Hey y'all, it's been quite a while and for that I'm sorry. I can't promise that I will be updating too frequently anymore (though you could probably guess that since it has been about 2 year) but I am not abandoning this story.

Shit has just gone down in my life and I need to focus on that instead of writing and I hope you understand.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter! (and just a reminder that Kaneki's past is slightly different in my story than in the anime)

And other side note, if you didn't realize, this is cross posted on Wattpad (I didn't steal the story and if you don't believe me PM me on that account).

Kaneki found himself outside of Kei Aito's cell, watching every move he made.

'Creepy much Eyepatch? Shouldn't you at least say hi?'

Mad Knight's voice was dripping with enough sarcasm to make Eyepatch huff inwardly. Though he couldn't help but smile in amusement as well.

Yet, like it or not, if he wanted to pass as the man in front of him, he needed to pick up on his mannerisms. There is only so much you can tell about a person from their file. Sure, a file can tell you what family is alive or dead, who they've killed, where they live, even the name of their weapons if applicable; but it didn't tell you what they thought about their dead or alive family members, how they walked, how they talked. Were they loyal with a strict moral code or where they chaotic and went wherever the money was? You know the facts but not the person.

And Kaneki had no way of knowing how many people in that gathering would know the person.

That was why he was observing Kei from the other side of the electric field, the man unable to see Kaneki himself. He was never the best at imitating others or picking up on their subtle quirks, but he hasn't had a choice but to do so in him past years. Even the smallest of a finger twitch can signal an attack or nervousness; both can be used in a fight or when talking yourself out of a fight. It was something that Kaneki had seen Hide do on a regular…

God does he miss Hide.

Kaneki heard a door open behind him as another person entered the large grey room. The cell Aito is in is different from the one Kaneki was in. The room was longer than wide, but still fairly big in both aspects. Instead of being in a closed off room as a cell, Aito was merely cut off from them by a forcefield placed about two thirds of the way into the room. Currently said man was pacing.

"Don't take this wrong, but staring at the guy is a bit creepy," Clint said as he walked into the room.

'Told you.'

Eyepatch repressed as smile. "You are a spy, you should know that what I am doing is necessary. Especially since I'm unused to the whole roll."

Hawkeye moved to his side, eyes now fixed on Aito as Kaneki's are. "I've never really gotten the chance to observe the person I'm imitating. The file is all I've ever gotten. Eventually you can get pretty close even without ever meeting the person. S.H.I.E.L.D does keep pretty thorough records."

"I never had the ability to read people that well, never had the talent for it. I only learned because of necessity. If I can barely pick up on those quirks by watching, I would never be able to become a person without observing them in some way."

"I'm sure you would do better than you think."

"Maybe."

Kaneki turned from the cell to look at the man next to him. Clint pretended not to notice, letting Kaneki study him for the moment. Despite his serious expression, it seemed like something was bothering him. Clint's jaw was clenched too tight, his posture to stiff. It wasn't from nervousness, no. If it had been, Kaneki would have averted his gaze and taken a step away to give Clint space. It wasn't nervousness, but worry. Eyepatch didn't know him well enough to tell why.

Kaneki did turn his gaze back to Aito. Seconds passed and felt like minutes.

Clint opened his mouth several times, only to shut it before he speaks.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Clint's eyes seemed to lose a bit of luster at the questions. He just stared off into space. Then he snapped out of it. "It's nothing. Anyway, I came in here to get you. Fury needs something."

Kaneki turned back to him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Clint snorted. "Hate to break it to you kid, but none of the Avengers are okay. My worries are just nothing you need to concern yourself with right now."

Kaneki found his way to the office from which Fury had sent for him. Even as he walked he could feel the movement of the helicarrier under his feet, making the hair on his neck stand on end. It may not have bothered him before, but Kaneki knew that he hated flying. Well, it wasn't flying itself. It was the feeling of confinement that he got. If he needed to escape, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide; just a vast openness that he couldn't maneuver in. If it had been up to him, he would have made Fury bring Aito to the Avenger's tower so he could observe the man there. That, of course, didn't happen.

Finally, Eyepatch was in front of the door. Not knowing what else to do, he knocked twice.

"Come in."

Fury was sitting in a chair, both arms on the desk with his fingers laced, when Kaneki opened the door.

"Take a seat, there are a few things I would like to discuss with you."

Kaneki eyed the chair across from Fury before reluctantly sitting down. Fury's office was only slightly bigger than any other room he had been in. The walls were a light gray and there were shelves on the wall to Kaneki's left. On the right was a single, but fairly large window with a monitor above it. Fury's desk took up a majority of the room, stretching a good two thirds of the room's width. Over all though, the room was less extravagant that he would have pictured for the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"First of all, who am I currently talking to."

"Eyepatch."

"Right then. Now, there are a few things I need to confirm. First, have you ever been involved in a spy organization before?"

"I would consider Aogiri more of a terrorist organization," Kaneki said flatly.

"Do you have any experience in infiltration?"

"I've been on a few missions, nothing fancy though."

"Success rate?"

"If I had ever failed a mission I would be dead now."

Fury's expression stayed steady, revealing absolutely nothing.

"What was your rank when a part of Aogiri?"

"Me or Mad Knight?"

"Both, though I'm curious to how they are different."

"I was a captain, though due to my… unique position, I was somewhere between the second and third rank from the top. Mad Knight though, he was a bit of an outlier. He didn't have any authority, but no one but second tier and above had any authority over him.

"As for how the rankings were different… I believe I told you that the members of the CCG thought of 'Eyepatch' and 'Mad Knight' as different ghouls. That is because we were for the most part. You don't show your face to anyone in that organization, at least, the smart ones don't. We were functioning as two different people. There were only two people that knew we were the 'same person' and there was no gain for them to say anything."

Fury was quiet for a second. "What was your function then? What role did you play?"

This kind of stuff would have been better to ask before you assigned me a role in this operation.

"I was in charge of a specific group of ghouls, like a large scale squad. Everyone in the third tier was the same in that sense. I was in charge of gathering food, some rescue missions, assassinations or massacres, and, due to who I took my position from, I was also in charge of..." Eyepatch looked down at his feet, trying to blink away memory flashes.

"Took your position?"

Kaneki let out a sigh of breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "I killed a previous captain and took his job so to speak."

"And what was he in charge of?"

Incoherent whispering filled his brain.

They were laughing.

"He was also in charge of torture for information, and since I killed him I had to take that over as well. I'm not proud of it, but it was a necessity."

'Necessity? Necessity!'

'Of course that is what you will justify it with.'

'Of course you would act like you didn't enjoy it.'

'The ripping…'

'The shredding…'

Kaneki let the voices continue even is he wasn't listening. Fury kept talking but it felt like it was inside of a vacuum. Kaneki didn't hear what he said and wasn't sure if he wanted to. That didn't mean that he didn't catch the slight slip of Fury's mask, a slip that revealed something so unlike the man that Kaneki was forced to disregard it as a trick of his mind. It wasn't like that would have been unprobable.

'The taste of blood…'

'And counting and counting and counting…'

'Over and over and over…'

'Did he really need to do it?'

'You could have refused.'

He hated it. He hated it, hated it, hated it, hated it. He could try to blame Jason for the reason he picked up that finger crushing wrench. He could blame the man for putting him in such a mental state that he even considered doing something like that in the first place. Logically, he could justify his actions on so many sick and twisted levels, but it nothing for the build up of guilt. There was part of him that had enjoyed it, the voices were right. It was twisted but there was that dark sadistic part of him that wanted others to feel what he had felt. Why did they get to be happy? Why did they have the perfect sanity that he had longed for since he was a child? It wasn't fair and he was going to take that from them, take it like Jason took from him and Jason's torturer took from Jason.

Then there was the other part of him that… well, still clung on so desperately to his mother's words. There was this side to him that knew that he had just been feeding the obvious cycle. How could he hate them? How could he want to take away the happiness they had been able to scrape up in this imperfect world? He had failed, given up so much so that others could be happy, yet there he was carving people open.

'You talk like you were the one who had the knife in your hand. You very well know that I was the one who ripped them apart.'

Eyepatch furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"There is another thing I need to confirm. You said that normal weapons can't pierce your skin, correct?"

Kaneki snapped himself out of it. "Yeah."

"Do you know to what extent?"

"No weapon that you would have could damage me too severely, especially if I had just eaten. Though I've never been blown up by a bomb, so it is possible that that could take me out."

Fury eyed Kaneki warily and paused for a moment. He pulled a stack file from a drawer in his desk. "Then I'm going to further your task in the upcoming operation. You will no longer be freeing soley our inside man but also freeing everyone on this list."

Fury dropped the file on the desk.

"These people are innocents for the most part. New intel came in today regarding their capture. I wasn't going to give you the task unless I knew you had the skill to pull it off. Your job is to get all of them out.

"There is more intel that came in today as well." Fury dropped a paper map on top of the already placed file. It was of the building they would be infiltrating. "There is a sewer access on the fifth floor that can lead you out of the fight zone. This way, you don't have to try to bring a good twenty people through the fight. But the place isn't going to be abandoned. There will no doubt be guards with guns and weapons. Your job is to take bullets so the civilians don't have to."

Fury stopped for a second.

"I want you to be completely honest with me. Do you think you can pull this off? If not, the civilians would be better off staying where they are until after. At least they would still be alive even if we lose."

Kaneki scanned over the list of names, and the map. He, for once, wasn't worried. Though everything can always go wrong. "I don't think it will be a problem."

"Good. I will be briefing Natasha on the situation next. You may leave."