After swiping a special card and punching in a code, the elevator that Agent Coulson led me into opened onto a hall way with several doors leading off it. He led me to one after finding a hidden catch in the wall and entering another code. Inside was a decent sized office with a large desk with a large flat screen computer on top of it. The walls were blank and the curtains were drawn away from the windows behind the desk allowing a view at the city a decent ways below.
"Let me go grab you a chair. I'll be right back." It made sense he didn't have an extra chair. This seemed more like an office than a place to talk, but I was sure this was the most secure place to be other than an actually SHIELD building. It didn't take long for Agent Coulson to return with a rather comfortable looking rolling chair. "I don't think whoever I stole this from should miss it anytime soon..." He still looked a little uncomfortable despite this comment.
"Whose chair is it?" I asked.
"Well, Santa hardly ever comes here, but he demands to have an office available anyway." The agent made a joke!
"I get the Director's chair? Sweet! I hope he doesn't get furious." I giggled at my own joke, but Agent Coulson simply shook his head and moved the chair from behind the desk so it was facing me.
"Now is when you are going to convince me."
"Convince you of what?"
"The truth." Feeling slightly more understanding, I tried to gather my thoughts. Coulson wanted me to convince him that I wasn't a threat and that I really was from another place where I had watched movies of this world.
"A man named Stan Lee began making comics during World War Two. They featured a man from Brooklyn, just like Mr. Lee, who wanted to become a soldier, but couldn't. The character's name was Steve Rodgers. Mr. Rodgers had such a good heart that he was chosen to become a lab rat and was turned into a super-soldier. Captain America went off to war, encouraging not only those in his story, but the men on the battlefield and those back home. That was the point. He was a superhero to inspire the ordinary ones. I mean, he is born on July Fourth! How much more patriotic can you get?
The world expanded from there. More heroes like Iron Man, Spiderman, Ant Man, Ms. Marvel, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four. The world became so much bigger with the idea of mutants and their X-men. The collection of all these people became the Marvel Universe, named after the company. I just never imagined it could somewhere be real.
But to prove I know more than I should...Starting with Captain America, I would say not many people know that Steve Rodgers used to be an asthmatic with lots of other problems. Short, see his bones skinny, heart of gold, full of determination. And smart. At training camp, they were running laps and the Seargent told them if they could reach the flag on a flag pole, they could stop while everyone else continued running. Several men tried to shimmy up the pole and failed. Once everyone had stopped trying, Mr. Rodgers simply took the pins out of the bottom of the pole which made it drop to the ground. Peggy Carter tried really hard not to look impressed. He tried to not look too smug.
Another incident was when the general in charge of camp tossed a fake grenade into the group of trainees who were supposed to find cover. All but one did. Mr. Rodgers did not realize it was a fake grenade and decided to cover it with his own body to protect Agent Carter who was standing calmly nearby."
I continued with anecdotes from the movies and facts I had picked up from reading about the comics online. I even went on to talk about the X-men. I felt like the more 'classified' information I knew, especially non-relevant, the better off I was to convince Coulson. When the floodgates trickled down, I finally asked for a response back.
"Any questions for me? Something you think I would know, or something you simply want to know?" He stared at me for a while.
"How did you know who I was?"
"You tried to help Mr. Stark after his return from Afghanistan. Mr. Stark ignored your explicit desire to not reveal him as Iron Man. You were in charge of stealing Miss Foster's life work after Thor crash-landed. You were in charge of the facility surrounding Thor's hammer. Like I said previously, you almost ordered Agent Barton to shoot Thor. You held Mr. Stark under house arrest and told him if he tried to leave you would taser him and leave him to drool on the floor while you watched Super Nanny. Also, if I am correct in my assumption, you are the agent directly over Agents Barton and Romanov. You are a very influential person in superheroes lives."
"Rachel, I want you to know that I believe you. You have sufficient evidence that you came upon this information by accident, and the amount of information you have retained suggests it was given in an entertaining, story format. Also, I want you to know that I will stand by you. You are my
responsibility. If we could keep the amount of information you know just between you, me, and the Director though, that would be best at the moment." It was a huge relief to know that Coulson believed me. I also agreed that not telling anyone else what I knew was for the best, but I was nervous about the Director. "Now, I'm guessing that means something very bad is going to happen." I winced for he was correct. He sighed. "What is it?" I gazed out the window preparing.
"Right now, the movie has a happy ending. Bad guy is captured and only one side member gets killed. Since the killing can easily be stopped, I would prefer to keep everything else as smooth as possible. Trying to prevent certain events from happening now will only make it unpredictable in the future."
"A very reasonable conclusion, and one that I agree with. However, whenever there is enough drama and action for the movie, I'm sure there are some casualties. Can we try to prevent them?"
I closed my eyes as panic flooded through me. Of course not only would the heroes be real, but also the innocent civilians who were going to be killed by the alien army. A handful of very special people were nothing compared to the hundreds who were at stake. That event was still far in the future though. I would have plenty of time to worry and figure things out later. I would only think about what happened at the beginning that I could change. The beginning was relatively calm, except for one thing.
"If you get sent to the Tesseract because it is acting up, you need to send as many scientists as you can away from the building."
"The Tesseract. That's what is going to be causing problems?" I was surprised to realize he was right. I hadn't thought about it that way. Usually everyone just blamed Loki.
"You have something that is the most powerful thing in the world, there are going to be problems." Agent Coulson didn't dignify that with a response.
"What do you mean acting up?"
"Well, Director Fury, you, and Agent Hill all go and check up on it. I figure that's got to be a big indicator." He nodded.
"You mentioned that Tony lights up his tower near the beginning of the movie. Is that before or after the Tesseract?"
"After, by like a day. Its night and you ask Mr Stark to be ready the next day, so I would imagine not very much time had passed."
"Alright then, I'll call Miss Potts and ask her when Tony is planning on lighting his tower."
"You do realize he probably will just do it spur of the moment?" I got something that might have been construed as a snort from anyone else from Agent Coulson.
"I know, but I can try." He raised his phone to his ear and walked till he was in front of the window. "Miss Potts? This is Agent Coulson." Pause. "Yes, I was just wondering if Tony had a schedule for turning on his tower." Another, longer pause. "Congratulations. Tomorrow night? Alright then, thanks for that information." Agent Coulson was turning toward me when his phone rang. "Director?" There was a rather lengthy pause in which Agent Coulson's face became very worried. "Yes sir. Do you think an evacuation might be a good precaution?" Another rather long pause. "Alright sir. See you tomorrow, sir." He came back to his chair and sat down face in his hands. I gave him a moment.
His began muttered partially to himself, "I will have to find a place for you when I go. I shouldn't have had you check out of that hotel." I was glad I was going to have somewhere I could sit and think. My wonderful brain had decided to remember that Clint was going to be taken over by Loki and that I might want to do something about that. Exactly what I could do was beside the point. I was trying to ignore all that for now. Instead, my brain leaped to how I had gotten into this mess in the first place, meeting Captain America.
"I don't know about sleeping arrangements, but if you think I need some kind of babysitter I'm sure Steve Rodgers would like some company."
"You think?" He sounded doubtful.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but he only came out of the ice a couple weeks ago, right?" He nodded. "So a couple weeks ago he was in the middle of World War Two, and now everyone is gone and the world is at relative peace. He might still be adjusting a little." He looked contemplative.
"Are you willing to be official with the Director?" I tried to ignore the nervousness I felt and gave a brief nod. "I will warn you, the Director will use whatever information you give him and will constantly want more, especially since you seem to know the future."
"I'm still a civilian though, right? I have rights, don't I?" Coulson smiled at my defiance.
"It's my job to defend you as much as possible. The Director sometimes forgets there are fragile humans behind the tools he uses." I tried to give myself a brief overview of the movie again, without being overwhelmed. There was no way to get through scotch free. There would have to be sacrifices made.
"The Director won't blame me if I don't stop certain things, right? Or you?" Somewhat surprisingly, I felt like I cared more about Coulson's approval than Fury's.
"Certain things like..." Right, Coulson was still testing me to know what kind of character I had.
"Events that would prevent me from..." Just knowing the future, or getting a kick out of knowing it, was not a reason for not preventing things from happening. "I mean, events that specifically led up to the big battle. Its going to be huge and lots of people are going to die. If I think tipping our hand too soon will send the battle else where, somewhere I can't even try to prevent..."
What could I do about the alien army? Should I just shut everything down now? Ask them to bury the cube? Leave Loki to appear in an empty room then stop him from leaving with the Avengers? Stop the movie from happening? I could! Wait. The alien army would still be out there though. And Thanos would be really mad. He would simply attack another way, one for which we could not prepare. But what good was preparation this time? At least I knew when and where. There could be a whole army on this side waiting. It could work. We could save lives.
Suddenly, I began to realize Coulson was calling out to me.
"In and out. In and out. Good. Keep breathing. In and out. Can you hear me now?"
I managed a weak, "Yes."
"Good. Then focus on your breathing for a little longer. In and out." The steady rhythm calmed my racing heart and thoughts. After a couple minutes, Coulson spoke again. "Well, delaying the call to the Director will mean he simply will be more busy and therefore more agitated." I nodded. It was time to reveal myself to Director Fury.