This is not a Ward redemption fic, just a character study of someone who is fascinatingly messed up. All Skye/Ward is one-sided, Fitz/Ward is complicated/implied/take what you will. I didn't plan it, it just happened!
TW for mental instability/breakdown, suicide attempt, violence, references to asphyxiation and drowning, possibly some ableist language and general Ward creepiness.
Spoilers for Season 2 in general, set specifically during the timeframes of S02E03 and S02E08.
The double title is because I think I want to write more of these, possibly all under the title 'What We Become' (because it's a damn good title) – so, yeah. Keep your eyes peeled! (But obviously I'm working on Hero. I just need to get my fannishness out somewhere.)
WHAT WE BECOME
Hypoxia
Grant tries to kill himself again after Fitz is gone. It actually takes longer than he expected for the door to bang open, and when it does, his vision is already going dim. Smacking your head against the wall might be crude, but it's effective, especially when the brain's already been starved of oxygen.
Hypoxia.
Fitz had gasped for breath just seeing him. That had been unpleasant.
Unpleasant.
"Damn it, he's nearly smashed his own head in –" Through the haze, Grant can barely make out the features of the man above him. Deep voice. Unfamiliar. "Fitz, you don't need to see this –"
"No, let – let me past – this is my fault –" Suddenly there's pressure on his head. Grant opens his eyes more fully, swallows and tries to ignore the blue eyes scanning him. Fitz is checking his airways, his heart rate, with fingers pressed against his neck.
"Just let me die," he manages to croak out. Fitz ignores him. Maybe he didn't hear.
Before long, Fitz says quietly to Mack, "Do you, um, do you know what…uh…"
"What happened? What triggered it?" Mack shrugs. "No idea. I wouldn't worry about it. He's in here for a reason."
"Yeah, but I –" Fitz stops, then holds a light up to Grant's eyes, one, then the other. "Are you dizzy? D-did you, um, lose…um… did you pass out at all?"
"I'm fine," he mumbles. Then, half crazy, half stupid, he says just loudly enough for Fitz to hear, "I guess, uh, I guess you're still taking care of me."
Fitz switches off the small torch. He stands up, obviously attempting to keep his face still, and walks away. But Fitz has never been good at lies, at even the slightest deception. He remembers. He remembers, and he's furious, and he's miserable, and it's tearing him apart.
"No more running into walls. Got that?" commands Mack, squeezing Grant's arm just in case he decides to do anything. I could take him on, he thinks almost dreamily, even as the needle slides into the fleshy part of his arm. But he won't. He doesn't know how many agents Coulson's managed to rope into this little rebellious upstart SHIELD-clone of his, and without that knowledge, it's too risky.
And oh, this whole thing is so Skye. Little Miss Hacker-Socialist, the SHIELD agent who could and would and did, and Grant can't leave yet because she is still here, she is still here –
He wakes up, and by the time he's done his workout, he's rationalized everything. Manipulate Fitz and Mack and he might get released, or at least a cozier cell.
For what? he asks, never opening his mouth, just staring at the concrete. He's memorized all of its imperfections now – none of them actual weaknesses, no, but its textures make something that could almost be a map. It keeps his brain occupied.
No. No, it doesn't.
For what? He asks again, treacherously, and he doesn't want to go down that road. He's already been down the rabbit-hole too many times. And besides, it's what Skye will see. Remind Fitz of good times, of the 'good Ward', put in another suicide attempt for sympathy, knowing that they won't let him die.
Something in his stomach twists. He stops it. Better to live in a cell then die, right? Better to live knowing that your one point of reference is gone than at least get some decent sleep for the first time in months –
"Stop," he murmurs out loud.
The trouble is, it's not just his point of reference. There are too many Grant Wards now, all with different motivations, different feelings – but the same memories. There's Grant Ward the Hydra spy, with the calculatedly breaking shell and the measured moments of intimacy (should have measured them better, boy-o, and that's Garrett's voice still in his head), and yeah, there's Grant Ward, Garrett's protégé, Deathlok's sidekick, the errand-boy with his 'yes sir no sir three bags full sir – and there's Grant Ward, beaten and broken, who still managed to lie convincingly through a mouth full of blood because at least it's not his mother hitting him, who can still pretend that he didn't hold a screwdriver against a five-year-old's eye long before Hydra ever got to him, but can't pretend that the well never happened. Grant Ward, the loyal SHIELD agent is only one of them. It's not even a prominent one.
But Grant Ward, Simmon's rescuer-cum-therapist is there, cropping up at every turn, and so is Grant Ward, Coulson's right-hand man, the one who can be trusted even in the throes of a berserker staff, and so is Grant Ward, the oh-so-cool field agent who plays second fiddle to a Scottish nerd with an EMP and doesn't even mind. Hell, there's even a version of him who considered asking May to marry him – not out of a need for commitment, but the idea of him and May on some farm in Arkansas with kids is simultaneously hilarious, awkward, and heartwarming. Or was.
He's never realized it before, how fractured an identity can get. He supposes he could have asked Romanoff, but he didn't realize it at the time.
But right now, the primary focus is…is…
The primary focus.
I told you, hisses Garrett from between blood-caked teeth, smiling with that crazed look in his eye. That's an image Grant wishes he could forget. It's a weakness.
Skye. Help Skye. Help her find her father.
Primary focus. Priority one. I can do that.
Grant Ward. Agent. Of sorts.
He does go a bit loony, though. A combination of the most recent head trauma plus the sedative plus that minute or so with no oxygen, maybe. Or maybe he's just coming unwound from the isolation, which is disappointing. His training is better than that.
My training didn't account for every situation, he thinks darkly, and actually laughs to himself, staring at the wall. He only barely perceives the thud of someone coming down the stairs. "I'm Agent Grant Ward," he mocks in the same voice that Simmons and Fitz had used so long ago, "and I…" But he's got nothing to say.
"You're not an agent," comes a crisp voice from behind him. He turns around. Skye stares him down, already seated in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, one arm hanging loosely over her knees and the other holding the tablet with a careless grace. It's a put-on, of course – but it's a good one. "Not anymore."
"I was –" But she probably doesn't even remember. "Skye. What can I do for you?"
Hurry up and die, is written in her eyes, and Grant (at least the Grant Ward he is right now) has to agree with her. What's the point, when she's always going to be there, and he's always going to be here?
But she can't even get a word out before he suddenly bursts out, "What happened to Fitz?"
"What?" she splutters in what's almost a laugh – a horrible one, twisted with contempt and shock. "His demonstration wasn't enough for you?"
He's taken her by surprise. The mask has slipped.
"Please," he practically begs. Scratch that – he does beg. "He couldn't… He couldn't get the words out."
"That's because you – " she holds onto the word, makes him feel it, or perhaps she thinks he doesn't, "- let him nearly drown! His brain's screwed up, Ward! It's got dead parts all over it, and that is your fault!"
"But –"
"But?"
She's already left, her question forgotten, by the time he actually stammers out what he was trying to say, "But they were supposed to make it out."
It's funny, just when you think you've already gotten rid of that first betrayal, of that sting that the world doesn't do as you'd like – when you think you've finally grappled with the truth that You Are Not God, that's when it hits you the hardest.
He'd tried.
But not hard enough.
No, you didn't, it sneers from the dark recesses of his mind. They wouldn't open the door. They wouldn't open the door, so you killed them anyway. Or tried to. And where's the girl, hm?
No. Grant tries to ignore the other voice. It wasn't Garrett this time. I'm sure Simmons is fine. Fitz would have mentioned it, I'm sure.
He can barely talk. This is what happens when you start trying to be so great and merciful. Good thing there weren't any ropes around or you would have gone down after them, you stupid bleeding-heart.
Grant starts to count the notches and bumps on the concrete wall again, trying to find the map hiding in its flaws, trying to bring back the shadows that had kept his dark places dark.
Hypoxia.
That night, he dreamt. He wasn't accustomed to dreaming, but it happened too often now.
It was the well.
Help me, Grant, help m- help meee-
He's leaning over the cobblestones, slippery moss under his fingers. The figure below is wailing for help, and he turns to get the rope, but there's Christian, and Grant waits for the words, the words that always, always come next – but instead Christian's face warps and suddenly it's the bloody teeth, the crazed eyes, and Garrett says, "Is it a weakness, Ward? Is it a weakness?"
"No, sir, it's not." He looks over the edge again –
"Ward! Ward – WARD!" Their mouths are filling with water, and Simmons is reaching up at him and Fitz – Fitz is already sinking, and his eyes are glassing over.
Grant wants to say something, anything, but what comes out is, "I've got my orders."
And Fitz and Simmons keep drowning, drowning, drowning.
It feels like a thousand years later, and it doesn't really help. But the cinders have a smell all their own, and they're whispering up to him through the smoke.
Grant chucks another piece of wood into the heart of the inferno. Nothing with his fingerprints – smart. He'd planned this one out years ago, before Garrett had crashed into his life like a bullet leaking toxins, before Garrett had bent him around his finger and talked him out of it.
"Not taking anybody's orders this time," he murmurs conversationally – and suddenly, he grins, so widely that his face aches. "This is mine."
He throws the last errant piece of bloodstained clothing into the fire and turns his back.
He's got a promise to keep.