"When exactly were you going to tell me that you got engaged?" Sue asked Ward as he came back into the room.
"W-w-w-h-h-a-a-t?" Ward stuttered. He was confused. He hadn't told Sue he and Skye were even together.
"The young lady that was just in here?"
"How did you...?"" He started before noticing the guilty look on Tilly's face. "You and your big mouth!"
He went to get a glass of water so Skye could take some painkillers, just as she entered the room. As Ward reached up get a glass out of the cupboard he winced, which didn't go unnoticed by Skye and Sue.
"Where's your ring?" Sue asked Skye as she put the final bit of dye in Tilly's hair.
"My ring?" Skye repeated, confused. She had clearly missed something. Ward had told her to take off her wedding ring, just in case she did bump into Sue, the neighbour.
"Your engagement ring dear."
"Oh. That's my fault. Grant gave it to me to get it resized. I kind of forgot."
"Woah, Woah. What is going on? I leave the room for five minutes and you are talking to me about being engaged to Skye?" Ward said, passing a glass of water to her.
Sue tapped Tilly on the shoulder to indicate that she was done and motioned for Simmons to take her place.
"I'm going to use the bathroom." Tilly announced, knowing that her brother would follow her out of the room.
When she had got to the first floor landing she turned and waited for him.
"Ok. So what the hell is going on?" he asked.
"Sue was asking who Skye was. She realised that there was something between you because you relaxed when she came in. Would you rather I told her the truth? She would have killed you on the spot!"
Ward looked down at his sister, eyebrows raised. He knew she was right.
"And what's this about a ring? She doesn't have one. You know that."
"Wait here."
Tilly disappeared off into her room. She returned seconds later carrying a battered ring box and an envelope.
She handed them both to him and headed for the stairs.
"There are people who care about you that thought you would never get married. Just think about it will you?" she said as she set off back towards the kitchen.
He was left alone on the landing. He opened the envelope. It was a letter, written in familiar looping handwriting.
Grant (it said),
I know I left this to Tilly in my Will, but she was under strict instructions that if you finally found a woman that was crazy enough to put up with you for the rest of her life she was to give this to you to give to her.
She always said she wanted to be there, to see you give your future to someone that you chose to, not someone you felt you had to.
I love you,
Gramz.
He opened the ring box to reveal his Grandmother's engagement ring. It was made out of platinum, which was rare in his Gramz days, but she was allergic to gold and his Grandpa had always told him the Silver was tacky for a ring of such importance. It had a solitary diamond set in the middle. The stone wasn't overly large, but it wasn't small either. The remarkable aspect of the stone was the quality. It sparkled all of the colours of the rainbow every time the light caught it. It was beautiful in its simplicity.
He snapped the box shut and went back to the kitchen. When he got there, Tilly was on the bar stool Simmons had previously been sat on while Simmons was having her hair trimmed.
He went and sat next to Skye at the kitchen table. She slipped her hand around his back. He winced again. He noticed she looked pale. He was going to have to force some food into her at some point.
Skye meanwhile had gripped the hem of Ward's t-shirt and pulled the side of it up to his armpit, revealing an intricately worked tattoo of an Eagle in flight on the side of his ribs. She had seen that before, what she hadn't previously seen was the purple bruising that was appearing on his lower back.
Sue (and Fitz-Simmons), however had never seen the eagle, so it's revelation was a slight shock.
"IS THAT A NEW TATTOO?" She shouted, which brought Coulson, Kain and Amber back into the room.
Ward looked at her a little sheepish.
"Only if you define 'new' as eight years give or take a month or two."
"Wait, if you've had it eight years, how have we not seen it? I've stitched your body back together more times than I care to count. I've never seen it?" Simmons queried. The last thing she wanted to do was get Ward into more trouble, but she was curious.
"Nat is an expert in waterproof camouflage cover-up. When I was working for Garrett, each and every one of my tats would have got me killed."
"Why? And how many do you have?" Fitz asked.
"Four. I was kind of drunk when I got three of them, and they all link to S.H.I.E.L.D black ops missions that Garrett had no idea I was a part of. So Nat had to cover them to hide them from him. If he saw them he would have killed me. The only way to get the cover-up off is using the solution we have upstairs."
"FOUR?" Sue shrieked.
Coulson looked as if this weren't news to him, which it wasn't. Ward was allowed back onto his team after his complete personnel file was passed across his desk by Director Fury. It had a record of all of Ward's tattoos and all of the missions he took part in to earn them.
"Can we see them?" Simmons asked. She wanted to see how well this cover-up worked.
"I only uncovered that one because I got cut falling down the stairs and needed to see if I had missed it."
Sue had calmed down a little.
"Show us." She demanded as she finished cutting Simmons hair.
Ward went back to his bedroom and got the solution that would reveal his tattoos. He sat on another stool in the kitchen and removed his shirt. Skye poured some of the solution onto some cotton wool and started swiping it over his left shoulder. He had told her about all of his tattoos when they started going out. She hadn't seen them yet.
As she wiped his shoulder, a black, intricately worked Caduceus, (two snakes wrapped around a staff, commonly associated with medical science) started to appear. Everyone stepped closer, everyone except Tilly and Coulson, who had seen it before.
The next one he revealed was a detailed pair of wings on the inside of his right ankle.
The last one he revealed was a white ink tattoo on the inside of his fake left knee. Because it was white ink it was harder to see. It was a snake. The strangest thing about this was that it only had one eye.
"Which one weren't you drunk for?" Kain asked. He imagined it would be the Eagle. That one was truly a work of art. He didn't expect the answer.
"The one-eyed snake."