Miranda woke up when it was still dark out, the time difference messing with her, but she figured it was time she could put to good use, unpacking her suitcase and finding clothes for the day, as well as discovering where the SHIELD agents had put everything from their London flat. Most of it was easily found, except for her shoes, strangely. They were in the bedroom closet. She wondered if this was a New York thing, or an American thing, or maybe just a SHIELD thing.
She'd sorted all her clothes out and put them away by the time Ronald started stirring. He always did like to sleep in.
She threw herself on the bed with him. "Wake up sleepyhead," she declared. "There will be SHIELD agents here to pick us up in an hour and you have terrible bed head."
He groaned, and tried to bury himself in the covers, but Miranda wasn't having any of that. With a neat flick of her wrists, the blankets were on the floor, Ron nearly following behind them.
"I'm up, I'm up," he muttered.
"I'd hope so," Miranda retorted. "If we're late for our first day it won't be a good start."
A junior SHIELD agent knocked on their door promptly at 8:30, and introduced himself as Lucas Fernandez. He led them to the car, which had a small SHIELD symbol on the license plate as well as on the parking pass on the dashboard.
Miranda wasn't sure what she expected, but she didn't think an intelligence agency like SHIELD would so plainly leave out identifying information. (Or maybe it was like the American equivalent of Torchwood, the secret organization that everyone knew about, but still humoured.)
Lucas sped them through the busy streets and deposited them at the doors of a non-descript building that looked like every other office building nearby. The only difference was that there were agents waiting to greet Miranda and Ronald and take them to their training and orientation seminars.
"Dr Elijah Leary," the man introduced himself. "I'm head of the medical division. We're thrilled to have you here." He smiled shyly at Miranda, and she responded in kind. On her right, Ron was shaking hands with a woman, but she missed the name that was given. "We have a general SHIELD orientation for you, and then you can tour the medical facility in the afternoon. If there's anything you need to know along the way, don't hesitate to ask."
Miranda nodded, and the man led her into the building. She'd been given an ID card the day before by Agent Carter, with a picture of her that was actually decent, declaring her clearance to be level three
She wasn't sure how far that would get her, but she suspected that there were ten levels, based on Mr Fury's level.
The man led her down an increasing number of hallways, into at least two elevators, and one stairwell. She was never going to be able to find her way around. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure that he knew where he was going. Miranda almost laughed at that, the idea that the head of the medical division was only pretending to know where he was going, and was actually lost.
She didn't ask though, and they ended up there eventually, so who was she to judge?
Eventually they were seated in a boardroom, Dr Leary at her side, a woman she didn't recognize on the other side of the table, and a man in a suit standing by the door.
The woman across the table introduced herself as Agent Hill. Miranda sensed that she was important, but she didn't know where on the scale of importance.
Agent Hill explained a bit about SHIELD, gave her a briefing packet about the history of the organization. She got another briefing packet about the medical staff and an actual manual on procedures and rules. Everything, of course, was tailored to her clearance level, which Agent Hill went on to explain.
"Your clearance level can be upped, but this is a good starting point. Your clearance for medical information is much higher, of course, somewhere on par with a level six agent, but you get the level three pass because we can't have you wandering into restricted areas."
Miranda nodded. She understood that.
Agent Hill excused herself after that, saying she had other places to be, and Dr Leary took over from there, talking about her duties, what she would be expected to do, and her limitations.
"Unless there is a crisis, like the alien invasion that happened recently, you weren't here for that, were you?"
Miranda shook her head.
"Right. Well unless there's something like that, or some other sort of Avengers event, then the medical staff is fairly light. All SHIELD agents are required to have basic first aid, so you won't be getting papercuts and the like. There will be the occasional sparring accident in the gym, sometimes arguments get a bit out of control, and there's the other medical things like allergic reactions and migraines."
Miranda nodded again. It almost sounded a bit mundane, especially compared to what she was used to.
"But if there is an emergency, or even something small that the Avengers are called you, you can bet that you'll be on duty then, or maybe even called in. In those cases, way more of the medical staff will be in, and we sometimes send out triage teams. You may be a part of that, or you may be staying here, it really depends on where the Avengers are, since they will be your primary patients."
"Okay, question," Miranda said, wincing as she cut off the good doctor accidentally. "You keep mentioning these Avengers. Why are they such a big deal? I mean, I've dealt with bad patients before, which is why I was recruited, but... I'm probably going to regret saying this, but how bad can they be?"
Dr Leary blinked at her.
"Well," he said, choking over the word a little. "A lot of it will be detailed in your briefing packets, but I can give you an overview."
He laid his hands on the table and took a deep breath to prepare himself. "The Avengers are a team of six people with extraordinary abilities. Some of them are superhuman, some of them aren't even human, and some are just skilled beyond belief. They pretty much single-handedly saved the world not too long ago, and yet despite their genius, they are probably the most irresponsible group of people I've ever met when it comes to their health."
Dr Leary looked up at her, his eyes haunted.
"One of them, Tony Stark, known as Iron Man, has shrapnel embedded in his chest from an incident in Afghanistan. You know what he did? He miniaturized an arc reactor and installed it in his chest to keep the shrapnel from entering his heart. He is basically an infection waiting to happen. I don't know how he hasn't succumbed to pneumonia or myocarditis by now." He shook his head. "I honestly don't," he whispered.
Miranda gave him a moment to get himself together, then stuck a hand up and waited to be called on. "Um, yeah, you know that I'm actually an emergency care practitioner, right? Not like a trauma surgeon or something."
The man who'd been hovering at the side of the room for the entire hour spoke up.
"Yes, we are aware of that. However, your skill set has been well documented, and we can provide additional training for anything you're not entirely comfortable with. What's more important to us is your demeanour while treating patients."
"Which is..."
The man smirked, and it looked odd on his face, like he never used it. "Not putting up with any bullshit."
She nodded, smiling slightly. "I thought that's what you meant."
"Agent Coulson," he said, stepping forward and holding his hand out for her to shake.
She took it. "Miranda Higgins, which I suspect you already knew."
"Your reputation precedes you," he said, his face completely straight now. "Although I have to admit, you're going to have to live up to that reputation. Once things get started on a SHIELD base, they sort of... grow."
Miranda laughed. "You mean everyone is gossiping about me."
"Yes," Coulson said wryly. "I believe the time where you treated Sherlock Holmes after he was drugged has turned into you rescuing him from a drug cartel, hauling him out under one arm while shooting with the other."
Miranda laughed. "I'm never going to be able to live up to that."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that quite yet," Coulson noted, with a chill to his voice that almost sounded ominous.
Miranda chose to ignore it, hoping it wouldn't come back to bite her.
(It did, of course. With razor sharp and dagger length teeth.)
The rest of the day was spent in the medical wing of SHIELD, which was often shortened by people to just 'medical', some fondly, some out of hatred.
It was fairly large, with a number of different wings, including an entire wing just for quarantine that was capable of holding up to 50 people. She didn't want to think why they'd have to have that, but she wasn't going to ask.
The technology was top of the line, most of it Stark-tech, commissioned specially for SHIELD. They had their own MRI, CT, a number of operating rooms, rehab facilities, and a number of psychiatric offices.
She was impressed.
Ronald met up with her at the end of the day, and they were taken home by the same junior agent that brought them to SHIELD in the morning. Miranda wondered what he did all day. Did he just drive people around in the New York traffic? Because she thought London was bad, but New York... well, New York was worse.
Ron told her about his day, learning to field communications from inside and outside SHIELD. He was quickly schooled in what was a prank call, and what was not. The bottom line was that if there was even the slightest possibility it was true, they had to treat it seriously. Which was how she found herself on the back end of a story involving sentient balloons, which thankfully turned out to be false.
She felt her day was far less exciting, which was proven by her ability to stay up an entire hour later than her husband before collapsing into bed, probably to awaken just as early the next morning.