"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Phil Coulson held up his leather badge wallet. He offered a mild, disarming smile. "We're here to investigate the break-in."
The front desk receptionist at Oscorp stared blankly at the badge. She stumbled over the acronym, picked up her desk phone, and anxiously dialed her supervisor.
Coulson slipped his badge back into his suit jacket. He tucked his hands into his pockets and surveyed the sleek, sterile architecture of the lobby. He turned slightly toward the young girl standing beside him. Cindy Moon had her jacket hood pulled up, the fabric casting a heavy shadow over her face.
"Your transfer paperwork cleared this morning," Coulson murmured, keeping his voice below the ambient noise of the lobby. "You start classes at Midtown High School next week. From here on out, your operational handler is Director Fury. I'm stepping back. Which means your formal S.H.I.E.L.D. training period is officially complete."
Cindy finally tilted her head up. The lobby lights caught her dark eyes. "And you, Agent Coulson?"
"Me? I've got a new deployment." Coulson's smile reached his eyes. "Putting together a new mobile response team. But I wanted to say thank you. For keeping me company during my physical therapy. You're a quiet one, but you're good company. Take care of yourself out there."
Cindy gave a single, sharp nod. She didn't say anything else.
Footsteps echoed across the marble floor. Norman Osborn strode into the lobby, his hand already extended, a perfectly engineered corporate smile fixed on his face.
"Agent Coulson. Welcome to Oscorp. I've heard quite a bit about you," Norman said. His handshake was firm, a calibrated display of alpha-male posturing. "I appreciate S.H.I.E.L.D.'s prompt response regarding our stolen property. Unfortunately, the compromised sector houses highly classified proprietary data. I cannot allow you access."
"We have physical evidence suggesting the stolen materials pose a direct threat to public safety," Coulson replied pleasantly, not missing a beat. "That falls under our jurisdiction."
Norman's smile widened by a fraction of an inch, revealing teeth.
It was a classic jurisdictional cold war. The general public assumed S.H.I.E.L.D. was an American agency. It wasn't. Born from the ashes of the SSR, S.H.I.E.L.D. answered to the World Security Council. The United States helped fund it, but they didn't own it. Consequently, the Pentagon kept its deepest black-budget military contracts tightly sealed away from Nick Fury's single eye. The "Savage Force" program was one of those Pentagon secrets. But Fury knew HYDRA had its tentacles wrapped around those military contracts, making it Coulson's problem.
"A significant percentage of the stolen inventory relates to classified U.S. military logistics," Norman countered smoothly. "Under Section Four of our Department of Defense contract, I am legally barred from disclosing that information to an international oversight committee."
"That's perfectly fine," Coulson said, his tone entirely agreeable. "We only need to inspect the visible structural damage." He gestured behind him. "Mr. Osborn, allow me to introduce S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Silk."
Norman shifted his gaze to Cindy. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly, calculating.
"Welcome," Norman said.
He turned on his heel and led them toward the security elevators. He deliberately routed them away from Dr. Jonathan Drew's primary Savage Force laboratory, swiping them into a secondary underground containment vault.
The vault was empty, save for a massive sheet of artificial metal-polymer resting on a reinforced table. A jagged chunk was missing from the corner.
"The military requested this for Emil Blonsky," Norman noted casually, gesturing to the heavy material. "General Ross always believed the 'Abomination' was a more stable asset than Bruce Banner."
Norman ran a hand over the frozen, shattered edge of the material. "I've heard rumors that S.H.I.E.L.D. is assembling a dedicated task force of enhanced individuals. Is Blonsky on your recruitment shortlist?"
"I don't have the clearance to confirm or deny that, Mr. Osborn," Coulson said.
"A shame." Norman feigned a sigh. In reality, his full attention was anchored on the quiet girl in the hoodie.
If Norman and Tony Stark could deduce Spider-Man's secret identity, S.H.I.E.L.D. absolutely knew it too. So why hadn't Fury recruited Peter Parker? Looking at Agent Silk, the puzzle pieces snapped together. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't need Parker. They already had their own Spider. There were multiple successful test subjects on the day of the expo.
Coulson is parading her in front of me, Norman thought, his pulse ticking up with predatory interest. He's probing my reaction. He needed to get Agent Moon onto an Oscorp medical examination table.
Cindy stood by the doorway, staring blankly at the metal sheet. She wasn't paying attention to the corporate posturing.
It was Thursday afternoon. Midtown High had just dismissed its students. Halfway across the city, Cindy felt a sudden, kinetic spike in her sensory web. Peter Parker was airborne. She could feel his exact geographical coordinates shifting in real-time. She could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the contraction of his fast-twitch muscle fibers as he swung over the traffic. Ever since she had felt his biology crash during the high-voltage Shocker fight, she had used her unique frequency to passively track his patrols. It was how she passed the time.
She tuned back into the room as Norman kept talking.
"The rest of the stolen prototypes are strictly military," Norman said. "I'm sure S.H.I.E.L.D. is aware of the broad strokes. The Pentagon has contracted multiple high-tech firms to chase Abraham Erskine's ghost. Stark tried to synthesize the Super-Soldier Serum. We're running our own parallel program."
"We evaluate threats as they arise," Coulson said.
"If S.H.I.E.L.D. was as effective as you claim, you would have dismantled William Stryker and his Weapon X project years ago."
Coulson's pleasant mask slipped for a fraction of a second. The lines around his mouth tightened. "Mr. Osborn. Are you drawing a parallel between Stryker's Weapon X initiative and Oscorp' current military contracts?"
"I said no such thing," Norman replied easily. "But regarding Weapon X... you really should think about what 'X' actually stands for."
Norman stepped forward and extended his hand again. "Once you figure that out, Agent Coulson, we can resume this conversation."
Ten minutes later, Coulson and Cindy stepped into a sterile, concrete emergency stairwell.
Coulson held up a hand. He pulled a specialized scanner from his breast pocket, swept the stairwell for listening devices, and powered down his own encrypted comms earpiece. Cindy pulled her phone out and turned it completely off.
"What did he mean?" Cindy asked, her voice echoing slightly off the concrete. "What does 'X' stand for?"
Coulson leaned against the heavy steel door. The color had drained from his face.
"Project X," Coulson said quietly. "A black-ops program specializing in the capture, brainwashing, and weaponization of mutants. James Howlett—Wolverine—is their most famous asset. He was their tenth viable product."
Coulson checked his watch, staring blankly at the second hand.
"X doesn't stand for the mutant X-gene, Cindy. It's a pun. It's the Roman numeral for ten."
Coulson looked up. The mild, unflappable S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was gone. For the first time since she had met him, Cindy saw raw, naked terror in Phil Coulson's eyes.
"Osborn wants us to cooperate with him," Coulson whispered. "He wants leverage."
"Do we give it to him?" Cindy asked.
"We don't have to. He just gave away the entire board." Coulson swallowed hard. Director Fury's warnings echoed in his head. "If Wolverine was Weapon Ten... that means there are at least ten separate super-soldier programs operating in the shadows."
And HYDRA was pulling the strings on all of them.
PS: This chapter drops a massive piece of comic lore regarding the "Weapon Plus" program! In the comics, the Weapon Plus program started with Captain America (Weapon I) and continued through decades of horrifying human experimentation, eventually culminating in Wolverine (Weapon X / 10).