Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ranger Grant Ward was in a somber mood as he gazed down at the rolling waves approaching Los Angeles. He hadn't been back to the States since his Academy days. He couldn't shake the sense that returning now meant defeat.

It wasn't even a kaiju that had taken them down, in the end. Ranger John Garrett wasn't the first Mark-1 pilot to succumb to cancer and Grant realized he wouldn't be the last. Staring at the coffin of his adoptive father, though, as they lowered it into the ground overlooking Panama Bay, it made him wonder if he could ever stand in a Jaeger command pod again.

There was no warning or preamble to the curt message ordering him to the Shatterdome in Los Angeles. It was just a date, a time and a chopper waiting for him on the tarmac in Panama City. Grant left without looking back. As the helicopter slowly floated down into LA, he wondered if he'd made a mistake.

Marshall Coulson was waiting for him as they landed. Grant had barely stepped from the chopper, when Coulson stepped forward with a quirky smile.

"Ranger Ward, it's a pleasure," the older man greeted with a solid handshake. "Welcome to the L.A. Shatterdome."

"Gracias, sir," Grant replied. "Oh. It's been a long time since I've worked on an English-speaking base, sir. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit slow to converse."

The marshall nodded, again with the offbeat grin. "Not a problem, Ranger. You're not here for conversation."

"Uhh, about that, sir," started Grant as he followed Coulson towards the base. "Why am I here?"

Coulson paused, and gestured towards the Shatterdome's massive Jaeger bay doors. "I don't care if you don't speak English, Ward," he said expansively. "I just need you to speak Antares."

Ward stopped still in his tracks. "Antares, sir? Antares… Redoubt?"

"You've heard of him," Marshall Coulson grinned.

Ward simply stared. Of course he had. Everyone on the planet probably had. Antares was the first Jaeger ever built with a triple pilot system, the largest of the Mark-3's and legendary even amongst Jaeger pilots. "Antares Redoubt," Ranger Ward repeated. "The West Coast Bulwark. Pride of Los Angeles. The Pharos of Ventura… and I don't even know what a 'pharos' is. So yeah, I've heard the name a time or two before."

"Pharos means 'lighthouse'," the marshall chuckled. "And I'm glad you're familiar with him, because he needs your help."

Grant grimaced. He wasn't sure he liked this Shatterdome's marshall, with his quirky, expressive face and casual anthropomorphizing. He realized he preferred his commanders much more serious, straight-laced. The marshall in Panama would not have approved, and neither did Grant. "You're down a pilot," he guessed, trying to cut to the heart of the matter.

Coulson's face dimmed slightly. "I am. We lost one of Antares' pilots in the battle against level 4 kaiju Haaku last month. He's... he's alive, but he's out of action. My J-tech analysts have been hunched over neural profiles since, and they tapped you as the most likely candidate to be drift compatible with the other two pilots."

Grant's frown intensified. "Sir… I don't know. I can't imagine drifting with anyone else but my father, and he's gone now…. let alone two anyone elses…." he broke off into silence.

Marshall Coulson clasped a warm hand to Grant's shoulder. "I think I understand, Ranger. I've been hearing almost the same story from Antares' remaining pilots. The bottom line, however, is that I've got 14 million people in this city alone who trust The Pharos of Ventura to keep the kaiju out of Los Angeles. I need another pilot in that cockpit, and it's a goddamn needle in a haystack proposition to match up a triple team. I hope you'll at least give him a look."

Grant was pensive as they entered the Jaeger bay. The bay here was no different than Panama, it was a crowded platform bustling with activity. J-techs buzzed around with cables and canisters, munitions and machines. Tripping over a fuel line roughly dragged Grant out of his thoughts.

"How many Jaegers are on base he…. is that a cat?" Grant began to ask before spotting a small, darting figure.

Again, the marshall flashed his eccentric grin. "Eight, and probably. We use cats to control the rats."

"Rats," Grant repeated flatly.

Marshall Coulson shrugged. "We're not that far from the Oxnard Bonefields, Ranger. We're not on the precious, sunny shipping lanes of the Panama Canal. This is where mankind and monsters have been dying. And with death comes rats."

They turned a corner and there it was: Antares Redoubt. Grant's jaw fell open without him even realizing it, earning him a rather smug smirk from the marshall. He'd seen the Jaeger in photos and on the news, he'd studied the specs at the Academy. He knew, in theory, that Antares was one of the biggest. That knowledge, however, had not prepared him how precisely how big The West Coast Bulwark really was. Seeing it in person rendered him speechless.

Antares Redoubt had been described by many as looking much like a gigantic robot bear, and Grant couldn't find fault with that analogy. The Jaeger's torso was rotund and massive, housing the twin nuclear reactors required to power the behemoth mech. Its arms were bigger than he had ever imagined, featuring Antares' unique Plasma Constrictor Weapon and ending in what he could only describe as massive clawed paws. The legs were comparably short and unlikely to be capable of high speed, but Grant could only imagine the power the visible torque drives and gyro-stabilizers gave them. Antares had been given a rust-red paint job that emphasized the overall bear appearance. Clearly the J-techs here had a sense of humour.

Marshall Coulson cleared his throat, and Grant's attention snapped back to him. "Well, what do you think of him?" he asked with interest.

Grant pursed his lips. "It's…. big. Very big. I see why it needs three pilots."

"Indeed," nodded the marshall, glancing around the bay. "And speaking of pilots, the others should be around here somewhere…"

Grant reached out quickly, almost but not quite grabbing Coulson's arm. "Sir, wait!" I'm… I'm really not…" He sighed. "It's not going to work, sir. I'm sorry."

Coulson turned around slowly. "What's not going to work, Ranger? The data indicates strongly that you're compatible."

Grant's expression was impassive. "You don't understand, sir. It's me, myself. Hydra Slingshot was the last Jaeger I'll ever pilot. My ability to ride the drift died along with my father, sir."

The marshall's face went uncharacteristically hard. "Your ability, or your willingness?"

The ranger's lips twitched. "Aren't they the same when it comes down to it, sir?"

Coulson gestured to a rather grimy bench pushed up against a bay wall before heading towards it and taking a seat. Ranger Ward followed reluctantly.

"I knew John Garrett, you know." Coulson began. "Knew him well, long before he took you under his wing. He was always the guy you wanted on your side, because he was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. Do you understand what I'm saying, Ward?"

Grant's stomach twisted uneasily, but he managed a blank look at the marshall. "Not really, sir."

Coulson's eyes narrowed, but he nodded and turned his gaze back to the enormous red Jaeger. "Kaiju never stood a chance in front of John. The pair of you had how many kills in Hydra Slingshot, what, four?"

"And a few assists, yeah."

"That's impressive. You've got a lot to be proud of. It would be a huge loss to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps if you chose not to get back in the saddle."

Grant was considering the best way to let the marshall down when the entire bay echoed with a piercing feminine scream, followed by a rapid stream of foul language he had never heard the likes of. It seemed to coincide with several of the J-techs suddenly realizing they had pressing matters in other areas, and Grant watched with curiosity as they slinked away quickly.

"Well," said Coulson with a weary sigh, "looks like you're going to get to meet his pilots anyway."

As if on cue, a small and furious tornado in a red flight suit swept into full view, gesturing angrily at the disappearing technicians. Grant blinked slowly, wondering why the bottom of his stomach seemed to have fallen out unexpected.

"I will track you down!" the whirlwind bellowed after them. "Whichever one of you ēxīn de kūnchóng reprogrammed him to scroll 'BALLZ DEEP' across my control console is in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE!"

Laughter erupted across several Jaeger bays as Grant was finally able to bring the figure in front of them into focus. Some part of his mind vaguely registered that he had stopped breathing. It didn't really seem to matter. He stared, and the tornado stared back at him.

"Hi," it said brightly.

Replying didn't really occur to him. He doubted he could find his voice anyway.

Marshall Coulson stepped in smoothly. "Well, it's not exactly the introduction I had planned on, but this is Skye. Skye, Ranger Grant Ward, from Panama City."

"Oh, fab! Hydra Slingshot, right? Nice work on Flat-Top off the coast of Manta last year. Pretty fancy use of the railgun."

He was completely hypnotized. The tornado seemed to have dissipated, leaving in its place a small, olive-skinned woman with rich curls of brown hair and enormous chocolate eyes. Eyes that were blinking at him curiously, brow raised, probably wondering if he was mute or stupid or both….

"Oh, have you stopped shouting already?" a new voice inquired as it drifted into his rather hazy consciousness. This one was silky and British, apparently attached to the dark honey-blonde walking towards them. "I had anticipated a good ten minutes of threats and profanity. Something interesting must have derailed you, Skye. Looks to be the case."

"And this is Jemma Simmons," Marshall Coulson smiled, gesturing at the newcomer. "Simmons, this is Grant Ward."

"Ahhh," Jemma's eyes brightened. "You're Hydra!"

He shifted his wide-eyed stare to Simmons, and found it was easier to talk. "Yes, that's right," he croaked. Well… slightly easier.

"It's a pleasure," she replied, holding her hand out. He stood and shook it heartily. "I'm still very uneasy about this whole proposition," Jemma continued. "I hope you understand. Coulson told us that you're keen to get started, but it's only been a month since Haaku and I don't think I'm ready. I mean, I'm not ready. I know that. I also know that the marshall is nervous that word will get out about Antares being out of service and panic will ensue, which of course it would, that's obvious, I mean Angelenos are absolutely the best and they practically worship this big ol' bear. If they knew… if they knew about Fitz…." her babbling commentary trailed off.

Grant's mind was swimming. His glanced back and forth between the women, clad in identical red flight suits. Only now did he notice the suits had the same logo on the left breast: a bright star in a constellation, over top a rust-coloured bear. Antares Redoubt.

"You're its pilots," he blurted out. An awkward moment of silence followed, broken only by a faint and peculiar sound. Multiple brows furrowed. It sounded almost like a tiny little meow.

"Skye," the marshall groaned, pinning the smaller woman with an exasperated look.

She chuckled softly and began to unzip her flight suit. Grant's lungs stopped working again. He wished they would stop doing that.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Jemma rolled her eyes at her co-pilot as she reached into the front of her suit.

"She was cold!" Skye exclaimed as she pulled out a tiny scruff of grey, stripy fur. The lump of fur meowed again and stretched, little fuzzy legs and a spiky tail appearing.

Coulson and Simmons looked resigned. Grant looked incredulous. He took several shaky steps backward before turning, panicked, to the marshall.

"I can't do it," he burst out with nervously. "They are beautiful and they are women and she's 'ballz deep' and crazy with a kitten down her shirt and… and…." his inability to breathe properly caught up with him as he babbled and he was suddenly dizzy. He chose to handle this by spinning around and walking as quickly as possible from the Jaeger bay.

Skye grinned broadly, and shoved the mewling kitten back into her flight suit. "Well," she chirped brightly. "I thought that went well!"

Chapter Text

Grant had no idea what to do with himself now. Fleeing from a superior officer was an embarrassing new career low, and the Los Angeles Shatterdome appeared to be designed by someone with a very tenuous grasp on intuition. His brisk stride to what he assumed was the general direction of the exit had degraded into a hesitant stroll, and stopped completely when he reached a dead end at a quiet rock garden. With an annoyed grunt, he plunked himself down on an ebony bench and lost his thoughts in the rings of sand.

About ten minutes or so passed before he felt another presence approaching. He could sense her, like a prickling at the back of his neck. Grant grimaced. Whatever this connection was, he didn't appreciate it at all. He was glaring at her when Skye stepped into the garden.

"There you are," she exclaimed, dropping onto the bench beside him with an exuberant flop. She raised a delicate eyebrow at him. "Did you get airsick on the way over, or something? You look downright bilious."

"I'm fine, thank you," he snapped.

"Ohhhhkay," she replied, clasping her hands in her lap. "Well. I don't see how this could possibly get any more awkward, so I guess I'll just come out and say it. What the hell is your problem, then? Because you're rude and insubordinate, and I can barely make out the shadow of your ridiculously handsome face underneath that scowl."

"I'm not interested in discuss…. wait, what? What did you just say…? You really are crazy, aren't you?" Grant threw his hands into the air.

"To think you're handsome?" she asked archly. "Yeah, I'm starting to agree with you, there. Look, I get it, you clearly have reservations about riding along with two women. That's fine. You're not the first vaquero to have an issue with that. I can promise you that a neural handshake with a girl doesn't give you cooties, lady parts, sexy dreams about the marshall or any oth…"

"Stop! Okay STOP!" he interrupted, literally covering his ears. "Jesus! I'm not worried about getting lady parts or whatever… dammit, I can't believe I just said that! Look, it has nothing to do with that. It's me. I'm not ready for this. I piloted Hydra Slingshot with my father, and he's gone now. Without him, I… I don't really know who I am," Grant finished quietly.

Skye's expression turned sympathetic. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know that. How long ago?"

"Six months."

"Oh." Her tone was disappointed and he looked at her questioningly. She shrugged and began picking at a non-existent thread on her flight suit. "It's only been a month since we lost Fitz. I mean, he's still alive, so it's not exactly the same, I know. But… well, it's been so hard on Jem and I understand her fear. I was really hoping that more time is the answer but…. I dunno."

Now Grant felt like a heel and his spirits sank even further. "I'm real sorry, but I don't actually know…. Marshall Coulson didn't give me any background at all. Can I ask…. what happened?"

Skye went pale and her lips pinched. "Haaku…." she said tonelessly. "Level 4 bastard. Us and Chumash Scorpion, we caught him just north of Catalina. Long story short, Haaku was fast and nasty with a hell of a grasp. He managed to hamstring us and trap us underwater. He'd crushed the conn-pod and we lost oxygen. Fitz, he… he re-routed… his… to Jem…" Skye's eyes glazed over and she broke off.

Grant placed an awkward hand on her knee. "I'm sorry, you don't have to go on. I shouldn't have pried."

Skye gave him a weak smile. "Nah, it's okay. I've gone through it a million times in my mind. Fitz and Jem are married, they absolutely worship each other. He would have done anything to make sure she made it. His pod was damaged and he knew the score. In the end, she dragged him into her own escape pod and we made it out. Chumash finished off Haaku. Not exactly a glorious finish for the Pride of L.A., but we won."

He leaned back on the bench. "What about Fitz? What's his prognosis?"

"He's in a coma. We don't know yet what kind of damage was done. He was hypoxic for quite a while, though. It's hard to stay optimistic." She fell silent for several moments. "Can I ask what happened to your dad?"

"Cancer," Grant replied bluntly. She nodded, and he instantly regretted being brusque. "He's not really my dad," he continued. "He pulled me off the streets of Vancouver when I was a kid. The usual story… orphan, doing anything I could to stay alive. He caught me trying to pick his pocket. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in a Jumphawk heading to Anchorage with a half-dozen badass rangers staring down at me. And that, as they say, was history."

"So he saved you, really."

"Yeah, for sure. I doubt I would have lasted much longer on my own. He was the first person who ever gave a damn about me," Grant acknowledged.

He glanced over at the small woman beside him, realizing that he'd told her more about his past than he ever had to anyone. He wanted to tell her more. Her big chocolate eyes were fixed on him, encouraging. He surrendered, with a breathy sigh. He had no idea why, but it felt like a weight off his shoulders.

"We did things I'm not proud of," he admitted softly. "It was frontier law most of my life, it was always a struggle. John taught me to be strong, how to survive. Sometimes that means making hard decisions. Sometimes… sometimes they weigh on me."

Understanding seemed to dawn on Skye's face. "That's why you don't want to drift with us," she replied. "You don't want to share your past with anyone else. Grant, you're afraid. That doesn't make you weak, it makes you human."

He stared at her, first with annoyance, then amazement. "How…. how do you know that?" he asked in a whisper.

She seemed surprised at his question. "I… I don't know," she responded, bemused. "There's something about you. Something about your annoying chiseled jaw and broody dark eyes. It's vaguely familiar…. like we came from the same place. Like you… belong here. With me."

Grant's throat went dry. He glanced down at the rock garden and tried to focus on the sand rings again.

"I'm sorry," Skye murmured. "I know, I'm pretty forward. Subtlety is not my forte. I gave up trying to control my mouth a long time ago. Um. But yeah, I don't know if you want to be here. I understand now if you don't. But can't you feel this….?"

She put one hand on chest, and pressed the other over his heart. All of his air disappeared upon contact and something sparked in his chest under her touch. He nodded dumbly, prompting a beaming smile to cross her face.

"Jemma and I have known each other since we were kids," she told him. "We're best friends, forever. But then she found Fitz, and he is her universe, and I had to let him in. It's weird, being wrapped up in a love like that, but not really being part of it. I know how they feel. Intimately. And I feel it too, and I love them both so much… but it's not really mine, you know? I just borrow it. So I understand why Jemma doesn't want to share it with another outsider. She shares him with me because she loves me too… but that's as far as she wants to go."

Grant stared at her hand, still resting peacefully over his heart. His breath was still gone. He was starting to get dizzy again.

"You were sitting there with Coulson, looking all handsome and aloof, and I hate that. So obnoxious! Something flashed inside me and I thought for a second it was anger, but it wasn't, was it? It was this. It's more than drift compatibility, isn't it?"

She flexed her fingers and he wondered if she would scoop his heart directly out of his chest. If so, she could have it and he wouldn't do a thing to stop her. "Please," she whispered, so softly he almost missed it. His head snapped up and he stared at her lips. His mind was reeling.

"Please, Grant," she repeated. Everything had gone hot and dry and whiteness began creeping into the edge of his vision. "Please try this. I need to know if I can be someone without them. I need to know if I'll always be alone."

He opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to. He wanted to tell her that she was real, that she was someone, that he could feel her. He could feel her thoughts around him like fireflies and her warm breath stealing the air and her pulse flicking against his chest like the beat of a drum… and…. but….. his world was tilting slowly and fading to white. He could see her lips — beautiful, soft, rose-coloured lips, moving and forming words then pressing together in concern…

Grant fell.

Unconscious, off the bench, in love…. he didn't know. But he fell, hard. That was the only thing he was sure of.

Chapter Text

When Ward came around, he was confused to find himself flat out on his back, with his head propped up on something warm. He opened his eyes and found himself staring directly up into Skye's elfin face, hovering upside down over him. She looked relieved.

"Oh, thank goodness," she gasped breathily. "You had me worried, there. Are you okay? You passed out."

Ridiculous, he thought to himself. He blinked several times, realizing with horror that his head was in her lap. Grant bolted upright, narrowing missing a collision with her forehead.

"Whoa, there, Turbo!" exclaimed Skye. "Please don't concuss me on our very first day."

He instantly regretted his sudden motion and clutched his skull. "Ugh, I'm light-headed", he groaned. "I wish you'd stop doing that to me!"

"Doing what?" she demanded, looking affronted. "You zoned out and keeled over! I didn't do anything to you!"

"You know what I mean," he snapped. "You said it yourself, this goes beyond drift compatibility. Every time I look at you, I can't breathe!"

"And that's my fault?!" she replied, incredulous. "You sure have a lot of nerve, Prince Charming. Do you always blame others for your problems, or I am a special case?"

"Well it sure as hell isn't the sudden onset of asthma, I know that much!" Grant yelled back at her. "You seem to be just fine, Angel, and whatever this this connection is, I don't appreciate it very much!"

He stabbed a finger at Skye's chest to mimic her earlier gesture, and they both jumped slightly when an irate meow emanated from her midsection. Grant spluttered for several moments before he could speak. "And you still have a cat shoved down your flight suit!? Why does this even surprise me? You are the most unprofessional so-called Ranger I have ever met in my life! Do you run missions with assorted livestock in the conn-pod as well? Has the marshall declared Antares Redoubt to be an off-leash area?"

Skye's jaw dropped. "Oh my God, I should have trusted my first instinct. You really are a pretentious ass!" She unzipped her red flight suit and pulled out a fuzzy black kitten. She dumped the little cat into Ward's lap and stood up.

"Here. He was a present for you," Skye spat out. "It's tradition here for everyone to adopt one of the bay cats, it means you're part of our family. I've been calling this one Buddy. Try not to kill him with your genial personality, yeah?" She stood up to leave. "Oh, and when you're finished passing out or inspecting the concrete with your face or whatever the hell you were doing, Marshall Coulson wants you in the Mess Hall to meet the other Rangers. I'm sure you'll find lots of things to look down on with them, too!"

She stomped angrily from the garden, leaving Grant on his ass with a cat in his lap, blinking curiously at him with huge yellow eyes. Skye's absence felt like a sudden chill in his bones, making him irrationally sulky.

"Buddy, eh?" he muttered at the kitten, who responded by clawing enthusiastically at the inseam of his pants. Grant winced and plucked the scrappy ball of black fur from his leg. He held it out disapprovingly. "Rule #1, Buddy," he pronounced gravely, "you are not joy-riding around in my clothes. You have a job here, and that is to catch rats. I expect you to get to work immediately. If I see a single rat, I'm holding you responsible. Do you understand?"

Buddy flopped onto his side in Grant's hand, and began gnawing on his thumb with great abandon.

Grant sighed, and picked himself up off the floor. "Do you know where the Mess Hall is?" he murmured at the cat, who unsurprisingly ignored him. "Great. Well, let's go find it. If we're lucky, we'll stumble across the elevator and we can get out of this Craziest Show on Earth."

Simmons was no longer in the Jaeger bay when Skye returned. She didn't have to ask where her best friend had gone, however. She knew without thinking. Minutes later, Skye was softly knocking beside the open door of Leopold Fitz' med bay room.

Jemma looked up from her husband's side and smiled. "Hey, Skye. Did you find Ranger Ward?"

"Yeah," Skye nodded, "it didn't exactly go well." She stepped over to the bed. "How's Fitz?"

Simmons was slowly running a hand through her husband's short dark blond curls. "He looks good today. Peaceful. I can pretend he's just sleeping," she murmured. She looked up at Skye, tears shining in her eyes. "I wish he would wake up, though," she added, her voice breaking.

In two steps, Skye was at Simmons' side and had her arms wrapped around her co-pilot. "Oh, Jems," Skye whispered. There was nothing more she could say. She held her friend tightly as she cried for several minutes, fighting off her own tears. They did this most days, and she would continue for as long as required.

Eventually, Jemma broke away with a loud sniff. "You said it didn't go well with Ward. What happened?"

"He's insufferable," complained Skye. "It's got to be a mistake. If we're actually drift compatible, I've got some serious personality flaws I need to work on."

"You know that's not how it works," Jemma tutted at her. "Honestly, Skye. I know you didn't go to Jaeger Academy, but sometimes your dramatics make it sound like you have no idea what you're doing. Did you talk to the marshall? Is he going to send him back to Panama?"

Skye frowned. "Coulson was evasive. He wants the other rangers to meet him first. And he wants an Antares test run. I'm sorry, Jems. I tried to talk him out of it…. again… but he's under so much pressure to get us back out there. He said we've got to give Ward a try."

Jemma made a face and turned her attention back to her husband. "I don't know how much longer I can do this, Skye," she murmured, threading her fingers into Fitz's hair once more.

"I'm reminding myself why we're doing this," her best friend replied. "The West Coast needs Antares, and he needs us. I don't think Ward is going to work out, but Coulson wants to see it with his own eyes. Let's just get it over with and move on."

Simmons smiled faintly. "Listen to you… suddenly the practical one, following the rules. Who are you, and what have you done with Skye?"

"Yeah, I know, it's crazy. All this being responsible is making me hungry, want to hit the mess hall? We can watch Barton and the Koenig brothers decimate Ranger Ward and that stick up his ass."

Jemma chuckled. "No, you go ahead. I'm going to read to Fitz for a while, a new microfluidics journal just arrived and I'm sure he'll be keen on it. Bring me something, though, would you kindly?"

Skye kissed Jemma lightly on the top of her head. "Of course. Love you, Jem."

"Love you too, Skye."

Chapter Text

The mess hall in the Los Angeles Shatterdome was nearly indistinguishable from any other cafeteria Grant had ever been in. It was boisterous, crowded and filled with suspicious aromas. He was able to pick out the marshall only after several minutes searching. Coulson was at a long table with an odd assortment of characters, Grant presumed they were the other Jaeger pilots.

"Aha, Ward," Coulson called out. "I'd like you to meet some people over here."

Grant quickly walked over to the group, some of whom were slowly standing up from their meals.

The marshall was also standing, and began his introductions. "Alright everyone, this is Ranger Grant Ward, formerly of Panama City. He rode Hydra Slingshot with his father, John Garret, until John passed away."

Grant nodded solemnly. "It's good to meet you all," he said.

Coulson pointed out a small blonde woman with a friendly smile and a cheerful, well-dressed man. "Rangers Sharon Carter and Antoine Triplett, pilots of Sequoia Victory. She's is our heavy ordinance Jaeger, armed to the teeth and ready to rumble. She's also our tallest Jaegar, at 90 meters. Had to retrofit a bay just to squeeze her in."

Carter and Triplett both gave Grant hardy handshakes. "Tallest tree in the forest, that's Sequoia," Antoine grinned.

Grant smiled weakly in response. Triplett's comment was likely very well-worn.

"The twins here are Sam and Billy Koenig, Echo Hornet's pilots," the marshall continued. "Keep an eye on these two, they're our resident pranksters. I think they do it just because they can blame each other."

"It works out pretty well," one of the Koenigs replied modestly.

"On the subject of pranksters, this is Clint Barton, he rides Arrow Zulu with… Clint, where's Tasha?" the marshall asked the well-muscled pilot.

"Canteen," Barton replied gruffly, gesturing to the food line.

Grant followed their line of sight, his eyes flying open when they landed on easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was striding towards them, dressed from head to toe in tight black leather with her hips sashaying hypnotically. She was a red-head, with glorious auburn curls bouncing around her shoulders. He was staring, he knew he was, and it took him a moment to realize that Ranger Barton was watching him stare…. with an amused smirk on his face. Grant cleared his throat and gave Barton an apologetic look.

"She's something else," Barton chuckled in unspoken agreement. "That's Natalia Romanova. If she likes you, though, you can call her Natasha."

"And if she doesn't?" Grant asked as she approached.

"Then you can call me Natalia Alianova, or Ranger Romanova," the woman in question responded herself. "I'll let you know."

Marshall Coulson gave one of his quirky smiles. "Well then. Next we have Felix Blake and Akela Amador, they pilot our latest acquisition: Chumash Scorpion."

Grant shook hands with the scrappy older ranger and his young, dark-skinned copilot. "It's a pleasure."

"Likewise," Blake replied. "I'm a fan of your job on Flat-Top, that was tidy work. Chumash isn't quite as fast as Hydra, but I think they're similar. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with the Big Bear. Come on, Akela… say hello."

"You talk more than enough for both of us, Old Man," his partner grumbled. Blake laughed, even though Grant was pretty sure Amador wasn't joking.

Marshall Coulson gestured at two men who had remained seated, eying Grant somewhat suspiciously. "And finally, we have the crew of Jade Deathlok. Jasper Sitwell and Mike Peterson. You'll have to pardon them if they fall asleep into their hash, they just got back from an 18-hour trek up and down the coast. Jade is our scout Jaeger."

Ward raised an eyebrow. "You don't use Jumphawks for patrols, sir?" he asked the Marshall.

"Oh, sure, for the day-to-day," the marshall replied. "Don't think I'm using a 20-billion dollar mech for joy rides, son. But we're on the San Andreas fault here. It gives us some real pain-in-the-ass false alarms sometimes, and I'm not a gambling man. I'd be hard-pressed to explain to the people of Los Angeles why their 6.3 earthquake suddenly stood up out of the ocean and laid waste to Santa Monica. Funny thing about kaiju and earthquakes… they both look pretty much the same under the waves from a helicopter."

The marshall crossed his arms across his chest. "Well, there you have it. The Rangers of Los Angeles Shatterdome…. minus four. I've got two Jaegers out right now, Viper Kilo and Haka Marathon. They'll have to wait until after you're all settled in for intros."

"Uhhh… about that, sir…. I really don't think…."

"Why don't you grab a tray and tuck in?" Coulson continued as though he hadn't heard. "Felix knew John Garrett as well, back in the day. I bet he's got some stories he could share…"

"Oooooooh boy," Felix muttered down at his plate, and Akela poked him in the shoulder.

"…. don't eat anything the Koenigs put on your tray…"

"HEY!" came twin cries of objection.

"…. and unless you want to wake up to your Jaeger painted purple, try not to make any more goo-goo eyes at Barton's wife…"

"We only did that the once, Phil," Natasha pouted.

"Feel free to goo-goo at Romanova's husband, though," Clint said simultaneously as he curled a powerful bicep, eliciting laughter from the other pilots.

"Marshall," Ward attempted to interject, "please, can I have a private word with you?"

"… after supper, get one of the lodging officers to put you into quarters. We have a lot of empty bunks so I figured you could take your pick of views…"

"Marshall Coulson!" Ward hissed, drawing several bemused looks from the other rangers.

Coulson gave him an inquisitive look. "Yes, Ranger Ward?" he asked mildly.

"Sir," Grant said in a low voice. "I've already spoken to Skye. It's clear that we both agree, it's unlikely we woulAAAAAAUUUGH DAMMIT!" he broke off suddenly, clutching at his chest.

"What the hell?" exclaimed Coulson.

Grant's expression was furious as he opened his jacket and pulled out a little black cat. He brought the kitten up to eye level and gave it a flat stare. "Dammit, Buddy!" he scowled. "You spiked me! What did I say about behaving yourself in there?" The cat responded by thunderously purring.

"Ranger Ward," a Koenig said softly, "did you have a cat in your coat, or am I hallucinating?"

"It's Skye's," he protested. "Or rather, she made me take it. Animals shouldn't be in the Mess Hall but I was in a hurry to get here, I didn't know where else to…. OW! BUDDY. STOP IT!"

The rangers were watching in various stages of disbelief, except for Barton, who was shaking with laughter.

"You're alright, Ward," Clint chuckled. "I had some friends in Panama City warn me you were a real tight-ass, and I just couldn't imagine how you would ever synch up with FitzSimmons and Skye. But if you're a Jaeger pilot strutting around with a kitty stuffed in his suit and interrupting the marshall….? Well. You and Skye were probably made for each other. Welcome to Los Angeles."

The other rangers began nodding in agreement, and Grant's mouth fell open. "No, no…" he started to protest, but he was drowned out as his fellow pilots rose from their seats, trays clattering. They surrounded him, raining hearty back-pats, handshakes and warm words of greetings upon him.

"Glad that's all decided, then," Marshall Coulson smiled genially. "Take the rest of the day to settle in, Grant. I'll see you in the Drivesuit Room at 08:00 tomorrow for a test run, got that? I want the Pharos of Ventura put the three of you through your paces."

Chapter Text

With solid directions from the lodging office, Grant made his way to the Drivesuit Room for promptly 8:00 the next morning. The marshall was already there, along with Ranger Simmons and a J-tech team. Jemma gave him a polite smile as the techs bolted her into her drivesuit.

"Good morning, Ranger Ward," the marshall greeted him brightly, making Grant wince internally. "Sleep well last night?"

"Reasonably well, sir," he replied. "After I realized the damn cat kept getting back in through the ventilation shaft and I jammed a sweater in there."

Coulson chuckled. "I won't tell Skye you said that. Grant, this is Antares Redoubt's drivesuit crew: J-techs Hand, Head and Armstrong."

"Is that a joke…?" Grant asked slowly, eying up the technicians.

"Nah," one of them shrugged. "It's only a joke when Head does the helmets."

"Oh, ha ha," J-tech Head replied sarcastically. "We had a bad perfluorocarbon mix on that run and you know it. How was that my fault?"

"That's the joke, Head," teased J-tech Armstrong. The dark-skinned technician held out Grant's chest piece. "We had to make some quick and dirty mods to your drivesuit to make it Antares compatible," he apologized to the ranger. "A new suit is being built for you from scratch, but it won't be ready for a week or so."

Ward nodded as the J-techs swarmed around him. He was impressed to note that the Los Angeles technicians were efficient and highly skilled as they flawlessly built his suit around him. He almost missed the "quick and dirty" mods Armstrong had mentioned, the new ports they had installed fit into his drivesuit as though they had always been there. He gave a grunt of approval.

"Do you have a position preference, Ward?" Simmons asked in her smooth accent.

Ward shrugged, earning him a remonstrative look from the J-tech trying to seat his spinal control column. "I was left side on Hydra Slingshot, but I'm adaptable."

"Ah, well, that's perfect convenience, then. Fitz pilots left as well, so you'll be at home."

"And Skye?" The question spilled out before he could think about it, and Ward immediately hated himself for it. He hated even more that his chest tightened just from saying her name.

"I play center."

Grant tried to turn his head towards her voice, but was smacked sharply by J-tech Armstrong, who was attempting to affix his helmet. Grant gave the man an apologetic glance as Skye walked around to the periphery of his vision.

"Whassup, Lady Skye?" the drivesuit tech beamed at her.

"It's all good, Duck. What's the verdict on the new guy? Do we have any helmets that'll fit his grotesquely swollen head?"

Grant grimaced as the technicians laughed. "Good morning to you, too, Ranger Skye," he said pointedly.

"Why, hello there, Ranger Ward," she gave him a saccharine smile. "I'm rather surprised to see you're still with us. I was expecting to hear that you'd slunk away in the middle of the night."

"And miss the opportunity to see the tiny drivesuit pouch you had these guys rig for your latest stray? Not a chance." There was a suspicious pause from all three J-techs and a guilty flash across Skye's face that made Grant snort derisively. "Unbelievable."

"That's enough, you two," Simmons snapped into her helmet mic. "Wait ten more minutes and you'll be able to peer right into your mutual animosity. Let's keep up the pretence that we're all professionals until then, yeah?"

The rangers all fell silent while the technicians finished outfitting them. Armstrong nodded in satisfaction after surveying the pilots. "Alright, Marshall," he turned to Coulson. "They are good to go, and Antares is ready."

The marshall stepped in front of the rangers. "Nice to have some good news, for a change. Thanks, Duck. You guys head to the LOCCENT and start powering up. I'll be along shortly."

The J-techs filed out and Marshall Coulson gave the pilots a severe once-over. "Okay, Rangers. I admit this hasn't been the smooth start I was hoping for. I wanted to say that I understand your concerns and I'm not putting you through this lightly. Jemma, I'm not giving up on Leo. I swear it. As for you two," he turned a stern face towards Skye and Grant, "I'm don't know why you're getting under each other's skin, but I expect you both to shake it off. Jemma is right, get your asses into the drift and understand each other. Antares needs you in synch. Is that clear?"

"Like crystal, sir," Skye responded crisply while the others nodded.

"Lovely. Hit the conn-pod and prepare for neural handshake."

The marshall stalked out of the drivesuit room and Grant let out a deep breath. He hadn't received a dressing down like that since… well, since John died. He clenched his hands into fists and strode forward, hitting the conn-pod door switch. It opened smoothly and he found himself staring, for the first time, into Antares Redoubt's brain.

"Welcome to the Big Bear," Jemma smirked as she pressed past him, into the cockpit.

Grant was still staring. "It's…. huge," he said in amazement. Logically, it made sense that a conn-pod for three pilots would be bigger, But this… this was way beyond what he expected. His eyes slid across enormous pistons, metal platforms, massive coolants coils and flickering display panels. He was admiring a wide bank of plasma fuses when Skye appeared at his side.

"Those are for his plasma constrictors. Almost 25 thousand kilonewtons of crushing force in those babies," she said softly. "We blew out half of those fuses in the scrap with Marui last year. They popped like sparklers. It was… it was so beautiful, really."

He gave Skye a quizzical look, and Simmons chuckled.

"You're about to learn that Skye's talk about kilonewtons and plasma fuses is all an act. She didn't even attend Jaeger Academy," the British pilot said with obvious affection. "The reality is that she's a wayward poet, and Jaegers are her muse."

The news that his new co-pilot wasn't a true ranger stunned Grant. "She….. what? How?"

Skye shrugged innocently. "I dunno. Piloting a Jaeger came naturally to me."

Jemma laughed. "Just you watch. She can make the Pharos of Ventura sing."

"I've never tried that," Skye quipped as she stepped into the middle command harness. "I should give it a shot."

Grant's face was clouded with disapproval. Knowing that everyone in the LOCCENT control room could hear him over the mics, he chose his next words carefully. "So… you're not actually a ranger, and Marshall Coulson knows that, but you're still piloting the most expensive Jaeger ever built?"

Skye gave him a bright grin, causing his now-familiar inability to breathe. "That's right, vaquero! Are you ready to step into the drift with an anarchist drop-out?"

"Umm… no?" he reply in barely a whisper.

"Prepare for neural handshake," came the Mission Controller over the comms.

"Neural handshake commencing," replied Antares Redoubt's A.I.

Grant had no choices left. Everything he'd spent his whole life trying to hide, every secret and every sin he'd long buried, it was all about to be opened up to two strangers. He exhaled a long, cleansing sigh and tried to empty his mind. Only John Garrett had ever known the truth about how weak Grant Ward really was, he'd hidden it for years and now he was going to be laid bare. There was a sour taste in his mouth as he fell into the drift.

The weakness was about to be awoken.

Chapter Text

A heart beat.

A small girl with matted hair and olive skin, rooting through a garbage can for something to eat.

A shower of sparks.

A lanky teen soldering a circuit board looks up to see a shyly smiling girl about his age. She's speaking very quickly about the chemical properties of the flux he is using. In an instant, he falls in love.

A wound drips blood, it pools slowly on the ground.

A man in a turtleneck looming over a dark-haired boy and backhands him sharply across the face. He's yelling, furious, with a mad gleam in his eyes. The dark-haired boy has been here before. He knows better than to cry.

A siren sounds.

In a Kaiju shelter, two little girls from opposite ends of the spectrum meet. Fear unites them. They hold hands while a monster destroys a city. When the clean, pretty rich girl leaves with her family, they bring the filthy, hungry poor orphan with them.

A moan.

Lust, hot and primitive, pulses through a woman and a man while limbs tangle fingers claw soft wet groaning sweet release comes

A gunshot.

A tall, handsome man with black hair and no soul kills without thinking. He does it because he was told to. He does it to survive.

A gunshot.

A scream.

A heart beat stops.

"Right hemisphere and left hemisphere both online. Neural handshake successful," intones the A.I.

None of the pilots speak. That's common during a first drift. They are too busy settling into each other's skins. They are subtly gliding through shared memories, trying not to be caught up in surprising revelations. Chasing the "rabit", they call it: Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers. Don't follow the threads snaking between them. Let them flow as water over the pebbles of the creek.

Simmons catches a flash of Grant's shame as he's dumped, a confused and naked child, out of a Jumphawk and onto the tarmac in Anchorage. Ward is briefly stabbed by Skye's hunger, both the one in her belly and the one on her heart, and he barely avoids crying in joy alongside her the first time she looked up and saw a Jaeger. Skye floats past the piercing pain that lives in Jemma's heart ever since she pulled, screaming and clamouring, her husband's body into her own escape pod in Antares Redoubt's brain.

In LOCCENT Mission Control, an excited crowd of J-techs huddled around the controller's station. Mission Controller Cressida Duong was blinking in shock at her monitors. "Marshall Coulson….?" she said, her voice wavering slightly. "You're going to want to take a look at this."

Coulson already knew what he would see. He smiled, his familiar smirk settling comfortably on his face. He stepped to the controller's side and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Tell me."

"I've never seen anything like it," Duong breathed. "A neural handshake this strong… it's unheard of. Look at those bridges. Ward and Simmons look pretty good, but…. holy shit. Ward and Skye? Are we sure they've never met before? They've never trained together?"

"Met for the first time yesterday," Coulson nodded. "Hated each other on sight."

Duong shook her head. "That's… that's not possible. Someone bring me the neural profiles again. Birol, are you tracking this? I want to send this to PPDC Psych right now, get ready to patch them into the feed." Duong grabbed the microphone. "Everything looks great from here, you guys. How are you all doing?"

Skye heard the words. How was she doing? It was an excellent question. She was angry. She was scared. She was lonely betrayed cold hurting guilty ashamed furious fighting so so confused…

"Skye."

She heard her name. She turned slowly to her left side and met wide, warm brown eyes surveying her with concern. A trickle of yellow neural gel was slowly trailing down the inside of his helmet, it made it seem like he was crying gold tears.

"Skye, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Ward was saying softly.

Duong was calling over their headsets. "Antares crew, report…?"

"We're fine, Cressie," Simmons replied smoothly. "Drift compatibility looks solid. Nice work, J-tech team."

Skye could feel every choked breath Ward was taking. She wasn't sure if his brown eyes were the lifeline he was throwing or the pool she was drowning in. "Grant", she whispered.

"It's okay. I'm right here," he replied. Grant didn't know why he had to say that, obviously he was there. Obviously all three of them were still standing there, safely strapped into their control harnesses. From the look on her face, however, he knew it was what she needed to hear.

"Let's start with a right arm activation, then," the controller was suggesting.

"Copy that," Ward replied. With a mere thought, he engaged the hydraulics on his right side. From his HUD, he watched Antares lift and rotate its powerful right arm.

In the LOCCENT control room, Duong was practically cackling with glee. "Look, look," she was stabbing a finger at her monitor. "Do you see this? It's unreal! Koda, we'll need to recalibrate the Pons scrub rate, the lag is so small I can't get a good reading. Birol, have we got PPDC Command online yet? I hope they aren't missing this."

Marshall Coulson breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it. He'd been right. This was going to work. He leaned forward toward the microphone. "I want to see the plasma constrictors engaged. Skye, can you show Ranger Ward how we give bear hugs in L.A.?"

"I'd be happy to, sir," the small pilot replied. The control team watched through the windows of the LOCCENT room as the massive Jaeger raised its arms and enthusiastically slammed the palms of its hands togethers. With a deafening boom, Antares Redoubt's unique weapon came online. Blue plasma crackling, the gears in his arms began to rotate and his crushers slowly yet relentlessly pressed inwards.

There was a low-whistle from Ranger Ward. "So this is what 25 thousand kilonewtons of crushing force feels like."

"It's pretty sweet, isn't it?" Skye grinned. "I guarantee it feels even better around a kaiju's throat."

The marshall made a satisfied noise. "Alright, Antares crew. Stand down. We've got some fine-tuning to do on the J-tech side but compatibility tests are a home run. There's enough neural data here to keep LOCCENT busy for a week."

"Yes sir," Ranger Simmons replied smartly.

"Neural handshake disengaged," intoned the A.I.

As though it had all been nothing more than an idle curl of smoke or a fluttering moth upon his cheek, Ward felt himself slip from the drift. He felt impossibly alone. An ache in his chest that he had never known before had suddenly taken up residence. He frowned, considering this new and unpleasant sensation, eventually noticing that his co-pilots had began to step out of their drive harnesses.

"And there we have it," said Jemma, rather wistfully. "Seems like there's no chance the marshall will change his mind now, is there? Well, what's done is done. Let's just do our best to move forward with this, yeah? Hopefully you two can find some middle ground." Ranger Simmons hadn't seemed to notice that her co-pilots were both quiet and motionless. She popped the release on her helmet. "It felt good to be back in the Bear, at least. I'll see you both at debrief," Simmons continued as she shook her hair loose. With that, she left the conn-pod.

Grant blinked slowly. Several heartbeats later, the ache started to recede and he realized Skye was standing in from of him, her hands reaching for the release on his harness.

"I don't know why," she murmured, "but the release on this side is sticky sometimes."

Her helmet was already off, he stared at her through his visor. "Skye."

"We keep telling Cressie and she says they can't find anything wrong with it. Isn't that strange?"

"Skye, stop," he whispered, reaching out to grab her trembling fingers.

"I always thought maybe it was personal, like maybe Antares just never wanted Fitz to go. Was just going to hold on to him tight…"

"Skye, please."

Finally she looked up at him, her eyes liquid and wide. She swallowed hard.

"Is it just me?" he pleaded softly, searching her face. "It's just me alone feeling like this…? Like there is a Skye-shaped hole carved out of me and it's a piece that I can't survive without? I don't understand it. I don't even know you."

She frowned almost imperceptibly. "No," she replied in a whisper. Hesitating slightly, she raised her arms and pulled his drivesuit helmet off. The corners of her mouth twitched in amusement at a couple of unruly, sticking-up tufts of his black hair.

"Noooo," she drawled. With a curious expression, she stepped even closer to him, her face tilted upwards. "It's not just you," she breathed. She dropped his helmet to the floor, it landed with a loud clatter that neither of them noticed.

His breathing turned ragged and his pulse raced. He angled down slightly and pressed his forehead against hers, feeling comfortably warm where they touched. "Okay, good," he murmured.

Her eyes were fixed on his lips as they moved. Experimentally, she leaned forward and, to his utter shock, just barely brushed her lips across his mouth.

The sensation that shot through him was nothing he had even known before. It was an electric shock from head to toe, a short-circuit to every one of his systems. He wanted to do or say something, anything that would keep her pressed against him with her curious lips within range of the sudden ravenous hunger blooming in his chest. Before he could pull his brain back online, Skye pulled away.

"Huh," she exhaled, her face inquisitive. "Interesting. Very interesting. Let's get out of here, Ranger Ward. I think we need to talk."

Chapter Text

Grant went in search of Skye after the compatibility test debriefing. His head was still spinning from the data the mission controller had showed them. He could decipher neural readouts with only a bare minimum of understanding, but it was obvious from the excitement in the room and the peculiar wave patterns on screen that his link with Skye was… special.

Part of him was relieved, all the strange reactions he'd been experiencing were merely a neural quirk. The bizarre draw he felt to Skye hadn't made any sense to his well-ordered world. Knowing it boiled down to a coincidence of biology was logically soothing.

However, there was another part of him that was defiant. How were they going to fix this? Could it even be undone? Even now, he had a sense of her, as though an invisible string still kept them connected. It was unacceptable. He was a loner, a pilot for a first-strike Jaeger designed to get in fast and get the job done. He had no need for anyone else. He resented the sudden shift in his body, how it was weak unless he was thinking of her. He hated needing someone else just to breathe. He hated needing anything.

Skye had fled the briefing room even before Marshall Coulson wrapped up the endless pleasantries (he was so proud of the J-techs, he was so pleased with the pilots, ad infinitum). Grant chose not to follow her right away, he wanted some time to stew in his thoughts by himself. John had often teased him for being broody, accusing his tender heart of being the thing that would eventually get them both killed. As it turned out, the killer would simply be cancer… and a straight-up betrayal of Ward by his own brain had compromised him before his heart even could.

Grant moodily made his way to the rock garden. Without even thinking about it, he knew she was there. It bothered him to no end and he muttered curses under his breath as he trudged along. He stood in the wood-framed doorway, scowling darkly at her. She was sitting in a meditative position, her back to him, her long hair loosely curled around her like a cloak.

"I could feel you glowering all the way from the briefing room, Ward," she murmured without moving. "Is this how it's always going to be? It's like having a permanent sulking teenager staring at me."

"Well how do we make this whole neural connection thing stop, then?" he asked, stepping into the garden.

She turned around and stared at him in confusion. "Make it… stop?" she asked. "Ward, it's not a psychic beam that I'm turning on and off just for kicks. You keep talking like I have some control over this. I don't."

"It's an accident of biology," he frowned.

"Exactly! So how do you propose you turn your brain off? You can't. It's just the way we're wired. That's not my fault any more than it's yours. So give me a break, would you? I'm sorry I kissed you in the conn-pod, I got carried away and it was inappropriate. It won't happen again."

Her final words felt like a blow to his stomach. In two strides, he was standing beside her. He crouched down, trying to find the right thing to say, when he felt it.

Sadness. Overwhelming and all-encompassing. Feelings of bitterly familiar rejection swirled along with it, angry with herself that for just one moment she thought she wasn't alone anymore, and how could she have been so stupid to let herself hope? She was so ashamed, knowing that she'd allowed herself to give into that moment and now she would have to step into the drift carrying that shame with her.

It was another almost physical blow. He choked back a sob and she looked at him dejectedly.

"No," he said emphatically, his voice coming out strangled. "It's not like that."

"You can't tell me how I feel, Ward," she replied sadly. "Especially when you can feel how I feel!"

"But you're wrong!"

She looked down at her feet. "You've forgotten that this is a two-way street. I can also feel you. I know you don't like me. I know you resent this. I would gladly cut out whatever part of me that forces me to feel all of that if I could. But I don't know how."

Her sorrow continued to buffet him. He couldn't stop the tears that began to stream down his face, echoes of the ones that were appearing on her cheeks. He raised his hand to touch her, but she shrank away.

"Please don't," she whispered, and he froze. She couldn't meet his eyes. "I don't know… I don't know what will happen if you touch me," she tried to explain. "I don't want to feel any worse, and I can't handle feeling like I did before."

"Before?"

"In the conn-pod. When I kissed you. When it felt like I would die if I didn't." She fell silent and he blinked at her in shock.

They sat there for several minutes, without a sound, treading water in the depth of her sorrow. Grant was nearly gulping back the pain when something dawned on him. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. The effort was blinding but he pressed on.

At the edges of her grief and shame, Skye caught a flash of something different. She ignored it, tried to push it away, but it pursued her. It was bright and warm and relentless. With a whimper, she let it overtake her. It was inexplicably foreign and familiar at the same time, filling her with a love and belonging that she'd never known but ached precisely for.

Skye turned in amazement to her co-pilot. His eyes were still closed, his brow furrowed in concentration. She raised her hand, palm out, and held it in front of him until he opened his eyes.

Slowly he raised his own. He pressed his palm against her small hand, hissing in surprise at the resulting sensations. With great effort, he tried to keep his mind open, and was thus aware that Skye could feel it too: the electricity sparking from their fingertips, the heat curling in their stomachs, the shortness of breath that always seemed to plague him when she was around. He repressed his gut reaction to pull away. They rode it out in mutual fascination, smiling shyly at each other when it finally settled into a comfortable warmth.

"It's weird," she said quietly.

"It's kinda nice," he replied.

She laughed. "When we're not at each other's throats, sure."

"I'm sorry, for all of this," he told her apologetically. "I didn't want this to happen. I'm not a good man, Skye.

She grimaced. "Do you think there are parts of you that I don't know about? That's not how the drift works, Ward. This isn't going to be easy, but we don't get a choice. There are skeletons in my closet too, you know that."

"It's not the same," he answered softly.

Skye raised her chin and closed her outstretched hand into a fist, scratching her nails lightly down his palm and making him shiver.

"We'll make this work, okay?" she assured him, shaking their hands together. "Just try to trust me. We didn't know this w…"

Skye was interrupted by the noisy progress of boots in the hall towards the rock garden. They both turned as two grim-faced women appeared.

"There you are," exclaimed one of them, with bright blue eyes and dark hair, in great exasperation.

Skye pulled herself up. "Oh, hey! Welcome back, Maria. Grant, this is Maria Hill and Melinda May, they pilot Viper Kilo…"

"Intros will have to wait," the other Asian woman waved her off. "No offence, Ranger, but we have a big problem heading our way."

Ward's heart began to pump faster. "How big?" he asked as he stood.

Ranger May gave him an appraising look. "About 3,000 tons. Give or take. And 500 feet long."

"Long?" he repeated, confused.

"Long," Ranger Hill nodded. "It's flying."

Chapter Text

The atmosphere at LOCCENT was tense and harried when the rangers arrived. Marshall Coulson nodded curtly at them as they sat down in the crowded briefing room.

"May and Hill, it's good to have you back," the marshall began. "I wish it was under better circumstances. We've got a Category 4 inbound, codename Screecher."

"So why are we sitting here," Amador asked from the back row, "instead of kicking its ass?"

"Good question. Can Chumash fly?" the marshall raised an eyebrow. Stunned silence fell over the room.

"You see the problem," he continued. He touched a large display monitor on the wall, and it sprung to life with radar images and video of a massive Kaiju in flight.

"It looks like a dino bat," commented one of the Koenig twins.

"You're calling it Screecher," the other chimed in. "Why?"

Marshall Coulson and Rangers May and Hill exchanged serious looks. "We think it's using sonar," Maria replied after a heavy pause. "You nailed it with 'bat', Billy."

Sharon Carter raised her hand. "Sequoia's equipped with those Japanese Nike surface-to-airs, send us."

Coulson nodded in agreement. "Sequoia and Arrow Zulu, suit up. Sequoia, lure Screecher away from the city and shoot it out of the sky. Arrow, you're going to keep the miracle mile."

Romanova cleared her throat, and he gave her his attention. "Marshall, please consider sending Antares out."

Everyone turned and stared at her, including Grant. Was she crazy? Ward didn't even have an Antares-compatible drivesuit that wasn't held together with hope and epoxy yet.

Natalia held her hands up defensively. "Look, I know what you're all thinking. But I watched the feed this morning, I know that they can at least walk Antares out of the bay. He's been out of action for over a month, Marshall. People have noticed. They remember Haaku, and they are worried. If you don't get the Pharos of Ventura out of the garage soon, you're going to have a kaiju-sized public relations problem."

Grant was stunned to see the marshall seemed to be considering her words. He couldn't wrap his head around this Shatterdome. Did they really run by committee here? Idiots.

"Skye, Simmons?" Coulson glanced at Ward's co-pilots, and they both nodded. "Okay, let's do it. Get your butts back into your gear and stand on the miracle mile with Arrow Zulu. You will not engage Screecher, is that clear? We haven't even scheduled your munitions testing yet and the last thing I need is the accidental vaporization of Venice Pier when one of you starts chasing the RABIT. Just… just get out there, and look scary."

Grant sank his head into his hands. These people were insane.

The marshall clapped his hands enthusiastically. "Let's move," he declared and the rangers began to stand. "Ranger Ward, a word, if I may."

Grant stayed as the other pilots filtered out of the briefing room. "Sir?" he asked when they were alone.

"I'm dead serious about keeping Antares out of combat," Coulson warned him. "I can think of a dozen things that could go wrong in a heartbeat."

Grant grimaced. "I understand and agree, sir. Surely you don't think that I would…"

"Not you, no," the marshall interjected. "I'm telling you because I'm relying on you to obey that order no matter what happens. Fitz's accident has profoundly affected Simmons and I don't know how she'll do when she sees combat again. And Skye…. well. Skye is unpredictable at the best of times."

Ward's expression was flat. "You want me, the new guy, to babysit?"

"I want you to keep focussed on what needs to be done for the greater good, Ranger. I selected you very specifically, you know how to make the tough calls. I know what kind of man your father was, and I know he would have moulded you in his image."

The marshall's words made Grant stiffen, but there was a blaze in Coulson's eyes that kept him silent.

"We came very close to losing Antares Redoubt and all three of his pilots to Haaku, because Leo Fitz played the martyr and Jemma Simmons the hero. I feel like I need to start knocking on wood before every mission, and that's not a viable strategy for me."

Grant nodded. "I understand, sir."

"Good, I appreciate your cooperation on this. Now go suit up, Ranger. We've got a kaiju to deal with."

Three massive Jaegers were set down by their Jumphawks, not far from the coast of Santa Monica. The splashdown created by Antares dropping into the water impressed even Grant, he was beginning to see why the citizens of Los Angeles were so attached to their big bear.

They could see Screecher circling in the sky above the Channel Islands. Sequoia Victory grimly waded towards it while Antares and Arrow Zulu took up defensive positions along the coast. Every minute or so, Screecher would release a shrill scream that sent chills down the rangers' backs.

"Okay, that's creepy as hell," Skye complained as they stood, braced in the churning waters of the Gulf. "What's it doing?"

LOCCENT Controller Duong's accented voice replied over their headsets. "Mapping, we think."

"Mapping," repeated Jemma with trepidation.

"That's K-Science's best guess," Duong answered. "The scarier question is, why?"

"It's not going to matter," Triplett called from Sequoia Victory. "We're going to blast that bat out of the sky before it can share the results of its scouting mission."

"I want at least a mile clearance of San Miguel if you can swing it, Sequoia," the marshall commanded from LOCCENT. "I'm not keen on seeing it rain Kaiju Blue on a national park on tonight's news."

"Copy that," Ranger Carter replied. "We'll clear the Channel Islands and start taking potshots."

"We've got confirmation that coastal areas have been evacuated," said Duong. "Arrow Zulu, proceed south. Antares Redoubt, hold the mile off Santa Monica and points west."

Grant stabbed at his display, scrolling quickly through maps of the area. "Do you always split up like this?" he asked his co-pilots.

"Los Angeles is a big city," Skye shrugged. "The population isn't concentrated in one area. It must have been different in Panama City?"

"It's always about the Canal in Panama," Grant replied. "A sole and stationary objective."

"What about the citizens?"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Skye turned to Simmons, her expression unreadable. Ward could feel sad disappointment coming off of her in waves.

"I followed my orders," he clarified quickly.

Skye sighed. "Yes, we know. You're a good little soldier, Ward."

Before he could respond, a tense message came in from Ranger Triplett. "Goddamn it, what the hell are those? Arrow Zulu, Screecher is dropping some sort of plasma bombs on us and we're having a tough time getting a S.A.M. lock on it, it's moving too fast. Could use a hand to run interference."

"On our way, Sequoia," Barton replied.

"Keep moving northwest, Sequoia," Controller Duong said tersely. "Can you engage?"

"It's out of range for rail guns," said Ranger Carter. "And we lose missile calibration every time that bastard…..shit!" A loud explosion interrupted the Sequoia pilot.

Barton's voice was even. "Hang on, Sequoia, we're on our way. Cressie, it's starting to look a little choppy out here."

"We're right here," Skye spoke up suddenly. "Antares has a straight line to Sequoia and Screecher." She was smoothly ignored.

"Echo Hornet is suiting up now, ETA twelve minutes to your location, Sequoia," reported mission control.

"Oh good," Triplett muttered drily.

"Arrow Zulu is two minutes from you now."

Sharon Carter's voice was harried. "Primary plasmacaster is offline. Tesla guns at 70%."

The anxiety radiating from Skye was scratching at Grant's skin like steel wool. "Skye," he murmured in warning.

"We're right here," she hissed through clenched teeth.

"Where we are supposed to be, yes," he reminded her. "Defending the city."

"He's right, Skye," Jemma added. "Arrow Zulu is en route, we have to stay on the coastline."

Their displays lit up as Sequoia Victory locked and launched a surface-to-air-missile at the kaiju, taking out a chunk of Screecher's tail.

"Nice shot, Sequoia!" Jemma cheered in her headset.

"I think we just really pissed it off," Carter muttered in reply. Sure enough, the shrill bat-like screams increased and in the distance, they could see the massive creature swooping down towards the tall Jaeger angrily.

"Deploying AKMs," Ranger Romanova announced as Arrow Zulu came into range of the kaiju. A rain of anti-kaiju missiles erupted from their Jaeger's chest launcher. Several moments later, she swore at length in Russian as most of their shots failed to reach the flying monster.

"Does anyone have a giant fucking lasso?" Ranger Barton spat in frustration.

The kaiju swooped around and dropped another volley of crackling plasma balls on top of Sequoia. "S.A.M. launcher destroyed!" Triplett shouted. "Oxygen systems compromised! Come on, you bastard, get your ugly face down here…" A deafening chain of explosions cut him off.

Ward realized Skye was powering up even before Antares Redoubt's displays registered the neural input. "Ranger Skye!" he rasped at her. "Stand down!"

"They need our help!" she snarled in reply.

Ward could feel her struggling against himself and Jemma, wanting to run while Antares held fast. "What are you going to do, throw kittens at it?" snapped Grant. "If that kaiju turns around, it'll be over Santa Monica in a matter of seconds. Who'll stop it then if we're standing around the Channel Islands?!"

"Echo Hornet, five minutes from splashdown," Duong announced.

"Hold on, Sequoia," came the marshall in concern. "Hold on…"

"Primary fusion failing!" Ranger Carter shouted. "Screecher is closing for a kill, Arrow Zulu take it down take it down!"

"Direct-energy ballista deployed," reported Barton tersely. "Sequoia crew, evac evac evac!"

"Evac system offline!"

"Direct hit, ballista!"

"Sequoia Victory's Howling Commandos," Triplett's silky voice floated calmly over the chaos of shouted reports, "signing off."

"Trip, no!" screamed Skye, mere seconds before an electric blue explosion tore across the western horizon. From Antares Redoubt's displays, the targets indicating Sequoia Victory and Screecher simultaneous blinked from existence.

In LOCCENT and the conn-pods, there was silence. In the drift, words were unnecessary. Ward could feel Skye's devastated cries more profoundly than hearing them: "This is our fault," they rang. "This is your fault."

Chapter Text

The funeral was held three days later at Lightcap Park.

Neither Carter nor Triplett had much family left, it turned out. Ranger Triplett's mother stood beside his coffin, her head held high and proud as best as she could. She held an outstretched hand with Sharon Carter's last living relative, an elderly aunt who wept softly throughout the ceremony.

Grant was no stranger to death, no one was anymore, but this was the first time he'd ever suffered a funeral with an emotional passenger. He stole frequent glances at Skye, struggling to reconcile the blank look on her face with the turmoil of grief and guilt he knew she was feeling inside.

He shifted uncomfortably in his PPDC dress uniform. The next time he peeked in Skye's direction, she was looking squarely at him, her face inscrutable. He grimaced slightly in response. He was more willing to pretend he didn't know how upset she really was until she was ready to come tell him herself.

As Grant suspected, it didn't take Skye long. Not long after the sombre pilots returned to the Shatterdome, she barged into his quarters like a tiny storm cloud.

"Are you kidding me?!" she exclaimed when her eyes settled on Ward.

He was reclining idly on his bunk, dangling a piece wire for his very enthusiastic kitten. Ward raised his eyebrow nonchalantly. "Hunh. Hello, Skye. How did you get the door lock open?"

Skye screwed up her face and shook her head. "Don't try to change the subject!"

"I didn't realize we even had a subject yet."

"Oh, ha ha," her eyes narrowed. "Like you didn't just spend Trip and Sharon's funeral trying to shift the blame for their deaths."

Grant's jaw fell open and he stop shaking the wire at his cat. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard me! I thought stepping into the drift tied to a self-righteous prig with daddy issues would be bad enough, but no. I have to get your ridiculous brainwashing telecast at me as well."

In a flash, he was sitting up straight, his dark eyes flashing. "I beg your pardon?"

"I can't believe you, you're a piece of work. Pushing your garbage at me the whole time… 'It wasn't our fault, we had to keep the Miracle Mile secure. We were just following orders'."

"We were!"

"God, you might actually believe that! That's the twisted logic that you come up with when you abandon your friends!"

Ward stood slowly to loom over his furious co-pilot. "Skye," he said with dangerous calm. "You think we had a part in that? That we let that happen to them?"

"You know exactly what I think. We were right behind them, we could have done something," she spat.

"Like die?" he retorted bluntly. "Arrow Zulu is faster, has better range and is more maneuverable than Antares or Sequoia. We would have stood beside them and died with them. Skye, you need to think like a ranger, not like…. DAMMIT BUDDY!" Ward broke off his tirade when the little black cat leapt fearlessly from his bunk onto his shoulder, scrambling awkwardly for purchase with its tiny claws.

Skye clutched at the sudden, stabbing pain of her shoulder. It wasn't until Grant had managed to pluck the scruffy little creature from his back that they both realized, holding their arms in similar fashion, what had just occurred.

"No, no, no," Skye murmured in distress, pulling up her sleeve to search for claw marks. There was nothing there.

"What…. what just happened?" Ward stuttered.

"This isn't possible."

"Actually, it is," Grant said softly. "It's called ghost drifting. It's a… a known anomaly. But it's rare, and I've never heard about anything like this. Pilots who've known each other for years, maybe. Sharing thoughts and emotions outside the Headspace. But feeling each other's pain? Never."

Skye's eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer to him. "What the hell is it with you?" she demanded. "Why you?"

He spread his hands defensively. "What… I… I don't know! Why you? I can't say I'm a fan of this development either. This is… strange."

"This is bullshit, you mean," Skye groused, sullenly rubbing her arm.

"Are you okay?" he asked in concern, reaching out to her without thinking.

She jerked back, giving him a suspicious look. "You tell me," she replied, gesturing with her chin towards his own shoulder.

An awkward moment passed. "Okay, let's try this again," Skye sighed. "Your hurt feelings are suffocating me, like a cloud of smoke…."

"My feelings aren't hurt," he interrupted in protest.

"… Yes, they are, you can't hide that from me, you idiot."

"Well now they are, yeah!"

She rolled her eyes. "Would you shut up a minute?"

Ward rubbed his eyes wearily. "I'm sorry, but it there a point to all of this? I was having a nice, quiet evening, playing with my cat, when you broke into my room… literally broke in… and you keep calling me names…."

"….. oh and suddenly he's your cat, I see. Yesterday, Buddy was just some vermin foisted upon you, but now he's your little snuggle puss…."

"You know what? Get out. I don't have the energy to deal with you, you're exhausting. You don't make any sense. It's like the funeral…. your face said you were impassive but your brain was in despair. Now your mouth is angry but your mind is scared. I don't know which part of you to trust."

Skye's bow-shaped mouth fell open. "I'm not scared!"

"Yes, you are," Ward frowned. "You can't hide that from me, you idiot," he mimicked. "You're downright terrified."

"Of what, of you?" she scoffed?

"Yeah, actually," he crossed his arms in defiance. "You are scared of me. And why we're so attached. And you're scared about feeling my pain. And wondering if I'll feel yours? And we both feel our pain, would we both feel our…" he trailed off.

"Will we feel what?" Skye asked.

To her amusement, Grant looked embarrassed. "Never mind," he mumbled. "This is all new to me, too, you know. Bridging with John was never like this. It's getting late and I'm tired. Let's talk to Cressida about the ghost drifting in the morning, the J-techs might have some suggestions."

"What were you going to say, Grant?" she demanded again, her face falling somewhat petulant.

"Goodnight, Skye." He turned his back to her and briskly pulled his t-shirt off over his head, exulting silently over the rush of heat and panic he felt mentally slam into him from behind. He paused and glanced back at her, his hands on the buckle of his trousers. "Lock the door when you leave, would you?" he requested, full of innocence, and he cackled as she fled.

Ranger Grant Ward was standing on the flight deck of the Los Angeles Shatterdome, squinting into the sunset. His adoptive father and co-pilot, John Garrett was standing beside him, his tired face sour.

"I don't like it here, the water is the wrong colour," John scowled.

"You don't have to be here," Grant tilted his head reprovingly.

"Well neither do you, kid," griped his mentor. "This isn't what we discussed. We had a deal. I die, and you were going to walk away. Head back to Anchorage. Disappear. You weren't supposed to step into a Jaeger again."

"Yeah, well, things change, John. Isn't that what you were always telling me?"

John made an indelicate sound. "You're not a people person, Grant. Never have been."

"Yeah, I know," Ward replied airily. "You're always telling me that, too."

"You gotta a smart mouth, tonight, son. Need me to wipe it off your face for ya?"

Grant ignored him and continued to wince at the sun setting into the ocean. "I don't think it's so bad here," he commented slowly. "They have really good food in the mess hall. Isn't that weird?"

Garrett snorted. "You're going soft, boy. Keep eating all that rich, city food and you'll end up with permanent indigestion."

Ward sighed. "I do have a hell of a bellyache, now that you mention it." He looked down at his chest and was stunned to see a large, misshapen hole in his torso. He gasped in fear.

"What's wrong, hermano?" asked Duck Armstrong calmly. Ward turned to see the J-tech suddenly beside him, sedately polishing a heavy black piston with an oily rag.

"My… chest! There is a hole in my chest," Ward whimpered. "What happened to my heart?"

"Oh, that," Armstrong replied, unruffled. "It's right here!" He held out the stained piston. "I pulled it out for upgrades. It's not Antares-compatible. You should have it back in about a week."

"A… week?" Grant echoed faintly. "But… but I…." his knees began to buckle and he sank to the metal deck.

"Sunset's real pretty, though, I admit," laughed Garrett. He clapped his meaty hand on Grant's shoulder. "Maybe you're right. Maybe L.A. isn't so bad after all."

"My… heart…." gasped Ward as he clutched at the remainder of his chest. "I can't… I need…."

"What's that you need, kid?" John beamed at him, his too-perfect teeth glinting. "Your heart? You don't need that, Grant. How many times have I told you?"

Armstrong nodded in agreement. "It's not even Antares-compatible, Ranger Ward," the tech repeated. "I dunno where you got this from," he was frowning at the greasy piston in his hands, "but it's really not a reliable piece of work. It's scrap metal, really."

"Hear that, son? It's just garbage!" Garrett exclaimed. "It's scrap!"

Duck Armstrong shrugged. "I mean… we'll try to mod it, of course. Add another chamber here, fix up this valve over here… it's gonna take time, that's all. And lots of welding. It's not like a drivesuit, you can't just built another one from scratch."

"It's a junk heart, son," John Garrett was shaking his head. "Don't know why they even bother."

"We'll do our best," the J-tech said defensively. "It would have been easier if we had a spare. Could have used Trip's heart, I suppose, if his hadn't been broken at sea…"

"Trip… his heart wasn't… it wasn't broken…" Ward choked, his vision starting to go grey.

"Of course it was, Ward," Armstrong chuckled. "Anyone who dies betrayed has a broken heart."

Grant collapsed fully onto the flight deck, unable to keep his eyes open any longer.

"A real shame, too," lamented Armstrong to John Garrett. "He had a real beauty of a heart, Triplett did. A work of art, that heart. Not like this one."

"Piece of garbage, that heart, there," Grant could hear Garrett sneering. "Don't know why you bother."

"Well, we'll have to mod it," Duck replied modestly. "We always do our best."

Grant woke in the dark with a hoarse shout. His breath came in shaky gasps until he realized there was someone beside him, a small hand just barely skimming over the cold sweat of his chest (his mercifully whole, intact chest). His quarters were dark and quiet but he knew immediately it was her.

"Skye," he wheezed, letting the feeling of calm she was trying to project wash over him. Her hand started to move away, he caught and held on to it.

"Bad dream," she said softly, not a question but a statement without doubt. "I'm sorry, I wasn't going to pry but it felt like you were in so much distress. I couldn't… I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he assured her, sitting up in his bunk. His pupils were starting to adjust, he could make out the pale bronze of her skin and the spark of her eyes. "Thanks." His breathing had returned to normal but his pulse still raced.

"Okay, then." Skye's lips curled into a brief smile. "I overrode your lock again, I guess I just can't help myself when it comes down…"

"Skye."

Her tongue ran nervously over her lips, he couldn't miss the gesture even in the scant light. "I'd better go, Grant," she replied softly.

"Please don't," he begged wistfully. He tugged gently on her hand, still caught in his grasp. "My heart… it's not a piece of junk, Skye."

"What?" she asked, confused. "Of course it's not."

"It's not broken, or obsolete," he pressed on in desperation. "My heart still feels."

She made a perplexed noise. "What are you talking about?"

He smashed her hand against his chest, her fingers twitched in surprise against his firm pectoral muscles. "It's still beating, right?" With his free hand, he lashed out beside his bunk and hit a button to turn a dim nightlight on in the room.

Skye was blinking in continued surprise, her mouth frozen in a perfect O. She seemed to be dressed only in a faded grey PPDC t-shirt, her beautiful hair tousled from sleep. His desperation quickly faded, only to be replaced with something more profound. He wasn't sure if it was coming from her or himself but it was attached to a need that he didn't feel able to resist…

His lips were on hers. He pulled back briefly when she moaned, searching her face for consent and groaning in relief when she launched herself back at him. She pulled her hand from his and twined it into his hair as she scrambled into his bed and onto his lap.

His hands wrapped around her, tugging her even closer and splayed possessively across her back. His kisses travelled down her neck and grew bold, growling with want against the hollow of her throat. Shots of something electrifying kept pulsing through him and he gave up trying to define their source. Whether is was him or her lost all meaning, it was them and it was twofold and she pressed herself into his lap with devious purpose and he swore out loud.

Skye laughed. It was rich and wonderful, and his stomach clenched in knots. She rocked her hips playfully across his and smirked at the wordless sounds he made in response. She leaned down, her hair tumbling across his chest, and pressed her lips above his heart.

"I'm pretty sure it's still beating, yeah," she teased.

Grant's grip tightened on her backside and she rumbled her approval against his skin. "Ranger Ward?" she murmured breathlessly.

"Yes, Ranger Skye?" he replied, nipping his way lightly across her temple.

She lifted her head, her dark eyes blazing. "I want you," she said with conviction. "And if this ghost drifting thing is to be believed, I'm pretty sure you want me."

"I do," he agreed, sliding his hands up her flanks and slipping them under her shirt. She hissed and bit her lower lip as his thumbs skated along the perfectly smooth flesh of her breasts. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he breathed at her ear, eliciting a shiver from Skye. She bucked against him and his eyes closed. "Oh, hell, Skye."

"They do mandatory clean health panels in Panama City?" she asked as she ran an exploratory tongue along his jaw.

Ward groaned appreciatively. "Yes ma'am, every four months. Contraceptives?"

"Implanted," she affirmed, moving back to his mouth for a deep and urgent kiss.

"Mmmffff," responded Grant happily. Breaking away, he rolled over with her on his bunk and leaned on his arms above her, his eyes glittering in the dim light. "In that case, let's conduct some experiments," he said, his face turning mischievous.

"Neuropsych would appreciate it," his co-pilot agreed, arching up against him.

Grant closed his eyes again and let the warmth pooling in…. her stomach? his?… overwhelm him. Her hands were sliding confidently down his chest to undo the buckle at his waist and his breathing became erratic. Skye chuckled. "Hey, Grant?"

"Yeah?"

"Come here." She closed her cool fingers around him and in a heartbeat, they were both lost.

Chapter Text

Skye woke up home.

That was the first thought that popped into her mind as her awareness lazily floated up out of sleep. She felt like one of the Shatterdome cats; lazily satisfied, draped across something warm and welcoming. She stretched idly and eventually realized that the warm, welcoming thing was also pleasantly firm and smelled pretty damned good. She mumbled something indistinct and pressed her face into it. After several deep, contented breaths, she lifted her face up and smiled dopily.

"You are a cat," agreed the warm thing as it looked down at her. "And you are home, Skye. I hope you really believe that."

She smacked her lips sleepily. "You make a rather persuasive case, Ranger Ward. A girl could get used to this."

He chuckled and reached up to brush his fingers through her hair. "Not just any girl," he murmured with a happy sigh.

She leaned into his hand, capitalizing on the cat metaphor. They both laughed when her slight movement prompted a sulky meow from Buddy, who was trying to sleep curled up amidst their tangle of knees. Skye's giggles broke off suddenly as she was hit by a wave of uncertainty from Grant. His eyes widened and he rather roughly grabbed her the sides of her face with both hands.

"No," he said firmly, meeting her squarely in the eyes. "That's not what I meant. Dammit, Skye… we're going to need to give each other some time to learn how to interpret correctly. Look, I know it's total insanity that we've gone from strangers to this inside 48 hours, I know. But hey, listen to me…." he ran his thumbs across her cheeks as she pouted with doubt. "I want this, okay? It's like I spent my whole life seeing in black and white, never imagining that colour even existed. You brought that to me. I will never want to give you up."

"You hesitated, I felt it," she protested. "You're worried about how I'm going to react to something you need to say."

His lips twitched. "Well… yes. But I wasn't about to push you away." Ward pulled her face gently down and pressed his lips onto hers. "Shǎ māo," he teased her, enjoying the faint mewling sounds she was making. "I was actually thinking about how this bunk is a single and as much as I really like having you.. well…. like this…." he lightly drew his fingers down her side. She was splayed fully on top of his body, and her ticklish squirms in response did all kinds of interesting things to both of them. He cleared his throat. "I was going to suggest, I dunno…. a bigger bed? Bigger quarters? But I didn't want to be presumptuous. This is uncharted territory."

"Hmmmm," she replied with mock reluctance. "Well, things are moving too quickly, it's true. And I'm a proper Southern girl."

He snorted in reply. He rubbed his cheek against hers, and she made an adorable face.

"What the hell, you basically grew a beard over night," she complained.

"I'll go shave," Ward apologized, attempting to sit up.

She clung to him. "No, no! I might I like it, it makes you look dangerous."

"Okay now I'm definitely shaving it."

His co-pilot pushed him back down with all her might. "The mess hall stops serving at 10:00 and we should talk to Cressie before morning exercises. You don't have time to pretty up."

"I don't?" he glanced at his clock and raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

Skye smirked at him, knowing full well that he could essentially read her mind. She slid her knees down on either side of his hips, pinning him in place. "You don't. If we're going to disclose our situation to Mission Control, we need more data."

"You really are a force of nature, aren't you, Skye?"

"Brace yourself, Ranger Ward," her face was smug. "This hurricane is about to rock your world."

Controller Duong seemed suspiciously unperturbed when Grant provided a heavily edited account of their ghost drifting experiences. In fact, she seemed almost smug about it. She picked up the radio on her desk.

"Marshall Coulson?" she contacted their commanding officer. "Sir, I have Rangers Skye and Ward in my office. I believe we have confirmation of Scenario 12."

"Scenario 12?" Ward whispered to his co-pilot.

Skye shrugged, clueless. "No idea," she whispered back.

"Well, Controller Duong," the marshall's voice came back brightly. "I believe you owe me a kilogram of golden chanterelles and a jar of your uncle's rượu cần."

"It sounds like it, Marshall," the controller replied with a pained smile. "Do you want to see them?"

"Yeah. My office, eleven hundred. And get Barton and Romanova in there too."

Duong looked at Ward and Skye sternly over the rim of her glasses. "You heard the boss. Be there in twenty minutes. Skye…. that man loves you like a daughter. If you roll into his office wearing the same rumpled clothes from the funeral, he's going to have a heart attack. And Ward….."

"I was going to shave," he replied quickly.

Cressida rolled her eyes. "I don't even want to know. Just don't be late."

They were, of course, late. Ward had become progressively twitchier, pacing back and forth in Skye's tiny quarters as she changed into a tank top and her flight suit, fussed with her hair, fed several cats….

"Are we going any time this week?" he griped.

Skye rolled her eyes at him. "I never said you had to wait for me, vaquero. Cressie's wrong, anyway. What would really give Coulson a heart attack is if I showed up right at 11."

"Oh hell no, I'm not going in there alone. He'll start asking questions and I'll be obliged to answer them and fuck, I can feel the panic attack coming on already."

Grant could feel her arms around him before she even crossed the room. "That's never going to stop being miraculous," he said in wonder.

"Very suave, Ranger," she smiled up at him. "You win. Let's go."

Coulson's office was filled with pre-Kaiju-era memorabilia, a stunning view of Santa Monica Bay and the pilots of Arrow Zulu. Barton was practically perched on the window sill and his wife was leaning casually against the marshall's desk, eating an apple.

Coulson himself was in his chair, scratching his pen across what looked like a weighty report. "Rangers," he said casually without looking up. "I'm surprised. I didn't expect Skye for another ten minutes."

"I told you, Phil," Natasha commented drily. Barton snickered from the window.

The marshall sighed and tossed his pen aside. He raised his head and squinted at the young pilots. "Well, then," he said. "Cressida tells me that you believe there has been some ghost drifting."

"It's a freak-show," Skye piped up immediately. Grant gave her a hurt look, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"I see," the marshall replied. "Tasha, if you'd do me that favour we discussed…."

Skye and Ward simultaneously looked at the beautiful Russian ranger, and were thus completely ambushed by the small dart that Barton pulled from his pocket and whipped at Grant. Both Antares pilots cried out in surprise, clutching in identical fashion at their collarbones.

"What the hell?" Skye shrieked. She quickly pulled the dart from Ward's chest and threw it angrily down on Coulson's desk.

"The favour was to act benign while Clint stabbed you," Natasha informed them glibly.

"Now that really is a freak-show, Phil," said Barton solemnly.

"Is this what you were looking for?" Romanova asked the marshall.

"Scenario 12," he nodded.

"Huh," the Russian replied, looking back at the enraged pilots with something akin to respect. She took another loud, crunching bite from her apple.

"I really, really hope someone is going to explain what's going on," Ward growled. "Preferably without throwing any more pointy objects at me or Skye."

"Sit down, both of you," the marshall gestured, and Romanova moved to stand behind him. "Let's rewind a few years. Dr. Caitlin Lightcap, inventor of the Pons System that makes drifting possible, discovers the phenomenon she calls 'ghost drifting'. A project is born in a Pan Pacific Defence Corps lab: we can make educated guesses on drift compatibility, but can ghost drifters be identified based on their neural results alone? They start combing over pilot profiles, years of searching… looking for clues. Looking for the ghosts."

"And they found us," Skye murmured.

"Technically, they found us first," Ranger Barton supplied in his usual chipper tone. "I was in Los Angeles, screwing around…."

"In every meaning of the word," his wife interjected.

"…. and Tasha was piloting a rust bucket with her first husband in Vladivostock."

"Alexei was a great pilot," added Romanova.

"He was a great man, too," Clint agreed. "They lost him to Krasnyy Opekun, category two kaiju, a few months later."

Grant was still absently rubbing his collarbone. "So you're ghost drifters."

Marshall Coulson sat back in his chair, pensive. "Let's define the term," he said. "Most pilots, unless they really struggle with the modesty reflex, eventually find themselves ghost drifting with their partners. Adopting some of each other's personality traits, excellent non-verbal communication, unconscious synchronicity of motion, etc. It's why I never play basketball with the rangers anymore."

"That kind of connection isn't unusual," Barton clarified. "Some pilots, though… a much smaller number, were sharing genuine headspace outside of a Pons system. The neuropsychs came up with a series of scenarios they predicted could happen between these rarer ghost drifters…. if they could even find them."

"How many scenarios?" asked Grant, feeling like he knew this answer.

"Twelve," grinned Barton. "Ranging from 'no one ever beats them at Pictionary' to 'throw a dart at one of them, and they both bleed'."

"I'm not bleeding," Skye argued triumphantly.

"I won't be surprised if eventually, you do," Marshall Coulson's face was smug. "You've known each other for all of two days. Imagine a month down the road. Imagine a year. Scenario 12 predicts a pair of pilots who don't even need a neural handshake before waltzing off in their Jaeger."

Skye's eyes narrowed. "But we're not a pair of pilots. We're a trio. How does Jemma fit into this?"

Coulson's face fell. "Well… we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"What does that mean?"

Grant reached out to take his partner's hand, feeling her distress rising. "It means Fitz, Skye. He means we don't know if Fitz will make it, and if Jemma can even keep doing this."

The marshall nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Skye, but that's the reality. I swear we weren't hunting specifically for this, but Ward's file came across my desk as an unassigned candidate and we ran the profiles and it was just there. The possibility was there."

Grant had turned his attention back to Natasha, watching her crunch enthusiastically into her apple. "You were married," he said suddenly. "Before Barton."

"So was Barton, to be fair."

"But you're married to each other now."

Natasha smiled warmly. "I know where you're going with this, Grant. And yeah. She's going to be there, in your head, at all times. You're going to feel like you can't function properly if she's not beside you. It's hard to be married to someone else when you're gasping for air like a fish out of water the minute you close the door in her face."

"You won't want to close the door to begin with, frankly," Barton contributed from his perch. "I thought I loved Bobbi, really, I did. Then Natasha walked off the tarmac, my jaw hit the deck and my brain took a long walk off the short pier. I was done for. What was I gonna do? Keep up the charade with Bobbi when Natasha knew exactly, intimately, how I really felt? About everything? I couldn't do that to either of them."

"It's not without rather delightful benefits," Romanova said helpfully. "Like, Clint's got this sensitive spot, at the base of his throat, and if I kiss him right there, we both just go absolutely….."

"Okay, okay," interrupted Marshall Coulson forcefully. "I think the picture is clear."

"Grant's is right behind his ear," Skye said brightly. "It's like he's ticklish but holy shit, even better!" Everyone turned to stare at her, and Ward's shock and scandalized panic hit her in equal measure.

"What?" she demanded, giving him an innocent look. He groaned in response.

"Well, I guess that little revelation saves me the more awkward questions," Coulson cleared his throat. "Natasha suggested earlier that I should authorize PMQs for you…. those are the larger quarters for…. um, well…. cohabitating. Cohabitants? Whatever. If you're interested."

"Yes!" whooped Skye, ignoring the continued alarm from her partner. "Thanks, Nat!"

Grant was slowly recovering his composure. "Marshall, I can't help but wonder…. what's the endgame to all of this? So we're living in each other's skins, that's…. great? I guess? How does this actually help us?"

Marshall Coulson brightened. "Aha, finally! A conversation that doesn't make me profoundly uncomfortable! We all saw the debrief yesterday, the two of you are bridging with virtually undetectable lags. Psych is confident that, given some time in the Kwoon Combat Room together, you'll be fully anticipating each other's reactions with lead times we've only dreamed of. So there's that."

Ward looked at him expectantly. "Buuuuuut…? Come on, Marshall. Pons tech compensates perfectly well for those discrepancies, we all know that. You're looking for something else." He shifted his gaze to the Arrow Zulu rangers, both of whom had apparently found extremely interesting spots on Coulson's floor to examine.

Skye suddenly grabbed Ward's arm. "A hive mind," she hissed. "That's what they're looking for."

Coulson winced. "Can we go with 'collective consciousness', please?"

"What the…. are you kidding me?" exclaimed Grant. His hands clenched into fists without realizing it, and Skye took one of them into her grasp tightly.

"There's a fringe opinion at K-Science," the marshall began calmly, "that thinks the kaiju might have a collective consciousness. It's…. it's just a wild theory. We were already looking for ghosts. There was no reason not to service a CC study on the side."

"I want to be very clear, here, Marshall," Skye bristled. "We are not your lab rats. If anyone, anywhere, hurts Grant in the name of science… or hurts me to get to him indirectly…."

Barton broke out with a booming laugh, interrupting Skye's tirade. "Look at her, she's adorable! All teeth and claws!"

Natasha pierced him with a deadly gaze. "Try not to be an ass, Clint."

"No one is hurting anyone," the marshall answered with exasperation. "You're misunderstanding the point. Drift compatibility is uncommon in the general population to begin with. Ghost drifters at any level, even rarer. You two? Previously thought to be mythical. What I want to do right now is put you in the best Jaeger we have and see what happens. That's it."

"That seems unlikely," muttered Grant.

"Slow your roll, Ranger," Romanova flared. "I promise you that, in all my years at the LA Shatterdome, Phil has never tried to dissect me or enslave me. Or Clint. We're pilots, not experiments. But you need to get your head in the game… this is a war. We are humanity's knights. If I could park my ass on top of The Breach and telepathically relay my every thought and motion to Clint in L.A. and that would make a difference? I'd be in the next jumphawk to Guam, you can believe it."

Clint had slid out of the window and joined his wife behind the marshall. He smoothly placed his hands on her shoulders. "The idea of a hive mind was something of a K-science joke," Barton said quietly. "Until Screecher. Why would the kaiju bother with what looked undeniably like scouting, if that kaiju wasn't somehow getting information back to The Breach? We know they don't transmit over any radio frequency. So…. why? Maybe it's not a crazy idea after all. And if the kaiju are doing it, it's imperative that we understand it better. Ghost drifters are the natural place to start."

Skye was still angry and Ward was concerned, they could feel their mutual discomfort like ill-fitting sweaters.

"Do we trust them?" Grant thought with sharp focus, hoping that he could throw the very question hard enough for her to read clearly. To his relief, she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I do. I trust all three of them," she projected in response. "And if things change, we walk. Right?"

Ward nodded back at her, and Marshall Coulson's mouth fell open.

"Whoa whoa, hang on…. did you just have an actual conversation? Telepathically? With actual words?"

"Maybe," Skye snapped.

"They totally did," Barton chuckled. "Is there a Scenario 13 in the books?"

"Ward and Skye, head to morning exercises directly," said Coulson, grimacing. "You have permission to talk to the housing clerk for relocation, if you want PMQs. You're dismissed."

The co-pilots shared an undecipherable look. After a moment, Grant tugged at Skye's hand, and she reluctantly followed him from the marshall's office.

"It's more critical than ever to get Antares Redoubt fully battle-ready," Coulson said to the remaining rangers with finality. "Natasha, I want Viper Kilo's crew overseeing combat training and tell Head, Hand and Armstrong that they have every resource at their disposal. I want Ward's drivesuit ready now."

"Do you want PPDC Psych updated?" Romanova asked, her head cocked in curiosity.

The marshall paused. "No," he said eventually. "No. Let's sit on this for now. Let's see how our new ghosts settle in before we're forced to pull the rug out from underneath them."

Chapter Text

"I slept with Ward."

Jemma's head snapped up from the science journal she was reading aloud. "You what?"

Her best friend was slinking guiltily into Fitz's hospital room. "Grant. I slept with him last night. And this morning. And I'm going to do it again, every chance I get. I wanted to warn you before our next drift."

"Oh, that," Simmons sighed, putting her book down. "I can't say I'm surprised."

Skye sat down on the edge of Fitz's bed and rubbed his hand idly. "You're not?"

"Not even a little. I mean, come on, Skye, you were either going to kiss him or kill him. You're far too alike."

The smaller pilot stared, her mouth agape. "We are certainly not! We… we are opposites!"

Jemma snorted. "Nonsense. It was as plain as the nose on your face."

Her friend frowned, wrinkling the aforementioned nose with great disdain. "What are you reading?"

"Just a short paper on aerothermoelasticity."

"Oh so some light reading, then. You two really know how to live it up."

Jemma sighed and gave Skye an exasperated look. "So that was all, then? Or do you have another other not-so-startling pronouncements you'd like to make?"

Skye bit her lip. Simmons knew her all too well. "I wanted to ask you about something. Do you know anything about ghost drifting?"

The dark blond's eyes lit up. "Ahhhhh, there it is. I did wonder. Yes, of course I do."

"You and Fitz…..?"

They both looked down at Jemma's husband, pale and silent in his bed. Jemma ran her hand tenderly down the side of his face.

"A little, sure. Nothing that gets Neuropsych really excited, but enough that I know how he's feeling."

Skye's brow creased. "What… you mean, like, now…?"

Jemma's smile was faint. "Right now, he's frustrated. Tired. Sick of being stuck like this. And wondering why I stopped reading Dr. Lechner's paper, because I was just getting to the interesting conclusions before you interrupted."

"Oh. Oh! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine, Skye," she smiled.

"How come I didn't know about this?"

Jemma shrugged. "I don't know, Skye. Maybe you just expect Fitz and I to be this close. Maybe you didn't want to think about it. You often let your loneliness close you off to things that should be obvious. Like Ranger Ward, for example." She paused, waiting for Skye's customary snarky comeback. When it didn't come, she nodded sagely. "Food for thought, isn't it?"

"I guess so."

"I'm going to guess that the ghost drifting question and Grant are connected."

Skye nodded slowly.

"Well… that's good, right? You wanted someone so badly, Skye. Someone to belong with."

"Maybe I should have been careful what I wished for," Skye laughed lightly. "We have a combat test in an hour," she changed the subject. "I'd better let you finish reading the journal. Sorry, Fitz!" Skye bounded from the hospital room with Jemma looking after her in concern.

"Hmmmph, I think you're right," the woman commented to her unconscious husband. "She's out of sorts, and there is definitely something strange going on."

Several hours later, Antares Redoubt was standing off the coast of the Oxnard Bonefields, with Viper Kilo running circles around it. The smaller Jaeger was lightning fast and impossibly mobile, its pilots relentless. Grant ground his teeth in frustration.

"How the hell do they move so fast?" he swore, clutching the Big Bear's paws into angry fists.

"Maglev actuators in vacuum tubes," Simmons replied succinctly, earning her irritated looks from her co-pilots. "What?" she protested. "He asked!"

"Well thank you for the mechanical engineering lesson," Skye muttered. "Fitz would be very proud of you."

"Wait, hang on…. maglev actuators?" Grant queried, grunting as they finally scored some close hits on Viper with Antares' primary railgun. "What kind of magnets?"

"Uhhh… they are a cobalt alloy, I think," said Jemma.

"So ferromagnetic, then. And could be briefly de-magnetized.…"

"… by heating them! Yes!"

"Would you two knock it off?" Skye snapped. "Grant, you sound like Fitz and you're making me feel stupid. Stop it."

They ignored her. "What's the Curie temperature of cobalt? Ballpark figure," mused Ward.

"Hot. It's at the top of the charts for crystalline ferromagnetics…. over 1100 degrees Celsius, I believe."

"Hello, people?" complained Skye. "How about you two козел stop filling my head with science crap, and focus on the pressing issue of Viper Kilo harrying our right flank. Anyone?"

"We're working on it, Skye!" Ward retorted. He stabbed at his control console. "Plasma weapons are obviously offline for the tests, what have we got that can generate enough heat?"

"This is cheating," Skye said, sourly. "This is supposed to be combat training, not Jaeger Lab with Simmons & Ward."

"The pasotron guns?" Jemma suggested brightly.

"I doubt Viper'll do us the courtesy of standing still long enough to microwave them into immobility. Dammit, everything we've got has been tuned to blank fire. It won't work."

"Are you idiots trying to heat something up?" asked Skye snarkily. "You're standing on a tectonic fault, for crying out loud."

In unison, they surged suddenly to the right. Viper Kilo dodged a swing from the huge red Jaeger but stumbled backwards as Skye lead them, slamming forward into Viper with a big belly smash. Antares Redoubt clasped a meaty paw around one of Viper Kilo's legs and neatly up-ended their trainer.

Ranger Hill's voice crackled over the radio. "If you use your constrictor on us, Antares, the J-techs will have you and your next five generations paying for our repairs."

The West Coast Bulwark ignored them. "Scanning for a lava vent," Simmons chirped. "Here. Head northwest."

Viper Kilo thrashed like a trapped animal. Grant grimaced. "Watch out for their cannons," he warned. Antares ducked just in time to avoid a high-scoring blast to the head.

"You don't get bonus points for the scenic tour," Ranger May hissed over the comms. "What the hell are you playing at, Antares?"

"Submerging," Antares Redoubt's AI droned, and it trudged gamely towards the lava vent, dragging their uncooperative trainer underwater with them.

"Right there," Jemma pointed at a glowing mass in the distance. Viper Kilo was twisting furiously in their grasp, making anything beyond low-scoring potshots impossible. Still, the West Coast Bulwark held fast.

"This won't damage Viper's exoskeleton, right?" Skye asked aloud for confirmation.

"Correct," Jemma nodded. "Jaegers can handle plasma-breathing kaiju, all we need is enough exposure to fire Viper's actuators up to about 1390 Kelvin…."

"Okay, spare me the math," Skye interrupted. "You've got my brain swimming in physics again. I just want to make sure that we won't have Viper's pit crew waiting for us with pitchforks and blow torches when we get back to base."

"Just a little hot lava," Grant smiled serenely, and the Big Bear pressed its unwilling passenger against the vent. "That should heat things up a bit."

After a few moments, they could feel Viper Kilo lock up under their fingers. They smoothly pulled the motionless Jaeger out of the lava and tossed it onto the ocean floor.

"We've got about 20 seconds before she re-magnetizes", Simmons informed them. "Let's go with pasotrons, plasmas, railguns…" Antares Redoubt's weapons deployed in quick measure, firing what would be killing blows into their prone opponent.

"Please note, Viper Kilo," Skye sang over the radio, "I'm crushing your itty bitty head!" Antares Redoubt slowly lifted one of it huge hands in front of its conn-pod and made a pinching gesture with its big paw.

Viper's pilots somehow managed to make the small Jaeger look sulky. Slowly, its limbs began to move as its metal cooled and its actuators re-magnetized. Antares held out its beefy paw, which Viper grasped and pulled itself upright.

"Colour me impressed, Antares," Ranger Hill admitted. "I don't know what the odds of a ferromagnetic kaiju are, of course, but nice team strategizing and brilliant use of the environment. I am cautiously optimistic."

"What she said," Ranger May added. "But with less optimism. I don't do optimism."

"Why thank you, Viper Kilo," said Simmons in her honeyed British accent.

"Combat assessment concluded. You passed. Get your butt back to the Shatterdome, Antares," Hill instructed them. "And be quick about it. Skye and Ward, there is a delegation from PPDC Psych waiting to speak to you. Don't keep them waiting."

Chapter Text

Aside from Marshall Coulson and Controller Duong, the main conference room was filled with unfamiliar faces. They all went quiet when Ward and Skye entered together, hands held tightly between them.

"Excellent work this morning, Rangers," Coulson stood with a warm smile. "I hear you passed combat assessment with flying colours."

"Thank you, sir," Ward replied with a nod of his head. "It felt good to be back in action." Skye remained silent, carefully looking over the others at the table.

Coulson cleared his throat. "Rangers Ward and Skye of Antares Redoubt, as you all know. Pilots, I'd like to introduce Doctors Banner and Whitehall and their respective teams, from Pan Pacific Defence Corps Neuropsychology."

Two men stood up from the table. Dr. Banner was a large, heavily muscled man, filling out his PPDC lab coat in a way that discouraged argument. Despite his bulky appearance, his smile was broad and genuine. "Rangers," he said, beaming. "It's a real pleasure. I was one of the researchers patched into your drift compatibility testing…. that was a thrill to watch! My team and I will be working with your neuropsychs here, keen to observe and learn more about your unique bond. Please, call me Bruce." He extended his hand, and Skye and Ward took turns giving it a brief shake.

"And I'm Dr. Whitehall," the other man interjected at that moment. Where Dr. Banner seemed warm and vibrant, Whitehall appeared pale and cool. His words were clipped and delivered with a faint German accent. He wore a set of small, circular glasses, and he peered down through them with an aloof expression. "My team and I are a separate department, we're here on risk assessment."

It was as though a layer of ice had suddenly crystallized across the surface of the conference table. "Risk assessment?" Skye repeated. She sent a sour look at Coulson, he pursed his lips in reply.

"Yes, that's right, Ranger," Whitehall responded slowly with a condescending tone. "It's standard procedure when we're dealing with…. special circumstance."

The marshall cleared his throat again. "Obviously, we're not expecting any problems, Skye. It's all precautionary, it's just protocol. When we're dealing with billions of dollars of Jaeger-tech, PPDC doesn't take any chances. Anytime things range outside normal parameters, Dr. Whitehall's team spends some time… just… ummm…"

"Observing, just like us," Dr. Banner hopped in enthusiastically. "Trust me, Danny's team hasn't done any real work in decades. It's all precautionary!"

Two spots of furious colour appeared on Dr. Whitehall's cheeks, he looked suddenly as though he had swallowed a mouth full of feathers. "I demand that you stop calling me 'Danny', Dr. Banner….." he spluttered, "… and furthermore…"

"Well, that's a relief, then," Ward interrupted, overly loudly. "Because the only risk around here tends be the giant lizards that crawl up out of the Pacific. I hate for any of this neuropsych stuff to interfere when we're trying to protect LA's citizens."

While Ward was speaking, Skye amused herself by trying to meet the eyes of any of Dr. Whitehall's scientists. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they all seemed rather uncomfortable.

"Well okay, then!" the Marshall clapped his hands sharply, drawing everyone's attention. "PPDC will be doing all this observing over the next couple of week's training exercises. The Antares crew is booked into the Kwoon Combat Room this evening, so Doctors, if either of you or your teams wanted to get started, you're more than welcome in the observation area but please let the Training Clerk know ahead of time….."

"Hey."

Skye's voice was as clear as if she had spoken aloud to him. He looked at his co-pilot with a raised eyebrow, and she smirked.

"You know what?"

Ward turned away to hide dopey grin he was battling. "We're supposed to be paying attention to this meeting, that's what. It's important," he thought back at her.

"Oh, come on. Coulson's got his bullshit face on, we're in the clear. No, this is what you're supposed to know."

A rapid series of images and impulses from the previous night flashed through Grant. He bit back a groan, turning it inelegantly into a cough that earned him several odd looks. "Sorry," he apologized out loud. "It's quite dry in here, isn't it?"

Grant thought he saw Controller Duong rolling her eyes out of the corner of his vision. "Don't get me into trouble, Skye," he projected with a sulk. "Can we agree not to… uhh… distract each other? Because if this sort of thing keeps happening…."

He pushed some vivid memories back at her, specifically involving the noises she had made in his bunk last night as he had enthusiastically explored her body with his tongue and teeth. Skye flushed dramatically and shifted nosily in her seat. Ward gave her a pointed look.

"…everyone is going to know what's up. Let's not tip our entire hand to these neuropsychs just yet, k? Whitehall makes me nervous and this Banner guy is… an unknown." he followed up at her.

"Fair enough," her mind whispered back to him. "I'll save it for special occasions."

He was looking forward to it.

Chapter Text