Saving Grant Ward

Chapter Twenty-Five

A/N: Hamilton comes up in this chapter and I know technically, timeline wise, that wouldn't exist yet, but I'm going to change the timeline a little bit and have it already exist. That might happen with some movies and stuff too, so please just go with it 😝

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In the weeks of our recovery, Grant and I managed to find plenty of things to do. Fury had told us to become the most productive team ever, so we did. Along with training and a handful of board games and other downtime activities, Grant and I filled every second of our time with whatever needed doing at the Hub. We ran backend on missions around the world, flew supply planes to other bases, helped people in SciTech test new gear for the field, and anything else we could.

Once we finally got cleared for field duty again, we only got busier.

Grant and I fell into a steady, easy rhythm, and climbed through the ranks at SHIELD in record time. We traveled the world together, from missions in Istanbul, Turkey to Carúpano, Venezuela to Lansing, Michigan. We spent a full 18 months in deep cover in London. Over the course of the next five years, we traveled together to 37 countries, and reached level five and level six respectively. Our near-death experience tally hit 174, which I felt equal parts proud and embarrassed about.

By now, we'd become reasonably known around the agency. A Specialist permanent partnership would've stood out on its own, but in our quest to live up to my deal with Fury, we'd managed to make a good name for ourselves, too. Even better, we'd earned the right to share some preferences about the kinds of missions we got assigned, and the people doing the assigning actually listened.

Which is why we sat together on another Quinjet, heading for sunny Southern California for our next assignment, and hadn't been anywhere colder than Michigan in the summer since Siberia.

"Got our mission file?" asked Grant, directing the words my way even as he focused on maneuvering us out of the hanger at the Hub. I nodded.

"Yup. You ready to hear the details? This one sounds interesting."

"Can't wait."

"Alright, so apparently, we're supposed to scout out a couple members of some hacking group called 'The Rising Tide'. A couple, Marco and Tess, popped up onto our radar after hacking the Pentagon during a joint op between some of their people and ours. They leaked the intel, and I guess a few of our agents almost got caught in the fallout mid-mission."

Grant scowled. "Of course. These Rising Tide people don't get it. They're never around for the fallout, so they never stop to consider that some secrets are kept for a reason."

"You're preaching to the choir, Grant."

"I know," he huffed. "So what are we supposed to do when we find Marco and Tess?"

"Mmm, looks like it's up to us. Higher-ups want us to start by staking out their apartment, try to see if we can get a lead on any of the rest of their group or any other interesting information, then eventually bring them in. In the meantime, like usual, once we're on the ground we're responsible for assessing the situation and choosing the best course of action."

"Anything else?"

"Nope. Pretty light on details about Tess and Marco, too. I wonder if that's because they're good enough that we couldn't get better information on them."

"Great," sighed Grant. "We're chasing a couple of computer wizards. How did we get this assignment again?"

"Beats me. Maybe it was the only assignment available in a place that's not freezing cold in March. But at least the computer wizards probably won't be raising our near-death experience tally."