I know it's been more than a week, but I've been supersick since wednesday and really not in the mood for writing... I'm (mostly) better now, so here it is!

I've got my trusty Beta Eedmund back, and I'll be posting a new chapter every Sunday (my time)

Enjoy!

Grant doesn't really know how to respond to the casually announced request. Like Coulson wants to have a friendly conversation instead of this being an interrogation. But considering the fact that Grant's still chained to his chair, he's got no illusions about this being a regular conversation. He's not nearly exhausted enough to believe that this Coulson just up and decided to hear him out, out of the goodness of his heart. He's sure there's an angle to Coulson's inquiry but he doesn't know what that angle might be. Did they find something, besides physical discrepancies, that piqued their interest? Or is it just that they're stalling for time in order to achieve a goal of some sort. No matter what the reason is though, this is a chance he wasn't expecting to have. After his moth… no, Melinda May's visit earlier, he figured he was done for. She'd looked at him with so much loathing and contempt, he knew there was no way she'd let him get his story out. Apparently, she isn't the big boss around, and Grant can only be thankful for that.

Still, he's not going to make this too easy, that's just not the way he was raised. Besides, he's been deprived of food, water and restful sleep for almost a full day now so he figures he's got a right to ask for something in return. He nods towards the energy bar still resting on his leg, "I tend to talk better when my stomach's not trying to eat itself. So, do you mind?" Coulson looks at him for a moment and just when Grant thinks the man will ignore his request, he picks up the bar and holds it in front of Grant. It's some kind of nutty, gooey concoction, but the moment it hits his stomach, Grant feels somewhat more energized.

"That's… disgusting. But thanks."

The older man drops his chin a little in acknowledgement before pulling a small notebook from his inner pocket. "So, let's get this shindig going, shall we. After all, we've got places to go. Well... I've got places to go, you… probably not so much." Despite the situation he's in, that actually makes Grant's lips twitch. It used to be like this between them. He can remember the times he's been in interrogation with Coulson, before the world came down around them. Granted, they'd been on the same side of the proverbial table. They always had this witty repartee between them that would either relax their questioned, or piss them off royally. And while his mother really had the best interrogation records, Grant and Coulson weren't far behind.

"You know what, you're wrong!" Grant replies, his lips again set in a grim line. Coulson's eyebrows rise in question. "About?" he asks while clicking on his pen. Grant drops his chin a little, "I've got a manicure scheduled right after this."

Coulson's lip twitch is much more pronounced than Grant's was, so he spots it easily and he's again struck by the memories of his honorary uncle. That sarcastic sort of humor, always delivered so levelly and the open-mindedness beneath his stoic exterior is something he hasn't seen in the other Coulson in a long time. It takes Grant back to lazy days by the lake, swimming and fishing, to nights listening to cello music in the garden, to hours of listening about proper classic car maintenance. They are memories Grant doesn't really allow to surface much, because it makes the betrayal afterwards so much worse.

He wonders if it's possible to fake these sentiments so convincingly. Grant prides himself on being a very good judge of character and knowing lies from truths, but he's been fooled before with great catastrophe as a consequence. He needs a strategy, some way of getting information from Coulson, without having to give too much away himself. Considering Coulson was one of SHIELDS top agents it won't be easy, but there's really nothing else he's got right now.

"I'll make you a deal," he says, "I'll give you a story of mine, and you give me one of yours. Equal trade." Grant can see the wheels in Coulson's head turning, a clear sign that the man's weighing risk and reward. It must be worth it in the end, because the older man nods and gestures Grant to go first.

Grant thinks back to his SHIELD training, trying to find a trick that will allow him to get the upper hand in the room, but quickly changes his mind. Coulson's got the same training after all and almost everything Grant knows, he's learned from his mentor. Then he remembers something his father once said, 'the key to getting people to open up to you, is to find something you've got in common and talk about that. It will make the other person feel like he's understood and will create something on which you can form a bond."

"I remember this one time, I think I was about 9 you brought me in a room much like this one. Somebody had broken into your garage and left chocolate handprints all over Lola, and you were determined to make me confess. I think you even threatened to send me to the Fridge. In the end you punished me by banning me from the garage for 6 months. You didn't even bring her when you visited us on the weekend. As far as punishments go, that was a harsh one for me, I think I loved that tiny car as much as you did. I never did bring food in the garage after that. I'm still maintaining innocence, after all these years."

Grant's in Coulson's garage, looking at Lola with wonder. He likes the way the car's chrome parts always shine to perfection, how the red color is bright and how there's not a single spot on the beige seats. He thinks it's the most beautiful car there is. But he's not really allowed near it, especially not when he's alone. But Uncle Phil is busy on the phone and Coop's playing kickball against the wall, so there's nobody around to tell him off for just sitting in it.

He puts the last bit of chocolate in his mouth and brushes his hands on his pants before creeping ever so slowly towards the car. He's learned to be careful in his Uncle's house, the last time he snuck into somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, he got Tasered. But there's nothing around the car, no wires or pressure plates or anything so he's probably safe.

Grant gets in the car, hands on the wheel at 2 and 10 and starts racing. He's very into his game, making 'vroom' and 'eep' noises from time to time. Then he moves his hands, and spots a smear of molten chocolate on the steering wheel. He quickly wipes it off and looks around for more, spotting several dark brown smears on the soft tan seats.

Coop and he are playing kickball together, both faces and hands smeared with chocolate when Uncle Phil comes running from the garage is a fit.

Coulson makes some notes in his little booklet before looking up at Grant again. There's nothing on his face, but his eyes have gotten a little harder. That's not the response Grant expected after talking about Lola. The Coulson he knew would mellow out any time Lola was brought up. But his face is still blank. "Lola's not just a collectable you know. People tend to confuse the words new and improved. I don't let anybody touch her and I detail her myself, always. Somebody," he says with great emphasis, and there's steel in his voice "shot at her. I still haven't found a new original windshield."

Grant's not 100% sure what just happened, but it seems his attempt to connect with this Coulson failed. Miserably. But that doesn't mean this little piece of conversation wasn't informative in some way. For instance, he now knows this Coulson also has a great love for the little classic. He also knows it's currently not in commission and that's a sore spot with the older man. The third thing, probably the most important bit of info he's gotten, is that the likely shooter of Lola is Grant Ward.

Grant's starting to understand why these people all seem to hate this Ward guy so much. He apparently did something bad enough that his entire team hates him, made Skye want to kill him, made Coulson actually kill him and on top of that, he also shot at Lola. Grant's now convinces more than ever it's something personal. After all, it's not like getting the wrong kind of yoghurt for the team fridge is punishable by death, right?

"Look, I'm not sure what it is you're looking for from me here. I don't know if you found something about me and are trying to get me to explain those things, like you did with the scars, or you're just stalling for time. Either way, I don't know why we're doing this, and I'm sure my answers will ever be the ones you're looking for."

Grant shifts in his chair, trying to get into a position to relieve some of his muscles from the strain, when something clicks. He moves his calf against the leg of the chair and when his leg touches the chair, his suspicions are confirmed. When going out on a mission, standard outfit also includes an LDC. Grant's LDC was more than just a communication tool. It contained his whole life, pictures, emails, video's from the life he had before. To make sure their LDC's were not corruptible, Leo created them, programmed them and encoded them.

He can't believe he didn't notice it missing before. He knows he had it when he woke up at the warehouse, because he felt it when he checked for his knife. He didn't use it to call for back-up because that's not SOP. A decent hacker could piggyback on the signal and HQ could be compromised before it was evacuated. When he woke up in this room he forgot the LDC in favor of trying to make sense of this situation. But now he knows it's missing and probably in the hands of these people. This would not concern him much, the thing itself is unhackable. There's only one person besides Grant that's able to unlock it.

"Leo unlocked my LDC."