Chapter 3: War

New York City, 2007

I: Tony

For the life of him, Tony couldn't understand why Cap, or any of his followers would make war between heroes over Superhero Registration.

To him, the issue was crystal clear.

It was an ultimatum from the government.

Clean up your act, or we'll bring back the Keene Act.

And he doubted anyone would be dropping a Giant Psychic Death Squid on New York anytime soon, and that was what it took to get the Keene Act repealed the first time.

Every minute the war went on, it made superheroes look bad in the eyes of the people they had sworn to protect. It was confusing and frightening for Tony, having to fight his friends; he could only imagine how it was for ordinary people.

The Anti-Reg papers, they called him a fascist, they compared him to Hitler, they said he was a Machiavellian monster, another Senator McCarthy.

But he had thought he was right, and he thought it was worth it.

Until Steve was assassinated.

There was no more peace for Tony, and no more sleep, and despite the rationalisations he heaped on himself, only now could he see it had gone too far.

Captain America, the Sentinel of Liberty, was dead.

Tony Stark had lost his best friend.

The mask world was in shambles.

And who was left to pick up the pieces?

Iron Man, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He tried to be positive.

Tony tried not to think of himself as having betrayed all of them.

***

In his office at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Tony worked almost around the clock, trying not just to adjust to his new position, but to heal the rift in the superhero community.

He offered complete amnesty to any former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or associates who had sided with Captain America in the conflict, masks and non-masks alike.

Only a few hours after he made the announcements, he heard murmurs in the halls.

People saying "Good morning, Mr. Director."

There was only one other person who held that title.

Tony left his office, and beheld before his wondering eyes the Director of Covert Operations unlocking the door of the office he had occupied since 1954.

"Eddie? You came back?"

"Sure I did. Who the fuck were you gonna get to replace me?"

"I was worried about that. But…you and Steve…"

"Yeah, me an Steve. You an' Steve, too. This ain't a social club, Stark. Steve an' I have been doin' what we had ta do for the good of this country since you were in diapers. I ain't about to stop now."

"What about Liv?"

Eddie Blake laughed.

"She wants to cut your fucking head off and mount it on the wall. But she'll get over it. She;s always threatenin' to cut somebody's head off an pickle it, but she's only done it once. You got bigger problems than the kid."

Iron Man followed the Comedian into his office.

"Oh?"

"You don't see nothin' fishy in alla this? The way that shit in Stanford with Nitro just happened to go down, right when they started makin' noise in DC about Registration? Wasn't that convenient? Jimmy was onto something there, with that Damage Control deal. I'm tellin' you, it's a put-up job, Shellhead. This was all a catered affair, and us masks were only invited to the party to be the entertainment. It started with the mutants, and they spread it over to us. It was a cinch there'd be war. And look how it ended. The public's scared shitless. All the major teams are in shambles. The Bat and Supes are hardly speakin'. Thor's gone, Cap's dead, and who's holdin' the bag? You. Somebody planned this. To make us weak, so they could make their move. Now I don't know who they are yet, but I got some ideas. I'm workin' on it."

"Do you have proof of this?"

"No. But I will."

"It does make sense. Do you think it goes all the way to the top?"

"What? To Dubya? Shit, he makes his father look like Albert Einstein. That dim-bulb drunken sunnuvabitch ain't smart enough for that. Cheney, he's another story. Just what we needed. Another Dick in the White House. That cocksucker. Tries to act like he's higher up than me. Who the fuck does he think he is? He's smarter than Georgie, though. Christ, it's been so long since we had anybody worth a shit as President, it almost makes me miss Jack Kennedy. I admit it, I had that gun pointing in the wrong direction. Shoulda shot Dick Nixon, saved the world a whole lotta trouble. But I fixed that mistake, didn't I? And, at least Bubba had a brain, and me' an him usedta have some good times. Get some broads, case 'a beer, yunno? But no, I think this is an outside threat. But I got people looking into it."

Some of the casual admissions the Comedian made to him in conversation over the years, knowing he wasn't going to say shit, really shocked Tony.

That was probably why he made them.

"What people? I'm the Director, shouldn't I know about this?"

"When I know something, you'll know. That's the way it worked with Nick. The less people who know what I'm doin', my end, the better."

The Director retuned to his office to find Jack Blake waiting for him.

Jack, like his father, was rumoured to be a mutant passing for a normal human.

There was no rumour when it came to his twin brother, Tom Logan.

He was Wolverine's son, and had inherited his father's characteristics, and, like Wolverine, he hadn't been de-powered.

They were a team, Viking and Patch, and worked with various masks on different missions, but always together.

That was what Jack was there about.

"Mr. Director, the Old Man wants me and Patch to do some sniffin' for him. I wanted to get permission to bring Patch in on it, because I wasn't sure if your amnesty extends to mutants."

Tony had known Liv's sons since they were toddlers, and the way Jack was talking to him like he didn't know him didn't feel too special.

"Jack, don't be so goddamn formal. Of course amnesty extends to mutants. You are people too. Your mother and I have been trying to convince the world of that since 1971. Where the hell is Tommy? Is he holed up somewhere with his father?"

"No. He's down in the lab. With Ma. Don't go down there, Tony. Pop's got this conspiracy idea, which sounds pretty good, and Tommy, he genuinely forgives you, but Ma's mad. Real mad. She came back because she thinks Cap would have wanted her to. And she believes Pop's theory. But, and I ain't kiddin', she might kill you soon as look at you."

"That doesn't surprise me. What about you, Jack?"

Jack Blake shrugged, in the same way his father did.

"I didn't take sides during the war. Why start now? Hell, we're supposed to fight the badguys, not each other. I ain't mad at you, Tony. You coulda been my father as easy as Pop was, yunno? Who even knows if a littlea you didn't slide in there, someplace, right? So, are we square?"

"We're square."

"Good. About time shit gets back to normal. Jesus."

His phone began to ring.

"Yeah, what, I'm workin'? Oh, it's you, honey. Sure, I can get away. I can always get away for you, you're my girl, you know that…who, Ivy? Shit, Ivy don't own me, an' I don't own Ivy…how long…that's plenty of time for me. Just don't wear anything complicated. I'll seeya in a little while."

Jack hung up his phone and got up to leave.

"Hey, Tony, Cap was your best friend. Just like a brother. If I fucked up and Tommy got killed, I'd feel bad enough, I wouldn't need nobody to make it worse for me, yunno? Now, I gotta go. Emma just called me. Cyke's gonna be away, tonight, and she sounds like she's dyin' for a real man."

Jack had a thing about bad girls. Every woman he'd ever been with was either a current or former villainess, or at least a lady of very questionable character.

His current girlfriend was Poison Ivy.

The Poison Ivy.

And he seemed to have her bewitched.

"Jack, you have to lay off the bad girls. It's going to kill you."

"You first, Tony."

He winked, conspiratorially, opened the door and left.

Tony picked up the phone, and asked his assistant to send Tom Howlett to his office.

***

Other than the fact they both had red hair and green eyes you would never know that Tom Howlett and Jack Blake were brothers, let alone twins.

They both looked like their fathers, and you couldn't find two men less physically similar than Eddie Blake and Logan.

Of course, the little quirk of nature that engendered their birth was fairly rare, but considering that Napalm had been sleeping with Wolverine one night and the Comedian the next for years, and that she was always casual with her birth control pills because she'd had six abortions and her doctors differed as to whether she was barren, the stage for their appearance was certainly set.

They had both inherited their mother's intelligence, however, and if casual paranoia and instinctive mistrust are inherited traits, those too.

Tom, however knew, doubtless knew something that Director Stark didn't, and he very much wanted to.

"How's your father?"

"Good."

"Where's your father?"

"Safe."

"Because we didn't part on the best of terms."

"I know."

"Look, Tom, your stepfather is sitting in his office because he's been Director of Covert Operations since 1954, and no one else can do his job. Your brother came here because his father asked him to a job. And your mother, well, she's probably looking for an opportunity to kill me and make it look like an accident. Something that your father would rejoice in, as the last words he uttered to me were a death threat. Why are you here, Tommy?"

Tom Howlett shifted his short, stocky, muscular body uncomfortably in his chair.

"Don't pay no attention to Jack. Sometimes he's just like Uncle Eddie, he hasta act like nothin' bothers him. It's all just business and it's all a fuckin' joke. Jack didn't take sides in the war because he didn't want to go against you, or Cap, an' he was on his way here when he even smelled amnesty. Jesus, Tony, you could just have easily been either one of our fathers as Pa and Uncle Eddie. We've known you just as long, and you been around almost as much. Hell, if it wasn't for you, when that whole squid thing went down, we'd all be dead. I didn't take sides in the war, not because I'm a mutant, but because I couldn't go against you, no matter what I believed. And I'm here because I'm glad it's over. I know Pa blames you for everything, but just because I'm my father's son, it don't mean I'm my father."

"Tom, I don't want to cause a rift between you and Logan."

"I explained to him I was comin' in. I explained to him why. I said you were like family to me, and I couldn't turn my back on you any more than I could turn my back on him. He didn't like it. But he understood. I think he'll come around. Everybody will. It's just too soon to expect much."

"I know, Tom. What about your mother?"

"Ma? Don't hold your breath. You screwed the pooch on that one. She flat out wants to see you dead. She's so mad at you, she rants and raves about it and pounds the table. She really feels betrayed."

"But she's the one who took sides against me."

"That's not the way she sees it. Look at it from her perspective. You know and I know that Jack and Uncle Eddie are both mutants, and you know that she shot herself up with that serum she made from their blood and made herself one. And the whole world knows that me and my Dad are mutants. She feels the way my father does. That the Superhero Registration Act is just as Fascist and racist as the Mutant Registration Act. And what do you, one of her oldest and best friends in the world, among other things, whaddya you do? You support it. Then, to top it all off, Cap gets assassinated. That was the last straw. I'm tellin' you, Tony, she wants your blood. Until we can get her off the warpath, you better start sleepin' in the armor."

"I'm not afraid of your mother."

"That makes one of us. You seen my brother, today?"

"He just left to go meet Emma Frost."

Tom shook his head.

"He can't keep his hands outa that cookie jar. Ever since he was 17. I feel bad for Cyke. Every time he turns his back on that chick, she's fuckin' my brother. And he acts casual about it, but he's been sold on her since he was 17. Her too. She thinks the sun rises and sets on Jack Blake, but, I dunno, it's like this weird forbidden romance. I mean, I don't get it and I try to stay out of it. After all, what am I supposed to do? Rat on him? I'm not an X-Man. Not since Scooter kicked Professor X out of his own home. I don't owe that asshole shit. Fuck him. If there's anybody who's head I want, it's not yours, Tony, it's that fuckin' asshole Scooter."

"It's not your problem, Tom. And it's not just your brother, although, oddly enough, he may be the great, enduring and tragic love of Miss Emma Frost's shallow, manipulative shrewish life of bitchery and nymplomania. I stopped seeing Emma because I don't like having that much company."

"Aww, he's a fuckin' dick, but, poor Scooter, just the same."

"Well, he's clueless and happy. And I think Emma loves him, in her own special cold and unfeeling bitch way. She's just not the monogamous type. Might as well let it alone."

"You sound bitter, Tony."

"That's only because I am. That woman's a menace."

"Yeah. Jack's better off with Ivy."

"Precisely. He knows that. He's a smart man, your brother."

"Helluva lot smarter than Scooter."

"Jesus, Tom, isn't everyone else?"

Mr. Director had his first good laugh in a long, long time.

***

Tony thought about what Tom and Jack told him.

He thought about moving himself into S.H.I.E.L.D HQ, or relocating to the Hellicarrier, or even taking Tom's advice and sleeping in the Iron Man armor.

But, he didn't do it.

That night, and many nights after, he went home, and just got undressed and went to bed.

He wasn't going to run from Napalm.

Or from fate.

Sleep and Tony weren't that well acquainted , anymore, so, when the bedroom doors crashed open, he was just alarmed.

Not really surprised.

He had been expecting her.

He sat up in bed and the covers fell away from him.

Liv's self-induced mutation kept her from looking any older than she had when she used to playfully burst into his bedroom, back in the good old days, in the seventies. Extremis had kept Tony in youthful good shape, but even though they might not look any different, it had been miles and years since then.

The last time he had seen her was in the thick of battle.

She had slashed a big hole in his suit, right through the liner that he stored in his bones with that adamantium machete, leaving a bloody gash all the way across his chest.

She thrust her hand into the slash she had made in his armor, to feel how deep it had gone, and it was the closest they had been since the war began.

"I can feel your heart pounding under my hand, Tony." She told him.

Pulled out her hand, swung back the machete.

"Let's see how good your Extremis powers really are."

"Harlequin! Stand down! Now!" Steve had ordered.

But Cap was dead, and there was no one there now, to stop her from killing him.

She was in full costume; there was no question she had come to kill him.

And she was going to finish it the way she had started it.

She unsheathed the adamantium machete.

He sat up in his bed, naked, in the dark.

"Please, Napalm, not like this. Give me a chance to defend myself."

"Nobody gave Cap a chance to defend himself, you son of a bitch!"

Tony played the very last card he had.

He got out of bed and walked over to her.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

"If you're going to kill me, shouldn't I get a last request?" he asked.

Tony pulled Liv's cowl off, put his arm around her waist, held her as close to his body as he could and kissed her.

The machete fell out of her hand, and landed on the floor.

Is she really kissing me back?

Well, I don't have two tongues.

Liv pushed him onto his back, on the bed, took off her weapons and her boots, and got on top of him.

Only the moon lit them.

"Granted, you lousy bastard!"

Was she really that cold-blooded?

After almost 40 years of being friends, colleagues, lovers, was she really going to give him one last screw and then cut him in half?

Tony decided he didn't care.

What the fuck, everybody's got to go, sometime.

"Napalm." He found himself groaning.

She unzipped her boiler suit halfway; unusually, she was naked under it.

He reached for her breasts and she grabbed his wrists, hard.

"Wait a fuckin' second. You are a dirty, murdering traitor of a sunnuvabitch, you know that?"

"Napalm, please…"

"I should have let you die in the street!"

"Then what are you doing?"

"Shut the fuck up!"

She let go of his wrists, and he cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing gently, and raised himself off the pillows to put his lips around each plump, pink nipple.

Tweaking and licking and sucking, savouring the moans and groans she was making.

He unzipped her costume all the way and he peeled the boiler suit off of her.

Her hair was tied back in a long braid that hung all the way down past her ass, and he undid it, releasing her hair all over both of them.

Groaning, they rolled over and Tony was tangled in her hair like fire, kissing her and she was pushing his head down.

Making soft, quiet, strangled gasps.

He had it again, a taste of hellfire on his lips.

Then a flood.

She was pulling his hair harder than she had ever pulled it, grinding her sex against his face, and he just couldn't get enough of her, pulling her jerking, twitching body closer, pushing her legs apart further as she came, violently.

She cursed him violently, too, through clenched teeth.

"You still like it, don't you, you son of a bitch, you dirty motherfucker! If you like it, take it all! Take it, you lousy son of a bitch!"

He got up from between her legs and mounted her, and pushed the sweaty tendrils of wet red hair out of her face.

Tony kissed her forehead, he kissed her on her closed eyes, he kissed her lips, he thrust into her, in passion and hunger, and she hissed and wound her legs and her arms around him in kind.

She was angry, alright, he could feel the fury in her body, and he wasn't going to knock it out of her. The closer she got to orgasm, the angrier she got holding onto him hard enough to hurt him.

But he was so far from anything like pain, he couldn't feel it.

And if this was it, he couldn't resist the urge to talk dirty to her, one last time.

"If you hate me so much, why are you so hot and so wet for me? Just like you've always been. You may hate me now, but your body still loves me. Your pussy still loves me, it wants more. It always wants more. I know you. I know just how you want me to fuck you. You don't have to tell me how, baby, but do it. Tell me one more time."

"Harder!" she hissed.

He pulled out of her, reared up, pulled her body down to his, grabbed her legs by the ankles and thrust into her, hard and deep.

"I know, Napalm, I know." He told her.

She screamed.

"YOOOOWWW! OH, FUCK! OH, TONY, OH FUCK!"

He was hitting her sweet spot with every thrust, he could tell by the way she was squeezing him, moving with him; he let go of her legs and braced himself against the headboard of the bed.

He didn't care if she killed him, he really didn't.

No less than Batman, her own stepfather warned Tony that someday she'd kill him, that they called her Napalm because she burns things down, and he would be one of them.

So what, big deal, what the hell did he have left to live for, anyway?

"That's right, you little red devil, give me all your hellfire. I don't care if you kill me. If I can't ever fuck you like this again, I don't want to live. I want your hellfire. I need it. It feels good. Burn me, Napalm. Squeeze my cock, baby, make me come, burn me down!"

He was getting really close, and she was there, she was coming all over him, creaming all over his balls, gasping, and howling and her body undulating beneath his, like a snake.

It felt so goddamn good, and when he came it almost felt like he was on fire, his eyes were closed and he was grunting and cursing and gasping.

If this was going to be his last fuck, goddamn, it had been a good one.

He rolled off of her, onto his back, panting.

"Alright, go ahead and kill me, I'm ready to die!" he exclaimed.

She was giving him a really funny look.

"You crazy motherfucker! You know, it's not bad enough you're a dirty, murdering traitor. And a drunk. But you're such a fucking whore." She told him, and tried to get out of bed.

Tony had just about as much as he was going to put up with out of her, and he pulled her back in.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to cast that as rape? Because you can't rape the willing, and if I wasn't willing, I would have thrown you out of bed."

"Don't you have any pride?"

"No. I am a drunk and a whore. Just like you. You come here in a fit of righteous anger to execute me, and end up in bed with me? That's fairly whorish, don't you think? And you've got a lot of room to talk about murder. You've killed more people than cancer. Get off your high horse, Napalm. It doesn't suit you, at all."

"How could you do it, Tony? Change your mind and stab us all in the back? Throw us into a…a fucking concentration camp in the Negative Zone? What the fuck happened to you?"

"I thought I was doing the right thing, that's what. I never saw registration as fascist and oppressive and unreasonable. You never understood, none of you did. It was registration or back to the Keene Act. To forced retirement. And who would that have been good for. Not us. Not the country. Not the world. Jesus, Napalm, not everyone is a superhero. Ordinary people, we scare them sometimes, you know? And all they wanted was for us to have to account to them for something. You've never accounted to anyone for anything. Your father's the Joker, and he and Batman both knew you'd grow up and leave bodies in the streets, they just fixed it so they'd be badguy bodies. Not that I'm knocking you. But, did it ever occur to you, that kind of thing frightens people? That kind of power? All they wanted was an accounting. Was that too much to ask?"

"Yeah, Tony. It was. This is America, Jack, remember? Land of Free? Home of Brave? Bill of Rights? My rights as an American don't end when I put on a mask, especially when I do it for the greater good of this crazy fuckin' country. If they wanna passa law to outlaw us, fine. Them's the breaks. When they need us, they'll repeal. It's bad enough with the Mutant Registration Laws. You know what Eddie and his family have to go through, keepin' their mutation quiet? And since 1985, me too? You know why? Because mutants don't have the same rights as other people. And somebody has to be lookin' out for them from the outside. Now there's only a few of us left. Sure, that'll change, but, you know how it feels? You know how they treat my son? I was born a freak and an outcast, but at least they don't take your rights for that! And this is shit coming out of the Bush White House, the worst, most corrupt, oligarchical anti-democratic administration in American history? They may have told you all they wanted was an accounting, but that was bullshit. Fucking bullshit." Liv retorted.

"Maybe it was. Now, I honestly don't know, anymore. But I thought it was right, Liv. I thought I was saving lives. You don't think I knew what it was, getting into bed with George and his cronies? I knew. After 9-11, the whole ball game changed. I was scared for what would happen to us if we didn't register. Gitmo is a big place. Big enough for a lot of us. I thought I was saving our freedom. Maybe even saving our lives. I never expected it to go as far as it did, to all-out war. I never knew I could go as far as I did. I didn't. I certainly never expected Steve to get killed. If you want to know the truth, ever since he died, I feel like everything I did was worth nothing. And if Eddie is right about all of this being some grand conspiracy by supervillians as yet unknown to undermine us, then we've all been run amok. And, the kicker is, when it comes to that kind of shit, nobody has a nose for it like Eddie Blake. Maybe he's right. Maybe it is all a big fucking cosmic joke. "

"Yeah. And it's on you, Tony. Whoever they might be, they sure played you like a fuckin' violin, didn't they?"

"Yes they did. So fucking what? At least I never lost my sobriety. So what do you want me to do, about it Liv? Kill myself? Go to Steve's grave and slice open my wrists? Lay down and let you cut off my head?"

"That's what you deserve."

"Bullshit! Fucking bullshit! If you think that's what I deserve, what the hell are we doing in bed together, with my come on your tits and your pussy on my moustache? Well? Got an answer for that, Napalm? If you want me dead, if I deserve to die, then why didn't you come in here and blow my head off instead of fucking my brains out?"

"I don't know? How the fuck should I know? I know I came here to kill you, I don't fucking know why I didn't! Do you know how angry I am at you? Didn't you notice?"

"No, not especially. When you get angry, you get violent. Most of the people you get mad enough to kill end up dead, or at least wishing they were. You're a brutal, violent son of a bitch, my little red-haired superhero ultravixen, and when you're angry with people, they notice it. What I did notice was you grinding your pussy into my face and calling me a son of a bitch and telling me to take it. That was actually pretty fucking hot. I'm getting hard again, just thinking about it, if you want to know the truth. That's what I noticed. You being a drunk and whore, and not caring how mad you were at me, when you saw me with my cock out, you wanted to fuck. And me, of course, also being a drunk and a whore, I could care less if you were going to kill me, if you wanted it, I was going to give it to you. And if you still don't want to kill me, I'm ready to give it to you, again."

"You're a madman, Tony. A fucking madman. I came here to kill you."

"Bullshit! If you came here to kill me, I'd be dead. Besides, every other woman I've ever really cared about, except Pepper, either loathes me, or is six feet under. Who else do I have?"

Liv chuckled.

"Well, you filthy traitor of a gutter drunk and an old whore, all you can scare up is me. Me, an old time shanty Irish drunk, and a killer and a horny old whore to boot. Guilty as charged, Tony. Did you have your four drinks, today?"

"I haven't even had one."

The Harlequin got out of bed and fixed them both a double whiskey.

"Down the hatch." She said.

They drank, and she got back into bed.

"I prefer to think of you as the red-haired porno queen of superhero ultravixens." Tony told her.

"And I prefer to think of you as an old time matinee-idol, a real life swashbuckling hero, with a twinkle in his eye and mischief in his heart." Liv replied.

"Well, then, let's be kind to each other, Napalm, because the world won't be. And, you know I love it when you're bad. Come on. Let's reconcile. You can call me some more filthy names, and we'll get around to our favourite number."

"Tony, just for a minute, be fucking serious and quit thinking about your cock for one minute. What do you really want with me?"

"Liv, I'm all alone in the world. I feel like a dirty, murdering traitor. I just killed my best friend. That's how it feels. I feel like I was the one who pulled the trigger. I need you. For 38 years we were friends, we worked together, I never got my own day of the week, but we slept together, too. And then this war happened and you were gone, and now my best friend is dead. And I feel like everyone on God's Green Earth has turned their back on me. Please, try to forgive me, Liv. I need you."

"Alright, Tony. I'll try."

It was one of those terrible moments that lasts a million years, and then the familiar thrill of her hard, tattooed little hand stroking his cock.

"Jesus, you are getting hard again, aren't you? And it is my lucky number. I know I'm going to hell for this, I fucking know I am…"

"…but what a way to go…"

***

Just around dawn, Tony was riding down in the elevator with Napalm, in his bathrobe.

"So, does this mean that everything is alright with us, again?" he asked, hopefully,

"No. But it means it's good enough. I'm sorry, Tony. But the way I feel is the way I feel."

"It's alright, Napalm. You said you'd try to forgive me. I'll wait."

The elevator doors opened.

"Will you be back again, sometime?" he asked.

"Ain't I always? I'll wait for you in the lobby. You can give me a ride to work."

"You came to kill me in a cab?"

"Yeah. It was a spur of the moment thing. I gotta find a pay phone. Call Eddie. I just got up in the middle of the night and said I was goin' to kill you and split."

"Liv, why don't you break down and buy a cell phone?"

"I hate those fuckin' things! Computers, OK, fine. But those fuckin' cell phones? Fuck'm. It's like a fuckin' leash."

"You can use mine on the way downtown."

"Whatever. Thanks."

There were about a million things Tony wanted to say to her, but he didn't say them.

Something was better than nothing, he decided, and rode back up in the elevator to get dressed, and face the world.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.