Disclaimer and Copyright: This work of fiction is based on characters and settings created by Marvel Entertainment and affiliates. All recognizable characters, settings, and plot elements are copyright © Marvel Entertainment and their assignees, including The Walt Disney Company. The author believes this work falls within the scope of the Fair Use Doctrine as a transformative work. For more information, see the Organization for Transformative Works.
All original characters, settings, and plot elements are copyright © Cate Eliot. This work of fiction is available for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0) license.
Author's Note: I'm relatively new to the Marvel Universe. I have really enjoyed the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series on Netflix and have been mildly surprised with the amount of well written characters and captivating story lines, Melinda May being the most interesting by far. I wanted to dive deeper into the storyline of Bahrain and experiment with just what the effects and consequences would be on the rest of her life and missions. She's such a poetically beautiful character, I really wanted to write her. Every part could be a standalone piece, but put together as a whole, they explore the consequences of Bahrain and what followed. I have loosely followed the episode's description of the event, depicted in 2.17 "Melinda". But I want to try and stay close to character.
I wanted to start out the series with a simpler and shorter one-shot. I have at least two more parts already written for this series, but I wanted to put out some feelers for this genre. Each one-shot could stand alone as I mentioned in the Disclaimer and Copyright, but they all go together with the overarching Bahrain theme as well. However, they will vary from all different episodes and times period, not necessarily in order. Let me know what you think it—good or bad. I love all feedback. Please review.
Episode Tag: 1.8 "The Well"
"You are so brave and quiet
I forget you are suffering."
PART ONE: Fire in Her Soul
"When you held it, did you see anything?"
Exhaustion weighed down every word as Ward watched the rest of the team and the others work around him and May. The woman next to him simply nodded, shakily, but didn't turned her eyes towards him.
She seemed a million miles away.
And that was how he felt, but he couldn't understand how she could be standing there, so calm and composed. He had wanted to rip everything and everyone to shreds, yet May had simply set the staff on the ground and walked away.
He didn't understand.
"Then how?" He struggled to even pose the question. "How did you hold all three?"
He watched her for a reaction, but she didn't seem to want to give him one. For a split second, Ward wasn't even sure May had even heard him. But then she moved from her statue like pose and took a step towards the doors.
"Because I see it every day."
He couldn't decipher all the tones in her words, but before he could even open his mouth to ask another question, she had moved away, analyzing the work going on around them. Her eyes passing over the staff in the center of the floor and the piles of bodies strewn over the cobblestones.
He shook his head and felt the earthquake sized headache he had gotten from the staff's encounter earlier and he knew he wouldn't be able to solve The Calvary at this rate anyways.
"That woman," Randolph said, labored as he moved to a better standing position. Blood and sweat clung to his shirt and his eyes were tired, but alight with a shine that Coulson had never seen before.
It was panicked, excited. Otherworldly.
"Easy, Professor." Coulson moved to steady the Asgardian. "Agent Simmons?" Coulson asked searching for common ground, "are you feeling ill? I can get, Jemma—"
The man shook his head vehemently. "No, no," he said almost impatiently, "the woman that held my staff." Randolph tried to move from the balcony towards the stairs, but Coulson slowed him. "The golden woman, the one with the fire in her soul, I—I must speak to her immediately."
Coulson frowned and his eyes swept the downstairs of the church. He felt his breath hitch at the sight of May leaning against one of the church's wall, off to herself, detachedly watching the teams clean up the bodies and wreckage.
"Okay, okay," he said, letting out a breath he didn't remember drawing, "I'll take you to her. Let's go slow and easy, okay. We don't want the stiches Agent Simmons gave you to rip before your body has time to heal itself."
The Berserker professor let go of Coulson's arm a few length away from May who had watched them impassively before she noticed them purposely coming towards her. He approached her slowly and intently.
May straightened as he approached, but Coulson moved towards the side of the pair, not quite sure how the entire thing was going to play out.
May looked exhausted.
The years of undercover missions and ops together allowed him to see many of the things she hid behind her many different façades. He didn't need a microscope to tell she was shell shocked by the vision the staff had shown her; the way her eyes analyzed every member of his team, every new person entering the church, every stray noise that didn't belong, everybody, told him all he needed to know.
"You are the one who put my staff back together," the Berserker said, tilting his head to look May up and down as if examining a piece of art. May's eyes met Coulson's and he shook his head discreetly.
No, he had no idea what was going on either.
"How curious."
The man's eyes were wide as he took another long look at the agent which seemed to make May uneasy. Her eyebrows dipped slightly and Coulson saw her muscles tense slightly, preparing herself for a threat. Randolph must have noticed it to; he raised a hand, protectively or to calm her, Coulson wasn't sure.
"I mean you no harm. Were you perhaps born Asgardian?"
Incredulous lit up May's normally impassive face.
"Uh—no."
Coulson decided to thrown a wrench into this conversation. "Professor Randolph, this is Agent Melinda May. She's a Specialist for S.H.I.E.L.D. and my second in command."
If Randolph heard this, he didn't respond to it.
"You are woefully composed for a human, Agent May," he said conversationally.
May frowned slightly at the strange nature of the comment, but didn't seem to be bothered. She raised an eyebrow calmly.
"Am I?" she said smoothly.
Randolph's hand shot out to barely touch the tip of her raven hair before May had deftly moved out of the way and Coulson had jerked in between the Berserker warrior and their own resident soldier.
"Okay, let's break this up party up," Ward said, appearing behind the professor and aggressively grabbing man's arm and pushing him back a few steps from both Coulson and May, the latter who hadn't said anything or done other than analytically watch the man staring at her.
An odd smile lit up Randolph's face and his eyes seemed to glitter a little gold as he glanced again at May and over at Ward.
The shouting had gotten the attention of the rest of the team.
"What's happening?" Skye demanded as FitzSimmons appeared behind her, eyes wide.
"Professor, what's going on?" Simmons moved over to Randolph, holding the tablet close to her chest, looking back between the three hostile men glaring at each other and May. Randolph jerked away from Ward and smoothed out his ruined suit.
"I've never found one whose rage wasn't at someone else."
