𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘 was breathtakingly gorgeous. Light reflected off the tall buildings of grandeur that made up New York City. Not a single cloud could be seen in the sky, nor any shadows lingering throughout the corners of the city. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the city below awoke and the bustling crowds of people below followed their daily routine. Everything seemed perfect, and perfect was the one thing that Fury distrusted. Well, that was an understatement. Aside from himself, there wasn't much that Fury actually did trust.

"As much as I love the reunion—"

Fury grimaced at the reminder of Stark's presence. As helpful as the billionaire could be at times, Fury was less than thrilled to be stuck at his side; however, it seemed like the lesser of two evils.

"— this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

As if to agree with Stark, the comm links crackled to life and Sam Wilson's voice questioned, "Are we sure this is the best idea?"

Agitated, Fury snapped. "Did I ask for an opinion, Wilson?"

"Yeah," Stark leaned over Fury's shoulder and spoke into the comm system with a smug grin, "Relax a bit, Wilson. Fly the quinjet any stiffer and I think you'll drop out of the sky."

"Is that a hypothesis or fact?"

"A hypothesis," Stark replied with a shrug in both physical nature and his tone of voice. He laid back against the console nonchalantly, "But since I'm the one theorizing, you can consider it as good as fact."

With a single hand, Fury shoved Stark aside so that he could continue monitoring the screens. It had been two months since the HYDRA infiltration and the press had continued to spin the story until it was unrecognizable. Although it was the last thing he wanted to do, Fury realized it was time to put the Avengers back in the limelight if they were ever going to set things back to some kind of normalcy.

"I don't see why we aren't sending Stark to this thing," Wilson tried once more to escape the role he'd been assigned.

"You were the one who wanted to join the Avengers, hotshot," Tony retorted.

"Not to mention the last dozen Stark-lead conferences rubbed the press the wrong way," Fury quickly added as he shot the billionaire a glare with his single good eye. "I believe it was less than six months ago that he was attacked in his own home after daring a terrorist to make a move."

"I mean, if we're being technical, The Mandarin was really just a front for other covert operations," Tony poorly defended his past decisions. "And that was more of a spontaneous interview than a conference."

"Can we focus, please?" Captain Rogers broke the tension over the comms. "Everything's going to be fine. We'll be in and out within the hour."

"Ah, the noble boy scout finally adds his invaluable opinion," Stark quipped, "but I think you're being generous with the time there, capsicle."

"The time doesn't matter." It was clear that the captain was losing patience on his end. "What matters is that we clear this mess up."

"The mess you guys made." Tony exempted himself as he gestured around the room. He specifically made sure to linger as he pointed to Fury, Hill, and the comms system. "Just know that I'm pointing at you too, Romanoff."

"Should I feel left out?" Barton asked from aboard the quinjet. "Because I feel a bit left out."

"Why'd we bring this guy along again?" Wilson asked in confusion.

"Some say he has great aim," Romanoff retorted and Fury could only imagine the sly grin plastered to her face.

"Enough chit chat," Fury finally interjected. "Land the quinjet, give the damn speech, and get back to base. In. Out. That's an order."

With a flip of a switch, the comms were cut off and the line went dead. Stark cleared his throat, calling attention back to himself as if he couldn't go a single minute without all eyes on him. "Was I mistaken in thinking that you were retired?"

"A cover," Fury replied vaguely. "That way S.H.I.E.L.D. can still work from the shadows like it was meant to."

"Of course." Stark rolled his eyes. "Why should I have assumed anything else?"

"Have a seat, Stark." Fury gestured over his shoulder to the row of empty desks. "The festivities are about to start."

Begrudgingly, Tony walked across the room and took a seat in one of the chairs. Once satisfied that he wouldn't have to babysit any longer, Fury turned to face the monitors that acted as his eyes over the city. Not as many of them as he would have liked were operational, but with limited agents that he could trust, the restorations to the remaining helicarrier had been postponed. It had been a miracle that they had gotten it operational to hover above the city that afternoon. However, it was only so long before something went wrong. Luck never seemed to be on their side, so why would it change now?

"Where are we at on the shields and cloaking..."

"Williams," the timid, but bright eyed agent reminded him. "Agent Williams, sir."

"Right." Fury nodded his head, failing to hide the fact that it hadn't been the first time he'd been reminded of the young agent's name. "The shields and cloaking?"

"Eighty percent and flickering, sir."

"Flickering?"

"Yeah. Flickering, like..." The agent trailed off as he tried to gesture what exactly he had meant by his choice of words. Additionally, the sporadic hand gestures were aided by little fizzing sounds that he hummed at a random frequency that was miraculously off-pitch. He sheepishly stopped and lowered his hands to his sides. He cleared his throat, abashed. "Fl-flickering."

"I see."

Although it was spoken monotonously, the young agent could see that Fury was displeased with the answer given; however, the director didn't openly express his concern as he once more kept his eye trained on the monitor. There really wasn't anything that could be done since the repair crew had been dismissed to their quarters to finally rest after a full thirty-six hour shift.

Fury was snapped out of his absent thoughts and back to the present at the playing of the national anthem. Stark scoffed in the background, ever-so-slightly amused at the effort of matching the Captain's aesthetic. Fury determined that it wasn't worth the argument that a retort may bring. He elected to focus on the speech instead... the speech that had suddenly gone on for two hours without any end in sight.

It hadn't taken the multi-billionaire to pace back and forth within the primary control room as a means of curing his boredom. Fury rubbed his temples, attempting to ignore the scuffing of feet behind him, but it seemed that Stark would win that round. Slowly, he turned around and hoped Stark would get the picture from the death-glare he offered. The genius didn't even bat an eye as he continued to pace, mocking the Captain's speech in the process.

"Stark!" Fury snapped. "Take a seat before you dig a hole in the ground."

Stark grumbled, but his better judgement told him to obey. Fury the grouch was even less fun to deal with than regular Fury. However, he quickly realized that the chair he'd chosen to occupy was a revolving one. It was only seconds before he'd decided to take the liberty of testing the limits of the spinning seat. A single glance from Fury was enough to end that bit of fun as well. He rolled his eyes and groaned, pouting like a child as he slumped in his seat. He glanced over at the screen where the Star-Spangled Captain blabbed on about who knew what by this point. In his opinion, everything that needed to be said had been said. Once more, he lifted his hands and mimicked the captain's speech as if having a conversation with himself.

"America this. Patriot stuff that." He paused and shouted in frustration at the screen. "No one actually cares, Rogers! All I know is I'm bored, bored, bored!" Stark released another groan and pulled at his hair. "He said no more than an hour."

"Please, Stark," Fury scoffed, "As a businessman yourself, you know how these things go."

"There's a reason that Pepper handles everything around Stark Industries," Julie Stark retorted, interrupting the conversation as she entered the room. "All Tony ever has to do is sit back and look pretty."

"Haha." Tony rolled his eyes. "Very funny... but actually, I leave that up to Hollyn now."

"One Stark is more than I can handle right now." Fury placed a hand to his head as he felt a headache oncoming.

"Don't lose your eyepatch over it," Julie nonchalantly replied, waving away his annoyed attitude. "I'll be out of your hair... I'll be out of your hands in a minute. Ryn needed me to drop by and grab some files so that we could track down those missing artifacts."

"See what you can dig up on HYDRA," Fury suggested. "Something tells me that they may have something to do with it."

"I'd say that's more than probable," Julie agreed, snatching one of the data-pads from the desk beside Tony. Now in possession of exactly what she wanted, she offered a mock salute before strutting back down the hall.

"Is no one else wondering how she got up here?"

"Jealous that you're not the only flying Stark?" Maria Hill questioned with an amused grin as she entered the room. "I believe she mentioned that Agent Keller modified an old chopper that he found on his property. She also said it was comparable to Starktech."

Tony scoffed. "Please. Greenie's got nothing on a genuine piece of Stark tech."

Hill shrugged. "Whatever you say, Tony."

Tony pursed his lips in thought as if considering the interruption more interesting than the speech playing on the screens. "So... who all got stuck running Fury's errands?"

"Let's see..." Hill paused to recollect who all had volunteered to take on the retrieval mission. "Julie, Keller, Rumlow, my brother, the Rogers Sisters, and the Asgardians."

"I didn't think Thor was back yet?" Tony raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Last I heard, he was taking some time off in New Mexico."

"That's right," Hill agreed. "I was talking about the trio that practically worship the ground he walks on."

"The two of you can gossip later," Fury shushed them. "Right now, I'm trying to listen."

Tony rolled his eyes and started to peck his fingers repetitively across the desktop. Agent Williams looked up in frustration, failing to ignore the annoyance. Even Agent Timothy Jarvis looked up from his desk, clearly not even Galaga was capable of blocking out the annoyance of Stark.

However, before anyone could address the irritating sound, the lights shut off and the room was swallowed by darkness. The room was utterly silent as the confusion set in before panic. Seconds passed and the backup generator finally kicked on. The ceiling lights rapidly flashed and illuminated the room with a red glow.

Despite the red hue, the atmosphere of the room remained calm, almost as if something similar had happened before... then again one of the first versions of the helicarrier had almost been blown out of the sky when Loki invaded New York back in 2012. Two years later and they were still experiencing the same problems.

The sound of static gradually grew from the monitors as they turned back on and provided another flickering source of light. Fury muttered a string of choice words under his breath as a means of releasing his pent up frustration.

"Stark." Fury calmly turned toward Tony; however, the hostility in his tone of voice increased as he began to shout commands around the ship, proving once more that he'd earned his position of respected leader. "Get your ass out of that chair and start checking the systems! It's all hands on deck because if the back-up generator fails we're going for a lethal plunge into Times Square."

Stark didn't need to be told twice. The billionaire stood and rolled up his sleeves as if pleased to be given some manual work to occupy his time. He pried back the metal sheet that covered the primary console and began to run diagnostics. He suddenly stopped though and slid back to face Fury with a confused look on his face.

"Everything's fine."

"The helicarrier is in complete disarray," Fury countered with little patience. "Everything can't be fine, Stark."

"There's no smoke or sparking wires," Stark contradicted. "No one physically sabotaged this tech which means that we're dealing with an internal virus. Now, I can't fix that from here nor can I do it alone—"

"Since when did the great Tony Stark admit to something he couldn't do?" Hill asked in snarky confusion. She'd briefly exited the room to check on a few other nearby systems with limited luck. With the poor results in hand, she'd returned to share the bad news. "We have bigger problems, sir."

Fury nodded his head to imply that Hill was free to speak whenever she saw fit. If she were wise though, she'd make her report quick, concise, and immediate.

"We were unable to determine the exact location of where the virus was created or to what extent the virus has infiltrated our technology," Hill explained. "We've had very little success getting anything operational, and it looks like the city's experienced a blackout down below as well. We've got a pretty good idea that the two events are linked."

"Let's work on getting those commlinks back online, people!" Fury returned to shouting orders. "I want to speak with Rogers as soon as we have something operational."

Chaos began to form as the bustle around the room increased. Agents that had been fast asleep were woken from their slumber by the blaring alarms and flashing red lights while others were directed to the areas of the helicarrier that needed the most attention.

Although several agents tried to get the systems to return to functionality, none of their attempts were fruitful. Even Stark was unable to trace the location of the virus as his tech was also inoperable.

Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, the sound monitors screeched and the screens flashed white with life, finally displaying something other than static. Everyone in the room turned their attention to the screens, simply waiting to see what was planned next.

The center of the white screens faded and a solid black sphere took its place; however, the design didn't end there as a multitude of white lines created a series of unpredictable patterns through the black surface.

"See if the comms are operational," Fury instructed, "get ahold of Rogers to get an assessment of what this thing is."

Agent Williams shook his head as they still only received static from the commlinks. "Still nothing, sir."

"I could hop into one of the marks and assess the situation for myself," Stark offered. He didn't just stop there though, he'd already started to walk away as if trying to escape before Fury's pent up frustration was released on anyone in particular. "There's not much I can do up here with the tech down."

"The tech is down," Hill agreed. "It seems that more than just your phone was affected though, Stark." Hill paused and tossed Stark a pager. The message was written in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret codes, so he wasn't exactly able to translate it, but he understood what she was implying. However, that didn't stop her from clarifying. "Even though your suits operate under a different power source, the tech itself has been hacked and locked down."

"Looks like you're grounded, Stark," Fury added, failing to hide the smugness from his face.

Tony frowned, but with a sigh he gestured over his shoulder toward the main console. "I'll go run the diagnostics again; see what I can do."

"You do that, Stark." Fury agreed with a simple nod of his head before his attention was directed back toward the screens. In that moment, the maze-like symbol disappeared and was replaced with heaps of classified information.

Romanoff had believed that she'd offered everything of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s up to the world for grabs; however, there was still some information that Fury had managed to keep out of the public eye for fear of what it could do in the wrong hands. Now, dozens of weapons schematics, nuclear codes, national secrets, and about a hundred other prized tidbits of information were displayed for the world to see.

However, that wasn't the end of it though. Fury quickly realized that there were the addition of files that he'd never seen before in his life. The only problem was that he couldn't tell what was real compared to what was fake. That wasn't the most troubling part though.

All of the information was suddenly overshadowed by the headline: Captain HYDRA, Two-Faced Snake Disguised by a Flag. The vivid title was accompanied by a photo of the country's golden boy himself, Captain America, with a swastika embroidered over the chest of his uniform where the star once was. Additionally, there was column after column of information that made an attempt to serve as proof that Captain America had been serving as the leader of HYDRA since the removal of the skull following his fall from grace.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room as no one knew exactly how to react. As much as the Captain had proven himself innocent of the claims through his acts of heroism, many still seemed to have doubts. That is with the exception of Stark.

"Let's get this shit off the screens," Tony demanded, almost infuriated at the thought that anyone believed the trash placed before their eyes. His entire charismatic demeanor fell and was replaced with a serious tone that most in the room were unfamiliar with. "We've already got enough problems on our platter, and it's not like we have time to sort through these lies on top of that."

When no one immediately moved, Tony clapped his hands together to snap the room into focus. He waved his left arm in a couple of giant circles to emphasize the sense of urgency he was trying to establish.

The agents were hesitant and looked toward Fury for guidance, but he offered them no sympathy. "You heard the man."

As if provided with enough by that simple phrase, the agents rushed around the room returning to the work that they'd left behind just minutes ago. Tony nodded his head and crossed his arms as his self-satisfied attitude returned, but for a brief second, Fury swore he'd seen a glint of gratefulness in the eyes of Stark.

Fury offered him a curt nod of his head in return before facing the monitors again. It had already become a habit not to look away for too long in fear that something worse might pop up on the screen. However, it was almost more a distraction than a threat anymore as it prevented Fury from establishing a plan to get his team back, purge the virus from the helicarrier's system, and lock away whoever started the mess in the first place. All he knew was that they were in for one helluva ride.