Mirage // Marvel Universe

clearance-level_05

I figure if I pretend to be nodding off, maybe the others will leave me be. I'm just not ready to talk about the mission yet. My nose hurts whenever I breathe or speak and my mind is still catching up to everything that's happened today. I adjust my head on my hand, my annoyance at the bumps and jostles of the quinjet making it hard to fall asleep.

Gregor's blank face is burned into the back of my eyelids. It just stares and it stares and it stares, all while choking on its own blood. I'm still reminding myself that this is part of the job— this is what I signed up for— but the more I repeat it in my mind, the more its meaning seems to fade.

Did I sign up for this? I think about the night SHIELD discovered me. I was so young, eighteen-years-old and happy to be attending the university I had worked every summer in high school to pay for after my parents kicked me out. I thought I'd graduate and get a job in programming, but SHIELD had other plans for me. I know I never really had a choice in the matter considering that I was a cyber-criminal, but sometimes I daydream about what my life would be like without SHIELD— without all the burdens that came with being an agent. Without any blood on my hands.

"You alright, Hagino?" Natasha asks. I pry one eye open, giving her a tired hum in response. "That kind of mission, huh?"

"I think I'll sleep for a week," I half grunt. She gestures to the seat next to me and I sit up straight. "How long until we land?"

Sitting down beside me, Natasha brushes her red curls over her shoulder. "Not long. We're almost over Manhattan."

I sigh. "Can't wait to get the ol' Director Fury run-down."

"What do you mean?"

"I broke protocol," I tell her, "I'm not even a field agent and I've already broken protocol."

Natasha scoffs. "If SHIELD wanted someone who followed orders, they wouldn't have recruited you."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Nat, really appreciate it."

Rolling her eyes, she nudges my arm. "I've never met a spy like you, Hagino," Natasha repeats the words she said to me the night we first spoke. "You came back for me. I'm not sure many would." There's a hint of confusion in her voice, something most wouldn't notice from behind her walls of easy confidence.

I furrow my brow. "Of course I came back for you, Nat." Putting my hand on her's as she did before, I look her in the eyes. "I'll always come back for you." We lock stares for a short while and I see it; I see the glint of something warm but remorseful— almost pained— in her eyes. The jet jostles and Natasha pulls her hand away and stands abruptly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I—" She hugs her arms across her chest. "We should be ready for debriefing when we land. Do you think you can have the files prepared?"

"Yeah, but Nat—"

"Good," she says, cutting me off, "We're running behind the clock so we should be prepared to meet up with Coulson upon landing."

Then, she turns away to sit with Clint in the cockpit, and once again, I'm left with the feeling of cold absence. I press my fingers into my temples, refocusing on the mission. Files, truly the best part of SHIELD.

My hands clack on a keyboard, navigating my home screen cluttered with long-forgotten files and unnamed folders with ease. I'm pretty sure no one could figure out where I put anything on here, so, in some way, it's a bit like data protection.

Clint and Natasha sit on the other end of the conference room with Deputy Director Hill and Agent Coulson I sit on the far end closest to the outlet and projector hook-up for my laptop. I haven't really been paying attention, a product of my exhaustion. Again, I pull up the information I retrieved from the arms dealers' servers in the Norwegian power plant. Still, I know this is the kind of information SHIELD can use to take down the entire web of arms dealers in America.