Marvel Oneshots

It's Always Been You (Grant Ward)

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Summary: Y/N is a SHIELD agent on Coulson's team, and the long-time best friend of Grant Ward. Their world was rocked when Grant betrayed the team and sided with Hydra, but after taking some time to processes, they decided to make it their mission to keep Grant from falling any further towards the dark side.

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"Remember the time you tried to convince me you were actually more qualified than I am to fly a plane?"

I sat patiently in front of the invisible cell wall separating me from Grant Ward as he pretended not to register my words. I'd been down here for half an hour already, and so far he'd held up against me, but I knew in my gut that he'd break any minute.

"And remember how I proved you wrong in front of, like, our entire class at the Ops Academy."

I saw a vein pop out on the side of Grant's forehead, and I knew I was getting close. I smiled to myself.

A little over a week ago, the whole world had gone to shit. And alright, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but Hydra had revealed itself within SHIELD and taken down the entire agency in one fell swoop. It certainly hadn't been anything good.

Even worse, Grant, my long time best friend, had revealed himself to be a sleeper agent for Hydra within SHIELD. It had absolutely crushed me to find out, and I'd been out of commission against Hydra for almost a full day after learning the truth. He'd barely made it a week running around with John Garrett before we caught him, and now, he'd spent the last few months sitting in a cell of our makeshift SHIELD base.

None of our former teammates wanted anything to do with him. Coulson came down here to try and interrogate him occasionally, but he always insisted he would only talk to Skye. Skye refused to visit him, and nobody else ever visited him either. Except for me.

After I'd spent my initial few weeks mourning the decisions of my best friend, I'd found enough space from the betrayal to really analyze it. Grant had a pretty screwed up past, and he'd never really taken the time to process him trauma in any kind of healthy way, so it was still influencing him today. That didn't make him irredeemable, at least as far as I was concerned.

So, over the past month and a half, I'd spent a few hours every day down in this basement with Grant, talking to him and trying to get him to talk to me too, like we were normal again. So far he'd mostly given me shitty glares and dramatic, angsty responses, but I wasn't about to give up.

I knew for a fact I had more persistence than him when it really counted. The prank war from our Sophomore Year at the Operations Academy proved it.

"Oh, and then do you remember how everybody teased you for the rest of the week about getting out-flown by me?" I continued, spinning around a little in my spinny chair as I spoke. I had a smile on my face as I reminisced, and every time I glanced at Grant, I found the polar opposite of a smile on his face. "Oh, and then-"

"Alright Y/L/N, enough," he said, finally standing from his bed and walking to the edge of his cell to stare me down. He'd been staring up at the ceiling pretending he couldn't hear me before this, so I considered him acknowledging me as a solid improvement. "You've been down here every day pestering me with meaningless questions and stories and memories for weeks on end. What are you trying to achieve?"

I stopped spinning in my chair and fixed him with a look that said "Really?".

"What, I'm not allowed to come into the basement of my secret agency and chat with my best friend?" I asked, crossing my arms and standing up to meet him. We were only separated by a few inches of the material making up the cell, and it felt strange to be so close to him while still being so far away.