Saving Grant Ward

Chapter Five

A/N: Since Grant is a couple years ahead of Samantha, I'm going to skip over most of her time at SHIELD Academy since they wouldn't really cross paths much during that time 😄

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Despite my ambitious plans, I wasn't able to get much more than academy-related conversations and the occasional possible-hallucination smile out of Agent Ward. Truthfully, the first week was so completely and utterly exhausting that I didn't have much extra energy to use in my attempt to make friends with him.

The benefit of that week in the deep end, though, was that starting my own classes and exercises felt like a comparative cake walk. The schedule and training were still insanely demanding, but they were at my level, and everyone around me was dealing with the same challenges. I bonded with a handful of classmates quickly, and we became the support systems and life lines for each other that had been missing that first week.

With how quickly we were expected to get in the swing of things, I didn't have much time or energy to spare thoughts for Grant Ward. He was two years ahead in the program, dealing with his own issues and challenges, and I was working so hard to keep my place at SHIELD that if I wasn't spending class and training time with somebody, they weren't on my radar. Other than a handful of run-ins where neither of us were at our best, I didn't see Agent Ward at all.

Even though my mission to befriend him had technically been a failure, it ended up having next to no impact on my time at the academy. I put all my energy into learning everything there was to know about SHIELD and becoming one of its agents. I worked with my fellow trainees, and even though a lot of them washed out along the way, it only left the rest of us bonded more tightly than ever. For the first time in my entire life, I was doing more than just scraping by in school. I was doing well. I ended my first year at the top of my class, and while I'd had to ask the agent in charge of our year to repeat herself three times when she told me, it felt incredible to occupy that position once I finally believed it.

Of course, I'm sure it helped that I actually enjoyed the subject matter. It was a lot easier for me to sit down and study tactical analysis, canvasing, and dead drops than it had been to do the same with biology, history, and calculus in high school.

Since I'd finished my first year at the top of the class, I wasn't limited in my choice of path for the next three years. I had the scores to be a Field Agent or a Specialist, although the choice wasn't difficult for me. I'd come here to follow a very specific dream, and Specialist fit that dream far better than Field Agent. The fact that I excelled in my Specialist classes was a surreal additional bonus.

The only downside of the decision came scattered throughout the next three years of Specialist training. I quickly learned that Agent Grant Ward wasn't the only Ops Specialist who was hard to make friends with. Almost everyone in my classes had the same lone-wolf mindset, and none of them were eager to bond over books, giggling, and hot chocolate. Luckily, I managed to maintain my relationships with the handful of friends I'd made in my first year who also chose the Specialist path, and between us we managed to make friends with a few of the older students, too. I might not have had success with Ward, but that wasn't going to stop me from forcing a change in the culture of Specialists, one gruff and tired agent at a time.

By the time graduation rolled around, I recognized just about everyone in my program, and was on good terms with most of my teachers. I made a point of welcoming and helping new students where I could, and I even managed to organize a few Specialist study session and game nights with reasonable attendance. After four years of living almost exclusively in this world and with these people, it was harder than I ever thought it'd be to leave everyone for the future we'd all been working so hard to achieve.