S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "Attention"

The repair shop's ceiling fan turned lazily, stirring the smell of motor oil and the metallic tang of solder through the room. Lin Mo was using tweezers to place a tiny resistor onto a circuit board—it was a motherboard salvaged from a scrapped agent device. Carlos had said, "The client needs it urgently. Fix it, and we get double." A faint, translucent glow shone at Lin Mo's fingertips. It was the passive state of his phasing ability. Ever since his proficiency had surpassed 70%, he could sense the structure inside objects even without actively using it, as if he had gained a pair of "X-ray eyes."

"Ding-a-ling—" The wind chime at the entrance rang crisply as the door opened.

Lin Mo's hand paused. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure in a black suit, carrying a silver case and standing rigidly in the backlight like an old photograph cut from a page.

Phil Coulson.

Why was he here again? Only three days had passed since their "chance encounter" after the fire. Lin Mo's heart felt as if an invisible hand had clenched it, and the tweezers nearly slipped from his fingers. He quickly regained his composure, lowered his head, and continued soldering the resistor as though he had not noticed the visitor. But his mind raced. Was he here to fix another hard drive? Or had he come to lay his cards on the table?

"Good afternoon, Lin Mo." Coulson's voice remained calm, like an autumn stream, giving away nothing. He set the silver case on the workbench with a light click. Its metal surface reflected a cold gleam under the lights, much like the encrypted hard drive from last time.

"Mr. Coulson." Lin Mo looked up and forced a formal smile. "Here to repair something again?" His gaze landed on the case. His wristband suddenly grew warm and displayed a line of pale blue text: [High-intensity encrypted signal detected. 98% match with S.H.I.E.L.D. internal network.]

Just as expected, it was not simple. Without showing anything, Lin Mo pressed down on a capacitor on the motherboard and swept the case with his basic phasing ability—what he had grown accustomed to calling Structural X-Ray. Inside was a hard drive, larger than the last one. More intricate patterns were engraved on its chips, coiled like serpents. A red point of light blinked slowly at its core: an anti-tampering device.

"Still a hard drive." Coulson pulled out a chair and sat down with an elegance that made him seem less like someone getting an item repaired and more like someone having afternoon tea. His gaze swept around the repair shop before settling on Lin Mo's solder-stained fingers for two seconds longer than necessary. "You were at the fire that day too, weren't you?"

There it was. Lin Mo's heart skipped. He picked up a rag beside him and pretended to wipe grease off the table, though his fingertips trembled. "I was passing by," he said, trying to sound casual, even mildly annoyed. "There were too many people. I couldn't squeeze in, so I didn't see much. I only saw the fire trucks arrive. The sirens gave me a headache."

The corner of Coulson's mouth curved faintly, like a ripple on water that vanished in an instant. "Is that so? I heard there was a 'Wall-Crawler' at the scene. Very impressive." His fingers tapped lightly against the table in a steady rhythm, as though transmitting some sort of code. "What do you think people with special abilities should do? Hide, or step into the open?"

Cold sweat instantly broke out across Lin Mo's back. He was testing him! Lin Mo lowered his head and pretended to study the circuitry on the motherboard, his voice muffled. "I don't know. Ordinary people like me should just stay away when trouble comes." He paused, then looked up and met Coulson's eyes, trying to find something behind those rimless glasses. "Mr. Coulson, you've seen a lot. What do you think?"

It was the first time Lin Mo had taken the initiative to question him. The air seemed to freeze. The sound of the ceiling fan became especially clear, like a stopwatch counting down.

Coulson looked at him. A few seconds later, he suddenly smiled. It was a gentle smile, yet it put more pressure on Lin Mo than Carlos's glare ever had. "Me?" He spread his hands. "I'm just a customer getting a hard drive repaired. What would I know about that?" He opened the silver case, took out the complicated hard drive, and pushed it toward Lin Mo. "This job is a little difficult. I need all the data on it completely erased. No traces left behind. The price is negotiable."

Lin Mo looked at the hard drive. Structural X-Ray clearly showed that it contained no ordinary files, but a video. The footage was blurry, apparently filmed from high altitude. Green energy fluctuations could be seen—identical to the energy signature from the meteor crater.

"Erase the data?" Lin Mo raised a brow and deliberately showed a troubled expression. "That's a bit difficult. It could damage the hard drive." He was buying time as his thoughts raced. How much did Coulson know? Was he certain Lin Mo was the Wall-Crawler, or merely suspicious? That line about greater power bringing greater trouble—was it a warning, or a reminder?

"That's fine." Coulson pulled out a black card from his suit's inner pocket and placed it on the table. "There's five thousand dollars on it as a deposit. Another five thousand when the job is done."

Lin Mo's breathing stopped for a beat. Ten thousand dollars? Just to erase data from a hard drive? This was no longer about repairing something. Coulson was buying his time—or rather, buying his attention. Lin Mo glanced at the card. It had no markings and looked like an ordinary gift card, but his wristband gave him another alert: [Encrypted logistics department identifier detected: S.H.I.E.L.D.]

"Fine. I'll give it a try." Lin Mo took the hard drive and activated Structural X-Ray again, examining the anti-tampering device more carefully. The red light was connected to three tiny explosives. If the data-erasure process did not match the preset conditions, they would detonate and destroy the entire drive. "Come pick it up tomorrow?"

"No need. I'll wait." Coulson leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes as if resting, but his ears remained alert, catching every sound in the repair shop—the hiss of solder, the hum of the hard drive spinning, and Lin Mo's deliberately quiet breathing.

Lin Mo's back was already drenched in cold sweat. He knew Coulson was not waiting for the hard drive. He was observing him. Observing his movements, his reactions, even whether his ability would be exposed. Lin Mo took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He worked step by step as though dismantling an ordinary hard drive, while using Structural X-Ray to guide himself around every trap.

The data-erasure process went smoothly, faster than expected. When the final fragment of video was completely shredded, the red light at the hard drive's core went dark like a dead eye. Lin Mo put the drive back into its case and pushed it toward Coulson. He did not say a word throughout the entire process, but sweat streamed down his cheeks and dripped onto the motherboard with a faint sizzle.

Coulson opened his eyes, looked at the case, then at Lin Mo. "I have a colleague named Clint Barton. He's an excellent archer. He always says that sometimes, staying in the shadows is more useful than standing in the light." He stood, picked up the case, and paused at the door. Turning back, he gave Lin Mo a look as deep as a well. "The greater the power, the greater the trouble. Sometimes, hiding is smarter than stepping forward."

With that, he pushed open the door and walked into the autumn sunlight, his figure soon disappearing around the street corner.

Lin Mo froze where he stood. The tweezers slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. He knew it! Coulson knew, one hundred percent, that he was the Wall-Crawler! That line about hiding being smarter than stepping forward was clearly a message—S.H.I.E.L.D. had confirmed his identity. They simply did not intend to make a move against him yet.

"Fuck!" Lin Mo cursed under his breath and kicked the toolbox beside him. Wrenches and screwdrivers scattered across the floor with a piercing clatter. For the first time, he felt that having powers was something truly terrifying—being watched by a massive, omnipresent organization was like being wrapped around by a venomous snake, impossible to shake off.

Carlos poked his head out from the back room, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and impatience written all over his face. "What the hell's wrong with you, kid? You scared the shit out of me."

"Nothing, Carlos." Lin Mo crouched to pick up the tools, his voice shaking slightly. "The hard drive was too hard to fix. It pissed me off."

Carlos snorted, did not ask any more questions, and turned back toward the inner room. Before leaving, he tossed out, "Don't take your anger out on the tools. If you break them, you pay for them."

Lin Mo picked up the last screwdriver, his palm soaked with sweat. He knew Carlos might have had a sharp tongue, but he was protecting him. The commotion just now must have alerted any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents outside. Carlos's appearance had acted like a shield, covering up Lin Mo's loss of composure.

After work that evening, Lin Mo deliberately took the long way home, passing through three alleys before returning to the apartment building. As soon as he reached the entrance, he saw Peter crouching on the steps with binoculars in hand, his brows furrowed like a tiny old man's. "Lin!" The boy saw him and hurried over, stuffing the binoculars into his hands. "Look at the rooftop across the street. Someone's been watching through binoculars all afternoon. Isn't that weird?"

Lin Mo took the binoculars, adjusted the focus, and looked toward the opposite rooftop. A man in a black trench coat was holding high-powered binoculars. His lenses were aimed at Martha's apartment building—or more precisely, Lin Mo's basement.

S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance. Lin Mo's heart sank to the bottom. Coulson's words had not been a warning. They had been a notification—they would keep watching him.

"Probably a reporter," Lin Mo said, returning the binoculars to Peter and trying to sound relaxed. "He wants pictures of the Wall-Crawler. Ignore him. Let's go upstairs."

"He's not a reporter!" Peter said with certainty. "Those are military-grade binoculars. I saw them at the science fair! And he got a phone call earlier. He said something like, 'The target is normal.' He sounded just like an agent in a movie!"

Lin Mo's heart jolted. This kid's observational skills were sharper than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents'. "Don't make things up." He ruffled Peter's hair. "Go home. Aunt May will worry."

The first thing Lin Mo did after returning to the basement was check for listening devices. He took out a homemade detector—a trick Carlos had taught him, enhanced with Structural X-Ray—and swept the room. Sure enough, he found a tiny listening bug in the base of the desk lamp. It was no larger than a needle tip, stuck behind the wire where no one would notice it without looking closely.

"Pretty well hidden." Lin Mo sneered. He carefully removed the bug with tweezers, activated his phasing ability, tossed it into the iron bucket beside him, and poured melted solder over it, destroying it completely. "You want to listen in on me? Not that easily."

After dealing with the bug, Lin Mo sat at his desk and looked at the black card Coulson had left behind. Ten thousand dollars was enough to buy a new oscilloscope, maybe even move somewhere nicer. But he knew he could not touch the money. The moment he spent it, he would be acknowledging a connection to S.H.I.E.L.D., and he would never be free of them again.

He placed the card at the very back of a drawer, beneath an old thank-you card from Irene. Another card was hidden there as well, one Peter had drawn. It showed a stick figure walking through a wall, with the words: "My Hero."

"Hide, or step forward?" Lin Mo murmured to the air. Coulson's words echoed in his ears like a curse. Hiding meant living under surveillance forever and losing his freedom. Stepping forward meant being swept into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s whirlpool, perhaps never returning to a peaceful life.

Just then, his wristband lit up: [Host is facing a choice. Secondary "Ability Branch" options triggered.]

[Option 1: Enhance stealth. Completely block non-energy detection, including S.H.I.E.L.D. thermal imaging.]

[Option 2: Enhance offensive power. Phasing can inflict physical damage on objects, such as tearing metal.]

Lin Mo stared at the screen, his finger hovering in midair. Choosing Option 1 meant hiding completely, avoiding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance, and continuing to be a neighborhood repairman. Choosing Option 2 meant preparing for battle, possibly confronting S.H.I.E.L.D. and even future enemies head-on.

He remembered Irene's frightened face at the fire, the children's excitement as they surrounded him and called him the Wall-Crawler, and Peter's stick-figure drawing... In the end, his finger came down on Option 1.

"I'm not a hero. I'm just a repairman who wants to protect his neighbors," Lin Mo said to the wristband. His voice was quiet, but exceptionally firm. "Hiding doesn't mean cowardice."

A faint glow flashed from the wristband. The air in the room seemed to turn viscous—the enhanced stealth had begun to take effect. Even Lin Mo himself felt more "transparent," as if he were blending into his surroundings. He walked to the mirror and aimed his phone's camera at himself. On the screen, there was only a blurry shadow, like an out-of-focus photograph.

"This is good enough." Lin Mo let out a breath. At least under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance, he could preserve a little space of his own.

That night, Martha called to him from downstairs. "Lin! Come upstairs for dumplings! Chive and egg filling!"

Lin Mo smiled and ran upstairs. The moment he entered, Snowball tripped him. The fat cat rubbed against his pant leg, the bell around its neck jingling. Martha sat on the couch making dumplings while the television played the news. The anchor said, "S.H.I.E.L.D. has recently increased patrols in Queens to combat mutant crime."

"Those people in black are always wandering around with nothing better to do," Martha said, tossing a dumpling into the boiling pot and splashing water everywhere. "Last time, they even asked if I knew some 'kid who can walk through walls.' I cursed them out—what business was it of theirs?"

Warmth filled Lin Mo's heart. Martha had known S.H.I.E.L.D. was investigating him all along, and she had been quietly protecting him. "Why were they asking that?" he asked, pretending to be curious as he picked up a freshly cooked dumpling and blew on it because it was too hot.

"Who knows?" Martha rolled her eyes at him. "Maybe they want to catch him and use him as an experiment. Government people are all rotten." She paused and put several more dumplings into Lin Mo's bowl. "If anyone dares give you trouble, tell me. I'll have Snowball scratch them!"

Lin Mo smiled, though his eyes felt hot. He knew that no matter how S.H.I.E.L.D. watched him and no matter how much trouble the future brought, the people in this apartment building would always have his back.

After dinner, Lin Mo returned to the basement and added another line to his "Ability Practice Chart": "Practice using abilities under surveillance until completely undetectable." He knew this game with S.H.I.E.L.D. had only just begun.

Early the next morning, on his way to the repair shop, Lin Mo saw that the agent in the black trench coat was still on the rooftop across the street. He had merely changed positions, and his binoculars remained aimed at the apartment building. Lin Mo ignored him, opened the shop as usual, and began repairing bicycles.

At noon, he anonymously mailed Coulson's black card back to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters—the address had been found by Peter, because that kid could somehow find even that. The package contained nothing except a note that read: "Queens is doing well. So am I."

That afternoon, the agent on the rooftop was gone. Lin Mo knew they had not given up. They had simply switched to a more discreet method—perhaps disguising themselves as homeless people, perhaps blending in as repairmen in the neighborhood. But he did not care.

He crouched at the entrance of the repair shop, patching Ted's bicycle tire as warm sunlight fell over him. His wristband rested quietly against his wrist. With its enhanced stealth, it was like a real secret, hidden beneath his skin and buried in his ordinary daily life.

Coulson had been right. The greater the power, the greater the trouble. But Lin Mo believed that as long as he protected the people he wanted to protect, any amount of trouble was worth bearing.

After all, being "noticed" by S.H.I.E.L.D. was better than being forgotten. At least it proved that his ability had enough value. And value meant having the confidence to protect others.

The repair shop's wind chime rang again. Lin Mo looked up, thinking Coulson had returned, only to see Peter standing at the entrance with a glass jar in his hands. Inside, a spider was spinning silk, weaving a glittering web.

"Lin, I gave it a new box! It didn't get angry this time!" the boy said excitedly, his eyes shining.

Lin Mo smiled, set down the glue in his hand, and stood up. "Great job. Oh, are you going to the community square after school today? The kids said they want the Wall-Crawler to help them get a kite down."

"Yes!" Peter nodded vigorously. "I'll keep watch for you and see if there are any agents around!"

Sunlight streamed through the repair shop window and fell over the two of them as though outlining them in gold. On a distant rooftop, a new observer raised binoculars, yet saw only two ordinary figures walking through the streets of Queens toward the square, their laughter bright and clear like that of any ordinary afternoon.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention continued, but Lin Mo knew he would neither hide away nor step fully into the open. He would remain as he was now, watching over his own street, repairing computers, helping neighbors, and occasionally becoming the Wall-Crawler. Between power and responsibility, he would carve out a path of his own.

Perhaps that was what Coulson truly wanted to see—a hero not defined by labels, a "mutant" who held on to the warmth of ordinary life.