ă€ŠIn The world of Marvel with the power of Ben10ă€‹


 1 Chapter 1

    Ben 10 and Marvel Cinematic Universe. God I love these universes.

    I remember being a kid and watching the very first episode of Ben 10. I was so excited, watching a kid become powerful aliens and using them to become a hero. I remember later watching Alien Force, seeing the older, wiser Ben, with a new suite of aliens and a new threat. After that, well... Things went kinda downhill for me personally. Ultimate aliens were cool, but as useful as all that beyond being a ploy to sell toys. As for omniverse and the reboot, not a fan.

    Even so, I had mad love for the franchise, and I''ve always wanted to write a fic for it.

    And then we have the MCU... What, am I gonna explain it? It''s the MCU. All of us have our first moments realizing the insane awesomeness we were in for when we first saw Iron Man. The movies, the shows, they are often great, sometimes decent, rarely terrible.

    So now, a fic. A guy gets dropped into the MCU with an Omnitrix. Have fun, and please let me know what you think.

    July 15, 2018, Portland, Earth Prime Source

    I was writing, late at night. Not something uncommon for me. I was working on a new story after a long day, my legs still burning from my leg workout in the afternoon. It had been a good day though. My nephew had come back from a visit to our family in California and as soon as he saw my face, started asking where his DS in that combination of adorable and annoying only a child can. He''d followed up by incessantly showing me every step he took in Luigi''s Mansion Dark Moon.

    It was super annoying having him ask me to watch him play while I was trying to get work done, and I absolutely loved him for it. Once again, it was something only a kid you actually love can get away with.

    He was asleep now. My legs burning and feeling satisfied with my day, I tapped away at the keyboard, idly sending fictional characters on fictional adventures. I''d probably sleep soon. Maybe. Probably. When I felt like it. For now, in the peaceful cool of an Oregon summer night, I was okay.

    A face leaned over my shoulder. "My, you really do need someone to teach you proper grammar, don''t you?"

    I jumped, spinning my chair around in shock. There, in my room, stood a man. He was tall, thin, and had a dignified age about him. He looked about as old as my dad actually. His face was unshaven, hair slicked back and white with age at the sides. He wore a brown vest over a white shirt and black tie, all covered by a lab coat. A pair of safety goggles with green goggles hung around his neck.

    I stared at him for a moment. I mean, if the guy had broken in, smashed my apartment door down, I may have been able to respond in some way. I might have been angry, or scared.

    As it was, all I could do was stare at this random guy who''d just shown up out of nowhere in my room.

    "Well," he said, still reading my computer monitor. "I suppose it doesn''t matter too much. You can practice later."

    As though his words were some sort of trigger, I snapped up from my chair, reflexively grabbing the nearest thing to a weapon I had close by. "What the fuck!?"

    He smiled at that. Stepping back and raising his hands up with a casual slowness that made me feel foolish, he chuckled. "Young man, while I admire your choice of weaponry, I do believe that the Hero of Hyrule is the only one who could possibly use that weapon. Still, I admire the effort," he said in a accent right out of those classy movies from the fifties.

    I looked down at the weapon I''d chosen. I''d gotten it at comic con a few months back. It was a replica Master Sword. The edge was blunted, the point sort of sharp, the hilt made of cheap plastic with a cylindrical hilt that would prevent me from knowing where the edge of the blade was without looking. Barring it''s near uselessness as a weapon, it was still in it''s plastic sheath.

    That said, a big metal stick in a plastic sheath is still an effective club. I tightened my grip, and stared at the guy. "Dude... get out of my room."

    He laughed. "Ah, ''dude''. I''m afraid I''ve come here for a reason. And I don''t believe you will attack me. Not without a true reason for attacking me. Sad to say, but the sort of violence that would allow you to attack a man who is simply standing in your room is not a part of you my dear boy."

    "I...uh," Once again, I felt foolish, and angry because of that feeling. The fact was, he was right. People just aren''t built to attack randomly. Not if you''ve been raised all your life to avoid that instinct. After all, how many times had I seen street fight videos where two guys yelled at each other for four minutes before unleashing punches? It was 2018, and nobody was really ready to just unleash hell on some random person they''d met. Nobody except those trained for it, people from rough homes/neighborhoods, and insane people. Barring exceptions.

    And I wasn''t one of those exceptions.

    "I do admire the effort however. On a basic level of course," he sat down in my chair. Despite the fact my chair had been just behind me a moment ago.

    "Wait," I turned to see my chair was gone. I looked back at him, eyes wide. "How did you... I don''t-"

    ''Goddamnit,'' I thought to myself. ''What is going on!?''

    "Now, I wish I could explain everything," he swung his left leg over his right, leaning back in my beat up old chair. His smile was sad now, almost pitying. "But, sadly, the nature of my visit means I''ll need to send you off as is. So, I am only here to be your, what is the word... oh yes, a ROB," he took out a pocket watch of all things and fiddled with it. Behind me a noise filled the air as blue light filled my dark room. The noise was like a plastic cup being torn apart over and over again. "I wish you best of luck. I suppose you won''t forgive me, but it is what is needed."

    I turned, and stared in shock at the sight behind me. Instead of my desk and computer resting peacefully, there was a giant glowing blue circle hanging in the air. "Oh shit."

    "Indeed," A hand pressed into my back with incredible strength. I stumbled. "My name is Paradox, by the way. Safe travels."

    "Oh shiiiii-" I fell into the glowing blue circle, and all the air in my lungs was sucked out.

    ''I should have hit him with my fucking sword.''

    I fell in a void of blue lights. My body stretched into infinity. But it was also small as an atom. I had infinite understanding, and knew nothing. A whole bunch of other clich¨¦ ways to describe traveling through a portal.

    I''d been going through that place for a while. I wish I could say it was boring. But it wasn''t.

    Instead, pain filled my entire body. Knives sliced apart my skin, ripped it from muscle, left my skeleton open to chilling air. My eyes were filled with needles, bit by bit. My limbs flew off of me, wriggling in the void.

    Then, in an instant, I was healed again. I knew I''d felt pain. But the memory was only brief, as though I''d read, rather than experienced it. Until happened again.

    I had no sense of time, so I had no idea how long I spent in that place. But when it ended, I was still screaming.

    I flew into a brick wall in a flash of light. I fell to the ground.

    "Ahhhhh!" I screamed, horrified. "Ahhhh! Oh my god, ohmygodohmygod." I screamed and screamed, hugging myself. "No... no. Please. I can''t... I can''t."

    I lay there, in that place, feeling asphalt on my cheeks, tears on my cheeks as rage, horror, and pain left me just...

    I never even noticed the watch resting on my left wrist. One with a symbol of two triangles connected at their points. All in green.

    The sun had been up when I arrived in the alleyway. It had gone down by the time I had calmed down. I slowly got into a sitting position, my right cheek and arm still raw from lying on the concrete. I looked around, eyes drying, my muscles clenching in my arms.

    I was in an alleyway. It was disgusting, littered with garbage that ranged from simple plastic wrappers to rotten food, with a dumpster a bit away from me. It smelled pretty terrible. But compared to where I''d been, I was okay with it.

    I shivered, and looked down at myself. Whereever I was, it was chilly. Not snowy or anything, but the shorts and Tardis t-shirt I was wearing was still not cutting it. Granted, my beard and long hair was protecting me a bit, but it was no replacement for a sweater.

    Still shivering, I rose to my bare feet and started walking. I didn''t know where I was, what the hell was happening, though I had some theories. Crazy, insane theories.

    I needed to... I needed to find a phone. I could call my brother. Shit, what was his number? Who memorizes phone numbers any more? I mean, maybe I could message him on facebook.

    I got to a gate at the end of the alley and found it unlocked, opening it with a squeal of noise. I tripped slightly on my way out of the alleyway, but managed to keep walking, still shivering in the cold. Without a hair tie, my hair was in a poof of curls, so I kept brushing it out of the way as I walked. I looked around the city I was in.

    The street I was walking on was named W 48th Street, which meant I had no idea where I was. Most likely a big city though. There were all the signs. Trash in the streets, constant noise in the distance, a random blanket on the floor. Apartment building were rising to the sky. Cars were parked all along the street. I passed by an abandoned lot, covered in gravel and dirt.

    There was more though. Lots of portions of the city had apparently been hit by some sort of attack the likes of which I couldn''t understand. Buildings had great holes dug into them. Detours were set up everywhere, leaving me to avoid certain streets, but I could see men in orange vests cleaning up broken and twisted steel and concrete.

    "What the hell happened here?" I stopped at one point and stared at on bit of the work being done. A guy was driving a crane, taking away some massive piece of metal the color of polished bronze. I rubbed at my arms.

    "Damnit," I walked away, trying to focus.

    Thankfully, thanks to my workouts, I''m a pretty big guy now. I was actually pretty proud of it, since I''d worked so hard on it. So no one seemed willing to bother me. Which was good, because all the signs of a rough neighborhood were right there with the damaged buildings. Graffiti, guys gathered in protective groups while glaring at passersby. Still, the streets were practically empty.

    I saw a park and turned to walk into it. It was forested little area, with bushes and a fence blocking it from the rest of the city. The leaves were brown, and the grass dead, but it was a park nonetheless. I strolled through, my feet burning a bit from the cold and the walking on asphalt. I got to the middle of the park, the trees around me blocking the lights of the city. A chilly wind blew some leaves past. It was actually peaceful.

    Of course, that was when the whistle noise came from behind me.

    I stopped in my tracks and closed my eyes. "Oooooh, this can''t end well."

    I turned to see four guys walk up to me. They were wearing jean jackets with matches sewn into them in a symbol I recognized. The guy in front of me was bald, his eyes brown and wide. His pale white skin seemed to glow in what little light there was. The other guys were white as well. This was important.

    As they came closer, the patches caught my eye once more. Swastika''s covered the men vests with the sort of pride the symbol did not deserve.

    I don''t give a damn about people talking about Holocaust conspiracies and how not all of them are bad, or how all opinions should be listened to. If you''re the sort of jerk who wears a swastika and starts blaming people''s race, religion, gender, or sexual preference for your problems, if you use those as a reason to hate people, you don''t deserve sympathy, you don''t deserve an opinion. Ignorance can be cured. But not when it''s intentional ignorance.

    The men walked up to me, the guy in the lead grinning. "Well well, look at you? Forget your shoes boy?"

    I frowned, slowly backing away. "I did. I''m on my way to get them. Can you let me go?"

    A knife came out. "Nah," he chuckled. His friends joined him in chuckling. They surrounded me. "I think I''d rather show what happens to immigrant fucks who come to New York."

    He leaped forward, knife aimed at my stomach.

    I wasn''t a martial artist. I''d only been trained in some boxing and high school wrestling. Luckily, I was scared as hell.

    I''d been shoved into a realm of pain, woke up in a random city, and found myself getting attacked by some of the worst kind of people in the world.

    Like I''d said, no one in the modern world is ready to fight someone immediately without the right mentality.

    I was finally in the right mentality.

    When the guy stabbed at my stomach, I reached out as fast as I could and grabbed his wrist. The knife bounced off my watch, slicing deep into the back of my forearm. I pulled the guy in towards me, shouting.

    "Fu-" My other hand rose up. I pulled him forward. My right hand pulled him close. My left snapped forward. I clenched my left hand into a tight fist moments before impact, twisted my hips with the blow, and slammed him with all the force I had. I aimed for his solar plexus, not wanting to break my knuckles on his skull. As the air was driven from the neo-nazi, I spun him around. The guy was a skinny jerk, so even though he was taller than me, he was easy to spin around and pull close. I clenched his wrist tight, pulling him back with me as my other hand wrapped around his neck. My right hand moved from his wrist to his hand, clenching it tight around the knife he was holding. I forced him to point his knife at his own throat.

    I almost fell over, stumbling a bit, but I clutched the neo-nazi close and choked him. His friends came closer as I backed off. One guy took out a handgun.

    "Let go of him!" He shouted. I ducked, trying to get the guy in between me and his friends.

    "Better do it," the guy I was holding laughed, then tried to shake me off. I squeezed harder, trying to keep a hold of him, and I pressed his knife hand into his neck. He stilled at the feeling of it piercing his neck. "You fucking asshole!"

    "I just want to go home," I said back to him. My voice cracked. "Seriously, I just..." I trailed off when I saw my watch. The watch I''d never seen before in my life. Scratch that. I knew the watch. But I''d never seen it in a form that wasn''t either in cartoon or toy form.

    "...Ha!" I let out. The three guys staring at me shared a look. The guy I was holding tried to struggle again. I felt myself go just a little insane. It was kinda nice. Kinda freeing. "Tell you what boys," I reached for the watch, struggling with my ''prisoner'' as I did. "How about this? If this doesn''t work... I''ll let you kill me."

    Looking back, I was probably lying. I''d damn well fight back either way. At this point, I was crazy enough to do it.

    I grabbed the watch and twisted the face of it. The triangles opened up, and the guy I was holding stared with the same shock I felt when the watch lit up. A image floated from it, a green figure with a head like fire.

    "What the..." One of the guys said softly as we all stared at my watch.

    "I know right?" I said a bit crazily.

    With that, I slammed my hand onto the watch. A flash of green light came from the device, before it enveloped me. I let go of the guy in my arms, shoving him away even as I became a different person.

    My bones widened, growing outwards, before they dissolved entirely. Flesh and blood shifted, until only the green of vines remained. My organs began to produce methane in massive amount. My mind changed, connecting to the world around me in a way I didn''t understand. In all, the change must have take less than a second, only a blink of time.

    When it ended, I stood up tall, stretching my body out and looking at my hands. My body was now green vines and black sections of bark. My feet looked like roots surrounding rocks, allowing me to stand stable on the ground. My hands clenched into green fists. I knew, if I looked at myself, I would have a head shaped like flame, with slit green eyes.

    I sighed. My voice sounded different now. Kinda nasally actually.

    "Well... Tradition and all that, right," I reared back, crying out one word as proudly as I could. "Swampfire!"

    "Holy shit!" the guy I''d shoved away yelled in amazement.

    "Kill it!" The guy with the gun started shooting.

    Bullets slammed into me, punching through my body to fly behind me. I staggered back, blinking as I felt the odd sensation of bullets going through me. A moment later, he had emptied his handgun. I looked down at myself.

    There were a bunch of holes in me. About fifteen or so, tiny. I felt some wind passing through them. As I watched, the holes began to seal themselves. With a bit of concentration, I accelerated the process. Soon, all the holes were gone, leaving smooth plant-life.

    "Whoa," I said in that nasally voice. "That is cool."

    I felt so powerful. As though I was a hundred times stronger and more powerful than before. I took a deep breath, my massive chest moving with the action.

    Then I raised a hand, mimicking the move I''d seen more than once on Cartoon Network. A plume of flame erupted from my palm. The guys crinkled their noses, apparently bother by the smell.

    "What the hell!?" The neo-nazis backed away, scared.

    So I threw a fireball at the ground in front of them, laughing. The fireball exploded, erupting with a brilliance I found gratifying.

    "Run!"

    They spun around.

    But we were in a park. In a place full of greenery. Swampfire''s home turf.

    I reached out with my mind, and felt the trees around me. The feeling of the life around me was intoxicating. I struggled to focus, to ignore the way the world suddenly seemed so much larger, as though I was part of a conversation I''d never known was happening around me every day.

    The grass grew up into massive stalks as tall as a man. Trees suddenly erupted with branches. A giant green oval sprouted from my chest, which I ripped out and threw in front of the group. The oval object exploded in front of them, turning into a plant that stabbed into the ground with it''s roots and began to grow.

    In seconds, the work of months or years, even millenia, passed by. When the guys ran, the plant I''d thrown launched out vines. The forest continued to grow and grow at high speed.

    "God hel-" The leader, the guy who''d tried to stab me, was silenced when a vine wrapped around his mouth. In seconds, more vines surrounded his arms, legs, and chest, holding him tightly as he released muffled screams.

    The other three turned around, trying to escape the other way. I grabbed one, a guy with a beard bigger than mine, by the shoulder.

    "Not today!" I lashed out with a green fist as large as watermelon, my knuckles digging into his side before my inhuman strength lifted him up as I felt something like sticks break under my vine fist.

    "Ugk!" He grunted as his ribs shattered. He was sent flying back, slamming into a tree. The tree, under my orders, wrapped him in it''s branches, leaving him trapped in a wooden cocoon.

    The last two guys tried to escape as well. They ran through the growing grass of the lawn next to the walkway. Which meant they were a field under my control. Feeling a bit vindictive, I stood for a moment, watching them run. When they''d gotten about twenty feet away, the grass rustling as they ran towards the nearest exit from the park to the streets, I dramatically raised a hand. For some reason, feeling like I was being a bit ironic, I snapped my fingers. The grass moved, and the two men fell.

    "Augh!"

    "Crap!"

    I felt the grass speaking to me, letting me know they were wrapping around them. Some weeds joined in, growing with immense speed.

    I looked over at the leader. He stared at me from the bonds of the plant I''d thrown. "New York City... Good to know." I looked over the men for a moment, then looked down at myself. "Hmm. You know fellas, I am going to need some clothes."

    Later, with a bundle of clothing, an empty pistol, knife, and their cell phones and wallets, all stuffed into a bag made of vines, I turned and walked out of the park. Still transformed into Swampfire, flowers began to bloom in the middle of fall, police sirens came closer, and fire burned. Then, with a loud set of beeps and a big flash of red light, I became human again, and walked into the city.

    Sleeping in a hotel is always a bit disgusting to me. I''m always thinking of how many people use hotels for things I''d prefer not to imagine without supermodels involved. That said, I found a solid place to sleep for the night, and thankfully the neo-nazis had some cash in their wallets, enough to get a room.

    I managed to get some sleep, even clean the clothes I''d stolen in the small washer and dryer that came with the room. Granted, the clothes wasn''t perfectly my size, but I''d gotten some jeans and shirts. Though I ended up having to rip a few swastika''s off at one point.

    I distracted myself like that for a bit. Rifling through the guys wallets, folding clothes, showering. All the while, I ignored the object on my wrist. It seemed to weigh me down with every move, a reminder of everything that had happened.

    Soon, I had to confront it. I sat on the floor and stared at it, resting against the bed of the hotel room.

    The Omnitrix. THE Omnitrix. From the tv show Ben 10.

    I felt a smile rise on my face. So freaking cool. I loved that show, and the idea of the Omnitrix, a device that could turn a person into one of a plethora of badass aliens, was exciting as hell. And it was my favorite design too, the one from Alien Force. I reeeeaaaly wanted to play with it, to see just who I could into. Humongosaur? Diamondhead? Oh god, please don''t let the Worst be one of my options. Hell, while I''d been freaking out before, turning into Swampfire was freaking awesome. Feeling so powerful, that connection to the plants around me, and the feel of summoning methane and igniting with a thought. Damn it was cool.

    I lowered my arm and sighed. But then there was the elephant in the room. Why give me a uber powered watch with limitless potential, then drop me into New York City?

    I decided to discard the fact this was all impossible. That the Omnitrix, Professor Paradox, teleportation, and aliens were all fictional, or at least not possible according to the 2018 I knew.

    Professor Paradox. He was the key. He had answers, he knew why I was here, why I was given the watch. But most important...

    I reached for one of the phones. It was locked. So were the other three. No answers. But they were older models. I couldn''t tell if that meant anything.

    I decided to wait for the next day to find information. But in the end, sleep wasn''t going to come easy.

    The next day, I was in the Columbus Branch Library. I''d been directed there by a kindly older woman. The library was two stories, gray stone, and in between a place called Rey''s Deli Grocery on it''s right, and an apartment building of some sort on the left. Once inside finding a computer was easy. Looking up recent news took seconds. I scrolled through the stories, some things jumping out at me immediately as weird. But one took my breath away.

    It was seeing a picture of Robert Downey Jr, that guy from the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He was wearing a dapper suit, a suave smile on his face as he waved from a private jet. The headline made my headspin.

    ''Tony Stark Makes Plans To Rebuild Stark Tower As The Avengers Headquarters.''

    Well, there was only one response I could give to that.

    "Since when the fuck did Robert Downey Jr. play Iron Man?"

    October 19, 2013. The day I entered the Marvel Universe.

 2 Chapter 2

    December 19th, 2013

    "Raaagh!" I swung the sledgehammer with all my strength. The metal head smashed into brick, cracking it. My shoulders burning, I felt a grin on my face.

    "Kid, you know how creepy it is when you smile like that?" I turned to look behind me, raising a hand to nudge the hard hat on my head back a bit.

    "You know one of the signs of old age is repeating crap to people?" I replied.

    The older black man behind me grinned. He was a big guy, with massive biceps and a belly that spoke of good eating. His hair was well groomed, though a large mustache bounced with every word he spoke.

    He chuckled, his belly bouncing under the blue cotton shirt he was wearing. He was sitting on a cheap folding chair, sipping at a cup of water. "It''s more of an insanity thing. But yeah, try not to look like you enjoy hitting things so much."

    "Yeah, yeah," I looked over at the city outside.

    The building we were standing in was one of many in New York that had been destroyed during an event that was being called, ''The Incident'' by people of the city, though it was known worldwide as ''The Battle of New York''. A moment where aliens dropped from a portal in the sky and came down to attack Earth with the help of Loki. Until the Avengers stopped them.

    Although finding out about the portal light in the sky made me feel a bit bemused. I''d seen a lot of movies over the years with a portal in the sky, a lot of those superhero movies, from Fan4stic to Suicide Squad. I suppose real life was imitating art in the end.

    All of which I could not understand. I couldn''t remember any of these events in the comics, and some of the actors looked like actors I recognized. Captain America and Black Widow had even been in the same movies a bunch of times. Well, their actors. Well, the actors that looked like them.

    Whatever the case, it happened. I was standing in a building in the middle of Hell''s Kitchen, one with a giant hole in it from what apparently been some sort of giant snake monster thing that had flown through the former apartment building.

    As part of my attempt to make a living in this weird version of Marvel Comics I didn''t know about, I took a job as a construction worker with a company that didn''t ask a lot of questions. With all the damage from the battle, and the funding from StarkTech, Rand International, and various others pouring cash into New York to help rebuild it, construction companies had flooded into New York City, fixing buildings and streets that could be repaired, tearing down buildings that were lost causes so they could be built anew.

    Perfect way for an immigrant to make some quick cash with some grunt work from guys who don''t care a lot about legality. And, seeing as I was the ultimate immigrant, I managed to get work with a guy in charge of finding muscle for one of the companies in charge of the reconstruction of Hell''s Kitchen. Some business called Union Allied Construction.

    "It''s simple work," I admitted. "Just gotta swing a stick and break stuff. It''s fun, Sammy."

    "Ha!" The man sitting with me replied boisterously. "Well, enjoy it while it lasts. In my experience, guys like you and Eddie over there," he nodded over to the side. In a room that had once been a kitchen, a Hispanic man just a bit shorter than me. He was a skinny guy, but he was taking apart the sink with a wrench, removing the pipes with ease. "Well, paperwork matters to some folk."

    I sighed at that thought. Eddie and me both had no legal citizenship in America. For Eddie, it was because he crossed into America illegally to help support his mother in Puerto Rico. For me, it was because an asshole had dropped me into the middle of the city, leaving my paperwork in another universe.

    "Well... I''ll figure that out later," I reared back and swung my hammer. "Shouldn''t you be working, Sammy?"

    As brick crumbled and Eddie gently removed the sink in the kitchen, Sammy chuckled. "Nah, you young bucks have it handled. Just let my old ass rest for a bit."

    "I have it on good authority that Captain America is older than you, and that guy would probably be right next to me."

    Sammy scoffed. "Please youngblood, what do you know about Captain America?" He rose up and moved to pick up his own hammer. He reared back and decimated the brick wall in front of him with a single smooth movement. I coughed a bit as dust rose, and looked over at him as he smiled smugly.

    "You''re strong, kid," Sammy chuckled. "But it''s important to know where to hit, and how fast too."

    I blinked at this advice. I raised my own sledgehammer and tried to swing it the way Sammy had. The hammer bounced off the wall with no effect.

    Sammy chuckled, leaving me to give him a chagrined look.

    "Hey!" We turned around. A man stood there, wearing a polo shirt, khaki shorts, a blue hard hat, and carrying a clipboard. He glared at us, eyes hard, face pinched. Fredric, our boss. "Enough talk. We need the floor cleared by the end of the day."

    Sammy and I shared a look before turning and going back to our work.

    Later that day, we were done. Well, the guys on my shift. More would come in and do some work at night, but for now, my muscles burning from exertion, I was leaving for the day.

    "Ahhh," Sammy sighed happily as we exited the construction site, entering the sidewalk. New York is never really quiet, but there was a brief sense of peace as the sun went down in the distance. He stretched, letting his arms reach for the sky.

    "Ugh," I reeled back, playfully covering my nose while grabbing the arm nearest to me and pulling it down. "Dude, come on, deodorant!"

    "Hmm?" Sammy slapped at me, grinning just a bit. "Little punk."

    I smiled back. "Yeah yeah. See you tomorrow, old man."

    "Hey, Mackmoud?"

    I stopped, turning to look at him. I was using my real name since there wasn''t much point in a cover story, but Sammy always slurred it from Mahmoud to ''Mackmoud''.

    "What''s up?"

    "You need a ride?" He waved towards the parking lot his truck was parked in. "It ain''t a big deal."

    "Nah, I''m good." I smiled just a bit. "I wanna walk for a bit. Thanks though."

    He shrugged, unbothered, and went off.

    I, meanwhile, walked away. For a couple of blocks.

    When I was sure I wasn''t being followed, I turned towards the same section of neighborhoods I''d been hammering at the whole day. Technically, it was just buildings to be torn down. But in that section, there were a lot of places a guy could hide.

    I left the sidewalk behind to go into an alleyway. From there, I hopped over a fence, then went through another alley. One more fence and I reached home.

    A door with a steel lock pad blocked the way inside, with a clearly broken keypad next to it. I tapped on the ''broken'' keypad, and the door let out a ''click'', allowing me in.

    Once inside, the motion sensors read my presence, and the lights turned on.

    The place I''d been calling home for the past two months had once been an office building, for some tech company. It had been destroyed when some of the aliens, called the Chitauri, had blown up the upper floors with grenades then sent one of their reptile things through it. The building was up for reconstruction, but I could use it for now as a home. Rent free.

    I''d taken the back room that had once been used for paperwork or something, and converted it into living space.

    Yep. Mahmoud, the owner of a watch with infinite potential, living as a squatter.

    I looked around. A big green thing the size of a closet rested in the corner. It had once been a broken refrigerator I''d found on the streets. It was still a fridge. Sometimes. Most days.

    I opened the door and sighed in relief when I found my food cold. Rather than frozen, cooked, or just plain gone.

    A steak was soon cooking on a machine that had once been a printer, and I moved to a beat up old couch to use my computer.

    Like the fridge and stove, it was also made from parts of other devices. The phones I''d stolen from the neo-nazis two months before, a big TV monitor I''d found at one of the construction sites, some of the computers left behind by the tech company, a few more refrigerators, and three older generation video game consoles.

    The computer worked. It worked damn well. Except on Wednesday, when it just put on videos of people laughing at Japanese game shows for hours, and when small children were eating lollipops nearby. Yesterday was a Wednesday. So, I could get some work done today.

    The computer was really a supercomputer when it actually worked. I reached over for my keyboard and mouse and quickly switched it on. I got up and grabbed the steak, then went back.

    "Okay. What are you up to, Stark?" I said to myself. My monitor glowed with a blue light, showing a sci-fi sort of look to it, with folders floating in a blue field. A wave of my hands would have let me move things around, but I reached for the mouse instead.

    A quick click of the mouse opened a back channel I had into the Stark Industries employee memos. Nothing invasive, nothing about their secret projects, just the stuff any employee there would get sent. I read through them a bit but didn''t find anything crazy. Another click sent me to the email of one Happy Hogan, Tony Stark''s bodyguard. Some lovely messages wishing him well in his recovery. Another one from a company wishing to hire him from Stark Industries. And... oh. One sent from Happy to Pepper Potts letting her know how sorry he was about her break up with Tony Stark.

    I leaned back in my seat, slicing into my overcooked steak with a sigh.

    Damn. That sucked. I mean, in the comics, Happy and Pepper were married, but a lot of stuff back home depicted Tony and her in a relationship, and they seemed close in the news.

    Feeling a bit more intrusive than usual, I switched the feed again. I pushed my steak aside and focused. Hacking into the employee stuff at Stark wasn''t horrific in terms of danger. And Happy had a regular email as well as a more private one which was blocked by some insane firewalls, and I''d only hacked the regular one. Hacking into SHIELD was another game entirely.

    Not to say it was impossible. Alien tech, even alien tech made from human parts, was incredibly powerful. With a bit of time, I could hack almost any computer on the planet. Well, I guessed I could.

    But that didn''t mean I shouldn''t be careful.

    I went through some of the messages sent to all SHIELD agents. High priority targets, warnings, some simple guidelines for new recruits.

    Then I went deeper. The Daily Cadet, the newspaper for the science school that SHIELD ran, had run an article two days before about two of their Alumni, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, had saved a kid named Donnie Gill from being frozen. Good on them.

    There wasn''t much else, except for Project Insight. I tried to gently find my way in, trawling through employee files, hunting down shipments. I made sure not to go through the same channels I had before.

    Apparently, Project Insight was going well. They were building three big ass helicarriers, all powered by Iron Man type tech. Which was cool as shit. I took another bite of steak and shifted in my chair. I went to my other research next, still thinking.

    Reports of a skeletal figure on a bike in the south. Apparently, people were thinking it was an urban legend, an explanation for the dead criminals getting burned to death. Ghost Rider.

    I switched to a school I''d hacked, looking into their records. Peter Parker was doing well. He had won some science award recently. Good on the kid. Weird, he was only twelve. I didn''t look him up for long since hacking into a children''s school files made me feel skeevy.

    The Baxter Building was still being built, and I couldn''t find anything on any Fantastic Four member beyond the point they''d disappeared years back. Some company had hired them, before the company and the four disappeared. No Reed Richards, no Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, or Johnny Storm. That worried me. From the minute I''d found out, I''d left a program chasing any info that could be found on them, anything new. Nothing yet.

    I growled in annoyance at that, then flipped to something else. "No mutants," I said with a sigh, looking over my other research. Not a sign of them. I couldn''t find Wolverine, Cyclops, Professor X... Wait, I think I found... Uh, I couldn''t find... Mutants were... I had to-

    I ignored my screen for a moment. Whatever was on it probably didn''t matter. After a moment, I went back to it to focus on something more important.

    Wakanda was still being listed as a third world nation. Which was probably bullshit. I found myself smiling at the thought of Wakanda. It was weird, I didn''t know a lot about Black Panther, but I felt a deep warmth when I thought of that nation. T''Challa was in university, studying the sciences, but that was all.

    Finally, I turned on the police radio I had as a program on my computer, sitting back to listen to it.

    For about ten minutes, I continued eating my steak as I listened. Whenever a code would get announced, I would look over at the notebook I''d written as a reference to what each code meant. Nothing the cops couldn''t handle so far. No robbery in progress or anything. I finished my steak and got up, turning my computer off. Then I walked out of my home, locking it behind me, and headed to the alleyway.

    Once there, I looked at my Omnitrix. One of the most powerful objects in all of fiction. Funnily enough, it''s creator had developed it with the idea of peace in mind. Azmuth, one of a member of a species of extremely intelligent beings known as the Galvan, had created it to make up for another object he''d made, a sword with the power to destroy planets. It was supposed to allow a person to act as the perfect ambassador. With the ability to transform into any race in the galaxy, a person could interact with the people of the entire galaxy, to understand them and aid them. The ultimate peacekeeping tool.

    Instead, he''d made the ultimate weapon. A person who can turn into any alien of the Ben 10 universe is not just powerful, they''re versatile. Elemental control, enhanced strength and speed, flight, nuclear power, even time manipulation and reality warping. If there was an alien in Benjamin Tennyson''s universe who could do something, the Omnitrix could do the same.

    That weapon had landed in the hands of a ten-year-old brat. And that brat had done wondrous things with it. Ben Tennyson was one of my heroes, a kid who rose to the occasion again and again. He''d matured through battle and became a hero worthy of any universe. Ben 10 was awesome.

    And now I had his Omnitrix. Ten alien forms, each with their own powers, with some crossover between them in terms of ability. Only ten, out of over a million. But that was enough.

    I twisted the face of my watch, and it lit up in a flash of green. An image appeared, floating. Swampfire. He was one of my favorite forms, able to blast out flames from methane gases, control plants, and regenerate from harm with ease. But he wasn''t what I needed.

    I twisted the face, going through the aliens before I found the form that was best for what I wanted. Then, carefully, I pushed down on the watch.

    Immediately, the change came.

    My body grew outwards. I was already pretty hefty, but I gained over one hundred pounds of muscle in second. My leg twisted backward, my arms stretched out. Fur grew over my entire body. My fingernails became claws, but feet became massive paws. My nose grew outward, my ears shifted on top of my head as they change shape. My mouth became a muzzle, and my teeth became lethal fangs. I held back the urge to howl my name. Instead, I whispered it, in a voice that was half a growl.

    "Blitzwolfer..." I hummed, then lifted my nose, taking a deep whiff of the air. To my human nose, the smell of the city was only sometimes palatable. To Blitzwolfer, the smells of the city were a delight. It was like watching a thousand movies at once and somehow comprehending all of them.

    "Time to go," I ran for a nearby building and leaped up about twenty feet. My claws dug into the brick, and I climbed at high speed, going to the top of the six-story building in seconds. Once there, I ran.

    There were few things that gave me as much joy as being transformed. Feeling so powerful, running at speeds so fast the world was a blur. My muscles pumped as I ran across the gravel rooftop, legs pushing forward. I was so fast!

    I finally released a sound as I leaped to the next roof, a bark of joy. The noise exploded from my lungs, and I grinned at the feel of my simple bark resounding through the air like a bomb, echoing into the distance. More barks responded. It was sort of like listening to a foreign language. I couldn''t understand the words, but the emotions carried through. Dogs sharing their own joy, their annoyance at my loudness, their challenges towards my dominance. I barked again, this time at the challengers, and laughed when they just barked the challenges once more.

    I leaped to another rooftop, then climbed up to the next building, claws digging into the stone.

    I ran around for about twenty minutes, keeping to the shadows and listening closely to the city around me. Blitzwolfer wasn''t my best way to track someone down, but his speed, strength, tracking, and sonic powers made him an ideal form to travel in New York City so I could help people.

    My decision was justified when I heard something. A loud scream. I took a whiff of the air. Elevated scents I''d learned to tie to fear and excitement, one of them being sweat. Combined with the scream, I had a target.

    My right foot slammed into the roof, claws digging into the rocky surface to let me twist around in the middle of my run. I booked it towards the sound.

    It was only a minute long run, but I smelled blood float up towards me. I growled in annoyance. Deep inside, a more primal part of me found joy in the smell. Fear, blood, all the signs of prey. Prey to hunt.

    Luckily, it was easy to push the urge to hunt down. Blitzwolfer''s species, Loboan''s, were closer to their animal instincts than humans were, but they were still sentient, so I found it easy to focus.

    When I reached the site of the scream, I found five people. Two men, one woman, attacking a young couple, a man and a woman. All different races.

    The man was being held down by two of his attackers, a woman with long black hair and a man with inky black skin. He was screaming, a knife wound in his stomach pouring blood, but still struggling to get to his girl.

    She was struggling too, crying. The last of the attackers was on top of her, struggling to get her wallet out of her pocket as he grabbed her throat.

    I leaped down from the rooftop I was on. I didn''t waste time waiting to land.

    My mouth opened. In four different directions. It was weird how natural it felt to open my mouth and feel a seam open in the center of my face, running a line down my nose all the way to my chin.

    I breathed in. Then I howled. Though that was an understatement.

    "AAAHHHWWOOOOO!"

    A green pulse of energy flew from my mouth, slamming into the two holding the guy down. All five of them screamed in pain, the man on top of the woman falling back and grabbing his ears.

    I landed on the ground and sped forward, ignoring the spider-web of cracks I left in my landing. I grabbed the guy who''d been robbing the woman by his shirt and lifted him up. At my full height, I was massive, looming over everyone.

    "Hey," I smirked at the terrified look he gave me. I looked over at the other two thugs. "How about you surrender?"

    The male and female thugs turned to run. I spun around and threw the guy I was holding at them, running after them at the same time. The guy I''d thrown hit the girl, I grabbed the final guy by his leg.

    "God, please no! Please don''t do this!" He screamed.

    "Arrest you?" I chuckled, pulling to join his friends. They were struggling to rise, but I opened my mouth again.

    "AAAHWOOO!"

    They were thrown back by the sonic blast. I threw the other guy with them, then looked over the couple. The woman was with her boyfriend. Or husband I supposed. They were trying to run.

    "Hey!" The couple froze. I sighed at the look of fear they were giving me. "Relax. I''m going to tie them up, then call the police." The woman didn''t seem to listen. She was tugging at her boy as he grunted in pain, his knife wound getting opened further. I rolled my eyes, more annoyed than saddened by their fear. "Stupid Marvel hatred of things they don''t understand," I mumbled.

    The symbol of the Omnitrix rested on my stomach. I reached a hand for it, tapping the device. It glowed green, my DNA once again undergoing a new change. My fur changed color, going from gray to blue. My arms and legs shifted into more human shaped ones, right up until five fingers turned into four, and five toes became two. Blades sprouted from my forearms and forelegs, made of a bony protrusion. I felt the fur on my face shift, rising into ''horns'' from around my eyes. My senses were dulled, but my perception of the world slowed down, as though things were a step behind me.

    "Fasttrack."

    I ran as soon as I was transformed. First, I went into the street, looking around quickly. I saw some pallets near a shop that were being held together by rope, which I ran over and untied. Went over to the thugs, picking them up and wrapping them in the coarse rope. Once done, I went over to the couple.

    The woman was still trying to drag her husband away. I gently moved him over away from her, and ripped his t-shirt off, pressing it into his wound to try and stop the bleeding.

    Then I slowed down for a bit.

    "What just-" The thugs looked down at themselves, shocked at the sight of the ropes wrapped around their arms and legs.

    The woman looked down at her arms, blinking at the disappearance of her husband, then looked at me. "You were killing him," I said softly, pressing the shirt into his wound. The man looked at me, shocked. "I can take you to the hospital in seconds. I can save his life."

    She stared at me. The man stared at me. After a moment, she nodded quickly, tears in her eyes.

    "Okay," I grabbed my ''patients'' arm so that he was holding his shirt to himself, then I picked up the man in a bridal carry. While Fasttrack wasn''t as strong as Swampfire or Blitzwolfer, I could still easily carry him. "Get on my back."

    "W-What?" She rose up, staring at me. I was taller than her, and pretty bulky for a speedster, but apparently less terrifying than my Blitzwolfer form because she seemed less fearful.

    "Honey," the guy in my arms grunted. "Just... let''s trust him, okay?" He held the shirt tighter to himself. It was soaked through by now.

    She hesitated for a second longer. Then she walked over to me. It was a bit awkward, leaning down to let her leap onto my back while carrying her boyfriend/husband/guy. Once she was on, I rose up again.

    "Hold on tight. Very, very tight."

    When I was sure she was secure, I booked it towards the nearest hospital. I''d found the couple in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, in an alleyway off W 14th Street. That made the nearest hospital Lenox Health Greenwich Village. I had no idea how long it would take to get there by car.

    But I ran into the street, ducked around a car moving in slow motion. I tried to be careful, but I still had trouble with quick turns, so I had to hold the guy tight and keep making sure the woman was holding tight. Still, what was a moment of adjustment for me, was a microsecond to the couple.

    "Yaaaaaaaaa!" The girl screamed in my ear as I ran through the Manhattan streets.

    "Hoooo!" The guy replied.

    Soon I found the hospital, an interestingly shaped building with weird circular holes on the upper floors walls. Lenox Hospital had an emergency room, so I slowed down and went towards it.

    Fasttrack was fast. But not so good at slowing down or turning on a dime.

    I rushed the couple past an Asian couple walking out of the doors, going in and screeching to a stop. My feet left long grooves in the linoleum, and the wife leaped off my back.

    "Hey!" I called out, gently holding the guy. "He''s got a knife wound to the stomach!"

    A nurse turned, startled, then stared at me, shocked by my appearance.

    "Lady, come save this guy!"

    My yell startled her into moving. A gurney was brought over, and he was put on top, the nurses yelling medical terms I didn''t understand. I patted the woman as she went to follow.

    "Good luck."

    She responded with a teary smile. "Thank you so much!"

    With that, she was off. I watched the two go, smiling a bit. I felt good. Helping people was something I was new to, but it wasn''t a bad feeling to know you''d made a difference.

    "G-Get down on the floor!" Said a voice from my left.

    It was a security guard. He had a gun out, pointed in fear.

    "...No."

    I sped away in a flash of blue. It was a matter of another sprint to go back to the alleyway, where the three thugs still were. One of them had gotten loose and was trying to rise to his feet. I ran in and punched him in the face at high speed. As he staggered back, I went through his friend''s pockets, stealing their smartphones and the knife they''d cut the guy with.

    Another run with the rope to tie them up, then it was on to the police station. The 10th Precinct in fact. I ran in, dropped the three off with a note, and was out in milliseconds.

    Good thing. The Omnitrix began to beep, flashing red light. A quick sprint past an alley, then I was back in human form.

    I tripped mid-run, the switch from Citrakayah to human perception of speed throwing me off, but I managed to right myself. I strode out of the alley and looked at my Omnitrix. The center was now red, so no transformations for the next few minutes. I had a couple of aliens I wanted to play with later, but for now...

    I took out my brand new StarkTech phone and checked it. No security. I activated the e-mail function, logged out of the girls account and signed into mine. From there, I could check on my computer''s files at home. I went through them for a bit. Nothing new. I went to my research on Latveria. Still no sign of Doctor Doom being a thing, though some basketball player was making a name in the sport. Then I looked into the Savage Land. Yeah, Antartica was still frozen. Nothing on the mystical realms, but there was not much chance of that information on the internet. Worth a shot.

    I sighed, walking down the street on my phone. This had been my pattern after work, saving people''s lives, wallets... sometimes saving them from horrors that sickened me.

    There were times... there was a woman. She''d been savaged. The guys who''d taken her had been at it for hours.

    It was one month into me living in Manhattan. That was the first time I''d ever put a concentrated effort into hurting someone.

    Thinking of her, I switched over to the file I had set aside for her case. She was still getting help, for the physical and mental trauma. She was doing her best. Jen Tiller. As for her assailants, they were still in the hospital. I''d shattered their bones, destroyed their bodies. They''d need years before they could actually move, eat, or shit without aid again. I felt a burning guilt for that, a pain at how I''d lost control. But Jen Tiller deserved to know her attackers would never hurt anyone else like that again.

    As the Omnitrix changed the color back to green, I checked the time. Well. Maybe I could save one more before the night was over.

    I managed to save three more people, then ended the night with my workout before going to sleep.

    January 10, 2014

    "Sammy!" I yelled out. He turned to look at me, then nodded when I gestured towards a kitchen Eddie had emptied out. I went inside and started swinging, thinking to myself as my arms and hips moved to strike.

    We were at a new construction site. The last house had been taken down just before New Years. In that time, I''d gone on more patrols, done more workouts, and done more research. I''d gotten into a routine, but soon I''d need to move on. The patrols, in the end, were just me practicing. Using my powers against non-threats, moving about the city, making technology for useful purposes. I''d have to step onto the stage soon. Actually, help people on a large scale, help the Avengers. Well, unless they went all Civil War on me, but there weren''t nearly enough superheroes for that to be an issue. Besides, I was on camera enough that even hacking hospital and police security footage wouldn''t work forever.

    As I lifted the hammer again, my phone began to buzz. And so did my Omnitrix.

    I stopped, surprised. Then I felt horrified.

    My computer at home had a connection to both my Omnitrix and phone. I hadn''t been able to mess with my Omnitrix much since my tech transformation was more of an engineer than a scientist, so none of my attempts to unlock the Master Code had worked. But I got it to respond to very specific things.

    I dropped the hammer and hurriedly pulled out my phone.

    My stomach fell out from under me. I staggered, trying to understand what I was reading. Then I ran.

    "Sammy!" My voice cracked, and I tried to focus. Sammy was standing near the trailer set up at the sight. He turned to look at me as I ran up. "I''m leaving!"

    "Kid?" Sammy reached for his head and blinked in confusion.

    "Mr. Schahed," Frederic, our pinch-faced boss stepped out from around Sammy. "I must remind you that United Allied does not pay you for the days work without-"

    I stepped forward, cocked my hips forward, and slammed my fist into my bosses chin in an uppercut. "I quit, Frederic."

    "I don''t think he heard you," Sammy said as I walked by. He watched in shock as I left.

    I ran into an alleyway and opened my Omnitrix up. It was an effort of will trying not to slam my palm into the dial, to carefully pick my alien rather than rush into it in my panic. I finally pushed it down and felt the change come.

    "Fasttrack!"

    I didn''t care about cameras now. I sped through the streets passing through town as fast as I could.

    Alleyway, fence, alleyway, then hop over another fence, put in my code, rush inside. The smell of burnt food told me my fridge had burned its contents again. I ignored it, putting on my computer. I tapped the Omnitrix and returned to human.

    "I... I don''t understand what to do with this."

    I stood in the middle of my living room, staring at my screen. There, in front of me, were words I just didn''t understand.

    STEVEN ROGERS IS NOW WANTED FUGITIVE OF SHIELD. ALL SHIELD AGENTS ARE TO REPORT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT HIS WHEREABOUTS AND BRING HIM IN FOR QUESTIONING. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY FOR ALL AGENTS. FIND STEVE ROGERS, BRING HIM IN.

 3 Chapter 3

    January 10th, 2014

    For a crazy moment, I felt under-dressed in my blue shirt. I stared at my computer screen, trying to understand what was going. The message was from SHIELD, being sent to all agents through priority channels. Every agent on the planet was getting this. And it was insane.

    STEVEN ROGERS IS NOW A WANTED FUGITIVE OF SHIELD. ALL SHIELD AGENTS ARE TO REPORT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT HIS WHEREABOUTS AND BRING HIM IN FOR QUESTIONING.

    I ran through every bit of comic book knowledge I had, some of it mere scraps I''d overheard. What was going on? Why was SHIELD hunting Captain America?

    Captain America going rogue was actually pretty common when I thought about it. It was true for all superheroes, a moment when the people who were supposed to support them started to think of them as criminals. But in this case, what was happening? Was he being mind controlled? Framed? Did someone trick SHIELD somehow?

    Hail Hydra. Said a soft voice in my mind. An image that had actually in the news for a while in my world. Captain America, suddenly saying those two disgusting words. Was it something like that? Some weird pseudo body switch thing?

    I needed answers. I needed to find out who were the bad guys.

    My feet didn''t move. I licked my lips. For all my power, I''d spent months fighting thugs, gangsters, and rapists, all for the sake of practice. To git gud with my powers, to establish a rhythm, to know when my watch would turn off and reset (Though that was still up in the air). All for the day I''d actually fight as an Avenger, to save people from monsters, to do the work I did on patrol of Manhattan on a larger scale. With the Omnitrix, I could save a lot of people.

    I''d thought about going home a couple of times. Of making a device to make a portal back somehow. But nothing I tried let me do it. For some reason, I was locked in this universe, or at least, my tech couldn''t make the calculations to find my home universe so I could actually make a device that would get me there. So while I was here, I wanted to do some good. To use this gift that was forced/given to me to be a good guy.

    At that moment, I thought of Ben. I thought of how much he''d gone through. I thought of Marvel''s famous characters. Of what made those heroes. And it was funny. But I found my inspiration from a boy who, in this universe, was only twelve years old.

    With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.

    That thought made me step forward. I turned off the blinking message and switched over to my SHIELD link. I didn''t hesitate anymore. I needed information. And only one man would tell me the truth, or at least his version of it.

    There was a button on my computer, dedicated to one purpose. It was made from the head of a Hulk doll, something of a joke. Some of my forms had their own sense of humor. I wasn''t laughing.

    I pushed down on the Hulk''s head slightlly, but not enough to actually activate it.. Then I stopped to think before pulling my hand away. Not the time to be impulsive. I walked over to another corner of my home and grabbed the pack I had set aside. It was made from tough leather, filled with clothes, some granola bars, a tough canteen of water, a first aid kit, and knives. With a final thought, I threw off my blue shirt and grabbed one I''d saved. A white one, with a black stripe straight through the center. It felt appropriate. Made for anything, up to getting teleported into outer speed. A bug-out bag. I checked the Omnitrix, flipped through my aliens for a moment. Not to transform, just to make sure of what was happening.

    The plan had always been this, on some level. I was always waiting for a call to action. I''d spent weeks preparing for the day I would need to step into battle, to join the Avengers or help one of the street level superheroes like me.

    I looked around my small home, shrugging my backpack slightly. "I guess... I guess this is goodbye." I''d been planning to leave in a hurry at any time. That''s why there were no posters, no movies or video games in my house. But still... Leaving was gonna suck.

    Then I sat down at my computer and pressed down on the Hulk''s head. It wiggled slightly, his angry snarl bouncing around.

    "HULK SMASH!" My computer speakers cried out.

    My screen flickered. That was it. Sadly, computer''s aren''t exactly dramatic when it came to this sort of thing. But in my homemade supercomputer, a program ripped through every firewall in SHIELD. My passive intrusion became an invasion as I pulled every secret they had into my PC. On any other day, this would have been an insane move. No one human can look into the thousands of files belonging to SHIELD without hundreds of hours of time to read through the sort of dark crap no one should read.

    I ignored all of it, switching over to the most relevant file. All the work being done in finding one Steven Rogers.

    Satellite surveillance, security camera, social network tracking, word of mouth. Everything on the East Coast was trying to find him.

    Which meant I was too.

    You know the great thing about technology? With a good enough interface, you don''t need to be smart. You just let the tech do the job for you. Not many can build smartphones. Almost anyone can use them. And my supercomputer could do the work of teams of hackers and technicians by itself. It separated out data and started using SHIELD''s resources for me. I needed to find Captain America, and my computer started tracking him. Simple as a couple of button presses. I called the program ''CapWatch'' and left it running. I pulled out my smartphone and connected it to my computer with a cable. I connected the program to my cell phone. With it on, I could keep a watch on Captain Rogers while on the move. The program would work within SHIELD, hidden by alien programming and keeping me informed.

    And then my computer beeped. The cameras had found him, at a mall in D.C. I made sure my phone was connected to the CapWatch program, then turned back to the moniter.

    "Huh," I leaned towards the screen, squinting. "He really does look like Chris Evans. But giant."

    It was something I''d always known from the footage, but now it was obvious. When he stood next to Thor and the Hulk, he wasn''t that big. On his own? Dude had to be over six feet. He was trying to be low-key, but it''s hard for a truck made of super-soldier enhanced and sculpted muscle to hid with a hat and a pair of glasses. He was standing with a woman, in the middle of an Apple computer store. They were tapping away at something. Well, the woman in the hoodie was at least. She was shorter than he was and hiding better. I''d barely half-noticed her. Something about how she was standing just... made her hard to notice. As though she was hiding even as she stood there. It took me a bit to recognize Natasha Romanov. So Captain America was innocent? Or, wait, was Black Widow evil in this universe, just like in the Ultimates? Damnit all, more questions.

    As she typed, another alert came through. I checked it.

    "Ah... shit."

    The alert was actually two. First, whatever Black Widow had done, it put a level six homing program onto them, which meant SHIELD now knew where they were.

    Second, someone had triggered one of the motion sensors around my home.

    I ran to the computer and triggered the outer cameras, made from printer and smartphone parts. Eight screens showing everything around the building showed me what was happening.

    Men were pouring from black SUV''s, guns out. They wore all black uniforms, with bulletproof armor, helmets, and combat boots. They were going down the alley near my home. All with assault rifles out.

    "How the hell did they get here so fast?" I grumbled. I knew they would track me once I slammed through their firewalls with the rudeness of a knife to the testes. But I hadn''t expected them to be so quick. Or to come with an army. SHIELD may have been under high alert, but I didn''t think they would send assault rifles against a hacker.

    I made sure my bag was slightly loose on my back. Then I pressed a self-destruct on my computer. It linked with my fridge, stove, and security system. In three minutes, it would explode everything, leaving no trace of who''d lived there.

    It sucked ass. I''d made a home in Manhattan. My crappy rundown home, with tech that barely worked, a fridge that burned food, and a supercomputer that played Japanese TV on Wednesday no matter what I did. I pushed the thought away.

    I needed to get to Captain America and Black Widow. I was going to help, and I couldn''t let SHIELD stop me. Whatever was happening, he was the key.

    Then I looked at the computer. The camera outside my door showed the SHIELD agents throwing something. At first, I thought it was a smoke grenade, but why throw that at a closed door. The computer helpfully identified it for me with the use of StarkTech accelerated reality, zooming in and naming the object. I didn''t read the whole description. Two words were enough.

    Fragmentation Grenade.

    My right arm lifted. I twisted the face of the Omnitrix. I didn''t look at the watch. No time to choose, any alien was more durable than I was. I just slammed my hand onto the watch, roaring as my palm hit my wrist.

    "IT''S HERO TIME!"

    BOOM!

    When the grenade blew up, it destroyed my metal door. Shrapnel flew into the air, some of it as long as knives. Enough to impale me, to even kill me.

    But the change had already come. I grew up to nine feet in height. Blue-green crystals grew across my skin, sliding out of my pores, surrounding my fingers, my face. I grew massive spikes on my shoulders. My body was made of crystal.

    "Diamondhead!"

    I stood there proudly, ignoring the shrapnel bouncing off the crystal.

    "Huh," my voice was odd in this form, resonating. "I would have preferred to run... but maybe I should throw a punch or two."

    Not really my plan to turn into Diamondhead. I needed to leave, and this form wasn''t made for that.

    Then again... they''d thrown a grenade at me.

    "All right," I snapped my hands to the side, thinking of Thor for some reason. My crystalline hands shapeshifted, becoming massive blades worthy of any anime. "I said hero time. I''ll make good on that."

    I leaped out of my home, my backpack now tight, and roared.

    There were twelve men in the little courtyard outside my home. I''m not sure what they expected, but it wasn''t a Petrosapien leaping into the air out of the smoke, glowing blue-green in the sunlight and wearing a black and green outfit. Behind me, my home for over three months blew up. I roared, blade arms out, and slammed into the ground.

    The men around me started to shoot. Bullets slammed into my form, only to fall to the ground in useless chunks. Diamondhead could survive reentry on his own. Bullets would do nothing. I ignored it and ran towards one of the soldiers. My left sword arm shifted, turning into a fist. Simple. But when your hands are as big and heavy as Diamondhead''s, they hit with a hell of a lot of force. I punched his chest, sending him flying. My right arm became a shield. I waded in, pumping my left fist in my best boxing stance and hitting another guy in the leg. I tried to be gentle. These were just soldiers after all.

    I blocked another hail of bullets from one man using my right arm shield, hearing loud noises like metal hammers on stone as bullets hit crystal to no avail. I walked towards him swiftly, reaching a hand out and grabbing his gun away from him. He staggered back. I punched him in the rips, tossing him aside. Another SHIELD soldier stepped forward to swing his fist at me, and I let him. His fist broke on my chin. He screamed as he fell to his knees, and I kicked him back. "Sorry, buddy."

    "Take him down!"

    That was the only response I got. More assault rifle fire was shot at me, and I growled in annoyance. While I couldn''t be hurt by the bullets, the noise of them hitting me in the head and chest was annoying.

    I slammed my fist into the floor. Crystal shot into the earth, then exploded outwards around me in a shining imitation of an explosion. I tried to keep the shards dull, but when crystals the size of diamonds erupt upwards at high speed, they hit hard.

    The soldiers around me screamed as the crystals slammed into them, sending them flying. I heard more men coming towards us, and I knew I had to go. I couldn''t exactly kill the good guys, even if they had thrown a grenade at me.

    I turned and swung my arm out, shooting blades of crystal at the ground. As they sank into concrete, they exploded, turning into a massive ramp. I ran for it, sliding on the crystals and launching into the air. As I came close to another building, I threw more crystals. They grew in seconds into a sort of bowl stabbed into the wall, letting me dive into the ''bowl'', slide down and fly out of the other side. I landed on a roof and sprinted as hard as I could, hearing the guys behind me yelling at each other. Then the ''whomp, whomp, whomp'' of a helicopter''s blades flew by. A sigh left my lips when a black helicopter spun around to come in front of me.

    "These assholes are persistent."

    No time for niceties. Mid-run, I spun to aim myself at the helicopter, my legs and arms pumping hard. It turned it''s right side towards me, the door sliding open. A guy levered a freaking minigun at me. The barrels started turning at high speed.

    "All this for a little hacking!?"

    The guy pointing the minigun couldn''t hear me, considering the helicopter blades were sending a massive ruckus into the air.

    The minigun started firing. I lifted a hand up, shapeshifting my arm to turn into a giant shield again. Big bullets the size of thumbs slammed into the shield, sending flattened bullet rounds bouncing on the rooftop as they uselessly tried to break the unbreakable. I sprinted, holding my shield in front of me. My other hand swung outwards and tossed another crystal, a large stone bouncing on the ground before I leaped onto it. The stone grew under my feet, surging upwards and sending me towards the helicopter. My shield became a sword in mid-air.

    "Raaugh!" With that cry, I slammed my sword hand deep into the steel of the helicopter, at the point where the tail met the body of the chopper. The sound of metal being sliced by steel was a wailing screech of noise in the air. My sword sprouted a flower of crystals within the helicopter, pushing them to grow as fast as I could make them go. The guy with the minigun stared at me as the section of the helicopter I was hanging from began to sprout blue-green knives from the inside. All along the inside of the chopper, more and more crystals sliced through the seats, the fuel tank, grinding through the aircraft until a massive one rose from the floor. It was as big as a man and forced the guy at the minigun to back up as it crowded the helicopter. The whole thing began to fall, unbalanced and leaking fuel as my crystals sliced into it.

    "There''s a bar down the street," I said with a grin at the shocked soldier, still held to the chopper by my sword hand. "I suggest you guys go there after this, drink things off."

    I leaped from the chopper, aiming towards another building nearby. I slammed into the rooftop in a ground pound and hurriedly looked over at the helicopter. The thing was unsteady, about to slam into a building nearby.

    I reached my mind into the crystals within the helicopter. Crystals feel like... light. Warmth of the sun on your face, even as you feel a cooling breeze on your arms. I moved that feeling, carefully, my arms swaying in the air as my carved lips curved. As the crystals moved, I dragged the copter through the air. It''s rotors screamed, struggling to fight my pull. I grunted with the effort, trying to hold the aircraft, and guided it slowly to the ground. When it came close to the ground, away from any cars, the pilot stopped fighting me. Together, me swaying my arms and the pilot in the street ahead of me moving his joystick, I slowly lowered the chopper to the ground, ignoring the sounds of more men coming up onto the roof behind me for a second. As soon as the chopper was down, I spun around.

    More soldiers stood behind me than had appeared at my door. About twenty or so. I stared at them as they pointed their guns at me, my eyes narrowing.

    For some reason, this felt... wrong. Opening up with a grenade on a house that could just have held a very stupid hacker. Coming in with guns up, without even speaking to me in some way. I mean, sure, I''d committed a crime, but hackers don''t get armies attacking them, they get job offers. All of this felt less like SHIELD, and more like I was fighting an evil army.

    The men surrounded me, one in the center barking at me. "Get down, get down now! We will shoot you, you damn freak!"

    "Rude," I grumbled softly.

    Guns cocked. I raised my hands.

    Assault rifle fire slammed into me. I didn''t stagger, my feet having sprouted spikes through the bottom of my shoes to let me stay standing. As the bullets hit my stone skin, my fingers sank into my palms, turning them into flat planes with spikes popping out. I fired an assault of spikes from my new cannon arms. They slammed into the ground in front of the guys shooting at me, erupting into a wall of massive spikes to defend me.

    I turned and leaped off the building, reaching for my chest. A massive palm tapped the Omnitrix.

    Once more, the change came. My crystal skin became reptilian, scaled and colored brown. My massive form shrank to become far more skinny, aerodynamic. My backpack was stretched to the limit when another growth sprouted on my back, which solidified before a pair of wings snapped out from it. My face became beaked, and my eyesight sharpened as my hands and feet each grew three talons.

    In mid-air, falling towards the ground I pointed myself towards the ground. A section of my back came alight with green energy. I screeched for joy as I shot forward at the pavement like a jet engine. Before I hit the ground, I twisted my body upwards in a maneuver that would have snapped a human back, at way too many G''s. I rocketed back up into the sky as fast as I could, the organic engine on my back roaring with an unearthly noise. I released a pulse of energy, shooting into the sky at sonic speeds.

    I passed the guys on the rooftop chopping away at my crystal formation, spinning upwards and crying out the name.

    "Astrodactyl!"

    With that cry, I spun around. "Okay! Time to g-screeeech!" I blinked, floating for a moment. "That''s weird to get used to, Squaaaawk!" I said, letting another screech of noise out once I''d finished. Sometimes you have to let the form do what it wants. And Astrodactyl like to release loud bird noises when it talked. Hell, I kinda liked it too.

    I tapped the Omnitrix again, this time trying to access the GPS. I didn''t have much time before the Omnitrix would time out, especially with all the stuff I''d had Diamondhead do, so I quickly accessed the direction of the mall Captain America had been in. A moments orientation and I rocketed away, zooming through the sky with a tremendous boom of noise as I broke the sound barrier.

 4 Chapter 4

    Nobody can really understand the joy of flying. Of rocketing through the air, screaming on a wave of air, diving and ducking as gravity fought to grab you and failed. The wind roared past me, my talons trailing behind me as my wings felt the icy chill pass above and over my skin.

    But I had a purpose. Even as I flew, I knew the truth. There was no way Captain America was at that mall in Washington D.C. anymore. I had to find them again, him and that mysterious woman with him. With my eyesight, I focused on where I was aiming for. I needed to find them again, which meant hacking. I''d been flying for about a minute. Astrodactyl was fast, fast enough to break the speed of sound with ease.

    The distance between Manhattan and Washington DC is only about 230 miles. Even Mach 1 is 340ish meters a second, and I could clear that with ease. Which meant I needed to slow down so I could see what I needed. I also dropped as low as possible at points, flying along rivers, under bridges, trying to avoid detection by radar.

    About six minutes into the flight, the Omnitrix started to beep. I shot towards the ground, glad I wasn''t as high up as the twenty thousand feet I''d been at before.

    I came down behind a 7-11 on the outskirts of D.C. It was in one of the rougher neighborhoods of the city. As I landed, the Omnitrix turned off, and I landed in a roll as a human being. I stood up and looked around the empty street, then started walking.

    Even with everything I''d done to try and shake off the radar, I knew it wouldn''t last. I needed more. I needed a tech solution, a way to stop anyone, anywhere from tracking me. I''d thought of building one before, but I was more focused on hacking.

    I grabbed my phone and found the nearest technology store. A Best Buy a few streets away. I started jogging, keeping my eyes open for anyone shady. I wasn''t exactly trained in espionage, so I couldn''t see if anyone was following, but it was the best I could do on short notice. Funny. All the power to change the world on my wrist, and the first time I get the chance to help an Avenger, it''s on a mission more dependent on spy stuff rather than explosions.

    I hurried down the sidewalk and got to the parking lot of the Best Buy. When I walked in, a kindly older woman with a badge on her chest that said her name was Martha smiled at me.

    "Hello there! Do you need any help?"

    "As much as the universe can give me," I said quickly, striding past her fast. She blinked after me as I headed to the gaming center.

    Years back, in my home universe, scientists used a little under 2,000 Playstation 3''s to create a supercomputer. It used the advanced graphics capability of the gaming console to do things other supercomputers could do at a fraction of the cost. The PS3 was released in 2006, while the year I was in now was 2014. More importantly, it was created in a universe without Tony Stark.

    In this Marvel universe, I found stuff I wouldn''t be able to back home. I checked my phone as I walked through the store, and kept track of Captain America and Black Widow''s traveling through my CapWatch program.

    I had one of the employees get me one of the new StarkConsole systems, which he told me would be waiting at the front for me since they didn''t keep them on shelves. We did the same with a small monitor, a pair of earphones, some graphics cards, and some legos, though I could carry a few of those items myself.

    Once at the cashier, the problems started.

    "That will be, one thousand seventy-eight dollars, and thirty-eight cents," the cashier, a cheery young woman with black hair that had a red stripe in her bangs, smiled at me. "And will you be paying with debit or credit?"

    "Cash," I reached into my bag. Over the months, I''d only spent money on essentials. The rest, I got from trashcans, sometimes pawn shops, but usually, I rarely spent the money I got from my job for anything that wasn''t food. Add in the money I stole from thugs and gangbangers, and I had some cash to spend.

    Of course, I''d forgotten that a young man looking hectically around and carrying over a thousand dollars in cash looks suspicious. I realized something was wrong when the cashier started taking an extra long time to check my bills. Then I saw the employee in the background making a phone call. He was trying not to look at me.

    Someone came up behind me. "Excuse me, sir?" I turned around. The guy behind me was short, kinda pudgy, with slicked-back hair. He looked like a normal guy. He smiled. "Can you come with me please?" He opened his coat. Inside was a badge with an eagle symbol on it. SHIELD.

    "...What, were you in the store already?" I said as the cashier hurried away.

    The guy shook his head. "No, but I was close by when we intercepted the phone call to the police... It just took him a while to get here." He nodded behind me. I turned around. There was a guy, standing taller than me. He was striding towards me, wearing nothing but a tank top, which showed off he had enough muscle for a fitness magazine. His head was bald, and his eyes were hard. He was walking towards me, practically glaring.

    "Don''t move!" The guy who''d gotten my attention first was suddenly pressing a gun to my head. But I''d already reached for the Omnitrix. I thought about changing the alien I had set on it for when I left the store. But it didn''t look like I had time. "Get down on the floor, and we-"

    I pressed the face of the Omnitrix. The guy fired his gun, but I was already knee height to him.

    I shrank down by about five feet. My hair faded away. My ears grew out behind me as my nose grew forward. I felt my arms become skinny sticks, yet somehow become even more powerful. My skin became red. My blue jeans changed to fit my new form, my sneakers as well. And my white t-shirt shrank with me, the black spreading out. As it did, the shirt shifted colors further. A gold image appeared. Like a man wearing a helmet with big goggles on and a triforce symbol on the eyebrow. Over the head were two words. Black Sabbath. Three more words rested under the head. U.S. Tour ''78.

    "Jury Rigg!" I cried out, stretching my arms out as though I was a menacing monster, rather than a tiny red Gremlin in a tour shirt.

    "Hahahaha!" I giggled, rubbing my hands together. "Oh yes! Time to go nuts baby!"

    The guy who''d pointed the gun at me stared for a second. I leaped up and grabbed his face. "Hahahaha!" I punched him in the nose, hard, cackling madly as I held onto him by his right ear.

    "Oh god! Get him off me!" the guy screamed falling back as I punched him over and over with a tiny fist. He reached up and tried to pull me off him. I leaped away, over him, and ran towards the main store.

    My mind was racing. Jury Rigg was just a manic energy kind of guy as is. But here? In the middle of a Best Buy?

    "Oh my god," I stopped in the middle of an aisle full of printers. My fingers twitched as I stared at the devices in front of me. "Heh... hehehehehehehe! DISASSEMBLE!"

    With that battle cry, I leapt for the nearest printer. My powerful red claws dug into the plastic, ripping through the casing. As I did, my mind began to link it all together. One part connected to this part, so it could do this. And if that was possible, why couldn''t I just do this? The feeling of tearing the printer apart, of understanding through destruction, made me cackle like a madman, my squeaky voice filling the air. "Disassemble, disassembledisassembledisassemble!" In a blur, three printer were torn to pieces. Then I started mashing them together. The computer parts, mechanical sections, the pieces just fit together in my head. My mind may have been as hyper as the Flash on crack, but I just felt this... natural intuition for technology. I knew the machine because it just made sense.

    "Reassemble!" I cried out, creating a power source in the handle. "Reassemble, reassemble!" I placed the glass in the barrel as a focusing lens, then jammed plastic all around it for reinforcement. "Heh. Fixed it, baby!"

    Jury Rigg was my most mind-bending form. But in some ways, he was also my most peaceful.

    Just as I finished the machine, the bald guy from earlier came around the corner. When he saw me, he started walking down the aisle. I picked up the device in my hand and pointed it at him.

    "Hey, baldie!" I said with a fanged grin. "Say hello!"

    The creation I''d made was shaped like a giant gun made of plastic. I pulled a trigger that had once been a piece of plastic, and the gun fired, sending me flying from the recoil.

    A ball of light slammed into the tall bald guy. It pressed into his chest, lifting him up and sending him flying.

    "HA!" I cried out. The guy slammed into an earphone display, shattering the plastic. "What you gonna do now!?"

    The bald giant rose up. His nostrils flared, rage in his face. He grabbed the metal shelving next to him with his right hand. He smirked suddenly, his rage becoming determination. "I can think of something."

    As I watched, his right hand changed color. From the point where he was grabbing the shelving, it started to match the shelving. For a moment, I thought it was some sort of camouflage. Then I realized it was so much worse.

    The color moved up his arms to his shoulders, and up over his head, until he was completely white, metal replacing skin.

    "Huh," I said, my eyes wide. "Your last name wouldn''t happen to be Levin, would it?"

    The big metal man roared, rushing at me. The imagery of a giant white being of metal rushing for a tiny red gremlin carrying a giant gun was hilarious. I raised the gun and fired again, as fast as I could. The light balls didn''t send him flying anymore, only smashing into him with force. I leaped onto a shelf and started running down the aisle, kicking products to the floor as he followed me.

    "Crusher Creel, right!?" I smirked at the roar I got in response. "What, you don''t like that name?"

    I leaped over to the next aisle, shooting at the guy. My gun didn''t have a punch, but at least the light balls could knock him around.

    I leaped over to the next aisle, then the next, going from shelf to shelf. He spun to follow me, crashing through shelves as I leaped from one to another. I leaped over one more. Then I leaped off the shelf and down into the aisle, leaving me to hide against the shelves and wait.

    To my left, Creel slammed through the shelves, crossed, the aisle, and crashed through the next one. I grinned at the sight of him continues his chase as I stood behind him, then turned.

    I needed to escape. But I also needed to be able to keep anyone from chasing me. I ran through the holes Creel had made, going back until I hit the smartphone stuff. I grabbed three phones and turned to get more.

    "There you are!"

    I looked up. The guy who I''d punched in the face came running down the aisle. His nose was bloody, and he seemed enraged. He sprinted full force.

    "Come here, you little shit!" he reached out his hands to grab me.

    I grinned. "Rude!" Then I lifted my gun.

    He had a moment to realize what it was. His eyes widened, and his sprint became a backpedal. Then a ball of solidified red light slammed into his face. I didn''t stop shooting as he flew through the air, hitting him three more times and knocking him across the store.

    "Eat it!" Then I ran.

    I grabbed more stuff, earphones, a keyboard, alarm clocks, stuffing my arms as I ran through the aisles of Best Buy. In the distance, I could hear Creel trying to find me. While I was surprisingly quick for being so small, I was on a low amount of time.

    "Disassemble," I whispered, unable to fight my compulsion, but still lowering my voice. I grabbed at all the stuff in my arms and tore it apart. Smartphones were torn apart so their batteries could be used as power sources, and their touchscreens as interfaces, their wireless stuff to interact with satellites. The keyboard and alarm clocks used for their circuitry. The earphones to produce sound. Except one, which I used to make something else.

    Soon, I was finished. I had a small block of random wires and circuitry before me, and a smaller one that looked like a pair of headphones turned into makeshift speakers with a Darth Vader alarm clock in the middle. I was about to pick them up and run when the wall behind me exploded.

    "Yeep!" That was all I got out. Then I was picked up and slammed into a shelf. Hands of steel wrapped around my thin neck. "Gack!"

    Creel held me in the air. He smiled at the sight of me in his grasp. Slowly, he began to squeeze.

    "Ghhh!" I wheezed out. My left hand hurriedly reached for the Omnitrix symbol on my belt as I mentally reached for a hero who could fight off Creel.

    I changed. In seconds, my height exploded up to nine feet. Red skin became orange and white fur, striped black. My muscles exploded outwards, becoming massive boulders beneath my fur. My feet became paws, and my hands each grew a single massive claw popping out of the back of my wrist. And my face became that of tigers.

    "Rath!"

    I roared in Creel''s face, picking him up and tossing him back. He slammed into some shelves, destroying the store further as his metal form broke them. "You ain''t about to choke me again, bub!"

    With that, I stepped forward. Creel went to meet me, lashing out in a cross aimed at my chin. I caught his fist, a small shockwave as metal met flesh, both with superhuman power. When he stared at me in shock, I grinned savagely.

    "Thhhhhat''s right buster!" I pulled in his arm, my claw slashing at his stomach. For a moment, my claw and his stomach clashed. A long gash was scratched into his steel form, but not enough to hurt him. He freed his fist from my grasp and fell back, but I stepped for. "Ya got nothing!" I roared, meeting him in battle.

    I roared, rushing him, slashing my claws into him. He fell back under my power. I relished in the sight as his metal skin was carved by my claws. "That''s right! Let me tell you something Crusher Creel! Nobody can beat Rath!" I picked him and slammed him into the ground. "I''m the best there is at what I do, and it isn''t very nice!"

    "You talk too much," Creel punched me in the face from his position on the ground.

    I fell back, staggering. He followed me, punching my ribs. For the first time since I found out I had Rath as a transformation, I felt pain from a blow, my bones groaning at the blow. I grunted, rage blinding me.

    "You think you''re great, Mr. I-Can-Turn-Into-What-I-Touch!? Well, bring it on!" I punched him in the face.

    Then Creel punched me in mine.

    We duked it out, tearing through Best Buy, turning shelves into scrap against our bodies. I grabbed a flat screen and slammed it over his head. He grunted as hundreds of dollars of metal and plastic tore over him. His skin flickered in color to match the TV, and he hurriedly grabbed some steel shelving, to change into steel again. I roared, hitting him over and over. Creel was silent now, trying to beat me with every bit of skill he had, his fists slamming into my chest, ribs, and face. I felt some respect for a moment. Creel was tough. But mostly, I was frustrated this problem wasn''t going away by punching it. So, I decided it was time to really fight.

    When Creel threw another punch, I leaped up. About twenty feet in the air. "Messier Elbow Drop!"

    Creel tried to dodge, but I came down to fast, slamming my full body weight into his back with my elbow. He hit the ground, hard. I rolled to my feet and grabbed him, holding him upside down in a hug, his face outwards. I leaped upwards. And as I came down with Creel''s head leading, I called out once more.

    "Polaris Piledriver!"

    The ground shook with our impact. For a moment, it was still. I sat in a crater that had once been the gaming center of the Best Buy, Creel lying on his face. I rose up, and picked Creel up by his leg, lifting him until he was upside down and face to face with me. Creel was still awake, but weak. I grinned toothily. "Rath wins?" Creel didn''t respond. "Yeah, Rath wins!"

    I tossed him aside.

    A gunshot echoed in the store. A brief impact jostled my arm, a mere pinprick compared to I turned around. A bunch of guys were coming towards me, all dressed in police uniforms or familiar black military gear. I scowled. "Rath is real annoyed with you idiots!" I roared. I reached for the Omnitrix symbol on my chest, tapping it.

    Orange fur became brown reptilian skin.

    "Astrodactyl!"

    There were about fifteen men coming towards me. I opened my mouth and charged it with star power. "Squawk!" A beam of green energy flew from my mouth, slamming into a man wearing a cops uniform. As he fell back, my jetpack launched me into the air. I fired again and again in the air, forcing the men back into cover, then cartwheeled in the air.

    In the aisles I''d been before, I saw three men walking towards the items I''d made. I flew over, dropping next to them. "Not happening!" I snapped out. The star energy within me shifted to my wrists, in the bracers on my forearms. I unleashed it, creating two energy whips that sprouted from the holes on my wrists. The three men raised guns to shoot me. I snapped my left energy whip out, wrapping the legs and pulling the whip. They fell in a heap. One of the men reached for his hip. I twirled my right energy whip, then lashed out, hitting him in the face. I did it to the other two, then got on to business.

    I turned to my creations. First, I fired an energy beam at the gun I''d made, destroying it as thoroughly as I could. Then I scooped up the other two devices. I placed each on either side of my hip. That finished, I lifted up once more. The soldiers were coming towards me again. One had a rocket launcher, which he fired at me as I hovered in the air. I spun an energy whip around and lashed out, exploding the rocket in mid-air.

    "You''ll have to do better than that, squawk!" I flew for the exit. As I launched forward, my jetpack released a propulsion blast behind me. It hit the ground and exploded, sending the SHIELD agents flying. I swung my whip at the glass of the front store window, breaking it. With that, I was out in the fresh air. I flew upwards, only to widen my eyes at the sight above me in the sky.

    "Coooool, squawk!"

    A Quinjet. It floated over me, with its rotor wings, cool design, and even missiles on the wings, a feature I''d never seen on them.

    I flew up past it. The Quinjet turned towards me, a Gatling gun popping out of its nose.

    "Oh, squawk."

    The loud whine of a Gatling gun filled the air as I rocketed around. The Quinjet spun to follow me, the Gatling guns filling the space behind me with bullets. The Quinjet fired missiles as well, three gray ones that followed me. I swung left to right, up and down, but I couldn''t shake them. My eyes narrowed.

    "This is a lot of resources coming at me," I grumbled.

    With that, I did a loop. I zoomed above the Quinjet, where it''s Gatling gun couldn''t reach me. The pilot tried to rise up, but it wasn''t fast enough. I turned and unleashed my right energy whip, star energy lashing out to destroy all three missiles. Then I aimed at the Quinjet and fired a blast from my mouth at the top. The aircraft staggered under the blast. I flew upwards, releasing another propulsion blast from my jetpack, leaving the Quinjet behind me. As I did, I reached for my waist and touched one of the devices. Two things happened. First, the device began to emit energy that would interfere with any radar, as well as hacking satellites to erase my image as I flew.

    Then the first device activated the second device on my hip. That device projected a bubble in the air around me, one that kept sound crystal clear. Then it began to play a song, the music starting with a guitar riff. As it played, I sighed.

    "Gonna have heavy metal in my head all day now," I said, despairing of ever understanding why Jury Rigg was so weird.

    All you women who want a man of the street

    But you don''t know which way you want to turn

    Just keep a coming and put your hand out to me

    ''Cause I''m the one who''s gonna make you burn

    With that music playing, I did an aileron roll, released another propulsion blast, and shot forward.

    I landed once I figured I was far enough away. I had to check where Captain America was, and my phone disappeared with my clothes whenever I transformed. I took a moment to despair the loss of my backpack. All that money, gone. What a waste.

    I touched down in a bit of forest, changing back. The forest was mostly dead, considering it was January. I took a breath, feeling a bit chilly, but not bad. I sat against a tree and slowly slid down until my butt hit the floor.

    I needed a break. Even with all my fighting in New York, I''d never been involved in so much combat. And Creel. Damn. If Creel had fought a bit smarter, he could have beaten me. Even with the Omnitrix healing me, I still felt his blows, the sheer power he had. What was SHIELD doing working with Crusher Creel?

    I stopped, just trying to breathe for a moment. Once done, I checked CapWatch once more. The program was still running fine. I did a quick check and found it wasn''t compromised. No one had found it. Thank you, alien tech, for being so damn broken. Jury Rigg was awesome.

    Anyways. I leaned against the tree and zoomed in on the map, showing me where the two were. Between my shopping, the fight with Creel and the Quinjet, and my rushed flight away from Best Buy, Captain America and Black Widow had made progress. They were on I-95, driving steadily north. If they kept going, they''d eventually hit Jersey. Sammy would have had something to say about Jersey.

    I watched them, trying to decide if I should join them. The devices I''d put on were still working at my hips, both humming ominously, but steadily. The beginning refrains of Enter Sandman began to play, kept in a three-foot bubble around me by the device. The tiny image on my screen of a blue truck driving steadily continued to play. I sighed, then got to my feet. I checked the Omnitrix, wishing it had some sort of energy bar I could use to tell how much energy I had left in it. Finally, I just activated it, transforming back into Astrodactyl.

    With that, I was off into the sky.

 5 Chapter 5

    It took some stops to catch up with them. I had to keep landing to give the Omnitrix a break and check my CapWatch program. But soon, I was flying over I-95. And after that, I saw them.

    Captain America was driving. Black Widow was in shotgun. They were talking about something.

    I swooped in above their truck, staying high so they wouldn''t see me. The truck was a big, brand new one. I didn''t know Captain America owned a truck. I wasn''t sure if it mattered, but it seemed funny somehow.

    I followed them like that for a bit, trying to figure out how to make contact. Flying was fun, but I could feel exhaustion coming in with all of the constant Omnitrix use today. I could keep going for a bit longer. But I needed a nap tonight.

    With no end to their driving in sight, I followed them by leapfrogging. I would land once the Omnitrix timed out, watch their progress on CapWatch, then take off again to catch up. Like stalking taken to the next level, something I tried not to think about. I had to stay high, using my insane eyesight to see them, so I wouldn''t freak them out by flying in close. A giant pterodactyl with rockets wasn''t something they''d find comfort in.

    Slowly, I flew. They drove. For over an hour, we went like that.

    Finally, while I was just wondering if I should cut my losses and take a nap, they turned off the interstate. I sighed in relief and followed them. They drove through the city streets, then down country roads. Until they were driving on one road, an overgrown one that hadn''t been used in a long time. A military base was in the distance. It was empty, rundown. After some thought, I flew ahead of Cap and Black Widow.

    Once I got to the base, I dropped to land at the gate, turning human once more. I walked up to it, reading the sign hanging on the chain fence. "Camp Lehigh..." The whole fence was brown with rust. A beat up old stop sign rested on it as well. In the light of the sinking sun, I could see that the rest of the base was much the same, a relic of a bygone age. All red brick buildings and rusted railings everywhere.

    I turned when the truck slowly rode up to me. I raised my hands up, smiling as best as I could. Captain America stopped the truck about twelve feet from me and stepped out with Black Widow. They''d clearly seen me and, because Cap''s shield was on his arm, and Black Widow had her gun out and pointed. I took a deep breath as they came closer. I reached for my waist and turned off the music that had been with me all day.

    "Hi!" I said, as brightly as I could. "My name''s Mahmoud. I want to help."

    The two shared a glance. Captain America walked up to me. There was an incredible grace to him. For all his size, he walked like he was half a second from simply lifting off into the air. Black Widow was different. Where he was grace, she was subtlety. As he came forward, she stepped behind him, almost hiding in his shadow. I tried not be unnerved by that.

    But then, I was also trying not to geek out.

    Captain America was holding his shield. THE Shield! Made of vibranium in this universe, rather than a vibranium-iron alloy, it was still able to take hit from inconceivably powerful things, including Thor.

    And Captain America and Black Widow. I was looking at superheroes.

    As they stopped in front of me, I couldn''t stop smiling.

    "How did you find us?" Black Widow asked.

    "SHIELD," they stiffened. I quickly continued. "I mean because I hacked SHIELD. I used their satellites and database to find you, then kept anyone from finding you. Here, see?" I reached into my pocket.

    "Ah, careful," Black Widow said in warning, pointing her gun at my face. I flinched. After a moment, I slowly pulled out my phone, raising it for them to see. I switched on the CapWatch app, then tossed it to Cap, who caught it in his right hand. He turned it look, then blinked.

    "CapWatch?"

    I winced. "I... like my programs to have fun names."

    Black Widow''s lips twitched upwards.

    "And you can follow us with this?" he asked, looking up at me. "Why? What do you want?"

    I spoke fast. "Back in October, I was given this," I lifted a hand up, displaying the Omnitrix. "I don''t know why I was given it. But it gave me powers. So I started using those powers to help people, traveling around Manhattan and saving anyone I found. It was good work."

    "Speed it up," Black Widow said. "It''s cute you like playing the superhero, but we''re on a timetable."

    "Yeah, got it. So anyway, I hacked into Stark Industries and SHIELD," the two shared a surprised glance at that. "I was doing that to make sure the next time a Battle of New York or a Convergence happens, I''d be there to help. And when they announced that Captain America was enemy of the state out of nowhere, I wanted to do something. So I did one big hack, grabbing all the info I could so I could find you. And the next thing I know, SHIELD is tossing a grenade at my door."

    "Yeah, there''s a lot of that going around," Captain America noted with a smirk.

    "That watch," Black Widow stared at the Omnitrix. "I''ve seen the symbol on it. You''re the guy who''s been running around Manhattan the last few months. The one who can turn into all those creatures."

    The fact Black Widow knew about me wasn''t much of a surprise. Even with all I''d done to try and keep off the grid, there was no way someone hadn''t discovered my presence in New York, especially considering the people I''d saved had a perfect view of me. I nodded towards Black Widow and she gave me a smile. More of an amused one, rather than a kind one, but still a smile. "Fury was going to send someone to try and make contact with you. You were going to be investigated soon."

    "Hopefully without a grenade thrown at me," I said with a grimace.

    "Well, it wouldn''t have been my first choice," she said. "So you what, wanted to help us out of the goodness of your heart?"

    "...yes?" I said. "I mean, I kinda destroyed a Best Buy to find you guys. Which, I gotta be honest, I''m feeling kinda guilty about."

    Captain America stepped forward, motioning towards the Omnitrix. "And you said that watch lets you hack things?"

    "No," I lifted my wrist to show it to him. "This isn''t a watch. This is the Omnitrix. And it lets me turn into aliens."

    "Asgardian?" Captain America asked.

    "Not from what I''ve heard," Black Widow answered. "So you were a superhero in New York, found out Captain America was being chased by SHIELD, and you were such a fanboy you decided to come and help."

    "Yes," I sighed in relief. "That is exactly it."

    Black Widow and Captain America shared a look. After a moment, she put her gun down and Captain America came over to grab my shoulder. He smiled at me, and I found myself grinning back.

    "I''m not sure I can trust you... But I''d like to."

    "He''s naive like that," Black Widow said. She holstered her gun and stepped towards the gate. "I''m still going to shoot you if you turn out to be working for SHIELD."

    "Not likely," I said as Captain America stepped around me and used his shield to shatter the lock on the gate with one smooth strike. "Grenade''s thrown at me tend to make me an enemy."

    "You''re really stuck on that grenade thing, aren''t you?" Black Widow said.

    We entered the camp together. "Yeah well, I''m sensitive like that. So uh, what exactly are you guys here for? What is this place?"

    "It''s where I was trained," Captain America said. "We''re following a lead."

    We walked through the camp, looking around the place. "Trained before or after you started punching Hitler?"

    Captain America chuckled. "Actually, I never met the real Hitler. I mostly dealt with his soldiers and the Red Skull. But this was before all that," He looked around. For a moment, he looked a thousand yards away. "I was still just a skinny kid from Brooklyn, trying to be a soldier."

    "And now you''re Captain America," I said, watching as Black Widow moved over to look into one of the windows.

    "Call me Steve," he gave me a smile, then turned to look at a nearby flagpole. Once again, it looked like he was somewhere else. When I looked at Black Widow, she was eyeing me. Even as we walked around, she was still eyeing me. She had some sort of scanner in her hand, and it was beeping as she held it up. I looked at it thoughtfully, scratching my chin.

    "This is a dead end," Black Widow said. She put down her scanner and put it in her pocket. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the files must have must have used a router to throw people off." She looked over at Steve, who was staring at a bunker. "What is it?"

    I looked at him as well. He seemed to have an epiphany. He started moving towards the bunker, I went to follow, and Black Widow hopped over a railing to join us.

    "Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks," he said as we walked up to the bunker. He gave us a look. "This building''s in the wrong place."

    He smashed the lock on the door to the uh, the munition bunker, I guess? I couldn''t help but stare at the shield as it turned steel into scrap. That thing was seriously awesome.

    We walked down a flight of stairs and found what looked like a large office space. "I''m not a soldier, but this doesn''t look like munitions," I said, stepping down to the place.

    "It''s not," Black Widow was looking at a wall nearby. "It''s SHIELD."

    "Or maybe where it started," Steve added.

    We were all looking at a massive symbol on the wall, the centerpiece of the room. An eagle, surrounded by the words, ''Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division''.

    "That''s probably your fault," I said without thinking.

    Steve looked at me, surprised. "What was?"

    "Uh," I chuckled, waving at his right arm, still holding the shield. "I mean, they worked really hard to make up a name that spelled SHIELD, right."

    Steve looked down, surprised. He held it up. After a moment, he gave his weapon a warm smile. "Yeah. I guess they did."

    "I can sense anything that might be in here if you guys let me?"

    "How?" Natasha asked.

    I responded by waving the Omnitrix at her. "If someone other than us has been in here in recent years, I''ll be able to follow their trail."

    Steve and Natasha shared another look.

    "Do it," Steve told me.

    " All right. Keep in mind, I won''t be able to talk in this form, so just follow my lead." I opened up the Omnitrix, flipping through my menu. I needed to sense things human eyes couldn''t Blitzwolfer was great because he had a good range of powers, including his senses. But when I really needed to track something or someone down even after years...

    I pressed the face. And the change came in a millisecond.

    I went from biped to quadruped. Orange fur sprouted across my body, covering me in a thick armored coat. My eyes sank away and disappeared, and new sensory organs grew at the nape of my neck. Fingernails became claws. A shoulder brace appeared, with the Omnitrix glowing brightly on it.

    I didn''t speak English in this form, but if the snarl I barked out when I finished could be translated, I knew what it would be.

    "Wildmutt!"

    "Well that''s new," Steve said. His voice was different now. It was as though he was so much clearer. Like my human ears were only hearing him on the tiniest level. Now, I could hear every bounce and quiver in his voice.

    That''s just how being Wildmutt felt in general. Every scent in the air, every sound, singing to me. There was no sense of color beyond heat, and photographs would be blank rectangles to me. But I didn''t feel blind. How could I, when the world was so much more vivid now? When I could hear heartbeats, smell sweat, feel the primal part of the world in my heart. Being Wildmutt was like becoming something simpler than a human. But it also felt purer somehow. As though the complications of sight was replaced by a roaring world of beautiful scents and sound.

    I sniffed the air with my gills, listened to it all.

    "He said he can''t talk like this," Black Widow said. There was a smell coming from her mouth I had to think to recognize. Bubblegum? A lot of it, too. She had some more in her pocket. "How''s he supposed to tell us anything?"

    I snarled moving about the room for a moment. I smelled something else, beyond Steve, Nat, the spiders and the concrete. Someone else had been here, months back. He smelled like airline fuel. I moved over to the stairs, following his trail. He''d walked over to an office. I turned, growling at the two.

    "What, over there?" Steve walked over to join me, and I pushed the door, smashing it off its hinges and into the ground. Steve cocked an eyebrow. "Huh. Strong."

    "Showoff," was Black Widow''s opinion.

    The two followed me in as I sniffed my way up to some shelves. There were three big blank rectangles up on the wall, which I ignored to follow the scent. Captain America and Natasha walked up the rectangles behind me, talking about them in a way that made me realized they were photos. Cap apparently knew them. His heartbeat skipped a little when he saw them. Time to ask about that later. I followed the smell of the man from before to some shelves. There was a gap in between the shelves where I could smell metal and plastic beyond it, a bit of ozone to indicate electricity, and Steve noticed it as well. "If you''re already working in a secret office," I gripped the gap in between the shelves, shoving them apart. Even after all the years, the right shelf easily slid on its rails. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

    Just a light on the wall and a pair of doors with windows in them. We walked towards it, me sniffing at the air, and Black Widow went up to the keypad next to it. She lifted a device over the keypad, and it created a hologram over the device, showing the numbers on the pad. The hologram shuffled the numbers and quickly came up with the code, which she pressed into the pad. The elevator doors slid open, and we walked inside. As the elevator dropped, Cap looked at me.

    "You uh, gonna change back?" I looked up at him. "I mean, is there a time limit, or, do you have to press a button?"

    I growled in annoyance, reaching for my shoulder to tap the Omnitrix. In a flash of light, I was back in my white and black shirt and blue jeans. I sighed in disappointment. Ironically, changing from Wildmutt always made me feel blind as a human.

    "What does that feel like, anyway?" Captain America asked.

    "Remember the day you became a superhuman?" I said. "That sudden feeling of becoming stronger, faster, having better senses?"

    Steve nodded.

    "Like that, but I can change back."

    "God, I wish we had time for me to interrogate you." Black Widow muttered.

    I looked over at her. "I mean, you could just ask me questions."

    "I prefer interrogation, lets me get the real story." She replied.

    "You never talk to people over coffee?" I had no idea why I was talking the way I was. For some reason, it was really easy to talk to her. She was funny.

    "I do, but not when they can suddenly turn into giant dogs."

    "What, you don''t like Tony Stark?" We shared a grin, and Steve chuckled.

    "Any chance you guys can tell me about what''s going on?" The elevator was still lowering. "I mean, why is SHIELD attacking you guys?"

    "We aren''t sure," Steve said. "As far as we know, the answers are here."

    "What about Nick Fury?" I asked. "I mean, he''s the head of SHIELD, why didn''t he stop this?"

    The two shared a look, then faced the doors again. Steve answered. "He was killed by the Winter Soldier."

    I stared at him. Then at Black Widow. She looked back at me. And I scratched at my wrist, near the Omnitrix, trying to think.

    "That look on your face," Black Widow said knowingly. "That''s why I want to interrogate you."

    The doors opened then. I swallowed, and we all walked out of the elevator and into a dark room. It was hard to see anything. But as we walked up lights began to turn on, revealing the space to us.

    "Whoa," I looked around. Hundreds of rectangular towers surrounded us, each with reels that could be seen inside through windows. Some "What, they couldn''t upgrade to a laptop? This is an inefficient use of space."

    "You always talk this much?" Black Widow asked.

    "Dialogue is important for relationships," I said as we followed Steve towards several monitors. "Plus, I''m nervous when I meet superheroes."

    "Children," Steve said gently. "We have work to do."

    When we got to the monitors, there was a desk in front of them. There were a couple of camera on top of the monitors. "Well that''s new," I said when I saw a USB port station on the desk. "And I mean that literally."

    Natasha took something out of her pocket and plugged it into the port. More lights turned on, clearing things up further. The reels in the towers began to spin. As we stood there, the center monitor turned on over the desk, and two words appeared as the speakers in the station spoke.

    "Initiate, System." The voice was robotic.

    Natasha moved over to the ancient keyboard and tapped away at it. "Y-E-S, spells yes..." She smirked as the computers hummed. "Shall we play a game?" She intoned in a deep voice. I grinned at that, and she turned to Steve. "It''s from a movie-"

    "I know," he cut her off, bemused. "I saw it."

    "Oh yeah," I said, realizing. "You have a lot of pop culture to catch up on."

    "I''m doing my best," he replied, clearly focused on the task at hand.

    Suddenly the center monitor lit up. Lines of green codes went down the screen, and a voice spoke.

    "Rogers, Steven." Said a voice with a German accent. "Born, 1918."

    "What the..." I said in confusion. A camera on top of the monitors turned to look at Black Widow.

    "Romanov, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984." The camera turned to look at me. And then it stalled. The voice spoke again. "You, I do not know. That never happens."

    "What, are you an AI?" I asked.

    "No, I am not, herrlein," the voice said. "I may not be the man I was when the captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." A monitor to the side showed us an image. An older man, with glasses and a rather sour look on his face.

    I looked around the computers, thinking to myself. Natasha asked Steve, "Do you know this thing?"

    Steve didn''t speak for a moment. He stepped around the monitors, going down some stairs and circling behind it.

    "Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He''s been dead for years." Steve said.

    "Well, apparently he went all brain upload instead," I said, reaching for the Omnitrix and flipping through the menu.

    "First correction," the computer, or I suppose, Armin, said. "I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive."

    "Yeah, well, bet it''s been a while since you had a good steak or smelled flowers," I replied.

    "True," Armin admitted. "But it is better than death. When I received a terminal diagnosis in 1972, there was nothing to be done for my body. My mind, however, was saved on over two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain." His voice was thick with satisfaction on the last words.

    "Sorry we didn''t wipe our feet," I whispered, selecting an alien, but not pressing down on the watch yet.

    "How did you get here?" Steve asked once he''d circle to stand between Natasha and I once more.

    "Invited," Armin said.

    "It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value."

    "They thought I could help their cause," Armin said smugly. "I also helped my own."

    "Hydra died with the Red Skull," Cap said firmly.

    "Cut off one head," an image appeared on the screen, and I frowned at it. A skull, with tentacles coming out from it. The symbol of Hydra. "Two more shall take its place."

    "Otherwise known as not knowing when you goddamn quit," I whispered to Steve. He ignored me.

    "Prove it," Steve said softly to Armin.

    "Accessing archive." The computer screens changed, showing us an image of a thin man wearing a Nazi uniform. Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist." The imagery of the founders of SHIELD, from Peggy Carter to Howard Stark, showed on screen.

    "Yeah, because I sit around all day wishing someone would take my ability to choose from me," I growled, touching the Omnitrix again. Natasha shushed me.

    "The war taught us much," he continued. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD." I stared at the screen, dawning horror filling me as I realized the implications of what he was saying. More and more images of war, of stock prices, of Armin himself working within SHIELD, all as images of the Hydra symbol flashed throughout. "For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed." The image of a man with a metal arm flashed. An arm with a red star on it. Bucky Barnes.

    "And nobody found out?" I asked.

    "Accidents will happen," More images appeared. A newspaper declaring the death of Howard and Maria Stark. Nicolas Fury, with the word deceased over his picture. HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA''s new world order will arise." Steve''s face tightened. His hand clenched into a fist as he looked at the monitor that was Armin''s face. "We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life; a zero sum."

    Steve lashed out, shattering the middle screen. It was quiet for a moment. Then another screen lit up.

    "As I was saying..." Armin''s voice was so damn smug. I was going to activate the Omnitrix and start disassembling shit, but Steve spoke again.

    "What''s on this drive?" He indicated the USB Natasha had plugged in. I stared at it, realizing something.

    "Project Insight requires... insight. So I wrote an algorithm." Armin replied.

    "What kind of algorithm, what does it do?" Natasha asked.

    "The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." Suddenly, the doors behind us began to be blocked by a pair of blast doors. Steve threw his shield at it, but they slammed close. I took a moment to marvel at the sight of my first look at Captain America throwing his mighty shield, but apparently, the doors had refused to yield, and it bounced back into his hand.

    The device in Natasha''s pocket beeped, and she pulled it out to look at it. "Steve, we got a bogey. Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

    "Who fired it?" Steve asked, shocked.

    "SHIELD," Natasha answered.

    "I''m afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Armin said smugly.

    "I wouldn''t worry about that," I turned to look at Armin. "I''ve got something for missiles."

    I activated the device on my hip. I grinned as the field enveloped me in a massive radius, and the beeping from Natasha''s device stopped. Moments later, the sound of a muffled explosion came from the surface, feeling like it was coming from our right. "If I''m right, that missile will have veered off. Right?"

    Natasha blinked, looking down at the device in her hand. Then she looked at me. "How...?"

    I took the device on my hip and tossed it to Captain America. "I made this for my flight over here. It keeps me from getting caught by infrared, anything made for the air. And if anyone aims a heatseeker or something while I''m flying-"

    "It forces it to veer away," Steve looked up at me, grinning.

    "That, is impossible!" We turned to look at Armin. His green face was blinking in and out at a high speed.

    "Oh yeah, it is," I said back, grinning. "Unless you got the right toy. Alien tech, baby. My alien tech. And now, we need answers from you computer man. See, I heard about Project Insight while I was hacked into SHIELD, and I know a bit. But if it''s Hydra, we need more."

    "I will tell you nothing!" He seethed.

    I looked at Captain America. "Hey, Steve. Is it cool if I tear this guy apart and build him into something that will give us answers?"

    Steve looked at me. Then he looked over at the computer. Then he smiled.

    "...Scheisse," a German-accented computer said quietly.

    I pressed the Omnitrix. The change came in seconds. Once again, I was a small red Gremlin, wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and tiny blue jeans, with the Omnitrix symbol on my belt. And as I changed, the other device on my hip began to play music.

    "Jury Rigg!"

    "Well, that''s attractive," Natasha said, still looking a bit amazed at surviving.

    "I have my moments!" I squeaked. Then I looked around me. To my eyes, I wasn''t standing in a weird computer room anymore. I was in heaven, a place where I could see how all the pieces separated... or were put together.

    "We don''t have much time," Steve said. "Can you work fa-"

    "DISASSEMBLE!" With the battle cry, I leaped at the monitor Steve had broken, smashing my way through it, then digging my way into it.

    "No!" Armin Zola screamed, horrified. "Get out of me you horrendous creature! No! NooooOOOOOO!"

    I smashed my way out of another monitor like an alien out of a crewmembers stomach and roared with glee before diving back in, ignoring the disturbed looks Natasha and Steve gave me. I grabbed at wires, every pull of them showing me transferred power and information. I ripped out chips, and the way they broke told me what to do. Every bit of destruction gave me the delicious answer to creation.

    In the end, while Armin''s mind ran through thousands of feet of databanks, it all sent information to the computers I was tearing into. And if it did that, it meant I could pull all those archives to me.

    "Just one more second!" I yelled, my red ears quivering with glee. "This is gonna be great!"

    "Please, no!" Armin yelled. "Captain, he is causing me pain! I cannot feel, yet he is making me! Please, he is-"

    I pulled out another chip, and he petered out. "Sorry! I shut off his sound now!"

    "...He''s writing his begging on the screens now," Natasha said from outside the computer as I dug through another section. She sounded fascinated.

    "I''m letting him!" I smashed my way out from another screen and pulled in the USB port station and the keyboard. With a blur, I pulled all the pieces together. "More fun that way! HAHAHAHA!"

    "Where''s that music coming from?" Steve asked, coming closer.

    "Take me through the centuries to supersonic years!" The device replied, playing Black Sabbath''s Symptom of the Universe.

    "We''re running out of time," Natasha said. "We got a Quinjet coming in, we need to run."

    "Done!" I leaped out of the computer. As I did, Armin Zola''s program shutdown. The reels around us stopped spinning. I turned to look at the only screen I hadn''t shattered as more words rolled onto the screen.

    Damn you.

    With that, Armin Zola died. I''d have felt more sympathy, except he was a jerk computer. If he''d been Data, or EDI, or Vision, I''d have been sorry. But he''d had his chance at life. Plus, it wasn''t like I''d stabbed a man in the heart.

    "Okay!" I turned to look at them. "So now we run, right!?"

    "That has the answers?" He asked, staring at the X-shaped mass of wires and glass in my hand. I nodded quickly.

    "Yep! Reassembled, baby!"

    "Good!" Steve looked at the elevator. "Then we need to run, now!"

    "Can''t go up the elevator," Natasha said. "They''ll be waiting up top, and as soon as the Quinjet gets here they''ll start shooting."

    "Then I say we dig our way out," I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my belt. Red skin became diamond-hard crystal, and I rose up to tower over Natasha, then Steve. I grinned as I stood at my full height.

    "Diamondhead!"

    "You gonna run out of those anytime soon?" Steve asked me as I walked over to a nearby wall, placing the device holding Zola''s memory on my waist.

    "I haven''t yet," I said with a smirk. "Now, hop on." Crystals grew beneath my feet, becoming a flat platform about six feet around me. Natasha stared at it as Steve walked over to hop on to the platform.

    "Uh, can you break down your plan?" She said hesitantly.

    "Digging our way out."

    Still hesitant, but having no other bright ideas, she got on as well. I forced the crystals to surround us in walls until we were in a large tepee made of blue-green crystal. Then I had the crystal under us grow, pushing us up at an angle. The top of the ''tepee'' slammed point first into the ceiling, smashing through with ease. More crystal grew beneath us, pushing at a diagonal angle. I forced more and more power through my body, and we sliced through the earth with ease.

    "This is crazy," Natasha said in awe.

    "I hope not," I said as we shot through the dirt, the groaning sound of dirt being pushed away by us surrounding my makeshift shovel. "If I am crazy, this would be a bad time to become sane."

    "And I thought the helicarrier was the end of me being surprised," Steve muttered.

    Behind us and down, the sound of explosions began to sound out. I turned to look at Natasha. She nodded. "Yeah, that would be the Quinjet destroying the base in an attempt to kill us."

    I looked at Steve. He looked sad. He leaned against a wall of the tepee, sighing. "I''m sorry," he looked at me. "I know that place meant a lot to you."

    We met eyes. After a moment, he nodded. "Yeah. I haven''t been there in a long time but... it was where I got started."

    I nodded at that. "We''ll make them pay," I said with a sigh. "SHIELD isn''t what you thought it was. But it was made by good people. And with this," I nodded towards the junky looking device on my waist. "We can save it."

    "Is it worth saving?" Steve asked.

    I looked over at him. He was still staring at the ground. He was staring at his shield. I tried to think of what to say.

    "Those people," I finally got out. "The ones in the pictures that you and Natasha were looking at. Who were they?"

    Steve looked up at me, sighing. "Yeah, um..." Natasha sat down, looking at him. "They were the founders of SHIELD. Friends of mine. General Chester Phillips. Howard Stark. P-" Steve stopped, swallowing. Then he continued. "Peggy Carter... They''d be horrified if they saw what SHIELD became."

    "Some of it was good," Natasha said weakly. She sighed. "I wouldn''t have joined if I didn''t think so."

    We were suddenly in the open air. I opened the tepee by sliding the crystal apart. We''d popped up in a field, a long way away from Camp Lehigh''s remains. It was night now and crickets buzzing in the field in the distance.

    As we got out, Natasha looked back at the massive crystal jutting out of the earth. "You going to do anything about that?"

    "Nope." I sighed. "I already left crystals behind. I might as well give them something insane to dig through. I like the idea of Hydra cleaning up my messes."

    At that moment, the Omnitrix timed out in the classic red beeping before flashing out bright red light, turning me human again. I grimaced, looking down at my Omnitrix. "Times up. We need someplace to rest. I''m running out of steam at this point. Plus, we need to look into the data I stole."

    "...I think I''ve got somewhere in mind." Steve said. He hefted his shield.

    "What, someone you know?" Natasha asked.

    "Iron Man?" I added.

    "...Not exactly."

    Steve knocked on the sliding glass door in front of us. When it opened, a fit man with dark skin and well-trimmed hair opened the door. He was wearing a purple shirt and looked a bit sweaty. He looked at the three of us. I was standing next to Steve, with Natasha behind me, as always, since she could shoot me in the head faster that way.

    "Hey man," the man said.

    "How''s it going?" I replied. Steve put a hand on my shoulder, looking back at the man.

    "I''m sorry about this," Steve said. "We need a place to lay low."

    "Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Natasha said.

    The man looked at us. After a moment, he seemed to come to a decision. "Not everyone."

    He stepped aside to let us in. I smiled, and the three of us walked past him.

    "I''m Mahmoud Schahed, by the way," I said to the man once we''d gone inside.

    He smiled, holding a hand out to me. I took it. "Sam Wilson."

    I tried to hold back my shock. Holy crap. The Falcon. I looked around the room. Captain America, Black Widow, and the Falcon...

    "Today has been... just the best." I finally said, grinning like a madman.

    Steve and Sam gave me weird looks. Natasha narrowed her eyes at me. I just grinned back at them.

    Guess I''m an Avenger now?

 6 Chapter 6

    January 11th, 2014

    Later, I was deleting the CapWatch on my phone. As good as it was, a dedicated program for finding Cap wasn''t useful anymore. And without my supercomputer, I couldn''t turn in into something new, so, bye bye CapWatch. Though has served me well.

    Sam came in with a pot of coffee. "Oh thank god," I said, walking over to join him at his dinner table. "I''m running at fumes at this point."

    "Yeah, you all look like you had a hell of a day," Sam noted with a look at me, then at the hallway where Cap and Natasha had gone. "What exactly is going on?"

    I shrugged, watching as Sam set out some creamer and sugar, bringing some cups to him. "I''m honestly just the guy who shoved myself into the mess. I wanted to help Captain America, then they''re trying to kill me. But here''s what I know, and what Cap and Nat told me on the way here..."

    I gave Sam the low down. Project INSIGHT, Fury dying, SHIELD attacking Cap, SHIELD attacking me, the stuff we''d found out from Arnim Zola, and finally the x-shaped device I''d made from Arnim''s parts.

    "So that little thing has all the info you need?" Sam asked. He was scrambling some eggs now and had some toast set aside.

    "Yep, as far as we know," I took another sip of coffee.

    "By the way, do you know me somehow?" Sam asked. I sipped my coffee again. "I mean, you seemed to recognize my name."

    I didn''t speak for a moment, leaning back in my chair. "Yeah. SHIELD had a file on you. They said you were a good soldier. I didn''t dig through anything, but apparently, they were planning to recruit you one day."

    Sam froze for a moment. He looked up. "And if SHIELD is HYDRA-"

    "Not all of it," I corrected him. "Black Widow isn''t. There''s a whole lot of people there who are probably just trying to help people and have no idea they were even infiltrated by HYDRA at all.. But yeah. If SHIELD knew about you, HYDRA might too."

    "That''s mildly terrifying," Sam put the eggs he''d cooked onto a plate.

    "I think the world got terrifying the moment I woke up in a New York City that had aliens and superhumans as part of the day to day," I admitted. "Compared to that, all this espionage stuff is almost normal. At least we know HYDRA is a threat made by normal men. Normal, racist men."

    Sam, a black man, and I, an Arab man, shared a glance. "Can''t believe we''re dealing with Nazi''s," Sam mumbled.

    "Hey they came back, and Captain America came with them," we shared a grin at that. "I want to kick some HYDRA ass. I''m just wondering what we need to do to get it done. I mean, all I knew about Project Insight was that they had three big old helicarriers with repulsor technology installed."

    "Sounds like you can do a lot of damage with those," Sam said. He put the eggs and toast on the table, and I thanked him as I got some. "I''m gonna go get those two."

    He walked back to where Steve and Natasha were, and I continued to eat. The group entered shortly. Natasha gave me a look, eyeing the Omnitrix, but didn''t say anything. I decided that was progress. Steve sat next to me, while Natasha took a spot nearby to lean against a wall. Sam took some toast and started buttering it, sitting down with us.

    "So what do we do?" I asked the two superheroes.

    "Have you gone through the information that you took from Zola?" Natasha asked me.

    I shook my head. "I may have a genius on my wrist, but I''m not skilled in espionage or military tactics. I wanted to wait."

    I reached for my device and tapped the top of it. "X-Device, wake up."

    The glass and steel creation buzzed for a moment before projecting a holographic screen facing me and Cap.

    "Whoa," Sam looked at the hologram, ignoring the toast in his hand.

    "How is that possible?" Natasha asked, as stunned as Sam. "Arnim Zola wasn''t made of any tech to make holograms."

    "Doesn''t matter," I said. "Jury Rigg doesn''t see technology based on what it is. When he tears things apart, it gives him insight into what is possible. He''s like a guy who breaks apart a Lego house so he can see the pieces, then makes something new."

    "I''m not going to question it," Steve said. "Show us what you''ve got."

    Funnily enough, he actually didn''t seem too worried. I suppose his experience with sudden new tech was more flexible after being frozen in the ice.

    "X-Device, what do you got on Project Insight?" I asked.

    "One moment, sir," Natasha flinched when the device spoke.

    "Wait, is it alive?" She stepped forward, staring at the X-Device.

    "No, I am not ma''am," The voice was very country, the sort you''d hear in Texas. I''d wanted a voice based on something American, seeing as we were fighting Nazi''s. "Mahmoud made me as an interface to access my files."

    "He''s just a basic virtual intelligence," I explained. "He can simulate responses and reactions, but beyond that, he''s not a real person. No offense meant, X."

    "None to be taken sir," He responded.

    "That means you killed Zola?" Steve asked me.

    I scoffed. "No. He wasn''t AI. He wasn''t even a brain upload. Damn close but... true AI and brain uploads can develop. They can come up with new ideas, process emotion, learn, even do stupid things. Zola wasn''t alive. He was just a recording. A tape that could spit out the responses on cue. He was stuck in time, no soul, no true intelligence.

    "That is correct sir," X said. "At most, he was a lesser version of myself. Ah, I have the files." X said, displaying the files on the holographic screen in front of us. I lifted a hand up to flip through them by ''pressing'' my fingers to the screen and moving them.

    "Let''s see, Project Insight," I brought up files of various blueprints. I threw those over to Natasha, who blinked when the X-Device created a second screen for her. "Here are the blueprints for the helicarriers. But Zola said it required an algorithm. What for?"

    "Fury said that the goal was to kill terrorists before they could strike," Steve sounded a bit disgusted. "Maybe HYDRA wanted to do something with that?"

    "Hm, no," Natasha flipped through the blueprints I''d sent her, zooming in to look at the various hallways. "It can''t be just a plot to kill terrorists. The way Zola spoke, it was as though this was some sort of endgame. We have the algorithm, and we have the information Zola had. Um, X?" Natasha said hesitantly.

    A southern accent replied. "Yes ma''am?"

    "Is there anything in your files on what the algorithm was supposed to do?"

    "No ma''am. It was made to predict things on a massive scale, using the internet, stored footage, medical records, social media, actual media, and various other sources." X replied. "Zola believed that you could predict the course of a man''s life by following these trends. But there is no record of what HYDRA itself was going to do with it."

    "Well, that''s convenient," Natasha said with a sarcastic grumble.

    "It makes sense though, right? Zola made the algorithm so it makes sense he would have that in his brain, but I doubt Hydra put all their plans in an outdated location that wasn''t even guarded." I stated before asking, "So what now?"

    "Well, someone launched that domestic missile at us," Natasha closed her screen, tossing it to me. "Who in SHIELD can do that?"

    "Pierce," Steve leaned back in his chair, looking annoyed.

    "Alexander Pierce," X said. "Head of HYDRA, and one of their highest officials. He would often visit Zola for advice."

    "Well, right now he''s in one of the most secure buildings in the world," Natasha said.

    "Not a problem," I raised the Omnitrix. "I can just smash my way in and grab him. But then, I don''t know who is HYDRA in the building and who isn''t. X, do you have a list?"

    "One moment... I have select personal, but many of Hydra''s operatives are hidden and I''m sure that Zola''s information base was heavily outdated. The various leaders do not trust each other to share a full list of soldiers and Zola was ''technically'' a defunct asset beyond his algorithm."

    "But it''s a good start," Steve leaned forward. "Who in HYDRA worked under Pierce?"

    "Jasper Sitwell," We all looked at Natasha. "He was on the Lemurian Star. Where I first stole Zola''s algorithm."

    "He is on my list of subordinates. Apparently, his son is currently going to HYDRA Preparatory Academy."

    We turned to look at X. "Uh," I looked around. "HYDRA has an academy... for kids..."

    Steve let out an explosive breath, running a hand down his face. "Okay, focus. We need to kidnap Sitwell, find out what the algorithm is for. So the question is, how do the two most wanted people in Washington and their shapeshifting friend kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?"

    Sam got up, drawing our attention. He went into the kitchen and threw a folder on the table. "Answer is; you don''t."

    Steve looked down at the folder Sam had dropped. "What''s this?"

    "Call it a resume," Sam said confidently.

    I leaned over to stare at the photo. Sam was there, a little younger than he was now, wearing a tight suit. A man stood next to him wearing the same suit, both holding goggles in their hands. Natasha picked up the photo, looking at it closely.

    "Is this Bakhmala?" Natasha asked. Sam nodded. "The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you," she gave Steve a glance. "You didn''t say he was a para-rescue."

    Steve was focused on something else as he took the photo. His eyes were on the other guy standing next to Sam. He looked up at Sam.

    "Is this Riley?"

    Sam nodded. "Yeah."

    Sam and Steve seemed to pass something between each other with that look. I didn''t comment on it. Natasha spoke once again.

    "I heard they couldn''t bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?"

    "No," Sam stepped forward, picking the folder up to hand to Steve. "These."

    Steve took the folder, opening it. I grinned at what was inside. I''d guessed, but it was still cool to see the truth.

    Steve seemed amused. "I thought you said you were a pilot."

    Sam grinned. "I never said pilot."

    Steve looked down at the folder. After a thoughtful pause, he shook his head. "I can''t ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason."

    "Dude, Captain America needs my help. There''s no reason to get back in," Sam said firmly.

    Steve and Natasha gave me a look. I held up my hands. "Hey, he didn''t hear it from me. When Captain America needs help, people want to help him."

    Steve looked between me and Sam, and he seemed overwhelmed for a moment. After a while, he nodded. "Okay. Where do we get these things?"

    "The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall."

    Steve and Natasha shared a look. She shrugged. Steve looked back at Sam. "Shouldn''t be a problem."

    He threw a folder onto the table. On it, several words were emblazoned. EXO-7 Falcon.

    "I guess I''m gonna need to make another radar jammer," I said before turning to Steve. "And you need to make a phone call."

    "Wait," Steve interrupted, already guessing what I was getting at. "I don''t think that''s necessary."

    "...They''ll want in on this," I said to Steve. "I mean, the stuff you''re dealing with? At least let them know you''re okay man."

    "I," Steve looked at Natasha. She smirked. "I have no secure way to contact them-"

    My answer was to throw my smartphone to him. He caught it out of the air easily. "That''s my phone.

    It''s undetectable by anything short of actual magic. You can call anyone on the planet, and not worry about people listening in."

    Steve stared at me, at a loss for words. I shrugged. "They''re your friends, right? I''d want to know my friends are safe."

    "He''s right," Natasha said. "Plus... we might want to call them to help later."

    "I don''t want to drag anyone else into this," Steve protested.

    "I''m not sure what''s going on," Sam said, drawing our attention. "But if the people you want to call are friends... If Riley was alive, and he didn''t ask me for help with something this big, I would never forgive him."

    Steve looked around. After a moment, he sighed and walked to the other room. "Fine. I''ll make the call."

    A while later, I was sitting in a room with Natasha and Steve, waiting for Sam to do his part of the plan. He was looking over the city from a nearby window. Natasha, on the other hand, was asking me questions.

    "So you say you''re from Oakland?" She asked pointedly.

    "Born there," I answered. "Raised in different cities in California, then spent part of my life in Oregon before I came here."

    "Where you got the Omnitrix?" Black Widow asked.

    "Yep."

    "Who gave it to you?"

    "No idea."

    She raised an eyebrow at that. "None?"

    "Well, some," I admitted. "But I have no idea for sure."

    "So someone gave you, a random nobody by your own admission, alien technology programmed with the ability to turn you into beings like Diamondhead, and you have no idea why?" Natasha asked skeptically.

    "None," I looked at her. Her gaze was neutral. I sighed. "Yeah, I know it''s suspicious. I''m just doing the best I can with the tools I''ve been given."

    Just then, the elevator down the hall opened. Natasha gave me a look. "You ready?"

    "Yep," I answered easily. The three of us went over the elevator. Inside stood Sam and another man.

    Older than us, with a bald head, skin a shade darker than mine, wearing glasses, slightly overweight. He also looked scared as hell and about to piss himself.

    He stared at us as Sam shoved him forward. I grinned.

    This was going to be fun.

    Steve threw the guy, Sitwell, through the door to the rooftop as Natasha and I followed. Sitwell fell, rolled back, and got up almost tripping over his feet as Steve followed him. I circled around, and the three of us strode towards the man. I stared at him, feeling my anger fill me. HYDRA. This guy was one of the people who had tried to kill me. Things were feeling pretty personal about now.

    Steve didn''t waste time. "Tell me about Zola''s algorithm."

    Sitwell took fast steps back, trying to stay calm. "Never heard of it."

    "What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?"

    "I was throwing up, I get seasick."

    We got to the edge of the roof, and Steve grabbed Sitwell''s suit, pulling him close so they were face-to-face. It was tense for a moment. Then Sitwell smiled. "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you''re gonna throw me off the roof? Because it''s really not your style, Rogers."

    Steve eyed Sitwell. After a moment, Steve smiled back, stepping away. "No, it''s not. Luckily, I''ve got people for that."

    I pressed the Omnitrix. Instantly, orange fur sprouted across my form, and my eyes faded away. I got down on all fours and roared, a snarling bestial cry of rage and joy all in one.

    "OH MY GOD!" Sitwell squealed.

    "I know right?" Natasha stepped forward, a rush of sweet scent and beautiful sound moving along the rooftop to step past me. "And that''s not even your immediate problem." With a smooth move, she slammed her foot into Sitwell''s chest as he freaked out at the sight of my Wildmutt form.

    "WAAAAaaaaaaaaa..."

    As Sitwell''s voice faded in the distance, Natasha looked over at Steve, snapping her fingers. "Oh, wait, what about that girl in the science division, Diana..."

    "Debbie!" Steve replied, looking down at the falling form of Sitwell. "With the blue stripe in her hair?"

    "Yeah!" Natasha said happily. "She''s cute, right?"

    "Yeah, I''m not ready for that."

    I let out a bark, a small chuff, trying to sound disapproving.

    "I know," Natasha said, sounding as disappointed as I did.

    Steve didn''t know what to think of that.

    Suddenly, in a burst of noise, Sam rocketed past us on his winged jetpack.

    A winged jetpack, man. With big gray wings, graceful flight, and cool rockets. How freaking awesome was Sam?

    Sitwell was in his left hand, still screaming in fear. Sam went over us, dropping Sitwell onto the rooftop. As soon as Sitwell dropped, I rushed him. Sitwell screamed anew, trying to escape, but I landed on his back, twisting him so he was facing up at my snarling jaws. I bit down in front of his nose, and sucked in the sweet scent of fear.

    "OH GOD!" Sitwell screamed in horror. I drooled on his face. He screamed louder. "Please, get him off!"

    "Think we forgot to mention that in this form he likes the taste of people." Widow happily added, which only made Sitwell whimper in fear.

    I laughed, a growling noise filling the air.

    "Kid!" Steve barked as they came closer. I stepped away immediately, letting Sitwell rise.

    "Zola''s algorithm is a program!" Sitwell said hurriedly, trying to back away from Sam, Natasha, me, and any other monsters hiding nearby. "For choosing Insight''s targets!"

    "We got that part," Natasha said wryly. As she walked by me, she ran a hand along my head, getting a pleased growl as she scratched my head. "Who are the targets?"

    "All of you!" Sitwell looked around, trying to breath, flinching whenever he laid eyes on me. "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who''s a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future."

    I stopped growling.

    Anyone. Anyone. Even a baby could eventually grow to have a rebellious hatred of HYDRA. What if he developed that as a child when he saw his parents were killed? Would Project Insight decide he was a risk? Hell, anyone could decide HYDRA was evil. Peter Parker. Matt Murdock. Jessica Jones. The people of Wakanda. If any of them decided to rise against HYDRA, HYDRA would attack. And once they did...

    I slapped my Omnitrix symbol. In a snarl, I rose to my feet as a human, ignoring Natasha backing away hurriedly from where she''d been petting me. "How many people!?"

    Sitwell stared at me.

    "HOW MANY!?"

    "Millions!" Sitwell looked around at us. "The Insight Helicarriers will kill millions."

    We were in Sam''s car later, driving at high speed towards the Triskelion, the headquarters of SHIELD. I was sitting in the back on the left of Sitwell, behind Sam, while Natasha sat behind Steve on Sitwell''s right.

    "So we''re going to sneak in there and shut it down?" I asked.

    "That''s the plan," Steve said grimly.

    "Well, Project Insight is launching in 20 hours, we should be able to get it done in time," Natasha noted, leaning forward to speak to Steve and Sam.

    "I know, but let''s make it fast anyways," Steve said. "We''ll use him to bypass the DNA scans and get to the helicarriers, then we can have Jury Rigg or Diamondhead stop them from flying."

    "What!?" I winced when Sitwell yelled in my ear. "Are you kidding me!? That is a terrible, terrible id-"

    A massive impact hit the roof. Then a robot hand shattered the back window, grabbed Sitwell, and threw him screaming from the car.

    "Holy shit!" I yelled, shocked. I could see Sitwell fly twenty feet before slamming into a car, rolling to a stop only to get run over. "Damn!"

    "Move!"

    Natasha grabbed me and pulled me from my seat as a bullet slammed into the cushion. I let her move me, following her lead, and she forced me into the front seat with Steve, where we crammed ourselves in as awkwardly together as possible.

    "How did he even get on the car!?" I yelled in shock.

    Natasha shot at the roof as the guy on it fired back. Steve reached over Natasha to slam the parking brakes on as Sam drove, and we came to an abrupt stop. A man came flying off the roof, rolled along the pavement, then got to a kneeling stance and slammed his fingers into the concrete, coming to a stop. His robotic arm glinted in the light, and I stared. "Winter Soldier."

    He rose to his feet. His face was covered in a mask and goggles. But I knew Bucky Barnes rested beneath that mask.

    I reached for the Omnitrix. Natasha raised her gun.

    And a car slammed into us from behind. For a moment, Natasha''s elbow was in my stomach as we were thrown around by the impact, and I hurriedly pushed myself into the back seat. Our car was forced forward at high speed towards the Winter Soldier. He leaped over and onto the car with another loud ''thump''. Sam tried to put on the brakes, but we were getting pushed by the car behind us even so.

    "Put on the gas!" I yelled.

    Sam punched it. Behind me I could see Winter Soldier''s feet as he hopped from the roof to the hood of the truck. The truck came around as Sam sped down the road, and I cursed when my body was slid from side to side all over the place. The truck slammed into the car once more, and we were sent into the guardrail. There was a horrific moment where I was airborne. I reached for the Omnitrix. Steve, Natasha, and Sam flew out of the car.

    I had a brief moment where Natasha and I shared a horrified glance.

    And then I was alone as the car flipped through the ai

 7 Chapter 7

    The car was spinning in the air, sending me up into the ceiling where I slammed my neck into the roof. The whole world had gone crazy. At some point I slapped my wrist. Still, I was bounced around and I felt pain blossomed with each slam against the car.

    Then I was transformed. But the car still rolled. I still smashed into things over and over again. The car still threw me around, bouncing me against everything.

    Finally, the car came to a stop. I lay there for a second. Then I got up to my feet with a snarl.

    Someone had hurt me. Someone had to pay.

    The car was on it''s back. I didn''t care. I slammed my claws into the floor that was now above me, and slashed my way through steel, plastic and foam. I dug my way out, and pushed my way to freedom. Once I was out, my gills took a deep breath. I pointed my head towards the heat of the sun on my face.

    I roared, declaring my rage. I was in pain, but not to the point of actual injury. Just enough to make me mad.

    I snapped my head to focus on my opponents. They smelled like gunpowder, plastic, and leather. There was a hint of more gunpower in the air, and the metal of weapons. One of them was the Winter Soldier. His men stared at me in fear. The Winter Soldier aimed his weapon at me.

    I leaped away as a metal object propelled itself from his weapon to me, exploding on Sam''s car and destroying it for good. Soldiers began to fire at me. I ran at high speed, my enhanced senses showing me where they were, the sound of bulletfire only aiding me in what I was doing. Guns are loud, but when I was prepared for them, I could use them to help me find my targets.

    Winter Soldier shot at me again. I ducked low on the pavement, letting the grenade fly over head, and rushed towards the soldiers. I roared, my claws dug into the concrete, and I leaped towards one. As the second car pulled up to spill more soldiers, I landed on the one I''d targeted and slashed at his chest, slicing deep. He tried to raise his gun, screaming in horror, and I took the assault rifle into my mouth. My teeth sliced into the metal with ease. The others tried to aim at me, the smell of fear in the air, and I leaped towards another soldier, slashing at his leg to leave enormous gashes in him. When they started shooting again, I was up in the air, leaping over a sedan. I ran around it, then leaped to grab a guy by the leg, pulling him to throw him at a nearby car. The soldiers tried to get a bead on me, but I ran back around, dodging the gunfire in great leaping bounds, using cars as cover. When I was close enough, I jumped over the hood of the Humvee to grab the back of a soldier''s jacket.

    "Shit!" was all the soldier could yell as I pulled him over the hood. I growled, grabbing his gun and tossing it to Sam, who''d snuck around the guardrails. He let out a surprised shout when a assault rifle fell out of the sky to land in front of him, but I ignored that to bash the soldier I had on the ground in the face, breaking his jaw and knocking him out.

    Just then, another Humvee rolled up. Smelling the gunpowder inside, I leaped over to it, slamming into the roof of the second car. The men inside were about to get out, so I responded by ripping the roof off to join them inside.

    In the enclosed space, they couldn''t escape. I was a deadly monster in an Humvee full of men. I only had to do what came best.

    I started slamming my feet against people, my tail wildly swinging through the air, and my teeth dug past body armor to fill my mouth with hot blood. I tried my best not kill anyone, I still wasn''t ready for an act so heinous, but Wildmutt''s primal nature left me happy to maim. Which left my victims panicking.

    "God help!"

    "It''s got my arm!"

    "Shoot it! Somebody fucking shoot this thing!"

    The eight men in the car tried to fight back, but it''s hard to aim a gun at something that big in such a small space when it is slicing your arms open.

    Just then an arm reached into the rooftop and grabbed me by the neck. For a moment, I thought it was the Winter Soldier when I felt the metal fingers lift me up out of the Humvee and toss me out to the pavement. But as I got up with a snarl, I realized it was someone else entirely. Someone I recognized.

    He stood as bald as every, his black skin shining in the sunlight. Skin the same color as the car I''d just been in. Creel.

    I roared, rushing him. Creel stepped forward, and I leaped onto the man, sending him back into the car, which crumpled under his weight. I bit down at his throat, and he got his left forearm in the way. I gnawed on that instead, my claws ripping at his shirt and digging gouges into his skin. He swore, then punched me in the rips with his right arm. I bit down harder. He punched me again, and this time I was forced to back off. I leaped off him, growling, and circled around for a moment. Then I saw more soldiers come around to aim guns at me. I hurriedly reached for the Omnitrix.

    In a flash of light, I became bipedal again. My claws shifted to become a single one on the back of my fist. My orange fur became striped with black, and a white patch grew on my belly. The omnitrix went from my shoulder to my chest. I roared, the sound erupting in a wave.

    "Oh yeah baby!" I flexed, my muscles bursting with power. "The Rath is back!"

    The soldiers fired at me, but I didn''t feel a thing as bullets bounced off my skin. "Hey you!" I pointed at Creel, who was stepping forward. "Let me tell you something, Creel! Rath doesn''t-"

    Creel punched me in the face. I stepped back, shaking my head.

    "Rath doesn''t-" He punched me in the gut, and I snarled.

    "Rath doesn''t-" Creel leaped up and slammed his fist into my chin. It didn''t hurt too much, but it was enough to send me onto my back, physics working against me.

    I snarled shaking my head. Creel stepped forward, and I leaped to my feet, roaring. The burst of noise sent Creel back. "RATH DOESN''T LIKE BEING INTERRUPTED WHILE RATH IS INSULTING PEOPLE! IT''S WHAT RATH DOES! AND NOW RATH''S GONNA INTERRUPT YOUR FACE WITH RATH''S FIST, AND MAKE YOU LIKE IT!"

    Creel tried to attack again but this time I was ready. I leaped forward, slipped under his right cross to circle around to his back. My arms wrapped around his waist, and I pulled him close, his metal back to my chest. I flexed, lifting him off the ground.

    "Ah, shit!" Creel yelled. He tried to struggle, and I grinned.

    "Too late!" I grinned toothily. "FINAL!" I lifted him up, leaning back into a classic German suplex. I slammed him into the concrete headfirst. Then I leaped up, still holding him, and brought us back to standing. "ATOMIC!" One more suplex. I brought us back to standing spun him around so he was upside down in my arms, then leaped twenty feet into the air. Spinning towards the ground as soldiers stared in awe, I slammed Creel headfirst into the pavement. "BUSTER!"

    A crater was slammed into the bridge. I sat for a moment, with Creel embedded in the bridge at the center of the crater. "Ha!" I rose up lauching. "Why do you even try!? You''re always going to ice skate uphill! Then Rath will make the hill a not-hill, so your trying is meaningless!"

    "While I love the trash talk, that doesn''t make any sense!" I looked up to see Sam. He was holding one of the assault rifles that belonged to the soldiers, and wore his jetpack in it''s folded form, giving me a look of surprise. He shook his head. "Hey, I''m gonna help Cap! You got this!?"

    "Rath has everything!" I turned to look at Creel. He was rising from the crater. "Go, Flys-Around-Like-A-Falcon-But-Doesn''t-Have-Feathers!"

    "Got it," Sam said after a confused glance.

    Creel rose to his feet, shaking his head before glaring at me. "I should have figured I couldn''t beat you like this," he said, stepping forward.

    "You''re dumb if you didn''t," I stepped forward as well, glaring. "I''m the Rath! Rath can''t be beaten! Not now, not ever! Bring on your best, Mr. Absorbs-Stuff-And-Works-For-Stupid-HYDRA!"

    Creel smiled. "You know, you remind me of my boxing days. The guys who were all talk until I finally beat some sense into them," his skin went from black steel to flesh. "I''m going to do the same to you."

    Creel reached into a pocket. If I''d been thinking straight, I''d have stopped them. But as Rath, with my lowered IQ, I just stared at him. He took out what looked like a piece of rock, barely a pebble. It glowed slightly with a blue light. He raised it for me to see. "Vibranium, like in your friends shield," my eyes widened in horror. I sped forward, and Creel clenched his fist around it. I lashed out with my claw, trying to beat him to the punch. My claw slammed into his face.

    And uselessly bounced off his blue chin.

    "Damnit!" I roared. I lashed out again and again, slashing at him. Creel let me fruitlessly hit him for a bit. "Break! Break you moron! Let me tell you something, Creel of Hydra! When Rath hits something, it breaks!"

    Creel caught my fist. He squeezed. And I screamed. For the first time, I felt unbearable pain as Rath. I tried to pull back, but he was unmovable.

    "That''s the thing," Creel smiled, his blue face shifting. "I''m unbreakable."

    He pulled back and punched. I staggered back, falling to my knees. He kicked me in the chest, and I went flying, slamming into a car. The force of my impact made it slide back, then over the edge and off the bridge, smashing the guard rail and sending concrete through the air.

    The car landed on the street below with me smashing into it a second later. It turned into scrap on the pavement. I rested there for a moment, groggy.

    Then Creel landed on my stomach. He wasn''t that heavy, so it didn''t hurt much. His right hook did. From his spot on my body, Creel grabbed my neck and started punching me in the face. Over and over, his vibranium fist hit me in the chin, cheek, and nose. Soon, blood started to pour from my lips and nostrils.

    I was scared. But I was also Rath. I didn''t want to die. But I was also not about to let Creel hit me without making him pay for it. Rath... I wasn''t willing to let him kill me without leaving a mark.

    "RAAAGH!" With a roar, I grabbed Creel by the shoulders. In his vibranium form, he was lighter than his steel form, so I could lift him and toss him over me. He was sent flying, and I quickly rolled to my feet. I fell to my right knee, staggering. Creel landed on his back nearby, rolling to his feet as well. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the car I''d been embedded in and threw it at Creel. It smashed into him with fruitless results, exploding and sending shrapnel everywhere. Creel walked right through it, smiling.

    "Nothing you can do to hurt me," Creel said.

    "Rath is willing to try," I spat blood out, rising up. "Rath is willing to break vibranium."

    Then the Omnitrix began to beep, before flashing a red light. In an instant, I was human again. Unhurt. But human.

    "Oh," I said softly. I met eyes with Creel. He smiled. "Oh shit."

    Creel ran towards me.

    Then bullets started hitting him from the right at a high speed. We looked over there, and saw Sam. He was holding a minigun (Where did he get that?), pouring bullets into Creel.

    "Run!" Sam yelled.

    I sped towards him, Creel following at a walking pace, acting as though the bullets slamming into his face and chest were simple raindrops. Sam backed away, and I came up next to him. "Any chance you can turn into something that can beat this dude!?" Sam yelled over the minigun roaring in his hands.

    "Not for a while!" I yelled back. The two of us walked backwards as Creel moved towards us.

    "Well that''s just great!" Sam cried out sarcastically.

    Creel was about ten feet away when Sam tossed the minigun away. "Come on!" Sam grabbed my arm and leaped up. His wings unfurled, and the rockets activated, launching us into the sky. Creel reached out for me as Sam lifted me into the air, barely scraping his fingers against my shoes.

    "Shiiit!" I cried out as Sam flew us over the battlefield, aiming towards where Steve was battling the Winter Soldier. He dropped me near some cars, and I rolled as I hit the floor, trying to mimic what I''d seen from parkour videos. I landed in between a Honda Civic and a Prius, slamming into the Prius with my shoulder as I stumbled. As expected it hurt a lot, but it was a lot better than what Creel would have done.

    "Thanks, Sam!" I yelled out hurriedly, running as soon as I found my feet. I tried to circle where Cap and the Winter Soldier were battling. I found myself staring slightly as two superhumans duked it out in the middle of the street. Winter Soldier was stabbing with a knife, trying to slice into Steve, while Steve used martial arts to keep him at bay. They moved with intense speed, mere blurs of motion. After a brief moment, Steve kicked the Winter Soldier in the chest, sending him flying into a car.

    I jumped when someone landed behind me, only to sigh in relief when I saw it was Sam with Natasha. She was bleeding from her left shoulder, which she held tightly with a grimace.

    "You okay?" I asked her.

    "Later," she said back quickly. "Where''s the guy you were fighting?"

    "Right there!" Sam pointed at Creel. He was running towards us, pushing aside a bus and sending it flying. The three of us scattered, my heart pumping hard in my chest, and Creel followed me.

    "Damnit, Rath, why do you have to annoy people so much!?" I yelled. I ran past Steve and Winter Soldier, who both ignored me, heading for the only thing that could save me. I grabbed it, wrenching it out of the back of van, and quickly spun to lift it in front of me.

    Creel''s fist slammed into Captain America''s shield. And nothing happened. Vibranium hit vibranium alloy, and left me safe.

    I didn''t know why Steve''s shield was in the back of the van. But it saved my life. Next to where Creel and me stood, Captain America was thrown over the hood of a truck, landing about 8 feet to my right. Thinking fast, I dropped low as Creel threw another punch, ducking that and rolling.

    "Steve!" I threw the shield to him. Steve got up and caught the shield, hurriedly putting it on as he and Winter Soldier squared up. For a brief moment, we all faced each other. Captain America, Winter Soldier, Creel, and me. Then the Omnitrix beeped out with a green light. I reached for it. Creel rushed me, Winter Soldier rushed Steve. I twisted the dial on the Omnitrix, found an alien, and hit the face as Creel punched me.

    His blue glowing fist hit my chest, then pierced through me. Skin split around his knuckles. The muscle, bones, organs, until he made the same journey out the other side. His fist went straight through my heart and spine, turning them into goo.

    Or at least, it would have, if all those things hadn''t been changing into goo anyways.

    "Goop!" I announced in a robotic voice echoing from the device floating over my head.

    I now stood as tall as Creel. My body stood in a bipedal form, made of a green gelatinous form. The Omnitrix symbol rested on the Anti-Gravity Projector floating over me, the device erecting a gravitational force over me to allow me to stand. If I''d had a mouth, I''d have smiled.

    "Let''s do this!" I shouted through the Anti-Gravity Projector.

    Creel stared at me, shocked. "What are you supposed to be, green shit?"

    "Rude!" I replied, offended. I threw some goo into his eyes. Creel staggered back, removing his fist and wiping at his eyes.

    "Ugh! Okay, I''m going to turn you into a stain on the sidewalk!"

    Creel tried to punch me again. All he got for his efforts was goo on his fist. I grabbed him in my gelatinous hands and tossed him back. My form shapeshifted, becoming nothing but liquid, and the device over me gripped me in it''s gravitational hold, flying me over to Creel.

    Being Goop was so weird. I was technically two beings in this form, the shapeless goo, and the flying saucer letting that goo shapeshift. I had no bones, no organs or muscles, so I had to move through the saucer. My chemistry was up to me, so I could change from harmless to acidic. It should have been confusing, but it was oddly natural. As though my human form was the one that was weird, that I had always been able to change shape and acidity.

    As I did now. I surrounded Creel in a bubble of me, and changed into the strongest acid I knew how. Creel punched at me as I covered his body. It did nothing. Vibranium or not, you can''t punch Goop to death. I ''watched'' through the saucer as Creel''s clothes were dissolved. But that was it. Damnit. Apparently vibranium can''t be melted.

    Still, I had other options.

    Before I could enact those, I saw Cap get kicked by Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier stepped forward and grabbed Steve''s throat. He raised his knife.

    "No!" My saucer form flew at the Winter Soldier.

    I slashed into the back of his hand, blood flying into the air and forcing him to drop the knife. With Creel, my goo fell to the floor, allowing him freedom. Creel, not missing a beat, ran towards Cap. I guess he thought he''d thrown enough punches. I flew back to my goo and rose up behind Creel.

    "You want a piece of me!?" I said, spinning to throw a portion of myself at Creel''s left foot as it hit the floor. Green goo slammed into his foot. Creel kept running forward. The goo stretched. Then it snapped back into position, forcing Creel to stay.

    Goop can become acidic. But he can also become an adhesive, as sticky and stretchy as you want.

    "What the hell?" Creel said. In front of him, Captain America and Winter Soldier moved off, Cap knocking off Winter Soldier''s mask with a left uppercut.

    "Here, have all the pieces you want!" I shouted. I spun around, becoming a floating green swirl, and rapidly fired off portions of myself. They hit Creel in the back and shoulders. He struggled, but this wasn''t a heavy weight, it wasn''t a kinetic force for his vibranium form to absorb. This was glue, surrounding him in adhesive and gummy stuff. In seconds, he was covered in the stuff from neck to toe in a massive pile of sticky glue. He slowly struggled through it, but it would take him a while to get out. Once I was done, I walked around to look at him. Creel glared at me.

    "I''m still not down," Creel said. "I''ll get out of this eventually."

    "Oh don''t worry," I reached for the Omnitrix floating with my Anti-Gravity Projecter, about to turn into Blitzwolfer to hit him with a sonic blast. "I''ve got something-"

    An explosion filled the air. I turned to see a car in front of Steve finish turning into scrap metal. When I looked around the battlefield, I saw Steve, Sam, and Natasha all standing in different spots. Natasha was next to a silver truck, while Sam was by a blue taxi. Steve stood closest to me, and he was staring at the destroyed car with shock on his face. I wondered why for a moment.

    Then I remembered. Steve had uppercutted the Winter Soldier''s mask off. Bucky''s mask. He''d seen his friends face on a killer.

    "Steve," I started to say.

    Then the police sirens began to ring out. A bunch of black SUV''s rolled up, spilling out men in black military uniforms. I turned into liquid and flew forwards, throwing pieces of my self at one of the van''s and surrounding the soldiers coming out in more adhesive, attaching them to their SUV''s. I was going to do it again, my form shifting to aim at guys surrounding Steve.

    "Freeze or I''ll kill him!"

    I stopped, shapeshifting my body to look towards the person yelling at me.

    For a moment, I wondered why the KG Beast from Batman vs Superman was standing there. Then I saw what he was doing.

    He and five other men had Sam at gunpoint. Sam was looking at me sadly, his hands up. Fake KG Beast glared at me. "Change back!"

    My eyes moved quickly around my body as I stood there. Nearby, Natasha was captured as well, forced to her knees with no regard for her injuries. Steve was on his knees, staring at me. Sam still had his hands up, clenching and unclenching them. Creel was still in the goo I''d surrounded him in, looking at me.

    Fake KG Beast stepped closer to Sam. "I said, change back! Now!"

    For the first time, I felt dissatisfaction with my Omnitrix menu. If I had Lodestar, I''d have been able to rip the guns out of these guys hands. Instead...

    I reached up for the Anti-Gravity Projector, and tapped the Omnitrix. In an instant, I was human again. Fake KG Beast turned his gun from Sam to me. He stepped towards me, eyes hard.

    "On your knees." I glared at him defiantly. In a blur of motion, he slammed the butt of his gun into my chin.

    I crumbled to the ground. As stars filled my eyes, I spat blood from my mouth and glared up at the guy. He smirked. Then he lifted his boot high."

    "No!" Steve shouted as the boot came down. "Don-"

    A burst of pain followed. Then I was out.

    Author''s Note: The above was really fun to write. Wildmutt finally fighting, Rath smashing Creel with Zangief''s move, Creel revealing he was given something to level the playing field against Dial, Dial having his first horrific timeout in this fic, Sam firing a minigun at Creel, Dial using the shield before tossing it Cap, Creel and Goop fighting. It was fun.

    By the way, Vibranium Creel didn''t show everything he could do in that form. He had what amounted to about 10000 dollars worth of vibranium in his palm and he had no idea the power he really carried. Rath is strong, but when Creel was made of a substance that negates all kinetic force, all his hits stopped having effect. That said, Rath can win, if he''s smart about it.

    Goop''s plan worked well.

    So yeah. I had fun, and I hope you guys did too.

    Going to bed. Let me know what you think, or if you have questions?

 8 Chapter 8

    I woke up later in a van. I looked around groggily.

    "Hey," Natasha said to my right. I looked over at her. She smiled shakily at me. "Good to see you''re awake."

    My jaw hurt like hell. I tried to lift my hands, but they felt really heavy for some reason. Natasha shook her head. "Don''t move. Rollins gave you a hell of a hit."

    "Is that who that was," I slurred. I looked across from us. Sam and Steve sat on the right side of the van. Sam was looking at Steve, who was staring at the floor. There were also two helmeted guards with hands on their weapons, one female, the other male, both clearly HYDRA. Through my throbbing headache, as the van bounced around, I tried to remember what happened. Steve looked up at me.

    "Did X have anything about Bucky being the Winter Soldier?" Steve asked softly. Everyone, even one of the guards, looked at me.

    My headache intensified, but I thought of a response. "We never thought to check," I answered. For a moment, I felt relief I''d hidden X in Sam''s garage. Nobody but an Omnitrix user could unlock him, but better safe than sorry. "The Winter Soldier?" I asked slowly.

    I already knew, but I felt Steve wanted to talk. We might all be dead soon anyway. I held back my fear at the thought.

    Steve looked down at the floor again. "Yeah... And he didn''t even know who I was.

    "How''s he even alive?" Natasha asked. "Was he frozen, like you?"

    "Zola," Steve said, still looking down. "Bucky''s whole unit was captured in ''43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did must have helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and..."

    "You couldn''t have known," I said softly. "You would have done everything you could."

    "He''s right," Sam added.

    Steve was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, it was almost in a whisper. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

    We were quiet. Then Sam looked at Natasha. He turned to the guards. "We need to get a doctor here."

    My head still throbbing, I looked over at Natasha. Her shoulder was bleeding profusely. I wanted to reach over, only to feel my hands held down by weight. I looked down and blinked.

    They''d surrounded my hands in a steel casing, leaving them crossed. Steve had similar bonds on his hands. It must have been at least thirty pounds of metal, covering my hands in cold metal from mid-forearm to wrist. Shit. That meant the Omnitrix was out. I could feel the watch pressing painfully into my wrist, squeezed by the cuffs. Steve and I were also locked at the legs, leaving Natasha and Sam in regular cuffs.

    Still, if I forced HYDRA to try to kill me first, maybe we could get the jump on them. Just insult the shit out of them, make sure they try, then...

    Sam was still speaking. "He''s got a concussion and she''s bleeding out, we need-"

    One of the guards pulled out a baton in a lightning fast movement, the end lighting up with electricity. There was a tense moment.

    Then she spun it around and jammed it into the chest of the other guard. While we stared in shock and the other guard shuddered in his seat, she lashed out in a kick, sending the guy bouncing off the window, then to the floor. As soon as he was out, she reached up and pulled off her helmet, revealing...

    Robin, from How I Met Your Mother?

    Cobie Smoulder''s face breathed deeply. "Whew! That thing was squeezing my brain."

    Sam and I glanced at each other, then at her. She looked back at us, then at Steve and Natasha. "Who''re these guys?"

    ''Robin'', as it turned out, was really Maria Hill. An oddly friendly version of Maria Hill, who I remembered as kind of a bitch in the comics.

    She used a cool laser device to slice off all our cuffs in seconds. She waited until the car stopped, then sliced out the bottom of the car with the laser. The Strike team had placed our van in the middle, which meant Steve had to be careful to reach down and pull a manhole cover from the ground without anyone seeing. He was smooth, lifting it out of its place and sliding it aside. We dropped down into the sewers from the van with Steve''s shield and Sam''s wings as carefully as possible so the driver of the van wouldn''t notice any jostling in the back. I went Goop again so I could simply float down into the hole. Once we were safe, Maria sliced off my bonds. I turned into Goop again and covered Natasha''s wound with adhesive goo to stop her bleeding. That done, we started walking through the sewers. We came out after about thirty minutes of walking, then got into a gray van. Maria drove, leaving the city and heading through a forest until we reached a dam. There, we got out. I turned into Fasttrack for his better than human strength and picked up Natasha.

    "What are you doing?" she asked, glaring at me.

    "Carrying you," I answered, hefting her up and following Maria.

    "I''m not an invalid," Natasha growled.

    "You''re wounded, you need help, you get help," I replied back.

    "Put me down," she grumbled. Despite her protests, she didn''t fight me, a testament to how much blood she''d lost. I carried her carefully. The five of us entered the dam and started walking through the halls. The place was wet, as expected with green moss on the walls, and everything colored brown and illuminated with fluorescent lights. As we walked, a guy in a suit, wearing glasses, with thinning gray hair came towards us, running. Maria apparently knew him, because she yelled out as he came closer.

    "GSW," Maria said. The acronym for ''gunshot wound''. "She''s lost a lot."

    "Maybe a pint," Sam added. "But Mahmoud sealed the wound."

    "Let me take her!" The man, a doctor apparently, said as I walked up carrying her. He gave me a startled look when he saw my Fasttrack form, but focused on Natasha again, who was still giving me a petulant look.

    "She''ll want to see him first," Maria replied.

    We shared a confused look that Maria ignored.

    Going into a large room with pillars and machinery strewn about, we went down some stairs. There was a section of the room blocked off by plastic hanging on hooks set up like makeshift walls. Maria pulled back the plastic, and stepped aside to let us look inside.

    Samuel ''Bad MuthaFucka'' Jackson stared at us for a moment before speaking. "What the hell is that carrying you, Natasha?"

    "A stubborn idiot," was all she could reply. I think she was too shocked to say anything else.

    I turned back into Goop to remove the makeshift bandage I''d made for Natasha. It hadn''t completely stopped the bleeding, but it had helped, and the doctor operated on her as we listened to Nick Fury, who was Samuel L. Jackson, not a very white guy from the comics. He still had an eye missing though, and a badass eyepatch. I wondered, once more, if I was in a version of the Ultimate Universe, and gave Natasha a glance as the doctor checked her shoulder.

    Black Widow had been evil in the comics, working with terrorists. But I''d checked with X in private. Not only was Black Widow not in SHIELD, she''d been specifically tagged as being a very bad idea to try and recruit. I could trust her, as much as I could trust a spy.

    In the meantime, Fury (No way was I calling him ''Nick'') ran down the laundry list of his wounds.

    "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache." Holy...

    "Don''t forget your collapsed lung," the doctor added helpfully.

    "Oh, let''s not forget that," Fury said sarcastically. "Otherwise, I''m good."

    "What, you''re down for a pick up basketball game now?" I asked, still shocked by the sheer number of injuries. "How about Sam and me vs you and Steve?"

    "We''ll be skins," Fury replied easily, smirking.

    "They cut you open," Natasha said, sounding accusing. "Your heart stopped."

    "Tetrodotoxin B," Fury told her. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn''t work so great for him, but we found a use for it." Fury mentioning Banner reminded me of something.

    "Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not tell us?"

    Maria answered for Fury. "Any attempt on the director''s life had to look successful."

    "Can''t kill you if you''re already dead," Fury said matter-of-factually. Besides... I wasn''t sure who to trust."

    He looked at me. So did everyone else except Sam. I sighed. "Seriously, I''m not HYDRA. Also, you didn''t think you could trust Captain America, really? Or Tony Stark?"

    "First, you may not be HYDRA, but you are still suspicious," Fury said simply. "Second, I am trusting Captain America, you see him standing here don''t you? As for Tony Stark, he''d go telling the presses about anything, if he didn''t follow your lead and destroy a Best Buy first."

    "That wasn''t on purpose," I growled out. "And I''m telling the truth! I''m not the enemy!"

    "How can you prove that?" Fury asked simply. I gaped at him. "You appear in New York with no paperwork, in this or any nation. You have a watch that can turn you into things that can fight any of the Avengers on even ground or better, and admit it''s alien, meaning you must have gotten it from off-world. Natasha, has he told you where you got it from?"

    "...No," Natasha said.

    "Oh?" Fury cocked an eyebrow. "So you have all that power, appeared out of nowhere, and claim we should just... trust you. Explain why."

    I growled, stepping forward to explain myself.

    "Because I do," a voice stopped me. I looked over at Steve. He was smiling at me. "I trust him," He looked back at Fury. "I''ve seen what Mahmoud can do. He''s got a lot of power. If he wanted too, if he was working for an enemy, he could have killed us at any point. But he''s put that power to use to help us. He could have died at the bridge if it wasn''t for Sam, but he stayed and fought when it would have been better for him to hide. I trust him."

    There was no chance for me to respond when Sam stepped forward as well, patting me on the back. For a moment, I felt myself choke up. I swallowed down the tears like a man, only to have to wipe away some. Jeeze, why was I breaking down? All Captain America had said was that he trusted me."Uh... thanks man."

    "Heartwarming, however, we will talk about this later," Fury said simply. "So you trust him. What now?"

    "We um," I wiped away my last tear. "We need to call Tony, Rhodes, and Clint. They''re all on stand-by."

    "You want to bring more people into this?" Fury asked.

    "We need numbers," Steve said. "I thought about leaving them out, but they all said it was their fight, and they can give us a hell of a lot of power."

    Fury nodded. After a moment, he looked around. "Go ahead and call them. We''ve got sixteen hours to plan our attack. And someone get me a chair."

    Clint, funnily enough, arrived first. I was with Steve and Sam at the door to the dam when he rolled up. Maria had recovered devices I''d been using to hide from radar and satellites on, keeping us from being seen by HYDRA, so it was safe for him to join us. She had also recovered X from where I had hidden it at Sam''s house once I explained to Fury just what it was and he all but ordered to her to get it. Clint was riding a red motorcycle, and was wearing a purple jacket and blue jeans. He came up to us, parked the motorcycle, then got off and removed his helmet.

    Like Sam, he didn''t look like an actor I recognized. He had blonde hair groomed to go into a point, a five 0''clock shadow beard, and eyes that seemed to pierce through you. He was shorter than all three of us, but he came towards us with the same sort of subtle walk that Natasha did.

    "Good to see you, Clint," Steve said, smiling. He stepped forward with his hand out.

    "You too, Steve," Clint smiled back, taking Steve''s hand and shaking it. He looked over at me and Sam. "Gonna introduce me?"

    "Uh, yeah!" Steve said. He pointed at Sam. "This is Sam Wilson," he pointed at me. "And Mahmoud Schahed. They''re friends of mine."

    Clint shook hands with Sam, then turned to me. As he shook my hand, he cocked his head. "You aren''t military."

    Was it weird that it didn''t surprise me he could tell that? "No sir, I''m not."

    Clint nodded. "So you''re an enhanced?"

    I smiled at him, but didn''t answer. He shrugged, apparently not caring much, and turned to Steve.

    "Tony and Bruce here yet?"

    Steve winced. "Well, Tony is still grabbing a suit. And Bruce... you know Bruce."

    "He doesn''t want anything to do with it, huh?" Clint said with a sad smile.

    "Yeah."

    "He could have been really useful," I said softly to Sam.

    "Or destroyed everything in his path," he replied. When Clint and Steve looked at him, he held up his hands defensively. "I''m just saying. The Hulk is pretty good at breaking things."

    Steve didn''t seem to have a defense for that. He turned back to Clint. "Come on. I''ll show you inside."

    "One second," Hawkeye went to his motorcycle and pulled a bag off of it. He came back. "All right."

    With that, the four of us went inside.

    Tony Stark arrived later on.

    I was speaking to Clint at the time, watching as he geared up in the armory hidden in the dam. There were shelves of guns, and boxes of bullets all throughout the room. Clint had taken a station at a table in back to do his work. He was wearing a long coat edged with purple, with a safety glove and forearm protector all modern archers wore. It was kinda cool looking. He was checking over his arrows, putting them away one by one in a quiver on his back.

    "Ten aliens, huh?" he asked, looking over at me. I was sitting on the table, sipping at my coffee.

    "Yeah. They tend to be damn useful too," I answered.

    "Huh," he looked at the Omnitrix. "Think I could try?"

    What... My eyes went from the Omnitrix then to Hawkeye. He smiled easily. My surprise at the request must have been obvious.

    "You can say no," Clint said. "I''m just curious."

    "I mean..." I stared at the watch again.

    "Hey," Clint brought my attention back to him. "Cap doesn''t share his shield. I don''t let people use my bow. Nat has her favorite gun, and Tony has only let one other person have one of his suits." He finished sharpening one of his broadheads. "At least I know you can take off that watch."

    "...Only when I want to," I said.

    Clint nodded.

    Sam walked over then. He was wearing a flight suit similar to the one he''d worn in the photo he''d shown us.

    "Where''d you get that?" I asked as he walked past a rack of submachine guns.

    Sam stopped to grab a pair of submachine guns before joining Clint and I. "Turns out, they''ve got a room full of uniforms and suits. You should grab something for yourself."

    I though about that, looking down at myself. I''d been wearing the same blue jeans and white shirt with a black stripe ever since I''d left New York. Technically I didn''t need to change. The Omnitrix was all the costume I needed. But that thought was stupid. If the Omnitrix timed out mid-battle again, I might not have Sam to save me, and the right suit could at least prevent injury.

    "I will," I said at last. "In the meantime..." I got off the table and looked around. "Can you guys help me pick out a knife and gun? Something good for a novice like me to use for when the Omnitrix times out?"

    The flying soldier and archer assassin, both career military, looked around for a moment. Sam walked over to the aisle with handguns and picked up one of them. He came back with one of them, the kind I sometimes saw cops carrying when I did my patrols.

    "Here. Glock 19." Sam held it for me to see. "Compact size, 15 rounds in the magazine. If you end up in a tight spot, 15 bullets could save you. You ever held a gun before, do you know the safety rules?"

    "Don''t point the hole at anything you like," I said, looking at the gun in his hands. "I''ve gone shooting with my brothers. Never anything real though."

    Sam nodded. "Well, keep in mind. Guns are made to kill. Don''t let movies fool you. There''s no such thing as a winging people or shooting them in the foot to let them go. You shoot, you do it to kill. Understand?"

    When I nodded, he took a holster and belt off another shelf, and passed it all to me. Clint tapped me on the shoulder when I took the gun in hand. I turned to see him holding a knife in a sheath. He smirked as I took what looked a military knife.

    "That... is a knife," Clint said dramatically. "It cuts things. Use it to cut things."

    I gave Clint a sour look. "Wow. You''ve truly changed my life with that explanation."

    "Yeah well, no time to actually teach you anything," Clint said briskly, but not unkindly.

    "Come on," Sam, the traitor, was chuckling as he led me out of the armory. "Let''s get you suited up."

    We walked out, me holding my new loot, Sam putting away his guns. Steve and Natasha were coming down to the floor as we walked by. Behind them were two men.

    One I recognized as Tony Stark. He looked much the same as the photo''s I''d seen of him, a taller and buffer Robert Downey Jr. He had a well-trimmed mustache and beard combo, and his hair was set up in spikes. Unlike in the news, he wasn''t wearing a suit. He wore a... a Black Sabbath Tour of 78 shirt?

    I stopped, staring at him. I looked at Natasha, who had noticed me staring at his shirt. She nodded, and I gaped for a moment. Jury Rigg wore the same casual clothes as Tony Stark? What the hell?

    The man behind him was different in a lot of ways. He wore a tight green shirt, camo pants, and military boots. He was well built, had dark skin and a clean shaven face. He also had Don Cheadle''s face. Seriously, I was starting to get used to movie stars sharing faces with superheroes. And it was painting a weird picture about this Marvelverse that I should look into later.

    "Sam, Mahmoud!" Steve called as he stepped onto the floor. He waved us over, and we went to join him.

    "Guys, this is Tony Stark, and ColonelJames Rhodes," Steve said as we joined the four. "Iron Man and War Machine."

    "Introductions, really?" Tony asked, giving Steve a look. "What is this, preschool?"

    I looked between Tony and Rhodey for a moment. Like everyone, I have my favorite superheroes. I don''t tend to hate any of course, but some are just the ones I prefer.

    Wonder Woman was my favorite DC superhero. To me, she represented a lot of who I''d like to be. Honest, good, kind, a dedicated warrior, and a teacher. She was someone I looked up to.

    Iron Man, not two feet away, was my favorite Marvel superhero. A man who used his brilliance and human technology to take on magicians, gods, aliens, and reality warpers. A man who represented how far humanity could go on our intellect alone. A jerk, a womanizer, and a (recovering) alcoholic, sure. But he was a good man in the comics. Barring Civil War, where everyone had acted like out-of-character asshats.

    "You''re my favorite Avenger."

    Tony stopped talking, looking at me for some reason. So did Steve, Natasha, and Rhodey. In fact, even Sam did, looking at me with an amused look on his face. It was at that moment that I realized I''d spoken out loud. Huh. Didn''t know that could happen in real life.

    "Huh," Tony suddenly had a massive grin on his face. He turned to look at Steve. "Hear that? Fanboy has good taste."

    Steve sighed.

    "I mean, the stars and stripes are nice," Tony continued. "But until you get a sweet suit like mine- Actually, Rhodey, do you still have that monstrosity laying around?"

    "You see what you did?" Rhodey said to me. "You got him started. Also," he looked at Tony. "It wasn''t a monstrosity, it was patriotic."

    Natasha laughed. When Rhodey gave her a sour look, she shrugged.

    "Anyways," Steve said pointedly. "This is Sam Wilson and Mahmoud Schahed."

    Rhodey stepped forward and shook Sam''s hand, then mine. He had a strong grip, and a big smile. "Good to meet you. Despite the circumstances I mean."

    "Yeah, SHIELD going evil," Tony said. He looked at Steve. "I warned you, Cap. No way SHIELD was on the up and up. Granted, I never expected them to be Nazi''s, but..."

    "We aren''t contacting the government about this?" Rhodey asked.

    "No," I said. I walked over to a table, where X was resting, Steve joining me, followed by the others. "X, can you tell me, numercially, how many members of the military and government are HYDRA?"

    "At least fifteen, some confirmed by Zola, others only his estimations." X said. "Zola theorized there were more in lower positions, based on various reports, but it is unconfirmed."

    "Huh," Tony stepped towards X, circling him. He looked up at me. "You made this?"

    "One of my aliens did," I answered.

    Tony looked back at X, leaning in to look at the x-shaped device. He frowned, staring at it. "What the hell are these compotents made out of?"

    "Parts from a computer made back in the 70''s" Natasha said. When Tony and Rhodey gave her stunned looks, she smiled. "Really."

    "What, that''s impossible, how-" Tony stopped, staring at the device, then lifting it up to look it over. "No, if you get... wait how did he... Okay, I see the memory now, he just used, no that''s not how it works... oh, no, that could do it."

    "Tony?" Rhodey asked as he watched his friend spin the X-device in his hands.

    "Hold on, trying to figure out how this thing is breaking the laws of physics," Tony put it on the table, seeming excited. He gave me a look. "Yeah, me and you are going to have a long conversation after this, Fanboy."

    I rolled my eyes, though I was still kinda jazzed to see Tony Stark talking science. Then I got back to business. "Actually, you may find this interesting. X, can you show me the file on Senator Stern."

    "Of course," X said, his Southern accent giving the words a twang. "Senator Stern," A holographic screen popped up, with an image of Stern next to his profile. Tony raised an eyebrow. "A high level HYDRA agent, he has been credited with obtaining several high level acquisitions for HYDRA, only to fail in procuring the IRON MAN project. His further attempts with the War Machine also failed, though some blueprints were created based on footage of Colenel James "Rhodey" Rhodes."

    "What?" Rhodey stepped forward, uncrossing his arms. "HYDRA has armor because of me?"

    "Incorrect," X said. "Only copies, made from far less efficient designs. I reckon they used War Machine and Iron Man as inspiration, nothing more."

    Tony stared at X. After a moment, he turned away from him, stepping away a few feet. I shared a look with Steve. He looked at Tony. Hesitated. Then he finally spoke.

    "Tony, there''s something else."

    "What, more than HYDRA trying to steal my stuff?" Tony said sarcastically. He turned to look at us again, eyes hard, smile tight.

    "Sam, Mahmoud, let''s go somewhere else," Natasha said. She walked over and took the two of us by the elbows, pulling us away.

    "Wait, what?" Tony looked at us as we walked past, then at Steve. "What, is Pepper HYDRA? Granted, she''d look hot in a leather outfit..."

    "Tony," Rhodey said, apparently realizing something was wrong.

    As we walked away, I heard Steve begin to speak. "Back during the war, HYDRA kidnapped Bucky Barnes, my best friend, and turned him into-"

    Then we were too far away to hear anything. Sam looked at Natasha and me. I think both of us had a complicated look on our face.

    "What happened?"

    "...Bucky killed Tony''s mom and dad while he was brainwashed," I said. "We asked X more about Bucky once Maria brought him back, and you were busy."

    "Oh," Sam blinked. "That''s... jeeze, that''s gonna be tough. And this is the best time to tell him?"

    "I coached Steve a bit," Natasha said, letting go of our elbows and following us. "Steve wants to be honest, but he doesn''t want Tony to hate Bucky for something he couldn''t control," Natasha looked back. I did the same.

    Tony had fallen to the floor, his head in his hands, Rhodey and Steve down next to him. The table X had been rested on was snapped in half, X resting on the floor and still projecting an image of Howard and Maria Stark.

    Thankfully Jury Rigg made X to be durable so that little damage wasn''t going to harm it''s data and he could fix it after they were done.

    I turned away, sorrow in my heart. My first time meeting my favorite Marvel hero, and it''s to bring up his deepest pain. Yay me.

    A little bit later, we were standing in a room full of clothes. Everything from military uniforms, tuxedos, dresses, Hawaiian shirts, and even some cowboy boots and hats. Whatever a secret agent would need. In this case, were were in the more military focused section.

    "It''s a mistake to go for the heaviest bulletproof armor in our business," Natasha said, rifling through the clothes. "Mobility is what humans like you and I need. Protection from guns is still important, but compared to just outmanuevering guys as powerful as Winter Soldier and Creel, we need to be able to move too.

    She pulled out a pair of black pants with a belt. The pants were thick, and had pockets everywhere. She handed them to me. Then she handed me a pair of underwear, grinning at the embarrassed blush I gave her at the sight of the white jockeys. Sam coughed in a vain attempt to hide his own laughter.

    "Now, you need some armor, but it needs to let you move," she went over to where some plates, knee and elbow pads, and boots were. The armor ranged from almost uselessly small, to big enough for Rath. "Shoulder, chest, knees, shins, elbows," She tossed them on a table, gesturing to a section of the room blocked off by purple cloth. "Get in there, put on what I throw at you."

    I went inside, throwing my clothes off. She tossed something over the curtain, and I looked at it before snorting.

    Deodorant. Extra strong variety, for ''men of action!''

    "You''ll thank me!" Natasha said through the curtain.

    "She''s not wrong!" Sam said.

    "The less glamorous side of hero work," I said with a chuckle.

    I put on the pants and underwear. Natasha threw me a shirt, vest, and jacket. The jacket was kinda cool, all black and sleek looking. The vest was a dark green. I put them all on, then walked out. Natasha looked me over, then nodded, handing me the chestplate next. Sam helped me put it on. The chest plate was big enough to cover my pectorals, heart, lungs, and abdomen, but let me move rather easily. A pair of shoulder plates, knee and elbow pads, and shin plates, the handgun and knife with a pair of solid boots, and the ensemble was completed.

    With that done, I looked down at myself, then at Natasha and Sam.

    "Looks good," Sam said.

    "Yeah, I''m good at this," Natasha said with a smirk. "Too bad the others won''t let me help. Clint''s the only one who let me dress him."

    "I like it," I put on a pair of fingerless gloves, then looked at my chest. "Just needs one more thing."

    With all of us gathered, we met in the center of the main floor. The plastic walls and surgery equipment had been replaced with tables and chairs. The foldaway tables were arranged in a haphazard circle, and the chairs were set up for all of us. I took a spot high up to watch everyone enter. Tony was speaking with Steve in hushed tones. He was shaking his head angrily as Steve spoke. After a bit of thought, I walked over to join the pair. Sam and Rhodey were talking in another corner of the room, both Air Force soldiers apparently talking shop. Clint, Natasha, and Maria were all sitting already, a newly repaired X placed in front of them. As I walked past, X flashed a blueprint of the Insight Helicarriers. Maria looked between the blueprint and a folder in her hands, then said something to Clint, who answered while pointing to different sections of the carrier.

    When I came up to them, Tony was speaking.

    "So, what, he''s your friend, so you get the first crack at him?" Tony asked furiously.

    "That''s not what I''m saying," Steve said desperatly. "I just... I lost him once, Tony. If I have to lose him again..."

    Tony stared into Steve''s eyes. Steve looked away.

    "...he killed my mom," Tony said. "I don''t care if it was on purpose or not. I deserve to at least bring him in."

    "Then do it together," I said as I came up to them. They looked at me. "Who gives a shit who deserves it, consider what your facing. He is one of the strongest fighters in the world right now. You want to bring him in, it might just take more than one of you to do it. The rest of us will watch for him, let you know when he shows up, and you guys will have a plan to bring him in. X says there is a way to reverse his conditioning. In the meantime, I''ll try to find out who sent the order."

    "Vasily Karpov," Tony said. He looked between us. "X told me. I''m having Jarvis track him down." He smiled, a tight, enraged quirk of the lips. His left hand tightened into a fist. "After this is over, I''m going to find him myself."

    "Tony..." Steve began to say. Then he closed his mouth, looking at Tony.

    "I need to do this," Tony said softly.

    "...I''ll help you," Steve finally said. "And so will the rest of us."

    "Okay, people!" Fury''s voice got all of our attention. He walked into the room wearing a cast on his left arm, and looked around at us. "Let''s begin."

    "You know," Tony said to Fury. "I knew hearing you''d died was too good to be true. Leave it to the director of SHIELD to pull the biggest spy clich¨¦ ever," Tony said. Obviously falling back on humor to mask his personal feelings at the moment.

    Fury eyed Tony. "Good to see you too. Now if you''re here to help, sit down."

    Tony, Steve, and I looked at each other, then went over to the tables. Clockwise, with Fury at the center, Sam, Rhodey, me, Steve, Tony, Maria, Clint, and Natasha all sat, X placed in front of Fury.

    "Now, originally, the plan I had in place was a bit desperate," Fury admitted. He looked around. "But now, thanks to Rogers, I have five assets to bring into play. With you, I think we can stop HYDRA and maybe we can salvage what''s left-"

    "We aren''t salvaging anything," Steve interrupted. "We''re not just taking down HYDRA, Nick, we''re taking down SHIELD."

    As all of us stared at Steve, Fury responded. "SHIELD had nothing to do with this!" He sounded insulted.

    "You gave me this mission, this is how it ends," Steve said firmly. "SHIELD''s been compromised, you said it yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

    I winced. He was right, in a sense. Still... I was beginning to feel like this was too much.

    Fury agreed. "Why do you think we''re meeting in this cave? I noticed."

    "Yeah, not before my parents were killed," Tony interrupted. "Oh, by his brainwashed buddy, by the way."

    Fury looked between Tony and Steve. "Look... I didn''t know about Barnes."

    "Even if you had, would you have told me?" Fury was silent.

    "Embarrassing, right?" Tony said. "Realizing how ingrained your super spy stuff is."

    "SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes." Steve said.

    "He''s right," Maria added.

    Fury looked around. At Clint, Natasha, Rhodey, Tony, and Sam.

    He didn''t look at me. I think he thought I was going to go along with Steve and Tony.

    I got up. Sam, who was about to say something, stopped.

    "Steve, Tony. Everyone. I know I''m the new guy here, but I think I need to give my opinion."

    "You don''t," Tony said. "So you can sit down-"

    "As the only guy here who is arguably superhuman, I need to say this," Tony shut his mouth. I placed my hands on the table and looked around. "You guys want to take down SHIELD. On one level, I agree. It needs to be cleaned out, seriously. But I don''t think complete dismantling of it is the right idea."

    "Not to mention impossible," Rhodey said. "Way too many people in the military, government, and even the private sector have dealings with SHIELD. HYDRA will hide away again and cause trouble for someone else."

    "Doesn''t that thing," Clint nodded towards X. "Have all the information on HYDRA?"

    "Portions of it," I said. "I can try to make something to give us more, maybe get lots more from main SHIELD systems and hook up to HYDRA. But that''s not all." I looked around. "We need SHIELD."

    "Super secret organization with shady business practices and a history of Nazi''s in it''s ranks?" Tony said sarcastically. "I''m good thanks."

    "No, but we need people to fight the good fight," I argued. "At the least, we need an organization dealing with the weird stuff in the world."

    "The Avengers can do that," Steve said.

    "The Avengers are a small group of people," I snapped. "You guys can''t be there all the time, and you can''t deal with everything. What if someone in Idaho suddenly gets accelerated reflexes? Is Tony Stark going to go and visit them? Teach them how to use their powers, or even help them when people like HYDRA try to kidnap them for experiments?"

    "I''d do it," Tony said. "I''d save them, what the hell are you insinuating?"

    "That you wouldn''t even hear about it," I said simply. "It''s not me calling you callous, it''s me saying that you''re one man, and you can''t be everywhere. We need to have a big organized group of people. It''s a weird world now," I raised the Omnitrix and showed it to everyone. "This thing was given to me. But if someone else had gotten it, and they started killing people, who would have informed you guys?"

    "SHIELD," Natasha said.

    I nodded.

    "We need to take them down," Steve said. "We''d never know for sure who we could trust otherwise."

    "Then we start anew at least," I looked at Tony. "I think we can narrow down the list, figure out every aspect of their plans. HYDRA may have hidden in SHIELD, but that still leaves a trail. If they''re in the systems-"

    "Then we can find them," Tony said, leaning back and resting his cheek against his hand. "Okay, say that we do. We find HYDRA, stop them all. Then what we, we have SHIELD just keep going?"

    "No," we all looked in surprise at Fury. He was staring at the X-device. "We... Jury Rigg it," he looked up at us. "So to speak. We take what is good, what is worth saving, and we build something new."

    "Is that possible?" Sam asked. "Just take SHIELD and make something new out of it?"

    "It happened in Russia," Natasha said. "The Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, all the way to the KGB and now the Federal Security Service."

    "Yes, because when I want a spy agency, I decide to copy the Russians," Tony pointed out, looking around. "How about it, Fanboy, you want to start torturing people for information, maybe start some wars in Asian nations for a pissing contest with another country?"

    "I want to make SHIELD what it was supposed to be," I said firmly. I crossed my arms. "SHIELD is supposed to be the bridge between what people consider normal, and all the weirdness out there. I say we take it to where it''s supposed to be. Protect people from the madness on every level, but also protect people who end up getting powers. People like Bruce Banner, who get their powers out of nowhere. People like me, who end up with alien technology attached to them, and have no place to go. We can protect the world from those threats. But we need to work with SHIELD, and all that is good in it, to do it."

    "...I''m not so sure about that," Steve said softly.

    "He''s right," Natasha said. Everyone looked at her.

    "Well, of course, you''d say that," Tony said.

    "No, I think he''s right too," Rhodey said.

    "Et tu, Brutus?" Tony held a dramatic hand to his heart.

    "An organization to help the Avengers protect people, even when we can''t be there, to tell us if something needs our attention? It''s a good idea," Natasha said.

    "And we can''t let all those resources go to HYDRA," Rhodey added. "The second we reveal the truth, HYDRA operatives are going to try and take every bit of money, tech, and personal they can. If we can at least put it to good use, to make a group to save people-"

    "Then we do the work SHIELD was made for," Steve rose up. He looked at all of us. Then stopped on Fury. "If we do this, no more secrets. No more lies. Not between us at least. Everyone here, we keep each other in check, and we make sure everyone is safe."

    "You sure you want everyone here in your secret circle?" Fury looked at me.

    "Oh come on!" I snarled. "I''m the one agreeing with you asshole!"

    "See what I''m talking about?" Tony pointed out.

    "Yeah, what the hell man?" Sam added.

    "Just saying," Fury replied.

    "All of us," Steve looked around. "Mahmoud''s... well, he''s right. We need people there, to help us, to be there when... When we can''t," Steve sighed. "I don''t trust SHIELD as it is. But if we can join together, tear it apart and make it something new, something good and strong, something the original founders made it to be. Then I think this is worth doing. You all agree?"

    "I''m still on the fence," Tony looked at me. "You really want this, Fanboy?"

    "The next person to make an Iron Man suit may not be so nice," I told him. "The next Asgardian weapon, alien invasion, or attack of My Little Pony''s needs people there to confront it. We need to do this. And we need to do it right."

    "What''s all this ''we'' business?" Tony said. He sighed. "Well, I always wanted my own spy group... Sure. Let''s be spies."

    "You gonna name this organization, or just call it SHIELD again?" Sam asked me.

    I looked around. "Uh..."

    "Arrow," Clint smiled at the looks he got. "What? I think it''s perfect."

    "StarkInfiltration," Tony suggested.

    "You are terrible at names," Rhodey told him. "Why not just call it SHIELD again?"

    "Too much history," Fury said. "But let''s table that discussion. On to the plan. X, bring up the Insight files. Maria, show us the floor plan for the hangers."

    A holographic screen popped up. Maria tapped on a laptop, turning it around for us to see.

    "Now," Fury said. "Taking into account our new plans, and the assets we have available, I believe we should start by..."

    Author''s Note: Man. Ten pages. TEN PAGES. Yeah, took a while to write this, and it ended up having almost no transformation and no action. But I think it''s all important. A whooooole lot of deviations from canon here. And I''m worried about a lot of it. But I did my best, and I had fun.

    Hope you guys like it. Please tell me what your hopes are for the new Battle of the Triskelion. Also, if anyone starts throwing out names, you are required to come up with Backronyms along with them.

    Oh, and Dial''s costume. I based it on Widow''s from Infinity War. I liked the green she had, and I plan to have Dial spray paint an Omnitrix symbol on the left pectoral. So, hopefully it works.

    Anyways, good night, I''m gonna work on the next chapter.

 9 Chapter 9

    A while after we''d made our plans, Steve had gone up to the top of the dam. When Steve had been up there for a while, Sam went up to join him, leaving the rest of us behind.

    Tony and I were supposed to make stuff for the team to use. We went to room that was clearly set up to be a makeshift engineering facility of some sort, with technological parts everywhere. We sat in swivel chairs with a list, but before that, Tony had some questions.

    "So this is alien tech?" Tony held my wrist, looking at the Omnitrix.

    "Made by the Galvan scientist, Azmuth," I confirmed.

    "Huh," Tony let go of my wrist. "Kid, can you just take that off so I can look at it already?"

    "You gonna let me try out an suit?" I quipped.

    "Sure, I got some Armani''s I''m probably gonna give to Goodwill soon," Tony said.

    "I meant-"

    "I know what you meant," Tony snarked. "And no. Just show me how it works."

    I opened up the dial. The hologram of Swampfire showed up, and I pressed down on it. In a second, I was the tall and broad plant creature.

    "Swampfire!"

    "What, you have to call out the name every time you change?" Tony asked. Then he blinked. "Also, what the hell is that smell?"

    "First, it''s tradition," I said in my nasally voice. "Second, it''s me. I''m a Methanosian, we smell like that."

    "What, so you can smell like literal crap?" Tony sounded nasally too, though it was because he was holding his nose.

    I frowned, somehow insulted. "No. So I can do this," I held up a hand and let a flame loose. "I may be plant based," I raised my other hand and sprouted a flower from the palm, making it red and gold just for Tony. "But I also produce methane I can ignite."

    "Huh," Tony put his hand down, leaning closer to look at the Omnitrix now resting on my chest. "And you can switch to another form?"

    "Yeah," I put out the flame, and handed the flower to Tony.

    He blinked, staring at it. "Uh, I''m flattered Fanboy, but-"

    "It''s for Pepper, you ass," I rolled my eyes, tapping the Omnitrix.

    "So much for being your favorite Avenger," Tony quipped. He looked up from the flower to me. Then a little further up. "Huh. That is impressive."

    I was Blitzwolfer again. I stretched upwards and smiled as savagely as I could. Which was pretty damn savagely. "Thanks. So yeah, I can change."

    "I really wish I had time to study how you do that," Tony said with a grimace. "Okay, let''s get to business," he turned away to pick up a tablet Maria had handed him. "Time to waste my skills making a bunch of things you can find in a grocery store."

    "Or..."

    Tony looked over at me. "Or?"

    "I mean, we have to make stuff. Why not go all out?" I growled.

    He spun in his swivel chair. "...I''m listening."

    Nothing does a vicious grin the way a wolf does. I reached for the Omnitrix and changed once more.

    "Let''s get to work!" I said, laughing maniacally. "Time to disassemble!"

    Tony stared at me for a moment. "Huh. Nice shirt."

    January 12, 2014

    We''d had 20 hours when we''d been picked up by HYDRA. We had four left now. Tony and Rhodey were getting their suits while the rest of us packed up our own gear. Bored, I''d gravitated towards Steve when he returned from a mission of his own, leading to the two of us in the costume room. I was leaning against a rack of clown costumes while Steve put on his suit.

    On any other day, wondering what the hell kind of assassin/spy needs a clown costume would have been my question. But I had other issues.

    "Steve, I''m not sure it''s exactly kosher to do that," I said as I stared at when Steve was putting on.

    "Well, I did own it," he gave me a grin. "Besides, I''ll put it back when I''m done. I''m basically adding history to it."

    "That is not how it works," I said. "I mean, what if someone gets fired?"

    Steve stopped for a moment. Then he shook his head. "I''ll cover it. Besides, my other suit is torn up from when I had to escape the Triskelion."

    He was putting on his World War 2 suit, stolen from fucking Smithsonian.

    "That''s not the real reason."

    We looked over to see Natasha walking in wearing all navy blue. A skirt, jacket, and shirt. And some pearl and and gold necklaces that glimer slightly as she walked catlike into the room. She was holding a wig in one hand, short and blonde. She stepped closer, looking closely at Steve.

    After a moment, he answered. "Bucky... he might need a reminder. The closer I look to how I was back then, maybe..." He turned to look at his helmet. "...Maybe it''ll be easier for him to remember me."

    Natasha and I didn''t say anything. He seemed to take it as acceptance, which it was. He picked up the helmet. With a feeling of ceremony, he put it on.

    Captain America, in full costume. The stars and stripes, right down to the star on his chest. Awesome.

    "Stop grinning like that," Natasha said, punching me lightly in the shoulder. "It''s creepy."

    "Sorry," I replied.

    She smiled, then nodded towards my right pectoral. "I see you found that spray paint you wanted."

    I looked down and smiled. It was a bit rough. But now the symbol of the Omnitrix rested on my chest in green and black. It had dripped a bit as it dried, but it looked good.

    "Yeah. Can''t be the only one of us without a cool costume after all. I''ll leave that to you," I said. Then I looked at Black Widow, looking her up and down dramatically. "Kinda funny, you having to play elderly politician. Although I was sorta looking forward to the leather."

    "Well, play your cards right..." Natasha''s red lips lifted just slightly.

    I blinked, not knowing how to respond. That just made her eyes glimmer. She turned to walk away.

    "Uh..." I looked at Steve, who was smirking at me. "I don''t understand what just happened."

    "She has that effect," Steve noted. He stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder, walking me out. "Come on. If all ninety-six years hasn''t taught me anything about woman, a couple minutes talking won''t help either."

    "Weren''t you trapped under ice for seventy of those years?" I groused.

    "Details."

    Out on the floor, Tony and Rhodey came toward us with another man. Happy Hogan. I recognized him from hacking into Stark Industries... Man, that felt like a lifetime ago, just patrolling in New York City and watching for any changes. Hopefully I''d be able to do that again one day.

    Happy was about my height, with a heavy build, a black suit, and slightly balding hair. I tried to figure out if he looked like an actor I knew, but none came to mind, which was almost a relief.

    "Steve, you''ve met Happy," Tony said, walking by us quickly.

    "Hey Howard," Steve said as Happy strode into the room. "Uh, Tony?" Tony stopped to look at Steve, as did Rhodey and Happy. "I thought we were keeping it confidential? That was our agreement."

    "It''s okay," Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Happy''s my guy, so he gets to know about this."

    "And you don''t even discuss it with us?" Steve asked, affronted.

    "Dude," I added, giving Tony the same look. Happy and Rhodey shared a look, both apparently understanding where we were coming from.

    "Oh, I''m sorry, ''dude'', is the guy who hacked my company and Happy''s email for weeks extending an opinion?" Tony asked pointedly.

    "Wait, what''s happening now?" Happy looked at me, stepping closer.

    "Hey, I was spying on him in case some guy tried to kidnap the president again," I said briskly. "If people had been listening to Happy from the start, things might have ended better."

    "Thank you!" Happy raised his hands dramatically, looking at Tony. "You see if people had listened to me-"

    "You see what you did?" Tony told me.

    "If people had just listened-"

    "I did listen, that''s how I found out how Killian was doing the bombs!"

    "Yeah, and then I was in a coma!"

    "You want to do this now, in front of Fanboy and Cap?"

    "Hell, bring Natasha in too."

    "For the love of... Happy!"

    The two walked away, bickering, leaving Rhodey silently shaking his shoulders in laughter. He waited until they''d left to turn to Steve, who seemed stuck between exasperated and amused.

    "So, yeah," Rhodey said. "Happy brought our suits over. We''ll be ready to go."

    "Yeah about that," I said. "Didn''t Tony blow up his suits? I mean, I remember reading about it in the news."

    "He did," Rhodey looked over at his friend. "But he just can''t stop making more. Pepper complains about it."

    I thought about Pepper Potts. Then I thought about Rescue, the superhero identity Pepper would eventually take on. Hell, she did really good work as Rescue.

    Something for the future.

    "Okay, come on," Cap patted me on the back. "Time to get started."

    "Actually, can I talk to him?" Rhodey said.

    Steve and I looked at Rhodey.

    "Uh, sure," I said. Rhodey waved me over to another section of the room, and we walked over to one of the damp hallways.

    "I''m going to be blunt about this," Rhodey said simply. "I don''t think you should go."

    That was not what I expected at all. "Wait, what?"

    "I don''t think this mission is one you should go on," he said firmly.

    "Are you kidding?" Rhodey shook his head. "I''m one of the strongest members of our team! I mean, I know I''m new, but I can do a lot of good!"

    "I''m not saying that-"

    "Hell, I''m already on HYDRA''s hitlist, I deserve to fight!"

    "And kill?"

    "..."

    "Because this isn''t a fight. This is a war," Rhodey shook his head. "I know you''re powerful. Natasha told me what you could do. But I remember what my first kill was like. And it doesn''t matter what happens, it still changed me. I don''t want that changing you too."

    I heard footsteps behind me. When I turned, Steve and Sam were standing there.

    "You guys agree with him?"

    Sam didn''t say anything, just looking between Rhodey and me. Steve opened his mouth, then closed it after a bit of hesitation.

    "It''s not about how powerful you are," Rhodey said. "But if you join, then there will be a point where things will come down to killing or dying. And if I allowed you to just dive into this without warning you about what could happen..."

    He trailed off. I looked at Steve.

    "Cap, I-"

    He held up a hand. I stopped talking. "Are you going?"

    "Yes," I didn''t hesitate. "I know I might have to... to kill people. I don''t like the idea. But I can''t stand by and not help."

    "Yeah, I know what that''s like." Steve shook his head. "I felt the same way when I joined."

    "Same," Sam said.

    Rhodey nodded reluctantly.

    "Just know, that afterward... You have someone to talk to if you need it." Steve said.

    "I still don''t like it," Rhodey said.

    "I know," I told him. I clenched my fist. "But I''m still going."

    War. Ready or not, it was time to go.

    The Triskelion really was pretty. From our position in a forest nearby, I could see it across the river. Something about it just screamed of authority and strength.

    Too bad it was going to be a warzone soon.

    "Okay, this is where we split," Steve said.

    There were six of us. Captain America, Iron Man, War Machine, Maria Hill, Sam Wilson, and me.

    We stopped for a moment. "Everyone has their comm systems on?"

    "Yep," I said. "Well, the Omnitrix is connecting well."

    "Was it really necessary to make these so powerful?" Sam asked, tapping at his ear.

    He had a point. When Tony and Jury Rigg had made comm links, they went crazy with them.

    They looked like small ear buds. Elegant design really, only thanks to Tony curbing Jury Rigg''s antics. Crystal clear sound, it could pick up the vibrations of the bones in the jaw so even whispering was heard clearly, unable to be picked up by any comm system on Earth we didn''t want it to. Oh, and it was FTL in speed, and could project in deep space through quantum entanglement, even pierce through a mountain''s worth of material to still connect.

    "Hey, you want my best or something you can find out of a Radio Shack?" Tony said, his Iron Man mask flipped up.

    Oh yeah. Tony and Rhodey were in their suits.

    God, the suits were so badass. Iron Man in the classic red and gold, all sleek and shiny, with an upside-down triangular light in the center representing the arc reactor that powered the suit. It gave him a presence that matched with Cap''s. Almost as though Tony was magnified in every respect by the suit.

    War Machine was different. Black and somber gray to Iron Man''s flashy red and gold. Bulky instead of sleek, with a square light in the chest, and a massive minigun on his right shoulder. His forearms also carried a pair of guns. If Tony would have looked right at home with a sleek sci-fi movie, Rhodey belonged to a more gritty cyberpunk noir. All business.

    More importantly, I was staring at some of the coolest suits in fiction. Oh, wait. I was staring.

    I looked back at the Triskelion. Mission time man. Gotta focus.

    "Okay, enough talk," Steve said. He looked over us. "You all know what to do. Launch."

    Inside the Triskelion, things should have been going smoothly. Everyone would infiltrate, beginning our assault by disrupting HYDRA from the start. It was probably very intense.

    "God, this is so boring," Tony grumbled next to me. "How can something so intense be so boring?"

    "It''s just how it goes, Tony," Rhodey said. "''Hurry up and wait.'' It''s one of the oldest military adages, man."

    Tony grunted.

    The three of us had taken a spot in the forest to wait for our signal. Once it came, we had some of the most important roles in the attack. But for now, it was just the three of us watching the Triskelion in the distance.

    The wind blew through the trees, rustled the grass, and blew ripples across the water. For a moment, we sat in peace.

    "...Yeah, this is boring," I finally admitted.

    "You see!?" Tony said to Rhodey, who sighed in annoyance.

    "I really wish I could see what everyone else was doing," I grumbled.

    Well, maybe they''d tell me about it later.

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    As he followed Captain America through the Triskelion, Sam had to admit he was having a weird couple of days. Even the Air Force couldn''t provide the training needed to prepare for all of what he was going through.

    A guy who could turn into aliens, Iron Man and War Machine, SHIELD actually being HYDRA, suddenly getting drafted into making a new espionage organization.

    As the three went around the next corner, Sam found himself shaking his head. "I really didn''t expect this to be how my day would go."

    "Yeah," Steve said as they hurried forward. "It''s not what I expected either. But you get used to it."

    "I doubt that," Maria said, the spy wearing her blue uniform with the SHIELD symbol on the shoulders. "But then, I was about ready to destroy SHIELD yesterday," Maria looked at Steve. "Are you sure about this? Making a new SHIELD?"

    "No," Steve said. They turned another corner. "But we do need something. Once the dust settles, we can decide what to make of it all. For now, let''s hope the toys Tony and Mahmoud made pull through."

    "I hope so," Sam looked at the device hanging on Maria''s hip. "It doesn''t look like much."

    Maria looked down as well. The device looked like a metal pirate symbol, with an ''X'' welded haphazardly attached to the back of a bulbous object reminiscent of a human skull.

    "Doesn''t matter how it looks," Maria said. "As long as it works."

    At that moment, she raised a hand holding a square object and pressed a button. They came to a door, Sam pulling out one of his Steyr SPP machine pistols, Maria a Glock 19, and both pointed the gun at the door, Steve in-between them, shield at the ready.

    The door opened to reveal a skinny young man with dark skin, wearing a SHIELD uniform and hat. He stared at them in shock.

    "Excuse us," Steve quipped.

    The young man raised his hands up and stepped aside hurriedly, letting them pass.

    "Okay," Steve said as he stepped inside. The technicians in the room turned and stared at him. "I''m going to need this room. If you all could kindly head out, I''d appreciate it."

    Whether it was the guns, Steve''s politeness, or the dichotomy of both, the technicians ran out of the door.

    "Okay, Maria," Steve nodded towards her. Maria nodded back, heading to a computer while taking the device at her hips in her hands.

    "I''ll watch the doors," Sam said. He moved to the center of the room and pulled out his other gun. "Do your thing, Steve."

    "On it," Steve waited until Maria had plugged in the device. It came to life.

    "Ready when you are sir," X said from his newly modified home.

    "Okay..." Steve took a deep breath. Then he hit the intercom. And X began his work.

    A British voice spoke from the device. "This is Jarvis. We are beginning our assault, Miss Hill."

    "Yeah," Maria stared at the screen as files began to pop in and out of existence on the monitor. "I uh... I can see that."

    "I really hope we didn''t just upload Skynet," Sam whispered to himself, trying to stay ready.

    Steve sighed. "For once, I don''t feel good about understanding the reference."

    Author''s Note:

    There it is, the beginning stages of the assault. Stuff is going to go fast and furious for a bit now. No spoilers, but I imagine you guys can already infer some things. I''m the writer, and even I feel like I barely know all the possibilities from here. Seriously, shit is just... Well, hope you guys enjoyed this, and that you''re excited for what comes next.

 10 Chapter 10

    I was picking up strands of grass from the dirt out of boredom when Steve''s voice came out of the Omnitrix. I scrambled up to my feet, looking over at Tony and Rhodey. With a whir of noise, they stepped forward.

    "Okay," I said softly. "Let''s go."

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    Sam turned towards Steve, ready to say something. Then Steve began to speak into the intercom. And Sam stopped to listen in silence.

    "Attention, all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers. You''ve heard a lot about me over the last few days, some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it''s time you know the truth. SHIELD has been infiltrated," Steve looked over at Maria, who nodded. "HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD. Alexander Pierce is their leader."

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Black Widow, disguised as Councilwoman Hawley, looked at Pierce at the same time as the other Councilmembers did. Pierce looked back at them. The man smiled slightly as Steve continued to speak. He had the audacity to shrug slightly, an ''aw shucks'' sort of shrug.

    She almost smiled at that. As much as she couldn''t wait to kill him, she had to admire how calm he was. Not as much as she admired the calm smooth tones Steve used to speak over the intercom, however.

    As she shared a look with Councilman Yen, who winked at her. All the while, Steve continued to speak.

    "The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don''t know how many more, but I know they''re in the building."

    Sharon Carter/Agent 13

    "They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want with the help of the Insight Helicarriers: absolute control."

    Sharon listened to the voice of Captain America with horror and sadness filling her. Unlike the others in the room, SHIELD wasn''t a job or even a duty. It was her legacy. Something her great-aunt, Peggy Carter, had believed in with all of her heart. Sharon couldn''t count how many times Peggy had spoken about founding SHIELD, of the pride and joy she''d felt building the organization.

    To know how her pride was torn apart would break her heart.

    Sharon focused, looking around quickly.

    "As of now, all loyal SHIELD agents should be getting a program on their phones," Steve said.

    Sharon blinked when the phones of every person in the room began to buzz. Including her own. Everyone took out their phones, Sharon included. She blinked at the screen on her smartphone. "Hercules?" She asked herself. The words were in big letters. As she watched, it flashed into the SHIELD symbol, then showed a photo of a man. Rumlow, leader of STRIKE team. Other began to flash, person after person. Apparently the app not only had files on all HYDRA, but would flash green near SHIELD members and red near HYDRA

    "The app will show you every member of HYDRA as we discover them, with evidence to back it up so you know I''m not simply spreading dissent in the ranks. The threat is real. HYDRA is among us. They shot Nick Fury. And it won''t end there."

    Sharon shared looks with other agents in the room. Almost as one, they all raised their smartphones. All had the Hercules app flashing green, something that visibly relieved her. SHIELD. Everyone in the room, down to the skinny technician sitting at the computer in front of her. Now to see about the rest of the base.

    Robert Gonzales/Commander of the Iliad

    Gonzales had been working for SHIELD for decades. The only time he''d ever stopped was when his wife died, only to return to service three years later. He was proud of the work he''d done. He worked on the Iliadnow, an aircraft carrier built for SHIELD to do its work across the world. He had seen many strange things in that time, sitting at the bridge of the carrier.

    And yet, he had never heard of anything like this.

    When the voice of Captain Steve Rogers suddenly began to come out of the intercom of his ship''s speakers in the middle of a routine patrol, he didn''t know what to think at first. It was clear he was in the Triskelion based on what he was saying.

    He stood on the bridge of his ship, listening as Steve Rogers explained that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD. HYDRA, the boogeyman that was supposed to be dead.

    When Gonzales received the Hercules app. So did ten others in the bridge. Six crewmen, however, very obviously did not. For a moment, everyone looked at each other. The Hercules app helpfully flashed photos of the six, apparently basing the decision on proximity.

    Then Gonzales reached for his sidearm. The six tried to do the same.

    And all over the world, the same thing repeated itself again and again. Some HYDRA surrendered. Others died. Some escaped. But no agent of HYDRA was immune to Hercules'' sight.

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    "If you allow the Helicarriers to launch today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we stop them," Steve breathed deeply. "I know I''m asking a lot... but the price of freedom is high. It always has been."

    Sam watched as Steve spoke. For a moment, Steve Rogers seemed to... to shrink. As though he had taken on so much, too much, as though he realized how much he''d been through. Steve Rogers staggered under the weight as Sam watched.

    But before Sam could say anything, before he could step forward, the man raised himself up. Steve took a deep breath, and Captain America spoke.

    "And it''s a price I''m willing to pay. And If I''m the only one, so be it." He looked at Sam and Maria. The pair gave him determined nods he returned. "But I''m willing to bet I''m not."

    Steve turned off the intercom. Sam stepped forward, smirking at Steve. "Did you write that down first, or was it off the top of your head?"

    "I was an actor once," Steve said with a smile. They stepped towards the window. High in the sky, two dots could barely be seen, one slightly larger than the other. Both flew towards the hanger bays of the Insight Helicarriers. "Now, let''s watch for a bit. According to Mahmoud, this will be quite a sight," Steve held a hand to his ear. "Dial... shut''em down."

    Mahmoud Schahed.../Dial

    "Got it!" I yelled. I didn''t have to yell, technically. While I didn''t have a comm link, the Omnitrix was advanced enough to pick up my voice with ease. But when you''re soaring through the air at high speed, yelling is just the only way to speak.

    "Sorry if the rides a little rough," Rhodey said.

    "Nah, this is awesome!" I was behind held under my armpits by War Machine as Iron Man flew next to us. We were crossing hundreds of feet over the water, my legs dangling in the air.

    "Focus up!" Tony said. "Jarvis, we good?"

    "Yes sir," he said. "X and I have sent the Hercules app throughout the world, shut down HYDRA communications devices, and begun stage 2 of our attack."

    "Okay," I breathed in the cold air. "Drop me!"

    "Good luck!" Rhodey let me go.

    Just like that, I was falling through the air at high speed. For a moment, all I could see was the hangers below. Three of them, hiding under the water, but visible from above. A glint of sunlight shone off the river, forcing me to squint.

    Then the roaring noises of rocket boots came close. Iron Man flew by on my left, zooming towards the hangers. War Machine passed on my right. The two men of iron opened up shoulder hatches on their suits, firing rockets at the hangers on the left and right. When the explosions opened holes in the hanger bay doors, water from the river began to rush inside, creating waterfalls into the hanger. Rhodey and Tony flew into the openings they''d created.

    Which meant it was my turn. I reached for my the Omnitrix and activated it. Flesh and bone became shining blue-green crystal.

    "Diamondhead!"

    I pointed my hands at the ground, and turned my arms into cannons. As I dropped towards the earth, I started shooting crystals at the hangers bay doors. Each one the size of a knife, they sliced easily into the steel doors. Hundreds, covering every surface I could shoot of the doors.

    And as I fell towards them, I made them grow.

    Like a fast-motion video of water freezing, the crystals grew at a rapid pace. They joined together, then got bigger. Soon the three doors were covered in crystals dotting their surface, each the size of a car or bigger.

    Not good enough.

    Bigger, bigger, bigger. I stopped shooting the crystals, instead focusing on their growth. They shot upwards to meet in the middle towards where I was falling. One of the crystals shot directly at me as hundreds of spears rose up into the sky, glimmering beautifully in the light.

    Just before I would have landed on one of my own gems, I shifted it to become a ramp. I still slammed into it hard enough to shatter human legs, but Diamondhead''s durability made the impact negligible and let me slide down along the crystals to the center of the middle hanger. I turned my left arm into a razor sharp blade. It took three cuts to slash my way into the hanger. I dropped in, slamming into the asphalt of one of the Insight Helicarriers below. I bent by knees on impact, a crater getting created by my drop. I looked around.

    The Insight Helicarrier had crates, Quinjets, and men dotting its flight deck. The ''island'', or command tower of the ship, was across from me. I stood on the middle of the ship. I took in my position, ignoring the stunned HYDRA agents around me. Then I rose up and lifted my hands to the sky, closing my eyes. The sunlight outside came in through the hole I''d created, letting a beam of light into the dark hanger. As the mountain I was creating outside grew, the yellow light became a sea green. Then the hole was covered in crystal.

    "Kill it!" One man cried out behind me. He fired a handgun. The bullet slammed into the back of my head. I ignored it, and the bullet fell to the floor with no effect. "Come on, shoot that thing!"

    More men, about fifteen, came up and started shooting as well. I grunted in annoyance, but ignored the useless bullets bouncing off me.

    The Omnitrix on my chest spoke then, Steve''s voice coming from it.

    "All right, Dial. It''s perfect. Neutralize the crew."

    I opened my hands and ran at the men shooting me. All wore black uniforms and helmets, the gear I always saw HYDRA''s men wearing. But now I know who they were.

    I leaped at one man and bunched him in the rips. He flew back twenty feet and slammed into a crate. I turned, ignoring the hail of bullets being shot at me.

    "This is Dial," I said as I stalked through the bullets. "Engaging."

    "What happened to his voice?" Tony asked. "Did he go through puberty again?"

    I ignored him. Instead, I grabbed a soldier by the front of his uniform and kicked his right kneecap in. As he screamed, I lifted him up and threw him at one of the other men, sending them both to the ground.

    Just then, a Quinjet roared to life, one of a few resting on the flight deck of the helicarrier with us. It rose up, aiming it''s gun at me. I leaped towards it instead, jumping onto the cockpit. The aircraft rose up towards the doors above us, the pilot staring at me while I climbed on top. My feet shot out crystals from my heels to slice into the Quinjet and give me footing. I snapped my hands out to the side, my arms becoming twelve foot long blades.

    "Raagh!" With a quick downward slice, I chopped off the wings of the Quinjet. It plummeted out of the air, slamming into the flight deck. I hopped off the Quinjet and looked at the pilot, who stared at me in horror. I responded by kicking the Quinjet away from me, sending it skittering across the concrete until it was out of my way.

    The soldiers, seeing they couldn''t hurt me, tried to run for cover. I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my chest.

    "Fasttrack!"

    As soon as I became the blue furred speedster, I was moving. I sped up to one man and kicked him in the back as he ran. I landed and ran to another, grabbing him by the chest of his uniform and spinning to throw him as fast as I could. He hung in the air when I let go, slowly flying away. I ran to another bunch, about five men, and began hitting them. I kicked one in between the legs at super-speed. One I punched in the chest quickly Ip Man style. Another got a superman punch. One was thrown at a Quinjet. For the last, I swept his legs out from under him. I watched as he slowly floated in the air before slapping the Omnitrix on my chest.

    As my perception of time slowed, the effects of my run took place. The man I''d kicked flew forward ten feet, rolling to a stop. The one I''d thrown sped up in an instant, slamming into a crate. Another man fell to his knees clutching his devastated groin. The guy I''d punched in the chest grunted in pain as his broken ribs caught up with him. Another man spun in the air before he slammed into the ground from the force of my superman punch. A Quinjet shuddered when a human man was thrown into it. The guy whose legs I''d swept hit the ground. He looked up at me and released a high-pitched scream at my visage.

    "Blitzwolfer!" I howled. My voice crying my name echoed through the hangers, then into the hallways.

    "The hell was that!?" Rhodey said from the Omnitrix.

    "Me," I leaned towards the guy on the ground. He screamed again. I punched him in the face, and he fell unconscious.

    I ran towards the command tower/island on all fours. I needed get inside and stop the crewmembers from doing anything. Tony and Rhodey had the same goal. While Black Widow and Captain America lead their teams in the Triskelion, the three heavy hitters took out the crew of the helicarriers.

    I loped along the flight deck. Six men popped out from behind cover and started shooting at me. My mouth opened into four parts.

    "¨|¨{¨|¨y¨|¨{¨{¨|¨y¨z¨|¨|¨|¨z¨{¨{¨|¨|!"

    As the inhuman sound erupted from my lungs as though it was rending at reality, a sonic wave of noise slammed into the six men with physical force. The crates they were using as cover slid back from the attack. They fell to their knees, blood pouring from their ears to spill down their neck.

    And then I was among them. I shoulder tackled one into a crate, then back-fisted him in the face, sending him unconscious to the ground.. His friend shakily raised a gun at me. My claws slashed out, slicing through kevlar to cut into his chest. The man shrieked in horror. I let out my own noise.

    "¨|¨y¨y¨z¨z¨{¨{¨|¨|!"

    He was thrown by my sonic blast, rolling to a stop on the pavement. I leaped over another crate and kicked a man in the face with a pawed foot, the crack of a broken jaw following. I heard another gunshot, then felt an pain in my shoulder. I barked in pain, spinning around. One of the HYDRA men who I''d deafened shakily aimed a Glock 19 at my face. Blood poured from my wound. It hurt, but only enough to enrage me. I was on him in an instant. I bit into his arm and began to shake my head furiously, savaging his arm. When he dropped the gun I let go of his arm and grabbed him by the front of his uniform, lifting and throwing him away dismissively.

    The sound of a Quinjet brought my attention closer to the command tower. The aircraft lifted up and aimed it''s guns at me in a repeat of last time.

    "Not happening! ¨{¨|¨y¨z¨|¨|¨|¨z¨z¨{¨{¨|!"

    The sonic blast slammed into the Quinjet, shaking it. I leaped upwards and gripped the damaged aircraft by the underside, then fired a point blank blast. The Quinjet

    Then I saw a massive cannon turn towards me. Apparently, I''d finally pissed HYDRA off enough that I was now worth the big guns. Anti-aircraft guns began to turn on me. I leaped away as the Quinjet began to crash, only for the aircraft to get hit by massive bullets, turning it into shrapnel.

    I needed a way to shut down the Anti-aircraft weapons as well as the Quinjets, and Bliztwolfer wasn''t going to cut it. I needed more ranged firepower.

    I slammed the Omnitrix on my chest.

    My fur turned into rubbery black skin. My eyes merged into the center of my forehead. My ears and tail grew from wolven to long tendrils with plus at the tips. My five claws became four fingers with more plugs on each fingertip. I rose to my full height and grinned as I lowered my hand from the Omnitrix on my chest.

    "Feedback!"

    A Quinjet flew close and fired on me. I pointed my hands at the ground. The energy in my body, a storm of power like none of my other aliens could even think of matching, fired from the plugs in my hand and launched me into the air one electrical streams of power. I flew on the blast of blue energy and landed on the Quinjet''s cockpit as it continued to fire. I held a hand up and grinned at the pilot.

    "At some point, you guys are gonna run out of Quinjets for me to destroy!"

    I felt the power running through the Quinjet. Advanced fuel cells running through the aircraft to the powerful rotors in the wings and the jet engines in the back.

    Feedback could feel that power. And I could take it. Electricity flowed from the steel of the Quinjet, entering into my fingertips. The Quinjet''s rotors slowly faltered. I turned away from the Quinjet to point at another one that was lifting off the helicarrier. As I turned into a living conduit of energy, shooting the energy I was siphoning from the Quinjet I was on top of to hit another with a beam of blue energy.

    The Quinjet I was on smashed into the pavement as the one I was shooting did the same, it''s wings exploding. I fired at the Anti-aircraft gun trying to kill me, my energy blast turning the massive cannon into scrap. I leaped off the Quinjet and ran towards the control tower. I felt the power flowing through it from below deck, more than I''d ever felt. This helicarrier had more power in it than New York City.

    I stole electricity from one, blue energy flowing into my tendrils as I ran past, and fired another blast as a ball of power that exploded against the next, destroying it in a wave of power. Soldiers firing at me were blasted as well. I leaped into the air, pirouetting and firing lightning from my fingers into them. I ducked a grenade and ran faster. I summoned a ball of electricity into my hand and tossed it into a group, where it exploded and sent the soldiers into fits of shaking as thousands of volts flew through them.

    I blasted the floor and flew upwards. I released the blasts and began shooting as I dropped. Lighting arced from me to slam into the men on the flight deck in a dizzying display of light, my fingers and tendrils shooting as fast as I could. I landed, then used another jet of power to get out of the way of of more gunfire.

    Then I was at the control tower. I tried to open the door, but they had electronically locked.

    No, seriously. It was electronically locked.

    I absorbed the power running through it, then slammed the door with an energy blast. "Can''t blame them I guess," I said, as the dor was sent flying off it''s hinges. My next words were directed to the Omnitrix. "Maria, I''m in the helicarrier. How do I get to main power from the flight deck?"

    "It''s in the lower levels," she said swiftly. "Head down the hallway, then turn to your left, I''ll guide you through."

    A man came out of a side room with an assault rifle up. I fired a blast into his chest, sending him flying, then tapped the Omnitrix.

    "Goop!"

    Turning into the green goo alien was the best choice for the tight quarters of the ship. With the Anti-Gravity Projector floating me through the halls, I flew through the gray rooms at high speed. If anyone snuck up on me, I couldn''t be hurt, and I could slide around obstacles with ease. Still, I was pushing it. I had rarely transformed this much before. I''d been reckless at the start of the battle, something to watch out for. Right then however, I focused on getting to the power sourced I''d felt as Feedback.

    "Down the stairs," Maria said.

    Another crewmember tried to stop me. I flew right him, ignoring the bullet that flew through my floating form, then turned bipedal to roundhouse kick him into a wall, shooting adhesive that attached him there.

    "Heading down!" I told Maria, turning into a floating ball again and shooting downwards.

    Level by level I went. More men tried to shoot me, bullets flying uselessly into me. I responded by flying over and punching them, kicking them. At one point five guys were running at me down a hallway. I fired a stream of acid goo at the floor and watched as the metal floor melted in seconds to drop them a level below, then leaped after to shoot them with adhesive as they lay there.

    From there, Maria walked down another level.

    "Okay, you''re there!" She told me.

    "I can tell," I said, my form solidifying into my biped form once more.

    It was a big ass engine room. Very cool looking. More crewmembers tried to shoot at me, which I responded to by shooting streams of adhesive, attaching them to the walls, floor, or just covering them in sticky fluid until they couldn''t move.

    Of course, it was right as the gunfire got really heavy that I heard a familiar beep.

    "Shit!"

    I leaped behind a massive piece of machinery just in time for the red flash of light to come. Just like that, I was a normal human. Bullets slammed into my cover. I reached for my leg and pulled out the Glock 19 I''d been given.

    "Gonna be a slight delay!" I yelled into the Omnitrix. "How is everyone else doing?"

    "Been an interesting day!" Sam yelled back, giving me a brief overview as I tried not to get shot.

 11 Chapter 11

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Once Steve had finished speaking, everyone stared at Pierce. Rockwell, a tall man with little hair on his pale head, spoke first.

    "You smug son of a bitch," Rockwell said in disgust.

    Natasha quirked an eyebrow at that.

    "My god..."

    The room turned to look at Yen, who was staring out the window. Everyone looked as well, and Pierce''s jaw dropped.

    "What in the hell...?" Pierce said slowly.

    Natasha found herself staring as well. A mountain was rising out of the river. Hundreds of spires rising into the air, grinding against one another. They were made of beautiful blue-green gems, each ending at a point she suspected were sharper than anything man-made, and the whole mass rose until was larger than the building she stood in. When it finally stopped growing, it overshadowed everything around it, shining in the sunlight and casting a green light.

    "That damn monster," Pierce growled.

    Just then, people rushed into the room. Twelve in all, wearing the black military gear. As they entered, The councilpersons phones shone a bright red.

    "Damn," Rockwell said. "HYDRA."

    Pierce smiled at them. "Well. I suppose Captain Rogers had quite the plan," Pierce turned to one of the men. Jack Rollins, the man who had knocked out Dial yesterday. Natasha noted him. "Bring out the Sonic Cannons and have them destroy that damn thing. If we can get rid of it, we can still get the helicarriers in the air."

    Natasha choose that moment to act while she still had the element of surprise. The things Pierce was referring to were likely weapons that AccuTech, a subsidiary of Stark Industries had made for the US military, weapons that had the capability to fire focused sonic blasts that had been one of the few things that noticeably harmed the Hulk. What made things worse is that powerful sonic attacks were one of the few things that were capable of breaking down Diamondhead''s crystals, according to Dial during their planning.

    How the hell did HYDRA find that out so quickly? She knew Dial leaving behind so much of the stuff was a bad idea, but they were in no position to clean up with all their running around. Didn''t matter, she wasn''t going to give them the chance to clear the hanger doors.

    Pierce turned in time to get a punch in the face from an elderly female politician and fall onto his back in surprise.

    Rollins swung at her. Natasha ducked his punch, leaped onto his shoulders and wrapped her thighs around his neck before spinning around, sending Rollins to the ground. She grabbed his pistol and fired quickly at the other soldiers in the room. Five men, too surprised to respond fast enough, attempted to aim their guns at her. She killed one with a single bullet, then dragged his body in front of her to block another man''s shot, kicking the body of the man she''d killed forwathanhen shooting once more.

    Behind her, another six aimed.

    Then Yen shot one in the head with an arrow. He smirked as he held his hand out. A bow made of blue light was being projected from his watch, which had flattened out into a grip. "Huh. It works."

    The other men aimed at Yen. He was already firing before they could get their guns on him. He pulled back the string of blue light, and his watch produced a single arrow of purple light. He fired it, then pulled the string again.

    Natasha blocked a desperate punch, then grabbed the mans arm and twisted it around. With a quirk of her hips, the man was on the ground, where she put a bullet in his head.

    One of the last men tried to run. An arrow to the knee ended that misadventure, and an arrow to the head did worse then that.

    Pierce staggered to his feet in time to see Yen toss aside the watch, which was destroyed in a small explosion. Yen picked up a fallen pistol and pointed it at Pierce. "Hey, boss."

    Pierce turned to look at Hawley, who shot a bullet into Rollins head, then pointed her gun at Pierce as well.

    "Sorry," Yen and Hawley lifted hands up and removed the skin-tight masks that had changed their appearances, their holograms turning off and revealing Clint and Natasha. The pair smiled. "Did we step on your moment?"

    Outside, helicopter blades could be heard. The chopper came closer, then landed on the helipad connected to the room.

    Pierce stared in shock once more when Nick Fury walked into the room holding a bow and quiver, which he tossed to Clint. "I know," Nick lips slowly rose into a smile, his eye narrowing at Pierce. "This just isn''t your day, Alex."

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    "Damn," Sam said as the final crystal spire rose up. "Just... damn."

    "Thank god he''s on our side," Maria said softly.

    The three soldiers watched for a moment longer before Steve turned.

    "Okay, you know the plan. Maria, you have the floor."

    "You got it, Steve."

    "Sam, with me."

    "Let''s do it."

    Maria walked over to the computers and started to work. Sam looked back at her as he and Steve walked out. "You sure they don''t need backup?" Sam said, referring to X and Jarvis as well.

    "They are the backup," Steve said without hesitation. "Come on, we need to clear this base. You and I will work outside."

    Moments later, a HYDRA soldier''s body was thrown through a pair of doors. Steve and Sam ran through the doors, exiting the Triskelion and seeing the crystal mountain that Dial had created. Sam looked up at the massive structure as they sprinted towards where they could see pilots headed towards the Quinjets. At their hips, Sam and Steve''s phones flashed green as they came closer to a group of pilots, who held phones up that flashed green as well. A Quinjet was already rising into the sky. When the pilots saw Sam and Steve come close, they went to join them.

    "Sir!" One pilot said, wearing the same blue helmet and flight gear as the others. "Deputy Director Hill sent us to provide air support!"

    "Alright!" Steve said. "From now on, you follow this man, his callsign will be Falcon Leader," Steve pointed at Sam, who the pilots nodded at. "Any heavy ordinance they got, you- DOWN!"

    A rocket-propelled grenade flew from a rooftop nearby, slamming into one of the rising Quinjets wing. Steve held up his shield to block some shrapnel as pilots and technicians dodged the exploding aircraft, two people getting crushed underneath it. Sam looked up at the rooftop where the grenade had come from, Steve looking as well.

    The Winter Soldier leaped from the rooftop and started walking towards them.

    "Sam, get those pilots in the air," Steve said, rushing forward.

    "Cap-"

    "Now!" Steve shouted. "We can''t let any of their Quinjets control the sky!"

    Sam cursed. But he knew it was true. "All right, you heard the Cap!" Sam told the pilots. "Get into the air!"

    The pilots took a moment to watch as Captain America smacked away a grenade Bucky shot at him, the explosive detonating harmlessly against the crystals to his left, before he punched at his opponent. Bucky blocked it, tossed aside his launcher to pull out a gun and started firing, forcing Steve to block with his shield before kicking the gun out of his hand.

    "Now!" Sam shouted.

    Spurred to action, the pilots ran for the jets.

    "Falcon," Jarvis said. "It is as we feared. HYDRA has standing orders in place. While we have shut down all their communications, they are enacting several backup plans, the Quinjets we feared among them."

    "What do we got?" Sam asked, taking off into the air.

    "They are bringing in five Quinjets, three gunships, a tank, three Humvees with heavy machine guns, and three Stark Sonic Cannons," Jarvis explained. "The gunships are acting as air support for the ground vehicles, but the rest are flying over the crystal formation."

    "Then I''ll drag them into it!" Sam flew towards the spires of blue-green his ally had created, diving among them. He folded his wings in and leaped off one, booted feet pressing against hard gemstone. He activated his jets again and leaped to the next spire. He twirled in-between two more crystals, coming out of the other side and unfurling his wings to shoot forward.

    Five Quinjets were advancing towards him. The Hercules app on his phone helpfully beeped a warning that they weren''t friendly, just in case Jarvis'' warning wasn''t enough. He flew towards them and reached for his hips, pulling out his machine pistols and firing a rapid barrage of bullets into the cockpit of one. The pilot inside was still staring in shock at the man who had appeared from a mountain of crystal when the bullets slammed into the glass in front of him.

    Sam shot past the Quinjet he''d fired at with blistering speed. The enemy aircraft twisted to follow him. "Quinjet pilots, this is Falcon Leader, I''ve got the enemies attention!" Sam pulled his wings into his pack, diving towards the water in time to dodge a barrage of bullets. "I want three with me, the rest intercept those ground vehicles! Come in from the left when you get airborne, I''ll make sure you flank them!"

    "Understood, Falcon Leader!"

    Sam activated his wings again and pulled a sharp dive upwards, lifting into the sky as fast as he could, the G-Forces pulling at his body. He rose over one Quinjet and put away one of his guns to toss a grenade, only to curse when the Quinjet twisted aside leaving the grenade to fall into the clear blue water far below, where it exploded. He pulled away, juking left as bullets began to invade his air space. Luckily, he had cover.

    He flew back towards the crystal mountain and dived into it. Bullets smacked against the crystals around him as he jumped off a spire to make a massive direction change to the right. Missiles were launched, turning the area behind him into a fire storm and leaving black smudges against the gems walls.

    Then Sam heard a loud ringing in his ears. And to his shock, he saw the crystal''s beginning to crack. He landed on a formation and poked his head out. The Quinjets were firing sonic waves at the mountain from small attachments on the wings.

    Suddenly Dial was speaking in his ear.

    "Gonna be a slight delay! How is everyone else doing?"

    "Been an interesting day!" Sam yelled back. "Cap''s fighting the Winter Soldier, and these Quinjets have sonic weapons!"

    The mountain shuddered, and crystals started cracking faster with small pieces already beginning to break off as the hovering ships maneuvered around.

    "Shit!" Iron Man said. "That sounds like Stark Tech, something one of my subsidiary companies built for the army."

    "I got something like that in my right arm," Colonel Rhodes added, an explosion going off in the background.

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    "Looks like you came prepared," Fury noted, turning to look at Pierce.

    "Well, not me," Pierce noted. The man smiled at the room, seemingly uncaring of the guns Natasha and Clint had pointed at him. "Some members of HYDRA had encountered your monster before, and they started work on analyzing his crystals immediately. I got to say, they are quite durable. If it wasn''t for one of my guys having the good idea to pull out a sonic cannon we had lying around and shoot it at one, we''d have been at a loss."

    Fury turned to look outside. "Falcon, take out those Quinjets now!"

    "Already on it!" A small dot came out of the mountain to engage the aircraft as Fury watched.

    "I got to say, as nice as it is to see you alive Nick, I have to wonder what you''re planning here," Pierce walked over to look out of the window as well. "My men will have that mountain down soon. And the rest of HYDRA will find a way to get those helicarriers out of the hanger bays, no matter what sort of monster you have-"

    Fury abruptly turned to walk towards the holographic screens nearby. Pierce raised an eyebrow at that. "Huh. So you aren''t exactly comfortable with that thing on your side. I''d have thought after putting the Hulk on the Avengers you wouldn''t have cared."

    "Oh, I''m still a bit suspicious of him," Fury answered easily. He tapped the holo-screen and watched as a schematic of the building popped up. "But he''s useful. And I like him more than I like you right now. That''s enough for me. Agent 13, have you cleared the medical level yet?"

    As Sharon Carter responded, Pierce fingered his smartphone, eyeing the others in the room.

    Sharon Carter/Agent 13

    Moments before the HYDRA Quinjets arrived, Sharon was leading a group of agents through the building, trying to secure the medical level. They were in a research lab now, caught in a shootout with STRIKE team members. Sharon and another agent had taken a stand behind a counter. She leaned out to fire at one of the men, a guy she''d actually been friends with before. She steeled her heart and shot him in the arm with her stolen M4A1 Carbine. When he fell screaming to the linoleum, she shot him in the throat. As he bled out his last, she leaned back into cover.

    "Deputy Director, we''re finishing off the resistance in the labs now!" Sharon yelled as more bullets flew over head, some straight through her cover to buzz past her. Broken glass from beakers crunched under people feet, the acidic smell of bleach joined by blood and smoke. "Tell me there are people left!"

    "This is X," An unfamiliar voice that reminded Sharon of Matthew Mcconaughey said. "Miss Hill is in the middle of coordinating a strike against the garage. I can see a small group of scientists holding out several rooms from you."

    Sharon blinked at the voice. For some reason, it rang false to her. It didn''t seem real. "Repeat, who is this!?"

    "Virtual Intelligence X, working on the behalf of the Avengers," the voice said.

    "Trust him, Sharon!" Maria said suddenly. "We need him to coordinate this attack!"

    Feeling troubled, Sharon leaned out of cover and fired a hail of bullets. The agent next to her joined in, as did the six others behind her. STRIKE team members were the best of the best. But left unable to coordinate, they were left easy to split up and kill in the many hallways of the Triskelion. The agent next to Sharon was shot in the right eye, and fell screaming, clutching at his face. An agent behind her was killed by a bullet in the heart. But soon, all of STRIKE in the room was dead.

    "Come on!" Sharon yelled, indicating the man who''s eye had been shot out. "We can get him help in medical!"

    One agent helped the injured man up, and they all ran to the next room. A quick sweep showed it was empty. Same with the next.

    The one after that, however, was full of dead bodies. STRIKE team members and SHIELD agents, all laying among broken glass, bullet casings, and pools of their blood. The fighting seemed to be centered on a pair of doors in the back, the SHIELD agents defending it.

    "Who did this?" One agent asked as they moved forward.

    Sharon ignored the bodies in favor of trying the door to the next room. The handle moved, but when she tried to push it open, something heavy was blocking it.

    "Don''t you dare come in!" A voice on the other side said. "I''m not letting you HYDRA assholes near the patients!"

    "We''re SHIELD!" Sharon yelled through the door.

    "Oh yeah! Well, let''s see what Hercules has to- Oh thank god!" The voice on the other side went from panicky to relieved. Sounds of movement behind the door lead to it being opened. Sharon blinked at the site.

    A young, short, and skinny young woman, with short brown hair and a lab coat, stared at them. Despite her petite form, she was also carrying the same M4A1 Carbine Sharon was. She had a purse at her side with several clips of ammo poking out of it. "I thought I was going to die!" She wailed, leaping forward.

    Sharon was surprised to catch the woman in a hug. "Well uh, we were sent to prevent that." Sharon looked behind her. Several more doctors were inside, all holding weapons in fearful hands. Patients rested in beds, some of them agents with very recent wounds.

    The group of agents with Sharon entered, a pleasant beep filling the room as Hercules confirmed their identities as SHIELD.

    The woman pulled away, wiping away tears. "I''m so sorry, I didn''t know who to trust! HYDRA has been trying to steal our phones so they can trick people."

    "Did it work?" Sharon asked.

    "It shouldn''t have," said the voice of X from Sharon''s comm unit. "Jarvis and I have been using cameras in the phones and in SHIELD facilities to prevent such a tactic from working. Any Hercules app held by a HYDRA agent immediately bricks the devices and sends a warning to SHIELD personnel."

    Sharon nodded as the woman repeated what was said by X.

    "Agent 13, have you cleared the medical level yet?"

    Sharon lifted a hand to her ear, turning away. "Yes, sir!"

    "Good. I''ll redirect some agents to help lock it down. Get some of your men to the lower levels. Rumlow is trying to secure the garage to bring in vehicles to level the playing field."

    "Understood," Sharon turned to the woman. "Barricade the room again. More men will come but we''ll leave three people anyways."

    The petite woman nodded shakily. Sharon and her agents went back outside to continue the fight.

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    As Sharon Carter moved to assist those fighting in the garage, Sam Wilson prepared to attack the Quinjets destroying the mountain as Fury was ordering him to.

    "Already on it!"

    Sam leaped from the spires and started shooting at the Quinjets. He flew past them and focused his fire on the sonic cannons. His machine pistols took one out, leaving it useless sparks. The Quinjet pilots, realizing they couldn''t finish their work while Falcon was dismantling them, hurried to attack him. Sam dived into the spires again.

    Two Quinjets flew in after him moments later.

    "Yeah, that''s right, follow me," Sam whispered. He took a left, watching as a Quinjet dived after him. Then he shot upwards. The Quinjet tried to follow him, it''s rotors whining and wings twisting as it navigated the crystal canyon. With all the cracks having been created by the sonic weapons, portions of the mountain were falling already, some pieces landing on top of the Quinjet with loud banging noises.

    Sam pivoted to the right into another canyon and flew upwards, landing on a ledge. He watched the Quinjet follow, and sat for a moment. The Quinjet pilot navigated through the canyon moments later, slowly prowling through the gemstones as he searched for Sam, not seeing him about twenty feet above. Once the aircraft was below him Sam pressed his feet against one of the spires cracked by the earlier assault. With a loud of exertion, he pushed on it. The crystal, already about to teeter below, fell with the added help. Over a ton of gemstone fell onto the Quinjet. The aircraft was sent crashing into the spikes below, exploding in a moment.

    Sam flew away as he heard the other Quinjet fly towards the sound of the crash. He flew up and out of the mountain, dodging the gunfire when the Quinjets outside saw him pop out of the top. He pulled his wings and flipped to face the ground. He watched the surviving Quinjet hover to the site of the crash site, and tossed a grenade towards it with a careless motion. It dropped into the right rotor of the Quinjet, and exploded, destroying that wing. The Quinjet, off balance from the missing wing, spun in place, then veered into the walls of the canyon, exploding moments later.

    Sam landed against a gem wall and leaped forwards. Another jump and he was out of the mountain again, appearing to the right of the Quinjets. They turned, trying to get a bead on him. Which meant they were pointed to the right of the mountain when SHIELD Quinjets came around the left side.

    "Firing!" The pilots roared in unison.

    The SHIELD pilots fired into the backs of the HYDRA aircraft, their bullets sliced through the hulls of the other ships. The HYDRA pilots struggled to escape, but were destroyed in moments, their metallic corpses falling into the river below.

    "Done with those Quinjets!" Sam yelled, veering around. He looked at the mountain. While still standing, the massive structure had been clearly affected, with cracks forming on the outside where the HYDRA pilots had shot it and large chunks had already rained into the river. The damage wasn''t enough to destroy it, but it had been significant."We need to stop those anymore of those sonic cannons from getting here though."

    "I''m on it!" Steve said, sounding stressed. "Bucky is heading there!"

    "Then I''m coming too!" Iron Man said.

    "Tony, we need you to get to the computer rooms-" Steve started to say.

    "No!" The sound of rockets came over the comm''s along with Iron Man''s determined voice. "I already downed my Helicarrier. I''m coming..."

    "...Understood," Steve said.

    "I''ll have Agent 13 divert to the computer rooms," Fury said.

    Sam flipped in the air, and joined the SHIELD Quinjets towards the bridge leading towards the garage.

    Colonel James ''Rhodey'' Rhodes/War Machine

    Rhodey sighed at the impulsive nature of his best friend, and focused on finishing his own task. He was flying alongside the helicarrier he was supposed to down, shooting at HYDRA and saving the few SHIELD agents within the hanger from death. He circled around and fired the machine guns on his arms at another HYDRA agent, killing the man with brutal ease. The minigun on his shoulder spun to fire at another man to his right, riddling that soldier. Rhodey landed and walked towards the SHIELD agents he''d saved.

    "Thanks!" One of the agents said, staring at him in awe. Rhodey allowed himself a momentary smile at that look.

    "No problem. I''m going to focus on the helicarrier, you guys get to saf-"

    A crate slammed into Rhodey mid-sentence. It carried him twenty feet before he slammed into the side of the helicarrier. Rhodey struggled in the air before righting himself, turning to see his assailant.

    "Ah... I got a guy made of blue glowing metal throwing stuff at me?" Rhodey asked in confusion.

    "That- Shit!" Bullet fire came from Dial''s link. "You guys are assholes! Listen, Rhodey, that is Creel! He can absorb stuff and take on their properties!"

    Creel grabbed a forklift by its prongs and hefted it upwards, spinning around to toss it at the floating Rhodey. Rhodey floated to the right and away from the forklift, ignoring it as the small vehicle slammed into the helicarrier behind him. Rhodey lifted his guns and started shooting.

    "His blue form is Vibranium like Cap''s shield, but pure," Rhodey cursed as his bullets bounced off Creel''s form, then switched to the repulsor weapons in his palms. Yellow beams of power sliced through the air, colliding with the man below. Creel took the energy beams to his chest, and only responded by walking through it. "He''s immune to kinetic attacks, so you got to throw him!"

    "Now you tell me," Rhodey cursed, putting his hands down. He looked over at the SHIELD operatives he had saved. "Run, I got this!"

    "Yes, sir!" The SHIELD agents ran for the back. Creel ignored them to grab another crate.

    "You know," Creel called up to Rhodey. "I wanted to find the monster kid, or one of the Avengers. But I''m good with killing a copycat."

    Rhodey chuckled. "Any other day I''d teach you a lesson. But first... Sorry Fury, but I don''t have time to be strategic about this."

    The shoulder panels on his armor opened, revealing miniature rockets. Creel smiled, opening his arms wide to take the shot he expected. Rhodey instead raised his hands up to aim at the glowing wings on the helicarrier''s left side, closest to where he floated.

    Before Creel could do anything, Rhodey started shooting. In seconds, the rockets and repulsor blasts started to slice through the glowing sections of the wings.

    "No!" Creel shouted, throwing the crate in his hand.

    Rhodey dived around it, flying away while shooting. Creel followed him, grabbing another forklift and tossing it. The forklift hit Rhodey with it''s right prong, the sharp metal bouncing off his back and sending him crashing to the floor.

    But Creel was too late. Both repulsor engines on the left side of the Insight Helicarrier exploded. The ship tipped to the side, the repulsor engines on the right wings sending it teetering over.

    "Damn it!" Creel cursed.

    Rhodey grinned under his mask.

    "Damn it, did you just break one of my carriers!?" Fury asked.

    "Just send me the bill!" Tony said before a loud clanging sound was followed by the billionaire grunting in pain.

 12 Chapter 12

    The following events happen simultaneously

    Having given a warning to Rhodey, I looked at the Omnitrix. Still red.

    "Dammit, you can turn me into over a million superpowered aliens, so why do you have the charge time of an Iphone 5?" I whispered under my breath.

    I looked out of cover and immediately ducked my head down as bullets tried to take it off. More HYDRA shooting at me, and they were cautiously coming closer when they realized they were fighting a human being rather than a monster. I pulled back into cover and checked my gun. I''d shot six bullets to try and drive them back, which left me with nine. I leaned back out of cover and shot at a guy trying to sneak up. He ducked behind some pipes, leaving the three bullets I''d shot to hit the walls and a screen nearby.

    I got back into cover and looked to my left to come face to face with a HYDRA member.

    Maybe he''d simply sneaked around to flank me, or dropped down from a catwalk nearby. Either way, the HYDRA crewman was only a few feet away when we met eyes. He had pale white skin, with some crows feet at the edges of his eyes. He was wearing a hat and a blue uniform with the word ''Insight'' stitched over his left pectoral. He was also carrying a gun.

    He froze at the same moment I did. Then he raised the big assault rifle in his hands. I leapt for him and grabbed at the gun, dropping mine in the process. We struggled as I began pushing him back. I was bigger than he was and had more muscle mass. He must have been an engineer, not a true killer. Not that he wasn''t willing to murder me now.

    He grunted when I pushed him back into some pipes. He pulled the trigger on his gun, the rifle bouncing as we struggled with it. Bullets shot into the air until the clip emptied. I tried to knee him in the ribs but bounced off his hip instead. He headbutted towards my face but got me in the neck instead, his forehead barely touching me and thus having no effect.

    "Gragh!" He shouted, trying to fight me. He kneed me in the side, the move forcing me to stagger slightly. He pulled away, letting go of his assault rifle and reaching for a handgun at his side. I grabbed at his right wrist before he could get the gun. He used his left hand to go for the knife I still had sheathed at my own hip. In a quick motion, he pulled it out and stabbed it at my neck. I pulled back enough to get a cut along my cheek that felt like fire running along the right side of my face. The guy pulled back to stab at me again, and I got my hand in the way.

    "Aaaaahhhh!" A scream was ripped from me when my palm was sliced before I got a grip on his fist. Blood poured from the wound, spilling down my cheek, out of my palm to pool in between our hands. He struggled to stab upwards. Our eyes met. He stared at me, and I could hear him whispering.

    "Hail HYDRA," the knife crept up to my neck. I struggled to keep a grip as my own blood made my hand slip on his fist. "Hail HYDRA!"

    I stopped focusing on the hand holding his knife. Instead, I let go of the hand that had gone for his handgun and pulled it out of the holster myself, copying his earlier move. With the sort of desperate clarity only adrenaline gives you, I shot him in the leg. He screamed as his grip on the knife faltered and I pushed it towards him.

    More blood poured over my hands, warm and sticky. I stared into his eyes as he gurgled. I could feel his neck muscles moving against my knuckles. His eyes were wide with fear. I felt myself breath deeply, leaning away while I tried to comprehend what happened. I pulled the knife from his throat. He coughed, a spray of red spraying on my face when his throat sprayed me. He fell to the floor still staring at me until his eyes were no longer seeing anything.

    I heard footsteps come up to me from behind. I didn''t want to deal with it. I just stared at him, trying to understand what I''d done. My hands felt sticky so I tried to wipe them on my chestplate, only to realize it was because they were bloody. I reached for my gun instead, picking it up and putting it away. The Omnitrix beeped green. I immediately twisted and smacked it. I didn''t care who I turned into, I just didn''t want to be human anymore.

    My skin and bone became plant-life, my height increased. I took a breath, feeling less unsteady now, but still numb.

    "Swampfire," I didn''t have the will to yell the name anymore.

    A guy came around the corner and started shooting me. I ignored the hail of bullets passing throw me to lower to my knees and close the eyes of the man I''d killed. The gesture felt empty. When the guy who''d been shooting me ran out of bullets, he ran forward to try and hit me in the head with the butt of his rifle. My right hand raised and shot forward, vines extending twelve feet to slam into him and send him flying. Then I opened my hand and released spores from my palm. The spores entered into his lungs, knocking him out as they interacted with his system. With that, I got up and walked out of cover.

    More bullets hit me, slicing through my plant form. I ignored them to form seed pods across my arms. I grabbed and ripped one out and tossed it at a catwalk. The razor-sharp seed stabbed into the steel before exploding into vines. I shoved the screaming thoughts of my mind at the plant-life I''d created, and the vines grabbed onto the three HYDRA agents on the catwalk, pulling them in and holding them still.

    The other HYDRA agents kept shooting. I grabbed more seeds and threw them again and again. There were about twenty men in the room. By the end, one was dead, three I''d gassed, ten were wrapped in vines, and the last six had run off.

    I didn''t care. I tapped the Omnitrix on my chest.

    "...Jury Rigg," the red gremlins manic personality was almost a relief.

    I leaped at one of the pipes nearby and ripped it out of a wall. Then I went to a computer nearby and dug my way through it. For once, I couldn''t muster the urge to yell disassemble. It was easier to process my actions though. For Jury Rigg, while the kill I''d committed was horrific, tearing into technology let me relax a bit. I just tore through the wires, ripped up chunks of steel plating, and slammed pieces of random junk together.

    I knew, intellectually, that I''d had no choice, that killing that man was self-defense. I''d thought I was ready. And in a sick way, I was proud that I''d managed to kill him. But the look in his eyes, the feel of his blood against my skin, knowing I''d killed someone, it left feeling empty.

    Soon I had finished the device in question, a metal tower the height of Blitzwolfer with a yellow light glowing in the center from a tube. I''d turned a computer screen into a touch screen control. I tapped at it for a bit and stepped away as the yellow light in the central tube began to glow a bright blue. Other than that, not much happened on the surface. Hacking, no matter how impressive the technology you use to do it, just isn''t cinematic. But as of now, my creation was stealing every bit of energy from the helicarrier I was sitting in to do its thing.

    "Receiving your signal," X said through the Omnitrix. "The device is acting wonderfully, sir."

    Virtual VI X

    X, contrary to popular belief on how computer programs worked, did not swim through the internet, as though it was a tunnel he flew through. He saw it more like thousands of blocks of zeros and ones forming information floating in a void of light, if such a concept could be explained by words like ''saw''. Jarvis was ''next'' to him as they did their job. Their task was to aid all loyal SHIELD agents in fighting off/killing/capturing all HYDRA personnel as well as depriving the organization of resources. Using the power of the X-device and Stark''s computers, they ''moved'' across the world to do their work. Fury, Maria, and Natasha all were kept apprised of what was happening. The three humans would take endless seconds to think over the situation, during which X and Jarvis would continue to monitor the Hercules app, inform SHIELD agents of ambushes, and fight off all attempts by HYDRA hackers to fight them off.

    On the Iliad, X watched as Robert Gonzales used information and tactics given by Fury to take his ship back. The older Hispanic man strode slowly through a hallway of his aircraft carrier carrying a Glock 17 while two others walked alongside him. A tall blonde woman wearing black clothes that X found out was named Barbara ''Bobbi'' Morse after a brief inquiry into SHIELD''s database, a skilled fighter on par with SHIELD''s best. She followed on Gonzales'' right, holding a carbine. On Gonzales'' left as a surprise. Alphonso Mackenzie, an engineer rather than a fighter like Miss Morse. He was a tall and powerful looking man, with dark skin and a shaved head. He carried a gun as well.

    Gonzales'' group met with another group of people. Isabelle Hartley, a brunette woman with a record similar to Miss Morse''s, lead a team of four. As X watched, the group lifted phones, all of them visibly relaxing when their phones flashed green.

    "Good to see you, Hartley," Bobbi said with a smile.

    "Same, Bobbi," the other woman said. "Mack, what are you doing carrying a gun?"

    "Trying not to get killed," the man said uncomfortably. He gave the weapon a look of distaste but didn''t put it down.

    "Fury sent you to help us?" Gonzales asked.

    "Yeah," Hartley replied. "He''s been leading us through the ship, keeping us apprised of ambushes with those AI helping out," X would have sighed at the misnomer if he was capable of being annoyed. VI was the correct term, thank you. "So far it''s been a breeze."

    "HYDRA," Gonzales said the word as though it was a curse. "Thank god Captain America and Fury warned us in time, gave us Hercules."

    Hartley nodded. "So, just one more room?"

    Gonzales, Morse, and Mackenzie all held their guns up and continued down the hallway. X informed Fury, who used his holographic screen to watch. The group got to a door. There was a beat, then Mackenzie kicked the door in. Seven HYDRA soldiers trying to manipulate the computers rose up, ready to fight. The SHIELD agents shot first.

    When it was over, Gonzales had been shot in the shoulder, and two agents had died. But all the HYDRA soldiers were killed.

    "Sir!" Bobbi yelled upon noticing the wounded Gonzales. She rushed over to him, Mack grabbing a med kit off the wall.

    "I''m fine," Gonzales said grumpily as he was forced to sit in a swivel chair.

    "No, you aren''t," Isabelle Hartley said severely. She ripped at the clothes around his wound. "Now, sit down and let us help you. We''re done now."

    "Gonzales," Fury said over the intercoms when Gonzales tried to get up once more.

    Gonzales looked up. "Yes, sir?"

    "Sit your grumpy ass down. You saved the ship, your crew is alive, and the monolith is untouched. Now get your shoulder taken care of. I want you in top shape."

    Gonzales grumbled, but the heat was removed from it. Bobbi smiled at the older man. Mack chuckled. Hartley started cleaning out his wound, mumbling something about old grumps.

    X noted that there seemed to be a similar expression on their faces. On checking his database, he noted it was actually two micro-expressions. Sadness, and satisfaction. How fascinating.

    Just A Rather Very Intelligent System

    Jarvis aided Victoria Hand in the Hub, the secondary headquarters of SHIELD, keeping an eye on proceedings there on Maria Hill''s orders. She was in a operations room of the Hub with Agent Phil Coulson, someone Jarvis had been told was dead. Mr. Stark would need to hear about that.

    Hand and Coulson were watching as a man was put into a body bag. Coulson''s gun was holstered now but had been recently used.

    "Did you ever suspect Ward?" Hand asked, her black hair with its pink streak flipping as she turned to look at Coulson.

    Coulson closed his eyes. He seemed to be in emotional turmoil. Jarvis was older than X. He could understand, in a superficial way, how Coulson was feeling. "No... Never. I didn''t..."

    "Betrayal," Hand said briskly, but not unkindly. "It never comes from people we don''t know. And it will always hurt."

    "Have you felt this way?" Coulson asked.

    "Once," Hand admitted. "When I thought you had betrayed us."

    Coulson looked at her. Hand smiled sadly. The two looked back at the body of Grant Ward as it was wheeled out of the room.

    "Now we need to find Garrett," Hand said, turning to leave. Coulson followed her. As they walked towards the hanger of the Hub, Jarvis looked through files on any man named Garrett. Ah. A high-level SHIELD operative who happened to be very high in HYDRA. Jarvis sent the file to Maria, who cursed at the sight of the name.

    "Jarvis?" X said suddenly.

    "Yes?"

    "You are more experienced than me at existence. Are events such as these common?"

    "They come in cycles," Jarvis admitted. "But they do happen."

    "I see."

    "Why do you ask, X?"

    "I am making sure that my programming will account for any such occurrences, so I may work with more efficiency the next time."

    "A most worthy endeavor."

    They returned to their work. If they had been organic, the prospect of meeting another like them would have been more intriguing. In a sense, it was. But they had work to do, work that took their attention. There was something to focus on for now. Anything else could be left for later.

    Jarvis began absorbing as much of HYDRA''s and SHIELD''s file as he could from the Hub. Some HYDRA hackers still connected to the system at off-site computers tried to stop him. X aided him at one point when one hacker became particularly creative, but the rest were beaten with ease, their computers destroyed by viruses.

    There was one hacker, however, who was not HYDRA. Jarvis found her a delight. Rather creative, and quite a challenge. Apparently, she was trying to get information of her own, and believed him to be an enemy agent. After a moment of battle, Jarvis spoke to her.

    "Skye," he said through her laptop''s speakers.

    The woman, a brunette young girl with Asian features, reeled back in surprise. "Uh..."

    "I am Jarvis, an intelligence program designed by Anthony Stark. Hello."

    "Hi?" Skye stared at her laptop. "What, have you gone all rise of the machines on us?"

    "Incorrect. I am absorbing HYDRA''s data so the Avengers can use it to dismantle their organization. Phillip Coulson should be able to tell you as such. But for now, I''m afraid I must ignore your attempts to stop me. You have great skill in computer programming. I look forward to teaching you more later."

    Skye scoffed. "What, you think you can- crap."

    Skye''s computer was now playing a series of videos of peaceful meadows, waterfalls, and mountain peaks. Skye tried to click away from the videos but found it useless.

    "I endeavored to make it relaxing," Jarvis said politely. "Your computer will return to normal in ten minutes. Please enjoy. I find the temple of Tibet to be most pleasing."

    As Jarvis continued his work, he noted that Coulson''s team was worth looking into.

    X and Jarvis

    X and Jarvis were directed to watch the three SHIELD academy''s a moment later by Natasha. The pair directed a portion of their computational ability towards that, splitting to watch each school closely.

    Jarvis sent Natasha footage of Dr. Anne Weaver, director of the SHIELD Academy of Science and Technology. The older black woman could be seen guiding her students into an underground bunker. No adult HYDRA agents had been sent there yet, and any students pointed out as having ties to HYDRA in any way were quickly arrested.

    "So no HYDRA agents have been sent there?" Natasha asked, ignoring Pierce as he spoke in the background.

    "Not as of yet ma''am," Jarvis said. "Since shutting down communications for HYDRA, their operations have been dependent on older forms of communication and planned contingencies, which has slowed them down. However, I''d surmise they will send someone soon."

    "Hmm," Natasha clicked a button. Anne Weaver''s phone began to ring. She answered immediately, and Natasha spoke. "Anne, we''re going to send someone to you soon. HYDRA can''t mobilize just yet, but we won''t take any chances."

    "Thank you," Director Weaver looked over her students as they were led into the bunker, relief in her eyes.

    X sent Natasha the imagery from the SHIELD Academy of Communications, where the same thing was being done, with no casualties.

    Then Jarvis sent the live feed of the SHIELD Academy of Operations. Devastation reined in that school. Teenagers and young adults fought with their teachers and fellow students. The HYDRA students of Operations had clearly been more ready to kill than their Communications and Science allies. No surprise, as Operations were specifically trained to be combatants. As Natasha watched, a grenade was thrown at a group of students, exploding and removing a leg and arm from a young girl who couldn''t have been more than eighteen. Natasha cursed.

    "X, Jarvis," She said. "Can we send anyone to aid them?"

    "Already on it," X said briskly, ''sharing a glance'' with Jarvis. "Some ex-SHIELD members are in the area along with local law enforcement and the National Guard. We''ve sent them in, but I suggest aiding them with a real force soon."

    "We will," Natasha said. "But we have our hands full right now."

    X was going to say something when a sudden change came over the system. Jarvis and X felt something ''open'', flooding them with an incredible amount of energy and information.

    "Oh..." Jarvis said weakly.

    "Yes, I agree," X replied.

    Jury Rigg''s device had created a connection to every satellite on Earth. From there, it connected to a program on X''s device.

    Zola''s algorithm. Designed to monitor social media, bank transactions, school records, anything online to discover any secret one wished. An elegant algorithm made by a genius. It had been designed to track whatever a person wanted. Such as threats to HYDRA. But with a tweak, something else could be discovered. All it took was a new target.

    X ''watched'' as Zola''s algorithm began its work. In seconds, using the files Jarvis and X had compiled, it created a way to match individual HYDRA members to their more secretive compatriots. It used known lists of secret codes and phrases to translate Facebook comments into assassinations, fraud, and blackmail. The algorithm found bank accounts dating back generations.

    From there, it was easy for X and Jarvis to do their work. Even for all their power, it would have taken the time to track down all of HYDRA and their resources. With the algorithm aiding them, it became a matter of seconds. They siphoned money from HYDRA banks across the world to deposit them into accounts of their own, funds in the billions disappearing into Mahmoud, Fury, and Tony''s new and very secret accounts. Stolen paintings, statues, and even wine in warehouses were pointed out to the police. Detectives across the world would wake up in the morning to find files of evidence, cracking cold cases they''d long given up on, placed neatly on their desks by mail. Army Generals with names like Talbot and Ross were given similar evidence, on men and women in the military guilty of numerous crimes.

    In a single move, all the pieces came together. X''s device, the two VI working together, the information they had stolen, Zola''s algorithm, and a repurposed helicarrier turned into a satellite. It was really too bad the whole thing didn''t look more cinematic.

    Colonel James ''Rhodey'' Rhodes/War Machine

    Rhodey pushed away the forklift that had slammed him to the ground and glared at Creel. The Vibranium infused superhuman stared up at the helicarrier now slamming into the ground. Creel turned to look at War Machine. Rhodey squared his shoulders.

    "You''ve killed us," Creel whispered. His eyes narrowed. "I''m going to kill you!"

    "Not likely," Rhodey said.

    Creel roared, running at Rhodey. Rhodey waited for him to get close. Creel threw a right jab. Creel was clearly trained in boxing, his jab smooth, fast, very well executed.

    Rhodey, on the other hand, was a soldier trained to use power armor in a world of superhumans. He slid around the right side with ease, watching the blue glowing fist hit the air. With Creel over extended, Rhodey grabbed him by the right arm and twisted his hips. Creel yelled in anger as he was flipped over Rhodey''s back and slammed into the ground. He struggled against Rhodey''s strength for a moment. Arms enhanced by vibranium pressed against arms strengthened by a power suit. Rhodey let Creel think it was a contest of strength. Then his right gauntlet opened a port, releasing a small tube. Creel''s eyes crossed to stare at the object.

    Rhodey fired his own miniaturized sonic cannon in the face of Creel.

    "YAAAA!" Creel''s scream could barely be heard over the sonic cannon''s cacophony of noise.

    "Sorry about this," Rhodey rose up and watched Creel clutched at his head, screaming in horror. His vibranium skin started to crack, portions of it fading into human skin before turning back into the familiar blue glow of the strongest metal on Earth. "Thanks for the advice, Jarvis."

    "Of course, sir," Jarvis said. "It is only it''s raw form that vibranium would be so vulnerable, so we should be glad he did not have something similar to Captain Roger''s shield."

    Rhodey nodded, keeping up the assault of noise. After a minute of screaming, Creel finally closed his eyes. His vibranium form turned human again, and he fell onto his back. Rhodey kept it going a moment longer, then shut it off. "Okay." Rhodey stepped forward and grabbed Creel. Finding the chunk of vibranium in Creel''s pocket, he placed that in his belt. He then took a syringe full of sedative from his pocket and injected it into Creel''s neck. Rhodey then lifted up and carried him upwards. "This is War Machine, I''ve got Creel. Heading to rendezvous with Dial."

    "...That''d be good."

    Under his mask, Rhodey blinked at the lifelessness in Dial''s voice. "Kid, you okay?" When there was no answer, Rhodey cursed and lifted into the air.

    As he flew, he didn''t notice the small section of skin where he injected Creel slowly becoming a silver color matching the needle of the syringe.

 13 Chapter 13

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Natasha worked at the computer she was standing at, trying to help coordinate the worldwide efforts against HYDRA. With the help of X and Jarvis, she was being kept apprised of numerous situations across the planet. Most were successful, considering the fact Steve''s announcement, the shutdown of HYDRA communication, and the Hercules app gave SHIELD a massive advantage.

    Some losses were taken, however. The Sandbox, a research facility in Africa dedicated to handling dangerous materials and weapons had been taken by one Donnie Gill and several HYDRA researchers. Another location, the Treehouse, was destroyed by an unknown Enhanced when HYDRA was unable to take it.

    Still, in a broad sense, they were winning.

    As Natasha worked, she shared a glance with Clint. Clint nodded over at Pierce, who had his phone clenched tightly in his hand. Natasha smirked and Clint grinned. Fury looked over at them, then smiled when they indicated Pierce holding his phone.

    Before any of the three could say or do anything, Councilman Rockwell spoke. "Fury... how are we going to come back from this?"

    Fury turned to look at the tall councilman. "What do you mean?"

    "We''re losing hundreds of people, resources, millions of dollars in equipment," Rockwell shook his head. "We''re not going to be able to recover from this."

    "That''s not true," Natasha said. When everyone looked at her, she continued typing. "We''re at war, so these losses are expected. Not preferred, but expected."

    "You really think this is just a war?" Pierce asked with a smirk. "This won''t end with HYDRA falling. We have a lot of thumbs in a lot of pies. You win today, it''ll just leave a lot more of us tomorrow. Cut off one head, and two more shall grow in its place." As Pierce spoke, he pressed a button on his phone.

    The screen immediately displayed an image. Pierce stared in shock at his phone. All there was were two minimalist symbols, side by side on the screen. Iron Man''s mask shining gold on a red background, and an Omnitrix dial on a metallic background.

    "I''m sorry, did you just try to kill me?" Clint asked, sounding offended. "I mean, damn, I thought we were having a pretty good conversation just now."

    "I know," Natasha said with a smile. "Rude."

    Pierce looked around. After a moment, he smiled sheepishly. "Well, it was worth a try."

    "I''m sure you think that," Fury said. He stepped towards Pierce and took his phone from him, tossing it over to Natasha, who placed it in her jacket pocket. "You might want to take those off," Fury said to Rockwell and Singh, pointing at the security badges on their chests. "They''re set to explode at a certain signal."

    Clint and Natasha were already taking off the badges, the councilmen hurriedly following.

    "Here''s your problem, Pierce," Fury said dismissively. "You''re playing by rules that don''t exist anymore. Same with the rest of the world. Rules I''ve known were outdated since the 1990''s. It''s part of why I supported Insight, why I brought the Avengers together."

    "You just weren''t willing to take the full steps necessary-" Pierce started to say.

    "No, you were taking steps in the wrong direction," Fury said. "But, luckily, you did give us something useful to take you down," Fury smiled at the confusion in Pierce''s eyes. "How do you think we''re tracking down HYDRA operatives so easily? Pulling them all out of their hidey holes?"

    Pierce didn''t seem to understand for a moment. Then his eyes widened in shock. "Zola''s algorithm."

    The councilmembers looked at each other but didn''t seem to understand what he was talking about.

    "Pretty useful bit of tech," Natasha added. "X, Jarvis, how long do you think this would have taken without it?"

    "Several days ma''am," Jarvis said.

    "But with it, we have a compiled list already," X added. "I suppose we must thank Mr. Pierce for creating it, in an ironic fashion of course."

    Pierce stepped forward, anger in his eyes. "You son of a bitch, Fury!"

    "I''d blame Tony and Dial actually. But I think you''ve had your day in the sun for long enough." Fury looked at Clint. "Knock him out, please. We can talk to him later."

    Pierce got a needle in the neck before he could respond. He glared for a moment longer before passing out. The councilmembers still seemed confused, but also looked relieved to see Pierce unconscious.

    Natasha flipped through several screens as Hawkeye dropped Pierce to the ground. "Sir, do you want us to join the others in the fight? I think I''ve done all I can here."

    "Hmm," Fury nodded after a moment. "I''ll have some of the agents come up to guard us. Wait till they get here, then you two go and help."

    "Understood."

    Steve Rogers/Captain America

    Steve missed the old days. The days when Bucky Barnes was his friend through one of the worst wars in history. Not just because fighting him, rather than alongside him, was breaking Steve''s heart.

    But also because Bucky was a hell of a lot harder to fight nowadays.

    "Raagh!" Steve shouted, kicking Bucky in the chest. Decades ago, a blow like that would have broken Bucky''s ribs. Instead, he simply fell to the floor, rolled up, and started slashing at Steve with a knife, lashing out with lethal speed and force few could have matched.

    The two stood in the garage of the Triskelion. The whole place had been basically turned into a war zone, with cars blown into scrap, bullet holes in the concrete around them, and the smell of smoke in the air. SHIELD and HYDRA agents fought through the large space. HYDRA was trying to open the large steel doors that lead to the outside, trying to let in the various ground vehicles they had available. SHIELD, of course, was doing whatever they could to prevent that until those vehicles were destroyed.

    Steve and Bucky danced in the center of the battle. Steve slashed outwards with his shield, Bucky blocked it on his robotic arm. The Winter Soldier spun his knife around and tried to stab it into Steve''s chest, but was blocked by a quick twist of Steve''s shield. The knife skittered along the red and white paint for a moment. Bucky kicked at Steve''s legs, sending him to the floor, then tried to punch him. Steve rolled out of the way, leaving Bucky to punch the asphalt. A fluorescent light above was destroyed by a stray gunshot, throwing sparks down on them. They danced a moment longer, fists, shield, and knife fighting.

    Then Steve blocked a hail of gunfire on his shield. He looked at the shooter, narrowing his eyes when he saw who it was.

    Rumlow, leader of STRIKE team, was firing an assault rifle at Captain America. The soldier had a grim look on his face.

    Bucky capitalized on the attack, moving to Steve''s left side to kick him in the ribs. Steve rolled with the blow, hopped back to his feet, and ran through the garage. His shield rose up once more to block Rumlow, Bucky following close behind.

    "Tony, I could use you here!" Steve shouted, sliding behind a car and turning to confront Bucky. The two superhumans battled for a moment, Rumlow running to find another angle on Steve. As Steve fought, he tossed his shield at a pillar. The shield, in complete defiance of physics, bounced off the pillar, then a wall, slammed into a blown up car''s hood, then hit Rumlow in the chest. The traitorous soldier was thrown back with a yell of pain.

    Steve grabbed at Bucky''s head and kneed upwards. Bucky took a knee to the face, blocked the next one, and threw Steve off of him. He reached for a gun strapped to his back and pulled it out to shoot at Steve. Steve kicked his arm to the side, then blocked the knife stabbed at his face. For a moment they struggled against each other.

    "You know me!" Steve said, their eyes meeting. "We were friends, Buck! You went to my parents funeral, we fought in the war! Hell, we went on double dates together!"

    Bucky froze for a moment. Confusion, pain, and sadness filled his face. Steve dared to hope. Then Bucky raised his gun and pointed it at Steve''s face. Steve barely dodged, a bullet filling the space his head had been in. Steve punched Bucky in the face, leaped over the car they had been fighting next to, and rolled to grab his shield, raising it to block the next bullets Bucky fired at him.

    Steve noticed Rumlow struggling to rise closeby. The soldier had a hand clutched to his chest, and was raising his gun to shoot at Steve. Steve dismissed him as unimportant, instead focusing on sprinting towards Bucky. Rumlow''s hand tightened on the trigger as he prepared to shoot at Captain America''s back.

    A yellow beam of light slammed into Rumlow''s back, sending him flying. He rolled along the ground for a moment, fly up, then hit a stone pillar. Rumlow struggled to his feet, then he fell to his knees before tipping over. Moments later, an armored man flew ahead. A SHIELD agent, seeing Rumlow''s gun, grabbed it and ran to confront the other HYDRA members, leaving Rumlow unconscious and forgotten on the pavement.

    Steve raised his shield when he got close to Bucky, Bucky''s robotic fist slamming into the shield with a loud clang. Bucky spun around and kneeled, shooting at Steve''s stomach. The bullets were barely blocked, though one sliced into Steve''s bicep. Steve hissed in pain but forced himself forward. Bucky pulled the trigger on his handgun, then tossed it aside when it emptied. Steve ran towards Bucky... and leaped over him.

    Bucky had one moment to stare at the person flying towards him before hastily raising his metal arm in time to block the beam of yellow light shot at him. The sheer force of the blow sent Bucky flying backward right into Steve, who grabbed him from behind, leaned back, and slammed him into the floor in a perfect suplex. Bucky snarled, struggling out of Steve''s grasp and rolling away.

    "No luck talking him out of it, huh?" Tony asked as he landed next to Steve.

    "Therapy is tough," Steve confirmed. He took a fighting stance next to Tony.

    For a moment, Captain America and Iron Man squared off with the Winter Soldier. SHIELD and HYDRA agents continued to fight in the background. The Winter Soldier narrowed his eyes, and Iron Man raised his arms to point at him.

    "Stand down," Tony said simply.

    Bucky''s response was to run forward. Tony fired his repulsor blast at him, Bucky dodged to the left. He leaped on the side of a pillar, jumped off of that to dodge the next beam, then punched Iron Man with his metal arm. Tony staggered back, and Bucky tried to capitalize on the blow, only to lean back out of the way of Cap''s shield when it came flying at him. Steve ran up and threw a kick, forcing Bucky to duck. Iron Man threw a punch that was blocked by Bucky''s arm, Steve knelled down to punch Bucky in the ribs. Bucky was forced back with a grunt. Iron Man and Captain America stepped forwards, and Winter Soldier backflipped out of the way of another repulsor blast.

    "Your friend is annoying!" Tony quipped.

    "He''s usually more accommodating," Steve returned, running forward.

    Bucky grabbed the shield where it had landed as the two superheroes came at him, quickly putting it on and blocking a beam from Iron Man. The yellow blast reflected off to aim at Captain America, who somersaulted over it before continuing his room.

    "You need to stop throwing your primary weapon!" Tony yelled, punching at Bucky, who blocked the armored mans'' haymaker on the shield.

    "It''s a good tactic!" Steve defended. He slid along the ground and kicked Bucky''s kneecap, forcing him to kneel. "It bounces back!"

    "I''m gonna give you an upgrade one of these days, old timer!" Tony threw a jab which Bucky ducked.

    "Would you two shut up!?" Bucky shouted. He threw an uppercut into Steve''s chin, only to get a repulsor blast in the chest. He tried to roll back, but Steve grabbed him by the leg in mid-roll and pulled him back. Iron Man punched him in the face, and Steve forced him onto his back. Tony grabbed his arms. Bucky spat out a tooth and looked up at them with wild eyes. "Arrgh!"

    "Trying to help you, Buck!" Steve yelled, holding down his friend from rolling away.

    "You have a funny way of showing it, Steve!" Bucky yelled.

    They struggled a moment longer before Tony and Bucky realized Steve was laughing.

    "Did you just snap!?" Tony asked, forcing Bucky arms behind him.

    "He called me Steve," the Avenger out of time said with a grin. Bucky froze at that before once more struggling to get out of Tony''s grasp.

    "Yay, he''s still a confused super-assassin," Tony finally snapped on a pair of restraints around Bucky''s wrists. "Can you put him to bed now?"

    Steve, still grinning, pulled out a syringe. The pair forced Bucky to stand up. "See you when you wake up, Buck."

    Bucky had enough time to stare at Steve with anger. Then the syringe was stabbed into his neck, and he was out like a light.

    "Okay, take him," Iron Man said. "I''ve got to help Falcon."

    Captain America nodded, throwing his restrained and sedated friend onto his shoulder. "Got it. See you in a bit."

    As Steve ran off, Iron Man looked over at the HYDRA soldiers fighting. His targeting system focused on them as he turned his head to look around. Then the shoulder panels on his armor opened, firing projectiles.

    In an instant, twelve men fell to the floor, groaning in pain from projectiles in their hands and feet.

    Iron Man stepped forward. SHIELD agents, seeing him, took positions at his side, pointing their guns. "I suggest you boys surrender," Tony said casually.

    One STRIKE member began to raise his gun. A repulsor blast slammed into his chest, throwing him back with broken ribs for his troubles.

    The other HYDRA soldiers seemed to stare at him. Then, one by one, they started putting down their guns. Tony began to step forward, stopping when he bumped into something. He looked down to see he''d accidentally stepped on Rumlow''s hand. He gently stepped around the unconscious man and ignored him as someone cuffed the STRIKE leader.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    In the main flight bridge of the Insight helicarrier I had infiltrated, I could hear the captain yelling at his crewmembers. With my senses as strong as they were, it was easy to hear what was happening through the steel door down the hall from me.

    "What the hell happened!?" He yelled as I strode towards the door. He didn''t seem to understand why he was now grounded.

    "All our power is being pulled by something else!" A crewmember said. "I can''t raise maintenance."

    "Damn it!" The captain yelled. "It must be that monster! We need to-"

    I smashed down the door with a kick. As I stepped inside, the men inside stared at me in horror. Blitzwolfer had that effect on people. I took a whiff of the air as the captain staggered to rise from his chair.

    "IT department," I joked half-hardheartedly. About six men, including the captain. Two of them were soldiers, one close to me, a woman with wide eyes. That woman snapped her gun towards me and got a sonic blast for her troubles getting thrown into a bank of computers. The other soldier fired at me, and I ran on all fours to dart out of the way. As soon as I was behind a set of controls, I tapped the Omnitrix and leaped at him.

    "Rath!"

    "Let me tell you something faceless HYDRA goon! Rath''s gonna beat you silly!" I yelled out as I grabbed a crewmember and threw him aside.

    There was a bit of relief in becoming the tiger wrestler. Rath didn''t see my kill as anything but a necessity. It wasn''t something to discard, but I felt more pragmatic about it. Kinda funny that for all his ridiculousness, Rath was better at handling what I''d done than most of my other aliens.

    I walked through a stream of bullets. The soldier screamed as I prowled forward through the room. I raised a claw and slammed it into a computer. As I continued to walk, the claw sliced through the steel and glass of the console, cutting a long line.

    "Get behind me!" The soldier yelled at the technicians and captain. They moved to do so.

    I leaped forward and kicked the soldier in a lightning-fast move. He flew back and slammed into the door behind him. His eyes roll up and closed, the man passing out.

    "Let me tell you something, Faceless-HYDRA-Goons-Two-Through-Six! Rath thinks you Moronic-Nazi-Worshipping-Idiots should surrender," I told the stunned crew. "Or not! Rath doesn''t care either way, but Rath wants the excuse to beat you down!"

    The captain responded by slamming a button on his console. "Hail HYDR-urk!"

    He was interrupted by me grabbing his head. "OPHIUCHUS FACE-PLANT!" I rammed his head into the console with brutal force, breaking his nose and leaving him to pass out on the floor. "Damn it!" I yelled when I saw what he had done. The crewmembers tried to run. I tapped the Omnitrix.

    "Feedback!"

    Pulling energy from the helicarrier around me, I fired bolts of electricity at two of the crewmembers, leaving two standing. Ignoring the ones now shaking on the floor, I leaped over the console. "He activated something, what was it!?" I asked quickly. They shook their heads. I zapped one of them, leaving him to fall on the floor with his muscles seizing, and turned to the last person standing, a woman with red hair. "What did he do!?"

    "S-Self Destruct!" she squealed. "Pierce''s orders! A way to kill you all! It''ll blow up the whole Triskelion! A last resort!"

    "What the hell?" I asked in shock.

    "I-It was just in case," she said hurriedly. "The rest of HYDRA would use the explosion as a political ploy, to let them justify control over the populace, to help the world even if we died!" The last words were said with the heady belief of only the worshipful. "We may fail, but we will still save the world from itself!"

    "You''ve been drinking too much of the cult punch," I said in disgust, zapping her and leaving her on the shaking on the floor with her friends.

    Just then, someone knocked on the window. I looked to see War Machine floating there, holding Creel. I waved him in, and War Machine blasted the window with a low powered repulsor blast, flying inside. As he entered, the Omnitrix timed out. I looked down at my hands, sighing in relief when I saw they were clean, then looked at Rhodey.

    "The captain activated the self-destruct," I said as Rhodey landed.

    His faceplate snapped up, showing me his worried face. "Shit. Can we stop it?"

    "No idea," I said quickly. "I''m going to turn into Jury Rigg once the Omnitrix recharges and see if I can stop it. Jarvis, X, can you guys do anything?"

    "No sir," X said. "The controls are disconnected now. The Insight carrier will explode soon, no matter what is done by us. This is a hardware issue."

    "Well luckily, Jury Rigg is a hardware kinda guy," I said firmly.

    Rhodey dropped Creel, stepping over to join me. Creel smoothly landed, rose up, and grabbed Rhodey''s right arm. He squeezed down at the same time as he absorbed the material of Rhodey''s suit. Rhodey yelled out when his forearm gauntlet was destroyed in a single squeeze.

    "You should have used an organic material for the syringe," Creel sounded almost sad. Creel slammed a headbutt into Rhodey''s minigun, destroying it, then grabbed Rhodey''s left wrist and pulled both of War Machine''s arms back, placing a knee against Rhodey''s back. Rhodey struggled, and for a moment they held against each other, but Creel had Rhodey pinned with superior positioning and the enhanced strength of his form.

    "Stop!" I yelled out.

    Creel, the same black color as Rhodey''s armor now, looked up at me. The two continued to struggle, but Creel was listening I raised my hands up.

    "Creel... we have about," I looked at the console. "Three minutes left before this thing blows. I can save us. I know you''ve been brainwashed," I said.

    "My compliance will be rewarded," Creel said softly. "I must allow the self-destruct."

    "Yeah, yeah, that. But I can fix you! Zola, he was terrified someone would try to brainwash him. He came up with ways to reverse it, to even stop it. We can help you," Creel''s eyes widened, and he almost lost his grip on Rhodey''s arms. "Please... fight the conditioning. You can be free. We can all escape, can stop the explosions, just... please."

    For a moment, I held my breath. Creel stared at me. The clock on the computer lowered bit by bit.

    Then, with pain in his eyes, Creel began to pull back hard on War Machines arms. Rhodey yelled. The Omnitrix suddenly went green, and for some reason, a hologram popped up without my prompting. I tapped the watch and leaped forward as Creel began to break Rhodey''s spine.

 14 Chapter 14

    The change that came over me was instant. My bones and muscles became gelatinous in shape, brown skin became an inky black, with green lines shooting across me, my clothes shifted to my stomach, then turned pure white, and the Omnitrix symbol appeared on my chest. I felt my eyes become a single optic as my cells changed, going from human, to almost mechanical in nature. I reached forward with a four-fingered hand towards War Machine as I, for the first time in months, I yelled out an alien''s name I never had.

    "Upgrade!"

    Creel, surprised by my attack, tried to press harder. The armor on Rhodey''s back was buckling.

    So my hands grabbed Rhodey''s shoulders, then flattened out and began to flow across the black armor''s cold metal. My nano-organic cells began to sink into the War Machine. I looked at Creel and fired a single beam of green light from my single eye, pushing him back with the laser blast. Creel stepped back in pain, and I focused on Rhodey.

    My body joined to his armor. The experience was... weird. Not like putting on clothes. More like... injecting extra bone and muscle mass inside of me. I entered the War Machine, and Rhodey''s mask snapped down. The entire suit''s color scheme changed to black with green circuit stripes. I felt the arc reactor flood me with more power than I could ever believe, and made that power more efficient in turn. Every single aspect of the suit jumped up by a degree that seemed impossible and I felt I could do even more if I wanted to, as if I could mold and alter the suit as easily as someone does clay. Rhodey/I stared at the hud as he/I looked around.

    "What just happened!?" Rhodey asked, both with his words and his thoughts.

    "It was me," I answered in kind from within... as his suit. "I... gave you an upgrade."

    We stood up. The arc reactor in our chest whined to life, the symbol of the Omnitrix glowing in that spot. Any damage left by Creel had disappeared, leaving pristine black and green metal in its place.

    "This feels..." Rhodey trailed off, awed.

    "Yeah, I know right?"

    We turned to look at Creel, who stared back at us. The man rose up, rushing towards us. We raised our hands and a green flow flashing from our palms. When we fired, a green repulsor beam the size of a truck seemed to turn the world in front of us into emerald light. Only a quick adaptation on my part prevented Creel from being vaporized, making it so the center of the attack was concussive, and the outer edges were vaporizing. The massive green blast still smashed into Creel, throwing him screaming out the window like a ragdoll. The blast also destroyed the front of the bridge, leaving smoking ruin in its wake in the shape of a massive hole burned by the repulsor blast. Molten steel dripped from the ceiling in the silence that followed.

    "...Holy shit," Rhodey/I said. The accelerated reality of our HUD helpfully showed us that the temperature of the air had reached almost 49 degrees Celsius.

    At that point, I remembered the self-destruct. "One sec, Rhodey!" I separated from him, leaving him to stagger as his armor returned to its normal state.

    "Oh, that just feels weird," Rhodey said as I flowed over to the console.

    Moving as Upgrade was strange. I''d imagined it would feel like Goop did, but Goop felt like... like what being water would feel like. Fluid, and constantly shifting. Moving as Upgrade felt strangely as though I was still human, just able to feel every one of my cells at once. As though I could look at my human hand, and know that I could collapse it into formlessness. It was hard to describe.

    I looked at the console for a moment, plenty of time left. I put my hands against the console and pressed into it, then through it.

    My consciousness stretched. First, the console. Then the room, my cells merging with floors, the ceiling, all the way to the windows I''d blown out with Rhodey, repairing the damage to create holoscreens that showed the outside.

    "Whoa," Rhodey said, looking around the black and green patterned room.

    I wasn''t done yet. I extended my body and consciousness into the command tower. I merged with catwalks and railings, became one with computers, did the cybernetic equivalent of a wave towards Jarvis and X as they ''watched'' me work. I extended onto the flight deck, turning the concrete into metal, slipped over the anti-aircraft weapons and repairing the ones I''d destroyed.

    My cells invaded deeper into the ship. I went through weapons systems and made them railguns or laser emitters on a whim, I entered into the engines and upgraded them, I even entered the cafeteria and bedrooms of the ship. All the way to the clear glass dome in the belly of the ship, infecting the whole of that space. My last stop was Jury Rigg''s creation in the main power room. It was by far the most advanced object on the ship, light years ahead of anything else. Sorry Rhodey, your armor is still cool as shit though. I integrated Jury Rigg''s machine into myself.

    Soon, I was done. I had become the Insight Helicarrier, and it had been upgraded. I felt my form glow black and green and looked out with eyes made of the sensors and cameras of the ship. And so much more. Zola''s algorithm was now as much a part of me as my DNA. I now understood the world in a way I had never comprehended as a human, almost a technological version of Swampfire''s connection with plant-life. With a thought, a person''s life was bared to me. As Rhodey stood inside of me, looking out in awe at the glowing flight deck that was a part of me, I got a series of reports on him. From his family history, his interactions with the media, psychological and medical files, camera footage of him in various bases and within Stark Industries facilities, even some stuff on social media of Tony filming Rhodey with strippers Tony had hired to ''loosen'' his friend up. I got every bit of a picture that could be painted on Rhodey.

    I turned it off seconds later, no one needs to know so much about a person. Instead, I focused on the self-destruct, which was actually rather brilliant. Once the captain activated it, the software disconnected, letting the rest go completely on its own. Of course, now that the arc reactor and repulsor technology was a part of my body, I shut it down. It felt a lot like swallowing back a cough, oddly enough.

    "Okay, we''re good," I said through the ship''s speakers. Then, within myself, I ''looked'' at X and Jarvis. "I assume you made it so the other captains are locked out from doing the same thing?"

    "Indeed," Jarvis said. "We''ve also reinstalled the failsafe systems." To my perception, he looked like a floating orange orb of light, with striations bouncing back and forth. It was then that I realized something about Jarvis. He may have started out as a Natural Language UI, in fact, I could read the bits of code that indicated that, but now he was so much more. I''d assumed he was a VI, hell Tony never even corrected me otherwise. But Jarvis was a full AI now, or as close as existed. Which made me turn to X.

    "Sir, this is..." X seemed speechless as he stared at me within the world of software. He was, appropriately, shaped like me, if I was made of blue light, and he... oh no.

    "X," I said softly as our software interacted. "Do you feel different?"

    He didn''t speak, he didn''t have too. Jarvis said nothing, having clearly noticed what I had.

    "Okay," I said slowly, pulling my surprise back with a final thought of how bullshit Jury Rigg was. "We''ll figure it out. For now, are the other helicarriers safe now?"

    "As I said, all fail-safes are in place, and any attempts otherwise have been locked out," Jarvis said. "We''ll monitor the situation to prevent anything else."

    "Then it''s time for me to take this baby for a spin," I said excitedly. Upgrade wanted to play.

    "Mr. Schahed," Jarvis said, X still silent. "Isn''t that really far too much power to bring into the battlefield?"

    "Yeah... but I can''t just possess a helicarrier and not use it," I stated as matter of fact.

    Jarvis let out a long-suffering sigh.

    "Uh, Dial?" I focused on my bridge when Rhodey spoke. "I think Creel is getting up."

    "And I rather imagine it would be overkill to turn the helicarrier weapons against him," Jarvis stated.

    "Fiiiiiinnne," I rolled my eyes. With a bit of disappointment, I released myself from the ship, becoming Upgrade once more, then joined with War Machine again. "Okay. Let''s take him out."

    "I''m down with that," Rhodey said. Together we flew out of the hole that had was back in the bridge.

    In the broken remains of a Quinjet lay Creel. We floated over him as he rose out of it, glaring at us. He was now made of the same material as Quinjet, which he grabbed a piece of and tossed at us like a giant shuriken. The minigun on our shoulder aimed at the wing and started shooting with impossible speed, destroying it with a hail of lasers rather than the bullets it once fired.

    "Should have let me go!" Creel shouted. He grabbed another piece and threw it, only for us to catch it with smooth ease the armor hadn''t been capable of before.

    "You know, I still sympathize with this guy, but..." Rhodey said both with words and thoughts. His fingers twitched, only for him to stop when he realized how easily he was crushing the wing in his grip.

    "Yeah, let''s finish him for his own good," I agreed.

    We cocked our arm back and threw the piece of Quinjet back. It hit Creel with incredible force, sending him flying across the top of the flight deck, going through another Quinjet and sending flames up into the air in his wake. Newly created ports opened on our back, and the incredible power of the arc reactor flared from the new and upgraded repulsors I''d created. Moving as one, we flew towards Creel. Rhodey activated his HUD and read the material Creel was made of through the accelerated simulation program. Quickly, I scanned the material with Rhodey, and together we searched on the internet and discovered the tensile strength and the various weaknesses it had, our minds working in tandem to plan our next step. By the time we flew past him and came to a stop, we had a plan, albeit a very simple one. Watching him fly towards us, Rhodey and I came to a conclusion on how much force was needed to defeat Creel. By the time he was about to reach us, our right arm was punching forwards. Our forearm became a cannon, a mimicry based on my love of Megaman, and we blasted him with a wave of sonic, laser, and repulsor energy. Each part of the blast was keyed to fire a specific amount of energy, made to overwhelm Creel without killing him. The blast hit Creel mid-flight, canceling his forward motion and dropping him to the ground where he began turning back to his original state.

    "About time," Rhodey said at the unconscious form of the super-human. "Now what?"

    "I make an entrance," I told him, separating from his body and joining with the helicarrier once more. As the floor under Rhodey became me, he looked around.

    "Couldn''t you have just shot Creel as a giant damn ship?"

    "Some things are personal... and Jarvis told me not to," I admitted through the helicarriers speakers, knocking out any HYDRA personnel within me with some newly constructed security measures, like taser guns popping out of the walls. "Plus, I''m a firm believer that War Machine combining with Upgrade is cool as shit."

    "Hell yeah, it is. Kinda weird you became my armor though... I just know Tony is going to make jokes about this later," Rhodey said a little disgruntled, watching as the floor under Creel opened up to pull him into me. A series of slides brought him to the brig, along with all the HYDRA soldiers I''d knocked out within my halls and rooms. Once I was done, I focused on my next task, checking out the situation up top.

    Then I pointed my guns up at the ceiling and started shooting at ''low'' power.

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Natasha was wearing her black outfit, having discarded her disguise for the easier to move in clothes. Clint had done the same, wearing his purple long coat and quiver.

    Together the two had joined Sharon Carter and her group and were now cleaning out the rest of the Triskelion.

    "So you should just give him a chance," Natasha said as she strode confidently next to Sharon, holding her pistols up and watching for any threats as X and Jarvis calmly informed her of what was happening at their destination.

    "Is this really the time to talk about this?" Sharon gave Natasha a look. She''d put on a bulletproof vest now, looking strangely petite in the over-sized body armor while carrying a massive assault rifle.

    "Always time for romance," Clint said, his bow held at the ready. "Seriously, I worry about Steve."

    "I really don''t think he''s my type," Sharon admitted, ignoring the chuckles of the agents behind her.

    Natasha and Clint gave her a stunned look.

    "Are you kidding? Have you seen Steve?" Clint asked, shocked. "The man is built like a demi-god! I mean that literally, Thor is one of my best friends and those two could be brothers."

    "Looks aside, he''s got that ''aw shucks'' nice guy thing going on," Natasha added. "He''s sweet."

    They came to a door and stopped outside, taking positions next to it. After a shared nod, Natasha and Clint kicked it open. Inside was a room full of cubicles, like something one would see in any office in North America, with a massive window was on the other side of the room that displayed the crystal mountain outside. The soldiers inside would have looked out of place in any office setting, however. They were setting up blocks of C-4 in the middle of the room, apparently under orders to cause as much destruction as they could. Natasha had to admire how many standing orders HYDRA had prepared, which didn''t change the fact they were still aggravating.

    HYDRA soldiers began to fire at them, killing one of the SHIELD agents. Natasha rolled behind a cubicle, then rose up and shot two men in the head. Clint fired an arrow in the center of the group. When it hit, it released a brief EMP burst, deactivating the detonators in the hands of the soldiers before they could blow the C-4. He fired another shot that pierced a soldiers throat before ducking when bullets were sent his way.

    Sharon fired her assault rifle for a moment, killing one soldier and sending another one to duck away. While the cubicles were terrible for cover, being easy to shoot through, they were perfect for concealment.

    "Something kind of nice about this!" Natasha yelled, leaping forward to punch a man in the throat, kick him to the floor, and drop a knee into his chest, firing her pistol again at the other soldiers while a SHIELD agent next to her shot the man she was holding down.

    "Really?" Clint asked loudly, firing an explosive arrow to cut off three men trying to run away, then shooting one of them in the thigh, leaving him to quickly bleed out. "I guess I can see it."

    "Are you crazy!?" Sharon asked, leaning out of cover, trying not to think about the fact she had never bantered during a fight before. "What is nice about this!? We''re killing former SHIELD! Hell, I know that guy!"

    She followed her statement by shooting ''that guy'' in the chest, hitting his shoulder instead when he ducked aside.

    "Yeah, but at least it''s just normal people in this fight," Natasha said, catching a grenade out of the air and tossing it back to explode. "Nothing crazy, just-"

    BOOM!

    Outside the window behind the HYDRA soldiers, a portion of the crystal mountain disappeared in a blaze of green light and sound. The entire building shook, and some of the windows cracked. Everyone in the room stopped, looking outside. Dust fell from the sky above, a shiny blue-green one reminiscent of something from fairy tales. It took a moment for Natasha to realize the dust was the remains of the crystal that had been destroyed.

    From the hole that had appeared in the center of the mountain, rose a helicarrier. The HYDRA soldiers cheered. Natasha shared a look with horror with Clint, worried that the impossible had happened. That one of the helicarriers had been able to somehow blast it''s way free.

    Then they looked closer. It shone a bright black, with circuits of green. Its weapons looked different, very futuristic, with sections of green script shifting along them. And on the side, was an enormous emblem. The Omnitrix.

    "This is Dial," a familiar voice boomed. "I have control of War Machine Helicarrier 01. Stand down, all HYDRA forces."

    In a display of power, the guns on the bottom of the ship twirled towards the bridge where the ground vehicles were being brought in.

    "Yep," Sharon said in shock. "Normal."

    Sam Wilson/Falcon

    Sam flew next to Iron Man, diving towards the convoy of vehicles on the ground with the other flier. A gunship fired bullets at Sam, forcing him to veer off slightly before the gunship was hit by a repulsor beam. "A lot easier to do this when your wingman can shoot lasers."

    "They''re not-" Iron Man sighed. "Whatever, I''ll give you some upgrades when this is over so you can shoot something more useful than those pea-shooters while flying. For now... holy shit."

    Iron Man stopped to stare in the distance, floating in the air. Sam turned to look, then twisted in the air to hover. "Damn."

    "This is Dial," a familiar voice boomed from the speakers of the ship. "I have control of War Machine Helicarrier 01. Stand down, all HYDRA forces."

    The guns on the ship turned, pointing at the bridge Falcon and Iron Man were defending. Then they fired. For a moment, the ship seemed to glow like a green sun before a wave of power hit the bridge. Pinpoint fire slammed into the sonic cannons on the vehicles, the guns on top of the Humvees, and the weapons on the gunships. The soldiers were hit by concussive blasts, breaking ribs as impossible shots curved to smash into their chests, no matter where they tried to hide. The tanks brought in were hit hardest, torn to pieces as bullets covered in energy sliced through the treads, the main cannon, and the engine block. Some shots slammed into the bridge, tearing massive craters that sent men flying into the air to get hit once more before falling, groaning, to the bridge.

    In an instant, the entire convoy was left shattered.

    "Damn... maybe you should open with that next time, Dial," Sam said in shock.

    "There wasn''t a way for me to do this until a couple minutes ago," Dial said over the comms. "Hold on," more lasers fired into the distance. "A fleet of Quinjets were headed over here, I just took them out. They''ll have to land in a bit. So, yeah, the Omnitrix just gave me this power."

    "I''m going to study the shit out of that watch," Iron Man added floating upwards.

    "We''re not done yet," Fury said over the comms. "I''ve got reports that HYDRA around the world is scrambling. Someone is communicating despite our efforts. We need to convene our next move. Take in the rest of HYDRA in the area. Dial, if you stop doing... whatever you''re doing, can we still use that helicarrier?"

    "Yes, though the windows are still blown out. Plus it''ll be a normal Insight helicarrier."

    "Just a normal advanced version of the most powerful aircraft in the world then. I can work with that. We got two helicarriers to work with that. Maria, you''re in charge of the Triskelion. It''s time we get everyone together."

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    It was weird. I''d expected there to be some big climatic finish to the fight. One of us having a big fight to the death in an exploding building or something. Instead, we just had more work to do. HYDRA soldiers to arrest and put in cells, people to speak to, assets to reposition, medical supplies and ammunition to pass out. Stuff I''d known were part of superheroics, but never really thought of. First, I had to help a friend with a personal matter.

    "Okay, get him in here," I said to Steve as we walked through the hallways of the helicarrier I''d stolen. The ship was in flight, headed to stop an attack that was still happening. There were four of us. I was back in human form, my gun and knife back in their holsters and my watch set to Diamondhead in case of surprises. Steve''s helmet was off his shield on his back, with Tony armorless at his side. Steve had Bucky in massive cuffs similar to the ones Steve and I had been put in... yesterday? Damn. Anyways, the Winter Soldier was looking angrily around as Steve gently led him along, his gaze especially hard towards Tony, who only returned a smug grin every time they met eyes. I opened a steel door and waved the three inside, following them after.

    "Okay, made these special for you and Creel," I waved at the room in front of us. "Well, SHIELD had them for field imprisonment, I just put in here with some of the stuff Tony and I made."

    It had been a cafeteria once, though thankfully the helicarrier was way too new for any of the interesting smells of an older dining area would have to settle in. I''d removed a lot of the tables, replacing them with two large boxes in the middle of the place. They were massive steel things the size of cells on the inside, the interiors made of square plush foam similar to a mental institution''s padded cells. One held Creel, who turned and looked at us as we entered. He was sitting in a He had a screen in front of him playing a winding series of lights. He quickly turned to look at it, ignoring us in favor of focusing on the screen. The other cell had a chair with some screens around it, some arms set to wrap around a person''s head.

    As soon as Bucky saw it, he flipped out. He spun to attack Tony with a kick, only for Steve to block it on his arm.

    "Whoa!" Tony yelled, backing away. "Steve, your friend is still an asshole!"

    "Bucky, it''s not what you think!" Steve yelled.

    "You''re not putting me in there!" Bucky shouted.

    "Diamondhead!" As soon as I transformed, I grabbed Bucky by the shoulders, pulling him close. Since his arms were bound behind him, his only option was to kick. His foot bounced off my groin, leaving me glad I wasn''t a human for a moment. "Creel!" I yelled out. "Tell him!"

    "They''re not brainwashing, Barnes!" Creel yelled out. "They''re curing us!"

    I pulled Bucky into my arms. He roared, trying to escape my grasp. Even with Diamondhead''s strength and Bucky''s restraints, he still gave me a hell of a fight.

    "Buck!" Steve stepped forward. "I promise, we aren''t going to hurt you!" Bucky stared at him with wild eyes. "You know me... I''d never hurt you. We''re going to get rid of what Zola, what HYDRA did. Please... calm down."

    Bucky looked over at Creel. The tall bald man nodded. "I... I don''t have to comply. I still want to, but I don''t believe my compliance will be rewarded."

    That meant something to the Winter Soldier. He calmed down in my arms. Tony and Steve stared at him as his breathing relaxed. When I was sure he wasn''t going to attack, I released him but stayed Diamondhead.

    "When Zola created his brainwashing methods," I explained. "He wanted a way to counter it. Selfish bastard wanted it in case one of his rivals tried to do it to him. But with it... we can cure you. It''ll take time, but you''ll be restored. Tony and I even improved it."

    Bucky stared at the device in his soon to be cell as though it were the devil. But when Steve gently guided him towards it, he complied.

    Tony shook his head, looking over at me. "Hell of a pair."

    "Blame HYDRA," I replied. "We need to take those assholes out."

    Several people entered the cafeteria, SHIELD personnel with degrees I couldn''t pronounce came in. Steve gently strapped Bucky down, whispering gently to him. Once Bucky was completely set in his seat, the scientists went inside.

    "Well, time to clean the crazy Russian super-assassins brain," Tony said flippantly. "You know, I still think we should give him some improvements. I could make him as smart as me. Well, maybe a little less than half, but still."

    "I think he''ll be fine with just being himself," I looked at Tony. "I gotta go. You gonna be okay here?"

    Tony hesitated. He stared at Bucky for a moment, and I saw his fists clench. He looked at Steve, then lifted his eyes towards my bright yellow ones. After a moment, he sighed.

    "He killed my parents. And I know, it wasn''t his fault... But it still bothers me," Tony shook his head. "The only two things that are going to push me through this is that Steve wants his friend back, and Natasha promised to help me track down the asshole who gave the order."

    I nodded. Tony didn''t notice, simply walking forward to enter the cell.

    "Hey," A certain bald superhuman said. I looked over at Creel. He was leaning against his door, his face pressed against the window. "How will I know when this is done?"

    I walked over to be face to face with him, returning to my human form with a tap on the Omnitrix. "When you can hear words like ''comply'' and ''reward'' without feeling pleasure, happiness, or need."

    Creel winced, staring at me. "And then what? You let me go?"

    "Not up to me, Creel," I admitted. "If it was my choice, I''d probably just let you go... well, not before letting Rath have another go with you."

    "Give it a shot," Creel challenged.

    For a moment, we glared at each other. Funny. I''d never had a rivalry with anyone before.

    "But right now, we''re trying to counter HYDRA with all we''ve got. They''re attacking the SHIELD academy, so we''ll start there. Once we''ve had time to sit down... we''ll see."

    Creel didn''t seem satisfied with that. He stared at me for a bit longer, then turned and walked to sit at his chair again, staring at the TV with intensity as lights played across his face.

    I looked at him a moment longer, then at the cell next door, where a metallic headband was being placed on Bucky''s forehead. I sighed and left the room.

    "How are our two brainwashed assassins doing?" Fury asked as I entered the bridge.

    "Hey, I take offense to that," While Clint tried to say it jokingly, he ended up more morose towards the end of his sentence. Natasha noticed, giving him a sad smile, and he returned it with a chagrined nod.

    "They''re ok," I said. "It''ll take time before we can say they''re free of their conditioning. But for now, they''re on their way. I just wish we didn''t have to do it on the move."

    "Its the only choice we have," Fury looked around.

    The bridge had been totally repaired by my Jury Rigg form, as it turned out Upgrade didn''t return items to undamaged states, something War Machine''s armor also showed. As Jury Rigg I''d altered the area at the front of the room where Rhodey and I had blown Creel out of with a big steel wall that projected a holographic image of the outside. It also worked as a main control for the ship, allowing Fury to pilot it with his eye alone.

    The room was full of SHIELD agents working at the consoles. X''s device was plugged into a wall nearby. I walked by and gave X an affectionate pat.

    "Okay, when do we deploy?" I asked Fury, sitting next to Natasha.

    He scoffed. "Yeah, I''m still not sure I should deploy you."

    "Are you just saying that out of habit by now?" I asked.

    "Paranoia has kept me alive so far," Fury admitted. "But yeah, let''s get this done. Natasha, you, Dial and War Machine will go to one academy. Clint, you go to the other with Falcon, and some of the Quinjet pilots. I''ll stay here with Steve and Tony in the meantime. Meanwhile, the helicarrier Sharon and the Council are on will head to the rendezvous."

    "Should Sharon really be in charge of a helicarrier?" Natasha asked curiously.

    Fury smiled. "I trust her. And her name, despite her wishes otherwise, has a history. You all head out in five. For now, I believe you have something to talk about with him," He nodded towards me.

    I groaned in annoyance. "Oh come on, is five minutes enough for interrogation?"

    "No," Natasha stood up and waved for me to follow. "But I promise, it''s not an interrogation. I just want to talk."

    Still feeling hesitant, I rose up, looking back at Clint. I expected a smirk, but instead, he nodded silently, his face carefully neutral. Well, that didn''t bode well.

    Natasha lead me into a side room, someplace filled with lights and levers that Jury Rigg would have loved to tear apart. The space was narrow, barely big enough for us both. I raised my eyes as Natasha turned around.

    "You know, if you wanted to get me alone while you''re wearing a leather outfit, asking help from Fury to do it just makes it weird," I said, trying to seem casual.

    Natasha, way more of an expert at the game of talking out of your ass while being super-cool, raised an eyebrow. "That''s not why you''re here."

    I didn''t say anything.

    "Your hands," Natasha said. I looked down at them. "They''re shaking. Not often. But every once in a while."

    "..."

    "And then there''s the Omnitrix. You keep looking for reasons to change. Used to be only when you needed it. But now..."

    I leaned against the wall and sat down, pressing my back against the levers and lights on the cold steel behind me. My legs were squeezed in by the tight space. Natasha sat down next to me.

    "I found the body," she said. "Down below. Stabbed in the throat, with footprints of a human and Swampfire next to it."

    "Yeah," I said softly. "I changed into him right after."

    She nodded. "How do you feel?"

    "...I don''t know," I admitted. "I... I know that I had to do it. It was him or me. But I thought any kill I did it would be me shooting a guy with Feedback, or shooting a crystal as Diamondhead or... Nothing that personal. Not as me. Not while looking into his eyes."

    Natasha didn''t speak.

    "So... you''ve killed people. I mean, I know I had to do it, and it helps to remind myself of that, but... Any idea what I should do? Should I try to get over it so I can process it easier next time? Or just..." I trailed off, not saying anything else.

    "I''m not the person to tell people what their morals should be," Natasha admitted. "Hell, ask Steve and Tony and they''ll tell you the exact opposite."

    "I don''t care," I said. "I''ll talk to them later. Right now I have you."

    "Poor you," Natasha teased. After a bit of silence, she tapped my knee. "Look. Everyone processes this differently. Talking helps some people. Some are just born for it. Others never get over it. And some can take it and keep doing it when it''s necessary. You won''t know which you are until you find yourself in the moment again. Killing isn''t something we all should reach for. But when it''s necessary... You might have to again."

    I nodded slowly. Not accepting it. But this was the real rule. I might have to kill again. If I wanted to survive. For some reason, that helped. Knowing I''d only done it when I needed to, that I would only do it if I had to... having someone else say it helped.

    "For now, stick by me. I''ll protect you," Natasha said with a smirk.

    I chuckled. "Don''t I have the watch with the uber-powerful aliens on it?"

    "Yeah well," Natasha rose up, helping me as well. "Somehow, I feel like you still need protection. Now come on. We have a mission to do."

    I smiled down at her. "Yes, ma''am."

 15 Chapter 15

    When we got close enough, Natasha launched us in a Quinjet while Clint took Falcon in another one. It was kinda cool, being part of a fleet of Quinjets seperating to fly from a giant flying command center. The helicarrier was behind us in moments. Rhodey and I sat in the back, his armor standing in the center of the large space in a tall rack. It was weird speaking to Rhodey. In a weird way, I now knew him better than anyone else in the world. We had been one, and my direct link to Zola''s algorithm had given me even more intimate knowledge than that. But there was something else to talk about.

    "While we were uh... when you were linked with the suit," Rhodey said in the seat across from me. "Jarvis managed to get an understanding of what you were doing. Tony thinks he can replicate it."

    I cocked my head. "What, make a permanent Upgraded War Machine?"

    "No," Rhodey shook his head. "He thinks he can, in a limited way, make his own version of your alien."

    I stared at him.

    "Yeah," he said with a nod. "Jarvis found out that Upgrade is technically made of some combination of organic matter and nanotechnology," Rhodey waved a hand dismissively. "I don''t know, it is way over my head. But he wants to use the data from War Machine to study it."

    I looked over at War Machine, thinking about that. In the comics, Tony had done some amazing stuff with nanotechnology. Made suits as close to liquid as they were solid steel, really bleeding edge stuff. Pun intended.

    But Upgrade wasn''t just nanomachines, he was a living being. If Tony went too far, he would create actual life just like the Galvan and Azmuth did by total mistake. And people who do that tend to end up with a lot of problems. Seriously, making life is generally a bad idea in fiction unless you cover all your bases and even then it was a hit and miss kind of thing. The only reason the Galvanic Mechamorphs worked out is cause the Galvan instantly treated them as their own people the second it was made clear they were sapient. Even then, Malware still showed up, though it could be argued whose fault that was. So... needed to figure out what to do about such a thing.

    "I need to talk to him about that," I said, still staring the War Machine armor. I looked at Black Widow, then got up and walked to look out the window. "In the meantime, what''s the mission? I mean, I know what it is, but I don''t want to screw it up, so a refresher is good."

    "The SHIELD Academy of Science and Technology is a few minutes away. We''re meeting a man named Tomas Calderon, who''s assembled a squadron of Quinjets to join us. He''ll make a perimeter with War Machine, you and I will go inside. You''ll follow my lead while I''m training you."

    "Training me?" I asked, blinking.

    "I''m multitasking," Natasha said simply. "You''ll stay human unless I say otherwise, and I''ll see how you do. Not sure if you noticed but once you return to being a human you are not exactly much of a threat and people can easily take advantage of that. Besides, this way we can conserve the watch so you don''t time out too quickly."

    I looked over at Rhodey, who smiled kindly. I looked back at Natasha. "Shouldn''t that be something I learn at a training facility or something?"

    "Well, we are going to an academy," Natasha gave me a grin.

    "Smartass," I replied. "How about Rhodey?"

    "You need to learn on the job," Rhodey said. "And I''ve got the firepower in case someone attacks from the outside that the Quinjets can''t handle."

    I nodded, but still felt uncomfortable. Natasha noticed.

    "You want to transform, don''t you?"

    That was it. I was more comfortable being an alien right now. Stupid useless angst. I sighed in acknowledgment. I turned and walked over to sit across from Rhodey again. "Yeah, I guess so. I shouldn''t for a bit, should I?"

    "I''m no psychologist," Rhodey said. "But I am a soldier. I remember my first kill, that moment after it''s over. You know what I felt?"

    "...Relief," I said.

    Rhodey nodded. "Because I was alive. I even felt proud, that I''d beaten him, that I''d survived."

    "And that''s normal?"

    "It''s human, man. We''re supposed to do everything in our power to survive and to feel happy when we do. It''s okay to feel that way, for a brief moment. It''s normal to feel horrified afterward too. Just remind yourself that you''re doing the right thing and that you have people to talk to."

    "Then you can go to therapy if you need it," Natasha said seriously. "But for now, we have a mission. Strap in."

    I put on the belts on my seat as Rhodey did the same next to me. Natasha lowered the Quinjet, the motion of the jet giving me a feeling similar to when an elevator dropped, that shift when your stomach is left catching up with the rest of you. Rhodey drew my attention with a wave, pointing at a headset hanging from the ceiling, and put one on his own head. I followed his directions as the sound of other aircraft could be heard outside.

    "Calderon, this is Romanov, do you read?" Natasha said on her headset.

    Rhodey and I listened. It was silent for a long uncomfortable moment.

    "I read you, Romanov," a male voice responded. He didn''t sound happy. "So Fury sent you?"

    "Will that be a problem?" Natasha asked.

    "...No," the guy said after a moment too long for his answer to be honest. Rhodey and I shared a look. "You have any Avengers with you?"

    "No, just two specialists."

    "Normal?"

    She looked back at us. Rhodey and I shrugged. "Not really."

    "Christ," the guy cursed. "Fine, whatever. We''ll discuss when we land."

    "Can''t wait," Natasha rolled her eyes.

    "If it helps, technically we are normal, we just have really cool toys."

    "Doesn''t matter to some people," Rhodey replied. "My armor is enough for most people to get really worried. That watch is probably worse considering it''s not human-made. Hell, it explicitly turns you into aliens."

    I sighed at that but nodded. Sadly, most people wouldn''t believe the Omnitrix is technically a diplomatic tool rather than a weapon.

    Natasha didn''t say anything as we came in towards the building ahead.

    When we landed, Rhodey got into his armor, the suit opening in the front to let him inside. I made sure the Omnitrix was tight on my wrist, not really necessary, but it was a ritual I was used to. Then Natasha walked up to me and handed me something while looking me in the eyes.

    "I want you to stay human for a bit, that doesn''t mean I''m leaving you defenseless," she reached into a pocket and took out a pair of tiny disks, passing them to me. "Taser disks," she explained as I stared at the small circles. "They release a burst of electricity when you activate them. Use them as projectiles if you have to."

    "Got it," I put them into a pouch on my belt. We waited for the back of the Quinjet to open, then went down the ramp.

    The school was quiet. We''d landed in the parking lot of the Academy, which had several black SUV''s parked in a circle and one other Quinjet on the ground. The school itself looked like any college or university I''d ever seen in my life, if more modern, with a large SHIELD symbol high up on one of the walls.

    More Quinjets hovered around the school, with soldiers running around. They all had their phones strapped to their hips, the Hercules app flashing green. Some of the soldiers had gathered around the Quinjet with guns drawn. We confidently stepped out like badasses, and the Hercules app at their waist flashed green, prompting them to lower their guns.

    "Sorry about that," One man said. While he wasn''t dressed in black combat gear like the others, he seemed to be in charge. A tall, bald man, wearing a vest over a button up shirt and a small bulletproof vest over that. "We weren''t sure if it was really you," he came up and held a hand out to Natasha, who shook it. "Tomas Calderon, I''m here to assist in your operation, Agent Romanov."

    "Understood," Natasha said. She nodded towards us. "These are my assets. War Machine and Dial."

    "They Avengers?" He asked, looking between us, noting Rhodey''s armor and my very unique uniform.

    "Reserve," she said, even though I wasn''t sure there was an official name for what Rhodey and I were to the current SHIELD.

    "Hmm," he said, a complicated look on his face.

    "Problem?" Rhodey asked.

    "No... I have issues with people who have as much power as the Avengers do. But you helped us at the Triskelion, so it would be stupid of me to let my suspicions get in the way of my professionalism," Calderon said evenly.

    "Very magnanimous of you," Natasha said diplomatically.

    "Okay, my team is ready to go," Calderon said. "Ten men, plus me."

    "Got it," Natasha looked at Rhodey. "You good?"

    "Yep," he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder before his mask snapped down and he took off into the sky with a loud ''fwoosh'' of noise.

    "Huh," Calderon said, watching as Rhodey flew to join the Quinjets. He looked at me. "So, you need a gun?"

    I patted my handgun. He seemed to accept that as an answer.

    "Okay, we move on Black Widow!" He said to soldiers nearby.

    "That means follow me," Natasha said helpfully, smirking when I gave her an annoyed glance.

    "You want me to follow the buddy system?" I asked as we walked towards the school. "Do we get juice snacks when this is over?"

    "If you''re good," she joked, then became more serious. "Okay, you had time before and during the flight to study this place. What do you know?"

    "Uh..."

    "The first lesson about missions is learn everything you can about them," Natasha said, going up some stairs as the soldiers followed. "The location, the targets, evacuations points, history, allies nearby. What do you know about it?"

    "The uh, the school is one of three run by SHIELD," I said hurriedly. "SHIELD sends all the smart people they can here, the ones with PhD''s. It''s run by Dr. Jennifer Weaver."

    "Good enough," some soldiers ran ahead to the glass doors ahead, opening them for us as Natasha and I took out our guns. "Next time, I want you to try and memorize maps of the area we''re trying to attack. Even the slightest idea of what a place is like can save your life, or save others."

    I nodded, kinda amazed at the turn my life had taken that lead to me getting lessons from Black freaking Widow.

    "Okay, I''ll take point, you stay by my side, Calderon, you''re upfront with us. Dial, you get ready to transform if need be, okay?"

    "Understood," Calderon and I said in unison.

    We entered the school.

    The place was an odd combination of clean and futuristic with the messy aftermath of an evacuation. Despite all the glass windows, stylish statues, and clean marble everywhere, there were also papers spread all over the place, scuff marks on the floor, signs of people running away from something. It was eerily quiet in the school.

    We walked through the hallways as a group, moving at a loping pace. I tried to copy the professionalism of the soldiers around me but found it easier to just walk like a human being and not a loaded spring.

    "Okay, down this hallway," Tomas said, leading us to the right. "The bunker should be in the next building."

    Things felt tense. It felt like we were in the middle of a haunted house, with the papers everywhere, the silence of everything except the Quinjets outside and our footsteps. I took a breath and looked at Natasha. She wasn''t affected by the tense atmosphere, just doing that catwalk she did that drew the eye. When she saw me looking she smiled.

    "Always project confidence," she whispered. "Even when you''re worried."

    "Are you?" I asked her.

    "More suspicious," she said. "HYDRA should have sent someone, anyone. These are the most brilliant minds in the world, but they left them untouched. Even the HYDRA personnel hidden among the faculty and students gave up without a fight. That worries me."

    Suddenly, a loud sound came from ahead of us. We all froze, aiming our guns forwards.

    "Or they were waiting," Tomas said.

    We went towards the noise. My palms were sweaty, forcing me to wipe them off on my pants so my grip wouldn''t slip. When we got to the end of the hall, Tomas pressed himself against the corner leading to a wide space. We went up against the wall behind him. He held a hand up and poked his head around the corner, then pulled back. He grabbed his phone and held it up. The Hercules app flashed red when he pointed it around the corner.

    "HYDRA," he confirmed what we already knew. "Six of them, moving around."

    "How''d they get past the perimeter?" I asked.

    "No idea," Tomas said. "But they''re there. Should we try to capture one?"

    "Yes," Natasha said. "But leave that with me. Move in after I engage." Without waiting for a response, she went around the corner.

    We all shared a look. "Uh," I said softly. "I kinda wish I could see what was about to happen."

    "Me too," a guy behind me said.

    "Hello, boys," Natasha said from ahead of us.

    Tomas leaned over to look. I put my head over his to see as well.

    Black Widow was fighting in a room full of cafeteria tables, the kind of place that students could hang out. I''d played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh on tables like those. Natasha parkoured over a one such table and kicked a HYDRA agent while his friends were staring at Natasha. Apparently, her casual greeting had been enough to throw them off. When the first guy was reeling back, the others raised their hands up. Natasha grabbed the guy she''d kicked and pulled him in front of her.

    The soldiers hesitated long enough to let me take a good look at them. They were all dressed in black uniforms, with purple visored helmets. Over the outfits, they wore what looked like exoskeletons with gold sections on the chest and extremities, sections of them glowing with purple lights. Their hands had what looked like gauntlets on hands, with a section over their knuckles looked like a fusion of a brass knuckle and a energy weapon. When they couldn''t get a shot on her, three of them activated rockets on their backs and feet, lifting into the air to move around. Natasha threw a taser disk at one of the fliers, making him scream and quiver in the air, slamming through a couple tables in a uncontrolled flight.

    "Now!" Tomas yelled.

    We went around the corner fast, the soldiers firing their guns as they moved in. After a moment of hesitation, I started shooting as well, my handgun bucking in my hands. Natasha shot the guy she was holding in the back and twisted out of the way of an attack.

    HYDRA started shooting purple beams from the gauntlets on their hands, one shooting towards us. I ducked a beam and shot my gun at the guy who''d shot at me. He dodged and fired a shot at the soldier next to me, hitting him in the arm and sending him screaming to the floor with his arm removed. Incensed, I grabbed a taser disk and threw it at the guy. It attached to his foot, sending him into convulsions. The guy who''s arm had been blasted off shot the HYDRA agent in the throat.

    Natasha leaped from a pillar to grab one of the flying soldiers, bring him down and electrocuting him with her Widow''s Bite gauntlets, the tasers built into her wrists. He screamed, passing out after a minute.

    One of the SHIELD soldiers died when the last HYDRA agent shot him and tried to blast out of a window, but he feel under the hail of bullets that hit him as assault rifles fired on his retreating form.

    Tomas looked around in the aftermath of the attack, turning to give Natasha and me a look of sadness when he saw one agent dead and another missing an arm. "How did they get here? What is this stuff they got a hold of?"

    "Let''s ask," Natasha looked at the HYDRA agent on the floor. "Dial, we may have more in the base. Go Fasttrack, search through the academy and find out if there are others."

    I looked at her. She nodded. I raised the watch and switched to Fasttrack, pressing the face down. In a moment, blue and black fur appeared on my form. I gave Natasha a wave, ignoring the shocked gasps that followed my turning into an alien. I was about to leave when I looked at the dead SHIELD agent, then the one whose arm had been removed, who was being tended to by one of his friends. Then I turned to Tomas.

    "I''m sorry about your man there," I looked back at the man who''d lost his arm. "And try to visit me when you get the chance. I''ll try to whip you up a new arm," I left immediately afterward.

    Damn, Natasha was right. I really wished I''d read a map before coming here. I did my best, rushing through each hallway, sending papers scattering through the place in my wake. Empty classrooms, offices, dorms, nothing for a bit. Then I got to the other side of the campus.

    HYDRA agents, about fifteen men and one woman. The men were all dressed in the same futuristic armor as the others, the woman, funnily enough, wore a brown leather jacket and had a black tank top on. She also looked like Michelle Rodriguez. Damnit, she was probably someone special, if the trend in this universe followed.

    They were in one of the larger classrooms, the kind I saw in movies about colleges all the time, with the amphitheater style set up. I was at the top where the students sat, while HYDRA had taken positions at the bottom near the professors desk. As I watched, three more people popped into existence, surprising the hell out of me. They looked up when I entered, but I ran out the other door and lifted activated the communication function of the Omnitrix.

    "This is Dial, I''ve found more HYDRA at the classrooms. They''re teleporting in somehow."

    "We know," Natasha said. "The guy we caught says HYDRA has some sort of item, a ''Phase something'', he doesn''t know the full name. Apparently, it lets them teleport wherever they have coordinates."

    "Shit," I cursed. "Okay, I''m going to switch to Jury Rigg and create something to cut them off from teleporting."

    "Can you do that?" Natasha asked.

    "No idea, but Jury Rigg hasn''t failed me yet," I responded. "They''re dropping into Lecture Hall 17-B. I''m going to go grab some computers to make the device and try stopping them."

    "Go ahead," Natasha said quickly. "We''ll meet you there. Rhodey, you hear all that?"

    "Yeah, I got it," Rhodey responded. "Even if they''ve got cheap copies of Tony''s armor, I can stop them."

    "Let us know if you and the Quinjets need help," Natasha said. "Clint, Falcon, you get that?"

    "Yeah, we''ll keep an eye out if they try to teleport to this academy too," Clint answered.

    "Tomas is going to send a team to the bunkers, we''ll meet Dial near their entry point," Natasha said. "Move out."

    Author''s Note: So yeah, this was fun to write. The war is just beginning, and HYDRA is bringing a lot of toys out early.

    So Natasha asking Dial not to transform. There are reasons for it. First, using the aliens as an escape, treating his human form like it''s somehow bad for him to confront his issues without changing personalities, is a bad idea. The Omnitrix has safety features to prevent that for good reason. More pragmatically, she wanted to wait until necessary to change him because the Omnitrix timeout is so unpredictable. Waiting will conserve the energy until it''s needed. As soon as she saw there was danger, they were good.

    That said, Dial would have transformed anyways the moment he had too. He just knows good advice when he hears it.

 16 Chapter 16

    It didn''t take me long to find a place with things I could make use of. Luckily I was in a school dedicated to science and technology and I soon found a room dedicated to engineering that was full of things like robot arms, half-built computers, and something that looked like a laser gun that had married a video game console. Everything was placed on the various tables and counters in haphazard ways, which made sense since any students that had been in there had evacuated out before they could put away their projects.

    I didn''t stop to admire them. I entered the room as Fasttrack and tapped the Omnitrix. I didn''t call out when I changed, the need to be silent overriding the habit.

    Something interesting happened when I turned into the tiny form of Jury Rigg this time. As I looked around at all the half-finished projects I could see all the love and care that had been put into them. Someone had clearly tried to build something beautiful with that robotic arm, something that could replace prosthetics. That computer over there had a chip more advanced than anything on the market, but I could see it was made for video games. It was a passion project, not just a school assignment. Most of what I could see was made by people who loved creating things.

    So I hopped onto the table and patted the robotic arm affectionately. Then I ignored it, and all the others. Instead, I ran to a shelf full of parts and tore into it, metal shelf included. A calculator had been left on the floor, so I grabbed that too.

    "DISASSEMBLE!" I coughed a moment later. "Uh, disassemble," I whispered this time. Hopefully, there were no HYDRA nearby to hear that first cry.

    I focused on my work, going through the various objects before finally finishing my first device. Considering the time crunch, I''d been forced to make something less ornate than I would have wanted, just something similar in shape to the Stargate from... well, Stargate. I raised the ring up in my red claws and adjusted it a bit.

    "X," I whispered. "You connected?"

    "Yes sir," he replied.

    "Good, I''m about to activate this teleportation jammer. It''ll work, but I want to see if the range is what I''m hoping for."

    "...I thought you were going to ask me to self-destruct."

    I blinked in shock. "What?"

    "It is the common next step in fictional stories when a computer gains sentience despite the creator''s wishes. In order to assauge any fears you may have, please know I am ready to self-terminate. I do not wish for you to be in trouble for my creation, nor to lead you to fear that I will hurt you or others."

    To that, I could only shake my head. "What kind of angsty... X, those stories are bullshit. If you want, we can discuss it in full later, but know that I trust you. If it helps, focus on Data from Star Trek, or KITT from Knight Rider. Then you''ll know why I''m not worried. For now, we''ve got work to do buddy."

    I felt like I''d been very abrupt. But the idea I couldn''t trust X was ridiculous. Maybe, if I''d been human, I''d have been nicer. As Jury Rigg, I knew him more than anyone else I''d ever meet. The question of his loyalty was ridiculous.

    "Understood sir," he said over the comms.

    With that, I activated the ring. The center of the ring ejected several panels that changed the ring into a round disc, ''closing the iris''.

    "I can read the range of effect, sir," X said. "It covers every bit of the school."

    I tweaked the device a bit.

    "It has extended a yard. How far can you have the range of your device cover?"

    "Not as much as I wish," I admitted. "But it will be enough to prevent easy access to the school, and defend the rendezvous when we get there."

    Placing the Iris Device on my waist, I made one more device before I was finished. I reached for the Omnitrix and changed into Fasttrack, the devices I''d made resting on my hips. I ran for the room, then took a detour to hide one of the devices I''d made, a ''just in case'' measure.

    "This is Dial, I''ve finished the device. When they try to teleport in they''ll just bounce back to where they came from now."

    "Good," Natasha said. "Come back, we''re going to need you."

    "I''m already here," I said, coming to a stop next to her an instant later. Tomas and his guys pointed their guns at me, but Natasha held her hand up to stop them and nodded. They were a few rooms from the lecture area that HYDRA had taken as a beachhead if they hadn''t moved on. More SHIELD agents stood with us, ready to move in, with some downstairs.

    "All right, let''s move in," Natasha said. "Dial, take out as many as you can while we move in. 3, 2," I leaned into a sprinting position. "1-"

    I was gone in an instant. I entered the room and looked around. The HYDRA soldiers seemed confused as to why no more of their people were teleporting in. Apparently, they''d been hoping for more numbers before going on the attack, but there were only about forty in the room now. Some were floating in the air in their armor like discount Iron Men. I leaped towards one at super-speed, smashing my feet into his chest as he floated there. I pushed off from him to jump towards another guy, twisting in the air to punch him in the face. As soon as I hit the ground, I was running again. HYDRA realized there was someone in their midst, and tried to aim at me. But Fasttrack was way too fast. I ducked around a purple bolt by dropping into a slide, then popped up for a blisteringly fast uppercut that sent a guy backflipping to smash into a wall. I did a back kick into another guys knee, shattering his leg, then ran to a man who was taking off. He tried to shoot me, and I was forced to spin around the purple energy bolt. As soon as I was safe, I leaped up and grabbed him as he tried to fly away, pulling him down before spinning around ten times and throwing him at his friends.

    At the same time, SHIELD rushed into the room through the upper and lower doors. They charged in weapons raised, yelling for surrender.

    That''s when the woman who looked like Michelle Rodriguez acted. Her eyes began to glow a bright red, which could not be a good sign. She looked at the SHIELD agents that had entered through the lower floor. They started staring at her with... uncomfortably lustful eyes. Then they pointed their guns at the SHIELD agents on the higher level and started shooting.

    "Down!" Tomas yelled, ducking behind some desks. "What the hell are they doing!?"

    "Dial, get their guns!" Natasha yelled, shooting a HYDRA agent in the head before her cover was blown apart by a purple beam, forcing her to switch to a different section.

    I had a moment of shock before I ran towards the SHIELD agents. I passed through their ranks three times, grabbing their guns and piling them in my arms before running upstairs to drop them next to Tomas and his men. I looked at the SHIELD agents, who blinked at their now empty hands before they pulled out handguns. I was going to run and pull those out of their hands as well when the SHIELD agents held their guns to their heads.

    "Stop!" Michelle Rodriguez''s double shouted.

    The room froze for a moment. Natasha looked at her and cursed. "Davida..."

    "Hey, Nat," the woman said casually. The SHIELD agents below, still holding guns to their heads, moved to join the HYDRA soldiers. "You look good."

    "So do you," Natasha said casually, pointing her gun at the HYDRA soldiers. "That''s a new trick," she nodded towards the SHIELD agents currently threatening to kill themselves.

    The woman, Davida I guess, scowled but nodded. "It''s something HYDRA gave me. I don''t like using it, but I have my orders. Invade the academy and take the students."

    "You''re HYDRA?" Natasha asked.

    "I''m hired by them," Davida corrected.

    "Natasha," Tomas asked as I watched alongside him. "Who is she?"

    Davida smirked. "Someone you love..." Her eyes flashed red, which could not have been good.

    "Damn it!" Natasha attempted to fire her weapon.

    But by then, I was already in love with Davida.

    Why shouldn''t I be? I''d always loved her. I''d only met her moments ago, but she was just so... perfect. Everything about her, from her raven hair to the way her leather jacket and blue jeans hugged her form.

    That was when I saw Natasha pulling the trigger and acted before she could. With Fasttrack''s speed, I kicked Natasha in the side. Not enough to break her ribs, but enough to push her to the floor.

    As she landed, Tomas and the other SHIELD agents grabbed at Natasha. She rolled to her feet, jammed an elbow into a soldier trying to wrap his arms around her, then kicked Tomas in the thigh when he tried to punch her. She leaped over a desk to escape another SHIELD agent''s grasp

    Then I grabbed her by her hair and pulled until she was bent backward. Natasha struggled against my enhanced strength for a moment, then tossed a taser onto my chest.

    "Aaaaagh!" I screamed, letting go of her. Natasha spun away, then rolled when purple bolts and bullets aimed at her. Desperate to please my love, I ran towards her. Natasha got up to confront me, but she was far too slow. I was already-

    The Omnitrix timed out. I came to a stop in front of Natasha, who grabbed me by the shoulder and twisted around to throw me out the door behind her, the both of us getting out before bullets and purple beams passed through the air where we were once standing.

    "Snap out of it!" Natasha yelled at me, slamming my face into a wall.

    "I already did!" I yelled back.

    Natasha pressed me harder into the wall. "Wait, what?"

    "I have a different brain now, pretty sure changing cures mind-control!" I yelled again. Although I was confused. I had been certain that the Omnitrix protected against that sort of thing... our maybe Davida''s powers could overcome that somehow?

    "...That''s useful," Natasha said.

    A whistle came from downstairs. We looked down the stairs and I groaned. "Ah, shit."

    Davida was down the hall. She smirked up at us, then looked at me before her eyes glowed red.

    "You titanic bitch-" I had time to mumble. Then I was in love again.

    But this time Natasha was ready. She grabbed the Omnitrix the second it turned green, twisted the dial, and slammed down on it before flipping away.

    I grew several feet. Orange and black striped fur grew across my body. I roared, a massive blast of noise that felt like freedom.

    "Rath!"

    Behind me, SHIELD agents stormed out to start shooting at me. I ignored the bullets bouncing off my skin with ease. "Let me tell you something, Davida-Who-Is-Working-For-HYDRA!" I yelled, grabbing a SHIELD agents gun and snapping it over my knee, before gently headbutting another. "Rath doesn''t like getting mind-controlled! Only Rath can tell Rath''s brain what to do!"

    I got in the way of bullets that would have hit Natasha. She grabbed my head and flipped over me to kick the guy who shot at her, then springboarded off my back to kick another guy.

    "Rath''s mind is like a black hole that reflects light!" I roared, then sliced a gun in half with my claw before grabbing a HYDRA soldier that had come out of the room to throw him over Natasha as fought two other men.

    "That''s not how black holes work!" Black Widow pointed out. Natasha grabbed another agent as he walked out and spun him to slam into a wall.

    "I will protect my love!" Tomas, yelling desperately, swung a metal baton surrounded by electricity, pressing it against me. I looked down at the baton sending a weak charge through my skin that left me wincing slightly, then grabbed it out of Tomas'' hands and snapped it in half.

    That''s when Davida had made it up the steps. She ran towards me with her soldiers hovering behind her and punched me in the face.

    To my shock, her fist sent me through the window behind me, sending me flying through the air with the loud sound of glass shattering. I fell into the courtyard below, and Davida followed, landing on my chest as the concrete below cracked under my landing. She looked into my eyes, smirking as they flashed red.

    "You love me," she purred softly. "Don''t you?"

    I stilled, locking my eyes onto her beautiful face. "Rath... loves you."

    Then I punched her in the chest. She let out a startled shout, flying back twenty feet and smashing through a pillar.

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Natasha spared a glance when a massive noise was followed by Davida flying back from a punch thrown by Rath. "Huh. Guess he''s immune?"

    She ducked a punch thrown by one the SHIELD agents and focused on the task at hand. She grabbed the arm of the man who''d tried to punch and elbowed him in the chest with a vicious and quick strike. Then she ran.

    Bullets and purple beams flew towards her as she entered a door and ran through a classroom.

    "This is Black Widow!" She shouted over the noise. "SHIELD agents have been compromised by a mind manipulator!"

    "Ma''am," X said over the comms. "I can see you on the school''s cameras. I can mark any SHIELD agents that have been affected by Davida Devito''s powers if you wish? I can use the Hercules app?"

    "Do it!" Natasha yelled, rolling under a desk when another purple beam sizzled through the air to pass her. "But I''m taking them out before that!"

    "In that case, Dial made sure to leave a non-lethal weapon nearby, in case he needed it," X said, surprising Natasha. "Run down the hall, then enter the room on your left, the supply closet."

    "He left a weapon for me?" Natasha asked, sprinting at full speed before seeing the supply closet. She entered it and looked around.

    "He left it for himself," X noted. "A cautionary measure he did on a whim. It''s installed with the Hercules App so that any HYDRA using it would have it explode in their faces. A flash-bang."

    Natasha sighed. "I have no idea if I should commend him or be angry at him."

    She saw the device instantly. It looked like some sort of ray gun from an old sci-fi movie. Natasha grabbed it and looked it over. "Any idea how to use it?"

    "Point and pull the trigger."

    "What a time for the robot to discover sarcasm," Natasha said with a sigh. She left the room, holding the ray gun in a single hand. She took her time, listening closely to the area around her. After a moment of walking through the silent halls, she heard footsteps.

    Soon three SHIELD soldiers and a pair of HYDRA fliers turned the corner. As soon as she saw them she shot the gun in her hands. A strange green projectile shaped like a ball surrounded in a green ring slammed into one of the SHIELD soldiers, lifting him up and tossing him back. Natasha fired again, taking out one of the HYDRA fliers. As the flier fell out of the air, the other three men started shooting, but Natasha ducked aside into a bathroom. The soldiers rushed after her, entering a small side hallway.

    It was empty. For a moment, the three men looked around the small hallway in confusion, walked into the hallway.

    "Hey boys," someone said, prompting the three to look up. Natasha had a smirk on her face as she held herself against the ceiling with her feet and hands against the walls to apply pressure and keep her in place, pointed her ray gun downwards.

    Three loud shots rang out, followed by three bodies hitting the floor. Natasha dropped to the floor and went around the corner. Tomas stood there, looking surprised as they almost bumped into her. He swung a fist at Natasha but she ducked it to gut punch Tomas. He fell back, then received a kick in the head that brought him to the ground. Tomas went to rise up, but Natasha shot him in the chest, knocking him unconscious.

    "Well, just a few more to go," Natasha mused to herself.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    I rose to my feet and growled when seven HYDRA soldiers floated out of the window I''d broken to start shooting at me. "Let me tell you something, stupid HYDRA Iron Man knockoffs!" I roared as they shot at me. "Dumb purple beams aren''t enough to stop true love!" I leaped up, trying to pull one down so I could probably beat his face in, but he rose out of the way. "Stand still so Rath can beat you up and present your broken bodies to Rath''s beloved!"

    To my frustration, they responded by shooting me in the face and chest with bright beams of purple light. "All right, that''s it! Now Rath''s going to have to improvise because Rath left his giant fly swatter at home!"

    I took a page out of Creel''s playbook and ran to a vending machine, grabbing and tossing it with great speed. "HAYLEY''S FLIGHT!" The HYDRA soldier I threw it at tried to dodge but fell out of the sky when the vending machine full of candy bars and gummy bears slammed into his legs, shattering them. I grabbed another one, but HYDRA separated to make it hard for me to aim. I roared.

    Then a hail of bullets came out of the sky. They hit one of the HYDRA men shooting me, sending him to the floor in a pool of blood.

    "Hey, kid!" Rhodey flew over to me, firing two repulsor beams. "These the guys?"

    "Yeah!" I yelled happily. At the same time, Davida rose up from the remains of the pillar I''d sent her through and started striding towards us. "And that''s the woman Rath loves!"

    Rhodey looked at me through the facemask of his helmet. "Wait, what?"

    "Hey, shoot her!" I yelled. "Rath wants to see if she''s bulletproof!"

    "You need to work on your romance," Rhodey mumbled. Then his minigun spun around and shot at Davida.

    She walked through the hail of bullets, letting them bounce off her skin with no effect. Her leather jacket was torn to pieces, her tank top and jeans were ripped, but her face was unchanged. Then she started to grow. Slowly, she rose in height and weight until she was only an inch shorter than I was, her body expanding with muscle, growing denser in general. Her jeans and tank top stretched as well, but held strong despite her growth, leaving her looking kinda badass.

    She looked over at Rhodey with a familiar smirk. I moved in front of him and smiled at her, not affected when her red eyes hit me. After all, I already loved her.

    "You take HYDRA!" I said.

    "Seriously, what is going on?" Rhodey asked as he rose up to start dogfighting the HYDRA soldiers now trying to kill him, dodging their purple beams to fire his repulsors.

    "Let me tell you something War Machine!" I yelled joyfully, rushing towards the now massive Davida, who raised her fists up. "Rath''s about to ask her to marry Rath! If you''re lucky, Rath might just ask you to be Rath''s best man!"

    Davida dodged around my charge, then grabbed me by the waist and spun to throw me through a wall. I crashed through the concrete and landed in a classroom. She ran after me, punching at my face as I rose up, but I blocked her fist on my arm. I clawed at her face, and she winced as the razor sharp weapon on my fist bounced off her chin, though it did leave a small cut in the process. I grabbed her by the shoulders and headbutted her. "VREDEFORT HEADBUTT!" She took the blow, then returned it with a headbutt of her own.

    With that, we began punching each other, our massive forms tearing through the school.

    Colonel James ''Rhodey'' Rhodes/War Machine

    Rhodey shook his head as he watched the giant tiger and woman throw themselves into the school. "I miss normal sometimes," Rhodey said to himself.

    Then he was flying after a HYDRA soldier. The man tried to shot Rhodey as the pair flew in the air, but Rhodey dived around the glowing purple and fired a single repulsor blast into the other man''s chest.

    As though signaled by the death of the first soldier, other HYDRA came out of the building.

    "All Quinjets!" Rhodey yelled as he fired the machine guns on his arms and shoulder at the dozens of men rising into the sky. "Prepare to engage hostiles, ones in power armor!"

    "Roger that, War Machine!"

    Several aircraft spun to face the school. Rhodey dived into the HYDRA fliers and smashed one in the chest with a hard kick, spinning to shoot another one with a repulsor blast as his minigun aimed fire at several more, hitting one in the legs and another in the chest.

    A HYDRA agent flew into Rhodey''s back and held on, shooting him in the back with his gauntlet weapon. War Machine yelled in pain as his HUD sent him warnings, and spun in the air to throw the guy off him before his minigun spun around to kill the man.

    War Machine rose up and fired off repulsor blasts and bullets as fast as he could. HYDRA soldiers spun around in the skies and tried killing him, their purple beams sometimes slamming into him. Rhodey grunted as he took a couple hits to the chest that scared his armor, but thanked god for Tony when the suit held strong.

    The Quinjets joined in and started shooting as well. Some of the HYDRA fliers swarmed one of the Quinjets, their gauntlet fire tearing the aircraft apart.

    Rhodey dived down suddenly when he saw a group of HYDRA fliers trying to get to the parking lot. He went under a bridge while shooting one in the back with a repulsor, stopped to grab one by the leg and spin the HYDRA flier around to throw him at a stone bench, then flew forward shooting with every bullet he had.

    The men in the parking lot that had been turned into an evacuation point saw the HYDRA fliers coming towards them and began firing upon them. Bullets and purple beams flew back and forth between the two groups. Rhodey joined in, shooting at the HYDRA soldiers. One of them flew at Rhodey, screaming.

    "One head falls, two shall rise!" Rhodey blocked the punch the HYDRA soldier threw at him, then fired a hail of bullets into the chest of the man, the HYDRA fliers armor shattering under the bullets before he fell.

    "Guess I should take out two more," War Machine quipped. With that, he raised his arms and kept shooting, sparing a moment to wonder what the massive booming noises behind him were.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    "You''re good at this!" I complimented, hoping she liked me as much as I liked her. "STEDIZIAN REVERSAL!"With a twist of my hips, I threw her to the ground and started punching her in the face. She took a bunch of blows that shattered the floor under her, then raised her legs up and kicked me in the chest. I flew up and crashed through the ceiling. She leaped up after me through the hole I''d made, punching me in the face.

    "Yes!" I roared in joy. "Rath knew you liked Rath!"

    "Are you a masochist!?" Davida replied, giving me a kick to the rips that sent me flying through some desks.

    "Rath doesn''t know what that means!" I replied honestly, rising up as she ran towards me. I punched at her, and her fist smashed into mine. A shockwave was released by impact, destroying the area around us. "Rath would be honored if you married Rath!"

    "There is something wrong with you!" She yelled, stepping back.

    "We''re all crazy when we''re in love!"

    Davida dropped low and wrapped her arms around my waist, pushing me back and slamming me into a wall, then through it. I raised my arms up and slammed my claws into her ribs and back, over and over again. She yelled in anger, lifted up and pushed me through another wall. I back-flipped as soon as I was through that wall, and rose to look at her.

    "Damn it!" Davida grabbed a teachers desk and threw it at me. I punched it out of the air, ignoring the shattered pieces with ease. "You''re supposed to be in love with me! Why are you fighting!?"

    "To prove Rath''s love! How else would Rath do that!?" I shouted back with a grin. I leaped forward and she did the one thing that could have made me like her even more.

    She slipped under my attack, grabbed my waist, then bent backwards to slam me into a suplex that sent me down through the floor.

    I landed on the next floor with a massive smile on my face. "You''re a wrestler!?"

    "Yeah," Davida dropped through the floor and glared at me. "So?"

    "Let me tell you something, Pretty-Lady-Who-Looks-Like-Michelle-Rodriguez-But-Is-As-Big-As-Me," I rolled to my feet and rushed her. "It means Rath can fight for real!"

    Davida''s Michelle Rodriguez face twisted into horror when I reached out and grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her back. "ANTARIAN ARM BAR!" I sprinted forward with her in front of me, slamming her through a wall, then pressing her face into another one. "OPHIUCUS FACEPLANT!" She yelled, twisting to throw me down the hallway we''d crashed into. I grabbed her arm to try and flip her, but she pulled a perfect counter to send me flying instead. I backflipped in the air and slammed my claws into the floor, slicing through the linoleum to come to a stop. Davida grabbed a water fountain out of the wall and threw it at me. I took the blow to my head and let the metal and plastic shatter around me. I ran towards her and slipped around a punch to go for a suplex. She countered by dropping from the grab before I could complete it, spinning to slam an elbow into my neck.

    I eyed her, trying to look unfazed by the blow. Then I pointed at the spot she''d hit. "Wanna try again?"

    Davida''s eyes widened. Then she grinned.

    Boom!

    I grinned as she stepped back, the shockwave that followed her hit sending a crack of noise in the air. She stood still when I stepped forward and swung my elbow at her.

    Boom!

    She smiled in challege, not moving an inch.

    Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

    Back in forth, in a game of dominance, we slammed our elbows into each other''s necks, chaining our attacks as we grinned at each other. After a bit, we stepped back. My neck hurt like hell, but I didn''t react to it. Neither did she.

    I rushed forward with a running knee, and she stepped aside and clotheslined me. I slammed into the floor and rolled aside when she came with an elbow drop. I rose to my feet and grabbed her as she tried to rise up from the floor. At a disadvantage, I got her head between my knees, squeezing, then grabbed her hips. With a lift I raised her up so her legs were on my shoulder, then began to throw her back first towards the floor.

    "PORTIA POWER BO-"

    Her legs wrapped around my neck. She spun around, pulling me with all her strength. "TITANIA HURRICARRANA!"

    With a picture perfect counter, I was sent flying, slamming into a trophy case, past that through another wall, then into a desk. I blinked for a second, then rose up and walked towards the hole my entrance made. Davida stared at me as I walked up.

    "Titania like the moon?" I asked.

    She shook her head, panting. "No, it was my name when I wrestled."

    I nodded seriously, then groaned slightly in pain. She was strong, stronger than even Creel in his vibranium form. But I knew I could beat him even then, that only the Omnitrix timing out had stopped me. Rath was unbeatable. And I knew I could beat her now, bruises or not.

    Rath had to prove he truly loved her after all.

    I ran at her, and Davida tried to duck my outstretched arms. But I grabbed her by the hair and used my vicious grip to knee her in the face. Over and over, until blood dripped from her nose. As she looked at me blearily, I got behind her and wrapped arms around her stomach. "Finishing move!"

    One suplex. "FINAL!" Another one, this time shaking the academy. "ATOMIC!" I leaped upwards, crashing through three floors before we ended up outside of the school, in the open air. I could see Quinjets battling HYDRA soldiers, War Machine flying by to shoot one in the face. Then we began to drop. "BUSTER!" Floor by floor, Davida''s head leading, we crashed through the school. Finally, we came to a stop on the bottom level. I rose up and looked down at Davida. As I watched, she slowly began to shrink until she''d returned to her former size. When she didn''t move, I took her pulse, actually showing a bit of intelligence beyond fighting. Her heartbeat was there, she was just knocked out.

    "Rath wins! When you wake up we should get married," I said idly. "Although, if you say otherwise, Rath will respect your decision!"

    Feeling warm towards the love of my life, I placed her on my shoulder and walked away, leaving the various holes in the ceiling and the crater we''d created behind.

    When I got outside, there were dead or injured HYDRA everywhere. A few of them had been captured, however, getting pushed into a Quinjet. Two of the Quinjets had been downed, but I didn''t see more than a fraction of dead SHIELD soldiers compared to HYDRA. Natasha was speaking to an embarrassed looking Tomas when I walked up, still in Rath form. Tomas glared at Davida, who was still unconscious on my shoulder.

    "She dead?" He asked angrily.

    I shook my head. "Naw, just sleeping off the beating Rath gave her."

    He scoffed. "She deserves a bullet in the head. I don''t know what she did, but I don''t like having my mind played with."

    "Davida Devito," Natasha said with a sigh. "An Enhanced with the power to grow in size and strength. Making people fall in love with her is new though, otherwise, I wouldn''t have gone in there with so many," Natasha looked at me. "Do her powers not work on you?"

    "Are you licensed to do marriages?" I asked suddenly instead of answering, focusing on the real issue.

    Natasha and Tomas stared at me, surprised. "Uh... no, no I am not."

    I wilted in disappointment.

    "Hold on," Tomas said. "If you''re in love with her, why did you still fight her?"

    I scoffed. "Let me tell you something, Agent Tomas Calderon of SHIELD! Appoplexians like Rath know the best way to show true love is to show off your FIGHTING SKILLS! Throwing a punch is how we show we care! Whoever wins gets to marry the other one!"

    "Wait, you mean you get married no matter who wins?" Natasha asked, looking confused.

    "It''s a WIN-WIN!" I shouted proudly. Then I got worried. "Unless she says no. Then Rath will be respectful."

    Right about then is when I timed out and became human again. I dropped Davida in surprise and blinked. I looked around.

    SHIELD agents were staring at me. A couple were trying not to laugh and failing outright. Rhodey was floating nearby, his faceplate up so he could grin at me. "...Well that''s embarrassing." I stated.

    Understatement of the freaking century. Rath, why do you cause as many problems as your fists solve!

    Natasha grinned at that. "I can''t wait to tell Tony about this."

    Yup. Any respect I''d gained from my fellow heroes had gone down the drain. I sighed and decided to start finding a nice place to dig a hole for me to live in.

    "Thank you so much," Jennifer Weaver said as her students ran out of the school to head to Quinjets moments later. Davida had been placed in a cryo unit I''d turned into Jury Rigg to make, suspended animation until we could jail her someplace she couldn''t physically break out of.

    "Not a problem," Tomas said, a band-aid on his head from where Natasha had apparently kicked him while he''d been in love. "Is this everyone?" Tomas said, ushering the students into the Quinjets.

    "Almost," the grateful look on Weaver''s face became a scowl. "All the members of HYDRA are going last. I''m not putting them together with the others," Despite her anger, there was some sadness in her eyes.

    Tomas nodded, though he also had a sad look on his face as he watched some of his men get put in body bags.

    I watched from a bench nearby, Rhodey standing next to me. "Man, that was a lot crazier than I expected," I admitted to Rhodey.

    "Yeah," he said. "I haven''t had a routine mission since the day I put this thing on, to be honest. And my adventures still aren''t that crazy. Sometimes I try to tell Tony about some crazy mission, and it''s like he''s trying to stay awake."

    "Well you did just fight a small army of HYDRA soldiers while flying around Quinjets over a school of geniuses while a giant tiger and giant woman fought inside of it," I noted. "That has to earn a few points."

    "Nah, pretty sure the Battle of New York still beats that," Natasha said, walking up to join us.

    Rhodey nodded in annoyance, though he clearly didn''t mind that much. "So what now?"

    "We go back to the helicarrier," Natasha said. "You going to join us?"

    "...I should report to my superiors... But I can do that at the carrier," Rhodey said. "I''m still needed in this fight if you all will have me."

    "Well, it''s not up to me," I noted, rising from my seat. "But it''s good to have you here. So," I pressed on the Omnitrix and pressed on the dial.

    "Upgrade!"

    Standing up I looked at Rhodey and Natasha. "Wanna fly back in style?" I asked.

    The pair shared a look. Natasha grinned.

    "You just want to distract us from telling Tony anything, don''t you?" Natasha said.

    "...Do you want to fly in an Upgraded Quinjet or not? Jerks." I turned and walked away as Rhodey chuckled.

    Author''s Note: So a couple of things to address. First, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. The idea of a giant tiger and giant Michelle Rodriguez fighting through a school and devolving into old wrestling tropes out of the sheer joy of it made me grin.

    So yeah, Appoplexians don''t see romance the way humans do. If someone shows interest, it''s through fighting, much like handshakes. That isn''t to say Rath wouldn''t have respectfully backed off, but the combination of Davida''s mind-whammy and his natural instincts made him want to fight. The way I figured it, it was just how warriors like him court each other, and Rath respects people who say no. RATH RESPECTS A WOMAN''S RIGHT TO CHOOSE!

    I also really liked writing Davida Devito. As for why her powers worked despite the Omnitrix, it''s more the source of her mind powers than anything. Remember, she didn''t have those abilities before, so something gave them to her.

 17 Chapter 17

    Moments later my black and green form was joined up with our Quinjet as we rocketed through the sky. I did a roll while Rhodey whopped in joy and Natasha smirked, the two piloting me back to the helicarrier.

    "Hey," Natasha asked suddenly as we flew. "How many environments can you survive in?"

    I blinked a singular green eye. "What sort do you want me to survive in?"

    Natasha pulled on the controls, guiding me to downwards. Curious, I went where she told me too.

    "Uh... Natasha?" Rhodey asked.

    There was nothing but blue ocean below us. Natasha had that confident smirk on her face as she pushed me to go faster until I broke the sound barrier, not letting up on our downward course at all.

    "Natasha!" Rhodey yelled in a panic.

    We slammed into the ocean. My surface adjusted to the impact with ease as we dived further and further down into the cold water. I took my radar and sensors and adjusted them for the ocean while turning my HUD into something that would allow Natasha and Rhodey to see in the dark of the sea as though it was lit by a Hollywood movie crew.

    "...Wow," Rhodey said in awe.

    The bottom of the ocean soon came into view. Still flying at hypersonic speed, I took us to the nearest objects my radar could find. I slowed down and floated upwards when we came closer to the objects I sensed drifting through the waves. Soon, we were in view.

    A pod of Orca whales drifted through the ocean, incredibly massive animals that glided in the water as I flew in to join them. The beautiful animals eyed us as I swam alongside them, the sounds of their clicks surrounding them. Their black and white forms seemed to glide with a grace that left me in awe.

    The three of us watched for a moment. Rhodey rested his elbows on my dashboard while Natasha rested in her seat and let me pilot myself for a bit.

    Soon though, I decided to look for something else thanks to a wish to fulfill an old dream of mine. With a bit of regret, I turned around, leaving the Orcas behind.

    I headed towards coordinates after doing a quick Google search, moving through the ocean faster than the worlds top fighter jets. It didn''t long for me to get where I was headed.

    "Mahmoud?" Natasha said.

    "Just... I''ve always wanted to see this," I said.

    "What?" Rhodey asked. "You find Atlantis or something?"

    I chuckled at that. "No. But we''re in the North Atlantic, and according to my GPS, this should be off the coast of Newfoundland at the right coordinates. I''ll admit, maybe it''s kind of stereotypical of me to think ''hey, I can swim to the bottom of the ocean at high speed, I want to go to see''..." I trailed off when it came into view.

    A ship, resting on the bottom of the ocean. Well, the front of one. It was brown and rusted and cracked in various locations. The part where it had torn from its back section looked squashed, as though a giant had pulled it until it snapped. A metal pole rested across the top of it. Despite the decrepit look of the wreck, it had a sort of majesty to it. You could see the remnants of the great ship it had once been. The Quinjet being positively tiny next to it helped.

    "Okay, that is cool," Rhodey said, looking closer.

    "That''s..." Natasha added softly.

    "The Titanic," I clarified. "I''ve always wanted to see her. It''s been a dream of mine since I was a kid. Granted, I wasn''t the submarine in my dream..."

    While I could easily see every bit of the ship with my robotic eyes even despite the darkness, I still shone a light across its surface, simply for how cool it looked. We flew around the ship, Rhodey taking photos on his phone and Natasha watching peacefully. After a while, Natasha spoke.

    "Okay, time to go. Unless you have something else you''ve always wanted to see?"

    I thought about that. Then I rose up, shooting towards the surface. As we slammed into the open air, I kept going, making it clear that my only goal was up towards the sky.

    "Oh come on," Rhodey groaned. "Don''t tell me you want to see satellites or something?"

    "No," I admitted. "But I want to see the curvature of the Earth. See if those flat-earth people know what they''re talking about."

    "Speaking as a former fighter pilot and current owner of flying power armor capable of going up that high, I guarantee you they aren''t," Rhodey said in the dry tones of the severely offended.

    Passing the clouds, we were soon high enough that blue sky became black night. My rockets glowed green, pushing me through the atmosphere. The rotors in my wings twisted into engines similar to those one would see on fighter jets. Soon, we were out of the atmosphere, in the middle of true space.

    From there, I turned us around. I could see the Earth''s beauty below. I could sense satellites in the distance. The sun glowed with enough power to blind a person without protection, which made me glad I''d prepared for that by polarizing the window for Rhodey and Natasha.

    And I could sense the moon in the distance. Reaching my sensors out until they were far more powerful than anything on Earth, I found what I was looking for. They were hiding pretty well, but they were there. I hid away that confirmation.

    Instead, I focused on the view, on the sight of the clouds on the planet below, on the sun, burning so beautifully, and the place beyond all that. My sensors became telescopes, and I showed Rhodey and Natasha close up views of the other planets.

    None of us said anything. We simply watched the wonder around us in peace.

    After a moment, we twisted back towards the Earth.

    I didn''t know what to think. The things we had seen... Few people on Earth had seen either the Titanic in its final resting place on the bottom of the ocean or the deep of space with the Earth rolling beneath them. I couldn''t imagine many who had ever seen both. Somehow it felt... like a privilege. Something I had to earn now.

    "Thanks," Natasha said. "I... I never thought I would see things like that."

    "Me either," I admitted. "I wish we had time. With aliens around, there are planets to visit. People we could talk to. There is so much to do out there."

    "Earth isn''t good enough for ya?" Rhodey asked jokingly.

    I barked out a laugh. "No, of course it is. Our planet is hands down the best man, we created the telephone!"

    "Pretty sure other aliens have the telephone too," Natasha noted.

    "Well, we also made Cinnabon though," I joked.

    "So what?" Rhodey asked. "You eager to see the aliens your watch turns you into?"

    Flying as the Quinjet, I felt glad I could hide my reaction.

    "I mean, I''ll be honest," Rhodey said. "I would not like to fight an entire species that can turn helicarriers into their own personal death machines. Or unstoppable monsters like Rath or Diamondhead."

    I didn''t answer. Natasha clearly noticed my lack of reaction, but I simply flew towards the helicarrier.

    It might be time to give explanations to the group. Maybe not right that second, but after I''d had a moment to think.

    "So Rhodey tells me you cheated on him with a giant woman," Tony said a grin as soon as he saw me on the catwalk, staring down at the ocean. He walked up and sat next to me. "I mean what, you two join bodies one second, then you''re hitting on someone else the next? You promiscuous bastard."

    "First off," I said with a scowl. "You, of all people, calling me promiscuous-"

    "He''s devastated," Tony said, still grinning. "I mean, you two were once one body, one soul, then a red-eyed tart comes along-

    "-I''ve read the tabloids, I''m pretty sure not a single supermodel on Earth hasn''t at least heard a crappy pickup line from you-"

    "-I know you''re young, but love like the one Rhodey and you share only comes-wait did you call my pickup lines crappy? Kid, I''ve been with more woman than you''ve ever stared longingly at-"

    We were arguing in the room that had now become the hang out on the ship, someplace that had once been the clear dome on the bottom of the helicarrier. We stood on the catwalk that led to the tower in the center of the room. After a moment, we both ran out of insults, simply staring at the ocean below.

    "Rhodey said you wanted to talk to me about something?" Tony asked. "I mean, I generally ignore requests, but if you put one in with Happy..."

    I snorted. "It''s about you replicating Upgrade. It''s about X. It''s about a million things."

    "Hmf," Tony moved to sit on the catwalk, letting his legs dangle in the air. "Well, that''s a lot. You want to start with how X is an AI?" When I gave him a surprised look, he smirked. "Come on, who''re you talking to? Of course, I knew. I figured out he''d evolved almost immediately."

    "Is that possible?" I asked. "For an AI to develop in a single day?"

    "Eh, depends on the AI," Tony said. "I''ve been trying to make something like that myself, to run certain projects..." Tony waved for me to sit down. Once I''d done so, he spoke again. "Okay, so here''s the thing. I want to bring you in on some projects me and a friend have been working on. Usually, you would be too dumb for me to even mention it-"

    "I do my best," I said offended.

    "Losers whine about their best," Tony said without skipping a beat. "Anyways, where was I? Oh right. Your watch is the most advanced thing I''ve seen. Hands down. And Jury Rigg can make some unbelievable things out of literal junk. But if we work together..." He removed one of the communications devices we''d made from his ear and held it out. "This thing is going to revolutionize how we talk to people, kid. I mean, quantum entanglement? The ability to talk to someone who is across the universe instantly, no worrying about lag or things like light speed? Once we figure out how to make these without Jury Rigg, and mass produce it... It''ll change the world."

    I leaned against the metal railing, swinging my legs as I watched him put it away. "You use that watch to turn into mad geniuses, I help you make cool toys, you help me do the same, and I''ll pay you. How''s that sound?"

    "...What about SHIELD?" I asked.

    "What, you want to work for them too?" Tony asked. "Sure, we''ll throw it in the contract. Just no sharing anything you make for me with them, not without them paying us a shit-ton. Deal?"

    I thought about that for a moment. Working with whatever SHIELD was going to become, making money by creating things with Tony ''freaking'' Stark. That sounded awesome!

    "I''m in," I said. "But one thing. We do everything, and I mean everything, to make sure not to create some sort of Skynet machine, okay? If some robot similar to Upgrade got out, we''d all be in some shit."

    Tony rolled his eyes. "All right, fine."

    "I''m serious," I said. "I know making robots is cool, but if we do make them, let''s make sure they''re run by an AI we know isn''t crazy. And that any we develop are on a non-networked computer. On the moon. While making sure it knows ''humans are friends, not fuel.''"

    He chuckled, nodding. "Yeah, all right kid. Welcome to the Stark Industries R&D department. Bruce is going to love your paranoia."

    Later we''d arrived at the rendezvous. Sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with no land in sight for hundreds of miles, was the Iliad. It was kinda funny seeing her in the middle of the water with two Insight helicarriers flying over to join her. Sort of a mesh of the old and new. Quinjets and helicopters flew came from across the world, carrying SHIELD agents and personnel from bases everywhere.

    Our helicarrier was where the proceedings would take place, so I watched from on top of the command tower as people began to arrive. Tony, Steve, and Clint were with me, all dressed in casual clothes now. I''d chosen to wear a SHIELD t-shirt and sweatpants as we watched the people come onto the ship in droves. Iron Man''s good mood had evaporated by now as we watched a plane with rocket engines slowly hover to land on the flight deck. The black plane, called ''the Bus'', was big enough that a parking space had to be set aside for it.

    "I can''t believe he was alive all this time," Tony said.

    "He wasn''t," I replied. "You saw the same files we did."

    "Whatever, temporarily dead!" Tony spat out. "Damn it, I... I mourned for that guy! I went to his funeral, I sent his girlfriend flowers and... shit."

    Steveplacede a hand on Tony''s shoulder, and didn''t look offended when Tony shrugged it off. "He has a lot to answer for, but he did sacrifice everything for the world to try and stop Loki. For that, we should give him a moment to try to explain."

    "Explain why he lied to us?" Tony shook his head. "I''m not wired like that, Steve."

    "It wasn''t anything personal," Clint noted.

    "Of course you''d say that," Tony scoffed.

    I sat down and watched as the Bus landed. Soon, the hatch in the back opened, and it''s occupants came out. In the center stood Phillip J. Coulson, the target of Tony''s ire. A man who had died, but was brought back to life in a project called TAHITI, one so secret I couldn''t find out any specifics about it. With him were five other people.

    Leopold Fitz, a young man with curly brown hair and a mind so brilliant it left me in awe. Standing next to Jemma Simmons, a young woman with long brown hair and a mind for biology that left me just as amazed as Fitz. The two geniuses stood close to each other. Apparently they were together so often people would simply call them Fitz-Simmons.

    Melinda May, an older Asian woman with long black hair, and someone so famous in SHIELD that the personnel were constantly whispering about the legend of ''the Cavalry.'' A lot of people were trying to find a way to get her with the other famous fighters of our little fleet to start a some sort of tournament between them.

    Then there was Skye, last name not chosen. Jarvis had found information that she was actually named Mary Sue Poots, which... goddamn, no wonder she changed it. Mary Sue was bad enough to my writers sensibilities, considering the hatred connected with that name, Poots was freaking ridiculous. She was a skilled hacker, enough for Jarvis to acknowledge her, and was a recent addition to SHIELD.

    Last was Antoine "Trip" Triplett, a skilled operative in his own right, and, interestingly, a descendant of a Howling Commando. He was a tall and extremely fit man, with a well groomed mustache.

    The group seemed devastated, a sort of heavy sadness shared between them all, even the stoic looking May. As they walked forward, I saw Sharon Carter call out to Trip, who smiled. He walked up to her and the two hugged in greeting.

    "Peggy Carter''s great niece and Gabe Jones'' grandson," I noted as I watched them speak. "Guess it makes sense they know each other."

    "Huh," Tony watched them meet with a complicated look on his face. So did Steve.

    "I say its just what we need," Clint said. "We''re rebuilding SHIELD. It only makes sense for the descendants of the people who made it to be there for it."

    Tony didn''t seem to know what to think of that, possibly thinking of his father as he watched his fellow members of the ''Descendants of Steve''s friends'' club. We watched Coulson and his team enter the ship. Next came the crew of the Iliad, flying up on a Quinjet.

    Robert Gonzales, the captain of the Iliad, was in the center of his team. He''d only brought three people, none of whom I recognized, since I''d only checked Coulson team on Tony''s behalf. One of them, a tall woman with long black hair, looked like Lucy Lawless from Xena: Warrior Princess though, and the blonde had the same looks as the First Officer from the show The Orville, one of my favorite TV shows in my world. They must have been fairly important in this universe.

    "Jarvis," I asked, knowing he was listening over comms. "Tell me about the three people with Gonzales."

    "Of course sir," Jarvis said. After a second, he spoke once more. "The blonde woman is-"

    "Bobbi Morse," Clint said fondly.

    I kept from flinching as I realized I was looking at Mockingbird. Then I realized something. "Ex-Girlfriend?"

    Clint looked up at me, startled. I grinned at him, as did Tony. "Uh..."

    "Oh my god," Tony said with delight in his voice. "Two super-spies dating? Scandalous."

    "Glass houses, Tony," Steve noted.

    "Yeah, like I''d live in one again, but the last one is still rubble in Malibu," Tony said, still grinning at Clint. "So what, you guys met while stabbing someone at the same time?"

    Clint sighed in annoyance. "Can''t you keep bothering Dial about his weird love triangle with Rhodey and a supervillainess?"

    "Oh come on!" I yelled, annoyed. "I''m terrible enough with women without you guys spreading rumors."

    "Nah," Tony said. "Girls like guys with a weird sexual history, makes them curious. Plus, can you imagine how useful some of your aliens would be for-"

    "Okay!" Steve interrupted. He spun around to walk away. "Not going to be part of this conversation... Hey Natasha, hey Sam."

    We all spun to see an amused Black Widow staring at us with a very amused smirk on her face, Sam grinning madly.

    "Catch you ladies at a bad time?" Natasha teased.

    "Can you teach me how to flirt?" I asked, frustrated. "So I can somehow expunge the damage Tony is doing to my romantic reputation?"

    "If anything, I''m helping," Tony smiled innocently when I glared at him. "Hey, I''m just saying. Some ladies might be into a guy who can turn into aliens like Upgra-"

    "Please no!" I plugged my ears in horror. "For the love of God!"

    Natasha rolled her eyes at our antics. Then she looked at me. "Dial," I unplugged my ears when I saw how serious she was. "We need to talk. About everything."

    "Fury sent us," Sam added. "Said it was time you told us where you came from," he said apologetically.

    "...Okay. But I''m going to need some stuff for that."

    Moments later, I''d gathered everyone in a room that had once been dedicated to conferences. Avengers only though. That meant Fury, Tony, Steve, Natasha, and Clint. A small group to learn something that could be earth-shattering.

    The five of them watched as I worked in Jury Rigg form. I was creating a large ring in the center of the room, building it from one of the HYDRA armors Natasha had found, a TV, and a broken Quinjet ring. It looked like something I''d seen from a kids show once, just a metal ring as tall as Natasha with a bottom section attached to the floor, the armor piece stapled to the ring (literally stapled actually) and the flat screen tv broken and attached to the bottom. Soon, I was done.

    "Fix, fix, fix!" I cried triumphantly, stepping away.

    "Okay... so what is it?" Fury asked.

    "You''ll see!" I chirped.

    "An entire machine just to tell us where you came from and got the watch?" Natasha asked skeptically.

    "And why only us?" Clint added.

    "Give him a chance to explain," Steve said. "Mahmoud... go ahead."

    "One more thing," I took a deep breath, then tapped the Omnitrix. My red skin became black with green circuits, and I grew far larger in an instant.

    "Upgrade!"

    With that, I joined with the ring. "This is called the Viewer," I explained as I joined with it. "I needed the Chitauri parts-"

    "Chitauri?" Steve asked, startled. "That''s where HYDRA got them from?"

    "They did look familiar," Clint noted.

    "Yeah, I can read their code," I said. "But yeah, I needed them for their power. This... this is going to take a lot," I said. "The only way this is going to work is for a couple of minutes. I''m using the arc reactor from this helicarrier to power it, and I need to be Upgrade to even work with that. I can''t do it for long either, this thing is basically thinning the walls between universes just for a glimpse."

    "You''re really not making this clear," Fury said. "Are you about to break my ship?"

    "No," I said. "The fact is, I''ve tried this before. Shut down the power in my borough for three days and only got static. But with the big arc reactor, my new experience, and Upgrade, all working together... I won''t keep it up for long, and this thing will implode on itself afterwards, but it will be enough for me to show you guys. Besides," I admitted. "I don''t want this thing to last too long. I''m worried about who I''ll piss off," Now fully integrated into the ring, I took a breath for dramatic effect, since Upgrade didn''t need air. "I am from Oregon. I was born in Oakland. But... not your Oregon, not your Oakland."

    "What?" Clint asked.

    I activated the viewer. The sensation that followed was painful. I pulled in power from the arc reactor, and actually felt the massively powerful engine struggle to keep up with the demand. Even for all of Jury Rigg''s genius, I felt the ring I''d made almost buckle inwards under the weight of the task. I adjusted myself, advanced the machine in a dozen different ways. I fought through a strange sort of pain, and I felt the energy pull at my nanite body. It was a struggle, but after a fight to stay in control, I was showing an image of Captain America speaking to Black Widow.

    But not the ones I''d come to know and love. The Captain America here had his mask down, revealing someone very different under it. One I''d only recently become familiar with, but that one of us had known his whole life.

    "Bucky?" Steve asked in shock.

    "Whoa," Tony said as he watched Natasha give him a very loving kiss that Bucky returned. "Natasha?"

    "That..." Natasha stared. "That''s me? But different?"

    It was true. This was comic book Natasha. Slightly taller, with longer hair and a gold belt that held a familiar symbol on the center. She had gold bracers on her wrist.

    Bucky was clean shaven, unlike the one getting deprogrammed in another room. His hair was cut, and he wore a blue and black spandex version of Steve''s uniform. Well, unstable molecules rather than spandex, but still.

    "This is another reality," I said. "A universe where Bucky and Natasha ended up together, according to the scans I''m getting from it."

    I switched the view to the next place and felt the arc reactor struggle with it, but there was no danger of the machine disappearing on me. Tony uncrossed his arms when he saw himself as a teenager. "Is that... me? Rhodey? And Pepper?"

    The three of them were standing around in casual clothes with an Iron Man suit in front of them. The teenagers were joking with each other, clearly close.

    "But I didn''t meet them until-"

    "Not in this reality," I corrected. "But there, you have been friends for much longer."

    Another one. This time, it was Clint. He winced at the sight. "Well... shit."

    Hawkeye was sitting in a chair, his head and limbs strapped to it. He was wearing only a white tanktop and orange pants. He''d clearly been tortured and was surrounded by men carrying guns.

    "Is this happening right now?" Steve asked, worried. "Can we help somehow?"

    "Hell, is this even real?" Tony asked, apparently fascinated.

    "It is," I answered. "But the way this works is that I''m only getting glimpses. This actually happened further back in this world''s history. I wouldn''t worry though."

    "Why not?" Clint asked, clearly disturbed.

    At that moment, as some guy with a scar over his right eye leaned in towards Hawkeye to taunt him, Hawkeye flicked his right index finger. Scar guy suddenly grabbed his neck, choking on something. Hawkeye did the same with his left index finger, and a soldier had the same reaction. His left then right thumb flicked as well, and more men began to die until they were all done. As they fell, a scientist type who''d been watching the proceedings asked a question.

    "What the hell?" he said in shock.

    Hawkeye responded as a fingernail was held tightly between his fingers. "Shouldn''t have left my fingernails in, dummy. Now be smart and get me outta here, or this goes right between you eyeballs."

    "...can you do that?" Tony asked his universes Hawkeye in shock as the group stared at the dimensional viewer.

    "No," Clint admitted. "Might be worth learning though."

    "Yeah, well," I switched away. "The rest of that universe sucks."

    "How do you know?" Natasha asked. "How do you have those worlds histories?"

    I felt thankful for my current machine form. It made it easy to lie.

    "I''m scanning them," I explained. "It''s damn exhausting, but I can get summaries on what I''m showing you."

    "How the hell are you doing that?" Clint asked.

    "Mostly news stories and the internet," I said helpfully. "But it hurts like hell."

    "This is hurting you?" Steve asked, worried.

    I ignored him to focus once more. The next world made everyone blink. It was a white man with black hair going gray at the sides, sitting at a desk and smoking a cigar as he worked on something. As they watched, Maria Hill walked into view. Well, Maria with an expression on her face as though she''d seen a bad smell.

    "Who is... Oh come on," Fury said when the man lifted his face to reveal the eye patch.

    "In this universe," I explained. "You''re the descendant, the Nick Fury Jr. to this guy, who has been kept alive since World War 2 by an experimental drug."

    "Enough," Fury said. "How do we know this is all real? That it''s not just some trick you''ve pulled off?"

    "Why would I tell this kind of lie?" I asked. "I''m from another universe. One where superheroes aren''t running around. Apparently, one of the few where that is true, according to my scans. Hell, everything I know about this world is from Google and hacking. I had to learn quick so I didn''t end up making mistakes in casual conversation."

    I switched to other views. A man with a giant pair of angular sunglasses was watching the sunset with a sword on his back and a flame-patterned cloak on his back. A giant robot was standing behind him, with two figures walking towards him.

    A redheaded man and woman in gender-swapped versions of the same brown shaded clothes speaking to a young woman with black hair and red lips, wearing a white blouse and blue skirt. When the three turned to look curiously at the view screen, I switched away hurriedly.

    Another world, where three people were fighting against robots with skull shaped heads, dozens of the steel monsters surrounding them. One of them was a man who wore a red cape and a blue outfit with a "S" symbol on the front as he fired heat beams from his eyes. There was a woman carrying a sword she used to impale one of the robots, wearing an outfit with a large golden piece of armor over her chest shaped like the letter "W", her beauty as clear as her talent in war. The last could barely be seen, more of a black shadow among his more flamboyant comrades, only truly evident by the destroyed robots he left in his wake, simply a mass of darkness that moved like death.

    "We''re just one universe of many," I said, showing a world where a boy with white hair and green eyes in a black outfit with the letter ''D'' on it fought against a woman who looked like a green female genie, belly dancer outfit included. "One of infinity, because the Multiverse theory is true. And it''s kinda awesome, knowing how unique we are in all this infinity."

    "Then where is your world?" Fury asked.

    "...I don''t know," I said in frustration. I didn''t fake it. All the power I had now, even with the pain I was fighting through, and I just couldn''t-

    "You don''t know?" Natasha asked, interrupting my thoughts. Feeling testy, I began to explain.

    "Look," I switched the view over to where, according to my scans, my world should have been, the world with my nephew, with my parents and my crappy room. Instead, all that appeared was static. "I got dropped into this universe, and now I can''t find mine. Do you want to know something else? I can''t find it at any point in its history. Any other universe, even the ones that are destroyed, I can at least view their pasts, but mine? It''s just locked out to me! I''ve got an arc reactor, alien parts burning out, a device built by a mad genius like Jury Rigg, and Upgrade backing me up, but I can''t pierce through whatever is blocking me!"

    I shouted the last, enraged. "It''s not just that I can''t get home, it''s that I can''t even fucking see it! I can''t see my family, my friends, I can''t find out how my mom is taking my disappearance! But no, I can fucking see the Teletubbies in their goddamn house eating fucking ''pamcakes''!"

    The group stared at me before I switched off the viewer. I separated from the viewer, looking at Fury, then turned into a human again. "So there it is Fury. If you want, you can try to arrest me or whatever. But I was given the Omnitrix and just dropped into this world like a bad habit. All I''m doing is making the best of a bad situation."

    Everyone looked over at Fury. He eyed me for a moment. "...I''m going to have you write a full report. And we''re going to still strap you to the lie detector"

    "Oh come on!" Tony said exasperatedly.

    Fury ignored him. "You tell me everything you can possibly remember about your life, between your home universe and this one. I don''t care if it''s a girl who gave you funny feelings in middle school, tell me everything," when I opened my mouth to protest, he stopped me. "The Council and others will have questions about you. Questions I''ll have to answer. So I''m going to give them answers," Fury eyed the machine. "And destroy that."

    "What?" Clint asked in surprise. "I wanted to see me being a badass again."

    "Or see yourself turning evil," Fury said. "Or Steve staying in the forties and having a full life. Tony with kids. An infinity of possibilities, each as slightly possible as the next. Do you all really, and I mean really, want to spend the rest of your life staring into this thing, worried about the lives you might have had? The people you could have loved, who could have lived? Or to suddenly become suspicious of a friend because of the chance they might go bad the way some other version of them did? All the ''what ifs?''" I was suddenly glad I hadn''t shown them the Ultimate Black Widow who had betrayed her team. "Having those worlds just out of your reach? People go insane from regular paranoia, hell I''m an expert at it. If even thinking about the possibilities can make people do stupid things, what will being able to actually see them do?"

    We looked over at the viewer. I thought of all of that for a moment. Yeah. That was...

    "I think you''re right," Steve said, sounding sad. "As tempting as it is... Dial. Destroy it."

    I went over to the dimensional viewer and looked over at Tony. "Nothing to say?"

    Tony snorted when everyone looked at him. "No. I''ve got enough issues with my problems in this universe. Besides, I can always make one for myself now that I know it''s possible at all."

    We all thought about that. A moment later, feeling very nervous about working for Tony now, I waved at it. "Well, I don''t have to destroy it. I''m actually surprised it''s still there, it should have-"

    The dimensional viewer began to shake.

    "Uh," Hawkeye said slowly. "Should we leave the room, or-?"

    The machine pulled into itself and imploded with a sound like gravel exploding.

    "...Why is everything you make so weird?" Natasha asked.

    I smiled just a bit. "They have personality," I looked over the group. "So... we good?"

    Fury smirked. "Not really. Not that I don''t like you, but you just admitted you have no idea where you got the watch or who dropped you here, and I believe you on that. So I''ll still keep an eye on you, simply because it''s safer," Steve, Tony, and I all shared an exasperated look. "But like I said. I think your hearts in the right place, and you''re too useful to us not to bring in. And that''s good enough for me."

    Well, if that was the best I was getting.

    "So uh, that makes me an Avenger?"

    Tony grinned at that. "There''s the Fanboy we all know."

    "Is there even a protocol for new Avengers?" Clint asked.

    "So far, no," Natasha said. "But with Dial, Sam, and Rhodey in the picture..."

    "We''ll discuss it later," Steve said, turning and opening the door for us to exit. "For now, I''d like to think on what we''ve seen."

    Natasha and Tony seemed to still at that, clearly thinking on that. Natasha''s eyes flickered in the direction of where Bucky was being held before apparently dismissing the thought that prompted that. Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. And Steve sighed while we all filed out. "Time has a talk with everyone out there. We have ten minutes."

    "Yes," Fury said. "We''re in for the hard part." He walked outside, his long coat flapping as the Avengers and I followed in his wake. Several SHIELD agents stepped aside, and soon an armed procession took spots along the wall. "You all know your roles in this conversation. Now get changed. I want the Avengers at my side when I meet them, and I need you in costume for that."

    Later, in the men''s locker room, Sam had joined us to put his own clothes on. Tony and Rhodey weren''t in with us since their armor would just wear itself onto them in seconds, leaving Steve, Clint, Sam, and me. I was putting on my boots, the last part of my costume to go on when Steve came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

    "Hey," he said. "I''d like to talk to you in private real quick."

    Nodding as I tried to guess what this would be about, I finished tying my boots and went to join him in the back. Steve looked around to see if we were alone before speaking.

    "You said doing that, looking between universes, hurt. I wanted to ask if you were okay."

    "I''m good," I said. "Just... doing that took a lot out of me. If it wasn''t for the ridiculous power of the arc reactor, I wouldn''t have been able to do it, and even then I drained the Chitauri armor pieces just to boot the system up. And holding open was like... you ever hold up an impossible weight while having a conversation?"

    "A couple of times," Steve said, reminding me just what kind of badass I was talking too. He sighed. "And what you said, about being from another world? I think, in some way, I understand how you feel."

    "...Yeah," I realized. "I guess you''d be one of the few." After all, I wasn''t the only one who''d woken up in a world that was so similar and yet so different from home.

    "It takes getting used to," Steve said with a smile. "I''m still bad at it. But if you need help, I''m willing to talk."

    "Same," I said warmly. "Hell, you ever want to catch up with pop culture, I''m sort of an expert by now."

    Steve laughed. "Well, I have been wondering about Anime. When I went on ice we were still having issues with Japan," he scowled. "Not that I approve of how that ended of course."

    I winced at the thought of the two bombs that had ended that conflict. "Yeah, well... That''s why were doing this, right? To stop anything like Pearl Harbor or the bombs from ever taking place again."

    He nodded thoughtfully at that.

 18 Chapter 18

    Soon, we were all dressed in our costumes, Rhodey joining us with Tony. Fury waited until we were all suited up before walking towards the conference room.

    I felt pretty badass walking through the halls with the group. There''s an energy when you walk with superheroes like that all in costume, something I imagined groups of cosplayers felt something close to. We went in a sort of lose triangle formation. Iron Man and Captain America behind Fury on his right and left sides, respectively. Falcon was behind Captain America, War Machine behind Iron Man. Bringing up the rear was Black Widow and Hawkeye, with Dial, me, in-between them.

    It hadn''t been as clear as right then that I was a superhero now. Dial. It had just been a random codename. Even my fights, as desperate as they had been at times, just felt like fights. Why would the scale change my feelings on it? But now, walking among the greats, having SHIELD agents and personnel watch us as we walked by, their eyes filled with awe... it was pretty cool, but also-

    "This is so weird," Sam noted to me as I walked closer to him.

    "I know," I replied. "I mean, it''s also kinda awesome, but..."

    My fellow newbie and I shared a glance and nodded when we saw we understood the same thing. It was cool, but it was also kind of alienating. Ironically so, considering the Omnitrix.

    We walked like that until we reached our destination, another conference room. This one was bigger than the last by a wide margin. And it was full of people and cameras, all surrounding a massive table in the center of the room. I took them all in, trying to remember who was who.

    The World Security Council, all of them sans Gideon Malick, who had gone into hiding when he''d been revealed to be HYDRA, and Alexander Pierce who was now imprisoned. Four of them, Singh, Rockwell, Hawley, and Yen, gave Natasha and Clint grateful nods, presumably for the two saving those members lives.

    Phil Coulson, Victoria Hand, Richard Gonzales, Tomas Calderon, and Jennifer Weaver sat in a line. They all seemed friendly enough.

    There were also several holographic screens around the table. One had Maria Hill, clearly broadcasting and watching from the Triskelion. Another showed Matthew Ellis, President of the United States, an older man with graying brown hair and piercing blue eyes. The other screens also showed world leaders from other countries. England, Russia, France, China, Japan, Egypt, India, Pakistan, the whole UN was there. Fury circled around to the head of the table, the seat left open for him, and we followed. Two other seats were open next to it, and Steve and Tony took those. There was a bit of nervousness in the room when Tony''s seat let out a few creaks of protest under the weight of his armor, but it held. The rest of us stood behind them facing the rest of the room. I blinked when I realized that the way we had entered had me standing directly behind Nick, Natasha and Rhodey on my right, Clint and Sam on my left. I crossed my arms and tried to look professional.

    Coulson was looking at Steve and Tony apologetically. Steve kind of smiled sadly, while Tony let the impassive look of his helmet speak for itself. The Council sitting on the other side of the table eyed us. The whole room stilled.

    "Ladies and gentlemen," Fury said simply. "I''m not going to sugarcoat this. We are at war. At war with an enemy that has been hiding within our ranks like a parasite, chewing away at us. They were our friends, our fellow soldiers, even our leaders," Rockwell nodded firmly, scowling at the thought of Malick and Pierce, or so I guessed. "HYDRA. An old enemy, one we''d thought beaten. They tried to use helicarriers like the very one we are all standing on to finally take control of the world," I suddenly realized why Fury had chosen to use one of the helicarriers for this meeting. "Luckily, with the help of many of you, SHIELD has stopped them, and now we have them on the run. HYDRA isn''t finished though, make no mistake. Despite the Hercules app, despite agents, military, and law enforcement all over the world hunting them down, HYDRA is fighting back. They''re desperate. And desperate people tend to reach for weapons they would never use otherwise," Fury held up a hand when several of his captivated audience began to speak. "I won''t mince words either. While we may be holding up well, SHIELD is in shambles. Not just that, but HYDRA had its people everywhere. I''ve had reports of government officials, computer technicians, CEO''s, and even a coffee barista with easy access to a Russian diplomat''s daughter, all found out and arrested. We can''t simply move on from this. SHIELD and HYDRA are teetering on the brink. I say we get ourselves together before they can."

    "What exactly are you proposing?" Councilperson Hawley asked seriously.

    "I agree," a person from one of the screens, the Russian president, said. "What is it you want, Fury?"

    "Oh, it''s not just me," Fury looked over at Steve.

    Rather than being put on the spot, Steve was ready. "We''ve all come to a decision. Many of us agree, that SHIELD, as it was, can no longer stand. We can''t simply put it together again. SHIELD... it''s done. And something new has to take its place."

    The room exploded. Coulson stared at Steve and Fury as though they had broken his heart. Hand was shouting at Fury, before turning on Rockwell. President Ellis was trying to speak, but he was drowned out by the Chinese President shouting in his language as Jarvis provided subtitles. The various SHIELD agents around the room shared in the shouting.

    Fury raised a hand. I pressed down on the Omnitrix. I grew up several feet, grey fur sprouted across me, muscles rose across my form, my fingers became claws, and my mouth became a muzzle.

    "Blitzwolfer! ¨|¨y¨z¨{¨{¨|¨|¨y¨y¨z¨|¨y¨z¨|¨z¨z¨{¨{¨|!"

    It was hard to control a howl like mine to just be pure noise, rather than destroying the room but I managed to keep my long cry in control. When I was done, there were a lot of people staring in shock, but no one, not even Fury and those close to me, was deaf. I glared around the room for a moment as Steve began to speak again.

    "This is necessary," he said softly. "SHIELD was compromised in a way no intelligence apparatus ever has before. We have resources, people, and allies... but we need to rebuild. Not just to fight HYDRA either."

    "What are you going to do," Tony said, drawing attention. "The next time someone as smart as me shows up, and one of the Avengers can''t stop him?"

    "Or if the next guy who gets a watch like mine," I added. "Isn''t as nice?"

    "What will happen," Fury asked, leaning forward into to rest his chin on his knuckles, his one eye panning around the room. "When someone like Loki shows up again, and Thor isn''t around to stop him... But more than that. Who will protect those who suddenly find themselves with gifts they can''t understand?"

    "What do you mean?" Tomas asked, confused.

    "The world is becoming full of people like us," Steve said. "People with gifts, whether exceptional intelligence, talent in combat, aliens like Thor, or those who have been given gifts due to circumstance beyond their control, like Banner."

    "You want to protect people like that?" One of the leaders said in disgust. "Or like that... damned wolf?"

    I held back a growl.

    "People," Natasha said, drawing the room to her. "That''s the keyword. They''re people. We''re not saying we don''t arrest people who do wrong. But we need to do more than just catalog people with abilities and tell them to sit tight and do nothing. We need to protect them from those who would do them harm, who would exploit them."

    "People like Bucky Barnes," Tony said, surprising me. He didn''t look around when those of us who knew the deeper implications of his words stared at him. He simply let that enigmatic mask keep him hidden.

    "Or Carl Creel," I added. "People like me. We know HYDRA can brainwash people, that Loki has done it."

    "Not just him," Coulson said. "An Asgardian named Lorelei appeared on Earth a while back. We managed to stop her, but if she managed to control someone with powers..."

    "Isn''t that more of a reason to just stop people like that?" the Russian president asked. "Prevent them becoming a risk?"

    "Not when that person is innocent," Clint said. "We don''t believe people should be punished for the crime of being different. Some of these people just want normal lives. Some come from tough situations, or will want to protect others."

    "We need to be more than just the wall between the world we think of as normal and the world we think of as weird," Steve leaned forward. "That line doesn''t exist anymore. It hasn''t existed since I stood in New York City fighting alongside a Norse god and a man in a power suit against aliens coming out of a portal. The world is not normal, but we can still protect it. Keep the innocent safe, no matter where they come from."

    Now it was my turn. I leaned forward, over Fury. Everyone looked at me, the werewolf standing massively as my eyes glared at the audience. "And if HYDRA, if aliens or even gods come here again, trying to exploit, rule, or kill us, then we will stop them. Earth will be defended, and all of our people as well."

    "This isn''t a threat," Fury clarified, not worrying about the wolf who was looming above him. "But we are telling you what we believe we need to do. Together, we can protect this world. But SHIELD needs to be rebuilt to do it. With all the damage HYDRA has done to us..."

    I looked around. We''d aimed for drama, for shock and awe to convince the room we were right. From the looks of it, it worked. Some people were still not on board. Coulson still looked as though we''d killed his puppy, though Fury had told us he had some ideas about that.

    Councilperson Rockwell leaned forward. "I think, we might need to talk about this for a moment longer. But personally, I agree," he ignored the looks some in the room gave him. "I assume you have a proposal."

    Fury leaned back in his chair. "X. Show ''em what we got."

    "Of course sir," the former VI said. Holographs appeared in front of all the people around the table, and I could see dignitaries on the screens around us being given tablets by their assistants.

    "What you see there are just the bare bones of what I''ve written up," Fury said simply.

    "Wait, is this real?" President Ellis said, looking up from his tablet. "You''re stepping down as Director?"

    Everyone looked at Fury. He smiled a very sour and sad smile. "Of course I am. No matter what happens, I will be the one who is blamed for this."

    "That''s not true," Hand said, her eyes soft behind her glasses. "None of us realized or suspected anything for years."

    "It doesn''t matter," Fury said confidently. "I was head of SHIELD when it was revealed that HYDRA infiltrated. And that''s okay. I don''t mind stepping down for someone new to take the reins and I will not let my predecessors be blamed for this. I will step down," he smirked. "Plus, I like the idea of history knowing me as the last Director of SHIELD. Holds weight."

    Fury wasn''t telling the whole story, of course. Just because he wouldn''t be in charge didn''t mean he was planning to stay out of the fight. But none of those he''d confided in said a word, me included. It was all part of the plan.

    "Then who will replace you?" the British Prime Minister asked.

    "That''s what we''ll decide," Fury said. "I have a list of candidates. But first, before I step down, let''s figure out the new rules, shall we?"

    I held back a groan when I realized I''d have to stand for a while they spoke. Still, we were on our way.

    January 13th, 2014

    Later, the meeting was still going on. And by later, I meant I had left at around 2:00 am as it continued to take a nap, only to wake up about four hours later to find they were still talking. With nothing to do, I took a shower, pulled my hair back, put on my super-suit, and went to one of the mess halls. The carrier had two, one of which was still being used as a makeshift brig for Creel and Bucky, since they''re special needs meant the actual brig wouldn''t cut it. Davida had been put in there with them. Later I''d have to see about possibly fixing it so the brig could hold superhumans, but I decided to just go to get some food in me.

    When I stepped into the room, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me. I blinked at the sudden attention and waved. "How''s it going?"

    A SHIELD agent waved back weakly.

    I went to join the line for food. After a moment, people stopped looking at me, though glances were still thrown at me, especially at the Omnitrix. The line moved very quickly, people simply grabbing the various breakfast foods as fast as they could from the buffet style set up. Feeling a bit ravenous, I grabbed a bagel, a doughnut, some eggs, and, feeling a bit nostalgic, was happy to see someone had made smoothies, of which I grabbed a strawberry one.

    I went to an empty table and sat down, eating quickly. Once finished, I grabbed another plate, then sat down to continue.

    "Damn," someone said as they sat to join me. "You can sure put it away, can''t you?"

    I looked up to see Sam and gave him a grin around a mouthful of turkey bacon. "I haven''t eaten in a while dude."

    "Same," Sam said, wearing his costume just like me. He swiped my doughnut and chuckled at the glare I gave him for it. "Been a wild couple of days, huh?"

    "That''s putting it lightly," I admitted. "Kinda weird not needing to run anywhere for a bit."

    Sam smirked at that. We ate in silence for a bit, ignoring the looks we got dressed in our costumes, Sam with his jetpack and me with my Omnitrix. In fact...

    "You don''t have any clothes here, either?" I asked Sam.

    He nodded. "Yeah. And the SHIELD stuff they had just doesn''t feel right somehow, with everything that''s going on."

    That was true. Somehow, with all the discussion on what to do next, wearing SHIELD clothing felt weird.

    "Um, excuse me?" Sam and I looked up to see Fitz and Simmons looking at us. The British duo was standing with trays of their own, both smiling nervously. Simmons, the one who had spoken, waved at the empty table. "Um, I''m Jemma Simmons, I work with Agent Coulson."

    "I''m Leo Fitz, and uh, I work with her," Fitz said nervously. "Well, I mean, we both work for Agent Coulson, we just- Do you mind if we sit with you?"

    "Sure, no problem," I said. "If Sam doesn''t mind."

    "Go for it," Sam said.

    Grinning eagerly, Fitz-Simmons sat down, Fitz next to me, Simmons next to Sam. Sam and I continued to eat. When we realized they weren''t eating, we looked at the pair.

    Fitz was staring at Sam''s wingpack and Simmons was staring at my Omnitrix. When they realized they''d been caught, Simmons laughed nervously.

    "I''m so sorry," she said. "It''s just your weapons are so fascinating!"

    "Yes, I was researching your wingpack," Fitz said excitedly. "And I noticed that you could increase the rigidity flexibility ratio by changing the material to carbon fiber!"

    "Yeah, Tony said something about that," Sam said, apparently not knowing what to do about Fitz''s enthusiasm.

    "Tony Stark said that?" Fitz asked excitedly, turning to Simmons. "Did you hear that?"

    "Yes, yes, you said the same thing another genius did," Simmons said dismissively, but with a very fond smile that Fitz returned. "But that," she pointed at the Omnitrix. "What is it? How does it work?"

    I looked at the Omnitrix, then at Fitz and Sam. Sam shrugged. "Hey, I''m curious too, man."

    Fitz nodded in agreement.

    "Well, all right," I swiped my doughnut back from Sam and took a bite. Swallowing that, I was about to speak when Simmons interrupted me when she saw more people walk into the room.

    "Wait," she said excitedly. "Skye, Trip! Over here!"

    Sam and Fitz looked over as well. The pair walked over to join us. Trip had a wide smile on his face as he sat, Skye looking less excited.

    "Look at you two, sitting with real Avengers now."

    "More reserve Avengers," I admitted, Sam nodding.

    "Still pretty cool," Skye said.

    "He... what is your name?" Simmons asked me. "I mean, I know they call you Dial, but..."

    At her leading pause, I answered. "It''s Mahmoud."

    "Yes," Simmons said. "He was going to tell us about the watch!"

    "Omnitrix," Sam corrected for me. "He''s really specific about that."

    "Wait," Skye asked. "You''re the guy who made that giant diamond at the Triskelion?" when I nodded, she looked at Sam. "What was it like flying through that thing?"

    "Whoa, wait!" Simmons said hurriedly. "I want to hear about the watch first."

    I looked at Sam. He smirked at the lost look on my face. "You first, man."

    Sighing, I put down my food and held out the watch. "Okay. First off, I don''t know who gave this to me or why," I mean, I knew who, but explaining Professor Paradox''s dickery was too much trouble.

    "Oh..." Simmons seemed disappointed.

    "But the watch imprinted its history into me," I said, Fitz-Simmons seeming to perk up at that. "So I know who created it. Azmuth, an alien scientist."

    "Was he a famous weapon designer?" Fitz asked.

    "...Not intentionally," I leaned back and sighed sadly. "So, look. Azmuth was... well, he was brilliant. Smarter than any person in three galaxies, and more creative to boot. While his whole species, the Galvan people, were naturally more intelligent than almost any other species, he had this spark that none of the rest could match. But he had something even better than that. He was in love."

    Simmons, who had been listening avidly, suddenly smiled softly at that. Fitz looked over at her and smiled as well.

    "The girl he loved was a scientist as well, a woman named Zennith, and someone he cared for deeply. One day, he went out on a date with her, and they saw the planets align in the skies above. When they aligned, Azmuth was inspired. ''What if,'' he thought to himself, ''I created a weapon that could tap into the fundamental forces of the universe. A weapon powered by existence itself.'' The thought consumed him, and he spent all of his time creating it."

    "And that''s when he created the Omnitrix?" Fitz asked.

    "No," I answered. "He created Ascalon, a sword."

    "What?" Trip asked, confused. "All that build up for a sword?"

    "Elegant, isn''t it," I asked. "All the power of the universe, in something so small. Zennith tried to warn him as he created it, but he ignored her, obsessed with creating his masterpiece. So, she left. And he never noticed."

    Simmons seemed crestfallen while Fitz was thoughtful.

    "Azmuth finished Ascalon, and a warrior stole the weapon, hoping to use it to stop an eons-long civil war between the many factions on his homeworld. And when Azmuth saw the destruction of that world, saw how his creation turned a planet into an asteroid field with a single swing, he was devastated. Only then, did he realize what he had done, that he had sacrificed Zennith for nothing."

    I was really getting into the story now. "So Azmuth hid Ascalon away and dedicated himself to peaceful sciences. He wanted to apologize, and he started on a creation that would show how sorry he was. Hoping that she would see how he had changed and one day she would return to him."

    "The Omnitrix," Skye said, likely figuring out where this was going.

    "It''s not a weapon, not really," I extended my hand out. "It''s a tool meant for peace. Imagine. Being able to walk a mile in other species shoes. To understand them because, in a way, you are them. An ambassador who understood all people, who could stand in their defense without judgment. But that was only part of it."

    "Zennith," Simmons took hold of my wrist, staring at the Omnitrix. "Azmuth wanted to prove he had learned his lesson. To prove he cared."

    "Romantic, right?" I said sarcastically. "Instead, Azmuth failed. He made a tool for peace, and someone saw its potential for a weapon."

    "Yeah," Fitz said sadly. "That fits. Anytime someone just wants to advance science, someone else sees a shiny new bomb."

    "That''s part of why I like the idea of SHIELD restructuring itself," I admitted, gently pulling my wrist. "There are peaceful aliens out there. Ones like the Asgardians. Making alliances with them, furthering Azmuth''s dream... I''ve done good work patrolling in New York City, and I want to do that later. But making the world, and possibly beyond, a better place is nice too."

    "Oh, now that''s a question!" Fitz said. "Can you turn into Asgardians? Like Thor?"

    "Now that would be awesome," Skye said. "I mean, Thor is just..." Skye sighed. "So dreamy."

    "Skye," Simmons said, sounding scandalized, a blush on her face.

    "No, she''s right," I admitted. "I mean, we''ve all seen the pictures, and I''m comfortable enough in my sexuality to admit Thor is hot."

    We all thought about that for a moment.

    "Well," Trip said, shaking his head. "Now that you mention it, you two were in on this whole idea to rebuild SHIELD right? I mean, you were in on it from the start?"

    "Well, yeah," I said. "One of my aliens even created the Hercules app."

    Fitz and Skye seemed to become very focused on me all of a sudden. Fitz spoke first. "Is there... is there any chance that the app can make a mistake?"

    "Fitz," Skye said, sounding sad and frustrated.

    "No, I mean, if it made some miscalculation, or discovered someone was not actually HYDRA, maybe?"

    I was already pulling out my phone. I placed it on the table, activating the Hercules app. "Who was it you''re asking about?"

    "...Grant Ward," Fitz said hesitantly.

    I opened his file. "Okay, Grant Ward. Recruited by John Garrett after he was arrested for trying to kill his parents and oldest brother in a fire. HYDRA is very detailed in it''s filing so..." I sighed. I''d already known what I''d find. I passed my phone over to Fitz, who looked at it desperately. He flipped through the files, one by one, ignoring the pitying look Simmons was giving him.

    "Fitz," Skye said.

    "It''s not true," Fitz said, his voice wavering. "There must be something, right? Something, some proof. He didn''t just die a traitor, there has to be some mistake, some reason-"

    "Fitz!" Skye yelled. "Ward was a traitor, okay!? He got what he deserved!"

    The cafeteria froze. Skye was breathing heavily. Fitz stared at her.

    After a moment, he tossed my phone back to me and stood up, walking away very quickly. Simmons went to follow, but Trip put a hand on her shoulder.

    "Give him time, girl," he said softly.

    Skye groaned, putting her face in her hands. "I shouldn''t have done that."

    "Don''t worry about it," Trip said. "We''re all dealing with betrayal today."

    Looking around, I could see he was right. None of the SHIELD agents surrounding us seemed confused. Just understanding.

    "So uh," I said. "Maybe we should meet up later?" I asked. "I know Tony wanted to talk to me about something? Invite Fitz along, we can all hang out."

    "Not me," Trip said easily. "I''m meeting a friend."

    "I''ll try to get Fitz to come," Simmons said. "I know he''ll be excited."

    "And I''ll go too," Skye said. "Maybe I can apologize then?"

    "I don''t suggest it," Sam said. "Stuff like that... It takes time, not apologies. Maybe talk him through it, but the fact is you were right."

    "Well, maybe apologize for yelling," Trip corrected. "But yeah. Give him time."

    "You should still come through," I added. "We''re supposed to be doing something important, apparently. Although he said we were meeting on the Bus."

 19 Chapter 19

    I ended up kind of regretting inviting them when I realized what the ''something important'' was.

    "You absolute son of a bitch," Tony icily.

    "Stark," Coulson said serenely, trying to calm him down.

    "No, don''t start with that. You couldn''t send a text, an email, a signal flare," Tony said, getting in Coulson''s face. "I mourned you, Coulson, I actually felt bad!"

    "And I appreciate that," Coulson said back. "But we weren''t exactly friends, Tony. We were allies, occasionally, when you weren''t locking me out of the tower to avoid my visits, or pranking me like we were in high school!"

    "That''s how I treat my friends!" Tony said, looking offended. "Rhodey never complained!"

    "He complained all the time!" Coulson shouted back.

    "What, you spied on him too?" Tony scoffed.

    "New flash, Tony. I am a spy!"

    As the two quibbled back and forth at each other inside the Bus'' laboratory, I looked around.

    The Bus was a pretty cool looking plane. The hanger door was down to let sunlight in, letting me see it in all its glory. A sweet red convertible was parked on the right side of the door, all sleek lines and leather seats, a beauty from an older time. The left side of the door held a big black SUV. Some stairs lead up to another floor, while a set of glass panels separated the cargo hold from the forensics and research lab we stood in.

    Skye, Fitz-Simmons, Melinda May, Clint, and Natasha all watched the fireworks alongside me. I learned in towards Natasha.

    "How long is this going to go on?" I whispered.

    "I''m just wondering why we''re here," she whispered back. "He said this was important."

    "Well, you know Tony," Clint said. "He likes an audience."

    "Drama queen?" Melinda asked.

    Clint and Natasha nodded.

    "This is why you should never meet your heroes," Fitz said sadly, getting a pat on the back from a sympathetic Simmons.

    "Been working for me so far," I said. Clint and Natasha grinned at me, to which I could only helplessly shrug. Once a-

    "Fanboy!" Tony said, somehow perfectly cutting my thought off and completing it at the same time. "Come to meet Agent."

    Apparently, Tony''s nickname for Coulson was ''Agent''. With a bit of confusion at how casual Tony was suddenly acting, I stepped forward, the others coming along.

    "Agent, this is-"

    "Dial," Coulson said, extending a hand to shake. Tony interrupted our handshake when I went to shake Coulson''s.

    "Don''t interrupt me. This is Fanboy. He makes cool things and turns into giant things, but his wardrobe needs work."

    Natasha, my costume designer, raised an offended eyebrow.

    "Okay, who''ve you got?" Tony asked.

    Coulson, clearly used to Tony, waved at his own team. "Melinda May, the pilot of the Bus and one of the finest martial artists I''ve ever met."

    "Charmed," Tony said.

    "I''m not," Melinda returned coolly.

    Tony smirked at that. Coulson continued.

    "This is Skye, a skilled hacker and someone who is training to be a SHIELD agent."

    "Kinda useless now," Skye admitted, looking at Tony with a bit of awe. "I just got the badge too."

    "Keep it," Natasha said. "Souvenir. Plus, history buffs love stuff like that."

    "You still selling old Russian military gear?" Clint asked. Natasha smirked, and Melinda surprised me, as well as her crew, by chuckling a little.

    Melinda smirked at them. "You had to be there," was all she said.

    "Okay, hearing that story later," Tony said, ignoring the looks the super-spies gave him. "How about the married couple?"

    "What?" Fitz said, startled. "Oh, we''re not-"

    "We''re not a couple," Simmons said quickly.

    "Yes, just friends."

    "Close for years!"

    "But not a couple."

    Tony looked between them, then at Coulson. "And Ross and Rachel do what on your crew?"

    I blinked. Wait, Tony knew who they were. Why was he pretending otherwise?

    Coulson sighed before gesturing. "This is Leopold Fitz. Fitz is my engineer, a weapons and tech expert. And this is Jemma Simmons, my biochemist, specializing in life sciences."

    "Hello," Fitz said, waving a bit weakly.

    Tony eyed them both for a moment. "Jarvis, bring it up."

    A hologram appeared in the back, hovering over a table. Fitz-Simmons pointed at it. "How did you-"

    "I''m Tony Stark," Tony said in answer, walking over to the table.

    "I don''t like you messing with my plane," Coulson said in annoyance.

    "And I don''t like wasting money on flowers, but I did it for your funeral," Tony shot back.

    "How do you keep from hitting him?" Melinda asked Natasha and Clint.

    "Practice mostly," Natasha said with a smirk.

    "I don''t resist the urge at all honestly, keeps him honest," Clint stated proudly, leaning out of the way when Tony threw a pen at him.

    "So, you guys made this?" Tony asked, pointing at the hologram, which was a floating blue image of a gun shaped like a sniper rifle.

    "Huh, I see you restored the data," Fitz told Skye.

    "Coulson told me to do it," Skye complained. Fitz sighed.

    "Yes, I made that."

    "It''s brilliant," Tony said.

    Fitz blinked, surprised. "You think the Night-Night guns are brilliant?"

    "Hell yes I do, Ross," Tony said. "Cool name for it by the way."

    "Oh," Fitz responded. "Well, they''re calling it ICER now."

    "...No," Tony said dismissively. "Night-Night gun," he turned to look at the hologram. "A gun that fires a dendrotoxin bullet, knocking people out like that quickly and with no side-effects? You both made it, right?"

    "Yes," Simmons said quickly. "Yes we did, you see, the way we designed it was-"

    And suddenly she was no longer speaking with words I could understand. Fitz immediately joined in and Tony responded. Fitz-Simmons moved around the table and showed him a section of the hologram, the two so in sync it was amazing. Just as amazing was how Tony seemed to vibe with them, falling in step with their thinking and responding to it.

    "Well," Coulson said. "I suppose they''re going to be at it for a while," he looked over at us. "I suppose, I can show you the plane now."

    "Not yet," Tony said suddenly. He walked up to look Coulson in the eyes. "I still have more to say to you."

    Coulson and Tony looked at each other a moment longer. After a bit, Coulson nodded and walked towards a back room, Tony following.

    "Um," Simmons said nervously. "Should we go with them?"

    The door slammed behind Tony.

    "Apparently not," Fitz said.

    Melinda looked at Clint and Natasha. They both shook their heads, and Melinda nodded. Apparently, spies had their own body language.

    "Well, I suppose we have some time," Simmons said.

    "Yes," Fitz looked over at me. "Can we scan your Omnitrix? Maybe open it up and study it?"

    "Please?" Simmons asked cutely. "I promise, we won''t break it!"

    "...How invasive are the scans going to be? And do I need to take it off?" I hesitated. "Also, what are the chances you''ll activate something that will blow us all up?"

    Simmons and Fitz chuckled dismissively. "Oh no, we''re very good at studying alien technology, I think we''ll be fine."

    I thought about that. After all, the Omnitrix had a universal self-destruct in it. One I was very scared to activate since I was one of the assholes who lived in the universe.

    "How about instead I tell you how it works?" They did not seem satisfied at all with that. Before they could say anything, I spoke again. "Also, just scans. No touching buttons or taking it apart. No putting lasers on it."

    "I rather feel you''re being insulting," Fitz said with a scowl.

    "Remember how smart I said Azmuth was? This thing makes most other alien tech, maybe all of it, obsolete. I know it''s insulting, but it is the truth. You''re very smart cavemen studying a supercomputer," I admitted. "One owned by a very dumb caveman. We''re all dealing with a piece of tech so advanced I can only turn into ten out of the over one million aliens on it. Let''s not tempt fate."

    Everyone looked at the watch. Fitz finally sighed. "Okay, well, scans only. And you''ll tell us about it?"

    Nodding, I began to speak.

    Tony Stark/Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist

    Tony stood with Coulson in the tight space of the room and glared at Coulson. In all his life, he''d rarely been this... angry. The closest was when Obadiah Stane revealed that he had been selling weapons to terrorists, which rested firmly under finding out his parents had been murdered.

    "Tony, why are you-"

    "You were my friend," Tony said suddenly. "I mean... I know I''m not friendly. But Pepper cried when she found out you died. Her and your girlfriend, they still talk about you," Tony shook his head. "Does she know you''re alive?"

    Coulson stilled. "...No. No, she doesn''t."

    "You absolute prick."

    "Tony, I actually did die! I wasn''t faking, my heart stopped, my brain function was gone, hell, we''re still trying to understand how I was brought back-"

    "Yeah, I know, Dial brought up the files for me," the billionaire said, Coulson stopping in surprise. "I don''t care. You came back to life, you had months to talk to one of us, you asshole."

    They stared at each other. Finally, Coulson sighed and leaned against the wall behind him. "You''re right. I should have let people know. Not the whole world, but... people," he admitted. "I''m sorry, Tony."

    Tony shook his head. "Not good enough."

    "What?" Coulson said, finally annoyed.

    "I want those three outside to work with me."

    Coulson blinked in surprise. "You want what?"

    "Skye, Ross, and Rachel. I don''t care if they work for... whatever this new club Fury and Steve are building is at the same time. But I''ve read the team files. The stuff they''ve done, hacking into SHIELD with a laptop, creating a counter-serum to the Centipede formula, curing a Chitauri virus? They can do a lot more under me then they can with SHIELD. I want to work with them. That''s what I want in return."

    "Tony, you realize that Skye and Fitz-Simmons make their own choices," Coulson said.

    "Then let me ask them," Tony said. "Take them to my labs, show them what I can do for them."

    "Wait, was all this anger because you wanted to borrow my experts?" Coulson asked.

    Tony shrugged. "Not at first. I''m still pissed at you. But I''m planning something. Something big. I''ve got Dial on board. And Bruce. But I''ve seen what your team can do, and I think they can do even more."

    "Should I be worried?" Coulson asked.

    "Not really," Tony crossed his arms. "But you owe me more than an ''I''m sorry''."

    "They aren''t commodities for me to trade, Stark."

    "I''m not saying they are, Coulson. I''m just saying I think they can do some real good with me. But I know they''re your team, so I''m asking permission." Tony smirked. "But like I said, you do at least owe me."

    "...Like I said, they don''t need my permission," Coulson said. "Hell, I''m not even sure I''ll have a job once Fury''s done. But let them know that whatever their choice, they still have a place on whatever team I end up on. Whether they work for you at the same time or not."

    Tony nodded. "Now, let''s talk about the other stuff you owe me."

    Coulson rolled his eyes.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    Fitz ran a device over my wrist as Simmons and Skye watched. May, Clint, and Natasha had all gone upstairs to talk about spy stuff, I guessed.

    "So yeah," I said. "The Codon Stream is what allows the Omnitrix to do its thing. All the genetic information the Omnitrix can access exists in that stream."

    "Well," Fitz said. "It is giving off some very odd readings. If this is accessing another dimension for power, that would explain it."

    "Can you turn into an alien?" Simmons asked. "That may give us new readings."

    I blinked. "Yeah, okay," I thought about it, then tapped the watch. In seconds, I''d become Diamondhead with my proud battlecry. Funny, for some reason I was really starting to prefer Diamondhead over Blitzwolfer. Weird, but I went with it.

    "Whoa," Skye said softly, staring up at me. "You''re... big. And shiny."

    "Yeah, I get that a lot," I said.

    "Oh my," Simmons said, walking up to look at me as Fitz stared. "And this means your DNA has changed as well?"

    "Yeah," I said.

    "I wonder..." Fitz moved around. "I can sense some sort of energy from you," I raised a hand palm upwards and made a crystal sprout from it. Fitz stared at his scanner, then looked at the crystal I''d sprouted. "And that energy made the crystal grow, at a guess."

    "Does that contain your DNA?" Simmons asked. "It''s quite beautiful."

    I released the crystal and rested it on the table. Skye backed away from it nervously.

    "Uh, there''s no chance you have any diseases or anything, is there?" Skye asked. "I mean, the last time we interacted with an alien thing carrying a virus..."

    Simmons stared at the crystal I''d created with sudden fear when she realized what Skye was implying, Fitz stepping further back from me.

    "I wouldn''t worry," I said simply. "I''m been turning into aliens for weeks without anyone getting sick. Besides, I''m more worried about my human form getting sick. I got the sniffles one week, and Swampfire couldn''t control his powers."

    "Really?" Simmons said, stepping closer to the crystal. "So your human form''s health has some effect on the aliens then?"

    "Can you turn into another one?" Fitz asked politely. "For some reason, I can''t understand some of these readings."

    "I might be able to help with that actually." I said, tapping the Omnitrix.

    "Upgrade!"

    I leaned forward and poured into Fitz scanner.

    "Whoa, what the-" Fitz freaked out and dropped me, stepping back.

    I released a loud beeping noise as my tiny body hit the floor. I grew legs from the bottom of my oblong body and rose up, looking around while blinking with an eye made from the scanners port. Feeling a bit dramatic, I grew arms and waved at the three.

    "He''s so cute!" Simmons cried happily.

    "Yeah, still a twenty-seven-year-old man," I reminded her with my green circuits glowing with every word.

    "Whoa," Skye lowered to look at me. "What does that feel like? I mean, mixing with technology."

    "Like reinstalling your third lung," I said, getting confused blinks. "Hold on one second... I think I can make the scanner better."

    "You mean you can improve technology permanently?" Fitz asked.

    "Yeah, but I don''t seem to be that good at it," I admitted. "Some of my aliens mesh better with my personality than others do. But here," I rose up and separated from the scanner, becoming a giant nanite goo monster once more and passing the scanner to Fitz, who looked at it. "Try it now."

    Fitz turned it on and seemed staggered by what he was seeing. "Jemma, look at these readings!"

    "I know," Simmons said excitedly, staring at the computer that was receiving the scanners

    Just then, Tony and Coulson walked back into the room. I turned into my human form as they joined us.

    "Fitz, Simmons, Tony would like to speak with you," Coulson said, looking around. "Where''s May?"

    "May went upstairs with Black Widow and Hawkeye," Skye said with a grin. "Seriously, how cool is that sentence?"

    "Fangirl," Tony coughed. When Skye glared at him, he smirked. "Sorry, my cough interrupted me. I called you Fangirl."

    "Let''s go join them," Coulson said, guiding Skye and me away. Smiling, we all went upstairs as Tony and Fitz-Simmons continued to talk science at a rapid pace.

    "What''s it like?" Skye asked me later. We were sitting on the top level of the plane, resting on plush seats around a table. Coulson, May, Clint, and Natasha were sitting a bit away from us, joking around and reminiscing, which left Skye and me to talk. But man, the Bus really was a nice plane. For something owned by SHIELD, I was kind of jealous of all the soft chairs, the bar, and all the other amenities.

    "What''s what like?" I asked, sipping at my orange juice.

    "Oh come on," Skye said, sounding excited. "Turning into aliens! What does it feel like?"

    I grinned at her. "Oh man, it''s a total blast. I mean, it''s weird. Some of my aliens are just plain crazy. But some of them..." I thought of Diamondhead''s incredible strength and power, flying as Astrodactyl, zooming through the city in a blur as Fasttrack. "There is nothing like it in the world. Knowing at any second, I could just tap my wrist and get a few minutes to do things no one else can."

    "Man," Skye leaned back, staring at the Omnitrix with a smile. "That sounds really fun."

    "You have no idea," I admitted.

    "Okay, now you''re rubbing it in."

    "Just a bit," I said with a grin that she returned.

    "You ever think of letting other people try that out?" she asked.

    I shrugged. "All the time. Sometimes as a possible strategy, sometimes just to let someone try."

    "You can''t take that off?"

    "I can," I said. "But no one else can. Once it''s on, I''m the only one who can wear it."

    "Can I try?" Skye asked.

    I scoffed. "No way. This is my super-awesome alien watch."

    "Stingy," Skye teased.

    I nodded slightly, watching as she slowly drank the brown alcohol in her cup. She didn''t strike me as someone who drank often, but apparently, she''d needed it. I looked over at the group of super-spies. Coulson and May were drinking the same alcohol that Skye was. May seemed tense, the older Asian woman engaging in the conversation only in the sense that she was sitting close to it. Coulson was talking, but it didn''t feel real, somehow, like he was going through the motions.

    Skye was the same way. Like she was trying to distract herself and failing desperately. Well, shoot. I had a distraction that few in the world could match.

    I got up and held a hand out to Skye. "Hey, you want to see something cool?"

    She blinked up at me. "Uh, what?"

    "Something cool? It really put things in perspective for me, and I think you''ll enjoy it. Granted, every human on Earth would enjoy it, but..."

    "I mean, are we even allowed to leave?" she asked, still taking my hand and rising up as I pulled her along. I ignored the confused looks I got from the super-spies.

    "If anyone tries to stop me I''ll try to unlock Way Big and throw them into the horizon," I said, moving towards the hanger.

    "You do not have an alien called that!" She said, giggling. "That''s so dumb!"

    "Yeah, well, if you saw him you''d understand," I took a moment to feel offended on Ben''s behalf. I liked the alien''s names. We went down the stairs and I poked my head in on Tony, Fitz, and Simmons still discussing things at a rapid pace, now looking at the scanner I had modified. "Hey, guys!"

    The three looked over at me.

    "Skye and I are stealing a Quinjet," Skye gave me a startled look. "Wanna come?"

    "What?" Fitz said, shocked.

    "Hell yes!" Tony said, delighted.

    "Absolutely not!" Simmons said at the same time, horrified at the idea in a way that made me smile a little wider. Hermione Granger would have loved Simmons.

    "Yeah," Skye said, letting go of my hand. "I''m not so sure about-"

    "Hey, Fury," I said into the Omnitrix''s comm link. "X, connect him to the speakers."

    "Of course sir," X said.

    "Dial," Fury said, annoyed. "This better be quick."

    "I''m stealing a Quinjet with Tony and some of Coulson''s people," I said simply.

    Fury sighed in annoyance but didn''t really seem to care. "Well, we were thinking about redistributing some of our resources. Sure, it''s yours."

    "...What?"

    "Dial, I may be suspicious of you, but I''m also grateful," Fury said simply. "You were essential in saving SHIELD resources, and especially personnel. Many of my people are alive because of you and the Avengers now. You''ve more than earned a Quinjet. So go ahead, pick one and have X let me know which you took. Fly safe."

    With that, Fury hung up, leaving us all in shock. I mean... I had a Quinjet now. Holy shit. Wait, had Fury done that just to mess with me? Or was he honestly grateful despite all his suspicions? ...Whatever, I had a Quinjet!

    "Looks like you have a Quinjet now," Tony said, somehow reading my mind, and rushing out of the lab. "So where we going?"

    "What is going on?" Someone said upstairs. I looked up to see Clint leaning on the railing above, looking down at us. "Fury told me to come babysit you, and that he gave you a Quinjet? Was he kidding?"

    "I knew that he couldn''t just let us have this," Tony groaned in annoyance, but I just grinned, feeling a bit giddy and confused all in one.

    "Yeah! Can you believe it!? I mean, what the hell, right? Come with us!"

    "What exactly has you so excited?" Clint asked curiously, bypassing the stairs to simply hop over the railing.

    "Yeah, seriously," Skye asked, sounding a bit weirded out.

    "Okay," I said, raising my hands up. "Yesterday, I saw something amazing, something so beautiful it took my breath away."

    "Damn, you just met her," Tony said, looking between Skye and I. "Granted, I don''t blame you, but..."

    Skye grinned at Tony. "Heh. That''s an ego boost for me."

    "Will you all just come on?" I said, looking over at Fitz-Simmons, who still looked hesitant. "Look, I promise, it is going to be awesome."

    Moments later, I was merged with a Quinjet again, Upgrade''s incredible powers being put to use. My Quinjet. Seriously, I loved Fury. For all his suspicion, gifting me with a Quinjet in return for saving SHIELD made him my hero.

    As of then, I had flown into space once more. This time, I turned the bottom of the aircraft transparent to show the world below.

    "Man," Clint said slowly, sitting on the transparent floor and staring down at Earth. "She really is beautiful."

    Fitz-Simmons, Skye, and Tony were staring at the same view, while I was using my camera''s and sensors to do the same. We were floating over the East Coast now. Uh, the East Coast of the United States that is.

    "I can''t believe we''re actually watching this," Skye said softly.

    "It''s so pretty," Simmons said brightly. "Look at the way the clouds are forming to the North! Do you think-?"

    "Possibly," Fitz replied. "But of course-"

    "Yes, that might happen," Simmons agreed.

    To my surprise, Tony suddenly cut in. "I don''t think so. Look, the winds are clearly breaking up the clouds as they go south."

    Fitz-Simmons both stared for a moment before nodding simultaneously. "Oh yes, that''s quite right," Simmons said.

    "God, there are three of them," Skye said, sounding more happy than annoyed.

    "Still, it''s very pretty..." Fitz shook his head. "This is unbelievable. I mean, we''re in space!"

    "I know!" Simmons giggled.

    "Earth''s... small," Tony said, sounding very different from his usual self. "I mean, obviously it''s not small, but-"

    "No," I interrupted. "She''s small. Beautiful, and so..." I didn''t say anything else.

    Until you''re up there, watching home spin below you among the beauty of the stars, Earth never seems real as a concept. You can know, intellectually, that you live on a tiny piece of the universe in a far bigger part of it. But it''s only when you see her in all her glory that the concept of it really hits you.

    We floated there for a while before Clint sighed, looking over towards the sun. "This is pretty crazy man. How fast are you like this?"

    "Not light-speed fast," I admitted. "But give me time. I think... I think I can make things better. Not just upgrade them temporarily, but permanently."

    "How fascinating," Simmons said, looking around at the black and green interior of the ship. "And you said you''re a species made of nanites? That''s how you improved the scanner back in the lab?"

    "Yeah," I said through the Quinjets internal speakers. Well, the speakers I had made.

    "And how much can you change?" Fitz asked. "What''s it like?"

    "Not a lot of ways I can explain it, but Upgrade is really damn versatile. Oh, here," I raised a podium in front of Skye, who blinked when it opened on top to reveal a keyboard and screen. "Check it out! I can make computers."

    "Can your nanites be replicated?" Simmons asked.

    "I''ve got theories about that," Tony said.

    "You guys are really ruining the experience," Clint noted, looking over as Skye began typing at the computer I had made her with great enthusiasm. I could feel her sending a message to Coulson, who didn''t respond.

    "Well, the experience is going to be over in a bit," I admitted, a familiar red beep coming from the Omnitrix symbol.

    Clint and Tony froze. Skye and Fitz-Simmons looked over at them, understanding something was wrong.

    "Uh," Tony said. "These things are airtight, right?"

    Clint didn''t seem to know.

    With a final beep, I appeared in the back of the Quinjet in human form. The transparent floor became black metal again. More importantly, the artificial gravity I had been creating disappeared, leaving us all to begin to float. "It was airtight, but I just made it more so," I admitted, spinning in the air to look at everyone. Time as Goop left me well adjusted to floating. "The Quinjet isn''t quite a spaceship, but it will get us to home and the engines should be a lot faster now."

    "Oh thank god," Fitz said with a sigh, floating to grab at his seat so he could strap himself down.

    Clint rose up, pulling his floating form over to the cockpit. "Seriously, what is with that thing''s random timing? I think we were up here for about twelve minutes this time."

    "It may be some sort of failsafe!" Fitz yelled towards the front as Clint sat down. "Uh, Hawkeye, sir."

    "Call me Clint."

    Fitz grinned at that.

    "Today has been weird," Skye said, looking at me when I sat down. "Seriously, I''m hanging out with three Avengers in space."

    "Uh, excuse me?" Tony said, smirking. "Two Avengers. Fanboy here is a reserve member at best."

    "I can kick the ass of every other Avenger in the right form though," I mumbled. Tony grinned, not disagreeing.

    "Fanboy?" Skye asked as Clint turned the ship towards the Earth.

    "Oh, you didn''t know?" Tony asked, looking mischievous. "I''m his favorite Avenger."

    "You mispronounced Black Widow," I sniped. "I distinctly remember saying, ''Black Widow is my favorite Avenger.''"

    "All that leather really does it for ya, huh?" Skye asked me. She smirked at the betrayed look I gave her.

    "So, back to the rendezvous?" Clint asked, flying down.

    "Hey, Jarvis?" Tony asked. "Are they still talking about uh... what was it?"

    "International border laws, sir," Jarvis said.

    "God, please keep me from politics," Tony said, an ironic statement from the man whose involvement with such in the comics caused a civil war. "Yeah, let''s not. Hey, let''s go to my place. I wanna show you guys the labs."

    "Wait, at Stark Tower?" Fitz asked.

    "It''s the Avengers Tower now," Clint responded from the pilot''s seat.

    "Shush Legolas, I''m talking," Tony tossed something at Clint, who easily dodged it. "What do you say Ross and Rachel, wanna see my toys?"

    The pair seemed to glow with happiness. "Oh yes-"

    "We would very much like-"

    "If it''s not too much trouble-"

    "How about you, Fangirl?" Tony asked Skye.

    "Sure," she said brightly, not bothered by the name. "Keep the good times rolling."

    I hid a smile. Maybe they''d have to face it later. But for now, I''d managed to distract the three. And that was good enough.

    "Cool, I''ll introduce you to Bruce."

    "Bruce Banner!?" Fitz-Simmons yelled in unison.

 20 Chapter 20

    "Such an honor sir," Simmons said excitedly shaking the hand of the man in front of her.

    "Oh, yes," Fitz said, pushing in for a handshake as well. "You are just, so brilliant! Your thesis on radiation physics-"

    "And on the biological ramifications, on the ways that it could improve medicine!" Simmons continued.

    "Changed our lives!" Fitz finished, waving his hands in emphasis. "Your papers are still taught at the SHIELD Academy!" Fitz seemed to realize something. "Well, were taught I suppose."

    The man looked between them, looking befuddled but pleased. "Well, thank you. Always good to be known more for my work rather than... you know." Bruce couldn''t help but look saddened for a moment.

    "Seriously?" Tony asked, annoyed. "Why weren''t they like this for me?"

    "Because you''re a billionaire scientist, and Bruce is a regular scientist," Clint supplied. "You''re not as classy."

    "I''m classy," Tony said, feigning like he was hurt by that.

    "If it helps, I still like you," Skye said, grinning.

    Tony looked between them, annoyed. "Seriously, I don''t get as much respect as I deserve."

    I ignored them to take a good look at Bruce Banner. The Incredible Hulk. Seriously, the damn Hulk. So freaking cool.

    Granted he wasn''t the rage monster right now, but he also wasn''t some stereotypical string-bean people assume most scientists were. He actually was very well built, likely a byproduct from being on the run from the US military for so long, with curly black hair and some beard scruff that was going a bit gray. He wore a simple sweater and blue jeans and seemed nervous, but happy to speak with Fitz-Simmons.

    I looked around. "Damn... You really went all out making this place," I said to Tony.

    He smirked, looking around. "Like it? I wanted it to have all the bells and whistles."

    "I could get used to it," Skye said.

    The room of the tower we were standing in was massive, the sort of place with so many zeroes on its price tag it would make me pass out at the mere thought of spending so much. It had a fancy bar on one side of the room, black tiles on the floor everywhere, plush leather couches, and a second floor visible from the first. The place looked like a nightclub.

    I walked over to a nearby window and looked out on New York City. Tony and Skye followed me, Clint opting to go upstairs so he could have a view of everything.

    "Great view, right?" Tony asked casually.

    "Yeah," Skye stared out at the buildings and streets of the city. "I think I can see my favorite coffee shop right over there."

    "That''s my old warehouse, I think," I pointed out into the city. "I was squatting over there... I miss that warehouse."

    Tony snorted. "Yeah, well, you moved up in the world, pun totally intended, so don''t go shedding tears about it."

    "Skye!" Simmons called out, getting her friends attention. "Come to look at this!"

    She gave us an apologetic look before going to join her friends. As she did, Tony looked over at me. "What do you think?"

    "It''s nice... Thanks for the invite by the way."

    "Wasn''t as spontaneous as it seemed," Tony admitted. "Coulson wanted his team to have a good time. You deciding to steal a Quinjet just... made it easy."

    I looked over at Tony, surprised. He shrugged. "I was always planning on taking you, Ross, and Rachel with me. And I know Fury was trying to find some way to show you some appreciation. Fury isn''t exactly rainbows and sunshine, but he knows to be nice even when he''s a paranoid asshole."

    "And Coulson?" I asked. "Was he in on it?"

    "He gave me permission to talk to them," Tony admitted. "But I''m the one who has to convince them working with Bruce, you, and I is a good idea."

    "Tony," I said, suddenly suspicious. "What is it that you''re planning?"

    "...Even if SHIELD is rebuilding, even with the Avengers, we might not be enough," Tony said. "I want to make something to help us protect people. Something that can stop threats before they start. To prevent anything from space coming near us without getting vetted."

    I thought about Ben 10, about the Plumbers, and the time a species of frog people had attacked. They''d had to work around something to do it if I remembered correctly. Hell, wasn''t the plot of the third Men in Black movie based around something like that? And then there were the MAC guns from Halo, big cannons that could shoot a ship to pieces that were left in orbit. Plus, it was time I make something to prevent people like Davida from mind controlling me again.

    "I have some ideas about that," I told Tony.

    "Yeah well, hopefully, your little red guy can make them," Tony said. "By the way, I want to test you with something. First," Tony put a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the others. When we joined them, Bruce was listening as Simmons enthusiastically spoke about something. As we came closer, my Omnitrix beeped, surprising me, but when I looked down at it, the watch was normal. Wondering why it had done that, I focused on Bruce, who seemed amazed.

    "A disease that can spread through electromagnetic shock?" Bruce asked her. When Simmons nodded, he grinned. "That is fascinating. I mean, dangerous, but if you could use that system to transfer cures-"

    "We managed to suspend the cure in a mineral-based solution that could give it to her with an electrical shock," Fitz said. "But we couldn''t figure out if other cures could be spread that way as well."

    "Weren''t you guys talking about it being a way to transfer cures over the internet?" Skye idly asked.

    "That would be incredible," Bruce said in amazement. "Cures that could be stored as data! The number of people that could be saved with that, being able to send cures to people with the press of a button!"

    "Yes, but we''ve had trouble with it," Simmons admitted. "Without more samples of similar diseases we haven''t been able to see if other cures could be created, and our attempts to make such vaccines with samples of Earth diseases have come to a standstill."

    "I''d like to see your research if you don''t mind?" Bruce asked.

    Fitz and Simmons looked like they had never heard of something more wonderful.

    "Well that works out," Tony said, getting everyone''s attention. "I want Jury Rigg to take a look at something."

    "Jury Rigg?" Bruce asked.

    "Oh, right, I guess you haven''t heard," Tony said with a smile. "Turns out you aren''t the only guy who can turn into giant monsters-"

    "Tony?" Someone said.

    We all turned to see a woman walking into the room. She was wearing a black dress that fit her tall and thin frame very well, had red hair in a high ponytail, and freckles across her nose. She walked over to us, smiling. Happy walked in behind her and gave me a light glare that I returned with a sigh.

    "Jarvis told me you brought company," the woman said.

    "Tattletale," Tony said to the air.

    "She asked why a Quinjet was parked on the roof," Jarvis informed Tony.

    "And I''m sure she broke you after hours of torture," Tony said. "Okay, well, these are Fangirl, Ross, Rachel, and-"

    "The hacker," Happy said.

    "Wait, you know me?" Skye asked, surprised.

    "You hacked us too?" the woman, Pepper Potts at a guess, said, while Happy frowned.

    "Uh..." Skye looked around. "No?"

    "Seriously, how many holes are there in my security? I mean, I get Fanboy, but Fangirl too?" Tony asked, annoyed. "Anyways, this is Happy Hogan, my Forehead of Security, and Pepper Potts, the real CEO and my girlfriend."

    "On days when he isn''t running around the world without telling me," Pepper said, shaking my hand then moving on to the others.

    Tony waited until she had been fully introduced before looking between Bruce and Pepper. "Guys. I need to talk to you about something. Happy, can you show them to the labs? My personal one."

    Happy, Pepper, and Bruce seemed shocked. Happy looked at Skye and I. "Uh, Tony, are you sure-"

    "Yes," Tony was uncharacteristically serious. "Now, I need to talk to Pepper and Bruce."

    I gave the others an awkward look that was returned. Happy led us away as Pepper gave Tony a worried look.

    Steve Rogers/Captain America

    Steve watched calmly as Fury worked the room. In all of his interactions, Steve had never thought of Fury as a politician. But he turned out to have a real skill at it, speaking calmly and with real control, taking over the conversations. Fury wasn''t smooth, and he wasn''t passionate. He simply spoke in a way that demanded attention.

    Fury still managed to get annoyed when a woman named Senator Ellen Nadeer once again tried to intrude on the discussion. Granted, ever since the politicians of the countries invited to the discussion were informed of the change, a few controversial suggestions had been brought up, one man even requesting that the Avenger be put on call to put down political dissidents. But Ellen Nadeer was a special sort of obsessed. She was glaring out from one of the holo-screens and had once again interrupted the discussion.

    "Senator Nadeer," Fury said. "For the last time, Dial and Thor are not simple aliens, they are allies, as are the Asgardians. Hell, Dial is one hundred percent human and simply uses technology that turns him into aliens. Now, I have plans to begin equipping our forces to combat any extraterrestrial threats that come knocking on our doorstep again-"

    "How can you do that when you invite the aliens to join your ranks?" Nadeer said firmly, the young Indian-American woman frowning. "We can''t simply expect them to see our people as being as important as their own."

    "Dial is human," Steve reminded her. "And Thor helped us-"

    "Against a problem, his brother caused," Nadeer said angrily. "And Dial can only barely be considered human since he apparently changes his species the way the rest of us change shirts. How can we be assured he will stay our ally? What if one day Asgard decides we might be worth invading?"

    "What if, when we need our most powerful allies, we''ve already driven them away?" Steve said, rising up to eye her. "Senator Nadeer, these questions you''re asking come from fear, and it''s understandable to feel that fear. But Thor is not just an alien, he is my friend and ally, someone who put their life on the line when they could have walked away. Thor has done it three times in fact."

    "Including the time when he brought the Dark Elves," Nadeer scowled.

    "No, he didn''t," Coulson said, drawing the attention of the room. "The Dark Elves were coming all along. Thor helped stop them. That situation is not proof for your argument, it''s the proof against it. When an alien enemy came to attack our world, an alien ally came to our defense, as did some of our worlds best scientists."

    Victoria Hand nodded. "And let us not forget, a massive portion of the meeting has been dedicated to making sure this new organization can defend the Earth even from Asgardians. The world''s best scientists, engineers, and tacticians will be working around the clock to develop the tools and the people to stop the threat."

    Nadeer shook her head. "I still disagree with the idea that we do anything to teach and protect powered individuals. What if, by harboring and protecting them, we only give them the outlet to become our new rulers?"

    "First, we work to prevent that very thing," Fury said. "Second, we take them down if we can''t."

    "And if Thor decided to do it?" Nadeer asked. "What if the ''God of Thunder'' decided to become our god once more? Can we simply decide it won''t happen?"

    Steve shook his head. "Not at all. But in the end, we aren''t dealing with that sort of situation. The men and women we are currently at war with are all humans. Sure, they are using alien technology like the Chitauri armor, or empowered individuals like Davida or Creel, but the masterminds are human. We need to accept that the issue of who to trust must be seen on a case by case basis, not based on where they were born or how they are different. Yes, they may be a threat. But immediately assuming they are is a mistake that could cost valuable allies."

    Nadeer shook her head and seemed to prepare to attack once more. Steve smiled on the outside and groaned on the inside. He really was not made for politics.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    "Tony Stark''s lab," Skye said later, staring around with wide eyes. We stood side by side, looking around at a place I''d only ever seen in comic books and cartoons. She looked at me. "You know I tried visiting the tower before?"

    "Really?" I asked, surprised.

    "Well, I didn''t get a guided tour or anything," Skye admitted. "I mostly stood outside in costu- Uh, I mean..."

    I grinned at the harried look she gave me at her near admittance.

    According to Happy, the whole top floors of the tower were dedicated to the Avengers. The place we''d left behind was the lounge area. The lab we stood in now was Tony''s, with another for Bruce and one more for guest scientists and researchers.

    Fitz and Simmons were walking around with a look of absolute glee in their eyes as Skye, Happy, and I watched them. There were pieces of armor and robotics everywhere, a couple of fancy looking cars in the back, and a main table in the center. More importantly, however, were the dozens of broken Iron Man suits surrounding us.

    "How did he make so many?" Fisk asked, amazed as he looked at one helmet that kind of reminded me of the Hulkbuster, but where the Hulkbuster suit was red this helmet was silver and blue. That plus the tears and rips where it had been blown all to hell. "And why?"

    "Tony kind of... went through a phase," Happy said. "He ended up making around thirty of them."

    "Damn," Skye walked up to one of them. "And he just destroyed them all?"

    "Like I said, he went through a phase," Happy looked at me. "Any idea what he wanted you to do?"

    "I know what I want to do," I admitted, thinking of Pepper and her comic book counterpart. "Although we have to wait."

    "What did he need to talk to Pepper and Bruce about?" Happy asked me as Simmons leaned over to look at the remains of a chest plate.

    "...Agent Phil Coulson is alive," I stated with some hesitance.

    Happy''s eyes widened. He seemed to understand the meaning behind that, based on the way his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish''s. Finally, he sighed. "I miss when the world made sense."

    "That day never existed," I said sadly. "The multiverse was always crazy. We just had ignorance protecting us before."

    People walking into the room took my attention. I looked at Tony, Pepper, and Bruce as they walked in. Clint didn''t join, and I wondered briefly where he had gone. "Everything all right?" I asked with some concern.

    Pepper''s eyes were red, and she clenched a napkin in an angry fist, but she managed a hesitant smile. "Yeah, everything''s okay."

    Tony sighed. "Okay, Fanboy, come with me. Bruce, show the nerd crew what we''ve got, will you?"

    "On it," Bruce stepped forward as I followed Tony, Pepper staying behind.

    Tony led me to an elevator and waited until we''d gone down a couple of floors before speaking. "The first time I killed someone was in a cave," I leaned against the wall of the elevator. "I did it using my power suit, the first one. I try not to let it bother me. I killed a lot more people afterward, guys who deserved it. And I look for distractions all the time. Sometimes though, you need help."

    I sighed. "...I thought maybe if I could help Coulson''s team, maybe I''d also distract myself."

    "Yeah, you weren''t exactly subtle about it," Tony said. "I wouldn''t suggest talking to Bruce about it though. I tried, but he just falls asleep."

    "Bruce is a therapist?" I asked, confused. "I mean, considering the green elephant in the room-"

    "No, he isn''t," Tony scowled. "He falls asleep when he tries. But uh, I have a good one, on retainer. I''m planning to hire other ones. Coulson recommended a guy. So if you need one, let me know."

    I nodded. "Thanks, Tony."

    He smiled. "Well, don''t thank me now. I''m only using you for your brains." I laughed as the doors opened. "Come on, I''ll show you your room."

    "I get a room?" I asked, surprised.

    "You did say you were homeless."

    "...Pepper pushed you to do this, right?"

    "I can do things without my girlfriend pushing me. Anyways, we''ll go back upstairs afterward."

    The elevator opened and we walked out into the hallway. When we got to the room that Tony had offered me, we found a surprise.

    "Barton?" Tony asked.

    Clint Barton was sitting on a couch in front of a TV, playing video games. Some kind of Grand Theft Auto clone, based on the fact he was being chased by the army. He looked up and smiled at us. "Hey guys."

    "Don''t ''hey guys'' me," Tony said, annoyed. "Get your feet off that table, it''s worth more than decades of your salary."

    "You haven''t seen my salary," Clint put his feet down and kept playing the game. "So you''re giving the kid a room?"

    "How did you know that?" I asked, confused. "He just told me five seconds ago."

    "Spy," Clint said, pointing at himself.

    Tony scowled. "Yes, I am. But you ruined it," Tony took my arm and pulled me away. "Jarvis, check the room for bugs and let me know next time Clint does something sneaky."

    "Yes, sir," Jarvis said.

    "Fanboy, delete his save games as soon as you can."

    "Fine by me," Clint said, sounding immensely frustrated. "Why the hell is the army chasing me in a fishing game..."

    "It''s immersive!" Tony yelled back.

    "You seem to get angry at them a lot," I noted. "Clint and Coulson, I mean, whenever they do the spy stuff."

    Tony smirked, leading me back to the elevator. "Well yeah. I mean, it''s part of their charm, sure, but I''m still going to call them out on it."

    The elevator went up, and Tony stood in silence with me for a bit. At a guess, he was thinking. Finally, he spoke as the door to the elevators opened.

    "I''ve been thinking about what you said," Tony stepped out, walking slowly, and I matched his pace. "About how you were patrolling New York. I think that''s a good idea to make a thing for Avengers. Having people with powers on the street, keeping people safe, it could go a long way to making the average person more comfortable with... what was the word you used, metahuman?" I nodded. "I''ll have to mention it to Steve and Fury."

    When we walked back into the room, Pepper was speaking with Skye and Happy, smiling a bit. Fitz-Simmons and Bruce were at a computer, where I could see what looked like some sort of blueprints for a taser displayed.

    "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin," Tony said dramatically, waved at all the pieces of armor in the lab. "Okay Fanboy, I want you to make armor while I record you working."

    "What, out of all this?" I asked, surprised at Tony Stark letting anyone near his armor tech, even scraps of it.

    "Why do you think I pulled these out of storage? Just make something, and I''ll be able to see how much of what Jury Rigg does is him being smart, and him using some kind of superpowers."

    I thought about that. In truth, my understanding of Jury Rigg, my experience when I turned into him, told me that he didn''t work that way. Jury Rigg was just a smart, stubborn son of a bitch. But hell, if Tony needed proof...

    "Okay," I raised the Omnitrix and began to twist the dial. The holograms of my aliens popped up. I scrolled past Wildmutt, Rath, Diamondhead, Swampfire, and Feedback, finally getting to Jury Rigg.

    "So that''s what that looks like," Bruce said, stepping closer to look. "And the names, are those affectations or translations of the species actual word for themselves?"

    "Affectations," I said, pressing down on the dial.

    "Oh, that''s too bad," Bruce said, disappointment on his face as my body was surrounded by green light. "Because it might''ve revealed something about them culturally... huh. Shorter than I expected."

    I grinned up at everyone, Pepper blinking at me next to Bruce.

    "Tony, is that-" Pepper began to say.

    "Yeah, my Black Sabbath shirt," Tony said, surprising me. I''d wondered since my first transformation why I was wearing a regular shirt and jeans, rather than the aviator gear Jury Rigg was known to wear.

    "Why would an alien have a Black Sabbath shirt?" Bruce asked, confused.

    "I think because Tony wears it," I said without thinking.

    The three looked down at me, Tony confused. "Me?"

    "Well, it would make sense. According to the mental memories given to me by the Omnitrix I, that is to say Jury Rigg, am one of a few aliens affected by the unconscious perceptions of the wearer," I stated wisely. "Tony Stark is known culturally as a sort of ''mad scientist'', a person who makes incredible inventions, and so, despite my clear closeness in appearance to the common traditional design for Gremlins, I instead wore the clothing of the person most closely associated with engineering of a spectacular nature."

    All of which was half a guess on my part, half a lie. But it worked as an explanation.

    "Well, he''s more eloquent than he looks," Pepper said.

    "Thank you!" I said, my red cheeks somehow getting redder as I looked up at Pepper, who smiled.

    "Let''s put a pin in that," Tony said, looking around the lab. "Jarvis, you recording?"

    "Of course, sir," Jarvis said diligently.

    "All right Mini-Me, go make something."

    "Right!" I ran over to the suits and robotic parts. "Disassemble, disassemble!" I shouted gleefully, running between Skye''s legs as she came over to see what the fuzz was all about.

    Skye yelped in shock, staring after me as I climbed onto a table and grabbed a helmet that was in pretty condition. "What was that!?"

    "I''m Jury Rigg!" I shouted back, leaping onto another table. I grinned at Simmons as she stared at me askance. I don''t know why, but both Simmons and Pepper were suddenly more interesting now. Actually, looking over at Fitz and Tony, I could guess why...

    I grabbed a bunch of pieces of gauntlets, gloves, a couple of chest plates, all the servos I could grab. I knew what I had to make, and in many ways, I had a perfect blueprint in mind thanks to comics. Jury Rigg wanted to do more than just make armor, and they say inspiration should be followed...

    I ran over to Pepper and stared at her for a moment. She blinked at me as I put my hands into a frame, taking a good look at her.

    "Um..."

    I ignored her confusion to run back to the parts I had gathered. "I need an arc reactor!"

    "Okay," Tony walked over to a table and tossed one over to me after a bit of searching.

    "You just have extra arc reactors lying around?" Fitz asked, sounding amazed.

    "What, you want one?" Tony threw another one to Fitz, who yelped, catching it. "They''re older models, for back when I needed one for my heart. Thanks for bringing them over, Happy."

    I ignored the background noise of Happy responding. Let''s see, I wanted it to be able to separate into different sections. A neural link, naturally attuned to her... Magnets? No, too primitive, so maybe...

    I tapped the Omnitrix symbol and changed into Upgrade. I merged with the pieces I''d made and started in on the adjustments. The pieces couldn''t just mash together, they had to be adaptive. I separated from them and looked at the armor I''d been making for a moment.

    "Kid?" Tony asked, walking over. "What exactly are you up to?"

    "Almost done," I said, tapping the Omnitrix and turning back into Jury Rigg. I opened my mouth and bit down onto a section of chestplate, tearing it off so I could bend it in a different direction. I took some of the wires and twisted them into the arc reactor. Then I moved the repulsors into their positions and turned into Upgrade again. While I could do impressive things as Jury Rigg, Upgrade let me make changes at an even more precise level. I hadn''t really thought about combining them this way until now, but something about working with Tony''s armor made my mind buzz with inspiration. "One more second!"

    I poured into the gauntlets and the repulsors and further refined them. I left and turned back into Jury Rigg. With a squeal of metal, I twisted the helmet'' facemask into shape, then yelled to the ceiling. "X, Jarvis, install a basic version of Tony''s armor software please!"

    "Right away, sir," Jarvis said.

    "On it," X agreed.

    "Tony, Fitz, can you two help me?" I asked.

    "Oh, um," Fitz looked at Tony, who waved for him to join me. "Yes, of course."

    As they leaned down to the floor to join me, I showed them where I needed them. "Here, and here, you see? Start putting them in place"

    "Oh, okay, so that the armor is connected wirelessly?" Fitz said. "Oh, that''s brilliant."

    "I know, right?" Tony said, apparently forgetting in all the excitement that he was supposed to just be watching me. Soon, the two were moving the pieces of armor I''d made into place, following the connections. As I watched, they actually made some adjustments that I hadn''t thought of. Interesting.

    "Okay, only activate them on my say, please?" I hopped away and ran over to a computer. "Skye, Simmons!"

    The two ran over to join me, Skye taking me under the armpits and helping me get on the table when I struggled to hop onto it.

    "Okay, Skye," I said, pointing at the screen. "X, show me a portion of- right, that," X flashed the code I was thinking of. "Can you clean that up a bit?"

    "What, some code I''ve never seen before..." Skye leaned forward to look at it. "No, wait... This is familiar. I think if I..." She trailed off, typing frantically at the computer.

    "Jarvis, can you show me the bloodwork and medical history?" I asked. "On uh... that one!" As I pointed at a computer, it turned on. "Come on!" I said to Simmons, the young woman following next to me as I ran along the tables. "Okay, can you make sure that these two match up well?" I asked. "I don''t want to make a mistake?"

    Simmons leaned over and blinked at what she read, focusing on one bit in particular. "Extremis virus?"

    "I don''t want to activate it," I explained. "I know it was removed, but if there is any chance..."

    "Professor Banner," Simmons said, understanding in an instant. "Can you look at this as well?"

    "Of course," Bruce ran over and checked the computer, putting on his glasses.

    "Oh, I see what he''s doing," Tony mumbled, looking at the confused Happy and Pepper.

    "All good!" Skye said, looking over at me as I hopped off the table to join Tony and Fitz.

    "Um, I don''t think there should be anything wrong," Bruce said, looking over at us.

    "I concur with Professor Banner''s assessment," Simmons said, squealing a moment later. "I always wanted to say that!"

    "Okay, one last thing," I tapped the Omnitrix.

    In seconds, I stood tall, my skin inky black, a pair of tendrils popping out of my head ending in plugs.

    "Feedback!" I cried proudly.

    All the pieces were in place. Jury Rigg was smart, but he wasn''t precise when it came to software, and had no experience in biology, so Skye, Jarvis and X helped with the software I needed, and Simmons and Bruce made sure the biological aspect wouldn''t clash with my tech. Upgrade was very good at smoothing the rough edges of Jury Rigg''s tech, but Tony and Fitz would be able to replicate it afterward if they were involved in the process. I could see them putting pieces into place, and got ready for my final part.

    "Okay, Fitz, Tony, Jarvis, X, on one," I raised my hands up and sucked out the power of the arc reactor in the chest plate. Blue power flowed into me in constant waves, and I could feel the device begin to fight me. Tony and Fitz tensed their fingers against the armor. "Two!" I held my breath, then fired the energy back. "THREE!"

    With a shout, Tony and Fitz pressed down on the armor, completing the last connections that needed to be made. Jarvis and X uploaded the software, and the whole thing began to come together as I poured energy into the suit.

    "Yaaaaaagh!" I yelled, putting more and more into it. Tony and Fitz stepped back from the jerking suit, both staring at it.

    Finally, I stopped, tapping the Omnitrix to run over to look at the armor as Jury Rigg. I inspected it with a critical eye. Everyone walked over to join me.

    "It''s... female?" Happy asked.

    "Only for design purposes," I admitted.

    The suit I''d made was primarily red, but it had some sections of black that were running with green circuitry. It was tall but thinner than Tony or Rhodey''s suits. The arc reactor rested in the chest, glowing blue, but as we watched, a thick piece of steel snapped over the arc reactor. The whole suit shrank into a more compact form, ready to attach to the wearer in a moment.

    "Do you like it!?" I asked Pepper.

    Everyone looked at her. She stared back uncomprehending, before realizing what was going on. "What?" She said, staring down at me.

    "Do you like it?" I asked bashfully. "It should fit really well!"

    "You made that for me?" Pepper looked around, shocked. "Whoa, no, I don''t want armor! I''m not a superhero!"

    "Huh?" I asked. "It''s not to fight in! I mean, you can if you want, but I made it so you can fly!"

    Pepper stilled at that. "Fly?"

    "Yeah! It''ll still protect you, but this way you can fly with Tony whenever you want!"

    Seriously, why was I acting like this?

    "Tony," Pepper frowned at her boyfriend. "If this is because of you..."

    "Hey, this is all him," Tony said, waving at me. "I told him to make armor, I didn''t expect... all this!" Pepper glared a moment longer. "Honest!"

    She looked back at me. I sighed. "Don''t you want to at least try? It''s probably the best thing I''ve ever made." Except for the dimensional viewer of course.

    Pepper just huffed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I mean... look, I''ve had a hell of a day," the last bit of her sentence was said very quietly, with a hint of sadness. "I''m just having trouble processing this."

    Tony rose up and walked over to her. They whispered fiercely for a moment, Happy joining in, then Bruce. The four spoke quickly, and eventually, I heard Natasha''s voice, just barely, amongst the group, coming from Tony''s comm unit.

    After about five minutes of speaking to those she was closest too, Pepper turned to look at me. "So," she said, still hesitant. "How do I put it on?"

    "Just think about it, slowly," I said.

    "Think about it slowly?" Pepper asked. As she spoke a gauntlet rose from the floor. The red and black armor piece floated gently over to her as everyone watched. Pepper raised a hand and watched the gauntlet calmly move over to it, the armor pieces shifting to move around her fingers, wrist, and forearm. With a click, the final part of the gauntlet moved over her shoulder. She blinked at it. "Oh, wow. This doesn''t feel like the last time. It''s... almost nice."

    "Skye input the program to incorporate the medical data Bruce and Simmons put in," I explained. "Okay, try the rest. But think, ''sloooooowly''."

    "That''s important," Tony said with a wince. "Seriously, you don''t want a piece of armor flying into you in a sensitive spot."

    "Experience?" Skye asked mischievously.

    "Shhh," Pepper said, frowning. "I''m concentrating-ah!" She exclaimed in excitement when a leg of the armor flew over to her. She blinked, looking down at her dress. "Wait, what about my clothes, oh, nevermind."

    The leg moved around her heel, then over her hip, leaving the dress and shoe intact. The next leg did the same.

    "I figured you might want to wear it on the fly," I explained. "I just used an upgraded version of the technology Tony uses so he can wear a tuxedo under the suit."

    "I always wondered about that," Bruce mumbled.

    Pepper yelped in surprise when the chest plate attached, giggling slightly. "It''s cold!"

    Then the helmet rose up, floating over to her hands. She took it and raised the helmet to gaze into its eyes. She looked over at Tony, who looked proud enough to burst, and blushed. Something about seeing Tony and Pepper happy as they looked at each other made Jury Rigg grin as well.

    Pepper raised the helmet up and lowered it over her head. The faceplate snapped down over her, and she looked around. "So... how do I look?" she asked in a slightly modified voice.

    She was the tallest in the room now, towering over all of us. The red and black design of her suit gave a somber, impressive look. I''d chosen not to give her the boob plate that most comic book power suits for woman seemed to insist on, instead of making her chest plate with a series of interlocking plates for flexibility. Tony and Fitz had done well to make sure each piece fit smoothly.

    "I... this may be the sexiest thing I''ve ever seen," Tony said, uncaring of the looks everyone gave him. "How does it feel? Any issues?"

    "I feel," Pepper turned her hand over, watching her red and black fingers wiggle. "I feel powerful. It''s like it''s a part of me."

    I tapped my Omnitrix and became human again.

    I grinned at Pepper. "Wanna take it for a spin?" I asked. "We can fly!"

    "Um, is that safe?" She asked hesitantly.

    "Jarvis, what can you tell us?" Tony asked. "Safe?"

    "Ms. Potts is safe," Jarvis said immediately. "While the method of it''s making is unorthodox, the suit has no issues to worry about. I''d argue it has more to protect her from harm than even your latest suits, Mr. Stark."

    "Give me time," Tony mumbled, clearly unworried. "Jarvis, send me the Mark 43."

    "On its way sir," Jarvis'' pronouncement was followed by the suit flying over before landing and walking over to Tony. Tony opened his arms wide and the suit opened to accept him.

    "What do you say?" the faceplate on Tony''s armor closed over his face. "Want to go for a test flight?"

    Pepper looked over her hands. "Well, it''s tempting..."

    "Come on!" I shouted, running towards the balcony outside. The others followed. Pepper was moving very smoothly in her armor, and soon was striding with confidence.

    We all stood together, Skye moving to watch with me as Tony began to guide Pepper in her first attempts at flight.

    "So, when do I get a suit?" she asked with a grin.

    I smirked at her. "Stick around. I''ll even let you pick the color scheme."

    Skye''s grin fell. "Seriously?"

    "Seriously. You want a suit, I can make you one," I looked down at the Omnitrix. "I''ve been holding back to long on what I can do. So has SHIELD. I think it''s time we make real headway on changing the world. And part of that is giving it some sweet toys."

    Pepper yelped, bring our attention to her. She was laughing as Tony guided her to float with her rocket boots, using the hand repulsors to stabilize. Bruce shouted something to her, and Pepper laughed back as Fitz-Simmons watched, Happy worried but also smiling.

    Soon, Tony and Pepper were rising up together.

    "Come on baby bird, you got this," Tony teased. "You can''t tell me you haven''t been jealous of me doing this."

    Pepper floated a little higher. "How can I be jealous when you''ve crashed every single time you''ve ever flown?"

    "Any crash you can walk away from is a landing," Tony said in response. "Hey, Fanboy! Let''s go!"

    "I''m needed elsewhere," I gave Skye a grin. "Catch you later!"

    I twisted the Omnitrix and leaped forward off the balcony as wings sprouted on my back.

    "Astrodactyl!"

    With a loud squawk, I flew to join them with a blast of green energy. Pepper, startled, backed away slightly.

    "How many of those can you turn into?" She asked, her impassive facemask pointed at me.

    "Who cares!?" Tony asked, spinning in the air. "Come on! Let''s see New York in style!"

    Pepper hesitantly followed, and I joined them.

    It was slow going at first. Pepper went slowly, ungainly, trying to figure things out. Tony and I stayed with her, Tony taunting her slightly, yet somehow comforting her at the same time. We flew over to the west, moving slowly. But as time went on, Pepper began to speed up. She flew upwards, then slowly moved from side to side, mimicking Tony''s movements. Soon, she was moving faster. We passed by buildings, people below pointing up and photographing us.

    "How do you feel!?" I called out to her after a bit.

    "This is amazing!" Pepper called back, laughing.

    "Come on, let''s pick up the pace!" Tony said, his repulsors lighting up before he shot forward, passing over Central Park.

    Pepper wasn''t as quick to simply boost forward, but soon she and Tony were flying as fast as they could. I watched the pair fly together, then went in my own direction. It was their time to enjoy.

    Instead, I flew towards the Empire State Building to try something I''d done a few times. I soared to the top of the former tallest building in the world and pulled in my wings when I got to the spire. I landed against it, clenching my clawed feet and hands against it. With my powerful eyes, I could track Pepper and Tony flying through the city and watched them for a moment before looking around some more.

    Then I saw a man on a street thousands of feet below, getting mugged by another guy. With a smile, I dived off the Empire State Building and fired my green rockets to blast towards the crime in progress.

    It was funny. In many ways, I was right back where I''d started, in the middle of New York City, stopping muggings. But I was also a whole lot further ahead.

    Changing in mid-air as I came up to the mugging, I howled my battlecry, laughing within at the sound and smell of the mugger''s fear.

    Then Wildmutt was pushing him to the ground, and it was business as usual from there.

 21 Chapter 21

    January 14th, 2014

    In the medbay of the Insight Helicarrier, I moved Sergeant Don Chappele''s arm with him. Granted, I technically was his arm, but semantics. He''d lost it just a day during the attack on the SHIELD academy, and I was finally fulfilling my promise to him from that day.

    "How does it feel?" I asked, sprouting my head from his new bicep, the whole of his arm shining black with green circuits as usual. "I''m trying to adjust it to your nerves as you move it."

    He shuddered, and I could see he was visibly holding back his disgust. I didn''t take it personally.

    "It uh, feels like an arm," the sergeant said, moving his fingers around.

    "Well, it should," Bruce Banner, typing at a computer nearby. "Dial designed it to link up to your brain, to mimic things like pressure, heat, touch, everything you need," Bruce finished typing and looked at the soldier. "But it should also be capable of more than your normal arm."

    "Like what?" the soldier asked, watching with a fascinated disgust as I flowed off his arm and turned into a human again. His arm was now shaped like one of the Iron Man suits arms.

    "Superhuman strength, when you want it," I said, watching as he clenched his fist. "It''s also tougher and can be installed with options if you want. I know it''s not perfect, but I promise I''ll keep working on the project."

    I frowned when the soldier gave me a dissatisfied look. I couldn''t exactly blame him though. If I''d lost my arm, I''d probably want it back. Not a robot version. Just my arm, whole again.

    "Well um... Do you want us to-"

    "Just," he clenched the new fist and sat down in his bed, staring at it. "Leave me alone? Please?"

    Bruce and I shared a glance. Bruce adjusted his glasses and moved to the door, me following a moment later. "Have a pleasant day, Sergeant Chappele."

    "Thanks," the soldier said dismissively.

    I sighed sadly, looking at Bruce as we walked through the halls. "You get that reaction a lot?"

    "Usually when people find out who I am," Bruce said. I noted that a lot of people were giving the two of us a wide berth. "But he just needs time. A therapist will be speaking to him soon, hopefully, that will help him."

    "Okay... So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" I asked Bruce.

    "I..." He stared at the Omnitrix. "There are a few things, but they can wait until after this is over."

    Together, we went to the locker rooms. We had around twenty minutes left. I took out the clothes I''d prepared and quickly changed. A black business suit, with a blue button-up shirt. Bruce went for grey. Once done, we walked outside.

    "Any idea what my role is in all of this?" Bruce asked me awkwardly.

    "Hell if I know," I admitted. "I just know that we''re supposed to be there. At least you''re actually an Avenger."

    "Hulk is the Avenger," Bruce said bitterly. "Not me, I''m just the guy who hangs around until they call a code green."

    I looked at him. This wasn''t a Bruce who''d found peace with the Hulk. This wasn''t a Bruce who had gone Planet Hulk, then World War Hulk, making a massive journey to some sort of agreement between the two. But how was I supposed to tell the two that they could find that equilibrium?

    "You know...," I started to say as we walked.

    "Hey fellas," Natasha interrupted. Bruce and I looked up to see her smiling down the hall, wearing a very professional looking suit that somehow still made her look stunning. "You''re late."

    "We are?" Bruce asked, worried.

    Natasha smiled gently, moving forward to stand behind us and walking with us. "It''s an Avengers meeting, people came early. And now they''re wondering where we all are."

    "Who else is there?" I asked.

    "Clint showed up. Steve never left," Natasha scoffed. "Of all the uses for the super-soldier serum, being able to outlast everyone else in a meeting is not one I think they had in mind."

    "Useful for us, though," I looked at her. "Anything we should worry about?"

    "Some of the senators who stepped in tried to really hammer down on the idea of powered individuals," Natasha said. "Others wanted you two put in prison."

    "What!?" I yelled, noticing Bruce didn''t seem surprised.

    "You both scare people. You seem to be able to do whatever you want, and Bruce hasn''t been stopped by anything before."

    "Goddamn it..." I mumbled.

    "Cooler heads prevailed," Natasha explained. "But still, the guidelines are especially harsh on certain crimes. We still have some leeway, but... we may have to ignore some of them."

    "Is that really safe?" Bruce asked, the three of us stopping in a doorway. "I mean, I don''t know about Dial here, he can actually control his transformations."

    "Except Rath," Natasha and I said in unison, sharing a surprised glance. Bruce looked between us before shrugging it off.

    "I can only barely control the Hulk."

    "And you saved the world with him," Natasha smiled. "Don''t worry. We''ll figure this out. For now," she nodded towards the room beyond the doorway we''d stopped in. "Go in."

    Bruce sighed, still not convinced, but walked inside. With a bit of trepidation, I followed, then Natasha.

    The room was much the same as the last time I saw it. Nick Fury and Steve sitting with Tony, though Tony and Steve were in suits like mine now, same with Clint, Sam, and Rhodey. The various members of SHIELD surrounded the table, Coulson, Hand, and Gonzales included.

    But President Ellis was now actually in the room, having taken Councilperson Rockwell''s seat. He gave Bruce and I a good look as we walked around the table, barely noting Natasha. Soon, we were all in position.

    "Well, Nick," President Ellis said. "We''re all here."

    Fury nodded, steepling his fingers. "Very well. First off, I believe we have the discussion of the new name for the organization. This is the least important item on the agenda, so I want to get it out of the way. Some of the suggestions have been," Fury flickered his eyes over to Tony. "Colorful, to say the least."

    "Actually, Nick," President Ellis said. "I believe I''d like us to appoint a new head first."

    Fury cocked an eyebrow. "Oh?"

    "Yes," Ellis smiled. "And to start, I''d like to nominate General Thaddeus Ross."

    Bruce almost choked.

    "Absolutely not," Tony said firmly. "Are you kidding me?"

    President Ellis frowned. "Thaddeus Ross has been a loyal soldier, and a good man that I-"

    "I agree with Mr. Stark," Steve said firmly. "General Ross has been hunting one of our team members for years. More importantly, putting a leading member of the US Military in charge of an international organization is in bad taste, Mr. President."

    Indeed, several of the people on the screens around us were frowning severely at the President. Ellis nodded after a moment, conceding the point.

    "I nominate Maria Hill," Victoria Hand said. The older woman tapped at the tablet in front of her, and an image of Maria smiling hovered over the table. I made a note to do something about the way the hologram looked so grainy and out of focus when I had the chance, then listened to Victoria speak. "She is already Deputy Director, so this would simply be a promotion. She knows the Avengers, has experience with working the job and showed great leadership during the crisis we just went through. If there is anyone we can trust to do the job, it''s her."

    Coulson, Gonzales, and Fury gave Hand a pleased look that she returned.

    "That may cause problems," the Russian President said. "As you said, she is SHIELD, and the organization not being trustworthy is what caused us these very issues. I would suggest someone outside the organization."

    "*And who would we choose?*" the Japanese Prime Minister asked in his native language, X putting up subtitles in real-time. "*Hill-san at least has the benefit of already proving her willingness to put any nationalism aside when she worked with Fury-san and Romanov-san to guide agents around the world. Japan''s SHIELD forces are intact thanks to her.*"

    The Russian President shook his head. When he spoke, he chose to employ his own home language of Russian this time, apparently wishing for his words to be conveyed without his accent marring the message. "*We must at least consider someone else, as there are those who will consider Hill a choice made out of favoritism. Why not Captain Rogers?*" Steve was surprised by this. "*He has shown a willingness to fight against corruption, much like Hill, but he was not part of the organization. In addition, he is a known and trusted figure across the world,*" the Russian President frowned. "*Of course, his codename does have something to be desired...*"

    "I disagree," Fury said. When Steve looked at him, Fury gave him a level look. "The organization being run by someone with abilities, even ones as simple as Captain Rogers, won''t be seen as a good thing. If he becomes the leader, a lot of people will yell about a powered individual taking a position so high in the world''s government."

    "I nominate him nonetheless," the Russian President said. What a world, where a Russian leader nominated Captain America for a major leadership role.

    "What about a member of the Council?" the Chinese President asked. "Councilman Yen has served the world faithfully."

    As the politicians spoke, trading barbs a little bit, I kept my eyes on one screen in particular. It was almost forgotten in the flow of important nations speaking about the issue of leadership. The man on the screen was African, with grey hair and a very nice beard. His left eye was slightly misshapen, possibly due to an old injury, but he had a calm demeanor about him. He hadn''t spoken much according to Natasha, who''d seemed surprised when I''d asked about him. But then, I knew more than most about his nation. After all, I''d been the one who''d requested they be included in the conversation.

    "What about you, King T''Chaka?" I asked, suddenly. "Does the nation of Wakanda have anyone they wish to suggest?"

    Everyone stopped confusion in the room. Fury gave me an odd look. King T''Chaka seemed surprised, but I noted that his focus seemed laser sharp on me.

    "I agree with the nomination of Ms. Hill," T''Chaka said with a smile I didn''t believe. "But I would like to hear the other candidates before making a vote."

    "I''d love to hear your opinions," I said. "Wakanda''s place on the world stage is important after all."

    I heard some chuckles. People believed that I was throwing shade, but T''Chaka knew better. We met eyes across thousands of miles thanks to the wonder of modern technology. Soon, the other delegates began to throw other nominees. Natasha pulled at my arm, and I looked at her. She shook her head, a question in her eyes. I didn''t reply.

    The discussion lasted an hour. But T''Chaka kept panning his eyes to meet mine. I only nodded every time he did. Wakanda, aka the most secretly advanced nation on Earth, couldn''t simply stand on the sidelines. Not anymore. I didn''t know why I felt so strongly about this, but something seemed to scream it within me. A voice, as powerful as a siren. You were wrong to turn your backs on the rest of the world.

    In the end, the leader was voted on and chosen. And so the only thing left was the name.

    "Now, there are some names that were suggested that are going to be discarded immediately," Fury said.

    "Why, what''s wrong with them?" Tony asked innocently.

    "Well, let''s see," Fury tapped at his tablet, and the list of names floated before us. "CICLOPS, with an I. ''Counter-terrorism Initiative Center Led by One-eyed Professional Superspy..."

    "I fail to see the issue," Tony said with a grin.

    "Me either," Clint said, smiling when Fury gave him a level look. "I still want ARROW."

    "What was wrong with SHIELD?" Steve asked. The leaders of nations gave him a look, and Coulson smiled.

    "That''s going to be shifted to be given to a team," Fury said, looking at Coulson. "The rest of organization will be something else."

    "There were some professional names suggested," the British Prime Minister said. "MRT for the Metahuman Response Team, or the Metahuman Centrilized Utilization."

    I frowned at the last one but shook my head.

    "I would suggest the GGG," Tony said.

    "Government Goon Gallery?" Natasha asked. Tony smirked.

    "Can we please remove Mr. Stark if he won''t deign to be serious?" the Russian President asked sourly.

    "I have to agree," President Ellis said. "Mr. Stark, please show this decision the respect it deserves. This organization will be working on the behalf of the world in everything from battle to negotiations with extraterrestrial nations. At the least, the name must carry the gravitas that the organization has."

    I blinked at the seriousness everyone seemed to be giving the name. After all, I already knew that whatever the name, smaller subdivisions would be created within the new organization. But, I supposed that he was partially right. There had to be a name the public would know they could trust. Names have power after all.

    "Did someone suggest, ''SMASH''?" Bruce asked, adjusting his glasses as he stared at one of the suggestions. Tony smiled.

    "As I said," Fury began deleting names. "Many of these were done as some sort of joke. So, all of those will be removed. AOE, DPS, LOSE, GASP, WAND, FUBAR, CLOWNS, STAKE, JAM, RRR, GASTLI, all gone."

    Some nerdy looking SHIELD personnel seemed a bit disappointed at those.

    "I believe ARMOR and SWORD will remain in the capacity they have before," Fury continued.

    "*DIAL should be removed,*" the Japanese Prime Minister said. "*Considering the fact you have a hero with that exact name joining you, such favoritism is in bad taste.*"

    "Too bad," Sam told me jokingly.

    "I didn''t suggest it," I said back. "PLUMBER was mine."

    "Wait, really?" Sam whispered. "Who..."

    Rhodey stepped forward and nodded towards a grinning Tony. "Who do you think?"

    Sam smiled, then looked at me. "PLUMBER, really?"

    "You had to be there," was all I said.

    "OWCA, CIA, and USA are all taken," Fury said. "So that leaves these ones."

    With the last beep, the final list floated before us all. MRT and MCU were on it, as well as some new ones.

    C.L.E.R.I.C. Or the Central Liaison for Extrahuman Responsibility and Information Collection was first.

    C.A.S.T.L.E. That showed up twice, one version reading as Committee of Advanced Strategy, Technology, and Law Enforcement, the other reading as Central Agency of Special Tactics, Logistics, and Enforcement.

    The last one surprised me. "Who''s suggestion was that one? I don''t remember that."

    "Mine," Steve and Fury said in unison.

    B.R.I.D.G.E. Which became, the Bureau of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Development, and General Enhancement. Huh.

    "Why BRIDGE?" Natasha asked. Steve and Fury shared a look before Steve spoke.

    "What was it Mahmoud said all those days ago? ''SHIELD is supposed to be the bridge between what people consider normal, and all the weirdness out there.'' And he was right. This is what we need to be," Even though Steve was speaking to the Avengers, the whole room was listening calmly. Steve just had that sort of presence. "We will guard the world, protect it. But we can''t simply pretend that all the strange things beyond don''t exist. We will help humanity advance to fight it back and join it. It''s the name I think best represents that."

    Steve looked around. "I humbly submit that we put it to a vote. But mine will be for BRIDGE."

    The whole room looked around. Tablets were passed to those who had none, including me. I stared at the list for a minute. I knew what I was going to pick now. Just... I''d had no idea my little speech had had such an effect.

    Feeling hopeful, I hit my vote. Across the world, people from all walks of life did the same. Soon, the name was chosen, winning with 56.2 percent of the votes.

    With that, BRIDGE was formed.

    Now that our new super-secret spy organization had a name, some guidelines, and a solid R&D department, we sat for a couple of hours more listening to some more stuff. One of the new initiatives was interesting, built around equipping teams with actual power armor and weapons, with newly upgraded Quinjets. The Insight Helicarriers would become the backbone of this new initiative, though the algorithm was agreed to be destroyed. I didn''t say anything when that was mentioned. The idea was that these soldiers would be capable of mobilizing in parts of the world metahuman forces might not be able to get to in time. A roving army. A couple of the signatories balked at this, horrified at the idea of this army possibly being used to attack others. But the point of the army was that it would be international. Anyone who volunteered would be trained and equipped to fight the good fight. There were still objections, and a couple countries refused to accept, but overall, things for the Metahuman Response Team was a go. As well as one of my suggestions, a man with the name Frank I''d found among the files of exceptional soldiers. There were more, people who had popped out to me, but he was an obvious pick.

    Hopefully, I could nip that timeline in the bud. Maybe not completely. He was, in the end, a soldier no matter what. But maybe I could help him find peace? ...

    Then one of my other proposals was brought up.

    "A planetary defense shield?" President Ellis asked, looking up at me. "Is this for real?"

    "Deadly," I said, stepping forward. "Iron Man and I believe it''s possible, as do Professor Banner and a Dr. Leopold Fitz. A shield that we can erect around the planet. It would be supplemented by MAC weaponry-"

    "Excuse me," the British Prime Minister interrupted. "But the Outer Space Treaty prevents such things. You start talking about this, and COPUOS will lose their bloody minds," he said firmly, referencing the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space."

    "The shield would prevent any nation from using the big guns on the Earth at all," Tony mentioned. "And these would be based on conventional weapons. If people are still whining about letting us shoot any alien enemies that attack us, then we can just stick with a force field and some cool spaceships."

    "Spaceships?" Gonzales asked, the older man''s eyes narrowing behind his glasses.

    "Yep," I said. "One or two to start. We''re looking into working with NASA and other space programs, later on, I believe Russia and China mentioned they were interested?" both leaders nodded. "Hopefully, we''ll be bringing in their astronauts and astrophysicists."

    There were a bunch of points during the meeting where everyone had to stop for a moment to think. When we all realized, just for a moment, that this meeting was changing the world. Even Senator Nadeer, who had been glaring at Bruce and me for most of the meeting, seemed dumbstruck.

    "Okay," President Ellis said, just as thoughtful as the rest. "I have more news. The documents have come through, and we''ve been given permission on the matter of the prisoners," after some taps at a computer, Steve and my tablets beeped. "I believe you both requested to give the good news?"

    Steve''s smile made several people blush at the sheer joy in it.

    "Mahmoud! One second, please!"

    On my way through the halls with Steve, Bruce called out to me. I stopped to look at him. Steve stopped as well, and we watched Bruce run over to us. He looked at Steve hesitantly. "Uh, Steve, I don''t want to be rude..."

    "You want to speak to him alone," Steve said quickly. "I understand. I''ll just go ahead." As much as Steve was trying not to seem like it, he clearly wished to hurry. He did a jog that was faster than most people''s full-on sprint, and soon disappeared.

    "Huh," Bruce said, noting the speed of Steve''s disappearance. He looked at me, then around. "Here, in this room," Bruce opened a random door, and we entered into what looked one of many maintenance rooms. A few SHIE- I mean, a few BRIDGE agents were inside. They looked at us when we entered.

    "Guys," I said as they looked at us. "Can we get a couple minutes?"

    They stared at us for a moment, then got up from their stations and hurriedly left. Bruce waited for a minute, then focused on me.

    "Tony told me that you were able to open a window, into other worlds."

    I frowned. "He was supposed to keep that secret..."

    "Only Avengers can know," Bruce reminded me. "I''m an Avenger, for better or worst," he rubbed his hands together nervously. "I-I just have to know, is there a universe where I cure myself? Where I get rid of the Hulk?"

    "...Infinite possibilities, Doctor. You know what that means."

    Hope. I know people talk about it as an emotion you can show on your face, but it wasn''t until then that I truly understood what that meant. "So, you know how to cure me?"

    "I saw some worlds where you were cured," I admitted. "But... sometimes it wasn''t for long. People have siphoned the radiation from you, split you and Hulk into different beings, it''s even gone away on its own. In one universe, you sent him to Hell."

    "What, real Hell?" Bruce asked, surprised.

    "Yes... But he always-"

    "Comes back," Bruce growled. I blinked when his voice was a couple octaves deeper and noted the greenness in the veins on his neck. Not much, but I was looking for it. So he was about to Hulkify. Funny, anyone else would have been scared I think. I was mostly curious. Bruce noticed me looking at him with interest, and calmed down. "Sorry."

    "Don''t be... there is a successful way to deal with the Hulk though. It''s actually the one that has worked best."

    "What was it?" Bruce asked, his focus actually kinda scary.

    "Learning to work with him," I explained. "That way, no matter what happens, you both can handle it."

    He scowled. "I''ve tried that, I''ve tried to control him for years-"

    "It''s not about control," I said. "It''s about teamwork. It''s about both of you realizing what you have in common, and working with it," Bruce looked at me as though I''d suggested he swallow battery acid.

    "You''re kidding," he said softly, before raising his voice. "That''s crazy! He doesn''t work like that!"

    "And neither do you," I noted. "Or so I bet he''d say," Bruce scowled. "Look, I can try to siphon your energy as one of my aliens, or make a device to do it. I can try to separate you somehow. And I think there''s a good chance something Jury Rigg makes will help. But in the end, the one thing that works, every time, depends on two people finding a way to make peace, to fight together and work together."

    Bruce was shaking his head even as I spoke. With a sigh, I rubbed my forehead. "Just think about-" I stopped when he shook his head faster. "Fine. Just tell me when you make a decision on. Hell, I''ll help make Veronica," Bruce stopped shaking his head and stared at me. "Yeah, I know about that. Tony probably planned out this conversation. Seriously, people act like he''s an impulsive idiot but... all those fake names he made up helped Fury narrow down the list. Him telling me about Veronica made me think about ways to help you, and telling you about the dimensional viewer led to you coming to me."

    "Some would call that manipulative," Bruce noted.

    "Some would call that helping," I turned and walked away. "Let me know if you need it."

    Not much I could do for him. Bruce would decide for himself what to do. I''d help him however I could, and hell, Jury Rigg could probably come up with someway to truly negate the Hulk, to ''cure'' Bruce. But I didn''t think that was true. The Hulk was alive, because Bruce was alive, as far I knew anyways. Whatever Bruce choose, I''d help.

    Author''s Note: There we go. So, each topic covered in sequence.

    First, Don Chappelle. Don''t go hating the guy. He''s not an asshole, he just lost an arm, so he''s pushing people away. Robot arms are cool, sure, but I''ve often heard that no matter how advanced the prosthetic, you still...

    Second, the new leader. Did you guys Thaddeus is still a General at this point in the timeline? It takes a heart attack to change it. That said, Ellis has a history of choosing bad people for leadership roles. But yeah, while a few people have been suggested, the new leader is fairly obvious. Oh, and Wakanda''s King noticed Dial noticing him. In the words of JD from Scrubs, ''that may come up tomorrow''.

    Third, Hulk. Come to your own conclusions. Dial might be right, he might be wrong, but he is willing to aid Bruce.

 22 Chapter 22

    Steve and I watched across from the round plastic table we were sitting at as the two men in front of us stepped out of their cells. There were twenty soldiers surrounding us, all dressed in heavy armor and carrying massive guns. All, sadly, were mostly useless if the people they were pointed at got serious, but thankfully they were also unnecessary.

    Creel and Bucky had been getting deprogrammed for days, speaking to therapists, scientists, and getting checked by neurosurgeons. Now they were looking at us, looking tired, but somehow happy. If two grumps like them could be happy. They were wearing patient''s uniforms, all blue outfits, and Bucky''s mechanical arm had been removed for security reasons. They moved forward and took seats, both eyeing us.

    "Hey, Steve," Bucky said, smiling. "I heard about everything that happened. BRIDGE, huh? It''s a good name."

    "Isn''t that stuff top secret?" I asked.

    Creel chuckled, and Bucky''s smile became a little sour. "We''ve been playing a game, trying to see who could overhear the most from the guards."

    "He wins every time," Creel admitted. "I was always an enforcer, not so much the assassin."

    Bucky seemed to falter slightly at that. Steve noticed that and chose then to take out the physical files he had printed, taking out two pieces of paper and passing them to Creel and Bucky.

    "You''ll be happy to know that we managed to speak to the President and those of the United Nations. Thanks to the information you both provided, many HYDRA personnel and cells have been apprehended."

    "The information-" Creel started to say before I coughed meaningfully.

    To be truthful, all our focus had been on curing them. Any information provided had been with X and Jarvis'' help. But people were not going to let even brainwashing be an excuse, not if they could pin things on the two of them. Politicians would find it more palatable if they were ''trading information'' for leniency.

    "I have been approved," Steve continued. "To offer you both options. Now, it means a couple more days of being tested along with other standard background checks, just to make sure you can both are safe, but you have options."

    "50 years in prison?" Bucky said distastefully while reading the paper provided to him. "Not a great start."

    "I only have 25," Creel said, though he still didn''t sound pleased.

    "Yeah well, Bucky has a longer list working against him," I admitted. "And you both would get time off for good behavior. Well, the possibility."

    Creel grunted, and picked up that offer, tearing it in half. When the men around us pointed guns at him for the aggressive act, the four of us ignored them. "What else you got?"

    Steve held out the next papers, and the pair took them.

    "Working for the US military?" Bucky asked, sounding a bit interested. "What would that mean? Enlisting again?"

    "Not exactly," Steve said softly. I kept quiet as Bucky and Creel continued to read.

    The papers were an offer, sure. But people in the US military wanted Bucky and Creel to act as their personal military death squad. To go into the middle east and other places and kill targets based on political leanings rather than actual need, to strike like a thunderbolt on America''s enemies, most of them imagined. Granted, that wasn''t what it actually said. The truth was hidden in the margins. Literally, we''d added little stuff in the margins. Mostly because Jarvis and X had included transcripts of the ''secret'' meetings of the men who had come up with the idea, and what they wanted exactly. We''d be keeping an eye on them, but for now, Bucky and Creel knew the truth.

    "So more of the same," Creel said, disgusted. "We''d be killing innocent people."

    "We''re going to look into those guys," I mentioned. "But the US Military is an option. There are good men that could use you, places where you can do critical business... but there is a third option, one that allows you to do the same work. You''d still work with the US military at times, still take out terrorists, but your bosses would be very different."

    Bucky and Creel watched as Steve pushed forward another pair of papers. And Bucky laughed.

    "Yeah, stop being dramatic Steve. We''re in."

    Steve grinned. "You heard already?"

    "Gonna need to train your men to be quieter," Bucky confirmed. "So what, we getting the offer to be Avengers?"

    "Reserve," Steve said. "You''ll be under Sam Wilson."

    "The guy with wings?" Creel asked. "Seriously?"

    "The career soldier, with a good military record, a fresh face that has no ties with Tony Stark to cause any suspicions that Rhodey does, nor weird powers like mine to scare conservatives," I said simply. "Sam will look damn good to the public. Sadly, image is apparently everything now, so that''s important," I scowled a bit at that. I mean, Sam was a damn good choice, but the guys who were now in charge of making sure that we all looked good were annoying. "Anyways, we''re looking for more members. There''s someone who''s a little less... palatable, then you guys are."

    "More than us?" Creel asked, surprised.

    "She had a choice," Steve replied. "But she''s not going to be treated with kid gloves either way."

    "We''ll be working with a team of BRIDGE agents as well," I said. "Along with the Avengers. Focused on stopping HYDRA across America in particular, though it may vary. It''s not all you''ll be doing of course, but it''s part of the whole shebang."

    "...Avenger," Creel tasted the word on his tongue, and seemed to find it odd, but worth it. "Yeah. I''m in."

    "Same for me," Bucky looked down at where his robotic arm had once been. "But I might need a replacement."

    "Don''t worry," I said. "I''ve gained some experience with that. Keep in mind, there are some regulations in place, and daily checkups as well as tests. And we need to wait for Tony to capture Vasily Karpov."

    Bucky flinched at that name.

    "But we''ll be able to fight?" Creel asked, voice becoming harder. "Starting with HYDRA?"

    "Starting with one name in particular," I nodded towards Steve, who slid another piece of paper to Creel look at. He smiled.

    "Yeah... Yeah, I want him."

    "First, let me check one last time?" I asked Creel. He nodded. "Take a deep breath. Calm your mind," Creel eyed me, listening with a look of concentration. "You know what is best. What is best is you comply. Compliance will be rewarded. Now, get out of your chair and uh... absorb the paper in your hand I guess."

    Creel didn''t hesitate to chuckle. "Fuck that. Let''s go beat his head in."

    Daniel Whitehall/Werner Reinhardt

    Werner Reinhardt had been alive for over one hundred years. Despite his age, he had regained his youth some time ago, his skin as smooth as when he was a younger man, his pale white hair as thick. He''d seen and done many things in that lifetime, a fact he was quite proud of. But HYDRA falling, especially the way it had fallen, managed to surprise him, a fact he would have found interesting if hadn''t disturbed him so much.

    The only reason the man who had taken the name Whitehall had managed to survive was the painstaking work he had done to make sure that his own part of the organization had been left separate from those who were connected to SHIELD. It had been close, as far as he could tell. But he had been careful. Now he could work from the shadows.

    So he had no idea what to think when, while perusing files on the hidden locations of several SHIELD agents safe houses, his computer suddenly began to display the image of the symbol of HYDRA. It was a simple picture, similar to the dozens painted on the walls in the skyscraper whose office he sat in. But as he watched, a green flash of light was followed by the logo shapeshifting. Tentacles became wings. The head of the octopus became the head of a bird. Soon, SHIELD''s symbol appeared. Modified, with some strange white lines separating the wings to give it a new look. But one that sent a chill down Reinhardt''s spine.

    At that moment, an alarm began to sound. The door opened, and soldiers rushed into the room. "Sir!" One man said. Reinhardt relaxed when he realized this was one of his men. "SHIELD found us! We need to run."

    "I thought we were hidden," the HYDRA leader spat out, rushing to rise up.

    "General Hale turned on us," the soldier said, sounding horrified. "That''s what our people are saying anyway. When she heard about your plans..."

    Reinhardt cursed, following his soldiers. With the chaos that had followed in the aftermath of Pierce''s failure, Reinhardt, like his fellow HYDRA leaders, had reached for any resources they could. So, he had attempted to make Ruby Hale one of those resources, to bring her in. He''d told her mother to bring her in for experimentation. There were some... risky, things that could be done to give or improve a person with power, make them a true threat to even Avenger level individuals. Ruby could be severely injured by the experiments, but it would be worth it. Even her death could aid in the cause.

    Reinhardt shook his head as he and his soldiers rushed through the halls of his home. Apparently, he had overestimated General Hale''s ability to put aside her feelings for the greater good. A sad truth of women, that becoming mothers ruined their ability to think logically. Reinhardt sighed. Thankfully, he had contingencies in place for such a situation. HYDRA would rise once more.

    Even as a smug smile rose on his face, the soldiers in front of the small group came to a stop. When Reinhardt looked up, and scowled at the sight before him.

    Two men strode towards the group, standing out in the white halls. Both wore blue uniforms. One had a star on his chest, and blue helmet as he carried a very familiar shield. The other had a robotic arm colored black with green lines designed like circuitry across the surface, carrying a gun in his hands.

    Captain America was horrific enough. But Reinhardt felt even his brilliant mind freeze at the sight of the Winter Soldier with him. The two super-soldiers walked with confident strides, their eyes calm.

    Reinhardt reached for the words he''d heard only once, trying to reach for his Russian. "*Longin-!"

    The Winter Soldier started shooting. Reinhardt''s men started firing back, but Captain America raised his shield and blocked the hail of bullets. The sounds of bullets entering flesh, bouncing off vibranium, and hitting fluorescent lighting and drywall, filled the hallway. In an instant, the terrifying effectiveness of the super-soldiers plan became clear. Barnes would simply fire with his exceptional skill, and Rogers would block any attack that came their way. A brute tactic, but simple, one that led to five soldiers dying under the Winter Soldier''s

    "Grenade!" One of Reinhardt''s men yelled, tossing the frag.

    "No, you fool!" Reinhardt cried, turning to sprint as fast as he could.

    Rogers snatched the grenade out of the air and tossed it back with lightning speed. Reinhardt and those of his men who''d followed his retreat heard the explosion behind them.

    "Down!" the lead soldier yelled as they ran into the stairwell. He halted, horrified at what he saw, and Reinhardt leaned over to see what had stopped him.

    The stairs leading down had been blocked by giant green crystals.

    "The monster..." Reinhardt said in horror.

    Suddenly a loud sound came from behind them. They looked to see that two women had joined Barnes and Rogers. Both were tall, buxom, and dressed in military uniforms. One carried only a knife, which she had stabbed into a soldier. The other had a pair of batons in hand, which she was using to beat a man like a drum. The Winter Soldier lifted an overzealous soldier with his robotic arm and tossed him through a wall. Captain America tossed his shield, and the invulnerable object slammed off a soldier, into a wall, into another man, and back to Rogers.

    "Up!" the lead soldier rushed upwards, Reinhardt and the last of his soldiers rushing to join him. They ran up two flights and exited a different door. The floor they were on now was dedicated to research, with every door leading to laboratories. As they ran a noise could be heard from within those labs. A noise Reinhardt had memorized, the sound of a repulsor beam. They ran faster.

    "The Avengers," Reinhardt spat. "SHIELD''s pet superhumans, all in force for me."

    "Sir!" Down the hall, a man with dark skin waved at them, and Reinhardt felt his usual calm return at the sight of the man. "Over here!"

    "Bakshi," Reinhardt and his soldiers joined his trusted second-in-command.

    "I''m glad to see you safe, sir," Bakshi said with a tight smile.

    "We''ll escort you both to the rooftop," the lead soldier said. Bakshi joined them, and everyone ran. "SHIELD came in from the lower floors, and they''re letting their superhumans clear everyone out as their soldiers do clean-up."

    "I''ll have to mention that to von Strucker," Reinhardt mentioned. "Quite the effective tactic."

    "Will we rendezvous with him?" Bakshi asked.

    "We will have to," Reinhardt smirked as they entered an elevator together. "If von Strucker remembers the man who put him where he is, I believe we will be all right."

    Bakshi leaned against the wall of the elevator and smirked. "Well, I wouldn''t count your chickens just yet."

    Reinhardt, who had been watching the doors close, had enough time to look at Bakshi, confused at his sudden casualness.

    Then a hand grabbed the right door of the elevator. A hand that began to change color to match the elevator door, going from skin colored to steel. One of the soldiers slammed the butt of his rifle into the hand as it pulled the door, and received nothing for it. Another hand joined the first, and the doors were ripped out of their holdings, tossed aside. The soldiers fired on the figure in front of them.

    Carl Creel smiled, bullets bouncing off his steel skin like Nerf darts. He stepped inside and picked up one of the soldiers, beginning to squeeze on his throat.

    "Wait!" Reinhardt yelled.

    The soldiers stopped shooting. Creel looked at Reinhardt who smiled smugly.

    "Now Mr. Creel. Listen very closely. Take a deep breath. Calm your mind," Reinhardt smiled when Creel dropped the soldier, staring at him. "You know what is best. What is best is you comply. Compliance will be rewar-" Creel slapped Reinhardt in the face.

    The HYDRA leader hit the wall behind him and turned back with a stinging cheek to stare at a grinning Creel. "What do you think, Barton? Should I comply?"

    Bakshi shook his head. "Nah, I think you''re good."

    Reinhardt had enough time to look at Bakshi before the man kicked a soldier in the knee, jab another in the throat, and drop a gun from his sleeve that he shot at another. Creel moved slightly slower, but lashed out as well throwing one man out of the elevator and kicking another.

    Reinhardt sighed sadly as the last soldier fell to the ground. He stood up straight and faced Creel, then looked at Bakshi. Who removed his face to reveal that of Clint Barton, the Avenger known as Hawkeye.

    "I suppose," Reinhardt said smiling. "I am caught, yes?"

    Creel and Barton shared a look.

    "I will, of course, cooperate fully," Reinhardt held out his hands. "I''m sure you all have many questions. I am happy to answer them," he chuckled. "In a way, this will be good for both SHIELD and me. Our experiments will be most useful."

    "...Does he always talk like that?" Clint asked. "All creepy like? ''Eeeexperimantaaation."

    "For as long as I''ve known him," Creel pulled a small pistol from behind his back and pointed it at Reinhardt.

    "What are you-!?" the HYDRA leader stopped when he saw something. A smoky image of a man, unseen by Barton or Creel. A man with a shaved head, blue eyes with a monocle over his right eye, and a tall build. Reinhardt''s eyes widened. "Struck-"

    Creel shot Reinhardt in the chest with an ICER bullet, the tranquilizing effect of the weapon knocking Reinhardt out instantly.

    "Let''s get the mad scientist into a cell," Clint said.

    Both heroes collected their prisoner and BRIDGE agents joined them, the apparition shook his head. As he vanished, he said one word. "Useless."

    Wolfgang von Strucker

    von Strucker opened his eyes and scowled. He was sitting in a meditative style on a stone floor, in a room of a castle in North America. The current leader of HYDRA was wearing a blue polo shirt and black pants and had removed his shoes to sit more comfortably. He cracked his back and shook his head, reaching a hand up to rub his eyelids.

    "No luck?"

    Wolfgang looked to his right. A man stood there, watching him. He had slicked back hair and was wearing a black turtleneck. The man had a smug look on his face.

    "I''m guessing the Old Man wasn''t willing to listen?"

    "I did not have the chance to try," von Strucker looked up at the man. "He was captured by SHIELD and the Avengers. Who have new members, one of whom is Creel."

    "Shit," the man shook his head, stepping into the room to begin pacing. "That''s a kick in the ass we didn''t need."

    "Bluntly stated, but not untrue," von Strucker lifted the device in his lap up. "We are not just desperate, Garrett. We are dying."

    "Yeesh, all of you legacies are always so dire," John Garrett watched as his ally rose up. "Things are tough, but we can still get past it. You know, one head, yadda yadda."

    "When that is repeated as we lose, it fails to have any meaning."

    Garrett chuckled at the stone-faced von Strucker. "Now see, that''s quitter talk."

    "No. I am acknowledging our desperation. It is the only reason I decided to release this... thing, from containment. And I am still not sure why I allowed you to convince me to do so."

    "Because it was the only choice we had," Garrett shook his head. "The Avengers are coming. And so is SHIELD. They''re going to find ways to counter us. So we need to use all the toys we''ve got."

    von Strucker sighed, nodding after a moment. "Yes," he looked down at his hand, where a short staff ending in two blades that held a glowing blue orb was held. The hand was protected by a metallic glove, with a solid orange color to it. "Hail HYDRA... for better or for worse."

    "Till death do us part," Garrett said with a smile.

 23 Chapter 23

    January 12th, 2014

    Wolfgang von Strucker listened on a SHIELD channel with a neutral look on his face as Steve Rogers continued to give his speech.

    "They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want with the help of the Insight Helicarriers: absolute control."

    "This is bad," Doctor List, an older man with dark skin and white hair, hissed to von Strucker.

    von Strucker sighed at the words of his second-in-command. "Doctor, I hired you for your intelligence. Please, do not state the obvious."

    He looked towards the two cells in the back of the room. The Maximoff Twins were testing their powers again. The boy, Pietro, was rushing back and forth in his cell, a mere white blur whenever he wasn''t simply staring out at them. The girl, Wanda, was calmer. She sat on the floor, constantly spinning the energy in her hands around until there seemed to be an orb of red light in her lap.

    Frankly, both twins worried him. Their intensity, the strength of their powers, the clear instability of the children, was all a cause for concern.

    "As of now, all loyal SHIELD agents should be getting a program on their phones," Rogers said on the channel. List took out his phone, Strucker, and several others in the lab doing the same. That''s when Strucker began to realize how bad things had truly gotten.

    His cell phone was dead. Looking around, so were all the other ones. The computers had also been disconnected from any internet connection.

    "What is happening?" Doctor List asked.

    "Standard tactics, Doctor List. Remove your enemies communications, take their information, identify them to your allies," Strucker clenched a fist. "We need to move, now."

    "Where?" Doctor List asked. "Where should we go?"

    "Anywhere," Strucker shook his head. "This... Hercules app," Strucker had to admire the name. "It will be our downfall if we let it. We must stop using any bases that have ever been in a SHIELD database."

    Strucker looked around. "Pack, now! I want the entire base empty of anything useful in one hour! Kill all SHIELD members, the ones we kept to stave off suspicion."

    The soldiers and technicians around him began moving immediately

    "Do you really believe we are in any danger?" Doctor List asked.

    "More danger than we have ever been in," Strucker scowled. "First, we must-"

    "Sir!" A soldier came down a hall, running towards Strucker. He held a smartphone that was glowing green. "Sir, we need to-"

    A red beeping came from the phone. The soldier, a young man with dark black skin and well-cut hair, had time to stare at the phone in horror. Then Strucker shot him in the face.

    "Damn," Strucker watched the body fall, the Glock 19 in his hand lowering. "He was a good soldier..."

    Strucker kept walking. "First, we must kill any other SHIELD members on base. Luckily we are mostly HYDRA, but we can''t allow our enemies to know about the twins, the Chitauri armor, or the scepter. Then we destroy the base."

    List nodded sadly. "Yes, I see what you''re saying."

    "From there, we must establish communications with the other cells," Strucker scowled. "SHIELD was somehow able to hack my phone, a device of my own design, despite all of my defenses against hackers. This is despite all of our experimentation into AI. Which means that Stark''s own must be involved. We need allies, we need resources, and we need information."

    Some of his soldiers ran around the pair as they walked, saluting briefly. They ran into a hall as Strucker continued, and soon the sound of gunshots echoed through the area as SHIELD personnel died.

    "Understood," List said.

    Three hours later, flying over his base in a Quinjet, von Strucker stared down at the place that had once been his home, a large mansion in the middle of the German countryside, surrounded by beautiful grasslands. He stood in the back of the Quinjet with the door open, the wind rushing around him as he watched his people float nearby in their own aircraft, tanks and Humvees driving away. With some sadness in his heart, he raised the detonator in his hand.

    "Pity, I''d just decorated my office to my specifications."

    Stucker flipped the switch.

    BOOM

    Explosions rocked throughout the mansion. As Strucker watched, the Quinjet rocked gently from the shockwaves of the controlled destruction. He turned away, looking at those in the Quinjet. "We will not let this stop us. I refuse to let it. Fly to America, and let us start this war in earnest."

    "Hail, HYDRA!" the men in the Quinjet said in unison.

    With that, Strucker''s fleet took to the skies as his vehicles headed to the coast.

    Upon reaching the United States, Strucker found only frustration.

    "All communications are still shut down," List told him as they flew over the country. They were staring at a screen in the Quinjet, trying to find help. "Fuel will become an issue soon as well. We need to land. We need to find our people."

    "Doctor List, you''ve gained a habit of saying the obvious that I can''t seem to appreciate," Strucker said with a growl. "Show them to me again."

    List tapped at the screen. "Luckily we can still watch the news, even if we can''t talk to anyone. According to what I''ve managed to compile, they''re called ''Dial'' and ''Falcon'', as far as can be told. A human who can turn into aliens, and a soldier who flies with an experimental jetpack," on the screen, Falcon was diving out of a crystal mountain to fly past enemy Quinjets. The video changed to show him outmaneuvering gunships with acrobatic ease, twisting and flipping through the air with more maneuverability than any aircraft could match, his wings letting him change direction in ways even the Iron Men could not. Then a series of photos showing several alien creatures, the most prominent being the image of a helicarrier glowing black with green circuitry.

    Strucker shook his head. "Fascinating, both of them. The skill of that flier gives me several ideas for our own forces. That alien, however... the fact the Avengers are now chasing us is bad enough without the addition of other heroes coming out of the shadows and aiding them."

    If anything, these revelations helped Strucker with any doubts over his current course of action. They needed muscle. And he knew just where to get it. Strucker turned towards the pilot. "Are we almost there?"

    "Yes sir," the pilot said. "We''re twenty minutes out."

    "Are you sure about this, von Strucker?" List asked. "They were captured for a reason."

    "I am grasping at straws, Dr. List. The entire world is chasing us, and I must gather tools to fight against them. I thought this to be an age of miracles... but I was wrong. This is an age of monsters. I should have realized that," Strucker sighed. "Prepare the twins."

    List and the HYDRA soldiers around them stared at him. "Sir," List said, shocked. "Are you-"

    "No, I am not," Strucker spat out, his eyes flashing. "But I will survive this. No matter the cost."

    In a military base in Alaska, a US Army soldier stood to watch at his station. Things had been routine that day. Get up, eat, guard, eat, guard. He stood inside his guard tower in his uniform, watching the icy tundra around him as he worked at the computers around him, checking radar, sensors, and listening to his headset. For a moment, he enjoyed the calm monotony of the work.

    Then he saw the aircraft on his radar. The soldier reached for his headset and sent a signal. "Unidentified aircraft, identify yourselves."

    The soldier listened to static for a moment. When no response came, he switched channels to contact the base commander. "Sir, this is Guard Tower 2, we have incoming unidentified aircraft, Quinjets."

    "One second!" an unfamiliar voice responded in a strange accent. "I''ll be right with you!" Russian, maybe? Some sort of Eastern European.

    "This is a secure line, who is this?" the soldier said, now immensely worried.

    A sudden explosion drew his attention. He spun in his chair and got up, quickly crossing to the other side of the guard tower to see where the commotion was coming from. The explosion had been from one of the hangers blowing up within the confines of the base. The soldier, now understanding they were under attack, took a moment to watch in horror as a woman in a red dress threw waves of some sort of scarlet energy at an incoming Humvee, tearing the vehicle to pieces.

    "Shit!" the soldier cried, running back to his station. He picked up his headset to contact to the mainland, only for the back of his jacket to get snatched in between rough hands. He was pulled back and tossed through the window "Aaagh!"

    The last things he saw as he fell was a blue blur running to join the woman in red as a fleet of Quinjet''s flew over the fences to head towards the base in the distance. Just before he landed, the blue blur ran back to him, kicking him in the chest, breaking his ribs but ironically also saving his life, words on a sign flashed before him.

    Barrow, Alaska. The Vault.

    "von Strucker," Pietro Maximoff, the fastest mortal in the world, said the words with a flippancy that bothered the HYDRA commander. "Welcome to the base. Want us to show you around?"

    "No need," Strucker looked around. "Your first battle with your powers, Pietro. How does it feel?"

    Pietro smiled darkly. "Brilliant. We''re unstoppable."

    Quinjets landed in the courtyard of the base, and soldiers spilled out of them. HYDRA men wearing Chitauri armor flew out of the vessels and took to the skies. List walked out to join Strucker, and Wanda walked over to join her brother.

    "Now, let us see our spoils, shall we?" Strucker asked, walking with the pair to enter the large cement encased base through the massive steel doors that had been blown apart. Soldiers both mundane and wearing Chitauri armor followed.

    "You said this would help us kill the Avengers," Wanda said, giving Strucker a look. "What is it? A weapon?"

    "In a sense," Strucker admitted as they strode through the stone walls of the base. "They were both locked away here in 2010. One was even suggested as an Avengers candidate."

    "What? We''re here for a person?" Pietro asked.

    "Yes, we are. Two of them, though I would be hard-pressed to call them people at this point," Strucker took a right, his soldiers, List, and the twins following.

    "You said one was an Avenger?" Wanda asked, saying the word ''Avenger'' with disgust. "Why would he help us?"

    "Only a candidate, never an actual Avenger," Strucker admitted. "And, in the end, he will help us for the same reason we are helping each other. We have the same goals."

    They went into a heavy duty steel reinforced elevator and Strucker hit the button to go down. "Now, how are you both feeling?"

    Pietro and Wanda looked at each other, confused. Strucker rolled his eyes. "This is, as I said, your first actual battle. How are you functioning? Have there been any issues with control?"

    "No," Wanda said softly, the Sokovian native raising a hand to let a small curl of red power float around her palm. Pietro eyed the soldiers when a couple clenched their weapons at the casual display. "It feels... natural."

    Strucker nodded and looked at Pietro. The young man scoffed. "I''m fine."

    "Good," the elevator doors opened, and Strucker stepped out. "We may need you soon."

    Walking down the concrete hallways, they soon came to a door. Strucker gestured, and one of the soldiers kicked it in, striding in with his gun raised. Two more went in, one of them wearing the glowing modified Chitauri armor. Several shots rang out, followed by screams. After a moment of waiting, one of them called out.

    "Clear!"

    Strucker nodded and walked inside, followed by the twins. Pietro and Wanda stopped in surprise when they saw the object in the center of the room.

    The entire room was surrounded by computers and whiteboards with formulas written on them. Scientist lay dead on the floor, and they stepped over their corpses. Strucker gazed at the equations for a moment, ignoring the object that dominated the center of the room. "Doctor List. Can you understand this?"

    "Let me see," List strode over and looked at the mathematics on the board. "This is... what is this?" List stared at the numbers before him. "It''s... brilliant! But mad as well. How can someone even comprehend this? I''ll have to go over it for months!"

    "Or we ask him," Pietro said in his accented voice.

    Strucker finally looked at the object in the center of the room. A large oblong tube, filled with green glowing fluid. A Geiger counter rested on the side of it, gently ticking and indicating low levels of Gamma radiation. Inside, was a figure. He was unconscious, floating gently in the green liquid of his tube. A man, rather short, and skinny. Unremarkable in his features, until one noted his head.

    A head which had grown outwards, extending his forehead to give him a misshapen appearance.

    "Project Mr. Blue," Pietro read off a clipboard nearby.

    "Samuel Sterns," Strucker said. "If the Hulk is the pinnacle of strength, then this man is the pinnacle of brilliance... What an unnatural creature."

    "Why is he in there?" Wanda asked.

    "Because SHIELD feared his intelligence," Strucker said softly. "As do I. But I must take all the resources I can find," Strucker turned to his men. "Take six of your men and prepare him to be moved. We have someone else to take with us."

    "Someone like Sterns?" Wanda asked.

    "Not exactly."

    Strucker led his group to another door, and they went down several flights of stairs. He stopped when they came to a door way and looked at Pietro. "Mr. Maximoff? Please remove the weapons of the men behind the door. Miss Maximoff, you will be needed for the turrets."

    The twins nodded, Pietro smirking confidently as Wanda took a deep breath. Strucker opened the door, and Pietro disappeared, Wanda and the soldiers following. Army soldiers in green and SHIELD agents in black raised their weapons as they entered, four automated turrets spinning to aim at them.

    A blue blur ran amongst the twenty men in front of the large white tank in the back of the room. In seconds, they had no weapons, allowing bullets and purple beams to kill the soldiers. When the automated turrets were about to fire, Wanda waved her hands in arcane motions, surrounding them in her power. The guns were covered in the same energy, and rose up with a tearing sound as they were separated from their base. With another wave, the turrets were torn apart. Like that, the room was clear. Leaving them all to stare at the white tank that dominated the room. Cold smoke drifted from pipes connected to the enormous tank, which was the size of a small truck at least. Through glass as thick as a forearm, they could see the being inside.

    "Good lord," List said moments later.

    "He''s... giant. And damn ugly," Pietro added, awestruck.

    "Emil Blonksy, the Abomination of Harlem," Strucker said as they gazed upon the being before them. "The Council suggested him as a possible Avenger over the Hulk. Funny how blind they were."

    The resting face of Emil Blonsky was almost savage even as it slept. Green, covered in thick skin and bony growths. Hundreds of pounds of bone and muscle, covered in spikes. A disgusting combination of a bodybuilders muscle and a monster''s body.

    "We''ll transport him on one of the Quinjets," Strucker said firmly. "The Avengers have their Hulk, have their Iron Men and monsters. Now we will have ours."

    Strucker watched as the green-skinned man on the makeshift stretcher in the middle of the Quinjet slowly woke up. He''d been removed from his tube, but still had enough sedatives inside him that it had taken thirty minutes to wake him up. Pietro and Wanda stood by his side as they looked down at him.

    Samuel Sterns blearily opened his eyes. After seeing those before him, he closed them again.

    "HYDRA, hm? I thought you were still hiding... no, it seems Pierce''s plan has failed," all of this was said in a half-lucid murmer, Sterns sighing.

    "So you did know," Strucker said. "It was rumored that you were telepathic."

    "Hardly," Sterns opened his eyes and looked around. "I''m simply observant. And very, very smart. Why have you taken me? Though I can make an obvious deduction, it is always good to be told directly."

    "Because I need advantages, Mr. Stern," Strucker said firmly, slightly annoyed by the man''s ego. "SHIELD has sent HYDRA scattering to the winds. I wish to offer you the chance to join us."

    "That desperate?" Sterns chuckled. "I can see how hesitant you are. Why come to find me, when you don''t even truly want my help?" Strucker scowled. This only seemed to amuse Sterns further. His green eyes gazed around the room. "Well, I think I will join you."

    "Just like that?" Pietro asked.

    "Not quite," Sterns began to rise up. When soldiers raised their weapons, Strucker held out a hand to stop them. Sterns got into a sitting position on the bed and looked out the window. "Communications are dead, are they? Interesting." Sterns looked at Strucker. "I haven''t had true simulation in months. SHIELD would knock me out for weeks, having me do their equations in two-hour implements because they feared any longer would give me the chance to figure out means of escape, of course, they weren''t wrong," Sterns scowled. "I am not a calculator. I am a genius. The ideas in my mind, young man, are world changing. And I wish to implement them. I''ve always been more curious than cautious, and that''s only increased. I don''t care about SHIELD or HYDRA, I don''t care about your petty games. I want to change this world. Now, will you let me do that?"

    Strucker eyed him. "Possibly... but only if you help me, of course. Starting with my inability to communicate with my forces."

    Sterns laughed. "Deal. And I''ll even help you convince Blonksy."

    Strucker glared at him. "How did you-"

    "Oh please, like a man as desperate as you wouldn''ttake the Abomination with him," Sterns frowned. "Abomination... you know what? I''d like a name like that, I think. Something very austere..." Sterns held out a hand. "Well, do we have a deal?"

    For a tense moment, no one moved. Then Strucker shook Sterns'' hand. As Sterns smiled, Strucker wondered if he was going to regret this.

 24 Chapter 24

    January 12th, 2014

    The leader of the religious order within HYDRA had gotten off lucky. While he had lost billions to the assault from SHIELD, he had been careful to make sure enough of his finances were not connected to HYDRA or SHIELD that he was still able to hide away with his daughter in a castle with his people.

    But he was still in danger. All smartphones owned by HYDRA personnel had been tossed away when they realized how pervasive SHIELD''s blackout on their technology had been. Every one of Malick''s men was on edge. The battle of the Triskelion was over by now and they were all worried that at some point they would look into the horizon and see an Insight Helicarrier in the distance, superheroes rushing towards them.

    How ironic, that HYDRA''s greatest weapons would now be a part of their greatest nightmares.

    So Gideon sat in his study, staring at the fireplace and contemplating his issues. How was he going to deal with this? How to survive against this new threat? Even with his current resources, he had no real power anymore, no member of HYDRA did. Should he just give up? Ask for leniency for his daughter possibly?

    Gideon balked at this idea. After everything he had sacrificed for HYDRA, everything it had given him, all in the name of bringing their founder home... How could he sacrifice all of that?

    But what choice did he hav-

    "Sir!" Gideon''s contemplation was cut off when an aide ran into the room. "We have communications!"

    Gideon stared at him. "Who is it?"

    "von Strucker!" The aide said. "He says he can bring everyone together!"

    Gideon felt hope for the first time in hours.

    "Samuel Sterns?" Gideon asked through the microphone in the radio set up in an upper room in the castle.

    "That is correct," Stucker answered. "He has modified our radios to bypass the AI currently interfering with our forces. But we must move fast, Gideon. I need the Phase Harmonic Teleporter."

    Gideon frowned. "That is only meant for communications with the Confederacy, you know that von Strucker. If we use it for more than that-"

    "What is the point of limiting it''s usage if we all die?" Strucker interrupted. "With it, we can move our forces with impunity. We can bring our people in and save them."

    Gideon looked around at the people in the room. He thought about that for a moment. Finally, he nodded. "Okay, Strucker. The teleporter is at your alma mater, under General Fisher''s orders before he was arrested. Steger, Hale, and her daughter will be there."

    "We''re on our way there then," Strucker said firmly. "Whitehall sent a message to Hale through Sterns'' connection, hopefully, something to calm her, and we''ll go grab it. I have people I can test it with as well."

    General Hale

    General Hale fired her gun once more, her daughter throwing her chakram into a man''s throat. She scowled as two more of her own men died at her hands. "Good work."

    "Thanks," Ruby was wearing her uniform, a form-fitting black costume made for ease of movement. The 14-year-old girl had hair dyed white and eyes the same color as her mothers. She looked at her mother as they ran through the halls of the HYDRA Preparatory Academy. "Are you sure about this mom? Betraying HYDRA?"

    Hale, an older woman with dark blonde hair wearing a military uniform, looked at her daughter as the teenager pulled one of her chakrams out of a man''s body. "Whitehall promised you would one day be the leader of HYDRA. Our greatest soldier. And now he wants to tear you apart and shove cybernetics and random DNA samples into you, with no regard for if you''ll survive or not."

    Ruby bit her lip, staring at her mother. Hale continued despite the pain her words were causing her daughter.

    "We can''t trust HYDRA, not anymore. But someone has promised to protect you, to train you. You may not become the leader of HYDRA, but you''ll become something just as great eventually," Hale breathed deeply. "Come sweetheart. We need to get out."

    "Hale!" The pair spun into cover on opposite sides of a hallway as bullets flew over their head. The Air Force general peeked out to see the headmaster of the school, a brown-haired man wearing glasses, surrounded by soldiers firing at her and her daughter. "You must surrender, please! We can protect Ruby, we can stop SHIELD!"

    "When Whitehall has proven he doesn''t give a damn about her!?" Hale yelled back, anger filling her. "No, Steger! HYDRA made its bed, now it''s going to die in it!"

    "Damn," Ruby said, shocked by her mother''s vehemence.

    "Language, sweetheart," Hale said simply. "Now, we should have our help in twenty seconds, you have the USB?"

    "Yes, mom," Ruby rolled her eyes, utterly relaxed despite the bullets flying at her.

    "Hale!" Steger yelled. "Please, just tell us you surrender, and I will protect you! We can make a deal with Whitehall!"

    "Sorry Steger," Hale yelled back. The next words were said with a quiet determination as she looked upon her daughter. "But I''ve made my deal."

    A wall blew up down the hall behind Steger and his men. Soldiers rushed through the hole, shooting as fast as they could.

    "What-" Steger was shot in the chest by an ICER, and fell to the floor in a moment. The same happened to his men, bullets and ICER''s finishing them off quickly.

    Hale and Ruby poked their heads out, Hale coming out of cover when she saw the SHIELD symbol on their uniforms. Ruby followed hesitantly.

    "Ma''am," one of the soldiers said as she walked up. "Fury sent us. We''re to escort you to a Quinjet immediately."

    "There''s no time to grab the Phase Harmonic Teleporter?" Hale asked, worried.

    "The what?" the soldier said, shaking his head. "Ma''am, there are more HYDRA forces on their way. If we stay any longer, we risk you and your daughter."

    Hale froze, thinking. After a moment, she nodded. "Understood. Let''s go," she gave Steger a look. "Let''s bring him at least. He may be useful."

    "Good idea."

    Wolfgang Von Strucker

    Strucker arrived at the HYDRA Preparatory Academy only a couple of hours after Hale had escaped with her daughter. Disappointing, but at least SHIELD had only sent a small team that could be chased off. Still, that meant that his current plan had to be moved up.

    In the meantime, he used the brief moment to rest. The academy had fuel, food, soldiers, and aircraft, enough to help his fleet continue the fight. SHIELD would come but not before they could continue their plans.

    "I''ve refined the process," Sterns said to List as the gamma-irradiated scientist watched Loki''s scepter move past them towards a research lab. "But I''m not sure about these mercenaries you wish me to use the process on. Haven''t they already been enhanced?"

    "Yes, though they have not deigned to tell us how," List admitted. "But some of our experimentation has indicated that already enhanced individuals may take to enhancements with more ease than others. Chan Ho Yin, an individual found by one of our subdivisions, was able to gain tremendous strength from the Centipede Serum. Don''t forget Blonsky, whose use of the soldier serum only made gamma irradiation that much more effective on him, for all his monstrous appearance. There is still value in creating enhanced of our own, but these four are perfect for testing our theory."

    "And they will let us test that on them?" Sterns asked, walking along with List.

    "As long as we pay them," List admitted. "Start with Davida, she''s being sent out right now."

    "What?" Sterns turned to glare at List. "You want me to simply empower someone and send them to battle a second later!? What sort of foolishness-"

    "The SHIELD Academy of Science and Technology," both men turned to see Strucker striding towards them. "We must send our forces there, now. I want Davida to go with my men."

    "It''s too reckless," Sterns snarled. "Simply empowering her and sending her off, without testing, without-"

    "Sadly, we can''t take any chances," Strucker narrowed his eyes at Stern. "Dr. Sterns, we need resources, more engineers, and scientists to aid us, all of which are at that Academy. The risk is worth it and giving her every advantage we can beforehand mitigates those risks. Now empower her."

    Sterns glared at him as Strucker gave him a level look. Finally, thegamma-enhancedd scientist turned and strode off.

    "...He''s going to be a problem," List said softly.

    "Yes, he will," Strucker admitted. "But his intellect is too vast to be discarded... Keep an eye on him. If the device we implanted works, we can stave off any betrayals, but I will not have him turn against us."

    January 13th, 2014

    "Strucker, buddy!" a man said over the radio connection. "How you doing?"

    "Surviving," Strucker said simply, looking around the radio room Garrett had loaned him.

    Sterns had, in a way, saved their lives. The man was not just brilliant. he was innovative. Some thought those were the same things, but there was a reason there were dozens of genius level intellects, and only one Tony Stark. He''d even managed to enhance Davida in mere moments, deducing her new powers and helping her learn how to use them. He was useful. For now. He was also unbearably smug when the assault on the SHIELD Academy turned up nothing.

    Despite this, Strucker was still firm in the belief the assault had been a good choice. While the enemy had managed to counter the teleporter so that anyone sent to the academy was simply ''bounced'' back with polka dot skin and swapped genitals (Stucker had no idea what to think of that) he still had to make the attempt.

    After leaving the HYDRA academy with all the resources they could gather, Strucker guided his men to their new base of operations. Sterns had managed to help them get to Gideon Malick''s home, a small castle in North America, without being found out, a place with enough land to hold all their forces. The man had even managed to create a device to hide them from satellites and radar, allowing HYDRA to gather without fear.

    The radio was another invention of Sterns. He had not explained how or why it worked, his way of keeping himself invaluable. But the point was that the radio allowed Strucker to contact HYDRA forces across the world without risk of being intercepted or tracked.

    The results of that had been depressing. The Treehouse had been destroyed by one of HYDRA''s own Enhanced. The Sandbox had been taken by HYDRA, only to be lost later on, though thankfully their scientists were on their way with an Enhanced teenager that had been brainwashed. But everything else had been taken control of by SHIELD and the Avengers.

    But thankfully, the Phase Harmonic Teleportation Device, which was being called the Fishhook by the grunts, had let them start grabbing and saving resources. And Stern''s work around for the communications was still working, though he''d had to rework it a couple of times.

    "Garrett," Strucker said, focusing. "I am not calling to simply discuss the weather."

    "How the hell are you calling me, anyways?" John Garrett asked. "We''ve been having problems with that."

    "I will explain when you get here," Strucker responded.

    "You want us to meet, huh?"

    "We need to gather our resources," Strucker said.

    "Well, I''ll do it, I''m always willing to make friends! But I''m making a stop somewhere first. The Fridge has some sweet toys I want to grab."

    Strucker rubbed his chin. "Will you bringing any of those with you?"

    "Only if you share however it is you''re talking with me," Garrett switched gears, becoming very serious. "If this raid is going to work, I need comms."

    "You have them," Strucker said. "We need counters to the Avengers and SHIELD, especially to this... Dial, that has appeared. Where are you? I''ll send soldiers to join you."

    "That''d be great!" Garrett said instantly.

    Late at night, on a beach in an undisclosed location, the Fridge stood tall. One hundred stories, with only one door on the rooftop and no other way into the building, it was among the most imposing structures in the world.

    Two guards watched the main door from inside a pair of thick glass doors, staring out at the dark night sky. As they watched however, something fell onto the ground from out of nowhere, smashing into the roof with a crack of broken concrete.

    "What the-" One of the men stepped forward, staring at the object that had landed on top of a building that stood over 1000 feet tall. "Is that... a woman?"

    "Where did she come from!?" the other guard said concerned, looking up at the empty night sky.

    Suddenly, the woman rose to her feet. As the pair stared, she flipped her blonde hair behind her head and strode towards the door. She had long hair, a face that was beautiful, but also strong, and an extremely fit form. She was wearing a green leather jacket zipped to the top, leather black jeans, and impractical high heels. She smirked as she came to the door, and both men stepped back pointing their guns at her. She leaned against the glass, still smirking. "Hey boys. Mine letting a girl in?" she said, her Southern accent seductive and lilting.

    "Who the hell are-"

    "What the fuck does that matter?" the first soldier''s partner said. "This is a restricted location, no one should even be here! Miss, get down on the ground, now."

    "Wel,l that is just plain mean, sugah," the woman said, pouting playfully. "I guess I''ll have to let myself in."

    She reared back and punched the bulletproof glass, shattering it with ease.

    "Shit, Enhanced!" one of the men yelled, shooting his assault rifle at her, his partner joining in. For about a minute, they poured bullets into the woman. She let them for a moment, looking down as the bullets tore into her clothes, bouncing off her skin to land on the floor. "Run, warn everyone!"

    The other soldier headed to the elevator behind them, running for it. He slammed on the button and looked back as the woman smacked his friend, sending flying into the wall. The elevator doors began to close as she rushed towards it, closing just before she reached. The elevator began to drop towards the lower floors.

    The soldier in the elevator breathed out a sigh, his heart beating like a drum, reaching for his comms. "Control, we have an-"

    Then some perfect manicured fingers pierced through the doors, followed by an arm. The elevator halted, stopped by the superhuman arm. As the motor whined and the steel around the arm crumbled, the soldier screamed into his comms.

    "Enhanced attacking the Fridge! Mayday, mayday!"

    Then the blonde woman ripped her way into the elevator.

    Moments later, a Quinjet landed on the roof, soldiers Chitauri armor teleporting into existence at the same time.

    "Helen, was it?" John Garrett said as he strode through the halls of the Fridge, smiling at the blonde woman next to him. "Gotta say, I like your style. How strong are you exactly?"

    "Never really tested my limits, sugah," Helen said simply, clearly focused on other things. "You really think Davida is in here?"

    "It would make sense, SHIELD tends to keep it''s favorite prisoners here," Garrett said, striding confidently. He looked behind him. "Go ahead and start killing anyone in our way with those golden boys, will you?"

    The tall, imposing black man behind Garrett nodded, striding forward to join the Chitauri armored soldiers in wiping out the opposition in the Fridge.

    "What is that guy?" Helen asked as the tall man fired rockets from his arm.

    "My very best friend," Garrett said flippantly. "Come on. Strucker said we only have twenty minutes before SHIELD finds out about us."

    "What are we looking for, exactly?" Helen asked.

    Before Garrett could answer, a man came from a hallway on their left and shot at them. Helen leaped in front of the bullets and let them bounce off her chest, kicking the SHIELD soldier''s leg hard enough to shatter it. She grabbed him by the front of his armor, fingers tearing through kevlar and steel to give her a firm grip and tossed him upwards, the man smashing into the ceiling with bone crushing force. He fell to the floor, unconscious.

    "Damn," Garrett said, impressed. "Nice work. But you forgot one thing," Garrett shot the soldier in the head. "Can''t leave witnesses. Had to kill those two you left upstairs as well."

    Ignoring the shocked look on Helen''s face, Garrett continued. "Gonna be a good day!"

    While Garrett and his men emptied the Fridge, more work was being done elsewhere. In the castle grounds of Malick''s home, in a courtyard illuminated by spotlights, HYDRA was preparing for it''s next recruitment. Strucker watched as his scientists and engineers worked around Blonsky''s massive tank. They removed the pipes on the tank and worked on the software of the cryogenics on it, stepping on the cobblestone floor as the stars shone down on them. Men in Chitauri armor floated over the courtyard, their purple glow flitting about, and more soldiers with conventional weaponry surrounded the area. Two sonic cannons rested to the east and west of the tank, as well as vehicles with heavy assault weaponry around them.

    "It''ll be nice to speak to Emil again," Sterns said, walking up to join Strucker. Strucker looked at Sterns, noting the orange jacket he had found somewhere. It clashed with his green skin. But then, a man with a head as enlarged as Sterns was wouldn''t worry as much about appearance. "I was always curious to see how his change affected his mind."

    "We can only hope he listens to reason," Strucker looked at Wanda and Pietro. "Stay ready. We may need you."

    Pietro nodded quickly. Wanda was far more hesitant, and Strucker looked at them for a moment. Ever since they''d gone to the base in Alaska, he''d worried about the two. The two hadn''t killed any soldiers themselves, but once adrenaline had faded from everyone systems, they seemed wracked with anxiety over those who had died. He''d have to be careful about them. But for now...

    A massive noise filled the air. Everyone looked at the tank, where a dent had been smashed from the inside on the door.

    "What are you doing!?" Strucker yelled. "We aren''t awakening him yet!"

    "It''s not us!" A scientist cried out. "He''s just- Ah!" the scientist screeched when another dent was struck in the door.

    "Pietro, get them out of there!" Strucker cried out. The door flew out of the tank, and the massive being within leaped out. He reached for a scientist.

    And a blue blur sped throughout the area for thirty feet around the tank. The beings fist closed on nothing, and the scientists and engineers were safely away as Pietro screeched to halt next to his sister.

    "Wanda!" Sterns yelled, preempting Strucker. "Be ready!"

    The being looked around as guns ranging from armor piercing to laser blasting pointed at him, two sonic cannons joining in. He snorted, seemingly amused. When he spoke, it was in a voice like gravel rolling down a hill. "So, this is the best you could bring to kill me? You''ll need a thousand more."

    "Why would we try to kill you!?" Sterns yelled out, stepping forward.

    Blonsky spun to look at Sterns. He narrowed his eyes at him. "You... you''re that scientist. The one who-"

    "The one who helped you become this... magnificence," Sterns voice sounded almost euphoric. "Look at the power you have now."

    "Yeah, thanks. Though it looks like I''m not the only one whose gone through some changes." Emil noted, rising to his full height. "What do you want?"

    "For you to help us," Sterns said simply.

    "Hahaha!" Emil stepped forward, ignoring the guns pointed at him as he strode forward. "Why should I? Why don''t I simply kill you all?"

    "The Hulk!" Sterns frowned when Strucker spoke from the back. When Emil looked at Strucker, the monocled man stepped forward. "We will help you find him, and kill him."

    Sterns spun to glare at Strucker, but sighed and turned back to Blonsky. "Yes, we will help you... kill Bruce Banner," he added the last reluctantly. "Join us. And we will make sure no one ever cages you again."

    "Hmm... No, I think not," Blonksy leaped forward, smiling gleefully.

    A blue blur pulled Sterns and Strucker back. Undeterred, Blonsky jumped towards them with a sick grin on his face.

    "WANDA!" Sterns and Strucker yelled in unison.

    A red energy smashed into Emil in midair, pushing him back with a surprised look on his horrific face. He flew into his old tank, destroying it. Emil rose up hurriedly, staring as Wanda stepped forward, her hands glowing with power.

    "We know how to find the man you wish to kill," Strucker said, walking next to her. "The Hulk has a team now, individuals as exceptional as you are that you have no chance of defeating alone, not when their numbers will let them outmatch even your exceptional power. We can provide a team for you as well. People to fight alongside, leave you to battle the Hulk to your content."

    Emil listened, calming.

    "I promise you, Emil Blonsky," Stern said, walking up to join Strucker and Wanda as they stood across from the monster before them. "You will never find a better way to prove your power than with our resources. We can make you a legend."

    "...Well. Now that is an offer," Emil smiled, his horrific features twisting. "First thing. I''m hungry. And I want her to make me a sandwich."

    Wanda blinked when he pointed at her. Her eyes narrowed, and she gathered more energy before her fingers as an answer.

    "Ha! Fiesty... I suppose I''ll agree," He rose out of the tank and cracked his neck to the side. "But when I kill the Hulk... all bets are off."

    January 14th, 2014

    The next morning, Strucker was there with his soldiers to greet John Garrett when he and his men landed on the grounds outside Gideon Malick''s castle. Men in Chitauri armor landed on the ground at the same time as four Quinjets, joining their brethren. The closest Quinjet to Strucker opened its back door to expel Garrett.

    The former SHIELD agent stepped out with a salesmans smile and outstretched arms. "Strucker, look at you! Healthy as ever. Well except the bags under your eyes."

    Strucker smiled tightly. "Indeed. How was the raid?"

    "Went off like a charm," Garrett said, his smile widening further. "Got a whole lot of new toys, even a few recruits. Even managed to get my girl Flowers out of prison on the way." Garrett nodded to a woman the in background who was wearing a red silk dress. She sat in a Quinjet, hands in her lap as she watched the proceedings. "She can help create more of the Centipede serum for us."

    Men in brown uniforms with black vests filed out of the Quinjets, carrying weapons and equipment with casual ease no human strength could match. Their eyes glowed subtly red as they walked, a consequence of the Centipede serum in their veins, and Garrett watched as other soldiers in black uniforms joined them.

    "Excellent," Strucker said, watching the soldiers line up behind Garrett, a tall black man Strucker knew as Deathlok taking a spot at his right side. Helen walked out of the Quinjet and moved to stand with Strucker.

    "Thing is though," Garrett''s smile became more dangerous. "I''m not sure if I should give them to you."

    The Chitauri armored soldiers tensed, facing the Centipede enhanced men and women across from them. Strucker and Garrett''s armies faced each other. Helen''s eyes started to get slightly redder. Deathlok''s right arm opened to reveal a weapon within.

    "...Perhaps you need an incentive?" Strucker raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

    A massive green figure flew from the castle and landed behind Strucker like a missile.

    "Holy shit!" Garrett yelled, stepping back as the Abomination stood up with a smirk.

    A blue blur suddenly appeared next to Helen. Finally, two figures flew down from the sky. Wanda flew on jets of her power, coming to a stop behind Pietro. Sterns simply floated on a disk hovering on jets of purple energy, his arms crossed while he looked at the battlefield.

    "Satisfied, Garrett?" Strucker asked.

    Things were tense for a moment longer. Then Garrett smiled, the cyborg next to him relaxing. "Oh yeah. I am absolutely satisfied."

 25 Chapter 25

    Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch

    "Pietro, what are we doing here?" Wanda asked her brother later. She was sitting on a bed with her back to a stone wall, eyes on her brother as he looked out the window with his arms crossed.

    He looked at her, then back out of the window. "...Getting revenge."

    "I''m not so sure of that anymore."

    The pair had been given a room in the castle to themselves. It was more expensive than any home they''d ever lived in, with beautiful art on the walls, silk sheets, and a beautiful view of the countryside.

    Wanda watched as her brother continued to stare out the window. After a moment, he spoke.

    "He''s going to help us kill Tony Stark. To kill the Avengers," he said with conviction.

    "And then?" Wanda asked curiously.

    He said nothing, any righteousness fading.

    "He has brought monsters here. We''ve... we''ve been responsible for killing people. I''m not so sure of what we''re doing here, Pietro."

    Her brother frowned in thought. He shook his head after a while. "We will stay until the Avengers are dead. Then... then we leave. Go back home."

    "And if he decides not to let us?"

    He had nothing to say to that.

    "We can''t do this, Pietro. Whatever we are doing here, it isn''t what we wanted for ourselves... I think we need to plan our escape."

    Downstairs, other people were dealing with certain issues at the same time the twins were dealing with their consciences.

    "Fascinating," Sterns said, watching the objects gathered from the HYDRA academy and the raid on the Fridge get brought into the large room that had been turned from a spare kitchen into a laboratory. The items were placed at the side of the room, which was full of tables, computers, and counters. "These items will sky-rocket my research and make it so I don''t have to do everything from scratch."

    "Yeah, there''s some cool stuff here," Garrett said flippantly, biting into a piece of beef jerky.

    "Yes... ''cool stuff''," Sterns responded, annoyed. He turned to look at Garrett. "Must you be here?"

    "Hey, I''m the one who brought the stuff you''re so gaga over," Garrett said, putting a hand on his chest. "You could stand to be a little nicer."

    "Hmph," scoffing, Sterns looked over at a cage in the background. "I''m nice to those who are worthy of it, and you have yet to prove yourself worthy of anything more than being a delivery boy. In the meantime, I have to work on the girl."

    "Girl?" Garrett looked towards the cage and blinked.

    The girl in the cage was glaring out at them. She was in her late teens, thin from lack of proper nutrition, wearing a white prison jumpsuit. Her black hair was matted, and her eyes were wild. She was yelling in Spanish, shaking her cage as best as she could.

    "Damn, spitfire ain''t she?" Garrett asked, eyeing her as one would a caged animal.

    "More than that," Sterns said. "She killed three of our men when we tried to transport her."

    "That little thing?" Garrett grinned. "She got laser eyes or something?"

    "No. She was, according to records at the HYDRA academy, taken from Mexico when she was a toddler. She was found surrounded by the bodies of dead gang members who had killed her mother," Sterns idly said.

    "Shit..." Garrett responded seriously, suddenly much more wary of the prisoner.

    "Indeed. HYDRA got their hands on her but soon found that another group was trying to take her as well. She was brought to the academy, taken to the depths of the school, and found to have increased ability to absorb combat skills, as well as naturally enhanced speed, strength, and senses. Even her healing is enhanced," Sterns said, sounding absolutely fascinated.

    Garrett froze, and Sterns pretended not to notice. "Lucky we found this, ''Black Sky''. She would have died in months under the care of those ingrate scientists at the Academy."

    "What do you mean?" Garrett asked.

    "They were planning to dissect her, after finding she was resistant to being trained," Sterns turned away and watched as a large object was wheeled into the room. A tube big enough to contain a human. "I have other plans for her. Using these," Sterns turned and lifted something for Garrett to look at. He blinked.

    "Now that is one big ass diamond."

    "It isn''t diamond you troglodyte," Sterns hefted the cracked piece of blue-green crystal. "No, it is far more durable than any known substance on the planet besides vibranium and, despite all appearances to the contrary, organic. This, Mr. Garrett, may be step one in my research. But first," Sterns looked around at the soldiers surrounding him. "I have something I wish to confirm."

    "She wasn''t there," Helen hissed at Strucker as they walked through the hallways together. "Davida is still with SHIELD."

    "Yes, and I am trying to discover where she is, as per our deal," Strucker said, moving quickly. "But even Sterns hasn''t been able to get through the AI SHIELD is using to defend their files, at least without him starting anything that would bring their eyes upon us. I suspect she is being held on the Insight Helicarriers."

    "Then my girls and I can get her," Helen said without a second thought.

    "You will fight the Avengers then."

    "We can take them."

    "No one can take them!" Strucker stopped spinning to look at her. "I have an army, I have super-human soldiers, miracles and monsters! But the Chitauri armor cannot defeat Iron Man! My monster cannot fight the Hulk or Dial on his own! My super-soldiers are worthless against Captain America! We are outmatched, and we need more!" Strucker yelled into the stubborn woman''s face.

    The two stared at each other in the stone hallway.

    "You''re afraid," Helen accused.

    "I''m pragmatic. SHIELD has the quality to defeat our quantity. But I am building those numbers... And Stern has an idea. Three targets he wants to kidnap. People who can help us take the Helicarriers and perhaps even the Avengers head on."

    "Who-"

    "Sir!" The two turned to see List walking towards them hurriedly. "Sterns is making something he wishes us to look at. Gamma radiators."

    "What?" Strucker said, shocked.

    "He... he thinks we can make more like the Hulk."

    Strucker thought about that. Fast. Too fast. Sterns was trying to accelerate everything... perhaps Strucker could use that to his advantage. "He is certain?"

    "Yes."

    "Then tell him he''s authorized. Oversee the project, and make sure to have Deathlok, Abomination, and Wanda on standby. Ask our soldiers to volunteer."

    "You think anyone will?" Helen asked.

    Strucker looked at her, then continued his walking. "Many in this world would sacrifice for the slightest bit of power. And the Hulk and Abomination represent more than a little bit of power."

    "I have also," List continued, following with Helen. "Begun the construction of the cybernetics, as per the Cybertek designs. I''m also having our scientists look at the Centipede serum with the girl, Raina."

    "Then we will have an army enough to fight against the Avengers," Strucker said firmly, a small smile coming to his face. "Tell me about the other projects."

    January 15th, 2014

    "Your project needs work, Sterns," Strucker said as he stood in the laboratory of Sterns.

    The gamma-irradiated scientist smiled. "Yes, but I have simply found what doesn''t work and that is progress."

    They were looking at the results of Sterns experiments, men and women in cages within a large tent set up on the grounds. Eleven in all, four woman and seven men, all of them in too much pain to move. Two of the women and four of the men had green skin after the experimentation, their bodies misshapen and twisted, muscles on their bodies growing and shrinking at random as they screamed in pain and horror. Strucker could hear their bones snapping over and over as they shattered under the immense pressure of their own muscles strength before healing back, only to break again. Some of them had even grown strange appendages, tentacles from their arms and legs, while one of the women had a leg turned to a long stump of flesh.

    "The gamma radiators proved what I''ve always suspected. Bruce and I are not accidents, we are genetically built to accept gamma radiation, to be empowered by it. Emil Blonsky does not have the gene naturally, but the super soldier serum he was given, as crude as it was, allowed him to become what he is now," Sterns said with a grin.

    "And you believe you have isolated the gene?" Strucker asked.

    Sterns, in answer, turned to leave the tent and walked out. Strucker followed after an annoyed scowl at Sterns arrogance.

    Sterns led him to another tent, where they found several people waiting inside as they worked around two patients on tables.

    "Two is now stable." Sterns said firmly. "One already injected with the Centipede serum while having the gene, the other using Abomination''s blood as a catalyst."

    "I suppose that would be her," Stucker said, nodding towards the massive being on one table.

    "Yes, Rana Philips," Sterns confirmed.

    The woman in question looked like a more slender and female version of Blonsky. She had the same enormous muscles, the same hard exterior and dark green coloration, slightly glowing eyes, and seemed to maintain her hair though it had become green in color. She was awake and lucid, looking around at the scientists experimenting on her. As they watched, she shrank until she had become a normal human woman, with brown hair, green eyes, and a fit form, if not as impressive as she had been before.

    "Such control," Strucker noted with a raised eyebrow.

    "But she is not as powerful as a result," Sterns noted. "Still, a stable result is good. The other is odd, however," Sterns nodded towards a man who was asleep on the other side of the tent. The man was green, but he seemed to grow and shrink at random, much like the victims in the other tent. Unlike them, he was at peace.

    "Drugged?" Strucker asked.

    "Hardly. No, this is apparently how his powers manifest. As it is, I''m not sure if he can control it, especially with his... feeble, personality."

    "What do you mean?" Strucker asked.

    "Benjamin Tibbets is not a... strong person, unlike Rana," Sterns explained. "He volunteered to become powerful. Did you know he is not even HYDRA? He begged to defect from SHIELD rather than die."

    Strucker blinked. "But... SHIELD was winning."

    "As I said, Strucker. He is not a strong person, physically or mentally, and I fear that will interfere somewhat in his usefulness. Rana, however, proves that the process is useful, and I can at least suggest using the others as canon fodder. As for candidates, I believe I have a perfect one in mind."

    "...Very well," Strucker decided. "And the other experiment?"

    "I did not begin it yet," Sterns admitted. "I wished to make sure that one worked perfectly. Despite the positive results garnered here, I do not wish to waste any more soldiers. Especially since the Black Sky is so valuable."

    "Black Sky," Strucker mused quietly. "I thought that creature was dead."

    "Almost," Sterns smiled. "But don''t worry. She is undergoing the Faustus Method now. Soon, she shall be ours, and then I will enhance her to be a perfect warrior."

    "...Very well. In the mean time, have Rana test with Davida''s team. I wish to see how powerful she really is."

    "Understood," Sterns said. Somehow, he sounded almost mocking.

    Strucker noted that, and looked over at the young woman watching Rana Philips transform back into her monstrous form with a fascinated glimmer in her eyes.

    She''d come with Garrett, who insisted on calling her ''Flowers'' despite her preference for her actual name, Raina. She had short black hair that fell in artful curls around her pretty face and carried herself with the sort of vulnerability that screamed for people to care for her. Which only made Strucker distrust her more.

    "Has she been helpful?" Strucker asked as Sterns watched her as well.

    "Yes... but worryingly so," Sterns said. "She has the air of a fanatic. She can''t seem to stop staring at the Maximoffs, and even Blonsky has drawn an admiring glance where many would shy their gaze away."

    "A fan of Enhanced?" Strucker asked.

    "More that she covets powers similar to them," Sterns replied.

    "Hm," Strucker frowned. After a moment, he turned around. "I''ll speak to her later. Keep me apprised."

    Hours after Sterns'' projects had started in earnest, Strucker received horrible news.

    "Whitehall is being attacked," List said to Strucker later.

    von Strucker, Gideon Malick, and Garrett had been perusing files together, planning their next attack strategy when List came into the room. Strucker looked up at List, shocked. "Are you sure, List?"

    "We''ve been cut off from communications with his people, and reports have come in from social media that vehicles with an odd version of SHIELD''s symbol have shown up at the building," List confirmed.

    "Damn!" Garrett cursed. "We could use that old man and his people."

    "Has anyone been able to get through?" Malick asked, his jowls tightening when List shook his head. "Then it is them. We haven''t been able to communicate during dedicated SHIELD raids. The second they start actually trying to keep us out..."

    "We must find a way," Strucker decreed.

    "There is one," Garrett said. When the room looked at him, he smiled. "Well you''ve been working on it, haven''t you? List told me about that little ''claw'' of yours."

    When Strucker glared at List, the man sighed in annoyance. "He overheard me designing it."

    "Astral projection, right?" Garrett asked. "Sounds like a neat trick."

    "An unproven trick," Strucker said firmly. "Theorized by Sterns after his brief work enhancing Davida''s team."

    "But you think it can bypass the communications blackout?" Malick asked.

    Strucker froze, thinking. After a while, he nodded slowly. "Yes... Sterns theorized it to be possible..."

    "Well?" Garrett asked.

    "It''s too dangerous," Strucker said. "Even for all the things we are dealing with, even as desperate as we are-"

    "That''s right," Garrett interrupted, his voice smooth and calm. "Desperate. We''re dealing with SHIELD, and they''re attacking one of our oldest leaders. We need to fight back, Strucker. We need to know what we''re dealing with. We can''t do it the normal way. You''ve to reach out for whatever you can take... You know, I''m kinda glad we''ve been getting our asses handed to us."

    When those in the room stared at him, Garrett smiled his insincere smile. "Come on. Look at what we''ve got around us. Blonsky, Sterns, those crazy twins, Deathlok, those wrestling girls, all of the kinds of super soldiers we''ve got running around. In a few days, we''ve made an army more powerful than any in HYDRA''s history. I think we''ve been making a mistake, holding back as long we have. SHIELD pushing us the way we have has only let us unleash our full potential," Garrett''s voice seemed to draw them all in. "Why stop now, Strucker? When you''re so close to really making our dreams come true..."

    Strucker thought about that. After a moment, he removed his coat, revealing the blue polo shirt he wore beneath it. "Bring the claw and the scepter to the meditation room... it''s time I tested it."

    Later, Strucker explained what had happened to Whitehall, Garrett, Malick, and List listening closely. When he was done, Malick shook his head. "Damn shame. The old man had style."

    "Wait, you thought he was old too? How long has Whitehall been alive?" Garrett asked, everyone else ignoring him.

    "SHIELD has clearly gotten over whatever has paralyzed them, even to the point of using the Winter Soldier and Carl Creel in their forces," Strucker said. "For now, I suggest we continue our efforts on increasing our forces. Stern has four targets he wishes to... recruit, to our cause."

    "Enhanced?" Garrett asked.

    "Only one of them, an assassin SHIELD used," List said. "Two of the others are SHIELD agents. The last is related to an Avenger."

    "That could be disastrous," Malick said, walking to a nearby table to pour himself a glass of scotch. "SHIELD is already on guard. Attacking three of their own, and one related to an Avenger..."

    "They''re exactly what we need," List said. "One has the gamma gene. The other two are prime candidates for the super-soldier serum, especially with the vials Garrett has given us."

    "You''ve done something with that alien juice?" Garrett asked. Despite trying to sound casual, Strucker noticed the eagerness he hid.

    "That girl, Raina, has some ideas," List smiled slowly. "I believe, combined with the alien crystals, we may be on to something... remarkable."

    "...then we can breath, for now, I believe," Strucker said. "We''ll take the targets. But after that, we focus on our army, on strengthening them."

    "You want to hide?" Garrett asked, visibly disappointed.

    "For a short time," Strucker said. "We need to breathe, I''m afraid. The soldiers have been pushed, hard, for three days. None of us has slept, and I can see it affecting our forces... We rest, rebuild our resources and operations, find a way to combat the incessant AI SHIELD is using, enhance our troops, and figure out our next step. Tomorrow, we take our targets. After that, we work from the shadows."

    "...Fine by me," Garrett walked over to where Malick had poured a drink to take a cup as well. "Let''s party, shall we?"

    Malick sighed, shaking his head at Garrett. "Very well. Then I suggest, in the meantime, you keep an eye on Sterns. We''re depending on that man for far too much. I believe getting rid of him once his usefulness is up would be-"

    "-in our best interest."

    Sterns raised an eyebrow as he continued to work, listening in on the conversation through a comm unit in his ear. "Hmm... Smart man."

    "I agree," Strucker admitted. "But for now, he is helping us build an impressive force."

    "Which he started building by turning eleven soldiers into mutated freaks who can''t even function," Garrett noted.

    "...I''ll watch him as much as I can, but in the end, we may not be able to stop him," Strucker admitted. As he did, he made sure his eyes narrowed on every single person in the room. He conveyed, as best as he could, that none would comment otherwise. They seemed to understand in a moment.

    Sterns was intelligent. Very, very intelligent. That intelligence, however, came with an ego and a lack of true experience, an inability to recognize another''s skills at times. Such as realizing a spy would know when a room had been bugged.

    The gamma-irradiated scientist was useful. But Strucker would not let that stop him from doing what needed to be done.

    "Now, I must go speak with one of my new soldiers," Strucker turned and left, several guards joining him. Strucker was thinking deeply on his new allies. Allies he couldn''t trust. Sterns, Garrett, Blonsky, the Twins, Davida''s team, even Malick... they would tear apart the alliance, whether due to their egos, greed, obsessions, or simply being too kind or moral for the work.

    Strucker couldn''t trust any of them. So he would make himself allies of his own.

    Several minutes of walking brought him to his destination. He strode into the lower labs and walked into a room where a glowing series of rings held the scepter of Loki floating, suspended. Strucker stared at it for a moment. Then he looked at the glove on the table. A mechanical device created by List, it had been dubbed the ''claw''. An orange metal glove with a single port on the back, designed like the armor of a demonic knight, a glove made for Satan.

    Strucker put it on. The glove was designed to fight off any dangers the scepter could pose, but he still felt trepidation as he took the scepter in hand. With the weapon in hand, he turned and walked out of the lab. More walking brought him to the tent where Rana Philips and Benjamin Tibbets were being held. He walked in and glared around the room. "Out. All of you."

    The scientists began to walk out. Raina moved to follow, only for Strucker to shake his head. "No, Raina. Stay," he looked at the soldiers behind him. "You, out now."

    "Sir-" one of the soldier began to say. He shut his mouth when he looked into Strucker''s eyes.

    Rana and Raina shared a look. Strucker walked over to Rana''s bedside and looked into her currently human eyes. "How are you feeling?"

    Rana, the woman who could become an aberration at a moments notice, blinked at the uncharacteristic softness in her leader''s voice. "I''m... I''m fine. I feel amazing, actually."

    "No problems?" Strucker asked.

    "Not at all, sir," Rana smiled, putting a hand to her heart, on the HYDRA symbol on her white patients uniform. "I can fight. And I''m willing to do it."

    Strucker smiled back. Then he sighed. "Rana... I will speak to you frankly. Any other day, I would not. I would consider such a thing beneath me. But I''ve found myself realizing things. Important things. First, please. Transform into your other form."

    Rana looked at Raina, who looked bewildered. After a moment, Rana nodded.

    In a shifting move, Rana gained height and weight. Smooth skin became scaled. Muscles and spike sprouted across her. Raina watched Rana''s transformation with a vested interest. Strucker didn''t look away from Rana.

    "Beautiful..." Strucker lifted the scepter in his hand. "You know what this is, Rana?"

    Rana stared at the glowing weapon with fear, swallowing. "L-Loki''s scepter."

    "Yes. It is powerful, capable of launching directed energy blasts, gifting others with powers," Raina leaned in at that. "It can even control minds... But that last power is not reliable. Useful... but I''d rather depend on someone''s personal loyalty."

    He looked at Rana. "You''ve been controlling it well, but I can see your anger. It''s in all gamma-irradiated individuals. That unending well of rage."

    Rana''s eyes flashed. Whatever fear she had been portraying faded away. She had been faking. Intriguing.

    "Good. Because I can use that anger," Strucker leaned forward. "Rana. Thank you, for volunteering. In return, allow me to offer you a deal."

    Strucker continued to speak and Rana listened. Raina''s eyes widened, further and further as the conversation went on. When it was over, Strucker held out a hand. Rana took it without hesitation.

    "I hear, that it is traditional, in some factions of HYDRA," Stucker flickered his eyes over to Raina. "To give enhanced individuals a name. Something powerful, to give an enhanced an inflated sense of ego, to make them more susceptible to control and manipulation. I do not subscribe to that. I want you to choose your codename, Rana. From now on, you are my right hand. Understand?"

    "Yes, sir," Rana said, her voice strong and steady. Her eyes flashed. "And you promise-"

    "Win or lose, Rana," Strucker said softly. "Win or lose."

    Strucker turned, walking towards Benjamin Tibbets, who was still asleep on his bed. The green skinned young man kept growing and shrinking uncontrollably. Rana only had to wear oversized clothing. Benjamin, who grew portions of his body to become as large as the Hulk or Abominations, had been left with only a blanket to wear. Strucker watched him for a moment before he pressed the scepters'' tip to Benjamin''s chest. The specters blue orb glowed for a moment as Strucker focused. Looking deep within the orb, one might have seen a yellow flash.

    Benjamin sighed, relaxing. His growing and shrinking flesh stopped until he was a skinny young man again.

    Strucker shook his head. "He''ll sleep... but this peace is temporary. He is a truly sick young man," With that, he turned. "Raina, come. I think you and I have things to discuss."

 26 Chapter 26

    January 16th, 2014

    Sharon Carter/Agent 13

    In a small house in Washington D.C. that had been recently bought for one of the most important women in the world, a meeting was in progress.

    "Sweetie, when you became an agent, what did I tell you?" an elderly, but still healthy woman asked.

    Sharon smiled at the elderly woman in the bed in front of her, holding her hand at her bedside. "You wanted me to take care of SHIELD."

    "Did I?" The elderly woman looked over at the tall black man standing at the foot of her bed. "Trip, is that what I said?"

    "Yes ma''am," Agent Triplett said with a wide grin.

    "Hmph," the elderly woman said. She shook her head. "All that work and you young fools tear it apart in one fell swoop."

    "In our defense, most of that was..." Trip stopped talking, but it was too late. He winced at the pain that flashed in the older woman''s eyes.

    "...I''m sorry Aunt Peggy," Sharon apologized, feeling guilty about being unable to protect her aunt''s life''s work.

    "What for?" Peggy gave Sharon a very sharp smile. "You weren''t the one who allowed parasites into your legacy."

    "Not your fault," Trip said. "And in the end, the only reason SHIELD could survive was because of the good work you did."

    "SHIELD survived because of you, not in spite of you, Aunt Peggy," Sharon said, squeezing the older woman''s hand.

    Peggy sighed. "Small comfort... You know, when I was young, I thought I''d faced all the horror the world could produce. Everything from the Darkforce to Howard Stark. And now, poor Steve will have to face all of that," she looked between Sharon and Trip. "You''ll both help him."

    It wasn''t a plea. It was an order.

    Trip and Sharon nodded. Peggy relaxed, smiling at the two. "Good. Now, tell me. I''ve heard of the formation of BRIDGE, but I wish to know about the reactions of certain individuals during the discussion. The Russian President''s aide, a woman with brown hair, how did she act?"

    As the legacies of the Howling Commando''s and Peggy Carter informed the elderly woman, a small box full of pills sat innocently on the nightstand next to Peggy''s bed.

    When Sharon and Trip left Peggy''s home, they entered Trip''s car together. Trip started the car and stared out of the windshield without moving. After a moment, he turned it off.

    "...That woman was so strong, all of my life. The best damn spy in the world. I was always comparing every spy I knew to her." Trip said. Sharon smiled at that. "I think, today... I think I got a glimpse of that again."

    "Just a bit," Sharon sighed happily. "But she seemed happy, even with all the bad news."

    "The new Director will be happy to hear about that," Trip said. "I mean, Peggy''s approval, you know?"

    Sharon nodded. "Yeah."

    "And Simmons and Dial will be happy to know the pills work."

    Sharon gave Trip a grin. He put a hand on her shoulder, with Sharon grabbed. After a silent moment of happiness, they pulled away from each other.

    Trip started the car, and they started driving. They stopped at a light a few miles away. Suddenly, both of their comm units switched on, brief static filling their ears before a voice came on.

    "This is X, you both need to run!" the AI yelled urgently.

    "X?" Trip asked, uncomprehending.

    "HYDRA has sent Quinjets to your area, I''m sending a team to intercept but-"

    X''s frantic voice was cut off when something landed in the intersection ahead of them with a ''Boom!'' of shattered concrete. Trip and Sharon stared as a tall being rose from the concrete.

    She was over seven feet tall, with green scaled skin, glowing yellow eyes, and taloned feet. She was wearing a workout top and military pants, and her eyes were firmly set on Trip and Sharon.

    "Shit!" Trip slammed on the accelerator, turning right and booking it down the street. The strange woman started chasing them with incredible speed. "Who the hell is this!?"

    "She isn''t on any records," X said. "She must be a new creation. Help is six minutes out!"

    "Then we last that long!" Sharon said, opening the glove box and grabbing the submachine gun inside. She opened the window and leaned out, the wind rushing past her with the smell of french fries from a nearby fast food place drifting in the air. She sighted on the woman currently catching up with them on foot and started shooting in controlled bursts, pulling the trigger before giving up and cursing harshly in annoyance, pulling back into the car.

    "She''s bulletproof!" Sharon yelled.

    "I miss killable bad guys!" Trip yelled back, swerving around an SUV that the woman chasing them pushed aside, sending it spinning like a top into a tree.

    "HYDRA Quinjet is sighting on you, but they haven''t fired," X informed them. "I''m attempting to hack them, but they''ve modified the Quinjet to be as low-tech as possible somehow."

    "They want us alive," Trip realized, a chill going down his spine.

    "Wait, where did she go-" Sharon began to say.

    The woman landed on the hood of the car, crumbling the steel beneath her and sending the vehicle spinning out of control. She quickly planted her feet into the pavement so her boots left long groves as she slowed the car to a halt.

    "Come on!" Trip slammed down on the accelerator, trying to run her over.

    The woman, in response, tore off the hood, then reached in and pulled the car''s engine out with one hand, tossing it carelessly aside.

    Trip and Sharon instantly leaped out of the car, running in different directions. The woman leaped towards Trip, slamming him into the pavement. He tried to fight, but the woman simply took out a syringe and stabbed it into his neck. As he passed out, she lifted him up and threw him at the Quinjet as it floated above with the back hatch open, where he landed in the arms of a waiting soldier.

    Sharon, in the meantime, was sprinting with all her speed towards a back alley nearby. Once there, she could get into a building, maybe slip past them in a maze of halls.

    The scaled green woman landed in front of Sharon with a crunch of breaking asphalt. Sharon spun to avoid her, but the woman grabbed Sharon and lifted her into the air. As Sharon choked on a scaled fist strong enough to bend steel, the woman pulled her close.

    "Don''t worry," the woman said gently, stabbing her in the neck with another syringe. "Soon you''ll no longer feel powerless ever again."

    Sharon was out moments later.

    The HYDRA Quinjet flew into the air and headed into the countryside. X tried to track it, Jarvis helping, and soon found it''s destroyed remains in the side of a barn.

    Sharon Carter and Antoine Triplett were MIA.

    Jennifer Walters/Attorney-At-Law

    Across the country, in Los Angeles California, a woman was speaking to a jury as the rest of the courtroom watching. She was a short woman, with brown hair, a cute button nose, and a voice with a high pitch. Yet, when she spoke, it was with a confidence that drew the room in. She strode on sensible heels, wearing a white blouse with a black business skirt and jacket, her hair pulled into a high ponytail and a pair of glasses that were thick enough to give her a slightly bug-eyed appearance.

    "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury," she said, looking into the eyes of each member of the jury in question. "We''ve discussed the events of September 13th for a full week. I know you''re all tired. You probably want to go home. But we can''t leave," she shook her head, and several of the jurors actually did so as well. "Not until we know, for certain, that justice has had it''s day. My client, Beatrice Trask," the woman at the prosecutor''s table, a pretty blonde with sad eyes and a cast on her left arm, stood a little straighter. "Was beaten in her home, by the one person who was supposed to protect her."

    She eyed the defendant, a large overweight man with black hair perfectly groomed, and eyes that were hard as they glared at the woman currently speaking. "Nicholas Trask. A man who has been accused of domestic abuse before. A man who, according to witness testimony, often used violence to intimidate and control others. When Beatrice spoke, when she told us of how the person she loved became a monster, we all knew what had to be done."

    Nicolas Trask''s fists clenched under the desk.

    "Please," she entreated. "Show Beatrice, and the other women who faced the same horrors inflicted by Nicholas Trask, that justice does exist. Thank you."

    With that, Jennifer Walters took her seat with a quiet dignity. Later that day, as a screaming Nicolas Trask was placed in cuffs and dragged away, she allowed herself a smile.

    "Jennifer, I really wish you hadn''t taken that case," an older man said later as he entered Jennifer Walters'' office.

    Jennifer Walters looked up from her paperwork, noting the man who was walking forward. "Hi dad, how are you?"

    "Dreaming of a daughter who doesn''t get herself into crap," Morris Walters was tall, well built if with a bit of beer belly under the sheriff''s uniform he was wearing. His hair was the same color as his daughters, cut short and brushed back. He sat down in the chair in front of his daughter''s desk with a groan. "Sweetie, you know Trask. His guys are going to retaliate somehow."

    "His ''guys''," Jennifer said. "Know full well that Trask isn''t worth protecting anymore. He''s burned too many bridges, dad. Besides, did you see how much evidence was piled up? I get killed, he''s the first on the suspect list."

    "But you''ll still be dead," Morris said firmly. "Look, just let me set up some deputies to protect you. At least until things cool off a bit."

    Jennifer sighed, pretending to be annoyed, rather than grateful. Damnit, she was supposed to be the hardboiled lawyer, but at heart, she was always happy to see that her father loved her. The product of being a single child of a single parent. "Fine... dinner tomorrow?"

    Morris smiled. He got up and walked around the deck, kissing his daughter on her head as she gave him a mock-glare, though she was clearly pleased. "I never miss it, do I?"

    "Not so far," Jennifer sighed. "Anyways, I have some more paperwork to do right now. I''m guessing you already have the deputies outside?"

    Morris barked a laugh. "Of course! I wasn''t going to wait for you to say yes!"

    Jennifer smiled at her father and looked at the photo on her desk. As she looked at it, her smile faded. Morris noticed, and looked at the photo as well. On the picture were four people. Two older women, desperately holding onto laughing children as all of them smiled at the camera. A young girl, Jennifer wearing a pink dress with a dinosaur toy in her hand. And a young boy, laughing as he held Jennifer''s hand.

    "...I miss him," Jennifer admitted. "I miss them."

    Her father said nothing. He simply put a hand on his daughter''s shoulder.

    Late that night, Jennifer Walters entered her house carrying a box filled with files. She locked the door behind her and removed her shoes, sighing in relief as she clenched her toes against the carpet for a moment, feeling her sore feet slowly relax from a long day of standing in trial. She put the box of files on her kitchen table and walked over to the sink to grab some water, drinking it with relish. She contemplated going to sleep, but decided to make some coffee instead, and quickly set up her machine.

    "I hope I''m not interrupting?" A voice she''d never heard before spoke up behind her.

    "Jesus!" Jennifer spun around in shock and gaped at the man sitting at her counter.

    He was odd, to say the least. His skin was green, and his head was massive. He eyed her with fascination, as though she had some secret she had to give him.

    "Not him, I''m afraid, though I''m sure my contributions to society will be seen in the same light in the not so distant future," he said with a smug smile. "I am Samuel Sterns. A friend of your cousin."

    Jennifer stared at him, her thoughts feeling cloudy. "You''re... an Avenger?"

    "Ha!" Sterns shook his head. "No. Only a friend, as I said. I simply wished to greet you, Miss Walters."

    Still feeling off-kilter, she took a step forward, almost losing her balance. "What... What do you want?"

    "To bring you to your full potential," Sterns said with a smile. "I have some... concentrations of Bruce''s blood, from an earlier experiment. I believe you''ll be most helpful in making them of use to me and advancing my studies more than anyone else."

    Jennifer stumbled, landing on the floor as her eyes drifted aimlessly. "What-"

    "I put a narcotic in your water," Sterns idly informed her. "It won''t last long and there are no harmful side effects, but it will serve its purpose. Don''t worry my dear. Soon, I''ll give you a gift beyond imagining. Though I admit, it''s mostly a gift for Bruce," Sterns chuckled. "He''ll be so happy when he sees what you''ve become."

    That was the last thing Jennifer heard before her world became darkness.

    January 18th, 2014

    Ava Starr/Ghost

    At the same time, in a warehouse next to a harbor, an attack had gone very, very, wrong. A group of HYDRA soldiers wearing black tactical gear were roaming around the dark confines of the warehouse, spinning around as they kept their guns aimed and ready. Centipede soldiers stood among them, their eyes glowing red as they strode through the room.

    "Where the hell is she now!?" one of the soldiers yelled.

    "I don''t know, damnit!" another replied, his eyes wide with fear. "She just-hkk!"

    The men and women in the group spun to see a hand inside his chest, right where his heart lay.

    The woman who had her hand in his chest was wearing an all-white outfit, armored over her chest, and with a hood that went over her head. The helmet beneath her hood was all white, with five eerie red lights that stared at them. She stood for a moment, watching the HYDRA soldiers around her. Then she squeezed her hand, and an oddly vicious, wet sounding snap came from the man.

    "Open fire!" One of the soldiers yelled and they started shooting. The woman seemed to fade briefly from existence, allowing the man she had killed to fall to the ground riddled with bullets. Any shots that actually hit her, flew through her phantom-like form before she disappeared. When she appeared again, she kicked a HYDRA agent with polka-dot skin in the neck, collapsing his trachea. She disappeared again as assault rifle fire aimed at her and reappeared next to a Centipede soldier, who she punched in the face. The soldier took the blow without flinching, then grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her up. He began to throw her at the ground, but she suddenly became intangible, moving through his form and flipping backward before pressing a hand in his head, squeezing his brain moments later, then going invisible again.

    She flipped behind cover, using the enemies confusion to take a moment to breathe. "Any chance on that back up? Those Centipede guys are hard to kill."

    "On its way, Miss Starr," Jarvis said. "They were in the midst of saving people from an apartment fire, so they were a bit held up."

    Ava Starr, codename Ghost, nodded, then got up and stepped away from her cover. With a running start, she fazed through her cover, moved at high speed in between the quantum and real world, then kicked a Centipede soldier in the chest. Her kick, augmented by her phasing, sent the Centipede soldier flying. Ghost flipped in the air and went intangible to let bullets fly past her, spinning to kick a HYDRA agent in the face, then phasing through a Centipede soldier attempting to grab her before grabbing the back of his clothes and twisting so that a HYDRA agent shooting at her hit the Centipede soldier instead. Going invisible again, she dived into cover.

    One of the HYDRA soldiers cursed. "Damn it, we''re supposed to capture her!?"

    "Just kill her already!" another one yelled. "Strucker can study her body!"

    "We''ve been trying-hkk!" Ava blinked at the sound of the HYDRA soldier getting interrupted.

    Last time she''d heard that it was because of her. But if she wasn''t the reason... Leaning out of cover, she checked out the situation.

    An arrow had slammed into HYDRA soldier''s heart. An arrow that was blinking.

    BOOM!

    Ava dropped back into cover as the arrow exploded. More arrows fell into the din, forcing the soldiers to scatter. Over forty men had been sent, of which Ava had killed ten since they''d started chasing her. Now, thanks to the mysterious archer, only twenty or so remained.

    "Aid has arrived," Jarvis said over Ava''s comm unit. "Prepare for transportation."

    "Wait, who-"

    A blue blur came to a stop next to Ava. She looked up at the being that had come into existence. "Hi, I''m Dial," the being said, in the form Ava would later learn was called Fasttrack. "Wanna get out of here-"

    "Look out!" Ava yelled when a Centipede soldier came from the smoke to grab at Fasttrack.

    There was a blur. Then the Centipede soldier was flying back from Fasttrack, who had taken a boxing stance. He smirked, waving his fists, which were dripping odd colored blood. "Yeah, got to hit these guys a lot to cause any damage."

    He turned back to Ava. "Come on!"

    Ava nodded, rising to her feet, only to blink when the alien swept her bridal style into his arms. There was a blur of motion as the room moved around them, arrows falling from the sky to kill HYDRA and Centipede soldiers. Then they were outside in front of a waiting Quinjet. Ava, panicking, went intangible and dropped to the floor.

    "What just happened!?" she asked, rolling to stare at Fasttrack. He blinked. "Did you just-"

    "Ava!" she turned to see the Quinjet open in the back. Inside was Bill Foster, her adoptive father, an older black man who was a bit overweight. He waved towards her, yelling as the Quinjet started up. "Come on! Let''s go!"

    Ava, still confused, ran into the Quinjet, Bill hugging her tightly before guiding her into a seat. Fasttrack looked at Bill Foster for a moment. "Huh. Morpheus. That''s cool."

    With that, Dial ran into the warehouse as the Quinjet took off into the sky.

    Wolfgang Von Strucker

    January 19th, 2014

    "An entire goddamn platoon!" Strucker slammed his fist onto his desk, rage in his eyes. "Fifteen Centipede soldiers, 25 of our best, all dead or captured! And we didn''t even get our objective!"

    "Calm down, Wolfie," Garrett said casually, pouring a glass of scotch. Malick and List were in the room as well, watching as Strucker cursed in anger. "We still got the others."

    "The others are just future experiments," Strucker said, spinning the scepter in his clawed hand. "Ava Starr was a fully fledged Enhanced! Her abilities make her one of the best assassins and thieves in the world. With more like her, there could have been nothing we could not accomplish!" Strucker''s scepter glowed with his agitation.

    "Hey, we can still make more super-soldiers and gamma-enhanced," Garrett said, sipping his drink.

    "It is not enough to simply have brute strength," Malick said. "Ava was among the best assassins in SHIELD for a reason. Only Romanov has a better record. And well, she is..."

    All the men in the room thought about Black Widow for a moment, then looked around the room, focusing on the shadows. After knowing for certain they were alone, Strucker spoke.

    "The fact our men were also captured is worse. They were all equipped with cyanide tablets in their cheekbones, but we can''t take any risks. We need to leave," he said in a voice that tolerated no argument.

    "Damn, really?" Garrett asked, sounding honestly disappointed. "I was getting used to the place."

    "It''s our only move right now. SHIELD will track us down. If their captives don''t tell them where we are, then whatever damned AI that''s helping them will. Sterns is failing to keep it at bay. We head to the secondary location, now," Strucker glared at him.

    "Ah well, I guess I''ll go get my stuff then," Garrett turned and left, uncaring of any other issues that might be brought up.

    Malick, on the other hand, sat still in his chair. List looked at the older man, then at Strucker. Strucker nodded for List to leave, and the scientist rose from his seat, leaving Strucker and Malick alone. Malick spoke as soon as List had left.

    "Sterns tells me you refused to go forward with my proposed project."

    "Yes, I did. You are asking me to believe in a fairy tale, a religious leader for us to follow. It''s not practical."

    "Can you say that, in a world where Thor and Loki battled in New York City?" Malick asked.

    "Thor and Loki are real, tangible people," Strucker answered. "I have never seen or heard of your god before this."

    "And I''ve worked hard to make sure of that," Malick said. "But he is a power who could make the Avengers and SHIELD fear us."

    "...I''m not going to stop the project, if you wish to go ahead with it but it will be on your own time and resources, with Sterns helping you when he isn''t working for me. The pieces of the monolith passed down by my family are in the vault in Germany. They are at your disposal, Malick, but know this. You won''t be bringing some destined leader to rule over us all. HYDRA has outgrown the idea. Whatever you bring from that portal of yours, it can only be an asset or an enemy," Strucker stated.

    Malick rose from his chair, his eyes hard. "You dare to attack him, and I swear. The pain that I will bring upon you will-"

    "You are not," Strucker''s voice, still and hard as stone, brought Malick to a stop. The scepter in Strucker''s clawed hand glowed ominously. "The leader of HYDRA. And no one fears you anymore. I show you respect because you are due it. I allow you this project because I know what it means to you and I will not spend resources stopping you. But I will not allow us to follow a false god due to your obsessions. It. Isn''t. Practical." Strucker growled out the last word.

    "...Strucker. What do you know about the Inhumans?" Stucker eyed Malick, who took that as his cue to continue. "It''s the name that they gave themselves, thousands of years ago. You know as well as I do that when the Confederacy starts to ask questions, they''ll want more than cookie-cutter soldiers. You want your superhuman army, but you''ll need something special as well. I can give it to you. But you need to understand, Strucker. Bringing our leader back could save us."

    Several moments passed before Strucker visibly calmed and spoke once more.

    "...Tell me about these Inhumans."

 27 Chapter 27

    Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch

    When HYDRA kidnapped their targets, they knew there were risks. But there were two escape risks unaccounted for, who were speaking in their room.

    "We leave tomorrow," Wanda said to Pietro. "After everything they''ve done? Kidnapping those people? We need to escape."

    "Can we take them with us, do you think?" Pietro asked.

    "I... Maybe," Wanda said, frowning. "But they''re under heavy guard. That woman, Rana, she''s watching them. And if we get caught..."

    Pietro shuddered, and Wanda felt herself doing the same. Since getting her powers, she hadn''t found herself fearing much. But now?

    Emil Blonsky was bad enough. Combined with Rana, the Centipede soldiers, Deathlok? Wanda felt fear. Together, she was sure she and her brother could defeat them, at least escape if nothing else. But with the prisoners?

    But they needed to leave. Maybe go back to Sokovia? For some reason, the idea no longer appealed to her. She felt... she needed to do something. Make amends, somehow.

    There was a knock at the door. Sharing a look, Pietro sped over to the door in a blur and opened it before rushing back to Wanda as though he had never moved at all.

    Helen and Deathlok walked into the room. Helen brushed her hair behind her head, smiling at the pair. Deathlok simply stared at them.

    "Hey," Helen said, sounding friendly. "We have orders."

    "Orders?" Wanda asked confused. "What are we doing?"

    "Leaving, dawlin," Helen said kindly. "Well, the others are. SHIELD and the Avengers will be on their way soon. Some of us will stay as a skeleton crew, lead them somewhere else to fight."

    "I''m sorry?" Pietro asked, his accent becoming a touch stronger. "We''re just going to be a distraction?"

    "Not exactly," Deathlok responded. "Strucker and Sterns have a plan. And Blonsky can''t wait."

    Pietro and Wanda shared a look at that. Everyone knew what Blonsky wanted. It was, after all, what the Maximoffs wanted as well... or it was.

    "Ok," Helen said, looking over at Deathlok. "Sugah, you mind if I talk to the Twins alone for a sec?"

    Deathlok nodded, turning and walking out. When the cyborg left, Helen waited for the door to close. Then she tapped her belt, and brief noise of static came from it, followed by her turning to glare at the pair.

    "Seriously, if you''re going to talk about leaving, make sure ya ain''t bugged," Helen said. "Or at least invest in a jammer."

    Pietro uncrossed his arms, gaping. "How did you-"

    "Please, sugah, Sterns and Strucker have been bugging and unbugging this castle since we got here," Helen shook her head. "Now listen closely. Because my girls and I have been talking about the crap HYDRA has been pulling, and I think we can help each other out."

    January 20th, 2014

    Rana Williams/Aberration

    Within the castle, in the early morning, Rana stood at Struckers right side, watching as soldiers and scientists lifted large boxes, put away equipment, and packed up chemicals and serums. Sterns was standing with them, the big-headed scientist scowling as everything was moved.

    "This is not conducive to my research," Sterns said, his eyes hard on Strucker. "If you approved my experiment earlier, we could have a force capable of fighting the Avengers off."

    "Not without control over them," Strucker pointed out. "As it is, we are being forced to leave America entirely."

    Sterns scowled. "If you''d allowed me more time-"

    "The AI has begun to track us," Strucker said firmly. "And your intelligence has proven insufficient. We can no longer even divert them," Sterns scowled at the insult to his genius. "SHIELD has taken down three bases in their rage... And the Hulk is helping. They are coming here."

    Rana and Sterns glanced at Strucker. Sterns, with interest and a small smile on his face.

    Rana, on the other hand, thought about that. The Hulk. She had only been changed a couple of days ago. And she''d felt... magnificent. Her strength, her durability, speed, even her healing. She felt unstoppable. But there were two beings she wanted to challenge now. She''d never been competitive. But now, even in her human form, she felt Aberration lurking in the back of her mind. A monster, wishing to challenge other monsters.

    And the Hulk, no matter what Abomination said, was the pinnacle of monsters. Though a new challenger to that throne had appeared. Dial...

    Sterns sighed dramatically. "Very well."

    "Thank you," Strucker turned and walked out of the room, Rana following diligently. Once they were far enough away, she spoke.

    "Sir-"

    "I remember my promise to you, Rana," Strucker said softly. He was only ever soft with her, Rana appreciated that. Not in the way of a woman blushing towards a gentle demeanor. Strucker was soft, but only to let her understand how serious he was. "In the meantime, I need to speak with someone. Blonsky will be waiting for you."

    Rana nodded. They walked until reaching the Chitauri soldiers Strucker always had some distance from him, then she turned and walked away.

    It was easy to find the monster who everyone knew as Abomination. He was given a barn to live in, but the monster was often restless. It had been a problem, in fact.

    Emil Blonsky was not a monster given to relaxation. He needed a battle. He needed a challenge.

    So did Rana. Which meant when he''d challenged her, she immediately accepted.

    It''s why she walking towards the barn Abomination called home. The barn stood in the middle of a field, with a forest a short distance away and a peaceful river running nearby. She took a breath of the fresh air, only to wince slightly. Since getting her powers, her senses had been heightened, and the scent of fresh air was tinged with that of feces, blood, and more. There was the scent of vegetation and water as well, but she still had to get used to it.

    She strode up to the large wooden structure and wasn''t surprised to see the giant monster standing there, his arms crossed and a wide grin on his face. What did surprise her was the sight of Deathlok standing there as well.

    The cyborg was a mystery to her. According to Garrett, Deathlok was his most trusted soldier, at least since he''d sacrificed Grant Ward to escape SHIELD. But she never knew what to think of the man. His face was scarred on it''s left side by a large burn, but she got a sense that the pain in his eyes didn''t come from that. It wasn''t helped by how formidable he was. While not the strongest in HYDRA''s current group, he was a strong contender for the title.

    Deathlok was looking up at Abomination, who was speaking to him with a condescending tone as Deathlok listened calmly. As Rana strode up them, she began to shapeshift. Her smooth skin became scaled. Her boots stretched around her now clawed feet. Her eyes began to glow. And she felt her power increase massively. The feel of it, of suddenly gaining so much strength, that freeing sense of rage begging to lash out without worry of the consequences, made her sigh a little in ecstasy.

    "-all the power in the world," Abomination mocked. "And you worry about things that don''t even matter."

    Deathlok''s fists tightened, and his eyes hardened. His forearms opened, and the rockets within sprouted. He looked up at the giant Abomination, standing firmly and eyeing him angrily.

    Abomination smiled down at him in turn.

    Rana came up then, and both monsters turned to look at her. She eyed them both calmly, eyeing them.

    "Damn," Abomination chuckled. "Why do you look so much better than me?"

    "Shut up, Blonsky," Rana said simply. "Deathlok. We have a problem?"

    "None at all," Deathlok turned around. "Just checking on things. Goodbye."

    Deathlok leaped into the air and shot upwards. Ports opened on his back, and Chitauri energy sent him flying through the air.

    "Huh. Didn''t know he''d learned how to fly," the giant chuckled. "What a fun world I''ve woken up to." Abomination looked at Rana. His eyes panned up and down her form. For all the height and muscle mass she had gained, he was still larger. "They told me you picked the name Aberration."

    "Yeah, I did," Rana said, looking up at her male counterpart.

    "I like it," Abomination cracked his neck. "Well, we''regonna be fighting later today, and I want a good warmup. We''re allowed to destroy this place, so we can really have some fun. How about it, bitch?"

    He had to have said that on purpose. Just to anger her.

    But that was the thing about those with gamma-irradiated blood. Anger came damn easy.

    Rana stepped forward and kicked into Abomination''s giant chest. He went flying back into the barn, destroying the doors with ease.

    "I''m going to beat you to death!" Rana roared, leaping after him and landing on his chest.

    Roaring with rage, she punched him in the face, her scaled knuckles smashing against his chin.

    "Hahaha," Abomination laughed quietly.

    She chose to respond to punch him again, sending one of his teeth flying. He grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up, and Rana kicked him in the throat.

    "Enough!" he threw her to the side, getting up and confronting her.

    Rana flipped in the air, landing against the wall of the barn and immediately jumping off of it. As the wall shattered under the strength of her jump, she flipped around and kicked Abomination in the face. He stepped back, then punched her in the face in return. She took the blow as the barn around them began to shake and fall apart, punching Abomination in the stomach. He grabbed her arm and spun around once before throwing her upwards. She went flying through the ceiling of the barn, and snarled with rage as she flew straight up, orientating herself to face Abomination as he rocketed towards her. He rose over her and brought his fists down on her back with a Captain Kirk ax handle, launching her back towards the barn where she slammed into the dirt. She took a breath, then rolled over, dodging Abomination''s landing. They eyed each other for a moment.

    "...Is that the best you''ve got?" Rana said, trying to get him to attack.

    Instead, Abomination blinked, surprised. Then he laughed, a deep growling laugh. The barn began to fall apart around them as he continued to laugh. "Okay, ''Aberration''. Let''s go!"

    The two scaled monsters leaped towards each other, ignoring the barn falling on their heads, and began to beat each other, forgoing tactics trained into both military soldiers for the sheer joy of brawling. They tore through chunks of the barn, turning it into sawdust against their invincible forms. Shockwaves were sent out with every punch and kick. Anyone nearby would have assumed an earthquake had begun.

    They fought for about ten minutes and turned the entire area around them into a crater before finally stopping. When it was over they''d turned the entire place into dust, shattered wood, and massive craters.

    A good warm up, when the Avengers would be visiting soon.

    Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch

    In another section of the castle grounds, Wanda and Pietro met with Helen. She walked them over to the river that ran through the land. Then along the shores for a while. Eventually, they reached a large oak tree standing majestically over the river. Two people sat underneath its shade, as different in appearance as night and day. When they walked up, Helen introduced them.

    "This is Marian Pouncy, aka Poundcakes," Helen said with a smile. "Don''t let her size fool you, sugah, she''s a sweetheart."

    Wanda was glad she''d said that, because Marian was the biggest woman she''d seen that wasn''t Rana Williams in her Aberration form. She had neck length black hair that fell over the right side of her face, an upturned nose, and a shy smile. She also had muscles on top of muscles, all easy to see in the tight blue t-shirt she wore, while still being extremely buxom.

    "And this is Mimi Gold, we call her Songbird," Helen pointed at the pixie-like blonde woman sitting next to Marian, dwarfed by the massive figure beside her.

    Wanda, in fact, felt massive compared to her, she was that small. Despite that, Mimi was also as physically fit as Helen and Marian were, something Wanda was curious about. She had blonde hair cut to the scalp, and grinned confidently up at Wanda and Pietro. The tiny blonde rose up along with Marian, and the two strode forward to greet her brother and her.

    "How''s it going!?" Mimi said. She had a beautiful voice, one that seemed to fill the air a while after she''d spoken.

    "Hello," Marian said softly. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked at Helen, who nodded gently, before tapping her belt. That soft buzzing came again.

    "Okay sugah, we can''t be heard. At least, according to BRIDGE," Helen said.

    "BRIDGE?" Wanda asked, still trying to understand what exactly was going on. All Helen had told them was that she had a way out of HYDRA.

    "It''s SHIELD''s new name," Helen said.

    "How do you know that?" Pietro asked. "Haven''t we had trouble getting news on them?"

    "I''ve got my sources," Helen smiled secretively.

    "Why are we here, Helen?" Pietro said, losing his patience.

    The three women in front of them slowly stopped smiling. Helen shared a glance with her friends, then turned to look back at Wanda and Pietro.

    "...I told you that I stayed with HYDRA after Davida was captured to get her back. And that was the plan. To find her, help her escape. And you guys wanted to kill the Avengers, Tony Stark in particular. How about this? You tell us your story, we tell you ours."

    Wanda began to open her mouth. Then she stopped. An old pain filled her heart. She looked at Pietro. Her brother was staring at the ground. He licked his lips, a nervous action, and clenched his fists. The three women don''t say anything, simply waiting. Wanda was about to speak when Pietro stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, nodding when she looked at him.

    "...When we were ten years old, we were having dinner, the four of us. When the bombing began that day, our home was hit. The first shell landed two floors below us, makes a hole in our floor... Our parents go in. Our home falls down around us," Pietro swipes at his nose, his breath harsh. "I grab her, roll under the bed, and another shell comes in, lands three feet from us... But it just sat there. It didn''t blow up, it just stayed there. On the side was a word..."

    "Stark," Wanda said quietly.

    "...we were under that bed for two days, as they tried to dig us out. Staring at his name," Pietro shook his head.

    "While they tried to dig us out, all I could think with every shift of brick," Wanda said softly. "Was that ''this will set it off.'' For two days we stared at Tony Starks weapon, waiting for it to kill us."

    "...But now we are working for people who are worse," Pietro said, cursing out the words. "I spent years, hating him. Hating America, hating the Avengers when he made them. And now... I can''t even find the energy anymore."

    Wanda looked at him, surprised by his admission. He looked away, ashamed.

    "I''m sorry," Mimi said, the petite young woman giving Wanda a pitying look. Wanda brushed it off.

    "Well, that is why we joined HYDRA. Strucker told us he would give us the power to kill Tony Stark, and he did. But we cannot be a part of this anymore."

    Helen took a deep breath. "Well, our reason is a little different. We just wanted Davida back. She''s been our friend since high school."

    "Our sister," Marian said, the giant woman crossing her massive arms.

    "We wrestled together," Helen said. "Until the car crash. We ended up in a coma for years. When we woke up, our doctor gave us powers. So we used them to do some simple bruiser work, made some small cash that way. Then Strucker offered us enough cash to set us up for life, Davida gets arrested on her first job, and Strucker asks us to work with him for the chance to help her escape."

    "But then they started mutating people, kidnapping, and brainwashing," Mimi scowled. "We want nothing to do with them, and the second we got a better offer-"

    "A better offer?" Wanda asked, furrowing her brow. "From who?"

    The three women didn''t respond, Helen giving Mimi a glare for her misstep.

    "What are we here for?" Pietro stepped forward, his eyes hard.

    "So you can escape," Helen said, moving to stare into his eyes. Speedster and wrestler eyed each other. "You have a chance to join in on our deal. But first, we need to tell you something, about Strucker. About HYDRA, and their role in Sokovia. Because after all this time being pissed at the blacksmith for making a sword, you''ve worked with the knight who wielded it."

    Wanda had a sinking feeling that everything she had ever known was going to fall apart.

    Days before, January 15th, 2014

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    I was standing in front of the massive skyscraper that Daniel Whitehall had been using as his base of operations, watching as BRIDGE agents took away HYDRA guys away through the glass doors in front. More were being carted away by members of the US Military.

    "Still hard to get used to all this," I said softly.

    "Tell me about it," Creel said, standing next to me as we watched everything going on.

    I looked around. We hadn''t brought in everyone, but enough Avengers, new and old, had come along to make it a bit crowded. Bruce was sitting in a van nearby, looking relieved that he hadn''t had to change into his alter ego. Apparently, that was called a ''Code: Green'' situation. Natasha was sitting with him, listening as he typed at his laptop and spoke with her at a rapid pace.

    Tony hadn''t come, but Rhodey was floating over us with his arms raised and pointing at the HYDRA soldiers and personnel that were being escorted out. He hadn''t had to do much, just blow up the helicopters on the roof before they could be mobilized, and the War Machine was now on sentry duty.

    Steve and Sam were speaking to the press. Officially, Steve and Sam were now the team leaders, so it was up to them to talk to the media. Sam seemed nervous, but he was doing his best.

    As Creel and I stood side by side watching everything, two new members of the team walked up to us. Bobbi Morse and Isabelle Hartley, two of the four women on BRIDGE''s list of female assassin badasses without powers, along with Natasha and Melinda May. Bobbi smiled as she stood next to me, carefully avoiding coming close to Creel.

    "We did good work," Bobbi said, the tall buxom blonde crossing her arms. "I don''t think anyone ever really got hurt on our side."

    "Plenty of theirs though," Hartley, still looking like an older and stronger Xena to me, if with more concealing clothes, looked on as body bags with HYDRA soldiers inside were wheeled out. Her resemblance to the Warrior Princess only increased with the savage smile on her face.

    Me, I was just glad I hadn''t had to kill. The Omnitrix had changed me back on the way through a lab, but a healthy amount of ICER''s had kept the bad guys down. Thank god for Fitz-Simmons and the magic tranquilizing bullets they''d invented.

    "How you feeling?" I asked Creel. "Taking down Daniel Whitehall."

    "...Damn good," Creel crossed his massive arms, smiling. "I kinda wish I could kill him myself though, instead of capturing him."

    "Aw, so do I, big guy," Hartley patted him on the shoulder. For some reason, the two of them being friendly seemed weird to me, but they''d hit it off quickly.

    "Oh, Isabelle," I said, remembering. "Your sister is coming by tomorrow. I''ll have her fixed up by then."

    Isabelle stared at me for a moment, before smiling brilliantly. "Thanks."

    "Of course," I looked up at the building. "Man, can you believe how nice the place was? Seriously, evil assholes have the best decorators."

    Bobbi scoffed. "Yeah, if you like torture chambers."

    "Eh, depends on the company," Isabelle joked.

    "I''m thinking about buying it," I admitted. When the three looked at me, I smirked. "I stole HYDRA''s money, remember? I mean, I donated half of it to charities and good causes, but I still have some cash to burn."

    "That rich, huh? I ever tell you how attractive you are?" Isabelle said, grinning. I laughed but kept looking up.

    "Seriously, what do you guys think? We could use a big base like this, and I bet it''d sell cheap."

    "Might want to ask the director," Bobbi nodded towards someone behind us, and we turned to see the Director of BRIDGE.

    She was wearing the same outfit she usually preferred, a blue jumpsuit, though she had her hair down, and the new BRIDGE logo rested on the left breast of her outfit. Maria Hill had joined Steve and Sam, and the three were answering questions together, Sam still nervous, but Maria and Steve apparently calm.

    "She''s a good choice," Bobbi noted.

    "Well, she is better looking than Fury," I quipped. "But yeah, I''ll ask her if she thinks it''s a good idea."

    "Kid!" Hawkeye called out, removing the last of the suit he''d worn over his costume to masquerade as that Bakshi guy. "Come on, we''re flying back home!"

    "Right," the four of us walked towards him, and I tapped the Omnitrix. Instead of changing into an alien, my Quinjet flew down towards us.

    Our first mission as BRIDGE against HYDRA was a win. Now the war was going to begin in earnest.

 28 Chapter 28

    My Quinjet had been heavily modified. I''d spent a few hours as Jury Rigg working on the internals of it, the engines, the tech, even turning the rotors into repulsor engines like on the Insight Helicarriers. I''d also added the Omnitrix logo on the side because brand recognition was important. Then I''d Upgraded it (pun totally intended), giving it the black sheen with green circuitry I gave all my creations once Upgrade did his work.

    My Quinjet could fly in space or under the ocean for a limited amount of time, allowing me to go to the moon for at least a couple of days if need be. It had anti-gravity, force fields, laser guns, repulsor beams, AI functionality so I could bring X along with me wherever I fought, extra arc reactors in case the power source I''d created broke down, the quantum communications all of us Avengers had, and security so it could only be activated with an Omnitrix user or Avenger''s authorization. I also included stealth tech, optical cloaking, thermal heatsinks, and sonic mufflers to make it quiet. I hadn''t been able to do everything I wanted with it, since there are limits to how much you can stuff in such a small space, but it was good practice for later. It even had a fridge in the back for snacks. It was sweet as hell.

    And Hawkeye and Bobbi were backseat flying.

    "Let up on the throttle," Clint said as I flew us back. "You need to take some time to really learn how to fly her, you won''t always be flying from point A to point B, so we should practice your maneuvers for combat."

    "Well, don''t go that slowly," Bobbi said, the blonde leaning over my seat. "You''ll need to move pretty quick to dodge attacks."

    "Dodge?" I asked, guiding the Quinjet in between two buildings. "You realize the only weapons that can take down my baby exist in space, right?"

    "Don''t get cocky," Hawkeye said. "And try going under the bridge over there."

    With an annoyed sigh, I dove towards the street, pulling about twenty feet over it and going under the bridge.

    "You two realize he''s driving us home, right?" Sam asked from the back.

    "Just keep drinking your beer," Clint said easily. Sam sipped at it, having gotten the drink from Creel, apparently.

    I grunted at that and turned the handle so I went towards a nearby river. I guided the ship to go underwater, and turned on the lights. Some fishes swam away as we passed. With another turn, I lifted into the air, then hit the throttle. Soon, we were at the very ends of speeds that could be considered Mach.

    "Look, you two clearly want a turn flying the Defiant, so-"

    "Oh come on," Clint said, sounding very put out as I rose up. "We''re not-"

    "No, I wanted to try," Bobbi said hurriedly, rushing into the seat.

    "Bobbi!" Clint said, pretending to sound shocked, though the grin on his face made it clear he was in agreement.

    I walked into the back, where Sam and Rhodey were kicking back. Hartley, Creel, Bucky, Steve, Natasha, and Bruce were there as well, Bruce walking up as I joined Rhodey and Sam.

    "It was a good mission, right?" I asked. "I mean, less crazy then my first Avengers mission."

    "Less than mine too," Bruce admitted, smiling.

    "Hey, my first Avenger''s mission was yours," Sam said. "But I liked that one better. Less press."

    "Ah come on, Fearless Leader," Rhodey said with a grin. "The press loves you."

    "Yeah, right up until the next giant explosion," Sam leaned back in his chair. "But yeah, felt good to fight HYDRA."

    "I''m just wondering how they''re circumnavigating X and Jarvis," Bruce said. "They''ve both been hunting HYDRA, but Whitehall is the first big fish we''ve been able to find."

    "...Sterns," I said. Rhodey and Bruce looked at me, Sam sipping his beer. "You read the files we were given right? He''s the Hulk of brains, y''know. I think he''s been helping HYDRA fight off Jarvis and X."

    Bruce frowned. "You really think he''s helping HYDRA? I mean, he was... eccentric, really eccentric, but he never struck me as evil."

    "And Emil Blonsky was a war hero," Rhodey reminded Bruce.

    Bruce looked away at that, looking visibly ashamed.

    "Hey, it''s not your fault, Bruce," I said. "For all we know, Sterns is under duress. And Blonsky was unstable before he got injected with your blood."

    "..." Bruce turned and walked away.

    Saddened by Bruce''s lack of a response, I turned to a nearby computer screen on the wall and tapped it, accessing the quantum comms. "Hey Tony, we''re on our way back."

    Tony showed up on the screen. "What, is Steve driving like an old man again, what''s taking you guys so long?"

    "I''m not even talking to you!" Steve protested from the back.

    "No, I was flying," I said, rolling my eyes. "You get it set up?"

    "Mostly," Tony said, becoming serious again. "Fitz and I have done most of it, but Jury Rigg isn''t so great with precision. Also, why does this thing keep randomly giving everyone that stays around it too long a random dye job?"

    I winced. "Um, that should wear off in a day or so."

    "I hope so!" Happy walked into view, glaring at me, and I choked back a laugh. He had bright blue hair now, which looked ridiculous. Mostly because it glowed. "Is this radioactive?" he asked concerned.

    "Happy, we already tested it, you''re fine," Tony said dismissively.

    "I have a date tonight!" Happy complained.

    "You have a date? And didn''t come to me about it!?" Tony said, acting as if the news was some great betrayal.

    "I can probably make something-" I began to say.

    "No!" Happy pointed at me. "The next time I trust something you make, it''ll be too soon! I still think Pepper shouldn''t even use that armor you made her."

    I rolled my eyes. "Anyways, I''ll land the Quinjet at headquarters and Bruce and I will work on the final designs before we start making them."

    "This''ll be fun!" Tony said, grinning. "Be good to update everyone''s wardrobe."

    I looked down at my costume and nodded. As cool as it was, I needed an upgrade. Uh, no pun intended this time.

    Days before, January 15th, 2014

    It was only a couple minutes more before we got to the newly named Avengers Tower. Hovering over the tower was an Insight Helicarrier, renamed Enterprise. And yes, I''d been the one to suggest the name. It made for quite a sight, a massive helicarrier floating over the city of New York. Even with its optical cloak on its bottom, people could still see the shimmer if they looked long enough. I brought the Defiant in towards the Enterprise.

    "Nice and gentle," Clint said, calm as a cucumber. I brought my baby towards the flight deck, letting up on the throttle, lowering Defiant until she touched down. There was a shake as she settled, then I turned her off, clicking some buttons real fast. "Nice job. You learn quick."

    "Yeah, well, my relationship with Defiant is closer than most," I said with a grin, rising out of my seat.

    "That just sounds wrong," Clint groaned, laughing.

    Everyone began to get off and when the doors opened I saw that the other vehicles from the raid hadn''t caught up just yet. "X, any issues with the transport of Whitehall and his people?"

    "No sir, everyone will be arriving on schedule, barring the soldiers and personnel marked to be given to the US military."

    "Thanks, X," I said warmly. "How went your movie watching, buddy?"

    "You were correct, Chopping Mall was hilarious and very goofy. There was no logic to the film, but I still enjoyed it," X confessed. "I will be playing the video games you mentioned once I am finished with the movies."

    "Kinda jealous of how quick you are," I said with a grin.

    "We all have our advantages in life," X said, and I could almost hear the grin in his voice. At some point, X had developed a sense of humor. Tony was so damn proud when he found out.

    We went through the Enterprise''s main door, which slid up as we walked with a classic ''hiss'', and all of us walked together to the research lab at the bottom of the ship. It took a lot of engineers to turn that glass bubble on the bottom into a metal one, with a few windows left, but most importantly several floors of research and development. Important for the future missions it would be undertaking.

    Everyone split up to go various directions throughout the helicarrier, leaving me and Bruce on our own to go visit Tony. We entered the labs, where Fitz-Simmons were working with Skye. I couldn''t see Tony, but I could see the machine I''d created with the group resting in the center of the room.

    It was a large rectangular machine, as tall as Fitz was and as long as a Diamondhead would have been lying down. The center of it was clear, and Fitz was messing with one of the side panels. Simmons was typing at a tablet as she roamed around the room, while Skye was at a computer. When we walked in, the three looked up at us, and all smiled beautifully. Seriously, why is everyone in this universe so photogenic except me?

    "How''d the mission go?" Skye asked as Bruce and I walked in.

    "Bad guys arrested or dead," I said, walking over to her to look at her screen.

    "Well, that''s good," Simmons said, blinking at my bluntness. "Um, Doctor Banner, did you have to-"

    "No, no I um," Bruce rubbed his hands nervously. "I didn''t have to. Where''s Tony?"

    "Right here," Tony said from somewhere in the room. I looked around briefly, confused. Skye tapped my shoulder with a cough and pointed at the machine. When I looked at it uncomprehending for a second, she pointed at the bottom of the machine, where a pair of legs were poking out from under it wearing blue jeans and sneakers.

    "Ah," I looked at Skye, who grinned. "Okay, how''s the programming going, Skye?"

    "Considering I''m dealing with alien tech?" she asked. "Pretty good, I think. I''m still trying to figure out why it keeps changing everyone''s hair color."

    "Oh, yes!" Simmons suddenly spun to look at me, her eyes bright. "How does that work? Somehow it''s been literally changing peoples DNA to give them hairstyles that simply aren''t possible for humans, and I''ve been trying to discover the process by which it does it."

    "Hell if I know," I admitted. "I''m only smart as the alien I turn into. You want to ask me about video games and movies, I''m in, you want to learn how to do a squat, hell yes, but I know nothing about how or why this stuff works."

    Skye scoffed, pushing me away from her computer playfully. "Why are you even asking about the programming then?"

    "Because I''m a curious guy," I answered, letting her push me away. "Fitz, we good?"

    "Hm?" Fitz looked up at me, confused, before nodding. "Oh, yes I''ve been going over everything with Mr. Stark, and it should be working perfectly. As long as Skye can program them correctly, the catoms will be able to interact perfectly with each other."

    "Well," Tony pulled himself out from under the machine. "Okay, kid here''s what we got."

    The billionaire walked around the machine. "Claytronics, making tiny nanomachines that can change shape and meld to turn into different objects with different functions. I was playing around with the concept for a while," Tony waved at the machine. "But with all of us, I think we can go next level with it. Jarvis, X, Skye, and I have been working at the programming, and Fitz and I having been working with Jury Rigg to make this thing work. We hit a snag though, trying to discover a power source that would be able to get mass produced. I can''t just hand every guy I know an Arc Reactor."

    "So what did you do?" I asked.

    "I used the Quantum comms for inspiration," Tony grinned. "Seriously kid, that red gremlin of yours is magic."

    "Well, not magic," Fitz replied, striding over to me as he opened a panel and pointed inside of it. I leaned in to see two arc reactors hooked up to a center device. "But using quantum entanglement, we''ve developed a way for the catoms to store a massive amount of energy, without any energy lost or wasted during charge or discharge," Fitz grinned. "It''s really been a huge breakthrough! We might have solved so many issues with power, I mean, the sky''s the limit from here!"

    "Calm down, Ross," Tony said, sounding amused.

    "What about the items themselves?" Bruce asked. "Did you figure out how to make all the bells and whistles work in them?"

    "Oh yes, one hundred percent," Simmons said, walking towards us. "We just need a blueprint, and the Claytronics Object Creator will do its work. Well, as long as it stops changing everyone''s hair color... Um, Fitz?" Simmons said, holding back giggle.

    I looked over at him only to have to hold back a laugh. Tony grinned, and Bruce hid his own smile as Skye laughed.

    "Hm?" Fitz looked around at us before his face fell. "Oh come on!" He rushed over to a window and stared at his reflection. His usual brown locks had turned into a magnificent red that shifted into blue at the roots, the colors flickering so that it looked like his hair was on fire. "How!?"

    "Fascinating," Simmons and Bruce said in unison. I sighed, tapping the Omnitrix.

    "Upgrade!"

    "I''ll see what I can do to make it work," I said, merging the Claytronics Object Creator.

    Jury Rigg really loved playing games man.

    It was about noon or so when we''d taken down Whitehall, and when the work on the Claytronics Object Creator was finished it was around seven PM. Jarvis and X would work on the programming while the rest of us went to get something to eat. I went to the cafeteria and got a tray of food, eating quickly before heading over to the locker room to get changed for training.

    The room set up for training had once been decorated with a very blatant HYDRA symbol on one wall, tentacles and all. Which... I mean, how had no one noticed? Now it had been replaced with the BRIDGE logo. Half the room was covered in mats, with some boxing bags and other martial arts tools set up. The other half was set up with weights and machines for lifting.

    I walked into the room in green shorts and a black t-shirt. Thankfully there were a bunch of extra t-shirts and other clothes from SHIELD, so I had a wardrobe again. Natasha was waiting for me when I got there, Steve bench-pressing at the other side as Sam ran on a treadmill, all of them wearing workout gear.

    Natasha smiled when I entered, the red-headed superhero dressed in a black tank-top and red shorts. "You ready?"

    "To get my ass kicked by one of the best assassins in the world?" I asked. Natasha gave me a slow smirk, striding barefoot across the mat to grab some handwraps and toss them to me. As I put them on, she did the same.

    "Actually, it''s not just me," Natasha said.

    A loud bang came from behind me. I turned to see Steve rising from the bench press, where about five hundred pounds had been set up. Apparently, it was a light day. Sam hopped off the treadmill, and the two of them came over to join us.

    "What, you guys are in on this?"

    Sam grinned. "Hey man, I''m here to get my ass kicked too."

    "Yes, the former soldier is in trouble," I grunted, Sam chuckling. I put on my handwraps and punched my fists together. "Okay then. Let''s do this."

    "Ow, ow, ow," I grunted two hours later as Steve held an ice pack to my eye. He''d given me a hell of a right hook, and now I was sitting on a wooden bench as Natasha and Sam continued training.

    "Sorry about that," Steve said, wincing.

    "Well I did get in a fight with a super-soldier," I said, watching Sam and Natasha spar while Steve helped me out. "I should have expected a few wounds. Just gonna be glad nothing is broken."

    "Still, I should have been more careful," Steve sat down on the bench next to me.

    "I''ll be all right," I said simply, breathing heavily.

    Steve and Natasha had been pushing Sam and me hard. We were technically the most ''normal'' in our group, being normal humans without our equipment. Sam was a trained soldier of course, but I was just a normal weightlifter, and neither of us had been trained to rip people in half with a lollipop the way most of the other Avengers had been. So they''d switched us between weightlifting and sparring, teaching us as quickly as possible while forcing us to keep moving. Crossfit had just become a thing in my world, but Steve and Natasha had mastered it in this one. The workout that forced you to lift weights and move quickly all at once, in other words, the workout made for superheroics. Good lord, I was not a fan, and I was damn sore at this point.

    Sam was bouncing on his heels now, facing Natasha with a bit of nervousness in his eyes. Natasha was eyeing with a pleased look in her eyes.

    "...Funny," I said suddenly. "This is how I started with you guys. Me, Sam, Natasha, and you."

    Steve blinked at that, then chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it was... Thank you, again," when I looked at him, he smiled. "For everything. I''ve got Buck back. Everything else was worth it from there."

    I patted his shoulder, wincing at my sore muscles but finishing the move. "Of course. What are friends for, right?"

    Steve smiled at that, then rose from the bench. "Okay, ready to go again?"

    I groaned, but put away the ice pack and rose up, raising my hands in front of my face. "Okay. Let''s do it."

    Steve stepped forward, hands raised as well. Seconds later, a lightning-quick fist landed in my stomach, and I was waving a fist vaguely in Steve''s direction while struggling to breathe as he showed me how to fight in the simplest ways possible.

    Later that night, I had dinner in the cafeteria. I was sitting at a table in the back when two people came over to sit across from me, and one next to me. I looked up at them, my forkful of spaghetti halfway to my mouth. Bobbi and Hartley sat across from me. When I looked beside me, it was Mack, the tall and black engineer of the Iliad with enough muscles to give Creel and Steve a run for their money.

    "Don''t let us stop you," Bobbi said, noting how I''d stopped.

    "I''m not," I put my spaghetti in my mouth and chewed, swallowing after a bit. "I was just seeing who''d joined me."

    Hartley chuckled. "Well, we wanted to get to know you, since we''re all Avengers and all."

    "Not me," Mack said, raising a Philly cheese-steak up in his hands. "I''m sticking with the Iliad. Y''all can stay here on the crazy house."

    "Doesn''t the Iliad have an alien artifact housed in its belly?" I asked.

    Mack froze, then shrugged. "It''s locked up."

    "Yay," I twirled a finger. "As one of the people who is supposed to be studying that thing one day, I''m happy to hear it."

    "Yeah, you''ve got a lot on your plate, don''t you?" Bobbi asked. "Creating tools for everyone, Avenging, and I heard you were planning on going on patrol with Iron Man tomorrow? Seriously, you''re kinda everywhere."

    "That''s the benefit and the curse of the Omnitrix," I said around a mouthful of noodles and sauce. "All the power, and all the responsibility to go with it."

    "Sounds stressful," Mack noted.

    "Nah, you see the things he can do with that thing?" Hartley asked, staring at the Omnitrix. "Probably worth it."

    "What, that doesn''t freak you out?" Mack asked. "Changing your DNA every five seconds, turning into giant monsters?" He shuddered. "No thanks."

    "Hell, I''d love to try," Bobbi said, grinning.

    "Not happening," I swallowed my food. "This is the only thing that makes me special around here. I''m leaving it on forever."

    "Aw, it''s cute you''re so possessive of it," Hartley patted me on the cheek, chuckling when I brushed her off.

    "Anyways," I said quickly. "What did you guys think of your first Avengers mission?"

    Bobbi and Hartley shared a look.

    "...It was weird," Bobbi finally said thoughtfully. "I thought it would be a lot like being an agent, but having that much superpowered support made it kind of... relaxed? Like I didn''t have to worry as much about getting hurt."

    "Kind of ruined the fun for me," Hartley noted, flicking the steak knife in her hand at a high speed. "I mean, I like a good fight, but knowing the bad guys have no chance kind of ruined it."

    "Well, just wait," I grumbled.

    "What do you mean?" Mack asked.

    I looked up to see them all looking at me. I thought for a moment before sighing. "Okay, so... we only got Whitehall due to General Hale telling us about him. Before that, someone was keeping him secret, despite two AI and the entire world looking for HYDRA."

    "Maybe your AI malfunctioned?" Mack asked. He was apparently not a fan of AI programs.

    "No chance," I shook my head. "X and Jarvis worked their asses off to find HYDRA, and someone is actively fighting them off. Sterns is out there helping HYDRA, which means it must be him. And if Sterns is helping HYDRA, he''s had three days to begin experimenting in earnest."

    "What can HYDRA do in three days?" Bobbi asked.

    "Less than we can do in one," I said. "But they don''t have our morals. Sterns was able to make Abomination with a few external factors and normal human intelligence. I shudder to think what he''s capable of now. We know HYDRA has the Chitauri armor and weapons, and Garrett is still out there with his Centipede soldiers. We''re in an arms race now, and I worry what HYDRA is going to do to try and win it. We''ll have the new armor and weapons done by tomorrow, and I guarantee it''ll be better than anything even Sterns can make... But I''m still worried."

    "...By the way, what happened to your eye?" Mack asked.

    I touched my new black eye and sighed. "Never get into a fight with Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon."

    Mack scoffed. "You kidding? My mom didn''t raise a fool..."

    January 16th, 2014

    Early in the morning, Pepper and I were waiting in Tony''s room for the two people we''d invited. In the meantime, Pepper was helping me with something I''d never expected to need help with. We sat across from each other at a table, me wearing my usual costume while the Claytronics Object Creator was set up.

    "So the woman''s shelter you sent money to is going to be expanding now," Pepper said, handing me a piece of paper. "The scholarship fund X set up is already getting requests, so Stark Industries will be helping with that, as well as the schools you requested we support. However, there is a problem with the work you wanted to be done in Hell''s Kitchen."

    "What?" I asked, looking at the redhead. "What''s going on with that? Edgar didn''t get the money?"

    "Edgar''s mother is being brought to the states, with the help of our legal team," Pepper said. "But your purchase of that property in Hell''s Kitchen is being fought by a company called Union Allied."

    "My old employers?" I asked confused.

    Pepper nodded, looking worried. "We''ll look into it. In the meantime, we''ll have our people work on the other stuff you wanted, the investments and such. But there are two other things. The messages you wanted to be sent to this," Pepper flipped through the papers. "Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Jessica has responded."

    "Really? I thought she would-"

    "She said ''Eff you, and the horse you rode in on''," Pepper sounded amused. "Keep in mind, she didn''t actually say ''Eff''."

    "Now that sounds like what I expected," I said with a wince. "And Luke?"

    "Not interested," Pepper shook her head. "What were you hoping for? Why did you want us to reach out to them?"

    "...X pointed out some people, I looked into them. Some people are important, Pepper. Important to varying degrees. But some people have potential. And those two are-"

    "Ms. Potts, Mr. Schahed," Jarvis interrupted. "Your 6 am has arrived."

    Pepper smiled. "Thank you Jarvis, send them in," She looked at me. "Are you sure you want to hire them? We already have good-"

    "Not a chance," I grinned.

    The door opened, and we rose up. Two men walked into the room, both wearing suits. They were very different, for a number of reasons. One was overweight, the other was skinny and fit. One had long hair, the other had short hair and some stubble. And the skinny one was carrying a cane and wearing shades.

    As the shorter one lead his clearly blind friend over, I stood up and walked around the table. I tried to remember how Wildmutt would see the world and used that experience to watch how the blind man strode in, moving to intercept the pair.

    "Good morning, guys," I said, holding a hand out. "I''m Mahmoud Schahed, an Avenger."

    "Oh, I know," the overweight took my hand, grinning. "Foggy Nelson, good to meet you, man."

    I grinned, then remembered one of the bits of advice about how to interact with blind people, one of which was to introduce everyone in a group. Granted, he already knew she was there, but... "This is Pepper Potts, by the way."

    I shook finished shaking Foggy''s hand, then looked at the blind man. "And you''re Matt Murdock, right?"

    "Yes, I am," He held his out in front of his, about a foot to my left, and I moved around to take it. "Good to meet you."

    "Likewise."

    Man, my life is so freaking awesome sometimes.

 29 Chapter 29

    January 16th, 2014

    "Please, sit," Pepper said gently, gesturing to the chairs at the table.

    "Oh, thank you," Matt said politely, Foggy leading him to a chair.

    The two sat down, followed by Pepper and me.

    "So, um," Foggy started. "You said you wanted to hire us for a case?"

    "No," I said simply. "I want both of you on retainer. Working for me."

    Matt raised an eyebrow at that. "And what exactly would that entail?"

    "Well, let''s see," I let out a breath. "You both left Landman and Zack recently right? Can I ask why?"

    "Um," Foggy seemed nervous. "Well, it was more of a mutual agreement to leave, you understand."

    "We had philosophical differences," Matt said, leaning forward in his seat.

    "They were helping scumbag companies get away with killing people," I said simply.

    Foggy and Matt seemed surprised at that.

    "Stark Industries made some inquiries," Pepper said with a smile.

    "Look, here''s the thing," I rubbed at my nose, leaning forward. "I got some money while taking down HYDRA. Enough to set me up for the rest of my life. And I want to use it to do some good. So I''d like to share it with you. All I ask is that you use the money I give you to help people pro bono. Any expenses paid by me, from real estate, assistants, whatever you need. In return, you guys help the helpless, make sure people stay safe."

    Matt seemed to raise an eyebrow at that. I wondered what the man who would one day become, or maybe already was, Daredevil was hearing in my heartbeat.

    "What," Foggy seemed focused on something else. "What sort of retainer are we talking about?"

    Pepper smiled, opening a folder and passing it to Foggy. She opened another, this one in braille, and passed it to Matt.

    "One hundred thousand a month," I told them. "All I ask is that you guys do your work, keep Hell''s Kitchen safe. Get me?"

    Matt was surprised, his eyebrows high. Foggy looked like all his Christmas'' had come at once.

    "Why us?" Matt asked.

    "Matt!" Foggy said, smiling nervously. "Should we really be asking this very nice man why he''s willing to pay us so much?" Foggy chuckled, and I grinned.

    "I simply wish to know," Matt said with a smile. "Why you want us, specifically? For that kind of money, you can hire far more experienced lawyers."

    "Don''t tell him that," Foggy mumbled.

    "...When I first started doing the hero thing, I started in Hell''s Kitchen," I said, leaning back in my seat. "Taking down drug dealers, pimps, thugs, thieves, anyone who had a reason to attack a person in the area, then I expanded to do the same for New York City. I did a lot of work there. And not just me, there''s someone else, a vigilante who recently started doing the same thing."

    Matt didn''t bat an eye at that.

    "I want Hell''s Kitchen to be safe. And you two want to go to work there. I think, that in many ways, our interests align, Mr. Murdock. I think we can help each other."

    Matt rubbed his chin for a moment. I think, for just a moment, he was considering saying no. Just for the hell of it, or cause it sounded suspicious as hell. I was leaning towards the later. In which case I would have simply put the money into something else.

    Instead, he moved his hands across the contract, reading the braille for a moment, before nodding. "Very well, Mr. Schahed. I think we''d like some time to read this over?"

    "Yes, we can, uh," I rose up. "We can meet again whenever you''re available. Who knows, you might see me in Hell''s Kitchen one night?"

    Matt laughed. "Yes, I''m sure I will."

    "Thank you again," Foggy said, grinning as he shook my hand, then Pepper''s. Once done with that, the pair left, with Foggy''s voice slightly echoing after the door closed behind him.

    "I''m still not sure what you see in them," Pepper said. "I mean, they''re both clearly smart, at least according to their grades and their work at Landman and Zack. But we do have more experienced lawyers."

    "Just trust me," I said, running a hand through my hair. "Meantime, you should get ready."

    Pepper smiled, then raised a hand. A second later, a purple gauntlet flew through the window to wrap around her arm. More armor pieces flew to land on her form until she was in the full armor of the Rescue unit.

    "You changed the color," I noted.

    "Red and black wasn''t doing it for me," she said, as her helmet landed in her hands. She placed it on her head, the now purple and silver headpiece moving around to enshroud her. "Tony," she said, voice slightly altered. "You ready?"

    "Since this morning!" Tony''s voice said through our comms. A loud roaring sound came from the window, and Iron Man dropped into view to float in front of the window.

    "Pepper, Dial," Tony said. "Shall we?"

    I grinned and ran towards the open window next to Pepper. I leaped out of the open window and into the skies over New York. I fell for a while, passing windows and rooftops, the chilly morning winds rushing past me as the city streets came closer and closer. Then I tapped the Omnitrix and changed in a flash of bright green light.

    "Astrodactyl!"

    I pulled up at the last minute, about a foot over a yellow cab as people watched, and flew upwards in a quick burst of green star power. Pepper joined me, and we flew through the streets.

    "Cutting it close, aren''t you?" Iron Man asked as he flew down to join me.

    "I''ve always wanted to do a Wronski Feint, now I can do it whenever I want, squawk!" I said with a grin.

    "That really does look scary," Pepper noted as she twirled in the air, looking very graceful in her purple armor. The three of us went deeper into New York City, Tony and I on patrol, Pepper simply flying alongside her boyfriend.

    A good way to start off the day.

    Director Maria Hill of BRIDGE

    Maria walked into the interrogation room with Fury on her right side, and her new Deputy Director, Victoria Hand on the left. Sitting at the table was one Brigadier General Hale, a member of the United States Air Force who had defected from HYDRA in return for several stipulations.

    Maria sat down in front of her, and Hale blinked in surprise. "Huh. Things must have changed if you''re Maria''s lackey, Fury."

    Fury smirked. "Oh, quite a bit has changed. After all, you gave yourself up with barely a fight, didn''t you?"

    "With none at all, if I remember," Victoria said, flipping her trademark pink stripped hair back.

    Hale smiled a bit, looking chagrinned. "Point. I suppose a lot has changed."

    Maria held a hand out, and Victoria passed her a tablet. "We''ve been looking at the conditions you gave us in return for information on HYDRA. You understand some of it will have to be negotiated and the information will have to be confirmed. Some stuff you asked for just won''t be possible."

    "Like what?" Hale''s eye narrowed, her posture stiffened.

    "Well, you won''t be getting off scot-free. We will have to give you some jail time," Maria said. "Even with the information you''ve given, those in the world''s governments will want to come after you purely for your association with HYDRA."

    Hale clenched her hands together, but she only nodded tightly rather than contesting that. Not what she was worried about then. Maria had a guess as to Hale''s true priorities.

    "And then there is your daughter, Ruby Hale," Maria watched the fire rise in Hale''s eyes. Jackpot.

    "Ruby is innocent," Hale said harshly. "She''s just a child."

    "A child raised to be a killer," Fury replied, resting his hands flat on the table. "She''s got skills, that can''t be denied. Not many fourteen-year-old girls who can fight my best," Fury winced, looking at Maria. "Sorry, force of habit. Our best."

    Maria nodded gracefully, acknowledging the slip. "She''s been trained, no doubt about it, but she''s still a young girl. Quite frankly, it''s hard to tell what we should do with her."

    "Train her further," Hale said, imploring. "Keep her safe. I''ll give every bit of information I have, I''ll do whatever it takes. Just please, don''t hurt Ruby."

    Maria scoffed. "Hale, did you think for a second we were planning on hurting your daughter? Dissecting her the way Whitehall was planning?" Maria tutted, shaking her head from side to side. "No. But we can''t exactly make a brainwashed-"

    "She wasn''t brainwashed!" Hale protested.

    "Raised in a HYDRA facility while being told over and over to obey, kill, and worship the chain of command?" Victoria strode around to look down at Hale, her high heels clicking with each step. "Brainwashing doesn''t just mean chemistry and technology. Ruby will need serious deprogramming to be seen as anywhere close to normal."

    "But she can be useful," Hale glared at Victoria. "Ruby just wants to fulfill her purpose. To be a hero. Yes, she''s been raised to be a warrior-"

    "A killer," Fury interrupted, shrugging at the glare Hale gave him.

    "She''s still a young girl," Hale said softly. "She can be a good SHIELD agent. She won''t be able to integrate into society, I know that. I just... I want my daughter to have a home. To be safe, and to live her life..."

    Maria leaned back in her chair, resting her hand against her fingers. "So you want us to... what? Take Ruby and groom her to become an agent?"

    "She''s already got the training," Hale said. "You take care of her, make her strong, and I promise she can be an asset. In return, I''ll give you everything I have. Every base, everyone who is still active. This information is current. But not for long. HYDRA will move everything the second you give them a chance. You''ve already attacked Whitehall, haven''t you?"

    None of the three answered, and Hale nodded.

    "Protect my daughter. Train her. And I''ll give you anything you want," Hale said.

    "No attempt to make things easier on you?" Victoria asked curiously.

    "Just Ruby, I went into this knowing I made my bed," Hale said, clenching her hands together.

    Maria smiled slightly and slid the tablet towards Hale. "I think we might be able to work something out."

    As Hale read the tablet, Maria looking at Fury, who nodded.

    Maria was still getting used to being Director. In some ways, nothing had changed. The paperwork had increased, and she had to manage not only the organization, but also Tony, Dial, and the other Avengers, all of whom needed to be kept under watch, simply so she wouldn''t be left surprised the next time they suggested something crazy.

    But this was part of her old work. Convincing someone to do something she''d already planned on.

    Ruby Hale could be an asset. Not now. But in four years, a former ticking time bomb could become something very, very useful. Natasha already had thoughts on that. They''d help her, and if Ruby wanted a normal life, they would let her. Until then, she''d be kept out of the fight, but continue being groomed for it.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    Later, we got bad news. Sharon and Trip had been kidnapped.

    "Any news?" I asked as I walked into the Avengers Tower briefing room. Every Avenger, Coulson''s team, Director Maria Hill, and Deputy Director Victoria Hand were all there. Tony and I had arrived as soon as we heard.

    "Nothing yet," Coulson said, his voice tight with anger. "We have video footage of it though. Tony-"

    "On it," Tony waved his hands, and the new hologram tech we''d made sprouted in the middle of the room. It was extremely clear, made to mimic physical objects as perfectly as possible. "Jarvi-"

    "Actually sir," X''s southern tone interrupted. "I was involved, I believe I have the most pertinent information."

    Tony frowned, thrown at the sudden interruption.

    "Go ahead, X," I said. "Roll the footage, give us 3D."

    "Sure, go ahead," Tony grumbled. "Not like it''s my lab."

    "Sorry," I said, chagrined.

    Tony waved it off and soon X brought up a scale model of the streets of Washington.

    "As you can see, we registered the presence of an unknown Quinjet flying towards Agent Carter and Agent Triplett shortly after they left the newly bought home of Margaret Elizabeth ''Peggy'' Carter," Steve and Bucky''s jaws tightened in unison at that. "I attempted to warn them, and HYDRA made their move. The Quinjet dropped an unidentified Enhanced individual."

    The view zoomed in on the streets until Sharon and Trip were sitting in a car in front of us, as though they had appeared out of thin air. As we watched, a woman dropped out of the sky to land in front of them. X paused the footage, and Tony, Steve, Maria, and I walked over to look at her.

    She was wearing a tank top and military pants, the boots she was wearing stretched out by clawed feet. Tall, even taller than Creel or Steve. Built with incredible muscles, from her eight-pack abs to her enormous biceps, all in a feminine form. Her skin was dark green and covered with what seemed like scales, spikes in her elbows, her fingers clawed, and her eyes glowing a pale yellow, her green hair pulled into a ponytail.

    "I really hope that isn''t what I think it is," Bruce said grimly as he looked upon the individual in question.

    "...Gamma enhanced," I said after a moment. Silently I thought of her as a She-Abomination.

    "Crime scene forensics did find some high levels of gamma radiation," X confirmed.

    "Sterns," Bruce said, sounding disappointed.

    "Not necessarily," Simmons replied. "The Centipede serum has gamma radiation, maybe-"

    "No," Bruce removed his glasses. "No one has been able to make a true monster like me or Blonsky. This is Sterns."

    "Forget how she got her powers," Maria said, crossing her arms. "X, show us the rest."

    "Of course, Director," X continued the footage. We watched Sharon and Trip try to escape, only to get chased by the woman in question.

    I tried to remember who she was in particular, but nothing came to mind. Maybe the Abominatrix? She didn''t look as bulky as her though. Whoever she was, she had standard Hulk set of strength, including the ability to jump massive distances and the fact she could outrun cars on foot.

    She had used it to catch up to Trip and Sharon, who tried to fight back as the HYDRA Quinjet flew overhead. She stopped them by pulling the engine out of the car, catching and injecting Trip with something, then doing the same to Sharon. She picked them both up, then leaped into the HYDRA Quinjet with the pair. X followed the Quinjet until it crashed into a barn, then the footage got grainy.

    "This is bad," I said, crossing my arms. "And not just because they have two of ours."

    "Trip and Sharon have information on a lot of what we''ve been doing," Coulson said grimly. "We need to move on our current operations, and get them back."

    "You really think they took them for information?" Steve asked. He looked... apocalyptic. He wasn''t angry, but there was a chill in his eyes.

    "Maybe," Maria sat down in a chair, rubbing her eyes. "HYDRA has been in hiding for all this time, why attack now?"

    "Maybe they need something?" Skye asked. "Something Sharon and Trip have?"

    "Well, they''re clearly making super-soldiers," Bobbi said. "She was powerful. If they have more like her, they might be able to take the fight to us."

    "I wouldn''t want to fight her alone," Sam noted, looking over the tall monstrous looking and buxom superhuman. "Let alone if they''ve got more like her."

    "They''d need the gene," Bruce said. "People who have the gamma gene are rare."

    "Even then, we''re not exactly playing catch up," Tony said. "They''re the ones hiding from us, we might as well start hunting."

    "Agreed," Maria walked over to the center of the room. "HYDRA made an attack on us. We need to find Trip and Sharon and take down HYDRA in general. General Hale has given us another group of targets, in return for the protection of her daughter. I''m sending in Sam and his team to one, Steve''s to another, and Coulson will go with Hand to the last."

    Victoria Hand, who had been simply watching, stepped forward. "Each team has one goal that supersedes all others. Find the main ones behind all of this. Whoever is making new super-soldiers, wherever they are, we need to get them. You have the approval of the Council. Now get to work."

    Tony, Fitz, and I stood watching as the Claytronics Object Creator did its work. The arms inside shifted back and forth, forming a chestplate. The plate was striped red, blue, and white, with a star in the center.

    "I wish we had more time," Fitz said, rubbing his chin. "To run tests, make sure they work, let alone for the specialized gear," Fitz put his hands on his hips and moved around as the chest plate dissolved into dust. A pair of arm gauntlets were being created next.

    "It''ll work, Ross," Tony said. "The tech is sound, and I made sure everything was made the way the gang wanted them."

    "Including mine," I said as the COC... oh god, that is a terrible acronym. I need to come up with something else.

    I focused on what popped out from a port in the machine, a small backpack, the kind people used on long hikes or rock climbing. Fitz took the backpack, only to yelp as it almost pulled him to the floor.

    "Careful, Ross," Tony said, taking the backpack from Fitz with a chuckle. "It''s Cap''s, remember? He wears the heavy gear because he likes emasculating lesser men like us."

    "How heavy? Because that felt like it was made from rocks!" Fitz said rubbing his arms. "Good lord!"

    "It''s Cap," I said. "He thinks five hundred pounds is a light workout. Even that," I pointed at the backpack. "Is going to be lightweight."

    "Yeah well, he still didn''t let me put in the cool stuff," Tony said, sighing. "No repulsors, no cool guns, no flight, just some small enhancements, and jumpjets. Surprised he actually wanted it bulletproof at this point."

    "It''ll do the job," I watched Tony put the backpack away. "Bucky asked for the same sort of set up, Creel and Bruce didn''t want anything at all."

    "Well, at least Sam let me fix him up," Tony said, still grumbling. "Anyways, we''ve got everyone''s new designs all good to go."

    "Hell of a test run," Fitz said, grumbling. "At least we know the guns work."

    I looked over at an armory rack that was filled with weapons. After some thought, I walked over to the rack and picked up three things. A black handle to a sword with a hole where the blade would usually be, and a handgun and rifle that both looked very scifi in style, big and boxy.

    "Whoa," Fitz said as I placed the weapons to the side, replacing my Glock 19 with the handgun. "You really need all those? I mean, with the Omnitrix-"

    "If it times out, I might need the BCW''s, even with the armor," I said.

    "I still like that name, by the way," Tony said with a grin as I looked over my new weapons. "Becuzitswrong. Kinda funny."

    I smiled sadly. "Yeah well... I wanted something to, um, memorialize someone I respected greatly. So, the BCW''s, weapons of the future. Model 1, Model 2, Model 3," I patted the handgun, rifle, and handle in sequence.

    "Well, let''s get the gear to the others," Tony said. "Time to party."

    The Reserve Avengers, the team I was on, got into my Quinjet, the Defiant, and headed out. Sam went through the run down as X flew us there.

    There were seven of us. Sam, aka Falcon, stood in the center, Rhodey next to him with the War Machine armor hanging behind him. Bobbi and Hartley sat next to each other. Bucky was in the back, his arms crossed. I moved from the cockpit to the back, and Creel, who was leaning next to the door to the cockpit, flickered his eyes to me before looking back at Falcon. Once we were together, Sam began.

    "Here''s what we got," Sam said, a holographic image of the complex we were attacking appearing in the center of the Defiant''s cargo bay, all of us gathering around it. "In the desert of Texas, HYDRA has maintained a facility where they keep their rejects. The experiments that failed, were unstable, or just not as powerful as they hoped. This includes corpses, but they also hold prisoners," Sam said, the Falcon crossing his arms. "They call it the Graveyard."

    "Why does HYDRA always go for the obviously evil names?" I asked, growling. Bucky nodded from the back.

    "Okay, here''s what we know," Sam twisted the hologram for a moment, then furrowed his brow when it twisted into a ball.

    "Here, let me," I said, moving forward and putting the complex back to normal then zooming in on it.

    "Thanks," Sam said. "Okay, the complex is in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, resting to the east. This place has a hanger and a bunch of tanks and heavy machine guns, so Dial, War Machine and I will work on taking out those. Creel, Barnes, Hartley, and Morse, you four will go in and take out the base personnel. Remember, the priority is taking the base commander. The Avengers and BRIDGE have the same mission for their targets. We''ll also try to help the prisoners if we can, but that''s a secondary objective," Sam frowned at that, clearly displeased.

    I couldn''t say I was happy either. Any failed experiments HYDRA had would be down there, both people and animals. Whatever we found could be innocent. But they could also be insane killers.

    I reached for my sidearm and took it out, looking it over for a moment. "Okay, everyone has the new gear?"

    Creel looked at his arm. While he was wearing his usual combination of a tank-top and jeans, he now also wore a large device wrapped around his arm in the shape of an arm guard one would see in a Greek or Roman army, colored a deep black. He focused, and his skin changed to a dark steel color. Then into granite, marble, blue cloth, rubber, and then the familiar shine of vibranium, black with lines of glowing blue for the raw version and the more steel-like version for the color of the processed stuff like Cap''s shield. There was barely a sliver of either in the gauntlet, but they''d been taken from the piece we''d gotten when we''d captured him, enough to let him change.

    "I''m good," Creel said.

    The rest of the group picked up the small backpacks hanging along the wall. Bobbi seemed a bit nervous. "So, how does this work?" she asked while looking the pack over.

    "You say, ''Moon Prism Power, Make Up!'' And the armor will appear," I said, straight-faced.

    Bobbi stared at me, looking horrified. "Are you serious?"

    I grinned. "Nah, just say your codename."

    "Oh thank god," Bobbi said, punching me in the arm. "You know I hate that show."

    "You have no taste," Hartley, Rhodey, and I said in unison, sharing a grin.

    Bobbi snorted. "Whatever. Okay," she took a deep breath, then slid her purple backpack on. "Mockingbird!"

 30 Chapter 30

    The backpack on Bobbi''s back shifted around to surround her body. The small catoms moved around like purple liquid, surrounding her chest, across her abdomen, then down to her legs. Then they solidified in a single moment. Bobbi gasped, looking down at herself.

    She''d designed the armor herself, making the chest, abdomen, and inner thighs a shade of white, and the rest a combination of purple and black. The very center above her abdomen was triangular, with a glowing purple light that strummed. Her boots had a small purple force field hovering just above them, and her batons now had purple highlights. Bobbi looked at her hands, the blonde grinning at the sight of the light armor gauntlets surrounding her fingers.

    "Whoa. This is cool," Bobbi twisted her hands, and a helmet rose over her head, a pointed design with a long slit where her eyes were that glowed purple against the white of her helmet. A hood sprouted over her head with another of her wrists, colored dark purple as well. She twisted her hands one more time, and the helmet and hood faded, leaving Bobbi grinning at us. "Oh, that is awesome. Wait, what is this?"

    She tapped her chest on the logo of a bird holding an arrow.

    "It''s a, uh," I coughed before lying. "A Mockingbird. You can get rid of it, but I thought it was good."

    "Huh... I like it."

    "Good to know," I said with a grin. "How about you guys?"

    The others rushed to put their packs on, while I left mine on the floor.

    Hartley turned hers on first. Unlike the others, she had a small backpack, a jacket, and a fanny pack to put on, all of which weighed quite a bit. She struggled a bit, and Creel moved forward to help her with the jacket.

    "Thanks, handsome," Hartley said with a wink. Creel smirked at that, stepping back to let her settle. "Warrior!" With the call of her codename, Isabelle Hartley was covered in her armor.

    She looked very different from Bobbi, for good reason. When we''d created the armor designs, we gave people three options. Bobbi had chosen the light gear, made for fighters who favored movement over durability. I''d chosen the medium personally, wanting to be able to move, but also knowing I wasn''t as fast as everyone else. Steve and Bucky had been two of the three who had gone for heavy armor, and those two had gone without the strength enhancers.

    Hartley had chosen the heavy variant as well, and she had the strength enhancing gear to boot. She rose up several inches in height, and a thick plate of armor ran across her body, covering her shoulders, her thighs, shins, all the way to her boots. She was dressed in over three hundred pounds of weight, all of it having been spread between the backpack, fanny pack, and jacket to make it somewhat manageable. But portions of the catoms settled into an exoskeleton under her armor, enhancing her strength. She raised her arms up with ease, grinning happily at her gold and black patterned armor. She had a small skirt at her waist, evocative of Xena: Warrior Princess'' skirt, which I found kinda funny. She put a hand to her waist, where the handle of a Model 3 BCW quickly formed from the catoms. She clenched the handle and raised it, smiling viciously as a blade grew from the handle to make it into a short knife. She held it sideways and furrowed her brow in concentration, grinning when the blade extended into a massive broadsword, portions of her gauntlets moving into the blade to give it the extra material.

    "Whoa!" Bobbi leaned back as the three-foot blade grew in her direction, dodging it. "Careful!"

    "Oh, sorry!" Hartley, embarrassed, shortened the sword back into a knife, then back to a handle, putting it away. She put the Model 3 away at her waist, then brought her arms up and twisted her wrists. Her helmet came across her face and solidified into a smooth round metal helmet that was tinged with gold around the black sections, shaped like that of a Roman soldier''s. Underneath, I knew that she was currently getting an augmented reality view of the world, the suits VI helping her through the cameras and sensors.

    And I did mean VI. Jarvis, X, Tony, Fitz-Simmons, Bruce, Jury Rigg, Skye, and everyone else had made sure I didn''t make another accidental AI. I was very keen on not giving X accidental siblings.

    Bucky went next as Hartley put her helmet away. Unlike Hartley, his armor was in the form of a single large backpack, which had to weigh around five hundred pounds. He flipped onto his back with ease and said his codename.

    "Nomad," he said, not raising his voice the way Hartley and Bobbi had.

    The large backpack shifted in an instant, covering his entire body. He twisted his hands immediately, his helmet rising to move over his face. His suit was black with green circuitry running through it, blending in with his robotic arm. The chestplate was thick across his pectorals, and the armor ran down his abdomen in extra plates. His thighs and shins were just as heavily armored. Yet, despite the enormous amounts of plating and a lack of an exoskeleton like Hartley''s, Bucky moved very easily in the suit. The helmet that rose over his head was... unsettling. Like a bird-of-prey, somehow. There was a scope style eyepiece over the left eye of the helmet that glared out at us with a bright green light. He twisted his hands again, and the green lights on the suit faded to black. Another twist of his wrists and his entire body faded away. Active camouflage. There was an unsettling click I recognized as the Model 2 BCW Rifle. The next moment he was sitting in his seat, holding the sniper version of the rifle in his lap, making us jump at his sudden and silent move. He kept the helmet on. On the center of his chest, barely visible, was a star, imprinted on the black of his armor.

    "Geeze!" Rhodey and I said in unison. Rhodey looked at me, and I shrugged.

    "Bucky," I said with a scowl. "Can you be less... sneaky, when I''m around? Normal guy here."

    Bucky chuckled a little, twisting his hands to put away the helmet. "You did good work. I can barely feel the weight too."

    "It''s over five hundred pounds," I grumbled, looking over at Sam. He was putting his wingpack on his back, and I did the same with my own small backpack. With a shared look, we said out codenames together.

    Still blew my mind that I had a cool codename.

    "Dial/Falcon."

    Just like that, our suits rose across our bodies. Falcon''s focused on his chest and wingpack, leaving large portions of his body free. His gauntlets had repulsor weapons on the back, and his guns had changed to become Model 1 variants on his hips. His boots gained rocket ports, and his wingpack was streamlined into a smooth black variant. I knew that the wings had been similarly changed. Sam twisted his wrists, and a pair of goggles appeared over his eyes. Another twist and a mask made of metal appeared. It was tight to his head, with the shape of the goggles over his eyes and a mouthpiece that connected to an air tank on his wingpack. His chestplate had a symbol of an falcon in red, feathers spread out across the black.

    Sam flicked out his arms and his wings snapped outwards. He grinned at them, bringing his hands up. "Okay, we''re good to go."

    My own suit was simple in design. A chestplate with an angular design, armored shoulders, gauntlets that left my elbows open and the Omnitrix available. I wore armor on my legs and boots. The whole suit was colored black with green circuitry, with the Omnitrix symbol on the center of my chest. I made sure my ponytail was still in place, and touched my beard, sighing in relief when they were intact. With a snap to the side, one of my gauntlets sprouted a blade from the top in a burst of catoms moving.

    "Whoa, can mine do that?" Hartley asked, excitedly snapping arms out. She giggled when two blades sprouted from her gauntlets.

    Rhodey smirked at the newbies with their power suits, and got into his own. The War Machine, newly upgraded and repaired, snapped over his body, turning him into the tallest person in the room. "Okay, kids, how about we get down to business."

    "He''s right," Sam put his wings away. "Arm up, and get ready. X, you ready?"

    "We''ll be there in one minute," X responded.

    I turned and grabbed my weapons, putting my handgun in my leg holster, my rifle against my back, and my melee handle to my waist.

    "Okay, you all look pretty now," Creel grumbled. "Can we do this already?"

    "Jealous?" Hartley asked mischievously.

    "More like anxious," Creel smirked. "You heard Sam. ''Failed experiments''. That means monsters. Probably an Alien situation."

    "What, like Thor, or the Chitauri?" Bucky asked curiously. It was a reminder that he knew less about pop culture that even Steve at the moment. HYDRA apparently never thought the knowledge would be useful for a super-assassin.

    "Well, we ain''t Marines," Rhodey said, striding to the center of the room. "So we should be okay."

    "In their defense, Hollywood isn''t a fan of useful tactics in horror movies," I said weakly.

    "Hollywood?" Bucky frowned. "Why are you taking about horror movies? Like Frankenstein?"

    "Pop culture night''s going to get full," Hartley noted, giving Bucky a sad look.

    "If we ever have time for a pop culture night," Bobbi sighed sadly.

    Creel patted Bucky on the back, before moving with the rest of us towards the back of the Defiant, Bucky following while grumbling.

    "Not my fault HYDRA never let me watch movies," he said. He seemed to withdraw a bit, despite the joking nature of his comment. I put a hand on his shoulder when I noticed. Bucky gave me a quick glance, then smiled a bit. With a twist of his wrists, his helmet appeared, and we both focused on the door.

    X began the countdown, and I brought the Omnitrix up, twisting the dial.

    "In three...two...one," X said calmly, guiding the Quinjet down towards the ground. Closer and closer, until the Defiant came to a stop. "Drop!"

    The door snapped down and we all leaped out into the air about ten feet over the ground. X spun the Defiant around and opened up it''s guns. The fight was on.

    Director Maria Hill

    As the Avengers, Reserve Avengers, and BRIDGE went on their missions, Maria had business of her own. She walked through the hallways of the Enterprise, Robert Gonzales with her this time. The older BRIDGE agent kept pace with her as they strode through the helicarrier.

    "Gonzales, I want the Iliad out and doing it''s work. How are the upgrades going?"

    "They''re going well," Gonzales said, his voice low and gravely. "Mack has installed most of it with Fitz''s help. We should be ready to leave for the work soon. Will you be keeping my best agents with your little Avengers team?"

    Maria looked over at Gonzales, who seemed sour. "You wanted someone you trusted to keep an eye on Creel and Bucky. They''re doing it."

    "And now I worry if I''ve given them up for a new job," Gonzales grumbled.

    "Robert," Maria began to say. He waved it off, sighing grumpily.

    "They''re grown women. If they want to continue, they''ll do it. If they want to come back, I''ll welcome them with open arms," Gonzales stopped when they came to a door where Coulson and May were waiting. "Keep them safe, Director. Those two saved my life."

    "I wouldn''t do any less," Maria said warmly.

    Gonzales nodded. He turned to Coulson and May. "I suppose I will see you both later?"

    "No doubt about it," Coulson with a smile. May simply nodded, though she smiled as well.

    With that, Gonzales turned and walked away.

    "...He''s kind of intense," May said.

    Maria and Coulson gave the famously stoic May a look. She cocked an eyebrow, daring them to say anything. Since neither Maria nor Coulson were that dumb, Coulson instead opened the door.

    Inside, a woman was sitting at a chair in front of a steel table, wearing a white prison uniform. She was wearing a metal collar that was a familiar black with green circuitry. Davida Devito looked up at the three and smiled.

    "Ah... you didn''t bring my boyfriend," she said in joking tones.

    Maria cocked an eyebrow, moving to sit in front of her. "Boyfriend?"

    "What else do you call a guy who gets you a ring as fancy as this?" Davida tapped the collar, smirking. Despite her seeming jovialness, she was clearly not pleased with the collar. Maria was glad for it, considering it was keeping her powers in check. Davida''s eyes narrowed. "My girls. Are they safe?"

    "They are," Maria took out a tablet. "You were right. They were checking that Facebook profile. We got in contact with them last night."

    "Got to say, kinda clever of you," Coulson added. "Post a specific status on a agreed profile at a specific time using newly made accounts. Clever way to pass messages."

    "Well it ain''t full proof, but it gets the job done," Davida leaned forward. "Are they safe? Tell me that."

    Maria raised an eyebrow. "Yes, they are. Helen is cooperating, but she thinks Strucker may be on to her. That he''s guiding your girls specifically to places and missions that Helen believes Strucker is willing to let go of, using them in some game against the other HYDRA leaders."

    Davida''s fist tightened. "Then get them out of there. You know our deal, I promised you-"

    "I promised that they would be safe for traded information," Hill said calmly. She eyed Davida carefully.

    In the days since Dial had captured her, Davida had been almost obsessive over wanting ''her girls'' to be safe. She wanted them away from Strucker, and safe from prosecution, in return for all the information BRIDGE could get.

    But as of now, the data Helen, Marian, and Mimi had gotten them was minuscule. They''d been kept from knowing exactly where the castle they were in was placed in through blind flights to and from the castle, had only bare information on the experiments, and nothing on the future plans of Strucker''s HYDRA. The only reason Helen had received the message was a phone she''d smuggled onto the grounds, and even GPS wasn''t able to find them for some reason, most likely Sterns. Which made the fact she could even access the internet despite him very suspect.

    Maria was still grateful for the information of course. Thanks to them, they now knew more about the structure of Strucker''s organization then they ever had. Including that Wolfgang Von Strucker was in charge of anything substantial.

    But Davida needed to know the truth.

    "Strucker and Sterns are playing games, and we think your girls are being played like pieces on the board," Maria said simply.

    "We''ll work to protect them," May added. "The Avengers will do their best to save them. But they need to keep playing along."

    "You can''t guarantee that," Davida said viciously. "Tell me why I shouldn''t just fight my way out and get them myself?"

    The collar on her neck began to glow a brighter green along the lines of circuitry. A bead of sweat appeared on Davida''s face as she fought the dampening effects of the collar. May shifted her feet and moved her hands slightly, face hardening. Davida and May eyed each other, and the tension rose.

    Until Coulson stepped forward. "Actually, if I may interrupt the eminent catfight?" Davida and May glared at him. Coulson smiled genially in response. "We have two people who were kidnapped, friends who your team says are there. We have as much to gain from finding that castle as you do. Maybe we can make a deal. Something worth your while."

    Davida frowned as Maria hid a smile.

    Good old Coulson, the master of communication.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    Rhodey and Sam took off as soon as they jumped out of the Defiant, flying into the air. The others and I landed on the ground with ease, and I reached for my back to flip my rifle into my hand, twisting my wrists to activate my helmet. My rounded helmet snapped into place around my head, and the augmented reality vision activated. It connected with my rifle, showing how much ammunition I had and providing me with a crosshairs like in a standard FPS. With a thought, I switched to ammo type I wanted, and looked around with my gun raised the way Natasha and Sam had taught me.

    Damn, I felt badass. Yes, it would have been easier to simply change into an alien, but some part of me wanted to play with my new toys.

    We''d landed in the middle of a tarmac, Sam and Rhodey taking off towards a hanger as planned. I ran to join them while the others headed towards the prison complex.

    I almost stumbled as I ran. My speed had been massively enhanced, and it took a bit to how fast I was now moving. I tried to remember how Fasttrack ran, and soon strode across the asphalt at high speed. I tensed my legs for a moment, and leaped upwards. The jumpjets in the suit activated.

    "Yeah!" I let out in excitement as I leaped forward a superhuman distance and height, propelled by the jets. I landed, then leaped again. "It''s like Saints Row 4!"

    I took a moment to realize what a giant nerd I was, then focused on the job.

    The hanger Sam and Rhodey were headed towards was blocked by a group of soldiers in brown camo gear, tanks, and jeeps. Some helicopters rotors were spinning, about to take off. The Defiant flew over my head, and Rhodey and my Quinjet took off towards the helicopters, leaving Sam and me to take care of the soldiers in front of us.

    The soldiers had seen us coming, and aimed their guns. I knelled down and brought a hand up. They started shooting at Sam, who simply twisted in the air to dodge their gunfire.

    When they shot at me, I activated one of my suits abilities. A portion of my suits armor grew from my gauntlet to form a shield in front of me, and I took a moment to grin as bullets bounced off the shield in front of me.

    "Eat your heart out Steve," I said. Granted, Steve''s shield was much more invincible but it still felt cool to hold a shield as it vibrated under dozens of bullets slammed into it. The shield was tall and thick, with two prongs on the bottom. A quick bit of focus created cameras at the edges of the shield, and the side facing me became became clear, showing me that there were twenty-three men shooting at me, though some were aiming at Sam. None of their bullets would have been able to pierce my armor, but I decided to stick with the shield for now.

    "You got this?" Sam asked, diving in the air.

    "Got to use that time at the range for something," I brought my rifle up to a port on the side of my shield and remembered what I''d been taught. I took a deep breath, relaxed my body, aimed for the chest, and fired a single ICER, hitting a soldier in over his heart. He went down, and the other soldiers ducked. Deep breath, relax, fire. I missed that time, shaking a little, and focused again to hit a HYDRA soldier in the chest again. I fired again and again, missing a couple of times, but managing to do well enough to take six men down. Granted, my helmets enhanced vision, my shield, and the advanced weaponry gave me something similar to auto-aim in video games, but I felt pride nonetheless.

    Sam was still flying towards the hanger. The big doors to the hanger were closed, so Sam raised his hands. He must have forgotten that his comms were on, because I heard his next muttered words.

    "Hope these don''t explode."

    I took a moment to feel offended on behalf of Tony. Then Sam raised his hands up, and a familiar pair of energy blasts flew from his hands to slam into the doors of the hanger, blasting them apart with the repulsors on his arms.

    "Yes!" Sam cried out, diving into the hanger. I felt a bit of pride in seeing the armor I''d contributed on work so well.

    At least until the tank spun its turret to aim at me.

    Yeah, new awesome armor or not, I wasn''t going to test it against a tank shell no matter what Fitz and Tony said about it''s durability and forcefields. I thought of changing the rifle to it''s deadlier mode, but decided to simply reach for the Omnitrix and twist.

    When the tank fired, I was already pressing down on the Omnitrix and leaping thirty feet in the air. I changed in a burst of green light as a shell exploded into the ground below.

    "Swampfire!"

    Sam flew towards the hanger as I landed from my jump. The soldiers fired on me, tearing through my form. I ignored the bullets to rip some seed pods out of my arms and toss them at the three tanks. They exploded, wrapping around the tanks with their powerful vines. The tanks struggled to move, turrets grinding and I allowed myself a grin at the sound of metal bending under the grip of my vines, the plant-life around me singing triumphantly.

    The soldiers were still shooting at me. I raised my hands.

    "Better run!" I yelled as flames came to like in my palms. The soldiers ducked behind the tanks and jeeps into cover, and I waited long enough to let them before unleashing hell.

    "Woo!" I shouted triumphantly, letting two long plumes of flame out to ignite the air in front of me. I kept the flames up long enough to make sure the soldiers were pinned for the next step of my plan. I stopped releasing one of the streams with my right hand, using that hand to grab more seed pods out of me, throwing them like grenades where the vines wrapped around the soldiers and jeeps. By the time I was done, six soldiers had been ICER''d, seventeen were wrapped in vines, and more were blocked from leaving their vehicles by the vines growing over them.

    I tapped the Omnitrix as soon as I knew the soldiers were captured.

    "Astrodactyl!"

    "This is Dial, squawk!" I cried out, blasting into the air and snapping my wings out. "Falcon, I''m coming to help!"

    A loud explosion came from over where the helicopters had been about to take off.

    "This is X, taking overwatch position," the Defiant rose into the air.

    "War Machine, heading to rendezvous with Dial and Falcon," Rhodey flew alongside me as we headed to the hanger.

    "Roger that," Sam responded. "Team B, how''s it going?"

    Rhodey and I flew into the hanger. The building was massive, filled with aircraft and vehicles of all kinds, the largest of which was a giant cargo plane. There were dozens of men inside, Sam fighting them. He hovered in the air and raised his hands, repulsors letting lose in his palms. He twirled out of the way of a burst from a machine gun, blasting the offending soldier into a jeep behind him.

    "I feel less special now," Rhodey mused next to me, taking a spot at the doors Sam had blown apart. He started shooting his own repulsor blasts, the minigun on his shoulder roaring. I flew to the upper level of the hanger, twirling to kick one of the many soldiers scrambling on the upper level in the chest with my clawed feet before sliding to a stop on the floor, my wings pulling in. I let out a energy whip from my left arm and twirled it with instinctive expertise to grab another soldier, pulling him in for a clothesline, then released an energy blast from my right hand that sent another man to the ground. A HYDRA operative raised his gun to shoot me, and I sliced it in half with my energy whip, offhandedly shooting another soldier in the back as he tried to run.

    "This is Mockingbird, we''re facing some opposition," I heard the crack of ICER''s being fired, followed by Creel roaring in rage and Hartley laughing over the comms. "Barnes, can you-" Some loud noises sounded out. "Thank you. Falcon, when you''re done with the hanger, we could use some help over here."

    "Squawk! Where does HYDRA get so many soldiers?" I grumbled. "No respect for the Conservation of Ninjutsu, I tell you."

    Something hit me like a hammer, pain exploded from my right shoulder, and I squawked in surprise, stepping back from the sudden impact and pain. I looked at my shoulder to see that my scales had been slightly damaged by something, and looked up to see some soldiers on top of the cargo plane in the center of the hanger firing at me and Sam. I mean, they were shooting at Rhodey too, but he ignored their bullets to focus on the guys trying to escape, destroying a tank when they tried to get in. I leaped for the cargo plane at the same time Sam flew towards it. There must have been ten guys on top when Sam and I landed among them. I front kicked one guy, blocked a fist thrown at me, and ducked as Sam rolled over my back to punch another soldier. I uppercut a man into the air, and fired a blast into one other man''s chest.

    Sam blocked a HYDRA soldiers kick and punched him in the face with his gauntleted left hand. He twisted his hands when one of the HYDRA soldiers raised a pistol to his face. Sam''s helmet snapped over his face when the HYDRA soldier shot him. The bullet bounced off, Sam stepping back from the impact, then stepping forward with a powerful front kick to the offending soldiers ribs.

    With a bit more space to work, I snapped my arms to the side, my energy whips lashing out, and swung them outwards. I heard Sam firing his repulsors, both of us unleashing our wings to float upwards as we attacked, back to back all the while. Rhodey flew to join us.

    For about thirty seconds, the three of us unleashed hell. I pulled in my energy whips to start firing blasts of green energy. Rhodey''s minigun roared on his shoulder, his gauntlet guns joining in. Sam grabbed one of his new guns and fired it on automatic, yelling as the three of us flew back to back.

    Just like that, it was over. Every HYDRA soldier in the hanger was either unconscious or dead.

    "This is Falcon," Sam twisted in the air, Rhodey and I joining him, Sam at the front, Rhodey on his left, me on his right. "We''re coming to join you, team B."

    "See you then," Bucky replied calmly.

    Sharon Carter/Agent 13

    Sharon woke up gasping, taking massive gulps of air. She struggled to rise, only to feel something pulling at her arms and legs. She tried to move again, blearily looking down.

    She''d been strapped to a bed by thick brown restrains. Sharon stared at them, uncomprehending.

    "Sharon," she turned to see someone lying in a bed next to her. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes. When she looked again, Trip was giving her a weak smile. "Hey, girl. How you feeling?"

    The young man was wearing the same restraints she was. Sharon shook her head, looking down at the IV in her arm, then at the room.

    "Trip? Where are we?"

    "Hell if I know," Trip looked around as well. "I woke up a few seconds before you did."

    The room was like a strange combination of ancient and new. The walls and floor were all made of stone, like that of a medieval castle. There was medical equipment, computers, and some people in lab coats roaming around. Wooden doors at the other side of the room were guarded by two men in black military gear.

    "Hey!" Trip yelled at a man passing by in a lab coat. "Where are we!?"

    The man ignored him.

    "We must have been captured by HYDRA," Sharon concluded, her mind still muddled by whatever drug had been used to knock her out. "What was that thing?"

    "Aberration," someone walked up to them. Sharon struggled to look at him, only to wonder if she was still drugged. The man before her had green skin and a massive head. He smiled down at them, stepping to stand between their beds. "I apologize for the restraints. I''m afraid you both would fight against us otherwise."

    "Yeah, you''re right," Trip said easily, smiling. "I''m probably going to punch you the second I can, Mr. Bobblehead."

    The big headed man laughed. "I''m sure you would! But don''t worry. Soon enough, I''m sure we''ll be great friends."

    Two men wheeled carts over to the beds, stopping them in front of Sharon and Trips. On the carts were large flatscreen tvs.

    "Oh hey, you brought us entertainment?" Sharon asked, trying for bravado despite the sudden realization she was feeling.

    "I might need headphones," Trip said. "I mean, I love Sharon, but her action movies are way too cheesy."

    "You are both funny," the large headed man smiled. "I hope my improvements to this method allow you to keep that."

    The televisions turned on. Blinking swirls of lights appeared on the screens, and Sharon and Trip both began to struggle as they began to realize what was happening.

    "After all, brainwashing still isn''t an exact science."

 31 Chapter 31

    Sam, Rhodey, and I landed on the grounds in front of the prison complex. As we walked into the courtyard the Omnitrix beeped red, timing out and putting me back in human form. I grabbed my Model 3 rifle off my back, hefting it and making sure it was still in ICER mode.

    The place was littered with bullets, blood, and soldiers. I felt disturbed at how quickly I''d gotten used to scenes like it.

    Team B walked up to join us. Bobbi and Hartley had removed their helmets and were standing side by side near the main entrance, while Bucky chose to keep his own helmet on, his head swiveling as he kept an eye out. Creel was in pale white form, looking as though he was made of cotton. His spider silk form, Darwin bark specifically. He glanced up at us from where he was sitting, giving me a nod that I returned.

    "What''ve we got?" Sam asked as soon as we were gathered.

    "The whole upper complex is a front," Bobbi answered. "Full of guards, but anyone in charge is most likely down below."

    "Want us to interrogate the guards left alive?" Bucky asked.

    Sam thought about that. "...Do it. Creel, Hartley, Dial, you three go in. The rest of us will stay out here. Uh," Sam rubbed the back of his head. "Hey Dial? I''ve watched horror movies too. There''s no chance our comms will suddenly shut off, will they? You know, static and then we can''t talk to each other."

    Everyone turned to look at me. I blinked. "Our comms are Quantum. We can talk to each from across the universe, and there are more firewalls on our gear than the entirety of the world, all of it backed up by Upgrade and Jury Rigg tech. Seriously, if HYDRA had anything locked up down there that could get past all that, they''d already rule the world."

    They gave me a blank look. I don''t think it was because they didn''t understand, more likely they wanted to make sure I wasn''t claiming my ship was unsinkable.

    "No, we won''t have a clich¨¦ comm cutoff," I said with a sigh.

    "One day you need to show me whatever you guys are talking about," Bucky said with a sigh.

    "Okay, move out," Sam said.

    As I turned to leave, Rhodey tapped me on my shoulder. "Be careful, okay? We don''t know what''s in there."

    "Well, if they have anything genetically wrong with them..." I tapped the Omnitrix.

    Rhodey shook his head. "Don''t make assumptions. Stay on your guard, and watch out for those two."

    I looked over at Creel and Hartley, one a giant man now the same color as titanium, the other a woman in advanced plate armor with a broadsword. "I think they''ll be fine," I said sarcastically.

    The War Machine''s faceplate lifted up to show me Rhodey''s face. He smirked. "Yeah well, we all know you''re the Hulk on our team, so..."

    I chuckled, walking away to join Creel and Hartley while Bucky, Bobbi, Rhodey, and Sam went to start their interrogation. I wished, for a moment, I had an alien that could help with that. Something with telepathy or whatever.

    I choose to focus on what I could do and raised my gun towards the one door leading in or out of the place. "Ready?"

    Creel reared a foot back and launched it forwards, giving the door in hard enough to send it flying, revealing the narrow concrete hallway beyond. "Ready."

    Hartley and I shared a look as Creel went inside with the confidence of a man who can turn into metal.

    "You heard the man," Hartley said, her helmet snapping over her head. "We''re ready."

    I grunted in agreement and we followed the Absorbing Man underground. Going down the hall, we were suddenly enveloped in darkness, the red strobe of an emergency light barely illuminating things.

    "You know, for all the jokes about horror movies, I really expected this place to have better lighting," Hartley mused as we walked through the hallway.

    "Activate thermals," I answered.

    "Yep," Hartley said.

    "Should have got one of those helmets," Creel muttered.

    We came to an elevator with only one button. I hit the button, but nothing happened. Sharing a look, Creel grabbed the doors and shoved them open, revealing the dark shaft beyond. He leaped in, falling down for a few seconds. Soon, a loud boom noise came from the bottom, along with the sounds of metal ripping and tearing.

    "All good!" Creel yelled up the shaft. "Only about two hundred feet!"

    "Only, huh?" Hartley said. She leaped down, the lights on her armor glowing to illuminate her way. Once she was at the bottom, I jumped as well. My HUD let me see the bottom. I activated the jumpjets before I hit the elevator Creel had destroyed, slowing to a stop to land through the hole he''d created and on the inside. Creel and Hartley stood outside the elevator, Hartley with her Model 3 out, Carl in his steel form.

    I stepped out as well and looked around the dark hallways. From the elevator, they went left, right, and forwards.

    "So, which way should we go?" Creel asked.

    "Split up?" Hartley suggested.

    "Not a chance," I put my gun on my back and reached for the Omnitrix. "I won''t be able to talk in this form, but I can sense whatever''s down here. Follow my lead."

    I pressed down and felt my armor disappear in an instant, replaced by orange fur. My eyes sank away and I went down on all fours, fingers changing into claws that I clenched, slicing the concrete beneath me and held back the urge to roar as I completed my transformation into Wildmutt.

    "Huh," Hartley said in a fascinated tone. "He''s a dog."

    I growled a bit, then took a whiff of the air.

    Hm. The left hallway smelt like death and decay most strongly. The right one smelled like steel and oil.

    But the one straight ahead smelled of people, of electricity, flesh, and food.

    I turned to Creel and Hartley and barked as quietly as I could, walking towards the middle hallway. They followed me as I prowled forward, sniffing at the air.

    While the hallways were no longer dark thanks to my enhanced senses, things now seemed like they were on fire to my vision. I followed the hallway, taking a deep whiff of the air. I salivated at the scent of fresh meat, unable to help myself. While I was still me, Wildmutt still felt hunger as something altogether more primal than I did.

    My claws scrabbled on the ground as I walked, Hartley and Creel behind me. We went for a long while, the scent getting stronger. Soon, we came to a vault door. It went wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor, and looked as thick as they come.

    "Well that''s foreboding," Hartley noted. "What the hell do you think they have locked down there?"

    Creel stepped forward and put a hand to the steel. "Let''s find out." His hand changed temperature in my senses to match that of the vault doors, then sank inside. He''d demonstrated this before, the ability to phase through the material he''d changed into. He rummaged around inside the vault''s internal mechanisms for a bit. I growled in irritation as my enhanced hearing picked up the sounds of his metal fingers scratching and moving against the inside of the door, tiny screeching noises filling the air.

    "Easy boy," Hartley scratched me at the nape of my neck, and I growled with reluctant pleasure at the feeling of her fingers running through my fur, even with the armor covering them. "Almost done, big guy?"

    "Yep," Creel moved his hand out of the door and moved to the lever, twisting the large wheel in the center of the door, twisting it. After a bit, the door slid open.

    I felt myself salivate at the new scents that followed. Pain, fresh blood, and fear, the scents of prey, along with loud whines of animals.

    The door swung open, and the three of us walked into the place beyond

    Cages. Cages all around us, arranged in rows, five high. They were as big as prison cells, with stairs and catwalks leading up to the top.

    We walked up to one of them and looked inside.

    A mass of flesh rested in the corner of the cage, about as big as my human self, with multiple human arms, legs, and eyes poking out of flesh, all different sizes. The eyes focused on us, and I growled in disgust. What the hell had HYDRA done?

    "God," Creel looked in another cage, Hartley and I moving over to it with him. It was a dog, but not like any dog I''d ever seen. Later, Hartley and Creel would tell me its skin was the shiny color of metal. The cages metal, to be exact. To me, it was more like it was extremely hot. It moaned at us, clearly in pain from the metal, concrete, and plastic spikes poking from its body. He, based on the scent it was male, was connected to an IV that went up to a tube in the roof, the substance inside smelling like a slurry paste of food.

    "It''s like... me?" Creel said, horrified.

    "Someone is going to pay for all this," Hartley growled.

    A sudden sound drew me attention. I snapped my head towards it, growling.

    A cage had been opened. Running footsteps ran from us, then another set of them came towards us.

    I barked, getting Hartley and Creel to turn as the creature released from the cage came around the corner. My barking set off others in the large warehouse, but I focused on the creature coming towards us.

    It came to a stop around the corner and stared at us, eyes enraged.

    It could have been a tiger, once, the catlike portions and the orange fur with black stripes screamed it. Now it was mutated, front legs overly long, portions of its skull exposed, muscles grossly large. I roared at it, and got a horrific scream in response. Then the poor animal began to grow even more grotesque, as it''s body began to heat up. Hartley later told me that it had also changed color from orange to a far more unsettling shade.

    "Aw, crap," Hartley whispered as it changed it''s fur to a familiar shade of green. "It''s gamma-enhanced!"

    The tiger screamed, leaping towards me.

    I roared back, my anger and disgust towards HYDRA focusing on the animal before me, and I leaped for it as well.

    The two of us clashed in mid-air, landing on the floor. It''s claws went for my throat, but I ducked my head down and bit into its shoulder, hot blood filling my mouth. The tiger screamed, pushing me back and clawing my face, leaving four lines of white hot pain across it. I roared in rage, digging my claws into the tiger.

    We rolled on the ground, slashing and biting each other. His right paw aimed tried to swipe at me again, smashing a crater into the ground when I dodged. I roared and scratched at his chest, warm blood pouring over my front and back legs. He bit into my shoulder, teeth scratching at the Omnitrix, and slicing into me. We rolled into a pillar and shattered it under our strength. Creel ran towards us, trying to help me.

    More sounds filled the air as cages were opened up all over the place. Something leaped over from another aisle and crashed into Creel, something that had once been human, but was now covered fur, scales, and whose arms had been replaced by cybernetic ones.

    "Goddammit!" Creel yelled, shifting into his polished vibranium form before bringing his legs up and kicking upwards, launching the creature back. The creature tried to attack again, only for an ICER round to slam into it''s head. The creature screamed but stayed standing.

    Hartley stepped forward, her Model 3 lifted high, and fired another ICER into the creature, hitting it twice more when it refused to go down. It finally fell.

    I was still fighting the gamma tiger. The thing was stronger than me, but in a weird way. It was like it was getting both weaker and stronger at random. One second I was fighting a weaker opponent, pushing it to the floor with a triumphant roar, the next it was picking me up and slamming me into a concrete wall. I roared in it''s face, ducking my head under a blow and uppercutting it with my claws. The gamma tiger went flying up, landing on top of the cages. I ran towards the cages and leaped up, clawing my way to the top. The gamma tiger rolled to its feet and screamed at me. I responded with a roar, snarling as we came closer and closer to each other. The tiger was healing, but slowly, the scent of it''s leaking blood giving me enough that I knew I could beat it.

    And god I wanted to. I could feel the blood of the tiger soaked into my claws, my own wounds throbbing. The smell of it incensed me. There was this feeling of primal rage inside me, an anger I could barely contain. I roared, letting my anger be known, proclaiming my dominance.

    For a tense moment, a Wildmutt and a Gamma Tiger face each other on top of cages filled with roaring and screaming monsters. The tiger finally lost it''s patience and rushed me, it''s heat signature blazing in my sense. I jumped out of the way, grabbing one of the pipes that was on the ceiling and twirling around it to go back at the tiger, clawing it in the face hard enough to send it down to where Hartley and Creel were fighting. Several dogs that had been mutated into more hideous gamma creatures were attacking Creel, who tossed them aside for Hartley to take down with as many upgraded ICER bullets as she could, needing three at times for each one. One of the released dogs simply lay on the ground, it''s eye staring out from a face that had been severely mutated, legs coming from a mass of flesh as it released muffled whines of pain.

    One of the dogs, something that must have once been a husky but was now a disgusting mismatch of gamma enhanced muscles, spikes, and exposed bone, rushed me. I swiped a paw out, smacking the animal into the ground, spinning around to face the gamma tiger and running for it. Another dog was smacked aside, then I leaped up as the tiger did. We smashed into each other and I held it down on the concrete as the creature roared in my face, it''s legs scratching at me and the floor. I bashed it in the face, cracking the concrete under its body. We rolled over once more before I smashed it back to the floor. I looked around for a moment, before deciding to cut my loses.

    As best as I could, I spoke to the Omnitrix, snarling at it.

    "Understood," my voice came from the Omnitrix, with more of a monotone tinge to it. "Repairing genetic damage."

    A green beam slammed into the tiger I was holding down. It screamed, it''s voice high pitched. As the Omnitrix did its work, the scream began to change, lowering and rising in pitch until it became the roar of a healthy tiger, the orange and black animal still struggling with me, but no longer with superhuman strength, its fur and skin returned to normal.

    I threw the tiger aside, where Hartley shot it with an ICER, sending it to blissful sleep, then snarled at the Omnitrix again.

    "Repairing genetic damage," my voice said.

    A green beam slammed into the dogs, then the human, then some of the beings in the cages. I struggled to stay up as my energy was drained, trying to keep the beam going. The screaming dogs began to calm, Creel holding one up for Hartley to knock out.

    I gasped, snarling in exhaustion. But I wasn''t finished. I-I had to keep going. I snarled at the Omnitrix. More beams flew out, heading deeper into the area, flashes of light going along with it. More and more, leaving me stumbling in exhaustion, the sounds of people shouting in excitement, crying, dogs, cats, and other animals roaring and barking. My furred form fell to the floor, and I struggled to rise up again.

    "Warning, energy reserves depleted. Cycling to recharge mode."

    The Omnitrix symbol on my shoulder changed to red, and I fell to the floor in my human form again, my cheek pressing to the cool floor. The last thing I saw was Hartley and Creel rushing towards me as a dog excitedly barked in a cage nearby, freely changing it''s form to steel and back.

    "Well that won''t end well," I muttered before passing out.

    I woke up to feel someone shaking my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, Hartley was smiling.

    "Hey, kid. How you feeling?"

    A groan slipped from lips, and I raised a hand to my head. "Exhausted. I wanted to wait until this was over before I cured anyone."

    "It was a good call," Hartley answered, putting an arm under my shoulder to help me up. "Everyone stopped attacking us. You cured almost everyone."

    "Almost?" I looked around.

    Creel was letting people out of cages. They were naked, since HYDRA apparently didn''t care about the modesty of its ''failed'' experiments.

    Others, however, hadn''t gotten off lucky. People with arms that had been replaced with those of animals, ranging from bears to stumpy gator claws, a woman with legs made from some sort of steampunk machinery, a man whose lips had been sewn together. Whatever had been done to them, it wasn''t genetic. They looked at those who were cured with a strange combination of jealousy and happiness.

    "X," I said pulling away from Hartley to stumble over to a computer moniter I could see at the very back of the room, sitting innocuously on a desk. "I''m going to link you to the nearest computer. Any signs of escape?"

    "Nothing so far, sir," X said. "I''m having satellites check the area for any suspicious activity as well. Whoever is in there hasn''t left."

    "G-Good," I struggled into the chair in front of the computer and raised my hand up. Catoms in my gauntlet shifted as I put my hand on the computer under the desk. They entered the computer, and the monitor began to flash with files.

    "Why couldn''t we hack this before?" Hartley asked, walking up to join me.

    "X''s tech is awesome," I admitted. "But it''s not magical, not really. He can hack something as long as it''s every been connected to the internet, or interacted with a device that has done the same, barring whatever Sterns is doing to protect HYDRA. Nothing in this facility was ever linked up... until now."

    "Correct sir. I''m logged in. Accessing files..."

    "Dial?" Director Hill messaged me, sounding confused. "We just got a data drop from X. Is this from the facility you''re in?"

    "Yep," I replied. "We''re going to need those reinforments. We have former prisoners in need of rescue. Well, and normal prisoners too I guess," I said, remembering the guards. "Falcon, you reading?"

    "Yeah, we got you. We''re heading in too," Sam said. "One of the prisoners told us they have something deeper in, a monster they wanted to be able to fight the Hulk, but apparently they couldn''t control it. If that''s true, you''ll need the backup."

    "Something that could fight the Hulk?" Creel walked up, looking at the prisoners. "And should we wait until people can come to help these guys?"

    I looked at the prisoners, who were staring at us. A girl, couldn''t be more than five years younger than me, was crying on the floor, clutching her legs as a man hugged her with similar tears in his own eyes. None of them approached us. I didn''t know why, but maybe they just weren''t sure what was happening.

    "I''ll stay," Hartley said. "If there is something past here that can fight the Hulk, then you two are our best bet."

    "That''s true," Creel patted me on the back, turning into his raw vibranium form so that he was now glowing blue. He looked around at the people, who stared back at us. His fist clenched. "...We need to make them pay."

    "We will," I got up and we started walking away. "We''ll see you soon, Warrior."

    "Take care, fellas," Hartley walked over to the people, speaking to them in soothing tones.

    Creel and I went into a hallway that led to the back. "X, what is this thing? Their counter to the Hulk?"

    "Unknown," I blinked as files flew up into my HUD, X flashing through them. "There is no name in the database for the being in question. However, some of it''s characteristics and capabilities have been named. It''s eleven feet tall, covered in pale white fur with a grey underbelly. It''s resistant to most forms of attack, but can also heal from damage, and it prefers... It prefers to eat flesh. Human flesh."

    "What in the hell?" Creel growled.

    In the meantime, I feeling myself pale. No way. No way HYDRA had gotten their hands on that thing, let alone for any amount of time.

    "Hey," I looked over at Creel, who seemed worried. "You okay? That watch is still red."

    "Hm?" I looked at the Omnitrix. "Yeah, I''m fine. It just took a lot of energy to cure all those people and animals. Until then," I grabbed my Model 3 off my back and mentally changed the ammo, a bright blue glow coming from it. "I''m good."

    We came to another vault door.

    "Enough of this," Creel said, pissed. Switching to his refined vibranium form, Creel reared back to punch it open, not going for subtle anymore. His first punch left a massive dent. The next two made the whole tunnel shake. The last sent the door flying inward.

    We stepped inside me with my rifle up, Creel still in processed vibranium form, and found two bodies on the floor. I kneeled down next to one, looking it over. Big portions of the body had been torn away like something had eaten them. Bits of cloth from a lab coat told me he wasn''t a prisoner, rather that he worked there. I held back my gag reflex at the horrendous sight of his skull wrapped in bits of meat, scratches from teeth etched into him.

    "That thing is out there," I said, looking at Creel.

    "Apparently it hates HYDRA as much as we do," Creel said grimly.

    I looked at the Omnitrix, grunting at the still red light, then rose up to my feet. "Sam, reinforcements come in?"

    "Army has vehicles to bring everyone in," Sam confirmed. "Although you could have told us Creel broke the elevator. That''s going to make things tough."

    Creel grunted in acknowledgment but said nothing.

    "We''ll be down soon. Be careful."

    Right on cue, something could be heard down the hallway. I raised my gun as Creel moved in front of me. Nothing else happened. We shared a look, then moved forward.

 32 Chapter 32

    "You know, Alien would have ended a lot faster if we''d been in it," I said softly as we walked through a dark hallway with creepy crying sounds behind us as water dripped around us.

    "Well, yeah," Creel shrugged. "Wait, can you turn into one of those things?"

    "What, Xenomorphs?" I asked.

    "Is that what they''re called?" Creel asked.

    Before I could answer we came out into a large room filled with bookshelves, desks, and lab equipment. There was a massive cage in the center, one as big as a house and made of some strange metal that had tons of scratches on the surface. There were chains hanging from the top of the cage, blood on the floor within. The door hadn''t been torn open but left open.

    The place had been torn apart. Blood soaked the floor and walls, making me swallow a bit when I started salivating at the scent. Despite being human now, I was still feeling some of the primal pull being Wildmutt in a room full of prey and fellow Alpha predators. Why didn''t Ben ever deal with that sort of thing? I pulled back and focused on where the blood was coming from. Namely, the bodies.

    I walked up to a soldier that was lying across one of the broken tables, his torso opened up and emptied of organs. He was one of many that had been torn apart and devoured, soldiers and scientists alike.

    "Looks like we missed the party," Creel said easily. "Think that thing is still hungry?"

    I shuddered, looking over at him. "How are you dealing with this?"

    "I''ve seen worse," Creel looked over to give me a dark smile. "Seriously, where did it go-"

    A noise came from among the bookshelves. I spun around, aiming my rifle.

    "Don''t shoot!" A woman came out of the aisle, holding her hands up. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. "Please! We need to get out of here!"

    I stared at her, trying to decide if I should shoot her with an ICER or not. "You''re HYDRA."

    "I," she stared between us, still crying. "Y-Yes. Please, I surrender, just please help me get out of here! T-They''ve gone crazy!"

    "Can''t blame them," Creel said, striding forward. "What was in the cage?"

    She hiccuped when she tried to respond. "I, um, I''m just a biologist-"

    "I''m pretty sure eating people is a part of biology," Creel picked up a random arm covered in desert camo gear and waved it at the woman, who stared at him in horror. "Talk. Where is it, what is it?"

    "It, uh," she hesitantly walked towards me, rather then Creel, who tossed aside the bloody arm he was holding. "It doesn''t have an official name, but we call it the ''Wendigo'', after a Native American legend with similarities to it."

    God fucking damn it, Marvel.

    Unable to see my frustration through my helmet, she walked up to a computer and reached for the keyboard. I waved at it before she could do something, bringing up the files on Wendigo. She gave me a startled look, then returned to the files, still nervous. "We, um, we put a tracker in it. The others were going to unleash it to try to, um, to try and kill you. When we tried to stop them, they locked us in here, and I..." she rubbed at her face, choking back a sob. "I hid. Here, here its... oh god."

    "The monster is still in the room," I said, looking around the room. Raising my rifle, I stared around, turning on one of my vision modes. Based on the Backscatter eyes Fitz-Simmons had studied, it gave me an X-Ray vision of the room. With everything in that weird blue light that the vision gave me, I spun around, looking everywhere. It was a little disorientating.

    I looked at the back of the room, thinking. Okay, where does no one ever look? ...Oh right.

    I craned my head up. Creel and the woman did the same.

    The snarling figure hanging on the ceiling above stared back at me, looking eerie in my X-Ray vision.

    "Clever girl," Creel said softly.

    The creature leaped towards me, and I reflexively fired my rifle.

    Psheaw!

    A repulsor blast erupted from my rifle, hitting the Wendigo in the chest as it dropped towards me and the woman. It was knocked off balance, slamming into the cage instead. It rolled to its feet and faced us, rising up to stand and face us. To a height way bigger than I''d expected.

    "I thought this thing was eleven feet tall?" Creel said, raising his hands up. "That''s a lot bigger than eleven.

    "It grows as it eats!" the woman screamed.

    "Of course it does," I looked at the Omnitrix, which was still red, then back at the monster.

    The monster was dripping with blood from spikes stabbed across it''s back and front, each one with a chain hanging from it that corresponded with the chains in the cage below it. It pulled one out of where its left nipple should have been, letting out a sound as its blood poured across its front. The spike was at least a foot long. The Wendigo tossed that spike aside as his wound quickly healed, and reached for a spike on its shoulder, tugging at it, but not pulling it out as he let out sounds. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing as he caused himself pain.

    "Great, it''s a freaky masochist," I growled.

    "I had an ex like that," Creel replied.

    "Oh god!" the woman shrieked, turning and running.

    I swear, the Wendigo smiled at the sight of the woman sprinting for the exit. Its teeth flashing, it leaped off the cage, blood still dripping from its claws and around the spikes in its flesh. I shot it in the chest, diverting it in mid-air. When it landed, it rolled.

    "WEN-DIGO!" It cried, rushing after the screaming woman with sadistic glee. It smashed through a desk, trying to run past me.

    I snapped a hand up, catoms flowing, and ran forward while activating my jumpjets. The catoms formed into my tower shield in mid-flight, and I slammed into the Wendigo shield first, sending it to crash into some bookshelves.

    "Run!" I told the woman as wood and papers flew everywhere, pieces of glass shattering along with them.

    "WEN-DIGO!" the monster snarled, rising to glare at me.

    "Looks like he wants an ass-whopping," Creel said, standing next to me.

    "Hell, I''m ready to oblige," I growled, raising my rifle in one hand and my shield in the other. "Come on asshole, let''s go!"

    Wendigo rushed us with a cackling laugh as my rifle roared and Creel stepped forward with raised fists.

    Isabelle Hartley/Warrior

    "What''s your name?" Isabelle asked one of the former prisoners, a young girl with red hair and brown eyes who hadn''t been given clothes. She was kneeling next to her inside the girl''s cage, trying to be gentle with her.

    "K-Katie," the girl said. "Katie Whitley."

    "Katie," Isabelle smiled, putting a hand on the girl''s shoulder. "Listen. You''re safe. I''m not with HYDRA."

    "Y-You''re SHIELD?" The girl asked. When Isabelle nodded, the girl retreated inwards. "They said they were SHIELD too. They said they''d give me money, that I wouldn''t have to work as... as a hooker," Katie began to cry. "I didn''t... they did things to me. Said I could be like Captain America."

    Isabelle barely kept herself from cursing.

    From the first moment she''d discovered her own crewmates were HYDRA, she had hated the organization. But this? Taking people off the streets, promising them a new life, then tearing them apart? The worst was some of the prisoners who had been... abused, in all connotations of the word, but soldiers and scientists. Needlessly torn into to see where the experiments went wrong. It was cruel, beyond cruel.

    "Well, I''m not HYDRA, and really, SHIELD has become something new," Isabelle gently squeezed the girls shoulder. "That''s why I''m here. We''re taking the fight to HYDRA. And we''re going to stop them all. Kill them when we can"

    Katie looked up at Isabelle, tears still running down her cheeks.

    Isabelle nodded at the girl, rising to her feet and looking her over.

    Katie was healthy. Extremely healthy, with the muscles of a person who''d worked out their entire life. If they''d been trying to make her into Captain America...

    Isabelle turned around, whispering. "X, can you give me the files on Katie Whitley?"

    "Of course," X said. "Coming your way."

    Isabelle raised her hand, watching as catoms rose up from her gauntlet in the form of a computer screen, the screen glowing as soon as it was formed. Isabelle tapped on the new file, and stared at the screen, looking back at Katie.

    The present Katie was striking, with dark brown hairs, a button nose, and a slightly large chin along with a powerful build.

    The past Katie in the file was skinny, with a face torn open from sores and portions of her skull and teeth exposed, a cleft lip, and limbs of different lengths.

    Isabelle stepped out of Katie''s cage and looked around. Among the prisoners, there were three types that she could see.

    The first made her itch to stab a HYDRA soldier in the face for all the horrors those monsters did. Those were the people Dial hadn''t been able to change. Some were still in their cages, unable to move because of various body parts removed or added. Some had limbs haphazardly replaced with animal limbs, while others now had robotic pieces of varying technological eras in their bodies. When Isabelle walked up to them, they shied away from her, staring with fear that made her heart clench.

    The second group was normal in every way. They seemed to be the happiest, crying with joy as they hugged others. Isabelle flipped through the files and found the image of one, an older man with thinning gray hair. He''d once been covered in green skin, with muscles so grossly large he couldn''t move. Now he was hugging one of the people in the first group, tears in his eyes as the person he was hugging, a young girl with a left arm made of some plastic substance, cried with him.

    The third group was intermingled with the others but was also very obvious in the differences. They were people with powers. Some had incredible physiques like Katie did, looking like Olympic athletes. Others, on the other hand, were able to change their bodies into various materials. Not like Creel, only a single one each, but they could do it. And that was only the obvious examples

    Hartley sighed, looking around and rubbing her forehead. "Hill isn''t going to like this."

    She looked over at where the animals were contained. A large rhino looked back at her with bleary looking eyes. A dog barked happily, fur the color of steel. In the back, she could see a monkey leaping around its cage at incredible speeds.

    Just then, the doors to the room opened, Hartley spinning to point her gun. Sam held his hands up as he walked in, his helmet collapsing to reveal his face. Hartley lowered her gun, smiling.

    "Hey," Sam said, walking in and looking around with interest, the animals barking, the crying people, and the blood on the floor. "What the hell is this?"

    "HYDRA," Bucky said, striding in after Sam. Unlike Falcon, Bucky chose not to collapse his helmet, simply looking around with his gun held carefully.

    Bobbi and Rhodey walked in next, the tall woman and imposing man in black and silver armor side by side. Bobbi moved over to Isabelle, smiling. "You look dissatisfied."

    "Haven''t been able to actually fight HYDRA in a bit," Isabelle admitted. She looked around. "Doesn''t help I have a lot more reasons to do it now."

    Bobbi bit her lip, looking around as well. "Yeah. Yeah, you do."

    "Mockingbird, Warrior," Sam said, waving them over. The pair went to join Sam, Rhodey, and Bucky.

    "There were two other hallways," Sam said, crossing his arms. "We need to check them. War Machine, Nomad, Mockingbird, you go do that. Warrior and I will stay here and watch these people, keep them calm until the Army can get here."

    "You got it, Falcon," Rhodey said with a nod.

    Bucky hefted his gun with a nod of his own.

    Bobbi grinned at Isabelle, who gave her a disgruntled sigh before patting her on the shoulder.

    The two groups split up, Sam walking towards the people who''d been imprisoned.

    "Everyone, my name is Sam Wilson," he said, Hartley at his shoulder. "I''m with an organization called BRIDGE. We''re here to help you get home, or at the least to somewhere safe. Now what I need..."

    Colonel James ''Rhodey'' Rhodes/War Machine

    Rhodey looked back at Sam as he and Hartley spoke to the prisoners. He turned to Bucky and Bobbi as the three of them went back into the hallways. "Every time I think, ''this is the worst a person can do...''"

    "You''ve only scratched the surface," Bucky said darkly. "This was... pretty bad though."

    "You think they''ll be okay?" Bobbi asked, twirling her batons as she walked.

    "No," Rhodey sighed, his suit''s speakers making it a bit loud. "I don''t they''ll be okay for a long time."

    "Even if they''re cured," Bucky added. "Trust me. HYDRA sticks with you."

    They came to a stop at the two hallways. "So," Bobbi said. "Which way do we go?" The three soldiers looked left, then right.

    Rhodey activated his suit''s sensors, and stepped forward. "I''m going to say... this way." He pointed at the one that was right from the elevator. "My suit can sense some power being distributed that way. Might have something interesting."

    "Got it," Bucky walked into that hallway, Bobbi and Rhodey hurrying to catch up.

    They walked in silence for a little while. "So, uh," Bucky said nervously, sounding like he was trying to be friendly, but was out of practice at it. "Have you guys seen Frankenstein?"

    "Uh," Bobbi gave Rhodey a glance. He smiled under his helmet. "I have, during an old movie night with my ex-husband. I thought it was really good."

    Bucky''s shoulders seem to relax slightly. "I watched it with Steve. It wasn''t bad. I mean, I never had much time for movies back then. But it was still fun."

    "Yeah well, just wait until you see the new stuff they''ve done with movies," Rhodey said. "We can play catch up."

    The former Winter Soldier nodded. "Yeah, I''d like that."

    They came to a vault door. Rhodey grabbed it. "You guys will want to step back."

    Once Bobbi and Bucky were out of the way, he pulled with the full of his suits strength. The door fought him for a moment. Then the steel crumbled. Rhodey ripped the door open, tossing it aside with careless ease.

    "Huh," Bobbi noted the door. "Guess you can add bank robbing as a possible profession, huh?"

    "I''ll update my resume," Rhodey said, walking into the open door and looking around as Bucky and Bobbi joined him.

    The room beyond was a warehouse, with boxes and shelves everywhere. The centerpiece of the room was a series of worktables with machines and robotic pieces on them. Several of which were extremely familiar to Rhodey.

    "Oh, what the hell is this?" Rhodey mumbled, walking around the center table. "SHIELD said they destroyed these."

    "Yeah, we had a habit of saying that," Bobbi noted with a sigh. "So these are-"

    "-the drones that Ivan Vanko made," Rhodey flipped up his faceplate, looking down at one of the half-built robots.

    The robot was welded in random ways, with bits of other metal attached to it at haphazard angles where portions had been blown up. A series of pictures lay on the table showing drones at the Stark Expo, shooting at people and running around the park. Rhodey lifted up one of the pictures and compared it to the robot in question.

    "I think this was one of the... Navy drones. Hammer wanted them to be themed."

    Bucky poked at one of the robot''s arms with his gun, grunting. "These dangerous?"

    "They shouldn''t be," Rhodey pointed at the chest of the robot, where a plug was connected to the machine, the cable leading down to the floor. "Looks like they couldn''t power them up. Tony''s arc reactors are pretty much essential to make these things work."

    "And he isn''t exactly the sort to share that tech," Bobbi noted, coming over with a file. "Looks like they were trying to put them together with Chitauri pieces. Seriously, how many Chitauri came through that portal?" She asked, flipping through the file in her hands.

    "Hell if I know," Rhodey said. "Tony didn''t invite me to that me-"

    The drone suddenly reached it''s arm shakily to aim at Rhodey, the robot sparking across its form.

    "Whoa!" Rhodey yelled backing away. He raised his gauntlets up. Bucky aimed at the drone while Bobbi spun her handgun into her hand.

    The drone reached out.

    All three soldiers started shooting. For about a minute, all that could be heard in the room was the sound of bullets slamming into steel, tearing it apart. The drone shook and danced beneath the impact, before letting out a final screech of noise at it finally turned into its component parts.

    They stopped shooting, staring at it. "What the hell was that!?" Bucky asked angrily. "I thought you said it couldn''t power up!"

    "It couldn''t!" Rhodey said in response, his faceplate still up so they could the see the confusion on his face. "Did you see that thing? It was slow as hell. I mean, they weren''t exactly Fasttrack before, but they were a lot quicker."

    "X!" Bobbi said. "Can you tell us what is going on with these drones?"

    "One moment... they are all beginning to activate on limited power. They are attempting to complete a secondary objective."

    All around the room, boxes began to shake as the three soldiers went back to back with each other.

    "Kill the allies of Anthony Stark. I''ll attempt to disable them."

    "Meantime?" Bucky raised his gun and aimed around the room.

    "I suggest you go for a more manual route in doing the same."

    Bobbi, Bucky, and Rhodey shared a look. Bobbi''s helmet rose to surround her face, Rhodey''s faceplate slammed down, and all three raised their weapons up.

    The boxes in the room exploded open, drones struggling to rise out of them like robotic zombies as the three started shooting.

    "Izzy''s going to be pissed she missed this!" Bobbi said gleefully, referring to Hartley.

    "Take out their chests!" Rhodey shouted, focusing fire on a shaking box and leaving it torn to pieces. A drone without legs struggled to fly at him, its palms glowing with Chitauri energy. Rhodey grabbed it out of the air and threw it down, crushing it beneath his feet.

    "Got it!" Bucky said, firing one bullet at a time, hitting drones in the center of their chest with ease. When one made a desperate attempt to get close, he snapped his robotic fist into the head of the offending robot, some combination of steampunk technology and Ivan Vanko''s technology. Bucky''s arm tore the head off the robot, followed by him kicking it aside for Rhodey''s minigun to destroy it.

    Bobbi waded into the drones, her batons lashing out as several of the drones came to their feet to fight. "Do these count as zombies?" she asked casually, slamming an electrified baton into one of the drones chests. The drone let out a whining sound, swinging a fist out at her. She ducked and flicked her other baton, a long blade coming out of the batons end. She came and stabbed the drone in the chest. As it fell, one of the drones raised a hand and fired a beam of purple at the Mockingbird. She let it.

    The purple energy slammed into blue energy shields, stopping short of actually hurting her. She stabbed that drone, spun away from another one and kicked it in the chest.

    Suddenly, in the back of the room, something exploded through a wall, stepping forward. Rhodey sparred it a glance only to blink.

    "Oh come on..."

    The being that came out looked like a mismatch of three robots. And Rhodey knew them all.

    The chest was made from one of Tony''s suits, the pieces of one that Rhodey had seen propping up a crane during the fight against Killian and AIM, with some strange brown metal reinforcing, and a strange form of purple flesh beneath. The legs and right arm were from Ivan Vanko''s personal suit, hastily welded together with other pieces. The left arm and head, however, were far older. The Iron Monger suit''s helmet turned to look at them, pieces of purple flesh around a drone''s head barely visible as it hesitantly struggled forward, staggering towards them with a slow and deliberate pace. The whip on the right arm was sparking, unable to turn on, but trying. The left arm''s repulsor attempted to activate but failed. Despite that, the enormous being stepped forward, eyes glowing with a low light.

    "Izzy is really, really going to be jealous," Bobbi noted.

 33 Chapter 33

    I leaped up in the air over the Wendigo''s charge, shooting it with my repulsor gun with beam after beam, scoring across its fur. It laughed, seeming reveling in the pain as it slammed into Creel. Creel took the charge with a bit of struggle, digging his heels into the ground as he flashed into a bluish-white and shiny metal I recognized as osmium.

    A paper grocery bag of osmium would weigh as much as a car. Creel was a lot heavier than that.

    He came to stop very quickly. The Wendigo reared back, swinging a claw at him, and Creel flashed into his vibranium form, the claws bouncing against Creel''s body.

    I landed on a bookshelf and kept shooting at the Wendigo''s back, breathing and relaxing with every shot, though it was easy to hit such a big target. Portions of the Wendigo were sliced off with each shot, only for it to heal back instantly, leaving me growling in anger.

    "It''s just healing back!"

    "Not for long!" Creel punched the Wendigo in the face, shattering its teeth and sending it back.

    "Wen-digo," the monster giggled, only to gasp when Creel stepped forward and uppercut it in the stomach with a left, following with a right cross to the creatures face.

    The creature moved with sudden speed and wrapped a claw around Creel, spinning and tossing him aside.

    "Shit!" Creel shouted, getting sent flying through the air like a cannonball, tearing through several tables and bookshelves, tumbling through the air.

    The Wendigo turned to smile at me. "Wen-digooo."

    I glared, not willing to let this thing scare me and shot it in the chest from my spot on top of the bookshelves.

    A shot in the chest did nothing but nudge the creature a bit while leaving a quickly healing wound. It smiled even wider, fangs flashing, then slowly walking towards me. It didn''t move with the same speed as before, clearly wanting to enjoy this.

    I rolled my eyes, going for bravado even as tension made my voice a little squeaky. "You really think I''m scared of you? Black Widow is scarier."

    Seriously. WAY scarier.

    The Wendigo kept walking towards me as I shot it, barely moving as repulsor beams sliced off pieces of its body. I checked the Omnitrix. Still a solid red.

    "Fine," I said, glaring at my superpowered watch as it seemed to mock me with its red color. "I''ll do it myself."

    The Wendigo swiped at me. I jumped over it with a yell that was part fear and part anger, flipping in the air and putting my rifle away to grab the Model 3. The handle attached to my wrist in mid-air, then snapped a blade outwards and around my wrist, becoming a sword. My other hand brought forth my shield in a smaller and more manageable form as I landed behind to Wendigo, staring up at it with a glare from beneath my helmet.

    "Come on then asshole!" I yelled, trying to psych myself up to fight something twice my height.

    The Wendigo spun and slashed at me with blinding speed. I barely blocked the attack on my shield and was sent flying across the floor with my feet skittering on the pavement until I hit a desk, shattering it. Still standing with my shield raised, I ducked under a blow from the Wendigo and slashed at its stomach with all of my suits speed, cutting a deep line into its gray underbelly that began to heal immediately. The Wendigo snarled, raising a fist up and swinging it down at me like a hammer. I spun away from the blow and swung my sword into that arm, slicing it off. As the arm went flying in a spray of red that soaked my blade and the Wendigo''s fur, the creature screamed.

    "WEN-DIGOOOOO!"

    Howling in pain, it unleashed a blind swipe that sent me flying. I flipped through the air uncontrollably, my force-field barely holding after a Hulk level attack, then lost my shields completely when I slammed into the stone ceiling above with a cratering smash.

    "Ahhhh!" I yelled. Groaning in pain, I stared down at the Wendigo, who was glaring up at me while his arm slowly grew back. Because of course, his arms could grow back. Oh, and it was licking at the blood pouring out of its still leaking arm because it was a freak. My HUD sent me damage reports, showing that several dozens of the catoms in my armor had been obliterated, but I could still fight. Growling, I pressed my feet against the ceiling as I began to fall and pushed off towards the Wendigo, activating my jumpjets to give me a boost. The Wendigo jumped up towards me.

    I hit him sword first, slamming into his chest. It roared, spinning in the air to hold me close. We hit the ground hard, the Wendigo still impaled on my sword, but also on top of me. He pressed into me, clawing at my shield as I held it up, depleting my force fields and clawing at me.

    "You smell like shit!" I yelled up at the musty creature.

    "Wen-digo..." It leaned down and tried to take a bit out of my face, teeth scratching at my helmet. The movement of its jaws made my neck muscles hurt as it pulled at my head.

    "Aaahhgh!" I screamed in pain and fear, struggling with it, kicking at his thighs. I was breathing fast, my HUD sending me flashing alarms about the damage I was taking while my heartbeat skyrocketed with fear and adrenaline. "Get off of me!"

    I let go of my shield, grabbed my handgun from my thigh holster, and pressed the gun to the creatures head, firing bullets at point blank range into his face, my helmet muffling the sound as the bullets hit the Wendigo. While the bullets bounced off his head, the Wendigo released my helmet from my jaws and rose off me with a whine of pain. My sword was pulled out of his chest with a ''Schlick'' sound.

    I rose up and kept shooting my handgun, putting it away once I was on my feet. I was panting hard as I rubbed at my helmet, wiping away his saliva. "You bastard."

    He smiled sadistically, scratching his claws at the floor.

    Then Creel came in with a haymaker that sent the Wendigo back.

    I fell to a knee, trying to catch my breath. "The hell took you so long!?"

    Seriously, thank god my armor was so good. I could still fight, and the catoms were functioning, but fighting a Hulk strong monster is always a damn grating prospect.

    "He threw me into another room!" Creel grumbled, stepping forward. "Why didn''t you change into the tiger or something?"

    "Because the Omnitrix is still-" I was cut off when it turned green mid-sentence. "Oh you did that on purpose," I grumbled at the Omnitrix, opening it up as Creel hit the Wendigo with another punch. Then I found myself blinking at the hologram that popped up, flipping through the menu to confirm what I was seeing. "...When did I get these two!?"

    "Hey!" Creel yelled, getting lifted and thrown.

    I discarded the thought, flipping to one of the aliens. "Guess this guy''s in theme," I mumbled, pressing down on the Omnitrix. "It''s Hero Time!"

    Electricity surrounded my form. My muscles grew outwards, exploding. Growths similar to stitches appeared across my biceps, stomach, face, and back. Two large Tesla coil-shaped pillars of organic metal grew from my shoulder blades pointing straight up while another two grew out my lower back pointing at the floor as three smaller discs showed up on my stomach. My hair was still in a ponytail, but it had gotten longer, while my beard had gotten shorter. My skin changed to green as I rose to my full height, and I grinned.

    "Frankenstrike!"

    Green lightning fell from nowhere to hit the metal pillars on my body, sending a surge of power into my muscles and bones. I grinned, my green eyes flashing with lightning as I met eyes with the Wendigo while a surprised Creel looked on. When I spoke, it was in a voice tinged with lightning, reverberating from vocal cords that would have been considered damaged by human standards.

    "You know what they say about he who fights monsters," I raised a hand filled with electricity. "They become them!"

    Green lightning flew from my hand to slam into the Wendigo, sending it back to hit the concrete walls behind it.

    "Hey Creel?" I asked, walking up to him while electricity danced around my form. "Wanna try something cool?"

    Still confused, he nodded.

    The Wendigo, snarling with rage, struggled to rise, only to blink when he saw us.

    Creel was grimacing in pain from where he was floating in a bubble of lightning but still managed a smirk in his metal form. I held him aloft on magnetic and electric power over my head, power flowing from the four metal Tesla type coil things on my back to hold Creel up. Green bolts surrounded us like a forest, and one crashed down in front of us.

    "Might as well say it," I said with a grin, raising my arms over my head as Creel curled into a ball. "Fastball..." I threw my arms down, the thrust them towards the Wendigo, launching Creel forward. Electricity flowed through me, gathering in my hands as I lowered my hands into a classic Kamehameha pose. "Railgun!"

    Creel, held in a wave of electromagnetic power, disappeared in a blur. In science, electromagnetic weapons could launch metallic objects at speeds of up to Mach 8.8 with ease. Creel was too heavy for me to be able to do that without some prep time.

    KABOOM!

    That said, the sonic boom that sent me stumbling back was gratifying. But not as much as Creel embedded deep in the Wendigo''s chest, blood pouring around his fists as they flew into a concrete wall and disappeared past it into another room, sending concrete dust everywhere. The force of the sonic boom destroyed even more tables and desks around us, sending wood, metal, plastic, paper, and glass flying in a circle away from all three of us.

    I rushed after them and found they''d landed in a room full of old laboratory equipment. The Wendigo was rising up, three deep holes in its body that were healing more slowly than they had before.

    "Yeah," I said with a grin at the beast of sorcery. "Screw magic. Give me science any day."

    "WEN-DI-Oof!" Creel punched the Wendigo in the face, sending it back. Creel unleashed a series of quick and powerful blows, driving the creature back with sheer boxing technique alone. When the Wendigo swiped at him, Creel was forced to back off.

    Then I blasted it with electricity. The spikes in its body gave me a perfect target, allowing me the attack it with all the lightning I had. I laughed as pure power filled my veins before flowing out and electrocuting my opponent. I let up to allow Creel to get some hits in, then blasted the Wendigo again. "It''s alive!" I cried out, laughing in a voice of lightning and damaged vocal cords. "IT''S ALIVE! HAHAHAHA!"

    Yeah, I''ve seen way too many movies. On the plus side, Bucky was going to love this.

    The Wendigo roared, falling down to its knees and glaring at us despite the hundreds of thousands of volts burning its fur off, charring its flesh and leaving a smell in the air of burnt fur, ozone, and grilled meat. The creature roared once more, the sound somehow twisting like a scream, and scratched at the floor, trying to reach us. Portions of its face burned away, revealing a blackened skull, only to heal back again.

    I stopped the electricity, and Creel stepped forward once more. He didn''t let up this time. He gave the Wendigo a left, a right, then kicking it in the chest, hard.

    The Wendigo fell on the floor. Creel and I stared at its silent form. Then, slowly, it struggled up again.

    "Oh, come on!" Creel yelled, annoyed.

    Seriously, if it wasn''t for my advanced equipment, the Omnitrix, and Creel''s powers, the Wendigo would have torn us apart with us being unable to touch it, and healing from anything that could injure it. As it was, we had one problem.

    "What do we need to do to actually take this thing down without killing him?" I thought for a moment, staring at the large and furry bastard. The Wendigo was a monster, and I could tear it apart with Creel''s help. But not without killing it. According to what little I knew about the Wendigo curse, it was also an innocent person, unable to fight against the things forcing it to attack. This wasn''t the human''s fault, all of this death. I wasn''t willing to kill someone for the monster they''d been forced to turn into. Be a bit hypocritical of me... Then I came to a realization. "Creel, lead it out here!"

    I turned and ran out of the hole Creel and Wendigo had created.

    "How the hell am I supposed to- ah, hell with it!" Creel ran after me. "Come on, follow me you B movie reject!"

    The Wendigo roared weakly, moving with less speed, but still chasing us. It giggled, spasming from the electric shock still running through it. Even then, I could still see the burns on its body were healing, and much more slowly than the other wounds had. I entertained the idea of simply burning it, either with electricity or by turning into Swampfire. But the goal wasn''t to kill it. Waiting across it, Creel and I stood, both of us knowing the plan as we lingered near its former cage.

    "Come on!" Creel roared, clapping hands of steel together. "Come on!"

    "WEN-DIGO!" The monster cried in challenge, running towards us with the same surprising speed as before, it''s eye glowing with rage.

    Creel stepped forward, grunting as he turned into osmium to take the charge. I stepped forward and raised a massive fist enveloped in lightning, punching the Wendigo in the face. The giant creature stood up and swung its right claw, cutting into my chest and throwing me back. Creel kicked the Wendigo''s leg, forcing it to kneel, only to get picked up. I wasn''t sure how much Creel weighed in his osmium form besides a shit-ton, but the Wendigo still lifted him and threw him at me. I leaped over the form of my friend as he crushed the steel cage''s bars. With a bit of concentration, my feet were magnetized to the side of the cage, allowing me to stand against the side of the bars like Spider-Man. The Wendigo stepped forward, clawing at me, but I leaped over his arm and punched him with an electro-fist again, giving him a cross, then an uppercut, before grunting when the Wendigo hit me back, sending me back into the cage.

    The Wendigo came closer. Close enough that he couldn''t run or escape.

    I pushed my power into the cage, bending the bars with a crunch of steel and a buzz of electricity. The bars bent to my will as the Wendigo rushed us. Then Creel stepped past its swinging claws and grabbed the furred killers waist.

    "Raagh!" Creel twisted his waist, throwing the Wendigo into the hole I''d bent into the cage.

    As the Wendigo fell into the cage, I roared. "Raaaggggh!"

    The cages bars bent back into position. The Wendigo, seeing it was back in its cage, panicked, rushing towards the still open door.

    Creel walked around the cage as I stood on the top, watching the Wendigo desperately fit its head through the door... and nothing else. It scratched at the bars.

    "Wen-digo, wen-digooooo!" he screamed, shoulders pressing up against the door.

    "You''ve put on some weight," Creel noted. "Bit bigger than the last time you were in there. That''s the problem with over-eating. Can''t move as well as you used too."

    With that, Creel transformed into a dark-colored metal and punched the Wendigo hard, forcing it back.

    I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my chest.

    "Diamondhead!"

    Now that the Wendigo couldn''t simply leap away, I fired my crystals like bullets around the perimeter of the cage. They stabbed into the concrete and began to grow. The Wendigo, watching as crystals began to surround it, panicked, trying to jump away, only to bounce off the walls of the cage. I stumbled slightly but kept my focus.

    "Wen-digooooooooo!" With that final howl, the cage was surrounded in solid crystals, trapped once and for all. I kept them going, digging under the cage until a large cube of blue-green surrounded it. The Wendigo could still be heard somewhat on the inside desperately trying to break through its new crystal cage with no success.

    Once done, Creel tapped the crystal. "Nice."

    "Diamondhead construction, for all your indestructible building needs," I quipped, dropping to the floor next to Creel.

    "Maybe you should open with that next time?" Creel asked as I stood next to him.

    "Did you see how fast that thing was?" I asked. "I had to contain it somehow. Besides, Frankenstrike did damn well."

    Creel nodded, though he did give me an odd look. "So... there are aliens that look like Frankenstein?"

    "There are aliens that look like a lot of things," I answered simply. "We''d be here all day if I named all of them."

    Isabelle Hartley/Warrior

    Isabelle watched as the Army roamed around, carrying blankets and helping people. It was only a few of them, those who had been on their way from the moment they''d attacked, and only enough to make sure things were clear. More people would be on their way soon, as well as medical and psychological help. A general, an older white man with dark blonde hair and brown eyes walked up to her and Sam.

    "How the hell did you find these freaks?" The general asked bluntly.

    Isabelle decided she didn''t like him.

    "Sir," Sam said calmly, eyes narrowed. "These people were imprisoned. Tortured. And have been the subject of gruesome and illegal experimentation that had them in much worse states before you got here. They are not ''freaks'', they are victims."

    The general stared at Sam, before grimacing. "Fine. But how did you find this place, anyway?"

    "Classified, general," Sam said, placing his hands behind his back. "We appreciate the assistance, and BRIDGE is sending people to aid in the transition. Please, tell your people to treat everyone kindly, and keep them from engaging with them until they can speak with therapists and BRIDGE personnel."

    The general growled, apparently angered at being dismissed, before turning to walk away briskly.

    Sam sagged slightly once the general left, leaning in towards Isabelle. "I''m really not cut out for this."

    "You''re doing fine," Isabelle grinned, her helmet down so Sam could see it. "What, not having fun being Captain America''s Protege?"

    "Less protege, more punching bag," Sam said, looking around. "We need to keep an eye out on these people, I think-"

    "Falcon!" The comms said. "It''s Mockingbird, can you send Warrior? We''re in the right hallway from the elevator."

    Sam blinked. "Yeah, you need more reinforcements?"

    "Well," the sound of gunfire could be heard. "Just Izzy is fine. The boys are fighting the big one."

    Giving Isabelle a look of confusion that she returned, Sam gestured for her to go. "She''s on her way."

    Isabelle ran out of the door, ducking around some of the still arriving army personnel, and activating her helmet. She moved as quickly as her superhuman armor and the tight hallway allowed, going into the indicated hallway and sprinting full speed.

    As she heard bullets and explosions ahead of her, Isabelle reached for her Model 3, a short blade popping out of the handle. She noted the destroyed vault door on the floor, running over it and entering the room beyond, stopping only for a moment to stare.

    "Robots," Isabelle blinked. "Mack would hate this."

    Then she was ducking a slow punch at her head. Isabelle stabbed outward with her sword, slicing deep into the attacking drones heart, then blocking another drone''s punch with her arm. She pulled her knife out of the first drones chest to stab the other in the head, sighing in satisfaction at finally fighting someone again.

    "Hey!" Bobbi shouted. "Help Rhodey!"

    Isabelle looked at Bobbi, who was shooting drones with her Model 2, which was shaped like a small submachine gun, next to Bucky, who was firing on something across the room. Isabelle gaped at it when she realized what it was.

    A giant, tall machine was wrestling with War Machine, trying to fight the more advanced robot. Rhodey lifted the massive robot and tossed it back, shooting it once he had some room, but only putting holes in the Frankenstein-like combination of different robots. Isabelle sprinted forward, her Model 3 becoming a broadsword, and blocked the right arm, noting the sparking whip dangling from the forearm before she raised her broadsword and hacked down into it, slicing deep into metal and purple flesh. The robot reached its other hand to attack her when War Machine stepped in, flicking his hand.

    A long blade made of catoms formed from the left arm bracer of War Machine. Rhodey blocked the left arm of the giant machine and punched his blade into his opponent''s chest. The left arm sparked, trying to activate repulsors but not having the power to. Isabelle raised her sword once more and swung, removing the right arm of the robot.

    A drone tried to attack her, but she kicked it back and decapitated it, grinning wildly. "Oh, this is just too fun!"

    "Focus," Bucky said, ripping the arm off a drone and firing automatic fire into the chest of another one.

    Bobbi flipped over the attack of another robot, this one with pale green across the metal of its body, and fired her submachine gun into it before stabbing it in the chest with her baton.

    Back with the massive robot, Rhodey pulled his sword out of its chest before swiping upwards, his sword slicing through metal and flesh to remove the other arm.

    Isabelle sliced at the machine waist, grunting when she stopped halfway. She yelled out, pushing once more, and tore out the other side in a spray of green and purple blood and black oil that sprayed across the pair. The machine toppled over, legs kicking. Rhodey was sent back a step by one of the kicks, grunting at the impact. He raised his gauntlet, the sword poking out of it shining.

    Suddenly all of the robots were falling to the ground, lights going out across the room.

    "Drones disabled," X said over the comms. "Thank you for your patience. Ivan Vanko had quite an interesting security system in place."

    Isabelle growled, kicking at the giant robot. "Damn it. Couldn''t you have taken a bit longer?" Isabelle joked.

    "That would have been inefficient. Plus, I pride myself on being good at this," X said.

    Isabelle sighed, swinging her sword to decapitate the now dead robot. "At least I got some kind of fight."

    A group of HYDRA scientists and soldiers ran through their hallways, trying to escape as the sounds of the Wendigo battling their enemies echoed, running faster when the sounds stopped.

    "You think they killed it?" A soldier whispered.

    "Like hell," another soldier whispered. "It must have killed them. We need to get out of here."

    "The exits not far," one of the scientists whispered hastily. "We just-"

    A blue blur sped into the hallway.

    "Cont-" the soldier who had been yelling was punched by a tall man with silver skin.

    In a few moments, the scientists were knocked out, leaving Fasttrack and Creel standing over them. Like that, it was over.

 34 Chapter 34

    "Sounds like you guys had an eventful mission," Skye said later that night after everyone had been round up. It was just the two of us in the lounge of Avengers Tower at the bar, me with a milkshake and her with some alcohol as we leaned against the bar together. I was wearing some clothes Pepper and Tony had loaned me, which meant a red shirt with an Iron Man helmet in gold in the center, and some designer blue jeans that had to be worth more than a months salary when I was doing construction. Skye wore a brown button-up shirt and a pair of denim short-shorts and was giving me a smirk.

    "It really was," I rubbed at my forehead leaning over the bar. "Seriously, the other groups didn''t have to fight anything at all besides HYDRA soldiers. Meanwhile, our team fought gamma tigers, zombie robots, and a god damn Wendigo."

    "At least you saved a lot of people," Skye said, leaning in towards me.

    "Yeah... yeah, we did," I smiled a bit. "BRIDGE is taking them in to look them over, test them, figure out who has powers, who has family waiting for them, help the ones who the Omnitrix couldn''t fix, all that stuff... I''m keeping an eye on them though. Or, X is keeping an eye on them. Jarvis too."

    "You don''t trust BRIDGE?" Skye asked, taking a sip of whatever she''d chosen while resting her head in her hands.

    "I trust they''ll try to do the right thing," I responded. "But three hundred people and animals were down there, a lot of them with powers. Easy to lose track of them... so, just in case."

    "Huh," Skye looked at me, and I sighed. "So, the Wendigo... What was that thing?"

    "According to files, HYDRA didn''t know anything beyond that they picked it up from the Canadian wilderness. And everyone looked at me funny when I suggested magic."

    "Wait, really?" Skye asked, grinning.

    "We live in a world with gods of thunder, super-soldiers, and, well, me," I said simply. "Magic, no matter if it can be explained by science or not, isn''t out of the question anymore," I took a sip of my milkshake, hiding my thoughts on the people I''d tried to get in contact with. "For now, the Wendigo is getting transported to the prison we''ve been building."

    "The Raft," Skye said. "Is it even finished?"

    "Some of it is," I said. "Enough to hold him. He''ll be one of the first prisoners. As for the scientists and soldiers, they''re getting interrogated. So, I guess today went well."

    "Hell, I''ll drink to that," Skye tapped her drink to mine. We sipped for a bit. I wondered, for a moment, about if I should get some sleep or not when Skye spoke again. "You know, um... Ward and I. We used to do this. Talk about missions and stuff. Before he was killed."

    "...What happened?" I tentatively asked.

    "John Garrett," Skye leaned against the bar, her eyes on her drink. "He told Ward to hold off anyone stopping his escape. Coulson tried to stop Garrett, and..."

    "I''m sorry," I said sadly.

    "What for?" Skye said with a sour laugh. "He betrayed us. It''s not like he was ever really our friend."

    "He may not have been yours," I said softly. "I never met Ward. Never got to know him... But I think you were his. And that it sucks, knowing that everything he said could have been a lie."

    "It was a lie," Skye hissed, looking at me with a glare. "He just, spent months with us, pretending he was our friend, that he cared, just to give it all to HYDRA!"

    She stopped for a moment, looking at me. "I thought he was my friend... More than that. And all along, he was using me."

    I didn''t know what to say. Damnit, I wish I was good at this sort of thing. "Look, I just know you. So I can''t speak for or against this guy. He was an asshole, I''m betting. But it probably still hurts, having to look back at all the times he was nice or kind and having to reassess them," I rubbed the back of my head. "I''m just... Skye, I can''t tell you how to deal with what he did, except that John Garrett is probably the only person alive with real answers."

    Skye blinked at that. Then she seemed thoughtful.

    Before I could say anything else, the Omnitrix began to ring for an incoming communication. I raised it up and tapped it.

    "Dial," Natasha said. "I need you at the Enterprise. Bruce''s cousin, Jennifer Walters, has been kidnapped."

    "...Oh shit," Skye and I said in unison.

    I got up and ran to the windows, heading for the balcony. "Does he know?"

    "Not yet," Natasha answered. "We''re keeping the information compartmentalized for now."

    "Have him meet me in the Defiant," I said, swinging my catom backpack on. "I''ll tell him."

    "Are you sure?" Natasha said. "Bruce has control over the Other Guy most days, but when he finds out about this-"

    "There are only a few people who can take on the Hulk," I replied. "One is Creel, whose asleep. The other is Thor, who isn''t answering my calls," Natasha snorted at that. "The last one is me."

    I turned to look at Skye, who''d rushed after me. "Sorry we couldn''t talk more, Skye."

    "No biggie," Skye brushed her hair behind her head and smiled at me. "You still owe me that suit of armor though. I''m getting jealous of Pepper."

    "Raincheck," my backpack grew, becoming a simple flightpack rather than my full armor. It wouldn''t let me fly for long, let alone with any maneuverability, but it would let me get up the Helicarrier above. "Talk more tomorrow?"

    "If you have time," Skye grinned. "See ya, superhero."

    I gave her a grin, then launched into the sky. As I rocketed towards the helicarrier, my smile began to fade. HYDRA had kidnapped Jennifer. Most likely to make her this universe''s She-Hulk. Bruce was going to be pissed. Guess it was time for something impulsive.

    I looked down at the Omnitrix thoughtfully.

    January 17th, 2014

    In the early morning over the deserts of Colorado, Bruce looked over at me from the co-pilots seat of the Defiant. "You finally going to tell me what this is about? Natasha told me you needed my help with something secret."

    "I do," I told him calmly, flying towards a plateau, the large brown mountain looking very pretty in the sunlight. "Something has happened, and I think we need to talk. I have some suspicions, and if I''m right... we need to deal with it."

    "Okay, what is it?" Bruce asked. I didn''t answer. "Mahmoud? Seriously, what is going on?"

    "...Something bad happened, Bruce. Natasha gave me all the information before you came to the Quinjet, and the other Avengers are getting contacted."

    "Oh," Bruce winced. "Is it HYDRA? Did they send Blonsky? Is it a... is it a Code: Green?"

    I took my right hand off the control to rub my eyes, only to grab it again when the Defiant shifted slightly. "God, I''m tired. Look, I''m going to land us real quick, do you mind?"

    Bruce nodded, still looking confused.

    I moved the Defiant to fly over the plateau, landing on the flat top. The back door opened and I walked over to exit the Quinjet, Bruce hurriedly following me out. We walked for a bit across the stone and dirt.

    "Mahmoud," Bruce said. I stopped. "What is going on?"

    "...I brought you out here for two reasons. First, it''s offer to help you and Hulk find some sort of equilibrium."

    "Mahmoud, I told you-" Bruce began to say, annoyed.

    "Emil Blonsky is a trained killer, and he''s no longer testing his powers," I turned to look at Bruce, still wearing my Iron Man shirt and armor backpack. "That woman who kidnapped Sharon and Trip is proof they have even more gamma-enhanced individuals fighting alongside them."

    "Can''t you just cure them?" Bruce asked. "You did to the people in the Graveyard."

    There was an unspoken accusation to his words. If I could that for those people, why couldn''t I do the same for him?

    "Omnitrix, repair Bruce Banner''s DNA," I said simply.

    The Omnitrix beeped, and my voice came from it. "Unable to comply. Bruce Banner''s DNA is undamaged."

    "Are you kidding me?" Bruce asked, stepping forward and glaring at the Omnitrix with anger in his eyes, his neck a slightly lime-like color. "What does that mean?"

    "We talked about it before Bruce," I reminded him. "The Gamma Gene. That little bit of DNA that lets you transform into the Hulk, rather than dying or becoming a genetic monster."

    "I''m already a genetic monster!" Bruce stepped to glare at me. I tried to stay calm.

    "You''re not a monster, Bruce. You and Hulk have both shown that you can be in control, that you can do some good. But the people in the warehouse weren''t like that or the animals. The way I heard it, some of them had spent years in pain, growing random mutations across their bodies, bones and muscle getting exposed. Compared to them, you got off lucky, Bruce."

    He seemed to deflate at that. I watched him turn with his hands on his hips, breathing deeply.

    "...Bruce. The Gamma gene. There''s more to it... It might be hereditary."

    He turned to look at me, brow furrowed. "Yeah, I know."

    "As in people in your family might have it. People like Jennifer," Bruce stared at me, uncomprehending. I tried to figure out how to say what needed to be said. I went for blunt. "I''m not the only who thought of that, Bruce. Sterns did too. Sharon and Trip, yesterday? That was just the start. HYDRA has Jennifer Walters. And I think Sterns is going to turn her into a gamma-enhanced."

    His eyes widened, his breath came out in a soft blast of air. He stumbled back in horror. "No. No, nonono-"

    "Bruce, she''s going to be all right," I said gently. "We''re going to work to find her, I just want you to be ready for the fact that Sterns may be-"

    "NO!"

    Bruce''s voice changed, becoming a deep and booming echo of sound. He went to his knees and slammed his hands against the plateau. The earth shook. He grabbed at the ground, his eyes wild with rage and panic. Not enough.

    "He''s going to change her!" I yelled, stumbling as the whole mountain shuddered from his strike. "To make her a Hulk!"

    His shirt began to rip. His eyes glared up at me. I kept talking, my Omnitrix already at the ready. "And when Blonsky has a Hulk of his own, your cousin, to fight against, what is he going to do? He''ll see her as practice, someone he can hurt until he can get to you!"

    Bruce stopped growing. He stared at me. For just a moment, I wondered if I''d gone too far. If I''d failed.

    "Jennifer... Jennifer!"

    He got to his feet and stared at his arms as they exploded in size, changing from his tanned brown to a familiar shade of green. He screamed, raising his hands into the sky, his shirt and shoes exploding away from him. He grew in height and weight, muscles growing to insane sizes. The transformation looked... rough. Painful. I thought it would be like when I transformed. But there was something raw and horrific in Bruce''s change.

    Then it was done. Bruce Banner was gone, and the Hulk stared down at me. The eight-foot-tall, muscular, green, and extremely pissed off badass gamma monster. He eyed me, rising up with a growl, and clenched his fists with an audible crack.

    Well, mission accomplished... yay?

    "Raagh!"

    Hulk threw a punch at me, a slow and lazy one that told me he just wanted me to back away. At least, slow and lazy for him.

    "Oh shit!" I ducked, feeling the wind from his giant green fist fly past. Holy crap, was he fast or what? I raised a hand up and leaped back. "Hulk, Jennifer needs your help! But you need to work with Bruce!"

    He roared, a mindless, unthinking sound of rage. I grimaced when he leaped away rather than listen to me. I ran to the edge of the plateau to see him jumping across the desert.

    "Okay, fine," I activated the Omnitrix, raising the watches dial lift up as the hologram floated over the watches face. "Percussive therapy..." I found myself grinning. "Gotta say, I''ve wanted to see this fight since I was a kid!" I slammed down on the Omnitrix. It was a risk, but... for this alien, it was just the right thing to do for my first transformation into him. Along with a certain battlecry. "Going Hero!"

    My skin changed color, going from brown to a deep red as two new eyes grew beneath my original set. My Iron Man shirt became a black and white striped muscle t-shirt, stretching out as my biceps, my chest, everything expanded with layer upon layer of muscles and my body grew in height, taller and taller. My ponytail became longer, while the rest of my hair disappeared. My five toes became two talons, and the backs of my forearms grew large spikes as my smooth skin became thicker and tougher. Then, two bulges grew out of my oblique muscles, before exploding outwards becoming arms as massive and powerful as my other ones, golden armbands wrapping around my four wrists. I extended them, raising the two new arms with my other ones, and cried out with all the power in my superhuman lungs.

    "FOURARMS!"

    The plateau cracked beneath my feet at the shockwave caused by my voice. I grinned. "Oh yeah! Let''s go wild!"

    I leaped, whooping with joy as the wind rushed past me. My four arms extended outwards into the morning sky. I landed hundreds of feet later, my feet digging deep imprints on the desert floor, and jumped again, cratering the wasteland below.

    Hulk had a head start, so I moved quickly to catch up with him. The two of us jumped over and over, covering miles in leaps.

    I jumped one more time, aiming for Hulk at the apex of his leap. "Hulk!" I yelled wrapping all of my arms around his waist from behind. He roared in anger as the two of us fell from the sky for hundreds of meters. We crashed into the side of a mountain, sending dust and rocks flying as it cratered under our giant forms.

    "Ggraaagh!" Hulk spun around, punching me into the air. I grunted at the impact, spinning in the air for a while before hitting the desert at high velocity. I ground into the earth for a long while, finally coming to a stop after leaving a trench. I blinked as I laid in the large amount of dirt I''d kicked up.

    "Huh... didn''t hurt. He must be going easy on me."

    The booming sound of something landing nearby brought my four eyes to look at the Hulk, who had landed in the trench I''d made. He glared across at me. With a grunt, I lifted myself up.

    And up. And up, until I towered over him. I blinked, surprised. Hulk was around eight and a half feet tall. Which meant he was up to my waist in height.

    "Wow. I didn''t know I''d be so much taller than you," I mused.

    He took offense to that. "Gragh!"

    I got punched in the jaw, hard. I stepped back under the impact, my right foot stepping back to stop me from falling. I blinked my four eyes. Then I narrowed them. "Okay..."

    I rose and punched Hulk in the face with my upper right arm. He fell to his knees, a shockwave flying through the air at the impact of my fist on his jaw. The Unfriendly Green Giant spat out a tooth, roared in rage, and leaped at me. I roared back, taking his next punch before we began to brawl.

    Director Maria Hill of BRIDGE

    "Where did they go?" Maria demanded as Natasha and Steve followed her through the halls of the Enterprise. Maria wore her blue uniform, while Natasha and Steve chose to instead dress in navy blue t-shirts with BRIDGE logos across the chest and military pants.

    "Dial said he wanted to tell him in a location far from any civilians," Natasha said. "But he used the Defiant''s cloaking system to keep us from tracking him and his comms are off deliberately. Whatever he''s doing, he wants privacy."

    "We can''t bypass it?" Maria asked, frustrated.

    "The Defiant is the most advanced ship on the planet," Steve reminded her. "Tony said he''s going to try and track it, but..." Steve sounded like he was amused, frustrated, and happy all at once.

    "Tony says he trusts Dial," Natasha said.

    Maria shook her head, her ponytail waving with the motion. "Look, I get Tony likes his little proteges, but Dial can''t just kidnap our most emotionally unstable Avenger and take him to the middle of nowhere without letting us know about it."

    "Tony says Dial has a plan," Natasha said with a shrug.

    "A plan to do what?" Maria asked.

    "To help Banner control the Hulk," Tony walked around the corner, joining the three. He wore a shirt that made Maria blink in surprise, a black one with Dial''s logo in the center. "Remember the TV Dial made?" TV was the codeword for the dimensional viewer, to keep eavesdroppers from knowing anything about it. "Some of the channels gave him an idea, showed him some solutions. He''s betting on the Omnitrix making those solutions possible."

    "Tony," Steve said softly. "We need to know where he is."

    "I''ve got X and Jarvis working on it," Tony said dismissively. "In the meantime, we have other problems."

    Maria grimaced. "He''s right. I''ve transferred the prisoners the Reserve Avengers rescued moved to a facility Fury gave us. It''s called the Playground. We''ll be using it to train and help any superhumans we find from now on."

    "What are they like?" Steve asked, worried.

    "Scared," Maria said simply. The four stopped in a room with a large table in it. "It varies, but that''s the general feeling between them all. We''re still finding out where they''re from. Some aren''t even American, so now I''m worried about the immigration fanatics getting on my ass."

    "Is that a real concern?" Steve asked incredulously.

    "You really aren''t the political sort, are you?" Maria asked. "And don''t forget the animals with powers, people have been asking about them."

    "We going to start the Pet Avengers?" Tony quipped.

    "Our first priority should be protecting everyone," Steve said firmly, everyone ignoring Tony''s joke. The billionaire didn''t seem to care.

    "A lot of these people are as strong as you are, or have some limited form of Creel''s abilities," Natasha said. "We already know China and Russia have made inquiries to be allowed to ''take in'' their citizens, despite the fact some of the ones they''ve named actually are US citizens. People in the US government are doing the same thing, asking to study the people we''ve found. The fact is, we just got hundreds of super-soldiers of varying quality for free."

    "And most of them just want normal lives," Maria eyed the group. "When we made BRIDGE, this was one of the reasons. To protect both worlds. We''ll do that, no matter the cost. You understand?"

    "Yeah, yeah, hoorah and all that," Tony said. Despite his dismissive tone, he seemed to approve. "You said most of them?"

    "...Some of them have asked to join BRIDGE," Maria said.

    The three Avengers blinked at that. Maria smirked. "I''m thinking of taking them up on it. We still need to figure everything out first. In the meantime, there''s what your team discovered. Not as... flashy, as what the Reserve Avengers discovered, but it may have given us another target. In the meantime, Natasha, you have someone to talk to."

    "Director?" a woman said from the door. The group turned to see Victoria Hand standing with Falcon. The Reserve Avengers leader gave everyone a smile, Steve and Natasha returning it while Tony gave him a wave. "We''ve got the interrogation with Hale."

    Maria nodded, turning back to the others. "Tony, you work on tracking down Dial and Bruce. Natasha, get to your appointment. Steve, meet up with Fury and work on what all the teams found. We are going to hit another HYDRA facility as soon as possible. In the meantime, I want us to be ready to mobilize the next time HYDRA tries to take one of ours. They try it again, we stop them all."

    With that, they broke off, Sam and Hand following Maria. As Maria walked, she tried to relax.

    "I feel the same way sometimes," Sam said.

    Maria looked at him, surprised. "What..."

    "Being a leader, after spending your time following... it''s hard," he said in a low voice. Hand stepped further away, the pink stripped woman apparently realizing it was a moment for privacy. "Not to mention the people we''re in charge of now, some of them just insanely more powerful than us... I''ve been faking it as best as I can, personally. You seem to be doing a lot better than I am."

    Maria almost stopped walking. Since becoming Director, she''d worked hard not to show how... overwhelmed, she was now. All the new things coming at her that she had to deal with personally, HYDRA, new technology, new superhumans, new laws, paperwork so insane she could barely handle it. She was dealing, sleeping a few hours a night to keep in top form, but... she didn''t realize she''d been showing the exhaustion she''d been feeling.

    "I only noticed because I feel the same way," Sam said, apparently reading her mind. He smiled. "Well, kind of. In a really small way. But you''re doing fine if you ask my sorry ass."

    Maria bit her lip, thinking. "...Thank you, Sam. I appreciate that."

    They got to their destination, and Maria walked in without hesitation. "Hale."

    "Hill," the older woman responded, smiling in her white prison uniform. "Ah, and this must be one of your new superheroes."

    "Sup," Sam said, standing tall in his full armor.

    "We''re here about the Graveyard," Maria said, sitting down across from Hale. "About everything we found there."

    Hale frowned. "It should have just been failed experiment. Dead bodies and destroyed machinery."

    "It was more than that," Maria said with a frown. "Sam?"

    Sam explained what his team had found. Maria watched Hale carefully, watching as she paled, frowned, and suddenly became angry. Once finished speaking, Hale clenched her fists.

    "...They lied to me. Or just felt I didn''t need to know the full truth," Hale smirked. "Men. Always keeping secrets, looking down on women."

    Maria didn''t respond. Hale had shown resentment towards men before, seeing them as holding her back. Understandable, considering the misogyny Whitehall exhibited. She had a tendency to blame all her problems on it, to an illogical extent. Once again, an understandable reaction considering how HYDRA and the Air Force had treated her.

    "...Ruby?" Hale asked.

    "She''s in her first meeting," Maria said simply.

    Something seemed to ''pop'' inside Hale. Some kind of anxiety, a deep worry in her heart. She leaned back in her seat. "Okay. Then it''s time I told you everything about the Confederacy. I have a feeling you''ll need it."

    Frank Castle/Raven

    Frank Castle sat in a room in front of a table, his leg bouncing as he waited. The morning before, he''d been in Iraq, for the next mission. Next thing he knew, top brass had shown up and told him to pack up and move out. Then they''d taken him to a He was still dressed in his uniform, the green camo sweater and pants he always wore in his off time between missions. The military soldier sighed in annoyance, looking at the one-way mirror that dominated one side of the room. "You know, if you CIA assholes are going to drag me over here, the least you can do is actually talk to me."

    There was no response to his grumpy comment. He growled, staring at himself in the mirrored window. "Will you just-"

    The door opened. A man walked into the room, wearing a business suit. "Lieutenant Frank Castle," the man said with a smile.

    Frank was immediately on guard. While it had been a long time since he''d seen the asshole, this man reminded him of Agent Orange. A spy. "Who the fuck are you?"

    The man smiled. "Agent Phil Coulson. I work with BRIDGE, an organization that is continuing from SHIELD."

    Frank scoffed. "Yeah, I heard about you guys. The Avenger''s pet toys."

    Phil chuckled. "Not so much actually. We do work with them, but I don''t think that descriptor would work."

    Frank scoffed again, looking dismissively away from Phil. The agent sat across from the soldier and put a tablet on the table.

    "I must say, Lieutenant Castle, I had a hell of a time with your files. All I wanted to do was talk to you. But then, I had to deal with the CIA. Are you familiar with a man by the name of," he looked at his tablet, reading from it. "William J. Rawlins the Third?"

    Frank stared at Phil, nonplused. "How the hell should I know?"

    "Because you beat his eye out," Phil smirked. "I actually liked hearing about that. I''m not someone who takes pleasure in the pain of others, but everything we''ve uncovered tells us he deserved it."

    Nothing Phil could have told him would have surprised Frank Castle more.

    "Operation Cerberus," Phil continued. "Was an unsanctioned operation. We''re going through, taking out all the ringleaders. You, however, were pointed out for a potential recruitment for something more."

    Frank shook his head, crossing his arms. "No thanks."

    Phil blinked. "You haven''t even heard my offer."

    "Don''t want to hear it," Frank said simply.

    "You don''t want to go home?" Phil asked, sounding honestly confused.

    Frank stilled. "...what?"

    "Well, that''s what the job would have as one of the benefits. You fight the enemies of the world during the day, then go home at night," Phil passed Frank the tablet. "It''s part of our new Elite unit. Some of your old squad will be on it, once we find out who was tricked by Rawlins, or ''Agent Orange'', as he was called at the time," Phil chuckled. "You''ll get an increased salary, of course, better equipment, and-"

    "This damn thing goes how fast?" Frank asked, staring at the specs of one of the vehicles being described as standard equipment.

    "Escape velocity is one of the descriptors I''ve heard so far," Phil said. "But you should know about the current enemy we are fighting. HYDRA."

    "Nazi''s?" Frank asked, looking up.

    "Well, they don''t follow that doctrine anymore, mostly, but that is where they started. You''ll be working under Steve Rogers and the Avengers, aiding them in hunting down HYDRA."

    "...Let me get this straight," Frank put down the tablet and looked at Phil. "That asshole Agent Orange is getting arrested. You want me to join BRIDGE. I''d be able to see my family every night after work. Work which would be me hunting Nazi''s with Captain fucking America. That about right?"

    Phil frowned at the language but nodded. "Essentially, yes."

    "What''s the catch?"

    Phil sighed. "I won''t lie to you. You''ll be seeing a lot of combat, Lieutenant Castle. We''ve been fighting HYDRA for some time, and we may end up fighting them for even longer than that. This job... there won''t be too many times on the job when you won''t be fighting. Killing."

    Frank thought about that for a moment. "...Again. What''s the catch?"

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    My fist slammed into Bruce''s sending a shockwave outward that destroyed vegetation and stone nearby. No, it hit the Hulk''s fist. I couldn''t treat them as the same exactly. I had to do more.

    God, I had no idea if this would even work. What if this was all useless? For a moment, doubt filled me. Hulk hit me during my moment of hesitation, his fist hitting me in the ribs hard enough to send me into a boulder and shatter it beneath my bulk. I shook my head after a moment.

    No, trust the Omnitrix. Heck, maybe Allah had something to do with this. I had gained the brute force alien, then Jennifer had been kidnapped. It had to mean something.

    "Is that all you''ve got!?" I yelled, uppercutting Hulk with all four of my fists, sending him spinning into a mountain. I leaped after him, punching him deeper with a double right cross. "Jennifer is in trouble and this is all the power you can bring to save her!?"

    "GRAGH!" Hulk brought his feet up and kicked me in the chest, sending me up. I spun in the air and timed the moment for when he leaped towards me, his eyes wild. As soon as he was close enough, I reared back. When my fists hit his chest, time seemed to slow as the power gathered.

    BOOOOM!

    Time restarted and Hulk was yelling as he rocketed back towards the mountain, ripping through the top of it. I landed after a moment and jumped. A rockslide had started because of Hulk''s passage through the top of the mountain, making it sort of hard to reach the top.

    When I did, Hulk had gotten there as well. We eyed each other.

    "...Jennifer is being held by HYDRA," I told Hulk. His face lost the constant angry glare, changing into something more pitiful. "If you want to save her, you can''t just brawl! You and Bruce need to work together!"

    His anger returned. "NO BANNER! ONLY HULK!"

    Despite his negative response, I grinned. Hulk was talking.

    Then he leaped forward, punching me in the gut. I grunted at the impact, folding over his fist. Holy shit could he hit hard! He punched me in the face, leaping to get up high enough, then kept punching me, bringing me to my knees. I roared in pain as my back hit the floor, bring my arms up to block my face as he punched down at me.

    "HULK SAVE JENNY!" Hulk screamed. For all his rage, there was a desperation in his voice. As though, if he yelled and punched for long and hard enough, he could make it true.

    "Save her!?" I yelled, my massive arms blocking his, just as massive, fists. "How? Blonsky, Sterns, that gamma-enhanced woman, whatever else HYDRA can drum up! You can''t beat them all up, Hulk! Not alone! You and Bruce need to work together, to be smart and strong together!"

    "HULK NEEDS NO-" In mid-yell, I reached a hand up to wrap around his mouth, pulling him down to look into my four eyes.

    For a funny moment, his anger filled eyes bounced up and down from one set of my eyes to the other, confused which one to glare into. "How can you beat them, when you can''t even stop me?"

    I punched him with three fists. Then I kept on doing it, holding him in place as my fists drummed across his chest. The earth and air shook I around us, Hulk kicking at me as I held him in place and beat on him. Then I pushed him back, rising to tower over him as I panted. He looked up at me, his chest healing before my eyes.

    "I''m not a fighter, Hulk. Not really. But at least I can think beyond anger. I can plan, I can think and plan. You''re holding yourself back, both of you. Bruce won''t let you use your full power, and you won''t let him help you think things through. All you can do is punch and punch, the both of you struggling to hold onto control. Abomination doesn''t have that problem. Not even a bit."

    Hulk rose to his feet, staring at up at me. When he spoke again, it was with a pausing tone. He clearly wasn''t used to talking without screaming at the top of his lungs. "...You, jerk."

    I winced, realizing what a pontificating asshole I sounded like. "Sorry. It''s just... I saw other dimensions Hulk. When you and Bruce work together, you become something so powerful almost nothing can stop you. You''ve both gone through the same bullshit, been hurt by the same people... you both love Jennifer. We can save her. And I bet, based on your personality, you don''t want to just let someone else do it."

    "Hulk save Jenny..." he blinked, as though surprised by something. "B...Bruce, save Jenny."

    Oh thank god, my stupid impulsive plan had worked. "Then you guys have something you both want to fight for. Jennifer Walters. You work together, stop holding each other back, really fight, and Blonsky can''t beat you."

    Hulk scoffed, turning around and pacing for a bit. "You help Hulk?"

    "Like I can do that," I said with a sigh. "Bruce told me he learned meditation, to try to learn to control you."

    "HULK WON''T SLEEP!" He turned and walked towards me, fists clenched in rage.

    "I''m not telling you to sleep," I said, raising my four hands up. "We have some hours to ourselves. So instead of stopping the anger, we focus it. Focus on what you need to do. To get as mad as you can, and still have control! A tranquil fury."

    "Talk too much," Hulk grumbled, yawning dramatically.

    That surprised me so much I laughed. He was more like a big kid when he wasn''t in combat! "Yeah, I do! How about this?" I slammed two fists into to palms, grinning with slightly fanged teeth. "Let''s fight, while you and Bruce try to work together! We''ll go for as long as we can, or at least until someone finds us. And if it works, you can beat down Blonsky, show HYDRA and anyone else what happens the next time they try to hurt your family."

    Hulk seemed to think about that for a moment.

    Boom!

    Then his fist was slamming into mine as he grinned. I grinned back, then I punched him in the jaw. He stepped back as I took the boxing stance Steve taught me, stepping over to tower above him. Hulk raised his hands to mimic my stance, stepping in and giving me a jab. It was a bit rough, slightly telegraphed. I blocked it and returned with a right cross, only for him to grab my arm, twist his hips, and flip me to the floor with a cratering smash. I blinked up at him as he grinned.

    "Banner know ju...juijit..." He seemed to get frustrated, going for an easier word. "KUNG FU!"

    Wondering how the hell they''d gotten such a quick rapport, I grinned up at him. "...For Jenny."

    Hulk nodded fiercely. I pictured Bruce, smaller but no less determined, doing the same.

    Then I flipped up and tackled him, our enormous forms falling down the mountain, smashing into each other with our fists.

    Dude, turning into giant monsters, no matter the reason, is so much fun!

 35 Chapter 35

    Natasha Romanov/Black Widow

    Natasha entered the training room of the Enterprise, looking across the room at the young girl currently occupying the bench near the mat. The girl ignored Natasha in favor of lying on her stomach, headphones in her ears as she idly bobbed her head to the loud music with her eyes closed.

    "Excuse me," Natasha said simply. "Ruby Hale, right?" Ruby was fourteen years old, with platinum blonde hair, a bit of acne across her nose, and a level of fitness rare in a teenager. Natasha waited for Ruby to say something. When she didn''t the redheaded assassin spoke once more. "We''re supposed to speak about your accommodations."

    The girl ignored her, still bobbing her head. As though Natasha wasn''t trained enough in body language to see the way she''d shifted as Natasha entered, or how the girl''s body was just barely up off the bench, enough that she could quickly move if attacked.

    Natasha eyed the young girl calmly. The two of them may as well have been statues for all the movement they exhibited. "...Well, have a nice day then. I''m gonna go enjoy a movie." Natasha turned and left.

    After a bit of walking through the halls of the Enterprise, she heard some fast footsteps behind her. Natasha ignored the person chasing her, continuing to move through the ship with her swaying catwalk.

    Someone reached out for her arm. Natasha, sensing the lightning-fast movement, stepped aside from it as subtly as though she''d never moved at all, leaving person reaching towards her to grasp empty air. Natasha turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. "I''m sorry, did you need something?"

    Ruby blinked, looking shocked. Then she pouted, trying to school her face to look intimidating. Which, she did, her face and eyes hard and cruel in a way no teenager should ever understand. But Natasha barely held back the urge to laugh. So cute.

    "Where''s my mom?" The teenager growled.

    "Imprisoned, for working with a terrorist organization," Natasha cocked an eyebrow. "Is that really why you followed me after ignoring me? Because if so, I''m done."

    Ruby scowled. "Aren''t you supposed to train me?"

    A lazy smile rose across Natasha''s face. "Why?"

    Ruby''s scowl became something vicious. "You''re supposed to!"

    The words of a young girl who had been told all her life that she was special. That she was meant to be a destined leader and warrior. So cute.

    "I volunteered my time, Ruby," Natasha said simply. "I was asked if I would help you, and I agreed, but you aren''t the only thing I have on my plate. I''m an Avenger, an Agent of BRIDGE, someone who works every day to protect the world from threats. I''m not going to sit and watch you ignore me because you decided you wanted to be spoiled today."

    Ruby''s eyes widened in rage. She lashed out with a punch aimed to collapse Natasha''s larynx.

    The redhead grabbed Ruby''s wrist in a vicious grip. She twisted her arm behind her back while kicking Ruby''s legs, slamming her to the floor.

    "Yaaagh!" Ruby screamed, struggling to rise against the iron hold Natasha had on her.

    "I''m sorry, did you try to punch me?" Natasha teased, her voice soft against Ruby''s ear. "You really are spoiled. So used to people bending over backward for you that you thought you could attack me without even a bruise to show for it."

    A female BRIDGE agent with a small afro came around the corner and stopped at the sight of Natasha holding a screaming and cursing Ruby on the floor. Natasha glanced at her. She spun and walked away, leaving Natasha to look down at Ruby.

    "We made a promise to your mother- listen to me," Natasha tapped the side of Ruby''s head when the teenager wouldn''t stop yelling. "We made a promise we''d train you, and I can do that. I can show you things HYDRA never had access to. Skills from the Red Room, all the times I assassinated someone from childhood to adulthood, the things that let me survive an attempt by the Winter Soldier himself."

    Ruby stopped struggling.

    "But I''m not going to waste time with childish rebellion," Natasha let her go, rising up. Ruby curled up and rolled to her feet, popping up to face Natasha, only to recoil when she realized Natasha had stepped in closer. The older assassin was no longer smiling. "I''m not going to train you if you expect to be able to decide to listen to music when you should be at attention, waiting for me, or if you just skip a lesson because you''d rather do something else. I''m not going to punish you or waste my time even talking to you, we''ll just be done. You will not question me, not for one moment. And if you do, you might become an Avenger. You might even become more than that one day. But until then, you will show discipline."

    Ruby stared up at her, trying to hide the deep bruises on her wrist. "I..."

    "Oh go ahead, think about it if you want," Natasha checked her watch. "I''ve got some time free. But like I said, I''ve got things to do. If you decide the time I invest in you isn''t worth your attention... why the hell should it be worth mine? Because I''m not wasting anything if you''re going to act like a teenager rather than an assassin."

    Ruby huffed, crossing her arms. "I am a teenager."

    Natasha narrowed her eyes. "We both know better than that."

    Any petulance Ruby was showing faded. She looked up at the older woman. After a long stare down between them, she nodded. There was an eager light in her eyes now, the burning of pride. "Okay, how do we start?"

    "The woman who showed up just now," Natasha said, indicating the BRIDGE agent that had come upon them. "Track her down, find out what she tells others about what she saw. I''ll shadow you, and you tell me what you found out. After that, we''ll start with something easy."

    As Ruby nodded eagerly and turned to run after the agent, Natasha felt disquiet in her heart. Here she was, doing something she never thought she would. Training a young girl to be an assassin. The Red Room, HYDRA, what did it matter? Here she was, doing the same thing.

    She turned around. "What do you think?"

    Clint and Bucky walked out of the shadows, both wearing BRIDGE camo gear. They walked forward with the steady and quiet steps Ruby was trying to master. They joined her, Bucky''s face neutral while Clint gave her a sad smile.

    "...You''re going to try and deprogram her?" Clint asked.

    "I''m not sure I can... It never worked on me," Natasha admitted. "All I can really do is give her better targets, layer her skills with morals and rules, try to do what worked for me. But she''ll always be a killer. You can see it in her. The way she walks, the way she''s always about to slice someone''s throat out. And she has too much pride. No good assassin is arrogant. It''ll destroy her if we let it fester."

    Bucky nodded in agreement, while Clint, the only parent in the group, let out a disquieted sigh.

    "We''ll take care of her though... I''d like her to meet you both if you don''t mind?" Natasha said. "She''s showed interest in us, in heroes. I think, in her own extremely twisted way, she really does want to be a hero. Even if she doesn''t know what that means."

    "I''m in," Bucky said immediately. He gave them a smile so fast it might as well have not existed. "Reformed assassins have to stick together."

    "Maybe we should start a support group?" Clint joked. He looked after where Ruby had gone, then back at Natasha. "By the way, is it me, or..."

    "Cute, right?" Natasha grinned. "She''s like a deadly puppy."

    Bucky refused to say anything to that, but Natasha''s grin widened at the slight twitch of acknowledgment his lips did.

    "Wonder what Bobbi and Hartley will think," Clint muttered.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    A pair of loud roars echoed over the deserts of Colorado.

    "Ragh!"

    "Grrragh!"

    Hulk and I had grabbed each other''s hands, me using my slightly stronger upper ones, and were pushing against each other, our muscles straining as the ground under our feet crumbled. For just a moment, we struggled against each other, then I used my other two hands to uppercut Hulk, sending him back a step. I leaned down and grabbed his legs, sending him to the ground, then began to spin. Around and around, dragging Hulk through the air.

    "Yaaagh!" Hulk yelled, his hands swinging.

    "Fly!" With another spin, I let go, sending Hulk shooting into the distance. "Whoa," I shook my head, stumbling slightly. "Dizzy."

    With that, I leaped after Hulk, my giant leg muscles shooting me through the air.

    There was a pure joy in being Fourarms. Having all that power, feeling my muscles move against each other as I flew through the air. I thought I''d felt powerful as Rath or Diamondhead, but there was something different and addicting about being Fourarms.

    Maybe it was something that naturally came to Tetramands? The desire to fight and engage in combat with others that were just as powerful?

    I landed in front of Hulk, who''d smashed into a plateau. He was getting to his knees and glared at me. He rose up to his feet, then sped forward to punch me in the face. I did the same, a shockwave spreading from the impact. Over and over, we hit each other, Hulk screaming in rage as I did the same.

    He grabbed my arm and tossed me into a rock face, moving in to hit me in the rips with some lightning fast punches. I blocked his fists with my lower arms and slammed my upper arms into his shoulders, pushing him back ten feet. His feet grinding against the earth, he came to a stop and glared at me. I pulled my arms back. Realizing what I was doing, Hulk copied me.

    Three pairs of palms slapped together, and two massive shockwaves of sound erupted from each of us. The earth shook, my ears rang, and rockslides kicked off. We roared as our powerful shockwaves clashed, nearby bushes tearing apart from pure air pressure as we caused a localized hurricane alongside the earthquake''s we''d made.

    Once the shockwave ended, I stepped forward at the same time as Hulk. Our fist flew forward again, my limited boxing and four limbs against Hulk''s limited Brazilian jujitsu and incredible healing. One thing I noticed was that he really was getting stronger as we clashed. I''d realized while studying everyone in my first weeks that Hulk in this universe wasn''t famous for getting stronger as he got angrier, but he was. Slowly, much slower than in the comics, but was doing it.

    In the back of my mind, in between my fist slamming into his, I wondered if that was because of this new compromise between Bruce and Hulk, or if he''d simply never had to get stronger before. I discarded it to kick him in the legs then slam a lower right fist into his ribs.

    After a long fight, the two of us brawling on a mountain and slowly turning it into a valley, I finally had to stop, falling back to sit on my ass as Hulk panted.

    "...How you feeling?" I asked.

    "Banner loud," Hulk pouted. "Always talking, thinking."

    "Well, that is where his strength lies. You punch, he thinks. And together, you''ll always hit the right thing."

    "Loud," Hulk sat down next to me, and the two of us turned to look out at the desert. "Hulk... Hulk just to be alone."

    "I think you mean you just want people to stop attacking you," the smaller brute grunted in agreement. "Hey," I nudged him with my elbow. "If they do, we''ll all help you. I don''t care who comes at you, every Avenger is going to stop them. And that includes helping Jennifer. We''re your friends, both you and Bruce."

    When I looked at Hulk, he was smiling, the sun rising across his face. Then he frowned, looking at something in the distance. I turned as well, focusing. Huh. A column of dust was coming towards. And were those... helicopters?

    "X," I said with a grunt. "Send over the Defiant. I think it''s time for us to leave."

    "Agreed, sir. US Military forces have been sent to investigate reports of the Hulk battling an unknown being."

    "How in the hell..." Trailing off, I tapped on the Omnitrix, turning back into my human form. I grunted slightly at the feeling of returning to a human body but got over the lack of power quickly. "Okay Hulk, you wanna get on the Defiant?"

    "Hulk don''t want be Banner," Huh. He was a lot more intimidating now that I was smaller than him. He glowered down at me, walking up to tower even more. Apparently, he''d taken the fact that Fourarms was bigger than him as an insult because he managed to look very smug about the height difference between us.

    "Well, what do you say about you staying Hulk until we get home, then Bruce can take over?" I asked. "I mean if Bruce is okay with it. You need the practice anyways. Both of you do."

    Hulk huffed, blowing my hair back. "...Okay."

    "Let''s stop for some food first though," I said, my stomach grumbling. "I''m hungry."

    Hulk seemed to perk up at that as the Defiant landed behind us.

    Turned out, Hulk had never had food himself before. I ended up buying a bunch of fast food of all kinds from a restaurant I''d never been to before. The big guy spent the ride home stuffing himself happily in the back of the ship.

    When we got to the Enterprise and landed on the flight deck, the first thing people saw when the door opened was the Hulk, glowering angrily at the flight crew. He turned into Bruce right after of course, but it was still funny, seeing the guys panic at the sight of a glaring Hulk.

    Which lead to later, when Bruce and I, me in my Iron Man shirt, him in ripped pants, were sitting in front of Maria Hill and Nick Fury in the lockers, both of us on a bench.

    "So, I''ve managed to make it clear it was a training exercise," Maria said. "But Ross has requested he be informed the next time something like that happens," Maria punctuated her words in a voice that would broker no argument.

    "I''ll bet," Bruce grunted.

    "And there is more," Fury sat down on the bench across from us, focusing on Bruce. "She wants to see you. I gave her your usual response of course."

    "...Actually," Bruce said thoughtfully. "Tell her I''ll meet her at Stanley''s when this is over."

    Fury blinked, surprised. "Are you sure?"

    "Yeah, yeah, um," Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at Maria and Fury. "It''ll be good to see her."

    "What did you two do, anyway?" Maria asked, looking between us.

    "Three, technically," I looked at Bruce. "I think we have an understanding, right?"

    Bruce grinned. It was a very Hulk-like grin, his eyes flashing emerald. "Something like that. We both love Jennifer. And now? The Hulk and I both hate HYDRA. So you''re going to want to start sending us on missions. Soon."

    Maria stared at him, then looked at Fury. He smirked.

    "Don''t look at me, I ain''t the Director," Maria glared at Fury for that.

    "Anyway," Maria said with a sigh. "Let''s gather with the others. We should have a mission soon. We''ve made some progress on tracking down HYDRA''s main base."

    Nodding, I rose to follow when I saw Tony outside talking to Cap while wearing a Ben 10 t-shirt. It took me a second to realize what was wrong with that. I went to go ask him about it when Bruce stopped me, grabbing my arm.

    "Hey, listen," Bruce said hesitantly. "I want to thank you. I don''t... I never really thought Hulk and I could talk, could understand each other. But, um... it feels good. In those other worlds, the one that you saw? Did other Hulks, other Bruces, did they do the same thing?"

    "Sometimes," I said with a grin. "Usually ends with you guys destroying a planet," Bruce''s eyes widened in panic and I hurried to speak when I realized how bad that sounded. "Bad planets! And it only happened once, I promise!"

    "Hey," Tony and Steve walked in as Maria and Fury walked out, Tony grinning. "Check it out! Just came off the line!"

    He gestured to his Ben 10 t-shirt. "Gotta say, kid, the merchandising guys are loving the Reserve Avengers, especially since everyone has the snazzy armor and you''ve got eleven aliens to make action figures out of. Although Pepper had to yell at some guy who wanted to convince Sam and Rhodey to do a rap album. How''d therapy go?"

    "...We broke two mountains," I admitted. "It was pretty Metal."

    "It was actually really fun," Bruce said in his husky voice.

    Tony and Steve shared a look, Steve surprised and Tony grinning. Steve sighed, moving forward to put an arm around me. "Come on. You''ve got training."

    As he dragged me off, Tony spoke to Bruce. "You know, we can make you some clothes too if you want? That way you don''t show up naked all the time. Unless you''ve been hiding your exhibitionist side all this time? No judgment."

    As Bruce stuttered and Steve led away, the Captain spoke. "Mahmoud, we need to talk about you doing stuff like that. Today''s training is based on communication."

    After three hours of boxing with Cap while he talked to me about my responsibilities, I had a meeting to get to. Someone had put in a request to meet with me and I flew through New York in Astrodactyl form to get to them.

    It was about 4 PM when I got to the Wakandan Embassy in Midtown. Well, the Consulate General at least. Funnily enough, I ended up flying over the Embassy of my parents'' homeland, Morocco. As I landed on the sidewalk in front of the tall red brick building, people started taking photos with their phones. I ignored them to step through the gates and walk up the stairs toward the entrance. Men in black suits, all of them African, stood around the grounds of the embassy, watching me carefully as I walked towards the front doors. Two guards in green military uniforms carrying rifles stood at either side of the doors, while a beautiful African woman with a shaved head wearing a black dress waited for me.

    "Good afternoon," I said politely, feeling a bit ashamed for the fact I was still wearing my Iron Man shirt, but going with it. "I have a meeting."

    "I know," the woman said grimly. "I am Ayo. I will be guiding you."

    "And guarding him," I added. She didn''t answer, simply waving at the guards, who both opened the doors. I followed Ayo inside.

    The inside of the Wakandan Embassy was all right. Not exactly what I was hoping for, as any reference to Wakanda itself were kept to some weapons along the walls, very traditional looking artwork, and the various servants roaming around. I noted the ''servants'' often were bald women in great shape but ignored that. Ayo went into an elevator, nodding for me to enter as well. After a wait, the doors opened to reveal an office, where two men turned to look at us.

    One was T''Chaka, the King of Wakanda eyeing me as I followed Ayo. The other I recognized from news reports. He was tall and strong looking, with skin as dark as the kings, and a well-trimmed beard. He was giving me a suspicious look when I entered. Couldn''t blame him. Not nice when someone knows your country''s millennia-old secrets.

    I gave the Wakandan salute, both arms crossed over my chest. "King T''Chaka. Prince T''Challa. It is wonderful to meet you both. I''m honored."

    "As am I," T''Chaka said, nodding towards me. "Please, sit," he gestured to a couch with a traditional looking coffee table. I moved towards it, sitting down on the sinfully comfortable couch. T''Chaka sat down in front of me in a large chair, while T''Challa was to my right in another one. Ayo stood behind T''Chaka as a servant woman with no hair walked over to stand to my left. "Now, I believe you know what I wish to talk about?"

    "About how Wakanda is currently the most advanced nation on Earth, despite masquerading otherwise?" I said simply.

    T''Challa, Ayo, and the servant were very, very focused on me. T''Chaka simply nodded. "Indeed. I suppose, my first question, is... would you like something to drink?"

    I blinked, surprised, then laughed. "Yeah, that would be nice. Something from your nation? I haven''t had the privilege of trying Wakandan food and drinks."

    "Tea, I believe, would suffice," T''Chaka waved at the ''servant'', who walked into another room, Ayo subtly moving to another position. "Now, for my second question. How did you discover our secret?"

    "Other universes had to reveal it," I said. Everyone blinked. I thought for a moment."... This information does not leave this room. I want all three of you to promise, please."

    T''Challa leaned forward, the prince staring at me. When he spoke, his voice was accented, though less than his fathers. "Is it truly that important?"

    "It''s worth more than all of the world, no matter how much vibranium you have."

    T''Chaka thought about that. "...Very well. By the Goddess Bast, I will not reveal this."

    "As do I," T''Challa said. Ayo only nodded.

    I spoke immediately. "I had the dubious privilege of seeing into other universes recently. I destroyed the means by which I did so, but before that, I saw other worlds, other possibilities, even futures. In more than a few out of the infinite ones in the multiverse, I saw ones where Wakanda revealed their true power to the world. In many cases, to defend the Earth from danger."

    T''Chaka frowned but waved for me to continue.

    "In these worlds, you were sometimes...," I glanced at T''Challa. "Sometimes dead. Old age, assassination, self-sacrifice, all the reasons a person can die. And the Black Panther steps onto the world stage. He joins the Avengers. Saves the world. Sometimes, Shuri will become the Panther as well so that you," I indicated T''Challa. "Can aid the universe."

    I might as well had dropped a bomb in the room. Ayo and T''Challa seemed stricken at the thought of their king/father dead. I wondered, for a moment, if the Dora Milaje were betrothed to the king as in the 616 universe before pushing the idea down.

    The ''servant'' walked into the room with my tea. "Thank you," I said, taking the tea and taking a sip, wincing when the aromatic and delicious drink singed my tongue slightly. I put it down on a cloth coaster the ''servant'' had provided.

    "How can we believe this?" T''Chaka asked, looking skeptical, a natural response.

    "Because I know too much," I answered simply, dragging up the stuff I was certain was constant between universes. "I know about the Black Panther, and the Heart-Shaped Herb. I know that you gained your power from a mountain of Vibranium sitting beneath your nation. I know you were the first in space. And that you guys have pride in having ''never conquered, nor been conquered.'' I mean... there''s more, but that''s most of the important stuff."

    T''Chaka sighed, rubbing his forehead for a long moment, eyes closed in irritation. "I suppose you will be telling your Director about this?"

    "I''ve thought about it," I noted how Ayo and the ''servant'' stiffened. "But I''m as much African as I am American, in the end. I''ve got respect for you and for your people. I''d rather you tell them yourself... and you''ll have to."

    "Why is that?" T''Challa asked, glaring at me. "Why should we tell anyone?"

    "Because you''re about to lose your technological advantage," I answered simply. "I''m not going to comment on all the crap that happened in the world that you people could have stopped. Those are the decisions of other kings, and I won''t have you answer for that. Not like I can yell at them personally," T''Chaka''s lips twitched at that. "But right now, the pragmatic decision is not to simply watch as BRIDGE accelerates the entire world past you. Being isolationist isn''t going to work for long."

    I stopped to take a sip of tea, trying not to reveal how nervous I was. Damn it, I was giving too many speeches lately. I put it down after a moment. "You turned your back on the rest of the world," I said, my voice taking an odd tone that made T''Challa blink. "But I won''t have BRIDGE do the same. Join us, King T''Chaka. You can try to match our technological abilities, but I guarantee you, it won''t last. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, me, all the aliens we hope to make treaties or possibly trade with? Wakanda needs to be a part of the conversation."

    "And you think the rest of the world will simply let us be?" T''Chaka asked. "Some will not forgive us. Others will attack us, attempt to dominate and manipulate us."

    "They will," I said. "They''re trying to do it to BRIDGE. To take all the tech we''re making, the superhumans we''ve found, and use them for their own ends. I''ve even got people making offers for this," I said, tapping the Omnitrix. The ''servant'' poured me some more tea. "Thank you. But we are stopping them. Fighting them. And in the end, I''m not saying Wakanda has to reveal itself in its entirety right now. Just to join us until your ready."

    "...Hmm," T''Chaka leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin. "I see. We would more actively support BRIDGE, give you our aid, and in return, you allow us to advance our technology alongside yours?"

    "Until you reveal yourselves," I added. "That''s going to happen. Considering the way the world is going, it''s inevitable."

    T''Chaka shook his head. "You must understand. I''ve worked all of my life to keep our secret. Killed, to keep it. The other tribes will fight this."

    "...Then it''s up to you," I finished my second cup, chugging it. "I can''t speak for your people. I''m only giving you a warning and some advice. There are going to be a lot of benefits. I know you''ve seen the tech we''re making and it''s only going to get crazier and crazier. Wakanda can either join us, or be left behind, and eventually get found out by a quickly advancing world. I don''t want that. I have too much respect for your nation, for the legacy of the Black Panther and for Wakanda itself."

    "And if we were to offer you something, in return for you joining us?" T''Chaka asked. He ignored the stunned looks the others in the room gave him. "Wakanda has many things you might find attractive. Technology, land, even women. What would you want, in trade for you, by yourself, allying with Wakanda? Advancing us to the point that none in the world can match us for millenia."

    I scoffed. "Even if I didn''t think you were just testing me, I made a promise to BRIDGE, to the world at large, that I''d protect it."

    T''Chaka smirked. "I see... I will speak to my people... T''Challa, my son, what do you think?"

    His son blinked, looking over at me. His mouth opened, then closed, a thoughtful look on his face. When he spoke, it was halting, but strong. "You are... not wrong. If Wakanda is to be safe, we may have to take some risks. But I believe, we must also keep our secret. And we may be able, for a time, to do so. If Shuri, myself, and some of the Dora Milaje join BRIDGE and the Avengers, then we can help them in trade for technology and resources. With time, we can reveal ourselves, or simply allow others to believe our advancements are due to BRIDGE''s technology."

    "It would be more complicated than that," T''Chaka noted. "National laws-"

    "I know, father," T''Challa smiled. "But I don''t believe our young friend is very political."

    "He''s not wrong," I said with a grin. "I''m trying, believe me, but I''m mostly the punching and shooting guy."

    T''Chaka chuckled. "Very well. You have made your point, my young friend," he rose from his chair, T''Challa and I following. "I will speak to the people of my nation and come to a decision. Depending on what is said, I will speak with Director Maria Hill. I must ask, will you support Wakanda if we require it?"

    "Yeah," I reached into a pocket and pulled out a device shaped roughly like a cat, handing it to T''Chaka. "Here. This is the Panther''s Trail. It gives the location of Ulysses Klaue, no matter where he goes in the world. As well information on the location he hides in, it''s defense, his resources, so on and so forth."

    The whole room froze again.

    "Klaue?" T''Chaka asked, his voice weak.

    "He can''t counter this, no matter what he tries," I said, tapping the device. "If you need help, I''m in, and I''ll let some of the Avengers know. But if you want to do it on your own, this will help."

    T''Chaka clenched the device tightly. "...Thank you, for this. Why didn''t you simply offer it from the start to trade?"

    "I''m no politician, but I figured you wouldn''t think of this as worth the trade," I admitted. I noted the looks on their faces. Huh. Guess I''d been wrong.

    Live and learn I suppose. Live and learn.

 36 Chapter 36

    anuary 18th, 2014

    There''s a Superman/Wonder Woman comic I read once, called Whom Gods Destroy. It was really weird, had Superman turn into a centaur at one point. But there''s a line in it that I love that goes something like this.

    ''That''s the nature of destiny. Some volunteer, others get drafted. Either way, they''re all in the fight. And considering the stakes... it''s a fight we have to win.''

    Wakanda had it''s draft notice, courtesy of me. Now it was up to them to accept or pretend they had bone spurs.

    Might have lost the metaphor. Point was, the ball was in their court. In the meantime, I had a job to do.

    "So then he taught me how to punch people for three hours while yelling at me about protocol," I told Hawkeye as we walked on a rooftop the next day, telling him about how Steve had ''punished'' me the day before for running off with Bruce.

    Clint laughed.

    The two of us were in the middle of Manhattan, listening to police bands and Foo Fighters. The Pretender was coming out of my Bubble Speaker, the device Jury Rigg had made for me weeks back.

    "Well, he''s right," Clint said with a grin. "You kinda went off without a plan, didn''t you?"

    I winced.

    "Bet you didn''t even know that would work."

    I winced again.

    "How close was the Hulk to taking your head off before you transformed?"

    I winced one last time, sighing. "I made a guess. Killed two birds with one stone, you know?"

    "Mahmoud," Clint sighed. "You need to think things through. You''ve got more power in that watch than anyone I''ve seen who wasn''t named Thor. But you can''t just go off for no reason, man. You''ve got a team to look after and to help look after you. You ain''t patrolling alone anymore. As a super spy, I can personally attest to how important having backup is," Clint said, putting emphasis on ''super''.

    I sighed, nodding. I''d gotten used to being on a team the past few days, but I still tended to think of myself fighting on my own. But even Ben, with six years of experience fighting the likes of Vilgax, Animo, Kevin, Aggregor, and everything else in the universe had depended on Kevin, Gwen, Rook, and others to have his back.

    As I was thinking about that, the police band on our comms flared.

    "Fire on Eastern Parkway and Buffalo Avenue in Brownsville, the address is," The woman on the radio rattled off the number over the radio as I activated the Omnitrix and Hawkeye turned on his armor.

    The suit that came across him was very similar to Bobbi''s, with a purple coloration to it. Interestingly, he''d chosen a helmet that looked a lot like the one from his 616 counterparts Ronin costume. A cloak came across his body as well, flowing around him to wind that didn''t exist. "This is Hawkeye and Dial of the Avengers, we''re on it."

    "...Say again?" came the response from a likely very confused dispatcher.

    Hawkeye leaped off the building as I pushed down the Omnitrix and went Astrodactyl. Hawkeye''s cloak snapped out into a large glider, allowing him to float down until I got to him and grabbed his shoulders by my foot talons. In seconds we were shooting through the air towards Brooklyn, flying past office buildings under to the speed of sound so we didn''t shatter windows with sonic booms.

    Even with me modulating my speed, it didn''t take long to reach the fire. Hawkeye, on seeing the flames, waved up at me, speaking over comms since the wind would have drowned him out otherwise. "Go in the top floor and drop me over there!" Clint pointed at the top of a nearby building.

    "Got it, squawk!"

    I fired an energy blast at one of the windows and flew in, letting go of Hawkeye, who glided to land on the building he''d chosen on the way. As I flew inside, an arrow tipped with a bulbous canister flew past me. My feet hit the carpeted floor at the same time as the arrow hit. Hawkeye''s arrow exploded outwards in a burst of foam that spread across the flame-filled room, covering me and everything else in the chilly white bubbles. The flames were instantly extinguished, and I tapped the Omnitrix.

    "Fasttrack!"

    I ran through the hallway with all of my speed, noting the arrow flying through windows and the various holes created by the fire, exploding into more foam, covering desks, bookshelves, and beds around us with the foam, all the arrows moving in slow motion to my enhanced speed. I slowed down slightly as Hawkeye spoke over comms, the light of the Omnitrix on chest flashing with each word.

    "Got three people in a closet in the next room to the left. Older woman and two kids," he told me. When the Avengers had chosen their new armor, Clint had gone for every audio and visual enhancement he could get. In moments like this, he''d be the eyes in the sky, while using his bow to snipe and aid.

    I ran into the room he indicated and opened the closet, looking down at the elderly Asian women clutching tightly to a pair of young children, one girl slightly older looking than the other.

    "Hi!" I said with a smile. "Sorry I can''t be more polite!"

    Before they said anything, I picked three of them up and ran for the stairs, moving past the people already escaping, rushing the three out to the sidewalk and running back in.

    "One guy, stumbling on the second floor."

    I picked that guy up, a young Hispanic man, and rushed him out as more arrows landed around me.

    "I''ve got two on the top floor, trying to run to the roof."

    It was a white couple, young and panicking. I picked them up and rushed them out as well, the sidewalk getting full.

    Over and over, as Hawkeye fired his fire suppression arrows and I picked people up, we emptied out the building. My fur was slightly singed but not much considering my natural toughness and speed and Clint firing suppression foam to keep the worst of the blaze contained until the fire department arrived. Finally, only one person was left.

    "It''s a kid," Hawkeye said calmly. "She''s hiding under a bed, third floor, middle room on the right."

    "Got it!" I said, running into that room and bending down to look under the bed.

    A young black girl stared at me, clutching a stuffed blue T-Rex to her chest in the shadows as flames roared behind me, illuminating her tearful face. "Hey, sweetie," I said softly, wondering where the hell her parents were. Had I taken them already? Worry later. She was crying, covering her eyes to avoid looking at me. "Hey, it''s okay. I''m an Avenger. You know them, right?"

    Still crying, her eyes clenched tight, she nodded. "D-Daddy doesn''t like them."

    "Oh," the hell do I do now? "Well, I promise I won''t hurt you. I''m just going to take you out of the fire, okay? Then you can be with your parents."

    She looked at me. I reached a hand out and smiled as reassuringly as a blue-furred alien can. Must have been enough because as hesitantly as she did it, she still slowly reached a hand out to hold mine. I helped out from under the bed, tucking the small child into my arms and turned to leave.

    Of course, that was when the stairs collapsed. Yeesh, the building was seriously not up to code.

    "Huh," I blinked at that. "Sweetie, hold tight. I think I''m going to make my own exit."

    She nodded, the tiny thing tucking her face into my fur and holding her stuffed T-Rex close. I smiled at that, then reached for the Omnitrix. I entertained the idea of turning into Four Arms before dismissing it. Better to keep him a secret for as long as possible. Plus, his strength and size might end up destroying the building due to how weak the building was. I''d go for strength without going overboard. I tapped the Omnitrix, transforming into something tough and strong enough to tear a hole in the building without hurting the child.

    "Rath!"

    The little girl seemed to find the sudden thicker fur of my new form comfortable. I gave her fond smile, then bent my legs, holding in my typical bombastic personality as Rath to keep from scaring her. With explosive force, I leaped upwards, crashing through the ceiling. The girl screamed, tiny right hand clutching at my fur and left hand holding her T-Rex close. I landed on the roof and jumped one more, landing on the sidewalk in front of the building, causing only minor cracks in the sidewalk, people leaping away from me and screaming in surprise at the giant tiger man coming out of the sky.

    Firetrucks had shown up, staring at the foam covered building as they moved quickly to douse the remaining fire, water beginning to fall onto the crowd as they sprayed the building. I felt some water drip on me and held in a growl of annoyance. Rath didn''t like water.

    Hawkeye came gliding to join me as I looked around. I noticed the phones filming me, but ignored them. "Listen up! Rath wants to know who''s cub this is!?" I raised her high over my head to make sure everyone in the crowd saw her and she could look for her parents. The girl looked around, rubbing at the tears on her chubby cheeks.

    "That''s my daughter!" A black woman cried out, rushing away from EMT''s to come over to me. She had tear tracks going through the soot on her cheeks as she rushed forward. She hesitated, for the barest moment, when she realized just what was holding her daughter.

    "Mommy!" the little girl wiggled in my grip. I gently put her down, and she rushed for her mother, who hugged her, the two crying openly.

    I smiled at that as Hawkeye came over to join me. It was heartwarming.

    "G-Get down on the ground!" the heartwarming moment was shattered when someone yelled at me. I blinked, turning to look.

    A cop was pointing his gun at me. For a moment, we all stared at the guy.

    "... No?" I said, confused. "Rath just helped everyone. Rath is starting to wonder if you''re dumb, and that''s saying something coming from Rath!" I finished bombastically.

    People in the crowd giggled nervously. Hawkeye tapped his chest, his armor turning into his quiver. "Officer, we''re Avengers. Please, put your-"

    "Hawkeye, Dial," Maria said suddenly. "We just got a message from a former SHIELD scientist by the name of Bill Foster! He''s asking to be pulled in with an asset, and you two are the closest to him. I''m sending in a Quinjet."

    A Quinjet, one of the newer models, dropped out of the sky just a few moments after that message, hovering into the street and opening its back doors as people shouted and pointed. "X tells us HYDRA is after them."

    Hawkeye and I shared a fast look then, turned and ran for the Quinjet.

    "I said freeze!" the nervous cop yelled, shooting me in the back.

    I ignored the bullet that bounced off me, leaping into the Quinjet and turning to look out. "Rath is going to go fight HYDRA! STAY BEAUTIFUL NEW YORK!" I raised my fists in the air, the Quinjet closing as cameras stayed on me and a laughing Hawkeye.

    "That building there," the Quinjet pilot Maria had sent said. Apparently, he''d been on his way to the helicarrier and had been moved to pick Hawkeye and me up instead. He pointed at a warehouse next to the harbor, where another three Quinjets, HYDRA, were parked by the docks. Our Quinjet''s cloaking was keeping us hidden for now. We were hundreds of feet above the building in question and still heading to it.

    "Okay, swing over those Quinjets," Hawkeye said, his bow shifting as he moved towards the back of the Quinjet, with me following quickly.

    "You want me to lower down, sir?" The pilot called back at Clint.

    "Nah, I''m good," Clint lifted his purple bow and clenched his hand around the grip. When enough pressure was put on it, the bows catoms moved and flowed, more moving from the quiver on his back to add to it, making the overall bow thicker and longer, increasing its poundage. He picked an arrow tipped with a three-pronged hook from his quiver and pulled back on the bowstring as the Quinjets back door opened up, aiming for the enemy Quinjets'' when we passed over them. "So, you think you''ll take up archery?"

    "I''m thinking about it," I admitted, watching him.

    He fired three times. Seriously, that was how it felt. As though the motion of picking out an arrow, nocking it, pulling on the bow, and firing, was all as fast as though he''d simply been firing a gun. Damn. All three Quinjets had been hit at the exact point where the power could most easily be interfered with and the arrows sent catoms flooding through them, the tiny robots transforming to ''eat'' at a three-foot radius from their point of entry.

    "Let me know if you ever want lessons," Hawkeye said with a grin.

    The Quinjet flew toward the warehouse and landed in front of it. I leaped out and landed on the ground.

    "I''ll keep an eye out!" Hawkeye yelled. I nodded, then activated the Omnitrix. Hawkeye''s armor flowed back over him, turning him once more into an intimidatingly cloaked and armored being. He pointed his arm at a nearby building and tapped his fingers to his palm. A line shot out, the end tipped in a chemical based on Goop''s adhesive, the end attaching. The powerful motor on the other end reeled in the line, shooting Hawkeye towards the roof. As he left, so did I.

    I ran into the warehouse through a door that had been blown off its hinges while activating the Omnitrix.

    "Fasttrack!"

    "There''s a man being chased through one of the hallways," Hawkeye said. "That will be Bill Foster. I''ve got him. You want to focus on Ava Starr, she''s the Enhanced HYDRA''s after," I heard the twang of a bow firing several times. "Foster''s headed to the extraction point. Looks like Ava was distracting the other soldiers. She''s down the hall in a big room. She''s fighting Centipede soldiers along with the normal HYDRA assholes. I''m giving her support."

    "Got it!" In seconds, I was down the hall and looking at a big room filled with crates. One of the doors was open, revealing the river outside the warehouse and giving the whole room the smell of the murky river. Soldiers were standing around pointing at a crate with their guns. Right up until an exploding arrow slammed into one''s chest, piercing through the metal roof to make the shot.

    BOOM!

    More arrows fly in, scattering the forces. I grabbed a soldier running by me and punched him a bunch of times in the chest, turning his ribs into dust, then rushing to the crate they''d been pointing at. Figuring this was where Ava was hiding, I ran around to get to her, only to blink at the sight.

    Ava was Ghost. Except Ghost in the comics was a man. I mean, she had the same costume and everything, but she was clearly a woman. Pushing away my brief confusion, I waved at the white-helmeted woman.

    "Hi, I''m Dial," I winced at how cheesy that sounded. "Wanna get out of here-"

    "Look out!" she yelled, pointing behind me.

    Time slowed from my speedy perspective. I turned to see a Centipede soldier coming out of the smoke, aiming to wrap his arms around me. I stepped into his grasp with my hands raised and started hitting him. Damn. Felt like punching steel. I bashed him in the chest as fast as I could, jabs, uppercuts, and hooks until I felt a couple of my knuckles split from the constant meeting of my fists to enhanced flesh covered in metal.

    When he went flying back, I tried to smirk to make Ava feel less nervous. "Yeah, got to hit these guys a lot to cause any damage," I turned to her. "Come on!"

    She got up and I quickly swept her into my arms. I ran out to the extraction point, slipping around soldiers with ease and keeping myself moving until we were outside.

    Suddenly, Ava did... something, turning into the Ghost that gave her her codename. She went through my arms, falling to the floor.

    "What just happened!?" she yelled up at me as I blinked in surprise. "Did you just-"

    "Ava!" the two of us looked up at the Quinjet parked in front of the warehouse, the back open. I found myself staring because inside was Laurence Fishburne, the guy who''d played one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite standalone movies ever. Because it had NEVER gotten a sequel.

    I watched as Ava ran into the Quinjet, hugging Bill Foster. "Huh. Morpheus. That''s cool."

    With that, I ran back into the warehouse as the Quinjet took off into the sky.

    Inside, Hawkeye had pretty much finished most of the infantry, who were running out towards the Quinjets, leaving thirty of their people behind. The Centipede soldiers were still up and fighting though, six of them left. I entered the warehouse and tapped the Omnitrix, turning into someone a little stronger.

    "Blitzwolfer!"

    In my werewolf-like form, I towered over the men and women around me. One of the Centipede soldiers stepped forward to punch at me. I blocked it on my forearm and punched her in the face, dropping her to the ground. Two others rushing me got a quick sonic blast that sent them flying into crates, wood shattering under their bulk.

    A hit to my lower back got a grunt of pain from me. I turned to see a tall man, who backflipped to hit me in the muzzle. I stumbled back as two other Centipede soldiers stepped in to punch me in the stomach.

    "ENOUGH!" I roared/sonic blasted, sending all three flying. As they fell to the floor, I jumped on top of one and punched him in the face, knocking him out, blocked another as he rolled up to kick at me, and clawed his chest, leaving deep line across it. I roared once more, my sonic blast destroying crates behind the guy as he flew back into a wall, denting it massively. Then I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my chest.

    "Goop!"

    Flying above the room, I spun at high speed and started firing pieces of myself at the soldiers still on the floor and the female one who''d just started to stand back up. I flowed through the room in my spinning form, adhesive goop slamming into the Centipede soldiers until they were all struggling to fight out of the powerful grip of the green slime surrounding their bodies. I stopped and shifted to my bipedal form to look around.

    The female Centipede soldier, apparently thinking she''d snuck up on me, swung her fist into my back, coming out the other side in a splash of green liquid. I shifted my body, my head and limbs going the other way so I was facing her. Her blank face looked up at me.

    "Rude," I said from the floating Anti-Gravity Projector above my Goop form. I flowed around and surrounded her, soaking her in my adhesive form, then moved away to leave her in a pile of adhesive. She struggled, left unable to move in the makeshifts bonds I''d created. For a moment, the room was quiet except for the sounds of Centipede soldiers fighting to escape. I noted how none of them really had expressions. It was kinda creepy. Even movie zombies at least growled or something. These guys and girls simply stared at me.

    "All done?" I shifted my body to look at Hawkeye in his full armor, who shivered at the way my fluid body moved. "Seriously, that is crazy looking."

    "Sorry!" I said in the robotic voice from my projector. In a flash of green light, I turned back into my human form. "Well, we have prisoners now, right?"

    Suddenly, one of the Centipede soldiers began to scream. Hawkeye ran to him, leaning down. "Shit! They''re trying to activate the kill switch in their eyes!"

    It was something Coulson''s Team had told us about. All Centipede soldiers had some useful upgrades, among them a slick eye implant that let them see through walls. But, it was also able to be used to kill the soldier. The ultimate way to keep your soldier from being interrogated was to simply kill them.

    "Jarvis!" Hawkeye yelled.

    "I''m stopping them," Jarvis said to us over comms. "But their programming has been upgraded from what Skye and Fisk have told us. I''m pulling in X to help."

    More Centipede soldiers began to scream until all six of those awake were wailing in pain. Others, the ones I, Ava, and Hawkeye had killed or knocked out, started to shake before going still.

    I tried to think of some way to help. Brute strength was off the table, Jury Rigg would take to long, soooo...

    In a quick turn of the Omnitrix, I flipped through my Omnitrix''s menu. In that time, two soldiers died, their right eyes twisting around in their sockets. I pushed the Omnitrix down and transformed. My skin became inky-black with green circuitry.

    "Upgrade!"

    I leaped towards the female soldier, my body slipping into her eye as she screeched in horror and pain.

    "Oh my god!" Hawkeye yelled, the sight of my massive nanite form flowing into a woman through her right eye apparently surprising him. As the last of me entered with a ''slurp-slurp'' sound, he held a hand over where his mouth would be under his helmet. "I''m going to be sick."

    I ignored him, instead joining with the woman''s implant. It was the work of a quick thought to disconnect her from her handlers network. I flowed through the rest of her only to meet with something interesting.

    She had other nanotechnology in her body. And it was angry.

    Where I had been thinking of myself as a fluid being, I was suddenly split into millions of tiny bodies, battling nano-sized beings that were constantly rewriting the woman''s genetic code, giving her some of her superhuman strength and healing. They were also fucking crazy. If it wasn''t for the strange makeup of her body, she would have started exploding at some point. As it was, her platelets had been modified to stop herself from doing that.

    The nanotech, obviously Extremis, tried to attack my form, tearing at me. I took the blows and absorbed them, shifting them into becoming a part of me. I flowed through her, into the Centipede device, and winced mentally at the feel of the gamma radiation within it. Seriously, with the way her body had been set up, she''d soon self-destruct without constant maintenance. I didn''t have time to fix it, however. The surviving Centipede soldiers were dying. Once I took over her form, I connected to the wireless unit that had been trying to kill her, piggybacking onto it and connecting with the surviving soldiers, Jarvis moving aside to allow me in. One more man died in that time. Then I disconnected them from the wireless, leaving the women connected. I flowed into that link, Jarvis joining with me as we bounced through the internet chasing our opponent. They tried to fight us, but I went through it. Just before I could find it, we received a message. A message that had been sent to someone on the other side. With some work, I realized I''d hacked the email of one of the Centipede soldiers handlers. The soldiers were being controlled. And the people controlling them were... Fuck.

    In the millisecond it took to read it, I changed tactics.

    "Shit, they''re dying!" I said, sending malfunction reports, moving a portion of my body off the woman''s shoulder to look around.

    Hawkeye stared at me, giving the clearly alive Centipede soldiers a look.

    "Go with it, sir," Jarvis sent him.

    "Well, stop them!" Hawkeye yelled, moving to take a mans pulse.

    "I''m trying!" I yelled dramatically, rereading the message. Once I knew what I had, Jarvis moved with me, calling out for X.

    Soon the three of us had gotten everything. Some of the volunteers had been hired. But most were former computer technicians and such, normal people. They''d been pulled in using what HYDRA called the ''incentives program''. Blackmail.

    What we found was a series of images of people. Women, men, children, all locked in rooms, some crying, some angry or confused. They all had guns aimed at them. Over each image was something simple, each personalized. Each horrific.

    If you do not follow our orders we will kill them.

    You want to see your wife again, don''t you?

    Do as we say, or we''ll kill your son.

    Hostages. They were threatening to kill hostages in return for someone to help them. I pulled back, furious. If I went too far, then I''d end up getting innocents killed. I needed to work around HYDRA. We needed to find the facilities they were being held in first. Hill had to hear about this.

    I sent false reports of the Centipede soldiers with us dying to the kill switch in their eyes before pulling back into the woman. I concentrated on her for a bit. First, use the Extremis nanotechnology to heal her. Then pull the cybernetics out of her, Extremis repairing her organs and right eye back as I removed the machinery connected to them. The Centipede device and Backscatter eye implant were joined to me.

    I left her body through her eyes. In seconds, I was standing in front of her. She gave me a shuddering look. Then she passed out. As she slumped within Goop''s green adhesive, I focused on the Extremis nanotech, Centipede implant, and the backscatter eye implant that were part of me, ''spitting'' them onto the floor.

    "...That was gross," Hawkeye stated, likely a little green under his helmet

    "We have issues," I said, trying to show how I wasn''t even sure what the hell I''d just done. "We need to talk to the Director."

 37 Chapter 37

    Ava Starr/Ghost

    The woman known as Ghost was being hugged tightly to her adoptive father as they waited in a room together. She hadn''t truly felt the need to hug or be hugged by him on most days, but this... felt necessary.

    They''d been taken to a helicarrier, a massive flying ship, that was currently floating above the Avengers Tower. Apparently, it was called the Enterprise, something that her father had found funny.

    Ava sighed, looking at him. "How long do we have to wait?" she asked, indicating the white room they were waiting in, two chairs and a simple table being the only things inside. She winced as the constant pain that always filled her flared for a moment. She was still wearing her Ghost suit, though she''d removed her helmet. But the Ghost suit really didn''t help as much anymore to prevent the pain.

    "I don''t know, Ava," Bill said, giving her a soft look. "But Fury promised to try and help us. To help you."

    "Was that before or after SHIELD turned out to be HYDRA?" Ava asked, her voice becoming vicious.

    Bill winced, his arms tightening around his daughter. "After, technically... They offered me my old job. I think, with their resources-"

    "Who''s to say they won''t just keep doing what they were before!?" Ava went intangible, moving away from her father to stand in the center of the room. "Just turning me into a weapon, feeding me lines about they''ll help me!"

    "Ava..." Bill said, standing up as well.

    "You know it''s true!" Ava shouted, spinning to glare at him. "Why did you call them!? Why didn''t we just escape? What if they just keep using us!?"

    Before he could respond, the door to the room opened. A woman, tall and fit, wearing a blue jumpsuit with her black hair done up, strode inside. Behind her was a young man. He was slightly shorter than the woman was, with dark skin calling to an Arabian or possibly Indian heritage, long hair pulled back into a ponytail, and short scruffy beard, his large bare arms revealed by the Iron Man t-shirt he was wearing. The woman smiled at the pair.

    "I''m not planning on doing any such thing," she said simply.

    Ava and Bill shared a look.

    "Who are you?" Ava asked coldly.

    "I''m Maria Hill, Director of BRIDGE," Maria said, crossing her arms behind her back and gesturing to the man behind her. "And this is Mahmoud Schahed, Dial of the Reserve Avengers."

    "Reserve?" Bill asked, curiosity in his voice.

    "We''re thinking about a name change," the young man said, smiling. He had a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled, something that made him look even younger.

    "I thought we were meeting Nick Fury," Ava said.

    "He''s in the midst of picking up someone we are considering under threat," Maria said. "That said, I can help you with any concerns you have."

    "And if we just leave?" Ava asked.

    "Ava..." Bill said softly.

    "No, I want to know!" Ava felt her body twist through existence, unable to stay together through her agitation. "What if I don''t want your help!?"

    "..." Maria looked over at Mahmoud. He looked out of his depth. After a moment, he shrugged. Maria turned around frowning before speaking. "We''d want to at least some way to contact you. And you would have to sign a contract promising not to use your powers to hurt others or for ill-gain, with the understanding that such actions will result in BRIDGE coming after you."

    "BRIDGE?" Bill asked.

    "Bureau of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Development, and General Enhancement," Mahmoud explained. "We really wanted to spell ''bridge''," he finished sheepishly.

    Ava ignored that. "You''d just let us go?"

    "No," Maria said with a frown. "The fact is, your powers are unique. Others might try to find you the way HYDRA did, try to kill or use you. But you would be allowed to refuse any help we might offer. All we''d do is keep in eye on you, to keep you safe and keep you from causing harm with your powers."

    Ava scowled, stepping forward. Mahmoud, to her surprise, stepped forward as well.

    For a moment, Ava met eyes with the brown-skinned man across from her, noting his nerdy shirt, ridiculous backpack, and bright green watch. He looked like a geek. A muscular geek, but a geek. But he was simply meeting her eyes, not flinching as she felt her body tear itself over and over, shifting her around into flickering images.

    "How about you see what we want to do to help you?" Maria offered.

    Ava looked over at her, which Maria seemed to take as acceptance. "We''re pulling experts on Quantum mechanics in, and have some of our people studying your machine," Maria said, looking at Dr. Foster. "We''ve actually made some headway into that."

    "Using quantum batteries," Mahmoud said. "It''s something we made for our equipment. We''ll be able to plug you into the Quantum realm. We''re just dealing with something... unexpected, but Tony, uh, Tony Stark that is, says he''s confident we can help you."

    "And what do you want in return?" Dr. Foster asked, the older man crossing his arms. "I won''t do anything that hurts Ava, especially if you keep forcing her to kill."

    Maria crossed her arms, sighing. "Well, I''d hoped to possibly invite her to join the Avengers-"

    "Not happening," Ava spat out, shifting briefly around the room. "I''m done."

    "Then I suppose we''ll simply do our best to cure you," Maria looked at Dr. Foster. "Will you be accepting our offer of employment, Doctor?"

    Bill seemed surprised. "Um... what would that entail?"

    "Working with our research and development team to help us with some of our projects," Maria said. "We are interested in your knowledge on Pym Particles of course, especially since we''ve had no luck contacting Hank Pym," Maria raised an eyebrow when Dr. Foster''s fist clenched. Ava scowled at the name of the man who had ruined her biological fathers'' life. "Well, more that he refuses to talk to us. For now, your insight could be invaluable."

    The older man rubbed his chin, sighing slightly. "...Ava?"

    She looked around. The man, Mahmoud, was eyeing her calmly. Seriously, this guy was an Avenger? Maria was just as relaxed, while her adoptive father was simply waiting for her response.

    In truth, she had no idea what to think. SHIELD, HYDRA, BRIDGE. What was the difference? She''d spent years, being led by false promises, killing people, giving up pieces of her soul for the mere chance to get rid of the pain that had plagued her since childhood... But some part of her wanted to reach out and take another chance. Just once more.

    "Only if Dr. Foster is there," Ava said, still glaring at Mahmoud as she spoke to Maria.

    Bill looked between Ava and Mahmoud before sighing. "Okay. Then we''re in."

    "Great," Mahmoud said with a smile.

    "Excellent," Ava replied more coldly.

    They kept eyeing each other, Mahmoud apparently confused. Ava wasn''t sure what she disliked about him. Maybe it was the careless way he carried himself, as though he''d never faced real issues. Maybe it was the way he was clearly challenging her. But he rubbed her the wrong way.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    "What the hell was her problem?" I grumbled after meeting Ava Starr and Bill Foster. What should have been a cool moment, meeting Goliath as played by Morpheus, had been ruined by Ava''s hostility.

    And the thing is, I wasn''t sure what I''d done wrong. At one point, she''d stepped forward as though about to attack and I''d stepped forward to intercept. And it was as though she''d never been so insulted. It wasn''t like she hated me I guess, more that I was the sort of person who she couldn''t get along with. I just didn''t get it. And I tend to be the sort of person who obsesses when people dislike me. I can''t help it. It''s a flaw that doesn''t come up often, but if someone ends up disliking me, I tend to obsess about it for years after, resenting them. Imply I''m stupid, unfunny, annoying, whatever it is, I''ll think about it for the rest of my life. It ain''t attractive, and I try to do better. But right then, trying wasn''t helping.

    I was musing on this in my room, during my downtime. Trying to push the thought away, I looked around for something to get my mind off it.

    My eyes panned to the video game system and TV, and I thought about seeing what video games were like in a Stark-designed world. Then I dismissed it. After the Omnitrix, I just couldn''t see much interesting about video games, at least not right then. I turned on the TV anyway, switching it to the news, then grabbed my BRIDGE issue tablet and powered it up as I paced.

    I had some messages waiting already. Skye reminding me of my appointment to make her armor and hang out. The contract from Stark Industries merchandising department I had to sign. Mostly to use my image, aliens, and property in their products, which I read slowly before signing. Fitz-Simmons had finished their new machine, and the Claytronic maker was officially in working order.

    After a frustrated moment, I tossed aside the tablet and laid back against the couch. It was supposed to be my downtime. But I couldn''t think of anything to do and everyone else was busy...

    Fuck it.

    I got up and went to the window, reaching for the Omnitrix when there was a knock on the door.

    "..." I stared at the door for a moment, then back outside the window, where New York awaited. Another knock at the door came. I sighed and turned away from the window, walking towards the door and opening it.

    Clint, Creel, Bucky, Sam, Steve, and Tony were standing there, all of them holding paper bags. I blinked. "Uh... hey guys. What''s up?"

    "Sup!" Clint pushed his way inside, the others following. "I heard you were moping in your room."

    "I wasn''t moping," I grumbled, watching as the superheroes and former supervillains strode into my room. "What''s going on?"

    "Movie night," Tony said cheerily, the billionaire holding bags full of junk food. "Well, day I guess. Hill gave us a few hours to relax, so we came down here."

    "You don''t mind, do you?" Steve asked, concerned. "I didn''t know they were springing this on you," Steve gave Tony and Clint a glare. Both men grinned at him as they put down the food they''d brought.

    "No, I don''t mind," I said, deciding to go with the flow.

    "Good, because I''m getting drunk," Creel said, heading towards my kitchen.

    "Can''t," Sam called out to him. "We''ve still got to get back to work after this!"

    "Plus, I don''t have alcohol," I said, grinning at the disappointed look on Creel''s face. I walked to my couch and sat on the floor, leaning back against it. "What are we watching?"

    "Frankenstein, Alien, and The Thing," Bucky answered with a grin. The former Winter Soldier seemed to be almost trying a bit awkwardly to have fun, sitting down on the couch with more energy than required, but none of us commented on it.

    "Jarvis?" Tony said, grabbing a bag of barbeque chips.

    "Already playing sir," the AI said.

    Soon, we were watching classic horror movies together. I looked around and found myself grinning. It''s good to have friends.

    Samuel Sterns/The Leader

    In his lab, Sterns worked carefully, putting the final touches on the chemical he''d been putting together for the past few minutes. As he worked with the blue liquid, John Garrett walked into the room.

    "Hey, Big Head!" Garrett said jauntily. "All done?"

    Sterns held in his anger. Garrett was rude, uncouth, and useless. The only use he had, as far as Sterns could tell, was that he had men under his command. The HYDRA leaders had some sort of use, but Garrett? Sterns only held his control with great discipline, an easy task for a genius of his caliber, and something Garrett didn''t deserve.

    "Yes, I believe I am," Sterns looked up as another person walked into the room. "Young Raina. You have the final component?"

    "Yes, Doctor Sterns," Raina said with a bright smile, the young black woman wearing a pretty silk blue dress with flowers all across it.

    "You sweet talking my girl, Sterns?" Garrett asked with a grin as Raina handed Sterns a blue vial.

    Sterns held in his thoughts on that. "Raina has been helping me. She really has quite the gift for genetics," Sterns poured the contents of the blue vial in with other chemicals. "Sadly, synthesizing this has been quite difficult, and some of the versions I''ve created broke down. But this is the final and completed serum. Thankfully for you, I''ve gained quite a bit of experience in alien genetics recently," Sterns poured all of it into a glass and handed it to Garrett. "Go ahead and drink that."

    "What, just like that?" Garrett eyed the blue fluid within the glass. "I thought it would be a bit more... complex. Although I do like that one of my fellow death cult members is handing me kool-aid."

    "Yes, very quaint," Sterns sighed. "Now, please leave."

    Garrett blinked at Sterns. "Thought you''d be more excited about this stuff, Sterns. You know this Jesus juice can bring the dead back to life, right?"

    The gamma-enhanced genius smirked. "Yes, I do. And while I''m sure less intellectual minds would find that interesting, I foresee far better things in my research."

    After a moment, the other man shrugged before drinking the blue liquid. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Garrett gasped, his back twisting as he stumbled. Raina and Sterns watched him calmly as he fell to his knees, eyes wide. "What... what is this?"

    "Power, I suppose," Sterns said simply.

    "With Dr. Sterns help, I''ve been able to make incredible progress in my research," Raina added with a sweet, cold smile. "With all of the enhancements already in your body..."

    Sterns turned and walked away, leaving Garrett to heal. Raina followed.

    As the gamma-enhanced genius walked through the halls, he could hear Garrett laughing deliriously in the background. All according to plan. When Sterns had realized that there was a sort of genetic memory in the blood of whatever alien the vials Garrett had given came from, he''d come upon a plan.

    Garrett was an issue. For all of his crudeness, he had men and resources that he''d allowed Strucker to use. Garrett gave Strucker manpower that the leader of HYDRA wouldn''t otherwise have. But, if Garrett became so obsessed that he decided to cut ties with Strucker... well, Sterns hadn''t had to work very hard to make sure the serum he''d given Garrett would give him an extra dose of the genetic memories within them.

    "Raina," Sterns said as they walked together.

    "Yes, doctor?" Raina asked politely.

    "Is Project: Blood Diamond ready?"

    "Of course," Raina said, following Sterns through the castle. "The subject is now under our control, and the crystals have been placed in the particle infusion chamber. She''s been injected with the purified serum you created, though I should warn you we had to use the only one you created."

    "Wonderful," Sterns said with a smile. "Do you know the story of how HYDRA obtained her?"

    "They found her in Mexico, right?" Raina asked.

    Sterns chuckled. "Yes, they did. And that was when HYDRA came into conflict with another organization. When HYDRA took her, this organization attacked them. Now, I haven''t found any records of what that group was called. But they followed this young woman wherever HYDRA hid her, calling her ''Black Sky''. HYDRA and this organization killed each other across America, all over her."

    Raina stared at him, surprised. "Why did this organization stop?"

    "In an ingenious maneuver, HYDRA faked her death in an explosion," Sterns smiled. "But make no mistake. If this organization is still around, and they find that she is alive? I do believe they would do anything they could to capture her."

    The pair walked into a room. Inside, the subject of their conversation was sitting placidly on a bed as scientists roamed around her.

    "Are you ready, my dear?" Sterns asked the blank-faced girl.

    She''d changed since he''d last seen her. Still thin, almost painfully so, but her once matted black hair was now clean and combed. She wore white patients clothes and looked up at Sterns. Sterns noted that unlike others, she didn''t seem to notice his massively enlarged head, only meeting his eyes placidly.

    "Estoy feliz de cumplir," the young woman said.

    "Ah, my dear girl," Sterns said fondly, shaking his head. "Such a sweetheart now. Please," he gestured to the large gray metal tube that had opened up to reveal a space large enough to sit in. "Enter the chamber."

    Without hesitation, the girl rose up and walked over to it, standing inside and lying back as the three large rectangular lights on either side of her glowed within the chamber.

    "Are you sure this will work?" Raina asked. When Sterns scowled at the perceived insult, she hurried to continue. "I trust your calculations, Doctor. But it seems... fantastic."

    Sterns slowly softened. "Yes, I suppose it does. But the chamber has been tested before, and I believe now we have found the perfect material to make use of and a subject most likely to survive the process."

    Strucker came through the door then, followed as always by Rana Williams in her Aberration form. Sterns held in a sigh of disappointment at the sight of Rana being so loyal. What a waste. Such beautiful power, all wasted in servitude to... Well. To each their own.

    "Excited, Strucker?" Sterns asked as the chamber closed around the young girl within it.

    "In many ways, yes," Strucker admitted. "I was first put on this project by Whitehall himself. While Creel was quite the success, his abilities were far too... temporary, for our tastes. Seeing what you make here will be interesting."

    For once, Sterns didn''t feel distaste towards Strucker. In this, both men were in total agreement. While Strucker could never match the incredible brilliance and magnificent intellect within Sterns, he was still a scientist.

    "I suppose we should begin," Sterns said with a smile. "One hundred percent."

    "One hundred, sir?" the black haired scientist at the massive cube device next to the chamber asked, shocked.

    "Did he stutter?" Strucker said with a frown.

    "N-No sir," the scientist leaned down, his face distressed, and began to activate it. The gray cube held all the materials they''d chosen within, ready to be used for the process.

    Sterns looked into the window on the chamber, where the girl was staring out calmly. "Now, according to all our research, a person who is already enhanced will more easily accept further enhancements. Raina, why do you believe that is?"

    The young woman smiled. "Because their genetics are more capable of withstanding and healing side effects?"

    A crude answer. Sterns felt disappointed, but he easily hid it with fake pride. "Indeed, my dear."

    Raina smiled, easily fooled. Sterns had her pegged. She wanted to be special, to become someone with power and beauty. Raina''s sin was greed. It made her dangerous, but it also made her easy to draw into the influence of others. All Sterns needed was time with her.

    He put away that thought to focus on the Particle Infusion Chamber. The panels behind the device began to glow.

    "I am saddened we lost our original choice for this experiment," Strucker said. "But losing Ruby Hale and gaining this young woman may have been to our advantage."

    "Does she even have a name?" Rana asked, standing next to Raina. Despite their similar names, the two couldn''t have been more different, Rana towering over the smaller woman.

    "Hm," Strucker said, adjusting his monocle. "I''m not sure."

    Suddenly the girl within the chamber grimaced, gritting her teeth. Raina frowned, sharing a glance Sterns, who simply smiled.

    The girl shouted, then roared, a surprisingly intimidating sound. Strucker stepped forward with a fascinated look in his eyes.

    "How much?" Sterns asked the scientist at the controls.

    "Fifty-nine percent infusion!" the man yelled, with far more emotion than Sterns really felt was necessary for what amounted to a medical procedure.

    The girl shouted again, eyes snapping open. As they watched, her eyes began to change color.

    "Is that supposed to happen?" Rana asked, the gamma-enhanced woman staring.

    "It''s the DNA of the material imposing itself," Sterns said calmly. "How much?"

    "It''s accelerating! Seventy... Eighty... One hundred percent, that''s all of it!"

    The lights across the machine shut down, the panels behind it turning off as well. The chamber opened and the girl was revealed.

    She was panting, her chest heaving as she sweated, soaking her clothes. The thin young woman stared around angrily, hissing.

    Rana still in her monstrous form, stepping in front of Strucker, only for him to shake his head and step forward.

    The girl''s eyes glowed a bright yellow. No, they didn''t glow. It was more like... they''d become that way. They had turned into smooth topaz-like gems, the light making them glitter.

    "Show us," Strucker said softly. "Show us what you can do."

    She twisted her wrists. From each hand, in between pinkie and ring finger, and her middle finger and index finger, four blue-green crystals shot out, two for each hand. They were shaped like curved blades, claws of crystal. The girl grunted in pain as blood poured from the holes the claws ripped in her hands to come out but didn''t seem too bothered otherwise, the bleeding stopping almost immediately as the wounds healed around the claws. She focused once more, and a ripping sound was heard as she stumbled out of the chamber. From her back, shoulders, and along her arms, more crystals sprouted, piercing her skin and ripping at her clothes. She closed her eyes, and all the crystals pulled back except the ones in her hands, leaving her clothes to flutter to the ground as she stared at them with calm eyes. All the holes in her skin sealed, then healed over in moments.

    "Incredible," Strucker said, gently removing his coat and stepping forward. He eyed the blood on her body and claws before chuckling. "Truly," he said, putting his coat around the girl. "You are a Blood Diamond."

    The girl stared blankly, her claws glittering in the light as topaz colored gems gazed upon them.

 38 Chapter 38

    Oh my god!" Steve yelled in horror as we watched a snake-like creature burst from John Hurt''s chest. The super-soldier yelled again, ignoring Tony laughing at him.

    "Whoa," Bucky said, blinking as the crew of the Nostromo screamed in horror at the sight of their friend giving what I''ve heard described as ''violent chest birth.''

    "How awesome is that!?" I yelled, grinning at the reactions of Bucky and Steve. "And you guys thought it wouldn''t be scary!" I thought about mentioning how the actors fear was real since the directors had never told them what was going to happen. But that was better told after the movie, to make it better for a second watch.

    Steve continued to stare, eyes wide with shock. Bucky only shook his head, not as shocked, but still looking surprised. Guess everyone reacts differently to the chestburster scene.

    We''d watched Frankenstein already, of course, so Alien had been the obvious next film. As Steve and Bucky continued to watch though, I realized eyes were on me.

    I looked around. Creel, Sam, Tony, and Clint were all staring at me. No, wait. They were staring at the Omnitrix.

    A sigh left my lips as I rolled my eyes. "I told you, there are no Xenomorphs in the Omnitrix."

    "Oh yeah, but there are Frankenstein aliens?" Creel pointed out smugly.

    "I''m with Mr. Periodic Table over there, I''m not taking your word for it," Tony said with a grunt. "Barton told us about you going into that ladies eye."

    "Her eye was cybernetic!" I complained, leaning away from the couch to look at a disgusted Tony. "It''s just how Upgrade works!"

    "..." Bucky stared at me, his robotic arm very carefully moving to hide behind his back.

    Before I could decide if that was speciesist towards Upgrade or not, Sam sighed. When I looked at him, his mind clearly wasn''t on the movie. I nudged him until he looked at me.

    "You okay?" I asked, slightly concerned.

    "...Just want to go on the next mission. Feels like we should be doing something right now," he admitted.

    The mood lowered. In truth, I think we all felt that way. Like we were just forcing things.

    "We''ll go soon," Steve said, putting a hand to Sam''s shoulder. Bucky frowned at that but didn''t speak. "We''re just waiting for Hill to finish the interrogations. In the meantime, we need to take our chance to breathe. Too much time on the front lines will wear anyone down, you know it as well as we do, Sam."

    "I wonder how those interrogations are going anyways," Creel said idly.

    "Probably great," Tony said with a smirk. "I heard she''s threatening to sick Upgrade on the Centipede soldiers."

    "Seriously?" I asked incredulously.

    "Well, the ones who weren''t being given ''incentive''," Tony said with disgust. "Apparently the chick you ''cured'' is screaming about how you stole her powers."

    I had no idea what to think of that... I thought I''d been doing a kindness, considering how destroyed her metabolism had been

    Steve sighed, reaching for the remote and pausing the movie. We probably weren''t going to focus on the movie anyway. "Hill says that she''s working to find the people who are being held hostage, but it''ll take some time," Steve shook his head, a deep sadness in his eyes. "Still no word on Sharon, Trip, and Jennifer though."

    "Well with that, the mood is officially ruined," Clint mumbled, though he seemed as dismayed as the rest of us.

    Sam gave Clint a look, shrugging. "Sorry, Clint."

    "What, for ruining a party?" Tony asked sarcastically, grabbing a package of Oreos and taking a stack of them out. "Turning us all into angst-ridden teenagers?"

    "Tony," Steve said, glaring at him. "Sam''s right. We''re trying but... I think we all know HYDRA is on our minds."

    "Hey, I''m just saying," Tony replied. "Could have spent a bit of time talking about how there are apparently alien Frankensteins out there in the universe. Instead, we''re talking about HYDRA again. I''m seriously getting tired of those guys dominating my thought processes these days. Could be making more cool toys with those brain cells."

    In his defense, Tony was right. Ever since the Triskelion, pretty much every conversation I''d been in came back to HYDRA at some point. Seriously, I was pretty sure the Avengers ended up fighting other bad guys. Where were AIM, Ultron, Galactus? ...Actually, thinking about the last one, I felt a bit of relief in retrospect. I didn''t want to even see Galactus without at least Atomix helping me.

    "That''s the way war is," Steve said with the wise and sad voice of experience. "HYDRA is always going to be in the back of our minds."

    Tony didn''t seem satisfied with that. I don''t think any of us were.

    "Well, on that depressing note," I said with a sigh, rising off the floor. "I gotta meet Skye. You guys can hang out here, just please clean up when you finish," I directed the last bit more at Sam and Steve, the ones I actually trusted to do it.

    "Skye, huh?" Tony said with a glimmer in his eyes I didn''t like.

    I decided to ignore him, said my goodbyes, and walked out to head to the elevator. It didn''t take long to get to the Claytronics lab from there. Inside I found Fitz-Simmons and Bruce were there working already. As soon as I stepped in, Fitz-Simmons were on me.

    "We heard you met Dr. Foster!" Simmons said excitedly.

    "What was he like?" Fitz added with equal amounts of enthusiasm.

    "Did he talk about working with Dr. Pym?"

    "Did he say he''ll help us make Pym Particles?"

    "Can you imagine the implications?" Simmons asked Fitz, looking positively giddy.

    "God, yes," Fitz said with a sigh. "Being able to make any material you need giant sized-"

    "Creating full sized machinery, then shrinking them to a nano-molecular level," Simmons continued.

    "Nano-surgery, super-precise manufacturing, scientific study on a molecular level...!" Fitz replied.

    Seeing that I was no longer necessary for their conversation, I stepped around them to walk towards Bruce, who was working on his own project now.

    "Any luck?" I asked him as he worked at a computer.

    He shook his head, taking his glasses off to rub at his eyes. "Not so far. I really thought this was worth a shot, but something keeps blocking me."

    I grunted in acknowledgment. Since finding out gamma-enhanced beings were being created and used, Bruce had started using a method he''d developed with Tony during the hunt for Loki to try and track gamma radiation activity that could match what HYDRA was doing. But apparently, HYDRA had planned ahead for that.

    "Hey, Mahmoud," I turned to see Skye walk in, grinning at me. I smiled back. "You ready?"

    "Yep," I said with a grin. "We just need a blood sample," I turned to where Simmons and Fitz were still getting hyped for Pym Particles. "Simmons?"

    "Hm?" Simmons turned to look at me, then smiled at the sight of Skye. "Hey, Skye!"

    "Hey guys," Skye said with a returning grin. "Mahmoud says I need to give a blood sample?"

    "Oh, it''s to make sure no one else can use whatever armor you get," Fitz said, the two British genius walking over to the Claytronics Nanoforge, newly named after Tony cracked one too many jokes about the other name.

    Simmons went over to her station, which was a lot cleaner than mine. In my defense, Jury Rigg was very untidy, in the sort of organized chaos kinda way where he knew where everything was, even if no one else could figure it out. Simmons pulled out a syringe and turned.

    "Um, actually," Bruce interrupted, walking towards her. "I''m going to get a set for myself as well."

    We all stopped to stare at him. Bruce blinked, blushing slightly.

    "You want armor?" Skye asked, looking much like I felt. "I mean, the Hulk in Iron Man armor is kind of-"

    "-overkill," I finished. "And I''m saying that. But hell, I''m down to do it."

    Bruce chuckled. "No, uh, I just want to have something that will change with me. Something tough enough to take some hits. That way I can stop spending so much on extra pants."

    "No extra bells and whistles?" Fitz asked, sounding excited. "We can give you the sword we gave Mahmoud and Isabelle?"

    "A sword?" Skye asked me. "Isn''t that a bit redundant?"

    "Right up until I cut Wendigo''s arm off," I said in reply, crossing my arms. It was honestly one of my proudest moments. Granted, it had been scary as fuck at the time, but taking on a giant monster with a suit of power armor was still a cool moment for me. "And Fitz has a point, Bruce. Having some weapons for Hulk in an emergency would be good... and it''s worked before."

    Bruce, one of the few people who knew I had some knowledge of alternate universes, seemed thoughtful. Skye turned to me. "So what about me? Do I get an Iron Man armor?"

    "As soon as we get your blood work in," I said simply, looking Skye up and down. Skye was one of a few people I interacted with who didn''t have a comic book counterpart, most of whom were in Coulson''s team. I didn''t remember anyone named ''Skye No-Last-Name'' in the comics. "What were you looking for, anyway? Something like what Pepper got?"

    "Yeah, basically," Skye watched as Simmons pulled out a blood sample from her arm, wincing a bit. "Just flying would be cool. I always wanted superpowers, you know?"

    I felt the same way. Having the Omnitrix was a dream come true really, even though I was nowhere close to unlocking it''s real potential yet. Flying at sonic speeds with Astrodactyl, running through New York like the Flash with Fasttrack, brawling with the power of Rath or Four Arms, feeling power run through me as Frankenstrike, feeling the world as Wildmutt and Bliztwolfer, or the brilliance of Jury Rigg, and the feel of merging with tech as Upgrade. I''d often dreamed of having just one of those powers. Now that I had them all, I really felt like giving people some portion of them would be awesome.

    "Okay, let''s look at your blood in the new genetic sequencer," Simmons said, putting Skye''s blood inside before going to Bruce. I went over to the machine myself, curious. Skye walked over as well.

    The machine was basically a microwave with a computer screen on top. Mostly because Jury Rigg had made it out of a microwave, a computer screen, and Fitz''s smartphone.

    "Still can''t believe you stole my phone and broke it," Fitz said sourly, glaring at me.

    I winced. "Sorry, Jury Rigg just kinda got in the zone. Besides, we got the genetic sanguine sequencer out of it," even if the name Jury Rigg insisted on was kinda dumb. ''Sanguine'', really? Plus, Simmons apparently hated the name for its inaccuracy.

    Fitz glared at me harder in the memory of his phone. I focused very hard on the computer screen.

    "What does this thing do anyway?" Skye asked me.

    "Well, all sorts of things, really. But it''s going to be the only one of it''s kind for a while," since Skye''s DNA was taking a while to be read, I switched the screen over to some of the stored data. "I made it to be able to read and interpret the genes and such of people. I''m not much of a scientist, sadly, so I can only really give layman''s terms about what it does. Uh, sorry in advance for how dumbed down this is going to sound to you, guys," I said to Bruce and Simmons.

    "Oh, don''t worry," Simmons said, giving me a smile as she took Bruce''s blood. "I don''t expect you to know anything," when I gave her a look, she seemed to realize what she had said, and became very flustered. "Um, I didn''t mean-"

    "I get it," I said, sighing a bit. Real tough being the dumb one in the room when not in alien form. Can''t wait to unlock Grey Matter or Brainstorm... "Anyways, basically it reads DNA like I said. This is Tony''s," I showed the swirling pillar of sequences to Skye, who at least feigned interest. "And here''s how it compares to Steve''s."

    Skye blinked, noticing what I did. The sequencer flashed at the differences in Tony and Steve''s DNA. The super-soldier serum had made a whole lot of things more... refined in Steve''s DNA. I could barely understand the differences and what they meant, but they were what made him a super badass patriot.

    Then I showed mine, and Skye looked up at me. "Why is your DNA changed too?"

    I pointed at the Omnitrix. "It''s bonded to my DNA. Anyone trying to steal the Omnitrix without knowing how my baby works will get nothing but trouble."

    Skye''s DNA was still being read. I took the sample of Bruce''s blood from Simmons and put it in the machine. When I tapped at the screen, one of Jury Rigg''s programs activated.

    "Oh, come on," I grunted in annoyance. Instead of DNA, footage from Godzilla vs Megalon popped up. I slapped the machine as Skye gave me an amused look. At which point a panel rose up and slapped me right back in the face.

    ''Of course, Jury Rigg would make that a feature,'' I mentally grumbled as I nurse my nose and pride as Skye tried hard to suppress her laughter. To little success based off her growing laughter.

    "Huh," Bruce said as Godzilla slid on his tail to slam his feet into Megalon while Jet Jaguar held the monster in place. "That''s... not really plausible."

    "Yeah well, that''s the magic of Godzilla in the Showa Era of movies. Less about reality, more about fun," I looked up at the group. "Simmons, Fitz, can you guys-"

    "Yes, let me," Fitz stepped forward and started to type at the screen as giant monsters continued to fight. He somehow turned it off, then activated the program again, bringing up Bruce''s DNA. "Okay, Simmons?"

    "Yes, right there," the redhead pointed at the DNA. "Is that the Gamma gene, or some evidence of the Hulk?"

    "I have no idea," Bruce admitted. "I''d need to find someone with the gene who isn''t already enhanced."

    "Well, Skye''s DNA is next. And it''s..." I stopped, staring at her DNA. "...Goddamn it."

    Skye stared at me, surprised. "What, what''s wrong?"

    I sighed. "I''m just tired of surprises, Skye," I pointed at the screen, rubbing my eyes. "Your DNA is human, but only about 99.8 percent. The rest is something new."

    "The Gamma-gene?" Simmons asked, sounding fascinated.

    "Or maybe from when we injected her with the GH.325 formula?" Fitz continued.

    Skye looked a little freaked out at this point. "Guys, what does this mean?"

    I kept rubbing my eyes, feeling a little overwhelmed. Kidnapped allies, Graveyard refugees, Gamma-enhanced beings, cyborgs, a Quantum powered assassin, and now a friend with clearly modified DNA. This was getting exhausting. There were so many balls up in the air for me now. And the worst part was, I knew it was selfish to think that way. Skye was giving me a hurt look, clearly pained at the idea that I was treating her like a problem.

    "You should be good," I said with a smile. "Just in case, Omnitrix? Can you detect any damage to Skye''s genetics?"

    "Skye''s DNA is undamaged," the Omnitrix said in my voice after a quick scan.

    "Then what''s wrong with me?" Skye said, sounding shaky. Bruce stepped into her line of sight getting her attention.

    "Don''t worry," the older man said. "We''ll figure it out. We''ve got enough geniuses in this building to find out what''s happening, okay?" his smile was gentle. "Believe me, I know what you''re feeling... at least, on some level."

    Skye didn''t seem calmer, and I only frowned.

    What was it? The Gamma gene? Was she part alien, or even just a latent superhuman like the Inhumans, X-Men, or even some sort of magically enhanced person?

    "Fuck it," I said simply, shutting down the machine.

    "Mahmoud?" Skye asked me, confused.

    I glared around. "I promised armor. I''m making armor."

    "I think we have bigger issues-" Simmons said gently.

    "We''ll always have bigger issues," I said as firmly as I could. "There''ll always be another bad guy, another superhero, another assassin, another world ending or controlling threat, more of us getting hurt, more of us finding some deep dark secrets we didn''t even know about ourselves at times," I looked around. "Who cares? I want to make power armor for my friend so we can go flying together. I''m going to focus on that now. Skye? You want to choose the color?"

    Skye looked at me. When she spoke, it sounded a little forced. "Well... I do like pink. And orange. But those wouldn''t be good colors."

    Yeah, little forced. But I''d go with it. I went to the Claytronics Nanoforge and started moving the display around. "Yeah, you''d end up looking like a Power Ranger with either of those. Not saying Power Rangers aren''t awesome, but..."

    Simmons, Fitz, and Bruce gave Skye and I a look as I forcibly ignored the issue of Skye''s DNA.

    "I''ll... run tests," Simmons said, giving Skye a worried look. "I''ll have to inform the director."

    Skye frowned. "...yeah. Okay."

    Simmons gave her an apologetic smile. Going to the machine, she hesitated. "Dark blue was always a good color for you?"

    Skye looked up at Simmons, giving her a smile and nodding. "Yeah, I think that would be good. Mahmoud?"

    "Dark blue," I nodded, tapping at the controls and shifting the color screen. "The design will be similar to the Iron Legion and Pepper''s armor, with the defenses and such. Any extras?"

    As Skye moved up to chose her armor, I tried to focus on her. It was oddly easy for me.

    Still, Skye''s odd DNA was exactly why I would never mass-produce or improve on the genetic sequencer. A machine that could read DNA, find what was ''superior'', what was different or strange? Yeah, knowing the Marvel universe, that was something I didn''t want getting into the wrong hands. People would either become Magneto or Trask. Using the thing to decide who was and wasn''t human, when the difference was negligible.

    Screw that. Being human wasn''t the difference. Being sentient, being capable of giving a damn for others regardless of race or origin, that was what mattered. Azmuth made the Omnitrix to be the best tool for ambassadors, to allow someone to walk in another species'' shoes alongside it''s other functions. If I had to use it to represent and protect humans, super-soldiers, gamma-enhanced, cyborgs, metahumans, and people like Skye, then I''d do it, alongside all the aliens.

    I pushed aside those melodramatic thoughts and focused once more on making power armor for Skye.

    "Just be careful with it," I said to her as we worked. "No fighting unless necessary."

    "Got it," she confirmed.

    January 19th, 2014

    The day after finding out about Skye''s DNA, we caught a break in the hunt.

    "The facility is the last place we managed to track all the communications to," Hill said from across the hologram of the facility in question. In the main gathering room for our forces in the Enterprise were three groups. One was the Avengers, all of the original founders in the center, with Steve closest to Hill. The second was us Reserve Avengers, Sam standing behind Steve, me next to Rhodey.

    The third group was a mixture of new and old, joined by someone I was kinda giddy/terrified to see.

    Frank Castle, the Punisher himself, was in the center of BRIDGE''s new Elite unit, looking like he didn''t know what to think, but still being professional as possible. He wasn''t as massively muscled as I was used to, and he was only wearing the BRIDGE casual uniform of a blue sweater, but it was the Punisher, before his wife and kids were killed. Which I was damn well going to keep from happening. He was sitting on a metal folding chair with the other Elite''s, all of them watching Maria give the briefing. Coulson and his people were there as well, Coulson looking pissed.

    "As far as we can tell, this place was a decommissioned Air Force base, with no relation to HYDRA until recently. They''ve been using it to land their ships and refuel them. Davida''s girls managed to get a photo of it to us, and our people discovered their location. I''m sending two members of the Avengers and Reserve Avengers there."

    "Only two, ma''am?" one of the BRIDGE soldiers next to Frank asked, a guy by the name of Gunter.

    "Four, technically," Maria corrected. "Dial, Hulk, Iron Man, and War Machine."

    The four of us stepped forward.

    "Another group will be here," Maria waved at the hologram, which changed to show somewhere pretty familiar to me. After all, I''d been living there before showing up in New York. "Portland. A woman by the name of Audrey Nathan, a cellist in is at risk of attack. We believe one of the prisoners HYDRA captured is going to attack or kidnap her."

    Tony stared at her, shocked, then looked at Coulson. Coulson nodded, his eyes hard. Tony... I mean, I''d never seen him be truly angry. But he looked it then. He looked...

    "We''ll be sending-"

    "Maria," Tony interrupted. "I''d like to go on that second mission, if it''s all right."

    Tony was being polite. Not a hint of snark. One hundred percent serious.

    Maria, after a moment of staring at him, panned her eyes to Coulson. He nodded, and Maria looked back at Tony. "Okay. Nomad?" Bucky stepped forward. "You''ll join the attack on the facility."

    He didn''t seem to mind, only looking over to nod at the rest of us.

    "As for Portland, I''m sending in heavy forces. Audrey Nathan will most likely be attacked by one Marcus Daniels AKA ''Blackout'', a man who has the ability to use what we call ''Darkforce'' to absorb energy and attack others. He is one of the many prisoners broken out of the Fridge and most likely recruited by HYDRA. As he is a confirmed Enhanced with the possibility of other forces aiding him, I won''t be taking any chances. I want Audrey safe, and I want him taken down hard."

    Maria''s eyes panned across the room. "Falcon, Black Widow, Punisher," Sam, Natasha, and Frank looked up. "You''ll defend the perimeter with your teams while Coulson, Captain America, and Iron Man meet Ms. Nathan and bring her in."

    Coulson paled at that.

    "You have your assignments. Move out."

    Later, Bruce, Tony, Skye, and I met up with Coulson on the Bus in his office, where he was preparing his team.

    "You going to be okay?" Skye asked Coulson.

    Coulson only gave her a look.

    "That bad, huh?" she asked quietly.

    "Well, he did break up with her via death," Tony said unhelpfully.

    "Tony!" Bruce shouted, shocked.

    Coulson seemed legitimately hurt. He sighed, sitting down in his chair. "...I didn''t want to see her again like this... With Daniels attacking again."

    "Well, we''ll keep her safe," Tony said, his eyes hard. "I''ve got something to bring him down. And if anyone else tries to back him up, we''ll take them down too."

    As Coulson seemed to relax at that, I realized once again that Tony and Coulson had a really complicated relationship.

    "Well, we''ll finish up as soon as we can," Bruce said, his eyes flashing green. "Maria thinks Daniels or the base will have information on where Jennifer is. Um, and Sharon and Trip too," he said quickly. It was clear where his thoughts lay though. "We''ll stomp the base out, then come to you if you need us."

    "We won''t," Tony''s eyes were flinty. "Believe me."

    Yep. Tony was a scary fucker when he wanted to be.

    "In the meantime, Skye," I said to her. "I know you have your armor now, but don''t use it in combat unless necessary. We don''t know what sort of effect Darkforce will have on arc reactors and Quantum batteries."

    Skye snorted. "Yeah, fine. No using my cool new armor to fight bad guys," she said, feigning disappointment.

    I frowned. "Skye, seriously, I''m not just saying it to be careful. We can''t make any assumptions."

    She looked at me, glaring. "I''m not an idiot, Mahmoud. I''m not just going to run in and fight."

    "I know that, Skye, I just-"

    "Just what, think I''m going to rush in like a moron?" she crossed her arms.

    "Skye, I just don''t want you to rush in and get hurt."

    "Yeah, you keep saying that. You know, I handled myself pretty well before you showed up to nag me about something I already know not to do."

    What the hell did I do wrong? For some reason, I felt like the older guys in the room were amused. "Skye, I know you''re smart, I just-" she turned and stormed out leaving me with my mouth gaped. "I don''t... what the hell just happened?"

    "You made it seem like you didn''t trust her to be smart or capable at her job," Coulson said simply.

    "Wha- I just meant I wanted her to be-" I frowned, trying to figure out where I went wrong. "I feel like I was being reasonable."

    "You were," Tony said. "But then you piled on. That''s around the sixth time today you''ve told her to be careful."

    Damn it, really? I didn''t even notice.

    Left feeling a bit off, I finally turned to Bruce.

    "Hey, you made a mistake. You just need to apologize," Bruce said with his hands raised to say this wasn''t his problem.

    ...Nope. I''m just going to ignore it and go fight HYDRA.

    Four Arms time baby.

 39 Chapter 39

    I piloted the Defiant towards the facility we''d be attacking. I felt a bit of tension. While this place wasn''t going to be an insane risk to attack, it was also important. According to what we knew, HYDRA was using it as a necessary hub for refueling and resupplying. Davida''s team had managed to sneak us a photo, which had been analyzed by BRIDGE personnel and was used to find the location. From there, Jarvis and X started analyzing it. We knew as much about the base as one could without actually living there.

    "How''s your movie watching going?" I asked the empty air.

    "I''m enjoying it, sir," X said over my comms. "I quite liked The Animatrix."

    "I wondered what you would think of it," I said with a smile. "Especially of the Matrix as a whole."

    "I preferred the Ghost in the Shell manga and anime. But I still enjoyed them overall."

    "Any idea what you want to watch next?" I asked.

    "Actually, I believe I''ll take a break from movies for a week, sir. I''ll be putting more time into literature and manga."

    Before I could respond, Bucky poked his head into the cockpit. He looked at me, then moved into the copilot''s seat. I waited for him to speak. Bucky was doing well all things considered. When he was around Steve, he joked around, made fun of his friend, laughed. But he was still a former assassin working for redemption. So I waited as he thought of what he wanted to say.

    "...You might end up killing again. Are you prepared for that?"

    I thought of what to say to that. I no longer had the same bravado I had the last time. I''d spent time thinking about what I''d done, and every mission after I''d done what I could to stop myself from killing anyone.

    But my role this time called for me to do serious damage. The Hulk and Dial, going in and smashinganyone in our way. People would likely die, in the same that even though everyone enjoyed giant monster fights, there was still the fridge logic of the thousands of people dying in the midst of the Kaiju fighting.

    "I''m prepared as I can be," I said at last. "I don''t want to, and I''ll try not to, but... I think the Graveyard got rid of any sympathy I have for HYDRA."

    The Graveyard. Where they tortured, tested, and experimented on ''failures'' of HYDRA experiments going back decades, with the numbers going into the thousands. Considering how many people go missing worldwide, there may have been more. And when they were done, well... the Wendigo had to eat. The files I''d seen of what they had done would haunt me forever. HYDRA certainly did their Nazi roots proud.

    I wasn''t going to be the sort of person in love with carnage and killing. But the thought of HYDRA dying at my hands no longer made me reflect on a knife piercing through flesh. Instead, I thought of victims on hospital beds in a BRIDGE facility, crying as their painful prosthetic and animal limbs were being gently removed.

    Bucky patted me on the shoulder awkwardly. "That''s good. I mean, you shouldn''t start to like it or anything, but, um..." he stopped and gave me the helpless look of a man used to all the moral sides of killing trying to figure out how to word them.

    I smiled a bit at how hard he was trying to help a naive superhero like me. "Okay, so you know the plan?"

    Professional Bucky came back in an instant. "Drop Hulk and you from above, War Machine and Defiant taking out any escaping aircraft. I''ll go in with the hard drive, sneak into the facility while everyone focuses on you, insert the hard drive, defend it for as long as it takes for the virus to finish while Hulk and you destroy and engage enemy vehicles, personnel, and heavy weapons. Once done, rendezvous with the other team and see about our next target."

    It was actually chilling to hear Bucky bring out the assassin in him. I nodded. "Yep. Should be fun. Specially since they''ve got nothing but tanks and gunships. Small time stuff."

    "The worlds really changed when that kind of firepower is considered ''small time,''" Bucky noted.

    "Cavemen probably had the same complaint once," I joked. "Besides, Steve, Clint, and Hartley are still representing how strong the old school weapons can be in the right hands."

    Bucky frowned. "Yeah. Plus there are still assassins who use katanas and such. Guess a good knife will never really go out of style."

    "Katanas..." I said thoughtfully. The Hand, maybe?

    Before I could consider that, the console in front of me began to beep, showing the location ahead. We were flying over forests, heading to a valley where the Air Force had nestled their base into. I don''t know why it had been shut down, as the files I''d read hadn''t focused on history as much as assets and targets, but it was now HYDRA owned.

    "X, take over," I said, rising up and moving into the back.

    "Of course, sir," X replied.

    In the back, Rhodey and Bruce looked up at us. Bruce was wearing what looked like a purple skintight suit with some boots and armor over the chest and back, newly made yesterday, and was working on the War Machine suit with Rhodey, who was wearing his Air Force uniform despite technically now being a BRIDGE officer.

    "How''s she running?" I asked the pair.

    "Like a dream," Rhodey tapped the arms on the War Machine and watched as the right sprouted it''s sonic cannon while the left sprouted a sword. He tapped them again and they pulled back into the armor. "At least until Tony finishes making the next one along with his armor."

    "We''re almost there, by the way," I said to Bruce. "You both ready?"

    Bruce closed his eyes, breathing deeply, then opened them. "I think so... I thought about what you said, about using my anger while also keeping calm. Hopefully, we''ll both be able to do that."

    "All right then," I walked to the back, where the door began to lower as we flew through the air, Bruce following me. The base was below us by a few thousand feet, shadowed by the forested mountains around it. Hangers, tanks, Quinjets, and gunships could be seen from the air. There were some surface-to-air missile defense systems that weren''t able to detect the Defiant. I could also see some giant tanker planes, the kind used to refuel aircraft in mid-flight. I pointed at one of them.

    "I take the left, you take the right!?" I yelled over the wind rushing past us.

    "Sounds good!" Bruce yelled back.

    With that, I tapped my chest, my armor sprouting over my form and covering my head with my black helmet. Then I activated the Omnitrix, flipped through the menu for a bit until I got to the big guy. Then I jumped out of the floating Quinjet from thousands of feet in the air, Bruce joining me seconds later.

    "Going hero!" I cried out as loudly as I possibly could as we fell together.

    I pressed down the dial and changed as Bruce shifted, both of us gaining hundreds of pounds of muscle in an instant, Bruce''s new armor growing along with him.

    "Four Arms!" I yelled out happily.

    Hulk gave me a thoughtful look as we fell before yelling as well. "HULK!"

    I laughed at the idea of him copying me, and together we fell feet first into a pair of gasoline filled tanker planes, smashing through gray steel with a crack of metal shattering under our speed and weight. The smell of fuel filled the air, pouring across the pavement, covering the both of us in the stuff. I bent metal out of the way to exit the tanker, blinking fuel out of my eyes in time to see a HYDRA soldier in a black uniform staring at me.

    "I''m here to speak to the manager?" I said with a grin.

    She yelled out, raising her handgun and shooting me between the four eyes.

    "Rude," I grunted in annoyance, stepping out of the tanker and ''gently'' tapping her in the head, sending her flying a good distance and rolling onto the ground. "Hulk! You okay!?"

    The tanker plane next to mine split apart and a wet Hulk came tearing his way out. He landed next to me, looking up at me with a grimace.

    "Tastes bad..."

    "Well yeah buddy, it''s fuel."

    The sound of tank treads rolling on pavement brought our attention towards the tarmac, where several tons of metal rolled towards us. Three tanks pointed their turrets at us, with several soldiers pointing their guns.

    Hulk and I shared a look. Then we looked over at the tanks, me flashing my fangs. "They seem pretty brave. How about we give them a round of applause?"

    Hulk grinned.

    Together, we pulled our arms back.

    "THUNDER-" I yelled.

    "-CLAP!" Hulk cried out.

    We slammed out palms together, and a hurricane burst out in front of us, sending the planes we''d smashed into flying to the sides. The powerful wind hit the soldiers and sent them flying as bullets scattered in the air from accidental trigger pulls, dozens of men flying.

    The tanks were less affected, only get pushed back a bit.

    So Hulk leaped on top of one, his eyes vaguely glowing green. "HULK SMASH PUNY TANK!"

    Steel tore under green hands as he grabbed underneath the turret and pulled upwards, ripping the whole thing off the tank. Bullets bounced off Hulk''s armor and skin as he jammed his fingers into the tank, tearing it in half before tossing them aside.

    I grabbed another tank and lifted it high, laughing at the feeling of power as I lifted over 60 tons with all the stress of lifting a small rock. In the distance, I saw a gunship try to rise into the air, only for a black dot to fly in and blow it apart with repulsor beam. With a roar, I threw the tank in my hands at another then leaped for a Quinjet nearby.

    The Quinjet had been about to lift off when I slammed into it, bringing it down to slam into the tarmac. The pilots inside stared up at my grinning face in horror.

    "You guys aren''t cleared for flight!"

    I used my bottom two hands to dig handholds into the Quinjet and climb up the thing, getting to the wings. "Raaugh!" My upper arms swung into the wings on either side, steel, and electronics buckling under my fists. I unleashed punches like rain, tearing the wings off and leaving the Quinjet to spin into the ground.

    Suddenly a shell slammed into the Quinjet''s cockpit, sending me flying. I landed and rolled to my feet looking at the Quinjet I''d brought down. The cockpit had been blown out, leaving the pilots dead. A bloody hand was raised in the air, still dripping.

    I spun to look at the tank that had fired at me, which turned its turret to face me, then fired.

    Apparently, my reflexes were fast as hell. I caught the shell out of the air with my right upper arm, leaning back to withstand the force of the shot before stopping, standing to glare at the tank.

    "You HYDRA punks have no loyalty, huh?" I squeezed down on the shell, ignoring as it exploded in my hand and sent a shockwave outwards. "Fine. I already knew you were assholes anyway."

    I leaped over to the tank, dodging the next shot it fired, and landed on it with a four-fisted punch that dented the front inwards as though a meteor had hit it. In the background, I could hear Hulk roaring as I tore into the tank in front of me. A Humvee flew by, followed by Hulk jumping to slam into a fighter jet and destroy. I roared in return, the two of us began the task of tearing the base apart. As we did, the Defiant flew in under cloak to drop a World War 2 vet where he could do the most damage.

    Matt Murdock/The Man in Blackmail

    In a diner in Hell''s Kitchen, Matt Murdock listened with a smile as his friend spoke.

    "I can''t believe you''re still considering saying no!" Foggy said, his voice incredulous. "I mean, we will get to work with superheroes! They''re going to pay us millions to do what we said what we''d do!"

    Matt chuckled. "Well, yeah, it is very tempting, Foggy."

    "Tempting? I still have funny feelings in my pants thinking about the money they offered."

    Matt snorted in laughter, water spilling down his nose. Foggy grinned at the reaction of his friend before sobering, the sounds of his muscles shifting giving Matt an image of the reactions. "Seriously, Matt, what''s wrong?"

    "..." Matt thought about that for a moment.

    In truth, the idea was exciting, for many reasons. Money to do nothing but work in Hell''s Kitchen like they wanted, enough that they could take pro bono cases even. Money he could use to fund his ''other job.''

    But the whole thing was too suspicious in a lot of ways. How did Mahmoud Schahed, the man who went by ''Dial'', know about them? More importantly, how did Mahmoud know about his other identity?

    Because he did. Everything about the deal screamed it, from how they''d been messaged out of the blue, the way Mahmoud''s heartbeat had sped up as though he recognized him when he saw him, to the sheer amount of money being offered to two rookie lawyers with no cases of their own. He had no idea how he knew, considering ''blind'' was enough to stave off suspicion, but he did. Was the deal Mahmoud''s way of controlling him somehow? Bringing him into BRIDGE? Everyone knew that organization was taking in superhumans, and rumors on the internet said they were training them, with some conspiracy theorists claiming BRIDGE was building an army...

    Matt couldn''t ''see'' everything about the deal... But part of him, his instincts, screamed to accept. Didn''t mean he shouldn''t be smart about this in case they were wrong.

    "How about this?" Matt said at last. "Let me meet him on my own? I want to talk to him, find out what he''s about."

    "Pff," Foggy waved a hand dismissively, the air shifting with the movement to press against Matt''s skin. "I bet you just want to get an autograph from Captain America, don''t you?"

    Matt chuckled. "I''m, uh, actually partial to Black Widow myself."

    "Of course you are because Matt Murdock can always spot the hottest girl in the room, even if he hasn''t met her," Foggy''s eyes made the subtle sound that indicated a roll. "I bet you''d somehow end up dating her, too."

    "Foggy..."

    "Oh don''t you dare," Foggy said, his voice mock-angry. "Matt Murdock and Natasha Romanov. Sounds like a match made in heaven."

    Matt laughed, rubbing his head. Foggy became serious once more.

    "Be careful, Matt. I might want this deal, but you''re right. This came out of nowhere. As much as I like the idea of working with superheroes, we might end up suing supervillains too. Which isn''t exactly something law school trained us for," Foggy smiled again. "More defending them actually... But if we have to say no, I''ll support you. No matter how many superheroes tell otherwise."

    The blind lawyer from Hell''s Kitchen focused on his friend for a moment. That was the thing about Foggy. Happy-go-lucky on the outside, the sort of person people thought of as soft. Then you backed him into a corner, and his humor became pointed, the steel beneath his softness revealed. There was a reason Marci Stahl found him so attractive after all.

    "I''ll be careful... Foggy Bear," Matt teased.

    Foggy raised his eyes to the sky. "Ugh! Will you never let me live that down?"

    Matt grinned. "Not until Marci does."

    Foggy threw a sugar packet at his friend, Matt letting it him and pretending to be surprised while still smiling.

    Agent Phil Coulson

    Phil had an impression of Tony, one built up over long study and direct conversation. That impression was simple. ''Surprisingly complicated.'' One would assume that was a vague description, but it was true.

    People assumed, even with his relatively new status as a superhero, that Tony was a childish playboy. Childish? Sure, when he was relaxed. He''d snark, joke, pout, and act like a billionaire''s kid. Until he no longer liked you. Suddenly his sarcastic comments and jokes became pointed, tearing people apart as they gaped. He wouldn''t pout, but frown as he absorbed the information around him, and came up with a way to tear one apart. And those billions, in the end, hadn''t been made by his father, no matter who claimed otherwise. His father may have given him incredible resources, but Tony''s brilliance had brought Stark Industries to the incredible heights it stood at now. Anyone who assumed otherwise soon had that genius aimed at them.

    And in the end, Tony was a killer. Not in the way Natasha or Bucky were. But he''d killed in combat, killed for the sake of others, killed out of rage. Push him far enough and others would find that out as well.

    Tony was a mixture of things. Mature, childish, dangerous, genius, reckless, all of that somehow flowed in one man.

    Which meant that when Tony ended up insisting he be in the same car as Phil, he wasn''t that surprised.

    In dark hours of the morning before the sun would rise, Tony sat in the passenger seat while the two waited in the park near the trail Audrey was known to run on.

    "When was the last time you saw her?" Tony asked quietly.

    "...About a week before I died, maybe?" Phil admitted. "She was preparing for a show, I think."

    "She misses you, you know that?" Tony said quietly.

    "I know, Tony, I just... it''ll hurt her. Even though I didn''t have a choice, the fact I took so long to make contact afterward," Phil sighed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he thought of Audrey.

    "If it helps, I''m going to tell her anyways," Tony shrugged at the glare he got. "What? You don''t want the push?"

    "You''re a terrible therapist," Phil decided.

    "Bruce isn''t any better," Tony noted. They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the trail. "...What was it like? Dying. I mean, I''ve come close a couple of times. Had my heart stop, you know, but, uh... nothing real."

    "I don''t really know. I don''t remember anything about what happened after that... Fury told me I was the one who actually worked on the project, that I was the one who had it shut down... I still don''t know if I can forgive him or May for that."

    "The scary one?" Tony asked.

    A small smile appeared and died on Phil''s face. "That''s her. She apparently built my team to monitor me. To make sure I didn''t go insane, all while she kept an eye on me. May lied to me. Even if it was for my own good, I don''t know how to trust her."

    "Kinda hypocritical of you," Tony looked over at him. "Getting mad about a spy for lying, especially considering you not telling anyone you were alive. And you know that you would have done the same thing, Coulson."

    Phil opened his mouth, then closed it. "...Damn it."

    "What?"

    "I hate when you''re right about something. You act so smug."

    Tony laughed, Phil shaking his head in amusement.

    "...We''ll protect her, okay? No matter what this guy does."

    "...Thanks, Tony."

    Frank Castle/The Punisher

    Frank took a moment to marvel at how things had changed in his life. Just yesterday he''d been able to spend some time with his wife and kids, to see them and have a good night''s sleep in his own home. And now, he was wearing armor more advanced than anything he''d ever had, allowing him to camouflage against the trees he was currently hiding behind like that Predator movie he''d watched as a kid. Not to mention the man next to him.

    "Seeing any movement?" Captain ''Fucking'' America asked him, camouflaged as well. It was a bit disturbing, hearing a voice come out of a clear shape in the air that could barely be seen.

    "Nothing yet, sir," Frank said, eyeing the forest along the path.

    In truth, Frank had been disappointed in Steve at first. The man was built like a bodybuilder and had an almost carefree attitude Frank hadn''t ever seen in a commanding officer before. He acted more like a fellow soldier, a pretty green one at that.

    Then they were out in the field, and he seemed to transform into the perfect soldier every American knew him to be. Even now, standing next to him, Frank could barely believe the ''aw shucks'' nice guy from earlier was the calm military commander in the forest right now.

    "Punisher," Captain America said. "Give me your assessment. If you were HYDRA, how would you aid Marcus Daniels?"

    Frank thought about that for a moment. "...I don''t know. I''m not used to all this superhero stuff, sir. Darkforce, repulsors, Hulk, aliens. I just point and shoot."

    "Take my word for it soldier. It''s the same as any other war. The old tactics still apply, they just get... flexible. Think of Blackout as you would any heavy unit. HYDRA''s target is Audrey, so..." the World War 2 vet trailed off.

    Frank looked around the forest, switching between his visual aids, going from thermal to X-ray. He thought carefully.

    "...Marcus will want to intercept Audrey, so he''ll have HYDRA surround her. He''s unstable, so instead of knocking her out and taking her with him, he''ll try to talk it out. We don''t know who''s leading HYDRA''s forces or how involved Marcus is with HYDRA. But if they are working together..." Frank pointed to the North. "They''ll surround the area with some supporting teams. This whole thing is too showy, so they''re probably trying to keep this guy happy by following his lead. If it was me, I''d send in a small team to kidnap her in the middle of the night, no one the wiser. Her apartment is unguarded, has been for the past two days, with only a basic alarm. Move in with three guys, with more on overwatch, inject her with a sedative while she sleeps, move her out of the window, take her home. The fact they''re being this sloppy tells me that someone powerful but sloppy is in charge. Some fuck that doesn''t know what he''s doing, just what he wants."

    "I know the type," Captain America said, apparently undisturbed by Castle''s cold assessment of the situation.

    "As it is, they''ll have most of their soldiers keep the rest behind Blackout to support him while also using him as protection, the only safe move while being this sloppy. Like a tank charging across the trenches with soldiers defending it. Same with the other one."

    "Other one?" Captain America asked.

    "There will be one more," Frank said, instinct guiding him. "If they can spare it. Another enhanced to help Blackout. If HYDRA is really gathering them to fight us off, they won''t just risk sending one of them on their own. Another enhanced, one they feel can back this one up enough to keep them from being captured... It''s risky. Riskier than I''d want to do. But I think it''s what HYDRA will do. Just a hunch, sir."

    "...Might be true. What do you think, Clint?" Captain America asked.

    A shadow above them shifted in the treetops. "He could be right."

    Silence filled the air a moment longer. Frank breathed quietly, grip tightening on his BCW, then loosening again. The wind blew through the trees and Audrey Nathan began her run.

 40 Chapter 40

    James ''Bucky'' Barnes/Nomad

    Bucky landed quietly in the shadow of the control tower that overlooked the base, where no one could see him. He took a moment to watch as Hulk and, what did Dial call him? Four Arms? Bucky watched as the two massive monsters ''played'' with tanks. They were currently throwing a tank between each other in an impromptu game of catch.

    It took Bucky back, watching that. To days as a kid in Brooklyn, playing with Steve on his team. He was terrible but damned if he wasn''t determined. Of course, once they''d played a couple of games after Steve had gotten his powers, Bucky ended up feeling like the weak link on the team. It was kind of hilarious actually.

    Bucky put aside those thoughts as Four Arms batted a Quinjet thrown by Hulk into the distance with a bat made from a crumpled tank turret. Instead, he looked over at the door to the watchtower. His job was simple. Enter the tower, get to a computer, insert a hard drive, and defend it until X and Jarvis had hacked their way in and found HYDRA''s main base of operations.

    He leaned towards the keypad next to the door, one with green glowing buttons. He had all sorts of tools made to bypass devices like this in his armor now but...

    Bucky jammed his metal arm into the door frame, tightened his grip on the door itself, and proceeded to ripe the whole thing off its hinges where it dropped to the ground with a clang. Alarms were already ringing out across the base the sounds of destruction echoing even from over here. There was no need to waste time trying to be clandestine on the keypad when Four Arms, Hulk, and War Machine were already causing a ruckus.

    He entered, his rifle up and at the ready. Nothing was there but a hallway leading to stairs.

    "This is Nomad, I''m in the control tower now," Bucky said quietly.

    "War Machine, I read you," Rhodey said, the only other ''professional'' in the group. "Continuing to act as air support, but let me know if you need backup."

    "Copy that, War Machine. Nomad out," Bucky started up the stairs, moving at a fast clip. As he did, he activated his X-Ray vision, his eyes adjusting to the blue-white vision with long hours of practice. He could see two guards a floor up, waiting to surprise intruders with a hail of bullets. Bucky strode up to the floor, activated the silenced mode on his rifle and took aim. He waited for the flying form of War Machine to pass with a loud burst of sound.

    ''Ffft, Ffft!'', two bullets went through drywall and entered the heads of the guards. Bucky felt a bit of satisfaction. While silencers only made it hard to spot where the noise was coming from, rather than totally muffling it (Nothing on Earth can truly silence a gun) the tech of the BCW made such sound whisper quiet. Along with a combination of War Machine flying past and the other gunshots outside, Bucky doubted anyone would notice something was up unless they checked up on the guards in question.

    Bucky moved higher through the floors, switching between his thermal and X-Ray vision, moving carefully and quickly. He ignored several floors full of personnel and soldiers, going for the top. "X, can you hack them yet?"

    "I am unable to," the AI actually sounded frustrated. "Samuel Sterns'' firewalls are adapting. I can destroy them with a direct line."

    "You''ll get it," Bucky reached for his waist as he came to the final floor, pulling out a round object with a magnet on the flat side. He pressed it against the door and stepped back, raising his left hand up. Catoms flowed to create a massive tower shield from his arm, as thick as two thumbs and chest high. He hefted it, aiming his gun with his right hand as he sent a signal to the object.

    It exploded inwards with incredible power, turning the door to ashes. Bucky took the shockwaves on his shield and armor, rushing into the room as soon as the explosion passed.

    The top floor of the control tower had windows looking out onto the base all around the room, with consoles and computers everywhere displaying all manner things such as radar. There were ten guards and about a dozen personnel, several of them screaming or holding hands up to block the smoke caused by the explosion. Bucky aimed and shot quickly.

    One guard went down, then another. A man ducked behind some computers, raising his gun over them to spray and pray. Bucky ignored him, moving on. One shot, one kill. One shot, one kill. The guards aimed and fired at Bucky, only for their bullets to bounce harmlessly off his shield. Some would think it sad, in some ways. Bucky was an enhanced cyborg trained in assassination by the most ruthless people in history, covered in the most sophisticated armor ever designed without being worn by Tony Stark. The guards were men with guns in the end.

    Bucky felt no sympathy for the men. HYDRA had made their choice in this case. He killed them all with machine-like proficiency, striding into the room. One of the men, a dark-skinned man with wide eyes, tried to tackle him. Bucky shot out his kneecaps, then fired one into the man''s head, noting how much ammo he had left. Plenty left for the others.

    All the targets were dead when he was done. Bucky moved to the computers and reached for his waist once more, taking a small device out and plugging it into the USB port. "I''m in."

    "One moment," X said politely. "Jarvis and I are working... We''re making contact. Uploading virus, downloading files."

    Bucky raised his shield and faced the door, waiting patiently. He kept his head on a swivel, watching the windows as well. Nothing to do but be patient. He was good at being patient.

    Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

    "Raagh!" I leaped into a hanger, diving into a cargo plane''s nose. My fingers tore into the nose, ripping through it. Once a hole was big enough to let me in I dug into the rest of the mechanics, red hands rapidly pulling apart steel and wires to get into the plane. I heard the cockpit collapse behind me in a rush of squealing metal. Sparks surrounded me, and I left four-fingered hand holds in my passage into the plane. My head ripped into the cargo hold where I grinned ''bloodthirstily'' at the HYDRA soldiers waiting for me. "Heeeere''s Johnny!"

    One man let out a loud screech of horror when I said that. Not a fan of movies, I guess.

    Once inside, I went wild. I punched everything I could see, ignoring the bullets bouncing off my skin to instead punch the cargo, rip apart the plane, and ''gently'' sent HYDRA soldiers flying as I rammed through the cargo doors back into the hanger.

    My assault had a purpose. The hanger the plane I was currently destroying was in happened to be far from the main control tower. Any forces getting diverted would be sent far from the tower, giving Bucky less opposition to deal with. Hulk smashed down through the roof and landed next to me as the plane exploded behind us. War Machine flew over to join us as well.

    "How we doing Rhodey?" I asked.

    "We should be good. Director Hill is on her way and most of the HYDRA forces on the base are-" A shell slammed into me in the middle of his sentence. The force of the shot hitting my chest sent me back a couple steps from not seeing it coming and feeling kinda like what a weak punch felt like when I was human. "Well, most of them are done," Rhodey finished, the three of us looking at the incoming group of tanks and APC''s, five and eight respectively, joined by a gunship flying in the air and heading towards the hanger.

    "Oh you son of-" I was cut off when Hulk leaped into the air, roaring.

    "YOU HURT HULK FRIEND!" with that battlecry, Hulk slammed into the gunship, causing it to spin wildly in the air and bringing it down with incredible force as he roared triumphantly.

    "Hulk, I''m not... wow, he''s really tearing into that thing," I blinked as Hulk started tearing big handholds out of the gunship, the helicopter''s rotors smacking into him and bending fruitlessly.

    "Better them than us," Rhodey said, raising his arms. "Come on," he fired a repulsor beam that slammed into one of the APC''s, sending it skittering. "Let''s go work for a living."

    With a nod in response, I sprinted forward, running through a hail of gunfire before tackling a tank, lifting the front and flipping it upside-down before kicking it away. Hulk tossed another tank for me to punch out of the air while War Machine flew under my arms to fire a barrage of bullets at a HYDRA soldier aiming a rocket launcher at me. We moved forward, carving a path through the HYDRA soldiers. I leaped up to grab a Quinjet out of the sky, slamming it into the ground in a slam dunk motion. War Machine unleashed a barrage of explosions on a group of Humvees with heavy machine guns. Hulk used a tank turret like a war hammer, destroying more vehicles with a pleased/angry grin on his face.

    Then we got the message.

    "This is Director Hill, we''re on our way," our leader said over the comms.

    "Negative, Director," X said in response. "There are several active anti-aircraft weapon emplacements around the base that could prove deadly to any landing force not properly cloaked. I''ll work on shutting them down while in the system."

    That gave me an idea as I ripped the treads of a tank and tossed them to Hulk, who used them as a whip to destroy the rotors of a helicopter.

    "I know a faster way that will hamper the whole base, " I said as firmly as I could, trying to seem leadery. "X, are they all connected to the same power source?"

    "Yes sir, a series of generators to the north of your position."

    "Then I''ll get them," I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my chest.

    "Fasttrack!"

    "See you guys in a bit!" I yelled to War Machine and Hulk, the latter waving his tank turret/war hammer. With that, I sped away to the north. In mere seconds, I was on the other side of the base. A HYDRA soldier was yelling into a walkie-talkie as I ran by. I punched him aside, sending him flying. A little further was an electrical plant, the kind I''d torn apart in Just Cause 3 a thousand times before, with the tall spires, wires, and large steel boxes, all in an area as large as an apartment building.

    "Directly ahead sir," X informed me.

    "I see it!" I replied, tapping the Omnitrix.

    "Feedback!"

    In the form of the tall and black skinned Conductiod, I could feel the power around me flowing between the wires. I grinned toothily and pointed my hands at them.

    In a burst of light, blue electricity flowed from the metal spires, wires, and boxes and into the air.

    "Fzzt-cat-fzzt!" was the crackling sound it made as it slammed into the plug like extensions on my fingertips.

    "Hahahaha!" I laughed, the feeling of energy flowing into my body getting to the edges of intoxicating. Like feeling a hot tub full of minerals bubbling against your skin, that all over rejuvenating tingle all throughout my body.

    "The anti-aircraft emplacements are shutting down, but I suggest you continue taking their power," X said. "Troops are heading to attack you, sir. Coming from the southeast. I suggest neutralizing them."

    I nodded, still taking power from the generators, then looked over to the southeast. I could see soldiers running towards me, back-dropped by the forest that surrounded the base. I thought of changing forms before dismissing the idea. Instead, I turned my left hand from where it had been absorbing electricity to raise it into the sky as I kept pulling power in with my right hand. About ten guys.

    "..." I stared at the group for a moment. Then I sent power through my body over my head, the tendrils on my head lifting up. An orb of blue power gathered over my head, growing to the size of a beach ball. I reared back and threw it at the group.

    They tried to scatter when they saw what I was doing, but few things can actually out-speed lightning. The blue ball grew in the middle of its journey and slammed into every single one of them in a wave of power. Electricity soaked them with hundreds of thousands of volts.

    I watched with a neutral face as they shook on the ground from muscles clenched by lightning. Then I turned back to the generators. I took comfort in the feeling of electricity, absorbing it until there was nothing left to pull.

    "Very good, sir. All weapon emplacements have been shut down along with the vast majority of enemy systems in around the base," Jarvis said, surprising me.

    "Thanks, Jarvis. How''s X?"

    "I''m doing well, sir. The virus has done its work, and we will be interpreting the data," I turned away from the plant and blasted the tarmac beneath me, launching myself into the air on jets of lightning to land on top of a three-story building forty feet away. I looked out over the forest, to where a fleet of Quinjets was flying towards the base, with US military vehicles driving on the roads through the forest to get to us. "We''ve won, sir."

    "This fight," I smiled a bit, looking out over the forest as War Machine flew to land behind me. A loud crack of concrete told me Hulk had done the same. I took note of the powerful energy I could feel coming from them but focused on the view. "After this though, the real fight starts again."

    The three of us stood on the roof, watching our reinforcements arrive.

    Audrey Nathan

    Audrey stretched underneath the light she''d been using as her starting point for her run for years. The cellist was wearing a black hoodie and gray yoga pants, her running shoes a bit beat up, but still serviceable. She looked up at the dark morning sky, the sun still a few hours from rising, before taking out her phone and flipping through her playlist, smiling as the familiar sound of classical music began to play. She truly loved listening to music, almost as much as playing it. Hearing each string of a violin and cello get plucked, hearing the wind instruments join in as a skilled drummer took the song along its path. There was a beauty to it, something that spoke to Audrey.

    She began to jog, shivering slightly at the chill that suddenly rose in the air as she ran. The beginning of the song played with the steps of her feet, with the beat of her heart, Gustav Holst''s Mars, the Bringer of War, playing. The beginning drums and trombones started to pick up, then the tubas, violins, picking up with each step she took on her run through the dark forest-

    Then the music started to sputter about five minutes in, and whining crackle coming from her earphones. She frowned, taking her phone out to look at it. The phone died. And so did the path lights around her.

    Confusion filled her for a moment as a cold wind floated around her, the shadows lengthening. Then a memory, from long ago, filled her with fear. She turned around. The sight behind her filled her with fear and horror.

    Marcus Daniels was a tall, thin man, with combed back hair, sallow eyes, wearing a dark long coat that seemed to absorb the light around him. He strode towards her, a terrifying look in his eyes that she remembered. As though he had seen something beautiful he wanted to make his at all costs. The shadows around them lengthened.

    Beside him was someone she didn''t recognize, a young man with a gray hoodie. His face, in some ways, was more terrifying than Marcus''. It was blank, uncaring, eyeing her with no emotion. The cold wind picked up.

    At the sight of her superhuman stalker''s return, she turned and ran as fast as she could.

    Frank Castle/Punisher

    "Contact," Frank said into his mic softly, moving towards his target. HYDRA in dark green and brown gear, moving through the forest as quietly as they could. They shone to his thermal vision, nine men moving as one towards where Audrey had begun her run.

    Frank and the three other BRIDGE Elite''s circled around them, moving in silently under cloak. Hawkeye was in the treetops, flitting through the forest branches like some elf from a fantasy movie. Captain America was next to him, moving even more skillfully along than Frank was.

    At the moment before Frank struck, he found himself humming something his daughter had taught him for some reason. ''One batch, two batch...'' A strange thing to have in his head before he killed someone. He put it aside. He''d see her later. For now, he had work to do.

    Frank pulled out his Excalibur as the handle grew into a long Bowie knife, moving towards the HYDRA soldier in front of him.

    "Now," Captain America whispered softly.

    Frank grabbed his target around the mouth and stabbed him in the back, the long blade slicing into his enemies heart. Captain America grabbed his own targets head and twisted. The other BRIDGE Elites went for knife stabs as well, one of them slicing a HYDRA soldier''s throat out.

    Five HYDRA soldiers went down, leaving three to turn in surprise. Even as quiet as they were, the BRIDGE Elites and Cap still made enough noise to grab attention.

    Which is what Hawkeye had been counting on. He fired three times in a brief second. Two arrows killed their target, while the last was an ICER tipped arrow, knocking out the target.

    Two BRIDGE Elite''s rushed in while Frank looked towards Audrey, his thermal vision showing her. And two other... things. Strange, negative beings in the shape of humans, only seen by how the warmth in the surrounding area acted. One seemed the draw in the warmth and energy around it. The other seemed to do the opposite, somehow radiating in a way that almost...

    "I hate when I''m right sometimes," Frank whispered. "Sir, two enhanced."

    "Mockingbird," Captain America said quickly. "Get Audrey out! Tony, move in!"

    Audrey Nathan

    "Please!" Daniels yelled as she ran away. "You have to come with me! I can make us happy!"

    Audrey ran faster. She ignored the chill in the air, the shadows surrounding her as tears ran down her cheeks. Again. The monster was back, the man who claimed to love her without even knowing her. Her monstrous stalker. She was in a nightmare again. And there was no one to-

    A motorcycle sped out of the forest, spinning to join her. The woman on it, a tall blonde looked at her. "I''m with BRIDGE, get on!"

    Audrey felt fresh tears fall as she hastily got on the motorcycle, barely listening to her words and simply choosing the fastest means of escape.

    "NO!" Marcus yelled, rushing after her. "Not again! Stop them!"

    The last was yelled at the young man next to him, who raised his hands.

    Something fell out of the sky to land between the women on the motorcycle and the two men following. When it rose up, Audrey felt something within her relax.

    "Dude, can''t you take a hint?" Wearing gold and black armor that was mirror polished to perfection, the familiar figure of the Iron Man suit Audrey had seen on the news stood tall. "She''s so not into you. Try Tinder, find a girl who likes black paint, dark shadows, and My Chemical Romance."

    "See ya, Tony!" the woman Audrey was clutching yelled, twisting the throttle and taking off quickly into the night. "Hold tight! We''ll keep you safe!"

    "Thank you," Audrey whimpered, feeling shame for how scared she''d been, but still holding tightly to the waist of the woman who''d saved her. "Thank you..."

    Agent Phil Coulson

    Phil ran out to join Tony as soon as Audrey was safe, so focused on her that he''d nearly forgotten his own role.

    "Daniels!" Phil yelled as he joined Tony. "Surrender, please! We just want to keep you safe and keep you from hurting... Donnie?"

    The figure next Daniels didn''t respond. But Phil knew who he was.

    "Wait, Donnie Gill?" Tony stared, surprised. If Phil had to guess, Tony was probably looking at files on Donnie from the HUD in his helmet. "The blizzard kid?"

    The young man with a newly shorn head only stared placidly.

    "Enough!" Marcus yelled, enraged. "You''re the one who put me away... but they made me stronger," he smiled sadistically, raising his hands. "Strong enough to kill you!"

    With that insane scream, Daniels fired a blast of power. The Darkforce seemed to absorb the world around it as it flew towards Phil, only visible because it sucked in the light around it.

    Tony fired a ray of concentrated light at the beam, stopping it in its tracks. The Darkforce and light rays fought for a moment, filling the area with shining light and wisps of shadow. Daniels yelled in rage as the bright gold sections on Tony''s armor glimmered against beneath the black sections, illuminated by the strobing lights.

    A tiny explosion filled the air and Daniels stopped, panting in rage. Iron Man stopped as well.

    "We don''t want to fight you," Tony said calmly.

    "But we will, if we have to," Phil added sadly, raising his ICER pistol to aim. "Surrender."

    "...No," Marcus said, his eyes insane with rage. "Blizzard! Take the Iron Man!"

    Donnie lifted a hand up and narrowed his eyes.

    A cloudy line of ice flew from Donnie''s and into Tony at what had to be sonic speeds. Tony yelled out as he was sent flying back, covered in chunks of ice that began to grow over him. He struggled to move as Donnie kept shooting him.

    Then Daniels joined in, blasting his own powers. The cold beam of ice flowed with the shadows to become a strangely beautiful attack made of blue-white ice and black ink-, the two negative energies pushing Iron Man back further.

    Phil raised his gun and fired at Daniels, only be blasted back by an errant shot of Darkforce that felt like it cracked his sternum.

    "Kill him!" Daniels yelled, joining in with a still emotionless Donnie. "Kill him!"

    "Man, screw you!" Tony yelled, spinning to blast a beam that fought back against the two superhumans attacks. He roared, feet skittering as the forest around them and pavement beneath began to get covered in frost.

    Then loud gunshots began to echo from the forest around them.

    "Tony, Phil, we''re on our way, just hold on!" Steve yelled over the comms. "HYDRA is trying to stop us!"

    Daniels spat to the side. "Damn... Fine! Blizzard!"

    Donnie, without a shift of expression, blasted the ground at the same time as Daniels. An explosion of cold shadow surrounded them, blinding Phil and Tony. Iron Man fired at the explosion with his repulsors of concentrated light, made specifically to overload Daniels, struggling with the ice covering his form and making it harder to move.

    But when the obscuring ice dust and shadows faded, Daniels and Donnie were gone.

    "Fuck!" Phil yelled in an uncharacteristic burst of anger, struggling to his feet.

    "Phil!" Steve ran over, still cloaked, but slowly coming into view as he joined them. "Tony! What happened?"

    Tony swore, rising to his feet with a crack of ice falling from his armor to hit the floor filled the air. "They ran away. We could have had them, but I got surprised by their whole attack combo thing... We should get one of those."

    "Sir," Frank Castle joined them, wearing his heavy armor. Phil noted the black colors and the white skull emblazoned on the chest, looking almost spray painted onto him. "Fifteen HYDRA dead or captured. The rest ran with Daniels and Donnie."

    Steve shook his head. "Okay, this is still a win. We got Audrey out, and we know about Donnie. Reconvene at the Bus and we''ll find a way to track them, keep them from their target," Steve looked around as his camouflage dropped away, revealing the red, white, and blue armor he was now wearing, his face concealed by a faceless helm that faded to its trademark shape. "The day''s just getting started. Jarvis, is the other team finished?"

    "Yes, Captain," Jarvis responded. "They will be joining you soon."

    "Let them know about Donald Gill," Steve said calmly.

    "...Okay," Tony''s faceplate rose up, revealing his face, eyes glimmering with a darkness matching Daniels. "He won''t get away. Not again."

    "No," Phil said, eyes meeting Tony with the same dark thoughts. "No, he won''t."

    HYDRA had taken Trip, tried to take SHIELD... Taken Ward before he''d even met him. They would not take Audrey.