The brief that landed on Maria Hill’s desk this time was a marvel by SHIELD legal division standards.
It was forty-seven pages long and cited cases going back to the 1880s.
The brief started with a five-page jurisdictional argument about international waters.
Hill had to admit the phrasing was almost beautiful, how well it fit together.
The lead attorney, Avery Voss, wrote it late at night during an obsessive drafting session.
That kind of session either produces the best work of a career or a mistake that only shows up much later.
Hill read the brief once.
Then she read the memo she had asked Voss to attach.
That was the part she actually cared about.
By SHIELD legal tradition, the memo was where an attorney listed what could go wrong.
Voss included all the usual caveats, but at the bottom of the second page, he listed the three things that would actually sink the case.
He wrote them honestly, as his deputy director told him to be direct.
Hill circled all three.
She forwarded the brief and the memo to Fury.
Fury read the memo first.
He knew the memo was what really mattered.
The brief was for show; the memo was the real assessment.
Fury read Voss’s three points at the end of the second page, leaned back, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
The three things were: First, the island’s maritime location made the US’s standing unclear.
The argument could be made, but it wasn’t solid.
The State Department disliked these kinds of contested maritime claims going public, since it could set a precedent for three other small Pacific sovereignty claims that had been quietly pending for years.
Second, the state was already quietly worried about the risk of setting a precedent.
They wouldn’t block the filing, but they wouldn’t support it either.
SHIELD’s legal team would be on their own.
Third, the federal judge first assigned to the hearing was named Margarethe Voss.
She wasn’t related to the SHIELD attorney, though the shared last name led to a five-minute conversation between Hill and Avery Voss that ended with both laughing more than they should have.
Recently, Judge Voss had visited the island privately.
She spent an afternoon there, walked the perimeter with the sovereign, and had tea.
She didn’t file anything about the visit at the time because there was nothing to report, but two days ago she formally recused herself from the hearing.
She said she couldn’t be impartial in a case involving a place whose garden she had, in her own words, enjoyed.
The reassignment was going to take some weeks.
Fury set the memo down.
“Hill.” “Yes.” “The judge.” “What was she doing there?” “Looking at the garden, apparently.” “Hm.” He picked up the brief again and read it more slowly.
He paused a few times at sentences that were truly excellent.
Voss had real talent, and the brief was impressive.
But Fury knew it wouldn’t matter.
The argument was strong, but the case was still going to lose.
He set it down again.
“Tell Voss,” he said, “that I think he wrote a beautiful brief, but it’s not likely to succeed.
Don’t use those exact words.
Use your own.” “Yep.” “And open the SOVEREIGN ENTITIES file.
Add a second tier.” “For what?” “For the things that aren’t going through the legal channel.” “Sir.” “And get me his email.” “You’ve his email.” “His personal email.
Off-system.” Hill paused at the door.
“Are we sure that’s a good idea, sir?” “No.
But it’s the idea I’m going to have.” “Sir.” She left.
Fury, at his desk, did the thing he did when he did not want to be seen thinking.
He put on his glasses, opened a different file unrelated to anything, and pretended to read.
He was thinking about the judge.
He was thinking about the garden.
He thought about how his most experienced attorney had written the best brief of his career, but was still going to lose.
The case had been in trouble before the brief was even assigned.
Things started to go wrong the day the helicarrier engines failed over the airspace boundary, and Fury filed the situation under SOVEREIGN ENTITIES instead of THREATS.
He had filed it that way for a reason and still believed it was right.
But he didn’t like how the decision had started to take on a life of its own.
He took off his glasses.
He pulled a fresh sheet of paper from a drawer.
He wrote, in the precise handwriting that nobody outside his office had seen, two sentences: The legal approach is being handled through proper channels.
I would like to meet again at your convenience.
He read it back and thought about adding more, but didn’t.
He addressed the email to the personal account Hill had found for him and sent it before he could talk himself out of it.
He filed a copy in a personal folder labeled ALARIC VANE.
He sat back.
The personal folder was new.
The SOVEREIGN ENTITIES file was the official SHIELD file.
It would outlast him, be passed to the next director, and stay with the organization.
The personal folder was different.
It belonged to Nicholas J.
Fury and his email account, and when he decided he was finished with all of this, he would delete it along with everything else.
He had not had a personal folder for a sovereign before.
He thought about this for a moment.
Then he picked up his coffee, found it cold, and decided he had thought enough for one afternoon.
— The email reached the laptop on the kitchen table at the residence at eleven o’clock at night.
Alaric sat at the table.
Dara was there too.
A small white dish sat between them, holding what was left of a very good chicken-and-tomato dish Dara had made for dinner.
Neither of them had finished it.
Dara picked at it with a fork while she scrolled through something on the phone he had bought her during the last supply run.
The laptop pinged.
Alaric opened it.
He read the two sentences again.
He read them again.
Dara, without looking up: “Bad?” “No.” “Good?” “Probably.” “Who?” “Director of SHIELD.” “Cool.” He typed back.
Thursday works.
I will make lunch.
He sent it.
Closed the laptop.
He realized he had just agreed to make lunch for the director of SHIELD.
Before typing, he hadn’t planned to do it.
The decision and the action happened at the same time.
He was starting to notice that this was how he had been making a lot of choices lately.
He picked up his fork.
He took the last bite of chicken from the dish.
Dara: “Lunch for who, on Thursday?” “Same person.
Director of SHIELD.” “Are you nervous?” “No.” “Good.” “Why?” She looked up at him for the first time since he’d opened the laptop.
Dara looked up for the first time since he’d opened the laptop.
“Because if you were nervous, I’d be nervous, and then we’d both be nervous, and the lunch would be bad.
So please keep not being nervous.” “Fair.” “Good.” She went back to the phone.
He sat at the kitchen table for a while longer, the laptop closed, the dish empty, the light over the stove on at its low setting, and thought about the email.
He knew what off-system meant.
The man on the other end was acting as a person, not as a director.
The conversation wouldn’t become part of the official record, and Thursday’s lunch would be two people sharing a meal, not a formal meeting between SHIELD and the Sovereignty of Vantage.
He knew what off-system meant.
The man on the other end was choosing to act as a person, not as a director.
The conversation would not be part of the official record.
Thursday’s lunch would be two people sharing a meal, not a formal meeting between SHIELD and the Sovereignty of Vantage.
He thought about that for a minute.
Then he picked up the journal.
Director Fury sent an email.
Off-system.
He’s coming to lunch on Thursday.
Dara has been forbidden, from now on, from being nervous on my behalf.
The forbidding is mutual.
I’m going to make the chicken thing.
We have tomatoes.
He set the pen down.
He turned out the kitchen light.
He went up the stairs.
Halfway up, he heard Dara, behind him, in the kitchen, say, “Don’t make the chicken thing.
Make the fish.” “The chicken thing isn’t a director-of-SHIELD lunch.” “Hmm.” “The fish is.” He kept climbing.