The civilian division of S.H.I.E.L.D. was the last place anyone chose to work overtime on Christmas. Melinda May had chosen it anyway, which was why she was the only one in the office when Coulson walked in.
She heard him before she saw him and kept stamping documents.
"No," she said.
Coulson pulled up a chair and sat across from her desk with the patience of someone who had thought this through. "You already know what I'm going to ask."
"Which is why I'm saying no before you say it."
"I'm not putting you back in the field." He looked around the empty office — the unmanned desks, the stacked folders, the general atmosphere of a department that ran on procedure rather than instinct. "I need someone to fly the Bus, coordinate ground transport, manage the scene. It's logistics."
"Then find a logistics person."
"I want you." He let that sit for a moment. "Independent team. Real authority. I make decisions without running every call up the chain." He gestured at the office around them. "Which is more than you can say for here."
May looked up from her documents for the first time. She looked at him, then at the office, then back at him.
"You genuinely just want me to fly the plane."
Coulson stood. "The Bus is a good plane." He moved toward the door. "Not a request. But the plane is good."
He left.
May set down her stamp. She looked at the stack of documents remaining. She looked at the door.
"Maybe it's time for a change," she said to the empty room. "The plane does sound good."
Tony's phone lit up at seven in the morning with a call from the hospital.
Happy was in critical condition. The blast at the Chinese Theatre had done serious internal damage, and the attending physician's assessment was careful in a way that meant they weren't certain he was going to make it through the day.
Tony was out of bed and moving before the call finished.
Happy was not staff. Happy was not an employee in any functional sense. He was the person who had been at Tony's side since before any of this — before the armor, before the Avengers, before any of the things that had made Tony's life into something requiring a security director at all. The Mandarin had done this, and Tony had handed the Mandarin file to Xu Xialing less than twenty-four hours ago.
He called Smith.
Smith answered on the fourth ring with the voice of someone who had stayed up too late celebrating and had not yet fully returned to consciousness.
"Tony. Merry Christmas."
"Happy is in the hospital. Blast injuries. Critical." Tony was already pulling on his jacket. "I need to bring him to you. The medical pod."
A pause while Smith processed this. "Xu Xialing hadn't resolved the Ten Rings situation yet?"
"She got the information from me yesterday. Something happened to Happy the same night." Tony grabbed his keys. "I don't know if someone in her organization leaked it or if this is just timing. Smith — is that possible? That it's coincidence?"
Smith was quiet for a moment. Killian's operation isn't sophisticated enough for that kind of real-time intelligence. He wouldn't have known about your meeting with Xialing that fast.
"I think it's coincidence."
"Okay." Tony let out a breath. "I'm going to get him."
"Bring him over. I'll have the pod ready."
Smith hung up and lay there for exactly thirty seconds. Then he got up.
He knocked on Fox's door on the way past. It opened after a moment — Fox in pajamas, Bulma visible behind her with her hair in disarray and the general appearance of someone who had talked until four in the morning and was now being punished for it.
"It's early," Fox said.
"Happy was seriously injured in last night's explosion at the Chinese Theatre. Tony's bringing him here to use the medical pod. I need someone to prep it." He looked at Bulma. "That means you."
Bulma blinked, coming more awake. "Give me ten minutes."
Smith left them to it and went to wash up. He thought briefly about what Fox and Bulma had been doing talking all night and decided he genuinely didn't want to know.
The Mandarin's second broadcast hit New York's morning news cycle before most people had finished their coffee.
The signal hijack was clean and brief. The masked figure appeared, claimed responsibility for the Chinese Theatre bombing, named the Ten Rings Gang, and stated explicitly that this was not the end. Then the feed returned to the regular broadcast, leaving anchors blinking at their cameras.
Tony got out of his car at the hospital and walked directly into a wall of press.
They had been there since before dawn. Cameras, microphones, phones, the full complement of people whose job was to be present at the moment that looked like a story. The Chinese Theatre explosion had given them the story. Tony Stark visiting his injured bodyguard had given them the angle.
"Mr. Stark—"
"Is this retaliation?"
"Your former bodyguard — will you be seeking a response?"
Tony walked through them without stopping. He had nothing to say that would improve the situation, and he had too much to say that would make it worse. The Mandarin had moved faster than Xu Xialing had been given time to work, and Happy was in a hospital bed because of it. Whether that was bad timing or something worse, he didn't know yet.
He pushed through the hospital doors and let them close behind him.