Nico Di'Angelo and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

1

"Welcome, son!"

Nico di Angelo thought something was seriously wrong when he heard these words. Even more so when his father gave him a hug that rivaled Mrs. O' Leary's (Of course, she was a dog, so comparing a gods' hug to an extremely large K9 hug is like comparing a potato to a watermelon.

"Father! What-what are you doing?" Of course, he didn't mean for it to come out in an aggressive manner. He just wasn't comfortable with physical contact, and last he checked, neither was his father, supposedly. Either he'd gone mentally insane or this was some imposter.

Releasing his son, Hades exclaimed "But Poseidon said I needed to be fatherly! Are my embracing's of affection not sufficient?" A look of genuine befuddlement shown on Nico's face, then a little voice in his head remarked, "Oh. Well, that explains it all." He sighed.

"So, what am I here for? I've got a date to get back to." Nico had just come from quite a lovely cafe in downtown Manhattan, celebrating his 'unofficial' one-month anniversary with quite a lovely son of Apollo. He didn't like the disturbance.

"Ah. Right." He dusted himself off as if he was still thinking of what to say. "So, have you heard of a fellow named Phillip J.Coulson?"

"No. Why?"

"I want you to assassinate him."

At first, he wasn't sure if it was a joke. But Hades didn't make jokes.

"Ok?" He didn't bother arguing. Not many people have won an argument with the god of the dead. Still, gears whirred, and questions exploded in Nico's head. Why would he ask me to kill this guy? Who is this guy, anyway? And of course: When can I go back to my date?

"Well you see, he should be dead. But he's not."

"So, he's like Daedalus? A soul that hasn't died yet?" Hades nodded.

"His death should have been in 2014. Four years ago. He's long past his due date."

It sounded odd, his father giving a human being an expiration date, but hey, when you're the god of the Underworld, you're allowed to do that kind of stuff.

"So, I need to kill him and bring his soul here?" Hades nodded. Saying it himself made the request all the more real to Nico. Sure, he was cool with killing monsters and titans that were evil and trying to kill everyone, but murdering a mortal? That didn't sit right with him.

He hoped that Phillip was evil.

After wallowing in the silence that followed, Nico broke the quiet. "So, do I need to know anything else, or do I just go kill him now?"

Hades looked his son in the eyes and simply stated, "That's for you to figure out. It's your quest." Nico hated when gods did this kind of thing. Holding back on information that could help demigods dramatically for some yet-to-be-discovered reason. But Nico did not want to anger his father, and so he gave a quick bow and left the palace, eager to leave the darkness of the Underworld and get back to his sunshiny boyfriend.

—

It was late morning the next day when Nico left on his 'quest'. Chiron was aware of this, but he didn't approve. He still insisted that until they could get the Grove of Dodona to spew prophecies reliably and without driving people insane, a quest wasn't safe. But ever since Nico mentioned that it was a personal quest for Hades himself, Chiron shut up. Maybe he agreed with the silent philosophy that acting against Hades' will was quite a bad idea.

And so, he was sent on his way to who knew where. Nico again began to dislike his father for withholding information that would make this quest quick and easy, like killing a small arachnid from the depths of some unsanitary closet. Unfortunately, there was nothing Nico could do but find out for himself what he needed to do. Maybe he should've visited the grove, he remarked now or maybe consulted some Athena kid on how to find this man that he was sent to kill. But he was already far from camp, and anyways, he wouldn't have gone back, seeing the disastrous goodbye to Will earlier. He started out of the Delphi Strawberry Service van window, nearly letting a tear fall. But he steeled his nerves and reminded himself that he wouldn't risk his father's anger, and he promised that after all this was done, he'd apologize. Nico blinked the moistness out of his eyes and supposed that now he didn't have any monsters to kill, or any enemies to shake off his trail, he began a plan of attack. He considered googling this man and finding where he lived, as he remarked at how the internet made it so much easier for serial killers and stalkers to catch their prey, like Nico.

When the truck arrived in Manhattan, he told Argus to drop him off at the nearest internet cafe. He decided to use the power of the web to assist his quest. By now, it was around eleven in the morning, and the traffic slowed their progress to fifteen miles an hour. After what seemed like forever, Argus stopped the van. Nico looked out facing a place called 'Cafe 45' and slipped out the vehicle.

Next, to the cafe, there was Starbucks, but Nico resisted the temptation to go there instead and he walked into the cafe's transparent glass doors, which jingled with an annoyingly cheery chime. Deciding to just order a coffee, he placed his order, claimed it, and sat down at a vacant computer seat away from the other two customers. Opening the internet browser and typing in his target's name, results came up about SHIELD, and some other guy named Mike Peterson. He found a link to Wikipedia, but when the page loaded, it was completely blank. All that there was a notice saying that the page needed more information. After sifting through more pages with the same problem, he eventually found ' /leaked/shield' after nearly deciding to give up. Interested and relieved that he finally found an article that wasn't empty, he began reading, albeit slowly, as he waited for his dyslexia to fade away for each sentence.

An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a secret spy organization focused on helping the world with supernatural threats, Phil Coulson was born in July around the 1960s, in Wisconsin, USA. Not much else is known, however, as hacking into SHIELD servers has become considerably harder ever since 2014, a link to our discussions on that topic here.

Although gaining information is considerably harder, we can safely confirm that Phil Coulson was at one point studying history in college around the time he was initiated into a SHIELD academy. It can also be confirmed that he faked his death during the Chitauri Invasion in 2014 because reports and camera footage can confirm sightings in various locations across The States.

This article needs help! We need more information on the topic!

In his head, Nico confirmed the little information his father told him. This man had supposedly died in 2014 but was still alive somehow. He vaguely remembered something Chiron had said about aliens attacking New York. And as Nico recalled, the seven of the prophecy and Camp Half-Blood had been much too busy and preoccupied with the war to really notice what was going on in the outside world. That was in 2014.

But the problem was, there was simply not enough information on the guy to pin down a location. Curious about the hacking, he clicked the link to the Discussion and it brought up a page with a similar layout as the last one he'd looked at, though there was much more to read. Nico sighed in disappointment.

How was he supposed to kill a dude that was essentially invisible? The onlythings Nico found about him that he could find was that he was alive and is now the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He had no idea how to find him.

Suddenly, an idea clicked in his head. What if Coulson found him? Like, if he gave S.H.I.E.L.D a reason to find him.

He looked up 'what is S.H.I.E.L.D after?'

He skimmed through the different sites, and 'inhumans' kept popping up. Apparently their humans capable of supernatural abilities, not much information is known about them either, but they're apparently pretty dangerous and uncontrollable.

This worked out perfectly. He could pretend to be an Inhuman and kill Coulson when he gets there.

gee what fun.