𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍|
— S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, The Pacific Ocean.
— 8:00 a.m., April 16, 2015.

𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐗 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒, Wes had drank three cups of coffee and a red bull. Despite the excessive amount of caffeine running through his veins, his eyelids still flickered and tried to convince him to sleep. His heart on the other hand, was rapid, shown through the nonstop pulsing of his leg.

Williams took a seat beside him and immediately noticed the vibration of the table. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, Williams."

"Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't tell you," Rhodes added her own input as she sat on the other side of Williams.

"Perhaps it isn't any of your business," Wes suggested in a manner that Rhodes did not take well at all.

She looked over at him, the frown on her face increasing with each passing second. "As a member of this team, I think it does."

"Settle this on your own time," Pierce interrupted the argument as he entered the room, but was unable to cut through the tension. Consequently, Williams shrunk back in his seat, stuck in the middle of the two. Satisfied with the silence, Pierce set down a pair of files on the table before turning on the holographic table.

"So what's this about?" Wes impatiently asked. He was forced to stifle back the yawn that had begun to tickle his throat.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. got a tip about how to track down our elusive mole," Pierce explained while the holograms on the table pulled up matching information. "Our source has gotten us all the way to Greece—"

Williams raised his hand and hesitantly interrupted. "Weren't we just there?"

Pierce nodded his head. "Seeing as you had recent experience, I volunteered this team to handle this assignment. Especially since you may have already had contact with the mole itself."

"We lost the kid though," Rhodes reminded him.

Pierce shook his head. "There was someone else. You mentioned interrupting a transaction, Wesley?"

Wes slowly nodded his head, electing to ignore that Pierce had used his name. "Yeah... I never got a good look though."

Pierce raised an eyebrow, but didn't contradict him. "To start, this mission is strictly recon. Once you have enough information to discreetly bring in the mole alive, call in back up and special ops will handle it from there."

"I thought that S.T.R.I.K.E. hadn't been reinstated yet?" Wes asked, clearly confused as to who special ops within the spy organization was.

"We're in the process of developing other specialized units—"

"But you aren't cleared to disclose such information at this time," Wes finished his statement with a wave of his hand and an annoyed eye roll.

"Correct." Pierce nodded in agreement, but offered a look of sympathy that expressed his wish to explain. However, his tone shifted to amusement as he turned off the holographic table and extended the USB drive that held all the necessary information. "So, does the Wolf Pack accept?"

Wes's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "The Wolf Pack?"

Pierce nodded his head. "Taken from your previous moniker. I believe you were known as the 'Lone Wolf' around here. You didn't know?"

"Williams came up with it," Rhodes added on with a pleased smile. "He thought it only made sense since you were put in charge."

Wes looked around the room at the individuals now staring at him for confirmation, or any reaction really. Delaying the inevitable, he accepted the USB from Pierce and looked down at it as he played with it between his fingers.

"Wolf Pack accepts." The smile on his face was pained.

His ears began to ring as he filtered out the cheers from the group. Additionally, he could feel the heat rise into his face, not out of anger or embarrassment, but some sort of hot flash. He pulled at the collar of his shirt to try and allow the airflow of the room to cool him off. None of his teammates seemed to notice his discomfort as they left the room. His vision began to blur and his eyelids desperately drooped. He could feel the USB slip from his grasp and fall to the ground, but he was unable to stop it.

"You are sleep deprived."

Wes turned his head and faced the small android that had remained behind.

"You are severely sleep deprived," Q-T repeated his previous statement.

"I'm fine."

"Out of the thirty-four known signs of deceptions recorded in my database, you have exhibited twelve." Q-T remained expressionless, but perhaps that was because the small android didn't have any versatile facial expressions to use.

"Shouldn't you be with Williams?" Wes asked looking around for the bot's owner.

"Sixteen."

Wes rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you need something Q-T? Or did you run out of other people to bother?"

"Twenty." Q-T tilted his head. "You are perspiring irregularly."

Wes used his shirt to rub his forehead which didn't help his hot flash, nor did it help with the pounding in his head that he was beginning to experience. "I'm fine, Q-T. When are we scheduled to leave?"

"Standard or military time?"

"Either works, Q-T." Wes left the room as he wasn't getting any cooler, just more annoyed.

The android followed him from the room. Realizing that he couldn't keep up by walking, Q-T ignited the rocket boosters attached to his feet. "At twenty-one hundred hours... or 9:00 p.m."

"Thank you, Q-T," Wes replied sarcastically as he continued down the hall back toward his room.

"Through your use of sarcasm, I feel as if you did not actually mean it."

Although Wes chose to block him out, Q-T continued to speak the entire walk back to his room. After opening the door, Wes turned around just in time to prevent the android from following him inside.

"This has been a very... you know what you're a machine, I can't hurt your feelings." Wes flipped off the mental switch that prevented him from lashing out at the people he worked with. "You've been a wonderful pain in the ass, but I need to pack now, Q-T."

There was a moment of silence between them. "You need sleep."

"Maybe later," Wes turned around, prepared to shut the door, "but now I really need—"

Wes froze and winced as a brief stabbing pain formed in the back of his neck. He reached a hand to massage the sore spot, but instead pulled out a small cylinder embedded in his skin. He stumbled backward as the feeling of dizziness grew overwhelming. It was seconds before he couldn't see straight and tripped over air. Although his head slammed against the floor, he'd already lost the feeling in his face.

"You need sleep, Agent Davis," Q-T's robotic voice warbled, "Do not worry. I am here to care for your needs."

"Did you... drug me?" Wes's voice slurred as his eyes fluttered.

Q-T answered his question, but Wes's mind failed to process what had been said. His head lolled to the side as his defenses shut down and his vision faded entirely. His vision and hearing were gone, along with most of his other senses; however, he was able to feel as Q-T covered him with a blanket and patted his arm before he completely lost consciousness.

———

He slowly stirred and woke up extremely disoriented; however, his senses grew alert at the first sign of turbulence. Wes looked around the interior of the quinjet in confusion. He groaned and rubbed the back of his head. He might not have had a concussion, but he could definitely feel a bump hidden in his hairline that served as the only evidence of his earlier fall.

"How did I get here?" Wes tried to rub the remaining grogginess from his eyes.

"Hey, look at that." Rhodes grinned as she looked over in his direction. "Sleeping Beauty's awake."

"Q-T said he was unable to wake you up," Williams explained, "so he brought you aboard and just let you sleep."

"Did he now?" Wes asked as he eyed the robot warily. Q-T offered an innocent wave, but he saw through the act. He knew what that android was capable of, even if no one else did. "Where are we?"

"About five minutes from the drop-off point," Rhodes replied then added, "Hope you don't mind that we took a look through the file while you were out."

He shook his head. "That's fine. I'd prefer to go over the files on my own anyway."

"I wouldn't mind briefing you," Williams offered.

Wes shook his head. "No need. I'm fine." Q-T's head whirled around and Wes quickly decided to change his choice of words. "I can handle it."

"O-okay then..." Williams looked curiously between Wes and Q-T as if he had missed something.

As stated, within five minutes they had reached the drop-off point. Within the next hour, they checked in to their designated hotel and set up their equipment. By the time two hours had passed, Rhodes had made a dinner run and was back with groceries.

"What is that?" Wes raised an eyebrow at the four bags she set down on the counter.

"Dinner," she curtly replied. She didn't pay him much attention as she began to wash the vegetables that she'd brought back.

"Maybe one day it'll be," Wes retorted. "Was there not a McDonald's that you could have stopped by? You know, something quick and easy."

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "I'm in Greece. I'm not eating American trash by choice."

"Ooo, peppers. Don't mind if I do." Williams had briefly stepped away from setting up the final bits of his equipment from the other room. As he reached to take the freshly washed vegetable, Rhodes smacked his hand away.

"Were the two of you raised in a barn?" Rhodes asked rhetorically before slamming a bowl of potatoes and a knife on the table in front of Wes. "Make yourself helpful."

"Yes, ma'am." He sarcastically saluted. She caught the gesture and smacked him upside the head as she walked back in to the miniature kitchen that accompanied their hotel room. "Ow. What happened to respect for the team leader."

"Respect has to be earned," she retorted, quoting him from a few months earlier.

He rolled his eyes. "Very funny."

"I try," she sneered and went back to preparing the meal.

It didn't take long for both Wes and Williams to be kicked out of the kitchen. Rhodes wasn't willing to burn down the entire hotel after Williams caught a towel on fire, accidentally leaving it on the stove. Q-T on the other hand proved himself useful. An hour later, the savory aroma of dinner wafted through the air out to the balcony where Wes and Williams waited.

Proud of what she served, she added a dramatic flair as she tossed the slightly scorched towel over her shoulder. "Dinner is served."

"Smells amazing!" Williams exclaimed as he inhaled the fumes.

"Are you gonna actually taste it?" Rhodes asked. "Or do you just plan to absorb it through your nose?"

She offered them each a fork and eagerly waited for feedback. The chicken immediately melted in Wes's mouth and the vegetables were bursting with flavor. He did his best to conceal how pleasurable the meal was though.

"Well?"

Wes nodded his head. "It's satisfactory."

"Satisfactory?" she asked, failing to hide the insult of her tone.

Wes nodded his head. "Better than the commissary—"

"Would it kill you to give a real compliment every now and then?" she interrupted, throwing her arms up in frustration.

"It's good." Wes ceded and offered a tiny, but genuine smile. "You did good."

"Um, no." She shook her head and demanded more. "I did amazing. Admit it, this is way better than any fast-food would have been."

"If he won't, I will," Williams agreed with his mouth full.

Wes chuckled under his breath. "Alright fine, but just so Williams doesn't choke trying to appease your ego. It's really good... maybe even a little bit amazing."

Rhodes immediately looked over at Williams. "Did you get that? You got that right?"

Williams eagerly nodded his head. "Had Q-T take a voice memo and everything."

Wes rolled his eyes as he finished off the last bite of his meal, but the smile remained. He picked up his empty plate and headed back inside to wash off his dish. "Don't take too long to finish up. We've got a busy day tomorrow and I don't want either of you using the excuse that you're jet-lagged."

"Sir, yes, sir." Rhodes saluted playfully. "The alpha has spoken."

"Seriously, go the bed." Wes shook his head, rolling his eyes once more. However, as he entered his chosen room, he released a gentle chuckle at the surprisingly pleasant evening spent together with the team. A decent start to the assignment, if only that meant the rest of the mission would go as planned. In the meantime, he'd just go over the information that he hadn't had time to earlier.