Felicity groaned. "Everything hurts." She winced as Clint rubbed her shoulders.
"You did great." He said, giving her neck a kiss.
"I got my ass kicked." Felicity glared at the wall of their room in the Playground. "And Bobbi and Daisy were going easy on me."
"It's your first time using your powers." Clint wrapped his arms around her. "I don't think anyone expected you to be perfect on the first time." Felicity relaxed into his hold. "You looked pretty hot flinging around that water." He teased.
"Uh huh." Felicity hummed, wincing slightly as she settled against him. She closed her eyes. Her entire body felt drained. Her limbs were shaky. The testing had been ruthless. After taking blood samples, FitzSimmons had moved her to a training area and had her hurl water with different salt content, temperatures, and chemical compounds in it in order to defend herself while Daisy and Bobbi attacked her. The point was to see how she reacted under pressure and to test her self defense skills. Bobbi and Daisy had begun gently, but the second they'd realized that she could fight the gloves had come off. Felicity had to draw on everything Natasha and Digg had taught her to stand a chance against the two women…then Melinda May had shown up and Clint had dropped into the middle of the gym and declared the testing over. "I'm kinda glad you stopped it when you did." Felicity admitted.
:"Yeah, May would have destroyed you." Clint murmured. "Not." He said quickly when Felicity turned to glare at him. "That that's anything to be ashamed of. She was the last agent to be personally trained by Director Carter and she was Natasha's SO."
"Nat had an SO?" Felicity asked, snorting with amusement. There was something unbelievable about anyone giving orders to the former assassin. Clint grimaced.
"When I first brought her into SHIELD she didn't trust anyone…and no one trusted her. She refused to have an SO who couldn't beat her. May showed up at the gym one day and told her, 'show me that I'm not wasting my time'. They took it to the mats and went 2 rounds, both draws. They kinda just…clicked. They were on the same badass frequency. Even after Natasha cleared the examination and became a fully fledged agent who didn't need supervising she and May still trained together." He grimaced. "May went through a tough time a while back in Bahrain and Nat was the one person who understood because of all the shit she went through in the Red Room…just like she was there for me after Budapest." Clint broke off. An uncomfortable silence fell. Felicity hung her head. This entire situation was so messed up. The act had turned friend against friend. Natasha had been the only family Clint had and she'd been one of Felicity's closest allies in the Tower when the boys got too out of hand. It was painful to think that, no matter the outcome of this mess, there was no way to go back to the way it was before.
"I miss her too." She whispered. Clint nodded. They stayed that way until a knock came at the door. Clint glared.
"Go away unless you want to be witness to some indecent exposure." He said.
"Clint." Felicity shook her head, she made to stand, but Clint didn't let her up.
"I'll get it, you rest." He said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. Then he walked over to the door and wrenched it open and growled "what?" only to be overrun by FitzSimmons rushing inside. Simmons holding a tablet and Fitz a tray with food.
"We know how it works!" Simmons was bouncing excitedly. Fitz nodded his agreement.
"We were analyzing the water as Felicity was training and we know how her abilities work." He handed Felicity the tray he was holding. "Here, you'll need to refuel, you've drained a lot of your energy."
"Really?" Felicity's hands flew to her mouth. "I didn't notice." Fitz smiled at the sarcasm. Felicity turned to Simmons. "The abilities?" She asked, grabbing a sandwich from the plate on the tray and taking a bite.
"You can control water molecules and their movement." Jemma said. "Which means that you can do more than throw around liquid. You can freeze it!"
"Turn it into water vapor!" Fitz grinned. ""Or potentially move the water inside living beings."
"So…blood bending too?" Miles had just entered the room.
"It's not bending…it's molecule manipulation." Jemma looked horrified at Miles' over simplification of Felicity's abilities.
"Actually." Fitz said, petting Lucky. "That might not be too far off from what she can do." He paused as Jemma raised an eyebrow. "It was a very good show." He said, shrugging. "Hey, since pets are allowed on the base now do you think we could get a monkey?"
"Fitz." Jemma sighed.
"Right." Fitz said. "Sorry, focusing. We're going to test all that and see if you can form the water into shapes and-"
"As fascinating as these powers are." Clint interrupted. "I'm pretty sure you can wait until tomorrow to 'science' and test them." He urged the scientists towards the door. "Geez, it's like herding younger nicer looking Tony and Bruce." He grumbled as the two protested. "Out or I show you how I earned my reputation as a badass." He slammed the door and turned and looked at Felicity and Miles who were laughing. "What?"
Felicity shook her head. "You're adorable."
Clint crossed his arms and frowned at them. "I think you mean dangerous."
"Nah." Miles said. "Don't worry, your reputation is safe, you big softie."
"Softie?" Clint sputtered, looking between Miles and Felicity. "The two of you are on my list." He muttered.
"Oooo, so scary." Felicity rolled her eyes.
"Barton." The wall panel activated and Coulson's voice came on the intercom. Clint sighed and tapped a few buttons.
"Phillip." He said.
"I need you and Felicity to come down to the office…." Coulson paused. "There's something you need to see."
Clint nodded, before turning to Felicity. "You up for this?" He asked. Felicity stood and nodded. Clint opened the door. "Miles, what are you waiting for?" He asked.
Miles hesitated. "The director didn't ask to see me."
"So?" Clint raised an eyebrow. "Whatever this is, it's probably important."
Felicity put her hand on his arm. "Come on."
Miles shook his head. "When we get in trouble, I'm blaming you."
Sure enough, the first words out of Coulson's mouth when they arrived were to question Miles' presence.
"We don't have a habit of keeping things from our teammates." Clint responded. Coulson sighed.
"This isn't Avengers' Tower, Barton. This is SHIELD. We have protocol and-"
"And you know me well enough to know how I feel about protocol." Clint growled. "And that was even before Shieldra gate." He stared Coulson down. "Miles stays." Felicity could see the two men were settling down for a large argument.
"You have to realize that even if you have Miles leave, we'll tell him whatever it is you called us in here for." She said. Coulson looked at her, his eyes widening. "He's more than a teammate; he's family. And if we can't trust each other, then we might as well turn ourselves into the registration committee now. A house divided –"
"Cannot stand." Coulson finished. Shaking his head, he looked away and rubbed his temples. "I'm starting to see why you married him."
"You mean besides my good looks and natural magnetism?" Clint asked.
"Gross." Miles muttered.
Coulson activated the screen. "I need Barton for a covert mission. There's chatter of Inhumans being weaponized into a secret task force. The point of this task force would be to round up any Inhumans who are resisting registration and bring them to heel, using all necessary force."
Felicity felt her stomach churn. "What do you want from me?" she asked.
Coulson raised an eyebrow. "I think you know…Oracle."
Felicity's eyes met Clint's. While publically she was the liaison between the different superhero teams, her activity as the teams' official mission tech and hacker was a secret. In fact the only secret all the teams could agree on keeping. Clint let out a sigh of frustration at his former handler's ability to uncover intel.
"Of course you know." He grumbled.
"There were very few people in Stark's inner circle capable of that level of technological skill." Coulson explained. "Personally I think it's because Tony didn't like the competition."
"There's no competition." Clint said, putting his hand on Felicity's shoulder, a note of pride in his tone. "Felicity's better than him."
"Which is why we need you to help Daisy confirm the locale of this secret task force." Coulson said. "Then we're sending Barton, May, and Daisy in."
Clint nodded. "Fine, on one condition; Miles comes with me."
Coulson raised an eyebrow. "This is a little more difficult than simple New York street crime."
Clint crossed his arms. "Miles may be young, but he's one of the most talented heroes we've got on our side. You want stealth? He evaded us for a whole 2 weeks before we found him. And that was before he was trained by Captain America himself. Not to mention that he's been taught the ancient and most noble art of air vent travel by yours truly." He tilted his head.
Coulson crossed his arms. "Jet's wheels are up in 30 minutes. I suggest you suit up." He motioned towards the door. The three of them filed out. Daisy was waiting for them. "Felicity, there's a tech lab on board the jet." She grinned. "You're gonna love it." Felicity couldn't fight a grin; her earlier tiredness forgotten at the prospect of a mission. She followed Daisy to the jet. Bobbi was waiting for them.
"You coming too?" Felicity asked. Bobbi nodded.
"Piloting." She said. She then held up a syringe and injected it into Felicity's shoulder. "It's a stimulant. Don't worry, it won't hurt the baby, but you'll need all the energy you can get."
Felicity rubbed her arm. "I've handled dangerous situations running on empty before." She muttered.
"Yeah, well I highly doubt you've experienced a dangerous situation while recovering from your first real day using your superpowers. Plus you're pregnant. There's no telling how your body will react under stress and fatigue." She nodded at May who was coming up the ramp in a black tactical suit and followed her to the cockpit. Daisy led Felicity to the tech lab.
"Once we're airborne, we'll have full topographical view of the earth." Daisy explained. "These are the suspected sites where we think they're holding the Inhumans." She pulled up the map. As Felicity took in the first of the two locations she felt her heart clench.
"You don't need to run a search." She said as Clint and Miles came into the lab in full gear. Clint came up behind her and squinted at the screen.
"Is that?" He asked, tapping the map. Felicity nodded in response. "Fuck." He groaned.
May, who'd just come out of the cockpit with Bobbi behind her, frowned at the screen. "It's an abandoned island in the North China Sea called-"
"Lian Yu." Felicity finished. "It's also where…" she looked nervously at Clint, unsure how much she should say. "According to Constantine it's a conduit for some serious bad juju. Something about ley lines and negative convergence."
"Ley lines?" Bobbi said skeptically.
"I didn't believe it either, but…bad things have happened on that island." Felicity said. "And ARGUS is currently using it as a high security prison…" She trailed off and looked at Clint in horror. "Trickshot's there." Clint ground his teeth.
Bobbi looked at him in surprise. "You caught Barney?" she said softly. Clint nodded.
"And I thought we'd gotten rid of him for good." He growled. "I guess that's what comes of trusting Queen."
"ARGUS is leading the Inhuman roundup, it stands to reason that they could use it as some sort of training ground." Daisy said.
"It's already ready-made." Felicity said bitterly. "The whole island is a mine field…literally and there's sharks in the water surrounding it and-" She trailed off. "It's not the place to plan an island vacation." She shivered, drawing her arms around herself. Clint put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"So we're going to this island." May said. "Everybody strap in. Daisy, Felicity, as soon as you can, scan the island so we can have an idea of what we'll encounter."
They all did as she instructed. Felicity squeezed Clint's hand as the jet took off.