"No, no sir. Let us be exceedinly clear in this fact: S.W.O.R.D. is a sister agency, an equal."

Theodore had never liked lawyers, however many he knew, he had in his family, or how helpful they could be. His only visible reaction was a pause in the motion of silently fidgeting the pen in his left hand, and a long stare at the young woman apparently having her very own 'you go girl' moment at his expense. Not that it mattered to him, anyway, but he was too polite to point that out in the moment. "...right. Okay. So I can talk to S.W.O.R.D., but not to S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

The young lawyer with the Inspector General's Office pursed her lips, and shrugged. "Depends."

The laughter that sounded from his mouth was anything but amused in that moment. Yes, he hated lawyers, the fact made him drop his pen from his hand and run fingers from both his hands through his dark brown hair that was a good three weeks overdue for a cut. The stress of constantly changing rules and landscapes. "On what, Eileen? Damn, I'm not trying to step into this. I'm not trying to use this for any inter-agency agendas. I want no stress-tests. Tell me who to pass it to, and I'll happily dump it on their ass."

Eileen looked uncomfortable. "Without knowing more, and I can't know more, all I can do is tell you where to go. After the alien Skrull compromise of S.H.I.E.L.D., Osborne turned it all into H.A.M.M.E.R. Turning it back into S.H.I.E.L.D. took time, less time with Director Hill, but during restructuring Congress did the rare bi-partisan thing and severed S.W.O.R.D. from S.H.I.E.L.D. because it never had those security issues. Circling back to the original question--"

"--yeah that'd be nice," Theodore perked higher in his cozy office chair.

"--no, Maria Hill, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. has no legal authority or basis to interject on a matter between your office, N.S.A. Deputy Director, and anyone in S.W.O.R.D. Maria Hill would, it is reasonably supposed, have security clearance levels for discussion, though 'need to know' criteria issues would clearly exist." The counsel from the Inspector General's Office paused, before throwing in: "However, you can't tell N.A.S.A."

Theodore blinked, his tone deeping with the intrigue in the random legal fact he couldn't tell N.A.S.A. about an extra-solar issue. "I can't tell N.A.S.A.? Not that I was considering it, but why the hell not?"

"N.A.S.A. has a higher approval rating than any intellience or defense oriented agency. The desire is to keep them out of any potential scandal or conflict."

"The Switzerland of the US Intelligence-Defense industry? Fair enough." A sigh cascaded through him; from feet to face, the weight of it all finally disagreeing with his body in ways few things in his career had. "You have to leave now, counsel, I have a secure call to make and I can't wait."

The call went about as feared. Abigail Brand was the Director of S.W.O.R.D. She wasn't all human, was Theodore's initial thought as he stared at her image on the projected 8k screen on the empty office wall, a signal encrypted between his office in the Pentagon and the space station S.W.O.R.D. head-quarted itself out of. [i]Mutant, maybe? Alien?"[/i] A strange thought, trusting the safety of Americans when it came to extraterrestrial threats to an alien. Like when their agencies turned to Muslim members of their agencies post-9/11. Or to S.H.I.E.L.D. after New York City. Or to H.A.M.M.E.R. after Stamford, Connecticut. 

He couldn't help but wonder just where Krakoa, Xavier, and Lensherr would drive them. Something he liked to ignore as much as he ignored the presence of dormant super-volancos or rogue asteroids that could, theorhetically at least, smash into them any day and kill them all assuming the capes couldn't do enough to stop it. Superheroes were real enough, but none of them were Superman of the comic books. He had met a few during his career, shaken hands with Steve Rogers a few times. There were good ones. Rare as it seemed to be.

Even someone like Charles Xavier had gone from 'living together in peace' to 'stay in your corner, we'll stay in ours, no problems.' Lensherr could wear all the white and silver he wanted, it wouldn't make Theodore feel any better about the man. Brand proved unhelpful, pointing him to Maria Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Special Threat Assessment for Known Extranormalities division regarding New York. It made him laugh, because of course there was another division of S.H.I.E.L.D. And of course it had a similarly ridiculous name. Theodore was starting to feel inadequate with short and simple National Security Agency. [i]It's like they WANT people knowing what they do.[/i]

As for the angry and super-powered representative of the Shi'ar Empire? That, much to his great relief, Brand had agreed to deal with. She also tossed him a name of someone who might work with them, if they got desperate. He didn't recognize the name, and plugging it into the N.S.A. classified database got him...[i]God dammit.[/i] It was the height of irritation that drove him to the phone on his desk. It took a call to their dispatch, who would reach out to their dispatch, who would authenticate and relay.

It took twenty minutes to go through. They were clearly in the middle of some fire fight, although from the sound of it maybe lasers were being fired as well? Who-the-fuck knew. Theodore felt like a child envious of the adults at the adult table during Thanksgiving. He had wanted to avoid this for many reasons; the sheer pain of dealing with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a 'regular' agency of the government had to be what cops felt like when they dealt with superheroes on the streets. [i]Thanks. We exist, too, and yeah, we have a job to do too. Oh. Thanks. We'll just...clean it all up. Cool.[/i]

"Who?"

Theodore wasn't offended. Maria Hill was, well, Maria Hill. He had started in the F.B.I., been plucked by the C.I.A. for field work and analyst duties before accepting Operations Chief for a joint C.I.A./N.S.A. terrorism task force. Pivoting from that to computer crimes, and especially large ransom ware cases, had given him bonafides in the N.S.A. world. Now he was having to cold call a woman who had probably seen more extinction events narrowly avoided in her life than amount of times he had fired his sidearm in real action. 

"Theodore Bailey, Deputy Director at the N.S.A. for--"

"--Teddy Bailey? Heard about you. Aliens getting under your skin, Deputy Director?"

She didn't seem at all phased by the shootout she was in, and he spent too much of his attention trying to figure out what her sidearm was. Didn't look like something he had seen. "Abigail Brand was very helpful on that front, Director Hill. Nevermind I had no idea what they were talking about, or that you already knew about it."

He could, literally, hear the amusement in her voice as she returned fire. "We are S.H.I.E.L.D., Deputy Director."

[i]Argh...[/i] His eyes didn't roll, despite the desire. "Director Brand offered a name that might agree to help. Turns out she recommended Wolverine. S.H.I.E.L.D. restricts access to that file, Director...why do I feel like everyone knows something I don't, Director Hill?"

He watched her on the 8k projection, slide down into cover and stare into the camera. "What exactly did the Shi'ar representative say?"

"You'll have to officially request the transcript, Director...but the gist of it was something about a flaming bird and a very large intense grievance and not in over four hundred years, but not our years, their years and...New York. I know New York's significance."

"Teddy Bailey, get every scrap of information on Jean Grey you can get, and go prepared to meet Wolverine. You're the N.S.A., you can find him. Then hope all you need is one Avenger, and not all of them. If I don't hear from you in...twenty-four hours I'll find you."

Theodore didn't want to betray his poker face. So instead of raising a single eyebrow in curiosity, he kept it all closer to the vest. "Your concern is appreciated, Director."

"This isn't concern."

"Really? I just had legal counsel telling me S.H.I.E.L.D. did not, could not, take such stances any longer."

"Twenty-four hours. Enjoy backwoods Canada this time of year, Deputy Director."