Disclaimer: I don't own Ward or Simmons or anyone else in or related to AoS.
AN: Takes place between seasons 1 and 2, so obvious warnings related to that. Title and quote from Taylor Swift's "Blank Space."
Boys only want love if it's torture.
"Bollocks."
Simmons' accent forming the curse is the first indication he has that he's conscious. The second is sharp, clear pain.
"Calm down," she says.
A latex-gloved hand grips his bare calf comfortingly and he takes short, quick breaths, forcing his muscles to relax. He can feel a sharp poking inside his foot, cutting and digging deeper.
"There we are." She sounds like she's talking to an animal or a germ culture that's only just started behaving. "You have an infection," she says in her steady, medical tone.
The black spots in his vision fade, replaced by white spots that slowly form into a light fixture hanging over him. There are shadows moving at the edges of his vision. He ignores them, lets Simmons' voice ground him.
"You passed out from the fever. I need to clean out the wound or you'll lose the foot. Or die."
She's afraid of that. Or she's afraid that she wants it to happen. He's too delirious to analyze her.
"Change of pace," he mutters, trying for flippant. It comes out biting instead.
After a moment's hesitation, the hand gripping his calf squeezes tight. He thinks she means to hold him here.
She digs in again and the shadows rise up, blocking out the light.
After he wakes up in his bed in his cell, his foot is heavily bandaged. He can still feel a phantom hand gripping his leg.
She comes to see him. She's the only one.
She demands that he unwrap his foot so she can check on his progress. She watches him rewrap it, insists he stop and go back twice when he doesn't do it to her liking. It's the most conversation he's had in weeks.
When she leaves, he replays it all a thousand times in his mind. It sustains him until her next visit.
This is worse than the cell they dragged him from. At least there he had four dark walls to hold him together. Here there's space just out of reach and the chair that promises someone will come.
No one comes. He can walk again, as well as before, and he doesn't need house calls from his doctor.
He has strict orders to exercise the foot and he almost ignores them just to invite a dressing down but inactivity is worse than solitude.
He remembers noticing the crack in the button on his pants. He does not remember snapping it in half. He only knows that while he is sharpening one side against the other, there can be only one reason for it.
He wakes up alone in his bed in his cell. For a moment he thinks he dreamed the button and the pain. He moves and his left arm shifts against his side. He grunts, bends double over the arm as if that will stop the raw agony.
How far the mighty have fallen. He's practically an animal licking his wounds.
He forces himself to relax and take stock of himself. Stitches crisscross over the brutal line he carved from his wrist to his elbow. The skin is red and swollen, not just from the damage it's suffered but from something artificial they've used under the stitches to keep him from bleeding out.
His fingers hover along the length of the injury. If he concentrates hard enough, he thinks he can feel gloved hands pulling him back together.
"Is there any pain?"
He's slow to answering. He knows she thinks it's because of whatever mental break drove him to open his veins but really he just wants to let her words fade fully before he fills the space with his own.
Actually, maybe it is because of his mental break.
"Does it hurt?" she presses, sounding a little desperate for an answer. She sits on the edge of the chair, gripping the tablet that controls his environment on her knees. Her fingers shift, curl, tighten nervously. He can't help but imagine them on his skin.
"No. It doesn't hurt."
There's a difference between hurting and pain. Pain is a neural reaction to stimuli. Hurt is emotional, it's negative. The pain reminds him that he's alive and not as alone as his surroundings indicate. The pain brought her back. How could that hurt him?
She seems satisfied with the lie of omission, even smiles a little to herself as she ducks her head to give the tablet her attention.
"Are you doing all right? Sleeping well? The stitches don't make it difficult, do they?"
He touches them at night. Disturbing the healing flesh is painful and thrilling all at once, a bit like pulling off sunburned skin.
"Not at all."
"No dreams? Bad dreams, I mean. And you're keeping occupied? You have books." She shoots the pile beside his bed a hopeful glance.
Books are supposed to take your mind off real life. When you don't have one, books are dull, empty things.
"I do." When she doesn't seem convinced he adds, "I'm fine, Simmons."
Her gaze falls to the stitches on his arm and then to the line on the floor marking the force field between them. She stands like the chair shocked her. She's remembered who he really is.
"Very good. I'll- we'll be removing the stitches in about a week, then."
He steps too close to the force field to watch her leave. It distorts his vision, which is unfortunate, but the reminder that he can't snatch her back is all that keeps him from trying.
They tie him down for what will be a very minor procedure but his left arm has to be free or the bonds'll get in her way. Trip stays nearby, ICER at the ready.
He's not sure why they don't just knock him out entirely but he's not going to give them any ideas. He wants to remember this.
She's flustered, has been since she walked through the door, and her eyes are red. Whatever's got her on edge, Trip knows what it is.
His tongue itches to talk to her, to ask her what's wrong the way he might have back on the Bus, but he knows talking is a sure fire way to get Trip to knock him out. So he bites his cheek to keep quiet and watches her work.
She loses herself in the task, forgets for a moment whatever had her on edge. Her breathing evens out, color comes back into her cheeks. Every so often he even hears her tsk under her breath, like she's about to go into one of her old speeches about taking better care of himself in the field. She's wearing gloves but he can feel the warmth of her skin through the latex. When she pulls the final stitch from his wrist he can't help but curl his fingers up to run along the smooth underside of her arm. She jumps but doesn't pull away from the contact.
"Simmons?" Trip calls, stepping closer.
"It's fine," she says. "Everything's fine."
She busies herself with sterilizing the area and applying a new bandage. When she touches him, he can feel her pulse going. He watches her face, her movements. She's not afraid. Whatever she's feeling, it's something else.
He smiles as she leaves.
He's an addict. He knows that now. Contact like that should've settled his nerves for weeks but it's barely eight days later and he's getting desperate for more.
He spends a night lying awake, going over every encounter since they locked him up. When it's not enough he goes back further, to the first time they met when she shoved a cotton swab in his mouth without so much as a "hello." That only brings him back to dropping her out of the Bus (and he's sorry for that, he is, but it was the only way. She's gotta see that. She's smart and she's alive. She'll have figured it out).
It's still not enough. He wants new memories. He wants to see her, hear her voice, touch her. Really touch her. Not through gloves and examinations.
But that's the long game. He can play it. He's always been good at it. But right now he needs a fix, just a little one.
He tears a page from one of his books and folds it until it's sharp as a knife.
May runs in and shoots him with an ICER before he can do more than cut a shallow, uneven path along his wrist. It's barely a wound. The pain hasn't even hit him before the dendrotoxin round does.
When he wakes up, he tears off the small bandage. If he'd gotten a cut that size in the field, he would've thrown dirt on it and kept going.
There are no stitches, just a bonding agent that'll dissolve into his flesh as it heals. It's the sort of treatment done on the fly and he doubts they even brought Simmons down to do it herself. It's a useless wound.
He breathes, reminds himself to take stock of himself, of the situation.
He's exactly where he was before.
His books are gone.
If Coulson thinks he's trying to kill himself, he doesn't much care about stopping him from trying.
There are no buttons or ties on his pants. He has no shoes. The books are gone. Meals come without utensils. But he's a specialist. With what he has available he can count at least a dozen ways. It would be easy if he really wanted to die.
Only he doesn't. And that makes it much, much harder.
He wonders if that's why Coulson leaves him so many options.
His dinner's supposed to show up any minute. Even with the shot from the ICER his internal clock's running strong. This'll knock it for a loop but it'll be worth it.
It has to be.
He runs into the wall head first. His vision erupts in starbursts. He presses his palms flat against the wall so he's sure where it is and backs up for another go.
Later, he'll remember his feet, wobbly but capable beneath him; his vision coming back just in time for the wall to appear before him; and then nothing.
("Ward! Ward!" she screams his name. Where is Trip with the medkit?
Her hands wipe the blood from his face. Head wounds bleed a lot. It's a fact. One she tells herself over and over as she checks for a pulse.
His eyes come open and he smiles like a drunk.
"There you are," she says, relief making her numb.
He reaches for her once, twice. His arm wavers between them like a candle flame. Her smile falls as she remembers how dangerous he is, how this could all be a trick, and where is Trip?
Finally he catches her bloody hand in his. His fingers twist up and down hers like spiders following along her palm to her wrist. His skin is cold against hers as he smears his blood up her arm. Whatever he's looking for, he must find it because he smiles, big and broad like a child.
It might make him look younger, if not for the blood.)
It worked. Better than he could have dreamed.
He has a concussion, which means someone has to sit up with him all through the night. It only makes sense for it to be her.
"What is your name?" she asks.
"You've asked me that four times already."
It's been hours since he woke up. He's happy to sit in bed just knowing she's right there on the other side of the barrier (he can even pretend it's not there at all if he keeps his eyes up) but she keeps prodding him with questions.
"Then you should have no trouble answering it."
"Grant Douglas Ward."
"Your date of-"
"Thank you," he says, stemming the tide of questions before she can really get going. He nods to her hands. She's washed them but he can still see his blood clinging to the edges of her nails. "You saved my life. Twice now."
She curls her nails in to look at them, at the bits of him clinging to her. Her expression turns sad as she runs a hand along the inside of her arm. When she looks at him again, her disappointment hits him harder than the wall did.
"Why do you keep throwing it away, then?"
The truth, the "for you" sits on the tip of his tongue but he drags it back. It's too much too soon. She's not ready. He'll get her there eventually but what he needs now is to know just how far from ready she is.
"Why do you keep saving it?" he asks, building the self-loathing in his voice as he speaks. "After all I've done, do you really think I'm worth any of this?" He gestures to the cell, taking in the resources they waste every day on him.
She looks stricken - and inside he crows in triumph - but only for a moment.
"You're right," she says coldly, sounding just the way she did back on the Bus while Fitz was begging him to turn on Garrett. "You lied to us for months. You betrayed the organization you swore your life to. You betrayed us. You nearly killed-" Her lips press into a thin line and she shakes her head, never taking her eyes off him. "You're not worth the energy it takes to fuel this cell or the food we feed you or the treatment and care that-"
Her eyes are shining and she looks at him like he's a landmine she just stepped on. He can see the "I" caught in her throat. She cares about him.
Oh, this near confession is bound to set her back. He knows that. But now he knows it's there. He's burrowing under her skin the way she's gotten under his. All he needs is more time.
He pulls his features into a suitably sorrowful expression. Much as he hates to take his eyes off her for even a minute while he's got her here, he does it. Like he can't bear the way she's looking at him. (He can. He can absolutely bear any look she gives him.)
He swallows hard. "Well. Thank you. Still." He twists his arm in his lap and runs his fingers over the crisscrossing scars from her suturing.
She shifts uncomfortably, crossing her legs first one way then the other.
An hour later the silence breaks. "What's your name?"
Coulson comes the next day with breakfast and a list of questions that will be ignored.
Instead of listening to Coulson's increasingly desperate attempts, he sits on the edge of his mattress, running his broken thumbnail over the cut, wondering how much pressure it would take to break through the adhesive and pull it open again.
"You might not want to do that. Simmons is gone and she was still the closest thing to a medic we had."
Gone. Gonegonegonegonegone.
She can't be gone. Gone means dead and he just saw her.
Blood wells up from the edge of the cut and he brings it to his lips to suck clean. From the corner of his eye he looks Coulson over.
No, she's not gone. No way Coulson would be so calm about it if she was. So she left. For a long time. And Coulson's not happy about it but he's also not unhappy about it. A mission?
The adhesive tastes bitter against his tongue and he pulls his arm away. If she's not here, he can't work on her anymore. Which means he needs to be not here.
"I'll talk," he says. "I'll answer your questions. I know-" He throws in a little stutter for good measure and looks at his hands. "I know I don't deserve… You have no reason to trust me. But I'll be absolutely truthful."
"Good to hear. I don't believe a word of it, but good to hear. Now about those-"
"Only to Skye. I'll only talk to Skye."
He can't work Coulson or May, but Skye… A few weeks, maybe months of effort and she'll let him walk past that yellow line. Then he can find Simmons and get back to work. Only this time there won't be a barrier keeping him away from her.