Chapter 4
“I don’t. Do. Guns,” Harry said for what felt like the millionth time.
It was his fourth-day training with Agent May and he did not like the way this was going at all. Logically, he knew that at some point they would make him use guns, but he didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
Harry had a no killing on purpose policy, and he wasn’t about to break it just because some agency told him to.
He wanted to give Agent May a piece of his mind, but after the first day, he had found himself slightly wary of her. He had only been able to beat her twice (though there were a few close calls), and that was when she was going easy on him. He had always prided himself on being a good fighter, but next to her, he was mediocre at best. After he had been drained of almost all his energy that day, he wanted to do nothing more than just apparate into his comfy apartment.
But he couldn’t, because Agent May would probably follow him back, and this time she would be paying even more attention. Not to check if anyone was following him, but to see if she could keep up with him. He had a feeling that although she hadn’t mentioned anything related to his previous disappearance, she was suspicious of something and she would be watching him like a hawk for the next month at the very least.
So, he had to walk to and from work every day without disillusioning himself, but still doing his best to not be seen by Agent May, or any hostile person. It was during those days that he finally used the part of his auror training that required him to blend in with the crowd and lose his superior officer without his wand. It was taught in case an auror lost his wand and needed to escape or if he was in an area full of muggles and thus couldn’t use magic. That part in auror training had been more difficult for Harry then the parts that required wand usage and had taken Harry the most time to complete. But, that night, as he went from corner to corner, hiding behind every nook and cranny and blending in with the big group of muggles that passed him, he had never been more grateful for that course.
“Look, I get why you don’t like guns,” said Agent May, “I also prefer doing hand to hand. But, sometimes you don’t have a choice, and it’s kill or be killed. Those situations are the ones you should be prepared for. Also, FitzSimmons developed a gun that only incapacities the person you shot for a couple of hours. They call it the icer and we use them much more than we use actual guns.”
Stunner guns. Harry could work with that. “Alright, I don’t mind the icers, but don’t expect me to use the normal guns ever.”
“No one does, but you still need to learn how to use it so you can deal with people who use them.”
It hadn’t taken too long to learn how to use one, he could understand why muggles would use guns, but he doesn’t think he ever will. He would rather reveal himself as a wizard than actually shoot someone. Two hours into learning how to shoot, Coulson called Agent May to discuss something and he went to sit with the rest of the agents where they were watching the news and speculating about Hydra.
Though he had been briefed, it had only been the basics, and he felt like an outsider listening in on the conversation. Thankfully, Simmons had taken pity on him and started telling him about someone called Ward.
He had just finished telling him how Skye found out that he was a traitor, with Skye and Fitz throwing up insults about him in the background when Coulson and May called them into the room.
In the room, there was a tripod with a large pad of paper balanced on it that had several names and objects written on it each in a circle, and they were all surrounding one big circle. Of everything written there, Harry recognized three names on the board: Hydra, Clairvoyant, and Ward & Garrett. Agent May and Coulson were standing on either side of the board while the rest of them took a seat. Coulson started by saying:
“This is just about everything we’ve been dealing with. And this,” he said pointing to the big circle in the middle, ”connects them all.”
He scribbled something inside the circle, Cybertek. Great, another detail he didn’t understand.
Coulson started connecting the circles together to give some context -which Harry was grateful for. But, it also made him feel even more lost.
He was also feeling slightly alarmed by the ‘why I didn’t stay dead part’ of Coulson’s speech. And he was getting more confused with words like centipede serum and GH-325 being thrown around. He felt like they were speaking some alien language, and only occasionally throwing some English words in.
They switched to talking about some technology company -which he also unsurprisingly didn’t understand.
“Which is why we’re going to go into one of their offices,” said Coulson.
At this Harry straightened up and paid closer attention. The past couple of days had been interesting, but nothing beats a mission. The fact that this would be his first mission without using magic, made the prospect seem even more thrilling. Going in as 'vigilantes', as Fitz eloquently said, made Harry feel even more excited.
All the agents gathered around Trip, who lifted an old vintage suitcase onto the bed.
“Trip was generous enough to offer up some of his grandad’s spy tech to help us out, so we should systematically take a full inventory of every -“ started Coulson, before he got distracted by something in the suitcase, “Oh my, God. Is that a handheld hypno-beam?”
Harry smiled as Coulson discussed old-spy tech with Trip. It reminded him of Arthur Weasley's excitement whenever he encountered a muggle object. They were very different people, but Harry could already tell that Coulson would be as caring as Arthur was.
The rest of the SHIELD team were messing around with the equipment, and Fitz seemed to be the most fascinated after Coulson and Trip.
He was wearing some old type of, well Harry didn’t exactly know what they were but they looked like some old-school binoculars so Harry would call them that, binoculars as he demonstrated with a cigarette how innocent the designs were supposed to look to avoid suspicion after Skye accidentally used an EMP. He also burnt a small part of the curtain while demonstrating, and Harry had to restrain himself from taking out his wand from his pocket to put the fire out.
“Watch out Hydra, here we come,” May said her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Harry had never felt more useless in his entire life. Trip was driving, Skye was hacking, Coulson and May were undercover, Fitz and Simmons were telling Coulson and May what to say, and he was just sitting inside the truck alone with Fitz and Simmons doing absolutely nothing. He had felt more needed when he was serving coffee on Sunday mornings when he was the only one at work and only serving one to two customers.
He’d gone on multiple missions where he’d done nothing, but this was the first time where he’d truly felt useless. During the whole camping era, he had Ron and Hermione to keep him distracted. The looming threat of death was also helpful. During his auror training, he had Ron, his excitement, and capturing the remaining death eaters to keep him entertained. After Ron left the aurors, he almost always had missions to go on or paperwork to fill and people always valued his opinion and came to him for advice.
But now, he barely knew any of them and they all had something to do while he sat and did nothing. He was honestly considering sleeping if nothing happened in the next five minutes. And just as he was about to completely give up on anything interesting happening, he heard a crash coming from outside.
“Well that our clue,” said Fitz as they opened the truck doors to get what appeared to be a filing cabinet. He helped FitzSimmons get the cabinet into the truck, while Skye took the wheel and Trip go Coulson and May out by using some sort of rifle that instead of shooting bullets shoots out a rope with a grappling hook, which May and Coulson used to slide down and get away from the coming guards from Cybertek.
They arrived back at the hotel without a hitch. They gathered at one of the tables by the pool and started going through all the new information they had gotten.
“Hey, isn’t Garett the guy you’re going after?” asked Harry.
“Yeah that’s him,” answered Trip.
“Well it says here that he was patient zero,” said Harry
“We’ve been looking at this backwards,” said Skye throwing the files she was looking through to the table and rubbing her forehead in frustration, “Garrett doesn’t just want GH-325 for his Centipede soldiers. He wants it for himself. So he can become a real, live boy again. And if he happens to create an army of programmed super soldiers for Hydra along the way, triple bonus points.”
“How do we know Garett didn’t do that to Ward, too? Maybe he’s been programmed,” said Fitz who was still in denial that a friend would betray them like that.
“Fitz, when are you gonna stop clinging to the idea that Ward’s the victim and not the perpetrator?” Said Simmons giving him a soft look.
“When I see something that tells me I shouldn’t with my own two eyes. We don’t know all the facts,” Fitz said in frustration.
“You want a fact, Fitz? Ward murders people. I should have let Mike finish him when I had the chance,” Skye said turning away from everyone. “I’m stupid and…weak.”
“You weren’t weak. You had compassion, that’s harder,” said Coulson, “we’ll find him.”
Just then a pizza delivery guy entered, and Harry hoped it was for them since he hadn’t eaten in quite some time, and he was starving.
“Pizza delivery for Pablo Jimenez?”
It took Coulson a few moments to realize that that was the fake name he’d used, and he got up to receive it.
Meanwhile, Skye stormed out.
The rest of them ate pizza while May followed Skye out to speak with her. After they finished, everyone went back inside. But, Harry stayed outside contemplating if leaving the new comfortable life he made for this was worth it.
“Enjoying the weather?” asked Coulson who had just appeared next to him.
“Oh yeah it’s great,” Harry said wondering where this conversation was going.
“So, how’s the new job? Beats serving coffee doesn’t it?” Coulson said optimistically.
Harry grunted noncommittally in response.
“You’ve been anywhere besides the UK and here before?” asked Coulson
“No”
“Well, that’s about to change. We’re going to Cuba.”
“You found something there?” Harry asked masking the excitement in his voice.
“A couple of shipments from across the globe from Cybertek all end up in Cuba, and there’s an old SHIELD base there,” Coulson said grinning in victory. “Pack s many of your stuff as you can, there’s no knowing if we’ll ever be back.”
“I’ll get right on it then.”
“I hope you’re a fast packer. We’re leaving in 30 minutes,” Coulson said getting up.