Disclaimer: I don't own Agents of Shield. Insofar as anyone can 'own' anything when it comes to fanfic, I do own the Alternate Universe that Ward and Kara came from in "The Fine Dimensional Line".

This will be a series of related, usually pretty short, oneshots, all set in the universe Ward and Kara came from (I'll just call it the Mirror-verse for the sake of ease, even if it doesn't really work like a Trekesque Mirror Universe) all before they fled to the canon-verse. Events in the mirror-universe, broadly speaking, happened more or less like they did in canon, except where they didn't. The big changes:

-May never killed the kid in Bahrain (which instead ended up in the Fridge, despite the efforts of therapists to help her), so she and Andrew had a kid, and she only stayed in Admin for a few years before returning to specialist work though the Bus was her first long-term assignment in several years. She also ended up taking Kara Lynn Palamas as her trainee at one point, and they stayed close.

-Victoria Hand was the one who recruited Ward out of Juvie, and she didn't, you know, brainwash him and all that shit. They're quite close, and Ward was pretty close with Hartley as well, though not quite as much as with Hand. Ward is thus, better adjusted than in canon, and actually has friends, Kara among them.

-Garrett ended up recruiting and brainwashing Skye the way he did Ward in canon, and as in canon, she ends up deliberately getting S.H.I.E.L.D. to come recruit her, but specifically because Garrett set her up to collide with Coulson. She was the Traitor on the bus. She pretends to not be a trained killer so as to trick Ward (who has to 'train' her), but just as Canon Ward accidentally fell for Skye, Mirror-verse Skye accidentally falls for Ward.

These oneshots will usually be rewrites of canon scenes in the context of the mirror-verse, or explicitly referential to the mirror-verse versions of canon scenes. They will not necessarily be in chronological order, and I will reference what episode of canon they take place in and around, give or take, equivalent wise, at the top of the chapter.

Thanks to Stargazerdaisy for beta-reading

The Far Side of the Looking Glass

By Kylia

Officially, Unofficially

Set During 1x01 "Pilot"

"One Chitauri Neural Link, as ordered," Grant said, holding out the small bag to Victoria. "Though things didn't go quite according to plan." Even though at least the helicopter had still been there on time and extraction had worked out as planned, taking him back to the field base.

"You managed to handle it, like you always do. I didn't expect you to turn the drawer itself into a weapon though." Victoria Hand didn't take the alien device. "Hold onto it. Commander Hill wants the link directly from you."

"Wait, what?" Grant blinked, unsure if he'd heard that right. Commander Hill was the overseer of the entire operation that had led up to him retrieving this piece of alien technology from Vanchat before he could sell it, but for his part of the op, he'd reported to Victoria from beginning to end.

"I'd ask what I did wrong, but you'd already be lecturing me on my mistakes if I had. So why am I being kicked up the chain of command?" Grant didn't exactly have an issue with Commander Hill - he respected her skill, but he didn't particularly care for her style, and he preferred not to come to the attention of Fury's second in command. With attention from the higher ups - unless you were a terminal screw up - came promotions, and with promotions came less field assignments - he'd seen that happen with Victoria, who was now stuck running operations from the Hub more than going on them.

His S.O. might be happy to make the transition, but Grant had no interest in cooling his heels while other people took the risks.

"Not a promotion, you don't have to worry about that," Victoria reassured him, as if reading his mind. "Officially, she just wants to give you an evaluation, debrief you on this mission and the last few you've done."

"And unofficially?"

"Unofficially, you're being transferred to a mobile unit," Victoria explained as they walked through the halls of the field base. "And those are all the unofficial details you get."

"Of course." Victoria could bend the rules for him a little, sometimes, but she valued classification too much to tell him more. Besides, if Hill was the one who was overseeing his transfer, for some reason, then he was about to find out the rest of the details. "Just tell me - this assignment. Am I going to hate it?"

"I think it'll be good for you," Victoria replied with a small smirk, deliberately not answering the question. Grant resisted the urge to drop his head into his hands. Whatever this assignment was, he was going to hate it.

Yep. This is gonna suck.

They had only just gotten into the air, and he could already tell he wasn't going to enjoy this mission.

Grant Ward could work with other agents, if he had to. He almost always had someone running back-end, after all, and he always had a handler when he was undercover. And he worked with other specialists when the mission called for it - his operations with Kara, of course, were some of the best for that, since they had such an excellent working partnership.

And the idea of working alongside the Cavalry was one he quite liked.

On the other hand, this team had two completely unprepared-for-the-field scientists who seemed to share one brain, and had far too much excitement for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to have when going into potentially dangerous situations. And there was Coulson, who seemed more interested in cracking jokes than anything else.

And who somehow thought Grant Ward would be a good fit for this team.

"Want to explain how this assignment is supposed to be 'good for me'?" Grant asked really wanted to understand Victoria's thought process here, because he wasn't following it at all. "This isn't a team, it's a circus act, and Coulson thinks he's P.T. Barnum." He was walking through the halls on the lower level as he spoke on his phone - no reason to have the team leader hear Grant insult him.

"It'll do you some good to work under Coulson, even if his sense of humor leaves something to be desired." Victoria replied. "Besides, you need to get that stick out of your ass."

Ward blinked. "Wait, Agent Victoria Hand is telling me," even though she couldn't see it, Grant gestured to himself with his free hand, "that I need to loosen up? You might want to check your other line, because I think the pot is calling."

"Grant, you've been isolating yourself since the mission in Rio De Janeiro, and frankly, I'm getting sick of it. It's not healthy." Victoria's tone was concerned, softer than her stiff 'supervising officer' voice, though there was still an iron undertone. "Isabel agrees with me, and I'm sure Kara would too."

Grant inhaled sharply. "Isabel agrees with you on everything - I swear to god she's the most whipped spouse I've ever met. But bringing up Kara? That's a low blow." He let out a breath. "This was the best way for me to loosen up that you could come up with?"

Victoria had his best interests at heart, he knew. She always did. A lot of was, Victoria Hand and Isabel Hartley were nearly parental figures for him. And Kara was his best friend - he considered Morse, Trip and a few other specialists friends as well, but Kara was the only one who called him Grant, and the only person he'd ever shared any particularly deep conversations with, apart from Victoria.

Rio De Janeiro had been a clusterfuck from beginning to end. He'd been undercorer for too long without contact, nearly left out to dry when his handler defected, and both of his local contacts had died before he'd gotten out of that mess with a broken arm and a bullet in his leg.

Fucking hell. She's right.

"Give Coulson a chance," Victoria suggested. "He may tell awful jokes, but he's loyal to the book... usually. He's certainly better than Garrett."

"I'm pretty sure anyone is better than that crazy fucking wannabe cowboy," Grant muttered. "I'm amazed Trip is so well adjusted with that son of a bitch as his S.O." He'd worked an op alongside Trip once, with Garrett overseeing the whole thing. The man was an effective agent, there was no doubting that, but he was also intense. He took interrogations to their legal limit and then some - never enough to really let things go too far, but still. And he pushed his team hard, without letting them take any initiative if a better way to achieve the objective came along.

Which was ironic, given how... creative Garrett could be in applying his own orders.

"Garrett's unorthodox, and he's probably the first to agree that he's a son of a bitch, but he's not crazy. He's earned the latitude he gets, so show him some respect," Victoria said. "I have to go - there's reports there might be something brewing in Chechnya."

"Next time I'm at the Hub, we can grab a coffee," Grant said. "Until then." He hung up the phone. Neither of them were really ones for 'goodbye'.

Fine. He'd give this whole... team and welcome wagon a chance. Just so long as Coulson didn't keep trying to crack jokes and didn't try anything insane.

Of course, it would take Coulson approximately two hours to try something insane.