After destroying his brother Christian, Grant decided to stay low and enjoyed his life for now. That is why he show up in Hawaii now. He has been to this place for a few times for missions and never got the chance to explore these beautiful islands. Eying on all the bikini beauty walking on the sand, he began imaging Skye in bikini and soon realize it will never happen. A few girls obviously hit on him; however he did not want to go that route yet, so he left the beach and went into a bar. It reminded him the night Skye offered to have a talk. He was too coward at that time and he has not changed that much since then. He wanted to get drunk and see how life would lead him; therefore he ordered double shots. The bartender refused to serve him after the tenth cup, and he still felt very sober. He seemed like only drink ten small cup of water. Without the hope of getting more alcohol, he left and searched for another bar to fulfill his unfinished wish. This was when he heard women screaming from the back alleys. Without any thinking, he run to the back and saw a man holding a gun towards a young women who was apparently on the edge of breaking down.
"Hey, you. Drop the gun".
"Oh, a knight. You both will die here now".
Right before the guy firing bullets at him, Grant managed to reach him and kicked his head to the ground hard. He disappeared before the policemen showed up and somehow he was very happy. He never felt so joyful. This might be the best thing he can do now. After all the nasty things he did in the name of SHIELD or HYDRA, he finally could made amendments and save people' lives.
Grant spent the next year travelling through the most dangerous city in the States and struck down the gangs and drug dealers. When the potential threat was much beyond his ability to reach, he tipped the policemen he trusted after spending weeks observing them. Nobody knew him, but the children's happy face were enough to light up his days or even his dream. After volunteering cleaning the streets and neighborhood, his drowning nightmare started to disappear and he began to have much better rest during the night. Sometimes he felt the SHIELD and Hydra experience happened long time ago. After the first three month of his escape, SHIELD seemed to significantly reduce the effort to hunt him. He watched the argument between Iron Man and American Captain and wondered which side Coulson or SHIELD will align. The old nice Coulson might hesitant between both side, but the new Coulson who sent Grant back to his abusive brother, might align with Iron man for his money support and supposedly justified reason regardless Coulson's own feeling about American Captain. Grant suddenly laughed at his own thoughts. Why the hell did he worry about all these craps? It had nothing to do with him living a normal life. During all his cleaning mission, he never ran into anyone with super power, which made his life a little easier. He was sometimes curious how people could live so peacefully after seeing aliens invading earth and hearing the argument about super power.
His life might stay that peaceful despise of getting shots or having to run away from bombing once a while if he did not overhear the conversation between two women at the most popular bar in Chicago. They spoke in low volume, but Grant managed to catch a few words from them. They were talking about SHIELD, HYDRA and… Skye got kidnapped by her father. He was not concerned at first, because he knew how much Skye's father loved her. He did not see the man as monster, but a father whose daughter was kidnapped as a baby and tried hard to get his princess back. Grant knew he would never be able have Skye, but he still hoped the poor father had his chance. After all, his father did nothing wrong before HYDRA stepped in and took Skye away. The words Grant heard later alarmed him. These two women were talking about setting a trap to catch Skye's father with all possible means. This did not seem like SHIELD to him. Coulson would never approve anything like this to protect his agents, which Grant was once a part of. He decided to investigate this and protected Skye from any harm. He followed those two women home that night and kept following them for two weeks before he finally identified both people's identities. They were part of HYDRA science department and they were more interested in Skye's inhuman father than her. The way they talked about Skye's father made Grant sick. He saw Simmons talked in the same way when she was excited about experimenting on some insects. After another week, he finally followed these two agents into the trap place, which was an old house a few miles away from the main road. It was close enough to drive in but far enough for anyone to hear any sounds. The house was well maintained from outside and no one would doubt this house to be anything else. Grant sneaked into the only office building across from the house. The whole place was empty after 5:30 pm every day, which made it perfect for the upcoming event.
After another two days, Grant finally saw Skye walking into the house reluctantly with her father. She seemed to soften her attitude quite a bit, because she did not run off when she had all the freedom to do so. Grant did not know how many HYDRA were in the house, so he did not want to step in blind. After two gun shots, he rushed into the house before thinking about the consequence. With the help of thermal detector, he found Skye was hiding in the storage area at the left side of the house while her father was fighting with two super soldiers and multiple HYDRA agents in the center of the house. He reached the storage without alarming anyone who were fighting with the father. He gently knocked on the storage door.
"Skye, it is me, Ward. Open the door and we need to get out of here"
"Ward, what the hell are you doing here?"
Skye was frozen when she finally opened the door and saw his face. Judging from the sound, he knew Skye's father would break soon, so no time for any delay now. He grabbed her hand and tried to drag her out of the house. Skye pushed his hand away immediately and he landed at the back. It was so loud now everyone knew he was in the house and two HYDRA agents shift their focuses to him. Before he could react, Skye's father took care of those two agents. With only two super soldiers standing and paid no attention to them, Grant took the chance and run to outside. This time he held her hand tight so she had no choice of slipping away.
Three steps outside the house and he realized something was very wrong. Then he saw a bullet coming towards Skye. He immediately stepped in front of Skye to block the bullet. When it hit the vest, he actually did not feel much pain. He used this second to identify the sniper. He soon found out the sniper's location and fired several bullets towards him so they can have time to get to the SUV he prepared in the Office building. He felt dizzy and his feet began tremble. He also smell blood but still he did not feel any pain. Finally they found the SUV. He thrown the key to Skye and found it hard to get into the car with non-cooperative feet. He felt tired and also relaxed. He protected people and now he protected Skye. His life could not be any better. It may be a good time to take the long break he deserved.
"Ward, stay with me. Your son of bitch. I have so many questions to ask you. Don't you dare to fail men again!"
"Ward, I do not need to you to save me! I am not a fucking glass vase. I am a field agent, just like May. Did you hear me?"
"Grant, do not sleep! I may already lose my father. I do not want to lose you."
Grant did hear Skye screaming all over him, but he was too tired to hear what she said or give any response. He was even a little annoyed at Skye's effort to keep him awake. But soon every sound disappeared.