Eye For an Eye
"He's lying," Fury replied simply when confronted with what Monica learned from Thor. According to her, Thor claimed that his eyes had been opened by Baron Zemo when he had the other Avengers were told that the Masters opposed SHIELD because it wanted to rid the world of its superhuman population. Permanently.
Peter had no reason to believe that. Genocide was to far out there, even for someone like Fury. The man was morally ambiguous, not straight evil.
"Either that," he continued after a moment, "or he's being misled. Either way, it isn't true."
While hearing it directly from the head horse's mouth brought some comfort, he couldn't stop himself from wondering. Superheroes, and superhumans in general, weren't popular with everyone. It wouldn't have surprised him if SHIELD did have plans to take them out if they ever became a problem. Maybe that was what he was talking about? "Well, that's a relief."
"Yes. If you'll excuse me, I have an agent to interrogate." Without another word, Fury stood from his desk and hurriedly walked out.
Peter and Bobbi shared a glance. "He was in a pretty big hurry to end that conversation," he whispered conspiratorially.
"He has a prisoner to interrogate."
"Yeah, but, he isn't going anywhere. I still have some questions I'd like answered."
"As far as we're concerned, the discussion is over." Peter turned to the source of the new voice. A blonde woman in a gray business suit and striped red shirt was standing in the doorway. Agent Sharon Carter, aka Agent Thirteen. "We have more important things to worry about than idle speculation. Understood?"
Peter nodded. It may have been idle to her, but it wasn't to him. If someone in the realm of peacekeeping was out to kill him, that was pretty high on his list of priorities. Still, they had more important work to do; and it wasn't like he didn't already have people out to kill him on a daily basis.
"You coming?" Sharon asked Bobbi. Bobbi nodded and followed her out the door. Peter watched them leave and thought about following them. While he had no desire to watch what was probably going to be a torturous affair, he felt that he had to. The guy probably had at least a few secrets worth sharing.
Peter walked silently toward the interrogation room and caught sight of the rest of his teammates standing against the wall across from the viewing window. "Guess you guys had the same idea."
"Yeah," Luke replied. "This guy might know something. He's a SHIELD agent right?"
Coulson, who was leaned against the wall next to May and Ward, arms folded, grimaced grimly. "He was."
"Agent Sitwell," Fury said after he sat down across from the rogue agent.
"Director Fury," he replied cordially. Hands folded on the table, as much as the magnitized handcuffs could allow, he looked like the picture of calm and collected. Almost too much.
"Let's cut to the chase. It's obvious now that you were the double agent feeding Hydra our secrets during our initial struggle against them."
He nodded, and smirked. "That's correct."
"You understand that you played a role in their deaths, correct?"
Again, he nodded. His smirk grew a little smugger. "Yes, I am perfectly aware of that."
"Can I ask why?"
"You can ask whatever you'd like. I don't have to answer you."
Fury shrugged. "Don't, then. I'll just send May in here and she can coax the answer out of you. I'm sure she's thrilled to learn that a close friend has been lying to her from the beginning."
Peter saw May's jaw tighten a little.
Sitwell shifted uncomfortably. "Fine. As for why, they were my orders."
"Not good enough."
He sighed and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. Or eye, as he didn't put any pressure on his right eye. Peter narrowed his eyes as he saw Fury shift forward. "Hydra and the Masters of Evil have plans that will bring this world into a new golden age. Things will be so much better under their rule than the way things are now. I want in on that."
Fury leaned back. "You're on the wrong side, son. What plans do they have?"
Sitwell smiled. "Says you. Their plans; Sentinels, lots of them; light years ahead of anything Trask could come up with."
"Those pieces of shit? Excuse me while I shake in my boots."
"Laugh all you want, but Mandarin knows what your team can do, thanks to their little show in Egypt yesterday. He'll be making adjustments."
"What else do you have?"
"Aliens, monsters, and a hell of a lot of supervillains on our side. Remember, almost half of them were broken out of the Raft last week. They all have a bone to pick with SHIELD."
"I know they do. But we also have plans. Plans that you can't stop because there's no one left to spy them."
Peter wasn't sure if he was bluffing or not, because he hadn't heard of any such plans.
Sitwell rolled his shoulders back and sighed. "You think that, don't you? Do you really believe that Hydra can't find out what you know." He learned forward and lowered his voice into a inaudible whisper. "They have eyes everywhere."
A second passed, and it seemed that Fury was just going to brush it off. That was, until he lunged forward and latched onto his collar. Everyone jumped forward, ready to step in before it got serious. Before they knew it, Fury pulled something out of his pocket and jammed it into Sitwell's eye socket. Sitwell screamed as a loud mechanical whirring and a sickly squishing noise echoed through the room.
Janet pressed her hand to her mouth and let out a sickened groan. "He's torturing him!" Peter shouted, "Someone stop him!"
"Wait." Hill interposed herself between the antsy heroes and the door.
The whirring and screaming stopped once Fury removed the device from his eye socket. A bloody eye was trapped within the claws. "You're too clever for your own good, Sitwell," Fury said coolly. He inspected the eye, for a moment. He craned his neck down toward it, as if trying to get a closer look at something in it, and then cursed. After pulling something off of the eye, he cursed sharply again, and then slammed Sitwell's head into the hard metal table. The sickening thud made Peter's stomach do back-flips.
"We have a problem," Fury announced after exiting the interrogation room. Medics marched in after him, medical kits in hand.
"You're damn right we have a problem," Scott all but yelled. "You just tore a man's eye out!"
"What, do you just ignore people's civil liberties when it suits you?!" Jennifer followed.
"This ain't right Fury, and you know it." Luke crossed his arms over his barreled chest.
Fury put his hand up to cut off any further commented. "I had good reason." Without further comment, he tore the eye open. Janet gagged and hid her face in Henry's chest.
"What is that," he asked while massaging her upper back.
Fury held up a tiny, red piece of plastic. "A tracer. There was also a camera in there, as well." He crushed it in between his thumb and forefinger. "That's not all." In his free hand, he held up what looked like a colored contact lens.
Coulson raised an eyebrow and took it from him. "Why would Jasper need to wear contacts?"
"Colored contacts," Bobbi added.
Peter walked over to inspect it for himself. It was brown, which was already Sitwell's natural eye color. Why would he need to where a colored contact that was the same color as his regular eyes?
Coulson's eyes widened. "To hide his true eye color." Fury nodded gravely.
He was at a complete loss. "Am I missing something here?"
"Loki had a scepter that could take over people's minds. It turned their eyes blue. This contact was covering the entire front side of his eye; there was no way I or anyone else could have seen in with his eye still in his head. Only when I tore it out and looked at it closely did I see it."
He remembered seeing Loki blast stuff with his staff, but didn't know he could brainwash people with it also.
"Sir, he said that Hydra has eyes everywhere," Ward pointed out. He, nor any of the other agents, seemed to be affected by what they had just seen. "I don't think he was talking about cameras."
"If Hydra has Loki's scepter and is brainwashing agents and putting cameras in their heads, who knows just how much Hydra has seen." Bobbi ran a hand through her hair.
"And we'd never know about it. Shit. Ward, bring Fitz up to speed and have him analyze this camera; see how old it is. Hill and Hand, round up every single SHIELD agent here and have Fitz and Simmons check them over. We aren't proceeding until I'm sure that everyone here is either clean or has their surveillance equipment disengaged."
"Yes, sir," they said at the same time before walking off.
"What about us?"
"Rest up. Briefing is at noon tomorrow for your next mission."
Fury stalked away, leaving the New Avengers silent. Hours ago, Peter thought that this spy work stuff was intriguing. Right then, after hearing that SHIELD may have been infiltrated by Hydra, not so much.
"Son of a bitch," Barnes barked sharply.
"Hey," Bobbi touched his flesh arm lightly, "it'll be alright."
"Yeah? Did you not hear what was just said? Do you know what that means?" He breathed angrily and looked at the rest of them. "Do any of you?"
"So we gotta clean out the bad guys. Shouldn't be too hard," Luke mused.
"It isn't that simple. If there are more double agents –"
"Isn't it," Danny excogitated. "It shouldn't be too hard to detect the hardware for eye cameras and tracers and colored contacts."
"Hydra isn't stupid," he spat in reply. "They won't put all their eggs in one basket."
"What exactly are you saying?"
Peter glanced from Danny, who was frowning thoughtfully, to Barnes, who was breathing heavily and looked like he was barely containing himself.
"SHIELD may be compromised. Everything we've planned and are planning may be compromised." His eyes cut toward Bobbi and Sharon. "You two know what this means."
"Insight," Sharon whispered.
"Insight? Yeah, we could use some of that right now." Danny sighed and teased his hair.
Sharon glanced sharply at Bobbi. A tense moment passed before all three agents abruptly walked off hurriedly.
Peter watched them leave with a bemused tilt of his head. "Anyone else get the idea that they aren't being totally straight with us?"
"This is SHIELD," Hank said. "Their secrets have secrets. They live in the shadows, and they aren't alone."
Janet escaped his grasp and rubbed her face. A half frustrated, half weary sigh breezed from between her barely pursed lips. "What do you mean?"
He just looked at her, then the others, and then turned and walked back to his lab.
"I hear cloak and dagger is in this season," Scott joked half-heartedly.
"I don't like it," Luke said. "I don't like being kept in the dark.
"Get used to it," Scott replied. "As long as we work for or with SHIELD, or whatever the nature of our deal is with them, we're on a need to know basis." He also turned away, but didn't leave right away. "I don't think I want to know what they're hiding anyway."