A/N: I just got this prompt from ticklish-super-spy, but decided to work with it – I hope it's okay – mostly because it's an actuality now, and also because I was owing her a story :) (Or a fic based on the new promo pics where Skye and Ward are on the phone)

The Phone Call

Skye was most definitely not checking the time on her phone every five minutes – only she was.

Which was stupid, by the way. Even though Grant promised (after she made an excellent case for it, one that left him gasping) to call her as soon as he was done, he had no exact timeframe for his mission. The fact that she was stuck in mission control for another operation wasn't helping a bit.

So yeah, she kept checking the time – and she thought that fact that by now he was gone for twenty-seven hours for a freaking flash op more than justified her anxiety. (And anyways, she dared anybody to call her out on it; fortunately everybody knew not to aggravate her when she was already on the edge.)

But she had no actual reason to worry, right? If something was actually wrong, like his control team had lost contact, or… whatever, they would have already called her, right? Worst case scenario he got stuck somewhere, and had to wait for his window of opportunity to get out. Or lost his phone. Honestly, knowing his impulsiveness and near-suicidal tendencies, which had led to more than one bold decision during missions, the latter one seemed more likely.

(But if he did lose his phone she was going to kill him.)

They had almost reached the twenty-eight hour mark when her phone finally rang. She fished it out of her pocket right away, but took a deep, calming breath before hitting Answer.

"Hi there, Robot," she spoke into the phone, trying to sound cheery. "Everything going alright over there?"

A beat of silence, and then, "Hello, honey."

Skye froze right away. Something was so not right – Grant used to call her babe, and beautiful, and sometimes love, but usually stopped there as far as pet names were concerned; anything cheesier than that was a surefire sign that he was trying to soften the blow of something.

Skye gripped her phone.

"What did you do?"

There was, again, a short silence on the other end of the line, with some faint background noise – most likely as his team was packing up to leave.

"Technically, I didn't do anything," came his tentative answer a second later.

Now, this answer did everything but made her calm. Skye dropped her head and rested her forehead in the palm of her free hand.

"What did you do?" she repeated the question, putting emphasis on every single word.

She actually heard Grant swallow on the other end of the line.

"I got shot?" he said, the sentence coming out suspiciously like a question. "But it wasn't my fault, I swear," he continued, his words coming faster now. "We were ambushed. And it's nothing serious, really – just my shoulder, and it didn't hit anything important, and the bullet has been dug out already."

"Dug out," she repeated in an exasperated sigh. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

"I'm fine, Skye, really," he tried to reassure her in a soothing tone.

"Fine, my ass," she replied, maybe a little too sharp. "You were shot, damn it!"

"It's not the first time, sweetheart…"

"And this is supposed to make me feel better?"

Another beat of silence, during which she glared at the technicians around her, who, in the meantime, stopped doing their work, and were staring at her. Yeah, she might have been having a personal conversation in the control room, but they were supposed to be professionals, and anyways, they would have done the same if they had a stupid boyfriend who had a nasty habit of getting himself almost killed.

"So you are okay? You wound has been taken care of?" she said at last with a resigned sigh.

"Yeah – the bullet is out, and the damage is minimal. I should be back to normal in no time."

"Lucky you," she couldn't help the sarcasm seeping into her voice. "I'll still want to know the details when you get home."

"Of course."

"And I'm still going to give you grief about it."

"I know."

"And you are going to rest and heal, do you hear me, Grant Douglas Ward? No more playing hero until the docs give you the all clear, alright?"

"Understood."

"And don't think I'm not mad at you."

"Of course."

"And you are an idiot."

"I'm not going to argue about that with you."

"I love you."

She could almost see Grant smile.

"I love you too, beautiful. See you in a couple of hours." And with that, he hung up.

Skye pushed her phone back into her pocket, then let her head fall back until it met the wall behind her, and let out a loud sigh.

"Moron. I'm in love with a moron." Then shook her head, and got back to work – she had a mission to lead to success.

She got a text about an hour later.

You are aware that my whole team is snickering about how a tiny girl can make me cringe and act like a scolded puppy, right?

She couldn't help but laugh at that. Hah, served him right.