true of Skye. She can't know what Ward would or wouldn't do.

Her lips part and press.]

Ward thinks he knows a lot.

[She tries to hold eye contact, cast-iron certainty in her voice:]

You can't trust him with your daughter.

[A good father wouldn't, so what kind of father does he want to be?]

[yisheng]

Oh I know.

[His smile is bright.] See I don't like a man who doesn't know where he's coming from, or someone who's as unhealthily fixated on another human being.

[pause] I admit I have a problem. To myself and to other people but that's because I openly embrace my trauma. What if you'd found your lover Coulson ripped apart? -

[He needs to take a second after that. Bad memories are a bad idea. Folding his hands behind him he shrugs]

the boy's a half-cocked jarhead with no original thought in his body but taking care of Skye.

...Once that's done.

[He shrugs. This is pure speculation on his mun's part but honestly, would HYDRA trust agent ward again? Would Skye's dad? mun bets no.]

Months or years. Trust me. He won't be a problem for any of you ever again.

[His smile would probably make babies cry.]

But I need my family. And you make friends to get them.

[busdriver]

Coulson died once already. I'm his second-in-command.

[Maybe she shouldn't have wasted time correcting him. She wanted to. Her tone's flat, something close to objective, as though if she found Coulson savagely cut open and hollowed out, it would be wrong and he wouldn't deserve it—no one would—but it wouldn't hurt her. She's lying about that. It's a lie she's telling with that voice and with her whole body. It feels worse to see pain in Phil than to put up with it herself.

She knows what it's like to lose someone and to feel less a part of the world because of it. Grief has a way of disconnecting a person. That's personal, and getting personal isn't exactly her first choice of interrogation technique. She watches him try to compose himself after the outburst. It gives him some of the time he needs to say what he does. His bad intel, or whatever that was, means it takes her longer than it should to process what he's saying. He talks a lot. If she weren't deliberately looking for information, that'd be a criticism.

It's jarring to think what his worst memories must be, to think what he'd see if he held the Berserker staff. The last thing he needs is more negative power and more anger than he's already got. She might not have the most sympathy for him, but her concept of justice and her sense of duty are both unyielding. It gives her that needling feeling that she's supposed to do something to make all of this right; all of it.]

That's what happened to you? To her?

[He can take those questions to mean she doesn't already know the answers (which would have to mean that she couldn't infer them) or he can interpret it as a prompt to provide more information. It's probably the latter. Either way, she's not helping him to push the unwelcome memory back from the forefront of his thoughts. Her feet are planted shoulder-width apart. A vague threat, even made against Ward, doesn't impress her.]

Nothing else matters? Just your family reunion?

[anecdoting]

Luckily for you, no one around here is the ridicule type. That'd make most of them hypocrites. There's no shame in it: being sure of something, liking a theory and seeing how far you can go with it. We've all done it, they've all done it. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong.

[He shrugs, flippant. He'd put his feet up if there was a place for that. Who's dangerous? It's just a casual conversation.]

If you want to fish, I'll bite.

[yisheng]

[Well hey there.]

You know for all the dad jokes...I'm not really much of a fisherman. With people that people who I don't like trust.

I mean what can you offer?

[anecdoting]

You've never caught something this big? [Hands spreading wider and wider. That's about as far as he can take the fishing thing. It's all easy fun.]

Trust is a strong word. Being trusted doesn't necessarily make me trustworthy, does it? I heard a rumor that I'm a self-interested bastard.

[And he'd dare anyone to disprove it.]

Hard to know what I've got for you, without knowing what you want.

[yisheng]

...Not really no.

Hunting yes. Fishing no, that was...

[His wife's passion really.]

Why should I? I've got someone who knew all of you. Former agent ward.

[anecdoting]

[He clucks his tongue, all of once, faintly hopeful that he might have an in.]

But former agent Grant "C-4" Ward doesn't know me, Doc. Not me or my old lady.

[She would be so angry if she heard him call her that.]

[yisheng]

A married spy. Isn't that interesting.

[And suspicious. Highly suspicious. Terribly suspicious.] Here's a tip. If she ever heard you call her that you'll probably end up sleeping outside for the rest of the week.

[He shrugs] Least I did.

[anecdoting]

Divorced. [It means nothing, judging from his dismissive tone.] It's Complicated on Facebook.

What was she like? When she wasn't shutting the door in your face over some stupid thing you made the mistake of saying.

[yisheng]

[He gets wistful. He looks...in love.]

Gentle.

Loving.

....Ever see Beauty and the Beast? We were like that.

[anecdoting]

[He nods, solemn, showing some respect to the moment and the honesty of it. The only thing he can really think to do with that information is to draw a comparison of his own:]

Star Wars. Han and Leia. Not that I'm eager to touch the Diviner and go all carbonite.

[yisheng]

[He raises an eyebrow at that] Well you never know. I mean - [He tilts his head and studies him before shrugging]

Some people can. And some people can't. It's like watching PBS. Some people can. Some people writhe in agony and die horribly.

[He grins]

[anecdoting]

[His expression's mirthless.]

Yeah, I've seen it.

[He doesn't mean PBS.

It's uncharacteristically concise of him.]

[yisheng]

When you see what it can do when it's opened and in the temple?

[He beams] It's magic.

[anecdoting]

[His mundane has theories so concrete that they might as well not be theories. All he knows, though, is that he doesn't want an extinction-level event or a transformative experience of any kind.]

We see enough whatthefuckery in the ordinary, day-to-day run of SHIELD. None of us are keen.

Don't count on it, basically.

i am 100% a dick.

[tsetsang]

[It isn't just daughter clones that he has to worry about.

Priya's mun has been trying to get her over here for hours, and she knows just enough to want to head back the opposite way. She doesn't care what kind of anger management issues he's got, he doesn't deserve the senseless pain her mun's trying to cause him. This is a really, really sick idea of a joke.

And she's not gonna help any more than she has to. She wants to make it clear right away that she isn't whoever.]

I'm sorry. No, actually, I'm really sorry. [She's also really Australian.] I'm trying to leave.

I love you oh my god

[yisheng]

[He's a bit oblivious maybe, examining his shoes, studying his hands and then she's there.

And he's suddenly back - years ago, decades ago. She'd been missing for days before he'd finally tracked HYDRA to their lair and held her body and her organs slipping out - what was left.

His hands clench and unclench. His teeth bare and he looks back at her and then away. He mutters something, My love in Chinese before he looks away.]

I know.

I-

You're not dead. [There's a sad barely contained laugh]

[tsetsang]

[With the exception of her kid, who she's been teaching, no one's spoken to her in anything but English for years. Well, actually, they probably have, but the memories are gone.

Growing up, there was more than one Sino-Tibetan language at home, and if she's not at native fluency then she at least picked a lot up. She's visited her extended family. She's traveled to a lot of places. Nepal, Tibet, homes that aren't home. She's been to China technically, geographically, but it's kind of an uncomfortable technicality. She heard him mutter the sort of ai sound that means love. Mandarin was never her strength.

She's had bad experiences with doctors; not as bad, but pretty bad. He should be making her nervous. He seems unhinged. More than that though, he seems anguished. It's hard to be afraid of that. She frowns.]

I'm not. [Dead, or the right woman. Take your pick.

She looks thin, undernourished and tired. Dressed like it was afterthought, hurried together in circumstances where it wouldn't matter. If he's going to compare, then there's too much blonde in her hair. It's probably just dye, but still.]

My name is Priya.

[yisheng]

...All I thought that I had to worry about was... [His mouth twists] My baby. And that ridiculous name she's picked out for herself. Skye.

[He rubs his hands over his eyes before looking back at her] Are you okay?

[tsetsang]

[Guess which part her mundane didn't mention when she shoved Priya over here?]

You have a baby? I have a baby too.

[If he's saying what she thinks, she can relate. Anthony isn't keen on Anthony, or Tony really.]

Hey, you can name them whatever you like. They're all still gonna go through the I-want-a-nickname phase.

[She helped to fight a war against a corporation-cult of bodysnatchers. She survived the collapse of civilization. She's not okay. None of them are really okay, but unlike Skye's father, her family is still intact. They made it. The worst is over, and they can rebuild together.

She takes a step closer, looking sympathetic. He still seems so stricken.]

I... I think I should ask if you're okay.

[yisheng]

[He smiles. It's chilling. Grim and chilling.] I have someone bringing me my daughter.

I'll be better when I've had a chance to talk to her.

...her name is beautiful though. I hope she choses to embrace it.

[tsetsang]

[She tucks some hair behind her ear. His smile isn't nice, but it's what he said first thing that got her attention.]

Someone's bringing her? She's not usually with you?

[yisheng]

No. [Fire and blood and everything that happened to that town. He stares at her and shakes his head.

He's not doing this.]

The man'll help.

[tsetsang]

I hate being away from my son. I get more scared than he does.

[He's not old enough to know how much there is to be afraid of.

The pressure of the stare made her turn her head away. She looks back.]

What man?

[madman_in_abox]

I'm just curious, as you've got the same name as me. [Not many people do.]

[battleshipping]

You already made that worst first impression ever.

[yisheng]

...I was talking about her, honey but given that her prediction turned out to be right... [He shrugs. Then swallows]

I fail to see how.