00012. Trying to make friends with a bunch of spys can be hard.
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Fury was the first to speak as he turned around and said, “Sam, I want you to start running a trace and find out where this is coming from.”

Before Sam or anyone else could move, the black eyed man replied. “There is no need for that, you won’t be able to find me. Unless I tell you where I am. Now I have a few hours today to discuss with all of you about why you are here and I would really like to make this as streamlined as possible."

Hank let out a defeated sigh and said, “He is right, I tried for over a week and came up empty handed.”

Fury just nodded once to Sam and turned back around to look at the man once again. As that was going on Sam went to his laptop sitting on the table and started to work. As he did, the man began to speak again and said. "That won't get you anywhere Fury, but if it makes you feel better you are free to try for the next few hours."

Fury crossed his arms over his chest as he said, “And what makes you think any of us will stay here for the next few hours and listen to what you have to say?”

The man on the screen smiled slightly and said, “Besides the fact that you wanna find out who I am, so you will most likely stay for what I have to say on the off chance that Sam can find me. You are also curious how I would be able to find out about something like this base, since there are no records of this place in any S.H.I.E.L.D. database.”

Fury smiled back and said, “Those are valid reasons, but I don’t need all of these people here for this. I could send them away and it would just be me and you here.”

The man on the screen let out a laugh and said, “While you could order your agents to leave, I doubt Miss Carter or Dr. Pym would leave just because you asked them. Plus if you tried a power move like that, I would just tell everyone how you lost your eye. Flerkens are funny creatures aren’t they? Did you know their stomach acts as a pocket dimension? Oh but you already knew that though, since one was holding the Tesseract for a few days.”

“Enough!”

Everyone looked towards Fury for a moment before looking back at the man smiling on the monitor. Fury’s smile had dropped and he stayed silent for a few moments before he finally walked over to a chair and sat down. After he was seated he said, “You seem to know a lot of things that no one else should know about, care to explain how?”

"To put it in a way that is easy to understand, I can see the future.”

Everyone was quiet as they thought about what they just heard. Fury looked like he was about to speak when Hank asked, “Say I believe you, is that why you told me Janet is alive?”

The man on the screen smiled again and replied, “That would be correct. In about 22 years from now you find and rescue your wife from the quantum realm. I am pretty sure we could do it a lot sooner. But if you don’t mind believing in magic, I think the earth's sorcerer supreme might be able to do it even faster than us. I am not one hundred percent certain though and I really don’t feel like talking to her.”

Fury raised an eyebrow at that comment and a few other people were looking at each other and mouthing sorcerer supreme to see if anyone knew what the man on the screen was talking about. Hank, on the other hand, just laughed and said, “I am a man of science, I don’t believe in magic.”

“I figured as much. I have a few ideas on how to speed up the process of finding your wife. I will send those to you later, but I would like you to stay here and listen to what I have to say since it also involves you.”

Hank shook his head as he said, “I don’t want anything to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. after what they tried to do to me.”

The man on the screen smiled wide at that and said, “Even if it wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D., who was actually behind it in the first place?”

Hank narrowed his eyes at that comment and asked, “You expect me to believe it wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D., when I caught them myself as they tried to replicate and steal my technology?”

“While they might have been part of S.H.I.E.L.D., the people doing it weren’t told by S.H.I.E.L.D. to do it. I know you confronted Miss Carter, Stark and Mitchell Carson about it. But you never asked them about it specifically, you just left and never said another word. Miss Carter, did you or Howard task anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. to try and recreate the Pym Particle?”

Hank looked over to Peggy and she let out a sad sigh before she said, “No, it was Mitchell Carson, he was the one who did it. Me and Howard found out when you came in and gave your resignation. After you left we stopped all research on it and I demoted Mitchell for what he did, but you were already gone, the real damage was already done.”

The man on the screen nodded his head and replied, “Thank you Miss Carter. Now Hank I know at the time you were starting to distrust your allies and even your technology over what happened to you wife. But I would like to assure you that your tech overall is fine, but you were right to distrust some of the people close to you.”

At this point someone else finally spoke up, it was Peggy’s niece and they asked, “Pardon me, but it seems like you are trying to say that not everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“That was correct Miss Carter.”

She put her hand up in a stopping motion and said, “Please just call me Sharon, Mr. ?”

The man on the screen looked a little embarrassed before he gave a slight bow as he said, “Please forgive me, I never introduced myself. You can call me, Ezekiel."

Fury spoke next and said, “I doubt that is your real name.”

“It's one of the names my parents gave me. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Miss Carter, you remember Operation Paperclip, correct?”

Nodding her head at the same time she replied, “Yes I do, the US brought over a bunch of German scientists after world war two. A good amount even ended up in the S.S.R. and then S.H.I.E.L.D. after that.”

The man on the screen gave a wicked looking smile at that and asked, “Even the ones who worked for Hydra?”

Peggy didn’t like the way he asked that question but replied, “Yes we took in any that were qualified and didn’t commit any war crimes.”

Ezekiel’s smile became a bit wider before he asked, “Could you remind me what Hydra agents liked to say as they committed suicide?”

Peggy was having a really bad feeling in the pit of her stomach as she replied, “Cut off one head and two will grow back. But it was only the fanatics that believed in that. Plus once Johann Schmidt died, Hydra fell apart on its own.”

Fury spoke next and said, “So you want us to believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. is currently compromised by a Nazi group from World War Two?”

Ezekiel laughed at that and then said, “No, not at all. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised by a cult that has existed long before any Nazi’s did. Here, take a look at this for a minute.”

On the screen the Hydra logo they used during world war two appeared. Then slowly it split apart and one of the logos turned into another image. It was black and white with a weird looking skull on it, it also had some weird curls coming off of the top side of the head. After a moment, the second logo rotated one hundred and eighty degrees and looked strangely close to the Hydra logo next to it.

“Everyone is familiar with the first logo, the second one is from a cult that was around in the fourth century B.C. and this next one was used from around 800-1200 A.D.” On the screen another logo appeared, it had a ram skull resting above a crest. Then another logo appeared with a weird looking ram skull on it.

“That one is from around 1200-1700 A.D. There are a few more to see, but I am sure you all get the point.”

Peggy looked deathly pale at the thought that she tarnished Steve’s memory, by letting Hydra infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.and twist it to their own ends. A lot of other people in the room were looking very uncomfortable also. Hank was quiet, but he was looking over at Peggy. His face was an unreadable mask. Fury was the first to break the silence in the room and asked, “So what, this group of people have existed for around two thousand years and have been trying to take over the world this whole time?”

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “No, this started as a cult that was worshiping someone they considered a god. He was an Inhuman, or at least that is what his people called themselves. He was a very dangerous and powerful Inhuman, because of that he was banished to another world long ago. His followers that were left on Earth then founded a cult, with its main purpose to bring him back to earth, so they could conquer it. It has changed a lot over the years, but its main goal is pretty much the same.”

Everyone else was silent as they were thinking about what they just heard. Fury was the first to speak as he asked, “This inhuman was banished over two thousand years ago, shouldn’t they be dead by now?”

“I wish, but he is a parasite and lives by taking over people. The people die, but he retains the person's memories. He actually wiped out the entire population of the planet he was exiled to. It was the main reason he was exiled, he would have done the same thing to our planet given enough time.”

Someone else spoke up and said, “Mr. Ezekiel, it’s a little hard to believe this story. I have seen some pretty outlandish things working with S.H.I.E.L.D., but this is a step above any of that.” A lot of people in the room nodded in agreement with the man’s statement.

“It’s always good to have a healthy bit of skepticism Agent Coulson, but I can assure you that everything I have said is fact. But at the same time it’s just words coming from a person you don’t know. So let me give all of you an olive branch and try to earn your trust.”

Fury scoffed at that and said, “If you want me to trust you, how about you come here and talk to me face to face.”

Ezekiel laughed at that and said, “I wouldn’t do that for two reasons. The first is because I don’t have the time. The second is because I don’t want you to randomly show up at my house when you wanna talk.”

Fury just glared at Ezekiel as Peggy started to laugh. A few other people including Coulson were smirking at the comment. When Peggy stopped laughing she said, “You are right about the second part.” A few more people actually laughed at Peggy’s comment, but stopped when Fury shot them each a glare.

Once the room settled down again, Ezekiel said. “So, my first olive branch to gain some trust. I just sent a list of bank accounts to Sam.”

Fury raised an eyebrow and said, “You want to buy our trust with money?”

“No, not at all. I just told you that the organization you run is infested. The people in this room are here because I know for a fact that none of them are Hydra sleeper agents. There are a lot more good agents in S.H.I.E.L.D., but these ones I know for certain. The rest I will have to slowly verify. The reason I am giving you money is because you won’t be able to make any moves using funds from S.H.I.E.L.D. without drawing attention.”

Sam looked up in shock before he asked, “There is close to one hundred billion dollars in here?!? Were you the one who pulled off all those bank hacks last month? No one has figured out how it was done and none of the banks were able to retrieve the money.”

“Yes, that was me. All the money I took was from criminals or terrorists, I figured we would put it to better use then they would.”

The man looked over everyone in the room for a moment, before he looked at Peggy and said. “Now for the real olive branch of friendship, Miss Carter I know where Steven Rogers is.”

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