(In which Grant Ward faces his worst fears).

Grant Ward has witnessed some horrific things in his lifetime but he decided that the one thing he could never tolerate watching was the act of childbirth.

His rugged exterior was damaged in the second that it took for a woman to say "My water just broke" and steadily denatured from there.

He remembers his first experience with the act, he was only twenty five. It was in Russia when he was on a deep undercover assignment and got trapped for ten hours in an elevator in a hospital with a very pregnant woman and an obstetrician. The pregnant woman went into labor and poor Grant Ward had to witness the whole thing. Luckily, the obstetrician did most of the dirty work, but Grant will never forget the blood and the screaming.

On the second occasion, he'd had to assist in the birth of a baby boy and he passed out, but he was again very lucky that there was another person present to help the laboring mother.

Grant Ward had witnessed a total of twelve births in his life, almost all of them happening in countries where medical care wasn't the best. Some births ended in joyful tears and healthy babies pressed into their mother's arms and a few ended with heartbreak as the mother died in labor, the babies were stillborn or died shortly after the birth, or, in one case, mother and child both perished.

Grant Ward paced nervously as he steeled himself to witness birth number thirteen, only this time he knew he had to stay by the laboring mother's side, no matter what.

Skye would kill him if he missed out on the birth of their first child.

"Mr. Ward, you can come in now.", the midwife said as she poked her head out from inside the delivery room.

Skye had sent him out a while ago to call the rest of the team and he hadn't been able to go back in until he had been put in scrubs in case things got messy.

Despite the beginning of their relationship being rough (they decided to begin anew after the HYDRA takeover) it had progressed to where it was now. They were married a year after Grant's proposal and then a few months later, Skye came to him with news; she had conceived.

Eight and a half months later, Grant walked into the delivery room with his head held high, ready to hold Skye's hand and help her as much as he could with the birth.

During the process, there were many times that Grant felt like he was going to be sick or pass out, even a few times when he thought that Skye had broken his hand from squeezing too hard, but he powered through it. Whatever he endured, he endured for Skye, and after the birth he learned that he had endured it for another girl too; his and Skye's daughter.

The very first time he held his baby girl, Grant knew that whatever fear he had harbored was now eliminated.

His baby girl, with her tiny hands and big brown eyes and brown hair held his heart and destroyed every negative particle in his body.

His little angel was here to save him.