Fitz brought checkers the next day—and won again—and Sorry! the day after. The three weeks that followed were full of board games—no Battleship, of course, and no Scrabble (Ward had beat Simmons at Scrabble over a year ago, and no one would play him since then).
Fitz wasn't able to come every day, but Ward found himself growing accustomed to at least three or four visits a week, always with a new board game.
"Where are you finding all these board games?" Ward asked him at the end of the third week.
Fitz turned red and mumbled something under his breath.
Ward leaned across the table, grinning in disbelief. "What?" he demanded. "Did Leo Fitz, upstanding Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., take something without permission?"
Fitz shook his head vehemently, but his face was still red with embarrassment. "It wasn't stealing," he said sharply, as if he was trying to reassure himself more than anyone. "We're allowed to play with any of the board games in the main room near our quarters. We're just not supposed to remove them from the premises, but since this is also a government facility, technically speaking, I didn't really remove them."
"You stole them," Ward said flatly, still grinning. "You stole board games from S.H.I.E.L.D., and then you smuggled them into one of the most high-security prisons in the world. Damn, Fitz, that's a pretty badass heist you've got going on a regular basis. And all with no collaboration."
"Well, technically speaking"—Fitz began, and then stopped again.
Ward raised his eyebrows. "Technically speaking?"
"You see, Simmons decided to stay on the base with me while the team is on this mission, because she wanted to do some research, and we… we're a team, me and Simmons. We didn't really want to split up."
"And Simmons helped you smuggle the board games," Ward said unbelievingly, unable to wipe the stupid smile off of his face.
"She distracted my superior officer once," Fitz said proudly, and then his forehead wrinkled slightly. "Well, when I say distracted, I mean—well, you know Simmons. She's brilliant, of course, but she's terrible at undercover. She pretended to trip and spill her tea on him while I snuck these dominoes out, but it was more of an awkward little hop and a skip, and then she just sort of poured it on his jacket."
Ward found himself laughing out loud for the first time since he could really remember.
Fitz continued his visits nearly every day—one day even bringing Candy Land, which Ward refused to play on the grounds that it said it was for ages 2 and up.
"Well, you fit that category, don't you, Ward?" Fitz asked mischievously.
"It's a game for toddlers!"
"We're playing."
"Fitz, this is ridiculous"—
"You're just afraid that I'll win like I always do."
"Fine. We'll play, just this once. But next time you're bringing Scrabble."
Ward was sleeping better now, too, and then one day Fitz did bring Scrabble. He wasn't nearly as cheerful as usual, and Ward noticed immediately that he was stuttering again, something that had seemed to nearly disappear over the past month.
"Everything okay?" Ward asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"God, not you, too," Fitz snapped suddenly. "I am sick of e-everyone asking me if I'm okay every single second of every day. I am fine, and I am sick of being babied!"
Ward felt concern tug at him. "Of course you're fine," he said. "So, Scrabble, then?"
Fitz dropped his head in his hands, and Ward resisted the impulse to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ward," he said finally, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm just… I'm so tired. I'm sick of being behind everyone else and treated like I'm some little kid when I'm not, I'm a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a scientist and a"—
Fitz's voice broke, and Ward felt sick to his stomach.
He had done this. Caused all this.
"You're the bravest man I've ever met," Ward said suddenly, surprising even himself. "And the smartest. If anyone's treating you like a kid, they're just jealous ass holes."
Fitz looked up in surprise, wiping the back of his sleeve across his face.
He swallowed hard, and Ward looked away.
Seeing Fitz so broken was tearing Ward apart.
"The worst part is that they're right, though," Fitz whispered, and Ward opened his mouth to argue with him. "I can't keep up with the other scientists. It would help if I had time to just freshen up on some of the principles I studied back at the academy, or if I could just talk through some of the questions we're researching"—
"Do it here," Ward said abruptly. "No, I'm serious. I know shit about science, but you could study here, so you wouldn't have to do it in front of anyone at the base. And you could tell me about your research—I mean, not anything important, because Coulson and everyone will kill you if you give intel to a piece-of-shit Hydra agent, but you can at least talk about what's bugging you. I mean, it's not like I'll understand half of it anyway, and who do I have to tell?"
Fitz looked up at him, a spark of hope in his eyes. "Really? You want to hear all that?"
"More than board games," Ward said firmly. "But right now, I'm going to beat your ass at Scrabble."
Ward made sure it was a good game—and he let Fitz win by a close shave, so he could go back to the base and tell Jemma that the person who had beaten her at Scrabble had lost to him—and played the earlier breakdown off as minor.
When he arrived back at his cell, though, he fell apart.
Fitz.
Goddamnit, Fitz.
The kid had been struggling for nine months—nine fucking months—because Ward had followed orders and done the unthinkable.
For the first time since Fitz had started visiting, Ward longed to see Garrett. He wasn't sure if it was because he wanted to scream the question of why, why, why into his face, or because he wanted someone to make him suffer for what he had done.
Ward paced his cell as always, three steps by two steps. He wanted to scream, wanted to tear at his own skin; his skin stained with so much blood and so much filth.
I fucked everything up for them. For Fitz, for Simmons, for Coulson and May… for Skye.
Ward dropped onto his cot, and sat facing the door, staring straight forward, unseeing.
Later, when the guards came to take Ward to the shower, he drove an elbow into one guard's face. In a second, he was on the ground and all three of the guards were kicking him in his newly-healed ribs. One landed a blow to his face, re-opening the old wound Garrett had given him the last time he had returned to his team undercover.
Ward didn't fight back, just curled on the cold stone floor and took the blows.
When they had finished with him, and dragged him back into his cell, bloodied and bruised, Ward resumed his place on his cot, staring forward unseeing.
He spat blood out onto the concrete floor, and then stared at it listlessly. The hope that had sprung up so suddenly with Fitz's visits was disappearing, fading away as if it had never existed.
Ward didn't deserve hope—not when it had cost Fitz so much.
And it was with a sinking feeling Ward realized that the beating had not brought the erasure he sought; he still couldn't distance himself from everything he had done and everything that had happened.
Perhaps, after all, nothing could erase what he had done…
