Coulson Flips the Bird
Alice was doing her level fucking best to ignore the seagull foraging around for whatever the skydevil wanted in Tony’s wrecked mansion as Fury and Tony continued their chat on Tony’s patio. (Tony had changed out of the suit and was wearing some kind of robe). Blah blah unfinished technology blah blah energy race blah blah nuclear reactor is a AAA battery. “Hey, Mr. Fury, do you have a gun in case that bird tries to kill us?” Alice asked, interrupting him.
Fury glared at her. “Yes, I have a gun, and no, that bird is not going to try and kill us,” he told her. “Don’t tempt me to use it, though, or I just might.” The implication that Alice would be the target was very apparent.
Tony ignored Alice, used to her anti-bird sentiments by now. “Just him, or was Anton Vanko in on this too?” he asked.
“Anton Vanko is the other side of that coin,” Fury said. “Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported.”
“Oh, nice,” Alice said. “I guess Daddy Stark must have lived the life of an ascetic monk, huh? Eschewing all that material world crap?” Tony snorted.
Fury was undeterred. “When the Russians found out he couldn’t deliver, they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next twenty years in a vodka-fueled rage. Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in — the son you had the misfortune of crossing paths with in Monaco.”
“Poor guy,” Alice remarked. Both Fury and Tony gave her pointed glances. “Well, I mean, he got dealt a shit hand. Shame on him for doing what he did, but I can both pity him and also be glad he’s in the ground for killing those racers.”
Tony turned back to Fury. “You told me I hadn’t tried everything,” he said. “What do you mean I haven’t tried everything? What haven’t I tried?”
“He said that you were the only person with the means and the knowledge to finish what he started,” Fury said.
“He said that?” Tony asked, skeptical.
“Are you that guy?” Fury asked. “Hmm? Are you? ‘Cause if you are, then you can solve the riddle of your heart.”
“The magic of true love is real!” Alice shouted. Again, both men stared at her. “That’s not a metaphor, by the way, magic is 100% real.”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t know where you get your information, but, uh, he wasn’t my biggest fan,” Tony said to Fury.
“What do you remember about your dad?” Fury asked.
“He was cold, he was calculating, he never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me. So it’s a little —”
“Aww, poor baby!” Alice cooed. She’d grabbed Tony and was squeezing him tightly. “I love you, Tony! Extremely platonically, I love you! And I like you! And you deserve to always be told that by your loved ones!” She rained kisses on the side of his face, and he gamely took it. She stepped back, then turned to Fury, arms spread out. Fury just showed his holstered pistol in response. “Okay,” Alice said. “I still love you, even though it’s mostly based off your doppelganger’s rich career in Hollywood. Since you look like Sam Jackson and all.”
“Oh right, that’s another little quirk of yours,” Fury said. “…At least I look cool as hell,” he muttered to himself.
“…Anyway,” Tony continued, mildly amazed that he was the one getting back on topic. “You’re talking about a guy whose happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school.”
“That’s not true,” Fury said.
“No, Mr. Fury, dude sounds kinda like a total cunt for the way he treated Tony,” Alice said. “Secret love don’t cut the mustard.”
Fury again glared at her. “Can you cut it out with the ‘Mister’ bullshit?” he snapped. “To you, it’s ‘Director Fury’, got it?” Alice nodded. “Howard Stark was a founding member of SHIELD, so I’m pretty familiar with him. I know what I’m talking about.” He checked his watch as two SHIELD agents dropped off a big metal suitcase on the patio.
“What?” Tony said caught off guard by this new development.
“I got a two o’clock,” Fury said, standing up and blowing off Tony.
“Wait wait wait, what’s this?” Tony asked.
“Okay, you’re good, right?” Fury asked, rhetorical. “You got this, right?”
“Got what?” Tony argued. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to get!”
“Natasha will remain at Stark Industries, her cover as Pepper’s assistant intact,” Fury said as he put on his badass leather trenchcoat. “And you remember Agent Coulson, right?”
“Hi, Phil!” Alice said, giving him a friendly wave, which he returned.
“Oh, and Tony, remember… I’ve got my eye on you,” Fury said.
“Ha, eyeball humor!” Alice laughed.
“We’ve disabled all communications, no contact with the outside world,” Natasha informed Tony. “Good luck!”
“Please,” Tony said to Coulson. “First thing, I need a little bodywork —”
“Tony, be nice to Phil,” Alice gently scolded him.
Coulson nodded. “It’s in your best interests,” he agreed. “I’ve been authorized by Director Fury to use any means necessary to keep you on premises. If you attempt to leave —”
“Right,” Tony acknowledged.
“—Or play any games, I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet. Okay?” Coulson almost looked eager for Tony to try something.
“Hey Phil, tasers don’t work on me,” Alice pointed out. “Not that I’m planning on being insubordinate or anything.”
Phil nodded. “Oh, that reminds me.” He spoke a few words into his earpiece. Another SHIELD agent came in, holding a white cockatoo on his hand.
“OH JESUS! WHAT THE SHIT?!” Alice howled, as if she were Dracula and just found herself in the museum of crucifixes.
“You put in a special request to take care of Ivan Vanko’s pet bird,” Coulson said. “Says so right here.” He held up a handwritten note, ‘Alice Abernathy requested to take care of Ivan Vanko’s pet bird’. “We had to fly it all the way from Russia,” Coulson said.
“I didn’t want to take care of the fucking thing personally!” Alice shouted. The bird squawked at her and Alice darted behind Tony. “Admit it, Phil, this is payback for when I said you were worse than the guy who shot Bambi!”
“That’s not even remotely the case,” Coulson said, the look on his face indicating that it was entirely the case.
“And why isn’t it in a cage?!” Alice asked. “It can just fly around and kill people at will!”
“We tried putting it in a cage,” Coulson said. “It didn’t react well. If I had to guess, that’s how Vanko raised it.” He narrowed his eyes as Alice leaned out from behind Tony (amused look etched on his face from this whole encounter) and made a cross with her fingers. “You know that’s for vampires, right? Not birds?”
Alice forgot her instinctual hatred of birds for a second. “Hey, Phil, vampires: Real or not in this universe?” She hadn’t seen Blade or Blade II on Wesley Snipes’ IMDB page.
“I’ve never met one,” Coulson said, clarifying nothing.
“You’re a shit, Phil!” Alice shouted, again cowering behind Tony.
“Alright, I hate to be the adult in the room, for once,” Tony finally said. “But I should probably get to work, considering the whole ‘looming expiration date’ thing I’ve got going for me.”
“Of course, Mr. Stark,” Coulson nodded. “I’ll just release this bird out into the wild.” The agent carrying the bird started walking towards the edge of the patio.
“…Wait!” Alice shouted at the last second. “You know animals raised in captivity are shit at taking care of themselves in the wild,” Alice pointed out.
“That’s unfortunately the case, yes,” Coulson nodded. “But if you don’t want the bird, SHIELD can’t expend resources on its care.”
Alice’s hatred of birds warred with her kindness and decency and the general feeling of love she felt for all living things. Finally, with a look on her face usually reserved for watching everyone she ever loved be horribly murdered, she said, “Bring it here.” She stuck one arm out, body taut as if expecting it to be shorn off at the shoulder any moment.
The agent walked over, held the bird up, and it readily walked onto Alice’s clenched fist. “There, that’s not so bad,” Coulson said, smiling.
“I lived through a decade-long zombie apocalypse and this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Alice said through gritted teeth.
“Try petting it, it’s a sweet animal,” the SHIELD agent who handed it off to her said.
Alice struggled to raise her face up to the animal perched calmly on her fist. It looked at her with its beady eyes, and Alice was reminded of Quint’s speech from Jaws. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’…
She raised her other hand, quivering like a leaf in a gale, and oh-so-slowly reached out to touch the animal’s head.
It reached up and gave her finger a tiny nip.
“SHIIIIIIIIIIT!” Alice roared, tearing ass into the depths of the house, the bird squawking and fluttering down onto the ground.
Tony sighed and turned to Coulson. “Admit it, you guys saddled me with Alice as a form of torture.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Stark,” Coulson said, the tiniest smirk on his face. “Torture is illegal.” He walked off, leaving Tony alone with the crate and the bird.
Tony looked down at the bird. The bird looked up at him. “Alright, come on,” Tony said in a resigned voice, bending down with his hand out. The bird stepped up onto his hand, then onto Tony’s shoulder when he moved the hand there. “Just, word of warning, if you crap on my clothes, I’ll eat you for dinner,” Tony said, before bending down and picking up the metal crate with ‘Property of H. Stark’ stamped onto it.