Phil Coulson had always been an agency man. If he was needed on a mission, he'd go. If he was told to stay, he'd stay. If S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted someone to say 'yes', he'd say 'yes, sir' (or 'ma'am', depending on who was doing the asking). Trust the system, they said. And he had. Until the system came crumbling down, until he was left with the broken down shell of it and told to make it right again.

Phil Coulson wasn't an agency man anymore but, now, he was The Agency. The distinction well and thoroughly sucked. Especially since now he knew nothing was as it seemed. The Slingshot Protocol was a lie. Rehabilitating dangerous criminals in the Fridge? A lie. Shutting down crazed, dangerous, and horrifyingly unethical programs like T.A.H.I.T.I.? He was alive and so was the lie. Before, when he had concerns about a mission, a project, or a decision, he could assure himself that his clearance just wasn't high enough. If he had all the information, all the pieces to the puzzle, the decision trickling down from the top would make sense. Knowing that the decision would be a good one, a just one was part of being in S.H.I.E.L.D. The Agency was there to serve and protect and that was what Coulson did best even if he didn't always understand the how and why of it.

He knew the how and why of it now and, as Director, he could make real and legitimate change. He could steer S.H.I.E.L.D. back to a path of righteousness, make a system that could be trusted.

But first, he had to have people trust S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Well, not people, but agencies, governments, military branches. S.H.I.E.L.D. never worked in isolation and repairing those bridges were as important as repairing S.H.I.E.L.D. itself. Unfortunately, agencies and government didn't work with black and white, good and evil. Everything was about compromise.

And compromise felt dirty.

Good and evil, Coulson could handle. Black and white. Yes and No. If only all evil people were so clear and honest with their intentions, he'd lock them away and throw away the key himself. But, now, as he held the lock and the key personally, the shades of gray disturbed him. Do you lock up someone because they have the potential to do bad? If you don't and they murder someone, or ten someones, or hundreds...are those deaths on your hands because you had the chance to stop it all before it started? When he'd been an agency man, he'd sent people off to the Fridge for indefinite sentences and he could always sleep well at night knowing that the worst sort of criminals, the most dangerous sort of human had been taken off the streets.

Serve and Protect. That's what he did.

Now, he watched the little blue feathered boy on the video monitor as his agents, under his command maintained their interrogation. The boy had not been allowed to sleep for nearly 30 hours and the exhaustion was starting to show. Tremors would occasionally work their way through the boy's body as he yawned so hard as to make his jaw snap. He tried so very hard to answer questions he had no answers for. This interrogation was reaching its fifteenth hour; one hour for each year the boy had been alive. To serve and protect, Coulson reminded himself, that's what his agents thought they were doing. But Coulson couldn't help feeling that in this scenario, the evil was on the wrong side of the interrogation room table. That boy didn't have any answers. Worse, anything he said at this point would just be to make the pain stop; to make them go away; to get a blessed hour of sleep after having none for so long. This interrogation was just an act of cruelty.

General Morris stood calmly next to him, the solid wall of a man who had quickly becoming everything that Coulson learned to hate, a reminder that he was failing his heroic ideal. "I think we've almost got what we need out of that little monster," the general said, lips curling upward with approval. "You've done good work, Coulson. I wasn't sure you'd have it in you but this...This is something to be proud of."

Coulson didn't respond.

The other man held out a small flash drive. "This drive has all our current intel on Evolutus. Every attack is on here. When they took place, where they took place, who was killed...it's everything. My colleagues and I will trust S.H.I.E.L.D. can end this. Soon. When you do, you'll have no problems stepping back into your rightful place, at least, no problems on the American front."

Coulson took the flash drive and nodded as the general smiled cordially and saw himself out.

When the tracker on Morris' temporary lanyard had indicated he was no longer on premises. Coulson commed the agents in the interrogation room. "We're done. Dim the lights, let the suspect rest." Even after his agents were gone, Coulson watched the monitor. It took all of two minutes for the blue feathered boy to succumb to exhaustion. Five minutes in, the vitals monitors fully indicated that he was sound asleep.

Coulson pressed the flash drive into the terminal in front of him and pulled up a file. Of course, he'd seen the news footage on Evolutus but S.H.I.E.L.D.'s priorities had been elsewhere. They had not done due diligence with concerns to that group, a mistake Coulson was looking to rectify now. Flipping through the first sets of documents, it looked like S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't been the only agency to drop the ball. At first, no one was quite sure who they were dealing with. Their messages, painted in blood, were often unclear. Their targets were seemingly random. The FBI had eventually been called in to support local law enforcement. A federal manhunt for a serial killer had been started until the number of victims jumped to improbable heights. With the crime scenes spanning the whole of the country, it was seen as far more likely that they needed to track down multiple killers, an organized group. The force of the blood splatter, the horrifying ways that bodies were sliced and vivisected or simply torn asunder finally broke the FBI's ability to process it. By the time they realized they weren't hunting for a human, the body count was well into double digits. Calling in the military had been the next step taken since S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen so far from grace. Now, S.H.I.E.L.D. was the last on the line.

Coulson flipped through the photos, the lab document, and the crime scene reports. He stared grimly at the mangled bodies of a family next to the scrawl line "The Strongest Will Survive". The murderers had not used a weapon but merely tore each member of the family apart, one limb at a time. They'd left their faces unmarred. Rigor mortis had locked the agony of their last moment onto their faces: an array of permanent silent screams. Coulson had been witness to many a horrible scene in his life as a field agent but this? Children? Families? Their pain was painted across their dead expressions much more clearly than the twisted message had been painted on the floor. Whoever was involved with Evolutus was beyond sick and twisted, was beyond evil. Inhumane or Inhuman … it didn't matter. It had to stop.

S.H.I.E.L.D. might not have to sacrifice its heroic ideal after all. These files made it so very clear that Evolutus had to be stopped by any means and S.H.I.E.L.D. had its experience with any means. Coulson would just have to remember there was a much larger picture to focus on. The show of force in the interrogation had gained them the cooperation and intel the military had previously withheld. And, if that could bring an end to the Evolutus killing spree? It would all be worth it.

Coulson glanced back at the monitor where the blue boy remained passed out across the metal interrogation table. He pulled the flash drive and pocketed it. He'd have to get the data to a team to analyze and process. Now, however, he was going to bring the feathered boy a cot and a blanket. Sleeping on the table like that would only cause more pain and Coulson knew this world didn't need any more pain.

He left the room considering the balances of good and evil. It had to be worth it.


A/N: ExellentlyEllen should get a bazillion accolades for keeping this clean and smooth and functional. She's been super helpful and this wouldn't be happening without her help. Thank YOU, too, for reading, commenting, following, etc. ...and, really, I like Coulson. Just, uh, hold on for the ride!