"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve angrily strode into Fury's office at the Triskelion.

"I didn't lie," Fury responded from the window, not spinning his chair around for the Captain. "Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."

"Which you didn't feel obliged to share."

"I'm not obliged to share anything," Fury finally faced Cap.

Kyra silently oohed at that burn. She was still shadowing her brother, this time quite literally. She doubted even Steve remembered she was there.

"Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."

"Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye."

Kyra pffted at that.

"You're wrong about me."

Kyra paid attention, it was almost as if Mr. Super spy was responding to her thoughts.

"I do share. I'm nice like that."

She followed Steve as he followed Fury towards the elevator.

"Insight Bay," Fury ordered as he got in. The screen glitched a few seconds, none of them paying attention as they were positioning themselves in.

"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight," the computer told them.

Oop. The Captain America didn't have access to everything? How rude!

"Director override. Fury, Nicholas J."

"Confirmed."

The old men shared stories of old elevators and Kyra could only roll her eyes, stuck with them. Funnily enough, she was older than both of them. Or Fury, at least.

"He'd show them," Fury was continuing his story. "...ones and a loaded 22 magnum. Yeah, grandad loved people, but he didn't trust them very much."

No birth certificate needed.

They rode down into an underground town; Steve had to take a double take inside the glass elevator. It was a hangar, big enough to have its own roads, on which trucks and cargo carts carried materials. The centerpiece of it all were three giant helicarriers, each big enough to carry more than ten fighter planes each.

Kyra had seen big stuff in all the realms, but for Midgard, this was passing excessive. They all had rows of turrets on hull sides and along the flight decks, which were loaded with rows of Quinjets. Their bottoms were lined with gun turrets.

"Launched from the Lemurian Star," Kyra caught the end of Steve's reply as she almost walked in to him.

"Once we get them in the air they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight... courtesy of our new repulsor engines."

Of course Tony was involved. These were the biggest toys on the planet, to tinker with. Steve on the other hand didn't find them playful.

"...We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."

Kyra stopped. They were trying to play God, and this was an observation coming from an Asgardian. These things never ended well.

"Thought the punishment usually came after the crime," Steve replied. Kyra could see Steve's jaw stiffen. He didn't approve of this either. How could he? It was immoral. And Steve was a good man.

"...For once we're ahead of the curve." Fury defended himself in all seriousness.

"By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection."

Damn it, why did that ring a bell she didn't want to hear. Steve was talking about Fury and SHIELD, and Kyra hated Fury and SHIELD, but her mind instantly went to Tony. She loved Tony. He was her idol. Her best friend.

"This isn't freedom. This is fear!" Steve Rogers was facing the man who currently basically held the world in his hands, backed by technical war beasts, but he held his ground against them all.

"SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be! It's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap."

Steve turned on his heel and walked away.

"Don't hold your breath."

•

"I wouldn't hold your breath," Mr. Bollinger was telling Tony. "Let's be realistic here, Mr. Stark. The circumstances in her situation are different. Ms. Dawson just did 8 years of medical school in almost 18 months. I am in no way judging how she was able to do so, but we can't trust that it wasn't just the benefit of a photographic memory."

"You trying to tell me you don't think prodigies exist?" asked Tony Stark, the world's most renowned prodigy.

"I- I absolutely disagree. After all, I am talking to you. But my decision still stands. We gotta hold her to higher standards," the president closed the file on his desk. "She gets her fellowship, we'll sign her degree."

"And how is she supposed to get to intern without a degree?"

"You can consider it her clinical. After all, you are Tony Stark. I'm sure you have connections."

Tony sighed as the president of Columbia shifted, recognizing himself as one of said connections.

"Y'know..." Bollinger continued at the last second. "I know of someone just like her. Finished school in a snap. He's also a neuro- if he can take Ms. Dawson in..."

Tony snapped at that.

"Nope. Don't need him. We'll get someone else, bye." He swiped the holocall into the garbage and returned to work.

•

The three doctors watched the surgeon talk to the patient's family. It had been a devastating case; it required someone who could empathize. Be gentle. This man was not it.

As expected, the mother broke into tears. But upon closer hearing, the woman and the rest of her family, were thanking and blessing the man. The three doctors stared at each other jaw dropped. This could not have been the same man. They confronted him when he came back their way.

"Doctor, how the hell did you manage that?" The first said as he chased after the especially tall man.

"I mean, you have got to have the worst bedside manner in all of Manhattan. What did you say to them?"

"Well that's an easy deduction, Dr. Wilson," Dr. Strange stopped at his destination. "I am a good man." And he slammed the door in their face.