Not That Lucky

#16: What's In a Name?

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved." –George Macdonald

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Steve hated not being in the loop. It was one of the worst parts of being associated with a secret agency like SHIELD. Natasha and Clint had gotten a lot better about being open with missions and what was going on, especially after the HYDRA inside SHIELD incident, but there were still lapses. Like today. Today was a giant lapse.

"The world was going to be decimated by a magic, alien mist and you guys just thought, 'hey we'll just let them know about this over family night dinner'." Tony scoffed. He was sitting in his usual seat in the Conference room. He didn't look up as he spoke, continuing to sketch out a blueprint, "Or were you just gonna add it to the monthly newsletter?"

"Coulson and his team had been the lead of this issue from the start. We only got pulled in today, and we made the call that we could handle it." Clint shrugged.

Tony glanced up and pointed to the blueprint paper where he was designing a bionic hand, "This was before Coulson got his hand chopped off, right?"

"That would've happened whether you were there or not." A deep voice argued. Steve glanced over to where a man named Mac was standing with his arms crossed. His axe was still strapped to his back, and he had a stern look on his features. "Coulson grabbed the crystal—"

Steve held his hand up, "The point is we should've known."

"If you had known, you would've come." Natasha argued. "There's having back-up and there's having too many people on one mission. This was the latter."

Steve shook his head, "And that's a decision we could've made together. As a team."

Dr. Cho opened up the door to the conference room and stepped in. She glanced around, taking in the awkward tension in the air, and shook her head, "I just wanted to update all of you on the status of our patients."

"Are they still stable?" Bruce questioned.

"They are. I'd like to keep Bobbi Morse here over night before she's transferred to a hospital for her knee surgery, and Coulson is doing well. The shock of losing a limb and blood loss were the only reasons he loss consciousness."

Agent May raised an eyebrow at her, "Pretty good reasons."

"He should wake up at any moment." Dr. Cho added.

Steve nodded in thanks and the Korean woman stepped out again. He let his eyes trace over the room. Tony was back to being solely focused on the sketch in front of him. His hand dancing across the blueprint paper with the same confidence and precision as his own hand when he sketched in his notebook. Bruce stood a little behind Tony, with his arms crossed, and he waited for Tony to ask him questions so he could weigh in on the prosthetic they were designing for Coulson. Mac and May both stood over by Clint and Natasha. They had all been in this room for the last twenty minutes arguing in circles.

"Alright." Steve let out a sigh. "Moving past the fact that we should've been in the loop, where are we when it comes to HYDRA? Coulson mentioned he was working on that as well."

May nodded, "We got a map of HYDRA bases from when we raided List's hide out. They aren't very descriptive though. We won't know which one belongs to Von Strucker unless we go and knock on their doors."

"I'd be more than happy to go on a tour of the HYDRA bases. I hear Europe is nice this time of year." Clint smirked.

Natasha gave him a look before dragging her eyes back to May, "Any hint on what we're going to find on this...tour?"