A Twist Of Marvel || Infinity War

60. Hell

Nick Fury was a man known for many things, however patience was not ranked as high on the list. The virtue certainly  wasn't present when the man had finally received word of the strange activities occurring as of late. Rogers and his friends moving back to the facility, along with a man formerly accused of terrorism, unexplained trips from Odinson and possibly his brother. New faces seen around the Avengers facility, such as an ex-neurosurgeon and a woman with no public records to be found. Even strange activity in Wakanda concerning Maximoff and her laptop.

He never bothered with calling ahead. Instead, Nick Fury made a personal visit to the compound, intent on figuring out what the hell was going on.

His face was stormy as he stalked the halls, his mind focused on getting answers instead of where he was going. Upon entering, he told the closest employee to 'get everyone in the conference room.' Despite the vague instructions, he fully expected to see every Avenger in the compound gathered in one room by the time he arrived. And see them he did.

The doors to the room were simply no match to his anger, and they opened with a slam once he kicked them in. His hands weren't occupied, but Fury had a tendency to go overdramatic, and kicking in the doors felt like the right thing to do. His abrupt entrance startled the rooms already seated occupants, and though that gave him a small sense of satisfaction, it was quickly overwhelmed with frustration once he saw their faces. Rogers and his team seemed moderately intimidated- not in the sense that they were in any physical danger, but in the sense that they were about to get the ass-whooping of a lifetime. However Stark, and the new face, the doctor with the weird name, seemed completely unaffected by his rage. If anything, Tony was a mixture of tired, and bored, an expression he generally reserved for press conferences and business meetings. The doctor regarded him with a guarded face, but Fury didn't like his eyes. The man looked at him like he knew something, a secret.

But Fury wasn't about to let that get in his way. "Which one of you shit-heads is gonna tell me what the ever-loving hell is going on here?" He pushed his hands onto the table. He watched each reaction carefully, knowing that half his answers would come from their faces alone. Romanoff gave nothing away, per usual, but her companions Rogers and Wilson both glanced first to Stark, then to the Doctor. Barnes refrained from looking at the billionaire, a detail Fury noticed and made a mental note to remember, and probably write down in a file somewhere. They each made an attempt to keep their expressions clear, but Fury could see the expectation in their eyes- Stark and the Doctor were the true masterminds here. As the masterminds, Stark glanced back toward the Doctor, who stared back at him solemnly.

"I believe I can explain-" the Doctor began, straightening his posture. His tone was polite, and it fit with the backstory that they had dug up on him. A highly renowned neurological-surgeon, until he got into a car accident that permanently ruined his hands. Information on the man had been much scarcer after the crash became old news, and the Doctor seemed to have simply disappeared into the background, staying out of the public- and even private- eye.

"You can start by telling me who the hell you are." Fury interrupted, keeping his confusion, and admittedly curiosity about the man out of his face.

"My name is Doctor Stephen Strange-"

"Wrong answer. Tell me who the hell you are."

Strange sighed, his polite aura disrupted by Fury's blunt conversation. He needed to know why the man was here, and why he was dressed like some old-age magician with a fancy necklace. "I am a master of the mystic arts, and the sorcerer supreme of the New York sanctum. I guard your reality." Strange explained, the patience in his voice thin as he met Fury's gaze dead-on. Clearly, the man didn't scare easily, and had likely seen a fair share of battle.

"Right." Fury said, getting over the new teammate for the sake of time. "Stark, tell me what the hell you're doing here." Tony glanced up at his name, paying more attention now. His eyes were still tired, and Fury could clearly see the lines of stress creasing his face. Not that it was uncommon for the billionaire to be stressed, or tired even, but this was a different kind of stress.

"A purple giant from space wants to wipe out half the population- of everything- so we need to stop him." Tony shrugged, his nonchalant attitude revealing how much this actually affected him. The man was stressed to the point of numbness, he clearly had personal ties to the conflict- ties that Fury wanted to find out soon enough.

"And no one felt like calling me?" Fury spoke with gritted teeth, still unendingly annoyed and frustrated that he had had to find out about this through much less efficient means.

"SHEILD doesn't exactly have the cleanest track record." Rogers spoke up, his tone polite but firm, getting his point across while simultaneously trying to keep the peace. Fury nearly rolled his eyes- it was so 'Captain America' of the blonde man.

"If what Stark said is true, I hardly see how that matters." Fury rebuked, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He stared over them with his one good eye, surveying the team he was now forced to work with. "So what are you doing to stop this?" He asked.

"Nothing." Romanoff replied, sliding her gaze across the table to Stark. "Tony's hired a woman in space to do everything." Tony tensed at the accusation, and met her gaze with a newly found passion.

"I didn't hire her." He corrected, though his face told Fury that the genius had much more he wanted to say. Clearly, the woman held some form of importance in his life- and based on his reaction to Romanoff's statement, he considered her to be a good person.

"Who is she?" Fury asked, brushing aside the small altercation in favor of getting real answers.

"A prophet." Wilson answered before Stark could, seeming satisfied with himself for providing the only trace of humor the meeting had had thus far. However only Wilson and his companions seemed amused by his words, Stark and Strange seemed dully annoyed, as if they had heard the joke repeated several times over already.

"And what in the fresh hell does that mean?" Fury pressed, frustrated that it had taken this long only for some vague answers and a dysfunctional team.

"It means that Naomi Swanson is attempting to save half of all creation from oblivion." Strange spoke again, one of his hands twitching up from his lap toward his gaudy necklace for a moment. Fury made a mental note that the wizard's necklace was clearly important in some way, and was very likely related to the situation at hand.

"But where is the proof?" Romanoff spoke again, her question obviously one that she had asked before and not been answered. Tony began to rub his temples, as if her doubt of this 'Naomi Swanson' woman was painstakingly frustrating for him.

"She has a point," Rogers added, still maintaining a light tone in the tense atmosphere. "We're going off of nothing but Tony's word."

"Let me get this straight. This Swanson person is currently up in space, somehow helping to save the universe while the rest of you sit on your asses and trust that she's actually doing it." Fury said, regarding them with a cool eye. He paid special attention to Tony, as the man held the most emotional ties to the situation, and presumably Naomi. Stark stared back at him, as if daring the director to claim Swanson was untrustworthy, to to doubt that she even existed. 

"I trust her." Tony declared, defiantly holding Fury's gaze. He let out a sigh in response, his face hardening as he began to formulate his next plan of action.

"Doesn't mean I do." Fury said.