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aa_natasha http://aa.mudmagic.com/w/index.php/2012-09-04_Good_Talk
Command centers never have chairs in shows or movies -- not for the people with names, anyway. Why is that?
Probably because it is boring to watch talking heads just sitting in place, thus the walk and talk. The Avengers being real, I imagine there are chairs. Stark is going to stand anyway: the restless pacing is better suited to his dynamism. He is not carrying a glass and he looks relatively subdued in a dark polo thick enough to veil, but not entirely block, the light from his arc reactor. He looks professionalish? Composed? Not drunk?
He waits until he reaches an arbitrary of quorum of patience breaking and then dials up what they know about situation at SHIELD on the display. (Hint: not as much as they might like.) "First up, anything new? Don't raise your hand and wait for me to call on you. I die a little every time someone does that to me."
The smell of chlorine lingers on Clint's skin and in the slight damp of his hair, but he's dressed in fairly non-wrinkled black BDUs and on time for this called meeting. He sits professionally, not appearing out of air ducts or anything for all that his bow is slung against the back of his chair. "I've got nothing," he replies with a subtle shake of his head.
"Pietro and I handled the weapons cache across the river in Jersey," Steve shares from his seat in his usual crisp-pressed slacks and button-down. That might already be in the mission file. Actually, it probably is, but I'm going to say it out loud in the scene cause.
Vision is in his black-tie suit, sitting placid-silent in his seat and studying the data as stands. Presumably has nothing to add.
Natasha leans into the far corner of the room (not a literal corner, what with the rounded walls, but close enough) in full SHIELD black with her arms folded over her chest.
Vance slipped into the back of the room and waited to see if there were enough chairs for everyone before taking one. He stays quiet, peering at the screen with interest.
One moment Pietro is not there, the next he's sitting in one of the chairs, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. If anyone had any loose papers sitting on a table or something...sorry. "That we did," he says on the heels of Steve's comment.
Thor sits in the sturdiest chair available. He probably broke the last few before discovering the one that currently supports him. After Stark's question he shakes his head, eyes focused. He wears his armor and Mjolnir is beside him on the floor.
Clint doesn't have loose papers, but his arrows do rattle in their quiver at Pietro's sudden entrance. He glances back with a thinning of his lips, making sure they don't explode, but they are designed for a lot more movement than that in everyday use.
"Do people really do that?" Bruce wonders. He is leaning forward on the cross of his arms against the table, dressed in brown corduroy and faded cream. He shifts a little in his seat. "I don't have a lot to add. I guess so everyone knows, as opposed to just Stark, I'm working on helping develop some prototype tech that should interfere with the radiation our ersatz director is putting off." Most people do not use ersatz in conversation, Banner. He blinks askance toward the sudden appearance of the speedster. "--Countermeasures," is how he finishes the thought.
With smug self-satisfaction, Stark takes credit for Steve and Pietro's hard work: "Barely a shiver on the surrounding architecture, too." He circles around to come before the control panel where he pulls up a recording and waits to activate it. "Yeah. Or -- well, I'm not sure what it will do. Countermeasures," he agrees. "I don't know if we'll get it into prototype in time, though." In time for what, Tony? I'm glad you asked, Meta. "Schmidt called after that cache went down. Technically he called this morning, I think. Technically."
Jarvis is cool-voiced as he agrees, "Yes, sir. Technically."
Ignoring the sassy AI, Stark starts the recording and then talks over it. "Schmidt extended an invitation I kind've have to take. Have until the end of the week. What else have we got with him?"
"What invitation, Stark?" Clint asks, flatly.
Steve blinks a little at Pietro's sudden appearance, but doesn't comment. "What kind of countermeasures?" he asks the science brigade. "Is he -- radioactive?" What does that mean. How is babby formed. And then his attention is drawn back to Stark and the recording of the phone call. By the end, he is looking /particularly/ jaw-jutty. "You do /not/ have to take that invitation," he says with conviction. "Bad enough that you weren't in there on your own /once/."
So far Pietro is 0 for 2 in accidentally blowing things up, then. Hoorah. "You're welcome," he says to the credit-taking Stark. No 'thank you' or 'good job'. This is followed by a frown. Invitation? Radioactive? "What?"
"What will taking the invitation accomplish," Vision asks. "Especially if he is dangerous to be in the same room with. Do you mean to assassinate him?" he further asks, without much inflection one way or the other.
"An invitation to do what?" asks Vance. He looks about to ask another question (and generally confused, like he thinks has missed some big chunk of the conversation somehow) but others ask instead, so he waits for an answer.
Bruce takes his glasses off in a tweak of his fingertips, and, as he lowers them, turns a particularly steady and intent look on Stark beneath the slight lift of his eyebrows. "Hold on, before we pile on," he says, in a measured kind of tone, and tips his glasses between Clint and Vance, "and find out what this is."
"Indeed," Thor says after Clint, voice booming.
"Kind of. He's -- I don't know what he is. I took half his face off with a repulsor blast the first time. It sort of -- grew back." Stark rubs his own jaw at the memory where he once took a blow from the Skull. He's not ignoring the rest of the questions; he's just going in order. "He changed. He's different. Has trouble with interference when he uses electronics; I'm going to make electronics that interfere with /him/. Anyway," he adds all breezy, "the invitation is--" He thumbs at the display. There's still a background noise replaying the conversation that they talk over and around. "I stop by to talk about recent events or he kills some of the SHIELD agents that are under Loki's control. So! What else have we got before then?"
Dead civilians are something that Steve can't argue with. "Someone else should go," he decides instead. "Or go with you. Someone more combat-ready, because I'm pretty sure he's not letting your suit inside."
"So, a cordial invitation then," Pietro comments helpfully with a slant of his mouth.
"To 'talk' about recent events? The weather and recent baseball game?" Clint presses with a brow raising upwards at Stark.
"He was the politest Nazi I've ever met," Stark answers Pietro with a mirrored slant. He rolls a shoulder at Clint.
"If electronics malfunction around Schmidt, that makes some contingencies difficult," Vision says, his forehead furrowed.
"How did this monster come to control SHIELD!?" Thor demands angrily. He slams his fist against an armrest. It breaks, bending and then snapping, but it doesn't give Thor much pause. "This American government is run by fools! And this World Security Council, they must be stopped! Their decisions would see this realm ruined in a winter that would last a thousand years."
Clint considers the responses, his gaze maybe lingering a moment on Thor at his outburst before it flicks back to Tony Stark. "The Captain is right," he says, lending his support to the idea of someone going with.
"You know how /you/ feel when anyone starts questioning the rule of Asgard?" Steve asks Thor pointedly, brow raised. "Someone's pulling strings we can't see behind the scenes; it doesn't mean the entire government is corrupt." He nods to Clint in silent acknowledgment of his support.
"No," Natasha says quietly from her back corner. "But he's not wrong, either. Someone somewhere is very, very stupid."
Stark ... twitches when Thor slams his fist and breaks the armrest. He folds his arms over his chest and rolls his eyes upward with a sigh that begs patience from ... Jarvis, maybe. Nothing else up there.
Bruce nods once, slowly. "Hostages," he says, and glances across at Steve, sliding his glasses back on. Then he sits there, head tilted to catch the voices in the recording despite everyone talking over them; his mouth twitches at one corner, thumb gliding along the tips of his fingers as he sits there. "Right, well. That makes me want to go back downstairs like ... thirty seconds ago," he says. "I'm not exactly a big fan of the American government, at all, like ... /at all/, but I'm a little hesitant to blame the fascist handoff entirely on American stupidity. See also, uh, Loki? Crazy guy, funny helmet, mind control stick? Did we forget about that?" He drags his fingers back through the dark rumple of his hair, further tousling it rather than making it any neater.
Thor leans back, subdued by Steve. "That is true. Perhaps it is not entirely run by fools." He listens to Banner quietly and merely adds, "My brother is not insane, but I understand your argument." He quiets afterward, and only then looks at his armrest. His expression sours. Thor preoccupies the next few moments trying to repair the thing.
"You could take Banner. Even Schmidt would be hesitant to start violence with him in the room," Clint suggests, his glance sliding between Bruce and Stark. He does nod back to Steve. Go us.
After Stark is done rolling his eyes (super mature, Tony; stop doing that), he lifts his voice like he is being ~so mature~: "Someone else would probably be better -- anyone else, actually. Schmidt said alone. We could try sending someone else alone, or apparently alone. I had some ideas about that -- mainly have Vision nearby or shrinking Jan along. Also thought about the fact that Vance said that Amora might've vanished her bracelet. What if she could vanish a person?"
"I don't really think /asking Amora for help/ is exactly an option here," Steve says with distinct emphasis. "Miss Van Dyne's abilities are good for getting /her/ in and out of tight spots, but not necessarily a partner." He leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, and laces his fingers together. "I don't like the idea of sending /anyone/ in there on their own."
Vision rubs his chin. His head has taken on his slight habitual cant. "I can be nearby. Closer in an instant. But if Schmidt can disable me just by being near me, that will be a problem. What is the nature of his disruption?"
The hue of Stark's gaze as he looks to Steve suggests a bet won against himself at his response. He answers Vision, unhelpfully: "I don't know."
Bruce eyebrows at Thor, but does not pursue the argument beyond this twitch of expression. Instead, he clears his throat. "Yes," he says, "which is probably why he told Stark to come alone. I'm sure the other guy would be happy to stomp Schmidt into goo given the opportunity, but..." He opens his hand, and lets that thought trail off into the aether as he closes his hand again. "Jan is pocket-sized. Quicksilver could get in fast at need, yeah?"
"Why do you think he wants to talk to you?" Vance pipes up to ask, adding, "And I'm not positive about the bracelet being invisible. It just seemed most likely."
"I'd rather work with Amora than Schmidt," Clint says dryly to--the room at large, it appears, as he leans back in his chair.
"I am not afraid to attend you, regardless. It is a risk I will take - but taking someone else as well," Vision glances over at Bruce, "would be wise. Do you think," over between Clint and Stark, "Amora would work with us?"
"I'm not actually sure he wants to talk," Stark says to Vance with a flat twist of his lips. It's like a smile, but not. "I've never actually seen Amora pull that trick with anything, so -- yeah. You could be wrong. But we've seen Loki use -- illusions. Whatever. Doesn't seem entirely out of the realm of plausibility." You can see how much his tongue hates saying those words. They twist and pull reluctantly off his lips, admitting to TECH IT IS TECH OKAY that produces illusion.
"Amora," Steve reminds Stark utterly predictably, "is entirely untrustworthy."
Clint muses in response to Vision's question, "If we gave her concessions, she might. She might be a lot more trustworthy if she thought we weren't hunting her."
"She can be trusted to do what is in her best interests," Stark disagrees at Steve.
"I could. Faster than anyone else nearby," Pietro speaks up. Is it boasting if it's true? He glances over at Clint. "I bet." Anyway. "Working with anyone untrustworthy is a terrible idea."
"Then what would he want?" Vance asks, "I mean, it's not like he can just lure us in one by one, right? If it's a trap and he just snatches you, nobody's going to fall for it again. And if he just wants to grab a random Avenger, I mean." He pauses, and glances around, and then just says it: "Why you?"
Thor gives up on the repairs with a grunt and lets the armrest fall to the floor. He frowns and looks up. "Amora would, for a price," he explains darkly. Afterward, he adds, "I am not certain why Amora has become an option. She is a traitor and a fiend. She would betray us in a moment."
"He's the one who is immune to Loki's mind control," Bruce says quietly. "If we lose Tony, we lose that."
"And what would make putting herself on the opposite side as Schmidt and Loki in Amora's best interests?" Steve wonders.
"But she has concealment skills we can't - yet - duplicate," Vision says. "I am not sure what we can offer, however."
"I'm a terrible hostage," Stark agrees with Vance, because he /knows/, and Schmidt should /know/, and too many people /know/ that. "Everything else aside, it's impossible to drop me off radar they way they could vanish the rest of you." Isn't that...nice? "In a way, might be safer for me than anyone else. Could be he really wants to talk business. He's been relatively well-behaved."
"If we lose Stark, we could lose this place eventually, Stark Industries support," Clint points out, glancing over at Stark and then back to Vance. "And if Stark Industries CEO disappeared, who says he doesn't have a plan to replace him like he did with SHIELD?"
"Safer," Bruce says with a distinctly unhappy air as he looks over at Stark.
"My incredibly terrifying PA?" Stark answers Clint.
"Sometimes," Natasha says, lifting her voice a touch in a rare space of silence, "you have to run risks to accomplish anything." She turns her head, eyes bright as they fix on Tony. "Are you willing to go?"
Clint snorts, disbelieving. He has never met this terrifying PA, of course.
"I don't exactly get the impression that you going AWOL from Stark Industries is that uncommon an event," Steve comments to Stark dryly. He glances over at Natasha, expression creasing with a deep frown.
That's weird, Clint. She's met like everyone else. Stark tells Natasha, "Yes," with a slight tip of his head. He makes a /seriously/ rude gesture in Steve's direction. Steve might not even understand it.
Natasha lifts her shoulders in the slightest of shrugs against her wall. "Then do it."
"He's /willing/ to hug a nuclear missile into outer space," Bruce mutters, scrubbing his hand through his hair again. "--Just saying, this whole 'safe' idea..."
"Mr. Stark is a very brave man," Vision says with his low admiration. "But we must decrease his danger if we can."
"You should've seen the show I put on before walking in there the first time," Stark gloats, then considers his audience and admits, "Maybe not. Anyway, for a given value of safe.... If Amora is off the table--" And he does not press this. Look at him not pressing this, or talking about Amora on the table, or anything. "--then we should go back to Vision, Pietro, and Janet possibilities, and talk about what else we can do in the meantime. He was kind of cranky about the weapons cache. Anything else we need to blow before we walk in there? Just, you know, to estimate how much more mad we make him."
Vance nods at Stark's answers, and sits back to listen some more.
"Vision, Pietro, and Janet won't help," Natasha says, rolling her shoulders back. "Not against Schmidt. Not even a little. Not even all three of them. The risk in taking them is bigger than the risk of going without."
"Why is Amora off the table?" Clint asks, since he seems to disagree with removing this option.
Stark kind of scrunches his nose at Natasha, but doesn't argue. "You know if you wanted to kill me, you had your chance," he points out to her. He is kidding? Maybe?
"Should heavier weapons be desired, I will come to your rescue in a moment's notice," Thor assures Stark with a chuckle. "Sif, Valkyrie, and I can travel through a portal to aid in your rescue, or in the defeat of Schmidt," Thor explains.
"/Sif/," exclaims Stark, because duh. "How easily can she find someone to reach them?"
Natasha shoots a startled glance toward Clint, and her eyes narrow on him for a moment before she turns toward Thor. There is a long pause before she gives him a slow nod.
"I'll just take the day off then." Pietro leans back a little further in his chair.
Vision inclines his head Natasha's way. "Vance and I are experimenting with the combat application of, say, solidifying inside someone else, but it will do little good if I can't get close." Thor now. "Certainly Asgardians are better weaponry."
Steve doesn't seem to grasp the specific meaning of Tony's gesture, but he grasps the general rude implication well enough. He glares. And then to Natasha says, "You suggest sending him in there without anything?"
"Back-up's only good if it's not wishful thinking," Natasha says, fingers tightening on the grip of her arms as she looks to Steve. She tips her head slightly toward Thor. "That plan might work. But the best bet is getting in and out without /needing/ it."
Bruce gives Stark a gloomy look of oh-God-I-don't-want-to-know as he gloats, and then hides his mouth behind his hand, expression fading into more musing thoughtfulness. He says, through the faint muffle of his fingers, "We're not sending him in there without backup. -- If Sif can find him in there..." He trails off, and rolls a look over at Thor without quite asking his next question.
"That is a question for her to answer," Thor explains. "But she has never disappointed me before - she is worthy of great deeds such as these." Thor looks at Vision. "I care not who joins me through the portal. Lest they are not capable of handling themselves."
"I'll talk to her," says Stark with a tight tip of his head in Thor's direction. "And we can all hope that it won't be necessary. I'll signal with the card if I want a ride home." His tone is flippant, and then he ~moves on~: "Anything else on this? Because if not I'd love to talk about those assholes who put him in charge."
Thor booms, "I am not sure my question pertains to this topic."
Steve looks distinctly unhappy at the way this plan has fallen out, but portal backup is better than no backup, so he doesn't argue further. "My guess is a combination of honest betrayal and Loki's meddling," he says. "Have you found anything else on the World Security Council?"
"What question?" Stark asides, because he is nothing if not distractible.
"I wonder what our goal is," Thor replies. "It occurs to me that SHIELD may..." Thor pauses. "It occurs to me that SHIELD has been struck deeply, and I worry that our assaults upon it may wound it deeper. I thought we intended to overthrough Schmidt's rule and banish my brother's magics. But if SHIELD is also heavily infiltrated, that would not be enough."
Tapping his fingers lightly against the table in an arrhythmed tattoo, Bruce sits up a little straighter and glances toward the door and then back to the meeting again. "Better to kill SHIELD altogether than let Schmidt run it," he says. It is probably not too much of a surprise that Banner is not actually all that worried about throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this case.
At Thor's statement, Clint draws straighter in his chair with the twitch of a muscle in his jaw, but he doesn't yet say anything. He waits for others to speak, first.
In her rounded corner, Natasha wears a SHIELD badge on her arm and remains silent.
"What would that even mean?" asks Vance, brows furrowed in concern. This is all very troubling, guys. And complicated.
"Okay. Fair question." Stark opens his hands as Thor speaks, granting it as a point, but one that he is prepared for. "/My/ goal is to get the creepy Nazi out of a position where he controls one of the most powerful intelligence organizations on the planet."
"We're not -- razing an entire American organization to the ground," Steve says, a little horrified at the very idea. "We do what Tony said: we remove the bad part. We don't throw out the whole thing."
"I think they are technically affiliated with the UN," Stark says, "but I've never actually been very clear on that." Ha ha?
Quietly, Natasha says, "There are a good many loyal men and women in SHIELD's employ. Not all of them are spies or assassins or soldiers." She pauses, flicking her gaze toward Clint, and the adds, "And even if we wanted to, I'm not confident that we could eradicate it completely. Erasing secret intelligence organizations from existence is not an easy task." Not that she's ever tried, guys.
Thor answers, "I was no suggesting we destroy SHIELD. I am merely stating that it is corrupt, and if we begin down this path we must ready ourselves." He pauses, tapping his chin. "Nor will I offer my opinion on this matter. Truly, I am here to serve in this matter."
"It's an intelligence organization, not a cheese with some mold on it," Bruce says a little exasperatedly to Steve. He rubs at his eyes behind his glasses. "Enh," he adds, "Fury's a lot of things but he isn't corrupt. I /don't/ know what's going on with his bosses." Maybe he has momentarily forgotten the whole Director Schmidt thing?
"Our goal should be Schmidt and Loki. We were assembled to deal with threats that the American government could not, and rooting out traitors and spies is one thing SHIELD is /very/ capable of," Clint says, finally.
Stark's gaze lingers a moment on Natasha, and he nods at her with a tight upward twitch of his chin. "Agreed, Barton," he says, and transfers his gaze to the other SHIELD agents. "Frankly the rest is below my pay grade. I don't know how long Schmidt can hold this together, but I'm thinking maybe we expose him so that people have no choice but to replace him. /Can't/ get worse."
"If Loki's around, choice doesn't come into it," Natasha says.
"Schmidtblog," Bruce mutters.
Vance looks at Bruce.
"What?" Bruce says. "I didn't say anything."
"Schmidtblog?" Vance echoes.
"/Someone/ has a choice," Steve says with conviction. "Even if we have to go up to the President. He can't have everyone under his control or in his pocket."
"Talking to yourself, Banner," Stark says. "You just got crazier." He is so supportive of his scibro. Look at the way he slaps his shoulder!
Thor booms, "Let us proceed. I think my query was answered."
Bruce sighs through his smile and props his temple against his fist. "I don't have the President's phone number," he says. "Must have left it in my other pants."
"Already worked that angle," Stark says to Banner, because he /does/ have the President's phone number, or at least the number of people with it. "Pepper and Rhodey--" Do you guys know Rhodey? No? He doesn't stop to explain. "--are still working in. I don't think we'll get far without him /doing/ anything. I wonder if we can't provoke him into doing something that would need a response." (Tony, no.)
"That," Steve says, "does not exactly seem a sound call." No, Tony. Tony, no.
"Provoking is easy. Directing the response, difficult," Vision aphorisms.
"Of course you did," Bruce says, looking briefly at the ceiling. He leans slowly back in his chair, frown thoughtful and lingering. "He was about to be tried for war crimes. What happened to being tried for war crimes?"
"Mind controlling SHIELD agents and holding them hostage just doesn't count for what it used to," Natasha murmurs.
"You have a better idea?" Stark asks Steve with an unfair edge to his voice. "If you took care of him 100 years ago we wouldn't even have to deal with this."
Ouch.
"I /did/ take care of him," Steve says, temper snapping back as he rises to his feet. "He was /gone/, but you and your /scientists/ and your pursuit of more and more advanced ways of /killing/ couldn't leave the tesseract in the damn ocean where it belonged, and then you couldn't keep away from it once you had it! Don't you dare talk to me about /responsibility/, Stark."
"Punch him," Clint encourages dryly. He doesn't seem to be too picky about who he is encouraging.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that they were busy /looking for you/," Stark snaps at Steve.
"Uh, guys?" Bruce says, looking between both of the standing men with eyebrows upswept.
"Hit him," Clint encourages again. So helpful.
"I don't see how this is pertinent," Vision says, eyes zipping from Stark to Steve and back.
Thor chuckles a little at Tony and Stark. "Gentleman!" he booms afterward. "We needn't argue so. Come, now. Let us return to the matter at hand."
Oh, Vision. Vance covers a brief snrk at the android's comment.
"I see why you guys are so effective," Pietro observes sarcastically like he's really given a lot of helpful input so far.
"We're an elite team," Natasha murmurs to Pietro. Her voice is quiet, but the edge of tension riding under it is clear enough.
"And you playing around with things you can't possibly control, that's about looking for me," Steve counters with rough-edge sarcasm. "/You're/ the reason he's here, Stark. Because you can't control any impulse that comes into your brain." Sorry, did you guys say something?
"It shows," Pietro replies to Natasha with no more confidence than before.
"Sock him," says Clint to Stark particularly this time.
"I'm controlling the impulse to punch you pretty damn well," Stark says, despite Clint and his goading. He walks away in a big circle, like OOH COLD SHOULDER THAT MEANS HE GETS THE LAST WORD AND NOW HE WINS. "Notice he still didn't come up with an idea, which means we are at finding some way to get the rest of the world to go 'oh wait, we just put a Nazi war criminal in charge'."
"Schmidtblog?" offers Vance. This is helpful, now! Bruce, so ahead of your time.
"The rest of the world isn't the problem," Natasha says, finally pushing free of her corner to stalk toward the front of the room. "Most of the world doesn't know or care what we are, and they don't have any power to change things. We can't aim at a target we don't recognize."
"So, SHIELD, intelligence agency..." Bruce says finally, having watches his friends bicker with a distinct tightening of his jaw. His tension has ratcheted, noticeable in the stiff way he sits. "Do we even know for sure who the World Security Council is?"
Steve glares daggers into Stark's back when he oh-so-maturely ends the argument. He turns as well, but his seems to be distinctly about regaining his cool and not looking at Stark for such a period of time it takes until he stops being in danger of hitting him.
"No. I was working on that, after the Chitauri thing." Stark waves a hand in the air like a conductor. "Jarvis?" The AI pulls up the big fat nothing that their searches turned up. His circling pauses before Natasha. Hi. Nice corner you have here. "Thought I'd ask you to look into it, but never got around to it. Now seems like a good time."
"I've always wanted a face to face meeting," Natasha answers in a dry mutter.
Thor frowns at the nothingness. "A council that cannot be held responsible by the people it protects?" Thor asks, frowning. He grunts noticeably and reclines in his chair. "I do not approve."
"What if they don't have faces?" Stark asks Natasha in a tone of mock-speculation. Look Steve he is ignoring you so hard that no one else in the room exists but Natasha. "Fury said there are four: usual suspects. Any records of them at SHIELD have been wiped. Have fun?"
"They have faces," Natasha says, her voice grim.
"Once we figure that out, I think we'll be in a better position to plan," Bruce says, drumming his fingers one-two-three on the surface of the table again. "Are we ... good?" he says. "I really want to get to work on the Nazi botherer, unless there's something else."
Good, Tony, because Steve is also ignoring you, we can have a big ignoring party. He glances at Bruce, tension still lingering in his expression, and says nothing.
"We could talk about security around civilians," Clint says with a glance to Thor and Steve, but he doesn't seem to press that too much.
"I'm a civilian," Stark points out to Clint like someone maybe not getting the point.
"Yeah, me too," Bruce says. Since there is apparently more, he sits still, if a little tense, and looks over and around at the others as he sucks a little on one cheek.
"I have legal personhood. I'm not sure about the rest of it," Vision puts in to put in.
"You're Avengers," Natasha says, with both look and tone that asks 'why are we talking about this?'
"She's right," Steve says quietly, his arms crossed over his chest. "None of us are civilians."
Stark swallows any trace of smug that might appear on his features at Natasha's answer, because no, he totally doesn't need approval from a SHIELD lackey. (She catches it.) Turning away, he looks at Clint with a tip of his head /and ignores Steve because he is not a soldier/. "Why, Barton?"
Thor looks at Clint. "I am not certain what you mean," is his reply, voice low.
"I'm /really/ a civilian," Bruce iterates firmly.
"Because, SHIELD and Avenger Initiative information has been falling into ears that shouldn't be hearing it. Like our young guest upstairs," Clint replies slowly, his brow lifting at Thor. And Pepper, too. But she's not here and he doesn't know about that, obviously.
"Oh yeah, who is that?" Vance asks, "I ran into her earlier. She was, like, running away from downstairs, or something."
"Thor's friend?" Vision moves to clarify.
Psht. Pepper doesn't count. She is only an extension of Stark's ego, right? Not a fully-fledged person on her own right who might have to have plans on her birthday and everything? Stark looks up and then over at Thor. "How many Asgardians are you shoving in the closets?"
"Wait," Bruce says. He looks confused. "What?"
Thor sits confused for a moment. Afterward, he says, "You mean Darcy Lewis - she is a friend." Thor crosses his arms and asks Clint, "What of her? She has done no harm." Yet. Well, maybe she has.
MAYBE SHE HAS NOT.
"She's Darcy Lewis, and she got Thor back here, and /threatening her/ is not an appropriate response to her presence," Steve says, lingering temper overlapping with previous irritation to make him a whole ball of fun in Clint's direction.
"I didn't threaten her!" Vance protests, thinking Steve means him, "It was a misunderstanding."
"She seemed fairly harmless, if curious. Still, we could have spoken more discreetly around her. Such as," Vision appends to Thor, "you should not have called me a robot in her presence."
"Not you," Steve says with immediate exasperation to Vance. Then, with sudden redirection, "What did /you/ do?"
Clint only levels a look at Steve, not feeling a bit guilty and unashamed.
"We have guests that we are threatening?" Pietro's brows raise a touch. "You have some strange hosting customs here." He looks around, where multiple people seem to have meat and/or threatened someone.
Vance looks sheepish. "I, umm. I might've picked her up a bit? You know, without my hands. She startled me! She was running away and keeping her head down, I thought maybe she was somebody bad trying to escape or something. I put her right back down and apologized."
"Jarvis, who is Darcy?" Stark asks with the turn of his head toward the command center's central display. "You couldn't tell me we had company?"
A moment later, Darcy's student ID tops her transcript and SHIELD file, because she has to have some kind of file from New Mexico. "I did, sir. Darcy has since returned to her apartment."
Stark changes the subject: "What's the problem? Don't tell poli-sci undergrads that Nazis are taking over SHIELD?" asks Stark.
"Yes," Clint agrees dryly to that boundary.
Unless they are Vance. Tell him, please.
"You are not a human," Thor informs Vision. "I have warned you against seeking to become human, Vision. Do not be ashamed of your origins. You are a fine creation, and needn't be ashamed." Thor pauses. "Also, I doubt /Darcy Lewis/ cares about the existence of dragons. She is a charming young woman. And, to be frank," he looks around the room, "I am tired of seeing so many men."
"/Right/?" Stark agrees with Thor, sudden and heartfelt and I'm sorry, what else were they discussing?
"I am not ashamed to be a built thing," Vision says, drawing himself straight-shouldered in the chair. "But that doesn't mean that anyone of any Avengers' acquaintance needs to know on a first meeting." Is that an edge of tension, maybe? Oh well, hard to place.
"We can have that conversation without Clint giving her every indication that was going to /murder/ her and absolutely terrifying her," Steve says, conviction unfaltering in the midst of Clint's lack of guilt.
Clint just smirks, smirks, and answers, "I've seen enough of the women around." A pause. "It does not mean we should be careless with what we tell any person we know."
Natasha turns her head to arch a single, silent brow at Clint.
The look that Stark gives Clint at that works best slanted over a pair of sunglasses, but for some reason he isn't wearing them today. He makes do, and then twitches his eyebrows in a 'you, me, story time, beers' kind of way. "I guess it's kind of like an NDA," he decides, meandering back on topic.
"So nobody cares and this is not my fault?" Vance surmises from the continuing conversation, more or less talking to himself, "Awesome."
"I didn't say it did," Steve tells Clint before maybe possibly dropping the subject of threatening young civilian women, but probably not. "She's gone now, anyways."
"If Darcy Lewis is capable of bringing destruction upon us, we are indeed in peril," Thor says angrily. "She is merely a curious young woman. She will brighten this mansion," like a house plant! "and we needn't be concerned. If she causes some harm, I am sure she will apologize. Although, I shall warn you - she is armed with a tazer."
"She can chill with Coulson," says Stark, obscurely.
Pietro rolls his eyes. "Right, so, don't share secrets or threaten to kill random guests. That seems easy enough." ...right, guys? Yes? Maybe? "That's almost like accomplishing something."
"And let's leave off of exposing delicate details of identity and nature quite so readily." Vision is now folding his arms. "This may be a refuge, but it is nice to be able to interact with people normally, occasionally."
Bruce looks mildly uncomfortable, but he isn't offering any commentary, so he probably doesn't have anything useful to add.
Thor adds, "I will agree to not refer to you as 'robot' in public. Although I think it a strange notion, as that is what you are."
"Okay, super, done, we'll all be way responsible. Anything else or can I go get a drink?" asks Stark of the group at large.
"Robots that look and talk like people aren't normal," Vance explains to Thor, as this appears to need explaining, "We don't really need people to know they exist. They might freak out."
Clint curves his brows up at Stark at the question, making a gesture as he stands up. You, me, right? Drinks? He avoids meeting Natasha's look. Innocently.
"Done," Bruce says, and stands up to start walking toward the door, saying, "I'm going to go figure out how to work your espresso machine. Got a lot of work to do."
"Thank you," Vision says toward Thor, then dips a side nod to Vance. "I cannot gather accurate observations if people are 'freaking out.' That is all." Really. "I have nothing further," more general.
Uh huh. Natasha gives Clint a very clear roll of her eyes and then slips from the room toward her own work. Secret spy-like. And stuff.
Steve doesn't say anything either way on the subject of being finished, but his silence seems communicative enough. He shoots a final glare in Stark's direction, though.
"Done." Pietro beats everyone to the door with a whoosh of breeze as he exits. Dick.
~Whatever~, Steve. Stark dismisses the group with a benevolent gesture like a /kind and dignified leader of men/. "Alcohol time." Maybe not so dignified.
Steve jaw-juts his way right out of this command center.
Command centers never have chairs in shows or movies -- not for the people with names, anyway. Why is that?
Probably because it is boring to watch talking heads just sitting in place, thus the walk and talk. The Avengers being real, I imagine there are chairs. Stark is going to stand anyway: the restless pacing is better suited to his dynamism. He is not carrying a glass and he looks relatively subdued in a dark polo thick enough to veil, but not entirely block, the light from his arc reactor. He looks professionalish? Composed? Not drunk?
He waits until he reaches an arbitrary of quorum of patience breaking and then dials up what they know about situation at SHIELD on the display. (Hint: not as much as they might like.) "First up, anything new? Don't raise your hand and wait for me to call on you. I die a little every time someone does that to me."
The smell of chlorine lingers on Clint's skin and in the slight damp of his hair, but he's dressed in fairly non-wrinkled black BDUs and on time for this called meeting. He sits professionally, not appearing out of air ducts or anything for all that his bow is slung against the back of his chair. "I've got nothing," he replies with a subtle shake of his head.
"Pietro and I handled the weapons cache across the river in Jersey," Steve shares from his seat in his usual crisp-pressed slacks and button-down. That might already be in the mission file. Actually, it probably is, but I'm going to say it out loud in the scene cause.
Vision is in his black-tie suit, sitting placid-silent in his seat and studying the data as stands. Presumably has nothing to add.
Natasha leans into the far corner of the room (not a literal corner, what with the rounded walls, but close enough) in full SHIELD black with her arms folded over her chest.
Vance slipped into the back of the room and waited to see if there were enough chairs for everyone before taking one. He stays quiet, peering at the screen with interest.
One moment Pietro is not there, the next he's sitting in one of the chairs, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. If anyone had any loose papers sitting on a table or something...sorry. "That we did," he says on the heels of Steve's comment.
Thor sits in the sturdiest chair available. He probably broke the last few before discovering the one that currently supports him. After Stark's question he shakes his head, eyes focused. He wears his armor and Mjolnir is beside him on the floor.
Clint doesn't have loose papers, but his arrows do rattle in their quiver at Pietro's sudden entrance. He glances back with a thinning of his lips, making sure they don't explode, but they are designed for a lot more movement than that in everyday use.
"Do people really do that?" Bruce wonders. He is leaning forward on the cross of his arms against the table, dressed in brown corduroy and faded cream. He shifts a little in his seat. "I don't have a lot to add. I guess so everyone knows, as opposed to just Stark, I'm working on helping develop some prototype tech that should interfere with the radiation our ersatz director is putting off." Most people do not use ersatz in conversation, Banner. He blinks askance toward the sudden appearance of the speedster. "--Countermeasures," is how he finishes the thought.
With smug self-satisfaction, Stark takes credit for Steve and Pietro's hard work: "Barely a shiver on the surrounding architecture, too." He circles around to come before the control panel where he pulls up a recording and waits to activate it. "Yeah. Or -- well, I'm not sure what it will do. Countermeasures," he agrees. "I don't know if we'll get it into prototype in time, though." In time for what, Tony? I'm glad you asked, Meta. "Schmidt called after that cache went down. Technically he called this morning, I think. Technically."
Jarvis is cool-voiced as he agrees, "Yes, sir. Technically."
Ignoring the sassy AI, Stark starts the recording and then talks over it. "Schmidt extended an invitation I kind've have to take. Have until the end of the week. What else have we got with him?"
"What invitation, Stark?" Clint asks, flatly.
Steve blinks a little at Pietro's sudden appearance, but doesn't comment. "What kind of countermeasures?" he asks the science brigade. "Is he -- radioactive?" What does that mean. How is babby formed. And then his attention is drawn back to Stark and the recording of the phone call. By the end, he is looking /particularly/ jaw-jutty. "You do /not/ have to take that invitation," he says with conviction. "Bad enough that you weren't in there on your own /once/."
So far Pietro is 0 for 2 in accidentally blowing things up, then. Hoorah. "You're welcome," he says to the credit-taking Stark. No 'thank you' or 'good job'. This is followed by a frown. Invitation? Radioactive? "What?"
"What will taking the invitation accomplish," Vision asks. "Especially if he is dangerous to be in the same room with. Do you mean to assassinate him?" he further asks, without much inflection one way or the other.
"An invitation to do what?" asks Vance. He looks about to ask another question (and generally confused, like he thinks has missed some big chunk of the conversation somehow) but others ask instead, so he waits for an answer.
Bruce takes his glasses off in a tweak of his fingertips, and, as he lowers them, turns a particularly steady and intent look on Stark beneath the slight lift of his eyebrows. "Hold on, before we pile on," he says, in a measured kind of tone, and tips his glasses between Clint and Vance, "and find out what this is."
"Indeed," Thor says after Clint, voice booming.
"Kind of. He's -- I don't know what he is. I took half his face off with a repulsor blast the first time. It sort of -- grew back." Stark rubs his own jaw at the memory where he once took a blow from the Skull. He's not ignoring the rest of the questions; he's just going in order. "He changed. He's different. Has trouble with interference when he uses electronics; I'm going to make electronics that interfere with /him/. Anyway," he adds all breezy, "the invitation is--" He thumbs at the display. There's still a background noise replaying the conversation that they talk over and around. "I stop by to talk about recent events or he kills some of the SHIELD agents that are under Loki's control. So! What else have we got before then?"
Dead civilians are something that Steve can't argue with. "Someone else should go," he decides instead. "Or go with you. Someone more combat-ready, because I'm pretty sure he's not letting your suit inside."
"So, a cordial invitation then," Pietro comments helpfully with a slant of his mouth.
"To 'talk' about recent events? The weather and recent baseball game?" Clint presses with a brow raising upwards at Stark.
"He was the politest Nazi I've ever met," Stark answers Pietro with a mirrored slant. He rolls a shoulder at Clint.
"If electronics malfunction around Schmidt, that makes some contingencies difficult," Vision says, his forehead furrowed.
"How did this monster come to control SHIELD!?" Thor demands angrily. He slams his fist against an armrest. It breaks, bending and then snapping, but it doesn't give Thor much pause. "This American government is run by fools! And this World Security Council, they must be stopped! Their decisions would see this realm ruined in a winter that would last a thousand years."
Clint considers the responses, his gaze maybe lingering a moment on Thor at his outburst before it flicks back to Tony Stark. "The Captain is right," he says, lending his support to the idea of someone going with.
"You know how /you/ feel when anyone starts questioning the rule of Asgard?" Steve asks Thor pointedly, brow raised. "Someone's pulling strings we can't see behind the scenes; it doesn't mean the entire government is corrupt." He nods to Clint in silent acknowledgment of his support.
"No," Natasha says quietly from her back corner. "But he's not wrong, either. Someone somewhere is very, very stupid."
Stark ... twitches when Thor slams his fist and breaks the armrest. He folds his arms over his chest and rolls his eyes upward with a sigh that begs patience from ... Jarvis, maybe. Nothing else up there.
Bruce nods once, slowly. "Hostages," he says, and glances across at Steve, sliding his glasses back on. Then he sits there, head tilted to catch the voices in the recording despite everyone talking over them; his mouth twitches at one corner, thumb gliding along the tips of his fingers as he sits there. "Right, well. That makes me want to go back downstairs like ... thirty seconds ago," he says. "I'm not exactly a big fan of the American government, at all, like ... /at all/, but I'm a little hesitant to blame the fascist handoff entirely on American stupidity. See also, uh, Loki? Crazy guy, funny helmet, mind control stick? Did we forget about that?" He drags his fingers back through the dark rumple of his hair, further tousling it rather than making it any neater.
Thor leans back, subdued by Steve. "That is true. Perhaps it is not entirely run by fools." He listens to Banner quietly and merely adds, "My brother is not insane, but I understand your argument." He quiets afterward, and only then looks at his armrest. His expression sours. Thor preoccupies the next few moments trying to repair the thing.
"You could take Banner. Even Schmidt would be hesitant to start violence with him in the room," Clint suggests, his glance sliding between Bruce and Stark. He does nod back to Steve. Go us.
After Stark is done rolling his eyes (super mature, Tony; stop doing that), he lifts his voice like he is being ~so mature~: "Someone else would probably be better -- anyone else, actually. Schmidt said alone. We could try sending someone else alone, or apparently alone. I had some ideas about that -- mainly have Vision nearby or shrinking Jan along. Also thought about the fact that Vance said that Amora might've vanished her bracelet. What if she could vanish a person?"
"I don't really think /asking Amora for help/ is exactly an option here," Steve says with distinct emphasis. "Miss Van Dyne's abilities are good for getting /her/ in and out of tight spots, but not necessarily a partner." He leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, and laces his fingers together. "I don't like the idea of sending /anyone/ in there on their own."
Vision rubs his chin. His head has taken on his slight habitual cant. "I can be nearby. Closer in an instant. But if Schmidt can disable me just by being near me, that will be a problem. What is the nature of his disruption?"
The hue of Stark's gaze as he looks to Steve suggests a bet won against himself at his response. He answers Vision, unhelpfully: "I don't know."
Bruce eyebrows at Thor, but does not pursue the argument beyond this twitch of expression. Instead, he clears his throat. "Yes," he says, "which is probably why he told Stark to come alone. I'm sure the other guy would be happy to stomp Schmidt into goo given the opportunity, but..." He opens his hand, and lets that thought trail off into the aether as he closes his hand again. "Jan is pocket-sized. Quicksilver could get in fast at need, yeah?"
"Why do you think he wants to talk to you?" Vance pipes up to ask, adding, "And I'm not positive about the bracelet being invisible. It just seemed most likely."
"I'd rather work with Amora than Schmidt," Clint says dryly to--the room at large, it appears, as he leans back in his chair.
"I am not afraid to attend you, regardless. It is a risk I will take - but taking someone else as well," Vision glances over at Bruce, "would be wise. Do you think," over between Clint and Stark, "Amora would work with us?"
"I'm not actually sure he wants to talk," Stark says to Vance with a flat twist of his lips. It's like a smile, but not. "I've never actually seen Amora pull that trick with anything, so -- yeah. You could be wrong. But we've seen Loki use -- illusions. Whatever. Doesn't seem entirely out of the realm of plausibility." You can see how much his tongue hates saying those words. They twist and pull reluctantly off his lips, admitting to TECH IT IS TECH OKAY that produces illusion.
"Amora," Steve reminds Stark utterly predictably, "is entirely untrustworthy."
Clint muses in response to Vision's question, "If we gave her concessions, she might. She might be a lot more trustworthy if she thought we weren't hunting her."
"She can be trusted to do what is in her best interests," Stark disagrees at Steve.
"I could. Faster than anyone else nearby," Pietro speaks up. Is it boasting if it's true? He glances over at Clint. "I bet." Anyway. "Working with anyone untrustworthy is a terrible idea."
"Then what would he want?" Vance asks, "I mean, it's not like he can just lure us in one by one, right? If it's a trap and he just snatches you, nobody's going to fall for it again. And if he just wants to grab a random Avenger, I mean." He pauses, and glances around, and then just says it: "Why you?"
Thor gives up on the repairs with a grunt and lets the armrest fall to the floor. He frowns and looks up. "Amora would, for a price," he explains darkly. Afterward, he adds, "I am not certain why Amora has become an option. She is a traitor and a fiend. She would betray us in a moment."
"He's the one who is immune to Loki's mind control," Bruce says quietly. "If we lose Tony, we lose that."
"And what would make putting herself on the opposite side as Schmidt and Loki in Amora's best interests?" Steve wonders.
"But she has concealment skills we can't - yet - duplicate," Vision says. "I am not sure what we can offer, however."
"I'm a terrible hostage," Stark agrees with Vance, because he /knows/, and Schmidt should /know/, and too many people /know/ that. "Everything else aside, it's impossible to drop me off radar they way they could vanish the rest of you." Isn't that...nice? "In a way, might be safer for me than anyone else. Could be he really wants to talk business. He's been relatively well-behaved."
"If we lose Stark, we could lose this place eventually, Stark Industries support," Clint points out, glancing over at Stark and then back to Vance. "And if Stark Industries CEO disappeared, who says he doesn't have a plan to replace him like he did with SHIELD?"
"Safer," Bruce says with a distinctly unhappy air as he looks over at Stark.
"My incredibly terrifying PA?" Stark answers Clint.
"Sometimes," Natasha says, lifting her voice a touch in a rare space of silence, "you have to run risks to accomplish anything." She turns her head, eyes bright as they fix on Tony. "Are you willing to go?"
Clint snorts, disbelieving. He has never met this terrifying PA, of course.
"I don't exactly get the impression that you going AWOL from Stark Industries is that uncommon an event," Steve comments to Stark dryly. He glances over at Natasha, expression creasing with a deep frown.
That's weird, Clint. She's met like everyone else. Stark tells Natasha, "Yes," with a slight tip of his head. He makes a /seriously/ rude gesture in Steve's direction. Steve might not even understand it.
Natasha lifts her shoulders in the slightest of shrugs against her wall. "Then do it."
"He's /willing/ to hug a nuclear missile into outer space," Bruce mutters, scrubbing his hand through his hair again. "--Just saying, this whole 'safe' idea..."
"Mr. Stark is a very brave man," Vision says with his low admiration. "But we must decrease his danger if we can."
"You should've seen the show I put on before walking in there the first time," Stark gloats, then considers his audience and admits, "Maybe not. Anyway, for a given value of safe.... If Amora is off the table--" And he does not press this. Look at him not pressing this, or talking about Amora on the table, or anything. "--then we should go back to Vision, Pietro, and Janet possibilities, and talk about what else we can do in the meantime. He was kind of cranky about the weapons cache. Anything else we need to blow before we walk in there? Just, you know, to estimate how much more mad we make him."
Vance nods at Stark's answers, and sits back to listen some more.
"Vision, Pietro, and Janet won't help," Natasha says, rolling her shoulders back. "Not against Schmidt. Not even a little. Not even all three of them. The risk in taking them is bigger than the risk of going without."
"Why is Amora off the table?" Clint asks, since he seems to disagree with removing this option.
Stark kind of scrunches his nose at Natasha, but doesn't argue. "You know if you wanted to kill me, you had your chance," he points out to her. He is kidding? Maybe?
"Should heavier weapons be desired, I will come to your rescue in a moment's notice," Thor assures Stark with a chuckle. "Sif, Valkyrie, and I can travel through a portal to aid in your rescue, or in the defeat of Schmidt," Thor explains.
"/Sif/," exclaims Stark, because duh. "How easily can she find someone to reach them?"
Natasha shoots a startled glance toward Clint, and her eyes narrow on him for a moment before she turns toward Thor. There is a long pause before she gives him a slow nod.
"I'll just take the day off then." Pietro leans back a little further in his chair.
Vision inclines his head Natasha's way. "Vance and I are experimenting with the combat application of, say, solidifying inside someone else, but it will do little good if I can't get close." Thor now. "Certainly Asgardians are better weaponry."
Steve doesn't seem to grasp the specific meaning of Tony's gesture, but he grasps the general rude implication well enough. He glares. And then to Natasha says, "You suggest sending him in there without anything?"
"Back-up's only good if it's not wishful thinking," Natasha says, fingers tightening on the grip of her arms as she looks to Steve. She tips her head slightly toward Thor. "That plan might work. But the best bet is getting in and out without /needing/ it."
Bruce gives Stark a gloomy look of oh-God-I-don't-want-to-know as he gloats, and then hides his mouth behind his hand, expression fading into more musing thoughtfulness. He says, through the faint muffle of his fingers, "We're not sending him in there without backup. -- If Sif can find him in there..." He trails off, and rolls a look over at Thor without quite asking his next question.
"That is a question for her to answer," Thor explains. "But she has never disappointed me before - she is worthy of great deeds such as these." Thor looks at Vision. "I care not who joins me through the portal. Lest they are not capable of handling themselves."
"I'll talk to her," says Stark with a tight tip of his head in Thor's direction. "And we can all hope that it won't be necessary. I'll signal with the card if I want a ride home." His tone is flippant, and then he ~moves on~: "Anything else on this? Because if not I'd love to talk about those assholes who put him in charge."
Thor booms, "I am not sure my question pertains to this topic."
Steve looks distinctly unhappy at the way this plan has fallen out, but portal backup is better than no backup, so he doesn't argue further. "My guess is a combination of honest betrayal and Loki's meddling," he says. "Have you found anything else on the World Security Council?"
"What question?" Stark asides, because he is nothing if not distractible.
"I wonder what our goal is," Thor replies. "It occurs to me that SHIELD may..." Thor pauses. "It occurs to me that SHIELD has been struck deeply, and I worry that our assaults upon it may wound it deeper. I thought we intended to overthrough Schmidt's rule and banish my brother's magics. But if SHIELD is also heavily infiltrated, that would not be enough."
Tapping his fingers lightly against the table in an arrhythmed tattoo, Bruce sits up a little straighter and glances toward the door and then back to the meeting again. "Better to kill SHIELD altogether than let Schmidt run it," he says. It is probably not too much of a surprise that Banner is not actually all that worried about throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this case.
At Thor's statement, Clint draws straighter in his chair with the twitch of a muscle in his jaw, but he doesn't yet say anything. He waits for others to speak, first.
In her rounded corner, Natasha wears a SHIELD badge on her arm and remains silent.
"What would that even mean?" asks Vance, brows furrowed in concern. This is all very troubling, guys. And complicated.
"Okay. Fair question." Stark opens his hands as Thor speaks, granting it as a point, but one that he is prepared for. "/My/ goal is to get the creepy Nazi out of a position where he controls one of the most powerful intelligence organizations on the planet."
"We're not -- razing an entire American organization to the ground," Steve says, a little horrified at the very idea. "We do what Tony said: we remove the bad part. We don't throw out the whole thing."
"I think they are technically affiliated with the UN," Stark says, "but I've never actually been very clear on that." Ha ha?
Quietly, Natasha says, "There are a good many loyal men and women in SHIELD's employ. Not all of them are spies or assassins or soldiers." She pauses, flicking her gaze toward Clint, and the adds, "And even if we wanted to, I'm not confident that we could eradicate it completely. Erasing secret intelligence organizations from existence is not an easy task." Not that she's ever tried, guys.
Thor answers, "I was no suggesting we destroy SHIELD. I am merely stating that it is corrupt, and if we begin down this path we must ready ourselves." He pauses, tapping his chin. "Nor will I offer my opinion on this matter. Truly, I am here to serve in this matter."
"It's an intelligence organization, not a cheese with some mold on it," Bruce says a little exasperatedly to Steve. He rubs at his eyes behind his glasses. "Enh," he adds, "Fury's a lot of things but he isn't corrupt. I /don't/ know what's going on with his bosses." Maybe he has momentarily forgotten the whole Director Schmidt thing?
"Our goal should be Schmidt and Loki. We were assembled to deal with threats that the American government could not, and rooting out traitors and spies is one thing SHIELD is /very/ capable of," Clint says, finally.
Stark's gaze lingers a moment on Natasha, and he nods at her with a tight upward twitch of his chin. "Agreed, Barton," he says, and transfers his gaze to the other SHIELD agents. "Frankly the rest is below my pay grade. I don't know how long Schmidt can hold this together, but I'm thinking maybe we expose him so that people have no choice but to replace him. /Can't/ get worse."
"If Loki's around, choice doesn't come into it," Natasha says.
"Schmidtblog," Bruce mutters.
Vance looks at Bruce.
"What?" Bruce says. "I didn't say anything."
"Schmidtblog?" Vance echoes.
"/Someone/ has a choice," Steve says with conviction. "Even if we have to go up to the President. He can't have everyone under his control or in his pocket."
"Talking to yourself, Banner," Stark says. "You just got crazier." He is so supportive of his scibro. Look at the way he slaps his shoulder!
Thor booms, "Let us proceed. I think my query was answered."
Bruce sighs through his smile and props his temple against his fist. "I don't have the President's phone number," he says. "Must have left it in my other pants."
"Already worked that angle," Stark says to Banner, because he /does/ have the President's phone number, or at least the number of people with it. "Pepper and Rhodey--" Do you guys know Rhodey? No? He doesn't stop to explain. "--are still working in. I don't think we'll get far without him /doing/ anything. I wonder if we can't provoke him into doing something that would need a response." (Tony, no.)
"That," Steve says, "does not exactly seem a sound call." No, Tony. Tony, no.
"Provoking is easy. Directing the response, difficult," Vision aphorisms.
"Of course you did," Bruce says, looking briefly at the ceiling. He leans slowly back in his chair, frown thoughtful and lingering. "He was about to be tried for war crimes. What happened to being tried for war crimes?"
"Mind controlling SHIELD agents and holding them hostage just doesn't count for what it used to," Natasha murmurs.
"You have a better idea?" Stark asks Steve with an unfair edge to his voice. "If you took care of him 100 years ago we wouldn't even have to deal with this."
Ouch.
"I /did/ take care of him," Steve says, temper snapping back as he rises to his feet. "He was /gone/, but you and your /scientists/ and your pursuit of more and more advanced ways of /killing/ couldn't leave the tesseract in the damn ocean where it belonged, and then you couldn't keep away from it once you had it! Don't you dare talk to me about /responsibility/, Stark."
"Punch him," Clint encourages dryly. He doesn't seem to be too picky about who he is encouraging.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that they were busy /looking for you/," Stark snaps at Steve.
"Uh, guys?" Bruce says, looking between both of the standing men with eyebrows upswept.
"Hit him," Clint encourages again. So helpful.
"I don't see how this is pertinent," Vision says, eyes zipping from Stark to Steve and back.
Thor chuckles a little at Tony and Stark. "Gentleman!" he booms afterward. "We needn't argue so. Come, now. Let us return to the matter at hand."
Oh, Vision. Vance covers a brief snrk at the android's comment.
"I see why you guys are so effective," Pietro observes sarcastically like he's really given a lot of helpful input so far.
"We're an elite team," Natasha murmurs to Pietro. Her voice is quiet, but the edge of tension riding under it is clear enough.
"And you playing around with things you can't possibly control, that's about looking for me," Steve counters with rough-edge sarcasm. "/You're/ the reason he's here, Stark. Because you can't control any impulse that comes into your brain." Sorry, did you guys say something?
"It shows," Pietro replies to Natasha with no more confidence than before.
"Sock him," says Clint to Stark particularly this time.
"I'm controlling the impulse to punch you pretty damn well," Stark says, despite Clint and his goading. He walks away in a big circle, like OOH COLD SHOULDER THAT MEANS HE GETS THE LAST WORD AND NOW HE WINS. "Notice he still didn't come up with an idea, which means we are at finding some way to get the rest of the world to go 'oh wait, we just put a Nazi war criminal in charge'."
"Schmidtblog?" offers Vance. This is helpful, now! Bruce, so ahead of your time.
"The rest of the world isn't the problem," Natasha says, finally pushing free of her corner to stalk toward the front of the room. "Most of the world doesn't know or care what we are, and they don't have any power to change things. We can't aim at a target we don't recognize."
"So, SHIELD, intelligence agency..." Bruce says finally, having watches his friends bicker with a distinct tightening of his jaw. His tension has ratcheted, noticeable in the stiff way he sits. "Do we even know for sure who the World Security Council is?"
Steve glares daggers into Stark's back when he oh-so-maturely ends the argument. He turns as well, but his seems to be distinctly about regaining his cool and not looking at Stark for such a period of time it takes until he stops being in danger of hitting him.
"No. I was working on that, after the Chitauri thing." Stark waves a hand in the air like a conductor. "Jarvis?" The AI pulls up the big fat nothing that their searches turned up. His circling pauses before Natasha. Hi. Nice corner you have here. "Thought I'd ask you to look into it, but never got around to it. Now seems like a good time."
"I've always wanted a face to face meeting," Natasha answers in a dry mutter.
Thor frowns at the nothingness. "A council that cannot be held responsible by the people it protects?" Thor asks, frowning. He grunts noticeably and reclines in his chair. "I do not approve."
"What if they don't have faces?" Stark asks Natasha in a tone of mock-speculation. Look Steve he is ignoring you so hard that no one else in the room exists but Natasha. "Fury said there are four: usual suspects. Any records of them at SHIELD have been wiped. Have fun?"
"They have faces," Natasha says, her voice grim.
"Once we figure that out, I think we'll be in a better position to plan," Bruce says, drumming his fingers one-two-three on the surface of the table again. "Are we ... good?" he says. "I really want to get to work on the Nazi botherer, unless there's something else."
Good, Tony, because Steve is also ignoring you, we can have a big ignoring party. He glances at Bruce, tension still lingering in his expression, and says nothing.
"We could talk about security around civilians," Clint says with a glance to Thor and Steve, but he doesn't seem to press that too much.
"I'm a civilian," Stark points out to Clint like someone maybe not getting the point.
"Yeah, me too," Bruce says. Since there is apparently more, he sits still, if a little tense, and looks over and around at the others as he sucks a little on one cheek.
"I have legal personhood. I'm not sure about the rest of it," Vision puts in to put in.
"You're Avengers," Natasha says, with both look and tone that asks 'why are we talking about this?'
"She's right," Steve says quietly, his arms crossed over his chest. "None of us are civilians."
Stark swallows any trace of smug that might appear on his features at Natasha's answer, because no, he totally doesn't need approval from a SHIELD lackey. (She catches it.) Turning away, he looks at Clint with a tip of his head /and ignores Steve because he is not a soldier/. "Why, Barton?"
Thor looks at Clint. "I am not certain what you mean," is his reply, voice low.
"I'm /really/ a civilian," Bruce iterates firmly.
"Because, SHIELD and Avenger Initiative information has been falling into ears that shouldn't be hearing it. Like our young guest upstairs," Clint replies slowly, his brow lifting at Thor. And Pepper, too. But she's not here and he doesn't know about that, obviously.
"Oh yeah, who is that?" Vance asks, "I ran into her earlier. She was, like, running away from downstairs, or something."
"Thor's friend?" Vision moves to clarify.
Psht. Pepper doesn't count. She is only an extension of Stark's ego, right? Not a fully-fledged person on her own right who might have to have plans on her birthday and everything? Stark looks up and then over at Thor. "How many Asgardians are you shoving in the closets?"
"Wait," Bruce says. He looks confused. "What?"
Thor sits confused for a moment. Afterward, he says, "You mean Darcy Lewis - she is a friend." Thor crosses his arms and asks Clint, "What of her? She has done no harm." Yet. Well, maybe she has.
MAYBE SHE HAS NOT.
"She's Darcy Lewis, and she got Thor back here, and /threatening her/ is not an appropriate response to her presence," Steve says, lingering temper overlapping with previous irritation to make him a whole ball of fun in Clint's direction.
"I didn't threaten her!" Vance protests, thinking Steve means him, "It was a misunderstanding."
"She seemed fairly harmless, if curious. Still, we could have spoken more discreetly around her. Such as," Vision appends to Thor, "you should not have called me a robot in her presence."
"Not you," Steve says with immediate exasperation to Vance. Then, with sudden redirection, "What did /you/ do?"
Clint only levels a look at Steve, not feeling a bit guilty and unashamed.
"We have guests that we are threatening?" Pietro's brows raise a touch. "You have some strange hosting customs here." He looks around, where multiple people seem to have meat and/or threatened someone.
Vance looks sheepish. "I, umm. I might've picked her up a bit? You know, without my hands. She startled me! She was running away and keeping her head down, I thought maybe she was somebody bad trying to escape or something. I put her right back down and apologized."
"Jarvis, who is Darcy?" Stark asks with the turn of his head toward the command center's central display. "You couldn't tell me we had company?"
A moment later, Darcy's student ID tops her transcript and SHIELD file, because she has to have some kind of file from New Mexico. "I did, sir. Darcy has since returned to her apartment."
Stark changes the subject: "What's the problem? Don't tell poli-sci undergrads that Nazis are taking over SHIELD?" asks Stark.
"Yes," Clint agrees dryly to that boundary.
Unless they are Vance. Tell him, please.
"You are not a human," Thor informs Vision. "I have warned you against seeking to become human, Vision. Do not be ashamed of your origins. You are a fine creation, and needn't be ashamed." Thor pauses. "Also, I doubt /Darcy Lewis/ cares about the existence of dragons. She is a charming young woman. And, to be frank," he looks around the room, "I am tired of seeing so many men."
"/Right/?" Stark agrees with Thor, sudden and heartfelt and I'm sorry, what else were they discussing?
"I am not ashamed to be a built thing," Vision says, drawing himself straight-shouldered in the chair. "But that doesn't mean that anyone of any Avengers' acquaintance needs to know on a first meeting." Is that an edge of tension, maybe? Oh well, hard to place.
"We can have that conversation without Clint giving her every indication that was going to /murder/ her and absolutely terrifying her," Steve says, conviction unfaltering in the midst of Clint's lack of guilt.
Clint just smirks, smirks, and answers, "I've seen enough of the women around." A pause. "It does not mean we should be careless with what we tell any person we know."
Natasha turns her head to arch a single, silent brow at Clint.
The look that Stark gives Clint at that works best slanted over a pair of sunglasses, but for some reason he isn't wearing them today. He makes do, and then twitches his eyebrows in a 'you, me, story time, beers' kind of way. "I guess it's kind of like an NDA," he decides, meandering back on topic.
"So nobody cares and this is not my fault?" Vance surmises from the continuing conversation, more or less talking to himself, "Awesome."
"I didn't say it did," Steve tells Clint before maybe possibly dropping the subject of threatening young civilian women, but probably not. "She's gone now, anyways."
"If Darcy Lewis is capable of bringing destruction upon us, we are indeed in peril," Thor says angrily. "She is merely a curious young woman. She will brighten this mansion," like a house plant! "and we needn't be concerned. If she causes some harm, I am sure she will apologize. Although, I shall warn you - she is armed with a tazer."
"She can chill with Coulson," says Stark, obscurely.
Pietro rolls his eyes. "Right, so, don't share secrets or threaten to kill random guests. That seems easy enough." ...right, guys? Yes? Maybe? "That's almost like accomplishing something."
"And let's leave off of exposing delicate details of identity and nature quite so readily." Vision is now folding his arms. "This may be a refuge, but it is nice to be able to interact with people normally, occasionally."
Bruce looks mildly uncomfortable, but he isn't offering any commentary, so he probably doesn't have anything useful to add.
Thor adds, "I will agree to not refer to you as 'robot' in public. Although I think it a strange notion, as that is what you are."
"Okay, super, done, we'll all be way responsible. Anything else or can I go get a drink?" asks Stark of the group at large.
"Robots that look and talk like people aren't normal," Vance explains to Thor, as this appears to need explaining, "We don't really need people to know they exist. They might freak out."
Clint curves his brows up at Stark at the question, making a gesture as he stands up. You, me, right? Drinks? He avoids meeting Natasha's look. Innocently.
"Done," Bruce says, and stands up to start walking toward the door, saying, "I'm going to go figure out how to work your espresso machine. Got a lot of work to do."
"Thank you," Vision says toward Thor, then dips a side nod to Vance. "I cannot gather accurate observations if people are 'freaking out.' That is all." Really. "I have nothing further," more general.
Uh huh. Natasha gives Clint a very clear roll of her eyes and then slips from the room toward her own work. Secret spy-like. And stuff.
Steve doesn't say anything either way on the subject of being finished, but his silence seems communicative enough. He shoots a final glare in Stark's direction, though.
"Done." Pietro beats everyone to the door with a whoosh of breeze as he exits. Dick.
~Whatever~, Steve. Stark dismisses the group with a benevolent gesture like a /kind and dignified leader of men/. "Alcohol time." Maybe not so dignified.
Steve jaw-juts his way right out of this command center.