After the man left, Tim sat blankly in his chair. Natasha brought over two cups of coffee. After taking a slurp, Nick leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes.
"I know you have a lot of questions. I won't get into all that old history. Let's talk about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation first."
"Though we're both law enforcement agencies in the United States, our jurisdictions differ, so there are some conflicts between us, much like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA."
"The conflict between us is actually worse than theirs, because we both have domestic law enforcement authority, and the boundary is often very blurry. There are some matters either of us can handle."
"No one wants to do extra work, but everyone wants more money. So whenever something happens, we shove it onto the other side. Once it's resolved, though, we all scramble for the credit, because that helps us get more funding from Congress."
"But... fuck that! I don't need to go through all that trouble." Nick made a forceful sweeping gesture. "I have a better way!"
"To secure funding, and to satisfy the control freak tendencies of certain big shots, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has never stopped planting spies in S.H.I.E.L.D., an international organization."
"It sounds like CIA work, but in fact, agents used domestically and abroad aren't drawn from the same pool. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the easiest one to infiltrate."
"Because every year, there are only so many young people trained by domestic academies. They either join the Federal Bureau of Investigation or come to S.H.I.E.L.D. If they bribe those people, they can easily replace S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with their own, making it much easier to shift blame or steal credit in certain matters."
Tim gradually