Disclaimer: All characters recognizable belong to some other party who is not playing with them now anyway.
Agent Chris Larabee was not a man known for his endless wells of patience. His explosive temper and violent nature made most people wary of him, even the men of his team. Director Fury allowed for it, as Chris mostly had it handled, and his effectiveness in the field couldn't be denied.
He and his team had the last week off, recovering from mission injuries. It had been discovered in the past that Larabee's team did not play well with others, despite how briefly they'd been together, and preferred operating with all of their members. Fury had been in a good mood, Larabee hadn't been, and the director hadn't wanted him to ruin it for him. He allowed Larabee to have his way because he was too much of a pain otherwise.
They were all meeting this afternoon, to touch base and prepare for a possible, light mission as backup security. Chris was waiting for the others with a cup of coffee, a tablet of schematics for the operation, and Vin, who'd silently slipped in and taken a seat at the oval-shaped table.
"Things been good?" Chris asked.
"Been fine," was Vin's easy answer, and all dropped into comfortable silence.
Chris had found an excellent sniper and a good friend in one Vin Tanner, formerly with Marine special ops. He'd read the younger man's file, met him once, and immediately wanted him for his team. The transition from solider stationed in active combat zones to agent living in a three story walk-up had been less than smooth, but the team had done everything they could to help him adjust.
He still had a habit of ghosting up on people, but his team was sure he just thought it was funny to watch them flail.
Reading over the file on his tablet, Chris worked out who he'd need where, taking into account their injuries and personalities. Keep Buck away from the women, Ezra away from the high-rollers, JD away from people. JD, having been junior technical support before joining - that is, hacking and putting himself on - the team, was trying very hard to get himself field ready, and according to Buck, "shot straight in the face." The kid had potential, but he was so young and green sometimes, Chris just wanted to shake him.
JD and Buck were staying in the surveillance van, Chris decided, maybe Ezra too unless he could properly intimidate the man into behaving. He doubted it, but he'd try.
He figured where he'd put himself, Vin, Nathan, and Josiah. The sharpshooter would provide cover from outside easily enough; the building had floor-to-ceiling reinforced windows, and Vin could request the ammo necessary to pierce that. Nathan, he would keep close to the action. Their 'medic' blended easily enough though he was hardly an Ezra. He was an earnestly personable man that people took completely at face value.
Their medic was a genius of biological studies with doctorates in fields no one could properly pronounce except for Ezra and Josiah. When he stitched them up and set broken bones, he was constantly telling them that he wasn't that kind of doctor. He was still their medic though.
Special Agent Josiah Sanchez was known for his easy-going, even tempered ways. He had a somewhat fatalistic view, being weighed down with the guilt of his past. But he was a kind, gentle man.
Most of the time…
There were three situations where Josiah became completely unreasonable that Chris had encountered so far. When he was completely, two-shots-away-from-alcohol-poisoning drunk, when it concerned his entirely questionable taste in women, and when in heavy traffic.
Footsteps preceded the arrival of Doctor Nathan Jackson, who looked completely relaxed and rested without a week of worrying over what new ways his team would find to hurt themselves.
"Nathan? Where's Ezra?" Chris asked.
Ezra had let one of the targets, an Chitauri-equipped enhanced mercenary, dislocate his shoulder again and sprained his ankle. All of them were difficult patients, but the Southern grifter did his level best to make everyone of them as unhappy as he was. Particularly Nathan because he was the one who'd yank the limb back into place with, as Ezra had accused, entirely too much cheer.
The man whined like a five year old, and God forbid he was wounded for someone else's sake. He absolutely milked situations like that bone dry.
As it was, he was supposed to be taking it easy with his arm in a sling, and Chris had told Nathan to bring him in.
"I can't deal with an injured Ezra for long periods in an enclosed space. Josiah offered to bring him." He shrugged.
Chris felt a moment's anger at Nathan for not as he'd been told, then concern for Ezra. Then the anger was back, because he was concerned for Ezra of all people, and he stood from the table with a dark look on his face. Nathan didn't step back, but he flinched and braced himself, unsure of the cause of Chris' anger but fully aware that it was directed at him.
"Hold up there, cowboy," Vin drawled, calm and lazy as you please, "Nathan didn't know. It was an out of the way trip for him anyway, and nobody told him. Ease up."
Neither of the other two men quite relaxed, but Chris snatched up the landline on the table and punched numbers, setting it to speaker. It rang and went to voicemail.
"Josiah's not answering," Chris said.
"He wouldn't. He's driving." Vin reasoned.
Chris was already halfway through Ezra's number when Nathan eased his way fully into the room and took a seat near the door and away from Chris.
The phone rang twice before it was picked up.
"Ezra." Chris said.
There was a beat of silence with everyone looking at the phone intently, even Nathan who wasn't sure what was going on, only that it was bad.
He had no idea.
"Let the Lord smite the wicked and the fool who rides three miles with his blinker on. Where are you turning, into the guardrail? Please do it, I'd love to see your car burst into flames."
Nathan stared at the phone, mouth agape. Was that Josiah? Vin winced and Chris went ramrod straight and tense.
They hear a quiet, deliberately light voice say, "Chris."
Chris knew that tone and coupled with the use of his given name, he knew that Ezra was distressed, to say the least. That was the voice Chris heard over the comms before an op went sideways.
"Chris, should I have need of transport in the future, I will take a taxi, if you don't mind."
"How far away are you?"
"Too far. We seem to have -"
"There is a special circle of Hell for people who don't use their signal lights. They are there for a reason."
" -run into a bit of traffic. Josiah is...he is...he says to put the phone on speaker."
It wasn't before?
"Hey, Chris, listen," Josiah said, "I think we're going to be a little late. Sorry but somehow we ended up on the road with all the people who failed their driving test."
"As long as everyone gets where they're going safe, Josiah, that's all that matters," Chris said pointedly calm, tone easy and reasonable.
"Oh, well, sure, Chris, but accidents happen. As a matter of fact…"
"Oh, merciful Lord," Ezra murmured, and Chris thought it sounded like the beginning of an actual, earnest prayer.
"Is everything all right?"
"Chris, how much leeway do we have when it comes to shooting civilians?" Josiah asked, in that same, even tone as always. It was still deep and soothing until you actually paid attention to the words coming out of his mouth. "With the way he's driving, we might be able to consider him a terrorist."
"Josiah, just calm down."
"I'm calm. I have never been more calm or filled with certainty of God's timing. He put me just here at this time for a reason."
"Josiah..."
"To rebuke those that don't understand that yield means yield, not stop when traffic is clearly fifty feet back and creeping. You could have made that and we could all be getting on with our lives. Chris, this man is holding us hostage."
"No, he's not, you need to do your meditative breathing."
"What I need is for you to run a plate. Do you have a pen handy? This kind of driving is definitely a threat to world security. We need to get this guy."
Nathan gave Vin a speaking look. Vin just shook his head.
"I'm not running the plate, Josiah."
"Fine, that's fine. I'll remember it. Is this guy tailgating me? Ezra, do you have your weapon on you? Just the little one, for a warning shot. I'm sure it won't go all the way through the windshield."
"Chris, I can't...imagine what I did to you that deserves this, but I am sorry. Make this stop please.
"God, the next person who cuts across four lanes of traffic, I pray that you flip the car and let it be an example to the rest of these Philistines."
"It'll be all right, Ezra. You're gonna be fine," Vin spoke up for the first time. Probably. The Southern boy could more than likely fast talk Josiah out of anything too drastic. Most times he could, at least.
"Vin? Who else is there? Is Buck there? Send him here with a chopper."
"We're not sending a chopper," Chris said.
Vin gave him a look which suggested that they really wouldn't be out of line doing that. Buck and Chris had both been parajumpers back in the day. They could pull off an extraction. Chris wasn't sure he'd be able to justify it to Division Chief Orin Travis or Fury.
"No, I need you to do it now. We're headed for the tunnel."
Oh, yeah. That was going to be pretty bad. The tunnel cut out phone signals, radios, and would leave Ezra completely alone with Josiah for two miles made longer by congested traffic.
"Why are you going under the speed limit? This is a fifty, go fifty. Are you enjoying the scenery, is that it? You like this? What is wrong with you?"
"You're gonna be fine, Ezra."
"And you people say I'm a liar."
They heard a horn blare, and something remarkably close to a growl except people aren't really supposed to be able to do that. There was the sound of a motor accelerating, more horns, and rubber on pavement. Then the line went dead.
Chris tried to call back and immediately got voicemail. He slumped down into his chair.
Vin tapped the screen on the tablet and brought up a map on the big screen. "They're in the tunnel."
Normally, that meant they were about twenty minutes out. With traffic being what it was, and Josiah in the state of mind he was now, it was anyone's guess when they'd arrive. Chris would give them thirty minutes to an hour.
Buck walked in with JD trailing him, the duo carrying nearly two dozen donuts between them, and immediately stopped.
"What happened?" Buck asked.
"Josiah's stuck in traffic with Ezra."
Buck swore. JD looked confused.
"Is Ezra that bad?" he asked.
"Boy, it ain't Ezra that's the bad one. You do not want to be in a car with Josiah behind the wheel in traffic.
"Har har, Buck. Come on, I'm not a complete moron."
Buck walloped him upside the head, earning himself a squawk and a glare. Buck ignored it and shook his finger at the probationary agent.
"Now, you listen here. This is one thing I don't joke about. Don't get in the car with him, you hear me? You just don't do it."
JD looked ready to argue, but he looked at the other members of the team. All of them seemed to be taking the situation seriously, and he didn't think they'd all play along with Buck just to mess with him. He put his box on the table, flopped into a seat, and waited, watching the red dot up on the screen make sluggish progress to the office.
A half hour later brought the arrival of the final two members of the team. Josiah was assisting a pale-faced Ezra who seemed completely reluctant to have the older man touching him but also hesitant to tell him that. Nathan immediately stood up to help get him away from the profiler.
He wasn't about to verbally apologize for leaving him to the wolves, as it were, and give Ezra an edge to use against him, but he would obligate himself to help the man out. He set him down in a chair between himself and Vin and gave him a cup of coffee, one of the fancy blends he liked. Vin quietly looked him over before offering him one of the simple glazed donuts, a water bottle, and napkins. Ezra spared them both nods but remained pointedly silent, ignoring Chris' looks completely.
Josiah looked like Josiah, big and friendly, all smiles.
"Hey, everyone," he said. "So we're the last ones here. Sorry for the wait, traffic was murder."
Ezra twitched. Josiah took the only seat left across from him, eagerly peering into the donut box.
"Not a problem, Josiah," Chris said, giving the man a measuring look. "No trouble on the highways?"
"Nah, not too bad."
Which Chris took to mean no one had been killed or hospitalized, but probably only just. Besides, there'd been nothing on the news feeds, and he had JD monitoring for it. With a last glance to Ezra and realizing there was no way he was going to get Ezra to stay in the van, he quickly, mentally reworked the roster.
"All right then. Let's get to work, boys."
Note: I want to do a whole little verse with the boys as SHIELD agents, with a plot and character development and everything. It's all Indigo-Night-Wisp's fault because she wrote this story (AnotherRound), I read it, then I watched the show to find out who these lively characters were, and it was love.
This is more a beta test fic, to get a sense of the characters, and a one shot.