After a particularly nasty team meeting that ended in flared tempers and storm-offs worthy of soap opera stars, Natasha Romanoff dared to poke her head in the boss's door.

"Did you just not ever learn finesse, Commander?" Nick Fury's head snapped up at the voice to see her leaning into his office.

"And did ever learn to respect your CO?" he retorted, leaning back in his chair and eying her.

She strolled in and sat on the edge of his desk. "I've been a lot of things but a solider isn't one of them."

"Cute little double edge flirting ploys aside, the team still needs a handler," he said.

"And I agree, but stop sending us fresh faced recruits. We're not some army unit by any stretch. You need someone able to deal with different egos and quirks, someone who can play chess. I know a guy who knows a guy, let me try?"

"And if you fail?"

"Then send us your shiniest new penny, commander," she answered, getting lithely to her feet and exiting quickly.

-/-/-/-

Sophie pressed the button for the elevator to the trio's temporary home – a loft space on the Upper East Side.

"Why did we let him talk us into coming back?" Nate groused irritably.

"It's the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., you don't need more reason." Sophie answered with a smirk.

The doors slid open to reveal Eliot cooking, Parker attempting to play his guitar whilst sitting all pretzeled up in an arm chair, and Hardison staring hard at his laptop screen.

"We have a new fiddle?" Sophie asked and Parker's head whipped up and seconds later she launched herself at the other woman with the force of an F5 tornado. "Not unless she presses any harder on the fret board." Eliot answered for her, looking up from his chopping.

"Hi Parker, miss us?" Nate asked dryly.

"What are y'all doing here?" Hardison asked, almost like he was afraid they were being checked up on.

"The Avengers need a handler and Natasha asked me to contact Nate. I owe her," Eliot answered.

Parker releases Sophie. "The comic book people need us?" Parker's brow quirked.

"They're real! We've been over it Parker!" Hardison griped but Nate could see he was barely containing the urge to jump up and down.

-/-/-/-

"That guy's the new Coulson?" Tony Stark asked skeptically, chewing on a toothpick as the team stepped off the elevator into the newly renamed Avengers Tower.

"Who are you son of, booze-scented mortal?" Thor asked Nate, confused accusation coloring his words

"I am Nathan Ford, son of Jimmy Ford, and I am your handler for the foreseeable future. Please feel free to mill about with my people so I can learn your strengths and weaknesses as a team. One or more of my team members should match up with your individual skill-sets," Nate said calmly.

"And what will you do?" the one he recognized as Captain America asked.

"Observe."

The team scattered.

"Pretty mortal, I inquire of your name?" Thor asked Sophie.

"Good luck with that buddy." Nate muttered to himself.

"It's Sophie. And you're Thor right? All of this metal armor really does nothing for you. Let's change that shall we?" Sophie offered with a knowing glint in her eye.

"It does for me what it should Lady Sophie. It protects." Thor said as though Sophie was foolish.

"Just you wait til I get done with you handsome," Sophie replied. "Where's your closet?"

"I have no need of one. This is all I wear, Lady Sophie."

"Oh God help me," she muttered.

Nate chuckled as she pulled the imposing man down a random hallway. He heard Thor ask "Which God? Many of your kind have called me one," laughed out right and left Sophie to her project.

He found the room housing the holographic screens of Jarvis Stark's Omni-computer and saw Hardison looking blissfully happy standing between Stark - one of the hacker's all-time idols - and the incredibly brilliant Dr. Bruce Banner. Alec looked as though he fit in intelligence-wise with his companions better than Nate had seen in a while. He left them to pro and con nano technology to death.

He found Eliot behind a stove, his hitter's favorite defensive position when stressed. He could feel the intensity flowing between Eliot and Natasha Romanoff as though it was a river separating them, as Natasha stared intently at Eliot's back and sips restlessly on a beer. Nate couldn't decide if it was sexual tension or old battle grudges muddying the water in that river; he finally decided it had to be a little of both.

"Why go good?" Natasha asked Eliot.

"Saves what little's left of my soul. It's the Southern Baptist in me." He peered tensely into a pan of vodka penne. "You?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

"Better with them than against them. Besides there's red in that ledger of mine. A whole lot of red."

"I've accepted mine will always be tinged red and moved on. Maybe you should too, Tash." Eliot advised reaching for the spices.

"Then why are you still here?" She adjusted the bottle of beer a quarter turn on the counter.

"Because the chick in the air vent with Clint and the computer nerd two steps away from tweaking out over Stark? They're my family. At least the part entrusted to me," Eliot said honestly.

At that, Nate realized he hadn't seen Parker for the better part of an hour.

-/-/-/-/-

"Why do you like duct work Hawkeye?" Parker asked lying perpendicular to the fierce looking man in another vent.

"It's Clint, I like watching people." He shrugged. "How about you?" He glanced at her and something in his appraising gaze prompted her into honesty.

"Tight spaces make me feel safe." She cleared her throat and changed the subject quickly. "So are you any good with that arrow thingy? Eliot says 'your city boy ass can't hit the broad side of a barn'." Without a word he took an arrow from his quiver and shot it silently through the air vent to land millimeters from Eliot's hand. "Damn it Hawkeye! Don't teach her anything!" Eliot snapped.

-/-/-/-/-

Eliot got everyone gathered around the long conference table for dinner.

"Uh, where are Thor and Sophie?" Nate asked.

"According to the GPS locator in Ms Devereaux's cell phone, they are currently in Bloomingdales." Jarvis answered via hidden speakers.

Eliot started passing around plates. "What'd you do to Captain America, Parker? He's looking all scandalized and virginal and blushes every time you force him into eye contact."

"I may have pinched his butt in an attempt to flirt." She shrugged and took the proffered plate.

"Parker!" he scolded.

"What? He's cute."

"Really, that's your type? Look darlin' just because you, Hardison and I are what we are it doesn't mean… he's ninety five, baby," Eliot explained.

"Really? That's eww…" Her face crinkled in disappointment.

"Well he was frozen for seventy of those years, but-"

"Wait! Was all of him frozen? Like all of him?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, God. Hardison! Get off that computer you have Parker duty!" Eliot called, spooning pasta on to his plate.

=/=/-/-/-

Nate watched everyone interact. Banner was quiet but his rage was easily accessed - much like Eliot. When Nate needed Eliot neutralized he gave him a different job and put him with one of the girls, someone his exact opposite, like Parker.

Clint and Natasha are too similar so they end up either working completely at odds or in perfection. They needed someone like Steve to be their buffer.

Tony Stark is a lot like Sophie in that he preferred attention be on him. He needed his own stage and tended to work alone, not a healthy attitude to have when forming a fledging team.

Just then Jarvis's computerized voice filtered into the room.

"Per your parameters Mister Hardison, I have located Agent Coulson on the isle of Tahiti." Jarvis interrupted his thought process and the entire room's conversation.

Stark's head whipped around, fork still in midair. "You hacked Jarvis!" He accused Hardison spearing him with a steely stare.

"I… no sir. I no- I hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. and rerouted the info to Jarvis. Dr. Banner mentioned between protonic revision and gamma regurge that no one had seen Coulson's body and I figured maybe you'd all been conned, because if you want to con someone you use their greatest need or weakness to motivate a mark or in this case a team."

"Smart for con men." Natasha said.

Hardison beamed.

"She's out of your league man, and a whole different kind of crazy than Parker so don't bother." Eliot advised.

"They faked Coulson's death to motivate us. That's low." Banner said.

"That's life in S.H.I.E.L.D.," Stark said giving an unconcerned shrug. "Looks like we're headed to Tahiti," he continued.

"I hate sand," Parker mumbled.

"I'll buy you an umbrella drink mama," Hardison offered.

"With a sharp stabby umbrella," Eliot added. "The big green guy can take the hit." He grinned at the thought of not being the lone recipient of Parker's unique misguided violent streak.

=/-/-/-

They found Sophie and a very well dressed Thor sitting in the middle of the third row of the midday Wicked showing.

"Are you sure my Jane will be impressed with my knowledge of a musically inclined false realm?" They heard the crowd grumbling at the interruption and then the awed sounds of "The Avengers!" being whispered about as Stark strode toward them.

"We found Coulson," he said, all business.

"But the show." Sophie lamented.

"If Son of Coul has been found we must go." Thor stood giving Sophie no choice but to go with him.

"Lookin' sharp there Thor," Stark commented.

"It is the clothes of man a named Armani. Although I do not yet understand the human need of binding undergarments," he replied.

-/-/-/-

"I could have done it you know, I could have run that team." Nate said to Sophie as they stood off to the side on the sand watching The Avengers reunite with their beloved handler.

"You already have a team," Sophie reminded him taking his hand in her own.

"I do, don't I." He smiled.

Up ahead Parker finally had her umbrella drink but was ignoring it in favor of stabbing a perturbed Eliot with the toothpick umbrella.

"Ouch, damn it Parker!" Eliot grumbled.