Author's Note: So. The introduction of Angela Ward. I feel like I set myself up for failure by mentioning her as being so scary not even HYDRA wanted her, and I don't know if I conveyed just how scary I imagine her. There's also a lot of dialogue in this chapter, but I feel like it was necessary. Also, it seems like it just stops short - but that's because it was at almost 6000 words, and that seemed a little...hefty. BIG shout out to everyone who has followed this from the beginning! I love seeing your names on the Favorite and Reviews list!

Also, on a random note: since the Agents of SHIELD wiki says that Ward is officially listed as dead...I'm likely not watching any of the new episodes. It's gotten too weird and over the top for me, and that's saying something. So of anything happens in the new episodes of interest - one of you is going to have to tell me about it.

Angela Ward returned the phone to the guard, smiling sweetly. "Thank you. Step aside."

The guard performed a perfect left facing movement, and his partner followed suit, stepping out of her way.

"And they say chivalry is dead," she said, slipping inside the door. She had no intention of waiting for the Directors to escort her in. She just needed to hear their voices so she could recognize them.

The compound was larger than she would've thought for a supposedly covert spy agency, but given the recent upheaval...covert was the least of SHIELD's concerns. She hadn't planned on making this a long visit, but the comment from the sentries caught her interest. Apparently, she looked an awful lot like someone in custody. Unfortunately, other than knowing what he looked like, they didn't seem to have any other interesting...or useful...information.

Obviously, they didn't have Christian. When she saw the news about the fire and heard his forced confession, she knew it wasn't Christian's doing. That man would win the Nobel Peace Prize before he killed himself, and he was as much a humanitarian as his parents were.

Oh, the things she could be proud of her little brother for…

Thomas wouldn't have drawn the immediate recognition, and more importantly, no one could keep him some place he didn't want to be. Federal custody hardly sounded like a vacation destination. So if they had Grant, which wouldn't be too far a jump in logic, the bigger question was why and how.

Hardly anyone bothered her as she strode purposefully through the corridors, smiling to the men and offering a half wave of greeting to the women. No one questioned her, though she could feel eyes on her as she walked. It was almost embarrassing how easy it was to walk around a top secret facility – just act like you owned the place, and no one questioned it. She didn't have a plan in place, but she didn't need one. She would find what she wanted, and she had all the time in the world.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Holy crap," someone said, and the accent more than the words stopped her in her tracks. She tossed her long black hair over her shoulder as she turned.

"Say again?" she said.

"Holy crap," the man repeated. His brow furrowed in confusion. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. Smartass is my first language."

"Oh, that's alright," she said, smiling. "You don't sound local."

And he didn't – he sounded like he was from just outside London proper. He was scruffy for a SHIELD agent, at least compared to the ones she'd encountered. Even Grant remained clean shaven while in their employ, despite complaining how young it made him look, but this one had a five o'clock shadow already.

Hmm. Five o'clock shadow, foreign accent, close cut hair, and the only one to notice her beyond the fact that she existed, even amongst trained agents.

Independent party.

"It's just...you look a lot like a friend of mine," he said, trying not to stare. "Like...scarily a lot."

That peaked her interest. For one thing, he referenced her brother as a friend. "This friend of yours...are they around?"

"Yeah, he's, uh, he's...around," the man said, stepping closer. He shook his head. "Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to stare. But Ward didn't mention his sister looked like she belongs on the Victoria Secret runway. What are you even doing here?"

Now that's a change of pace, Angela thought idly to herself. A SHIELD agent with a brain. Definitely an independent party.

Angela Ward was unmistakable. The eerie resemblance was just mind boggling, and Hunter couldn't believe no one else had noticed her in the building.

For one thing, she was drop dead gorgeous. Ward's features never struck him as being effeminate, but they definitely didn't make Angela look masculine – same fine features, sharp angles, dark eyes and midnight hair.

And he wasn't staring at her because she was pretty, which she was. He was staring at her because she looked hollow. He'd seen that look in Ward's eyes when they briefly met when he was a recently escaped fugitive. That disturbing sort of emptiness that promised violence was always an option, and blood spilled meant little outside of inconvenience.

"You don't remember me, do you," he said, smiling briefly. He had to look up at her – she even shared Ward's height.

Angela's smile never dimmed, but he was watching her eyes. There was a cold, deadly intelligence to them, and beyond the fact that clearly she and Ward were related, he'd seen them before.

"Basrah, '08. I remember. Didn't you work for SAS back then?" she asked.

"Yeah," he admitted, shrugging. "Needed a change of pace, you know? Little change of scenery. I didn't know you were a Ward though. What were you doing in Basrah?"

Angela waved one delicate hand. "Oh, toppling a corrupt general and his minister, starting an arm's race, and leaving the city wide open for an extremist group. You?"

Hunter shrugged again. "Liberating 200 detainees from a secret prison."

Angela leaned down, putting a hand close to her mouth as she whispered conspiratorially: "Just because you didn't know it was there, doesn't make it a secret."

"Fair enough, I suppose...but that still doesn't explain what you're doing here," Hunter pointed out.

"I was invited. It's not polite to turn down invitations. Especially not when they've been sent out by the Director of SHIELD himself. Or whoever that insufferable suit monkey Gonzalez thinks he is. Last I knew, Phil Coulson ran SHIELD behind the back of Nick Fury. I think I preferred that set up. Any chance of going back?"

"Coulson is still the Director," Hunter said. "And actually, so is Fury."

Angela frowned. "So there's three of them?" She put one delicately manicured hand to her lips, tapping them thoughtfully. The pale skin was lined with scars – thin, white lines of varying degrees that criss-crossed over themselves over the years. She may look like a model, but so did Bobbi, and Hunter was well aware of what happened to people who underestimated her, thinking she was just another pretty face.

"You know what else has multiple heads?" Angela said, suddenly smiling. "A hydra."

Hunter sighed, scratching the back of his neck. He wasn't entirely sure he liked how many similarities they could suddenly draw between SHIELD and HYDRA. "Yeah...it's been a strange couple of months."

Angela laughed, and it sounded as hollow as she was. "Oh, honey...that's nothing new."

"You said you were invited," Hunter redirected. "Any particular reason?"

"I always take it as a standing invitation for a face to face when people start looking into my whereabouts. I assume that if they're that curious...and that stupid...I can give them better answers than Google."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. "So you're here to share intel?"

Angela laughed, and she sounded more like Maleficent than a human being. "Of course not, silly. I came here to kill everyone and burn it to the ground to serve as a warning. But then something the guards said changed my mind."

"And what was that?"

"The same thing you did – that I looked familiar. I don't much look like Christian, and no one has seen Thomas in years, and for some unfathomable reason, Grant always wanted to play for your team. So, Mr. Hunter...where is my dear baby brother?" Angela asked.

"In the medical wing," Hunter answered without pausing to consider if he should really be telling her anything.

Angela actually looked surprised. "Medical wing? Not the Vault? What's he doing there?"

"He's sick. Actually, we don't really know what's wrong with him. Something to do with what your mother did to you as children, and Zola messed around with a couple months ago-"

"Stop right there. Zola? Dieter or Arnim?"

Again, he answered without really pausing to wonder whether it was a good idea. The sudden anger in her voice, the knowledge that she apparently knew full well that the elder Zola was as much a possibility as the younger, and the way she suddenly was shoving him up against the wall was more than enough incentive.

"Dieter!" he gasped around the arm pressed against his throat.

"The guards at the front said there were two HYDRA prisoners. Who's the second?" Angela demanded. The fact that she didn't raise her voice was somehow worse than if she'd shouted.

"Leopold Fitz."

Angela frowned at that, and stepped back, dropping her grip on Hunter. Obviously, Fitz was not the name she was expecting.

"Fitz wasn't a HYDRA operative. What's he doing in custody with Grant?" she demanded.

"He was a prisoner of HYDRA and Zola with your brother," Hunter explained, rubbing absently at his throat. He made a mental note not to introduce Angela to Bobbi – either they'd be instant enemies or instant BFF – neither of which sounded appealing. "He's the only one Ward trusts."

Angela cocked her head to one side, and the similarity between her and Ward was almost painful. "Now that is something interesting."

"Angela Ward?"

Both Angela and Hunter turned to see Coulson and Gonzalez, along with at least half a dozen armed soldiers, all with their weapons pointed at Angela.

Angela smirked, and put her hands up. "Your security leaves a lot to be desired, Directors."

There was something off about Angela's behavior as she allowed them to cuff her. For everything that they knew about Angela Ward, she was strangely passive. She didn't put up any resistance at all as they led her away towards interrogation. She was almost pleasant.

None of which seemed remotely characteristic a person who even HYDRA was afraid to find.

It wasn't until she was about to turn the corner, when she turned and looked back at Hunter over her shoulder that he finally understood.

She smiled – a beautiful, empty smile – and winked.

Aw, hell…

"You just let her in?" Fitz hissed, as soon as the door closed behind him. "What the hell for?"

Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "I don't even know. She told Gonzalez to let her in, and he agreed. I didn't even get a chance to argue. At this point, what's one more bad decision?"

Fitz's jaw dropped, and it looked like he was about to go off on a tangent, but Coulson cut him off before he could get started.

"Look, Fitz, she refuses to talk to anyone but you. So if you want to know anything, then you're going to have to come down to interrogation."

Fitz crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "And how the hell did she even know I bloody existed?"

Coulson had the decency to look at least moderately ashamed. "She asked about Ward, and I told her you were the one to ask, and then she said you were the only one she'd speak to. She hasn't said a word since."

Fitz glanced back at the medical wing behind him. Ward was sleeping, fitfully, but sleeping, head buried under eight layers of blankets and pillows. Hunter was sitting in Fitz's recently vacated chair, thumbing through an old file of his from back when he was in SAS. He didn't explain why the sudden interest, and Fitz didn't push.

"I don't think this is going to take that long," Coulson said. "You'll probably be back before he even wakes up."

"It's not leaving him that concerns me," Fitz grumbled. "It's going to see his sister that makes me think this is a terrible idea."

Coulson shrugged. "I can't make you go. But at the same time, Fitz, think about it – she's the only Ward still alive that might have some insight about what we're dealing with. She was obviously subjected to the same treatment as Ward, but she hasn't had nearly the amount of recent trauma that he has. Hell, from what you described from his reaction to her, she probably had a hand in it."

Fitz frowned. "You're not making this sound any better..."

"Strangely enough, she doesn't seem so bad...a little like Dottie Underwood, but...less serial killer-esque."

"And somehow, you've managed to make her sound even less appealing than Ward did. No, thank you," Fitz said, turning to go back into the room. Coulson's hand shot out, holding the door closed.

"Fitz, you need to come talk to her," Coulson said. There was an odd note of desperation in his voice, and Fitz frowned.

"Why? Why can't you and Gonzalez or anyone else talk to her?" Fitz said. "Just do what you did to Ward on his first day."

"Because she asked for you. She asked me to come and get you, and not to come back without you," Coulson said. He didn't move his hand from the door.

Something in the way he said it, in his bizarre behavior made Fitz curious. He glanced back at the room. "You really think she knows what's going on? Or that she might help?"

Coulson shrugged. "No idea. But she's our only shot at this point."

Fitz sighed. "Fine...but if she turns out anything like Christian, I'm leaving."

Angela was nothing like Christian.

Christian had the same air about him that most politicians had – obsequious and placating, with an air of being disingenuous about everything that came out of their mouths. Christian was the type of person who smiled and promised everything you wanted while he kept his fingers crossed behind his back.

Angela smiled, but there was something missing. It never reached her eyes, and there was no genuine emotion in her expression.

It was like a shark pretending to be human.

"So you're the one who managed to do what no one else in my brother's entire life could," she said. The way she spoke, her voice lilting slightly as someone who spent many years abroad, came off almost like a purr. "How very interesting...especially since there's nothing interesting about you at all."

Fitz frowned, unsure how to take the remark. "Um. Thanks?"

The corner of her perfect mouth twitched in what one might consider a smirk, but the unsettling emptiness of her stare warped it into a sneer. "You would take that as a compliment, wouldn't you?"

Fitz shrugged rather than answer, and Angela huffed impatiently.

"You wanted to talk to me, yes?" she asked, tapping one perfectly manicured nail against the table top. "So talk. Or I'm going to go about the plan I originally had before I found out you had my brother in custody."

Fitz shook his head, leaning further away from her as she'd leaned forwards. "I didn't want to talk to you at all, actually."

"Pity," she mused. "Your loss. Then who did?" She inclined her head slightly towards the interrogation room window. "The mustached monkey behind the glass? Or the one sitting in here with us?" She smiled at Coulson, who ignored the jab.

"How did you know where to find us?" Coulson asked, before Fitz could reply.

Angela's dark eyes slid over Coulson, but when she answered, she spoke to Fitz as if he'd been the one to ask. "I'm in the business of knowing things. One of the things I like to know about is when someone wants to know about me. Since I don't exist anywhere on paper, the only people who would be looking for me are people I don't particularly want to find me. So I find them first, and then they wish they hadn't looked at all."

"So you're in hiding?" Coulson prompted.

"As much as a wolf hides from sheep, sure," Angela said offhandedly.

"So if you're not in hiding...why do you care if someone is looking for you? Who were you...avoiding, if not hiding from?" Coulson asked.

Angela sighed, lower lip jutting out in a mockery of a pout. "Don't tell me there aren't people in the world you would prefer to avoid, Director. Just because I'm not concerned about my mother's former playmates doesn't mean I want them showing up unannounced on my doorstep. Or interfering with my own operations."

Coulson smiled slightly. "And why aren't you concerned about HYDRA?"

This time, when Angela smiled, there was something there – just underneath the surface, the barest hint of what lay below...like the triangle of a shark fin just above the water.

Fitz fought the urge to shudder. Suddenly Magnus and Zola didn't seem so bad, and Angela hadn't even made a threat. She hadn't really done anything at all.

"Oh, poor, sweet thing...you don't know, do you?" Angela crooned, lilted voice sing songing in the interrogation room. "Grant must not remember either, or I'm pretty sure he would've warned you about inviting me here with butting in where you don't belong."

"Actually, he did warn us. Several times. But he never gave any specifics. Just that it was a poor choice to try and find you."

Fitz actually sat up a little straighter at the comment about Ward's memories, jumping in before Angela could answer Coulson's questions – mostly because he was sure she wasn't going to give an answer anyway. "He says he remembers everything. Even when HYDRA tried to wipe his memories with the Faustus Device, he could still tell the difference between suggestion and his own thoughts. And he's always been aware of things trying to control him – we ran into alien technology that channeled rage, and he knew what it was making him do. Everyone else who picked it up just sort of...gave into it. But he was aware enough to use it instead of letting it use him. And then when we ran into another Asgardian who could control men through her voice, he could still resist better than most. But he doesn't remember you. Why?"

Angela rolled her eyes. "My brother's memory isn't what's in question. People make that mistake a lot, though, so don't feel too bad. The Faustus Device...or any other Jedi mind fuckery, won't work on him. That's why he always remembered what they'd try to do to him, or tried to make him in to. But he's still human – and the human brain likes to block out serious trauma."

"He seems to remember your mother and Christian beating the hell out of him well enough," Fitz pointed out, trying not to snap. He could still vividly remember Ward's behavior in the recovery room, fighting against the imaginary demons of his mother and older brother.

Of course, now he was beginning to wonder why he'd never said anything about Angela. The little he did mention made her sound worse than the other two combined, but somehow never made it into his nightmares. That alone was a little concerning.

"Traumatic in our house was a little different than most. Getting our asses kicked, that's not traumatic – that's a Tuesday. Having your mother pin you down to a lab table not a foot away from her vivisected failed experiment while she performed a stereotactic brain biopsy when you were seven...that's traumatic," Angela said, as dismissive as if she was comparing sport statistics in fantasy football.

Fitz had a sudden image of a young Grant Ward strapped down in a chair with the metal head ring casing for a stereotactic biopsy and fought the urge to vomit. It explained why he reacted so badly to the casing for his external fixator on his leg – it must've looked disturbingly similar in his mind.

He didn't even notice that Angela had suddenly turned towards him again, studying him like Jemma studied a new lab specimen.

"I see why Grant likes you," she said abruptly, pulling Fitz out of his thoughts.

"What?"

"You're a lot like him when he was younger. Sometimes I wonder how the hell a monster like Adaline Ward had children like Thomas and Grant. I'm pretty sure it's definitive proof there is no God, or if there is...he is a cruel one."

"You must not think very highly of yourself or Christian then," Coulson said.

"We made sense. Monsters beget monsters."

"You mean sociopaths?" Coulson suggested.

"Intelligent psychopaths, thank you very much. If you're going to profile me, at least make the effort to get the terms right before you insult me. Sociopaths don't know the difference between right and wrong. Intelligent psychopaths know the difference...we just don't care."

"I don't know that Ward falls far from that definition," Coulson said.

Angela's eyes narrowed. "Bite your tongue."

Coulson flinched when he accidentally bit down on the tip of his tongue, tasting copper.

Angela relaxed fractionally, before she forced a smile. "You should watch what you say, Agent Coulson. I tend to take insults to my brother rather personally. A side effect of being twins, I suppose."

"Ward is your twin brother?" Coulson said. "I thought you were his older sister."

Angela's face scrunched up in a look of disgust. "And how do you propose a woman gives birth simultaneously to two children? I am older – it's just by minutes instead of months. I purposely took out our birthdays from most of our records just so we didn't develop any added interest."

Fitz shuddered. Twins didn't have the best luck with Nazis. Ward's references to Josef Mengele suddenly made more sense.

"Does that mean you share abilities?" Coulson asked.

"Last I knew, Grant didn't have any, thus why our mother didn't particularly care for him. All those years trying, and other than being extra defiant, he was a total failure. It's why he was sent away to military school. I think she hoped he would get himself killed and save her the trouble, and even if he didn't – at least a soldier had his uses."

It was easy to mistake the tone in Angela's voice as dismissive, but Fitz had more experience than he would like listening to lies. The deadness in her eyes flickered slightly when she spoke of Ward – which is why Fitz knew she wasn't talking about herself when she described her definition of 'traumatic'. The disregard she had for her mother, hell, even herself was real. But the callousness towards her twin wasn't. It wasn't even that she was lying – she seemed almost to prefer not to talk about him at all. The same way Ward didn't seem to like to talk about her, either.

"He said you were your mother's only real success," Fitz said quietly. "If he was a failure...where did you succeed?"

The smile she gave him was positively radiant, and Fitz understood how she could topple empires with just a glance. "I thought it was obvious?"

"Enlighten us."

And suddenly the smile was anything but radiant, even though she never moved a muscle. It was cold and sinister and Fitz felt like he'd just made the worst suggestion ever. "Ooo, a game of show and tell? Have I mentioned how much I like games? I warn you, Fitz, if I show you what I do, this interview is over. I'll go straight to my brother, and we're going to leave. And I plan to make an exit such as SHIELD will not soon forget."

Fitz didn't immediately answer, and even Coulson turned to look at him questioningly. Angela was coldly brilliant, but like her brother, she didn't lie. She skirted around topics, but when asked directly she tended to be brutally honest.

"You've already showed us, haven't you?" Fitz said, understanding beginning to dawn.

Angela's sinister smile remained perfectly in place, but Fitz knew he was right.

"How did you get in here?" he asked, leaning forwards, elbows on the table. "You didn't fight your way in, even though you obviously could have."

Angela leaned back, tossing her long black hair over one shoulder in a shrug. "I asked nicely."

"You just...asked?" Fitz echoed. "That's it?"

Angela shrugged. "What can I say? I have a great personality."

Fitz shook his head, trying not to smile. "Fine. It's really not that important anyway. Coulson only got me to come here because he suggested you might have some insight as to what's wrong with Ward. Do you remember what your mother did to you?"

"In vivid, technicolor detail," Angela said. "But you'll have to be more specific. The mercenary...Earl Grey, or whatever his name is, he said Grant was sick. Sick how? What happened?"

Fitz shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea. No one does. That's the problem. It has something to do with all the mucking around in your DNA that your parents did when you were children. You said Ward didn't have powers, right? Well he sure as shit does now."

Angela's interest was suddenly piqued. "Really, now. And what can my brother do, besides find himself in unfortunate situations?"

"Your mother titled it Hellfire, if that helps," Fitz said. "And it's very recent. He hasn't got any Inhuman markers in his DNA last we checked, but we're running more tests now. He doesn't remember any of the experiments that he went through, not with your mom, and not with Zola, so we don't know what they did, and what we have of their records is incomplete. So what the hell was your mom up to?"

Angela remained quiet for a moment, studying Fitz for an uncomfortably long minute before she sighed, sitting back in her chair, arms folded as well as she could manage with her hands still cuffed to the table.

"What is HYDRA always after?" she asked ruefully. "The next best thing. To them it's shameful to be just human, and not want to be something else. Something better. Something greater. My mother was too much of a coward to perform her experiments on herself, and when she struck a deal with SHIELD to be granted immunity because of her impeding motherhood, she didn't have access to all the human lab rats she was used to. My mother became her own version of God, and we became her subjects. And there was no getting away from it. My brothers tried."

"But you didn't?"

"This is always hard for others to understand, but even when I was a child, my mother made sense to me. I understood her, even when I suspect her own husband did not. Why be ordinary, when you could be a god amongst men? And what my brothers never understood, couldn't understand, is that if you didn't fight her every step of the way, it didn't hurt nearly as bad. My mother was a scientist, first and foremost. But a close second was her need to hurt."

"So you went along with it so she didn't hurt you," Fitz guessed.

"No one can say I was unobservant," Angela said. "Christian's response was hate – but he couldn't do anything to my mother. So instead he tortured the rest of us. Grant became a martyr – he'd let my mother do anything to him if it meant Thomas was left alone. Most of the damage she did to him was psychological, anyway. Once she figured out he just wasn't going to be what she wanted, she just used him as a control group until he was old enough to be sent away."

"Grant was the only failure?" Coulson asked curiously.

Angela nodded absently. "Pretty much. Christian had his uses, but they didn't amount to much when he was younger since technology wasn't that widespread. But being able to muckity muck around with technology had its uses when election time came around. Or when when banks became electronic. And when crime was solved by computers. He didn't mean much to mom until he was in his twenties. I still have no idea what the hell happened between them to get back in each other's good graces. Maybe it was just publicity since Christian was in politics, and estranged families don't sell. I never asked."

"What about Thomas?"

Angela chuckled. "Poor, poor Tommy...he had the misfortune to be our mother's favorite. I'm sure you noticed there's a huge age gap in the Ward children. When he came along, science was finally starting to get to the point where you could fuck with DNA a little more carefully...and she'd had years of practice with the rest of us. He was exactly what she wanted...and she didn't have to torture him to do it." She paused, frowning. "I hated that little shit. But Grant adored him, so I couldn't do a damn thing about it."

Her tone was nostalgic, but Fitz caught the bitterness easily enough. She didn't hate Thomas so much as she hated how Grant felt about him, which he thought was a little odd since she seemed to have no remorse about anything else she described.

"Why didn't Grant like you?" he asked quietly.

And there was the only real emotion Angela expressed in her entire interrogation. She smiled, bitter and sad. "Because I was the one who held him down."

Fitz felt a sudden chill spread through his body that had nothing to do with the recycled air through the vent.

Angela continued, not breaking eye contact with him. "My brother was suffering. He was too kind for his own good, and in spite of all the pain she caused him, all the things she inflicted on him, he still wanted my mother to love him. She was the only one who paid any attention to him, even if it was nothing but bad – I doubt our father could even tell you our names. So as much as I hated Thomas, I couldn't bring myself to do any harm to the one person who could love my brother back."

"You couldn't hurt Thomas, but you could hold your twin brother down for your mother's twisted experiments?" Fitz asked, unable to keep the disgust out of his voice. "Wow. Can't understand why Ward wouldn't want anything to do with you."

At that, Angela actually chuckled. "I learned a valuable lesson about what love meant in our house – love wasn't the absence of hate. Love was making sure the hate hurt less. The only time I ever did anything out of love for my brother ruined him forever."

Angela's voice was almost hypnotic the entire time she spoke, and Fitz felt like he was wading through quicksand trying to piece together the story she said and what he knew of Ward.

"You said Ward's memory wasn't an issue, but people think it is," Fitz said carefully. "But there's something else, isn't there? And it's not that he blocked out traumatic experiences at the hands of your mother, he genuinely didn't remember anything about her lab. You still haven't told us what you do, Angela. What can you do that makes everyone, including your own brother so afraid of you?"

The beautiful woman across from him looked down at her carefully manicured nails, flexing her scarred fingers. "I've given you enough hints, Mr. Fitz. You seem like a smart boy. You tell me."

"Did you really just ask nicely and the guards let you in?"

"Of course. I haven't lied about anything," Angela said. "Yet."

"Have you shown us since you were brought in what you can do?" Fitz pressed.

Angela nodded towards Coulson. "Only on him."

Coulson bristled. "You haven't done anything to me."

"Yes, I have," Angela said, her coy grin back.

"Him, but not me?" Fitz asked.

Angela shook her head. "I can't do anything to you. You're his new Thomas. And I've done enough to him."

Fitz shoved his chair back, away from Angela who's empty smile only grew.

"Oh, I think you've almost got it."

Fitz shook his head. "No, because if that was true, why did you let yourself be arrested?"

Angela wagged a finger at him. "Now, now. That's a different question altogether."

Coulson glanced between the two of them, clearly missing their subtext conversation. "What the hell is she talking about?"

Angela leaned in close, her voice sing songing as she asked, "should I tell him? Or should I show him, Fitz?"

"Tell me what?" Coulson demanded. "Fitz -"

Fitz put both his hands over his face, trying not to laugh at the cruel irony of it. "You didn't mean you held your brother down physically, did you."

Coulson's eyebrows shot into his receding hairline. "You mean..."

Fitz chuckled bitterly. "She's a fucking psychic."

Author's Note: Sooooo...how did Angela come out? Live up to expectations? Fell short? Love her? Hate her? Love to hate her? She's going to be around for a little, so now's the time to share your honest opinions of her.

I also feel like I need to explain why I made her so physically attractive and have most of the guy characters notice - one, because she's a Ward. Pretty sure all us ladies noticed Ward in a less than sapiosexual way when we first saw him. Two, because like Bobbi and Natasha, she relies just as much on being a pretty, empty headed female for her work. No one stops the hot chick - they just stare.

But if I could cast the Ward siblings: Jessica Jane Clement for Angela, and thanks to a reader (who I cannot find your original review to save my life) Thomas is imagined as Thore Schölermann. And oh yes...Thomas will be making an appearance.

Read and review! It keeps the story alive!