"Coulson. What a surprise." I said with a bit of fake cheer. I woke up awhile ago from a restless sleep on a hard mattress. Needless to say I wasn't really in the mood.

"Pip, I was wondering if you'd take a look at Lola and make sure nothing's out of order." I perked up quickly. Working on the planes started tomorrow. Today was just a day of paperwork and accumulated broken things from the months I wasn't on board. This would be something fun to do.

And this was Lola we're talking about here. She was the prettiest, and deadliest, car I have ever had the pleasure of working on. Coulson and I bonded over her during my last, and second, trip onto the Hovercraft. It was something we both loved more than we really should.

"Damn right I will!" Coulson let out a friendly smile and began leading me and Jackson, seeing as I didn't want his messing around with everything, to the large garage where Lola was kept. I decided to engage in some small talk, genuinely curious about recent happenings and knowing Coulson was the guy to talk to about gossip.

"So, anything new."

"You heard about Captain America." I grinned, Coulson and I also bonded over an excitement over Captain America. It was cool, plain and simple. First super hero and everything.

"Hell yeah. Is it true he was in the ice?"

"Absolutely. I saw him there, too."

"Did you fangirl?"

"Of course not." He smiled at me. "I'm a professional." I grinned at him. He totally did.

"Anything else?" Coulson sighed getting serious, causing me to frown. Coulson doesn't like to get serious, this must be something big. Now I was worried.

"You know about the Tesseract." I nodded.

"Breaks everything, hard not to know about it."

"Someone's broke into headquarters and taken it." For real?

"Really?" Shield headquarters was the most secure thing I had ever seen. How did someone break in?

"I was there." I frowned deeper. They must have been amazingly strong to take down so many Agents.

"That sucks. Is it a big deal? What does it even do? Besides break stuff." Coulson stopped, leaving me to stop just a bit ahead of him.

"Pip, this is a very big deal." No I was terrified. The thought of working on Lola could barely calm me down.

Jackson whined from in front of me. I agreed.

"What're you guys gonna' do?" He sighed.

"Whatever we can." An easy going smile spread across his face. "Did you hear about Fury's cat experience?" I rolled my eyes at him. That was Coulson.

"Tell me everything." And if he wanted a distraction from whatever the hell was going to happen. I would give it to him.

(*^*)

Lola was as beautiful as ever. Her engine purred and I basically did when I heard her running.

"Oh Coulson. This is art." He smiled.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you here while I received some very important guests." I rose an eyebrow.

"How important?"

"Very." He sounded almost giddy, though. Taking the edge of his words. I rolled my eyes at him once more.

"Go one then, I'll take good care of her." I said while stroking Lola with my fingertips.

"I know." He left then leaving me with her.

"Just you and me now, Lola." Jackson barked. "And Jackson."

I ended up working on Lola for hours, and even then I only left because some Agent was sent to force me back to the closet.

When I got there I was sad to see an enormous box on my paperwork desk. And ever sadder to see it was full of paperwork.

"What the fuck?" I don't really have much paperwork to do, ever. So why the fuck was there a box full of it sitting on my desk.

But no one argues with Shield when it tells you to do something. So I got started with the ridiculous amount of paperwork and was pleased to see they were nice enough to leave me with a very nice brand of pen I was too poor to buy for myself. I was keeping it.

Getting started I made sure to read everything, twice. I'm not accidentally signing my life over to Shield. It has happened before with younger Agents. I realized it was about health. Basically, Shield wasn't responsible for my death, or the death of anyone on board, and were not to be held responsible for a funeral or taking care of any people in our lives. We normally sign these every 5 years, and once when we join Shield. Why were these issued now?

Now I was really worried. Coulson's worried words, death contracts. The Tesseract really must have been important, and powerful. In the hands of our enemies...I wanted to pee myself.

I didn't, luckily seeing as these were my favorite jeans. I went on reading, rereading, rerereading, and finally tentatively signing. Jackson seemed very concerned with the whole process. Which was nice of him. Misery loves company. So does fear.

An hour or so later the Young Agent showed back up to get the now signed forms.

I made him wait as I took the final sweep through the contracts, sending him over the edge of boredom.

"Does this even sound right?" I ask the wishing-to-be-dead Agent after reading an excerpt from the contract.

"Yes. Yes! Just give them to me!" I shook my finger at him.

"No no no. You have to help me out with this or I'm taking double the time." He practically started crying, before jumping hearing a sound in the lab.

Why was someone in the lab? That was the nicest lab in the entire Hovercraft, no one is allowed to use it. Was it the guest Coulson was talking about, or was it younger agents screwing about?

Either way I had to investigate, and messing with the younger Agent had just become boring. So I handed him the box with a smile.

"All yours!" He seemed very confused, but that was the plan. He would open the door, attracting attention to himself while I could assess the situation from a safe distance.

He slowly took the box, not trusting me but desperately wanting out of the room, and began walking towards the room. With a last look over his shoulder he opened the door with a loud creak.

Attracting the attention of the two people inside.

One very nerdy looking scientist and one very scary looking Agent.

'Oh shit.' Was all I could think. I knew that scary Agent. Black Widow. She isn't the biggest fan of me, or maybe she is. Needless to say she gives very mixed signals and scares me.

Why is she here?

The young Agent rushed out of the room, seeing the Black Widow just as scary as I did, leaving me to the stares of the older people.

I walked to the doorway and stood holding the door open, ready to dart back to safety.

"Wonderful, you're in." I stared wide eyed at the most intimidating show of beauty I had ever seen. "Doctor, this is our mechanic. Anything breaks give it to her." I waved at the Doctor, still scared.

"Hi." He gave me a socially awkward smile and waved back, relaxing me. I could deal with socially awkward, I thrive on socially awkward.

This left us standing around, waiting someone to make the first move. It couldn't be me obviously. Because then I would attract their attention. The attention I already had. My logic didn't have to make sense for my body to follow along.

Eventually I was able to overpower the flawed logic and slowly slip back into the closet, bumping into Jackson on the way in.

Tomorrow needed to hurry up. I needed a break from social situations.

"Why do you like being a mechanic?" I asked Torin. He smiled up at me from his spot under the car.

"That's easy. No expectation, besides fix it, and no social communication, besides here's you fixed thing. Nice and simple." I nodded, accepting his wisdom. "What about you?" I looked at his confused. "You've fixed something." He gestured over to a now working radio. "And enjoyed doing it. That means you're a mechanic, basically. So why do you like being a mechanic?"I thought for a few seconds before smiling brightly.

"It's real simple, no one to please but yourself, and I like making things work." Torin grinned at me.

"Damn right." He laughed at my beaming smile. "Now do old Torin here a favor and grab that for me."

I stayed with Torin for the rest of the day. And I didn't have to worry about mom catching me because she was stuck in training. It was honestly the highlight of my day getting to see Torin.

We listened to some 80s to now station, Torin's favorite, and worked on some random things.

"You should apply to be my pupil. I'm sure you'd get in." I grinned at Torin, but soon frowned.

"I don't think my mom would like that." Torin stopped whatever he was doing and looked over to me.

"Would you?" I paused.

"Yeah, I would. I want you to be my mentor." I looked at him.

"Then that's something worth fighting for. Sometimes you gotta' fight for things you want. Don't wait for others to decide for you." Torin looked at me proudly making me feel proud of myself. Mom doesn't look at me like that all to often.

"Fight for yourself, Pip. Fight."