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Coulson and May spend more time with Ward than anyone else. They’re a little surprised that he gives up all he knows about Hydra, with a tired voice and a lost expression.
Trip goes down to Ward’s holding cell one afternoon, and comes back two hours later looking tired, but sort of satisfied. When Coulson asks, the specialist just kind of shrugs and says they had a good, long talk.
Skye visits eventually, comes back with her arms around herself and face drawn. She shrugs and says she wants to be alone for awhile.
Jemma doesn’t visit for a long time.
—
When she does, it’s been months since they’d transferred him to a cell at the Hub. They’re parked there, for the foreseeable future, while Coulson and Melinda work away to build something out of the ashes and rubble.
Jemma hangs up her lab coat and picks up the folder at the end of the table, rubbing the back of her neck. Eight months, she reminds herself. Eight months since you’ve laid eyes on him. Eight months since you watched him drop you out of a plane.
Skye almost runs into her at the door to the lab, carrying her tablet and spinning her ring around her finger. She gives Jemma an apologetic smile, then notices the folder and probably the biochemist’s uneasy expression. She shuts off her tablet and holds it to her chest, reaching a hand out to intertwine her fingers with Jemma’s. “Want me to go with you, or would you rather go alone?”
“I think I should probably go alone.” Jemma says softly, squeezing Skye’s hand once, twice. “Thank you for the offer, though.”
Skye shrugs. “You don’t have to go down there if you don’t want to. I mean, you can, obviously, I just…”
Jemma tilts her head one way. “I’m not going to harm him or anything-”
“No, I know.” Skye says, looking down at her shoes. “It’s not him I’m worried about.”
Jemma smiles carefully, squeezes Skye’s hand again, and keeps moving. She passes Trip in the hallway next.
“Hey, Jem. Want some company down there?”
She doesn’t really mean to snap, especially since he has no idea she just did this with Skye. And because, you know, they’re only trying to help. “I can handle this on my own!”
He doesn’t seem startled, or hurt, or anything of the kind. He just nods. “I know you can. Call up on the comms if you need anything.”
She nods in return, keeps walking.
—
He’s startled when she’s the one to open the door and make her way into his cell. For someone who hid his real intentions away for so long, he can’t hide the expression on his face now, and that gives her a surge of slightly disturbing satisfaction.
Either he can’t figure out what to say, or he’s refusing to make an attempt, because his mouth stays shut even as he stands. She’d been trying to decide what to say and failed, so she doesn’t bother.
When she sits in the chair nearest to the door, he takes the one across from her on the other side of the table. No words are spoken.
She flips open the folder and pulls the photographs out, turning them and laying them down in front of him like a television detective presenting evidence. She doesn’t look too hard at them herself, because those images are already imprinted in her brain, destined to stain her memories forever. She knows what they look like, what Fitz looks like unconscious in a hospital bed, on an operating table, hooked up to machines.
The moment Grant Ward looks away from those pictures in front of him, she slams her hand down on the table, absolutely infuriated. “No.” His eyes meet hers and she shakes her head, moves the photographs closer to him. “No. You do not get to look away. You do not get to turn your head and ignore it. You need to look at what you did to him, and you need to keep it with you forever. Just like I will.”
He does, and this time his expression doesn’t change. His eyes do, but she doesn’t want to look.
Instead, she reaches for the second set of pictures in the folder, separating them and laying them down over the others. Fitz awake in a hospital bed, sleepy-eyed but smiling. Playing checkers with Skye, his arm held in the sling. In his first wheelchair, and in his second, more tech-savvy wheelchair that he designed himself. His first physical therapy session, smiling even then.
“He’s going to be fine.” She says softly, and he looks up at her again. “He’s had to relearn a few things, and his memory wasn’t great for the first few weeks. He’s getting better, though. He’s so efficient in his chair that sometimes we forget he’s even in it.” She traces the corner of the nearest picture. “But he won’t be the same. You broke something in him, something much harder to repair than bones and muscles and flesh. And it won’t come back to him, no matter how much anyone wants it to. He’s lost the innocence he had left. He lost his trust in you, lost his faith. You’ll never have that again. He won’t either. And I thought you should know that.”
Jemma gathers the photographs, tucks them back into the folder, and leaves.
—
It’s been years and years. (He knows exactly how many, he just doesn’t like to think about it.)
He’ll never be able to make up for the things he did, and he doesn’t expect to. But he’s working on it. Eventually, they find use for him at the Hub. They take him up to the conference rooms, to the operations rooms, and he helps plan. He offers all he knows about Hydra locations, tactics, weaponry, supplies. He gives them all he has, and as more of his ops run successfully, they give him more opportunities.
He has a tracker, and he sleeps in his cell at night, still locked from the outside. He gets a few more amenities, but he doesn’t ask for anything.
Coulson comes to see him every now and then, if he has time. He tells Grant about what the others are doing. Melinda May helping him rebuild and create new teams, Trip training new recruits and giving less of a “one man” speech and more of a “pieces to a puzzle” speech. Skye nearly running the tech division with her own programs and inventions, Fitz building safer, better, useful weapons and teaching others to do the same.
There’s a pause, hesitancy. Coulson asks if Grant wants to know what Jemma Simmons is doing. He doesn’t. He hasn’t even said her name in years. He won’t tarnish her life any more than he already has.
—
Eventually, Coulson does tell him, even though he didn’t ask. He hadn’t ever intended to, no matter how badly he wanted to know.
But Coulson comes down with two cups of coffee, takes a seat in the reupholstered chair that Grant isn’t already sitting in. There’s no preamble, no chatting about weather or ops or anything like that.
Jemma’s living in New York, outside the city. She’s teaching classes at a newly developed branch of the Academy, running research projects when she has the time (and even when she doesn’t). She’s attentive, caring, helps with assignments one-on-one, a favorite among her students. Grant isn’t surprised at all. She sees Fitz, Skye and Trip regularly, has them stay at her place or guest-lecture in her classes.
The next day, he gets special permission to make a trip out to New York. He doesn’t take it, but the offer still stands.
—
More years pass, and though he’d like to pretend he forgets about the opportunity to see her, he thinks about it every day.
—
Her hair is shorter, he notices first.
(That’s a lie. The first thing he notices is that she looks just the same. Just as lovely as she always was.)
But he does notice her hair, cut to her shoulders and maybe a little darker. She has a little less makeup on than he remembers her usually having, though it’s not like she ever had very much back then either. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top, tugging a zip-up hoodie on as she opens the door. Bare feet, rosy cheeks, sparkling hazel eyes.
She’s just the same, and still so very different.
“Coulson said you were coming.” She murmurs, leaning against the doorjamb. Grant makes a note to thank Coulson for letting her know, because he hadn’t put a thought to how to do it himself. He would’ve felt bad (worse) if he’d startled her. “Do you want to come in?”
He didn’t say anything to her the last time he saw her, and words aren’t coming easily now either. He clears his throat. “Only if you want me to.”
She seems to mull over that for a moment, and he knows that she has every right to turn him away while he has absolutely no right to disagree. It knots his stomach. Then she steps back, pulling the door open a little wider. “You can come in.”
She lives in a cozy, one-story house that just screams ‘Jemma Simmons’. The living room is painted with light blues and greens, artwork and photographs hanging on the walls that aren’t occupied by bookshelves. The furniture looks comfy and inviting, the doorways arched.
He never wants to leave, and the knowledge that he’ll have to - probably shortly - makes him sad.
While she disappears into the kitchen (painted yellow, he thinks), he finds himself stumbling over a pile of shoes next to the couch, most of which are way too big to belong to her. She comes back with two glasses and a pitcher of water, raising her eyebrow at his questioning look. “I’m not sure how such a smart specialist manages to forget his shoes, but Trip does it a lot. The others are Skye’s extras that she keeps here.”
Grant nods his head slowly, just sort of staring at the shoes.
And she’s just sort of staring at him. “Coulson told you where to find me years ago.” She says. At the startled look he gives her, she offers him a little peace of mind. (Like she always used to.) “I told him he could. I wasn’t trying to hide from you.”
“I never…” He doesn’t know what. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“But you do now?” It might have been said with a smile, if this was happening a long time ago. Now she’s just curious, he supposes.
There’s no good answer for that, not really. “I just… wanted to see you, I guess.” She stretches her arms out, like here I am. And yeah, there she is. Right in front of him. “You look great.”
“Oh, I doubt it. I had a full day of classes today, and a presentation of my research. I only just got out of the shower a bit before you got here. Having brilliant students makes me feel old.” There’s a bit of a smile at the corner of her mouth, and it helps him breathe a little easier.
He just shakes his head. If she feels old, he’s in trouble.
Before he can say so, she’s reaching up toward his face, thumb brushing the scar high on his cheekbone. “This healed up just fine, didn’t it?”
“I’ve missed you.”
She does seem a little surprised this time, and he wonders if she’d been hoping to avoid this line of discussion. He hadn’t intended to bring it up, he really hadn’t.
He wants to backtrack, take it back, but she swallows hard and says, “I missed you as well.”
He isn’t sure which one of them moves first - he really hopes it wasn’t him - but suddenly their lips are crashing together.
It’s rough and out of control, too much teeth, too hard, too crazed. (Somehow they both know this is the last time that they’ll do this. He wonders if that’s why he waited so long to see her.)
When she breaks away, it takes him a moment to realize and his mouth chases after hers until he feels her push gently against his chest. He backs up instantly, shuts his eyes tight because he can tell that he won’t see what he longs to see.
No warm gaze, no eager smile. No fingers reaching for his hair, no pretty pink blush staining ivory cheeks. He used to love the way she’d look at him, like he was precious, deserving.
He knows he’s never deserved her.
She’s looking up at him now, and his predictions weren’t wrong. She stands firm, not wavering slightly, the span of her shoulders strong and unyielding. But her chin quivers, tears in her eyes making her cheeks wet. The little pucker that shows up between her eyebrows when she’s upset is there, and he knows he can’t kiss it away this time.
She pushes one hand through her hair, keeping it pressed to her neck for a moment. Her breath hitches sharply in her chest, and she presses her fingers to his chest.
Slowly, like she’s trying to commit the feeling to memory, she lets her fingers spread until her palm rests above his heart. She shakes her head slowly, blinking until her tears loosen and slide downward.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out which parts of you were real. And I’m going to wonder how much of what you said to me was a lie, and I’m going to wonder if you wanted me or if you were told to want me. I’m going to wonder if you really loved me like I loved you. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to forgive you.” He reaches up and she doesn’t flinch. She lets him mimic her position, his hand resting over her heartbeat. “And I hope you can forgive yourself someday.”