Natasha's expression shifted immediately. The humor, the deflection—all of it disappeared behind a mask of grim focus. She took a breath, organizing her thoughts, and then she spoke.
"Yesterday evening," she began, "the Avengers were notified about Thor's hammer falling into New York."
Lucien remained calm. He was aware of that, after all... he was probably the first one to sense that.
"Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Vision responded to the crash site," Natasha continued, her eyes distant as she recalled the events. "Standard protocol for Asgardian artifacts. They were supposed to secure the area, assess the situation, and report back."
She paused, and Lucien could see her jaw tighten.
"That's when everything went to hell."
Natasha's voice began pacing slowly. She was falling back into the familiar pattern of reporting mission failures.
"Vision went offline," she said, her voice carrying frustration and disbelief. "A virus, maybe? I don't know the technical details, but one moment he was active, and the next he just... stopped. Dropped like someone had cut his strings. Tony and Clint managed to get him back to the compound, but that's where things got worse."
"When Tony and Clint came back to the compound, they weren't alone," Natasha continued. "And they weren't themselves. They immediately started attacking the other Avengers. No warning, no explanation, just sudden violence from teammates who'd fought side by side for years."
"Who was with them?" Lucien asked.
"Someone in a large coat with a mask covering their face," Natasha replied. "We only know that from the security footage Jarvis managed to save before..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "I'll get to that. The point is, there was someone else in the compound. Someone who could control people."
She stopped pacing and turned to face Lucien directly.
"Within hours, all of the Avengers were under their control—every single one. Steve, Sam, Rhodey, Carol—everyone who was at the Compound fell. And once they had the Avengers, taking over SHIELD was easy."
The casual way she said it made it somehow worse. Easy. As if the entire primary defense organization of Earth had been nothing more than a minor obstacle once the Avengers were compromised.
"How many SHIELD agents are compromised?" Lucien asked.
"No idea... but I am assuming all of them... or at least the leadership is done for," Natasha said flatly. "Everyone at headquarters, everyone at major facilities, everyone in key positions. There might be a few field agents still free, scattered across the world on long-term deep cover assignments, but anyone who could be reached has been turned."
Lucien processed that. SHIELD had thousands of agents. Thousands of trained operatives with access to advanced technology, classified information, and resources that could level cities. All of them are now working for some unknown telepath.
Were telepaths that powerful?
"And the scariest part," Natasha said, her voice dropping lower, "is that all of that happened without any public notice."
Lucien blinked. "What?"
"No one knows," she repeated. "The public has no idea that the Avengers are compromised. No idea that SHIELD has fallen. Everything looks normal from the outside. The Avengers are still in their Compound, SHIELD is still operating, and to anyone watching, nothing has changed."
That was... Lucien struggled to find the word. Terrifying? Impossible? The idea that Earth's mightiest heroes could be taken over and no one would know, that they could still be walking around, appearing normal while being puppets for someone else...
Did the infighting amongst the Avengers go unnoticed by the civilians near the Avengers compound?
"How?" he asked. "How did they keep it quiet?"
"Because whoever is controlling them is smart," Natasha said. "They didn't make the Avengers go on a rampage. They didn't order SHIELD to do anything obvious. They just... took control and then had everyone continue acting normally. Business as usual."
Lucien's mind was racing. This level of subtlety, this kind of planning—it spoke to someone with incredible patience and intelligence. They'd orchestrated a perfect takeover and then had the discipline to not immediately use their new assets in ways that would alert the world.
But something didn't add up.
"Why weren't you under control then?" Lucien asked.
Natasha's expression darkened. For the first time since she'd started explaining, real pain showed through her professional mask.
"I was on a mission with a few other agents," she said quietly. "Standard intelligence gathering, nothing special. We were supposed to be gone for a week, but we finished early and were heading back to our safe house to wait out the remaining days before our scheduled return."
She paused, and Lucien could see her hands clench into fists at her sides.
"As soon as we reached our safe house, we were ambushed by other SHIELD agents. People we'd worked with, trained with, and trusted. They came at us with the clear intent to kill. Not capture, not subdue—kill."
The warehouse was silent except for the distant sounds of the city. Lucien waited, letting her tell it at her own pace.
"My team was eliminated," Natasha said, her voice carefully controlled but unable to completely hide the grief beneath. "Four good agents who'd survived situations that should have killed them a dozen times over, taken out by their own colleagues. I barely escaped myself."
"How did you get away?" Lucien asked.
"Sharon," Natasha replied. "Sharon Carter and two other members of my team. They realized that I was the primary target. They gave me cover, held off the attackers long enough for me to get away."
"They died," Lucien said. It wasn't a question.
"They died," Natasha confirmed. "Bought me maybe ninety seconds with their lives. That's all I needed, but..." She took a breath. "They were good people. They deserved better than being gunned down in a safe house by compromised agents."
Lucien nodded slowly.
"Even with all that chaos, all the people trying to kill me, I still had no idea what had actually happened at the Compound," Natasha continued, pulling herself back to the briefing. "I just knew that SHIELD was compromised and I needed to stay hidden and figure out what was going on."
"So how did you find out?" Lucien asked. "About the Avengers, about the takeover?"
"Jarvis," Natasha said.
Lucien's eyebrows rose. "Jarvis? Tony's AI?"
"The same," Natasha confirmed. "He realized what was happening before the takeover was complete. Saw Tony attacking other Avengers, saw the person in the mask, and understood that everyone in the Compound was being controlled. And he did the only thing he could—he started saving data and reaching out to anyone he thought might still be free."
"He contacted you," Lucien said.
"He sent me an encrypted message with all the information he'd managed to gather," Natasha replied. "Security footage, timestamps, analysis of what had happened at the crash site, everything. That's how I know about Vision being shut down, about the masked person, about the sequence of events."
She pulled the pen drive from her pocket, holding it up.
"This drive has all of that information. But more importantly, it has something Jarvis uploaded before he went into hiding to avoid being deleted."
"Deleted?" Lucien echoed.
"Tony is trying to erase him," Natasha said, her voice hard. "Or whoever is controlling Tony. They recognized that Jarvis knew too much and could potentially interfere. So they're deleting him from all systems."
"But he got away," Lucien guessed.
"He uploaded himself to a safe house that Tony doesn't know about," Natasha confirmed. "Some backup server that Jarvis kept secret even from his creator. He's suspended all activities there, completely dormant, not even pinging the network. If he does anything—anything at all—Tony's systems will detect him and trace him, and then he'll be erased from existence."
Jarvis, one of the most advanced on Earth, was forced to play dead in a digital corner to avoid being killed by its own creator.
"What did Jarvis upload to the drive? You said there were coordinates... but you were being vague about them... about them being encrypted and me getting traced if I decrypt the coordinates," he asked.
Natasha nodded, "That person who is controlling them all... he or she left the compound after a while... but Jarvis tracked them down, and it's their coordinates that are in the drive. The problem is, they're encrypted. High-level encryption that Jarvis put on them specifically so Tony couldn't just crack them immediately if he got his hands on the drive. But, Tony being Tony... even though he did not know what Jarvis was uploading to my drive... he uploaded a tracking software along with Jarvis's data."
"Tony knows that Jarvis gave me something, knows that there's a drive out there with information on it. But he doesn't know that the drive contains the location of the person controlling him. He just knows it's important, which means he'll be looking for it. Looking for us."
"But you said you can't decrypt them," Lucien said, remembering her earlier words.
"I can't," Natasha agreed. "And neither can you. No matter what Jarvis did to protect the data, he could never outsmart his creator. Tony Stark is still one of the smartest people on Earth, even when he's being controlled. The moment anyone tries to decrypt those coordinates, the software will send Tony a signal. And then the Avengers will be after us."
That was a problem. A significant one. If they couldn't access the information without alerting their enemies... he was not afraid of anyone on the Avengers team... though the likes of Hulk, Thor, and Captain Marvel could be a problem.
"So what's the plan?" Lucien asked.
"Hawaii," Natasha said simply.
"There's someone who can help us with the decryption. Someone Jarvis specifically pointed us toward. Their exact coordinates are also in the drive, but those aren't encrypted—Jarvis left them accessible because we need to reach them before we can do anything else."
"Who is this person?" Lucien asked, remembering she had asked him to go to that person.
"I don't know," Natasha admitted. "Jarvis didn't include that information, probably because he was running out of time before he had to go dark. But he wouldn't have sent us to them if they couldn't help. Jarvis doesn't make mistakes like that. The co-ordinates of our helper themselves are not encrypted, only the ones of the mastermind are... but, once we connect this drive to any device...."
"...we get surrounded." Lucien completed her sentence.
Lucien considered it. A trip to Hawaii to find an unknown person who could decrypt coordinates, and even before that, they would alert their enemies about their location. It sounded insane.
But what other choice did they have?
"Any idea about who this person might be?" Lucien asked, shifting topics. "The one controlling everyone, I mean."
Natasha shook her head. "Not for certain. But from what Jarvis managed to capture before he went dark, I can make some educated guesses."
"I'm listening."
"They're a telepath," Natasha said. "And a powerful one. To control someone like Carol Danvers, who has mental defenses that can rival some of the best telepaths on Earth? To take over Tony Stark, whose armor includes psychic shielding? To coordinate the simultaneous control of thousands of people across multiple locations?"
She paused for effect.
"We're talking about someone on the level of Emma Frost or Charles Xavier. Maybe even beyond them."
Lucien felt that cold sensation in his chest intensify. Emma Frost was one of the most powerful telepaths in the world. Charles Xavier was said to be the strongest before his disappearance. If someone at that level was behind this...
That made their timeline even more urgent. They needed to reach Hawaii, find this mystery person, get the coordinates decrypted, and then somehow mount an assault on a telepath strong enough to control the Avengers. All while avoiding said controlled Avengers.
Simple.
"Why not go to Emma Frost?" Lucien asked, the thought occurring to him. "If we need a powerful telepath to help us, and you think this person might be on her level, wouldn't she be able to—"
"No," Natasha cut him off sharply. "Absolutely not."
Lucien frowned at the intensity of her response. "Why not?"
"Because, considering her past, it could very likely be her," Natasha said bluntly. "Emma Frost has a history of morally gray decisions, of working with and against various factions depending on what serves her interests. She's helped save the world and nearly destroyed it at different points. Taking you to her could be walking right into the enemy's hands."
"Walking me into..." Lucien started confused, then understanding dawned. "Oh. You mean she could control me, too?"
Natasha gave him a look that clearly said she thought he should have figured that out himself. "Yes, Lucien. She could take over your mind. You're powerful, but power doesn't mean much against a telepath of that caliber. One second you're talking to her, the next you're her puppet. And then she has another incredibly powerful asset to use however she wants."
"Oh, that," Lucien said, and he saw Natasha's expression shift to wary confusion. "Don't worry. I'm immune to telepathy."
There was a beat of silence. Then another. Natasha stared at him, her face completely blank... waiting for him to tell her that this was a joke.
Finally, she sighed.
"You know what?" she said, her voice carrying a note of tired acceptance. "I'm not even shocked anymore."
Despite the tension, Lucien felt a small smile tug at his lips. There was something almost funny about how casually Natasha had just accepted that he was immune to one of the most dangerous powers in existence.
"Well," Natasha said, pulling herself back to business, "for now, we stick to the plan. That location in Hawaii is a must-visit. There are two packages there that we need to secure."
"Packages?" Lucien asked. "What kind of packages?"
"I'll tell you about them later," Natasha replied. "Right now, we need to focus on getting there. The longer we wait, the more time Tony and the others have to find us. And I don't want to be here when they do."
"How are we getting to Hawaii?" he asked. "I assume we can't just book a flight."
"Tony has access to every airline database, every airport security system," Natasha confirmed. "The moment we try to board a commercial flight, he'll know. We could try to drive to a more remote airport, charter a private plane, but that's risky too. Any transaction we make leaves a trail."
"So what's the plan?" Lucien asked.
Natasha smiled, and there was something almost mischievous in the expression despite their dire circumstances.
"We're going to steal a Quinjet."
Lucien blinked. "You want to steal a SHIELD Quinjet? From SHIELD? The organization that's currently compromised and trying to kill you?"
"Not from SHIELD proper," Natasha clarified. "There are a few hidden facilities that even the main organization doesn't have complete records of. Black sites within black sites. I know of one about three hours from here. It has a Quinjet in storage, fueled and ready to go."
"If SHIELD doesn't have complete records of it, how did you know about it?" Lucien asked.
"Because I helped set it up," Natasha replied. "Back when Fury was still running things. He believed in redundancies, in having backup plans that not even SHIELD knew about. This facility is one of those backup plans."
That made sense. Nick Fury was paranoid in the most productive way possible, always preparing for scenarios where his own organization might turn against him. Apparently, that paranoia was about to pay off.
"Alright," Lucien said. "We take a Quinjet to Hawaii, find your mystery person and these packages, get the coordinates decrypted, and then figure out how to take down a telepath powerful enough to control the Avengers. Simple."
Natasha snorted at his dry delivery. "When you put it like that, it sounds almost easy."
"That's the spirit," Lucien replied with a smirk.
...
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