Death doesn't discriminate, it comes for everyone and everything. Death was the one constant in her life and in all 23 years of breathing, it was yet to leave her alone. Everywhere Nina went, death followed like a disease claiming mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters... everybody but her.
And she was getting real sick of attending funerals.
It was dark and cold, too damn cold for the outfit she had decided to throw on; a black tank top, tight fitted pants and combat boots. But shivering in a random bus stop, surrounded by junkies and would be drug dealers, had become part of the job Nina had signed up for. So who was she to complain?
Nina had arrived an hour ago, surveilling her target without raising too much suspicion. It was a simple recon mission before she would be ordered to make contact so she watched unseen and unheard as the brown hair of her target came into view, along with a cherry red 62 Chevy Corvette and a man in a suit that Nina could have done without.
"Agent Ramos, it's nice to see you again," the female gritted her teeth as he openly announced that she was an agent and watched as the seemingly innocent man beside her, rushed towards the very building she had been surveilling.
"I wish I could say the same," Nina growled and climbed into the car, Phil Coulson looked at her and smiled at the action, clearly misreading what it meant.
"Does this mean that you've rethought the offer to join my team?" the older man asked her with a soft smile. Everything about him was odd to Nina, he was genuinely friendly and didn't seem anything like the other people she had interacted with that had teams of their own.
"No, it means you just blew my cover," Nina responded pulling on the seatbelt as the moonlight caught the shine of a rifle in the hands of a man exiting the building, "now drive before he starts shooting at us."
"Good idea."
Coulson pulled away from the dirty bus stop and drove down the road before the man had any time to pull the trigger, he was driving away from the city and towards what Nina knew to be an airfield.
"So have you changed your mind yet?" Coulson was persistent, Nina gave him that. She had declined his offer at least 20 times, but each time he turned up and asked, his enthusiasm was the same.
"I work alone, Agent Coulson, for a reason. I don't need any more blood on my hands than the job requires," she looked away from him, pushing down a painful memory before it could resurface, "it's best for you and your team if I stay away."
The response was expected and met with a deep sigh when a second later Nina's phone rang. Her undercover phone... which no one had the number.
"I was really hoping this would be your choice, Ramos," Coulson told her focusing his attention on the road. Nina sceptically picked up the phone, answering it and pressing the device to her ear.
"Agent Ramos."
"Director! I wasn't expecting a call," the shock in hearing Fury's voice was obvious as she responded. The director never made personal contact, everything she was told came through other agents.
"Let me make this really clear. You are one of our best agents. You get the job done without endless questions and without ever being caught, and if you so choose, being an Avenger is fully within your grasp."
"Thank you, sir," it's not every day the director of SHIELD compliments you so Nina took it with a grateful smile.
"It would be in your best interest to accept Coulson's offer, and even if you disagree with me I don't care. Get on that Bus, this is an order."
"I-, yes sir."
"Good," with that one word the phone clicked dead. Nina pulled the device from her ear and glared at it, knowing this was an order she couldn't refuse.
"So, I take it that went well," she didn't even look at Coulson as she tore apart the phone, throwing random parts into the street and snapping the memory and sim cards before tossing them to.
"This team, what does it do?" if Nina was going to have to join it, she thought she might as well know what it exactly was that she would be signing her life away to.
"Deal with threats no one else understands or wants to believe. You're a specialist, I know you're used to not having anyone watch your back so think of this team as just that. A group of elites, working together, living together and saving the world with minimal backup."
"You give a pretty good speech, sir. Let's just hope your team lives up to the hype," Nina rested her head back as he pulled into an airfield.
"Yeah, let's hope."
*
"Welcome to the Bus," Coulson stood on the plane with his arms crossed in front of his chest, he was wearing a wide grin as he watched the young agent. Nina darted her eyes over every corner of the vehicle, with a mix of wonder and professionalism.
"I've never seen a Bus quite like this," she looked up into the patient eyes of her new boss, "what did you do to deserve it?"
"I died," her already cold arms seemed to freeze over at his words as she gaped at him.
"My condolences," Coulson laughed at Nina's response before gesturing for her to follow him as he began walking once more. She did just that, following him through the cargo bay, a lab and a few corridors before he came to a stop outside a closed door.
"The team is just through there, they know you're coming but not who is coming."
"You didn't tell them my name?" Nina rolled her eyes as she asked the question, the last thing she needed was the reaction, anyone, who was from Operations, had joined SHIELD in the last 2 years or had access to a TV growing up would give her. Nina couldn't help the fleeting thought that she was about to meet her new team dressed in clothes most people worked out in, showing off her bare shoulders and arms as well as her curves quite nicely.
If she didn't know how much of a respected agent she was, she might've been embarrassed.
"I wanted to surprise them, it's not every day the Executioner joins our team," Nina winced at the name Coulson had used and it was clear he noticed but he didn't comment on it. He opened the door and pushed her forward before whispering good luck and disappearing down the hallway.
There were five people in the room and with Nina's arrival they immediately turned to look at her while they stopped whatever it was that they were doing, the looks she got varied from confusion and surprise.
The first person she noticed was Melinda May and her hand subconsciously jumped to her collar bone as the feeling of the older woman shattering it ran through her body. May had been one of the many to train her before Nina became a specialist, a lot of her fighting style was dedicated to May's hands-on teaching. A half-smile slid across May's face, approving Coulson's decision in a teammate and Nina nodded in her direction before focusing on someone else.
Next were a man and woman, standing beside each other in matching cardigans of different colours. The female was pale with reddish hair and calculating eyes that ran over Nina with an intensity that mirrored Bruce Banner, she must be one of the scientists Coulson had mentioned. The male next to her stared at Nina with a gaped mouth. It was clear he knew who she was. Nina couldn't help but notice how cute he was, from his curly brown hair to his gentle blue eyes, it was hard to tear her eyes from him.
But she managed.
A girl sat in front of a laptop, hands hovering over the keypad as she looked at the newcomer with parted lips. She was Asian American and clearly not a SHIELD agent, she carried herself too casually and there was no sign of fight or caution in her eyes or facial features. She looked calm, and that wasn't a luxury most agents had.
The person that Nina had least expected to see part of a team was looking back at her with the same surprise. He leaned against a shelf, with clean-cut black hair and a sharply defined jawline; despite the months they'd gone without seeing each other, he looked good and he knew she thought so.
"Ward!" Nina ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her actions caught him by surprise as he stepped back before picking Nina off the floor and swinging her around in a tight circle.
"Nina! I was expecting a lower-level agent," he set her down but still kept a hand touching her waist, "how'd Coulson manage to get you on a team?"
"The Director didn't really give me a choice," Ward and Nina went way back. He had enrolled in the academy a year before her but once they met, they grew exceptionally close. They were each other's competition, constantly stealing the top spot from the other while still being each other's biggest support. Their friendship, forged in blood, sweat and tears, was only appropriate.
"Sounds about right," Ward chuckled, "last time I saw you, you could barely breathe. How's the collapsed lung?"
The question brought a smile to her face as she remembered how a mission had gone incredibly wrong a few months ago. If it wasn't for Natasha Romanoff being well... Natasha Romanoff, Nina would have been dead.
"Good, I've got a fully operational lung again and a few new scars here and there but that's the life we've chosen," Nina had almost forgotten that she and Ward weren't the only people in the room but May walking towards them reminded her of the 4 others. May didn't say anything, only tapping Nina on the back and exiting the room.
But then again actions spoke louder than words, especially in Agent May's case.
"You're... her-" a Scottish voice called out and Nina pulled away from Ward, looking at the man with the soft blue eyes. He knew who she was, so she cut him off before he could say what she knew he was going to say.
"Nina Ramos," she smiled at him and he just gulped as they made eye contact. Every action he made, intrigued Nina more, "and you?"
"Leo Fitz, engineering," he answered and she nodded looking to the woman next to him. She was watching Fitz with a smile, clearly noticing something no one else in the room realised.
"Jemma Simmons," a British voice came from the woman, this was already more Europeans than she expected for a secret American agency. Simmons walked towards Nina and offered her hand, which she shook graciously, "I'm biochem. Fitz and I make the lab team."
"It's nice to meet you, Fitz and Simmons," Nina smiled at her, the words triggered a response from the last unknown in the room.
"We call them FitzSimmons, rolls off the tongue better I guess," she had closed her laptop at this point giving Nina her full attention, "I'm Skye, I'm new to the team as well."
"Nice to meet you, Skye," her introduction made it even more clear she wasn't an agent as a surname wasn't given, "good to know I'm not the only new guy here."
"Please," Ward scoffed at her words, "you're Nina Ramos, you will never be the new guy anywhere in SHIELD."
Nina glared at her old friend, his words were pretty much an invitation for everyone to start talking about her past and asking questions she would most likely not answer.
"As nice as it is to know my reputation is still intact," deflecting conversations had slowly become a speciality of Nina's, especially after talks with Maria Hill and Andrew Garner. There was nothing an agent hated more than a shrink trying to get in their head and surprise meetings with their commander, "I've been up for almost 30 hours, can someone show me to the bunks?"
Nina expected Ward to volunteer considering they were friends but Fitz quickly threw his name into the hat and the two of them left the room with a swift goodbye to the others. He led the new member down a hallway, playing with his hands. Nina couldn't tell if it was a habit or if he was nervous, a lot of people got nervous around her.
She had the Executioner to thank for that.
"So this team, it's a little odd," Nina couldn't help but voice her concerns about the team. The so-called group of elites looked a lot like a specialist who hated working with people, a field agent emotionally wrecked about a previous mission, two scientists who were far from field ready, an outsider with sticky fingers and a dead man as a boss. Throwing Nina Ramos into the mix just didn't make sense.
"Hmm, I guess so. We all didn't get on well but we've started to gel. Coulson seems to think we're the perfect team so I'm confident we will be," Fitz answered, certain words sounding foreign to Nina with his thick accent, "and since you're here now, I'm sure we will be."
"You seem to have such high expectations of me," they reached what looked like sleeping quarters and walked past a few rooms with open doors and messy beds.
"You're Agent Ramos," he said her name like it was the greatest title bestowed on anyone, "expectations or not, you're incredible."
"I'm nothing special, just good at my job and now my job is to help this team get what you need," the pair stopped in front of the one room with a bed made and walls untouched.
"This is you. I'm right next door if you need anything," Fitz said pointing into the room, "you should get some rest, I'm sure May is going to take off at any second."
Nina thanked him for showing her the way and he disappeared back the way they came. She watched him leave until he could no longer be seen and entered the room, closing the door behind her.
It was bare, with a bed pressed against the wall, a couple of pillows and white sheets laying across it. Nina didn't mind its cabin feel, she had been sleeping in a motel for the past few weeks due to the undercover operation she had been on, so she welcomed the clean sheets and close walls. None of her things were there, Coulson had told her that they would be delivered to the Bus tomorrow morning, so she stripped out of her fitted pants and a tank top, leaving her in a bra and underwear before climbing into the bed.
Nina found herself staring at the bare walls, knowing that she was going to have to adapt to the idea of having a team again considering it had been 2 years since her last one. But despite the annoyance, she still managed to slowly close her eyes and drift off to sleep, very aware that for the first time in a long time, she had no idea what would be waiting for her when she woke up.
And God did she hate that.
✔️ edited