Back then, when Dante asked Fury to "drop gold coins," it was probably just a joke.
But this time?
Dante was serious.
He needed Fury to bleed a little—for real.
Let's not even talk about the stack of cash he burned buying that Terrigen crystal from Bruce Wayne.
Right now, with the Star Team's lineup growing like a Pokémon roster, that big ol' apartment Dante was originally assigned? Way too small.
Most importantly—
Now they had Thor and Hulk.
Two walking natural disasters. Sure, the apartment was spacious, but there were still neighbors above and below.
If Hulk went full Smash Mode? Nobody could guarantee the furniture or the structural integrity of the building would survive.
Honestly, Dante figured the bare minimum needed was something like Professor X's mansion. Big, indestructible, and isolated enough for Thor and Hulk to throw hands without collateral damage.
Living separately? That was never on the table.
They weren't some janky hero coalition.
They were a legit Federal Bureau of Investigation team.
Call it a non-military squad with military-grade chaos. Living together made sense.
Coulson's team all lived together on the Airbus—but that only worked because they didn't include a thunder god and a gamma-powered wrecking ball.
So Dante brought up the housing issue, full seriousness this time.
Fury stopped grumbling and started thinking.
The Bureau had plenty of property under its name. Most of it was confiscated from supercriminals.
Some of those were legit mansions.
Only catch?
They were located by the Panama Canal.
Fury squinted out the window, then slapped his bald head like the light bulb just went on.
"That's right! We can move there!"
"…What the hell is 'there'? Be more specific, old man."
"While Washington, D.C. is where HQ is located, we also technically have a branch office in Washington." Fury said, clearing his throat.
Dante narrowed his eyes.
"You mean it exists on paper only, right?"
"Exactly. Officially, HQ doesn't handle local incidents, just manages branches. But over the years, we've absorbed most of the Washington branch's duties, letting us send their personnel elsewhere."
Fury kept going.
"Ten years ago, we basically mothballed that branch. But we still send maintenance crews to keep it functional."
"It's a full branch base—housing, training grounds, labs, offices. Basically, a mini version of HQ."
"And best of all…"
"It can order takeout."
That last line sold it.
Dante's brain went from "considering" to "sold" in under a second.
This was it.
Thank God.
The Bureau's cafeteria food was abysmal.
Fat-loss meals. Protein shakes. Muscle-gain soup.
No spice. No joy. No point.
He'd take greasy, guilt-laden junk food over that "wellness sludge" any day.
So, the Star Team's new HQ was set: Washington branch.
Coulson's team would move with them too.
They couldn't live on the Airbus forever. Even super-agents need walls that don't hum at night.
Dante had zero objections.
He actually liked Coulson's team a lot.
Besides Fury, Coulson was probably the person he was closest to in the Bureau.
"…What about the gold coins, though?"
"Have some shame," Fury snapped. "You just got a whole-ass base handed to you and you still have the nerve to ask for cash?"
Every time Fury looked at Dante's face now, he remembered that day on the Helicarrier, Dante and Tony tag-teaming to sabotage the weapons system.
He could practically see the piles of money being vaporized in real time.
Gold coins? He should be lucky Fury didn't stab him on sight.
Hulk finally lifted his head from the table.
Not because he was full.
Because… there was nothing left to eat.
"Hulk still hungry!" he growled, rising from the sofa.
The moment he shifted his weight—crack.
The couch, which had been hanging on for dear life, finally gave out.
It flattened like a pancake. All that was left was the giant green butt print, stamped into what used to be luxury leather.
Fury's face went dark. He stared at his ruined couch.
"Dante! Get your oversized green glutton out of here!"
---
Moving day wasn't hard.
It just meant opening a few portals and making some trips back and forth.
Two days later, all the previously occupied Bureau branches had been retaken.
And just like that, the Star Team entered a rare phase of…
Idleness.
Not retirement. Not peace. Just… nothing blowing up for five minutes.
Sixty percent of domestic chaos had always traced back to HYDRA or its various shell groups.
Now that the Bureau had basically nuked HYDRA's operational strength, the organization wouldn't be able to crawl back up for at least a century.
Of course, "idle" was relative.
No more constant firefights and death matches with supervillains.
But Dante was still tied up with a different project: joint psychological consultations with the Bureau's telepaths.
Their targets?
Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes.
Red Hulk, aka General Ross.
Bruce Banner.
That's when Dante started to get a deeper understanding of HYDRA's Winter Soldier programming.
Turns out… those psychos weren't completely useless.
The telepaths could restore the memories of the brainwashed, but they couldn't remove the hypnotic conditioning.
Even if you wiped someone's memories clean, all it took was the trigger phrase…
And boom.
Back to being HYDRA's most obedient killing machine.
A room full of powerful psychic operatives, people who could make you forget your own birthday just sat there.
But the person who cracked the case?
Wasn't a mutant.
Wasn't a psychic.
Wasn't even qualified.
It was…
Harley Quinn.
Self-proclaimed: The Bureau's First Psychological Therapist.
"What's so hard about this?" she said, blinking innocently. "It's just an artificially created dissociative identity. Induced by extreme trauma. Then reinforced with muscle memory and key triggers."
She smiled.
"Not saying it's the same as what Joker did to me, but it's exactly the same."
(To be continued.)
***
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