#shieldsupportstaff

Michael Bing Aen Major. Medic. Born 1982,  in Stowe, VT. Michael is the youngest of three.  He is short, stocky, and has tanned olive skin, short black hair, and almond-shaped brown eyes.  He favors jeans and button up long-sleeved shirts (frequently plaid or chambray) with sleeves rolled up over t-shirts, and hiking boots.  He was a surprise baby. His parents had already retired to a cabin in the Vermont woods when his mother got pregnant again. He is named after his grandfathers. Michael joined the military fresh out of high school, and became a Medic surprising his parents not the least.  He had a history of bringing injured animals home to nurse back to health.  The only surprise was that he'd agreed to work on people.  He saw combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and served as a Medic in both places, where he was decorated for bravery.   Michael has a nearly perpetually cheery disposition and boundless energy.  He often served as an unofficial counselor for many of his squadmates and the men they rescued.  This doesn't mean he doesn't get down himself, just that he's good at dealing with others before his own needs come into play.   SHIELD recruited Michael after his tours were up.  He was home, and shopping in NY for a birthday gift for his mother, picking up Chinese imported foods they couldn't find in Vermont, when the Ch'tauri attack struck.  He ran to the fight, and started triaging victims immediately.  At one point he picked up the sidearm of the cop whose wound he was holding pressure on and shot at least one Ch'tauri while yelling, "Stay away from my patient, you bug-looking mother fuckers!"  Another victim caught it, filming on her phone.   After the dust cleared, Michael followed the worst of his patients to the hospital to report to doctors treating them.  Two weeks later, Ethel showed up on his doorstep.  He'd already gotten razzed by several of his army buddies online about the clip.  He accepted, packed up and headed to DC.   When the Helicarriers fell, Michael was heading back from a doctor's appt.  He stopped his car in the middle of the road with everyone else and watched them fall.  Then managed to work his car to the side of the road, grabbed the kit he kept in it, and ran for the river.  He’s another one who kept at it until he practically dropped from exhaustion, stopping only when someone made him get some food and take a nap.  

Tomas (Tom) Batista Regalado.  Diagnostic Imaging Technician.  Born 1990, Portimão, Portugal.  Tom is six foot, stocky, with dark brown skin, and grey eyes. He keeps his head shaved.  He is most frequently seen wearing scrubs and tennis shoes. He and his identical twin brother Silvio are the oldest of six.  His parents still live in Portimão, as do most of his siblings.  Silvio moved to Lisbon to be nearer to Tomas during his stint in the Navy, working as a graphic designer.  

Tom served in the Portuguese Navy as a Diagnostic Imaging Technician, working with X-rays, Ultrasound, MRIs and other scans, as well as having Paramedic training.  He was part of the detachment decorated for Exceptional Bravery by the International Maritime Organization for leading anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden.  SHIELD recruited him as his enlistment was coming to an end, and he was trying to decide if he wanted to re-up.  

Tom was initially stationed on the Helicarrier, but once Hrishita worked with him on an emergency case, she argued with Ethel until she got him assigned to her.  Six foot tall Tom looms over Hrishita, and is easily two and a half of her wide, though not an ounce of it is excess fat.  He enjoys working with her, and the other doctors in SHIELD, particularly all the weird injuries he sees.  He and Hawkeye are on a first name basis, and occasionally go for beers.  

He was in Portugal the day the Helicarriers fell, and as it was just missed being assassinated by a Hydra sleeper agent when he went to check in.  Another agent pulled him around a corner, and he helped retake that office.  His twin, Silvio, however... Someone must have seen him and mistaken him for Tom.  He was killed at a coffee kiosk less than a block from his office.

Tom thinks he felt a jolt when his brother died, but was busy fighting off Hydra and had not paid it much mind.  He did not know about his brother’s death until several hours later.  He had finally managed to get through to Hrishita to find out if she was all right.  While he talked to her, his mother called with the news.  Tom went to the hospital to identify the body, startling the attendant, and then straight into a bar, drinking himself insensate.  One of the other SHIELD Agents who'd fought alongside him kept an eye on him, taking him to his place so he wouldn't have to go back to his brother's apartment alone.  

Tom goes where Hrishita goes, and lives in an apartment in the Tower.  He has several of his brother's drawings and paintings on his walls.  He's stepped up his physical training since the Fall and spends a lot of time on the gun range.  He has nightmares and is part of the Midnight Wanderers club.  He and Cassidy talk a lot.  He likes Caesar and brings him dog treats from this chi-chi dog cafe near Central Park.  Caesar has told Cassidy that Tom should have a Dog. She's trying to figure out how to work that out.  

Tom is very professional, he would never purposely press harder for an ultrasound than necessary, even if the patient had sold out Captain America to salve his own guilty conscience.  Not consciously anyway.  As time goes on, he is less angry at Tony, and kind of gets it.  He's been nicer the last couple of appts.  

Sam Hunter Pinto. Librarian/Archivist.  Born 1988, in a home birth on the Dineh Reservation in New Mexico.  Sam is slender, somewhat on the short side, bronze skin, black hair and eyes, and dresses in close-fitting jeans, button down shirts and sweater vests in a multitude of colors with sturdy and comfortable shoes and the occasional whimsical bowtie.  They keep their hair trimmed short, and wear small-lensed, wire-framed glasses.  

Sam's great grandfather was a Navajo Code-Talker in WWII. Sam grew up listening to their great-grandfather's exploits, and about the time he met Captain America and Bucky.  Sam collected a lot of the old Cap memorabilia, and frequently has a Capt. America t-shirt or tank top beneath their button up.  

Sam studied Libary Science at the University of Arizona, getting their Masters of Library Science as quickly as possible, and obtaining a second Masters in Archival Studies.  

Their androgyny led to much bullying in school, but they endured, turning into a quick and dirty fighter, more than capable of defending themselves when pushed.  

After obtaining their degrees, they looked up a couple of their grandfather's Army buddies in DC and asked to become an Archivist for SHIELD.  

The physical training required of even the administrative staff proved no problem for Sam.  They also took on additional hand to hand training, as well as spending time at the firing range to relax.  Growing up in the New Mexico mountains, they are an excellent shot.  

Sam had gotten to see Steve in passing at the Triskelion several times, and whenever Steve was in town would be uncharacteristically out and about, instead of holed up in their basement office.

Sam missed a lot of what happened with the Helicarriers' fall because the second Natasha released the Hydra records into the wild, they were glued to their computer.  They were in the habit of spending days on end in their office, which Fury had outfitted with a small bathroom including a shower. When alarms sounded and the firedoors locked, they settled in to wait it out, and obsessively read the HYDRA files on the internet, archiving and backing things up on the army of external hard drives they kept on hand.  They occasionally answered concerned emails from Ethel.

When the rescuers arrived, Sam scolded them about dust near the computers, and insisted on putting everything to rights before sealing the room to their corneal scan and leaving with them.  

When they'd heard about the old SHIELD offices that had gotten blown up taking out Zola, they screamed in anguish.

Ethel took Sam with her to Stark Industries.  The SHIELD archives are still located under the ruins of the Triskelion in DC, and Sam makes frequent trips back and forth.  There are talks of building a new archive. Sam may or may not be in intense negotiations with Stark, Hill and Ethel about its location and the necessary safeguards.  

Sam was the one who gave Ethel the file on Bucky that she handed off to Steve. They had tears in their eyes, but told Ethel they didn't feel qualified to make that call.  When Ethel told Sam she'd given the file to Steve, they went back to their apartment in the tower and ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's in their pajamas, watching The Librarians on DVD, a gift from their older sister, without even making snide comments about their archival practices.  

After the Accords, Sam refuses to speak to Tony, and spends more and more time in the old archives in DC crating things up and getting them ready to move to the new location.  

When Sam is in New York, they are forced by Ethel out of their office periodically.  No one says no to Ethel.  She makes them get coffee with her, mostly at odd hours.  Sam thinks Cassidy is nice, but seems sad.  They find Sierras amusing and pity Tim.  They are friendly with everyone, but not close.  

The last time someone asked them about their gender, they looked that person (a new recruit who did not make the cut) in the eye and asked, "Why? Do you want to fuck me?"  When no answer was forthcoming, they turned and walked away, apparently unfazed.

Kennedy Xaviera Rabinovich. Born in 1994. Lab Assistant R&D/Body Armor and PPE.  Born in Brighton Beach, NY.  Father is a rabbi, her mother converted to Judaism to marry him.  She has medium brown skin, hazel eyes, and hair she wears in locs and dyes burgundy.  She favors blue jeans, t-shirts with nerdy slogans, in jokes and catch phrases under bright cardigans, and sturdy, men's work shoes.  She is medium height and chubby, but strong.  

Kennedy is on loan from MIT to Stark Labs to work with Sierras on a sort of internship to complete her Master's thesis.  She is named after President Kennedy and her paternal Grandfather.  She was raised in Reform Judaism, and still practices, if she's a little careless about kosher. Jesus does go out of his way to make sure he accommodates her when she eats in his restaurant or orders up to the lab.

She graduated early from high school, and went to MIT on scholarship at 16.  She is nearly done with her Masters and intends to get her PhD.  Sierras have informed her that she has a job with them whenever she wants one.  

Kennedy is the lab assistant who helped the Sierras out when Q arrived by running to a nearby pet store with a fistful of twenties and picking up everything they would need for the cat, including toys, catnip, litter, food, litterbox and treats.  She may be Q's favorite person.  

The job at Stark Industries did come with the offer of an apartment, but Kennedy opted to live with one of her great aunts in one of the few "affordable" units still left in Manhattan.  Kennedy's aunt has lived there long enough to be one of the few rent-controlled apartments left in the building.  

Before Kennedy moved in her aunt's landlord was more or less a slumlord.  All it took was a couple of visits with Jesus and Anton in tow for him to straighten up.  Pepper has had Michael aquire the building on the sly, and has vastly improved living conditions.  She intends to keep it a low-income building for all incoming tenants, and is working that out with the city.  Kennedy lives with her aunt and her aunt's several rescued cats. A long haired black tom cat named Pulitzer has decided that Kennedy is the love of his life, and sleeps in her room.  

Kennedy does not date.  It isn't that she's not interested, but appropriate boys are few and far between, not that that stops her father from matchmaking.  And she's busy. Very busy.  

She spends a lot of nights on Sierras’ couch when work in the lab runs long, and they have watched all of Misfits, the original british Skins, and are steadily working their way through all of Dr. Who on a dare from Tim.  Up next is Being Human.  

Kennedy may be the most well-adjusted human being in the entire Tower.  She had a great childhood, great parents who love her and supported her no matter what. She has an extensive local family network, and loves what she does.  Apart from minor bullying, and the natural deaths of her father's parents, she has had no major trauma in her life. She does suffer from insomnia, but it isn't PTSD related, rather she sometimes cannot stop thinking about new polymers and designs.  So she is also a regular at the Midnight Wanderers club in the coffee shop.  

She really hopes the Winter Soldier gets better and can come to NY, because she really wants to see what that arm is made of.  

She blew most of her first paycheck at ThinkGeek and rigged her replica sonic screwdriver to work as a laser cutter.  It still has to be plugged into a powersource, but still, impressive.  Tony has his eye on her.  

Wiley "Will" Martin Hitchcock (not his actual name). Born in 1965. Handler.  Black hair and eyes. Son of second generation Japanese Americans, whose parents had been interred during WWII.  Went into the Army directly out of high school.  Will is exceptionally good at logistics and strategy.  After several years in the military, he went into the CIA, and became a handler for certain covert assets, of the sort of covert where "we can niether confirm nor deny..."  While Ethel may know he and Rebecca's real names, she will not divulge them to anyone.  

At the time the helicarriers fell, he was still Rebecca's handler, even though she was recuperating and it had not yet been determined if she would be allowed to return to the field.  When Cap approached her, she went to Will and asked him to jump ship with her.  He did.  

Over the several years of their partnership, he's come to think of her as the daughter he never had.  When he discovered the officer responsible for her extraction from Afghanistan had panicked and left her there, he beat the young man unconscious, and then got busy.  He stayed by her side in the hospital until she regained consciousness after surgery.

His work has been his life.  He finds the amount of downtime they have between missions now to be disturbing, and spends a lot of time at the range with Rebecca.  She's trying to convince him to join her in event planning, and he admits, it does sort of appeal to him, the logistics of the large scale events.  Instead, he spends a lot of time going over intel, and picking out fresh targets.  

When Rebecca was first assigned to him, she found his utter and complete lack of hobbies and interests outside of work disturbing.  She started buying him netsuke boxes.  Annoyed at first, Will has come to treasure those boxes.  It has become a game between them.  She tries to sneak new ones onto the mantle in his quarters without him noticing.  HIs apartment is right next to hers in the Tower.

Will also feels betrayed by the infiltration of HYDRA.  He had really believed in America, in spite of what his parents had gone through with the interrment.  And he is taking it as personally as Rebecca does.  

Will suffers from insomnia, but spends his nights up reading all the books he otherwise doesn't have time to read.  He prefers classic literature.  Rebecca's tried to get him to read Ludlum "for the LULZ," but he'd rather re-read Ivanhoe, or War and Peace.  He listens to a lot of late 70s arena rock and early 80s heavy metal, and occasionally stares at the ceiling wondering if he was wrong to go into the military, and wondering how deep HYDRA's meddling went.  

Jean-Pierre Flynn.  Born in 1992.  Security/Hand to Hand combat.  Of average height, stocky, tawny brown skin, dark eyes, shaved head. Dual Irish/Algerian citizenship.  Average student, fought in underground bare knuckles fights for spare cash with an excellent record. Ethel recruited him after he was picked up in a raid on an underground fight ring.  She offered him a job with Stark Industries/SHIELD as security and a Hand to Hand instructor.  

Jean is the son of an Algerian mother and Irish mercenary father.  His father shipped he and his mother to live with his parents in Ireland when he was a toddler.  His mother hated it and they moved to London to be closer to other Algerian immigrants, and the West Indian community. Although not West Indian, his mother got along far better with them than she had in Ireland.  Jean-Pierre has only seen his father a handful of times in his life, although he does send them a fair amount of money on a regular basis.      

Ethel brought him in post-fall of the Helicarriers, and she and several of the others have filled him in on what happened.  In particular, he has spent a fair amount of time drinking with Anton and Joseph (Joseph drinking soda or coffee), talking about what it was like to find out people you'd worked with for years were secretly HYDRA.  Jean understands that,  he had a good friend of his turn nazi skinhead on him when they were in college, and he never quite got over the betrayal of it.  

He works out in the gym with Melissa a lot, and enjoys sparring with her and Anton a great deal.  Jean has his own demons and is part of the midnight wanderers, as Cassidy calls them.  He has been known to have Cassidy load up some ska or swing and dance with her and Gigi in the coffee shop in the middle of the night.  He sometimes accompanies Melissa to the movies, ribbing her about her lack of discrimination.  

Jean lives in the Tower and spends a lot of his free time reading.  He thinks the unlimited access to all the books on his tablet is the best perk of this job.  He does like physical books, though, and haunts second hand bookstores for out of print editions of classic pulp adventure tales.  He also has a secret cache of regency romances.

When he is not on duty, he dresses like a SHARP (SkinHead Against Racial Prejudice) in tight jeans, tucked and rolled, Doc Marten's or Grinders, a Fred Perry or button up shirt with thin suspenders to match his boot laces, usually blue or purple for no other reason than he likes those colors.  If he leaves the tower, he wears a black flight jacket with anti-nazi patches on it.  

Sierra L is very taken with Jean, and too shy to say much to him.  

Jackson Rebel Cobb. Born in 1991. Search and Rescue.  Born in Chapel Hill, NC.  Grew up outside of Chapel Hill, and spent his youth hunting and fishing in the Blue Ridge Mtns.  In high school he began training in Search and Rescue after a younger cousin was lost for two days in the wilderness.  He has an AS in Criminal Justice and a BS in Environmental Studies.  He volunteered as Search and Rescue all the way through college.  Jack, as he prefers to be called, is tall with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Jack worked as a Forest Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, leading up many of their Search and Rescue Operations.  He'd been in DC for a conference when the Helicarriers fell, and immediately ran to the Potomac to start pulling people out of the river, making sure others were nearby to start CPR or do basic first aid and then diving in again to pull more survivors out.  He worked at it until nightfall, then rested while manning a coffee station for divers looking for any survivors trapped in air pockets in the wreckage.  

He caught Ethel's eye, and she got his name and contact info, ostensibly to thank him.  After the dust had settled, she called him up to offer him a job with SI/SHIELD as it was shaking out.  Jack thanked her, and told her he really wasn't much for a lot of people.  Then she explained the job.

The job she offered him involves traveling to various of SHIELD's safe houses and making sure they're stocked, functional and uncompromised, as well as acting as Search and Rescue, and checking up on one or another of Tony's properties.  Ethel has authorized Jack to train in all varieties of S&R, including snow, coastal, high seas and mountain terrain.  He was one of the crew sent to retrieve Tony from Siberia.  

Jack is anti-Accords, but believes in doing his job.  To the best of his knowledge, his job is making sure that SHIELD safe houses in the wildernesses of the world are not compromised or being used by anyone inappropriate.  Ethel has told him that he has wide latitude in his definition of inappropriate and compromised.  He has, in fact, come across Cap and the others hiding out in "forgotten" SHIELD properties, and has left piles of supplies in front of the door, vanishing into the wilderness before they could spot him, thanks to his knowledge of codes and camera placement.  

He found during Mountain and Winter SAR training that he rather likes cross-country skiing and snow-shoe-ing.  He is an excellent shot, and has on one occasion. stopped to help Hawkeye dress a deer Hawkeye had killed.  He declined Hawkeye's invitation to go back to the safe house with him, stating plausible deniability.  "I can't tell them who I saw if I didn't see anyone."  

He has a huge crush on Cap, and would prefer not to actually have to talk to him, if he can avoid it.  He's pretty sure he'd just be scarlet and stammering the entire time.  

Cassidy Lynn Holman.  Born in 1990.  Coffee Roaster, Stark Tower Employee Coffee Shop Manager.  Graduated Inglemoor High School.  AAS from Bellevue College, Business Accounting.  Trained as a Coffee Roaster at Espresso Vivace in Seattle.  Cassidy has also studied martial arts since she was very young, many different forms.  She enjoys Escrima the most, and Muay Thai.  She has also studied Judo, Karate, Kendo and Boxing.  She has shoulder length hair she keeps dyed in various pastels, brown eyes and light brown skin.

Cassidy's older brother, Scotty, worked as a scientist for SHIELD, and shortly before the helicarriers fell, discovered that many of his cohort were HYDRA.  In response, a new neighbor, Barbara, introduced herself to Cassidy and Scott's dad. They started dating, and she moved in shortly thereafter.  She was, in fact, a HYDRA agent.  Scotty did manage to visit one more time, and warn Cassidy while taking her out for ice cream.  If anything happened, Barbara would kill them, Cassidy, their father and their younger sister Erin.  

The day the Helicarriers fell, Cassidy had a martial arts tournament.  None of her family had shown up and when she heard the news, turning on the radio in her truck, she knew.  She drove home, and broke in through a bathroom window she and her brother had always used to sneak out.  She could hear Erin crying.  Barbara was waiting with one of Cassidy's father's guns.  Her father and Erin lay bloodied on the floor.  Erin still whimpered.  Cassidy jumped Barbara, got the gun away and beat her to death with it, then called 911.  

She was arrested, then exonerated as people poured through the HYDRA files.  Erin lives with their grandparents in Kenmore, WA.  She has recovered some use of her legs.  

When Stark offered her a job at Stark Tower as part of an outreach plan to help those victimized by HYDRA Cassidy leapt at the chance.  The pay far beat anything she could get in Seattle, and it got her away from some bad memories.  She misses Erin and sends money to help her grandparents.  Stark has talked about having Erin come out for an experimental nerve treatment. Cassidy is both excited and terrified of this.

Stark bought her a roaster and set her up in the Tower, letting Trey work on it to shoot for low emissions.  This led to many arguments about needing to smell the beans to make sure the roast was going well, and temperature requirements.  You can faintly smell the coffee while she's roasting.  

She works out with the current and former SHIELD agents for the challenge.  She likes Melissa a lot, but isn't sure Melissa swings that way and is afraid to ask.  Once a month they have a melee meet where everyone brings their different weapon's proficiencies and they draw from a hat to see who fights whom.  

It is merely a matter of time before someone tries to recruit her to security, or to SHIELD, whatever.  She knows it.  But she isn't sure how she feels about that.  She doesn't care for guns at all.  

Cassidy suffers from PTSD, and it is part of the reason she agreed to move so far from Erin, because she feels like she needs to get her shit together before she can effectively be there for her sister.  

When she took over the coffee counter, she immediately did away with uniforms, and started playing music.  Stark moved her into a mid-size office/storefront type space with seating for about 20 and an excellent sound system in it.  He turned hiring and firing over to her, as long as they could pass the background checks.  She kept all the previous employees, and hired more to help with the expansion.  She's training another roaster.  Because the coffee shop is open 24 hours to be available to Stark's R&D people, Cassidy takes a lot of night shifts.  She doesn't sleep much.  So she is well acquainted with Jesus, Rebecca and the other night-time wanderers.  She sings along with the music in the coffee shop and does maintenance on the machines at night.  Jesus swears he can tell what kind of mood she's in by what she's playing.  She typically wears heavy metal band t-shirts with the neck ripped out and jeans with Converse IIs.  

She's met Cap once.  He apologized for her brother's death, and she hugged him tight, feeling more like she was comforting him than the other way around.  

She's been caught on more than one occasion dancing with Gigi in the middle of the night.  Jesus lets her feed Pepe a teeny corner of a scone when they visit.  And she and Sierras have spent a few nights just shooting the shit.  SL has similar taste in music.  And she and SJ compare hair care.

There was a rumor tucked away in the HYDRA files that her brother had found a way to smuggle out some of the super soldier serum he'd been working on, and inject his sister.  The notes did not say which sister, and Cassidy won't talk about it.