"Half of your Avengers team has gone rogue. They have taken the Tesseract, the alien criminal Loki, and stolen a quinjet to flee from you. Can you explain how this has happened?"
Nick studied the holographic images of the World Security Council, and he wondered which of them were actually Hydra. At least some of them had to be. Generic, evil, middle-aged, white guy in a suit was the description that Felicity had given for the person who would one day order the hit on Nick. Three of the Council's six members could potentially fit that description.
"It was the woman Loki brought over, Felicity Greene," Nick said. He chose his words with care, knowing that he was probably speaking to enemies. "She claimed that SHIELD is the real enemy; that we were infiltrated by Hydra from the very beginning."
"That's preposterous," Councilwoman Hawley said. Nick wondered if her indignation was real, or if she was pretending to deflect suspicion. "How could she have possibly convinced them that was true?"
Nick shrugged. "Hydra was the perfect namedrop. In Captain Rogers's mind, he was at war with Hydra only two weeks ago. It wasn't hard for him to believe they were still around. Thor feels indebted to Greene because Loki brought her here, and Dr. Banner doesn't trust any government organization."
"Clearly she is a clever manipulator," Councilman Yen said, "but what could her goal possibly be?"
Nick shook his head. "For now, that remains unclear."
"Where did they go?" Councilman Malick asked.
"We're tracking the quinjet they took," Nick said. A quinjet he hoped that they were smart enough to ditch soon, because Nick didn't have a choice but to report its whereabouts accurately. That was a lie that would be too easily caught, if he told it. "They went to Camp Lehigh."
"Isn't that where Captain Rogers trained?" Alexander asked.
Nick met his gaze through the screen and nodded. "It is. The base has been closed for over twenty years now though. It's still unclear what they were there for. I have a team on the ground now trying to figure it out."
"Yes, Agents Romanoff and Barton," Councilman Singh said. "That decision seems unwise, given the current circumstances."
"With all due respect, given out current circumstances, Romanoff and Barton are our best hope," Nick countered. "They've been with SHIELD long enough not to fall for Greene's story, and they're the only ones that stand a chance of talking down Captain Rogers and the others."
"Is that the plan?" Councilman Rockwell asked. "Trying to talk them down?"
"Given they just saved our planet, yes, my first plan is to try and talk to them," Nick said. "Did the Council have another plan in mind?"
"No one is suggesting that you go in guns blazing," Councilwoman Hawley said, effectively cutting off Councilman Rockwell's reply. "We do however think that it is prudent to consider backup plans, if they will not be talked down. Have you contacted Stark?"
Nick shrugged. "We tried. He's not answering. Wouldn't surprise me if he's decided he's earned a vacation after the past twenty-four hours." It was also possible that the others had contacted him first. It seemed a likely explanation for how they'd managed not to crash the quinjet that none of them knew how to fly. Unless Ms. Greene had a pilot's license she hadn't mentioned, which was also possible.
"What about Loki's scepter?" Councilman Malick asked.
Nick slowly shifted to look at his screen. "We still have it, Councilman. But if you're about to suggest that we use on them, I would strongly recommend against it."
"It could be our best option for bringing them in without violence," Councilman Malick said.
"We have no idea how it works," Nick pointed out. "Nor do we know if it will have any affect on Asgardians, or for that matter, how it might affect the Hulk. If we try to control them against their will and fail, I promise you, what happened in Harlem last year will look like a spring picnic compared to what'll come next."
"But we need some sort of backup plan," Councilman Rockwell said, "in case your talking plan fails. Unless you think you have agents that can subdue them, then the scepter is our best option." Murmurs of agreement followed this assessment.
Nick didn't move. There was no way that the entire Council was Hydra. Some of them were SHIELD. And all of them were agreeing that the best way to deal with Thor, Dr. Banner, and Steve – men who had just risked their lives to save all of them – was to forcibly control them. And they were also the ones that had decided the best chance for defeating the Chitauri invasion was to send a nuke at a city with millions of their own civilians in it.
Guess I got more than one bad eye.
He should have seen it sooner, that something was wrong, even if he hadn't realized that Hydra was in their ranks. SHIELD had been designed to protect people. Sometimes that meant making hard choices. Nick had made his own share of questionable decisions to be sure. But what did it say about the choices that SHIELD had been making that this discussion was not enough to tell Nick which of them might be Hydra and which weren't?
"Very well," Nick said. "If that is the Council's decision." He'd send the scepter to Clint and Natasha, and inform them of what the Council had decided. Nick knew good and well that the two of them would never use it. But it would get the scepter further from Hydra hands, so perhaps this could be seen as an opportunity at least.
"Before we bring this to a close," Alexander said, "I feel it would be imprudent not to at least consider the idea that Ms. Greene may have been telling the truth. Is there any possibility that Hydra agents could have infiltrated us?"
The other Councilmembers protested, but Nick barely heard them. Why did it have to be you? Nick considered Alexander a friend. Nick had personally invited him to join the World Security Council. The man had once turned down a Nobel Peace Prize.
But Alexander was too smart to ask this question. If he genuinely thought there was a chance that Ms. Greene was right, he'd never have brought it up in front of the rest of the Council, not when doing so would be sure to alert whichever of them was Hydra. The only reason for him to ask this was if he was Hydra, and he was trying to deflect suspicions away from himself.
Nick couldn't prove it yet, and he hoped he was wrong. But Alexander had just jumped to the top of Nick's suspect list. Until he could prove things one way or another, though, Nick had a part to play. He allowed a touch of offense to enter into his voice. "It's impossible. SHIELD has always had measures in place to catch traitors in our midst. I've increased those measures since I took over as director. If there were Hydra agents around, I'd know."
"As you say," Alexander replied. "I merely wished to be sure we were looking at this from all angles."
The meeting came to an end, and Nick went to find Maria. He'd have her get the STRIKE team together to deliver the scepter to Natasha and Clint. And then he and Maria needed to have a talk.
Why Steve and the others had decided to come to Camp Lehigh was a puzzle that Clint hadn't been able to figure out yet. Even if it was the place where Steve had trained back in his army days, it had been abandoned for over twenty years now. There was nothing left that could be useful.
"Well I'm stumped," Clint said, leaning against a cinderblock wall of a derelict building. "You got any ideas what they were doing here?"
Nat barely glanced his way. "Nope. Can't tell where they went while they were here. Think you can get a higher vantage point?"
The building across the way looked like it'd be simple enough to scale. "Sure thing." It was the work of moments to get to the flat roof. Clint took his time circling the perimeter, looking for anything that seemed even mildly out of place. A glint of light on metal in the grass caught his eye and he paused. It was too bright to have been there for long.
He climbed back down the building. "Think I found something." He led the way to the building he'd spotted, and found a chain and padlock on the ground in front of the door. He tried the handle, and the door opened easily, revealing a staircase that lead down. He glanced at Nat and she nodded.
Nat took the lead down the stairs, Clint following behind. When they made it to the bottom, she flipped a light on, and they both stared. "Huh," Clint said. "You know, maybe we should think about not putting our logo everywhere." He gestured towards the back wall, where the familiar eagle symbol had been painted.
"Not the point right now," Nat said. "They must have come for something here. Let's see if we can figure it out."
They split up, casing the area. It didn't take long for Nat to discover the hidden elevator, which they took down to an even lower level. It opened into a large, long room that housed an ancient computer and its equipment.
"What do you think we'll find on it?" Clint asked as they walked up to the computer. "Files on Hydra, or files on the Winter Soldier? My money is on the Winter Soldier." It had been obvious in the meeting that finding out Bucky Barnes was the Winter Soldier was the part Steve had cared about most. Not that he didn't care about the whole SHIELD/Hydra mess, he did, but it was his friend that got his strongest reaction.
"Probably both," Nat said, hitting a button to turn the computer on. Only a few moments later, it turned out they were both wrong. Someone had completely wiped the system. No matter what tricks they tried, neither of them could manage to find anything. The computer was a blank slate.
"Well there's another point in favor of Tony probably being with them," Clint said.
"Probably." Nat frowned.
"You good?" Clint asked. He kept his tone neutral. He already knew the real answer; she didn't feel any better than he did. Finding out that the organization he'd dedicated himself to, the organization he'd killed for, was actually infected by their enemy, had left Clint feeling shaken. It made him wonder which of his targets had truly been assigned by SHIELD, and which were ones that Hydra had deemed threats. How many good people were dead at his hand?
Clint ignored the questions. He pushed them down, and all the uncertainties and grief that came with them. One day he'd take them out and turn them over and try to make peace with it all. But not today. Today, he had to focus on the mission.
Nat's expression smoothed over. "I can keep going."
They left the building, heading back to their quinjet. Before they made it all the way there, they saw another quinjet fly in. That feels like a bad sign.
Rumlow and his STRIKE team was waiting for them. Clint scowled when he saw what was in Rumlow's hand. "The hell did you bring that thing for?"
He grinned and shrugged, waving Loki's scepter. "It's a special delivery. The Security Council wants you to have it, in case talking doesn't go well."
The implication wasn't hard to follow. "Director Fury okay'd that plan?" Clint asked. The very idea of trying to use the scepter to control the others made Clint's skin crawl. What was the Council thinking?
"He hasn't got much room to argue, after half of his special team went rogue," Rumlow said.
And because he was trying not to raise Hydra's suspicions. Despite any of that, Clint didn't want to go anywhere near the thing. Nat strode forward instead, looking as unruffled as ever, and took it from him.
"Any idea what they were doing here?" Rumlow asked, glancing beyond them into the base.
Nat shrugged one shoulder. "We found an old SHIELD outpost. That might have had something to do with it. We couldn't find anything of interest there, so your guess is as good as ours for what they might have been after."
Rumlow shook his head. "This is one hell of a mess. I don't envy your assignment."
Clint eyed the scepter in Nat's hand. Rumlow was more right than he knew.
Their next destination after Camp Lehigh had been an airport, because apparently Tony was the kind of rich that owned his own private plane. It was mentioned when they arrived that if anyone wanted to go their own way at that point, they could. Except of course Felicity had to stick with Steve for now, because going anywhere on her own was basically impossible, especially with no money, no ID, and Hydra after her. And Thor was sticking with Felicity, and Loki had no choice but to go where Thor took him. Tony had to come too, because it was his plane, and his computer program that was going to figure out Bucky's location. So really the only person that could walk away at this point was Bruce, and for whatever reason, he was choosing not to.
They all piled into Tony's plane, which turned out to be infinitely more comfortable than the quinjet had been. The seats were bigger, and cushioned, and it came fully stocked with snacks, which was great news, because Felicity was starving. She claimed a bottle of water, a bag of roasted almonds, and a bag of chocolate covered pretzels before retreating to an out of the way seat by herself.
Felicity was finally ready to face the possibility of having some kind of weird powers. The very idea had been a complete shock, almost more so than coming to another world. But she wouldn't be doing herself any favors to pretend that it wasn't fact. Ignoring her new powers might even put her in danger, as her unplanned jaunt out the quinjet had proved.
So…I can…teleport now?
Even thinking it felt like the punchline of a bad joke. Felicity Greene, the woman who hated superhero movies, was now living in one, and had developed superpowers to top it off. At least teleportation had a sort of logic to it though. The Tesseract had transported her from one world to another, then bounced her around in the Marvel universe too. Teleportation as a result made as much sense as anything else that had happened. It could be useful too, if she learned how to control it, especially while Hydra was after her.
Felicity shoved a handful of pretzels in her mouth. I cannot believe I'm actually thinking about this.
"Good news!" Tony said. "JARVIS got a location for us."
"Where?" Steve asked immediately, and Felicity had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. He acted like Tony hadn't been about to tell them anyway.
"Middle of No Where, Russia," Tony said. "I've got coordinates. From what JARVIS has found so far, it looks like Hydra has been keeping him at this place whenever he's not on a mission."
Steve nodded, his face grim, and Felicity felt pinpricks of guilt for her dismissive attitude a few moments ago. She kept forgetting that Bucky was Steve's best friend. Felicity wasn't the only one having a really bad day.
"So, get comfortable, everyone," Tony said. "We've got a long flight ahead of us."
The others settled in, and a few minutes later the jet was taxing down the runway, and then they were off. Felicity looked out her window, watching as the ground slipped away, and felt a flicker of unease. I'll have to be careful what I think while we're up here. She wasn't sure what exactly had triggered her powers before; her best guess was that her strong desire to be away from Steve had done the trick. But she wasn't eager for a repeat of tossing herself out of the jet.
Noise distracted her, and Felicity looked away from the window to see Steve settling in the seat across from her. Felicity eyed him, but didn't say anything. Steve didn't either for a moment, just studied her and then sighed, clasping his hands together. "Look," he said, "I wanted to apologize for earlier. You were right. I have put you in more danger, and this…isn't your fight. Not really. I shouldn't have pushed you into it."
Felicity tried for a moment to hold on to her resentment towards him, because that was easier. She didn't want to get involved in the messes that always followed superheroes. Or at least, no more involved than she already was. But his expression was sincere and direct, and – and –
He wasn't just a character. Steve wasn't the poster on Ellie's wall, he wasn't some one-dimensional fantasy in a summer blockbuster, he was a person. They all were. Including the friend that Steve was desperate to rescue. They were real, and maybe her situation couldn't be fixed, but theirs still could. Could she blame him for trying?
Felicity's resentment evaporated and she echoed his sigh. "Yeah, well. I get why you did."
He shook his head. "Why doesn't matter. I shouldn't have done it."
If Ellie or one of Felicity's friends had said something like that, Felicity would probably have tossed a pretzel at them. She didn't know Steve well enough to know how he'd react to that though, so she refrained. Instead, she said, "Okay, then let's say we just wipe the slate clean and start over."
Steve nodded, but his expression was still serious. "I appreciate the offer."
"Great," Felicity said. She flashed a wide smile and held out a hand. "Hi, I'm Felicity."
Steve stared at her, his eyebrows slowly climbing. "I'm sorry?"
"We're starting over," she reminded him. Felicity wiggled her fingers. "Come on, don't make it weird."
"You've already crossed that line," Tony called from his seat nearer the front of the plane.
Felicity responded without looking away from Steve. "This conversation does not include you!"
Steve's expression softened, a smile creeping up on him. He took Felicity's hand and shook it. "Steve. Nice to meet you, Felicity."
AN: And this chapter takes a look at what's going on with Fury, Natasha, and Clint, and Felicity is starting to make strides. In the next chapter or two, an eagerly awaited moment should be coming; we'll see how it goes :D
Thank you for the lovely response to the last chapter; hope y'all enjoyed this one too!