I'll Write You a Tragedy

He once jokingly told her that with her driving style, she wouldn't last five minutes in a car chase.

And yet, now it's because of him that they crashed.

He was so sure of what he was doing – it wasn't his first car chase by far, and it wasn't even the first time he was chased. Hell, he even managed to lose their tail, making them ride off the cliff with a sharp twist of the steering wheel.

But he miscalculated the turn – miscalculated it bad, causing their car to turn over and over and over, before the rear smashed against the cliff side next the road, stopping the vehicle (he heard Skye's scream in his ear minutes after the crash).

Miraculously, he was still in one piece – a little banged up, yes, and with blood dripping down his forehead, but he could move everything and nothing seemed to be broken.

It took him a minute to get his senses working again, but then his instincts and all the drills kicked in – he freed himself of the safety belt and crawled out of the car, as quickly as he could, then scrambled over to the other side to help Skye out.

Only he couldn't

Her door was mashed in, not even budging as he tried to open it, and she was stuck, trapped by the debris, the sharp shards of metal. And she looked… bad. Barely hanging on.

Panic rising in his chest, feeling like he couldn't breathe, he fell to his knees by her door.

"Skye," he breathed, his voice barely audible.

Skye's lips, painted red by her blood, trembled as she looked into his eyes.

"I'm scared, Grant."

Grant swallowed, blinking back tears. Scrambling, he reached into the car, squeezing her hand. It was cold.

"Shh, it's okay, everything'll be okay," he told her, although even he could not believe his own words. "Coulson must know by now what happened, help is on its way, just hang on, sweetheart."

She gave him a barely visible nod before her eyes fluttered closed.

"Okay…"

"Don't go sleep on me, do you hear me?" His voice sounded frantic, panicked even to his own ears. "You have to stay awake. You have to… Damn it, Skye, the help'll be here in a minute, you have to stay with me, do you hear it, rookie? It's an order!"

"Rookie…" she mumbled, her voice weak. "You haven't called me that in a long time. I kind of missed it"

"I'll start calling you that again, I won't even call you anything else if that's what you want," he promised, his fingers pushing down on her wrist, feeling her pulse. It was getting weaker and weaker. "Just stay with me," he begged, but he knew she won't.

She was far too gone.

A/N: Attention citizens of the AOS fandom – founded by ticklish-super-spy and myself, as of today a new, hate-free, fluff-packed blog has opened for all you happy headcanon needs. Please, find it on Tumblr, under the URL agentsofluff.