Falling in the Black

Raylee Matthews has been an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. for five years now, she wasn’t any special super hero like the Avengers but she was a trained spy. She was trained by Agent Natasha Romanoff and Agent Clint Barton and they formed a very close relationship between the three of them. The last few months had been a bit chaotic around SHIELD everyone had been disbursed on separate missions. Natasha was in the middle of a spy mission in Russia and Clint was guarding the tesseract in one of the other compounds. Raylee on the other hand was stuck on the carrier because while on her last mission she was instructed to get the Intel they needed and get out but her mark figured her out before completing her mission causing Natasha and Clint to have to swoop in and help her out. Director Nick Fury was extremely mad at her because he had to pull them from their own missions to do it and he was now in his own way punishing her for that.

Raylee felt like she had feelings for Clint but neither would let it go any further then a friendship because he didn’t want to complicate what they had as partners. There had been a few close encounters between the two but they always backed away before taking it too far. The tough part was the two of them got into an argument right before he left to New Mexico about her being mad at Fury for sidelining her, Raylee hated fighting with him but he was the one there in the moment of her rage.

“Agent Matthews, Director Fury wants you on the bridge.” Agent Maria Hill said from behind Raylee as she was walking down the hall to the gym.

Raylee turned to face Hill who was standing in the middle of the hall. “Did he say what he needed?” she asked and Hill shook her head no.

“All he said was to find you and tell you not to keep him waiting.” Hill said and Raylee nodded her head.

Raylee walked quickly to the bridge not wanting to keep Fury waiting any longer then he had to considering she was already on his bad side at the moment. It has been three months since their return from Ireland but she knew he wouldn’t let up on her. When she walked in he was in the middle of barking orders at everyone around him so Raylee stood there quietly waiting for him to address her. Fury finally turned to face her and the look on his face wasn’t pleasant at all.

“Director you needed to see me?” Raylee asked him.

“I tired multiple times to contact you on your ear com.” He snapped at her and Raylee cringed when she realized it was left in her room. “The point of the ear com is so I can communicate with my agents when I need them, I shouldn’t have to send other agents to look for them.”

“Sorry I was on my way to the gym and forgot to pick it up when I left my room.” Raylee said hoping he wouldn’t think she was being negligent on the job again.

“Don’t let it happen again, myself and a few agents need to go down into the field.” He said turning away from her and looked at one of the computer screens. “We are having some issues with the tesseract.”

“I can be ready in five.” Raylee said as she started to turn away but Fury stopped her when he spoke.

“You’re not coming with me, I need you here.” he said and she quickly turned to face him with a shocked look.

Fury had never made her stay behind when it was a huge concern and the tesseract was considered a huge concern. “If this is because of what happen in Ireland…” Raylee began to say but was cut off before she could finish.

“Are you questioning my orders Agent Matthews?” Fury growled at her.

“No sir.” Raylee said back to him as she tried to contain her anger. “What would you like me to do?”

Fury smirked at her causing her blood to boil even more. “I just need you to be on alert and keep your eye on the bridge because Agent Hill is accompanying me.”

“Yes sir.” Raylee said as she turned and walked away. Once out of sight from Fury she punched the wall out of anger.

“That’s not going to help.” Hill said from behind Raylee and she quickly spun around to face her. “Just give him some time and he will get over that whole Ireland thing.”

“You knew he was going to make me stay behind.” Raylee snapped at her.

“Raylee it wasn’t my place to tell you.” Hill said defensively to her. “I tried to reason with him but he wasn’t budging on his decision.”

“This is bullshit, I have been an agent here for five years and haven’t made a mistake like this since my first mission.” Raylee snapped; she knew it wasn’t Hill’s fault but she was having a hard time controlling her anger.

“It was supposed to be a one month mission that turned into three months and then you were falling for the mark, you didn’t do that on your first mission!” Hill snapped at her. “You gave the guy all he needed to figure out you were undercover and he almost killed you.”

“I wasn’t falling for him.” Raylee snapped at her.

“Agent Barton told Director Fury how you hesitated on killing him, if you weren’t falling for him then why the hesitation?”

“That wasn’t Barton’s business, no one chastised Barton when he made the call not to kill Natasha but I’m being sent through the wringer because I had a moment of hesitation on a kill.” Raylee snapped at Hill. “I heard the stories about his call with her.”

“That was different Raylee and you know it, Patrick would have killed you if Clint didn’t show up when he did. Natasha didn’t try to kill Clint when he made that call.”

“I pulled the damn trigger and killed him.” Raylee snapped at her. “He’s dead isn’t he?”

“You only pulled the trigger because he had Clint pinned down.” she snapped back at her and Raylee sucked in a deep breath at the memory of seeing Clint fighting against Patrick, the knife had been so close to plunging into Clint’s heart. “I’m ready to go.” Hill said looking over Raylee’s shoulder.

Raylee glanced over her shoulder and saw Fury standing behind her. Fury knew he was being hard on Raylee for the whole Ireland situation but he had to make sure she knew that kind of behavior was not tolerated when the lives of his agents depended on her. “If you ladies are done with the trip down memory lane we need to leave.” He said sarcastically to them. “Agent Matthews I need you to be on high alert.” He said turning away and Hill followed behind him quickly.

Raylee was well aware of the mistake she made in Ireland and even though she denies it every time the subject comes up, she was falling for Patrick not realizing he had been playing her the whole time. Patrick knew from the start she was spying on him for SHIELD and used that against her. The night Patrick died there were two shots that hit him at the same time, one to the head and the other hit him in the neck. Both Natasha and Raylee were the ones to fire and didn’t know whose bullet was the kill shot. Natasha’s reports had said other wise and she had kept that between the two of them. Clint has had his suspicion about it and questioned Natasha but she stuck to the story she put on her report.

It had been a couple of hours since Fury and Hill left to go meet up with Agent Phil Coulson and Barton. She hadn’t heard a word from them and it was beginning to aggravate her not knowing what was going on. The helicarrier sat idle in the ocean waiting for word on the next move they were to make. Raylee sat at the desk with her feet up looking at different monitors waiting for some kind of word then all of a sudden alarms started going off and she quickly dropped her feet to the floor looking closely at the monitor in front of her. The agent next to her was typing away at the keyboard trying to get a clear picture of what was happening in New Mexico.

When her phone rang she pulled it out and quickly answered the call. “We are at a level seven, Agent Barton has been compromised and the tesseract is with hostiles.” Coulson said before she could even say hello. He was hoping she really didn’t catch the part about Barton.

“What the hell do you mean Clint has been compromised?” Raylee snapped as she stood up on her feet and ran her free hand through her hair. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is right now and I’ll explain more when I get back to the helicarrier, I’m only about ten minutes out.” Coulson said then he hung up before she could respond to him.

Raylee paced back and forth through the bridge waiting on Coulson to get there, when he finally arrived he saw a panicked Raylee. He knew she was close with Barton and hated that Fury left it up to him to tell her what happened. Reaching the end of her path Raylee closed her eyes and rolled her neck in an attempt to relieve the tension she felt. When she turned to go back the way she had come from Coulson was standing in her path looking poised and calm while she felt stressed.

“What happened to Clint?” she asked him before he could open his mouth.

“I needed to call Agent Romanoff then I will explain.” Coulson said as he walked around her making his call. “Ray we will figure this out.” he said to her over his shoulder.

Raylee stood close by listening in on the call hoping to get more information but just as he had with her he had kept the call brief on what he had said to Natasha. When Phil finally told Raylee what happen she was more worried knowing that with Clint’s knowledge and skills being used against them was going to be hard and Loki’s mind control over him scared her. Fury was out getting Steve Rogers and Natasha was sent to get Dr. Bruce Banner. Coulson asked Raylee to accompany him to Stark Tower and she knew it was out of pity because Fury was still being a dick with her.

Tony Stark was trying to avoid talking with Coulson until Phil decided to just override Jarvis and put his call right through to Stark as they rode up the elevator. Raylee listened to the banter between the two until the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the room with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Raylee knew who Tony and Pepper were through the files that she had read on Iron Man and some of the stories Natasha told her.

“Security breach!” Tony said sarcastically to Pepper. “That’s on you.” he said pointing at her.

“Mr. Stark.” Coulson said nodding at him.

“Phil come in.” Pepper said smiling at Coulson.

“Phil? Uh… his first name is Agent.” Tony said shaking his head.

“Come on in, we were celebrating.” Pepper said as she moved closer to them and stuck her hand out to Raylee. “I’m Pepper Potts.”

“Pepper this is Agent Matthews.” Coulson said as Raylee shook her hand.

“I told you their first name is Agent.” Tony said walking a little closer to them. “Agent Matthews you may stay and celebrate with us but Coulson is leaving.”

“We need you to look this over.” Phil said as Raylee tried to hand him the file she was carrying. “Soon as possible.”

“I don’t like being handed things.” Tony said shaking his head at Raylee.

“That’s alright because I loved being handed things.” Pepper said taking the file from Raylee’s hand as she handed her a champagne glass. “So let’s trade.” She handed the file over to Tony and took the champagne glass Tony had in his hand. “Thank you.”

“Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday.” Tony said glancing down at the file.

“This isn’t a consultation.” Raylee said to him and he looked over at her with a smirk.

“So Agent Matthews can talk, almost thought you were a mute.” He said smiling at her.

“Is this about the Avengers? Which I… I know nothing about.” Pepper said as she took a drink from her glass.

“The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought and I didn’t even qualify.” Tony said shaking his head.

“I didn’t know that either.” Pepper said again.

“Did you qualify Agent Matthews?” Tony asked looking over at Raylee and she just shrugged her shoulders not knowing the real answer to that herself. “Yeah, join the club with me apparently I’m volatile, self-obsessed and don’t play well with others.”

“That I did know.” Pepper said and Tony shot a glare in her direction which she just smiled off.

“This isn’t about personality profiles anymore.” Phil said as Tony walked away.

“Whatever. Miss Potts, you got a minute?” Tony said to Pepper and she walked over to the desk he was standing by.

The two of them spoke in a hush tone as Raylee and Phil watched them, Tony expanded his arms and different profiles appeared in holographic form floating in front of Pepper and Tony. They both looked on in awe of what was in front of them then Pepper, shook her head. “I’m going to take the jet to DC tonight.” She said to him.

“Tomorrow.” Tony said as he tried to pull Pepper closer to him.

“You’ve got homework… you got a lot of homework.” Pepper said looking over at the images again.

“Well if I didn’t?” Tony asked her.

“If you didn’t?” Pepper asked him and he gave her a slight nod with a low yeah. “You mean if you finish?” she said and Tony nodded his head at her. “Well… um… then…” she whispered the rest in his ear and the two agents watching quickly turned away when they heard Tony gasp.

“Do you think we should maybe go out and give them some privacy?” Raylee asked Coulson in a low voice as Tony said something to Pepper and Phil just shrugged his shoulders.

“Work hard.” Pepper said as she walked up to the two agents. “Would you two like to accompany me down the elevator and can you give me a lift to the airport?”

The two agents nodded at her as they followed her to the elevator leaving Tony there staring at the images in front of him. Phil and Pepper held small talk on their way down and Raylee stood there quietly listening to them. Once they were back to the helicarrier Fury sent Coulson to go pick up Captain Rogers. Raylee stood there looking at the images of Clint that were playing on the screen when Fury walked up behind her.

“Agent Matthews.”

“Director, do you think whatever Loki did to Agent Barton is permanent?” she asked as she took one last look at his picture then turned to Fury.

“Let’s hope not, he is a good agent and I really hate to lose him to this.” Fury said hearing the concern in her voice. “Don’t let your feelings for Agent Barton cloud your judgment, we have a job to do.” Fury then walked away from her leaving her standing there with a shocked look on her face as he stood in the center of the bridge looking at his screens. Everyone was going about their work to get the helicarrier in the air again. Raylee stood off to the side watching the team work and once things were a little more settled and they were climbing altitude Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner walked in. “Gentlemen.” Fury said to them as Steve handed him money.

As they spoke to each other Raylee watched as Natasha walked to the same screen she was just at and looked at the images of Clint that were playing on it. Then Natasha tuned back to the conversation everyone was having when Phil was done talking. “That’s still not going to find them in time.” She said.

“You have to narrow the field, how many spectrometers do you have access to?” Bruce asked as he glanced over at Raylee noticing she seemed upset and had been quiet through the whole conversation.

“How many are there?” Fury asked getting Bruce’s attention back on him.

“Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition.” Bruce said glancing again at Raylee. “At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?”

“Agent Romanoff show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please.” Fury said as he walked over to Raylee and Natasha nodded at him. “Agent Matthews, can you please show Captain Rogers to his room so he could get settled in?” Raylee nodded as she walked over to Steve.

“Hello Captain, I’ll show where you can get settled at.” Raylee said as she stuck her hand out to Steve.

“Ma’am.” he said as he shook hands with her then followed her out.

Natasha left with Bruce to the lab. “You’re gonna love it, doc. We got all the toys.” Natasha said to Bruce as he followed her down the hall.

“The other agent in there with us looked upset, is everything alright with her?” Bruce asked Natasha catching her a little off guard with the question. “I don’t mean to pry.”

“Agent Matthews and I are good friends with Agent Barton and he has been compromised.”

“Oh… I see.” Bruce said in a low voice. “I hope things turn out good for your friend.”

“So do I.” Natasha said as she showed Bruce into the lab and then went looking for Raylee. Natasha found Raylee walking towards her room. “Raylee, how are you holding up?”

“I’m good.” Raylee said trying to sound like things were ok. “Nat I’m just worried about Clint.”

“We all are but you’re showing way too much emotion in front of people.” Natasha said as she got closer to Raylee and nudged her into her room. “Ray he is going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that, if Fury had let me go with him to New Mexico…” Raylee started to say but Natasha cut her off.

“Things could be a lot worse than it already is, Loki could have compromised the both of you or could have killed one of you.”

“I know you’re right. It just sucks not being able to do anything or even know where he is.”

“Believe me I know how you feel.” Natasha said laying her hand on Raylee’s shoulder. “Let’s go back to the bridge and see if there were any hits yet, remember what Clint taught you about checking your emotions.”

Just as they were walking into the bridge Steve was walking out. “Ladies we got a hit, I need the two of you to fly Captain Rogers to this location.” Fury said to them as he showed them the location on the screen.