Author's Note: So, I actually have been writing these past couple of scenes backwards. I have an ending scene, which I thought would come into play in THIS chapter, but apparently it won't be until NEXT chapter. Whoops? On the plus side, I suppose it means that I already have half of the next chapter written. I was waiting to hear back from a couple people about the ideas I ran past them, but real life gets in the way sometimes. So, hopefully this is worth the wait - it if it makes you feel better, it is officially twice as long as the last couple of chapters.

Interrogation was never high on his places to visit, either as a prisoner or as an interrogator. It was entirely too open policy – he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say, or how he was supposed to answer, which is partly how he came by his ability to kind of sort of not really say anything at all but still sounded like he was being honest.

Honesty is open for interpretation anyway.

Gonzalez sat opposite him, a conspicuous Top Secret file in front of him on the table. Bobbi stood in the corner, arms crossed firmly across her chest and looking decidedly accusing.

For once, Ward wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to piss her off.

"You know, if you just wanted to talk, we were fine where we were. Seats are comfier," Ward pointed out. He held up his cuffed hands, one of which sat uncomfortably tight on his recently bandaged wound. "And these are a little excessive, don't you think?"

Gonzalez looked unimpressed. "You seem to be under the impression that I don't know you, Mr. Ward. Quite the contrary. I know you very well, and more importantly, what you're capable of."

Ward smiled. "You say such nice things. You still didn't need your goon squad to get me here."

"You didn't put up nearly as much resistance as I was expecting," Gonzalez conceded. "Why is that?"

Ward shrugged, leaning back in the chair. "Fitz asked me to."

Which was mostly true. Actually, Fitz had said some rather not nice things about Gonzalez and the guards sent to bring him to interrogation, but when they'd made it clear that they weren't overly concerned about the condition in which Ward arrived at interrogation, he stopped protesting. At least he'd caught himself in the middle of telling Ward to go with them while he looked for Coulson, instead just asking him not to put up a fight.

"You're no longer an agent of SHIELD, Mr. Ward. And now that you have recovered physically well enough to answer for your part in the HYDRA uprising and in the lab we found you and Agent Fitz in, we're no longer obligated to give you asylum."

"Even if an asylum is what you need," Bobbi muttered from her corner.

"Said the woman who set fire to her ex's '67 GTO convertible," Ward said flippantly. "Seriously. Who does that to a car like that?"

"Mr. Ward," Gonzalez said warningly, and Ward turned back to him.

Ward bared his teeth at Bobbi, but otherwise did nothing. He turned back to Gonzalez.

"So I'm in here because you decided that I'd had enough free loading medical attention from you. Fine. Why aren't I in the Vault then?"

"This is your chance to tell your half of the story," Gonzalez said. He actually sounded legitimately interested in Ward's testimony.

That itself was interesting to Ward. However, given what he'd just discovered from Fitz, it was incredibly dangerous, too.

"SHIELD has never been interested in what I had to say," Ward said cautiously. He didn't have enough room to cross his arms, so he settled for clenching his hands together.

"You were a covert operative who specialized in deep cover and espionage. You fooled Fury's lie detector. Can you blame the agency for being reluctant to listen?"

"The last time I was imprisoned with SHIELD, I did nothing but help. I answered every question you asked. I gave you HYDRA's playbook, and your thanks was to turn me over to Christian," Ward shot back. "Forgive me if this time around, I don't particularly feel like playing."

At the mention of his brother, Gonzalez's mustache twitched upwards, as if he'd half halted a smirk. "Ah yes. The infamous Ward children. What ever happened to your sister?"

"Angela? Probably starting an insurrection in a third world country somewhere. We didn't exactly keep in touch, you know? Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, but she's like a tornado meets a volcano – not even HYDRA wanted to recruit her."

"You and Christian were quite the dynamic duo, weren't you? One in the public eye, the other in shadows...both shaping the world. If that wasn't planned, I would be very surprised."

"You have SHIELD to thank for how I turned out," Ward pointed out. "Garrett didn't come to me as a HYDRA agent. He came to me as SHIELD."

Bobbi actually looked mildly surprised about that.

"What? You didn't know? I looked it up a while back. Garrett didn't come for me recruiting for HYDRA. He was recruiting for SHIELD with Fury's blessing." He smirked. "Also, conveniently enough, how I wound up on Coulson's team."

"We all have our crosses to bear," Bobbi said. "Just not all of us try and stab others with it."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," Ward answered.

"What I'm interested in," Gonzalez said, interrupting the two specialists, "is your part in the laboratory. Dieter Zola's laboratory. I hear you and him have prior association. Care to explain how to came back into his care if you weren't a HYDRA operative, as you keep claiming?"

Ward felt his temper rise. "In his care?" he echoed.

Gonzalez nodded to the file. "He's listed as your former primary care physician."

Ward fought the urge to laugh, because he didn't know if he would be able to stop. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Are you saying he wasn't in charge of your care?" Gonzalez prompted.

Ward took a steadying breath, knowing Gonzalez was trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn't sure why though. He'd hardly had enough dealings with the man to create any sort of interest.

"When I was first recruited by Garrett, I had to go through the same training as every other recruit. I failed my final field test though, and they sent me to Zola to try and...correct the defect," Ward explained carefully.

"What field test was that?" Gonzalez asked.

Ward glared at him, clenching his teeth. "I wouldn't shoot a dog."

Bobbi raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. "You couldn't shoot a dog?"

"I like dogs," Ward said. "Especially that one."

"What happened?" Gonzalez pushed.

"Final test to get into SHIELD was to shoot the dog I'd had for the past six months when I was left in the field. Garrett told me to shoot it to show I couldn't form attachments to anybody or anything. I wouldn't. So Garrett shot him instead. And instead of dying instantly, the dog drowned in its own blood because he shot it in the lung, not the heart." Ward took a breath. "I still learned the lesson."

"And what was that, besides Garrett was a dick?" Bobbi asked.

Ward met her eyes before answering. "There are two ways to die. Slowly and painfully, or quick and painless. And if I didn't make the choice – someone else would."

"How does Zola fit into this?"

Ward really, really didn't want to get into a history discussion with Gonzalez. Or anyone, really. Ever. "What does he have to do with what you want to know?"

"We're getting two very different stories, Mr. Ward. We're just trying to find one that correlates to the one you're telling."

"Zola wasn't my doctor. He isn't even an MD, he's got like eight PHD's in neuroscience, psychology and who knows what else, but nothing even close to a medical doctorate. I was under his care," Ward made air quotes with his fingers. "Because when they tried to use the Faustus Device on me, it didn't work. At that point, Garrett was pissed that he'd wasted all that training on me if it turned out I was a failure, so he sent me to Zola to see if he could find another way of brain washing me that might work."

"Why didn't the Device work on you?" Gonzalez pressed.

"I don't fucking know," Ward snapped. "I was busy trying not to die while my brain was on fire from whatever the hell it was he was doing."

This seemed less like an interest in what happened at the lab or even in HYDRA than it did with his first time around with Zola, and Ward couldn't even begin to imagine why that mattered. It was years ago, and as far as he knew, it was all in Zola's records which SHIELD would've gotten from the lab after they raided it.

"So you remember your first time encountering Dr. Zola?" Gonzalez said curiously.

In vivid, technicolor detail.

"Yeah, sure. Why do you want to know about back then? I thought you said you wanted to know about last time," Ward said suspiciously. "Everything that happened back then is in a file somewhere. I know, because Garrett liked to remind me about what it was I could go back to."

"I thought you and Garrett were pals?" Bobbi asked, frowning.

"The guy ordered Deathlok to give me a heart attack, beat the hell out of me for a convincing cover story and ordered me to shoot the only friends I ever had and that was only in the last three days he was alive. I owed him a debt," Ward growled. "Something I'm guessing you and your friend Romanoff understand."

"Actually, Mr. Ward, I would like to draw your attention back to your first encounter with Dr. Zola, if I could. You say you remember your time with him? You were what...eighteen at the time?"

"Seventeen," he bit out. He wasn't particularly proud of the fact that even as a teenager he couldn't see the wolf in sheep's clothing that Garrett was – or the catch in what he offered. He was raised in a family of politicians and psychopaths. He should've been able to recognize it in Garrett just as easily as he could see it in his brother.

Or in the mirror.

"Wait, you were seventeen when HYDRA recruited you?" Bobbi interrupted.

"No, I was sixteen. I was seventeen when they turned me over to Zola. Try to keep up," Ward said. He wasn't in the mood for displaced feelings of charity. No one had been interested in sympathy when they knew what Christian had done, or what his mother had done. As they all said – everyone had their crosses to bear.

"You were a kid," Bobbi said, and Ward didn't have to look at her to know exactly the expression she had on her face.

"Old enough to be tried as an adult for burning down my house with my brother still inside," he snapped. Usually arson and attempted murder got them off the sympathy wagon easily enough. He'd rather be hated than have that look of false sympathy and pity focused on him. "Is there a point to this?"

Gonzalez didn't answer immediately. He sat back, carefully studying Ward from across the table, and Ward had to fight the urge not to fidget. Wordlessly, Gonzalez flipped over the file folder in front of him, taking out a stack of 11x10 glossy photos, tapping them against the table to straighten them out. He slid one across the table, just in front of Ward.

"Do you know what that is?" Gonzalez asked mildly.

Frowning, Ward reached for it with his still cuffed hands and slid it closer so he could see it better. It was an almost empty room – plain white walls, white floor, and a black topped counter covered in various equipment lining one wall.

"A lab?" he ventured.

"Do you recognize it?" Gonzalez pressed.

Ward shrugged. "It looks like every doctor's office I've ever been in. Including the ones that didn't belong to crazed neo Nazis."

Gonzalez slid another photo over to him.

This time, Ward didn't reach for it. He refused to even look at it as soon as he recognized it. "What the hell do you have that for?"

"So you do recognize it," Gonzalez said, smiling slightly beneath the mustache.

"It's my family's house that I burned down. Why do you have a picture of it?" Ward demanded.

"It's where we found this lab," he said, tapping his finger against the first picture. "In the basement – completely untouched by the fire. But considering the reinforcements on the place, I would be surprised if a nuclear bomb would affect it."

Ward opened his mouth to say something – anything, really, except he realized he couldn't. What the hell was Gonzalez playing at? This conversation had suddenly veered so far off into no man's land he had absolutely no goddamn clue whatsoever what the hell Gonzalez was talking about. Secret labs in the basement? That's like Dr. Frankenstein shit right there.

Gonzalez took advantage of his stunned silence and slid two more pictures over. One was his mother's portrait picture for her political office, and the other was a black and white group photo from many years prior – when she was still young and beautiful.

She still had that same shark-like emptiness to her eyes, though, and Ward often wondered how no one saw it but her oldest children. Even more unmistakable was the tentacled skull in the background of whatever the hell lab she was in for the group photo.

"I'm sure you already know this," Gonzalez said, sounding like he was delivering a Dear John letter. "But your mother was a very prominent member of HYDRA. You could say she was a legacy member. I'm not sure how Coulson and Fury missed that, or maybe they did and they just decided to ignore it. But I cannot. More importantly, I cannot ignore what she specialized in for HYDRA's science division. Do you know what your mother was?"

Ward didn't answer. The only word he'd used for her in years was monster.

More pictures slid across the table, and Ward couldn't help but stare open mouthed in twisted fascination. It looked like the pictures recovered from Mengele's experiments in Auschwitz – twisted forms that were probably once humans, broken, twisted and deformed. People fastened down to tables, faces twisted mid scream or worse, staring blankly ahead at nothing – Ward saw death enough he could recognize it in a photo. Missing limbs from bodies that sat splayed out on a separate table mid dissection. Blood spattered the tables and up his mother's otherwise pristine white lab coat.

And in the middle of all of them, was his mother – cold, calculating, and completely untouched by the carnage she was creating.

"She started off in crude experiments, but as she refined her craft, gained more experience, she branched out into biochemistry and eugenics. She became head of the science and research division, and she started experimenting with genetics. She wanted to see what made people tick," Gonzalez said. There was a strange edge to his voice that Ward couldn't quite understand. Anger? Awe? He almost sounded impressed with the horror his mother created.

"After she met your father, she mostly retired from active field work," Gonzalez continued, shuffling his stack once more. "She didn't stop her research though. And wouldn't you know it? She had four test subjects of her own."

The four pictures that slid across the table were painfully recognizable – their school portraits that used to hang over the mantle. Christian, Angela, Thomas and himself stared back at him, smiling mockingly.

"Your mother and father wanted to create enhanced people," said Gonzalez. "Their research indicates that they found a way to splice DNA from an unknown source with that of their own children."

Ward almost laughed. In fact, he did start laughing. It wasn't funny. He knew it wasn't. He was being told that not only did his mother beat the ever loving shit out of him and his siblings, but she supposedly experimented on them too. Apparently thinking of her as a monster instead of a mother was more accurate that he thought.

"Do you find this amusing?" Gonzalez asked, and instead of sounding irritated or even upset, he sounded like he might join Ward in laughing madly at this insanity.

Ward fought to regain his composure enough to speak, which took longer than he expected. "You have got to be kidding me!" he gasped finally. "What the fuck kind of scare tactic interrogation is this? What the hell is even wrong with you?"

"Interesting," Gonzalez said, leaning back in his chair.

Ward knew when someone expected a different answer then the one they got. Gonzalez was expecting a different reaction. He wasn't expecting the disbelief, he was expecting….what?

"You knew," Ward breathed, trying to steady the shaking of his hands. The room felt like it was getting hotter, and he could feel cold sweat trickle down his spine.

Gonzalez didn't answer, but Ward plowed on.

"You had to know...you were deeper into SHIELD than anyone else except maybe Fury...and Coulson was busy with the Avengers. How much sway did you have over SHIELD? Someone told Garrett to come for me when I was in jail. Someone had to make the decision that I was worth the effort. I was a nobody – I was a criminal. And this..." Ward's gaze flicked to the grisly photos. "If SHIELD knew about this, I would be the last person they tried to recruit, so whoever it was had to know about this, and they couldn't have told anyone else. So either this is total bullshit and you're trying to convince me that it's not...for what reason, I can't even begin to understand…or you, Mr. Gonzalez, know a lot more than I gave you credit for."

Bobbi looked torn between believing Gonzalez or Ward – more importantly, it was now abundantly clear that she had no idea what Gonzalez was playing at either. Which meant the co-director was still holding on to some cards.

"Are you trying to tell me you don't know about your mother?" Gonzalez pressed.

"She wasn't the type to tell bedtime stories," Ward snapped. "And I think this is a load of crap, because I don't remember a damn thing about being experimented on by that bitch."

"You can't recall your recent time with Dr. Zola, is it so hard to believe that you can't recall a traumatic memory from your childhood?" Gonzalez asked.

Ward snorted. "I remember some pretty traumatic things – like her holding my hand over the stove to teach me about manners. So yeah, it strikes me as a little weird I wouldn't remember this." He jabbed angrily at the picture of the supposed secret lab in the basement.

That seemed to catch Gonzalez's interest, because he suddenly sat forwards again. "She held your hand over a stove? Did you burn it?"

Ward frowned, glancing at Bobbi, who to her credit managed to still appear uninterested. "Yeah. That was kind of the whole point."

"I don't see any scars," Gonzalez said mildly.

Ward shrugged. "I don't scar easily. You can't even see where Skye shot me four times."

"You don't think that's odd?" the co-director pressed.

"Look, what are you trying to get at? I don't have any memories of my mom taking anything out of Dr. Mengele's lecture notes, so if you have a point to all of this, can we get back to it?" Ward asked, exasperated.

For a long moment, Gonzalez didn't say anything. He simply sat there, carefully studying Ward for an uncomfortably long period of time.

"Perhaps your siblings would be more forthcoming," he said. It was so out of the blue, Ward had to fight the urge to physically react.

"What?"

"You're obviously of no help, and you show no interest in cooperating. Maybe a few months back in the Vault in your old cell will make you more compliant."

Ward felt his mouth drop open in shock, glancing to Bobbi who looked just as confused but fully prepared to 'escort' him to his cell. "What are you looking for?" he asked, sliding away from Bobbi as she unfolded her arms. "I can't tell you anything that I don't fucking remember!"

"Unfortunately you don't seem to have any of what I'm looking for, Mr. Ward. Perhaps Angela will have a better memory."

Ward scoffed. "I wouldn't go to Angela. No matter how desperate you are, you really aren't desperate enough to go to her."

Gonzalez shrugged. "I have the full might of SHIELD behind me. Your sister won't pose a problem."

"Then you don't know Angela very well," Ward snapped. "Like I said – not even HYDRA wanted to go near her. Last I knew, not even Romanoff wanted to tangle with her."

Gonzalez was quiet again, but not for long. "Well since your other brother would require a medium to communicate with, perhaps your youngest brother would be of some use. From what I understand, he's not nearly as...truculent as the rest of you."

"Best of luck finding him," Ward said, this time smirking triumphantly. "No one has seen Thomas in years. Not even Christian could find him, and believe me, he looked."

Gonzalez seemed to ponder the information, tapping an idle finger against his lips. "Ms. Morse, leave us for a moment."

Bobbi's head came around so sharply Ward was surprised he didn't hear a crack. "What?"

"Leave us. I need to talk to Mr. Ward alone."

Bobbi glanced back and Ward and he shook his head. Don't leave me with the crazy psycho.

But ever the good soldier, Bobbi shrugged one shoulder helplessly at Ward, and then promptly turned on her heel to leave, the door sliding closed behind her.

Ward was surprised by how badly he didn't want her to go. She may not have been a great help, but at least he could tell by looking at her that it wasn't just him who thought the co-director was going a little of the reservation.

Gonzalez pursed his lips, and Ward could see the agent studying him carefully, and it finally hit him why the man put him so ill at ease. It had little to do with the bizarre line of questioning he diverted on to – it was because he knew that look.

He looked just like Magnus.

The older man leaned forward, so quickly Ward pushed himself back in surprise, though he couldn't go far still cuffed.

"I know more about your mother than probably even your father did," Gonzalez growled. "I know what she did to her children because she kept records so precise Internal Affairs would be impressed. I also know that her research didn't die with her – it went to her mentor's son, Dieter Zola. What I want to know is if it was ever realized. Did he succeed in making into the monster she always wanted? Her research was incomplete when she died – she was only given immunity from SHIELD if she stopped experimenting. I want to know how far it's gone. Does HYDRA now have a recipe for living weapons?"

Ward didn't answer. He couldn't. His head was spinning from the new information Gonzalez was spouting off and worse, it was starting to make sense. His head was pounding and he felt his face flush from sudden heat. His hands were itching, even as he clenched them tighter into fists, wanting nothing more than to punch Gonzalez in the face.

"Are you HYDRA's latest chimera?" Gonzalez hissed. "Did Zola finish what your mother started? Or did they make a new one? Should it be Agent Fitz in here instead of you?"

Something in Ward's mind fractured. The words triggered something he hadn't thought of in years.

Decades.

Suddenly it wasn't Gonzalez leaning in, threatening to interrogate Fitz.

It was his mother.

And it wasn't interrogation she was threatening.

"Should I get Thomas instead? Hmm? Should it be him instead of you, Grant?"

The explosive anger was like nothing he'd ever felt before. It was like a dam broke against thirty years of pent up rage, and it was all consuming, burning through every fiber of his being. He felt his eyes burn, as if he was looking directly at the sun, the well of heat racing through his blood until he exploded.

Literally.

Without thought, without any recognition whatsoever, Ward hurled a blast of fire at Gonzalez, barely missing him as the agent hurled himself sideways, clearly anticipating what was going to happen.

He sure as hell didn't.

Just as quickly as the rage came, it was gone – and Ward felt as though he'd been plunged into an ice bath. His vision blurred, and he blinked away the encroaching darkness that threatened to close in on him.

"W-what the fuck was t-that?" he stuttered, his teeth chattering together as the numbness sank in to every bone, every fiber. He knew shock when he felt it, but his brain couldn't piece the two events together. Not even looking at the melted cuffs around his hands that looked like they were made from wax instead of metal.

Gonzalez smiled triumphantly, completely indifferent to the fact that his prisoner had just defied the laws of nature not ten seconds earlier.

"Your mother called it the Hellfire project."

So remember all that about how I didn't want to include Hellfire in this version? Well...I may have created my own version of it. I needed a reason why SHIELD wouldn't want to remove the controller immediately upon return, and I wanted Gonzalez to have a more front and center role as a villain. Hopefully, this works.

Please, please tell me what you think of this chapter - I'm actually really nervous about it considering how far I break from canon and what I feel is the beginning part of the story. This is officially a NANOWRIMO winner at more than 50,000 words - my longest fic EVER. Longest STORY ever. But the general vote from you guys was that you wanted a long story, so I needed a way to break from the recovery part of the story. Now that the boys are better...I'm going to break them again. Read and review! Let me know if you like it or I should take it down and rewrite the chapter without the Hellfire part of it!