POV Nick Fury
"You kept this from me!" Agent Romanoff yells.
"It was for your own good. I couldn't be certain you could be trusted," I reply calmly.
"Were you ever going to tell me!?" Agent Romanoff says angrily.
"Eventually. There hasn't been a good time to tell you. I needed your complete focus on the Xenomorphs, and when that was dealt with, I learned of the Hydra situation. I couldn't risk losing one of my best agents to personal business," I reply firmly.
"Personal business? You think this is just about me? You let the Red Room continue to operate. Even now they're kidnapping little girls and forcing them to become killers, to kill their siblings! And don't you dare say I would abandon the world for the Red Room. I have a lot of red in my ledger. I'm trying to be a better person, and I know damn well what is more important in an end-of-the-world crisis. I would have kept fighting the good fight even if you told me, if you had given me a chance," Agent Romanoff says with almost teary eyes.
"I kept the secret of the Red Room; nobody else knew," I say as I know there is no restoring what was lost with this.
"That's all you have to say?" Agent Romanoff says with disappointment.
"I made my choices. Sometimes you have to make a call. You can't always be certain what the best call is. I've made some mistakes, and I have some regrets, but everyone makes mistakes; we're human," I respond simply.
Agent Romanoff looks at me and seems disappointed.
"Use all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources to bring down the Red Room," I offer.
"Hah, what resources? S.H.I.E.L.D.'s barely functioning as it is, and we have no extra agents. That's if S.H.I.E.L.D. even exists after the briefing on the Hydra situation," Agent Romanoff says with derision.
"Sigh. What do you want then? An apology? If so, then I'm sorry," I reply calmly.
"I don't know why I expected anything. But here's my response. I'm resigning. I'm going my own way," Agent Romanoff responds calmly before handing over her gun and ID card.
"You sure you want to do this?" I ask.
"Yes, I'm tired of being lied to and controlled. I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. because I thought I would be doing good. Sigh. But how many of my ops were for a good cause?" Agent Romanoff asks with a sad tone.
I don't answer her as even I can't be sure.
"I thought as much. Goodbye, Director Fury," Agent Romanoff says while walking out of my office.
I didn't stop her as I didn't have the power to do so, even if I wanted to. And if that news wasn't bad enough, the Security Council meeting happened not long after Agent Romanoff left, and the news was what I expected.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is hereby officially disbanded. All agents will be given a severance package for their service. The Box will remain with the current agents for the time being, but we expect that The Box will be turned into a prison for the Metahumans of the world. But that will be taken over by the new organization that takes S.H.I.E.L.D.'s place. You're out of a job, Director. You can suggest a candidate to become the leader of this new agency, but you cannot join," the British seat says firmly.
"In honor of your past service to the world, we shall overlook any... Failures in your past and permit you to retire. You won't spend time in jail for any past crimes, but you are required to never work for any intelligence agency or group of similar scope to S.H.I.E.L.D. Failure to do so shall see you imprisoned in The Box. Are we clear?" the American seat says calmly.
"Crystal," I reply calmly.
"Very well, get your things in order and start the decommissioning process," the Russian seat orders.
POV Shift Clint Barton
"You're really leaving?" I ask as I enter Natasha's room.
"Yeah, I can't stay here any longer," Natasha responds.
"Well, you're not the only one," I comment tiredly.
"What are you resigning as well?" Natasha asks with confusion.
"Yeah, Fury suggested I do so unless I want to spend the rest of my career in The Box guarding prisoners. And the world's getting too dangerous for a man with a bow and arrow. I've got a family to look out for, but with the severance package I'm looking at, I think I'll do fine," I reply calmly.
"So you're just gonna retire to your farm and spend the rest of your days rocking on a rocking chair on your porch?" Natasha jokes.
"Heh, only if I have my bow in my lap," I joke back with a smile.
Natasha laughs a little.
"So you want the skills of a retired agent to help you?" I ask with a smile.
"This mission will be dangerous? Are you sure you're okay with that?" Natasha asks.
"Nat, I had to fight an alien invasion with a bow and arrow when even. 50 caliber guns didn't always work against them. I think dealing with some assassins will be much easier," I reply with a smirk.
"We won't be operating within the law," Natasha warns.
"When has what we've done been perfectly legal?" I retort.
"Sigh. You're a stubborn fool, but I'm glad you're my friend," Natasha says with a warm smile.
"Once we're done, I expect you to come visit my family. Laura misses you and has been meaning to have you over for dinner again," I say with a smile.
"That'd be lovely, maybe my family can join in as well," Natasha suggested with a smile, though I have a feeling she was joking with that last part.
POV Shift Rio
When I got news of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s disbandment, I was quite happy. The organization that replaced it was also far less involved than S.H.I.E.L.D. The new organization was called the Meta Regulation Agency, or MRA for short. Their purpose was solely to take high-risk and dangerous individuals and contain them within The Box. Aliens, Metas, Super Soldiers, Terrorists; it didn't matter as long as they were deemed dangerous enough, they would be sent to The Box.
The only issue I saw with this change was that the definition of dangerous was very vague. It also didn't help that it looked like when S.H.I.E.L.D. ran the show, they would just send anything slightly out of the ordinary to The Box to be contained. I did not like the idea that they were containing some people or things without a trial or even without the people harming others. I wasn't completely opposed to it, but I would at least expect a chance for those beings to be freed when they proved they weren't a threat to society.
It was for that and a few other reasons that I had been planning to break into The Box and release some beings or steal some items of power. It was also to kill someone. Lucy had told me that there were only two other members of her species, and one of them needed to be killed as she was a threat to Earth as a whole. She was almost as strong, if not stronger than Lucy, but she was bat sh*t insane. She loved killing and massacring humans or any living beings. According to Lucy, she was the embodiment of all the hatred and grudges of the entire Diclonius race.
She was adamant that she needed to kill her, not just to protect Earth but to put her out of her misery. As such, I used my skills to track her down, and as such, I was confident she was now in The Box. Though I was a bit worried that Lucy might not be able to defeat Bloody Mary, as she calls her.
'I suppose I might have some ways to defeat her. Bloodbending is one such method.'
None of that particularly mattered right now as I needed to find a way to infiltrate The Box. From what I gathered, the place was truly well built. It was built to hold anyone or anything. As such, it was warded against teleportation, both magical and mundane. It was filled to the brim with countermeasures of all sorts. And then there was the fact that if anything unusual happened, the entire facility could be locked down and made impossible to enter or exit. Even getting that much info was really hard, and it was mostly gathered from Hydra as they considered how they might break into and out of The Box if they needed to. They concluded that it wasn't possible and that anything they needed should be obtained through their control of Shield.
I was almost one to agree, but I felt there might be a way to pull this off. Sure, it would be hard, and there was a very real chance of getting stuck inside, but I was confident I could survive locked in The Box for a long time. I had three ideas on how to get inside.
The first was to get hired as a guard. From what I knew, they were always in need of more guards, as many of the guards were killed or had to retire early due to mental health concerns. Becoming a new hire would give me access to the base, but it might take a while before I could be sure of what I needed to know.
My second idea was to be captured and sent there as a prisoner. I had enough strange or fantastical forms that I was certain they would send me to The Box, and if that wasn't feasible, I could be sent in as a low-class expendable prisoner. The risks were obvious. I can't be certain how effective their countermeasures are in the prison, so it is possible they might be able to truly keep me contained for longer than anticipated.
My third idea is to sneak inside or get smuggled inside. With my stealth capabilities, it isn't impossible that I might be able to sneak my way into The Box. This method has its risks as well, but it could work.
'I'll have to work on all three and see the feasibility of them all.'
I return to my work on a cloning spell, as I had taken a long enough break. It turns out making a cloning spell is really complicated. Who knew? (Trumoo.)