Chapter Three
Naruto was simply lying back on the couch in the hotel room where they had confined him. He had been brought there earlier that morning, and Coulson had made it quite obvious that he would "visit" whenever possible—which, in practice, meant he was under surveillance 24/7. He genuinely wondered what kind of intelligence-gathering agent Coulson was, because subtlety was definitely not his strong suit.
Still, Naruto chose to play along and, without much fuss, took a shower. He enjoyed the sensation of hot water cascading over his body. Ironically, despite being half triton, he had never liked baths. He preferred the impact of water striking his body—a unique sensation that a simple soak could never replicate.
Once clean, he sampled some of the food they had sent him. To his surprise, despite being American food, it was actually quite good. He supposed this was one of the differences between worlds, since American food in his own world was, in some respects, even worse than British cuisine.
He pushed the thought aside and simply enjoyed his meal until he was completely full. With his stomach satisfied, he decided to take a nap. He wasn't particularly tired or stressed, but he hadn't slept in the last two days due to the demands of his project.
However, no matter how hard he tried, sleep refused to come. This made no sense to him—normally, he could sleep even on a bed of solid rock with nothing more than a thin blanket. The only time sleep ever eluded him was when someone was staring at him, and that someone was usually Milim.
Although Milim wasn't there, he figured that the mere sensation of being watched was enough to keep him awake. Milim was the boldest of them all; she would sneak into his room and stare at him until he woke up.
Aware of this, he allowed his mind to reach a logical conclusion: the agent had been very clear about the surveillance. Naturally, they knew he was aware of something and wanted to uncover it, which meant it was almost certain they had planted listening devices. In other words, he needed to find the damn hidden cameras.
Fortunately, it was a problem he could solve with relative ease—he just had to do exactly what he had done to the soldiers on the beach: completely fry the devices.
However, he wouldn't do it in the living area; disabling everything there would be far too obvious. While he wasn't particularly concerned about them knowing that he was aware of their attempts to extract information, he had no desire to actively provoke them. With that in mind, he reasoned that he might sleep better on a "clean" mattress, so he headed into the bedroom.
He dropped onto the bed and allowed a faint wave of magic to escape his body, spreading throughout the room.
Soon, he heard a soft buzzing sound, followed by a small pop! and a thin wisp of smoke rising from beneath the bedside lamp. Normally, he would have examined the device, but he ignored it entirely—frankly, he didn't care.
He knew there were more devices scattered throughout the room, of course, but the pulse he had released was calculated down to the millimeter to cover the entire space without extending beyond it. That was enough to let him rest properly.
Or it would have been—if someone hadn't knocked on his door barely an hour after he closed his eyes.
With a sigh, he got up and walked to the entrance, where he found himself face to face with Agent Coulson, who was looking at him with unmistakable expectation.
"Yes?" Naruto asked, fully aware that they were going to try extracting information from him yet again. Seriously—why did they keep sending the least subtle agent possible?
"Good afternoon, Naruto. You wouldn't happen to have a last name, would you? I'm not used to calling people by their first name," Coulson said, offering the redhead a small smile, maintaining the same polite-agent demeanor he'd shown so far.
"Are you really here just for my last name?" the redhead asked, raising an eyebrow. Of course, he knew a surname carried weight and made it easier to track someone down if you had both first and last names. Still, he honestly doubted his surname would be of much use to them, since it was highly unlikely that Udgard existed as a last name in this world.
Coulson shrugged. "Don't blame me for trying. Besides, I was wondering if I could invite you to grab something to eat. There's a good place nearby."
"You need to work on your subtlety, Agent," Naruto said dryly, causing Coulson's smile to stiffen. "Still, I suppose I can indulge you in this," he added before stepping aside from the doorway, allowing Coulson to see him head toward the couch, where a jacket—one that clearly hadn't been there before—was lying.
Fully dressed and with his long hair perfectly arranged, the man simply followed Agent Coulson. The latter led him to a Mexican restaurant. There, Coulson ordered something called "tacos," which looked more like a hamburger served in a fried tortilla, while his companion—having never tried one before—ordered a burrito.
As they waited for their food, Coulson didn't miss the opportunity to try to extract more information.
"So, have you heard from your people?" he asked.
"I'm still waiting for them to contact me. I sent a message asking them to reach out as soon as possible and give me further instructions," Naruto replied.
This wasn't entirely untrue—he did have the ability to speak mentally with Charlie, but she had told him she was busy and wouldn't have time to come pick him up for a couple of months.
Naruto's answer caught Coulson off guard, making him briefly arch an eyebrow. He masked the gesture quickly, returning to his usual expression before Naruto could notice. A futile effort—the redhead had seen it, and he knew the agent was wondering how he had managed to contact someone while under constant surveillance.
"Is there anything I should be aware of?" Naruto asked.
"Well, we're still investigating what happened on the beach. Are you authorized to share any information?" Coulson asked, opting for a less subtle strategy—though, objectively, it wasn't much different from what he'd been doing all along.
"There's very little I can tell you, since I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened myself," Naruto admitted openly. This wasn't a lie; he still didn't know what had caused him to be thrown into this world instead of appearing on the other side of his own, as originally planned. "The only thing I can say is that I arrived at the site shortly after the first incident was detected."
"I really can't provide any information about the event itself. However, I can say that I arrived at the location shortly after your sensors picked it up," Naruto explained calmly, letting Coulson interpret his words however he wished.
"Are you saying you have equipment capable of predicting these events before they happen?" Coulson asked, breaking his composure for the first time.
"Something like that?" Naruto replied evenly, with no intention of elaborating. "All I can say is that this event took me completely by surprise, and there are still many gaps in the information I've managed to gather so far. You probably have more data than I do…"
Interpreting Naruto's words for what they were—a question—Coulson looked at him, carefully weighing his response, and chose to answer with as much ambiguity as possible.
"Do you know what happened last year in a small town outside New Mexico?"
Unlike Coulson, Naruto managed to keep his expression perfectly neutral and, after a brief moment of silence, simply asked the first question that came to mind.
"Are you referring to the Old Bridge?"
Once again, Naruto noticed that Coulson was not the ideal agent for this mission, because the moment those words left his mouth, the agent's eyes took on a renewed gleam—almost as if the mystery that Naruto represented had just become a little more interesting, or rather, a little more dangerous.
"Very few agencies have access to that information," Coulson said. Naruto met his gaze with piercing blue eyes, calm and unshaken.
"Very few people know the full extent of certain agencies," Naruto replied.
He was well aware that with that statement he was essentially painting a target the size of the sun on his back, but honestly, he didn't care.
Besides, it was a universally accepted truth that world governments possessed an astonishing ability to collect and conceal information—even from their own agencies. In any case, Coulson wouldn't be able to connect the dots.
The agent simply nodded in agreement, even though he was certain that no agency was more powerful than S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Indeed. Suffice it to say that the readings we obtained were quite similar—not identical, but very close," Coulson confirmed.
"And do you believe this event could happen again?" Naruto asked calmly.
In truth, he was just toying with the agent a little. He didn't really care whether this world was the nexus of everything; he was simply amusing himself, and as his father would say, it was like playing five-dimensional chess against an amateur.
"Whether it's the same phenomenon or not, the implications are… quite diverse," Coulson replied, holding himself back from revealing the truth—that if the event from a year ago were to repeat itself, it would be incredibly dangerous.
It wasn't as though Naruto didn't already know what had happened, and it was clear to both of them that Coulson knew Naruto was fully aware of that incident—and that he had no intention of revealing anything anytime soon.
"That's fascinating, truly," Naruto said, though the game was hardly entertaining when the opponent was so ill-equipped. "In any case, I know it doesn't carry the same weight for you as it does for me, but my surname is… Udgard. Naruto Udgard, at your service."
He finished with a slight bow.
At that very moment, the food arrived. Naruto stopped playing along and began enjoying his burrito in peace. It was safe to say that this had been the most frustrating conversation Coulson had ever had with a person of interest—and that was saying something, considering he had dealt with people like Tony Stark.
Even so, he drove Naruto back to the hotel, wishing him a pleasant rest.
When Naruto returned to his room, he discovered that his anti-intrusion barrier had been breached. At that, he simply smiled. Perhaps the agent wasn't quite as defenseless as he had initially assumed.
He confirmed that the outing had been a distraction when, almost immediately upon searching, he found additional listening and surveillance devices. He fried them instantly before deciding to resume his nap.
He swore by every god he knew that the next idiot who interrupted his beauty sleep would be vaporized—consequences be damned.
End of Chapter