Synopsis
Hawkeye and his wife Mockingbird survey the compound near Los Angeles that will be the HQ of their new West Coast Avengers team - when they have some more team-mates that is. Bobbi Morse maybe-Barton (there seem to be conflicting opinions as to whether she added Clint Barton's surname when they married) is more concerned that her non-super abilities don't rate her for Avengers status. Clint points bout that he and Captain America aren't 'super'-heroes either. And she's had SHIELD combat training.
They contact the New York Avengers Mansion and Jarvis hands them over to Vision who's sorry to have missed their earlier call (Av#246). They discuss the state-of-the-art tech that has been installed in the compound. And Vizh says he's going to contact some possible team-members that they should be hearing from soon.
1st-off we look in on Tigra who's been helping Jessica Drew and Lindsay McCabe with their detective agency in San Francisco. Jessica offers her a permanent job. But Tigra gets a call from Vision who offers her enough money to tempt her to fly to LA even though her previous go at being an Avenger didn't pan out so well. She doesn't explain to Jessica before leaving, but asks her to keep the job offer open. Jess is worried for her friend and rings someone in LA to keep an eye on her.
Next we turn our attention to the Mojave desert where Simon Williams is pursuing his career as a movie stuntman. His invulnerable body means they can do real fatal stunts. He too gets a call from Vision asking him to attend a meeting at the LA compound. He's only too glad to change to Wonder Man and head out.
Iron Man (James Rhodes) is flying over the Stanford Linear Accelerator, thinking how things are looking up since he, sober Tony Stark and the Erwin siblings moved to California, when he also gets a call from Vision.
He gets to the compound just as Tigra's taxi draws up. She greets him like a friend but Rhodey doesn't know her. Until she sheds her hat and coat and then he can easily guess who she is. Hawkeye greets them and takes them inside. Not noticing a black-cloaked figure who has stealthily bypassed their security system.
The real Avengers HQ lies beneath the above-ground living area. When Hawkeye has shown them around and introduced Mockingbird the newcomers both have 1 question - what's it got to do with them? His answer is something I think he would have explained earlier.
The New York team want to continue to keep their active membership number low to avoid a confusing mob getting in each other's way. But their new chairman Vision came up with a solution. Create a new team on the west coast to share the burden but work independently - divide the US between them down the Rockies.
Clint is expecting Wonder Man to arrive soon. That will just leave 1 space free in a desired team of 6.
At this point Tigra objects that Vision never said anything about this. She doesn't want to be an Avenger. She was an Avenger briefly, and quit because she wasn't good enough. She has neither the power nor the experience of someone like Iron Man. Jim Rhodes is just about to explain that he isn't that Iron Man when an alarm goes off.
Hawkeye examines the security system and thinks they've been invaded by a crack team of infiltrators who've disabled many sensors and cameras. But he manages to catch 'them' on an infrared scanner and finds just 1 figure. They 'see' him evade and destroy a security weapon and then blank out the infrared camera too.
Hawkeye splits the 'team' to find the intruder.
Mockingbird runs into the intruder as he exudes darkness to hide in. But she hears where he is and almost hits him with a thrown battlestave. He stuns her with a nerve pinch as she does get him with her other stave.
Hawkeye enters at this point and fires a flare arrow to illuminate the darkness. But the darkness just swallows it. He follows with a sonic arrow, and the darkness melts away. But there's only Bobbi there asking him to please turn the noise off.
Tigra runs across some of the darkness, and recognises it. She calls out to the Shroud but gets no answer.
Iron Man isn't fazed by the darkness as his radar picks out the foe. Shroud only just gets away from him. He belatedly realises he's fighting Avengers, and escapes through a window. Only to be caught by Wonder Man who's just got here. (Captions explain that Shroud didn't detect the speeding hero as he's blind, and his mystic senses only work up to 100 ft. Meanwhile WM attacked on sight because he'd heard about an LA crimelord who dressed like this called Shroud.)
Tigra stops the fight by claiming Shroud as a friend. He explains how Jessica Drew asked him to keep an eye on Tigra in case she got into trouble. And Hawkeye checks a report on Shroud by Captain America which says he's a good guy.
Now that they're all friends Hawkeye offers Shroud the last place on the team but he declines. He says he's created a niche as a fake crime boss which enables him to strike at the real villains. But he offers his aid when needed if they contact him via Cat's Jazz Club.
When Shroud's gone Simon asks why the Vision sent him here. And Clint has to go through his explanation all over again.