sparrow // mcu

chapter 2 - kill

Imogen woke to the smell of bacon frying, the hissing and sputtering filtering through the wall between her and the kitchen, accompanied by the quiet murmur of a TV. Groaning, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, not ready to face the day or the man she was supposed to...well. She truly had no idea what she was going to do once she did get up – he'd made it clear last night that he'd want her gone this morning, unless she could convince him to let her stay longer. She wasn't ready to face him yet, and she wasn't going to be ready in the twenty or so minutes it would take to haul herself out of bed and dress for the day, so her options were limited to leaving, or convincing him to let her stay.

Not that leaving was really an option. Even if her pride would let her run away, HYDRA certainly wouldn't, and while she could take on Eliot Rockwell without a second thought, his brother was a lot more powerful than him (though she would never admit to being afraid of him).

The scent of breakfast cooking persisted, until she could stand it no longer and forced herself to rise, dressing as slowly as she could. Her stomach growling, she chased the promise of bacon and coffee out into the kitchen, sliding into a seat along the breakfast bar. Clint stood on the other side, gulping down coffee straight from the pot. "Morning kid," he grunted between mouthfuls, sliding a plate of bacon and eggs across the bench.

"Not a kid," she reminded him, eyeing the almost-empty coffee pot in his hands and wondering how much of it he had already drunk. He didn't look ashamed.

"Whatever." He emptied the last dregs of coffee into the sink and started to make another pot. "Want some coffee?"

"No thanks," she replied, scooping up some of the egg on her plate. "I wouldn't want to deprive you."

He turned sharply to stare at her, affronted. "Are you saying I drink too much coffee?"

She eyed him speculatively, chewing her eggs slowly. "No?" she replied unconvincingly, mouth still half full. He huffed an unhappy sigh and turned back to his coffee, and she stifled the urge to laugh, filling her mouth again before she could make a sound. Her phone went off in her pocket a moment later, distracting her before she could torment him further.

It was her brother, Will, she realised as she pulled it out and opened her messages. Who's your mark? the message read. He'd caught wind of her being on a mission then, probably from Sanchez or one of his other friends who happened to be at the same base as her. Will had a lot of friends about the place, HYDRA or otherwise, and he'd always used them to keep an eye on her no matter where she was sent. Sometimes, she thought all her problems would be solved if she just had his talent for making people like him.

"You know, you never told me your name," she directed at Clint suddenly, ignoring the message and sliding her phone back into her pocket. "Or what you do – did – in SHIELD."

He turned again and leant back against the bench, jaw tightening. She could see his mind turning through his options – for all he was playing the fool, he was as sharp as a whistle underneath that façade. "Name's Clint," he said finally, slowly, like he still wasn't convinced this was information he should be giving out.

"That's it?" she pressed. "Just Clint?"

He nodded. "That's all you need to know."

"Right."

In the heavy silence that followed, Imogen found herself having to turn away from his uncomfortable gaze, focusing instead on the TV nearby. A morning talk show was playing, the sort of show she usually abhorred watching, in the middle of discussing an attack on the Triskelion in DC; a SHIELD building, she realised with a jolt. The HYDRA takeover had not been swift or secret at all then, if it was on daytime TV already. The footage shown was just as jarring as the topic, snippets of ground coverage of three enormous helicarriers firing on each other and then falling into the Potomac playing across the screen. She'd missed all of this happening the day before, with everything else that had been going on, and it was startling to see that perhaps everything had not gone as smoothly as Rockwell thought it had.