The afternoon at work dragged just as much, if not more, than the morning had. I kept thinking of all the things I should have said to Brock at lunchtime, then dismissing them all as stupid, as things he would just have laughed at, and the worst part was that I didn't even know if I was right. When had I started doubting his reactions? I turned the radio on, gritting my teeth and hoping the noise would drown out the incessant circle of my thoughts. It helped, but only a little.

I was a bit later leaving than I would have liked, when my boss brought in some samples with only half an hour of the work day remaining. I scowled at his back, ran them as fast as I could, and left only ten minutes late. The days were still getting longer, so there was plenty of light in the sky when I arrived at the hospital and hurried up the stairs and along the corridors that I now knew well to Brock's room. But someone was already there. It was lucky that I noticed the blue scrubs first, or I probably would have snarled at the figure leaning over his bed. Instead, I managed to swallow down the angry sound in the doorway, though I was sure Brock caught my fading glare as he looked up. The nurse, with his back to me, was blocking my view of Brock's body, but from the surface of the trolley beside them, I could guess what was happening, and I hesitated.

"Can I come in?" I asked tentatively, unsure of how sensitive Brock was going to be.

"If you want to," he replied, after the slightest pause, and I heard the challenge in his tone. I thrust my chin out at him before stepping inside. The nurse looked round, and I realised with a pang of embarrassment that she was a woman, just with very short hair. She smiled as I moved round to the other side of Brock's bed, and looked down at his bare right arm. I didn't know what I'd imagined, whether this was better or worse than the expectations I'd had. Patches of skin, dotted around from the back of his hand all the way to halfway up his bicep, were blistered and weeping, specks of black around the edges of the red and white. The rest of his skin was pink and looked sore too, but that was nothing compared to the dark oozing spots.

Brock was watching my face, waiting for a reaction that I refused to give, keeping my face blank and impassive as I ran my eyes over the wounds once more before raising my eyes to his face. He looked scared. I'd seen Brock cool and calm in the midst of fights, but he looked scared now as he waited for me to speak. I didn't, just smiled at him, and pressed my hand onto his chest, right over his heart, feeling it pumping under my fingers. Neither of us spoke, but we didn't look away either, until the nurse finished bandaging his arm, said some things we didn't listen to, and left.

"That's the best of it," Brock said quietly. "The rest is worse, and—"

I silenced him with a squeeze of my hand on his chest. "I love you," I reminded him, and a little of the tension left his face, though his smile was a few shades away from genuine.

"You should have run months ago," he murmured. "I don't deserve you." Tossing my hair, I sat down in my usual seat.

"Am I that good?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation before his answer.

"How good am I? What do I deserve?"

"Anything."

"Anything? Do I deserve to be happy, with anyone I choose?" I kept my voice clear as he nodded. "And what if I choose you?" His head stilled. "Don't I deserve to be able to do that?" This time, his smile was more recognisable.

"When did you get so clever?" he asked.

"Oh, I've just been good at hiding it," I teased him back, smiling as I crossed my legs under me, but a knock on the door made us both look round before he could respond.

.

.

I never had Brock's instinct for trouble. Everyone I passed on the street, if I met their eyes, I would give a small smile, but Brock knew, just by looking at them, if they were bad news. He would nod politely to those that passed his test, but put himself firmly between me and any that didn't, flexing his shoulders until they looked aside as they passed. I could never tell the difference between them. But the woman with flame red hair standing in the doorway now… she put me on edge, and I knew that I would be tense even if she wasn't staring at Brock with an expression that was unreadable, but intense enough to scorch metal. I wanted to snarl at her, to place myself between them so her eyes couldn't burn into him anymore. Yet I also wanted to cower back in my chair and whimper. I wanted to be so far away from her that I would never even think of her face again.

"Oh good," Brock muttered, letting his head flop back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling above him.

"You look like shit," the woman said, without moving from the door.

"I got a building dropped on me," Brock snapped, then seemed to bit his own tongue before sighing. "Why are you here?"

"To talk."

"Really? Somehow I highly doubt that. Has Rogers given up on me so quickly?"

"Steve was never going to have this conversation. It would never even have occurred to him. But it needs to happen," she shrugged, and Brock rolled his head sideways to look at her again.

"What conversation would that be?"

"The practical one." She finally moved forwards into the room, dropping a pile of files at the bottom of Brock's bed. I flinched, though he didn't, his eyes flicking to me for a second before looking back to her as she flipped open the top one and thrust it at him. He raised an eyebrow, gesturing with his two injured hands. She hesitated for the barest second, and I took the file, shifting closer and holding it up for Brock whilst I glared suspiciously over the top at her. Totally un-phased, she crossed her arms as she watched Brock. I looked down at the file I was holding, blinking several times before I realised that it wasn't just my tired eyes. Nothing made sense; it was just a jumble of letters, scrawled randomly across the page. Brock was frowning, as his eyes flicked across the page.

"When was this written?" he asked.

The woman shrugged. "It should say on the front," she replied. I flipped the file closed, scanning down to the bottom, where a date several months previously, in the middle of January, was printed. I glanced at Brock, who nodded, and I opened the file again, watching as his eyes moved far slower this time, mouthing to himself as he read, clearing making far more sense of it this time.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, without looking up.

"One of the files I dumped onto the internet," she replied, red hair swinging forwards as she shrugged again. "Some were clean, but most are encrypted. That's where you come in."

Brock grunted. "It's a route change," he said slowly, "for something in Thailand." Frowning, he read a little further. "A shipment of weapons, and explosives, going to Bangkok." He looked up, and met the woman's gaze.

"Any mention of who they're going to?" she asked, and he looked back down, lips moving again as he scanned slowly down the page. I watched the woman watching him, her face still perfectly blank.

"No," Brock said eventually, and I lowered the file until it was resting on the bed beside him as the woman nodded, then held out a hand for it. I closed the file and handed it back to her, watching her tap it against her fingers.

"There's a lot more of these," she said, and Brock snorted.

"I don't have much else I can do," he pointed out, and she gave a slight tilt of her head in acquiescence, still tapping the file against her fingers, and glanced at me before speaking again.

"SHIELD is dead. Everyone's moving on, into different companies, all the assets are being dissolved. Soon there'll be nothing left, so officially, you're not employed anymore."

My eyes darted between them, though neither face gave anything away. "And unofficially?" I asked.

"Unofficially… you'll still be paid each month. Just don't bother looking too hard at where it comes from."

"Oh, that'll be useful for the tax forms…" I muttered before I could stop myself. The other option was to let it become obvious that I was very glad to be sitting down already. Brock didn't make a sound, but I saw the movement of his stomach that meant he was holding in a laugh.

"That'll be taken care of," the woman said, after a moment's pause, and I sobered instantly in that second of hesitation, which spoke so loudly. Rogers's threats reverberated through my head again, and my hands clenched. From the sideways glances, I could tell that they'd noticed, but neither of them commented as they exchanged a look that held far more meaning than I could read.

Eventually Brock nodded slowly. "Fair enough," he said. The woman nodded back and held out another file.