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captainsophiestark · 1 month ago

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Grant Ward x Reader

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Written for Fictober 2024!

Fandom: Marvel

Day Thirty Prompt: "I won't let you down."

Summary: Grant's SO is tackling the biggest project SciTech has to offer an academy student, and he's about to be dragged into helping with it.

Word Count: 2,879

Category: Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Out of every single other member in your class, the board has decided to trust you with this assignment. Do you think you're up to the challenge?"

I kept my face carefully neutral, a skill I'd learned from my Ops boyfriend. Inside, my heart was racing and threatening to make an escape across the room and out the door, but in front of the entire SHIELD SciTech Academy board? I could not let that show.

Instead, I kept my back straight, and forced the slightest of smiles onto my face.

"Yes, ma'am. I am up to the challenge. I promise, I won't let you down."

"Good. We look forward to seeing what you come up with."

I kept the smile on my face and nodded, leaning forward enough to be at the very edge of a bow. Then, I turned on my heel and kept my head high as I walked out of the room. My boyfriend had taught me exactly the body language required to convey confidence, and I was putting all of it to use right now.

The second I cleared the doors, I let everything drop.

I took off at a sprint through the hallways of the main SciTech building, ducking through the hallways I knew better than anywhere else on earth, avoiding anybody that might try to stop or question me. I didn't slow down, even once I made it outside. Instead, I sped up, heading for the edge of the SciTech campus.

I was in my last year at the Academy. I was at the top of my class, so for a final project, the board had tasked me with creating a new tool for Field Agents and Specialists. They wanted something the agents could have on them that worked like an emergency button, transmitting information and location if the need arose. But, they also needed it to be basically undetectable to any sensor, easy for agents in the field to operate and conceal, and durable enough to do its job no matter what punishment it got put through. A nearly impossible task outside of these walls, and despite my preparation, still pretty damn hard for me.

I'd been workshopping a prototype for a similar idea all semester, and the board knew it. They liked what they'd seen, so they'd made it my job to finish a true prototype for them to present and then further develop on Monday. It was currently Friday, and my project still had one gigantic, glaring weakness.

No matter what we could come up with in the lab, our field inventions almost inevitably came back with complaints from the agents who actually used them. We could run simulations and tests and try to recreate conditions pretty well in the lab, but it never stood up to the hardships of actually being in the field like we thought it would. Which meant, if I wanted to keep my promise to the board and my standing within SciTech, I needed to get creative.

Fortunately for me, I happened to be dating the best Operations student in generations. Grant Ward and I had met last year and we'd been happily dating ever since, despite how hard it could be sometimes to spend time with each other from different Academy campuses. We'd found workarounds whenever and wherever we needed to.

Thank goodness we'd both agreed to spend time breaking the rules at the beginning of our relationship. I was on the brink of a crisis, and I didn't have time to try to find a way to break into the Fort Knox that was the SHIELD Operations Academy.

In almost record time, I made it to Grant's dorm, using the routes we'd scouted together forever ago. Luckily for both of us, he was a senior enough student with high enough standing to have his own small apartment. I quickly scaled the wall to his second story window, something else I'd learned how to do from Grant.

I didn't even pause as I climbed through the window, landing in Grant's bedroom. I didn't see him, so I closed the window behind me and then hustled into the small living room/kitchen at a jog. I found Grant in the middle of the room, apparently halfway through walking to the kitchen, but he froze in his tracks and was already looking at me as I burst into the room.

"Grant! Thank god you're home. I need your help."

Before I knew what was happening, Grant had pushed me behind him. He kept one hand on my waist, and when I turned to see what the hell he was doing, he had a gun in his other hand and was alternating pointing it at his bedroom door and the front door.

"What's wrong?" he asked me without turning around, his voice deadly serious. I fought to hold in a laugh and didn't bother fighting back against the smile.

"Not that kind of help," I said. "Sorry for scaring you, though."

Slowly, Grant holstered his gun and turned around to face me. Both his eyebrows were raised in a demanding type of question.

"You run in here like you're being chased by a murderer and it's not that kind of help?"

"No, but it is the kind of help that will determine my entire future and has the potential to ruin me and everything I've ever worked for in my entire life ever."

Grant just stared at me for a moment. He blinked, slowly, then let out a long breath. Finally, he nodded.

"Alright. What do you need help with?"

I blew out a breath of relief, then quickly explained the situation to Grant. He'd heard plenty about the leadership of SciTech and how important it was to me to keep impressing them, so this latest project and its associated stakes weren't news.

"So... what exactly do you want me to do?" he asked once I'd finished telling him about the events of my meeting. I gave him the most charming, persuasive smile I could manage, and he immediately frowned.

"I want you to try out the device I've put together. I have a few prototypes, and it's easy enough for me to make another handful for testing. I need feedback on how well they actually work for the intended purpose, for field and ops agents, in a way that I can't predict or test in the lab."

Grant sighed, then nodded and held out one hand towards me.

"Alright. Give me the thing, let's do this."

I grinned. "I love you so much."

****************

Grant and I spent the rest of the day and then some putting my device through various tests. Exactly as I'd been expecting, when Grant took it through various exercises that he went through at Ops, the device had weaknesses I hadn't predicted. From static electricity via crawling across the carpet turning the thing on before its time to the waterproofing failing after being submerged for too long, Grant and I found one problem after another, and each time, I fixed the issue.

"Okay, what if we had standard placement be on the stomach," I suggested, sticking the little round disk of my latest prototype just above Grant's belly button. "Would that protect it from the kind of weapon strikes we don't want it taking on your forearm?"

Grant hummed. "Maybe, but it's no garuntee. Besides, you want an agent to be able to activate the thing when we don't have another option. If my hands are tied behind my back, I won't be able to get to it."

"Dammit. You're right. Okay... what do you think, then?"

"How about the wrist, on the pulse point? I can probably find a way to activate that no matter what, and if a weapon really hits hard there, it won't matter if the device is destroyed."

I frowned. "I hate it when you talk like that."

"I thought you wanted good, honest feedback to improve this device for the SciTech board."

"Yeah, but I still don't like to hear my boyfriend talking about ways he could potentially die." I huffed and crossed my arms. "Still, you're right, and it's a good idea. But... maybe I can find a way to give the device a little death sequence."

"...Meaning?"

"Meaning, if it gets fatally hit like that, it automatically activates. And maybe I could even get it to deploy something that'll have a chance at stopping the bleeding."

"That would be pretty impressive," Grant agreed. I nodded, my mind already whirling with the possibilities.

"Okay. Okay, let's try to add that in, and then we can run it through the tests again."

Grant's eyebrows shot up. "The same tests we just did? Again?"

"Yeah. If I make major changes like that, we need to make sure it doesn't compromise any of the existing systems. Which means re-checking the systems we've already figured out."

Grant let out a long sigh and shook his head. He walked over to me, put an arm around my shoulders, and placed a kiss on the top of my head, then moved towards the kitchen.

"I don't understand why you like all this stuff. But I'll brew some coffee, since you're gonna need it. And I'll make sure the Ops pool is reserved for us when you finish your updates."

I grinned. "You are seriously the best boyfriend in the world, you know that?"

"What was that?" Grant asked, looking up from the coffee pot and feigning innocence like he hadn't heard me. I just smiled and shook my head.

"I said, you're the best boyfriend in the world."

Grant's feigned surprise immediately morphed into the charming smile I loved so much.

"Good. Just checking."

We spent the rest of the weekend like that, making updates and improvements to my little device and then testing how well they worked. Despite Grant's differing opinion, I genuinely loved doing this, more than just about anything in the world. But, even if I'd hated it most of the time, I would've put in the same amount of work for this project. It could very literally save my boyfriend's life some day in the future, after all. Now was not the time to half-ass something and call it good, even without the pressure of the SciTech board looming over me.

Finally, by about two in the morning on Monday, we'd managed to put the device on the wrist through every single test without fault or flaw. It worked as intended, and not a moment before it was supposed to, and if it was destroyed it sent out a final beacon and deployed some emergency blood clotting tech before it went. It was perfect.

"Thank you so much for all your help on this, babe," I muttered, the sleep finally digging its teeth into me now that my task had been accomplished. Grant and I had flopped down on the couch while I'd been going over the data, and now I curled against his side, resting my head on his chest. "I seriously couldn't have done it without you."

"Yeah, you could've," he said, stifling a yawn of his own as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "It would've taken you longer, but we both know you still would've pulled this off eventually."

I hummed, a smile on my face as I curled further into Grant's chest.

"Thanks, babe. I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart."

He kissed the top of my head, his arms wrapped tight around me, and that's the last thing I remember before the world faded to black.

****************

"Babe. Baby. Come on, you need to wake up."

I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut tighter and rolling away from the voice of my boyfriend trying to wake me up for god knows what reason.

"Sweetheart, you have your presentation today. You need to get up."

And just like that, I was wide awake.

I shot straight up, my heart dropping all the way to my stomach. I was in Grant's bed—I guess he'd moved us before passing out himself—but I had no idea if he'd remembered to set an alarm last night. If I missed this presentation, after all the work we'd done-

"It's okay, you have plenty of time," Grant said, probably reading the panic on my face. "It's six thirty, you have another two and a half hours to get ready and get back to SciTech."

I turned to Grant with a scowl.

"You woke me up at six thirty in the morning?" I demanded.

"...You wanted me to let you sleep later?"

I huffed and threw the covers off my legs, scowling as I stood.

"No. I need time to wake up, get back to SciTech, get ready, put together my presentation materials, practice my presentation... I need the two and a half hours. But I'm still mad you woke me up at six thirty."

Grant snorted, but I caught him staring at me with a fond smile in the reflection of the bathroom mirror.

I moved as quickly as I could, gathering the materials I needed and that I'd brought with me to Grant's apartment, then giving him a quick kiss and heading back to the SciTech campus. I showered, put on my most impressive professional outfit, and then spent almost all my remaining time putting the finishing touches on my presentation. Luckily for me, I knew the device in and out after how I'd spent my weekend, and I was absolutely confident in what it could do. Both things helped immensely when it came to giving a good presentation.

I walked into the main building of SciTech with my head held high, and this time it wasn't an act. I found the board waiting for me, and I didn't hesitate to launch into my presentation with absolute confidence. The surprised, excited reactions came almost immediately, and they only fueled my confidence and excitement.

Of course, everyone had a few questions, but I answered them easily. When I'd finished answering questions and officially completed my presentation, the board literally clapped. I beamed at them; I wasn't sure they'd ever done that before.

"Excellent work," said the SciTech chair, her smile beaming. "This is above and beyond what we could've expected. We'll put it through a few final tests, but honestly, I don't expect it to need much. I know you're in the middle of your final semester here, but be prepared to take a trip to the Hub before graduation to help us present this development to Director Fury himself."

My heart exploded in my chest, and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as I shook hands and said thank yous before heading out of the room. I had a slightly dazy smile on my face as I walked through the SciTech halls, and my shoulders were relaxed for the first time in days as I stepped through the front doors and into the bright sunlight.

"Hey!"

I jumped so high I might've cleared the first floor windows at the sound of a voice coming from the bushes. I whirled around to find Grant crouched there, lurking in the shadows like a murderer.

"Grant? What the hell are you doing?" I demanded, trying to keep my voice low. He wasn't technically supposed to be on our campus, and I didn't want to get him caught, but he'd also just given me a damn heart attack.

Instead of answering, Grant reached up and grabbed my forearm, pulling me into the bush with him. I landed hard against his chest, but I didn't totally mind it as he wrapped his arms tightly around me. Still, I met his gaze with a slightly raised eyebrow. He just smiled.

"I wanted to know how it went. And maybe get a little payback for the heart attack you gave me on Friday."

I huffed a laugh. "Well, mission accomplished."

"Great. So how'd it go?"

I grinned. Grant smiled back, his arms tightening around me, but he waited to celebrate.

"It went amazing. They loved it. I'm gonna help them present it to Fury sometime in the next few weeks."

Grant's eyebrows shot up, and he actually took a shocked half-step back from me.

"You're going with them to present it to Fury?" I nodded. "They never let recruits do that!"

"I know!"

I squealed and jumped up in the air, and a moment later, Grant caught me. He let out a breathy laugh as he spun me around, and neither of us let go for even a second when he set me back down on my feet.

"We need to do something to celebrate," Grant declared, his low voice right beside my ear. "Are you working on any world-changing inventions this weekend?"

I leaned back just enough to grin at him. "No. For once, my schedule's actually pretty clear."

"Good. You wanna come to me, or you want me to come to you?"

"Mm, I'll come to you. As much as I love what I do, I also wouldn't mind a little break from all the work I've been doing lately."

"It's a deal. Come over after your last class on Friday. I'll take care of the rest."

Grant and I shared a smile, then we closed the distance between us for a long, sweet kiss. From making out in the bushes to letting me test my most important projects on him, Grant was always there for me. And no matter what else came out of my career at SciTech, in the Academy and as an agent afterwards, the relationship Grant and I had built together would always be my proudest accomplishment.

***************

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captainsophiestark · 1 year ago

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Grant Ward x Reader

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Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: Marvel

Day 1 Prompt: "It's not too late, let's go."

Summary: The scene with FitzSimmons and Garrett on the Bus at the end of Season 1 if, instead of FitzSimmons, Grant had found and captured his long-time best friend, partner, and girlfriend.

Word Count: 4,158

Category: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Mentions of abuse. No depictions of it, but the mention/realization that a character has been abused in the past, while staring at/standing in the same hallway as the abuser.

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

This had to be a nightmare.

With each step I took, one foot in front of the other, I willed myself to wake up, to realize everything had just been a bad dream. And with each step, I was forced closer to the realization that my situation was heartbreakingly, terrifyingly real.

The past week, I'd had a line of similar thoughts, hoping and praying that the fall of SHIELD and the betrayal of my best friend and boyfriend, Grant Ward, had been some insane fever dream. That I'd wake up in the med pod on the Bus, the team happy to see me awake, and that I'd realize everything had been some horrible concoction of my imagination instead. But just like now, I'd been forced to come to terms with the fact that I was wide awake.

First, I thought the nightmare was Hydra's infiltration. Then it became Garrett, Grant's mentor and basically surrogate father, being a traitor. Then it was discovering Grant was a traitor. Now, it had reached a whole new level, as Grant frog-marched me toward the Bus that he and Garrett had taken over, my hands tied behind my back and his gun forcing me to keep moving forward.

"Grant... what are you doing?" I breathed, trying to keep the tears out of my voice as we neared the ramp of the plane. Garrett had taken things over in the name of Hydra, and he clearly had some hold over my boyfriend. Every step towards that ramp lowered my odds of making it through this.

"We can't have SHIELD following us, that's all," he said. He kept his voice level, trying to convince me he was being reasonable, like I'd heard him do with our enemies on missions countless times before. I shook my head.

"You are SHIELD, Grant," I said. "Please, please remember that."

His grip tightened slightly on my forearm as he led me to the base of the ramp, a comforting squeeze more than anything threatening. A week ago, it would've put me at ease.

"I'm not the man you think I am," he muttered. I sighed heavily through my nose, a little bit of irritation finally flaring up.

"I know you better than anybody else on earth, apparently including you," I huffed. Grant didn't respond.

As soon as we entered the garage bay, where Lola used to sit, Grant and I were flanked by three other agents, who followed us up the stairs. Grant moved ahead, leading me through the physically wrecked and shattered hallways of the plane we'd spent a few, blissful months calling home, and my heart squeezed tight in my chest. How had everything gone so wrong?

"Here she is, sir," he said, and a second later I saw John Garrett's stupid, shitty face staring back at me. I narrowed my eyes and scowled, unable to contain my hate and anger enough to keep a neutral expression.

"What's the matter?" he asked, his tone light and teasing in a way that made my blood boil. "Cat got your tongue?"

"Maybe I've just got nothing to say to you," I replied. He had the nerve to laugh.

"Well, that's fine then. I don't know that I have much to say to you either, especially now that you're here. Thanks to Ward, you won't be much of a problem for me anymore."

Over Garrett's shoulder, I saw Grant's expression flicker and shutter. Like a kicked dog, caught between someone he loved and someone who scared him. An anger I'd only ever felt when our enemies threatened Grant welled up in my chest.

In my entire, almost fifteen-year career at SHIELD, I had managed to get through it without killing anyone. Ever. Even before I had the Icer to knock enemies out instead of shooting them the old-fashioned way, I'd made a point of using non-lethal force. It mattered to me; it felt important to find a way to do my job without killing people in the process.

Grant had never had the same reservations. It didn't bother me, and although we'd talked about it once or twice, I'd never expected him to take up my same system when we'd been partnered on missions, when we'd become good friends, or when we'd started dating. Time and again, he'd gone to the mat for me, tearing apart anyone that existed as a threat to me with a force I'd never have imagined using.

For the first time in our lives, in our decade and a half of friendship, the tables had turned.

Thanks to the rest of Coulson's team, I knew John Garrett had significant organ failure. A Cybertek device in his chest was the only thing still keeping him alive. He'd abused Grant for longer than I'd known him, and for the first time, I could see clearly how it affected Grant, in real time. For both our sakes, I couldn't let this go on any longer. I didn't know if it would kill him, and I still hoped it wouldn't, but for the first time I didn't care enough to make sure it wouldn't. I needed to get away from Garrett, and more importantly, I needed to get Grant away from Garrett. Even if it was for just a few minutes.

The Bus's engines whirled outside, and I felt us lift off the ground. An added complication, for sure, but not enough to change the plan I'd just formed in my head. I took a deep breath in and out, steadying my heartbeat and readying myself for the action ahead, like Grant had taught me years and years ago. Then, I jumped as high as I could, bringing my handcuffed hands under my feet and around to the front of my body as I did. Before anybody could register my movement, I darted forward and struck Garrett in the chest as hard as I could, putting all my weight and momentum behind both of my hands.

Garrett went down like a sack of bricks. He doubled over, gripping his middle as he groaned. I brought my knee up and hit him again before anybody could stop me, and then I took off running through the familiar passages of the jet that I used to call home.

"Garrett!" I heard Grant cry, distress in his voice that sent a pang running through my chest. I ducked around a corner at the sound of thundering footsteps behind me, and soon the agents that'd followed Grant and I from the minute we set foot on the Bus came rushing into the small common area in front of all our bunks, one room over from Garrett and Grant.

I heard shouting from the other room, and Grant's voice faded as he told Garrett to wait just a second. I tried to keep a piece of my attention focused on that while I engaged the three agents who'd decided to chase me. Even with my hands tied, they weren't much of a match for me.

I wrapped my arms around the neck of the one who'd come in last, using him as a human shield against his friends as I held him in the sleeper hold.

One by one, I worked through my three assailants, until they were each unconscious on the ground. As soon as the last one was down, I paused to tune back in to the goings-on in the other room, and heard Grant's voice as he assured Garrett that he would live. Apparently Cybertek was preparing to treat him in Miami.

I made the quick decision that I had enough time to make sure these three wouldn't continue to be a problem, so I dragged them into my old bunk (right next to Grant's) and then wedged a loose piece of the dining table's structure into the door so it couldn't open again. It likely wouldn't hold them for very long, but it was better than nothing. I took a few extra seconds to wrestle out of my handcuffs, my mind working as I did.

With Garrett and his three goons incapacitated, I had decent hope of getting Grant alone. I heard Raina, an inhuman we'd been struggling with, promising to stay in the room with Garrett and keep him safe. And then, I heard Garrett's voice hissing at Grant, barely above an ugly whisper.

"I need you to put her down."

I straightened, hands on my hips as my handcuffs finally dropped from my wrists, and frowned. There was no mistaking what he meant, but I couldn't imagine he actually thought he'd get very far ordering Grant to kill me.

"What?" Grant's voice, barely louder than Garrett's. I shifted a little closer to the doorway to hear better. "No. There's plenty of time. I won't leave you."

"And I'm telling you to cross her off for me. It's not a weakness, is it?"

The silence seemed to stretch for years. Then, finally, Grant's voice:

"No."

I turned on my heel and ran.

The nightmare continued, apparently, as the man who'd saved my life more times than I could count anymore had apparently just agreed to be my murderer. I couldn't believe he'd actually go through with it, but I also couldn't believe he'd entertain Garrett to this point. I couldn't take any risks, not now.

I slid down the ladder between the sleeping compartment and the cockpit, landing in the maze of pods in the hull just as I heard heavy footsteps overhead. My heart started racing in my chest, a fear like I'd never felt in all my near-death experiences at SHIELD gripping my chest.

Grant wouldn't actually kill me, would he?

I darted between the pods, and just like in a horror movie, I heard Grant's voice call out my name from behind me. I sped up, finally ducking into one of the pods and locking it behind me as I heard his footsteps closing in. My hand slammed on the locking device and it turned from green to red just in time. A second later, Grant appeared before me, his hand on the glass separating us.

"Open the door," he said, his eyes locked on mine. I could only see one of his hands, and my heart raced in my chest as I realized the other was likely level with his hip. I took an involuntary step backward.

"Grant... you're scaring me," I breathed, tears at last rising to the surface and threatening to fall. I'd fought them back once, but this time, I didn't think I'd be able to.

"Y/N, just open the door."

"No. I heard what you said, I heard what Garrett said. You... you wouldn't actually kill me. Would you?"

He grimaced, his jaw setting in the expression I recognized as him dealing with something he DID NOT want to deal with. My heart broke a little more in my chest.

"Just open the door."

"No! Grant, are you kidding me?" The tears were coming now, streaming down my cheeks, and I stepped towards Grant again, pressing up against the glass to get as close to him as possible. "I love you! You're my best friend, you're my partner! You're supposed to have my back through anything! I... I'd started daydreaming about marrying you! About the two of us, having the SHIELD careers recruits would be hearing about for the rest of time, before finally retiring somewhere nice together. Every time I thought about my future, Grant, you were in it... and now I might not have a future because of you? Are you kidding me?"

His expression flickered, and he couldn't keep some sadness and regret off his face when he looked at me through the glass this time. The tiniest spark of hope fluttered in my chest. If he felt bad, maybe I could still talk him off the ledge. Maybe I didn't have to lose the love of my life.

"I'm sorry. I tried to tell you... I'm a bad man. I'm not the man you thought you fell in love with."

"Bullshit!" I cried, slamming my fist into the glass in front of me. Grant jumped a little, surprise registering on his face. "You are exactly who I think you are. I know you, Grant, I've spent the last fifteen years of my life with you. Garrett may think he knows you, but he's wrong. He knows who he wants you to be. But I know who you actually are."

"You don't-"

"The sugary, caramely coffee drinks you secretly love but refuse to let anybody else but me know you drink?" I said, interrupting him with a hand on my hip, my eyes locked on his. "How invested you got in The Circle when I made you watch it on Netflix? All the time we spent planning what our strategy would be if we ever went on the show together?"

He grimaced, but I didn't give him a second to respond.

"The face mask you did with me that you loved, and all the stupid pictures we took together with the masks on? Your aggressive hatred of the Patriots even though you're from Massachusetts? The fact that you sleep best with a sleep mask, and that you have to take your socks off right before you get under the covers? Not a moment before, and definitely not after? All of that shared history, all of those things we've shared and that I've gotten to see, and you think I don't know you?"

Grant just stared at me, looking at a loss for words. I let mine hang in the air for a minute, then continued.

"I highly doubt John Garrett could list even one of those things. And those little things that you do every day, that you can't fake? That's you Grant. I know you. I know you've saved me more times than I can even count, from the demons in the real world and the ones inside my own head. So I get that Garrett's got you believing you're some kind of secret evil supervillain, but I know enough to know how ridiculous that is. You're the best man I've ever met, Grant. Please, believe me over that piece of shit upstairs that never cared enough to know the real you."

Grant still didn't speak for a few long moments, but this time, I just let the silence hang. I held his gaze, the tears having finally stopped. I didn't wipe away the remnants as they slowly dried on my face. Finally, Grant sighed, breaking eye contact to look down at the ground before returning his stare to me.

"And how exactly do you see this going?" he asked, his voice low. He'd leaned in a little, like we were co-conspirators, and I swear I felt a weight lift off my chest. The glimmer of hope had turned into a full light. "What do you expect to happen next, after all this? Don't tell me you still see a happy ending, with us retiring after full careers at SHIELD."

I sighed through my nose and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, before fixing Grant with a look. He raised his eyebrows, and I had to fight back a laugh, mostly at the relief for that small moment of our relationship back to normal.

"Well, no, I don't think that's in the cards anymore," I deadpanned. "But the only important part of my vision of the future has been you, Grant. I don't care if we get mentioned in SHIELD classes years from now or if we're labeled as failures, examples of what not to do. All that matters to me is you."

He stared at me for a few more long, silent moments. For most people, he would've been unreadable, but I recognized the slightly-wider eyes, the deer-in-headlights look he got whenever I admitted big feelings that he didn't expect me to share. It was a good sign, and when he swallowed and cleared his throat, his expression had all of the grim defeat gone, replaced instead by a shaky hope.

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting we run," I said simply. "It's not too late, let's go. Let's ditch it all, and go somewhere we can start a new life together. Screw Garrett, screw SHIELD, screw Hydra. All that matters is you and me."

Grant stared at me like he didn't believe I was real. Slowly, swallowing heavy again, he nodded. I raised my eyebrows and smiled.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he finally managed, nodding again, more sure this time. "Yeah, let's do that. You're... you're all that matters to me, too."

My small smile broke into a full-on grin, and at last, I hit the lock on the door. I slid it open the moment the lock flashed green, darting forward to close the space between me and Grant and wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug. I buried my face in his chest, and after a moment, he wrapped his arms around me in return.

"Well. I guess she was a weakness."

Grant and I's heads snapped up in unison to find John Garrett standing just down the hallway from us. I narrowed my eyes. Of course he'd picked this moment to show up.

Grant stiffened under my arms, and I could feel the stress radiating off of him. Garrett took a small step towards us, but I didn't dare move, lest Grant feel anymore trapped than he already did. Besides, holding him tight in a hug we'd shared during and after a thousand traumatic experiences felt like the best leg up on Garrett I could get.

"Agent Ward, I didn't train you to be a pushover. I trained you to be a man who could go in and do the job that needed to be done," said Garrett. "It's not too late. You don't want to disappoint me, son."

At the same time Garrett's words washed over Grant, he took another step closer, and his hand flexed at his side. Grant flinched under me, and I saw red.

In almost fifteen years, Grant had never flinched. Not like this. When something came flying at his face? Sure. When an especially good jump scare happened in a horror movie and he tried to hide how badly it had scared him? Always. But when someone stood apart from us, subtly threatening him? Never. Not once.

Garrett had clearly manipulated him, badly. I knew that. Throughout the course of this interaction, I'd assumed Garrett had crossed the line into mental abuse, too. But now, I realized it had gone even further. To mental and physical abuse. Garrett had hit Grant enough after Grant "failed" him, that my boyfriend, who'd stared down some of the scariest people in the world without fear, stood next to me trembling, caught between a rock and a hard place.

"Think things through here, Ward," said Garrett, continuing his slow walk towards us. "Either you kill her, or I do. Weaknesses are unacceptable, especially now that we've come out of the shadows. A happy ending doesn't exist to this love story that came from your lies at SHIELD. So don't be stupid, son. Don't make this worse on yourself than it has to be-"

My hand moved before my brain actually registered what I was doing. I grabbed the gun out of the holster at Grant's waist, the one I thought he might've decided to use on me only about ten minutes ago, and I levelled it at Garrett. I was aware enough to realize this wasn't an Icer; this had the ability to do lethal damage. And for the first time ever, I decided I didn't care. I shot John Garrett in the chest, twice. He dropped to his knees, the life quickly fading out of him, leaving a crumpled heap on the floor.

The gun fell out of my hand and clattered to the ground, my hands were shaking so bad. I dropped to my knees, a wave roaring in my ears as I stared at Garrett's dead body. Vaguely, I registered tears streaming down my face. What had I just done?

A second later, Grant dropped next to me. His arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me to him. Not only had I just killed someone, I'd killed someone important to Grant. In front of him. His abuser, yes, but that wouldn't make it much easier to watch the man he thought saved him die before his eyes.

"Grant... I'm so sorry," I breathed, the words coming out broken around sobs and gulps for air. I shook my head and buried it into his shoulder, the reality of everything washing over me again and again, like waves pounding into the shore. "I can't believe... I just killed someone. I'm so sorry, I... I've always found another way. Always. All life is precious and important, but he was just so rotten- And he was hurting you- I'm so sorry."

I broke, words failing me as I shook, sobbing, head buried in Grant's chest. He wrapped his other arm around me and held me tight, which only made me feel worse. We stayed like that for a few moments, until I finally got a hold of myself enough to look at him. His eyes remained on Garrett's broken form, and it felt like a punch to the gut.

"Grant... how can you be comforting me right now? After what I did to someone you care about, I-"

I broke off again, the words turning into choked sobs as I ducked my head back into his chest. I squeezed my eyes tight, waiting for Grant to come to his senses enough to pull away. Instead, he sighed, and pulled me closer.

"Come on, is that even a real question?" he asked, his words as shaky as both of us combined. "The same way you forgave me for everything I did. I love you. And... if you, of all people, decided the right decision was to shoot John Garrett? ...Well, I don't know. Maybe he was having a worse impact on me than I realized."

I cried harder at that, relief and sadness and a thousand other emotions that had been warring in my chest all day coming together to be processed as one. After a few moments, I felt Grant's shaky breathing and a few drops of wetness on the top of my head as he cried silently with me. Grief for a lot of things gripped us both, but at least we could cling to each other.

A few long minutes later, we finally pulled apart and helped each other to stand. We were both still shaking, and I did my best to stand between Grant and Garrett's body. It felt wrong to keep my back to Garrett, to let myself avoid facing what I'd done, but I just couldn't make myself do it.

Wordlessly, we wandered back up to the main level of the Bus. Raina still waited here somewhere, but we didn't see her, and we didn't seek her out as we headed for the cockpit. With a few looks, we both knew exactly what we wanted and needed to do. I held Grant's hand tight in my own as we had the Quinjet set down immediately, in the middle of a field in Oklahoma. Neither of us wanted to be on board a second longer.

We walked out of the cockpit and towards the ramp in the back, avoiding any of the cargo bay where so much had happened. We found Raina in the living room, but she didn't try to stop us. Hand in hand, Grant and I walked off the ramp and out into the field. A moment later, the plane took off again, continuing on its original course and leaving us behind.

Grant tugged me closer to him and wrapped an arm around me, and we leaned on each other as the plane disappeared into the sky. Both of us still shook a little, and we were each the only thing keeping the other standing. After a minute, once the plane completely disappeared from sight, Grant spoke in a quiet voice.

"So... what do we do now?"

"...I guess we just start walking."

I looked up at him and our eyes connected for a few moments, holding each other's stares and trying to promise the other that everything would be okay. With Garrett gone, now more than ever, there was nothing stopping us from leaving all the hurt and bad memories behind, and starting over somewhere new. With any luck, Raina would tell people we were dead along with John Garrett, and that would be the end of our involvement with SHIELD and Hydra.

For now, though, none of that mattered. All that mattered was the man standing beside me as we turned, our backs to the plane and its path, and started walking towards our new future, hand in hand and one foot in front of the other.

****************

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