The Pirate And His Sea

Chapter 14: How Maria Hill Met Him & Found Out

(This is not my chapter and the credit of the characters goes to their respective authors)

God, sometimes Maria Hill hated the Helicarrier. It was a nightmare for security – while few people could get on easily, all it took was one ill-meaning person in an unfortunate location to blow the whole thing sky high, and then as a consequence into the vast ocean below. She tried not to let it bother her because it was her 'office' more often than not (Director Fury was fond of this toy in particular to they were always using it) but the knowledge that one trespasser and a few cut wires could send her to flaming oblivion made her twitch.

So it was understandable that she was slightly paranoid about security while on the massive vehicle. She had a legitimate reason to panic – like now.

"You." She grabbed the agent on monitor duty by the shoulder and stared harshly at the screens in front of her. "Who is that?"

The man choked on his cheese-and-ham sandwich in surprise but dutifully swallowed his mouthful and brought up the view that the lady secretary was focusing on. "Um, an agent? Or a guest?" He said, eyes on the man portrayed on screen. He had black hair and bright green eyes, and seemed to be sitting in one of the break rooms. Despite the room's name, it was more of an empty space with a few hard chairs and a measly stack of magazines on a table nearby, one of which the man in question was flipping through. He had a highly disinterested look on his face, and the agent was hard-pressed not to copy it as he zoomed in on the tag clipped to the man's shirt collar. "See, ma'am?" He said, the very-legitimate looking guest tag filling the screen.

"Shut up," Maria told him, eyes narrowing. The guest tag was per protocol, but it was missing something – the ID code that ran along the bottom of all guest tags. It was so that they could search up the numbers and find the person's profile in SHIELD's database – or if it was a faked tag, the lack of a proper match of profiles. However this man had no such thing; there was just a series of lines to take up the space of the ID code.

And if that wasn't suspicious, then Maria Hill didn't know what was.

Knocking the upstart agent over the head, Maria Hill scowled at him and turned to leave the bridge. "You, watch the screens. I want you to keep an eye on him and anything else that's out of place – and look out for any damage reports. If a wire is burnt out or there's a dent by an engine, I want to know immediately." Leaving the man sweating, she hurried towards the break room where the man was. As she moved at a speed that was urgent but still dignified, she thought over anything that may give cause for a guest to be on the Helicarrier. There was a showing for some foreign dignitaries to convince them to give SHIELD an in to their governments, but that wasn't until tomorrow, and the last guest to come aboard had been that Bulgarian ex-black ops that Director Fury had conned into joining a week ago. There was no appointment or event today – so what was that man doing here?

She came to a stop at the break room and took a moment to peek through the window set into the door. The man was in the same spot as earlier, though he'd seemed to have changed from a Sports Illustrated to a People, and looked scandalised at whatever he was reading. As soon as her eyes fell on him, his eyebrow twitched and his eyes darted up to the glass as if he knew she was there. Which shouldn't possible, because the glass was tinted on that side and all that was visible was a black pane. She narrowed her eyes at him, and waited until he had relaxed some before opening the door.

"Good afternoon," she said to the man, who put down his magazine with a smile.
"Can I help you?"

"No, no," the man said as he looked her over. His name tag said P. Jackson, but it wasn't a name that she recognized from any of the agents' personal files, so he couldn't be any agent's SHIELD friend visiting from a different HQ. "I'm just waiting here for someone."