Summary:
Ward thinks about Coulson's motivations, and about Kara, and Skye, then surrenders to death.
Here there are graphic description of violence, so be warned.
Comments are greatly appreciated: please, let me know what you think!
Chapter:
"How many people?"
And he felt a kick square on his face.
"All the lives you have taken..."
And then a punch knocked him down.
"It's over, Ward."
- Now the man that loves you like a daughter is crushing me like a bug.
All I see is his face, and that look in his eyes…
Oh, I recognize that turmoil! I saw it so many times, watching myself in the mirror.
And I pity him, because I know how it feels like, to want to kill someone driven by nothing more than hatred!
He hates me, so he kills me: as simple as that.
He wants to drain my life with his own hands.
He wants to feel life go out inside of me.
He knows that he will be haunted by this act for the rest of his life, but nevertheless he wants to do this, with all his might.
Hate can be a great motivation.
I hated him in the same way.
I considered him responsible for transforming you in a murderer, Skye.
I considered him responsible for Kara's death: May, his loyal warrior, framed us and I killed Kara by mistake.
…
I always thought May reputed herself unworthy of happiness… now I believe she's right…
…
On the other hand, only now I understand that Kara didn't want closure: she neither wanted Bobbi to apologize to her, nor wanted her tortured. She tried to resist me. She wanted only to rebuild a normal life, with me. I pushed her, out of my own convictions. I dragged her along my own downward spiral.
She deserved better.
She deserved better than me. -
…
- It's strange.
I don't hate Coulson, or May, anymore. Even given the possibility, I would leave them be, without harming them.
It's like the homicide Beast that spurred me continuously during all my life, and especially this last year, is placated. -
…
- I'm starting to think... maybe it is better this way: I deserve all of this.
I have been doomed, condemned from the first minute of my life, when the hands that should have been caring and caressing were instead cold and distant and hurting. When instead of love I received indifference, like I was a piece of furniture.
Oh, I tried so hard to make them love me, to make them notice me, but instead I received violence and beatings and torture… indifference... and abandon.
I loved them, but evidently I was not good enough.
I was not a good fit.
Like you, Skye, thought about yourself.
Have you any idea how deeply I understood you, when you told me about the Broody? About the time you called her "Mum", and then they rejected you? And threw you away? And abandoned you?
I felt so strongly the need to hug you, that time, and warm you with my body, to tear my chest apart and make you enter in it... But the world outside existed and I had to push away all these weaknesses that were starting to compromise my judgment and my detachment…
…
Do you have any idea how hard it was? To be torn between love for a father and love for a family, love for you?
Loyalty won, over everything else, but this doesn't mean it didn't hurt like hell.
…
Coulson loves you like a daughter, and I think he didn't give me a second chance because he knew how I felt about you...
... and how you felt about me…
He knew I wasn't a good fit for you and he felt instinctively repulsion for me.
He knew there's really something very wrong about me… and didn't want me to ruin you.
But, let's be honest: what did he to you during these two years, if not ruining you? He transformed you in a soldier, in an agent, in a killer, in a weapon; he did to you what Garrett did to me… but, in his haughtiness, he thinks he did good, giving in return the family you always wanted.
Coulson was unconsciously worried of the damage I could inflict on you if I was allowed too near... that I could wake up the darkness inside of you.
Because I saw it, that darkness in you, beneath the surface, sneaking around unnoticed by everyone but me.
Any person that grew like we did and survived has it: it's something that helps you resist against everything, it's some dark being living inside of you that doesn't want to be destroyed and so pushes you to fight and fight and fight against anyone and anything menacing your and its survival!
But it's strange: I feel it dying inside of me.
Maybe because I am dying, too?
I don't want to fight anymore. I'm done with war and blood and hate and vengeance.
And yeah, Coulson, go on… crush me like a bug, so I will not reach and ruin her!
People like me must be killed to kill the monster they have inside.
Thank you, Coulson, for freeing me from this burden…
Thank you for freeing me from myself, from my darkness… finally… -
And, when Coulson put on him his artificial hand, he felt a strange vibration crossing his chest, like a shockwave, then something like a heavy pound squeezing him, like an elephant on his chest.
That hand had to be robotic or cybernetic… good work, Fitz!
He instinctively tried to resist it, but in vain. The crushing noise reached his ears while a stabbing pain in his lungs was making breathing almost impossible…
His heart was pierced, too, holed, and a warm sensation spread in his chest, like of hot blood dispersing in it.
He couldn't scream.
He couldn't speak.
He couldn't breath.
His brain became numb, he couldn't think anymore…
He was only feeling that familiar sense of suffocation he felt so many times when his parents or Christian tortured him with drowning, when his lungs filled with water…
Maybe Kara felt the same…
It was different from the other time, when Deathlock stopped his heart: there it happened so suddenly he felt like the time froze, and then all went dark...
Then everything got back to life…
But that time she was present. And she saved him.
Now she is far away, on Earth, fainting on the other side of the portal, like she is feeling what's happening…
Now she cannot save him.
Now… now he feels it's the end.