Enchantedgirl1997 said that I do a good job describing Ward's character, so here it is, a chapter mostly dedicated to him.

Warnings: slightly gory chapter, with mentions of physical and psychological abuse over a teenager, and alcohol use.

(Trip is 19, Lance is 16), Grant is 15, Leo is 13, Jemma is 13, Skye is 11 and Avalyn is 5.

Grant was glad no-one was home. He could spare the questions right now. He groaned with every step he took, hugging his stomach with his left arm, walking, better yet, dragging his heavy body, in an arched posture; his muscles burned, his eyes were vacant. Pain was blinding him and the sight of the staircase made him wish he was dead instead. Nonetheless, Grant managed to, in slow steps, climb up the stairs and collapse on the bathroom floor. He groaned throatily, rolling over, laying face up. Grant felt his body stiffen and his breath was too agonizingly quick for his ribcage to bear.

"I fucking hate you so much," he mumbled, baring his teeth.

He stood lying down on the floor until pain had numbed his muscles. Pushing himself up from the floor by holding to the edge of the washbasin and to the toilet, Grant looked at his face in the mirror. It looked as bad as it felt. His right eye was closed, swollen and red, blood furiously pumping in that area; thick, marron blood made a path from his nose and mouth down to his chin. After stripping off his shirt with much effort, Grant saw his torso covered in bruises that were taking purplish shades. His whole body shook at the sight because he no longer saw himself as a teenager but saw himself as a young boy who had just been beaten up by his father and older brother. Grant looked like life had been sucked out of his body.

The teenager was so fazed, staring at his reflection with fossilized eyes, that he didn't hear the front door opening, the keys jingling or Coulson's distressed voice and quick steps, following the trail of blood that led to the bathroom.

"Grant, look at me," Coulson cupped the boy's face, trying to revive his focus.

Grant's face was pale, felt cold and clammy. He couldn't hold the weight of his body on his own legs anymore and kept on collapsing towards Coulson. The man looped his arm around Grant's torso and lay him down on the floor. Only then he realized that his bruised and battered chest was the last thing he should be focusing on at the moment. The teen cupped his hand around a wound on his lower stomach. Coulson grabbed his hand gently - its knuckles were skinned and his bone fingers presented unusual shapes, indicating dislocation – and a small pond of blood splashed on the tiled floor. Gunshot wound. The man felt heat flooding his body, distress making his heart sorely tighten up, but he kept his cool. Grant was a few minutes away from falling unconscious and he needed to suture the wound.

"Grant," he gently tapped his face, "I need you to stay with me, alright? I'll get that bullet out of you, but you have to stay awake, ok?"

He nodded his head, making the effort to articulate, "'kay."

"I'll get – I -" Coulson got up to his feet and looked around, desperate, "I don't know what I'll get, but I'll find something to remove the bullet. Here," he pulled the towel from the towel rack and balled it up, pressing it on Grant's wound, "keep pressure and stay awake."

Coulson rushed down the stairs, stripping off his jacket, loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves on the way, desperate to gather up improvised instruments to extract the bullet. He had done this before, but not to one of his children. That was something he never even thought he'd be doing, but there was Grant with a bullet lodged on his lower side of the stomach, bleeding and in pain.

He returned to the bathroom with an icepack, whiskey, a needle and thread.

"Drink," Coulson ordered, unscrewing the bottle's cap and handing it to Grant, "big gulps."

While Grant drank and spilled the booze over himself, his father rummaged through the cabinets, trying to find a scalpel, forceps and gauze pads. After finding them, he knelt on the floor and took the bottle from Grant's hand.

"This is gonna burn," he warned just before pouring whiskey over his wound. Grant wheezed and arched his back, but Coulson pushed him down, cleaning the injury. "Don't bite your tongue," he pated the teen's chest while grabbing the icepack, rubbing it around the wound so that the surrounding tissues would numb out. "Tell me how did this happen," he asked, trying to keep Grant awake.

Grant shook his head and gritted his teeth; he was not going to talk about that now. Thinking about Garrett and Brody enraged him and made him breath hard and fast.

"Alright, alright, alright, ok, it's ok," Coulson reassured him, "we don't talk about that now. Just focus on something else and I promise to do this as quick as possible."

He swallowed hard, forcing himself to calm down. Once he prepared his mind for what was going to happen next, Grant nodded at his father, letting him know he was ready. Coulson held the scalpel in a gentle grip, making small incisions on each side of the wound that would allow a greater range of motion. Reaching then for the forceps, Coulson slowly introduced it into his flesh, trying to carefully locate and remove the bullet. Grant didn't even have the strengths to whimper, his moans dying out in his throat.

"I got it," Coulson announced, showing him the bloody piece of metal. "The worst's over. Now, before suturing you up, it's best if we take care of those fingers now. It'll hurt and you'll scream and rip the stitches."

Coulson grabbed Grant's wounded hand and with a few pushes and pulls, the bones cracked but returned to its original position. Grant let himself cry, not being able to cope with the pain anymore. Upon noticing that no organs had been damaged and that there was no internal bleeding, Coulson sutured him up quickly and applied dressings to the wound. After tending to his skinned knuckles, he wrapped Grant's hand in bandages and let him have another big gulp of alcohol. Treating his remaining bruises was easier now that Grant had already been through the big, sharp pains, and applying a cream to relieve the inflammation of his left side of the face was also an easy task.

"Thank you," Grant breathed, letting his eyes lull shut.

"C'mon, let's lie you down in bed," Coulson said, draping Grant's arm around his neck, to help him stand on shaky legs.

After lying him down in bed, the man took a seat next to him, "Let's give it a few hours for you to recover and then I'm getting a SHIELD doctor to come over and take a look at you. They know better." Breathing in and out thoroughly, Coulson asked him, "How did this happen? Who did this to you?"

Grant was drowsy from the pain and the alcohol and only shook his head, "When I feel better, a'right? It's a long story."

Coulson nodded his head, "Alright. When you feel better." He patted his son's leg, telling him, "I'm going to clean up the mess we've made and you try to rest. Anything and you call me, alright?"

"Okay," he mumbled, his eyes batting heavily.

However, as soon as his father exited the bedroom, Grant turned his head to the window sill. When he was a kid, he used it to his advantage to have his soldiers, cars and planes lined up there. It was because of Coulson that he grew found of collectibles as well. And even if now he was a fifteen-year-old and had boxed or given away all of his toys, there was one soldier that was still lined up on the window sill, looking at him. Gary. He was a mere two-inch soldier man, providing a salute. But for Grant, Gary was much more than that. He still remembered the day he got him. Grant was a six-year-old traumatized little boy who had recently been taken away from his abusive family, and he wasn't yet comfortable with this new family. In fact, he didn't pay any attention to Coulson for two months, until the day he decided to ask him to participate in a pretend play with him.

"This is Garrison. You can call him Gary for short, I guess he won't mind," Coulson told the boy, offering a small smile, as he placed the small soldier on the window sill. Gary was now keeping company to fellow army comrades and to military vehicles. "He'll keep you safe."

Grant shifted in bed, tapping the toy's head with his index finger, "Toys can't keep people safe. They're... toys."

The man sighed. He should have known better that Grant would never be a normal child. Coulson didn't have to check under the bed for monsters because the boy knew that monsters weren't product of his imagination; they actually existed and took the form of people. Coulson knew that he'd never be able to make Grant believe that cuddly toys kept children safe while they slept.

"You're right," Coulson was forced to amend his statement. "But I can keep you safe. And every time you look at this little toy, you'll remember my promise," he looked at Grant, rubbing small circles in the back of his hand, "I'll never ever let anyone else harm you. And I'll keep you buying you more and more toy soldiers, so that you understand that I really mean what I'm telling you, so that you can look at all of them and remember my promise."

After Grant disclosed how he had gotten injured and shot, Coulson and May were shocked. The teenager had expressed his desire to join SHIELD, and his adoptive parents didn't deny him such thing. Coulson especially, knowing that Grant wanted to be a "sheepdog" just like him. So, instead of going through normal high school, Grant was already enrolled in the SHIELD's Academy, and had already been assigned a Supervising Officer - Coulson's good old friend John Garrett. The two of them were spending some time together before the actual trainings at the Academy began; it was a sort of SO-rookie bonding time.

The man came to realize that Grant was still suffering from a very light form of PTSD and so he preyed on his weaknesses. Instead of making the teenager get over his issues and grow stronger, he stared to enjoy bullying Grant. When Garrett found out that the thing – in this case, the person – that scared Grant the most, he made him face his fear. Handing him a shotgun, the SHIELD agent drove Grant to the house his father lived after having been released from prison upon being diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer. Garrett told him to take revenge for everything his father made him go through. Grant walked in, fearful, and found Brody in the living room, napping on the armchair. He woke him up, nudging him with the shotgun. The two were mute, staring at each other. Grant felt an urge to throw up as fear froze his entire body.

"If you're going to shoot me, do it at once," Brody mumbled as he got up.

He backed away a few steps, keeping the shotgun aimed at the man, "S-S-Stand back. I'll-I'll shoot you."

"Do it then," his father provoked and got closer until the barrel of the gun was pressed against his chest. "Shoot me."

Grant's hands shook and he began to breathe heavily, "I'll shoot you."

Brody snatched the shotgun from Grant's hands before he could stop him. The teen swallowed hard and continued to walk back. He was startled once he hit the couch and fell on his butt.

Grant didn't exactly remember much after that. He only recalled his father getting closer, grabbing the collar of his T-shirt and forcing him to get back up on his feet. Brody barked some nasty, abusive things and then punched and kicked him, just like it happened when he was healthy and Grant was a helpless little boy. Garrett walked in upon hearing a shot, which was a little bit too late; he found Brody wielding his gun and Grant limp and sprawled on the floor, gasping. He was badly beaten up and with a bullet to the stomach.

Trip requested two days to go home and check on Grant. He wanted to make sure that idiots like Garrett and Brody hadn't destroyed his dream and determination of joining SHIELD. The older boy was pleased to know that Grant's confidence was actually boosted after the incident. He wanted to join the agency even more than before, so that he could protect people from all kinds of dangers.

But, despite Grant's apparent tranquility, Coulson and May were unsettled. But, if May was a lot better concealing what she was feeling, her husband was not. She kept calm and supportive, standing by Grant's bed for the following days, until she was certain he was showing signs of recovery. On the other hand, Coulson couldn't keep his head cool. He trusted his good friend to be Grant's supervising officer, to keep him safe, and instead his son was shot and beaten black and blue because of him. He felt absolutely terrible because he had once promised Grant that he'd never let anyone hurt him, and there he was again, bruised and battered. He had failed his promise… Coulson felt so sick, mad and disappointed that he couldn't think straight, but if there was one thing he knew was that he needed to get answers from Garrett.

(Three days after the incident Coulson received two letters at home; one was from SHIELD suspending him for indefinite time, the other one was from the hospital, notifying him to pay for Garrett's medical bill.)

However, in spite of everything that happened, when September came, Grant's wounds were healed, his things were packed and he was leaving to the Academy.