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Coulson glanced toward the medical bay, his expression easy.
"Thanks to Hermione's magic. She healed Skye."
The look on Garrett's face froze for just a beat. Before he could say anything, the medical bay door swung open.
Skye walked out. Her complexion was still a little pale, but she moved freely, no trace of someone who'd nearly bled out on a table. She even pulled a face at Coulson.
Garrett's pupils snapped tight. Then, just as quickly, he arranged a warmer smile and moved to meet her.
"Wonderful! Seeing you on your feet, we can all breathe again."
"All thanks to Miss Witch's incredible magic." He beamed. "Truly something else."
He looked completely genuine. Overjoyed, even.
Hermione stood a short distance away and watched.
She caught it, that flicker beneath the smile. A shadow, gone in less than a second. The particular irritation of a man whose careful plan has just been knocked sideways.
The corner of her mouth curved.
He's good.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 8, the team's friendly uncle with the easy laugh, and, underneath all of it, a senior Hydra operative. Years ago he'd been gravely wounded on a mission and left behind. The resentment had curdled. Pierce reached out, and the rest followed.
The wounds from back then never fully healed. He still relied on mechanical modifications just to keep himself going.
When he heard Coulson had come back from the dead, he became obsessed. He needed that secret, needed it to fix what was broken in him. Orchestrating Skye's shooting had been the plan: watch Coulson scramble to save her, figure out how he'd done it. He hadn't counted on Hermione. The magic had healed Skye before he could learn a thing.
May stepped in from the corridor.
"Quinn's awake."
Coulson nodded and looked around at the group. "Let's go have a chat with him."
Garrett and Tripp fell in. Ward moved ahead without a word, jaw set. Skye crossed over from the medical bay, something eager flickering in her face.
"I'm coming."
Coulson looked at her. Didn't object.
They filed into the interrogation room.
Ian Quinn sat in the chair like he owned it, wearing the smile of a man who knows he's untouchable. He looked at Coulson the way you'd look at something mildly amusing.
"Agent Coulson. We meet again." Casual. Almost warm. "A pity, I don't think you'll be getting much out of me today."
Coulson's face gave him nothing. "Is that right, Mr. Quinn? You seem very sure of yourself."
Quinn spread his hands. "The Clairvoyant knows everything. Your operations, your objectives, all of it. He's already ten steps ahead."
Ward's fist connected with Quinn's face before anyone spoke.
He was Hydra. He was playing a part. But he'd genuinely liked Skye, that part wasn't performance. And he hadn't known Garrett was behind any of this. He had nowhere to put that anger, so Quinn got it.
Quinn spat blood. The smile came back anyway.
"You think I'd give him up? His power is beyond anything you can imagine."
Coulson shook his head and glanced at May. He was an even-tempered man by nature, but one of his own had nearly been killed. The usual gentleness was gone. May stepped forward.
Then the door opened.
Skye walked in, light on her feet, a sharp little smile on her face.
Quinn's smile died. His eyes went wide, like he was looking at something that shouldn't exist.
"You — how are you — you were shot. I saw it."
Skye crossed to the other side of the table, folded her arms, and tilted her head.
"Yeah. I was."
Easy. Almost bored.
"Disappointing, I know."
Quinn stared at her. His voice dropped to a mutter. "Impossible. It was an abdominal wound. That's impossible, "
"Nothing's impossible."
The voice came from behind Skye.
Hermione strolled in, unhurried, and leaned against the doorframe. She looked at Quinn the way someone looks at a mildly interesting problem they've already solved.
Quinn's head came up. The moment he recognized her face, a face he'd seen on every news feed for months, the blood left his face in an instant. What remained was pure, undisguised terror.
"M-Miss Witch,?!"
He could barely get the words out.
The whole world knew what that face meant. Power that didn't follow any rules they understood. An existence that had casually obliterated an alien fleet.
Everything clicked into place at once.
That's why Skye was alive.
Hermione smiled. Her eyes didn't.
"You know who I am. Good. That saves time."
She stepped forward and placed both hands flat on the table. Her frame was slight. The pressure she put into the room was not.
"Two choices. Either you tell us everything, right now, on your own, or I reach into your mind myself." She paused, just a beat. "Soul Search. Legilimency. Call it what you like. Either way, I'll see everything in there."
Quinn went rigid.
It sounded insane. He didn't doubt it for a single second.
He deflated. The confidence, the smirk, the whole performance, gone. He sagged in the chair like something had cut the strings.
"What's there to say?" His voice was flat. "You have her. I'll talk. I'll tell you everything."
He lowered his head and started talking.
The interrogation room went very quiet.
Coulson's expression was hard to read. Garrett kept his head down, face hidden. Around the room, everyone was processing it differently, but the shape of it was the same for all of them.
This had all been about Coulson's resurrection. Every piece of it.
And Quinn had just been a pawn.
---
Outside the interrogation room.
Hermione looked at Coulson. "So. This 'Clairvoyant.' What exactly are we dealing with?"
Coulson's expression settled into something more serious, a slight furrow forming between his brows.
"A target we've been tracking for a long time. While you were gone, we crossed paths with him indirectly, a few times." He paused. "He's extremely difficult to pin down. He always seems to know exactly what we're going to do before we do it. Like he has someone watching us from the inside, or he can see the future."
Nearby, Garrett nodded at just the right moment, his face arranged into appropriately grave lines.
"Our working theory," Coulson continued, "is that he has some kind of precognitive ability. Or a surveillance power, something we don't have a framework for. Real-time, long range, total coverage."
Hermione cut him off.
"Precognition." She said it like a word she was trying on. "And remote surveillance."
She shook her head.
"Impossible."
One word. Everyone in the corridor stood a little straighter.
When it came to superpowers and the unexplained, there was no one more qualified to weigh in than the woman standing in front of them.
Coulson pushed on. "We've gone over the data more than once. He knows operational details — specific details, almost without error. The only explanations that have ever made sense are precognition or some form of surveillance we can't detect."
Hermione made a soft, dismissive sound.
"Think about what you're actually describing. Precisely predicting every detail of another person's specific actions, repeatedly, in real time." She shook her head again. "I'm a natural Seer, and I couldn't do that. Gellert Grindelwald, who once tore through half the wizarding world, couldn't do that."
A beat of silence.
Then it hit.
Wait. What did she just,
Gellert Grindelwald.
Tore through half the wizarding world.
The next second, every person in that corridor was on their feet, staring at her. Eyes wide. Whatever they'd been thinking about the Clairvoyant was completely gone.
➤ Next: The First Wizarding War
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