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Everyone headed out.
The mission was clearly serious, the whole team had been deployed, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz from the science division included, dragged out into the field along with everyone else.
Hermione stayed behind on the Bus with nothing to do, flipping through the tablet Skye had left. Cybersecurity. Code-breaking. Pages of it.
She couldn't make heads or tails of any of it.
She knew code. Strictly speaking. Just not past "hello world."
Before long, the cargo bay door opened.
Phil Coulson and Grant Ward walked in. Their combat gear was caked in dust and grime, their faces haggard, their whole bearing just slightly wrecked.
The operation to capture Ian Quinn had clearly not gone well.
Ward was carrying a circular metal component, the kind of thing that looked like it had been pried off something much larger.
They moved quickly to the holographic display table in the center of the cabin and set it down.
"That's it," Coulson said, voice tight. "Figure out what that thing is, and we'll know where they went." He went to deal with his wounds.
Ward nodded and placed the component on the table.
Then he stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Looking at it from the left. Then the right. Completely lost.
Hermione narrowed her eyes and watched him. Her chewing slowed.
Ward reached out and swiped at the control interface a few times.
"Holographic desktop, activate."
Nothing.
"Holographic desktop, start up."
Silence.
Ward:...
Hermione:...
She could practically see crows circling inside the cabin.
After an embarrassing amount of fumbling, Ward finally found the power switch. With a CLICK, the table lit up, projecting a pale blue screen. The component's internal structure materialized in the air above it, complex, precise, rotating slowly.
"Oh! You just have to press the power button!"
Coulson came back and assumed Ward had sorted everything out.
"Nice work, Agent Ward!"
Ward's expression went full smug. The look of a man who had achieved something remarkable.
"Zoom in on this area," Coulson said, moving in beside him. "See if we can find the storage unit."
Ward furrowed his brow and started poking at the projection with his fingers.
The screen flickered and switched to a completely unrelated interface.
"No, it's this gesture—" He tried again.
The image shrank. Details dissolved.
"Wait, I remember Fitz and Jemma do it like—"
Coulson leaned in to help. The two of them hunched over the console like a pair of old men seeing a smartphone for the first time, fumbling, flustered, breaking into a sweat.
"Damn it, how does this thing work?" Ward muttered.
"Stay calm." Coulson wiped his forehead. "Where's the manual?"
Hermione had been watching from the side, slowly shaking her head. She was nearly dying of secondhand frustration.
She put down the tablet. Stood up.
"Move. Move."
She pushed both of them out of the way without ceremony and planted herself in front of the console.
Coulson and Ward blinked.
Then they watched Hermione's fingers move across the screen, fluid, effortless, totally unhurried.
Zoom. Rotate. Perspective shift.
The core data storage unit came up, sharp and clearly labeled.
The whole thing took maybe 5 seconds.
Coulson and Ward stared at her, mouths open.
Coulson recovered first. "Hermione — you actually know how to use this?"
Hermione stopped and shot him a look.
"I'm a witch. Not someone who just crawled out of a cave."
Her voice climbed a notch, carrying the specific irritation of someone who's been underestimated.
"Tony's got holographic equipment piled in every corner of his place. I can run the latest models with my eyes closed. This thing S.H.I.E.L.D. has is a relic from 3 years ago." She paused. "Exactly who are you looking down on?"
Coulson and Ward both went a little red.
They looked at each other and found matching embarrassment staring back. Two elite agents from a world of advanced technology, beaten to the controls by a girl from the magical world.
It was not a good moment for either of them.
Coulson cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Good work, Hermione."
He pointed at the enlarged core unit. "But the structure alone isn't enough. We need to know what this thing actually does. The energy readings are strange, it doesn't look like any conventional weapon."
Hermione shook her head.
"That's past me. But I can find someone who might know."
She pulled out her phone and dialed.
It connected fast. A voice came through, slightly drowsy and vaguely put-upon.
"Hello? Who's calling at this hour, doesn't anyone understand that genius requires sleep?"
"Get up," Hermione said. "Work."
The voice sharpened immediately, taking on a familiar teasing edge.
"Oh? If it isn't the one and only magical girl. Rare honor. So, did you wrap up that Greenwich disaster? I heard you were out there fighting aliens again. Without me. Without Iron Man. Do you know how that feels?"
Hermione pressed her lips together.
"By the time you flew that tin can across half the planet, Malekith would've had the whole dark domain set up already."
"My armor is fast, okay? Not everyone can just teleport everywhere like you do, "
"Tony."
"Fine. What do you need?"
"It's not me." She glanced at Coulson and Ward. "S.H.I.E.L.D. picked up a component they can't identify. Asked me to ask around."
"You only call me when you need something," Tony said. "Send the data."
Hermione worked the console and transmitted it.
A few seconds of quiet.
"Hm... okay, that's interesting..."
Then: "Some kind of chemical release mechanism..."
"Yeah. Got it. That's a neurotoxin dispersal device. Wide-area coverage. Designed to knock out human consciousness."
Tony's voice carried clearly through the whole cabin.
Coulson's expression went flat.
"A neurotoxin dispersal device. Like Fitz's night-night gun?" He frowned. "That's our technology. Why would Ian Quinn have it?"
Hermione hung up and looked at him, perfectly relaxed.
"Weren't you about to go pick him up? Once you've got him, just ask."
A few minutes later, the comm crackled.
Coulson answered immediately.
"Coulson." May's voice was taut, her breathing just slightly off. In the background: gunfire, chaos, noise bleeding through.
"May, what's the situation? Did you get Quinn?"
"Got him." A half-second pause. "But Skye's been shot. It's bad. She needs medical attention now."
➤ Next: John Garrett — Face to Face
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