Brotherhood: Snow Night
by Ironraven, with editing/beta-reading by BabyBeaver

-bh

Lance had never liked winter, hated it really. Fred, Pietro and Todd had been up on the roof goofing off earlier, and tracked some of the disgusting white stuff into the apartment. He didn't like the cold or the snow and he really hated ice storms. Growing up outside of Chicago, he'd been cold many times. When his mother's Mr Rightnow was generous, there was heat in the apartment, but usually not much. And the cold showers had made it worse; that or heating up a pot of water for a sponge bath.

He had been listening to the storm for the evening. The others had already gone to bed, although he could hear John typing in his room and occasionally muttering to himself. The dish washer was finishing- Lance's cooking wasn't fancy, but no one complained about it. Except when he was in one foster house or another, he'd mostly cooked for himself.

Lance was looking over the paperwork he had to maintain. He was the team leader- he had to sign off on everything. Todd's jet fuel was a big expense, but they all used a lot of stuff in training. Much more than they did operationally. Nothing about Pietro this week- he hadn't gotten in trouble. Not yet, but not tonight. Then there was signing off on people's class work, he'd never thought he'd be checking to be sure his team had done their homework.

He'd never thought they'd be secret agents, either.

He walked over to the windows, looking behind the blinds. The snow was coming down in big, heavy clumps. It had been raining earlier. The lights reflected where the mess had frozen into ice. The helos were all grounded, too much risk of icing. It was just the poor guys on patrol out there. He didn't have to look, he knew the rest of the team had their pagers at their bedside or even on their pillows.

He'd always been able to suppress the urge to check on them in their sleep. It was there, but it was just a tiny one. But he was going to check why someone's lights were still on.

Lance glared at the clock as he pulled on his parka. He checked himself- sidearm, taser, baton, flashlight, phone, pager, badge, wallet. He had days where he thought he was carrying a lot of junk- other days he was glad for every bit of it. He zipped up his parka, making sure his badge case was dangling down the front before he flipped up the hood. It was only a few stories to the ground- he took the stairs. He waved to the guard at the front desk of the apartment building, "Hey, Jaunisha. How's it going?"

"Quiet, Mr Alvers. Real quiet." Jaunisha was a native Washingtonian who'd started off as a Marine. She'd seen something not from around here, and she'd responded with an appropriate degree of aggressiveness. She was hard as a steel bar and about as unbending.

"Has the Colonel left the base?" Colonel Fury had his own place off base. No one was really sure where. Some rumors said he lived in a cave and slept hanging by his ankles; others that he went home to a tiny, impeccably neat little, rose surrounded house with a wife, two kids, his favorite hound and a white picket fence. Lance didn't believe any of them- if the Colonel wanted him to know, he'd tell him.

There were a few clicks from the guard station. "Colonel Fury's vehicle has not left the base, sir."

Lance made a face. That was the light he'd seen on. "Thanks."

He stepped into the door, expecting it to open, and was stopped cold. The snow and ice had sealed the doors. "Alright..." The pavement trembled a little, the doors rattled, and the ice shattered. He shoved hard against the snow, pushing it back.

Every few yards, he made the ground tremble, breaking the crust. He kicked it out of the way as he tromped through the snow. He growled as the wind cut through his jeans. He really hated winter, even here in Maryland.

He'd made it maybe a third of the way there when he heard the crunch of feet in the snow and the rattle of armour. He stopped where he was, laughing softly, holding his hands out at his side.

"HALT." The guards had the rifles slung; instead they had pulled light anti tank weapons from one of the stashes in various places. The only one who wasn't armed like he was expecting a heavy armoured vehicle had the leash of his dog loosely in one hand. They all looked a little surprised.

"Hello boys- the seismics were freaking out, right?" Lance should have known better. He would have looked like a class three incursion of the perimeter. He waggled the badge case in his left hand, and tried not to flinch at the stunningly bright light that was shined in his face. "Special Agent Alvers, STG 14-06."

The other three covered him as the fourth checked. He fit the ID and the ID passed the test the operative's wearable terminal gave it. "Sorry about that, Sir. You had the computer convinced a supermassive life form was doing jumping jacks out here."

Lance grinned. "That's fine Sargent. Any idea when the facilities guys are going to be plowing?"

The operative with the dog glanced at the chronometer in his visor. "About three hours from now was the plan."

"Great." Lance shoved his hand deep into his pockets. "If you pick up anything else, it's just me going over to Command."

As a team leader, Lance's card and retina print let him past the the front door to Command; Todd's would to, but he didn't know it yet. This building one of the most sensitive structures in all of SHIELD's many sites. It contained certain functions like payroll and personnel that you would find with any large organization. It also held the base security operations center, various liaison offices, and that of the Colonel. It also held Mission Control, where each operation had a "mother agent" at a desk continuously. Mothers were field agents who worked on an eight hour cycle and were constantly reviewing real time surveillance and the latest analysis for each mission's local when they weren't calling in other assets to assist their team. That could be an air strike for a team near friendly military forces or moving money between accounts, to requesting an emergency reinforcement of a team or jamming all radio-based communications. The mothers where part of what gave SHIELD agents their edge. Mission Control was secured at all times by two squads of tactical operatives.

Some people looked at the tactical troops as a kind of grunt. Lance respected them- they were all former cops or military, many of the from various special missions units; others were like Juanisha, and had seen too much not get the offer for a promotion and a job they couldn't talk about. A few were something special, they just didn't have the right mindset to be field agents. Field agents were a cut above- most were professor-types, or engineers, Fury loved recruiting engineers. Some were from a variety of professions like accountants or physicians. Some were former FBI, CIA and the like. All of them spoke several languages, could fight like a rabid chainsaw, and could perform their own intelligence analysis. In between were the techs from the science and technology department, the analysts who processed the raw data and told you what all meant, and various under cover agents infiltrating everything from terrorist organizations to Fortune 500 companies.

The security desk inside the airlock-like entryway to Command had three field agents, with two operatives with automatic carbines at the elevator doors. Two more were across the room, where they could take cover behind the security desk and fire into the elevators. They knew the leaders of the special teams on sight. But that didn't mean that the rules were easier.

"Evening guys." Lance's card let him call the elevator. His palm print opened the door. None of the agents had moved other than to follow him with their eyes. He didn't know their names- for all he knew the three at the desk were robots and their faces were changed once a shift. "Later guys."

His retina print allowed the door to open when he got to the floor he'd requested. Sure, with enough time you could force the doors open, but they were made of the same laminate as armour on an Abrams tank, and sealed with an electromagnet that could have lifted a small moving van. Once he was in the hall, it had several twists and turns. There was no stretch of hallway longer than twenty five feet before it had a ninety degree turn. It was designed that was to make an invader move slowly, treating each corner as a potential ambush.

The door he was looking for was numbered. None of them had any other kind of marking. It was only door number 892; nothing to suggest that it was the office of Col. Nick Fury, or that the man behind the door was a Colonel in name only. When he retired, he'd get a promotion with two stars. So long as he was part of SHIELD, he'd never be more than a Colonel, because generals and admirals have to be confirmed by Congress and as a result weren't classified. Colonels on the other hand could be promoted and then hidden, which made it a good rank.

Lance tossed his jacket over the chair in the outer office. Col Fury's assistant wasn't an agent of any variety, but a hand-picked federal servant. She'd left for home hours earlier. Lance liked Ms. Carrolton. She reminded him of the lady who played M in the newer Bond movies.

He raised his hand to knock on the inner door, but the familiar call of "In" came from within.

Fury was at his computer- even the most hands on director of any intelligence agency in over a century was chained to his desk at least part of time. "Son, is there any particular reason you're spooking my sentries?"

"Facilities hasn't plowed yet."

Fury considered that for a moment before he nodded. The snow had shifted to sleet hitting the armoured glass. "OK. What brings you over?"

Lance rested his fingers lightly on the back of the chair he thought of as the 'hot seat'- this was like being called to the principal's office but now it was for real. Screw up here, and people would die. Not a few agents in the field, but potentially entire cities. That was why SHIELD agents had the best gear and the best training. "It's getting late and I saw your light on. Only security, a few regional analysts and mission control have gone home."

He grinned sheepishly. The apartment was designed to support an eight-man team, one of several in the building. They'd converted one of the two spare rooms into an equipment room so they could store and organize the non-issue gear they'd purchased on their own. Keeping it from turning into a junk room was a constant effort, usually accompanied with accusations he wasn't cool any more. "You know we have the spare bedroom, and the roads suck. I was thinking... you know."

Lance wasn't sure what he'd come here for. Maybe he'd wanted to just check on the boss, maybe even tell him to go home. He hadn't planned on asking if Colonel Fury wanted to, effectively, crash at the team's place. But the Colonel didn't treat them like he did most of the Special Tasks Groups. He was friendly with the STGs and the Special Agents, sure, because you couldn't tell someone to mop the floors the same way you told people to go off and die for a country that didn't know they existed. But Fury didn't cook for the other teams once or twice a month, staying with them until late at night. At least Lance didn't think that was the case. He knew that Fury recruited most SAs and assembled the STGs, but from the glares and whispers, he knew that the Brotherhood was special.

Weren't they? Or were they just the Boss' experiment, a pet freak show.

Fury reached into the jar for a fresh toothpick, studying it for a moment before putting it in his mouth. "I've slept on that couch more than a few times." He nodded to the black leather couch under the photos of the President and the Earth from space and a framed Civil War battle flag. It had been there since the Reagan years, and it was just as comfortable now as then. "And I can always sleep in one of the mission control standby rooms."

Lance carefully blanked his face as he put his hands behind his back, nodding. "You could."

Fury typed for a few minutes, ignoring Lance. Lance tried not to blink. He hadn't been dismissed, and he didn't think it would be right to just walk out. But he wouldn't wheedle or beg.

"Did the others send you over?"

"No, it was my idea. But Todd and Fred will be psyched, and Wanda will be happily surprised."

Fury gave a scant nod. Lance was a good team leader, but he worried too much about his people as people. Fury didn't know how the young man would take losing one of them. Fury was always worried when they went out- they had two slightly loose cannons, and the rest were so close that any injury would distract everyone. Logically, he should have broken them up, but there were a lot of things he wouldn't admit. One of those was that the rumors that the Brotherhood was his pet project; they weren't just a strategic asset he could unleash on the enemies of peace. They reminded him of his first team, the one a Sargent Nick Fury had led so long ago, that was true, but he'd also told men to step into a hail of bullets.

He did not see them as a way to fill a void in his life, the way Dr Trout had suggested. So what if he cooked for them- he'd cooked for a lot of people over the years, and he wasn't trying to make them loyal to him rather than to the same people he was sworn to serve. They were already loyal to him- most of his agents would eat glass if he asked, and they all would if he ordered it. He could order them to squat on a nuke and pull the pin, but he would want to be the one to do it himself. He could be ordered to admit that he recruited the Brotherhood as a balance against the Xavier Institute, just in case, and it was better to have them on the side of the good guys than left to their own devices.

He glanced at the pictures in the simple twin frame on the corner of his desk. One held a picture of his squad of Rangers. The other was of 'two young fools from New York' as someone once described him and one of his few surviving friends from that era.

"You know Pietro will be wondering what he did this time if I'm there in the morning."

Lance grinned. "Might do him some good, Sir."

"Since you're here, sit. What is your opinion of our current plans to deploy an STG just south of the DMZ to cover the IAEA team going to North Korea." The International Atomic Energy Agency didn't know they had this back up, but if they were taken hostage, SHEILD and the US Navy would first rescue the inspectors and then take Mr Kim's toys away. The President had decided there would be no playing games in that case.

"It looks good if they can take a few squads of tac ops- do you have us in mind for the STG?" Lance had seen the basic analysis. Avalanche's abilities would be useful against underground facilities. The Brotherhood would be able to do a lot of damage against that kind of target, or against the PRK's long range missile program. "Who is leading the next IAEA group? Do you think there is any chance they will find a neutron or gamma bomb?"

"Someone who turned me down. Here." Fury handed over a folder labeled with a number and a SHIELD codename: Mr Fixit. "He's going to find out if those rumors are true."

-Author's notes:
Someone who reads my stuff face to face ask, '[Raven], you know how it works, but you never take us on a mission with the Brotherhood. Why?" Becuase most of the time, I find fight scenes kinda boring to write. Dick Marchenko's are humorous, because of his wit, and Weber and Drake write GREAT ones. But mine... too clinical for my taste. Not to say there won't be one.

And for my readers who know the old school stuff, yes, yes, Mr Fixit and nukes. In North Korea. Hilarity will ensue if I do explore that one further.