Learning to make choices
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel and Whedon.
Note: this is somewhat an AU and OOC, plus a crossover with some of America's rural folklore.
Note: this story contains spoilers for the last few episodes of "Agents" S1.
The door for his cell was still closed, though the air conditioning was still on, brining in, inadvertently, not just air, but also smells from the outside, familiar smells, but Grant Ward, formerly an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., formerly an agent of Hydra (or at least of John Garrett's cell), half-ignored this, as he was doing something that he hadn't done in a while – he was figuring how to follow-up on his thinking.
It was probably something of a surprise, but Ward was quite capable of thought – he just opted not to follow on them, especially when someone senior and in charge – May, Coulson or Garrett, for example – was making decisions for him. True, it was obviously a road to nowhere, or at least nothing more than a prison cell...and Ward was not going to argue. Something was going to change, and that something, or rather someone, was likely to be him.
Ward suspected that right now it was going to go two ways; he was going to cooperate with his former teammates and allies, and maybe – maybe – sometime in the future he would win their trust and friendship back, or he might not. Alternatively, he would not cooperate with them and shortchange the previously mentioned process at the start, leaving him with nothing, just maybe another cell, a more forgotten one.
Ward took another breath as he meditated on his immediate future. Frankly, he was not particularly thrilled with a choice: either a slim hope or none at all among people whom he had not liked from the start, and now, well, with the familiar smell of his teenage years – wild forest flowers flowing through the air conditioner's griddle – he was interested even less in the whole package.
Darn it – and here Ward almost broke from his meditation – but he was one of the best secret agents in two secret agencies! Surely, if he wanted to escape he could? He had survived almost for 10 years in American wilderness, and-
Here Ward's trip down the memory lane hit upon something that he forgotten long ago (and for an interesting reason) that could now be actually very useful in his current situation. As a consequence, he took another deep breath (through his nose) and concentrated upon other lessons from his past long abandoned...
As he concentrated and meditated, the cell door opened...
/
The door opened with a hiss, startling agent Simmons as she sat, looking over the still unconscious Fitz.
"Oh, it's just you," she told Triplett, before taking another look. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive, I just worry about Fitz so much...why are you here?"
"That's cool," Triplett nodded dismissively towards the first part of the sentence, before asking a question of his own: "Have you met agent Koenig before? Is it just me, or there is something slightly off about him?"
"Well," Simmons thought this over. "We've met his brother, or his cousin, earlier - remember?"
"Yes," Triplett nodded, "and that's why it bothers me so much." He drummed his fingers on the armrest. "I don't remember the original Koenig being so friendly or such a fan of tequila."
"Well, in his defence, we never managed to know him," Simmons carefully weighted her words, "before Ward, um, killed him, while we were saving agent Coulson's ex-girlfriend. But what is wrong with tequila? I am asking because, well, I never really had it – I'm not much of a drinker, you know?"
"The question isn't about tequila," Triplett was clearly lost in his own thought process. "It's just that there is something off about this Koenig, it's like he is acting – and acting really well – but there is something peeking from behind the act, and I don't like it."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Simmons politely asked, suspecting that Triplett has already made some sort of a plan.
"Right now – hang around you," the other agent answered simply. "I don't like being on my own with people whom I can't get a mental grip on, you know?"
"Um," it was Simmons' turn to grow thoughtful. "It's not that I am flattered, I am, it's just that-"
"Ah, there you are," agent Koenig's jovial voice could be heard from the other end of the door. "If you don't like tequila, I got a hookah!"
As door opened, Simmons felt her hopes of a quiet vigil next to Fitz go flying away on smoky wings.
And what does agent Koenig mean by a hookah?!
/
When the cell door opened, and Coulson, flanked by Skye and May (though he never formally invited either of them along) entered Ward's cell, the latter was actually deep in meditation of some sort, breathing through his nose.
This was unusual, for Ward was never the more meditative of the agents – it was more of May's thing – but Coulson did not really dwell on it. Instead, he slammed the heavy folder against the cell's bunk bed. Hard.
Startled, Ward leapt upwards, but almost immediately collected himself and gave Coulson a dark look.
"Agent Ward," Coulson instinctively said before he could check himself.
"Sir," Ward gave the older man a dark look, clearly caught in the past himself – but his moment too had quickly passed, leaving both him and Coulson with silence.
"I see that you have recovered from the beating that agent May has given you," Coulson tried again.
"After John has helped him get away from the juvenile prison, I spent years here in South Carolina; met my first girlfriend here, as a matter of fact, who taught me some useful tricks, one of which has helped me recover from the beating you mentioned," Ward replied.
"We're not in South Carolina; we're in Louisiana," Coulson said quickly.
"Of course we are. Sir," Ward replied, conveying that he was not buying this for a moment.
"Anyways, let's get back on track," Coulson exhaled, grateful that no one else was butting into the conversation. "Tell us about your past history with Hydra."
"It began when Garrett helped me escape from the juvenile prison," Ward shrugged. "After that I had to stay largely on my own in the wild here, where I met my first girlfriend. She was an interesting character; compared to her agent May was warm and humane and touching and soft and moist on the inside-"
May moved, slamming Ward against the wall. "You," she hissed.
"Me," Ward hissed back. "And speaking of us, what was my sin? You broke up with me! I was under the spell of the alien witch back in Vegas, remember? Just what was our problem back then? You cannot have it both ways – it's either just business or personal!"
"Guys!" Skye yelled before May could try and silence Ward with her bare hands - this time by ripping his throat out. As a result, Skye received a dark look from May, an unreadable look from Ward and a look from Coulson, which implied that he would rather be anywhere else but here. "Simmons sent some sort of a panic signal now! Considering that we have almost lost Fitz already-"
The elder agents raced for the door, followed by Skye. Later they would admit to themselves and to their underlings that none of them thought about locking Ward's cell behind them...
/
"Agent Simmons." Upon seeing that Triplett was not alone, agent Koenig did lose some of his joviality, which was strange. Looking at him now, Simmons could see why Triplett could have become uneasy about the other man: agent Koenig's face looked somewhat flushed – maybe he was hitting the tequila already? He was also sweating, but then again, by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s standards, he was somewhat out of shape. "Nice to see you again."
"Thank you and right back at you," Simmons solemnly replied, before asking the question that she had to ask: "Where did you get that?"
By 'that' Simmons meant the hookah – a very large and elaborate construct that clearly cost plenty of money to buy.
"That?" Surprisingly, the reference to the hookah warmed agent Koenig some. "That is an old family piece of mine; Eric never forgiven me for taking it with me as our parents have decreed in their will; but anyhow, agent Triplett-"
"Agent Koenig, look," the taller man stood up, looking quite serious and grave. "I appreciate you trying to be friends with me and all, but not now. Right now I have not fully recovered from our victory over the Hydra, and I do not quite want to bond with you over alcohol or anything else. I'm sorry, and it's not you, it's me."
The sentence – "It sounds as if you're breaking up with him," – died on Simmons' lips as Koenig pulled back, clearly thinking it over. There was a new expression on his face, one that the young woman did not really like – a rather calculating one.
"Very well," Koenig said after a pause. "I guess I'll have to do it the hard way." And he twisted something on the neck of the hookah, flooding the room in thick, smelly smoke. As the smoke deepened, the other two agents were able to catch glimpses of Koenig's figure beginning to unwrap somehow...
That was more than enough to make Simmons panic: she has not yet fully recovered from Ward's official betrayal, and so she pressed the panic button on her pager.
/
When Coulson and his entourage arrived at the medical bay – Simmons told Skye that she would be there with Fitz – the room was flooded by dark black smoke that came from a hookah that was located not far from the entrance. "Triplett, Simmons, anyone? Can you hear us?" Coulson yelled, as he stepped forwards and stepped on something squishy. "What the Hell is this?"
'This' was agent Koenig's suit...and also his skin, still inside the suit – that's what made agent Coulson's footstep squish. The rest of agent Koenig was noticeably missing, however. Of course, the smoke from the hookah (and where exactly did come from, and what exactly was it doing on a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base?) was obscuring everything, but what Coulson was currently holding was definitely agent Koenig's suit. And his skin.
"Sir, what is going on here?" Ward's voice sounded from behind Coulson, startling him, as the younger man reached out and grabbed the hookah. "Oh. I see. Well, I did not see something like this in a while. Excuse me."
With those words Ward shifted his grasp and threw the hookah upwards, into the medical bay's skylight. And the hookah reached the skylight. And the skylight shattered, letting sunlight into the medical bay directly.
Immediately, the smoke dispersed, and everyone could see Triplett and Simmons playing a cat-and-mouse game with Koenig, who was now two or three times taller than before and shaped like an old-times blacksmith or wrestler. The fact that he was skinless and happy about it just was the final straw.
On the other hand, nobody had much time to few a skinless and naked agent Koenig in his new glory, because as soon as he realized that the air in the medical bay was clear and well lit by the sun, he promptly burst into flames and burned into ashes with a brief shriek.
"What was that?" Simmons said as she (and Triplett) gathered her bearings.
"A boo-daddy," Ward helpfully replied as he was thoughtfully viewing the broken skylight now.
"Ward has slept with one," Skye added sarcastically, but Ward's reply sounded quite serious and matter-of-fact instead.
"The women rather call themselves boo-hags, but otherwise, it's the same story. And yes, when she took off not just her dress, but also her skin, I thought that I was done for – but when she learned that I worked for John Garrett, she changed her mind and actually taught me a thing or two – and not in the sack, so to speak. Apparently those vampiric aliens know of Hydra somehow and respect it."
There was a pause as everyone, (especially Coulson), thought this over.
"Just what were you doing in the swamps anyways?" Skye was the first one to break silence.
"Living. John left me there to survive and I did survive, end of story," Ward said curtly. "Of course, having Buddy helped – and he was a dog, so keep your mind clean-"
"Wait. Are you saying that agent Koenig wanted to drink my blood?" agent Triplett focused on the mention of vampiric aliens out of Ward's semi-rant.
"And eat your flesh, and crunch your bones, and have a sexual intercourse with you beforehand," Ward nodded sagely. "Good thing agent Simmons saved you somehow, I guess."
The young woman turned red. "This isn't what has happened, I swear!" she said. "Anyways I still hate you," she glared at Ward. "You left us in a metal box in the Gulf!"
Ward paused, opened his mouth and closed it. "There is no excuse what I've done," he finally said, speaking slowly, painfully, "so yes, you have the right to hate me. Although, if you came charging Hydra like some sort of XIX century anarchists, you should expect to have responses in kind."
"We came to save you!" Simmons yelled shrilly.
"I don't need any help! I didn't need any help!" Ward yelled back. "S.H.I.E.L.D. trained me, Hydra trained me, John Garrett trained me, my first girlfriend and some others have trained me – I have been trained all my life!"
"Yes, and what a life it must've been, starting from the time when Garrett busted you out of jail and left you to fend in this wilderness for yourself while he cooked the books and everything else to get you into S.H.I.E.L.D.," Coulson said with a sudden vehemence. "Grant Ward, let's be honest here, everybody: your life and childhood were fucked-up!"
There was a pause as everyone stared at Coulson with an evident facial expression: "No shit, agent Obvious!" Except for Ward, whose gaze was more hostile instead.
"That said," Coulson continued, unabashed, "I would like to offer you a choice. You can go – or you can stay."
"Sir, you can't be serious!" Simmons wailed. "He has betrayed all of us-"
"Jemma," Coulson said quietly, "as he has inadvertently pointed out, we can't hold him. He already got out of his cuffs, out of his cell, and can probably get out of the building as well."
"Yes, I can," Ward nodded matter-of-factly. "What's your point?"
"I am offering you a choice – you've spent around ten years in swamps and such like, if we let you go, you'll survive as you have done before," Coulson shrugged. "If you go, you'll also get a clean slate – you won't be a friend, an enemy, an agent, an anything – a stranger, who'll live his life however he wants to live – for Hydra, not for Hydra, not for anything."
"Or?"
"Or you'll stay, and cooperate with us regarding Hydra...and anything else, and we'll see what'll happen next," Coulson said simply. "I can't make too many promises, especially not to you, but I can give you this. So: how will we go from here?"
Ward thoughtfully eyed the broken skylight, Coulson, the other agents, and nodded. "And I'm free to go at any time?"
"Yes," Coulson nodded. "At any time you want out."
"Then for now I'll stay," Ward replied, all humour – or wariness – gone out of him for once. He turned around, not coming into physical contact with anyone, and left the medical wing.
"Sir, are you think that that's wise?" Simmons finally spoke into the stretching silence.
"Throughout his life Ward has never had any choices," Coulson thoughtfully replied, "and we can see the final result. And S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't Hydra – it's about time that Ward had had them."
"It will bite you in the ass," May said suddenly.
"Yeah, it probably will," Coulson agreed jovially, "but until it happens, I stay by my decision."
And with those words he left the medical wing.
End