My angel with her dirty wings, she used to make me smile, It's my fault, I don't care, I have sacrificed, and then I burned, And I am sure I'll be just fine, And the truth about the two of us, is we don't make no sense,
But she kept all of her secrets locked inside,
In a place I could not reach her, though I tried with all my might,
And when I begged for something real she said goodbye.
I can't hate you if you're not here,
Once you go, never, ever turn around.
Oh, you gotta live before you learn.
I wanted the truth, but sometimes the truth hurts.
if I remember she wasn't ever mine.
when we made love, our love was just pretend.
Now I'm trying to forget her, though I feel her in my bones,
and I wonder if she thinks of me at all.
It had been six months since Ward had seen Skye.
She'd called him a monster then, her eyes full of tears but covered with a hard sheen he barely recognized.
She had been right, of course, Ward thought grimly. There wasn't much she was wrong about.
"Garrett needs you upstairs," Deathlok's voice whipped him into defense mode, and Ward scowled at the soldier.
"What does he want?" Ward said roughly.
"To know what's wrong with you," Garrett said sharply, and Ward turned to see that his mentor was leaning against the doorframe, his stare cold.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"Give us a minute," Garrett said to Deathlok, and the soldier departed, his eye trained on Ward until the door had shut behind him. "So what the hell is with you, Ward? You're not still moping about the girl, are you?"
Ward stood up straighter, his hand reaching for the staff that lay on the table.
"No," Garrett stopped him. "You've been handling the Berserker often enough lately."
"It's a useful tool."
"It's a crutch," Garrett said sharply. "Don't tell me you need to rely on some piece of alien technology just to get your head in the goddamn game?"
"My head is in the game," Ward said coldly. "Though the fact that you gave out a kill order on me hasn't slipped my memory."
"You were never in danger," Garrett said dismissively. "Your girl would never have let you die."
"She's not my girl," Ward snarled, slamming his fist into a stack of empty weapon crates. "And she never was."
Garrett smirked. "You've been so goddamn blind this whole time," he said, his face hardening. "I sent you in on a covert op—an op that was supposed to be about gather intel that could save my life—and all you managed to do was fall in love."
"I'm not in love," Ward snapped, turning away. "And I did what you wanted. I got the intel. I kept you one step ahead when you needed to be, and now we have all the goddamn research Coulson's team did. What more do you want?"
Ward knew he was crossing a hundred lines here, but he didn't care.
"I'm so tired—I'm so goddamn tired of letting you play games with my life," he nearly shouted. "You were ready to kill me, and I have sacrificed everything, everything, for you."
Garrett, who at first had looked surprised, then outraged, now turned to him coldly. "You forget that I saved you. I saved your life, Grant Ward, and I saved your fucking soul when it did not deserve to be saved."
Ward couldn't look at him. "You were ready to throw me away," he said quietly, regaining some slight control. "And she wasn't."
"She hates you, Ward. You betrayed her from day one, so don't act like you deserve any better."
Ward gritted his teeth. "I never said I deserved better," he said. "I just didn't expect to be burned by you after I gave up everything for you. I guess I didn't realize how dispensable I was to you."
Garrett's mouth stiffened into a hard line. "Don't you dare say that. Don't you fucking dare."
Ward looked up at him now, his stare challenging and arrogant. Monster, he heard Skye's voice in the back of his head. Disgusting. Backstabbing. Rot in hell.
"You deserved nothing—you deserved to die, and I rescued you, Ward," Garrett said, stepping closer until his face was inches from Ward's. "Don't forget who kept you out of jail when you were fourteen. Don't forget who rescued you when you were about to put a bullet through your own brain. And don't forget all of the time I saved your ass on a mission. Paris. Warsaw. Manhattan. And Prague? Do you remember that, Ward? Do you remember who carried your useless ass out of a collapsing building? Do you remember who took a fucking bullet to the gut to save your worthless life?"
Ward stood still, gutted by his mentor's words. "I don't forget," he said, his voice ragged. "But why"—he paused, his throat clenching with emotion. "Why did she keep my heart beating? Why did it matter if my heart stopped, if she didn't care? If none of it was real?" He looked up at Garrett now, at his mentor's intense gaze, guilt and regret and shame washing through him.
You're pathetic.
Pathetic. Disgusting, weak, useless. And after all he did for you, you're still weak enough to care about some girl who fooled you into thinking your heart was worth saving?
Garrett was looking down at him in disgust.
"After all I've done for you," he said slowly, shaking his head. "And you still care more about some hacker?"
"I don't care more about her," Ward protested feebly. And she's not just some hacker. But you're not just my SO, either. "I'm… sorry, sir," he said.
"You're sorry?" Garrett scoffed. "I need to know I can trust you, Ward. I need to know you have your head in the game."—
"Hit me," Ward interrupted, feeling shame uncurl in the pit of his stomach as it always did when he said the words.
It was relief he felt when Garrett did as he asked.
Relief he felt when fists on his jaw drove away the memory of kisses. Relief he felt when blows to the ribs erased the memory of a girl who brought his heart back to life.
Relief, because everything Ward had done, all the ways he has failed Skye, all the truth he had bled that day on the Bus; all of it fell away under John Garrett's fists.
It was like a baptism—and afterwards, when Garrett's fists were bloody and Ward was on the ground, broken, it felt like he had been made new.
"Are you alright?" Garrett asked softly, and when he reached out his hand, Ward took it. Garrett pulled him to his feet, and Ward looked away again. "We need to get to work," Garrett said briskly, but his hand stayed on Ward's shoulder a moment longer. "And it's good to know that you have my back, kid. That I can trust you after all."
"Yes, sir."
Just then, the door flew open, and a terrified foot soldier stood in front of them. "Sir—we've been trying to tell you—your com's down—SHIELD—here—compromised"—
Garrett and Ward drew their guns as one, and Ward gripped the staff in his gloved hand.
Garrett grinned, that odd, charismatic grin that thrilled and repulsed Ward simultaneously. "Ready to play, kid?"
Ward nodded.
Coulson, please tell me you didn't let Skye come on this raid.
Please.
The foot soldier had rejoined his commander, and Garrett and Ward crept through the compound, finding unconscious soldiers at every turn, but no SHIELD agents.
"Search the main corridor," Garrett ordered. "I'm going above."
"Sir?" Ward said. "Be careful."
Garrett nodded. "You too, kid."
And when Ward rounded the corner to the main corridor, it was to find himself face to face with Skye and Coulson, their guns pointed straight at his heart.