Coulson's Merry Band of Little Minions
 

Kerry looked at her new assignment in disbelief, blinking a few times to make sure she wasn't reading it wrong. And then she looked at Fury, who had personally delivered the assignments. Now she knew why.

"Sir? I don't understand," she offered cautiously.

"What's there to understand?" Fury asked, raising an eyebrow. "You and your partner are being reassigned. I need someone there who can handle that particular brand of crazy."

"And you think we can?" Kerry's eyebrow crept up towards her hairline. Really, they dealt with crazy, but the Avengers? They were a whole new level of crazy.

"You tell me," Fury replied evenly. "Unless you think it was a mistake that you and your partner were on Coulson's list of approved alternates."

Kerry sighed at that. Okay, yeah, she knew when she'd been beaten.

"Shall we go introduce ourselves, then?"

"You do that," Fury said. "I have a boat to run."

As soon as Fury left, Avery looked at Kerry.

"What just happened?" she asked, slightly-large eyes wide.

"We just got reassigned," Kerry said, rubbing her temples. "We're taking over care of the Avengers."

"Okay," Avery said faintly. "That's what I thought just happened." She paused again. "Did we just get really lucky, or really unlucky?"

"Both," Kerry said miserably. "Very much both." She sighed. "Alright, come on, we should go introduce ourselves and see what kind of paperwork we have to do."

Avery nodded and followed Kerry. Every SHIELD agent knew where the Avengers lived; practically the whole world knew by now. It was hard to miss the tower with the huge A on the top of it.

Kerry went with Avery up to the top of the tower, a bit nervous to introduce herself to the group. They were notoriously... hard.

Avery nervously played with her hair a bit, trying to cover the tips of her ears. They weren't long, but they were a bit pointed, and she didn't like to advertise her not-so-human heritage right off the bat when introducing herself.

Steve had been the one to get the warning that the team was getting new handlers assigned to them, and he was attempting to make sure the others were at least okay with the idea before the handlers arrived.

Kerry swallowed as the elevator doors opened. She sighed and stepped out into the living room, where the team was waiting.

"Well, well. New arrivals." Tony watched them, his eyes half-lidded, a cup of coffee in hand. He already had all the information from SHIELD on the two.

Avery stepped out of the elevator as well, her hands at her sides now.

"Tony..." Steve said, a slight warning in his tone. Then he sighed and looked back at the girls. "You're the two Director Fury assigned?"

"That's correct," Kerry said. "I'm Agent Kerry Littleton." She nodded to him and looked over the rest of the team, immediately noting that Clint and Natasha were a little detached.

"Agent Avery Maclaine," Avery added.

Clint and Natasha just watched silently. They knew what was going on, and they were not in the mood to tolerate would-be replacements for Coulson.

"Oh joy. New paper-pushers," Tony said, his voice dry.

"We will be doing a little more than just paperwork," Kerry pointed out.

"We're here to keep an eye on things," Avery said. "To handle what needs to be handled and take care of everything that needs to be taken care of."

"And whatever you may think, we're not replacing Coulson," Kerry said, looking at Clint and Natasha especially. "He was a good man, and he had his own thing with you all. We're not going to step on any toes."

Natasha's face didn't betray any sort of emotion, but Clint's expression was stormy. He didn't like this one bit.

Kerry nodded, accepting that, and looked at the others to gauge their reactions. No one was really happy they were there, but no one seemed about to physically throw them out either.

"We just wanted to let you know. I made sure Jarvis has our information in case you need it."

Tony snorted at that, because of course Jarvis had their information, he didn't need the agents to tell him that.

Avery raised an eyebrow a bit at the snort, but didn't comment on it. Everyone was a bit tense at the moment, so she couldn't really blame him.

"We'll visit again once Thor is back on-world and introduce ourselves to him then," she said. She looked around. "Look, we're really not trying to replace Coulson. Nobody can. We were just assigned to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible."

Tony waved a hand. "Yeah, we know," he said, his voice mild. "Is there anything else you wanted? Don't you have paperwork to do or something?"

Kerry quirked an eyebrow but didn't say anything. For now.

"Not at the moment," Avery replied evenly. "But we did what we came here do to, so we'll get out of your hair for the moment." She glanced at Kerry.

Kerry nodded and retreated to the elevator again. Once they were down a few floors, she sighed.

"Well, that went well."