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CHAPTER THREE
CHILDISH COMPETITIONS AND
POTENTIAL BLACK EYES
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ANNE HAD NEVER BEEN A HEAVY PACKER. Part of it, she supposed, owed to her childhood. For a large bulk of her youth, she'd spent her education in boarding schools — from eight to seventeen, she spent the weekdays miles away from her home. When you traveled that much, you picked up a knack for only packing the essentials. The skill had followed her throughout her career — there was no room in a mission kit for seven different shoe options, after all. She packed light, and she packed quickly. She always had.

Two bags in her hand, Anne marched through the hangar her new home would be departing from shortly. She'd taken the long way around — she'd needed as much time as she could to clear her head, to prepare herself for seeing Coulson again. As she walked, she'd shot her brother a text saying she'd be away for a few days. She'd known that if she came face to face with him, she wouldn't have been able to keep Coulson's life a secret. A part of her heart splintered as she watched the text deliver, knowing she could so easily ease his heartache and guilt, and yet not taking the simple action she'd need to do so.

As she rounded the corner, the sleek black wings of the Bus came into view. Now, she could see what Coulson had meant when he'd said that it was really nice. Far larger than the planes she was used to, it stood tall, wings stretched out across almost the entirety of the hanger's width. So new it was practically shining, it towered above Anne as she approached, her duffel bags of belongings gripped tight in her hands.

      The cargo ramp was open, agents carrying equipment and bags inside. A van had already taken its place inside the cargo hold, two men fastening its wheels to the ground. Anne nodded to them as she approached.

Three agents already stood onboard, a pile of their stuff edging closer and closer to the spiralling metal stairs Anne could already tell someone was going to fall over at some point. One of the men, a hoodie thrown over his untucked shirt, had hurried towards the woman, grasping the... was that a gun? It certainly didn't look like any gun Anne had ever seen. Gently but hastily, he had removed it from the hands of the slightly smarter dressed woman beside him, opting to almost cradle it protectively.

"— And there's no way we're calling it the Night-Night Gun," said the woman, her English accent a stark contrast to the American ones Anne had grown used to hearing all around her.

Right. So it was a gun.

So engrossed in their bickering, the two agents scarcely seemed to notice the appearance of Anne as they walked across their onboard lab. Likewise, the man stood just in front of her seemed to go unnoticed. Frustration was radiating from his body, and Anne rolled her eyes.

The bickering came to a sudden stop as the man in front of Anne dropped his bag, a resounding thud slicing through their raised voices and killing their argument in its tracks. They tilted their heads, snapping their attention towards him.

Dressed in a smart, well fitted suit, the agent — Agent Grant Ward — sighed. "Fitz-Simmons?" He asked, not even bothering to hide the edge of annoyance from his voice. Anne glanced towards him out of the corner of her eye, screwing up her face from her position behind him.

    The woman pointed towards the young man, smiling politely at Ward. "Fitz," she explained.

    The young man — Fitz's — smile was slightly less convincing as he hunched ever so slightly in on himself, his voice far smaller now than it had been while bickering. He pointed towards the woman. "Simmons," he said. "I'm engineering, she's biochem."

The minor irritation upon Ward's face was clear to see as he reached inside his jacket. Evidently, the years since Anne had first met him had not mellowed him. There was a strange comfort in the knowledge that, even when the rest of her world had just turned upside down, she could still count on Ward to be just as grumpy and standoffish as he had been the first time they'd ever interacted, all those years ago.

      "Agent... Ward?" Fitz asked, nodding towards him. Then, with eyes slowly widening, he caught sight of Anne. "Agent Harper?"

       At the sound of Anne's name, Simmons froze and turned back around to face them. Her wonder-filled gaze turned sheepish as she locked eyes with Anne, who simply gave her an awkward smile in response. She hadn't missed this part of meeting new agents.

    Ward's eyebrows raised a fraction upon hearing Anne's name, too, though Anne doubted it was for the same reason as Fitz-Simmons' amazement. Barely noticeable, but Anne noticed it nonetheless. Just a sliver of half an expression — a tiny, imperceptible crack in a mask of stone — but Anne saw it.

Realising this was a good a time as any to fully enter the Bus, Anne gave Fitz a small wave and an awkward smile as she stepped out from behind Ward.

     "Hey," she said, a smidge quieter than she'd have liked. She cleared her throat. "Hi, yeah, I'm Agent Harper. Anne Harper, so, y'know, don't get too excited. It's nice to meet you." She gave a kind smile to Fitz, giving him a tiny, polite wave. Then, she nodded towards Ward. "Agent Ward." 

"Agent Harper," he replied, glancing down at her. In her court shoes, Anne only reached his shoulders — something that had irritated her during their first meeting, and still irritated her now. Damn her father's short genes.

She'd dealt with a job once, where S.H.I.E.L.D had taken over the investigation a local police department had been running. Shockingly, given that they'd spent the past two weeks running this investigation — and that it was a small town, where everyone knew one another, and everyone had loved the victim — the detectives weren't too keen on letting that case go. Trying to be taken seriously by people three times her age and twice her height was a fun adventure, and a real test of her patience — one of the few tests in life she'd managed to flunk.

Life would be easier if she was tall, Anne decided. She wouldn't feel so much like a kid playing dress-up when she walked into a room where everyone knew her last name, but hardly any of them had ever heard her first one. Of course, it almost certainly didn't help that she was wearing her mother's old shirt. In so many ways, she really was just in a costume. Just a shadow of the towering statue her mother had erected in S.H.I.E.L.D history; a poor imitation, a school production of a Broadway show.

Ward turned away from her, focusing his attention on Fitz. "Coulson said we'd need our comm receiver encoded."

      Taking the receiver with a polite smile, Fitz's expression turned slightly more genuine when Anne handed hers over too, becoming warm in its acknowledgment as he muttered a quiet word of thanks.

"I don't know if you've worked with that model before. It's..." Ward's voice slowly trailed away into nothingness as he caught sight of Fitz smashing his receiver with a hammer. Anne kept her face blank and unflinching, and bit back the nervous grin threatening to carve its way into her cheeks. Frozen for a moment, Ward stared in abject horror as bits of the receiver splintered off and shattered under the force of the attack. "...Brand new."

    From across the lab, without even looking over to see the source of the really quite loud and forceful hammering, Simmons spoke. "He'll repurpose the I.D.I.S chip."

Anne wondered if she was supposed to know what that meant.

    "Don't need the external receiver for the inner-ear coms anymore," Fitz said, peering at one of the pieces through knitted eyebrows. Both Anne and Ward frowned a little, removing their comm links from their ears.

    Ward asked the question both were thinking. "So, uh, how does it —"

    Again, his thoughts were interrupted. Simmons grasped at his jaw, taking advantage of his confusion to perform some form of cheek swab. Anne bit back her grin as she watched his eyes widen, and then narrow at the action.

    "Embedded sensorineural silicone matched to your DNA," Simmons explained, as though she expected either Anne or Ward to know what she was on about. As Simmons backed away from Ward and turned towards Anne, Anne opened her jaw willingly, not particularly feeling the desire to be attacked by a hyperactive biochemist this early in the morning.

    "It's very posh," said Simmons, collecting Anne's DNA with a smile. "So, are you two excited to be coming on our journey into mystery?"

Ward's response was dry. "It's like Christmas." His voice was flat and emotionless as he massaged his jaw. It seemed Simmons didn't miss his sarcasm, but she didn't call him out on it. Instead, she just gave him another — if slightly less convincing — smile.

      "I mean, I'm pretty excited," Anne said, earning a slightly more genuine smile from Simmons.

And she was. This was the kind of opportunity she'd spent her life wishing for — not to say her career so far hadn't been exciting, but living on a plane with her fellow agents, flying from job to job, mission to mission... that was the dream, right? That was the kind of thing people saw in movies. Her words were true, and her smile real — if perhaps somewhat disguised, hidden beneath an air of awkward manners and minuscule movements.

      The screeching of car tires drew Anne's thoughts away from her own excitement, the sounds of a speeding car applying its breaks quickly drawing everybody's attention back towards the cargo ramp. Driving up it, and coming to a stop beside the already tied down black van, was a bright red, shining Corvette, every inch of it polished to perfection. She bit back her smile. Lola.

"One of Coulson's old S.H.I.E.L.D collectables," Fitz explained, appearing between her and Ward. "Flamethrowers, world's first GPS. He's mad for this crap."

"Always has been," Anne muttered quietly, to nobody but herself. At least that hadn't changed.

As she spoke, Agent Coulson, still dressed smartly in his suit and this time sporting a pair of dark sunglasses, stepped out the car, pushing the door shut gently. He nodded towards the agents, taking a few steps towards them before pausing. One of the men that had been securing the van when Anne had approached was nearing the Corvette, ready to tie those wheels down too.

"Don't touch Lola," Coulson ordered, refusing to break eye contact with the approaching man until the man backed away.

Fitz let out a soft giggle, grinning at the two agents as he glanced between them. "And he calls it a girl's name."

    For a moment, an uncharacteristic look of intrigue crossed over Ward's face. Again, it was barely noticeable, his expressions scarcely changing, but Anne noticed it. There was just the smallest change in the position of his eyebrows, both of them rising by just a quarter of an inch as his eyes widened by a fraction.

    Anne couldn't say she blamed him. The car was quite a sight to behold — and a sight that was difficult to avoid. With every other thing in this area of the bus being dim, and grey, or black, or just a little formal and miserable in general, the bright colour of the car stood out against everything. Even when you weren't looking at it, you could still see it reflected off every other surface, or catch a glimpse of its burning colour against the far more drab background. Even Anne herself — who had seen that car enough times to know not only its name, but the inner workings of its engine — found her eyes drawn back towards it, a nostalgic smile dancing across her cheeks.

    Ward's expression was gone almost instantly, replaced by his signature stony glower as Fitz smacked his back. Anne heard it as it made contact, and watched Ward's jaw set as he inhaled sharply.

She grinned to herself a little, catching the eye of Simmons as she turned around to pick up one of her bags and letting out a small, soft chuckle as she watched Ward's shoulders tense a little, his back straightening and his head held higher.

      An old car, and a new adventure, Anne found herself thinking, and suddenly, despite the countless conflicting emotions swirling around within her small body — hurt and anger, excitement and joy, trepidation and betrayal — she felt an overwhelming wave of relief wash over them all, drowning out their voices, even if for only a short while. The day had been confusing, and the revelations revealed within it far too much for one person to unpack in such a tiny space of time, but with the sight of Coulson and Lola, and the company of old friends and new, Anne allowed herself to bathe, for a few short moments, in the belief that just maybe — when all was said and done — this team would actually turn out okay.

      And, by extension, so would she, and everything else alongside her.

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"LOLA'S NOT JUST A COLLECTABLE, YOU KNOW," Coulson explained as he climbed the spiralling, metal stairs to the platform above them. Ward followed closely, his hand steadying himself upon the handrail. Anne, meanwhile, found herself almost tripping over her feet as her attention flickered away from the conversation and back down to the cargo bay beneath them.

    Anne had never been in one of these before. When the helicarrier had been built, such planes fell slightly out of fashion, but before then, they had been commonplace. Her parents had been on a few throughout their career, and Anne had always loved hearing their stories. Somehow, it just made their already extremely exciting lives seem even more impressive, as though they truly were out of some James Bond film.

Granted, both her parents would make a terrible James Bond, but that was besides the point. They'd both loved their short stints stationed upon these Buses, and Anne had always adored their stories about them.

"People tend to confuse the words 'new' and 'improved,'" continued Coulson. Anne, despite having heard his speeches about Lola countless times in the past, clung to his every word as though they were the handrail keeping her from stumbling back into the cargo-hold below. A lifeline; a prayer. She'd never thought she'd miss his rants about Captain America, but when he'd died, she'd wished more than anything to hear just one more story about his hero; if having him back meant listening to him tell her about a car she likely knew more about now than she did half her own family, then so be it. She'd do it willingly. Happily. She'd listen to every story he could ever think up, without complaints, for as long as he'd tell them — even if it was identical to the one he'd told her the day before, and the day before, and the day before, because at least then he was still here talking to her. He was still here. Still alive.

As Coulson spoke, he opened the door on the other side of the platform, and revealed a sight that, if Anne had believed the cargo-hold to be impressive, was nothing short of mind blowing.

In sharp contrast to the metallic greys out the walls outside, the walls Anne passed as she walked were a deeper, wooden brown, polished to perfection. Beneath her feet, the industrial metallic flooring gave way to a far more plush carpet, the change evident the minute she felt her feet sink slightly into it. Even the lighting was different; gone was the harsh light of the lab, or the under slightly dimmed under lights surrounding the cars, replaced instead by a far more pleasant, ambient glow.

Warm oranges illuminated the room, and suddenly, her father's love for these things made perfect sense.

Upon her left, Anne was led past a common area, white leather seats encircling a dark coffee table, already decorated with books. Under the soft lighting, the seats looked so homely, a feeling only added to by the plump cushions laid upon them.

"These mobile commands were in heavy rotation back in the nineties," explained Coulson, glancing back at the two agents that followed him. "But then we got a helicarrier."

It made sense — Coulson always had been one for the more vintage items. Whether it be his Captain America trading cards, or apparently his decision to have his command unit upon a plane from the nineties, the agent seemed to relish in the nostalgia of the past. Perhaps he himself had been stationed upon one of these mission command planes at some point, Anne didn't know.

    Not that she was really complaining - this was a really nice bus.

    "Hey," said Coulson as they turned a corner — if, of course, one could call it that. It was more of a smooth curve, leading way to the sleeping areas. A small smile spread across his face as he spoke, the self amused kind. "Did you hear the one about the guy who's afraid of flying?"

    Ward spoke before Anne had the chance, the evident build up to a joke seeming to fly right over his head. "I've done a night jump into a drop zone under heavy fire, sir," he said, without a trace of irony or sarcasm in his tone. "I can handle it."

    Rolling her eyes, Anne resisted the urge to sigh.

    "That was a... joke..." Coulson said, stopping besides one of the bunks. Anne, who had been too focused on rolling her eyes instead of paying attention to where she was actually going, almost collided with him, but caught herself at the last moment. Wincing to herself, she backed up a few steps.

    Coulson's shoulders sunk a little as he continued. "It was the first part of a... I'm not going to tell it now."

    Resisting the urge to encourage him to continue, Anne manoeuvred her way around the two agents and to one of the free bunks. Gently tossing her bags upon it, she felt the relief wash over her as the heavy weight was removed. Even with all the weight spread evenly out — she'd packed enough bags in her time to understand the importance of equal distribution — carrying all her equipment, uniform, and gear at once was never a pleasant experience. Oftentimes, she didn't fully realise the weight of it all until she'd placed it down — and when she'd placed it down, the respite it caused was somewhat incomparable.

    "If you plan to unpack," a woman's voice said, snapping Anne back to reality. "Make it quick. Wheels are up in five."

    Unpacking, of course, would be a lot easier if Anne were actually able to move. It was somewhat of a prerequisite for unpacking. But as the owner of the voice walked in front of her, glancing just once in her direction to pass a file over to Coulson, Anne found herself frozen to the spot, staring unblinking at the woman before her.

    Melinda May carried herself with the kind of confidence that most people could only dream of possessing. It was a confidence that Anne pretended she had, straightening her back and steadying her voice each time she was challenged, yet with May it seemed almost effortless. She walked with authority, and determination, her face and mind seemingly set upon her goal, with nothing preventing her from achieving it.

    Glancing towards Ward, she saw his reaction was somewhat the same. Coulson's was almost the direct opposite, his face calm and his posture relaxed, while Anne just continued staring with wide eyes, her eyebrows raising higher by the second.

    "We may have a hit on one of the Rising Tide's routing points," May said, passing over the folder. As she spoke, Coulson's face became more serious, but never displaying any of the wonder that was written plainly across Anne's.

    He nodded. "Good," he said, as he opened the folder and began flicking through it. "We need to do some catching up."

    May didn't wait around. As soon as Coulson finished speaking, she turned back upon her heel and began walking back the way she had come. Anne watched her leave without blinking, her eyebrows now raising so far she feared they may soon become one with her hairline.

    Hopefully they enjoyed their life up there. It would certainly take time away from her morning makeup routine, if nothing else.

    Ward glanced between Coulson and the absence of May, his eyebrows knitting together by just a fraction. "Is that who I think it is?"

    Barely glancing up, Coulson gave a small nod, his eyes still trained upon the pages in his hands. "She's just the pilot."

    "Melinda May is just the pilot?" Ward reiterated, his attention occasionally drifting towards the corridor towards the cockpit. "Come on, sir. What game are you really playing?"

She never would have dared to ask it, but the same question had been eating away at Anne since she had first heard that May would be flying their plane. Almost legendary, the tales of her missions — one mission in particular — before retreating to an administrative position were passed between classes in the S.H.I.E.L.D Academy like notes, each retelling growing wilder. At this point, Anne didn't know what was true and what was a game of Chinese whispers, but she did know one thing — Melinda May was not the kind of agent, now administrative or not, that you assigned solely to flying the plane.

Her parents had known Agent May; Anne had heard stories about that, too. They had never spoke often of her missions — and never of the one that had earned her the nickname "The Cavalry" — but they'd spoken of her frequently enough that the name struck a certain admiration in Anne. Though she herself had never met her, she'd been able to tell simply through the manners in which her parents reacted to her name that she was someone they admired greatly. She could see the respect light up their eyes each time they heard her name, and the way they seemed to hold their heads a little higher. They were polite people, her parents, and they were people that provided everyone with the respect they deserved and earned — and Agent May had clearly earned a lot.

      Her father, once, had warned her not to believe everything she heard about May. It was shortly before Anne had moved to the S.H.I.E.L.D Academy, back when he was giving her all the survival tips and pieces of life advice he could think of before she moved away to begin a new career as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd never expanded upon the comment. Instead, he had just continued to stand a little taller each time she came up in conversation, and it was difficult for Anne not to admire the woman that caused her father to behave in such a manner.

She found herself standing taller too, now, despite how Agent May had already disappeared from her view.

Coulson glanced towards her, giving a polite smile to her and Ward as he snapped his folder shut. "Better stow your gear," he said, offering none of the explanations both of them desired. "I'll leave you two to get reacquainted."

Then, he turned away, and, with no further comments for them, followed after May, ascending the polished wooden spiral staircase opposite them and disappearing from sight.

Anne watched him go. Questions upon questions piled up in her mind, thoughts whizzing by so fast she barely had time to grasp upon one before it had wriggled free of her grip and darted off with the rest of the stampede. From the expression upon Ward's face, it didn't seem he had much more of an idea what was going on, with his eyebrows still raised and his hand half resting upon his bag, as though he was unsure whether to place it down or not as he mulled over the recent events. There was a small comfort in that, she supposed. At least she wasn't alone in her bafflement. There were few words feelings than being the only one not understanding something, after all.

Forcing her attention away from the stairs and her mind off of Melinda May, Anne unzipped one of her bags, tossing the less delicate and expensive of her belongings upon her bed under the pretence she was unpacking.

It was a nice bunk, she thought to herself. In a manner of speaking — for an optimistic mind — it was almost like her own small room. With sliding doors for privacy, a screen upon the wall opposite her pillows, and a fold-out bedside table upon the side of the bunk connected to the edge of the plane, it was evident that little expense had been spared when it came to ensuring the agents residing within the Bus were anything short of comfortable.

      "You're being uncharacteristically quiet," Ward remarked, scarcely glancing towards Anne as he began unpacking his gear.

       She shrugged, undoing her neatly rolled up shirts and sweaters and folding them tidily instead — rolling, she'd long since learned, saved a great deal of space, and kept most of the wrinkles out. For someone that hated being left alone with her thoughts for any length of time, let alone the length of time it took her to neatly press a blouse, reducing wrinkles was somewhat imperative, and a skill set Anne had long since mostly mastered.

       "I'm just figuring out the best time to raid the minibar," she joked. Had there been anything S.H.I.E.L.D hadn't considered when repurposing their new home? "I wonder what they have stocked in there."

    The comment went unresponded to, save for a quiet hum of amusement. Eyes momentarily flickering towards Ward, Anne tilted her head, finding a short burst of air escaping from her nose as she grinned. "Look," she said, pointing to his cheek, and then back at her own. "We've got matching scars!"

    Ward didn't deem such a comment worthy of even a glance upwards, yet alone a verbal response. Instead, he withheld a high, opting to tend to an itch upon his eyebrow. "Did you know Melinda May would be our pilot?" He eventually asked, still focused upon his unpacking rather than actually looking at Anne.

       One bag was pretty much empty now — just her mug, a few photographs, and various sentimental knick-knacks left to find homes for. Her clothes — though some were yet to be placed upon hangers — were all in neat piles upon her bed, waiting to be packed away into her drawers. Hopping up upon her bunk, she pulled her other bag onto her lap and unzipped it.

      "It was in the file," she said. "I saw her name. I just didn't expect to see her today."

      "I saw her name. But Agent May being just a pilot?"

       Anne gave a small nod. "You're right. It's strange. But this whole team is strange, isn't it?"

Ward didn't reply, and so Anne continued. "I mean, Agent May's just our pilot — though, personally, I've always felt the pilot is the most important part of a team — our scientist aren't cleared for combat, which is a terrifying thought, you and I are partners, and Coulson—"

She paused. And Coulson's alive, she thought, but she didn't say it. Better not pull upon that thread two seconds into joining the team, she decided. That was almost certain to be a can of worms that would only infest her brain with inescapable emotions if she opened it.

Ward ignored her silence. Awkwardly, and with the tone of someone that had no idea how to navigate the labyrinth of an answer he could — had he asked anyone else — very feasibly found himself trapped within, he asked, "How are you coping with Agent Coulson still being alive?"

She glared, though the wall between their bunks cut her from his gaze. "We are not having a feelings talk right now, Ward."

      He didn't reply, but she imagined he wore an expression of relief. She knew she certainly did.

      "You know," she said, swinging her legs absentminded as she began unpacking her second bag. Better be more careful with this one, she thought. This one has the S.H.I.E.L.D equipment in it. "I'm surprised you joined this command unit. You've always insisted you're more of a... go-at-it-alone kinda guy."

      "It wasn't exactly willing."

      "Ah." She rolled her eyes. "My mistake. You're really not a team player, are you?"

      "I was trained to be a specialist," Ward responded. "I go in, I solve the problem, I come out. There's never really been room for anyone else in the equation."

      "We went to the Academy together, Ward." She launched a small decorative pillow across her bed, letting out a little "wa-shoo" noise as it flew through the air and crashed upon her pile of neatly folded trousers. "We have the same training. I'm a specialist too."

       "I didn't expect you to join this team, either." Ward didn't argue against her comments. She sighed, knowing exactly why he hadn't felt the need.

       "...Yeah, that wasn't exactly willing either." Shoving her bag to the side, she threw herself backwards upon the mattress, legs still dangling off the side as she stared up at the ceiling. "Though, to be fair, the team I reckon I could manage. It'll take some getting used to, but I've worked on teams before. We had our little team, at the Academy. Sure, it wasn't official, but we worked." A ghost of a grin crossed her face, and she found herself warmed by the embrace of the memories. "The team I can handle. It's the whole... partner thing." A pause. "No offence."

"None taken."

"It's not personal. It's just..."

"Last time."

She nodded. "Last time."

A part of her was grateful, if she was honest with herself, that it was Ward she was being asked to face this great unknown beside. Things had always been easy with him. Simple. In the whole time she'd known him, she'd never once had to explain herself to him. There was something refreshing in that. He just understood. He just knew. He knew about Coulson. He knew about the last time she'd worked with a partner. He just knew.

"Well," she said, desperately trying to grasp upon some kind of joke, "Fingers crossed I'm not cursed, and it'll end better this time!"

He didn't reply. She didn't want him to. A silence fell between them, and Anne grabbed a nearby pair of socks, lobbing them as high into the air as she could and attempting to catch them with her other hand.

       "How come Coulson wanted you for this team?" Ward asked. "He told me only level sevens could know about him still being alive."

      Anne gave a wry smile, tossing the socks again. "They made an exception. Guess I'm just that great at my job."

       Perhaps Anne should have anticipated his response. Actually, she almost certainly should have predicted it — if she were in her position, it was the exact thing she would have thrown back. And yet, for some reason, she allowed herself to walk straight into it.

       "The last time we worked together," Ward said, "You got shot."

      She clicked her tongue. "...Okay, technically yes, I did do that — but I got better! Besides, that was years ago."

       "Well, it's good to see the years haven't changed you."

       "You make it sound as though it's been decades," Anne scoffed. "It's been literally like two years."

       "Since you got shot."

       Ah, crap. "That's plenty enough time to heal. I've gone up two clearance levels in that time!"

      "Two?"

       Anne had been waiting all day for this moment. Grinning, she sat bolt upright and peered around the wall between their bunks. Picking up her badge, she tossed it in his direction. He caught it without difficulty. "Level six now. Coulson and Hill moved me up this morning."

       The competition was childish and one sided, and Anne knew that — but since birth, she'd been competitive. Perhaps it came with being a twin, or coming from a family of overachievers, or just some pathological need to be the greatest at everything all the time, but if there was a competition to make, she would make it — and then she would do everything in her power to win it. Unfortunately for him, Ward, it appeared, had become a target upon which Anne was able to pin those competitive impulses. Since they first met, she'd been fighting to be greater than him at everything the pair did — the better fighter, the better academic, the better spy. From grades to mission reports, she'd tried her hardest to drag him into every possible contest she could.

       Ward, for his part, endured the competition relatively quietly, seeming to have decided years ago that amusing Anne's games was easier than protesting against them. There were times where Anne couldn't help but wonder whether there was at least a small part of him that enjoyed them — many agents entertained her games, but none seemed as invested in them as Ward did. Most just smiled and nodded. Ward, however, at least seemed to reciprocate some of the energy when Anne found him and announced her newest achievement.

       Eyebrows knitting together as he stared down upon her new badge, he asked, "How?"

      "I've been training for this since I was literally five years old?" It wasn't a question. Sarcasm laced her words. She tossed her socks in the air again, throwing her body back against the mattress. If she found another pair, perhaps she could teach herself to juggle. Her mind wandered as her hands grasped around her.

"Responsible parenting."

Anne fell silent, gaze instinctively falling back upon the bracelet on her wrist. A tiny bird stared back at her, silver and delicate, and she gave it a sad smile.

"I heard about your mother," Ward said. Something close to sincerity echoed through his voice. "I'm sorry. She was a good woman."

Anne hummed in agreement. Stephanie Harper had been a great woman, but that was hardly news to her. Her hands brushed against something cold and metal — her keys — and she grabbed them. Those would do, she thought. Close enough to socks.

"How are you doing?" Asked Ward.

Anne arched an eyebrow. That, she decided, did not deserve a response.

Ward took the hint. "Stupid question," he said. "Listen, I meant to call —"

"No feelings talk, remember?" Anne said, tossing her keys into the air and trying to switch them with her pair of socks. She'd never juggled once in her life, but keys seemed like a safe thing to learn with.

Throwing and catching socks, it appeared, was considerably different than throwing and catching keys. First there was the weight difference that needed to be considered — keys fell a lot faster and heavier than socks did. Then one would have to think about the material itself — socks were far softer, and weren't anywhere near as unpleasant to routinely hit against your hand. Of course, then there was the difference in shape, with keys generally being quite sharp, and all of this, really, was to say that when socks hit someone in the face, they caused very little upset.

When keys, however, smacked against your eye, people tended to take much more notice.

"Ow, crap!" Cried Anne, rubbing at her eye. "God!"

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry," she said, tossing her keys in the air again. "I just smacked myself in the face with my keys." Ward didn't reply, and she shrugged. "I'm teaching myself to juggle."

"Of course you are."

"I couldn't find my socks."

Ward didn't question her logic. Anne was glad, because she had very little. She'd just wanted a way out of that conversation — and circus skills was the route she decided upon.

"I do have some news," Ward said, and Anne sat bolt upright, brow furrowed.

"What?" She asked, peering back around into Ward's bunk.

Her answer came in the form of a badge waved towards her, and she sighed.

'Grant Ward. Specialist. Level Seven.'

Typical.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

DESPITE EVERYTHING, ANNE FOUND HERSELF GRINNING AS SHE WALKED THROUGH THE STREETS WITH COULSON AND WARD.      The flight had been far shorter than she'd expected — she'd barely had the chance to finish her unpacking by the time the wheels touched down and Agent May announced she'd landed them as close to the signal as she could feasibly manage. True to her word, May hadn't ventured out the Bus with the three agents, instead leaving them to hunt down a potential Rising Tide routing point on foot themselves. She truly was, for reasons Anne couldn't even begin to fathom, just their pilot.

It wasn't far away now, if the symbols upon Coulson's screen were to be believed.

This was a nice introduction, she decided. A small job to iron out any teething problems. Just a simple mission to test the waters, to figure out how the team worked together. Still, she couldn't help the rush of exhilaration pulsing through her veins as she marched forwards. It seemed no matter how many times she walked into the field, she never could shake that initial bolt of adrenaline. There was something about the way it sent her heart racing just a little bit faster that Anne couldn't get enough of.

More than enjoyed, Anne relished in it. Once the mission was underway, her mind would always snap into the professional headspace of a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, but for those short initial moments, she revelled in the the way her breathing quickened, and every muscle in her body was crying out to get on with the job. The combination of nerves, and excitement, and apprehension, and wonder, it all culminated to make an addictive feeling that Anne doubted she would ever not love. Moreover, not seek out.

      "Stop grinning," Coulson said, glancing towards Anne as they walked. She wiped the grin from her face. The ache for action remained. "We're on a mission."

Fighting the grin down, Anne nodded. As they turned a corner, Ward stepped ahead for a moment, looking around. Once he was gone, Coulson turned back to Anne, eyes betraying that same kind spark she had seen enough times to miss when he was apparently not dead.

"It is a bit exciting, though, isn't it?" He said, a little quieter. Anne felt the grin arise again, but she suppressed it as they rounded the corner, stepping in line with Ward. Coulson tilted his head a little at Anne, his eyebrows knitting together just a little.

"Why is your eye starting to bruise?" He asked.

Anne went to answer, but Ward got there first. "She threw her keys at her face," he said, earning a glare from Anne.

The bruising wasn't even that bad. The keys had caught her in the corner of her eye, but really, unless you were looking for an injury, you could easily miss it. Most people would probably just chalk it up to tired eye bags. It wasn't like there was any swelling; the bruise was just that — a light mark, in the corner of her eye, that most people wouldn't even notice.

Feeling a sudden need to explain herself, Anne buried her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "I was teaching myself to juggle," she offered, eyes flickering to the floor.

Whatever amusement there may have been in Coulson's eyes when Anne had been grinning faded as he stared at her. "Don't do that again," he said, his voice flat.

"Yes, sir," Anne said, glaring at Ward again. Ward refused to look at her. She glared harder.

"The signal is coming from in there," Coulson said, nodding towards a van tucked down a back alley a little ahead of them. Stopping glaring daggers into the back of Ward's head, Anne turned her attention to the van. It seemed a pale purple in colour, and carried itself like a vehicle that had seen a lot of use - slightly battered, slightly rundown, but still good.

Inside, she could hear a voice. Definitely belonging to a woman, the words were a little muffled by the walls of the van. Still, Anne could just about make out what the woman inside was staying.

" - We can't explain everything we see, but our eyes are open. So what now? There are no more shadows for you to hide in. Something impossible just happened. What are you going to do about it?"

Taking her place beside Ward, Anne continued listening in. The words, were they not coming from the Rising Tide, would have been quite compelling. Anne supposed that was one of the reasons they were so worrying for S.H.I.E.L.D. Truly, their words were revolutionary - and if one of S.H.I.E.L.D's own could see the strength in their words, then the wider public definitely could.

"How will you come at us? From the air? From the ground? How will you silence us this time? How can you? The truth is in the wind. It's everywhere. You cannot stop the Rising Tide."

At least they knew they were in the right place. Not that Anne had ever had anything less than complete faith in Coulson, but the verbal confirmation from their suspect was very much appreciated.

"You will not find us. You will never see our faces. But rest assured, we will rise against those who shield us from the truth, and nothing, nothing can stop us in the -"

Coulson nodded toward Ward, who swung the door to the van open. He stepped back, standing in line with Anne and their commanding agent, his face devoid of any emotion.

Anne was quite an expressive woman. Her eyebrows tended to betray her emotions before anything else could - a rather annoying quirk she'd inherited from her mother - and Anne wasn't entirely convinced they didn't have a life of their own at this point. Much like her mother before her, Anne had put hours of work into controlling them. Wild eyebrows were not a trait many S.H.I.E.L.D agents saw as a particularly desirable trait for their covert, undercover jobs.

Anne called upon that work now, keeping her eyebrows steady and her face flat. She wasn't a robot, like Ward, or an exceptionally gifted agent like Coulson - keeping her face flat was nowhere near as easy for her - but she persisted.

Inside the van, two people sat - the woman who's voice Anne had heard, and a man, who looked an awful lot like he'd been napping. The woman gave a small wave and a slightly awkward smile as she stared upon the three agents before her, looking nowhere near as unnerved as someone in her position should.

Staring at them, she spoke with a perfectly calm, almost amused voice. "Hey, what's up?"

Observing her, Anne felt a little of her anxiety fade. Regardless of what footage she had somehow got, this woman looked far more in tune with the hackers Anne had grown used to associating the Rising Tide with.

Wearing some kind of stitched sleeve top, paired with a waistcoat of some kind, the woman couldn't have been much different in age from Anne herself. Eyes wide and lips forcing a smile, she seemed much more like a hacker getting dragged out their depths than a woman that somehow found out about an unregistered gifted before even S.H.I.E.L.D.

Anne took some solace in that.

The man, however, didn't look much like a hacker. He didn't look much like anything, really, aside from perhaps lost. Sitting in the back of the van, eyes wide and darting around like a prey animal knowing their end was near, his entire body seemed to tense as he watched the agents.

He wasn't dressed like the woman, either. He didn't dress like someone that had any intentions of getting up and wandering around the streets of New York today - wearing a pair of sweatpants and a loose fitting jumper, he instead seemed like a man that had planned to simply lounge around all day.

Anne had never been very good at that. Her brain worked too fast, and since childhood, she'd always had a goal in mind. There was a calling inside her. She couldn't rest until she'd achieved it, and calmed the storm forcing her forwards. Every time she found herself resting for too long, that call became a scream, and suddenly she was back in the field.

Anne couldn't rest. She'd never been able to. This man, though - he seemed to enjoy his rest. Perhaps that was why he seemed so startled by the three agents.

Ward reached forwards, pulling the woman out of the van - not with aggression, but with enough force to ensure she was unlikely to protest too harshly. Anne stepped closer to the van in an attempt to grab the man.

It had happened quickly. Looking back, Anne knew she should have seen it coming. Cover every exit - it was basic training. It was common sense.

As Anne tried to climb into the van, the man swung open the back door. Scrambling backwards, he stumbled out the van and into the bright sunlight. Cursing to herself, Anne jumped back.

She shoved past Ward, breathing an apology. For someone that had just woken up, this man sure was sprightly. Anne, however, had not just woken up, and so she was faster.

Tackling the running man to the ground, she grunted. His back had taken the majority of the fall, but her shoulder had still faced some impact. The force shot through her, but Anne held on.

Rolling over, the man scrabbled backwards, struggling to his feet. Anne sighed, forcing herself up again, only to find herself knocked back to her knees by the man's wayward knees, kicking blindly towards her, hitting her square in the nose.

Creating half a dozen new curse words, Anne aimed a punch to the man's head. He crumpled. She smiled in self satisfaction. Behind her, she could practically sense Ward rolling his eyes.

"I've got him," she said, turning around. At some point during her slight scuffle with the man, either Ward or Coulson had placed a black sack over the woman's head. She stood between the pair with her head slightly tilted, face obscured and wrists restrained.

Ward sighed, his face remaining apathetic behind his dark sunglasses. "Really?"

"He was running away!" Anne protested, finding herself glancing back to Coulson for approval.

The woman tilted her head further. Anne couldn't see her expression through the sack she was currently sporting upon her head, but if her tone was anything to go by, a degree of poorly hidden worry would be etched upon it. "Did you just knock Dougie out?" She asked.

Anne glanced back towards the man behind her, who she assumed was probably Dougie. The answer was yes, she had, in fact, just knocked Dougie out.

"Just to be clear," Coulson said, staring at Anne disapprovingly. "She did not run that action by me."

Resisting the urge to thrust her hands into her pockets, Anne scowled at the unconscious man. Under her breath, so quiet she herself could barely hear it, she muttered, "He was running away."

In the back of her mind, she could practically hear her father telling her to behave. Never one to disobey an order - even one not explicitly given - she fell silent, instead opting to attempt to heave the now unconscious man to his feet.

Despite his slightly shorter than average stature, Dougie was deceptively heavy. Huffing, she managed to drape Dougie's arms over her shoulders and wrap an arm around his waist, finally managing to haul him to his feet.

Back when Anne had been at the Academy, she had completed such an action a number of times. Granted, it wasn't usually an actual person - usually it was a sack of potatoes, or flour, or whatever it was they stuffed that damn training equipment with. Apparently, knowing how to safely carry an injured agent out of the line of fire was an important skill to have when out on the field.

Dougie may not be an agent, but Anne figured the same actions would probably work regardless. Besides, it wasn't like they could just leave him lying in the street, not when he could very possibly work for the Rising Tide.

"Who is this guy?" Anne asked, staring at the woman as though she expected the woman to be able to see her through the sack upon her head.

"Who is that guy?" The woman repeated, her voice vaguely accusatory. "Who are you? You can't just go around kidnapping people from vans."

Coulson decided to speak then, his voice radiating that firm confidence Anne had grown to associate with him. "We have reason to believe you know exactly who we are."

The woman hesitated - only for a moment, but it wasn't lost upon any of the agents there. "I don't even know that guy," she protested. "You should let him go."

"Now he's definitely coming with us," Coulson said, gesturing for Ward to help Anne with the useless lump she was struggling to carry. Resisting the urge to glower, she allowed Ward to take the weight. She could have handled that herself.

Biting back her complaints, Anne joined Coulson, gripping the woman's handcuffed arms in her hands. The woman didn't protest much, or, at least, not as much as other people had done in the past. Once someone had tried to throw her down the stairs. Anne hadn't liked him much.

This woman, however, would occasionally shrug her shoulders defiantly against Anne's grip, but for the most part allowed Anne to lead her back to the bus with Coulson, Ward, and the unconscious Dougie. Anne was grateful for that, at least.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

     ANNE STOOD PATIENTLY AT THE SIDE OF THE INTERROGATION ROOM, leaning her back against the wall, watching as Ward and Coulson interrogated the woman. Dougie, still knocked out, had been placed under Melinda May's supervision in the now locked briefing room, seeing as it could be seen as a little threatening to have someone's unconscious friend sitting in their interrogation.

     Anne honestly hadn't meant to hit him that hard. There was a tiny pit of guilt forming in the bottom of her stomach, but she tried to swallow it down, filling it was air and thoughts of what she would have for dinner. She hadn't eaten yet today, she suddenly realised. Damn. Between that and the throbbing from her very probably broken nose, Anne was all in all just not having a great day.

     Despite her arguments that it had been necessary, Coulson hadn't approved of her decision to knock Dougie out - and Ward definitely hadn't approved of the decision to force him to carry him all the way back to the bus - and so, much to her annoyance, she'd been told that Coulson and Ward would be leading the interrogation. Graciously, Coulson had allowed her to sit in, but she was under strict instructions to allow Ward to do most of the talking.

     The woman sat upon the chair, hair wildly hanging in front of her face from where the sack had been pulled off her head. "You guys are making a big mistake," she said.

     Ward's response came instantly. "You don't look that big."

     "Sorry for the lack of finesse," Coulson said, as the woman ran her fingers through her hair in a desperate attempt to get it out her face. Watching her, Anne felt the urge to do the same - there was a tiny strand of hair that was tickling at her nose - but she forced herself to stand still and stoic. "Agents Ward and Harper have had a little history with your group, the Rising Tide."

     Ward's jaw set. Anne forced her face to remain apathetic.

     The woman bristled a little, glancing down at the table she was sat opposite. "I don't know what you -"

     Cutting her off, Ward's words snapped her attention away from the table and towards him. "Okay, there are two ways we can do this."

     Evidently finding a small amount of confidence, the woman tilted her head. "Oh," she said, her tone amuse. "Is one of them the easy way?" 

     Anne bit the inside of her lip, fighting against the small twitch of a smile the woman's words had garnered. In Anne's experience, people in interrogations tended to fit into certain categories. Some were scared, some were arrogant, and some hid their nerves behind jokes and comments. Out of everyone, those were always the hardest for Anne to deal with.

     Anne had a certain way of approaching interrogations. Fear, she could exploit. Arrogance, she could twist into getting confessions, because arrogant people never know when to stop talking. Humour, she struggled with. People that made jokes were far harder to get to crack.

     It was immensely frustrating. 

     Of course, it didn't help that it had never been particularly difficult to make Anne laugh. Most things amused her. She was like a child that way. Sometimes, having a sense of humour was great - in an evening, after a mission, there was nothing quite like joking around with other agents, and sharing amusing anecdotes of missions gone by. But in an interrogation? Generally, genuinely laughing was frowned upon.

     Her bubble of amusement grew further when she heard Ward's blunt response. "No." He said, earning a slightly taken aback, almost disappointed 'oh' from the woman.

     "What's your name?" Coulson asked, his voice slightly softer than Ward's.

     Eyes flickering between all three of the agents in the room, the woman gave a defeated answer. "Skye."

     Anne almost went to speak, but Ward got there first, saying the same question she had been about to ask. "What's your real name?"

     Before 'Skye' could answer, Coulson spoke again. "That can wait," he said, never once taking his eyes off Skye. "It's another name we need. A certain hero?"

     Anne watched as Skye inhaled sharply, shaking her head as she gathered her thoughts. "What makes you think I know that?"

     Coulson gave a small smile. "Well," he said, leaning forwards and into the chair on the other side of the table as he tossed a file across. "The phone you filmed the hooded hero with had the same cryptographic signature as a few of the Rising Tide's posts."

     For a moment, Skye seemed for hesitate. Anne watched her every move carefully, crafting a profile of the woman in her mind. Each movement, each word, each breath, Anne was breaking down to its purpose, working towards finding the pressure points to press to get the information the team needed. Provided Agent Coulson allowed her to speak, of course.

     "Wow," Skye eventually breathed. "Yeah, was that a mistake? Or am I now sitting in the centre of your secret headquarters?"

     Back straightening, Anne tensed. No longer leaning against the wall, she locked eyes with Ward, both of them together glancing towards Coulson.

     "What is this," she asked, frowning a little, but the amusement on her face not fading. "A plane? I got inside. By now, you've discovered you can't beat the encryption on my equipment, so... you've got nothing."

     Coulson remained calm, his voice betraying none of the concern Anne could feel eating away at her. Perhaps he didn't feel it. "We've got a fairly strong coincidence," he said, flicking through his file. "You, being on the scene, right before it went up in flames? Want to tell me what my team is gonna find there?"

     Skye's collected demeanour flickered as Coulson continued. Leaning back against the wall, Anne felt her heart rate slow a little.

     "How did you know the hooded man was in the building?" Coulson asked.

     Ward took over the questioning for a moment, and Anne couldn't help but be impressed by how effortlessly the pair had slipped into the whole 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' routine. Coulson would speak calmly, with the same soft smile upon his face Anne had always found comfort in, whenever she'd come into contact with him before. Once Skye had regained some confidence from Coulson's questioning, Ward would cut in, his eyes stern and his voice harsh, shattering all the courage she had built up.

     "Did you blow it up to draw him out?" Ward accused, earning a look of mild disgust from Skye.

     "Did you?" She answered, her tone somehow even more accusatory than Ward's had been.

     Coulson smiled patiently. "That's not our style."

     "I was just kidnapped by your style," Skye pointed out, her voice raising a little. Anne's eyes widened a fraction as she added more analysis to her profile. "Dougie was just knocked out by your style."

     Anne went to protest, but Ward's warning glare in her direction kept her at bay. How many times did she have to point out that he was running away?

     "S.H.I.E.L.D covered up New Mexico, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S," Skye continued, a new level of assertiveness in her voice. "Of course you'd be covering up Centipede."

     For a moment, Coulson's eyes flickered towards Anne and Ward for some kind of aid. Ward turned away, scratching his ear and mouthing 'Centipede?' at the other two agents. Anne simply gave a small shake of her head, so small she wasn't entirely convinced Coulson or Ward would have seen it.

     Skye did. "Holy no way," she said, the grin evident in her voice as she gave a small laugh. "You don't know what that is. Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal and I beat you with a laptop that I won in a bet?"

     "You need to think about your friend." Coulson changed the subject, resting his elbows upon the table. Skye shifted uncomfortably in her seat, glancing away as Coulson continued. "We're not the only ones interested in people with powers. We'd like to contain him, yeah. The next guy will want to exploit him, and the guy after that will want to dissect him."

     Then along came the Bad Cop, leaning threateningly towards Skye as he stared at her, unblinking. "What is Centipede?"

     Whether it was Ward's nonverbal threat, or Coulson's reasonable explanation, something seemed to change Skye's mind about this whole interrogation thing. She rose from her seat, starting to pace a little as she spoke. "It was chatter on the web, and then... gone," she explained. Anne watched her every move, still leaning back against the wall.

     "I traced the access point MAC address to that building," she continued, taking some encouragement from Coulson's nod.

     "What were you after?" Ward asked.

     Skye snapped her head around to face him. "The truth," she replied. "What are you after?"

     Anne leant forwards slightly. Voice flat, Ward spoke before Anne got the chance, giving her yet another look of warning. "World peace."

     Skye gave a small, understanding nod, but Ward wasn't done, slowly walking over to her. "You pseudo-anarchist hacker types love to stir things up, but you're never around for the fallout. People keep secrets for a reason, Skye."

     He towered above her, but to Skye's credit, she didn't back down. Pressing a hand to his chest, she pushed him back a step, never faltering.

     "Well, just because you're reasonable and..." she paused as she pushed him again, eyebrows raising slightly. Anne bit back her grin. "...firm... doesn't mean that you're not an evil, faceless, government tool bag."

     "Wow," Anne said to herself, Coulson this time being the one to give her a warning glance. She shrugged in exasperation, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. What was the point in her being in here, if she was never allowed to speak?

     Ward didn't resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Just give us your guy's name."

     "He's not my guy!" Skye protested, seeming to be growing exasperated by all this. Anne chose not to point out the obvious irony, in that she was the one that could end all this through just giving them their answers.

     Coulson cut between the pair. "You understand he's in danger."

     "Then let me go!" Skye argued, and Anne arched an eyebrow at how her voice was raising. "Let me talk to him! Me, not the T-1000 here."

     "You want to be alone with him," Ward countered, sighing. "Of course."

     He turned his attention to Coulson, pacing away from Skye as he continued. "She's a groupie. All this hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D, tracking powers... She might as well be one of those sweaty cosplay girls crowding around Stark Tower."

     "What? I would -" Skye exclaimed, her face indignant as Coulson stood up. It faded to some kind of resignation as she averted her gaze. "It was one time."

     The door to the interrogation room hissed open as Coulson stepped outside. "Ward," he called, gesturing out the room. When Anne went to follow, he shook his head. "Not you, Agent Harper."

     She went to protest, but Coulson didn't seem in the mood. Inside her mind, she was creating some quite creative names for Coulson and Ward as they left, none of which she would ever dare to say to their faces. Fighting back the urge to scowl, she rested her head against the wall, hearing the door to the room hiss closed again, leaving her alone with Skye inside.

     Silence fell. Anne exhaled, closing her eyes as she waited for Coulson and Ward to come back in.

     "Are you here to play the sympathetic friend card?" Skye asked. "Now the Terminator and your boss are out the room, are they waiting for you to convince me to speak through the power of friendship?"

     Anne's eyes remained closed. "Doubt it," she replied. "Coulson's better suited for the friend card."

     And then the silence was back. Outside the room, Anne could hear nothing. She knew Coulson and Ward would be discussing something, but what it was, Anne had no idea. Was this room soundproofed or something?

     She tried to force her ears to listen beyond their capabilities. Perhaps she'd discover she had secret hearing powers - fairly useless as superpowers go, but at least she'd be able to hear what was going on outside the room.

     No use. She remained superpowerless.

     Although, if she couldn't hear them outside, then there was always the chance they wouldn't be able to hear her in here. Clearly, speaking while they were in the room was out of the question, but if there was a chance she wouldn't be heard... This was a good a time as any to start asking the questions she couldn't help but feel they forgot.

     "Your friend," Anne said, slowly opening her eyes and staring at Skye. "The one I knocked out. Who is he?"

     Skye shook her head. "Nothing to do with any of this," she said. "Honest. He's just a friend that was in my van. Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing, you know?"

     Arching an eyebrow, Anne stepped forwards. "A wrong place, wrong time kind of thing where the wrong time happened to be while you were in the middle of uploading a video containing a man with superpowers on behalf of the Rising Tide?"

     "I can't control when he decides to visit."

     Anne tilted her head. "You do understand how suspicious this whole thing looks, right?"

     "I'm telling the truth."

     Anne went to speak again, but was cut off by Coulson and Ward reentering the room. Sinking back against the wall, she gave a small nod to the pair. There went her questioning attempts.

     Carefully placing a case upon the table, Coulson clicked open the lid, removing the item inside. Anne craned her neck to see, his back shielding most of the scene from her.

     "This," Coulson said, holding a small vial of liquid between his thumb and forefinger. "Is QNB-T16. It's the top shelf martini of sodium pentothal derivatives."

     Skye began to fidget in her seat, preparing to stand as Coulson fitted the vial into a jet injector. Anne wasn't sure what her plan would have been after that. The door was locked, and she had three highly trained agents in the room with her. Either way, she never got the chance to find out. Ward forced Skye back into her seat, his hand firm upon her shoulder.

     "It's a brand new and extremely potent truth drug," Coulson continued. "Don't worry. The effects only last about an hour."

     Anne's eyebrows twitched a little as she listened, catching Ward's eye as he released Skye's shoulder, walking back to join Coulson.

     "And then you'll have a nice little nap," Ward said, turning back to face Skye. "And we'll have all the answers to our - hey!"

     Coulson shot Ward with the truth drug. Glaring, Ward turned to Coulson, hand massaging the area he had just been injected through. "What the hell?"

     Anne could barely resist the urge to laugh as she watched Coulson feign concern. "I'm sorry, did that hurt?"

     "No," Ward said, removing his hand. "But you've lost your mind. You should never do that to a member of your team. And yes, it did hurt a little bit, but I always try to mask my pain in front of beautiful women because I think it makes me seem more masculine."

     Skye's eyebrows shot up. Anne bit the inside of her lip again, exchanging a glance with Coulson.

     "My God, this stuff works fast," Ward stated. Face the epitome of irritation, he slumped into the vacant chair, glares flickering between the two agents in the room with him.

     "Don't trust us?" Coulson asked, moving towards the door. "Ask him whatever you'd like. Harper, with me."

     Anne tried to protest, unable to fight back her grin any longer. Turning her face away from Skye's line of sight, she raised her eyebrows at Coulson. "Can I stay?" She asked, hesitating to walk to the door.

     "No." Coulson's response came instantly, nodding sternly out the door he was holding open for her. Screwing up her nose, she did as she was told.

     "Wait a minute," Ward protested as the other two agents left the room. "Wait, you can't just — this is definitely not protocol —"

     His words were cut off as Coulson shut the door in his face.

     Now she was out the room, Anne relaxed a little. The grin upon her face grew wider as she leant upon the closed door, staring at her new boss.

     "You're getting a little too much amusement out of this, Agent Harper," Coulson said, although his words didn't sound too accusatory.

     "Sorry, sir," she said, not even trying to hide her small smirk. "It's a clever plan, though. Give her just enough information to keep her satisfied, and then use that to get what we want."

     "I don't know what you're on about," Coulson replied.

     Anne arched an eyebrow. "You and I both know that wasn't truth serum, sir. It doesn't exist. Our jobs would be a lot easier if it did. Which means Ward is in there, giving Skye what she believes is our truth, in exchange for her actual truth. Like I said, it's a very clever plan."

     "You saw through it," Coulson pointed out.

     "I'm a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, sir," Anne replied, her voice monotonous. "I'd be genuinely offended if truth serum had been hidden from me for all these years, and I've been busting my ass working out the best way to interrogate someone when I could just... truth serum them." Then, after a brief pause, "Besides, that's like... my family's signature move. Give them a little information to trick them into giving you a load. Make them trust you, so they don't realise what you're doing until it's too late. It's textbook Nicholson Technique — though, admittedly, a fairly ingenious adaptation of it."

     Something close to pride flickered across Coulson's face as Anne spoke, and she felt herself grow warmer. "What?" She asked.

      "I know you probably get this a lot, Agent Harper," he replied. "But you become more and more like your father each day."

     The smile Anne gave was small, and reluctant, but it was there. It was a different smile to the amused grin she gave when she realised Ward was about to be put in a somewhat embarrassing situation, and a different smile to the one she hid each time Skye cracked a joke in the interrogation - it was softer, for a start. Softer, and gentler, and for the first time, because of her own self.

     "Go sort your nose out," Coulson said, nodding back down the small hallway. "Ward's going to have to pretend to have a nap after Skye's finished, so we're going to have to cover Dougie's interrogation together, when he wakes up. I'd really rather you didn't sit there with blood on your shirt during that one."

     Absentmindedly, Anne poked at her already throbbing nose. Ouch. Yeah, she should probably do something about that.

     "I'll go put some ice on it in a moment," she said.

     Coulson fixed her a disapproving look. "Now, Agent Harper," he said. "I know that if I leave you alone, you'll press your ear against that door and try to listen to whatever Agent Ward's saying."

     Backing away from the door, Anne scowled slightly. Coulson simply shook his head.

      "I've worked with your father for far too long to not know what you're planning."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

a/n: yes this chapter is nearly 12k words long i'm very sorry. anyway hope you enjoyed this chapter, see you soon! be sure to vote and comment, and have a great day.