Chapter 10: Spy-sitting

A nameless – alright, he probably did have a name, only Fury didn't know it right now – SHIELD employee said they're were at lock, and Fury was finally happy that something, at least, was happening.

"Good. Let's vanish."

Then he turned around, trusting the SHIELD personnel to do their job and make sure the Helicarrier wouldn't crash or something – that was basically the only kind of trust he'd ever have in anyone, for them to do what they could do efficiently, because anything more personal or important would just hurt and probably get someone killed too – just in time to see Coulson, Barton and Stark walk inside the control room. Carter and Rogers weren't with them, and while Fury had an inkling of what was certainly happening between the two right now, he still felt he had to ask.

"Barton, have you perhaps lost our supersoldiers?"

The agent winced, and Stark answered in his stead, taking in the Helicarrier that he had participated in designing – weaponry aside.

"They're experimenting how long a supersoldier can hold their breath, Director."

Figured.

"Anyway, I heard you lost our glowy cube thingy? And the two lead scientists who could help finding it back?"

'And my loyal employee, who's not so loyal anymore but eitherway' went unsaid, but Fury knew enough about how people like Stark could not say everything they thought if it happened to be for the best – like, preventing the underlying tension from escalating.

Fury knew, because he was exactly one of these people when it came to compartmentalizing and keeping secrets, and because Stark was both a former – retired, but not less sharp than before – spy, no matter how much he denied it – a subject he didn't waste a lot of breath on, at that – and a member of the high society. And in both these circles, you just didn't trust people blindly.

"Loki seems to have some mean of mind-control, possibly thanks to his 'magical, glowy, ominous' staff, and we hoped you could help, Stark. After all, the Tesseract is also one of your science projects, isn't it?"

Stark winced at the mention of "magic", and Fury could totally understand the feeling. Tech, no matter how foreign, was something rational, but magic? Both Starks, Howard and Tony, kept on insisting that "magic" was probably another science too, just one that was so foreign they couldn't even start explaining it – no one, not even those who practiced it, seemed to be able to, but it wasn't like that mattered to the two stubborn geniuses – and they hated that.

Coulson took over, while keeping an eye on Barton, who was eyeing a screen where Banner's picture and the – lack of – information they had on the scientist's current location where displayed. Just in case the guy turned a bit green around the edges.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

Stark, of course, was already doing something else – instead of, you know, listening.

Or, at least, he pretended not to care and listen, but Fury had known Stark Senior long enough not to get fooled. The Starks simply seemed to jump from one conversation to another because they tended to think about ten different things at a time. Not all of which were relevant.

Going around Fury, the genius peered at the control panels, and in a move that Fury couldn't quite see from where he was, but that he could easily guess knowing the flippant billionaire, Stark covered one of his eyes.

"How do you even do this?"

The Director of SHIELD did not roll his eyes, but it was a close thing.

"I turn."

"Well, that sounds exhausting. About your global search for the Horny God, that's not going to be enough if he's planning to act soon. Searching for them by looks is good, but you're going to need a few more spectrometers to search for gamma rays. Like, all of them. In the whole world. I know you can get access, so, do this. Of course, it would be easier if we had the world's expert on the matter of gamma rays to do this for us, but since you lost him, I guess you'll have to do with little old me. Where's the super sciency lab around here?"

Fury tried to keep his eyes on Stark at all times, but as he only had one eye available, and Stark just kept moving around and doing seemingly unnecessary gestures, he doubted that would be enough. He'd better not forget to have someone check no "unnecessary" appliances had been added to the monitors while Stark had done his best to be infuriating.

Which, really, was ridiculous. If the man only asked, he'd get a place inside SHIELD in a blink, given his family name and his skill set, and despite his past – admittedly alleged – activities.

Which, of course, would ask of Stark to trust SHIELD more than even Fury himself was willing to, so yeah, the director understood why that particular thing wasn't going to happen.

"Agent Barton, would you show Mr. Stark to Dr. Banner's laboratory, please?"

Barton clenched his teeth, but nodded, and Fury suspected the archer wasn't exactly elated with baby-sitting Tony Stark, especially as the guy made a show of being flippant and generally dislikable on a personal level. Also, Fury had made sure that Barton knew who Stark was, what he was capable of, and why spy-sitting was to be a thing when it came to the guy, if they didn't want him to know absolutely everything about SHIELD as well as their personal lives within the next twelve hours.

They probably wouldn't be able to keep everything from the genius, but if Fury could keep the damage to a minimum, that'd be good enough.

"This way, Stark. And please, take this seriously."

The second sentence had been added with a certain emphasis, and Fury decided to wait and see how it was – not – going to blow up in all their faces before concentrating on something else. It wouldn't do to antagonize Stark any more than necessary, and Barton had reasons to 1) be wary of the former KBG agent 2) be generally on edge.

Stark stopped his act for a moment, and took in the blond agent with concealed prudence and – god help them – interest.

The key word being "concealed".

"Barton, right? You're the one with the bow and arrows. The one who occasionally turns into an enormous green rage monster."

Fury could literally hear Barton's teeth gritting against each other, but the man didn't take the bait. Not that he'd have gone completely green and destructive, because he had more control than that, and Banner had managed to secure – something he might not have succeeded in doing had he had to experiment on, say, himself, with all the complications that would come with such a situation – a semi-transformation for the Hulk – green, tall, strong, but not as strong and as tall as a full hulk-out, though just as green – that let Barton have control over himself.

That being said, a semi-hulk-out would still be more than enough to break Stark into two – should Barton manage to get a hand on the elusive billionaire, of course.

The agent gave the man standing in front of him a painful smile.

"That's me. But my point, Stark, was that this is a serious situation. A situation in which one of my friends is directly involved. In danger. And I'd appreciate if you didn't waste time being an asshole."

So much for Barton being polite – what had Fury been thinking? Of course Barton wouldn't be the one to do the polite thing, especially not with Stark in front of him, doing everything to get on everyone's nerves.

This, however, only seemed to amuse the genius, who smirked for an instant...

Until his face fell into a controlled blank.

"You speak as if you're the only one who has interests in this, Agent Barton. Flash news: you're not the only one with a friend in a compromising situation."

Barton didn't really know what to answer to that, obviously, so he could only follow in silence – or rather, catch up with Stark to then lead him to the lab – when the man added, feeling less than charitable:

"And for your information, I'm perfectly capable of being useful on top of being an asshole. It's not my fault if you, unlike me, aren't able to multitask quite as efficiently."

Fury really hoped no one would end up blowing up the Helicarrier out of frustration.