Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author Note: Set after episode two '0-8-4.' Warning, this fic contains a threesome.
DECLASSIFIED
When Ward walked back onto the repaired jet, he was instantly suspicious – it was way too quiet. Granted, May was silent at the best of times, but Fitz, Simmons, and Skye usually made enough noise between them to wake the dead. Coulson was still debriefing with Hill and Fury – Grant was glad he too wasn't needed for that meeting. He'd been hoping to settle back onto the bus, maybe see what Skye was up to, but now...now he was on his guard.
When he wended his way past Lola, he got an answer, and an eyeful. Fitz and Simmons were in the lab and regardless of the transparent nature of their surroundings, were both without most of their clothing. Fitz was spread out on one of the lab tables and Simmons was astride him, her head thrown back. They were both flushed and yet were both managing to maintain silence, Simmons biting her bottom lip in a really appealing way. And God, Ward should not be thinking that. He should be telling them that they were almost certainly breaking a lot of regulations and that they were in plain sight.
He holstered his gun and tried to remember if SHIELD had anything in its code of conduct about this kind of bizarre situation when Simmons spotted him. Rather than being instantly embarrassed and grabbing her clothes whilst babbling a fountain of excuses, she smiled and waved at him. Fitz looked his way too and managed to nod a greeting before his eyes rolled back with apparent pleasure. Ward could feel the back of his neck flush in response; God, he could not be the only one embarrassed here.
Straightening his posture and being sure to keep his gaze at eye level, he stepped into the lab. Fitz and Simmons didn't stop their activity in his presence, if anything their thrusting became even more pronounced.
"Agent Ward, hello," Simmons smiled beatifically at him. "Doesn't the bus look amazing? And it was repaired in practically no time at all."
Ward clenched his jaw as Fitz let out a particularly interesting moan. "I think Fury threatened a lot of people's jobs."
"Oh yes, his style of management is rather bracing but it does get results. Did you enjoy the time off?"
Ward's time off had consisted of a pile of paperwork and then a quick SHIELD mission in Istanbul before being recalled to headquarters to rejoin Coulson's team. "It was relaxing. You?"
"Oh, we've kept ourselves busy."
Fitz was panting now and did something that made Simmons's breath catch. Ward's own breathing stuttered as his gaze faltered downwards to glistening skin and shifting curves. He rapidly forced his eyes up again and his thoughts back to the issue at hand.
"Fraternization between..."
"We have dispensation," Fitz finally spoke up, hands bracketing Simmons's hips.
"Special dispensation," put in Simmons.
"Aye, special dispensation. We work better together when the tension's all worked out."
"Mmmmm." Simmons looked down at him fondly. "Much better."
Fitz's expression was soft with something like adoration; it was the least anxious and angry that Ward had ever seen him. It didn't make their explanation any less crazy.
"Coulson knows about this?"
Simmons seemed to have snapped out of the gentle moment and was now rolling her hips again. "Mmm, he signed off on it."
Ward could feel a headache fast approaching. "There's paperwork about this?!"
Fitz gave him a look. "This is SHIELD, mate, there's paperwork about everything."
Well, that was true enough. But still. "I doubt that this kind of public relationship was part of the deal."
Simmons flapped a hand carelessly; her nails were painted the exact same colour as her shirt's pinstripes. "Agent May is attending to some personal business, Skye is several miles away hacking with some very dangerous friends, and of course Agent Coulson is in a meeting."
"Skye's still hacking?"
Fitz looked way too unbothered by the situation. "Rising Tide do keep getting in contact with her."
Ward's headache was definitely a bad one and his jaw was tense as he spun quickly towards the door. "Coulson needs to know..."
"Oh, he does. We sent him the information as soon as one of Fitz's programmes turned it up. Of course nothing's been left in our system about it; Skye would easily find it no matter what we did. So it's all paperwork, the old-fashioned kind. She'll never look there."
True enough. "Skye's going to stay on the team, despite being in contact a known terrorist group?"
Simmons's smile curved with secrets and laughter. "Oh, well, SHIELD does have a history of turning enemies into agents. You must have heard the rumours about Coulson personally vouching for Hawkeye and Black Widow."
"Yeah, and how substantial the bounties on their heads were."
Fitz had unsurprisingly gone a little starry-eyed as he'd spoken, no doubt thinking of Black Widow. Ward still shook his head at them.
"It doesn't bother you, her still working for terrorists?"
"We've got someone at HQ tracking everything she accesses online and off. We'll have to work on her here too of course."
Fitz mewled and Ward glanced at him, at his flushed chest and flexing fingers. He'd give this to Fitz; he clearly had a lot of stamina.
And now Ward had to keep even more of an eye on Skye. Coulson would definitely be hearing about this. Ward cast another look towards the enthusiastic pair. "Could you please do that somewhere less...obvious?"
Simmons wrinkled her nose. Ward refused to find that adorable. "The beds are just too cramped for two. A terrible design flaw. Would you like to join us?"
The non-sequiter threw Ward for a second and he blinked, because did he really just hear that? At his expression and silence, Simmons looked immediately apologetic.
"If you're not too busy of course."
"Of course," echoed Ward faintly. "Did you just ask...? Really?"
Fitz snorted with laughter. "Well, Skye's clearly a bad idea and we're hardly going to ask Agent May. She makes her own arrangements, or so she told us, and we're not going to ask questions, are we?"
A fair point. Trying to fathom who could keep up with Melinda May made Ward's headache worse, just as Simmons piped up.
"And of course Coulson is already taken; he's made that quite clear."
Ward stared blankly at her. "He has?"
He never usually asked this many questions, not all at once. He hated it, how completely underprepared it made him feel. What were Fitz and Simmons doing to him? Simmons' smile was apologetic now.
"Oh, well, clear to us, when he signed off on this. It all made sense of course, how often he spends time alone, he needs to talk to his husband."
"When their time zones match up."
Simmons mmmed in agreement and drove forward in a way that made Fitz cry out. They weren't being silent anymore and Ward's pants were feeling a lot tighter. He shook his head, trying to clear it and stay on topic.
"His husband?"
"Classified," Fitz and Simmons said in tandem.
"Sorry, Agent Ward," Simmons flashed him a smile. "You haven't got a clearance level high enough for that information."
That was unlikely. "I'm a Level Seven and I doubt his marriage is that highly classified."
Fitz laughed but there was something steely in his expression now, Simmons matched it. "There's a lot about Agent Coulson that's very highly classified."
Ward stared – where were the chattering science geeks who wouldn't stop spewing information? Now they clammed up? And how had they ended up with a higher clearance level than him? He could push but their expressions told him that they weren't going to budge. He was grudgingly impressed, clearly there was more to Fitz and Simmons than met the eye.
"So is that a 'yes', Agent Ward?"
They were both looking at him intently, their movement momentarily paused. Ward's mouth dried, if he was completely honest, he was pretty short on reasons to refuse, they'd systematically dismissed any objections that he might have harboured. It was almost like they'd planned it. Definitely way more than met the eye.
The heat he'd felt when he'd first spotted them, practically naked and thoroughly enjoying each other, had only increased. And they had dispensation after all.
He left his gun on an easy-to-reach countertop, his heart thumping fast and pleased, and one hand travelling to cup Simmon's cheek. "As long as I don't have to do the paperwork."
-the end
