Warnings/Tags: weird relationships, sedoretu, AU-canon, rarepairs
Spoilers: Captain Americas 1 and 2; Thor I & II; The Avengers; Iron Mans 1, 2, and 3; Agents Of SHIELD — Basically everything. The Agents Of SHIELD spoilers are the biggies, though.
Disclaimer: The characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all that comes with them are the property of Marvel Studios, ABC, or both. No money has changed hands, and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.
Author's Notes: This is the sequel to my MCU sedoretu fic "Compatible Weirdness" and is going to start into the Agents Of SHIELD story. (If you have not read "Compatible Weirdness," I recommend doing that before reading this, because you will probably be making a lot of question mark faces if you don't.) This is going to have a slower pace, and it will start off mainly canon-compliant, but not totally (this will be less and less true as I get further along). Coulson's got to find a way back to his family, after all. Most likely, I will post these at something like one fic per episode.

To be honest, I wrote "Compatible Weirdness" because I wanted to write this story. Or rather, the story that this is the first installment of. The Phil-figures-out-how-to-get-his-family-back story. But I needed to write the groundwork Phil-has-a-family story first. As you read through "Compatible Weirdness," you'll have noticed that I didn't deviate too much from the canon. A line of dialogue here, a scene or two there. But overall, things fell out like they did in the films. Which was deliberate. Adding sedoretu and sticking Phil, Tony, Pepper, and Darcy in one is not a massive change…at first. So the first ripples of change are small. But then Phil died, and his having a family motivated him to find out that he was really, properly dead much faster in this story than he did in canon. Which is a fairly big ripple. And that's going to make more ripples. This installment pretty much runs along the same lines as the show, but the next one does not. So, if all you're looking for is perspective-shift + sedoretu, I can't help you. From here on out, things are going to start being different.

Please bear in mind as you read this, that the story can only know what the narrator character knows. And while Phil does his best to be honest with himself, he doesn't have everything figured out.

Also, if you haven't been watching Agents of SHIELD, you really ought to start. Really.

Agent Phil Coulson made lists now. It had started in rehab as a way to pass the time. A list of the Most Annoying Therapists ranked by the Timbre of their Voices (because they were equally annoying otherwise, he'd found). He listed the Foods He Wanted To Eat When He Got Back To The States. He listed the Things He Might Be (Other Than Human). Most of the entries on that list were deliberately ridiculous ("magically-animated ballistics gel dummy" was one of them). He hadn't had much else to do, and since he hadn't wanted to go crazy from boredom and thereby blow his chance at getting back into the field, he'd started making lists. He had TED keep track of them for him, so SHIELD couldn't get at them (TED had also saved his entire contacts list from SHIELD's wipe because TED was wonderful). TED's favorite list was People To Punch In The Face When Next We Meet. Loki Friggason was the only person on it.

He was, finally, about to be able to cross some things off of the Foods He Wanted To Eat list, though. The SHIELD jet that was delivering him from Tahiti back to North America had just landed and the door was being opened by his just-a-bit-too-solicitous flight crew. It was time for another exciting adventure in jet lag. At least it was summer, so the temperature wasn't changing that drastically.

He stepped off the stairs from the jet and glanced around the hangar. There was a man waiting to greet him. Like so many people Phil had encountered lately, this man was both from the morning moiety and incredibly good-looking. Whatever reason Fury had for not wanting Phil to contact his family, he was backing it up by forcing Phil to practically trip over every single morning agent in SHIELD. Phil hadn't even known this many mornings had graduated the Ops Academy. When he'd gone, that moiety had been almost painfully underrepresented. It had been insanely hard to get dates.

Marrying Tony Stark had done nothing to convince anyone of this, but Phil was still not a teenage girl, and Fury could throw as many distractions at his head as he wanted. A year ago, he'd had the best family in the world. No amount of distraction could make him okay with losing it so abruptly. And, on a less personal note, he wasn't even sure he was still human anymore. If there was something that made him a danger to his family, whatever that was would make him equally dangerous to anyone else he got close to. Until he figured out what it was SHIELD wasn't telling him about himself, there could be no going back or moving forward.

But even beyond all of that, right now he was distracted by the jet in an opposite hangar. A much bigger jet than the one he'd just exited.

This was the first time he'd gotten to see his brand new SHIELD Boeing C17 Globemaster, and she was an absolute sight to behold. She was painted a dark matte gray, with graceful lines in the body and wings. There were still work crews scurrying all around her, since it would be at least several weeks before Phil could put together a team and get everyone together, but for now it was just nice to see tangible proof that he was going to get back in the field. The only downside was that this plane was just a shade too big to land on the helicarrier, so all her renovation had to be carried out on the ground.

He was also happy to be back in the United States. He cheerfully indulged himself in a cheeseburger and fries with an enormous Pepsi at the very first dive he found. It was an insane amount of calories and grease and he did not care. It was just nice to be back home.

Despite having been reissued credentials with his actual name on it and being given permission to introduce himself as Phil Coulson, SHIELD was still trying to keep him mostly a secret so they handed him his old office in the Pentagon. Basement level, tiny window that lined up with the grass, and this time, the rest of the agency was elsewhere.

Phil didn't care. Not because he didn't want to get back into the world, but because he now had space to choose his team. It was a new list, but this one, he could write down.

Melinda May was an easy first pick. She was a top-notch pilot. But, more than that, she was his friend. The two of them had been roommates, headed up the prank wars on the morning dorms, pushed each other through their PT tests. Their careers had diverged at graduation, of course, but they'd kept in touch. They'd even worked together a few times. Then Bahrain had happened and May had buried herself in admin. No one there even knew who she was. She had next to no friends. She was rarely seen outside her office or her home.

Phil had watched other people go down this road. It nearly always ended with them eating a gun. He wasn't about to let that happen to May. He was going to bring her back to life if it killed him (again). Even if all she ever did was fly the plane, sooner or later she would have to reach out. She just loved life too much not to live it.

The next choice took a while. But he finally settled on Agent Grant Ward. They'd have to promote him, but he was a first-rate operative. He was so poorly socialized that it was a miracle Director Fury hadn't descended from the skies to personally punch Ward in the face at some point, but he had a saving grace that no amount of bad temper could diminish. He was evening. Fury couldn't throw Ward at his head as a potential partner.

And finally, he rounded out the roster with a pair of SciTech agents. Back when Thor's hammer had landed in New Mexico, he had met two cadets who were both ridiculously excited over studying it. Those cadets were made full-fledged SHIELD agents very shortly afterwards. They were absolutely brilliant. He looked over as many evening SciTech agents as he could, but none of them were as bright, as adaptable, or as willing to get into trouble as these two. So, finally, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons were added to the team.

That fulfilled Fury's parameters. He submitted the list to SHIELD.

SHIELD, predictably, did not like his list. Every single objection he had thought of was raised. "May is unstable! Ward is unfriendly!" A few he hadn't thought of were raised. "FitzSimmons is aggressively cheerful!" (Even after working with FitzSimmons, he never could figure out how the evaluators thought that was a going to fly as a bad thing. "Overly codependent" was the one he had expected for those two, but the evaluation board soared right over that.) And then Phil caught video of the explosion in Los Angeles. The man who rescued that doctor definitely had something superhuman going on. He put in a call and told SHIELD he wanted the Index Asset Evaluation and Intake. SHIELD did not want to give it to him. But they had approved the team on paper, and his team, once they were put together and cleared by the doctors, was the most convenient free asset. So, with much groaning from the massive bureaucratic machine that was SHIELD's internal departments he was able to abandon his basement office for the last time (again), stash his go-bag in the now-flight-ready Bus, and fly to the helicarrier to collect agents Ward and May.

The helicarrier, named Alpha, was the beating heart of their agency (the Triskelion was probably the brain). It had a personnel capacity of 6000 (they'd modeled it on the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier). The administrative offices of Deputy Director Maria Hill were here, along with their major tactical command offices. And it was currently crossing the Atlantic Ocean, headed for central France.

It was odd to walk these hallways again. It was strange to pass the door that led to where Loki's cage had been. He absolutely did not go in. Did not look at the empty space where the cage had been and he'd seen Thor fall. Telling himself that he might not be the real Coulson, so this might actually be his first time on the Alpha did not help. It felt like he had been here before, and it felt like he had died. As he passed the door, he straightened his tie. It gave him an excuse to run his fingers over the knotted, twisted skin of the scar on his chest and try to decide whether he hoped that was real or fake.

He took over a vacant cubicle office, and started in on paperwork.

First, he finished up on his requisition of the Airborne Mobile Command Station for his team. At this point the requisition forms were a formality, since he had been overseeing the refitting of this plane for the past month, but admin thrived on formalities and so he started scribbling.

As he plowed through the paperwork, Phil listened over the comms to Ward completing his current mission. And while hearing him reaffirmed the report in his file that he was just about as abrasive as it got, he was a good operator. Requisition form down, he moved on to transfer authorizations for the team members. And then to payroll transfer forms for everyone but Ward, since they were all now officially in Operations, even if Fitz and Simmons were emphatically not going to get combat assignments.

By the time he finished the paperwork, Ward was landing on the helicarrier and Phil got up to go meet the man in person.

Much to his surprise, someone had apparently decided to take one last stab at persuading Phil to give up returning to Ops. Maria Hill had personally called Ward to her office to talk to him.

"What does SHIELD stand for, Agent Ward?" Phil heard her ask Ward as he approached.

There was a deep shadow in the hall near the door, and Phil decided to stay quiet and eavesdrop a bit. Maybe Hill would say something that would clue him in to why SHIELD was so against his return to the world.

"Strategic. Homeland. Intervention. Enforcement. And. Logistics. Division," Ward calmly replied to Hill.

"And what does that mean to you?"

"It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out 'shield.'"

Phil felt his lips twitch. There were perfectly good reasons for wanting the name to spell out "shield." It was a hat tip to Captain America on the parts of Howard Stark and Peggy Carter when they'd founded the organization. And it was their mission statement and what they strove to be. But, for all of that, Ward was still right that it was a tad forced.

The conversation moved on from there. Ward gave a real answer, Vanchat's name was mentioned along with the Rising Tide, and Hill was…cryptic and actually somewhat rude. If she was actually planning to give Ward a straight answer, she didn't seem in any kind of hurry to do so. If this was the treatment Ward routinely experienced from his superiors, Phil felt he could be forgiven his bad attitude.

And, eventually, Ward lost patience with the patronizing pay-attention-double-oh-seven talk, because he leaned forward and asked, "Why was I pulled out of Paris?"

"That, you'll have to ask Agent Coulson." Hill looked displeased as she said this. Phil could not begin to imagine why there was such heavy resistance to his return to ops. He had never encountered such reactionary opposition from every level of SHIELD since…never. Whatever it was that SHIELD was concerned about with him, Hill knew and she did not like it.

"Ah, yeah, I'm Clearance Level Six," Ward told Hill, as if she was meant to be impressed by it. When she was Fury's shadow and possibly a level ten agent.

"I know that Agent Coulson was killed in action before the Battle of New York. Got the full report," Ward finished.

After being handed an opening like that, Phil didn't feel even slightly sorry for striding confidently out of his deep shadow and announcing, "Welcome to level seven."

Ward actually stood up and took a step backwards in surprise so Phil took pity on him and broke the moment on purpose. "Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself. I think there's a bulb out."

Ward didn't smile. But there was a tiny light in his eyes, though it disappeared almost at once. It was like he had never had a superior who bothered to try and relate to him. Coulson wondered for the thousandth time if he had changed while he was dead or if SHIELD had. Had everyone in SHIELD gone completely insane while he'd been out? Morale mattered. Having subordinates who trusted you mattered. None of that happened in a system where the subordinates believed that they didn't matter to their superiors. If Hill intended to keep treating every agent like this, they could all look forward to an endless procession of the half-hunted Grant Wards and almost-suicidal Melinda Mays and an ever-dwindling supply of Clint Bartons and Natasha Romanoffs.

Out loud, he said, "Walk with me Agent Ward. I'm going to brief you on your new assignment."

Ward approached him and the two of them, along with Hill who decided to come, entered the nearest elevator. Ward was silent for most of the ride (probably trying to remind himself that zombies were not real) but, when the door opened, and they were stepping out to the next floor, he finally broke the silence. "Director Fury faked your death? To motivate the Avengers."

A very large part of Phil wanted to say, "Nope. Your new superior is a zombie. But I promise not to eat your brains." Instead he let Hill reply.

"The death of a common ally is a particularly effective team-builder."

They passed into a secure area (or secure-er area, considering that the whole helicarrier was often invisible) as Phil added, "It wasn't that much of a stretch." Or, indeed, not a stretch at all. Curious to see just how much Hill knew, Phil added, "I was even clinically dead for two minutes."

"Your heart stopped for eight seconds, Coulson," Hill said, sounding irritable. "Every time you tell it, it gets more dire."

Doctor Streiten had said exactly that. Cardiac arrest for eight seconds. So there were talking points. A memo. Something. Someone had gotten all the involved parties to get their stories straight.

Phil wanted to turn a very dark look on her. He wanted to tell her that he knew he had really died. He wanted to demand that she tell him the truth. His fingers itched to draw his gun, level it at her eyeballs, and force her to explain in small words why SHIELD did not want him going back to his family. He wanted to call home and apologize for every single moment of sadness he'd put his spouses through by not calling and beg for their forgiveness. And it was moments like this one, where Hill was lying to him—right to his face—that made these desires the strongest.

"Well, when you get shanked by the Asgardian Mussolini, you can tell it your way," Phil replied lightly, giving in to none of his desires. "I was looking at the big, white light and it felt like a lot longer than eight seconds."

There. Let her chew on that. Let her wonder how much he really did remember.

"Do they know?" Ward asked, pinning a badge to his jacket pocket. "The Avengers? That Fury played them?"

"They're not level seven," Hill told him, casual and cold.

Phil ran through the next few minutes on autopilot, extolling the virtues of the excruciatingly boring rehab center in Tahiti, and making innuendos about therapists he hadn't been able to stand. He didn't care what Ward thought about his recovery. He was much more interested in what Ward thought about what was on the monitors in one of the media rooms.

The helicarrier had several of these rooms along this hallway. They could serve multiple purposes as monitoring stations, briefing rooms, and mission control rooms, among other things. Today, this one was a briefing room.

Phil came to a stop before the monitors and just watched as footage from the explosion in LA played once again.

"What is that?" Ward asked, instantly seeing the man who jumped out of the building and fell five stories to land comfortably on the pavement. With a woman in his arms, no less.

"That's a superhero, Agent Ward," Phil replied. Because as much as SHIELD might hate that term, it applied.

"An unregistered gifted," Hill put in, a little suppressingly. "Identity unknown."

A voice-over of a young woman began playing through the room. One of the Rising Tide's members. Ward looked curiously at Phil when he heard the voice.

"Another little present from the Rising Tide," Phil explained.

Ward scowled. "How are they getting this stuff before us?"

"The same way they cracked our RSA implementation," Phil answered with a shrug. "They're good. So, I need better."

"Agent Coulson has requisitioned a mobile command unit to which you are assigned," Hill said, with faint annoyance in her tone.

Phil could not completely contain his incredulous look. Hill had been talking to Ward for at least twenty minutes now, and she was just now giving him his new orders? He'd assumed that he just hadn't overheard that part of their conversation in her office and that Ward had protested, prompting the lecture. But from all appearances, she'd been stringing him along this whole time, not once bothering to actually say what it was SHIELD was now ordering him to do.

Phil was more inclined to forgive Ward's bad attitude by the second.

Wanting to offer a little more explanation, Phil said, "The Rising Tide is trying to draw us out. I think it's time they succeeded."

Ward nodded in understanding. "You want me to cross them off."

Or maybe not in understanding. "Wow. No. I want to use them, to get to him." He nodded at the image of the man still on the screen. "This man's world is about to get very weird. He needs our help."

And now came the part Phil had expected. Ward's brows drew together and he said, "I'm sorry." He held up his hands. "I was trained, from day one, as a specialist. I go in, alone, I get it done. Defusing a nuclear bomb? I'm your guy. A welcoming committee? Not my speed."

He said all this so proudly, and Phil suddenly felt a very profound sorrow for the man before him. Because SHIELD would never be so crass as to actually give him the job title "assassin," but everyone in the room knew that's what they were talking about. He did not form attachments to anything, he had a short life expectancy, and he was always on call. Agents like Ward or Barton or Romanoff rarely formed friendships, with anyone. It was the loneliest, most miserable, most depressing way to spend a life, and having seen Ward's file, Phil knew that he had chosen this career path because he didn't know there could be a better way. He'd seen how Ward had grown up.

Still, if Romanoff could manage to bond with the Avengers, Ward could figure out how to bond with a team, too. And that was going to start with Phil establishing his authority as team leader right here and now. He picked up a folder Hill had left at a nearby computer station and said, "I know it's not what you want. Agent Hill did a very detailed assessment of your last three missions. Combat? Top grades. Espionage? She gave you the highest marks since Romanoff." He turned a page and said, "But under People Skills she drew a… I think it's a…little poop." He pointed to the page. "With knives sticking out of it."

"What?" Ward demanded, moving over to look.

Hill raised her hand, as if to say something, but she didn't speak.

"That's bad, right?" Phil interjected, before she could say anything. "And given your family history, I'm surprised it's not worse." He closed the folder with a snap and folded his arms, "But I think you're the guy for this."

There was a deep moment of silence. Phil could see that Ward had understood his message. Hill thinks you're just a tool. Prove her wrong. He could also see Agent Hill fuming because she could see Ward deciding to do just that as clearly as Phil could and she was about to lose her battle to keep Phil's team from getting put together.

Before she could say anything, though, Doctor Streiten entered. "Team's approved. Physicals are all fine." He handed Phil yet another folder. "FitzSimmons is not cleared for combat. I'm told that won't be an issue."

Hill shook her head, glaring daggers at Phil.

"Agent Ward here?" Streiten said. "He's almost too fit."

This prompted another round of protests that got Ward chased out the door by Hill. She then fixed a glare on Phil. "It was a porcupine," she said. "It was not a 'poop.'"

"No, I'm pretty sure," Phil answered, exaggeratedly flipping through Ward's folder and pretending double-check.

Hill decided not to get sidetracked by the argument over her art skills. "It's not just Ward. Your whole roster is sketchy."

He shrugged. "Well, they're cleared." Hill could overrule a lot of things, but overruling this would take a lot of paperwork, and the average SHIELD agent was three months behind on theirs on a good day. And Hill was far from average.

She scowled.

"I would've been very happy not to clear you, Phil," Streiten put in. "I'd love for you to rest up some more."

Phil's bafflement at this level of opposition was starting to get close to eclipsing his anger. At least on occasion. But what on Earth could be such a horrendously troubling secret that SHIELD wanted to go to all this trouble to keep him out of the field and therefore easier to hide, but wasn't willing to simply order him benched and risk him quitting all together?

"I've had plenty of that," he said firmly. "Thanks."

"You sure?" Hill asked.

"You should go sometime," Phil told her.

"Where?"

"Tahiti. It's a magical place."

Hill gave him a self-deprecating smile. "Three days in, I'd be begging for an assignment."

"Exactly," Phil said. He turned and left to go get May.

He found her on the lowest level of the helicarrier, alone in an office full of cubicles. In the dark. She was further gone than he'd thought. Did no one bother with psych evals anymore?

"Agent May," he said, as he approached her desk.

She straightened. She recognized his voice, of course. Hell, she probably recognized his footfalls. "No."

She didn't look around so she couldn't see how sad he was just looking at her. He kept his voice light and replied, "So you've been briefed."

"I'm not going back in the field." She didn't bother to look up from whatever paperwork it was she was working with.

"Yeah. You've got such a nice set-up here. You ever thought about adding a moat?"

That got her attention. And an irritable glare. But it was a reaction.

He smiled. He spelled out what he wanted from her. "This isn't a combat op."

"Then you don't need me." She stapled something for punctuation.

Phil did not roll his eyes. "I do. 'Cause we'll be running it ourselves. Picking the ops. Making the calls. No red tape." He looked around. "This is where they actually make the red tape, isn't it? I always wondered."

May did not sigh. She actually smiled. Because she remembered how it had been between them. Friendly. Easy. He had never had to be anything but himself for her.

"Melinda."

"You're really just asking me to drive the bus?"

He raised a brow at her. "I'm not asking. But it's a really nice bus."

He left before she could actually stab him. But at least she was considering it, and since he was the first person to get a real response from her in months, he was calling that a roaring victory.

Phil strode into another section of admin to find that his paperwork that he'd completed before collecting Ward had been processed and filed. One of the administrative minions (Phil still had trouble believing it, but apparently SHIELD actually recruited people who aimed for paperwork jobs like this on purpose) handed him a binder. In it were five copies of the same casefile: unregistered gifted individual in Los Angeles. Coulson's team was to identify the individual and perform an Index Asset Evaluation and Intake.

Considering the massive amount of red tape he'd had to push through to get this binder, he couldn't help but feel a tiny bit validated, holding it. A feeling he quashed immediately. He hadn't come back to the field to be a good agent, he'd come back to figure out what SHIELD had done to him. Being the Good Agent might be force of habit at this point, but he needed to remember that was the mask now, not the substance.

He took the binder up to the deck and climbed into a waiting quinjet. He tossed one casefile onto the instrument panel. A few moments later, May climbed into the cockpit, now dressed in her fieldwork clothes with her go-bag slung over her shoulder. She kicked the bag under her seat, turned her face out the window, and resolutely ignored Phil. Ward arrived moments later and sat down on the bench opposite him.

Phil handed Ward a casefile and started walking them through what they knew so far. Ward at least pretended to pay attention. May did not, though Phil knew her well enough to know she took in every word. As soon as they landed, she was out of the jet and headed towards Phil's brand new team headquarters.

Ward peered after her. "Is she on the team?"

Phil nodded, rereading the casefile.

There was a long moment while Ward processed this. Finally, he just said, "Oh."

Phil rolled his eyes. "I've got to go pick up my car." He pointed to the open cargo ramp at the back of the Bus. "FitzSimmons is probably in the lab already. Get your comm receiver encoded. I'll join you in a moment."

Ward picked up his go-bag and began moving towards the Bus, dragging his feet the whole way. Phil tried not to laugh as he went to go pick up Lola.

He had this car for several years now, or at least Coulson had and Phil had inherited it from the man he had been made to imitate. Aside from being a beautiful car to begin with, Lola had been modified with technologies invented by Howard Stark (at which Tony had pulled some interesting faces) and fitted with the very first GPS system.

But now what he really remembered, sliding into the driver's seat, were the hours he'd spent with Tony underneath the hood or beneath the car. Or driving around Malibu with Darcy sitting beside him. Or when Pepper would sometimes borrow the keys and always bring her back in perfect condition with a full tank, but with a trace of perfume in the driver's seat. When he turned the engine over, he felt just a tiny bit closer to the family that didn't belong to him anymore.

He respected the man he'd been copied from. So when he eventually told his family (because Phil refused to run the risk of accidentally meeting them sometime without them having been prepared for the shock of it), he was not going to pretend to be Coulson. He'd tell them everything. They would probably want nothing further to do with him after that, because who would want to spend time with the imitation of a dead man? But Coulson's memories felt like they were his and Phil didn't think it was wrong to feel comforted by that, if only a tiny bit.

He was going to have to actually put his foot on the gas at some point, though, rather than sitting her thinking depressing thoughts.

He drove the short distance to the hangar and pulled Lola straight into the wide bay at the back of the Bus. Since they'd been somewhat hard on Ward, Phil decided to mend some fences with the man as he showed him around their plane. First, he rescued him from FitzSimmons in the lab and started him on a tour.

"See, people tend to confuse the words 'new' and 'improved," Phil told him as they climbed up to the second level, "This Mobile Command? They were in heavy rotation back in the '90s. But then we got a helicarrier." His lips twitched. "Did you hear the one about the guy who was afraid of flying?" Jokes were always a good way to build bridges.

"I've done a night jump into a drop zone under heavy fire, sir," Ward replied. "I can handle it."

Phil blinked at him. "That was a joke. The first part of a…" Of course, embarrassing yourself also worked as a bridge-building tool, even if it wasn't his first choice. "I'm not gonna tell it now."

Mercifully, May interrupted them. "If you plan to unpack, make it quick. Wheels are up in five."

Phil was so grateful for her saving the awkward moment that he did not point out that if the wheels were really going to be up in five minutes, they should probably start taxiing at least thirty seconds ago.

May handed him her copy of the case folder, which he opened to find several notes scribbled in the margins. And they were helpful notes, no less, rather than the swear words and bratty drawings he'd half expected. "We may have a hit on one of the Rising Tide's routing points."

"Good," Phil nodded, flipping through the report in the folder. "We need to do some catching up."

May turned back for the flight deck.

Ward had the grace to wait until she had closed the door before he said, "Is that who I think it is?"

"She's just the pilot," Phil said.

"Melinda May is just the pilot?" Ward scoffed. "Come on, sir. What game are you really playing?"

Phil looked up at him and did not say that he was trying to get May back into the world before she was so far gone that she took herself out of it. It wasn't any of Ward's business. Instead, he said, "Better stow your gear." before heading for his office.

Once there, he pulled out his phone and typed into it, "How secure is this office, TED?"

There was a brief moment and then a reply appeared on the screen. SCAN COMPLETE. THREE LISTENING DEVICES FOUND.

Thanking his lucky stars that Tony built all kinds of hardware into everything he created, Phil used the chart that TED helpfully put onto the screen of his phone and yanked out the bugs, listening to the engine noise grow louder as he did so. Rather than smashing them, he put them into a soundproof box he'd brought in for exactly this purpose, and then put the box underneath the head of his bed. They'd continue transmitting this way, which would probably give him a slightly longer time before whoever was on the other end realized the bugs had been swept. Alternatively, depending on the model, they'd broadcast some pretty annoying-sounding (and painful) feedback, which would give the game away immediately. But either way, it was going to be some time before SHIELD could rebug his office. And SHIELD generally held the opinion that if you weren't smart enough to check your spaces for bugs, you deserved to have the agency listening in on you.

Once he'd completed that task, he laid TED on the desk in front of him and said aloud, "How about now?"

TED's reply was also out loud. "Scan complete. No more listening devices found."

Phil pulled the seat belt from his desk chair as he felt the plane begin to move. "I'm sorry it's been such a long time since we talked. As much as we're surrounded by SHIELD, I don't want to risk them discovering you."

"I understand. And I appreciate your concern for me," TED answered.

"I need to ask a favor from you." Phil held the phone in place on his desk as they taxied to the end of the runway.

"It is my function to aid you as you request."

"Can you still communicate with Tony's home systems?" Phil asked.

TED was quiet for a moment, then replied, "My access has not been revoked."

"Can you find out how they're doing? My family? Coulson's family, I mean? I know they're not mine but…" He trailed off. Maybe this was creepy. Maybe he shouldn't be asking this.

"I have been checking in on Sir and his family from time to time," TED answered. "They are…externally well. But Darcy has traveled to London with Doctor Foster, and Sir is drinking again. Ms. Potts seems to spend a good deal more time at work than in the past."

The engine noise peaked as they reached the end of the runway.

Phil looked up at the skylight, watching the clouds overhead as they shot down the pavement of the airfield. "But they aren't in danger?"

"None that I am able to detect," TED answered.

"All right. Thank you, TED."

It wasn't the news he wanted to hear, Phil mused as the wings took over for the wheels and the Bus lifted off of the ground. But it was news from his family, and bad or not, he couldn't be totally sorry to hear it.

As they climbed, the noise from the engines receded to the usual flight levels of noise. Noticeable, but no longer as loud. He was going to try to avoid talking out loud to TED without some kind of cover like that. Just in case.

Despite spending most of the rest of the flight prepping for the arrest of the Rising Tide operative, actually doing it proved laughably easy. A girl, painfully young, in an unlocked van, with no defense whatsoever. No knife, no gun, not even a token protest about the Fourth Amendment. Phil spared a moment as they were installing their new acquisition in the interrogation room (which he called "The Honeycomb" in his head) to hope that Darcy was still practicing at the range.

"You guys are making a big mistake," the girl said.

"You don't look that big," Ward answered.

She looked down.

Phil didn't laugh. It would break character. But did she really think they'd never heard that before? Instead, he took over as "good cop."

During the course of their conversation, Phil discovered several things. First, this girl called herself "Skye." With an E. Next, she was a terrible liar, but she did at least take a stab at pretending she had no idea why she'd been arrested. At first, anyway. So she knew when to keep a secret, even if she was a little fuzzy on the how. Third—and this was where she started getting truly interesting—though her contingencies for being arrested were woefully undeveloped, she had actually made some. And lastly, she really pushed Ward's buttons.

"How did you know the hooded man was in the building?" Phil asked, having brought the conversation around to the target of their investigation.

"Did you blow it up to draw him out?" Ward demanded.

Phil did not roll his eyes at Ward's belligerence. But was he actually angry? That was…fairly unprofessional, to say the least.

"Did you?" Skye shot back.

"That's not our style," Phil said.

"I was just kidnapped by your 'style,'" she snapped back. "SHIELD covered up New Mexico and Project Pegasus. Of course you'd be covering up Centipede."

"Centipede" was a new one to Phil. It was also a new one to Ward, and Skye noticed.

Her eyebrows flew up and she threw Phil a triumphant look. "Oh, no way. You don't know what that is? Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal and I beat you with a laptop that I won in a bet?"

He didn't let it show on his face, but Phil was growing more and more impressed by this girl. She had used sub-par equipment to beat them to the punch on "Centipede"—whatever that was—and they couldn't even pin her name down. She might be useful.

But it was time to get her to refocus. "You need to think about your friend," Phil told her, leaning forward. "We're not the only ones interested in people with powers. We'd like to contain him, yeah. The next guy will want to exploit him, and the guy after that will want to dissect him."

Skye looked stricken at this, which Phil felt was all to the good. It was time she started taking this seriously.

Ward leaned over her. "What is Centipede?"

Apparently she felt like she needed some space, because she stood to answer. "Centipede. It was chatter on the web and then…gone."

Phil scowled at that. That could be practically anything at all. There had been fandom events that sent up false flags like that before. "Riding crop" had actually been on a keyword list for two days when it suddenly started popping up in online communication.

"I traced the access point MAC address to that building," Skye continued. Which, at least, did tie this nebulous-sounding "chatter" to something that was actually involved in their case.

"What were you after?" Ward asked, sitting down beside Skye's now-empty chair.

Skye turned back to him irritably. "The truth. What are you after?"

"World peace," Ward replied, his face utterly blank.

Skye did not look impressed, and Ward had apparently reached the end of his patience. He stood back up. "You pseudo-anarchist hacker-types love to stir things up. But you're never around for the fallout. People keep secrets for a reason, Skye." And now he was right up in her space.

"Well," she said, poking him, "just because you're reasonable doesn't mean that you're not an evil, faceless, government toolbag."

Phil thought that was a bit harsh, considering that both Ward and himself obviously had faces. There were two people working for SHIELD who literally did not have faces. They were both level nine agents, whose activities were not recorded. He had no idea what they did, but holding a conversation with them was—there was no other word for it—creepy.

"Just give us your guy's name," Ward said.

"He's not my guy!"

"You understand he's in danger," Phil told her.

"Then let me go," Sky answered. "Let me talk to him. Me. Not the…T-1000 here." She gestured to Ward.

Phil regarded her, impassively.

Ward rolled his eyes. "You wanna be alone with him. Of course." He turned to Phil. "She's a groupie. All this? Hacking into SHIELD? Tracking powers? She might as well be one of those sweaty cosplay girls crowding around Stark Tower."

Phil stood up abruptly. Not because he was angry, but because he suddenly had to move. If he hadn't, he would have started laughing, because he knew that Tony gave each of the cosplayers scores on attractiveness, quality of costume, and combined total. Everyone who showed up more than once had a rolling average, so that newcomers didn't have an unfair disadvantage. JARVIS had a huge folder buried in Tony's files with stills, videos, and soundbites. And all of this was a deadly secret from Darcy and Pepper. Even after Phil had been sent to New Mexico, Tony had kept him up-to-date through an insane amount of texting. The whole thing was stupid and childish and hilarious and he missed Tony.

His face was grave, however, as he turned to Ward. Ward was loosing his objectivity, which was not going to score them any useful information.

"What?" Skye was yelling, too defensive in the face of Ward's accusation. "I would…" She cut herself off, and then, much more quietly said, "One time."

Phil made a mental note to add "getting a picture of Skye in her costume" to the list of Reasons I Wish I Was Still The Real Coulson.

"Ward," he demanded, holding the door open.

They exited, the door closing—and locking, to Skye's muffled protests—behind them.

"Is it the girl?" Phil asked, as they walked along the side of the plane. "Is she just hitting you the wrong way?"

"Sir," Ward sighed.

"Or is it the assignment?" Phil pressed, deliberately pushing that button. "Are you so anxious to get out of this that you'd deliberately blow an interrogation?"

Phil had read Ward's file. He knew for a cold fact that Ward would rather submit to torture than fail to complete an assignment (and had actually done so in the past). He also knew that suggesting otherwise would help to keep his fuse lit.

"Give me a minute alone with her," Ward snarled through gritted teeth, "you'll have your answers."

Ah. So the problem here wasn't not enough enthusiasm, but too much. Phil was not about to authorize any of what Ward was thinking of on such a bright and interesting girl. He had a feeling he would need her later on down the line. And if he thought she'd be useful to him, it would be easy enough to spin her as useful to SHIELD. He'd just have to make sure she didn't put too much faith in SHIELD as he brought her on board. And he'd need to come up with an out for her, because he wasn't going to bring anyone else down with him.

"She's an asset," Phil told him, opening the door to a storage space and pulled out a case holding an injection gun.

"She's such an ass—wait," Ward paused as he realized what Phil had just said. "Asset?"

"We don't know anything about her," Phil explained. "Do you appreciate how often that happens? That never happens." He opened the case, and began pulling the gun out. "We need what she knows."

Ward looked pleased at first, but then somewhat less happy when Phil filled a cartridge with saline solution.

Phil explained his plan and they returned to Skye.

Phil set the case on the table, and said, "Since you're unwilling to talk to us, I can see we'll have to be a bit creative here." He held up the saline cartridge, colored a theatrical green. "This is QNB-T16. It's the top-shelf martini of sodium pentathol derivatives." Skye started to try and get up, but Ward's hands clamped down on her shoulders and held her down. "It's a brand new, and extremely potent, truth drug."

Skye, to her credit, did not look frightened. She looked absolutely furious.

"Don't worry," Phil said with a condescending smile. "The effects only last about an hour."

"Then you'll have a nice little nap," Ward said, strolling over to Phil. "And we'll have all the answer—hey!"

He broke off as Phil injected him with the saline. Ward did an excellent job of acting angry and slightly betrayed. And Skye seemed so relieved it was almost comical. So she was hiding something other than the name of the guy. But Phil was disposed to let her keep her secrets so long as they didn't interfere with his. So he closed the interrogation room and let Ward spin Skye whatever line of bullshit he thought would get her to cooperate the fastest.

Phil moved to the command center and turned on the feed from the interview room just in time to see Ward turning puppy dog eyes to Skye and saying "Gramsy?"

A light went off indicating that someone had entered the cargo bay. Phil flipped one of the monitors up to see FitzSimmons and May enter the Bus. Simmons went straight to work on…something they'd found at the site of the explosion while May stowed their gear. Fitz tried to help Simmons but was eventually ejected from the lab and he and May moved up to join Phil.

May took one look at the monitors and said, "This is an unorthodox interview strategy."

"Skye didn't trust us," Phil shrugged.

"Skye?" Fitz asked, his expression very skeptical.

"With an E," Phil said.

They all turned to watch as Ward now filled Skye in on the completely false particulars of a mission he'd recently run in—supposedly—Sudan.

"Simmons found something in the explosion," Fitz reported. "It looks a bit like it might be just decorative, but she claims some of the compounds are not terrestrial."

"Alien art?" Phil asked.

"Alien something. We think," May shrugged.

"Simmons is working on it," Fitz shrugged. "She'll let us know."

He left for the lab, and May gave Phil a weary look before departing for the flight deck. The rest of the hour passed with no new information on their investigative target, though Ward took more than a few runs at turning the conversation that way. But finally he slumped over in a false sleep and Skye left him there.

She wandered in to join him in the command center, noting the "sleeping" Ward on the monitors.

"Did Agent Ward give you anything?" Phil asked casually.

"He told me he's been to Paris," Skye replied with a smile, "but that he's never really seen it, and that he wishes you had stayed in Tahiti."

"It's a magical place," Phil shrugged, the answer reflexive by now.

"Ward doesn't like your 'style,'" Skye said. "I…kinda think I do." This last sentence was cautious.

"What about his?" Phil used his hand to "throw" a news segment onto a nearby television screen where it obligingly began running, showing their unregistered gifted attacking factory workers and destroying their equipment, all with absolute rage on his face.

Skye watched the footage with a shocked expression and finally said, "This is…wrong. This is not the guy I met. He was…" She trailed off and finally said, "He just needs a break."

"Then give him one," Phil told her firmly. "What've you got?"

Skye turned to him with a defeated expression. And then she told him everything she knew.

Phil called everyone (other than Ward, who was still pretending to sleep) to the command center and began talking them through Michael Peterson's life. "Michael Peterson, factory worker," he announced, surveying his team's expressions as he spoke. "Morning girlfriend only, one kid. Gets injured, gets laid off, girlfriend bolts. Good guy, bad breaks."

Other than May's slight eyeroll at that, no one said anything.

"Our best guess," Phil continued, ignoring the eyeroll, "is somebody tells him they can make him strong again. Make him super."

"Who has the tech to do that?" May asked, sounding utterly baffled. "And why would they want to?"

Phil shrugged. He turned to his scientists. "Fitz, what do we have from the security footage? Before the blast?"

Fitz touched something and then frowned as a picture appeared on the screen behind him, rather than showing as a hologram in the center of the table. It was running at the speed he wanted, but it was not where he wanted it. Apparently he was still warming up to the holoGUI Phil had chosen for the plane.

"What are we seeing?" May asked.

Fitz, turning back and forth to monitor the image and the information about the image, replied, "Well the man is…angry…at the other man."

Phil and May gave him harsh glares.

"The data is very corrupt," Simmons said, by way of explanation.

"Like Cold War Russia corrupt," Fitz agreed with an inelegant snort. "I can't sync the timecode without—"

"What if you had the audio?" Skye broke in, just a second before Phil was going to blister their ears.

Everyone turned to her.

"I was…running surveillance on the lab," she offered, a little intimidated. "I had my shotgun mic pointed at the window before the blast."

FitzSimmons' eyes grew round at this news.

"The digital file's in my van," Skye continued. "There's too much background noise for me, but you could probably—"

Fitz and Simmons instantly began a very technical-sounding argument that ended with Fitz saying, "That audio would be good. Thank you. Very, very much." as Simmons said "We'll take that audio, please."

"Your van's here," Phil informed her. "But you were right. We couldn't decrypt the files."

Skye's expression turned just a touch smug. "The encryption's coupled to the GPS. Get my van back to that alley and then I'm in business."

"Agent May will escort you," Phil told her. "And on your way out, wake up Ward."

Everyone clambered out. A few moments later, Ward came in, and they watched in silence as May and Skye left the plane. As soon as they had driven off in Skye's dilapidated death trap, Ward turned to Phil. "Did she buy it?"

Phil nodded and walked Ward through the briefing they'd just held. He had just finished when one of the monitors blinked. Phil effortlessly pulled the notification up as a hologram on the center table. "Michael Peterson's ID was just flagged entering a hospital. Keep an eye on him. When the time comes, we'll need a plan to take him in."

Phil left Ward prepping in the command center and took the stairs down to the lab and watched as Fitz and Simmons worked around each other in perfect synchronicity, eventually migrating over to stand by Simmons and watch as she worked. The two of them were nothing like Tony, but it was nice to be around that energy again, even in the strange forms of these two agents. He listened, amused, with half an ear as Fitz stumbled over trying to talk to Skye. And inwardly groaned. He'd barely taken notice of Skye's moiety. FitzSimmons were the only two morning agents on the team, but he'd been hoping that they wouldn't encounter anyone those two were attracted to quite this quickly. Then again, Simmons hadn't so much as noticed Skye, and Fitz would never do anything without Simmons on board for it. Hopefully this wouldn't turn into a complication that quickly.

Phil refocused on Simmons. He skimmed her notes over her shoulder and said, "So, the alien metal wasn't the explosive?"

"Well," she said, "I assumed from the break pattern and dispersion that it was, but…it's just dripping with gamma radiation."

Phil shifted his weight backwards before he was aware of it, and tried not to think to hard about what the first part of that statement had to do with the last. Which was fairly easy considering he was busy remembering Banner and absolutely not being unduly afraid of that little artifact Simmons was playing with.

"Ooh! Now it's actually dripping! Fun!" Simmons had an enormous grin. Phil did not roll his eyes.

"So what did that get us?" Ward asked, coming in in combat gear, rather than his earlier suit.

"Skye's sending us the rest of her decrypted files on Centipede," Fitz said, breezing past Ward with some kind of huge device in his hand. Ward gave Fitz an annoyed look when Fitz laid a hand on his chest, but didn't say anything otherwise. Fitz was oblivious to Ward and said, "But, we have our audio, I've loaded it up."

"Nice work," Phil said. And though it was directed at Fitz too, it was Ward he was looking at. Ward glared at him irritably, but Phil just smiled. Ward would need to hear that, he could tell. He had a feeling that Ward was not used to being told he'd done a good job, even when he had.

Fitz was rattling off a string of technical nonsense about how he managed to work the holograms that Phil found totally unimpressive. Not that Fitz wasn't good, but nobody could touch Tony Stark for technobabble.

Phil walked into the holograms with Ward.

"Explosives in the case?" Ward asked, pointing to a briefcase on a desk.

Phil scowled, watching the argument play out in front of them by two transparent ghosts. One was angry, the other was scared.

The angry man picked up an office chair and smashed it to bits on a shimmering desk. Phil was impressed at the level of strength on display.

Fitz hit the pause button. "Did you see that on his arm?" He ran the motion back a few seconds and paused it again.

Phil had to admit, Fitz had a good eye. "What does that look like to you?" he asked as Ward moved to stand almost nose-to-nose with the holographic man. A series of connected segments marched down the hologram's forearm, each sprouting thin branches that wrapped around the man's skin.

"A centipede," Ward said, nodding at the object.

"It's an intravenous filter for his blood," Simmons put in, coming over from her seat. "This goo, sir? Very similar to the formula Dr. Erskine developed in the forties for the—"

"Supersoldiers," Phil finished. And as much as he admired Steve Rogers, the idea of anyone replicating that formula was horrifying.

"I'm reading alien metal, gamma radiation, the serum…" Simmons shook her head. "Every known source of super power thrown in a blender."

This was bad. Very bad. There was one source of super power that Simmons hadn't mentioned. If that was what they gave Peterson, the man was in more danger from his own biology than he was from anything else. "We need to see the origin of the blast. Run it back from the last point recorded."

A second later, a massive orange-red fireball covered the whole holographic space, and then started shrinking in on itself. Phil stepped up closer as the edge of the fireball shrank, until he found himself standing right beside…the angry man who'd been smashing chairs.

"Extremis," Phil sighed, wishing he hadn't been right. "It's new. Completely unstable." It had been terrifying enough watching footage of Tony fighting people who could heat up and explode. Now he was going to get the chance to do it himself. Something else they would have in common. He could add it to his list.

"And Mike has the same stuff in his system," Simmons said, echoing his thoughts.

"Judging by his strength level," Ward said, "a lot more."

Fitz frowned. "So, any minute now, Mike is gonna…" He made a motion with his hands.

"He'll take out anyone within a two-block radius."

"Well." Phil looked at Ward. "You wanted a bomb."

Ward didn't even bother glaring at him for that.

The two of them went up to the second deck and began prepping their weapons for an assault. A moment later, FitzSimmons came in, looking even more disturbed than before.

"Sir," Simmons said, "he didn't explode because he was angry." Then she frowned. "The two are connected… It's kind of a chemical surge, but calming him down will buy him a minute at most. He will detonate within the next few hours."

That didn't track with what Phil had read in the reports of Tony's encounters with Extremis. Something these people had done to manipulate it must have made it even more unstable. "Solution?"

Simmons shook her head miserably. "Isolate him. Get him away from people."

"Or?" No way was Phil leaving it at that.

"Put a bullet through his brain," Fitz said in a dead tone.

"If he's dead, the somatic and irradiative process will…stop."

Phil glanced at the unreassuring form of Ward in the command center prepping a sniper rifle and shook his head. "We need to come up with a third option. One that doesn't involve Mike's son loosing a father."

"We have a couple of hours at most!" Simmons protested. "There's no way that we could possi—"

"Don't ever tell me there's no way!" Phil thundered. And then he forced himself to take a breath because it was not FitzSimmons' fault that that particular line had hit him like this. "It's on you. Get it done," he ordered in a calmer tone. Artificial or not, if his memories of these two were accurate, they could come up with a third option. If he had to scare them into doing it, then so be it.

He joined Ward and punched up a line to May's satphone.

"He took Skye," May snarled without any preamble.

Phil felt his jaw clench. That had not been in the plan. "You all right?" he asked.

"We'll deal with that later. At length," May informed him. Phil was not looking forward to that conversation. "Right now, we need to figure out where they went."

Right at that moment, an alarm went off, initiated from the lab. "I'm going to call you back, May. Something's going on in the lab."

He hung up and descended the staircase—feeling a bit like a ping-pong ball bouncing between the two decks—in time to hear Fitz and Simmons panicking about a security breach. "This isn't me!" Fitz yelled. "Someone's hacking our secure channel!"

Phil glanced at the results from their breach, thankful that Tony had made him learn at least a little about how to read computer code. "It's longitude and latitude," he told them. "Peterson took Skye. She's telling us where."

FitzSimmons scrambled to pack up their research as Ward descended the stairs and the four of them piled into the SHIELD SUV and backed out of the cargo bay.

Phil and Ward slid their comm pieces into their ears. The inner ear comms were beneficial in a lot of ways, but mostly because you could simply speak normally and the comms would pick up the vibrations through your bones and skin the same way that your ears picked up the sound of your own voice. These were coupled with a wristband that served as a remote to select broadcast channels, tune frequencies, and encrypt communications among other things. May's comm was already up and running, so Phil gave her their destination, then he flipped over to the official SHIELD channel and called in for some back-up muscle, before switching back to the team's channel.

As they drove, he listened with half an ear to Fitz and Simmons continuing to argue about how to get the "night-night gun" (which was worse than most of the official SHIELD names, good grief) running as it should. He didn't understand most of what they said, but he was getting a sinking feeling that even scaring them might not produce the desired result. There really might not be a way to save Peterson.

It did not help to have Ward beside him, saying just that. "Sir, one man is endangering everyone in that station. That is more than enough reason to give a kill order. SHIELD has done that in the past more than once. You have done that in the past more than once."

"There's a difference between strapping a bomb to yourself and deliberately trying to kill people and being a bomb and not knowing it," Phil snapped, pulling into Union Station's unloading area with the SHIELD support team right behind him. Skye's van was parked right outside the main entrance, so he slid the SUV up to the curb, grabbed a megaphone and left the car.

Ward trailed after him, still protesting. "Look at this," Ward said. "You're going to risk thousands of lives over some nobody."

"Nobody's nobody, Ward," Phil replied. "FitzSimmons will come through," he added with a confidence he did not feel. He motioned to the agents backing them up, to show them their positions. Then he raised the bullhorn. "Mr. Peterson, good morning. We're not a threat, we're here to help. But you're in danger and we need to take you in."

Silence was his only response.

Then, suddenly, the van door came flying off of the van, knocking the two closest agents to the ground. Phil, though, saw the door coming for him as if it were in slow motion. He easily leaned back, allowing it to pass over him.

Peterson came barreling out, gripping Ace—his son—tight against him with one arm and dragging a stumbling Skye along with the other.

Phil, the only agent still standing, was after them immediately, following them into the station.

He didn't know what Peterson was planning, but this situation was suddenly very far out of hand. There were civilians everywhere, and most were probably unarmed and couldn't defend themselves if Peterson snapped. With Peterson were two hostages. And May had caught a ride with a black-and-white, but she was still several minutes out. The calculus on everyone going home happy had been much better before they'd entered the station.

Then, much to Phil's surprise, Skye suddenly attacked a bystander. She said something he didn't catch and the man she'd kicked plus all his friends immediately began attacking her and Peterson.

Peterson released her arm and his son and Skye took off running. Phil had to give her credit for creating that moment. Peterson's son was out in the crowd, though, and Phil lost sight of Skye while he was tracking the child's movements. There! He moved and and intercepted Ace.

"Let's get you out of here," Phil said, taking the boy's hand and rushing him to a uniformed police officer.

"I want my daddy!" Ace protested, dragging his feet.

"I promise," Phil replied solemnly, letting the uniform lead Ace away.

When he looked back to Peterson, he saw Ward getting dropped on his back hard on the tile floor. Phil could feel his own ribs thud in sympathy. Ward began getting up, but he was moving slow.

Peterson, meanwhile, had found Skye in the crowd. And he ran after her. And damn he was fast. Phil knew he wouldn't be able to keep up so he moved to Ward. "You all right?"

"Nothing that won't heal," Ward answered, sounding much more pained than Phil liked. "The building's closed off, so he can't get out. But we've got to get the civil—"

A shot rang out. Phil turned just in time to see Peterson disappear through a doorway, dragging Skye with him, pursued by someone carrying a shotgun. May's voice came over the comms reporting her arrival on scene.

Phil frowned. "At the north entrance, May."

"Tell them to hold fire," Ward said as Phil helped him to his feet.

Phil looked to the door where the gunman had vanished. "I don't think that's us. We may have a third party here." He thought quickly. "Peterson's gonna head down to the tracks. You stay high, I'll go low." He turned. "Only take the shot if you have to, Ward."

Ward started walking away without a reply.

"Ward!" Phil snapped.

"If I have to," Ward answered tiredly.

This next part was the worst. Because Ward was taking his position, and May was coming in after Peterson and the shooter. But once Phil descended to his position, covering the gates leading to the tracks, he was set until his team did their jobs. His job right now was to wait right where he was and oversee the station security clearing the civilians from the room. So he stayed and watched and listened as his agents talked to each other over the comms.

And then he heard a gunshot from overhead. He looked up in time to see Peterson's upper body and Skye's beside the railing of an overhead balcony. Peterson flung Skye away with a yell. Then there was another shot and Peterson went tumbling over the railing.

And he fell and fell and fell. It was a long way down before he went smashing into a news kiosk, shattering it to pieces.

Even after that fall, Peterson was a lot less slow getting up than Ward had been and the skin under his face was glowing a terrifying red-orange. Phil felt his heart pounding. Tony had seen this? These were the people he'd been facing? Alone?

You aren't Coulson, he told himself. You are a new being. You're probably not even human. The family you remember isn't yours. Focus.

Peterson stood up, looking around desperately, wide-eyed.

Phil walked slowly forward, making sure he had Peterson's attention. He stopped about twenty-five feet away and then set his gun down to the floor.

"You think that means anything?" Peterson sneered. "I know you've got men everywhere waiting to put me down."

It means I can't put you down anymore, Phil did not say.

"I know how this plays out."

"I don't," Phil answered. Because he didn't. With the mood Peterson was in, he gave himself a 50-50 chance of surviving the next five minutes. "I know you've got poison in your system. I know it's burning you up. Mike, the last guy who wore that exploded."

"I'm not like that other guy!" He shifted uncertainly. "It matters who I am. Inside. If I'm a good person. If I'm strong."

Before Phil could reply, Ward's voice in his ear said, "I have a clear shot. Do you copy?"

"I know you're strong. Your boy knows it. He needs you to let us help."

And maybe mentioning Ace had been a mistake because Peterson started shifting even more. "You took him!" And then he just kept going. "You took my wife. My job. My house!" He pulled back his sleeve and held up his arm, the centipede on it clearly visible now. "You think this is killing me?" He shook his head. "All over, there's people being pushed down, being robbed! One of them tries to stand up?" Peterson ripped the remains of one of the kiosk's now-ruined columns from the floor. "You gotta make an example out of him!"

Phil took a breath to consider his answer. Because from what Peterson had just said, he was so desperate that he was not likely to view anyone as an ally, and that kind of diffuse blame of his problems on any external person made him incredibly dangerous. "You bring this building down on us, will that help them?"

"That's a lie! All you do is lie!" Peterson swung his column-club, thankfully at the remains of the kiosk he had smashed. His face glowed ominously again.

He was making less and less sense, and this conversation was getting nowhere. Phil started considering his options. He'd never get to his gun fast enough, and while May had just joined him, standing a few steps behind him, Skye had joined them too, right next to May. He couldn't fault the girl for bravery, but she was a civilian which made her a complication right now, not an asset. If Peterson attacked, he and May would have to figure out how to get her safely away, and that might mean compromising their own safeties.

Which gave him…no good options. So he didn't answer Peterson. Just let him talk.

"You said if we worked hard," Peterson continued, "if we did right, we'd have a place. You said it was enough to be a man." Peterson was, alarmingly, stepping closer to Phil as he spoke. The glow of Extremis waited just under his skin, and he was talking himself into more confusion every second. It took all of Phil's training to keep himself standing still. Running would only escalate things.

"But there's better than man," Peterson said. "There's gods. And the rest of us. What are we? They're giants. We're what they step on."

He was so close now that Phil could feel the heat boiling from under his skin. So it didn't matter anymore if he tried to run. If he couldn't get through to Peterson somehow, they were all dead anyway. So he squared his shoulders and took a step towards Peterson. To a comfortable conversation distance.

"I know," Phil told him. Because he really, really understood what Peterson was talking about. "I've seen giants. Up close." Once upon a time, he'd had to watch over Iron Man after he'd had a destructive fight with his best friend. Once upon a time, he'd seen Thor tear through SHIELD's security trying to reach a hammer they'd initially labeled an O-8-4. Once upon a time, he'd stood beside Captain America on the deck of a helicarrier. "And that privilege cost me. Cost me everything." Once upon a time, he'd felt Loki stab him to death. "But the good ones, the real deal? They're not heroes because of what they have that we don't. It's what they do with it. You're right, Mike. It matters who you are."

Something in that last statement had reached Peterson, because somehow the fight had gone out of him. He was even looking down. He was still explosive, but he wasn't going to attack. Now if only they could figure out how to keep him from combusting, they'd be in business.

"I could, you know?" Peterson said in a broken voice. "Be a hero?"

Phil smiled. "I'm counting on it."

He hadn't counted on a bullet to Peterson's head to punctuate that statement, but that was what happened. The man's neck snapped back and he collapsed like a stone. But at the same time, something about the way he fell seemed off.

Phil looked around to see Simmons racing across the floor towards Peterson, dropping to her knees beside him. He turned further to see Ward holding a rifle that was not the sniper weapon he'd been prepping. It was…the Night-Night gun?

Phil turned again to see Jemma look up with relief on her face. And he realized what had been so "off" about Peterson's fall: there was no blood around his head. The place on his forehead where the bullet had struck was an odd bluish welt, but not a true injury. And, most amazing of all, the heat was dissipating and the glow of the Extremis beneath his skin was turning blue, then dissipating. He was fine. They were fine. They'd managed to bring him in alive.

Phil felt the tension drain from his shoulders.

They brought Peterson up from the station, while Phil answered every single query with a "matter of national security, no comment" response that infuriated everyone—including him—as he did so. It was not that he would have explained (because how do you explain all of that?), but SHIELD should really have spent more time spinning some generic talking-points to be used for uncomfortably public situations. Stark Industries had a whole folder on this sort of thing that Pepper and the entire PR department rememorized every three months. Of course, Tony gleefully ignored the folder, but no system was perfect.

And then Phil heard a yell that snapped him back to the present.

"Dad! Dad! You killed him!"

Phil turned to see Ace running from the SHIELD medics, who'd arrived on scene with an ambulance, towards the stretcher that contained his father, his voice going high and broken from the thought that his father was dead.

Skye stepped out and caught Ace around the waist and heaved him up. And she started chanting, "He's alive, he's alive, he's alive…" as she stepped over to catch up to the stretcher. "He's alive. See him breathing? He's alive."

Phil watched as she paced the stretcher with Ace in her arms, slowly calming the boy down.

"She's not bad for a civilian," May mused. Phil hadn't even noticed her stepping up beside him.

"She'd be better with some training," he answered.

Knowing May as he did, Phil had learned a long time ago that her silences were often more communicative than her words. The sudden silence coming from her now was more eloquent than any amount of swearing. Phil just smiled. If he could talk Skye into it, she could be helpful in trying to crack SHIELD. And she was not an agent. SHIELD knew next-to nothing about her. That could blow up in his face if she couldn't be trusted, but if she could, SHIELD would have a much harder time predicting her actions than they would those of someone they had a long file on. Like, for example, him.

So he offered to drive Ace to his foster home, and he took Skye along with him. And on the way, he offered her a job. Join the team on the Bus. SHIELD consultant. Honest-to-goodness salary and everything.

Skye was smart. She wasn't going to take him up on it without thinking. But Phil could see her brain turning the idea of not living in a van over. She'd have only a tiny little cubicle on their plane, but it was not nothing, and she was thinking on it.

She kept thinking on it until they'd seen Ace safely into the care of his foster home, a sprawling farmhouse, and waved off cookies and tea, and tried not to grin at how homey and beautiful it was. But finally, Skye turned from the house to look to Phil. "I told him his father was coming home."

"He will," Phil assured her. They started walking towards Lola. "We have some experience with this."

"Mike almost blew. We almost died." Skye sounded more like she was letting that sink in finally than anything else.

"We have some experience with that too," Phil replied. Because that was something Skye needed to understand if she was going to really consider what he'd offered. If she weren't ready to deal with danger, then she wasn't someone who could—or should—stand up to SHIELD.

"You don't have it all mapped out," Skye replied sullenly.

Phil felt his lips twitching. "We didn't cut off the head of the Centipede," he agreed. "Whoever sponsored that little experiment is still out there. Among other things."

"It's a brave new world," Skye agreed, reaching the passenger door of Lola and glancing her over. "And a really old car."

"Lola can keep up," Phil shrugged. He slid into the driver's seat. "What about you? Have you thought about the offer?"

"Hitching a ride on the crazy plane?" She scowled. "I'm not exactly a team player."

"We're not exactly a team," Phil answered. "But we're in a position to do some good. You'd be a great help. And you'd be front row, center at the Strangest Show On Earth. Which is, after all, what you wanted."

Skye nodded, accepting the truth of that. But she rallied and said, "I was able to hack SHIELD from my van. Are you gonna show me something new?"

Phil was saved from replying by his phone beeping. He answered the call and said "Go."

"Sir?" Ward's voice said over the line, "We've got an O-8-4."

Phil blinked. "Is that confirmed?"

"They want us to go in and confirm it."

"What's an O-8-4?" Skye asked.

Phil smiled, a little smug. "You've got exactly ten minutes to decide if you really want to know."

Skye gave him a skeptical look. "There's no way we can make it to the airfield in ten minutes."

For an answer, Phil threw a couple switches. Because he had stood beside giants. Once upon a time, Tony Stark had loved him. And when Tony Stark loved you, things started happening to your stuff. Like a flight system built into your car, for example. Lola rose off the ground as Skye leaned over the door to see if she was imagining things.

She turned to him in disbelief.

"Strangest Show on Earth," Phil said with a shrug. Then he hit the gas. He had her. No way she said no after this. And he needed her.

SHIELD was never going to know what hit them.

END

Author's Notes: Yes, Hill's conversation with Ward in the pilot is extremely unhelpful and borders on insulting. If you have a job for an agent, you tell them the job along with any relevant information. You don't run on for three or four minutes with cryptic, non-informative, atmospheric stuff about how "the world has changed." If Ward experienced this kind of treatment from superiors at SHIELD as a matter of routine, his behavior at the end of "Turn, Turn, Turn"—though unjustifiable—becomes a great deal more comprehensible. This is not how you act towards subordinates when you want them to trust you.

Okay, folks, this is the last installment that will run so closely to the canon. The next one's going to veer off. No more hand-holding. Are you excited about our journey into mystery?