Steve and Clint exited VR to the whirring of desk fans and the clicking of fingers on keyboards. They arose from their beds and removed their glasses after receiving a nod from their monitors.
After stretching out their tired muscles and yawning as if awaking from a good nap, the two moved to empty desks to file their reports on their most recent adventures through ASTIR. There wasn’t much to write, as Multiplayer didn’t allow them much time to explore and they got too into it to even remember doing so in the first place, so they finished up quickly and moved to Fury’s office soon after.
On their way, they ran across a group of five muscle-clad individuals in standard SHIELD pt gear sitting down for lunch and, as they passed by, easily managed to overhear their conversation.
“I’m just saying, Thor,” the fat one said while laughing, loud enough for the whole dining hall to hear. “Their version of MJOLNIR seems far more useful than yours. HAH, just the other day I struck down Brute after Brute with my Gravity Hammer, all while it never lost its shields even once!”
“Pftt…” the woman fought to contain her laughter.
“What?!” the fat one cried, offended, slamming a fist down on the table. Various silverware flew into the air while cups spilled over, but no one else in the hall spared the group more than a glance, indicating that they were quite used to this by now. “You don’t believe me?? I recorded the whole thing and can show you right now!”
“Pfft.. Hahahah! I can’t!” the eastern-looking man sporting a top-knot, fell back with laughter alongside the skinny blonde one. “We’re laughing because you’re bragging about fighting on Normal! Of course your shields wouldn’t go down you idiot!“
The others in the hall all turned to give the fat one a look of disdain at those words, before turning back to their meals. Even the always positive Steve frowned and his opinion of the man had lessened after hearing that.
He’d played through the Campaigns on Normal as well, being more interested in the story and taking the time to relax, but he still had the utmost respect for those struggling against the meat grinder that was Legendary. He’d tried it out once after finishing his first play through, thinking like the rest of SHIELD that his superior training and experience would take him far, but he’d swiftly been relieved of those notions within the first hour.
“Would you shut up, Volstagg,” Thor, the far larger blonde one, with a slightly sparking hammer beside him, said through gritted teeth. “You’re making us all look like fools in front of the Midgardians!”
“And besides,” he continued in a slightly mocking manner while patting the hammer, somehow making it simmer down and stop floating atop the table, “my Mjolnir would destroy that flimsy suit of armor in a single blow. If I could bring it with me into the other world, we would’ve stormed through Legendary on the first day!”
“LIES! You haven’t eve..!” the fat one, Volstagg apparently, began to argue back after a resounding crash indicated his slamming of the table once again, but the two were far enough away that the coming rebuttal faded from their ears.
Clint chuckled from beside Steve, waving the Captain away after seeing his questioning glance, “They’re just some temporary guests that will be staying with us for a while. A bit rowdy, but they’re good people once you get to know them.”
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“Funny thing, they came to us because they thought that all the Halo trailers were signs of us preparing for an invasion,” he laughed after a funny thought came to mind, “Heh, now that I think about it, they’re a lot like you were when you first heard about it actually.”
Steve’s face grew slightly red after hearing that and remembering the first time he woke up to see the news of ASTIR in Times Square.
He proceeded to ignore the archer for the rest of their walk, continuing their short journey to the director’s office in silence.
•••
Fury set down the two reports while sporting a blank face. He hadn’t expected much, considering the parameters surrounding their last mission, but this was even less than what he’d hoped for.
He glanced up at the two sitting across from him, taking in their somewhat ashamed appearances, before putting the papers away with a sigh.
“No matter,” he said calmly as he intertwined his finger atop his desk and stared at the two with his lone good eye, “I wasn’t expecting much from this anyways.”
Seeing the two let out a breath of relief, he had to exert a considerable amount of willpower to not smirk while relaying his next few words, “In a completely unrelated note, Clint, you’re being transferred to provide overwatch for Dr. Selvig. His latest project has been exhibiting increasingly strange fluctuations in the past few days and I need someone there in case something goes awry.”
The archer groaned at the order and was about to protest, when Fury raised a hand to silence him, “Before you ask, Romanoff is still doing her part tackling the Legendary Campaigns and will be unavailable for the foreseeable future, unless something major comes up of course.”
“Besides,” this time the super spy couldn’t keep the smirk from forming at the edge of his lips, “based on both of your most recent reports, and the ones I’ve received from multiple STRIKE agents, you haven’t been performing up to standard within ASTIR have you, Barton? It’s my opinion that your talents would be much better suited elsewhere for the time being, don’t you agree?”
Clint’s face flushed and he gritted his teeth in humiliation while Steve gave him a pitying look. There was nothing the agent could do but grin and bear it at this point.
The last two games hadn’t suited his skill set at all and, despite how much he wanted to argue against the decision, there was really no reason for him to remain on it. Normally he didn’t really care about his missions and would just take them as they came, but this time it had infuriated him.
He wasn’t mad at the director of course, there was no point in it. He was his boss and Clint respected him. No, he was currently drowning in the director’s namesake because this meant that Rumlow had won. Again.
“I see, sir,” he finally spoke after taking a deep, calming breath and regaining his bearing. He gave Fury a small nod as he said his final words, “I’ll head out as soon as possible.”
“Hmm,” Fury nodded in return, “you’re dismissed, agent.”
Steve watched the exchange feeling rather awkward. He’d grown to like Clint quite a bit since waking up in this strange future. The man was rather fun to hang out with and the two had played together in both Pokémon and Halo to some success.
He didn’t really get involved much in the STRIKE teams inner rivalries, despite the fact that Rumlow had blatantly targeted him in the last tournament, he just saw them as harmless competition between coworkers. He’d seen much worse happen between units during his time in the Army and so this all seemed rather tame in his opinion.
Nevertheless, one of his few new friends was being sent away and thus a small seed of dislike had been planted in his heart against the main perpetrator behind all this, Rumlow. Even if the super soldier didn’t notice it now, he would definitely unconsciously see the other in an unfavorable light in the future.
As Clint got up to leave, Fury turned to Steve and spoke, “Captain, you can remain here and continue what you’ve been doing until we need you. No need to file anymore reports unless you discover anything you deem to hold substantial value, just take this time to relax and adjust to this world of ours.”
Seeing him nod, Fury dismissed him as well before turning back to the screen displaying the report Selvig had sent about his most recent findings on the Tesseract. The director didn’t know why, but whenever he read it, he would get an increasingly bad feeling on the matter.
This was the reason why he had sent Barton to watch over the Doctor, not because of some petty rivalry between his subordinates. He’d been in this game long enough to trust the instincts he’d honed over the years and they were screaming at him that this was more than it seemed.
Hopefully, his top agent would be enough and he wouldn’t have to pull more people from their present tasks. ASTIR had given him somewhat similar feelings ever since its release and he couldn’t afford to disregard one potential threat for another…