It only figured that it would happen to him after the shit he’d given others. Matt had been sitting in his office going over some reports from the last mission to his home work when he started to feel his body begin to change. His arms turned fuzzy and curly, and his head was also larger than normal. One look in the reflection of his computer screen, and he saw exactly what was different. He was a bear. Still his normal size, but a bear nonetheless.
Trying to type out emails, reports, or anything else was pointless. His fingers that had turned into clumsy paws weren’t allowing him to get anything done for the day, so he sat in his sat and browsed the boards to verify that he wasn’t the only one that this had happened to since rarely did Atlantis single out one person. Thankfully, he was right. He wasn’t alone in this, but he also wasn’t sure if that made it better or not.
At one point, Matt peeked his head out the door and ducked back inside at the sound of voices. He didn’t think anyone had seen him, but he was hoping this would wear off before he had to face anyone. Logically, he knew that wasn’t likely to happen, but a guy could hope.
Matt sat back down at his desk and leaned back, spinning around a couple of times. A few minutes later there was a knock at his door, and he jolted to attention.
“Ah, I’m a bit busy right now if you could come back later…” He started, but the door opened before he could finish and Rose walked through the door to see him in all his teddy bear glory.
Rose had just left a short conversation with [Steve Rogers], they’d talked a little bit about their different missions and the things that they saw. By the way, he talked about one of the COS agents his teams ran into she went back and checked her notes and it looked like it might have been the same agent on both missions. Granted on Steve’s mission the guy looked like a cartoon.
She pulled up her report notes and headed straight to Matt’s office. She knocked and didn’t even wait for a response as she opened the door speaking. “Matt, you need to take a look at this, I think we might be able to start comparing more notes on the COS age-” she looked up seeing a very fluffy big bear in Matt’s seat.
Stopping dead in her tracks she burst out laughing.
The laughter didn’t surprise him, and Matt could only stare blankly at Rose until she finally managed to stop - mostly, anyway. She still looked like she could start laughing again at any moment. “I doubt we’ll be able to compare notes on COS or anyone right now considering I’m unable to turn the pages,” he said and nodded down to the reports on his desk. Big, furry hands with no fingers made a lot of ordinary tasks very difficult.
His voice at least still sounded like himself and not that of some cartoonish or high-pitched bear. Hell, he was going to have to go to his next afternoon meeting like this, wasn’t he? Normally, he might take off the afternoon, but the missions that were going on now were far too important. After a moment, he sighed. “Better this than the small bears that others were turned into earlier this month.”
There was a brief moment she had managed to get her laughing under control until he mentioned his paws and the laughter came right out again. She held up her hand trying to indicate she’d stop soon but the look on his bear face wasn’t helping her. After a few forced deep breaths, she put a hand on her side to steady herself and slowly managed to stop. The corners of her lips were turned upwards though as she cleared her throat.
“I don’t know, those little guys had their charm.” She quipped biting her lower lip to stop herself from falling into laughter again.
“Do you need anything? What do stuffed bears eat anyways? Stuffing?” She teased. “No, seriously, anything I can do to help, I’ve got my teams on their own training schedules today.”
“Maybe. If someone invites me along to a tea party, I’m declining.” Plus, he could at least function halfway normally and get around. Even if he couldn’t turn the pages of mission reports on his desk. Which was probably a good excuse as any to go home for the day - especially before too many others saw him.
“I have no idea, but unless I start having hunger pains, I don’t plan to test out what will work and what will not.” Would he even be able to drink a glass or water or would his entire insides clump together once it got wet? He didn’t exactly want to find out about that one way or another.
With a sigh, he leaned back in his seat. “For a place that wants us to focus on defeating the enemy, they sure do make it hard sometimes. Was there something you wanted to discuss?” Serious matters were still serious even if she was likely having a hard time taking him seriously at all. Not that Matt could blame her.
“Come on, don’t want to break someone’s heart when all they want is a tea party with you,” Rose kept with a very serious expression but her eyes were shining with laughter.
Rose nodded, she wasn’t sure she’d want to try food either if she were a bear but she decided not to think about anymore, it was just a dangerous rabbit hole to go down.
At the switch of conversation, she didn’t hesitate in coming around to his side of the desk and laying out her report description and that of one of Rogers team. “See here,” she pointed. “It looks like both of our teams ran into the same COS Agent on our recent missions.” She stood up straight. “I was starting to wonder if some of the other missions that we went back to also have the same agents and if that might play into why those are the missions we are going back to. Or if maybe Cassian’s teams also ran into the same Agent.”
"I'll take the tea without the party." Matt had heard about the tea parties some of the other bears had been drawn into. He supposed that wouldn't be the worst to happen all things considered but still not how he wished to spend an afternoon while stuck as a stuffed animal.
Matt glanced down at the notes placed in from of him, studying the words and finding it harder than normal to concentrate. He guessed that might've been to be expected since his brains were full of stuffing at the moment.
"Wait, go back," he mentioned as she was starting to turn the page. "That's curious." And very interesting. "It's highly possible that teams have run into the same agent. Let's cross reference all of the missions last month with these and see what we may find. And double check the corresponding missions that occurred the first time to see if there were any other similar COS sightings or attacks. We can also let the commanders for future missions to keep their eyes open for him since it's likely he'll show up again."
“Come on now, you’d look dashing with a pink top hat,” Rose teased.
She nodded flipping back the page. She agreed with everything he was saying, there was a likelihood they’d seen the same agents. “I’m also wondering if this means one of their agents knows what we’re up to right now.” Rose wasn’t sure, and this was just the start of a theory.
“Do you want me to,” Rose nodded at the computer, she didn’t really think Matt would be able to type in his current form, even if he did look adorable.
“It’s possible. We’ve seen COS agents on a few of the missions, so they know we’ve revisited some from the past. The hope is that they don’t know the reasoning or why specific ones are being targeted.” The gears in Matt’s mind were turning as he tried to think and sort out the different possibilities of what this could mean. It could meant that COS was onto them, or it could also mean that the missions were a step to making significant progress in this war.
“What? Oh.” He was lost in his thoughts for a moment but realized what Rose was asking. “Yes,” He sighed and shakily stood up from his desk so that she could sit down. His stuffed legs were a little wobbly, but he did make it over to one of the other chairs in front of the desk.
“I suppose it can be hard to take anyone seriously when looking like this.”
“Exactly, and it’d be good to figure out if this guy just happens to be an Agent they send on missions, or if he’s tracking our current movements.” She didn’t bother going into the confusing thoughts she had about the time travel and what it meant.
When he stood she had to bite her lower lips together to stop herself from laughing again. It was just really adorable watching a giant teddybear move or in this case Matt.
After sitting down and opening up some past files she looked over at him and smiled softly. “You are really adorable, usually you’ve got that rough around the edges vibe, this look takes it away.” Rose teased looking back to the computer and opening up a couple of reports skimming them.
Matt nodded in agreement. Once they were able to get some of the specific together of other missions, they could give Becker a heads up on what they’d found. Possibly even then give the LCDRs of other missions a description of the Agent and to report back if they were seen. But that was a meeting that would need to happen after he went back to normal.
“I don’t have very many edges at the moment,” he said and looked down at himself. “Lumps is more like it.” Matt could at least find some humour in his situation especially after giving Tommy such a hard time - both times he had been turned into a bear. At least he wasn’t a colorful bear of happiness.
“I’ll schedule a meeting with Becker in a day or so. To ensure that we’re able to gather all the necessary information, of course.” And for other reasons.
Rose couldn’t help but laugh as he poked fun of himself, he was taking it better than she’d seen some others when they’d turned into bears or other things. “Well, you carry your lumps adorably.” She smirked looking back down to the files she was skimming.
“I don’t know, he might really enjoy seeing you like this,” she could imagine the remarks the Captain would have. Rose almost wished she could hear that conversation. She teased. “I don’t think it’ll take that long to get the information” she smirked. “But I’m sure I can read slowly.”
“As adorable as lumps could be,” he said lightly and looked back up at her. He hadn’t seen himself fully in a mirror yet, so he had no idea what his expressions looked like in comparison to a normal person’s, but he sort of thought that he had smiled.
“Oh, I’m sure that he will. Though, I’d rather it be in an informal capacity in some way than a formal one during a meeting with the other Commanders.” Or heaven forbid, with the Admiral. He’d never live down calling a meeting while like this. “The current mission is set to be back tomorrow. One of us can send over the information to him in a file and descriptions today in order to meet to discuss tomorrow.” And how likely was it that Becker wouldn’t come right in once he received the notice? Very likely.
Rose looked up and smiled at the odd teddy bear smile. She couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at the thought of Matt sitting in a formal meeting with everyone and trying to use a pointer to show what he was talking about. The thought alone made the chuckle a little bit more of a laugh.
“Well, it looks like,” she said as she paused looking at the mission that went to the 100 Acre Woods, “that Coulson has a similar description in his report that one of his teams saw.” She tilted her head. “But it seems pretty clear that guy was on the original mission, not back in time with our guys,” she nodded. “Yeah, this was about stopping a COS Agent from following the original Team 11.”
“The Notebook mission doesn’t have a description of the same guy, but it might be worth talking to Romanoff about it in case it was just not a detail in the report, Kirk as well, a few mentions of agents from the Pocket Watch mission, but hair color isn’t included.”
Matt listened to her descriptions of the different missions and encounters with any agents that had been mentioned. After meeting with Becker, it probably wouldn’t hurt anything to gather a meeting with the LCDRs who had been sent out on missions so far to see if the description sparked any memories even outside what may have been inside mission reports. And then to give a briefing to each team before they headed out to be on the lookout for the agent with that description.
“I’ll touch base with the others once I’ve met with Becker. If anything, even if the agent isn’t the same, it could be a small group working together. The more information we have on these agents, the better.”
Now he only needed to get the information to the right people. He looked at Rose, his teddy bear expression turning a bit sheepish. “Could you, um, maybe forward the information to Becker in an email while you’re there?”
“The more information, the better,” she agreed with a smile. Rose looked at a couple of other reports and pulled them together skimming and highlighting some of the details to make sure they looked at it.
Nodding, she was curious where it would go but also knew it wasn’t really her place to push it or be completely involved with every step. The CIA had taught her that at least.
Looking up she smiled with a warm laugh. “Yeah, I can send it to him, want it under your name? And I promise not to sign it with bear print.” She teased lightly.
“Feel free to tell him you’re writing on my behalf,” Matt said with a wave of his hand… paw.. hand. “He’ll figure out what’s going on before long anyway.” And not that it really mattered as long as the information was passed onto him. Matt trusted Rose and thought she was more competent than most others.
“I appreciate it.” Both for writing up the email and for not giving him too much of a hard time with the being a bear part of his day. That said, the day was just getting started.
Nodding she shot off a quick email before pushing back his office chair and standing up. She rounded the desk and pat his furry head once.
“Anytime, if you need help sneaking out of here later just yell, or growl,” she teased as she left his office with a smirk. Running into someone who was headed that way she quickly said. “He’s in the middle of something important, can I help instead?”