Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Heart Attack
“Skye! Skye! Don’t run! You don’t understand! I’m not trying to hurt you!”
The memory of Ward’s yells as she ran from the diner echoed in her head, bouncing like ping-pong balls through her semi-conscious mind. The last thing Skye remembered was Mike Peterson smashing through the windshield of the police cruiser she’d tried to escape in. Things after that were a little fuzzy, including where she currently was. She swallowed, keeping her eyes closed and trying her best to remain still as voices became clear around her, Mike at a distance, Ward closer.
“You should be thanking me. I saved your ass.”
“You didn’t save my ass,” Ward said irritably. “You turned it into a public spectacle.”
Ward’s voice got even nearer to her, and a hand – his hand – gently touched the side of her face. She couldn’t help shivering a little at that, and she opened her eyes to see Ward crouched in front of her, concern in his face.
“Skye…”
“Get away from me,” she mumbled, still a little blearing from being choked unconscious.
Apparently satisfied that she was okay, Ward straightened up and turned back to Mike. The three of them were in the familiar cargo hold of the Bus, though it seemed so different lacking the friendly faces of Fitz and Simmons in their lab space. With any luck, the team had found her message by now and were hard at work trying to stop Ward and Garrett… but rescuing her couldn’t be high on their priority list. Not when both HYDRA and the US Military was intent on driving S.H.I.E.L.D. deeper into the shadows.
“You let her get one over on you,” said Mike. “That’s exactly what Garrett was afraid of.”
Ward took an aggressive step toward Mike, close enough to poke him in the chest. Watching them, Skye wondered what her chances of escape might be if it came to blows between the two. It wasn’t likely, but the thought helped her spirits.
“And Garrett told you to stay out of sight.”
“He ordered me to shadow you. He knew you had a soft spot for Skye, and she might take advantage of it.”
A hint of irritation and guilt passed over Ward’s face – Garrett clearly had him pegged. Skye rubbed her aching head, sitting up a little straighter from where she had been deposited on the floor by the emergency buckle seats.
“We have her,” said Ward, not directly answering Mike’s accusation. “And once she gives us a location, we’ll be off.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” said Skye, hands clenching into determined fists at her sides.
She was sick of pretending. For over a day she’d played along, feigning a budding romance with Ward even though she’d seen the aftermath of what he’d done to Eric Koenig, knew what he must have done to countless others in the past weeks since HYDRA had gone public. She’d smiled… held his hand… let him hug her. She’d even kissed him, her boldest move of counter-deception.
But she couldn’t pretend any longer, couldn’t act like she was falling in love with a monster.
“Take a walk,” Ward ordered Mike. “I can handle this.”
“Can you?” she countered. “You haven’t so far.”
Mike turned his head, his gaze seemingly out of focus for a few seconds, then he looked back up at Ward. “Garrett says you have five minutes.”
Ward nodded, accepting the deadline. As Mike’s clanking footsteps ascended the ladder, Skye struggled to her feet, glaring with all the fierceness she could muster. Ward stood watching her, and she couldn't tell what was behind his expression – pity, perhaps, or a hint of regret that he would have to cross her off once the hard drive was unlocked. Because undoubtedly, those would be Garrett’s next orders: kill her once they had the data they needed.
She knew she was weak and practically helpless, and that every single one of the “moves” she knew were the product of Ward’s training, all the days he’d put up with her distracted attitude and her jokes and her flirting. God, if only I’d actually paid attention instead of hitting on him.
Because she had hit on him, time and time again. She’d wanted him, wanted him bad. She’d been so attracted to him that the memories of her idle fantasies now made her sick to her stomach, how much she’d been deceived by the man who was now only keeping her alive so long as she was useful to him and, by extension, Garrett.
Still, she was going to fight like hell to take him down with her.
“I can explain.”
His gentle expression – as if patronizing her would make everything he’d done all okay – just made her more angry. Pushing off the row of seats, she stomped toward him.
“You lying bastard!” She aimed a punch at Ward’s stomach, giving it all the force she could manage. He grunted from surprise and pain, stumbling backwards a step. Skye pursued, her fist flying at his face, her other hand clenching the front of his shirt. “Son of a bitch! You liar!”
“Stop. Skye, stop. Calm down!”
Ward seized her wrists, subduing her in seconds and holding her until she stilled. He wasn’t rough, just overwhelmingly strong. She shook in his grasp, glaring.
“Okay?” he demanded. “It’s over. You can’t win.”
His tone was placating, an attempt to persuade her of the pointlessness of struggling. She stared fiercely at him for a moment… and then whipped her head forward as hard as she could, cracking his nose with her forehead. He reared back, reaching for his nose.
“Ow! Stop it.”
Before she could try again, he wrenched her hands behind her back, cuffing one of her wrists to the spiral stair railing, then stepped out of reach. She seethed and struggled against the handcuff as he walked into the lab for a towel to mop his bloodied nose.
At least I got in one good hit. That thought was the little silver lining in the thunderstorm of her circumstances. Mike’s threat echoed in her head, that Garrett had given Ward five minutes… five minutes to convince her to confess the new coordinates for the locked hard drive, to give away all the technical knowledge their team had amassed over the past year. Coulson’s secrets. Her secrets.
“All this time,” she said, still breathing heavily from her attempt to fight him, “everything we've been through. Why? How could you?”
“I was on a mission,” Ward answered quietly. “It wasn’t personal.”
“ ‘It wasn’t’… you did not just say that. ‘It wasn’t personal’?!” She swung at him, but the handcuff held her back.
“Skye, listen to me.”
“God! You might actually believe that. You – that is – that is the twisted logic that they teach you when you sign up to be a Nazi.”
A surprised frown creased his face. “Stop, wait, I’m not a Nazi.”
His expression confirmed he genuinely believed it, which stunned Skye even more.
“Yes, you are,” she said, enunciating each syllable as though her words were sledgehammer strikes, the only weapon she had left. “That’s exactly what you are. It’s in the S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook, chapter one. The Red Skull, founder of HYDRA, was a big, fat, freaking Nazi!”
“That has nothing to do with today.”
“You know you always had that ‘Hitler youth’ look to you so it’s really not that surprising.”
“It’s not like that,” he insisted. “I’m a spy. I had a job.”
Just a job… Victoria Hand… Eric Koenig… the S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers at the Fridge… the police officers today… There was so much blood on his hands. She shook her head, shuddering.
“You’ve killed I don’t know how many people… You gonna kill me now?”
“No,” he said. “I would never hurt you.”
How much of Garrett’s five minutes are left? What then?
“Once I crack the drive, are you just gonna shoot me like you did with Thomas Nash?” she asked, a trembling crack in her voice. “Or are you gonna have someone else do it, like you did with Quinn?”
“I didn’t know that was gonna happen. That was all Garrett.”
Sure, she almost snorted aloud, blame someone else for all the blood you’ve shed.
“Oh, of course it was Garrett’s fault. That was part of the mission, right? You were just gonna kick back and watch me bleed until it was your turn to pull the trigger.”
He looked genuinely hurt by that accusation, his brow furrowing, pain in his eyes. Skye didn’t want to look too closely, yet at the same time she couldn’t look away.
“You think I had a part in that? That I would let that happen to you? You know how I feel about you, Skye.”
How he… feels? Not ‘felt’? That wasn’t just an act, like everything else? She shivered, repulsed by the idea that after all the bloodshed and treachery, he still wanted a claim on her heart.
“Wait… So, even though you’ve been lying to everyone about everything, you’re saying your feelings for me—”
“They’re real, Skye.” He was close enough now to touch her, to capture her trembling face in his hands. “They always have been.”
His expression was so tender, so sincere… so undeniably handsome, as he always was… but it just made Skye more horrified. Looking at him, she couldn’t help but remember the image of Koenig’s body out of her mind, the blood dripping down.
“I’m gonna throw up.”
She squirmed out of Ward’s grip and stepped away, backing into the spiral staircase. Though she didn't want to make eye contact with him, she saw the twinge of pain that her words caused, more now than when she had been yelling and calling him a Nazi.
“Do you… do you think this has been easy for me?” he demanded, voice low and intense, almost a growl. “Do you have any idea how hard it was? The sacrifices, the decisions I had to make? But I made them, because that’s what I do. I’m a survivor.”
“You are a serial killer,” said Skye. Her eyes were full of tears, and if she was perfectly honest with herself, they weren’t just from anger and betrayal. There was the barest trace of heartbreak mixed in. “And you know what? You were right about one thing. I wouldn’t like the real you.”
His eyes glistened with the barest hint of tears as well. Skye set her mouth in a hard line, trying her best to glare instead of fall apart in weepy misery and fear. She hadn’t been this scared since she’d been shot in Italy… but somehow this was worse than lying on the floor, alone and bleeding. This time it wasn’t a douchbag billionaire facing her. It was her teammate… her S.O.… the man she’d almost fallen in love with.
“Someday,” he whispered, “someday, you’ll understand.”
Understand what? Understand him? Understand how someone can betray everyone who had his back, who stood by him through thick and thin for months?
“No. I won’t. And I will never, ever, give you what you want.”
She slumped to a seat on the staircase, gazing across the cargo hold at Coulson’s beloved car, Lola. She could feel Ward’s eyes still on her, but he stayed silent. Truthfully, it would have easier if somehow she could believe he was brainwashed by Garrett, that all his atrocities had been carried out either through some form of hypnosis or because he was under threat of death, like Akela Amador or the Centipede soldiers… or Mike. But she didn’t think so. This was the real Ward, a cold-hearted, ruthless murderer, acting of his own free will. And everything else about him – everything – was a lie.
Idly, she tugged at the cuff on her wrist, but it was secure, no chance of wriggling her way out. She should have learned how to pick locks. Wasn’t that supposed to be part of Spy Lessons 101? The first thing her S.O. should have covered?
“Time’s up,” said Ward, and she looked up to see Mike Peterson descending the stairs above her. “You can tell me where to unlock the drive… or you can tell him.”
Skye gazed into Mike’s scarred face and saw nothing but blank resolve in his eyes, as though he’d already deemed his situation without hope. She tried to think of what Coulson or May would do if she were them in this situation, but there was no way she could possibly outthink or outfight both Ward and Mike. She was alone, she was cuffed to the stairs, and she was the only one who knew where to unlock the hard drive. If she didn’t give them what they wanted… would they try to torture it out of her? Would they just shoot her, no top-secret T.A.H.I.T.I. formula to bring her back from the edge of death this time?
“Mike…” It was all she could do to keep her voice from shaking. “Please. I know you don’t want to do this.”
“It’s not up to me. Tell us how to unlock the drive,” he said without any inflection in his voice.
This is it. This is where I choose whether I deserve that S.H.I.E.L.D. badge or not.
“No.”
“Damn it, Skye,” Ward hissed under his breath.
He stepped away from the wall of the lab, oddly enough as though he was prepared to intervene if Mike did anything to her. Or maybe she was reading him wrong, assuming there might still be a hint of the heroic protector still in there, instead of the backstabbing villain. She couldn’t afford to keep thinking that way. She looked back at Mike, desperate.
“You could have shot me back in Italy, but you didn’t. They made Quinn do it because there’s still good in you, Mike, and I don’t think you’re gonna hurt me.”
His damaged eyes stared back at her, his face still resolute and expressionless.
“You’re right. I won’t hurt you.”
Turning, Mike aimed his arm at Ward and fired something straight at him at practically point-blank range. It was a disc barely a couple inches in diameter and latched to the front of Ward’s shirt with tiny metallic grips, like a spider. As Skye watched, it whirred and lit up with a red glow, and Ward grunted with pained shock. He fell back against the door, one hand clutching his chest, mouth open in a gasp.
“What— what did you do to him?”
“I stopped his heart.”
Ward lay on the floor, twitching, his fingers prying weakly at the device on his chest.
Skye watched, a chilling fear seeping into her veins. This isn’t… this isn’t what I wanted…
“His heart…”
“Isn’t beating. He’s having a heart attack.” Mike lifted his wrist to Skye, indicating the implant on his arm that had shot the disc. “I can restart it or not. It’s your choice.”
She made the mistake of looking down and meeting Ward’s dark eyes, of seeing the fear there.
“Skye…” he groaned.
“You think I don’t want to watch him suffer?” she asked Mike, trying to keep her voice level.
“Not suffer. Die. Garrett doesn’t think you’re gonna let that happen.”
“He’s a murderer,” she whispered.
“Yes, he is. Are you?”
Ward had stilled, no more struggling, no movement whatsoever. His eyes were wide, staring up at Skye with such genuine terror of death that it made her stomach seem to drop out from inside her gut. She didn’t want to watch the life ebb from his eyes, no matter how many lives he had taken.
Because Garrett was right. Ward may be a killer, but Skye wasn't. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t make that call.
“Okay, stop,” she demanded, tugging uselessly at the handcuff trapping her by the stairs. She would have stomped her foot on the cargo hold floor if it would have helped. “Bring him back!”
“Where do you unlock the drive?”
“Thirty-five thousand feet. It’s not based on longitude or latitude, it’s altitude.”
Ward wasn’t breathing. His eyes were open and vacant. Cold.
Did I wait too long? Is he…?
“You’re lying,” said Mike.
“I’m not! You – I put the password in and I-I start the hack and once we reach altitude, it unlocks. Now bring him back!”
***S.H.I.E.L.D.***
There was no light, no tunnel, no replay of his life’s highlights, no hint of a happy ending for someone like him. Everything was fading to a cold, soundless grey fog… nothing left but the knowledge that Garrett had let him die, had put his neck on the metaphorical chopping block in an effort to force Skye to give up their team. And she wouldn’t do it…
“Now bring him back!”
Just as crushing darkness rolled over him, power jolted through his body, a focused spasm at his chest, forcing his heart to resume beating. He gasped, lungs screaming for the air he had missed, feeling as though he’d been squeezed through a grinder.
While he lay panting, Ward heard Mike releasing the handcuff on Skye’s wrist and saw him dragging her into the lab to her laptop. Her gaze drifted over him for just a moment as they passed… but there wasn’t a trace of the affection he’d grown accustomed to seeing, no twinkle in her eyes or playful quirk of her lip. She wasn’t happy that he was alive. Maybe relieved, but nothing more.
He struggled to sit up, watching Mike finish giving Skye orders. All his limbs felt simultaneously drained and swollen, like the blood that had been momentarily paused in his veins had plugged up in places. He was still on the ground panting for breath when Mike exited the lab and paused by his side to tug him back to his feet.
“You…” Ward groaned, “you son of a bitch.”
“Get the plane in the air.”
“I can’t. I can barely stand. You do it.”
After all, Garrett could easily convey the instructions to pilot the Bus through Mike’s cybernetic eye. He didn’t need Ward anymore… not when he could give commands as easily as sending a text message.
The realization was a gut-punch. For the last fifteen years of his life, Garrett had been everything – father, S.O., mentor. Ward never saw himself as a true believer in HYDRA or its creed or its Nazi foundation. For him, it all circled back to the moment Garrett rescued him from juvie. Garrett knew every one of his deepest, darkest secrets, how much he’d hated his abusive family, all the rage he’d built up against his parents and older brother. And in turn, Ward had kept Garrett’s secrets, serving HYDRA from within S.H.I.E.L.D. all these years, repairing him as his mechanically-enhanced body slowly gave out, helping him on his quest for the miracle cure, the GH-325 formula that just happened to be running through Skye’s veins. Time and time again, he’d been the one who had Garrett’s back.
Apparently, none of that meant anything to his former S.O. Ward was disposable. Just like Skye had been disposable when she’d been shot to force Coulson’s hand. No matter how faithfully Ward had stuck by Garrett’s side for so many years, it apparently wasn’t good enough.
Mike turned his gaze through the glass of the lab doors, but Ward couldn’t tell whether he was looking at Skye or reading the orders he must be receiving. Maybe both.
“Fine. Watch her. Make sure she doesn’t try any tricks.”
With that, Mike headed for the stairs again. Ward watched him go, then ripped the heart-attack disc off his shirt, crunching it in his hand.
He’d been in a lot of tough scrapes in his life, deep-cover missions, assignments with no extraction plan. But this was different. This time his life had been ripped out of his own hands, literally dangled in front of someone else like a toy held just out of a child’s reach. Garrett had banked on Skye’s compassion winning out over her resolve, and though he’d been right, he could just as easily have misjudged her. She was much tougher than she looked.
He watched through the sliding glass door while Skye typed intently. Her accusations stung, as did the knowledge that she must have been playing him ever since Providence Base, that her sweetness and coy smiles – her kiss – was all an act.
Oh.
There was another gut punch, except that this one seemed to hit closer to his heart, like the pulse device that had nearly ripped his life away. Compared to what he’d done, her half-day of deception was trivial.
His treachery had ripped apart their team.
He’d never meant to feel any connection with them. Like he’d said, it was a mission, nothing more. Until he’d been holed up with the boy in a culvert outside of Ossetia… until the scientist had taken multiple bullets out of his shoulder… until he’d had to watch helplessly while Skye bled and barely breathed…
They were a family… and he’d put it all on the line for a man who didn’t give a shit about him.
To be continued…