A/N: This was supposed to be a prompt fill (for the prompt "If it were easy, everyone would do it," in case you're wondering). But, as often happens-at least to me-it kind of took on a life of its own, and ended up way too long to post to tumblr.
Dedicated to SafelyCapricious, both because it was her prompt and because she's suffering under the weight of thesis stress and deserves a million presents to make up for it.
Title from Breaking Benjamin's Dear Agony. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!
Jemma has no idea how she got here.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. She knows how she actually got here—remembers the flight with perfect clarity. It's just that she doesn't know why she's here.
There's a knot of something complicated in her chest: something like uncertainty, like shame, like regret. She's a traitor. She knew abstractly, before, that that was what she'd be—what following through on her plan would make her—but here, in the aftermath, she finds it hard to swallow.
She doesn't believe in HYDRA's goals. In fact, she finds them extremely distasteful. But she loves Grant, and she wants to be with him, and so here she is.
Not that that makes it better. In fact, she's fairly certain it makes it worse.
She stays quiet through the debriefing, as Grant recounts his time on the team, his captivity, his escape. He keeps his hand on her thigh the whole time—grounding, steadying—and she keeps her eyes on the table. She knows this story. She doesn't need to hear it.
The man running the debrief, a Dr. Whitehall, pays her little attention. Near the end of the debrief, she hears him use her name, but he's not speaking English, and she can't decipher his tone. Grant's tone, when he responds, is much easier: arrogance and amusement, with just a touch of the fondness he always directs her way.
She wonders if it should concern her that they're deliberately speaking about her in a language she can't understand. Probably, but she can't quite muster up the energy for it.
It's been a long day.
Whitehall finally makes eye contact with her once the debrief is over, after he's shaken Grant's hand and welcomed him back into the fold.
"Come see me tomorrow," he orders her, softening it with a frankly disturbing smile. "We'll see about finding a place for you in our labs."
She mumbles something agreeable and lets Grant steer her out of the room, his arm heavy on her shoulders. He hasn't stopped touching her once since they left the Playground—it should be less comforting, she thinks, than it actually is.
They've been given a suite of rooms on the twenty-seventh floor; there are other people living on this floor, managers and specialists in the rooms around them, but it's late—the debrief took hours—and there's no one to be seen as they reach their door. It's so quiet, no sound but the tap of her shoes on the tile floor (Grant, of course, walks soundlessly), and it feels like they're alone in the world.
But clearly she's alone in feeling so introspective.
As soon as the door closes behind them, Grant is on her, his mouth urgent against hers and his hands already sliding up her shirt. She's still sore from the countless rounds they went on the flight, but he's been without any sort of touch for months, and she spent those months aching for him. She can't bring herself to deny him.
So she loses herself in him, lets his mouth and his fingers and his cock wash away her dark thoughts, and forgets, for a while, exactly what's happened and what she's done.
It can't last.
After, when she's curled up beside him in their new bed, the awful, sick feeling from earlier returns. Grant is sleeping peacefully, but she can't even close her eyes—not without seeing the carnage he—they—left behind at the Playground.
She's known for ages that he was a murderer. It was a fact, something she thought she could live with.
Now, she's not so sure.
His breathing is deep and even as she shifts herself to straddle him. He doesn't even twitch as she leans over, reaching for the knife he left on the bedside table. His gun is there, too, but she can't imagine using it. She's never been any good with firearms.
But she's spent half her life with a scalpel in hand. She knows how to use a blade. She knows that a quick slice to his carotid artery will kill him swiftly. He won't suffer. (Not like the others suffered.)
He's still asleep as she sits back up, knife in hand, and it's odd. She's seen him snap to awareness at the slightest hint of a sound. Perhaps those months spent alone in Vault D dulled his senses. Or perhaps he simply trusts her.
(The team trusted her, too.)
Her hand trembles as she lays the knife against his neck, right over his carotid artery. And then…
She can't make it move. She takes a deep breath, tries to center herself—tries to remind herself of what she saw, what he did—but she can't do it. At this angle, it would only take the slightest of pressure, but somehow, she can't make herself apply it.
She's frozen.
Grant's eyes open.
"You gonna kill me?" he asks. He doesn't sound worried, or even angry—simply curious.
"Killing isn't as simple as it looks," she admits, tightening her grip on the knife. But he makes no move to disarm her. Instead, he smiles.
"If it were easy, everyone would do it," he says.
She thinks of Coulson's eyes, lifeless and accusing, and has to swallow a sob. "It's easy for you."
"Yeah," he agrees. "But not for you." He rubs his hands along her thighs, and she hates herself for the way it makes warmth curl low in her abdomen, despite everything. "You're meant for saving lives, sweetheart. Not ending them."
"You're a monster," she whispers. "I'd be saving lives by ending yours."
"Ah," he says. "So that's what this is about."
"You killed them," she says. It's been hours and hours, but she can still feel May's blood on her hands—can feel Grant's grip on her arm as he hauled her to her feet, away from her attempt to staunch May's bleeding. "You—"
She chokes on a sob, and it strengthens her resolve.
She's responsible for what he did. She let the monster out of his cage—let him loose upon her team. The least she can do is kill him before he hurts anyone else.
"You have to pay for it," she says.
Grant smiles as she presses the knife against his skin, and she knows he could have disarmed her already—that even now, with the blade so very close, he could easily stop her before she kills him.
But he makes no move to do so. He just smiles up at her, his gorgeous eyes lit with amusement, and she knows he knows.
She can't do it. She just—she can't.
Tears well in her eyes and spill over, and she doesn't fight as Grant grasps her wrist and moves the knife away from his neck. He gently pries it out of her white-knuckled grip and drops it carelessly on the bedside table, and she buries her face in her hands.
"Shh, Jemma." Warm hands bracket her waist and shift her back, onto his thighs, so he can sit up. The he pulls her hands away from her face and guides her to tuck her head against his neck as she sobs. "You're okay. It's all right." He rubs her back soothingly, and she cries harder. "It's okay. I've got you."
This is her fault. Everything that happened to her team—to her friends—is her fault. And she can't even make amends by killing him, for the same reason that she let it happen in the first place, the same reason that she's here with him right now.
She loves him.
She's never said it, mostly because she fears his response. She doesn't know whether he'd return the sentiment—whether he'd mean it if he did. He lies just as easily as he kills; he enjoys fooling people, and she doesn't delude herself into thinking she's exempt from that.
She doesn't think he loves her. She doesn't know how he sees her—spoils of war? A prize he stole from right under Coulson's nose, his reward for his patience and cunning? The thought sits uncomfortably in her throat. She might wonder, but she'll never ask; she doesn't want to know.
This isn't helping her to stop crying.
Grant's hand is still on her back, and his voice is still in her ear, and that's not helping, either. Mostly because his attempts to comfort her are comforting, and that, perversely, makes everything worse.
How can she accept comfort from him? How can she let him touch her, after what he did? The first time he fucked her today—on the Bus, when he pinned her against the wall outside the cockpit just as soon as he engaged the autopilot—there was still blood under his nails.
She's marked all over from his touch—bites and bruises littering her body, patches of red where his beard has irritated her skin—but she doesn't feel it. What she feels is imaginary, phantom blood smeared over her skin everywhere he's touched her, and knowing that it isn't really there—that the blood staining his hands is, at the moment, entirely metaphorical—doesn't make it any less awful.
He's a monster, and she's let him touch her. More than that, she's begged for it. What does that make her?
By the time her tears slow, her head is pounding. Her neck aches from the angle she's at, her face tucked into the curve of Grant's shoulder, and she rubs at it as she sits back.
"Feel better?" Grant asks.
"Not really," she says. She doesn't. The missed opportunity—her failure—to make things right has only added to the heavy weight on her chest.
How can she live with him? How can she live with herself?
He cups her face in his hands and kisses her softly. Something twists in her stomach; he's not often gentle, and she never knows what to do when he is. So she does the only thing she can—she kisses him back and, when he draws away, lets him go.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he says. He swipes his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away the last of her tears.
"That I had to see it," she says. Her voice wavers. "Not that you did it."
"No," he agrees. "Not that I did it." He smooths her hair away from her face, eyes fond. "We both know I'd be lying if I said I regret it."
"You didn't need to kill them," she says, quietly. "We would've got away regardless."
Grant smiles. "I didn't kill them because I needed to."
"You wanted to," she concludes. Tears burn at her eyes again. He wanted to kill them, and she let him out to do it. "You enjoyed it."
"I spent months in that cell, Jemma," he says, toying with her hair. "No sunlight, no space to move. No you."
She breathes in slowly, not sure what to make of her presence on that list.
"Coulson knew what he was risking, keeping me in his base instead of handing me over to the government with all the other prisoners from Cybertek," he says. "He got exactly what he was asking for."
She closes her eyes, unable to face his complete lack of repentance, and Grant sighs.
"I let Fitz and Skye live," he reminds her. "That was for you." He gives her hair a little tug, and she opens her eyes. "Say thank you."
"Thank you," she echoes obediently, but her heart is in her throat, remembering how she had to beg him not to kill Fitz—remembering the look Fitz gave her, the horrified betrayal on his face.
He sighs again, then hugs her close. She doesn't know how she can feel safe like this, with strong arms caging her in; she won't—can't—move unless he wants her to, and surely that should scare her. Surely the fact that she's here at all, that he brought her with him after slaughtering an entire base's worth of people (most of whom were her friends), should terrify her.
But it doesn't. She's not frightened. She feels safe—secure—sheltered in his embrace.
She's supposed to be a genius.
"I'm not gonna hurt you," Grant says, voice low and intent in her ear. "Not ever."
She wonders why that sounds more like a threat than a promise. She wonders if she even believes it.
"Okay," she says, for lack of anything else.
"Okay," he echoes, and his hold on her tightens, just a little. "But anyone else is fair game. Do you understand?"
"I understand," she confirms, and she does.
He's going to continue hurting people—continue killing them. Fitz and Skye are alive for now, but there's no guarantee they'll stay that way, should Grant ever encounter them again. She can't stop him. She could have, but she missed her chance, and now all there's left to do is ask.
"What…" she swallows. "What can I do? To keep Fitz and Skye alive?"
Grant breathes out a laugh and dips his head to press a kiss to her shoulder.
"Nothing," he says, frankly, and rubs a soothing hand across her back when she stiffens in response. "But Skye is safe, at least for the moment. I'm not interested in crossing her father."
"Her—you know her father?" Jemma asks, incredulity momentarily pushing worry aside. "Really?"
"Really," he says. "Long story. I'll tell you later." He kisses her shoulder again, then lets go of her and leans back to meet her eyes. "As for Fitz…"
"Yes?" she prompts anxiously.
"Should I be worried that you're bringing up another man while you're in my bed?" he asks. He's smiling, but there's something dark behind it. A chill runs down her spine.
"No," she says. His hands are resting on her thighs, and she takes them in hers, lacing their fingers. "I don't feel that way for Fitz." She'd like to say we aren't like that, but it's been months since she and Fitz were a unit; his confession sits between them like a wall, a wound that hasn't healed. (To say nothing of what happened today.) "But he's my best friend, and I don't want him dead. Please."
"Are you gonna beg for his life every time he crosses my path?" Grant asks. It's a careless question, idly curious, as though they're discussing what to have for breakfast tomorrow and not her best friend's life. But the dark undertone has disappeared from his demeanor; she'll take it.
"If I must."
"You know he's never gonna forgive you for this," he says. He lets go of her hands and cups her jaw to kiss her once, smugly. "You could kill me right now and drag my body back to that base as proof, and it still wouldn't be enough."
Her first thought, inanely, is that he must not know the Playground's designation; he always just calls it the base.
Her second thought is much more painful.
"I know," she says. She has to look away from his gaze; there's something there that she doesn't like, something that sits like a stone in her stomach and makes her want to flee. "But he's always going to be my best friend, even if I'm not his."
Grant hums, thoughtful, and tips her chin up to search her eyes.
"All right," he says, finally, after a long pause. "I'll try not to kill him."
It's hardly the solid promise she was hoping for, but she'll take what she can get.
"Thank you," she says.
"Trust me," he grins. "You're gonna earn it."
But the kiss he gives her is much sweeter than the innuendo behind the words would suggest. There's affection in it, in the way he rubs his hands up and down her sides. Warmth blossoms in her chest, loosening some of the awful tightness that accompanied her from the Playground.
She hates herself for it—for loving him, for taking comfort from his touch. She just had to ask him not to kill Fitz, and he didn't even truly agree. How can she love him after that—after what he did today?
She does, though. She really, truly does. Even when he frightens her, even when he lies, even when he murders people, she loves him.
Which one of them is really the monster?
"It's late," Grant says, drawing back. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, fingers lingering on her jaw. "And you've had a long day. Ready to get some sleep?"
It probably won't be peaceful. Or—even worse—it might be. If she sleeps soundly after everything that happened today, everything she saw and everything she caused…
"Yes," she says, and slides off of his lap. "Sorry for waking you up."
He laughs, which is certainly fair. If she's going to apologize, it really should be for trying to kill him, no matter how pathetic the attempt.
But she doesn't apologize for that. She curls against his side once more, legs tangled with his and head resting against his chest. His heartbeat is steady, soothing; her own heart is racing, though she couldn't say why.
"Go to sleep," Grant murmurs, pressing a kiss to her hair. He pulls the blankets up over them and holds her close, adding, "You'll feel better in the morning."
She doesn't deserve to feel better.
(She does anyway.)