Chapter 4

Skye opened her eyes and stretched, peering blearily at the clock on Ward's side of the bed. It was only seven, a groan worthy hour in her opinion, especially when she hadn't slept well. She'd tried, but in the end she merely lay on her side of the bed and tried not to stare at the dark outline of Ward just a few inches away.

Despite her warning about kicking in her sleep, she hadn't been able to relax enough to fall asleep until somewhere around two in the morning. Apparently Ward didn't have the same problem since she'd heard him get up and leave the apartment at six. She must have dozed off again because now she could hear noises downstairs. Rolling over, she set her tablet alarm for eight-thirty and pulled the covers over her head.

The extra ninety minutes helped, and she woke to her alarm feeling a little more alert. She got up and stumbled to the bathroom, noticing that Ward had already been there. She guessed that like Tripp, he got up early and ran or worked out on a daily basis. She hoped that wasn't one of the things he wanted them to do together.

Washing her face and brushing her teeth helped her feel a little more human. She pulled on a lightweight hoodie, twisted her hair up to get it out of her way, and padded barefoot downstairs. Ward sat on the sofa with a couple of folders in front of him and his laptop open as he made notes on a legal pad. He was dressed casually again in jeans and a black T-shirt. She noticed that both fit his tall, muscular frame nicely.

Skye curled into the corner of the sofa beside him. "You look busy. What are you doing?"

"Risk assessment," he told her, looking up from his papers. "There are two houses in two different neighborhoods that we can choose from. I'm looking at satellite photos of the layout for each neighborhood, checking crime statistics, and reviewing background checks for the neighbors. I'd actually like you to look over the background checks too, see if anything jumps out at you or if you can find something that's not in here."

"Doesn't S.H.I.E.L.D. do that?" Skye knew they did because she'd been tasked with looking up this very information before. As a consultant she'd never been given mission details, but they'd been happy to give her plenty of grunt work.

"Rule number one of field work – never trust that someone else did something as carefully as you would," he told her. "You should be familiar with every detail of the mission."

He had a valid point, but she wondered how often the field agents redid the work she herself spent hours on. "So basically you're saying that every time my supervisor sent me a stack of folders just like those, I wasted hours of my time doing something that someone else was just going to do all over again?"

"It's not a waste, Skye. Sometimes it comes down to little things like an agent's personal preferences in a neighborhood, how much privacy they think they'll have or how easily they'd be able to make a getaway if their cover is blown. Having someone else do the research first means the agent's time isn't wasted on locations that are a problem for other reasons."

"So what's the verdict?" she asked, suddenly curious about the house they'd be living in.

Rubbing his hand over his jaw, he said, "They're both equal in terms of safety and egress points. My assessment of the background checks is that the neighbors at the La Brea location might be nosier, but you can do your own analysis there."

Skye leaned towards his computer. "Did they send pictures?"

Nodding, he clicked on a folder and pulled up a series of photos of a two bedroom ranch style home. From the eat-in kitchen to the garden off the patio, it looked comfortable and very like the home of a young family. However, it was the second home that made her breath catch.

She'd never seen a house that looked so much like a picture from one of the storybooks she'd read at the orphanage. Built from sand colored stone, the split level house had a Spanish tile roof and chocolate brown garage doors and trim. A red brick walkway led to the front door and green shutters framed the windows, of which there were many.

Clicking through the photos confirmed the house would be full of light; like Ward's apartment, it had a more open floor plan downstairs. The kitchen wasn't large but appeared to have been newly remodeled and featured an island and an attached dining area. The living room was spacious, and the bonus room overlooking the garden would be perfect for an office. Upstairs there were two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a smaller room that was probably meant to be an office or a playroom for children.

"You like this one."

Ward's voice startled her, and she quickly clicked out of the folder. "It doesn't matter." She'd never had a house like that and she couldn't afford to let herself want something that wasn't meant to be hers.

"It's a nice area of La Brea," he commented. "You're looking at a half hour commute depending on traffic, and you can stay off the freeway."

"I said it doesn't matter," she told him. Skye stood up and walked into the kitchen, searching the cupboards until she found the coffee mugs. Ward had already made coffee, so she poured a cup and added a splash of milk since he didn't have any cream in the fridge.

When she turned around, he was standing in the doorway watching her, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I can look over the background checks and run my own searches after breakfast if you want."

He nodded, crossing to the coffee pot to refill his own cup. "I like the La Brea house, too. Unless you find something in the background checks the other analyst missed, I think that's our best option."

She sipped her coffee slowly. "You probably grew up in a house. Parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, the whole deal."

"Yes – in Massachusetts. Parents, two brothers and a sister. But we were never really close and it's been years since I was in contact."

There was no self-pity in his simple recitation of the facts, and Skye wondered what his story was. Military school at sixteen didn't sound like such a great deal, either. "There was a house once – the Brodys. I was nine."

"How long?" he asked.

"A month." She shrugged, taking another sip of her coffee. "They said I wasn't a good fit. They were probably right." That was when she'd stopped hoping for things like a house and a family because it was easier to never hope for things than it was to be constantly disappointed in the outcome. Only later did she learn the real reasons why she was shuffled around like so much unwanted baggage.

"But S.H.I.E.L.D. is?" When she didn't say anything, he continued. "I looked up your file, Skye, and it's locked – level 9 clearance. I could request the information through official channels or talk to Coulson, but I'd rather not."

"The file is bogus anyway," Skye said. She'd known she would have to talk to Ward about this eventually. "AC's idea. Could we maybe shelve that talk until after breakfast?"

To his credit, he backed off immediately. "I could eat. I had a protein shake before my run but no breakfast yet. I also stopped at the grocery store yesterday before I picked you up."

Skye opened the fridge and poked through the shelves. He had juice and milk and the makings for omelets. She pulled out those items and set them out on the counter before crossing to the pantry.

"Huh." She stared at the rows of perfectly lined up cans and boxes. They were arranged by size, all labels facing forward, and not one appeared to be out of place. "Are you, by any chance, OCD? Because if you are, we're going to have a problem."

"I'm not OCD. I just like order," Ward replied with that hint of exasperation she was becoming accustomed to.

"It's just that your bed was made with hospital corners, and now this," she said, waving her hand at the pantry as she looked at him over her shoulder. "It's like that Julia Roberts movie with the OCD, psycho husband. You're not going to shoot me if I mess up your system, are you?"

"I didn't shoot you for leaving water and hair all over the bathroom last night," he told her dryly.

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Fair point. How about a compromise? I promise to clean up after myself in the bathroom and you let me arrange the pantry in a way that doesn't give me the wiggins."

"Do whatever you want with the pantry. Now, breakfast – do you cook?" Ward asked as he washed his hands at the sink.

"Kind of – I'm learning, anyway. When I lived on my own it was mostly whatever I could eat from a can, sandwiches, or something that could be heated in a convenience store microwave," Skye said, watching him pull a pan from the cabinet by the stove. "I hit the shelters occasionally and couch surfed before I had my van. I've never had a real home with a kitchen until Coulson gave me the apartment at S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Hand me a knife from that drawer," he said, indicating the drawer behind her.

She pulled out the knife and passed it to him.

"I'll handle the omelets if you'll get the toast ready and set the table," he said. "We can talk about our cover while we eat."

Twenty minutes later they were seated at the table discussing the details of their cover as a couple.

"Where did you go after you left Miles in Austin?" Ward asked.

"I figured Miles would expect me to go to California so I headed east," she said, taking a bite of her toast. "But I had trouble with my van and didn't make it past Tennessee. By the time I'd saved the money to fix the van, I heard the chatter about the Centipede project and went back to L.A. In case you're fuzzy on the details, that's where you threw a bag over my head and kidnapped me."

"Arrested you," he corrected her.

"Yeah, you say tomato, I say violated my civil liberties," she joked.

Ward, as usual, ignored her snarking. "According to my military records, I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, so we'll say your van broke down in Fayetteville, North Carolina. How did we meet? A bar?"

"Eww, no. Military bars are not my scene," she told him, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "Whenever I need extra cash, I post flyers offering my services fixing computers – mostly removing viruses, malware, speeding up systems, that kind of thing."

"You invited strangers into your van?" he looked concerned. "Skye, do you have any idea how dangerous that is? It's an invitation to sexual predators."

"I'm not an idiot, Ward," she protested. "I usually set up shop in a local park, a coffee shop, an Internet café – someplace public. Miles knows I do that, so us meeting that way is way more plausible than you picking me up in a bar."

"Fine. You fixed my computer," he said. "Then what?"

"You probably lectured me on personal safety and city crime statistics," she said, rolling her eyes as she scooped up the last bite of her omelet. "How deep do we need to go with this?"

"Deep. We may never need the details, but you'd be surprised by how often details like this come up. Our answers have to match."

"Well, I don't think love at first sight works for either of our personalities, so… we flirted, you asked me to dinner, I accepted. We hooked up a few times and what was supposed to be fun became something else. It's basically a generic rom-com, but it could work." She raised a brow. "The big question is this. Why would a guy like Grant Ward, super serious super soldier, want to date a free spirit like me?"

Ward stood up and gathered their empty plates. "You're beautiful and you're smart. You have a sense of fun and adventure and you're idealistic. Maybe a super serious super soldier would value those qualities enough to leave the military and settle down."

Skye smiled at his words, an unexpected warmth blooming within her as she followed him into the kitchen. "How do you know I'm idealistic?"

Ward put the dishes in the sink and turned to face her, his hands braced against the sink behind him. "I don't agree with the Rising Tide or their methods because I've been in this business long enough to know that people keep secrets for a reason, and sometimes secrets need to be protected more than they need to be revealed. But as irritating as you were the day I arrested you…"

"Kidnapped me," she cut in.

He sighed. "I could tell that you believed you were helping to make the world better in your own way."

"Wow. I did not expect you to say that," she said in surprise. "If it makes you feel any better, I get it now. I mean, I know my clearance level is practically non-existent, but I've been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. for a year, and I've met people like AC, FitzSimmons and Tripp. Big things have happened and without the agency, a lot more people probably would have died in the Battle of New York. We're all doing our part to make the world a little safer. And I owe S.H.I.E.L.D. for saving me."

His brows drew together. "Saving you? From what?"

"Here, I'll wash, you dry," Skye said, nudging past him and running water in the sink. "I wasn't lying when I said I let you find me. The truth is, I wanted to get inside the agency because I thought they knew something about my parents. After I left St. Agnes, I started looking into my past. Eventually I found a S.H.I.E.L.D. document, but all of the information was redacted."

He took the plate she handed him. "This is what you told Coulson after I left the interrogation room, isn't it?"

"I would have told you if you hadn't been such an asshat that day. Long story short, I offered my skills in return for Coulson's help finding out what happened to my parents. At first the only information we could find was that a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Linda Avery dropped me off at the orphanage. For a while I thought she might have been my mother."

"But she wasn't."

Skye shook her head, scrubbing hard at the stainless steel pan. "Agent Avery was part of a team sent to the Hunan Province in China. They were investigating a small village that was destroyed in search of something the agency labeled an 0-8-4."

"An object of unknown origin," Ward said, taking the pan from her and drying it slowly.

"What the team found out was that all of the villagers were killed trying to protect the 0-8-4 from – I don't know what, to be honest. Agent Avery and her team weren't lead on the investigation but when they lost contact with the lead team, they went in and found everyone dead. The senior agent got away and hid under a bridge, but he'd been shot and bled out before Avery's team got there. He was holding a sleeping baby when they found him."

"You were the baby?"

She had to give him credit for his calm response to the information she was laying out.

She took a deep breath, her vision blurring as she tried to keep the tears back. "I was the baby, and the baby was the 0-8-4. All of those people, and probably my parents, died protecting me that day, and I don't know why. The back-end team didn't know who was looking for me. And it's possible it was a mistake or they were after my parents, but since we don't know who they were…" her voice cracked, and she swallowed. "The team brought me to the U.S. but after that, they were being picked off one by one. Agent Avery left me at the orphanage and the nuns were instructed to keep moving me around to different foster homes. Then Agent Avery was killed, too. One agent from the team is still alive but he's been in hiding for twenty-five years. It's a miracle Coulson was able to find him at all. That's why I'm working for S.H.I.E.L.D. now. They were the family I never knew I had watching out for me."

She felt Ward's hands on her shoulders. "Skye, you were just a baby. It wasn't your fault."

"Maybe not, but sometimes I wonder if one life is worth the lives of so many, you know? I feel like I owe it to them to make my life count for something." She used the heels of her hands to wipe away the tears trickling down her cheeks and turned to look up at him with a small smile. "The only people who know that story are Coulson, Commander Hill and Director Fury. As much as I'd like to know more, I understand that it's too dangerous to keep looking into it. Coulson created the level 9 file as a cover, listing me as an asset he turned while I was with Rising Tide. My file is full of highly classified missions that were aided by information I gave to him, but none of it is real."

"And the level 9 lock keeps your name out of any inter-agency or government reports that might reveal you're now working with S.H.I.E.L.D." Ward added.

"Mary Sue Poots doesn't exist anymore but Coulson doesn't want to take any chances. And the agent who got away doesn't know anything about me, either, so I don't think I have to worry about being found at this point."

"This explains why I was assigned as your partner instead of a regular field agent. I thought it was because of the Gravitonium," he said.

"AC is probably just being paranoid," she said with sigh. "It's been twenty-five years. Still, I doubt he would let me anywhere near field work if there were any other options. He told me to talk to you about it, that you needed to know even if you don't have the right clearance."

"He was right. Your job is finding out what you can about Ian Quinn and the research he's doing, but my job is protecting you. I can't do that if there are secrets."

His expression was serious, and his hands were resting on her shoulders, squeezing gently. Instinctively she knew those hands were safe, would keep her safe. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Agent Grant Ward was far from the robot she'd accused him of being. A robot wouldn't have cared which house she wanted to live in for the mission, and he certainly wouldn't have offered her comfort. He was too serious, too locked down, but he was a man; a man who, no matter how well he hid it, cared.

She could work with that.

"I like snuggies," she blurted, and the bewildered expression on his face made her want to laugh.

"What?"

"Snuggly hugs," she explained. "I'm good at stealth snuggies, ambush snuggies – it's kind of my thing."

Ward was trying to maintain his serious expression but was failing miserably as a grin tugged at his lips. "Like sharing food, huh?"

She shrugged, smiling back. "You asked before, about couple things. That's one of mine."

He looked at her for a minute, as if studying her, and then slid his hands over her shoulders and pulled her closer.

Skye immediately went in for the snuggle hug, wrapping her arms around his waist and burrowing into him. He was just as firm as he looked, and so tall that her head fit nicely against his chest. It was comforting though not entirely comfortable. She changed the position of her arms but noticed that his hands were still on her waist, creating some distance between their lower bodies.

She raised her head and looked at him. "Are you trying to leave room for Jesus? 'Cause that's not really how snuggies work."

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," he stated, though he did slide his hands around her back, allowing their hips more contact.

"I think you were right before when you said we don't have time for modesty," Skye told him. "I don't remember the exact words, but that was the gist. I'm not a virgin or the shrinking violet type. Yes it's a strange situation, but we have less than a week before we have to convince the nosy neighbors we're in love."

"In love doesn't necessarily mean public displays of affection all the time," Ward pointed out.

"No, but I like some PDAs. If we don't PDA at all, Miles will definitely call BS on our engagement. And honestly, if we're going to be in this for a while, I want to be comfortable enough for a hug on bad days, or good days, or just because it's a day that ends in –y. Here I have Jemma and Fitz, and I ambush snuggied Coulson in his office once. But there? I can't have real friends. That leaves you."

"You ambush snuggied Agent Coulson? And he didn't mind?" Ward sounded amused.

"Eh, I think he secretly liked it. Kind of like Fitz – he complains when Jemma and I snugg him, but it's all bluster." They were still locked in the same position, and Skye sighed. "This is getting weird, isn't it?"

"Little bit." He pulled away and stepped back. "Super serious super soldiers probably aren't comfortable with snuggies."

What he really meant was that he wasn't comfortable with them. "I'm guessing specialists don't hug it out at the end of the day?"

That got another smile. "No. Specialists don't spend a lot of time with other people. When we work together, we're all cut from the same cloth, have the same fundamental characteristics. We train, we get the job done. There's no room for anything else."

"What about when you're undercover or off the clock? You have to make connections somewhere."

Ward leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "Undercover assignments aren't the place to make connections, Skye. There are targets and there are potential threats, and that's it. If I lose focus, even for a second, the whole mission could go south. On this assignment, the mission going south could mean you getting hurt and that won't happen on my watch."

She nodded slowly. "But off the clock?"

"When you get used to seeing the world in black and white, threats and targets, you don't turn it off at the end of the day."

His world view was disconcerting, but Skye took a moment to consider what he'd just said because she wanted to understand what made Grant Ward tick.

"You compartmentalize," she guessed. That explained his previous relationship history. He spent most of his time alone or with other specialists, and suddenly she was back to worrying about how they were going to make this work. "If we're not compatible, how is this going to work?"

"Trust me, I've done undercover ops before. I can sell my cover."

"I'm not worried about that," she said. "I'm sure you can turn it on and off, but I'm talking about the fact that we're going to be living together for a long time – a year, maybe longer. I don't just need a specialist, Ward. If you're the only one I can trust, I need you to be a friend like Tripp would have been."

"I heard that Agent Triplett was assigned to the Triskelion, but I didn't realize you were friends. Was it more than that?" he asked curiously.

"No, it's not like that. He lives in the same building, and he sometimes hangs out with us – me and FitzSimmons. I think he might actually have a little thing for Jemma, but he's not admitting to it."

"We're not really compatible," he allowed, "and we have a long way to go to really know each other. But it's only been twenty-four hours, and we're not doing too badly. It's not a terrible start."

Skye recalled her certainty just the day before that this forty-eight hour confinement was going to be horrible. He was right – they weren't doing too badly at all. "You said it would help if we had longer, right? After I look over those files and work my hacking magic, I was thinking I could go back to my apartment and get the rest of my things, pack up what I won't need. I mean, there's really no point in going back just for a few days."

"Okay. I need to talk to Coulson anyway, so I'll drive you."

Ward went back to his mission planning, and Skye went upstairs to get her laptop and tablet, settling down at the table to work. Occasionally she found herself distracted by him – his hands moving across the keyboard, his strong profile, his serious expression as he devoted his full concentration to the task.

As he'd said, they had a long way to go. But for the first time, she felt hopeful that if they could continue to meet each other halfway, this assignment might not be so terrible after all.

A/N: The 0-8-4 conversation was originally in chapter 5. Then I was reading chapters 4 and 5 and it seemed out of place, so I swapped some things around. I felt like opening up here worked better. I also hope this isn't moving too slowly? There will be some little time jumps in future installments, but I felt like sufficient character development (and relationship development) was important here to set the tone of their dynamic, their interactions, etc.

Up Next: More cover details, house paint and furniture, FitzSimmons, intimacy exercises, and an actual date night.