VAULT B


At least now he could talk.

"You've really got some guts, you know that?" Ward said conversationally one day, as he ate his meal and Morrison, that damned agent who always laughed at him, watched on the security camera. "You're an asshole and a half, Morrison," Ward said, turning to look straight at the camera. "And you come down here and tell me that I'm the jerk. I remember what you did to Sophia Waterson."

Being able to talk was either the worst or the best part of this new cell. All Ward knew was that after he'd passed out in the first one in a puddle of his own blood, he'd woken up and there hadn't even been a stain on the floor. Everything was arranged the same but there were no tally marks on the wall and there was no button on the back of his pants now. It felt like some kind of hospital getup.

Morrison was the easiest to rile up. He usually hurtled down here and opened the glass wall to yell obscenities at him. Ward always watched with little concern, because even though Morrison was spitting all over the glass and there was a little vein that always popped out in his forehead, at least Morrison was someone to talk to.

Speaking of—Morrison came storming down now at the mention of Sophia Waterson. The wall or whatever panel was on the other side slid upward and Ward smirked at the infuriated agent on the other side. "What the hell did you just say to me?" Morrison hissed.

"Sophia Waterson," said Ward. "You know, that girl you drugged. I wonder where she is now."

"Shut up!" Morrison shouted at him. "I didn't drug her!"

"Not what she said to me," Ward replied mildly. He took another bite. "You know, Morrison," said Ward with his mouth still full, "you SHIELD agents are all the same. You all say you're doing the right thing, but who the hell are you doing it for?"

Morrison glared at him. Ward looked back, hoping his cavalier attitude was pissing Morrison off. As far as he could tell it was working. The more he got Morrison mad, well—it was insurance that Morrison would keep coming down here to argue with him and tell him he was wrong. It was good to have somebody to say it to him, with no Christian or Garrett or Coulson or Skye, even, around to tell him. How else was he supposed to know?

Because, all right, and he knew this, he sort of understood it now—he had no idea who Grant Ward was. Who the hell was he? He was the result of Christian and Garrett and Coulson and Skye, that's who he was, he was some sick patchwork thing with no thoughts of his own. He did know, though, he knew that he couldn't be alone down here. He couldn't.

That episode with the button had scared him. It had terrified the hell out of him, even more than thinking about drowning or not being able to breathe. Because Ward had literally sat there, he had sat there and without even truly thinking about it, he had decided to commit himself to the end and send himself straight off to hell. He knew that was where he was going; there was no point in lying to himself about it. That was one other thing he knew, anyway.

Ward didn't know what to think about the whole thing. Sometimes he would lay there on his side and trace invisible lines along the wall, thinking about the race to mortality. They'd all wind up there in the end. People always used to tell him to compete, for better grades, for better marksmanship, for better missions, for better everything, but what nobody ever said was that the end of the race was the same for everyone no matter how good you did. The finish line was death, whatever that meant.

Sometimes he wondered if he did know what that meant. Ward had been in plenty of life-or-death situations, of course. Had he seen his life flash before his eyes? It hadn't been much, really; he'd dated a few girls and he'd gotten into a few fights and he'd been best friends with a few guys, and then there was everything else with Christian and Thomas and their parents and Garrett and Coulson and Skye, but it wasn't much. It was all a blur of fighting. Never fleeing, but it was still all just…fighting.

When he'd cut his wrist and sat there watching his blood drip onto the floor, listening to it softly drop onto the iron floor, maybe he'd flashed in and out. He didn't know. That had been—that had been weird. When he was younger and he was stuck with Christian and Thomas was dead, Ward knew he'd thought about it. Oh, he'd thought about it, all right. He'd even—and he'd never told anyone this because it was really scary and what was even scarier was that it felt more like a failure than anything—he'd even tried to overdose one time, before he'd burned his parents' house to the ground. But he'd woken up and nobody had even fucking noticed he'd tried.

Would Skye have noticed? He liked to think she would have. She was more observant than she gave herself credit for, but she was too emotional about it. She'd have been able to tell the truth if she could compartmentalize.

Is that was he did? Did Ward compartmentalize? Did he pack himself away so very well that he didn't even know what to do with himself anymore?

He mused over this for the long, long days he spent in that cell, his second cell. He didn't know how long it was. There was no way for him to keep a tally now. Ward did some workouts because there was nothing else to do, although it wasn't like he was ever getting out of here anyway, and he slept a lot because what the hell else would he do down here? Other than that he antagonized Morrison. Then he just sat there and thought.

Ward hated thinking. He hated thinking alone, sitting curled up in the corner, watching the daylight brighten and darken from the skylight overhead. He didn't ever know what he was thinking about, and sometimes he was thinking about the stitches in his wrist and sometimes he felt them and wondered if he could rip them out with his teeth. But he only really thought about that on bad days.

On most days Ward thought about Garrett and Christian and Coulson. What were they doing? Was Garrett rotting in hell? He knew Christian was probably out having the time of his life somewhere, the ass. He had no idea what Coulson was up to; he'd never really known that anyway. What he did want to know about Coulson was what death had been like. Had it been as sweet as Ward sometimes imagined it to be? Did Coulson go to hell and come back, or did he go to heaven, and did purgatory exist? Did God even exist, was there anything at all?

His life was full of questions now. All he could do was sit there and ponder them, just…waiting. He didn't know what he was waiting for. The thing was that if he wasn't waiting for something, what was he doing? What the fuck was the point?

Ward started to realize that he didn't want to know who Grant Ward was anymore. Grant Ward wanted to welcome death like an old friend; but he, no, he wanted to run from it, because Tommy and his parents would be there, not to mention Garrett and whoever else he'd offed in the past. Seeing all of them? Now that would be hell.

On one of these long days, just after Ward had finished with his pushups and was standing up, the glass wall opened up. "Finally come down to get your retribution, Morris…?" Ward started to ask as he turned around. But instead of Morrison, there stood someone Ward had somehow never expected to see.

Phil Coulson smiled politely at him. It was unnerving. "I bet you're wondering why we're keeping you here," said Coulson.

Ward clenched his hands into fists. The man's voice was physically abrasive, grating on him. He knew that voice so fucking well, he knew that was the voice of the man who had condemned him to this—this pathetic nonexistence, all those stupid-ass missions that did nothing for anyone. "I doubt you'll give me the answer," said Ward, at long last.

"No, I'll give it to you," said Coulson. He kept the same maddening expression of cool politeness with a hint of a smirk on the whole time. "You can give us the names of the rest of your friends."

"They're not my friends," said Ward at once.

"Your colleagues," said Coulson, not missing a beat.

Ward and Coulson stared at each other for a long moment. Ward wanted to scream at him, tell him that this was all his fault, that he'd been stuck here with only a total jackass for human company and he really just wanted to see some fucking trees, but Coulson would only half smile at him. He knew Coulson was probably happy about that. Maybe this was the form of torture instead of waterboarding. "What do I get?" said Ward.

Coulson gave a slight little laugh of disbelief. "You get to live."

Ward laughed back, his a sharper and bitterer sound. He lifted his wrist and stepped toward the glass, holding it up to show the stitches to Coulson. "You think that has any promise for me?" he snarled. Then he turned away, waving his hand and kind of laughing to himself. "There's nothing you can say to me that will make me give you that."

"I'd say if you don't cooperate, there'd be consequences," said Coulson breezily, "but we both know you're too well-trained for that." Ward threw his hands in the air—at least Coulson admitted that. "But I do have one last option."

Ward raised his eyes to the skylight overhead, squinting at the brightness. It was a sunny day outside. Wispy white clouds were passing rather quickly; it had to be a windy day. Ward idly wondered what month it was, what the season was, if it was a sultry summer day or an oddly warm autumn one. Maybe it was snowy out and he was looking at it all wrong.

Then he turned around, because Coulson was the only remotely close possibility to getting out and figuring out what the hell time of year it was. Maybe it would take years to get out of here but at least that'd be something. "What?" asked Ward, already skeptical.

"Skye," said Coulson.

Ward narrowed his eyes and turned his head a little, studying Coulson suspiciously. Of course the man's face gave nothing away. "What about her?" asked Ward slowly.

"I'll send her down to see you," Coulson replied.

They stared at each other for another very long moment. Coulson's face didn't change and none of his tells were showing up. Ward had to assume he was telling the truth. But—did Ward even want to see Skye anymore? He highly doubted she wanted to see him…

What if she did, and Coulson had told her no? Was that what had finally prompted Coulson to come to him?

It was this last stupid, stupid shred of hope that he clung to. "Deal," said Ward.

So then his days changed, but only slightly; because on occasion Coulson came downstairs to retrieve more information on other HYDRA agents and bases. Skye never showed up and Ward was pretty sure his beard was going to grow to the floor before Coulson let Skye actually come down here to see him.

Just after the third visit from Coulson, Ward shot upright and took a step toward the glass, as Coulson started to walk away. "When the hell are you gonna let Skye down here?" Ward demanded. "I want to see her."

"I know," said Coulson, with that infuriating little smirk turning up the corner of his lips. "She won't be here until every last HYDRA agent is caught."

Ward pounded his fist against the glass. It didn't even shudder. "That wasn't the deal!" Ward yelled, punching it again for good measure.

"You don't get to set the terms, Ward," said Coulson, the disgust clear in his voice. It was even starting to show on his face, which was saying something—usually the man was an emotionless robot.

"I'm the one with the information," Ward snapped back. "I should be setting the terms. You need me!"

Coulson gave him a withering look. "Do you have any other complaints?" he asked mockingly.

"Yes!" Ward shouted back. "I want to see some goddamn trees!"

"Well, how about this," said Coulson, taking a small step back toward the glass wall. "I'll send Morrison down with a paper for complaints. How about that?"

Then Coulson turned around and marched away, and the panel closed, leaving Ward alone in his dark little hellhole. Ward let out a yell of frustration and punched the glass a few more times before giving it up and wandering over to sit down on the edge of his bed. He just sat there, breathing hard, for a few minutes, as the anger and frustration seeped out of him.

God, he was tired. He was so tired. And speaking of God—just take me now. He wasn't going to see Skye. He was never going to see Skye again.

Ward slowly looked up at the skylight overhead, his one last piece of evidence that the rest of the world was still turning out there somewhere. Even when Morrison or Coulson didn't show up some days, Ward could look up, and he'd see gray clouds or a blue sky and he'd know that somewhere, someone was walking their dog, or someone was taking a walk, or someone was sitting in class or going to the movies or trying on a shirt at the mall, or someone was doing laundry in juvie or walking the streets homeless, or playing guitar for coins on a street corner or overseeing a group of businesses. Someone was out there somewhere, doing utterly normal things, which meant that Ward—Ward was normal, too, he was part of this world somehow.

Morrison really did come down with a piece of paper. He shoved it into Ward's cell through the slot food usually came through. "There you go," he said mockingly. "Good luck."

"No pen?" Ward called back, even as the panel slid shut over the glass. "What d'you think I am, magic?"

He heard a laugh and nothing else. Ward sat back, looking at the piece of paper, and suddenly crumpled it in his hand in a flash of rage. What the fuck was he supposed to do with this!? Ward turned and hurled it at the glass opposite him. Then he slid back over and leaned against the wall, curling up in the corner, because he didn't want Morrison to see on the cameras that he was crying.

After a long time, and no Skye, no nothing, and possibly some dozing off, Ward knew there was nothing else left for him. Even if he was part of this world, he was never going to see it again. He'd given Coulson enough information. He'd sold his soul enough times, to varying sides, and he was done with it, sick of it all. And honestly he was just…he was just so damn tired.

He wanted to be scared, he really did, but he just wasn't anymore. Ward climbed to his feet and walked over to where the crumpled up paper had landed. Then he sat down hard by the paper and picked it up. He meticulously unfolded it and then smoothed out the creases against the metal floor.

Then Ward stared at the paper for a long moment. He wondered if Morrison was watching this on the cameras. Just in case Morrison was, Ward flipped off the camera; then he hunched over the paper, blocking it from Morrison's view, and folded it carefully. It was sort of like folding all those stupid cranes everyone had been obsessed with making in middle school.

Ward folded that paper just right. Then he looked at the place where the stitches, which had since dissolved, used to be; then he put the paper into his left hand and considered his other wrist. Yes, he thought idly. This one would be better. If they decided to save him from this, he'd match.

And so Ward did his best to die. He cut open his other wrist after a few tries; then he laid down on the floor on his back, holding his arms out, and closed his eyes, perfectly in the rectangle of daylight coming down from above. It probably would've looked pretty symbolic and shit if he'd been Morrison.