Author's Note: Y'all are lovely people, and I cannot apologize enough for keeping you waiting so long. My only excuse consists of my three part-time jobs (which then recently transitioned into one going-into-overtime full-time job), my numerous lengthy art and painting projects, and finding time to actually socialize with my friends. To conclude, I blame the Communists for the wait. Darn Commies. Thank you for your patience, and I will address reviews for the last chapter at the bottom as usual.
Chapter 7 – In Which Change Hits Clint in the Face, and Phil Joins the Army!
From Chapter 6:
Flip's eighteenth birthday came and went in a flurry of recruitment papers, license hunting, and goodbyes. Before Clint knew it, Flip was gone, and he was out his only friend. He took to hiding from everyone. Through parkour, running around the city, or just wedging himself in the drop ceiling, he withdrew into a shade of his former self. The cooks plied him with desserts and extra helpings, but Clint just gave them all to the younger kids (which, still not helping the hero worship) and made a point of eating just enough to keep up all of the muscle tone he had gained in his daily sessions with Flip. He stopped talking again.
September, 1996. Columbus, Ohio.
Winter hit with a furious, early passion that year. The orphanage, on its sad little concrete plot, took it hard. Funding, while relatively easy to come by (who doesn't like helping needy children?), could barely stay abreast of the multitude of problems that cascaded over the sprawling building. The pipes burst in the first surprise freeze, the roof leaked after a freak hailstorm, and most of the kitchen staff came down with the flu in October. A few of the orphanage staff quit after the superintendent berated them for leaving the front gates unlocked one night after a communal smoke break, and then the superintendent came down with the flu (which didn't help his mood at all, thank you very much).
But not everything was bad. A church sewing group donated several dozen quilts, and a few of the children started feeding a stray cat that hung around the back of the building. The kittens that came shortly afterward were definitely a surprise, though; several of the children had a graphic and disgusting introduction to the world of childbirth and swore off pudding for a couple of days.
(Clint saw the happy event from his perch in the tree across the road and nearly fell off his branch when the slimy lumps turned out to be kittens.)
The huddled clump of fascinated children nearly leapt out of their shoes when Clint appeared in their circle, but soon ignored him in favor of cooing over the mewling, blind lumps. He was the first to gather enough courage to reach out and pet one. The wet fur stuck up in clumps as he gently used a single finger to stroke down the tiny, bony head to the very tip of the skinny, crooked tail.
December of that year had heavy snowfall, and Clint promptly smuggled his kitten inside to live in his room. His roommate had just gone to a foster home (a rare event at 12, but the couple seemed decent), so he was the only occupant for the moment. He sat on his bed and gently untangled the tiny, sharp kitten claws from his favorite Green Arrow shirt. Placing the kitten on the floor, he flopped back on the bed to watch as she explored the room. Watery sunlight flickered over the floor and over the wall, and the pipes in the walls popped and groaned occasionally. Clint shifted his gaze to the ceiling. He idly catalogued the cracks (forty-seven) and watched a spider huddle miserably in its corner. At a soft tugging on his pant-leg, he reached down and scooped up the kitten. He held her nose-to-nose for a moment, looking at her blue eyes and little black patches, only to blink in surprise as she batted at his nose and growled.
He grinned and gently tossed her onto his pillow. She immediately puffed up in indignation and started to stalk it. The pillow, of course, was oblivious.
"Hey, Molly."
(With a mighty squeak, she struck! Fur bristling, teeth bared, tail lashing, the lion charged her pale foe.)
"Molly, ugh, I have to sleep on that," he giggled, tugging the corner of the pillowcase from between her little teeth. Clint inspected it for damage but only found a small hole where she had gnawed through a threadbare spot. He ignored her victorious purring.
(The enemy was vanquished, and the lioness slept on the bones of the conquered.)
Shaking his head at the tiny fur-ball passed out on the saliva-stained pillowcase, Clint got up and crossed to the window. He glanced at the empty wall where he had impressed Flip, only to flinch at the unmarked, smooth snow. Flip had hated to leave unmarked snow. He had to make snow angels, or kick his way through it, or write in it. Though Clint would rather forget the time that Flip had drawn a dirty picture in a parking lot, only to find out that the old lady who lived above the lot had absolutely no reservations against throwing rotten fruit out her window at the "hoodlums and vagrants tormenting defenseless old ladies with their nasty pictures."
Defenseless, his eyes! The old bat had the throwing arm of a Yankees pitcher and the mouth of a sailor! (Also, a frankly terrifying amount of rotten fruit – what was she doing with that much produce?)
Anyway, Flip was gone. Signed up to fight the good fight, Clint thought bitterly. So much for friends.
"Yeah, new kid's comin' in today. Got caught stealin' or somethin' by his foster family, so they're bootin' him out," the janitor grumbled. "Gotta clean the whole room for the brat, who's prob'ly gonna rob us all blind."
Clint just nodded. It was usually wiser to agree with the old man who cleaned the boy's dorm. He was nearly deaf, so he couldn't hear much, yet –oddly enough – he was always the one with the most up-to-date gossip. Clint had made it a point to observe what the old man liked from the kitchens and bring it to him while he was on mop duty. Clint would deposit the fresh muffins in the gnarled hands and take the mop handle while he was distracted, then try his best to clean while the old man gummed his way through the pastries. In turn, he'd get the most recent news, and the old man's back would be saved from hunching over too much. It was a very beneficial arrangement for all involved.
Today's updates were tame (Janice in the kitchens had had another pregnancy scare, the superintendent had overdosed on cough drops and fallen asleep at his desk, and the girls in 4E had hair-sprayed one of their cabinets shut—again), but Clint liked being able to anticipate what people would do.
(Janice would go on a celebratory drinking binge, only to return to work in a foul mood after breaking up with this week's 'careless' boyfriend. The Supe would wake between 9:30 and 10:15 that night and head home to face his wife's nagging suspicion of an affair. Clint thought—rather uncharitably—that the Supe would be lucky to find someone to have an affair with; the man was rather obese. And the girls in the entire east wing would whine about running out of hair spray—again—and would bribe Clint to run to the corner pharmacy and buy them more. And Clint would cave—again.)
Clint's news updates did not extend past the mopping sessions, though; any longer than that would send the old man into an inaudible grumbling fit.
So Clint wiped his hands after wringing out the mophead, accepted the napkin full of crumbs, and silently left the hallway. He made it to his room without further incident and hip-checked the door open. Clint pushed his way past the heavy door, only to drop the napkin from numb fingers. For a moment, all he could hear was glass breaking and the squealing of metal and remembering the cold, cold realization that he was leaving his brother behind and now the hysterical thought that he was happy (happy for the first time since Flip had left and hadn't written, hadn't called at all)
And he crossed the room in a heartbeat and flung himself into Barney's chest.
It was only a couple of moments later, however, that Clint realized that his brother wasn't hugging him back.
One Year Later
Somewhere in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
He huddled miserably in the corner of the wagon and wiped his nose. It was a particularly soggy day, a fact that hadn't endeared him to Joe the Lion-Tamer. The animals were cranky, which made Joe cranky, which made him lash out. Clint just cursed his big mouth.
He tensed as he heard a small scuff outside the wagon, but his muscles relaxed minutely when he heard someone light a match and take a drag.
There was a small silence before an arm appeared over the edge, holding a grumpy, wet lump of fur. The cat grumbled, but didn't struggle as Clint uncurled and gently took her. She butted her head under his chin and stretched, delicately raking her claws over his collar-bone.
"Thanks, Barney," he muttered. He looked down at the purring pile of wet fur. "Hey, Molly," he whispered. She peered at him with wide blue eyes then started trying to delicately chew his shirt edge off.
"You need to keep her away from the big cats, little bro," Barney said, and Clint stopped petting Molly for a moment. He heard Barney take another drag, exhale, then spit. "One day," he continued, "Joe ain't gonna stop Leo from eating her. Can't just let her follow you 'round anymore. Too big to keep her in your shirt, neither."
"I can't just keep her in the wagon, Barney. It's not good for her."
"Well, being in an ol' lion's stomach ain't good for her neither," was the flat reply. Clint just tightened his arms. He glared at the sagging boards beneath his feet.
"Joe's just jealous that she can do more tricks than his dumb ol' lion—" He jumped in fright as the boards behind him shuddered from Barney's fist.
"Shut your fricken mouth, Clint! No one cares about your stupid cat! Hell, I should just kill it, but you'd whine and cry, like a fricken baby. I gotta get on Joe's good side, cuz that senile idiot is buds with Swordsman, and you know why I gotta get on Swordsman's good side."
Clint heard Barney move toward the open side of the wagon. He tried to wriggle down more into the corner.
"This could by m-our big break, and you wanna ruin it for a fricken cat?" Barney rounded the corner and stood, feet braced and mouth twisted. He held up his hands and looked at the knotted joints and curled digits. The cigarette dangled limply from what remained of his fingertips. He stepped heavily up into the wagon and advanced on the twelve year-old in the corner.
"You think I can balance on a tight-rope? Hold a whip? Fire arrows into stupid paper targets? Twirl –" he grabbed Clint's knee and squeezed harshly, ignoring the gasp of pain, "—a baton and look pretty? No." He glanced down and blinked, let go. "No. I got one chance. We've got one chance. I make Swordsman's apprentice, we get cash. I get an act. You sit next to Swordsman—" his mouth twisted, "—and look pretty. Then we'll be good."
Clint frowned in faint confusion at the last part, but he was distracted by Barney patting his hair and turning to climb out of the wagon. Barney stepped heavily to the ground and sighed. He looked much older than his sixteen years in that moment. He turned and grinned wryly at his brother.
"Go and watch the acrobats practice, little bro. Just be sure to dump the cat back in your bedroll first." He lit another cigarette. "Don't want it getting eaten."
Clint smoothed Molly's fur and unlocked his joints.
He'd have to find a better hiding place.
"Hey, little bro. Nice room."
It took a moment before Clint became aware that Barney's arms were still resting limply by his sides. Feeling suddenly awkward, he climbed off his older brother. He didn't—this wasn't how it was supposed to go. Barney was supposed to be happy.
"Barney?"
(He was ashamed, because for one moment, he hoped that this stranger with his brother's face would say, 'who?' and it would be a funny misunderstanding but the stranger just sat there and said
"Yeah?" and Clint couldn't breathe for a second)
So Clint stood in the middle of his own room and really looked at this fifteen year-old sitting on his unmade bed. And his perfect eyesight saw the frown lines and pinched, unhappy crow's feet and the yellow skin and the oh god oh god his HANDS.
"Barney...what happened to your hands?"
And Barney looked at Clint, and his eyes held nothing.
So Clint climbed out of the wagon and went to watch the acrobats practice, because his chores were done for the day, and he had nothing else to do. There was a performance that night, but Carson's Travelling Circus wasn't really expecting a big crowd. It was a slow weekend, and the manager was heard muttering about moving down south for the summer, which had the acrobats happy. Clint liked hanging around them. They were fun, in a way, and they humored his begging (mostly-joking) requests to join the troupe. He got to practice some of his rusty gymnastics skills, and they were even talking about maybe including him in an act or two.
But he didn't truly sit up and pay attention until Trickshot came in for his daily practice. He was a big man, maybe 6'4'' and over two hundred pounds of muscle, but he could move fast and silent. It wasn't the man that Clint was fascinated with, though; it was the bow. A beautifully elegant thing, it came alive in Trickshot's hands. The bow practically sang for him.
Trickshot's act was a whirling and acrobatic routine involving blindfolded shots, dangling from ropes and harnesses, and taunting the crowd into believing that he couldn't hit that tiny target oh it's so far away and I didn't have enough time to practice, anyone else want to take a shot followed by a calculated pause waiting for a volunteer from the audience. When someone did volunteer (which happened often – people are stupid, Clint thought), Trickshot would simply look at the unlucky fool for a moment, then reach behind one of the curtains to pull out a child-sized bow. The crowd would laugh and heckle the blushing volunteer, Trickshot got to keep his superior airs, and the unlucky volunteer would try to hit the target with the small, padded arrows. It was a good routine, but it had nothing on the man's practice. That was when his dedication and training really shone through.
So Clint made it a habit to climb into the shadowed peak of the tent during the afternoons and watch the blur of motion below. When he got particularly stressed, he would climb to that dizzy height, close his eyes, and imagine the buzzing thuds of arrows hitting targets. It was almost as good as parkour for relieving stress.
Clint watched Trickshot practice until it felt like his behind was melded to the wooden planks. His admiring stupor was broken by the shouts coming from the manager's tent, however, and he leaned over the edge of the tiny platform moments before a veritable brawl exploded through the tent flaps. Through the hubbub, he could see the Fat Lady's chins wobbling dangerously as she spat insults at the snake-handler, a large-featured woman wearing her favorite constrictor as a necklace, followed shortly by Joe the Lion-Tamer (Clint shrunk further into the shadows at the top of the tent) stomping angrily past a trio of shrieking knife-throwers. It seemed like the entire circus population had boiled out of their bolt-holes to witness the commotion.
And then Clint saw Mr. Carson throw Barney to the ground, and the rest of the commotion fell to the wayside. There was a buzzing in his ears, and his fingers felt like they were glued to the wood.
"You little –" Carson spat, and tobacco juice splattered Barney's forehead. "You come in and steal from me! I know it was you, little rat! Three thousand missing, and I know about your sticky fingers. I'll beat you til you bleed, you –"
He glared at the surrounding performers, then, with shocking speed, he tore the long, leather whip from Joe the Lion-Tamer's belt, pulled it back, and lashed it across Barney's legs.
There was a stupefied silence before Barney screamed in one loud, long squeal. His attempts to scramble away were halted by the lash curling around his ankles and tugging him to the ground.
"Where is it, rat? Where'd you hide my money?" And Clint was frozen, unable to understand why he couldn't go down and help his brother.
Why he didn't want to.
And Barney was scrabbling out excuses and Clint knew, he knew, that Barney had stolen it. He couldn't help Barney, because there was no way for him to lie well enough for Carson to just stop and listen to – let alone believe – the twelve year-old brother of a known thief.
So Clint did nothing.
(And his fingers dug into the wood of that platform until they creaked and his skin felt prickly and cold and he thought of nothing until all he saw was nothing and all he heard was nothing )
The whip came down again, and again, and again, and eventually the crowd trickled away, leaving a few stragglers morbidly watching Barney snivel in the dirt. Carson was still raving, red-faced and panting, when Clint noticed a thin man step out of the crowd and walk silently to where Carson was cursing at the teenager on the dirt floor of the ring. The man stopped beside Carson and peered down at Barney.
He nudged the bloodied teen with the toe of one leather boot.
He looked at Carson and asked, "When did the theft happen?"
Carson panted and wiped at his face. "Around two. Only time it coulda happened. Just counted it, put it on the counter in my trailer, and left to go handle some squabble Joe had. Came back and it was gone, found this outside my door—" and Clint's sharp eyes noted the brand of the cigarette butt and his stomach fell like a stone, "—and the rat lookin' shifty. Two an' two equals four, Swordsman."
The few onlookers wandered away, bored now that evidence was damnable.
The thin performer took the cigarette butt and glanced at it for a moment. "Well," he drawled, and smashed it beneath his heel, "Lotta people smoke that kind. And," he spoke over Carson's protests, "the boy was with me all afternoon."
Barney stiffened in the dirt. Clint dismissed his faint prickle of unease. Carson peered suspiciously at Swordsman.
"Little old for you," he sniffed.
Swordsman's smile became a rictus, and he darted forward so suddenly that Clint nearly startled from his perch. Carson winced at the grip on his arm.
"Didn't I tell you?" He gestured down at Barney, "Say hello to my apprentice."
"Barney…where-where you been? Why didn't you call? Or come back?" Clint asked.
The pale sunlight through the orphanage's window trickled through Barney's hair and made every acne blemish on his skin stand out. Clint's eyes flickered over the older boy. He looked like a washed out James Dean – hair slicked back and greasy , shirt a little too tight, black leather coat a couple sizes too large. There was not a detail on him that fit him, no flicker of personality that glimmered beneath the sallow skin. He just…sat there and smoked his cigarette while contemplating an answer for a brother who hadn't been his little brother in years.
(Clint knew, in that moment, that Barney had never truly made it out of that twisted wreckage. He was still quiet and motionless in the backseat of that car while the warm people outside fussed and worried over the wailing toddler. He was still getting colder and colder. And Clint knew, deep in the pit of his stomach, that his older brother had never forgotten how his fingers and his broken legs froze in that little car.)
Barney's eyes flickered briefly as he drummed his fingers on his leg. He shrugged. "Wasn't much to come back for, I guess."
(Because Clint learned later, after he met a man with an eye-patch and a tendency to affectionately refer to his subordinates as 'motherf-s', that his brother had learned of the nerve damage while he was in the hospital. He was nine, and he was smart enough to interpret the sympathetic glances of the staff, the shrug of the doctor, and his newfound inability to pick up small objects. It was only later, when he tried to walk again, that he choked on his first scream of fury.)
He picked idly at a scab on his finger as he continued, "Figured that a cute kid like you would be snapped up soon. Thought about callin'. Never did. The social worker lady said you were happy with some family, takin' gymnastics lessons or some crap. Figured you forgot me. So, hey," he clapped Clint on the back, "Tough crowd, though. Here you are and here I am. 's fate, you know? And I got a plan to make some money. You see, there's a circus comin' inta town…"
[LOCATION PERMANENTLY REDACTED – SEE ACCESS FILE 4-1-ZULU-ALPHA FOR INFORMATION ON SECURITY CLEARANCES. SEE PERSONNEL FILE FOR COULSON, P. FOR SERVICE HISTORY. OH, AND LESLIE? MOM WANTS TO KNOW WHEN YOU ARE NEXT COMING HOME. I GUESS SHE HEARD ABOUT THE NEW BOYFRIEND. I WONDER HOW.]
Philip Steven Coulson joined the Army on his eighteenth birthday. The year was 1989, and he stood in the rec room at the base and cheered when he watched Berlin families meet again for the first time in almost thirty years. The television flickered over the tear-streaked and jubilant faces, and a soldier behind him whooped when he saw the bricks start to fall. Everywhere that Phil looked, there were smiles and cheers. It was a feeling of unquenchable motion, a rattling and bone-shuddering momentum.
The television broke away briefly to replay a clip from President Reagan's speech two years before, when he stood at the Brandenburg Gate and resolutely, calmly ordered a crumbling empire to tear down the rift between its people.
And Philip Steven Coulson stood on the scuffed linoleum in his stiff, new fatigues and knew he was exactly where he needed to be.
DATE: (REDACTED), LOCATION: (REDACTED).
Phil groaned softly and opened his eyes. The blood that coated one side of his face made vision out of the left eye impossible, but he could blurrily make out a weakly illuminated concrete cell. The flesh around his eyes felt pulpy and sore, but he didn't think the eye sockets were broken, and his wrists throbbed where they were tightly tied. Phil ruthlessly smothered the moment of instinctive panic and took a single steadying breath. He painstakingly catalogued what he could see. Concrete walls: check; a single metal chair, in which he was seated: check; stereotypically theatrical 40-watt bulb: check; his unconscious, bloodied, bound teammates in the corner: quadruple check. He allowed his head to drop forward for a moment to complete his quick visual survey.
He snorted softly.
Amateurs. Honestly, one simply cannot find competence these days. Well. Best to keep it efficient.
He shifted forward onto the edge of the metal chair and hunched forward, bringing his tied hands into line with his hips. He brought his wrists up to his lips for a moment to readjust the connection of the ziptie then swung his elbows back sharply, scraping the insides of his forearms on the edges of his hips.
The ziptie broke with a pop, and Phil Coulson mourned for the criminal class.
He flexed his hands and wrists for moment before deciding that nothing was broken. As for his bound ankles…well, they should have had the wooden, high-backed chair bolted to the floor.
Fifty-five seconds after regaining consciousness, he was out of his bonds. Fifteen seconds after that, he had managed to procure a weapon.
Less than three minutes after opening his eyes, Phil Coulson popped the pins out of the door hinges (which were on the inside of the cell. Honestly) and walked out of his cell.
His teammates managed to regain consciousness in time to see a screaming man in dusty black fatigues run past their cell. The screams segued abruptly into a watery gurgle then stopped altogether. The Navy SEAL team blinked groggily at each other while the lightbulb flickered overhead.
And their new, quiet, unobtrusive teammate, the one who smiled only slightly and had a (not-so) secret obsession with Captain America collectibles, slipped into the cell wearing only his trousers and holding a length of bloody cord.
"Sorry, had to take care of a few things," he said. "We should leave soon."
The floor shuddered as something exploded with a muffled whump that had dirt drifting from the ceiling.
The thin brick building wasn't really anything special. It had a realtor's office in 3B, an accountancy firm taking up the second story, and a sprawling bakery and coffee shop that had the run of the ground floor. The original owner, a man by the name of Guido Manelli, had been blessed with good luck; every business he touched in the 1940s turned a profit. The brick building, named the Manelli (though none seemed to remember it), was one such venture. But eventually Guido Manelli became old and died, and his legacy became yet another staid, drab building converted to hold offices. Eventually it would go the way of the building across the street: falling apart and sad.
One lovely spring morning, a light flickered on in 3A, and William Baker began his morning routine. He stumbled out of bed, tripped over the edge of the rug, and blearily made his way into the bathroom, where he turned on the overhead light (like he did every morning), shrieked as the brightness seared his corneas (like it did every morning), and commenced his morning routine.
Will yawned as he let himself into the shop. The streetlights were still on, though the sky was turning a dusky pink with the new day, and the sidewalk glistened with a thin sheen of dew. He blinked heavily and scratched himself, ignoring the coos of the pigeons perched on the sign overhead. There was an odd smell in the air, he noticed vaguely, but Will started the morning bread-making just as he always did. He made a mental note to call the gas company and continued with his day.
At seven, he unlocked the front, opened the blinds, and turned around in time to get knocked off his feet by a chest-rattling explosion. Windows shattered and shelves fell as he scrambled across the floor and under a table. The roar died away. A minute or two later, Will let out a shaky breath and peered over the edge of the table, blinking at the shards that glittered in the early morning light. An enormous cloud of dust was coming from the abandoned building across the way, and he could see pieces of plaster and wood coating the street outside. Distant emergency sirens could already be heard. The lack of fire, though, gave him enough courage to creep over to the ruined windows and peek out to his left.
He gaped. The front half of the three-story building was just – gone.
And there were figures coming out of the cloud of dust and smoke.
He squeaked and frantically back-pedaled away. The lead figure coalesced into a monstrous being with three green, glowing eyes and muscles that reached its ears. Will could even see what looked like the entrails of its last victim dangling from its claws.
Glass crunched under its feet. The wails of the sirens screamed down the road, and Will watched in horror as the creature slowly turned to view the emergency vehicle. The hulking figures behind it didn't even twitch.
Will gulped.
The thing's head swiveled around unerringly to his hiding place.
It took a rattling breath, hacked for a moment, then said, "Are you still open?"
Phil blinked in surprise as the man huddled under the table honest-to-God squeaked at him. The man clapped his hands over his mouth and peered up at him from over the lip of the table, and Phil realized that he was still holding the bloody make-shift garrote.
The man went a little green when Phil gingerly set it on one of the tables. Kowalsky shifted behind him, and he had to fight a small grin at the sight they must make: five men in combat gear, swathed in yards of fabric with the eerie green of the night-vision goggles peering from the hoods. He reached up and tugged the improvised face mask off, sighing in relief to be free of the suffocating weight. The – owner? Barista? Waiter? – before him finally left the shelter of the table, edging nervously past the exhausted group to the (now glass-free) window frame to ogle the destruction before him.
Kowalsky let out a blistering oath and wobbled up behind the man to ogle too.
"Heaven in my grandma's undies. We're in f- New York!"
Jones, Kermit, and Lawson followed Phil to the window to confirm it for themselves, and the unmistakeable view of the Empire State Building greeted them, along with the "N.Y.F.D" emblazoned vehicles across the road.
Kowalsky ripped his hood off, leaned out the window frame, and roared, "Red Sox rule!"
Phil watched the entire fire brigade give the one-finger salute, and pinched the bridge of his nose with a grimy hand.
Yeah. Definitely in New York.
"No, sir, I am not aware as to how my team and I ended up in New York, and I am aware that the parameters of the mission included only Uruguay."
"No, sir; I did not happen to see any suspicious Doomsday devices, though that does not preclude the existence of such devices in the near vicinity."
"I am already aware of Kowalsky's penchant for touching suspicious Doomsday devices."
"Because when he sees a red button, he touches it. Sir."
" Yes, I will debrief more thoroughly in person. 0800. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
He shut the phone with an echoing snap and handed it gently back to the waiting owner.
"Kowalsky. Sit with me a moment," Phil said, and he watched the youngest of the group slink over to his table in the ruins of the coffee shop. Despite the glass and plaster dust coating the floor, it seemed to be a nice place – coffee was good, so it had that going for it. He eyed the younger man now sitting across from him.
"Turns out that we travelled a couple of thousand miles in less than an hour," he idly remarked, and he watched in hidden amusement as the burly twenty-one year old soldier shifted in his seat. "And it so happens," he continued, "That we inadvertently triggered something that had gamma radiation testing sites from Tierra del Fuego to Vancouver blaring alarms fit to wake the dead. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Kowalsky?"
Kowalsky opened his mouth, and Phil twitched his finger off his coffee cup in the universal 'shut your pie hole' gesture.
Kowalsky's mouth closed with a click of teeth.
Phil gently pushed his cup out of the way and leaned forward over the table.
"Now, we are going to have a talk about a suspicious red button, and we are going to discuss the reasons why pushing said button in the middle of an abandoned paramilitary base might have been unwise," he said.
"You are a menace, Coulson," his commanding officer groaned over the static-filled line. Coulson paused in the middle of his debrief (given over the telephone because, hello, surprise teleportation) in the office of some overly-decorated bureaucrat in New Jersey. The stuffed shirt at the desk in front of him must have had something else better to do than supervise a confusing telephone call, but he had looked very self-important to have been the one chosen to oversee Phil's report of his and his team's mid-mission relocation. He just looked rumpled several hours later.
Coulson resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably in his seat. The morning light had brightened into a glare through the window, and it wasn't doing any favors for his aching head. The paramedics at the scene had been leery of coming too close at first, but Phil had managed to make Kowalsky give his patented puppy eyes. Amazing how a burly, rubble-covered soldier could look so incredibly pathetic and harmless. In consequence, Phil now had an itchy dressing slapped over a head-wound that pulled at his scalp every time he turned his head. He was also sitting in front of some government bureaucrat in a New Jersey Army base getting lectured about his response to kidnapping and attempted interrogation. His commanding officer wouldn't know excessive force if it threw a desk at him.
The door opened softly behind him, and the man behind the desk stood and smoothed down his rumpled suit jacket.
"Colonel," he greeted the leather-clad man. The newcomer ignored him and walked around the desk. He extended one finger and jabbed it onto the telephone's speakerphone, cutting off the rant mid-word. His leather coat brushed the side of Phil's chair, and Phil wearily looked up at the man's face.
The bureaucrat behind the desk slowly sat down again. He gestured weakly to the black man now leaning against his desk. "Meet Colonel Nick Fury. Fury, this is one of the soldiers involved in the incident this morning."
Fury ignored the introduction. He leaned more heavily on the edge and glared at Phil with his one visible eye.
"Never," he grated, "Allow Kowalsky near another device that can, in any way, shape, or form, be used as a weapon of mass destruction, a method of previously undiscovered transportation, or for m*******ing time travel to the Jurassic age!"
"The last thing we need is another Harlem incident, Sir," Phil calmly agreed.
Fury paused in his turn toward the sputtering desk jockey and looked back. When Coulson didn't add anything else, Fury leaned forward again.
"Now how did you hear about that?"
Coulson cocked his head to the side and thought for a moment. He shrugged and said, "I join cafeteria workers on their smoke break."
Fury just sighed heavily.
In the grand scheme of things, Phil thought, juicy gossip wins out over confidentiality agreements every time.
End of chapter seven! Sorry for the wait, everyone. Life got in the way, as it usually does, and this fell by the wayside. Thank you to everyone who reviewed for the last two chapters. Your encouragement keeps me writing, and I can't thank you enough for sticking with me. Also, shout-out to the user on LoneFullMoon for helping alleviate my confusion about my story's sudden popularity. (I'm looking at you, Tumblr…)
TheNaggingCube, I am powerful. I can lift, like, a twenty-four pack of soda without a single problem. Fierce, amirite? BoomerCat, your review made me laugh! The stuffed chimpanzee is something I can relate to! My siblings and I used to have this really creepy frog piggy bank that we always put on the end of our smallest brother's bed. Made him cry every time. AustralianRanger012, this one is for you. Skie89, thanks for the compliment! I try to keep my readers at least mildly entertained. TLDT, there aren't enough stories to fill my Phil Coulson meter. Thaddeus MacChuzzlewit, your review makes me happy every time I read it! Tryingtobestine: I really like the fact that you took the time to review. whovian42, ol' buddy, ol' pal! Thank you! Dasserk, four sisters would give anyone infinite patience! Thank you for reviewing!
