The Joys of Cognitive Illusions
Since Director Falls was attending, the debrief had been limited to only the key people: Steve, Tony (as the UN Accords representative for the Avengers), Rhodes (as commander of the US teams) and Director Falls who headed up all Avenger teams world-wide. Due to the coordinated nature of the attacks, Phil Coulson represented SHIELD and there were representatives as well from the FBI and Interpol. The briefing was far more formal than those that Steve had previously attended and Rhodes had actually reached out to him to warn him about it. “All the big guns are going to be in the room, so it’s going to be very formal. I hate to have to say this, but wait your turn, Steve. They are working from a far wider viewpoint than your mission and you need to remember that.” Steve had felt irritation but he choked it down and gave a calm agreement. Once he was in the meeting, he realized that Rhodes was right. The majority of the meeting ranged over topics that were way beyond his expertise.
They analyzed the new group who had yet to declare themselves. There were discussions of political unrest and possible criminal gangs that Steve had never heard of. SEE (as Tony insisted on calling them – short for Santa’s Evil Elves based the dizzying costumes) had tried to coordinate attacks not only in Delaware and New York, but also London and Paris. So everyone provided some information. The results, as far as Steve could tell, were mostly “nots.” Not Hydra and Not AIM and Not Mandarin. SEE had unusual weapons but seemed badly informed about the new Avenger structure. A group, headed by Tony, pointed out that they had to have known. The new Avengers teams had been all over the news. The Interpol representative suggested that maybe it was a test to see if there was a weakness SEE could exploit. Tony (with Bruce’s help) was analyzing one of the weapons and was in the process of breaking it down. He wasn’t near finished but said that it sort of resembled the Tesseract weapons and sort of resembled the arc reactor while being neither and had an element in it that neither he nor Bruce recognized. That led to a gloomy silence.
When the discussion had reached the point where they were clearly going round in circles, Director Falls called a halt. He thanked everyone for coming and arranged for a sharing mechanism for any new information. He told Tony (who he addressed formally as Ironman) to make sure to share information on the weapon with all the present parties. Everyone agreed to the new mechanism and the gathering of papers, cups and jackets began.
“Captain America, could you please stay behind for a moment? Ironman, this concerns you as well.” Director Falls spoke up as the debrief ended. Rhodes was obviously expecting this as he had made no move to leave. Steve nodded and Tony sat back down, saying, “Something else going on with SEE?”
Having waited until everyone else had left the room, Director Falls replied, “No, this is a personnel discussion. The pilot on the mission was disturbed by the hot wash he heard in the quinjet. So much so that he contacted his supervisor and that led, by various actions, to me and Col. Rhodes. We listened to the recording of the conversation and we were both disturbed as well. JOCASTA, replay the hot wash in the quinjet for the event under discussion, please.”
“Certainly, Director.” The AI’s voice had a calm, almost Midwestern accent (and Steve did notice that she spoke to the Director). The recording began playing and Steve held himself from squirming by sheer will power. It had sounded bad enough in the wake of the mission, but hearing it now was far worse. He was relieved when he heard his voice command everyone to cut it out, but he had let it go on far longer than he should have. Listening to a recording, at remove from the adrenalin of battle, and knowing that Clint was only mildly injured, the vitriol directed at Tony was stunning. They spoke about him as if he was a supervillain, as if Tony was the person responsible for the attack on the chemical plant, not like he had been fighting on their side.
When the recording was over, the Director turned to Steve. Director Falls had been chosen for his position based his long history of overseeing international forces on collaborative missions. He was a person of serious mien and was obviously respected by the Accords Committee; Rhodes had told Steve that Falls agreeing to be Director had allowed the Avengers Program a much greater leeway due to the respect everyone felt for the man. Steve had resented Falls for his position on enforcing the Accords, but the man had been nothing but fair and even helpful and now Steve had a grudging respect for him. That respect made the current conversation much more harrowing. However, Steve was not a person who avoided difficult situations, so he squared his shoulders and faced the director.
“Captain America,“ Director Falls was scrupulous in formal meetings in the use of code names to protect the continued privacy of those heroes who preferred anonymity, “I would like to hear your comments on the conversation that we just heard.”
“Well, Sir, emotions were running high after the mission and, for an archer, a shoulder injury is always cause for concern…” Steve could almost feel Rhodes becoming angry on the other side of the table and he didn’t even need to look at Tony to know that the man was rolling his eyes; he gathered himself and continued, “but their language and attitude were unprofessional and unacceptable. I told them to stop the discussion but didn’t feel the hot wash was the place to address my serious concerns with their behavior.”
“Did any of the concerns that they raised, however unprofessionally, have any merit?”
This was a more difficult question and, luckily, Steve had spent hours before this meeting on answering it, “Well, it is true that Ironman did not communicate position changes to the team,” he was sure that he was going to be interrupted at this point and was surprised when he wasn’t, so he hurried on, “however, neither did my team members. I only knew the locations of Scarlet Witch and Falcon because I had eyes on them. Since we were not regularly communicating our changes in position, I assume that Ironman thought it was not SOP and didn’t do it either. This is a problem that I am planning to address with my team in the next training session. We have obviously become careless about communications during missions and that needs to be corrected. So, I would say that concern had no merit.”
“What about the complaint that Ironman was not available to aid Hawkeye?” the Director’s tone was still professional and curious. But Steve could see that his previous answer had surprised Rhodes. Tony was at an angle to Steve and it was difficult to get a read on him, but Steve thought he was surprised as well. He was certainly unusually silent, although it was possible that Falls had warned him not to participate in the questioning.
Replying back to Falls’ question, Steve said, “It wasn’t Ironman’s brief to watch out for Hawkeye. I instructed Ironman to ensure that any civilians were gotten to safety and to check for and disarm any explosives that might be present. He accomplished both of those objectives. Moreover, after the hot wash, I carefully reviewed the mission and Hawkeye was out of position and recklessly exposed. Had he remained at the perimeter of the room, he would not have fallen. I asked Falcon and Vision to confirm my understanding of the situation and they did. In addition, Falcon stated that he felt that Hawkeye had become more reckless over the last six months, requiring more rescues. I haven’t confirmed that though.” He added the last bit as he needed to go through past missions to see if Sam was right. He noted in a distantly amused way that his response to Director Falls was falling into the same formal cadence that he had used when reporting to Col. Philips.
There was a pause as the other three men digested what Steve had said. Steve was aware that this was not the outcome that Rhodes, certainly, had expected. Guiltily, Steve thought that even a week ago, he would have reacted with strong hostility to even the suggestion that Clint might have been responsible for getting himself into a dangerous situation and expecting other people to get him back out. He most definitely would have supported his teammates’ negative attitude and have sought to blame Tony for the injury. And that opinion, Steve was aware, would not have been shaken by reviewing the footage. Rather than noticing that no one had been communicating their positions, Steve knew he was have simply fixated on the fact that Tony wasn’t. Dr. Bortich had warned him that reframing was a powerful tool and that once Steve started using it, he would find it hard to continue his old patterns. The therapist had compared it to one of those drawings that could look like two different objects; once you saw the alternate object, it was almost impossible to not see it again when you looked at the picture.
Surprising Steve, Falls’ next comment was, “Do you want to discuss how you plan to approach these issues with your team? Both Col. Rhodes and I have extensive experience dealing with problematic performance and would be more than willing to help.”
That offer actually made Steve feel better, to his own surprise. Other than yelling at Tony (and look how effective that had been) he really hadn’t had much experience with reprimanding his team. The Howling Commandos had all been more experienced then he was and had been professional. Any personnel problems had generally been with him. The time that he had been isolated in Wakanda and then wandering the world with his team had given them strong bonds, but also was making it hard for him to figure how to tell them they were wrong. After all, Steve reflected, I am about to tell them to stop doing something that I had been doing and encouraging to years. “I would very much appreciate your advice. I would like to review some of the past missions before then, to make sure that I see all the patterns, Director.”
“That certainly makes sense. Please reach out to either Col. Rhodes or myself when you are ready. I will expect that action will be taken in a reasonable amount of time, say within the next week?” Falls looked at Rhodes as he said this and Rhodes nodded his assent. “Very well, this meeting is over, gentlemen.” As they all walked out, Steve caught a glimpse of Tony’s face and he looked completely shocked.