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"I want to see Ward"
They give her a look of surprised confusion, calculating the words they want to speak, the easiest way to soften the blow she knows is coming. May and Coulson share a quick look, and May takes the smallest of steps.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Jemma." Coulson rarely calls her that way, being more affectionate when he wants to reach through to her, but she hates it, hates it because it's Fitz' soft accented cadence she wants to hear saying her name, and it's been too long since she's heard it.
"I need to, Sir," Jemma replies, ready to beg if necessary. She had known this was coming, had known she'd have to fight him until he relented. She’s willing to go to anyone who will listen and if he won’t, then she’ll just move on to someone else. “I need to be face to face with him.” Her voice cracks with the last word and she takes a deep breath.
Another look shared between him and May. Another silent conversation. She can see May isn’t willing to budge, but Coulson is softer, gentler, easier to turn around when it’s not matters of national security.
“You may not be ready yet to face him.”
“I need it for my own peace of mind. I need it to get closure.” Lies. She ignores the little voice in the back of her head because she knows she will never have closure. She will never be able to forgive Ward for what he did. Because while she tells May and Coulson she needs to give her mind some peace she’s recounting all the ways she can debilitate Ward without killing him first. “Please.”
She promised herself she’d be strong but tears come to her eyes and threaten to spill over the brim. She holds them back, open her eyes wider, thinks about Ward’s stoic face when he pushes the button to release the pod. Her pain turns to anger and she finds it easier to control.
She can see the moment Coulson’s resolve breaks. “Okay,” he nods, turning to May and giving her a slight tilt of his head. She leaves the room and Simmons knows she’s making the necessary calls.
They make simple arrangements: Ward is to be held in the interrogation room on their plane, any interaction to be watched by Coulson’s team only, and Simmons to be the only one with Ward.
She watches him for a while through the com, remembering his features, remembering the way the corners of his eyes wrinkled when he smiled. Remembers the way he’d gaze at Skye when he thought no one was looking. The way Fitz would look up to him like one does to a hero and suddenly something inside of her hardens. Maybe it’s her heart and she feels it all the way to her bones.
She isn’t quite sure what she will say once she’s inside the room with him, regardless of how many times she rehearsed the conversation. She mostly wants to make him hurt, not talk, not make empty threats.
“I’m ready,” Simmons says, not taking her eyes away from the screen or looking at anyone until she has to move towards the door. She keeps her eyes trained ahead, hard and unreadable, her fingers closing in a fist around the pen she has hidden inside the pocket of her jacket.
“We’ll be right outside,” Coulson hits the button to open the door, and Simmons steps inside. Her eyes immediately fall on Ward and the hardened insides melt into something unexpected: fear, sadness, bitterness, Fitz’s face in her mind’s eye, his voice, his disappointment that Ward didn’t turn out to be a victim.
Ward’s eyes widen only slightly and she takes pleasure in knowing he hadn’t expected her of all people to be the one confronting him. She silently moves to the table and sits in the chair opposite him.
“Fourteen days,” she says and Ward frowns in confusion. “That’s how long Fitz has been in a coma, how long he’s been unconscious.” Two weeks and counting. Too many days she’s held his limp hand, watched his pale face, heard the heart and brain monitors beep in a steady, tedious tune. How long she’s been planning how to torture Ward in ways only a doctor can.
“You wanted me here to apologize?” The tone of his voice holds a bitter sarcasm that makes Simmons grind her teeth in loathing. She doesn’t want his excuses, his presence, to share the same air they’re breathing, much less his apologies. It’s far too late for that. If there was any chance of redemption, he lost the right to it the moment he made Fitz give his life up for hers.
“No,” she shakes her head, holds the pen tighter, takes a deep breath. “I wanted you here to let you know that when Fitz wakes up and he isn’t the same man he was, I will personally hunt you down and make you pay for it.”
Ward is shocked into silence for a second, because nobody expects Jemma Simmons to be anything else other than sweet, easily intimidated Jemma. She likes it, revels in it, because underestimating your opponent makes the attack more unexpected. Then he chuckles. “I have lived in Hell. There’s nothing you can do that could possibly be worse than what I have already been through.”
Simmons slowly stands from her chair, steps slowly around the table, petit features compared to the bulky frame of Ward’s stature, a delicate girl who knows how to use her brain and not her body, and leans down, close to him, eye level to the man that had been a friend and is now the person she hates the most. “Hell is what I’m going to bring on earth if Fitz doesn’t wake up. You haven’t seen any of it yet.”
Simmons’ fingers close around the pen in her pocket once more, and she brings it out with a quick move of her hand, stabbing Ward in the neck. Blood immediately starts to gush out, and he screams in agony, bringing his own hand over the pen to try and stop the bleeding. She’s a doctor, she has dissected enough bodies in her academic life, studied enough to know just where to puncture, just where to hurt without killing. He’d slowly bleed to death if not attended by a doctor, but there’s a med team close by and the wound will do no more damage than a painful few stitches to his neck and a memory he hopefully won’t forget any time soon.
“Hail Hydra,” she whispers as he tries to get away from her, but is stopped by the chains linking him to the table and chair, spitting venom drips from each word she says, hatred and pain laced into them, for the evil organization that slowly ruined her life.
Half a minute after, she hears the door open and hands holding her arms, pulling her back. She doesn’t need to be restrained so Simmons shoves the hands away from her and walks out of the room without looking back.