If Skye saw anyone else rapidly taking apart a rifle and putting it back together, she would have read that as "give me some space" body language, but sending out go-away signals was literally all Ward ever did anymore. It was pretty much all he did in the first place, but since Miles, it had gotten even worse. He was still her SO, sort of – to the extent that she was still SHIELD-ish – but now he just seemed pissed off all the time. More than usual.
Anyways. Skye decided that she was just going to have to ignore Ward's big giant imaginary NO SKYE'S ALLOWED sign and say something because this situation was getting intolerable. And it wasn't like there was going to be a better time in the near future.
Skye took a step forward into the room and cleared her throat.
"Wait," said Ward without even looking at her as he continued to reassemble the gun. When he was finished, he slapped the stopwatch that was sitting on the table and recorded his time. He sighed loudly and before turning to face her as if the whole thing was a chore. "What?"
"I know you're still mad and I get that, but I just wanted to explain a little and I know it doesn't excuse things but-"
"So you're not here for training." Ward rolled his eyes. "Sit down."
Skye did not think this conversation was going very well, even given her very low expectations, but she sat down at the table across from Ward.
"This is a standard bolt-action rifle. Watch me. I'm going to go slowly, twice. Then I want you to do it. Maybe then I'll listen to what you have to say."
Before explaining what he was talking about, Ward began to disassemble the rifle, one piece at a time, in a perfect, practiced, meticulous order. Once it was in pieces, he put both hands flat on the table. Then, he began to put the gun back together, exactly reversing the original process. Or at least, Skye thought that was what she saw. It wasn't like she knew much about guns and Ward's idea of "going slowly" was still faster than she could really process.
"Once more," said Ward, before repeating the process. Skye thought she caught a little more the second time. When the rifle was whole again, he slid it across the table to Skye. "Now you do it, as fast as you can."
Skye drew her hands back from the weapon. "I don't want to shoot something by accident."
"There's no ammo."
"Oh."
"Take it apart. Go." When Ward said 'go', he tapped the stopwatch.
Skye picked up the rifle with both hands. It was heavier than expected. Why did people worry about taking them apart really quickly anyhow. Was that really a situation that arose that often? She tried to remember what part Ward handled first and started unscrewing the scope. Was that right? She looked at Ward for confirmation, but he was maddeningly unresponsive. The trigger part was supposed to come off, but it was stuck. Was it supposed to be stuck? Was she supposed to do something else first or just pull harder?
When Skye finally finished field stripping the weapon, Ward hit the stopwatch and announced, "Eleven minutes, thirty-two seconds."
"How fast can you do it?"
"Twenty-eight seconds sighted, thirty-seven seconds blindfolded."
"Why would you ever need to do this blindfolded?"
"It's about knowing your weapon, Skye. Now do it again."
Skye did as she was told and was secretly pleased to hear that her time had dropped considerably, to a still-awful seven minutes, forty-eight seconds. She repeated the sequence four more times until Ward finally announced that her time was three minutes, twelve seconds.
"Is that good?"
"It's around what Ops expects from incoming cadets."
Skye wasn't sure whether that was an insult or a compliment. Probably neither?
"Tell me your excuse," said Ward.
"Huh?"
"You came in here because you wanted to tell me an excuse."
"Not an excuse," said Skye, because even though she knew arguing was pointless, she was going to do it anyway. "Just an explanation. Because I really wasn't trying to hurt you guys and I know what I did was wrong and-"
"Get on with it."
"Right," said Skye, having suddenly forgotten what she planned on saying. "Okay, so it was…" she stalled, then remembered where she had intended to start the story. "When I was a teenager, I was in a lot of trouble. I wasn't going to school. I was breaking all these rules. And the nuns at the orphanage, they weren't even punishing me anymore, because they'd say there was no point. But they'd make me feel guilty about things. And, I mean, why stick around? Nobody's going to adopt a sixteen-year-old. I couldn't stand it anymore and I ran away. I had forty-seven dollars and some clothes and that was it."
Ward at least appeared to be listening, if not actually reacting.
"Forty-seven dollars doesn't last long. I was eating food out of the trash, sleeping in bus stations. I had nothing. And then I had Miles. It was like this guy just shows up and says, 'You don't have any friends, any family? I'll be your friend, I'll be your family. You don't know what to do, how to survive? I can show you, I can teach you. You're lost and alone and you just made the biggest mistake of your life? Stick with me, and it's all going to work out okay, because you sure as hell don't have any other options.'" Skye shrugged.
There was something curiously tight in Ward's expression.
"So when I contacted him, it's not like I set out to hurt you guys or mess with SHIELD or anything like that. It's just that I owed him, okay? I know that you were born a forty-year-old with your life perfectly in order, but I wasn't. I was really screwed up and I was drowning and Miles threw me a lifeline. I know what he did was wrong, but it was hard for me to say no to him because I owe him everything."
For just an instant, Skye could have sworn that Ward looked stricken before flattening out into his usual bland expression.
"I listened," said Ward, standing up, apparently of the opinion that he had fulfilled any obligation he had. "Keep practicing with the rifle. I'm going to go work on the heavy bag. Come get me if you manage to get your time under three minutes."