Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I don't own what you recognize. I do 'own' the story.

Thanks to Riley Holden/Colormeblue for beta-reading

Ledger Dripping Red

By Alkeni

Chapter 7: Being Unmade

Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse

October 5th, 2014

So wait. They're not together? Ward blinked, utterly surprised. He hadn't seen Barton and Natasha interacting that often, admittedly – he was on other assignments during their year and a half working together – but what little he'd seen hadn't countered the rumors that had run rampant around the agency about them. It really wasn't his business, so he hadn't paid much attention to those rumors, but he'd believed them, nonetheless. It seemed to fit with what he knew.

Well, turns out not so much. It happened, Ward supposed.

"Well, sorry to cost you the ten bucks." He didn't need to ask them why neither of them had disabused the agency at large of the notion that they were together. At the end of the day, it wasn't anyone else's business.

"I for one, am not sorry," Barton replied, folding the ten dollars and slipping them into his pocket. He smirked, "Has she gotten you for the 'eye-candy' comment yet?"

Ward managed to keep from wincing just at the reminder of the beatdown she'd given him. It wasn't that he didn't probably deserve it, and it wasn't like he hadn't fought back – it was a sparring match, not him standing there and taking it – but still. Natasha outclassed him, especially in hand to hand. When he'd fought with May, it had been much more evenly matched – gun to his hand, pressed against the wall, Ward would admit that May was probably better than him in hand to hand, but it had been a close-run thing that could have gone either way.

By contrast... any fight between himself and Natasha... yeah, close-run was never the right word. He could make a good showing, but...

After what I've done, a little excessive pain is worth it. Ward had kept going for more rounds, giving the best he could, but taking the hits he got, which he deserved. He wouldn't stand and let May hit him again – she'd gotten her hits in already. But the rest...

He'd take anything they saw fit to give him. And he'd stand there. After what he did to all of them – even Coulson – he deserved it. He should still be in that vault. But he was out now, and...

Maybe I really can take this chance. He didn't deserve this chance, but as Natasha had said, he was getting it anyway...

"Yes." Ward said in answer to Barton's question. "Still a little sore from it." He forced his thoughts back to the now. The more he lingered on what he'd done, what he deserved... "Though she could have done worse." Ward watched Barton smirk a little, the archer looking over at Natasha.

"Don't make it sound like I just beat you up. We sparred." Natasha replied. She looked over to Barton, "I could demonstrate on you, if you want?"

To Ward's great lack of surprise, Barton held up a hand, shaking his head, "I've sparred enough with you to know I'm not interested in going for another round right now." Now that he knew, and could see them interacting, Ward could see that they weren't together. It wasn't obvious, but their interaction was of friends, not lovers. Serves me right for believing rumors. But the closeness was there. They were close – the two had been through fire and hell together. And they've only grown closer because of it.

Ward had gone through fire and hell, but he'd done it alone. And he'd lost the team. He'd lost...

I lost Skye.

"I suppose you and I will probably see a lot of each other over the next while." Barton told him. "Actually, I wanted to have a word with you before I moved on to this 'Playground' of Coulson's." He nodded his head sideways towards the door to the outside. "Can I?"

Ward's first instinct was to say no. He didn't want to have a word with Barton. That word was probably going to be on the same subjects he didn't want to talk about with Natasha, and he knew her much better than he knew Barton. She's going to keep at it until I tell her whatever she wants to know.

That might be true, he admitted to himself, but he trusted Natasha Romanoff in a way he didn't trust Clint Barton – he trusted that 'Hawkeye' was a good person, an honest person, but that wasn't the same thing as the way he trusted Natasha. Or the trust he'd earned from his team while under-cover. He'd earned a lot of trust from Skye, and squandered it-

Ward closed his eyes, forcing the thought down, desperate to avoid thinking about her right now, about what he did, and opened them again.

He didn't want to talk to the man, but... Ward looked over to Natasha, wondering what she thought of the idea. Her expression didn't help – she didn't physically shrug, but she didn't need to. She was leaving the choice up to him.

Of course she is.

But Ward was stuck here, and the only people he was likely to be able to interact with for a long while were Natasha and Barton. After so long in that Vault with only Coulson's rants for company, bar Skye's one visit, even he was starved for social interaction, just a little.

"Alright." Ward nodded. "Fine." He got up and followed Barton out of the house, joining him outside. Nestled as they were in the mountains, there wasn't much in the way of vegetation. Romanoff's quinjet was parked some distance away, as well a second one that Ward could only assume had been Barton's ride.

Leaning against the house, one the left side of the door, was a high-tech bow, and a quiver. Barton scooped them both up, slinging the quiver across his back. "You ever try the bow, Agent Ward?"

Ward shook his head. "No. And I'm not an agent anymore. Just Grant Ward." Even if there was a real agency to be an agent of, he couldn't count as an agent.

"It's not an easy weapon to master." Barton commented, handing Ward the bow, who accepted it carefully. Despite its size, it was surprisingly light, but the advanced materials that went into its construction made it very sturdy. "In England, there were laws restricting what members of a sort of 'archer class' could do, so they wouldn't risk damaging their arm muscles or developing them the wrong way, drawing the longbow was so hard. Took years."

"It takes years to really master the use of a gun." Ward pointed out. Which was true...

"True. But not to the same degree." Barton took the bow back from Ward. "Of course, bows are lot easier to use these days than when they were made from wood and sinew." He slung the weapon across his back, alongside the quiver. "I'm sure you've heard about what happened to me before the Battle of New York, when Loki first showed up."

"He mind-controlled you, Dr. Selvig and a few other agents with his magic staff." Ward answered. He'd heard the rumors, read what of the official reports a level six agent was allowed to read. John had filled in a few details, but not many. The staff wasn't technically magic, so far as Ward understood Asgardian tech – which was limited to 'it works on science but seems like magic', but the difference was really not an important one. The less contact I have with things Asgardian, the better. First the staff, then Lorelei. He really doubted his third contact, if he had one, would be any better.

"He called it 'expanding our minds'." Barton explained. "I don't know what he meant by that really, but it felt like... like being unmade. Like he pulled me out of my head and stuffed something else inside. But I was there, seeing everything. Happened so quick, so powerful, not much chance to fight it. Don't know if I could have, even if I'd had the chance. Alien magic and all that."

Unmade... pulled out of your own head, something else stuffed inside... the words resonated with Ward, much as he didn't want them to. Sixteen years with his family, he'd been a broken, scared, stupid kid. He'd taken John's offer, been given almost no time to actually think on it... and then...

Then it was too late. Ward had committed himself. Built himself into what John wanted. Did I build myself, or did John build me? John had built him back up – given him purpose, made him strong. Brought him back from the brink his family had taken him to.

He promised to build you up, make you matter, and he did. But he built you on his blueprint.

"You know what it's like to not be in control of yourself? An observer in your own body?" Barton continued. "Thing is, it doesn't really feel like you're just an observer. You feel like you're the one doing it. You're the one making the choices. It's only afterwards that you really realize what happened. I still remember attacking the Helicarrier. Consciously choosing to do it." Ward knew where this was going. It was obvious what this was about – it was about convincing him that he'd been brainwashed by John.

But he hadn't. He'd made his choices. And afterwards, he still felt like he'd made his choices. They were bad choices – to understate things. Choices that he wished with every fiber of his being that he could take back, but they were choices he'd made nonetheless.

But it was John's blueprint that I was built back up to. He'd done everything John had asked, apart from killing Buddy, right to the end. He'd done his best to purge himself of weakness, and it had worked, until the team. Until Skye and FitzSimmons...

It was John's blueprint he'd followed, and he'd done it all for John, according to John's will.

Blueprints are drawn according to the makers design. And then built on that plan. It's a measure of control right?

Maybe, but Ward wasn't a building. He was a person. He had free will. He'd made his own choices – it would be so easy to just say that he had been brainwashed. Hydra had its methods and tactics for control. The Faustus Method, for one, but there were also other ways to make people 'comply'. None of those had been used on him. He'd been built back up the way John wanted, yes, but still, he could have chosen differently. A few times, he'd even managed to – he hadn't killed Buddy, even though it hadn't saved the dog that had been his only companion for years in the end. He didn't shoot FitzSimmons... for all that it had helped them.

They're alive. That had helped them. Natasha was right, of course. Whatever he'd intended, they had still suffered because of what he'd done. Forgiveness was not obligatory.

"I'm guessing all this sounds a little familiar?" Barton finished, looking at Ward directly, eye to eye.

Ward couldn't meet the archer's gaze and looked away. "Familiar, yes, but not the same. You were under Loki's control. You didn't have any real will of your own. But I..." Ward shook his head. "I did."

"You did. It wasn't the same thing. What Loki did in a matter of moments happened over the course of those missing five years Nat found." Barton agreed. "I don't know any more than what Nat's told me, and I'm sure you've avoided telling her as much as possible." Very true. "But five years is enough time to unmake someone, to pull them out and put something else inside. You may have felt like you were in control, and maybe you had more control than I did, but you didn't have as much choice as you think you did. Would you have chosen to turn on your team, if it hadn't been for the fact that Garrett needed you to?"

"Of course not." Ward replied immediately, instinctively. What reason would he have had to turn on the team, the people who had become his friends and colleagues and in the case of Skye, maybe more. "But that's not what happened. And I still could have chosen not to free Garrett. Should have chosen not to free him."

Barton shook his head. "Don't think it's that simple, Ward. Like I said, I don't know what happened with you, but I know what Nat went through. She's says the same things sometimes." Barton started to clap Ward on the shoulder then his hand fell short and instead he held it out for a shake. Gratefully, Ward took the hand and shook it.

"I'll be back, I'm sure. Keep yourself out of trouble – Nat's put a lot of trust into you. She's rarely wrong. Make sure this isn't one of the times that she is." The archer finished, giving Ward a firm, solid look in the eyes that the former agent still couldn't meet for long.

Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse

October 5th, 2014

Romanoff watched Grant walk back into the house and walk past the kitchen.

"Grant." She gestured to the papers he'd been writing on. "Are you done writing down everything you have on Hydra?" This was a rather important detail. They didn't have to do it right this second, but she wanted it done and out of the way so they could worry about it later. She suspected that if she didn't send some information to Coulson in the next few days, he'd pester her about the intel. And not without reason – the agency was fighting for it's life against Hydra, and needed every edge it could get.

"No." Grant replied flatly.

"Are you going to get back to it right now?" She didn't want to press him yet, so she wasn't. She would have to sooner or later, but... Barton hadn't pressed her this early either. You had to approach gently. He'd only just gotten out of that cell, only just recovered from three suicide attempts. He needed some time control his own actions.

"Not today." Grant replied. He walked out of the kitchen and into his bedroom, the door closing firmly behind him – though he didn't slam it. Romanoff went over to the coffee maker and poured herself the last of the coffee, taking a sip from it. "Are you going to be in there the rest of the day, or what?" She had a key to his bedroom door, for the time being. In time, she hoped to be able to give him that without any concern, but until she was sure...

There was no response for over a minute, but finally, Grant spoke: "I just need some time Natasha." His tone was prickly, and Romanoff guessed he was speaking through gritted teeth. What did Clint have to say to him? In some ways, the prickly defensiveness in his tone was the most lively Romanoff had heard Grant's voice yet. It certainly sounded most like the Grant Ward she knew, anyway.

Romanoff was experienced enough, and aware enough, to be able to guess just what was Grant, and what was part of the cover. Grant was not a naturally personable person – sixteen years with his family and five years in the woods with only a bastard like Garrett for company would do that to a person – but some of his loner reputation at the Academy and in the Agency as a whole had been keeping people away from him as part of his cover. But only a part of it. Because the best deep cover was not the antisocial loner. When things went wrong, antisocial loners with no friends were always the first suspects. Romanoff had been trained by the Red Room extensively in how to make friends and influence people when under cover. You wanted friends. It was the best way to get information, to form the connections you needed, and to get people who would cover you when suspicion fell on you for some reason.

Grant was naturally unfriendly, naturally prickly. So in some ways, this prickliness was a good sign. It was him being himself, being his own native personality.

That's another thing we'll have to work on. On being Grant Ward, Human Being. Not Grant Ward, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., or Grant Ward, Sleeper Hydra Operative or Grant Ward, Product of John Garrett's Brainwashing.

It had taken her nearly a year to be at a decent mentally stable place after Clint had made his different call, but she was hoping that Grant would be done faster. If it took a year though... well, it took a year.

And, for that matter, Grant was actually saying no outright. Fifteen years of always yes to Garrett – no was important.

"Alright. Take your time. I'll microwave you something for dinner if you're not out by then, leave it by your door." Not waiting for a response, Romanoff set her half-empty coffee mug on the counter and snagged two of the pistols hanging on the wall by the door - She had more secreted throughout the house – and made her way outside. She could use the time productively to practice her shooting. She didn't need to practice, perhaps, in a technical sense, but she did anyway. Some habits were hard to break, and Romanoff refused to let her skills get rusty in any case.

Natasha Romanoff's Safehouse

October 7th, 2014

Grant spent the next day writing down every little thing he knew about Hydra, even things he told her were obsolete or almost certainly so. There were some interesting tidbits in there. Romanoff kept one of the pages back, already formulating ideas on how to use that particular piece of intelligence herself. Once Grant was better, actually, he could use it. As far as the wider-world knew, Grant Ward was still enjoying the hospitality of S.H.I.E.L.D. imprisonment. That was something that could eventually be useful. But only once Grant was better – she wasn't putting him anywhere near the field until a whole lot of things had happened.

The rest of the intel she would be taking to Coulson in the next few days. But apart from a few words in the morning and as he was making dinner – noncommital words about the weather and food, of all things – Grant said almost nothing.

Romanoff was in the kitchen the next morning after the silent day, drinking coffee, when Grant walked in. She handed him his cup, as was apparently becoming normal.

"Am I getting the silent treatment again today, Grant?"

"No." Grant replied. He sat down at the table, holding his coffee mug in one hand, but not drinking it. "You wanted to know about what happened in the woods."

"I do." More importantly, Grant needed to talk about it. Needed to tell someone about it. Romanoff walked towards the table, pulling out the chair opposite Grant, but she didn't sit down just yet.

"You're going to keep asking about it until I tell you one way or the other?" Grant sounded defeated already, as if she'd been asking him every hour on the hour for days.

Romanoff sat down. "Sooner or later, yes. But hardly now. If you don't want to right now, I'm not forcing the issue." She set her mug down, leaning across the table towards him a little.

"Well, I want to tell you now." Grant replied, though the strained note in his voice suggested that 'want' was very much not the right word. "If I don't now..."

"By all means: But... why now?" Romanoff wondered if it was related to whatever Clint had said to him.

"Barton...he told me about what Loki did to him. What happened to him before the Battle of New York. It...it made me think." Grant replied, his words barely above a murmur – Romanoff had to strain to hear them.

Didn't expect him to do that so soon. She'd hoped Clint would talk to him about it, sooner or later. Just as she'd talked about it with Clint, helping him the way he'd helped her, Romanoff had hoped that the two of them could help Grant through their own experiences with brainwashing. But she had figured Clint would wait a while first. He hadn't talked about what he went through under the influence of the staff with even the other Avengers. Just her.

"And that's made you understand what I already told you? That Garrett brainwashed you?" Romanoff couldn't believe it was that simple.

"No." Grant replied firmly. "I made the choices I made of my own free will. But... what Barton had to say made me think about how John might have..." Grant paused for a moment, "framed my choices..."

Well, it's a start. It wasn't the truth, but it was close. In a lot of ways, that was what brainwashing did.

"We'll talk on that later." Romanoff said, not bothering to correct him on the fact that he really was brainwashed. "Right now – the woods."

"The woods." Grant nodded. "John took me up the middle of Wyoming. Thousand acres. No civilization for miles. Said he was taking me to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. So that's what I prepared for... as it turns out... yea, not so much. Left me with his dog – Buddy - and the clothes on my back." Romanoff listened as Grant explained how Garrett told him he'd need to earn everything himself. About 'weakness'.

"It was... hard. Those early weeks... if there'd been anywhere to go, I might have tried to leave. I might have run to civilization, police or not." Grant admitted. "But there wasn't anywhere to go. And I refused to let the one person who had ever believed in me down. Let him think I was weak. So...I stayed. I tried to survive. Didn't take me long to realize that living off the land was a... limited approach to it all."

Grant was talking in a toneless, matter of fact way, as if he was at a particularly boring mission debriefing, relaying information as if it had happened to someone else. But it hadn't happened to someone else. It had happened to him, and he really should have more invested into this, emotionally.

He does. It's not like you usually think about the Red Room with your feelings turned on. Any specialist learned to be able to shut down and lock away their emotions. For people like herself and Grant, they'd learned that well before attending the Ops Academy. It was an early lesson in the Red Room for her and Grant's childhood... combined with the woods, with what Garrett did had given him the same skills. It was a survival mechanism, and he was using it here.

Healthy or not, it was the way he was going to do things right now. Which, unfortunately, she understood.

Romanoff didn't say anything, but gestured for him to continue, as he told her more – about how he stole from cabins, and the very... direct way that Garrett had taught him how to dodge bullets. And the slipshod way he'd patched Grant up if he was hit, deliberately doing badly to 'toughen' him up.

"If I hadn't been so obsessed with making sure he kept believing in me, that should have been a clue. But I had a lot of time in that cell. Realizing just how little I really mattered to him... that's when I tried to kill myself the first time..." Grant said softly.