Chapter 18: One little Spy, two little Spies, three little Spies, …
The next ten minutes were spent convincing Mr. Paranoia to go along with my request to go somewhere secluded. Without recording devices. It took some effort but my more or less subtle clues that something more was going on had him sufficiently motivated.
That discussion over with, I stood up and opened a portal to the alleyway behind a restaurant in Seoul Mordo had introduced me to. It looked a bit sketchy, only faintly illuminated by the street lights. Still, it would do.
Fury stepped through and as the portal behind him dissipated, another opened up in front of him, bathing the alley in sunlight. He turned to look at me, conveying his skepticism.
"You don´t really begrudge me for being a bit more cautious, do you?", I asked rhetorically and went first without looking back. He huffed, radiating annoyance, but relented anyway.
I brought us to the relatively empty corner of a modest street, right above a green field with a view of a small but busy pedestrian zone. I breathed in the clear air, enjoying the evening sun on my face as I stepped out of the shadow of the house behind me. The temperature here was still warm, but much more mild than in the heated streets of New York in the middle of the day. I felt some of the stress melt away.
Killing someone you are convinced is a threat was one thing. Seeing someone explode in front of your very eyes - was another entirely. I sighed and wondered if there was even a therapist out there who was equipped to handle my particular set of issues. Probably. Not while Hydra was alive and kicking though.
Steeling my resolve, I turned back to Fury. Said super spy had finished looking around and raised an eyebrow.
"Iceland?", he asked.
I shrugged and couldn´t help but smile a bit.
"Akureyri,", I confirmed, not really surprised he had figured it out that fast. "They have really good hotdogs here."
I pointed down to the stand next to the field. When Fury send me an impatient look I grinned and started walking down the stairs.
"Come on, I´ll even pay for you.", I threw over my shoulder.
To be honest, at that point I was really hungry and Icelandic hotdogs sounded a hell of a lot better than eating food a Shieldra drone had cooked up. Not to mention the nation was something of a safe space for me. A lot of good memories here.
So it came to be that I sat on a bench, munching on a hotdog next to reluctantly eating spy, not ten minutes later.
"Did you look into the facilities that I raided?", I asked as I watched tourists cue up for their own hotdogs.
"Of course. Curiously, all of the documentation about what was going on in those, was mysteriously lost. No reports, no files about any of the experiments that the equipment there hinted at. Want to tell me what is going on now?", he asked with cold anger in his voice.
I nodded at his description. I had known he would investigate, that he would get suspicious of his own organization. He had been the one to discover Hydra in canon after all. I was thankful that he hadn´t gotten as far as that just yet. There was no guarantee that he would survive Hydra´s assassination attempts this time and as despicable as I found some of the methods he authorized, I´d rather have him on my side for a bit longer.
I leaned back in my seat and lowered my voice.
"Hydra", I said quietly and watched as the director´s body stiffened up nearly imperceptibly. He turned to me with alarm in his eye. I returned his look with grim confidence to convey how serious I was about this.
"You´ve been slowly but steadily infiltrated from the beginning. Mission Paperclip wasn´t regulated enough. Hydra and Shield are so interwoven, I can hardly say who isn´t compromised. I´m sure Coulson and Hill are fine, but I have a very, very long list of Hydra operatives. And it isn´t just Shield either, politicians, multiple Senators in fact, too. That is why our little human rights group is so closely knit. The only reason we are confident in our security is Xavier´s willingness to check over anyone in the know."
I could see a million questions and a lot of anger in Fury as he took a second to think and keep himself from exploding. The wrapper of the hotdog was serving as stress ball in the meantime.
With practiced hand movement I pulled out a Stark tablet with our collected info on Hydra out.
"Here,", I said and gave it to him. "You probably have caught wind of the documentary we ant to run? This is what that is about. Hydra experimented on mutants for decades. They had only limited success with turning those experiments into usable assets- ", I grimaced at that description, "- but they have developed functioning bioweapons against mutants."
As I narrated Fury read through the files, quickly landing on a list of presumed Hydra operatives and the evidence against them. I refrained from commenting on how Shield own stellar method of treating mutants had contributed to Hydra´s doings. No sense in aggravating him right now.
Fury growled audibly when he went through the names.
"As far as I know, they had planned to go on the offensive with Project Insight. But after Tony turned you guys down and I became a major nuisance to them, plans must have changed."
Having Tony in the know had been a blessing when that offer had come around shortly after the invasion. Tony had been furious after thinking about the implications the project would take on in the hands of Hydra. Both Pepper and I had to talk him down before he excused himself from the contract under the pretext of wanting to prioritize rebuilding the city.
"Stark is in on this? No wonder he turned us down.", Fury said when he had calmed down somewhat. His expression was still stormy.
"Motherfucker, even Pierce?", he cursed looking at the sky.
"They are like a cancer, we have to cut them out completely or they will just grow back.", I said. "And to do that, we need a complete list and leave them nowhere to run."
Fury turned to me with skepticism.
"And what was your plan to do that?", he asked.
"Well, it isn´t exactly foolproof, but the first stop is to access the complete archives at your HQ. At the same time, we need to get rid of Zola- "
"Zola? You mean Arnim Zola? Arnim Zola has been dead for 40 years.", Fury interrupted.
"Not dead enough, sadly. I don´t know how but he created some kind of advanced program to simulate his consciousness or something. That rudiment computer is housed in Camp Lehigh.", I grimaced as I tried to explain a plot point, I had half forgotten. The only reason I had found Camp Lehigh was that it was the same facility Cap had been trained at. I would have had no starting point for a search otherwise.
Fury still looked disbelieving.
"So, he uploaded his mind?"
"Yeah, don´t ask me how that worked. Fact is, he has been instrumental for Hydra´s rise even after his death.", I defended.
"Anyway, do you have any contacts in other agencies that can help bring in all Hydra operatives when we have a, more or less, full list?", I asked to get back to the plan. Now it was Fury´s turn to grimace.
"Shield isn´t exactly known for being cooperative.", Fury admitted. He didn´t sound quite sheepish, I didn´t think he could, but it was as close as he would come to that. "Still, I have some contacts. And like you said, Hill and Coulson are safe, Widow and Hawkeye too. Can you get your little activist group to help? As reluctant as I am in involving untrained personal, they sure as hell don´t have a reason to let any Hydra scum get away."
I nodded, Ree was already sending notices out.
"You can´t be too overt with that. Anyone in Shield is directly in Hydra´s view. If too many of them disappear for hours at a time, Hydra will get suspicious. And they quite trigger happy right now."
I gave Fury a meaningful look. He waved me away.
"Let me worry about that.", he said unimpressed. Well, he was the super spy after all.
"You understand now why I was so insistent about the confiscated alien artefacts?", I asked somewhat rhetorically.
He had NOT been amused when both Thor and I had insisted that the Asgardians take the Tesseract. I gave the god one of my containers with strict instructions to store the Infinity Stone inside at any time and hoped for the best. I had also giving him another talking to about his brother´s situation. I didn´t trust Odin to do the right thing by his adopted son. To be sure, I had talked to Loki and assured him that he would have a place in Kamar-Taj if Asgard became unbearable. The trickster only looked at me with some trepidation, however I hadn´t expected another reaction, so that was fine.
The mind stone meanwhile, that one was safely inside one of my most secure containers. That version wasn´t like the Eye of Agamotto, any energy flow was completely cut off and no one besides me would be able to open it. Well, maybe the Ancient One or Thanos himself, but the runic enchantment had been mainly for Hydra. No Scarlett Witch, no Ultron.
Sadly, also no Vision, the birth of the android (?) just wasn´t worth the destruction.
Anyway, Shieldra had been kind of miffed when I refused to free the "scepter core" from its new prison.
Fury sent me dirty look for that comment, before he went back to seething about the situation. He seemed to halt in thought for a few seconds. Apparently, he reached a conclusion as he turned to me with some trepidation.
"You should know that Project Insight is still ongoing. In fact we recruited Vanko for it right after he got apprehended, because we didn´t have an inn with Stark."
I stared at him with absolute horror. I hadn´t thought about Vanko in months.
"How the fuck did you get him to work for you? Doesn´t he hate you guys?", I sputtered, franticly trying to assure myself that Fury had just suddenly discovered his morbid sense of humor.
"He does,", Fury confirmed. "He blames Shield for a lot. That is why I was originally surprised when reports about his recruitment came back as positive. But now…"
"Now you wonder if he has been recruited by Hydra from the start.", I finished numbly.
This was bad, this was really bad.
Of course, Hydra would want to get their hands on Vanko. Vanko didn´t strike me as Nazi, but if he was angry enough, he probably wouldn´t look that hard into who it was that wanted Shield destroyed. Nevermind that it probably was Hydra in the first place that wanted Vanko Senior kicked out.
"And the reports I have, on how fast the project is progressing, are saying he is taking his sweet time. Which might as well mean that he is making who-knows-what for those bastards.", Fury fumed.
I blanched and began messaging my temples to stave off an oncoming stress migraine. I didn´t want to think about what that would mean. Thinking of Vanko brought me to another problem.
I sat up straight when my thought returned to what I had seen that morning.
"We might have another problem. Have you heard of AIM?", I asked. Sadly, I hadn´t had the time to look into AIM or Kilian yet. He had been embarrassingly low on my priority list.
Fury mustered me with a questioning look. I breathed in and out to calm my nerves, aware I would have to flunker some information.
"The way the boy started to glow; it looks like Extremis. I don´t know a lot about AIM, but I know they are working on some kind of enhancement that causes its subjects to emit the same kind of glow. And if it isn´t stable…", I ended leadingly.
"The subject goes boom.", Fury finished in a dry tone. "So you think AIM works with Hydra?"
I nodded absentmindedly.
"Yeah, AIM doesn´t have reason to go after me. Their CEO hates Tony´s guts, which is why I had him on my radar, but I don´t think he would be after that kind of exposure." I explained.
"And now Hydra somehow has Vanko and AIM on their side?", Fury growled.
"And you can´t even go about getting Vanko back without tipping them off.", I added as I sank into the bench to form a little heap of despair.
"Fuck!", Fury cursed as he stood up and started pacing.
"Yeah.", I agreed weakly.
"Motherfuckers!", he continued as he stared at the horizon as if it had personally pissed on his shoe.
I sighed.
Not even the beautiful colors of the sky as the sun went down could lighten my mood.
What a shitty day.
I nervously stuffed another bite of Domi´s care package in my mouth as I watched Natashalie and Barton converse quietly across the room from me. They were currently politely pretending that they weren´t observing the mutant congregation to my left.
We had decided on the mansion as a meeting place because it was out of the way. I had already played taxi for both present spies to get them from and to their official missions without anyone noticing. Cap would be coming with Tony under the guise of a tour or something like that and Fury too would be arriving any minute now.
I sighed and took another bite. I wasn´t quite sure what it was exactly, that I was eating, but it was coated in honey and delicious, so I didn´t particularly care. Domi had been feeding my habit of stress eating with abnormal vigor since the attack on me four days ago. Either he was stress-baking, or he was trying to express his worry for me. Probably both.
Still, Domi´s reaction had been better than most. Pepper had been absolutely furious and worried at the same time. Apparently, the attack had been in the news almost immediately – with my involvement front and center. They had reported that I was fine, but that hadn´t done a lot to assuage Pepper´s fear. And then she couldn´t get a hold of me for several hours afterwards. Oops. Many apologies, a bit of hugging and a few tears (strictly on her side, of course) later and all was forgiven.
Now, she was frothing at the mouth for a chance to tear Hydra and AIM apart. I came to realize that I had made some scary friends.
Tony pretty much skipped the worry stage and went straight into attack mode. I warned him that both AIM and Vanko had it out for him and they had a lot of resources now. First, he seemed to want to brush me off, but then he paused and disappeared into his workshop for the next three days. So I took that as a success and prayed Jarvis would keep my friend alive in his work-binge.
I had just opened another package when Cap wandered in alone, looking a bit lost. He took a look around the room and came over to me.
"Hallo, how are you? In the news they said you weren´t injured?", he asked with a friendly smile.
I found myself smiling back and gestured for him to sit down to my right as I answered.
"Hey, it´s good to see you. Yes, I´m fine, I only got a few bruises and those are mostly healed already."
Cap sat down and I offered him a snack wordlessly. Curious, he took one and observed it.
"What is it?", he asked.
"No idea", I said and shrugged. "Domi made it. It´s great though."
He took a tentative bit and light up in delight.
"You were right, it´s so sweet!", he laughed.
I grinned.
I had been in semi-regular contact with him ever since he got wind of what was now officially called the MESO movement. Mutant, Enhanced, Sorcerers & Others. I didn´t come up with the name, but the marketing people insisted that the association with only mutants that been happening before, would be ammunition for our adversaries in the long run.
Interacting regularly with Cap made it really hard not to like him. He was a bit oblivious, but that was inevitable in his situation. He got really into learning about modern politics because of MESO, which I counted as a huge success. I even got him to look into support groups for veterans.
All in all, Steve was a lot better climatized to the modern age than he was in canon.
Him and Tony still drove each other up the wall from time to time, though. You can´t win it all.
Speaking of the devil, on command Tony entered. He stopped on the doorway and took off his sunglasses. After observing the room, he turned towards the mutants and stretched his arms out.
"Hank, my big furry friend! How is it going?", he exclaimed as he sauntered towards his chosen victim. Said victim was half amused and half suffering.
I chuckled at Tony´s dramatics. Steve sighed next to me. I could guess that he was still getting used to Tony´s modus operandi of aggravating everyone around him. I could be just as chaotic, but at least I reined myself in most of the time.
To distract Steve, I held another snack under his nose. The corner of his mouth twitched.
As he munched on his treat, I thought on the topic for our meeting.
"So, how much did Fury tell you?", I asked.
I hadn´t been there when Fury broke it to Steve that Hydra was still alive and kicking. It probably wasn´t a happy discussion. On cue, Steve´s expression darkened.
"Enough to know that we have a serious problem. Hydra should have been gone along time ago. I can´t believe no one noticed."
He shook his head in disappointment.
He looked so stern and earnest that my thoughts immediately snapped to his school videos that teens like Peter Parker would watch in the future. I desperately oppressed the extremely inappropriate laugh that tried to bubble up and cleared my throat.
"Well, my guess is that the ones that did, didn´t survive.", I said.
"You are probably right.", Steve answered, and his mood became even grimmer.
On that cheerful note, the door opened and Fury entered with Hill and an unknown agent-looking middle aged man in his wake.
"Now that we are all here", Fury started. "Let us get to planning."
