[Feat Achieved! Billionaire Bartering]
[+1 Bronze Gacha Ticket]
I couldn’t help but grin as I stared at the fat check in my hand. Getting a ticket on top of that was just the cherry on top.
[Rolling Bronze Gacha Ticket]
[Father Garcia's Trenchcoat]
|Common Item|
Faith the Unholy Trinity — "True faith looks forward, not back."
An iconic black trench coat worn by Father Garcia. It is fairly durable and has the property of warding off curses and negative energy from the wearer.
The coat appeared in my hands, simple and unadorned, but damn if it didn’t look good. Even if the defensive properties were probably weak, I’d never say no to more protection.
“Happy, aren’t yah, sugah?” a cold voice said.
Ah, right…
My eyes met Anna’s. She seemed mostly over the motion sickness, but all that left behind was a very irritated look.
I raised one finger.
Anna just glared at me. “Something to say?”
“…It was funny as hell.”
“I see.”
She slowly got up from the couch and cracked her knuckles.
“Ring of the Bull, please.” Anna held out her hand, staring at me with an icy smile.
“…Can I respectfully decline?”
“What do you think?” she asked, her smile growing colder.
Well, shit…
I pulled off the ring and slowly slid it onto Anna’s hand.
“Thanks, sugah.” She wrapped me in a tight hug. “I’ll make it square reallll quick.”
My eyes widened as my feet left the ground.
“Don’t worry. Even’s even, sugah.” She shot me a smile.
A bead of sweat rolled down my temple as she began to spin.
Uh oh.
—
Phil thought he was a pretty composed agent.
You needed to be, with the type of work SHIELD required, doubly so when you worked with Director Fury.
He liked to think he did pretty well, all things considered, despite the crazy punches his career kept throwing at him. Dealing with an egotistical billionaire? Sure thing. The apparent literal God of Thunder? No sweat off his back.
Meeting Captain America?
Okay, he’d admit he hadn’t played that as cool as he could have. But who was going to stay calm when their literal childhood idol came back from the dead?
Still, that slipup notwithstanding, Phil felt he had reacted reasonably calmly for most of his career.
This last week, though, was putting that composure to the test.
Finding out the Director apparently had aliens on the payroll had been a bit of a shock. Ironically, it was the more earthly problem of Hydra infesting nearly half of SHIELD that had shocked him even more.
Still, worrying solved nothing, so he grit his teeth and went to work.
But it all felt like a tower of cards built on top of a windy mountain. There were so many moving parts that a single gust was all it would take to send everything crashing down in flames.
He had come to warn Stark away for that exact reason, but it seemed he had stumbled onto another chaotic gust already in progress.
“Mr. Coulson,” a professional voice called out. “Mr. Stark says you can return now.”
“Thank you, JARVIS.”
“Always, sir.”
Phil took in a deep breath as he strode down the hall. No matter what happened, he had to gather as much information as possible on these enhanced individuals and what they knew.
He’d seen enough crazy things for a lifetime. He wouldn’t—
“AGHHHHHHHH!”
Phil’s eyes widened as he sprinted down the hallway.
“What’s—”
He stopped dead in the doorway.
The red-haired girl was spinning her companion with strength impossible for her size, holding him by a single leg and whipping him around like a toy at speeds that looked more than a little dangerous.
Stark, of course, was watching with an amused grin.
… Maybe he should ask the Director for a raise after all this is over.
—After a few minutes of watching that rather insane display of strength, Phil somehow managed to exchange pleasantries with his apparent marks, Jack and Anna.
Now they were sitting across from him on Stark’s balcony, the cans of Pepsi placed between them like this was a perfectly normal meeting.
The mundanity of it all did absolutely nothing to stem the strangeness.
“Sorry about that.” A frazzled Jack shot him a small smile.
“It’s fine…” Phil replied. “Although, can I ask why?”
“Payback,” Anna said simply, smiling.
Jack just scratched his head and chuckled.
…Alright then.
“Do you mind if I get down to brass tacks?” Phil leaned forward.
The two obviously enhanced humans—hopefully human—both nodded.
“Then may I ask what your intentions are with your rather unique… information-gathering ability?”
The idea of some kind of foresight still baffled Phil, and part of him still wondered if this was all some sick joke from Stark. Yet the man-child’s absence from the conversation actually lent the claim some credibility, despite how utterly insane it sounded.
Stark would have tried to cement the joke by now. Instead, he looked completely enamored with whatever plans were running through his head and had left Phil to speak with them almost as an afterthought.
Besides, how else was Phil supposed to explain the sheer breadth of knowledge they had revealed?
Even a traitor from Hydra likely wouldn’t have been that well informed. That wasn’t even including the other crazy things that had been revealed to Romanoff.
Jack simply hummed, taking a moment to think over the question.
“Well… save the world, I guess.”
“…Really?” Phil asked dryly. “That’s your answer?”
Anna snorted and prodded Jack in the shoulder as he chuckled.
“I know it sounds cliché.” Jack shook his head. “But it’s what I want to do. And if you think the Hydra conspiracy was the worst thing coming, you’re in for a bad surprise.”
Phil was beginning to hate surprises.
“While that is… worrying,” he said with a slow sigh, “I was hoping for more of your stance on my organization.”
“What’s Fury doing with everything I relayed to him?” Jack asked, his expression sharpening.
Years of opsec training and agent instincts told Phil to hold his tongue.
But absurd situations required absurd solutions.
“It was hard. But we were able to find and bring in some trustworthy people we knew for sure weren’t Hydra.” Phil’s head ached just remembering the sheer effort it had taken to confirm barely a dozen agents were clean. “Steps are being taken to cut them out of SHIELD, but we don’t have enough manpower or time. Dancing around all the officials you listed while making sure they don’t notice that we noticed has been hell.”
“The Skrulls that sided against Fury didn’t flip on him?”
“Right, the shapeshifting alien civil war, you know about that too.” Phil massaged his forehead. “It’s… complicated. From what I’ve been told, the splinter faction hasn’t completely cut ties with the ones still loyal to Director Fury, but talks have been rough. The Director said they worked out some kind of non-aggression and disclosure pact for now, but I don’t have all the details.”
Jack frowned. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”
“Frankly, it isn’t.” Phil shook his head. “This whole thing is a fuse waiting to blow. One of our agents messes up and gets noticed. The Skrull splinter faction decides to stop playing by the rules and informs Hydra. There are a dozen ways this can explode.”
“How bad is the Hydra infestation?” Jack leaned forward and mimed cutting his throat. “If we killed all the top guys in one swoop, could you guys manage the aftermath?”
Phil felt like he should have been more surprised, or at least more worried, by the fact that Jack apparently believed he could assassinate several governmental and world leaders.
Unfortunately, Phil’s exhaustion and utter contempt for Hydra overrode most of that concern.
“We can’t.” It burned him to admit, but overestimating their own capabilities would only make things worse. “We don’t have solid numbers, but current estimates suggest SHIELD agents most likely outnumber Hydra agents.”
“Isn’t that good?” Anna asked, tilting her head.
“Maybe in a straight fight.” Phil looked down at the Pepsi can before grabbing it and cracking it open. The sweet drink did very little to stem his dread. “But the chain of command is utterly ruined. If they had done things sequentially, we might have been able to cut them out at the root. But nearly every level has some degree of infiltration. There’s too high a chance we end up attacking our own people.”
Frankly, it was an almost comical degree of infiltration, and a miracle that the conspiracy hadn’t unraveled on its own. From an intelligence standpoint, he couldn’t even begin to guess how Hydra had kept so many mouths shut.
SHIELD employed thousands of people. Agents, of course, but also countless secretaries, accountants, technicians, analysts, and even janitors. How Hydra had managed to infiltrate even the most menial areas without leaking was an accomplishment in itself.
It annoyed him on a deep, professional level that he had failed to notice any of it for literal years.
“You wouldn’t happen to be able to point out who’s Hydra and who isn’t, would you?” Phil chuckled darkly. “Half the damn issue is that we don’t know who to trust. It’s bottlenecking our entire effort.”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “I gave you all the major heads I knew about, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you about the middle or lower-level members.”
“Worth a shot.” Phil sighed.
“But…” Jack paused. “I think I know a few people who would be more than willing to help you out.”
Phil’s eyes narrowed. “Help out?”
“If you can’t figure out who’s loyal, then someone who can read minds would be pretty helpful, wouldn’t they?” Jack chuckled. “Plus, I know a place that would loooove to get their grubby hands on Hydra. I think they’d be a big help with your manpower problem. ”
“I’m hearing a but at the end of that…”
“Well.” Jack leaned back and made a money gesture with his fingers. “It ain’t gonna be free.”
“Unfortunately, government agents don’t get paid as much as you’d like to think,” Phil said flatly.
“Favors are welcome, too.” Jack smiled.
Phil could only stare silently across the table.
Was he really about to make a deal like this?
Director Fury had given him a fair amount of authority, of course. Dealing with this Hydra conspiracy required a bit more… flexible thinking, and this whole situation was already on the brink of exploding.
Even in their most positive scenarios, they were potentially looking at the near-complete collapse of SHIELD if this turned into an internal war. And that was the optimistic case.
…He didn’t really have much of a choice at all.
Phil slowly held out his hand.
Jack’s smile widened as the two shook.
“Great. Now let me make a few calls, and then let me tell you a little about Wakanda and a nice guy named Xavier…”***God, this month is just fucking me up. Sorry for the delay, folks!