Note: Set before/during the events of "The Well." The bar dialogue is based on the actual scene in AoS, but the dialogue is reimagined slightly. All characters belong to Marvel, of course.

A week ago, the most dangerous thing his team had experienced was a mission with no extraction plan for Ward and the technician, a kid so new to field ops he had packed himself a sandwich. Now, the world had changed all over again—gods and aliens and monsters crashing through London the way they had decimated New York not so long ago. It was all Ward could do not to contact Garrett, who had been the one to hold him together when the battle of New York destroyed Ward's perception of the world for the first time.

Coulson had assigned them all to clean-up duty in London, while S.H.I.E.L.D. had removed Thor's scientist and her team from harm's way and Thor was currently off the grid.

The tech—Ward had finally figured out that he was the one named Fitz, and the scientist was Simmons—had some sort of gadgets whizzing about the trashed room, sorting out alien technology from the rubble.

The scientist was picking at some small piece of the alien ship, and Ward took it from her and placed it into a S.H.I.E.L.D. briefcase, snapping the lock shut.

"Oh, he's dreamy," Agent May's was telling Skye and Coulson, and Ward could see that Coulson was trying his best not to roll his eyes at the two women.

Ward stood up straighter. Is that my job then, Garrett? Am I good-looking enough for the Calvary?

Grant Ward, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., had played many parts of over his lifetime, but seduction had never been one of them.

"Agent Ward, we have a new mission," Coulson said briskly, nodding his head towards the rest of the team as he handed Ward the phone with the information and coordinates. "Brief the others. May, how soon can the Bus be ready?"

"Wheels up in ten," the agent called over her shoulder, and Ward sighed impatiently.

Why does he always leave me in charge of rounding up Skye and the kids? Fitz never stops rambling—or snacking, goddamnit—and Simmons only encourages it. Ward grinned ever so slightly at the memory of Fitz with that gigantic sandwich Simmons had made for him.

"Wrap it up, Fitz," Ward called, and Skye linked her arm through his. "So if you could get your hands on anything alien, what would you choose?"

"A time… thingy. Warper?"

"That's not a word, Agent Ward," Simmons said crisply, exchanging an eye roll with Fitz.

"I mean I would go into warp speed"—

"Like Star Trek?" Skye laughed. "Alright, Spock"—

"I'd be light years ahead of all of you," Ward said. "Oh wait, that's right. I'm already light years ahead of you, Skye," he teased.

She elbowed him in the ribs, laughing, but it caught him off guard, and he tried not to flinch as his barely-healed ribs felt the impact.

"Did my SO tell just make a joke? AC, did you hear that? Spock here just cracked a joke."

Ward groaned, hiding his grin. "Oh god, not another one."

"How many nicknames do you have now, Agent Ward?" Fitz asked, snapping the last of his ridiculous robots—apparently they all had names? Fitz had smacked Ward's hand when he'd tried to touch them—into its case.

"Too many," Ward said.

"Ward, I told you to wrap it up," Coulson called. "Fitzsimmons, we need to go." His voice sounded urgent. "Skye, I need your help. Come on, all of you. On the bus."

Afterwards.

The Berserker staff, they called it. Plaything of gods and monsters.

It felt like power in his hands, but no one tells you that power scorches your palms, burns through you until you are empty, until your mouth tastes of ash, until there is nothing left but you, drowning in the abyss of your own rage…

It ravaged him, and what he saw, what he felt, what he did with that staff in his fists… it could never be erased.

Ward had taken out a dozen men in the isolated Dublin church, taken them out because Skye was standing behind him, because Skye had run to him, first, not caring about the enraged maniacs on all sides, not caring about anything except for him…

He fell.

Down.

Down.

Down.

The boy at the bottom of the well was sobbing, desperate, fighting the water. "Grant," he called. "Grant, please…"

And he was weak, he was so weak. He stood there, watching the younger boy tread water, his fists clenched to keep the tears from running down his face.

"Grant, help me…"

"Not yet," the older boy told him, and Ward had hoped he'd have the strength to withstand him.

He had thrown the rope, finally, pulled the shaking child out of the waters to safety. But there had been no one to rescue him that day, no one to rescue Grant, no one to throw him that rope.

It was the day Grant died…

Ward opened his eyes. He had beaten them all, and he couldn't stand to look. Were any of them still alive? Had he destroyed it all? He couldn't hear he couldn't think he couldn't—

"Grant," the word tore through the empty shell of Grant Ward's rage. Skye was crouching beside him. "Grant, come here." She pulled his arm over her shoulder, and he leaned against her, entirely spent.

Faintly, at the edge of his vision, he saw another woman enter the room, her eyes alight with the same rage that was still pumping furiously through Ward's veins. His whole body heaved with a sigh, and he tried to push himself to his feet.

"This time," May stopped him with a gesture of her hand. "Let me."

And if Ward had ever doubted what Melinda May was capable of, it was erased from his mind now. The battle was over in seconds, and May clutched the staff, her face showing little emotion.

Skye's arm was still around him, and Ward leaned on her. Her voice was soft, soothing, and Ward found himself shaking.

Grant, she had called him. No one had called him by that name since the day he allowed his younger brother to nearly drown in that well. The well.

Skye pulled him to his feet, her hands gentle. "Grant, it's okay. It's okay, we're okay."

May nodded stiffly at him, and Ward nodded back at her.

But it was Skye he clung to as they left the shambles of the church, and it was Skye he stayed with on their way to the hotel for the night.

Coulson pulled him aside when they arrived and asked if he was alright, but Ward just shook his head, for a moment not caring that he had a cover to maintain as the untouchable Agent Ward.

Skye found him again at the bar, as he downed his first drink too quickly.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

Good, fine, alright, he tried to say. Like water off my back. I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., it's all part of my job.

"Not great," he admitted, and she placed a hand on his arm. He looked up at her, startled by the compassion in her dark eyes. "Look—I'm sorry. About… before? On the bus? I shouldn't have… I'm not that guy…"

What are you telling her, Grant Ward? What are you doing?

"You're a guy who saves lives," she said firmly, and Ward felt the words twist in the pit of his stomach. "I can deal with that on occasion."

Oh, Skye. What is it you see in myself that I can't? And why does it feel so important that I am that guy?

I want to be that guy.

I just never had a choice.

"I said some terrible things back on the bus," he says tentatively. "Things that weren't true. I don't—I don't mind—when you talk."

"That wasn't you, Grant. Besides, I can deal with it, remember? No sweat."

"Does everything just roll off your back?" he grinned slightly despite himself, surprised again—Skye never stopped surprising him, apparently—at how little she was phased.

"No," she said, and suddenly her bright eyes were fierce as she looked at him. "If it helped, I'd rage all the time. But it doesn't."

And Ward knew once again he'd underestimated this girl. She was a conundrum, this girl with no last name, this girl with a heart of compassion and a face full of laughter and dark brown eyes that hinted of her own private hells. Of a rage she fought with the depth of her compassion.

"It was about my brother," he blurted, hating himself the minute the words spilled past his lips. But then he saw Skye's look and felt some of his own self-hatred fading back when he realized that she knew, of course she knew, and what was worse, she understood.

"I figured," was all she said, but then she moved closer, her hand still on his arm. "Listen, I know today was hell and you're not Mr. Talkative, but if you ever… well, if it ever gets to be too much, my shoulder's free."

Ward looked down at her, this small, fierce girl who looked like a safe haven to him. It hit him, finally, how deeply he'd been compromised already, and he knew his only alternative was to run away from her far and fast.

Because Grant Ward knew his weakness—that it was not the rage and fear and sadness of his memories, or even this new, already-deep-set attraction to Skye that could destroy him, but the fearless hope in her eyes that made him almost want to believe in a world that could never be.