42

“I can hack the remote controls from the tower,” Sitwell says, and you wonder when he became a crazy computer expert, “but I’ll need protection.”

“Wait,” you say, “you want to go to the tower?”

“We have no choice,” he replies, and it sounds pretty final, so you don’t argue.

He ends up delegating. You get the job of doing the manual control release (he shows you how before he leaves, because he isn’t making any promises of coming back); Bruce is the new supervisor of the prisoners’ escape to the extraction point; Thor’s going with Sitwell to make sure he gets to the tower at all.

You wonder if it’s a job requirement for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to have some kind of death wish. Then you think about the people you know who work for S.H.I.E.L.D., and you wonder why that wasn’t obvious to you before.