sometimes (i find it hard to believe)

by shineyma

Grant Ward's soulmate is a beautiful, brilliant scientist whom he has absolutely no hope of turning to HYDRA. The fact that this is not his biggest problem really says a lot. [Part three of the "before you fall" series]

8. The Well

A/N: Once again, thank you for all of the comments and kudos! They're excellent motivation.

This is the longest chapter to date, and it would've been even longer if I hadn't gone back and summarized a lot of dialogue. So I hope y'all have some time set aside to read this!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review.

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The team sleeps through the aliens attacking London. Literally. They've just finished a hellish mission which involved every single member of the team staying awake for three days straight—Grant, Coulson, and May trying to protect the general populace from the flying…things that keep attacking them, Jemma and Fitz trying to figure out how to neutralize the things, and Skye trying to trace the money trail to find out who invented the things while occasionally assisting in populace protection.

By the time the bastard who invented the flying things is arrested and his inventions—created using alien technology, hence Jemma and Fitz's difficulty in containing them—are rounded up and deactivated, the entire team is exhausted. Coulson calls in to HQ to request another team be sent to determine exactly how the inventor got his hands on alien technology (especially since it isn't a type of technology SHIELD has encountered before), informs the higher ups that the team is taking down time, and then uses his expense account to book them all rooms at the nearest decent hotel.

So while things are going down in London, Grant is sound asleep in a three star hotel room, comfortably entwined with Jemma.

x

The buzzing of his and Jemma's phones on the nightstand wakes Grant up around three in the afternoon. Jemma scrunches her nose a bit and curls closer to him, but doesn't wake. She deserves the sleep, especially as it appears to be entirely untroubled—still not a common occurrence, two weeks after her near death—so he reaches to silence her phone and answer his.

"Ward," he says by way of greeting.

"Aliens attacked London," Coulson informs him plainly. "We missed the action, but we're being called in to help with the clean-up."

Grant disentangles himself from Jemma and sits up.

"Chitauri?" he asks, keeping his tone casual, even though he feels anything but. If it is Chitauri, there's no way he's letting Jemma anywhere near the scene. Or the rest of the team, for that matter. It's his job to protect them, and recent events have proven that the best way to protect them is to keep them far away from anything Chitauri.

"Fortunately, no," Coulson answers. His tone is a little too understanding for Grant's taste. "Apparently, they were Dark Elves."

"Dark Elves?" he echoes, dubious. His mind flashes to the fantasy convention where he once went undercover, picturing some of the costumes he saw there.

"From Svartalfheim," Coulson confirms.

"Gesundheit," Grant says, sliding to the edge of the bed and reaching for his jeans, which are lying on the floor where he left them sixteen hours ago. He and Jemma were too tired to even think about sex last night, which he regrets now, since it looks like they won't be spending the whole day in bed, as they planned.

"You know, you're the third person to make that joke in the last ten minutes."

"I'll be more original next time," he promises, tucking his phone against his neck to use both hands as he slides his jeans on. "When do we leave?"

"Wheels up in an hour," Coulson says. "I assume you can inform Simmons?"

"Yes, sir," he agrees. He hangs up, not bothering with goodbyes, and considers Jemma. An hour's not a lot of time (although it's more than he was expecting), and he's a little conflicted about what to do with it. On the one hand, he could wake her up and they could shower together—an attractive option, especially since it looks like they'll be surrounded by their teammates for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, he could shower alone and let her sleep that much longer.

After a brief mental debate, he sighs and leaves her to sleep. She deserves it, after the week they've had, and he's too happy that she's sleeping without nightmares to wake her up just because he wants her.

He always wants her; it'll keep.

x

Once they're in the air, Coulson provides a brief summary of the recent events in London, then fills them in on exactly what they're being called in to do. Apparently, there's a lot of clean-up to be done, and HQ isn't willing to let civilians handle it, considering the high likelihood of alien objects being scattered among the rubble. With the reports from the Chitauri virus that resulted from the last alien invasion so recently filed, HQ is playing it safe, and all clean-up is being left in the hands of SHIELD agents.

Which is reasonable, sure, but Grant can't say he's happy about letting any of his team be among the SHIELD agents doing this clean-up. Jemma's looking a little pale, obviously thinking of the virus that nearly killed her, and he can tell, looking around the lounge, that the two of them aren't the only ones remembering that horrible day.

For one thing, Skye—who has an annoying habit of gleefully tattling on Grant and Jemma whenever they do anything that might cross the line into unprofessional behavior during business hours—hasn't said anything about how close together Jemma and Grant are sitting. And she must have noticed, with all of the glances she keeps darting at Jemma. Fitz, on Jemma's other side, looks just as pale as she does, and May, although as stoic as ever, is frowning a little.

There's a long moment of awkward silence, no one wanting to bring up the elephant in the room. Oddly enough, it's broken by Jemma herself.

"In light of our…recent experience," she says carefully. "I believe we should be cautious whilst shifting through the rubble. I've actually designed a disinfectant spray which may be useful."

"Really?" Coulson asks. "Do you think it will work against Dark Elf viruses?"

"It's difficult to say," Jemma tells him calmly, although her grip on Grant's hand has tightened noticeably. "For obvious reasons, I haven't been able to perform any sort of comprehensive testing of the spray's abilities. Still, it certainly won't hurt anything."

"Good enough for me," Coulson agrees. "Fitz, can you scan anything we find to see if it's of alien origin?"

"Of course I can," Fitz says, sounding slightly offended that it's in question.

Coulson nods. "The rest of us will sort through the rubble, separate out anything that's obviously human made. By all accounts, the alien ships and weapons were all metal-based, so any stone, brick, and plaster can be discarded."

"Right," Skye says, like she's making a mental note. "If it came from a building, we don't care. Got it."

Coulson gives her a look. "Something like that. May, how long will the flight take?"

"Seven hours and twenty-eight minutes," May reports, after checking her watch.

"Right, you're all dismissed," Coulson says. "It's been a long week, and I need you awake when we reach London. Go to bed."

"I was in bed," Skye gripes as she stands. Grant's amused to note that she apparently didn't bother to get dressed for her trip from the hotel, since she's still wearing pajamas. "Then someone called and woke me up."

Coulson ignores her, leaving the lounge with May on his heels, and Skye huffs a little.

"Fine, whatever," she mutters to herself as she heads for her bunk. "Of course we need to get to London, because no one else can dig around for alien stuff. Not like we spent all week trying to stop a psycho…"

Her voice trails off as she slides the door to her bunk closed behind her, and Grant shakes his head as he stands and pulls Jemma up by their still entwined hands. Fitz has fallen asleep right where he's sitting.

"You can leave him," Jemma tells him, following his gaze. "He'll wake in a bit and wander to bed on his own."

"Good," he says. He's not really in the mood to wrangle a grumpy, sleep-deprived engineer. He's not in the mood to do much of anything, really, except maybe grab Jemma and run. Which is ridiculous—there's no danger in the clean-up they've been called on to do, not really. The aliens involved were Dark Elves (ridiculous as that may sound), not Chitauri, and they know to be cautious dealing with anything they come across. This is nothing like the mission that nearly ended with Jemma's death; they know aliens are involved and they know exactly what's at stake.

Telling himself that doesn't help at all.

"Grant?" Jemma says. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he says. "Just tired. Let's go to bed."

He smiles reassuringly in response to her unconvinced look, then follows her to his bunk. Technically speaking, sharing his bed is still against the protocol Coulson laid out for them, but this will be the third time, and Coulson hasn't said anything. Grant's taking that to mean that he's willing to turn a blind eye to the violation of protocol, as long as he doesn't catch them in the act.

Which is a good thing, because Grant honestly doesn't think he could sleep without Jemma, at this point. And that's nothing to do with how it good it feels to have her next to him, or how comforting he finds the warm weight of her pressed against his chest, and everything to do with the fact that he still has difficulty being apart from her. He is making progress on that front, though. The other day he was away from her for a whole two hours without getting edgy.

Even in his head it sounds pathetic, but...whatever. His soulmate nearly died two weeks ago. All things considered, he thinks he's doing pretty well with it. (The part where she was nearly murdered on SHIELD's orders, on the other hand…but he can't think about that right now. It only makes him angry, and the time's not right for revenge.)

x

After breakfast, while Jemma's down in the lab getting the alien disinfectant spray she invented, Fitz pulls Grant aside.

"What's up?" Grant asks, a little concerned.

He's not concerned that Fitz wants to talk to him, of course. As it happens, the mission they went on together last week (another thing he can't think about too long, for fear of losing control of his anger at SHIELD) was enough to finally get Fitz over the last of his reservations about Grant. The two of them have been getting along much better, are maybe even approaching friends, and it's made Jemma very happy.

Grant's happy, too, and not just because Jemma is, although that's naturally a large part of it. He's finding, now that he doesn't have to contend with Fitz's constant suspicion, that he actually likes him as a person. Fitz is kind of hilarious, often unintentionally so, and with Grant's new perspective, Fitz's more annoying traits aren't actually all that annoying.

Still, newfound friendship aside, it's not like Fitz to wait until Jemma is gone to try and talk to him.

"When you and Simmons were in Italy, did she call her parents?" Fitz asks.

Grant frowns, thinking back. He knows that Jemma calls her parents every Monday, and he's pretty sure she didn't the Monday they were in Sant'Agnello; Jemma had a terrible nightmare the night before, in which she accidentally killed him by infecting him before she knew about the virus, and they spent the whole day quietly. The only time they were apart for more than ten minutes was when he did his morning training, and even then, he doesn't think she had time for a phone call.

"I don't think so," he says finally. "Why?"

"She's been avoiding their calls," Fitz tells him. "It's not like her at all."

"No," Grant agrees. "It's not."

"She won't talk to me about it," Fitz says, a little grumpily. "Maybe you'll have better luck."

"I'll talk to her tonight," Grant assures him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Thanks for letting me know."

x

The agent-in-charge on the scene appoints the team to the clean-up crew working at Greenwich University. Jemma and Fitz are assigned to a group of scientists going through what's been deemed 'suspicious' rubble in one of the designated scanning rooms, and Grant quickly volunteers to haul said suspicious rubble to and from the room. It's hard work, with a lot of heavy lifting, but at least it gives him an excuse to hang around Jemma—something he's all too happy to have as, despite her fairly decent cheerful façade, it's obvious she's nervous to be dealing with alien artifacts so soon after her exposure to the Chitauri virus.

The disinfectant spray Jemma invented is deemed a necessary part of the process, and each scanning room is given two bottles. In any other situation, Grant would be amused by just how much of the spray Jemma has on hand, but in this case, it's more worrying than funny. There are three scanning rooms, which means Jemma has at least six bottles—one for each member of the team. It's a reasonable enough precaution, of course, but considering the fact that she felt the need to produce so much of it, when by her own admission she hasn't even finished testing it yet…

She's not okay. She's still traumatized by her experience, and while it's only to be expected, he really wishes she weren't. It's probably a good sign that she's turned to science to deal with her lingering fears, but…it hurts him, that she needs to.

Still, there's nothing he can do about it, and he forces his worry away as they get to work. He makes sure to brush by her whenever he gets even the slightest opportunity, squeezes her shoulder every once in a while, and keeps a sharp eye on the mess she's sorting through. Just in case.

x

By the second day of clean-up, everyone is heartily sick of it, and resentment against Asgard is at an all-time high. As he hauls in what must be his two hundredth wheelbarrow full of rubble, he's amused to find that even Jemma is complaining. In the past, she's expressed awe over the idea of contact with Asgard, speaking longingly of how much knowledge the ancient race might have to share, but apparently the appeal has worn off, faced as she is by the mess Thor has left for SHIELD to clean up.

Jemma's of the opinion that the Asgardians should have stuck around to clean up their own mess, but Fitz is taking a slightly different tack.

"This is definitely the type of work a monkey could easily do," Fitz tells him.

"You're our little monkey," Grant teases, leaning against his wheelbarrow.

Fitz rolls his eyes in response, but there's a pleased smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Before Fitz can fire back his own remark (likely something comparing Grant's intelligence to that of a monkey, if he's any judge), they're interrupted by the sound of Jemma's phone. It's the ringtone for her parents' home phone, and Grant and Fitz exchange a look as she dismisses the call.

"Don't give me that look," she tells Fitz. "I'll talk to them…when I talk to them."

"Talk to who?" Grant asks casually as he flips his wheelbarrow upright. He didn't have the chance to talk to her about it last night—they were both so exhausted that they just collapsed into bed as soon as they got back to the Bus—and he silently resolves to bring it up tonight, no matter how tired they are.

"Mum and Dad," Jemma says. "They want explanations and answers for, well, all this. But I don't have any answers. And, more importantly, I haven't talked to them since I was ill. And if they knew that, they'd be even more terrified." The phone beeps, and she slides it into her pocket. "So, you know, why waste any of our time?"

Grant ignores the falsely casual reference to her brush with death, instead focusing on the issue at hand. He knows, from earlier conversations about her parents, that Jemma has a habit of hiding things from them. For instance, they have no idea that she's doing field work now; she told them about getting a transfer, but she let them assume it was to another lab. And while they know that she's met her soulmate, he doesn't think she's told them anything about him. They definitely don't know he's a specialist—well, they wouldn't anyway, since civilians aren't allowed to know that much about SHIELD's internal structure, but she could at least tell them he's a field agent.

Except she can't, since, as she pointed out, then they'd want to know when she had occasion to meet a field agent, and that would lead right back to the conversation about field work that she doesn't want to have.

Basically, Jemma's gone to a lot of trouble to protect her parents from the reality of the work she does and the danger she faces. So it's no surprise that she hasn't told them about what happened with the Chitauri virus. He is, however, a little confused as to why she's keeping quiet about the attack on London; she can truthfully tell them that she was nowhere near London when it happened, and that all of the information she has on it is classified.

Then again, he knows from experience that that word doesn't tend to go over well with civilians.

"They won't take well to being told it's classified?" he guesses.

"Definitely not," Jemma says. She takes on a high-pitched tone he assumes is meant to mimic her mother. "It's all over the telly, Jemma, there's nothing secret about it!"

Grant snorts, more at the ridiculous impersonation than anything else. He knows impressions aren't her strong suit—the one she does of him would be enough to make May laugh—but that's just horrible.

"Your mum does not sound like that," Fitz tells her.

"She does when she's shouting," Jemma defends.

"She really doesn't," Fitz says as he picks up a little metal clamp to scan.

Jemma's heading for the pile in the center of the room, presumably to gather some more objects in need of scanning, but she's stopped by the beeping the scanner Fitz is holding lets out. She stumbles back against the table, and Grant moves forward.

"Fitz," Jemma says shakily. "Is that, um…"

"Definitely not from here," Fitz says, standing and holding it up. "Another piece of the ship."

Grant takes it from him and quickly disinfects it as Fitz asks him what he's doing. Jemma's looking a little pale, so he addresses his answer to her.

"Out of sight," he says, placing the clamp in a biohazard box and locking it. "Out of mind."

She nods and smiles weakly, edging along the side of the table to return to the other side, obviously trying to keep as much distance from the box as possible. It's completely understandable and not a bit surprising, but he hates that something as simple as a little metal clamp can have her struggling to maintain her composure. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, and he knows there's absolutely nothing he can say that will make this any less nerve-wracking for her.

Still, he can't not try.

"It's why we're here," he reminds her gently. "We'll keep everything under control."

"Of course," she says quietly. She indicates the box. "You'd better get that to containment."

"Right," he agrees, picking it up. He exchanges a look with Fitz, who nods resolutely. He'll keep close to Jemma while Grant takes care of this.

Not that there's much in the way of taking care of to do; it's only a few minutes' work to hand the box over to the agents handling containment and return to the scanning room. He still finds himself hurrying back, but that's hardly a surprise.

What is a surprise is finding Coulson in the scanning room, standing against a wall while Jemma and Fitz pack up their equipment.

"Is the clean-up done already, sir?" Grant asks.

"It is for us," Coulson says. "We've been called in to investigate some suspicious activity in Norway. Possible candidate for the Index."

He pushes away from the wall and heads for the door.

"Better step on it," he says over his shoulder. "We leave in five."

"Yes, sir," Grant agrees, and moves to help Jemma gather her gear.

x

Back on the Bus, Coulson fills them in on what he knows about the incident in Norway. It isn't much.

"We're headed for Trillemarka National Park," Coulson says, pulling up a map of Norway and zooming in to the park. "It's 150 square kilometers of protected forest, and park rangers keep up a constant patrol—mostly aimed at aiding lost and injured hikers, as I understand it. They don't tend to get a lot of trouble."

"But today they did?" Skye guesses.

"Today they did," Coulson confirms. He highlights a specific section of the forest, then brings up two ID cards on the screen. "Two park rangers—Olaf Haugen and Lars Nilsen—were attacked an hour ago. Nilsen was killed, Haugen was unharmed. According to his report, two unidentified individuals, a man and a woman, cut down one of the trees. When Haugen and Nilsen confronted them, the woman attacked them. She pushed Nilsen twenty feet into another tree. Force of impact snapped his neck. Haugen ran for help and they let him go."

"Sorry, sir," Grant says. "Did you say she pushed him?"

"According to Haugen's report, the woman shoved Nilsen and he went flying," Coulson confirms. "We need to find out who these people are, how the woman managed this, and whether the man has similar abilities. May?"

"Since time is of the essence, we've received permission from the Norwegian authorities to land in a field just outside the forest," May says, indicating a spot on the map. "ETA ninety-seven minutes."

"Any questions?" Coulson asks.

There aren't, and he dismisses the briefing. Grant leaves the room, intending to grab his latest book and get some reading done, and is surprised to find Jemma following him.

"You okay?" he asks, stopping outside of his bunk. "Not going down to the lab?"

"I'm fine," she says. "But if you don't mind, I thought I'd spend the flight with you."

"Of course I don't mind," he says, sliding the door open. "I'd like that. I was just gonna get some reading done."

Jemma slips past him and flops down on his bed, and after a moment of deliberation, he slides the door shut and joins her. They take a minute to adjust themselves, so that she's lying between him and the door (away from the window, even though the shade is closed) and their legs are tangled together.

"You okay?" he asks again, once they're comfortable. "You look a little pale."

"I know it's silly," she says. "But it made me so nervous, digging through that rubble."

"It's not silly," he tells her. "You nearly died the last time you had contact with an alien object. Hell, I was nervous, too. You might've noticed how I spent most of the last two days hanging around the scanning room."

"I did think you were hovering a little more than usual," she allows.

"And I hope you don't think it was a coincidence that you and Fitz were working in the same room," he continues.

"It wasn't?"

"Nope," he says. "Coulson's orders. We were all nervous about letting you near the scene."

"That does make me feel better," she says, tapping her fingers against his chest. "At least we're all unreasonably emotional."

He laughs, more at her tone than her words, and she joins in after a moment. When their laughter fades, they don't bother to resume their conversation, instead remaining in comfortable silence for nearly twenty minutes.

Jemma's hand is still resting on his chest. On impulse, he lifts her wrist and kisses her timer, and she stirs, tilting her head back to look at him better.

"Why have you started doing that?" she asks.

"What?"

"Kissing my timer," she clarifies, lifting her wrist a little in emphasis. "Ever since we returned from Italy, you do it all the time."

"Does it bother you?" he asks, concerned.

"Of course not," she says, rolling her eyes. "I think it's…sweet, actually. I was just wondering what started it."

He stares at the ceiling, thinking, and Jemma sits up, twisting so that her back is against the wall and her legs are lying across his knees. There's no reason not to tell her, is there? For some reason, though, he hesitates.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," she says, a little uncertainly.

It's a weakness, Garrett's voice whispers in his head, and he shoves it away, irritated.

"No, I want to," he says. He sits up, takes her hand, which has been resting on his thigh, and pulls it closer to examine her timer. He looks at the numbers—the exact date and time of their first meeting, down to the millisecond—and the slight green glow, his own life reflected right there in the color of the timer's light, and slides his thumb over the delicate skin of her wrist. Then he turns his hand over, baring his own wrist, showing the empty skin where his timer used to be.

"My timer was removed the day after I graduated from the Academy," he tells her quietly. "I knew it was going to happen—Garrett told me about it before I was even signed up—and I spent my entire time at the Academy worrying about it. About you."

"About me?"

"I didn't know—no one ever told me what it would do to your timer," he says. "I was terrified that losing my timer would make yours go red, and you'd think I had died." He laughs, humorlessly. "I used to have nightmares about it."

Jemma pulls her wrist from his grasp and takes his hand. "What sort of nightmares?"

"Nightmares where your life was ruined when your timer went red. Where you—gave up, the way some people do. And other nightmares, where you didn't," he takes a deep breath. "Where you moved on, instead, and when I finally found you you were happily married—or unhappily, sometimes—and you didn't want anything to do with me. Where you blamed me, for letting you think I was dead."

"Oh, Grant," she says softly.

"When the woman who took my timer told me that yours would just go blank, not red, I didn't even have time to be relieved," he continues. "She put me under, and when I woke up, my timer was gone." He swallows, hard, remembering the terrible moment when he looked down and saw empty skin. "It was…horrible. They told me that the reason I had to be unconscious for the procedure was that it's an unbearably painful process, but I thought, beforehand, that nothing could hurt as much as waking up and seeing…nothing. I was right."

Jemma makes a little sound and squeezes his hand tightly.

"I'm a good specialist," he says. "One of the best, and that's not bragging. I am very good at what I do and I'm happy to do it, even though it's difficult. And even though I've done things I'm ashamed of, I'm proud of what I've accomplished. And I was sad, not to have my timer, but I've never regretted becoming a specialist. I've never regretted the path I chose. Until…"

"Until?" she prompts gently, after a few minutes.

"Until I was standing in the briefing room, watching you die," he finishes. "You were running out of time, and I couldn't bear to be in the cargo bay, but I couldn't not. So I went to the briefing room and I watched you on the security feed, and it was—I could barely stand it, how pale you were, the way things kept floating, knowing you'd be doing the same thing, soon enough, but I had to watch, because I had to know. Every second, I had to—I had to see, to know you were still alive, at least for that moment. And I—if I had a timer, I could have watched that, instead. It would've been green, and I would've known, and I could have looked away from the feed. I wouldn't have had to watch you trying to save your own life. And for a moment, I—I hated."

He realizes how tightly he's holding her hand and forces himself to loosen his grip.

"I hated Garrett, for convincing me to sign up for SHIELD in the first place. And I hated myself for agreeing. For being so selfish, so concerned with my own career that I willingly gave up my timer—my connection to you. If I hadn't been so stupid—"

"Stop it," Jemma interrupts. She pushes away from the wall and slides into his lap, resting her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry that you haven't had your timer, Grant, but pursuing a career doesn't make you selfish. It certainly doesn't make you stupid."

"I gave you up," he says quietly. "That was stupid."

"I'm right here," she reminds him, squeezing his shoulders tightly. "You didn't give me up. We're both right here, where we're supposed to be. You joined SHIELD for the same reason I did—to save lives—and you've done that. You've done that a thousand times over. If you regret giving up your timer, that's fine, but I won't have you insulting yourself. Not for this. Not for all the good you've done. Okay?"

"Okay," he agrees, pulling her forward to hug her. She returns it easily, and he buries his face in her hair, feeling even worse than he did when he started. Jemma actually believes that he joined SHIELD to save lives, and he doesn't know why, but that makes him feel sick. It should be a good thing, that she buys his cover, but…

Jemma joined SHIELD to save lives. Grant joined SHIELD because Garrett told him to.

x

By the time they reach Trillemarka National Park, he's feeling a lot more settled. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Jemma.

While they were in flight, park rangers searched the entire forest and found that the unidentified suspects only cut down one specific tree. According to Haugen's report, they also took something from the tree, and knowing what might help the team catch them. So Jemma needs to get a good look at the tree and scan it. The problem is that to do that, she needs to climb along the trunk, which is lying against a few other trees, leaving the top of it about fifteen feet in the air.

For obvious reasons, she's not very enthusiastic about the process. She keeps up a calm façade as she arranges her gear, but once she's securely harnessed she just stands next to the tree stump, staring up the trunk.

He gives her a few minutes, then, when she doesn't move, offers to go up for her. It's better for her if she goes—she needs to face her fear of heights eventually—but he really can't stand that look on her face.

"Just talk me through what to do with the…doodads," he says, having absolutely no idea what her various pieces of equipment are called. She turns to look at him, obviously torn on whether to accept the offer. "You know, it's only about fifteen feet."

"I'll be fine," she says determinedly, turning back to the tree. "It's just…well, you know."

He does know, having spent more time than he cares to think about comforting her after nightmares.

"You're afraid," he says quietly, taking a step closer. "Shaken up? It's normal." He's told her that a million times, and he'll keep telling her. She has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. He takes her hand and helps her on to the stump. "But, some feelings will take over if you dwell on them. Especially fear."

He lets go of her hand and steps back a little, considering how best to distract her. Science, obviously, but what kind of science can he come up with that might get her up the tree?

"Now, keep your eyes ahead," he says. "Focus on…what you like to do best."

"Yep," Jemma says, taking a shaky step onto the trunk. "Not…falling."

"No," he says. "Research. You're a scientist, you like to figure things out."

"Yes, with my doodads," she agrees. He quietly congratulates himself for his choice of words, because 'doodads' just sounds hilarious in her accent, and for a moment, she's just as amused as he is.

"I'm curious," he says, finally hitting on something that might distract her. At least he hopes it will. "Whatever was up in these trees had to be there for…centuries, right?"

"At least a millennium," she corrects. "Radiocarbon-14 dates some of these trees at nine thousand years old."

"That sounds impossible," he says. "Think the tree grew around it?"

"Ah, I'd have to check the dendrochronology first to know for certain," she says, starting up the tree. He follows closely on the ground, keeping a hand up just in case she loses her footing. "I mean, the Norway spruce is a rather fast-growing coniferous, and I know you're trying to trick me into going up, but I'm going up anyway. So."

"I'll catch you if you fall," he promises. He keeps his tone light, but he's entirely serious.

He watches, pleased, as Jemma makes her way to the top of the tree. Her steps are careful and halting, but she doesn't stop. It hurts him that it's so difficult for her, but he's proud of her for doing it despite her fear.

She carefully sits down near the top and begins scanning the hole in the tree. Her tablet immediately beeps, and he tenses.

"Um," she says a little faintly. "Whatever was in here was definitely not of this world. Fitz, you getting this?"

Fitz is still on the Bus, waiting to receive the data Jemma gets from the tree. May and Skye are there, too, going through CCTV footage from the roads leading out of the park, hoping to get lucky and capture an image of the suspects.

"It's not Chitauri, is it?" Jemma asks. She sounds worried, and he resists the urge to pull her out of the tree. Even if it is the Chitauri virus again—which they have absolutely no reason to believe, and is highly unlikely in any case—they've got plenty of the antiserum back on the Bus. There's no reason to worry.

"No, no, no, don't worry," Fitz says instantly. "This isn't another viral threat." Grant relaxes, but only a little, while Jemma, apparently emboldened by the reassurance, leans closer to get a better look at the tree. "Um, hang on…spectrographic signatures match readings from…Thor's hammer. Simmons, whatever was in that tree is Asgardian."

"Huh, I—I can see an imprint of what was embedded," she says, reaching to grab a different scanner from her bag, which she turns on the tree. "Scanning for three-dimensional restoration. Tell me when."

"When," Fitz says. "Um, looks like a staff, or a rod. Well-crafted, engraved. I'll convert it, print a 3-D model."

Grant's been tuning out what he can hear of Coulson's interview of Haugen through the comms, but he tunes back in when Skye speaks up. She and May have apparently found something, and Coulson comes over to show Grant on his phone. It's a video, a newsfeed of rioting in Oslo, led by a man and woman who have spelled out the message WE ARE GODS in flames on the street.

"Well, I guess we know who they think they are," Coulson says.

"Nice of them to write it in English," he comments as Coulson takes the phone to show the ringleaders' photo to Haugen. "Norwegian isn't one of my languages."

"Considerate criminals," Jemma muses as she edges back down the tree. "Who'd have guessed?"

He moves forward to help her down, and she keeps hold of his hand once she's on solid ground again. He's glad to see she looks much more cheerful, presumably because the tree-climbing part of the day is done.

"Haugen confirms these two are our attackers," Coulson says, joining them. "Pack it up. We're done here."

x

On the way back to the Bus, Grant uses his tablet to run facial rec on the photo of the suspects while Jemma goes over the readings she got from the tree. Coulson spends the whole drive on the phone with HQ, apparently in search of contact information for Thor. It doesn't seem to go well, judging by his tone.

Grant discovers that the rioters' ringleaders are Jakob Nystrom and his girlfriend, Petra Larsen. They're the leaders of a Norse Paganist hate group. Scrolling through the list of known members, he finds it distinctly worrying that Larsen is in possession of supernatural strength, and he fervently hopes that it's not the kind of ability she can share with others, because a lot of these people appear dangerous enough without it.

He forwards the information SHIELD has on the group (not much) to Skye—she can't access the SHIELD database, thanks to her tracking bracelet, but she'll be able to pull more information from the internet in the next ten minutes than he'll be able to find in the next two days.

x

Back on the Bus, he and Jemma join Fitz and Skye in the lab to share information and examine the 3-D model Fitz printed. Grant fills them in on Nystrom and Larsen, while Skye provides more information on the hate group.

The 3-D model Fitz printed is incomplete; apparently, the scan only accounted for one side. Still, it's something to go on, especially since, as Jemma points out, the rod is broken on both ends. Meaning there are at least two more pieces to whatever it is, which Nystrom and Larsen will presumably be looking for. If they can figure out what it is and where the other pieces are, they may be able to beat Nystrom and Larsen there—which would be preferable, since just one piece was enough to give Larsen super strength. Grant doesn't want to think about what the whole thing might be capable of.

The markings would probably be a big clue but, as Coulson tells them when he enters the lab, SHIELD doesn't have much in the way of knowledge about Asgardian language and symbolism. Skye suggests contacting Thor, but apparently he's off the grid.

"SHIELD's investigations are on the trail of Nystrom and his followers," May says.

"We're charged with identifying the object and finding any other pieces before they do," Coulson finishes.

"They seem to have some advantage," Grant points out. "They found this thing in 150 square kilometers of Norwegian forest."

"Guys," Skye says. "What if it called to them…with magic?"

Grant holds back a smile as Jemma rolls her eyes. He knows her opinion on magic, and her clear disgust at any suggestion of the concept is always weirdly amusing.

"Called to them?" May echoes dubiously.

"We know it's Asgardian, so the rules are a little…bendy here," Skye argues, not unreasonably. Still, Grant's not going to be speaking up in favor of the concept. For one thing, he finds it pretty hard to believe, himself.

"Just because we don't understand something yet doesn't mean we should regress back to the Dark Ages," Jemma says, clearly offended by the mere thought. "Talking of magic and fairy tales."

"Actually," Coulson says. "That's exactly what we're going to do."

"Excuse me?" Jemma asks, while a clearly delighted Skye says, "Really?"

Apparently Coulson consulted Elliot Randolph, a professor of Norse mythology at a university in Seville, when Thor's hammer was first discovered. He's hopeful that Randolph might be able to shed some light on the markings.

It's a four hour flight, and there's not much more they can do with the information they have, so Coulson dismisses them. By wordless agreement, they all head upstairs to the kitchen. It's not quite lunch time, but they had a very early breakfast this morning, and they're all starving.

x

After lunch, the team (minus May, who takes the opportunity for a power nap) gathers in the lounge for a game of Clue. Over the last few weeks, when not busy almost dying or working themselves into exhaustion, they've collectively been making their way through the games in storage 2A, trying to find a game they all agree on and which no one has an unfair advantage in. So far they've discarded Risk as boring to everyone except him and Coulson, Life as too likely to devolve into throwing plastic children at each other, Pictionary because Grant and Jemma (and Fitz and Jemma, and May and Coulson) have an unfair advantage, and Jenga because that's just a stupid thing to try to play on a plane. Skye's been advocating some game called Cards Against Humanity, but since they don't have it on the Bus, it's pretty much a moot point.

Clue, however, goes surprisingly well. Or at least, it does until Jemma and Skye get so involved quoting the movie that they entirely lose track of whose turn it is. Grant doesn't mind all that much, since he's already out after making a completely wrong accusation (he guessed Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Wrench; it's actually Mrs. White in the Study with the Rope) but, to his bemusement, Fitz is plainly irritated.

Not that the game has been interrupted, of course—that Grant would understand. No, Fitz is just annoyed because, according to him, they aren't quoting the movie correctly. Skye and Jemma insist that they are, and even as the plane lands they're squabbling about the exact wording of one of the endings. Coulson's lounging back against the couch, apparently content to let them fight it out, but Grant really doesn't want to be here all day.

"Guys," he says loudly. "Is it really that big a deal how Wadsworth confused Miss Scarlet about the gun?"

"Yes," all three of them say at once.

"More important than the Asgardian weapon we need to find?" he asks pointedly.

"I suppose not," Jemma sighs. She stands and steps away from the couch, then points at Fitz. "But the importance of our case doesn't change the fact that it was one plus one plus two plus one."

"It was not —" Fitz begins, incensed.

"It so was," Skye says over him.

"Children," Grant says. "Asgardian weapon? Mysterious properties? Norse Paganist hate group? Is any of this ringing a bell?"

"Oh, fine," Skye says. "FitzSimmons? There's only one way to settle this."

"Movie night?" Jemma asks brightly.

"Movie night," Skye confirms.

"Movie night," Fitz agrees.

"Great," Coulson says. "Now that that's settled, FitzSimmons, you're with me. Skye, Ward, be ready to move as soon as Randolph gives us anything."

"Yes, sir," Grant says as Jemma and Fitz move to follow Coulson out of the lounge.

"Oh, and by the way," Coulson adds, turning around. "It was Mrs. White in the Study with the Rope."

x

After cleaning up the game—something that Coulson always seems to get out of, but rank does have its privileges, Grant supposes—he drags Skye through some strength training. He's let it slide, the past few days, since they didn't really have any time to spare between trying to stop the flying menaces and track down their inventor, but she's not really good enough yet that it's okay to skip so many days.

She whines the whole time, of course, but she still does everything he tells her to, so he lets it go. She can complain as much as she likes, as long as she's training while she does it.

Coulson calls just as they're finishing to tell them that Professor Randolph is full of information. The metal rod taken from the tree is actually a part of the fabled berserker staff, which was brought to Earth by an Asgardian warrior millennia ago. There are three pieces, the location of which are described in entirely unhelpful verses that Grant dutifully copies down.

The verses, even if they are accurate (which is doubtful), are so vague as to be entirely useless. Luckily Randolph has a suggestion there, too—he directs them to Baffin Island, off the coast of Canada, as a place to start, and Coulson's sending a local team to take a look. In the meantime, he wants Skye to look into old Viking routes.

Skye heads upstairs, muttering to herself about Coulson's timing, calling after she did all that work, and how it must be a conspiracy. Grant shakes his head and follows her. There's nothing for him to do yet, so he might as well get some sleep in while he can. He has a feeling that this is going to be a very long mission.

x

Three hours of restless sleep later, Coulson catches him on his way out of his bunk. Apparently Baffin Island has a mountain called Mount Thor, but it does not contain any Asgardian artifacts. Hopefully Skye has something, or they're pretty much screwed.

Luckily, she does have something. In addition to a message board full of psychos, she's discovered several Viking routes, one of which is right here in Seville.

"It's a long shot," she says, bringing up the map. "But Vikings sacked Seville twice."

"We found one promising location with Viking relics," May says as she enters. "El Divino Niño. A church built on the ruins of an eighth century crypt—built on Roman ruins from 206 B.C."

"East of a river," Grant realizes, remembering the cryptic verses.

"And lots of bones," Coulson finishes. "Let's see what we can dig up." He pushes away from the table and looks at them expectantly. "See what I did there?"

All three of them roll their eyes, which Coulson ignores, and follow Coulson out into the lounge. Jemma and Fitz are already there, sitting on the couch with their heads bent over Fitz's tablet.

"Okay, we've got a possible location," Coulson says. "Fitz, you and I are going to wait in the car and keep watch to see if any of Nystrom's group show up. Skye and Ward will be entering the church to search for the berserker staff. May and Simmons will remain on the Bus and keep searching for potential locations. Any questions?"

Grant's got a few—like why the more experienced May is staying on the Bus to look for locations while their hacker goes into the field—but since this way leaves Jemma well-protected, he keeps them to himself. It's ludicrous that he's still so uncomfortable leaving Jemma's side, especially since this time he's the one who's (hopefully) going to be messing with an alien artifact, but whatever. Love knows no logic.

And he's really glad telepathy's not real, because that is the most ridiculous thought he's ever had.

x

When they reach the church, Fitz hands Skye and Grant each a tablet.

"You can use these to scan for Asgardian spectrographic signatures," he says. "It will also allow us to monitor your progress and compare your location to the results of the long-range scan I'll be running."

"Long-range scan?" Skye asks, examining her tablet. "You mean you'll be able to tell from out here whether there's anything Asgardian in the church?"

"Basically," Fitz agrees.

"So…why do we have to go in, then?"

"Because we want to make sure we're in place to get it if it's there," Grant tells her. "Before Nystrom's group can."

"Oh, right," Skye says. "In we go then?"

"In we go."

The whole area is deserted, since it's siesta time, and it's easy enough to gain access to the crypt beneath the church unnoticed. The crypt is dusty, dark, and full of cobwebs—it's obvious that no one's been in it in a very long time.

"Ew," Skye mutters. She looks warily at the hallway leading away from the other side of the room. "So, do you want to take the creepy hallway, or should I?"

He doesn't see what makes the hallway any more creepy than the room they're in, but he's impressed by how little she's complaining, so he'll let her have this one.

"I'll take the hallway," he says, and makes his way down it without waiting for a response. He keeps his scanner and his flashlight up, but there's no sign of anyone or anything.

Twenty minutes later, Skye's just finished saying she's got nothing when Fitz announces that there's something near Grant. He glances at his tablet, then looks around, but he can't see anything.

"Well, it's right in front of you," Fitz says. "Oh, wait, no…okay, hold on, it's moving. Northwest."

Just as he says it, Grant catches movement in his peripheral vision and instantly turns to follow it.

"Visual contact," he reports as he gives chase.

"Okay, Ward, turn left," Fitz orders unnecessarily.

He does so, and reaches out to grab the person—who he can see is carrying something that looks an awful lot like the piece of the berserker staff they're here for. When he turns the man around, he's surprised to find that it's Elliot Randolph, the professor that gave them the information on the berserker staff in the first place. Grant hasn't met him before, of course, but he looked up the man's file after Coulson mentioned him earlier.

"I have a wonderful explanation," Randolph says weakly.

Wary of what it can do, Grant reaches for the berserker staff even as he makes his report. "Ran into some unexpected c—"

(Ashton's at the bottom of the well, he's drowning, crying out for help, but Grant can't help him, Maynard won't let him—but if he doesn't help, Ashton will die. Ashton's drowning, dying, and it's all Maynard's fault, and Grant hates Maynard, he wants to punch him right in his smug face, he wants to rip Maynard's throat out and make it so that Maynard can never hurt anyone, ever again—)

There's a touch on his shoulder, and he scrambles away from it, struggling to breathe. It takes him a few moments to realize that it's Skye, and even longer to remember where he is and what's happening.

The staff.

It's gone, and so is Randolph, but Skye just stays on the ground in front of him, staring worriedly. He tries to tell her, but the words get tangled up, caught beneath the panic and rage, and he obviously doesn't manage to express it well, because the first thing Skye reports is that something's wrong with him.

There's nothing wrong with him. (Wrong is Ashton drowning at the bottom of the well Jemma's slowly dying but SHIELD expects him to kill her before the virus does Fitz is standing there actually believing that SHIELD is going to save them why won't Maynard let him help—)

The memories play on a loop as he struggles for control. The next thing he knows is Jemma's voice, calling his name. She sounds scared, and it gives him the extra push he needs to put the lid back on the box of his worst memories.

He opens his eyes—when did he close them?—and realizes he's in the lab. He has no idea how or when they got back to the car, let alone the Bus, but here he is. Jemma's standing in front of him, and when he focuses on her she takes his hand.

"Grant? Are you with us?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'm here. I'm fine."

"Good," she says. "That's good. Can you tell me what happened?"

He feels a flash of annoyance—he told Skye what happened and she's standing right there, Jemma has to know already, why is she wasting his time—but he shoves it away. There's no reason to be angry at Jemma, he reminds himself. He's the idiot that grabbed the ancient Asgardian artifact with his bare hand.

"Randolph," he says, once he's sure he's calm enough not to snap at her. "He had a piece of the staff, and I grabbed it."

"What happened when you grabbed it?" she presses gently.

She's obviously trying not to irritate him, and perversely, that irritates him even more. Since when does she need to be so careful talking to him?

(Since now, you idiot, look how hard you're fighting not to snap at her.)

"I saw something," he says. "Bad memories."

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "Are they gone now?"

He can feel them struggling to get out of the box, to make it back to his surface thoughts, and forces them farther back into his mind.

"Yeah."

If Jemma doesn't believe him, she doesn't show it. "Good. I'm glad. Unfortunately, I'm still going to need to run some tests."

He starts to protest, and she gives him a quelling look.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you what happened the last time we encountered something alien," she says quietly, and he swallows his complaints.

"No," he agrees.

He removes his shirt when directed, lets her place sensors on his chest and neck, and stays quiet through several different scans. He struggles with his temper the entire time, uncomfortably aware of just how close to the surface his worst memories are, and the blood pressure cuff is pretty much the last straw.

"This is ridiculous," he says, careful not to shout.

"It's anything but," Skye argues. "Ward, you passed out, and you were acting not…right."

"It's just a precaution," Jemma soothes. "Coulson wants a full work-up. It won't be much longer." She hesitates for a moment, then reluctantly continues. "Before you lost consciousness, were you feeling claustrophobic?"

Her hesitance makes his anger spike again, and his voice is sharper than he'd like when he asks, "Why?"

"She's ruling out a panic attack," Fitz supplies without looking up from his tablet.

"I don't panic," he tells them. "Ever."

"There we go," she says, falsely cheerful, and it grates on his nerves. "Ruled out."

"Touching the staff caused it, right?" Skye asks. It's a ridiculous, pointless, obvious question, so he probably wouldn't have answered it even if Jemma gave him the chance—which she doesn't.

"Any residual effects?" she asks. "Are you exhibiting any extra…strength?"

His eyes catch on movement, and he looks up at the monitor to see that it's displaying security feed from the Cage, where Coulson is apparently interrogating Randolph. There's a very short moment of relief that the professor didn't actually get away, but it's quickly replaced by another surge of rage—they obviously didn't manage to retrieve the staff from him, or it would be in here under Jemma and Fitz's scrutiny, instead of Grant.

"Why don't I find out on that guy?" he suggests.

"Why don't we not do that?" Skye counters.

"What's the last thing you remember before you lost consciousness?" Fitz asks.

His business-like tone reminds Grant of South Ossetia, the way Fitz continued to work on dismantling the overkill device, even though he knew it would spell his own death, and that's what Grant's thinking of as he pulls his arm out of the blood pressure cuff.

"This is a waste of time," he snaps, standing. "We need to find the staff!"

"What exactly did you remember?" Fitz demands.

SHIELD abandoning us, he doesn't say. SHIELD wanting me to kill Jemma.

"Something I hadn't thought about in a long time," he says instead.

"Why don't we leave it alone?" Skye suggests.

Jemma and Fitz disagree—obviously they want to run more tests—and he snaps at them to be quiet. He can't hear the interrogation over their chatter. He forcefully turns up the volume and makes himself focus on the feed instead of the worried look on Jemma's face.

Coulson's getting no answers from Randolph, who claims that he wanted to be the first to study the staff. It makes him even angrier, that he's lost them the staff for such a stupid reason, and he's considering going upstairs to have a word with the professor himself when the feed suddenly cuts off. He whirls around to face Jemma.

"What are you doing?" he demands.

"Your heart rate's rising, adrenaline's spiking," she tells him calmly. "You need to calm down, not get worked up."

He takes a deep breath and turns away. He wishes they were doing this anywhere but the lab. It's so hard to ignore the memories, because only two weeks ago Jemma was locked in this very room, slowly dying. That only reminds him that last week Fitz nearly died on SHIELD's watch—on Grant's watch—and Skye hasn't nearly died for SHIELD yet, but it's only a matter of time, really.

"The memory," Skye says, like just thinking about her is enough to get her talking. "Was it about your brother?"

"Drop it," he warns quietly.

But she doesn't, and the box in his mind breaks open once again.

The memories aren't overwhelming this time—he's aware of where is he and what's happening around him, at least vaguely, but his mind is still stuck on a loop: Ashton, drowning at the bottom of the well while Grant does nothing; waiting next to the warehouse in South Ossetia, the sudden realization that there's no extraction coming; standing in the briefing room, knowing Jemma only has minutes left, May's voice saying that Blake wants to talk to him—the sudden fury of knowing that he's about to be ordered to kill his own soulmate.

He has no idea what he's saying to Skye, the words tripping from his tongue automatically, but she's shrinking back from him and that makes him even angrier, because he's not that person, he's not his father, he's not Maynard, he doesn't scare the people he cares about—

He's pulled from the spiral of anger by a soft hand on his arm and Jemma's quiet voice.

"That's enough, Grant," she says. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, tries to ignore his anger and focus on the way her thumb is rubbing circles on his arm. He forces the memories back, lets Jemma's touch put a lid on the box, but the anger remains, simmering right beneath the surface.

There's a long moment of silence, and he knows he should apologize to Skye, knows that whatever he just said to her was awful and entirely undeserved, but he's afraid to open his mouth—afraid of losing control again, this time at Jemma.

"Perhaps you should spend some time with your punching bag," Jemma suggests eventually. "Use up some of your adrenaline."

He nods, still keeping his mouth clamped shut, and lets her lead him out of the lab, grabbing his shirt as he goes.

"We'll be right in here," she continues soothingly. "If you need us."

He pulls the sensors from his chest and hands them to her silently, and while she looks disapproving, she accepts them without comment, simply squeezing his arm once and heading back into the lab. He notices the door slide shut behind her, instead of staying open as it usually does, and strangely enough, it doesn't make him angrier. It makes him feel strangely bereft.

Feeling oddly exposed, he pulls on his shirt and turns to the punching bag. His gloves are upstairs, but he really can't be bothered to go get them, especially since it would mean passing the Cage. He doesn't think that he'll be able to control himself if he gets that close to Randolph.

He loses himself in the rhythm of the punching bag, lets the memories take over and tries to use up the rage. He needs to control it somehow. The fact that he just lost it at Skye, that he couldn't risk speaking for fear of losing it at Jemma, shows just how badly he's been affected. He needs to control it, or he'll be no use at all.

So he swings methodically at the bag as he lives those moments over and over again. Ashton at the bottom of the well. Jab-Jab-Cross. Fitz expecting an extraction. Jab-Cross-Hook. Jemma running out of time. Jab-Hook-Jab. There are other memories there, too, trying to drag him under, but those three are the ones he can't control, can't push away.

He has no idea how long he spends at the bag, spiraling deeper and deeper into his hate and rage, but he's finally pulled out of it by a touch to his shoulder. He registers the callouses automatically—not Jemma, not Fitz, not Skye…not safe—and whirls around and strikes out. May dodges it easily, and he takes a few steps back, swallowing.

"You should be more careful," he says.

He's surprised to see that the lab is empty. He never even noticed Jemma, Fitz, and Skye leaving. He doesn't know what time it is or what's going on with their case. He's never been so off balance before, and it makes him even angrier—if that's even possible.

"I'm fine," May says angrily, stepping closer. "You?"

He turns back to the punching bag. "Working it out."

"You're punching things," she says. "The last thing you need is to punch things."

He leans against the bag, trying to keep his rage down. He knows he would need a lot more than Asgardian strength to win against May. "You got a better idea?"

"Let me help you," she says softly.

Help? Who the fuck does she think she is? She thinks she can help him when Jemma couldn't? She thinks he needs help?

"The only help I need is to stop those guys before they hurt somebody else."

He resumes his attack on the bag—and that's what it is, really, it's nothing like training—and eventually, May leaves. It's enough to make him think, though. He's barely hanging on to his control right now. All of the horrible memories he usually keeps locked away are fighting their way to the forefront of his mind. Right now it's just the three, but how long until he loses his grip on the rest of them, as well? He's so buried in his rage and hate that he's completely lost track of himself. He doesn't know what he said to Skye, except that it was horrible and she didn't deserve it. He doesn't know if Randolph has talked. He doesn't know if the team's made any progress.

He doesn't know where Jemma is or when she left the lab. He doesn't know what time it is, not for sure, but it must be night by now. Is she asleep? She hasn't slept without him since she nearly died; he doesn't know how she'll manage. What if she's having nightmares? What if she's been suffering while he's been down here, battering uselessly at a punching bag?

He can't even control his rage enough to take care of his soulmate. He'll be useless in a fight. If the team has to face down Nystrom's group, they'll need a competent specialist, not one who's so lost in his own head that he doesn't even notice when someone as dangerous as May is standing right behind him.

The memories are back in their box for the moment, but he has no idea how long that will last. He needs to step down. It's the last thing he wants, but it's necessary.

So he leaves the cargo bay and heads for Coulson's office. He doesn't take the stairs, since that would take him straight past the Cage, and he honestly doesn't think he would be able to stay out of it. However many hours he just spent assaulting the punching bag weren't enough to make even the slightest dent in his rage.

Instead, he detours through the storage area and takes the ladder up to the cabin floor, then the stairs to Coulson's office. He knocks and then slides the door open without waiting for a response.

"A moment, sir?"

"Come on in," Coulson says.

He means to respectfully request removal from the field and suggest someone who can temporarily take his place. Instead, he finds himself telling Coulson about how his usual method of coping is failing, how he needs to keep his bad memories on lockdown in order to his job. The words come pouring out, one after another, and he has very little control over them. He manages to imply that the memories tormenting him are all from his childhood, so that's a victory, but it's a small one.

He can't even control his own damn mouth; he's entirely useless like this.

"I don't trust myself," he admits (and why the hell is he still talking?). "The way I went off at Skye in the lab—"

"Grant," Coulson interrupts, and he's so shocked by the use of his first name that for a second he's not even angry. "You telling me this…makes me feel I can trust you."

That means something. He doesn't know why, or even what it means, but it means something that being overly honest puts that look on Coulson's face. So he nods, silently, unable to think of a response.

Coulson pushes away from his desk. "Him, on the other hand," he says, approaching the monitor displaying the security feed from the Cage. "I can't get the professor to talk. You've got some rage built up?"

Grant tears his eyes away from the security feed to look down at Coulson.

"Maybe it's time to let it out," Coulson suggests.

He looks back at the screen. Coulson's not the type for torture, unfortunately, but he does seem to delight in playing mind games. That's probably what he's suggesting.

"It would be my pleasure, sir," Grant says, watching the professor fidget. He's definitely hiding something, and Grant will be all too happy to pull it out of him.

The only problem is going to be resisting the urge to use his knife to do it.

x

As it happens, resisting the urge to use his knife is not a problem, because it's exactly what Coulson wants him to do. Coulson thinks that Randolph might actually be Asgardian, and he's decided that the best way to prove it one way or the other is to have Grant go after him with a knife.

He thinks there are some flaws in that logic, but since he gets to take a knife to the man responsible for his current lack of calm, he's not about to complain.

Of course, if Randolph's not Asgardian, then Grant could very easily kill him before Coulson could do anything to interfere. It's tempting, incredibly so, but the consequences outweigh any potential satisfaction—he would be pulled from the team, for sure, and he can't allow that. Still, he doesn't know how rational he'll be able to remain in the Cage, not when his blood is still boiling and it's a constant fight to keep his worst memories from overwhelming him, so he asks Coulson to give him a moment to center himself before they deal with Randolph.

"Take your time," Coulson says gently, his eyes full of too much understanding, and Grant does not run from the office…but it's a close thing.

He goes downstairs, intending to check on Jemma, and finds her bunk empty. For a moment he panics, and the rage surges within him—she's been taken, who took her, where is she—but he shoves it down enough for rational thought to return. It's a big plane; there are plenty of places she might be. He should at least check the lab before he sounds the alarm.

He's heading for the ladder that leads down to the storage area when he notices that the door to his bunk is closed. He usually leaves it open when he's not in it, just in case something happens and he needs to make a run for his weapons, so he crosses the cabin and slides the door open.

Jemma's asleep on his bed, curled up with her back against the wall. She's sleeping quietly, no sign of nightmares, and just the sight of her peaceful face is enough to bring him a rush of calm.

He spends a few minutes standing in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of her chest, just absorbing the truth that she's here, she's fine, she's safe. It helps. It helps a lot. It certainly does more than all those hours with the punching bag did. May was right; he was wasting his time with that.

It's tempting to just crawl into bed with Jemma, wrap himself around her and forget about Asgardians and hate groups and everything else, but he knows he can't. He gives himself another thirty seconds to imprint the memory of her peaceful face in his mind, then leaves his bunk, sliding the door closed behind him.

Coulson's waiting in the lounge, and they exchange silent nods as Grant walks by. He hesitates outside of the Cage, double checks that he's got a handle on his rage—still there, but nowhere near as intense—then shoves the door open.

x

Sure enough, Randolph is Asgardian. He easily bends the knife Grant pulls on him—thankfully one of Coulson's—and, confronted with what Coulson's picked out about him, not to mention the evidence he's just provided them, he finally starts talking. And it turns out that he's not just an Asgardian, he's the Asgardian—the one who hid the berserker staff in the first place.

Grant's honestly not interested in the hows or whys of Randolph's story getting shared with the masses. He wants to know where they can find the third piece of the staff and how to make it stop affecting him. Randolph claims that the staff "shines a light" into his "dark places", which is entirely unhelpful, and he doesn't offer an explanation of how to end the staff's influence. He does, when threatened with Thor, finally share the location of the third piece, which is apparently in an old monastery in Ireland.

At Coulson's nod, Grant leaves the Cage and goes to wake the rest of the team. He sends Jemma, Fitz, and Skye to the briefing room with instructions to watch the last ten minutes of footage from the Cage, then tells May to set a course for Ireland.

That done, he takes a seat in the lounge. He doesn't dare go back in the Cage, since his anger is boiling over again just from the few minutes he spent in there, and he can't join the others in the briefing room for the same reason. So he sits on the couch and concentrates on taking deep breaths and shoving his rage back down. The memories are in check, at least for the moment, but the emotions are harder to control.

Jemma comes and joins him, eventually, and he resists the urge to wrap an arm around her and pull her close. Holding her would help, he thinks, but with the way his emotions are all over the place, he doesn't know how well he can control this unnatural strength, and he won't risk hurting Jemma.

She seems to understand, since she loops her arm through his instead of taking his hand, as she usually would. She leans against him, her head on his shoulder, and they sit in comfortable silence for nearly an hour. He's not even sure she's awake, but it doesn't matter. It's enough to have her here, touching him, trusting him—initiating contact even after seeing the way he lost it at Skye and went crazy on the punching bag. He hadn't realized, until just now, how worried he was that he scared her earlier. Knowing that he didn't…he imagines he can feel the rage just leeching right out of him, and while he knows it won't last, it's a welcome reprieve.

"I've been meaning to say," she eventually says. "I really like this shirt."

"What?" he asks, looking down at her.

"This shirt," she says, plucking at the bottom of his sleeve with her free hand. "I like it. It suits you."

"Thank you," he says, a little confused. He can't remember her ever commenting on his clothing choices before, and this seems like a weird time to start.

"You look good in black," she continues, still fiddling with his sleeve. "I suppose that's fortunate, since you do wear rather a lot of it."

He tugs pointedly on the hem of her shirt, which is also black. Of course, it's also covered in flowers, but…technicalities.

"It was just an observation," she says, playfully defensive. "I didn't say there's anything wrong with it."

He knows there's something he should say here, some witty comment he would usually make—something he could say to make her laugh—but he's got nothing. His mind is so tangled up that he can barely think, let alone speak.

Jemma's smile fades and her hand stills on his wrist. "Do you—would you like to talk about it?"

He looks down at her, takes in her uncertain expression, the way she's biting her lip. He tries to picture telling her what he's been remembering, how SHIELD's multiple betrayals have been driving him into new heights of wrath every time he thinks of them. How in the past month alone he's made two new memories that are bad enough to compare to a memory that's haunted him for twenty years. A memory she knows about only in the vaguest terms—he told her, once, that he didn't learn to stand up to Maynard until Ashton nearly died, but he didn't give her any details, and she didn't press.

He can't tell her. He's afraid he'll give too much away, show too much of the hate he holds for SHIELD. He can't afford to let that show.

"No," he says finally. "I really wouldn't. But thanks."

"Of course," she says. "And if you change your mind…"

"I'll let you know," he promises.

They fade back into comfortable silence, and it seems like no time at all before the plane is landing and Coulson uses the intercom to summon them to the cargo bay.

x

Randolph says that the strength will fade soon enough, but the rage will take decades. Grant hopes he's joking, thinks he might be—the guy's obviously an asshole. They had to threaten him with divine retribution in the form of Thor just to get him to help them try and stop Nystrom, after all.

But Randolph's blasé attitude about the way Grant is suffering, combined with the fact that Coulson is insisting on Jemma, Fitz, and Skye accompanying them to the monastery, means that all of the calm he gained from Jemma evaporates, instantly replaced by rage and hate in equal measures.

He reminds himself again and again on the drive over that he can handle this situation. He has the strength of an Asgardian warrior, at least for the moment. Even if Nystrom's group somehow figures out where the last piece of the staff is hidden, Grant can take them. Jemma will be fine. So will Fitz and Skye.

There's absolutely nothing to worry about, no reason to lose his cool.

Except, of course there is. Because somehow, Nystrom has managed to decipher the incredibly vague clue that leads to this monastery, and he beat them here. He uses the last piece of the berserker staff to stab Randolph in the heart, and Grant knows what he has to do. One piece was bad enough, and adding another is sure to make things exponentially worse—maybe even bad enough that he loses control completely—but Nystrom's got a whole group behind him, presumably under the power of the berserker staff, and Grant needs more strength than he has if he's going to cross them all off.

He doesn't hesitate; he kneels next to Randolph and yanks the staff out of his chest. He lets the rage fill him, and uses it as leverage as he tackles Nystrom off the balcony.

He can't quite keep track of what happens next, fighting with his memories the way he is. He's fighting Nystrom, losing against him, then Nystrom is gone and Skye and May are talking to him, trying to calm him down. Then the door opens and more of Nystrom's group enters. He needs to be stronger. He needs to be stronger and there's another piece of the staff on the ground, so he kneels down and picks it up, still holding the piece he took from Randolph's chest in his other hand.

The rage sweeps over him, stronger than ever before, and he loses himself in it. He throws himself headfirst into the memory of hate, and what happens next he'll never remember.

x

When he comes back to himself, he's on his knees near the altar and all of Nystrom's men are down. He's sore all over, his ribs screaming in pain, and he's vaguely aware that his face is bleeding. The strength seems to have finally worn off, even though he's still holding both of the pieces; he can't keep himself up, falling first onto his hands and then his side.

Skye's there in seconds, helping him sit up and pulling his arm over her shoulder. He knows she's saying something, but he doesn't even have time to process the sounds into words before the door slams open and Petra Larsen walks in, holding the third piece of the staff.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Skye mutters.

Grant starts to shift away from her, reaching for the pieces of the staff on the ground, but May grabs his wrist before he can move more than an inch.

"This time," she says. "Let me help."

He lets her. He doesn't have any other choice, because he honestly doesn't think he can stand on his own. So he lets her push him back, lets Skye help him walk away, and trusts that May has this.

She does, of course. It doesn't even take her ten seconds to take down the man with Larsen, and it's barely longer than that before she's got all three pieces of the staff, magically welded back into one piece. All it takes is one hit and Larsen's down, and May puts the staff down easily. She's showing no signs of the rage he's still struggling with, and he gives her an impressed nod.

She might hate the name, but there's a damn good reason that every SHIELD agent to ever pass through any one of the Academies knows about the Cavalry.

x

Coulson calls in a local team to deal with the clean-up, but they hang around while the bodies of Nystrom's group are cleared away. Grant leans against a table, still not entirely capable of standing unaided, and watches silently. Jemma, Coulson, and Fitz apparently saved Randolph's life while Grant and May were dealing with the hate group, and he can hear her telling Skye about it. He only got a very brief account of the story earlier when Jemma patched him up, and he thinks about joining them to hear the rest of it, but ultimately he decides against it.

The memories seem to have faded away with the Asgardian strength. They're safely back in their box now, where they won't bother him any more than they usually do. But the rage isn't gone. It's muted now, buried under his exhaustion, but it's still there. He really hopes Randolph was joking about it taking decades to wear off, because there's no way he can live like this.

May joins him, and there's something he needs to know, but he has no idea how to ask her. Before he gets the chance to even consider his wording, though, he's distracted by the sound of Jemma's phone. The ringtone reminds him of Fitz, in the kitchen two (or was it three?) days ago, asking him to talk to Jemma about her parents. He completely forgot.

Too scared to go near her, for fear of hurting her. Too selfish to remember that she's struggling with her own problems. What kind of soulmate is he?

Still, she seems to have worked through the problem, because she actually answers the phone. He watches her walk by, speaking to her father, and gives up on finding a good way to word his question.

"When you held it," he says. "Did you see anything?"

May nods, silently.

"Then how?" he asks. "How did you hold all three?"

"Because I see it every day," she answers, not looking at him. Before he can figure out what to say to that, she walks away, and he stares after her.

He does need help, he admits to himself. Help that Jemma can't give him. He loves her, and he knows she would try her best, but there's just no way she can understand the kind of rage he's been dealing with—the kind of memories that overwhelmed him today. She's a scientist, not a specialist, and he's honestly grateful for that, but it means that she just can't comprehend this. He's glad she can't, really. He would never wish this on her. On anyone.

x

Coulson uses the expense account to rent them rooms again, this time at a very nice hotel in Dublin. Like last time, he doesn't even bother to rent Grant and Jemma separate rooms. Grant's not as grateful for it as he was last time, however. Right now all he wants to do is take advantage of the bar next to the lobby, give drinking his rage away a shot.

Jemma follows his gaze and smiles a little. "Go ahead."

"What?"

"I'm going upstairs, but you should stay here. Have a drink," she says. "Have twenty, even. I'd say you've more than earned it."

He takes a deep breath. "It's not that I don't—"

"I know," she interrupts. "It's fine, Grant, really." She gets on her toes and kisses him, gently, then squeezes his arm and backs away. "Take as much time as you need. I'll be upstairs."

"Thank you," he says.

"Take your time," she reminds him, then walks away.

He thinks about following her, about forgetting alcohol and trying to bury his rage in her, instead, but he's still not sure of his control. He can't risk it. So he takes a seat at the bar and orders a drink. And another.

He's on his fourth drink when Skye joins him.

"I'm sorry," he says as soon as she sits down.

She looks around like she thinks he's talking to someone else. "For what?"

"Before," he says. "In the lab. You were just trying to help and I was way out of line. I'm—I'm not that guy. And I'm sorry."

"No harm, no foul," she says. "I probably shouldn't have pushed. I know you're not the talking type."

"No," he agrees. He's relieved by the easy forgiveness, but he still feels like he owes her something. So he knocks back the rest of his drink and opens up a little. "What I saw…it was about my brother."

"I figured," she says, her eyes soft with sympathy. He's surprised by a sudden rush of affection for her. Skye cares. She cares so much about everything and everyone, in an entirely different way than Jemma does. It used to annoy him. Now, it worries him.

Caring is a weakness, and he doesn't know that he's strong enough to protect her. Not when he's like this.

"I know you're not the talking type," she says, putting her hand on his. "But, like I said, I'm here. My shoulder's free."

He smiles, a little. "Thanks. But I'm beat. And Jemma's waiting for me."

"Well," she says. "You know where I live."

"I do," he says, pushing away from the bar. "Thank you."

The drinks haven't helped much at all. He's honestly exhausted, ready to drop where he stands, but there's still that knot of rage in his chest, just waiting to be set off, and he finds himself hesitating outside of his and Jemma's room.

He's scared of losing control. He knows, all too well, the sort of things he's capable of when he's truly furious. He also knows how fragile Jemma is, how breakable. Emotionally, she's a strong person, but physically? He could snap her like a twig. And he's afraid that he actually might. He's utterly terrified that he's going to lose his grip on his rage and take it out on her. So he lingers in the hall, unwilling to enter the room but just as unwilling to sleep somewhere else.

Movement catches his attention, and he sees May leaving her room at the other end of the hallway. She jerks her head in a clear signal to follow her and heads for the elevators.

As he watches her walk away, he finds himself remembering last week, when he asked her to watch out for Jemma while he and Fitz went on their mission. It was ridiculous, asking a trained specialist to babysit a SHIELD scientist in the middle of the Hub, but she agreed right away. Because she understands. She understands what it's like to love someone who's completely incapable of protecting themselves from the endless danger the world has to offer. And she understands the rage, the hate, and the flood of memory that comes with the berserker staff.

Maybe she really can help.

He hesitates for a second longer, then follows her. She doesn't speak as she leads him to the top floor, then up a staircase and out onto the roof, but he finds himself relaxing, anyway. There's something reassuringly solid about Melinda May. It might just be that he knows she can take him, trusts that she'll take him down if he loses control—the exact reason doesn't matter. He's just glad to shed some of the worry.

They sit on the edge of the roof, and after a while, she begins to speak. She tells him about Bahrain—not what happened there, which he already knows, but the aftermath. She tells him about learning to live with the constant rage. She said earlier that she sees it every day, and now he knows what she meant, as she instructs him firmly, but kindly, in how to use the rage instead of just burying it.

It will take time to learn, she warns him, but he'll get there eventually. And in the meantime, she'll help.

It won't be easy, he knows, and he'll definitely struggle with it, but it's a relief just to have a road map. Just the slightest guidance is enough to ease even more of his worry.

After an hour, he starts getting twitchy, worrying about Jemma, and when May gives him a weird look he finds himself telling her about it. The words just pour out of him, all about how ever since Jemma nearly died he can't stand to be away from her for more than a few hours, or he starts freaking out. He tells her about all of the awful things he imagines happening as soon as his back is turned, and then he tells her about his new worries, brought on by his loss of control today. He confesses that he still doesn't remember what happened in the monastery. He's got multiple bruises and abrasions in addition to two cracked ribs, and he has no idea how he got any of them.

He tells her everything, holds nothing but his true loyalty back, and he could say that he's repaying the favor after her earlier honesty, but the truth is that he just can't stop himself.

May listens in silence until he's done, then sighs quietly. "My soulmate is an English teacher in Poland."

She hesitates, staring out at the skyline, and he waits.

"The first time after meeting him that I left on assignment, I called in three favors with Romanoff to have her watch him until I got back," she finally continues. "Absolutely nothing happened. The next time, I asked Hand. Then Hill. Then Romanoff again. It was nearly six years before I stopped keeping him under guard."

He has no idea what to say. He thought she was unusually honest earlier, talking about Bahrain, but this is twenty times more personal.

"In all these years, he's never once been threatened. But I still worry," she concludes. "It's not ridiculous, Ward. It's human."

"Thank you," he says finally. "That…helps."

It really does. It doesn't do anything to solve his inability to leave Jemma for longer than two hours, of course, but just knowing that he's not alone…

The rage is almost completely banked now, mere embers of what, earlier, was a violent bonfire. He thinks he'll be okay, at least for the rest of the night. And he really can't stand to be away from Jemma any longer.

"Thank you," he repeats, standing. "For…all of this."

She nods silently, making no move to get up, and he leaves her there on the roof, still staring out at the skyline. He wonders if she's missing her soulmate, if being on the same side of the Atlantic right now makes it better or worse. He's suddenly, deeply grateful to Coulson for letting him stay on the team with Jemma. It's difficult, letting her go into the field, bringing her into danger, but…to be away from her for months at a time? He thinks that would be even harder.

x

He's surprised to find Jemma still awake when he enters their room. She's in bed, her back resting against the headboard as she reads something on her tablet, and she looks up with a bright smile as he closes the door.

"You're looking better," she observes, sounding pleased. "Did the drinking help?"

"Not even a little," he says, kicking off his shoes.

"Well something did," she says, watching him while he pulls off his socks.

"I talked to May," he tells her over his shoulder as he heads into the bathroom. He's exhausted, and he wants nothing more than to collapse into bed next to her, but the lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth is unpleasant.

He brushes his teeth quickly, and goes back into the bedroom to find that Jemma has set aside her tablet and is lying down, propped up on one elbow.

"And Agent May helped?" she asks.

"A lot," he confirms. He strips off his shirt, then pauses in the middle of unbuttoning his jeans. If it bothers her that he chose to confide in May instead of her, she's hiding it well, but he still feels the need to apologize. "I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. I just…"

"You and May have a lot in common," she says serenely. "I'm glad she could help you."

"It really doesn't bother you?" he checks, as he climbs into bed.

"I do wish I could help you, I won't deny that," she says. "But…just so long as someone helps you, I'm happy."

He hooks an arm around her waist and slides her across the bed until she's pressed right up against him.

"You do help me," he murmurs, bending his head to kiss her. He remembers the way his anger melted away earlier, watching her sleep, and then again in the lounge. Just the sight of her is enough to do what three hours of conversation with May accomplished. "More than you can imagine."

"Good," she says quietly. "I'm glad." She kisses him once, twice. "And I love you."

"I love you, too," he says. He tries to pull her closer, but she stops him.

"I can't lie on top of you," she tells him, gently resting her hand against his bruised ribs. "Not tonight."

"Right," he agrees, amused to realize that, in all of his emotional turmoil, he's actually forgotten about his injuries. "Good point."

She carefully climbs over him, then lies down on her side, facing the door. This makes it possible for him to lie down on his unbruised side and wrap himself around her. It's still enough to make his ribs ache, just a little, but that's outweighed by the comfort of having her so close.

He tucks his face against her neck, breathes in the scent of her shampoo, and listens as her breathing gradually slows. His anger is almost entirely gone, replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace he's never found anywhere else.

"You do help me," he repeats quietly to his sleeping soulmate.

He'd like to say it was his plan all along, but truthfully, it doesn't occur to him until he's nearly asleep just what he's accomplished tonight. May told him about her soulmate. She told him about Bahrain, and the way it affected her, and how she controls the rage it left inside of her. She willingly shared information that he could use to hurt her, and she didn't seem to think twice about it.

Tonight, finally, he's gained May's trust.

And if that thought leaves him feeling strangely sick, well…he's just had too much to drink. That's all.

---

A/N: The next chapter might be a while; the summer semester wraps up next week, and I've got a lot of work to do. Of course, writing fic is a great way to procrastinate, so who knows? Just stay tuned, I guess.