"Excuse me?"
Captain America's incredulous voice was loud in the silent office, no one moving a muscle as he stared, almost bug-eyed, at the one-eyed man across from him.
Director Fury paused for a moment, sitting back calmly in his chair and crossing his hands across his lap. "Would you like me to repeat myself?"
The Captain couldn't reply, face slack as he just stared at the man in front of him. A thousand responses flew through his mind, but in the end all he could manage was opening and closing his mouth like a rather stunned fish.
Another voice broke the silence for him however.
"...Sir?"
"Yes Mr Barnes."
The man hesitated before speaking again.
"Are you sure this is wise?" he asked.
"Do you think it's not?"
Bucky hesitated once more, searching for the words he wanted as the silence stretched out in front of him. Natasha came to his rescue however, levelling Fury with a flat look.
"Yes. Director, I could list several reasons as to why this isn't a good idea."
Fury, face unreadable, turned one hand palm up politely, silently inviting her to continue.
That was enough for the spy. "This girl," she gestured at the picture face-up on the table where a young teenager smiled at the camera with sparkling eyes, "is young. Too young. She looks like she hasn't seen a gun in her life, much less fired one. The idea that she's an agent seems... implausible - are you sure you've got the right person?"
Fury looked at the picture with a frown, but shrugged. "If MI6 says this is her then this is her."
"She must be, what 15, 16?"
"17. I'm told that this is an old photo."
Natasha looked at him and back at the file on the table doubtfully, trying to reconcile the two people in front of her. The two ideas just seemed so contradictory that Natasha found it hard to believe how the innocent young woman looking up at her could possibly be the ruthless spy that Fury had described.
"Is this even legal?" Sam asked, interrupting her train of thought.
"Technically, yes"
Everyone stared at the head of the table suspiciously.
"...Technically?"
"Well she was emancipated and is now legally employed by MI6" Fury explained, "so it holds up in court if that's what you're asking."
"That wasn't what I was really asking, no."
Fury could only give a small shrug in reply before moving on.. "Either way, the contract with us is fully legitimate. We give her our protection for a couple months and she works for us while she's here. She'll be a useful person to have around and should make a lot of our missions far easier. It's simple really," he said, as if this hadn't been a headache from the moment it crossed his desk.
('This' being the surprisingly fresh-faced looking spy grinning up at him as if she knew exactly how much trouble she had caused and was very amused by it.)
"So, does anyone have any other questions?"
Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. "Yea, actually, I do. Why is she even here?"
Fury barely bit back an exasperated sigh but kept his voice neutral when he answered. "A recent operation of hers went south and almost failed - MI6 think she was targeted by someone and so has decided to get her out of the country. That means that she'll be posing as one of our agents while she's here so we can give her the protection the tower provides" and put her to good use at the same time.
"And that would make sense, only agents don't stay in the tower," Bucky pointed out, eyes narrowed as he met Fury's gaze unflinchingly. "They normally only work here and sleep elsewhere."
"That's why she'll be working with you guys throughout her stay."
"...What?"
Fury actually sighed this time. "She's going to act as a… secondary avenger of sorts. Your positions in the public eye mean that what you do is often analysed and commented on either by the press or by intelligence agencies which means we often need to be careful about the political fallout of our missions. Having someone in the shadows who isn't as restricted will be very useful, hence why I agreed to taking her. Understood?"
After a couple beats of silence Fury closed the file with a snap. "Right then, dismissed."
A groan left your mouth as your alarm went off, shrill and entirely unpleasant at this time of the morning. The mission and subsequent debrief had finished late the night before last and by the time you had actually got into bed it had been well into the early hours of the morning. Safe to say, you were exhausted. You'd pretty much slept all the way through the last couple days, waking up only to stumble tiredly to the kitchen for a glass of water before collapsing again.
Throwing off the blanket you propped yourself onto your elbows, blearily taking in the room as you tried to locate where the obnoxious beeping was coming from and eliminate it as soon as possible. It pierced your mind loudly and seemed to echo around your skull, a headache blooming behind your eyes as if there was a very drunk, very determined buffalo with a sledgehammer trapped in your head.
If this noise doesn't stop soon so help me God I will set the whole room on fire.
You're such a morning person.
However, despite the already insistent throbbing in your head the day didn't improve from there. Your side screamed at you as your legs swept over the side of the bed and a slew of filthy curses left your mouth as you tried to breathe against the pain. The bruising that had blossomed across your ribs overnight made itself known quite insistently and you let out a low hiss at the smarting ache that spasmed up your side. Mind cloudy from the pain, you rested against the side of the bed.
Eventually however the need to smack your shrieking alarm into the seventh circle of hell cut through the fog in your brain and you stumbled across the room to the dresser, stabbing one of the little black buttons and fervently hoping that it was the right one.
The beeping stopped.
Hallelujah.
You couldn't really find it in yourself to feel anything more than relief though. The past couple days had been rough as you recovered from your injuries and more than anything you just desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Your headache hadn't abated and every breath ached and more than anything you wished you were back at home with a couple of strong painkillers.
Why you were in a hotel in America therefore was a mystery to you.
Why you were being driven halfway across a city in business-casual to meet some strangers even more so.
Nevertheless, Saturday morning saw you standing as upright as you could in a rather stiff shirt, bright artificial office lights bearing down on you as you stared across the rather bare white room at the Avengers.
The Avengers.
You knew MI6 were sending you to stay with someone until the whole 'angry drug ring' fiasco blew over but the Avengers hadn't really crossed your mind as options. None of them really seemed like the 'parenting' types, though what gave you that impression you had no idea.
It might have been the guns.
Probably the guns.
What had you got into this time?
A couple days earlier
The door swung open more quickly than you had anticipated and you stumbled as you crossed the entrance into the house, shutting the door behind you with a groan. It was by now so late into the night that you could confidently call it morning and you were about ready to drop on your feet.
Everything hurt.
Everything hurt.
Your breaths were shallow and almost desperate as panic clawed its way up your throat. You had to breathe. You had to breathe but you couldn't.
Your side and ribs felt like they were on fire. Your legs were like lead. Blood seeped unseen into your suit from the grazes that ran down the outside of your right thigh.
God, everything hurt.
A choked sob echoed through the empty house and you clamped your lips shut instinctively. Pushed the emotions down ruthlessly. Took as deep of a breath as you could manage with your bruised ribs.
You just had to get upstairs. Once you were upstairs you could crash and not have to move for the foreseeable future. It would all be ok.
That was easier said than done however.
Most of your weight was against the door and it felt like if you stood up your legs would collapse under you. It felt like if you so much as took too deep of a breath your ribs would crack. Your head was foggy with pain and the sense of panic and claustrophobia was returning scarily fast.
Upstairs. Just had to get upstairs.
You'd never know how you actually managed it. One minute you were by the door and the next you were in bed.
A second later you were asleep.
Present
"Agent Y/N" the man in front of you said.
You felt like you wanted to throw up.
"Ace."
"Excuse me?"
"I'd prefer to go by my codename, Ace. Sir," you added belatedly.
The room held its breath for a moment until Fury nodded almost imperceptibly, accepting your request. "Very well. Ace, meet the Avengers."
Around the room people straightened at the team name, expressions growing slightly more alert and professional.
You knew you should be focusing on them, the people around the table. Matching faces to names and going over the information in the worryingly thin files you'd been given to study on the way over. Instead you barely managed to tamp down the nausea that rolled in the depths of your stomach, the situation compounded with your injuries leaving you on edge, tense and with a sour taste in your mouth.
"Please, sit."
Steve was alarmed.
There was no other word for it.
He hid it well, don't get me wrong, but alarm bells were ringing in his mind and he narrowed his eyes as he inspected the figure in front of him.
The woman bore almost no resemblance to the girl in the photo. In fact, had he not been expressly told that this was Y/N, Ace, Steve doubted he would have recognised her.
The girl in the photo had been bright, bubbly, all wide smiles and sparkling eyes.
The woman in front of her was empty. Her skin was too pale to be healthy, her mouth starkly red in contrast, and her eyes hollow.
Haunted.
They looked like Bucky's.
What had left her like this?
He almost didn't want to know. He didn't want to know what had given the girl that dark, almost feral shade to her eyes.
That sort of ruthlessness belonged to killers and sinners, not 17 year olds.
It was when Ace moved to sit however that something else caught his attention. It took a second for Steve to work out of what it was - the girl had hidden it impressively well - but a theory quickly materialised.
She was injured.
Ace's movements were stiffer than they should have been if the girl really was as good of an agent as Fury and her file had said. There was rigidity to them which hadn't been there when she had walked in, and although her expression stayed carefully blank all the evidence pointed to her being injured.
A quick glance out of the corner of his eye at Natasha told him that she had realised it too.
Which begged the question, what was an injured agent doing in a meeting when she should probably be resting?
This was probably another one of those things that Steve probably didn't want to know, but this whole situation left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Nevertheless he suspected he would be having a serious talk with Fury after this.