Author's Note: I'm going to be honest. My brain is so fried from finals, I'm just assuming this makes as much sense on paper as it does in my head. So, feedback appreciated - and as always, hi to those who send me repeat review (Arodine, Annavale23, CockyUndead, Sreya and everyone else).

"You're why everything is so fucked up?" Grant snapped, fingers tightening around her wrist with every intent on break it.

"Hey! In my defense, I was like thirteen, and I just figured out how to influence people," Angela protested, not sounding sorry at all.

"I thought none of it ever stuck?"

Angela shrugged one shoulder. "Fun fact about us, little bro – I'm the only one you're not immune to. Mom was the only one who knew it, and I think she was hoping that if she could push me into controlling you, that rebellious streak of yours would go away. And maybe, just maybe, you would finally be the monster she was looking for."

"What the hell did you do?"

Angela's gaze flicked to the monitors, before she answered. "If I tell you, you have to promise to wait until the end to barbecue me, okay?"

"That bad, huh?"

"Not good, at any rate. You know how bad I am at helping. And I really, really was trying, okay?" Angela said defensively. "You kept volunteering for mom's projects, even when you could barely stand on your own, just so she would leave us alone. Every fucking time, Grant. And so sue me, I got sick of watching you dying. I hated you for always stepping up for us, for making sure nothing happened to Tommy, and I mean shit, you were even nice to Christian. And it was like you couldn't accept that mom just didn't give a shit about us. Like maybe she would love us if only we could be what she wanted and yeah. I got fucking tired of it."

Grant didn't say anything, but he kept his hand on her wrist, fingers overlapping her pulse even though he knew she was perfectly capable of keeping it even.

It also happened to be a handy pressure point.

"So when I got my abilities, I tested them out. I just wanted to see if I could make you less…" Angela used her free hand to gesture at her brother.

"That's specific," Grant deadpanned.

Angela huffed, and wrenched her hand free of his grip, folding her arms defiantly across her chest. "I slapped a patch job on you to make you less you, you moron." She again gestured vaguely in his direction, looking anywhere but at him. "And I fucked up royally. Because I didn't fix you, I just made you into basically a schizophrenic with selective amnesia. If I hadn't tried to make you into something like me, something like mom, you would never have thrown Tommy in the well. You would've never gone with Garrett. That's just not what you were like. You were a martyr. You were perfectly fine with mom hurting you as long as it wasn't one of us, but I wasn't, and I made you into a freak."

Grant blinked. That was not what he was expecting. For one thing, that sounded suspiciously like an apology. From Angela. Angela never apologized. Ever.

Secondly…

"If it's a patch…can you remove it?" he asked.

Angela looked mildly surprised that he even asked. "Uh, theoretically, I guess. I've never really been one for undoing damage…but I really don't know that it's a good idea."

Grant could feel his temper start to rise again and made a conscious effort to keep it in check. As strange as it sounded, he really didn't want to make any more attempts at the Hellfire abilities until Fitz came back from wherever he'd disappeared to. He was the only one who'd seen them and hadn't freaked out, himself included. He didn't trust anyone else.

And trusting his sister to do the wrong thing was not what he counted as trust.

"Angela, you can't possibly think I'm going to believe you if you tell me those memories, or whatever the hell it is you patched over, is going to be any worse than the ones of HYDRA. I want them back. I need them back."

Angela scratched the back of her head. "That's not my concern. It's not that they're going to be bad, because they are. My concern is that you won't be able to deal with them. Right now, tell me honestly – how do you deal with emotions? With guilt? With the knowledge of what you did for SHIELD and HYDRA?"

Grant frowned. It wasn't something he normally considered, if at all.

"I'm going to take a wild stab at it and say you don't. Right now, your memories seem to be filtering back. If I rip off the patch, there's no guarantee what's going to happen. I mean, I'm not even sure what's going to come through. Or how much of you is still going to be you." Angela held her hands up, imitating a scale. "I hate to be the one to point it out, but you've been this version a lot longer than you were the original."

Grant curled his hands into fists, feeling the first prickling of heat under his skin. That familiar well of rage that made his vision tunnel, and his heart spike. "Stop trying to tell me what I am. Nobody made me. Why does everyone keep acting like I'm some sort of mindless drone? I don't give a shit what those memories are, or what you patched over, I want them because they're mine. And not you, or anybody else, has the fucking right to tell me who or what I am."

Angela, instead of looking taken aback, actually smiled.

"Oh, little brother…how I've missed you," she said. She suddenly patted his foot, jumping to her feet. "Come on. Before I do anything, we're missing a crucial element to this. We're going on a field trip."

Grant frowned. "What?"

Angela gestured towards the door. "Get up, lazy ass. Let's go. You're not dying. I actually think I've figured this out, but I don't really want to test it out here."

Grant pulled the monitors loose from his skin, ignoring the flat lining beep from the heart monitor. "And where exactly are we going?"

Angela smiled, sticking her head out the door and taking a quick look around. "Where do they keep their embittered and vengeful ex-employees?"

"You mean the Vault?" Grant asked.

Angela thought about it for a moment. "No, not quite that bad. Not your level ex-employee. Is there like a less dungeon-y version?"

"Yeah. The detention cells on the lower levels."

"Excellent. Come on. Let's go."

(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*

Fitz hissed as he accidentally zapped himself again. It didn't hurt any more than a static shock from a car door in winter, but it was still enough to make him wince.

Stupid thing. If he'd been in his lab, this wouldn't be an issue, but no. Apparently, attacking the co-director of SHIELD was highly frowned upon. Even if said co-director had been keeping the man who'd tortured, experimented on and tried to kill you as a pet in a cage.

They said he was unstable, and he was here in detention for his own good.

As far as Fitz was concerned, he wasn't the unstable one. Seriously. How many times had keeping a pet psycho backfired? Mathematically speaking, their ratio was every goddamned time. No, unstable wasn't the word he'd choose…more like "politically pragmatic"

Fortunately, though he couldn't let him out without getting thrown in with him, Hunter had taken to smuggling him whatever small pieces of equipment he could.

Including the tiny remote he was currently working on, and was currently fighting back.

After the third tiny blue arc of electricity jumped from the tiny console to his finger, Fritz picked up the tiny piece of plastic and silicon and hurled it the length of his cell, yelling in frustration.

"And I thought I had anger management problems," drawled a familiar voice.

Fitz didn't even have to look up to know that Ward was smirking at him like a moron, and he lifted his middle finger before turning.

"Wow. You look awful," he said, frowning. And Ward did. His cheeks were still flushed red from fever while the rest of him was alarmingly pale. The stark difference in him made him almost look like a black and white photograph, but he was at least standing on his own, and despite looking like microwaved death, he was still smiling at him.

"You really know how to make a guy feel better," Ward deadpanned, glancing over at the door lock. "At least you have a good excuse for not coming to visit me for the last couple of days. Kinda hurt my feelings a bit."

Fitz dropped his head, chuckling for a moment before he picked himself up off the floor. "Yeah, well, apparently pummeling the shit out your boss is frowned upon in this establishment, so they put me in time out to think about what I've done." He pushed his hand against the force field, watching the tiny golden geometric web spider out from the contact. "I told Hunter to send flowers."

Ward smirked. "And have you thought about your actions?"

Fitz returned the grin. "After careful consideration, if I had a chance to do it again…I would've hit him harder. Where's your sister?"

Ward jerked a thumb back over his shoulder towards the stairs. "Keeping the guard company. She was the one who told me you were down here."

Fitz raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure Angela's primary goal for him was to keep him out of the picture.

Days of sitting with nothing to do tended to give one ample time for reflection, and the more he thought about Angela Ward, the more he was of the opinion she was the human embodiment of a hurricane – blowing into town just to fuck shit up.

"She tell you she's also kind of the reason I'm down here?" he asked, folding his arms.

Ward shrugged. "I could guess. Angela's great at pushing buttons."

Fitz raised an eyebrow. "She tell you why I went after Coulson?"

"I'd rather hear it from you," Ward said, grin fading slightly.

So Angela had told him. He was just hoping it wasn't true.

"Zola's alive," Fitz said, not even bothering to try and dance around the subject. He'd known Zola comparatively briefly to Ward, and unless Magnus had been around, he hadn't actually had any dealings with him whatsoever. "And Coulson and Gonzalez have been keeping him as a prisoner in the Vault."

Ward, on the other hand, had a lifetime of torture at the hands of the scientist.

Skye had been down to visit him, and so had Mack. And both times, Fitz had wound up so angry, and so frustrated at their complete lack of understanding as to why Fitz was so angry that they'd kept Zola, he wound up punching the force field in front of their faces.

Because to them, it shouldn't matter that they kept Zola alive. It shouldn't matter to him because Zola hadn't done anything to him. He was a wealth of information on the Inhumans biology, on enhanced people, on what HYDRA was planning on doing and what they had done in the past.

But they didn't share Fitz's nightmares. Because it shouldn't matter who the person was, no one deserved what he did to people. Twisted and turned them and broke them into a million unrecognizable pieces.

Zola was Frankenstein.

Zola made monsters.

And SHIELD wanted to know how.

Ward took the news slightly better than Fitz had, but that could just be because of how he found out. Or, more likely, Ward expected that level of betrayal. It wasn't a shock to him because hey, Garrett had been a good friend of Fury's – and look how that turned out.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Ward frowned in confusion. "Why? For being the messenger?"

Fitz glanced away, looking down at his feet before rubbing at the back of his head. "For not making sure he was dead."

At Ward's completely lost look, it occurred to Fitz that he probably had no memory of their escape. Or, if he did, it probably wasn't remotely close to reality.

"If you start to feel that chip of yours, let me know, okay?" he said, because really, Ward didn't look like he could take a zap like Fitz just had, never mind a mind wiping one from the implant.

How sad were their lives that had actually taken a back seat to their current crisis?

Ward nodded slowly, and Fitz could see the doubt in his eyes, and he could hardly blame him. Last time he'd started off a conversation like this, he'd told him about the implant in the first place – and the fact that Fitz held the same level of control over him as Angela.

"When we were escaping the lab…back when this shit all started…we ran into Zola. Well, you did." Fitz smiled faintly at the memory, and almost immediately frowned. "You were kicking ass and taking names, and then we ran into him, and he had this…" he pinched his fingers together, failing to come up with a proper word for it. "Remote. He used to use it on you, like a shock collar. But that was how he took you down. And he just-"

Yeah. So much for time healing all wounds. Fitz could still picture it like it was yesterday because he saw it still in his nightmares, and even as he tried to come up with the words to describe it, he could feel his throat start to close up. He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory of distant explosions, the smell of copper and the screaming.

"Was that how I broke my leg?" Ward asked quietly.

Fitz risked a glance upwards, surprised he had any memory of the incident, considering he'd almost been electrocuted to death at the time.

For someone who spent most of his adult life behind a carefully constructed mask, Ward was becoming alarmingly easy to read. Or maybe it was just Fitz had spent so much time with him in less than ideal circumstances.

"I have these…flashes, these images in my head…I couldn't tell if they were memories or…" Ward trailed off. "I remember bright flashes. And I remember gunfire. And then it sort of goes white…" He shifted uneasily where he stood, the stark LED lights keeping his features in garish shadows.

Months under SHIELD's 'care' and they both still looked like crap.

"He was killing you," Fitz said softly. "He was killing you, and I shot him…but I never checked to see if he was dead. And if I had…"

Ward chuckled darkly. "Then what?"

Fitz had nothing, so he remained silent.

"So there's one more monster in a cage," Ward said, sounding flippant, but Fitz knew better. It wasn't just any monster in the cell at the Vault.

It was the monster maker himself.

"I never did thank you, did I?" Ward asked. "For saving my life."

The bright flush across his cheeks spread almost to his ears with embarrassment.

"You don't have to," Fitz said, gesturing to the cell around him with a dismissive wave. "Not sure I really helped anything. At least it's me on this side of the bars instead of you. Nice change of pace, really."

Ward gave a humorless chuckle. "Well in that case…" he coughed into his head, clearing his throat and looking away. "Thanks anyways. Maybe not for saving it, but at least considering it a life worth saving. How about I return the favor?"

Fitz gestured towards the keypad lock. "How do you plan on doing that? You swipe the code?"

Ward raised an eyebrow. "No, dumbass, I brought a psychic and left her with the guard." He turned, shouting over his shoulder. "Angela! What's the key code?"

Angela poked her head around door at the top of the stairs, and seeing Fitz, gave a brief, over exuberant wave. "Hey, Scottie! Ready to blow this popsicle stand?"

"Angela!" Ward chastised. "Code, now."

"Mike here says it's 9241164386A."

As Ward pressed the code into the keypad, his gaze flickered to the tiny piece of electronics that Fitz had hurled across the cell. "What were you so pissed off at, anyway?"

Fitz bent down and picked it up, shoving it into his pocket as the force field dropped. "I was trying to fix something, but my tools were rather limited. I tried to get Hunter to bring me my things from the lab, but apparently I was too 'volatile'," he raised his hands, making sarcastic air quotes, "to get anything sharper than a paper clip."

"Punch the Director in the face one time, and suddenly you're a menace to society," Ward tsked. "Where did I go wrong with you?"

As soon as he stepped out of the cell, Fitz couldn't help the deep breath of fresher air.

"How long were you in there for?" Ward asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I dunno. Couple days?" Fitz scratched at the back of his head. "Not like they gave me a clock or anything, and Coulson hasn't been back down to see me since he had me thrown in there. How are his bruises?"

"Spectacular," Angela called from the doorway.

"Then probably only two or three days," Fitz reasoned. "How'd you convince them to let me out? Gonzalez basically said I was stuck there until I apologized."

Ward snorted. "Like I asked permission," he scoffed. "Besides. What are they going to do, tell me I can't? Everyone's been walking around on eggshells like I might turn them into a briquette if they say the wrong thing. As if I didn't burn my own house down more than once without super powers."

"And you have a psychotic psychic for a sister," Fitz said with mock enthusiasm. "Speaking of which…"

Fitz stopped in his tracks, craning his head around Ward to make sure Angela was still at the door.

"What's she playing at?" he whispered. "I'm like ninety percent positive she wanted me in here. Was it your choice or her's to come and get me?"

"Her's, but only because I didn't know you were in lock up," Ward said, choosing his words carefully. "Look, if you're wondering if she's up to something – yeah. That's a given. She's always up to something. But so far, whatever it is, seems to bank really, really heavily on us taking her side without her needing to use her Jedi mind powers on us."

"I don't know that's a good thing," Fitz hissed, grabbing onto Ward's arm as he turned to leave.

Ward sighed. "Right now…it's not so much a choice as a lack of options. And I can't believe I am about to say this, but…she's the lesser of two evils in this scenario. At the very least…she's the only person who has even a vague understanding of how to get control of this…" he trailed off, not entirely sure what to say about his new found abilities, which he hadn't even attempted to test since the hanger bay.

Fitz frowned at that. "Wow. Yeah, that is pretty bad."

"Oh my God, what is taking you so long? Are you forming a knitting group? Let's go!" Angela shouted irritably.

"Think maybe we could just branch out on our own?" Fitz grumbled. "Like Batman and Robin?"

Ward snickered. "I don't think you'd appreciate go-go shorts and a cape."

"Young Justice version, smart ass. Not 1960's crap television."

(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*

"So what did you need me for?" Fitz asked as Angela lead them through the corridors.

How in the Hell she knew her way around better than some of SHIELD's actual employees was something Fitz didn't want to consider.

"I have this theory about Grant's Hellfire abilities, I just need to double check…ah ha!" Angela turned abruptly, pushing open the door to the hanger bay.

It was relatively empty, except for a few of the grounded quinjets in for repairs. Fitz couldn't even see any of the normal mechanics that worked here, and wondered, probably for the hundredth time, what Angela was doing.

He caught Ward staring at the scorch marks on the floor from the last time they were here, and he didn't miss the faint tremor as Ward visibly shook himself free of the memories.

"So what's the theory?" Ward asked, folding his arms across his chest. "And why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?"

Angela huffed, rolling her eyes. "Where's the trust, brother?"

Ward raised an eyebrow, giving Angela a look that clearly stated he thought she was an idiot for even asking.

"Okay, okay…totally walked into that one. But I was talking to Earl Grey the other day, when I was helping out his wife in the lab. He said you'd been back from HYDRA for months, and you hadn't shown anything remotely close to the Hellfire abilities." She clapped her hands together, rubbing them with a sort of manic glee, and Fitz found himself stepping away from her. "At least not until you were in interrogation with the Moustache Director."

Fitz glanced over at Ward. "Does she actually know anyone's name, or is she purposely picking the worst nicknames ever?"

"Oh, quiet you," Angela grumbled, and Fitz's mouth clacked shut.

"Angela," Ward growled warningly.

"Right. Sorry. Ignore that," she said, before continuing on. "Anyway, like I said – Gonzalez, interrogation – bam. Pyrotechnics. So what changed? When I asked them about it, they said you'd been uncharacteristically quiet since you returned from Zola's lab. I think the word she actually used was 'mellow'. One, good on you – looks like years of anger management have finally started to pay off. But secondly, I'm guessing your abilities were activated the same way mine were. Same way Tommy's and Christian's, too."

Ward didn't look impressed, and remained impassive with his arms still folded. "Which were?"

Angela gave a half apologetic shrug. "You wanted your memories back, right?"

Fitz's head snapped towards Ward, about to ask what the hell she was talking about, but instead, Ward's eyes widened first in surprise, and then…fear?

"No, wait," Ward said, taking a step backwards. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"It's nothing personal," Angela said, and Fitz caught a glimpse of something in her dark eyes. Something manic. "If it makes you feel better, I have a vested interest in your survival – I'm not going to hurt you. But you know how mom was. Every breakthrough she ever made with us had one thing in common – duress."

Ward's eyes flashed towards Fitz, and he realized with sudden horror that Ward wasn't afraid for himself.

"Don't worry, Grant. I'm not going to do anything to your new Thomas. I'm going to give you what you wanted," Angela said, almost friendly. "The memories of how you were unmade."

And suddenly, faster than Fitz would have thought possible without being a teleporter, Angela lunged Ward. Her long, elegant and scarred fingers splayed out against Ward's temple as she hissed one terrible word:

"Remember."

Yay Fitz is back! I forgot how much fun those two could be when they're bantering back and forth. Also - again, fried brain. I assume this makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't. One of my finals had words from a different language in it, so I probably shouldn't be working on this. But whatevs, man.

Also, an FYI for updating purpose: I'm going to be gone out of the country for two weeks, so no updating for a while. Sorry for those still reading (I know - this is a novel), but I did want to give you guys one more chapter before I left because I have been neglecting you, and you were the first ones to make me really start writing again. So, delirious hugs all around, and read and review!