I.
Here's the thing.
You can't just tell someone his entire world is a fiction – a fabrication, a simulation created by an artificial intelligence – and that he is all of those things as well. That he is an elaborate mistake, one that must be corrected, one that must be destroyed.
It messes with your mind, that doubt, that suspicion that maybe things are not as they seem, that maybe there is a shred of truth to what sounds like such a horrible lie.
Here's the thing.
It feels real.
His world, his life, his memories. The person he is and the man he wants to be. That's not programming, that's not code. That's him. Grant Ward. Member of the Resistance. Agent of SHIELD.
His life matters. The things he does, every action that he takes, every decision he makes – these things matter.
He'll never believe otherwise.
...
Point: this world is a lie.
Counterpoint: it doesn't feel like one.
...
II.
Eventually, he finds out the whole story, every dirty, despicable detail about how he went from teammate to friend to traitor to enemy. How he used people as if they were disposable, how he inflicted pain just for the hell of it, how he destroyed everything he touched.
And the worst part, even worse than hearing all his crimes laid out in front of him, is that he's not surprised. Not really.
Because he is not a good man in this world either. You can't live through the kind of childhood he had and come out of it without scars. He is still a liar, still a killer, and there are people who will call him the enemy and brand him a traitor at the end of all this too.
He has that darkness inside him as well, and every day it threatens to consume him, and every day, he pushes it back. He doesn't always succeed. But he always tries.
Jeffrey Mace taught him that.
He taught him how to channel that pain into something productive, something positive, he taught him how to be a better man than his family made him. He gave him a cause to fight for, one he could be proud of.
Jeffrey Mace was a good man.
And maybe that's what made the difference. Maybe that's all you need to be good – someone to show you how.
From what he can understand, he never knew Mace in that other world. He's just lost him in this one. And he can feel the darkness creeping up again, that familiar siren song calling for retribution, calling for blood.
He's not sure he has the energy to fight it this time.
No, it's not surprise he feels at the actions of his alternate self. It's relief.
Relief that he is not the most damaged one, relief that he is not the worst one.
...
Point: he is not always a good man.
Counterpoint: there is a version of him that is worse.
...
III.
In hindsight, all of Skye's strange behavior suddenly makes sense now. The way she tensed at his touch, her confusion and discomfort at the Triskelion, the open hostility in her eyes whenever she looked at him.
It's because she isn't Skye.
She's Daisy. And that is someone else entirely.
She is not the woman he loves, she is not the woman he built a life with. And yet, there's so much about her that is the same.
The stubborn set of her chin when she's focusing, the tone in her voice when she's annoyed at him, the feel of her lips on his cheek when she's saving him.
Even her name – it's still pretty.
Maybe it always is, no matter what world they're in.
...
Point: this is not the woman he loves.
Counterpoint: he still loves her.
...
IV.
She doesn't belong here.
This isn't her world and she isn't his Skye and she doesn't love him, she doesn't even like him.
In her world, she almost died because of him, but in this one, she sacrifices herself so he can escape. In this one, she lowers her gun when she could've shot him.
She doesn't belong here.
She belongs out there, where she is happy, in a different world, in a different life.
A life without him in it.
...
Point: there is a world where they are together.
Counterpoint: there is a world where they are not.
...
V.
Here's the thing.
His world isn't real.
But it's home to the girl he loves.
And she loves him back.
...
Point: this world isn't real.
Counterpoint: it doesn't matter.
...
Fin