Ugh. Note to self: DO NOT STOP WRITING WHEN IN THE ZONE. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. Read and review, and give me your take. Also, warning: I do not paint Skye or Jemma in a favorable light in this chapter.
It was like trying to have a board meeting with kindergartners.
"What was Ward even doing out of his restraints?" Simmons demanded. She held an ice pack to her eye, which was developing quite the shiner. "Are we not considering him the enemy anymore? Or did we forget what he did?"
Rather than have the meeting in the hospital room, Coulson adjourned them to the conference area usually meant for mission debriefings, but now he was wondering at the wisdom of even including everyone as they bickered back and forth.
Hunter stared at Simmons, trying to figure out whether or not she was being serious. "Oh yes. I'm sure that with enough tranquilizers to down a horse, he's going to get up and single handedly take on the entire crew of the Bus, which includes in just this room: an inhuman, and three other specialists. On one leg. With one arm."
"Why did you undo his restraints?" Bobbie asked. Out of the women in the room, she was the only one without personal ties to Ward. She was still suspicious, especially considering her time undercover in HYDRA, but she seemed less…fanatical. So far it was just her usual level of distrust towards anyone.
Hunter tapped his finger absently against the table, biting his lip as he debated whether or not he wanted to answer. "Because the memory blanking panic attacks they were inducing weren't enough of a reason?"
"You don't know him like we do!" Skye protested.
"That might be a good thing at this point," Hunter grumbled, just loud enough for Coulson to hear him.
"Enough!" Coulson finally shouted, and the room went silent. Everyone still looked like they wanted to object, but were reluctantly quiet as they turned to him. "Are you done arguing?" he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.
Nobody moved, and he took it as a silent affirmative, and he continued.
"I know you aren't happy with Ward's presence onboard, Jemma. I understand. But the circumstances have changed, and I have to ask that you at least acknowledge that the Ward we have right now is not the same one we used to know. We still have no idea what happened, between him and Fitz, or at the lab itself other than what their injuries suggest," Coulson explained.
"He could be faking," Skye suggested.
Hunter gaped openly at the younger agent. "How exactly do you fake a compound fracture and a broken shoulder?"
Skye shrugged, looking unapologetic. "Okay, fine. Maybe not his injuries, but his weird behavior. Even when he was playing us, he didn't act like that."
"You mean like a torture victim?" Hunter snapped, and Coulson put his hand up to stave off further argument.
"Enough. Skye, you haven't had enough training to be familiar with the psychological profiling SHIELD agents require. As far as bizarre behavior, it's not unusual for victims in their circumstances. You didn't see him when he woke up the first time. I advise you watch the security footage, because if Ward is acting, he deserves on Oscar. It's textbook signs of PTSD for both of them, and neither one has been coherent enough to tell us what happened in the facility."
"But look at what he did to Fitz! It's just like Bakshi!" Skye protested.
Coulson could see she was getting frustrated with what she saw as their willingness to be duped by Ward a second time, but her emotional attachment to Ward was causing issues. They needed to be objective until they found out what really happened, and she was making it difficult.
More importantly, if she couldn't keep her personal feelings in check, she was going to cause problems with not just Ward, but with Fitz, too. The young engineer was sleeping peacefully now, thanks to some intervention and a lot of pain killers for his hand, but he was still highly reactive. Not to mention over protective of Ward, which he still didn't understand.
"Skye, I'm only going to say this once. If you cannot leave your personal feelings out of the equation, then you cannot be here. Simple as that. And that goes for everyone," he said, glancing pointedly at each person. Jemma and Skye were the only ones to look uncomfortable, and May was notably absent still at the wheel, but he saw them nod. "So far, all we know for sure is that the two of them were prisoners together. However, Fitz made a comment that indicated that Ward was the one who took the brunt of it from the HYDRA scientists. Medical evidence supports it, so there's no reason to doubt it."
"They did something other than physical torture," Hunter said quietly, face grim. "They messed with his head. Both of them. But Ward's seems to be more…" he trailed off, trying to think of the word.
"Crazy?" Skye suggested.
"Pervasive," Hunter said. "Fitz…he's almost textbook survivor's guilt. It happens when more than one person are prisoners together. It dates back as far as there's been war – you can't maim both your prisoners, so you pick one to abuse physically. The other one breaks down mentally. It doesn't matter if you know the other prisoner or not, unless you're a complete psychopath, most people can't sit back and watch someone else suffer."
"Well, Ward is pretty damn close to a psycho," Skye grumbled. She folded her arms across her chest, glowering across the table at the Brit.
"But Fitz isn't," Bobbie pointed out. "Didn't he say something about being responsible for Ward's condition?"
Jemma was starting to look faintly green as realization started to take hold. "Fitz was the one who was made to watch…"
"Probably," Bobbie confirmed. "That's what I would do."
"It's more than just that though," Hunter interjected. "He's got strange symptoms for just physical torture. Like prosopagnosia."
"What what?" Skye asked. "Proso…what?"
"Prosopagnosia," Bobbie repeated. "It's face blindness. Usually it's a rare cognitive disorder that prevents someone from recognizing someone by their facial features, but you can also get it after serious brain trauma. They have to use other tells, or features, like their hair color, skin color, et cetera."
"Which is why I told Fitz to undo Ward's arm restraint – so Ward could figure out who Fitz was. Ward couldn't recognize him. Well, he recognized him, but he called him something else," Hunter explained. "He called him Thomas. And Fitz seemed to know what that meant, but I haven't got a clue."
"Thomas?" Coulson echoed. He felt a tension headache blossoming behind his eyes and he rubbed his forehead to try and force it away. "That's not good."
"Why? Who's Thomas?" Jemma asked.
"It's Ward's youngest brother."
"You mean there're more of them?" Skye said. "Or did Ward kill them too?"
"Thomas Ward and his sister, Angela, are perfectly fine. In fact, it was because of Thomas that Ward wound up in juvenile detention in the first place, which is where Garrett found him. Don't mention either of them to Ward," Coulson explained. "He's a bit sensitive on the subject, and he's having enough issues already that we don't understand."
"Like panic attacks?" Bobbie asked.
"That's one. The fact that he can't visually recognize Fitz is another. Memory loss. Uncontrollable emotions. Highly reactive to bright lights," Hunter said.
"I still don't understand why the lights seem to be such a big issue," Simmons said. "I would understand if it was something like fireworks, perhaps, but why would just turning on the light switch bother them?"
"Yeah," Skye chimed in. "What's so scary about a light?"
Hunter felt the urge to slap his own face with his palm. "Have you ever been around someone with PTSD? Either of you?"
Skye looked slightly shamed, but not understanding. "I don't know. I don't think so? It's not something brought up in conversation."
"We fished them out of a lab. A HYDRA lab. Specifically designed for the purpose of human experimentation. It's not going to be loud noises and explosions or possible roadside IED's that sets them off, it's going to be things related to a laboratory," Hunter explained. "You're trying to apply combat scenarios that just aren't related. There's more than one kind of PTSD. You don't even have to be the one who suffered the event, it can be the equivalent of survivor's guilt."
"So…what's with the bright lights?" Skye asked.
"What's typically over your lab experiments?" Coulson asked.
"A light," Simmons said, without thinking. Her face paled. "Oh…"
"Yeah. Oh. Look, I know you guys have history with Ward. I know he turned out to be a double agent. But you guys trust Fitz, right?" Hunter asked. "Wasn't he the one who took it the hardest? I mean with his…" he made a sign language gesture for 'scrambled eggs'. "If he says Ward's earned a second chance, don't you think maybe you might want to listen?"
"Assuming Fitz hasn't had his brain fried, too," Skye said. "They were both prisoners. Just like Agent 33. Who's to say that they aren't sleeper agents? Can we really trust anything that either one of them says?"
"Remind me not to stand up for you next time Jemma wants to catalogue you and your friends as lab specimens."
The rough Scottish lilt was unmistakable, and Coulson turned to see Fitz standing just at the threshold. His hand was freshly bandaged in bright white gauze and he held it up close to his chest, which meant he'd probably woken up when the pain meds wore off.
No one said anything, and you could've heard a pin drop. Skye flushed bright red and Jemma ducked her head, using the ice pack to cover her face.
"What? No witty comebacks?" Fitz asked mildly. He wavered in the doorway and leaned against it. "Or you just don't want to say anything with the brain dead spy in the room?"
"Now Fitz," Bobbie started, but the glare the young engineer levelled at her was enough to silence any protest she had.
"What are you even doing up?" Coulson asked, frowning. "I thought I told you to get some rest."
Fitz shrugged. "I can't sleep anymore." He didn't clarify if it was because he wasn't tired, or because something prevented it. The dark shadows under haunted eyes were evidence enough.
"They're just trying to understand," Hunter said. "We all are. We can't help if we don't know what's going on."
Fitz didn't immediately reply, but nodded slowly. "Fair enough, I suppose. What would you like to know?"
The calm, passive tone in his voice was unnerving, like he didn't have a care in the world.
When no one spoke, his eyes narrowed. "What. Would you like. To know?" he repeated, this time anger darkening the words.
Again, the others remained silent. Even Coulson wasn't entirely sure how to respond. So far Fitz had responded with anger, tears, and violence to both himself and towards others. If he lost himself again, Coulson didn't know if they could pull him back. It was a dangerous and slippery slope they found themselves on.
Hunter was the one who finally broke the silence. "What changed your mind about him?" He nodded his head in the direction of the medical bay where Ward was still unconscious.
Fitz tilted his head to one side, unknowingly echoing Ward's earlier behavior, like he was trying to gauge a depth of field. He picked his way across the room, carefully avoiding Jemma and Skye's sideways stares and slid into one of the vacant chairs.
"They did," Fitz answered simply.
"Who?"
"Zola and Magnus. Our…keepers."
"What could they possibly do to change your mind?" Bobbie asked, and Fitz again glared back.
Fitz tilted his head back, keeping his eyes closed against the overhead lights. "It's hard to explain."
"Try," Skye said.
Fitz's eyes snapped open, and locked on hers. It was so much like Ward, Skye felt herself actually recoiling.
"How about I show you?" Fitz said, his voice back to the unnerving calmness.
"How could you – " Skye started to ask, but suddenly Fitz's hand was in her face, thumb up and index finger out as if he was shaping a gun.
"I'm going to kill you," Fitz said, voice flat. "I'm going to kill you, and there's nothing you can do about it." His head swung toward Jemma. "But you can do something about it," he said, and his voice pitched abruptly. It wasn't flat and dead, it was warm, soothing…the old Fitz that tried to keep the peace and still believed in happy endings. It was imploring. Full of promise. "Jemma, you can stop this. I don't have to kill her. She's your friend. You don't want anything to happen to her, right?"
Jemma's ice pack was on the table, condensation pooling around it. She looked more than a little frightened by the abrupt change in her best friend.
"Ask me how to stop it," Fitz said. His 'gun' remained unwaveringly pointed at Skye's head. "Ask me how you can save her."
Jemma's mouth worked open and closed silently before she managed a choked "how?"
"I won't hurt her. If you hurt her instead," Fitz said, his voice still pitched in that mesmerizing, kind tone. "She's going to be hurt no matter what. But it'll be less if you do it. Isn't that better?"
Coulson shuddered at the voice more than the words. It just sounded so…wrong coming from Fitz. Fitz, who couldn't hurt an inanimate object, never mind another human being.
"What?" Jemma squeaked.
"Come on, Jemma. She's one of your closest friends," Fitz wheedled. "Is it really so bad? If you don't hurt her, I will kill her. And isn't being hurt better than being killed?"
Hunter's hand was over his mouth, and his eyes met Coulson's. Now Fitz's comment made sense. Cold, horrifying sense.
They didn't ruin him. I did.
"Hurt her, or I kill her. Hurt her bad enough and I won't have to," Fitz said, and his hand began to shake. "Come on, Jemma, this isn't that fucking hard. She's your best goddamned friend, and you're just going to let me kill her?"
"Fitz, I…" Skye trailed off, and Coulson could tell she knew too. Understanding was beginning to dawn.
"Hurt her or I will kill her," Fitz growled savagely. "Help me hurt her and I won't hurt you."
"Okay, Fitz, you made your point," Bobbie said, trying to keep her voice light but still authoritative. "Stop it."
"Why?" Fitz asked. "She still hasn't chosen. Come on, Jemma. You can choose. Do you watch her die? Or do you help break her?" The soothing, gentle lilt was gone, and he was rapidly edging towards that panicky giggly mode he seemed to default towards.
"We get it, Fitz," Coulson said quietly, putting a cautious hand on Fitz's bandaged arm.
"I don't think you do," Fitz snapped. "Because you still haven't chosen. I couldn't choose. But he did."
"Zola?" Bobbie asked.
Fitz laughed. "No. Ward."
Oh.
Fitz dropped his hand. "I didn't choose. I couldn't. But Ward chose. He let them hurt him. He let me hurt him. And he didn't fight it."
"But…why?" Jemma asked quietly, struggling to understand. To try and piece together what she knew of Grant Ward and what Fitz was trying to tell her.
"Because they wanted me to choose," he said. "And I couldn't. So he chose for me. One of us was going to be hurt. They wanted us to choose which one. So he chose himself."
Fitz angrily swiped at his eyes with his bandaged hand and pushed up from the table. "I didn't forgive Ward. He has blood on his hands. But now…now I do, too." Fitz abruptly turned and made to leave, but paused at the threshold. "And it's his."