FBI: Chapter 92/93

Chapter 92: Really High

Back then, when Dante asked Fury to "drop gold coins," it was probably just a joke.

But this time?

Dante was serious.

He needed Fury to bleed a little—for real.

Let's not even talk about the stack of cash he burned buying that Terrigen crystal from Bruce Wayne.

Right now, with the Star Team's lineup growing like a Pokémon roster, that big ol' apartment Dante was originally assigned? Way too small.

Most importantly—

Now they had Thor and Hulk.

Two walking natural disasters. Sure, the apartment was spacious, but there were still neighbors above and below.

If Hulk went full Smash Mode? Nobody could guarantee the furniture or the structural integrity of the building would survive.

Honestly, Dante figured the bare minimum needed was something like Professor X's mansion. Big, indestructible, and isolated enough for Thor and Hulk to throw hands without collateral damage.

Living separately? That was never on the table.

They weren't some janky hero coalition.

They were a legit Federal Bureau of Investigation team.

Call it a non-military squad with military-grade chaos. Living together made sense.

Coulson's team all lived together on the Airbus—but that only worked because they didn't include a thunder god and a gamma-powered wrecking ball.

So Dante brought up the housing issue, full seriousness this time.

Fury stopped grumbling and started thinking.

The Bureau had plenty of property under its name. Most of it was confiscated from supercriminals.

Some of those were legit mansions.

Only catch?

They were located by the Panama Canal.

Fury squinted out the window, then slapped his bald head like the light bulb just went on.

"That's right! We can move there!"

"…What the hell is 'there'? Be more specific, old man."

"While Washington, D.C. is where HQ is located, we also technically have a branch office in Washington." Fury said, clearing his throat.

Dante narrowed his eyes.

"You mean it exists on paper only, right?"

"Exactly. Officially, HQ doesn't handle local incidents, just manages branches. But over the years, we've absorbed most of the Washington branch's duties, letting us send their personnel elsewhere."

Fury kept going.

"Ten years ago, we basically mothballed that branch. But we still send maintenance crews to keep it functional."

"It's a full branch base—housing, training grounds, labs, offices. Basically, a mini version of HQ."

"And best of all…"

"It can order takeout."

That last line sold it.

Dante's brain went from "considering" to "sold" in under a second.

This was it.

Thank God.

The Bureau's cafeteria food was abysmal.

Fat-loss meals. Protein shakes. Muscle-gain soup.

No spice. No joy. No point.

He'd take greasy, guilt-laden junk food over that "wellness sludge" any day.

So, the Star Team's new HQ was set: Washington branch.

Coulson's team would move with them too.

They couldn't live on the Airbus forever. Even super-agents need walls that don't hum at night.

Dante had zero objections.

He actually liked Coulson's team a lot.

Besides Fury, Coulson was probably the person he was closest to in the Bureau.

"…What about the gold coins, though?"

"Have some shame," Fury snapped. "You just got a whole-ass base handed to you and you still have the nerve to ask for cash?"

Every time Fury looked at Dante's face now, he remembered that day on the Helicarrier, Dante and Tony tag-teaming to sabotage the weapons system.

He could practically see the piles of money being vaporized in real time.

Gold coins? He should be lucky Fury didn't stab him on sight.

Hulk finally lifted his head from the table.

Not because he was full.

Because… there was nothing left to eat.

"Hulk still hungry!" he growled, rising from the sofa.

The moment he shifted his weight—crack.

The couch, which had been hanging on for dear life, finally gave out.

It flattened like a pancake. All that was left was the giant green butt print, stamped into what used to be luxury leather.

Fury's face went dark. He stared at his ruined couch.

"Dante! Get your oversized green glutton out of here!"

---

Moving day wasn't hard.

It just meant opening a few portals and making some trips back and forth.

Two days later, all the previously occupied Bureau branches had been retaken.

And just like that, the Star Team entered a rare phase of…

Idleness.

Not retirement. Not peace. Just… nothing blowing up for five minutes.

Sixty percent of domestic chaos had always traced back to HYDRA or its various shell groups.

Now that the Bureau had basically nuked HYDRA's operational strength, the organization wouldn't be able to crawl back up for at least a century.

Of course, "idle" was relative.

No more constant firefights and death matches with supervillains.

But Dante was still tied up with a different project: joint psychological consultations with the Bureau's telepaths.

Their targets?

Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes.

Red Hulk, aka General Ross.

Bruce Banner.

That's when Dante started to get a deeper understanding of HYDRA's Winter Soldier programming.

Turns out… those psychos weren't completely useless.

The telepaths could restore the memories of the brainwashed—but they couldn't remove the hypnotic conditioning.

Even if you wiped someone's memories clean, all it took was the trigger phrase…

And boom.

Back to being HYDRA's most obedient killing machine.

A room full of powerful psychic operatives—people who could make you forget your own birthday—just sat there.

But the person who cracked the case?

Wasn't a mutant.

Wasn't a psychic.

Wasn't even qualified.

It was…

Harley Quinn.

Self-proclaimed: The Bureau's First Psychological Therapist.

"What's so hard about this?" she said, blinking innocently. "It's just an artificially created dissociative identity. Induced by extreme trauma. Then reinforced with muscle memory and key triggers."

She smiled.

"Not saying it's the same as what Joker did to me, but it's exactly the same."

(To be continued.)

Chapter 93: Welcome to Four Years Later

Harley might've proposed the fix, but when it came to actually pulling it off? This still required a whole support team of super-powered individuals.

She might be crazy, but Harley's not stupid.

Two of the three brainwashed subjects could turn into Gamma-powered monsters.

Even if she swung her edman-alloy bat hard enough to light it on fire, she wasn't doing more than giving them a gentle back massage.

And sure, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes was more human-shaped, but trying to beat him to death was still a pretty tall order.

So the chaotic Harley waved her hand, peaced out of the room, and left no trace behind.

Today she had business over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy.

After all, when you cram a school full of super-powered teenagers, you're gonna rack up a lot of psychological trauma.

Case in point? Jessica Jones was basically a VIP client at the counseling center.

"Pudding, open a portal. I'm heading to the Academy," Harley said, clinging to Dante like a koala. "Ugh, this calm and peaceful life is seriously driving me insane."

"Babe, your definition of 'insane' needs a little recalibration," Dante muttered as he opened a portal to the Academy's psychological counseling office. He gave a lazy wave to the girl on the other side.

"Oh hey, long time no see.."

Harley hopped down and strutted into the portal. Just before stepping through, she turned back and blew Dante a kiss like a live grenade.

"Bye-bye, Pudding. See you tonight."

As the portal snapped shut, Jessica Jones slumped and sighed.

"Teacher Harley, why are you even into that bastard Dante? I mean... okay, sure, he's strong, but still."

"Do crazy people need a reason to like someone?" Harley flopped onto her couch. "But if I had to give one…"

"It's because Dante's crazier than I am."

As a veteran psychiatrist and a lifetime resident of Crazytown, what really hooked Harley wasn't Dante's power or charm.

It was that delightfully unhinged sanity of his.

The kind of madness that knew it was madness... and leaned into it anyway.

"All right," she clapped her hands. "Where did we leave off last session? Let me check... ah yes. So, family of four, car accident, parents and younger brother died, and now you hate yourself for surviving. That's where we were, right?"

"…I sincerely thank you for reopening that wound."

"You're welcome," Harley shrugged. "At least you had a happy childhood at some point. Me? I never even met my deadbeat dad. And the closest thing I've had to a father figure was Nick Fury."

Jessica sighed.

This woman might be her therapist, but she was also probably the FBI's deadliest contact...

Was therapy here really the safe option?

---

The Bureau's squad of telepaths had practically stress-balded trying to crack HYDRA's conditioning—until Harley casually broke it down.

Once a solution was found from a different psychological angle, the whole operation took off like it was running on high-speed rail.

Total time: five and a half hours.

Five of those hours?

Spent convincing Hulk to give control back to Banner.

"…Uh. Everyone? Who... are you?"

Dr. Banner blinked, lying on a medical bench, surrounded by a crowd of unfamiliar faces.

Half an hour ago, he'd been fully brainwashed, chanting "Hail HYDRA" like it was his personal Spotify playlist.

"Hey, you're awake! Surgery was a success! You're a girl now."

"…Huh?"

"Mother—! Quentin!" White Queen snapped, slapping the pink-haired kid across the head.

Quentin Quire. Omegon. Telepathic powerhouse. Also, graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Unfortunately, still chronically insufferable.

"Guys? Anyone? Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Banner blinked again, still not fully catching the wild comment Quentin had dropped.

His mind was stuck on what felt like a memory from a lifetime ago: traveling the world, trying to find a cure for the Hulk virus lurking in his personality.

The last thing he remembered?

Coming back to America. On a janky cargo ship that started disintegrating as it neared the coast.

He swam. He blacked out.

Then he woke up here.

Dante took one look at the chaos inside the lab, scooped Banner up, and got them both the hell out of there.

He opened a portal back to the Special Squad's new HQ—the repurposed Washington Branch base.

Bucky Barnes and Red Hulk Ross had already completed their recovery sessions.

Bucky had been taken back by Steve Rogers to the America General Bureau to start clearing up all the historical drama.

Then he was headed to Tony Stark for arm repairs.

Because let's be honest—whoever disassembled it should be the one putting it back together.

And as far as identity verification went? Not a problem.

Bucky was old-school. His records were still stamped and sealed in Bureau archives. First Director Peggy Carter herself had signed off on him.

As for General Ross?

The America Military had taken full custody. He was still an active-duty Air Force Lieutenant General. It wasn't the Bureau's place to hold onto him long-term.

---

"What kind of tech is that?" Banner asked as they exited the portal. "Was that... direct spatial transference?"

Now that was a scientist brain in action—seven doctorates and counting, and still analyzing in real-time.

"That wasn't tech," Dante said. "That was magic. Teleportation magic."

He snapped his fingers, sealing the portal behind them.

"Please, have a seat, Dr. Banner."

"Oh. Uh. Thanks." Banner sat down on the couch and glanced around, scanning the surroundings.

Then his eyes landed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation logo plastered across the lounge wall.

"This is an FBI facility? What did Hulk do this time?"

"Correct," Dante said. "But how'd you guess Hulk was involved?"

"If you kept blacking out, and then woke up naked in a strange cave every couple of weeks, you'd start making the same assumption."

"Fair. Okay, then tell me—what's your last memory?"

Banner's brow furrowed.

"My last memory was the cargo ship disintegrating, then swimming to the coast."

Dante clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Welcome to four years later, Dr. Banner."

(To be continued.)