Eia Au, Eia ‘Oe ~ Here I am, here you are - 16 (Steve McGarrett/Twin Sister & Danny Williams/Reader)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six* Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part TenPart Elven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen Part Fifteen
*Contains music you must listen to, to better set the mood…Trust me…
Steve pulled the chair out at the desk in the dimly lit room. Sitting down in front of the laptop he adjusted the IV drip that was following him around. He swallowed down the knot in his throat and wiped a hand across his face before pulling up the secure video line and pressing call.
The dialing noise sent him back into the moments the day before…
“This isn’t going to be pleasant…” Steve watched Tibbs pour gun powder into his sister’s wound and flicking open a lighter setting it ablaze making Y/N scream and pass out, “That stopped the bleeding but…she’s lost too much…and we don’t have any on reserve.”
“What about from direct tap?” Tree looked at him, “I’ll do it.”
“You’re not a match…” Tibbs put a bandage over the wound.
“Use me…” Everyone looked at Steve, “Use me, we match…”
“You’re…100% sure.” Tibbs was already pulling stuff out as Steve confirmed, “Fine…we do this…but you feel anything, you let me know and we’ll go a different route. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Steve nodded holding out his arm.
“Do you?” Tibbs locked eyes with him, “Cause I don’t need two-”
“I understand…just save my sister…” Steve swallowed down the knot in his throat, “Please just save my sister…”
“Steve that you?” He snapped back staring at Danny’s face. The 5-0 office as his backdrop, “Man you look like shit? You coming home soon? Catherine said you’d be on a plane by now”
Steve didn’t answer him and looked down to his lap as he swallowed, “Danny…something happened…”
“I can’t tell if the bleeding it stopped…” Tibbs felt around her stomach, “How far out are we?”
“Twenty minutes…Flights have been redirected and I have the ground getting everything you need for surgery.” Tree told him.
“Good, she’s going to need it…” Tibbs muttered.
“Sh-she’s that bad?” Steve asked holding onto her hand.
“I can’t tell without an ultrasound and -fuck! Shit! LEO!” Tibbs shouted as he caught Steve from collapsing down onto you, “Goddammit…these McGarretts…”
“…are you okay?” When Steve didn’t answer him, he watched Danny’s hand move to his chest, “…where’s Y/N?”
“She’s…” Steve sighed moved out the way showing you in a bed hooked up to a ventilator and other wires. You were surrounded by the entire unit minus Cabbie, all passed out leaning against each other, the bed, chairs, anything with some sort of cushion, “she was shot. It was bad…”
“Is-is she gonna be okay? Where are you? I’ll be right there.” Danny continued to spout off.
“Danny, Danny!” Steve called for him to calm down, “She can’t move for a couple of weeks and I can’t tell you where we are…but we are coming home.”
Danny didn’t say anything for a long time until he sighed hanging his head, “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine…gave her some blood… Too much. Passed out before we landed.” Steve sniffed, “Just groggy and drained.”
“You idiot…” Steve smiled when Danny looked at him, “Do you know how furious she would be if you did something stupid enough to seriously hurt yourself? Especially if it was to help her!”
“Keep your voice down…” Steve hissed at him, “Or I’ll mute you!”
“Yeah, yeah…” Danny rolled his eyes before looking back at Steve, “Tell me she’s going to be alright…”
“She’s going to be fine.” Steve sighed, “She just needs to rest up for a bit. With her cancer and the chemo…is changes how things work. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know…” Danny frowned, “What do you want me to tell your mom?”
“Nothing.” Steve sighed looking away.
“Steve, she has been hounding me…”
“I will call her myself.” Steve told him, “How’s the team?”
The rest of the call was catching Steve up to what was happening on the island. Some shit different day, really. He was looking forward to getting back to it.
So, when he was greeted to the salt air and warm humidity he smiled. He looked at you rolling down the ramp next to him groggy from the drugs, “We made it home.”
“This…good…” You nodded smacking you lips together, “Christmas is fast…”
Steve looked at Tibbs who was escorting them to hospital to do a proper hand off, “How much did you give her?”
“I didn’t want her to mess up her chances of getting the treatment she needs.” Tibbs said quietly, “If the doctors here find out she was overseas…they’ll push her treatments back. They don’t need to, she’s clean but you know how it works…”
“Right…Los Vegas trip gone bad…” Steve reminded himself. It was a twin’s trip to just get away, and a mugging went wrong.
Steve’s smile grew when he saw Danny running toward them. His Camaro was parked next to the ambulance. He ran right to your side taking your hand, “Y/N…”
“Babe!” You said loudly through the haze, “Why are you here…Santa said no…”
“Jesus…” Danny looked to Steve for a reason why you were so out of it.
“I will explain on the ride over to the hospital.” Steve told him as the loaded her up, “Everything.”
“Right…” Danny stood there watching them strap you into the rig, “She’s…okay though, right?”
“Yeah…just really drugged up…” Steve smiled slapping a hand on his shoulder, “Come on let’s follow behind.”
“I love him…” Tibbs paused looking down to you as the ambulance took off, “I really love him…”
“Isn’t he a little short?” Tibbs smirked as the face you made.
“He’s-he’s compact…and sweet…like those…candies…” You held up your hand indicating with your fingers ‘small’.
“Miniatures?” Tibbs laughed as you nodded, “Alright…I suppose…if he makes you happy then we all approve.”
“He does.” You smiled at him, “Very happy…”
Danny glanced at Steve after he explained everything. He looked back at the ambulance, “…and this asshole didn’t give any reason why he changed sides?”
“He didn’t say much except that he was owning everything…He didn’t deny that he was a spy. He didn’t deny that he sold information…he didn’t deny trying to kill everyone as one point…” Steve sighed shaking his head, “Everything Catherine sent over he confirmed…nothing was good…”
“Well that’s just fantastic…” Danny hit the steering wheel with his hand.
“Danny…just keep calm…” Steve looked at him.
“Keep calm!?” Danny’s voice raised, “That lunatic almost killed Y/N, which in turned almost killed you! What would I do if-if I lost…”
Steve watched his friend get hysterical staring at the ambulance, “Danny…we’re okay.”
“Yeah, but…” He frowned running a hand through his blonde hair. His were full of worry as he looked at Steve, “I don’t think I could do any of this without the two of you.”
Steve smiled a little, “I love you too man…”
“…I mean it…” Danny stared at him as he parked, “Losing you…losing Y/N…I’m not sure I could be the same person I am right now.”
“Danny…you’re not going to lose us.” Steve told him confidently. He reached over patting his arm, “We’re home now, and we don’t plan on going anywhere.”
Your eyes opened slowly taking in the dim light of the hospital room. You swallowed trying to wet your mouth. The last thing you remember was Danny and Steve hovering over you before you went into surgery.
Looking to your right you saw Steve asleep in a chair. You smiled a little seeing how badly he was going to have a crick in his neck later. Chuckling you turned the other way seeing Danny asleep, but Grace sitting in his lap staring at you, “Grace?”
“You’re okay?” She asked quietly.
You smiled sadly, “Yeah…yeah, I’m okay. What are you doing here? Di-did you dad make you stay here all weekend?”
Grace smiled getting off her dad before crawling up to your bed. You looked surprised as she carefully snuggled into you, “I wanted to stay.”
“Oh…okay…well we’ll make a better weekend next time.” You adjusted your arm around her feeling your chest tighten at her next question.
“Y/N, are you still sick?”
You looked down at her frowning. You and Danny had never really agreed what to tell Grace. She knew you were sick, but that was it. You nodded slowly, “Yeah…I am.”
She frowned breaking your heart, “Will you ever get better? Daddy and Uncle Steve say it’s uh…uh shot…”
“I don’t know, but there is a shot.” You told her, “But Grace, I want to be honest with you…we don’t know. There is no…100 percent.”
“Can I help you?” Grace perked up making you smile. That’s when you noticed Danny’s eyes open and watching you both.
“You already are.” You gave her a squeeze, “Being here. Giving me hugs. Seeing your smile, what else could I ask for?”
You looked back to Danny seeing him sniff as he was getting teary eyed. He swallowed before reaching over, “Hey Monkey, get back over here. Y/N needs rest and she might rip her stiches with you crawling all over her.”
“She is fine and warm, and I wouldn’t dare have her move.” You squeezed Grace tighter getting her to laugh. You smiled at Danny reaching over toward him. He took your hand squeezing it tightly. The look in his eyes told you that he’d been in this through the long hall…but the little girl in your arms gave you pause.
Eia Au, Eia ‘Oe ~ Here I am, here you are - 14 (Steve McGarrett/Twin Sister & Danny Williams/Reader)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six* Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Elven Part Twelve Part Thirteen
*Contains music you must listen to, to better set the mood…Trust me…
Danny sat at his desk absently typing up an old report. His head wasn’t focused on it, hell his head wasn’t even in this office…
No it was back at the conversation he’d had a week prior with you over a video call. You’d managed to get an email to him that read: Get to a computer, video call me at this link. Everything is okay, I promise.
Needless to say it was not really okay.
“Babe?” He stared at your face through the screen reaching out touching the bruises on your face, “Wh-where are you? What happened?”
You smiled at him, “Danny…I can’t say much…”
“Is this your brother? He’s done somethin’ again hasn’t he? Taken you with him to go after Wo Fat or somethin’…” He rattled off quickly worry filling his chest.
“No, Danny, it wasn’t Steve.” You shook your head shifting in your seating looking off screen, “Danny, I don’t have a whole lot of time.”
“Y/N, what’s going on?” Danny frowned watching your rub your face, “Babe, your scaring me a little…”
“I’m sorry…” You sighed looking at him, “I got pulled back in…it’s something important…and Steve is going to be here to help me finish it.”
“Okay, but…um…” He swallowed as he tried to remain calm, “What-uh…what about your treatment? You have an appointment this week, you’ll be back right?”
You looked away from again frowning only making his heart sink, “No…I won’t be at that one…”
“Well…ho-how long is this going to take?” He leaned forward as if would help him get closer to you somehow.
You looked back at the screen, “I’m hoping it will only take two weeks…if things go well…”
“And if they don’t?” Danny sat there in the silence that followed waiting, “Y/N…”
“I don’t know, Danny… I don’t know.” You wiped your cheek and sniffed. Damn this screen…it was only then he realized you had been crying, “I’m just trying not to become this person that I need to be…and I don’t…I don’t know if I can be strong enough for this.”
The rest of the conversation was both of you reassuring one another that everything was going to be okay. Something he was sure didn’t reassure either of you. He was worried sick. Even more now then he’d been when he thought you and Steve had been kidnapped.
Kidnappers he can deal with, terrorist…well that’s a little above his paygrade. Dealing with your mother was also out of his depth, but he managed to settle Doris down. Or at least he thought he did. Either way he half joked that if she found out where the twins were that he’d buy the tickets to bring them home.
He found himself staring out the window just silently hoping? Praying? Anything…that you’d give him another note or call to let him know you were okay. He didn’t like this absent feeling he felt, especially when he knew you were being put into a position that was dangerous and uncomfortable.
But he also knew that you were with Steve and that gave him some solace. The pair of you took care of each other. You’d traveled the world to save him once, you both had a ‘spidey sense’ about one another, and he knew that you’d both die for one another.
He sighed looking back to his report saving it before Kono walked in, “Danny we got a case.”
“Finally…” He whispered as he stood up following her out.
“Any new news?” She asked him as they walked to the main computer where Chin was.
“No.” He shook his head slowly, “They are off grid until they reach out.”
“Any news from Doris?” Chin crossed his arms.
Danny smiled a little, “No…no not yet, and to be honest I’m not sure she will actually tell me. Our relationships is…on thin ice.”
“Well you are dating her daughter.” Chin pointed out.
“Who could kill me with a spoon six different ways. What’s your point?” Danny told him with a huff, “No, I just don’t trust her…and she keeps lying to Y/N and Steve…I just don’t want her to hurt them anymore. Enough of this…what’s the case?”
“I told you to stay in the car!” Steve shouted into the radio as he landed on another roof in pursuit of their target.
“Quit your bitchin and head north!” He heard your voice chirp back in the ear piece. He pivoted quickly on the roof seeing Sharif leap off the next one. Glancing down to the street he saw you briefly before you ducked around a corner.
The exchange did not go as planned. Whalid had in fact gotten spooked, which then made Sharif get spooked. This of course led to a shoot out, which presented Steve with what was in front of him. Chasing a man across broken roof tops while you pursued on foot on the ground.
“I’m losing him!” Steve spoke into his wrist as he continued running forward.
“On it.” Steve watched as Sharif skidded to a halt as gunfire rang out into the city toward him. He turned his direction giving Steve the ability to catch up.
“He’s turned west, heading toward the bazaar.” Steve reported.
“Tree be ready with extraction.”
“Copy that, moving to position at the circle.”
“Copy that, Steve?”
“ETA two minutes.” Steve smirked a little. He wished all his ops ran this smooth. There was something about working with you the last week that made everything fall into place. Even when things went south you had already thought of the solution giving your team the advantage.
Steve wondered what life would have been like had you been part of his SEAL team. Certainly, things would have gone a lot smoother on several missions. His unit definitely wouldn’t have as many scars, or as many loses.
Steve raised his gun as Sharif skidded to a halt at the edge of a roof that led him nowhere, “Put your hands up!”
The man turned looking at him as Steve walked up slowly. The last second he bolted heading south trying for the other roof that wasn’t much closer. As he reached the ledged he stopped short seeing you on the other roof holding a gun toward him.
“Down on the ground!” You shouted at him, Steve noticed the sweat pouring from your pale form. You’d pushed yourself too much.
He cursed to himself as Sharif got to his knees speaking profanities toward you in several different languages, “You alright?”
“I will be.” You didn’t take your eyes off of Sharif as he spat at you, “Keep spittin’ I’m already dead.”
“You will suffer before I die.” Sharif hissed at you as Steve hoisted him up to his feet.
You eyed him as you radioed in for the boys to come help. They showed up quickly cleaning up the area making like you were never here. Steve got into the SUV and looked at you feeling something in his gut, “Hey…”
You looked at him locking eyes, there it was. The same feeling he had, “Something isn’t right.”
He nodded slowly keeping his head on a swivel. He knew you were talking about the plan, but he was thinking about your health, “I know…that plan should have worked.”
Your voice became hushed as you leaned over to him, “Someone had to have gotten to Whalid...before the meeting…”
Steve nodded glancing around the SUV at the other’s. Tree was driving and Leo sat next to him directing as Steve nodded his head toward them, “Do you think…”
You frowned looking at the two in the front, “We’re good here…I trust them.”
“But…” Steve whispered glancing back at the other two SUVs.
You swallowed thinking for a moment, “Hey Leo…”
“Yeah boss?” He smiled back at you. Everyone either called you boss or Prince showing a clear bond of loyalty to you. Steve started to think on that as the thought occurred to him.
“Tablet please.” You reached forward taking it from him when he pulled it off the cradle.
“Something the matter?” Tree glanced back in the mirror.
“Just…following our guts.” Steve told him, “Hopefully it’s nothing.”
“In my experience with a McGarrett…if they got a gut feeling, it’s usually right.” Tree smirked a little, “You gonna let us in on the secret?”
“I think we were set up.” You told him as you started to swipe through a file. You put a hand to your forehead wincing as you stared at the screen.
Steve frowned before he reached into a pouch pulling out canteen, “Y/N…”
You looked up seeing the canteen sighing, “Steve…”
“Drink the goddamn water, Prince.” Steve smirked when Tree barked at you. You rolled your eyes taking the water taking a big drink.
“There, happy?” You gave it back to your brother as you went back to the tablet.
Everyone had been informed of your health status. Steve was surprised that the whole unit rallied behind the doctor in making sure you were comfortable and cared for. When you got sick during one of the briefings, despite you insisting everything was fine, they stopped and made sure you were actually okay.
“I will be happy when Tibbs checks you over on our ride outta here.” Tree told you smiling as he heard you scowl, “Now, now none of that. We just want our favorite guardian on the mend. Now what’s this being set up business?”
“I’m not sure…Steve, do you still have the SAT phone?” You watched as he nodded leaning forward to the same bag as before pulling out the phone. You took it dialing quickly putting it to your ear.
Steve made a face, “Who are you calling?”
You held up a finger silencing him as the line clicked on, “Catherine…I need a favor. I’m sending over a few files, I need them cross checked with…well everything. We think we’ve been had…”
Steve smiled a little as you wrapped up the conversation, “You called Catherine…”
You rolled your eyes, “Don’t think that this means I like her…I still don’t, but she is good at her job. You should never trust people in Intel. They’ll know too much.”
“ETA to exfil 20 minutes.” Tree glanced back at you again, “Is this the same Catherine you got into it with?”
“’Got into it with’?” Steve’s eyes widened.
“Thanks…Tree….” You sighed making a face, “There are somethings Steve that you’re never going to know…this is one of them.”
Eia Au, Eia ‘Oe ~ Here I am, here you are - 15 (Steve McGarrett/Twin Sister & Danny Williams/Reader)
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six* Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part TenPart Elven Part Twelve Part Thirteen Part Fourteen
*Contains music you must listen to, to better set the mood…Trust me…
First image gif credit to alexoloughlinintensestudy.wordpress.com/tag/5-19/
Steve checked the Sharif’s bonds again for a final time as everyone finished loading up. He looked over to you outside on the SAT phone. You had your hand to your head as you listened.
“You will not succeed…I will tell you nothing.” He looked back to Sharif who glared at him.
“You’re doing a great job of keeping quiet, bud.” Leo smirked setting down a pack before whispering to Steve, “At this rate he’ll tell us everything. I heard Cabbie saying that he wouldn’t shut up the whole way over.”
“Yeah?” Steve crossed his arms, “That seem normal to you?”
Leo shrugged, “Normally there’s a language barrier, but he’s been speaking perfect English. Spouting off some shit of how we’re going to fail.”
“Load up! This bird’s taking off!” Tree shouted as you walked up inside with him.
Steve glanced at you as you spoke on the phone, “We’re taking off now…I need that intel fast….yeah…yeah I think we do…I’ll get set up and be ready. Thank you…uh…yeah tell’m…tell him we’ll be home soon…Yeah I’ll have him call…thanks…”
“We got something?” Steve kept his voice low following you over to your seats.
“We think so…she’s got to check another route to be sure.” You strapped in, “Steve, I’ve got a really bad feeling about his.”
He glanced over at everyone strapping in. He made eye contact with Tree who nodded his head toward you. Steve shook his head, “SAT phone is iffy in the air…you got a plan on how to get the intel.”
“Leo.” You smiled at your brother, “He’s got a small satellite, pretty sure we can rig it up and make this bird into an intel station to at least receive what we need.”
Steve nodded agreeing, it was definitely possible, “Uh…you got an inkling?”
He watched you freeze looking to the ground. You really were trained right. You don’t tip off your target by looking at them, “Yeah…”
He reached down taking your hand leaning close to you. He was trying to play it off like he was comforting you, “Were they in the car with him?”
You nodded leaning your head on his shoulder as the plan lurched forward taking off the ground, “Yeah…definitely…”
Steve wanted to try and get more information, but the co-piolet came out speaking loudly, “Alright folks, we’re in route, ETA to drop off site is 4 hours. From their command wants to debrief you and then you guys are going home.”
Whoops and hollers erupted in the plane. You smiled at everyone but remained silent giving your brother’s hand a squeeze, “Once we’re at altitude, will you help me set up?”
“Yeah, of course.” He smiled at you as you sat back taking in a deep breath, “How are you otherwise?”
You side eyed him, “Tibbs says I’m fine.”
“Tibbs…” He glanced over to the quiet man across the plane. He didn’t say much to anyone, but he was good at his duties. He drove the other vehicle and was their field medic, “That a nickname or…”
“You didn’t ask?” Steve made a face, “I suppose he comes off…unapproachable…Tibbs is short for Tiberius Stormberg.”
“Wow…” Steve’s eyes got wide, “I’m assuming it's a family name.”
“He the 3rd.” You laughed a little, “But he’s a good guy, patched me up a few times…and for the record I do trust him.”
Steve got the hint, “That’s 3 of 7.”
You nodded feeling the plane begin to level off. You unbuckled as everyone else began to move and immediately set off to work on getting communications. It wasn’t a hard set up to do…it was just find the right feed to bounce off of. While Leo and you tried to get everything in the right spot, Steve looked at the group.
Tree, squad leader. Hot headed, but big heart.
Leo, tech and second in command. Smart to almost a naive point.
Tibbs, medic and back up. Quiet and huge name.
Johnson, muscle and hardware. Big joker.
Cabbie, pack mule. You want it, he’s got, or will soon.
Esé, new kid still green, but shows a lot of potential.
And Foley, communications and tech.
All of them had their place…all of them fit in. Steve figured he could rule out Esé since he was new and young, and you trusted Tree, Leo, and Tibbs. That left Johnson, Cabbie and Foley.
His eyes flicked between the three of them trying to get a better sense. Everyone was relaxed, but also on edge. It was a transport mission. The job wasn’t done, so the kept their eyes on the very loud package.
“Tree, can we please give this fool something? He’s seriously cramping my Zs!” Johnson shouted across the way getting a chuckle, “He’s as bad as the televangelist my mama watches!”
“Just…give him water…we’ll be down in a couple of hours.” Tree said lazily as he flipped a page in the book he was reading.
“Man, water ain’t going to do nothing, but make him piss!”
Steve couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Leaning now more toward Foley and Cabbie who kept their seats doing their own thing, “Sis…”
“We almost got it I think.” You looked up at him. You looked tired and ready to be done as sweat pooled down your neck.
“Maybe you should take a break.” He crouched down next to you, “I can take over.”
“No, we need this…” You whispered.
“You really should take a break…” Tibbs glanced up from his paperwork as you turned to look at him, “You overexerted yourself back there…and I can’t give you anymore pain pills to push it off.”
“Pain pills…” Steve’s face contorted with concern.
“It’s not…”
“Y/N, stop saying it’s not that bad!” Steve hissed at you as he began to lose his composure, “Y-you need to take care of yourself…alright?”
Steve took your face in his hands as he continued, “I just got you back, I can’t lose you again…”
You stared him a long time before letting your forehead rest against his. You both just sat in the hum of the plane connected like you used to be. You let out a soft sigh, “Steve…”
“We’re up!” Leo exclaimed bringing you both out of the moment.
“Good…” You pulled your laptop into your lap pulling everything up quickly. You typed in a message to let Catherine now that you were there and ready, “Now we just wait.”
Fifteen long minutes passed by and nothing showed up. Steve chewed on his thumb standing over your shoulder, “Maybe we need to adjust it…”
“Dude…” Leo looked up at him offended.
“I took him the last time. It’s your turn to hold it for him.” Johnson told Foley, “The man has got to pee…and I’m not holding his junk…”
“I’ll do it…it’s fine…” Cabbie shook his head throwing his magazine off to the side.
The laptop beeped, and your eyes got wide as something started to load slowly in chucks, “Ugh…this brings me back to dial up days.”
“What a nightmare…please don’t remind me.” Leo leaned in watching the screen with you and your brother.
You sighed shutting your eyes as Leo muttered a curse. You stood up slowly walking toward Tree, “Andy…”
He looked up to you getting a brokenhearted look as you handed him the laptop, “How sure are you?”
“100%...” You spoke quietly as Steve stepped up next to you.
Tree stood up, “So…how do we do this? We’re still a couple hours out…”
“Subdue now…radio head the change in package delivery.” Steve told him.
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.” Tree frowned tossing his book back on his bag, “Alright…Steve you’re with me…Prince you stay back…”
Steve glanced at you as you stayed where you were. He moved around the other side of the plane as Tree walked toward Cabbie. Leo was on his feet glancing between him and Tree unsure of what to do with the knowledge he had.
“Cabbie…you got a sec?” Tree asked him as he hooked Sharif back into his seat.
Cabbie looked at him about to speak when he noticed Steve on the far side. His eyes got feral quickly as he pulled out his side arm. Sounds of alarm rippled through area as he pointed the gun at Sharif.
“What gave me away?” He hissed at Tree who had his hands raised in defense.
Steve had his hand on his side arm ready to draw if needed as Tree spoke, “We don’t need this…we can talk…we can make a deal…”
“What gave me away!?” He shouted again pointing the gun at Tree, but his eyes narrowed on you in the far back standing next to the open laptop, “Of course…always meddling….”
Steve took a step forward only to have the gun pointed at him. It made you involuntarily take a step forward, “Don’t…”
“If I shoot him will you feel it?” He asked glaring at you.
“No one needs to get shot…we’re in a plane thousands of feet up in the air…” Tree tried to keep his voice calm.
“Shoot them!” All eyes fell to Sharif, “Kill them all!”
“Can it old man, your turns coming.” Steve took the moment act rushing forward talking Cabbie. The gun discharged as blows were thrown sending everyone into a scramble.
Steve hit him one more time for good measure ensuring that he was knocked out. He stumbled upwards his chest heaving up and down from the adrenaline. Tree rushed forward with Johnson tying Cabbie up.
Tibbs ran over checking Steve over quickly, “Are you hit?”
Steve patted himself down shaking his head, “No…”
Everyone froze as Sharif began laugh quietly to himself. His eyes not on them. Steve followed his gaze and felt a cold pain hit him instantly, “…Y/N…”
You stood there in shock looking at your hand which came up from your stomach. That was a lot of blood. You swallowed before looking up to your brother, “Steve…”
He grabbed your as you began to lose your footing, “No no no…”
“Steve….” You teared up grabbing onto his arm tightly. You’d been shot before, but this felt different. This felt final.
“You just stay here…you hear me…you stay…” Steve told you as Tibbs came into view pulling up your shirt putting pressure on the gushing wound.
Your eyes shut and you saw his smile run through your mind as Steve shouted you back to consciousness, “…k-keep…him safe…”
Steve held you up in his lap, “You’re not going anywhere…”
“She’s losing a lot of blood…” Tibbs replaced the gauze he was using to stop the bleeding with a fresh one, “If I can’t stop the bleeding…”
“Do whatever you have to!” Steve shouted as he watched you begin to lose consciousness, “Y/N…Y/N open your eyes…open your eyes! Y/N!”
“D…Danny…” The name whispered across you lips.
Across thousands of miles Kono watched Danny slow down next to her and lean over, “Danny you alright?”
His hand went to his chest as he shook his head, “No…just been having this dull ache all day…”
“You having a heart attack on me?” Kono half joked with him.
“…I hope it’s just something I ate, but damn…” He stood up taking a deep breath trying to rub it out, “It just worse all of sudden…”
“Maybe you should get looked out…” She frowned touching his arm, “You need to be tip top for when the McGarretts get back.”
“If it doesn’t get better in an hour or so…” He smiled a little, “I will. I promise…now let’s go question this yahoo…”
[Or, supposing canon can go screw itself, what happens when Nick’s team goes to Bahrain. For the anon who really wanted to see more of this!]
Melinda sits next to Victoria on the plane and sighs, watching the rest of the team murmur to one another.
“I don’t see why Nick had to bring Ward,” she says.
“It’s a simple mission,” she says. “We’re here to negotiate with a gifted and talk to them about registering with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gifted database. And John insisted. He wanted Ward to get used to the…stranger side of our work, I guess.”
“And he didn’t even bring Buddy,” Melinda says with a little smile. Victoria nods.
“Yeah, that was the deal; we’d keep an eye on Ward and John would watch Buddy. Ward doesn’t want Buddy getting used to the field. So John’s dogsitting with Fee and Jasper and the kids. It’s just the four of us.”
“And Ward,” Melinda says with a sigh. Victoria nods.
“Well, he’s an agent now. But he’s going to be just fine. John would have never sent him if he wasn’t,” she says. “You know him as well as I do. John would never hear of Ward coming with us if he thought Ward might be in danger for a single split second.”
“True,” Melinda says with a smile. “So we’ll be just fine.”
She searches her partner. “But you still look worried.”
There’s a pause as Victoria holds her hand tighter and tries to gather up all her thoughts, her fingers rubbing idly along the leather straps of her field gear.
“Well,” Victoria says with a sigh and a shrug. “I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t be. But I feel…apprehensive. I just feel like something’s going wrong already, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what I’m going to do if something does—but I don’t have any reason to think something will. I’m just…unsettled.”
Melinda is quiet for a few minutes.
She puts her hand on Victoria’s thigh and rubs it, comforting and gentle.
“You remember how we met,” she says. It’s not a question; it doesn’t have to be. Victoria nods.
“You pulled my ass out of the fire,” she says. “I was being held hostage. I might’ve died, even, but you came in and saved me. Because you were brave.”
“Not quite,” Melinda says. “You’re right. But don’t you remember the end? Where we escaped together?”
Victoria nods, blinking harshly. “Yeah. I do. We had each other’s backs right from the start.”
“Exactly,” Melinda says. “It’s going to be all right. Whatever happens, we do it together. Okay? I’ve got you. And I have no intention of letting go.”
Victoria smiles and closes her eyes. “I know. I love you.”
“And I love you,” Melinda promises, entwining her fingers with hers. They stay seated side by side for the rest of the flight.
Ward is the first one off the plane, wrinkling his nose at the heat. “Yech. We’re not going to be here too long though, right?”
“No, we’re not,” Nick says. “We’re just going in and going to talk. Nothing too big. Just a welcome wagon sort of mission.”
“All right,” Ward agrees. “Sounds interesting. What’re the person’s powers?”
“No one knows,” Nick sighs. “Conflicting intel. So for all we know, they’re fake, but they’ve got enough rumors circulating that we at least had to take a look around. We’ve got a few agents already waiting for us here to help us with the welcome efforts, so we’ll have some backup.”
He surveys his team. “Are all of you ready?”
“They better be, I outfitted everyone,” Victoria says. “New stuff in from R&D.”
“John said that gun was for man hands,” Ward says as she hefts her gun into her grip. Victoria snorts.
“He wouldn’t know, because he’s a little bitch,” she says fondly. “Come on, kid. Let’s go hunting.”
…
The building is simple, nondescript; an abandoned apartment complex that has weathered siding, white that has been eaten away into a vague, rotten off-white, brown mold flecking the edges and clinging stubbornly to the door. There’s a sign above the door in Arabic; Ward looks up and cocks his head, reading it with a squint.
“Um, it says ‘Prayers to God,’” he says. “So I think this is our place?”
“Probably,” Nick agrees. “But the issue is, we’ve got to split. There’s reports of an attack on a nearby mosque by the followers of…whatever the hell this thing is. So Tori, Phil and I are going to go handle that, since we’ve got the heavy artillery. Since all this place needs is a little of the welcome wagon kind of treatment, you’re not going to need big guns.”
He gestures to Ward. “You and Melinda are going to stay here and stake out. You two are going to be responsible for greeting them. Agent Ward, you’re going to be watching and covering her. Understood?”
“Yessir,” Ward says with a nod. “Okay. I can do that. Be safe?”
“We will be,” Nick says. “You keep an eye on things here. Not that you’ve got much to worry about.”
Melinda nods. “I know. Thanks for keeping me from the action, Nick.”
“You’ll thank me later,” he says, waving her off as the rest of the team climbs into a waiting ATV and heads off. Melinda watches them leave with a sigh and a smile.
“They’re the worst sometimes,” she says, her voice full of love. “Come on, Ward. Let’s get you set up in a nest. Tori gave you that sniper rifle for a reason.”
Ward follows after Melinda, wide-eyed in awe.
“You look so cool in the field,” he gushes as she helps him set up a nest on the roof across the street. “I mean, wow. Agent May.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” she says, her voice fond and soft. “But don’t worry, Ward. You’ll be as good as us someday. I’ve been hearing nothing but high praise from your instructors.”
“Specialist training is hard,” Ward says. “But it’s not my whole day. They’re letting me practice languages. I have to tell your mom, I’m the top of my class in Mandarin.”
“You ought to learn more Cantonese,” Melinda advises. “It’s good to know both.”
“Okay,” Ward says. “Would you teach me? It’s your language, isn’t it? Your first, I mean.”
Melinda nods. “Cantonese was the language of home. Mandarin was the language of work. And, well, I speak English. Clearly.”
“Clearly,” Ward says with a smile. “But that’s good. I’d like to learn from you. You know it like…well, like a person. Not a textbook.”
“Then it’s settled,” she says. “Tai Chi and Cantonese in the mornings.”
“Okay,” Ward agrees. “Melinda? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Ward,” she says. “Anything to help.”
The two of them sit up in the sniper nest for awhile. Melinda goes over basic terms and conjugations with him until night falls.
“You’re going in?” Ward asks as she stands up and brushes off her gear. She nods.
“I am,” she says, heading for the ladder down the roof. “Our agents should be in position, so it’s a simple matter of going in and introducing myself. Nothing complicated.”
Ward holds a hand up to stop her.
“Hey, but wait, hold on,” he says. “You forgot a gun, Melinda.”
“I’m not going to need one,” she says. “You’re my gun, Ward. You’re the one in charge of protecting me, okay?”
Ward regards her with wide-eyed awe before he nods, completely solemn.
“Understood, Agent May,” he says.
She smiles at him as she walks away.
It’s the last smile he’s going to see from her for a long time.
…
Ward watches the building in complete silence for a little while, looking over the gun, checking out its specs, head cocked as he fiddled with it.
Nick’s voice is in his comm without warning, making him start.
“Ward,” he says. “Tell Melinda to get out of there. Now.”
“What? Okay,” Ward says, sitting up. “Why?”
“The mosque was a set up. The followers of the gifted took hostages—our agents and some civilians. There’s a little girl in there, Ward.”
“Jesus,” Ward says. His heart sinks. “I’ll tell Melinda right away, sir.”
He switches channels on his comm. “Melinda? Melinda, you have to get out of there. There’s civilians hostage. Nick says the followers have the agents and some civilians.”
There’s a long pause on the other line. Ward blinks. “Melinda? Melinda, it’s time to leave. Come on.”
“No,” she says. “They’ve got a kid, Ward. A little girl trapped in here with me. I have to get her out.”
“Melinda, wait until the rest of the team is back, we’ll handle it together!” Ward says. “Melinda, please, come on—“
“I can handle this. Don’t worry about me, Ward. Practice your verbs while I handle this, all right?”
“Melinda? Melinda! Melinda!”
Silence. The faint hiss of static.
Ward blinks back tears and shakes his head. “Melinda? Nick! Nick, she’s not responding!”
“I know, I hear you. It’s okay. We’ll come get you two. Stay on her, Ward.”
“Okay, I will, I promise,” Ward says, getting up and taking two handguns with him. “I’m going in, okay?”
“Absolutely not! With the rifle, you stay in your damn nest, you do not go in there after her—“
“I’m the only one that can,” Ward says. “So I have to! Don’t you get it?”
“Ward! Agent Ward, absolutely not—Grant!”
Ward ignores Nick, wrenching the door open and climbing up the rotted steps, stuffing the handguns in his back pocket.
He waits at the top of the first flight of stairs, listening to the murmurs above him. Melinda’s voice is clear and calm, but she’s speaking something he doesn’t understand—it’s in Cantonese, too fast and complex for him to pick up.
There’s a beat of silence. Then he hears a little girl’s thin, reedy cries.
“Rosie,” Ward whispers, covering his face with his hands. “Oh god. No. No no no.”
He blinks back tears and steels himself. He doesn’t call for Melinda. He listens and waits.
There’s some murmurs above him again, and Melinda returns to Cantonese. Her voice is harsher, more haggard. He can hear a few more people chiming in with Arabic or a few sputtered pleas in English. He can feel the tension in the air, prickling like insects on his skin, settling into his pores.
“Melinda,” he whispers. “Melinda?”
There’s no reply for a few seconds.
Ward tenses at the burst of gunfire that fills the silence without warning. He doesn’t hear the sound of anyone hitting the floor, and the air is blessedly free of the scent of blood. He clings to himself tight, trembling.
He hears Melinda above him again, her voice calm and warm again as she says something short in Cantonese. Ward listens to her footsteps creak on the floorboards as she takes a few steps.
The last thing he hears is a sigh, long-suffering and weary. It’s so familiar and normal that it makes his stomach churn.
After that, the only thing he can hear is the pop of bone and separated nerves.
He hears a body thump to the floor with a heavy, final thud.
Shouting occupies the silence the sound of a neck snapping had left, and Ward recalls vaguely in the screaming haze, Melinda doesn’t have a gun.
It has yet to stop her. He can hear more pops upstairs; not like gunshots from a distance, but something squelching, raw and visceral. He can hear murmurs from upstairs above the sound of snapping necks and dislocated limbs, but he can’t place the language. It sounds like a star being cracked open and spilled out to soak the floorboards.
He has to go. John will kill him for putting himself in danger, but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t protect Melinda. At least he’ll die satisfied.
Ward climbs the steps three at a time, screaming her name.
He reaches the next flight and smoke fills his nose; he sputters and chokes, covering his mouth and nose with a hand. He can’t shout anymore, but he continues to climb, ducking his head to avoid as much smoke as he possibly can while he makes his way to the next set of stairs.
Melinda stands at the top of them, a body in her hands. Ward searches the hazy room behind her, and all he can see is two huddled clusters of people; civilians and agents alike cowering behind her.
There’s a little girl sitting at her feet, clutching a toy. Melinda pays the girl no heed; Ward’s heart lurches, and he moves his hand away from his mouth. Smoke fills his nose the second he moves it away; he shakes it off and calls Melinda’s name.
She doesn’t seem to hear him; she tosses the body over the stairwell, and it breaks through the old, creaky stairs, hitting the ground floor. Ward can hear it splatter like rotten fruit dropped from a trembling hand, and he chokes back the urge to vomit.
His only thought after bile rises in his throat is, At least I’ve got experience with that, and it strikes him as so absolutely bizarre that it’s all he can do not to start laughing. The only thing that stops him is the little girl sitting in front of Melinda, like she’s waiting to be picked up and held.
He calls Melinda’s name again and takes another step forward. Melinda doesn’t respond until he’s just a step beneath her. After that, he sees her turn her head towards him, just a little.
“Melinda, it’s me, Grant,” he says, switching to Cantonese. It’s clumsy, but it’s the language of home. She watches him with further interest after that.
“It’s me,” he repeats. “I’m here to help you. Nick said there was a hostage situation, so I’m here to help. I’ve got you. I love you so much. I’m right here. I came to protect you, okay? Like I promised.”
Melinda doesn’t respond for a few minutes. Ward waits, though he keeps a wary eye on the burning. Who had started a fire in a place like this? He was burning up as it was.
The smoke makes his eyes sting and tears run down his face, and he feels Melinda touch his cheek, wiping them away.
“Bao bei,” she says, soft and fond. “Get the little one out. I’ve got to get our team out. But I know you can handle her. Isn’t that right?”
“I—yes, of course,” Ward says. He kneels and scoops the little girl up into his arms without thinking. She’s completely unresponsive as he cradles her.
“Melinda,” he says, “I can help. Let me—“
“Go, Ward,” she says. “If you argue with me here, we’re both going to die of smoke inhalation.”
“R-right,” Ward agrees. “Okay. I love you—I love you so much.”
He kisses her cheek, clumsy and quick, before he hefts the girl into his arms and runs away, back down the steps and jumping over the hole the body had left in them.
“Ward! Where is she, what the hell did you do—“
“The place is burning up,” Ward says. “The whole building’s going to collapse. She’s getting them out; the team, the civilians. Everyone’s okay, Nick.”
The little girl in his arms has yet to move.
He clings to her tighter. “Please, please don’t be dead.”
He reaches the bottom of the steps and bolts past the body, running outside and hitting fresh air with a gasp.
He sets the little girl down on her feet, and before he can get a word in, she’s bolted, running into the undergrowth and far past his reach.
Ward holds his hands out to grab her just a moment too late, leaving them suspended in the air like his intent will bring her back. He sighs and rubs his temples, coughing and spitting ash and wet, smoky saliva onto the ground.
After a few minutes, people start to leave the building. Ward does a count-off; ten agents, five civilians, clinging to one another for comfort.
“Is that everyone?” he asks the closest agent. She nods.
“Everyone on my team, Agent Ward,” she says. “Agent May is still inside.”
“And—and the gifted?” Ward says. She shrugs helplessly.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” she says. “It was all a blur, we’re not really sure what happened in there…”
Ward gets back on-comm with Nick again. “Sir? She’s still in there.”
Nick doesn’t respond, but Victoria does.
“Get her out,” she cries, and Ward trembles at the sound of her voice. He’s never heard her so broken. “Get her out, oh god, please Ward, please…”
Ward nods. “I’ll do my best.
“Absolutely not, he’s a boy, he’s not going in there—“
“Sir, she doesn’t have a gun,” Ward says. “I have to go in. I need to keep her safe. I promised.”
Ward puts his fingers to his ear to switch to Melinda’s channel. “Melinda? I’m coming back in for you. Where’s your location?”
There’s a still, serene silence for a split second before Ward ducks the burst of glass and fire that blazes forth, the windows blown out in unison. The glass clatters on the dirt road and jingles where it falls; a beautiful sound, like the fall of rain, the crackling of the fire serving as an accompanying melody.
For a second, Ward is hypnotized by the beauty of the broken glass, tinkling as it hits the ground like miniature meteors.
The sound that breaks him out of the spell is Melinda’s long, gut-wrenching scream.
“Ward? Don’t go in there, that’s an order—“
“No,” Ward says. “No. Melinda needs me. And I’m here to protect her.”
“You are absolutely not, this is out of your hands—“
“She didn’t bring a gun in there, Nick,” Ward says. “I’m going.”
“Grant! Grant!”
Ward takes what’s left of the stairs up through the building, taking two handguns with him and praying quietly for the first few flights of steps. After that, he spends his time composing apologies to John in his head.
“What did you say, Ward?” Victoria’s voice is in his ear now, hushed. He shudders at the sound as he climbs up the stairs.
“She didn’t bring a gun,” Ward says. “So I’m going in. I said I’d be her protector, and I have to—“
“Oh my god. She doesn’t have a gun? No. No, you can’t go in there. Please don’t. Please don’t, I can’t lose you both. Please don’t. Mel?”
There’s a beat of silence as Ward approaches the door. He pushes on it, and it’s hot to the touch.
“MEL!”
Victoria’s voice thunders over the comm before she dissolves into disjointed weeping that rings, tinny and inhuman, in Ward’s ear. He climbs the stairs and screams Melinda’s name in unison with the wretched pleas he can hear being issued over the comm.
“Bao bei, bao bei, bao bei,” Victoria bawls, the plea matching Ward’s heartbeat, which he can practically feel resounding in his ears as he screams for Melinda again.
There’s no reply. But he can hear the sound of bones snapping.
Ward’s stomach churns as he climbs the stairs, shouting her name.
“Bao bei?” he tries, hesitant.
There’s another sound, a distinct pop; Ward shudders, his neck prickling with panic. A heavy thump makes him jump, gripping his gun.
“No,” he hears above him, dull and listless. “No. There is no love in this place.”
Ward’s stomach drops as he looks up. “Melinda?”
She stands at the top of the stairs, a burning room behind her. The doorframe is alight, casting shadows around her face. When he meets her eyes, he can feel the emptiness behind them.
Victoria is screaming over the comm, and Ward wants to turn it off so badly that his hand goes to his ear to do just that. But Victoria was there for him with John. Victoria gave him his first hand out of the darkness, and he owes her his vigil.
“Melinda,” Ward says. “Come here. I’m here. I’m here to help you. Melinda, please.”
Melinda regards him with such an intense, heavy nothing in her gaze that Ward takes a step back. He holds his hands up. “Melinda? It’s me. Ward. Please come back. You saved everyone. You got them all out. You’re done now. It’s time…it’s time to go, Melinda.”
Melinda continues to look at him with a heavy, dead gaze. Ward reaches out and wipes away tears that have made rivers in the ashes smeared across her skin.
“Not everyone,” she says. “The girl. You secured her, Agent Ward?”
Melinda nods. She goes up to wipe away tears on his cheek, and Ward feels blood on her palm when she strokes his skin.
He resists the urge to shudder, though it seizes him with such painful urgency that he has to swallow, choking down ashes and smoke.
“We have to go,” Melinda says. “You’re right. Oh god. I let—I let you come in here. Oh, Ward. Oh, Ward, oh god—“
“No, no, it’s okay! I handled it, they’re safe, you’re safe,” Ward says. “Come on, the team’s waiting downstairs, Victoria can’t wait to see you…come on, Melinda. Come on, let’s go. You saved everyone.”
“Like a cavalry,” she says. “Just in the nick of time, in the nick…Nick? Where’s Nick?”
“I don’t know, doesn’t matter, let’s go,” Ward says in halting, shaky Cantonese. “Let’s go home, Melinda. Home.”
She looks at him like she can hardly remember the word before she takes him into her arms. He slings an arm around her shoulder and leads her down the stairs, squeezing her hand. He can feel it shaking so violently that her fingers almost slip out of his, still slick with blood.
“Oh god,” she says. “I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t have a gun. But I’m good with my hands. I don’t need a gun. I don’t need a gun. I don’t need a gun. I had my hands. I had my hands and I and—“
“Ssh, ssh,” Ward soothes her. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Come on. Two more flights and then we’re home.”
“Hands,” she murmurs. “Victoria? Victoria? Victoria?”
Melinda looks around and blinks back tears. “Oh god. I let her die in there.”
“No you didn’t, she wasn’t with us, she’s coming, it’s okay,” Ward promises. “You’re okay.”
“Victoria,” Melinda murmurs. “Victoria, I left her back there…”
“Ssh, it’s okay, it’s okay, she’s not in there, she’s coming to get us,” Ward says as they climb down the steps. The smoke is making his head hazy, and he coughs, clamping a hand over his mouth and ducking his head. “It’s okay, you did all you could…”
“She burned them,” Melinda says. “Her eyes glowed, and she was bright, and she burned, oh Ward, she burned herself up…”
“It’s okay, you did your best, come on—Nick? Nick, where are you?” Ward shouts on the comm.
“Outside. She got them out. Oh my fucking god, she got them out, please get her out, please please please Ward—“
“Tori?” Melinda says, like she’s trying the name out for the first time in her mouth. Victoria sobs over the comm and Ward flinches.
“Bao bei,” she cries, “we’re on our way, oh my god Ward please just keep her safe, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“
“You’re fine, it’s okay,” Ward lies, holding onto Melinda as he kicks open the door, the night air rushing in to meet him. It’s still about eighty degrees outside, but Ward’s never felt so cold in his life.
The field team is huddled around one another, watching the two of them with wide eyes. Ward can see awe in every single one of their gazes and it makes him want to scream. There is nothing about him to be admired. Not here. Not for this.
“She was like a fucking ninja, man,” one of the men enthuses, his eyes gleaming. “She just stormed right in and snapped the guy’s neck before she got us all out, right down the stairs and out the door before she—“
“Then why didn’t you make her stay?” Ward roars, his eyes blazing.
The team flinches, and Ward can see terror on their faces.
Oh god, he thinks, I don’t want to become my brother. Please.
“We didn’t…she said…she said there was a kid inside,” one of the smaller agents explains. “She said she had to go back in for the kid.”
Ward stops and looks at Melinda. Melinda stares back at him, silent.
“No,” he murmurs. “No, Melinda. No. I saved the girl. Like you asked.”
Melinda is silent still.
“There was,” she finally says, “another one.”
Ward nods and holds Melinda close, tucking her head beneath his chin. She clings to him mutely and he strokes her back.
“Jesus,” he murmurs. “Melinda, when did I get so tall?”
“Oh, love,” she whispers. “I don’t know.”
She holds onto him tighter and he can feel her start to shake. He rubs her back in circles and holds her as close as he can as he listens on the comm. Victoria is still screaming, but he can hear the squeal of tires; they’re coming, he thinks, they’re close.
The two of them stand in the dirt road and watch the building in Bahrain burn, the fire flickering in their gazes as it consumes the rotting white siding and turns it to blackened ashes and rubble. The house collapses in on itself like a dying star, the scattered bits of lumber consumed with relish by the hearty fire.
The bodies left inside lend a crackling chorus to the sound of the fire eating away at the remains, and Ward grabs his jacket, tearing it in half and covering Melinda’s nose with it so the smell of burning flesh doesn’t reach her.
Honestly, he doesn’t think anything can at this point. She’s staring up at the smoke and the stars, dazed. She smiles every so often, like she’s privy to something he doesn’t understand. He thinks he doesn’t understand a damn thing, and he’s grateful.
The ATV pulls up with a squeal of tires. Victoria is screaming inside; he can hear her, even through the bulletproof plating on the car.
Melinda watches the doors of the car fly open and her team run to her without a single sign she sees them, her head cocked and her hair falling in her face. Charred bits of it fall away and land on her shoulders, like little piles of ash.
“Oh my god,” Victoria sobs, her hands shaking so hard she can’t hold onto Melinda’s cheeks long enough to cup them. “Oh my god, bao bei, bao bei…”
Melinda watches her, Nick, and Phil, mute. Ward moves to step away, to let them handle it, and she grabs him so tight it hurts, pulling him close. He doesn’t protest the pain.
“Like the cavalry,” Melinda whispers, looking at her team.
“What?” Nick says. “Melinda, it’s okay, we’re here. I’m sorry. We should’ve gotten here faster, Mel, I’m sorry. Jesus. Jesus, I’m so sorry, Jesus god in heaven—“
“No,” Melinda says. “You were just in the nick of time. Just in the nick of time, here to save the day…like the cavalry.”
She looks at Ward, and he has to fight to keep her gaze from making him flinch.
“You saw her too?” she says. “The burning. She was so small. I got everyone out, but I had to…I had to save her too. But I didn’t.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Ward says. “There was no one there left to save.”
Melinda nods, like she’s seriously considering the information.
She takes his hands and kisses them. “Thank you for protecting me.”
“I—I…any time,” Ward says, thanking a god that feels increasingly distant that his hands don’t shake.
Melinda turns to Victoria. Victoria is still sobbing, so hard her chest heaves like it’s about to split open, but completely silent save for her sucking, shaky breaths. Melinda puts her hands on her chest and the heaving breaths still, soften, until Victoria can whisper her name again, forcing it from her raw throat. Melinda is silent as Victoria says her name, just holding her hands against her chest.
“God,” she says as she pulls her hands away, looking her wife up and down. “When did I get so small?”
Victoria enfolds her in her embrace and Melinda finally weeps.
Ward lets them be, joining Nick and Phil by the car.
“She got them all out,” Phil says. “She did all she could.”
“She absolutely did not,” Nick says. “Look at who she left in there.”
“That’s everyone we sent in, Nick,” Phil says, looking over the agents.
“She didn’t leave any of them in there,” Nick says. “But we sent in one more agent.”
Phil goes quiet.
“And I got her,” Ward says, his voice shaking. “Don’t you see? I got her. I did. I did…I did what I had to.”
Nick surveys him and doesn’t reply for a long, long time.
“I suppose you did,” he says, heaving a sigh. “Get her in the car, Phil. We’re going home.”
Ward sits in the back, silent, and watches as the rest of the agents scramble to put things to rights.
He looks down and realizes he’s had something clutched in his hand since he went back inside. A scrap of the flowery dress the girl had worn is still clinging to his fingers. He cocks his head and stows it away as Victoria brings Melinda into the car, covering her with kisses and holding her despite the way her entire body shakes.
Ward doesn’t tell Melinda he has it, even before they arrive at the hospital and doctors pull them in two different directions, treatments for smoke inhalation and lacerations being rattled off around him. If she thinks everything burned back there in Bahrain, she’ll be safer. He just wants her safe.
Protection, Ward thinks as someone fits an oxygen mask over his face. That’s what she needs. And he’s a protector. He will provide.
Just…after a little sleep, first. Just to sate the darkness clinging stubbornly to the edges of his eyes like smoke.
…
When he wakes up again, Buddy is with him.
“We flew you home for treatment,” John says, standing over his bed. “Melinda’s still unconscious. She’s been out for a whole day.”
“Jesus,” Ward whispers. John rubs at his eyes.
“Fuck,” he says. “Kiddo, no more missions for a few months, okay? I can’t do this.”
“We can take a break,” Ward agrees. “John, I’m really sorry.”
“You don’t have to be, baby boy, it’s not your fault,” John soothes him. “None of us knew. It’s okay.”
“No, but—I let—I didn’t—“
“You did better than any of us,” John tells him. “You saved her. You did so good, Ward. I’m so proud. But you have to rest. Go back to sleep.”
Ward doesn’t want to, but John is stroking his hair, and Buddy’s head is on his chest, solid and warm and comforting, and Ward drifts off before he realizes he’s fallen asleep.
The next time he wakes up, he’s alone. He looks around, then down at his arm. No IVs. He can get up and go, if he wants.
He gets up out of bed, taking off the oxygen mask, and makes his way down the hall, looking around. It’s white and tinted with fluorescents and scented vaguely like lemons. He wrinkles his nose at the bleached lemon smell, checking the names on every hospital room until he sighs in relief.
He opens the door marked ‘MAY, MELINDA’ in bold, unforgiving black ink, before he can tell himself it might be a bad idea.
She’s the only one in the room. Ward considers they might not be allowing visitors yet, and then figures if he was willing to ignore a direct order from Director Fury, he can handle a little grief from a doctor or two.
He makes his way to her bedside and watches her. She has an oxygen mask on, and there are stitches on her cheek, on her neck, her hands. There are scratches on her body, made in rows of four, like someone had clawed at her in desperation.
Ward strokes her hair. Someone cut it. He shouldn’t be surprised, he saw her hair when it was charred and blackened, but somehow, he still is.
“Melinda,” he whispers. “Melinda. My Melinda. Oh, god. You’re alive.”
Nothing else matters. Everything else can wait. Melinda is alive and home, and with her team. That’s all she needs. All he wants.
“I love you,” he says. “You’re the best person in the whole world, okay? You really are. You’re so brave and beautiful and you know…I’ve always kind of had this crush on you. But I can only tell you that because you’re unconscious. And because I thought you were going to die. So I figure you should know.”
He kisses her forehead. “Hi. I’m glad you’re home. And I know it’s going to be hard soon, but I’ll be here for you, okay? Don’t be scared. I love you so much, Melinda. You’ll have Victoria and the team and me. And Buddy. You can borrow Buddy and I won’t mind a bit. I promise he doesn’t shed or drool that much.”
She doesn’t respond. Ward wasn’t expecting a response, but he hopes she heard him, nonetheless.
He rubs her hand for a little while, just idle circles with his thumbs, until someone comes in.
“Oh,” he says. “Oh. Director May.”
“You don’t have to call me that,” she says, taking a seat across from him and taking her daughter’s hand. “My name is just Lian May. I’m not your Director.”
She gives him a smile, a little wicked. It doesn’t reach her teary eyes as she regards him. “However, I heard that you ignored his orders and went in after my girl.”
“She needed me,” Ward says. “She didn’t have a gun. I had to protect her. That’s why she went in after those people, so I went in after her.”
She nods, taking her daughter’s hand. “You did well, then. I’m impressed.”
“I’m scared for her,” Ward says. “She was in there for awhile on her own. I don’t know what she saw. I don’t know how to help her. And—and I want to. Because she always helps me.”
She stays silent, stroking her daughter’s hair for awhile. Ward lets her have that peace, sitting quietly across from her, holding Melinda’s hand.
“Bao bei,” her mother murmurs, reaching the ends of her hair and twining the strands along her fingers. “My sweet little girl, oh god. They’ve cut your hair, your lovely hair…”
“It burned off,” Ward says. “The whole place was on fire.”
“Oh, love, they’ve cut your hair…” she repeats. She bows over Melinda and kisses her forehead. She murmurs something in Cantonese; Ward doesn’t translate, and he doesn’t want to. This is private.
She finally sighs and looks up at Ward. “You’ll help her as she asks. What she needs and what she wants. But wait. She’ll need time to explain.”
Ward nods. “Okay. I…thank you.”
He frowns. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be in here, though. I don’t think she’s ready for visitors.”
“Ah, who’s going to stop us?” she teases, giving him a conspiratorial wink. “It’s all right. I can have them demoted if they do.”
Ward beams and nods.
“Okay,” he agrees. “Just a few more minutes. Just so she’s not alone.”
Her mother gives him a nod and the two of them settle in on either side of her, waiting.
…
Ward leaves as soon as the rest of Nick’s team arrives; Director May urges him out and the two of them are down the hall. It doesn’t keep him from hearing Victoria’s raw, wretched weeping, or the desperate, disjointed pleas she’s making with Melinda as she sleeps.
“Let’s go get tea,” she says as Ward fidgets. He doesn’t want to cover his ears. Victoria is hurt, and he wants to help…
“She’s strong,” Lian says. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault. I wouldn’t have let my girl marry a weak woman. And she’s got her team, she’ll survive. You’re the one who should be frightened by all these proceedings.”
“I just want to know that she’ll be okay,” Ward says as he follows her into the elevator. “Victoria, I mean. She’s got John, but—but I think she blames herself. I think she wants to have been the one to save her.”
“She’s proud. She might,” Lian agrees. “Who knows, with that one? She’s a menace. But she’ll see sense. You had the guts to go in there and defy orders to protect her. You were enough. Don’t let her desire to have been there too make you think otherwise.”
“But…but if she had been, maybe this wouldn’t have—I don’t know,” Ward says. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
She puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’re barely seasoned enough to be a novice, Ward. Relax. You don’t need to apologize. You’re the one that shouldn’t have been there.”
Ward nods, biting his lip.
“Even so, I feel like…I feel like a monster,” he confesses. “I feel like this is my fault.”
“That’s why we’re going to get tea,” Lian says. “You need to sit down and settle yourself. Don’t forget you were affected by this too.”
Ward nods. “Thank you, ma’am. Sorry about all the hassle.”
“What hassle? I was going to go get a cup of tea anyway,” she says with a shrug. “Come on, I know this hospital, there’s a place that does a decent cup about ten minute’s drive from here.”
“But—but shouldn’t I stay close?” Ward asks, a frown on his face. “I’m sorry, I’m just not sure what to do, I’ve never—“
“Exactly. You’ve never had to handle this, and that’s all right. No one’s blaming you,” she says. “You were in that building with her. You’ve got some issues you need to unpack if you want to move past this.”
“But—not like her,” Ward says. “She was in there on her own for awhile. Without a gun. And…”
She hushes him and ushers him into her car. Ward sits in it and freezes up as she starts the ignition.
“Buddy!” he cries. “Buddy, oh no, wait, wait have you seen my puppy, he’s a chocolate lab and he gives the best kisses and he’s got soft ears, and I don’t—“
“One of Nick’s boys had a dog with him,” she says. “I don’t know about the kisses or the ears, but it was certainly a lab.”
Ward relaxes. “Oh. John. Okay. John has Buddy, so it’s okay.”
She nods. “Don’t look so worried. He wouldn’t let your dog get lost.”
“Sorry, he just—normally comes with me everyplace,” Ward explains as she pulls out of the parking lot. “Except for field. Field is bad for him. So that’s why we were separated.”
Lian sighs. “Melinda’s told me about the dog. I’ve heard he’s almost inseparable from you.”
“Well, he’s my best friend in the entire world, so,” Ward says. “He’s the best. He’s really smart, but I haven’t taught him a lot of tricks. It’s just not his favorite thing. But he can shake your hand and roll over. And he balances biscuits on his nose…”
He didn’t literally feel the anxiety melting away as he spoke, but by the time they arrived in front of the tiny, weathered shop and he left the car, having sufficiently lectured Melinda’s mother about Buddy’s entire life story, he felt practically weightless.
“Better?” she asks with a smile. Ward nods.
“Mm. Thank you,” he says. “You’re good at this.”
“I’ve seen a lot of men like you come home after rough missions. They just need to talk,” she says. “Melinda will need more than that. But you won’t be able to provide it if you’re in pain.”
Ward nods. “Then I’ll get better for her.”
“For yourself,” she says, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth with disapproval as she locks her car and the two of them enter the shop. “You need to, and she would want you to.”
Ward nods. “Okay. Um…”
He checks his watch. “Okay, I guess I can have a cup. And maybe a sandwich. Since it’s been two days, my schedule’s a little off.”
“Melinda told me about that too,” she says. “You’re quite conscious of your health.”
“Um, yes,” Ward says. “I have to be fit. And strong. I’m training as a specialist, you know. And—and I’m at the top of my class in Mandarin.”
“Are you? That’s interesting,” Lian says. Ward nods and blinks hard, looking away.
“I, uh—Melinda—Melinda was going to teach me Cantonese. She said…she said it was like home. Her home language. And I was so excited. And—and,” Ward hedges, wiping at his eyes as the waitress approaches.
“The usual, Lian?” she asks in Chinese. She nods.
“For me, yes. Ward will order what he likes,” she says. “Though I do recommend the jasmine.”
“Oh, uhm…” Ward hedges.
“Do you have lavender? Or chamomile? Or, um, both?” he asks in fluent, smooth Chinese.
“We have a lavender tea,” she says. “Would that be acceptable?”
“Please,” he says. “With lemon?”
She nods and scribbles it down as Lian regards Ward.
“She always smells like lavender,” Ward defends himself. “It’s a good smell. I love it so much. And it’s a good tea. She lets me have some when I can’t sleep.”
“She has a good heart, my daughter,” Lian says. “I didn’t want her to go, you know.”
“Oh,” Ward says. “To where? S.H.I.E.L.D., right?”
“Yes,” she sighs. “I wanted her to stay with me. I wanted her to succeed me. Like she should have, being my only daughter. She could have stayed in Fenghuang and been my greatest treasure. My beautiful phoenix.”
She looks out the window. “Do you love your family, Agent Ward?”
He pauses.
“Um,” he says, cocking his head and closing his eyes. “I love my little brother and my little sister and my grandmother. I’d do anything for them. I almost died for them. But the rest of my birth family are…bad people.”
He shrugs. “So I love my siblings. I miss them every day, but I don’t…try to bother the others with it much. I know they like to think I’m their kid and that nothing from before John and Victoria came to get me matters. But—but it matters to me. If only for Dana and Rose.”
He looks at her. “Is that enough?”
“It’s an answer,” she agrees. “I know you understand the kind of love I have for my Melinda, at least.”
She blinks and squares her shoulders, pulling herself up. “She was my everything. Maybe that was the problem. I would have let her do far worse then leave my side as long as it made her happy. I thought it was a fair sacrifice. She would be with the woman she loved, and I would know she was happy. And…it would be enough. The rest of the organization could go to hell as long as my daughter was happy. They’d find someone else.”
Ward can’t help but smile. “You know, she loves Victoria. So…don’t worry about that, at least? She loves her. And Victoria loves her too. They’re happy together.”
“I know,” she says. “But. I let her go off on her own, to another country, another organization, another…another world. It might as well have been.”
She sighs and stares out the window, her eyes murky and listless. “And now she’s separated from me by yet another barrier.”
“But, you’re her mom,” Ward says. “She’ll want your help after this, right?”
“Oh, god, of course,” she sighs. “But it’s not the same. There will be a distance. She went into that mission a different woman than the one that came out. And all she will have to do is live with that for the rest of her life.”
Ward doesn’t start to cry until the tea is brought out and he takes a sip. He doesn’t even realize it until she scolds him, her voice quiet, “You’re going to salt your tea, boy.”
He puts it down with shaking hands and buries his face into them, trying to hide his tears. She hands him a napkin and he takes it, dabbing at them and shaking his head.
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes. “You can cry too, she’s your daughter. You have to love her and take care of her and I don’t have a reason to cry but I just, I…”
“I’d be shocked if you weren’t crying,” she says. “I’m glad you’re not crying in front of her. You waited and that’s good. She thinks the world of you. She’d never forgive herself if she made you cry.”
“Me? She talks about—about me?” Ward says, blinking in wide-eyed awe at her. She nods.
“Well, yes. I hear plenty about the whole team. But I hear more than usual about Victoria—and you. The little boy they adopted right out of prison,” she says with a chuckle. “Nick has a fondness for hard cases like yours.”
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Ward says. “…I was trying to, though.”
She doesn’t respond with absolute shock, like he expected. She just regards him.
“Why?” she asks. He bites his lip.
“Um,” he says, picking at his cuticles under the table, worrying the skin. She gives him a stern look and he stops, putting his hands on the table.
“I…my brother…my older brother. He was a bad person,” Ward explains. “He beat my baby brother and me. Sometimes my sister. But not so much, because she’s sick. But—but I just. I had to protect Dana and Rose. My father sent me away because I was causing the family trouble when I protected them, and now Maynard could do whatever he wanted to them. But one night, Dana called me at military academy…”
Ward rubs at his eyes. “He was crying. He was crying so hard it took him almost the whole call to stop. And he told me he was scared and he needed me to come get him.”
“So you went and got him,” she says.
“Well, he needed me,” Ward replies, matter-of-fact. “So I stole a car and I drove across the country for a few days and I came and got him. And I took him and Rose to Gramsy’s, but it wouldn’t…wouldn’t be enough to help him.”
Ward’s eyes are dull and dead, save for an eerie little spark of listlessness that gives Lian pause.
“Because they’d have to go back home eventually,” Ward explains. “They’d never be safe unless I made sure they didn’t have to go back home. So I had—I had to get rid of home. There was no other way. It wasn’t safe.”
“You were fifteen?” she says. Ward nods.
“Well. Almost,” he says. “I was in juvie for a month or so before John and Victoria came and got me.”
She mutters something in Cantonese he doesn’t translate before she puts her hand atop his. Her hand is warm, and it smells like jasmine. Almost Melinda, but not quite. Melinda’s skin smells like ashes now.
“You’ve always been like that, then,” she says. “Selfless and reckless. It’s a terrible combination. Full of love and power, but so vulnerable. My Melinda was the same. And this is the price she pays.”
She closes her eyes. “Don’t allow yourself to do this. She will handle her hurt. She will come out of this strong and brave and alive again. I have the utmost faith in my daughter. But if it happened to you…”
She looks at him over her tea and Ward feels like a child as he shifts beneath her gaze.
“This whole team would fall apart,” she says. “They need you. They would not survive without you. Don’t hurt her by taking her risks.”
Ward nods, wordless. He takes a sip of his tea and it sours in his throat.
“I love her so much,” he says. “If I stay safe, I’ll help her?”
“Don’t act like you’re hobbling yourself for her sake, she’ll never let you,” Lian advises. “Let it go unspoken. But yes. Be a little more cautious. Understand the weight you might carry if you don’t.”
He nods. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“I just figured we should clear a few things up before I drink my tea,” she says. “I like silence when I have my drink.”
He nods, sipping at his own in complete silence, giving her privacy to think by watching the cars trundle past outside.
“She should be waking up by now,” Lian says. “But I believe the others will want to see to her. Why don’t I take you back to the hospital and get your dog before we go home?”
“I promise he won’t shed on your car,” Ward says. “And—and yes. I need to—I need to go take of Trip and Sharon and Skye. Let the team handle Melinda. They know how.”
“There you go,” she praises him as she places a tip on the table. “Come on. Let’s go get your dog.”
Ward sits patiently in the car as she drives, watching the cars pass around them. He decides on that ten minute drive to the hospital that driving is all well and good, but sitting beside someone while they drove was even better. It felt nice to watch the world go by and trust the person next to him to get him where he needed to be.
He closes his eyes and realizes that there’s no longer any burning behind his eyelids. He hadn’t even realized it had been there until he noted its absence.
“It’ll stop for her someday too,” he says. “It has to.”
Lian doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t mind. He knows she wants the same thing.
Buddy sits on his lap for the whole ride home, patient and calm. Lian drops them both off in front of base and Ward pulls himself up to his full height.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he says. “For the tea. And the talk. And…and the everything.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. Ward nods.
“I—what…what’re you going to do now?” he says.
“Go back to her,” she says. “And after that? Whatever I can.”
Ward nods. “Okay. Then…then I’ll be here. Doing whatever I can, too.”
“I know you will,” she praises him. “Thank you for keeping me company today.”
“Oh! Um. You’re welcome, ma’am,” he says. “Thank you.”
She drives off and leaves Ward with Buddy, his tail wagging in slow, measured beats before he finally whines and slumps down at Ward’s feet.
“We have to do everything we can now, Buddy,” Ward says. “So…let’s go start, okay?”
Buddy harrumphs and chews a little on his shoe, but he follows Ward back inside.
Skye throws herself right into his arms before he has the breath in his lungs to shout for the others; Trip and Sharon aren’t far behind, and Ward’s arms open wider, expanding to enfold all of them into his embrace. Buddy herds them into his arms from behind, tail wagging.
“Okay,” Ward sighs. “Okay. I’m going to make dinner.”
“No,” he says. “I’m here to do whatever I can to help. That’s all. And it’ll have to be enough. Come on, come sit, let’s go get something to eat and put a movie on…”
Skye is crying. He can feel her tears soaking into his chest as she clings to him, but he waits until her tears are dry before he lets her go. She wipes her eyes and nods at him.
“Thank you,” she says. “Are you going to stay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. “You’re my responsibility now. Let the adults sort themselves out. Okay?”
Skye nods and takes his hand. “Okay. Thank you.”
He leads her down the hall and towards the rec room.
“Are they going to come home?” she asks as he sits her down on the couch. Buddy looks at him and Ward nods. He climbs into her lap and she hugs him tight.
“They’ll come home soon,” he promises. “Not much longer now. Just…let them get themselves together before they do. No use having them home if they’re just going to be grumpy, right?”
She manages a smile because he’s smiling. He’ll remember that. She’s happier when he is.
“Right,” she agrees. “Aren’t you going to be busy though? You’re an agent now.”
Ward shrugs and pulls out the silverware, going through knives. He takes one of Phil’s to cut the salmon in the fridge. It’s not the best knife for fish slicing, but he won’t touch Melinda’s.
“Then I guess you’re just going to be my mission for now,” he says. “Okay?”
Skye doesn’t reply. Ward has given up on any further conversation from her by the time she says, “Thank you.”
He just nods and goes back to dinner. Skye tucks herself under Trip’s arm as Sharon rubs her back, and the three of them stare at the mind-numbingly bright cartoon on television, letting the laugh track fill in for conversation.
…
The six of them wait outside Melinda’s hospital room and look at one another.
“You’re the Director,” Victoria says. “You go—you go in first. I’m not—“
“You’re her wife,” Nick says. “She’s going to want to see you.”
“We’re a team,” Phil protests. “Together or not at all. She shouldn’t think we’ve abandoned her.”
“This is fucking stupid,” John says. “She’s not fucking glass. She didn’t fucking break. She just needs us back and then we can—“
“It’s not,” Victoria says, “like that. This isn’t like—like she didn’t—this—she didn’t have a gun, John—“
“I know, I know,” John says. “Okay. Vic. Jesus. Don’t go to her like this.”
Victoria bites her lip and steels herself. “Right. Fuck. God, I can’t do this, I can’t…”
“Yes you can,” Nick says. “You first, Tori. It’s your right.”
“In sickness and in health,” she says. “For rich or for poor, for better or worse, until death do you part.”
“Those weren’t your vows,” Nick says. Victoria snorts.
“We didn’t have any,” she says. “We didn’t need them.”
She looks at the door like it’s going to give her an answer. “But now, I’d kind of…like to make a few.”
She nods at all of them. “Thank you. I’ll…let you know when you can come in.”
She opens the door and steels herself. She can’t look like she’s going off to war. This is her wife. This is the love of her life, for as long as she lives, and she intends to live a long fucking life.
But—but.
Victoria wipes her eyes, plasters on her smile, and steps through the door.
She closes it behind her and takes a seat beside Melinda’s bed.
“Ward was here,” Melinda says. She’s not looking at her. The ceiling, somehow, is more interesting than her wife beside her bed for the first time since she’d gotten to the hospital. Victoria bites back a rush of frustration that makes the space behind her eyes ache and nods.
“He was being treated,” she says. “Your mother took him for tea. I think she likes him.”
“She ought to. He’s a good boy. Polite and perceptive and empathetic. The kind of son she would have wanted to raise,” Melinda replies. “But instead she got me. Reckless, selfish, callous, fucking fool…”
“You are not,” Victoria says, and she is blindingly grateful her voice doesn’t shake. “You’re the best out of all of us. The kindest and the bravest and the strongest. You are a light in the darkness. For all of us. For everyone. For…for me.”
“Only because I’m burning,” Melinda says, closing her eyes. “Don’t you see it? It feels like it’s everywhere. Right beneath my skin, spreading…”
“Melinda,” Victoria says. “You are not a fire. You’re just—you’re just a person. A person who got hurt, hurt really bad, while I wasn’t there, and I couldn’t help, but—but don’t…don’t make this something it’s not.”
Melinda doesn’t respond. Victoria blinks back tears. “You don’t have to be a fire. You don’t have to burn. You were brave. And it hurt, but…but it’s okay. I don’t know. Fuck.”
She rubs her eyes. “I’m shit at this. This comforting thing. If you weren’t my wife, I’d—I’d let Phil do this, he’s the one who knows what to say. I’m just running my mouth off, and—“
“It’s okay,” Melinda says. “I missed your voice.”
Victoria purses her lips and nods. The tears in her eyes make it hard to see Melinda, but she can feel the love radiating from her as she sighs.
“Oh, god. Tori,” she says. “Tori, I feel like I’m burning. It’s not a metaphor. I’m just—I don’t…I don’t know how to explain it. But it’s physical. And it hurts, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Whatever you can,” Victoria says, and when she inhales, she sounds like she’s been socked in the gut. “God. I’ll be here—I’ll be here to help. I swear. Please. Sickness and health and better or worse, life and death…”
“That’s not how it goes,” Melinda says.
“How the fuck would you know? We didn’t even use those vows,” Victoria says. It’s supposed to be teasing, but her voice shakes too hard. Melinda smiles nonetheless, though it’s vague and ill-formed.
“You’re trying,” she says. “I love you for that. And a lot of other things. But I’m scared.”
“Why?” Victoria asks before she pauses, berating herself internally. Why wouldn’t she be scared after all that trauma and all that pain, all the burning—god damn it, she might as well throw her wedding ring into the fucking fire, she had no right—
“Because I don’t know if you’ll stop,” she says. “And I don’t know what will happen if you do.”
“Well, first off, I won’t,” Victoria says, her voice weak. “Trust me, yeah? You trusted me enough to give me this ring and tell me…tell me…what did you say? Back then on the beach? Back in Monaco, still in our field gear?”
Melinda closes her eyes and doesn’t respond. Victoria fists her hands into her slacks and tries not to show any panic on her face. She was just searching for the memory, she had a lot of them to go through…
“Forever,” Melinda replies. “I know.”
“Yeah,” Victoria says. “Then—then you have to remember I mean it too, okay? When I said forever I wasn’t fucking around. God, Mel. Please. I don’t know what to do but I’m going—I’m going to keep going. That’s all I can do. And I need to, for you.”
She takes her hands and squeezes them. “Okay? So don’t…don’t worry. I’m not going to leave. I swear. Don’t worry. I love you. I love you so much I can hardly stand it. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Melinda replies. “But I need to sleep. Can I sleep?”
“Can I stay?” Victoria asks. It sounds pathetic and pained, even to her ears. Melinda nods.
Victoria does. Even when Melinda screams, lapsing into Cantonese and thrashing in the sheets, nightmares lighting her nerves on fire as her entire body trembles with phantom pains. She waits, eyes open, taking in everything, waiting and watching and keeping the best vigil she can. She wasn’t there when Bahrain burned, but she’s going to sift through the ashes.
Melinda wakes after two hours of restless, agonizing sleep, and weeps. Victoria strokes tears from her face as she continues to sob, soft and keening.
“I’m so tired,” she says. “Oh my god. I just woke up. Tori, please, I’m so tired, but I can’t go back to sleep…”
“It’s okay,” Victoria says. “Just close your eyes, then. You can stay awake. And I’ll stay here. Close enough to touch.”
Melinda nods. Victoria doesn’t hear anything from her after that, but that means the screaming has stopped too, and so she is grateful.
After a few hours, Melinda opens her eyes again.
“It still burns,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s going to stop. I just want to come home.”
“You are home,” Victoria says.
“Not in my sleep,” Melinda replies.
Victoria strokes her hair, wordless. Melinda smiles a little, thin and pale.
“You like it? They had to cut it,” she says. “I lost all my little curls.”
“You look beautiful,” Victoria says, her voice fierce and thick with pain. “Fuck. You’re still gorgeous. Always. No one’s prettier.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Melinda says.
“It does to me,” Victoria says. “You’re still beautiful. You’re still my Melinda. You’re my everything. My wife. And I’m not—I’m not going to let a stupid haircut—“
Her shoulders shake, and a few tears slide down her face. She’s mouthing an apology that doesn’t quite make it past her tongue as Melinda watches her.
“I love you,” she says. “Sorry. Jesus. I’m okay. I’ve got you.”
[Grant Ward has his first Christmas with his family.]
[Everything is Awesome AU Masterpost]
--
Ward curls up under his covers, hugging himself tight as he shivers and shakes, biting his lower lip. Buddy noses underneath his blankets to lick and kiss his face, whining in panic. Ward snuggles closer, rubbing his puppy’s side.
“Ssh, don’t be scared,” he says. “It was just a nightmare, don’t worry about me. It wasn’t anything bad, Buddy. Just burning, just burning…”
Buddy paws at his chest, wagging his tail. Ward kisses his muzzle and stretches out, waking up slowly.
“I have to go to Tai Chi with Melinda now, baby,” Ward soothes him. “Come on, I’ll bring you to the rec room. John will give you kissies and treats while I’m gone.”
He hefts his puppy into his arms and kisses his muzzle again, walking down the hall barefoot and in pajamas, shivering at the cold. Buddy snuggles closer as Ward pushes the door open to the rec room, poking his head in.
A string of lights crowns his brow, and Ward blinks at the glow. Mariah Carey plays on max volume from the tiny radio nestled between the coffee machine and a plate piled high with gingerbread cookies.
“The puppy’s awake!” John says, lifting the lights from his brow to hang them above the door. “Hey, puppy. You feeling okay? Sleep well?”
Ward hugs Buddy close, curling his toes into the carpet. He shrugs, worrying at his lower lip. “I guess.”
John frowns, but he doesn’t push the issue. “Hey, puppy. You going to train with Mel? You should help hang up the lights first. Phil and Nick said we’ll go get a tree tonight, go look at the lights around here. There’s a nice community nearby, they usually put up some good stuff.”
“I—I’ve got work to do,” Ward says, putting Buddy down. “Please look after him.”
He bolts from the room and leaves John with the garlands in his hands, looking helplessly at his retreating back. Felix sighs and sets up the menorah.
“Almost the last day,” he says, mostly to himself as he checks the candles. “Dinner was nice last night. I brought home some latkes and applesauce for leftovers. John?”’
“Oh,” John says, blinking. “Right. Thanks, Fee. I’ll help you with that—“
“No, stop, I’ll do it,” Felix says. “You hang up whatever’s in your hands right now. Make me coffee?”
“Oh—yeah, sure,” John says. “How was the day off, Fee? We missed you.”
“Well, nothing was set on fire around here, so I’ll count that as a win,” Felix replies. “And it was good to go home. My mother was asking after you, actually.”
“Aw, Miriam,” John says fondly. “She’s a sweetheart, Fee.”
“To you,” Felix says, shrugging. “She wants me to feed you more. Says you’re not eating enough.”
“Mm,” John laughs. “You’d make a great housewife for anybody who married you, Fee.”
Felix laughs uncomfortably as John strings up the next strand of garland and plugs in another chain of lights. “I suppose, John.”
Victoria shuffles in with a grunt as John throws garland over her, shoving him aside. “It’s six in the morning, dick.”
“What, you didn’t get woken up by Mel’s fingers in your pussy? So sorry,” John says. Victoria gives him a filthy look.
“I wouldn’t be awake at all if you weren’t playing Christmas carols, asshole,” Victoria says as she sits at the table with a huff. Felix throws a blanket over her. Victoria makes a small content noise and Felix puts a mug of coffee in front of her.
“No, no, it’s a good thing, Vic, get your Louboutins on and help me decorate! It’s the puppy’s first Christmas,” John says. “We need to get our shit together and start decorating, we adopted him.”
“We all adopted him,” Felix reminds John firmly as Phil comes in with a full spice rack tucked under his arm like a case of artillery.
“Dogs don’t celebrate Christmas,” Victoria mumbles, sipping her coffee. John rolls his eyes.
“The boy, Vic, and I got a stocking for Buddy too, don’t let Ward hear that kind of talk,” John says. “Look, he’s been here for about six weeks, right?”
“Right,” Victoria says. “But that’s no reason to turn into Phil, John.”
“Hey!”
Victoria gives him a look, pointedly sizes up the spice rack and the bowls of cookie dough Phil is already setting out on the counter, and raises her eyebrows.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” John interrupts, “he’s been here for six weeks. He’s still mostly unresponsive to any overtures of kindness we make—and I get it, the kid’s been abused, I’m not expecting miracles. But I want him to feel wanted at Christmas. I want him to feel like we want him here, that he’s welcome and we’re excited to have him. He deserves to feel special. Even if he doesn’t feel entirely safe yet.”
There’s a silence. Phil mops at his eyes with the apron he’s hastily tied around his pajamas.
“Okay, so who took the real John? Come on, aliens? Definitely Skrulls,” Victoria says, frowning up at him. He makes a face at her. Phil sniffles.
“That was beautiful,” he says, his voice stuffed with tears. “Oh, John, don’t worry, we’ll find the best tree for him tonight, and we’ll make hot chocolate and bundle him up in the car and drive him around to look at lights—it’ll be perfect! It’ll be the best Christmas we can give him!”
John smiles, big and lazy and broad, his blue eyes sparkling as he leans in to grin at Phil. “Yeah, it will. Don’t worry about that, baby.”
Felix frowns, glancing away. “John. The coffee.”
“What? Right, yeah, sorry Fee, I promised,” John says, getting up and passing the next strand of lights off onto Victoria, who sighs, rolls her eyes, and gets up to start hanging them.
The rec room is quiet as everyone else shuffles in, Nick with the newspaper, passing it off to Phil who squeals in delight, settling in on the counter to read it as Nick pours himself a mug of coffee and Jasper starts his espresso machine, humming along with the whirr of the machine coming to life.
Melinda and Ward come in an hour later, and Buddy yaps in delight as he runs up to his master, licking his ankles before Ward bends down to scoop him up.
“Hi baby,” he says. “Did John look after you? I hope so.”
Buddy yips and licks his face, his tail wagging wildly as he covers Grant in kisses. Ward hugs him tight and looks carefully up at John, frowning.
“I took good care of him, baby,” John soothes him, his voice soft. “Don’t be scared. He’s safe and sound and so are you.”
Ward makes a quiet impatient noise and edges away from the team. John’s heart aches.
“Ward, we’ve got a plan today!” Phil cuts in brightly as John fiddles with his hands in silence. “We’re going to go out and look at holiday nights tonight, okay? We’re going out together, all of us! And we’re going to have a wonderful time, I promise. We’ll have our tree picked out, we’ll strap it to the roof of the car, it’ll be a great trip. I promise. Is your schedule clear?”
Ward opens his mouth to find an excuse and John cuts in quickly, “I already arranged your Christmas break with your tutors, puppy. You’ve got the rest of December off.”
Ward looks down at his feet, Buddy whining in his arms.
“But—but I’ve got work to do,” he says. “I have to stay busy.”
John lowers his head to look at Grant, a frown of concern marring his face and making his bright blue eyes dim. Ward looks away, shivering.
“No, puppy,” John says, keeping his voice gentle. “You don’t have to do anything but get settled and feel a little safer here at home with us. Your tutors will understand. And besides, they want time off with their families too. So don’t feel bad.”
He ruffles Ward’s hair and ignores how the boy flinches before covering it up quickly, squaring his shoulders and standing tall and proud above him. He sighs and gestures to the table. “Breakfast, puppy. You need to eat. We’ll discuss our outing tonight after you put some food in your stomach.”
“I don’t really know if I should,” Ward says, his voice tiny.
“You can,” John promises him. “Hey, for me? I want you to eat a whole plateful. And I know Buddy does too.”
There’s a pause. Ward fiddles with his wrists, looking down at Buddy. “Do I still have to go to the therapist’s over Christmas?”
“Not on Christmas, puppy, but if you need to talk to her, I have her phone number,” John says. “Okay?”
Ward nods. “Okay. Thank you.”
John nudges him into his seat and as he settles a plate in front of Ward, he looks less than a fluffy covering of down away from cooing and pushing the boy under his wings like a mother hen.
“You gonna settle on his eggs and keep them warm, John?” Victoria says, flipping through the television channels as Melinda pokes her head under Victoria’s arm, curling close with a cup of tea and a blanket.
“Fuck off, Vic,” John says. “You doing okay, Grant?”
“Fine, sir,” Ward replies through a mouthful of eggs, taking another hesitant bite of his bagel. John makes a face at Victoria, who makes a face in reply. Melinda just rolls her eyes.
“Don’t call me sir, puppy, I’m not a ‘sir,’” John says, “so you can just call me John, okay?”
Ward nods, but John’s had this fight with him before, and he doesn’t feel like picking it again so close to Christmas. It’s enough to know it’s not him the boy’s afraid of, most days, though every time he tries to get closer, that fact still chafes him.
Ward puts Buddy at his feet, and his puppy yaps softly before licking at Ward’s ankle and flopping down with a quiet whuff. Ward rubs behind his ear carefully, feeding him a crumbled bit of his bacon strip.
“So,” he says as he cradles his coffee in his hands, “what’s our plan for tonight?”
Phil takes a seat across from him, beaming, a notepad in his hands.
“Glad you asked,” he says. “So, we’re going to start with a trip to the little nursery about an hour from here to get ourselves the best Christmas tree we can find, then we’re going to grab the thermoses of hot chocolate and pile in the back while I take us around that nice lakefront community near here; they do great trees, Grant, you’ll love them. Everyone’s lights are gorgeous. We’ll take Buddy, even, if you want?”
“That’d be good, please,” Ward says quietly, mostly into his coffee mug. “If you want?”
“We’d all love to!” Phil promises. “I went out and bought you a personalized ornament a few weeks ago at this craft fair I went to. We’ll decorate the tree tonight after we light the menorah with Felix. Okay?”
“Oh my god, a craft fair,” Victoria mutters. Jasper snickers and Nick silences them both with a look. Jasper makes a crude gesture, nods at the two of them and they both dissolve into giggles again.
“Anyway,” Phil continues, pointedly ignoring them both, “we’ve all got one, and now you and Buddy have an ornament for our tree as well. Next year you can pick another one out on your own, okay?”
“Oh,” Ward murmurs. “Wow. Really?”
“Of course!” Phil says brightly. “We want you to feel safe here, Grant.”
“I’ll be here next year?” Ward says, mostly to himself. He blinks, looking down at his hands in a daze.
“You’ll be here every year, puppy,” John promises, keeping his voice quiet. Ward nods like he’s still in the middle of a dream.
“Oh,” he says. “Then…that’s nice. That sounds like fun. Thank you for the present, sir.”
“Phil, honey,” Phil reminds him, his voice gentle. “Do you have a coat? We should start getting dressed.”
There’s a pause. Ward looks down at his hands.
“No, sir,” he says, biting his lip. “Sorry, sir.”
There’s a ripple of concern that spreads around the team quickly, the seven of them gesturing and murmuring at one another as Ward looks at his hands. Buddy puts his hand on his knee for comfort.
“We could go get him a jacket. Let’s go buy the puppy a winter coat, right now,” John says. “We’ll buy him one of those nice ones at Bloomie’s, the ‘price upon request’ ones. They’re warm, yeah?”
“Bloomingdales is going to be packed,” Victoria says with a frown. “And traffic into DC is going to be a fucking nightmare.”
“Right, yeah, fair,” John says. “Okay, but let’s see—“
“Please don’t,” Ward murmurs, his voice soft, “please don’t worry, don’t spend money on me, John—“
There’s debates about the jacket raging all around him until John gets an idea, leaving the room in a rush. Ward doesn’t move a muscle until John comes back with his leather jacket and proudly slings it around Ward’s shoulders.
“Undershirt and a Henley, he’ll be fine,” John says. “Go get dressed, puppy.”
Ward hugs the jacket even as a horrified look crosses his face. “I can’t wear this!”
“Yes, you can,” John says firmly. “You need to stay warm. That’s an order.”
He feels guilty for giving it, but it’s the only thing that makes Ward put on the jacket.
“Thank you,” Ward mumbles, pushing his face into the leather sleeves and inhaling slowly. “This is so soft!”
“It should be,” John says. “Hey, go get bundled up. You’ve got mittens? Scarf? Hat?”
“Um,” Ward says.
“Hey, relax, we’ll dig up some stuff from our stashes, it’s okay,” John promises him. “Go, scoot, get dressed. I know you’ve got boots, so wear two pairs of socks, okay?”
“Yeah,” Ward says with a firm nod. “Okay.”
He leaves the room and the team splits up, heading to their own rooms to get dressed and grab clothes for Ward. Fifteen minutes later, everything is laid out for the night, and work resumes as normal until the afternoon. Ward sits in the rec room with Felix filling out paperwork next to him, reading from his textbooks and going over Russian verbs with Felix.
By the time the sky is starting to glow with the promise of a sunset, the rest of the team has arrived, and Phil immediately sets out to making hot chocolate, setting up a double boiler on three stovetops.
“Hey, I want to make actual hot chocolate, save a stovetop,” Jasper says, coming up behind Phil with a string of chili peppers.
“Jasper, the only person who’s going to drink that is you and maybe Tori, do you have to take up precious stovespace—“
“I’ll have some,” Ward pipes up quietly, and Phil steps aside to allow Jasper room at the counter without a word.
For an hour, things are quiet and Phil cooks with a satisfied little hum, pressing small chunks of semi sweet chocolate into the double boiler. Jasper slices chili peppers and adds the juice from the crushed pieces to the dark chocolate melting in his pan. Ward throws a ball for Buddy to chase around the rec room, getting him tuckered out.
Another fifteen minutes of frantic pouring into thermoses and people tugging on boots, and before Ward can ask if they really have to go, this is a waste of time and effort on him, he’s bundled into the back of the van wearing Phil’s hat, John’s jacket, Tori’s bright pink scarf, Nick’s leather gloves, and a pair of Melinda’s earmuffs. Felix sits next to him in the back as Buddy lies on Ward’s lap, quiet and patient.
“He’s a good boy,” Felix praises Buddy, rubbing behind his ear. Buddy wags his tail in recognition before licking Ward’s hand. “Awfully well behaved for a puppy making his first trip in the car. With John driving and everything.”
“Oh, he’s been in the car before,” Ward says. “Anyway, I just…told him we’d be going for a drive. And he listened. Buddy’s such a good listener.”
Felix blinks. There’s a pause in the car. Phil turns down the Christmas carols blaring on the stereo.
“Do you…talk to him, Grant?” Felix says carefully. “In a way that he listens and understands?”
“What? Oh, yes,” Grant replies. “Of course he listens. He’s my puppy!”
There’s another pause. Felix can feel the headache at his temples, pounding ominously.
“Can you do that with other animals, Grant?” John asks. “Or is it just Buddy?”
“No, I can do it with a lot of animals. But we never owned pets when I was a kid, because dad was out campaigning a lot. The birds on the lawn didn’t have much to say, either,” Ward explains. “Dogs are easy and fun to talk to. They’re just…very loving babies.”
There’s a silence in the car again. Ward hugs Buddy close, a frown on his face.
“Well,” Felix sighs, “kid’s a gifted. Merry Christmas to me.”
“Yeah, that paperwork’s your problem, Fee,” John says.
“We can’t register him, we’re not putting him at any danger of exposure!” Felix snaps, immediately bristling. “If anyone finds him through that database, we might not be able to keep him!”
Panic sears Ward’s heart immediately. He clutches Buddy tighter as a ripple of concern spreads through the team.
“Please,” Ward begs, “please don’t send me away? Phil bought—Phil bought me an ornament. And he said—he said he’d get me another one next year!”
John gestures at Phil to pull over, climbing into the back with Ward and taking his hands. Ward shakes under his grip, looking up at John with big eyes full of tears. John hushes him.
“No one’s sending you away, puppy,” John says. “We’ll figure this out later. For now, let’s get our tree, hey?”
Ward nods, rubbing at his eyes. “Okay. Sorry I whined.”
“No, Grant, ssh,” John soothed him. “Ssh, we love you so, so much. You got worried. But there’s no need to worry, hey? You’re just special.”
Ward nods, wiping at his eyes. “But we won’t get Felix in trouble?”
“What? Nah,” John says. “Don’t worry, puppy. Fee has dealt with a lot worse crap than one tiny gifted puppy. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Ward mumbles. “Still—Felix? You’re not going to get in trouble?”
Felix sighs. “No, Grant. I won’t get in trouble. But—“
“Tree,” John says firmly. “No more worrying. We’re almost there.”
He shifts and grunts, pushing himself up to move up front. Ward grabs his hand before he can think to stop himself. “Wait! Please stay?”
John pauses for a second before he grins, big and broad. “Yeah, sure puppy. Felix, scoot over.”
Felix makes space for John beside Ward, but he can feel the other man’s thigh warm on his the whole ride home regardless.
…
Ward pokes his head around the enormous expanse of a pine tree, his breath puffing hot steam into the cold air as he looks up at Phil.
“This one is really big,” he says. “Is it enough?”
“No, not wide enough. There’s eight of us now, with you—and nine if we count Buddy,” Phil adds.
“We’re counting Buddy,” Ward says firmly. Phil smiles.
“Okay. Then we need a wide base around the tree to fit all those presents, right?” Phil says.
Ward wilts, clutching the pine branches. “You don’t have to get me that much.”
“Nonsense. Ooh, there’s one over there I like!” Phil says, bolting off. “Grant, come on!”
Grant hangs back, watching the whole team go over rows and rows of trees before he picks up Buddy, putting him in his jacket. “Come on, puppy. Maybe we should go look.”
His family had always gotten a huge tree for the Christmas photo ops, but this was different. This had to be different. It was going to be full of presents for everyone, and no one would have to open presents in their room and hide away during dinner. It was going to be perfect.
He walks all the way into the back rows, poking his head through the trees until he bumps into one, turning around to pull pine needles out of his hat.
Ward looks up at the big, bushy tree that towers over him and smiles. “Okay. This could work.”
Phil grabs onto Nick’s arm and sighs, leaning his head on his shoulder. “This is such a nice trip. Even if we don’t find the perfect tree, I’m so glad we came.”
“I am too,” Nick promises him, kissing his forehead. “You and John are doing right by this boy. That’s a good thing, Phil.”
Phil nuzzles him and lets Nick kiss him lightly on the mouth before a rustling from behind them jolts the couple out of their moment. Ward is standing behind them, beaming, dragging a tree by the top underneath his arm. Buddy yaps, wagging his tail.
“I found one!” Ward says. “And I think it’s perfect!”
The trio prop it up and Phil examines it with a hum. “Hmm. Perfectly symmetrical, that’s good. Oh, and it smells lovely! Is that a seven footer? Nick, can we fit a seven footer in the rec room?”
“What? We should be able to,” Nick says. “Bring everyone else over to take a look.”
Phil makes a little impatient noise. “God, they’re not going to know if it can handle popcorn strings, those are delicate—“
“I like it,” Victoria says from behind him, using his head as an armrest as she peers at it. “It’s taller than me. You don’t get a lot of trees like those.”
“The puppy found it,” Phil says, beaming. “Isn’t it perfect?”
“You found this, Grant? Good eye,” Jasper praises him. “Phil’s excited, so it’s got to be good.”
“Oh, it was in the back…I guess no one went back that far,” Ward says with a little frown. “But I think it’s ours now. Is it ours?”
“Well, if everyone agrees,” Phil says in the sort of tone that implies he’d fight anyone who didn’t.
“Sure, let him have this,” Victoria says with a shrug.
“You picked a good tree, Grant,” Melinda tells him, and Ward blushes bright pink as his scarf, smiling shyly into its folds.
“Thank you, Melinda,” Ward says, his voice soft. “Wow. I’m so glad you like it. John! John, Melinda likes the tree I found!”
John comes up out of the rows of trees, looking up at the one in front of them and blinking. “Huh. That right? It’s a good tree, puppy. You did a good job.”
He claps Ward gently on the shoulder. “Let’s go get it wrapped up. Phil, get the van, we’ll need to throw this on top of the roof!”
It takes twenty minutes, but eventually, the team has the tree firmly strapped to the roof and Ward is bundled into the back of the van again with Buddy as Phil pulls out of the lot and towards home. The back seats have been pushed down, so the entire floor is open to sit on, and Ward watches John open a hatch in the floor and pull out pillows and blankets, passing them around.
“We gotta do stakeouts and long trips in this thing, we’re prepared,” John says as he meets Ward’s wondering gaze. “Here, Miriam knit you a blanket.”
“Miriam?” Ward says, blinking. Felix sighs, passing him the thick grey and red blanket, wrapping him up in it as John throws a pillow his way.
“My mother,” he says by way of explanation. “Everyone on the team gets a sweater, a tin of fudge, and a blanket. You’ll get your sweater for Christmas, John insisted.”
“Oh,” Ward says. “Wow, um…thank you? Thank you so much.”
“You’re part of the team,” Felix says. “And she’s thrilled John adopted. He’s taking responsibility.”
John makes a face at him and Felix makes a face back. Grant laughs, Buddy whuffing softly on his lap. The team settles in and Ward sighs in pleasure, pushing his face into the soft blanket.
“You’re going to love the lights, Grant, I promise,” Phil gushes, beaming. “They’re gorgeous!”
“I believe you,” Ward promises Phil as they trundle along, snuggling into his jacket. “Really, I do.”
The drive is slow and Phil stops for fast food on the way to go with their hot chocolate. Ward doesn’t eat any of it, it makes him sick, but he breathes in the smell and smiles.
It’s a long drive, but when Phil pulls into the neighborhood, Ward sits up with wide eyes to look at the holiday lights throwing colors along his face.
“Wow!” he gushes as Phil takes a right along a street lined with bright, twinkling lights. “Oh, Phil, it looks amazing!”
“Doesn’t it? I love it. My gran and I used to do this when I was a kid, we’d go walking around and look at lights,” Phil says. “Come on, there’s a tree on display in the center of town.”
Ward nods, leaning his cheek against the window as he has a sip of his hot chocolate. The spiciness takes away from some of the rich, lush feeling, and he can have more than one sip without wanting to puke. Even so, it fills him with a drowsiness that soothes his muscles and his mind, and he takes another sip with a sigh as he watches the lights twinkle.
He remembers something like this; close, but not quite. The back of Gramsy’s car, warm and safe and smelling faintly of lavender and peppermint for the holidays, Dana on his lap and peeking out over the window at the lights. They shone on his blond curls, making him glimmer in every color of the rainbow. When he had smiled, it had been brighter than starlight.
He had been happy on Christmas, before. But it was like snow in the early days of winter; it never lasted.
The lights grow hazy and dim in his vision, and Ward reaches out to touch them as they soften. They look like stars that have come to rest on the ground, dreamy and misty in his blurred vision. He wants to open his mouth, to call for Dana and Rose to come look, the lights have turned to stars, but if he does call their names, they don’t respond. He opens his mouth to shout again, louder, but there is only silence.
John leans over carefully and lifts the thermos of hot chocolate from his slack grip, adjusting the blanket over him. His eyes are warm and fond as he gestures for Phil to turn around and head home.
“Puppy fell asleep,” John says with a smile. “Poor kid must’ve been so worn out. All the excitement got to him, huh?”
“Well, he’s been awake since five, and it’s nine,” Melinda says as Phil heads for him. John nods.
“True,” he says. “Let him sleep. He’ll wake up bright and early for presents tomorrow, and we’ll all be there with him.”
Ward stirs in his sleep when John goes to get up and move, turning towards him. John pauses and smiles, big and genuine. “Yeah, okay. I’m staying, puppy.”
When they pull up, John carries him inside with Buddy trotting at their heels and puts him on the pull-out couch in the rec room. Ward barely stirs, except to snuggle closer.
He wakes up eight hours later, warm and safe and smelling faintly of sugar cookies. He sniffs the air again and blinks, rubbing at his eyes. He blinks again, refocusing his vision, and his eyes fall on the clock. His chest seizes up and he scrambles to a sitting position.
“Oh, wait! Did I sleep through Christmas? We were supposed to decorate, I’m sorry, I ruined everything—“
“Grant, hush,” Phil says, bustling over and placing a mug of coffee in his lap. “Good morning, puppy. Merry Christmas. I decorated the tree for you. That’s what my grandmother did for me when I was young. Don’t fuss, ssh. You’re not in trouble. That’s just my tradition.”
“But—but my ornament—“ Ward says, before glancing away, frowning. “Sorry, it’s dumb—“
“No, it’s not. Come here, you can come look. Would you like to see everyone else’s ornaments too?” Phil asks. Ward nods. Buddy’s tail is going a mile a minute as he licks Ward’s hand, squirming in delight as Ward gets off the couch, trailing after Phil, his mug steaming in his hands.
He looks over the glimmering ceramic ornaments; heels and purses and guns for Victoria, a small jade dragon and a gleaming gilded lily for Melinda, a tiny Star of David for Felix, nestled next to a Texas ornament. Jasper has a bull covered in poinsettia flowers and Phil has a tiny lamb covered in holiday lights, all hanging amidst baubles and stars and snowflakes, strung up alongside popcorn that still smelled buttery and fresh, and tinsel that criss-crossed the tree and gleamed in all the colors of the rainbow.
Ward takes in a breath slowly and stares in wonder at the tree. He pauses for a second before he laughs, big and sweet. “Is that Labrador for me? Or for Buddy?”
“No, it’s yours—your name’s on it, see? On the side,” Phil says, tilting it so he can take a look. “There’s yours, Buddy. Right at puppy height. It’s a bone.”
Buddy noses it and beams, panting. Ward smiles. “Thank you. It’s—it’s a wonderful gift.”
“It’s not your only gift, but we’re not opening anything until after breakfast,” Phil says. “Come sit.”
“I—I have to exercise,” Ward says. “I fell asleep last night, didn’t I? I’m late—“
“I’m not doing Tai Chi today, Grant,” Melinda says, stretching out and yawning. “So you don’t have to, either. Give yourself a break for Christmas.”
“Oh, but—but—“
“Please?” she says, and he clamps his mouth shut immediately. John stretches out and yawns.
“There you go, work your magic, Mel,” John yawns. “Puppy’s awake? Merry Christmas, puppy. Check under the tree.”
“Not until after breakfast!” Phil blusters. “Buddy, put that antler down, now!”
“You got him an antler?” Ward laughs. “Do you like it, boy?”
Buddy wags his tail and whines. Ward nods. “No, I know. Come on, we’ll open everything after breakfast.”
Buddy trots after him as the team stirs and yawns, getting up in degrees. Phil already has piping hot plates of pancakes out, eggs glistening with fat yellow yolks and entire hanks of bacon cooked anywhere from squishy-soft and shiny with fat to crispy and almost brown.
“Oh,” Ward says. “Wow, Phil.”
“You did great,” Nick says, kissing him lightly on the mouth. “Merry Christmas, baby. Sit and eat something.”
“I can’t, I’ve got dinner to start—“
“Sit,” Nick says firmly, putting him in his seat and rubbing his shoulders. “I’ll baste the turkey. You eat some breakfast first. You decorated the tree and put breakfast together, I can do that much.”
Phil grumbles, but he lets Nick do it as Ward has a seat at the table, sandwiched between John and Victoria. Victoria cradles a cup of coffee, yawning.
“Merry Christmas, pup,” she says, having a sip. “I’m glad we adopted you. You make a good gift for all of us.”
John’s smile is dazzling as he sets plates down in front of Ward and Victoria, grabbing himself a veritable meat bouquet of bacon, taking two pieces at a time into his mouth. “Absolutely, puppy. You’ve got to see what we got you, Miriam sent her gifts in and I told my mother about you, so she mailed something—dunno what she got, but you’re set, I promise.”
“You didn’t have to—“
“The spirit of the season is giving,” John says firmly. “Eat.”
Ward feeds a piece of bacon to Buddy, but other than that, he eats his whole plate and drinks his coffee with the adults before Victoria stands up.
“Okay, this farce has gone on long enough,” she says. “Presents. Now, Phil.”
“Okay, okay! Jesus,” Phil says. “Buddy already opened one of his.”
“He’s a dog, he got excited,” Ward defends him. “Buddy, let’s go see what’s in your stocking!”
The team stops to watch both boy and dog tear into their presents, Ward gently unwrapping everything Buddy gets his teeth in; plushies with squeakers and pig’s ears and deer antlers to gnaw on and booties for walking and a brand new leash. Buddy’s tail is wagging so hard he tumbles into Ward’s lap.
“Remember your presents, kiddo,” John says, getting up and putting the first box into Ward’s hands. Ward bites his lip.
“John, I can’t…I can’t accept this,” he mumbles. “Please…”
“No, you can,” John says firmly. “These are your presents. This is your home. We are your family. And all we want is for you to be happy.”
“John,” Ward says, “I already am.”
John nods. There’s a pause before he hugs Ward tight, so tight all the air leaves his lungs in a laugh as he wraps his arms around John tight.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” John tells him. “Come on, puppy. Let’s see what you got.”
Ward smiles and settles in among his family, opening his first present. He looks up as he lifts off the bow, glancing up at the tree.
In the dim morning, all the lights glow like stars.
I just read all of your everything is awesome au in one night and can I just say that your au is now canon for me? the show is just one messed up au of your amazing fic. :)
the show is the darkest timeline
i am the only canon i need frankly
also holy crap you read all of it in one night? congratulations! i really, really hope you enjoyed it. :)
[Nick Fury plays for small victories. Grant Ward goes home.]
[Everything is Awesome AU masterpost]
—
Ward cleans the house as best as he can the day before Nick calls him and tells him he’s coming home; he avoids Victoria’s room entirely, because one look at it told him he couldn’t do anything to help her on that front. So he straightened up the rooms he used and ran a duster over the ones he didn’t. Buddy ran around in the fields, chasing after rabbits and a fox or two.
Ward has a quiet dinner that night and looks at the phone. The urge to call John is immense. Just to tell him he’s safe and he’s not mad, not at all, he doesn’t blame him or anything, and if their positions had been switched, he probably would have cried too.
He sighs and hugs his knees to his chest. He knows why that’s a horrendously awful idea, but he does love him. And misses him, dearly. He misses everyone; he misses his family, he misses dinners together, he misses home. But he misses John so much.
Buddy barks at the door to be let in. Ward comes and gets him, settling on the couch and turning on the news. He watches the BBC for a few hours, rubbing behind Buddy’s ears. After the news was over, he watched some reruns of Doctor Who; when that was over, Ward sighs and gets up.
“We should go to bed,” he says. “Bud? You don’t think they’ve left me here, right? Like…no one forgot I was here, right?”
Buddy barks at him. Ward frowns. “I know they love me, but I’m a whole other country away. It could happen.”
And maybe that’s the plan, Ward thinks, his chest tight with fear as he stands in the shower and scrubs himself off. Maybe Nick wants John to forget him. Maybe John’s not going to remember him when he comes home so that he won’t cry anymore.
Ward closes his eyes and squares his shoulders, scrubbing himself sternly, the cloth scraping over his skin. No. John won’t forget him. But even if he does, he has to be strong about it. Because he knows how much it would hurt John if he wasn’t.
Ward washes himself clean and climbs into bed, laying down and closing his eyes, sighing in pleasure. Buddy hops up onto the bed and settles next to him with a few pleased tailwags as he circles and settles in, a doughnut of a dog that fits directly against Ward’s stomach. Ward smiles and rubs behind his ears.
“I’ll always have you,” he mumbles, sleep already heavy on his eyelids. “You’re not going to forget me, Bud. Never.”
Buddy licks his face and Ward smiles, one last time before he settles in.
His dreams are vague things that night; all he’s aware of when he wakes up is that he’d had a funeral, but he couldn’t remember who it was for or why.
He sighs and gets out of bed, running a comb through his hair before he tenses up. He can hear the phone going off downstairs.
He makes his way down the staircase, Buddy trotting behind, and picks up the phone. “Hi?”
“Hey, Grant. I think John got the message. Ready to come home?”
“Oh, please,” Ward says with a smile. “This was a nice vacation, but I miss you. Tell Tori I dusted?”
“Jesus. I will, I will. See you in seven hours.”
Ward nods and hangs up, turning to Buddy with a huge, relieved smile on his face.
“They didn’t forget,” he says with a sigh of pleasure. “They remembered me. Oh thank god, they remembered me.”
Buddy barks and nudges his shin with his nose, as if to say ‘I told you so.’ Ward just smiles and rubs lightly behind his ear. “Good boy. I love you so much. Let’s go make breakfast, okay?”
He looks down. “Um. After I put on some pants.”
…
Nick comes to get Ward and has to fight back a laugh; it’ll only confuse him. But the sight of Ward sitting patiently atop his suitcase with Buddy, practically vibrating with the need to come home, is more endearing than it has a right to be.
“Hi,” Ward says. “Hi, Nick. I didn’t ruin your schedule or anything?”
“No, no, don’t worry about that,” Nick says. “You’re fine. I wouldn’t have come to get you if I thought you’d be worried about it.”
“Sorry,” Ward says. Nick sighs.
“The whole point is, don’t be,” Nick tells him. “You’re part of my schedule. I have things to do, yeah, but you’re not detracting from them. Especially since you’re the one who helped me out by doing this.”
“Me? Really?” Ward says, helping Buddy into his crate and giving him a treat to worry while he lays down on his bed. “Oh. Thank you. I’m glad.”
“It’s a good thing to give him some space,” Nick says. “Don’t beat yourself up over how he reacts when we get back. You’re not the one he’s going to be mad at.”
“But he shouldn’t be mad at you,” Ward protests. Nick makes a face.
“I told him you were overseas on an actual mission, so he’s going to be,” Nick says as he helps Ward load his things into the plane. Ward is wide eyed as he sits into the cockpit next to him. “He punched me in the face for that one. Finding out I lied to him about the whole thing? Jesus.”
“He’ll be okay,” Ward says. “He shouldn’t have—“
“He was angry,” Nick says, “and he wasn’t thinking. He thought you were in danger and he hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye to you. It made him rethink his position a little.”
“That’s manipulative,” Ward says. To his surprise, Nick laughs.
“It is,” he agrees. “I won’t deny that I’m manipulating him. And I’m sure as soon as you come home that’s exactly what he’s going to accuse me of. But he’ll be right. It’s just that he needed it. John needed the push, so I gave it.”
Nick sighs. “Sometimes as Director, that’s what I have to do; look at the situation, all the pieces on the gameboard, and decide which ones I want to leave alone and which ones I want to play.”
“What’s your end goal, then?” Ward asks, looking away to think, his fingers drumming idly on his leg as he curls up on the seat. “Every game has a way to win.”
“Not this one,” Nick says. “Not completely. But there are little victories. Those are what I’m looking for. They’re all I can have. So if John can be your superior officer and stop being so damn scared that you’re going to up and die on him…then I’m good. That’s my victory. And John will forgive me after you’re home safe.”
He gestures to Ward. “So, you’re the last loose end. Are you angry I manipulated him?”
“No,” Ward says. “I don’t know. I mean…it’s not a good thing to do. But John wasn’t in a good place, so you helped him, but…not in a good way? So I just feel…kind of grey about the whole thing.”
“Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Nick says. “That’s what we do. So now at least you understand.”
Ward nods. “Okay. Then…that’s good. I think.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I can’t tell, but I know I’m not mad at you.”
“That’s enough, then,” Nick says, a quiet rumbling laugh leaving his throat when Ward hums with satisfaction.
…
“Where’d Nick go?” Phil says, pacing the room and looking about worriedly, like one of the file cabinets might hold his husband, or that he might be hiding beneath the briefing room’s table.
“He had something to take care of,” Victoria says. “He’ll be home in a few hours. I guess we’re just supposed to go meet with Hill on our own.”
“Probably,” Phil agrees. “We’re needed someplace urgently, though. You think he’ll get back in time?”
“You know where?” Melinda asks. Phil shrugs.
“Little place called Bahrain,” he says. “We’ll go when he comes back. But I really, really hope he hurries.”
“What’s the issue?” Melinda asks.
“Not volatile,” Phil says. “Unregistered gifted. Something simple. But we need to keep it secret, so we’re going.”
Melinda nods and sits down at the briefing table. The whole team waits there, tossing paper footballs around and reading through old mission reports. John remembers enough to fill in the details, reminiscing and embellishing, Victoria chiming in every so often with an addendum.
Night falls and Melinda checks her watch. “Jesus. I should start dinner, I have some salmon I wanted to work with tonight.”
“Okay, then…I guess we can head back to the rec room,” Phil says. “It’s late.”
The team gets up and leaves the building, making their way across the green as the dull roar of a plane flies overhead. Phil grimaces.
“That is way too loud for this time of night,” he says. “Wonder what they’re dropping in for?”
The plane lands along the airstrip on base, and from a few hundred feet away, Phil can hear the sound of barking.
John drops the mission files he’d been holding, staring at the plane with wide eyes. Phil watches the hold, hopeful, as the door opens and Nick leaves the plane, adjusting his coat. He beams in relief.
“Nick!” he cries from across the field. “Nick!”
Nick waves to acknowledge that he’s heard, too far away to shout back. John doesn’t see him, doesn’t see anything but the figure of Ward on the steps, carrying his suitcase, hair tousled with sleep, but whole and alive.
“My son!” John cries without thinking, before he considers Ward might hear him, might reject the term; he bolts across the field and Ward’s entire face lights up in a smile, opening his arms and getting caught up in John’s embrace like a tidal wave.
“Oh my god,” John says, clinging to him as tight as he can, his fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt like he’s afraid Ward’s going to unravel right in front of him. “Oh my god, Ward, oh my god, you’re home, oh god, you’re safe, you’re safe, I was so worried, you’re alive, oh god, I’m here, it’s okay, I’m sorry—“
“John—“
“I treated you like shit and I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let my worries get the better of me, I love you so much, I do, I really do, I just wanted to keep you safe but I have to trust you too, I know you need to grow and learn and I’m going to let you, I’m going to help you, I’m so sorry—“
“John, wait—“
“I really do love you,” John says, pressing kisses across his forehead before he goes back to hugging him tight. “I’m sorry, I got scared. I didn’t want you to die, but I have to believe in you more than that. I’m so sorry, Ward. Please forgive me.”
“John,” Ward says. “I was fine. I was in Vic’s mansion in Cambridge for the weekend so you could get yourself together. Nick wanted you to think I was in danger for…I don’t know, reasons?”
John is quiet. For a second, Ward panics.
“Am I in trouble?” he whispers.
“No baby, no,” John soothes him, kissing his forehead again. “I’m just going to punch Nick right in the face.”
He ruffles Ward’s hair. “Also, congrats, I’m your superior officer now, so I’m going to be here for you. I promise. Even when it’s hard or painful. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
“Okay,” Ward says, blinking back tears. “Okay. I love you so much. Thank you.”
John hugs him tight. “Come on. I need to go punch Nick and then we need to go have dinner.”
He throws his arm around Ward, Buddy barking with delight around their feet, and the three of them walk back together, towards the light of home.
