The pain was excruciating. Kevlar may take the bullet for you but you're still getting hit with an object going 900 mps. You're not going to shake it off. She'd hit him with two of the four shots and likely bruised the fuck out of him with the other two. He'd experienced worse, sure, but he wished she'd shot him somewhere he could do his own suturing. Agent 33 seemed to be an okay sort. She was a specialist through and through but he didn't trust her-didn't like having her at his back. He liked her digging bullets out of it even less.
"You going to go after the girl?" The flawed whirring of the agent's mechanical voice cut through his meager attempts not to make a noise as she dug a little deeper.
"S'not like that," Ward replied wincing. Skye must've broken a rib with one of those bullets too. He was going to be feeling this for awhile. In a twisted sort of way, he relished that. If he couldn't have her love, at least he could embrace the gift of pain she gave him. She'd done enough damage he'd feel her in every step and breath for months. "She's...I..." He found himself at a loss for words. He shouldn't have listened to Raina. Skye could never be a monster. Never be monstrous enough to accept him in the least. Good girls and bad guys – that love story ended nicely only in the movies. In real life, it never ended that well.
Ward was getting tired of hearing the squelch of his blood and torn tissue as Agent 33 worked to pull out the first bullet. So, he tried to find the right words to explain Skye. Talking gave him something else to do than hear and feel his pain. "She called me disgusting, you know? I make her sick." He sucked in air as the agent pushed harder. The clatter of metal on tile meant that he had one less bullet in him. He continued after a sharp breath, "I am that. Backstabbing too. It's part of the job."
Agent 33 said nothing but hummed a little. Agreement, perhaps? Ward tried to take in just a little air. The more he took in the more he could feel the broken ribs. If it was an option, he wouldn't breathe at all.
"She told me to 'Rot in Hell'." He made a sound: a laugh that wasn't a laugh. It was immediately followed by more pain. "I'm already there." He gasped, "I was born there and I'll never get out."
The second bullet clattered to the table and Agent 33 must've been preparing a needle and thread to stitch him back together. With no warning, she dumped a full bottle of rubbing alcohol down his back. Ward had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming.
When the heat from the disinfectant became a dull throb instead of a searing burn, he continued. "Every time I close my eyes, all I can ever see is how much she hates me. Four shots in the back from the girl who couldn't figure out how to point a gun the right way." This time his joyless laugh was real. God, he remembered all his frustration trying to train her to shoot right. All the times she had to say 'Bang' in order to pull the trigger. She'd gotten better. He'd done a damn fine job of training her. Too good of a job, apparently.
"She said she was just trying to have an honest conversation for once. For once."
He could feel as the Agent tugged his stitches tight. "We're done here," she said and Ward breathed a little easier as he sat up to face her.
They were pathetic. He had been a double agent. He'd worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. until he betrayed them. For Hydra, until he'd lost his reason to fight. He had no allegiances now. No debts of favor. He had nothing. Agent 33 had even less. She didn't even have a name, a face of her own.
They stared at each other across the yellowing tile of the bathroom in a cheap motel. The tile was irreparably stained with his blood now. The towels were even worse off. He could now add the housekeeping staff of the Miramar Hotel in San Juan to the list of the people he's woefully betrayed.
"What now?" Agent 33 asked the question, they were both thinking.
And Ward found, for once, he had no lies left in him. "I don't know."
A silence that was not awkward descended on the former Hydra agents. Ward steady himself and rose from the floor only to find he needed to grip the wall to keep standing.
There was an unnatural frequency to the earthquakes shaking the town. The lights flickered and the world shook and Ward grimly added, "I'm guessing we will soon find out."