Ward shoved past the board over the hole in the roof and climbed through, welcoming the slap of cold November wind against his face.

Barton and Romanov climbed through behind him, and he stood facing out over the compound, ignoring them.

They didn't speak, and he was grateful.

Natasha joined him at the edge of the roof, the wind catching her red hair and tousling it.

Clint took a place on Ward's other side.

"Did you have a family?" Ward asked suddenly, not sure which of them he was asking.

"Mine sold me when I was six," Natasha said briefly. "They thought it was just for sex. It was to the Red Room."

Clint was silent, and Ward turned to him.

"Mine was like yours," Clint said finally. "I had a sister. Caty. She died when I was seven."

"Parents?"

"Did this," Clint answered shortly, pulling aside his shirt color to reveal a deep scar from the side of his neck to his left shoulder. "I left."

"Coulson didn't tell us everything, you know," Natasha said. "What happened?"

"The monster killed Dana and Chelle," Ward said harshly, refusing to say the word father. "Two gunshots. He should have killed Maynard instead. And me."

Clint's face twisted with emotion, but Natasha just stared at him, her dark eyes fierce with understanding.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I killed him," Ward said coldly. "I took his gun and I put two bullet holes in his head and I'm not sorry. Not even a little bit."

Neither of the spies flinched at his words, and Natasha stepped closer to him.

"Good," she said. "Don't ever ask for pardon for that."

"People shouldn't be that easy to kill," Ward said quietly. "And you—you can't undo it."

"No," Clint said. "But you can learn to move past it."

"I didn't do it to protect myself," Ward said harshly, his words tumbling over themselves before he thought better of it. "I didn't care if I lived or not. And it wasn't about protecting Dana and Chelle because I was too late for that. I just… I just wanted revenge."

There was no absolution in their eyes, but no blame, either.

"I don't deserve to live here," Ward voiced his fear finally, hating the tremor in his voice. "Coulson and Jane and Steve and Thor and Darcy are all so good and they don't—they look at me and I don't think they understand that I killed somebody."

Clint shook his head sadly. "You said you don't regret what you did," he said quietly. "But I hear guilt every time you speak."

"And we understand it," Natasha added. "But you don't understand, Grant. So do they. Coulson and Steve are the best among us, and they know what it's like to make hard calls. They know what it's like to kill people. Steve fought in a fucking war, for god's sake, and Coulson… Coulson is S.H.I.E.L.D., and I've seen him make the hard decision. I've seen him kill, Grant."

"But not like me," Grant said. "Not like us. Coulson is so good. He wouldn't kill for revenge, but he thinks we're the same and that someday I'll be okay and grow up to be a good man but I'm scared because every goddamn time I look in the mirror I know there isn't anything good left inside me."

"When I was sixteen years old, I shot my father twice," a voice interrupted them, and Ward whirled around to find Coulson standing behind him, his face impassive. "He had beaten my mother to death, and I wanted revenge, Grant. I didn't think there was anything good left inside me, either."

Ward stared at the man as if he had never seen him before. "No," he said, shaking his head. "That isn't true. That couldn't be true."

"It's all true," Coulson said firmly. "You can read my file if you want. My defining moment was the day my father died, Grant."

"No," Ward repeated.

"But that's not where the story ends, Grant," Coulson continued, and beside Ward, Natasha and Clint waited breathlessly. "A man named Nick Fury found me. Told me that I was more than that, that I was made for something bigger than myself and my rage. And he taught me how to be better than my past, better than my anger, better than my worst days. He told me I had a choice, Grant."

"I'm not a good man," Ward shook his head, but it was himself he was fighting, and he wanted to believe it, wanted to hear Coulson's truth and not his father's and not Garrett's. Wanted so badly.

"It's what you choose to do now that decides that," Coulson said softly, his words barely heard above the roar of the November wind. "That's what makes a good man, Grant. And I know you can be a good man. You have it in you, Grant, and I can see it."

Ward rubbed his hand over his face, trying to hide the tears that had gathered there.

Natasha's hand snaked out and pulled him towards her into quick one-armed hug, and Coulson nodded to him, his eyes fierce with emotion.

Clint reached for the kick shields and began setting up their space for sparring, and Coulson turned to go.

"Stay," Ward said impulsively, stepping towards this man who had brought hope into the middle of all of Ward's darkness. "Stay and spar with us?"

Coulson hesitated, and then nodded, smiling slightly.

Clint and Nat partnered up, and Coulson held the kick shields for Ward while he practiced some of the kicks Natasha taught him.

They practiced for a long time—at least an hour slipped by—and Ward found that, once again, he had underestimated Coulson, because the man, though no longer technically a field agent, knew more about hand-to-hand than Ward would have ever guessed. He was a better teacher than Natasha, too, and under his teaching Ward perfected a roundhouse kick that Natasha watched proudly.

Ward loved every minute of it—the sharpness of the wind and the warmth of the blood that pumped in his veins as the stress and anger and memories ran out of his body and were caught away in the wind.

They practiced sparring until he was spent; until his legs almost folded beneath him from exhaustion and his arms felt loose and heavy from spent adrenaline. It was a welcome weariness he felt, and the weight of his tired body felt good and solid, as if an entirely different weight had been lifted from his shoulders that night.

When they rejoined the others inside, Thor and Fitz were still in the kitchen. Ward pushed open the door. Thor was balancing two trays in his hand and Fitz was seated on the counter, holding a large mixing bowl in his hands and absentmindedly kicking his short legs from his perch. Fitz dipped a finger into the bowl—which turned out to have cookie dough—and then offered the bowl to Ward.

"We made cookies," Fitz announced brightly. "Do you want some, Ward?"

Ward helped carry the finished cookies out into the common room, and when he opened the door he was met with a small body hurtling straight into his arms.

It was Jemma, her face flushed with excitement, and she nearly knocked him over. The cook tray went flying (Natasha caught the tray, Clint grabbed most of the cookies), and Jemma wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I've been un-grounded," she said excitedly, and then she turned to Fitz, giving him a more careful hug because of his healing wrist.

"Do you think we could go back to the lab?" Fitz asked. "You know, to apologize together. And I just wanted to use the scales in the back just once, because I had this theory"—

"No," Grant and Jemma spoke at the same moment, and Grant burst out laughing.

And as the warm light of Grant's new home enveloped them, Coulson realized he had the answer to his question.

This is how we save our boy. One step, one friend, one moment at a time.

This is how we bring our boy home.

And this is how he becomes a good man.