Extraction
An Agents of SHIELD fanfic by Aisling Yinyr Ngaio
Melinda May was not amused.
It was bad enough that two members of her team had gone on the latest mission dark, with no backup and no contact. Worse still, it was on a mission with clearance above her own, which meant she couldn't enquire about it in any way.
The old her would've said "to hell with this" and found excuses to hang outside the ops room, never mind Victoria Hand's infamous iron lady reputation. The new her forced herself to be indifferent to the mission, to trust that SHIELD knew what it was doing in sending only one combat ready agent to escort the non-field approved engineer on a covert mission.
She couldn't quite manage to shake off the sense of trepidation within her however. She had to keep convincing herself it was paranoia that produced the feeling of unease deep in her gut that something wasn't right in their little unit, but the attempts hadn't been successful even before Skye's earlier, probing questions, which inadvertently forced her hatred of helplessness and lack of information from the dark recesses of her mind back to the surface.
Of course Phil just had to compound her uncertainty and questions by using her as a sounding board when she was stressed enough to practice Tai-chi outside of her usual dawn timeslot. After their long acquaintance, he should have remembered that Tai-chi was her "me time", just as she knew that he only needed someone to reaffirm his murkier thoughts on occasion, which was the only reason she didn't growl at him to leave the moment he sat in that chair.
And then, just as she was about to call it a night - or try to, anyway - Simmons came tearing into the Bus looking extremely flushed, and started babbling a mile a minute about wall panels, flash drives and Jasper Sitwell. Having spent most of her time sequestered in the cockpit away from the rest of the team, she was surprised that the young scientist would immediately break down at the sight of her in a manner suggesting that she was her last hope, until she got the full story out of her and realised that her girls had gotten into deep, deep trouble while trying to take matters into their own hands.
She should have known, really. She didn't know if she was more annoyed at the rule-breaking, or that they managed to slip out from under her nose to get into crap like this in the first place.
Making a fuming mental note to watch her meddlesome teammates more closely the next time they visit any SHIELD facility, she swallowed her indignation lest her hyperventilating junior actually passed out from all the excitement, and dragged her back to the main building while she tried to get hold of Coulson via her tablet unit, only to receive a tersely worded reply that he already knew, had his hands full with organising medical assistance and pulling rank to ensure that no one was arrested for this security breach - particularly not the civilian hacker who would end up with a fate worse than court-marshaling if the top brass got a hold of her - and would she please make sure nothing else happened while he was sorting things out?
Those were the toughest sleepless hours she'd had to endure since she left the administration department, and while her clearance was high enough to access the internal incidences log to track the goings-on of the Sitwell case (Simmons whimpered every time a new update was entered by the infirmary, but Melinda didn't have the heart to ban her younger colleague from seeing something only meant for level 6 or higher), neither she nor Simmons were able to get a hold of either Skye or Coulson to politely inquire on what the hell was happening with them both. And while she still had contacts here at the Hub, she forced herself to allow Phil to handle the situation instead of risking accidental interference, much as she hated waiting without being able to do anything constructive.
It was only as dawn approached that a second message came from Coulson asking if she would please pick Skye up from the corner near the badge desk that she finally left the on-call lounge with a terrified Simmons in tow. But far from meeting a contrite-looking Skye, the hacker half-ran up to her and accused fiercely, "Tell me you didn't know there wasn't going to be an extraction for this mission, Agent May. Tell me that they didn't even have the freaking courtesy to let us know they're sending in our guys to die."
It took a moment even for her specialist brain to understand the depth of betrayal they'd been dealt, while marveling and grudgingly approving the lengths Skye actually went for the sake of their team. Now it was her turn to do something about this. She didn't need Simmons' shrill, panicked, "No extraction? But that's impossible! SHIELD wouldn't do that. Not extract Fitz?" to immediately decide on a course of action, but before she could proceed, she had to stop Simmons mid-panic to ask Skye urgently, "Where's Coulson? Does he know?"
Skye's lip curled uncharacteristically. "You mean, Mr this-mission-is-classified-clearance-level-8? I don't know, the ops room, probably. He just blew me off when I told him, didn't he?"
Melinda narrowed her eyes. That didn't sound right, though she knew this wasn't uncommon with Coulson's previous team. Then again, Delta was comprised of the best of them all, certainly not a non-field tested agent or a specialist who'd been expecting extraction and was likely making decisions based on that assurance. She told none of this to the rest, however, but led them back into the hangar bay with a terse "come on".
Simmons literally wrung her hands, while Skye nearly started arguing with her until they stopped at the flight control room and Melinda practically demanded authorisation for departure from the agent-in-charge, before cutting a path straight back to their parking bay. No matter what SHIELD meant to her, nobody was allowed to mess with her team, her irritatingly unprepared, frustratingly troublesome and yet endearingly likeable team. By her side, Skye asked excitedly, "Do you mean...?"
Grim-faced, Melinda answered as they climbed into the cargo hold, "You got the information. Now we react."
- Finis -