Logs:Operation: S.U.I.T. U.P.

Operation: S.U.I.T. U.P.
Sudden Unexpected Intelligence Triggers Urgent Preparations
Dramatis Personae Coulson, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Falcon, Iron Man, Captain America, Fury and Lucien in absentia
In Absentia	2024-05-20 "I am glad one of us has rehearsed for this." (Part of Avengers, Assemble! Plot)
Location Assembly line
Phil Coulson isn't pacing, but he is fidgeting with his stylus when the agents enter. The moment the door closes behind them, he launches into his briefing without preamble. "We received an emergency signal from Director Fury's phone." The holographic display comes to life, showing them a very exciting and helpful analysis of raw sensor telemetry. "This is the first time the Hostile Extraterrestrial Abduction Defense protocol has been activated, and the signal has been, ah." His mouth pulls to one side, then the other. "All over the place. Fitzsimmons say this indicates a space-time anomaly." He pauses, then adds, a touch sheepishly. "Or hostile signal interference." Another minute pause. "Or possibly technical malfunction. Since this is the first time -- already said that, right." He swipes away the signal analysis screen with the tip of his stylus, a gesture that looks awkward in the extreme because he is standing stiffly beside the display and not facing it. The agents are now looking at a map of the Western hemisphere with a pulsing bulls-eye in the middle of the North Atlantic. "The latest ping places his phone here. On a ship," he adds hastily, tapping the bulls-eye to expand it into a satellite image of, indeed, a ship. "A big ship, probably of terrestrial origin, though the class, configuration, and cargo are all unknown. There are indications -- anomalous indications -- that he was being held somewhere else before, but the initial burst gave us no location data at all. What it did give us..." He flicks the map to minimize it in favor of an audio player with a 3D spectrogram. "...was this." When he hits play the speakers render a sort of insectoid chittering sound interrupted by Nick Fury's voice, loud with defiant bluster: "You got two choices that won't get you shot: send us back where we came from, or...take me to your leader." Whoever captioned the clip saw fit to include "[chittering intensifies]", but not to identify the speaker. Just before the recording ends, a different human voice speaks -- softer, with a familiar francophone accent that the captioner also did not note: "I am glad one of us has rehearsed for this." Natasha has not bothered to take a seat, though she's moved further into the room to lean her hands up against the back of one as Coulson begins his briefing. It's possible she should be more alarmed by this news, but aside from a small furrowing of her brows she mostly looks thoughtful. Attentive. She's studying the map with an assessing tick of eyes that tells of the calculations already beginning to turn in her head. Her lips do press thinner in the only visible sign of real upset she gives, at the sound of Fury's bravado, nostrils flaring through a slow exhale. But it's that second voice that widens her eyes, hikes her brows. Her head tilts, her eyes boring into the captions a few seconds after the sound has actually stopped, as if, perhaps, the message will change. When it does not she just shakes her head, flicks a sidelong and mildly impressed glance to Clint, and pulls her wallet out of her pocket to hand him a twenty dollar bill. Clint also does not sit. He doesn't even bother laying claim to a seat, just stands beside Natasha with his arms crossed and expression wooden. He does dignify "Hostile Extraterrestrial Abduction Defense protocol" with a very small uptick of brows behind his caption glasses, and "probably of terrestrial origin" with another. When the audio clip plays, he glances at each line of transcription in passing and then aside to study Nat instead. It's only when she pulls out her wallet and meets his eyes that his expression changes at all, rapid and minute and complicated. He accepts his winnings without hesitation and with a slow, uninflected, "Son of a bitch." --- Bruce is sitting on the floor with his back against his desk, trying not to hyperventilate. He has a prescription bottle in one hand--enough triazolam to kill most humans--and a lotus seed mala in the other. His breathing slows, his lips move slow, too. After a moment he heaves himself to his feet and sets the bottle aside, hand still shaking enough to rattle the pills inside. He takes off his glasses and slips them along with his phone into a small carry-on suitcase open on his desk, atop a neatly folded change of clothes. He starts to close it, then seems to think better of it and tosses the pills and the mala in, as well. "Alright, alright," he murmurs as he zips up the case, "we're going. It's not that far, I can--" He winces, clenching his teeth. "At least let me leave the building like a normal--" He doubles over, biting back a scream as his flesh ripples and changes under his clothes. But then he slows his breathing again and relents, sinking down to one knee. The rest of the transformation happens so quickly the clothes seem to just evaporate off of the green skin and bulging muscle underneath. "HULK NOT NORMAL!" might go without saying, but maybe it's his way of apologizing before he crashes through the floor to ceiling glass window of the office and bounds his way across Midtown, leaving Bruce's suitcase on thedesk. --- Sam has not, evidently, been hurrying. He's glanced down at his phone, but not frequently enough to seem distracted or like he's hurrying the last two minutes of his zoom call. A short stint of triangle breathing, a note in his calendar and in the patient notes, and then he's shutting his computer off. He grabs his things, slips into the bathroom. The toilet flushes. The faucet runs. By the time he's come out he's geared entirely differently, from the strong exoskeleton supports at his legs to the padded armor, flight goggles, the bulky suit at his back. He's starting towards the fire escape -- but then stops. The phone call he makes is brief; there's no answer on the other line, and he's talking quiet and calm after the beep. "Hey, Dad, it's Sam. Gotta go out of town for work." He takes a deep breath, pauses a moment. "-- I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Love you." Very shortly after, Falcon's shadow is darkening the building's roof as he swoops south. --- Truth be told, Pepper will almost certainly run the rest of this meeting more competently than Tony anyway; she might not have the same full technical knowledge but she certainly cares far more about not aggravating the representatives who have come to discuss this acquisition. It's a testament to her long experience -- with the company, sure, but with Tony as well -- that she looks not at all ruffled at the clamor that breaks out when Tony simply -- gets up to leave, practically mid-sentence. One of the men at the conference table stands, too, lifts a hand as if to stop him but drops it and settles for a very indignant: "We've been waiting so long --" "Then you can wait a little longer." Tony is strapping on a slim pair of gleaming metal gold and crimson bracelets as he heads for the door. "World can't." --- New Yorkers are jaded to this sort of thing by now regardless of their actual opinions, but the tourists in Times Square were clearly not expecting to see Captain America hitch a ride in with a member of a notorious mutant biker gang. The fact he's shown up wearing a pink Care Bears t-shirt -- appealingly tight and almost certainly a trademark violation -- along with the iconic shield on his back probably pales in comparison, but it doesn't help the surreality, either. Their surprise spares Steve the trouble of fending off or stopping for selfies and the like as he dismounts the tricked-out motorcycle, exposing the very mutated jolly roger on the back of the rider's cut. "Thanks so much for the lift," he says earnestly, clapping the Mongrel on the shoulder. He starts to make for the front door of S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, then glances back over his shoulder. "Oh, and be safe!"