"Aw, you want some more? Here you go, little guy." Skye giggles as the pup licks her finger. "Who's a good wittle itty bitty—ow! No! Bad. No teeth. Nobody likes teeth. You're a bad—God you're so cute and squishy and—"
Skye hears a sturdy knock at her bunk door and jumps, knocking the peanut butter onto the floor. She scurries to hide the puppy in her closet and climbs over the railing back into bed. With covers. No, no covers. It's warm on the Bus. That would look suspicious. She throws off the covers and smooths them under her thighs.
Another knock, followed by her SO's bellowing voice. "Skye?"
"What?" Earbuds. She should wear earbuds. She'll look even less suspicious. She finds them under a book, under a cup of soda, on her nightstand and starts to yank. They're caught on something.
"Skye!"
"Whaaaat? Ward, I'm busy." She whines in her most effective teenager voice and yanks even harder on her earbuds. The cup of soda topples and hits the carpet. "Shit! Mother…"
Ward slides the bunk door open, and immediately lifts an eyebrow at Skye and her earbuds tangled half in the nightstand lamp and half in her outstretched fist. Her laptop is spilling off her legs and into an open bag of Cheetos. Her hair is disheveled and her covers are an absolute mess. "Were you talking to yourself?" he says finally.
"Probably?" she manages, yanking again as the earbuds finally slap her in the chest and her laptop crushes her Cheetos. "Did you need something?"
Ward narrows his eyes at her and glances down at the floor, surveying the spilled pop and peanut butter. "You really need to—"
"Clean my room, I know." She stuffs a pink bra, a dirty blue sock, and a pair of flannel boxers behind her into the sheets. Then flicks a Cheetos crumb off her shirt for good measure. "Unless you're volunteering for the task, I'm gonna have to ask you to lea—"
Just then, the puppy whines. Skye's eyes fly open wide, and then she recovers and throws a hand over her stomach. "Well that's embarrassing." She has the foresight to blush a little. "You should probably go."
So Ward does just the opposite. Toeing the peanut butter aside, he tromps into the bunk with his tactical boots and looks around the room. Everything in here is perfectly Skye. Perfectly a mess. He brushes rough fingers against the grain of the closet door, to Skye's immediate protest.
"Ohhhkay there Ward. Crossing boundaries here." Pushing her laptop and Cheetos aside, she scoots to the edge of the bed and squints up at the older man with all the annoyance she can muster. "Did you seriously come in here to look at my pile of dirty underwear? 'Cause I swear to you, if you open that door, you won't be able to look me in the eye for a week."
Ward looks her in the eye, and against his will, his gaze flickers down to the olive-toned skin of her legs. Her earbuds are wrapped around her thigh, the cord disappearing into one leg of her shorts.
He lowers his hand from the closet door. "I was expecting you downstairs 7 minutes ago."
"Wow, specific much?"
"For training."
"You mean for Battleship."
He nods. "Training."
"Ward, Battleship is not training. It's a board game. And I'm busy."
"I can have you do pushups if that's what you prefer."
"It's not even time for training! It's time for me to eat Oreos while you crush me in board games older than your grandpa and disrespect my snack foods."
"It's impossible to disrespect snack foods," Ward counters. "Snack foods are disgusting. And my grandpa is dead."
"I still don't understand why we can't play Hungry Hippos. I really like that game." Skye rips the earbuds out of her shorts and throws them next to the peanut butter. "And I told you, I'm busy tonight."
Ward tromps back to the door of the bunk and shoves an accusatory finger over his shoulder. "If you aren't down there in 10 minutes—"
"Bite me," she replies, and the puppy starts scratching at the closet door, causing little 'thumping' noises against the frame.
Ward spares Skye the quickest of glances before he crosses the room again and pries the closet door open. Skye just barely has the chance to lunge at him; she's holding onto Ward's knee, while he's holding onto the closet door, and the soft little puppy is glancing between them both.
Desperate, Skye starts talking. "Ward, wait—"
He bends down and picks up the pup by the scruff of his neck. He's small and blond, with one ear flopping downward and the other curled upward, over his ridiculously fuzzy head. "Skye, what the hell is this?"
Skye pushes off of his leg and settles back onto the mattress. "I can explain, okay? Let's not get all huffy." She gives the puppy a tiny wave and soft little wink and opens her mouth to start babbling at it.
"Skye!" She closes her mouth. "You brought a dog on the—"
"Shhhhhhhh!" she squeaks and swats angrily at his leg. "Keep your big, stupid voice down. Why do you think I'm hiding him?"
"Why are you hiding him!?"
"I found him, okay?" Skye hisses. "On our last mission. You guys left me alone in the van. And he was just there, in the street, and so soft, and so cold…" She turns her lips down at Ward, emphasizing the point again. "So cold…"
"We didn't 'leave you alone' in the van." Ward. Always has to be accurate. "It was your job to run communications from the van. And instead, you were outside cooing over this…this…" He lifts the dog higher and it gives a small yip and wiggles in Ward's steady grasp. "This thing. Meanwhile, I was getting my ass handed to me by a small army of titanium cyborg freaks—"
The dog kicks his back feet in circles and swings to and fro in the air. He whimpers and licks his own nose.
"Ward, you're hurting him."
"—and I could've been killed while you were—"
The dog is full-body squirming now, curling his oversized paws to his chest and kicking to free himself. He gnaws at his handler's shirt sleeve.
"—playing patty cakes with this ridiculous—"
"Patty cakes? Seriously? Is that what you think girls do while you're off saving the—Rufus, be still!"
"You named him?"
"You," Skye pauses for emphasis, "need to get out of my room." She stands up and reaches for the pup, but Ward holds it out of her grasp.
"You named him!?" Ward asks again, incredulous.
"Give me my dog." She pulls at Ward's biceps to lower his arm, but he easily spins from her reach, still with the dog in tow.
"I'm sorry, your what?" Ward cups his free hand to his ear.
"My freaking dog!" Skye yells, and realizes too late that now she's announced it to the Bus.
"He is not your dog. Nor will he ever be. I'm taking him off the Bus." When Ward makes a move for the door of her bunk, Skye bursts into action. She flings her arms around his waist and hoists him back into the room. Both Ward and pup give a small, surprised yelp. Skye slides the door closed and pushes Ward's chest with her palm, trapping his calves against her mattress.
"So help me God if you tell anyone about this, I will .end. you." She actually snarls around the last few words and Ward has the decency to appear shocked for a second. Then the corners of his mouth curl into a curious grin as Ward regains his composure.
"Oh, sweetheart," his pupils go dark, "I would love to see—"
Just then, Rufus decides to pee. Directly down Ward's black, cargoed pant leg and onto his shiny, steel toed tactical boots.
Ward shuts his mouth and stares at the dog. Skye claps her hand to her open mouth and darts her eyes between her gruff SO and the small pup relieving himself on his shoe.
For a moment, Ward opens his mouth to speak, but absolutely nothing comes out. He presses his lips back together and continues to stare at the dog.
Skye can't hold it in any longer. She erupts into giggles, hunching over and holding herself, laughing and laughing until it hurts to breathe. When she gasps for air, she makes a small, pained noise in the back of her throat that makes Ward's stomach flutter. Oh, I am just so amusing, aren't I, Ward thinks darkly.
When Skye finally stands to her full height again, her eyes are damp, her cheeks are flushed, and stray brown locks are sticking to her lips and cheekbones. She's red and alive and wiping at her eyes with a fist now.
If Ward is honest with himself, Skye's laughter is cloyingly sweet and contagious. He can imagine nothing more ridiculous than standing in Skye's bunk, holding a dog, pee on his work boots, and Skye spilling out of her shirt with laughter and hair everywhere and, it just takes everything in him not to break.
He's trained himself not to smile. Especially around Skye. He must be strong in this moment. He must be.
He presses his lips into the straightest line he can manage. And then he glares at her. "Rufus and I," he gestures with his dog hand, "are going to have a little talk. If you will," he steps into Skye's space and she backs up instinctively, "excuse us." He's baring his teeth at the wet-cheeked, eyeliner-smudged girl and gripping the dog even tighter now. Rufus whimpers.
"I'm…" Skye tries to talk, but she's choking out a laugh even now. "I'll wash your pants." She giggles, even with Ward in her face and growling like a feral wolf, his dark eyes searing, his free hand clenched at his side. "I just…that was…" She stifles another laugh with her hand. "Wow." How can he not find this funny?
"Move," Ward hisses through his teeth, and Skye stays right where she is.
"Why are you in full gear anyway? It's like, 8:30 at night. Shouldn't you be in your comfies?"
"Move," he demands again, pushing her aside with his non-dog hand. But her arm is resolutely draped across the doorframe.
"I mean, you don't really strike me as a pajamas type of guy. But Jeans, at least? Anything's gotta be comfier than that." She imagines him in jeans and tries not to blush.
"These are my comfies!" he spits, and it really doesn't work, because comfies is not a very threatening word and now Skye's biting her bottom lip like she's going to start laughing again. Ward mentally slaps himself for getting off track.
"Oh." She's chewing on her lip. "I'd hate to see what you sleep in. Or shower in! Do you even shower nake—" She stops when his mouth is suddenly a breath away from hers, and she flattens herself against the bunk door, inhaling sharply.
"Don't," Ward seethes against her lips. He's not sure how he's managed to get this close to her, but it's too late now to back up. "You broke the rules." It rumbles deep inside his chest, passing into Skye's chest and thinning the air in the room. "I'm doing you a favor. Now move."
Skye flicks her eyes to Ward's lips and then back to his piercing glare. "I wasn't going to keep him. I was looking for a good home," she whispers.
"I'm not going to ask you again." A challenge.
"His middle name is Buddy," she tries. "I named him after—"
Ward doesn't give her a chance to finish. He rips Skye away from the doorframe, a sudden flash of hulk-like rage contorted into his features. Rufus is yelping wildly, thrashing this way and that as Ward flings open the bunk door and storms across the hall.
The Berserker Staff, Skye remembers too late. Oh no. Oh God. She'd forgotten about the Berserker Staff and the triggers that plunged Ward into his fits of rage. She'd gone too far with the mention of his childhood dog. She darts out after the agent, ignoring the heads beginning to peek out of bunk doors surrounding her own.
Ward is tearing across the plane and down the stairs to the cargo hold when Skye catches up to him, right at the bottom step, and desperately clings to his arm.
"Ward please," she begs. "Don't hurt him. I love him!"
Her protests only egg him on, and Ward moves mechanically into the cargo bay. A man on a mission. He reaches for the manual override panel next to the cargo doors.
"You wouldn't!" Skye squeals, and drags at his arm to steer him back toward the stairs. But Ward is heavy and unaffected by all her attempts to deter him. She digs her heels in. "Ward! Ward, you'll kill us all! Don't open that, Ward! Snap out of it!" she screams and thrashes at him.
Suddenly, Ward goes down, falling to the floor in a motionless heap, taking the dog down with him. Skye catches Rufus before he can hit the floor, and looks up to find May standing there, right where Ward used to be, with arm outstretched in true karate-chop fashion. Skye blinks.
"What happened?" May says evenly and lowers her arm.
"He went into one of his rages," Skye says, clutching the dog to her chest. It's all she cares to explain.
"What is that?" May points at the bundle in her shirt and steps toward Skye to get a closer look.
"Nothing!" Skye yells, startling FitzSimmons, who've just appeared at the bottom of the staircase, and earning an eyebrow raise from May. The older woman doesn't press the issue, and Skye takes the out, brushing past FitzSimmons. She climbs the cold metal stairs in bare feet, Rufus nuzzled protectively against her flannel.
Skye doesn't stop until she's reached her bunk. She moodily closes the door behind her and collapses onto her messy pile of covers. Rufus too.