A/N: Some of you who follow me on tumblr may recall that, ever since Taylor Swift's 1989 came out, I've been promising a fic inspired by Blank Space, in which SHIELD!Jemma seduces HYDRA!Ward. This…is not that fic. (That fic will be titled i can make the bad guys good (for a weekend) and is scheduled for release sometime in 2019 or so, because it is fighting me every step of the way.) However, this fic is a fic which takes place within the same verse as that fic! Call it a deleted scene.
What you need to know: Jemma is essentially canon Jemma. Ward was never on the team and had never met Jemma before SHIELD fell; his place was filled by some random who was loyal to Garrett but had little to no knowledge of HYDRA's movements, rendering him useless as a source of intel.
The rest you should be able to pick up from the following, or so I hope. If you have questions, feel free to ask!
Title is from Panic! at the Disco's This is Gospel. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!
"Come on, Simmons. One date, that's all I'm asking."
"Again, my answer is no," Jemma snaps. She's tried being polite and it has utterly failed; she's entirely out of patience now. "I'm not interested. At all."
"Why not?" Lorenzo whines. "You're hot, I'm hot, and you're nearly as smart as I am! We'd be perfect together and you know it."
There are so many things wrong with that statement that Jemma doesn't even know where to start. Additionally, she's concerned that if she starts, she won't stop, and she—unlike Lorenzo, apparently—has not forgotten that they're currently in their workplace.
So she restricts herself to a simple, "My answer is no. Please stop asking," and turns away.
Lorenzo catches her by the arm, face twisting into what's probably supposed to be a scowl but mostly just looks like a pout, and begins to demand, "What is your—"
He's cut off by the sharp crack of a gunshot, and Jemma has the dubious pleasure of witnessing the immediate after-effects of a man being shot through the side of the head.
It takes a second to comprehend what she's just seen, what's just happened right before her eyes; when she does, she stumbles back, away from Lorenzo's body—corpse—and the quickly growing puddle of blood speckled with skull fragments and grey matter. She's trembling violently all over, and for a moment she's honestly afraid she might faint.
On the other side of the counter, Grant tucks his gun away as casually as if he's just swatted a fly.
"What an asshole," he says dismissively. He rounds the counter and approaches her, stepping carelessly over Lorenzo's corpse. "You okay, Jem?"
She nods jerkily, forcing herself to stop backing away. She's broken into a cold sweat and there's bile rising in her throat; she fears that if she opens her mouth, she'll be physically ill, and so she keeps it determinedly shut.
He looks her over with a frown, then gives a decisive nod. "I think you're done for the day. Come on, I'll take you home."
He holds a hand out to her—the same hand he just used to murder one of her colleagues right in front of her—and for a long moment, she's frozen in place. She wants to knock his hand aside, run screaming away from him, and never lay eyes on him again. She doesn't want to touch him. She doesn't want him to touch her.
Orders, she reminds herself. She has her orders. Her team is counting on her. Aside from the traitor in Vault D, who is so low-level as to be entirely useless, Jemma is the only source of intel on HYDRA that SHIELD has.
This is what she's here for: to infiltrate HYDRA and seduce Grant Ward, one of HYDRA's highest-ranking specialists. The fact that he's just killed on her behalf is evidence of how successful she's been, and she can't afford to mess it up now.
Her team is counting on her. She can do this for them.
She steels herself and places her trembling hand in his steady one, and he studies her face as he laces their fingers.
"You sure you're okay?" he asks, tugging her towards the door. She has to step over the blood spreading out under Lorenzo's corpse in order to follow, and she barely bites back a sob as she does so. "You look pale."
She uses the excuse of turning to grab her handbag to hide her face as her mind races. The Jemma Grant knows doesn't value human life. She has no reason to be upset that he's just killed a man on her behalf. She wouldn't necessarily enjoy it, but it certainly wouldn't make her ill.
She reaches for calm and doesn't find it, and so settles on the cold clarity of science instead. It helps, a little, but she still has to swallow twice before she can speak.
They exit the lab, stepping out into the corridor, and that helps, as well.
"I've never seen someone shot to death before," she says finally. Her voice only shakes a little, but it's clearly still enough to displease Grant, who frowns slightly as they enter the lift. "Intellectually, of course, I knew—well. It was simply a little more…messy than I was expecting, that's all."
"Scientists," he says, with an undertone of fond exasperation. "You're all so sheltered." He tugs her into his arms and presses a kiss to her forehead. His lips are warm and dry, but they send a chill through her; she has to swallow back another sob. "I'm sorry for upsetting you, then. But not for shooting that guy. He was a dick."
"I wouldn't expect you to be sorry," she says, and her voice is impressively even. But then, it's not a lie, after all—she wouldn't expect a man like him to be sorry for murdering someone in cold blood. She'd like him to be, but she wouldn't expect it. "After all, he certainly deserved it."
He didn't. He most certainly didn't. Lorenzo was pushy and overbearing and entirely unable to take no for an answer, but that doesn't mean he deserved death. Re-education, certainly, and perhaps some measure of comeuppance, yes. But not death.
Still, as she hoped it would, the statement serves to settle Grant somewhat.
"He did," he agrees, voice dark. "He's lucky I made it quick."
She swallows, and he looks down at her, brow furrowed.
"He didn't know about me, did he?" he asks thoughtfully.
"No," she admits. "He didn't."
She expects that the guilt for that will linger for years to come; Lorenzo was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid enough to pursue a specialist's girlfriend. Had he known of her relationship with Grant, he never would have asked her out. He certainly wouldn't have bothered her to the point of Grant killing him.
"Why didn't he?" Grant presses, apparently thinking along the same lines. (Minus, of course, the guilt.) "It sounded like he'd been bugging you for a while. One word about me and he'd have left you alone; you could've saved yourself the trouble."
Happily, she can be honest in her answer, here, as her reasons for not bringing him up are perfectly in character for her cover.
"No means no," she says, firmly, as the lift reaches the ground floor and the doors open. "I shouldn't have to use you as a—a talisman against men who are interested in me. When I reject a man, I expect him to respect it. He doesn't need to know my reasons."
"Scientists," Grant repeats, but he's laughing as he guides her out of the lift. "That's one way of looking at it, I guess."
He jerks his chin at guard at the security desk as they pass it on the way to the garage, and the man nods in return, reaching for the phone. She knows that he'll be calling up to her supervisor to explain that she's leaving early on Grant's orders; this isn't the first time he's come to fetch her in the middle of the workday (though it's certainly the first time he's killed anyone in the process), and she's grown familiar with the procedure.
It scared her, the first time. He has so much power, here in HYDRA, and while she knew that going in—it was, after all, the entire reason Coulson singled him out as the target for her false affections—it was one thing to be told and another to see it.
Honestly, it still scares her a little. He can kill a man—kill one of HYDRA's scientists—and walk away as if nothing has happened. He can leave a still-warm corpse on the floor of the lab, and she knows he'll face no repercussions for it. He might be asked to explain himself, but he might not. HYDRA will simply accept it.
…It scares her more than a little. It's utterly terrifying.
Should he ever discover her deception, or even simply grow bored with her, she'll be entirely at his mercy. He could—and likely would—kill her without a second thought. And chances are that, should he be so inclined, she won't have time to signal for extraction. Her life is in his hands.
In more sense than one, even. She's essentially moved in with him; though she's still leasing her apartment, she hasn't slept in it in weeks. She spends every night at Grant's place, even when he's out of town. When he's in town, she sleeps with him and eats with him and even showers with him a good three days out of five.
He's invaded every corner of her life—or rather, she's invaded every corner of his. It's one of her objectives and she should be glad of achieving it, but…
Every second she spends with him is a second that her life is in danger.
She's pulled out of her increasingly panicked musings when they reach Grant's car. He opens the door for her—something she knows he does more because it amuses him to be chivalrous than out of politeness—and then pauses.
"By the way," he says, and there's a dark undertone to his voice that makes her blood run cold. "It probably goes without saying that I won't respect it if you reject me."
She takes a deep breath. It's disturbing, how closely his words mimic her thoughts, but it's likely a coincidence. This isn't the first time he's made such a statement; Grant is in full control of their relationship, and likes to remind her of it periodically.
She thinks he likes how easily she accepts it. She thinks that, in a way, it's almost a good thing that he just killed Lorenzo right in front of her, because part of her has started to like it, too.
If nothing else, today has served as an excellent—and horrid—refresher in just why she's doing what she's doing. Grant can be tender with her, can make her laugh, and can give her truly spectacular orgasms, but he's not a good man. He's a murderer. He's evil.
She can't let herself get attached, and this is the perfect reminder of why.
"Yes," she says, and gives him her best smile. "It does go without saying."
"Good," he says, the dark tone disappearing. "Just checking."
He gestures towards the interior of the car, and she takes her seat calmly, setting her handbag on the floor as she does so. She waits until he closes the door to buckle her seatbelt; he'd be suspicious if he saw the way her hands are shaking.
She folds them in her lap as the driver's side door opens and Grant slides into his seat.
"How long had that guy been bugging you, anyway?" he asks, conversationally, as he starts the car.
She realizes, with a slightly hysterical jolt, that he doesn't actually know Lorenzo's name. He killed him and he doesn't—
Calm. She's calm.
"A few days," she answers evenly. "He transferred in from another base on Monday, which I suppose is why he didn't know about you."
Grant frowns. "You should've told me. I would've taken care of him earlier."
She bites her lip, reaching for a response to that. She deliberately kept this from him because she was afraid of him reacting exactly the way he did, but she can hardly tell him so. Why would her cover keep this a secret?
"I'm sorry," she says, stalling for time. "I was just…"
"Is this about what happened with Bakshi?" he asks as she trails off.
"Yes," she says, seizing the excuse, and hopes she doesn't look as relieved as she feels. "After…that, I wasn't sure how you'd react."
Sunil Bakshi used to be one of HYDRA's top managers. Then he took an interest in Jemma and made the mistake of flirting with her in front of Grant. Unfortunately, it was at the beginning of their relationship, before Jemma truly comprehended just how much power Grant enjoys within HYDRA, and so she felt trapped by Bakshi's position of authority and didn't immediately turn him down. She was aiming for a balance between polite and uninterested, but apparently failed to reach it, and Grant was left with the impression that she was attracted to Bakshi.
To say he took it badly would be an extreme understatement. She was eventually able to disabuse him of the notion, but not before the damage was done.
Were she actually, genuinely dating him, she would've broken up with him over that. She also likely would have pursued a restraining order. Unfortunately, considering her mission, that wasn't a course of action open to her.
He grimaces. "I'm sorry. I know you have reason to worry, after…all of that."
She nods silently. She has excellent reason to worry.
"But you shouldn't," he continues. "If someone's bothering you, I want to know about it. I won't take it out on you again, I promise." He reaches across the console to lay one hand over hers, which are still clasped in her lap. "You can trust me."
The warmth of his hand would be more comforting were she able to get the image of him using it to kill Lorenzo out of her mind. She takes in a slightly unsteady breath and, forcing herself not to think of what happened in the lab, smiles apologetically.
"I know," she says. "I'm sorry. Should there be a next time, I'll inform you right away."
Grant squeezes her hands once and lets go, apparently satisfied.
"See that you do," he says, returning his hand to the steering wheel. "Now, what do you wanna do for lunch?"
Just like that, the topic is closed, and he moves on from the fact that he just killed a man in cold blood for hitting on her. It barely affects him at all; unlike Jemma, who will undoubtedly have Lorenzo's corpse imprinted on the inside of her eyelids for weeks to come, Grant will likely have forgotten his face by the end of the day.
Not for the first time, she sincerely regrets not telling Coulson to shove it the minute he offered her this assignment.
All she can do is hope that it will be the last.