[Flashback] SHIELD HQ, New York: Our Secrets Have Secrets

[phil_coulson]

Pulling James Barnes out of Russia had been the easy part of the operation, and that was saying something, because it had been in no way easy or even remotely legal, but it had been the only way. They'd bought him from a broker who wanted them to think he didn't know who he had on his hands, or what he could do. They still had operatives working their way up that chain, trying to trace this back to what he hoped wouldn't be another Red Room operation, but in the meantime the deal had gone through all too smoothly, and Coulson thought he might actually like it even less than Fury did.

He'd grown up on stories about Captain America. He and his friends had taken turns pretending to be Captain Rogers and his Howling Commandos. He'd never imagined that they'd find the Captain's best friend nearly seventy years later, brainwashed almost beyond hope. The assassin known as Winter Soldier had been little more than a ghost until they started putting the pieces together, and now he was going back to the grave. Officially, they needed to be sure Barnes wasn't a sleeper, and that he was relatively sane besides. Unofficially - well, that was irrelevant.

The transfer to the New York facility had been quick and quiet and restricted under Level 7 security protocols. They'd kept Barnes under even after they brought him out of cryostasis and locked him down besides. No one got near unaccompanied, and only a handful of Agents even knew he existed at the moment. Specialist Brandon Young was one of them.

Coulson had some limited experience with people who had superhuman abilities, but it was enough that he didn't think this idea was entirely insane. It was certainly the best shot they had.

A scan of his prints let him into the room where Young waited to be briefed. The man was almost startlingly, well, young, which was always one thing to see on a file, and almost another thing entirely in person. Coulson had a reputation among the junior agents: most of them thought he was a hardass, if they thought anything of him at all.

"Specialist Young," He held out his hand as he approached, smiling politely. "I'm Agent Coulson. I'm here to brief you on the details of your assignment. You'll be reporting directly to myself or Director Fury for the duration. As you've no doubt gathered, we'd like this to be kept as quiet as possible."

Comments

[pieceofmind]

The worst part about all of this was the fact that Brandon couldn't just tell what was going on. The tension in the air was thick, everyone knew that something was going down even if no one knew exactly what, and he couldn't just read someone's mind and get his answers. It put him on-edge, even moreso when one of the rumors floating around that whatever was going on, the new PsiOps initiative was involved somehow.

Rumors... in some ways, being a super-human agent wasn't all that different from being in high school.

This did mean that Brandon wasn't surprised when he was asked to report to the briefing room. Nor when he was left waiting for a few minutes. Thus, when Coulson walked in, he'd find Brandon in a suit- he didn't wear the more form-fitting outfit when he wasn't on a mission- that he still felt awkward wearing and which tie he still couldn't quite get right. That, and he was wearing headphones, piping in a judicious mix of pop, rap, and r&b to keep the silence at bay.

At least he had the courtesy to remove said headphones when Coulson walked in?

By habit, Brandon tucked his amplifier- a small palm-sized device- into his pocket as he stood up, keeping his hands out and away from it. Just another habit he got into, to keep people from being afraid of him or jumping to conclusions. Instead, he brightly grinned, taking Coulson's hand and shaking it firmly. "I understand," he affirmed, "I'll keep it secret..."

That being said... he couldn't quite hide the interest in his eyes. The agents Brandon hung around with knew that Coulson was important- he reported directly to Nick Fury, and they all treated Fury rather like a principal or a general. Important, but not someone you wanted to meet, because the only time important people met with junior people was when someone had screwed up in a spectacular way.

But that wasn't the case this time. On the contrary... it was either Agent Hardass or the Director he was report to, instead of anyone else in S.H.I.E.L.D. That meant something important. And that meant something big, something that they needed a psychic for. Somehow, he doubted it was a need for spoon-bending. "...whatever 'it' is."