Chapter Six
Agent Phil Coulson had always been considered one of the best within S.H.I.E.L.D. when it came to reading people. He truly was—so much so that even the infamous Black Widow preferred not to spend too much time around him; not because she disliked him, but because she preferred to keep her distance from a man who could read her like an open book.
That was why, when Naruto Udgard—whom he had met barely a couple of days earlier—shifted from being an unreadable stone wall into a rather anxious young man, as easy to interpret as a small child, Coulson knew something had happened. The contrast was too stark. Before, Naruto showed so much that it was impossible to tell what mattered and what didn't; now, by contrast, he was completely blank—no layers, no noise, none of the static that had once made him opaque. It was the sudden simplicity that made him transparent.
With that in mind, Coulson figured he might earn a few points of trust by taking him to an English restaurant, since Naruto had claimed to be from England when they first met. He thought a bit of fish and chips might make him feel more at ease and encourage him to open up.
Naruto showed no enthusiasm when they arrived at the English restaurant. No reaction at all. He simply said, "It's been a long time since I've had English food," and walked in without another thought, Coulson close behind him.
And yet, in the back of his mind, Naruto kept what Yao had told him: that he would need to trust someone he already knew in order to find the person who would, in simple terms, become his best friend in this world. She hadn't phrased it that way, but that was the meaning. And the fact that it was Coulson made it more complicated, because to Naruto, he was still little more than a child playing at being a spy.
Coulson didn't comment on his demeanor. He simply observed him as the young man walked along, lost in thought, and for the first time noticed a glimpse of genuine emotion on his face. It wasn't pain, so he immediately discarded any ideas involving trauma or survivor's guilt. What he was seeing was something else—an internal struggle, something Naruto had clearly been carrying for a long time, even if he himself didn't fully understand it.
He decided not to ask. Forcing a conversation would be the worst possible choice at a moment like this.
Instead, he let Naruto set the pace. If there had been such a drastic change in his behavior, the sensible approach was to move slowly. With a bit of luck, that would earn him the kind of trust he needed.
After all, his assignment was to learn more about Naruto Udgard, and with facial recognition yielding nothing and his name producing only strange, inconclusive results, Coulson understood he would have to rely on the old-fashioned method.
When they finished eating, Naruto finally seemed to make up his mind.
"I suppose the best way to start is where everything began. Since you've been trying to get information out of me, I'll tell you everything you need to know—as long as you listen with an open mind," he said.
The playful, mocking Naruto Coulson had dealt with until then vanished as if someone had flipped a switch. The man sitting across from him carried a different presence now: control, precision, a trained firmness that fit far too well with Coulson's suspicions.
"Of course, Agent Udgard," Phil replied, watching him closely.
Naruto returned his gaze with a completely neutral expression—direct, steady, with no trace of the humor he had used before. At a glance, it was clear he had no intention of wasting time with jokes or interrogation games. Coulson picked up on it immediately; that kind of look left no room for misunderstanding.
That brief exchange was enough for Coulson to set aside protocols and any attempt at subtle games. It was time to work together, even if their methods and perspectives were worlds apart.
When they returned to the beach, they walked along a stretch of sand still cordoned off from the public. The area was surrounded by portable equipment, security tape, and improvised structures. Upon reaching the checkpoint, Coulson showed his credentials, and the agent on duty opened the access without a word.
Inside the perimeter, the scientists were still wrestling with their equipment, each one more frustrated than the last. Scanners overheated within seconds, analyzers shut down the moment they interacted with certain samples, and the sound of repeated system failures filled the air. Naruto allowed himself the faintest hint of a smile; the side effects of his arrival were still causing problems—especially in the portion of sand that had crystallized after his landing.
A moment later, Coulson spoke briefly with the man in charge of the team. Only a few words were needed for the supervisor to issue the order: everyone was to clear the area except personnel with maximum clearance… and Naruto himself.
Within seconds, the site was empty. Only Coulson and Naruto remained, standing before the crystallized ground, illuminated by the sun and by the uneven reflections of the transformed sand fragments.
"Do you believe in the force of destiny?" Naruto asked, watching the spot where he had landed.
"Destiny? That force that controls us and strips us of free will except in the simplest decisions? No," Coulson replied. "But I do believe in a higher power that guides us toward the choices we make of our own free will."
He said it with complete sincerity.
"That is destiny," Naruto explained calmly. "It doesn't really care about us. It just pushes us to where we need to be and forces us to choose between what is right and what is easy. That's where free will comes in—it confronts us, and we decide how to respond."
The elves had unraveled that idea long ago. Life, the universe, and destiny together followed no plan and possessed no consciousness—yet they still found a way to strike with the force of a supernova when they truly wanted to.
"Choosing the hard path over the easy one because it's the right thing to do—that's what makes a man a good man," Coulson said solemnly.
"Easy, hard… in the end, there isn't that much difference," Naruto replied. "Both paths lead to results that are more or less useful, each with their own consequences. But my father always says you should think things through—and that there's no point in choosing the harder option just because it sounds noble or right."
He spoke without stopping to consider why he was saying so much—rambling, by his own standards, about things that didn't seem immediately relevant.
"All right, listen," Coulson said, prompting Naruto to turn slightly and look at him with those blue eyes that still revealed absolutely nothing.
"I know something changed, and that you're hesitant to talk about it. And as a sign that I'm willing to trust you…" he continued, raising a finger to his communicator, "…I'm requesting authorization to go dark for a while. Information gathering and—" he paused briefly to look directly at Naruto, "—evaluation of a potential asset."
He listened in silence for a few seconds.
Then he replied, "Negative. All systems are green. Confirmation code: Delta, Zebra, five, six, two, nine. Please confirm."
Coulson nodded, even though no one could see him.
"Confirmed. Thank you. Coulson out."
The moment he received authorization for a blackout period, Coulson removed the earpiece and shut it off in front of Naruto, placing it on the table where the technicians had been working moments earlier. The phone came next: he removed the battery with a quick motion and set it down beside the communicator, making sure both devices were completely disabled.
Naruto watched the gesture with a slight nod—just enough to make it clear that this was exactly what he had expected. Then he turned and began walking toward the dunes, leaving behind the muted murmurs of scientists still arguing with the remains of their equipment. Coulson followed after loosening his tie a little; the midday heat made the suit feel like a cloak that couldn't be ignored.
When they reached the top, Coulson decided to sit down. The air moved a bit more freely there, though the sun still bore down on them with the same intensity. Naruto remained standing for a few seconds, watching the cordoned-off area below, before extending a bottle of cold water. The plastic was still dotted with condensation.
Coulson accepted it with a quick glance, mildly surprised—he didn't remember seeing Naruto carrying anything—but he opened it without comment and took a long drink that cleared his throat.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind stirred the sand around them, and the beach—closed to the public—held an eerie silence for that time of day. Naruto took a deep breath before speaking.
"You don't need to fear an invasion," he said calmly, without dramatics. "All of this… was an accident."
Coulson lowered the bottle and took a moment to process that. He had spent days trying to piece together fragments that refused to fit, and suddenly that single sentence put several of them into place. The logic was uncomfortable—but it made sense.
"You were responsible for what happened here, weren't you?" he asked at last, looking for a direct answer.
"In a way…" Naruto said. "I was working on something with a friend, something went wrong, and I ended up here."
Coulson studied him closely. The way he said it—unhurried, unguarded, without a trace of the double meanings he had used earlier—made it clear that this time, he wasn't holding anything back. It was the first time Coulson had seen such naked honesty from him.
"Certain powers have told me that something is coming. I don't know what it is, but I know I have to trust someone in order to eventually meet the key piece in the world's fate—or something equally vague," Naruto said. Deep down, he wished Yao had been a bit clearer about what she had seen, but asking a clairvoyant for that level of precision was almost a joke.
"Are you the person I'm supposed to entrust with the lives of two worlds?" he asked bluntly.
"I don't understand," Coulson replied, making no attempt to hide his confusion.
"No, you obviously don't," Naruto conceded. "But you will. I just need to know whether I can trust you. What you do and say with the information I'm about to give you will tell me whether it's worth it… or not."
There was no aggression or explicit threat in his tone, but the severity behind the words made one thing very clear to Coulson: whatever had happened to the agents that night would be considered merciful compared to what would follow if he betrayed that trust. It was a warning as direct as someone unused to explaining their limits could make it.
In that moment, Coulson understood exactly what was about to happen. He also knew that earning Naruto's trust wasn't symbolic—it meant a real difference between life and death, perhaps not for him, but for many others. It was a risk, but one he had to take. After all, he had said only minutes earlier that choosing between what is right and what is easy is what makes good men.
"All right," was all he said, using the same serious, even tone Naruto had maintained since they began talking on the dunes.
At that moment, the false smile vanished completely, and Naruto understood that Coulson was being entirely honest.
"I'm not from your world… not even from your dimension. Back home… things aren't exactly fine, but they're not so bad that we'd send people to other worlds. As I said, this was an accident—caused by a mentor of mine who tends to be rather reckless with his experiments. Instead of sending me to the other side of the map, he sent me back to this very beach after an initial test with a flesh golem, just to make sure the trip was safe."
The explanation was long, direct, and dense with information—but Coulson couldn't quite keep up. Nothing Naruto was saying fit into any framework he knew.
"So… all the resources we spent and the preparations we made were…" Coulson searched for the words, surprised, confused, and—on some level—irritated. All of Fury's paranoia about an invasion collapsed in an instant, and at the same time he felt relieved that it had. What frustrated him most was realizing that Naruto had been running him in circles the whole time for no real reason—because he truly had nothing to hide and no intention of causing harm from the start.
"Largely pointless. My people don't need to conquer anything else. We've lived in peace for thousands of years, and while some of us—like me—seek something different, what we want is simple: life experience. But my personal life isn't relevant right now," Naruto replied, a faintly teasing tone creeping back in.
Coulson let out a heavy sigh. That small shift in attitude was enough to remind him that, once all of this was over, he would probably request a reassignment—or at the very least, a long vacation. Dealing with unknown elements had been exciting in his younger days; now, he needed something with a far more reasonable level of stress.
Still, Coulson had to set that line of thought aside and carefully review everything Naruto had said. What surprised him most was that, as he did, he realized he believed him. The simple fact that, up to that point, Naruto had only escaped once to test his own limits—and that the worst he had done to the agents assigned to watch him was irritate them—made it clear he had no ill intentions.
And if he truly came from another universe or dimension, that would explain why the energy signatures were so unlike anything on record. It also fit perfectly with why the scientific equipment kept frying every time they tried to analyze anything connected to him.
"All right," Coulson said at last. "I believe you."
"Just like that?" Naruto asked, genuinely surprised. He had expected to have to elaborate, give concrete details, explain the differences between their worlds, or insist that his people had no intention of invading anything. But he supposed it made sense—he had essentially delivered a more elegant, cosmic version of we come in peace.
Coulson enjoyed the surprise more than he cared to admit. Seeing that expression on the face of someone who had kept him running in circles for two days brought a simple but satisfying sense of victory. Mentally, he marked down a point; it was about time the score evened out.
"So… what happens now?" Naruto asked. Coulson believing him so quickly had robbed him of the strategy he'd prepared, and he wasn't sure what his next move should be.
"Can you tell me who these higher powers are?" Coulson asked.
"Not really. I'm not sure which heavyweight decided to roll their dice onto the board… but I can say it's not someone from my world. At least, I hope not," Naruto replied. The last part slipped out almost as a murmur; considering how reckless Kenjaku could be—and how many overlapping schemes he always had in motion—it wouldn't have surprised him if the body-snatcher was somehow involved.
"You're being deliberately vague and ambiguous," Coulson said flatly. He thought they'd moved past that stage.
"Not really," Naruto replied just as plainly. "I'm as blind as you are on this. I only know what little I was told: there's a threat greater than anything you or I can comprehend. I don't know what it is, or when it'll happen. I just know it's already started to gain momentum."
"You're sure?" Coulson asked, far from thrilled at the idea of having to inform Fury that they were facing a real threat. Worse still—that it wasn't coming from the source they'd imagined, but from something entirely different… and that, to top it all off, the very person they'd been investigating didn't even know what that threat was. His life really couldn't get any more complicated.
"I might be able to get us something, but we'd have to wait a couple of months," Naruto replied with a shrug. He didn't have clairvoyance, nor access to those who did, until he managed to contact his own people.
"I was afraid you'd say that… You know, you're not making my job any easier," Coulson said, offering a wry smile.
"If it were easy, they wouldn't pay you to do it," Naruto replied dryly.
After that, they talked about various topics. Some Naruto addressed without hesitation, others he handled with a certain degree of reserve… and there were a few he didn't even bother pretending he wanted to discuss. Coulson didn't understand why Naruto avoided anything related to his family beyond his father, but he didn't press the issue. He also found it strange that Naruto showed no interest whatsoever in learning more about S.H.I.E.L.D.; he accepted everything with such calm indifference that it was almost unsettling.
The conversation continued until Coulson checked the time on his watch.
"Our time's almost up," he warned.
"Actually, it's not," Naruto corrected, placing a hand on Coulson's shoulder. "There's one last part of the story I haven't told you."
"There's more?" Coulson asked, feeling a flicker of nervousness. He just hoped it wasn't anything bad.
"One last thing," Naruto said, extending his hand toward Coulson. "This final part is what will tell me whether I truly can trust you or not."
Coulson glanced at his watch again.
"We really don't have much time left. If we stay out here any longer, they'll come looking for us."
"Do you trust me?" Naruto asked again, his hand still outstretched.
Coulson looked at him without a smile, without any guarded expression—just that direct honesty he rarely showed anyone.
"I really don't want to… but yes. I trust you."
And with that, he took Naruto's hand.
The redhead smiled faintly just before both of them vanished from the beach without warning, taking with them the last traces of loose sand stirred up by the wind.
Coulson was going to strangle him for not warning him first—but Naruto needed to show him something far outside his comfort zone.
End of Chapter