Chapter Text
He can’t explain it, and while his head knows it wants nothing to do with the home they shared happily, his heart is persuasive and before he knows it, he’s walking up the brick path towards the large royal blue door.
Sighing deeply Grant prepares himself to enter, taking a moment to collect himself, he almost chickens out when the strangest thing happens. The lock disengages and the door creaks open on its own.
Ever the agent, his gun is drawn at the unlocking of the door, and poised to shoot as it opens a sliver then stops. Nudging it open further with his foot, he quickly steps in, rounding on the door, only to find no one there.
He methodically goes through the rest of the house, clearing each room like a good agent would. It’s only when he returns to the living room that he realizes the house has been cleaned, the furniture righted, though most still bear the marks of his rage.
Holstering his weapon he looks around and finds a note on the dining room table.
Jemma would have had a fucking fit if she came home and saw this disaster area.
She wouldn’t want you to give up, so we’re going to make sure you don’t. For her.
Take however long you need, but know that we expect to have you back at some point.
Be the man she knew you were.
That last line is what killed him. Because yes, on some level he knew that Jemma wouldn’t want him to just give up, to just stop caring, and as much as he wants to, he won’t because Coulson was right. Jemma believed he was a better man, and he was determined to prove her right.
So he pulls out his phone and sends a quick email to his team-no his family, because after all this time, after all they’ve gone through, that’s what they are. Family, and he realizes that he’s not the only one who lost Jemma.
Thanks for cleaning up. I need a little time, but I promise I’ll be back.
Hitting send, he peeled off his coat, getting a whiff of himself as he did so, and he could practically hear Jemma telling him he smelled of elderberries.
That had him cracking a smile, Jemma and her love of Monty Python. He hadn’t really understood the humor outside of The Holy Grail, but she had adored them, so he had watched them all, laughing not at their humor, but with her, Jemma’s laugh had been infectious, and his heart squeezed painfully knowing he’ll never hear it again.
He’s a bit more level headed after the shower and shave, he’s still lost, and the grief is still crashing around him, but for some reason, here in their bedroom, it’s not unbearable.
Sitting on the bed, he looks to the side she used to sleep on and wonders if this ache in his chest will ever go away, if it will one day fade like the scent of her will. Deciding it would be best to take it one day at a time, he sighs deeply before lying down and falling into a dreamless sleep.
Grant Ward blinked, and just like that, 25 years have passed since Jemma died and their little rag-tag team had lost it’s bubbly biochemist. It went unsaid that she wouldn’t be replaced, Fitz wouldn’t have tolerated anyone else in their lab anyway.
Instead the team carried on, with her memory in their hearts, and her passion for a better world as their mission.
On the rare occasion that they needed someone with an extensive biochemical background Dr. Bruce Banner always made time to answer/solve/fix whatever they need him to. The team is startled the first time he arrives to help, looking to Coulson, assuming their leader brought him in.
But cool, calm and collected Coulson looks just as stunned as his team at the presence of the mild mannered alter-ego of The Hulk.
He solved their problem quickly but before he left, he stopped to offer his condolences to Grant.
“Your wife was brilliant and it’s because of her that I learned to control rage and the beast within. I owe her my life. Anytime you need a biochemist, I’ll be available.”
No wonder she had managed to calm him so effectively after the Berserker staff incident. She’d already handled the world’s angriest beast and lived to tell the tale.
The awe for his wife only depend.
But that had been so long ago. Back before he had more gray hair than black, back before he needed glasses to read those boring reports every morning, back before physical fights took him weeks to recover from. But those days were over now.
He had retired today.
There had been a big party thrown in his honor, and while he appreciated the sentiment, he much rather would have been some dive bar with just his original team.
Skye had grown into an incredible agent, one who’s scores had rivaled his own, and he couldn’t have been prouder to have been her S.O. She had been given her own team to lead nearly 10 years ago, and had been the only person to come to his mind when S.H.I.E.L.D. had asked him who he wanted to name as his successor.
Fitz had designed and built the teleport device that Jemma had joked about the day she died, and had donated all the proceeds from it to a scholarship in her name for young girls interested in the sciences. To this day, the JemmAWard (Jemma+Ward+Award) scholarship was responsible for educating 4 noble prize winners.
Melinda May was pushing 65 and she was still a BAMF that could kick his ass without breaking a sweat. She had retired from active duty long ago, but hadn’t fully let go of the super secret government agency. So now she trained the newbies. Making sure that everyone who was out in the field passed their physicals and were cleared for combat.
And Coulson? Well whatever had happened to him while he was in Tahiti was something akin to the fountain of youth. The man looked exactly the same as he had when he had come out of the shadows welcoming Grant to Level 7. All the doctors assured him he wasn’t immortal, and that he would eventually die someday, it just didn’t look like that day was anytime soon. It was a double edge sword for Coulson to hear, but he took it in stride, like he did everything else.
Coulson had been promoted to handling the Avengers when Fury retired which in turn meant that Grant was promoted to overseeing their old team. It had been an adjustment at first, going from being the specialist and the one in the middle of the action, to the one coordinating it all, but he was a master strategist and made the transition quite easily.
And while he couldn’t say that he lived the last 25 years, he definitely survived them, despite his early attempts to be as kamikaze as possible. After surviving his 4th mission that he most certainly should have died in, he figured he had a guardian angel looking out for him and decided to be less reckless, unless a member of his team was in danger.
It had been smooth sailing ever since, but now, he was tired, and ready. Ready for what, he didn’t know, but he knew that he was ready for whatever lie ahead.
Lying down he looked at his bedside table, where his favorite photo of Jemma sat, the last thing he saw before falling asleep and the first thing he saw in the morning when he woke up. The photo had been taken on their wedding day.
His niece had snapped a photo of the moment Jemma met his eyes as she began her walk down the aisle.
Now Grant had seen a lot of beautiful women in his day, his job as an international spy put him in the company of women so beautiful they’d bring a tear to your eye. However in all his years, in all his travels, he has never met a woman who could hold a candle to the beauty that his wife possessed both inside and out.
Sighing he picked up the photo, “Good night Jem.” he kissed it before putting it back and falling into a restless sleep.