"This wouldn't've happened if you'd-"
"Yes, Skye, you've told me that already." Ward rested his elbow on the window and his fist against his temple and looked out at the jam-packed cars all around them.
"If you'd listened to my directions," Skye continued, ignoring his interruption, "we wouldn't be stuck in traffic."
"I was following Coulson's direct orders." Stuck in traffic. This was no place for a Specialist, stuck in traffic with Skye instead of where he was supposed to be. Budget cuts, Coulson had said as he handed him the keys, and he'd spent the next hour arguing with Skye over who drove.
It might've been three minutes. It felt like an hour. In the end May had snapped Skye gives directions, Ward drives and strode away, thus ending any continuation of the argument.
Of course, he might've only heard Ward drives since any time Skye had told him which turn to take or suggested an alternate route, he'd looked at his GPS - the one he'd programmed with Coulson's exact route - and completely ignored her.
"While I was following a road map that shows obstructions," she said. "Sometimes I think you think I am just a pretty face not a genius-level intellect who is perfectly capable of finding us routes around traffic jams."
"A very modest pretty face and genius-level intellect," was all he said in response to that.
She narrowed her eyes across at him. "Sleeping with you was a mistake," she decided out of absolutely nowhere that he could see. He snapped his gaze across to her, question marks practically dancing over his face.
"What does that have to do with-"
"You didn't treat me like a dumb blonde before!" she exclaimed. "But suddenly because my lips have been around your-"
He tuned her out instantly. "Skye, I'm trying to drive not lose all focus."
"Now I'm being ignored even when I know best." She looked out of the window and he could see her eyes flashing in the reflection.
"I'm still your S.O.," he pointed out. "Most of the time I know best."
"Ha!"
He would probably be offended if his brain wasn't still finishing her sentence for her. "You're the one that's decided my supposed change in behaviour is all to do with the change in our relationship, when actually I'm still the same as I was before we started having sex."
"No, you're not," she accused, looking around at him. Her lips were pressed tightly together in between her words. "You barely even acknowledge I exist in front of the rest of the team anymore."
"That's because I can't look at you without them all knowing," he hissed at her.
"You managed for the last year," she snapped.
"That was before!" he said.
"I thought you were supposed to be the master of undercover, and you can't even pretend to not have seen me naked?" she demanded.
"It's-!" He bit his tongue and looked back at the road. "Not that simple."
She glared at him so darkly he patted his head to check it wasn't on fire. "Like I said." She looked back out of the window. "It was a mistake. And if we're in this traffic still at half past I'm getting out and walking."
"Walking the freeway," he said flatly.
"Well, no one's going anywhere!" she exclaimed. "And we have an assignment to complete. This isn't some family road trip gone wrong."
"I'm sure I'd be blamed if it was a family road trip gone wrong, too," he said.
"Oh look it's half past." She shoved open her door and got out.
"Skye!" He got out of his too. "Skye, get back in the car."
"I am going to walk to wherever the blockage is, I am then going to walk further and I am going to steal a car and go get the 0-8-4 by myself!" She opened the back door and yanked out her bag, then slammed it louder than she'd slammed the passenger side.
"I'm not going to leave you to find an 0-8-4 by yourself," he said, grabbing his own bag.
"Why, because you don't think I can do it without a big strong man to protect me?!" she snapped.
"Skye, you're being ridiculous." He sighed and rested his forehead against the roof of the car.
"And now I'm ridiculous because you've been ignoring me and my directions ever since we had sex," she said. "But I'm the ridiculous one when you can't even look me in the eye."
"Because if I look at you everyone will know I'm in love with you!" he barked.
She stared at him.
He willed the Earth to swallow him up.
She stared some more.
The cars in front of them moved.
The cars behind them parped their horns.
Skye got back into the car and closed her door.
Ward got in the other side and closed his own, pulling the car forwards.
"That's not really an excuse to ignore me," she said.
"I know. But you know what Coulson is like," he said.
"He probably already knows since we were close before," she said.
"We were always fighting before," he said.
"But at least we interacted." The traffic slowed again. Ward sighed as he put the handbrake on and just sat there.
"I didn't listen to your directions because I like to do what I'm told," he said. "I like to do what Coulson tells me. I follow orders, Skye."
"May said I should give directions," she pointed out.
"She's not Coulson." He looked out at the road.
Skye shrugged. "He would've agreed with her if you'd asked."
"But I didn't," he said.
"But you didn't." She looked out of her window.
He fell quiet, watching the people in the next car argue over the stereo. He could read their lips, the man complaining about pop music, the woman insulting his taste in crude rap. Skye went quiet too.
"So, you're in love with me."
Or, he'd thought she'd gone quiet.
"Yep." He didn't look at her.
"And you're so in love with me you can't look at me without the world knowing?"
"Pretty much."
"Ah, okay."
A long pause followed. Ward did not look at her.
"Do you usually ignore the directions of the woman you love?"
"No, because this would be the first chance I've had."
"...previous girlfriends not give directions?"
"Skye."
"Oh."
He felt vaguely humiliated and he hadn't even admitted he'd not been in love before her, she'd just figured it out from his singular use of her name. He still didn't look at her.
"This kinda puts us sleeping together into a whole new context," she said. "A context I would have liked to be aware of before we started sleeping together."
"Skye."
"Well, I would," she said. She was looking out of the window again and he was pretty sure a declaration of love was supposed to be followed by kisses not by the cold shoulder. "It's more girlfriendy than sleep with your S.O.'y if you ask me."
He looked around finally. "Huh?"
"It makes me feel sleezy!" she said. "Like I used you or something."
"You didn't," he said. "I'm a grown man."
"So?" she said. "Doesn't mean I can't use you."
"I wouldn't let you use me," he insisted. "It's not that simple."
"You're missing the..." She huffed and looked back out of the window.
"The traffic isn't moving I'm not missing anything."
She looked back around at him. "...was that a quip?"
"No." His lips quirked a little though.
"You quipped!" she exclaimed.
"I made a comment," he said.
"You quipped," she repeated and stretched out in her seat, arms above her head. "I like traffic jam you. You're quippy stuck in traffic."
"I'm about to start shooting people stuck in traffic," he grumbled.
"But if you did that you'd never get to know the point," she said.
"And what, exactly, is the point, Skye?" He looked around at her.
"The point is I don't really want to use you ever again," she said.
He froze. "I understand." He looked back at the cars, willing them to either start moving or be set on fire by his gaze.
"No, you don't," she said. "I feel like I used you because I didn't know how you felt about me. If I had... there would've been dinner. Movies. Dates. A relationship."
He looked around at her and blinked a few times.
"I'm asking you out, you robot," she said.
"Oh." He felt like a robot at that moment. Processing, processing... "Oh." He blinked a few more times.
"This is where you either say yes," she said, "or you say no."
"Y...es!" he said. "...assuming yes means yes to the date. It means yes to the date, right?"
She grinned a little. "You're so cute when I get you flustered."
"I'm not–" Flustered? Cute? He wasn't sure which was worse. "–either of those things. Does it mean yes to the date?"
"Yes, Ward, it means yes to the date," she said and leant across, pressing her lips to his.
He made the most embarrassing little whimpering sound known to man or beast and kissed her, just gently.
"...are we there yet?" Jemma whined from the back seat.