Ward awoke the way he usually did: perfectly still with eyes shut as he surveyed the situation around him. It was always better to gather information before any people in the vicinity knew he was awake. He could hear breathing other than his own and the gentle swish of pants legs passing by one another. Skye and May both wore tight pants that would make a different sound. Simmons wouldn't be in his cell. That left Coulson and Triplett as possibilities. Ward decided he could handle either of them. He opened his eyes.

"Good morning, Mr. Ward," said Coulson, smiling politely.

Mister Ward. Of course he wasn't Agent anymore. That would take some getting used to. He sat up and swung his feet down to the floor.

Coulson held out a sealed plastic bag containing sterile green scrub pants. "You need to shower and then get dressed."

Ward took the bag. "Just pants? No shirt?"

"No breakfast either. We're prepping you for surgery."

"Oh."

Coulson exhaled, a thin sound that wasn't quite a sigh. "Ask the question, Mr. Ward."

Ward looked perturbed. "If there's something else you want to tell me, just tell me."

"I told you we were prepping you for surgery and you don't have any questions at all?"

"Not really."

"Think it over."

Ward blinked more when he was thinking. "What…is the surgery?" he asked in a tone that suggested he was hoping his question was correct, rather than expressing a genuine desire to know the answer.

"We'll be implanting a SHIELD house arrest tracker in your spine. It will have all the essential functions which can be activated by any member of the team at their own discretion. Do you have any questions?"

Ward caught on that he was supposed to have a question, so he asked the first one that came to mind. "How long will the surgery take?"

"Four to six hours. We don't have an anesthesiologist on board, so you'll receive a mild sedative and local anesthetic. General anesthesia is too dangerous."

Ward nodded. That was fine. Thanks to his aptitude for autohypnosis (or dissociation or alone-in-the-dark or whatever you wanted to call it), enduring long, uncomfortable situations was something he was quite good at.

Coulson appeared to be waiting.

Ward tried to think of another relevant question, but nothing occurred to him. There were dozens of things he didn't know, but he didn't really expect to be told any of them.

"Ask the question, Mr. Ward."

This was odd and uncomfortable in a way that autohypnosis couldn't affect. What did he need to know right now? He didn't need to know anything. He wasn't the guy in charge. He wasn't making deci-

"What is the purpose of the device?"

Coulson looked a little relieved. Ward took this as a sign that he had asked the right question. "Behavioral control. If you do anything that threatens the safety of this team or the integrity of the mission, you will be subdued. We will not be using the device for interrogation or torture."

Ward realized that he had wanted that information. It wasn't like he was in a position to argue if they wanted to torture him, but the not-knowing was miserable. And now Coulson said they wouldn't. Could be lying, but he didn't lie much, especially not to his team.

"You have a choice," said Coulson. "It's not much of a choice, but it's yours to make. You can undergo the surgery and allow them to implant the tracker, or you can remain in this cell. Which do you want?"

Ward was quiet for several moments, which was unusual only because he knew exactly which option he wanted. "The surgery," he said. "I want to contribute."

Trip merged two half-empty ammo boxes to make one almost-full container. "You know Coulson better than me," he said, "but from what I've heard, this is kind of his M.O."

"Mm?" May was ticking off items on the inventory list.

"You know, being all Dumbledore, offering people second chances. I heard he did that with Romanoff."

On consideration, dragging the misguided off their paths was something of a pattern for Coulson. May nodded.

"I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I honestly don't know. But keeping Snape around, that didn't work out too well for Dumbledore."

Coulson escorted Ward, now dressed only in the sterile scrubs, down to the lab. "Do you have any plastic on your back?" SHIELD had employed some of the world's top cosmetic surgeons before it crumbled, removing or adding scars as needed to prepare operatives for undercover work. SHIELD scientists had developed innovative materials that were nearly indistinguishable from natural skin, so the fact that Ward's back looked perfectly mundane wasn't very telling.

"Yes. A few grafts."

"Do you know what type of material?"

"One of the newer editions. Cuts like skin, heals like skin. It shouldn't make a difference."

Coulson took a long look at Ward's back. "They did a good job on you. What did it look like before?"

"A lot of thin white lines." Ward didn't elaborate because it was unnecessary and because he didn't want to.

"The surgery will leave a scar. I don't know how big." Coulson opened the door to the lab and gestured for Ward to walk in. "This is your last chance to back out."

"Why are you trying to talk me of something you want me to do?"

"I want you to make a choice, Agent Ward. Mister Ward," Coulson corrected himself.

In response, Ward hopped up onto the lab table, draped in sterile plastic that was to be used as an operating surface. He arranged himself face down, arms resting at his sides, feet hanging uselessly off the edge. "I want this," he said.

"Actually," said Simmons, "I'm going to need you to sit up so you can take these pills before we begin. A benzodiazepine and some prophylactic antibiotics." She held out a little plastic cup of pills, then suddenly seemed to realize her proximity to Ward. She put the cup down on the table and backed away.

Ward didn't make eye contact with her, but he downed the pills dry.

"John!"

"Good to see you, son."

"What are you doing here?" Ward hadn't seen Garrett since enrolling in Operations Academy four months ago.

"I'm here to teach a seminar on ordnance disposal."

"And to check up on me."

"You're such a narcissist, Grant. Cheer up! Your instructors say you're doing well, and your classmates don't know who you are. That's perfect."

Ward nodded and said nothing. He'd never been comfortable with praise.

"I checked with medical. You never made an appointment with the plastics."

"I asked around. Agent Suarez said it probably won't be necessary. They're not looking to put me on any ops where it'll matter."

"I told you to do it."

"I assumed you meant to-"

"You assumed. You assumed? I told you to get those marks cleaned up. Why would you fight that? You want to show them to people? Tell a little sob story and make them feel sorry for you?"

"No! No, of course not! Jesus, John, what do you think of me?"

Garrett leaned in close, pointing a finger at Ward's chest. "I think you want to be a man, but there's a weakness in you," he whispered. Then he laughed. "You ever use your scars to get laid? It doesn't work with this-" he rapped his knuckles against the metal plate under his shirt, "-but you oughta at least be able to score some pity sex out of it."

As it happened, Ward had managed to get laid several times since arriving at Operations. It was sort of hard not to. The facility was home to a couple hundred unattached young adults in peak physical condition. They were aggressive too, a trait which tended to be associated with being a little oversexed. Suffice it to say, the Operations medical staff weren't entirely joking when they suggested adding a steady drip of penicillin to the drinking water.

Ward didn't exactly have a sense of himself as a physically desirable man - he'd spent five years without mirrors – nor did he really know how to talk to women. Luckily, the sort of women who attended Operations tended to be very direct in their intentions. Even Ward couldn't misinterpret, "You're hot. Want to fuck?" He lacked confidence in his sexual prowess, too, but here again, having assertive partners was an advantage. They told him what they wanted and if he screwed up once, he learned his lesson and improved. The scars were never an issue. Lots of people at Ops had marks of one kind or another – some much worse than his – and he could easily duck the issue by saying he preferred sex with the lights off.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't gotten the surgery yet. Sometimes he would run his fingers over the scars, as if checking that they were still there. He didn't really think about how he got them, just thought about how they were there, how they were a part of him. He remembered how the marks bothered Dana, how he was always careful to beat on Dana in ways that wouldn't scar.

"I'll talk to my SO about it tomorrow," said Ward. "I'll get it fixed."

"Of course you will," said Garrett, all warmth and smiles. "I knew you'd get around to it eventually."

Skye was pretty sure that Coulson had told May to keep an eye on her, seeing as there was no reason for May to be watching her morning workout.

She still hated pull-ups with a passion, but sit-ups weren't so bad. Well, they were terrible. But they were less terrible than they could have been.

Skye counted in a quiet hiss. Somewhere in the forties, she started to struggle. Somewhere in the eighties, she stopped actually producing any sound when she counted and just mouthed the numbers instead. God, her abs hurt. It made her miss post-gunshot recovery. At least then no one expected her to do sit-ups. She went through the same mental routine every morning, arguing with herself, but never breaking rhythm. At ninety-six, she began to count out loud again. When she got to one hundred, she flopped backward with a satisfied groan.

"Now do a hundred more," said May, without looking up from her paperwork.

"No, no," said Skye, stumbling to her feet, "I do one hundred sit-ups. That's my workout routine."

"Yes," said May, "and now you're going to do one hundred more as punishment."

"Punishment? For what? I didn't ask to be some kind of alien weapon, I just-"

May fixed Skye with a piercing gaze. "You will never, never attempt suicide again."

"The surgery went without incident, sir. The patient is resting in his bunk. Well, a bunk. Is it his? I suppose we should assign him one, under the circumstances, but-"

"Agent Simmons," said Coulson, "I would like to introduce you to the scientist who will be working with you on our xenobiology problem." He indicated an unassuming man sitting in the corner of the office, reading a magazine. The man wore plain brown slacks and a purple polo shirt. He had curly black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. "Dr. Banner, this is Agent Simmons. Agent Simmons, I'd like you to meet Bruce Banner."