A/N: First of all, as mentioned in the summary, this fic takes place in the same verse as my Jemma and Ward have a one-night stand pre-Pilot drabble (which is chapter 80 of a prompt response (is only polite), fyi), so you might wanna give that a read first. Second, please note the tags; there are some warnings attached to this one. There are more spoiler-y and explanatory warnings in the end note, so please do check that if you're worried about triggers.

Title is from Taylor Swift's Wildest Dreams. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

After Ward gives his report on the fall of the Fridge, the team goes its separate ways. It will take Skye a few hours to dig up what she can on the escaped prisoners, and in the meantime, there's not much for the rest of them to do.

They've all been assigned temporary quarters within Providence, and Jemma imagines that most of the others have gone to theirs to get some sleep. They're all running on empty at this point—they need the rest. She'd join them if she could.

But Jemma knows she won't be able to sleep. She hasn't been able to sleep at all since the Hub. Even during her enforced down time, when Coulson had Trip bodily carry her to her room (something which was honestly a bit thrilling, if embarrassing), she wasn't able to sleep. She just lied in bed, staring at the ceiling, for hours.

Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Agent Weaver. She hears the warning and the explosions and the screams, and then her mind fills in the blanks that were left when the call suddenly ended—Agent Weaver being killed, cadets being killed (or worse, captured; HYDRA lost a fair few of its people at the Triskelion and on the helicarriers, and it must be in need of new recruits, at this point), HYDRA tearing down the first place she ever truly felt at home…

And that's when she's awake. She doesn't dare to think what sort of torture her subconscious might devise for her dreams.

So when the others scatter, to do research or get some rest or whatever else they have planned, Jemma remains in the Bus' lab. There's not much for her to do; what few experiments she had running were all ruined when Agent Hand tried to take the Bus, and all of her electronic notes were erased from the Bus' systems. She has her notebook, of course, but she just hasn't the energy to work on transcribing her handwritten notes.

What she needs is to quiet her mind, and experience has taught her that the best way to do that is to keep her hands busy. So, she cleans. She sterilizes all of the medical equipment, wipes down the counters, scrubs the lab tables, and is just trying to remember where she left the mop when there's a cough from the doorway.

"Ward," she says, turning to face him. He's made a habit of sneaking up on her (always accidentally, or so he claims), and it's past the point of startling her. "Are you all right?"

After the week he's had—at least three brushes with certain death, by her count—she'd expect him to be sleeping.

"Not really," he says.

For a moment she's frozen by surprise. Then she goes for her medical kit, because if he's actually admitting to being anything less than fine, he must be in serious trouble.

"What is it?" she asks, slightly frantic. Her nerves are beyond shot, and with them has (apparently) gone her ability to keep her cool in a crisis. "Did I miss something? Oh, this is why we need a real physician for this team; I'm far more likely to make mistakes. I should've forced the issue with Coulson months ago, I'm sorry. Did your—"

"Simmons," he says, catching her by the arms. "Jemma. Stop."

Train of thought derailed, she blinks up at him. She didn't even see him move. Yet here he is, in front of her, holding her in place.

"I'm sorry," he says, letting go of her arms like he's been burned. "I didn't mean to—I'm fine. I'm not hurt." His mouth twists unhappily. "I mean, I am hurt. Obviously. But there's nothing new."

"But you said—"

"I know what I said," he interrupts, placating. "But I'm all right, physically. It's just—I'm not…" He looks around the lab, searchingly, as though expecting the words he wants to pop out of one of the cabinets.

She's noticed that, for a man so excellent with lying, he's really terrible when it comes to telling the truth. But she thinks she understands what he means to say.

"You mean you're not all right, emotionally speaking," she offers quietly.

"Yeah," he says, on a slow exhale. "Yeah. Emotionally, I'm not okay."

He runs a tired hand through his hair, and she frowns sympathetically.

"It's understandable," she says. "After the week you've had. But I'm afraid there's not much I can do for emotional pain." She chews on her lip, thinking. "Unless you'd like a sedative to help you sleep?"

"No," he says. "That's not why I'm here."

She shakes her head. "Then…why are you here?"

He looks away, visibly uncomfortable, and takes a deep breath. She can't help but wince on his behalf; with his cracked ribs, that must've hurt. Yet he shows no sign of it, and she's hit with a familiar mix of bafflement and frustration.

"I know you liked Luke better than you like me," he says, apropos of nothing, and she starts.

"What?" she asks, attempting to laugh it off. "No, I don't. Didn't."

Unfortunately, her time on the team has not increased her lacking talent in deception, and the laugh is far too high-pitched and rings painfully false.

Ward smiles tightly. "Simmons. Come on. I make my living off of reading people. I know you don't like me much."

"I…" she falters, unsure of what to say. As it happens, she doesn't like Ward very much.

It's not that she dislikes him, though. It's just that…well. Honestly, she finds him dreadfully dull. He's closed off and, to put it unkindly, uptight, and his brief flashes of humor are so rare as to be statistically insignificant.

She appreciates the work he does, and she'll always be grateful for the numerous times he's saved her life and the lives of the others. That's without question.

It's just that, on a personal level, she doesn't find him interesting at all…as opposed to Luke, the character he was playing when they first met, nearly eight years ago now. She liked Luke very much—enough to follow him back to his hotel, where they had an incredibly memorable one-night stand.

Luke was compelling and confident, with a wicked sense of humor and a wit quick enough to keep up with her own. Learning, upon meeting Ward again, that he was nothing but a cover was something of a letdown.

"It's okay," Ward says, as she scrambles for words. "The version of me you first met and this version of me couldn't be more different. I know it's…jarring." He smiles again, but there's something unhappy about it. "I don't blame you."

"Yes, well," she clears her throat and turns away from him, straightening the keyboard on the counter next to her just for something to do. She feels awkward and off-balance, and she has no idea how to make it better—how to deal with the fact that he's aware of her less-than-positive feelings towards him. "You still haven't said why you're here."

"I had to cross off a lot of people at the Fridge," he says, and she fumbles the pen she's just picked up. "Garrett—my SO…" He trails into silence for a long moment. "I've had a horrible week. We both have. And it's not over yet."

"What are you saying?" she asks, turning to face him again.

He looks just as exhausted and uncertain as she feels. "I'm saying that…I could do with some comfort right now. And I think you could, too."

Before she can ask for clarification, he reaches out and carefully tucks some of her hair behind her ear. It's hesitant enough that it's not a truly intimate move, but it's enough to give her an idea of what exactly he's suggesting.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," she says, quietly.

"I can be Luke for you," he offers. There's a touch of something approaching desperation in his tone, and her heart clenches in her chest. "If that would make it—easier or better or…" He places his hand over hers where it's gripping the counter. "Simmons—Jemma. I just…need this. You." He licks his lips. "Please."

She swallows, staring down at his hand covering hers. The truth is, she could do with some comfort right now—with skin-to-skin contact, with the kind of closeness that only sex can bring, with physical connection.

Ward says he needs it? So does she.

But there's a problem. There are several problems. Ward is physically attractive, yes, but emotionally, mentally, and even sexually, she's not attracted to him at all. He's too dull, too uninteresting—nice to look at, but not someone she'd ever let into her bed.

Desperate times do call for desperate measures, but…

If she has sex with Ward and it's bad—or even if it's just not great—it could make things awkward with the team. And the last thing they need right now are more complications. Their position is too tenuous to risk on an ill-advised attempt at comfort sex.

"I can be Luke for you," Ward offers again, as though in response to her thoughts.

Jemma is a terrible person. She is the worst person on the team, and possibly in the world. (Not the world, there's HYDRA in the world, but she's trying not to think of that.) She is a horrible, awful person, because she's actually considering it. She is actually giving serious thought to asking Ward to pretend to be someone else in order for her to have sex with him.

It would be cruel to say yes, wouldn't it? She thinks it might be.

She hasn't told anyone, but she's privately suspected for a while that Ward might have a bit of a thing for her. It's nothing obvious, but he's…different with her than he is the others.

For one thing, there's physical contact. Where he shies away or purposely discourages the others from touching him, he tolerates hers with barely an eye roll, and has—on more than one occasion—actually initiated it. And while that could be easily dismissed as a combination of her role as team medic and their previous intimacy, the other thing can't.

The other thing, of course, being how oddly gentle he is with her. He's unbent around all of the team as the months have passed—playing board games, making the occasional joke, offering advice—but somehow, she can't picture him distracting Skye up a tree or promising to catch Fitz if he fell. She certainly can't imagine him sitting up with May when she has nightmares or trying to convince Coulson to get some sleep when he's been working too hard.

And now this. Looking at her with that face and saying that he needs her. It's not conclusive proof, but it's certainly evidence in favor of her hypothesis. And if it is true, if he does have some manner of infatuation with her, then asking him to pretend to be another man while having sex with her would most certainly be cruel.

Which is why it's so horrible that she's so very tempted to do it anyway.

"I don't mind," Ward says. His hand, still covering hers on the counter, gives hers a squeeze, and she raises her eyes to meet his. He looks in earnest. "I'm used to pretending to be someone else. It doesn't bother me."

But there's a difference between pretending to be someone else for the sake of a mission and pretending to be someone else in order to have sex, isn't there?

"You need comfort," she says, and turns her hand to take his. "How much comfort can you get if you're using a cover for my sake?"

He smiles wryly. "More than you might think."

"Ward."

He sighs. "Look, you want the truth?"

"It would be nice, yes," she says.

"I think," he says, slowly and deliberately. "That I could really do with being someone else right now." He gives a stiff, one-shouldered shrug. "If that makes sense."

It does, and it makes her ache for him. It makes her ache that he seems to find her his best option, even though he (apparently) knows that she's not terribly fond of him. That he would seek out someone who finds his company at best unobjectionable and at worst annoying for comfort…

If she wanted comfort, she would seek out Fitz, who has been her best friend and partner for more than a decade, or Skye, who has very quickly become akin to a sister. But for all that they've all grown closer since the beginning, Ward still has no such relationships among the team, and it strikes her, suddenly, as terribly sad.

And she's definitely a horrible person, because even that isn't enough for her to willingly sleep with him as he is.

But Luke? Luke was the best sex she's ever had. Luke is most certainly capable of distracting her, and that's absolutely what she needs right now. Luke could drown out the screams lingering on the edge of her consciousness—could perhaps even make her forget, for a few moments, the ever-present fear, for the cadets and for Agent Weaver and for their team. She wouldn't sleep with Ward himself, not for anything, but if he's pretending to be Luke…

It makes her a terrible person. A terrible, selfish person.

But it's been an awful week and she just doesn't have the strength to be selfless right now. And, in fairness, he did offer.

If he wants to be someone else for a while, she's inclined to let him.

She sighs and meets his eyes again. "You need to be careful of your ribs."

"I will," he promises. "Don't worry. I know my limits." He hesitates, searching her face. "Is that a yes?"

Ward knowing his limits and Ward acknowledging his limits are two entirely separate things, but she'll take his word for it, this once.

"It's a yes," she confirms, and he closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, she can't read them at all.

"Thank you," he breathes, and then he's kissing her.

In the last six months, Jemma has kissed Ward twice. The first time was on a dare from Skye when a stake-out ran long and all four of them were bored out of their minds. The second was in Lisbon, when a mission went awry and they needed to hide their faces from the Centipede soldiers who were pursuing them. The first kiss was nothing but a chaste peck, over as soon as it began, but the second was a real kiss—a prolonged kiss—and it was, to put it bluntly, awful.

It wasn't a lack of skill—Ward has plenty of that—that made it awful. It was the emotions—the intent—behind the kiss that ruined it. The kiss was gentle and sweet and apologetic, of all things, and Jemma was left distinctly uneasy by it.

This kiss is not apologetic. It's not sweet. It's certainly not gentle.

It's forceful and demanding, and just like that, her reservations disappear.

Ward pulls her away from the counter without breaking the kiss, backs her against one of the lab tables instead, and there's a clench low in her abdomen when he presses his hips into hers, because he's already hard and she can feel him through his jeans and it brings back some very pleasant memories.

She fumbles with the buckle of his belt, fingers made clumsy by want and distraction both, and his hands close over her wrists, pulling them away.

"Wait," he says.

"For what?" she asks, confused.

He moves her hands behind her, holding them at the small of her back, and she's briefly distracted by the way the position presses her breasts up against his chest. Then she refocuses, reminding herself how much more enjoyable the sensation would be if they were shirtless, and looks at him expectantly.

"What am I waiting for?" she prompts.

"For my permission," he says, and she frowns.

Consent is, of course, a very important element to intercourse, and one that she would never take for granted. Somehow, however, she doesn't think that's what he's talking about.

She thinks back to the last time, to how much he enjoyed making her plead for his touch, and licks her lips. It's not something she's accustomed to—she has the unfortunate tendency of choosing sexual partners who treat her like she's fragile—but that doesn't mean she's opposed to it.

"Do you want me to beg?" she offers.

Heat sparks in his eyes, and his fingers flex on her wrists. "I'm definitely not against it," he says. "But that's not actually where I was going with that."

"Then where were you going?" she demands, at a complete loss.

"To a place where my clothes stay on and yours come off."

That is the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard.

"Are you saying you intend to remain clothed for this encounter?" she asks, incredulous.

"No," he says patiently. "I'm saying that I'm not stripping right now. We'll get there."

"If we're going to get there eventually, we might as well get there now," she says reasonably. She doesn't want to wait; she's seen him shirtless dozens of times in the past few months, but never this version of him—this version she actually wants.

"No," he says. "Not yet."

"I want—"

"Not yet," he repeats, and punctuates the words with a kiss. His hands are still tight around her wrists, and when she tries to twist out of his grip, he doesn't falter at all. She's not sure he even notices.

"Why not?" she demands. She's whining, which would be embarrassing if she weren't so annoyed. She wants to touch him, damn it, this version whose shirtless chest would actually turn her on.

"You've already had your hands all over me once today," he reminds her, mouth ticking up in a smirk. "It's my turn."

She's had her hands over him in a solely professional capacity, and she was wearing gloves, besides. It's not at all the same thing, and she tells him so.

"Humor me," he says, leaning in to mouth his way down her neck.

His stubble scrapes against her skin, little pinpricks that go straight to her core, and combined with the sharp bites that he intersperses with soothing kisses, she loses her train of thought entirely. She lets her head fall back and moans as he sucks what will undoubtedly be a vivid mark low on her neck, and she thinks—vaguely—that it's very considerate of him to place it somewhere that she can cover it with the collar of her shirt.

He smiles against her skin, pressing a final kiss to her collarbone, and straightens to meet her eyes.

"You gonna behave, now?" he asks. "Keep your hands to yourself?"

She supposes letting him touch her without reciprocation isn't the worst thing in the world. "If you insist."

"I do," he says, releasing her wrists. "Don't worry, you'll get your turn."

She'll get her turn after he has his, is the implication, and she's just as eager to get to that. So, without further ado, she strips her jumper off. Ward makes a little sound, like a groan is trapped in his throat, and when she looks down, she's pleased to find that she's wearing one of her more attractive bras today.

(She doesn't even remember getting dressed after her shower this morning. She was so exhausted that she's fortunate she didn't just thoughtlessly wander out of the bathroom in her towel.)

"Do you like it?" she asks flirtily, running a finger lightly along the lace trim. She feels a thrill of something like power at the way his eyes follow the motion. She may not be able to subdue Ward the way he can her, can't hold him in place and keep him still, but he's frozen at the sight of her in her bra, and that's not nothing.

"It's nice," he says, recovering. "But you'd look better without it."

She laughs a little, remembering the deadpan pick-up line he threw at her the night they met (that dress looks great on you, but it'd look better on my floor), and he smirks.

"By the way," he says, smoothing his hands up her sides. "I lied, that night."

"Did you?" she asks flatly, and he grins.

"More than you know I did," he clarifies. His fingers find the clasp of her bra and deftly flick it open. "When I told you my friends dared me to give you that line, that was a lie."

"Was it?" she asks, a little breathlessly, as he slides her bra straps off of her shoulders. "Why did you say it, then?"

"Wanted to see how you'd react," he says. "I needed an opening, and that seemed like as good a one as any."

"Well, I can't argue with your methods," she admits. Except she can argue with his methods, actually, because he's taking his sweet time removing her bra, and they don't have all day.

So she gives him a little shove and, when he obligingly leans back, pulls it off herself. She drops it onto the table behind her and gives him a smile.

Part of her is very aware that she's currently standing topless in the lab—that the lab doors are made of glass and the cargo ramp is down, which means that all anyone would have to do is walk into the hangar and they'd see her here like this—but the rest of her is arrested by Ward's dark gaze. She feels it almost like a physical touch, and when he actually does touch her—when he cups one breast and brushes his thumb over a painfully tight nipple—she actually shudders.

He swears and takes a sudden step back.

"Get on the table," he orders, voice rough, and she obeys without thought. It's almost frightening, how completely Ward has disappeared behind the mask of Luke—she's never seen this look on Ward's face or heard that tone in Ward's voice—but only almost.

He wanted to be someone else, she reminds herself. There's no shame in finding his ability to be that someone else arousing.

As soon as she's settled, Ward drops to his knees. The medic in her frets a little about his ribs, but the rest of her is hit by a strong pulse of want, because he's undoing her jeans with deft fingers and he's at the perfect height to put his mouth on her and she's pretty sure that's where this is going.

"Up," he orders, and she obligingly lifts her hips so he can tug her jeans and her panties down. Through some miracle of coordination, she manages to kick her shoes off as he does so—because having her jeans stuck around her ankles is something she finds decidedly unsexy—and so it's only moments before she's fully nude.

Ward sits back on his heels for a moment, just looking at her, and she curls her hands around the edge of the table. There's nothing subservient about his position; he's on his knees but he's looking at her like he owns her, like he has a right to look, and—

Should she be concerned that she finds that so arousing?

There's no time to dwell on it; Ward straightens on to his knees again, curling his hands under her knees and tugging her to the very edge of the table, and then proceeds to render her utterly incapable of thinking at all.

She remembers this from their night together—how he brought her off at least four times with his fingers and his tongue and his teeth, how her thighs were peppered with bruises and hickeys for ages, after, and how desperately hot it made her to see them—but somehow, she'd forgotten how good he is at it.

He's got two fingers inside of her and his mouth on her clit, just the right side of too much and too rough, and she can't do anything but cling to the edge of the table—can't even catch her breath enough to open her mouth and beg for more.

There's a reason she still thinks so fondly of her night with Luke, nearly eight years later, and apparently Ward is determined to remind her of it.

She gets lost in it, in the sharp spikes of pleasure—so good it almost hurts, she almost wants to shove him away, except she'll kill him if he stops—so she has no idea how long it takes, whether it's hours or seconds, but eventually Ward twists his fingers just so while simultaneously scraping his teeth ever-so-lightly against her clit, and she shatters.

He keeps at it, coaxing her less-than-gently through her orgasm as white-hot shivers run through her, until it's finally really too much, and she kicks him away.

He sits back on his heels again with a low chuckle that makes her shiver for the way it gets under her skin, like he could get her off with that sound alone, without touching her at all, and swipes the back of his wrist along his mouth.

"Okay?" he asks, smugly.

"You could make your living off that instead," she says, inanely. Then she rolls her eyes at herself, because her mouth always entirely disconnects from her brain in the wake of a good orgasm, and it's beyond frustrating.

Ward, of course, knows this about her already. He smirks. "I'll keep that in mind."

Then, bracing himself against the table, he pushes to his feet with a disappointed sigh.

"I'd like to do that a few more times," he says, regretfully, "But there's no telling how long we have." He trails his fingers down her arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake, and gives her a smile. "Next time, I'm gonna eat you out until you don't know whether to beg me to fuck you or to stop."

The words hit her right in the abdomen, and just like that she's desperate again. She doesn't even think to tell him that there's not going to be a next time.

"And this time?" she asks instead.

He moves to stand between her open legs, and the scratch of denim against her thighs reminds her that she's totally naked and he's still fully dressed. She doesn't know why that makes her feel so oddly vulnerable—that, of all things, when two minutes ago he had his fingers inside of her—but it does.

"This time," he says, "We'll skip right to the point."

He pulls his shirt off with barely a grimace, and Jemma hesitates when she sees the bandage she personally wrapped around his ribs only a few hours ago. This evidence of his injuries—moreso than the cuts and abrasions on his face and the bruising on his knuckles—reminds her of just how far his body has been pushed lately.

Perhaps sex is a bad idea.

"The point, by the way," Ward says impatiently, "Is not for you to look at me like that."

"You're injured," she says, reaching out to lay her hand against his ribs. "You could—"

"I know my limits," he reminds her. "Which is why—much as I'd like to—I'm not gonna fuck you up against a wall."

Her breath catches at the words, and he grins.

"We'll be careful," he promises, and tugs her off the table. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

Then he kisses her again, demanding and overwhelming, and Jemma—Jemma stops thinking. His thumbs are tracing soft circles over her hipbones, a sensation entirely at odds with the tight grip he has on her, and she'd swear the nerve endings there are connected directly to her clit for the way it throbs in time with the motion.

He slots a thigh between hers as he backs her against the table again, and the rough scratch of denim against her where she's still sensitive from her orgasm makes her whimper against his mouth. His fingers dig into her hips, and she just knows he's going to leave bruises—goodness knows he did last time—and that, the memory of last time, how spectacular it was, how she's used that single night as fantasy material for literal years because he was just that good, decides her.

"So," he asks, breathlessly, as he pulls back. "What do you say?"

Breathless he may be, but he's also tremendously smug. She can tell by the look on his face that he already knows what her answer is going to be, and she wishes she could turn him down and wipe that smirk off of his face.

But that would be the definition of cutting off her nose to spite her face, and she's not that stupid.

"I say," she says, and, using her arms around his neck for leverage, goes on her toes to whisper in his ear, "That you should fuck me."

And he does.

(Approximately thirty-eight hours later, Jemma will not be sure which of them she hates more for this moment.)

A/N: Warning for manipulation and consent issues. Frankly, those are warnings that should be attached to pretty much any of my works that include canon Jemma and pre-reveal HYDRA!Ward, but in this case they're extra necessary. To clarify, Jemma is 100% willing and into the sex happening here, but there is some hardcore manipulation on Ward's part beforehand. He's definitely playing her, and if he weren't playing her, she would not be having sex with him.

So Ward's a manipulative creep and Jemma is going to look back on this unhappily, in short. That's actually been kind of a theme in my fics lately (and if you're disturbed by that, don't worry, because so am I), but this one just seemed like it really needed the extra warning. Okay? Okay.