A/N: And so back to the beginning of the series. A series of snapshots on how Ward's feeling slowly developed for Skye. I have other stories I really need to update but a bad disk overwrote almost all of my computer and I lost every piece of writing I have ever done, so these are an attempt to get back in to writing.
The First Time
The voice he could hear was young, light, like she had never really seen harsh environs or times. Her voice lilted and grew with the passion she felt for what she was saying it was a shame she was such a risk, he thought, that kind of dedication and passion could have been channelled into so much more.
His first look at her van left him with a very stereotypical image building in his head of exactly what she would probably look like.
He was glad when her door was pulled to the side and he got his first look at her that his eyes were covered with large sunglasses.
Not so stereotypical looking…
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he stepped forward to jerk the bag over the rather attractive figure that was seated before him.
Thrusting her on to the chair in the interrogation room felt like he was trying to thrust away the edge of attraction he could feel in the back of his mind. He paused a moment to focus, he'd been attracted to plenty of women, it was always easy enough to ignore it and get the job done. It would be no different here.
She held up admirably under their questioning, even guessing a few things more than he had figured she would. She was clearly smart, and scared, running of bravado and adrenalin. He felt the tinniest flicker of admiration for the tiny hacker before he quashed it ruthlessly.
Then she knew something he didn't, that Shield didn't. And it went downhill from there.
She rankled him like nothing had since his days as a rookie learning to control his emotions. She had no control, no discipline and no respect. She even had the audacity to call him names!
An asset? How could Coulson think this tiny, untrained hacker was in any way an asset?
Pain spiked up his arm and Ward looked at Coulson in horror, quickly disguised as indignation. Almost immediately his tongue loosened. Shit.
Don't look at the breasts.
He had called beautiful.
Crap.
Jaw tensed when May woke him up and he walked thru the scurrying FitzSimmons, the look he threw Coulson could have melted Thor's hammer.
His gut hardened when the word came that the man due to explode had taken the small girl. He really didn't like her at this point but he hated the idea that someone angry had someone defenceless in their hands even more. He headed to the van, gun in hand, without a backwards glance.
He was going to risk all these people's lives, the girls life, just to save some nobody who was moments away from self-destructing?
He held his holstered gun jaw tense and eyes flicking, crouched ever so slightly to allow for immediate action. The flying door nearly took his head off.
His back hit the floor harder than he had ever felt before. His eyes snapped open at the gun shot fire.
If he had to. If he had to he'd take the guy's head off. He still had hold of someone defenceless and that didn't stand.
He had the man's head in his sights. His jaw tensed as the girl and May moved into the man's range again.
He took the shot
The first time he would, for her and them,
But not the last.