First of all, massive thank yous to everyone who has read, favorited, and reviewed this story! You have no idea how happy hearing from you makes me. GoddessOfShadows, I was so thrilled to hear about your interest in sign language and that you enjoyed my incorporation of it! Good luck with your lessons and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well!
Disclaimers: the usual.
###
By the time Agent Coulson has shown me his badge and confirmed his identity, I've gone from self-preservation mode to preparing-to-be-annoyed-by-bureaucratic-schmucks mode. Sadly, that's a pretty frequent default option when my day to day work involves dealing with the politics and inter-office power struggles of government agencies and law enforcement.
Coulson at first seems like another one of those nameless, faceless cogs that seem to exist merely to fill space and type files in cubicles, but the more I study him as we struggle to find seating in the crowded outdoor area of the café, I notice subtle things that aren't typical to an office worker, not even someone from one of these super-secret alphabet soup agencies.
Coulson is very polite and businesslike, but he also looks away from me often, glancing across the street and at the reflections in plate-glass windows. He ignores an open table close to the street in favor of one that backs up against a wall and is half-buried by an overgrown ornamental shrub. He pushes his own chair out from the table slightly so there's nothing in between his hand and his gun holster. All these are traits I don't see in office suits, but they're pretty much trademark for the military veterans, police officers, and SWAT teams I've worked with. This man is some kind of field agent, I'm sure. But he hides it pretty well. So what does he want with me?
I'm so preoccupied with studying him that I tip my coffee cup too much and get a noseful of scalding coffee. I sneeze, splutter, and slam the cup down, noticing too late that coffee has managed to spill all down the front of my charcoal-grey work blouse. Great. Just great. Look like an idiot in front of a potential employer. Nice work, Henley.
"Ms. McBride, it's come to our attention that you have a highly specific skill set, and one that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be interested in employing," Coulson says, seemingly unperturbed by my little accident. I stop mopping up spilled coffee with a pile of the table napkins and look back up to meet his steely-blue gaze.
"Well, most agencies who want to hire me just call my office number, you know. I do have it listed on my website. Even the FBI doesn't accost me in a coffeeshop when they ask for my assistance."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the FBI, Ms. McBride. And we don't plan on hiring you with your usual terms."
"Oh, that's rich, if they think they can just name their list of demands and I'll jump to fulfill them all because I won't be able to pass up an offer to work for this oh-so-amazing S.H.I.E.L.D. I've done my share of hostage negotiation, and I don't give in to demands. If you'd bothered to read up on me, I'm sure you'd have noticed that. Sorry, but I really do work on my terms." I stand up to leave. "I have my reasons." He doesn't need to know about Charleston. About the night I swore, to myself and the ghost that was following me, that I would never let anyone else make the calls for me.
"This would be a well-paid and permanent position." Coulson sounds like he knows he's lost me but has to go through the formalities at least. But what he says makes me turn around, not with any plan to accept, but just to set things straight.
"I don't think you understand my position, Agent Coulson. My job is a very unusual one. It's a nearly non-existent position and I'm in high demand by a large number of government and law enforcement agencies. I need to be available for response whenever any of them need me; I've refused several times to go under contract to any specific one and tie myself down."
"I don't think you understand, Ms. McBride. We're not contracting you to the division, we're asking you to be a personal interpreter, 24/7, for one agent."
"I don't do personal." I'm walking away again.
"Think it over." There's a soft rustle, and when I instinctively turn around to see what it was, Coulson is gone. But a messenger bag I never saw him carry in is lying on the table, with a thick manila file half-spilling out. I glance around, but the agent is nowhere in sight.
Well, I can't just leave a classified file out here in the open where anyone could get their hands on it. I internally berate myself for my own conscience as I pick up the file and walk away. Coulson is good. He knew I wouldn't be able to walk away. That's why he abandoned the file instead of handing it to me in person. He took quite a gamble doing it, too. Who could be that important to him, to take such a risk?
I throw the satchel on the passenger seat of my car and climb in. The file continues to draw me like a magnet, and when I look down at it again I see that a second item has fallen out. A single black arrow.
###
Sorry, this is a shorter one, but the next one is going to be much longer and involve a lot of Clint's backstory, since of course Henley won't be able to resist reading that file now! Hopefully I'll have that chapter posted tonight or tomorrow since it doesn't need too much extra work to be ready. Thanks again fro the reviews!