Morning came in on tiptoe and decided to keep its shoes off. No clanging plates, no sprinting boots, no metal kissing metal the way the veterans usually make the building sing at dawn. Just the hum of the old fridge and the familiar cough of pipes that dated back to when New York pretended it could outlast the century with brick and copper alone. The fortress breathed like a sleeping giant; for once, it let us drink our coffee without a sparring match for background music.
The TV kept doing its modern ritual: replaying the Stark Expo incident like it was the moon landing with better pyrotechnics. Same loop, same angles, talking heads layering commentary like frosting on a cake that had already been sliced a hundred times. Iron Man versus Whiplash.Mark V suitcase armor.Arc reactor genius.Who is the mysterious man with electrified whips? If you drink coffee long enough while they talk, you start to notice the rhythm: awe, fear, relief, repeat.
"World loses its mind over two guys having an expensive slap-fight," I muttered, eyes half on the screen and half on the window's stale light. "Guess they've never seen a Spartan punch."
Alpha01 stood near the window where he always gravitated, a silhouette cut out of granite and protocol. Sentinel mode. If the city ever asked for a statue of quiet menace, it would look suspiciously like him. He didn't answer, because 01 considers words to be tools you keep polished by rarely using them.
"Relax, 01," I said, even as the loop showed Tony Stark flare his repulsors one more time. "Stark is the focus. No one's paying attention to us."
It turns out fate has a sharp sense of humor. The kind that knocks.
Three taps at noon—steady, precise, unmistakable if you've ever served under someone who loves chain-of-command more than hobbies. I raised a brow toward 01. He shifted his weight so subtly most people wouldn't have noticed, but Spartans watch each other like pianists watch their hands.
"I've got it," I said, waving him off and opening the door like I expected a package instead of an institution.
Phil Coulson. Pressed suit. Immaculate briefcase. An expression worn smooth by years of telling powerful people news they didn't want to hear. In any other universe he could've sold you a mortgage or audited your bliss. In the MCU, he's the man who holds the leash and pretends it's a handshake.
"Well, if it isn't my favorite babysitter," I said, cheerful as a wrong answer on purpose. "Miss me?"
His eyes flicked past my shoulder—one precise beat—to catalog Alpha01, then clicked back to me with that neutral S.H.I.E.L.D. stare that means: yes, it's bad, and no, you're not supposed to enjoy it. "We need to talk," he said.
"Top floor," I answered, stepping aside with a theatrical flourish. "Best coffee in the building. Five-star service. Leave a review."
Coulson stepped in with the efficiency of a man who has paced out a hundred unfamiliar rooms and measured all of them against an exit. He set the briefcase on a table but didn't sit. That told me his clock had already started ticking.
"We have a problem," he said.
"Do we?" I asked, leaning on the back of a chair I didn't intend to use. "Building's standing. Spartans are thriving. Stark's alive. I'm comfy. Your tie is straight. Call me a hopeless optimist."
"You were at the Expo," Coulson said, doing that S.H.I.E.L.D. thing where they unwrap a conversation like a file that's already been tabbed and highlighted. "You and four of your… soldiers were caught on camera. Eyewitnesses called it in. Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division is fielding questions."
"What—people think I'm Stark's new security?" I said, feigning scandal. "I should invoice him. Stark Industries has a very forgiving payment schedule if you hound them on television."
"This isn't a joke." He didn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. Phil Coulson's disappointed silence has its own badge.
"It is to me," I said brightly. "You should try it. The coffee is excellent; it pairs well with gallows humor and budget constraints."
The stairs creaked—our ancient building announcing arrivals like a polite rumor—and Alpha02 and Alpha03 entered from below, the air tightening out of old habit. Those two don't try to look dangerous; danger simply gravitates to them and asks for tips. Coulson's gaze shifted, logged their faces, their posture, the way they moved around me without choreographing it. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents notice spacing and deference the way chefs notice butter.
"How many now?" he asked, a surgeon's curiosity sutured beneath the words.
"Eleven," I said, and let the number hang in the room like a chandelier.
He didn't flinch. Professionals rarely give you the courtesy. "You're becoming too visible," he said. "Sweeping alleys is one thing. Standing in the middle of an international broadcast is another."
"Then maybe don't bolt cameras onto everything," I suggested. "Or call the press conference the Stark Expo and hand out spotlights as party favors. Tony's brand is explosions with a marketing budget."
Alpha04 arrived next like a horizon, seven rookies strung out behind him in damp formation—drenched from drills, muscles quivering under the discipline they'd been poured into. Sweat gleamed on their necks; focus bled off them in waves. Coulson's gaze went to the last of the line—the smallest, the newest, the one still learning how to keep his eyes on the mission and off the floor. That told me the agent was reading more than numbers; he was reading morale.
"You're running a private army in my jurisdiction," Coulson said softly, coming back to me like a compass needle that had remembered north.
"Correction," I said, folding my arms with the feeling of a door clicking shut. "I'm running a family. These Spartans aren't here for politics. They're here for me—and for the work. We're not a militia; we're a promise."
"That doesn't make it easier," he replied.
"Didn't say it would."
Something in that made him sit, finally. The briefcase made a precise, expensive sound when he shifted it to the side. "Nick Fury wants answers," he said. The name had mass in the air, like you could hang plans from it. "He won't ignore this. You're drawing too much attention, and we can't cover your presence forever."
"Good thing," I said, taking the chair across from him without slouching into it, "that I don't need covering. We're not hiding. We're helping. Civilians are safer because of us. That's not a problem; that's a perk."
"Until someone gets scared enough to pull a trigger," he said, not unkindly. "This city reacts to shadows with bullets."
"Then they'll regret it," I said, calm as Sunday. I didn't raise my voice; I let the words sit there like a brick that had decided to be part of a foundation instead of a projectile. "No one dies because a nervous cop twitched. Not a civilian. Not one of mine. My Spartans don't miss, and they don't lose. They de-escalate, and they end problems clean."
Silence leaned in—many boots, measured breaths, the building's old heart ticking away. Behind Coulson, the rookies had routed to showers and rehydration; 04 stood at the threshold, a doorframe with judgment.
Alpha05 entered with 10 and 11 in tow. Coulson's eyes widened a centimeter—just enough to register that he'd added two new entries to the mental ledger—and then the mask slid back into place. "You're multiplying," he said.
"Yeah," I said, letting myself smirk. "That's how family works."
He studied me like I was a puzzle missing the box art: he could see the pieces; he was still deciding which picture they formed when arranged with care. The last time we'd met, he'd tried to decide if I belonged on a watch list or a call list. Today, he looked like he suspected the answer might be both.
"Do you understand the scale of what you're doing?" he asked. Not an accusation. A measure. The MCU had taught him to ask that question whenever someone without a badge started solving problems publicly.
"Indeed," I said, lacing my fingers behind my head to make the posture more casual than the message. "Eleven Spartans in New York—more formidable than any payroll force you have. Criminals are frightened. Civilians are safer. And this is just the beginning. What you call chaos is actually order, Agent Coulson. A new kind. Quieter. Smarter."
"Order without oversight isn't order," he said, and there was the old S.H.I.E.L.D. creed, stamped perfectly. "It's a coin toss we're expected to treat as gospel. Fury doesn't like coin tosses."
"Fury can bring a quarter," I said. "We'll do the math."
Coulson held my gaze long enough for the veterans to shift their weight a micro-inch toward me, reading the air. He didn't blink. I didn't either. Somewhere downstairs a pipe clanged—old building, bad timing, convenient metaphor.
He exhaled first—not surrender, not even concession, but acknowledgment. "You are operating inside an ecosystem," he said. "Stark Industries, S.H.I.E.L.D., the NYPD, the National Guard, a half-dozen intelligence agencies with different acronyms and the same allergies. Every time you move, they have to explain you. Explanations cause panic. Panic causes policy. Policy causes… things." He didn't say the word Accords because we weren't there yet in this timeline, but the MCU likes to rhyme, and I'd heard this poem.
"You want my operating picture?" I asked. "Fine. Here it is: we train, we patrol, we intervene only for civilian protection or containment, and we refuse to pick fights with capes who already have a camera crew. S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep its files and its secrets. We'll keep the streets between the sequels clean."
"And if one of your people is hurt?" he asked.
"Then we handle it," I said. "Quietly. Fast. Without collateral. I'm not here to write a manifesto. I'm here to make sure kids who want a churro don't get electrocuted by a Russian grudge in a leather harness."
He almost smiled. Almost. "Whiplash," he said, making the codename taste like paperwork. "We have him."
"I figured," I said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is very good at arriving exactly when it looks the best to do so."
"You're not wrong," he said, and the admission sat between us like neutral ground.
"You came to tell me to hide," I said, "and then remembered I don't follow orders from the Avengers Initiative unless the donuts are very good."
That made the smile happen for real, small and unwilling. "Fury will be in touch," he said, standing and palming the handle of his briefcase with that gentleness he gives to objects that will become evidence later. "Sooner rather than later."
"I'm looking forward to it," I said. "Tell him to bring donuts."
He paused at the door, head canting a fraction like he was recording a tag for the file: sense of humor: unhelpful but consistent. He looked past me again at the veterans, the rookies, the way they tracked him without prejudice. "For what it's worth," he said, "you did help. Yesterday. At the Stark Expo. Crowd control isn't glamorous. But it matters." He let the compliment exist without letting it soften the warning. "Don't confuse results with permission."
"I don't," I said. "I confuse permission with people being too slow to realize they need us."
He left without slamming the door, which is as close as Phil Coulson gets to a hug. The old hinges did the thudding for him. The building swallowed the sound, and the silence that came after tasted like victory with caveats.
I grinned at the closed door. "Fun," I declared to the air.
Alpha01 asked, "Directive?"
Same word, every time. It's less a question and more a hinge. When 01 says it, the day changes shape.
"Same as always," I said, stretching until my back popped like a respectful applause. "We train. We patrol. We earn points. S.H.I.E.L.D. can watch the highlight reel. We're not stopping."
Boots turned back toward drills with the kind of unified pivot that makes choreographers jealous. 05 clapped once, short and sharp, and the rookies vanished downstairs in a thunder of intent. 02 peeled off toward the armory to do inventory he'd already done yesterday because redundancy is a love language among professionals. 03 put a hand on the shoulder of the newest recruit and said something so low I couldn't hear it; the kid straightened like the words had a spine inside them. 04 posted himself near the stairwell, an avalanche in waiting. The fortress exhaled and then accelerated.
I finished my coffee and eyed the TV, which was obligingly airing an interview with a Stark Expo spokesperson promising "enhanced safety protocols" and "a renewed partnership with city officials." No mention of S.H.I.E.L.D., of course. No mention of Spartans or civilians who didn't get toasted because four men treated chaos like a lesson plan.
On the side table, the System blinked into my awareness like a quiet app that decided to remind me it exists only after it had updated itself. Points: 500.Reason: Civilian protection at Stark Expo. The glow faded back to its usual steady star, and I felt the city tilt microscopically toward something better.
De-escalation drill. We ran it three times that afternoon. I narrated the first while 03 demonstrated, 04 corrected, and 02 timed with the cold affection of a metronome. The second time, I threw curveballs: a malfunctioning metal gate, a puddle where a puddle shouldn't be, a cameraphone thrust in someone's face at the wrong moment. The third time, I said nothing at all and let the rookies fail just enough to learn. Fandom keywords don't save lives—protocol does. But if the MCU ever bothers to write the smaller heroics, I want them to look like this: nine men learning how not to be the story.
Between reps, Alpha11 asked me the question no one else wanted to voice. "What happens if S.H.I.E.L.D. orders us to stand down?"
"Then we keep helping," I said. "If they get loud, we get quiet. If they get curious, we get boring. We will never give them a reason to make us their problem. But if Fury calls me—and he will—I'll pick up. I don't mind conversation. I do mind leashes."
"You do not like oversight," 02 observed, which in his dialect counts as a joke.
"I like accountability," I said. "I don't like theater. There's enough of that at Stark Expo."
That evening, the light outside our windows turned the color of late-day oranges, and the city did that trick it does where it looks like circuitry if you squint. The rooftops of Queens and Midtown connected by arteries of headlights; the distant Stark Pavilion still pulsing like a carnival. I took 01 up to the roof without telling him why. I rarely do. He comes because I say his callsign and start walking; that's what family looks like on paper.
"You think Fury calls tonight or tomorrow?" I asked, not because 01 would guess, but because I wanted to hear the question in the air.
"Soon," he said, which for him is almost poetic.
I nodded, watching a helicopter cut between buildings like a slow dragonfly. "He'll want to assess. He'll want to see if we're a threat, an asset, or a variable he can't afford. He'll start with soft questions and end with hard truths. He'll talk about the Avengers Initiative without saying the phrase. He'll pretend this is about public safety, and he'll mean it, but he'll also be measuring us against a ledger only he can see."
"Plan?" 01 asked.
"Same as today," I said. "We tell the truth, and we don't ask permission. We've carved out a piece of the MCU that doesn't belong to gods with magic hammers or billionaires with daddy issues. It belongs to the people who don't make it into the credits. That's our jurisdiction. Let Fury have the skies. We'll keep the sidewalks."
He stood beside me the way mountains stand beside weather.
My phone buzzed—a local place texting to confirm an order that had seemed like hubris this morning and now felt like strategy. "Now—where's my pizza?" I said, because leadership is logistics and morale in equal measure.
"ETA eight minutes," 02 called from below without looking at a clock. He'd memorized the delivery times of every restaurant within a mile. If he ever retires, he could run Manhattan with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
I took the last sip of coffee, now room temperature and exactly what I wanted. Downstairs, the rookies laughed once—short, surprised, shared—and then swallowed it in case they were supposed to be stoic. Upstairs, the city lit itself like a marquee, promising more shows, more disasters, more opportunities to stand where the light doesn't reach and make sure someone's kid gets home.
The door behind us opened, and 05 stepped onto the roof with the easy certainty of a man who negotiates with gravity only on his terms. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. We all looked out at the Stark Pavilion's glow, the reminder of yesterday's spectacle and tomorrow's headlines. Somewhere in that neon, S.H.I.E.L.D. was drafting a memo: Unidentified Tactical Group at Stark Expo; possible connection to Stark Industries; subject exhibits paramilitary discipline; recommend surveillance and controlled contact. I could almost see the bullet points.
"Let them watch," I said, half to the skyline and half to the ghosts of cameras. "Let them take notes. We'll keep doing the work."
Later that night, after pizza and another round of drills and a quick check of perimeter sensors that behaved because they were afraid of 02, I sat alone with the TV muted and let the captions tell me what the anchors thought the world should believe. The talking heads were already pivoting from Whiplash to market impact, from "Who are those men?" to "What does this mean for Stark Industries stock?" The Stark Expo spokesperson smiled with several teeth and promised "enhanced security partnerships." Justin Hammer squeezed his way into a separate segment to sell an apology disguised as a product. The MCU keeps its clowns in expensive suits.
I thought about Phil Coulson's face when 10 and 11 walked in—about the fraction-of-an-inch surprise, the way he filed it away. He is not our enemy. He is not our friend. He is the man who arrives just before the credits and reminds the protagonists that larger gears are turning. He told me not to confuse results with permission. He's right. But permission is a thing you ask when you want approval. I want outcomes.
The System chimed again, a silent pulse only I could feel. No new points—just a reminder, gentle as a tap on the shoulder: You are on the board. Keep playing. I closed my eyes and pictured the map of our patrol routes, the choke points, the safe exits, the places where crowds become hazards and hazards become headlines. Then I pictured the next thing on the MCU's schedule—the next bit of canon chaos. There are always more whips and more monologues. That's the nature of this universe. But there are also always more civilians. That's the nature of ours.
I opened my eyes. The building creaked, content with its bones. The fridge hummed, loyal as an old dog. Somewhere below, 07 and 08 argued quietly about the fastest way to flip a barricade; 03 let them argue and then showed them why they were both half-right. 04 made rounds with the patience of winter. 01 stood watch, because that is what he does when he's not doing anything else.
The phone on the table didn't ring. Not yet. Maybe Fury believed in business hours. Maybe he believed in letting people stew. Maybe he was watching the same Stark Expo highlight reel, deciding which angle of Tony Stark's grin said liability and which said inevitable.
Either way, we were ready.
"Progress steady," 01 would say if I asked him what he thought of the day.
"Damn right," I would answer.
And that would be that.