Back from the vacation! Thanks a lot for everyone being patient with me. I do hope you all like the new chapter.
Special thanks to LA Turner, Alkeni, Asha Davis, annavale23, bhut, aaaskyward, R. Peter, MonstersDream, Kajtena, Crookrock, PJ Comics, Wolf's Edge, Dani, Aurelia99, PTJ, icewitch73 and three guests!
I didn't get around to answer each and every one of you personally this time, but I certainly will again for the next chapter. Thanks to all of you for the continued support!
-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Ward was still angry when he reached his bunk. With more force than necessary, he tossed his newly obtained water bottles – the only good thing that had come from his trip to the kitchen – on the bed, before he started pacing.
Simmons' hateful comment had pretty much confirmed his worst fears. The team – probably Skye and Fitz, too – had seen him under the influence of the serum and they would use everything they had witnessed against him, whenever they wanted. Every chance of them ever allowing him back had long gone up in flames anyway, he had just been too stupid to see.
This could mean only one thing for him: As soon as he was out of here, he would disappear for good. No more calls from S.H.I.E.L.D., no more helping out. This was it. Sure, it would be hard to leave Kara behind, but since he knew that she had been the one to betray one of his most personal secrets – his missing five years with John – to Coulson, the decision to turn his back on her as well was not that hard to make.
He had no idea where to go, but he was certain he would get by. Though S.H.I.E.L.D. probably thought they had found all his secrete stashes, he was pretty sure they had missed a locker or two. Time to peel off the identity of Grant Ward. Not that there was a whole lot left to peel off anyway. It would probably be a relief to leave that fucked up life behind him. Why not rob a bank and live from the money somewhere quietly for the rest of his life? He was sure he could pull it off and there was no need to keep a clean vest. After all, he was the labelled enemy already and no one would find him anyway if he did not want to be found.
He should have cut all his ties much earlier, he knew that now. Anger at himself made him clench his hands into fists. He had always been a bit slow to realize when he was used, hadn't he? His parents should have called him Pinocchio, for fuck's sake! The only difference was that he was much better at lying! He gave in to his suddenly roaring temper and aimed a kick at his bed, then immediately hissed when his ribs protested. Clutching his left side, he heavily sat down on the bed and buried his head in his hands.
It took a moment or two to collect himself and regain the familiar mindset of cool self discipline, before he lifted his head and looked at the bracelet on his right wrist. Coulson had given it to him as a token of trust. If the director found the bracelet on his bed with its supposed bearer gone, there would definitely be no going back. This was the last of many bridges to burn. Then why was it so hard? Again, he had this nagging thought at the back of his mind that everything might be connected to the serum. All the more reason to get out of here and put as much distance between him and Coulson as he could..
Sighing and strengthening his resolve, he started massaging his right thumb. This would hurt. He knew it would, he had done it often enough by now. The pain would be a bitch for the days that followed. He started rotating his thumb, first slowly and carefully, then quickly putting more strength to it...
A sudden knock startled him out of his preparations. He quickly dropped his hands to his sides, just in time before the door opened and Coulson and Kara stepped in.
"I heard you caused trouble already," Coulson sighed instead of a greeting.
The director's voice was full with disappointment, waking in Ward the urge to wince and apologize. However, he steeled himself against the impulse, while he monitored his own reactions to Coulson minutely. A part of him was definitely beckoning him to follow Coulson and do as he wished. It was disgusting. Suppressing a shudder, Ward wondered if there would be any repercussions from the serum if he refused to give in to the impulse.
"I was verbally attacked by your people," Ward replied evenly, giving no outward reaction of his internal battle. "They shouldn't goad me if they can't face the consequences."
"It would probably be better to just confine you to this room," Coulson pointed out with raised eyebrows.
Ward snorted, then said, "Or you could just let me go and save yourself a lot of trouble."
"Grant," Kara now butted in, looking at him out of big eyes that shone imploringly. "Just a few hours ago you were completely out of it and didn't realize what was going on around you. I'm very glad you're better now, but let's not rush things."
The sincerity in her eyes felt like a stab to his heart. How could she look so innocent and well-meaning while she had been the one to betray his most well-kept secret? He had relied on her having his best interest at heart – just as he had put what was best for her first in the last few months – but he realized now that his faith in her had been misplaced. John had been right after all. Don't trust anyone.
"I'm glad you had my back while I was down," Ward told her with biting sarcasm, then turned away from her when her eyes filled with confusion and pain. Yeah, he was hurting her, he knew, but right now, he did not care. He was already quite in the mood for burning bridges, so no point in getting squeamish now.
Coulson's shrewd gaze followed his interaction with Kara closely, Ward knew, but he could not bring himself to care.
"Ward," the director began slowly, "it's just for another few hours. I want you to stay away from the team for the time being. Please don't make me regret my decision."
Coulson gave him another long look and Ward was hard-pressed not to shy away from what he saw in the other's gaze before the director left him alone with Kara.
"What?" she asked as soon as the door fell shut, her eyes glistening treacherously. "Could you please tell me what's going on?"
"You don't know?" he asked, smirking acerbically. "Then think harder."
"Oh, maybe you mean the hours I sat at your bedside, watching over you?" Kara now bit back, anger starting to heat her voice. "Or is it my struggle to get you the right treatment and to calm you down when you got agitated? You tell me, I might have some trouble remembering."
The sarcasm in Kara's voice was heavy and one part of Ward was actually happy with the way she was defending herself. She had grown quite attached to him during their months together, so much that he had feared she would become too dependent on him. Leaving her with Coulson had been the first step to let her lead a life on her own, away from him.
However, the part of him being angry with her was much stronger and eventually he growled at her, "You told Coulson about how Garrett broke me out of juvie. You had no right, that wasn't your secret to tell!"
Kara had the gall to appear stunned at first, and then actually look slightly chastened. "Grant, you need to understand..."
"No, I don't," he interrupted harshly. "Can't you see what you did? You gave them a weapon against me and they'll use it."
"I told Coulson that confidentially," she began anew, but again, Ward did not let her finish her sentence.
"Yeah, and Coulson told Skye confidentially and Skye told Fitz and Simmons confidentially and by the end of the day, the whole base knows. Confidentially, of course. But know what? It's my fault. I shouldn't have told you in the first place. I shouldn't have trusted you."
Kara winced in pain at his words, then hissed at him, "Don't you dare shutting me up like this without giving me the opportunity to speak."
Ward snorted, but mentioned for her to keep speaking.
"Coulson needed to understand," she began, looking at him imploringly. "You were in really bad shape and you rambled on about John for hours. Coulson asked me if I knew what all of it meant. I thought that if they knew about how young you were when you first met Garrett and if they could understand that you were in a very tight spot back then, they might..."
"They might what?" Ward spat, unable to keep himself from interrupting her again. Her words and the woeful tone she had adopted made him livid. "Invite me back with open arms? Poor Ward, he was so young when he fell under Garrett's spell, why not forgive and forget everything he's done? I made my own decisions, Kara! Always! Even back then. This doesn't change anything, for anyone! Except that they might use my past as a weapon against me!"
"Why do you think your past might be used against you then?" Kara asked carefully, calm in the face of his anger. "If you always made your own decisions and you always were on top of what was going on with you, why should it matter so much that the others know about it? Honestly, to me it seems like you're ashamed of how completely you were at Garrett's mercy. You're afraid you might seem weak."
The blood roared in Ward's ears and it was all he could do to force out in a dead whisper, "Get out, Kara. Now."
"Okay," she said quietly, sadness tinging her voice. Before she opened the door, she told him evenly, "I'm glad you're feeling better. And I never intended to hurt you."
He refused to meet her gaze and stared to the ground, waiting until he heard his door fall shut.
As soon as he was alone again, he set to work. He was still so worked up that he did not hold back and one forceful push later, his thumb snapped out of its joint with a crack. The pain was intense, but it was not by far enough to stop him from slipping off the bracelet. Another deep breath, and he reset his thumb back in its original position. The bracelet now lay in his hands, the metal cool against his fingers. He put it under the pillow of his bed, before he went to the door.
There was one more thing he needed to do before he left this place and all things S.H.I.E.L.D. for good. If he was really brainwashed already and the serum was responsible for that, he needed to know about it and how to cure it, since it was too dangerous to leave himself open to outward influences like that. Luckily enough, all the information he needed was here on the Playground. All he had to do was go and ask nicely. Or maybe not so nicely, after what had been done to him.
Leaving his bunk, Ward slowly crept down the hallway in the direction of the vaults. He made sure no one saw him as he slipped down the stairs to the vaults. The first two cells, A and B, were empty, but he finally found what he was looking for in vault C. It took him a few seconds to shut off the surveillance camera before he took a look inside the cell with the help of the tablet in his hands. From this side of the power barrier, things did not seem nearly as bleak as from the other side.
Bates and his wife were sitting on their beds. The cell was separated by another transparent wall, so that each of them had half a cell without the possibility to touch or communicate with each other. Ward could see the advantage of it. They could be interrogated separately or together, whatever suited the interrogator best. He chose to let them see and hear each other and him at the same time. Tapping in a command, he let the wall turn transparent.
"Good evening," he greeted them evenly, enjoying the slack-jawed stare of the scientist and the glare of the Hydra leader. "Fancy seeing you here."
"Did you come to gloat, traitor?" Bates spat, rising from the bed and coming closer to the power barrier.
Ward could not quite shake off the irony that he was as much a traitor in Hydra's as in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s eyes. The pleasures of being a double agent!
"Yep," he replied nonchalantly. "Gloating is certainly part of it. Not the whole story, though, I'm afraid."
"You're doing Coulson's dirty work again?" Bates sneered. "Aren't you tired of being everyone's attack dog?"
Ward gave him a wolfish grin. "Funny, that's exactly why I'm here."
Without warning, he deactivated the power barrier on Bates' side and moved into the cell quickly. He landed a solid punch in the Hydra leader's face and just a few moments and a short struggle later, he stood behind Bates and had the other man in a choke-hold. His forearm pressed mercilessly against the Hydra leader's windpipe, effectively cutting off the other man's ability to breathe. Bates stopped struggling and Ward's broken ribs and maltreated thumb thanked him for it. Yes, he was not in perfect shape, but even battered, he was still stronger and faster than Bates, especially when he had the element of surprise on his side.
"Leave him alone!" Bates' wife screamed from the other side of the cell, unable to do more than stand anxiously behind her side of the power barrier.
"I had hoped you'd show some kind of emotion towards your husband, Maggie," Ward commented coldly, while enjoying the wheezing sounds coming from Bates. "Because this wouldn't work otherwise. My questions, dear Maggie, are actually for you. So I hope you can give me good answers or I'll snap his neck."
The scientist bit her lips and glared at him out of her mousy face, but finally gave a single nod.
"Good," Ward said. "Let's start easy: What is in the serum that you gave me?"
She hesitated, lips trembling, but finally started to ramble off the Latin names of different chemical and biological components that he was in no way familiar with. This was Simmons' special field, to him it all sounded pretty much like Chinese!
"Stop!" he barked, twisting Bates' neck painfully so the other man gave a pained moan. "This isn't helping. Let me rephrase the question: What are the symptoms of the serum? What is it supposed to do?"
The scientist stared at him out of wide eyes, then started stuttering, "You took it... you should know..."
"Wrong answer," Ward replied, twisting Bates' neck some more and making the other man whimper and struggle for breath.
"Alright, alright!" she screamed, holding up her hands in a placating manner. "I told you already, the serum evokes hallucinations and makes the test subject mentally unstable. It's supposed to break down any resistance to make the test subject more receptive to the brainwashing process."
"You're lying!" he spat in reply.
"I'm not," the scientist denied with a frown that suddenly turned a tad more inquisitive. "Why? What did you experience?"
"You don't get to ask questions," he barked. "How is the brainwashing done?"
She sighed, then answered slowly, "The old way. Visual and sensual inputs. Repeated orders. It's a form of hypnosis."
"So the serum has nothing to do with the brainwashing itself?" he asked sharply, just to make sure. Bates was starting to struggle some more for air, but he continued to press roughly against the other man's windpipe. He did not care if he did some serious harm to Bates' larynx.
"No!" the scientist replied forcefully, looking at her husband with fear in her eyes. "I told you already, the serum just facilitates the brainwashing, it doesn't act as an actual part of the process."
The answer was not exactly what Ward had wanted to hear. She did not look as if she was lying. She was obviously untrained as an agent and she was truly worried about her husband. The answers she gave rang true. Still, he could not accept them. He knew what he had experienced and it awfully felt like someone urged him to follow orders.
"How long do the effects of the serum last?" he asked more calmly, refusing to openly state his concern to her.
"Fifteen to twenty hours maximum," she replied and watched him intently. "It should've worn off by now in your case."
"I do hope you told me the truth," he warned her, then played momentarily with the idea of killing Bates anyway. The Hydra leader would have certainly deserved it and it was not like another kill on his part would make any difference. He would be out of here anyway in maybe fifteen minutes and the fight between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra was none of his concerns anymore. And it would feel good, to kill the bastard for the hours of agony he had gone through. Ward pulled the other man's neck so far to the side that only a slight twitch of his hand would have been enough to snap Bates' neck and left him suspended like that for a minute.
Then, finally, he relaxed his grip on Bates and gave him a push that sent the other man to the ground. Without hesitation, Ward buried his foot once in the ribs of the Hydra leader and made him howl in pain, then turned around and stepped over the line on the ground. He tapped a few orders in the tablet to reactivate the power barrier and make the wall go opaque. Without another look back, he walked up the stairs.
Yes, John had made him a killer, but this did not mean he was bloodthirsty. He had killed when ordered or forced to do so, but never out of revenge. It was not like this was a good time to change his pattern.
As soon as he was back up in the hallway, his instincts sounded alarm. The hallway still looked deserted, but a tingling feeling in the back of his mind told him he was being followed. He tilted his head slightly to the side before he walked around the corner and noticed the hint of a shadow following him. He came to an abrupt halt just around the corner of the hallway and waited until he heard light footsteps. Another seconds or two later someone walked right in his arms and he tackled his follower to the wall in a quick move. He blocked a punch to his face and a kick that was supposed to go to his groin out of reflex, before he even realized who he had pressed up and immobilized against the wall.
It was Skye. She glowered at him from under her bangs, but at least she had stopped struggling.
"Let me go!" she hissed at him.
He quickly searched her and found an ICEr on her that he immediately stuffed into the back of his pants, before he let her go. She ripped herself away from him and crossed her arms over her chest, but otherwise made no move to either call for help or flee.
"You shouldn't follow me," he finally told her, making an effort to sound calm and unthreatening. Yeah, sure, he had violated pretty much every rule Coulson had set, but at least he had made no move whatsoever to hurt the team. And he was on his way out, so he had some hope he would just be released without having to put up a fight.
"Yeah, like it's so very reassuring to see you walking around the base freely, with no bracelet on," she pointed out sarcastically. "Who knows what you're up to. There are some more Koenig brothers walking around on the base, I was kind of afraid for their safety."
"This is not what this is about," Ward replied, already noticing first strands of frustration bleeding into his voice. What was it with this woman? She always managed to get under his skin. Yes, he had let himself appear more uptight und rigid during his time undercover with the team, but his exasperation towards Skye had never been an act. Just as his feelings for her had never been part of his role.
"Yeah?" she snarked. "You felt like taking a walk and getting rid of the bracelet? No, I know you were down in the vaults. Thing just is that Coulson didn't allow anyone access beside himself."
"It was personal," Ward replied stonily.
"Personal?" Skye asked with a disbelieving laugh. "I thought you didn't do personal."
And just as quickly came the urge to massage his temples.
"Look, it's none of your business," he told her and tried to walk away, when her voice stopped him.
"Why do you think you were brainwashed?"
The question froze his movements and he turned around to see her watching him expectantly.
"You listened in?" he asked her, a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice,
"Don't act so scandalized, it's not like you had any permission to be down there," Skye replied nonchalantly and rolled her eyes. "And you know I've been a hacker before I became an agent. Just turning off a camera isn't going to keep me out." She paused, then asked again, "Why did you ask them about brainwashing? When I found you back in the Hydra lab, you seemed rather sure they hadn't brainwashed you. You don't sound so sure right now."
Ward wordlessly shook his head and turned around again to walk in the direction of the hangar and the exit.
"You know," Skye continued, "Coulson isn't going to just let you walk out of here. Every exit is blocked. He awaits you in his office."
Ward practically felt his shoulders slump and his resistance crumble. Okay, maybe he had been a tiny little bit optimistic when he had thought he could walk out of here unhindered.
Sighing, he turned around and gave Skye a long look. He could maybe make a run for it. But he was pretty sure he would not get very far. And there was something in Skye's stance and face that made him hesitant. Sure, she still had her arms crossed in front of her chest, but she seemed not as tense as she had usually been around him in the last few weeks. Her beautiful brown eyes shone almost hopefully and she had her head cocked expectantly to the side.
When he gave her a small nod and mentioned for her to lead the way to Coulson's office, she even gave him a small smile.
-tbc-
Thoughts? Good? Bad?
