The secret is out.
For decades, your organization stayed in the shadows, hiding the truth. But now we know…they're among us: Heroes…and monsters.
The world is full of wonders.
We can't explain everything we see, but our eyes are open. So what now? There are no more shadows for you to hid in. Something impossible just happened. What are you going to do about it?
Agent Hill's Field Office
Location: Classified
"You can't be serious, Coulson," Maria Hill tried not to scowl at the level 8 agent, she really did. But if her face was showing a disparaging look, it was only because Coulson was an insufferable bastard. "There's a reason we haven't told anyone you're alive," she continued," If you're going to form a team, you-"
"-want the best to be on it," he finished for her," I need a black ops specialist and I'd prefer I know and trust them."
"Besides, I hear he made clearance level 6 a couple months ago," he smiled, immensely proud at how far his protégé has come," It wouldn't be that far a jump to level 7."
"Damnit, Coulson!" Hill snapped," Why can't you just pick Barton or Romanov? They've always been more emotionally stable than him; the man compromised a level 6 mission when he heard you died. We had to put him out of commission for a month."
'And yet you put him back under deep cover the first chance you got,' as Coulson understood, quite bitterly in fact. He wasn't about to tell Hill this, but that was the largest reason why he wanted his youngest protégé back on his team. Nearly fifteen years later, seven of those as a specialist, and Grant Ward was no closer to being emotionally stable. Coulson remembered how well the boy had been doing in those first five years, but once he went off to the Academy and got a new S.O… well, things changed. Now, he needed to be back on a small, tight-knit team with people he trusted. Not out in the field, undercover and alone.
But Maria Hill liked logic, not sentimentality. "Romanov doesn't play well with others," he said instead," And you know I can't recruit Barton without her tagging along. That'd just be one specialist too many." He gazed at her with an innocent expression, but she knew better. Everyone knew how protective Coulson's team was of their youngest member, and that sort of closeness sometimes worried the higher ups. But everyone also knew that Natasha Romanov had been threatening the level 8's if they didn't pull Ward out of black ops soon. ''He needs to come back home,'' she had said,'' With his family.''
"Are you sure you can't choose someone else?" she asked again, just to make sure.
Coulson shrugged innocently. "Maybe I'll take a nice short vacation in Paris, I hear it's lovely around this time of year." She scowled deeply," Damnit, Coulson!"
….
Operation Wrap Up
Location: Paris, France
"Agent Ward," Agent David's voice crackled over the comm in Ward's ear, though he could barely hear it over the roar of his motorcycle," There's been a development; it's the Rising Tide."
'The Rising Tide,' just the thought of the group left a bad taste in his mouth. Damn hackers, didn't they have anything better to do than mess with his ops?
"They pinned out the location of the package. You need to abort."
Evidently not. "I'm five minutes away from retrieving it," he snapped back. He just spent two weeks undercover, working to infiltrate the Parisian black market. Like hell he was going to back down after the Rising Tide interfered. Again…
"So is everyone else," David was saying just as Ward was nearing his target" They posted the coordinates online." For the whole damn world to see.
Ooh, a challenge? Ward liked challenges. "Well, if the job was easy-"
"Yeah, 'it wouldn't be any fun'," David finished sourly," Watch your six."
'Nat's going to kill me if I get shot again,' Ward mused before taking his helmet off. Then he grinned,' Showtime.'
Agent Hill's Field Office
Location: Classified
Hill was frowning at him. Why was Agent Hill frowning at him? No, wait…she was scowling. She was definitely scowling at him. Inside, Ward was frowning back at her, but outside he showed no emotion. If she wanted to be angry at him that's her problem. He didn't care.
"What does SHIELD stand for, Agent Ward?" she asked him.
'What a dumb question' he thought before answering," Strategic Homeland, Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."
"And what does that mean to you?"
Ward smirked lightly, remembering the first time he asked what SHIELD stood for. "It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out SHIELD," he gave her the same answer he got fifteen years ago. His crooked smile only grew when Hill's scowl deepened. Barton and Coulson would be proud of his snark, he thought briefly before the smile slid right off his face when he remembered that Clint hadn't been the same since New York and Coulson was…
"It means we're the line," he amended; remembering how important SHIELD had been to Coulson and how he had tried to instill that same sense of justice in Ward," between the world…and the much weirder world."
"We protect people from things they aren't ready to hear." The same way Coulson protected him from the world when he rescued him from juvie, until he could go to the Academy and learn how to be a real SHIELD agent.
"And when we can't do that, we keep them safe." The same way Coulson died trying to protect the world from Loki. The same way Barton and Romanov fought an alien invasion.
Agent Hill shifted in her seat, approving Ward's amended answer. "Something turns up," he reached into his pocket and took out a tiny piece of silver and blue metal," like this Chitauri neurolink…" He slid it across the table to her," We get to it before someone bad does."
The neurolink appeared harmless enough, but now they knew better. So it would soon be put away, at the Fridge, where it would sit forever. "Any idea who Lunchatt was planning to sell it to?" Hill asked as she handed it over to a waiting level 4 agent.
"I'm more interested in how this Rising Tide group found out about it," Ward demanded," I thought they were just hackers." So then how the hell did they find out top secret details he only discovered after weeks of deep cover? That was a covert op. Only a few within SHIELD even knew about it. "What changed?" Were they a group of spies now? They were troublesome enough before, what if they became more of a threat?
"Everything's changed," Hill sighed and began pacing the room. Obviously this frustrated her just as much as it did him. "A little while ago, everyone went to bed thinking that the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying metal suit."
'Stark's still fucking crazy,' Ward mused, remembering the few times he's met the eccentric man. But, he got along spectacularly with Clint, so Ward figured he'd have to just put up with him. As long as no one told the man what Ward's code name was…
"Then aliens invaded New York," Hill continued," and we're being backed by, among others, a giant green monster-" 'And yet it's funny how Banner is usually the voice of reason among the Avengers.'
"-a costumed hero from the 40's-" Coulson's boyhood hero, and by default, Ward's as well.
"-and a god."
Ward raised an eyebrow. "I don't think Thor's technically a god," he tried to point out, but she cut him off," Well you haven't been near his arms."
He blinked; Maria Hill's a fangirl? Then he deadpanned; of course she is. Every girl is.
"The Battle of New York," she cut off his thoughts," was the end of the world." And wasn't that the truth of it? It was more than just an alien invasion; it was the end of Grant Ward's world. The day his family fell apart. "This. Now," she said," is the new world." 'The new world sucks,' he thought, but showed nothing on his face. "People are different. They have access to tech, to formulas, secrets they're not ready for."
Ward sat forward in his seat and stared at her with barely contained annoyance. He knew this! The world had gotten so much more dangerous, and that's why he'd been working so hard to protect this stupid 'new world'. He was busy hunting down alien tech before it could get into the wrong hands. So what was her reason for lecturing him instead of letting him do his damn job. "Why was I pulled out of Paris?" he demanded.
A moment passed, in which Hill's eyes averted to the floor for just a second, as if unable to face him. But her eyes returned to his, thought her body language betrayed her. She crossed her arms in front of her (a sign of defense, Ward recognized) and took a step back. "That…you'll have to ask Coulson," she answered.
Oh, that was a low blow! Ward bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from going off at the Deputy Director. How dare she speak to him about Phil Coulson? Telling him to ask his dead mentor and guardian?
"Agent Coulson died before the Battle of New York," he hissed out through clenched teeth," Killed by Loki himself." Ward would forever remember that moment when he got the phone call from Natasha. He had been on a mission in Columbia, away from any type of television and had no idea what had happened in New York. She used what was supposed to be a secure SHIELD radio channel, and he distinctly remembered scolding her for almost blowing his cover before she blurted it out.
"Coulson's dead," her voice drifted over the radio and he fell utterly silent. After that, he wasn't entirely sure what happened, it was all a blur. Next time he was really aware, he had abandoned his mission in Columbia and somehow ended up in the team's safehouse in Oregon. Natasha and Clint had already been there, where Natasha was slowly trying to pick up the pieces that once was her lover. Needless to say, Ward had been in a world of trouble for that stunt…
"I'm clearance level 6," he finished, still seething at Hill's audicity," I read the report myself."
And then a shadow detached itself from a dark corner of Maria Hill's office. He took four steps, emerging into the light and standing next to Hill. "Welcome to level 7," Agent Phil Coulson said, in all his dark grey suited glory, a smile playing on his lips.
Ward froze and he swore his heart skipped a beat. Or three.
Coulson grinned," Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself." It was such a Coulson joke, and only he could make a joke at a time like this. Ward always remembered his mentor's weird sense of humor and dry jokes, but really?!
"I think there's a bulb out," Coulson continued to grin like he just pulled off the single greatest prank in history.
'Not a funny prank!' Ward nearly screamed and if he wasn't so happy to see him, he just might strangle the man.
As Ward listened to what happened to Coulson after New York, he barely kept the grin off his face. A grass shack in Tahiti? Yup, that sounded like Coulson's style. "Well something put you back in the game," he guessed, speaking out loud as they entered Mission Control. He glanced up, seeing a video playing on the big screen, a familiar red logo in the bottom right corner. "What is that?" he asked as he watched a hooded man jump five stories carrying a woman and remain unharmed.
"That's a superhero, Agent Ward," Coulson told him.
"An unregistered Gifted," Hill corrected," Identity unknown."
"The secret is out," a young female voice suddenly spoke over the computers. Just then, all the screens began to blow up with videos of the same nature and branded with the same red logo. Her voice carried across the speakers, sounding like an ominous message, a warning," For decades, your organization-" The videos and sounds began to overlap, merging into a cacophony of noise.
Coulson frowned," Another little present from the Rising Tide." The fucking Rising Tide, Ward clenched his teeth as he watched. These were top secret videos, footage of SHIELD missions, of phenomena that was supposed to be under wraps.
"How are they getting this stuff before us?" he asked.
"Same way they cracked our RSA implementation," Coulson answered and Ward didn't miss the way Hill's head shot up. Oops, did she not know that? Coulson smiled," They're good…So I need better."
Hill sighed and decided it was finally time to tell him. "Agent Coulson has requisitioned a Mobile Command Unit to which you are assigned." He raised an eyebrow; was she serious?
Before he could ask, Coulson spoke up," The Rising Tide is trying to draw us out. I think it's time they succeeded."
Okay, now he was confused. Ward glanced between Coulson and Hill. A team? But he's a specialist, he doesn't do teams; that's how it's been since started Operations Academy. "Do you want me to cross them off?" he asked hesitantly, but why else would they need him?
Coulson gave him a WTF look. "What? No." He glanced at Hill with a face that clearly said,' What the hell have you done to my boy?', then said," I want to use them, to get to him," he gestured to the unregistered Gifted. "This man's world is about to get very weird. He's gonna need some help."
"A welcoming committee?" Ward gave him a dubious look. Did Coulson forget that he doesn't do well with others? Dear God, he made Natasha look like a freaking social butterfly! "Sir, you know I've been trained from day one as a Specialist. I go in, alone, and I get the job done. Defusing a nuclear bomb? I'm your guy. But this?"
Yet Coulson just shrugged and opened the file in his hands," I know it's been seven years since I was your mentor, since you graduated Ops, so I had Agent Hill do an assessment of your last three missions."
'Oh shit,' was all Ward could think.
"Combat: top grades-" To be fair, he was teammates with a couple of Avengers. "Espionage: she gave you the highest marks since Romanov-" Ward grinned; Natasha would be so proud.
"Under people skills she drew a…" Coulson faltered," I think it's a… little poop." 'What?!' "With knives sticking out of it." Ward walked around to get a look at the drawing himself," What?" If his voice cracked a little bit, it was only because it really was a fucking little poop with knives sticking out of it. Hell, Hill's drawing skills sucked!
Coulson tried not to grin," That's bad, right?" What he thought but did say was,' With his family history, I'm surprised it's not worse.' But he knew Grant, and that's why he didn't mention it. Grant was incredibly antisocial and hostile to new people, something Coulson wanted to help him fix.
"But," he closed the file," I really need a Specialist on this team and I think you're the man for the job." Ward huffed.
Just then, one of SHIELD's top doctors entered the room. "Team's all approved," he announced, waving some files," Physicals are all fine. Fitzsimmons is…not cleared for combat; I'm told that won't be an issue." He gazed at Ward," Agent Ward here. He's almost too fit."
Ward perked up at the mention of his own name," That's an issue. That should be an issue. Maybe I can't join the team because-"
"Go," Hill interrupted him without even looking up from the files," You are dismissed."
…Damn. He pursed his lips but didn't dare speak another word. Instead he just left, before he really did strangle someone.
How will you come at us? From the air? From the ground?
How will you silence us this time? How can you?
The truth is in the wind, it's everywhere.
You can not stop the Rising Tide.
Ward's first thought when he saw the Bus: 'I want one.' His second thought? 'How the hell did Coulson get this?' The thing was massive! At first, he thought it was a C-5 Galaxy, based on its sheer size, but then he saw the cargo ramp open in the back, not in the front. A modified C-17 Globemaster? Yet its size and four fuselages on the wings was where the similarities between aircrafts. This…this "Bus" had rear tail wings, an extended tail, and two extra large fuselages on either side right in front of the tail wings.
And Ward was going to live on it with complete strangers for the foreseeable future. 'Fan-fucking-tastic,' he thought sourly before making his way onto it. The first thing he noticed: it's a double decker. Then he saw the two kids unloading their luggage.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Watch it!" the boy, a Scotsman judging by his accent, rushed forward to take something out of the girl's hands," That's the Night Night gun!" He cradled it to his chest like a baby.
The girl sighed and continued picking up her own things. "Well, it was on my stuff," she retorted in a British accent," and it doesn't work and there's no way we're calling it the 'Night Night' gun."
The Scot seemed actually offended. "The bullets work," he followed after her, still hugging these…Night Night guns," Non-lethal, heavy stopping power, break up under the subcoterious texture."
"With a dose of only 0.1 microlites of dendrotoxin? I'm not Hermoine, I can't create instant paralysis with that." Then the two of them launched into an entire tirade about science and chemistry and everything Ward did not know. The two bickered back and forth over the lab table, spouting off words he had no comprehension of and all he could think was,' Since when did SHIELD recruit teenagers?' Albeit, genius teenagers judged by their science jargon, but kids nonetheless.
Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and decided to drop his heavy duffle bag with a loud THUD, which caused the two kids to stop and stare at him. "Fitzsimmons?" he asked, wondering which one of them was his new teammate. He really hoped neither of them was the one he was looking for and they'd just point him in the direction of the real Fitzsimmons.
Alas, Ward never gets what he wants. The girl pointed to the boy," Fitz."
He pointed back at her," Simmons. I'm Engineering, she's Bio-chem."
Ward deadpanned. Fitzsimmons was two people? Two kids at that. And who the hell tagged two separate people with one name? Were they joined at the hip or something? Great, just…great.
"Agent Ward?" Fitz questioned, obviously he had been briefed on his new teammates as well.
Ward sighed and simply reached into his pocket," Agent Coulson said I'd need my comm receiver encoded." He handed the brand new receiver to the Scot, a little unhappy at having to part with it so soon. It had been a reward for completing his France mission so successfully. He was more than a little proud to have received the newest model, right off the line.
Fitz walked away with it and set it on his desk. "I don't know if you've worked with that model before," Ward started," It's-'
Then Fitz hit it with a hammer. Over and over and over again until it resembled nothing more than a pile of junk. Clenching his jaw and trying really hard not to hit someone, Ward finished bitterly," -brand new."
Simmons and Fitz really didn't care. "He'll reperks the IDIS chip," the girl (she was Simmons, right?) noted. "Don't need the external receiver for the in-ear comms anymore," her partner added, pulling out just the chip from inside the now demolished comm receiver. 'Really?' Ward thought doubtfully," Well, then how does it-"
Then that girl, Simmons or Hermoine or whatever her name was, was prying his jaw open and stuck a cotton tip swab in his mouth! "We'll embed a neurosensor that's a match to your DNA," she was saying, but that didn't stop him from glaring at her as she finished her damn DNA swab. She could've just asked, damnit! "It's very posh," she smiled and stepped away.
Ward decided he didn't very much like British science nerds.
She obviously didn't pick up on his 'I don't like you' vibes. "So, you excited to be going on our journey into mystery?"
His face was particularly blank as he looked down on her -she was ridiculously short next to him-," Like Christmas." Did he mention that he hates Christmas? But that was a story for another time.
Luckily Ward was saved from having to deal with the science babies any longer when a car pulled up. He turned around to see a familiar red car pull up alongside the black SHIELD SUV. Lola; she was still running? He thought Coulson got rid of that car years ago, after Clint crashed it into a dumpster. He only knew about it because Clint called him in a panic, saying he needed help hiding from Coulson. Ward laughed, but sent his foster brother a one way ticket train ticket to Winnepeg, Manitoba in lower Canada.
"One of Coulson's old SHIELD collectibles," he heard the Scot mutter some stuff behind him, but Ward was having too much fun watching Coulson step out and promptly tell a flight crew member," Don't touch Lola."
Rules on the Bus:
Rule Number One: Never touch Lola.
Ward knew this rule like the back of his hand -it was strictly enforced even before Clint crashed it- but obviously these science babies would need to learn. "And he calls it a girl's name," the Scot was one comment away from laughing, as if calling a car by a girl's name was the funniest thing in the world. Then he spanked Ward's ass! Alright, it was a tap and meant in good gesture, but still, it was invading Ward's personal bubble! He was so lucky he walked away before Ward could turn around and deck him in the face.
'This mission is going to be hell,' he thought sourly, and it was only day one…
Before Ward did anything against protocol, such as strangling the two science babies, his long legs carried him over to Coulson," Sir, are you serious?" He cocked his head back at the two doing who-knows-what in the SHIELD mobile lab.
Rule Number Two: Don't strangle your team members.
"I'm dead serious," was Coulson's answer, earning a frown from his protégé. Considering he just heard about Coulson's survival yesterday, it was too soon to crack dead jokes. Seeing the deadpan look on Ward's face -hah! See that pun there? Phil always knew he was born to be a comedian- Coulson shrugged and headed towards the upper level, knowing Ward would follow.
As they walked through the rather posh lounge -Ward cringed at the use of the British term-, Coulson started talking to fill the silence," This is Mobile Command. They used to be heavy rotation back in the 90's, but then we got a helicarrier."
"Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who's afraid of flying?" he suddenly asked, smiling like he was telling a joke.
'Why would you recruit a guy who's afraid of flying to be on a Mobile Command Unit?' Ward pondered, then wondered if maybe Coulson was checking to see if he had an aversion to heights still. Thirteen years ago he did, after Natasha thought it was funny to push him out of a plane at 20,000 feet. Operations Academy knocked that fear out of him, but perhaps Coulson didn't know that. "I've done a nightdrop into a zone under heavy fire, sir," he informed him matter of factly," I can handle it."
Coulson sighed," That was a…joke. The first part of a-" he broke off with an even bigger sigh, looking utterly dejected," I'm not gonna tell it anymore."
What, did he say something wrong? Ward opened his mouth to ask -he really didn't know it had been a joke- but was cut off by a female voice. "If you plan to unpack, do it quick," Agent Melinda May walked up, all decked out in a what looked like a leather cat suit and Ward's first thought was,' Wow, she looks amazing for her age.' But she was busy talking to Coulson," And we got a hit on one of the Rising Tides' routing points." A file exchanged hands, which Coulson thanked her for, and with that she was gone.
The whole time, Ward was glancing between the two, not quite believing what he was seeing. "Was that…" he gestured to the departed woman," …who I think it was?" In other words, Agent Melinda freaking May? Better known as the Cavalry?
"She's just the pilot."
Bullshit. " 'Melinda May is…just the pilot'?" he echoed back, his sarcastic side showing," Come on sir… what game are you really playing?" If Coulson really managed to get the Cavalry onboard this idiotic welcoming team, then why did he need him? As a specialist, Grant is nothing compared to her. There had to be an ulterior motive.
But Coulson wasn't budging. With a blank face he often used against Natasha and Clint, he snapped the file in his hands shut," Better stow your gear," and walked away.
'I hate this already,' Ward groused and reluctantly opened his stupid bunk and threw his duffle bag in.