Poppies

Nick Fury strode into the lofty chamber where he was expected for a meeting with SHIELD's founders. He hadn't been the Director for very long and had some questions. He found Chester Phillips at the table, glowering (it was his default expression) and Howard Stark, swinging his chair back and forth idly.

"Have a seat, Nick," Stark invited. "Peggy's on a conference call so there's a brief delay." Fury flipped his long leather coat where it had gotten tangled in his legs (it was a new acquisition and he wasn't used to the flappiness of it sometimes) and sat.

"How's your wife?" Phillips asked Stark.

"At some spa or other with friends," he said dismissively. "Can't see why, she doesn't work, there's not a lot that she needs to relax from, and it's not like she needs to lose any weight. She's kept herself up. She'll be back in a couple of days." Phillips changed the subject.

"And your son?" he inquired, and Stark huffed.

"If Anthony put half the drive he has for parties and pussy into the company, I'd be assured it would be in good hands when I eventually retire," he complained. "If he wasn't such a quick study, he wouldn't be able to keep up." He sighed. "Never thought somebody could be too smart, but that's the boy. He thinks his ability to pick things up quickly will let him slide on everything else, burns the candle at both ends, but he's actually got quite a flair for weapons design." His eyes narrowed. "He's got to settle down and shape up, though. There's more to the company than just the weapons."

"Yeah, I know all about your research division," Phillips said, hoping to cut him off. Stark brightened.

"Wait till you hear this latest," Howard said enthusiastically. Phillips rolled his eyes. "So I've got a new Acolyte--"

"That's so pretentious, your pet geniuses," Phillips jabbed. Stark shrugged, uncaring.

"Fresh back from grad school. The company was bidding on a desalination project and she was working on one of the key parts, the membrane for one of the stages. She's the youngest, with the least experience, but damned if she didn't keep the whole colossus on schedule. We were on deadline, she kept nudging everybody unobtrusively. I don't think she even consciously knew what she was doing. All intuitive. Every time I went down to check in, they'd made good progress. At one point there were two potential solutions, and they couldn't decide which one to try. She asked which would take the least time, pointing out that if it didn't work, they would still have time to try the other one, but potentially not the reverse, did it in a way that the group thought that it was deciding. Little things like that, common sense more than science, but she actually shepherded that project and we beat the deadline." He paused to gloat over the triumph. "Management qualities, no doubt. I'm grooming her to take over the research division when Fosberg retires. That way Tony can play with the weapons but the future of the research will be assured. There'll be plenty of time to get her and Tony to work together." He compressed his lips. "She'd probably be a better CEO, actually, if she'd allow herself to be dragged out of the lab, but it's going to be Tony's company one day."

That piqued Phillips' interest. "Why, don't they get along?" Nick's antenna went up.

"They've both got strong personalities, and Emma doesn't give an inch when she's entrenched in a position." He looked to the ceiling for support. "If not properly managed, they'll be like oil and water, but if they work well together, the company is going to be incredibly productive. If she takes over from Fosberg, by the time I'm ready to retire, she'll be entrenched, he'll have worked with her under my supervision, they'll be used to each other. She's more mature than he is, anyway. Doesn't help that she's a stunner and she doesn't pay him a bit of attention, the few times they've met at company functions. Anthony's not used to being ignored; I'm sure he's hit on her, but a woman like that doesn't want to be just another notch in somebody's bedpost. So he's taken a little dislike to her."

"Spare me from the Stark males and their libidos," a British voice said crisply. The assured click of her heels on the stone floor matched her voice. "But if she's this good, Howard, why are we just hearing about her now, and why haven't you recruited her yet for SHIELD? We need more women. And more scientists who will play ball. Hank Pym is being difficult, and besides, we need to think of the upcoming generations."

"She's not SHIELD material," Stark said. Defensively, Nick noted. "She's not good with gray, she's not an engineer either. And besides, I need her for my company."

"Her name?" Peggy Carter sat at the table.

"Emma Harrington," Howard said reluctantly. "But as I said, she doesn't deal with gray areas in morality. If it's not white or a very light gray, it goes on the black side and she won't touch it. I thought initially to put her in the weapons division, she's very creative, but she wouldn't be happy there and I wouldn't get the cream of her work. She's not a mass-destruction kind of gal, and she feels that we should be more restrictive in our sales. An idealist, wants to make the world better, but not starry-eyed about it." He sighed, real feeling in the sound. "She found out about Lab O, gave me hell about it in the politest way." And he'd felt, for the first time in ages, a little ashamed of his work, and had made certain evasions, a little stretching of the truth here and there, both to divert her but also to redeem himself a little in her opinion.

Phillips snorted. "Just like Rogers was," he said, not without a measure of affection. A small measure. "Probably for the best that you don't try to bring her in. We need realists as much as we need talent."

Peggy frowned. "Where do you have her working, then?"

"I just switched her to metals. There's been accidents in plastics, where she was really putting out good work with polymers. Some have resulted in serious mutations, we lost a fine scientist to a really weird skin mutation. I don't want to risk her in an accident. She's doing metals and coatings now, so the risk is way down." Howard brooded briefly. "Upgraded the hoods in the labs anyway, just to be safe, implemented stricter safety protocols."

"Anything look promising in O?" Phillips asked, approaching the purpose of the meeting.

"Well, we've made some changes to the SuperSoldier serum based on findings from the last mutations they studied, and I think that we've got the problem with the psychosis minimized," Howard said, brightening.

"Minimized," Peggy said, frowning again. "Not eliminated."

"This is the closest to Erskine's formula that we've managed so far," Howard said defensively. "The improved radiation generator is almost done too. The main thing is that the subjects who are given this formulation should be controllable. The information we got from that defector, the former Soviet who worked in the HYDRA facility in Siberia, was very helpful."

"How much serum do you have?" Phillips asked.

"Enough for five test subjects."

"They want it in Washington this weekend," Peggy said. "But you know that this is the end of the line for the serum research. There's been too much failure, no successes."

The end of the SHIELD and military funding, Stark mentally revised. If he wanted to divert Stark Tech resources, that was his business. They'd line up for the serum if he could produce results. Howard nodded. "We're going on vacation for the holiday, I can drop it off on the way."

"The army has relented and we can place two volunteers in the program," Phillips said. "Fury, do we have volunteers?"

"We do, we have three excellent candidates," Nick said, pushing three files across the table. Peggy flipped through them quickly and selected two, sliding the third file back to Fury and passing the two she'd chosen to Phillips, who scanned them and nodded.

"Ex-military, Special Forces," he said approvingly. "They have the training already and the mindset to be successful in today's world." There was a barb in his words, and Peggy narrowed her eyes.

"There's more to being successful than big biceps and a rule book," she said, the bite in her voice undisguised.

"Rogers was a skinny little freak who followed rules only when they suited him," he shot back and she looked furious. "These men won't need to be coddled by a woman."

"And he was damned successful when he was allowed to do real work," Howard said before Peggy could explode. "How many bases did Cap and the Commandos take out? There's room for creativity in SHIELD as much as there is for by-the-book operations. And everybody in this organization has their own contributions to make."

"So what's the timeline on this project?" Nick asked, inserting himself deftly into the conversation before the founders could really start squabbling again. He knew from experience that it was difficult to redirect the conversation once Captain America was brought in. Carter put him on a bit of a pedestal, and Phillips was still irked that Erskine had been allowed to select the initial test subject, selecting Rogers rather than the more able-bodied candidate he'd preferred. Howard usually tried to keep the peace on the subject as he had a more realistic view of Rogers and his abilities than Phillips, without the lingering lost-love sentiment of Carter, but it was better, Nick thought, to just cut the debate off at the pass before it devolved. His attempt at diversion was successful, and they ironed out their part of the operation. There was additional work done on other issues, and the meeting adjourned.

Nick strode from the chamber deep in thought. There had been a lot of food for thought in that meeting. He'd met Tony Stark, of course, and had a fairly good idea why he'd turned out as wild as was; not enough parenting, a weak but loving mother, and a distant, never-pleased father who constantly held up his wartime friend Captain America as a role model for his dilettante son. Nick shook his head at the thought. Young Stark needed a completely different approach if his father wanted to mold him into more tractability and responsibility--less example and more empathy, although any approach was good only to a certain point; eventually Tony would have to man up himself or waste all his potential. Howard's position in the SHIELD hierarchy was not inheritable, for which Nick was secretly glad. All he didn't need was a loose cannon to deal with.

And this Harrington woman. She might be a tool he could use himself, if nothing else, a lever to work on the younger Stark if necessary; SHIELD would continue its association with Stark's company even after Howard retired. Stark seemed protective of her in a fatherly way, which meant that perhaps his judgment wasn't completely accurate. SHIELD might be a good place for her after all if she could be brought to see the benefits of organization and their purpose. Possibly she could be brought around to using a personal relationship with Tony to control him, if he was that distracted by his dick, if Nick was very discreet in his manipulation. Careful management of information would keep her on task, and it wasn't as if SHIELD employed any stupid people; the geniuses weren't as plentiful as they were in Stark Tech, but they had them, and they had outstanding resources to fund research. She could be a significant asset in several respects. It wasn't as if research needed the... moral flexibility that the operatives had. His mind wandered a moment and he wondered how Barton was doing in Budapest. Well, Phil was due back on Monday and he'd task him with an assessment of Harrington then.

*****

In the chaos caused by Howard's death that weekend, Emma Harrington slipped Nick's mind. The serum packets Howard had been traveling with were not to be found, and he'd assigned Phil to investigate, not that he had much hope he'd turn up anything. If it was an assassination, it had been pretty perfect. He'd arranged to meet young Tony Stark and immediately had to revise his plans involving the younger man; Tony was angry and grieving and entirely unpredictable, three qualities not suited for work in a covert intelligence organization. Nick would have to back off and monitor him from a distance. Out of habit, he scanned the crowd and noticed a large contingent of Stark employees, all of whom looked distraught. His eye was caught by a slim young woman, thick dark hair pinned into an interesting knot at the nape of her neck, not conventionally beautiful , but lovely and appealing, who was possibly the only one in the church besides Tony who seemed devastated. Something about her tugged at his memory, but he ignored it as Carter and Phillips arrived.

*****

Harrington. The name caught Nick's attention as Phil briefed him on the reconciliation of the Avengers in Austria. It was familiar, and Phil paused patiently as he saw his boss's attention divert. It was a shame that he couldn't have worked more openly, Phil thought, but after Captain Rogers had spectacularly brought down three helicarriers and a big building and Natasha had put all the secrets out in the public domain, SHIELD had been pushed deep into the shadows, and he lacked the desire to explain to the Avengers how it was that he wasn't as dead as they thought he was. He'd had to rely on his agents to collect information, and they didn't know the principals like he did. Well, except the Harrington woman, who was still an unknown. All they really had on her was education and employment, followed by a gap where they couldn't find where she'd been.

"Stark," Nick said eventually.

"Tony?"

"No, Howard," Nick clarified. "The last meeting he attended, he talked about a protege of his with that name."

"She did work at Stark Tech," Phil said thoughtfully. "There was some sort of accident, Tony fired her, there was an enormous settlement." He shook his head. "Mismanagement of the whole situation," was his assessment. "She has some sort of health concerns due to the accident in the lab."

Nick looked at him sharply. "Mutation?" Phil nodded.

"The records are sealed, but Stark's own notes indicate that he directed the company to refuse her treatment. He's got some kind of a grudge against her. That helped to increase the settlement she got when she sued him. There was a note in there that perhaps he should have let her rot in Lab O, whatever that is, but that her condition wasn't significant in terms of research possibilities." That triggered Nick's memory and he searched for his hand-written notes from that time, studying them intently. He sighed.

"Boss?"

"Howard had great plans for her," he said with regret. "He's probably spinning in his grave right now." He paused, stomped down his sentiment. "What impressions did the agents have?"

"Shortly before Captain Rogers and Thor arrived at her home, she found a World War II-era bunker on her property. It had been a HYDRA facility, experimenting with the SuperSoldier serum." Nick raised an eyebrow. "Those two, Barton, and Natasha are the only ones who have actually met her. We had parabolic mikes on the house from all directions to monitor them once Thor and Captain Rogers reached out to Stark. She apparently made Cap's new shield, and from the conversation, it's something special, better even than the vibranium of the original." Nick's eyebrows rose. "So he has a positive impression of her, and the fact that he and Thor came to her for the summit indicates trust. She trusted them as well, enough to let them stay in her house in her presence and her absence. But because half the Avengers are on the run, she was deported, having to sell the house. Property records indicate that she'd just completed fairly extensive renovations." He shook his head. "So now she's probably less trusting and willing to help, so if you were looking at her as a potential asset, the climb is uphill. Romanov, when Stark introduced the subject, found her to be easy-going but reserved; she'd cleaned and stocked the pantry, so also a considerate host. Barton felt she was observant and polite. Thor is apparently a pretty crappy host, in case you were wondering. When he rescued Rogers and her, he apparently literally dropped her on the floor and forgot all about her, didn't bother to learn her name."

"And she was still willing to help?" Nick said in disbelief.

"Apparently more to help out Rogers than any gesture toward Thor," Phil said thoughtfully. "May thinks she responded to the symbol of Captain America, providing him assistance because she felt a responsibility to help when asked. The transcripts of her interrogation by the Austrian government show that she knew Cap was a fugitive, but that she felt he was morally in the right, which is why she let them use her house. So she's flexible in her thinking."

"To a point," Nick corrected. "If she's guided by morality rather than a more fluid situational response, it may not be anything we can use. Cap's a great example of how an agent can easily go astray given the right set of circumstances."

Phil smiled. "It is Skye's opinion that Steve went to her because he's interested."

"Well, well." Nick leaned back in his desk chair, a small smile curving his lips. "That could be useful."

"Boss." Phil's tone held a trace of disappointment. Nick waved his hand to acknowledge his concern. Phil's mancrush on Cap entertained him.

"I want more information on Harrington. Where is she now?"

"They put her on a flight to Paris, which connected to New York." Nick nodded thoughtfully.

"Track her down, find out where she is, what her resources are, if she has a plan. We have an opportunity here, especially if Rogers has an interest in her. She might provide a hold on him. And Stark might still be carrying whatever grudge he has for her. Howard thought highly enough of her abilities to plan on making her the director of his research division. With Stark set to expand Avenger Tech, I might be in the position to offer her some assistance."

"I don't know if he'd hire her or if she'd work for him again."

"SHIELD isn't without resources," Nick said, plotting. "And if she's ok for money, the hook for her might be the challenges that working for the Avengers can provide. So find her, monitor her, see if you can find out where she was during that gap between working for Stark and turning up in South America. Try to find out what makes her tick." He drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment. "As it happened, Tony reached out to me when the others were arrested. They'd agreed to reach out and find ways to compromise since the Sokovia Accords collapsed, get the Avengers back to their full strength, so I believe that I'll be in a position to influence matters; they asked about my willingness to manage the team. Hack Stark again, all information he has on Harrington, especially the stuff he isn't going to want to talk about. Company files, too. Find her online presence, hack it, see what you can turn up in her contacts. I want as complete a profile on her as possible." Phil nodded before rising and soundlessly leaving the office.