“I thought I was very clear when I directed Agent Barton to stay out of field missions,” Director Fury said quizzically, though the answer was not at all in question.
“Well, you called on the Avengers—” Clint tried to excuse, but Fury cut him off.
“I haven’t revoked my previous order. Until I do, until I call roll and give you the go face to face and by name, I want you to try and keep a low profile. If not, I will be forced to suspend you until a trained professional clears you for work.”
“Director Fury, I really think I would be fine if I could get involved in something hands-on and time consuming,” Clint said, “Like an actual mission. You know paperwork and trainee supervision isn’t my thing. Filing reports is going to make me crack before anything else. Besides, with Loki going back to Stark’s place, you’re going to need both Natasha and myself on the job.”
“After how poorly you handled the loss of your team over misinformation that was out of your control, I can’t take a chance that one of my best agents is going to snap,” Fury said. Clint shrugged back a retort. Fury laced his fingers. “On that note, Agent Hill may have already informed you that I want Eden to undergo a psychological evaluation before we put anymore stock in what she tells us. There is long term benefit in getting her checked out now, too. If we are going to return her to her next of kin it would be prudent for us to know if she could cause more damage if she’s out of our reach. Although the psychiatric ward is stretched thin at the moment too, I’ve decided that one of the younger and more recent doctors should be perfectly able to diagnose her. She might even be more inclined to talk with someone closer to her age.”
“Do you think that she’ll talk with one of our doctors?” Natasha asked uncertainly.
“I’ve already thought of that. We have a makeshift clinic being set up as we speak, courtesy of Stark. The location will be closely monitored and the other doctors will be agents there to assist if things go…awry. I would like you, Agent Romanoff, to be Eden’s escort and temporary guardian during these visits.”
Natasha accepted the charge with a slight nod. Fury looked to Coulson.
“I know you’re her family, but Natasha had decent results with Eden early in the day and I’m hoping our suspected pyro killer will attach to someone other than you.”
“I understand,” Coulson said.
“You can, and should, however, alert Oliver Weston that we’ve found his granddaughter, and that following a procedural examination we will let him know if she is fit to place in his care.”
Fury’s final remarks went to Agent Barton—
“And if you absolutely cannot help yourself, I give you permission to ride with Agent Romanoff as she escorts Eden to and from these appointments.”
“Thank you, sir.”

---

The drive went by silently. Denny observed the rapidly passing scenery while her finger fidgeted in her lap. She had not outright objected when Natasha and Clint had told her what was going to happen, but it was clear she was not entirely on board with the idea of undergoing testing or possible treatment. Denny had been sure to ask if SHEILD would be directly involved in the sessions, but it was clear she did not trust the negative response.
When they were getting closer, she decided to make conversation to ease the tension.
“I’ve never been to a psychiatrist before,” Denny said. “What will he ask me?”
“Well,” Clint started, “I think he’s just going to ask you some questions that have already been written down. Like an oral exam.”
“Oh.”
“Have you ever taken an oral exam?” Natasha asked. “Do you know what he means?”
“Like a spelling-bee?”
“Sort of, yeah,” Clint chuckled.
Denny leaned forward between the seats. “Do spies spend a lot of time undergoing psychological evaluations?”
“Oh yeah,” Clint said.
“They try to test us on a regular basis,” Natasha added. “This isn’t a job for the weak.”
“Other than that, most of the people we talk to in between are just psychological counselors,” Clint said.
Denny rested her elbows on her knees.
“Do they help?” she asked. Clint struggled with an answer.
“Some wounds don’t heal like others,” Natasha said for him.
“And some don’t heal at all,” Denny concurred, leaning back in the seat again. “So one must wonder how they continue living with a bare heart, else stop living all together.”
“That’s very poetic,” Natasha said.
“Thank you,” said she. “But it is true.”
Clint scoffed a bit. He turned in his seat to look at Denny. “And what would you know about that?”
“I lost my parents, remember? I lost everything,” Denny said. There was a twinge of anger in her words. “Do you know what it’s like to live in the dreams and thoughts of everyone who knew you, and then to have them die? I was very aware of what happened to them, almost like it happened to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve experienced death that way. Dying once is one thing, but it gets old when you do it for a decade or more.”
“Well, you can discuss it with your psychiatrist,” Natasha said. “I think we’re almost there.”
Denny flopped back against the seat with a sigh.
“I just don’t want to end up drugged out of my mind because you people think that I’m insane.”
“No one has said anything about that.”
“I know you’re all thinking it!” Denny accused. She leaned forward again. “Phasing through cars? Shades? Living inside of dreams? You’re going to take those as sane responses?”
“While fantastical answers they are mostly plausible,” Clint mused.
“And why are you acting so insulted by it? You’re the one who gave us those answers,” Natasha frowned.
“Because they’re the right answers,” Denny said. “But I am fully aware that ‘normal’ people are going to take those answers to be impossible.”
“Good,” Clint said. “They say that the truly insane people don’t know they’re insane. And, you know, we work with impossible scenarios 24/7. We’ve fought aliens, demons, gods…and, you know, there are plenty of mutants out there, several of whom can phase through objects.”
“But how many people do you talk to who give you those kinds of answers, only to be sent for a mental check-up?”
“You’re a special case,” Natasha said as they rolled in to the parking lot of what probably used to be a small strip mall. For such short notice, it really did look like a fairly convincing medical park. “There have been a lot of anomalies in this situation that we haven’t had to deal with yet.”
She parked three spaces away from the entrance. Denny didn’t get out right away, instead peering apprehensively out the window. Clint had to step around and open the car door for her to hurry her along.
“SHIELD isn’t going to make me take drugs if this guy says I need them are they?” Denny asked.
“You seem more concerned about medicine then you do about a diagnosis,” Natasha observed.
“Because my— I depend on complete conscious control of my mind to do what I do,” Denny explained. “Being drugged is a very serious concern of mine.”
“Well I’m sure if we knew more about what you could do we’d be in a position to work something out,” Clint simpered. Eden squinted her face in a dramatized sneer before pushing her way past.
“If you knew more about what I can do you’d know better than to get involved,” Denny mumbled under her breath.
“What did you say?” Clint asked. Denny just smiled and held open the door. Clint took over the job for her and allowed both her and Natasha to enter before him.

---

“Well that went swimmingly,” Clint sighed with deep sarcasm as he hoisted himself into the car. “At least, until you threatened to…what was it again?”
“Take his pen and pry his eyes from their sockets is what I think he said,” Natasha answered.
“He wouldn’t stop clicking that damn pen,” Denny shrugged, and looked out the window. “I ought to have at least threatened to smashed his hands while I was at it.”
“Well for future reference, that isn’t the best way to make a good impression at any doctor’s office,” Clint confided.
“Well if that final interaction is what he bases his diagnosis on then he deserves to have his medical license revoked as well,” Denny huffed and straightened. “And they really need to redesign those questions anyway. It’s like they only wanted to look for definites— ‘Do you often feel tired?’ Depends on my long-term schedule. Maybe I’m just busy. Too bad the test doesn’t take that into account.”
“That’s why they sit with you and read the questions to you. The doctor is trained to take into account things like your actions and vocal tone when he takes your answers in for results,” Clint said, “Which we should be hearing about in the next twenty-four hours.”
“You know, I think that SOMU team was investigating near here,” Natasha thought out loud. She turned to Clint. “We should drop by and see if they have any information we can use right now.”
Clint shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”
“What’s SOMU stand for?” Denny asked from the back, leaning forward like a curious and innocently nosey child.
“Supernatural Operations Mobile Unit,” Natasha said. She cranked the car and didn’t bother checking behind her before she backed into the street— warranting a few outraged car horns— and took off down the road fast enough to make it through the last of a yellow light.
“SHIELD organized them as a team to go in and investigate possible leads to activity reported to us as being the effects of the energy cloud. As you might imagine, we had more than a few calls from people who were just looking for attention, or who just mistook other events for being supernatural. Since we couldn’t possibly look into them all on our own, we needed a separate team to focus only on those calls and take care of any actual activity if it was in their means to do so.”
“I guess this is about something that turned out to be a real claim then?” Denny assumed.
“We’re about to find out,” Natasha said.
She was right in remembering them being close. After turning a few corners they arrived at a mediocre and unassuming apartment building with a couple large, black SUVS parked out front. Natasha pulled to a stop in line with the other vehicles.
“Should I stay in here?” Denny asked as the agents stepped out of the car. Clint and Natasha exchanged a wordless conversation, which resulted in Clint opening the door on Denny’s side and waiting for her to stumble out.
The interior of the building felt heavy and oppressive, and although it looked just as normal as the outside façade, there was something that set off instinctive warnings in both agents and made Denny visibly uncomfortable. The lights in the halls were turned off, and for some reason the emergency lights and exit signs were not illuminated either.
“I’m not going to run away or anything if you leave me,” Denny assured, looking around apprehensively.
“This will be good for you,” Natasha said. “Besides, you seem to know more about these things than we do. Maybe you can give insight into the situation.”
“What situation?” Denny asked. She skipped forward towards Natasha so she could hear better.
“When I had to leave you the other day, we were going to retrieve an individual who, while out and about, said he saw a woman that he believed was concerning enough for us to investigate,” Natasha said, picking her words carefully.
“Concerning in what way?” Denny frowned. Natasha didn’t get to answer. Around the corner ran a woman, breathless, cell phone in hand, who looked shocked and then relieved to see them there.
“Thank God,” the woman heaved. “We’ve been trying to call you for hours now, but none of our phones are working.”
“What’s wrong?” Clint asked, stepping in front of Denny, who gladly slipped into the background.
The woman ushered them forward. “We tracked down that woman’s husband. Turns out there was a warrant out for her arrest. Apparently he, the husband, had called 911 after she began acting strange and subsequently left without warning and took their son with her. We haven’t found the boy, but the woman showed up today and, well…”
She stopped at the end of the next hallway, where there could be heard shrill and tormenting screams from the other side. A group of people, tenants of the apartment building, where being escorted out of their rooms by SHIELD operatives in uniform.
“She showed up out of no where,” the woman explained. “We think she climbed up the fire escape and came in a window. Her husband tried to restrain her but she…she ripped his throat out with her teeth. She does not look good. I don’t know how long she’ll live if we can’t get her to the hospital, but no one can get near her.”
“Where’s Hagen?” Natasha asked.
“He’s trying to get energy readings off her. McKinney is trying to talk the woman down.”
“Thanks Bea. We’ll take it from here,” Natasha said. She and Clint pressed forward. The woman, Bea, noticed Denny for the first time and sized her up quizzically, while Denny returned with an apologetic shrug. Both hurried after the agents. What greeted them in the main living area of the apartment was like a scene from a horror movie.
The husband’s body had been bagged up and removed from the location, but his blood was thick enough on the carpet to form and wet puddle. Pictures had been knocked off furniture and walls and lay shattered on the ground. Cords and equipment had been moved in hurriedly and only added to the chaos. The pungent smell of blood was rivaled by the bittersweet scent of lavender. Denny covered her hands with her sleeves and held the sides of her face, like she was trying to block something out of her peripheral vision. She stepped delicately around the blood, ignoring Bea’s whispered warnings to stay out of the way. Denny was looking for the source of the lavender. She knew deep down where the smell was coming from, but she hoped in futile naivety that she was wrong. Another throng of anguished wails began, diverting all their attention to the bedrooms. Bea rushed ahead of Natasha and Clint and whispered into the smaller bedroom that the agents where here.
Everyone stepped into the room but Denny made a point of staying out of sight. She did, however, step close enough to hear the conversation happening between and under the screams.
“Dr. Hagen,” she heard Natasha address.
“Agent Romanoff,” an elderly male returned. “And Agent Barton. You’ve both arrived at an opportune and somewhat inconvenient moment.”
“What exactly is happening here?” Clint asked.
“Possession, to put it simply,” Hagen stated. “This woman is clearly under the influence of something other than herself. In other paranormal cases there have been breaks of activity or hints given from the host, or the original personality, but this creature either has such a strong hold on this woman that we can’t reach her, or it’s completely done away with her psyche. In either case, she is exuding an alarming level of energy.”
“What does that mean?” Natasha asked.
“Spirits have the ability to alter or manipulate energy, often in the form of electricity,” Bea explained.
“This woman, rather, whatever is inside of her, has such a strong energy that it is affecting this entire building and the immediate area,” Hagen finished. “McKinney has been trying to communicate with whatever will talk to him, but that has so far been a fruitless endeavor. This creature isn’t talking.”
The smell of lavender was so thick that Denny thought she might faint. It was Shade, there was not a doubt in her mind. She couldn’t bring herself to look around the corner at it. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She was terrified and at the same time angry with herself for being so afraid after dealing with these things for over a decade now. She drew a meditating breath and edged around the frame of the door, just enough to see in the room and back away if something went wrong.
The woman in question was in a position somewhere between cowering and rearing against the headboard of a small bed with little blue and orange dinosaurs printed on the sheets. Bloody stains were slowly spreading where her dirty hands had hoisted herself on the covers. Her skin was pale, her lips gray, and there was a distinct bruising and decay-like blotching along her hairline and where the color of her rumpled dress touched her neck. Her eyes were watery but deflated looking. She was the picture perfect zombie, seething and heaving there in the corner like a trapped animal. When the man, McKinney, Denny assumed, tried to speak to her again a feral growl started in her throat and then escalated into that raging shriek as he inched closer, but did not lessen when he backed away. She looked like she wanted to attack, but knew she was in no physical shape to do so.
Denny looked around the room. It was clearly a child’s room. Could it have been this woman’s son? That was a stupid question. Denny looked the Shade up and down. Whoever this woman had been, and whatever was left imprinted in her mind was almost nil. The Shade had consumed her entirely. There was no saving her. Denny’s logic said that if the Shade weren’t going to talk it would be best to just kill her. It wasn’t like there was anything left to save. The boy, whoever he was, had probably been taken as another test possession. There probably wasn’t any saving him either at this point, but he might be closer to salvation that this poor woman.
Denny was about to find the strength to speak her mind when the Shade, with its dead eyes, saw her in the doorway. Denny’s breath hitched and she almost stepped back out of sight, but the Shade’s blatant calm at the sight of her caught her off guard. Clint was the first to register that the woman, the Shade, was apparently interested in Denny and pulled her into the room.
“Will you talk to her?” he asked it. The Shade shifted but did not come any closer.
“You need to kill it,” Denny whispered in a rush. “If it isn’t going to talk then it needs to be killed, for the woman’s sake. There’s nothing that can save her body from it now.”
“No.”
The woman’s voice was raspy from lack of use. “No. No. No.”
“If you don’t want us to kill you then tell us what you’re doing here. Who are you and what do you want?” Natasha asked, making a point to show it that she had her gun at the ready. It’s face contorted and it started what sounded like the beginning of another scream, but turned into a rush of angry words, half in English and half in a language not spoken by any living creature. Denny flinched at the words.
“Θυισενιμ εστ, θυι, θυαε, θυοδ?” It seethed. “She knows! Ask Eden who we are, and what we want!”
“Why can’t you tell us?” Clint pressed.
“Why should I?” The Shade countered with a sick grin, tilting the woman’s head at an unnatural angle.
“Even if I told them who you are I still don’t understand what you want,” Denny mustered. The shade laughed, a sharp and jarring sound that was not much different from the earlier screams.
“The living are a waste!” It hissed. “These bodies are better used by those who know, not those who pander with fragile imagined philosophies and theories.”
“And you all are using these bodies better?” Denny couldn’t help but scoff. “Look at you! You’re falling apart!”
“Mortal frames,” it said, “are weak. But we are learning. And soon you will too, Ελισιυμ.”
“What is it with the apparent conflict between you…things and her?” Clint asked it. The Shade looked to Denny like it couldn’t believe they didn’t know something so apparently obvious.
“Eden will be νοστρυμ undoing,” it said.
“Whose?” Natasha asked, not catching that word. In place of an answer the Shade lashed out, lunging for McKinney, who was the closest, but never getting to land a blow. Both Natasha and another agent shot the Shade in fatal physical areas. McKinney recovered enough to pull out his own weapon and check the body.
“Will that keep her down?” Natasha directed to Denny.
“Yeah,” Denny nodded, a bit stunned. “It should. The Shades haven’t yet perfected their possession process. It seems that they are trying to take root inside of living hosts, with detrimental side effects for both the host and Shade. For all their boasting in years prior they haven’t evolved very far.”
“I guess that’s something to be grateful for, right?” Clint asked dryly.
“I’m sorry, this is—?” Hagen asked, gesturing to Denny.
“Eden Turner. Our first and only living lead to whatever may be happening right now,” Clint introduced on her behalf. She waved at Hagen in confirmation.

Notes