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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Fury had told us to be the most productive team ever, and that's what we became. For the two weeks we were banned from field work, Grant and I ran all over the Triskelion, helping on the back-end of ops, doing internet detective work, and taking supply missions to and from various bases. Once we're allowed out again, we only got busier.

We took any and every assignment that crossed our paths. We went to Istanbul, Turkey; Carupeno, Venezuela; Lansing, Michigan; and then we did an 18-month undercover mission in London. I'm equal parts proud and embarrassed to say our near-death experience tally reached 174.

Now, two years after returning from Siberia, we were both flying high, now a level 6 and a level 5 (he was still just ahead of me dammit), and we were flying off to a mission in Silicon Valley.

"Buckle up," said Grant, flipping a few switches and then maneuvering the plane out of the hanger.

"Ready to hear the mission file?" I asked , pulling a stack of papers out of my backpack.

"Go for it."

"Ok, we're scouting out a hacker group called "The Rising Tide." Sounds lame," I started.

"You wanna get to the important part?"

"I'm getting there, I'm getting there. Chill. Ok, so this group has been taking classified information and spreading it everywhere, for everyone to see. They're spread all over the world, so there's not much we can do, but apparently somebody at SHIELD got a physical location for at least a few of their members. We're supposed to stake out their apartment and take the course of action we see fit to apprehend them once we have enough intel."

"Great. We're chasing a bunch of tech-wizards. How did we get this assignment again?"

"Beats me. But at least there's a low chance of adding to our near-death experience tally."

"You and I both know you're proud of that tally."

"Well yeah, I mean we survived 174 things that should have killed us. What's not to be proud of?"

"The fact we almost got ourselves killed 174 times?"

"Ah, don't be so negative. Now let's get going, I want to be in sunny California as soon as possible."

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We touched down a few hours later, loaded into our waiting SHIELD MDX (with the logos removed, obviously. We are a secret agency), and headed towards the apartment building we'd be staying in while under cover. That's right, we leveled up from hotel rooms. Pretty sweet.

"I still don't see any problem with my driving," said Grant, complaining from the passenger seat. After Spain and the Vespa, I drove whenever possible.

"There's no problem with your driving if we're in a car chase or a getaway vehicle. But on a normal day with a civilian cover, your tactical driving could get us arrested for reckless endangerment," I shot back.

Grant rolled his eyes and went back to looking through our mission file.

"These Rising Tide guys don't get it. They're never around for the fallout, so they just don't understand that some secrets are secrets for very good reasons."

"Preaching to the choir, Ward."

"I know. It just pisses me off."

"Well, you can vent some of that frustration on this mission for bringing a couple of them in."