Ward, You Had One Job, an agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. fanfic

The first time that Ward tried to take her out was after she leaked classified footage of him hanging off the edge of a building in nothing but his black briefs.

It wasn't a personal vendetta. (Agents did not act on personal vendettas.) This was about eliminating a cyber-terrorist whose constant release of sensitive data was disrupting ongoing operations.

Across from the alley, Ward tapped his comm. "All units in position. Move in."

"So let me get this straight," said Agent Coulson, beside him with an expression of mild despair. "The target is an unarmed civilian woman in her twenties and you ordered her van to be surrounded by thirty agents."

Ward wasn't in the mood to deal with him right then. "With all due respect, sir, Skye's a security threat. She hacked our RSA implementation twice in the past eight hours."

Without further ado, he aimed his gun and kicked open the vehicle door, fully prepared for a physical struggle or aggression. He was, however, not prepared to be dealt an anti-government manifesto.

"...will rise against those who shield us from the truth. And nothing, nothing, can stop us in the -"

A young woman was huddled over her mic, tilting her stool back in a precarious way that looked destined for disaster. Long, honey brown hair tumbled over the back of her seat in disheveled waves. She froze and slowly glanced up at him with large, wide eyes. Then she grinned.

"Hey, Black Briefs."

Ward contained the urge to hit her upside the head with his pistol. Instead, he holstered his weapon, dragged her off the stool with more force than was necessary and cuffed her with the smallest, most uncomfortable set of handcuffs in his jacket lining.

The second time that Ward tried to take her out was months later in a training room at the Triskelion.

"It would be nice," panted Skye, stepping back and holding up her hands to signal a break, "if you tried a little less hard to kill me. I'm going to be a field agent, I don't need to fight like a specialist!"

"I'm training you," Ward said, "at the same competency level as an entry-rank cadet."

Skye scrunched her nose at him in mock offense and turned away to grab a bottle of water for the second time in ten minutes. He moved so quickly she had no time to react, sweeping her legs out under her in a single fluid kick. Skye winced and peeled her face off the mat to protest, looking small and extremely disgruntled.

"Lesson for today," he said, stopping in front of her and offering a hand up. "Never turn your back on the enemy. Never trust your enemy. Also, stop taking breaks."

Skye smacked him away and climbed up from the floor on her own. "You literally just told me not to trust you."

He let her go off early that day.

The third time that Ward tried to take her out, he was in Puerto Rico pursuing a lead on a newly-resurfaced 0-8-4 buried in the ancient ruins below the city.

Security footage had shown a white middle-aged male breaking into the vaults. His location was unknown but street cameras had picked up on something else - the suspect tailing a young woman on the street, always from a distance, on and off for weeks.

Ward felt a buzzing vibration against his hip and reached into his pocket for his phone. He got into his car and shut the door, then sat in the dark looking at Monroe's text.

+1-202-555-0100: El Bar Bero

+1-202-555-0100: Female, early twenties, brunette. The one in the red sweater with a margarita.

He read it twice, committed it to memory and wiped the burner phone before putting the key into the ignition. The dive bar was small and dingy with red neon lights and pounding music. His eyes searched the room before landing on his mark, alone in a booth at the back, stretching her red sleeves over her fingers.

Fingering the gun in his jacket, he approached her table with a confident smile. "Puedo invitarte a una copa?"

She glanced up. Ward went completely still and stared at the familiar warm brown eyes looking right back up at him. "I seem to remember asking you out for a drink last year and getting turned down. What up, Ward."

"Skye? The hell are you doing in San Juan?"

Skye looked tired. She took a long sip from her glass. "Searching for my family. I got a tip-off that my dad was here. You? On leave or working for S.H.I.E.L.D?"

Ward shook his head and slid into the booth, not quite able to take his eyes off her after all those months. "I'm on a mission. Main suspect's been tailing you. I was hoping you could lead me to him."

A flash of surprise, then fear showed in her face. She scooted a little closer to him. "I've been feeling eyes on me but I thought - well, I couldn't catch anyone."

"You don't know who it is?" Ward placed a hand on her shoulder, turning her to look at him. "You're not safe here."

"Huh. If you want to catch the guy, I'm guessing I'm going to be a bit less safe." She smiled, unexpectedly, as if she rather liked the idea. "So, my S.O, still remember Military Tactics 101? Bait and ambush?"

The fourth time Ward tried to take her out, he let her go instead. It started at the kitchen counter of his latest safehouse. Ward had found the dossier dropped off at his doorstep and was deep in mission-mode, going over the details of the latest operation. Outside, the street was turning to winter.

He glanced up just as the last brown leaf on a tree across the sidewalk broke off and fell out of sight. Briefly, he was reminded of Skye - her chestnut hair and dark eyes, her penchant for sudden flight - the last he had heard of her was after the fiasco down in the Puerto Rican temple back in February. Ward turned on the gas stove and burnt the manila folder whole.

Two days later he was down south with his team, tracking a gifted with earthquake powers with orders to capture and restrain. Their seismic monitor had pinpointed unusual activity at the warehouses along the quayside.

Ward found the mark first, on the upper floor of an abandoned warehouse. Debris - old rotting wood, machine parts blown apart - littered the ground. And in the centre, a woman was crouched down with her head in her knees.

He trained his scope on her. "S.H.I.E.L.D. Hands behind your head where I can see them."

There was a pause. She raised her hands slowly and turned around to face him. He lowered his gun, closed his eyes and opened them again, wanting nothing more for her to be someone else, anyone else. "Skye?"

Skye was in bad shape. There was a pattern of dark bruises across from her elbows to her wrists, yellow and black and purple. She limped when she walked.

"It's Daisy now, actually. Look, I can explain -"

The sound of doors being kicked open below echoed through the walls. Ward undid his vest, handed her a gun and a spare clip of ammo and then pushed her firmly towards the fire escape exit. "If I see you again, we won't be on the the same side. Get out of here."

The fifth time Ward tried to take her out was when she was screaming and the room was shaking, her limbs forced into metal restraints and needles inserted into her spine, her wrists, her neck. His team had caught up to her in Los Angeles.

He stood there, watching through the slot in desperate disbelief and then, he was banging on the metal door until it opened. "Who authorized this? Let her out now. Let her out now!"

Garrett spoke from behind him. "Ward, welcome to Undersecretary Pierce's little pet project. Research department wants samples of bone marrow, spinal fluid and DNA and then the girl can go."

Ward was already striding past and switching off the power to release the leg irons. "Are you alright? Skye, look at me." She lifted her eyes to his, hazy with pain.

Something cold and hard was pressed to the back of his neck and he raised his hands slowly until he was allowed to turn around. Ward fixed his gaze past Monroe, to where Garrett was still standing in the doorway, arms crossed. "Orders are orders, son. You want it easy, go back to field leave. They'll give you a cot and the inside of an office and you don't need to ever touch a gun again."

"Skye is an agent," he said through gritted teeth. "I thought we protected our own. Give me two minutes with her." Garrett was on the verge of ordering him out anyway when he said, "I was her S.O."

Garrett let him have two minutes.

"They're not just taking samples," Skye said in a low, weak voice, bending her head so that her long hair was covering her lips and the security cameras couldn't pick up on what she was saying. "I saw the scopes, Ward."

He crossed over to her and knelt down, bringing his hands up to cup her face. "What happened to you?"

"Puerto Rico. The temple." She didn't elaborate. "I have a finger gun in my boot. The heel. Kill me."

Ward removed it from her shoe, more out of reflex than anything else. "You're not thinking straight. I'll contact headquarters and we'll get you out of here."

"Garrett and Monroe aren't S.H.I.E.L.D, Ward. I found them out, they're after me." A thin sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead. "We've been infiltrated up to the top dogs. Don't trust anyone but Coulson."

"I'll come back for you with Coulson," he said, voice cracking. "All right? You have to hang on for a while."

The door banged open.

"Please," she mouthed, almost crying, at Ward, who was standing there with the weapon concealed in his hand. "Please, Grant. Please."

His finger tightened on the trigger. Just for moment, he could have made himself do it, just up until she raised her head like a lamb in the slaughterhouse and looked at him with those enormous brown eyes, wet with tears.

Ward was escorted out of the door.

Months after the HYDRA Uprising

Skye looked pale and quiet as she sometimes was these days, her laptop still open in her lap but the screen had gone dark.

Ward walked over to sit beside her on the sofa in the small living room. He wrapped an arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. After a moment of stiffness, he felt her lean her head on his shoulder. "I've been thinking," he said quietly, "that we could grab dinner outside for a change. You should get out of the apartment more."

She pushed the laptop off her knees. "Okay."

It was monosyllabic but better than the months of silence. In the beginning, it had been a sort of helpless, incapacitated silence that made the desire to leave the room choke up his throat. When she started speaking, the silences became pointed, accusing. Now, he thought she was silent because she was trying to protect herself. Ward understood that.

"Chicken and waffles?" she said.

The small cafe had shut down in the time Skye hadn't left their safehouse, so Ward drove on to the next town. They did not have chicken and waffles but they did have fried chicken at one fast-food joint and waffles with gelato in a small shop across the street. He paid for both and opened the door to the backseat. Skye climbed over from the front. They ate in the parking lot.

Skye was halfway through her wings when she started crying. Ward wiped her hands with a napkin, moved the takeaway boxes aside and allowed her to curl up against his chest. "I've got you," he said, pulling her closer and kissing away the tears on her cheeks. "I've got you."

"Thanks for the chicken," she hiccupped, overwhelmed, sobbing and laughing at herself for sobbing at the same time. "The gelato is melting. Oh my god, my chocolate ice cream is melting."

Ward couldn't help smiling. "We'll get you another one." He kissed her, hard. She made a series of small noises against his mouth that made him think the silences could be over, that they could have a life without needing to be armed all the time against the world.

She pulled away, breathless and tear-stained. "Keep your pants on, Mr Black Briefs. And pass me the gelato."

Ward passed her the cup of gelato. And that seemed to be the best way to take Skye out.