Chapter 321
(Ethan)
Three days since the group chat turned into a war room, and the most dangerous thing I’ve done all week is climb a fire escape in the rain.
Gwen’s already at the top when I get there, Renamon a pale shape crouched at the edge of the roof, watching the street below like it owes her money. Jessica comes up last, Impmon riding her shoulder and complaining about the wet metal under his claws the entire way.
“This is the fourth one,” Jessica says, pulling her hood back. “Fourth building where somebody’s had a Shadowstone panic attack and nobody official cares.”
“Nobody official cares because nobody official’s supposed to know these are connected.” I crouch by the roof access door, checking the lock Gwen already picked twenty minutes ago on her own recon pass. “We care. That’s the point.”
Gwen doesn’t look over. “The pattern holds. Same radius as the other three, same time-of-day cluster, same total lack of a police report that mentions anything weird.”
It’s good work. It’s been good work for three weeks now, ever since Peter went underground on the tech side and left the three of us to walk the actual pavement. I catch myself almost enjoying it, the rhythm of it, checking a lead and closing it out and moving to the next one like we’re actually getting somewhere instead of just mapping the edges of something we still can’t see the middle of.
Renamon’s ears flick.
“Someone’s watching this building,” she says. “Third time today.”
I don’t ask how she knows. Renamon doesn’t say things like that unless she’s sure. I follow her line of sight to a parked sedan across the street, engine off, windows dark enough that I can’t tell if there’s actually someone in it or if I’m about to feel stupid for asking.
“Same car as this morning?” Jessica asks.
“Different plate.” Renamon’s voice stays flat. “Same driver’s seat height.”
That’s not nothing. I file it next to the itch I’ve had since lunch, the one I kept telling myself was paranoia because paranoia’s cheaper than the alternative.
Before the thought goes anywhere useful, a man steps out from the stairwell behind us, hands visible, posture calm in the specific way of someone who’s done this enough times that calm doesn’t cost him anything.
I know him from his file, Sitwell, though I’ve never actually had him standing in front of me.
“Mr. Kepler.” He says it like we’ve met, which we haven’t, not really, not outside a briefing room neither of us was actually in together. “I’d rather this go easy.”
“Go what easy.” I stay crouched, weight on the balls of my feet, and Gatomon shifts closer without needing to be told.
“You and your friends have been running an unauthorized operation. Independent intelligence gathering against sensitive field activity that’s currently in progress.” He says the whole sentence the way you’d read a form out loud, which somehow makes it worse. “I need you three to come in and answer for that.”
Jessica’s eyebrows go up. “Sensitive field activity. We’ve been checking on scared civilians.”
Sitwell’s expression doesn’t shift.
“That’s one read of it.”
I want to laugh and don’t. Something about the phrasing sits wrong, too clean, too much like a line built to survive a report rather than describe what we’ve actually been doing for three weeks straight. But wrong-sounding isn’t the same as wrong, and SHIELD’s not exactly known for plain language.
“Fine,” I say, mostly to buy time to think. “Let’s call Coulson. He’s the one I call, every time. You know that.”
Sitwell’s face doesn’t move, not exactly, but something behind it recalibrates.
“Coulson’s not read in on this.”
“He’s read in on everything involving us. That’s literally his job.”
Sitwell doesn’t blink.
“Not this.”
Two realizations hit me at once. First, that’s not how it works, Coulson’s the one name in this whole organization who’s supposed to always be in the loop where we’re concerned, that’s the entire reason this arrangement hasn’t blown up already. Second, Sitwell knows that, and said it anyway, flat, like he expected me not to push.
Something’s wrong. This isn’t a feeling this time, it’s a fact with a shape to it.
“You’re not actually here to bring us in for questions,” I say.
Sitwell’s calm slips half an inch, just enough to confirm it. “Last chance to make this simple.”
Gatomon doesn’t wait for me to give the order. She’s already moving, a blur of white and gold across the wet rooftop, and one of the two SHIELD tactical agents behind Sitwell gets his hand halfway to something clipped at his belt before her claws catch him across the chest and send him stumbling into the other.
BlackGatomon hits the gap they leave, low and fast, and neither of them gets back up clean.
None of it pulls Sitwell in. He’s backing through the stairwell door before BlackGatomon’s even finished, done being part of whatever this turns into.
“Go, go, go!”
Jessica’s the one shouting it, already hauling Impmon up onto the ledge.
Renamon plants herself between Gwen and the stairwell door in the same breath, a wall of orange fur and bad intentions.
We run, over the fire escape, down one alley, then a second that dead-ends into a chain-link fence Gatomon tears through like paper.
Renamon takes a hit meant for Gwen, a glancing shot from something I don’t get a clear look at, and staggers but keeps her feet. My phone’s gone somewhere in the second alley, jarred loose or dropped, and I don’t stop to check which. There isn’t time to want it back.
We don’t stop running until three train lines and one very confused bodega owner later, tucked into the storage room behind Jessica’s cousin’s shop, all of us soaked and nobody talking for a solid minute.
I borrow Jessica’s phone and try Peter’s line anyway, more out of habit than hope. No reply comes back, not even a read receipt.
Jessica’s the one who finally breaks the quiet. “So. We can’t go home.”
Nobody argues with her.
“I don’t know if Fury even signed off on this.” I say it slow, turning the thought over as it comes out. “Could be he did. Could be he’s as blind as we are right now.”
Gwen looks at me like she wants that to be comforting and can’t quite make it land as such. “That’s not exactly a plan.”
“No.” I lean my head back against the wall, my ripped sleeve doing nothing against the cold. “It’s a start.”