Meadow-Dance
Hannah - Skye is always trying to get Ward to loosen up and act silly like dancing in an empty field =) P.S. You don't know how pleased I am to see that you're still around following that horrendous thing called a finale.
Dear Hannah, I relocated them a bit, I hope it's okay :)
Tony Stark is holding a stupid garden party and they were all invited, but if Coulson wasn't the guest of honor (being an honorary Avenger and being back from the dead and all), Grant wouldn't have even bothered to come (it all hits too close to home, reminds him too much of the schmoozing his parents did and all the appearances they held up when he was a child).
But Coulson is the guest of honor, and his whole team – his whole family – is here, so he came along as well, even if he just can't find it himself enjoying the party. So he chooses to simplí stand aside, a champagne flute in hand, and observe the festivities from afar. It's so not his game.
Of course, he shouldn't have expected to be left along for too long.
Skye finds him just as the Sun starts to disappear behind the horizon. She is a vision, even more so than usually, in her lace-pleated white sundress, her hair loose and curling, her cheeks red from excitement and happiness (which awakens this crazy urge in him to kiss her). She smiles at him, happy and confident and mischievous, then takes the flute from him, placing it on the nearby table, then, taking his hand, she leads him even further away from the party. He lets her.
"Where are we going?"
Skye chuckles at his question.
"Just away," she answers. "You are so brooding today, when everybody is having such a great time. It's unacceptable." Then she leans closer and whispers into his ear, "And anyway, you are so much more handsome when you smile." (He wonders how much she has drunk – although she doesn't seem intoxicated, just happy, carefree.) "And I wanna make you smile."
She stops at the edge of the meadow that embraces Stark's estate, then, taking both of his hands in hers, she turns towards him. Looking deep into his eyes (he could count the colors in her irises) she stands there for five, six, seven heartbeats, then – it's nothing more than a blink of an eye – she raises herself on the tip of toes, and press a quick kiss against his lips.
Afterwards, she just looks at him coyly, teasingly, then starts dancing.
She is dancing – on the edge of a meadow full of wildflowers, with a fancy party in the distance, with classical music in the air, but to her own rhythm, her skirt flying around her, pulling him after her.
He does the only thing that's logical: he dances with her.
(And he smiles.)