Chapter Text
“Remind me again why we are dealing with a dictator?”
Skye sounded outraged. Coulson sighed and looked at her. How was everything still so black and white to Skye? he wondered. After everything she’s seen, everything she’s been through…
“Skye, there are dictators and then there are dictators. Victor von Doom may be an absolute monarch, but he’s no Mugabe. Latveria was an impoverished Baltic nation fighting to keep from being swallowed up by its neighbours when Doom ascended the throne. Today, Latverians have the highest standard of living of any nation on Earth.”
“And closed borders,” Skye snapped back. “No immigration or emigration.”
“Again not strictly true. Doom is just very, very picky about who he allows citizenship to. Productive members of society only. Unemployment is less than one per cent, and those who are disadvantaged or handicapped are assisted. Frankly, if I was Latverian? I wouldn’t want to emigrate.”
“Humph,” Skye muttered. “I still think it’s wrong. All those people living in luxury…”
“Skye, ten years ago all those people were starving to death! I was in Latveria once, back in ’96, I think it was…” Phil shook his head. “A more miserable hellhole I’ve never seen. Doom has worked miracles. And he says he’s willing to provide S.H.I.E.L.D. with a safe haven on European soil, and bankroll our operations. He believes in what we’re doing and he hates HYDRA. So please. Mind your manners.”
“Am I still allowed to think he’s an asshole?” Skye muttered angrily.
“Plenty of people do, I believe,” a smooth, deep voice said behind her, making her jump and let out a shocked scream, fumbling for the weapon she’d had to surrender before entering the receiving hall. She whirled, trying to strike out, but two large hands suddenly had hold of her wrists, holding her still.
“Looks like your boss isn’t the only asshole around here!” she snapped at the tall, dark, handsome man before her. He reminded her of Ward, a little, though he was probably a few years older. And even better-looking, his beautifully symmetrical features only accentuated by a tiny scar on one cheek.
Dark brows angled downwards over striking blue eyes. For a long moment they stared at each other, and then he looked at Coulson.
“Would you care to enlighten her, Director?”
“Skye,” Coulson said rather nervously, “you’ve just insulted the President of Latveria. Twice. And attempted to assault him. Please stand down.”
“Get away from me,” Skye snapped, ignoring Coulson completely. “Let go of me!”
“And why should I do that?” Those mobile dark brows arched, and he smiled slowly. “I think you’re the first person ever to think anyone might be my ‘boss’, and quite probably the last. So are you going to show me the words, or am I going to have to make you?”
“No,” Skye gasped out, struggling against his grip. Too spooked to even think about using her power against him – not that she would dare, she’d never tried it against another human being and it might just kill him and…
“No! I don’t want you, you stand for everything I hate!”
“So did S.H.I.E.L.D., once,” Phil murmured, watching with fascination as he realised what was happening. As Doom’s sleeve slid up his forearm with Skye’s struggles, revealing a line of words around his wrist in her spiky handwriting. “I really am going to have to ask you to let her go, Mr. President.”
He let her struggle for a moment longer, just long enough to make it quite clear that she couldn’t get away if he didn’t want her to. And then he let go, and surprised Skye by making a small bow to her.
“That, I believe, was the very definition of a bad beginning, and I hope you won’t hold it against me. Good day. I am Victor von Doom. It’s nice to meet you.”
Skye looked down at the hand he held out to her, that large, powerful hand that had gripped like steel around her wrist. Looked up into those startlingly blue eyes.
“This is Agent Skye, sir,” Phil said quietly when she couldn’t find her voice. She did manage to raise her hand to shake his, and was stunned again when he lifted it to his lips in an old-fashioned courtesy. The slight brush of his lips against her knuckles sent a shiver down her spine.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Victor said courteously, his eyes locked with the dark gaze of the slight woman who held the missing half of his soul. And who apparently hated his guts.
“Um,” Skye said helplessly, for once utterly lost for words. “Hi.”
She heard Phil choke next to her, and then Doom turned to Coulson with a charming smile.
“Director, I do apologise for any inconvenience, but I’m sure you understand I’ve been rather thrown a curveball here.”
YOU’VE been thrown a curveball!
Phil was nodding, though, the traitorous bastard, and smiling. “Yes, sir, I do understand. Perhaps you’d like me to go and sit, um, over there?” He gestured to the very far end of the extremely large and opulent reception room they’d been shown into. Doom nodded and smiled back, so he headed off, choosing a seat right in the corner where he could still see them but wouldn’t hear their conversation. Not unless Skye started screaming, anyway.
“This is weird,” Skye finally found her voice. “How are you my soulmate? You’re a, a, a…” she couldn’t quite come up with the word.
“Please don’t say super-villain, it’s so cliché,” he sighed.
“Monarch!”
“And you’re an anti-establishment anarchist. Or you were,” he arched his eyebrows at her. “You changed your mind about S.H.I.E.L.D., Skye. Give me a chance to make you change your mind about me, too.”
He was still, somehow, holding onto the hand he’d kissed. He lifted it back to his lips, brushed them over her knuckles again, and smiled into her eyes.
“I think we could achieve great things together.”
**A/N:Okay, now we’re getting into my portion of the fic. I hope you enjoy it—as always, please comment!**
“I think we could achieve great things together.”
Skye felt her blood run cold with that statement, along with the acquisitive look in his eye. She was really, really done with being some power-hungry man’s idea of the perfect woman. First Miles, then Ward, even her psychopath father thought she was everything he needed to complete his crazy plans. She tugged on the hand he still held, and he frowned slightly as he released it. A very small, rebellious part of her did not like making him frown—and that irrational reaction to his displeasure absolutely terrified her. She had to make her own decisions, not worry about how a stranger was feeling—soulmate or no soulmate.
Skye took a deliberate step back—oh, that was better, the air was a bit easier to breathe farther away from him, and taking a restorative breath, she looked back into the wintry blue of his eyes. “I’m already achieving great things with S.H.I.E.L.D., with my team, thanks all the same.”
Victor had to fight very hard not to smirk. He did so enjoy a woman who knew her own mind—especially when she was practically begging him to change it. His agile mind drifted for a moment on what else he could make her beg for. The spark in those lovely dark eyes might as well have been a red flag in front of a bull. Challenge accepted, he mused as he decided it was to his best advantage to make a strategic retreat. It wasn’t like she could go far—he ran the damn country. Maybe it was time to remind her of that.
“Of course,” Victor nodded a vague dismissal in her direction while purposefully diverting his attention to Coulson. He could practically hear the little vixen seethe as he disregarded her. “Director, welcome to Latveria. I have other matters to attend to at present, but you and your associates are invited to stay here in the manse until we find other, more appropriate, accommodations for you.”
Phil walked forward and stuck out his hand in a very American gesture, “Thank you, Mr. President. It’s nice to have a home base again.”
“My pleasure,” Victor shook Coulson’s hand and barely resisted looking toward his tempting little soulmate again—pleasure, indeed. He began to exit, but paused at the door and locked eyes with Skye. Amazing, he could physically feel his body’s urge to walk back to her; it was like a silken cord tying them together. “After all,” he practically purred, “we’re all on the same team now, aren’t we?” On that last thought, he winked deliberately at Skye and left the room.
Phil whistled low as he surveyed the indignation that was quickly morphing into rage racing across Skye’s face in the form of a dark flush. If she clenched her jaw any harder, she was going to crack a molar. “You know,” he said unassumingly putting his sunglasses back on, “this would be a really lousy time for an earth quake.”
If looks could kill, Coulson would have been dead—again. He put his hands up in mock surrender, “I’m just saying—bad timing.”
Skye closed her eyes and inhaled slowly through her nose as May had taught her, “Yeah well, bad timing is pretty much my M.O.”
Coulson laughed, draping an arm around her slim shoulders for a one-armed squeeze. Normally, Phil wasn’t this informal with his recruits, but Skye had already had a hell of a day. “Maybe he’ll grow on you.”
“Oh, and what makes you think that?”
“He is the leader of an entire country—he has to be charming at least most of the time.”
Skye narrowed her eyes at Phil, “Are you implying he’s my prince charming?”
Phil’s mouth quirked, “President charming.”
Skye snorted, “Oh whatever.”
It was good to see her smile—she hadn’t done that much since Puerto Rico. “Come on,” Coulson said, “let’s go get tell the others they get to live in a castle.”
“Manse.”
“Semantics.”