white flag, steve rogers

001. agent daniels

chapter one
001. agent daniels!

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    SHE HAS BEEN told she had many faces. 

    Like a snake, she shed her skin to reveal new scales. A new coat of armour for somebody different than she once had been. She had many names, many aliases▬she had many stories to fall back on if she ever needed to. She had safe houses, she had bags full of identification, money and easy escape routes. She had everything she needed to shed the skin of one life, and step out into another. Those who knew her called her Agent Daniels▬infamously, she had a few other names: Agent Janus, was one▬the Roman God who had two heads and two options to choose; many did not gaze upon she and consider that name. Most often, they called her Red Viper▬a snake with potent venom on her tongue, who shed her skin and whose bite was fast and quick; not many saw her after it. There were many deadly serpents in the deserts, shrubs, waters, homes, trees, industrial cities and mountains in Australia▬her name represented them all; or more importantly, the danger they held. One bite from the most formidable▬the most venomous in the world, gave the victim only hours to race against time to make sure they lived. 

    She was the Inland Taipan, she was a King Brown, she was the Tiger Snake and she was the Red-bellied Black▬each and every one of them made the Red Viper; made her as deadly as she was. 

    But her most infamous name, was her very own.

    Pamela Daniels.

    A name she did not own. Just like everything else, that girl was a mask, too. 

    That was the scales of a girl the woman now never truly shedded, no matter how many faces she took on to try. And she was great at finding things. She found everything she wanted. The one thing Agent Daniels has never found, was how to get back what she had lost. 

    And now, that girl has never stopped looking. 

    These days, she made sure she searched for things she could actually find. People, documents, locations▬she took on whatever face she needed to complete whatever mission she was given. She found what she needed to find for others without little thought on what the consequences were on anybody else. It made her the perfect S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. If Fury needed something done, he asked the Red Viper▬because she will do it, and she will succeed without any questions asked. No one might understand why she was so determined▬some called it unconditional loyalty, others called it a lack of empathy; none were privy to the sad, pitiful truth.

    The reality was: not asking questions was easy. Doing her job was easy. Going in and getting out was easy. Getting attached to somebody? Risking the possibility of losing them? Finding something to believe in▬the nativity of purpose and duty, that was more dangerous than any snake venom. She knew that better than anyone. 

    Agent Daniels was placed in on the chess board wherever she was needed: a pawn, a castle, a knight▬she could be anything. Director Fury required an asset such as that. And it was great, because now, there was not a day that existed where she was Pamela▬that girl who had bright hopes and lost them all could be locked away under a new name, a new ID, a new mission ... anything. 

    Today, what she needed to find was much like any other. Working in S.H.I.E.L.D. meant they relied on compartmentalisation. There were so many secrets, that to make sure no one exposed them all, no one knew them all. On this quinjet, Daniels knew what she was here for, and that was different to the S.T.I.K.E. agent beside her, and that was also completely different to the Communications technician behind her. They weren't a team, they were a machine; each of them were a part that had a role and a job▬as long as they each did that job, the machine kept working. If one person lost sight of their job and tried to help another, the machine ends up lacking, it ends up failing▬at least, that was how Fury always explained it to her.