The briefing with Coulson had been not been especially informative, serving only to confirm what Ward had already told May. Phil did not seem very sure of his decision, acting irritated, looking tired and worn and trying not-quite-successfully to hide all these facts. He had not been sleeping well ever since they established the HQ on the Playground, but it only got worse recently. The Fridge had looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off inside - some kind of a bomb had, for sure - and the images that were starting to pour in from the recovery teams were not particularly informative on the types of projects Hydra had been working on here. One particular set of photos had gotten Phil's attention, though. Lines and triangles and circles, all scattered on a wide white surface in a loose imitation of an electric circuit. It was the same pattern that had been engraved on a Plexiglas door of the Bus, the same one Ward had photographed in the remote Byelorussian town doing the mission thought for one Amador, Akela.
Coulson had only taken one look at the photographs presented on the screen of the war room before absconding with them in the direction of his own office, where he proceeded to obsess over them some more as far as May could tell.
"Level 9 stuff?" Skye had joked upon seeing the closed off look on the Director's face while deleting the images off the main server and elevating the security clearance on the entire operation. "Wow, AC, relax, it looks mostly like Fitz's drunken scribbles, and all of us have actually seen this stuff before."
"The security has been very relaxed around here in the last weeks," had been the tense reply. "And going lax is something we cannot afford. The threat of Hydra is out there, growing stronger every day. The security levels were one of the basic pillars of information management of SHIELD, they shouldn't be neglected. This isn't a joking matter, Skye!"
"OK, OK."
Skye had smiled and made the joking gestures of surrender, but May could tell she was a little put off and a lot worried by the outburst. She was not alone in disliking the obvious symptoms of fatigue Phil was exhibiting. Half of Coulson's mind was still on the cipher even now, from what May could tell. She had suggested that Ward would maybe know something about the writings found on the Bus, and Phil had sighed tiredly.
"I already asked. Apparently Garrett wrote them not an hour after being injected with the serum. To hear Ward tell the story, he went completely mad almost instantly."
"It makes sense."
"No it does not! Garrett was a bloodthirsty maniac long before the serum. He was not made crazy by the cure, he died being exactly the same manipulative bastard he had always been. He came up with some outlandish speech about seeing the Universe near the end, but you know what? He was the guy who excelled at roping others into doing his bidding and making it look like it was their idea all along. He could have just invented it to throw myself and Fury off. I would not put it past him. After we found the serum and it became clear the Skye would live, when he was all set to take Quinn to the Fridge, he asked me if I would have thrown the bastard off the plane had she died, like I had promised. It made me think for a second. I tried to picture myself doing it. I thought about the answer, and it was a very uncomfortable one. And then, as I was about to say something I would probably regret, I realized something. I had actually never promised to throw Quinn off the Bus if Skye died. Garrett had. And he had the gall to turn it around and make it sound like my idea, make me almost agree with it. Just for the experiment's sake. Just to mess with me."
She could see where this was leading. It was not that hard to determine.
"He was a monster before the serum, and he became a worse one after it. It won't happen to you, Phil. It matters who we are."
"Does it?"
"It does."
All fight seemed to go out of Coulson after that. Gone was the formidable SHIELD director, the man who could lecture about good and evil for hours and sound so sure of himself. He looked worn and threadbare, the last remains of old convictions unraveling and threatening to leave a void behind.
"I did not see it, and I have known him for decades. Fury did not see it, and he had trained John. How was Ward supposed to, if he was just a teen? And worse yet, how am I supposed to risk Jemma's safety, and Skye's happiness, and Fitz' recovery to right a wrong that is so old and so ingrained, there is no way back from it?"
"He is not going to hurt the team. Trust me on this."
"He already has."
"Then leave it to Fitzsimmons and to Skye think about. They have more to say about Ward than you and I have. It's a principle for us, but for them, it's personal. And do not forget that this is war. They have to grow up if they want to be part of it. What did Simmons say to you about the kill switch?"
"That she'll have it ready by tomorrow morning."
"Then she's made up her mind about it, don't you think? And you have made it extensively clear that he is not to interact with them. It will be fine. And Phil? You can be his handler, I will not oppose you in that, but you have to promise me you aren't going to send him on a suicide mission without..."
"Who do you think I am, May?"
"SHIELD's Director. Someone who will not hesitate to put one enemy life on the line if one ally or one innocent could be saved. But you misunderstand me. You can give him as many suicide missions as you want, and as many no-extraction conditions as you want, as long as you do it to his face. Do not lie to him. Do not become a second John Garrett to him."
He did not nod immediately, and May was grateful for it. Because by the time he did, she knew that she had come through to him, that Phil understood. Caring for the SHIELD wellbeing was his job, but caring for his own soul? There were times May was more worried about him than about Skye or Fitzsimmons, to be honest. She had learned her lesson about hurt and hate with Ward, or she liked to think she had. Now Phil wanted to treat that minefield all by himself, appointing himself as vindictive protector of people who might not need all that much protection.
The failsafe turned out to be a round thin device that could have passed for a pacemaker, had its function not been exactly the opposite one. Everybody was reunited in the laboratory in a dark parody of all the times Ward had been hurt on a mission and the team assembled to watch Simmons patch him up. This time there were no commentaries, no questions. Skye´s lips were a thin line, her arms crossed defensively at her chest. Koenig had come by, looked on for a second and was off before May could make a read on him. Coulson had slid inside soundlessly and was now perched on the furthest table he could find, looking for all purposes like the menacing Director he was supposed to be. Simmons was the only one who was behaving like she usually did, going from place to place, gesticulating and talking animatedly in science-speak. Now that Fitz wasn´t there, she was still doing it, though the talking was mostly to herself. At times, she was even talking to her lab equipment. What she did not do was talk to Ward or glance in his direction. May had wondered. Now she had her answer.
Ward was sitting on the examination table, eyes down, hands curled loosely at his sides. For once he didn't act wary or closed off. Indifferent was the word, like he didn't know half the people gathered in the room. May and Coulson, he acknowledged briefly. Skye, Simmons and Koenig, he did not. May had seen the "compartmentalization" he was capable of firsthand, but this was a whole next level of creepy and unhealthy. He was able to tune out entire chunks of space by the looks of it, obeying Coulson's orders to keep away from the team the best of his - sadly impressive - ability. It was a display right out of a nightmare, the complete stillness of his body and the forced absence of any kind of emotion in his eyes.
When Simmons curtly told him to take off his shirt, it became visible that his elbows and forearms were covered in small cuts that testified to a time recently spent crawling, which still did not explain anything regarding the takeover of the Fridge. He had not put one foot outside of his bunk all day after his conversation with May, obviously waiting for the summons to the lab room, and May had not deemed it necessary to seek him out for now.
"I will implant this subcutaneously, the cut will go right over the left nipple so it will not be visible unless someone knows where to look. The wound should close in about five days. You should refrain from intense physical activity until then." Simmons had finally stopped fluttering around and stopped right in from of Ward. The deep breath she took before addressing him escaped no one. "Any attempt at tampering with the device can result in it discharging. Whoever holds the switch will have the power to send you into cardiac arrest, which is lethal in under a minute time. Do you understand?"
Coulson held up his hand, showing the little black box he had between his fingers. Ward looked up before nodding curtly.
"Any failure to report on established times during a mission will result in my activation of it", said Coulson. "You will be confined to this base between missions. You may use the common floors, but I recommend you limit your presence there to the strictly necessary occasions. Go AWOL and I will not spare one second wondering why, or how." Skye moved a little where she stood, obviously uncomfortable with what she was hearing, but Coulson went on after sparing her only half a look. "Any violent behavior toward a member of this team, in fact, any funny moves or words or glances at all, will result in my activation of it. You have killed family members of people who work here. If I think you are gearing up to anything similar again, I will not ask. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir," Ward answered hastily, his eagerness morphing into hesitation at the silence that followed his words. "Thank you, sir," he added a little more uncertainly after fleeting look in May's direction.
"Do you agree to it?" Ward had already agreed, and May was sure that Phil was repeating the words purely for Skye´s benefit. Her sick pallor and her unprecedented silence during the entire scene were becoming difficult to ignore. "You will be transferred to a military prison otherwise. I said I would write a report on everything you've done to collaborate with the ongoing Hydra investigation, and I mean it."
"You are supposed to answer the question". Curiously, it was Simmons who broke the silence this time. She put the surgical tools on a tablet and forcefully pushed the tablet at Ward. The anti-pacemaker was a dull mated color, two cables sticking out of it. Ward looked a little up, eyeing the tray, then fleetingly at Coulson and the remote he was holding in his hand."This is a prototype. This thing can kill you if it malfunctions. You cannot ever go through a security gate, or near a magnetic resonance. A direct hit in your chest area can dislodge it, resulting in electrocution. And there is probably a heap of other disclaimers I should make, but I cannot think of any right now. I am a scientist, not an executioner, if that even interests anyone at all. I will not proceed if you don´t tell me in your own words that you agree with it."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Burst out Skye. "Is nobody going to say it? This is Hydra technology. And you guys know that. I mean, I wore that stupid dog tag for several months, but the only thing it did was prevent me from using electronics. There was no kill on misbehaving kind of deal. Because if there had been? I would have hightailed out of SHIELD at the first opportunity. You don't make people change sides based on sticks, every once in a while you've gotta give them carrots. And really, what happened to the review boards and trials and independent judges who, you know, don't have sick teammates to avenge? Because this is not..."
"Skye, now is not the time." Coulson started with impatience in his voice. "This is for your safety as well."
"Why don't you let me decide on my own safety? This is torture, guys, plain and simple. This is exactly like the Spy Eye."
"It is not negotiable! If he wants to stay and try to make things right..."
"I want to," interrupted Ward. "Please. I am grateful at the opportunity. I will do whatever I have to stay."
He was eerily good at avoiding looking at anybody though all of it, always excepting Coulson and May herself. Even Simmons, who was fluttering right in front of him, was part of the void zone where nothing registered. He did look fleetingly at May for reassurance after saying that. She nodded, though she was not sure if the sentiment was real or something he thought they wanted to hear from him. She very much doubted he had learned to process things like opportunities overnight, nor did she expect him to suddenly believe in having his opinion counted in. What he could do was lie with the best of them, and he had obviously grasped the fact that doing it would settle the matter in a way that would please most people gathered there.
He was definitely able to feel remorse, though. He had even expressed it to Coulson once when pushed into it.
"Everything will be fine if you behave," May assured him tiredly.
Ward nodded and lied down wordlessly. Simmons signed while sparing one last tentative glance at Skye and proceeded to break open a vial of local anesthesia and staring at Ward's heart monitor for a moment. His heartbeat was regular and very slow, to be expected from a young healthy male used to intense physical activity. May was uncomfortably stuck by the memory of exactly the opposite moment; her hand on his chest pinning him down while he resisted, his heart jumping so fast she could not tell one heartbeat from the next.
"OK, I am going to put it in now. You may notice some arrhythmia, which is normal and not dangerous in the laboratory setting. We have a defibrillator here, we can jump start you at any time. Which will not be the case afterwards. If you feel anything similar in the future... Well..." Simmons trailed off, having talked herself into a corner. "Stop whatever you are doing and lie down immediately, I guess."
The entire procedure took all of five minutes. There was no misstep in Ward's heartbeat, not during installation and not as he sat up again, moving his shoulder to test the range of motion around the freshly stitched up cut.
"Thank you," he said quietly to Simmons, but his gaze was again on Coulson and the little device he was holding in his hand. "Shall I test it for you, sir?"
Coulson's face was an illustration of the popular saying about having to lie in the bed one made for himself. Skye looked positively livid at this point, but it was Simmons who left out an actual outraged squeak.
"What? No!"
"You said yourself it would be safe here. And it's a simple tap out, you let go when you can´t hold on anymore. I've done it dozens of times in resistance training. Ask May, she'll have done it too." May had not. She was not a black op specialist, and her resistance training did not include counter interrogation techniques. Or maybe it had only become a thing at SHIELD after she had moved to desk duty. "This is for my benefit as well. I need to know what it feels like, so it can't take me by surprise if it accidentally malfunctions."
"You know what it feels like," seethed Skye before turning to Phil. "He knows. Mike hit him with one of those, remember?"
In the end, it was Phil's call, and he made it by walking the two steps that separated him from Ward and putting the switch into his palm. Ward nodded, let himself sink back to the table, took a deep breath. There was not much more forewarning than that. No sound, no light, just a fist closing up and two or three seconds of nothing happening. Then his body convulsed once. His head rolled to the side, and the switch clattered to the floor, having fallen from lax fingers in the midst of the deepest silence there ever has been heard on the Bus. The flat line of the heart monitor wavered on the main screen as Simmons chewed on her lip and wriggled her hands nervously. Apparently though, as soon as the switch stopped being activated it proceeded to reset itself. The beeping on the monitor came back and immediately sped up just as Ward could be heard taking a harsh breath. His right hand crept up to press against his ribcage and the device, until he caught himself and stilled the movement.
"Four seconds until loss of conscience, eight until successful restart," announced Simmons. "Remember when you would tell everyone how you were dead for eight seconds, Agent Coulson? This is actually the same thing. Isn't it weird?"
Ward had sat up again by then, cringing as much as he thought he could get away with - which wasn't much at all. He then proceeded to slowly bend down to retrieve the switch that had clattered away under the table. His movements were sluggish and he was using the table for support, which resulted in the surgical tray clattering loudly when he leaned too much onto it. There was a muttered sorry, after which he turned to Phil to give him the switch.
"Can I go now?"
"Yes, sure, go" said Simmons even though the question was not directed at her. "Remember to come by tomorrow to take a look at your stitches. And put some disinfectant on the cuts on your arms. You know where I keep it."
Ward nodded, putting on his shirt and following through with the instructions before leaving the lab as wordlessly as he had come. There was a lanyard for him, dangling from his neck loosely. Nobody made any comment about him having to wear it, or making sure to never take it off, but May imagined it was implicit in Phil's instructions. Maybe he had threatened to terminate Ward if he ever took it off. He had given a lot of thought to the setup and the safety of the younger agents, even if it looked like said agents were more put off than grateful at the measures at hand. Coulson was now fidgeting with the switch, twirling it in his hands uncomfortably before putting the thing inside its little box and then inside his jacket pocket.
Skye looked like she wanted to go after Ward for a minute, but ended up staying to help Simmons put back the surgical equipment. Together they disposed of the bloodied bandages and the needles, all the while carefully avoiding looking at Phil or May or even at each other. The lab atmosphere was once again heavy with unsaid words, until the verbose tendency got the better out of Simmons.
"Well, all done here. Mission accomplished, I guess, device running and ready. It was the spookiest thing I have ever done, I have to say" she said with a little tremulous laugh. "But on the bright side, Fitz is going to be so very happy when I tell him."
May could never get a definitive read on Simmons. The girl was as transparent as she was strange, and as obedient in her daily life as unbending and passionate about all things science. She was the one member of the team May could most easily imagine being resentful and afraid of Ward, both before the reveal (Science and Ops had that eternal rivalry going on, with the brainy people proving themselves truly vicious on more than one occasion by overcompensating their perceived helplessness in the field). After everything Ward had done, May would have expected Simmons to be truly vengeful. The girl definitively had it in her, if only for Fitz' sake. Still, thinking that Fitz would be happy with the actual setup seemed like a strange sentiment.
"What?" Simmons continued, probably having noticed the strange look Skye was giving her as well. "Of course he will be happy, he was the one who called it after all and you know how much he loves being in the right. He said something must have happened between Garrett and Ward, and, well, it is very much the obvious conclusion by now."
"What do you mean, something happened?" asked Skye.
"Oh, really? Just look at how he holds himself. No sane person would react so little to being literally rigged to die at the whim of another. His survival instinct if off, his affection is completely flat, he seems to have no initiative whatsoever. All he's doing right now is following the contextual clues from people around him. I am a biochemist, even if I did five semesters of medicine after I decided I wanted to go into the field. I only have the basest understanding of human psychology, but he has all the obvious symptoms of either an acute shock or a severe grief reaction."
"He's been taken prisoner by people who he's double-crossed. He's afraid of the consequences…"
"He is not afraid. Fear unlocks fight or flight instincts, it does not paralyze people. Much less people who are trained to be literal killing machines. He is lost without Garrett. Literally lost. Unable to function. Which is both difficult to even imagine, coming from a fully grown man who can kill with his left pinky, and completely undeniable. And it begs the very uncomfortable question of what could have happened to him to have destroyed him so thoroughly, and how the hell nobody ever noticed something was up."
"We noticed," peeped in Skye gloomily. "We just thought it was funny and made jokes about him being a robot. Doesn't seem so funny anymore, knowing he killed seven people because we were never the ones he was loyal to."
"We could not have known," soothed May. ¨He was too good at pretending. Best espionage marks since Romanoff".
"Well, he is shit at pretending now."
"He has a catastrophic case of Stockholm syndrome. All he had ever known is gone. If you left him alone now he´d probably just sit there staring at the walls, starving himself out of depression and negligence."
"Gemma… You have to calm down."
"I'm not defending him, mind you." She was hugging herself, angrily monologing in front of three stunned people. "I have nightmares about that plane almost every night. I dream about falling, and about swimming up and losing my grip on Fitz. I am the last person who would want to excuse Ward. In fact, I am more afraid of him now than I ever was before. You know why? Because as long as I could keep imagining his essence being evil, I could deal with it. I could reflect on that evil and know that while it could touch my body, it could not touch my soul. That I was good, I was different, I was another species altogether from the man who saved me from one fall and then tried to kill me through another. We spent two hours freezing in the ocean before rescue came, did you know that? I don´t even remember most of it. But I know that he had his arms around me the entire time, and he asked me a hundred questions about the antiserum even though it did not understand any of it. And after I did the autopsy on Eric Koenig, I told myself not to think about it anymore, that some people are just evil, and that everything until that day had simply been a lie."
She rubbed her nose and looked up. "But that's not how it was, was it? Because he wasn't born evil. And that thought is what scares me the most when I look at him now. That he didn't hold me in the ocean for hours just because he had to keep up his act. That something happened to him, something took hold of him, strangled him, mangled him to the point of no recognition and made him into that other guy. I do not know what it was. The truth is, I don't want to know. I don't want to think about it, or hear about it, or see him, or be near him, but not because I hate him. It's because… he hurts me. I want him gone, so that I never have to remember that evil isn't this static thing that only happens to others. That nobody is safe from it, that it can possess any soul if the circumstances are dire enough. Maybe mine, if Fitz had died. Maybe Skye's, if she had let Ward die in front of her. And I realize that it´s a callous and cold thing to say. Just look at me, giving you all a lecture in morals. I should be the first one to give him a second chance, should I not? Logically, as a scientist. But I cannot help it. I cannot do it. I just want him gone. I just want…" She started crying in an ugly, hiccupping and desolate way, while everyone just stared at her in awe. The little fiery Jemma Simmons. Always a surprise to her. May did not even know what to say. It was a relief when Phil crossed the distance and hugged the girl, pulling her tightly toward himself.
"You aren't callous, Jemma. You are kind, and thoughtful, and brave. You're perfect, and we are very lucky to have you."
She cried a little more. She, who had not cried waiting for the Asgardian virus to blow her brain apart. Skye was quick to substitute Coulson's stunted effort at comfort with a true girl-hug. She was good at it, May thought. It was time to give them some time alone.
"I am sorry. I really am. I'm normally not the one for useless emotions. It's... I don't even know what it is," she heard Jemma hiccupping quietly as she made her way out of the laboratory. "Everything is wrong. Every single thing – Fitz and you and me and Ward - and I should be the one able to fix it. You don´t know this stuff, Skye, and Coulson and May do not know it either. If they tried to fix it, they would probably only make it worse. I should be the one. But I have no clue how to make it better."
"Maybe it´s easier than you think. You know, I have no medical degrees to back this up, but I guess that if evil is a spreading thing, then goodness must be too. Maybe being good it the only thing you ever need. Just… being good together. It sounds so corny, I know." May could hear Skye laughing self deprecatingly. She stopped to listen to her. "I really thought I would feel so much better hating. It works for May so I thought… you know. I really gave it a try. But it just doesn't work for me. I don't feel strong, or sure of myself. I just feel miserable. So. Maybe we should give the opposite strategy a try. On a purely theoretical level. For science, no other reasons and no expectations at all. And you don't have to deal with Ward, nobody expects you to. I will singlehandedly beat him up if he ever so much as looks funny at you."
Jemma let out a shaky laugh.
"As long as you don´t tell Coulson about it. I really don't want that kill switch to ever have to work."
"Yeah. I really wish AC hadn't done it. Because, that thing you said about something happening and good people becoming evil? He would be a good example, if we ever came to that."
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I have been getting some comments asking for Simmons and Skye thoughts in all this, and since that was a very legit concern I tried to specifically address it here. My take on Jemma´s POV in particular is far from what I have seen speculated elsewhere, and I would like to hear everybody´s thoughts on it. Another question I have been getting is whether there will be Skyeward. Short answer is, both Skye and Ward are not in the right place for interaction right now. But! There will be acknowledging of their bond and there will be working through issues. Which I personally tend to call Skyeward as well, so there.