The coffee shop was warm and unhurried. Skye had been sitting at the window table for the better part of an hour, elbow propped on the sill, eyes fixed on the entrance to the Assassin Brotherhood headquarters across the street. The guards rotated every twenty minutes. She had timed them twice.
Her pickup truck was parked two blocks over in an alley. Close enough to leave fast if she needed to.
She wasn't entirely sure what she was hoping would happen. That he'd just walk out and she'd be sitting here with a front-row seat — that seemed too convenient even for her. Still, she'd paid an extra thirty dollars for this window seat, and she was going to get her money's worth.
She was deep into imagining the unlikely but not impossible scenario of a spontaneous encounter when the bell above the door chimed and Ward and Coulson walked in.
Ward caught sight of her immediately. His eyes moved from her face to the Brotherhood entrance across the street and back again, and the corner of his mouth pulled sideways.
"So you staked out Tony Stark outside Stark Tower," he said, "and now you're staking out Smith Doyle too."
Skye straightened in her chair. Her stomach had done a small, guilty lurch the moment she saw them, but her face didn't move.
"What a coincidence," she said. "You want coffee?"
Coulson was already pulling out the chair across from her. He sat down, folded his hands on the table, and smiled pleasantly. "Ward. Two coffees for Ms. Skye and myself, please."
"Cappuccino," Skye said automatically.
Ward nodded and headed for the counter without a word.
Skye watched him go, then looked back at Coulson. "You're federal employees. On salary. And you're making the unemployed woman pay."
"Drinks always taste better when someone else covers it." Coulson's smile didn't waver. "I think you know that."
Ward returned with two cups, set one in front of Coulson, and picked up his own. He looked at Skye over the rim. "Watching your face while you pay for this is going to make mine taste even better."
Skye rolled her eyes and turned back to the window.
Coulson let the silence sit for a moment, then said, "Would you like to go inside? I can get you in. There's a chance you'd even get to meet Smith Doyle directly."
Skye turned back. "Can you actually do that?"
"Mr. Smith is both an Avenger and the Inspector General of S.H.I.E.L.D.," Coulson said. "I have standing authorization to report to him in person. Getting inside is straightforward."
Something lit up behind Skye's eyes. She leaned forward slightly before she caught herself. "Okay. Yes. Take me in there."
"Absolutely," Coulson said. "One small favor first."
"What kind of favor?"
"Something that's difficult for us but easy for you. We need help identifying the people behind the videos that have been circulating in New York — the Rising Tide releases from the past few days."
Skye went still for one beat. "Incitement videos?"
Coulson slid a tablet across the table. She picked it up and scrolled through. The three videos loaded one after another. Smith's spacecraft on Broadway. The Sky Curtain resurrection timeline. The Dragon Ball market analysis, photograph included.
Her own work, shot back at her in HD.
"I don't know if this qualifies as incitement," she said carefully. "It's all factual."
Coulson tilted his head. "The framing carries a strong bias, and the public reaction has been significant. New York is not calm right now."
Ward set his cup down. "Skye. You've been in the city less than a week, and the Rising Tide drops three trending videos the same week you arrive." He paused. "Tell me you didn't post those."
Skye let out a short laugh that came out a little too clipped to be convincing. "Is posting videos actually illegal?"
"That's not your call to make," Coulson said. He wasn't being harsh about it — he never was. "Whether it's legal is determined by investigators, not the person posting. What's true is that someone is buying up spherical stones. Someone is buying Dragon Balls. Smith Doyle did land on Broadway in a single-occupant spacecraft. All factual. But framing matters."
Skye opened her mouth, then put her hand over it instead, performing a theatrical look of revelation. "So you really have found someone with resurrection powers? Powerful enough that certain people want to live forever?"
Ward's expression flattened. "Your acting could use some work."
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current files confirm no documented individual with resurrection capability," Coulson said. "That's a matter of record."
Skye leaned back in her chair. "What if I told you I genuinely had nothing to do with it?"
"Unlock your laptop," Ward said. "Let our people run a check. The truck too. If you're clean, we walk away."
Coulson folded his hands again. "And if you can help us identify whoever did post those videos, I'll take you across that street personally."
He gestured toward the window. Everyone looked.
Smith Doyle dropped out of the sky in a controlled descent, boots meeting the sidewalk outside the Brotherhood entrance with the quiet, absolute certainty of someone who had never once needed to use a door.
"Oh my God." Skye was already half out of her seat. "The barista was not lying. This window seat has a direct line of sight to — I paid thirty extra dollars for this and it was worth every cent."
Ward and Coulson both went quiet. Ward's coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
The three of them watched Smith push through the coffee shop door.
He had clocked Coulson and Ward through the window before he reached the entrance — they were hard to miss, both of them built for exactly this kind of surveillance work. But the young woman sitting between them was the one who stopped his attention for a fraction longer than the others. He had promised Jiaying he would find her daughter. He had been looking, in his own way, since he got back.
He crossed the floor toward their table.
Skye's heart was doing something embarrassing. She pressed her palms flat against her thighs under the table.
Coulson rose slightly in his seat. "Good afternoon, Mr. Smith."
Ward straightened without quite standing, caught himself, then stood all the way. "Good afternoon, sir."
Smith nodded. "Good afternoon." He looked at Skye. "Do you mind if I take a seat?"
Skye glanced at the already-occupied chairs, then back at him. Her mouth opened and what came out was: "I don't mind — you're my — I mean I'm your —" She exhaled. "Sorry. I'm a little tongue-tied. You're my idol. I admire you a lot."
"I think you mean you're my fan," Smith said, without unkindness.
"Right. Yes. That's what I said."
Ward was already moving. "Sir, take mine." He stepped aside and gestured to his chair like a man who had just remembered what hospitality looked like.
Coulson glanced at Ward with the quiet, mildly bewildered expression of a man reassessing someone he thought he knew well.
Smith looked at Ward. "Thanks, Agent Ward."
Ward's composure cracked by about three degrees. "You know my name."
"I've reviewed Coulson's team files." Smith settled into the vacated chair, rested one arm across the back of it, and glanced around the table. "I know all of your names." He looked at Ward. "You can sit down."
Ward remained standing. Whether that was professionalism or something else, it was hard to say.