The Problem on Nick Fury's Left Shoulder

"Ah, Mephistopheles!"

- Doctor Faustus, Kit Marlowe

The Lead Box was SHIELD's most well-kept secret. Deep in the heart of a nowhere so nowhere that only three people knew what country it was in, the bunker was designed only to keep one prisoner - not a Hulk, not an alien pretending to be a god, but something archaic, something wicked. That which the organisation could never hope to understand.

They said she was a demon, and they said you should never, ever talk to her.

The agents new to the Box would sometimes laugh at this, and on their night off would drink a little too much and go down to the deepest, darkest room, a room that had no windows, no doors, a room which you could only see inside via a camera. A hologram of yourself was projected into the cell, so that she could see you, talk to you. She refused to talk unless she could see.

This happened about once a year. Annually, the Lead Box always had at least one death a year, always suicide. Sometimes more, though. Sometimes, if she was feeling playful, there would be a shooting.

Nick Fury was the only one who could talk to her unscathed, and he did not for one second doubt that the only reason for this was because she wanted him to be so.

"Hi honey," she crooned as his holographic form shivered into view in front of her, "you're home."

Doctor Faustus was compulsory reading for everyone who came to the Lead Box, obviously. But times had changed since then, and the robes of a monk were hardly fashionable. They had caught her- or rather, she had given herself to them- slap bang in the middle of the sixties, when hippies were holding hands and singing about peace. And so she wore a tie-dye dress and somehow never-wilting daisies in her hair.

"How are things?" she asked him, tracing invisible patterns on the floor with her toe. They had tried to track the foot's movements once to figure out what she was actually drawing, but once the agents started having nightmares they stopped.

"You expect me to believe you don't know?" he asked, and she raised an eyebrow.

"But how would I know, Nicholas? I'm a hermit, completely isolated from the world. All information I have is what you and your soldiers give me- and they have been very well behaved of late, I might add. I haven't had one single visit since the last time you appeared." She smiled. "You train them well."

SHIELD had received a phone call, in 1966, telling them to check the records of three other calls, and then an address. The three other calls had been anonymous, to three completely unconnected people, and had each lasted about half an hour. By the end of each, the recipients of the call- a mother, a father, a five-year old daughter- had been talked by a patient, soothing voice into killing their families. They went to the address and found her waiting for them, playing a game of chess against herself as she did.

"Did your parents never tell you not to play with your food?" Fury asked her.

"My father had bigger problems, Nicholas, as well you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Fury replied, "you're straight up from hell, and not some crazy ass Enhanced with mind control and some really good anti-aging products. You've said before."

Her smile grew wider. "You don't believe me. Of course you don't- this world does not belong to religion, not anymore, but science." She stood up from the bench she was sprawled on. "But there's still a tiny spore of doubt in your mind, isn't there? Festering away, saying, 'what if? What if there is something older than us, than science, than everything we know? And what if it's angry?'"

"You don't scare me," he lied without so much as batting an eyelid.

She nodded. "As you wish. So- Enhanced. That's what you call them, now? There must be a fair few, to merit them having a name, and they are common knowledge to you, and I cannot imagine you, Nicholas, letting these little miracles slip through your fingers. So what do you call your freak show? Don't lie to me, Nicholas."

Back in the control room, one of the men swore.

"The Avengers," he said, and she laughed.

"How inspiring! And how many people have they killed?"

"Nowhere near as many as you have."

"But I've never killed anyone, Nicholas. There's not a violent bone in my body. The worst thing I've ever done is talk to people." Her smile widened into a grin. "Just like we are, now. Tell me about your Avengers, my friend. Are they idols to your new culture of science and discovery? Are they your new gods? Gods will fail you, Nicholas. They can never keep their word. Whereas I am always faithful to mine."

That was the worst part. Not one thing she ever said was a lie.

"They will fail you, Nicholas. They already have, haven't they? Why else would they be called the Avengers? They must have had something to seek revenge for. They doubt each other, they are scared of the bigger, nastier things in this universe. They will turn on each other, and in doing so they will turn away from the light. And towards me." She was stood in front of his hologram, but her eyes were fixed on the camera. "You all will, sooner or later. And I will welcome you with open arms- no tests, no requirements. Just an agreement, and your Avengers will have everything they need to save your little blue world. Imagine how much easier the fight would be, if you had me on your side-"

Fury blinked as the hologram died and he was dragged back to the cold, clinical reality of the control room. "Thanks," he said weakly to one of the agents regulating the conversation, who nodded.

"Your heart rate got above a certain speed, the connection dies automatically when it picks up traces of excitement in the body. She got close, sir. I'm sorry."

His eye settled on the screen that still showed her, who was sat back on her bench and laughing to herself.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking- why don't we just kill her?"

He clenched his fist. "Because we can't, agent. Because whatever the hell she is, it's not something we have an ounce of control over. The only reason she's in here is because she wants to be."

The agent shivered. "Why?"

"I don't know. But the moment she decides she's had enough of this place... To put it bluntly, agent, we're all fucked. Or dammed, if she's telling the truth, like we weren't already."

"You really think she's- she's what she says she is, Director?"

"I don't trust myself enough to think about it. I'll leave her in your capable hands, agent. I have places to be."

That night, Fury received word that the soldier in the control room had shot himself. The news didn't shake him like it used to; it happened every year, after all.

He turned his attention back to the real world, where the evil was all people and there were no demons whispering in their ears.

Or at least, that's what he thought. Back in the Lead Box, Mephistopheles threw back her head and laughed until the invisible sun rose.

A/N imagine my surprise when I found out, months after writing this, that there is actually a character based off Mephistopheles in the Marvel comics universe. Still - I thought the Lead Box was a badass name for a prison, and Dr Faustus is one of my favourite plays, and I DO WHAT I WANT, YO.

NEXT: 'The cell door slammed behind her. "Dinner's at six," the prison guard told Natasha. "Word of advice? Don't eat the soup."'