Special thanks to AstridV, who triggered the spark of an idea that eventually grew into this fic with a comment about Ward's vulnerability in one of my previous stories.

This will be a multi-chaptered story, but probably not too long. If you've read my previous stories, you know that I never stick to my chapter schedule, so I won't even try and predict how long this baby is going to get. Just let yourselves be surprised! :)

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was not too long before Coulson asked Ward for help again. And again. And then some more.

They eased into a bit of a routine. A hairy mission came up and soon enough, Ward's phone was ringing. He always answered and he never turned them down. It was only for short missions, a day or two at most. He came in, received the intel he needed, got the job done with whomever he was paired up with and disappeared again. He had made it a habit to slip away as soon as everything was finished, never going back with them for debrief. Why should he? No one would thank him and the team only talked to him when it was mission related. Other than that, they ignored him. It was clear that he was not one step closer to get them to trust him again or even accept his apology.

At least these short missions allowed him to keep tabs on Kara. It continued to be painful to leave her again. She always begged him to stay, teary-eyed, and he could tell she did not completely understand why he left her behind. But there was no denying that her time in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s care was agreeing well with her and she had made huge progress in finding out more about herself and who she used to be. He saw that he had made the right decision – at least this once – and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was treating her well.

So when Ward was called in for yet another mission, he did not hesitate and sought out Coulson and his team in the Playground.

"This is not just a lab," Coulson explained to the team, plus Hunter and Morse, "this is a fortress. We have reason to believe that this is where Hydra started a new brainwashing experiment. There isn't much we know about it, we were able to gather only bits and pieces about this place and their new method."

Ward listened quietly where he leaned against the wall of the briefing room, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Hearing about Hydra and brainwashing immediately let him think of Kara and he could not help but ball his hands into fists. At least this mission would be rewarding for him, too. Time to get some revenge. He would enjoy this one, a lot.

"We can't just sweep in with a big team," Coulson continued, frowning a bit to himself. "They have air raid defenses and the whole place is secured with some kind of electric fence. But it's not just your run-of-the-mill electric fence used for making sure your cattle doesn't run off. It's a 20'000 volt fence, paired with some other lovely features, like it being invisible. We are sure it can't be turned off from the outside. We need someone inside to do that. Or, if this shouldn't be possible, to at least destroy the lab."

Coulson paused and complete silence filled the room. No one looked at Ward, as if they did not know exactly that he was going to be the one to save the day. Again. Skye looked down at her own hands as if they held the answer to their problem, Fitzsimmons were gazing at each other, May was watching Coulson and the others just stared into space. Ward felt tempted to break the silence with a snort. Sometimes he really wondered why he even bothered to play a part in this bizarre charade.

"Well, well," Ward finally drawled when Coulson made no move to continue. "I wonder who will be going into the lion's den."

The director frowned some more, sending him an annoyed glare – for which he had no right, by the way – before he answered, "You'll be going in, Ward. It's why I called you."

"And here I thought you invited me for taco night," Ward replied sarcastically.

"Who'll be going with him?" May asked with narrowed eyes. Great, they still did that thing of talking about him as if he was not in the same room.

"This time," Coulson answered slowly and with a small sigh, "he's going in alone."

This was new. Until now, they had made sure to chaperone him on each and every mission.

"You can't, Coulson!" Skye protested sharply. "He'll sell us out as soon as we have our backs turned. Hell, he'll bring beer to celebrate with his Hydra buddies!"

Ward could not suppress rolling his eyes. How many times...? Okay, he had definitely tried often enough to explain his loose affiliation with Hydra, he would not waste his breath this time. And why the hell would he even answer Coulson's calls, if he wanted nothing more than to join Hydra again? This made no sense at all.

"We don't have any choice, Skye," Coulson explained, sounding pained. "The lab is heavily protected and we can't send more than one man in. The risk of detection is simply too high."

The director started to project different photos and maps of the place and the longer Ward looked at them, the more he realized that this mission would be different. It was a long time since he had last been nervous about a mission, but now he could feel his palms getting sweaty.

"We have this one time window when guards are changed," Coulson continued. "There is only one possible way to sneak in, if we..."

"Don't you dare, Coulson!" a new voice interrupted angrily. All heads whipped towards the door and Ward saw that Kara was standing in the doorway, fuming. She must have listened in for quite a while. "It's a suicide mission and you know it!"

She turned her big brown eyes on Ward and they immediately turned softer. "Don't do it, Grant."

It felt nice. Having at least someone in the room who actually looked at him and even spoke to him with something else than disdain. He might get used to that.

"Agent Palamas," Coulson cut in rather sternly. But it was a fatherly sternness, Ward had to admit to himself. "You have neither right nor clearance to be in here. Get back to your room and stay there."

"If you send Grant in this fortress," she replied forcefully, refusing to obey the direct order, "you'll send him to his death. This is wrong!"

Ward felt a smile steal on his lips. Yep, Kara was definitely getting better. There had been a time when she would have begged for orders, now she had no trouble in outright disobeying them and talk back at Coulson. He could swear she got more headstrong with every day that passed. He was so proud of her.

The director stared at her, but when it became clear that Kara would not back down, he explained reluctantly, "There's a risk, yes, but there always is with these kinds of missions. It can't be avoided."

"Then why don't send in May?" Kara demanded with raised eyebrows.

Ward did not miss the small wince that flitted across Coulson's face. It told him everything he needed to know. This definitely was a suicide mission.

"Look," Coulson said with a frown, "it's not up for discussion. I'm the director, I make the decisions. This is a mission that suits Ward's qualities perfectly."

Oh yes, right. There was primarily one quality that predestined him for this mission.

"I get it, Coulson," Ward threw in with a smirk of false bravado. "I'm expendable."

The director pressed his lips into a thin line and shot him a quick look, before he averted his eyes. He did not even try to contradict him, which smarted a bit, to be honest. The rest of the team still refused to look at him, but he was good enough a spy to detect that their mood had changed. It was not a spiteful silence and blanking anymore. They kept their heads down in shame. After all, they knew very well that they needed him.

"Great," Ward drawled when the silence stretched. "I'm in. When do we start?"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The first part of the mission went off without a hitch.

Ward timed his break-in into the Hydra lab perfectly. He first attached a device to the camera, which fed it an endless loop, then waited for the fence to be deactivated for a few seconds when the guards were changed. As soon as they appeared, he took them out swiftly, passing the deactivated fence just a second before it activated again. The strong humming that could be heard when standing right beside it told him that he would have been fried, had he been slightly slower. He took a deep breath, before he carefully crept down a dark hallway.

"I'm in," he whispered into the comms, shooting a glance behind him to make sure he was alone. "Any ideas where the power generator of the fence is? This place is huge."

"We don't have any blueprints of the building," Morse's voice answered him steadily in his ear. "But Fitz and Skye managed to screen the building with the help of a power spectrograph. It seems like they have a massive power source in the southwest corner."

"Thanks for the specifics," Ward replied sarcastically, before he shut off the comms. The southwest corner had the size of a small European country, it might take hours to find the right room. And this was definitely a time-sensitive mission. He was rather sure he could take out only so many Hydra agents before he was detected. Yes, he was good, but this place looked like it could accommodate hundreds of people. Even he could not take on that many agents.

He followed the hallway and hid himself every time a group of Hydra agents passed him. Once he had to slip into a closet so as not to be detected, only to find that the closet was already occupied. He took out the other agent before he could sound alarm, before he moved onwards.

Finding the right room in the southwest corner was a bitch. It definitely looked like he was on the right track when he encountered more and more agents on the hallway. At least he had a little gadget with him that Fitz had built and indicated the rough outline of the room with some kind of x-ray. This meant that he did not need to open every door and risk to suddenly stand in the command center of the base. That would be awkward. However, for the gadget to work properly, it needed to be held steadily against the wall for at least five seconds. With this part of the base being rather crowded, he risked detection at any moment.

After another two or three close calls, he had finally found the right room. The four guards that were posted inside crumpled at his feet within thirty seconds and, luckily, without sounding alarm. He hid their bodies in the back of the room before he went to take a look at the massive power generator in the room. It was at least 30 feet high and was encased in a steel mantle. He tapped his ear to activate the comms.

"I found it," he told them. "Sending you pictures and a screening of the generator."

"Roger that," Morse answered.

A minute passed and then two while no one spoke, and Ward felt himself grow impatient. He could hear rows of booted feet pass by just outside the generator room and it was only a matter of time before someone came barging in.

"Look, I know you're not exactly enthusiastic about saving my ass," he spoke into the comms, all the while keeping his eyes on the door, "but if you want to leave me hanging, I would advise to do that after I have shut down this damn generator."

"You can't shut it down," Fitz' voice commented suddenly in his ear. Even miles away, Ward could hear that the engineer sounded strained at having to talk to him. "It'll take hours until you have dismantled it. You need to blow it up."

Ward grimaced, then muttered "Great", before he shut off the comms again. That was exactly what he had hoped to avoid. If he had been able to somehow shut it off in another way, he would have had S.H.I.E.L.D. backup on the way out. This way, however, he was on his own once more. He needed to set off the explosives while still in reasonable proximity to the bomb, because the electric fence would most probably mess with the signal. This meant that the explosion would warn the whole base and he was going to have a few hundred Hydra agents on his ass while making his exit. Damn it.

However, there was no time for second thoughts. He immediately set to work and built the bomb from the equipment he had brought in his backpack. At least he had enough experience with explosives and he had come prepared. The bomb was finished in under five minutes and he attached it to the generator at its back, even going as far as to remove a small piece of the steel mantle, to hide it from prying eyes. He put his tools back in his bag and checked if the remote ignition in his watch would work to detonate the bomb, then was out of the door in no time. Now he just needed to get out of here.

He realized that another group of Hydra agents was coming up behind him and he turned into another hallway. Voices could be heard ahead of him and when he tried the door to one of the rooms, it was locked. Cursing under his breath he just kept walking, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. At least he was dressed in black tac gear like the Hydra agents and the base was big, so maybe he would not even attract attention. He passed the group of men that approached him and, luckily enough, most of the agents looked to the ground anyway. That was good, they felt safe, which meant they kept their guard down...

"Grant Ward?" a voice suddenly spoke up and Ward tensed internally, even though he let nothing show as he turned around, his face schooled into a mask of nonchalance. He was too far away from the exit to try and make a run for it, so he decided in a split second to play along.

The leader of the group, a tall, middle-aged man with bright red hair and a face that looked faintly familiar, had halted and gave Ward an expectant smile.

"What are you doing here?" the other asked and finally, Ward remembered that he had met him some years ago, back when S.H.I.E.L.D. had still been standing. John had introduced him as another fellow sleeper agent and they had worked together on a short mission.

"George Bates," Ward replied, remembering the name. "I could ask you the same. I thought you went down when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell."

The red-haired man gave him a smirk, then shook his head.

"I'm tougher than that," he replied. "Sorry to disappoint. What about you? Last thing I heard was that Garrett got killed and you got acquainted with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dungeons."

"You know how it is," Ward said with a thin smile. "It gets boring after a while. I decided it's more fun when you see the sun every once in a while."

Bates chuckled at that and gave him a smirk.

"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean," he said. "But how long have you been here? If I had known you had joined our ship, I would've invited you for a drink. To reminisce about the good ol' times."

"I only arrived a few days ago," Ward replied. "Before that, I did some solo ops out there."

"Once a specialist, always a specialist, eh?" Bates asked with a wink. "Walker hired you?"

When Ward had scraped together the scarce information they had about this Hydra base, the name of Jeremy Walker had popped up quite a few times. For all they knew, he was the one in charge.

"Yeah," Ward answered. "Made me an offer I couldn't resist."

Bates' right eye narrowed slightly and the silence that followed set off all kinds of alarm bells in Ward's head. Shit, he had walked right into a trap. Should he fight or try to maintain the cover? The odds were bad, it was fifteen highly trained agents, armed to the teeth, against one. He was definitely going to lose this fight.

"Funny," Bates drawled, cocking his head to the side while watching Ward intently. "Since Walker had a terrible accident ten days ago. Ran into a knife in the middle of the night. I took his place."

Ward felt his stomach drop. This was bad, very bad. No way he would be able maintain his cover in this situation. Without hesitation, he kicked Bates in the stomach, then tried to make a run for it. Tried, since he was tackled a split second later. It was an unfair fight. He got rid of two Hydra agents in the first ten seconds, snapping the neck of one and burying his knife in the throat of another. But as soon as those were down, he was faced with five other. There was not even time to draw his side arm. Or set off the bomb with the small button on his watch. Blows and kicks rained down on him, but he still managed to fell three more agents before he realized that they were not using lethal force. They were trying to catch him alive. The thought made him struggle all the harder.

Just as he dropped another agent at his feet, he felt something being slapped to his thigh and not a moment later pain and numbness spread from a small device attached to his leg. Paralysis followed quickly and he frantically ripped off the device, together with fabric from his pants and skin. Though the paralysis stopped, the moment of distraction cost him dearly. A blow caught him at the back of his head and made him crumble to his knees. Trying to blink away the stars in his vision, he had enough time to realize that he had failed miserably before another blow to his temple sent him to meet the ground.

Ward must have blacked out for a few seconds because the next thing he knew was that at least three men were sitting on his back, keeping him on the ground and binding his hands tightly. Blood trickled from his temple into his eyes, making his already blurry vision even blurrier. His head was pounding in time with the rapid beating of his heart and he felt every single blow he had received in the struggle.

Still, all he could think of was that he had failed the mission and the team. If he had at least managed to set off the bomb... Like this, all efforts had been in vain and no one would come for him. Even if Coulson wanted to rescue him, it would be practically impossible now. Hydra would soon realize where he had slipped in and would reinforce security measures. It would only be a matter of time before someone found the bomb attached to the power generator. Which meant that he was completely on his own. Hell, the team would probably think he had switched sides again if he did not show up after some time. Some small part of him hoped they would find his mutilated body eventually, only so they would see that he had not betrayed them again.

"Search him thoroughly," Bates commanded sharply. "And be careful. As long as he breathes, he's dangerous."

Rough hands patted him down, removing his weapons, the earpiece and even his vest. Ward kept completely still, trying to get his head to stop spinning and hoping... hoping...

"His watch, too," Bates suddenly ordered.

Damn it! Ward managed to lift his head a bit to glare at the Hydra leader. Bates smirked in reply.

"My dear Grant," he drawled, crouching down next to Ward. "John spoke so highly of you. I can't help but feel disappointed. I have to say that you, son, have a bit of a problem to decide what side you're on."

Ward kept his mouth shut and just glared at the other man.

"Running back to S.H.I.E.L.D. as soon as Johnny dearest is dead," Bates continued. "I guess they weren't too happy to see you either. You don't belong there, son. Why go back and play the hero for people who don't give a shit if you live or die? You were meant to be on our side from the start. And know what? We'll help destiny along."

The red-haired man patted Ward's cheek a little, and Ward instantly pulled away as far as he could.

"Over my dead body!" he spat.

"Let's not go that far," Bates replied, getting up. "You know, we have this new method. I haven't told you the best thing yet. We have a bit of a family business here. My wife is an accomplished doctor and scientist. And just last night she mourned that she didn't have anyone valuable enough to try out her new and very expensive method of brainwashing. Someone must have listened, you're a godsend."

Ward felt a shiver run down his spine. This sounded really bad.

"Get him on his feet!" Bates barked.

Ward was pulled up roughly, the motion making his head spin some more. He was all too familiar with the nausea that accompanied every small movement and that told him he had suffered a concussion. He tried taking a deep breath, which only helped a little. If he had been in better shape he might have felt flattered by his escort of eight men. He was shackled on arms and legs and he felt at least three guns pressing in his bruised rips. On top of it all, a dark bag was put over his head, making the nausea and the headache worse.

He was led down some hallways, taking turns every now and then that he tried to memorize. They finally stopped and Ward could smell disinfectant even through the bag over his head. It seemed like they had reached the lab.

"I brought you a gift, honey," he could hear Bates say. "A valuable test object, like you wanted."

"Is he young and healthy?" a female voice asked suspiciously.

"Only the best for you," Bates replied smoothly. "A bit roughed up, but he wouldn't be all that valuable if he hadn't put up a fight, right?"

"Hmm," was the only response he received, then the woman ordered in a sharp voice, "Keep him still."

Hands grabbed Ward and just a moment later he felt a prick on his arm. The bag was pulled off his head and he came face to face with a tiny, middle-aged woman with blonde hair and glasses. She had a stern, mousy face and was watching him critically.

"He's handsome," the woman commented with a frown, before she looked back at Bates. "I think you did well."

The red-haired man chuckled and shook his head, before he replied, "I didn't choose him because of his pretty face. Don't get any ideas, woman."

Ward watched them with growing apprehension until he suddenly found his limbs growing heavy. He blinked tiredly and shook his head to clear his vision. His breathing sounded labored and heavy in his ears. Not good. They had definitely injected him with something.

"Do you think he's docile enough now?" the woman asked with her head cocked to the side and Bates replied, "This should do."

He nodded for the guards to take off the shackles. By the time they were finished, Ward had a hard time keeping himself on his feet, let alone thinking about escaping. Two agents were more supporting than leading him to a narrow bed/gurney in the middle of the lab. As soon as Ward saw the many straps for arms and legs, he balked and tried to rip his arms away from the men holding him. But his moves were so sluggish by now that all he managed was to trip over his own feet, which earned him a chuckle from Bates.

"Don't make a fuss now, son," the red-haired man drawled while the two agents pressed Ward down on the bed. Everything was swimming in front of Ward's eyes and it actually felt good to lie down because he suddenly felt so tired. He knew he should struggle more, but he saw no point in it anymore when he could just rest for a bit instead. Straps were tightened around his ankles and wrists, snapping Ward a bit back into awareness. Now he had definitely lost his opportunity to fight.

"You think you'll be fine, Maggie?" he heard Bates ask as if from a long distance. "He's dangerous, so I'd advise to keep him drugged and under constant supervision. You can never be too careful with his kind."

"I will," the woman replied. "Thank you, darling."

Ward was rather relieved that his mind said goodbye after that.

-tbc-