Operation: Shadows

Chapter 1: Decisions

The gentle hum of the plane did little to ease her conflicted thoughts. She lay quietly on the bed, staring blankly up at the heavily reinforced room. Cage. Apparently hacking into a super secrete spy agency, that half the world didn't even know existed, can get you a lifetime in a maximum security cell, and not with the normal government, no, that would be too easy, no, it has to be maximum security with the super secrete spy agency you just hacked into for fun.

Apparently breaking into a super secret spy agency with an old mac, in a dingy (deeply loved) van with borrowed Wi-Fi from the nearby coffee shop warrants a job offer at said super secret spy agency. If you could call it a job that is.

Join us and have your genetics modified or spend the rest of you life in a cell with no other human interaction and no internet or electronics. Basically hell, she had summarised. She moved slowly to lie on her side, looking at the bland metallic interview table. She was given 24 hours to make her choice with a little glimpse of the life she would have if she choose to go to jail. If she were honest, she didn't think she would last the 24 hours, she was already going insane with boredom and possible withdrawals with the way her hands were shaking or that could just be the nerves of the decision she is about to make.

It's not exactly easy to decided to give up your life in one way or another to someone, something,else. Be held prisoner for the rest of your life or work for us for the rest of your life, either way she was committing herself to this super secret spy agency so she might as well do it and be on good terms with them, maybe they would give her unrestricted access to the internet at all times and basically have freedom to do whatever she wanted. She would have to enquire about that when she told them her decision.

Sighing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, reluctantly shifting her body to sit up, her hands placed lazily behind her on the bed in an attempt to appear calm and collected as she stared with an almost bored expression at the one way mirror. Unsure as to whether or not there was someone on the other side, she simply raised and eyebrow and called;

"Hello? Anyone there? Ready to tell you guys my decision, kinda get the feeling that you guys already knew what I was going to choose before you even met me, cause after all, you guys are a super secrete spy agency."

Her eyes wandered over the room till she found the camera and stared at it for a few moments, hoping that someone would soon come relieve her of her boredom and from being in this damn cage.

"Fine, don't come and hear my wonderful decision! I'll just here and sulk" She grumbled to herself, glancing hopefully at the door.

No such luck.

"Urgh" She groaned, flopping herself down onto the bed. She was acting like a child and she knew it but it was extremely annoying to just be kept here by herself when there was so much to explore.

'Curiosity killed the cat'

She scowled, stupid nuns and their damn sayings (yes she knew that everyone said that but she was still going to blame the nuns that made her childhood a living hell) but in all honesty, her curiosity was causing all these annoying feelings of restlessness, which was no doubt going to get her killed of boredom (okay maybe a slight over exaggeration but again, evil nuns!)

Finally the door opened quietly as a middle aged man walked in, holding onto a file as he gestured for her to sit in the seat at the table. She eyed the man, what was his name again? Coleslaw? Nah who has a surname like? Colemen? No wait it was Coulson, Agent Coulson. She muttered under her breath about the chair at the table looking extremely cold as she sunk into said chair. She stared at the file before lifting her eyes to meet Coulson, he gave her a small smile as he opened the file.

"So, Skye, I take it you have made a decision?" He asked kindly, making eye contact with her, no doubt to try and put her at ease and damn it, it was working. She relaxed slightly into her chair and nodded.

"Yeah, I realised either way I'm committing the rest of my life to this super secret spy agency of yours, might as well commit myself willingly and be on the good side where there is hopefully unrestricted access to the internet?" She replied, side eyeing him with hopefulness.

Coulson let out a laugh, it seemed so full of optimism and happiness and all that mushy stuff. Skye found it weird considering his line of work, she always thought these people had low chuckle if they had to laugh at all, maybe an eye roll to go with it, but Coulson seemed to genuine in his laugh that she fought to keep a smile off her on face.

"Yes, you will have unrestricted access, I would be worried if you didn't because what you are going to do for us requires it. We need a hacker on this team and I think you are the right person for that. You think outside the box, you don't think like an agent, not yet at least, and that is exactly what this team needs. Knowing that I know that you have agreed to join us, I take it that it also means you have accepted Agent May's conditions as well?" He asked with a hint of curiosity.

Skye just nodded in response, biting her lip nervously, Agent May had came in after Coulson left, staring down at her with unforgiving and cold eyes and told her the catch of her joining S.H.I.E.L.D, having her genetics modified slightly. Agent May had said 'slightly' with a quirk of her lips and she wasn't going to kid herself on that that did not worry her at all, in fact it worried her a lot. She was also not to tell Coulson what this catch was exactly, only that there was a condition to her accepting the job at S.H.I.E.L.D and that was all he was to be told. It confused her and kept her mind preoccupied for the first couple of hours of her brief captivity till she finally summarised that Coulson did not know that S.H.I.E.L.D was modifying the DNA of some of their agents. It was an interesting realisation.

"Excellent" He said with a grin and pushed the file towards her "This is yours to read as soon as possible, welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D Skye, let's go get your stuff and move you in"

She gave a small smile and followed him out the cage, mentally cheering and flipping off the cage that she was leaving behind. Not that what she was walking into was much better, she was just leaving one prison for another, the second was just a lot more subtle about it, surrounding her with the other agents but she knew better, she couldn't actually leave this place without being escorted most likely and if she were to ever leave, maybe for a holiday or something, she would be constantly supervised, her every moved watched and if she put one toe out of line she would land right back at the plane, probably with no more holidays. That was a depressing thought.

She followed Coulson silently as he pointed out everything on the plane, he was very enthusiastic about the entire thing

"I requested half of this stuff myself, it was a presents of sort from the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, guess he felt like he owed me one after I was killed in action" He explained in a simple tone, as if it was an everyday occurrence to die.

"Wait, what? You were killed?" Skye asked incredulously, stopping to stare at him.

"Yeah, I was dead for 8 seconds" He replied with a grin. Skye stared at him, how exactly was that amusing?

"Now come on, I need to show you were you will be bunking whilst working with us." he continued walking, monitoring with his hand for her to follow, which she reluctantly obeyed.

He led her to a small open area with a set up of a regular living room with cubical to the left side and a kitchen to the right. He motioned to the cubicals;

"That is where most of you sleep, the pilot, that's Agent May, and myself have different living areas, Agent May's are closer to the cock pit in case of emergencies and mine is near my office. You will be sleeping here with Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward. The last one on the left is the only one that is free" He explained, waving his hands towards then end cubical. Coulson talked a lot with his hands, Skye noted dully.

She moved slowly towards the cubical, opening it with caution. It was cosy. A single bed pressed up against the far corner, a night stand next to it, a wardrobe at the bottom of the room with a small desk next to it with a chair tucked neatly under it, she placed the file that Coulson gave her on the desk. It was very compacted but it was nice.

She turned back to Coulson with a small smile, "It's very cosy" she commented, Coulson grinned and then moition to the figures caring a box and bags that were coming into view.

"Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward kindly brought your stuff up for you"

Skye groaned, letting her head fall forward slightly "Not that I'm not grateful or anything but like, my stuff is private and you just went looking through all of it."

"Simmons packed all your clothes to make it less of an invasion of privacy, although I fail to see how packing clothes can be seen as an invasion of privacy because..." The Scottish agent, Fitz, began.

"Fitz, do be quiet, lots of people see it as an invasion of privacy!" Agent Simmons reprimanded in a very lovely English accent.

Man, Skye was going to love it here, especially if those two just talked forever, they had such soothing voices mixed with a different accent than she was used too made things a lot more bearable. She felt like the two of them could tell her she was about to die a very painful death and she would be fine with it because of their damn voices.

"Erm, thanks guys, I'll just take them for here" She replied awkwardly, reaching for her bag that hanged loosely on Simmons shoulders. Simmons smiled politely at her and opened the door to her little bedroom as she took the box of off Fitz. War just walked wordlessly into her room, casually dumping her box onto the bed and leaving. Skye frowned, about to yell at the rude asshole who was not being careful with her stuff.

"Oh don't mind him, he's just not used to working as a team yet. He's kind of like a lone wolf" Simmons said, sharing an amused look with Fitz, both their eyes were lit up in a mischievous amusement, an inside joke that only the two of them seemed to get.

Coulson chuckled "I'll let FitzSimmons settle you in, I need to go have a little chat with certain people" and with that he walked away.

Skye stared after him before turning to the two agent's next to her "he's gonna yell at people right? The was the polite way of saying I'm going to yell at someone, right? And does everyone just refer you to as FitzSimmons? Like you are one person?" Skye fired out, staring intently at the two, who to their credit did not seem flustered by the question.

They just grinned as they responded; "Most people just refer us as FitzSimmons, we've been working together since we started the academy together, sometimes people call us the science twins, personally that's my favourite one and I don't think Coulson is capable of yelling at people from what I've seen, the only person likely to yell at someone in anger on this plane is Ward I believe" Simmons replied, the smile never wavering from her place, her eyes lit with excitement and curiosity.

"Yeah most likely Ward, May would just do the stare thing and you would cower to her and Coulson does the "I'm not angry just disappointed" tone of voice when reprimanding someone, that one is the worst." Fitz rambled, easily picking up where Simmons left of.

"Well we will let you get settled then Skye! I believe Agent May is coming to talk to you at some point regarding the condition of you joing S.H.I.E.L.D" Simmons cheerily replied, waving as she left, grabbing Fitz's arm and dragging him with her. He gave her a lazy smile and half hearted wave as he left.

"Wait...you know about the condition? Simmons!" Skye called after them, confused. How did Simmons and Fitz know what her condition was and Coulson didn't? Maybe they didn't know and all they knew was that there was a condition...but they seemed to know what it was, the glint in their eyes gave it away. Groaning as the confusion that this agency constantly left her in, she walked into her bedroom, moving her stuff onto the floor and flopped onto the bed, determined to get a nap in before she had to interact with anyone else.

Apparently luck was not on her side.

"Rookie. Get up, we need to talk" Came the stern voice of Agent Melinda May.