11. bounce – game over man, game over

. . .

Director Coulson looked at the vast digital directory; scrolling blue lines of numbers marked for his access alone. Buried in its coded burner phone IDs and scrambled status updates was a vast amount of incredibly specific information. His gaze could pick out the piece of intel he wanted easily, if he looked close enough at the wall of data. The emergency contact information that would get him Nick Fury's own voice, live and in stereo. But the longer he stared, the less he wanted to find it. The less he knew what he wanted to say. Perhaps the only real option was to let the former director stay dark.

"Phil?" May's voice came filtering in over the intercom, the note of concern clear. "You rang me down."

"Yeah, come in." He glanced over as the door creaked open, the info on his screen winking at least temporarily out of existence. He put his arms down, noting that they ached a little. He'd been standing in the same position for probably too long; looking defensive and feeling it, too. "Sorry. I need someone to talk to, just for a moment. Bounce off a wall, so to speak."

She spread a hand at him, shutting the door of his office behind her as she approached. "Of course. About the mission?"

"Yeah. No." He shrugged. "Mostly yeah. But kinda no."

She went ahead and gave him a clear and readable expression of confusion, taking a seat on the other side of his desk. "Something's eating at you."

"Nothing like that." He picked up a pen from the organized array on his desk, fiddled with it, then put it back down. "Well, kinda."

She rubbed her forehead, noticing with absent care a chip on a single nail's dark polish. She curled her fingers and examined it. She kept her voice light, making sure he knew what she was about to say was a joke. "Phil, if you don't spit it out, I swear to God I will go find the biggest stick I can find on short notice and smack you with it just once. But it'll be enough to shake whatever it is out of you."

He laughed, if only a little. "Sorry. I shouldn't be bothering anyone else with this." He picked the pen up and shook it at the now blank display screen. "More to the point, I don't know who to bother with this. There's no manual. There's no spec script."

"Phil, you've always been a born leader. As long as I've ever known you, anyway."

"Yeah, and I've been one with a clear command structure behind me and decades of routine and contingency behind that. This is new. This is... it's not even about trying to make a new rulebook, May. It's that I have to do it over the rubble of other people's actions. And sometimes their mistakes."

She clasped her hands together on her lap, frowning thoughtfully at him. "It's not your leadership that's bothering you."

"Well, it is, kinda. But-"

"It's Fury's history."

He plucked the cap off the pen and waggled it between his fingers, letting the cap drop to the desk. She watched him, noticing how fidgety he was. Next he would start pacing after she left. Sometimes she wondered if it really was all just being cooped up for too long. She hid this worry with another curve of her lip.

Coulson walked to one end of the room, pointing at the blacked-out window with the pen. "The more I look, the more mistakes I find. More secrets I didn't even think existed. Nick Fury... I don't doubt that he had the best of intentions in mind as much and as often as possible. I don't doubt the fire and the need that drove his kind of leadership. But some of this crap is hanging together by dollar store spackle and chickenwire. With us in disarray, I'm afraid this thing in Montana is gonna end up being the least of our problems – and it's a pretty big problem, May."

"You sent Triplett in there with a hot bug up his butt and a package full of bad news, I know that much."

He turned back to her, his brow furrowed. "We get any contact back from either of them?"

She shook her head. "Matsu'o's in play by now, but there's been nothing from inside the facility. Skye's got everything monitored – hell, she retasked for a visual in case they end up making do with smoke signals or something."

"I don't like that."

"What's to like? I've got confidence in Triplett, though. So do you. And you, for what it's worth, have a strange amount of confidence in the other guy, too." She picked up the discarded pen cap and toyed it between her fingers, a single eyebrow raised.

He paced back to his desk and sat down at it, looking evenly across the top at her before plucking the pen's cap back. "If I'm extrapolating the right worst case scenario from Nick's notes on Blackwing, well, it's possibly as much his ass on the line as all of ours."

Her gaze flickered back up to his. "The Chitauri connection. You don't think he'll go back over the high side on this?"

"Absolutely not." A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Huh." It faded, leaving him with a fleeting grin. "Nothing. Just thought of something else."

She tilted her head at him. "Okay?"

"Good talk, May. Thanks. I needed that."

. . .

"If your florid mortal notion of Hell holds any accuracy or merit, mine own damnation is almost certainly festooned with Chitauri." Loki's palm held light itself, the glimmer of it showing Triplett the control panel laid bare with its knot of archaic wiring and bulbs. The agent flexed the clippers in his hand, considering his next move. "If you let me punch that, I could probably simply force the system alight."

"I want to know how this place is wired up, okay? Your way might be fast and simple, but what I got in mind calls for a little finesse."

"You haven't bothered to confide your plan, I note. We've a few problems in play to complicate such matters."

"Wasn't much of one, yet, I admit. Boils down to the new priority. First, we got to get the word out about the Tabernacle plan, and we can't do that locked down in the darkness here with God knows what or who in here with us." Triplett tapped on the metal door of the cabinet with the wire clippers to make his point. "So, first, we get comms back online. Don't care the format. Hell, I'll send it out through Morse if it comes to that. It'll get picked up."

"I've no doubts on that score." A dry sniff from the dark shape behind the light. Something popped, then sparked. The gleam intensified as Triplett swore. "What happened?"

"Blew a sparkplug. God, I hate old government facilities. So damned cheap sometimes." He reached in and yanked a fistful of cord. Something snapped, then was drowned out by a low, buzzing hum. "Ow." Triplett shook his hand, then shook it again. "Hand me the laptop."

Loki plucked it from under his arm and opened it for the agent, the shadows shifting and moving as the light stayed aloft at a softly whispered command. He passed it down to Triplett's waiting hand. "Battery is, naturally, almost dead. Work quickly."

"You break admin control?" The dark eye flickered back over to him, his face half-lit in green and blues by the default OS background.

"It'll heed you without complaint." Loki looked away, his lips drawing into a thin line. "I'll say again, work quick."

Triplett opened up the network settings, not bothering to look up again. He could pick up on the demigod's fresh tension. Clearly he heard something. "Bug or ninja coming?" He jerked his head a little, making a face as he opened up the ports. "I think that's one of those phrases that's never been said by anyone before in the history of the world," he mused.

"Ninja," murmured Loki, his attention now fully elsewhere. "We've a little time."

"Place is a damn maze..."

"Wait," said Loki, his voice now entirely a whisper. He slid silently into the doorway of the large maintenance closet and seemed frozen there, his posture in readiness for something. Triplett kept working, the little wizard's light staying close to him.

When the single scream came, he nearly dropped the laptop. "What the-"

"Silence!" Loki crouched, his voice a hiss pitched only for their little room. He pulled back in and shut the door with the softest click. When he looked over his shoulder, he found Triplett staring openly at him. "I think it might yet get a little worse."

. . .

Matsu'o shook the industrial LED flashlight in rage, nearly crushing it in his gloved hand. Fine control was still a daily task for him, the new flesh and steel tendons capable of so much more than he once knew. The light his flash gave shivered, highlighting the quivering man. "Explain again!"

"I don't know, sir! Something in the darkness!"

His soldier was dead white, his open fear stoking Matsu'o's fury. He snarled his response. "The alien toys with you! Have you any sign of the facility's men?"

The shorter man's mouth worked at him, eventually settling for a hard shake of his head. Unbelievable. One jump scare in the dark and his men scattered. Once that would have been an unthinkable outcome. Another of his Hand spoke up for the frightened figure, his voice stronger with the anger of the disbelieved.

"It was barely human, sir. It was crawling on the walls."

"An illusion, perhaps," he snorted. "Recall your debrief. Such things are this Loki's toys, and he sees fit to scare us. A pointless and weak move. Ghosts cannot hurt you." Matsu'o swiveled the flashlight around to light one of his more tech-savvy assistants. "Have you found a map?"

"Full system is down, sir... wait." The shadows followed the furrow of the man's brow. "Communications are coming back online just now."

"Cue in. Prepare to splice ourselves into the network. I've a few things to say, myself."

. . .

Skye lunged at the control panel as it picked up the faint, crackling signal from the underground facility. Without bothering to ask for permission, she routed it through the Playground's network directly to Phil's office, forcing the speaker online. It kept hissing static. "I'm cleaning it up," she blurted, slapping artlessly at the panel till she found the results she wanted. "Not trying to waste your time."

She muttered something. There it was – and then Triplett's voice rang through. It sounded like he was whispering, but at least he was close to the mic on his end.

"-nacle. Repeating now: Tabernacle location under threat. We are still onsite, Blackwing facility on lockdown. Hand onsite, no visual on any party at this time. We're assessing our next move and will try to make a play on our end. Cannot receive signal. Priority alpha is Tabernacle, they are going to hit Tabernacle."

The audio cut out. She switched the network back to normal and rang down.

"Phil?"

His voice came through after a long few seconds, tight with tension. "Skye, I'm gonna need a secure channel to US Air Force and HomeSec. Warn me before you've got it."

"How secure?"

"Scramble the living crap out of it and then do it again."

. . .

Triplett prepared to shut the laptop down, pausing as the speaker started to crackle. "I said we couldn't receive signal..." He dropped it back on his lap, tapping at it. "Internal communication is online."

"SHIELD Agents. Loki of Asgard." The voice was smooth and cultured, implicitly hostile in its even tone.

"Not Manfredi?" Triplett glanced up at Loki for confirmation, who shook his head in response. "Tsurayaba. Hell."

"Your attempts to deter us are in vain. Blackwing facility, you have been duped by one you might have been tricked into believing was an ally."

Loki said something sharp and guttural that was clearly not in English nor any other human language, but the gist was remarkably universal.

"We are here by request of another party to help you resist the alien and remove him, without further risk to you, from your facility."

Loki and Triplett shared a look that contained, among other things, a silent request for a stiff drink.

"We have come prepared-"

"No you didn't, fool."

"-and are proceeding according to plan. Unless, of course, Loki, your betrayer, cares to surrender." The audio cut out again.

A smirk in the gloomy dark. "This leaves us with a rather interesting question."

"Whassat?" Triplett closed the laptop with a click.

"Who will kill this idiot Tsurayaba first? Me – or the half-mad bug people downstairs?"

Triplett frowned down at the matte grey case of the computer, thinking. "They have no idea what they just walked into."

"Hence my question. It's ultimately to be a standoff, three sides against each other. And I intend to walk away from it. One way or another, young Agent Triplett. Do you?"

Triplett licked his lips, still thinking. "Standoffs suck. Lots of collateral damage. Way harder to walk away from those than you think." He glanced up to see Loki glowering at him. "I'm sure you can, man, I'm just saying, I think there might be a better strategy."

"Yes, and I considered much the same before discarding it over the whole implied alien autopsy sequence. I'm not going to ally with that idiot and his men, even temporarily. They won't listen to you, anyway." He flapped a hand dismissively.

"Depends."

"On what, you think?"

"If the bug people try too hard to spook them and give up the game. That's what that was, right? Freaked them out, they're extra pissed at you, and the Blackwing people mop up while we're busy with each other. That was the plan."

"So change the paradigm." Loki shrugged. "It's valid, even passably clever. But it relies on something not yet a certainty. Much less my dislike."

"What's your sense on the Chitauri collectively?" Loki made a drawn-out, derogatory noise by way of answer. "Exactly. Let 'em drag enough rope."

Loki looked away. "Meanwhile, I suppose your director would be appreciative if we could cobble some method of stopping or slowing this Tabernacle strike. Easiest method would be to break the planes. The Hand are between us and the hangar from here." He frowned, clearly thinking.

"Gotta be another way up."

The black-clad arms crossed, the frown deepening. "We go down."

"Wait. Through the bug people?" Triplett blinked rapidly. "I mean, yeah, there's probably a pretty straight path from residence towards the job, but-"

"Time's of some essence, yes? If we push, it may also push your notions into action. Also, by now they've almost certainly split. There's likely more on this floor than below. Perhaps. Regardless, the time for open conflict has come."

"Man." He hauled himself up to his feet, trying to still a nervous knot in his gut. He kept the laptop tucked under his arm. "I didn't sign up for an indie Aliens stage production."

Loki's face was blank. "I didn't follow that."

"Never mind. You ever notice a weapons room while you were in here?"

"No." Loki's lips curved into a bitter, almost hungry smile. "I suppose you'll just have to let me do this part my way."