Cat’s Thoughts: I’m not sure this was the hardest thing Coulson’s ever done, but I think it was definitely up there in the top ten, at least. Having to ask the rest of the team to trust someone who’d outright betrayed them and been the cause of one of their people badly hurt? Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Coulson’s shoes asking them to give Ward a chance.
HYDRA tends to cause all sorts of problems, both in canon and in the Redeeming Grant series. However, in this instance, their actions were actually beneficial to Coulson. It gave him the opportunity to ‘forget’ to return Ward to prison and work on rehabilitating him on the Bus, without getting periodic beatings from the guards.