This sort of sets some groundwork for future parts of this series and is mostly fluffy. It implies some things about Ward's past that should give you an idea of who he is. I may supplement this with a mini-chapter that goes into his POV to give a little more clarity to his actions. Anyways, thanks for the support on the previous two parts of this series. It was never suppose to be anything more than a one-shot, but now the ideas are bouncing off the walls.

This is the last time, Skye told herself.

It'd been almost three weeks and somehow her blue van found itself parked across from the brick apartment building where one super secret spy Grant Ward lived. Again.

She was here for the food, she told herself.

But her eyes wandered from the food truck to the apartment building, searching for some sign of life. It had been almost three weeks since she and Grant had sat at the fold-out tables in front of the food truck and shared some chips while eating dinner together, after she had tried to rob him. It wasn't the most conventional of relationships, in fact it wasn't a relationship at all. And he probably wasn't being serious when he told her he'd see her around sometime given that he had most likely moved out of his apartment after she blew his cover.

Still, she somehow wandered back to the neighborhood in search of something that she was sure wasn't there anymore.

Thanking Ricardo, she grabbed the bag of burritos and a stack of sauces and her drink before walking back to her van. She'd been there enough times for the guy to know her order and her name. Of course it might have been because the first time she visited the food truck had been when she not only dropped a seventy dollar tip, but also assaulted another regular before running off. The man never failed to smirk just a little when he saw her approach, as if he was expecting something out of character to happen.

Despite the limited time they spent together, Grant Ward had occupied her thoughts more in the past few weeks than she would be willing to admit. Taking a front seat in watching SHIELD's movements, it became less about finding Grant and more about the organization. Unwrapping her dinner she took a bite into the steaming burrito, while typing with the other hand reading redacted documents. Scarfing down the first two burritos, she wrapped up the last one and stepped out of the back of her van to throw away the trash that had accumulated during the day.

The sun was slipping down the horizon. Part of her considered staying on the street, spending the night sleeping on the open street rather than the alley. Even if she was still in the same van, it gave her some kind of sense of security. She didn't form attachments easily anymore, she'd had to learn how to sever that part of her, but something about this place gave her a sense of hope. Throwing her trash away, she turned on her heel and started back towards her van until something stopped her in her tracks.

A familiar figure, (tall, dark, and handsome) was leaning against her van, haloed by the streetlights that had flickered on in the evening. "We have to stop meeting like this."

She wished she could say she wasn't surprised. That she would have been fine if she never saw him again.

But everything kind of spoke to the opposite of that.

"And here I thought your cover was blown and you moved away."

"And leave Ricardo?" His retort was instant, with a hint of that arrogant smirk, but something was different. His breathing hitched and as she walked closer towards him, she realized he was clutching at his side.

"Wait - are you hurt?"

He grimaced, and shook his head, but he looked worse for wear. "I'm fine. Have you been here long?"

She shook her head, searching him for injuries hidden by his thick jacket. Part of her shivered from the cold, while the other was irrationally irritated that he was casually leaning against her van when he was clearly hurt. What was secret spy hiding? She hadn't even heard him approach, and yet now he seemed plastered to the van. "Do you need help?"

Pause. He didn't answer for a second, his eyes reading her like a book, formulating some kind of reply. "You look cold. Do you want to come inside?" He gestured with his head to his apartment.

If it was anyone else, if he hadn't looked like he was in pain, she would have kicked him in the shin again for suggesting something like this. Approaching him, she reached for his face that had been shadowed from backlight. It had bruises on it. Grant flinched a little at her touch, but her finger caressed the angle of his jaw as she checked his face and he seemed to unbristle. And maybe she shouldn't have nodded so quickly to a man who was virtually a stranger in agreeing to go into his apartment with him, but she had. He didn't ask for her help as he lifted off of the van to walk back to the apartment building, but she watched him clench his jaw in pain.

Reaching for the bag he held at his shoulders, she offered to alleviate the weight from his luggage. Letting go of it willingly, he mumbled a thanks, as they walked side by side across the street. He was definitely limping a little, but without the weight of the bag he seemed to be able to keep on his facade. Reaching into his pocket for his key, he ascended the three stone steps to his apartment complex. When they reached his door after a quick elevator ride up to the fourth floor, he made quick work of unlocking the door and pushing himself inward. His breath had labored a little but she hadn't mentioned the topic of his wounds.

Setting his bag down in the dark room, Grant flipped on the light as he lead her into his apartment and shut the door behind them. It was pretty much what she expected given the glimpse into his luggage the last time. Militantly clean with nothing on the exposed brick walls except a large clock. The furniture was accented in brushed metal and looked like it was put together an hour before they had walked in. It barely looked lived in.

"Cozy."

He smirked, walking to the kitchen counter where there was a bottle of whiskey and a set of heavy bottom glasses set out. He lifted the bottle to her and she nodded without thinking. This was going downhill. She didn't come up to get a drink or admire his painfully minimalist decor. Walking over to the window, she looked down and saw her own van parked in perfect view. She could admit it looked a little suspicious. But right now she was the one who felt out of place. She'd only meant to help him to his door.

Sitting down at the couch, she looked around. No photos, nothing that looked even remotely personal. If she hadn't seen him leave the building she would have thought that this was little more than a model apartment shown to potential apartment hunters. Still the heater was running and she was no longer shivering; that was a plus. Grant limped over with the two glasses in hand and the bottle in tow before sitting down at the couch adjacent to her.

"How long were you parked out there?"

The question broke the awkward silence between them as she took the glass he offered her. Hesitating, she stared at the glass wondering if she should be taking drinks from this semi-stranger. Bringing it to her lips, she pretended to sip before putting the glass back down on the table. He didn't seem to notice as he downed his glass in one shot.

"Not long. I come by every so often," she admitted, though she had no idea when she decided to be honest with him. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"Work." It sounded matter-of-fact, as he struggled to slip off his jacket slowly.

"That's it," Skye decided, standing up and walking over to his kitchen. Grant twisted around to see where she was going as she opened up cabinets in his kitchen one by one.

"Wait, what the hell are you doing, Skye?"

Shooting a glare back, she pointed at him and shook his head when he went to stand up. "No. Sit down, mister. You barely limped back here. Clearly, you're hurt. I'm not going to play this game of watching you drink away your pain. Super spy has to have a first aid kit somewhere right?" The cabinets were, unsurprisingly, well organized with a sad supply of cutlery and plates. No first aid kit.

She heard a deep sigh come from Grant, though he didn't oppose her rifling through his apartment. "It's in the bathroom, under the sink."

He made no move to direct her in any direction, so she made a quick move towards the only hallway in the apartment and opened the door at the end of it. His bedroom. Her eyes glanced over it quickly, more catalogue than home. She couldn't say she expected different, but it was devoid of any sort of indication that a human actually lived here. Turning to his bathroom, she crouched down and pulled out a flat white box that looked like the rest of the apartment, completely unused. Shutting off the light and closing the door, she walked back into the living room where Grant was throwing back the fingers of whiskey he had poured for her.

"Hey, I was going to drink that."

"Yeah, that's why you pretended to sip it when I gave it to you," he shot back sardonically. He looked at her, again with infuriating amusement flickering behind his eyes. "Do I look like I'm going to drug you?"

She scoffed. "No one ever looks like they're going to drug you. But then they do. Better safe than sorry. I barely know you."

"You know more about me than most people do." He laughed under his breath, but it sounded like a sad fact rather than a joke.

Pushing the glasses back, she sat down on the table top and unsealed the kit. Grant had been leaning forward, but backed up at the sight of her. Skye decided that tough love was going to have to be the way to get this guy to respond to her help. Unwrapping a thick q-tip soaked in iodine, she reached for his chin and tilted his head back. He frowned as if ready to push her away but she glared him down enough that he didn't act on his feelings. He looked stuck between telling her he was fine and relieved that someone cared.

Tapping the q-tip gently against the cut on his cheekbones, he made no indication of whether or not it hurt. Bruised faces and cuts from fights were something she was familiar with, sometimes the smallest scars hurt the most, but she knew that worse things hid under his surface. Specifically around his ribs that he had been clutching at since she'd seen him. Blotting the cut, she compromised when he shook his head to a band-aid.

"Thanks," he said, as if that was it.

"Yeah, right. Now, take off your shirt."

He paused, a smile breaking out on his face. "Excuse me?"

The blush she didn't want to creep up felt hot on her face. But she wasn't about to back down. Tough love. "You heard me. I'm not blind. I saw the way you were holding your ribs. You probably bruised them or something."

"Observant, you'd make a good spy." He tried to joke, she recognized it as avoidance.

"Yeah, and live like a robot like you? No thanks. Now, strip."

Grant seemed actually a little surprised that she had persisted. Instead of fighting her again, she heard a small groan of annoyance before pulling up his shirt over his head.

Skye realized she might have bitten off more than she could chew. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Not only was his torso bruised, but she did not miss the fact of just how nice this would look if the bruises weren't there. No wonder he felt like steel when she punched him, he basically was. Swallowing hard, she looked back up to his face, closing her mouth after realizing her jaw might have actually dropped open at the sight of his dishabille. "Lean back," she ordered, wishing it didn't sound sexual in any way. Or rather, wishing her mind wasn't permanently in the gutter and hoping his wasn't either.

The angle was awkward, she had to lean down to meet and examine his ribs, tentatively touching his chest with her hand to feel for... something. She had absolutely no medical training, and was honestly not sure what to even look for. There weren't any cuts, no open wounds, just a lot of internal bleeding. She was glad that she wasn't staring at him in his square-jawed face any more because the creeping blush warming her face was obvious even to her. His skin was deliciously warm, and as she ran her fingers across his ribs lightly, she could have sworn she felt a shiver from him.

The bruising was purple and had been there for a while. Like the wound on his face, it seemed to have been like this for a while. "Have you gotten this looked at already?"

"Yes."

Her head shot up at Grant, "What?" He looked down at her, his pupils blown, eyes dark as he watched her. Backing up away from his chest, she frowned, looking at him accusingly. "If you have been looked at why did you make it seem like you hadn't?"

A laugh came from him, more a bark, he sat back up and raised his hands defensively. "You are the one who went through my stuff insisting on a first-aid kit. You're the one who made me strip. You are the one who glared me down and told me you didn't want to watch me drink my pain away."

Well, he was right about that.

"I thought. I thought you had been hurt."

"I'm fine. I told you. Work. I got injured on a mission, I was given a few days off." He reached around her for one of the glasses, closing proximity between them so quickly that it startled her. He pointed to the bottle of whiskey behind her, unable to reach further, he already nearly wrapped himself around her. Skye scoffed, leaning back and grabbing the bottle and her own glass. Pouring a shot into her glass, she poured him the same.

"Sorry I was gone for so long," Grant said, after sipping from his glass. The amber liquid was warming, despite the bite. She wasn't sure if it was the whiskey or his apology that soothed her.

Shaking her head, she laughed a little. "You don't have to apologize. You're a spy."

"I thought I was a robot."

"Cute," she said. It was meant to sound condescending, but it turned into flattery. "Do you even live here? This looks like an Ikea show room."

Shrugging, he looked around, as if to confirm her suspicions. "I guess it could look a little more welcoming. I don't come back often. I just sometimes need a place to stay that isn't a cot."

Skye nodded. They all needed their own space. Hers was unfortunately on the same level as a cot. The thought of sleeping in her van wasn't something she was ashamed of any more, it was her home, but she did sometimes wish for a full bed, her own bathroom, and maybe a kitchen where she could brew her coffee (cooking wasn't her forte). "What was your mission?" she asked, but then quickly added, "Actually, don't tell me if it's one of those 'if I told you, I'd have to kill you' cases."

Grant laughed heartily, taking another sip from his whiskey. "It's hard to explain. We'll call it an acquisition mission gone wrong."

"Not sure I would want to acquire something that leaves me like this," she gestured to him. He was still definitely half naked in front of her, and at her blush he threw down the rest of his drink and grabbed his shirt as he stood up from the couch. Skye followed suit, looking around at the apartment wondering when he was going to show her out. He disappeared into his bedroom. She gulped down her drink and uncapped the bottle to take another swig.

One for the road.

Grant walked back out into the room where they were in a fresh shirt. He still limped a little, but she took comfort in that he had been looked at by a professional. "So how long are you staying?" she tried not to sound so curious, but she hoped that he might be around. If only just so she knew he was in town.

"Probably a week. They're trying to figure out a new way of approaching the asset, so I have the time to recuperate a little."

"And then, it's off to Paris?"

"Or Prague, or Moscow," he responded casually. She smiled, though she felt a twinge of jealousy at his jet set lifestyle. Silence filled the beat of pause after his comment. Looking around at his own apartment, he chuckled lightly as he changed the topic. "Yeah, it's not the coziest place."

"It's fine. It just needs... a personal touch. You don't have any pictures. I feel like you could walk out the door now and I could move in and it'd just be a furnished apartment."

"You could do that."

Skye stopped in her tracks, looking at him in surprise. "What?"

"If you needed a place to stay." He didn't seem fazed by his own offer like she was. Maybe he never learned proper the social skills.

"I was joking. You realize we barely know one another."

"I'm not saying you move in and take up my rent. I am just saying if you needed a place to sleep. I have a couch." Motioning out the window, "It's cold tonight and I figured it was a nice gesture in return for helping me out."

She gaped at him, unsure of what exactly was going on. "You know nothing about me. What if I'm a murderer? What if I'm insane and I slit your throat at night? Plus I barely know you, the same could be said vice versa."

Sighing, Grant looked frustrated, running a hand through his hair and down his neck as if he was tired of this conversation. Skye had to fight not to roll her eyes. This wasn't the kind of conversation you just sprung on someone. Especially not someone you barely knew. They'd spent less than a day together in total, and now he was asking her to sleep on the couch? "You're not a murderer. Or else you would have kept my guns for yourself. You're not insane, and I'd like to see you try to slit my throat. You already know that I'm an agent for SHIELD. I'll tell you anything else you want to know." A bold offer, but she would barely know where to start. "You live in your van, and I'm not judging you for it, but I figured you might want a bed or something for the night."

Well, he had thought this through. She considered being stubborn. Driving away from him and his insane offer. How was he not more cautious of her?

He continued to fill the silence with his own logic. "Listen, I've been left out on my own before. There was a time when I would have done anything for a shower and a nice place to sleep. I'm just trying to be helpful. If you don't trust me, you don't have to accept."

Skye's interest was piqued. She tried to read what he meant by his words, but as easily as the wall came down in their conversation, it had gone back up. Biting her lip, she hugged herself, looking from the door to the couch. "Maybe just one night. And a shower would be nice." Normally she snuck into the local gym for one or went to her friend's house, it would be nice not to feel rushed. This wasn't weird, she told herself. At least this time she had her pepper spray with her. Though thinking back to those abs carved from marble, she doubted the pepper spray would keep a guy like him down for long. Not to mention the bruises that somehow he was able to stomach without so much as a whimper.

The corner of his lips turned up in a small smile. He almost seemed proud of his accomplishment. God please don't be a serial killer. The search for an Agent Grant Ward on SHIELD databases had indeed brought up a familiar face, but it required much more hacking to actually figure out who he was and what he did given all the redacted files.

"Let me go get you a pillow and some sheets," he said, turning around. He still felt like a stranger. A kind one, but there were layers of secrets behind arrogant smiles and honest words. "You can take a shower if you want, there is another towel in the cabinet," his voice was clear from the bedroom. He returned less than a minute later into the common area with a pillow and some light grey sheets. It was jarring and unfamiliar to see someone so accommodating and she almost bristled at it.

"I guess I am going to take a shower." She slipped into his room wondering what had just happened. Walking into the bathroom, she dead bolted the door before reaching into the cabinet for another towel. I wasn't until after she finished her long shower, had wrapped herself in his towel and smelled his shampoo in her clean hair that she realized she had nothing to wear. With her wet hair clinging to her shoulders, she unlocked the door to an empty bedroom. Opening the bedroom door, she saw Grant sitting at the a different couch, reading a book. He looked surprisingly serene given her mental image of him as a super spy.

"Grant?" He turned, seeming surprised by her voice. She watched his mouth form an O as he took in the fact that she was wet and wrapped in a towel standing at the doorway of his bedroom. "I left my clothes in my van."

He paused for a second, before sitting up and putting the book down. "Right. Here I have some shirts that should fit you." As if anything Grant Ward wore would be too small for her. The tshirt he handed her was black (surprise, surprise) and she was swimming in it. Pulling on her own pants, she hung her bra and shirt on the hook behind the door and found him washing the glasses that they had used. How domestic.

Surreal would have been one word to describe it as he motioned to the couch that had been set like a bed and looked so inviting to her suddenly. "There's another blanket in the closet if you get cold, but the heat is pretty so I think you'll be fine. I'm going to take a shower and go to bed, if you-"

Before he could continue, she interrupted, "Hey. Thanks. Not many people would let some girl who lives in a van and steals their stuff into their apartment, much less let them sleep in their home."

He looked as if he was about to confess something. But instead, he smiled. She'd settle for a Grant Ward smile that wasn't arrogant or bemused. "You're not just some girl. Plus, you gave it all back." Walking towards the bedroom, he awkwardly waved at her, bringing a smile to her lips. "Night."

It was a few hours later, when Skye had crawled into bed after listening to the shower run and the sound of cabinets being opened the closed that she realized out of all of the foster homes, the couches, the vans, the beds she slept in, she knew when to be scared, when she should be ready to bolt. But somehow, wrapped up in his clothes and his sheets, in his apartment on his couch, she felt safer than she had in a while.

Like I said, if it feels a little out of character for Ward, stick around because the next chapter will probably be a recount of this from his point of view. Or at the very least a little insight into his actions. I'm trying to fit this into the storyline in the show, but I might just do total canon divergence LOL. Anyways, feedback and comments are always welcome, they are the fuel for more half naked Ward in the future (ha, as if I need encouragement to sexually objectify him a little).