USAgent

ORDERING AFFAIRS

By Clayton Tooley

“I’m horny as a housecat.”

“You are a housecat…and usually horny.”

“Touche,” Greer Nelson said, arching her back as she crouched on the medical diagnostic bed in the infirmary of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier waiting to be cleared by the doctors scurrying around the half-dozen or so super heroes in this section of the infirmary. Out of her barely there black leather bikini and wearing the white hospital gown that even S.H.I.E.L.D. technology couldn’t get to close properly in the back, the were-woman known as Tigra almost looked not like a cat…until her tail flipped up and wrapped around her neck loosely and her long, soft tongue flicked out across her fangs. “Neither of which makes me less horny.”

“Girls, please, that kind of talk is so…unseemly,” said Bonita Juarez, the sometimes Avenger known as Firebird, as she sat very still on the edge of her bed with a blanket covering her shoulders and pulled tightly across her front. “Why did they make us remove our clothing and then wait so long?”

“Decontamination procedures, most likely,” Julia Carpenter said from where she sat on her bed Indian style, her incredible flexibility allowing her knees to nearly touch the bed on either side of her without any strain on her body. “The girl who blew up scattered a lot of radiation around and that shield we blew out could have given off anything. Our costumers are probably being cleansed and our vitals examined from the blood and other fluid and DNA samples they took from us when we were brought here.”

“Yeah, don’t worry so much, Bonita,” Greer said, flipping up onto one hand to get a look through the small glass window in the doorway separating their room from the boys room, her tail flipping up at the last minute to snag her gown at her waist and protect her modesty…or Bonita’s, who turned away horrified at her near eyeful. “Aren’t you immortal or something anyway?” she asked, her near-nudity of no concern to her.

“That’s…uncertain, really,” Bonita said, glad for the mental diversion, though she did shoot Julia a very non-Christian look at the way the other woman was giggling at Tigra’s show and it’s affect on Bonita. “I have survived a few strange events, such as when we were with the West Coast Avengers and attempted to commit suicide to travel to Death’s realm to save the East Coast Team, and the poison we all drank did not kill me*.”

* See Marvel’s West Coast Avengers Annual #2 & Avengers Annual #16 – MC

“Yeah, I remember that,” Tigra said, dropping back down after not being able to get a good look at Lemar or Dennis from where she sat. “That was the year after Julia and Quicksilver tried to kill all of us with Freedom Force*.”

* See Marvel’s West Coast Avengers Annual #1 & Avengers Annual #15 – MC

“Hey!” Julia said, throwing her hands into the air. “I was a pawn of the government! I’d only had these powers a few months and the only super hero I’d even met was Spider-Man. What do you expect of me?’

“Ah, I’m just messen’ with your litter box, Julia,” Tigra said, smiling. “That’s old history, and I’ve had my own share of screwups like that. I just want to get out of this room and back to living life…and if I can take Battle Boytoy or have Dennis ‘demolish me’ then all the better, I say.”

“Tigra!” Bonita said, her face burning red.

“Oh, come on, hot stuff,” Tigra said, bounding from her table to land behind Firebird and cupped her shoulders and purring into her ear. “I know you and Hank Pym were more than just ‘friends’ during the Whacko days, and I know what that ride was all about myself, and I must say it was pretty good for a science guy.”

“I will not talk about this,” Bonita said, pulling her blanket tighter, but Julia could see in her eyes that Greer had stirred some memories in there and the small smile that ghosted across her lips made Julia feel a little bad about Tigra’s teasing of the poor girl.

“Easy, Greer,” Spider-Woman said as she flipped forward onto her feet, a quick release of psi-webbing holding her own gown down to protect her modesty. “Bonita’s not the middle-aged mom I am or the literal sex-kitten you are. We’re aliens to her.”

“Oh, please, ‘mom’,” Tigra said, rolling back into a sitting position behind Firebird. “You’re what, 30? You told me you had Rachel young once, and with your metabolism old age is something you won’t have to worry about for a long time.”

“Well, either way I’ll be 31 this year,” Julia said, sighing. “I wonder how old he’ll be.”

“Reeeeeeeeeaaaaaalllllllyyyyy,” Tigra said from the air as she leapt completely over Bonita, modesty be damned, and landed on the rolling cart next to Julia without causing it to move an inch. “Let me just guess who we’re talking about.” She peered over Julia’s shoulder into the next room and saw exactly what she expected she would…

“So, Doc, I gotta know,” said a disembodied voice from behind the divider to the left of John Walker, the Avenger known as USAgent. “If I put a light bulb in his mouth will it light up like Uncle Fester?”

“Hey, Lemar, why don’t you see if it’s like a D battery and lick my…” John began to reply before a stern throat clearing broke up his response.

“Gentlemen, please,” said Doctor Strait as she tried to get them to listen to her. “Captain Walker, your condition is still not determined. You took an incredible amount of electricity during Paralyzer’s attack, not to mention to blunt trauma and deep tissue bruises you suffered from the rest of your battles. And the strain on your lower vertebra from Meteorite’s powerful telekinesis was significant. If his attack had continued, you might have…”

“If I hadn’t killed him, you mean, Doc?” Lemar said, shoving the curtain between him and John aside with one powerful shove. “That was an accident.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Mr. Hoskins,” the doctor said. “I’m a fully trained S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent and understand a life-and-death situation. And given how many of my fellow agents did not come back I can hardly shed a tear for Mr. Lathrop.”

“My kind of Hippocratic Oath,” John said, smiling. “C’mon, Lemar, it was an accident. Trust me, I know of which I speak. Remember Professor Power*?”

* See Marvel’s Captain America #338 – MC

“You were young and dumb,” Lemar said, shaking his head. “I should have anticipated he was tired and my own strength. Sloppy.”

“We’ll let other minds deal with that later,” Dr. Strait said. “Right now I want to keep you for observation for another 24 hours, Captain Walker.”

“I told you I’m not active military, Doc, so please drop the Captain thing. Brings up bad memories,” John said, crossing his arms. “Call me Jack, or John if you must, but not Captain.” He caught sight of Julia and Tigra looked out at him from a doorway along the wall across from them and he smiled at them, but turned away before he could get distracted looking at Julia. He still thought he saw Tigra looking at him oddly and turning toward Julia as he looked back at the doctor, wondering why he felt warm all of a sudden.

“Well, would you look at that,” Tigra practically crowed after watching the way Jack’s face had lit up when he’d saw Julia looking at him. “I don’t know how old he’ll be, but I think I know what to get you for your birthday.”

“Greer, please!” Julia said, shaking her head and turning away from the doorway and Tigra’s goofy grin. “I’m too old for school girl crushes…and him.”

“That’s…absurd,” Bonita said, surprising all three of them. She continued quickly, her own face turning red. “You’re at best two or three years older than him, as if age has anything to do with the years this life will put on you. If you have feelings for the Agent you should pursue them.”

“I’ll say. He’s got a huge…” Tigra said, then stopped with a concerned and contrite look on her face. “Uh, I mean, we mighta, uh, back with the Whackos…before you joined…uh…”

“It’s ok, Greer,” Julia said. “You didn’t keep any of your flings too secret. I’m not jealous or anything. I don’t…”

But Tigra didn’t hear her say anything past ‘it’s ok’ before she finished her sentence, “…good, because we rolled around that bungalow like a couple of greased up rats in a paper sack. That boy’s got some stamina! He got more than my skin sweating, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh dear Lord!” Bonita said, clamping her hands over her ears and flinching back. Despite her own horror Julia burst out with a guffaw that broke the tension and soon had all three of them laying on their beds giggling.

When they got their breath back but still exhausted, Julia pushed herself up on her arms and sighed. “It’s just been so long since I did…well, anything. I haven’t even dated since that whole Moonraker fiasco with Force Works*. And even after our reality got straightened out I was a mess for a while trying to figure out my own emotions.”

* See Marvel’s Force Works and Avengers: The Crossing storylines for this travesty – MC

“I remember just before all of that happened, when we were getting things set up with Force Works, that Jack and I would spend time together, usually with Rachel tagging along, and it was good. Nice. I thought that maybe…I dunno. And then after everything happened I felt so used…so used up…that I quit everything and withdrew with Rachel for a time.”

“But your back now, swinging in more ways than one,” Greer said, reigning in her mischievous side. “We did good here, whatever the cost, and though I have commitments that’ll keep me from taking Cap up on his offer right now, provided he gets to come back to the States anytime soon, I think its tailor made for the two of you. Plus it’ll have you and Jack working together again, and if you don’t follow up on that puppy dog look he just gave to you I may have to find a new paper sack.”

“Keep your sacks to yourself…and no, I’m not making the jokes that just came to mind,” Julia said, cutting off Tigra’s grin. “But first things first, what offer?”

“A team?” Jack asked, looking at the three people gathered around his hospital bed in disbelief.

To his right, Lemar stood dressed in his uniform again sans mask, listening with interest to what Major Bludd was saying at the foot of his bed. To his left sat Dennis Dunphy in civilian clothing, his eyes still a little hollow from the events of the past couple of days.

“Yes,” Bludd continued, holding a palm-sized computer tablet out for Jack to read. “Before his current troubles, Captain America was working with Director Fury to set up a new proactive street-level team of heroes to operate in and around the United States following up on leads generated by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and the Captain America Hotline he set up a few years ago. It has been something he’s been financing on his own for several years and mostly leading, though in the last year or so it’s been a team consisting of Jack Flag, Free Spirit and Zach Moonhunter.

“Given recent events, however, that is no longer a viable option, and it wasn’t even before the untimely passing of Jack Flag and the severe injuries of Moonhuter and Free Spirit. With Cap rejoining the Avengers and Moonhunter going undercover with the Resistants, the effectiveness of two moderately trained youths was limited. Anticipating the end of Moonhunter’s mission and the return of normalcy to their lives, Cap was looking to create a new team…and he wanted you to lead it.”

“You can’t be serious,” Lemar said before realizing what he said and clamping a hand over his mouth.

“Just because Silver Sable inadvertently gave you Luke Cage skin doesn’t mean I won’t slap you around,” Jack said, still amazed at the admission of the secret his friend had made as they were returning to the Helicarrier. He still had questions about the hows and whys, but he could pursue those matters later. Turning back to Bludd, he said, “You can’t be serious.”

Dennis snickered at the look of irritation on Lemar’s face but Bludd kept right on going through his own smile. “Despite your colorful past, Cap apparently holds you in high regard, as does Colonel Fury and several prominent members of the US Military. Despite your methods, you get results and since you quit pitching people off of flying boulders in Washington D.C. your public image has greatly improved.”

“Having your identity suppressed and your assassination faked has a lot to do with that,” Jack said bitterly, still nursing deep scars from the chain of events that led him from being the sixth man to be known as Captain America to the U.S. Agent*.

*See Marvel’s Captain America #334 to #354 – MC

“Yes, well, be that as it may, they felt that you would be a good mentor to Jack and Cathy, and that Zach’s skills as a former mercenary would come in handy. Fabian would serve as your tech guy and Peggy your communications / mission director. Cap would have no control over the team himself, but your missions would be reviewed by S.H.I.E.L.D. through me, your contact, and Colonel Fury directly, since we’re paying for it.”

“Pay?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

“$2,000 tax-free per week, similar to what active Avengers receive, plus personal lodgings and access to the headquarters facilities in Captain America’s building, which we own all the space so it’s like a big dorm, sorta, with a full super-person gym, swimming pool, kitchen, entertainment rooms, command bunker, laboratories and several specialized garages. Aircraft are accessible at a number of nearby S.H.I.E.L.D. locations. A pair of S.H.I.E.L.D. flying cars are also included and a few of those skycycles you and Hawkeye used to love so much as well.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Lemar said, pointedly not looking at his best friend.

“Team make up?” Jack asked, deliberately not looking at Lemar.

“Optimal size of five field agents, not including Moonhunter, Peggy or Fabian, with not serious objection to as many as seven, yourself included. Special or critical missions can temporarily increase or decrease that number as needed. S.H.I.E.L.D. requires all applicants to be either established heroes, such as reserve Avengers or former operatives of the government or Commission on Super-Human Activities, like Lemar here, or even former partners of Captain America without much trouble, I would imagine.”

“Thanks but no,” D-Man said, shaking his shaggy red-haired head. “I need to get back to my town and friends. I’ll help if you need me, like I just did, but I’m not a team guy, even for my friends,” he said, smiling at John and Lemar. “But if you don’t ask Lemar, Jack, I think he may wet himself.”

“What do you say, ‘Bucky’?” Jack said, smiling at his best friend and long-time partner. “Ready to be my protégé again? There isn’t anyone I’d rather have covering my back.”

“I suppose someone has to,” Lemar said, clasping hands with his friend, “what with the way you fight. But I’m totally down for this dream job.”

“Well, that’s two, three if you count Free Spirit,” Dennis said. “You think she’s still up for it?”

The four of them looked at each other for a quiet moment then Lemar said, “Let me talk to her, Johnny. I think I can help her; that is, if you want her.”

“I certainly do,” Jack said, nodding solemnly. “I know all too damned well what she’s going through right now with the loss she just suffered and what you told me about your own injuries that resulted in your new skin, you might be able to help her cope with her miraculous recovery. We may be just what the doctor ordered here.”

“I agree,” Bludd said. “The Colonel will be pleased. Now, not to seem blunt, but I have a request of my own for another member of your support staff…Agent Quinn has resigned his commission with S.H.I.E.L.D., effective immediately.”

“What?!” Dennis said, leaping to his feet. “He’s the one who figured out the shield problem and then saved my life from that little psycho girl! He’s brilliant and trustworthy.”

“He’s also demoralized and distraught over his actions, however reasonable and necessary,” Bludd said sadly. “That was his first violent field action and he just wasn’t cut out for the intensity, especially at the level you guys play the game. He is brilliant and an exceptional tactician, though, and I think he would be a great asset to your support team, as his familiarity with technology, communication systems and S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles would be of tremendous help to Moonhunter, Fabian and Peggy. That is, if you could convince him not to crawl into some hole until he dies.”

“I’ll handle that,” Dennis said, turning and stalking immediately for the door. “Sign him up.” The door barely had a chance to open before Dennis plowed through it on his urgent mission.

“Well, can’t say he isn’t loyal and strongly opinionated,” Lemar said, smiling. “Hell of a good guy. Punches like a mother, too. Hard to believe I’m as strong as he is.”

“Hrm?” Bludd said, looking at him. “Whatever makes you think that?”

“We all three went through the Power Broker’s augmentation process,” Lemar said, confused, “and I’ve fought him once or twice before.”

“Maybe so,” Bludd said, looking between the two confused friends. “But our tests show he’s easily twice as strong as either of you and has skin almost as tough as you do now, Battlestar. I guess he was taking it easy on you before.”

In his office halfway across the Helicarrier, Nick Fury looked up and could have sworn he heard someone laughing hysterically. “Walker?” he growled, then shook his head and went back to his cigar.

Several hours later something roused the slumbering John Walker and he raised his head groggily from the uncomfortable hospital pillow and gazed with bleary eyes around the infirmary. Doctor Strait had apparently pulled the curtains around his bed again when she had left shortly after Lemar and Bludd had departed, and he couldn’t see anything. “Hey,” he said with a thick, dry tongue, “anyone there.”

“Up here, Jack,” a voice came from above him and he looked up to see Julia squatting on the wall above his bed, wearing a pajama pants and a spaghetti strap tank top. “I just wanted to see if you were all right,” she said as she slid down the wall and landed silently on her bare feet. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right,” he said as he pushed himself up into a better seated position on his bed, waking up gradually. “I was just resting my eyes.”

Julia smirked as she handed him a plastic cup full of water with a straw. “It’s 3 a.m., Jack, I doubt you were just resting Even the nurses left because of your snoring.”

John took the water gratefully and smiled a little himself as he took in the sight of Julia standing there with her red hair spilling over her bare shoulders and her lips curling into that smile. He took a good long look at the rest of her and his internal child snickered. Must be cold in here, he observed. “Thanks,” he said, handing the cup back. “Are you all right? Medically, I mean.”

“Fine,” Julia said, curling up on the chair next to his bed. “I only had a few bruises that are mostly healed, and neither Tigra or Bonita were seriously injured. Starfox barely sat through his decontamination and has already left, Tigra said he wished us the best, but what happened with that little girl shook him. They still have poor Cathy sedated, but it looks like Moonhunter’s friend completely healed her wounds, at least on the surface. She and Jack were engaged, you know.”

“Yeah, I did,” John said, nodding. “I feel bad that we didn’t get to them sooner. If only Meteorite hadn’t gotten in the goddamned way, or Paralyzer.” His face clouded and his fists clenched into a ball. “What could have possessed them to go to those lengths? They had no business doing what they did without Cap. Stupid Avengers nonsense getting in the way of things again.”

“C’mon, Jack,” Julia said, putting a hand on his forearm. “You can’t blame the Avengers, they mean well. Things happen, and sometimes it’s not good things.”

“I know, but after Jeanie and the Watchdogs, I didn’t know something like this was going to come up,” he said, sighing deeply. “And the hits just keep on coming. Do you know Steve and Fury want me to lead a new team of proactive street-level heroes? Me?!”

“I do,” Julia said, smiling at him. “I already told Bludd that I’m in.”

Jack’s heart soared at this and he tried to keep the shock and utter joy off of his face as he stammered, “Y-you are? I mean, that’s great! I was gonna ask you tomorrow, but…”

“It felt good,” Julia said, cutting him off. “Helping people in trouble, friends in trouble, doing good. After what happened to the Works I didn’t think I’d get the chance to do that again. So thank you, Jack, for giving me back a part of me I’d been ignoring…a part of me I didn’t even know I had been missing.

She leaned forward then and kissed him on the forehead, but she didn’t pull away right away. He looked up at her where she hovered just above his face and locked his eyes with hers and suddenly the air became electrified and he found it hard to breathe. “Julia, I…” he began even as his hand was already moving up and caressing the side of her face, running from her cheek down her jaw and into the velvety hairs on the nape of her neck. With only the slightest tug her lips were pressed against his and the circuit was complete.

With a soft moan in the back of her throat, Julia Carpenter lowered her lips onto those of John Walker and the touch of him, the taste of him, set off a forest fire in her body spreading from her chest into every limb and extremity. She eagerly leaned into his kiss, parting her lips even as she felt his incredibly strong arms lift her from the deck and onto the bed, her body sinking onto and conforming to the hard, defined muscles of his chest and stomach even as her hands snaked around his head and pulled at him with equal strength and suddenly blossoming desire.

John wrapped his arms around her waist and crushed her lithe form to him, his hands and tongue exploring the areas available to him even as he felt her fingers latch onto his hospital gown with their indescribable adhesion ability and felt the cloth ripped from him like tissue paper even as he ripped the cotton shirt from her and rolled in the bed and lowered himself into her waiting arms.

A few hours later, in the minutes before dawn broke over the western coast of the United States of America, a figure silently flew toward the randomly-lit underside of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. Moving with a precision that was almost mechanical, the figure dodged all sensory and light beams emitted from the mighty airship, the glistening purple skin containing a number of countermeasures for both passive and active scanners of the vessel. Drawing up short of impacting the Helicarrier, the figure paused, matching velocity with the ship and tracing a path around the bulging hull until it arrived at the closest exterior portion of the hull to where his target was located.

[Soon, my friend,] the mechanical voice said as two telescopic arms snaked from the torso of the mechanical marvel known as X-51, the Machine Man, placing the large circular device flat against the titanium hull of the craft and pressed an unbelievably complex series of numbers into the control surface, setting a timer for the massively powerful explosive and rose slowly up the side of the ship to a safe zone. While a countdown ran along the inside of X-51s visual HUD display, the consciousness inside the robot stretched out and touched the minds of those waiting in the darkness far above the Helicarrier.

Just as the explosion tore through the side of the Helicarrier and through the bodies of more than a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, the signal was sent to the Swarm: [Kill!]

 

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