Engineering Division

“Only because he doesn’t try to find a new way,” she muttered irritably under her breath. Ellie really did love her dad, and she knew he did too. She knew he tried his best but it was the feeling that there was more that they could do that bothered her. She was convinced there had to be a better way than relying on a device to protect them. Somewhere along the way she’d convinced herself that if they worked on it together, they could solve the problem, but he never seemed interested.

Ellie sat up on the tree limb, letting her legs dangle off as she kept her hands on the branch to keep herself steady. She eyed the image of a normal scan Jami produced with moderate interest. The other image, however, really caught her attention. Surprise filled her features. “I’m surprised he didn’t burn the whole building down. Did he burn you?” She scanned Jami’s visible skin, looking for burn marks.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone fault. I tripped on a rock. How were we to know that the watch case wasn’t strong enough to handle a fall on the pavement? Even Dad didn’t foresee that one. SHIELD just doesn’t like supers…” She crossed her arms, and stared out over Jami’s head. “Dealing with supers is part of the job description, you’d think they’d have a little more compassion on them.”

Looking back towards Jami she smiled. “At least you get it. Even if the rest of them don’t. And I think you’ve gotten hurt more times than anyone of them.”

Jami offered her niece a sympathetic smile, but otherwise let the matter of her father lie. They had had this conversation a million times before, and would likely have it again. One day she hoped they’d work things out between them, for better or for worse, but in the meantime she would continue to be a mediator between the two.

She flipped her hand over, squinting at the palm in the semidarkness. The sunburn-like mark had faded somewhat, but was still very much visible, and it still stung. “Bit, but nothing bad. He’d warned me away, but you know me. I got carried away and clapped him on the shoulder. My own fault, really.”

Grant paced as he waited in the small meeting room. There was little more than a semi-comfortable couch, and a table with two chairs on opposite ends. And the clock on the wall, slowly tick-tocking away. He paused and glanced at it with a frown. They were late. Where were they? Did something happen? Had a higher up decided to cut me without saying? He shook his head; that was unlikely. Although, his most recent counsellor hadn’t been impressed that even after a couple of months, Grant had still barely opened up to them. It wasn’t like that was a personal thing against them though; Grant just simply still found himself struggling to find someone that he wasn’t afraid to trust. It had been that way since Hydra had revealed themselves and he had had to betray his team. …since Garrett had been killed.

Grant’s hands clenched into fists as his mind recounted those weeks. He’d hurt people he cared about due to his misplaced loyalty to the other man. Garrett. He’d lied to Grant and manipulated him. But, as Grant was beginning to learn: that wasn’t an excuse. He could have at some point said ‘no’, even if it would likely have gotten himself hurt. Surely that would have been better than obeying him like a trained dog?

Late. You’re late. Get yourself together, it’s just one guy, he’s not after you. This is stupid. Just go in.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It had been years, now. The splinter group that had taken her was long gone, she had been assured. So why the hell was she still in the hallway? When SHIELD had put out a request to certain agents, seeking a volunteer to be paired up with a reformed HYDRA agent, she’d applied without a second thought. She hadn’t really believed they would select her, given her history with the organization, but she’d been informed that was precisely why she had been chosen. If there was an agent unlikely to turn in favor of HYDRA, surely it would be one who had suffered at their hands--

The breath whooshed out of her, and she shook her head. Don’t overthink it. He’s just a bloke. And your new partner. You can do this. She rounded the corner and pushed her way through into the meeting room that had been set up for her to meet Grant Ward. She knew her smile looked a tad shaky, but it was beyond her to stop that now. Her hands twisted together in front of her as she took a few strides forward into the room, betraying her nerves despite her attempt to appear her normal, chipper self.

“He can’t stand not to yell at people, I think,” Ellie groaned, letting out a sigh. She honestly felt like the last several visits had just been tense between them. She wasn’t careful enough, she shouldn’t have joined the Avengers, she should be working for SHIELD, taking art classes was a mistake… at least that one he’d backed off on after seeing her work. He’d actually complimented her and apologized. But he still mentioned his fear for her safety as well as everyone else’s.

One of these days people would get it. People would realize just how much her skills hurt her as well as everyone else caught in it. How much holding it in hurt. Her head tilted a little in response to Jami meeting someone who needed a watch like hers. “Yeah? How’d you meet him?” What powers does he have? Jami wouldn’t mistake wimpy powers for strong ones… he had to be pretty tough.

“Tell me about it,” she released another sigh. “I’m pretty sure some of the upper SHIELD people still haven’t forgiven me for the 2008 tornado incident.” Take an amusement park add a busted watch and a walking tornado and you get a deadly combination. The cost for that was huge and Ellie had to get permission from then on to go to any amusement parks. And was forced to wear a secondary watch somewhere else on her body in case something happened to the first. 

Jami’s inventions were always fascinating to Ellie. She loved seeing what her Aunt came up with. Ellie always told Jami that she was sure Jami’s tech skills were superpowers, but wasn’t sure Jami ever fully believed that. The follow up compliment brought a big grin to her face. Jami’s praise never failed to produce joy on Ellie’s part. Jami never withheld it, but she always made Ellie feel incredible. The extended compliment wasn’t lost on Ellie, and she smiled broader for it. “Thanks, Anji,” she replied, falling back into her childhood nickname for Jami. 

Jami pursed her lips. “Your dad yells because he doesn’t know how else to protect you. He does his best, you know that.” Edgar was a good man and a good agent, but if truth be told, he had never known how to deal with Ellie. He did his best, but the girl was headstrong, and the more he enforced his boundaries the more she fought to break through them. Jami had always tried to be a more gentle touch with her, to help guide her in the right direction rather than pushing her. To be entirely honest, she wasn't sure her way was any better than Edgar's had been, but it worked well enough for the two of them.

She chuckled at the memory of how she had met Jack. "At work, actually. Was having a bit of a slow day, when he just turned up out of nowhere. He was sort of disoriented, actually. I helped him figure things out. His powers are incredible, El, that's what reminded me of you. He's got-- well, here..." She tapped and swiped at her computer for a moment, and a diagram of a man's body appeared in the air. "That's what a normal bloke looks like when I scan him, yeah? Well, this is Jack." She tapped once more, and the image lit up like a Christmas tree. "He's got all this energy stored up inside him, enough that it's always leaking out, overflowing in the form of extreme heat." Distantly, Jami was aware that she was babbling now. Ordinarily, that would be her cue to stop and slow down her explanation, make sure that whoever was listening was following along. Ellie, however, had a history of keeping up with her aunt's rambles, so she made no effort to curb it. "Basically, he's got the intensity of a blue supergiant inside of him all times, and he's holding it back enough that he's not--well, he's not burning everything near him to a crisp. Usually, anyway. He's different from you, sure, but I figured it was worth a shot."

"Perhaps they haven't, but they should. That was no more your fault than it was mine." Jami didn't care to recall that particular incident; If she had just stayed closer to Ellie, then maybe... As it was, she had been far enough away that when the girl's watch broke and all hell broke loose she'd been caught in the first blast of wind and thrown even further. By the time she had struggled her way back to her ward with the backup watch, the damage had already been done, and she herself was nursing a head injury. It had taken quite a bit of maneuvering for Edgar to get Ellie out of hot water for that one.

“I’m from Texas,” he said. “And you know plenty. You probably know from those scans that I give off pretty intense UVA and UVB radiation, so you know more about me than most people do.” Jack winked, trying to keep things lighthearted despite the directions his thoughts had taken. Jami’s pause, followed by her attempt at putting back on a bright and unworried smile when she talked about people who set out to hurt others had him wondering things he wished he didn’t have to. Had someone hurt her, he wondered, and hoped that the answer was no, even while he was fairly certain it couldn’t be. The life of a SHIELD agent was never really safe. 

“I don’t really do much of anything right now. Just tryin’ to find my new place, I guess. I’ve spent the last… apparently it’s 2020 now? So the last five years pretty much gone. First I was dead, human body was killed in..” He hesitated, realizing that he wasn’t sure whether or not she even knew about the Blood Star. “Back in fall of 2015, there was this… thing. Life almost ended. Everywhere, I mean, not just here. The Blood Star, the Foesitians, the struggle with the Void, call it whatever you want. All the other world, realities, universes, the entire multiverse was just ended by these… things, the Foesitians. I died in that final battle, when I came back, my body was – this. Anyway, I’m just trying to figure out what to do with myself now that my traveling companion seems inclined to sort of settle down here. I’d just been up with him earlier today, guy lives on a spaceship, we spent a couple of years just traveling between worlds, doing some science… only now,” Jack shrugged, “I’m pretty aimless. Might try to get work somewhere as a welder for a while, just as something to do if we’re going to stick around on Earth for a while.” 

Jack shrugged and wondered if he had even come close to satisfying her curiosity. He wasn’t sure just what to say; once upon a time, talking to people had been so much easier, so much more natural, but now? Now, he struggled to fit in at all, to connect  the way he used to, and he hated it. Jack missed  people, missed laughing with friends, meeting strangers… 

“Can I ask, what motivated you to become the badass scientist you are? It sounds like it must have taken a lot of work and a lot of dedication, passion, to get so proficient in all those things you can do… How come you didn’t take the easy way out and just settle down in a safe, cushy civilian job the way most people seem happy enough to do?” 

Jami rolled her eyes at his joking reply to her question, grinning at him. “C'mon, you know what I meant.” Her smile slowly faded as she absorbed his story. ‘Blood Star?’ 'Foestians?’ All of this was news to her, and she gleaned as much information from his words as she could. She’d have to do some digging later, see if she could find anything about any of this. She had no reason to doubt it was true, but if it was it hadn’t made its way to her.

When he’d finished explaining, she bobbed her head again, the smile slowly returning to her face. “Well, for whatever it’s worth, you look good for dead. Glad you found your way back, even if it’s a bit different than you used to be. Your friend with the ship, does he understand why it is you changed? As for a job, have you ever considered applying to SHIELD? We do good work, and I’m sure they could find you a spot where you could be put to good use. Just a thought, don’t take it serious if you don’t want to do it.”

She pursed her lips at his question, considering the best way to answer. “Yeah, you can ask me whatever you like. Getting answers may be a bit trickier depending on the question, but the question itself is always welcome. Guess you’d say I felt like I needed to prove myself. Not only to me, but… well, to my father. He runs a security and tech firm back in England. He wasn’t exactly supportive of my plans to follow my passions when I was a kid, tried to get me to be a 'proper lady.’ Fair certain he just wanted to raise me to marry me off and be done with me, to be honest. He tried to get me interested in anything other than his business, and I wouldn’t have any of it. Time came when I realized I wasn’t gonna get anywhere with him, so I took what I could and…” She shrugged, looking sheepish. “I guess you’d say I ran away from home, though that usually puts a body in mind of a little kid with a knapsack. I was sixteen at the time, and my knapsack was more of a new bank account. Long story short, I put myself through as much school as I could afford, and dear old dad disowned me. Fat loss there. As for the cushy desk job, I did do that for a while. Not two weeks after I’d finished grad school, I got a call from Stark Industries. Someone’d shown him some of my papers, and he’d offered a spot in R&D. I was pretty happy there, did good work, made new innovations… everything I’d ever wanted, really. It was a good life I’d set up for myself, and I was making enough that I could afford to live the way I wanted to. First time I really felt genuinely free.”

Though he thought he heard someone behind him, Dylan at first assumed it was someone who just happened to be going the same way as him and so he ignored it. As he made his way through the streets though, his uneasiness grew. Wanting to test if it was indeed coincidence, Dylan soon ducked into a side street, watching carefully to see if anyone appeared.

Shoving his hands in his pockets to keep them warm while he waited, Dylan anxiously rocked on the balls of his feet, unintentionally making himself look more suspicious.

Jami rounded the corner not too long after the stranger did, and stopped short in the opening to the lane he had chosen to wait in. He was fidgeting, obviously nervous, and she put her hands up, palms out to show she wasn't holding a weapon; she had even elected not to carry her gun today, a decision that she was slowly beginning to regret. Fear could go one of two ways: fight or flight. This man was a complete unknown, so it was difficult, if not impossible for Jami to predict which way he would go. For the time being, she chose to assume nothing.

Ellie groaned, leaning her head back further against the tree. “Just don’t tell him, please? Someone from SHIELD told him last time and when he came to visit it was one giant yelling match.” She let out another sigh. “I am getting better. He always makes it sound like there’s nothing we can do to change our need for the watches. Like we can’t even control it. There’s got to be a way. I don’t want to live like he does, always in fear of his own abilities. Argh!”

The exasperated yell felt like a release in itself. She wasn’t completely foolish, even if she did have a moment or two that would suggest otherwise. But she knew that the only way to try to control it, was to use the abilities her father seemed convinced she must hold under lock and key. 

Ellie smiled weakly over at Jami. “I think you’re one of the few that actually cautions me so that I stay safe. Most people just view it as I have to keep others safe from me.” Her smile broadened with her Aunt’s chuckle. So predictable. She handed over the sketchpad, even though it was getting darker by the minute, she knew her super-gadgety Aunt would have something on hand to allow her to see in the dark. It was the reason behind the joke nickname of Aunt Gadget, or Go-Go-Aunt-Gadget. She always had something up her sleeve.

Jami could only laugh at her little Gust’s moaning. “‘Course I won’t tell on you. I’d be daft to. Didn’t I just tell you he’d give me a proper scolding too? Much rather avoid that, thanks.”

She leaned against the tree, giving Ellie the moment she needed to yell out her frustration. Much like her powers, Ellie had a tendency to let her emotions build until they were much more destructive, and then release it all at once. When she seemed to have herself back under control, Jami flashed her a reassuring smile. “We’ll sort this, El. I’ve met another fella, guy with difficult powers. Workin’ on developing a watch like yours that’ll work for him. He’s offered to give helping you a shot. May not be all that much help, but it’s better than nothing, yeah?”

Her cheerful expression saddened a touch, and she nodded. “Easy to make that mistake. Just look at the one side of the equation. 'Til you learn to use it properly, know every in and out of a gun, you’re as liable to hurt yourself as you are to shoot your target. You’re quite a lot better than you used to be, but you still have a good-sized risk hangin’ over you if you slip up.”

Ellie gave her “Aunt” a cheeky grin. “Busted, as usual. How ever did you guess?” She turned back to the darkening scene before her. She knew Jami would probably calmly remind her that she shouldn’t. Ellie’s father would undoubtedly have scolded her and railed at her for being foolish. Jami never took that approach with her, and for that, at least, Ellie was grateful.

Leaning her head back against the tree she sighted. “I’ve been careful all week, I’ve monitored every weather report, watched for strong patterns and stayed inside those days. I needed a break. I don’t fly all that often. Headed home from work, were you?”

Jami returned the girl’s grin in kind. “Yeah, as usual. Lost a bit of your wind and it angled down, whistled against a couple buildings. Most people likely wouldn’t have caught it, though, you’re getting better. You know, your pop would have a fit if he knew. First at you, then at me, then at you again. ‘M not gonna lecture, you already know what I would say. Just be careful. Higher profile you are, more likely people are to notice you. And that’s not always the good sort.”

Of all the luck to have, the theif had bumped into another pedestrian, so Aeron picked up the pace. Slowing only when the woman tossed him to the ground, brandishing the gun from her hip, training it on the man who cowered in fear of being shot. Her attention strayed over to the gun weilder as she stopped infront of the two. Only one type of people who pull that kind of bullshit and then ask questions. Agents of SHEILD. Now making this a rather unlucky situation.

“Yeah, he was, thanks for stopping him. Now put that shit away.” Aeron motioned to the gun before she grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him to his feet. Random pieces of SHIELD’S vehicle schematics slipped from under his jacket to the floor below. Aeron stomped her foot to the ground to allow her abilities to take hold of the sheets and sent them fluttering to her free hand before the agent could see. “I got it from here Chief. Him and I are gonna have a chat before I turn him over to the authorities. Come on.” She pulled the man in the direction of the shop. @agentjaminewhardt

Jami raised an eyebrow sardonically at the stranger. She’d stopped the man from escaping, by so doing helping the woman, and now she was being scolded for drawing her gun. Not exactly the thanks she had expected, though she hadn't honestly expected much. She waited until the woman had seized the man before she moved the slide, showing that the gun wasn't even loaded. "'S more of a bluff anyway. Never load it unless I've got reason." She tucked the offending item away under her jacket anyway, frowning as a couple of the papers caught her eye. Those are SHIELD schematics. Nothing terribly classified, but not public domain either. Her other eyebrow raised to meet the first when the woman stomped and Mary Poppins-ed the papers up into her hand. She was a super, then. Hopefully not a hostile one. In any case...

She knew better than this. But Ellie was used to taking risks. After turning the dial of her watch down half way, she lifted off the roof with ease, using the air current and a little of her own to help her glide through the air. It wasn’t the most graceful attempt at flying, but it did the trick. 

The sun was setting casting an orange glow on the west side of the cityscape. She flew for no longer than 15 minutes, coming to rest gently in a secluded spot in the park. Slowly turning the dial back to it’s strongest position, she rested against a tree to catch back her breath. After a few more moments she hiked through the woods until she came to an opening with a fairly decent view of one of the ponds. Hoisting herself up into a tree, she pulled a small sketch journal from the bag she always kept with her and began to draw the scene before her.

By the time she caught up to her former ward, she was firmly ensconced in a tree, busily sketching away. That was hardly a surprise to Jami, having long since grown used to any stray bits of paper around her apartment ending up with a doodle on it sooner or later. She took a few steps closer to lean against a nearby tree, and inadvertently stepped on a twig in the process. The girl above immediately reacted, and Jami tried (and failed) to stifle a chuckle at the redhead's words.

“Yeah, apparently it’s some kinda big star, I never learned much about astronomy though, I’ll be honest. Thanos was tryin’ to compare the mass and heat to something I’d recognize, pretty sure I was a disappointment to him.”

The fact that she immediately recognized the name of the star impressed Jack more than he could say. Brilliant people had always left him feeling overawed and happily humbled, and she was no exception. He stood patiently while she finished whatever she was doing, listening to her. Jami seemed to think that he had control  of himself, and for the first time, Jack wondered if maybe, maybe he did have a little more than he thought. Maybe it came from all of that time working with Mar-Vell on the house, but he hadn’t had any of Thanos’s elixir for hours now and this place wasn’t burning. Maybe he wasn’t completely hopeless. Strange, he thought. Of all the places he would have thought he might find some measure of hope, the company of a strange scientist at SHIELD had never made the cut. 

“Tornadoes are nothin’ to scoff at, though. Seen a couple when I was growing up on our ranch, couldn’t help but feel awe and fear at just how powerful they are. El must be absolutely incredible.” Jack studied Jami’s face as they spoke. He had nodded to show that he’d follow her out as soon as she was ready, but he didn’t try to rush her. Now that she understood more of what he was – although Jack himself couldn’t even pretend to understand how he was both a ridiculous, Rigel-like star and a person-shaped thinking being – she could understand the potential, inherent threat of having him in here. However much Jami wanted to hurry or not to get his ass out of this place, Jack told himself to just relax and trust her judgment. So, keeping himself as relaxed as he could, keeping the heat as choked down as he could, he just stayed relatively still, hands in his pockets. “I’d love to meet her. Honestly, I’ve never really felt in control of my own powers, or nature, whatever you wanna call it, but if I can be of any help at all to someone, I’d like to be. What’s the point of bein’ alive if we aren’t good to each other, right?” The smile warmed his eyes again, small as it was, and Jack shifted where he was standing, not wanting to overheat the floor once more. 

“So.. is it alright if I ask.. what exactly do you do here, ma’am? You’re obviously some kind of brilliant scientist – but what all does that entail? If you don’t mind tellin’ me a little about you?” 

Jami studied the information as the scans progressed, her mind examining and discarding ideas as the information rolled in. The more she saw, the more she thought she could tweak El’s watch design to work with his unique physiology. The trick would be to figure out how to adapt it in a way that wouldn’t combust when exposed to that much heat…

The wristcomp finished its scans with a somewhat comical ‘ding’ — while Jami took her work very seriously, she wasn’t without a sense of humor — and she flashed her new friend a bright smile. “Should do for now. If I need more, I can get it from you later on. Meantime, let’s get you out of here so you can stop worrying about the building.“ She gestured for him to follow, and started up the stairs.

"You’re right there. El can be downright frightening when her watch overloads. She’s got to go into one of SHIELD’s Hulk cells to let things go every once in a while to keep the watch from blowing out. It’s quite a sight to see. At any rate, I’m fairly certain that I can arrange for you two to meet. Oh, but forget I called her El, yeah? She goes by Ellie with most people. I’ve called her El since she was just a little thing, and she doesn’t take too well to other people using it. She can be quite a handful if you get her cross at you.” She paused in the stairway, turning to beam at him. “My feelings exactly. Life’s too precious to go around without helping anyone else.” The smile faded for a moment, and her expression closed off slightly. “Or, God forbid, going out of your way to hurt people who’ve done nothing wrong.” She shook herself and pasted the bright smile back in place, albeit not quite as genuinely as before. “Not something I’ll ever understand, that. Still doesn’t mean the person doing the hurting is bad. They can still turn things around, yeah?”

They’d climbed a few more steps before she started to answer his question. “Dunno that I’m that interesting, not when you’re practically a living star, but you’re more than welcome to ask any questions you’ve got. Technically, my specialty is electrical engineering. That mostly means inventing, repairing, and improving gadgets the field agents use. Sometimes it means they need me along on a mission to help with technical bits if it’s particularly complicated. Had to get field training for that, enough that I’d be able to keep myself out of too much danger. I also dabble about in fixing some of the more mundane things that need fixing, and I’ve been known to play mechanic in a pinch.” She glanced over her shoulder with a wry smile. “Guess I’m a bit of everything, except the more squishy science bits. I understand them, enough to do up something like Ellie’s watch, but it’s not really my field. And I doubt anyone would rate me too highly in combat. I’ve got the basics, but I’m not built for a confrontation like that.”

‘I knew the devils would try to test me, but you!’

There was absolute darkness but that gleam was unmistakable. Two hallowed eyes, staring in the distance, breath hot and full of lead. His steps scrapes and whine like the pulleys that hold church bells, tolling forward. Aeron shakes on the ground a warm sensation leaked  from the top of her skull, poisoning her nose with rusted iron.

‘Weak. Sinful child!!!’ 

Aeron shielded herself, the hallowed eyes glows like fire.

‘BANG’

Aeron jolted, inhaling hard as she sat up. Clothes and furniture crashed back down around,  she realized that her bed was drugged to the middle of the room. Her lungs forced out a breath as she steadied herself, swinging her feet onto the hardwood floor. The time change to 4:00am. the alarm began sound off. This was her third dream this week, all with the same gun, the same words her father would say over and over again. As if the man wasn’t already unkind in the flesh, she dreamed him horrifying. Her sobriety couldn’t spare her from this no matter how much just wanted to get back on the morphine, she couldn’t continue to give him this power over her. New year right?

Aeron arrived at Horace’s shop before 5 am, The back door that lead into the main garage was ajar, Aeron narrowed her gaze reaching for tool on the back of her. No one should be in just yet, Aeron was the one opening up for the morning. She treed lightly across the garage staying low and close to the cars. Looking for a sign of life she noticed the light in the second floor office was illuminated. She climbed and walked in to find the place in disarray. Files pulled out from a cabinet drawer, the desk over turned and scattered but nothing else. 

She approached cautiously, attempting to make sense of what was happening, what was taken or worth taking. The label read SHIELD on the front of the drawer. Horace had a few contracts with them for their New York operational vehicles but nothing of value.  Hasty footsteps echoed below in the garage, whoever did this was still here trying to escape. Aeron rushed down the steps and back out into the alley.

Of course, that was the moment she rounded a corner and ran directly into a man running at a dead sprint. Both rebounded backwards a step, caught off guard by the abrupt collision. It only caused the man to hesitate for a split second before he was taking off again, but that moment gave Jami the time she needed to register the shouting of the woman that was chasing the stranger. Almost automatically, she reached out and snagged the collar of the man’s jacket as he ran past her, and used his own speed to maneuver him into a hip throw. Perhaps not the smoothest one, but effective enough to send the stranger sprawling on the ground. In no time at all, the other woman had caught up and Jami had trained her gun on the man.

“When they’re not secretly evil,” Jack agreed with a smile that, for once, made it to his eyes, warming them. “My best friend was part of SHIELD for a while. Tyler Brandt. In 2014, he was this new test position, the liaison between the FBI and SHIELD. He’d been an instructor at Quantico, with the FBI for a long time, guess they thought he was mellow enough to handle you guys… He ended up being hired by SHIELD as the director of the marine division, and then, when everything fell apart and all the SHIELD higher-ups were killed by Hydra…” Jack followed her through the door, “Tyler was the interim director of all of SHIELD. In the Foesitian war. He.. really made me see SHIELD in a better light…” 

Before Thanos murdered him. 

Thinking about Tyler took the same turn it always did, a twist towards the painful, and Jack felt his smile fade away. Sometimes, the depths of his own cowardice and hypocrisy astounded even him; he should have found a way to kill Thanos out of vengeance for Tyler’s death. He shouldn’t listen to Thanos, he shouldn’t see the cold, logical reasons behind why the Titan did what he did.. and, as always, the same argument came back: Thanos killed Tyler, but he helped us save the world – save existence. We never could have done it without him. Besides. I don’t exactly have a clean conscience, either. 

Hadn’t she asked something else? Jack realized that he’d completely ignored her other question, rude as rude could be, and he winced a little. “Sorry, I just walked right over your question about scanning me… Sure. Whatever you want to do. From what I understand, it’s like gettin’ an up-close scan of some star named Rigel? There’s no – no organs or whatever inside me, I got a core of some kind of energy that acts like a heart, but..  if you want to check it out, you’re welcome to.” He was Thanos’s science project so often that the thought of this sweet young woman poking at him didn’t bother him at all; Jack had no head for science, he never had, and if the genius-type people had the chance to learn something from his strange, thoroughly inhuman body, he saw no reason to stop them.

Jami positively beamed in her companion’s direction when he gave a more genuine smile. She hadn’t realized until now just how somber he had seemed, how little of his expression had extended to his eyes. Happiness suited him. Unfortunately, the happiness had drained from his expression all too quickly, and Jami felt herself deflating right along with him. That was short lived. Wonder what happened to his friend. “Sounds like a good sort of man. Glad you got to know him.” For however long you did.

Jack had silently berated himself for not being quick enough to pull away before she could make contact. This woman was being kind to him, kinder than he had any right to expect or even to hope for, and he’d already hurt her. He hadn’t gotten a look at her hand, but given her reaction, he could at least hope that it wasn’t too bad, but all the same, this was a piss-poor way to repay kindness. 

Despite his thoughts, he stayed quiet as she spoke and work. Watching her use the incredible technology was fascinating, and Jack couldn’t really get enough of it. Even though he lived on Sanctuary III with Thanos most of the time – when he wasn’t sleeping on a pile of bricks in Mar-Vell’s place in Brooklyn – he never got tired of seeing the wonders people could create. Jack had grown up on a farm, believing himself to be nothing but a dull human. He’d raised bulls and had thought that a cell-phone was just about the most amazing thing people could possibly invent, even though his family hadn’t even owned one, thanks to there not being even the hint of service near the ranch. This kind of stuff? To him, it was pure magic, and his awe of it easily overtook his stress and confusion, even eased away that ever-present sense of sadness, loss. 

When she was talking again, he nodded and looked at her, standing a bit straighter. “Stairs sound great. As for my friend… I suppose he probably can open portals.” Jack sighed. Now that his head was clearing, he couldn’t help but think that Thanos probably had sent him here, he just couldn’t imagine why. The Titan hadn’t said anything about being  ready to go back to Earth. He’d been upset with Mar-Vell’s arrival, but that was nothing new; the captain in blue was their almost constant companion, a golden light that seemed to do nothing but irritate Thanos’s darkness. 

“Thank you for checking. And I’m not – leaving SHIELD to be rude, but because this… keeping the, um, heat contained, it’s not easy. I’m not sure I really trust myself yet, and I don’t want to risk,” going supernova again, “possibly hurting people here. I used to work for the FBI, I know law enforcement end up in enough danger on a regular basis, nobody ought to have to risk friendly fire.” Jack took a step towards the direction of the stairwell, but something compelled him to stay a bit longer, looking at her. “You.. really are exceptionally kind. Thank you. You didn’t have to be, but – you,” make me miss humans, God, I miss you so much, all of you, all of this, the smell of coffee and xerox paper and the sound of telephones, the smell of other people, “almost make SHIELD seem like a friendly place.” 

Jami flashed Jack another bright smile at the admission. “That’s the how sorted, then, just need to figure the why.” Somehow, the man didn’t look as pleased at the revelation as she had hoped, but for the time being the agent didn’t press the issue; he had enough going on at the moment without her harassing him on top of it all. “Step in the right direction, yeah?”