Chapter 2
"Forty-eight hours – unbelievable," Skye grumbled, haphazardly throwing clothes and toiletries into her overnight bag. When Coulson had explained Commander Hill's orders, she'd protested. Shacking up with Agent Ward for the next two days was going to be a strain. A big one – of that she had no doubt.
Jemma Simmons eyed the jumbled mess in the bag and began pulling things out and rearranging them more neatly. "It's smart, actually. You need time to talk and work out your story. You should be comfortable with each other, so I understand why Commander Hill ordered it."
"Talk and get comfortable with the robot?" Skye made a face at her friend. "Is he even programmed for basic human behavior?"
"He's not a robot," Jemma protested. "He's simply serious about the mission."
"He could be," Leo Fitz commented from his spot on the edge of Skye's bed. "An LMD. I've heard rumors about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s use of LMDs you know."
"Oh, Fitz."
"LMD?" Skye asked, raising a brow.
"Life-Model Decoy," Jemma explained, smoothing the folded edges of one of Skye's shirts and placing it in the bag. "Fitz has a wild theory that Agent Koenig is an LMD."
Fitz sat up indignantly. "They're not wild theories. And I didn't even mention Agent Koenig, even though he's always talking about his brothers."
"And that makes him a robot?" Jemma scoffed.
"No one has that many brothers," he retorted. "And Agent Ward…"
When Fitz paused, Jemma finished the sentence. "Agent Ward is one of the best specialists S.H.I.E.L.D. has. We've all heard the stories, and I for one am happy that he'll be looking after Skye."
"Hey, I'm not a puppy," Skye laughed. She sat beside Fitz and poked at the machinery in his hands. "I don't suppose you could rig up an LMD remote? You know, just in case you're right."
"Skye, this isn't a joke," Jemma told her, setting the bag aside and taking a seat beside Skye and Fitz. "I know you're excited about field work, and I'm excited for you. But you don't have any field training! You haven't been to the academy. If you get caught, you'll be grateful to have Agent Ward there to help. A specialist is like having a Special Forces team in one person. Right, Fitz?"
"The Cavalry would be better, or Agent Romanov, or one of the Avengers." When Jemma shot him a pointed look, he said, "Fine, yes."
"Don't mind Fitz. He's still angry because when Agent Ward tested the new ICER guns, he said the weight was off by an ounce."
Skye appreciated that her friend was looking on the bright side. "Guess you're probably right. I just wish he had a little more personality, that's all. I don't know how we can possibly pull off being in love."
"Well, he is handsome." Jemma sighed when Skye raised a brow at her. "What? I'm just saying it could be worse."
Skye leaned her head on Jemma's shoulder. Her friend had a point. Agent Toolbag was attractive in a very tightly wound, locked down kind of way. He was the total opposite of her ex-flame, Miles. Not for the first time, she wondered how it would feel to see Miles again.
She'd met Miles Lydon after running away from St. Agnes, and she'd learned hacking and coding from him. They'd been off and on for a long time, and it was during an off period that she'd been picked up by S.H.I.E.L.D. And just like that, she'd dropped off the map. It was only after she'd begun researching Quinn that she found out Miles had gone to work for Quinn Worldwide.
Rather than reach out to Miles, Coulson had suggested she leave a digital trail for Miles to follow much like the one she'd utilized to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. to her door. And follow it he had, telling her how Quinn had an open minded hiring policy when she mentioned needing legit work. From there she'd Skyped with Ian Quinn himself, and the job was hers.
Even though she and Miles hadn't been together in a while, she still cared and she felt guilty that she was about to blindside him with a fiancé he had no idea existed. Coulson had advised her to keep that bit quiet until she actually arrived in California. At this point, she wasn't sure if Miles would even buy the deception. One look at her with RoboWard was likely to set off his bullshit detector.
When Skye sighed, Jemma wrapped an arm around her. "I'm going to miss you, you know."
"Back at you, Simmons," she replied, turning into the hug and giving a return squeeze.
"She's not even leaving yet," Fitz pointed out. "She'll be back here in two days. Hey!" He yelped when both girls turned on him, armed with the pillows from Skye's bed.
Skye was leaning over the edge of the bed, laughing, when she heard a throat clear. She sat up quickly and pushed her hair out of her face.
Agent Ward stood in the open doorway of her small studio apartment. While his uber serious expression was unchanged, his men in black appearance had received a downgrade. Gone were the dark suit, crisp white shirt and no nonsense black tie she'd assumed he slept in. Now clad in jeans, a grey Henley tucked in just above his belt buckle in a way that hinted at perfect abs, and a black leather jacket, he looked different. Edgier. Dangerous.
Agent Toolbag was definitely hot, damn it.
Unwilling to give him such a height advantage, Skye stood up and smoothed the hem of her purple knit top where it had ridden up. "How did you know where I live?" She'd thought they were meeting at the Triskelion atrium.
"Agent Coulson told me you had a unit in the S.H.I.E.L.D. housing wing," he answered, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. "Are you ready?"
Mentally, no. Definitely not.
"Yeah." She turned back to Jemma and took the overnight bag she was holding out, giving her another hug. Looping the strap of her laptop bag over her shoulder, she gave Fitz a one armed hug and said, "Don't forget to feed Nemo."
"Can I take him to my place?" Fitz asked. He and Jemma also lived in the building, so it would be a short trip.
"Might as well. I can't take him with me to California anyway." The magnitude of what she'd agreed to was finally hitting her. In just a few short days, she was going to leave the only real home she'd ever known – leave Coulson, Jemma and Fitz – leave her first pet. Feeling emotional, she walked over to Nemo's small tank. "Bye Nemo. Fitz will take good care of you, I promise."
The clown fish looked bored as he swam lazy laps around his small tank.
She tapped the tank gently. "You could at least pretend to be sad. I saved you from that mean kid beating on your tank in the fish store, you know. He probably would have flushed you by now." Straightening up, she tossed her spare set of keys to Jemma. "See you in two days."
When Skye turned to look at Ward, he had a strange expression on his face. "What?"
Shaking his head, he took her overnight bag and waved her ahead of him. The polite gesture surprised her so much she didn't protest. Skye was very aware of the heat of his body as he walked beside her, and she noticed that he had shortened his stride, allowing her to easily keep up with him. They took the elevator down to the ground floor, and Skye waved at the security guard at the front desk.
As they walked into the parking lot, Agent Ward asked, "Is your van here?"
"No," she answered. "I sold it three months ago." Once she'd committed to S.H.I.E.L.D. she had realized she wouldn't need it anymore. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was done running, and the realization had been much more freeing than her previous, nomadic existence.
"You can ride with me, then."
She followed him to a new model, silver SUV. Agent Ward opened the back door and tossed her bag in, stepping aside to allow her to slide her laptop bag onto the seat. Walking around to the passenger side, Skye got in and put on her seatbelt, noticing the car still had that new smell.
"So, Agent Ward. Where does Hill have us shacking up for the next two days?"
"My place. And you can call me Grant." He turned his head to check behind him as he backed out of the parking spot.
Grant. She had only ever referred to him as Ward or Agent Ward in her mind, but she supposed she couldn't call him by his last name if he was supposed to be her fiancé. "Is that who you are for the mission? Grant Ward?" At his nod, she said, "I guess I just assumed your name would be something else."
He kept his eyes on the road as he answered her. "Agent Grant Ward of S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't officially exist. Specialists do black ops and deep cover ops, so our agency records are kept in-house."
"Okay. Who are you outside the agency?"
"Grant Ward attended military school at sixteen and entered the US Army when he turned eighteen. He was trained as a sniper and then tapped for the Army Special Forces at twenty-two, where he remained until he left the Army a month ago."
Skye mulled that over for a moment. Half expecting him to shut her questions down, she prodded for more. "Is any of that actually true?"
"About half," he replied, glancing at her briefly. "I was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. when I was twenty-two. Half-truths can sometimes be more effective than lies when building a cover."
"Good to know." She looked at him curiously, wondering why he was being… nice? At the very least, he wasn't being confrontational with her. She turned her attention to the window, suddenly feeling nervous about spending the next two days with him.
Twenty minutes later they turned onto a tree lined street with blocks of townhomes and red brick apartments. Grant parked on the street in front of one of the red brick buildings and turned off the engine. Skye got out, taking her laptop bag from him when he walked around the vehicle.
Following him up the steps, she waited while he unlocked the door. Inside was another door directly in front of them and a staircase to the left. They took the stairs, and Grant unlocked another door on the top floor.
His apartment had an open floor plan. The walls were brick, the floors hardwood in a deep shade of amber. To her right was a small table with four chairs, and she could see the kitchen beyond that. Directly in front of her were a sofa, two armchairs, and a wooden coffee table. There was a bookcase against the wall and a flat screen TV mounted opposite the sofa.
To her left there was a half bath and another wooden staircase which she assumed led to the bedrooms. As if answering her unspoken question, Ward walked up the stairs, motioning for her to follow.
At the top of the stairs was the master bedroom with attached bathroom. It was functional but not fussy, containing a queen bed flanked by two nightstands and a large dresser opposite the bed. Skye expected Ward to show her to the other door she'd noticed to the right of the landing. Instead, he dropped her bag on the end of the bed.
"I cleared out a couple of drawers for you, and the closet is here." He opened a door next to the nightstand to reveal a small walk-in closet.
Skye opened her mouth, words failing her for once. "What about…?"
Ward turned to her, waiting.
She cleared her throat. "The other bedroom. There isn't one, is there?"
Shaking his head, he said, "Skye, you understand that once we get to California, we'll be sleeping in the same bed every night, right? On deep cover ops like this, we don't have room for mistakes like someone realizing we're maintaining separate bedrooms even though we're newly engaged. And we don't want to be cornered in separate rooms by an intruder, either."
"No, I get it. I just – I didn't really think about it, I guess." And she definitely should have. Why the hell hadn't Coulson thought to mention the fine print of this mission? If it was Tripp, it wouldn't matter so much. Ever since he'd been assigned to the Triskelion and taken an apartment in the same building as her, Fitz and Simmons, the four of them had taken to spending down time together. Tripp was surprisingly laid back for a specialist, and they got along well, so it wouldn't have been a problem.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "The whole point of this two day exercise is for us to get comfortable with each other and try to find some common ground."
"So, what, we do trust exercises like they do at those corporate getaways? FitzSimmons and I did some of those exercises one night and Fitz nearly took me out when he grabbed my hair at the last minute," she said with a smirk. She could do this. She could joke and snark about it, and it would be okay.
"We'll be doing intimacy exercises."
Intimacy exercises? What the hell? "Okay, I just want to get this out here. I don't care what Coulson thinks Ian Quinn is up to, I am not having sex with you to strengthen our bond or whatever."
Ward heaved a long suffering sigh, looking down and rubbing a finger along the bridge of his nose. "Intimacy exercises, Skye, not sex. Look, why don't you unpack and we'll talk about it downstairs when you're done. Do you want to stay in or go out for dinner?"
"Out." Definitely out, somewhere public where she didn't feel so penned up. Someplace far away from this bed she'd have to share with Ward in a few hours.
He nodded and left her alone. Skye eyed the bed for a moment before sinking to the floor and propping her chin on her hand. The words 'intimacy exercises' were just floating around her brain on a loop now as she tried to imagine what that would entail. He'd said no sex, so… holding hands? Some combination of physical and emotional intimacy? Why wasn't there a handbook for this?
Whatever they were, she felt sure it involved touching. Touching Ward, the guy who'd black bagged her like a terrorist when he'd taken her from her van a year ago. Okay, so he thought she was a terrorist of the cyber variety, but still. He'd dumped her in a holding room and grilled her for hours, unamused by her witty retorts and verbal sparring.
It was all deflection with her, her own brand of armor, and she'd have to find a way to drop some of that if their pretense was going to fool anyone. Worse, it had to fool Miles, and he'd known her for a long time. Steeling her resolve, Skye rose and unpacked her overnight bag, putting clothes away in the empty drawers and laying out her toiletries in the bathroom.
Walking over to the closet, she placed her sneakers and a pair of boots beside Ward's much larger shoes. Seeing their shoes lined up together was wigging her out, so she quickly closed the door. Glancing in the mirror and deciding she looked fine for a casual dinner out, she took a deep breath and left the bedroom.
A quick look inside the other room off the hallway confirmed it was a small office. The apartment was nice and perfectly fine for one person, but she already felt like there was no escape, no place for any of the me time she usually craved at the end of the day. It was one of the reasons she'd clung so fiercely to her independence even when Miles had asked her to move in with him.
She wondered if Ward had ever lived with anyone before. Before today she'd have said no, but now she wasn't so sure. Even his apartment was much different than she'd imagined when he said they'd be staying at his place. She had formed a vague mental picture of a utilitarian space reminiscent of Army barracks, and it was nothing like that.
Skye walked down the stairs and into the living room area where Ward sat on the sofa, listening to the news while going through some folders spread out on the coffee table in front of him.
"Have you ever lived with anyone before?" she asked, sitting in one of the armchairs.
Ward looked up at her, shaking his head. "No."
"Neither have I. Common ground, right?"
His lips quirked a little at that. "It's a start."
"The thing is, I'm not a fembot." He shot her a look at that description. "What I mean is that I'm probably not going to react to things all calmly and professionally like you do. I can try, but it's not really how I'm wired. And there's a potential problem."
That got his attention. "What problem?"
"I'm sure somewhere in one of those folders, it says that a former contact with Rising Tide works for Quinn and got me the interview, right?" At Ward's nod, she continued, "He and I were sort of together before."
"You were lovers."
She nodded, appreciating his matter of fact tone. "We were friends first. He taught me hacking and coding, and he introduced me to Rising Tide. It was sort of off and on with us until he asked me to move in and I bailed. I haven't seen him in over a year, and he doesn't know anything about my life now."
Ward sat back against the sofa and rubbed his jaw before folding his hands in front of him. "It's still a potential problem because he knows you in ways I don't – your moods and habits, for one thing. How do you think he'll react to you being engaged?"
Skye shrugged. "I don't know."
He stared at her for a moment before standing and holding out his hand.
"Let me guess – intimacy exercises? Handholding 101?" she joked as she swallowed down the nerves suddenly consuming her.
"Skye."
He didn't say anything else – just her name, but she sighed and stood up, grasping his hand in a firm handshake and holding it. His hand was big and warm, and she could feel calluses against her palm. Then he turned his hand, pressing their palms together and aligning their fingers before lacing them together.
Her eyes were glued to their joined hands as something squirmed deep in her belly.
"Do I make you nervous?" Ward asked.
Her eyes flew to his. "Check your ego, Agent Ward. I've been holding hands with boys for a long time."
"Grant," he reminded her, squeezing her hand.
Was she the only one feeling this? Skye bit her lip and then placed her other hand on his chest, moving it up and over his shoulder. His expression never changed, but she felt the tightening of his muscles. He wasn't as relaxed as he'd like her to believe. He wasn't immune, either.
Then he stepped back, his hand releasing hers. "If you're hungry, we can go to dinner now. Any preferences? Food allergies?"
Skye blinked, disoriented by the quick mood and topic change. Shaking her head, she said, "I'm not picky, really. No food allergies. You?"
"No. If we walk down a couple of blocks, there are a lot of different restaurants – Italian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Korean barbecue, a few food trucks."
"Okay." Determined to make this work, Skye slipped her hand in his as they walked out the door. He didn't comment on it, but he didn't pull away either. Baby steps, she reminded herself.
Up Next - Intimacy exercises and Bed Sharing 101 ;)