notes:

+ i have literally no clue why i do this to myself, but this is pretty depressing. or if you want to see it in a slightly more happy way: they need the bad they're going through at the moment to get to the good. any other way ends worse.

+ if you feel inspired by any of these, feel free to use them as a prompt.

+ title from "tomorrow" by daughter.

one.

There's a world out there, somewhere, in which Grant Douglas Ward had a nice upbringing in suburban Massachusetts.

In that world he is an accountant.

two.

There's a world in which SHIELD briefly considers recruiting him, but decides he is too much of a liability.

In that world he is dead.

three.

There's one where he's dead before SHIELD even has the chance.

four.

There's one where HYDRA never recruits him.

He never is assigned to the Coulson's team. Instead, he kills for SHIELD because it's the right thing to do.

Until HYDRA goes into the light, and he dies at the Triskelion.

five.

He meets a girl in a bar in Dublin.

He's broken, battered, feels sick every time he closes his eyes.

She smiles like she missed the memo that angels aren't allowed on Earth.

He's like to think that it was something proper and vaguely romantic like they went back to his room and talked and then maybe slept together.

In truth they had sex in the bar's toilets and he never saw her again, never even learns her name.

six.

He sees her across the bar in Dublin.

She leaves with a guy that's ever so slightly taller than Ward, and honestly looks like he crawled out of a trash can.

(Because since when was any kind of contact a requirement for disarming waves of jealousy?)

seven.

A girl called Mary gives him her number in a bar in Dublin. Says she works in data processing.

He flies out to Lisbon the next morning. It's six years before he's back in Ireland, and by then he senses it's probably too late.

eight.

He meets a girl called Skye at a bar in Dublin, and by the next morning the other side of the bed is cold and his wallet is gone.

It was probably worth it.

nine.

He arrests a Rising Tide girl called Skye and never sees her again. She's probably staring at the ceiling of some SHIELD prison.

(Does he wonder, sometimes? Of course he does. He only saw her for maybe twenty seconds before she was taken for interrogation, but god does he wonder, every single day.)

ten.

The Rising Tide girl slips through his fingers.

It's probably the most mortifying thing to ever happen to him. It's his first mission for the team. She's just a little girl who was supposed to be in a van.

But she's not in a van. She's not anywhere.

eleven.

Coulson dies before the battle of New York. He stays that way.

Ward is part of a two man team sent in to neutralize a Rising Tide hacker. It's a pretty simple op, really. Until it turns out Garrett wants to turn her over to HYDRA.

There's something about in her, he says. Redacted SHIELD records. He's just curious.

But Ward knows Garrett's curious.

So when Skye sees Grant Ward for the first and only time in her life, it is as he knocks his superior out, and tells her "run".

twelve.

Melinda May's report deems Triplett the best specialist for the job.

Ward only meets Skye after Garrett's had her shot and they're looking for a cure. 'Meet' maybe isn't the best word. She's lying in a bed, eyes closed, machines keeping her alive.

He tells himself that the reason he forgets how to breathe for a moment or two is the memories it brings back.

Garrett gets what he wants though, when Coulson leads them straight to the guest house, and they bring Skye back from the brink of death.

They leave before she wakes up.

He never sees her again.

thirteen.

He isn't right for the team.

He sees her when she's nearly dead, and then again, when they're tracking down Nash.

Garrett's pushing the team's buttons, trying to get a reaction out of them. Trying to scare them.

Ward doesn't want to think about why he leaves that basement wanting to throw up.

fourteen.

She works in Communications at the Triskelion. She smiles at him every time he comes by.

Garrett says she likes him. That she would go out with him if he asked.

He doesn't ask.

Mostly because HYDRA has to go and reveal itself on the day he was going to see if she wanted to go for drinks.

(He doesn't go back to look for her body in the ash. He doesn't look for her name on the lists of the dead. He doesn't want to know.)

fifteen.

He meets a girl called Skye at a bar in New York. He's got six months off for a nasty injury. She gives him her number and he thinks, what the hell. He was going to spend it getting piss drunk and feeling sorry for himself otherwise.

He calls her.

He thinks, at some point, that this is it. He's going to be happy. This is it.

And then she steals everything related to SHIELD in his apartment, along with his laptop, his phone, and his badge.

Just his luck.

(It's fun to explain to his supervisor. No, he didn't realise he was dating a hacker for five months. Yes, they should maybe scratch out best since Romanoff.)

sixteen.

There's this one where she kisses him in Malta, right after he saves her from Quinn's guards. He kisses her, again, later, when they're supposed to be training.

(And again, and again, and again.)

It's definitely, no doubts ever, the best few months of his life.

There is no feeling better than waking up to find her in his arms, or kissing her forehead when she makes him proud enough to burst, or even the vaguely disapproving looks Coulson gives them when they arrive late to briefings, hair messed up and shirts buttoned wrong.

Then Garrett has to go and fuck it all up. He has Skye shot in the stomach.

So he puts two in Quinn's.

(He's facing SHIELD review at the Triskelion when it all goes to shit.)

seventeen.

The battle of New York never happens.

Agent Coulson continues to babysit unruly superheroes.

Ward works with Garrett, Skye leaks files from her van. Nothing more than a bit of a nuisance.

That's the way it stays.

eighteen.

His blood is under her nails, because he's such a fucking noble idiot, he thinks the only way to apologise is by stepping in front of a knife.

nineteen.

She's a cleaner at his sixteen month op in Moscow.

They've got a thing.

By thing, he means they sometimes have sex in a closet.

As it happens, she's KGB and tries to kill him.

It's a bit of a nuisance. Messed up the whole operation. He'd tell her so, if he ever saw her again. But he doesn't

twenty.

She's a cleaner at his sixteen month op in Moscow.

They've got a thing.

By thing, he means he originally scoped her out so he could lift her access card. And then he might have fallen in love with her.

And then he betrays them all. Even if she ever forgave the bastard, she would never see him again anyway.

twenty one.

There's one where it's Coulson, not Garrett, who finds him in the first place. He fixes him up and reminds him what good is.

In that one he loves her just the same, but in that one he tells her so.

In that one he dies to protect her when HYDRA rises.

twenty two.

She is taken by HYDRA as a baby, and by the time he meets her as a battered new recruit, she's already a HYDRA machine. He's still assigned as one of her guards.

What's love? she'll makes you weak.

(It doesn't stop him loving her more with every breath she takes and every one she makes him lose.)

twenty three.

She lets him die, there, on the floor of the Bus. Let's Deathlok stop his heart and stand there, watching.

She never forgives herself.

(But that's okay, because he does.)

(But it will never be okay, because she will never know.)

twenty four.

Mary is fostered by a nice family that loves her. She goes to MIT and ends up with a job at Stark Industries.

His life is still shit. She meets him once when Stark and Company visit SHIELD. She's sweet and kind and funny, but who'd want a guy as broken as him?

twenty five.

She leaves with Miles and disappears into the bright streets of Hong Kong.

He never sees her again. He's glad.

twenty six.

He goes back to HYDRA when they come out of the shadows.

He never goes back to Providence or the team. He never says goodbye. They never get that drink.

twenty seven.

Quinn shoots her and they can't save her.

He's lost after that. He might have been dark inside before, but now it's all consuming and he's utterly lost.

He waits in a haze of regret and guilt and apathy. There's nothing left for him.

twenty eight.

HYDRA doesn't reveal itself for another four years.

By then, though, he's in too deep. Skye is more important than any unpaid debts he might have. Her light can make him better. He doesn't have to be that twisted boy who believed everything he was told.

Garrett puts two in the back of his head, and the debt is paid.

twenty nine.

There's probably one, out there, somewhere, in which somehow, just for a little while, they are happy.

And in that one, he kisses her forehead and leaves her alone in their bed. He doesn't come back, because he will only ever cause her pain.