HISSING DEMONICALLY, THE snake-women leapt into the air. The shorter one crashed into Annabeth, but she shifted her weight at just the right moment, sending the thing tumbling over her shoulder.

          The boy tore his focus away from the woman for a moment to make a face at Coulson. "Dude! Get out of here," he said, his voice strained.

          "What are you guys, some sort of alien hunters?" Coulson supposed that a real gun wouldn't work on . . . whatever these things were, but . . .

          "Alien hunters?" grunted the blonde, ducking a swipe from her attacker. She whipped around and smashed the woman in the nose with the hilt of her sword, sending her sprawling. "Where did you get that crazy idea?"

          The snake-lady crash landed right at Coulson's feet. He gave her what he imagined to be a well deserved kick in the stomach, and the momentum of it rolled her to the opposite side of the alley, where she hit the wall with an almost-sickening crunch.

          The boy seemed to have a similar idea, as the thing on him was too close for him to get in with his sword, and she too went sailing through the air, landing in the Dumpster on the opposite side of the narrow alleyway.

          Of course, kicking didn't do all that much, and the things started to get back up again. Coulson wondered for a fleeting moment why the teens were reluctant to use their weapons. He was, too, but these women weren't going down easy. Suddenly, he remembered what he was carrying in his left inside pocket, and just in time at that, because the snake ladies were nearly on their . . . snakes again. He unbuttoned it hastily and removed the specialized weapon from its place.

          The boy, set and ready to defend again, eyed him warily. "That's not going to work—"

          He was interrupted by four loud shots, not quite the kind you would hear from an average pistol. The teenagers watched with pleasant surprise as the two creatures dropped to the ground and lay there. They whirled around to face the Director, who wiped the I.C.E.R. on the side of his pant leg and casually returned it to the inside of his jacket.

          "What the—? How did you—?" The guy seemed incapable of finishing a question.

          "We'll get back to that," the girl promised, her eyes searching Coulson calculatingly. "For now, we don't know how long this will last." Her gaze shifted to meet her boyfriend's, and they seemed to come to a silent agreement that Coulson couldn't decipher. The two walked over to the unmoving alien things and raised their blades.

          "Hold on, wait just—"

          Too late.

          Coulson watched in horror as the two sort-of-innocent teenagers he'd just met casually decapitated their unconscious enemies.

          Except that wasn't quite how it turned out. As soon as blade met flesh, the bodies exploded into golden dust, showering the three of them with it. Coulson tried not to dwell on it. Here was another thing he didn't understand, but the one thing he did get was that the teens had just killed two unresponsive and defenseless . . . things.

          The couple nodded at each other solemnly and turned back around only to find a pistol aimed at each of their chests.

          "Woah, there," the boy said, somewhat confusedly. "I don't—"

          "Get that thing out of my face, now," the blonde demanded, almost unfazed.

          Coulson ignored them both. "I'm going to ask you this, again." His voice bounced around the alley, cold and hard, like steel. "What are you? Kree? Asgardian?"

          The boy knit his eyebrows, fairly calm for a person who had a loaded gun in his face. "What now?"

          "You're certainly not human," Coulson spat, and the slight widening of their eyes told him he was at least close, or they thought he was a lunatic. "Now tell me what the hell you're doing here and maybe—maybe—I won't blow a hole in your heads. Is that clear?"

          The boy tried again. "Look, man, we live here, and I'm not sure what either of those things are, so . . ." he trailed off.

          Coulson didn't budge. "Maybe not. But the both of you just killed two defenseless Inhumans—" he used the only word he could possibly use in the current situation "—and I'm not about to let that go."

          "Inhumans?" Annabeth scrunched up her nose. "You mean those monsters? They're—" she stopped, her eyes widening. "Wait. Did you say Asgardian?"

          Coulson said nothing. Still on guard, he lowered his guns just a few inches. They were kids, at least, they looked like kids, and those Inhumans . . . they weren't Inhumans. "Yes, I did," he confirmed, still cold. "Are you?"

          The girl didn't answer, instead turning to the guy. "Percy," she breathed urgently, "do you remember that thing I told you about my cousin Magnus?"

          Percy squinted. "The dead one?"

           She looked at him pointedly.

          He looked back at her in utter confusion. "What are you . . . oh," he said, as whatever it was dawned on him. "Oh."

          "Oh is right, you dumbass."

The dead one? What kind of a question was that? Coulson put his weapons away in resignation. They were ignoring them, anyways—he didn't see how they could, but they were.

          "Do you think—"

          "Yes."

          "And he's—"

          "Probably." Annabeth tucked a piece of curly hair behind her ear. "The question is, how."

          Coulson interrupted their conversation. Could he even call that a conversation?  "What exactly is going on?"

          No response.

          "Fine, be that way," he huffed indignantly. "But you're human?"

          "Yes. Definitely. One hundred percent," Percy confirmed, earning himself an elbow in the ribs.

          Coulson narrowed his eyes. "Good. Then, if you don't mind me asking, what were those things?"

          Annabeth shifted her weight to one foot. "Well, they weren't human, but that's what you were calling them, right?"

          "Inhumans," Coulson clarified. "Although I suspect my dealings with them are a little different from yours."

          Percy laughed a little. "You can say that again."

          "What do you know about them?" Coulson asked, not expecting much of an answer.

          Annabeth's hand went to the back of her head almost subconsciously. "Not much," she admitted, her voice solemn. "Just that there are more than just the snake women. Lots more. Only a few things can actually hurt them."

          "If we don't take them out, they terrorize the public," Percy jumped in. "And it has to be us. No one else can see them for what they are."

          "To be honest," the girl said carefully, "we didn't notice you following us, really. It was more like, hey, I can hear something hissing, let's take a detour, and then you showed up." She looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "What's S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

          "Most of that information is classified," Coulson told them, pretending to be regretful. "Besides what I said before, there's not much I can tell you other than that we work closely with the Avengers."

          Annabeth and Percy exchanged a knowing look.

          "So that invasion. In New York City, in 2012. That was you?" Percy asked carefully.

          Coulson knit his eyebrows together. "I'm impressed. Not too many people know about that."

          Annabeth crossed her arms. "It was a freaking alien invasion. Did you expect us to not know about it?"

          "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s involvement, I mean," Coulson corrected.

          "Oh." She looked at Percy again. "That was more of an . . . educated guess."

          "Care to elaborate?" the Director asked impatiently.

          "We were there." Percy's voice was quiet and his face guarded, as though something awful had happened to him then. Coulson believed that an alien invasion counted as traumatic. After all, he had died during one.

          Coulson breathed a sigh of resignation. These kids were important somehow, he could feel it—and that meant they had to be on the right side. "In that case," he began, "I'll have to bring you in."

"Excuse me?" Annabeth sounded almost panicky, but she disguised it pretty well.

"Look." Coulson put a hand inside his coat, just barely touching one of his guns, but now he knew he wouldn't use it. "I told you we have questions. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Both of them end with the two of you on my plane."

Percy's eyes hardened. "Sorry, man, but there's a third outcome you haven't taken into consideration." He smiled menacingly. "And it's called we're not going anywhere with you."

"That's really too bad," Coulson said, shrugging. "I was hoping we could do this the easy way."

★

hello again! I know these updates are quicker than most, but i'm sorry to ask you not to get used to it. i'm just kicking it off! please comment anywhere you see fit--i love notifications, jokes, and i especially love theories. vote and share please! can't wait to start chapter 3!
love,
cajoling