Hey, looks like I'm getting good at this updating stuff :)
Some Answers
"Hey AC, can I talk to you for a moment?" Skye asked as Coulson walked past after his meeting with Triplett. The team's new specialist hadn't been able to shed much light on the Ward situation, although Coulson knew more about the missions Garret carried out that were probably related to Hydra. Some things Garrett had asked Triplett to do were against his moral code and Garrett's favourite reply had been 'Ward would've done it', which worried the Howling Commando's grandson a bit.
"Yeah sure," he replied.
"Well, I wasn't helping Simmons like I was meant to, but I was searching around on the internet and dug up some records that someone in SHIELD tried to dispose of a while ago and guess who John Garret broke out of juvie sixteen years ago?"
"Ward." Coulson replied gravely.
"Dead on, Grant Ward, born January 7th 1983, arrested for burning down his parent's house with his older brother still inside, blah blah, did you know he did that?" she asked curiously, flicking absentmindedly down through the file.
"Yeah, SHIELD did, it was there when I read his file, it said that he'd spent five years in military school though, after the judge cleared him of all charges,"
"You really think he spent all that time at a military school?" Skye questioned incredulously.
"Not a chance," Coulson replied. "I think this is the evidence we needed to prove our theories though, Ward must have developed that bond with Buddy during that time, and he couldn't have been doing that at military school, so, what was Garrett doing with the two of them at the time?...Skye, I need you to dig up as much as possible on John Garret, aliases, plane tickets,credit card bills, what he bought from the store, I want to know everything,"
She nodded. "Trust me, I want to get to the bottom of this just as must as you do, I want to find out what that bastard did to Ward, I'll get back to you as soon as I can,"
A.O.S
"Hi," Triplett began, strolling into Ward's new room. Ward jumped, and blinked rapidly, like he had been asleep, which, Trip guessed,he probably had,no one on the bus slept regular hours and it was likely his sleep pattern had got messed up during his time in captivity with Hydra. Ward pushed himself away from Buddy, who he had been snuggling against, his shirt crumpling slightly as he stood up, revealing part of an injury to his shoulder.
"Hey are you okay?" Triplett asked. "I could get a med kit if you want,"
"Why?" Ward asked, confused.
"For your shoulder," Trip pointed out, as if it should be obvious.
"This," he shrugged. "This is nothing, I can barely even notice the pain,"
"Okay," he stated. "It's fine to pretend on missions, when tending to injuries isn't as important as the lives of others, but that cut is deep and barely healed, it looks infected too,"
"I'm not pretending," Ward disagreed. "I can deal with way more than this,"
"Oh yeah, what is something more than this?"
Ward, fed up with what he assumed was Triplett's fake concern, lifted up his t-shirt. "Bigger than this," he clarified.
"What the hell did Hydra do to you," he exclaimed in horror. "How are you even walking?"
"What?"
"I'm getting the med-pack no arguments," Trip told him, opening the door again.
"Uh, Simmons hates me," Ward pointed out. "She won't help me, not after what I did,"
"I have medical expertise too, you know," he told him. "And you're wrong about Simmons, I think she would help you,"
A.O.S
"So, what counts as 'way more than this," Triplett asked conversationally, whilst placing gauze over a cut on Ward's back.
"Mission injuries," Ward shrugged, 'and my family' remained unspoken. "We do have a dangerous line of work you know, and I can do this myself, Buddy stop licking me, that won't help,"
"You always do stuff like this by yourself?"
"Yeah," Ward replied. "Unless it's anything life threatening, then, don't worry, I will go to the hospital, Simmons was the only one who ever helped me,"
"Not even Garrett?" Trip said in bewilderment.
"Did he ever help you?" Ward pointed out.
"Well no, but I figured you guys were closer,"
Ward shook his head. "Getting injured was my fault, so I fixed it, like I said to Skye, I don't concern other people with my failures,"
"What?" Trip exclaimed and Ward grimaced internally, sometimes he forgot what was socially acceptable and what wasn't.
Just then Skye burst into the room, marched across to Ward and waved a tablet in his face. "What did Garrett do to you in the woods?" she practically yelled.
"What?" Ward's face paled.
"Plane tickets, petrol bills, all place you in the vicinity of the area of woods we found Buddy in earlier," she explained
"Has it ever occurred to you that there could just have been a Hydra base in that vicinity?"
"Were you in a Hydra base in those woods?" When Ward didn't answer she elaborated. "He bought a dog from Greg's pet shop five days before he broke you out of prison when you were fifteen, took you somewhere, then turned up back at SHIELD the next day, claiming that he just needed a bit of a holiday,"
"I was at military school," Ward said, although the lie seemed futile now.
"Did that military school happen to include training at the Hydra base, did he drop you off and hand you over to them, did the people who were torturing you train you once? You were brainwashed weren't you," she finished quietly.
"I didn't even know about Hydra when I was fifteen!"
"Then what happened Ward?" Skye pleaded. "John's dead, why can't you tell me?"
"We know most of the truth anyway," Trip reasoned. "Why can't you just explain everything, if we knew the truth, it would be so much better for everyone,"
"He abandoned me in the woods for five years," Ward said quickly, his hands clutching Buddy's fur tightly.
"What, completely on your own?"
"Except for Buddy," Skye put in.
"Well, he visited me occasionally," Ward said, as if that made it alright.
"Skye I need to tall to you outside," Triplett said.
"Yeah," Skye agreed, looking a little dazed.
When they had left Ward slumped back against the wall and put his head in his hands. Dead people's wishes were meant to be respected weren't they? He had said exactly what Garrett had made very clear he never wanted anyone finding out about, he was a horrible person, he knew that much, after betraying his father figure so completely, what good person could ever do that? He owed it to Garrett to be loyal to him after all he had done for him, why couldn't he do something so simple, why did he let himself listen to the team, to care about them, to fool himself into believing that they cared about him? Buddy nuzzled his head against Ward's palm and licked it soothingly. "What have I done Buddy?" he asked, his voice breaking.
A.O.S
They walked halfway through the lounge area and then Trip turned to Skye with a serious expression.
"Well I can certainly see why he was loyal to Garrett if he was the only one that Ward spoke to apart from Buddy for five years,"
"He's probably got some form of Stockholm Syndrome," he agreed, both of them wishing that they had realised this sooner.
"How could he have survived on his own for that long though," Skye mused, thinking she unfortunately already knew the answer.
"He probably had to kill animals," Trip said logically.
"Which explains why he's desensitised to killing people" she added.
"I told you he was brainwashed," Fitz said happily, walking quickly across the room to join the other two, Simmons hot on his heels. "We were listening in on your conversation," he explained. "We basically have the feed up all the time in the lab,"
"It still doesn't mean we should trust him," Jemma interjected. "For all we know that could have been some cleverly crafted lie, he's done it before after all,"
"I don't think he's lying," Fitz argued and Skye nodded.
"He could have killed you, but he didn't," Skye said quietly.
"So you're finally on my side then?" Fitz questioned.
"I guess," she smiled. "I wasn't trying to look for the cause before, I was just mad at him, and I regret that now,"
"You should be mad at him," May said emotionlessly, making her way down from Coulson's office and towards the cockpit. "You're being too hopeful, he's not redeemable, he'll betray you all again,"
"You three go talk to Coulson," Fitz offered, ignoring May. "I'll go see if Ward's okay, he looked awful through the security cameras, "
Triplett and Skye nodded but Simmons protested. "What if he attacks you?"
"Then I'll shoot him with my ICER," Fitz lied, walking towards the cell, he didn't have an ICER and as far as he was aware, didn't need one where Ward was concerned.
Fitz unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Are you alright?" he inquired, sitting down next to Ward slowly. "I was watching when you told Skye and Triplett about the woods and you didn't look too good afterwards." Ward gave no reply so Fitz continued. "The others are in a meeting with Coulson now by the way,"
He was still met with silence.
"Ward, please speak to me," Fitz begged. "Look, I'm sorry me and Simmons watched your conversation, but we wanted to know what actually happened, not the abridged version with important details cut out!"
"I'm not going to talk to you Fitz," Ward spoke quietly.
"Well, tough, because you're going to have to," Fitz smiled confidently. "Why?"
Ward sighed but explained anyway. "I completely failed Garrett, that was a thing that I was never meant to tell anyone, ever. What if I open my mouth and say something stupid again, I am meant to follow his orders, especially now he's dead, you're meant to respect the wishes of the dead Fitz!"
"No, you're not," Fitz said firmly. "Because dead people aren't alive and you are, it's your job to live your life how you want it to be, and you especially shouldn't be lamenting on the fact that you aren't doing everything he told you to, he was a bad person Ward, he left you alone in that forest, remember? Besides, you followed all your orders to the best of your ability, right?"
"No, I didn't," Ward moaned. "I could have been so much better, I could have been someone that he was actually proud of. And he didn't leave me alone in the woods, I was with Buddy and I could have left any time I wanted to,"
"So, why did you stay then, Ward!" Fitz exclaimed, looking at the man like he was crazy.
"To prove that I wasn't weak, to prove that I could take care of myself, I don't blame others for my problems Fitz. He helped me, he saved me, why can't you see that!"
"You blamed the team for making you weak," he pointed out.
"No," Ward corrected. "I blame myself for letting you guys make me weak, which you're still doing by the way, do you mind leaving?"
"Everything's weakness with you isn't it," Fitz ignored what Ward had just said. "Is that what he said when he told you to kill us, asked if we were a weakness?"
Ward looked in confusion at the scientist, who, it seemed, was remarkably perceptive, and nodded slowly.
Fitz rolled his eyes and groaned. "Someday you'll see who he truly was," he stated and stood back up. "Ward, you must be hungry, what do you and Buddy say to a prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich with a hint of homemade pesto aioli,"
"Okay," Ward agreed, smiling. "As long as you don't put any truth serum in it,"
"I thought you said that didn't exist?" Fitz raised his eyebrows.
A.O.S
The door flew open and May entered.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked. "Spinning the others some crap to get us to trust you again?"
"I was telling the truth," Ward said, standing up and meeting her gaze.
"We both know you weren't," she shot back.
Ward searched his mind for anything he could say to appease her, he knew if he did have to fight her again, he would not win…again.
"May," Ward said slowly, not realising how truthful the words actually were until after he'd said them. "Garrett is dead, the only people I have left now are all of you and I am not going to throw that away,"
"You were berating yourself about not following his orders ten minutes ago after everyone else had left, you've even admitted it, you feel guilty about betraying him; how can we trust someone who still misses someone from Hydra?"
"Is this the same treatment you gave Fitz," Ward demanded, knowing that out of all of the team, Fitz had been the most reluctant to admit that they had been betrayed. "What about Sk-" his words cut off as May punched him in the jaw.
"I don't know why you're still here, as you said, Garrett's dead, there's no getting him back Ward, but I want you gone,"
"Coulson's not going to just let me go," Ward pointed out.
"He couldn't get any information out of you, you know, I think he feels sorry for you, but thing is Ward, I don't," she threatened, slamming him into the desk before he had time to defend himself, he wasn't sure if he would have done anyway, fighting May wouldn't have got him back into the team's good books. Ignoring the crunching sound and Ward's barely concealed yell of pain, she turned to the incredibly furious Buddy, who barked and leaped towards her in order to sink his teeth into her arm, and knocked the dog out, if it was true that he really was Asgardian, he would be fine.
May turned to Ward, who was looking at Buddy in horror, but at the same time gasping for air, collapsed on the floor and clutching his chest in agony. She frowned, wondering what Ward was trying to pull before he started frantically coughing up blood. If May was the type to show her emotions she would have looked shocked and slightly guilty for what she had done, but instead she gritted her teeth in frustration and pressed her com. "Coulson," she explained calmly. "Ward has a punctured lung and is in an extremely critical condition. Send Trip and Simmons, now,"
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