Chapter 17
It had been an exceptionally dull day at the office for Agent Coulson. As a man who regularly prayed for the quiet, uneventful days that came seldom in his line of work he did his best to appreciate that his boredom was a good thing. That it meant the world was not in imminent danger and that he would get a decent night's sleep for once. However, he couldn't keep his eyes from drifting, from the piles of paperwork he was mindlessly trying to get tamed, to the window – the portal to a world that held such excitement, wonder and possibility just outside his steel box with poor electric lights and ventilation that barely passed as air conditioning.
He breathed out evenly, and restacked the pile of forms before him. A small clattering alerted him to the fact he had just knocked his little container of paper clips off the desk. He leant down to collect the small plastic cylinder, thankful the lid had remained in place to hold the one hundred colourful pieces of bent wire inside it. He winced slightly at a small twinge of pain in his chest, then grimaced fully at the memory it brought back.
All in all, the medical technology SHIELD possessed was truly miraculous to bring him back from a chest impalement injury with no ongoing problems other than the occasional uncomfortable twinge. But what hurt this man more was the memory of being taken down, falling so easily at the front line, cast aside like the weak thing his body was.
Being surrounded by super-human beings really doesn't do wonders for your self-esteem, but he'd worked so hard to be useful, to be worthy, to mean something. Surely that had to count for something? It was all he wanted… but at the end of the day he had been kidding himself. He was just like everyone else who worked hard all day, all their lives. He was just another human, another casualty of a battle too advanced for a world that wasn't ready for it. He should be grateful for a lot, but he couldn't help but feel that part of the reason he was here now was pity.
RIIIIIIINGGGGGGG!
The noise of the phone jolted him from his steadily spiralling thoughts. His pulse picked up both in anticipation and in dread. A mission? His hand was shaking as he picked up the receiver, but whether it was from excitement or fear he didn't know, or at least wouldn't admit (not even to himself). His voice however, was calm as always.
"This is Coulson."
"Agent." Came the voice of Director Fury. "I've got a job for you."
Agent Phil Coulson couldn't keep the slight curl of a smile from his lips.
