The Leafless Tree
Five hours and twenty-seven minutes, and she was almost done with the first two thousand words of the document Agent Mussante had handed her.
Ilona Rakoski couldn't write or speak Spanish, or French, or any European languages, or African languages, and if she was sufficiently low on caffeine, her English wasn't exactly impressive, either-- but when it came to Mandarin or Cantonese, she was one of SHIELD's most efficient Linguistics specialists.
Well, Mandarin and Cantonese, officially; she had a few unofficial specialties (although she sure as hell wasn't going to get asked to translate anything into Sindarin any time soon).
She'd been working for SHIELD for years as a civilian liaison, but only recently been promoted to field agent status; she spent so much time on the road, there were only a handful of people whose faces she recognized... but there were several names she absolutely knew, that everyone knew.
So when she received the call to report to Agent Phil Coulson's office, she was on her feet and moving inside of forty-five seconds.
