June

Ward poked his Chinese and eyed the sweater Skye had pulled on moodily like it was an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D. itself. He wasn't entirely sure what she'd done with the remote once the food had come, either.

"Aren't you enjoying that?" She poked his box with her chopsticks.

"It's fine," he said and took another bite.

"We'll go to the store tomorrow," she said in amusement. "Get all the salad we can find."

He looked up. "Grocery shopping isn't my thing."

"...I'm not going alone," she said. "Maybe we can order online, become hermits..."

He huffed a little. "We're supposed to socialise. I suppose grocery shopping would be a good way of doing that..."

"We will buy all the lettuce in the store," she promised, slipping a piece of chicken between her lips with chopsticks.

He watched the chopsticks for a moment before looking away, back at his food. "Carrots too."

"We will buy out all the health food they have," she agreed, nose wrinkling up a little. She checked her watch. "Should go to bed soon, really."

"I'm not going to wake you up at five to train," he said in amusement, shaking his head.

"I know," she said. "But I have my first day at work tomorrow, and we need to pick up groceries too and this is a new house, I don't know my way around it, and a new routine, so I'll have to get up early no matter what."

He nodded his understanding. "We can put the leftovers in the fridge," he suggested and stood up, moving across and starting to tuck everything away.

Skye turned in her seat, leaning against the back and watching him. "You're very domestic, you know."

He paused and glanced around at her. "Is that a thinly veiled insult... or a thickly padded compliment?"

She grinned a little. "Bit of both, really," she said. "Little of either."

He opened the fridge, putting the food away, then picked up their glasses, putting them in the bowl to rinse. "You're going to make me do the dishes."

"Absolutely," she agreed and bounced to her feet. "But for now... I'm just going to slip the shower out from under you." She scampered for the stairs.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I guess I'll go second then."

"At least you can flip channels while I'm showering," she chirped over the bannister and bolted the rest of the way upstairs.

She stepped out of a lovely hot shower a little while later, drying her hair with a towel and rooting through her dresser for clothes to wear in bed.

"How long does it take you to- GAH!" Ward did a quick one-eighty in the doorway, hand over his eyes. "I thought you'd died in the shower. Why didn't you..."

"Die in the shower?" She pulled a pair of purple pyjama shorts up her legs.

"Why didn't you get dressed in the bathroom?" he tried.

"Because not many people get dressed in the bathroom," she said, "when they have a sexy husband to tease in the bedroom."

"But I've never- sexy husba- I suppose that makes-" He stopped talking. "Are you dressed yet?"

"Uhh..." She picked up a t-shirt. "Yeah!"

He turned around.

She most certainly was not dressed.

"That's not dressed," he said, staring at her back and the way her wet hair fell over it.

She looked around at him and oh god, he looked away quickly. "You couldn't see anything!"

"Until you turned around," he said and it was almost a mewl. "I'm just... going to go back downstairs..."

"Don't be silly." She pulled the t-shirt on and it clung to her chest, almost worse than when she had nothing on a moment before. "I'm dressed, see? No more sinful girl parts on display."

"I wish you'd stop..." He shook his head and scooted - although he'd never admit it was a scoot - towards the bathroom.

She watched him from the end of the bed, picking up her hairdryer. "I hope I didn't use all the hot water."

"You better not have!" He slammed the bathroom door.

"Twelve year old," she called after him and started drying her hair.

She was curled up in bed with her laptop on her lap when he came out of the bathroom, a towel slung around his waist. She glanced, paused, looked up, held her breath, lips parting a little as he rummaged for clothes. "Where did I put my..."

"I put your pyjamas in the bottom drawer of your dresser," she said. "The boiler seems to be under there, that spot is always warm, so your pyjamas will be always toasty."

He paused, hand halfway to reaching for that drawer, and looked around. "Why didn't you take this dresser?"

"You look like you could benefit from warm pyjamas," she said with a little smile.

He pulled a shirt and a pair of pants out of the drawer and tilted his head. "They're almost toasty."

"I thought it might make you smile," she said. "Maybe make you less uptight. Warm you up a bit."

"...that was a terrible pun," he said.

"I know." She looked back at her laptop. "I won't look while you change. Scout's honour!"

"You were never a boy scout or a girl scout." He pulled his shirt on over his head, little droplets of water soaking it into it from his hair and she fought to keep her gaze on her laptop screen.

"So? Does that mean I can't have honour?" she said.

"It means you don't have scout's honour," he said.

The bed rocked and dipped as he slid into it next to her. "What're you doing anyway?"

"Just doing some research," she said. "General IT things."

He nodded, lying down and looking at the blank, white ceiling. "I like the house."

"You do?" She glanced over at him.

"Yeah," he said and he wasn't really sure why he was still talking. "It's... nice."

"I like it too," she said, shutting her laptop lid and sliding down to lie level with him, on her back too. "I've never had a house before. When I was little, I always imagined a house like this one. Course... in my head? The front door was always blue."

"Blue?" He looked across at her.

She nodded. "Blue front door. One of the few foster homes I really liked... they had a blue front door. It was the closest I'd ever really felt to home. Course, they sent me back to the orphanage two days later but I still always saw the blue front door and the nice house with the garage in a suburban street. Kids playing..."

"Your kids?" He was still watching her.

"Just... kids," she said. "The kids that lived in the other houses, mostly. Running around in the street, coming over when their balls get lost in our yard."

His lips twitched a little. "Sounds like a nice fantasy," he said.

She shrugged and pulled the covers up to her armpits. "I guess we should sleep."

He nodded and rolled onto his side. "Did you set an alarm?"

She waved her phone. "Yep!"

He chuckled a little. "No alarm clock then?"

"I suppose we could get one, but my alarm app has seventeen settings..."

"Of course it does," he said, watching her in the darkness of their bedroom and smiling in amusement. "Which one did you pick?"

"The loud one," she said, shutting her eyes.

"Of course." He closed his eyes too.

"Goodnight," she said.

"Goodnight," he agreed and let himself drift off to sleep.