Picture Perfect
The keys feel so strange in his hand as he opens the front door – after living in a S.H.I.E.L.D. base for nearly three years, where everything opened with keycards and codes, having an actual house with an actual front door that opens with a key feels absolutely surreal.
But it's real – the ownership papers in the desk drawer (or at least somewhere in that area) bear his and Skye's name.
He grins like a fool whenever he thinks of it.
The hallway is quiet as he enters the house, the towering box-mountains by the walls engulfed in shadows; there's still a lot of stuff to unpack – stuff that they have either collected during their years at the Playground, or have brought recently at Ikea (surprisingly, spies don't tend to own too much furniture).
He closes the door behind himself, and loosens the tie around his neck. Just another day at the office and then the sweet return to home, he thinks with a hint of irony as he shrugs off his suit jacket – only that his day at the office consisted of meetings on the topic of a possible strike on Syria.
Carelessly tossing the jacket aside, letting it fall where it may, he moves deeper into the house, and after three steps, hears it – the faint sound of tinkling laughter and the joyful squeals of a child. The corners of his mouth pulling into a smile, he follows the sound.
He finds them in the dining room – or at least what will be the dining room someday –, sitting on the hardwood floor amidst the complete chaos of power cords, papers, toys, and other random objects. Unwilling to disturb their moment, he stands at the door, silent, watching smiling.
Skye is mostly with her back to him, so he doesn't see much more of her than her messy bun, but Haylie's facing him, although her gaze is fixed on her mother. She is wearing a ridiculously mismatches ensemble – a ruffled skirt that is way too big for her (maybe it'll fit next summer), a loose T-shirt that must have been a gift from Fitz, judging by the grinning, cartoonish monkey on the front, and one of Skye's hats, that keeps tilting forward, the rim slipping into her eyes. Not that it bothers Haylie much – with the determination most one-year-olds have, she simply pushes it back, grinning.
It seems like Skye's trying to teach her some kind of nursery rhyme, accompanied by a series of claps and other hands gestures; she is singing the words softly, her gaze fixed on Haylie, holding her hands up, waiting for the little girl to mimic the movement. She does, more or less – she is not doing the routine of the rhyme exactly, but she is having a high time nonetheless, clapping wildly and patting her tiny hands against her mother's palms, grinning and laughing. Not that Skye minds it – she plays along, her wide smile evident in her voice, then, reaching the end of the rhyme, she reaches out and grabs Haylie, starting to tickle her and blowing a raspberry against her neck, making the little girl squeal in delight.
Grant grins himself, reaching into his pocket to fish out his phone.
Five years ago he wouldn't have thought that this – this kind of peaceful domesticity – would be what makes him happy. But it does – oh, it does, Skye and Haylie and their little family makes him happier than he has ever been, and this is something he wouldn't give up for anything, he thinks, before snapping a picture.