My first go at an Agent's of SHIELD story. It's been a while since I've tackled the world of fanfiction, so I'm anxious to know what you think. Review it or not, but either way, I hope you enjoy my little story!

Minor mention of Season One, Episode Three: The Asset. Not much of a spoiler, though. Decent spoiler for The Avengers, but then, this entire show is a spoiler for The Avengers. So I'm not too worried about that. Skye is still very new to the team here, so you could figure this story takes place sometime shortly after The Asset.

Okay, deep breath in...deep breath out...here we go!

"Which pocket?" Simmons asked, dangling the field pack from its handle and rotating it back and forth, examining the many pouches and zippers.

"Front," came Fitz' absent-minded reply. He was bent over his magnifying glass, meticulously trying to apply one tiny piece of machinery to another. His hands were perfectly calm as he manipulated the tweezers.

Simmons opened the pocket and reached inside, casting a worried glance over her shoulder at the vial. It continued to steam, and the fumes coming off of it were already starting to turn a soft shade of green. She dug around the pocket impatiently and finally huffed in frustration. "It's not in here," she said.

"I said, 'front pocket,'" Fitz restated, not looking up from his project.

"Fitz! How many front pockets do you think there are? I looked in the front pocket, and the key's not there! Where did you have it last?"

Fitz rolled his eyes and sighed as he gingerly set down his tweezers and walked over to Simmons. "I had it last in this pocket. Exactly as I said," he snapped, jerking the field pack away from his partner and reaching his hand into the front pocket.

Simmons just crossed her arms expectantly.

Fitz' brows lowered in confusion. "Well...where is it?" he said to himself, holding the pocket open and looking inside. He started pulling several small items out from the pack and placing them on the silver worktable.

Simmons smirked in satisfaction as Fitz struggled to find the key. Then, remembering her plight, she looked over at the vial again. "Oh, Fitz!" she exclaimed, rushing over to her work station in a worried fit. "This material is highly unstable. The reactor charge to the hydraulic equilibrium is much too over-stimulated. It needs a pacifier substance, now. Where is the key to the cabinet?"

"I don't know," Fitz responded in earnest, emptying every pocket in his field pack. "It was here just the other day!"

Skye, who had been keeping quiet on the other side of the room, looked up from her laptop when she heard the voices around her grow in desperation. Also, hearing Simmons ask for a pacifier for her experiment put pictures of vials and beakers sucking on baby pacifiers in Skye's head, which made her laugh a little on the inside.

"What's going on?" the hactivist asked.

The two scientists ignored the question and continued to search for a solution.

"Maybe it's in your trouser pockets."

"Wouldn't be in these ones," Fitz said as he checked his pockets anyway. "I haven't been in the chemical cabinet all day."

Simmons looked back at the vial. It was starting to foam now. She turned the heater to the off position. She hated cutting off the experiment that way, but she wasn't willing to risk having the substance overflow. Turning off the heat might not actually keep that from happening, but it might slow the process at least. "Quickly, Fitz. Think!"

"I am thinking!" the Scotsman said, beginning to pace back and forth in the laboratory, clutching his head with both hands.

"Is there not a spare key somewhere?" Skye offered.

"Yes!" Fitz spun around and pointed directly at her. "Agent Coulson. He has-"

"-a master key," Simmons finished. "Brilliant! It opens everything on this bus. It should be in his desk. Fitz!"

But he was already headed for the door. "Right," he said, "on it!"

Just then, the bus hit some turbulence and jostled everyone slightly. Fitz practically dove towards his worktable to keep his machinery from falling off and scattering across the floor.

Skye took that as her cue. "No, I'm on it," she said, putting her laptop down and hastening towards the door.

"Thank you, Skye!" Simmons called. "And hurry!"

Skye took the stairs heading up to Coulson's office two at a time. She did stop at the door and gave a few fervent knocks, just in case he was inside. When she didn't receive an answer, she just went in.

The office was empty. She had been in that room only twice before, and the first time, she didn't even get to go in all the way. The elegant design and soft lighting made the room feel cold and inviting at the same time. Hesitantly, she walked fully into the room. She felt like a kid breaking into her high school principal's office, like Coulson was going to come in any minute and suspend her or something.

But she also remembered how desperate FitzSimmons were to have that key, so she quickly made her way to the large wooden desk at the back of the room. Stubbing her toe slightly on the edge of the desk, she cursed quietly and fell into the chair, almost knocking over Coulson's aircraft model in the process. She straightened a few of the items she had disturbed and quietly started rummaging through the desk.

When she opened the second drawer, she halted with a quiet gasp. A few small objects came sliding forward to the front of the drawer, one of which was the ring of keys. But that wasn't what had shocked her.

Slowly, timidly, she reached into the desk and pulled out a small, black, velvet box.

She turned it over in her hands, examining it, wondering if it might not be what she obviously thought it was, wondering if she could resist the urge to open it and find out.

She couldn't.

Glancing up at the door to make sure the coast was clear, Skye silently cracked open the box. Again, her breath caught in her throat when she saw the ring inside. It was a beautiful, princess cut diamond, resting in a four-pronged white-gold setting. The band was simple apart from a delicate braiding that reached up to cradle the precious stone. The diamond was radiant and colorless, casting a shimmering reflection of light across Skye's neck. It was simple yet exquisite, and probably cost Agent Coulson a pretty penny.

With that thought, Skye snapped the box closed again. A sickening feeling crawled around in her stomach as she suddenly felt like she had just read someone's diary. She had just snooped into what was probably Coulson's most privately intimate possession on this plane, and the resulting sensation was one of guilt and regret.

She carefully put the box back in the drawer, retrieved the keys, and then returned the desk to the way she had found it. But even as she handed the keys to a grateful Simmons a few moments later, she couldn't shake the image of that gorgeous ring from her mind.

It wasn't until a few days later that Skye realized what bothered her so much about seeing the ring. It wasn't just the fact that she felt guilty and had a hard time looking Coulson in the face after that. It also brought to mind something Ian Quinn had said while she was undercover at his party. He said that SHIELD targeted recruits who were unconnected, alone and without families to tie them down. If that were true, then it seemed a little hypocritical for one of their top agents to be pursuing marital bliss with some mystery bride.

Skye herself never really had much of a family, but that wasn't really to say that she never wanted one. Underneath that tough, I-can-do-anything exterior of a rogue computer hacker who was used to lonely nights in a crummy van, there was still a part of Skye that liked the idea of a strong husband and a few adorable children. If SHIELD was interested in cutting that kind of life off for their subordinate personnel, then maybe she should rethink her dedication to joining this little group.

"What does SHIELD policy say about family?" she asked suddenly. The question had been plaguing her for the past several days and she was ready for a solid answer. Since the whole team happened to be assembled in the eating quarters for a rare moment, she thought now would be the perfect time to ask.

Ward looked up from his reading with a cocked eyebrow. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean: what does SHIELD think about their agents getting married and having kids and stuff like that." She looked discretely over at Coulson as she asked the question, but the senior agent didn't seem to flinch as he spread some peanut butter onto a piece of toast.

Ward, on the other hand, looked caught off guard and more than a little uncomfortable by the mention of marriage and children. "It's generally discouraged, but not totally forbidden," he said simply.

"But why's it discouraged at all? Seems kind of harmless to me," she said, glancing over at Fitz and Simmons for moral support. But the two scientists stayed silent.

Agent Malinda May spoke up as she sat down, "Having emotional connections to something like a family is a huge liability for an agent. Bullets and punches are only a few of the ways our enemies try to take us down. Hostiles love to target the innocent, especially when those innocents are the loved-ones of an operative. Even when a physical injury won't be able to ground an agent, emotional and psychological injuries incurred from the death of a family member can often take someone out of the field. Our enemies know this."

"Not to mention," Ward added, "opening yourself up for romantic connections is the easiest way to be compromised as an agent. The first strategy in any covert take-down is always to form a personal connection with your target. Every agent is on high alert when on the job, but on a date, those defenses fall a lot more easily. You'd be surprised how many good agents have been compromised because they got involved with the wrong person. As 'harmless' as they may seem, you never know who you can trust."

"So, what," Skye replied, "there's some sort of celibacy clause in the fine print of SHIELD recruitment forms? Families are just off limits?"

"Like I said, it's not official, but it's discouraged."

"Well, it sounds more like a monastery than a government organization," she said, clearly unhappy with this answer.

"They're right, though," Coulson finally said. "We operate in a very dangerous and high profile environment on a daily basis. Having a family complicates that and puts an agent's own emotional stability as risk. If you want to be a SHILED agent, it's a factor you need to consider. This life isn't very compatible with dating and marriage."

Skye couldn't help but scoff, "Says the man who's about to propose." The words were out of her mouth before she even realized they left her head. As if in a choreographed movement, five pairs of eyebrows leapt towards the ceiling. Slowly, Ward, May, and FitzSimmons all looked from the hacker over to their commanding officer. Skye flung her own hand over her mouth in shock.

Coulson merely squinted at her in confusion. "What?" he asked, ignoring the stunned expressions coming at him from his entire team.

Skye sighed, clearly needing to offer some sort of explanation. She knew 'never mind' wouldn't cut it at this point. "The other day," she began sheepishly, "FitzSimmons needed a key out of your desk, so I went to go find it."

It took a second, and Coulson glanced away slightly in thought; but just a whisper of a moment later, realization dawned on Coulson's features and he suddenly snapped his attention back onto Skye. The shock was evident on his face.

"I found a ring in your desk drawer," she went on. It was mostly just to clarify for the others in the room, because the look in Coulson's eyes told Skye he already knew exactly what she had seen.

The muscles in Coulson's jaw clenched and he looked away from the group suddenly, standing to take his recently used butter knife to the sink. He turned on the water and started scrubbing the peanut butter from the blade.

"It looked like an engagement ring."

Coulson turned his head slightly in acknowledgement of Skye's words, but he didn't turn around. Not yet. He just kept scrubbing, clearly buying time before he would have to answer her accusation. Everyone else waited quietly and watched the peculiar actions of their leader. When the knife was washed, dried, and put away in its drawer, Coulson finally turned around to face his team again.

He placed both hands on the cool surface of the table and sighed. "You should have asked me for the key," he said quietly, "I could have gotten it for you."

Skye grimaced at the soft tone of defeat and sadness in his voice. She should have never opened that drawer. Any explosion that happened in the lab would have been worth it if it meant that Coulson wouldn't be looking at her with those cool, disappointed eyes right now. "I'm really sorry," she said at last, meaning every word of it.

Again, Coulson sighed as he retook his seat, shoving the plate of toast gently away. "What you saw was, in fact, an engagement ring. I do not, however, have any intention of proposing with it anytime soon. It's..." his brow furrowed, "Well...it's something of a leftover. From a past relationship."

"You guys broke up?" Skye found herself asking. She glanced over at Ward and received a silent shake of the head, the kind that meant 'quit while you're ahead, kid.'

But Coulson didn't seem to balk at the question. "Not exactly. Things were good." A small smile tugged at his lips from the memory. "They were very good, in fact. And I think she would have married me when I asked her. I had the night all planned out." Something happened then, and Coulson's gaze was taken somewhere far away.

No one budged. No one breathed. They let the silence draw out as long as Coulson needed it to. They waited while that unspoken memory flashed before his eyes like an old film reel. The whole team wanted to know what had happened, how it had all been ruined; but the look from Ward had effectively shut their mouth-piece. So everyone simply waited in silence, seeing if Coulson would continue on his own.

He did.

When he was able to pull himself free from whatever rapturous memory had taken him, Coulson glanced around the room. "Then work called me away. Code Orange with Project Pegasus, which escalated quickly," he said simply. "And, well..." Coulson looked at Skye with a sad smile. "She wasn't level seven."

"Wait, so..." surprisingly, this interjection came from Ward. "She still thinks you're dead?"

Coulson nodded. "She has to. She's a civilian and wasn't cleared to know about most of what my job entailed. There were a lot of people who died during the Battle of New York and, as far as she's concerned, I was one of them. After my recovery, SHIELD couldn't stand the risk that news of my survival might make it back to the Avengers or anyone else without the clearance to know, so I was reassigned to a mobile operation that would keep me moving and away from ties to the past."

Skye shook her head in disbelief. "But, that's not fair. You haven't been allowed to see her to talk to her or anything? She still has no idea?"

Coulson offered another sad smile. "Being with her now is more dangerous than it used to be. We would never be able to go back to the way things were before I was wounded. It's better for her if she just thinks I'm gone."

Coulson paused for a long time and his jaw clenched again. For a second, Skye wondered if he might actually cry. But after taking a few moments to compose himself, Coulson finished. "I'd rather know she's moving on with her life than imagine her constantly waiting for me to come home. Especially since I know that can never happen... It's for the best."

The last four words were delivered with more of a tremor in his voice than Coulson would have liked. He grabbed the, now cold, piece of toast and stood from the table. He couldn't stay there any longer. He needed to get out from under the melancholy gazes of his team. He needed to be alone.

"So, in my experience, Skye," he said before exiting, "love is a risky game to play in this line of work. You have to measure the pain against the joy. Decide if it's worth it."

Coulson walked around the table and started heading out the door. All the remaining team members were left motionless and in deep thought. Their chief officer had never been so vulnerable with them before, never shared anything so private. They were both honored that he would be so free with them, and somber at what he had shared. Everyone felt they ought to say something to him, but no one had words they could say. No one, that is, except for Skye.

Right before the senior agent was totally gone, Skye asked, "So is it?"

Agent Coulson halted in the doorway.

Skye turned in her seat to look at the agent's hung head and tense shoulders. "Is it worth it?"

A moment ticked by. Coulson sighed once more and then lifted his head. Without a word, he simply walked forward and let the door swing silently closed behind him.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a review!

Author's Note: credits for the image used in the cover photo go to The Pioneer Woman, aka Ree.

Another Author's Note: I am, in no way, a science person. So Simmons' jargon in this story is entirely made up and, if it sounds ridiculous, I'm really sorry.