Logs:Inconvenient Omissions

Inconvenient Omissions
Dramatis Personae Fury, Steve
In Absentia	2020-11-18 "Talk to me, Cap." (Aftermath to riftsplosion and welcoming DJ; part of Rift TP.)
Location <NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island
The 121st Precinct station house is one of the newest in the borough, its unique top-heavy outline eyecatching where it perches at the top of its hill. There are no police officers in sight now, though, nor any cruisers out front, though some remain in the actual parking lot in back. There are instead quite a number of commercial vans (Strategic Pest Control and Mold Remediation, they read, beside an incredibly generic geometric logo) parked in the circular driveway, and workers in coveralls coming and going at regular intervals. The place is swarming with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents now, but most of them don't actually seem to know what they are meant to be doing. Steve has been trying to direct them with steeply declining patience in between attempts to decipher the reports from Tony and Bruce's machine, evidently incomprehensible even to the technicians who helped them build it. He's still in his tactical uniform of red, white, and blue, and there's an indefinably haggard quality to him now. He sinks down onto a stool at the control console again, batting inexpertly at the holodisplay to scroll it. Director Nick Fury strides into the cellblock and beelines straight for Steve. To the other agents he just makes a shooing gesture. "Finish your tasks and get out," comes out sounding oddly placatory and neutral, for all that. Most of them, tellingly, depart at once. "Got your report." He speaks this as much to Steve as to the holodisplay, which he's also leaning over to examine, his eye betraying no hint of either understanding or confusion. His sigh is small, meant only for Steve. "Talk to me, Cap." Steve's eyes flick past the display to Fury, only briefly, before returning their focus to his work. "Lost my team," he replies tersely, scrolling the data again. "Trying to find them." He glances almost accusingly at the (still invisible) rift. Back at Fury, ice blue eyes steady if weary. "Thought you said you got my report." "You shouldn't have gone back through that thing without authorization," Fury admonishes mildly when Steve looks toward the rift. "For all we knew it could have shifted and dumped you somewhere else. Or just atomized you. Look..." He braces one gloved hand on the console and meets the other man's gaze, just as steady. "...I know you don't trust me too much, but we're in this together. You gotta tell me what you need." Then, as a sort of afterthought, his eye narrowing just a fraction, "And what you left out of that report." "I said what I said." Steve's jaw sets hard, his words coming out stiff and final. "And if all the drones and agents we'd sent through it before didn't destabilize it, I doubt that unplanned field trip would have, either." His eyes return to the holodisplay, but it's clear he's not reading anymore. "The site management crew is -- not helpful. I need a proper team." His lips compress. "Again." Fury's sigh is a bit more pronounced, this time. "Dammit, Rogers. This is not the time to be a maverick." But something in the tightness of his expression relents. "I'll give you Sitwell, maybe even Coulson -- someone who can help you assemble a new team quickly. You'll have whatever and whoever you want." "Isn't that what you hired me to do?" Steve lifts his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching without much apparent amusement. "You told me you gave Stark all that he asked, but that was a lie. You can keep your yes-men..." He straightens up and looks Fury squarely in the eye. "Just get me B Holland."