Strip-searched by the Rising Tide

Skye hadn't been with SHIELD long; there was still tension, mutual wariness. The fact she was fresh out of a hacktivist group that made it its business to make life hard for SHIELD didn't help matters.

What was that cliche? Trust but verify; that was their relationship. Coulson wanted to trust her, but he wasn't going to be stupid about it. And honestly she wasn't entirely sure which way she'd fall if she was to choose between SHIELD and the Rising Tide.

She didn't have too much time to herself. Along with all the usual paranoia, she was barely out of Ward's or Coulson's sight. There were just the occasional few seconds-

And almost perfectly timed, in one of the few moments of the day where she could relax and not feel constantly like she was being watched, a black van barrelled down the street. She barely had time to turn to face it before two masked strangers burst out, grabbed her, and pulled her into the back. The van was speeding away before one of them had even slammed the door shut.

"Hey- hey!" Skye kicked. She almost started shouting before one of her kidnappers pulled his mask off; she froze.

Ok. No, this wasn't a . She knew him from the Rising Tide, screen name Starr. She breathed a sigh of relief, beginning to relax. They wouldn't hurt her.

Quickly though, he pulled a placard from the side of the van: 'SAY NOTHING. POTENTIAL WIRE.'

Eyes widening, Skye nodded. It wouldn't do to go spilling her former colleagues' identities to any listening agencies, like SHIELD could well have been. Trust but verify; she wouldn't have been surprised to know they were watching her. SHIELD weren't quite the monsters she'd thought they were before she'd gotten in, but she was still wary.

The van kept going for who knew how long. She knew enough to say it wouldn't be taking a straight path to its destination, trying to give wildly misleading sounds to eavesdroppers.

When the van came to a stop, she was pushed as much as she ran into what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Well, she'd been living out of her van when she'd been with the Rising Tide, flashy buildings might've been too much to ask for.

Thought apparently more work had been done. She was hurried through the warehouse, and then to what looked like a pile of junk; instead, said junk concealed a route down to the basement. Down there, she passed rows and rows of hard drives and computer tech, and past that...

There was a much plainer room, with a glass wall separating it from the main body of the basement. Skye hesitated, stumbling in.

"What-" she said.

"Shush," Starr said brusquely. "You've been with SHIELD for weeks. That company doesn't exactly inspired us. Arms up."

A search, right. She should have expected that; Skye sighed, then lifted her arms up into a T.

A woman she didn't recognise, taking her mask off, approached to pat Skye down. She ran her hands down Skye's side, feeling for any irregularities, then down the outside of her legs, up the inside-

And then with no warning yanked her jeans down. Skye jumped, trying to pull away but instead stumbling and with a yelp falling to the floor for long enough for the woman to pull them away.

"Hey, what-" Skye began.

"SHIELD," Starr said again. "You think they'd be using bulky, police issue wires? We've heard rumours they have masks that can make you look like someone else, completely realistically. Threading a wire into fabric's the least of what I'd expect. Now your top."

"I'm not-" Skye said, then faltered.

It was the Rising Tide. She couldn't blame them for being wary; she might well be bugged, for all she knew. But was the only way around that really to...

It wasn't like they had any tech that could detect theoretical SHIELD bugs. Far too conscious of the trio of hacktivists staring at her, Skye hastily pulled her top off over her head, nervously throwing it across.

She was left there, standing awkwardly in just her bra and panties. They were mismatched too, a beige bra with white panties; it wasn't like she'd exactly planned to be strip-searched today.

"Happy?" Skye said. "Can we talk yet?"