Chapter Text
He was brutal, absolutely brutal.
In every way a person could be.
He hissed and demeaned, his hands had become so equipped to contributing in the breaking of bones, in the strangling of necks and the holding of a gun that it was difficult imagining him putting them to any sort of alternative, gentle use.
What were else were hands good for but offense?
And when you thought about it, you were sure that he had come to the same conclusion.
Until he had met you, and you had found some way to soften the hard edges he had designed around his heart.
V
It was so reflexive, holding up his gun, ready to shoot.
But ready to shoot at you?
Garrett’s words resided in the back of his head, always, ready to conjured up whenever he felt … other things. Other things that conflicted with what he had been taught at the hands of the man. Ward wore those words like a second skin, surrounding him whenever he doubted, he felt.
And he needed those words more now than ever before.
“I can’t trust you, (Y/n),” he muttered, soft enough for you to hear, hard enough to let you know he meant it. “I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. How can I trust you now?”
You had your hands up, face inscrutable in its serenity.
Still … still Ward’s eyes flickered to your fingers, and how they belied your calm with their trembling.
“Are you afraid of me, (Y/n)?” Ward said, even quieter than before. “Do you have something to be afraid of, is that why you’re shaking?”
“I’m not going to pretend,” You said, “that your anger doesn’t scare me, Ward.”
Ward didn’t move, not even as you dared to take a step closer.
“But I can see your agony,” You continued, "and all I want to do is soothe it. Soothe you. Please, Ward, we’re not enemies and we never will be …”
“There will always be enemies —!”
“But none of them will be me,” You fought back, voice as intimately quiet as his own. “God, Ward, I swear, not me. Never me.”
Your chest came to press against the end of the gun, as though a dare to him to see if he would. Would he? Your eyes were meeting his, unabashed and unyielding. Ward loosened his grip on the gun and lowered it as your hands crept to his face, and Garrett’s words became so much like whispers, weak and fading in the light of your hands on him, like the dying lyrics at the climax of a song.
V
He remembered.
You had shown him kindness, patience, compassion, mercy. It was all nonsense to Ward, all fairy-tales and useless in the face of the kind of lives the two of you led, and those the two of you lived with. You had … had saved him. It only occurred to him so suddenly. Knocked out a man who had attempted to drown him, and he — he, Ward, could have turned around and drowned you afterward. Ward believed it was his shock that stopped him from doing exactly that, but it was a half-truth, like everything else about him.
“Why?” he asked, breathless, moments after you had drug him to land.
His question required no specification. You were as drenched as he was, your hair stuck to your wet face, your chest rising and falling with each you tried to reclaim. “Love, Ward. Don’t be so thick.”
Ward searched you with his eyes, distrustful and incredulous. “You trying to say you love me?”
“I’m saying,” You began, “that when you love someone, you try. No matter how much they’ve hurt you, or just plain irritated you. You qualify on both accounts.”
Your words were cryptic, but your eyes, once they met his, most certainly were not.
Quiet. Quiet for a long time. Moments stretched on, and once all the breath was back in Ward’s lungs, he asked, “So, what do you want?”
Your lip curved in a sort of half-smile, as though you had lost the energy for it way through. “Nothing. Be happy.”
“What?” Ward said, frowning in confusion. “Come on, be serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack, Ward,” You said. “I want nothing.”
And he had waited after that, distrusting of you and your so-called claim of wanting nothing but his happiness. He waited for you to give in, to make use of his debt to you, to confess to your agenda — because everybody had an angle, right?
No way did you love him. No way — after everything he’d done, to you, to the team?
So he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was … it wasn’t possible, was it?
Who … who would want him now?
You reached you hand out for his heart, and it wasn’t to rip it from his chest and crush it with your fist.
Then what?
V
It was an obsession with you after that. Feverish, an addiction. He didn’t understand your conditional love for him, but he needed it, craved it like a parched man craved water. Poets had always been so laughable to him, in the way that they had equated love to a burning, a desire to conquer all others, but now it was anything but funny, it was his reality.
Now, it was even more humorous, he thought, with his head in your lap and a fireplace roaring by his side, like a mirror reflecting his inner world, but not now, while he is against you and he can feel you soothing his hair back, bringing pleasure to tight nerves.
His eyes are closed, and he felt you lean down to kiss him — they brushed over his own first, heating them with shared breath, before sealing over them entirely.
His hand busied themselves getting lost in your hair, feel a weight on his heart lift with your touch.
Bliss, bliss, bliss in an otherwise ugly world that had offered him not a moment of it.
V
The both of you would have to leave in the morning. SHIELD was relentless and wanted Ward’s head on a stick, and you were supposed to as well.
So why were you kissing him? Thinking nothing of violence?
Your hands cupped his face as you deepened the upside-down kiss. You felt Ward’s tongue, eager for you, probing against your parted lips and encouraged him forward with your own. His hands reached up and began to tug at your shirt, peeling it up. You took the signal and disregarded it, throwing it elsewhere. Ward rose and toppled you, smashing his lips against yours for a second time with a soft groan. He laid nearly flat against you, his body separating your legs, now squeezed against his sides in anticipation.
The heat was uncomfortable due to the fire. You felt Ward’s hand unhook your bra hastily and you shed it, throwing your head back when he dipped his head to explore your breasts. He sucked a nipple into his mouth, tickling it with hint of teeth and you arched into him, brushing against his crotch. You heard him give a growl and, with a smirk, did it again.
“You’re asking for it …” he hissed, lust laced with every word.
“I’m driving you nuts,” You said triumphantly.
He didn’t disagree with you, and you smirked wider — his way of letting you have the power. Ward’s hands unzipped your pants, tugging them down your thighs. You wiggled out of them, relishing in the feel of your naked legs against his body.
He parted from you only to shrug off his shirt and jeans and boxers and they were gone like lightening, and he was back on you, attacking your neck with fervor and feral breaths. No more composure, he thought, he yanked moans and gasps out of you and covered your mouth with his hand as he played with your clit, and your screams highlighted the night’s silence.
V
Moments later from your first orgasm and he had entered you, wasting no time in helping you to find your next one and his own. His hands were slippery on you from the sweat that had gathered between your bodies. Your hands grasped his shoulders and your nails dug in but there was no pain — no pain that didn’t mingle with pleasure and assist in sending him over the edge.
His thrusts became unruly, hands on your waist, providing leverage for him to take you harder than a moment ago, a second. Your mouth was against his ear, sucking and kissing the sensitive skin that laid there, and Ward gritted his teeth against it all, feeling an orgasm that threatening to whiten it all.
No pain, no pain. For once, none of it. Only this, only you …
“Come, Ward,” You urged softly, somehow knowing exactly what his struggle was — how did you always know? “Don’t wait anymore, please. I want to see you come, come …”
And it was enough — all too much, and he bit your shoulder, relishing in the moan you gave afterward that told him there was no real pain, and did as you commanded; he came, and the fell apart around him and became nonsensical and a figment of an ugly imagination. It lasted only seconds where you were his only reality, his own flesh and blood understanding.
You were curled around him, as he wanted you to be, your hands against to back of his neck as the two of you collapsed against the carpet.
You hadn’t said it yet, but he didn’t mind. All through actions, Ward thought. He didn’t really need —
“I love you,” You whispered against his hair.
Ward’s eyes flickered to the fire, watching as it curled and climbed up the wood it devoured. Another weight seemed to lift from his heart — how many was that by now? — and he leaned to kiss your arm.
“I love you,” he said, closing his eyes against your collarbone.
Okay, maybe he was wrong.
He did need you to say it.
V
In the morning it would all be haste and running and survival yet again, but morning was not here yet, and you could care less about something that was not right in front of you.
Like Ward.
Sleep was heavy on you, and you fell into it, with Ward against you.
His hands were callus and bigger than your own by far, and around you, tender, so very tender.
You ran a finger against them, grazing over knuckles.
So very tender. Tender and warm, the world was, if only just a little.