Grant Ward: Couples Counselor

by Morgan Lewis

Set immediately after s2e20. Grant's methods may be boorish, unpleasant and smug, but they get results.

Bobbi woke to the sound of her skull throbbing. Awareness returned to her in stages and she quickly realized that both her arms and legs had been restrained. Memory of how she arrived in her present circumstances quickly followed. The memories did has some rather irritating help.

"Ah good, you are awake," Grant Ward's smug face came into her field of vision. "We have a lot of work to do, so we had better get started."

Bobbi pulled angrily against her restraints to no avail. He had wound several layers of duct tap around her arms and legs. A quick glance at her surroundings confirmed she was still in the rear section of the Quin-jet. Beyond that, she had now idea where they were.

"This is pointless Grant, we should just kill her." Kara was seated directly across from her. If she wasn't so angry at Ward at this moment, those words might have fractured her soul.

"Kara, I understand you are feeling a great deal of aggression right now, but this is still early in our session I'm going to have to ask you to calmly wait your turn."

"Wait her turn?" Bobbi managed to sputter in confusion. "What that hell are you talking about?"

Ward had settled into the seat across from her. The fucker had even taken out a legal pad and pencil and appeared to be taking notes. "We have you at a disadvantage Agent Morse. I understand how our present circumstances would make you defensive and feel out-numbered. But, I want to assure you that I will remain an objective third party in this dispute with the hopes of resolving your issues. As such, I believe it is only fair that you should be allowed to initiate this session."

Bobbi simply stared at Ward as if he had grown another head. "You are a goddamn psychopath!" She turned her attention back to Kara. "He's a goddamn psychopath. You see that, right? He's completely certifiable. How can you be working with him? The man is insane."

Kara appeared ready to scream a reply but Ward calmly raised a hand to stall her. "Technically, I'm a high functioning sociopath. But this session is about you and Kara. I need you to focus on expressing you feelings to Kara."

"Kara please listen to me," Bobbi began desperately. "He's simply using you. This entire time you have been nothing more than a pawn in his schemes. You are so much more than his puppet. Please, you are an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Bobbi licked her lips nervously before continuing. "I know I wronged you, seriously wronged you. And under other circumstances I would be more than happy to allow you to take your anger out on me. But, right now, there are more important things happening. Things that can lead to disaster if you don't make the right choice here. I know there is still good in you. Hydra wasn't able to take all of it away. Please listen to me."

"Okay, good share." Ward smiled while nodding to Kara. "I believe it is your turn."

"Kara you have to..."

Grant interrupted her with a hushing sound. "Agent Morse, you have to allow Kara time to express her feelings. Now please, don't force me to gag you."

Kara had appeared to calm down from her earlier state. She seemed to be content with glaring daggers at Bobbi for the moment. "I told you, I remember everything."

The blonde woman felt he stomach sinking. "Kara, I'm so sorry. I had no Idea you would be at that safe house..."

"No," and suddenly Kara's gaze was softening. "I mean I remember everything."

Bobbi heart clenched violently and she found she could no longer meet Kara's eyes. "I remember every night you would come to my apartment after you and Hunter had another breakup. I remember every morning after you would try to make coffee but could never figure out how to use my machine, finally giving up and taking me to that cafe down that street. I remember spending the entire day snuggling on the couch watching re-runs of Seinfeld.

A slender hand grabbed her chin and pulled her to face Kara's eyes. "I also remember swallowing the hurt and smiling to your face every time you and Hunter got back together. I remember everything Bobbi." Kara punctuated the last statement by spitting in Bobbi's face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Grant was suddenly there separating them. "Kara, that is not productive behavior. There are obviously a great deal of emotions in the room right now and actions such as that do not address those emotions in a positive manner."

Grant had dropped his legal pad in the process of separating them and scooped it from her feet while hauling Kara away. Bobbi could see that rather than any notes it actually contained, among other things, a remarkably detailed caricature of Agent Romanov straddling the Hulk.

"Why are you even doing this Ward?" She managed to bite out. "What is in it for you?"

"I am hoping that at the very least," He huffed while forcibly placing Kara back in her seat, "we can exhume and resolve some of the resentment that has been allowed to fester between you two." Ward's expression transformed into a wicked grin. "Best case scenario, I'm kind of thinking of a threesome."

"You are such a pig."

"Getting back on task, I think we need to discuss the root of your commitment issues," Ward collect his pad and resumed scribbling. "Agent Morse, did you find you relationship with Kara fulfilling?"

"Piss off Ward."

"Very well, Kara, please share with us your feelings regarding your relationship with Agent Morse."

Kara snorted bitterly. "It wasn't really a relationship. More of a reoccurring booty-call."

"I see, and were you satisfied with this arrangement?"

Kara's face darkened. "Grant, I really don't want to do this..."

"Kara, were you satisfied with this arrangement?"

The former agent glared defiantly at Ward for a moment before conceding, "No, I was not. But given how little I obviously meant to this bitch I would have been better off kicking her to the curb years ago."

"Oh really, you really want to go there?" Bobbi snarled before she could think better of herself. "Because I spend the next day to walk through the park with my booty-calls, or agonize for five weeks over the perfect anniversary gift for all of my booty-calls."

"It probably took you five weeks to remember which booty-call you were buying the gift for."

"So we are slut-shaming now."

"Don't you try to take the moral high ground with me, you fucking sold me out to Hydra."

"Any now you and your psychopath boyfriend have kidnapped me."

"He is not a psychopath and He never stood me up for dinner so he could hook back up with his ex for a one night stand."

"No, he just murders people for Nazis!"

"Okay I'm going to have to stop you both right there, " Ward moved to stand between them. "If I've learned anything from the internet, its that once an argument invokes Nazis, nothing productive is accomplished. Lets just take a few moment to calm down and refocus our..."

The radio suddenly crackled to life with Agent Simmons voice. "Agent Morse, please come in. "

"As I was saying, we need to refocus..."

"Bobbi, can you hear me? Please respond."

"...our thoughts on the things that originally allowed this relationship to function for..."

"Bobbi, please, we have rather delicate situation on site and could really use some back-up."

Grant sighed heavily before picking up the comm. "Agent Simmons, we're actually just on the verge of a breakthrough here and are going to need a little more time to hash this out."

A moment of stunned silence followed before Simmons voice hissed through the radio. "Ward! I swear to all the gods, which really just turned out to be advanced alien civilizations, that If you have harmed a single hair on Bobbi's head you are going to wish I had managed to kill you in the Arctic."

"Wait," Kara's expression turned confused. "She tried to kill you on that mission?"

"Yes, it was adorable."

"I will kill you Ward," Simmons howled.

Ward sighed heavily once again. "Simmons, I'm afraid you simply are not adding anything productive to this session. We are already dealing with far too many volatile emotions to add your repressed romantic feelings for me which now manifest as violence."

"Romantic..." Simmons sputtered. "I'll show you violence you..."

"I'm going to have to let you go." Ward cut off the radio. "Okay, back to work."

Ward tossed aside his notepad as he approached Bobbi. She was able to note that he had added a cartoon of Maria Hill who appeared to be motor-boating Thor's arm. "Agent Morse, normally I would try to draw this out of you, but we are a little pressed for time. So, I'm going to get right into it."

"God, just shoot me now," Bobbi spat at him.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. was a more progress organization than the SSR which proceeded it. But, a fair amount of chauvinism remains ingrained in the organization to this day. Particularly among specialist, which tends to be a male dominated field of operation. And lets face it, you can't expect to push young men to testosterone driven fetes of machismo without it bleeding into their interpersonal interactions."

"You learned to monologue from Garret, didn't you. He never knew when to shut the fuck up either."

Ward was crouched right next to her now. "So, I understand how hard you in particular had to fight against preconceived ideas that your gender defined you. A failure on an assignment was often just that for your peers. But for for you it was something much more. It was blown up into some referendum on your lack of capabilities simply due to the organs you carried between your legs. Dealing with that attitude probably really sucked. But, it made you stronger because you knew you couldn't make mistakes. You had to fight long and hard but you were eventually able to ensure that it was your role within S.H.I.E.L.D. and not your gender that defined you."

"Are you going to reach a point anytime soon?"

"Its not surprising how that same attitude bled over to your personal life. You had just won a hard fought battle define who you were on your own terms. The simple thought that you could lose any part of victory due to being defined by your relationship to Hunter, or to another woman must have terrified you. After all, it is amazing just how much our relationships do define us. Kind of a terrifying concept to contemplate, this notion that another human being could have so much power over the way the world perceives us."

"So, you are telling me that the root of my commitment issues is a fear of loss of identity," Bobbi tried to sound as disdainful as possible.

Ward wasn't buying it. "I know, I know, its basic first year psychology. All the more disappointing you were never able to self-diagnose and address the issue before it got to this point."

"This coming from an asshole with pathetically typical daddy issues."

"And Kara," Ward turned his attention back to the former agent. "Bobbi's inability to commit must have felt like a form of rejection."

"I don't care that she rejected me Grant, I hate her." Even now, it hurt Bobbi to hear those words.

"Yes, but this isn't a healthy hatred. If you just wanted to kill her for selling your out to Hydra, that would be fine. But you need to understand that sometimes hatred is simply a twisted expression of deeply held love."

"I don't love her," Kara insisted stubbornly.

"Kara, come on. You've tried to seduce me three times and each time it was pretty obvious that you just aren't into dudes."

"Did it every occur to you that you just weren't her type, asshole?" Bobbi seethed at him.

Grant turned to look at the blonde woman before giving her a devastating smile. "Bobbi, I'm everybody's type." Goddamn the cocky bastard, the whole 'bad boy' image should not be working this well for him.

"My point Kara, is that you need to come to terms with what you are truly feeling. You need to be honest with yourself. Otherwise you just end up like Agent Simmons, so desperate to prove to herself that she hates me that she was willing to use a splinter bomb in the middle of a dangerous mission to convince herself of the fact."

"Is that how Bakshi died?"

"I'm sorry. I know I had promised to let you kill him."

"You also promised me that I could kill Bobbi." Why did it still hurt so much to hear her say that?

"If that is still what you truly want to do. But, I think we both know that its not. Oh, you may think it is right in this moment, with the betrayal still fresh and the fury bleeding like an gaping wound. But, in time, once you's stitched up that wound, and allowed that anger to fade you are going to really come to regret it. And the one thing I never wanted for you was for you to have to live your life with..."

Bobbi's cell phone suddenly went off with a Miley Cyrus ring-tone she had assigned to May's profile.

"...And really Agent Morse? Wrecking Ball? What is the matter with you?"

"Go blow it out your tail pipe Mr. 'Shake it Out'."

"Hey, Florence and the Machine crafted an opus of personal renewal and I will not have you disparage..."

"I'm going to bury this horse in the ground! Gag, we should have seen your red flags years ago."

"Do you still want to kill her, Kara?" Grant glared while retrieving her cell phone. He clicked on the answer button. "Hello May...yes, yes threats to violate the Geneva convention should I harm Bobbi, I believe Simmons already covered this...

"...what...no she hadn't mentioned that one, personally I don't think its physically possible while the victim is still conscious...you've done it before? I'm impressed...

"...Okay, listen I think we are making some real progress here so I need to let you..."

"...What to you mean the Inhumans have declared all out war..."

"...Oh, that's seriously what they call themselves. I guess it could have been worse, they could have called themselves homo sapien superior or something similarly stupid...

"...yes, I know this is the Quinjet with the dual Vulcan Cannons but isn't that a bit of overkill..."

"...Really, wings and breathes fire? Honestly, I've got to see this..."

"...Okay fine, fine, I'll proceed to grid 47 and provide suppression fire..."

"...yes yes, I look forward to ruthlessly murdering you too..."

Ward click off the phone before turning to address both of them. "Okay, it looks like there is a bit of a situation developing that I'm going to need to assist my old team on. But you two are making outstanding progress so I think it may be time for some one on one sessions. I want you to use the compliment sandwich method. Say something you admire about the other, followed by a critique followed by another compliment. And no killing."

Ward quickly departed for the Quinjet's cabin and with a few moments they were airborne. There was so much more that Bobbi wanted to say to Kara right now. But, oddly enough, she didn't even know were to start now that Ward was out of the room. Goddamn, why did the asshole have to be right about so many things?

The two woman continued in miserable silence for several minutes before Kara unexpectedly offered, "He sings it in the shower sometimes. For a man that speaks six languages you would think he would have a better singing voice, but he's just awful and god I hate that song."

Bobbi barked out a laugh. "If only poor taste in music was the worst of his flaws. He's not wrong about being everyone's type."

"I still hate you."

Bobbi squeezed her eyes shut against the pain that still caused her. "I know. I know and you have every right. What I did to you...god I don't have words...there is nothing I can say...nothing I can do..."

"You know the worse part of it," Kara continued. "When I was hiding out in that old Safe house, all I could think of for three days straight was if you were okay. I never really slept well when I knew you were out on assignment, so I barely slept a wink at that safe house, constantly envisioning scenarios in which you had been captured and tortured...I made myself sick with worry...threw up a couple of times..."

"Kara, I... oh god Kara, I'm so sorry..." Bobbi could feel tears burning behind her eyelids.

"So, when you showed up, for fifteen seconds, it was the greatest moment of my life," Bobbi forced herself to look at the other Woman and saw her eyes also glistening with unwanted tears. "I remember thinking, I must have done something right because the universe was just giving me this huge reward."

Bobbi simply lost it at that point. Tears spilled down her cheeks unrestrained. She remembered that moment as being the singularly worst of her entire life. It had been like a cosmic punishment, some cruel god having a petty jest at her expense. Turning over an old abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D assets to Hydra was meant to be a quick and easy method to help establish he cover. There was never supposed to be anyone actually using the Safe house. Honestly, she was one of the few agents who had even known it existed. Of course, Kara knew because of her.

She could perfectly recall the feeling of dread, like a chunk of uranium in her stomach, upon finding Kara in the front room. There had been no time to warn her, or signal that something was wrong. God, she had wanted to die in that moment, or simply cease to exist.

"And I must be a complete fucking idiot," Kara was bawling now as well which just set Bobbi off even more," because after I woke up from what-ever sedative you injected me with, I just felt the same way I did every time you would go running back to Hunter, like I had done something wrong and if I could just figure out what it was maybe you wouldn't leave again..."

Bobbi was saved the indignity of a complete emotional breakdown by a sudden explosion and rapid decompression of the cabin.

"Holy shit!" Ward yelled from the cockpit. "May wasn't kidding, goddamn wings and fireballs."

Bobbi watched in horror as Kara was pulled towards the newly created breach, before desperately clutching on to a piece of weakened re-bar. A piece of shrapnel had embedded its self in the wall three inches from Bobbi's leg. The Agent wasted no time in using it to slice through her bindings and free herself.

"Kara, give me your hand." Bobbi called out desperately.

The other woman simply glared at her through tears and held onto the re-bar.

"Kara, that re-bar isn't going to hold, please give me your hand!"

"I'm just going to kill you afterwards if you save me," Kara yelled back.

"I don't care," and Bobbi was only mildly surprised to find that she truly didn't. "God help me, that asshole Ward was right, about everything. I was terrified of our relationship defining who I was, I didn't want to give up my identity as a Specialist so I kept pushing both you and Hunter away, never able to commit to either of you."

"You married Hunter," Bobbi could still see the same hurt in her eyes from the first time she had dropped that bombshell on Kara.

"I know...I...I just wanted you both and I knew I could only have one of you. I know this doesn't excuse anything, but I felt I would be better able to maintain who I was in a relationship with Hunter than I could with you. "

"Why am I supposed to feel better about that?"

"Because I hate Seinfeld," Bobbi admitted, "But I loved watching it with you. I don't like coffee, but I was learning every different blend and style because I loved walking down to the cafe by you house in the morning to have a morning cup with you. Because I knew that If I committed to you it would be in ways that I would never even consider with Hunter."

"Please," Bobbi could barely hear Kara's voice over the rushing wind, "Just let me die."

Pain that she had never knew could exist blossomed in her chest. Bobbi lunged at Kara's hand, no longer caring if she was also leaping to her death. Fortunately, he foot managed to snag and hook around a handrail.

"Don't say that!" She screamed while ceasing the woman's hand, "I was wrong, about so many things. I was wrong to be afraid. Please, the only thing I'm afraid of now is losing you. So, I don't care if you shove a dagger in my throat in the next few minutes, I'm not letting go, I'm never letting go again!"

After a few terrifying moments, Bobbi felt Kara gripping her hand back. Bobbi braced herself and slowly pulled her lover back to safety. Minutes later the aircraft stabilized as Ward took them to a low altitude outside of the kill-zone. Bobbi and Kara collapsed into a sobbing tangled pile, desperately crying apologies and soft declarations of love between salty kisses.

So much of the pain she had been carrying around for the last year suddenly began to fade. It wasn't gone completely, but the piercing agony that had so often woken her from sleep in the past twelve months had subsided, even if just for a moment. Of course, Grant fucking Ward had to ruin it.

"This is what I call progress," Bobbi forced herself to pull away from Kara long enough to glare daggers at the insufferable asshole's comment.

He just smirked in reply. "So, perhaps we can talk about that threesome?"

- Twenty Seconds Later -

As he laid on his back, watching the Quinjet disappear into the eastern sky and in a considerable about of pain, Grant Ward couldn't help but feel that he really should have expected this outcome. On the most obvious level, of course Agent Morse was going to find a gun as soon as she had managed to free herself. And of course the Quinjet's newly breached hull was not a tactically sound location for him to stand next to.

Beyond that, the kind of violently emotional catharsis that he had triggered in the two women was not going to be without consequence. Better that they refocus any lingering negative sentiment on external forces instead of subsuming it back into the relationship. And, women he tried to help always ended up shooting him anyway.

He pulled his phone out of his pants pocket and opened the messaging app.

* Im fine. She only hit the vest and some tall grass broke my fall. *

He paused to consider his next words. * Go be happy, and if Hunter gets my threesome I want photos. *

*Asshole :) * Grant smirked at Kara's reply.

The former agent grunted in pain as he pulled himself back to his feet. It was a bit of a walk to the nearest town. Hopefully he didn't run into that fire-breathing dick-head first.

-fine

-una scimmia mangia una banana ogni mezz'ora.