Agent Raven of S.H.I.E.L.D. (COMPLETE)

Occupational Hazard

Later that day, after a debrief with Agent Watson and more paperwork than I wanted to admit, I got a notification from the unit: 'Weight room in 15 minutes'

Now technically I wasn't supposed to be pushing myself, but if it was just the weight room, I could manage. If I stuck to doing an arm day, I should be fine. I grabbed a Gatorade and changed into yoga pants and a razorback top before heading to the Field Department.

I wondered if the others would have any idea of what had happened over the past few days. The mission had been assigned to Espionage, but I was sure there had been a few Field units that had been deployed to clean up the mess. It would be interesting to see what they knew.

It had been exactly four seconds from when I had walked in the door when I heard Smith calling for me. "Flamingo!" 

Raising an eyebrow in his direction, I saw him laughing over with Levi at the bench press. Clearly, he wasn't planning on slowing down with new bird nicknames. I wonder how many he had ready. 

"I see you're still up to no good," I remarked, starting on bicep curls. "What have you been doing?"

"Looking on Wikipedia for ideas on what to call you," he answered, spotting Levi as he began a set of reps. 

I would have responded, but Doug walked in and didn't give me a chance. "Come on, all of you. Half an hour at least, just to keep you all moving. Just because we're all benched doesn't mean we're gonna be lazy."

Tate paired up with me and for the next few minutes, everyone in the unit focused on the exercises we were doing. Either Tate didn't pay attention to my leg or she didn't care, because she didn't even blink when I mentioned I was sticking to upper body workouts. We just got to work, rotating around the machines with everyone else. 

We had about ten minutes left when Danny called out to everyone: "Did you guys hear we had spies in SHIELD the other day?"

"Since when?" Bryan asked, pausing his squats to look over at him. "How do you even sneak into SHIELD? Why didn't anyone catch them?"

"No, I heard about this!" Tate piped up, and I kept my face straight as she joined the conversation. "Apparently there was some kind of mission at the White House, and these spies were going to try and sabotage the plan. There was even someone in Admin who wasn't supposed to be there."

Smith nearly dropped a barbell. "How the hell does ANYONE get past Hill? If she even looked at me funny, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat."

I snorted, grinning over at him. "And that's why you couldn't have gotten past Hill."

"Shove off, hawk."

"Make me."

"Did anyone find out where these people came from?" wondered Caleb, who was taking a water break. "I mean, like how did they get in in the first place?"

"Because we let them in," I told him offhandedly, trying not to smile.

Grace didn't look convinced and shook her head. "No one would intentionally let spies into SHIELD like that, Raven."

I rested my chin on the frame of the machine I was working on with Tate and explained. "Not intentionally, no. I don't think any of us realized at the time that the hostages we rescued from Maine a few weeks ago were terrorists."

Literally everyone stopped what they were doing, even Doug. Just for the heck of it, I kept talking. "It's not like it was our fault, that mole in Admin was covering for them the whole time. I still don't know how they got into SHIELD, but I assume SHIELD will get some answers once they finish interrogation."

"How, in the actual hell, do you know that?" Levi asked, probably speaking for the whole group. 

"You don't know that," Tate objected, shaking her head. "Are you sure?"

I paused for a second, because I wouldn't be doing Clint's memory justice if I wasn't at least a little bit sarcastic. I lifted the hem of my shirt up, exposing the welts that had formed overnight, before looking down and scrunching up my pant leg high enough that the bandages could be seen. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"Oh my God, what did you do?" Grace asked, her eyes going wide when she saw the evidence. 

"My job," I answered bluntly, "which occasionally involves getting stabbed in the leg and shot at."

"That's normal?!?" Smith screeched, pointing at my chest. "What the hell, kid!"

I shrugged, setting the weight on the machine before doing another set of 15. "Hey, I told you I was in Espionage. It's an occupational hazard."

Danny muttered from across the room, but loud enough that everyone could hear: "You're an occupational hazard." 

"That's the idea," I agreed, finishing my set and moving to let Tate go. That's what Fury wanted me to be: a danger to anyone who wanted to threaten the safety of the overall public. Maybe Natasha had been promoted, but she had groomed me to step up eventually when Watson or Fury needed me to. I was their failsafe, just like one day, I would be the Avengers's failsafe. 

But that could wait, and the unit didn't need to know that. Not yet, anyway.