Chapter 107: Fury's Very Bad Day
The corridor was lined with agents.
Both walls, weapons raised, the muzzles tracking Ethan as he walked. There were approximately forty of them in this stretch alone, which represented a significant commitment of personnel. The cameras in the corners watched with their unblinking attention.
Ethan looked at one camera directly.
"You're going to want to call them off," he said, conversationally. "Not because I'm going to do anything. Because this is bad optics for SHIELD and you know it."
He paused.
"I'm not someone who enjoys this kind of thing, Director. I came for two specific items and I'd like to conduct that as a transaction rather than a battle." He smiled at the nearest camera. "You've seen what happens when your people engage. Let's try something different."
The agents in the corridor didn't move.
Tony, walking beside Ethan with the vibranium shield tucked under one arm, observed the situation and chose not to comment. He'd known Ethan long enough to understand when Ethan was performing for an audience.
Steve, levitated about three feet off the ground to Ethan's left, stared at the ceiling with the expression of a man conducting an internal inventory of his remaining options and finding them limited.
The cameras watched.
In the monitoring room, Coulson was already speaking.
"Sir. Authorize the response. We have forty agents in position, we have the Fantastic Four on standby, we have—"
"Stand down," Fury said.
"Sir—"
"Stand down."
The words came out with the particular quality that Fury reserved for decisions he'd already made and didn't intend to revisit. Coulson heard it and stopped.
Fury watched the monitor.
Ethan walking through his building. Calm. Unhurried. Tony Stark carrying Steve Rogers's shield with the comfortable confidence of a man who had decided ownership was a state of mind. Steve Rogers floating in mid-air, which was an image Fury was going to need several days to fully process.
The forty agents were standing there, weapons up, and Ethan was smiling.
That was the problem, Fury thought. Not the power — he'd dealt with powered individuals before, had built his career on managing variables that other people found unmanageable. The problem was the smile. The smile of someone who wasn't performing threat assessment because the threat assessment had already resolved in his favor and he knew it.
He wanted Cross dead. He wanted it with the specific clarity of a man who understood that certain kinds of problems only went away if you removed them completely. But wanting something and being able to do it were different questions.
"Get them up here," Fury said.
Coulson turned. "Sir. You're going to let him just—"
"I'm going to find out what he wants and what it will cost me," Fury said. "Which is what I should have done three months ago." He looked at Coulson. "Get the medical team to the plaza first. Then get them up here."
Coulson's jaw tightened. He looked at the monitor — the agents standing down, weapons lowering, the posture of the corridor changing from confrontation to uncertain acknowledgment.
He left to execute the order.
Fury stayed where he was.
He looked at the monitor a while longer, watching Ethan move through his building, and thought about Carol Danvers and how long she'd been out of contact and whether the message had reached her and how fast she could travel at full burn from wherever she currently was.
Come home, he thought. We need the ceiling raised.
The elevator opened on the executive floor.
Ethan stepped out first, then Tony, then Steve — the levitation releasing as they entered the corridor, Steve's feet touching the floor with the specific dignity of a man who had decided to act as though the previous five minutes hadn't happened.
Fury was waiting.
The two of them looked at each other across the length of the corridor.
This was, Ethan reflected, a genuinely interesting moment. Nick Fury — the man who had spent six months constructing a response to the variable that Ethan represented, who had assembled the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and reached out across the solar system for Carol Danvers, who had watched through a camera as his people's own ordnance got redirected back at them — was standing in a corridor with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at Ethan the way a chess player looks at a position that's gotten away from him.
"You have a lot of nerve," Fury said.
"I have a list," Ethan said. "Two items. We negotiate terms on both and I leave. Nobody else gets hurt."
"You killed my agents."
"Your agents fired at me first. Their ordnance came back. That's a training issue, not a policy decision on my part." Ethan kept his voice even. "I'm genuinely not here to make trouble. I'm here because a friend needed help and because there's something in this building that I've been meaning to discuss with you for several months."
"The Tesseract," Fury said.
Ethan looked at him. "You knew I was going to ask for it."
"I've known for a while what you'd eventually come for," Fury said. "I've been deciding what to do about it." He looked at Tony, then at Steve, then back at Ethan. "Come in."
He turned and walked toward his office.
After a moment, Ethan followed.
Tony looked at Steve. Steve looked at Tony.
"You okay?" Tony said.
"No," Steve said.
"Yeah," Tony said. "Me neither."
They followed.
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