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"More worrisome." Alexis hit the emergency stop, since somehow no one had hit it during the brief fight. "I'm thinking we need to exit the building now."
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"Probably a good idea," Clint agreed, glancing out the window. It was a long way down, but he was making emergency exit plans anyway, just in case.
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Alexis paused for a moment. "We can get to the roof from here," she said. "And from there we just have to find a way down."
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"Easy enough," Clint said, mentally mapping out the best route down the building. He gestured for Natasha to go first. Very, very few people were willing to get in her way.
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Alexis hit the stop again and hit the top floor stepping out of the way when the door opened again. She let Natasha out, and then stepped on one of the agents on her way out.
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Indeed, there were more agents waiting for them when they reached the top floor, but they didn't immediately attack. Natasha recognized them as several high-level agents that Fury trusted. Agent Sitwell was notably absent.
"Good, you're here," one of them said. "Get inside. Fury's waiting." |
Alexis blinked at that and waited a moment to see if either of her two voiced a complaint. When they didn't, she started forward. Something was still wrong here, but she was willing to go along and see where this went.
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Fury looked over when she came in with the two Avengers.
"About damn time," he said. "What took you?" |
"Got a little held up in the elevator," Alexis said with a shit-eating grin that looked very much like Clint's. "Sorry, sir."
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Fury looked at her, snorted a bit, and gestured for the door to close.
"Well, get in here." He waited a few moments until he was reasonably sure that the area was secure, and then looked at them again. "Something is wrong in SHIELD, and it's starting to come to a head. There are only a few people I can trust right now." |
"And I suppose that has nothing to do with the mysterious ominous text we all got earlier." Alexis was quiet for a moment. "So what's the plan?"
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"The plan is to ferret out the problem," Fury replied. "I'm not sure how deep this problem goes, which is why I need everyone I can trust to be here."
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"Agent Lennox should also be on her way," Alexis said, glancing at her phone. "Actually she should be here any minute."
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Fury raised an eyebrow.
"The one on medical leave?" he asked. He glanced at Natasha, who nodded and walked out. Romanov would make sure Lennox got in okay. |
Alexis nodded and leaned back a bit. "How do you plan to ferret out the problem, sir?" Not that she didn't think he knew what he was doing, but was also used to working against Stark, not with him, and in this case she thought Tony might be an asset.
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"I've got some people working on it," Fury said, nodding to a pair of agents on computers in the corner. "We're trying to figure out just how over our heads we're in."
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"It might be a good idea to bring Stark in on this one," Alexis suggested quietly. "He'd be useful."
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Fury raised an eyebrow.
"Explain to me why you think that is a good idea," he said. |
"He has resources, he's already hacked into SHIELD databases, and between him and Jarvis, they can analyze information faster than whatever team you have working on it." Alexis shrugged. "Besides which, no matter how much the two of you disagree, he'll want to get rid of the threat more than he'll want to spit in your face." She paused. "But he will say 'I told you so'. Or otherwise gloat. For the rest of your lives."
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Fury considered it for a moment.
"I can handle the gloating," he said. "Get on that, I want him on this yesterday." |
"Done." Alexis moved aside to call Tony and give him the quick rundown and get him on it. Hopefully he'd be smart and start working before he started snarking at her.
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Tony was already looking into things. Jarvis had alerted him to some unusual activity, and Tony had thought it was weird enough to really dig into.
"Tell Patchy that someone competent is working on it," he said distractedly as he worked on eviscerating the SHIELD databases. |
"Work fast," Alexis said. "And ping me first when you find something." Because she knew by now he respected her enough to do that, and she knew he would find something.
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"Right, okay, working now," Tony said. Then he disconnected so he could get back to work.
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Alexis slipped her phone back in her pocket. "He's working on it already," she told Fury. "He'll likely have something in the next twenty-four hours."
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