ΑΝ: Hey guys! I know it's a day early, but I'm going somewhere on the weekend and I won't have time or internet to update on the usual Saturday. As always, many thanks to MegaDiary123. Now... this is a first for this story but I'm gonna put a Warning in the chapter, just to be safe. It applies towards the end of the chapter. If anyone feels like it might affect them, please skip this chapter. If you want to, PM me or comment so that I can explain what happened in the chapter without you having to read it. So, here it goes...

TW: PTSD / Flashback

All rights go to Marvel

Skye's POV

After Jemma, Fitz and Coulson met with professor Randolph, the expert gave them a possible location that Asgardian objects could possibly be found, while I was still doing my research on the duo.

I was in the command centre, still searching the internet for anything and everything I could find on the two Gods-wanna-be. With an algorithm that I had developed, it wasn't that hard to gather information, but I still wanted something to keep me busy. So, at the same time, I was cross-referencing all the sites of Vikings in the world throughout time. Hopefully one of those places would be where the other two pieces of the Berserker staff were.

Ward and Coulson walked in and Coulson all but threw the tablet he was holding on the holo-table. "Did you guys know there is a Mount Thor in Baffin island?"

Ward scoffed. "No"

"You know what's not on Mount Thor? Anything Asgardian at all. Our agents on the ground haven't found a thing" he sounded irritated. I mean, he had every right to be.

"Great," I said sarcastically. "I can't say I've made a lot of progress either, at least when it comes to locating those two. They believe they're gonna ascend to be the Gods of destruction and death. People suck" I concluded.

Ward raised an eyebrow. "People suck? That's all you got?"

"Ward please," Coulson said rubbing his forehead, clearly not in the mood for our usual arguments.

"Well, people do" I emphasised my point and looked at Coulson with an apologetic expression, letting him know I'm not really gonna continue but change the subject. "Well, there's chatter about going underground. But that could mean a lot of things… from going incognito—"

"To searching the next piece" Coulson interrupted and finished my thoughts.

"Exactly," I said. "Speaking of which" I clicked on the holo-table and send a map of the world to the big screen that was behind me. "I was looking at the Viking routes that Randolph mentioned. There are some sites along the Volga River in Russia, some in Kiev and weirdly… here" I pressed again on the table to zoom in.

"In Seville, Spain?" Coulson asked, moving closer to the screen, looking at the routes.

"I know, right? What are the odds? But I really looked into it and it checks out. I know it's a long shot, but they attacked. Twice"

At that moment May walks in. I had sent her to try and check specifically in Seville to see if she could find anything that could possibly relate to one of the two parts of the poem that indicated where the parts of the Berserker staff were. "Found on promising location with Viking relics. El Devino Niño. A church built on the ruins of an 8th Century crypt, built on Roman ruins from 206 BC"

I quickly typed and pulled up the location on the map for everyone to see. "East of the river," Ward said, sitting a part of the poem we were using as reference.

Coulson nodded. "And lots of bones. Let's see what we can dig up" I rolled my eyes and gave him a side look. The smirk on his face made me shake my head. "See what I did there?" And he was about to leave and call the others.

"Can I…" at that he stopped and I had three pair of eyes turn to look at me. "I just think we need to proceed with caution" At the exasperated looks I got I rushed to explain. "Not just because it's an alien artefact. What are the odds that a Norse mythology expert, based on Seville, wouldn't know Vikings had attacked? And you said that Baffin island, the island which he mentioned, had nothing Asgardian. I think this professor knows more than he lets on. I suggest we bring him in whether we find the staff or not"

There was a long pause as everyone analysed what I had just said and then they all nodded, one after the other. "You're right, there are things he's not letting on" Coulson agreed. "You and Ward will go with one vehicle in the crypt and try to find the staff. Fitz and I will be in another vehicle nearby monitoring the situation. He's the one we need if our sensors pick up on something. May, you and Simmons stay here. Chances are we're going back with the professor, prep the Cage. If anything happens be ready to grab Simmons and come to our location" and like that everyone left and went to do their own respective jobs.

Thankfully, as the time which we headed to our destination fell within the traditional 'siesta', the streets were pretty much empty. This allowed us to reach the crypt faster than we otherwise would have. It also helped because Fitz and Coulson would have a better visual from where they were parked in case we had any unwanted visitors or the professor.

Both Ward and I were holding a tablet that Fitz had programmed to act as a spectrograph for us to identify where the second piece of the staff was if it was somewhere down there. "How are you doing, agent Ward?" I heard Coulson ask through the comms.

"Wishing I was shorter" he replied. "Nothing yet, all readings are normal" he added soon after.

"How about you, Skye?" Came my turn.

"I'm lucky Ward picked up the super creepy hallway instead of the slightly less creepy dungeon room… place. I've got nothing yet. Sorry" I concluded

It wasn't three seconds later when Fitz's voice came through the comms. "Ward, your spectrograph is reading something near you"

"I don't see anything," he said back, and I could imagine him looking around in the dark.

Fitz paused at that. "Well… it's right in front of you. Oh, wait! No… oh, okay. It's moving. Northwest"

At that, I took off. I secured the tabled under my armpit while I held the flashlight in front of me. By focusing on my vibration I saw where Ward was and I also caught the other presence that was moving away from him. Just as Ward's vibrational signature caught up with the strangers his voice came through. "You'll never guess who—" he started saying but then stopped sharply. The last thing I heard from him before he went dark was a gasp.

"Ward, what's happening?" Coulson yelled over the comms and I quickened my run even more. I was almost there. "Skye, can you just—"

"Almost there" I didn't let him finish. I got there and saw Ward on the ground, unconscious while another man was over him, the staff inside a bag as he looked over what was happening. I immediately 'felt' the man, and walked closer, lifting my standard gun at him. "Don't move" I said, my eyes trained on him.

It took me a couple of seconds to realise two things. One was that he was Randolph. The other had to do more with what he was than who he was. He didn't feel like a human. He felt like… Loki. "No…" I whispered to no-one in particular. I could hear Coulson calling me from the comms but my mind was in another place.

Randolph, if that even was his name, seemed just as intrigued by me. His eyes examining me, like I was a sort of museum exhibit. "I thought the experiments were shut down" he spoke but I was pretty sure that he was talking to himself. But I heard it nonetheless. And hearing that just clicked something in me. A memory I had forgotten about. I was transported years back.

Suddenly, I wasn't in the crypt Randolph was not standing in front of me, and Ward wasn't laying on the ground behind me. I was in the Joined Dark Energy Mission Facility and the person in front of me was the black-haired Asgardian. "A Kree experiment," he said. "How fascinating".

And just as his spear headed towards my heart once more I heard Ward gasping from behind me, growling even. I shook my head and I found myself back at the crypt, a thin layer of sweat covering my forehead and my heart hammering in my chest. "Shit!" I cursed when I saw that Randolph had left. I turned around to see Ward coming to.

I made a move towards him, but he flinched away and crawled away. "Calm down, Ward," I said in an authoritative voice that seemed to bring him out of his gaze. His breaths were coming in short, his eyes were flying all over the corridor, not focusing on anything in particular. He seemed almost… afraid. "The-The staff. He has it" he stammered out.

I touched my comm just to make sure that what I said would be properly heard from the other people. "The staff's gone. Randolph took it. And something's wrong with Ward". I approached him like he was a hunted animal, scared and ready to attack if need be. "Ward, listen to me. You need to calm down, okay?" He finally seemed to register my presence. "Okay, we're getting somewhere. Now, eyes on me" I said and he nodded. "Did you touch the stuff?" Nothing. I surpassed the urge to roll me eyes. "Ward" I said more forcefully. "Did. You. Touch. The. Staff?" I emphasised every word, making it clear I was expecting an answer. Without saying anything he nodded. I made a move closer and I could see his muscles locking up at the proximity. "We need to get out of here, okay? We'll have Jemma look you over and have you right as rain in no time. But I need you to work with me" I said as I crouched down to his level. "Let me help you out". Still fidgeting he nodded and allowed me to grab one of his arms and throw it over my shoulder, helping him up.

By the time we got out of the crypt, Coulson and Fitz had caught up with Randolph, who had lost one part of the stuff to the Norse Paganistic group.

And by the time we got back, the Lab was ready for Ward and Randolph was in the Cage.

Immediately Ward was connected to a blood pressure machine and some other things that helped monitor the situation. I was sitting on the back as I was trying to not think of what had happened.

"This is all ridiculous" Ward said as soon as Jemma and Fitz started looking him over.

I so couldn't deal with him at the moment. My mind still playing over the scene that flashed in my head. I barely registered Jemma talking, explaining why she was doing the check-up and if he was feeling claustrophobic. While I didn't pay attention to what was being discussed, Ward's body language made it clear that he was irritated. He was being questioned by the science duo about what he remembered and he didn't like it one bit. He harshly pulled his arm off the blood pressure machine and walked towards the screen which displayed the camera from inside the Cage.

"Quiet!" He ordered sharply at FitzSimmons, given that I hadn't really spoken since we got back on the Bus. "I want to watch this!", and he pressed play on the screen, unmuting it.

However, as soon as Coulson started interrogating Randolph and asking him questions, I could hear the readings of his heart rate going crazy. I quickly grabbed the control and turned the screen off. Immediately, his head turned to me, eyes wild. "What are you doing?!"

"Are you shitting me right now?" I asked and walked up to him, staring straight at him. "It's clear that you're getting agitated by this. You need to stay calm, not get worked up" I told him, my face a trained mask of apathy. Truth was, that other than the obvious agitated look that he had on his face, he was vibrating so hard that it was hard to ignore. And he got more and more upset as he heard what was happening in the Cage.

"What the fuck do you know? Who the hell made you a doctor? And now that we're talking about that, you better stop being all the time on my case, acting like you know everything. I know you're hiding something, and I plan to find out exactly what that is" he hissed, threat clear on his voice.

But I didn't back down. "I know more than you do, that's for sure. I never I said I was a doctor, it's common sense, you idiot! And it's quite hypocritical of you to say that I'm always on your case since you've been a pain in my ass for so long" I called back.

"Both of you, stop it" Fitz tried to intervene and it was only thanks to Jemma's input that things calmed down a bit. "Well, this makes more sense. Ward, what you're experiencing, this feeling, it's chemistry"

I turned my head to her. "You sure?"

"Yes," she rushed to say. "There are spikes in his adrenalin corticotropin hormones. It's like those stories you hear when a mother is able to lift a car to save her baby. An adrenalin surge can create a massive—". Oh no, she starting rambling. That would only infuriate Ward more at the moment. But before I managed to intervene Ward pointed a finger at her.

"Stop. Talking. Just fix it!", he yelled.

The expression on Jemma's face told me everything I needed to know. She couldn't, and the words she spoke next were enough to verify it. "I wish I could. But we can relieve some of the symptoms. I'm going to give you 10 cc's of benzodiazepines"

I mentally agreed but didn't say anything, still looking carefully and readily at Ward to make a wrong move. "A sedative? Not gonna happen" he instantly refused.

"Well, be reasonable" Fitz somehow found the courage to speak up. "Look how you're behaving"

He properly got into Fitz person space, pointing a finger to his heart and pushing it into his shorter man's chest. "And if I'm sedated, and we cross paths with those juiced freaks, the ones who flip cars and smash people up, are you gonna take them on and keep us safe?"

After hearing all that and reading the situation, I got between the two of them and pushed Ward back, even allowing a small amount of my vibration into the push. "You forget your place, Ward," I said standing protectively in front of my friends. "There are at least two more people in this plane that can take them on since I doubt May will hesitate to do so if need be. So, no. Fitz won't have to, hopefully. But the team can afford you being sedated if it results in you acting more like a human being and less than a feral animal when you wake up"

He stared at me hard, and then as the very mature person he was, he grabbed his shirt and left the Lab heading upstairs, probably to his bunk. I made sure to follow him vibrationally just to verify that.

I was still not a hundred percent back since what happened at the crypt. So when I felt a hand on my shoulder, I was startled and even jumped back a bit. I immediately regretted it because Fitz and Jemma were looking at me with concerned expressions. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"That was just a biochemical reaction. You know that, right? He didn't mean any of that" Jemma tried to reassure, thinking that this was because of what had just happened.

Before I even managed to reassure her, Fitz jumped in, reading the situation better. "That's not what this is. Did you touch it as well?"

Jemma, who had turned to look at Fitz as he spoke, turned back to me with a startled look on her face. "Skye!", she exclaimed and made a move to come closer to me, but I took a step back holding my hands up, letting them know not to come closer.

"Skye" Fitz spoke quietly, with a very gentle voice. "We were in the comms with you. You stopped responding for quite a while. Your comm didn't go down like Wards did, but we couldn't get a hold of you for a good few seconds" he explained, trying to reason with me. "Even if you didn't touch it, maybe just being near it affected you, okay? Something happened down there" he tried to reason.

I pushed my hands in their direction once more, to let them know not to approach. "J-Just give me a second," I said with a wavering voice which stopped the scientists from coming closer.

Neither of them spoke, giving me some time to collect my thoughts. I knew I need to explain this, at least partially so that they stopped worrying. And while Jemma knew of my powers and my status as an Avenger, she still didn't know what went down before the Battle, it was classified. And thank God for that. I really didn't want to even think about it, trying to shake the cold feeling that I felt on my chest, where Loki's spear had pierced my skin and turned me against my family, made me do things that still haunted me.

"It was not the stuff" I said with as much conviction I could muster. "I had a… mission a while back" I started hesitantly. "It went south pretty quickly. An… enemy managed to infiltrate our base. And several of us were held… hostage" it was the closest explanation I could come up with that resonated to what had actually happened. "I was one of those people. Something that Randolph said, it…" my gaze fell to the ground. Now that the adrenaline of the whole Ward-situation was coming to an end, the memory was coming back to me stronger and it was getting harder to ground myself.

"You had a flashback?" Thankfully Jemma was quick to catch up to what I was implying and I nodded. She was my main doctor, after all, she had a very vague idea of my condition.

Fitz looked almost startled at the news. "You have PTSD?"

Still looking at the floor, I nodded. I had my eyes now closed, taking deep breaths as I tried to instead think about my family. "Should I call May?"

I shook my head. "I'll go to her. Can you call her and tell her to go to the cockpit if she's not there already?" I didn't trust myself to use my vibrations at that moment. I was too tense and not calm enough to be able to rely on my powers. I lifted my head and saw that neither of them had moved closer to me and it eased me up a bit. I knew that Jemma probably just wanted to hug me, and I appreciated the fact that she was holding herself back for my sake.

As soon as Jemma nodded I made my way upstairs. However, I didn't make it far as I bumped into Ward who just exited his bunk, headphones and phone in hand as he was probably going to take his frustration out of the punching bag.

The sudden invasion of my personal space startled me and made me lose some of the focus I had managed to gain. My breaths started coming out slightly faster, and I took several steps back trying to increase the distance between us.

I started listing things quietly, trying to centre myself once more as I made a move to walk around him. "I'm on the Bus. Jemma and May are here. I'm safe, he's locked up. I'm on the Bus. Jemma and May are here…" and so on.

I didn't manage to go far however, as Ward was once again in my space, this time standing right in front of me, towering over me trying to be intimidating. I stopped my muttering, eyes closed. "Ward. Move. Away" I said carefully.

"No" he said and forcefully pushed me hard and my back met one of the sides of the plane. I could feel myself losing the battle to another flashback, and I could tell that this one was about to be a heavier one.

I started repeating a different sequence. A coded version of the normal one I repeat to myself. "Cестра, Old Guy, Greeny, Capsicle, Tin Man, Pepper, Mā, Manscaping". I stayed there, back on the wall not moving.

"Ward, get away from her" I could hear Jemma on the background. When did she come upstairs?

"No" he said one more as he came over me again. "She's gonna give me some answers and I'm gonna get them now" he towered over me as I stayed there frozen, afraid to break the slight control I had left over this whole situation.

I kept repeating the words over and over again, faster. I barely registered Jemma running from behind Ward and towards somewhere.

"Stop muttering!" he hissed close to my face. I closed my eyes, trying to focus but with him yelling so close it was hard to even hear myself. "I know you're hiding something. You've been hiding something all along! What is your secret?" He hissed and pushed the corner of his phone on my chest.

The cold metal was digging in my skin. Close to where the Asgardian had done the same years ago.

Just like that, I wasn't in the Bus any more.

And in front of me stood Loki.