In which Agents of SHIELD and Shakespeare collide, with sometimes ridiculous results.
Disclaimer: I'm alive, so I'm not Shakespeare, and I don't own any of Marvel's assorted properties.
Despite the vaunted titles earned by virtue of being among the less than a dozen trustworthy members of SHIELD, the team spends a lot of time in the field. This, Trip supposes, is a natural consequence of there being less than a dozen trustworthy members of SHIELD. He can't really complain - he's not hopeless at the paperwork inherent in running an organization like SHIELD, but he's happier with his boots on the ground, in the thick of things.
They're after a group of former SHIELD/HYDRA agents who've gone into "private security" at a biotech company in Cambridge, tucked in Harvard's shadow. Linking the words HYDRA and biotech makes Coulson and May nervous, but they don't have any proof that these guys are actually doing anything nefarious. Hence today's mission. May and Skye are sneaking into the server room to see if they can dig up anything, with Coulson, Simmons and Trip hanging out at a cafe with patio seating across the street as backup.
If all goes well, the backup team might not have to even do anything - this practically counts as vacation.
May and Skye are playing a high-powered exec and her PA respectively, and from what's coming over the coms they're carrying it off beautifully. Trip considers his coffee, then looks back up at Coulson and Simmons, leaning in like he's listening intently and projecting earnest college student. With Simmons in cardigan and skirt and Coulson wearing a fuzzy sweater and his glasses, they look like a pair of TAs meeting with their professor.
"Success!" Skye hisses. "Alright guys, I'm in. Hello, what's this?"
"What've you found?" Coulson asks.
"So the HYDRA goon squad is really here as security, that's legit. What's a little less legit is that they're specifically guarding a Dr. Hélène Segal, who looks like she's gotten to the point in her research that she needs live subjects and can't get the grants."
"At which point HYDRA either takes her research or offers her the opportunity to continue her experiments," Simmons mutters.
"I think taking's the order of the day for this one, but I'm not sure."
"Download what you can and head to the rendezvous, we'll discuss this in further detail then," Coulson says.
There's a five minute wait, which Simmons fills by chattering about a paper she read recently, and then May comes on the line. "We have our exit, but could use a distraction."
"What do you need?" Coulson asks.
"The people watching the front doors - I need you to draw their eyes."
Coulson nods. "We can do that. Give me two minutes, then you should be clear." He turns to the table. "How's your Shakespeare?"
"It's been a few years," Simmons says, and Trip nods agreement.
"MIT has transcripts of all the plays posted online - go to Much Ado About Nothing, act one, scene one," Coulson gives them a moment to pull out their phones and do so. "Ready?"
There's a grin on his face, and Trip wonders exactly how much fun Coulson's having with this. And then he quickly drops his eyes to his phone, because he honestly hasn't read Shakespeare since college lit and Coulson's diving right in, voice pitched to carry.
"I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina." He's got a hand up, holding an imaginary piece of paper.
Simmons is clearly more on the ball than Trip, because she picks up the response cleanly. "He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him."
Trip scrolls down quickly, skimming the conversation between Leonato and the Messenger to find the next character's lines, and comes to a halt at Beatrice's. He raises an eyebrow at Coulson, who raises one back, still waving around his imaginary letter and clearly enjoying himself hugely. Trip shrugs, then waits for Coulson to expound on the benefits of weeping for joy over schadenfreude.
He may not be a terribly convincing Beatrice, but at least he's on cue and loud enough for their rapidly gathering audience to hear. "I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?"
Simmons chokes back a laugh, "I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort."
There's a line that's technically Hero's, but Coulson skips Leonato's next line and bogarts Hero's instead. "My niece means Signior Benedick of Padua."
Simmons, smiling, addresses Trip, "O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was." Clearly she finds this exactly as funny as Coulson does.
Well, let it never be said that Antoine Triplett can't rise to the occasion when it presents itself. He leans back in his chair and gets expansive with his gestures. "He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt." He leans forward again, dropping an elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. "I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing."
Simmons raises an eyebrow at this, but when the Messenger's next few lines appear does her best to play bemused but professional. Coulson/Leonato is clearly trying not to laugh, so Trip escalates a little, messing around with his empty coffee cup. Someone in the crowd is recording them on their phone.
Coulson is doing better at keeping up with the (apparently memorized) script and listening to May and Skye than Trip is, so it's a bit of a surprise when the man stands up during Simmons' next line ("He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.") and gestures them out of their chairs.
Trip slides to his feet, doing his best to imitate his teenaged female cousins when he says "O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be cured." He trails along after Coulson with Simmons as the older man leads them to the corner, where a narrow alleyway cuts between the buildings.
"I will hold friends with you, lady," Simmons tells him.
"Do, good friend," Trip teases back.
Coulson chuckles, turning to face the younger agents. "You will never run mad, niece."
"No," Trip agrees cheerfully. "Not till a hot January."
Coulson slashes his hand sideways, cutting off Simmons' next line. "Good," he says softly. "Turn, bow, then down the alley and back to meet up with Skye and May."
Trip and Simmons do as told, Simmons grinning at the applause from their small audience.
When they get back to the van, Skye is grinning. "Coulson, you never told me you did Shakespeare!"
May, leaning against the wall, is smiling. "It's been a while since you used that little technique. How many do you still remember?"
"Just bits and pieces," Coulson shrugs.
"You've done this before then, sir?" Simmons asks.
"I think my favorite is the time you did Hamlet's 'What a piece of work is man' at an embassy dinner," May tells Coulson, who groans a little.
"I'll never live that down, will I?"
"Now you definitely won't!" Skye chirps, and Trip starts laughing.
A/N: You can find the transcripts at http (colon)/ .edu /
Thanks to teacup_of_doom and rusting_roses for enabling/beta-reading for me.