"I can't believe we left Tucker. I can't believe you left Tucker. With nazis."
"Sam, in case you didn't notice, the nazis had a spaceship," said Jazz, her voice shaking with stressed control. "I don't think Tucker would appreciate us getting killed by nazis with spaceships. Nazis with spaceships that can become invisible, oh my gosh."
"Can't we become invisible?"
"Not really!" Jazz's hands flew over the control. "We really just need to be somewhere else right now."
The prisoner cleared his throat behind them. "It's not a spaceship, actually. It's a helicarrier."
Sam and Jazz turned to glare at arrow boy.
"What does that mean?" asked Sam as Jazz went back to the controls.
"It's like a aircraft carrier, but it flies."
"Oh, yes, that's a much less terrifying thing for nazis to have! What a relief!" Sam spread her hands wide.
"SHIELD also isn't nazis. Maybe if you told me why you think we're, uh." He blinked hard and rolled his neck. "Nazis. As far as I know, SHIELD's never even talked to you guys."
"We know about your links to HYDRA," said Sam.
"HYDRA? HYDRA doesn't exist anymore."
"Groups like that never really go away," said Sam. "We haven't even managed to get rid of people who openly call themselves nazis."
"Seriously, they were wiped out by Captain America and the Howling Commandos. Any of them that survived them were swept up and died ages ago."
"Right," said Jazz, slowly, tone at odds with what she was still doing with the controls. "Captain America."
"Yes, Captain America."
"You ever meet him?"
"No," said arrow boy. "Does it matter?"
Jazz didn't say anything.
"Does it mean anything?" asked Sam.
"Maybe," said Jazz, "but I have to fly this thing right now."
.
Tucker woke up with a groan and scrubbed vigorously at his face, as though that would help the combined headache and rubbed-raw-with-sandpaper feeling he was currently experiencing. Rather, he tried. His hands appeared to be strapped down.
He lay still, wracking his brain for which of Danny's enemies would bother knocking him out, kidnapping him, and tying him up. Spectra, maybe? Walker? He had to have a sentence by now, even if he never stuck around long enough for Walker to read him his charges.
"Mr. Foley."
That voice had not belonged to a ghost. Tucker pried his eyes open. "Wuh?" he managed to say. A black-brown blur moved subtly against a grayish background. Probably a person.
"Mr. Foley," repeated a voice that emanated from the vicinity of the blur. "I'm going to have to ask you how you moved several tons of Egyptian sand to a street in a small American town and turned several nearby buildings into sphinxes."
"Don't forget the lasers, sir," said a second, paler, blur. This blur sounded vaguely familiar, but Tucker couldn't place it.
"Thank you, Agent Coulson. We are also interested in the lasers."
Tucker blinked several times. Who was this clown?
Clown. Wait.
Oh, no. Oh, he didn't. He wouldn't.
He did. He'd used that stupid scepter and then lost it.
At least it explained why he felt like he'd been sandpapered.
Hold up – 'agent?' There was only one group that habitually operated in Amity Park and that was the GIW. But the GIW wouldn't be bothering with questions. They'd jump straight to the painful experiments.
"Are you SHIELD?" asked Tucker, angry. "I'm not telling you anything."
The pale blob cleared its throat. "According to our research, you haven't had any prior interactions with SHIELD. Why are you so hostile?"
Tucker's eye twitched and he tugged his wrist against whatever was holding it down. "Maybe it has something to do with you tying me up."
"You did try to bite Mr. Stark the first time you woke up," pointed out the pale blur.
"A common desire. We won't hold it against you. So long as you explain why."
He'd tried to bite Tony Stark? Iron Man? He bit his tongue before he could ask if he did it while Tony Stark was still wearing his suit.
"I'm not explaining anything to nazis who kidnapped my best friend!" Okay, that last bit was maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but nazis didn't deserve any grace, either.
(And the leftovers of whatever had knocked him out might be screwing with his judgment. Or maybe it was the scepter! Who knew!)
(Was this what taking drugs was like? Was the scepter a drug? Could he get addicted to it?)
"We aren't nazis," said the pale blur in a somewhat pained tone.
"And we didn't kidnap your friend. We had hired him as a consultant."
"You were giving him money?" asked Tucker, skeptical.
The pause spoke volumes.
"Why do you think we're nazis?"
"Uh, because you are. I'm not an idiot. I know what HYDRA is. They're talking to the Guys in White, and they're talking to you, so you can't be all that much better."
(Something told Tucker that maybe he shouldn't be saying quite as much as he was and he should just shut up, but the idea of being interrogated by nazis was terrifying.)
(He may have picked up some coping mechanisms from Danny.)
"That's the second time I've heard the GIW mentioned today," said the pale blur. "The other time, it was from Miss Gray."
"Government-backed ghost hunters, if I remember correctly."
"Yes, sir."
"Interesting. And you say they're talking about HYDRA?"
"As if you don't know," scoffed Tucker.
The pale blur took a couple of steps closer to Tucker. "You're a bit of a hacker, aren't you? Is that how you found this… supposed connection?"
Tucker turned his head away.
"Agent Coulson."
The blurs moved to one side, and out a door that disappeared from Tucker's sight as soon as it was closed. Great. Cool. This was awesome.
He pulled against whatever was holding him down again. There was some way to get out of stuff like this, right?
.
"I don't like that we didn't know about this GIW," said Fury.
"Neither do I. Sir, can I suggest we get Stark on this to confirm Foley's claims?"
"We need him to track Loki."
"I don't believe it will take Stark that long to follow a trail a teenager laid."
"I'll remind you that this teenager was able to fight Loki head-on, and we don't need another loose cannon."
"Another reason to have him on side, although I'm not sure that translates to computer skills. In any case, sir, given that he's already finding the time to look into our other projects on his own time…"
Fury clasped his hands behind his back, thinking.
"Miss Gray and the Fentons have contributed to our tracking efforts as well."
"Alright," said Fury. "Notify Stark and I'll talk to Red Huntress about the GIW. We need more detail."
Coulson nodded. "I'm sure Tony will be happy to meet a fan. Well." He tilted his head. "Re-meet them."
.
Tony was not, in fact, happy.
"You know," he said to Natasha, who had let him into the 'observation room,' "I get that the kid is scary, but did you have to tie him down?"
"He tried to bite you," said Natasha.
Tony raised a finger. "In his defense, I did knock him out." He sat down in front of the one-way mirror. The room wasn't very big. Space was probably at a premium in this bucket. It was huge, but it was also flying. Airplane bathrooms were tiny for a reason. The cell on the other side wasn't all that large either. Just big enough for the bed and a couple people to loom.
"Microphone?" he asked, pointing at a button. That's the one he'd use for that function, but, as evidenced by the whole situation, the people here were nuts. And with Tony saying that, it meant something. The button could release sleeping gas or fire missiles.
"Yes," said Natasha. "You don't have to look so surprised. It isn't as if we're going to put missile launchers in a holding cell."
"And this makes it so he can see us?"
"It brings the lights up in the other room, yes."
"Old fashioned for you guys, isn't it?"
"Don't fix what isn't broken."
"Hilarious," said Tony. "You can go, now. Do your spy stuff."
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You're joking."
"It was worth a shot." Tony shrugged. He pressed the buttons. "Hey, Tucker, right?"
"I'm not telling you people anything!"
"I can understand not being eager to talk to the goon squad, but it's not like I work with them, either. Between the two of us – don't worry about the Russian in the corner – I was looking into them, too, but I haven't found out much yet."
"Yeah, that's why I'm still tied up. You're so against SHIELD you're okay with a babysitter."
"Unfortunately, there's more of them than there are of me, and we do have a crazy kidnapping alien to deal with. But, hey, one tech wiz to one tech wizard, we can find out if HYDRA is really involved before too long."
"Or you could be on their payroll."
"Oh, come on. I don't need SHIELD's money."
"Oh yeah?" said Tucker, voice cracking. "And who are you?"
"Wh—I'm Tony Stark. You know, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?"
"I don't know you're Tony Stark. You could be any white guy."
"Any white guy? I thought you were a fan, that's what your—" Tony thought back to when he'd first seen Tucker Foley, on the ground in Amity Park. Compared to the Egyptian stuff and the magic, it wasn't so noticeable, but he'd been wearing glasses. "You're nearsighted, aren't you?"
"Wow, it's almost like your super awesome nazi information network isn't as good as you think it is."
Tony turned to look at Natasha. "I don't suppose you guys have some spare glasses?"
She sighed heavily, but pushed herself off the wall she was leaning on and left. Which meant it was prime time to break into the holding cell.
It wasn't hard.
"Okay, kid, I'm going to untie you, but you have to promise not to try to bite me."
"No promises," said Tucker.
"Fair enough." Tony started in on the straps. They were simple, too. Low tech. Just padded leather and buckles. Probably to keep people from hacking in and springing whoever was in them.
Tucker was sitting up in a moment, rubbing at his wrists. "Okay, possibly Tony Stark, mind getting me out of this room for an encore?"
"Yeah, that wouldn't help you much."
"Why not?"
"We're a few hundred feet up."
"What?"
"Yeah, feel that low pressure? Pop your ears? Kinda dry air? Inertia's a bit weird?"
"Oh gosh, we're on another airship. No, wait. We're on that—That aircraft carrier thing?"
Tony raised his eyebrows. "You know about it?"
"Glanced at plans for it while I was looking for Danny."
"You really did hack SHIELD, huh?" said Tony. "What kind of machine did you use?"
"Just my home computer."
"Built it yourself?"
"With whatever I could scrounge up. I don't get much allowance."
Impressive, if true; but he wouldn't tell him if there was anything special if he was in Tucker's position. So. He didn't exactly believe it.
"No crazy ghost stuff?"
Tucker glared at him.
There was the sound of a speaker crackling to life. "Stark."
"Romanov."
"What are you doing in the cell?"
.
As soon as she entered the room, Valerie Gray crossed her arms and planted her feet. The red material of her suit flexed easily, reflecting circuit-board-like patterns where it caught the light.
"Miss Gray," he said. "I understand you've had contact with an organization called the GIW."
"The Guys in White, yeah." She glanced around, the motion small, but not unnoticeable, although her face mask hid exactly what she was looking at. "I mean, their official name is the Ghost Investigation Ward, but everyone calls them the Guys in White. Easier than the acronym."
"And what, exactly, do they do?"
"Mostly? Cause property damage and threaten to audit people's taxes."
"But they're ghost hunters."
"Yeah. I don't think they've ever caught one, though. They're worse than the Fentons. They almost killed this one kid, Elliot, because they thought he was a ghost."
"Have they ever shown any evidence that they are part of the government, or government sanctioned?"
"I never looked into it," said Gray. "I had other things to deal with. You guys have really never heard of them?"
"We have not, which is, as you might imagine, troubling."
"I get that," said Gray. "But is this really the best time? I mean… they'll still be there when you get done with the aliens, right?"
If Fury was to answer honestly, the answer would be no. If he were their leader, he'd be pulling them out of Amity Park, going to ground now that SHIELD's attention had been drawn to the town they were… occupying? Harassing? Deceiving?
Exactly what they were doing didn't matter so much as them having been able to do it without SHIELD noticing. Especially given Foley's assertion regarding HYDRA.
"There are a limited number of actions I can take until we manage to track down Loki."
Gray twitched. "Danny doesn't always show up on ghost scanners."
Which was truly unfortunate. "I'm aware. What kinds of resources have you seen the GIW using?"
.
Despite Natasha deciding to take forever to give the kid his glasses, which then stalled things further as he really hadn't believed that Tony was Tony, and he was a fan. Like, to an embarrassing degree. Don't get him wrong! Tony loved having fans. But there was a time and a place to ask for autographs.
Tony really wasn't happy about him being up here. Let alone the other kid. The girl. Speaking of which he really needed to talk to her about her tech, beyond the tracker, see if any of it could be incorporated in one of his suits on the fly. But as good as he was at multitasking, Coulson had whisked Gray away to talk to Fury at the same time he sent Tony down here with his babysitter.
Anyway.
"So, show us the nazis," said Tony, pushing a tablet at him.
It was immediately snatched away by Natasha. "You are not giving the teenage hacker direct access to our systems."
"You're going to have to if you want me to show you."
"Or you can just tell him. It is my understanding that he's passable at programming."
"Passable? Didn't you make an AI when you were just—"
"There you go. No need to butter his ego. Just get it done." She gave the tablet back to Tony.
Tony made a face at her. He'd wanted to see how Tucker worked. "Fine. Kid, give it to me."
"Well, you'll want to start with…"
.
"Wait, wait, wait," said Tucker, half jogging after 'Romanov' and Tony Stark. "You can't just go tell this guy that there's nazis everywhere. This whole place is," he lowered his voice, "riddled with nazis. He could be a nazi. What we need to do is leave."
"Director Fury is not a nazi," said Romanov.
"You don't know that. You saw some names of people you knew in those files, didn't you? But there were code names, too. Literally anyone could be one of them."
"Which is why we shouldn't be having this conversation in the open."
Romanov had only consented to bringing Tucker with them because Tony had pointed out that what he knew made him an assassination target. Tucker very much not enthused about that particular factoid, especially the part where it made him feel even worse about leaving Jazz and Sam with arrow boy.
"Hey," he whispered to Tony, "d'you think that maybe, just maybe, she's taking us to him because she is also a nazi?"
"She's not," said Tony, who was apparently a bit of an idiot once he got away from his area of expertise, in which he was godlike. "I'm at least eighty percent sure she would have just let me die that one time if she were a nazi, because I am staunchly anti-nazi, and also a superhero. It'd be pretty dumb of them to save my life, don't you think?"
"Maybe that's just what they want you to think."
"If I can hear you," snapped Romanov, "so can other people. Hurry up."
They turned into a more populated hallway, and Romanov flashed a badge at a group of agents, who let her pass. She pressed her hand against a palm reader next to the door, which opened, revealing a tall, one-eyed black man and… Valerie?
"What are you doing here?" asked Tucker. But of course Valerie was here. She already had a track record of trusting really, incredibly sketchy people. Why not extend it?
"I'm trying to fix the problem your friend caused," snapped Valerie.
"You dated him," said Tucker.
Valerie stiffened. "And you made the problem worse. Do you have any idea what Park and Amity look like now?"
"Which Park and which Amity?" Tucker responded automatically.
"Okay," said Tony, "whatever schoolyard tiff or middle school drama you two have going on right now can wait. We've got a massive problem."
.
Fury could admit that he'd expected, had wanted, Foley to be wrong about SHIELD being infiltrated by a group calling themselves HYDRA.
But the evidence was extensive and damning. HYDRA was in SHIELD. In some places, it practically was SHIELD. And it was all discovered by a teenager via a built-in backdoor used by an organization Fury had never heard of before today.
They couldn't afford to act on it now. Not with an alien invasion breathing down their necks. They couldn't afford not to act on it. Not when Tucker Foley wouldn't cooperate if they didn't. Hell, neither would any of the rest of the heroes he'd recruited.
Something burned in his gut. SHIELD was supposed to be a shield for the world, not for a bunch of lunatics who were still fighting World War II and committing atrocities that civilized society didn't even have names for. This was his life's work, and it was all a lie.
But he had to put aside his anger and his grief. There was work to be done.
"Did you really not know?" asked Foley.
"No," said Fury.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"He's not going to do anything about it," said Stark, flat and dry. "He's got a potential alien army bearing down. He's not going to split focus. That right?"
"What?" exclaimed Foley, leaning forward. "But that's crazy. These are people doing real damage right now. You don't know what the GIW's been doing to Amity Park, and they're the incompetent ones!"
"I'm aware. But at the moment, Loki is an existential threat for humanity as a whole, not just—"
"HYDRA is also an existential threat for humanity." Foley clenched his fists. "Look, just give me back my staff, and I'll take care of Loki for you. Then you don't have to worry about it."
"You weren't exactly winning before," said Natasha.
"I was doing better than you."
"And your behavior has changed. The way you speak, the way you hold yourself… it's different. That staff doesn't just give you power, does it? It changes you somehow."
Foley fidgeted. "You've got Dr. Bruce Banner with you. It's not like you're against that kind of thing in principle."
"No, but we need to know we're not just replacing one threat with another. Can you honestly say you won't become one?"
"I can honestly say I will if you ignore the GIW and HYDRA!"
"Mr. Foley. Without knowing exactly who is and who is not a HYDRA agent, all I would be doing would be starting a bloody civil war that would, potentially, kill everyone on this plane in the crossfire. Do you want that?"
"No," said Foley, "but I'm not working with HYDRA. You can't expect Captain America to work with HYDRA."
"No," agreed Fury. "Having you directly involved with any but the most vetted of agents would be a mistake." Foley would be far too easy to assassinate or disappear. "That's why I'm sending you away. That's why I'm sending all of you away."
"I'm sorry, what?" said Stark, rising to his feet. "You can't bring us here, say the world's under attack by aliens, ghosts exist, and, oh, yeah, we have a HYDRA infestation, then tell us to leave."
"Will you calm down and listen to me?" asked Fury, fixing Stark with a look. "I'm sending you away. As a group. Foley, I'm assuming you have some way to get in touch with whoever is piloting that blimp."
"Yeah?"
"Fentonworks' technologies are going to be better at tracking Fenton's energy signature than whatever you and Dr. Banner jury-rigged out of Miss Gray's suit, and if not, you can fix it. You're bound to be able to adapt the rest of them into something useful for combat. Captain Rogers has experience leading small groups against covert and secretive operations and fortifications. Thor, as far as I can tell, has worked almost solely with small-group tactics, and knows his brother and Dr. Selvig. Natasha knows Barton, and given how competent he is, I'd bet my good eye that Loki has him working as his right hand." Much like Fury occasionally did… although he used Coulson for that purpose far more often.
"Hopefully I know Barton better than Thor knows Loki."
"Unless Loki actually brings his army through, you should, in theory, be a match for him, whoever he has brainwashed, and whatever mercenaries he's managed to contact."
"And if he does manage to bring his army through?" asked Stark. "Just saying, we haven't done the best job at stopping it so far."
"Then you call me."
Foley cleared his throat. "Uh, about this Barton. He wouldn't happen to really have a thing for arrows, would he?"
