A Christmas Special.

Grant hadn't celebrated Christmas since he and Dana and Chelle had lived with Gram for a year. He certainly hadn't celebrated it the year before—he had been alone in the middle of the woods, his bruised ribs and empty stomach the only gift he had received—and he hadn't given it a single thought about Christmas until Christmas Eve, when the school buzzed with excitement over Christmas break.

"How are you celebrating?" Skye asked him, shoving her books into her locker. He leaned against the locker next to hers, and shrugged.

"I haven't thought about it," he said. "I don't know if the Avengers take Christmas off. None of them have families."

"Of course they're taking Christmas off, dork," she scoffed. "They have you."

He shifted uncomfortably. "It's just another day," he said quickly, and she rolled her eyes.

"At St. Agnes, they just sing hymns about Mary and Jesus and then they tell us the real gift was Jesus and we don't actually get any presents," Skye said lightly, but he heard the note of bitterness concealed beneath it. "It's when you realize what being a fucking orphan really means. You know, everybody owns you but you don't really belong to anyone."

"You could join us," he said suddenly, suppressing the sudden urge to push the stray hair falling across her face. "Whatever we decide to do."

She squinted at him. "I don't know"—

"You're coming," he said, his tone final. "I'll talk to Coulson. Do you want to come over after school?"

"Okay. Are FitzSimmons going to be there?"

"Jemma and her parents left yesterday for vacation," Grant followed her down the hallway towards history class. "And Fitz and his mom are leaving this afternoon to go to his grandparent's."

"So I guess it's just us, then." This time there was no disguising the bitterness in her voice, and she looked away. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'm happy that they have family. I just… I think I hate Christmas."

"Not this one," he promised, looping an arm around her shoulders. "You're not going to hate this one."

She smiled weakly up at him, and then elbowed him in the side. "Today, though," she changed the subject. "Can we go to Stark's?"

"You always want to go to Stark's," he complained. "And then you both just talk about computers for an hour and I get bored and"—

"Yea, I know, you get bored and break stuff," she finished for him as they entered the history classroom. "Though to be fair, last time it was Fitz's explosive that went off, which wasn't exactly your doing."

He grinned and slid into the desk next to hers. "Damn right it wasn't my fault," he said. "Do you want to go see Amie and Aziz at the shelter? We haven't been there in a while."

"Okay. Are we going to your place afterwards, though? Because I think Natasha's home, and we could spar for a little bit."

He assented, and later, when Darcy drove them home from the animal shelter ("What? I'm a good driver. That red light was one of the optional ones."), Skye brought up the topic of family again.

"Do you think my parents are alive?"

The question came out of the blue, and Ward stared at her for a long minute.

"I don't know," he said. "What do you think?"

"Part of me thinks they're dead, because otherwise they would have come for me," Skye said. "But then I know someone dropped me off at the orphanage, and I realize that they left just because they could. Because they didn't want to stick around."

"I wish my parents hadn't stuck around," Ward said bluntly. "It would have been better for all of us if we'd ended up at the orphanage."

Skye looked for a moment as if she were about to be angry, but then her face softened, and he knew she was remembering that awful night when he had faced Garrett down in the battered farmhouse; knew she was remembering what he had revealed about his family.

About Dana and Chelle, and who had killed them.

About what Grant had done after.

"Um, I think I took a wrong turn," Darcy said suddenly. "Maybe I should have let Coulson come after all."

"You took a wrong turn going home?" Ward laughed.

"Yea," she said nonchalantly. "Goddamnit that's a cop. Okay, I'm just going to go"—

"Are we at Stark's?" Ward asked.

"I lied about taking a wrong turn," Darcy said. "Come on."

"Darcy, what"—

"Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies," she said firmly. "Come on. Inside."

Skye exchanged a look with him, and Ward shrugged at her.

"Did you know about this?" she asked.

"Nope. Did you?"

She shook her head.

They stepped out of the transport and into the cold. There was snow falling around them in the gray dusk, but the drive outside of Stark's mansion was lit with Christmas lights. Skye shivered slightly, and Ward realized she was still wearing the thin, fraying coat she had gotten at St. Agnes. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders once again as Darcy led them inside.

They were surrounded instantly by Coulson and Steve and Nat and Clint, all clamoring over each other to say "Merry Christmas." Coulson particularly was grinning from ear to ear, and even the two stoic spies were smiling.

"We're all celebrating together," Coulson told them, and when Skye looked up at him uncertainly. "I talked to Sister Monica already. Sorry we didn't tell you earlier. I hoped you didn't think we'd just forgotten Christmas, we just wanted to make this a surprise"—

Ward looked around at the richly decorated hall towards the main dining room, and he grinned, stopping Coulson's torrent of words. "It's amazing," he said. "I've only celebrated Christmas once"—his voice faltered, but Steve was already motioning them down the hall towards the sound of voices and the smell of Christmas dinner.

Tony, Pepper, Thor and Jane were gathered around the table, and near the opposite entrance, Maria Hill and Bruce Banner were conversing. When they entered, Hill took her leave from Banner and joined them.

"Merry Christmas," she said a bit stiffly, as if she hadn't quite figured out how to speak to him without sounding like a brisk agent. She smiled slightly. "Did they tell you how Fury reacted when all of them said they were leaving for Christmas?"

Ward grinned and shook his head.

"We wanted your first Christmas here to be good," she said. "And Fury has no concept of holidays or family time, so he didn't understand why all of his best agents turned down ops and blew things up—well, that was just Clint, and kind of Natasha, too—when he tried to assign them missions on Christmas eve."

Ward's smile widened, and Skye giggled.

"Nat," Skye called across the room. "What did you blow up?"

Natasha looked up from her conversation with Clint, smiling mischievously. "It was Clint," she said. "And it was kind of an accident, but something happened with one of Fury's helicopters."

Clint shook his head. "Natasha. No. Stop."

Pepper called to them all to take their seats for Christmas dinner, and Skye found one next to Ward, as per usual.

Stark had pulled out all the stops on this Christmas dinner (or rather, Pepper had done all the work and Stark had watched approvingly).

After dinner, when Grant carried his dishes into the kitchen, Coulson followed him. The others were heading to one of the main halls, where the Christmas tree was spectacularly decorated.

"Do you have a minute?" Coulson's look was suddenly serious.

Grant nodded. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Coulson said slowly, his expression unreadable, and Grant shifted uncomfortable. "I wanted to talk to you about something. Last week"—

"Um," Ward interrupted him. "If you're talking about… about the thing in the lab with Fitz and what happened with Sitwell, I know I should have told you"—

Coulson's eyes narrowed slightly. "What about the lab?" he asked.

"Shit. Um."

"Grant."

"I swear I didn't plan for it to happen," Grant said guiltily, shifting slightly. "Fitz was trying to finish a project he was working on before Christmas. It was for Jemma, really—it was a piece of technology that she could use as a stun gun, of sorts. More high-powered, though. Self-defense."

"And?" Coulson folded his arms. "What happened?"

"Fitz and I went to the shooting range downstairs in the Hub after school last week," Ward said reluctantly. "And he didn't mean to make it go off at that time, but it hit one of the tech specialists and knocked him out. Agent Sitwell was the only other agent there, and he saw us and came over to yell at Fitz, so I… uh…I knocked him out."

"With Fitz's stun gun?"

Ward winced and nodded.

"Does this gun cause temporary amnesia, too?" Coulson asked, a hint of amusement in his words. "Because I am fairly certain Agent Sitwell would have been in my office ranting if he remembered."

"That's the interesting part," Ward said. "Fitz didn't think the gun caused temporary amnesia, but Sitwell never mentioned it. And god knows he's just waiting for a reason to get me kicked out of here."

Coulson's eyes narrowed. "Why do you say that?"

Ward shrugged uncomfortable. "I don't know," he said finally, and Coulson raised his eyebrows.

"So what you're saying is that you just don't like him?"

"No-o," Ward said. "I don't know why he doesn't like me. I just know that he doesn't."

Coulson looked skeptical. "He's never mentioned anything to me," he said. "And if he had a problem with you, I'm sure he would have said something."

Ward shrugged and turned to go, but Coulson held up a hand. "We have to talk about you using the S.H.I.E.L.D. gun range on a floor you're not even supposed to have access to," he said. "And about shooting illicit, untested weapons at S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

Ward bit his lip uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I guess I didn't really think about it."

"I know it's difficult to say no to Fitz," Coulson said, moving so that he was facing Grant across the kitchen counter. "But that wasn't safe. If you want to do target practice downstairs, talk to me or Steve, or practice on the roof with Natasha. Okay?"

Ward nodded.

"And I expect you to apologize to both agents you shot with the stun gun," Coulson finished.

"Even Sitwell?" Ward groaned.

"Even Sitwell."

"Fine," Ward sighed. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

This time it was Coulson's turn to look uneasy. "I'm not really sure where to start," he said, and Ward felt a sudden twinge of panic at the back of his mind.

Ward had a fear always at the back of his mind that someday he would push hard enough and they would let go; that someday he would become too much trouble and he would no longer be enough for them, and it was this that he heard in Coulson's voice now—

"Grant," Coulson said slowly. "I've been talking to the others for the past… for the past few weeks. And you know that I'm currently your legal guardian, and that we very much plan on having your permanent home with us, but we've realized… I've realized…that maybe there's a next step we've been missing."

"A next step?" Ward asked, his voice squeaking just slightly.

"Tony and Pepper are hoping to adopt Skye," Coulson blurted out. "And I realized that…maybe it's time I did the same thing. But only if you want, and I would understand if you didn't because I know what it's been like for you and"—

"Are you serious?" Ward cut off his flow of words. "You—you—really?"

Coulson grinned, nodding. "Yea. When you're ready."

"You're going to adopt me?"

He nodded again, and Ward laughed incredulously. "I—I don't—I don't know what to say," he said, and found to his embarrassment that something was causing his throat to clench oddly. "I—yes. Yes. I do…I do want that. Are you sure—are you sure it's what you want?" His voice dropped so low it was barely more than a whisper.

Coulson stared at him. "Of course that's what I want." He crossed the kitchen and pulled Ward into a brief hug. "Stark talked to some of his lawyers, and they said it would be possible to sign the adoption papers next week. New Year's Day. Is that okay?"

Grant nodded, and then he realized the full import of Coulson's words. "Stark and Pepper are adopting Skye?"

Coulson smiled and nodded, and Ward felt himself grinning from ear to ear.

"When are they asking her?"

"Tonight," Coulson told him, but Ward was already nearly running down the hall to join the others in the living room.

When they reached the living room, they found that Stark had put the thrusters from one of his suits on Skye, and the two of them were balancing at the top of the Christmas tree as she placed a gaudy, gigantic star at the tip.

Natasha and Clint were in one corner dangerously close to a branch of mistletoe, Maria and Bruce were seated on one of the couches, holding hot cocoa and laughing at something Steve said, and Pepper was standing at the base of the Christmas tree, shouting at Tony and Skye to be careful. Darcy was asking if Thor could use "myuh-myuh magic" to fly her up to join Stark and Skye, and Jane was distracting him with mistletoe and whatever she was whispering in his ear.

Despite Pepper's concern, Skye was returned safely to the ground, and the star glittered down on all of them as they played board games—Ward found he particularly loved Scrabble and Battleship—until late into the night. The adults drank (Natasha thoughtlessly poured Skye a shot and then argued that she could hold her alcohol better than Thor when she was Skye's age), and Grant had his first taste of champagne (in his family, there had been beer and breaking bottles and worse than that, and he didn't consider that his first experience with alcohol, not really).

The last thing he really remembered was curling up between Skye and Darcy on the couch as it neared midnight, and nodding off sleepily as Tony recounted yet another story that was accompanied by eye rolls in unison from Steve, Maria, Pepper, and Coulson. Someone—he thought it might be Jane, but he was already drifting off to sleep—said something about opening Christmas presents early the next morning, and then Grant vaguely remembered being carried up to one of the many spare bedrooms in Stark's mansion.

He woke the next morning to the sounds of a pillow fight that was raging in the hall between Skye and Darcy (and, soon after, Jane, Maria, and Steve). It wasn't long before the whole house was awake, and Stark and Thor and Steve disappeared off to the kitchen to fix breakfast (Stark had, of course, sent any staff he kept home for Christmas).

They exchanged gifts afterwards, and Grant realized, overwhelmed, that he had never had a Christmas like it. From the look on her face, neither had Skye.

Most memorable among the gifts were a sleek new bow from Clint for Grant and a scarlet dress from Natasha for Skye (Natasha referred to it as a "man-killing dress" and it was complete with a hidden pocket that could hold a knife). Tony's gifts were the most outrageous (including a giant teddy bear for Banner, with the logic that even the Hulk needed to have something to cuddle); Maria's the most practical, and Steve's the most absurdly old-fashioned (he gave Tony an ancient wireless radio just to hear Tony's disgust at the outdated technology).

They spent the day at Stark's mansion, and it passed like a whirlwind (it included sledding at one point, which, with Clint and Natasha along, involved more potentially deadly ideas than Grant cared to tell the others when he and Skye recounted their adventures to the rest).

It was evening when Skye slipped her hand into his and smiled up at him. "I wish I could stay here forever," she said lightly, but there was something unmistakable sad in her dark eyes.

Ward wanted to tell her so badly he thought he might burst, but he just squeezed her hand. (They both spotted the nearby mistletoe a moment later, and it was Darcy who roughly shoved them underneath it and glared at Ward until he awkwardly pecked Skye on the cheek).

It was the most memorable moment of the day when Stark asked them all to come upstairs to see a room he had just furnished (meaning, of course, that Pepper had taken care of everything).

The room was complete with a canopy bed, a set of beautifully finished bookcases, and a next-gen laptop that Stark had designed himself. And in the open closet hung Skye's new red dress.

Ward didn't know what to expect, but when he saw realization dawn on Skye's face he wanted to capture the expression on her face forever. She covered her open mouth with her hand, and looked back and forth between Pepper and Tony as if she wasn't sure she could believe what she was seeing.

"We'd like you to stay," Pepper said gently. "If you want. And if you can handle living with Tony."

Skye nearly knocked her over with a hug, and then she turned and buried her face in Tony's shirt, her tangled dark hair falling over the light of the arc reactor next to his heart.

It was late evening when Skye and Ward were alone again, in the dimly lit living room. Skye had not stopped smiling since she found out the news.

"Did you know?" she asked, and when Ward grinned she smacked him with one of the couch pillows. "You little shit. Of course you knew."

When he told her what Coulson had said about adopting him, she hit him with pillow again.

"Why. Didn't. You. Tell. Me."

He grinned and dodged away from her pillow.

"Remember what I said?" she asked suddenly, her expression sobering. "About being owned by everyone but belonging to nobody?"

He nodded.

"Is this what it's like to belong to somebody?"

He threw an arm over her shoulder, and she dropped her head on his shoulder. "Yea," he said. "This is what it's like."

"Grant," she whispered, and he looked down at her, realizing suddenly that her face was inches from his. "There's mistletoe. Right there."

He looked up, noticing the small bow just above their heads, and Skye caught him off guard, pushing her lips against his briefly, blushing furiously the entire time.

He stared at her, his mouth open, and she smiled, still blushing, before dropping her head on his shoulder again.

"I think I lied before," Skye said softly, her words muffled against his shirt. "I don't mind Christmas. I don't mind it all."