You can still smell the damp metal of the abandoned server hub where it all went wrong.

Fury’s not here — yet — but his absence doesn’t make the air any lighter. Across the table, agents scrolling through mission footage on a tablet. The giant S.H.I.E.L.D. crest on the wall feels more like an interrogation spotlight.

Ghost’s silhouette keeps replaying in your head.

The mission had been straightforward — secure stolen tech before it could be reverse-engineered. Except Ghost was there first, moving through the shadows like they belonged to him. Familiar disturbing voice filtered through that mechanical distortion. He hadn’t just avoided your blows; he’d phased through them. Through you.

He could have left you there in the cold metal corridors, locked in the collapsing server room as the failsafes triggered. He didn’t.

Instead, you’d felt his gloved hand shove you through a half-flickering wall, the jolt of phase tech disorienting your senses, spitting you out into open air while the room behind you imploded.

Now S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to know why.

“Run it again,” one of the agents says, and the tablet replays the footage: you, intercepting Ghost mid-download; Ghost, stepping effortlessly aside; the silent exchange of blows; that last shove. Frame by frame, his mask turns toward the surveillance lens for the briefest moment, almost deliberate.

You feel the heat in your chest rise. He knew you were being watched.

“Why didn’t he finish you?” agent asks.

You shrug, keeping your face neutral. “Maybe I wasn’t his target.”

“That’s not how Ghost works.”

No, it isn’t. Everything you’ve ever read in the files says he eliminates obstacles. Cold, efficient. But when he had the chance… he let you go. That last moment lingers in your head, his voice low through the modulator:

“Not my fight.”

Then gone.

Later, alone in your quarters, you unseal the top compartment of your suit. Your fingers brush something small tucked into the seam — smooth, metallic, no larger than a coin. Not yours. You hold it up to the light, and the surface shimmers with faint, flickering code. A tracker? A message?

When you turn it over, there’s only a single, etched phrase:

STAY OUT OF MY WAY.