The Mole

"Of course he did it on purpose, Tony." Natasha's voice was cool and clear. "It's called narrative control. If he'd acted from the start, it would've just been 'Homelander and Iron Man join forces to foil a conspiracy.' But now..."

She pointed at the screen.

"...now the story is this: Iron Man suffered a crushing defeat, and the Avengers were absent. Then Homelander descended from the sky when every hero had failed, saving the president and saving the country all by himself."

"Fuck..." Tony slammed a fist onto the bar. "He's just a spotlight-hogging bastard!"

"Calm down, Tony." Steve's voice was low and steady as he rose to his feet and walked over to Tony.

"Whatever else, he saved your life."

Steve looked at the figure on the screen standing beside the president, basking in the camera flashes. His expression was complicated.

Tony Stark suddenly fell silent.

He stared at the screen, and the anger in his eyes gradually cooled.

"...JARVIS."

"Yes, sir."

"Buy me a ticket."

"A ticket for what?" Steve turned back, confused.

"Homelander: Origins." A bitter smile appeared on Tony's face. "The premiere. I fucking... want to see just how spectacular that bastard's 'origin' really is."

Helicarrier, command center.

Nick Fury stood before the massive viewport with his hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the land below.

He had stood there without moving for an hour.

Maria Hill entered, her footsteps especially distinct across the empty bridge.

"Sir."

"Report." Fury did not turn around.

"Starr Group's market value surged by forty-five percent overnight." Hill's voice was flat, merely stating the facts.

"Capitol Hill is drafting a bill to reallocate part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s... budget for domestic superhuman threats to Vought International, as payment for outsourced government services."

"Ha." Fury gave a scornful snort. "Outsourced? They call this... outsourcing?"

"Sir, this makes no sense." Hill struggled to suppress her anger. "We're a global agency authorized by the Security Council! How could President Ellis dare..."

"Why wouldn't he dare?" Fury finally turned around, his single eye glinting coldly in the shadows.

"Hill, tell me: when Air Force One was hijacked last night, what was our intelligence division doing?"

"I... we were analyzing the Mandarin's movements..."

Fury cut her off, his voice icy. "You were chasing a fucking third-rate actor living in Pakistan!"

He drove a fist into the glass.

"The president's plane was hijacked, Hill! Air Force One! It had the nuclear launch codes aboard! And we didn't have a single goddamn soul in Florida!"

He turned around, rage nearly bursting from his one eye.

"We spent hundreds of billions building this flying carrier. We have Project Insight. We have the Avengers. And what happened? The President of the United States needed some self-employed cape in a Stars and Stripes Cape to save him?"

"Sir, there was indeed a problem with our intelligence flow..."

"A problem?" Fury sneered. "No, Hill, this isn't a problem. This isn't delayed intelligence, and it isn't poor communication."

He walked to the viewport and looked at the clouds rolling below.

"This is... betrayal."

Hill's heart tightened. "Sir? You mean the vice president..."

"I'm not talking about that idiot who's about to be sent before a court-martial." Fury's voice was terrifyingly low. "I'm talking about... my house."

"Sir?"

"There are rats in my house, Hill. Big ones. Fat ones. Rats that are fucking good at hiding."

Countless thoughts flashed through Fury's mind.

Why had the operation to track the "Mandarin" gone so smoothly?

Why had Killian's operation failed to trigger even a single red alert in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system?

Why... whenever he tried to mobilize the rapid response teams, had the system always "delayed"?

"We've been played." Fury said. "Someone on the inside has been steering our gaze, treating us like monkeys."

"You suspect there's... a mole within us?"

"Suspect? No, I'm certain now." Fury turned around. "Ever since the Battle of New York, everything has been too convenient. Stark was attacked, and we were one step too late. The president was kidnapped, and we went fucking blind."

"And Homelander..." Fury narrowed his eye. "How did he know? Starr Group's private intelligence network? Don't make me laugh. He wasn't faster than us... he never took our route in the first place."

Fury took a deep breath.

"That blond bastard is now the president's savior. He's obtained federal law-enforcement authorization. He turned superheroes into a goddamn business, and now he wants to legitimize it."

"He... he went around us." Hill finally understood how serious the problem was.

"He didn't go around us. He stepped on our faces and jumped over us." Fury's tone was full of frustration. "And we can't even fucking trip him, because our own legs... have been broken from within."

"Hill, activate Ghost Protocol. From this moment on, I trust no one but you."

"Sir... you mean..."

"Yes." Fury's eye flashed with cold light. "I want to know exactly how many people aboard this ship are silently chanting 'Hail Hydra' in their hearts while saluting me."

"...Hail Hydra."

Alexander Pierce switched off the recording on the tiny listening device on his desk, an indifferent smile on his face.

"Nick... Nick... you've always been so sharp." He murmured to himself. "Unfortunately, it's too late."

The office door slid open soundlessly.

Brock Rumlow, captain of the Strike Team, walked in with a grim expression. Behind him followed a trembling Jasper Sitwell.

"Sir." Rumlow was brief and direct.

"Brock, Jasper, relax." Pierce pointed to the sofa across from him. "Coffee? Or... shall we talk about our little blond sweetheart?"

Sitwell nervously wiped away sweat. "Sir... Fury... he seems to be getting suspicious. He activated the highest level of internal review."

"Let him investigate." Pierce smiled dismissively and poured himself a glass of Scotch. "Nick is chasing ghosts. He thinks he's hunting rats. But he doesn't know that he himself... is inside the rat cage."

He looked at Rumlow. "What concerns me more is that uninvited guest."

Rumlow's expression instantly twisted into something savage. "Homelander. Fuck, I watched the footage from Florida... that wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter. Those two Heat Vision beams of his... our Winter Soldier wouldn't be able to take them."