Chapter Thirteen: A Matter of Mentorship


After the amusement over Skye's impression died down, Simmons tried to reason with Zach again.

"Will you just let me take a look?" Simmons asked. This time Zach nodded. Simmons smiled relieved before easily switching into doctor mode. "Good, now sit down. You shouldn't be putting weight on that ankle to begin with."

Zach's lips twitched, but he sat down wordlessly. Without being asked, he rolled up his pant leg and took off his shoe to expose his injured ankle. Simmons knelt down beside him to take a look. Before she finished positioning herself though, Zach reached down and pulled out one of the guns he took from AIM and placed it in his lap.

"Are you serious right now?" Skye demanded.

He ignored her of course. Skye thought it must be exhausting to be that paranoid all the time. He just nearly got himself killed saving Simmons, but did not trust her not to attack him while he was wounded. Did he honestly think that this could be an elaborate ruse to lower his guard and kill him or was this just so second nature to him at this point that it did not matter? Skye realized he might not trust anyone at all. That thought made her chest ache for reasons she did not want to think about.

Simmons gently felt around his swollen ankle. "It's definitely sprained. You should avoid walking on it for at least a week and treat it with ice, compression, and elevation." He raised his eyebrows at that advice. Skye was sure he would not be taking it. "Your wrist and fingers should receive the same care, but of course you're probably going ignore that, too. Now, let me see your shoulder," Simmons demanded bossily.

Zach became more hesitant. He stared down Simmons, but she met his gaze fearlessly. Slowly Zach grabbed the bottom of his shirt before inching it upwards. Skye saw the cause for his cautiousness, the shirt was plastered to his body from his blood and sweat. A small squelching sound resonated with every inch of skin that was revealed. About halfway off, he paused.

Skye could not read his expression but his jaw clenched in a way that indicated he was in pain. The awkward angle the process forced his arm into jarred his shoulder injury. Skye read the determination to power through it on his face and rolled her eyes. He was stupidly stubborn.

She knelt by him and nudged his hands out of the way. He allowed her without comment but looked at her strangely. Skye met his eyes and mindful of his wounds, dragged the clothing up no faster than he had been. The only time their charged eye contact broke was when the shirt obscured her view of his face.

Skye sat back with his shirt clutched in her hands resting on her lap. She found herself unable to break his gaze. Skye swallowed convulsively and saw his eyes darken. But then he blinked slowly and ruined it. He turned to Simmons, whose previous odd looks had nothing on the incredulous gawking she sported now.

Skye had no idea what she was going to tell her when Simmons inevitably confronted her. Skye did not even know what was wrong with her.

Luckily, Simmons' focus was on Zach's wounds. She darted around to scrutinize Zach's injured shoulder. "You have a piece of shrapnel wedged into the infraspinatus muscle. It doesn't appear to have hit bone, which is fortunate."

Skye's eyes drifted downwards to Zach's exposed chest. The blood kind of killed the effect, but he was clearly in possession of a very nice chest. Skye could see the outline of his abs, which were thankfully untouched by the blood marring his back and pecs.

"Less fortunate is the fact that the metal could easily have hit either the suprascapular or the circumflex scapular arteries," Simmons continued. Skye tried to pay attention, but all she really understood was that Zach may have hit an artery and Skye knew was always bad. "If that's the case, attempting to treat it here without the proper bandages or equipment would be foolish. Removing the metal could result in you bleeding out."

"Great," Zach said blandly. He was already reaching for his shirt. Skye started forward to help him put in on but then realized how weird that would be. Helping someone dress or undress was an intimate act, and she did not want a repeat of earlier while Simmons was there. So Skye just watched as he painstakingly covered himself again.

Before the shirt fully settled on him, Skye caught a glimpse of a couple flash drives and some papers tucked into his pants. Skye should have been surprised that he managed to free fall forty thousand feet with the intel secured, but she was beginning to feel like nothing would shock her when it came to her mystery man anymore. She thought about saying something about it, but she did not want to spook him.

Now fully clothed, Zach narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the surrounding forest. Suddenly, he let out a breathless laugh.

"What's so funny?" Fitz asked.

"It looks like we're in Wyoming," Zach said, which did nothing to answer Fitz's question.

Skye threw him a look. "You got all that from a couple of trees?"

Zach's amusement only grew at that for some reason. He shook his head but did not explain.

Simmons dusted off her pants and stood, leaving only Skye and Zach on the ground. "If that's the case, then at least it should not be too difficult to contact headquarters and arrange for transport."

Zach stiffened next to her. "You have fun calling in the Boy Scouts, I'm getting myself out of here." He lifted himself to his feet in a graceful movement that belied his injuries.

"You're not going to leave now, are you?" Fitz asked confused.

Zach leveled him with an incredulous stare. "I'm not going to wait around for you to call reinforcements to take me."

"You're hurt-" Fitz began.

"If you think this will slow me down if you try something, you're wrong," Zach responded coldly. He backed up to increase the distance between them. "I could kill all three of you easily."

Fitz looked wounded, whether it was from the threat to his life or the assumption that he would try to take advantage of a vulnerable Zach, Skye was not sure.

Skye's heart plummeted at the dramatic change in mood, but she was unsurprised. Everything was always one step forward, two steps back with this guy. At least no one had drawn a weapon yet.

"Calm down, Tin Man," Skye began trying to defuse the tension. "Let's just get out of here. You need some help to walk on that ankle, I can lend a shoulder."

"I don't need anyone's help. Stop pretending to care," he snarled, more furious than Skye had ever seen him.

He backed up even more before turning around and sprinting away in a way that Skye knew was bad for his ankle. Skye watched him disappear while trying to find her voice.

"Wait!" Skye finally called as she moved to follow, but a hand on her wrist stopped her in her tracks. Skye looked down at Simmons' fingers. "What are you doing? Let go."

Simmons shook her head. "No, Skye. He's right."

"What? You can't possibly think that we shouldn't help him. He just saved your life!"

"He did," Simmons conceded, but her voice had taken on the no nonsense tone she used when she was about to lecture Skye on something she found painfully obvious. "But that still doesn't change the facts. Given what we know about his skills and his loyalties, it'd be nothing short of a betrayal to aid him."

"You don't believe that, Jemma," Fitz said when Skye could not find the words to reply herself. "He saved all of us."

"It's not about what I believe," Simmons said, "He's a Hydra agent who clearly poses a threat to SHIELD. We can't just go gallivanting with him across the countryside and bring him back to base to be treated. We compromised our own loyalties by not attempting to capture or kill him. He retrieved valuable intel for Hydra right in front of us, and we allowed him to do so."

Skye did not know what to say. Nothing Simmons was pointing out was new to her. She had tortured herself over this knowledge countless times. If Simmons considered just letting him leave treason, what would she think if she knew about Skye's other encounters with the mysterious Hydra agent?

"He nearly died saving your life, and you're talking about how we should have killed him while he was wounded?" Fitz said incredulously.

"Fitz, be reasonable about this. He was the one to cause the explosion back at Futurepharm, right after he secured a dangerous alien weapon for Hydra. We witnessed him killing several other people." Simmons hesitated, breaking the flow of her rational reprimand. Skye was almost afraid to hear what she had to say. "In all likelihood, he is responsible for the deaths of multiple SHIELD agents, even ones we may have known personally."

"You don't know that," Fitz exclaimed. "Maybe he's actually responsible for saving multiple agents' lives, like he did with us. He was the one who stopped my torture when we were kidnapped."

"Yes, after he abducted us in the first place," Simmons spoke logically. "I don't know anything conclusive but assuming otherwise is foolish," Simmons said wearily. She did not seem to like what she was saying any more than Fitz did. "He works for Hydra, how many people have we lost since they attacked?"

When Fitz opened his mouth in another attempt to argue, Skye placed her hand on his shoulder to stop him. She did not want to hear anymore. Simmons' calm logic echoed her fears about Zach- just as Fitz's passionate defense reflected her secret hopes. "Fitz, just let it go. He's gone anyway, it doesn't matter anymore."

Fitz stared at her skeptically. "That's interesting coming from you. You never did tell us how you knew him."

"Actually, I told you that I don't really know him and that's the truth." Or a version of it at least. "What Simmons thinks is probably right anyway."

Simmons frowned. "If you really didn't know him, why did you save him back at Futurepharm?"

"That was a mistake," Skye insisted, and it was but only because it let her friends see that she instinctually protected an enemy.

"Yes, but an impulse like that originates from some sort of history," Simmons said. "You recognized him."

Skye sighed. She did not want to lie to Fitzsimmons, it would just make her feel worse about harboring these conflicting feelings towards a Hydra agent. Simmons' accusations of betrayal resonated in her head.

"Okay, I have met him, but I really don't know him at all. I don't even know his name," Skye told them. "I ran into him on a solo mission in Spain a couple months ago. We formed a short truce to avoid police detection. That's it," Skye lied evenly. Her heart rate never rose as she misled her closest friends. Why was she so afraid to tell them the truth?

"Well, I suppose it's fortunate that your temporary alliance extended to Futurepharm, otherwise we might have died," Simmons said, believing her completely. It only made Skye feel worse.

Desperate to change the subject, Skye spoke quickly, "Can we now get back to the real issue here, like getting back to base before Coulson freaks out any more than he probably has been?"

With that, Skye was able to get them trekking across the forest so clumsily that she had no doubt that she was not the only who had never been a camper as a kid.


As it turned out, they were in Wyoming. Go figure. If Skye ever saw Zach again, she was going to have to ask how he knew that.

Skye and Fitzsimmons walked miles before finally reaching a gas station where they could borrow a phone. They did not have any money, but apparently the store owner found them pathetic looking enough to let them call anyway. The sob story about their fake car crash probably helped, too. They certainly looked like they had some kind of accident.

Before she made the call, Skye paused. She wanted to get her story straight with the others first. "I think we should leave the parts with Zach out."

"We can't do that!" Simmons exclaimed, horrified at the suggestion of lying to the head of SHIELD.

"No, Simmons, I mean it. If we tell Coulson, he'll want to check it out. That may cause problems for Zach. What if his superiors find out he helped us? It's not worth involving anyone else with this. It's better to just put it in the past." Too bad Skye had been unsuccessfully trying to do that since Seville.

"Skye's right, Simmons," Fitz agreed. "We don't even know anything to report. It won't help SHIELD if we tell them."

Simmons appeared torn but ultimately nodded in resignation. Skye was pretty sure it was because despite her logic telling her otherwise, Simmons felt a debt towards the mystery man, too.

"We've been gone at least a day," Simmons said suddenly as if just now realizing this fact. "Oh no, they must think we died in the explosion."

Skye had not considered that, but it made sense. "You're right. I'll just call now." She paused before turning to Simmons again. "Leave the talking to me, okay?"

"I'm getting better at lying," Simmons insisted, but Skye just turned her focus to the phone. She would believe that when she saw it.

Skye dialed Coulson's cell phone number from memory while Fitzsimmons hovered behind her. Luckily, they would have some privacy as the owner was dealing with some customers.

It rang twice before he picked up, but he did not say anything. Coulson was too cautious for that.

"A.C.?" Skye said excitedly. She had not called him that since he became the director, but Skye was so happy to just to be talking to him again.

"Skye," Coulson breathed a sigh of relief. "We thought that you had died. Are Fitzsimmons okay?"

"Yeah, they're right beside me. We're all fine," Skye reassured. "It's actually a funny story."

"We got kidnapped by AIM and then jumped out of a plane," Fitz yelled into the phone from over her shoulder.

"Sounds hilarious," Coulson said dryly. "We've tracked the call and have your location. I'll arrange for May to come and get you within the next two hours."

"Thanks, Coulson. I can't wait to get out of here," Skye said.

"We'll talk more when you're not using an unsecured line," Coulson told her all business. He paused. "I'm glad you're all safe." Then he hung up.


Grant hated feeling like he was running away, but he supposed that was what he was doing.

When Simmons and Fitz began talking about contacting SHIELD, Grant knew he had lingered too long. Maybe Skye and the others would not try to trap him, but Ward could not expect such treatment from the Cavalry, Trip or anyone else from SHIELD.

Part of Grant thought that maybe Skye and the scientists were going to try to take him back to base. It would not be the first time someone pretended to care before turning on him. That was not the reason he took off though.

Grant could not stand another moment with the SHIELD agents. It was too easy being around them, too easy working with them. They were not allies, and Grant almost forgot that for a moment.

It flooded Ward with guilt and shame. He was acting pathetic, running around playing SHIELD again. Worse, he was allowing an attraction to distract him from his purpose. John would be so disappointed. Grant was letting him down. What if he had died trying to save Simmons? Garrett was counting on him, and Grant almost abandoned him for the life of a SHIELD agent.

Grant arrived back at HQ as quickly as he could. He had still been missing for nearly twenty-two hours. When he strode through the hallways to reach the briefing room where he knew John would be, people stopped and stared. Grant guessed word had already gotten around about his disappearance. It did not matter, they always followed him with their eyes anyway.

"Ward," someone called with far more relief than he expected to hear from anyone. Grant would have kept walking anyway, intent as he was to get to John, but he recognized the voice. Turning around, he faced Kara.

She looked like a mess. He was the one who had been blown up and kidnapped, and yet Kara was wide-eyed, pale and shaking.

"What happened?" Grant demanded, fearing the worst. Was it John? His health was so volatile. What if he had an attack while Ward was distracted and weak? Grant grimaced and berated himself again.

Kara did not answer his question. "You were MIA for so long, I shouldn't have left you there."

"You didn't leave me, I told you to go," Grant replied slowly, not following but content that there had been no threat to John in his absence. "Whitehall wanted the Chitauri gun immediately."

Kara shook her head. "Dr. Whitehall was so disappointed. I failed him." Ward finally recognized why she looked so different to him. Grant had been on many missions with her, but she had never shown fear on any of them. Right now though, she was terrified.

Grant glanced around quickly. They were attracting attention, and he did not want that. "Come on," he said as he placed a guiding hand on the small of her back. He should be going straight to John, but he could not bring himself to leave her like this. He still did not know what had rattled her so much, too.

He pulled her into his room and shut the door. Since the eyes were still on him, he knew that people were probably going to talk. Grant was not bothered. If the others wanted to think he was sleeping with Kara, it did not affect him.

After the door closed behind him, Ward leaned against it and gave his attention to the woman in front of him. "Now," he said, "Explain."

Kara hastened to speak, talking about Whitehall more often than not and how John and he had argued after Grant's disappearance. When he failed to show up to the rendezvous spot, Kara had reported back to HQ. After hours of no contact on what should have been a simple mission for two skilled agents like Kara and himself, everyone just assumed that something had gone wrong and he was captured, if not dead. Garrett became irritated that Whitehall had sent him on the mission that he deemed useless, and both Hydra leaders were furious that Kara left him. No one wanted to lose an asset such as himself apparently.

"It was all my fault- I failed- I failed Dr. Whitehall and-" The words that tumbled out of her mouth were disjointed, but Grant understood perfectly. In a sudden moment of clarity, everything made sense, and he felt like an idiot for not realizing it earlier.

"Kara, stop," he said. "I'll tell them it was my fault."

She looked at him equal parts hopeful and appreciative, but Grant just felt sickened.

He had always assumed that she was brainwashed, it made sense given what he knew, yet he never fully considered what that meant. Grant was aware that many Hydra members were brainwashed and coerced into service. It was a fact that he accepted long ago. He was not loyal to Hydra, his work for Hydra never placed him in a position where he needed to brainwash or use trigger phrases on victims, so Grant had thought it had nothing to do with him. He never gave it a second thought. Bakshi, Whitehall, that was their area and not his. If they wanted to abduct assets and convert them to Team Hydra, it did not concern him. People were taken advantage of every day all over the world. Watching the panic and dread painting Kara's expression made Grant wonder how he never thought about any of it before.

He found himself awkwardly wanting to comfort her but unable to do so. She would not calm down as long as Whitehall was disappointed with her, and the only thing that would likely make her would be if someone used one of those "take a deep breath" phrases on her. Grant thought he should probably try it just to alleviate her worry, but it felt wrong to. So he just did not do anything.

"I'm going to report back to Garrett and Whitehall," he said instead. He did not invite her to join him. Maybe it was cowardly, but Grant did not want to personally witness the effect of her supposed failure. If Whitehall remained dissatisfied with her even after his debrief, Grant did not want to see how she would react. After a moment of hesitation, he added, "Feel free to stay here. I'll tell you what happens afterwards."

She nodded gratefully and sat down on his bed. Grant left her there and walked straight to the briefing room.

He acted confident in front of her, but it was mostly for show. This was not a report he was looking forward to. He probably could appease Whitehall with what he stole from AIM, which in turn would go better for Kara, but John would never buy it. Any story Grant tried to sell was doomed to fail if John were listening.

It was not a matter of lying well. After weeks of mistakes and distractions, John had been watching him closely. If this were a standalone screw up, Garrett might be convinced that it was nothing. As it were, John had been waiting to see if Grant was fully committed. He was, but he also knew that John was unlikely to believe him.

Part of him wanted to just blame the whole thing on Kara. Her relieved face from when he told her he would talk to Whitehall flashed in his mind, and Grant found he could not. Besides, it was his mess anyway. He was the one who acted so stupidly, not her.

His hands, shoulder, and ankle throbbed with every step, reminding him of his weakness. Still, he entered the room without ever showing any indications of his pain. Both men looked up from the middle of their argument when he opened the door. He probably should have knocked, but he did not care to.

Whitehall leaned back in his chair. "Agent Ward, you've returned to us. We thought you might be dead."

"Not dead," Grant deadpanned. It was not Whitehall's reaction that he was concerned with. He slid his eyes over to face John directly.

"Good to have you back, kid," Garrett grinned. It sent shivers down Grant's spine. He knew that smile, it was the smile that claimed he brought tacos and then turned around and pointed a gun at him. "Seems you got lost along the way though."

Grant focused on ignoring his own unease. "Minor inconvenience."

"What kind of inconvenience was that?" Whitehall asked, taking Grant's attention away from John's narrow-eyed scrutiny.

"SHIELD arrived before I could clear the safe radius of the blast," Grant told them. It was true, but let them think it was the Cavalry and ten specialists rather than a rookie and two scientists. "It was lucky that Kara had already secured the package, otherwise they would have gotten their hands on it." That was just a lie. Kara and he would have no problem dispatching Skye, Fitz, and Simmons in a fight.

Whitehall hummed as if considering his words. "Still you were supposed to collaborate, and she left you."

"I told her to," Grant said bluntly. Whitehall raised his eyebrows, it seemed that Kara did not tell them this in her report. "The priority was the package, and the configuration of the explosives was taking longer than anticipated. I was concerned with AIM reinforcements arriving before I finished. It was tactical," Ward finished succinctly and confidently.

"How good of you to place Hydra's needs above your own," Whitehall spoke. Grant could not tell what he was implying, but he knew Whitehall's words had more meaning than they appeared to. The man in question looked towards John before returning to face Ward, and Grant understood.

John for his part never missed a beat. He gave a charismatic smirk and chimed in, "Hail Hydra."

Grant decided to ignore the tension and just continue. "The SHIELD agents held me back long enough that I got caught in the blast on my way out. AIM reinforcements arrived and took me while I was knocked out." Grant paused to give a cocky smirk of his own, "They had no idea what they were getting into. Once I woke up, I made quick work of the operatives and escaped, but not before making sure it was not a complete waste of time."

Grant pulled out the flash drives and the rest of the intel. "It seems AIM has been busy since Killian's death. They have a stash of Adamantium that they have been hoarding, the location of which is on this flash drive and the base holding it's blueprints are here," he pointed to one of the pieces of paper he just placed on the table. "We can relieve them of it easily."

Whitehall perked up just like Ward knew he would. Adamantium was damn expensive and extremely useful. It was a big prize, even John looked interested now. Grant had gotten lucky when he found that out.

"The flash drive even has the formula for how to create it," Ward added casually. Hydra had not managed to find a metallurgist who knew the composition, but now they could train one to be able to make the element. Grant pretended to be unaware of how monumental this was, "The drives also contain weapon schematics and details on other alien tech."

"Well done, Agent Ward," Whitehall complimented. "Perhaps it was fortunate that SHIELD intervened for once."

"If Kara hadn't listened to me and left, we wouldn't have the intel or the Chitauri gun," Grant found himself saying.

Whitehall gave him a close-lipped smile that could mean anything, but Grant thought it was amusement. "Yes, a fine job by both of you."

"Yeah, nice work, son." John slapped him on the back good-naturedly. Grant flinched before he could stop himself. While John had not directly hit his shoulder wound, it still sent pulse waves of pain to the area. "Looks like the intel wasn't all you got."

"I'm fine," Grant told him robotically. He hesitated before conceding, "There's some shrapnel from the explosion still embedded in my back."

"I'll take you to medical," Garrett said without missing a beat- or waiting for Whitehall to say whether the meeting was done. John guided him out with his hands on Ward's shoulders. That jarred his wound again, but Grant knew better than to complain. No need to make John any angrier than he already was.


Writing brainwashed characters? Not easy. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I changed my mind on where I wanted to go with it multiple times. I had hoped to get it up last night in time for what I knew to be another Ward-less episode, but writer's block got in the way. For anyone who was hoping for a Skye/Simmons talk, it got pushed back to next chapter.

Thanks for everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed! You guys are the best!