Fools
Summary: A seven chapter collection of SkyeWard drabbles based on Lauren Aquilina's song Fools. Set after The Only Light in the Darkness.
Those hardest to love need it most
Grant Ward never had the American Dream childhood. His family didn't go to picnics together, they never had lovely little board game nights, nor did they bicker over the dining table. When they fought, the shouts and screams were terrifyingly high, and at all other times he tried to keep as silent as possible. When he was a kid he used to fantasise about a more normal upbringing, but he certainly didn't miss that now. All memories of the time before Garrett found him were safely locked away inside of him, in a far off place that he had promised himself to never visit. Grant Ward did not need a reminder of the past.
It stood to reason though that everything that had happened to him had made him into the man he was today. He wasn't unsatisfied. He knew he was harsh and hard, and he liked it that way. A tough shell kept most feelings at bay. He was a brilliant specialist, great at his job, and that made things remarkably easy – work was the one thing he cared about. It's what he lived for. Funny how him sometimes taking other people's lives made his seem worth living.
Getting on the Bus had not been his decision, and in the beginning he didn't like it much. Grant Ward had gone in with the attitude of not liking it, since that would complicate things. He didn't enjoy the close quarters of always being up in the air, and he didn't care for the people up there with him. Sure Coulson turned out to be a good leader that he would like to learn from, and that the Cavalry was impressive was not exactly a surprise. But Coulson's repeated niceties made Grant Ward's fist begin to itch, and the fact that Melinda May kept sporting the same expression was unnerving. Worse, of course, were the science twins, who he could not for the life of him understand half the things they said. And they said a lot, always talking at the same time, their sharp accents making most of it an annoying blur.
He had been ready to take out Skye the minute she claimed he couldn't tell Simmons apart from Fitz, and that none of them could get on the same page as the other. It certainly was true, but it frustrated him none the less, especially coming for someone like her.
At least that was how it started, and Grant Ward would have been happy to keep it that way. But the longer he stayed on that Bus, the more he actually got to work and interact with the team, the more his views on them changed. Fitzsimmons certainly knew their subjects, and even though he still didn't understand much of what they kept talking about, their constant voices had become almost comforting, and he found himself wanting to protect them both. Signing up as Skye's SO had been a surprise even to himself, but he had come to enjoy her company, and though it was difficult as hell to get her to see sense sometimes, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he really liked watching her turn into some sort of agent. May was in a way the same, but she seemed softer somehow, or maybe it was just the way he perceived her now. Coulson turned out to be a better leader than Garrett, not that it mattered.
None of it mattered in the end; he was still there on someone else's behalf. He had a job to do. And he wouldn't be Grant Ward if he didn't do it, any sentiment he might feel locked away once more. Because that was just the way he had to live.