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Ward pulls on his cuffs, attempt to finagle out of them. He let himself get captured a few days previously, planning to gather information before leaving. But then they beefed up security, so he’s been waiting and planning since.
“Agent Ward,” Valentin, their top information specialist, says, approaching with a lazy grin on his face. Well, information specialist is really a nice way to say torture expert.
Ward’s gotten to know him quite a bit over the last few days. The only solace in that is Ward knows how to get him in jail for a long time once this is over. He stops moving the cuffs, turning to Valentin.
“You again.”
“That is no way to treat your host, now is it? Where are your manners?”
Ward smirks, his lip starting to bleed again out of the cut he got from yesterday’s session. He spits the blood on Valentin’s shoes, making his face go red with anger. He slaps Ward across the face, his neck popping loudly with how fast his head snaps to the side. Then he punches Ward again, and again, and again. His vision is starting to spin, and his head feels fuzzy when Valentin finally pulls back.
“I’m going to get something, a little gift for you,” he sneers, smiling maliciously.
Ward drops his head back, hair falling across his eyes. He’s struggling to breathe properly, and his head is all kinds of messed up. Nausea makes him gag, though he has nothing to bring up anymore.
I have to get out of here. This is way more than I bargained for. Maybe you shouldn’t have antagonized him then, the rational part of Ward’s brain argues, but he just laughs.
Blood drips out of his mouth at the action, irritating his bruised and broken ribs. Valentin comes back to find Ward laughing and mumbling to himself.
“What have you lost your head, Agent? Does that mean you’re finally ready to tell me why you wandered into our base?” he asks, kneeling down to be at eye-level with Ward.
Ward doesn’t respond, giving him a dull look.
“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way then.” He holds a syringe up. “This increases your pain receptors. Do you know what will happen when I inject you with this considering your injuries?”
“I would probably have a heart attack,” Ward replies, his tone blank and unimpressed.
“Yes, most likely. Are you ready to take that chance with your life? Are you so ready to give your life for a cause that isn’t even worth supporting?”
“While it was never worth much in the first place, I think I’ll keep going for a while,” Ward replies before headbutting Valentin as hard as he can right between the eyes.
Ward can hear Valentin’s nose crunch as he pulls his right hand out of the cuffs. He snaps Valentin’s neck before he can move, quickly removing his other hand from the cuffs. His wrists are swollen, and purple, and his head spins hard enough that he almost falls as soon as he stands. But he manages to stay upright, though he knows that he’s going to have to be careful with his balance throughout his escape. He grabs Valentin’s gun, tucking it into his waistband. He knocks out the guard watching the outside of the room before jogging to the main file room. He was hoping that he would be alone when the routes got where he needed them, but Valentin had to come back, and threaten him. It takes everything in Ward not to roll his eyes, knowing the sass isn’t worth the vertigo it’ll give him.
So he slips into the file room, and clamps a hand over the next guard’s mouth and nose until he stops squirming. By then his body is aching fiercely, and his head is pounding in time with his heart, but he still has a job to do. So he begins picking through the one filing cabinet. Then he grabs the guard’s security ID, and swipes it on the computer.
“Ok,” Ward mumbles, grabbing a stick hard drive from the sole of his boot.
The compartment in there is undetectable, though very small. He begins the download, then pulls up schematics of the ventilation system. He memorizes it while all of the files are downloading. Once it’s finally done, he barely has time to get into the nearest vent before the door slams open.
“Breach, there’s been a breach!” someone screams from behind him.
Ward pulls himself forward, trying to remember everything he needs to despite his raging headache, and swimming vision. The tunnels seem to warp as he moves, making him completely unsure of if he’s heading in the right direction, but he chooses to trust his instincts. So he keeps crawling, counting each turn as he makes it. Through some miracle, he makes it out. Everyone is swarming the inside, looking for him. So it’s not hard to sneak into a vehicle, and hot wire it. He starts it, and begins driving away.
The road is bumpy, jarring him enough to make him heave into the passenger’s seat. He doesn’t bring anything up, and it only makes his eyes water, and head pound harder. His hands grip the wheel tight enough to turn them white, but never slows down. It still takes two hours for him to reach the nearest town. He gets odd looks the whole way from the car to the pay phone, but he ignores it, calling his supervisor. He explains what he has, and where he is.
“Wait there for extract.”
“I won’t be able to stop them if they come here. Make sure it’s quick, cause my head is beat to hell.”
“Of course.”
The line goes dead before Ward can say anything else, so he heads to the nearest hotel. He cleans his wounds, and drops onto the bed. It’s hours before anyone shows up, leaving Ward exhausted and in pain. He’s used to it though, and his supervisor letting him down is nothing new. Not this one, and not any one he’s had before that. He ends up having to spend days in the hospital with severe damage to his skull and brain. But when he gets out, it’s right back to the fight, just like always. There’s nothing else waiting for him, so he always goes back to what he knows.