"Ugh! That's completely unfair!" Skye huffed, blowing a tuft of her bangs off her forehead with the force of her exhale. She reluctantly removed her last two blue armies from Siam as Ward moved his own troops into position. It had been a hard fought battle. She'd taken out dozens of his troops but, still, numbers matter and Ward had overwhelming support. Losing her meager footing in Asia was going to hurt bad on his next turn when he got an additional seven armies to add to his already monstrous supply.
"All's fair in love and..."
"Ah-ah! I swear, Ward, if you say that line one more time, I won't care that we had an alliance, I'll kill you myself," Mike Peterson spoke over the gloating Grant Ward.
Skye's armies were sparsely situated only in Australia now. The rest of the board was dominate by Ward's red army of doom. Though the other players had all been eliminated, it didn't stop them from sitting around the board game heckling those still in play. Or, in Fitz's case, merrily chomping his way through another bowl of popcorn with apparent glee. Entertainment, apparently, was sparse on the Bus. Plus, everyone knew there was a bet riding on this game; there always was a bet on hand when Ward and Skye went head to head.
Kara Lynn chortled from her perch on the sofa and stole a handful of popcorn from Fitz's bowl. She was currently wearing the face of a Nubian queen since her own last stand, several turns back, had been to hold Eastern Africa from a two-pronged attack out of the Middle East and Egypt. Ever since Fitz had repaired her photostatic veil, she'd taken great delight in her enhanced ability to be whoever she wanted, whenever she felt like it. Her easy facial shifting was convenient for undercover missions but rather disconcerting when they were playing games like RISK. Kara Lynn always had a different face and a different voice for each country she was attacking from. The mechanical manipulations of her face and voice never seemed to effect her laughter though. That was always pure Kara Lynn.
"I'm just saying you have no reason to complain. You made an admirable stand for the last," Ward glanced at the clock on the wall behind Skye's head. "five hours. If you want, I'll graciously accept your unconditional surrender now."
Fitz piped up from his corner of the table. "Statistically speaking, your odds of coming back from this are pretty slim, Skye. You might want to consider..."
Skye turned to him, eyes flashing. "You!" she jabbed a finger at the engineer. "I get KL and Mike falling into his pocket but I cannot believe you'd turn on me like that! How could you?"
Fitz's last plays in the game had been decimating Skye's forces in South America. He guiltily shoved another handful of popcorn into his mouth to avoid answer her question.
Simmons, the only person that hadn't fallen into Ward's dastardly alliance, eyed Fitz critically. "He bribed you, didn't he?"
He didn't have to answer Simmons' accusation. The red flush in his cheek and hasty glance thrown at Ward completely gave away the answer.
Skye crossed her arms across her chest and glared menacingly at Ward. He ignored the menace and enjoyed how her breasts were thus pressed upward just enough to give him a really quality view of her cleavage.
Not getting anywhere with Ward, Skye turned back to the easier target. "Okay, Judas. How much does your loyalty go for?"
"I get to take care of Oscar for the weekend!"
"Oh, Fitz!" Simmons moaned. "That's not a bribe. Normal people have to pay someone to take care of their dog when they're away."
"It is so a bribe. Normal people don't have Oscar. Who is, by the way, not a 'normal' dog. He's an extraordinary companion."
Ward's shit-eating grin nearly broke his face. "Yeah. Oscar is extraordinary. I won't hear otherwise about my dog."
Skye turned her scowl to Mike and KL. "I hope you're getting more out of this than the privilege to dog sit."
"I know what favor Ward will demand of you if he wins," Kara Lynn shrugged. "It plays well with my plans for the weekend."
Mike just held up his hands. "$250 because I'm the clearly the only sane person here." He looked disbelievingly at the others around the table. "Do none of you know how to ask for a real bribe?"
"I'm not surrendering. I'll roll this out and hope that justice will prevail," Skye said laying out her three new troops and grabbing the red dice.
"If you flip the dice with your power, that's cheating," Fitz called, thought better of the comment after it had already gotten out, and decided to munch on more popcorn instead of maintaining eye contact with the visibly livid Skye.
"No enhanced abilities can effect game play, Skye," Kara Lynn restated as she shifted her face again. "Those are the rules."
"Do you even hear yourselves talk? Jemma aside, you are all, literally, the worst." Skye said, throwing the dice.
Three turns later, there were no blue troops left on the board.
Head in her hands, Skye asked Ward what the forfeit would be.
"You and me. This weekend away. I've already packed for you. We just finished that last intake. Coulson's team is finishing up the paperwork. So, no work, no calls."
Skye narrowed her eyes and turned back to Kara Lynn. "How exactly do your plans play into this?"
"Cabazon Dinosaurs. 2 hours west of here. I figured if you were, uh, tied up for the weekend, I'd have ample opportunity to get out to see them."
"You guys do know you could just ask for a weekend off, right?" Skye grumbled as she got to her feet.
"Where's the fun in that?" Ward asked as he laced his fingers through her hers and pulled her away from her friends and colleagues.
Apparently, Ward's idea of fun consisted of a hotel that sunk at least a month's salary for a two night vacation. Skye dropped her bag on the marble floor in the parlor because, yes, their hotel suite had a parlor. She spun around to take it all in.
"This is..."
"Lovely?"
"Pricey. You know we don't need all this space. We could have gone to the Best Western..."
"I know. But, we practically live on a plane and sleep in bunks. Sometimes I want a little more than my base needs. Privacy, for one. Good food? You, all to myself."
"A little more, Grant? This is... I'm not sure I can even pass in a place like this." She ran her hand down the texture cream wallpaper. It felt like silk; it probably was. "What's your agenda?"
"Agenda? Who says I have one?"
"You cheated your way to a victory in RISK so you could whisk me away to a weekend getaway in a place the one-percent might deign to check a price tag. You have an agenda."
Ward closed the distance between them. He settled one hand on her shoulder and slide the other up her neck, along her jaw line and into her hair. If she had the same ticklish spots as he did, she would've been jerking this way and that like a marionette with tangled strings. She didn't though. Instead she leaned into his hand, leaned into his touch.
"You're going to have to modify the rules if you want to count that play as cheating. It doesn't say anywhere in the rulebook that I can't bribe my allies."
A thin smile pulled at Skye's lips. "You're incorrigible. I'll add it to our rulebook as soon as I get back. No enhanced abilities. No rigged equipment. Use of mirrors and lasers strictly forbidden. No bribing."
"I have other ways to get what I want." Ward's lips teased hers gently. The hand on her shoulder leisurely traced its way down her side until it found the hem of her shirt. With quick precision, he had the shirt up and off her. He was so smooth with its removal, she barely register the absence of his lips before they were back on hers.
Her own hands were less precise. They scrambled and pulled and tore at his shirt. When she got it off him and the hot skin of his torso pressed her into the silky coolness of the wall behind her, Skye gave up the pretense of trying to maintain control. She moaned into his mouth as she pulled her legs up around his own and let him take on the full weight of her body. He leaned her against the wall and she was glad for the overtly expensive wallpaper. Its textured silk detailed cool, soft designs on her back in delicate contrast to the hard heat of Ward pressing her into it. She could feel his erection through his pants as it rubbed against her. She locked her ankles behind him, dug them into his firm butt and reveled in the feel of him.
One handed, he managed to free himself from his pants but there was no way to finesse her from her underwear in this position. He pushed her wet panties to the side and slid into her fully. Her name was on his lips but she didn't let him say it. She captured them instead, devoured her own name, tore away his validations and invocations and pleas. She let her fingernails wreck havoc on his back, across his shoulder, through his hair. She rolled her hips against his own furious onslaught until they both went beyond arousal. She felt herself shatter into a million pieces, be reformed, and shatter again. Eventually, she felt him come and with the hot wave of his orgasm, they fell satiate into a heap of their own discarded clothing on the cold marble floor.
It was many hours later when Skye finally got around to opening her own suitcase. Ward had wandered out to find food, promising to be back shortly, and mostly driven by curiosity she riffled through her pack. The door opened as she was finishing her exploration without looking she said, "I can see Kara Lynn packed for me." She tossed Ward the box of condoms. They didn't need them anymore; she'd moved to other forms of birth control awhile back but it had been Kara Lynn's specialty – packing preparedness. And, really, it was the thought that counted, right?
"She's just marking our anniversary."
Skye stilled completely then. "Our anniversary?" she asked slowly, scouring for what important date she'd forgotten. She couldn't come up with one. She could suppose they had started their current relationship on Valentine's Day, had called it what it was several weeks later. They weren't there yet though to that year mark. There should be no anniversary to celebrate.
She turned and saw him setting out the food. For all the expense he put into the hotel room, he saved a pretty penny on the food. Skye recognized one of her favorite southern California Chinese food takeout restaurant's logo. When she saw the styrofoam containers open, she found the hint she needed. Chicken Lo Mein. Pork Fried Rice. Egg Rolls.
The anniversary he was celebrating came back to her. Their first time. In Jersey. It wasn't really something she'd consider to celebrate. They'd fought more than they'd fucked and she'd said some terrible things to him that day.
"I guess our accommodations have improved, if not our taste in food?" She walked towards him, only a ghost of a smile on her face. She tried to read his expression but wasn't terribly successful. His dark eyes took her in. His tee shirt was the minimal attempt she'd made at clothing herself, her hair was still sex mussed and wild, her hands nervously tapped out a beat on her bare leg.
"You don't like the memory of it?"
"New Jersey? Not so much. I was...unnecessarily cruel."
"I don't think so. I think you were being entirely honest. And, Skye, it was a start. We had to start somewhere."
Silence descended as they both poked at their greasy meals with their cheap, wooden chopsticks.
It was Skye who broke the silence first. Clearing her throat, she said, "There's three little words that you've been waiting to hear from me for awhile now, I think." The statement was a lot less authoritative than was her wont these days.
Ward stilled. He could hear his own heart thumping loudly in his chest but the rest of the world maintained its cold silence. Skye pushed the chair he was sitting in back from the table and settled into his lap. She draped her arms around him and curled into him until her head rested on his heart and he knew she could hear its telltale thump. Her long hair tickled him as it brushed across his bare forearm but he refused to jerk away from the slight discomfort. Instead, he let his arms wrap tightly around her as she nuzzled into him further. If she hadn't been cruel in New Jersey, now she was being intentionally cruel with this sweetly agonizing anticipation.
A breathe, a whispered: "I was wrong."
His breath caught in his throat. He was sure she could hear that too.
"I once told you that I'd never, ever give you what you want. That I'd never, ever understand what you did. And, I was wrong, Grant. I'd give you anything. And, now, I think I do understand just a little of the way your mind works. I can't say I always like it but I understand it. A little. So, now, I have a question for you. Expensive hotel, two nights away, lo mein...what do you want?"
He swallowed hard. His throat dry. "Those weren't the three words I've been waiting to hear."
Skye made a low hum of amusement. "Is that so?" she asked and she claimed his lips for a searing kiss. When she was finished, she whispered another three words so softly he almost didn't hear them. Her dark eyes looked up at him with such touching adoration he found he didn't really need the declaration after all.
In keeping with their tradition, the lo mein ended up strew across the floor.
They broke tradition the next morning, however, when the opted to stay in bed together rather than storm apart.
A/N: Much thanks for the comment and idea that sparked this tale is owed to FavoredFire. Blame for the execution of it can fall on me.