So this chapter came to me a little faster than they have been lately. Being home sick with the flu does wonders for writing fanfic where people are suffering in misery. Hopefully you guys like this chapter and where the story is going as much as the last one (really, really happy you guys seem to be in favor of the Hellfire storyline, because now I have a whole new fun direction to go in). This chapter also jumps between points of view, and hopefully I managed it without sounding too jarring. Read and review! They inspire!
Fitz almost barreled straight into Coulson the moment he stepped off the Quinjet.
"Come on, come on!" he shouted, grabbing onto Coulson's coat sleeve and dragging him back towards the base. "You have to do something!"
"What the hell is going on, Fitz?" Coulson demanded, but allowed himself to be pulled along. "Your message was a little more than cryptic!"
"Gonzalez did something...I don't know what, but...come on!" Fitz growled, almost yanking Coulson off his feet.
Since when did Fitz become a sprinter?
Before they even got half way down the hall, Coulson realized they weren't going towards the medical wing. They weren't even headed towards Ward's new quarters.
They were headed straight for detention.
Inhuman detention.
And he could smell brimstone and smoke.
"What the...how long were we gone?" Hunter asked, easily keeping pace and now all three were running.
"Only an hour...what could go wrong in an hour?" Coulson cursed.
Fitz took a corner so fast that he practically skidded around it, and they ran almost face first into a heavily armed guard.
Armed, but instead of combat gear, was wearing...was that firefighting gear?
"What the hell is going on?" Coulson demanded when the sentry blocked their way.
"The prisoner turned out to be an Inhuman, sir. Director Gonzalez gave orders to contain it."
Coulson took a steadying breath, fully prepared to point out that Gonzalez was assistant director, not The Director of SHIELD and -
Hunter's punch caught the sentry off guard under his chin, knocking him out cold.
Coulson turned to glare at him. "Really?"
"I'm an independent hired thug. I can do things like that," Hunter reminded him. "And Fitz is getting away."
The closer they got, Coulson could feel the temperature spike – not just a few degrees, either. Like they were running into an oven.
And what the hell was that sound?
Over the yelling, which there seemed to be a lot of from a lot of people, there were short bursts of something that sounded like…a flame thrower?
They were in the lower hangar bay, which until recently was used to house the much larger aircraft that weren't in current use. They started converting it into a temporary holding area for unfriendly Inhumans that needed a secure area, both for them and for the safety of the other agents, but right now it looked more like a war zone.
At least fifteen guards, none of who Coulson immediately recognized, which he mentally made a note to discuss with Gonzalez, gathered in a loose circle, partially blocking his view and the hallway.
"Move!" he ordered, shouting to be heard above the noise, and two of them separated just enough for him to squeeze through until they saw Fitz next to him.
"He's not allowed in here," one said, gesturing towards the engineer.
"Fitz? Since when?" Coulson demanded. "He's an agent just the same as the rest of us."
"Director Gonzalez's orders. He's not to go near the target."
"Coulson!"
He managed to turn just in time to catch Skye, followed closely by May.
Both of them were in full battle gear, Skye with her gloves and May...well, May never really took off her field clothes.
"Let them through," May ordered, and when the sentry looked like he was about to protest, she leveled a glare at him that would've melted stone. "All of them."
Without waiting for an invite, Fitz shoved his way past the guards.
"What the hell is going on?" Coulson demanded.
"Ward," May answered.
"He's an Inhuman!" Skye said, then winced. "I think? Not like me and Lincoln, but..."
"Like the Twins," May explained.
Coulson felt like he'd swallowed lead, and it was sitting heavily in his gut. Before he could ask for anything else, May suddenly pulled him down as everyone around them ducked.
A geyser of flame shot over their heads, so hot that Coulson's cheeks and hands singed red like a mild sunburn.
Oh no.
Coulson spun to look back over the group of guards that were a second ring around the floor of the hangar bay, and felt his stomach plummet.
Ward was in the center of the smaller circle, both hands restrained by what looked like military grade catch poles around each wrists, pulled so tight it was tearing the skin. Blood ran down his forearms, and he'd obviously taken a blow to the face at one point, considering his lip was split and his left eye starting to darken with bruising. His once dark eyes now looked like they were smoldering embers, but maybe that was a trick of the light.
None of that compared to the sight of Ward's hands literally on fire, and judging from the lack of agonizing pain that usually came from having your skin on fire, he was the one generating it.
Incandescent with rage suddenly had a new, and very literal meaning.
One click glance around and Coulson could guess what had gone wrong – they'd been trying to put Ward back into containment, and he'd resisted. And if judging by the level of anger, they'd tried simple brute force, completely forgetting who they were dealing with.
Ward survived being shot four times point blank in the chest. He'd navigated his way to Fury's secret base with fractured bones without real complaint. He'd survived HYDRA's science lab.
It was going to take more than an ICER to take him down for long.
"May, SITREP, now."
"Gonzalez took Ward in for questioning while you and Hunter were gone. Said he wanted to get Ward's half of the story about Zola and the lab, but Bobbi said he was on a witchunt, and he seemed to know a lot more about Ward's family than even Ward himself. He knew exactly what buttons to push, and when he mentioned interrogating Fitz, Ward lost it. Went after Gonzalez and suddenly he could do that." May gestured towards the scorch marks. "When Gonzalez ordered him escorted to the holding area, Ward resisted, and when the guards attempted to subdue him. Ward has even less control of whatever the hell this is than Skye did when she got her powers."
Oh good. Because having limited control over telekinesis was bad enough, now they have a pyrokinetic with rage problems with no control.
But there was something...off about the whole set up. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Why were there so many people? And why was it taking fifteen people to try and physically drag Ward to containment? He still hadn't recovered completely, and he'd had months without a lot of physical activity. This shouldn't be that hard, no matter who it was...well, unless it was Banner, but that was a separate issue.
"Where's Fitz?" Hunter suddenly asked, looking around.
Oh shit.
"Do you see Gonzalez?" Coulson asked, and his agents shook their heads. "Find him. Now."
This wasn't standard protocol gone haywire. This was theater.
"Boss?" Hunter questioned.
"Gonzalez knows about Fitz and Ward. This is him trying to prove it," Coulson said, trying not to appear too panicked as he pushed his way through the crowd.
They didn't have to look far for Fitz.
Fitz shoved his way through the crowd until he'd made his way through the final circle, stumbling to a halt when he finally got his first good look at Ward since this disaster started.
His bad leg was shaking visibly, even as he pulled against the catch poles, bracing with both his feet as he resisted being pulled forwards. The darkening bruise around his eye highlighted the unnatural brightness to them, and blood was beginning to drip freely to the floor, enough that he started to slip.
"Ward!" he shouted, trying to get his attention above the noise of the crowd.
Either Ward couldn't hear him, or he was ignoring him completely.
Please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me...he chanted mentally to himself, and then before he could think better of it, shot both handlers with the ICER pistol he'd lifted from one of the guards. They dropped without a sound to the ground, and the sudden release of pressure on his arms made Ward stumble and almost fall backwards.
You could've heard a pin drop in the sudden quiet. He could hear the other guards shifting their weapons, no longer solely pointed at Ward, but at both of them now. But he ignored them.
Nothing else mattered, except getting his friend to calm down.
"Grant," he finally tried, and Ward's head finally turned towards him.
"Fitz?"
"You have to calm down," Fitz said, holding both his hands up. He'd dropped the ICER by his feet, unwilling to use it on Ward. "You're burning up way too much energy, and I don't know what this is doing to you. You're already going into shock."
Ward glanced down at his hands, wrists still encircled by the wire rope. They shook violently, but the flames remained, though slightly tempered. Instead of raging inferno, it was more like an enthusiastic campfire. "I'm not going back to the Vault," he said defiantly, looking up again.
The glowing embers in his eyes flashed dangerously, and Fitz realized he was still only one wrong move away from turning back into the human flamethrower.
"No, you're not," Fitz said firmly. "Coulson is back. You're not going to the Vault, you're not going to holding, but you can't burn the place down, either."
Ward shook his head. "I c-can't turn it off."
"You're still feeling threatened. But Ward, you're not going back to the Vault," Fitz said. "I won't let you, and neither will Coulson or Hunter. I think you even won over Bobbi, and how many people are willing to go against her?"
There was a thin ghost of a smirk, but Fitz would take whatever victory he could get. He took a step forwards, but Ward backpedaled so fast he almost tripped over the pole.
For a moment, Fitz wondered why Ward hadn't taken them off, until he saw just how far they'd cut into his wrists. He probably couldn't take them off.
"Stay back!" Ward said, probably intending it as an order. But Fitz could see the desperate plea in is eyes, a warning to stay away.
"I'm not going to let them take you away," Fitz promised quietly. "Don't you trust me?" It took every ounce of willpower not to tell Ward to trust him, not because Fitz wanted to use the controller, but because he had to remember not to make anything sound like a command. He needed Ward to understand, to trust him without being ordered to.
Ward looked torn, and Fitz felt a stab of guilt. Up until recently, there wouldn't have been a hesitation.
Fitz took another step forwards, and Ward took another step back.
He could hear the crowd muttering to themselves. Why was a trained assassin backing away from a lab monkey?
"Are you afraid of me?" Fitz asked, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible. He didn't need to have half of Gonzalez's private army listening to every word.
Ward shook his head, eyes flicking nervously towards the crowd, but they had oddly enough stayed back.
"Of them?" Fitz asked, gesturing towards the guards.
Ward again shook his head.
"Then why do you keep stepping back?"
To prove his point, Fitz took another step forwards and once more, Ward mirrored him and took a step back. This time his leg almost gave out underneath him, but he managed to remain upright.
"I don't want to hurt you," Ward said, and Fitz could hear the exhaustion in his voice.
Even in the few short minutes he'd been talking to Ward, he'd watched the specialist's energy fade, even as the fire remained. But fire consumed energy just as surely as it created it, and Ward was damn near suicidally obstinate. He'd been on the defensive so long Fitz wasn't even sure Ward knew how to surrender. It just wasn't in his nature. But the energy that supplied the flames had to come from somewhere, and right now, Fitz strongly suspected it was actually coming from Ward himself. The longer he remained in Hellfire mode, the paler he became, the harder it was for him to stand.
"I don't think you will," Fitz said, and took another step forwards. He watched Ward move to take another step back but stopped mid step when his leg shook so bad he couldn't put his weight on it.
"You can't know that," Ward protested.
Fitz shrugged. "I don't. But I know you."
They were only a few feet apart from one another, and despite the fact that half of the Playground was watching them, Fitz's world had shrunk to just him and Ward.
"I don't want to go back to being in a cage, Fitz," Ward whispered. "Just for once...I want to be free."
"You will. There's more than one kind of free, Ward, and right now, the freedom you have is what you do with what's been done to you," Fitz said quietly. He held out his hand, palm up towards Ward. "And I don't think you'll choose to hurt me."
Before Ward could move away from him, Fitz grabbed his hand.
And just like that, the fire was gone.
Ward sagged forwards and would've fallen face first into the concrete if Fitz hadn't caught him. Ward might not have been particularly heavy anymore, but he was still six inches taller and more than a little unwieldy.
Fine muscle tremors shook his thinned frame, and Fitz could feel the heat fading quickly under his skin even as he gently pulled the catch wire from his wrists. The poles dropped to the ground with a clatter, and freed of the weight on his arms, Ward tried to hold himself up with numbed limbs.
Worse than awkward attempts to support himself was the constant and near delirious litany he whispered, his chin digging painfully into Fitz's shoulder as he held him upright.
"Help me."
"We will," Fitz swore quietly, "I promise we will," as Coulson, Hunter and May pushed through the crowd.
Coulson looked furious, but not like he was angry at them in specific. He'd had that same look on his face when he was relating how Hand had sent them into Ossetia without an extraction team. He was angry for them, not at them.
"Can we move him?" Coulson demanded. "Or do we need to get a med team down here?"
Fitz shook his head as best he could, because adding more people to this was only going to make it worse. He wasn't even sure how aware of everyone Ward really was, or if he'd even let go long enough to be put on a stretcher.
"Simmons says she has the lab ready - " May started, but anything after that Fitz didn't hear.
He knows she meant the medical ward area that Skye had been in when she was first learning about her powers, but she picked the worst word choice available.
Suddenly Ward was pushing himself back up, uncoordinated and without any real strength, but worse, Fitz could feel the sudden spike in the heat of Ward's skin, even through both layers of clothing between them. He could feel the erratic beat of Ward's heart soar dangerously towards tachycardia and panicked, the only thought in his head to keep Ward from making his own heart explode.
"Sleep," he hissed fiercely into Ward's ear, and Ward dropped like a stone, out instantly. Fitz would've dropped him if Hunter hadn't darted forward and grabbed Ward's other arm, helping to hold him up between the two of them.
Just as quickly as he said it, he regretted it. Ward made it abundantly clear that using commands even to save his life was unforgivable, and he'd now done it twice in one day.
Even after he promised not to.
He'd worry about the level of Hell he was bound for later.
From the lack of reaction from May, she either hadn't heard him, or didn't understand what she just saw.
But one look at Coulson, and Fitz knew that he understood. Understood what he saw, and what it meant, and something else. Something that took a minute for Fitz to recognize.
Coulson was very, very afraid.
Author's Note: Sooo...what do you think? I'm not very much in favor of how the current season is going, mostly because what I'm hoping Ward is up to is not what he says he's up to because it makes no sense compared to last season's finale...but I digress. I do like the fact that even HYDRA is worried about the destruction that Ward seems capable of. It fits well into my head canon that I'm establishing with this.
Also - of some of you are the democratic type, I will be introducing Thomas and Angela, but Angela will be first. And now that I've established that Mrs. Ward experimented on all her kids, I'm considering giving them powers/Inhuman characteristics too. So...suggestions for what they will be?