Chapter 1
“I should feel sad but I don’t. I don’t feel anything that they're dead. A human life, something that should be precious is gone but if I feel anything at all I’m happy.” She said looking down at the freshly covered grave site.
It had been a month since the funerals and Rose hadn’t felt one feeling of sadness or depression. She didn’t even feel like she had grieved their deaths. Then again, she had no connection to these people.
Her father was cold, he was distant and she could only recall two conversations she had with him longer than 2 minutes. She was only ever with him for photoshoots, weddings, and political announcements. Rose tried to distance herself from the politics as she got older. She knew she was more than just a pretty face.
Rose was at an age where she understood her father was more enthralled with affairs with women her own age who just wanted him for his money. A part of Rose wanted to be a good daughter and yell but then again she was just sticking around for the money.
It’s the reason Rose hadn’t dropped off of the face of the earth and never spoke to anybody with the surname Ward again.
She had more of a relationship with her mother though. Her mother was a complex woman, however a woman who loved her vodka and vicodin more than her children. She was obsessed with beauty and perfection.
Her mother forced her to do beauty pageants just as she had. Rose hated the pulling of her hair and all of the makeup growing up. She would’ve been more comfortable playing in the dirt with Thomas in a pair of jeans.
However, her mother would never allow that behavior of such a nice young lady. Ladies should always be dressed up, their hair and makeup done, and never have your nails looking tragic, Rose. The thoughts of it now made her sick.
Rose never was the type that wanted to be on display for the whole world to stare at. She would rather fade into the background and just work hard like the rest of the population. However, the money that Mommy and Daddy left her would take care of her for the rest of her life.
That left her with Christian’s death. Something that just left her angry and hurt inside. A part of her almost wishes that she could be the one to kill him. She hated that man more than ever knew was possible but she couldn’t help but feel a weight off of her shoulders with him gone.
There was so much pain there that she didn’t know how to even address it. She knew just pushing it down wouldn’t get her anywhere in the long run but for now, it was just getting her through on her day to day.
“I hope you’re warmer in hell than you were in Massachusetts, big brother.” Rose said patting Christian’s grave before getting up and dusting off her jeans.
“Ready to go, Rosie?” A soft voice called. She looked over her shoulder to see Grant standing there awkward. Even with all of the torment their parents and brother had caused them, Rose saw Grant felt humility about killing them.
If Rose was Grant, she didn’t know if would’ve necessarily felt as guilty. She didn’t know if she would physically be able to do what he did but, she didn’t think she would have a strong emotional hold to the action.
“Yeah, just hoping Christian is nice and warm. He deserves some time in the warm after all the time spent in the cold.” She said joking as they walked back towards the car. She could see her older brother roll his eyes and shake his head.
“You’re too much.” He said wrapping his arm around her shoulders and giving her a gentle squeeze. “You okay, kiddo?” He asked. Her big brother hadn’t been a part of her life nearly 15 years but it felt like he never left.
“I don’t know if I’m numb or I just don’t feel anything towards them. Like it’s my parents and my brother I should be sad but I’m not. Hell, I think I’m happy that they’re gone.” She admitted out loud. It felt like a weight was off of her shoulders.
Grant paused for a minute before removing his arm from his little sister to unlock the car. Once they were both sitting in the car. He turned it on. “I’m not one to judge you on how you grieve or tell you how to grieve because we all cope in our own ways.” Grant said buckling up and motioning for Rose to buckle up.
“But?” She asked knowing with her brother he liked to talk in long blobs of words that made her feel like she was back in high school literature class. Her brother just always seemed to find the words that fit the moment. That was something Rose was never able to do
“Give yourself some time, it’s all been fairly recent. Hell, I’m the one who did this and I don’t even know how I feel.” He said, starting to pull out of the cemetery.
“If you don’t know how you feel, why did you do it?” She questioned.
“I don’t know, I was just mad. My name was everywhere. Christian’s name tore up so much pain I forced down. And the fact I literally got sold to big brother… I think I just had a lot of anger so I decided to take it out on them.” He started. “I feel like I might’ve gone too far with killing Mom and Dad but they really weren’t my parents.”
“I don’t know much about SHIELD but they seem like a band of assholes. Especially after that bitch shot you.” Rose said looking at her nails.
“Well, I did bad things that hurt a lot of people. I don’t blame them for not forgiving me. I betrayed them. It wasn’t pretty.” Grant said clutching the steering wheel tightly.
“That still doesn’t give them the right to lock you in a basement, deny you access to mental health and hand you over to your abuser. That’s honestly just not okay, Grant no matter what you did. I’m sure not all of them are saints.” Rose said scoffing. These so called government agents seemed more immature than her sorority sisters.
“No it doesn’t, you’re right. I won’t lie to you. And no not all of them are saints. But I’m done with SHIELD, I’m done with the trouble of all of it. I just want to move on with my life.” He said looking over his left shoulder as he went to change lanes.
“You’re just saying that because your girlfriend shot you and you’re cranky.” Rose said with a smirk.
“She’s not my girlfriend and who told you that?” Grant asked in a strict tone.
“Kara told Thomas and Thomas told me. I figured a girl had to be involved with how much you were moping around the last two weeks.” Rose said with a cackle.
“I’ve been moping around the house because I was shot 4 times. That’s not something you easily recover from. Especially when you have a little sister who makes you drive her everywhere.” He said in a teasing tone.
“Don’t divert the conversation, Grant Douglas. I missed 15 years of annoying you, I have to make it all up somehow.” She explained crossing her legs in the seat.
“Okay, what do you wanna know?” Grant answered, sounding almost defeated. He never put up a fight with her or Thomas. He would never even try to for a minute.
“I wanna know everything. You can find anything you wanna know about me if you google my name but you’re a ghost. Like I don’t know what you’ve been up to for the last 15 years. You haven’t told me anything besides you were in Hydra but you weren’t really Hydra. I know there’s more to it though. You’re too quiet to be that straight forward.” Rose said as Grant sighed.
“So what do you know about the night?” Grant asked, keeping his eyes on the steering wheel.
“You were at military school and Christian did that...thing…” Rose was digging her nails into her hand hard. “Thomas called you and you came home. You lit the house on fire when you thought Christian was inside. You did it because of me. You threw everything away for me. It’s all my fault you ended up in a terrorist organization.”
“You and Thomas, you’re my younger siblings, there isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for you two. It’s my job to look after you guys and I would do everything again if you two didn’t have to live in pain.” Grant said in a gentle tone.
“That doesn’t mean it was fair, Grant. What happened after the police caught you?” Rose asked.
“Well, I was taken to juvie. I was booked and all of that protocol crap. I was in there for about a day before they brought me into an interrogation room. I assumed Mom and Dad sent in a lawyer to cut a deal for me. Lock me away from the rest of my life? Maybe take a hit on me? Maybe it would’ve been easier that way.” Grant said with a chuckle.
“So who did you meet?” Rose asked curiously. It was moments like this Grant understood their age gap, her questioning nature was still intact like his was, he wished she never lost hers.
“John Garrett. That guy was a real son of a bitch. He offered me a deal though, let him take me out of there, become a real man who could stand on their own, make sure that nobody would ever take advantage of me again. Or I would let Mommy and Daddy and big brother lock me in a jail cell and let me rot.” Grant said swallowing a lump in his throat. “Obviously I chose the former. I was scared, I didn’t want to just be in jail forever. I was weak.”
“You weren’t weak, you were just a kid. You were a kid trying to protect another kid because our parents wouldn’t do their job as parents.” Rose said anger seeping into her tone.
“Regardless, Garrett broke me out of juvie. He left me in a forest, said he would be a few weeks but it was really like six months.” Ward spoke somehow calmly.
“For six months? Alone?” Rose nearly yelled causing Grant to jerk the wheel.
“Well he left me with a dog. And it was 5 years in total. There were sporadic visits but I was mainly on my own.” He said as Rose let out a horrified gasp. “I was okay, I toughened up a lot. I got to learn new languages. I had Buddy, the dog, he was my best friend out there. I miss him a lot. Garrett told me that SHIELD screwed him over, left him to die, so he went to Hydra and they fixed him. He told me that I would go into SHIELD as his mole. I never really thought about Hydra though, I just knew I had a debt to Garrett.”
“Five years later, Garrett sent my application into the SHIELD academy and I got in. So it was time to leave the woods.” Grant said, if Rose didn’t hear the small break in his voice, she would’ve assumed it was a happy end.
“What went wrong?” Rose asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Garrett told me I had to take care of an attachment that I made in the woods. He wanted me to kill Buddy, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that, Rosie. I couldn’t kill my best friend. I shot up into the air and let Buddy go chase it. He was a good hunting dog, he knew to go in the direction I shot off on. I went back to Garrett thinking I tricked them both. But that dog, that damn loyal dog came back.” Grant said, a tear running down the side of his face. “Garrett picked up his gun.” Grant choked up and picked up his right hand to wipe his eyes.
Rose tried to keep the horror off of her face but couldn’t help but tear up herself. “That wasn’t. It wasn’t your fault, Grant. You were trying to save him. It’s not your fault Garrett was a fucking psycho.” She said putting a hand on Grant’s shoulder.
“I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I failed him like I failed you and Thomas.” Grant obviously said, crying. That’s when Rose felt her heart break. She felt selfish to think Grant was an adult and all put together when he was a broken kid on the inside.
“You didn’t fail us, if you failed us, we wouldn’t be here right now. I’m okay and Thomas is okay. That’s because of you.” Rose said emotionally. Her heart felt so heavy like it was going to fall through her chest.
The car was silent for a few moments while Grant tried to catch his breath in between almost silent sobs and Rose didn’t know what else to say. What could you say in a situation this horrific and tragic?
“I graduated from the SHIELD academy top of my class. I went on to be a rookie agent with Garrett as my SO, that’s supervising officer, obviously. He needed to keep me close and keep a close eye on me to make sure I didn’t defect. I went on to become a specialist. I went in alone on missions, got the job done and got out.” Grant continued.
“Did you ever have to have sex with somebody for a mission?” Rose asked as Grant started choking on his breath.
“I’m not answering that.” Grant said in the driest tone he could manage.
“Sorry it just came out. You can’t help me for being curious. Like you have muscles and stuff so I’m assuming SHIELD used you for that stuff. Like if I could get my hands on a Captain America or a Natasha-“ Rose started as Grant held up his hand.
“Please do not continue that statement. Rose I have no desire to know anything about it.” Grant said with a groan.
“Sorry, sorry, continue.” Rose said, sitting up attentively.
“Well after being a specialist for god knows how many years, Garrett placed me on Coulson’s team. Coulson was killed by Loki during the Battle of New York and Director Fury went through great lengths to bring him back. Garrett was slowly dying from the faulty Hydra tech and he wanted me to figure out how Coulson got brought back so he could not die.” Grant said as Rose nodded.
“That makes sense, I wouldn’t wanna if something else could save me.” Rose said twirling her hair nervously.
“So I went in with the attitude to not get attached. I knew who was going to be on the team but I didn’t account for Skye.” Ward said, Rose heard the emotion seeping into his tone.
“Skye’s the one who shot you isn’t she?” Rose asked as Grant nodded slowly.
“She was an unknown variable but Skye’s just something else. When I met her she was smart, funny, god she really pushed my buttons.” He said looking down with a smile. You sank my battleship. “I think she’s the first person I ever loved. The first person I wanted to see me for me.”
“And she’s not like that anymore?” Rose asked.
“I hurt her. She’s harder now, more like me. It breaks my heart.” Ward said, almost ashamed.
“I’m not gonna say it wasn’t your fault because it sounded like you broke her heart. Did you get involved with her?” Rose asked as Ward sighed. “Grant you cant start dating a girl and betray her. No wonder why she shot you.”
“She shot me because it was the third time I kidnapped her…” Ward said in a low mumble.
“THIRD TIME? Grant. Grant. Baby. This isn’t normal person behavior. We don’t go kidnapping our lovers.” Rose said as Grant groaned.
“No, no let me explain this…” Grant explained the dynamic of being on Coulson’s team from the start.