AN: For a final time, mind the warnings from the description.

My plan is to update every Sunday. I apologize in advance if I ever should miss the deadline.

Much Longer

"The world we live in now is run by corporations, not governments. Oligarchies of the rich and powerful. But that's not gonna last much longer."

-Bakuto

TUESDAY, PREDAWN

"Just die! I hate you! Sick fuck! Get off me!"

A thin smile and blank eyes met his spew of hatred and fear. Collected, he hit him in the stomach several times to halt his screaming words and swinging arm. A whine wheezed out of his throat, only vaguely aware Harold was working on ridding himself of the rest of his own clothing. This couldn't be...

Hands moved across his legs, trying to pull them apart and he did his best to lock the limbs together. He twisted and fought to push him away with little result. His dad was strong. Definitely more brutally efficient and cruel. His struggle became so violent that Harold kneed him in the crotch, fed up.

"Dad, please.." he begged low, desperate. "Don't do this. Please, stop. Stop."

Humming in triumph as he forced himself between Ward's legs, he draped across his body and leaned into his face. "I'm doing this because I love you, Ward."

A practiced finger dug its way inside him, causing instant burning pain. His pleas grew more urgent as total fear threatened to envelope any concept of rational thought remaining. But already his mind was working to separate from his body, struggling to protect his sanity, an automatic response adopted from the multitude of times he'd faced this exact assault in the past.

He felt his unpinned arm thrown against the mattress and a harsh slap across his cheek. A heel realization that he was managing a decent fight if his dad was resorting to roughing him up to regain control. His mind just wasn't fully focused on the effort anymore, trying as it was to rise above the gritty actuality of the circumstance.

"Dad," he whimpered. "Dad, don't. Stop this. Please, Dad."

"For your own good," his father murmured into his lips as he forced another kiss, releasing his grip on the arm held flat to the bed.

The mouth drew away as he pushed in with zero preparation beyond the single finger digging around and nothing to ease the passage inward. A scream of unrelenting agony ripped free. It felt like a knife was stabbing him. He clawed blindly and desperately to get him out, get him off. Anything for it to stop hurting.

Harold continued pushing the considerable size of his penis into him and he could hear himself weeping and screaming, unable to think beyond those things. His dad muttered something indistinguishable under his breath and shoved his legs farther apart, settling more of his weight on top of him. The escaping mind failed as the pain held him in the present, conscious of everything happening.

The thrusts began and a shot of white hot agony soared through his head. His arms fell limply to lay by his sides.

He blinked awake bleary eyed and confused, his dad clutching him by the chin and telling him how precious he was. Harold told him he had a beautiful body in the same beat he informed that he deserved this for his failure as a son. The derogatory speech being nothing new, his train of thought wandered to thinking maybe he'd passed out however momentarily it might have been.

Ward tilted his head away to stare numbly at the flat screen television, feeling sick to have his rapist this close. It hurt too much to try and phase it out, pretend he was elsewhere. The technique rarely worked anyway, no matter how his mind struggled to make it happen to protect his mental health. Often, Harold made certain he was engaged throughout the act.

Tonight he must have got enough from him when the rape first began, because he didn't care that he was using the TV as a focal point to try and make as few noises or reactions as possible. Harold was grunting and talking and releasing pleasurable sounds, but he would not give him further signs of how affected the assault made him.

Silent tears trailed down his face and his expression went slack, eyes deadening. Waiting. Waiting. A palm stroked along his cheek, combing through his hair tenderly. The unwanted weight felt so heavy on top of him, crushing, offending. Pain continued to radiate from the ongoing intrusion, each thrust a sharp and uncomfortable sensation. Waiting.

When his father finally climaxed inside of him, there was no relief. He used to feel some kind of relief, but only ever when he was gone from that building Harold was caged. Only when he'd been able to clean the stench of it off of him and gotten on with what constituted his life, hoping that could be the last time it happened to him. Oh, how he'd fooled himself time and again that his dad could be his dad, and things wouldn't be like this forever.

His dad speaking above him grew quiet, and it was only when there was silence that he realized maybe a response was expected. A punch to his face knocked the real world back into him with a roar. It also knocked a grunt past his lips, warm blood leaking out the corner of his mouth, darkening light sheets.

Disoriented, the angry words exchanged between Harold and the other man was background. He felt the weight lift off his chest and the rest of him as his dad sat up. Bleary eyes watched his withdrawal from the bed, grumpy.

Ward kept where he was, not moving an inch. What was he supposed to do? When he heard someone approaching, then he determined to move.

He curled onto his side and felt something soft settle onto his legs. A glance informed him it was a bath towel. He looked up to the one who'd given it to him.

"It's okay." Kuo said. "We must learn from our mistakes."

Laughable, though he did not feel like laughing. He reached for the towel and sat upright, letting it pool over his lap so he could feel like he had some kind of decency again. That he could even sit in the aftermath was both surprising and a good sign. It was sad he knew to check that first. Because sitting was pretty important when done all day in the office, at board meetings... Maybe Harold had angled them just right...

He twitched physically as mentally he shifted away from flashes of the fresh attack. The walk was the next vital thing to be sure wasn't outwardly altered. Goddamn, what Harold had made a normality for him.. Sick beyond measure.

"If I would have known the twisted manner in which your father views you, I'd never have recommended family therapy." Kuo shared with him of advice given years ago. "We both know he's beyond redemption."

Ward searchingly took note his father was no longer in his bedroom. Now it was only him and the former Hand leader, who stood in front of him by the side of his bed. He'd rather be left alone.

"Many sons and daughters face emotional or psychological abuse from a parent their entire lives like yourself, and for you the pressure was severe. How did it feel when he hit you for the first time?"

Pain. Shocking. Awful. Uncertain. Confusing. Hurt pride, feelings. Although he remembered, he opted not to share any of it with this stranger. He gave a brief look instead, before turning his gaze to the towel covering his lap and keeping it fixed there. So the man answered for him.

"You were 24 years old. You don't get hit by your father. You don't have to fear your own father hitting you. You're not one of those kids who gets messed up from horrible parenting. Dad was always strict, controlling, and void of affectionately loving the boy meant to be his successor, his legacy. But he never hit. And there you were, 24 years old with a stinging cheek, wondering if it really happened, thinking it would never happen again."

He frowned. It annoyed him to have this man tell him how he felt, to hit the nail on the head all the thoughts that passed through his mind in the moments after. He might pretend to understand him, but what could he actually know about it?

"Unfortunately, after the first time you do something it always gets easier..." Kuo went on, pausing before supplying, "If you like how it feels that is."

Ward peered up at him, wondering where he was going with the lecture.

"Harold didn't stop after that, did he? No... You had to brace yourself for the possibility of it happening from that day on. Repeatedly you would be lured into a false sense of safety and family, and then you'd be hit again. Sometimes just enough to silence you for a few moments, sometimes enough to bring you to the floor."

His inquisitive eyes shifted to a glare. How could he know any of this? What made him think he needed to hear what he already knew?

"If you were especially unlucky, enough to require a doctor and treatment." Kuo went on, unperturbed by the unfriendly focus on him. "Since he didn't know how to be a father in the first place, only knowing he was supposed to love his family, later the same year he assaulted you sexually."

His glare weakened, unwilling to keep listening to such deeply personal life details be regaled, uncertain what he could do to make him stop talking.

"Held you down and forced you to lose your virginity to him at 25 years old. That was important, you see, because you'd fallen in love with a young woman outside his reach and he couldn't have you distracted. So he told you he would be your sexual release and no one else. He made you."

"Shut up," he muttered noncommittally.

Disregarding, Kuo kept on. "He watched you with his cameras, with his hired thugs who could move around for him outside his self-imposed cage. And you never could get over being fucked by daddy as a grown man."

"Shut the hell up!" he managed to demand in a loud voice, staring the other straight in the eye, seething.

He received a smile for his trouble, but there was no malice or pleasure behind it. That was probably the reason he continued to sit and listen as Kuo refused to let up on his assessment of the relationship between him and his father.

"You retreated into yourself, took more and more of the pain pills meant to assuage the physical marks adorned by him. Lost the true connection with your sister held dear to you both. Because besides having to keep the secret of your father alive, now you had this to bear, and she could never know. Did it hurt you more, that she didn't ever do anything to help or talk about your pain until after Danny Rand returned from the dead?"

"Don't talk about Joy," he tried. "You don't do that."

Unsurprisingly, his desires had little bearing on what Kuo was going to say or do.

"She knew something was wrong. You know it's true. She knew you were deeply unhappy, and she avoided saying anything. Your work lives were well enough and allowed the pair of you to spend a lot of time in each others' company, so she was happy. Does it hurt that she left you? Does it hurt that everybody always leaves you in the end?"

"Don't pretend like you understand anything about real family." Ward snarked.

Not bothered in the least, irritatingly he kept talking. "The only one who has ever ensured you would stay with them forever is Harold. Dear dad was quick to make it a co-dependent relationship after he came back from death. Explained to you he'd have to tell Joy if you ever failed to come when he called. And if he told Joy, she would be killed by the Hand for knowing he was alive. What a cruel thing to tell someone you supposedly love."

Fed up, he asked, "How can you possibly know all this?"

"I know this because the Hand watched from the shadows. When I made my plans to take control from Gao, I researched and dug extensively. Your father has a hobby of filming things, I'm certain you noticed. Did you know he had cameras inside his place?"

He didn't wait for an answer, proceeding to expose a secret he couldn't have imagined.

"Trapped in those rooms, he made a hobby of putting movies together of the things he did to you there. He'd stream a whole series of times he hit you or beat you with his belt, and got off on it. Recorded the first time he made you have sex with him, first time you had to give him oral sex, first time he forced you to have sex like you wanted it, like you loved him back-"

"Stop!" he shouted, desperate not to hear any more of this.

As usual, the man did not. "He especially liked the one where you got ideas of leaving again and he broke your arm. Always your fault too. Because how could you leave him? You were all he had. What about Joy? Didn't you love Joy? And then he forced you to make it up to him for considering such a thing."

"Please, stop..." he weakly requested, head lowering to stare at the towel in his lap again.

This guy knew so much, maybe even everything about them. It was horrifying and disturbing and unwelcome. The manner in which his own father treated him was bad enough in private, but to have another know, to describe his shitshow of a life out loud...

"Did you think what happened to your girlfriend was an accident?"

His head shot up, questioning in his face. "Girlfriend...?"

"You know the one. The waitress who you met while in business school at twenty-one. The first girl you ever loved. There was only one other you loved, Melissa, but you had to break up after your dad made certain you could never be intimate with her without thinking of him. However, this one, this one had to be gotten rid of because she wasn't worthy of his son as a lowly waitress, and would distract from running the company."

He'd met her at a diner near campus he frequented as a personal place of solitude from the world he was supposed to belong in and flourish. She let him feel like a person instead of a figurehead. Someone who could do whatever he wanted with his life and wouldn't be judged in bias.

"Jen died in a car accident."

"Yes, she did." Kuo agreed, then added, "An accident arranged by Harold."

His face fell and the full glare returned. "You're lying."

"Do you think there is anything your father would not do to keep you in his grasp?"

Choked sobs emerged from him as he understood it was true. That he never realized it or even suspected the possibility was a reminder of how deep under his skin Harold got. Jen was only nineteen... He shoved a hand over his mouth and lowered his head, trying to quiet the emotional outburst.

"He kept unwisely detailed journals of everything concerning you and your life, your progression as his legacy. That man is a deluded megalomaniac. I can make use of someone like that, because I need someone like you. Someone with money, resources, and power, yes. But also a thing rarer to be found included with the rest.. A good heart."

Ward shimmied across the bed, trying to be subtle. He was sensing for all of his psychologically affecting words to him, there would inevitably be a physical threat to follow it up. He'd rather not have it happen if there was any way to avoid it. But of course he was noticed, the man having never taken his eyes from him since the discerning speech first started.

Kuo stepped forward and lashed out. He winced, receiving the blow in the same heartbeat. His side ached from the hit. Tired and in pain, he allowed himself to be dragged over the sheets, slipping to the carpet. As an afterthought, he felt for the towel and returned it across his lap. It was the one thing he could do to make this slightly less uncomfortable, and that in itself was bitterly tragic.

The man crouched before him. "I can give you those notebooks, the discs, if you ask me. You can destroy them and be sure they never see the light of day."

"You would expect a return, I imagine," he pointed out. "And I already told you no."

His right hand reached forward and slid through his hair. He attempted to pull away and the gentle touch twisted, gripping painfully.

"Forcing your child into a sexual relationship used as punishment and a vehicle for false claims of love, malicious and depraved. I advise you do as I say. No telling how he'll treat you after everything you've done against him." Kuo conveyed, tone gracious. "Because no matter what he says, we know better. He doesn't forgive you. He watches and waits and snaps, and you will always be the brunt of his internal, greed-fueled rage."

Managing to find his inner humor, he replied, "Then why don't you do us both a favor and get rid of him? You're supposed to care about honor, right?"

"I pity you for having the misfortune of a psychopath father, who expects you to be exactly like him." Kuo sympathized, but his demeanor spoke more. He had a use for them both and it was his priority.

"You are not at all like him. There's goodness in you that he will never be able to understand, because it's never been in him. He acts the part of a man, but he never was a whole one. I admire your endurance, your heart. Someone like you cares for other people, even when you might pretend otherwise. You would fit right in among the ranks of my new order."

He swallowed hard. An immediate thought had come to him about how easy it would be to say yes. Just be a part of something that wasn't him on his own. He pushed the idea back down. These people were murderers. This guy shot Joy. He let her face fill his mind and focused on it while Kuo prattled on.

"Recall when Danny Rand first showed up at your workplace by all appearances a crazed loon. Even as evidence began to show that it was him, you refused to believe because it scared you. It meant someone else to lie to, someone else your father showed a dangerous amount of interest in, someone who did reckless actions and not much else. He nearly got you and your sister kicked out of your own company! He was someone-"

"Who freed me." Ward blurted without knowing it was coming out. Since it already had, he kept going with the declaration, clarifying his meaning. "I was free from Harold after three decades because of Danny. I was the one who made the mistake of believing he was the threat to Joy and I, but of course it was that bastard."

Dissatisfaction evident in his expression, Kuo released the grip on his hair, giving him a good shove as he did so that knocked his head back a little.

"Your father was very good at keeping you in the dark and on a leash. And he could see that no matter what he did, you convinced yourself he was a father who did love you somewhere inside. Had to love Joy at least. Give him time, just do as he said and get by. For your sister's sake at any rate. But she left."

"I tried to get the hell out of town too, so there's no way I'm getting mad at Joy for being able to do it," he defended straight away.

Kuo hummed as though considering the idea, then threw another name in for examination.

"And Danny left you too. He called you family, claimed when you were children he saw you as a brother. What are you even to him now? What kind of family leaves you? He only calls when he needs to use the company for something, isn't that right? Not much different than the Hand, is it?"

He didn't blame his sister, or Danny. They had their own lives to live and he couldn't be the pathetic guy who admitted he wished someone would spend time with him. It hit far too close to home that loneliness issue. Much of the reason why he would return to his father's place was not solely to keep Joy clueless and safe. He also went because his father didn't mind him being there. Harold wasn't an evil monster 24/7, and it wasn't so terrible to hang around for a while in his better moods.

Ward knew he was being messed with. The guy was trying to get into his head and somehow convince it wouldn't be bad working for him. He wasn't stupid. It would only ever end badly.

"Just shut up!" he insisted. "Why do you keep telling me my own life story? I know this shit."

A hand fell onto his shoulder. Eyes staring into his. "Because, Ward, I want you to see that you are all alone."

He let a long moment of silence hang between them in the air, and then attested, "Alone but for your father, and Harold can do as he pleases. Though I'll spare you the deprivation of privacy and assure you no cameras will watch you in your home."

"How thoughtful," he muttered angrily. "Are you finished with the verbal torment now?"

Kuo chose to respond like nothing was said to him. "After a time, if I am satisfied with your efforts to benefit Heart, we can talk about eliminating your father. Quid pro quo."

Hadn't he heard these promises before? By the same man no less. He broke his promise then, and he would likely break his promise now, Hand or Heart or whatever be damned.

"I won't help you." Ward snapped, swiping the hand from his shoulder. "I made that mistake once and you shot my sister."

"She did a naughty thing stealing my money."

He shook his head, firm in this decision, no matter what would happen to him. "I will never help anybody like you. Get out."

Ward received a forced, tight smile as the man stood. "I will."

Fingers brushed briefly on his cheek where it still throbbed from Harold punching him hard. "This is leaving a mark."

Feeling a rush of courage that he probably shouldn't be feeling, he smiled up from his sitting position.

"You'll be sorry if you don't leave me alone."

In the middle of turning to the doorway, Kuo paused. "Are you threatening me, Mr. Meachum?"

His head became a rush of colors and dizziness. He dragged himself upright to a seated position again, vaguely aware he'd been hit in the face with a spin kick. Honestly, it was a bit surprising he was conscious yet.

"I like you, Ward. I think you're smart and more capable than you believe. I see great things in your future. Hope I'm not wrong."

Rubbing his aching jaw, he watched the other walk over to the part of his room near his television. He got a harsh reminder that there was a camera and this entire encounter had been put on record for some reason. Then he was distracted by Kuo's parting words to him as he left the room.

"I leave you with your father."