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Intrusive thoughts were unwanted and repetitive in nature, they pop into one's brain without warning. These type of thoughts had plagued Nina's mind well before joining SHIELD and the tragic events of Cambodia. She'd always had thoughts sneak into her mind without her consent, whether they be irrational beliefs or the phrases of the people she'd lost.

Intrusive thoughts were a symptom of OCD.

Nina didn't think she had OCD.

Though she was well aware that she probably wouldn't realise if she did.

Nina wasn't compulsive and the adjective that explained her perfectly was impulsive. Which was why she sat, handcuffed to Coulson's desk, ignoring Ward's voice echoing through her head telling her he'd killed the man she'd planned a future with.

"Are you sure the um... cuffs are necessary?" Skye asked as she rocked back and forth on her heels, feeling the tension in the room. Nina broke her staring contest with the monitor, displaying a bandaged up Ward, to answer the question.

"If you don't want me to kill Director Coulson, then yes. Very necessary," Nina answered ignoring the look Coulson gave her from the corner of the room.

When Nina had woken up from her ICER induced sleep, she'd found herself on a gurney in Coulson's office being overseen by Simmons. Nina had ordered the scientist to cuff her to the desk before Skye and Coulson walked in. Simmons had tried to argue against the command but once she saw the seriousness in Nina's face, she complied and chained up the female before leaving.

Just like Nina didn't trust herself during her panic attack, she didn't trust herself with zero restrictions while anger filled her body. She figured killing Coulson wouldn't go over well with Natasha and making an enemy of the russian wasn't the wisest idea.

"I didn't want you to find out like this," Coulson said. Nina tensed at the sound of his voice and she turned her head to stare at him.

"You mean you didn't want me to find out at all," she hissed, clenching the hand of her bound wrist into a fist before relaxing it, "you had no right keeping something like that from me."

"There was no good way to tell you," Coulson said calmly as he watched Nina strain slightly against the metal encasing her skin.

"Plainly," Nina spat out, "I don't know what I was like last year for you all to look at me like I'm a stranger now but I know for a fact that for me to be on any team there couldn't be any ambiguity. You could've just said it. Ward killed Tobias. Just like that and this could've been avoided."

"I didn't think you were ready to know."

"Ready to know?" Nina scoffed as she glared at him. She was seething but Coulson could still make out the sadness in her eyes, "I spent 3 years, looking for the man who killed Tobias. I gave up on avenging my fiancé to be your fucking hitman and you didn't think I needed to know that my best friend killed Toby... tried to kill me."

"There was no telling how you'd take it," Coulson responded as a figurine on his desk fell to the floor. Nina had yanked her arm forward, tugging the desk with her and moving it a few inches, "you weren't in the right mindset."

"Read my file, I haven't been in the right fucking mindset for years," she hissed, ignoring the watering in her eyes as she heard Ward confess over and over again in her head, "I thought he was dead and I mourned him! I mourned him and he killed... he killed him. He killed... he... oh God..."

Nina seemed to break down directly in front of Coulson and Skye, the facade that'd been holding her together dissolving right before their eyes. Skye turned around once she noticed, granting Nina some privacy for a moment the hacker knew was personal.

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