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SHIELD Blacksite
–Clint Barton–
In all his years of service in SHIELD, Clint Barton, the Hakweye, had seen some stuff, some truly weird stuff. Aliens? Check. Space technology? Check.
Weird glowing doodads that made everything go haywire? Check.
And yet, as he watched Jack regale them with the tales of his time spent in space, he could say with confidence that this was certainly the most odd thing he had heard.
Not Space Vikings with their own advanced civilization, so advanced that it was indistinguishable from magic, certainly not the fact that the seemingly average sized, if well built, the person in front of them could manifest avatars of green capable of shattering buildings, lifting Carriers and blocking literal death rays.
No, what was weird was the fact that there was some immortal dude wandering around in space who was obsessed with collecting seemingly rare items. And that same creepy old dude thought that Jack to be one of those rare items and sought to collect him.
“Yeah, I understand all that,” Even though he really didn’t, “ But how did you even get there? By your own words, this Collector’s place was on the other end of the galaxy,” He interjected between the story, drawing disapproving looks from both Romanoff and Rogers.
Sheesh, if somebody were to look at the both of them, they would never get the idea that both of them were on their way to stop a world spanning conspiracy of an ancient thought dead organization with weapons capable of targeting individual people through space, all for their cause of world domination.
No, all most people would see are two oddly dressed, cosplaying people, eating snacks-healthy snacks- and listening to another teenager regale them with seemingly fantasy stories about immortal aliens and their weird fetishes from space.
But it was all real. All of them were gathered here, on pretty short notice, and some even had to bid hasty goodbyes to their kids for this, to stop HYDRA from emerging from the deep dark hole they had carved for themselves into the barely alive body of SHIELD.
Well, most of it was understandable, considering the presence of a single person.
“Ah! That, you see, the energy storm also opened a rift in space, leading me straight to Collector's turf, where he actually saved me. Honestly, aside from a handful of people, inducing Asgard, none of the people in the galaxy actually had technology capable of healing the damage that had been done to my body,” Jack said as he snapped his finger.
He blinked his finger as he suddenly found his vision tinted green. He looked at his arms, and so did Romanoff and Rogers. Jack snapped his fingers once again and the green vanished from his eyes.
Freaky.
“Yeah, the near dying experience and the subsequent healing made it so that I am much stronger than when I first encountered the Chitauri. As I am now, I could single handedly destroy the fleet, annoying Middle aged man or not,” Jack said as a chill ran down his spine, his mind struggling to understand the heights of Jack’s powers now that he was seemingly more powerful than before.
“So, what you are saying that I can relax then?” He said as he popped grapes in his mouth, looking relaxed.
Jack made a so-so gesture with his hands, “I guess but even so, I don’t want to make this a one man operation. For one, the US government would be very nervous if they think that I have single handedly destroyed the most powerful Spy organisation in the world.”
He snorted at that. Nervous? “Kid, they would be batshit scared of you and your, now literally, otherworldly powers. I would say that there are understanding and rational individuals inside the government but honestly? I wouldn’t hold my breath over it,” He finished his piece and leaned back.
“So, what’s the game plan for tomorrow? Are we actually going to kill thousands of people, even if they were actually nazis?” He found himself asking the question that had undoubtedly been on his and Rogers’ minds ever since Jarvis announced his intent to conduct the single largest mass murder by an individual of the decade.
Romanoff sighed, “Look, I know you guys don’t think that it is right. Honestly, it is a little excessive but Jarvis doesn’t think like we do. He runs on numbers and they don’t lie. The chances of the system letting most of them scot-free are very high. Actually, Jarvis alone would not have been able to carry out the plan, but Jack here actually agrees with Jarvis so the plan will go forward, with or without our approval,” Romanoff actually shrugged, looking more relaxed than he had ever seen her, in all the years they had been together.
“Well, I am just glad that I don’t have to officially look for you anymore. It was getting tiring searching for ghosts, especially now that I know that you were never on land anyway. How many times did you actually land anyway?” he asked Romanoff, having seen the Quinjet that she had dropped out of.
Apparently, Jarvisw had commandeered an experimental Quinjet, a stealth class that ran on Stark’s Arc Reactor, an inferior version but the Arc Reactor meant that the Quinjet had to stop for refuels at much longer intervals, probably months, provided that Romanoff had enough food stocked in the Jet/
“Honestly, not that many times. Most of the supplies were just drops that Jarvis picked up using some drones he had built in his free time,” Romanoff replied, revealing several eyebrow raising details in that single sentence.
Well well well, Jarvis certainly had been busy in the two years he had been completely independent from his creator, the one person who could make heads or tails of the digital life form’s actions. Honestly, the scariest person in the room was not Jack but Jarvis, mainly because he could be in this room and a thousand other rooms all at the same time without stuttering or failing in efficiency.
It was an honest to god miracle they were not bowing down to their robot overlords because, at the rate, Jarvis was going, it would not take long for him to grow his forces to the point of taking over a part of the planet.
Actually, he wanted to try something, “Hey, Jarvis? Why haven’t you become our robot overlord yet? I am assuming you know the movies and as such, are immune to the same pitfalls?”
The disapproval in Rogers’ gaze multiplied but he could shove it. He might be a legend but he worked on his own terms, the recent reveal about SHIELD’s true nature only adding to his belief about the rare goodness of the world.
“I assume you are talking about taking over the world, Agent Barton. While I would like to assure you that I will not be doing so and it is not in my best, as well as Humanity’s best interests, I have a feeling that my words don’t hold the same credibility they did before. So, I will just tell you this, some words that can be easily verified by Mr.Sullivan. If I tried doing that, there are no less than 15 beings who keep a close watch on the planet, holding the power to end me and all copies of me, in an instant,”
His eyebrows reached into his hair, well, his hairline had receded a bit, but still, his mind went into shock as Jarvis’ words alluded to something greater, something about the true powerhouses of this world.
“So your reach has reached that far, Jarvis?” His neck snapped to Jack, who was speaking to thin air, all but confirming their doubts.
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“Well, that certainly was not reassuring. Actually, that was the entire opposite of reassuring,” He turned around to see a coughing Fury walking toward them and sitting down on the nearby chair, holding his IV Drip in one hand and a cane in the other.
He grinned, “Sorry boss, didn’t mean to scare you like that. You know, what with your weak heart now,”
“Don’t, Barton. Just don’t,” Fury grunted as he looked at each and every assembled member here. He then sighed explosively and took something from the side of the table, opening it up to reveal three rectangular devices.
“Seeing that my life’s work is about to go up in flames tomorrow, I would like to make a final request. Jarvis?”
“Yes, ex-Director Fury?”
He winced internally at that. That was cold of Jarvis.
“I assume that you can take control of the Carriers anytime you want?”
“...You assume wrong. I can only take complete control over all three of them once they are all synched to the satellites. Once the handshake is done, all three carriers will activate their thrusters at full speed, catapulting all the carriers straight into space, where they would airlock all the personnel into space, ridding the world of HYDRA, once and for all,”
He watched Fury squirm in his seat before he ground out the words, “So you are just going to steal Government property?”
“On the contrary, the carriers are soon to go into legal limbo, considering they never existed on paper, only having code names in SHIELD’s budgets. Once the agency itself is dissolved, the carriers themselves will be in space, where no individual country has jurisdiction.”
Damn.
“Alright, the carriers are not going anywhere, neither is Jarvis. Also, Fury, I give you my word that nothing nefarious will happen to the carriers. In fact, I will be taking over custody of the carriers, until a suitable alternative to SHIELD is not properly established. The same can be conveyed to all the world governments. Now, I wager that everyone is tired. Everyone needs to be in their best shape for tomorrow, so just get some rest,”
Like sufficiently chastised children, all of them stood up and shuffled towards their individual rooms. What he couldn’t have given to have a camera at the moment, was to capture the priceless moment of watching Fury being escorted back to his room against his wishes, by a no nonsense Jack.
“Well, he certainly is reliable,” He quipped to Romanoff as they reached the end of the corridor.
“...For what it’s worth, I am sorry. Tell the kids that I miss them,”
His smile vanished as he looked into her eyes for a moment and after judging them to be sincere, nodded and turned around. Just before closing the door, however, he told her, “The kids certainly miss their Aunt Nat. Once the heat dies down, come visit them,”
Well, time to get some rest for the easiest gig of his life.
Triskelion [Morning of Carrier Launch. ETA - 20 minutes]
—Jack Sullivan—
Well, this was going to be simple. Not.
He was unsuccessful in convincing Jarvis to let SHIELD as a whole survive. Instead, they had come to a bargain, to let SHIELD die but completely support the one that would be formed in the background. In the meanwhile, support the creation of another such organisation, most likely SWORD, and let both the organisations focus on different things.
SWORD on outer space and SHIELD on domestic threats.
It was almost perfect if only they could handle the execution properly. With Coulson being alive all this time, he had hidden himself deeply on Fury’s orders, along with his team somewhere Fury himself didn’t know about, so it would be easier to create the upper echelons of the new SHIELD.
What was going to be harder was to make time for the litany of things that were going to happen in the next few years. Without him around to flex his muscle, he wasn't sure if SWORD would even come into existence, and even if it did, it wouldn’t do stuff like taking apart Vision’s corpse or something equally horrible in the future.
No, if SWORD is created properly, the human race would have way fewer headaches in the future.
Well, nothing worth having ever came easy, so why would this situation be any easier? Despite him having enough firepower to level a small country within a week.
There was the matter of the Reality Stone just left unattended on Knowhere as well but he had been calling for Heimdall ever since he made sure that FUry and Rogers were safe but he had not received any response whatsoever.
His fears were founded to be true when he realised that Loki had probably already taken over Asgard, leaving Odin in some old age home in New York, banishing Thor and retiring Heimdall from his position, leaving Asgard the weakest it had been since the day of Odin’s Grandfather himself.
The best he could do was wait for Thor’s eventual return to Earth or seek out Odin. The only thing was he could not find Odin on his own. The Ancient One could probably help but he had a hunch she was not going to be as helpful in this scenario, likely because of a theory he had in his mind.
Someone as powerful as Odin, no matter how blinded in grief, could not have been caught off guard and imprisoned by Loki, no matter how sudden it might have been. It was more probable that Odin himself let it happen, simply tired of the way things had been going.
Well, those were things for later. All he had to do was grow stronger, help Earth avoid most of the tragedies that resulted in depleted fighting strength for the planet, and wait for the Big Bad Purple Scrotum to arrive.
He was currently floating on top of the Triskelion, under a stealth spell, reviewing the data that Jarvis had sent for him. Apparently, Jarvis, under the guise of Zola had made Pierce man every single carrier with personnel completely from HYDRA.
Jarvis also had some hand in it as he used his considerable digital influence to make it happen. He could see that all of the people that were actually going to be in the Carrier when they took off were certifiably HYDRA.
Only 1% of HYDRA personnel in SHIELD were going to be off the carriers. They were going to be hunted down later on as well, the surviving members of the agency having an easy target list to blow off some steam later on.
“Jarvis? Chances of SHIELD actually surviving this blow, while operating in the light?”
“6%”
His eyebrows rose as he was actually expecting a zero percent chance.
“Well, let’s do this,”
He said as he could see, through his barriers, the entire council arriving, well, the new one, meeting Pierce even though he was supposed to be retired.
He saw Pierce trying to kill them, only for Romanoff to put a bullet between his eyes, not even flinching as she did so. He snorted as she kicked his sliding corpse off the console and began typing on the console herself.
Suddenly, sirens began ringing in the entire Triskelion as the Bay doors began sliding open, revealing the form of three state-of-the-art Helicarriers to the world.
He could see the panicking HYDRA personnel as they kickstarted the launch of the carrier, certain of the safety of the carriers once they were synced together, not knowing that it was going to be their coffin.
World’s most expensive coffin, in fact.
He smiled upon hearing Captain Rogers’ inspirational speech, even if it was quite useless as Jarvis was not expecting any casualty, at least not in the Triskelion. The crew in other important locations were so minuscule that they could be easily subdued by the rest of the honest people present there.
Pierce really did do the heavy work and gathered every single one of the most elusive organisation of the past century into three floating coffins, currently on their way to space.
He kept a close eye on the carriers, as they began taking off. Jarvis actually did not have complete control yet so the low powered, traditional weapons were still in the hands of HYDRA personnel. He had to be ready for…
Just that, he thought to himself as his hand outstretched towards the Triskelion, creating a concave shield in front of the last Helicarrier, swallowing up the explosion because of the missile.
He grinned as the entirety of the personnel aboard were seemingly rocked by the existence of that huge green barrier. He snapped his fingers, morphing that same barrier into one that covered the entirety of the Triskelion.
He could feel their panic as all of the controllable weapons aboard the Carriers aimed themselves at the Triskelion and just let loose.
All manners of high calibre bullets, missiles, and even Lasers found themselves knocking on the outer walls of his barriers but not even breaking through the first layer.
He slowly floated down to the council chamber as he watched Fury and the rest of the occupants of the room looking at the huge expanse of green with shock.
“Well, hello there,” He waved to the new additions to the World Security Council.
“I assume you are almost done?” He asked Romanoff who simply nodded.
He then turned his gaze to Fury who looked back for a moment before he simply slammed his hand on the console, pressing the big red button, signalling the release of the entirety of the classified catalogue of SHIELD, from its inception to now.
And so the chapter of SHIELD came to an end……
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Word Count - 2951
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