Disclaimer: Look at this fic. Look at the website. Then look back to the fic. Do you think I own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Note: Shortest chapter yet, yes, but it's just what happens sometimes.
Thanks to EnergyBeing for beta-reading this chapter.
A Different Choice
By Alkeni
Chapter 8: Caught
Motel Pool Area, Palo Alto, California
D Plus Seven
The world outside the two of them may have seemed to not exist, but that didn't stop it from crashing back into them a few minutes later at the sound of a throat clearing.
Immediately, Skye pulled her lips away from Grant's and looked to the source of the sound. She felt heat in her cheeks and the rest of her face, and could only guess just how flustered she looked. She felt like the teenager caught making out with her boyfriend on the couch by the parents as they walked into the living room. The first part – making out with her boyfriend – was the case, too.
Fortunately, it wasn't AC standing not that far away, arms crossed in front of him and an amused look on his face. It was Trip.
"Well." He chuckled. "I knew there was something that was gonna happen between you soon enough, but I didn't know you'd actually had it start already."
Skye flushed even more at his words and stood up, getting off Grant's lap. Grant didn't stop her, letting her go, but he held onto her arm, letting his hand slowly and gently slide down it until it was holding hers.
"Nothing to be embarrassed about girl." Trip added, obviously seeing how red her cheeks were. "Not like I caught you two out doing more than kissing."
That really make Skye's cheeks burn. She looked at her hands, wondering if the flush had spread that far – she felt embarrassed enough to be red all over. Not at being caught with Grant. Just the being caught part. She'd been in his lap – that was a little more than just kissing. Not that she hadn't liked being in his lap, kissing him with his arms around her. She had. A lot. But still.
Its easy for you to say its nothing to be embarrassed about. You're not the one who got caught. She looked over to Grant. Unsurprisingly, he did not look embarrassed at all. No flushing, no anything. Despite the moment, Skye wondered what exactly would fluster or embarrass Grant, and made a mental note to figure that out.
"Did you want something?" Grant asked Trip, holding her hand tightly, though not tight enough to hurt. There wasn't any hostility in his tone, just the question.
"Didn't realize anyone would be out this late." Trip answered. "Just came out to get some air, saw you two." He looked at her, then at Grant, then at the two of them. "So how long since the two of you stopped dancing around each other?"
Skye's first thought to that was were we really that obvious? Her second thought was well, kind of. Well, maybe not initially. For the longest time, she hadn't been sure if he was interested in her at all – he'd almost seem like he was, then he'd do something that would make her think he wasn't. Once she'd really realized that she felt something for him – had a crush on him – she'd tried to keep her feelings hidden from him, but after the whole, y'know, being shot thing, she'd slowly started to stop pretending because – because at that point, she really was starting to feel the impression that he felt something for her in turn. Even then, they'd just moved around each other in a slow, cautious dance, neither of them sure, not entirely sure, what the other one felt...and then there had been that janitor's closet in the Hub.
Because up until then, while she'd been starting to believe he might be interested in her, she hadn't had confirmation. She'd wondered if her belief was just wishful thinking, reading too much into his actions, his words, his expressions. (Yes, she'd read into his expressions too. You had to when you were dealing with a guy like Grant who wasn't exactly emotionally expressive. Though he was a hell of a lot more of that in the last few days...)
In the Hub, when he'd asked her about that drink. That's when she'd actually been certain that he was interested, that it wasn't all just supposition and wishful thinking and her having some silly crush on her S.O. Which had been one of the reasons she'd kept it hidden. Well, it had been before she'd actually had proof that her feelings were returned. I'm sure there's some stupid protocol or rule about having a crush on your S.O. Or something. Now, she didn't care about that, not know that she knew, that she 100%, positively knew...
No matter how badass or Seal Team 6-y Grant was, he wasn't invincible. Even he'd sounded like there was a chance he couldn't make it past those twelve 'level 5 foot-soldiers' alive. She'd been... genuinely afraid that he wouldn't come back. She'd tried to mask it with bravado in her tone.
You said you might die, so...what the hell?
She'd accepted his offer for a drink – not just because she wanted it, even though the thought of going from a crush and dancing around and what may or may not be mutual interest to...trying something, actually trying something kind of terrified her. She took the offer because he could die. And she'd never live with herself if he died without him realizing that yes, she was -
That his feelings were returned. And so she'd accepted the offer of a drink, she'd kissed him.
At that point, there'd been no point in trying to hide from the other the feelings they each had for the other, and so they hadn't.
And been less careful about hiding that they had feelings for each other from everyone else.
Maybe they had been that obvious. Maybe it had just been the two of them lying to themselves and each other for a few months, with everyone else noticing? Eventually, anyway, maybe?
Skye couldn't know for sure.
"Since Providence Base." Skye said in answer to Trip's question. She took a breath. She – there was no real reason to keep her and Grant secret, but she... she just felt like now wasn't the time. Like she'd told him, with everything going on – there was no reason for them to make anything complicated, or whatever. Once Garrett was dealt with, there'd be breathing space – not a lot, with S.H.I.E.L.D. dead and Hydra still roaming free, but at least a little. Enough space for them to sit down, take stock of their situation and figure out a long term strategy. She'd kept running the information from the dumped files against names known to be Hydra along with those in the Rising Tide she could trust, and that had turned up some other potential leads, but really, once Garrett was out of the picture...
God, they all would need a fucking break. After everything they'd gone through in the last week and some? Hell, the last few months? They'd need a breather. Just a period when they could... well, maybe not drop their guard, but at least not have it up so high and strong. Relax a little. Unwind. Pretend to be a tiny bit normal for a while.
When she'd first joined the Bus, she hadn't thought she'd miss 'normal'. She'd figured she'd miss some of the advantages to living alone (she had), she'd figured she'd miss her van (she had) and she'd figured she'd miss all the things that had been part of her life beforehand (she had). What she hadn't figured on was missing... normal. Her life had never been 'normal' by most people's standards, but the last few months – she'd been all over the world, came into contact with alien technology, an actual alien, people with powers, a guy who came back from the dead, technology that while not alien was advanced enough it may as well have been, people stuck between worlds, evil science projects, and cybernetic death-machines. She'd been shot twice in the stomach, nearly died and had alien DNA injected into her to save her life. Generally anything even remotely resembling normal had been tossed out the window. And now here she was, along with the team, up against a Nazi death cult that was supposed to have been destroyed seventy years ago.
Oh, and a crazy sick psychopath wants to drain me of my blood and hand me over to a crazy scientist to be 'taken apart' all so he can be a real boy again.
Yea, she was missing normal at this point. She was missing boring, even. Despite herself, her mind went back to an episode of Babylon 5 where one character, Garibaldi had a line that at the moment, was kind of resonating with her, even though it had been quite a few years since she'd watched the show online. Technically it had been illegal, but really. It was a good show.
Every day I get up, and I hope nothing will happen. I'd love to be just bored out of my skull for 24 hours.
She'd rather have maybe a week of boredom at least, but still, the point stood.
But the point was until they had that time to be bored, it was better to keep her relationship with Grant quiet. Besides, she really liked having something secret, something between just the two of them. Something no one else knew about. It was sort of like the old days, when she was off the grid and living in a van.
Well, except for the fact that Trip knew now.
"Look, Trip." She started, "Grant and I – can you not tell anyone? We're – with everything going on..."
Trip held up his hands, palms out. "Hey, no need. Not my thing to tell anyone, after all." He laughed, "I'll leave it up to you two to tell Coulson. Though I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he threatens you." Trip looked at Grant as he said that.
"Threatens-" she looked over at Grant, confused for a moment. Why would Coulson threaten Grant?
"Girl, you're like a daughter to him." Trip told her. Skye blinked a moment, then -
Well...its not like I haven't...haven't seen him as a father-figure... Because she had. She'd gotten the impression that Coulson felt – felt like with her as well, but -
Well, it was impossible to be sure. She'd called Mrs. Brody 'Mom' and look how that had turned out.
But the Team – they were her family. And Coulson really was in many ways father she'd never had, the father she'd wanted.
None of her foster parents had ever really taken the time to threaten any guys, not that they'd had many opportunities. Bouncing between foster homes as often as she did meant that she usually didn't have enough time in any given school to get anywhere with any guy... and once she ran away from St. Agnes, there wasn't even a foster dad that could threaten any guy she got involved with.
Grant was never going to hurt her. She believed that with iron certitude, but it would be...nice, almost, to have someone care enough to threaten him.
If someone else saw it – then maybe she wasn't imagining that connection with Coulson. She hadn't thought she was, but confirmation was nice.
"I'm expecting it to happen sooner or later." Grant said after a moment. He smiled a little bit, "I imagine him cleaning shotgun while he does it, but I don't think he actually owns one."
"Not really standard S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue weaponry." Trip agreed. He looked to the two of them again, "I didn't know you two were having some time together. I'll leave you guys be." Then with a smirk he added: "But you might want to be more careful about where you do things. If it had been Coulson coming out here-" He laughed. "Well, then we'd find out if he owns a shotgun or not."
Skye flushed just a touch at the thought of Coulson walking out and seeing them like that like Trip had – without any warning. It was a mortifying thought. And what if it like, gave him a heart attack or something?
Okay, it probably wouldn't, but she could guess that AC wouldn't have been very pleased to see them like that.
"It wasn't – it wasn't exactly planned. But yeah, we'll be more careful." Skye said afte a moment.
Ward and Fitz's Room, Motel, Palo Alto, California
D Plus Seven
After Trip had gone back inside, Ward had stayed outside with Skye for maybe a half hour. Talking. And some kissing. But eventually, Skye had yawned, and Ward needed sleep to as well. They were leaving for Havana in a few hours. Leaving for John's base under the barbershop. Not that anyone else knew it was under the barbershop.
Ward had wanted to ask Skye to come with him, so he could hold her as she slept, as he slept. He wanted her near him – wanted to be near her. Wanted to be able to reassure himself that she was still his, that she wasn't disgusted by him, by the real him.
Grant wanted to be a good man for her, because that was who she'd developed feelings for. For Agent Grant Ward, poster-boy for S.H.I.E.L.D. as much as he could, he wanted to be that man. Much of it was true to his personality, what personality he could truly be sure was his, and not just part of one his many masks and covers, part of him and not just something he'd been for John, or as a cover for S.H.I.E.L.D.
How to be a good man for her – that wasn't an easy answer. She was the first person who'd ever seen him as a good person, a good man. Others had seen him as 'good' at a given task, at being a specialist, but never as a 'good' man.
The obvious first step was on killing, killing to protect her, killing to get the job done. It was just another mission – one where the parameters had changed. Protecting Skye was still the most important thing – nothing mattered if she died. Nothing.
But – there had to be a line. Eliminating the threat wasn't the point anymore. He had to unlearn the habits drilled into him by his training as a specialist, years of experience in the field. Go in, get the job done, eliminate any threat that stood in the way. Incapacitation if possible, death if necessary. But the objective was always the objective – kill this person, recover this item, gather this intelligence. Twice he'd been sent in to rescue a S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist that had been kidnapped – two separate scientists, that is, each on different occasions – and that was was the closest his missions as a specialist, before the Bus, had been to the 'protection' that Coulson constantly spoke about, the so-called mission of S.H.I.E.L.D.
But the mission now – the mission now was Skye. Protecting her, yes, but making sure she never saw him as the monster and murderer, the 'serial killer' that she told him he was in his nightmares. Being a good man for her. Being the man she knew – not just pretending to be that man, but being that man.
But...how? How was he supposed to be a good man? What did good people do? He understood, intellectually, academically, the concepts. Good, evil, right, wrong. He knew there were things that almost everyone (especially civilians) conceived of as evil – murder, theft, torture, lying, for example – but they were always terribly inconsistent about it. The law's definition was useless. Juries were a terrible method for ruling on what was and wasn't fact, and the law had protected his parents and Christian, had left him and Thomas and his sister behind. The law was imprecise, though even that was generally more precise than the fuzzy morality of most people.
Ask ten people if theft was wrong, odds were, all ten would say yes. Ask the exact same ten to then define theft, why it was wrong, and if there were times when it was acceptable or not, and you'd get ten – or more – different answers, many of them fuzzy, ill-defined and mealy-mouthed. Ask them the same questions about killing and you were going to end up with a similar result. The same with lying and torture.
For Ward, lying was the job. He was a spy – he'd lied for S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd lied for Hydra. He'd lied to protect Thomas as a child, he'd lied to the police when they'd asked him if he knew if his brother was in that house to protect himself. Just as with killing, Ward told as few lies as he needed to get a job done. With the Team, the number of lies was comparatively small. No one had asked him if he was Hydra. Or anything close. And he hadn't lied to Coulson when he'd said that he hadn't been following someone's orders when he killed Nash.
Of course, he'd more or less lied when he took the oath as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and he'd deceived the entire team by not telling them what he knew about Project Centipede, the Clairvoyant, Hydra...
He'd come so close to telling Coulson everything after Skye was shot. But there – there hadn't been a moment. They were rushing her to Zurich, then Bethesda, then the Guest House. There was never a free moment, and then John had been there.
And...
He'd owed – he still owed – John everything. His life, his sanity. John had taught him how to be a man. John had made him the specialist he was.
John had taught him attachment was a weakness.
But I'm attached to Skye. And I don't care. He'd almost said as much to John, but he hadn't... he'd said nothing. He'd taken John's smug explanations, how it was all according to plan and he'd get his 'little candy crush' back soon enough, as long as Coulson really had dug up what happened to him after New York. And if he hadn't, couldn't for his pet project, then Coulson really didn't know and they'd just cross the team off, crash the plane and move on. No point in leaving a guy like Coulson or someone like the Cavalry alive, right?
Ward had argued with that premise – it was unnecessary death, and he didn't want to cross Coulson off, cross FitzSimmons off. And they didn't need to kill them. It was risky, and at the time, there'd been no reason to think that Hydra was going to rise any time soon.
John had just sneered at his 'weakness' and played him. Played what Ward owed him.
But he didn't owe him her.
He should have killed John then. Should have turned him in then.
But – he couldn't let the team, couldn't let Skye know what he'd done. What he was. He couldn't have her see him as a monster.
He still couldn't.
He was a survivor.
And up until that last moment – everything he owed John had still riddled his thoughts...dominated him. It had been his entire reason for being.
But Skye... and that kiss, in the closet...that she really did feel something or him.
She was his reason now. He didn't want John to die, didn't want to have to work against the man who had done so much for him, but he had to. As long as John lived, as long as he was determined to get G.H. 325 and use it to save his life as his cybernetic and organic systems failed him, then he was a threat to Skye. An active threat, not just some potential one.
John had to die. For Skye. And he had to be a good man. For Skye.
It was for her. Everything was for her.
All for her.
Cargo Hold, The Bus
D Plus Seven
This time, Skye was on time for their training. They were walking into what was probably a trap, knowing it was a trap. If there was ever a time to be on-top of her game, this was it. Plus, she didn't want to have to do another hundred pushups.
Like in their last few training sessions, there was a moment of - well, again, tenderness seemed to be the only word she could think of – as Grant helped her wrap her hands, checking the wrappings to make sure they were on properly. She offered him a slight smile, and proving that he wasn't entirely in 'S.O. mode' yet, he smiled back. Then they were in front of the bag.
"You've got the form on the punching down well. Now it's just about muscle memory and keeping yourself on point with them. But punching isn't an entire fight." Grant said, holding the bag for her. "You've seen May fight. You've seen me fight."
"I've felt you fight." Skye pointed out, remembering just their most recent sparing, let alone the other times they'd sparred. "And I know you've been pulling your punches. And kicks." She started in on the bag, practicing the moves they'd always been working on from the start. And she kept her hands up. It wasn't an easy thing to remember to do, but by now she was much more used to it.
"Less now than when we first started." Grant pointed out. "You've been picking things up fast."
At this point, the idea of a compliment from Grant, even when it came during training, wasn't a total shock, the way it had – the way it had before Hong Kong. That first real compliment he'd given her.
"Well, I might not have without an S.O. willing to put up with me." Skye told him. "I wasn't exactly the best student at first." Which was kind of an understatement. After Malta, she'd started to get more focused, more determined, but it had taken time for her to really start focusing on doing the best she could during training.
"As long as you really wanted it, you'd have gotten it one way or another." Grant replied softly. "Like I said when Coulson gave you your badge. Some things are meant to be." He shifted a little, holding the bag at a slightly different angle. "The point I was making, though, was that in a fight, you need to use your entire body as the weapon. People aren't just going to punch you – and you can't just punch them. You need to be able to keep your hands up, hit your opponents, dodge their attack and, if need be, keep your balance while you're kicking them." He firmed his grip on the bag, holding it still. "Start adding in kicks. Keep your hands up when you kick, You can't rely on them being something you can use for balance when one foot is off the ground."
Nodding, Skye pulled back from the bag for a moment, taking a quick, momentary breather and then standing back in front of the bag. He'd had her practice kicks before, but not both at once. Couldn't be too hard, right?
It really wasn't. At least not with the punching bag. She varied which leg she used in the kicks, but it was easier to stay standing on her right leg and kick with her left – though she was only on one foot for a few seconds, she quickly found she felt less stable on the left foot with the right in the air.
After a couple of minutes, and a few pointers from Grant, her S.O. pulled away from the bag and she stopped short, wondering why he wasn't holding the bag still for her. She kept her hands up, one foot in front of the other as Grant came around from behind the bag and stood behind her. He put his hands on her arms, lowering the right one a little.
"You're overcompensating up here a little. Keeping your hands too up is going to lead to problems just like keeping them down will."
You've told me this before. She wasn't going to snark at him about it though. He wasn't doing it to be pedantic or annoying. He was trying to help. And she didn't mind having his hands on her, even if it was just to adjust her stance. Which he did again, this time with his hands on her hips. Despite herself, Skye felt a slight shiver go down her spine, but she forced herself to concentrate.
You're doing this on purpose you bastard. He didn't have to put his hands on her to get her stance adjusted the way it needed to be. He was doing this just to mess with her.
"Ten more minutes of this, then we'll spar." Grant told her, going back around to hold the bag.
"Only ten minutes?" Skye blinked as she started punching and kicking the bag again. "Who are you what have you done with Mr. Fun Machine?"
Grant just looked over at her for a moment, then shook his head, "We could be in a fight as soon as we land in Cuba. You need to be on top of your game, yes, but not worn out."
Of course, Skye could remember a time when just twenty minutes on the bag and a few rounds on the mats did wear her out. She had a long way to go before she really felt confident in her ability to protect herself – getting shot had a way of making a person realize their deficiencies in that area – but she was getting better.
But its about defending myself. Defending other people. Skye wanted to be a field agent, like AC – she didn't want her job to be to kill or to eliminate the threat, like May and Grant's jobs were. She wanted to save people, help people, protect people. The way Coulson and the rest of the team had done for her.
S.H.I.E.L.D. might be gone, but that doesn't mean we can't save lives. Innocent lives, and even not-innocent lives. Mike Peterson wasn't 'innocent' – he'd made mistakes under the influence of the Extremis, he'd been forced into making even more after they put a bomb in his head. But he still deserved to be saved. His son deserved it even more. And who knew who else Garrett and Hydra were using, holding captive, experimenting on. Somehow, she doubted that all those Centipede soldiers agreed to have bombs put into their skulls.
She had to be better in a fight, but she knew that no matter how much she trained, no matter how good she got, she'd never be the kind of 'warrior-zen-ninja-badass' that May was, or the 'Seal Team 6 Superspy' that Grant was. She didn't want to be.
She wanted to protect people. Save people.
But before she could do all that, be what she wanted to be, she had to get better. Which meant training and sparring.
And actually knocking Grant to the floor at least once!
