Chapter 2
Kara was a good person, one who felt guilty when she did bad things. And she’d done her fair share of bad things.
Collateral damage wasn’t a foreign concept to her. Missions go wrong and people get caught in the crossfire, but as long as the objective’s are met everyone is expendable. That’s the part of S.H.I.E.L.D. no one wants to talk about, it’s what they indoctrinate you with at the academy until you’re so far into it that you have no choice but to believe them.
Once upon a time, Kara thought she could save everyone. Then she realized that sometimes trying to does more harm than good.
When it came to Grant, her own ideologies were at war. Everyone told her what a monster he was, that she was foolish for believing that he could ever be anything more. Maybe they were right, and she was holding on to the idea of a person who didn’t exist. The thing was, even though he’d lied to her, even though he’d been lying to her since the moment she met him, Kara still felt like she knew him. All the time she’d spent with him, every intimate moment and private conversation, couldn’t just be part of some rouse. She refused to believe that.
So she felt guilty, because Kara believed in forgiveness. It had taken her a long time to forgive herself for all the bad things she’d done during her career as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, but once she did, she realized it was surprisingly easy to forgive others. Yet she’d still pointed that gun at Ward’s head. Shooting him, for just a moment, had seemed like a better alternative than forgiving him.
Now she found herself standing outside the door of his motel. This time, she left the gun behind. Instead of sneaking in the window, she balled her hand into a fist and knocked a couple times against the door. She wasn’t even sure if she expected him to answer, for all she knew he could have taken off again. Maybe this time he’d left the country, maybe she wouldn’t be able to find him again. The last memory they had of each other being one where she shot a bullet into the wall near his head didn’t settle well with her.
Luckily he answered the door, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly, something that admittedly caught her off guard. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
It was hard to look him in the eyes. “Can I come in?”
He stepped aside and she walked in past him, turning around as he closed the door. Silence came and lingered. Kara looked over at the wall, a patch of discolored plaster covering the hole she’d left behind.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
When he moved closer to her, she didn’t step away. His hands rested lightly against her upper arms and he looked down at her with a sincerity that was hard to doubt. “I wanted you to figure out who you were on your own. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to live up to some memory.”
She nodded her head slowly. It made sense. That didn’t change the fact that she was angry that he’d done it. Keeping that information from her was wrong, regardless of how he justified it. But she wasn’t trying to figure out whether what he did was right or wrong. All she wanted was to understand.
Part of her felt as though she should ask him about Hydra, but what could he tell her that she didn’t already know? What he’d done wasn’t exactly news to her. The betrayal of it was something she hadn’t felt, not knowing that there was any relationship between the two of them for him to have betrayed. She’d already forgiven him for the blood he’d spilled, for the dark and dirty things he was trying to make amends for. But there’s still a sliver of doubt in her mind.
“I’m going to ask you this again, and I need you to tell me the truth because if I find out your lying-” She couldn’t finish the sentence, the weight of the words was too much for her to carry. “Did you know what they were going to do to me?”
Reaching a hand up, he absently tucked a piece of her behind her ear and broke eye contact. “When they took you, I was at the Playground.” He paused for a moment, clearing his throat. “In Vault D.” She’d heard about that, how S.H.I.E.L.D. had kept him as their prisoner. Which meant he was telling the truth when he’d said he hadn't known.
That knowledge was supposed to fill her with relief, yet it made the pit of guilt at the bottom of her stomach feel even bigger.
“I should go.” She didn’t know what else to say. She thought she could do this, but it was all still so overwhelming. Pulling away from him, Kara moved towards the door, but his hand caught hers before she made it too far.
“Or you could stay. I’ve missed you.”
Despite everything, she’d missed him too. Forgiving him was about more than just giving him a second chance, it was about telling herself it was okay to let go of that anger.
So she did.