4.1
June 5, 2011, Maria Hill's Field Office, Southern California
Sharon and I considered popping some corn while we watched a recording of the Hulk rampaging through Harlem after another gamma abomination. At least I surmised it was gamma induced. They were both beyond comprehension for my co-manager. I'd already seen Lung do his ramping-to-insane-size trick, so I wasn't sitting there with my mouth open the entire time like she was.
The one thing I was really impressed with was how SHIELD managed to capture almost the entire thing via every conceivable camera and satellite in the area. It made me want to cover a number of gadgets in my room, namely the camera in my laptop, and the one in my cell phone. A little transparent tape and I wouldn't have to be overly paranoid that I was being recorded every conceivable minute of my life.
"There are times that I'm really glad I don't live in New York anymore," Sharon said as we watched the Hulk rip apart a car like it was made of crepe paper and use it to smash his opponent over and over again.
"Wait until a cape pops up that can teleport groups," I absently replied. "That's when the real fun starts."
She glanced over to me, to the big screen, and then back to me again. "What?"
"The Endbringers I told you about? That's how most of us got to wherever they showed. Capes that could teleport large groups shot around to all the major cities and brought volunteers in to fight them."
I pointed to the screen. "Otherwise it's like this. We just impotently watch, because even with our fastest quinjet, we'd never get there in time to help."
She pointed at the screen. "And you'd be able to fight… that."
I nodded. "Brutes aren't as tough as they look. Sure they can regenerate at stupid levels, and shrug off armor piercing rounds, but there are always ways around pretty much every power. You just have to get creative."
The door opened to our office followed by a question from the Director of SHIELD himself. "And do you consider yourself creative, Hebert?"
I'd been tracking him the moment he stepped off the helicopter in the hanger bay. I don't think he appreciated the fly I landed on his eye-patch that he had to swat away a few times as people pointed it out.
"I've been known to come up with a few ideas here and there over the years."
He treated me to a 'quit yanking my chain' expression that I was positive he used on a regular basis. It looked far too practiced.
"You'll have to do better than that if we're going to stop things like this," he said pointing at the big screen, "from happening all over the place. I'm tired of the direction crap has been flowing into my office."
Spinning my chair around to face him I shrugged. "There's only so much I can do with the length of rope I'm given, Director. I've got one other cape on the team, and she's too broken at the moment to do anything out of the office. It's only been a month, most of which I was required to type reports."
He walked over and dropped a pad in front of Sharon and then passed me one as well. "The World Security Council, the ones who give all of us a paycheck twice a month, weren't too impressed with what's been going on since last Tuesday. The Stark Expo, Culver University, New Mexico, Harlem, NORAD; they want me to reign everyone in."
Sharon looked immediately concerned. "I'm sorry sir – NORAD? This is the first we've heard of anything happening."
"Level Eight," he countered. "Suffice to say someone with enhanced technical skills infiltrated one of the most secure places on the planet. He's dead now by the way, so he won't be joining your team or enjoying a nice cell at the Fridge. Hebert, we have you to thank for that one. Some of your Earth's protocols have been integrated into SHIELD security. We've turned up a handful of problems that are being dealt with."
It was nice to see something from my reports made it through and they'd found a way to implement them. I leaned back on my chair and tried to grasp what he was saying beyond the small pat on the back. It was true; there were too many problems and not enough talented people to deal with them. No matter how many rules and procedures that were used, if we didn't have talented people in key trouble spots then it wouldn't be much use in the end.
"The Council," he continued, "was impressed enough with the outcome of New Mexico that they've opened up the coffers."
That boggled me. "What outcome? Nothing happened."
"Exactly," he noted. "You predicted the arrival point, contained the incident, and rescued an alien prince without doing anything that couldn't be easily covered up by standard protocols. My other agents weren't as lucky." He pointed to the big screen.
"Up until this point all the Enhanced we've taken notice of have been labeled freaks in the upper echelons. You made them rethink their views on how useful you can be if pointed in the proper direction."
"Freaks," I said with a mild glare.
"Take it as a compliment, Hebert. I've been called a hell of a lot worse in my time. Regardless, the Avengers Initiative has been fully activated. We have a facility that was being renovated for a different project in upstate New York. It's yours now, or it will be once it's finished. I suggest you use the time left to bring your team together."
I glanced at the pad that was waiting for my password and retina scan, before I decided to set it down.
"What team? Almost all the people you offered me were the dregs. There's nobody useful at all unless you want to send them on suicide missions."
He blinked and looked away for a second. "I'll think about it."
"I wasn't serious!"
"You'll find some new names on there." He pointed at the pad. "They've popped up in the last couple of weeks and have been vetted. They just don't know about our interest yet. Make them interested."
I didn't like that he totally ignored my protest about the whole suicide mission thing, but he wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.
"Stark is coming on board as a consultant for SHIELD. You'll find his evaluation for the Avengers on your pads. It's not pretty; in fact, it's downright depressing, but if you can find a way to bring him on board without actually bringing him on board then do it."
"Tony Stark?" Sharon asked with more than a normal amount of skepticism. "He's too much of a wildcard. We'd never be able to control him – ever."
I agreed. "So we don't. I'd come at him straight on."
Fury crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "I'm listening."
"Stark will be recovering from his meltdown. His company isn't doing all that hot at the moment, and from what I've seen on the news opinion shows he made a total ass of himself in front of about a hundred people at his birthday party recently."
Fury nodded. "He thought he was dying; wanted to go out with a bang."
I let that process for a moment. "That adds up. Anyway, he needs good press. We can give him… stability in the eyes of the public. Tell him that. Let him know we'll back him up if he backs us up; a straight trade."
He didn't seem too enthusiastic about my idea. "I don't want him anywhere near sensitive information."
With a shake of my head I explained. "No, I don't mean make him a regular part of the team. He'd never go for that. From what I read on his personality profile, he's like a tinker – always focused on the next upgrade or his newest toy. He'd never sit still unless the stakes were high enough to pique his interest. You said you brought him on board as a consultant. We could do the same as a… reserve member.
"He likes to be the smartest person in the room. I've known people exactly like him. So, we just don't invite him in our room."
Sharon nodded. "We just call him when we need some big guns."
"Right." I shrugged. "Of course whenever we call him, we'd expose him to whatever is going on at the time. As long as we're up front with him about what's going on I don't think he'd be a security risk. I mean he dealt with the Defense Department for years. He has to be somewhat trustworthy as far as national security goes."
Fury stared me down for a good five seconds. "Fine. Make it happen."
That kind of caught me off guard. "I'm sorry; what?"
"Stark," Fury clarified. "He lives about forty miles south of here. Pay him a visit. Pitch the idea to him. Just make me aware of his involvement before whatever mission you bring him in on."
"Wouldn't…." I started to point at him and he glared at me with his one good eye. "I guess I'll be going to Malibu."
Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a billfold and tossed it to me. "You're official now. Don't make me regret it."
After I caught the billfold I opened it up to find a SHIELD badge on one side and on the other was a formal SHIELD ID, except it wasn't. In the place of the standard gold bar on top was a red bar and it was labeled AVENGERS. Everything else was pretty much the same: name, physical stats, a shoulders up picture of me in my armor, and a QR code to the side.
"I'm a SHIELD agent?" I asked warily and pretty much stupefied.
"You're an Avenger. It's a division of SHIELD," he explained. "Now go make me more Avengers."
When the door closed behind him I looked over to Sharon who was smiling expectantly.
"What?"
Then she frowned. "I remember when I was presented with my badge. You're not… excited?"
Closing the billfold up, I set it on my desk. "I'm not doing this for the badge. In fact, I was pretty comfortable without it."
"This makes everything official now."
I nodded. "Yeah. That's kind of the problem."
~O~
After wearing suits and SHIELD uniforms for the previous month, I felt weird being all dressed down. Jeans, concert shirt, and Keds were my uniform of the day. While in public, Tony Stark was almost always at the height of fashion. In private or in the lab he was anything but. It was my way of appealing to Stark's anti-establishment kick he'd been on ever since he came out of the closet as Iron Man. He'd most likely expect any agent to show up with a nice pressed suit, throwing their weight around.
While that works a lot of the time, I didn't really want to start off on a bad foot with him, or make SHIELD look overly bad in the process. Besides, I was eighteen; I had to look my age some of the time.
The one thing I was happy about was being able to drive myself for the first time since I'd arrived on this Earth. Even though I was able to fly pretty much anywhere on my own, due to my wings, there was something about simply driving. Especially, since I learned just enough on Earth Bet to acquire my license and then nothing else.
The on-board computer directed me to Stark's house in Malibu easily enough. Needless to say, I was impressed. The place screamed, "I have too much money and don't know what to do with it all!"
A lawn maintenance company was busy taking care of all the newly shorn grass and the shrubbery scattered all over. One of them even nodded to me as he was bagging some cuttings and I was heading to the front door.
I hadn't even had a chance to ring the bell before someone, most likely on-site security, acknowledged my presence with a cultured English accent.
"May I help you?"
A quick scan of the area and I couldn't find the camera that was being used on me. Instead of standing there like an idiot I pulled out my newly minted ID and opened it up.
"Taylor Hebert. I have an appointment."
While the inside of Stark's home seemed to have a regular exterminator due to the low population of bugs in most of the house, nobody can get them all, not even close. Having a very large door and several windows opened onto the veranda that overlooked the ocean probably didn't help matters.
"Welcome, Ms. Hebert. Mr. Stark is currently in his lab," he replied as the door clicked open. "Please excuse the construction; a portion of the house is a work in progress."
I pushed open the door and stepped inside, closing it behind me, and hearing a lock click into place.
"If you will proceed to the left I will direct you to Mr. Stark's lab."
That seemed to be a strange request in lieu of having someone escort me personally. Then again rich people were weird. I haven't met one that wasn't.
"Nice place," I commented.
"Thank you, Ms. Hebert. I do try."
When I made it to a sprawling room I noticed that on one side it wasn't that windows were open. They were missing altogether. The floor was uncovered to the bare concrete and a lot of it was broken up with very large cables underneath. The bar was trashed and I noted splinters of glass that had been missed when someone attempted to clean up afterward.
"This is more than a work in progress," I said more to myself than to the mystery voice. "Was there anyone hurt?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say. If I may direct your attention to the door left of the bar."
Right. I was there for a purpose.
The door led to stairs which led to the outside of his lab, which also looked like a work in progress. I guessed right in deciding what to wear. He was a mess as he was dismantling something that looked like a miniature centrifuge, but he looked happy.
Hard driving music that I didn't recognize was blasting inside, and there was no way he would be able to hear my knock, so I didn't even try. Instead, I gathered what flying bugs had made their way in and flew them all over in front of him, creating an arrow pointing in my direction.
He stopped and took a step back. I'd startled him and probably freaked him out a little as well. However, he did follow the direction the arrow was pointing. I waved and held up my ID for him to see. There was a brief pause before I saw him say something, and the music was shut off directly after, along with the door clicking open after that.
When I finally made it inside he took a look at me and another at the bugs that were dispersing.
"Is this you?" he pointed to the remnants still in the area.
"They're in your house. So, I guess they're yours, but I'm controlling them at the moment, yes."
He seemed impressed. "I don't see anything on you… implant? Direct neural interface?"
"Super power."
"Jarvis?"
"I am detecting nothing emanating from Ms. Hebert, sir."
"Super power," Stark repeated doubtfully. "Right, don't tell me then."
Looking around, I thought it odd that his security was also running some sort of scan on me while he was doing his job of watching the place. That and he was overly polite, almost as if….
Stark startled me by dropping the very large wrench he was previously holding. "My normal consult times are from eight to five every other Thursday. What brings you here on a Sunday? Doesn't Fury give you spies any days off?"
"I'm not a spy," I answered as I made my way to him through the mess that was laying all about. "I'm an Avenger."
"Sir," Jarvis interrupted. "Ms. Hebert's identification did note her affiliation with the Avengers Initiative program, and I have confirmed its validity with SHIELD."
I nodded. "We went live about two hours ago. With the mess at the Expo and I'm sure you've already heard about the Hulk in Harlem…."
He interrupted me. "Big green monster. That's his super power? He's one of yours?"
"No. It's because of him, Ivan Vanko, and a couple of other incidents that happened last week that we've been green-lighted."
Stark picked up a shop towel and started wiping at his hands. "You're a little young for policing big leaguers like this; what are you – seventeen, eighteen?"
He was poking, trying to get a rise out of me. That much was obvious. "Do you really think Director Fury would put someone in charge of this team that didn't have any experience?"
His chest started shaking as Stark suppressed a chuckle.
"In charge?" It looked as if he was about to take another stab, but he stopped and really looked at me. "You don't just make directional arrows with insects, do you?"
After he was taking the condescending route I began focusing on my bugs, taking note of everything within my range.
"Your exterminator does a pretty good job," I noted. "The redecorating in the main room upstairs is just being explored, but the other rooms are fairly clear. Thing is, you can never really get rid of them all, Mr. Stark. You've got a decent sized crack in one of the walls down that tunnel over there that leads to the road. That's why you're seeing ants every now and then.
"There's a woman that just arrived; she's coming through the door right now: tall, hair just to her shoulder-blades, suit-skirt, and carrying a briefcase. The flour in your cupboard in the kitchen is infested with weevils – probably too old. You don't cook much, do you? I'd imagine that you order out a lot considering the amount of takeout boxes in your trash. I could go on."
Stark was focused totally on me, as I did just that.
"Termites have built a nice sized colony about fifty yards west of here. You might want to have that taken care of soon. The woman is at the head of the stairs now, talking to Jarvis. He's warning her that you have company of the official sort."
When his eyes ticked to the side, over my shoulder, I knew he'd spotted who I was talking about.
"Infiltration is just one of my specialties."
"You can access their senses?" he asked.
"Among other things. I've been doing this for a very long time, Mr. Stark."
When the door opened I turned slightly, keeping Stark within my field of vision and to identify Virginia Potts entering the lab and giving me a strange look at the same time.
"Pepper, thank God. Meet Bug-Girl. She's one of Fury's new toys. Remind me to up the monthly extermination to weekly, maybe daily."
She made a face at him and then greeted me with a handshake. "Bug-Girl?"
"Taylor Hebert," I said already knowing from Stark's file that he shared absolutely everything with his former assistant and new CEO of his company.
It would be foolish to try hiding anything that Stark already knew.
"I'm here on behalf of Director Fury in order to recruit Mr. Stark as a reserve Avenger."
Her eyes seemed to light up. "So they're going ahead with the Initiative?"
"Reserve?" Stark complained. "I thought Agent Romanoff's review of me was less than stellar."
"They are," I said ignoring him for a moment and answering Pepper's question before shifting back. "You're a busy man, Mr. Stark. You don't need to be tied down by SHIELD protocols, and you have a very hectic life. So, I suggested a reserve position. If anything major comes up I'd give you a call, and you can leave the day to day stuff with me and the active team members."
Pepper looked to Stark and I waited for the shoe to drop in whatever form it might take.
He looked to her and then to me before spinning around and heading toward the door. "Apparently, I have bad flour upstairs."
"Tony," Pepper said, bringing him to a halt.
There was something going on there beyond the professional relationship. He was too headstrong and should have ignored her – if she was just his assistant that is. Methinks that there's been a merger quite recently and not in a business type of way.
"What does Tony get out of this," she asked.
"SHIELD will help as a stabilizing influence. Iron Man's defeat of Vanko and Justin Hammer's drones at the Expo has helped with public confidence, but people are still cautious not knowing what to expect next. How many points did Stark Industries lose recently?"
"Irrelevant," Stark said in the background. "I'm back in action and the Defense Department is happy enough with Rhodey and the War Machine armor."
Pepper held up a finger to her boyfriend. Yeah, that move only works on men that have been thoroughly caught. "Are you saying that SHIELD will publicly back Stark Industries?"
"Publicly? They can't, but privately? Fury has his fingers in a lot of pies, Ms. Potts. He can pull strings that nobody can. Spinning positive press your way can't be any sort of issue with him."
She nodded contemplatively. "And you only want him on a reserve status. There won't be any midnight calls five times a week?"
"Excuse me?" Stark said, trying to butt back in.
"Doubtful. If things are that bad then we're already in a war with… aliens or something."
"Uh, we're talking about Iron Man," Stark said. "That's me. Shouldn't I have some sort of say in…."
"Tony," Pepper said with a mild glare. "Your stock is down twenty-seven points after the… stuff you pulled. You made me CEO. Let me CEO. Besides, it's not like you won't be in the middle of everything that goes on anyway. This way you actually get something out of it that benefits the company."
I think I kind of like Pepper Potts.
