"And what are you doing down here in the dead of night?" Ward asked Tilly as she worked out with the punchbag in the middle of the night.

"Couldn't sleep. What are you doing down here in the dead of night?" She retorted.

"Couldn't sleep."

"I guess bringing up your knee also brought up some memories you would rather bury."

Ward simply looked at his sister. They didn't spend much time together but she could still read him like a book.

"How bad are they?" She asked.

"Bad enough to bring me down here to work out in the middle of the night. They'll stop soon though." He answered holding the punchbag while she hit and kicked it.

They stood this way for the next ten minutes.

"So what's going on with you?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know."

"It's this whole S.H.I.E.L.D thing."

"You're not sure if it's for you?"

"You and Nat taught me those skills to protect myself if anyone came looking for me. I don't know if I want to use them day in day out. I mean it's been fun, being here with you and I love to learn, but I'm a scientist." Tilly rambled, stopping her workout and sitting on the bench that ran around the room.

"No one is forcing you to do this Tilly. If being a scientist makes you happy then go do sciencey things. I doubt anyone will mind." He told her sitting next to her.

"Director Fury might."

"He won't force you into anything you don't want to do."

"He's the Director of a multi-national, semi secret security organisation. I'm sure he'll find a way to get what he wants."

"Maybe, but I know you. You have the family trait of stubbornness. If you don't want to do something then you won't!" He told her, eyes glazing over slightly as he remembered a scene from their childhood that resulted in him having a broken arm.

Tilly gave him a small smile in return.

"That's not everything though is it?" He continued.

Tilly knew there was no point in lying to him. He was a human lie detector.

"No. That's not everything. If I do go to Phys Acc how do I get through the training without having not only one, but two S.H.I.E.L.D superstars reputations to live up to? I'm worried that I'm going to miss the science because that's part of who I am and what I do. I'll have to see Harvey like every day; which wouldn't usually bother me but he won't stop calling, so if I'm there all the time then how do I get away from him?" She was rambling again, barely taking breaths.

"Tilly, stop. I can help you figure out the answers to some of those problems, but the decision still has to be yours."

"How?"

"I can talk to Fury. He really wants you to sign up, so I'm pretty sure he will do anything to make you happy. You may have to spend three years under a false name but hey!"

"I'd rather live up to your reputation than live under a false name." She said, shoving him playfully off the bench.

Ward picked himself up and went to the wall where training weapons were kept. He picked up a long staff and started twirling it around before using it as an offensive weapon on the punch bag. Tilly stood up to watch him. She saw the movements of his hands and the placements of his feet. She even saw the way he flawlessly split the staff in two and used each half as if they were extensions of his hand.

She made a motion to Ward to throw her one of the sticks. She had never used them as a weapon before. He threw her both of the sticks, eyebrows raised, before getting another one off the wall.

Tilly fastened the two sticks back into one and began to twirl it around, exactly as she had seen Ward do it. She placed her feet the same way that he had done, and albeit a little clumsier than he did, she split them into two and started an offensive attack on the punch bag.

"Ok. So I didn't teach you this. How did you learn it? It's a difficult skill to master."

"I've never used them before today." Tilly admitted. Clearly he had forgotten: her special skill was to absorb information at an incredible rate. She just had to see a manoeuvre and she could copy it almost perfectly.

"If it makes a difference, I think you'll be fine at Phys Acc." He said to her before tapping one of her sticks with the two he was holding.

Ward was tired and he knew it. The flashbacks to Bahrain had kept him awake before he had that lesson/ session with Tilly and the bo-sticks (or as Tilly affectionately called them: pick-up sticks).

That had ended around dawn and rather than wake Skye up he decided to get breakfast. He had been sat over his coffee taking small sips for over an hour before Skye woke up alone in the bed. She went into the kitchen to find him slumped a little, rather than his usual rigid 'robot' posture. She walked up to him and kissed him.

"You ok? You look awful."

"Didn't sleep too well."

Skye placed her hands on his knees and looked into his eyes. She could see a hint of pain in them. But what concerned her more was the temperature of his knee. It was getting hotter.

She looked at his knee, then back into his eyes, which were widening as he realised the same thing Skye had. She ran off to wake Simmons while Ward went to wake Fitz.

"Meet me in the Lab in five minutes" he said to the startled scientist.

Five minutes later in the Lab the four of them had congregated.

"What was so important you had to wake us up?" Simmons asked through a yawn.

"This." Skye said, grabbing her hand and putting it on Ward's knee.

"Jesus. That's hot." She exclaimed, pulling her hand away.

"Do you remember what the professor said? Continued exposure to Eridine..." Skye started

"...will heat Vibranium to its flash point." Fitz finished.

"Which means there is Eridine on this bus." Simmons said.

"When you guys tested the cage what did you find?" Ward asked.

"Nothing. There was not a trace of anything on the cage." Simmons answered.

"Wait. What if we were looking in the wrong place? What if..." Fitz started

"Oh my God! We didn't test the actual cage." Simmons said, excited, pulling the small cage like object out of the box it was being stored in.

"AH! Woah!" Ward gasped, grabbing his knee as the heated Vibranium in it reacted to the closer proximity to Eridine.

"I think that would be a confirmation that the cage itself is made of Eridine." Skye pointed out, earning looks that said "Well done Sherlock" from Fitz-Simmons.

"You better get off this plane Ward." Fitz recommended.

"Now." Simmons added, noticing his knee was now going red and blotchy.