"What's the status, Agent Coulson?" Nick Fury sat behind his desk at Pegasus Base, the harsh glare of the overhead light reflecting off white printer paper, straining his eyes. It felt as if a grain of sand was lodged beneath his eyelid, tormenting him with every blink. Sleep deprivation, he told himself—it had nothing to do with the interdimensional creatures. Shutting his eyes tightly, then reopening them, he forced himself to focus and repeated, "I need results. Now."
"Sir, are you asking about the Tesseract or the bugs?" Coulson raised an eyebrow, his tone laced with mild exasperation. "You should really delegate some of this work instead of dumping it all on me. The Pegasus Project alone has me running ragged. I haven't seen Audrey in forever, and there's no way to make calls here. Did you know I have a girlfriend?"
"Finish this task, and you can take a long vacation." Fury shoved a five-inch-thick report across the desk. He was sick of it. A team of science students from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy had been brought in to analyze the corpses of the interdimensional creatures, and their enthusiasm for dissecting "alien lifeforms" had been, frankly, overwhelming. They documented everything in painstaking detail—things Fury had no desire to know.
He didn't care how Hell Cockroaches differed anatomically from American cockroaches. He didn't care about the evolutionary history of Hell's fauna. And he absolutely did not need to know how many eggs a female Hell Cockroach could lay—or whether those eggs were edible.
God help him, Fury thought, as he recalled the idiot who'd actually eaten one of those eggs and submitted a recipe. That fool would be fired immediately—whoever had hired them had clearly made a grave error.
If you're wondering how Fury knew about these absurdities, it was because he'd stupidly decided to comb through the report himself, trying to extract the specific information he needed for security reasons. After wasting an entire day, he finally reached Appendix G (Glands), only to realize that these students needed more than just scientific training—they needed to learn how to write concise reports for non-specialist supervisors.
Especially that Jemma Simmons. Her reports were impossibly long-winded.
"I want to know if those disgusting bugs are connected to our Tesseract experiments," Fury sighed, rubbing his forehead. "And that little brat has gone missing again. S.H.I.E.L.D. spotted him at Stark Industries, but he's vanished since."
"Solomon Damonet? Isn't he attending Eton College?" Coulson asked, clearly aware of who Fury meant. "And doesn't S.H.I.E.L.D. have his New York address on file? We could send someone to negotiate."
"Do you think he'd kill the agents we send to his door?" Fury retorted, rolling his eye. "That kid has no respect for societal norms. Do you think he'd spare them just because they're ours? He sees us as intruding on his daily life! Solomon Damonet is an extremely dangerous individual. I don't trust him, but I need him. We have to tread carefully when dealing with him. I've seen how cold he can be—an entire task force wiped out by his hand."
"I've seen it too," Coulson agreed, nodding. "I don't like his methods, but I can't deny he's fighting for humanity. He eliminates anything that interferes with him."
"Until we fully understand his capabilities, we can't take action against him. All files on Solomon Damonet are handwritten. Only a select few within S.H.I.E.L.D. even know he exists, and none of the task force members who encountered him saw his face clearly." Fury slammed the desk in frustration. "The problem is, how much do we really know about his abilities? Or his magic? We're completely in the dark about him, Kamar-Taj, and even where that organization is located. He's the most terrifying adversary I've ever faced. He could strike at us at any moment, manipulate minds effortlessly, and we'd never see it coming. Those aliens were easier to deal with. Damn it!"
"Ordinary moral frameworks can't bind him," Coulson said after a pause. "He understands emotions but isn't constrained by them. He's loyal to his duties and proud of them. I see him actively trying to free himself from moral limitations."
"Go on," Fury prompted.
"He's too young, sir. Just a kid. Those responsibilities will crush him," Coulson said. "In all the times S.H.I.E.L.D. has interacted with him, I've never seen him demand anything for himself. Be it magic or interdimensional invasions, his requests have never been selfish. He fights like a saint, for all of humanity. If I hadn't offered to buy him food, he wouldn't have even tried a taco. He suppresses his desires too much. I'm not sure how long he can maintain that."
"I had no idea you held him in such high regard," Fury remarked, scrutinizing his agent. "Do you like him or dislike him?"
"I don't hold him in high regard, sir," Coulson clarified, shaking his head. "He's a person without a sense of self. I'm convinced those responsibilities weren't chosen by him. He may have a heart full of kindness, but he views that kindness as weakness and tries to mask it with coldness. It's not sustainable. Solomon Damonet needs education—a guiding hand to teach him that every life has value, including his own. I don't think he's ever learned that, or he wouldn't be the way he is now."
"What are you getting at?" Fury asked, intrigued. "Your memory's fuzzy since Salem. Romanoff's too. I still don't know what happened there."
"I saw him risk his life without hesitation to complete a mission. It was terrifying. Though he fights for humanity, that side of him unsettles me."
"We need a plan," Fury said, resting his chin on his hand with a weary sigh. "We can't risk a sorcerer turning rogue. If he wields unspeakably dark magic, what then? I don't trust his teacher to keep him in check forever. Even if that teacher's lived for a thousand years. We've got contingency plans for Stark, for Captain America, but none for sorcerers. We need to speed this up. We must have some way to deter him. If he strays, we need the ability to strike back. Heavy weaponry works against interdimensional beings; I'm confident it can threaten sorcerers too. And now we have the Tesseract. We've seen its power. We've made progress. We're safer now—unless something goes wrong..."
"But I still believe Solomon Damonet can be saved," Coulson said. "We could get him a therapist."
"I've already arranged that," Fury said with a cryptic smirk. "Romanoff submitted a report on him, mentioning everything you just did. So, I found him a therapist. You'll never guess who."
_________________________
[Check out my Patreon for +200 additional chapters in all my fanfics! Only $5 per novel or $15 for all!!] [www.p@treon.com/Mutter]