A/N: most of this chapter got removed because it was awful and I hated it. oops. enjoy anyway, and please review :)
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9 - Learning Curves
Lena's bidding took him next to London; or more accurately, a tiny little town on the outskirts of London with a population of maybe 40 people. Will wasn't very happy about it. He didn't like England very much – it was too cold and dreary, and he'd once spent a week huddled on a rooftop in the rain here at the behest of SHIELD only to see no action at all. After that, England just seemed like a bad place to be.
And true to form, as he and his team drove towards this town Lena had sent them off to, it started to drizzle, just to make the puddles on the road a little bigger. They were after a guy, she said, that could heal any injury with a touch. No more need for medically trained agents on a team, and no more losing team members on dangerous missions. Will could certainly relate to that part; after losing his entire HYDRA team to the Winter Soldier, he was more than happy to go and collect a living medpack, especially when Lena had already promised to add the man to his team.
"This guy couldn't have decided to live anywhere else," Murphy commented dryly next to him. He too had been on the long rooftop operation back in the SHIELD days, though Will wasn't sure where he got the right to complain from; while he had been out in the rain, Murphy had been in the apartment below, with a heater going and three laptops to keep him entertained.
"Can't handle a little rain, Murphy?" That was Jordan, their perpetually bad-tempered weapons expert. Murphy found her intimidation and she knew it – she also knew exactly how much she could push the boundaries before Will kicked her off the team.
"Tech's not that waterproof," Murphy replied, and he sounded peeved. Jordan just looked smug. "If you want radios, you can't have rain."
"We won't need radios," Nora interrupted before Jordan could take another dig. "This guy'll come quietly."
"What makes you think that?" Will asked.
"I knew Henry when he first started at INTEL," she explained. "He's an office guy. Wouldn't hurt a fly. I doubt he's changed much since then."
"Unless that experimental crap made him crazy like that other girl," Burnett called from the front seat, driving them through another pothole.
Nora shot an annoyed look at the back of his head. "That was totally different," she threw back at him. "Henry's not crazy. He's just careful."
"What's he talking about?" Will said over the top of Burnett's sarcastic response.
Nora sighed. "You know how all these people we're after are Lena's science experiments?" she began.
"I figured as much," Will replied.
"Yeah, well, she sort of went one experiment too far with that girl we were looking for in Pennsylvania. Ruby. Turned her into a nervous wreck."
"What was she trying to do?"
Nora shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted.
"She was trying to figure out how to control her," Jordan said, surprising them all. She gave them a withering look. "What? I was one of the handlers. Got thrown across the room like five times by that crazy chick."
"Hey, we're here," Burnett called out. "Y'know, if anyone cares." The van jerked to a stop a moment later, and the engine cut out, leaving only the pattering of rain on the roof.
"Alright," Will said, and glanced around at the waiting faces of his team. "Nora, you know this guy best. What's our play here?"
She looked genuinely surprised that he'd called on her, and then visibly gathered herself. "Two people should go in," she said slowly, uncertain of herself. "He's not a threat, and there's no point scaring him any more than we have to."
"You're with me then," Will decided. Nora was speechless once again. "Hanson and Burnett, circle around the house, find yourselves a vantage point in case he runs and be ready to trail him. The rest of you stay here. Murphy's in charge."
Jordan's face darkened. "What, you mean we came all the way to England to play back-up?" she asked incredulously.
"That's the point of backup, Jordan," Will replied calmly, moving towards the door. "You can take first watch over him tonight though, if that will make you feel better."
"That's just messed up," he heard her mutter behind him in response, but didn't bother replying, just slid the door open to let out himself, Nora, and Hanson. Burnett climbed out of the driver's seat a moment later, blinking against the gentle downpour of rain.
"Which house are we looking at Burnett?" Will asked.
"That one just there," Burnett replied, pointing down the road to a little cottage surrounded by a wild garden and crumbling stone fence. The front gate sagged in its hinges and a ferocious creeper poked through the fence in several places, trying its best to throttle the sidewalk like it had the garden. Will could just see the door to the house beyond the garden, old and shabby and covered in peeling paint.
"Give me five minutes to circle around the back," Hanson said and, at a nod from Will, turned and headed off down the street. Burnett went the other way, meandering along and pretending to admire the neat gardens of other houses along the way. Will stayed by the van, leaning against the hood while Nora pretended to fiddle with the tyre.
"Do you know what they're going to do with Henry?" she asked while they waited, still staring at the tyre.
"Not exactly," Will replied. "Lena needs him for a team she's building. Why?"
Nora shrugs. "Nothing really. He just used to be my friend, before he volunteered for her experiments. I guess I still care what happens to him."
"Do you know what he can do?"
"He heals people, I know," she said. "He healed me once. But…well, I'm sure Lena told you he can't heal himself-"
"What?" Will stood up straight for a second, then remembered what they were doing and relaxed back against the van. "Lena didn't mention that, actually."
"Well, anyway, he got badly injured soon after the experiment, and then he had to leave INTEL and we stopped talking. I just don't want anything bad to happen to him when he comes back."
"I don't think Lena is going to let anything terrible happen to someone as valuable as him," Will assured her, and then glanced at his watch. "Hanson will be in position by now. We should go."
Nora stood and dusted herself off. He took point as they headed down the road in the same direction Burnett had gone. With a little luck, it would look like they were chasing after him rather than about to drop in on Henry. Not that he should be on guard about anything anyway – he wasn't supposed to be the paranoid type, and Lena had specifically mentioned in their debrief that he had left INTEL on fairly good terms; injury was the only reason he wasn't still there.
Turning up his garden path, they still couldn't see any movement in the house, which could be a bad sign or a good one. The garden itself was just as wild as it looked, and they almost had to fight their way through just to get to the front door. Nora was surprisingly brave then, ringing the doorbell before Will could even lay a hand on it. It was good that she was becoming more confident. He didn't mind having someone level-headed like Nora on his team. It was a change from the rough-and-ready types of HYDRA, where they would eat her alive.
Henry came to the doorbell without suspecting a thing, much to Will's amazement. His eyes first landed on Will, who he judged as not a threat, and then turned to Nora and widened in recognition.
"No," he said, and tried to slam the door in their faces.
"Hey!" Will lurched forward and caught the door before it could shut, bodily forcing it open again. The man behind it was frozen in his hallway, back pressed up again an antique hallstand. "Are you Henry Walker?" he asked, though he was pretty sure he knows the answer, just from the man's reaction.
Henry nodded mutely, just as Nora came barrelling in behind them. "Henry, stop, it's okay," she said. "We're not here to hurt you."
His eyes tracked from Will to her. "It's okay," he repeated. "Like it was okay the last time you said that to me, right before my leg got blown off?" His voice was shaking, and so were his hands as he pointed down at his left foot, where a prosthetic leg was just visible.
"T-that wasn't supposed to happen." Now it was Nora's voice that wavered, and Will realised he wouldn't be able to leave her to do all the talking here. "I'm sorry, Henry. But you have to come back now."
"No," Henry says again. "I already told Lena, I'm done. I'm not doing anything else for anybody."
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice," Will told him, before Nora could start pleading again.
Henry's eyes narrowed. "Who are you, exactly?"
"Your new team leader," Will said, not fooled for a second by the man's brave face. "Who had better things to do than stand here and argue with you all day, so hurry it up."
"Hurry up?" Henry scoffed. "I told you, I'm not going anywhere; especially not America. Way too many aliens and shady organisations using people for science."
"You've got one last chance to come with us willingly," Will said. Henry rolled his eyes and turned away, presumably to try and escape through the house.
Nora didn't even need to be prompted; before he could take more than three steps she had the taser she always carried in her hand and took him down with one powerful zap straight to his back. He crumpled to the floor like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, totally unconscious, and Nora turned to Will with wide eyes.
"Good?" she asked when he didn't immediately respond, turning the taser off.
He shook his head slowly, and stepped forward so he could turn Henry over onto his back and check that he was still breathing. "Better than good," he told Nora as he did so. "You should call Burnett and tell him we need help carrying him out of here."
"Oh," she said. "Right." Raising a finger to the comms device Murphy had made her stick in her ear, she turned away to hail Burnett. Will stayed in the hallway, one eye on Henry at all times just in case he woke up fighting. There wasn't much to him, though Lena said he would be very valuable to the team. Able to heal anything, as long as it was someone else's injury. And, you know, you could convince him to work for you. That part he was excited to see.
Not ten minutes later, Nora was back with Burnett in tow. He was a big guy, Burnett, built heavy and sturdy, and while he wasn't the prettiest face to look at, or the fastest on his feet, he could pack a punch like nobody else. And just to prove his strength, he didn't even waste a second in planning, just walked right in and slung Henry's limp body over his shoulder. "Time to go?" he asked, and at a nod from Will, led the way back out into the rain. "Good, cause I've been standin' around in this weather for long enough."
"So, boss," Nora said, falling into step next to him. "What's our next move?"
Will shrugged. "Back to America," he replied, his eyes on Henry. "And then onto our next target."
"Do you know who it is?"
He should tell her to stop asking questions and mind her own business, like he would have done with anyone from his team at HYDRA, but Nora was beginning to prove herself a capable leader, once given the courage to do so, and there wasn't much harm in giving her one little piece of information.
"Christina Paterson," he told her. "Chicago." Nora nods, and they walk the rest of the way to the car in silence.
