Metal and Magic (Ch. 22)

( Every character in this story is a legal adult over the age of 18 )

Metal and Magic

Chapter 22

Nick Fury’s desktop was strewn with manila folders. They were the day’s reports that he would have to review before he could mercifully go home. Two of the folders were labeled “ROMANOFF” and “HILL”.

Fury poured himself a splash of whiskey into his coffee, then plucked the top page from Natasha’s folder and skimmed it. He began reading and found that her report was mostly operational. There were reports on the methods of surveillance performed, the subject’s movements, and so on. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary … at least until he reached page four. He read the paragraph and sighed.

Agent Hill exhibited signs of developing an emotional attachment to Subject Potter. This could compromise operational effectiveness. Recommendation: reassignment, psychological evaluation, and increased monitoring.

Fury grunted in annoyance. He flipped to the next folder, marked “HILL”, and fished out the latest incident report. This report only furthered his annoyance. Maria wasn’t one to beat around the bush. She went straight for the jugular.

Agent Romanoff is demonstrating behavior inconsistent with professional detachment. Evidence: continuously contacting the Subject after hours, unauthorized surveillance of the Subject, and a pattern of inappropriate social interaction. Recommendation: replace and censure.

He set the report down, poured more whiskey, and sipped. He stared at the two folders with a scowl. From upstairs, the low rattling of the building’s outdated air conditioning kicked on. The sound made Fury’s good eye throb.

He took a yellow legal pad from his drawer and drew a vertical line down the center. On one side, he wrote “ROMANOFF.” On the other side, he wrote “HILL.” Fury then listed their respective transgressions. By line three, he realized the entire exercise was a pissing contest. Both agents had always been very good at gathering intel, but it appeared that they were doing their best to sabotage each other.

He pulled out the Potter file. This file was a composite of official SHIELD investigations, debriefs, and months' worth of non-redacted field notes. The top page was the last incident in Mexicali. Below that were pages and pages of operational notes. They listed Potter’s likes and dislikes, his eccentric routines, and, of course, his womanizing tendencies.

Fury felt a headache forming and added another splash of whiskey to his coffee. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

The core problem was that Maria and Natasha’s jobs had been too simple. They were to get Potter on the hook, or at the very least, keep him from doing something he shouldn’t. If they could get close enough to extract details about his powers or his goals, even better. Fury knew both women saw the assignment as a test to earn Fury’s personal respect. The rivalry between the two women had been known for quite a while. It was even in both of their personal records. However, Fury still wasn’t sure if this was a simple case of professional jealousy or perhaps something worse. If both of his agents had actually developed personal feelings for Potter, it could turn out very badly for both of them. He should have foreseen that both would end up screwing him, literally and figuratively.

He pulled his phone from the drawer and dialed Coulson’s secure line. Coulson answered on the first ring. “Director,” Coulson said. His voice was tight, with a hint of anxiety there.

“Are you reading the same trash I am?” Fury gruffly asked.

There was a pause. “I’ve seen both reports. It’s a bit embarrassing, sir.”

“It’s more than embarrassing,” Fury said. “At this rate, we’re going to have a catfight in the middle of an op. Can you get me a list of candidates for a shadow assignment? We need somebody to watch them both … quietly.”

“I’ll have a list on your desk first thing in the morning,” Coulson told them.

Fury grunted. “Good. I’ll decide what to do with these two lovebirds after I read the shadow file.”

He hung up and sipped the bitter coffee. He leafed back through the reports. Natasha’s detailed account of Maria’s “covert romantic entanglement” was juicy, but not nearly as juicy as Maria’s forensic breakdown of Natasha’s surveillance. Both agents provided attached media. Natasha’s folder included a USB drive. Fury eyed it, then slipped it into his laptop. A folder popped up with time-stamped JPEGs, GPS logs, and interestingly, a video file.

Fury clicked the video. It opened to a view of a sunny hillside, shot from a higher vantage point in the grass. The camera panned, zoomed, and then locked onto a pair of figures on a picnic blanket. Maria and Potter came into view, eating and drinking. Fury watched as the two began to get intimate. He forwarded ahead by thirty seconds at a time. In less than five minutes, Maria had Harry’s shirt off and was climbing on top of him. The camera was rock-steady. Natasha had held her post through the entire thing, recording every second. Fury felt a mixture of disgust and admiration.

He closed the laptop and pushed it aside. Fury sat back and sipped his whiskey-laced coffee. “Both agents are compromised,” he commented to himself. “What to do, what to do,” he said in a sing-song voice.

He thought about calling Hill and Romanoff in for a tongue-lashing, but the idea felt childish. If he brought them in, he’d lose whatever trust remained. Worse, they might turn on him and each other in a way that would be even more catastrophic. No, the best thing for now would be to make Maria and Natasha work together, or else give them an enemy worse than each other. The only thing both women hated more than losing was being outmaneuvered.

Fury sipped his coffee and then stood up. He grabbed the Hill and Romanoff folders, stacked them, and clipped them together with a black binder clip. Fury typed in his digital combination and opened his safe. He put the folders inside and shut the door.

Metal and Magic

Maria was about to knock on the door, but she decided against announcing herself. She didn’t want to seem like a guest. She wanted to make it clear that she belonged here, and that the new arrangement was not just some temporary punishment. She turned the knob, opened the door, and let herself in. Her duffel bag hung from her shoulder as she made her way into the house.

From the living room came the rustle of a page turning. Natasha sat on the far end of the couch with her legs crossed, reading an operations brief. Her hair was up in a messy top bun. Her feet were bare, and her fingernails and toenails were painted a daring shade of burgundy. The way Natasha looked up was perfectly calculated. She was neither hostile nor warm, but edged with mild disdain. Maria didn’t bother with a greeting.

She was still in her work clothes from the day. She wore tailored pants, a white blouse, and a gray blazer that still had the creases from her car’s seatbelt. She slipped off her shoes at the threshold and padded into the living room in her socks. She dropped her bag next to the couch.

Natasha closed the brief and set it on the coffee table, next to an untouched cup of tea. Her posture was rigid, but Maria could tell that she was trying really hard to appear casual. She watched Maria cross the rug, her eyes unreadable. Maria stayed standing, her hands clasped behind her back. She let the silence hang in the air.

“So,” Natasha finally said in a cool and even voice, “I take it you received Fury’s orders, too.”

Maria took her time answering. “I did. You seem thrilled.”

Natasha’s lips barely twitched. “The prospect of a roommate is always exciting,” she said with no excitement in her voice. She gestured to the empty seat at the other end of the couch. “Please, make yourself uncomfortable.”

Maria snorted in derision and sat at the opposite end of the couch, her spine perfectly straight. She surveyed the living room. There was nothing out of the ordinary. There was only the operations brief, the tea, and a single coaster on the table. “Did they at least give you a warning?” Maria asked.

“I got a ten-minute head start on moving my stuff out of the master bedroom.” Natasha’s voice was sharp and displeased. As much as she didn’t like it, Maria still outranked her.

Maria crossed her legs with a smirk. “That’s nice to hear.”

Natasha regarded Maria for a moment, then leaned back and drummed her fingers on the edge of the coffee table. “Fury must be out of options. Unless you want to explain to me why he’d put us under the same roof.”

“He obviously doesn’t trust us,” Maria said.

“Maybe he’s tired of all the bickering and complaints.” Natasha picked up her tea, sipped it, and set it back down. “Did you know he assigned Coulson to monitor our phone calls?”

Maria nodded. “Coulson told me he’s auditing the digital logs.”

A silence fell over them, and neither woman looked at the other. Natasha ended up speaking first. “Fury wants us to pool all operational intelligence regarding Harry.” Her tone made it sound like “operational intelligence” was code for something else. “He wants us to keep separate logs, but also submit a daily joint summary.”

“How is this even going to work?” Maria asked. “We’re both “dating” Harry. He’s going to find out we’re both playing him.”

“That’s probably why Fury put us together. He obviously wants one of us to take a step back,” Natasha told her.

“Yes, one of us should definitely take a step back,” Maria said, thinking Natasha should be the one to bite the bullet.

“Don’t look at me,” Natasha snorted.

“Well, I’m not going to either,” Maria shot back. There was once again silence in the room.

“Maybe we should force Harry to decide,” Natasha said with a smirk. Maria raised an eyebrow.

“Winner takes all?” she asked, and Natasha nodded.

“Fine by me,” Maria said with a smirk. She had faith that Harry would choose her. She was, after all, integral to his new and booming business. However, when Natasha stretched, and Maria got a good look at her large, perky assets, she suddenly wasn’t as confident as she had been just a few seconds before. She would just have to wait and see.

Metal and Magic

Harry rocketed above Southern LA, his suit’s thrusters muted against the smoggy haze. The suit’s autopilot kept him in a gentle curve as he scanned the grids below. Tony’s suit was a flicker on his HUD. He was way off to the north, doing his daily patrol. The city looked almost peaceful from seven hundred feet up, but Harry knew it was anything but. To his right, the ocean expanded as far as the eye could see. Harry leveled out, killed the autopilot, and dropped to six hundred feet, cutting west above a band of strip malls.

“Any sign of a disturbance?” Tony’s voice crackled through the comms.

Harry’s helmet filtered out most of the wind as he sliced through the turbulent breeze. He scanned to his left and did the same on his right. “There’s a wreck wreaking havoc on the interstate, but not much else.”

“Let’s stay ahead of the curve. Jarvis, keep us updated on all 911 traffic.” The blip of Tony’s suit on Harry’s HUD streaked across the sky.

Jarvis pinged in, polite as ever. “Mr. Potter, I am detecting some police chatter approximately fourteen blocks to your east. They reference gunfire and possible hostages.”

Harry felt his heartbeat quicken as the rush of excitement settled in. “Can you give me a waypoint?”

“Placed,” Jarvis replied.

A yellow diamond lit up on Harry’s display, and he banked toward it, dropping two hundred feet in the span of a second. A quick glance at the data overlay told him the radio calls had started thirty-two seconds ago. He throttled up and rocketed ahead, and the buildings and houses blurred below him. At ground level, three police cruisers boxed in the mouth of a cul-de-sac. Their red and blue lights strobed brightly, and many more police cars sat staggered down the block. Farther down, a group of neighbors clustered behind a taped-off median.

Harry landed just outside the tape, raising a swirl of dust as he touched down. The crowd shrank back, silent except for the excited squeal of a kid. One of the beat cops tried to posture up, but it was clear he’d never been face-to-face with Harry in his suit. As soon as Harry stepped up to him, the man shrank back.

Harry didn’t bother with introductions. “Are you the man in charge?”

The cop was in his early fifties. He had a crewcut, and it appeared that his nose had been broken at least three times. He looked him up and down. “I guess so. I mean, my boss is over there, but ...”

“Give me the quick and easy version,” Harry said. He kept the faceplate down to intimidate.

The cop thumbed at the powder-blue house at the end of the drive. “There’s a guy inside. He already shot his girlfriend, and he’s holding her sister hostage. He’s barricaded upstairs and shouting through the window overlooking the street.”

“How long has he been in there?”

“Maybe five minutes before the first call. One of the neighbors was doing yard work when the guy drove up. He said he heard a gunshot a few minutes later, and he called 911.”

Harry turned to the house, and Jarvis keyed his visor to thermal vision. The blue, yellow, and red blotches inside were easy to spot. There was a heat bloom hugging the floor behind a bed, and a taller, shifting one at the window. “Does he still have the gun?” Harry asked.

“Affirmative,” Jarvis replied in Harry’s ear. “It appears to be a nine-millimeter.”

Harry watched the biggest heat shape shuffle to the window, then fade back. “Tell your people that I’m going up there,” Harry told the cop.

The cop grunted and stepped back, motioning for the others to retreat. Harry strode down the sidewalk, each boot clanking on the cracked concrete, and he could feel every phone in the area recording him.

He reached the curb and said, “Jarvis, can you patch me through to the house line?”

“There is no active landline, but I have found a mobile registered to the address. Would you like to call?”

“Text him,” Harry said, “Tell him he’s surrounded by police and he should surrender. I don’t expect him to. I just want him to stay near the window.”

Harry heard the ping of a text sent, and a moment later, the heat shape at the window jerked violently. The guy was still watching the front yard. Harry edged to the side of the house, angling for a view of the bedroom. The window was cracked open by about an inch.

Harry lifted off with his thrusters set to their lowest possible level, creating a barely audible whine. He coasted up to the second floor, hovering to the left of the window. Tony chose that moment to show up. He hovered in the distance, positioned right in front of the house. “I’m here, Harry,” Tony told him.

“Can you zoom in through the window and patch me the feed?” Harry asked.

“You heard the man, Jarvis,” Tony replied. Suddenly, a video feed appeared in the bottom corner of Harry’s HUD. He could now see everything going on in the room.

Inside, the man held a gun in both hands as he stared down at the cops. He wore a black tank, sweats, and a pair of dirty white sneakers. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and he looked like a man with nothing to lose. There was another woman in the room, cowering behind the bed. She had a nasty cut on her forehead, and there was a thick line of blood running down one side of her face. The girlfriend was sprawled motionless on the bed. Below her, a large dark patch stained the sheets.

Harry waited and watched the man’s patterns. Every time the guy looked out, he led with the gun. Harry took a breath and tapped gently on the glass with one steel finger.

The man spun, gun up. His hands shook, but he didn’t shoot. “Who the hell is that?!” he yelled out after not seeing anyone in the window. When the man turned to look at the other woman, Harry tapped again. The man spun around again with a wild look. He stepped closer to the window and tried to look straight down.

Harry cocked his elbow, punched through the window, and wrapped a fist around the front of the guy’s tank top. The man yelled as Harry pulled him through the shattered window like a ragdoll. He didn’t let him down gently. Instead, Harry flung him forward, and everyone watched as the man tumbled head over heels. The woman inside screamed loudly, but Harry didn’t pay it any mind. He also heard the neighbors’ reactions. They were yelling and gasping as they filmed the whole thing on their phones.

The man did one last flip before he landed flat on his back in the middle of the front lawn. The gun went spinning across the yard as his back arched in pain. In an instant, a flurry of cops rushed forward to apprehend the culprit. Harry hovered above and watched as they handcuffed the screaming, thrashing man.

“There’s a woman in the bedroom,” Harry told the cop. “She may need medical treatment.”

The cop’s face was full of disbelief, but he managed a shaky “Roger that.” He looked at Harry with awe as he lazily flew down the street. Down below, the crowd had swelled to fifty or sixty, all of them recording. He ignored them and turned to Tony, who was coming toward him in a slow hover.

“Hostage situation neutralized,” Harry said. “There was one casualty, but the hostage is fine.”

Tony nodded in relief. “Good job. It was a smart move pulling him through the window like that. It gave him no time to react.”

“What can I say? I guess I’m just naturally gifted,” Harry said with much bravado.

“Yeah, a naturally gifted jackass,” Tony snorted in amusement. “Let’s go get some lunch. I’m starving.”

Harry eyed a taco truck a block away. It was surrounded by blue-collar workers. “How about something greasy?” Harry asked, pointing at the truck.

“Fine, but you’re buying,” Tony chuckled.

Before leaving, he looked back at the house. Two paramedics were rushing up the porch, and a cop was still kneeling on the suspect’s back. Harry felt the tension bleed out of his neck and back, replaced by the satisfaction of a job well done.

They fired up the thrusters and took off, not bothering to do it quietly. The crowd scattered as the shockwave rolled through them. A minute later, Harry and Tony were standing, fully armored, in line at the taco truck. For them, it was just another day at the office.