Retrograde

Bedtime Stories

"Here."

Skye pulled her headphones out, looking away from her laptop to see the glass of milk Mark had slid across the kitchen bench.

She then remembered his comment earlier and laughed, thanking him "I totally forgot about that."

"You're welcome. It really does help. Unless you're lactose intolerant in which case it really won't."

"Thankfully I'm not lactose intolerant," she took a sip of the milk and looked at Mark over the rim of the glass.

She looked around the plane to make sure it was safe to talk "You seem to handle it really well." She observed.

"Well, when you get the gift of good looks you have to be responsible with them- oh you mean my powers."

She looked at him in amusement "Yeah. Those. Though we can circle back to the other thing if you really want to."

He smirked but responded to her statement "Well, they're a part of me now. Obviously it wasn't exactly a duck to water situation at first, it was a nightmare. But after a while it became just another skill, you know? Like hacking," he tapped her laptop.

"Hey, Mark. You seem cool and thanks for helping me out and everything. But don't touch my laptop. Like, ever. Or we'll see whose powers are better,"

He let out a laugh and she followed suit, laughing at the stupidity of threatening someone with super powers over a laptop.

He held his hands up placatingly "Got it. Don't worry about, I value my life," he smiled "But seriously, you'll get better at handling them."

"Really?" Her mood deflated "It feels like I won't."

"I felt like that too. Now though..." he trailed off, looking around the kitchen "Pick something in this room."

"What? Why?"

"Just pick, I'm showing you how cool my powers are." He feigned impatience.

"Ok, uh...The button on the side of the toaster."

"Odd choice but ok." He held up a hand in the toasters direction, an almost serene look on his face.

A steady stream of energy flowed from his palm and the button slid down, nothing around it seeming to be affected by the wave.

Skye stared, wide eyed at the display "Omg. You just, like...Omg," she repeated, "How did you do that?"

"Practice," he winced at a memory "Correction, a lot of practice."

"That was amazing. I guess I just figured that with these kind of powers everything was just random."

"Definitely not," he snorted "I thought that too, though, at first. It felt like pure chaos. But it's actually pretty simple. Like moving your hand," he rounded the bench to take her hand, demonstrating "You want it to go over here?" he moved it to the table "It just does it because you want it to. No thought required. You see what I mean?"

"Yeah, I think so-" Skye turned when she felt eyes on the side of her face "Oh hey Ward."

Ward didn't say anything. He was too preoccupied with staring at Mark's hand holding Skye's.