162. Cracking Under Pressure

                                    

                                          
Bucky and Steve were taking a wander to the mess room when they were severely distracted by two equally familiar voices bickering – the sound projecting through the clouded glass door to Coulson’s office. Curiosity piqued, they stood by, listening to the monumental raised voice like two aggravated wild cats.
                          
"There is nothing wrong with me!" A woman's shrill and vitriol-empowered voice shrieked. 
                          
"We don't know that!" Coulson's voice bellowed back, tone thick with officious authority. "All I'm asking is that you let us investigate your health!" 
                          
"That's 'all'? That's 'all'?! That's a pretty big all Coulson! You mean you want to get your team of shrinks to strip me down to the bones and break me! You mean you want neurologists running CTs and operations on me! All because you're scared! You're quaking in your boots because you think I'm Hydra! God forgive you your audacity... My great aunt co-founded this organisation and you have the temerity to accuse me of working for Hydra?!" She was livid, and each word was like the crack of a whip: articulate and slicing as it crashed down. "Me, of all people?! I have sold my life... To SHEILD..." She was rasping breathlessly, her body catching up with her inhibited state of mind. "I've given years, the most important years of my life to SHEILD, in the name of the country and my ancestors. Coulson, if there's one thing I can assure you; it's that my allegiance is with SHEILD." 
                          
There was the squeak of wood scraping across the floor as she unceremoniously dropped back into the chair and the legs scuffed on the concrete. 
                          
"Sharon...” Bucky and Steve exchanged a baffled look. “I am, by no means, accusing you of conscious disloyalty, or being a mole. I'm accusing you of something far beyond your control or comprehension..." Coulson spoke in a patient and paced voice as if trying to approach a violent and volatile beast - like perhaps one of the tigers at the zoo. 
                          
"With all due respect, director, I have a good mind to leave this organisation on the basis of your accusation and disrespect alone - but I suppose that won't do anything to better the situation. So I'm telling you no to the medical examinations, and you're going to get me escorted from the base back to New York City," she demanded with a sense of finality. 
                          
"Sharon, I don't think you realise just how valuable you are right now-"
                          
"Valuable?! What am I? Some kind of object?! Just a resource? Am I of no human value to you? Am I just another number typed into that computer of yours? I don't want you digging around in my head!" She spluttered in outrage. "Did Barnes consent to you scanning his brain? Because you know for a fact that he's been tampered with! Yet I'm the one being interrogated!" She chorused with vexation, her heckles rising the longer the interview went on. 
                          
Coulson mulled over the words to select; weighing up the benefits and tribulations of lying against the truth. "Well, no..! But-"
                          
"Exactly!" There was the slap of flesh on wood as Sharon flailed her palms onto the desk. "It's invasive. I don't want to be invaded."
                          
"Have you anything to hide?" Coulson’s voice was seeded with suspicion and lilted in a condescending way that committed Sharon to another outburst.
                          
“Of course I have nothing to hide!” She yelled at him. “I would just appreciate some acumen! If you truly think Hydra have been muddling my brain up – which is a pretty terrifying thing to be told, if you hadn’t noticed – then I would appreciate some sensitivity. Right now, I get the impression you would be inclined to nab me in the night, strap me to a chair and do all of your tests without my permission if I don’t comply,” Sharon raved.
                          
“You think I don’t know that?!” Coulson snapped, his tolerance having run out. “You think I don’t understand what you’re feeling?! We’re all feeling the fear right now! And I know exactly what it’s like to be where you are right now!” There was the sound of shattering as all the empty mugs, stained dark by coffee were swept off his desk and onto the floor.