AN: I own nothing but Calla James and I've made Jemma 29 in present time and Ward is 32 in present time.
"So how'd you meet?" Skye asked.
"Well…"
-/-/-
Jemma is seventeen and brand new to SHIELD Sci-Ops Academy when she meets Grant Ward at a party thrown by her friends Trip and Fitz who seemed make easy friends with both sides of the academy. She goes because she needs a break from her studies.
She could go monopolize Fitz but thinks maybe making other social connections could be important for them so even though it makes her nervous she journeys down to the boiler room all on her own in her favorite midnight blue dress.
She makes it inside too before her nerves are feeling jumpy. She goes to the bar and orders a vodka cranberry like she'd seen done on sex in the city. Right now she was a fun free Carrie Bradshaw sort of girl.
She sipped the drink… Nope she was definitely a Charlotte York girl. Maybe if she just kept sipping it get better and less whatever that was. She's most of the way through the drink feeling warmly buzzed when she notices him.
Whoever he is he stands and stares at her from a darkened corner for a good ten minutes. Like a creeper.
She downs the remainder of her drink and approaches the dark corner containing the creepy starer. The alcohol must make her feel bold because what she says shocks even her. "If you are going to stare at me like a stalker all night it's only polite to introduce yourself after the first ten minutes."
This startles a laugh out of her stalker and he steps from the shadows. Oh bollocks he's very attractive.
"Grant Ward… I'd apologize for the staring but I'm not sorry." He offers his hand and she tentatively shakes it.
"Why not?"
"You stand out in the best way possible."
She can feel herself blushing but is helpless to stop it. "Oh well…thank you I suppose."
He smiled like he wasn't used to the action. "And your name would be?"
She smiled at hm. "Bloody hell…I've mucked everything up I'm Jemma, Jemma Simmons."
-/-/-
They spend that whole night talking and promise to keep up with each other. Jemma doesn't expect someone like Grant to have must interest in her but he keeps the promise. He calls her on Sunday's on the dormitory phones where they spend their allotted twenty minutes talking over their weeks in hushed tones like if they're overheard whatever it is they're building will shatter.
Sometimes he doesn't talk at all just listens to her rattle on and on. When she stops to check on him he'll say "You're helping Jem…keep going."
He shows up to her dorm one day. "I need you to teach me to Waltz. May offered but…I want you." the tail end of the sentence shocks her but she tries not to let it show.
Grant is a completely hopeless dancer and she's sure she will have bruised toes for a month but being in his arms feels nice and mostly makes up for the abuse inflicted on her toes.
She even tries putting on an upbeat song just to loosen him up a bit it doesn't work. Grant is not loose. If she desires to dance in the future it will have to be with Fitz or own her own.
Shortly after the dance lesson Grant is sent on his first pre-grad test mission. He's gone about three months and she gets a single postcard with a Lord Byron quote on the front in a hand written decidedly feminine scrawl. "Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship." She smiles wondering which of the female specialist he sought to write out the quotation. She flips it over and the only words not redacted by little black squares are… "The weather is nice." Along with "I miss you.-G."
She happens to be at the hub working on the Sonic Staff with Fitz when he returns from that first mission. There's always a lot of talk surrounding Grant because he's good. You'd have to be to have been mentored by the very lauded and scary Calvary. So when she first hears whispers of his name she lets them go.
"Yes! Ward May, and Romanoff barely made it out I hope my test run goes easier." She hears Trip telling Fitz.
"Is he very badly injured? I'd just like to know so I can warn Jemma. They've become quite the secretive item." Fitz says it lowly as though she's invisible.
"Jemma is standing right here!" She points out to Fitz.
"Not a scratch on him Miss Jemma. Last I saw he was in the mess hall." Trip reports with a trademark grin.
She takes off at a dead run dodging people and crates and general chaos. She sees him standing in the food line. He looks tired and a bit dirty but whole. That's important, he's in one piece. "Grant!" He turned and smiled at the sound of her voice. Before she fully comprehends what her body is doing she's leaping into his arms.
She doesn't give him time to speak before she's kissing him. He tightens his grip on her and kisses back like he means makes her whole body feel warm and tingly and she doesn't even care that the whole mess hall is making lewd noises at them. For their first kiss it's pretty damned perfect.
When they break for air he says. "Hi Jem." Like they hadn't just spent months apart.
-/-/-
He graduates a few months before her even though Jemma and Fitz had both been fast tracked. He's on a mission when she graduates the academy at nineteen. They've been dating a little over a year at that point.
He says it's because he'd missed their anniversary and her graduation that he plans their backpacking through Europe trip but May had told her the mission had gone badly and he was on mandatory R & R. So she kept an eye on him for May.
-/-/-
She watches him closely but he slowly starts to decompress and so she finds herself relaxing and enjoying the trip.
They're standing in front of the Trevi Fountain when he says. "I love you." He gives the hand he's holding a little squeeze. She finds herself smiling at him. He doesn't say the words often. "I love you too."
"Let's get married. Now, today." He said looking at her intently behind his sun glasses how she knows it's an intent expression in his eyes she can't tell you. She just knows.
She has to tread careful here. Grant's feelings are more tender than he'll ever admit to anyone even her. "Grant I'd love that. I just would hate for it to be something you come to regret."
"The only thing I'd regret is not binding myself to you in every way I can when I had the chance. I love you and I don't say it or show it enough but I do. With what I do what we do we're taught love and connection can be your downfall I don't believe that. I know that you give me reason to keep going when I want to quit. You're the one person I fight to come home to Jem. I'll be damned if I give it up. What'd ya say?"
She swallows past her sudden tears. "Okay, Yes!" he leans in and kisses her. "Now that, that's settled I think I saw jeweler's that way." She said with a big grin.
They buy rings and wrangle a priest into marrying them on the Spanish Steps. The vows are the simple generic ones but that's okay, they still mean the world to Jemma. She says hers in English but Grant repeats his in fluidly perfect Italian with the biggest smile she's ever seen on his face.
They exchange rings and her heart goes a bit racy on her as they kiss making the whole thing real and legal.
She's married….wow…that's a bit bizarre. Before she can over think things she looks up into Grant's eyes and knows she has made the right choice.
They flag down a fellow tourist to take their picture.
-/-/-
It turns out when you step foot into the Triskellion's main building your badges automatically scan for newly incurred data…like marriages. They're automatically taken to the highest ranking agent's office. Jemma doesn't have an SO like Grant. She thinks she may get off easy until she sees Nick Fury standing imposingly next to Melinda May.
Grant so confident and sure of the choice now looks ready to bolt. She'd be hurt if she didn't fully understand the way Grant worked. Approval and being the best matters to him.
"What have you done?" Director Fury asked and Grant seems somehow frozen.
"Nothing illegal sir we got married." She pipes up intending to help Grant who is utterly shell shocked and suddenly mute
"You know interpersonal relationships with other agents is both highly frowned upon and in some cases prohibited." He says sternly but Jemma is not deterred.
"With all due respect sir I'm not Barbra Morse and he is not Lance Hunter."
"Jemma…" Grant tries to warn her but she's got a good head of steam it be best for him to let her vent it,
"No I've got this one love." She waves him off and she catches the edge of a smile from May.
She continues on. "Next you're going to say our marriage could be seen as a kind of weakness and used against us and you may be right. After all I've no control of the perception of others but they will only mistake that love for weakness once and they will sorely regret it. Then you're going to say public knowledge of this might endanger us…Grant can take care of himself and well I will use my knowledge to remove the threat to my safety. Being smart has perks sir and if even that doesn't work? He taught me how to kill someone with a paper clip and my thumb." Fury smiles at her just a little.
"She's a fun one huh son?" He directs at Grant who nods dumbly.
"And if we needed to erase the physical records at some point?" Fury pushes.
She tries to project nonchalance. "Do it, It'd pain me to see it happen sir but if it was the last option I'd understand. No matter what you do Director Fury we will continue to live as a married couple. You can't stop us because if you try? I'll leave SHIELD and we both know you don't want that with as many resources have been sunk into "Fitzsimmons." And all that. It'd be a shame honestly. I wouldn't test it if I were you sir. "She finished with an easy smile and sharp confidence in her eyes.
"I do believe that's the nicest I've ever been threatened." Fury grinned and held out his hand "I suppose congratulations are in order then." Grant gapes a moment then shakes the director's hand as does Jemma.
-/-
"I can't believe you told off the director of SHIELD Jem!" Grant whispers in a disbelieving hiss in the offices antechamber.
"I didn't really tell him off so much as state the facts as any good scientist would." She replied kissing his cheek and walking ahead of him.
-/-
Skye's voice pulls Jemma her reminisce. "So if you're married why didn't it show up when I wiped your identity?"
"Fury redacted and or destroyed all traces of our marriage when a terrorist had Grant on his hit list. We'd been married all of six months. I try not to think of the fact that SHIELD erased everything I loved or made me who I was otherwise I just get bitter."
Grant strode into her lab .He points to the girl she had stocking shelves. "Calla you still have training despite the fact that you and the other kids are on the way to the Sandbox. You too Skye stop pestering Jemma for details."
Skye only looks mildly offended. "I wasn't… okay so I was but really come on she married you? You?" She leaves the lab trailing behind a displeased looking Calla.
"Oh that reminds me…catch Jem." He tossed her his ring. He wears it occasionally now whenever it doesn't impede a mission or a task. "Have to help Mack fix the SUV. Starter crapped out."
"It's safe." She slipped the band into her lab coat pocket with her own ring.
He turned her music back up Fitz was asleep so the music of James Bay kept her company.
"Love you Jem."
"I know." She said with a contented smile.