Natasha was waiting in the hallway as Steve headed to the conference room. She eyed him critically. "Looks like you stepped on a land-mine," she commented with a pointed glance at his still bleeding arm.
Steve and Natasha were the last to enter the conference room. Fury, Coulson, Skye, May, Tony, and Rhodes were already gathered. Before Steve could take his seat, Coulson approached him, "Captain Rogers, before we get started I just wanted to apologize for Agent Tyler's behavior and to assure you that he will no longer be employed as an agent of SHIELD. He touched a clearly unwilling sub. I will not tolerate that type of behavior in my organization and I won't have it around my team."
Anger flared within Steve, hot and bright. "He did what?" Steve asked in a deadly voice.
Tony was far more ready to believe Agent's (Director Agent's?) version of events than Fury's. He decided that they all needed to know exactly what happened so he asked JARVIS to pull up the security feed of the incident. It came as a surprise to no one who knew the billionaire that he had installed access for his AI to the Initiative's systems when he built the complex. JARVIS pulled up the feed, projecting it onto a screen at the front of the room.
Steve watched in growing anger as the arrogant Dom approached Nikita. He could clearly see her try to leave, turning her back to the Dom. The swift violence of her reaction to the unwanted touch stirred something dark within him, pleased that she submitted to his touch alone. Or had. Steve knew he had a lot of ground to make up with her. Then his stomach dropped as he saw and heard Clint talk her back from wherever her mind had gone. Based on the information he gleaned from the files Natasha had provided him, this was a reaction to the childhood trauma he just barely understood. And instead of reassuring her, making her feel safe, Steve had blamed Nikita for the incident.
Steve turned hard eyes on Fury, "You told me she attacked the agent."
"She did," Fury insisted. "She overreacted."
"Are you kidding me!" demanded Skye. "Tyler tried to Dominate her. He all but used Voice even after she tried to get away, which I'm sure would have been his next move. You have no idea what that's like! She was defending herself!" The sub was clearly distressed and, Steve suspected she was speaking from past experience.
"It's okay Skye," placing a hand on her shoulder Coulson spoke in a soft yet confident voice. "I will never let that happen to you again."
"I know AC," she responded looking up at the older Dom with a watery smile.
Tony was appalled at the video, and not because of Nikita's actions. Tony deduced from the looks passing between Steve and Natasha that the good Captain had royally fucked up. Quickly formulating a plan, he shot off a few quick texts putting it in motion. Though he never spoke of it, Tony had sort of adopted the other Avengers and he already considered Nikita part of that family. He was also rapidly developing a soft spot for young Skye. The sub was brilliant, irreverent, and willing to go toe to toe with Fury. She reminded Tony of himself. He made sure to offer their new SHIELD liaison an invitation to the Tower to meet the rest of the team, which she gladly accepted.
"Touching as all this is," Fury interrupted, "can we please get some actual work done?"
Everyone allowed the deflection as they all had their own reasons for wanting to get this meeting over with.
When the meeting was over, Coulson stopped Steve, "Captain, a word if you don't mind?"
Steve stayed back, waiting until he and Coulson were the only ones left in the room before speaking. "What can I do for you Director?"
"Please, call me Phil," he said with a smile. "I wanted to ask you if Nikita was okay. If you have no objections, I'd like the chance to apologize to her directly."
Steve sighed, "She's really not okay, but that's my fault. I have no objection to your apologizing, but you'll have to talk to Clint for that, she's not talking to me right now."
"That's unfortunate," Coulson commented. "You know, I've made a career out of handling volatile subs like Barton and Stark. Now I have three young subs on my team, two genius scientists and a genius hacker with earthquake powers strong enough to level a mountain. They've taught me how important it is for subs to bond with other subs. The bonds between the tree of them has kept the team together when everything else was falling apart around us. I just try to give them a safe place to do their thing. Over the years I've learned that the most important thing for a sub is that they know that you are always on their side, no matter what. Even when they've done something wrong, you have to have their back and help them through it. And when you make a mistake you have to own up to it and try to make it right."
Steve digested that for a moment, then he had to ask. "How did you handle Stark?"
"I threatened to taze him and watch Super Nanny while he drooled on the carpet," Coulson answered with a small smile as they left the room.
Nikita watched through the scope of a sniper rifle as her target exploded. Next to her Clint used the control app on his StarkPhone to instruct a drone to set up another row of explosive targets 2,000 yards out. She had slowly worked her way up to longer and longer distances over the last few hours they had been out here. The focus and control required to make the precision shots, as well as the satisfaction of making things explode, helped her calm down and clear her mind. After making each of the current row of targets explode, Nikita put down the rifle. Clint took the weapon. leading the way back to the armory to secure it.
Clint read the text from Tony. On one hand he was relieved that someone else was taking charge of this situation, emotional crises were so not Clint's bag. On the other hand he was a little apprehensive, Tony's plans had a tendency to either go very right or very very wrong, like disastrously wrong.