The morning after returning from Budapest, Alex woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain pattering against the windows of Avengers Tower.
Natasha was already up, sitting at the small kitchen counter in one of his t-shirts, reviewing something on her tablet. Her damp hair suggested she'd already showered and probably done her morning workout while he'd been sleeping.
"Morning," he said, padding over to pour himself coffee.
"Afternoon," she corrected without looking up. "It's 12:47."
"I was shot last week. I'm entitled to sleep in."
"The bullet barely grazed you." But she smiled slightly, setting down the tablet. "How do you feel?"
Alex rolled his shoulder experimentally. The wound from the Budapest operation had mostly healed—much faster than it should have. What would have taken weeks now took days. He'd noticed the accelerated healing after the Battle of New York, but it seemed to be improving.
"Fine. A little stiff." He settled next to her with his coffee. "What are you reading?"
"Fury's latest assignments. There's a situation in Prague he wants assessed. HYDRA remnants, possibly." She glanced at him. "I'm wheels up in three hours."
"How long?"
"Week, maybe two." She turned to face him properly. "I know we just got back, but—"
"It's your job. I get it." He did, even if he didn't love it. This was the reality of dating a SHIELD agent. "I'll miss you though."
"I'll miss you too." She kissed him softly. "Try not to get shot while I'm gone."
"No promises. Danger finds me."
"It really does." Her expression grew more serious. "Speaking of which, you've been taking more field missions lately. More direct combat."
"Is that a problem?"
"No. You've gotten better. Much better." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "But you're also taking more risks. Budapest was supposed to be intelligence gathering. You ended up in a firefight."
"Which we won."
"This time." Her hand touched the spot where he'd been shot. "I know you can handle yourself now. I just need you to stay careful. I can't lose you."
Alex set down his coffee and took her hands. "I am careful. I promise. I don't take stupid risks—just calculated ones."
"Your definition of 'calculated' is generous."
"Says the woman who jumps off buildings for a living."
"That's different. I'm trained for it."
"So am I now. You trained me." He squeezed her hands gently. "I'm not the same guy you met at that coffee shop. I'm stronger, faster. I can actually defend myself instead of just coordinating from safety."
Natasha studied him for a long moment. Something shifted in her expression—recognition of something she'd been noticing but hadn't quite articulated. "You're right. You have gotten stronger." She tilted her head slightly. "But it's not just training, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I notice things, Alex. It's what I do." Her thumb traced across his knuckles. "You healed from that bullet wound in four days. Your reflexes are faster than they should be. You're stronger than peak conditioning accounts for."
He'd been wondering when she'd connect the dots. Natasha missed nothing.
"The Battle of New York," he said carefully. "The Chitauri technology, the Tesseract energy in the air... something changed. I don't fully understand it myself."
It was the truth, mostly. The System had given him notifications about absorbing trace energies, about his body adapting to constant threat exposure. He just couldn't explain the System itself.
"Have you told Bruce?"
"He's examined me. Said I'm healthy, just... enhanced. Slightly. Nothing like you or Steve, but beyond normal human baseline." Alex shrugged. "Honestly? I'm not complaining. Means I can actually keep up with you people."
"We're not crazy."
"You're both." But he said it with affection.
She smiled despite herself, then grew serious again. "Just promise me you won't let it make you overconfident. Enhanced or not, you're not invincible."
"I know. I promise."
Natasha leaned forward, kissing him properly this time. When she pulled back, her eyes were soft. "I love you."
"I love you too."
After Natasha left for Prague, the tower felt quieter. Tony was probably in his workshop, Bruce in the lab, Steve doing... Steve things. But his quarters felt empty without her.
Alex pulled out his phone and found a text from Maria Hill.
Maria Hill:Need to brief you on something. SHIELD HQ, 1600 hours. Classified.
He checked the time. Three hours. Enough time to grab lunch and maybe hit the gym.
Alex:I'll be there. What's this about?
Maria:Not over text. See you at 1600.
That was concerning. Maria wasn't usually this cryptic.
Before he could think too much about it, his phone rang. Steve.
"Hey, Steve."
"You free this afternoon? Want to run through some training scenarios."
"Actually, I've got a meeting with Maria at four. But I could do something before that."
"Good enough. Meet me at the SHIELD training facility in twenty minutes?"
"I'll be there."
The SHIELD training facility was state-of-the-art—reinforced walls, advanced equipment, and enough space to safely spar with super-soldiers without destroying everything.
Steve was already there when Alex arrived, wearing simple training gear and wrapping his hands. He looked up and smiled.
"Ready?"
"Always."
They started with warm-ups—stretches, light movement, getting loose. Alex had learned months ago that jumping straight into sparring with Steve was a good way to get injured immediately.
"Natasha left for Prague?" Steve asked conversationally as they moved through forms.
"Yeah. Week or two, maybe longer."
"You doing okay with that?"
"The separation? I'm fine. Worried about her, but that's constant." Alex transitioned into a different stretch. "She's the best at what she does. I trust her completely."
"But you still worry."
"Of course. I love her."
Steve nodded, understanding in his eyes. He knew what it was like to care about someone in danger. "That's normal. Healthy, even."
They moved into light sparring—circling, testing range, feeling each other out. Alex had learned to read Steve's micro-movements, the tiny tells that preceded attacks. His reflexes, enhanced from whatever the Battle of New York had done to him, helped him react faster than he used to.
Steve threw a testing jab. Alex slipped it, countered with a quick combination. Steve blocked easily but had to actually move to do it.
"You're faster," Steve observed, resetting his stance.
"Training pays off."
"It's more than training." Steve came in with a quick combination—jab, cross, hook. Alex blocked the first two, ducked the third. "You're moving like someone enhanced."
"Natasha said the same thing this morning."
"Because it's true." Steve pressed forward, increasing intensity. Alex gave ground, defending, looking for openings. "You're not super-soldier level, but you're past peak human now. What happened?"
"Honestly? Not entirely sure." Alex saw an opening, went for a body shot. Steve blocked but Alex had expected that, used the moment to create distance. "After New York, after everything with the Chitauri and the Tesseract energy... something changed. Bruce thinks my body adapted to the stress and foreign energies."
"Adapted how?"
"Faster healing, enhanced reflexes, increased strength and stamina. Nothing dramatic—I'm not you or Natasha. But enough to notice."
Steve paused the sparring. "How much faster healing?"
"Bullet wound from Budapest healed in four days instead of weeks."
"That's significant." Steve's expression was thoughtful, not concerned. "Any other symptoms? Pain, fever, changes in appetite?"
"No. Just... better. Stronger. Faster." Alex took a drink of water. "Like I'm finally catching up to all of you."
"You're doing more than catching up." Steve reset his stance. "Ready to go again? I want to see what you can really do."
They went another round, and Steve increased the intensity significantly. Alex found himself pushed to his limits—blocking, dodging, countering when he could. Steve was still better, still faster and stronger, but Alex was keeping up in ways he never could have six months ago.
A quick exchange—Steve went high, Alex ducked and swept low. Steve jumped over the sweep, Alex rolled away from the follow-up. They both popped up, slightly winded.
"Good," Steve said, breathing a bit heavier. "That combination was solid."
"I learned from the best."
"You've also got good instincts. You're reading my movements."
Alex had noticed that too. Sometimes he could feel where Steve was going to be, what attack was coming. Not reliably—not yet—but occasionally he'd just know what was about to happen.
They reset for another exchange. Steve feinted left, and Alex saw it—actually saw the real attack coming from the right a split-second before it happened. He blocked perfectly, countered, and landed a solid hit on Steve's ribs.
Steve stopped, looking genuinely surprised. "Did you just predict that?"
"I... yeah. I saw it coming. Just for a second."
"That's not normal."
"Nothing about my life is normal anymore."
They went several more rounds, and it kept happening. Not every time, not reliably, but occasionally Alex would predict Steve's moves just before they happened. Like his brain was processing information faster than conscious thought.
After an hour of intensive sparring, they called it. Steve had won most exchanges, but Alex had held his own far better than ever before.
"You're going to be dangerous," Steve said, toweling off. "Keep developing that predictive ability and you'll be able to fight most enhanced threats."
"Most?"
"Thor's still going to kick your ass."
"Obviously. He's a god."
"But regular enhanced humans? HYDRA super-soldiers? You could handle them." Steve looked at him seriously. "That's both good and concerning."
"Concerning how?"
"Because it means Fury's going to send you on more dangerous missions. You're becoming too valuable as a field operative."
Alex had been thinking the same thing. "Is that bad?"
"Depends on your perspective. You'd help more people directly. But you'd also be in more danger." Steve paused. "What does Natasha think?"
"She's worried but supportive. Knows I can handle myself, but doesn't want me getting overconfident."
"Smart. Listen to her." Steve grabbed his water bottle. "But between you and me? I'm glad you're getting stronger. This world's getting more dangerous. We need people who can actually fight."
"Thanks, Steve."
"Just don't stop planning. That's still your best weapon."
Alex grabbed a quick lunch in the Tower cafeteria—one of the perks of living there was access to food that didn't require cooking—and headed back to his quarters to shower and change before the meeting with Maria.
He was pulling on a clean shirt when his phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
Unknown:Remember to check your six. Trust no one. Friends aren't always friends.
Alex stared at the message. The number wasn't in his contacts, and the encryption signature was... strange. Not SHIELD standard, but not obviously hostile either.
He saved the number and sent a reply.
Alex:Who is this?
No response.
He forwarded the message to Tony's personal line—if anyone could trace a mysterious encrypted message, it was Stark—and made a mental note to mention it to Maria.
His danger sense, that feeling he'd developed since New York, was tingling. Something was off.
SHIELD headquarters in Manhattan was bustling with activity when Alex arrived. Agents moving with purpose, screens displaying global threat assessments, the constant hum of an intelligence organization at work.
Maria Hill met him at the security checkpoint.
"Carter." She nodded to the guards. "He's with me. Level 5 clearance."
They waved him through, and Maria led him deeper into the facility, past the main operations floors and into a more secure section. She didn't speak until they were in a soundproof briefing room.
"Thanks for coming on short notice," she said, closing the door.
"Your message made it sound urgent." Alex set his bag down. "What's going on?"
Maria pulled up a holographic display—financial records, communications intercepts, personnel files. "Three days ago, an analyst flagged some anomalies in SHIELD's internal systems. Nothing obvious—small discrepancies in supply chains, unusual access patterns, communications that don't quite line up with official reports."
"Someone's covering their tracks?"
"Possibly. Or someone's very good at hiding in plain sight." She highlighted several files. "We started digging deeper. What we found is... concerning."
The display shifted to show a network diagram—connections between various SHIELD facilities, personnel, operations. Some connections were highlighted in red.
"This looks like a network analysis," Alex said, leaning forward. "You're tracking relationships and communication patterns."
"Exactly. And when we map it out, we see something interesting." Maria zoomed in on a cluster of red connections. "These people—all SHIELD personnel, different divisions, different clearance levels—they're communicating with each other more than their jobs require. Using secondary channels. Meeting off-site."
"Could be innocent. Friends, relationships, social connections."
"Could be." Maria pulled up another screen. "Except these same people have access to sensitive intelligence, classified operations, and deep SHIELD infrastructure. And their communication patterns match known HYDRA organizational structures."
Alex felt his danger sense spike. "You think HYDRA's inside SHIELD."
"I think HYDRA never left SHIELD." Maria's expression was grim. "Operation Paperclip brought in Nazi scientists after World War II. What if some of them brought HYDRA ideology with them? What if they've been here the whole time, building a network, waiting?"
"That's... that's terrifying."
"It gets worse." Maria highlighted a name on the network. "Alexander Pierce. World Security Council. He's connected to seventeen of the people in this network."
Alex recognized the name. Pierce was high-level, influential, respected. "You think Pierce is HYDRA?"
"I think Pierce is worth investigating. Carefully." Maria zoomed out, showing the full network. "If HYDRA's infiltrated this deep, we can't trust normal channels. We can't even trust most SHIELD personnel."
"So why tell me?"
"Because you're not SHIELD. Not really." Maria looked at him directly. "You're a consultant. You report to Fury, but you're not embedded in the organizational structure. You don't have decades of loyalty and connections that could compromise you. And according to Fury, you're one of the smartest tactical minds he's ever worked with."
"Fury said that?"
"Don't let it go to your head." But there was the ghost of a smile. "I need someone I can trust to help investigate this. Someone who can think strategically, see patterns, and isn't compromised by existing SHIELD connections."
Alex looked at the network diagram, his mind already working through possibilities. "You need someone outside the system to investigate the system."
"Exactly."
"This is dangerous. If HYDRA's really in SHIELD and we start poking around..."
"They'll notice. And they'll try to stop us." Maria's expression was serious. "I won't blame you if you say no. This isn't technically your job, and it could get you killed."
Alex thought about Natasha, about the life they were building. About the promise he'd made to be careful.
Then he thought about HYDRA inside SHIELD. About how many people could die if this wasn't stopped.
"I'm in," he said. "What do you need?"
Maria's shoulders relaxed slightly. "For now? Fresh eyes. Look at these patterns, see if you spot anything I missed. I'll give you access to the raw data—carefully, through isolated systems. We'll meet regularly, share information, build a case."
"Who else knows about this?"
"Fury. Phil Coulson. You. That's it."
"Not even Natasha?"
"Not until we know more. The fewer people who know, the safer they are." Maria handed him a secure tablet. "Everything's on here. Encrypted, air-gapped, physically isolated. Don't connect it to any network."
Alex took the tablet. It felt heavier than it should. "When do we start?"
"You already have. Welcome to the most dangerous investigation in SHIELD history."
Alex left SHIELD headquarters with the tablet hidden in his bag and his mind racing.
HYDRA in SHIELD. It made horrible sense—why SHIELD always seemed one step behind certain threats, why operations occasionally failed for inexplicable reasons, why intelligence sometimes seemed to leak.
His phone buzzed. Natasha.
Nat:Landed in Prague. Mission briefing in an hour. How was your day?
He wanted to tell her. Wanted to share what Maria had just revealed. But Maria was right—the fewer people who knew, the safer.
Alex:Quiet. Training with Steve, meeting with Maria about some logistics stuff. Miss you already.
Nat:Miss you too. I'll call tonight if I can.
Alex:Be safe.
Nat:Always.
He pocketed the phone and headed back to the Tower, thinking about patterns and networks and how deep the conspiracy might go.
His phone buzzed again. Another unknown number, different from before.
Unknown:You're making the right choice. But watch who you trust. Not everyone is who they seem. Even allies can be enemies.
Alex stopped walking. Two mysterious messages in one day, both warning him about trust?
He tried calling the number. It rang once, then disconnected. The number was already dead.
His danger sense was screaming now.
This was going to be complicated.
That evening, Alex sat in his quarters, the secure tablet open on his desk, studying the network diagrams Maria had given him.
He wasn't a data analyst, but he understood patterns. Understood how organizations worked, how people connected, how power flowed.
And this network... it was sophisticated. Whoever had built it had done so over decades, carefully, patiently. Each node was insulated, compartmentalized. If one was discovered, it wouldn't necessarily expose the others.
Classic intelligence tradecraft. Also classic HYDRA.
He pulled up Alexander Pierce's file. Decorated career. World Security Council. Respected by everyone in the intelligence community.
And connected to seventeen people who all showed the same suspicious communication patterns.
Alex started mapping secondary connections—who these seventeen people knew, who they communicated with, what operations they'd been involved in.
A pattern emerged. Nothing obvious, but suggestive. Certain operations had failed in ways that seemed convenient for HYDRA. Certain intelligence had leaked at opportune times. Certain people had died in "accidents" that removed obstacles.
His phone rang, interrupting his analysis. Natasha.
"Hey," he answered, closing the tablet quickly out of habit.
"Hey yourself." Her voice was warm despite the distance. "How are you?"
"Good. Quiet day. You?"
"Prague is interesting. Can't say more over the phone, but the mission's more complicated than expected." He could hear tiredness in her voice. "Probably going to be here longer than two weeks."
"Stay safe."
"I will. What did Maria want?"
Alex hesitated for a fraction of a second. "Logistics planning. Coordinating some future operations, resource allocation stuff. Pretty boring actually."
"You're a terrible liar."
His heart skipped. "What?"
"You hesitated. You always hesitate when you're hiding something." Her tone wasn't accusatory, just observant. "If it's classified, you can just say it's classified. You don't have to lie."
"It's classified," he said, relieved. "Sorry. Not used to keeping secrets from you."
"I know. It's fine. Just... be careful, whatever it is."
"I will. I promise."
They talked for a few more minutes—nothing important, just the comfort of hearing each other's voices—before Natasha had to go.
After hanging up, Alex sat in the quiet of his quarters, looking at the tablet full of dangerous information, thinking about the mysterious messages, about HYDRA hiding in plain sight.
He'd promised Natasha he'd be careful.
But he'd also promised to help Maria investigate.
Sometimes those promises were going to conflict.
He pulled the tablet back open and continued analyzing the network, looking for patterns, for weaknesses, for the thread that would unravel the conspiracy.
Outside, rain continued to fall on New York, and somewhere in the shadows, HYDRA watched and waited.