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Who: Sharon and Phil, maybe others from House 20?
Where: The house closest to the lighthouse
When: Evening of Day 1
What: Sharon wants to compare notes and keep abreast of the situation.

This place is quiet. That's the weirdest thing about it, as far as Sharon is concerned. She'd been going from mission to mission nonstop back home, and now there's no bad guy to physically fight. Until they can get out, or someone on the outside gets them out, Sharon suspects they're stuck here. They don't even have any tech - at least not any worth mentioning. Sharon hasn't even been able to use the cameras; they keep shocking her. Whoever put them here is watching them, studying them. Dissecting their weaknesses.

She stops briefly to look over the sea. Even knowing she's being watched constantly, even knowing she's currently trapped in a pocket dimension or a bad continuum or another universe or the Cosmic Cube, the quiet is what bothers her the most. The calm before the storm. And never mind that she wasn't accustomed to the sound of the ocean at all. New York, check. Virginia, check. Hellicarrier, Quincarrier, jets, a spaceship here and there, check. But something about the sea, the peace of it when she knows that peace is a lie, is unnerving.

She frowns at the water one last time before turning back and continuing on her way. The house closest to the lighthouse is one of the larger homes in the area, and she wonders about the family that must have vacated it before they got here. Or had they been forcibly removed?

Far too many questions. She knocks on the door and waits, her hands on her hips. Phil. Clint. Was Natasha staying here as well? She hadn't heard anything from Nick, so she doubted they'd found Fury. And this Steve... He wouldn't be here, would he? Ha. No. There's no way the universe hates her so much as to taunt her with him.

She takes a breath. She really needs to stop being childish. Sure, it's awkward to be around the man she sleeps beside each night and whose baby she lost when he doesn't know her. But she's been through worse, right?

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Once Phil had finished in the center of town, he'd come back to the house to check on Clint. He'd left his agent in the master bedroom, anticipating that Clint was Clint and that he would find a way to roll out of a smaller bed. Clint was still asleep, last Phil had checked, no doubt sleeping off the effects of what Loki had done to him and the physical exertion of being dumb enough to try to fight Natasha.

Phil had checked all the doors and windows on the first floor and then lied down to take a nap on the couch in the living room, gun still in his hand. This town was small. He knew Natasha could find them easily when she was ready to. He knew that for now, she just needed space to clear her head. The slap had surprised him, but he understood why she was angry. It didn't change the fact that he didn't regret what he'd been about to do. He's not sure that he'd still go into that room, knowing that he'll die in there, but someone had to do something.

The knock woke him from a light doze and he walked to the door, still holding his gun. He saw Sharon through the window before he got there, though, and relaxed a little before he answered it.

"Hi. Barton's still sleeping it off." He smiled. "Anything?"

"Nothing." Her smile didn't match his. "I haven't been able to dismantle any cameras, nor trace their point of origin. Fury isn't here. Strange isn't here." Steve didn't know who she was. To put it bluntly, it had been a bad day.

"Do we know how many people from SHIELD are here yet?" And how many of them recognized her, perhaps?

Phil sighed. "At my count, we've got the two of us, Barton, Romanoff and Rogers, who I still haven't actually seen. You have anyone I don't know?"

He leaned against the door jamb. "And are we counting Banner?" He really hoped they were, but it was always hard to tell, both with SHIELD and with Banner.

Sharon hesitated. The Hulk was... tricky at best. "Banner is good, but back home, there have been... problems. Still, we're in a position where we can't afford not to use him. Rogers... He didn't recognize me. I don't know if he's from your world, but I doubt he's from mine."

"What are your thoughts on outside help? If not joining SHIELD, then coordinating efforts with this medical group their trying to set up?" She rubbed the bridge of her nose. No matter what they did, it felt like it wouldn't be enough.

"And I wouldn't put Natasha on active duty until we're sure she's back in her right mind. I think the Red Room got to her. I don't know how or when, but she's not really Natasha right now."

"Shit." That would explain a lot. "She shot at me. Then, later, she was fine." Well, she'd slapped him, but that had been somewhat warranted.

"I'm fine with outside help if you are, but there are some civilians here who are kids. We need to keep them out of danger." He'd seen that Kenzi had had a crossbow, but Kurt had been clinging to his arm and hiding behind him.

"Banner is from my world. There are obviously some issues with him, but he's smart and he apparently did have a... controlled episode recently. Obviously, we should be prepared, but I think he's safe for now." He really hoped he wasn't betting on the wrong horse here, but it wasn't like he had much of a choice.

Sharon's eyes narrowed. Natasha had been fine after? Had only slapped him? Natasha had slapped him? Only slapped him?

She wasn't sure what surprised her more, that Natasha had struck Coulson or that she had stopped with a slap.

"Agreed. And we need a way to organize people, to know who's here and who isn't. Now as much as we need to know how to get back home, but it'll help while we're here."

As for Banner, Sharon merely nodded. She understood precisely what he meant. "I haven't met the man himself, but I've seen the aftermath. I'd like to meet him. Judge for myself."

"Banner's great. His friend... less so. I think we can count on him to do the right thing, though." From what Phil could tell, Banner was a pretty good guy. He just shared a body with a terrifying monster. That didn't change who Banner was, even if it did make being wary of him a bit of a necessity.

"Well, look, I've run remote opps on my own, but this is a little out of my league. Until we can re-establish communication with some version of SHIELD, I'll back your play." Assuming, of course, that none of her plays come into question, but for now, she is right and they do need to organize. "For what it's worth, Doctor Barrett seems to be pretty on the ball and we've got at least a few agents and assets here we know we can count on."

Sharon's lips pressed into a line when he said he would back her play. She didn't talk about it much back home, but she'd hated being Director of SHIELD. Sharon had always considered herself an agent first and foremost, or a mercenary, even an Avenger, but calling the shots at SHIELD had pushed even her code of morality.

But Phil wasn't familiar with the multiverse, nor did he seem familiar with the array of bad guys she had seen come and go and come again. Hell, in his universe, the Skull hasn't put in a single appearance in seventy years or so. She might not like it, but until Natasha came back online, Sharon's knowledge was useful. And there were some things she didn't want to report to someone else. Sharon could have kept her secrets anyway, but this would make it easier. And she could run ops. This... she could do this.

She nodded. "I'll do it for now." But she wouldn't like it. That much was obvious. Still, it was all the more reason to get home again, ASAP. "But I'll need your help." After all, Sharon had a tendency to be brash and wasn't always diplomatic.

"What can you tell me about your universe? Who's on the Avengers?"

"Well, you've got my help and likely anyone from my universe if I talk to them." It did seem like working together was the best option and as much as Sharon was reluctant to take charge, Phil really had no experience with anything on this scale. He would take charge when he needed to, but if there was someone with more knowledge and experience, it seemed silly. Stark had joked that Agent was his first name and he hadn't been too far off the mark.

"The Avengers were just starting to form. I was one of the big pushers for the initiative. Rogers, Thor, Stark, Romanoff and Barton. It seems like Banner's joined them, as well, though he was initially brought in as a science consultant." Phil wasn't really sure how that happened, but he would take Natasha's word for it that he'd had a controlled episode. It hadn't hurt that Banner had seemed relieved that Phil was alive--even happy.

"Thank you." She would need that help, she knew.

She frowned as he continued. "In my world, Banner was supposed to be one of the original Avengers. Well, the Hulk was. Word was he couldn't read the Charter, though, and got frustrated, so he went off in a huff. Clint and Steve were second-generation, too. Is there a Hank Pym in your universe? A Janet van Dyne?"

This was one of the things that alarmed her more than she wanted to let on. If their worlds were so similar that they had several of the same people, could they have been sent here by someone in a universe similar to theirs, but belonging to neither of them?

"Those names don't ring any bells, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. You can ask the others. Maybe they might know of them." Phil was hardly a living catalog. He kept track of more than most people and he knew a lot, but he wasn't infallible. There were certainly people who the others knew about who he didn't, right?

"What about Maria Hill? Is she over there?" Maybe she wasn't even with SHIELD if Sharon had been the one to take over when Fury had been missing. The idea of SHIELD with Hill was somewhat strange. While they weren't the closest of friends, he and Hill did have a camaraderie and they worked well together. He was kind of disappointed that she wasn't here.

Sharon nodded. She'd be asking the others quite a few questions.

"Maria Hill joined just a couple years ago and was chosen as Director after Fury got ousted. We didn't get along at first, but after she turned over her the position to Tony Stark, we worked together a little more. We and another woman liase and manage cases for different Avengers teams. She's smart. We were attacked in Avengers Tower a while ago, and turning the guy to glass and shooting him didn't work, so Maria tricked him and trapped him. It was pretty good work. What's she like where you're from?"

"She's sharp. She's Deputy Director under Fury. They don't always... see eye to eye, but she and I tend to. She runs a tight ship." The idea of her not being there from pretty early on was a strange one. Hill wasn't synonymous with SHIELD the way Fury was, but she was an important cog in the machine.

"And I'm sorry, but did you say that you put Stark in charge of... anything?" He must have been different in Sharon's world, right? Stark can barely manage himself without Pepper's help.

Sharon barked a laugh at that. "Oh, hell no. I- I was persona non grata at SHIELD at the time. There was a war between the superheroes over registration. Tony wanted people to register, and Steve fought him tooth and nail. The higher-ups got rid of Fury, and since I was a Fury loyalist, my reputation went straight to hell." It hadn't helped that everyone knew she was dating Steve. "Hill wasn't a Fury loyalist, so she got the job and eventually turned it over to Tony."

Sharon shrugged. "He actually did pretty well. All the SHIELD employees got really nice bonuses and packages, he streamlined a lot of stuff. He would have been known as a really good Director if it hadn't been for the Skrulls." And for Steve being murdered on Tony's watch. But then, Sharon had been the one to shoot Steve at close range.

"Back home, the Skull managed to survive in the Cosmic Cube. Steve trapped him there. He eventually got out and went back to planning to take down Steve. Has anything like that happened in your world?"

He was trying to picture a Stark who was actually capable of running SHIELD and he guessed it was possible, but he sure as hell wasn't there yet. At least some things were constant, though, like Stark and Rogers not getting along. It really wasn't a surprise.

"Nothing like that has happened. We just found Rogers a few months ago in the ice. Can I assume that that happened in your world, as well?" The Avengers were so new, so unstable. It was hard to wrap his brain around her world. Even her SHIELD seemed so far off. "How much of a war are we talking?"

"They've been around for a long time. Since before Stark outed himself as Iron Man the first time and kept the whole suit in a briefcase."

She was quiet for a moment as she debated how much to tell him. But really, what was there to hide? Osbourn had made most of it public anyway. "There was a group of young superheroes that called themselves the New Warriors. They weren't bad, but they needed funding and ended up agreeing to film a reality television show. They got in over their heads, taking on some villains way out of their league to help with ratings, and they died. One of the bad guys, Nitro, exploded and killed 612 people, including school children who got caught in the blast radius. Never had a chance."

"Tony Stark argued that if they'd been trained, it wouldn't have happened. He- I agreed with him. People who don't have superpowers are at a distinct disadvantage compared to those that do. His plan was to register people with abilities so that they could be held accountable for their actions. Tony went public with it, and Steve went out to publicly stand against him. Superheroes and mutants had to choose sides, only one side, Tony's side, had the government behind it. In the end, it was revealed that an alien race called the Skrull had been behind it all. They could shapeshift and had masqueraded as several of the superheroes in order to escalate the situation. In the end, even supervillains got involved, helping to defend Earth, and after, Steve surrendered so that no one else would die."

Sharon looked away and grinned wryly. "I guess I could have just said, 'interstellar big.'"

"Jesus." It was really a lot to take in. Familiar names and they rang true to what Phil thought of them--especially Rogers--but it all sounded so surreal.

"And aliens. Is that something you deal with often? Do you just have to defend the Earth from them on a regular basis?" He wondered if that was his future somehow. Maybe SHIELD would be needed more than they realized, because if it wasn't Loki and the Tesseract, it was going to be entire alien races, wasn't it? Holy shit.

Could aliens have brought them here? It seemed possible. Hell, it seemed likely, if there was proof that they were out there and they came after Earth in other worlds like that. Of course, there were only humans here, as far as he knew, but that could mean a lot of things.

"Not... often. Not really. There are the Skrulls, the Kree..." She shrugged. "Plenty of them. But we've got an interstellar protective agency called SWORD. Their commander in our quadrant is currently dating a friend of mine. We haven't actually met, but from what I've heard, I like her."

Her eyes settled on his face, a faint line between her brows. "So you really don't have any of this where you're from?"

That was several aliens. That was not not often at all!

He shook his head. "No and if SHIELD knew anything like that, I'd at least have an inkling. I'm not exactly a junior agent." He wasn't the type of person to brag, but he was confident and he knew his place. He was no Hill, but he was up there and he always knew what was going on. "I've got to admit that I'm a little concerned that you're giving me a glimpse of things to come here."

"Really? I'm not." She rested her hands on her belts. "There's no guarantee they're in your universe. We've had mutants on our planet for hundreds of years, never in large numbers but always in noticeable ones. If you don't have them in your universe, you might not have our other enemies, either."

"Besides that, if you ever do get home, I don't want your world as blindsided and unprepared as ours was. Maybe you could arrange things so you've got a better chance."

"I appreciate that. We were putting together the Avengers because of the possibility of threats like that, but after what you've told me, I think we're going to need to beef up the roster a little." Or a lot, but where were they even going to find more candidates?

"So what, exactly, is a mutant?" He could take some guesses, but he wasn't entirely clear on what that meant and some of his guesses seemed more likely than others.

"The Avengers back home had three different squads. Even I was on one of them. The largest had hundreds of people, though, from all over the world. I don't think you'll have trouble once the ball gets rolling." She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "They're like rabbits like that."

She took a moment to consider his question. "Some call them the next step in evolution, others call them genetic freaks. Generally, though, they're all born with abilities that tend to develop when they're teenagers. Some can heal, some can teleport, some can read minds. There's one who can shoot lasers from his eyes and needs special glasses so as not to kill everyone he opens his eyes. They're not all bad, but some of them don't like being treated as second-class citizens and can lash out."

Logan is a mutant, but she isn't sure if he wants- no, Logan definitely won't want that out. She'll sit on that until she can find a way to tell Coulson without anyone else hearing. Coulson is on her team now, after all, and she can't hide a secret like Logan from him without it coming back to haunt her later.

Well. That was a lot of Avengers. Were there that many extraordinary people willing to step up back where he came from? He wondered. Maybe for them, the initiative was just beginning.

"Maybe the mutants have just done a better job of hiding back where I'm from." He shrugged. "Weirder things have happened. Weird things are kind of my life, to be honest." Shaking his head, he straightened a little. "So, what now?"

"That's a possibility. They aren't exactly commonly accepted back home." She grinned when he stated how weird things were kind of his life, not only because, well, yeah. SHIELD. Weird stuff is the norm for all of them. But also because of where they are now. How fortunate that they're accustomed to it already.

"I'd like to know who's here and what they can do, and then I want to find safehouses for people who can't fight in case we get attacked and work out a plan to get everyone there as quickly as possible. I also want SHIELD to have a training space that others can use if they need, and I want people who are willing to learn to have access to self-defense lessons. Nothing too advanced, mostly 'Learn to extract yourself and go get help.'" She crossed her arms and glared at the ceiling behind Phil. "And I want to find a way to get rid of those damned cameras. Whatever plans we come up with won't matter for shit if whoever has us here knows what we're doing and can head us off at the pass. And if this is a petry dish and they're going to test us in some way, I want to be as prepared for a biochemical attack as possible. With the tech we've seen, I'm willing to bet the med clinic or med bay or whatever they're calling it will need help." Times like these, she could use Tony Stark.

"I wouldn't mind knowing who has enemies powerful enough to trap us here, either." She grimaced and ran a hand through her hair. "So yeah. You know. Nothing much."

He nodded along with the list. How fast he could do all of that or if he could, he wasn't sure yet, but some of it was easier than other parts.

"Alright. I'm going to take an inventory of the general store I saw in town in the morning and I'll get on top of compiling a list of who's here. While I'm at it, I'll see what other structures are around, but from what I've seen so far, the church looks like the most sturdy structure, so that might be a good safehouse, at least short-term." Training people would have to come after food and shelter problems were taken care of, because while he agreed it was a good idea, he was more concerned with people starving or getting sick from the weather.

"People might not be too inclined to talk about their enemies, though. We might have to feel that out subtly." They knew of Loki, at least.

"I'll have a look around town, too. I'm curious about some things." She looked out to sea and frowned. "If we have to be subtle, we'll be subtle." Or maybe she could stir the pot and get people talking, and SHIELD could pick up the crumbs that fell out.

She took a breath. In some ways, this reminds her of Tap Kwai, and Sharon doesn't like feeling confined. She didn't like being Director of SHIELD, either, and now look at her. Director of SHIELD managing a resort-style prison of people. Or maybe Logan will find a way through after all. Until then, though, it was almost like she could feel the place threatening to swallow her. Her eyes narrowed at the sea. She had survived Tap Kwai. She had survived Hong Fan. She had survived the Skull. She had even survived herself. She'd survive this. She would just have to get as many people out as she could.

"We need a set time for briefings. Say nine each morning? We can do it earlier if that would be more convenient for you." And Sharon could work out after.

He shook his head. "Whatever works for you is fine with me. I'm easy and I take orders well." At least orders that he agreed with.

It took a while to really gain his trust, but it wasn't entirely unattainable. It was just that in this situation, he couldn't afford to completely trust anyone who hadn't proven themselves the way Clint and Natasha had. Of course, now Natasha was unpredictable and he was going to keep a suspicious eye on that.

"Let me know if you need anything before then. Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow."

Edited 2012-10-23 07:30 (UTC)

She nodded and turned back down the path. She'd set about her tasks later. For now, she had to get home and keep an eye on Natasha, who, if anyone asked, was not tied up in bed.

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