Operation: Shadows

Chapter 1: Decisions

January 3rd 2004

MARIA

Maria Hill walked quickly through the quiet hallways of the Triskelion. The dimly lit hallways only further emphasised the early hours of the morning as most agents were sleeping soundlessly in the bunks that she was quietly walking by. Despite the Triskelion being located in a central area, many agents did not have homes placed here, many were visiting, so they simply had several floors dedicated to living areas for these agents, which were easily located on B1-B4. Near the entrance of the building, therefore reduced the amount of effort to climb into a bed after a mission – it also reduced the amount of blood scattered over the Triskelion. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

Most agents that lived in the Triskelion knew of the secret basement levels, that went pasted B1-B4. There was a large hanger area one floor under the living area and slightly to the right in order for it to be directly under the bay that the Triskelion was located next to. It was surprisingly easy to hide this hanger from most of their agents, Fury had plans for a future holding area of Helicarriers, although, the fact that it is a secret from most of their agents at the moment led Hill to believe that it would be something more.

Underneath all of this, was more floors dedicated to highly classified operations, ones that mainly involved human experimentation. That was were she was heading to as she stepped into the elevator with a small sigh. She did the overly complicated security sequences to allow her access to the proper panel for the elevator so that she could choose the correct floor and not just end up at B4. She was at B1 now and there was no stairs to take her any further down after B4.

Maria leaned against the wall of the lift as she mused over everything she knew about her current project. It was given to her before she was declared Deputy Director, which happened just over six months ago – which was insane to think about. She was the youngest deputy director since S.H.I.E.L.D started up, she also stands by that she is also the only deputy director to put up with an insane amount of bullshit.

Once she had been read upon everything that S.H.I.E.L.D was doing, or has done, she was seriously questioning the sanity and paranoia of her director, Nick Fury, but she shrugged and went along with it. The more she spent re-reading over everything and experience what it was like to be the Deputy Director, she began to understand why Fury was doing what he was during. So she kept her mouth shut and followed her orders.

Her current orders? Proceed with the second trials of her human experimentation project. Their first group of their current trial had went about as good as it would get and if their second group goes as smoothly as their first, she was under orders to start building her shadow teams.

The doors pinged and she walked out to her floor after doing a retinal scan at the entrance. She held back a smile as she saw the floor that was dedicated to her operation. It was dimly lit when you first walked into it, narrow and winding corridors that seemed to lead to nowhere. A good tactic incase someone managed to get down here without permission. It would hopefully keep them confused until they could escort them out of the floor.

Some of the corridors led to dead ends, the others led to rooms that helped enhance their operation. Bedrooms, a living area, a nature garden (extremely essential, including the zen part of the garden. Totally not because Maria enjoyed coming down here in the early mornings to do Tai-Chi when she could). There was also the labs and a large, open gymnasium.

It was everything that they needed to make sure that this went successfully.

Currently they were keeping it small, it was not something they wanted to get out. Only a handful of scientist to deal with their volunteers and monitor them and the volunteers themselves knew that this operation existed. The volunteers basically lived down here until they were given the okay to resume their normal lives as S.H.I.E.L.D agents, which was the need for a living area.

Maria strode confidently down one of the corridors which lead to a living area and resisted the urge to smile at the four agents that were sprawled out on the floor as a fifth person watched over them with amusement. She had been working with them for the past year, making sure that they were ready for the experiment as well as helping to prepare for future agents. All six of them agreed that they had wanted everything to go smoothly as it could if their batch turned out be successful.

"We have the go ahead from Fury." She announced, not explaining further as they sat up with a grin. Honestly, they reminded her of children, not the stone cold, adult, agents she once knew them as.

Currently in front of her were her top agents for communications, strategy, espionage and specialists. Tobias Smith, Victoria Hand, Natasha Romanoff and Jayden Sanders.

"Great, we get tiny little beta's." Natasha responded with a grin.

Maria raised an eyebrow "No, everyone else get's one. You couldn't approve of a beta. So no Beta for Natasha." she replied smugly.

"Well, maybe you should have supplied me with better candidates." Natasha grumped.

Maria just rolled her eyes at Natasha behaviour "We're starting the trial tonight, or rather, right now. They are still in their bunks, correct? Go collect your beta and take them to the labs. We will get them prepped and started on the first injection." Maria instructed them. The remaining three nodded as they went to go collected their chosen candidate for the trial.

"So what about me?" Natasha drawled, lying lazily back on her hands.

Maria glanced at the fifth person in the room to see what they wanted to do. Someone many believed to be withering away from their former glory in a care home, unable to remember the greatness they had achieved.

It couldn't be further from the truth.

"I would suggest that she watches and learns for when she picks a suitable candidate." The fifth person said.

Maria nodded "Alright, lets go Romanoff. Time to get make some baby wolves, light, that came out wrong." Maria finished with a groan as she turned on her heel and headed to the labs to commence phase two of Operation: Shadows.


September 14th 2013

SKYE

The gentle hum of the plane did little to ease her conflicted thoughts. She lay quietly on the bed, staring blankly up at the heavily reinforced room. Cage. Apparently hacking into a super secrete spy agency (and maybe releasing some very sensitive information), that half the world didn't even know existed, can get you a lifetime in a maximum security cell, and, not with the normal government. That would be too easy going. No, it has to be a maximum security cell within the super secrete spy agency you just hacked into.

Apparently breaking into a super secret spy agency with an old mac, in a dingy (deeply loved) van with some borrowed Wi-Fi from the nearby coffee shop warrants a job offer at said super secret spy agency. If you could call it a job that is.

Join us and have your genetics modified or spend the rest of you life in a cell with no other human interaction and no electronics. Basically hell, she had summarised. She moved slowly to lie on her side, looking at the bland metallic interview table. She was given 24 hours to make her choice with a little glimpse into the life she would have if she choose to go to jail. If she were honest, she didn't think she would last the 24 hours, she was already going insane with boredom and possible withdrawals with the way her hands were shaking or that could just simply be the nerves of the decision she is about to make.

It's not exactly easy to decided to give up your life in one way or another to someone, something, else. Be held prisoner for the rest of your life or work for us for the rest of your life, either way she was committing herself to this super secret spy agency so she might as well do it and be on good terms with them, maybe they would give her unrestricted access to the internet at all times and basically have freedom to do whatever she wanted. She would have to enquire about that when she told them her decision.

Sighing, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, reluctantly shifting her body in order to sit up, her hands were placed lazily behind her on the bed in an attempt to appear calm and collected as she stared with an almost bored expression at the one way mirror. Unsure as to whether or not there was someone on the other side, she simply raised and eyebrow and called;

"Hello? Anyone there? Ready to tell you guys my decision, kinda get the feeling that you guys already knew what I was going to choose before you even met me, cause after all, you guys are a super secrete spy agency."

Her eyes wandered over the room till she found the camera and stared at it for a few moments, hoping that someone would soon come relieve her of her boredom and from being in this damn cage. It reminded her of some bad times.

"Fine, don't come and hear my wonderful decision! I'll just here and sulk" She grumbled to herself, glancing hopefully at the door.

No such luck.

"Urgh" She groaned, flopping herself down onto the bed. She was acting like a child and she knew it but it was extremely annoying to just be kept here by herself when there was so much to explore.

'Curiosity killed the cat'

She scowled, stupid nuns and their damn sayings (logically, she knew that everyone said that but she was still going to blame the nuns that made her childhood a living hell) but in all honesty, her curiosity was causing all these annoying feelings of restlessness, which was no doubt going to get her killed of boredom (okay maybe a slight over exaggeration but again, evil nuns.)

Finally the door opened quietly as a middle aged man walked in, holding onto a file as he gestured for her to sit in the seat at the table. She eyed the man, what was his name again? Coleslaw? No, who has a surname like? Colemen? No wait it was Coulson, Agent Coulson. She muttered under her breath about the chair at the table looking extremely cold as she sunk into the chair. She stared at the file before lifting her eyes to meet Coulson's, he gave her a small smile as he opened the file.

"So, Skye, I take it you have made a decision?" He asked kindly, making eye contact with her, no doubt to try and put her at ease and damn it, it was working. She relaxed slightly into her chair and nodded.

"Yeah, I realised either way I'm committing the rest of my life to this super secret spy agency of yours, might as well commit myself willingly and be on the good side where there is hopefully unrestricted access to the internet?" She replied, side eyeing him with slight hopefulness.

Coulson let out a laugh, it seemed so full of optimism and happiness and all that mushy stuff. Skye found it weird considering his line of work, she always thought these people had low chuckle if they had to laugh at all, maybe an eye roll to go with it. Coulson seemed genuine in his laugh that she fought to keep a smile off her on face.

"Yes, you will have unrestricted access, I would be worried if you didn't because what you are going to do for us requires it. We need a hacker on this team and I think you are the right person for that. You think outside the box, you don't think like an agent, not yet at least, and that is exactly what this team needs right now. I know Agent May had some conditions on you joining the team, can I take it that it also means you have accepted Agent May's conditions as well?" He asked with a hint of curiosity.

Skye just nodded in response, biting her lip nervously, Agent May had came in after Coulson left, staring down at her with unforgiving, cold eyes and told her the catch of her joining S.H.I.E.L.D. She was to have genetics modified slightly. The wayAgent May had said 'slightly' with a quirk of her lips had filled her with dread and worry. Even if she attempted to tell herself that she wasn't, that she was tougher than some genetic modification, the predatory glint in Agent May's eyes would make her rethink everything. Another catch was that she was not to tell Coulson what this condition was exactly, only that there was a condition to her accepting the job at S.H.I.E.L.D and that was all he was to be told. It confused her and kept her mind preoccupied for the first couple of hours of her brief captivity till she finally summarised that Coulson did not know that S.H.I.E.L.D was modifying the DNA of some of their agents. It was an interesting realisation, one that she stored away for future use.

"Excellent" He said with a grin and pushed the file towards her "This is yours to read as soon as possible. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D Skye, let's go get your stuff and move you in"

She gave a small smile and followed him out the cage, mentally flipping off the cage that she was leaving behind. Not that what she was walking into was much better, she was just leaving one prison for another, the second was just a lot more subtle about it, surrounding her with the other agents but she knew better, she couldn't actually leave this place without being escorted most likely and if she were to ever leave, maybe for a holiday or something, she would be constantly supervised. Her every moved watched, and if she put one toe out of line she would land right back at the plane, probably with no more holidays. That was a depressing thought.

She followed Coulson silently as he pointed out everything on the plane, he was very enthusiastic about the entire thing.

"I requested half of this stuff myself, it was a presents of sort from the director of S.H.I.E.L.D, guess he felt like he owed me one after I was killed in action" He explained in a simple tone, as if it was an everyday occurrence to die.

"Wait, what? You were killed?" Skye asked incredulously, stopping to stare at him.

"Yeah, I was dead for 8 seconds" He replied with a grin. Skye stared at him, how exactly was that amusing?

"Now come on, I need to show you were you will be bunking whilst working with us." he continued walking, monitoring with his hand for her to follow, which she reluctantly obeyed.

He led her to a small open area with a set up of a regular living room with cubical to the left side and a kitchen to the right. He motioned to the cubicles;

"That is where most of you sleep, the pilot, that's Agent May, and myself have different living areas, Agent May's are closer to the cock pit in case of emergencies and mine is near my office. You will be sleeping here with Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward. The last one on the left is the only one that is free" He explained, waving his hands towards the end cubical. Coulson talked a lot with his hands, Skye noted dully.

She moved slowly towards the cubical, opening it with caution. It was cosy. A single bed pressed up against the far corner, a night stand next to it, a wardrobe at the bottom of the room with a small desk next to it with a chair tucked neatly under it, she placed the file that Coulson gave her on the desk. It was very compacted but it was nice.

She turned back to Coulson with a small smile, "It's very cosy" she commented, Coulson grinned and then motion to the figures caring a box and bags that were coming into view.

"Agent's Fitz, Simmons and Ward kindly brought your stuff up for you"

Skye groaned, letting her head fall forward slightly "Not that I'm not grateful or anything but like, my stuff is private and you just went looking through all of it."

"Simmons packed all your clothes to make it less of an invasion of privacy, although I fail to see how packing clothes can be seen as an invasion of privacy because..." The Scottish agent, Fitz, began.

"Fitz, do be quiet, lots of people see it as an invasion of privacy!" Agent Simmons reprimanded in a very lovely English accent.

Man, Skye was going to love it here, especially if those two just talked forever. They had such soothing voices mixed with a different accent than she was used too made things a lot more bearable. She felt like the two of them could tell her she was about to die a very painful death and she would be fine with it because of their damn voices.

"Erm, thanks guys, I'll just take them for here" She replied awkwardly, reaching for her bag that hanged loosely on Simmons shoulders. Simmons smiled politely at her and opened the door to her little bedroom as she took the box off of Fitz. Ward just walked wordlessly into her room, casually dumping her box onto the bed and left. Skye frowned, about to yell at the rude asshole who was not being careful with her stuff.

"Oh don't mind him, he's just not used to working as a team yet. He's kind of like a lone wolf" Simmons said, sharing an amused look with Fitz, both their eyes were lit up in a mischievous amusement, an inside joke that only the two of them seemed to get.

Coulson chuckled "I'll let FitzSimmons settle you in, I need to go have a little chat with certain people" and with that he walked away.

Skye stared after him before turning to the two agent's next to her "he's gonna yell at people right? The was the polite way of saying I'm going to yell at someone, right? And does everyone just refer you to as FitzSimmons? Like you are one person?" Skye fired out, staring intently at the two, who to their credit did not seem flustered by the question.

They just grinned as they responded; "Most people just refer us as FitzSimmons, we've been working together since we started the academy together, sometimes people call us the science twins, personally that's my favourite one and I don't think Coulson is capable of yelling at people from what I've seen, the only person likely to yell at someone in anger on this plane is Ward I believe" Simmons replied, the smile never wavering from her place, her eyes lit with excitement and curiosity.

"Yeah most likely Ward, May would just do the stare thing and you would cower to her and Coulson does the "I'm not angry just disappointed" tone of voice when reprimanding someone, that one is the worst." Fitz rambled, easily picking up where Simmons left of.

"Well we will let you get settled then Skye! I believe Agent May is coming to talk to you at some point regarding the condition of you joining S.H.I.E.L.D" Simmons cheerily replied, waving as she left, grabbing Fitz's arm and dragging him with her. He gave her a lazy smile and half hearted wave as he left.

"Wait...you know about the conditions? Simmons!" Skye called after them, confused. How did Simmons and Fitz know what her condition was and Coulson didn't? Maybe they didn't know and all they knew was that there was a condition...but they seemed to know what it was, the glint in their eyes gave it away. Groaning as the confusion that this agency constantly left her in, she walked into her bedroom, moving her stuff onto the floor and flopped onto the bed, determined to get a nap in before she had to interact with anyone else.

Apparently luck was not on her side.

"Rookie. Get up, we need to talk" Came the stern voice of Agent Melinda May.


September 14th 2014

NATASHA (et al)

Natasha sat sprawled out in her favourite chair in Maria's office, otherwise known as Maria's big chair. The nice, fancy one that Fury got her after a particularly difficult mission. Maria refused to let anyone sit in it, of course Natasha was always the exception. Maria sat on the floor, her head leaning back against the chair as they sat in a circle in her office. They were discussing the latest arrival on Coulson's plane, an unknown hacker that Fury wanted to become a part of the programme and to join her pack.

Joining her and Maria was the other three alphas; Victoria, Jayden and Tobias, and of course Peggy was there. Maria was only there because she was the Deputy Director, but even still she was keeping out of the conversation, only supplying information when asked. The beta seemed quite content to just take it easy, lying against the chair. Natasha shifted and slide her into Maria's hair, slowly running it through and watched in amusement as the women turned to mush in her hands.

"Ngh." Maria mumbled out, eyes closing in pure delight. "This is unfair."

"I can stop if you want." Natasha replied teasingly, feeling Maria tense up slightly.

"That's not what I said. Just that it's unfair that you have effect on me. So good though." Maria groaned out. The simplest things made that women turn into a groaning mess, Natasha thoughts fondly. It wasn't often that the two of them got to relax like this. Maria was too busy running S.H.I.E.L.D and Natasha was busy running the pack and doing missions which often lead to conflicting schedules, which meant that Maria missed a lot of the pack bonding time and missed out on time to just relax with everyone.

"Mmm, you love it." Natasha replied simply, not feeling up for tormenting the women when she was submissive like this. It just ruined the mood for everyone when that happened.

"So Natasha, are you happy to have the girl in your pack?" Peggy asked, letting the alpha and beta have their moment. She knew that things have been rocky between the two of them and that it was causing irritation as well as causing Maria to snap out more than usual.

"Yes. Always happy to have another stray." Natasha said with a wry smirk, she glanced back down at Maria, half tempted to embarrass the women and pull the hard ass into her lap and cuddle her. She decided to leave it for the moment, focusing on the issue at hand.

"Why does Nat get the new kid and not one of us?" Tobias said with a small frown

"Because Tobby, she's on the plane with Coulson and May. It make sense for her to join my pack because she has May there to help guide her and create the connection with us rather than just give her the serum and leaving her to feel out of place with two members of my pack and one member of Tori's pack." Natasha explained lazily "Plus Fury wants to keep her close and seems to think the best way to do that is keep her near Coulson. He can think twice about monitoring her now that she's mine." Natasha finished with a slight possessive growl.

"Suppose." Tobby sulked caused Tori and Jayden to roll their eyes. Tobby was constantly after more pack members to try and come out on top.

Maria made a small noise of distress in the back of her throat. This is always where things became complicated. Maria had her orders from Fury that she had to follow but there was also Natasha, who gave her orders that she had to follow along with pack loyalty. It made her stress so they decided to try and keep Maria out of the lop when it came to something against Fury's orders to allow her plausible deniability.

Natasha hushed her softly, pulling her up into the chair and gently guided the women to curl around her. She hummed softly when Maria just complied with her movement rather than fight them. It was a good sign.

"Technically you aren't going against Fury's orders, he never gave you any in regards to Skye other than to make sure she was on our pack. We won't discuss this further till you're gone, okay?" Natasha soothed, ignored the other members in the room. It used to be so uncomfortable, to be so vulnerable around other people but after ten years of this, it was easy to show this caring side. No one ever cared, especially after walking in on each other doing much more private things.

Maria nodded her head, resting it against Natasha chest and made herself comfortable. She honestly could not be bother moving from this spot, she was that tired. Especially after the month she was having. Natasha went back to running her hand through her hair as she made small talk with the other wolves, as they tried to lull Maria into a sleep.

It wasn't long till the women was sleeping soundlessly in her arms, curled up tightly against her side.

"So, now that the beta is asleep. Let's continue. What's our plan with Fury and the kid?" Jayden questioned, sitting forward.

Peggy frowned slightly "There must be something about her, other than the fact she hacked S.H.I.E.L.D that makes him want to keep her close. We should get May to investigate, but this also means that she has to get the girls trust and not report so truly on her and prevent Coulson from doing so when she can." Peggy said, looking slightly perplex.

The others nodded, it seemed like a good plan.

"Alright then, May has a vial of my blood. I'll tell her to give it to Skye tomorrow. We can discuss this more once Skye has been turned." Natasha said casually, indicating to the end of the conversation.

Everyone nodded and stood. There wasn't much to discuss until they knew more about Skye, and only time would tell them.

"No worries, we'll leave you to your cuddle session with S.H.I.E.L.D'S most hard ass agent." Victoria teased, causing them to all roll their eyes.

"Don't let her hear you say that, you know how it makes her." Peggy reprimanded lightly. Maria was definitely the black sheep of their pack at the moment was often feeling on the other side of things, even after ten years of being in the pack and they were all trying to rectify it, but it was hard. Peggy sighed and walked over to Natasha and Maria, placing a small kiss of both the heads, gently cupping Maria's sleeping face and looked at her sadly.

"She'll be fine when she wakes up." Natasha whispered softly, noticing the sad look on the older women's face. Peggy regarded her carefully before nodding and walking away.

"Send her to me once she wakes up, Natasha." She commanded as she left with the others.

Natasha sighed and held Maria closer and pressing her nose against Maria's hair and closed her eyes. It has been a very long day.