AN: A massive thank you to all those who have reviewed since last chapter and altogether so far. It is humbling to see people taking an interest in this little story and I hope you will continue to support it. As per usual your opinions, thoughts or critiques are welcomed so I can better myself on a future occasion. Anyways I love hearing your thoughts so feel free to review and leave a comment. As we saw in the last chapter thing s have picked up, well let's ride that wave then and see where it will lead us. On with the story.

Chapter 7

"Come on Fitz, wake up."

He slowly blinked the drowsiness and looked to the right where he saw Jemma standing over him looking concerned and worried. He tried to say something but no words came out. When he tried to outstretch his hand to grasp hers he felt that restrains on his wrists. He was restrained and was unable to move. The med bay bed he was tied to was the one on their plane.

When he looked back at her, he saw the hurt and sadness and he just couldn't remember why.

"How could you do this Fitz? We trusted you. I trusted you."

In the next moment Skye came in followed by Coulson and May.

"Yeah, he is a traitor, nothing but a pawn of HYDRA. A man without morals or conscience."

He struggled with the strains wanting to explain that he didn't want to but was a fool that followed at first until he realized what HYDRA was. The disappointment on their faces just paralyzed him and he just laid there as they called him all kinds of horrible things. That was until he heard the door open and a hand with a gun that shot everyone in the room as they could only watch with the same hurt the person who was pulling the trigger.

He tried to see who it was and in the next moment he saw it was Ward, the same detached look on his face. The one of a calculated killer. He looked over their bodies and then back at him before pointing the gun at him.

"Yes nothing but HYDRA's puppet."

He squeezed the trigger and just before the pain came he heard him say.

"It was your choice Fitz."

In the next moment he woke up.

He was on a bed, but one that wasn't as familiar to him as the one in his dream. The moment he looked up he realized he was in a rather confined space. But soon the room made sense to him. It was the interrogation room that they moved the table and put the bed on the far side. His hand was handcuffed to the bed post.

He tried to recall what happened and in the next minute or so of brain wrecking he could only gather that after he sabotaged the HYDRA operation and tried to mend some damage Ward came and probably knocked him out. He wondered why Ward also wasn't locked up but maybe they held him somewhere else.

The noise from the other side of the door diverted his attention and soon Coulson walked in and an unknown man followed. He also looked like a senior agent of sort. Coulson sat on the chair and the other agent leaned on the two way mirror.

"I found a rather curious notation from my agents telling me that we have a breach in Shield systems and low and behold you pop out. I got to admit I didn't think that you were ever capable of being anything more than a slightly awkward individual, but I guess appearances can be deceiving."

He figured they got the intel and there was no reason to hide it and before he could make some lame excuse it was better to keep his mouth shut. He knew there would be consequences but he was also curious as to where Ward ended up.

"Where's Ward?"

Coulson looked at him carefully, searching for what Fitz didn't know. He should probably be scared to find out. Soon the other agent jumped in.

"Phil, let's just lock him up. He won't say much as a HYDRA operative, he was obviously caught red handed and no amount of evidence can treat him differently than a traitor."

The familiar way in which he spoke with Coulson left him in unease but he didn't let it show. Coulson also looked unimpressed and then focused his attention back to him.

"So you mind telling me what is on the encrypted folder. We still haven't been able to crack it."

The confusion settled in. What encrypted folder, there was nothing of sort. He had left everything wide open.

"You have probably tried to mask your movement but ran out of time to do so. It is impressive what you managed to do in the short amount of time."

He was so confused that he just didn't understand what was going on. He felt a headache coming on, but before he could try to understand what was going on Coulson spoke.

"As I doubt you will tell me anything of value I will leave you to expert interrogators. I have full confidence we will know everything by tomorrow. I have more urgent matter to attend to."

He just drew a blank about it all. Shouldn't they know everything by now? Coulson stood up and left the room, but the other agent stood there. After a moment of staring he leaned on the mirror and pulled a small device from his jacket and pressed a button. He knew that whatever bad he felt he had experienced this will be ten times worse.

"It looks like you've been trying to hide from us. Gathering intelligence from Shield is a rather impressive feat and I am impressed, but how stupid do you think we are that you can go opening and closing back doors without us knowing."

The man had a rather menacing demeanor in his happy go lucky way of speaking and he just knew a monster was hiding underneath that façade. This was a rather bad place he was in.

"Now you listen to me boy, jeopardizing the integrity of this noble mission we are on is a very stupid move. I am two seconds from pummeling your head into the wall until your brain splatters all over the place."

He took a couple of more steps before he landed a hard punch to his face splitting Fitz's lip in the process.

"You deserved that at least."

Soon another one followed and he felt his neck stringing under the force of the punch.

"Also that was very much deserved. You must wait for my comrade to come and serve you with some punishment I don't want to deal all of it myself."

He cleaned his hand on the bed and looked over the hunched Fitz. The hurt and confusion were immense. He really couldn't tell what was going on and as he gathered his surroundings someone else came inside.

He looked up through the haze and saw Ward standing there.

What was going on?

-oo-

It was still surreal. No matter how many times Fitz had blinked trying to clear the fog from his head, he couldn't make Ward disappear. He really was there and he was talking to the other agent.

"I believe you also want to deal some damage. After all he was your friend Ward. What did I tell you about friends?" the other man was saying.

Ward only looked as impassive and emotionless as ever.

"Never trust them, sir."

The man laughed in response.

"Well I can't blame you. You are still young, plenty to learn. But you should've followed my rules. No attachments, ever."

Ward nodded in response and went to stand before Fitz.

"You caused us a great problem, but maybe it worked out better than I thought. Lift the suspicion of our attack."

Soon things began to clear. It seems like Ward set him up. How, he didn't know and it looked like he was the villain in this story.

"Luckily I managed to encrypt the folder with HYDRA personnel and it is slowly deleting everything from it."

Loud and clear the words rang in his head, but still he couldn't believe it.

"How?"

It was all he managed to push across as his jaw was stinging from the severe punishment from earlier.

"I knocked you out and claimed you were the one who was trying to break into the Shield's system and I ended up catching you before you tried to wipe your tracks. Served me well and good now they are wondering about you as I said that everything you say will just be an elaborate lie. You are on your own Fitz."

The disbelief was clear on his face and he just couldn't grasp the reality. Ward had betrayed him, even after all of this he would never out him. Because it was his decision to get out. Now, it looked like Ward was throwing him to the wolves and it hurt. Ward only glanced at the man next to him.

"Let's leave him here. He's done Garrett."

The man shrugged and mock saluted Ward and left with a wink and a smile. The snakes were out to play. Ward followed him out, but left him with parting words.

"Enjoy the rest of your life Fitz."

With that the door firmly closed and he was left to silence.

-oo-