Chapter Seven: SHIELD Framework
Selene's House, Edge of Detroit, Michigan
April 22, 2002 – 9:08 A.M.
Rain had come and gone in the night, leaving the yard hushed and bright, the craters from last night's fight holding shallow puddles like the eyes of a tired giant. The porch steps were scrubbed clean—Hugh's penance in gray water stripes that dried to chalky fans. Inside, the house smelled like sage, tea, and fresh wood smoke.
Keshaun sat on the couch with a loose blanket around his shoulders, knees planted wide, elbows on thighs. He flexed his hand and watched the faint ache come and go across the knuckles. The Force sat quiet in him, not thin, just resting, like a big cat pretending to nap.
Jay hovered in the doorway with a mug that steamed in the cool air. Her hair was pulled back, cheeks still soft with sleep but clear in a way he hadn't seen before—like someone had finally shut a window the wind kept rattling.
"You good?" he asked.
She nodded. "Good-good."
"Bet."
Selene moved through the entry like gravity cared about her a little less than other people. She set three cups on the crate they were using as a table and looked at the chalk tracing she'd redrawn across the threshold at dawn. "If we are going to speak vows and plans," she said, "we do it inside a house that knows how to hold them."
From the porch came the steady scrape—wash—scrape of Hugh finishing the last step. He didn't knock. He had the sense to wait for permission.
Keshaun took his cup, blew, and sipped. "Aight," he said, setting the mug down. "Let's get to it. C'mon inside, Hugh."
Hugh stepped in and stopped on the safe side of the chalk. He didn't meet Jay's eyes. He didn't try to meet Keshaun's either.
Keshaun gestured to the open space. "Sit. We got business."
They made a ragged circle: couch for Keshaun, floor cushion for Jay, backless chair for Selene, milk crate for Hugh. The house creaked once and went still, like it, too, wanting to hear what came next.
"Day one," Keshaun said, voice low but carrying. "Curse is gone, but that don't mean the world is safer. This world is a lot bigger than the two of you realize, most things you believe are merely superstition and folklore are very real and most of them view humans as ." His eyes flicked to Jay. "I meant what I said yesterday—I'm not out here just pulling folks outta fires one at a time. Im tryna building something."
Jay leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Building… what exactly?"
"An organisation with two main goals," Keshaun said, raising two fingers. "One: we protect regular people from supernatural bullshit. No capes and speeches, just—if something's snatching kids or whispering folks off bridges, we stop it. Two: we make a place for people who ain't straight-up human anymore—or never were—but ain't evil, either. A place where they can learn, get trained right, belong to something that won't use 'em up and toss 'em."
Hugh swallowed, fingers worrying the seam in his jeans. "There's, uh… a lot of people who won't like that second part."
"Yeah," Keshaun said. "Most of 'em the reason we need the second part."
He sat back, eyes on each of them in turn. "I got a name for it, too. S.H.I.E.L.D.—because that's the feel. People need somethin' solid between 'em and the dark. We can argue what the letters stand for later; the point is the promise."
Jay's mouth quirked. "You're ten and you're founding an agency."
"I'm me," he said simply. "Age don't change what I gotta do. I already got many ideas for the future of SHIELD. Trust me, I been thinking about this for a good while."
Keshaun wasn't lying; he had pretty much mapped out the entire future of SHIELD already. He envisioned that SHIELD would function like a hybrid of Marvel's SHIELD and X-Men. A global agency which can deal with paranormal occurrences around the world. He envisioned developing an army of powerful and highly trained agents who could deal with most supernatural threats. He intends to recruit both humans and supernatural beings, even completely normal humans. He believes individuals like Ed Warren or Alaric Saltzman would make great additions to the organization despite not having any supernatural abilities. He even envisioned starting a school like Xavier's School for Gifted Children and Salvatore Boarding School for the Young and Gifted sometime in the future. Keshaun had a lot of plans for the future, but for right now he had to start small.
Silence held for a breath. The Force hummed under it, steady. Then Jay lifted her hand like she was in class, a small smile hitching. "I'm in," she said. "Not for fighting. That's… not me. But I can work in the background. Research. Logistics." She hesitated. "I'm studying programming in college. I can build a site. Keep it clean, lightweight. Couple layers: public front page, private intake, internal triage. I'm pretty good at hacking too."
Hugh made an involuntary noise. "You're gonna put 'we hunt monsters' on the internet?"
Jay shot him a look. "You don't have to say 'monsters.' You can say 'paranormal cases' or 'unusual events.' And you can build the intake to weed out obvious trolls."
"Most of them will be fake," Hugh said, flat. "People making up demons for attention, kids pranking, bored assholes wasting time you don't have."
Selene turned her cup between her hands. "Most will be fake," she agreed, "but not all. And a river finds the sea by having a mouth. Call for help, and those who need it will try to answer." She looked to Keshaun. "The problem is filtering. You cannot chase every shadow."
"Then we put a system on it," Keshaun said. "We start small. We classify." He pointed at Jay. "You run the site, start the intake. Use your brain, not just code. Hugh—" he cut a glance over "—you run down physical addresses when we need eyes on the ground. No hero stuff. Knock on doors, confirm or deny."
Hugh flinched but nodded. "Yes."
"And me and Selene split the difference," Keshaun finished. "Hands-on when it needs hands-on, teaching when we ain't swingin'. That's the skeleton. We put meat on it."
Jay's fingers tapped her knee, thinking. "If we're triaging, we need levels," she said. "Something simple at first. Five tiers. A, um—danger stack."
"Let's discuss it," Keshaun said.
After a few minutes of discussion, they all agreed upon the criteria for each level.
Level One – Minor Disturbances
These are small cases where supernatural activity is present but not immediately dangerous. Examples include cold spots, odd noises, recurring nightmares, or objects moving on their own. Level Ones can often be explained or dismissed, but they serve as important early warning signs that larger problems may be forming. They are low-risk, useful training cases for new members, and a way to build trust with locals.
Level Two – Aggressive Phenomena
Here the activity begins to target people directly. Aggressive hauntings, persistent hexes, or minor entities that cause illness, accidents, or emotional breakdowns fall into this category. While usually confined to a household or a small location, Level Twos require skill to identify and neutralize before they escalate. They mark the line between a nuisance and a genuine threat.
Level Three – Predators and Entities
Level Threes are active threats: revenants, cursed creatures, changelings, or locations where multiple people have gone missing. These cases are violent and often involve physical confrontation. They can kill individuals or small groups if left unchecked. Most field work will occur at this level, as predators tend to be the most common danger encountered in fractured places.
Level Four – Widespread Threats
At this level, the problem has the potential to spread across a neighborhood, city, or wider region. Examples include cult activity, large-scale rituals, dimensional fractures, or powerful entities that destabilize the Veil. Level Fours demand teamwork, planning, and coordination with outside allies. They are too big for one team to handle casually and require containment as much as confrontation.
Level Five – Catastrophic Events
The highest classification is reserved for apocalyptic scenarios: entities or curses that threaten mass death, world stability, or reality itself. Leviathan, ancient demons, or forces capable of rewriting fate fall here. Level Fives cannot be fought head-on by a small group; they must be identified early, resisted strategically, and faced only with full preparation. Rule one of S.H.I.E.L.D. is never to tackle a Level Five alone.
Jay sat back, the smallest light in her eyes—fear braided with purpose. "I can design forms around those levels. Guided questions, not just text boxes. If you ask the right things, people will sort themselves without even realizing it."
"Ask why now," Selene said. "True phenomena cluster around anniversaries and thresholds. Ask what stopped it before. Ask for witness names so we can see if a story has edges or only fog."
Hugh rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, the ghost of a cigarette he didn't have. "And what if the site attracts the wrong kind of attention?"
"Then we lie with grace," Selene replied. "We are an outreach collective for abnormal disturbances. Language matters. We are careful with it."
Jay nodded, then hesitated. "One more thing. Funding." She looked at her hands. "My dad has money. He doesn't… believe in ghosts. He believes in numbers. He believes in me—kinda. I can try to get him to fund the basics. Gear. A small office. A van that won't explode. But I'll have to convince him I'm not throwing my life away."
"You think he'll listen?" Keshaun asked.
Jay bit her lip. "Maybe. He's stubborn. He likes proof. If—" she glanced at Keshaun "—if you came with me… showed him something he can't argue with… he might write the check to make me go away, which is fine. His money spends."
Keshaun sat with that for a beat. His gut said don't get domesticated. His other gut—the one that paid rent and bought bread—said don't be stupid. He nodded. "We do it. Tomorrow. I'll keep it light. No head-spinning."
"Please don't levitate the dog," Jay said, managing a laugh.
"I ain't levitating nobody's labradoodle," he said.
She looked down into her tea, then up. "I'm going home today. I need to tell my friends I'm alive. I need to withdraw from classes. I need to pack." Her voice got small at the edges. "And I need to explain to my dad why his daughter disappeared for a night and came back different."
"You're not different," Hugh said quietly. "You're you without a weight on your throat."
Jay didn't look at him, but her mouth softened. "Maybe."
Keshaun glanced at Selene. "You teaching me after she goes?"
Selene tilted her head. "If you can be still for more than three minutes, yes."
He smirked. "Ight Bet."
Jay set her mug down and stood. "I'll be back tomorrow," she said, to the room, but really to him. "We can talk specifics before we see my dad."
Keshaun rose too, blanket sliding off. "Take my number."
She blinked. "You have a phone?"
"I have a boss," he said. "And I have a way of getting what I need." He dug a battered flip from the pocket of a hoodie almost his size and read off digits. "Keep it short if it's weird hours. Text if you can."
She repeated it back without looking at the keypad, the way people do when they want something to stick. "I'll be back tomorrow," she said again, and hugged herself once, as if to hold her own shape in the doorway. "We're really doing this."
"Yeah," he said. "We are."
She left with careful steps, the threshold chalk not smearing under her soles. The house let her go easily.
Hugh stood and touched two fingers to the porch frame without crossing out. "I'll keep cleaning," he said, and slipped back toward the yard.
The world exhaled.
Selene's House – Kitchen Table
April 22, 2002 – 10:46 A.M.
Selene didn't do classrooms. She did bowls. Today's had three: salt, ash, and river pebbles rounded like eggs. She set the bowls between them and drew a circle in chalk large enough for their knees.
"First," she said, "how witches name what we touch. We don't call it Force. We call it Nature. Part blood, part breath, part memory. It answers to cycles and reciprocity. If you only take, it stops speaking to you. If you give and listen, it will move mountains to put you where you belong."
Keshaun closed his eyes and felt the word Nature like a word painted over a word he already knew. The brushstrokes didn't fight—they blended.
Selene tapped the salt. "Borders. Thresholds. The line where a place begins to be this instead of that. Salt is declaration."
She tapped the ash. "Memory. Things that burned but still shape what stands now. Ash is story."
She cupped the pebbles. "Body. Bone. The weight that means we live in one world at a time. Stones are promise."
"Okay," Keshaun said. "So your toolkit is kitchen science and poetry."
"It is language and leverage," Selene corrected calmly. "We think and we say, and the world listens to both."
She pulled a thread of red yarn from her pocket and set it in the chalk circle. "Spellwork is three things: attention, intention, and exchange. Your Force tricks—"
"They not tricks," he said out of reflex.
"—your disciplines," she amended, "are the same. You listen. You choose. You pay."
He couldn't argue with that. "Show me."
Selene nudged the salt bowl toward him. "Speak a boundary. Something you mean. Nothing grandiose. The house will know if you lie."
He thought of last night's smear of black that felt like an absence, not a stain. He thought of Jay saying tomorrow like an oath. He thought of the way Hugh's shoulders dropped when someone finally told him where to stand.
He pinched salt and drew a thin line across the table's scar. He didn't reach for big words. He picked the ones that fit in his mouth.
"No ugly thing crosses this wood," he said, not loud. "Not while folks I love are on the other side."
The line of salt seemed to sink a fraction, not vanishing—settling. The house gave a small pleasant tick, the sound of old boards agreeing with weather.
Selene's eyes warmed. "Good. Now ash."
He dipped two fingers and touched the ash, rubbed it into his palm, and smelled the clean dust of old logs. Memory. He thought of his first breath in this world—river water and sky. He thought of the warehouse scream and how the Force met it like light bulking up inside a glass too small to hold it. He drew a little circle above the salt line and whispered, "We remember."
The ash didn't glow, but his hand felt less empty when he pulled it away.
"And the stone," Selene said.
He chose a pebble slightly misshapen, something about it reminding him of his own ears that stuck out a little. He set it on the ash circle and pressed the pad of his thumb on it until he could feel its cool seep and then warm with his heat. "Promise," he said. "We keep showing up."
Selene nodded once, satisfied. "You see? Attention. Intention. Exchange."
Keshaun sat back, feeling a grin unwanted and inevitable tug. "You know what this is."
"What?"
"This is the same thing," he said, the words pushing each other out fast now that they'd found a door. "Witchcraft and the Force. You call it Nature. I call it the Force. It's all one river. We're just speaking to it different. When I listen right, it feels like your thresholds—like the world picking which side to keep me on. When I fight ghosts, I feel the ash. When I make light, I'm not making light, I'm asking. And it answers if I'm honest and I need it and I don't treat it like a vending machine."
Selene considered that long enough to make the air thicken. "Most people pick one language and refuse to hear the others," she said at last. "If you're right, and it is the same—then we can teach each other to pronounce the parts we keep swallowing."
Keshaun's grin sharpened. "Say less. I'll show you how I breathe when I pull a barrier. You show me how to mark a door so dead things have to ask."
Selene slid a piece of yellow chalk across. "Door first," she said. "We aren't getting to barriers if something dead walks through the kitchen in the middle of lunch."
He laughed. "Facts."
They moved to the front room. Selene drew a small sigil where the frame met the plaster—three intersecting arcs around a dot. "This is a polite wall," she said. "Not perfect. Better than bare wood. Speak a simple rule while you draw."
Keshaun set the chalk and shaped a symbol as she taught him, his hand steadier than yesterday. "If you ain't invited, you knock," he said. "If you ain't kind, you leave."
When his line met itself, there was that same small settle. The Force ran a fingertip over his spine like yes, I heard you.
Selene stepped back and folded her arms. "Again," she said. "On the back door. Then the bedroom window. Then the crawlspace hatch."
"You have a crawlspace?" he asked, already moving.
"This is an old house," she said. "It has an underworld."
He grimaced. "We gon' bless that underworld good."
"Indeed."
Selene's House – Side Room
April 22, 2002 – 1:42 P.M.
After they'd marked wood and whispered promises, after he'd felt the simple, clean snap of doing a thing the right way the first time, they sat in a side room cooler than the rest. Selene pulled out a leather folio and spread vellum pages that looked a hundred years old and brand new at once.
"These are diagrams of flows," she said. "Not maps. Maps tell you what is there. Flows tell you where pressure wants to go."
He leaned over them and felt his mind click. "This is like Force Sight but on paper," he said. "See—right there—the way that line wants to pull the corner. If you push a ward against that angle, you're fighting the house. If you anchor with it, you get strength for free."
Selene slid a pencil to him. "Correct the third figure."
He traced the line that had been drawn too straight, adding a curve so it hugged the corner's will. "Better."
"Yes," she said, satisfied. "I'll show you sigils worth carving later. For now, chalk and breath."
"Breath I got," he said. He demonstrated his 4–2–6 rhythm, then his 2–0–4 sprint tempo, counting under his breath. He talked through how the barrier held clean if his feet were on boards, not dirt, how shockwaves chained sloppier than single hits, how light answered when he stopped treating it like something to prove and trusted it like something to borrow.
Selene listened like she was copying a spell with her ears.
"You'd make a mean teacher," he told her.
"I am mean," she said mildly.
"That too."
She allowed herself a thin smile, then sobered. "You do understand the cost?"
"Always," he said. "I'm not stealing from it. I'm asking the universe to spot me on reps I can't rack alone. And when I'm done, I put the weights back."
"Keep that," Selene said softly, "and you might live."
Selene's House – Front Room
April 22, 2002 – 3:06 P.M.
Hugh reappeared in the doorway with dirt up to his shins and a coil of rope over one shoulder. "Got the crawlspace sealed," he said, voice hoarse. "Tossed out a nest of… something that used to be raccoons and ambition."
"Trash ambition," Keshaun said.
"The worst kind," Hugh agreed.
He lingered like a kid who wanted to ask to stay late at school. "About the… the site," he said. "If you need someone to run errands, get paper forms for folks who don't have computers, handle phone calls… I can do that. I'm not—" he swallowed "—I'm not asking to be trusted with anything bigger. I'm just… asking not to be sent away."
Keshaun looked at him for a long beat. His Force Empathy didn't taste guilt this time; it tasted the shaky clear of someone choosing a direction and hoping the road didn't fold into a cliff. "You can run intake errands," he said. "No lying to cops, no punching reporters, no talking to people we help unless Jay puts your name on the sheet. You learn the five levels. You don't big-dog. You work."
Hugh's shoulders loosened like he'd been holding a door shut with his back for hours. "Yes."
"And you keep your mouth off Jay's story," Keshaun added. "It's hers. Not yours. You speak on it, you pick up teeth."
Hugh nodded fast. "I won't. I swear."
"Then go wash," Selene said dryly. "You smell like defeat and basement."
He managed a small laugh and vanished.
Selene's House – Porch
April 22, 2002 – 5:51 P.M.
Evening went gold across the grass. The puddles in the fight craters caught the sky in them and pretended they were small, polite lakes. Keshaun sank to the top step, hoodie open, air cool on the sweat drying at his collar. The Force breathed with the house. The house breathed with the earth. The earth breathed with the city. It was all the same breath.
He pulled the battered flip and flipped. The screen glow made his face look older, then exactly his age again. He wrote a note titled S.H.I.E.L.D. – Day Zero and pecked it out with his thumb:
Mission: protect normals; train and house friendlies.
Website: Jay builds; intake w/ five levels (1–5).
Language: outreach for abnormal disturbances.
Policy: Never take on a level 5 alone.
Filters: Ask WHY NOW / WHAT STOPPED IT BEFORE / WITNESSES.
Funding: Jay's dad. Demo, not drama.
Roles: Jay (backend/research). Selene (wards/ritual). Hugh (errands/intake field checks). Me (field lead/training).
Immediate needs: PO box, no-name office, van, prepaid phones, burner email.
Long-term: training syllabus (Force + Nature). Ward kit standardization. Intake handbook.
Non-negotiables: Consent, no cult vibes, no hero worship, no vigilante dumb-shit.
He saved it, then pocketed the phone and let the quiet sit.
"You write rules like a boy who already broke them once," Selene said from the doorway.
He didn't turn. "I wrote 'em like a boy who ain't got room to make the same mistake twice."
She stepped onto the porch and stood beside him, looking out over a yard that wore its scars honestly. "Jay will be back."
"Yeah."
"And when her father sees a child ask the sky to put down a glass and the sky obeys," Selene said, "he will understand that belief is a smaller word than proof."
"I'll keep it gentle," he said.
"Gentle enough to open a door," she agreed. "Not so gentle he thinks this is a hobby."
He snorted. "He'll figure it out."
They were quiet for a while, the kind of quiet that feels like a held hand. The city's noise far off—somebody arguing, a bus coughing, a dog complaining about a squirrel with poor boundaries.
"You were right," she said at last.
"About what?"
"Nature and Force," Selene said. "Two ways to say the same current. We have been arguing dialects while the river keeps running."
He smiled sideways. "So… partners?"
"Partners," she said, not smiling, but the word wore a warmth anyway. "Until the work is done or we are."
"That might be a while," he said.
"I am not in a hurry," she replied.
He let that sit, then pushed to his feet, rolling his shoulders. The aches answered but didn't object. "Tomorrow," he said. "We turn a dream into a place you can Google."
Selene winced at the word like it tasted like tin. "You will tell me what that means," she said.
"I will," he said. "And you'll pretend to hate it."
"Only a little."
He took one last look at the yard, at the long smear where nothing remained, and then at the chalk on the doorframe that said ugly things had to ask first. He felt the Force and Nature thread together under his sternum like a rope he could climb if he had to.
"Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.," he told nobody in particular..