“This isn’t creepy, is it?”
Fitz is settled on the curled stairway going up to the living level, wearing a too-big t-shirt and faded plaid sleep pants, hair mussed from what was probably not enough sleep, but the other person in the cargo bay isn’t asking questions about how he slept. The other person in the cargo bay isn’t asking any questions at all, actually, and hasn’t for the last fifteen minutes, though Fitz is sure that he has to know that he’s been sitting there.
Grant Ward just doesn’t miss things like that. He probably knows if there are any common flies in the cargo bay right now, and exactly where they are.
“Nope,” comes the answer, and brown eyes flick his way for a second before refocusing on the punching bag swinging between the two of them. “Having trouble sleeping?”
Ah, now he feels chatty.
“Not particularly,” Fitz answers, shifting on the step, looping one of his arms around the railing support bar, and leaning his shoulder against the cool metal. Ward steps with the punching bag, his wrapped fist making a dull smack against the tightly weaved canvas. For a few minutes, that’s all the noise in the cargo bay. That, and Ward’s even breaths, the shuffle of his feet against the floor. It’s all very quiet, and almost hypnotic, and Fitz finds himself drifting in pleasant blankness, watching the operations agent move and work in the space between their lab and the cars.
“So, what’s up?” Ward asks, breaking the rhythm of smack, shuffle, exhale, inhale, snapping Fitz out of his half-lidded unfocused gaze. “What’s got you coming down here at three in the morning?”
“Says the person who’s also down here at three in the morning,” Fitz says quietly, barely fighting the cheeky grin creeping up onto his face. He’s glad he does, for the way Ward looks up, catches it, and rolls his eyes, smiling himself.
“So, you came down here to be a smartass?” he retorts, reaching out a hand to steady the bag again, apparently breaking from his rhythm to engage Fitz. All right.
“That wasn’t the original plan,” Fitz drawls, not moving from his lean. “But, if you’re willing to let me snark at you from here, I’ll take it.”
Ward laughs, actually laughs; it’s quiet, because they can’t risk waking up anyone else, really, but the sound of it has Fitz’s smile turning soft. It’s not a sound that any of them hear a lot. Ward’s just too wound up, too buckled down. They’re getting through, though. Every day, every week, he changes, softens, lets them in a little bit more. When Fitz thinks back to their first few days together as a team, he almost laughs. That Grant Ward wouldn’t recognize this one, he thinks. The man’s changed a whole lot in a few months.
He’s shown that there’s a lot in him to look up to, to love. There’s someone there with a dry sense of humour and a wealth of unique intelligence. Someone compassionate and fiery, and skilled as all hell. Not just the robot Skye pokes fun at him for being.
Fitz thinks they’re all growing that way, but it’s different for Ward, a bit. He’s never been the team kind of person, that much they all – minus Skye – knew, going into this. Specialists were never really made for teamwork. They could work in teams, but expecting them to exist in teams long-term? Shots in the dark.
Coulson’s probably really glad he took the shot in the dark he’s taking with Ward.
“Go on,” Ward says with a hand wave, sliding his palm down the side of the bag. “Snark at me, then. I’m waiting, Leopold.”
Fitz groans at that, leaning back and headshaking his head. “Don’t call me that. Only my mum gets to call me that, and only when I’m in trouble.”
Ward’s moving to the stairs quicker than Fitz has a chance to unhook his arm from the bar, bearing down on him. He has one hand on each of the railing, his grin somewhere between feral and playful, and Fitz feels the swoop of excitement in his stomach.
“Who says you’re not in trouble?”
He’s raising an eyebrow at that, and straightening his posture, elbows leant on the stair behind him. “I can’t come up with a bloody thing I’ve done to be in trouble, Agent Ward,” he comments, tone light, playing along with Ward’s game. “Sir.”
The feral edge is leaking out of that grin, and Ward’s quirking an eyebrow himself, a mirror of Fitz’s skeptical expression. “You interrupted me.”
“Is that a criminal offence?”
“In some circles, it might be.”
“There aren’t any circles here that we don’t both belong to,” Fitz challenges. Ward’s quiet for a second, clearly flicking over his options for comebacks, but within a few, he’s sighing, swinging his weight and turning to sit on the stair below Fitz’s.
“You’ve got me there,” he says with a shrug, hands moving together, fingers beginning to pull at the wraps. The tug of disappointment peaks at the back of Fitz’s mind but he ignores it, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching Ward’s profile.
“To answer your question,” he says quietly, because Ward did ask one, and he feels like he needs to answer it. “I wasn’t having trouble sleeping, I was having trouble not thinking, which is entirely different.”
The smile on Ward’s face is obvious, even from this angle, and the older man nods, flexing his freed fingers before getting to work on the other hand. “Can’t shut your brain off?”
“Something like that,” Fitz agrees, resting his chin on one of his palms, getting lost in the slow, repetitive way the white wrap comes off Ward’s hand. “Thought I’d sit in the lounge for a little bit, but I noticed your bunk was open, too, and then I heard you down here. I thought,” he paused, thinking over his words. “I wondered if you wouldn’t be opposed to company, or at least an audience.”
“When it’s you, Fitz?” Ward says quietly after a moment, loosing the last of his hand and stretching it out before looking up at the other. His eyes are easier to see from this close; Fitz can see the fatigue in them, and something else, too. He can’t pinpoint it, and in the next second, Ward blinks, and it’s gone again. “I’m trying not to be too opposed.”
“Thanks for that,” Fitz says, letting the sarcastic bite riddle his words. “I’m touched, truly, truly touched.”
“In the head, maybe,” Ward grins, leaning on one of his elbows. “So, what couldn’t you shut your mind up about?”
He’s being so open, and willing to talk, and Fitz marvels at it for just a second, before he launches into his explanation. Ward nods along, and keeps quiet. The only interruptions he makes at all are the slight furrows between his brows when Fitz starts to lose him. It’s indication enough for the engineer, and he backtracks every time to thoroughly explain the information he’s adding to the story, until those furrows soften out.
By the time he finishes, he feels warm, and a bit heavy. His wrist hurts a bit from how he’s leaned against it, and his gaze is far from completely focused. With every blink, different things come in and out of clarity.
“Sleep catching up with you?” Ward asks softly, and Fitz blinks rapidly, until his face comes into focus. First the raised eyebrows and slightly crinkled eyes, and then the crooked smile on his mouth.
“Mm,” Fitz leans back up, shaking out his wrist. “Maybe.”
“Definitely,” Ward corrects, pulling himself up into a stand. The quiet between them is broken, now, and Fitz mourns it as much as he can, trying to muster up the energy to mimic those movements and stand up himself. “Your brain worked itself out, you need to crash, Fitz.”
“I think I am crashing,” he replies, smiling up at Ward. “Think I can just camp out on the stairs tonight?”
“If you really want to,” Ward chuckles. His hands are on both railings again, and he’s leaned into Fitz’s space just a little, this time much less invasive than before. “What kind of friend would I be if I let you stay there?”
Friend.
“The kind who doesn’t want to watch me fall down the stairs because there is no way in bloody hell I’m going to get one foot in front of the other right now,” Fitz argues, head tipped back, eyes closed. “I’m going to sleep right here.”
Ward’s fingers tap the side of his knee. “Nuh uh, Sleeping Beauty, come on, get up.”
Fitz raises an eyebrow, eyes still closed. “You do know Sleeping Beauty doesn’t get up for less than a big one on the lips, right?” He smirks, giving that a second to sink in. “I know you’re probably too macho and tough for fairy tales, but you have to at least be acquainted with the—”
His reprimand dies on his lips, or, rather, between his lips and Ward’s, because, apparently, Ward is entirely acquainted with how the fairy tale goes.
It only lasts a few seconds, and when he opens his eyes, Ward’s giving him an unsure smirk before raising his own eyebrow. “Sleeping Beauty gets up now, right?” he asks, and then he’s stepping around where Fitz is sprawled on the stairs, not even glancing back.
His chuckle when Fitz turns over, pushes himself up, and follows him up the stairs is unmistakable, though.
The surety of the smirk Ward shoots him before he disappears behind his bunk door is the last image Fitz has before he steps into his own, closes the door, and presses his lips together, questioning if that touch had really just came.
It’s a question he asks himself again weeks upon weeks later when he sees Ward holding hands with Skye, leading her onto the Bus and out of Providence.