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Isabelle looked dubiously at the five people standing with Coulson. He couldn’t blame her: May looked as professional as usual, and Skye and Triplett had also shaped up well, but Fitz and Simmons were bouncing on their feet in the excitement of meeting the Agent Isabelle Hartley.
There was an awkward silence.
“Could we come in?” Coulson prompted, when Isabelle showed no sign of moving out of her doorway.
She sighed. “I suppose you might as well,” she said.
Agent Hartley was living in a picturesque little grass hut by the beach. There was something naggingly familiar about the place, and Coulson suffered flashes of déjà vu before he realized it was the same hut that had featured in all his false memories of his time in Tahiti. Which was a magical place.
Coulson wondered if his host would mind much if he scribbled on a few of her walls. It was soothing.
“So,” said Isabelle, “what brings you out to this little corner of the world?”
“I’ve been here before,” he said. “Or, I thought I’d been here. But now I’m actually here. It really is as nice as my false memories of the place indicated.”
“Tahiti’s a magical place, huh?” said Isabelle. Coulson winced.
“Anyway, why did you decide to move out here?”
“Nice atmosphere, great beaches, fantastic weather… the usual, for a vacation spot. You know how it is.” Isabelle settled herself on a lounge chair. “I think there are a few more huts down the beach, if you’d like them.”
“That sounds lovely, but it’s really not why we’re here,” said Coulson. The last thing he wanted was to live in one of those huts again.
“So why are you here?”
“You might have heard. I’m starting up a new SHIELD, and I want you to join. We could use someone with your skills.”
“All right. What kind of salary and benefit packages are you offering?”
“What?” said Coulson, affronted.
“You know, with SHIELD gone, it’s a freelancer’s market. You’re not the only one who’s made an offer to me, and you think the rent on this place comes cheap? You’ve been here. You should know.”
“SHIELD paid for my stay here last time, I think,” said Coulson.
“Exactly!” Isabelle pulled out a piña colada from under her chair. “That’s all I’m asking. Nothing too unreasonable, right?”
“We don’t actually have our finances quite worked out yet,” said Coulson. “This year’s budget is a bit tight.”
“Mmm,” said Isabelle. “Have you spoken to Maria Hill? I heard she was with Stark, now. She might be able to help you there.”
Coulson bristled. “She’s sold out. Gone corporate. I’m staying true to the original ideals of SHIELD.”
“If you say so,” Isabelle said dubiously. “I’m just saying, you’re going to have a hard time recruiting if you can’t offer any healthcare, or stock options, or anything.”
“Director Fury tasked me with this personally.”
“Director Fury is dead. For that matter, so are you. A dead man, leading a dead organization, tasked to him by another dead man… good luck with that.”
“You know who else is dead?” said Skye, breaking into the conversation abruptly. “Agent Hand. She died defending SHIELD. Are you just going to walk away from all that? I thought you and she—”
She shut up when May elbowed her. Isabelle put down her piña colada very deliberately. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“This is Skye,” said Coulson, smiling brightly. “Our team’s hacker. She was instrumental in the fight against Hydra.”
“And you’re really going to do this? You’re really taking that route?”
Coulson looked at the rest of his team and shrugged.
Isabelle’s hand twitched dangerously. She said, very deliberately, “How dare you say that to me? You, of all people. You left Tori to die after she left the Hub. Did you ever check to see what happened with her when you never heard from her again? Even after you realized your man Ward was Hydra? How can you come back and, and turn her into a martyr for your purposes now, when it’s convenient to you? I don’t believe it.”
“I’m just trying to do my best here—”
“Your best wasn’t good enough for Tori!” Isabelle snapped.
“You can stop this happening to others—”
“Like you did for Tori? Like you did for me? No, you have nothing to offer me.”
“Please hear me out, Agent Hartley. I—”
“It’s Isabelle now,” she snapped. “I’m a private individual now, because SHIELD is dead. You’d do well to accept that.”
“…Isabelle,” Coulson began gently. “I’m sorry for your loss, truly. We all are. If only we could go back in time and do things over, you know we’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Spare me the platitudes. You never cared about her before now. You’d never even met her before you died, but just look at you now.” She took a few breaths, obviously trying to calm herself. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, please.”
“We need you,” said Coulson.
“I’m sorry, did you not hear me? The door’s right there. Don’t let it hit you on your way out.”
“I know this isn’t the best moment,” said Simmons suddenly – what was she doing? She and Fitz had been expressly ordered to keep their mouths shut here – “but could you autograph our trading cards, actually? Fitz and I have them of all the top agents, and Agent Hand signed them the last time we were at the Hub, and we’d really like to have a complete set—”
Isabelle twitched. A knife had somehow appeared in her hand. Coulson wished Fitz and Simmons could save their squeeing (Agent Hartley had always been known for her skills at knifework, second only to the Black Widow) for a time when he wasn’t at risk of getting skewered.
Again.
Well, they were already in Tahiti…
“Or not!” said Simmons hurriedly. “We just… thought we’d ask… since we were in the area, you know… flew all the way out here to see you, and Fitz said, when else are we going to be able to meet the Agent Hartley, so I just couldn’t… help myself…”
“You have a responsibility to SHIELD!” said Skye. Bless her heart for trying.
“You had a responsibility to Tori, and look where that’s gotten you. No, ‘Director Coulson’, I have no interest whatsoever in talking to you any further.”
“Isabelle, for old times’ sake—”
A knife thudded into the wall behind Coulson, shearing off a few hairs on the way.
“Last warning,” Isabelle said.
A door in the side of the hut opened, partially hidden by a pile of beach umbrellas, and someone stuck their head out. Coulson could see the back of her reddish-brown hair. A very familiar voice said, “Isabelle, remember the deposit on this place! Please do try not to damage the furniture.”
“We’ve got guests, Tori,” said Isabelle, somewhat unnecessarily.
Victoria Hand picked her way over the pile of beach umbrellas to stand by Isabelle, and raised an eyebrow.
“Phil,” she said coolly. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re alive! Oh, it’s wonderful to see you—”
Coulson hugged her. She patted him on the back awkwardly. Isabelle glared daggers at him over Victoria’s back.
“We all thought you died. How did you escape Ward?”
“You do remember Garrett trained him, yes? I had my suspicions when he volunteered to come along to the Fridge, so I prepared a few squibs. And sure enough, he shot me and ran off with Garrett.”
“But how did you get out of that shuttle?”
“A lady never reveals her secrets, Phil. But did you really think someone like Ward could kill me?”
“Well,” Coulson said, making one last effort, “I hope you’ll consider joining me as we rebuild SHIELD –”
“I’d rather not,” said Victoria briskly. “I’d accumulated quite a lot of leave, did you know that? I think I’m well due to enjoy some time on a tropical island with Isabelle. I wish you all the best, of course –” she was practically shooing them out the door now – “but Isabelle and I aren’t interested. And if you’ll excuse us now, we have a reservation at the spa. Goodbye.”
She didn't slam the door in their faces, but it was a near thing.
“She never signed our trading cards!” said Fitz sadly. “We’ve got one with her and Agent Hand, we could have gotten them both to sign it! That would have been worth a Howard Stark card from Agent Koenig at least.”
"Who cares about Howard Stark?"
"How can you say that? He's only Iron Man's father and the inventor of the arc reactor!"
"But he's so last SHIELD. We're starting up a new SHIELD, remember? A better one. Actually, Fitz, you and I ought to start up a new run of limited edition cards. Can you imagine?"
“... Never mind that,” May said. “We’re out of jet fuel. We used the last of it flying here. I was hoping Isabelle would have some reserves here—”
“You can swim back to the mainland, for all we care!” called Isabelle through the wall.
“Maybe I can divert a plane here to pick us up,” said Skye. “But I guess there are worse places to be stuck than here. Hey, you think I could get a massage?”
Coulson tried not to cry.