2014-06-01 - Reward, Punishment or Something In Between

Nick Fury Jr and Phil "Cheese" Coulson had been through some tough scrapes together, but none of them quite so tough as this one. The two SHIELD agents stand side by side in a warehouse facing a sea of yellow suited 'Beekeepers' the footsoldiers of AIM. 
Nick Fury Jr. Tall, black, bald, left eye hidden under an eye patch, stands with a pair of SMGs one in each hand, his blue combat fatigues a little torn and ragged with a few scrapes beneith the cloth. "Huh, guess this one didn't go according to plan," he says as he keeps his guns trained on the Beekeepers. "Think they want their cube back?" he asks nodding to the pack on Phil's back that held the cosmic cube they'd stolen from the mad scientists of AIM.
 
Phil is standing next to younger Fury, sticking with a carbine in his hands, with an underslung grenade launcher, two pistols on his hips. He is also wearing combat fatigues. The balding agent seems very neutral in his expression, not excited at all, just content. To those who do not know him, this would seem strange, at least until you got to meet the guy. The pack is not heavy enough to stop Phil from doing his job, but just for safety's sake, he pops off a grenade from the launcher at a small group of Beekeepers, "Nope." 
The grenade goes off sending yellow suited Beekeepers flying. Fury takes that opportunity to open up with both guns. There was no accuracy to speak of firing like this, but surpressing fire was the order of the day, and heck at this range, even if he missed he couldn't miss, the rounds just hit the next rank. The Beekeepers return fire, for a moment, ray guns lancing out of the grenade smoke to try to burn Nick and Phil down, but Nick jumps to the side, ceasing fire now to conserve the ammo he had left in his clips. "Got another of those Cheese?" he calls back, raising his voice to get above the sounds of the Beekeeper guns, but otherwise sounding calm.
 
Phil's mouth does not move as he rattles off a couple of three-round bursts towards the beekeepers, a couple of them dropping quickly. The rays miss him, but only by an inch at best. His right hand drops to his hip to pull out another grenade that he loads into the launcher, "Yeah, I do believe they want an encore." With little aim he pops it off at them, the blast lighting up. "This is why we cannot have nice things." 
There is a grin from Fury at the quip even as he fires a three round burst of his own and then crouches behind a crate. The big boom gives him a second to pop the clip on his right hand MP5K and letting the other one hang from it's strap on his left. He yanks a fresh clip from the harness on his thigh, taps it on the crate and loads it and chambers a round. It's all smooth seamless motion of a process worked through many times before. He flicks the selector to semi-auto and pops up to take a shot at one of the few Beekeepers still standing and hadn't gotten the hint it was a good time to run. The round shatters the face screen and the Beekeeper is down. "Okay, time to move," he calls to Phil as he begins to stand. 
Just then a half burnt down cigar drops down on the deck between the two agents. "I'd say, if that was a grenade the recovery team would be scraping you guys off this walls with Tostitos," comes the voice of Nick Fury Sr. standing on the stack of boxes behind them in his standard trench coat and SHIELD uniform combo.
 
Phil rattles off a few more rounds at the beekeepers, not taking time to watch them fall, instead following Nick, Jr. That is until the ash falls and the boss' voice reaches his ears. Looking up, the senior agent says, "Sir, that is probably true." The tone is flat, but he does not let go of his carbine, and keeps his back with the pack on it against the crates. 
Fury doesn't freeze, but keeps firing like Phil does, alert and ready until Nick Fury the first calls out "End simulation," the Beekeepers vanish, projections created by Shi'ar hard light technology given to SHIELD with SWORD's compliments. The crates and the other obsticles stay, those are real. Fury Sr hops down from the crates to land lightly on the floor. He stomps out the cigar he threw and pulls a fresh one from inside his coat along with a matchbox. The cigar is put in his mouth, the match is struck and the cigar is lit smoothly as Fury Jr changed magazines in his MP5. The elder Fury, takes a puff then looks at the two men in front of him. "You did good," he remarks. "Come take a walk with me, there's something I want to talk to you about." With that, Fury turns and starts heading for the door. 
Nick Fury Jr. was never that comfortable around his father, heck, he only started calling himself Nick Fury Jr in SHIELD when it was made more or less public knowledge. Even then, people wondered if it was just a nickname because of the eye. Still, Nick Fury Jr, like his father is a soldier, and so flicking the safety on his weapons, he nods to Phil and follows along.
 
Well, that could have been worse. Phil shrugs after being told to follow. He is not one to make a scene or be flashy, he is there to do his job. While he did not start his career with SHIELD, he has shown that he has earned the respect and authority given to him as a senior agent. He returns the nod to Nick, Jr. and follows. 
The senior Fury leads them from the training room past a few passing crewmen of the Helicarrier Orpheus, an older model pulled out of retirement due to the loss of the last new helicarrier in the Merge and budget cuts that prevented the swift building of something newer and better. Fury leads them on to a viewing room and waits for them to enter before closing and locking the hatch behind him. Across from the door are a few couches, in the shape of something like a lounge with a big window out into the sky beyond. New York laid out below the window, drowned in low lying cloud, but with Lady Liberty's torch rising out of it glinting in the pale sunlight. 
Fury Jr moves to the window for a moment looking down at the city before he turns and leans against the railing. "What do you need, Director?" he asks Fury Sr. 
Fury Sr's response is to take a puff of his cigar. "You know Burnside has twisted the tap closed a bit on our funding, along with China and the USSR," he begins. President Burnside was a former SHIELD agent and never one who rubbed Fury Sr the right way, and the feeling was apparently mutual, because now that he was in the White House it seemed he was using it as a chance for a little payback of the finacial sort, and as for the USSR and China, they were never SHIELD's biggest fans and only gave it what the UN Resolution that founded the organization required them to. "It's left us in a bit of a situation when it comes to our duties, we're going to have to learn to do more with less for a bit. Get what I'm saying?" 
Nick Fury Jr frowns "Not really," he glances at Phil.
The quiet agent follows the two Furies and says nothing as they walk, and keeps the silence until spoken to. He shrugs at the younger Fury and says to the elder, "Inconvenient budget cuts are not unfamiliar to us, sir, but they are not overly common." He thinks for a moment, "I take it we are downsizing?" 
Fury Sr. nods, taking the cigar from his mouth, he gestures at Phil with it. "You got it," he says. "We're closing a few offices, moving some folks around." 
"Bullshit," Fury Jr. weighs in on the whole thing. "We saved their asses in the Merge." 
There is no argument or complaint from Fury Sr. "Damn right we did, but the facts never get in the way of a good political screw job, but don't worry, we're going to get back to fighting weight, but until we do, we're going to need our best men out front working twice as hard at keeping the world from falling apart." He moves to one of the couches and putting the cigar back in his mouth he pulls a Stark tech device from one of his pockets as he sits down. When he's settled he turns it on. An org chart pops into being suspended in the air above the device, a picture of Fury sits at the top, then Dum-Dum, and the branching out it shows Phil and Nick Jr below Dum-Dum with some empty spaces below them. "Gonna put together a little squad to deal with our problems. Want you two to work with Dugan and be our front men." 
Nick Jr moves to sit opposite his father, he flashes a grin "I thought you said you wanted the best, what are you offering this to Phil for?" he jokes with a grin thrown Phil's way.
 
Phil listens quietly and nods as points are made. He's not the overly talkative type, but analyzes what he sees. Before he can say anything, his best friend makes a quick joke, and without missing a beat, Phil says with a straight face, "Someone has to fish you out of whatever mess you get yourself into." He turns to the elder Fury, "Who else is going with us?" 
Nick Jr snorts at Phil's return fire but doesn't fire back looking at the chart. "Sounds good, but like Phil says, who else is on the team?" he asks. 
Fury Sr takes a puff of his cigar and lets out a stream of smoke. "Right now, just you two jokers," he shoots them a thin smile. "Recomended Hill and Cater, but that will be up to Dugan, he's going to be running the show with you guys taking the lead in the field depending on the mission. You guys will be Johnny on the Spot, so it'll be a mixed bag, tactical and straight up espionage with a little weird crap thrown in no doubt, because it's SHIELD. Dugan's probably going to want your input on who he brings in, so keep in mind we want people who can handle themselves in the field and not crack under the pressure. My gut tells me there's going to be a lot of work coming your way. That sound alright to you? Because if I've got the wrong guys there's a window right behind you if you want to leave."
 
Figures they would get stuck with this, Phil nods, "Understood and this should work, I assume we will be getting the clearances needed to handle these missions as well as priority for funding, what little we have been given?" Phil nods, "Hill and Carter would work if Dugan brings them on board." 
Nick Jr. nods. "Works for me," he says without any outward doubts. Fury Sr nods as if he expected nothing less. "Yes you're both bumped up to Level 8 clearance, and you've got the pick of our resources for your ops. You guys are going to be the point of our spear, so we need you to be sharp." 
Nick Jr nods. "Right," he says. 
Fury Sr stands "When Dugan gets back tomorrow he'll have all the details, and the three of you can discuss staffing, but before I let you get back to it, any questions?"
 
Phil shows restraint and rolling his eyes at the pun, he just got promoted, he would rather not get demoted just as quickly. "No, sir. Is there anything else you need?"
"No, I'm good," Fury Sr responds with a shake of his head. He looks to his son and Nick Jr shakes his head too. "Alright then, I'll leave you to it and let Dugan know he's got two new headaches to deal with," there's a faint smile from the director before he heads out of the room leaving the cigar smoke wafting behind him. 
When the door closes behind Fury Sr, Nick turns to Phil "You getting the feeling we just got screwed and don't know it yet?"
 
Phil watches the director depart and responds to Nick, Jr. "Yeah, as I said before, we can't have nice things."
Category:Historical Log