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      ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛᴇᴇɴ: ɪ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡs

❝ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟᴀsᴛ ᴛᴇɴ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅs ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴀ ʙᴜʟʟᴇᴛ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴇᴀᴅ. ❞

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              YOU SWUNG YOUR LEGS BACK AND FORTH AS THEY DANGLED FROM THE UNCOMFORTABLE BED IN YOUR ROOM AT S.H.I.E.L.D HQ, WHILE YOU STARED AT YOUR BODYGUARD. He was sitting on a chair across the room, reading a James Patterson novel; you'd finished your novel ages ago and it had now joined the ever-growing pile of books at the foot of the bed. Being holed up in the tiny, sparsely furnished room was enormously arduous and you must've finished at least fifty books in the short time you'd been occupying the space.

The trip to Stuttgart – albeit life-threatening – had been a welcome oasis, and with every dreadful second that ticked by on the unnecessarily large clock mounted on the opposite wall, you found yourself wishing that you had an excuse, any excuse, to leave the holding.

You tore your eyes away from Brendon and they flickered to the journal lying next to you on the bed. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you opened the book, doing a quick once over of the pages you'd read too many times to count.

"Brendon?"

"No."

You breathed out in exasperation. "You didn't even know what I was going to say."

"Yes, I did," he responded, not even bothering to look up from his book. "You were going to ask me to tell you what The Director wouldn't."

"I was not."

"Yes, you were. In fact, you've spent the past," he glanced at his wrist watch, "thirteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds trying to figure out how to go about it. And how to try and convince me to spill everything when I inevitably said no."

You clenched your teeth as your heart rate began to increase. For someone who claimed he couldn't read your mind, he sure as hell seemed to always know what you were thinking. "You can't lie to me, (Y/N)," he reminded, "You're easy to read."

"So you admit that there's things everyone's not telling me?" you quizzed as you folded your arms, feeling vaguely triumphant that you'd cornered him.

"No. I was only acknowledging your thought that there's something everyone's not telling you."

"Look," you sighed, hopping down from the bed and walking over to Brendon, who finally put his book down – with an eye roll – when you appeared in front of him. "I know you don't really do the whole 'human emotions' thing," you started and he raised an eyebrow, "but I've been lied to for most of my life and honestly, I'm getting real sick of it. If there's something big that I'm being kept in the dark about, then please, if you have even the tiniest shred of humanity, tell me what it is," you begged, voice shaky.

Brendon looked at you intently as his mind raced. You looked so desperate, so tired... he could tell that the thoughts running rampant in your head were tearing you apart, and he needed to put your mind at ease.

"(Y/N)," he spoke slowly and softly, leaning towards you ever so slightly, "no one is hiding anything from you. Stop worrying."

You swallowed hard. You believed him, but you needed that extra little bit of confirmation. "You promise?"

Brendon's eyes narrowed for a second, and he swallowed too. "I promise."

~

Brendon approached the glass window, taking a stand next to The Director while they both viewed the captured assassin.

"Still won't say anything?"

"Hail Hydra," The Director scoffed with a shake of the head. "Poor kid's mind has been toyed with like a rag doll. But we need to get him to crack; that's the only way we'll be able to track them."

"The only way, sir?"

The Director turned to Brendon and raised an eyebrow. "Are you insinuating what I think you are, Agent?"

Brendon sighed, casting his eyes down to the floor before looking back at his superior. "I just can't help but feel like you - we've - made a mistake." The Director tilted his head forward, urging Brendon to continue. "If we leave this any longer, and she finds out... there's no way she'll ever trust us again. It'll be over."

"You sound like him," The Director chuckled, cocking his head at the man on the other side of the window.

"As messed-up as he is, and even though it probably wasn't even his own thoughts, he's right. If she finds out on her own – or worse, if they find a way to get it through to her – we can bet our asses that she wont want us anywhere near her. Let alone helping her."

"She doesn't have a choice about whether or not we're looking over her," The Director frowned. "We always have, and we always will. Nothing will change that; not even her turning her back on us."

"We're all just supposed to ignore the fact?" Brendon asked.

"Not ignore the fact. Manage it. It's not something we can just dump on her in passing. No, it's a gradual process; once she's really, truly ready, we will tell her. But until then, we will carry on as we always have. We've been able to control it thus far; I'm sure we can keep it up until this shitstorm blows over."

"We've been able to control it thus far because we were the only ones who knew about it," Brendon argued, his voice becoming urgent. "But we're not the only ones anymore. They-"

"I am fully conscious of the situation, Agent. I knew this would happen right from the moment I first held her in my arms. I also knew that she would be kept safe. Always. And luckily, I have people close to her who will do exactly that. Correct, Agent?"

Brendon ground his teeth. "Yes, sir. But what happens if, God forbid, they do find a way to tell her before we do. What then?"

"Then, Brendon," The Director pursed his lips and turned to face the window once more; Brendon knew that by using his name instead of 'Agent' or 'Urie', The Director was speaking to him on a personal level, not as superior to inferior. "We're royally fucked."

~

"I'm bored."

"Yeah, and I'm having the time of my life over here," Brendon snarled, tossing a baseball from one hand to the other. "Suck it up."

"I've been sucking it up for the past four months," you spat, hands angrily closing around the edge of the glass table. "If I don't get out of here soon, I'm going to go insane."

"Hmph."

"Can we please go somewhere that isn't HQ? Please."

"No."

"I'm suffocating in here."

"You seem to be breathing just fine to me."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," you breathed, closing your eyes and groaning. "Five minutes outside. That's all I ask."

Brendon laughed. "You won't last ten seconds before there's a bullet in your head."

You huffed. "If I have to stay in this fucking room for another minute, I'm going to scream."

"Okay."

"You don't believe me?"

He shot you a challenging look, raising both eyebrows.

"Okay," you mused. You opened your mouth, preparing to let out a shriek, which you did. It only lasted a couple of seconds, though, before a firm hand clamped down over your mouth to prevent you from making any more noise.

"Keep your annoying mouth shut, and I'll take you somewhere that isn't this room, alright?"

You nodded eagerly, smiling under Brendon's hand. He removed it slowly, and you beamed up at him.

"Where are you gonna take me?"

"It's a surprise."

~

"This is your surprise?" you scrunched up your nose as you looked around at the training centre you were standing in. "Not gonna lie, I was expecting something a lot more exciting."

Brendon dumped a crate full of supplies in front of you with a grunt, wiping a few beads of sweat from his brow. "Who says this isn't exciting?"

"No offense, but normal people," you gestured to yourself, "don't exactly view violence as exciting."

"Yeah, well," he shrugged, opening the crate and pulling a handgun and crossbow out. "I don't see any normal people anywhere in this room, so..."

"Funny," you gave him a sarcastic smile.

He cleared his throat and held out the crossbow to you. "I believe you're somewhat familiar with this."

You gently took the weapon from him, a wave of familiarity and memories washing over you as you did so. Running your fingers over the cool metal, you smiled. You hadn't held one of those things in quite some time – 3 years to be exact – but positioning it in your hold, it felt like just yesterday when you'd trained with your father.

"Why are you giving me this?" you questioned, turning to your bodyguard, who was loading his gun.

"Because," he bared his teeth as he cocked the gun, "you're bored, I'm sick of babysitting you and we could both do with letting off a bit of steam so," he raised the one hand of his holding the gun and pulled the trigger four times, each bullet hitting the target right in the bull's-eye.

You recoiled a bit from the shock of his sudden movements, but quickly got over it and moved to stand next to him. Getting into the correct position, you fired your own weapon, hitting the bull's-eye as well.

Brendon made an impressed face. "Not bad, (Y/L/N)."

"Thank you, Urie."

He raised both eyebrows at your boldness, making you giggle. His lips twitched upwards in what you could only assume was his version of a smile, but of course, it was only for a millisecond. But you caught it nevertheless and gasped.

"What?"

"Have we entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"

He scoffed, moving to get another round of ammunition from the crate. "Please. I haven't smiled in years. I wouldn't break my streak for you."

"Dick," you jeered under your breath.

The two of you did some more target practice for little while; you alternated between the crossbow and a handgun, while Brendon cycled through basically every weapon in the crate.

"Hey," you said, reloading your weapon, "how come we're able to do this? I mean, shouldn't we be worrying about Hydra attacking again? It's been almost two weeks since Stuttgart."

"We're quite securely hidden this time around. I reckon we have at least another three to four weeks before they manage to find us. Of course, we're doing everything we can to get that Hydra punk to give us something to work with. The longer we're without the knowledge of the Tesseract's whereabouts, the worse it'll be in the long run."

You nodded in understanding. Looking over at Brendon shooting with the crossbow, a solution to eliminating your boredom for the next few weeks struck you.

"Can you teach me?"

"Excuse me?" he asked, turning to face you with a confused expression. "Can I what?"

"Teach me," you repeated, gesturing all around the room. "Ya know, all the agent stuff."

"Agent stuff?"

You sighed. "Yes. Like, using a hundred and one different types of weapons... hand to hand combat... reading people's minds etcetera."

"You want me to train you to become an agent?" he clarified, taking steps toward you. You nodded in confirmation. "No."

"Why not?" you questioned angrily. "My boredom is only gonna get worse. Do you really want to deal with that for the next however many weeks?"

"You can't be trained to be an agent."

"Why not? I already know all of the basics, and it's not like I'm going to go out on missions or something. It's just a pastime."

"No."

"Do you have an emotional attachment to that word or something?" you tucked your hair behind your ear, annoyed.

"(Y/N), even if I wanted to train you – which I don't – The Director would kill me if he found out."

"I won't tell him."

"(Y/N)," he said sternly, that common tone of finality present in his voice. "No."

You inhaled deeply. "I hate you."

"So you've mentioned." He placed the weapons back into the crate, shutting it. "Come on. Time to get back."

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