Calling All Agents

Written in collaboration with Cross C

It was midway through Mark's happy day in New York City, but the harem leader had been summoned to Claire Temple's apartment. It was Black Widow's main base of operation in the building and as such she'd been the one to summon both Mark and America up to the appointed penthouse of the group's activities. Being requested wasn't something that struck either as particularly strange, but their redhead's strange insistence and worried voice on the phone had seemed rather more urgent than usual.

“So what’s the big rush, Natasha?” asked Mark, “The Avengers aren’t onto us, are they?”

She shook her head, a breast nearly coming free from her loose nightgown already from the simple motion, “No, thankfully our ship is still airtight. No leaks anywhere, your followers are all explicitly loyal.” Her smile was shared by Mark who puffed his chest out proudly for his little growing army.

“Hell yeah they are. Who needs all of Wakanda? Not me! …I mean, not me yet. Those guys are deffo on my hit list.”

“Why did you call us in here then?” asked America, trying to get Mark a little more on track before the inevitable orgy broke loose again.

Natasha frowned, tapping on the laptop in front of her. “Through the dark web SHIELD network, I was able to get access to some shared files from another organisation, SWORD.”

A minor eye roll from Mark, “Wow, how long did it take for them to come up with that one?”

The assassin ignored the joke, typing away as she spoke,“I think you’ll wanna see this, Mark.”

The SWORD footage began playing from her laptop, and at first Mark couldn’t tell what he was looking at.

There seemed to be so much… red.

Wisps of energy flying past the screen amongst pure darkness.

Until a body flew past the screen.

There was no audio, but the visuals soon became clear. Whoever this was had powers beyond what he’d seen possible from this universe so far. Magic and energy crashing against the camera as a single image became clear.

A woman. Standing in the darkness and unleashing a scary amount of power.

She was in some sort of government facility, tearing the walls up and throwing the scientists around like they were nothing. Guards had bullets, but it was clear the immovable object didn’t care for their toys.

Something twitched in the back of Mark’s mind. She was vaguely familiar and he found himself drawn to her image on the screen.

He wondered who she was.

Eventually the thing she was hunting for was found, and the footage ended as soon as the woman found the strange robot autopsy the scientists were protecting.

Leaving Mark to be bewildered as to why Natasha had shown this to him. Only for America to sigh with a hand on her face, “Ugh, of course it’s her…”

“Wait, who was that?”

“That, is a situation in Westview that I definitely think we need to discuss,” She smiled at him, “And something we will need to focus on immediately in case some other parties decide that they-”

-Fzzt!-

As if on cue the screen suddenly fizzled, suddenly began to leak code along the screen, and suddenly began to form a face that made Natasha spin her laptop round immediately to face her and only her. Looking very serious as straightened out her open top as if about to go in for a job interview.

Mark tilted his head, “What?”

She didn’t respond, didn’t look at him, but did move her hand casually away from the camera’s view until she could make a gesture that certainly meant lower the volume. Something was happening and though Mark wanted to know what, he also knew not to mess with Nat when she needed things to be serious.

The face on her screen began to form properly out of the leaking code until it presented a full male face to her.

“Agent Romanov.”

“Phil Coulson.” She replied, a silence in the room as the group (minus Nat) all looked at each other with worry. “It’s good to see you again.”

The face on screen smiled, though his demeanour seemed like it could have meant several things at once. He was a kind looking white man with a massive widow’s peak, with the screen window he was in holding no other information behind him at all. “Likewise. Considering you were legally declared dead.”

“That’s the spy business for you. We’re always one day away from living out our lives as ‘dead’.” There was a playful energy to her, and Mark was impressed by the acting chops of his multiversal ****, not to mention her information gathering skills when she said, “I don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on, Phil. Accusing me of being dead.”

A brief chuckle on screen, one that even Mark felt was somewhat… sad, but Coulson pushed through it, his smile never moved, faltered, or grew. “Point taken." He paused, staring at Natasha intently before finally continuing, "This isn’t you holding the Battle of New York over my head, is it? I’d hope we both moved on from that.”

“It certainly feels like a lifetime ago.” The woman nodded, reminiscing on a time she never experienced, “Now, from one dead spy to another, can I ask… why the call?”

“You tell me. I wasn’t exactly expecting a hack from someone like you into our systems.”

She lowered an eyebrow, “Come on, Phil. I’m working. My low profile works best if I stay dead, but I heard about what happened to Wanda and needed to find out if my low profile had to end sooner than I thought.” Her frown seemed to show genuine concern for a woman she’d never met in this universe. “SHIELD is the only place that still lets me in. Fury would never get any work done if our access closed after ****.”

Part of Phil paused, though he did still nod a little, “How many gravestones is he on now? Three?”

“If you only know about the ones in this country.”

“Hmm… any in Tahiti?”

She tilted her head a little, “Maybe?”

“Nevermind. Just a lovely place I hear about.” He chuckled a tiny amount, eyes always trained on her, “Nice nightgown, by the way.”

The Widow exhaled with a smile, closing up the lace with one hand, “As I said, I’m working.”

“As am I.” He replied bluntly, “I’m sorry Natasha, but I can’t have a dead woman looking at classified files. Either come out of hiding or find a new source of information. Only warning.”

And then he was gone.

On Mark’s side, she quickly shut her laptop and zapped it with an electric dart. Mark and America panicking from the sudden shift.

But there were also things happening on Phil’s side. Multiple people stared at the big screen in their command center aboard the Zephyr One, their much downsized clandestine organization's mobile airborne HQ, currently flying invisibly over Lake Michigan.

Phil had not expected that, "Well...That was interesting. Wasn't expecting an old friend of mine to still be around and alive. Supposedly she died out in a whole nother galaxy, getting one of these... 'stones of ultimate power...'"

There were murmurs from around the room, "Think it's her?" Asked Daisy Johnson.

"Honestly? Could be." He replied, thinking on it, "She always was a master spy, even to us. The idea that she faked her **** for some reason has a lot of merit to it." Phil sighed, rubbing his forehead, "And here we are in the same boat."

Daisy raised an eyebrow, "The same boat?"

"We're not even supposed to exist. She's legally dead and we're legally inactive. It's not that far-fetched for someone like her to have faked her ****. Even if we are both working in the shadows."

“Yeah well, she didn't have to hack my shit." Daisy huffed at the screen, "Do you know how insulting that is to an ex-hacker? I may have put that life behind me but still..." She trailed off when her eyes caught onto Coulson's deep frown.

And she wasn't the only one, his girlfriend stepping forward to look at the same image he was, "What do we think?”

“I’m not sure.” Phil admitted to Agent May, finally breaking the smile to frown at the screen frozen on Natasha’s image. “It’s definitely Black Widow, but something was off.”

“Could it be the TVA?” Simmons asked first. “Her **** was in the past, with her and Agent Barton going back to 2012 where she died retrieving the Soul Stone. Perhaps they stepped in due to temporal backlash?”

"No, according to those jerks all of this was a part of their ‘Sacred Timeline’ and that includes Natasha's sacrifice." Phil shook his head, grimacing, "Besides, from what we can tell they've gone dark, something's changed in the TVA recently.”

Mac looked up at the Natasha with an eyebrow raised, “We thinking Skrull?”

Phil tilted his head, “Possible. But they usually don’t know the code words… but then she didn’t really know them either.”

“Uh, code words?” Yo-yo asked.

“A way for those super spy agents to talk in a way that shows they can trust the person on the end of the line, like a verbal wink. Proper old school Kingsmen business.” Fitz explained.

“Yeah, but her code words were slightly… off. Like she knew what to say, but something got lost in translation. Like saying ‘moved on’ instead of ‘moved up’.” Phil continued, folding his arms with a deep frown. “Any luck on finding her location?”

Daisy sighed, closing her computer, “Deep undercover was right. VPNs on top of VPNs. She has more data pinging around the planet than a single day on Twitter, even I can’t track her. And surprise surprise, she seems to have destroyed the laptop she was using as well. I’ve locked her out our systems at least, and set up about a thousand digital tripwires so if she tries anything, I’ll know.”

“It could be legit, but that’s sketchy as hell.” Mac frowned, “At least she knows not to mess around with us anymore.”

“True, but I’d feel better knowing why I feel uneasy looking at her…”

A pause amongst the agents as they all stared at the woman again. Her smile just that little bit off and making the room second guess her entire appearance.

“...did anyone else notice her boobs are bigger?”

Simmons slapped his arm, “Fitz!”

Daisy was right there as well, groaning and holding her head, "Of all the things to say, seriously!?"

The Scottish scientist threw his arms up, "I'm just saying! Black Widow always had big boobs, but they were more proportional than this!" He pointed at the screen, defending himself, “We’re wonderin’ what the deal with her is, we may as well play spot the difference!”

May's tone was dry, "Romanoff was a widow. THE widow. Not to denigrate her other skills, but as a honey-trap, she is second to none. That's called a push-up bra and padding along with her being decently busty in the first place. Not evidence of a shape-shifter."

Fitz's ears went red, "Right, right. Forget I said anything."

“No no, that’s wack.” remarked Mac firmly, “Fitz is right. Those Widow tatas are definitely bigger."

“Thank you!” declared Fitz with feeling. His better half giving him quite the frown as he shrugged victoriously.

May shot Mac a **** glare.

Phil sighed and rubbed his temples.

Mac raised his hands defensively, "What? They are."

His girlfriend still rolled her eyes a little as he smirked back at her. Yo-yo put her hands on her hips, “You two have been looking at her chest too much, eses.”

“I’ve got eyes, sue me.” Mac shrugged, though his eyes were still all business currently, “But what does it mean? Is a bigger chest proof she’s a skrull?”

Coulson shook his head, his lips slightly quirked upwards at the couple's antics, but still deep in thought. "No, but it does mean she's hiding something. Whether that's something we need to be concerned about remains to be seen. I, for one, am glad she may still be alive."

"You miss her?" Daisy asked, tilting her head a little.

Coulson gave her a small, wistful smile. "Of course. I miss them all..." His expression tightened as he trailed off, before he let out a deep sigh, "But at least I know they're alive out there. Keeping up the good fight. Like we are here."

The crew couldn't help but rally just a little, smiling back at their old leader who gave them all respectful nods back.

Daisy stood up after the moment had passed, “Right, as nice as that was we’re going nowhere fast.” She said while shifting some of the screen around to show the video that Natasha had been watching, “We put this Maximoff problem on the backburner, but I think we need to step in now in case some bigger plot is going down that we don’t know about. SWORD is going to point their biggest guns at Wanda and will miss any nuance needed to remedy the situation.”

Yo-yo sighed, hand on hip, "Just like they did with the Inhumans... So what's the plan? We need to find her before SWORD? Or is it stopping SWORD from hurting her?"

"Neither. We find out the truth first and then figure out what to do next." Phil reasoned, "If Wanda is in trouble and is acting out of grief, we'll do what we can to help her. If she's a threat and she's gone to the Dark Side, then we'll step in as we've always done."

"Alright, sounds good, but how do we go about this?" Mac asked, stroking his thin beard at the crazed Avenger on screen, "SWORD ain't gonna just hand out their info."

The look on Daisy's face was smug as hell, "Little old me may just have been inside their systems from Day One." She smirked before leaning over to faux whisper, "I'm actually one of their IT contractors, getting paid to snoop and everything."

Everyone stared at her with mixed looks of being impressed and also mildly worried she's hacked them that early.

Mac chuckled, "Then why the hell are we sitting around then? Get cracking, Tremors!"

"...Okay then." Coulson sighed with a smile, "Then we have our in. See if you can get a hold of what they're planning on doing. We’ll be safer taking control of the situation and keeping an eye out for this Widow, fake or otherwise.” Phil nodded, the room’s energy all beginning to shift into higher gear as the path before them became clear. “Call it out, Director Johnson.”

With a nod, Daisy pointed at her team. “I want a full recon team stationed just outside of Westview, as far away from SWORD as we can. Their tech isn’t as good as ours so cloaking is optimal. We need to figure out what’s wrong with Wanda Maximoff, and what is happening within the town’s new walls. Prep science kits, and any magic related items for getting through the barrier. We’re going to be ready for whatever’s in that Hex...”

She gave Coulson one last look, the two sharing a nod before she added, "And whoever is after her."