DISCLAIMER: Agents of SHIELD and its characters are owned by Marvel Entertainment.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A little present for TriniTea, to help with the back-to-school blues. Also so she'll get off my back about writing a SkyeWard fic.
ILY2
Skye squeezed off a shot, barely missing Ward, who responded with a missed shot of his own.
"We don't have to do this, Skye!" he called.
"Yeah, we do!" She fired again, forcing him lower behind the engine block of the car he was covering behind. The slide locked back.
"All you have to do is let me go!"
"You know I can't do that," she called out, frantically reloading.
Ward took advantage of the lull to ease his way around the tail end of the car, angled to where she couldn't see him. But he had a good view of her. He lay down, head toward the front of the car, hoping he still sounded like he was behind the engine block.
"You're telling me all the time we fought together means nothing?"
"You're the one who betrayed me!"
"You?"
"Us, damn it! You betrayed us!" A series of gunshots expressed her anger.
"Is that why you hate me so much?" Ward resumed his crouch at the tail of the car. One shot was all he needed to finish this before SHIELD reinforcements arrived. The front sight lined up perfectly with the head of the woman who had made it clear they were enemies.
She hated him. She wanted to put him down. He could do this...
"I don't hate you, damn you! It wouldn't hurt this much if I did!"
Ward had trained his eyesight above average human level, and he knew how to read lips. He saw her liquid eyes blinking back tears, her silent "I love you."
Shitfire'n'tarnation.
It took just a few heartbeats for Skye to gather herself and get back in the fight. Movement caught her eye. Her gun sight lined up on – a paper airplane?
A distraction. Skye left it wandering lazily along its flight path, moving quick as she advanced on the car Ward had been using for cover.
He wasn't there.
Damn it! While she'd been wasting time hurting over him, that son of a bitch had made good his escape. When was it going to finally stick that nothing with Ward had ever been real?
A scowling Skye stomped back to where the paper plane had landed, snatching it up and unfolding it to find out what gloating mockery he had left her.
It quivered in her suddenly trembling fingers as she slumped to her knees, not even registering the impact of hard pavement.
Skye wanted to sob. Wanted to scream. Wanted to curse the man she couldn't find it in herself to hate.
She didn't do any of that. Just held his note in her hands.
What looked like a teardrop stain was right above the hastily scrawled message – ILY2 IM SORRY