It was a measure of how understaffed and thinly spread SHIELD was, that they first heard about it through the news compilation software Skye had set up weeks ago. A couple of police radio transmissions and some lines in the local news were all the warning they got. Twenty minutes afterwards the social networks had exploded with comments and opinions. The only saving grace was the fact that shootings in Los Angeles suburbs did not tend to make the national TV, as everyone working for SHIELD already knew. They created enough explosions and armed standoffs in their line of work to know how to avoid the spreading of information. However, that had been when the SHIELD name still instilled worry and fear into the hearts of local police officers, and a badge could shut up a reporter in 0.5 seconds. It was when every mission was continuously monitored through mission control.
It was in the past.
Ward had a standard issue phone on him, but he hadn't contacted the base to let on that anything was going wrong. Thirty minutes after the first alert, there was still no call from him. Ideally, he was only supposed to call to confirm the success of the mission, and at a predetermined time failing that. The predetermined time was yet to come, but there were no two ways about it: the gunfire had been his doing. Photos of witnesses all featured the compound he was expected to gain access to. This was why Coulson's lips were pressed in a thin white line while Skye quickly compiled more and more news and photos from the site of the shooting. It was unmistakably Ward's handwork, too. A security guard shot in his right shoulder, and another one with a head injury that appeared to have come from hand to hand combat. Strangely enough, or maybe in a nod to Ward's limited success in not letting the mission to completely unravel, the main theory was of an unclear shoot-out on the streets of an unsafe neighbourhood. Nobody was talking about the breaking and entering at a hidden weapon trafficking compound, cheekily camouflaged as a small water processing plant.
The owners of the plant were clearly also fuelling the 'not quite safe neighbourhood' version.
It was a very small mercy. Ward was supposed to get in and out unseen. Nobody was supposed to get shot. May knew little about the exact mission parameters, but there was supposed to be a piece of alien tech inside. Coulson had wanted that piece above all other considerations. That much she knew. It was force-only-if-necessary mission, so Ward wasn't technically forbidden to attack the guards. He had not gone in weaponless, after all. Stealth and preventing the bad guys from realizing what they have lost was supposed to be a big point, though.
Not to mention avoiding notice from the news.
"I can't find any recognizable photos of Ward anywhere," called Skye from her place. "Instagram, all the CCTV cameras nearby, all the news. They have nothing on him."
"They have two injured people on him," grated Coulson. "And he's off the grid. This is strictly forbidden."
"No contact at all?" wondered May. "How long has this been going on?"
"Fifty three minutes since the initial call to the police," offered Skye. "The place is crawling with them now. If he's still there, he will get caught."
"He's not there anymore," said May.
"How do you know?"
"Because if he was still there, he would get caught," was her answer. "Check the line."
There was a mission screw up, and there was a police arrest. The two things held a big enough difference that even if Ward was somehow not up to his usual Level 7 efficiency, he would still have enough self preservation in him to avoid capture.
"The line is fine, the signal is strong. He is simply not picking up his phone," said Coulson with frustration.
"He had a bad day before going out," mentioned May. It did not sound like much, but she did not want to implicate Skye into it. Moreover, she knew that he had not been anywhere close to a good headspace to go out. She had checked, and only found what he knew she had wanted.
She was starting to realise just how scarily good Ward was at knowing what everyone wanted, and giving it to them. And it wasn't only as a part of his double agent duties.
"It was an easy mission. There's no way he'd accidentally mess it up." There was a longer pause, long enough for everyone's attention to turn on Phil. Simmons' eyes widened to the size of tea plates. Skye shook her head.
"No way. No."
"He knows his mission parameters. He isn't caught. The compound had some heavy protection, all things considered, but nothing that should have laid him down in a way he would be out of the loop for almost an hour as of now. And yet he's not only not answering, he is actively shutting down every oncoming call. Altogether, it does not paint a good picture."
"You can't be serious!" Skye all but screamed.
"Stop, Phil. Breath. Think. Have any of you checked any alternative ways of communication?"
The alternative way of communication turned out to be not quite so alternative after all. It was May's personal phone, which she had given Ward the number of an eternity ago to better plan for their sexual escapades. There were 3 text messages from an unknown number on it, the first dating eighteen minutes after the first alarm.
HAVE DEVICE. BLEW COVER. WILL CLEAN UP.
The other two had come in some ten minutes later:
CLEAN UP ACCOMPLISHED. IM SORRY.
NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG, PELASE TELL Coulson I WILL BE BACK AS SOON AS I CAN.
"He is… tactically delayed," May told Coulson aloud, ignoring the outstretched hand wanting to take hold of the phone. Tactics was Ward's favourite codeword for emotion, after all. "Coming back soon, though."
Her first gut reaction was deep annoyance. People with Ward's experience didn't blow their mission under emotional stress. It was a rookie's mistake, if even that. Rookies who couldn't handle a little pressure washed out of the Academy pretty quickly.
Her second reaction was to remember the position of the guns Ward had been religiously cleaning after walking out on Skye screaming at him for the third time in a week. Her third reaction was to admit to herself that she should had at least spoken to him before he set off.
Her thumbs flew over the screen.
STATUS?
COMPLETE
HURT?
NO
COME DEBRIEF ASAP
I AM SORRY
ETA
20
Ward walked into the base exactly twenty minutes later, seemingly unhurt and moving under his own power, with his head held high and his back painfully straight, barely restrained something vibrating inside him. There was a thing in his left hand, a little paper wrapped package that could have contained literally anything. The entire team minus Coulson was waiting for him in the hangar in different states of faked disinterest, but nobody confronted him once he stepped into the area. There had always been an aura of inapproachability around him, even in his early SHIELD days. When he was let free after being figuratively collared, that aura had intensified and taken on a haunted, passive quality. Now, though, the 'stay away' message was being telegraphed loud and clear in a several miles radius.
Both Skye and Simmons instinctively shrunk back, seeking physical refuge behind bullet proof glass doors. Ward paid them no heed, just as he paid no heed to May. He disarmed himself in two precise movements, disengaging the weapons belt and leaving it on the first available surface, all without letting go of the package or slowing his progress toward Coulson´s office.
Phil was the only person who had not come forward to wait for Ward to get home. He had instead retired back to his own quarters with the instructions to May to send him for debrief as soon as he got in. Obviously Phil had thought Ward would want to slink off to hide after the debacle. May had thought so too, to be honest, but was startled to realise that he was doing exactly the opposite thing. She then sped up to catch up with his strides and went alongside him all the way to Phil´s office. Ward still paid her no mind, not until she deftly positioned herself in front of him, arms crossed at the chest and back pressed against the office door.
Now she could finally look at him properly. Look him in the eyes, not at his back, not at his newly grown bangs (she knew he had to hate them, purely because they were bound to come into his eyes on missions). He looked uncontrollably angry. Lash out, break down the walls, scream at the world until your throat went raw kind of angry. The only sentiment stronger that that anger was the force with which he was subduing himself. The strength with which he was pushing his rage away from the surface would lay waste to the entire base, if he ever thought about directing it outwards.
"Two things before you go in," May said levelly.
He didn't freeze like he was now prone to do when challenged, looking down and shrinking away. He just very carefully directed all of his attention to her and glared in a defiant, 'we will hash it out if you don't step away' kind of way. She had only seen him do it once, right after the run in with the berserker staff.
"Yes?" he gritted out.
"Do I have all of your attention? Because I will only say it once, and you'd better get it real quick."
Please tell Coulson I am not doing anything wrong.
His full attention was a damn frightening thing to behold, May could freely admit. Skye had tried to provoke him into exactly this thing for weeks, but apparently safety and sanity and pride meant so little to him anymore, that he rebelled only under direct threat of death. It appeared that his screw up had seemingly pushed him into a corner in his own mind. And this – this was what Grant Ward transformed into, if pushed and pushed and pushed into a corner for too long. This was what was inside of him – this soundless, quiet, primitive rage that set family homes on fire. Did he want to do it now? Lash out, burn down the Playground?
She uncrossed her arms and pushed herself away from the door, coming a step closer to him while still keeping away from his personal space. Close, but not threatening. Confident, and speaking softly in confidence, carefully pronouncing every word.
"You are not in trouble."
He blinked, a millisecond expression with his mouth slightly open and softer, bigger eyes crossing his face. Then he blinked again and it was gone, the same hard exterior having taken the lead once more.
She didn't need anything more than that.
"You weren't in the right place to go out there, and you have still tried to complete your goal. And now you are furious because it was damn hard, and you have tried to get it right but you will still get punished for it, and nobody will ever give a damn."
She should have told him sooner. On the phone. Before this mission. Before any mission. Did he even know what the price of blowing a mission was? He had thought he was walking back to his execution, hadn't he? And he had still done it, because what other choice had he got. In that light, May was almost glad that at his reaction. Good for him to at least know he didn't deserve it. To have enough self awareness left to realise it wasn't fair.
"You know it is not fair, but you think you cannot argue and cannot avoid it. So here comes the second thing I wanted to tell you. Listen up."
She stepped a tad closer, watching Ward make an aborted movement away from her. It was exactly like approaching a grievously mistreated pit-bull with a sausage in her hand. Chances were very good the common sense and the starvation would prevail, but nobody could promise her that years of conditioning wouldn't make the animal jump at her throat instead.
"You are right. It is not fair, and it won't happen. You have my word on it."
He blinked once, then again, then many times in quick succession. His mouth went slack and stayed that way, together with every other muscle in his body. The tension left him in such a rush that the package clattered to the floor, momentanely forgotten. May reached down to pick it up wordlessly.
She then knocked on Phil's door, making sure she was positioning herself right in the middle of the sightline of the two men, and opened without waiting. Coulson was of course listening in, she would not expect any less from him.
"Mission accomplished. Here is the package," she intoned mildly. "Now if you please could show Ward's failsafe to him?"
Phil had been listening, because he complied with a minimal eyebrow commentary and zero words. The device was laying on the table in front of him, which of course did nothing to fill Ward with confidence. May walked in to get a hold of it before Coulson did. There was no need to trigger Ward any further.
May walked back to the corridor to stand before him. She could see Ward slowly coming out of his shell-shocked haze and trying to snap to attention. Whatever toxic mindset he had left the base in this morning, by now he had worked himself into new levels of tension, anxiety and despair that has seemingly fuelled him in the last several hours. Letting go of all of it at once had to be disorienting at least.
"I want you to do two things right now. Two questions that you have to answer very quick. You can call it a day after that, or we can take a drink together. Choosing which one will be your third and last task of today. But first, the questions. Are you ready?"
"Yeah."
It took such a minimal effort to ground him. One completely unremarkable, throwaway act of kindness, and he was wholly ready to give his best to satisfy you. May had never hated John Garrett as much as she hated him in that instant, with Ward hanging attentively on her every word, all signs of the previous rage completely gone and replaced by bone deep weariness. She had never hated Garrett before, to be honest. Now she wondered why she had not. She supposed that he was dead and buried, his actions abstract and not personally concerning to her. Ward was the one who had thrown Firzsimmons into the ocean, who had kidnapped Skye. Ward was the agent who had hurt the team. But hadn't it been Garrett who had, at one stage, taken his eagerness and his childlike desire to please and had mangled it until his didn't even need to move his lips for Ward to hear his words. Why had they been so quick to forget that? Why wasn't Garrett´s name held in posthumous contempt and whispered hatefully by every agent of this base?
"Question one, don't think, just answer." He would try to guess at the desired answer if given half a chance, that much she knew. "Apart from Director Coulson, which person here on this base would you rather have the control of your failsafe?"
"Simmons."
It was good. Instantaneous, instinctive, and making perfect sense. Simmons may not be forgiving, but she was fair. Everyone, Ward included, knew that.
Coulson opened his mouth as if to argue, but had the good sense to close it really quickly. He could see the problem being solved here, namely the very obvious fact that while he was the highest ranking person in the new SHIELD, he wasn't the most objective person when it came to Ward. Or maybe he was – just not Ward's mind. And that counted, didn't it? It was what should have counted the most.
"Very well, Simmons it is," smiled May. The gesture sat a little foreign on her face, but she held it up when she realised that Ward was shortly repeating the gesture. "Second question, no thinking. Name the one thing you hate most about being here."
Again, the answer was instantly on the tip of Ward's tongue. He went as far as to open his mouth a little and take a breath, and then proceeded to visibly censor himself and choke on his words. He did try to get them out again, in the knowledge that May was waiting, but still no answer came, and after several heartbeats had passed she knew the opportunity for him to speak up had gone by.
Which didn't mean that May couldn't very well guess at the answer. She only had to follow the flicker of his eyes, and think about who he was checking himself for.
"Your little talks with Director Coulson?"
He was tensing again, and May really didn't want to torment him any further, but this was the only time this could be addressed. She had to pull him through the actual confession, if she wanted to give him an opportunity to be rid of it.
"Ward?" she pressed the issue. His eyes flickered between the floor and her face, but never Phil's. Which, well… "Is it fair for you to be in trouble for speaking you mind?"
He had known that execution wasn't a fair punishment for a failure, so maybe…
"I don't know," he answered hoarsely.
She wanted to look at Coulson after that, to see his face and to feel any measure of reassurance from her superior and her friend, but she could not bring herself to do it. Ward's larynx was healed, his foot was healed, and the waterboarding had left no physical signs. But his voice and whatever capacity to stand on his feet he still had at that point were now completely gone. Erased by the dehumanization that exhorting the ultimate power to take one's safety and one's life away subjected the victim to. They talked about psychological trauma, about post traumatic stress disorder. Those were nice names that did not explain a lot. They did not say a word about how torture could leave a person unsure if their value was on par with that of everybody else. If further torture for merely speaking one's mind was fair or not.
She did not look aside. Coulson could not forgive her. She herself would not. God…
"Well, I and Director Coulson both know that it is not," she found herself saying. "If you have a reason for not wanting to continue you sessions with him, your opinion will be taken seriously."
He started answering before she could complete her promise – her permission –, words blurring together and phrases tangling on his tongue in his haste to get the message out. God would not forgive either, May decided firmly. Not after what she had done.
"I know that I did wrong. I know John was a bad person. I know Hydra was evil. I don't need a weekly reminder of any of it. I know."
"Do you also know what to do about it?" asked Coulson. He was trying his best to do it kindly, but whether Ward could actually tell was a question in itself. "I am not trying to demean you, Ward. I am trying to give you tools so you can stand on your own two feet someday. So you can make your own decisions and choose you own side."
"No. You are saying that I should count myself lucky that John is dead, and that I can now work off my sins by working for SHIELD for real. You are saying that SHIELD are the good guys and exactly the opposite of Hydra. And it is not…" He clammed up, the chocked up kind silence where you had to choose to concede your ground forever or grit your teeth and soldier on. May was inordinately proud to see him carefully take hold of his previously unspent anger and carefully use it to fuel the second option. "It is not true. Every day I don't have a mission I sit down for at least an hour and try to figure out why what I am doing right now is supposed to be right. And the only answer I can come up with is that if Hydra was wrong, then maybe their enemies were right. Which is patently untrue, because I've done exactly the same things for both. I have killed and I have lied and there were accepted civilian losses written into missions on both sides. So… I realise that it isn't what you want to hear, but I really don't now the difference between SHIELD and Hydra. I think and think and have no idea what I am doing. I have no idea how to make sure I don't… Don't… Don't hurt anyone on orders ever again. And I can't really… You are the one with the orders now, so I can't really tell you any of that, can I?"
He had seemingly run out of things to say at that point, his fleeting outspokenness faltering and collapsing onto itself. The anger was still back, simmering and waiting the situation out, ready to rear its head if retribution was coming despite May's promise that it would not.
"You just did," said Coulson rather dazedly. "And it was certainly illuminating. You… You have given this much thought."
"I told you; I know that I did wrong. It was… It wasn't… I didn't want to. Never wanted to, and still somehow did. I don't want to, again, and not because you'll kill me for it."
"It is… It is good. Very good. You should question… orders, of course, everyone's orders, even my orders. There aren't two ways about it. Did you find anything questionable in today's mission?"
"No. I had cut my hand three days ago, and it looked healed, but I had a faulty grip on the ladder on the way up and I lost my hold. It made noise, and they saw me. I am sorry."
A lie, not a very smooth one but a lie nonetheless. His first direct one, as far as May remembered. Ward was in good form today. May let him be. He clearly didn't want Skye to factor into this, and that was perfectly OK. May suspected that her own avoidance of him in the last week had factored mightily into the breakdown. Because that was what it had been, a nervous breakdown in the middle of a mission – Ward could and would hold onto a ledge with all his fingers broken, he would not let go because of a cut. And May had contributed to it, all the while thinking that she was doing him a favour. She had thought he wasn't talking because he didn't want to talk, when he simply didn't realise that he was allowed. She had thought he would find quietness and solitude soothing, when he had probably craved the sporadic positive human contact she was the only provider of. She had wanted to make things better, but just as Phil did, she took it upon herself to decide how. She had presumed to act on Ward's behalf without asking him what he wanted, assuming him too broken and too gone to speak on his own behalf.
She was both pleased and horrified at how wrong she was.
"It is fine. You should speak up if you are not up 100% for a mission. It is perfectly reasonable, I will never send you in if you aren't ready for it. You know that from before."
"I know that, sir. It just happened to be a time sensitive mission."
"Well, there is still May. She can take on some of your tasks for a while. I want to help you, Ward. I want to do right by you, but wanting does not automatically mean I know what that entails." Coulson finally shook himself in order to come out of his daze. "If I have messed that up, if I have made things worse for you, I am sorry. If you need anything from me…"
"Thank you, sir, I think I am good," put in Ward eagerly, and May had to remind herself that he could not have done it on purpose even if he had wanted to, to avoid chuckling.
"You can go."
He turned to go, and May went after him for all she knew that Phil was itching to have a private conversation. They would have to do that, of course. Things were being screwed up mightily in the Playground, and not by Ward. But she knew that she could not face him how, could not discuss this in the clinical terms she knew Phil would use. ¨Believe in the system, obey the rules, follow the protocol." They had followed the SHIELD protocol on waterboarding with Ward, and lo and behold, he had just stood in front of them half broken by it and having trouble looking them in the eye, and flat out told them he was trying to make sure he would never again follow evil orders in his life.
It put things into perspective, didn't it?
"Ward?" she called after him when the office was hidden from view, understanding that he wanted to put as much distance between himself and Coulson as he could. "You did very well today. I'm proud of you."
She did not care if it was condescending, or something you told a seven year old after he parroted his school lesson back at his too easily impressed parents. It seemed that the more she dug, the worse it got, so she would just assume the absolutely most awful option and act on that assumption. God would not forgive, but maybe someday she could make Ward understand that she had done something to him that she needed forgiveness for.
"I am sorry," he said softly. He had repeated these words many times today, and every time he had excused himself for not quite acing the mission May felt increasingly sad and uncomfortable. Strangely, it seemed OK now. Probably because she understood that he meant something completely different this time. There was a sadness to him that did not steam from fear, exhaustion or his distrust of others. It came from within, a real part of him that sat alone in his little room day by day and tried to pick up his own mind with his bare nails.
"I know," she assured him, and somehow knew that it was exactly the right thing to say. "Now, how do you feel about brandy? I'll make yours a double."
Ward stared a little, visibly thrown, but then chuckled softly.
"Is there any other kind?" he asked quietly in response.
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Two things I wanted to say today. The first is to jump in celebration of the fact that Brett Dalton, Ward´s actor, has been officially made aware of the part of fandom that is holding great hope for an awesome redemption storyline for his character (by please not anything like in this fic, I could not live through that) . Ward and Brett have both been getting a lot of online hate, sadly. But, #standwithward is officially a thing now, and I am happy to celebrate it with the chapter where Ward finally gets some of his voice back!
Secondly, I wanted to ask if anyone would be interested in betaing another Ward story for me? The completely amazing and highly resolutive grammar ninja Bibliophile109 is betaing this story, as you know, but two is too much for her. If you are interested, just let me know and I can give you more details. It will be a Ward centric angsty 15.000 words casefic written from Skye POV, and not nearly as dark as Underwater. Thanks in advance!