Fluffy drabble. Skye's pregnant and Ward is putting the crib together. Well, he's trying to. Turns out it's a lot harder than it looks…. [Established SkyeWard]
Grant Ward was highly irritated.
He'd been meaning to put the crib together for the past few weeks, but missions kept getting in the way. After several particularly rough missions and some close calls, Coulson had finally told Director Fury that his team was taking a week off for some R&R, which Skye and Simmons had taken to mean baby-proofing the Bus. It was getting harder to tell who was more excited about the addition to their little make-shift family: Grant and Skye, the parents-to-be, or Simmons, the godmother-to-be. The team had spent all week readying the baby's room, putting plastic knobs on door handles, and putting up safety gates (why they needed to do that now was beyond him, but he'd learned a long time ago not to question it when Simmons and Skye decided to do something).
So now that he had some down time, he found himself sitting in the living room area of the Bus, trying to make sense out of what appeared to be a combination of gibberish and caveman drawings. He was convinced that there was no way that instructions for how to put a crib together really should really be this hard. He'd been trying to put the damn thing together for the last hour and a half and was still surrounded by various pieces that had to go somewhere but didn't seem to be anywhere on the instructions.
All he wanted to do was finish building the stupid thing so he could get back to enjoying his Saturday with his very pregnant girlfriend, Skye. Unfortunately, this seemed to be easier said than done.
"Ward, seriously, go ask Fitz for help. He's an engineer, this should be no problem for him," Skye said, from her seat at the bar where she had been watching him swear profusely at the dismantled crib for the last ten minutes.
"No."
She sighed and went back to her ice cream and baby book of names, knowing better than to argue. He was the only person she knew who was as stubborn as she was. Most of the time, she counted that as a good thing, because God knows they'd never work if either of them were any less determined to make it work, but some days, like today, she counted it as frustrating. If he'd just taken Fitz up on his offer of help when he'd decided to build the crib, the task would have been completed within twenty minutes and they could have spend their Saturday afternoon doing something more productive, like picking names, but no, 'real fathers do it themselves' he'd argued. She couldn't blame him for wanting to do it 'the right way', especially since neither of them had the best childhood. Or even a remotely good childhood.
If there was one thing they agreed on, it was that this child would never know the pain that they did growing up, and according to Ward, that started now, with putting the crib together himself.
"If the instructions were in English, this wouldn't be so damn hard!" Ward exclaimed suddenly, throwing down a wooden peg and a length of wood.
"Ward, you speak six languages." Skye pointed out.
"Yes, I do. And Swedish isn't one of them. I asked to take it back at the Academy, but they didn't think I'd ever need to know it." He grumbled, "Apparently, they've never put together IKEA furniture before!"
Skye tried not to laugh, knowing it would only upset him more, but it wasn't easy. Before her sat a man who had won every fight she'd ever seen him in (except against May), save countless people from various terrible fates, and was one of the very best Specialists S.H.I.E.L.D had to offer and yet, he was totally flummoxed by a crib.
"I'm sure they thought, what with all your training, that you'd be able to ask for help when you needed it." Skye smirked, "Of course, they forgot that you were a robot."
Ward gave her a look and went back to the instructions. Skye studied him for a moment before deciding to try a different approach.
"Grant." She said to get his attention. He looked up, looking slightly worried because she only ever called him by his first name when it was something serious. "The crib will still be just as great if Fitz helps you build it. It'll be like a present from Dad and Uncle Fitz."
"Uncle Fitz?" Ward asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.
"Yeah. It makes sense. We're all a family and that's what you call family. So we'll have Uncle Fitz, Aunt Simmons, Grandpa Coulson, and Grandma May," Skye trailed off.
"Given this some thought, I see." Ward smiled at her.
"Well yeah. I never really had a family, so I want this little guy," she put a hand on her round stomach, "to know exactly who their family is and how much he or she means to them." Ward was about to respond when Fitz-Simmons walked in.
"I don't know about you, but I quite like the idea of being 'Uncle Fitz'." Fitz said, "being an uncle sounds like fun."
"Oh I agree." Simmons nearly gushed, sitting next to Skye. "I can't wait to take her into the lab and do experiments with her."
"It might be a boy, Jemma." Fitz pointed out. Simmons ignored him and instead began asking Skye about names. Fitz shrugged slightly before turning to Ward.
"So…change your mind about doing this yourself?" he asked, lightly kicking a plank of wood with his foot.
Ward looked up at him, Skye's words about family still ringing in his head.
"Yeah. I did. Come sit down." Ward moved to make space beside him in the mess that was the pieces of a crib. "I hope you speak Swedish."
My first Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fic. I've wanted to write AoS for a while but never had the right first prompt, and then this idea came to me today and wouldn't let go until I wrote it. Anyway, let me know what you think!
(If you want, you can follow me on tumblr: agents-of-smoak). My ask is always open; so feel free to message me prompt ideas.