Chapter Eight

Thankfully, the journey out of the rainforest didn't take as long as the trek in. Ward and I had already forged our path, so now it was just a matter of following it back out. The woman we were now carrying slowed us down a little, but not by too much.

We managed to get back to the Quinjet just before dark, which I was incredibly happy about. As much fun as it had been camping in the rainforest, I wasn't super excited to do it again.

The woman we'd found stayed limp for the whole way, but thankfully, Ward didn't make me try to carry her. We both agreed she might be faking her unconcsiousness and waiting for an opportunity to escape, so we were as careful as possible not to give her one. Still, it was a relief to hand her off to a waiting agent from Vargas' team.

We debriefed with Vargas, and I listened in when Ward called to report to SHIELD. They told us to finish up in Costa Rica and leave the woman with Vargas, then to make our way back to base once we were done.

"So... are we spending the night here?" I asked, looking at Ward hopefully as he clicked off the Quinjet's communications. He sighed.

"Vargas offered, so we might as well. We'll get an early start back to headquarters tomorrow."

I nodded and followed Ward out of the Quinjet, waiting for him to add some snippy comment, or be snarkier than he needed to be or whatever else. He'd been doing it every day I'd known him so far, but this time, it didn't come.

I tried not to let my surprise show as we met back up with Vargas, and one of his agents showed us to two rooms we could stay the night in. We didn't have anything else we needed to deal with, so after a short (and slightly warmer than before) goodnight, I was completely alone in my own space for the first time in a long time.

It was weird. But it gave me a lot of space to think, and to process everything that had happened today.

I'd been on a real-life SHIELD mission, and I'd taken down an enemy Paula Pinske-style. And, icing on the cake, I'd finally managed to break through the first layer of Agent Ward's crankiness.

This had been the best day ever!

****************

I woke up early the next morning to three different alarms, all set a minute apart. It was probably overkill, but I'd just gotten Ward's respect. I didn't want to lose it by seriously oversleeping and making him come in here to wake me up.

I met Ward in the hallway, and we had a quick breakfast and said goodbye to Agent Vargas before getting back in the Quinjet. It was just after eight in the morning, because Ward said he'd wanted to get an early start, which was absolutely horrible. Waking up before eight at any time was absolutely horrible, but it became so much worse when there was no reason for it but travel.

I yawned as I plopped into the copilot seat. Ward started the engines, and I decided to make another attempt at bonding with him. If it worked, waking up this early might actually have been worth it.

"So..." I said, not quite sure how to start. "We're in Costa Rica."

"Just figuring that out are you?" he asked, not even glancing at me as we lifted off the ground.

"No. But it seems wrong to come and not, like, go to the beach or something."

That got his attention. Ward turned from the controls to look me dead in the eyes before he responded.

"You have to be kidding."

"Why?" I shot back, meeting his gaze.

"What?"

"Why do I have to be kidding?"

"Because we're on a mission."

"No, we just finished our mission. Everything's all taken care of, we got the orb and caught a bad guy, we said goodbye to Vargas. We should at least get a little downtime now. Call it celebrating my first successful mission or something."

"No, we can't do that," he said, turning away from me again. I was not about to let it go that easily.

"Come on Ward! Why not? You've been all over the world but have you ever really taken the time to see it?"

He paused and sighed, and I knew I had him. If he wasn't going to cave he would've shot me down immediately, probably with some yelling or criticism.

"Alright, fine. But we're not staying more than an hour! And officially, this is part of your training. You're getting knowledge of a local culture and it's a way to congratulate you on capturing a party hostile to SHIELD," he said, maneuvering the jet back towards the ground and a nice, sandy coastline.

"Deal!" I said, unable to contain my excitement or keep the grin off my face.

He wasn't unbreakable after all.

We cloaked and landed the Quinjet not quite twenty minutes later, then dug out some old towels from one of the supply boxes on board. I still had all my Paula Pinske books with me, so I dug out my favorite one and then followed Ward off the plane and towards the beach before he could change his mind.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, looking at the book in my hands as we walked the short distance between the beach and where we'd landed.

"My bag! I didn't get to move into my SHIELD apartment before we came here, so I still have all my stuff with me. I have more if you want one to read."

Ward squinted at me, then shook his head.

"No, that's fine." He paused. "How many books do you have?"

"A lot. They're all Paula Pinske, and they're all amazing, so if you ever change your mind and want to read one just let me know!"

Ward just shook his head again. I smiled to myself, but didn't continue my sales pitch. He'd come around eventually.

We reached the beach, and thankfully, it wasn't too crowded. I laid out my towel and sighed as I laid back in the warm sand. It was the perfect temperature, and I hadn't had anything resembling a vacation since I started at the Academy. I was guessing Ward hadn't either.

I cracked open my book and started reading, letting the sound of the waves and the warmth of the sun relax me. I got about halfway through the first chapter, and then out of curiosity, I glanced over at Ward. He didn't seem like the tanning type and he didn't have a book, but I'd been expecting him to at least be enjoying the sun or something. Instead, I found him canvassing the beach. Canvassing the beach.

"Ward."

"What?" he asked, not looking at me. He was too busy watching the college kids in the surf.

"Stop canvassing."

He glanced at me. "Force of habit. It's kept me alive."

"Ok, that's great. I'm glad. But you're at the beach. You don't profile people and identify possible weapons at the beach."

He sighed, finally giving me his full attention. "Alright, fine. What do you do at the beach?"

I smiled, closing my book and setting it down on the towel as I turned to face him better.

"Swim."

I stood, reaching a hand out to pull him up with me. We both had a change of clothes on the plane and our time was limited, so I wasn't going to waste a minute. If this is what it took to get Ward to have fun and relax, then that's what we were going to do.

"In what? Neither of us have bathing suits."

"So? We'll swim in these clothes. I've got a tank top, you've got a normal shirt, and we both have other clothes on the plane."

"Seriously?" he asked.

"Of course! We are not coming to Costa Rica and not swimming at the beach! Now let's go!" Ward still didn't looked convinced, and he opened his mouth to say so when I beat him to it. "Come on, Ward! If I remember correctly, on my first day at SHIELD you were the one who told me SHIELD agents didn't use running clothes. This is the same thing! No swimming clothes, we're practicing for an emergency when we don't have time to change into swimming clothes!"

Ward narrowed his eyes at me, but he didn't say anything else. I decided to take that as his way of conceding the argument, so I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the surf. Ward started slowing down before we reached the water, but I used my momentum to keep him moving. We charged straight into the waves.

I got up to my waist before losing patience and flopping in headfirst. After a minute Ward pulled on my hand and got me to stand back up.

I was dripping wet but grinning from ear to ear. Ward shook his head when he saw my face, but he actually had a small smile on his face, so I knew I was making progress.

"C'mon!" I said, gesturing with my hand, "Jump in!"

"I don't think so. One of us needs to keep it together, since we are technically still on mission."

I rolled my eyes and sunk lower into the water to think. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea.

"You're my SO right?" I asked, popping back up and staring intently at Ward.

"Yes."

"And as my SO, you're supposed to keep me from dying?"

"...yes."

"Good." I pushed off the ocean floor and moved into deeper waters. "Because I'm drowning."

"No you're not."

"Help!" I said, starting to flail. "I need help! Somebody save me! Where's my SO?"

Ward rolled his eyes and started walking towards me, which defeated the purpose. I pushed farther away.

"Ward! Help! Dive in!"

He rolled his eyes again,  then took a deep breath and dove under the waves. He grabbed me by the waist and stood up with me, effectively saving me from 'drowning'. I grinned at his wet hair and face in triumph.

"Happy?" he asked. He hadn't let go of my waist yet.

"Very," I replied. Our faces were only a few inches apart. His eyes were locked on mine, and I suddenly realized my heart was beating like crazy. Why was it doing that?

"Samantha..." he breathed. His expression was softer than I'd ever seen it, and I felt myself leaning forward, almost without realizing it.

"Ward?"

He opened his mouth to reply, and I was hanging on his every word. He started to speak, and the next thing I knew, something hit me hard in the side and shoved me under the water. Ward and I had been so distracted that we didn't notice the incoming wave that knocked us flat, which probably wasn't good since almost all our training was about noticing things.

Have you ever been rolled by a wave? It's not fun. You don't have a warning so you're not holding your breath, and the wave slams you into the sand on the bottom and literally rolls you, painfully, until you wash up on the beach. Grant and I both came up spluttering for air, looking like drowned rats on the edge of the surf.

Once we crawled our way onto dry land (or dry beach), I looked at Grant. He looked pissed, but I couldn't help laughing. The grouchy superspy had picked up a friend on his roll across the ocean floor.

"What?" he demanded, looking at me like I was crazy for laughing. I just gestured to the starfish on his cheek and kept laughing.

He grumbled as he pulled it off and threw it back. I thought that would've hurt, but he only looked mildly inconvenienced, which only made me laugh harder.

"How do you find this funny?" he asked.

"Well, Ward, here's the thing: all throughout life, stupid crap is going to happen. If you have the ability to laugh at it, you're gonna go through life a lot happier," I said. I wasn't expecting him to agree with me, but he actually smiled.

"Fair enough," he said. "Now then, let's head back to the Quinjet. We've been gone long enough, and I don't want to have to explain this to any superior officers."

I grinned. "Fair enough."

We gathered up our gear and dried off as well as we could, then headed for the plane. Despite almost being drowned by the Atlantic Ocean and spending two days in the rainforest, this had been a fun trip.

Maybe having Grant Ward as an SO wouldn't be so bad after all.