Chapter 18: Custody

The helicopter's taillights shrank to a speck above the tree line. Jarrin watched it until the trees swallowed it, then turned back to the room.

"You let her get away," Jazz said. It wasn't a question.

"She saw what she came to see, and now we know what she can do. Either way, the architecture of this situation hasn't changed."

Jazz pulled the red leather jacket tighter around her shoulders. The fishnet stockings were scuffed, her boots had concrete dust in the laces, and she'd been standing still for three minutes which for her was an eternity of boredom. "You got her liquefaction concept. That's not nothing."

"I know what I got." Jarrin pocketed the bubble that held Riptide's property. It hummed faintly, a low vibration against his palm. One use. One shot. "She's not the threat. The Architect is. He knows we can strip Stand abilities now, which means he either sends someone who doesn't rely on a single property or he sends someone we can't reach in time."

Dinah had her back against the mechanical room's HVAC unit, AC/DC's speaker head casting amber light against the ceiling. She was studying something on the building's grid, reading electrical patterns through the wiring like a seismograph tracks ground movement. "She wasn't the main force. Reconnaissance. The Architect wanted to see how we handle Riptide's abilities before he commits his next move."

"You're sure about that," Jarrin said.

"My Stand reads electrical signatures. The Architect's command structure in this building is still active, and the signal pattern from Sylvie's arrival matches a reconnaissance protocol. He didn't send her to kill us. He sent her to profile us."

That settled something in Jarrin's chest. A reconnaissance mission meant the Architect was still calculating, still planning, still running his little chess game from behind a mask. It also meant the next agent would be different, designed specifically to counter what Jarrin and Jazz could do now. Good. He was getting bored of fighting the same problems with the same solutions.

Tony's voice cut through the comms. "We've got visitors. Ground level. Two vehicles. Unmarked. SHIELD."

Jarrin walked to the corridor and looked through the shattered doorframe. Two black SUVs idled outside the building's main entrance, flanking a third vehicle that bore the distinct red-and-white insignia of the Department of Extra-Normal Affairs. He'd seen the paperwork before. The DE&N was a branch of SHIELD that existed to study Stand-like phenomena, though officially it didn't exist anywhere in the public record.

"Dealing with this is going to be tedious," he said.

"Can we not deal with it?" Jazz appeared at his side, flipping cards in one hand. The cards moved fast enough to blur. "We have a bomber in custody, a stolen liquefaction property in your pocket, and the Architect's entire operation in ruins. The score is ours."

"Score is yours. The paperwork is mine."

Steve Rogers appeared first. He walked into the corridor with the same posture he'd had since the moment they met, like a man who hadn't yet learned that the world operated on anything other than rules he could enforce. He was followed by Natasha, who studied every surface of the room without touching anything. Then came the man Tony identified as a DE&N liaison, Dr. Aris Thorne, a thin man in a dark suit carrying a leather briefcase that probably contained every legal instrument SHIELD possessed.

"Jarrin Jostar, Jasmine Zepelli, Dinah Brando." Thorne's tone was flat, rehearsed. "I'm representing the United States Department of Extra-Normal Affairs. You are all being taken into protective custody under Executive Order 13872 for evaluation and study."

Protective custody. Jarrin almost laughed. "Under which authority?"

"Federal statute authorizes the government to hold individuals with anomalous abilities when those abilities represent a national security concern." Thorne opened his briefcase. Documents. Lots of them. "We have standing orders for your apprehension. Dr. Brando, your transfer to government custody has already been authorized by a federal court in Virginia. As for you and Ms. Zepelli, you're operating without federal registration under the Sokovia Accords framework. That makes you unregistered superhuman assets."

"The Sokovia Accords were designed for enhanced individuals," Steve said. He stepped between Thorne and the group. "These three helped us take down a terrorist cell. They're not assets. They're allies."

"Ally status doesn't override federal registration requirements, Agent Rogers. They're unregistered. That's the legal reality." Thorne's gaze moved to Jarrin. "Mr. Jostar, your background shows a law degree from--"

"Goldblatt Law Academy, London, three years, didn't finish. The rest is irrelevant."

"The rest is your only defense against a federal custody order."

Jarrin smiled. It was the smile he wore when he knew something the other person didn't, and it always made people uncomfortable in ways they couldn't immediately place. "Dr. Thorne, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"You referenced the Sokovia Accords. Those are a United Nations framework, not a domestic U.S. statute. They require ratification by individual nations before they have legal force within any single country's jurisdiction. The United States Congress has never ratified Sokovia. There is no federal registration framework for enhanced individuals under U.S. law. The only authority you have is the Executive Order 13872 you cited, which derives from the Insurrection Act of 1807. The Insurrection Act requires an actual insurrection or rebellion to invoke. There has been no insurrection. No rebellion. No lawful trigger. So your legal basis for holding anyone is an executive order built on a statute that requires a nonexistent condition to activate. The chain of legal authority terminates at the first link."

The room went quiet. Steve's eyebrows went up. Natasha's posture shifted, just slightly.

Thorne's face stayed neutral. "The executive branch has broad discretion under--"

"Discretion operates within constitutional boundaries. The First Amendment protects freedom of association. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process before deprivation of liberty. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizure. The Administrative Procedure Act requires notice-and-comment rulemaking for binding regulations, which your executive order skipped entirely. The Steel Seizure Case of 1952 specifically addressed the limits of executive power in the absence of statutory authorization. That precedent controls. You have no statute. You have no insurrection. You have no constitutional authority to hold anyone."

Dinah's AC/DC pinged faintly. She was watching Thorne like she was reading something written on his face that nobody else could see.

"And for Dr. Brando," Jarrin continued, "her custody order comes from a federal court in Virginia. I'm going to assume you obtained it through an ex parte filing, which means no opposing party was notified and no opposing party had standing to object. An ex parte custody order for a non-threatening individual with no history of violence is procedurally defective under 28 U.S.C. 1651 and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. If that order ever reaches a judge's desk, which it will, it gets tossed within the hour."

Thorne closed his briefcase. Slowly. "You're aware that the government can appeal."

"I'm aware that the government can appeal, and the case will take three to five years to reach a resolution, during which time Dr. Brando remains a free citizen with the right to travel, work, and exist without government interference. Do you have any other orders, or are we done here?"

Steve exhaled. Natasha looked at Thorne with an expression that suggested she'd seen enough of this type to know how it ended. Tony's voice came through the comms, and even through the tinny transmission, the amusement was audible. "I love this man. You should hear him when he's doing the same thing with Tony's lawyers. He does it better."

Thorne straightened his tie. "I'll be documenting this conversation." He glanced at Kazir, who sat against the far wall, Bomb Voyage dark and silent, flanked by SHIELD agents who'd arrived with Thorne's convoy. "Mr. Kazir is in federal custody. He'll be transferred to a secure facility within the hour."

"I have nothing to transfer to you," Kazir said. His voice carried the flat certainty of a man who'd already made peace with his own end. "The Architect will come for all of us."

"His custody is a separate matter," Thorne said. He turned and left with Steve and Natasha following, the corridor echoing with their footsteps until the sound faded into the building's silence.

Jarrin looked at Jazz. Jazz looked at Jarrin.

"You really enjoyed that," she said.

"I was educated. There's a difference."

Dinah stood up from the HVAC unit. Her face had gone still. AC/DC's speaker head was rotating, scanning frequencies Jarrin couldn't perceive. "There's something else. My Stand picked up a signal cutting through the facility's wiring. Layered on top of our own transmission. It's coming from outside. Hydra."

The word landed in the room like a dropped weight.

"Hydra," Jarrin said.

"There's an embedded Stand user already inside the facility. They're monitoring the same grid we are. The signal is encrypted but it's structured, organized, deliberate. Someone from Hydra has been in this building since before we arrived."

The mechanical room's lighting shifted. Emergency panels flickered. Through the wiring, Dinah's AC/DC routed a data packet that showed the signal's origin: a basement storage room three levels below their position, sealed behind a door that registered no electrical signature, which meant the Stand user was operating in complete silence on the grid. Invisible to Dinah's sensory network. Invisible to Tony's pulse-glasses. Only detectable through the residual electrical interference that even a suppressed Stand couldn't fully mask.

A Hydra operative. Standing in the same building. Watching.

Jarrin looked at Kazir. The bomber's eyes were fixed on the wall. He didn't seem surprised. Maybe he already knew. Or maybe he didn't care anymore.

"That changes the parameters," Jazz said. "If Hydra is already embedded, then the Architect wasn't the only organization watching this facility. Two players. Two agendas. And we just walked in the middle of both."

"And Kazir."

"And Kazir." Jazz flipped a card between her fingers. "This mission just became more complicated than it needed to be."

Jarrin considered it. The stolen liquefaction property pulsed against his palm. The bubble with Riptide's concept sat there, waiting. Dinah's signal analysis continued in the background, mapping the embedded Hydra agent's position through electrical interference patterns. Tony's team was regrouping. The Avengers would deal with Hydra through force and technology, through repulsors and sonar and Stark-level resources.

This wasn't their problem anymore.

"Dinah," Jarrin said. "We're done here. Our part is finished. The Architect's command structure is broken. Kazir is in custody. The facility's charge network is dead. We neutralized every threat the Architect sent."

Dinah's AC/DC pulsed amber. "You're walking out."

"I'm walking out. The Avengers have Tony. They have their resources. They have the Sokovia Accords and the UN framework and the entire institutional machinery of a superpower. Let them deal with Hydra. Let them kill Nazis."

Jazz grinned. The grin Jarrin had seen a thousand times before trouble started. She'd always liked the trouble, the chaos, the moment when everything went sideways and the only options were improvisation and momentum. She liked it even when it meant leaving other people to clean up the mess afterward. "I like that plan. It has excellent follow-through."

Kazir looked up. He'd been listening. "You're leaving the Hydra agent active?"

"Someone else's problem. If you wanted to die with us, you wouldn't have survived long enough to become a federal prisoner."

The words landed without malice. Kazir's jaw tightened. He didn't argue.

They walked. The corridor was a mess of dissolved walls and shattered concrete, but the path ahead was clear enough. Jarrin's ribs still ached from the Kazir incident in Kobe. Jolly Roger's form flickered occasionally, a sign that the Stand was running on fumes. The stolen bubble sat in his pocket, humming, a loaded gun waiting for a lock.

Dinah fell into step beside them. Her AC/DC pulsed amber behind her, tracking the electrical interference from the basement storage room. The Hydra agent hadn't moved. Maybe they were waiting. Maybe they were watching. Either way, Dinah's signal would keep them tracked.

Kazir followed behind. A SHIELD escort brought him to the building's exit, where two armed agents took him to the first SUV. He looked back once as he walked, at Jarrin, at Jazz, at Dinah. At the three people who had dismantled his entire operation and then walked away without a second thought.

The building's main entrance was damaged, the concrete frame cracked from the earlier battle, but the doors still worked. Jarrin pushed them open and stepped into the morning air.

Sunlight hit his face. The air smelled like diesel and wet concrete. A SHIELD vehicle idled at the curb, its engine humming. Somewhere inside, Tony's team was running diagnostics, cataloging data, and preparing to hunt a Hydra agent who might already know they were coming.

Jarrin pulled his hands from his pockets. Jazz linked her arm through his. Dinah walked ahead, scanning the wiring through the building's grid.

The mission was over. Their part was done. Whatever came next belonged to the Avengers.