Summary of chapter one:

- Leo gets chucked off the minibus by bullies from his Uni on the way to a conference in America

- He runs into Grant and Buddy who are living in the woods and they kind of become friends

- Grant fears that Garrett will make him kill Leo if he finds out he's here

- Garrett shows up...

I'm really sorry, I've been working on this bit by bit over the year. I know I said I'd get it done in like a week but life kind of threw a load of hurdles at me. I really hope you guys are still interested to know the conclusion to the story.

Huge thanks to anyone who left a review, followed or favourited! *hugs you all*

Rescue

"Don't worry," Grant tried to placate him. "He's not a civilian, he's going to join SHIELD too, the Academy, Sci-tech, after he's…"

He trailed off as Garrett interrupted him, demanding angrily. "Then why were you trying to hide him from me?"

Grant remained silent, years with his brother and parents had taught him to think on his feet, to come up with a believable lie in seconds, but he had no clue how he was meant to explain this! "I thought that…I mean, I thought you…" he cut off, he couldn't tell Garrett about his nightmare; what if his saviour thought it would be a brilliant idea to follow through with his dream-plan? Garrett looked at him expectantly. "I didn't think sir, I'm sorr…I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do this on my own, help him, I mean. I wondered if I could hide Leo, maybe like and Agent on a mission, it was stupid, I know, I messed up, I thought I could get something like that past you. I shouldn't have, sir. I want to be the best but, I shouldn't have disobeyed you,"

Grant heaved a sigh of relief as Garrett holstered the gun. He glanced behind him at Leo, who seemed to be looking a lot more relaxed than when Garrett had pulled the gun out and pointed it at his heart.

However, even though the immediate danger was gone Garrett did not stop glaring at Grant. "Do you know what you've done?" he demanded, fury echoing in his voice, Grant only just succeeded in not flinching.

"So, I was right wasn't I?" Leo questioned, triumphantly almost, feeling a lot braver now. "SHIELD doesn't allow agents to be trained like this, do they?"

Garrett sneered at him but nodded. "Shield doesn't have the guts," he confirmed. "But how else was I meant to transform Grant from almost nothing into a perfect soldier, he wouldn't survive the academy now, he's too weak," Grant sighed and looked down, he'd wanted to please Garrett, he had, he'd needed him to be proud, he still did, he'd tried so hard. His mentor shook his head in disappointment. "You know, Grant, I saw how you'd been surviving out here, I thought you had potential, I thought that you had what it takes, guess I was wrong…"

"No, no I do have what it takes," Grant pleaded. "Please, I'll prove it to you, I'll show you, I swear, just, give me one more chance-"

"What did I tell you about begging, boy!" Garrett yelled and Grant fell silent.

"He's not weak!" Leo argued. "I've only known him for less than 24 hours and I can easily tell you that. He can be so much more than you want him to be, Grant, you don't have to stay here and take this, come home with me, please! Be better than he wants you to be, he shouldn't treat you like this."

Garrett rolled his eyes and pulled out his gun again, then smirked at Leo's panicked face. "What? You didn't think I could let you leave after all of this?" he paused, then looked over to the shell-shocked Grant. "On the plus side, Ward, I'm willing to give you a second chance, you'd better not disappoint me again though."

"No," Grant replied, stepping back in front of Leo. "I won't let you hurt him. You won't kill him, or me, you've put a lot of hard work and effort into finding me, training me, you wouldn't want to have to do that all again would you? You shoot Leo, two things will happen, I will leave, and never come back, or you'll have to kill me."

Garrett gritted his teeth, furious at his potential-future-specialist's insolence, he had thought he'd trained Grant to be better than that, to follow orders, to not question or defy him. "Fine," he agreed, he holstered the gun, took a few steps forward.

His fist came out of nowhere and Grant felt himself flying back, falling flat on his back, his head slamming into the ground before he'd had time to process it, his jaw screaming at him. He scrambled to his feet, head spinning, as Garrett gripped Leo's collar.

"Here's what you're going to do," he explained as Leo squirmed, trying to get out of his grip. "You are going to go back to wherever you came from. You are not going to tell anyone about this, you hear me? Especially not SHIELD. If you do, all my hard work and all Grant's hard work here will be for nothing, like the kid says, so I'll have no more use for him you see? I will hurt him, then I might even kill him. Understand?" Garrett tightened his grip and Leo struggled to breathe; wincing in pain and shaking in fear, he managed to nod.

"Good." Garrett growled and threw Leo backwards, he ended up crumpled on the floor, coughing in the dust. Grant went to help him up but Garrett stuck his arm out, glaring at him and daring him to see what would happen if he tried to go past the outstretched limb.

Grant stood there and watched as Leo picked himself up, sending one last furious glance at Garrett and one terrified one towards Grant. Grant nodded, a small smile on his face, one last ditch effort to convince Leo that he'd be okay. Leo ran off down the path into the forest, glancing nervously behind him every couple of steps.

Garrett and Grant waited until he was out of sight, too small to see and covered by the shadows of the trees.

"You are going to regret helping that boy, son," Garrett promised and Grant shrunk away, apologies would be useless, he knew.

The police found Leo two days later, shaking in cold, lying in a ditch at the edge of the road in the pouring rain. He was desperately hungry so the officers handed him the bar of chocolate and a half-eaten bagel. Leo was short and unspecific in his answers, replying vaguely to their questions. He said he'd wanted to go exploring when the bus stopped, that he hadn't thought, he hoped vainly that it would make the other freshers nicer to him.

After hours of questioning at the station they allowed the professor to drive him back to the hotel where they were meant to be staying after the lecture. Missing it hardly seemed important now. He half-heartedly tried to protest when the professor forcibly suggested that he hung out in one of the rooms with the other undergrads.

The room was silent when he walked in, he noticed guilt on some of their faces, he supposed maybe the reality had sunk in and his bedraggled, dirty appearance was making an impact. However, after the professor had talked about the schedule for the next day and swiftly left to find the nearest bar, mumbling about how the police made him waste half of his pint, Leo realised that not enough of them felt sorry for him.

"You had to go causing trouble for us, didn't ye?" one of the students yelled, slamming him hard into the wall and causing pain to blossom in the back of his head. Leo barely registered it. "Do you think, that those days in the forest, have stopped you being a-"

"Lay off," Leo looked in surprise at the guy who had forced the other one back, making him let go of the brutal grip he had on Leo's arms, which had been almost cutting of the circulation and would be likely to bruise. "He's just a kid, we shouldnae done it Jordan."

"Exactly, he's just a kid, we shouldn't have to take care of him, he's not our responsibility, he's just a waste of space!" Leo unconsciously shrank back towards the door.

"Then fantastic, I have the solution," a girl stated, pushing past them, everyone fell silent as the sound of a slap cut through the arguing. Leo held his cheek, gazing up at her fearfully as she grabbed him and dragged him towards the nearest wardrobe. Using her free hand she pulled the clothes on the hangers out and dropped them on the nearest bed, before shoving him roughly in, barely giving him time to move his feet out the way before she slammed the door, taking one of the dresses an threading it through the handles, before tying it in a knot so Leo couldn't escape.

"Out of sight, out of mind," she smirked and everyone returned, some somewhat uneasily, to the conversations they were having before.

Locked in the wardrobe, Leo listened to the loud voices, chatting away for hours, but he barely heard them. Instead he thought of the boy in the woods, how he'd taken care of Leo, given him food, something that none of the freshers had thought to do, but mostly he replayed Garrett's fist in Grant's face, sending him flying to the ground, his eyes alight with terror and pain, though of course he could never be 'weak', so he'd schooled his expression quickly. He thought of the look on Grant's face as Leo had run off, trying to be reassuring, but his eyes had failed him. Leo had failed Grant, he had wanted to rescue him, take him out of there, but instead he had only got him hurt. Perhaps, Leo reflected, that he deserved this, that he deserved everything that the other students were doing to him. Perhaps it was a suitable punishment for being unable to protect his friend.

"You're awfully quiet Leo," his mum commented. The silence, usually broken by his incessant chatter about his newest project, hung thick in the air. It had been over a month and Leo still didn't know what to do. It wasn't as if he could babble about it across the table to his mother, she may not understand words like 'Quantum Field Generator', however she did comprehend the meaning of 'teenager', 'threatened', 'SHIELD Agent' and 'woods', he couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't be naïve enough to contact SHIELD.

"You were excited for the academy, what changed?" demanded his mum, keeping her eyes straight ahead, still tense despite how long they had been driving for, she did not like driving on the wrong side of the road.

"Stuff," Leo muttered, fiddling with his modified SatNav. "Turn off here."

She turned round the corner then pulled towards the edge of the road and slowed to a stop. "Leo, I may not know much about American geography, but I really don't think that this is the shortcut to the academy."

Leo remained silent.

"Look, if you don't want to go to the academy that's okay, it's a really big decision and you're only thirteen. But god, you have a degree already… You have so much potential; this could be your big chance. Just try it," she sighed. "If you don't like it, then, after a few weeks, call me, you can go back to the university and do another degree."

"That's just it mum," he replied, thinking on his feet and really hoping that his plan worked. "I have potential, only…a prototype that I was working on, I lost it in the woods, and I really don't want to start from scratch again, especially as I've lost the original calculations…"

His mother sighed. "Leo, you can't possibly expect to find it in there, besides, I don't want you going missing again, those were the worst three days of my life!"

"But mum!" he protested. "I used my tech, I picked up its signature, I can go get it! Mum?"

She stayed quiet for a few moments, thinking it over. "Okay," she agreed, somewhat hesitantly. "But I need your word that you will be back to your normal talkative self after this,"

"Yes!"

They drove in silence for the next 20 miles, making their way along the long winding road. Eventually Leo called for his mum to stop and the car ground to a halt.

"Thank you!" he grinned, hugging her.

"You're wel…come….l…le..o…" she stuttered, looking confused before crumpling forward onto the steering wheel. Feeling guilty, Leo peeled the sedative plaster that his pen pal, Jemma Simmons, had helpfully provided off his mother's neck and got out of the car. He might have felt awful, however he would have felt worse letting her come with him to rescue Grant. What if Garrett were there, what if Garrett and his accomplice were there, what if Garrett and his hypothetical accomplice and a highly trained team of murderous dogs were there, waiting to rip his throat out?

He followed the arrows on the screen, the SatNav to pointing him towards where he had last seen Ward. It had taken the young scientist a while, but he had eventually used maps to figure out where he had been left and where the nearest water sources to that were, from that, he deduced the most likely location, and here he was. He would drag Ward out of there, and Buddy too, whether they liked it or not. And this time, he had a getaway vehicle.

Grant gasped in pain. Garrett had really stepped the training up a notch in the past few months, and this time, he was required to sew up a wound made by falling whilst trying to remain undetected near some pretty jagged rocks. Garrett said he should have kept his balance better. Grant thought that although it wasn't his mentor's responsibility, it would have been nice if he could have been taught how to do this.

He heard the footsteps thirty seconds before he saw him, it couldn't have been Buddy, he was right beside him, nor Garrett, the steps were too light, too clumsy.

He put down the needle, grateful for a reason to put off the task, and picked up his handgun. Grant's heart filled with dread when he saw Leo's face light up.

"Come on Grant, we've got to go!" Leo urged, beckoning towards the path.

"What are you doing here, no, go!" Grant ordered, flying into a panic, despite Garrett telling him that that was not something a specialist did, ever. "Garret could be back at any second, he's just gone to collect all the weapons, you know what he said he'd do to you. Please, Leo, get out of here, now!"

Leo paled at that news, however stood his ground. "Well then, he'll just not have to find me then." He stated. "'Cause I'm not leaving here unless you come with me."

Grant made a split second decision, jumping to his feet and wondering how far you could get with a leg that definitely required stitches, he whistled to Buddy and ran towards Leo.

"Then let's go." he agreed as they sprinted along the path, less than 10 seconds later they heard Garrett's angry yell.

"Kid, where are you?"

"Shit," Grant swore. "Run faster!"

"This is as fast as I can go!" Leo protested, and Grant felt a cross between relief and terror. Garrett could probably run faster than Leo, that's if he knew which direction to follow them in, but then again, Grant doubted if he could have run faster on his leg.

They ran out onto a road and towards a car, Leo yanked open the driver's door. "Mum, wake up, Mum!" he breathed in terror. Grant pushed past Leo, undoing the seatbelt and picking the woman who was apparently Leo's mother up.

"Open it," he ordered, gesturing with his head to the passenger door. Leo obliged and Grant dumped his mother down. "Buddy up," he told his dog, making a hand gesture, Buddy jumped in, moving past Leo's mum. "Strap her in while we move," Leo nodded and climbed in the back.

Grant got into the front seat and turned the key. "Can you even drive?" Leo asked, leaning forward through the gap in the seats as a shout came from behind them, accompanied by a showering of bullets through glass.

"Get back here boy!" they both ducked as glass showered around them and Grant shoved his foot right down onto the accelerator.

"What do we do now?" Leo screamed.

Duck!" Grant yelled, hoping he was going in the right direction as he shot at Garrett through the shattered back windscreen. Garrett ducked out of the way, not that it was necessary, even though he could have just killed them both Grant wasn't sure if he was really trying to kill Garrett yet.

"And now hope he doesn't shoot the tyres!" Grant glanced forwards to make sure he was still going in a straight line. "I just have to distract him enough." He turned round again and shot in Garrett's vicinity, who again ducked for cover.

Grant laughed as the Garrett's answering gunshots faded into the distance. They had got away.

He was free.

Leo fixed his mum's seatbelt in place, thanking every single god he knew of that he had not had time to do so earlier, if that were the case, she probably would have ended up with a bullet in the head. He climbed into the front.

"We need to convince SHIELD he's a traitor before he calls for backup." Leo told him, pulling out a phone.

He dialled a few numbers as Grant looked at him uncertainly.

"Hello, it's Leopold Fitz, I'm due to start at the Academy today. There's a spy in SHIELD, he tried to kill me and my friend…yes I realise you need to verify my story…yes it is urgent! ...what's the highest level I could speak to?" he asked the receptionist at the Academy.

"What are you talking about?" Grant mouthed.

"I need them to stop trusting him, we can explain the real situation when he doesn't have potential backup on call." Leo hissed back.

"Yeah, Agent Romanoff will be fine," he replied to the person in the phone.

"Who's she?" Ward quietly demanded.

"No clue," he whispered. "Apparently she's at the Academy today to train field agents,"

Five hours, seven explanations (including that Garrett, in fact, was not a spy), three lie detectors taken through a mobile phone and one very confused parent waking up with shattered glass all around her and a dog in her lap later they arrived at the Academy. Halfway there they had been intercepted by a team of SHIELD Agents, it took a while for Grant to trust that they weren't there purely to drag him back to Garrett.

As they got out of the SHIELD van they were greeted by a short redhead and someone that Leo recognised to be the head of the Academy, along with a rather large security detail.

"So, what happened," the redhead demanded.

"Agent John Garrett tried to kill us, I rescued Ward from the woods where he had illegally been training Grant Ward," Leo explained.

"He's not lying," the woman announced. "Can we go somewhere where we could discuss this in more detail?" she asked and the security team surrounded them as they walked towards the school.

A few days later Grant lay back on his too soft bed, Buddy in his lap, unable to sleep, he was warm, he was comfortable, he'd had good meals, and his leg properly stitched up and everyone was being so nice and kind, and it just felt wrong. Garrett was going to go under trial the following day, apparently he had been a spy, involved in some sort of Deathlok project which SHIELD was still looking into.

There was a soft knock at the door and Grant was jolted out of his thoughts. Looking through the spyhole he saw that it was Leo and he opened the door. Leo passed an armful of sweets into Grant's arms as Buddy came over to greet him. Leo reached down to scratch him between the ears and Buddy panted happily.

Jemma, the over-protective pen friend who worried over both of them constantly shut the door and they all snuggled together on the bed, Leo in the middle, his arms around both his friends and buddy spread over their legs.

They stayed up until the early hours, chatting about classes and assignments and hellish teachers and, excluding the fact that two of them were geniuses and Grant was easily the most talented student ops had had for a while, it was all just so normal.

Leo and Jemma slowly fell asleep, lulled by their own techno-babble.

And as he drifted off Grant knew he had never been so safe, so happy.

Well, you've read over 3,500 words. I would really appreciate it if you could comment with just a few :)

I hope you enjoyed it and it was worth the wait!