Temporary (swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations)
Harry was exhausted all the time. Everyday (and it really was everyday, SHIELD didn’t shut down on weekends), Harry woke up, chugged what felt like a gallon on coffee, took a minute shower, threw on whatever suit was the cleanest, and then jogged the 5 blocks down to HQ to arrive at 5am. From then on, he read, summarized, organized, tracked, collated, analyzed, requested and requisitioned, ran interference, and dealt with whatever else his boss had left him to do, until stumbling home at around 10pm, grabbing whatever late night take out was open on the way past, before collapsing into a deep sleep. Some days he took a break for lunch, 10 minutes spent stuffing his face with whatever food he could grab if he had time and was moving past the cafeteria. He didn’t bother sitting with the food, it had been months since anyone had been willing to talk to him, and he really didn’t have the time anyway.
He knew it was his own fault. He had no idea what he had done, but it had been made abundantly clear that his work was not up to standard when the 1st round of transfers for the newbies had come round after 3 months and he was stuck in the same place. The other newbies had laughed and patted him on the back, ‘Don’t worry Harry, you just need sometime to adjust. Next round you’ll follow us big boys and we’ll see you in the field. It happens sometimes.’ But next round had come and gone 3 months after that and he was still stuck in HQ, grunt paper work for the same boss, no advancement. After that, after seeing the looks the other agents gave him, the subtle shifts away from him when he sat to eat, the rebuffs when he tried to make awkward conversation, after watching the next crop of newbies show up, with their much less subtle whispers, well, Harry hadn’t bothered to eat in the cafe anymore. That had been over a year ago, and really he wasn’t even sure what he would say now anyway if someone tried to talk to him. He had no time to follow sport, or the latest TV program, or any news really outside of the miles of paper work he read in his job. And even if he was in HQ, where everyone knew the stuff he read about, you couldn’t just talk about classified documents in the cafe.
He had, around the 8 month mark, in one of his few face to face dealings with his boss Agent Bell, asked why he wasn’t being transferred, and had been told in no uncertain terms that his work was poor, shallow, full of errors that had to be corrected, and that his attitude was terrible. ‘Knuckle down, and stop whinging.’
So Harry did. He rewrote drafts and carefully proofed them. He read anything which he could get his hands on, which, due to the numerous projects he had, was a lot. He keep his head down, and worked hard. Agent Bell wasn’t around, most of the communication between them were stacks of paperwork left on his desk, sometimes with helpful post-its with ‘summaries 10 pages tomorrow’, ‘proof Friday’ or the always helpful ‘fix it Today’. Most of the time however, at around 10am a email would show up in his inbox, no subject line or a forwarded subject line like: FWD 9am AB91, and anywhere between 5 to 50 attachments of documents to go through and deal with. After 18 months this wasn’t hard, normally requiring a check with other paperwork, and quick report or summary of intelligence on any number to the projects Harry had, or a signature of someone in the building Harry needed to track down. Occasionally it was a request or requisition from anything from extra toilet paper to Uranium core rods to Unidentified Origin Sentient Metal 4499, which might require him to see if it could budgeted or where the thing was, and fill out the paper work to get it sent over or not. On good days, that would be done by lunch. However that didn’t mean he had free time, because then there was over sight of multiple projects from tracking costs and materials and requesting info and on going updates to other agents (mostly two identified as AF01 and AC13).
On the weekend, there wasn’t a morning email, so normally Harry spent the days on anything he hadn’t got to during the week. Often, by the time Monday rocked around, he would feel on top again, or at least that he wasn’t about to drown. How good a week was could be measured by how many nights he slept under his desk in the tiny oddly shaped room which may at one stage have been a storage cupboard next to Agents Bells Office. One wall was taken up by Harrys desk, the other by 4 Harry sized fining cabinets. By this stage, the sound of the lift spinning past on the other side of the wall was almost soothing. At least he could say he was never bored.
But he was exhausted. So he really couldn’t be faulted for not hearing the knock on Agent Bells door. Nor he felt, was his somewhat girly yhep of note when an Agent loudly cleared his throat behind Harry head.
Harry spun, half falling out of his chair and was faced with a medium man in a suit, with the carefully blank face of amusement. He had medium brown hair, was of medium height and weight, and wore a medium suit. Only his medium brown eyes gave away the impression of something more, bright with intelligence and secrets.
“Eh?” Let it never be said Harry wasn’t eloquent in the face of the unexpected.
“Where is Agent Bell?”
“Oh, um, not sure.”
That produced a judgemental eyebrow, “You don’t know where your agent in charge is?”
“Well, I haven’t seen him today.” Wait shit, that probably was worse, deflect Harry deflect, “Was there something I could help you with instead?”
The Agent paused, and seemed to look around at the piles of paper, some stacks of illogical heights, Harry own rumpled and untidy state. “I’m expecting a report from Agent Bell.”
“Oh, well, if you tell me what its on I can find it, or tell him when he comes in.” Pause, “or back, you know from where he is right now. Which I will find out too.”
If possible that judgemental eyebrow got higher. “Project Bumblebee.”
Harry blinked, “Project Bumblebee was cleared last week.” Harry frowned and leaned over to pull out one of the 5 draws on the third cabinet, and with a flick removed the thick millia folder. Harry opened it to the top page, where a large ‘Cleared’ was stamped over the top of the last requisition order, dated last week. The order had been for new metal alloys for arrow shafts, to be sent on to Stark Tower. The project had been a mess when it had been handed to Harry, the agent in the field wanted the alloy, but unworked, and the scientist hadn’t wanted to hand it over, and the transport department didn’t know how to send something to a non SHIELD site, and the supply division had then kicked up a fuss and canceled any other arrows being sent out because it was no longer their problem. This mess had been on top of a budgeting error for a base in Texas, a minor staffing and wage problem in Serbia and the lost of a shipment of HYDRA weapons parts in transport and 8 new project requests of various scavenged alien samples which needed review. Harry hadn’t actually gone home for the last 3 nights, hence the rumpled suit.
So he knew for sure Bumblebee had been cleared. Once the paperwork had been sent off and the he had personally walked the package of metal to the courier, it had been stamped and he had filed the hard copies away.
“I’m aware it has cleared. The report in question is about hours worked.”
“Oh um, huh?”
“Agent Bell’s hand in time for the forms was 9pm, however he had left the building at 6pm that day.”
“Oh, well. I filed the paper work.”
“I see. So why wasn’t your agent ID on the forms?”
“Oh, well, that’s because I don’t have an agent ID.”
“You don’t have an agent ID.” That was a statement, not a question. But Harry was really off balance, and really, this was the first conversation he had had in 3 days, so he thought he could be forgiven for the babbling.
“No, well, see, I have an intake number as a probationary cycle liaison, but I still haven’t qualified as an agent yet?” Ok, that could have been more defined and strong, but agent Medium’s eye brow was still somewhere near his hair line.
“So, you’re Agent Bells intern.”
“Yes, I guess. Oh, um, my name’s Harry Evans, if that helps?”
“Intern Evans, you submitted Project Bumblebee at 9pm.”
“Is this because it’s was a few hours after the courier? I am sorry for the delay, but there was that explosion in Sydney that took a few hours to sort out. And normally no one minds the delay on cleared projects. But I can remember to submit earlier?”
“What exactly did you have to do for the explosion in Sydney?”
Harry opened his mouth to answer, before realizing that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t be talking about this casually to an agent he was still referring to as Agent Medium, due to the fact he had no idea who he was. “Um, I don’t think I’m meant to talk about that? If you need to know, you are welcome to send an email to Agent Bell?” Which he will forward to me, Harry thought silently.