![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Monday All Day Long
Author: marcicat
Word Count: 3100
Rating: T
Summary: Not all heroics take place on the front line. (Alternately, maybe SHIELD should maybe just stay closed on Mondays.)
Author’s Note: Includes a few characters from Iron Man: Armored Adventures (the official high school AU).
"Code Four emergency, all personnel evacuate immediately. Code Four emergency, evacuate immediately and report to your group leader. Repeat, Code Four emergency, all personnel evacuate immediately.”
The recorded alert was interrupted by a new voice. It sounded like Maria, and she didn't sound pleased. "This is a timed drill, people, let's move it along. Also, Agent Coulson would like to remind the Science division that their reports are still due by the end of day."
Darcy sighed. SHIELD held enough drills to make them an inconvenience, but at least they had variety. And all you had to do was mention New Mexico, and any (audible) complaints would evaporate. It was just -- you could recognize something had value, and still think it was a pain in the ass.
She grabbed her bag and one of the emergency kits that were standard by all exits, falling in with the small trickle of people unlucky enough to be in SHIELD ground HQ at eight am on a Monday morning. (She had no idea what was in the kits, actually, just that you were supposed to take them with you during drills. And, presumably, actual emergencies.) She was in the stairwell when Maria’s voice interrupted the automated alert again. “If you are currently located on level three or below, you have two minutes to get outside. Levels five and above, stay where you are and stand by. This is no longer a drill.”
Darcy had only made it to level seven, and she tried to catch her breath while she waited. Honestly, no matter how many times you did it, there was only just so fast a human being could get down stairs. (She wondered what had happened to level four.) She didn’t recognize any of the three people sharing the landing with her. “Hey,” she said out loud, because why not? “What do you think happened to level four?”
She got three shrugs; only one of them actually looked nervous, and another one suggested, “Maybe they know it’s already clear?”
The alert cut off in the middle of ‘personnel’ with a worrying garble of static. The lights flickered, brightened — and went out completely, leaving only emergency lighting tracking down the stairs. Not good. She twisted to pull her phone out of her pocket, only to find it dark and unresponsive.
“That’s not good,” one of her companions muttered.
There were about thirty seconds of awkward silence, while Darcy waited for one of the others to take charge. Presumably, they were waiting for the same thing, because none of them did. “Right,” she said finally. “Safe room. We should be there. Let’s go.”
Every level had a safe room (several, in some cases). In theory, the rooms were supposed to be used for situations just like this — something dangerous was happening and it was unclear whether leaving the building was safe or advisable. In practice, SHIELD was full of people who didn’t think ’stay put and wait to be rescued’ was ever really an option, and the rooms were constantly coming up for procedural review. (Still, it was a better choice than the stairwell. Probably.)
***
Her stair companions followed her without any objections. It looked like power was out all over the building, or at least all over level seven, and she flipped all of the emergency lighting to the brightest settings. Then they all stood around looking awkwardly at each other. “I’m Darcy,” she said finally. “And I’m open to suggestions.”
“Sushila,” one of the others offered. “And I wish I hadn’t skipped breakfast this morning.”
That was a problem she could handle, actually. “I have snack bars.” She stepped forward so she could prop her backpack up on the table. “A bunch of them — chocolate, almond, berry.” She fanned the bars out like cards.
“Berry?” Sushila said, and Darcy tossed it over. “Thank you.”
“My bars are your bars,” she said. “Anyone else?”
The second woman raised her hand. “Chocolate. I’m Dee. Thanks. Wish I had had something that useful in my bag.”
The fourth person in the room said nothing, until he seemed to realize everyone was staring at him. “Gene,” he said.
Nothing else, and Darcy wondered if he was freaking out, or possibly just not all the way awake. It was still pretty early. “Snack bar?” she said.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Gene said, and it was the same kind of politeness that Jane had sometimes — all very paint-by-numbers responses, ‘if x then y’ type stuff. Maybe he was a genius scientist; SHIELD seemed to have them by the bucketload.
"My phone is dead," Sushila announced. She had the bar in one hand and her phone already in pieces on the table. "Not fried like an EMP; it's just -- inert."
"Meaning what?" Darcy asked.
Sushila shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it. It's like it's been disconnected from the laws of science and is in some kind of null space."
(Darcy had no idea how you could tell all that from a phone, particularly one that wasn't working, but she had no reason to disbelieve the statement. There had been a point in her life when someone saying 'it's been disconnected from the laws of science' would have sounded crazy. Now it just sounded like Monday.)
Dee sighed. "Again? Dr. Ross warned them about testing that thing without more safeties in place."
Darcy eyed her carefully. It could have been a simple statement. Or Dee could be instituting the minion identification test.
(SHIELD had a few high profile members, but a lot of time it was just minions talking with minions -- lab techs, assistants, analysts, IT. And in an organization that seemed to live on weird threats and weirder situations, the minions had their own set of safety checks, beyond safe rooms and badges.)
"Dr. Foster once lit a safety manual on fire," she said. "It got cold at night."
Dee relaxed a little, and then more when Sushila said, "Dr. Banner's not on site, at least. You know how he gets."
There was a loaded silence, while everyone pretended they weren't staring at Gene. He sighed. "I assume that was some kind of coded pattern I was supposed to recognize, and offer a correct response if I was who you assumed I was.” Darcy was pretty sure there was more sarcasm in his voice than actual concern. “You’ve caught me," he said, raising his hands slightly.
***
Then again, both Dee and Sushila looked more intrigued than worried. "So what's your deal?" Darcy asked.
"Excuse me?" Gene said.
"You know," Sushila said. “Journalist, alien god, robot army, freeze ray -- your deal. What do you do?"
"What if I say it's killing people who ask questions?"
Dee actually rolled her eyes. "Please. Give us a little credit. We work for SHIELD because we think those things are cool. Well, except journalists, usually. Besides, you’re stuck with minions in here. At best, minion-adjacent. What I’m saying is, you could kill us, but why bother, and it’s not like we’re judging you for your life choices.”
Gene looked like he was thinking it over. Darcy leaned over towards Dee. “Minion-adjacent?”
“Yeah, that’s you,” Dee said. “Sorry.” Her eyebrows twitched in a way that maybe was supposed to indicate subtlety, or possibly intrigue.
“Is this because of you, then?” Sushila asked Gene, waving a hand to encompass the room and situation in general.
Gene’s expression changed form ‘thinking it over’ to ‘shifty.’ “I didn’t cause it,” he said.
“But?” Sushila prompted.
“It’s possible the situation is not unconnected to my arrival,” Gene said.
There was really only one question that made sense after a statement like that. Darcy said, “Planet, realm, or alternate dimension?”
“What?”
“It’s got to be an alternate dimension,” Dee said. “Your shirt’s glowing, by the way.”
Gene put a hand up immediately like it would block out the light emanating from his shirt — or under his shirt, more likely. “Alternate universe,” he said. “Yes. I’ve been… traveling, using these.” He glanced down at his chest, where the glow was dropping off again. “They’ve started to attract more attention, attention that organizations like this one have the capacity to deal with.”
Darcy took a second to work that statement through a bullshit meter. “You arrived in SHIELD on purpose so we’d handle your problem for you?” Sushila asked.
Gene didn’t look at all chagrinned. If anything, he looked slightly confused that she was rehashing something he’d already explained. “Yes.”
“Gutsy,” Dee said. “I like it.”
Sushila frowned. “And since we’re cut off from everything, we have no way to confirm your story.” She looked at Darcy. “Unless —?”
Right. Unless she could telepathically get in touch with Bucky, who was on a different continent, and get him to look into the situation without freaking out that people were in danger. “We can’t reach that far,” she said.
“Technically, we’re not in New York right now,” Dee said, looking to Sushila for confirmation. She nodded, then shrugged.
“It might work?” she said.
Darcy looked at Gene and narrowed her eyes. “Does your problem include telepathic werewolves, by any chance?”
For the first time, he seemed surprised. “What?”
“Never mind.”
Dee gave a triumphant shout and produced a tiny music player from the emergency kit, complete with headphones. “Meditating should help, right?” she said. (Darcy shrugged. She honestly had no idea.) “Go for it. We’ll watch him.”
She was pretty sure Gene rolled his eyes at that — either the idea that he needed watching, or the idea that they could stop him if he decided to turn on them. She rolled her eyes right back — if he wanted to take care of his ‘unwanted attention’ by himself, he was welcome to leave any time. “Thanks,” she said.
***
*Bucky?* she tried. No response. Meditation wasn't usually a requirement, but then again, they'd never communicated across more than a city's width before. She had no idea if Dee's argument was more scientific theory or wishful thinking.
*So, it would be really nice to hear from you right now, since I'm stuck with someone claiming to be from another universe, and no one's sure whether we should be fighting or quizzing each other on world events.*
*Darcy?*
Well, she’d gotten someone’s attention, but it didn’t feel like Bucky. *Hello?*
*This is Calle, can you hear me?*
That was good, probably. *Yeah, this is Darcy. I hear you. What’s going on out there?*
*SHIELD’s ground HQ dropped out of existence 22 minutes ago, at the same time a dozen of these showed up.* She got a wavering image of an armor-wearing something holding a sword and looking seriously pissed off. *Things have been a little nuts since then.*
She could imagine. *Is everyone okay?*
*Everyone’s fine. Well, not the dozen strangers; they sort of dissolved into piles of dust. That’s the good news. Bad news is that no one’s sure how to de-nullify HQ. It may take a few hours. Stark is guaranteeing less than a day.*
Right. *And does SHIELD have any brilliant suggestions on what to do while we wait? Right now I’m in one of the safe rooms with a couple of scientists, Dee and Sushila, plus Gene — he says he’s from another dimension.*
Darcy was pretty sure Calle was relaying her conversation to someone else, possibly several someones, and there was a long pause before an answer came back. Over the white noise from the headphones, she could hear the others going through the contents of the emergency kits. (She really hoped they weren’t going to need to use the flares for anything.)
Finally, she got back, *What level are you on?*
*Seven.* Another long pause.
*Get higher,* was the eventual response. *Levels 14 through 20 should be the least likely to either be bombarded with mystery rays by the return process or accidentally left behind. Also, if you can get anyone on the radios, let them know what’s going on. We haven’t been able to contact anyone else inside. No advice on your dimensional traveler.*
*Comforting,* Darcy thought.
*Sorry.*
*No, it’s cool. We got this. I’ll be back in touch in an hour?*
It only took a few minutes to confirm with Calle and explain everything to the others. Wherever Gene was from, he was clearly no stranger to situations of the ‘try not to be irradiated or disintegrated’ variety. She wondered if they always seemed to happen on Mondays in his universe too.
“I don’t suppose you have any powers that would less us instantaneously communicate with everyone in the building,” Dee said, eyeing Gene.
“I do,” Gene said. “But if I use any of them, it’s likely to attract attention from forces beyond our current abilities to defend against.” He shrugged. “Also, they probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“You’re totally a supervillain in your universe, right?” Sushila asked.
“Still not answering questions about it,” Gene told her. (It wasn’t exactly a no, Darcy couldn’t help noticing.)
***
Level six seemed empty, but they got lucky and found a whole field team on level five. “Level four’s gone missing,” Agent Johnson told them. “We already checked.” (Which seemed bad, though not entirely unexpected.) On the plus side, she seemed happy to divvy up her team and help sweep the upper levels.
They sent everyone to level 18 — Johnson remembered it having a kitchen tucked off to the side of one of the conference rooms, which made it as good a gathering place as any. Darcy walked in to the smell of coffee brewing and a gaggle of junior minions sitting around one end of the table with notebooks in front of them. Actual paper notebooks.
"Darcy!" Dee called. "Everything clear?"
"As far as we can tell." She tried not to make a face, but she was pretty sure she didn't succeed. "My last level had a few holdouts. They'll be along once Agent Johnson finishes convincing them we're not evil robot clones."
"To be fair, it's not like that’s never happened before," Dee said. "Coffee? We gathered up a bunch of snacks too, they're all in the kitchen."
"What's going on with them?" Darcy asked, nodding at the table.
Dee said, "Reports," and the group let out a collective moan. One of them thunked his head down on his notebook.
"Where did we even find paper notebooks?"
"Supply closet. Which is actually also where we found him. Napping."
Darcy nodded. “First coffee. Then snacks. Then reports.”
There were a lot of snacks. From the other room, she heard someone say, “How do they even come up with these questions? ‘How would you make adjustments if your budget was cut 20%? How would you adjust if your budget was increased 50%?’ Can’t I just write, ‘I would spend less,’ and ‘I would spend more?’”
Surprisingly, it was Gene’s voice that answered. “Presumably, your superiors can figure that out on their own. It’s a test, yes? Partly to see if you know what you’re doing, and partly because they do not.” He sounded like he was speaking from experience when he added, “If they knew exactly what your budget should be, they would just tell you. Believe me.”
She got distracted picking through the array of tiny boxes of cereal, and by the time she decided she might as well just take two, Gene was surrounded by minions, eagerly taking notes as he explained the mysteries of budget allotment. She edged along the wall towards Dee. “How do you think he knows this stuff?”
“I’ve got five bucks on him being a SHIELD administrator in his dimension. Sushila put in a vote for undercover gang leader, but I think it’s a stretch.”
“He seems young to be an admin,” Darcy said. “Who knows, maybe she’s onto something.”
***
Six hours and five check-ins later, there was a napping room set up down the hall, and the cereal was starting to run out. Calle said they were getting close. Gene suddenly snapped upright in his chair, staring at the wall.
The first thing he said was, “Don’t shoot,” but his shirt was glowing again, and she had time to think ‘uh-oh’ — and then the War Machine armor appeared.
“War Machine?” someone asked.
“You know my name?” the armor said. “That is so cool!” It didn’t sound like Colonel Rhodes.
“Rhodey, what are you doing here?” Gene said. “How did you even find me?”
The faceplate popped open, revealing either a de-aged Colonel Rhodes, or — she hoped more likely — the Rhodes of Gene’s universe. Were they all kids over there, or something? “Cross dimensional tracker,” the kid said. “Tony invented it last night.”
“Why?”
“Um, because it’s your birthday? Pepper has a whole plan, and you do not mess with Pepper when she has a plan. There’s cake and everything.”
Astoundingly, the explanation actually looked like it was working. “What kind of cake?”
“You’ll just have to come find out. Come on, seriously — take a day off for once. It’s your birthday.”
Gene shook his head, but he was standing up. (The rest of the room was watching the back and forth like the only thing that would make it better was popcorn.) “How do you even know that?” He ripped off the top sheet of his pad of paper and walked over to where she was standing.
“These equations should be the rest of what your scientists need to get you out of null space,” he said. There was an awkward pause before he added, “I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you, for your hospitality.”
Rhodes muttered, “Good thing I have that on video; they’d never believe me otherwise.”
Gene quirked a smile. “What was that, Rhodey?”
“I said, my mom can’t wait to see you again.”
Darcy said, “You’re welcome,” because she might as well be polite at that point, and she wasn’t sure Gene was even paying attention any more, but he nodded back at her, and even gave an encouraging wave to a few of the minions who’d been finishing reports.
Then all his attention was on Rhodey. “A cross dimensional tracker, really?”
The faceplate flipped back down. “Yeah, well, it’s on a timer, so brace yourself. There better be some cake left when we get back.”
“You’ve been eating my cake without me?”
“Man, it’s been your birthday all day. We had cake for breakfast. You should’ve been there. Next year, all right?”
“Next year.”
They disappeared, and the room seemed to release a collective sigh. “My kingdom for a working camera,” someone said. “I’m totally adding that to my budget list.”
Author: marcicat
Word Count: 3100
Rating: T
Summary: Not all heroics take place on the front line. (Alternately, maybe SHIELD should maybe just stay closed on Mondays.)
Author’s Note: Includes a few characters from Iron Man: Armored Adventures (the official high school AU).
"Code Four emergency, all personnel evacuate immediately. Code Four emergency, evacuate immediately and report to your group leader. Repeat, Code Four emergency, all personnel evacuate immediately.”
The recorded alert was interrupted by a new voice. It sounded like Maria, and she didn't sound pleased. "This is a timed drill, people, let's move it along. Also, Agent Coulson would like to remind the Science division that their reports are still due by the end of day."
Darcy sighed. SHIELD held enough drills to make them an inconvenience, but at least they had variety. And all you had to do was mention New Mexico, and any (audible) complaints would evaporate. It was just -- you could recognize something had value, and still think it was a pain in the ass.
She grabbed her bag and one of the emergency kits that were standard by all exits, falling in with the small trickle of people unlucky enough to be in SHIELD ground HQ at eight am on a Monday morning. (She had no idea what was in the kits, actually, just that you were supposed to take them with you during drills. And, presumably, actual emergencies.) She was in the stairwell when Maria’s voice interrupted the automated alert again. “If you are currently located on level three or below, you have two minutes to get outside. Levels five and above, stay where you are and stand by. This is no longer a drill.”
Darcy had only made it to level seven, and she tried to catch her breath while she waited. Honestly, no matter how many times you did it, there was only just so fast a human being could get down stairs. (She wondered what had happened to level four.) She didn’t recognize any of the three people sharing the landing with her. “Hey,” she said out loud, because why not? “What do you think happened to level four?”
She got three shrugs; only one of them actually looked nervous, and another one suggested, “Maybe they know it’s already clear?”
The alert cut off in the middle of ‘personnel’ with a worrying garble of static. The lights flickered, brightened — and went out completely, leaving only emergency lighting tracking down the stairs. Not good. She twisted to pull her phone out of her pocket, only to find it dark and unresponsive.
“That’s not good,” one of her companions muttered.
There were about thirty seconds of awkward silence, while Darcy waited for one of the others to take charge. Presumably, they were waiting for the same thing, because none of them did. “Right,” she said finally. “Safe room. We should be there. Let’s go.”
Every level had a safe room (several, in some cases). In theory, the rooms were supposed to be used for situations just like this — something dangerous was happening and it was unclear whether leaving the building was safe or advisable. In practice, SHIELD was full of people who didn’t think ’stay put and wait to be rescued’ was ever really an option, and the rooms were constantly coming up for procedural review. (Still, it was a better choice than the stairwell. Probably.)
***
Her stair companions followed her without any objections. It looked like power was out all over the building, or at least all over level seven, and she flipped all of the emergency lighting to the brightest settings. Then they all stood around looking awkwardly at each other. “I’m Darcy,” she said finally. “And I’m open to suggestions.”
“Sushila,” one of the others offered. “And I wish I hadn’t skipped breakfast this morning.”
That was a problem she could handle, actually. “I have snack bars.” She stepped forward so she could prop her backpack up on the table. “A bunch of them — chocolate, almond, berry.” She fanned the bars out like cards.
“Berry?” Sushila said, and Darcy tossed it over. “Thank you.”
“My bars are your bars,” she said. “Anyone else?”
The second woman raised her hand. “Chocolate. I’m Dee. Thanks. Wish I had had something that useful in my bag.”
The fourth person in the room said nothing, until he seemed to realize everyone was staring at him. “Gene,” he said.
Nothing else, and Darcy wondered if he was freaking out, or possibly just not all the way awake. It was still pretty early. “Snack bar?” she said.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Gene said, and it was the same kind of politeness that Jane had sometimes — all very paint-by-numbers responses, ‘if x then y’ type stuff. Maybe he was a genius scientist; SHIELD seemed to have them by the bucketload.
"My phone is dead," Sushila announced. She had the bar in one hand and her phone already in pieces on the table. "Not fried like an EMP; it's just -- inert."
"Meaning what?" Darcy asked.
Sushila shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it. It's like it's been disconnected from the laws of science and is in some kind of null space."
(Darcy had no idea how you could tell all that from a phone, particularly one that wasn't working, but she had no reason to disbelieve the statement. There had been a point in her life when someone saying 'it's been disconnected from the laws of science' would have sounded crazy. Now it just sounded like Monday.)
Dee sighed. "Again? Dr. Ross warned them about testing that thing without more safeties in place."
Darcy eyed her carefully. It could have been a simple statement. Or Dee could be instituting the minion identification test.
(SHIELD had a few high profile members, but a lot of time it was just minions talking with minions -- lab techs, assistants, analysts, IT. And in an organization that seemed to live on weird threats and weirder situations, the minions had their own set of safety checks, beyond safe rooms and badges.)
"Dr. Foster once lit a safety manual on fire," she said. "It got cold at night."
Dee relaxed a little, and then more when Sushila said, "Dr. Banner's not on site, at least. You know how he gets."
There was a loaded silence, while everyone pretended they weren't staring at Gene. He sighed. "I assume that was some kind of coded pattern I was supposed to recognize, and offer a correct response if I was who you assumed I was.” Darcy was pretty sure there was more sarcasm in his voice than actual concern. “You’ve caught me," he said, raising his hands slightly.
***
Then again, both Dee and Sushila looked more intrigued than worried. "So what's your deal?" Darcy asked.
"Excuse me?" Gene said.
"You know," Sushila said. “Journalist, alien god, robot army, freeze ray -- your deal. What do you do?"
"What if I say it's killing people who ask questions?"
Dee actually rolled her eyes. "Please. Give us a little credit. We work for SHIELD because we think those things are cool. Well, except journalists, usually. Besides, you’re stuck with minions in here. At best, minion-adjacent. What I’m saying is, you could kill us, but why bother, and it’s not like we’re judging you for your life choices.”
Gene looked like he was thinking it over. Darcy leaned over towards Dee. “Minion-adjacent?”
“Yeah, that’s you,” Dee said. “Sorry.” Her eyebrows twitched in a way that maybe was supposed to indicate subtlety, or possibly intrigue.
“Is this because of you, then?” Sushila asked Gene, waving a hand to encompass the room and situation in general.
Gene’s expression changed form ‘thinking it over’ to ‘shifty.’ “I didn’t cause it,” he said.
“But?” Sushila prompted.
“It’s possible the situation is not unconnected to my arrival,” Gene said.
There was really only one question that made sense after a statement like that. Darcy said, “Planet, realm, or alternate dimension?”
“What?”
“It’s got to be an alternate dimension,” Dee said. “Your shirt’s glowing, by the way.”
Gene put a hand up immediately like it would block out the light emanating from his shirt — or under his shirt, more likely. “Alternate universe,” he said. “Yes. I’ve been… traveling, using these.” He glanced down at his chest, where the glow was dropping off again. “They’ve started to attract more attention, attention that organizations like this one have the capacity to deal with.”
Darcy took a second to work that statement through a bullshit meter. “You arrived in SHIELD on purpose so we’d handle your problem for you?” Sushila asked.
Gene didn’t look at all chagrinned. If anything, he looked slightly confused that she was rehashing something he’d already explained. “Yes.”
“Gutsy,” Dee said. “I like it.”
Sushila frowned. “And since we’re cut off from everything, we have no way to confirm your story.” She looked at Darcy. “Unless —?”
Right. Unless she could telepathically get in touch with Bucky, who was on a different continent, and get him to look into the situation without freaking out that people were in danger. “We can’t reach that far,” she said.
“Technically, we’re not in New York right now,” Dee said, looking to Sushila for confirmation. She nodded, then shrugged.
“It might work?” she said.
Darcy looked at Gene and narrowed her eyes. “Does your problem include telepathic werewolves, by any chance?”
For the first time, he seemed surprised. “What?”
“Never mind.”
Dee gave a triumphant shout and produced a tiny music player from the emergency kit, complete with headphones. “Meditating should help, right?” she said. (Darcy shrugged. She honestly had no idea.) “Go for it. We’ll watch him.”
She was pretty sure Gene rolled his eyes at that — either the idea that he needed watching, or the idea that they could stop him if he decided to turn on them. She rolled her eyes right back — if he wanted to take care of his ‘unwanted attention’ by himself, he was welcome to leave any time. “Thanks,” she said.
***
*Bucky?* she tried. No response. Meditation wasn't usually a requirement, but then again, they'd never communicated across more than a city's width before. She had no idea if Dee's argument was more scientific theory or wishful thinking.
*So, it would be really nice to hear from you right now, since I'm stuck with someone claiming to be from another universe, and no one's sure whether we should be fighting or quizzing each other on world events.*
*Darcy?*
Well, she’d gotten someone’s attention, but it didn’t feel like Bucky. *Hello?*
*This is Calle, can you hear me?*
That was good, probably. *Yeah, this is Darcy. I hear you. What’s going on out there?*
*SHIELD’s ground HQ dropped out of existence 22 minutes ago, at the same time a dozen of these showed up.* She got a wavering image of an armor-wearing something holding a sword and looking seriously pissed off. *Things have been a little nuts since then.*
She could imagine. *Is everyone okay?*
*Everyone’s fine. Well, not the dozen strangers; they sort of dissolved into piles of dust. That’s the good news. Bad news is that no one’s sure how to de-nullify HQ. It may take a few hours. Stark is guaranteeing less than a day.*
Right. *And does SHIELD have any brilliant suggestions on what to do while we wait? Right now I’m in one of the safe rooms with a couple of scientists, Dee and Sushila, plus Gene — he says he’s from another dimension.*
Darcy was pretty sure Calle was relaying her conversation to someone else, possibly several someones, and there was a long pause before an answer came back. Over the white noise from the headphones, she could hear the others going through the contents of the emergency kits. (She really hoped they weren’t going to need to use the flares for anything.)
Finally, she got back, *What level are you on?*
*Seven.* Another long pause.
*Get higher,* was the eventual response. *Levels 14 through 20 should be the least likely to either be bombarded with mystery rays by the return process or accidentally left behind. Also, if you can get anyone on the radios, let them know what’s going on. We haven’t been able to contact anyone else inside. No advice on your dimensional traveler.*
*Comforting,* Darcy thought.
*Sorry.*
*No, it’s cool. We got this. I’ll be back in touch in an hour?*
It only took a few minutes to confirm with Calle and explain everything to the others. Wherever Gene was from, he was clearly no stranger to situations of the ‘try not to be irradiated or disintegrated’ variety. She wondered if they always seemed to happen on Mondays in his universe too.
“I don’t suppose you have any powers that would less us instantaneously communicate with everyone in the building,” Dee said, eyeing Gene.
“I do,” Gene said. “But if I use any of them, it’s likely to attract attention from forces beyond our current abilities to defend against.” He shrugged. “Also, they probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“You’re totally a supervillain in your universe, right?” Sushila asked.
“Still not answering questions about it,” Gene told her. (It wasn’t exactly a no, Darcy couldn’t help noticing.)
***
Level six seemed empty, but they got lucky and found a whole field team on level five. “Level four’s gone missing,” Agent Johnson told them. “We already checked.” (Which seemed bad, though not entirely unexpected.) On the plus side, she seemed happy to divvy up her team and help sweep the upper levels.
They sent everyone to level 18 — Johnson remembered it having a kitchen tucked off to the side of one of the conference rooms, which made it as good a gathering place as any. Darcy walked in to the smell of coffee brewing and a gaggle of junior minions sitting around one end of the table with notebooks in front of them. Actual paper notebooks.
"Darcy!" Dee called. "Everything clear?"
"As far as we can tell." She tried not to make a face, but she was pretty sure she didn't succeed. "My last level had a few holdouts. They'll be along once Agent Johnson finishes convincing them we're not evil robot clones."
"To be fair, it's not like that’s never happened before," Dee said. "Coffee? We gathered up a bunch of snacks too, they're all in the kitchen."
"What's going on with them?" Darcy asked, nodding at the table.
Dee said, "Reports," and the group let out a collective moan. One of them thunked his head down on his notebook.
"Where did we even find paper notebooks?"
"Supply closet. Which is actually also where we found him. Napping."
Darcy nodded. “First coffee. Then snacks. Then reports.”
There were a lot of snacks. From the other room, she heard someone say, “How do they even come up with these questions? ‘How would you make adjustments if your budget was cut 20%? How would you adjust if your budget was increased 50%?’ Can’t I just write, ‘I would spend less,’ and ‘I would spend more?’”
Surprisingly, it was Gene’s voice that answered. “Presumably, your superiors can figure that out on their own. It’s a test, yes? Partly to see if you know what you’re doing, and partly because they do not.” He sounded like he was speaking from experience when he added, “If they knew exactly what your budget should be, they would just tell you. Believe me.”
She got distracted picking through the array of tiny boxes of cereal, and by the time she decided she might as well just take two, Gene was surrounded by minions, eagerly taking notes as he explained the mysteries of budget allotment. She edged along the wall towards Dee. “How do you think he knows this stuff?”
“I’ve got five bucks on him being a SHIELD administrator in his dimension. Sushila put in a vote for undercover gang leader, but I think it’s a stretch.”
“He seems young to be an admin,” Darcy said. “Who knows, maybe she’s onto something.”
***
Six hours and five check-ins later, there was a napping room set up down the hall, and the cereal was starting to run out. Calle said they were getting close. Gene suddenly snapped upright in his chair, staring at the wall.
The first thing he said was, “Don’t shoot,” but his shirt was glowing again, and she had time to think ‘uh-oh’ — and then the War Machine armor appeared.
“War Machine?” someone asked.
“You know my name?” the armor said. “That is so cool!” It didn’t sound like Colonel Rhodes.
“Rhodey, what are you doing here?” Gene said. “How did you even find me?”
The faceplate popped open, revealing either a de-aged Colonel Rhodes, or — she hoped more likely — the Rhodes of Gene’s universe. Were they all kids over there, or something? “Cross dimensional tracker,” the kid said. “Tony invented it last night.”
“Why?”
“Um, because it’s your birthday? Pepper has a whole plan, and you do not mess with Pepper when she has a plan. There’s cake and everything.”
Astoundingly, the explanation actually looked like it was working. “What kind of cake?”
“You’ll just have to come find out. Come on, seriously — take a day off for once. It’s your birthday.”
Gene shook his head, but he was standing up. (The rest of the room was watching the back and forth like the only thing that would make it better was popcorn.) “How do you even know that?” He ripped off the top sheet of his pad of paper and walked over to where she was standing.
“These equations should be the rest of what your scientists need to get you out of null space,” he said. There was an awkward pause before he added, “I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you, for your hospitality.”
Rhodes muttered, “Good thing I have that on video; they’d never believe me otherwise.”
Gene quirked a smile. “What was that, Rhodey?”
“I said, my mom can’t wait to see you again.”
Darcy said, “You’re welcome,” because she might as well be polite at that point, and she wasn’t sure Gene was even paying attention any more, but he nodded back at her, and even gave an encouraging wave to a few of the minions who’d been finishing reports.
Then all his attention was on Rhodey. “A cross dimensional tracker, really?”
The faceplate flipped back down. “Yeah, well, it’s on a timer, so brace yourself. There better be some cake left when we get back.”
“You’ve been eating my cake without me?”
“Man, it’s been your birthday all day. We had cake for breakfast. You should’ve been there. Next year, all right?”
“Next year.”
They disappeared, and the room seemed to release a collective sigh. “My kingdom for a working camera,” someone said. “I’m totally adding that to my budget list.”
Tags: