Saving Grant Ward

Chapter Five

A/N: Since Grant is a couple years ahead of Samantha, I'm going to skip over most of her time at SHIELD Academy since they wouldn't really cross paths much during that time 😄

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Despite my ambitious plans, Grant Ward didn't crack a single smile the whole week I spent with him. I gave it my best effort, but for whatever reason, he just didn't seem interested in making friends.

After that first week, I didn't have much time to spare thoughts for Grant Ward. Training picked up almost immediately, and I was working so hard to keep my place at SHIELD that I didn't have time to worry about Ward, or go out of my way to find him in the dining hall. I made sure to smile the few times I passed him in the hallway between classes, but I didn't get the chance to do much more than that.

Instead, I put all my energy into learning everything I could about becoming a SHIELD agent. The classes were hard and the training was harder, but for the first time in my entire life, I was actually doing well in school. Within the first few weeks I'd risen to the top of my class, and while it was one of the weirdest feelings ever, it was also pretty nice.

Of course, I'm sure it helped that I actually enjoyed the subject matter. It was a lot easier for me to sit down and study tactical analysis, canvasing, and dead drops than it had been to do the same with biology, history, and calculus in high school.

Finally, at the end of my first year, I was supposed to choose between becoming a Specialist and a Field agent. The choice wasn't hard; Specialists did everything I'd been dreaming about this whole time, and after a year at Ops, I realized I was actually good at the Specialist stuff too.

The only downside came in next three years of Specialist training. I quickly learned that Agent Grant Ward wasn't the only Ops Specialist who was hard to make friends with. Almost everyone in my classes had the same lone-wolf mindset, and none of them were eager to bond over books, giggling, and hot chocolate. Still, I got along alright with most of them, and I even managed to make a few friends. When graduation finally came four years after I'd first set foot on campus, it was harder than I ever thought it'd be to leave everyone.

I managed to graduate at the top of my class with full honors, I statement I never thought I'd be able to make. Even after four years of acing tests, it seemed incredible that I could actually be good at school. 

I guess I just needed a school that taught weird stuff.

The next step after graduating Ops was training with an SO. When I'd first heard that, I had a bunch of questions, but thankfully someone else clarified that SO meant Supervising Officer (and not Significant Other) before I had the chance to make a complete idiot of myself in front of everyone.

Basically, our teachers had explained, we'd spend every moment and mission of the next stage of our training with our SO, learning from them and working with them until we were deemed worthy of becoming full-fledged SHIELD agents. Everybody I asked said it could take anywhere between a few months and a few years, so I was just hoping I'd get somebody good. I'd make the best of the situation either way, but if I had to spend the next part of my life with somebody, I hoped it was somebody I could at least get along with.

Straight after graduation, I said my goodbyes to my classmates and packed all my SHIELD stuff into a duffle bag. Most of them were moving into more permanent SHIELD housing before meeting their SO's, but apparently my SO was heading out on a mission ASAP. I was going to meet them and go on my first official SHIELD mission, and then I'd be able to deal with things like moving into a SHIELD apartment and processing graduation.