#*td

Grant’s surprise is enough of an opening the other cuff is closed around a drain pipe.

“What,” Simmons says more than asks. Luckily her shock’s stilled her too. The fake cop is having some trouble dragging her any closer to what Grant guesses is also a fake police van. She teeters on the high heels she bought for her cousin’s bachelorette party. The same party that brought her and Grant more than a thousand miles from the team that’ll be too far away to help when they don’t check in in a few hours.

“Don’t worry,” the fake cop soothes. “You’ll have all the toys. Everything SHIELD could offer you and more. And you’ll be treated well—so long as you’re productive.”

“What about Ward?” she asks, a touch of hysteria pulling at her voice.

“You’ll have new bodyguards. If you’re good, maybe they’ll be as pretty as SHIELD’s.”

To Grant’s left one of the grunts is unholstering his sidearm. They’ve all backed off now he’s restrained, but not far. All he needs is that moment, the one right before the trigger’s pulled. These guys are pros so they’ll know the sound’s coming. They’ll tense up, the smarter ones will even cover their ears to protect them. That’s the opening. Take out the gunman. Then the big guy. If he’s lucky he can knock Goliath here into someone else, maybe even two someones. If he’s really lucky he’ll manage to hold onto the gun when he takes out the first one. He just needs that opening-

Which evaporates right in front of him when Simmons appears between him and the gun. Somehow she managed to break free and chose to run back to him instead of just running.

They are so having a lesson on tactics in a life-or-death scenario when this is over.

“No!” she gasps. Her breathing’s ragged from the adrenaline but her voice is firm. “If you want me to work for you, you won’t touch him.”

The grunts exchange a few looks. To Simmons it probably looks like they’re considering her demand. To Grant it looks like they’re trying not to laugh.

She sighs. “Listen. Your employers, whoever they may be, want me for my mind. Obviously this means you don’t need Agent Ward-”

“Uh,” Grant says. Simmons reaches blindly back, laying a soothing hand on whatever part of him she touches first. He wonders if he should let her know she gets his peck, not his shoulder.

“-and you also don’t need to leave me unharmed. I’m quite capable of exercising my genius with a broken bone or two.”

“Simmons,” Grant says, voice low enough he’s hoping it sounds to her like a growl. What the fuck is she doing?

“But I assure you, I am quite stubborn when I have a mind to be. If you shoot him or break his bones or put so much as one of his hairs out of place, I will die before I help your employer with so much as a cake recipe.” She tips her chin up and from this angle Grant can only imagine the I’m smarter than you and we both know it look on her face. “Do we understand one another?”

The grunts look more uncertain than before. Uncertain enough that they miss Grant breaking his own thumb and slipping the cuffs. They don’t miss when he shoves Simmons to the ground, but they’re all a little busy being beaten to death with every ounce of berserker rage he can summon up this many months later to worry about her anymore.

“Well,” Simmons says a quarter of an hour later, when he’s standing over the bodies. “That was…”

He rounds on her. “Stupid.”

She recoils. From the insult or his anger or the blood and viscera clinging to him, probably all three and, frankly, he’s glad. She should be afraid.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands, looming over her.

She stares, eyes wide. Which just proves how stupid she is. She’s afraid of him but a few minutes ago she didn’t bat an eye at the guys with literal guns who were trying to kidnap her and enslave her to whatever psycho warlord or billionaire wants her mind.

“My job,” he says tightly, “is to protect you. Your job is to be protected. Not to throw yourself in harm’s way just to-”

“To protect you!” she snaps back. The fear’s swept away, replaced by anger of her own. “They were going to kill you. You can’t expect me to stand by and watch that happen!”

“Yes. I can. Because that’s my job. I take the bullet for you. Not the other way around.”

She scoffs and now he gets to see that smarter than you look for himself. “I know that prior to this assignment you were very comfortable playing the lone wolf, Agent Ward-” he struggles not to recoil from the title; it’s been a long time since she dropped it- “but you’re part of a team now. You have friends, whether you like it or not. So you’d best get used to people putting you first once in a while.”

She whirls, smacking him in the face with that ponytail of hers. “Now I’m going to call this mess in to the local SHIELD satellite office. I suggest you start checking for pulses. They’ll want someone to question.” It’s clear from her tone she expects if none of the perpetrators are available, SHIELD will turn their attention to him and his excessive response.

Grant doesn’t bother checking. The local office is run by a Hydra agent who owes him a favor; his little killing spree will be swept under the rug in a few hours and he and Simmons can get back to the Bus.