Harley Keener came home from school to find the garage had been completely transformed.
He stood in the side doorway for a long moment, taking stock. The workbench was new. The shelving was organized in a way that hadn't been there that morning. There was a hand-written letter on the table, and he recognized Tony Stark's handwriting from the card that had come with the StarkPad.
He read it twice.
The short version: the education fund was set up, the family account had been arranged, his mother had already been contacted and had agreed. The garage was Tony's way of keeping a promise. The longer version, buried in the last paragraph in Tony's particular style of making significant things sound casual: Little man — get ready for a new world. When the Dragon Ball battle comes around, I'll send someone to bring you in. You've earned a front-row seat.
Harley set the letter down carefully and looked around the garage for a while.
Then he picked up a screwdriver from the new workbench and started taking apart the nearest thing that looked like it could be improved.
In the passenger section of a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport aircraft somewhere over the midwest, Melinda May walked out of the cockpit with the expression of someone who had already made their peace with a situation they couldn't fully endorse.
"Coulson." She sat across from him. "Tell me you didn't actually build a two-person team for a field operation."
Coulson looked up from the folder in his lap with the unperturbed expression he'd clearly been practicing. "Temporarily two-person. Once this mission's done, I'll take time to recruit the rest of the team properly. I have a list."
"You have a list." May looked out the window at the cloud cover. "And this mission is urgent because—"
"There's been anomalous Bifrost activity. A signature consistent with an Asgardian arrival. Given that we're in the middle of a Dragon Ball event and Odin has confirmed interest in the competition, Fury wanted eyes on the landing site before anyone else got there."
May considered this. "You said Asgard is an ally."
"Generally speaking, yes."
"Loki is also Asgardian."
Coulson paused. "That's a fair point. I'll keep it in mind."
May didn't look reassured, which was probably appropriate. She clasped her hands on the table between them and let the matter sit for a moment before asking, "I heard the President approved the Paragons' application. Full integration into the national defense structure."
"Signed it yesterday. Defense budget allocation, legal authorization for national security operations — the full package." Coulson set the folder down. "Took about six months from formation to federal sanction. That's not a pace that happens without weight behind it."
"Vanko Industries, Stark Industries, Universal Capsule." May said it like a list. "I know."
"Three of the most strategically significant organizations on the planet all vouching for the same team, plus a freshly resolved terrorist incident with cameras rolling when the arrests came in." Coulson shrugged. "Congress didn't have much room to push back."
May was quiet for a moment. "I hope it stays what it's supposed to be."
Coulson didn't have a response to that. He picked up his folder again.
Thirty minutes passed. The aircraft landed, and Coulson's vintage car rolled out of the cargo bay onto a stretch of empty midwestern road — a detail he had clearly looked forward to, given how quickly he was behind the wheel. May took the passenger seat with the resigned ease of someone who had worked with Phil Coulson long enough to know that arguing about the car was not worth the energy.
She watched the tracking instrument in her hand as the landscape rolled past.
"Getting closer," she said. "But I want to be honest — we're working with Bifrost detection methodology that no one on Earth fully understands yet. The margin of error is significant."
"I know," Coulson said. "But it's the best we have."
He drove toward the signal.
She had taken the convertible because she could.
That was the whole reason. Three years in a cell in Asgard's lower levels, all-female guards rotating in shifts, charm suppression barrier active every hour of every day — and now there was wind in her hair and an open road and a man who would drive wherever she pointed without complaint.
Lorelei let herself have it for a moment. The taste of it. Freedom had a physical quality she'd forgotten.
The man she'd designated Lowe was driving. He'd been useful in the weeks since the Rainbow Bridge had deposited her on a field in rural America — a reliable source of ground-level intelligence about a world she'd needed to map quickly. The picture she'd assembled was serviceable: the major players, the power concentrations, the geography of influence.
She'd heard about the Avengers. She'd had Odin's briefing before leaving Asgard, and the field intelligence had confirmed it. Smith Doyle — the guardian, the one Odin had named explicitly — was not a target. Odin had been unambiguous on this point, and Heimdall had reinforced it. Touching that particular thread meant dying on Earth instead of dying at home, and either way, dying. Not a compelling option.
The Paragons, though — the Paragons were interesting. They'd been all over the news cycle for two days: the press conference footage, the lawns outside Red Ribbon Group's building, Selene standing in front of reporters with Killian in custody behind her. Seven members, federally sanctioned, based in New York. Their captain was female — Lorelei had confirmed that from three separate sources. That was a complication. Her ability worked through proximity and sustained contact, but the architecture of it was built around one specific axis. Women were outside its effective range.
The other six, though. Six was more than enough.
"Lowe." She kept her voice pleasant. "Where would I go to find the other members of that team? The ones who aren't the captain."
Lowe thought about it for a moment, his eyes on the road. "Red Ribbon Group has a public address. The fans figured it out pretty fast — apparently if you hang around outside the building long enough, you see them coming and going."
Lorelei let her arms drift out to either side over the door edge, feeling the airstream push against her palms.
"New York it is," she said. "Take me there."