She'd spent her entire life looking for it. What a strange feeling that was, to know that you've been looking for something your entire life without really knowing what it was you were looking for. She kept the staff in her room, away from prying eyes. If they knew how it made her feel - the strength, the power, the freedom – they'd be afraid. She was, after all, The Cavalry.
The first time she'd laid hands on it, in that monastery in Ireland, she'd not been truthful with Ward about what she'd felt, what she'd seen. She had felt exhilarated, had felt the power coursing through her body – from her hands to the tips of her toes to the top of her head – and she had not wanted to put it down, had watched with longing as two agents had packed it into a box. Coming across it again in Cuba, she'd yearned to grab it and hold onto it and never let go, but instead, knowing that the team would not understand her need to bring the thing with her, she'd left it behind in the rubble.
She'd returned to that place in Havana a few weeks ago, not bothering to tell the team, or even Coulson, where she was going or why. She'd used the excuse of going to visit her mother and had spent the next three days digging through the rubble of the old barbershop until she finally found it. Holding it again had given her a sense of relief, and she claimed it, running her hands along the runes carved into it, caressing it. She felt renewed, recharged, and finally understood what those terms meant.
Maybe Ward couldn't handle the power and rage that came from holding the staff, but she wasn't Ward. And Professor Randolph? Please. He was a self-proclaimed pacifist who had only agreed to be a soldier so that he could travel and see the world. There were plenty of human soldiers exactly like him, enlisting in the military for a chance at seeing foreign lands (or using the GI bill to fund their college education), never really believing that they'd ever see any action. Combat was a rude awakening for people like that. But not for her. No, Melinda May was always combat-ready.