19 Just buying some paint. -18

"Alright, system, let's get this over with. Summon a random SCP, please." 

[Ding! Understood, Host; please stand by as the random SCP is summoned!]

[Ding! Warning! Host an SCP has appeared in the world and is outside Foundation control! Host is asked to deal with the situation and follow the Foundation's goal of Securing, containing, and Protecting!]

[Ding! Warning! SCP-334 has appeared!]

[Ding! Congratulations to Host for getting SITE-131, a class 4 Foundation facility in England! 50 class B combat personnel, 5000 class C combat personnel, 250 research personnel, 1000 administrative personnel, and 150 maintenance personnel!]

[Ding! Host has been rewarded with unit ALPHA-4 "Pony Express" consisting of 25000 undercover agents embedded in postal services throughout the world!]

Alex released the breath he had been holding as he got the information on the SCP object summoned by the system. Just a relatively easy-to-deal-with Euclid object. Better yet, he got a SITE up in England, which meant he now had a presence there.

The world still had far too many blind spots for the current Foundation, and Alex, being in charge of the whole thing, didn't like that one bit. Still, he could only wait patiently for it to fix itself since he couldn't just put up new SITEs everywhere. He had neither the manpower nor cash for it.

"And once again, my damn SCP locating tool is worthless! Really telling me it's in a forest? What use is that!" He cursed loudly at the uselessness of his system as it just showed him a picture of the SCP in his mind when he thought about its location.

Sure, he would now be able to see it in real time at any time he wanted. Which was nice since he liked foxes well enough, and this SCP was a beauty to look at for sure. However, that didn't help him locate it at all.

"Might as well tell the director of SITE-131 about a possible sighting of it; have him keep his eyes and ears open. Maybe we could find it's heat signature?" He muttered to himself while writing up a notice.

After that, he went back to take care of his work. Just like every other day, there were plenty of requests for this and that. In fact, he was lacking some rather critical Foundation facilities which made the whole Foundation work less efficiently and more expensive.

---------------------------------

[Triskelion]

"So, tell me, Coulson, did Sitwell have something to say about this deal with Ricci then?" Fury asked Coulson as soon as the man closed the door behind him.

"Yes, Sir. I got everything I could out of both Sitwell and the agent he had put in charge after he got promoted."

Coulson then happily began to report on his findings. The deal with Ricci was just as Pierce had said. Though Ricci had voluntarily increased the monthly payments a few times since the agreement had been struck.

"Did they increase it with this latest spike in activity?" Fury asked, cutting off the report.

Coulson quickly looked down in his report. "Yes, they did, Sir. By…. By 50% rather than the 25% they did the other three times."

"And what is happening to the money from them?" he pressed.

"Well, the account is being used by accounting to cover shortfalls, Sir. When somewhere needs more funds but getting an increase might be hard or take too long, they sometimes use that account for it."

Coulson explained the whole system that had been set up by the middle management on their own. He also presented the accounting errors that had led to this being possible in the first place.

"So, what I understand is that the money is not being mishandled?" Fury asked though he was reasonably sure he was right on that.

"Yes, sir, I looked into what projects had used the fund in the past, and they were for reasonable things." Coulson put his boss at ease, never knowing that those projects were all led by Hydra agents.

"And what about other deals?" Fury asked as he was satisfied with what he heard about the Ricci deal. Or as satisfied as he could be after having been in the dark about it for so long.

"There are just a few we didn't know about Sir. All of them were handled by the same agent who sent his reports to an old email of Sitwell's that was not checked or used anymore."

"We have a deal going like with Ricci with the Hand here in the US. We used to have with the powers over in Russia as well but of the 4 families and 6 groups only 2 Families and 1 group still pays, the others are considered done deals." 

Coulson continued on his report and filled in when asked about details from time to time.

"Alright it seems we solved the mystery of Ricci for now. Get Sitwell to give them a call and tell them you are the new main contact; we wouldn't want any future accidents. Send in Hawkeye when you leave, I have a new mission for him." Fury said as he dismissed Coulson.

---------------

Shortly after Coulson left, Clint Barton entered.

"Good you are here, Barton; I would like an update on your pet spider." Fury went straight to it.

"Agent Romanoff has performed excellently in all the missions we have been assigned to together. She is both hard-working and loyal; now I know what you want to say, Sir. While she did indeed betray her former employer, we both know that that was very reasonable given their nature." Clint said.

"Do you believe that she's ready for solo missions?" Fury enquired.

"She is more than ready, Sir; in fact, I would go as far as saying she is properly one of the best agents we have. And while I do enjoy going on missions with her, few missions truly need the both of us." Clint replied after a moment.

"Well, if you are that confident, then I indeed do think we can accept her as one of our own."

"With all due respect, Sir, I thought the Budapest mission was meant to confirm that." Clint spoke up for his friend.

"Oh, it was, but it never hurts to be extra sure." Fury added before picking up a folder from his table and handing it to Clint. "Take this and give it to Romanoff, agent Romanoff, that is." He finished with a rare smile.

Indeed, Fury had something worth smiling about. After all, it wasn't every day that you acquired such a skilled agent like the Black Widow.

-------------------------

[Oscorp, Norman Osborn's office]

While Norman typically tried to get the military as a client as often as possible, he wasn't afraid of getting those on the darker side of society either. More so when he knew his rival Stark did much the same.

However, he knew that Stark didn't meet those people himself as he had Stane to do it for him. Norman would have liked to have someone as capable as Stane working for him, but such skilled people were rare.

Today, Norman was waiting on one Alexander Ricci, the overkill himself. This was not the first time he had dealt with him either. Ricci had always liked big weapons. Though today, he was after something else.

While he knew Ricci was looking for some rather advanced EMP shielding, it just wasn't something Norman was working on right now. So, while he was interested in this cave that had been found that worked as a powerful natural EMP field, he wouldn't invest into it without at least getting some samples or something.

No, today's meeting was about something one of his scientists had done entirely by accident. An extraordinary black paint. It had come about while experimenting on some rather sensitive material, so he wouldn't show the paint to anyone who might ask questions since it was in a very limited quantity.

Though the fact that it was rare was why he wanted a lot of money for it. However, given how hard it was to get to stick to anything and dry properly, it made it a hard sell. This was why he was overseeing the talk himself since he didn't trust anyone else with not fucking the deal up one way or another.

Looking down at a monitor, he saw the live feed from the elevator going up to his office. There, his assistant was bringing up a handsome young man and his much larger guard.

Norman couldn't help but narrow his eyes at the sight of the youth. He naturally knew who that was. Alexander Ricci, his guest. No, the reason he narrowed his eyes was because he knew for a fact that the man who looked a decade younger than himself was at least older than his own father.

Yes, Ricci was a mystery, given how he managed to still seem so young after so many years. As someone working more in the BIO-tech sphere, Norman naturally was very interested in the secret, but he wasn't foolish enough to think his wealth could protect him against overkill.

*ding!*

The sound of the elevator arriving sounded, and the door opened, letting the three people inside. 

"Welcome, Mr. Ricci." Norman greeted him with a smile as he stood up.

"I hope you have been well, Osborn. I heard the military turned to you after that fiasco of General Ross." Alex smoothly revealed he knew what should be highly guarded secrets to add some more mystery to himself.

"Right you are, Mr. Ricci. I was lucky to snag that contract up before Stark, or maybe he was too busy with his child to do it?" Norman tried to crack a little joke while inwardly he was sweating from the fact Ricci knew such military secrets.

'How the hell does a criminal get such information? Is the damn army full of leaks?' he cursed in his mind as he was damn sure no leaks existed from his side.

"If Tony is anything like his own father, he won't spare the poor kid much time." Ricci responded with his own crack at Stark. "And my contacts said that Start wasn't even offered this contract; you were their first pick."

'Damn, seems it was the military that can't keep its own secrets.' He continued to curse in his head while smiling lightly.

"You sure are well informed, Mr. Ricci. First, let me begin by apologizing that I couldn't help with your EMP project. I simply don't have anything better than what Stark offers at the moment, and I don't have the funds to spare either." Was what Norman decided to open up with. Getting the dead deals out of the way before opening new ones.

"I can hardly blame you, Mr. Osborn. After all, there is little market for what I requested." Alex said back with only mild disappointment in his tone.

"The other thing you showed interest in is the perfect dark paint. We finished testing and are ready to sell." Norman said as he handed over the information on his special paint.

"I hope you don't mind if I take a minute." Alex said as he started to read the file on the spot without waiting for a response. 

Norman could only give a weak smile in response as he sat there waiting for the Italian man.

Alex quickly read it over and became sure this thing was made doing experiments with the venom symbiote. The paint didn't like heat and would become liquid again if exposed to it. Same with powerful soundwaves.

Thankfully, Alex had something that could be used to counteract those traits. Vibranium! If he used the paint on that, it should give him a really dark material.

"How much of this paint do you have, and can you make more?" Alex finally broke the silence with his question.

"We only have 320 milliliters, and no, we can't make more of it. the material it was made from, an artificial chemical, sadly can't be reproduced." Norman shook his head with a sad smile.

"Perfect, I want every drop you have and your word. You won't make and sell more of it or speak a word to anyone." Alex said as he leaned back and looked hard at Norman.

Norman couldn't hide away his smile as he heard what Ricci wanted. After all, the more he wanted it, the higher the price he could ask for. "Well, I'm sure we can figure something out, Mr. Ricci."

With that, they began a back and forth about the price until Norman finally stood to bid goodbye with a happy smile on his lips and Ricci's guard carrying a small container with a pitch-black thick liquid. As the door closed and the elevator began its descent, Norman couldn't help but send for a good bottle of wine.

"You really did want that paint badly, didn't you, Ricci." He muttered to himself as he couldn't help but be incredibly satisfied with how much he managed to get out of the man.