A/N: So, this story came out of a very unfunny event that happened in my "real" life. I had a panic attack at work and was informed that in order for my (extremely basic) treatment plan to be followed (because it definitely wasn't) in case it happens again, I need to fill out paperwork and have it signed by a variety of professionals. This seemed a little unnecessary to me, but I've chosen to laugh it off.
And since I generally treat all of my health issues as my superpowers, I decided to extrapolate this situation into this one-shot for you.
This is set post-S2 finale, but completely ignoring the last five minutes or so, because my superpowers do not include dealing with that.
Enjoy!
No one at the Playground liked doing paperwork. Even May, whose job for many years had only been doing paperwork. It wasn't just that paperwork was time-consuming and seemingly unnecessary (although it was). It had more to do with the human resources team that managed all of those things.
Skye couldn't believe they had an HR team. After all, they were barely an organization and sometimes subsisted on next to nothing, but somehow there were resources to provide for a group of shockingly ordinary-looking people whose uniform of button-downs and khakis and loafers never varied.
Fortunately, the nice thing about HR was that they didn't pop up very often. Maybe they'd be seen in Coulson's office once a month, getting his signature on purchase orders for staplers. Or ballpoint pens. Or whatever it was they were in charge of. (No one was really sure.)
Therefore, it was a surprise to Skye to find the dullest and shortest member of the HR team, a freckled redhead named Keith, standing in Coulson's office holding a thick folder.
"Agent Skye," Keith greeted her with a nod.
"Agent…" Skye was at a complete loss.
"MacGregor," Keith said. "From HR."
Skye looked at Coulson.
"Agent MacGregor has some matters he needs to discuss with you," Coulson said. There was a look on his face between pain and hilarity, as though he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to be feeling.
"Yes, if you'll come this way, my partner Agent Hollis is waiting in our offices," Keith said.
"I thought we were going to discuss the… uh…" Skye couldn't remember if HR had any sort of clearance; she had no idea if she could say anything related to mission work in front of Keith.
"We can talk about that later," Coulson said smoothly.
"This won't take too long." Keith gave her a smile. It was obviously supposed to be reassuring, but somehow, on his face, it gave the exact opposite of reassurance.
"Um, okay."
Keith led Skye through a twisty maze of corridors – most of which Skye was sure had never existed before – and down a flight of stairs to a surprisingly well-lit and neat bunker of offices. If not for the surroundings (you know, the government agents and the guns and the labs and everything else), it could have been any other cubicle farm at any other insurance company or accounting firm.
A no-nonsense woman in a navy blue suit was waiting for them in a conference room, seated at a table full of paperwork and files. She looked up at Skye and Keith as they entered.
"This is my partner, Agent Hollis," Keith said, indicating the woman. "Agent Hollis, meet Agent Skye."
Hollis looked over her tortoiseshell glasses frames and gave Skye a look that most people saved for gum found on the bottoms of their shoes. "Please, Agent Skye, sit."
Somehow, in four words, she managed to convey disdain and sarcasm. She was talented.
And scary. Skye grabbed the closest chair and planted her body into it.
Keith took a seat next to Hollis and for a moment they both just stared at Skye, their hands neatly arranged on the table.
"Um, so, we're supposed to have a mission briefing in about twenty minutes," Skye said at last. "So, could we… do whatever it is we're supposed to do here?"
Neither agent spoke.
"Or could you just stop staring at me?"
"So you're Agent Skye," Hollis said.
"Yes. That's… who I am." Skye gave the woman a curious glance. "As Keith said."
She pointed. "And that file has both my name and my photo on it, so…"
"We're here to discuss some paperwork you need to file," Keith said, and he hefted one of the closest files, which seemed to have an entire ream of paper in it.
"Like what?" Skye asked. "I thought Coulson dealt with mission summaries."
"Oh, he does," Keith said.
"That's not what these are," Hollis added.
Keith opened the folder and pulled out the top sheet. "This is what we call a 76B-3."
He passed it to Skye, who looked down at it, utterly confused by the tiny print.
"Not that I don't… um… think this is completely necessary, but could you just skip to the part where you tell me what this is for?"
"Our pleasure," Hollis said.
Skye tried very hard not to roll her eyes.
"A 76B-3 is an authorization to remove funds from your pay," Hollis said.
I feel like I've gone insane. Skye resisted the urge to weep. "And why would I do that?"
"Uh! Because of this," Keith said, and handed her another sheet of paper, this one a spreadsheet. "This is an L25."
"Guys, English," Skye said. "Any time here."
The crafty evil smile appeared on Hollis' face again. "I'll put it in terms even you can understand," she said.
"I think I should be offended, but at this point I just don't care," Skye replied.
"We're the ones in charge of the budget," Hollis said. "Things like procurement of supplies and upkeep are in our purview. For instance, we make sure the copier has paper…"
"We have a copier?" Skye was definitely sure she was crazy.
"… and we're the ones who have to allocate funds for repairs and maintenance." Hollis leaned back in her chair. "For repairs."
Skye gave her a "please go on" hand gesture.
"Since your return from Puerto Rico, we've been forwarding a greater percentage of our budget to repairs and maintenance," Hollis said. "Finally we hit our budget cap for this fiscal quarter, and realized that since there was really only one person causing all the damage that required repairs, we'd file a series of 76B-3 forms in order to recoup our losses."
Skye's face went hot. "Are you saying that I'm being… charged for the things I've broken?"
Keith nodded.
"Oh, wow."
"In one week you were responsible for the destruction of a floor light, several windows, and nearly forty coffee mugs," Hollis said. "And that's just the beginning."
"So, everything you've… um… earthquaked… is on the L25," Keith continued. "Your signature on the 76B-3 forms will allow us to take a percentage of your paycheck to cover the damages."
"Is this legal?" Skye demanded.
"Oh, yes," Hollis said with obvious pleasure. "Very legal."
"You know I didn't ask to get earthquake powers in an alien city, right?"
"There's nothing in the regulations about desire to cause damages," Keith said quietly.
"And… will you be taking a percentage of Mack's paycheck for the rest of forever? 'Cause he chopped off Coulson's hand. That's got to be worth more than forty coffee mugs. I mean, it was a hand."
Hollis and Keith exchanged a look.
"And don't even get me started on all the stuff FitzSimmons have destroyed," Skye went on.
"Agent Mackenzie's actions saved the life of the Director," Hollis said.
"And Agent Fitz and Agent Simmons were performing their jobs to the best of their abilities," Keith added.
"Okay, well, what about Hunter? He's broken two refrigerators, and neither of them were during his on-the-job hours," Skye pointed out. "He was just drunk and thought he was the Hulk."
Hollis and Keith exchanged another look.
"Or Bobbi? She cut a hole into Coulson's desk to get Fury's Toolbox out, and then she back-flipped through a window," Skye pointed out.
"Technically at that time Agent Morse was an enemy combatant," Keith muttered.
"We'll deal with other agents' fiscal repayment plans at a later time," Hollis said. "We're here to talk about your repayment, Agent Skye."
Again with the disdain and sarcasm. It was getting old.
"Okay," Skye said. "Give me the form."
Keith handed it to her, she grabbed a pen from the mug on the table, and scrawled her signature at the bottom.
"There," Skye said, handing it back to Keith. "Now are we done?"
Hollis' slow smile moved like sarcastic molasses across her face. "Oh, no, we're just getting started."
She indicated the thick file of papers in front of Keith. "Due to regulations passed in Congress, most specifically, Section R249 of the Basel-Steenburgen Act, you're required to sign a 76B-3 for each item you've destroyed."
Keith handed the folder to Hollis, and Hollis pushed it across the table to Skye. "At our last count, there were two hundred and eighty-three in there. And we need them signed in triplicate for filing purposes."
Both HR agents rise smoothly from the table.
"Can I do this later?" Skye asked as they were about to leave the conference room. "Like I said, mission briefing."
"I'm sorry," Hollis said, though she sounded anything but. "The paperwork cannot leave our range of sight."
She pointed to a desk located just outside the conference room's glass door. "Agent MacGregor will be sitting there to observe your progress."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"This is HR, Agent Skye," Hollis said. "No one down here has a sense of humor."
She and Keith shared a smile, and then burst into laughter.
It sounded demonic, and Skye wasn't sure which she hated more – the paperwork, or that laugh.
"Phil," May said, poking her head through his office door, "have you seen Skye?"
"She went down to HR," Coulson said, not looking up from the blueprints he was reviewing.
"Yeah, at one-thirty," May said.
"Why? What time is it…" Coulson looked up. "Wait a minute, six o'clock?"
"What do they have her doing down there?" May asked.
"I have no idea."
The phone on Coulson's desk rang, and he hit the speakerphone button. "Yes?"
"Coulson." It was Skye, whispering.
"Skye? Where are you?"
"Listen. I only have like a minute."
"Are you still in HR?"
"Yes. Listen. I've been stuck down here signing forms authorizing them to take money from my paychecks to cover all the things I broke when I was all 'grr… new earthquake powers,' and I have a cramp in my hand and I'm not going to be making any money until I'm forty-five, assuming I live that long," Skye whispered. "They keep bringing me more papers and I'm honestly just signing all of them. They could have gotten me to sign away my soul and my firstborn child, not that that's going to happen any time soon, but I wouldn't know the difference. I stopped reading around four-thirty."
"Skye," Coulson said.
"Okay, so, I got a little angry and sort of… earthquaked the she-devil known as Agent Hollis, um, but apparently I was kinda really angry, and a really heavy filing cabinet fell in front of the door and blocked it and I can't get out and I'm hungry!" The young woman's voice rose in panic. "I hadn't even had lunch before they dragged me down here! For God's sake, come rescue me!"
The last part was too much for Coulson and May, who began to laugh.
"Stop that!" Skye squawked from the other end of the phone. "This is not funny!"
When May could breathe again, she looked over at Coulson. "Talk about a bureaucratic nightmare."
It set Coulson off again, and they both laughed for another long minute.
Their laughter stopped eventually, and the office was silent.
"Skye?" Coulson asked.
"I'm still here," she replied. "Just waiting for you two children to stop thinking this is hilarious."
"Hey, don't talk like that to your two potential rescuers."
Skye let out a frustrated yell.
"Okay, okay, Shaky McQuake," Coulson said, still chuckling. "We'll be right there."
"Thank God. Oh, and, um, Coulson?"
"Yes?"
"Will you bring me some Pop-Tarts? Just… put 'em on my L25."