Daniel Whitehall was, by all accounts, a moral abomination. The fact that his heart still beat was an argument against a just God. Seventy years ago, Whitehall had worked for the SS. Today, he worked for me. My life is full of uncomfortable facts like this.

"Dr. Whitehall," I said as we sat down inside of a nice restaurant that we had reserved for the three of us. "I am told you have important information for me."

The local staff worked for a Hydra member of some sort, I wasn't clear on the exact details and they weren't important. What mattered was that we would be allowed to discuss our interests in peace, the staff wore noise cancelling earbuds, and I wouldn't have to cook. Andromeda had come as well, the Yorkes were watching Persephone, her eyes peeled for threats. Loki's visit, still Odin's visit to her since who knew if Heimdall was watching, had left her rattled.

I twitched the heavy watch on my hand, a concealed container for a horde of vibranium nano assembler that would form a protective suit around me in an emergency. It was lighter than my previous bulletproof suits had been, but it was also heavy because it was on my wrist. Andromeda was wearing two matching bracelets that served the same purpose.

"Yes," he said in his usual, detached accent. He took out a file, "We have received new information on the couple's computer accomplice."

Whitehall produced a file from his briefcase and handed it to me as our food started to come out. I opened it and found the woman from Agents of Shield staring back at me. Her name was, apparently, Skye. I shouldn't have needed to read the introduction to her files, but whoever had put her into an orphanage had done the work to keep it all basically anonymous. A hacker who had joined the Rising Tide, a hacktivist organization that was growing to something of a thorn in SWORD's side, she had been an orphan. Apparently, for her entire childhood - That was somewhat bewildering. She had been an orphan as a little girl - And she clearly didn't have any major health issues. A baby like that, even one of mixed race origins, should've found a home easily enough. I kept reading, the foster system had received some kind of order to keep her shuffling.

Someone had been really paranoid that somebody would find Skye.

Well, I had found her now. But Skye presented the same problem that Bruce and Natasha did - She was a Main Character and Main Characters could be vital to the success of the planet's security. I had already scrubbed out Wanda, I didn't know how many such pillars I could spare before we got killed by some later problem. Vision was also probably never going to happen. These were two powerful heroes and we likely couldn't spare too many more before we all got jumped by some lateral power.

"Dr. Whitehall," I said, folding the file shut and handing it to Andromeda to read, which she began to do at a much slower pace. "What do you remember of the woman you dissected to get your eternal youth?'

Whitehall took a bite of the exquisite steak and said, "Jiaying was married, I believe," he said mildly. "Do you think the two are connected?"

"This," I said, "is her daughter."

Whitehall nodded as he chewed. "That's an interesting theory, do you mind providing evidence?"

Andromeda looked at me sympathetically and squeezed my hand. Yes, I very much minded. I had already spilt my true secret to Loki, so that was a disaster in itself. "My abilities are sensitive to that sort of connection. She turned up in the foster system shortly after Jiaying's death, didn't she?"

"Yes. A few months. There's no reason to expect the correlation to be significant. We captured Jiaying in a Chinese province."

"Mmm," I said, taking a bite to eat. "You'll find I'm shockingly good at this."

"Jiaying is dead. Perhaps the daughter has value to contribute to our study? Or will you insist on not touching her, just as you did with the Inhumans and the couple as well? I confess, your deference to your own nominal opponents continues to astonish me."

"Doctor," I said, as Andromeda tensed beside me. I reached over and squeezed her leg. There was no reason to attack the old man. Well, there were lots of reasons to attack the old man. But there was no use in attacking the old man. "I am going to demonstrate to you how we use disadvantages to our advantage. I want more information on the Inhumans, you want more information on the Inhumane. The best source of that information is the Inhumans themselves."

I watched the wheels turn in Whitehall's mind and then he nodded slowly, "You think that you can redirect the investigation towards the Inhumans using the girl."

"We simply put out feelers again, with a little less discretion. We leak that the girl is Jiaying's daughter, she looks into it and they take her in. When we feel she and our little couple have learned all that is useful to us, we can take it from Fury and SHIELD when we bring down SHIELD."

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"Will that happen soon?"

"It will happen eventually," I said confidently. It would. Sooner or later, SHIELD would have to go down. Already I had Strucker ready to go as a fall guy - Not that Strucker knew that - and I had spun up a perfected Thoth engine for any necessary false accusations. Paper trails leading to Nick fury could be floated at any moment. But I wasn't interested in rushing the process - If we could hold off for another four years, we would. I would defeat Thanos and then wipe the board clean and become an international dictator, if at all possible. "But if we have an urgent need of the files, it is likely we can get them." Perhaps through Agent Ward. He and Steve would be admirable co-conspirators in the matter. And who would suspect Captain America's best friend of being an informant to me? But I probably didn't want to stick Ward and Skye in the same room for too long lest he catch Feelings.

"Yes sir," Whitehall said as he finished a dish. "Do you have anything else for me?"

"The essence of the theory here is not to involve you in any way if possible. If Jiaying is one of the Inhumans…"

"Then they would hate me. Yes. I am accustomed to their resentments. You are correct."

The meal passed uneventfully after that, some chats and idle information, and then he got up and left and I was left sitting with Andromeda.

"The election's winding down," she said, "How're you feeling about that?"

"I cannot believe that they're punishing the Democrats when they're doing such a good job," I said in frustration. The Democrats had basically completely transfigured the United States energy grid through putting it on a war footing and now every American household was powered by energy so cheap that a gallon of gas cost more than your monthly electric bill. Infrastructure was being renewed for the first time, industrial production was up. And they were crediting all the good parts to the imbecile in charge, Matthew Ellis, and all the bad parts to the Democrats who did the actual work. To be fair, many Republicans, reverting to their more traditional hawkish stances, had managed to fall in line behind the SWORD political project and continued to funnel ever increasing revenue into the coordination of its projects. And Ellis' new VP was a more moderate, sensible person than Rodriguez were because he had to make it through the Senate.

Ellis could brand himself as "working across the aisle" without "embracing radicalism and every violent whim of the majority." God I hated Ellis so much.

"Didn't you learn from your own election it's not about being right, these idiots will vote for whoever their tummy tells them to, whoever they feel like they can have a beer with. And, look on the bright side, our Republican candidates look on track to win."

That was true. With members in both Senate caucuses, we'd have firmer footing to push our own agenda in the Senate. "You're right dear," I said, though it was harder to admit it. The Democrats were probably going to get shellacked in the House, but the Senate would stay Democratic (not blue in this timeline) and I'd have to deal with that. "I'll try to keep my eyes on the prize."

"That's right, don't get too distracted by one country. We need you charting a course for our global movement."

"I am. The rising power of our new developing world members will only be enhanced if we can get this machine learning technology online." I had rejected the move as too aggressive when it had been brought to me. But a combination of Radcliffe's badgering and Loki's visit had convinced me to give this expansion a chance - If we could give people years of extra education with a few hours or weeks in Osiris, than we'd be at the perfect point to deal with our global problems. The comparative advantage of our wages in the third world would still function, but the comparative advantage of first world educational attainment would collapse.

Of course, it could also spiral into some kind of synthetic intelligence that tried to overthrow everything I had built. Or our new and improved Hydra Agents might get bright ideas about how they, and not some talented-through-modification white guy, should rule the world. Or it could just cause chronic personality collapses and set back our budget for years.

There were risks. I was monitoring the situation closely. But I had hopes.