AN: Hey all, it's been a slow couple of days for me, but I am still going! I'm basically posting at the rate that I write though, so if I finish more chapters quickly, then I'll post them faster too! You know how to motivate me ;) Anyways, without further ado, here's Chapter 5, Bonding.

To say that Ward was disgruntled at being kicked out of the training room would be putting it gently. Still, he understood that May (kind of) had a point, so he took Skye's advice and went to try and re-make friends with the rest of the team. He figured he'd try Fitz and Simmons first, since he'd been closer with them than he had been with Coulson. But, of course, they were in the lab, where he was not allowed to go. He knocked on the door and Simmons came over for a moment, but she and Fitz were 'in the middle of an important experiment' and were 'really sorry they couldn't come chat at the moment'.

That left Coulson then. He climbed the spiral staircase and went up to the head honcho's office. The door was closed, but Coulson quickly let him in when he tapped lightly on the door.

"Ward. What can I do for you?" Phil asked politely.

"I was hoping you'd be willing to show me some of your collectables" Grant replied. "I know we didn't really bond much before, but I want to change that. And you've got some pretty cool stuff here, so I thought that would make a decent jumping point, sir."

"It is pretty cool" Coulson admitted in his sheepish way. "Have you ever heard of a Grap-n-Go 005?"

"Can't say I have, sir. What is it, a grappling hook?"

"Oh it's more than that!" Coulson exclaimed as he pulled the relic down from its shelf. "This baby could not only fire a grappling hook over 400 meters, but the hook could also be released remotely! So say you shot this puppy into the grating on the fourteenth floor window, and had to climb in the twelfth floor. Well, as soon as you were in the window you just push this little button and the hook shuts and retracts, leaving no sign that you were ever there! Unfortunately it got discontinued in 1984, because there were a couple incidents where the hook accidentally deactivated too soon. Agents were hurt, enemies got away, bad things happened…

"Oh, but this! This is the original laser lipstick. It was invented for Peggy Carter herself! They say she had one in over 20 shades, I guess that's why this one was never missed. Look how genius it is! I mean, today's tech that's hidden inside a lipstick container is almost always just the tech, the agent wouldn't be able to use the lip colour at all. But this model was actually able to be used! Which is good, because if someone searched the female agent's purse, they might notice if her lipstick didn't match the lipstick on her lips. But with this it actually would match! They say that these babies got Agent Carter out of more than a few tough situations!"

Coulson went on for about an hour, showcasing each of his old gadgets. Ward had gone into the situation expecting to have to force himself to stay awake, but actually found it very fascinating. A lot of the gadgets had been pulled for good reason, but the stories behind them were often hilarious. And some of the other tech he couldn't believe had been discontinued. There were a lot of very useful gadgets on Coulson's shelves, but many of them were just obsolete due to newer inventions. It was kind of sad, in a way.

After they had made their way around the room, and Ward had seen almost all the old tech, Coulson offered Grant a cup of coffee. The younger agent accepted, and they sat together with their java.

"Ward, I have to ask" Coulson began tentatively, "Was there anything I could have done?"

Ward knew right away what he was talking about. "I really don't think so, sir. It's not like I was a member of this team and then turned HYDRA, I was a member of HYDRA who happened to join this team. Honestly, I'd say that you did do everything you could have done. Turning my back on you guys was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and the way you treated me, treated all of us, was a big factor in making it so hard. I mean, I almost backed out a couple times, but Garrett's hold was just a bit stronger than yours. Not from a lack of effort on your part, of course, but because Garrett had that much longer to get a good grip.

"You were the best leader I've ever had, sir. I'd follow you into any mission, no matter what the cost, because I know that you'd be in it with me. You're not the type to send in others to do your dirty work. I respect that, sir. So, was there anything you could have done?" Ward shook his head. "Nothing more than what you did without even trying."

"Thank you, Grant" Phil whispered silently. "I've been asking myself that question for weeks, been beating myself up over it. I think you just gave me the peace I needed."

"Glad to help, sir." Ward stood up. "But if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go see if FitzSimmons have finished their experiment yet. Thank you very much for the tour, and the coffee."

"Any time, Ward. Truly, any time. My door is always open."

"Thank you, sir." Ward shook Coulson's hand briefly, then went out into the lounge.

It turned out that he had good timing. Jemma and Leo were just coming up the stairs as Ward entered the lounge.

"Hey, how'd the experiment go?" Ward asked cheerily.

"Dandy." Fitz replied briskly, before whispering something to Simmons and walking into his bunk. The door closed with a loud click, as he hadn't been overtly gentle in closing it.

Ward looked to Simmons. "Dandy?" he asked.

"Well, I suppose that's one word for it. We've been having some issues with a new prototype neurotoxin we've been developing, and so we were running some tests. We discovered that the molecular balance was off, so we were trying to correct it. We've almost got it figure out, but we're both burnt out. We're going to get back to it tomorrow, I think. But Fitz's description was accurate enough… Figuring out the problem is nearly half the solution, right?"

"Sounds accurate" Ward replied. "What's the nanotoxin do?"

"Neurotoxin. And it's sort of a variant of the icer technology. We're trying to create a strand of it that will incapacitate the body, but keep the mind active and alert, and allow the affected party the ability to communicate. Unfortunately it's proving difficult. We've got it to the point where the body is paralyzed while maintaining an unaffected cerebrum and cerebellum, but allowing speech is more challenging because we have to find a way to force the neurotoxin to leave the muscles that allow speech alone."

"Any way to make it target the spinal cord only? I mean, if you're trying to hit all the muscle groups, then you'll have a hard time leaving a couple specific ones alone. But what if you just cut off the system telling the muscles what to do? They'd lose all control of their major motor skills, but speech doesn't require any electrical impulses to pass through the spinal column so it shouldn't be affected, right?"

Jemma gasped. "Ward, that's genius! I can't believe we didn't think of that! I have to go tell Fitz!"

"Guess those anatomy courses I took as electives in college came in handy after all."

"The most certainly did!" Simmons called as she rushed off.

Smiling, Ward plopped down on the couch in the lounge and turned on the TV.

AN: So yeah! Hope you liked it. If you did, review! If you didn't, review to tell me why not! I'm really excited to share the next few chapters with you guys soon, I think you'll really like the next few chapters! I'll hopefully post chapter 6 within the next couple days. See you soon! 3