WitW: I said I wouldn't do it. I told myself this – yelled at my muse – and it'll probably be Jossed by the Whedon family heartbreakers tomorrow. Ah well.
He'd been trained to be the whole solution. And he was; a solo specialist, a respected highly-trained operative.
Then he was told to infiltrate the Bus.
The first bit was easy. Laughably so. This Agent Coulson had already picked him, without his fore-knowledge or consent and he was wary – as per orders – of the agent.
Justifiably so; the man was a bumbling idiot. Agent Coulson was completely unorthodox, picking up questionable outsiders, coming up with insane plans, talking a threat down instead of just neutralising it and drugging him.
No wonder his SO wanted him taken down.
His mission was sleeper, though, so he couldn't do it immediately. Instead he started by hinting at training Skye, making sure to self-consciously check with May (living legend) in order to neutralise his intent. He'd already gained a slight rapport with the hacker by establishing himself as someone whose perspective she'd have to win over. Even if he agreed with her organisation's aim to take down SHIELD, just not yet. But that wasn't working as well as he'd hoped, need a different lure then. And Coulson was renowned for being a personable, empathetic everyman.
Her little speech about her 'house' was practically a 'you sank my battleship'.
The team worked a couple of missions as well, Skye's betrayal was both more and less of a surprise than it should've been and he'd enjoyed shattering her naïve delusions about her boyfriend. What self-respecting woman displays that many signs of attraction and flirtation to one guy then jumps another at the first opportunity? W-.
Of course that out the ball in his court to make their interaction a social chase in his direction, valuable emotional blackmail material if he needed to move soon. And Coulson had finally done what had needed to be done when she'd first boarded the Bus. Finally.
But then the next mission she was with the science nerds, making fun of him and laughing.
He wanted to kill them all.
The outcome of that particular mission helped solidify the relationship between him and Simmons, with some jovial referral to that moment but at least she had admitted to it, and Skye – no sense in alienating any member of the team. If anyone surprised him on that mission retrospectively it was Fitz. Even without the training or knowledge he'd had the parachute and was fully prepared to jump to save the girl – to be fair Simmons was prepared to jump to save all of them, a necessary procedure – but Ward admired that. Discretely. It actually reminded him of himself – younger and with the naivety he never got to have – but still.
Of course he'd forgotten about the helpless anger he'd felt when someone else had come in and done 'your job', so to speak. Admittedly the scientist had nearly driven him insane at the start of the mission. Civillians. Even if they were resourceful enough to fire an EMP. Actually Ward still had to admire that, and a lot of other things about the young man. Listening to the simple sentence Fitz had uttered as he'd refused to leave Ward had understood instantly. He'd understood and said all the right words and came out of it feeling unbelievably close to the other man. Too close. It wasn't noticed though.
May was less of a threat to his cover than he'd anticipated, content to stay in the cockpit. Still she was a mystery. And a legend.
The Berserker staff, though, was completely unexpected. In one shocking tirade of low self-control he'd nearly unleashed every single negative thought he'd had about the team. Every minor one anyway, he'd appealed to Coulson to put him out of commission to ride this out. No matter how well the chemical excuse would make up for it he'd need to act extremely contrite in the aftermath of this.
Getting to the aftermath was a gruelling hell. Torture, that knew just how to lock away the emotionless man he'd become and reduce him to the helpless, raging child he'd been. Watching May wield all three pieces and re-cement her legend had been a lesson in awe and incredulity.
One he'd been contemplating before Skye had shown up in her second feeble attempt to 'talk'.
She didn't get it. No one except May had seemed to have had any inkling on how to deal with him. He didn't want to 'talk' or 'sit' or be tested and sedated; they were all stupid pathetic temporary stop-gaps. They were a crowd of juvenile, sheltered brats who didn't have a clue what he'd been through in life or in the field – and their solutions were to band-aid the festering wound or uncover it and 'talk'. It was enough to make you seethe at the clueless naivety. Non-field agents didn't get it.
What he needed – in this moment of succumbing to his lowest…sinking…raging darkness – was someone who understood. Someone who'd been through, or come from, the same darkness. That kind of experience breeds the intuitive empathy that he needs right now., especially if that person was stronger. Particularly if she had the strength to overcome it.
It was like he'd conjured her.
And she'd looked into his eyes and known what he'd needed. He'd found that understanding in gripping her, in pinning and being pinned. In fast and rough and slow and hard and soothing and soft – in falling asleep holding her – no words spoken.
The feelings were a bigger surprise, one he'd tried to work with and hold onto, even through a disheartening car conversation with Coulson. But she'd only shown him a small piece of her mystery before rearranging all the pieces. Like an exotic puzzle ball instead of the two dimensional ones Coulson had talked about, guarding all her secret in the centre. In the aftermath of not trusting her, of assuming the worst, he'd added another layer.
And it had hurt…when he'd gotten a clue; when she'd show vulnerability to anyone but him and flippantly revealed they'd been known from the start. Emotions were messy so she tended not to have them. At least not with him
And Lorelei had happened – and told this great game-saving lie to throw May off balance.
There was a moment when he revelled in the punch, in the emotions – on display, for him – that she'd claimed not to have. But she'd shut him down and shut him out further, he'd left the cabin with that curl of hurt in his chest burrowed so much deeper.
He got the order to refocus on Skye that night.
It was easy. So, so laughably easy, with May's misconception and his hurt, to close himself off and achieve him mission objectives. An end to his ….extra-curriculars already achieved it was easy to set up the romantic expectation in order to provide him with a solid alibi for shooting the Clairvoyant while solidifying his further relationship with Skye (all he had to do was stoke the hope that still burned in her eyes) and making sure the disciplinary action would be light. His SO would take care of that. He played dumb when Coulson 's tirade and when May – of all people – was brought in as a sleeper it was just perfect. Ward gave into the hurt. If it hadn't been for her calling him out he wouldn't have remembered himself. Surveillance would show him in a righteous light. And he now knew what May really felt. The HYDRA unveiling had rather accelerated their plans but luckily his SO was on point. They'd exchanged non-verbal signals like old times and his foundation relationship of SO position had Skye immediately trusting him with the hard-drive – a copy of which would find it's way to Garret when this was all over.
Of course Garret blew it though and he'd had to get himself sent along. Hand's opening couldn't have been more perfect.
He used to say that SHIELD was the line, and it was agents like Coulson – though a good man with good intentions – that kept it that way.
HYDRA was a wall, and he was going to stand on it till death.