The monastery the team arrived at was quite lovely. Nina wasn't much of a history or religion buff but the building held many secrets that she was intrigued to unravel. The team entered with Randolph leading the way.
"Well, it's been a while. I wonder - ah, yes. There it is. Still here," he looked to a book that was set up on a stand. Since Nina didn't trust him, she stayed relatively close and noticed he was looking at a drawing of a man in robes holding the staff, "well, the nose isn't quite right, but..."
"That's you?" Fitz asked as he caught a glimpse of it.
"Yeah, they venerated me a bit of a saint," Randolph said with a prideful smile.
"They're idiots," Ward sighed, showing Nina that he was still mad at him, "where's the staff?"
"It's upstairs," Randolph started walking away and Nina and Ward sandwiched him, making sure he didn't just take the piece and run. May and the pair were the only ones to follow Randolph closely while rest of the team trailed behind him.
"It's quiet," May deadpanned and Nina nodded, eyes darting around the room as if she was expecting an ambush.
"Why do you think I trusted them with my secret? They take a vow of silence," Randolph said as he stood in front of a cabinet and began opening it.
It was unfortunate that the team were too late as the moment Randolph touched the cabinet Jakob appeared from behind a pillar holding the complete staff.
"But when you get them talking, they squeal," he grinned. Jakob held the staff up and before anyone could react, stabbed Randolph in the chest with it. The man went down, taking Nina with him, "if you want to defeat a God, you must become one."
"Damnit Elliott," Nina heaved as she hit the ground and had the wind knocked out of her. Ward didn't hesitate as he grabbed the staff sticking out of Randolph's chest. It glowed orange and he panted as raged filled his body. Nina watched his eyes glaze over before Ward pulled the staff from Randolph's chest and charged at Jakob, sending both of them over the railing and to the floor below them.
When Nina was able to breathe again, she slid to Randolph's side and tried to assess the damage. She didn't know what was happening behind her as Skye ran off and May followed her, Nina tried to stop the bleeding and her hands were coated in red by the time FitzSimmons and Coulson appeared at her side.
"How is he?" Coulson asked as Nina moved out of the way to allow Simmons to take over.
"Hell if I know," Nina sighed as she rubbed the wet blood from her hands along the side of her pants. Coulson nodded and looked at Simmons for her opinion.
"I don't know what to do. He's not human," Simmons was as confused as Nina.
"He's dying," Coulson added and Nina looked down at the blood still coating her hands and completely agreed.
"We know, but she doesn't understand his anatomy," Fitz sighed. Coulson grimaced for a second before shoving his hand in the hole in Randolph's chest.
"W-what in God's name?" "Oh, my God!" Nina almost gagged while FitzSimmons verbalised their disgust in the action.
"Sometimes you just have to jump in and figure things out. Now, Asgardians regenerate faster than we do. Maybe we can keep him alive long enough-" Coulson started to explain.
"For his body to heal itself," Simmons nodded understanding the reason for such an intrusion.
"Okay, what am I looking for?"
"His heart," while Coulson continued searching inside Randolph they heard a loud thud come from downstairs and Nina sent Coulson a pleading look, "go."
"Thank you," Nina bolted down the stairs. There were a lot of steps involved and by the time she reached the floor, Ward no longer had the staff. He was off to the side with Skye while May held two pieces of the staff shakily. Nina watched as she stood up with a scream and charged after Jakob. She swatted him aside but was met with Petra holding the third piece of the staff,
The two women fought using their pieces of the staff, expertly. Petra's fighting ability was nowhere near the standard of May's but with what was going on in May's head, the fight was almost equal. May knocked Petra to the floor, causing the enemy to drop her piece of the staff, but took shaky steps forward almost dropping to her knees as an overwhelming pressure filled her head. Nina could see that May was fighting a battle in her head and that the May they needed was losing.
"May!" Nina yelled out and May looked at her. She knew what needed to be done so she threw the staff towards Nina. As she ran to it, the piece Petra dropped joined with the staff flying towards her. Nina grabbed it from the air and her arm immediately glowed an angry orange.
A scream wrecked Nina's body as a familiar scene played out in her mind. Her heart hammered against her chest as the stench of burning flesh filled her nostrils and the heat slammed against her face like a wall. She knew what she was seeing wasn't real but it had been, 2 years ago, and that was enough to hurt.
Nina wasn't in control of her actions as she fought against Petra, she moved almost robotically as a screaming that didn't belong to her bounced around her mind. The words that haunted her sleep, bounced from one side of to another and she held back tears.
"I am not afraid of you," Petra said as she started towards Nina.
"You should be," Nina struck her hard in the face with a roar of anger.
The next moments were a blur, all she knew was that Petra was taken care of. Laying on the floor, bloodied, battered and hanging on to life by a thread. Ward, Skye and May watched as Nina fell to her knees and dropped the staff with shaky hands. She didn't turn around, she didn't want to see how bad Petra looked.
She didn't need confirmation that she was, in fact, the Executioner.
"Nina, you did good," May appeared in front of her, Nina looked away from her shaky hands at to the agent's face, which was blurry due to the hazy screen of blood covering Nina's eyes. She didn't say anything, her body still reeling from what she had seen, "I know it stings but you're okay."
"Tobias," she managed to croak out.
"I know," May said and that was all she needed to say and Nina wrapped her blood-covered arms around her neck and hugged her. May allowed it, holding her against her body. Knowing exactly what she must have seen and known she needed comfort or irrationality would take place, "you're going to be okay."
*
"Is she alright?" Fitz asked Coulson as he looked at Nina. She was sitting alone in a room with her arms wrapped around her body, the shaking and rocking back and forth had seized a few minutes ago but Fitz was still worried about her.
"She... will be," he answered as he looked to her too. May and Ward were distraught after touching the staff and Coulson gave them the night off and hotel rooms in the city while Nina turned down the luxury and came straight back to the bus.
"Do you have any idea what she saw?" Skye asked. Coulson hesitated before answering, he didn't know what Nina was okay with the team knowing so he chose his words carefully.
"I'd assume the death of her fiance," Coulson answered. Everyone wanted him to elaborate but they understood that he wouldn't, that it was Nina's secret to tell. No one said anything after that, they all sat in silence looking anywhere but at each other. It wasn't until the door opened did anyone move.
Nina walked in, her arms were still wrapped around her and her eyes was a ghastly red, the mild tear tracks on her cheeks confirmed the fact that she had been crying. Fitz tried to catch her eye but she purposefully didn't look in his direction; Nina didn't know how to look into the eyes of the man she could fall in love with after crying over the death of the man she had loved. Instead, she looked to Coulson, who was waiting for an update.
"My emotions are all over the place, I'd be useless on a mission but I should be fine by the morning," Nina told the man, Coulson nodded. He didn't want such a professional response as he really was concerned about how she felt but he also understood that it was the way Nina operated when she felt everything.
"Noted, can I get you anything?" He asked as she took a seat on the floor. Fitz was finding that the floor was Nina's safe place as she went to it whenever she struggled to manage the civilian and agent in her.
"Permission," Nina answered and Coulson looked at her confused, "I know it requires a level 8 clearance but... can I tell them?"
"It's your story, Nina, it's your choice," Coulson gave her what she asked for and Nina took a deep breath.
"Tell us what?" Simmons asked once she noticed the nerves radiating off the agent.
"How she became the Executioner?" Skye asked enthusiastically, Nina nodded and everyone around her grinned except for Coulson. He just nodded to the agent and left the room, already knowing how painful this was going to be for her.
"I'm sure you've heard all the rumours about the great Executioner and I wish it was as easy as chopping off someone's head or taking on the Italian Mafia," Nina sighed as she began to tell the story that changed her, "have you ever heard of extraction team alpha?"
"Yeah, they had like a 100% success rate until they just... stopped. Everyone in the lab loved them because they were mathematically perfect," Fitz answered. Nina reluctantly met his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, and shook her head.
"They didn't just stop. It was my team, 2 years ago we were tasked with retrieving a captured CIA agent from Cambodia, it should have been a routine mission but it went bad. They knew we were coming and it wasn't from chatter, someone sold us out. They had pictures, our SHIELD files, detailed descriptions of our skill sets. They came prepared with contingencies that we couldn't beat, we were captured and tortured for what felt like forever," Nina had started bouncing her leg up and down as she spoke, her anxiety built up as she told the story. Simmons seemed to notice and she set a hand on her knee, slowing down Nina's movement.
"I'm so sorry, Nina," she said in a soft voice and received a subtle nod before the story continued.
"They wanted to know why the CIA agent was so important but we didn't know anything other than his name and what he looked like. We were in the business of extraction not asking questions, a few weeks later they changed their tactics and asked about SHIELD secrets but we wouldn't give anything away so... so they started killing people... right in front of me."
Nina shut her eyes as she remembered the final words and screams of her teammates before they drew their last breath in front of her. The order they had died, permanently stitched in her mind and prominent in her dreams.
First came Tristian...
Tristan was thrown into the room, bloodied and bruised just like Nina was. While they hit her and asked questions she answered what she could, for the how, what and who were easy; it was the why that she couldn't do. She didn't know why, it wasn't her placed to know why. They continued to hit her and stabbed her trying to encourage her to answer a question she had no answer to until they advanced on Tristian and held a gun to his head. They gave her one last chance but as Nina thrashed in her seat, trying to get them to see that she was being honest, they pulled the trigger. And the hole in Tristian's head was just the beginning of the horrors in Cambodia, but that didn't stop the screams and tears that came from Nina as she looked at the dead body on the floor.
Then followed Melody...
Nina was still grieving Tristian when Melody was dragged into the room, she was chained by the wrists and ankles. Nina could tell by the smirk on her face that she had been giving their capturers a hard time. Her observations didn't matter much as a knife was held to Melody's neck and questions about a project Nina knew nothing about were hurled in her direction. Her honesty didn't do anything but aggravate the man with the knife and Melody noticed, her last words were acceptance 'it's okay, boss. Death comes for us all'. But it wasn't okay because with one swift move, Melody's throat was slit open and Nina froze as the spray of blood, Mel's blood, splattered on her face and clothes. She watched as the body hit the ground and a puddle of blood grew around her friend.
Next was Adam...
Nina didn't know how Adam had been brought in, she had passed out and woken up to him kneeling by the side of an enemy. Questions were hurled at Nina as she noted the pill in the man's hand, held above Adam. She couldn't answer the questions, she couldn't give away SHIELD, he wouldn't want her to. He wouldn't forgive her if she did, but she'd never forgiven herself is she didn't. Adam knew that and so he said one word, a name that made Nina go against her heart and listen to her head, Cyrus. The pill was forced into Adam's mouth and a second later he started convulsing and fell to the ground while foam leaked out of his mouth. Cyanide. Nina sobbed as she looked at another dead teammate and cried harder at the memory of Cyrus, Adam's love who was waiting for him at home. The man who had called not an hour before they left for the mission to wish them luck, the man who Adam was going to ask to marry him.
Followed closely by Sara...
Nina screamed and pleaded as the noose was tied around Sara's fragile neck. Sara remained stoic only smiling when she locked eyes with her distraught boss, the same questions were asked to Nina. The SHIELD project she'd never heard off, where to find Secretary Pierce with the addition of the identity of a person they called the Clairvoyant. Nina didn't listen to any of it and just focused on Sara, the woman who had followed her blindly into every mission and trusted her with her life. But Nina didn't know how to save her while she was chained to a chair and couldn't feel her own legs. Sara's final words hurt more as than anyone else's, for they weren't to Nina or a lover but towards her 4 year old waiting at home. 'Tell Tommy I love hi-.' That was all she could say before the chair she had been standing on was kicked from under her and Nina heard her neck snap and watched the life disintegrate from her usual bright green eyes.
And finished with Tobias...
They knew that Nina and Tobias were involved, so they knew that killing him last would break her and they needed her broken. They made her watch as they dosed him in gasoline, she screamed and begged; trying to trade her own life for his but they paid her no attention. Tobias was coherent before his death, much different to the other 4. He wasn't afraid just happy that he got to see Nina one last time.
While Nina screamed at them to let him go, Tobias just took in the face of the woman he was meant to marry last month. Wanting - no, needing to see all the aspects of her he'd fallen in love with. Tobias' last words hurt more than any knife or bullet could've because it wasn't a thank you nor was it an I love you. It was two words, two simple words that held so much weight that Nina felt her heart shattered inside her chest.
I do...
And as she screamed those words back, a lit match was thrown and Tobias screamed as he skin caught alight. His screams mixed in with her cries as she thrashed about, begging from them to help him... to save him, to kill her instead of him but they didn't. They watched and laughed as the fire died out and a crisp, unrecognisable body hit the ground with a thud.
That night Nina cried until her body gave up, and she swore that every man and woman involved in this kidnapping would die a painful death by her hand.
"That's just... awful," Skye said causing Nina to open her eyes. She looked to the faces of her teammates and knew they were struggling to find the right words to say, so she spoke up sparing them.
"These scars," Nina said as she rolled up her sleeves and lifted the hem of her shirt slightly to showcase the healed scars that painted her skin, "I was going to get a sophisticated death."
"Death by a thousand cuts," Simmons said in realisation and Nina nodded. Fitz, as pissed off as he was at what they had done to her, noticed the shaking in her hand and carefully placed his own on top of hers. Nina didn't hesitate to lace together their fingers and Fitz happily held her hand.
"I was hospitalised for 5 months after a team found me and in that time I learnt that 115 people were involved in the operation," Nina said sounding more vengeful than the previous sadness, "rumours are everywhere about how I got my reputation but the real reason people call me the Executioner is pretty simple. The moment I was cleared for duty again, I went dark and... killed 113 people in less than 3 months."
How do you react to someone telling you that they slaughtered over a hundred people in the time it took you to learn how to drive? Fitz, Simmons and Skye just gaped at her while Nina felt Fitz's hand tense in her grip but she expected the reaction. Nina was too annoyed by the fact the number was 113 and not 115, but she knew killing Garrett in cold blood would get her court marshalled and she was yet to find the man who lit up Tobias. She needed to burn him alive first, and only after that would she happily welcome whatever jail cell she was thrown into.
✔️ edited