"So these… super-humans. They're the results of genetic experiments?"
"For the most part, yes. There's some that aren't – as far as we can tell. But that may just be because we're not seeing a big enough picture."
Fury was accompanying Buchanan-Barnes on his first assignment – he'd been told he would be assigned a more permanent senior partner after a few excursions into the field.
For now he was with his former army commander, sitting together in a Boston hotel room, trying to work out how such a sharp man had fallen for such ridiculous lies.
Fury folded his clothes with army precision, empty sleeves running diagonally across the shirt he'd worn during the day.
"But there could be superhumans born that way, who are unknowingly the result of eugenics exercises, carried out by Nathan Essex and his contemporaries?"
Some things became more normal with repetition. No matter how many times the SHIELD party line left his lips, they didn't sound any less ludicrous.
"Yes, that's one of several working theories." Bucky – Nick was struggling to think of him by his nickname – was deadly serious. It saddened him to see a hard military mind accept such gibberish.
But, aside from concern for his friend, Fury was prepared to play along with this. Boston was a nice city, and he was getting a good wage to go along with this delusion.
The pair sat outside a bar, looking across the street. Bucky was wearing an unbuttoned grey casual jacket and porkpie hat; Fury wore a leather jacket and shades, protecting him from the bright but cold Boston sun.
"Zebediah Killgrave?" Fury asked.
"That's him."
The colour of his skin was attention-grabbing enough, but Killgrave walked with two attractive, well-dressed women. From the way they were dressed, and the poise they held themselves with, they could very possibly have been models.
Fury turned his attention back to Killgrave's skin.
It must have been some sort of film production makeup, nothing more complicated than that. Stranger than his appearance was the fact that nobody seemed to be shocked by the way he looked. As a black man, Fury had gotten both fear and hostility in less than an hour walking these streets – a purple man apparently inspired less hostility than a black man in modern America.
Fury had responded with his coolest, most casual smile – one that children warmed to, women found disconcerting, and, in alliance with his muscular frame, told men that he could take them down with ease if they tried anything. But 'The Purple Man' apparently had no need to even go that far.
A teenage boy slowed as he crossed Killgrave's path – seemingly shocked by the man's appearance. Killgrave turned his head to speak to him – whatever he said relaxed the adolescent.
That seemed to confirm Fury's hypothesis – he was an actor, or maybe a male model, playing an alien in some photoshoot.
Was it possible that SHIELD was so incompetently run, that an actor from a film-set or play had inspired panic, simply by heading onto the street in costume during a break between scenes?
"I'm going across."
Bucky spoke with military precision, his face coloured with seriousness and certainty. He rotated the last drops of his scotch round the inside of his glass before downing it, and rose to his feet, straightening his hat.
"I'm just going to observe from inside the bar, not make contact. We need to know a little more about how he operates before we do that."
Fury gave a slight nod in response. Everything the Major suggested made sense on its own terms – if you accepted that aliens and superhumans existed, then everything else flowed logically from that. The problem was the logical fallacy that all else depended on.
A joyful, goofy smile filled Bucky's face as he reappeared, hat under his arm. How drunk could he have possibly have gotten in twenty minutes?
He ran across the road, a car breaking suddenly to avoid interrupting his path, his face lightened by a broad grin all the while. He didn't seem to notice the traffic, or the pedestrians who diverted around the oblivious path he made towards Fury.
Bucky's face was filled not just with joy, but surprise – as if he had just this minute received a vital revelation, the kind that changed the course of history, the kind that caused Archimedes to leap from the bath.
"I've remembered something very important!"
Fury examined Bucky's face for some sign that this was an act a performance, a hint, however subtle. There was nothing subtle to be found there.
"What's that sir?"
"Ice cream!"
"Ice cream?"
"There's an ice cream parlour down the road! We can get ice cream from there!"
The SHIELD training missions had instructed the inductees to 'expect the unexpected', to be prepared for any possibilities. Though Fury had passed with flying colours, this was throwing him off. He was dumbstruck as he looked up at his former unit commander. For once in his life, Nicholas Fury was speechless.
"Come on! We need to go and get some ice cream. It's a perfect day for ice cream!"
"It's not especially warm…"
"Every day's a perfect day for ice cream!"
This had to be some sort of training mission – he'd been put in a situation he couldn't possibly have seen coming, to test his initiative. Maybe if he passed it in sufficient style, he'd finally get a proper answer about SHIELD's true nature.
"You go and get the ice cream. I'll just be a few minutes."
Intense disappointment filled Bucky's face, replaced quickly with a broad, innocent smile.
Normally Bucky was a sly man – a man with a sense of humour, certainly, but a soldier first and foremost – a man who'd seen war and had a corner of his mind forever darkened as a result. But now, he was acting like a buffoon.
"Promise you won't be too long?" Bucky appeared sincerely hurt. If this was an act, it was a good act.
"I promise."
Bucky broke off down the road, jogging at a steady pace.
Fury stood, straightened his jacket, and walked towards the bar opposite.