Author's Note: This seems to me that it stop abruptly, but it's for several reasons: one, how the characters are seeing things, and two, this thing was becoming an epic length chapter. So please, tell me how I did, what you think, and as always: read and review!

"Did HYDRA know?" Fitz asked.

It'd been a long, awkward silence between the two after Ward related his childhood. Fitz had nothing to add, and rightfully assumed that pursuing the sore subject wasn't going to help him. He'd remained quiet and contemplative for the last several hours.

Ward sighed, trailing a finger down the side of the wall as he paced along it. Pacing kept him focused, and was a moderate way of burning energy. He was used to sitting for hours with a rifle perched against his shoulder, or waiting for a target to show, but not in an obnoxiously white room with nothing except a former friend and a bed between them. "Know what?"

"About your family?"

He scoffed. "Of course they did. I strongly suspect my mother was an active Head. Why do you think they fished me out of prison?"

"Did Garrett do that with SHIELD's permission, or was that an independent decision?" Fitz asked.

Ward shrugged. "At the time, SHIELD and HYDRA were so intertwined, I doubt it makes a difference."

The young engineer sat on the floor near the abandoned cot, absently picking at stray fibers on his scrubs. He wasn't looking very good. Wide dark smudges underneath pale blue eyes and paler skin, the faint tremors of hypoglycemia, the drawn and pinched features that spoke of little sleep and even less food and water. Ward doubted he looked any better, but he'd also been through worse many times before.

"Well, it does…a little," Fitz answered. "If it was SHIELD sanctioned, it means that their own method of 'helping' you was to basically start a prison riot, let you escape on your own, and then chuck you out in the middle of the wilderness for six months. May or Bobbie or Trip never mentioned their recruiter spiel, but I get the feeling it might have been something more…" he waved his hand, absently snapping his fingers. "James Bond, less Spy vs Spy."

"Do you still have trouble with aphasia?" Ward asked. The first time he'd seen Fitz down in Vault D, the young engineer could barely talk, tripping over common words like everything was perpetually just at the tip of his tongue. Here, in this cell, however, it was only the occasional missing word or trouble substituting phrases.

"Only when I'm tired or not concentrating," Fitz answered. "Not that you care."

"I meant what I said in the Vault," Ward said. When Fitz looked up at him, blinking owlishly in the bright light, Ward turned away. He didn't have problems meeting Zola eye to eye, but he couldn't stand it with Fitz. He wasn't even sure why. Guilt? Shame? They were foreign enough concepts that he doubted he could recognize them in himself. "I didn't know what would happen. I just knew you would have a better chance to survive than if I shot you in the head like Garrett told me to."

"In the Vault?" Fitz said, rubbing tiredly at blood shot eyes. "You mean when I tried to asphyxiate you?"

Ward started pacing again. "It wasn't exactly undeserved."

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't intend to kill you," Fitz said, smiling briefly. It made him look ten years younger, and dammit all if it didn't remind him even more of Thomas.

"I would've let you," he said, without thinking. "After I heard you try and talk, the way you fumbled for words but there was nothing diminished in your thoughts, I would've let you."

Fitz's explosive anger was not what he was expecting. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Fitz shouted. It actually startled him, jolting him physically out of his mindless pattern tracing on the wall.

"What-"

"No, just shut up!" Fitz yelled, pulling himself upright so fast he swayed. "What the hell is your end game, Ward? What are you playing at? Is this another game to you? How can one person be so…so…argh!" he struggled for the word, and apparently failed, settling for a violent strangling motion with his hands. "I don't understand you! And just when I think I do, you do that!"

"What?"

"You're doing it now!" Fitz almost screamed, gesturing wildly with his hands. "I know you're one step shy of an intelligent psychopath. I know you tried to kill me and my best friend, which, by the way, I was how I was starting to consider you before you threw me in the ocean in a storage container. I know you killed Hand and Koenig and God knows how many other agents. I know you killed your parents and your older brother. I should hate you, and sometimes, just when I think maybe, just maybe Jemma was on the right track about attaching a splinter bomb to you, you do this." He angrily waved his hand at Ward.

Ward froze, unsure whether or not he should retreat or stand perfectly still. Fitz didn't elaborate, and stood, heaving, bright red in the face and angrier than he even remembered seeing him in the Vault or when he attacked him on the quinjet when he found out Coulson was going to make them work together again.

He shifted sideways, just in case Fitz was planning on charging or throwing something. "Do what?"

"Remind me of all that was good about you," Fitz yelled. And just like that, it was like all the anger evaporated, and he visibly deflated, exhaustion creeping back into every motion. He still gestured his hands, but instead of angry and accusatory, it was a gesture of resignation. "Jesus, Ward, don't you get it? You were one of my best friends, the only thing I had for a brother. I trusted you. I believed in you. You pulled us out of South Ossetia without an extraction team. You almost killed yourself with that berserker staff trying to prove that you were more than just your anger, and you hated every minute of it." Fitz ran a tired, shaking hand through his short curls. "And even more recently, I found you trying to smuggle a child out of science lab that you escaped from. You sacrificed yourself so they would leave me alone, so out of it that you couldn't tell the difference between me and a brother you haven't seen in a decade. That Ward wasn't an act. Somewhere…" Fitz paused, and jabbed a finger in his direction. "Somewhere in you is that compassion. And every time I think I hate you, every single time, you do or say something that just makes me remember that there's still something good in you."

Ward didn't answer. How the hell was he supposed to answer something like that? That he never actually expected to be activated as a HYDRA sleeper agent? That he liked the isolation being a field operative because no matter who pulled his strings, he was always surrounded by the enemy? That he hated SHIELD as much as he hated HYDRA, then and now, and it made little difference to him who came out the new dictator? And just the same way that he hated the two agencies for all that they did, he hated the idea that they could and would do it to others like him?

That he decided long ago, that the world shouldn't have any more monsters like him?

"At what point," Fitz asked, voice barely audible, "did you decide you are not worth saving?"

There was something to be said for self-aware monsters.

"The day I almost let Thomas drown," Ward said, without any real thought. That day had been the defining moment of his life. When he realized that whatever paths he may have had to choose from were sealed off. That was the day he felt true hate. Not anger, not rage, but pure, unabashed hatred. It had consumed him from that very moment, the fire in his heart that slowly destroyed everything else in him until it was all he had. Which is why, when Garrett offered him a way of controlling it, without smothering it, he'd jumped at the chance. It was his lifeline. A way to survive as the new version of himself – one that not only was capable of his own thoughts, but was dangerous enough that he was capable of driving three thousand miles in a stolen vehicle to set his house on fire.

He may not have known Christian was in there at the time, but the only difference it would've made is he would've locked the doors before setting the fire.

"You don't think maybe you've earned a little peace?" Fitz asked. He sounded wistful, like he was hoping that the fake Ward he'd started thinking of as his friend wasn't all an act.

Problem was, Ward wasn't entirely sure himself.

"I mean, didn't you work for SHIELD for like six years before the HYDRA take over?"

Ward finally turned fully towards Fitz, leaning back against the wall. His head still ached from…whatever the hell it was Zola did to him, and the lights weren't helping. "About that. What is it you think specialists do, Fitz?"

Fitz swallowed reflexively, clearing his throat. "I don't know, I never really thought about it. You do what May and Trip do."

"Which is what, Fitz? Crochet? Make shadow puppets? Hug babies?" Ward pressed.

Fitz glanced down at the ground.

"I killed just as many people in the name of SHIELD as I did HYDRA. And apparently May and Fury thought the team needed that, because they didn't choose May because of her specialist skills, they picked me. On paper it clearly said I had a bad time working with people. I never had a partner or a handler that stuck with me for more than a few weeks. I went in, alone, and I got the job done by any means necessary. That's what Fury decided he wanted. And if the head of SHIELD wanted what Skye and May and Simmons and even Coulson amount to nothing but a cold blooded murderer, what does that tell you?" Ward snapped. "I told you, all of you, repeatedly, I was a bad person. That I wasn't a nice guy." He waved at Fitz. "Hell, when I tried to be nice and give you advice on Simmons, you thought it was weird and creepy until I started acting like an asshole again. The guy you keep trying to save was someone you didn't even like. Right now, the only difference between me and May is that I know what I am, and until recently, I wasn't okay with it."

"And now?" Fitz asked, voice quiet and resigned.

"Now?" Ward echoed. He found himself smiling. "Well, if May doesn't feel guilt for being a killer, why should I?"

Fitz didn't answer right away, and Ward felt somewhat victorious. He liked Fitz, he really did. The kid was smarter than anyone he'd ever met, and he didn't have that self-absorbed vanity that people like Stark did. He was loyal, literally to a fault, and genuinely wanted to do good in the world.

And in Ward's world, that was a terrible, awful thing to want. Better just to crush that hope right now.

"Bullshit," Fitz said. It was so quiet, Ward wasn't sure he heard.

"Excuse me?"

"I said bullshit," Fitz repeated, this time much louder.

"Look, Fitz," Ward began, but the younger man cut him off.

"No, you look. You're doing it again. I don't know what the hell you've gone through, and frankly, given the little I do know, I don't want to. But you're not a monster. You're a human being, and humans make mistakes. Real monsters don't try to fix them. Real monsters just keep down that path as far as it takes them and then keep going," Fitz said, enunciating every word so Ward heard it perfectly clear. "And when I ran into you, when you didn't have an audience, when you had no one watching you to see what you did, or how you acted, and you were rescuing a child. Name a monster who saves children when there is no one to see them do it."

"You're very kind," Ward said. "Someday, that's going to get you killed."

"Very astute observation, Agent Ward," Magnus said. "And I think you two have had enough sharing and caring for today, wouldn't you?"

Ward could've kicked himself. He'd been entirely too distracted by Fitz to notice the telltale drop in air pressure that mean the door had unsealed.

Judging from Fitz's expression, he wasn't very proud of himself either for missing it. The poor kid could hardly be blamed. He was exhausted and not trained for this type of situation.

He, on the other hand…he was glad Garrett wasn't around to see him, because it would be the beating of a lifetime.

"You read my mind," Ward said glibly. He noticed this time there were only two guards, and they hung back as Magnus stepped forwards. Either they were getting lax, or the other two were just around the corners of the door, waiting to see what he and Fitz would do without the added visible threat.

"Leo, have you thought any more on my proposition?" Magnus asked, ignoring Ward for the moment.

Wait. Fitz was making deals with Magnus? Now that caught Ward's attention. More importantly, so did Fitz's reaction. Fitz didn't look at Magnus, but instead met Ward's eyes, and as soon as he saw Ward studying him, he looked guiltily away.

So. The deal involved him somehow. The question was how?

"I really d-don't think I'm the guy for the job," Fitz said, stuttering again. "M-maybe you should try A.I.M…"

Magnus sighed. "You know, Leo, I really thought I was clear last time."

"What exactly is it that you want Fitz to do?" Ward asked. He fully expected to be ignored, he just wanted to see Fitz's reaction. Guilt? Anger? Anxiety? They all meant different possibilities.

"N-nothing," Fitz said, looking down right panicky.

Magnus, on the other hand, looked annoyed… which is why it came as a surprise when he turned to Ward and answered him. "He's going to help us upgrade the Faustus Device so we can actually get our money's worth out of you. We're in need of someone who knows how you think so we can change it, and then maybe this time you won't…reset."

Ward knew whatever color was in his face was gone. His blood pressure dropped so fast that he actually saw spots.

He'd spent months overcoming their brainwashing tactics. It took years to get over the damage Christian did trying to put thoughts in his head.

His head may be the place of nightmares, but they were his nightmares. He even refused Coulson's offer to run him through the T.A.H.I.T.I project and give him a new life. He'd rather hunt and be hunted than lose everything that defined him.

That little shit. All that talk of peace and being salvageable, he'd meant it not because Ward as he existed deserved being saved, but because he thought he could rewrite him as the version he wanted.

"That's not –" Fitz started to protest, but Ward didn't want to hear it. He'd had enough of lies for his entire life. He learned his lesson long ago. There was no help for him. If he wanted to live, he was going to have to save himself.

Instead of turning on Fitz, however, Ward lunged at Magnus.

He may be damaged, but he wasn't dead.

He hit the doctor's chin so hard it snapped back, sending his glasses flying and blood spurted from his lips where his teeth bit into soft skin. Before he could recover, Ward drove his open hand into the doctor's throat making him gag , and spun the doctor around so his back was pinned to Ward's chest, with one arm around his neck, and the other one to the side of his head, prepared to snap his neck in any second.

It all took place in less time than it took the armed guards to raise their guns.

"I don't really care if I get out of this alive," Ward snarled. "It's currently in my best interest to get killed. But I bet you might have some specific orders concerning this guy."

The guards glanced at each other, and took their fingers off the trigger.

"Just how far do you think you'll get, Agent Ward?" Magnus gasped.

"Not far," Ward said. He gave a slight twist to the doctor's neck to suggest he be quiet.

The doctor hacked and gagged against the chokehold. "And what about your friend? How far do you think he'll get?"

Ward spared a second glance over to Fitz, who looked somewhere between exhausted and horrified, and…betrayed? What right did he have to feel betrayed?

Ward curled his lip. "Don't care."

The doctor coughed, and it took a second to realize he was laughing.

"What's so funny?" He pressed slightly harder against the man's neck and felt a vertebrae pop.

"You. Your friend wasn't willing to harm you, but you seem perfectly fine with abandoning him."

"Shut up," Ward growled, pushing Magnus along in front of him towards the door. He didn't care if Fitz stayed or followed. It was the last time he tried to apologize for things in the past.

Magnus scoffed, sending fleck of blood flying from his bloody lip. "Any time now, doctor."

Ward had less than a second to realize who he was talking to before his brain caught on fire.

Or at least, that's sure as hell what it felt like.

All of his muscles seized, tightening violently as ligaments pulled and stretched further than they were meant to. Lightning arced across his teeth, slamming his mouth shut as it filled with blood.

He was distantly aware that he'd dragged Magnus with him when he fell, and the doctor was in just as much pain as he was.

Good.

And just as suddenly as the lightning came, it stopped. Ward's muscles twitched sporadically, and he tasted copper in his mouth and he could see more spots than was healthy in his vision. He gasped like a fish out of water, trying to remember how to breathe.

"I knew that would come in handy," a German accented voice mused from somewhere above him. "Remote controls are much less messy."

"Zola, you're a dick," Magnus gasped. Ward could hear him off to one side, not very far from him, but he didn't have the coordination to turn and look. "You couldn't have waited until he let go?"

There was a rustle of fabric, and Ward knew the smaller man shrugged indifferently. "You shouldn't have let him grab you in the first place. You're sloppy, Magnus."

Zola suddenly leaned into Ward's field of vision, looking very pleased with himself. "You're the only thing on wi-fi here, Agent Ward. You should feel privileged."

It explained the bandages that weren't a hack job. The first implant had been a primarily psychological tactic. There was no need to keep it where he could easily, albeit painfully, rip it out. Now there was probably one in his head instead of outside of it, hardwired in.

And apparently remote controlled.

Ward summoned the last bit of strength that he had, and struck Zola just on the outside of his knee. He was rewarded with the smaller man's cry of pain and an audible pop as the knee cap slid out of place.

Victory was short lived, because while Zola's knee may be out of commission, his trigger finger wasn't.

Roaring filled his ears as he felt his blood begin to boil and his skin catch fire. He might have screamed, he didn't know. His bones felt like they were trying to rip themselves free of his body and he didn't blame them.

He heard shouting, and suddenly, blissfully, the lightning abated.

"Stop! I'll help! I'll do it! Just stop hurting him!"

"Fitz?" he mumbled, but it came out jumbled, more like a hiss of pain than any actual word.

"I don't know, Mr. Fitz. I like the sounds he makes," Zola mused. He staggered to his feet, balancing on one leg. He waved a guard off who tried to help him.

There was a tiny zap that made Ward's entire body twitch.

"STOP!"

Fitz sounded desperate. That seemed odd considering Ward was going to leave him for dead.

"You said if I agreed to help with that bloody machine of yours, you would stop hurting him!"

Stupid boy. You don't make deals with devils.

Ward tried to focus bleary vision on Fitz, who was being held back by the two armed guards.

Magnus pushed himself to his feet, kicking Ward as he did so. He was not happy about being taken hostage. "That deal has expired, Leo. Here's the new one. You're still going to help with the new Faustus Device, and to make sure you don't try and drag your feet about it, Agent Ward will be staying with Doctor Zola from now until you fix it."

Well shit.

"I approve this new arrangement," Zola said.

Someone grabbed him underneath both arms and hauled him upright. The world swum dizzyingly in and out of focus like a deranged tilt-a-whirl. A gloved hand grabbed his chin, forcing him to look straight forwards.

"I do miss him when he's not around," Zola said, and he sounded almost wistful.

The shudder that ran down Ward's spine had nothing to do with the residual effects of electricity.

"No, wait, you can't –"

The door slid shut, isolating Magnus and Fitz from him and Zola.

"Get him back to room three," Zola ordered. "We have work to do."

An affectionate hand ran through Ward's short hair.

"We wouldn't want Mr. Fitz to dawdle, would we? He must be properly motivated."

They were moving again, and Ward was struck with a sudden, violent sense of déjà vu. How many times had he been dragged down this hallway?

As they fastened him down, lying flat on his back with arms outstretched to either side, Ward felt the familiar well of rage in his heart.

IV lines again fastened to the crook of his elbow, the back of his hand, and, just to spice things up, a central line was hooked into his neck.

Zola shuffled forward, limping heavily, but still walking. Maybe Ward hadn't hit him as hard as he thought, and the joint was bruised instead of dislocated.

"Agent Ward, before we begin, I feel I must inform you of something." Zola leaned forwards so his lips were almost touching his ear. "You were always my favorite, and I have never quite forgiven Garrett for taking you from me. We have so much to catch up on."

If his head hadn't been fastened down, Ward would've bitten the doctor's nose off. Instead he settled for snarling. "I've been through worse."

Cold flooded through his veins in a familiar rush that made goosebumps break out along his skin.

"No, Agent Ward," Zola said calmly, smiling. "You really haven't."