Chapter 6
The moment Brock Rumlow’s car stopped in front of the X-Men mansion, he didn’t waste time to jump out of it and march inside the mansion uninvited, throwing orders around to his team.
“Don’t let anyone leave the area! Lock up all those mutant kids!” he ordered harshly, as he marched inside the mansion like he owned the place. “One of them must be the cause of this! Both accidents happened in Westchester! This couldn’t be a coincidence! Interrogate each kid, and any adult mutant inside lock them up immediately, and check every inch of this mansion, flip everything inside out- “
“You are not laying a single hand on those kids, nor are you going to even talk to them.” A firm, cold voice greeted him, and when Brock turned around sharply to see who dared to talk to him like that, he found himself face-to-face with Castiel.
When he looked behind the angel, he saw Raven and Tony glaring at him sharply as they stood before the students who cowered behind them, looking nervously at Brock.
“Like I told you before, Angel, I am doing my job,” Brock growled getting right into Castiel’s face, jabbing a finger to his chest. “And no one has the right to interfere no matter who-“
Castiel moved towards him so fast, that he didn’t even have time to blink as the angel grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him hard up the nearest wall, finding himself with his feet a few inches in the air, as he stared right at Castiel’s sharp, glowing, very angry eyes.
“Listen to me very carefully, Agent, because I will not repeat myself ever again, so you better listen,” Castiel growled coldly, sending cold shivers down Brock’s and his entire team’s spines.
The agents’ hands moved towards their guns nervously, with a scared look in their eyes.
“Calm down, kids, let the adults talk.” Dean’s firm angry voice made them freeze as he stood in front of them, pointing his gun towards their faces.
The agents’ faces turned bright red in frustration, matching Brock’s face as he stared at Castiel who continued his sharp cold words.
“The case you are dealing with is not just some freak accident that must be kept a secret from the public and we can’t butt our heads in it. What really happened is that I just lost two of my family members in less than 24 hours. And there is no force on Earth, let me repeat that,” he got his face closer to Brock’s to make his point, his eyes glowing with the force of his anger. “That will keep me from finding out who is attacking my family. I don’t care if I broke your precious laws. We will never stop and step back. So, you will just have to live with it. Do you understand me?”
Brock stared at his face for a few tense seconds, anger making his face red, with hidden fear in his eyes. “You are throwing away your future like that, Angel.”
“And you are throwing away your life if you provoked me enough, Agent.” Castiel countered coldly, letting go of Brock, who lost his balance and landed on his ass on the floor.
He jumped up to his feet, hand flying towards his gun, which he raised towards Castiel’s face. Tony and Raven started to rush over, but Dean motioned for them to stay back, watching the scene sharply, his own hand clinching on his gun.
“Come on. Shoot me.” Castiel stared holes into Brock’s face, not caring about the gun pointed at him. “Do you want to see how useless that will be? You’ll be just ruining a perfectly fine shirt. That’s it.”
A long silence had passed, with them both glaring defiantly at each other, until Brock growled and lowered his gun, glaring daggers at Castiel’s face.
“You will pay for this.” Brock spat, then turned sharply to his frozen team. “Let’s get out of here!”
With that, he marched out of the mansion defiantly, every move he made was filled with pure rage and anger as he slammed the door of his car and drove away so fast that he almost hit one of his team’s cars.
No one spoke until the cars disappeared down the road, then Dean turned to Castiel, looking concerned now.
“You know what will happen now, do you?” Dean pointed out, not looking regretful though. “SHIELD will not be happy with us.”
“Yes, that’s true” Castiel confirmed, as he started to move around fast. “He’ll come back soon enough, with a warrant to keep the mansion under custody, and an order to arrest us as traitors or something.”
“What?” Tony’s eyes widened, looking even more unsettled now. “Why?! Where’s the hell is Fury?!”
“If he is on our side at the moment he’d have shown up by now, not give the case to Brock of all people.” Castiel pointed out with a frown, looking deep in thought. “Something is definitely wrong in SHIELD right now, but we will not stand here and wait.”
He turned towards Raven as he made his way towards Charles’ office, where the incident happened. “Evacuate all the children, move to one of the Avengers’ hideouts, and stay low. Don’t interfere with anything and just stay with the children.”
“Don’t you need my help?” Raven asked nervously, looking reluctant to leave them to deal with this.
“You’ll be helping us by being safe with the children.” Castiel managed a reassuring smile, patting her shoulder to try and calm her nerves a little.
Raven sighed and nodded. Motioning for the children to follow her as they left, they all waved goodbye to Castiel, Dean, and Tony while looking scared and worried about their fallen father figure.
“Dean, check the garden where Erik had fallen. Check every inch there, and keep anything that looks strange or suspicious, even if it is a grain of sand.” Castiel turned to Dean, giving him a meaningful look.
“I got it.” Dean nodded firmly, already running out of the mansion towards the garden.
Tony followed Castiel towards Charles’ office and watched as he crouched down to check a spot on the floor, where Erik got hit.
“Cas, what about Erik? And Steve?” Tony asked him nervously, wringing his hands together as his nerves were as frayed as they could be. “Are we just going to leave them in the hospital?”
“We can’t do anything for them right now, Tony.” Castiel swallowed the lump in his throat, pushing down the feeling of helplessness that was threatening to overtake him after he failed to heal Erik as well. “They are in the care of top, professional doctors. That’s better than anything we could offer them right now. The only thing we can do for them is to find out what happened to them and what’s going on with us. Only that can help them. Are you with me?”
Tony went silent then asked carefully “Should we call Charles? Tell him what happened?”
Castiel contemplated that for a second before shaking his head. “Not now. Wait till we figure out what’s happening. Do you really think it's wise to worry him like that when he is on another continent?”
Tony’s face was as pale as the dead as he swallowed nervously. “What do you need me to do? Give me anything. Anything.”
“Can you still hack into SHIELDS’s system?” Castiel asked, giving him a very meaningful look.
“Well, duh!” Tony answered immediately, with no hesitation or questioning. “That’s basically nothing to me, barely an effort. What do you want to find?”
“Look for any recent secret projects. Anything that relates to a controlled Fireball that hunts its selective victims.”
“Wait, you really think they-“
“I don’t think about anything yet. Just need to confirm something.”
Tony was silent for a few seconds, before nodding and getting to work on his tablet immediately with no more questions.
Castiel went back to check the spot, where Erik was hit. There was slight damage everywhere on a wide range. Burn marks that scattered on the floor, the furniture, and even the ceiling. Everywhere there were small burn marks. Enough for Castiel to make an image of what had happened clearly from the spread and position of those marks.
What confused him was that the damage did not match the sharp, burning glow that blinded Tony when he told them what happened. It was less than what they would expect from a glow like that. It didn’t even match the size of the ball as Tony described it. A Fireball the size of a basketball exploding should cause way more damage than that.
What does that mean?
The question rang through Castiel’s head. Along with a lot of other questions.
What’s the secret of that Fireball?
How does it choose its victims so specifically like that, that it doesn’t harm anyone else?
Who sent it? Who chooses the victims?
Why? How? Could it be-?
His thoughts froze at that as his eyes landed on something on the floor of Charles’ office, that made him furrow his brows sharply as he crouched down to look at it cautiously.
It was a shard of broken glass. So thin that it was unlikely came from the broken glass window.
Very carefully, Castiel picked up the glass shard and put it in a small plastic bag and he was just putting it inside his pocket when Dean came in from the garden.
“I didn’t find anything that could help.” He announced with a displeased frown.
“Did you check everywhere?”
“Very carefully. But came up with nothing.”
“Woah! Maybe I found something here!” Tony announced with wide eyes, as he stared at the tablet in his hands.
“What is it?” Castiel rushed over to him, followed by Dean.
“Actually, I found two things! Two projects that were placed under top secret projects that fit what we are dealing with!”
“Wait, really?” Dean frowned nervously, leaning behind Tony to check what he was talking about.
“One of them is about a new chemical that is specific to hit the nervous system. It causes full-body paralysis, without affecting the organs or the brain waves. The other project talks about a controlled bomb, that can be controlled to hit selective victims from afar using a very special kind of tracking method.”
“What kind of tracking methods?” Castiel questioned, looking deep in thought.
“It’s not included of this level of secrecy in these files.” Tony shook his head with a frustrated frown. “Nor does it include the ingredients of that neurochemicals. I need to hack into a higher secretly concealed information to get these details.”
“There are ranks of secrecy?” Dean muttered in increasing frustration. “SHIELD is very complicated.”
“Secrets are ranked in SHIELD. Some are available to Team leaders and some to a few top Agents and scientists, but the most dangerous, important secrets are kept under highly classified secrets that no one can even look at except the director and his second in command.”
That made both Dean and Castiel’s faces frown very nervously.
“Guys, do you know what this means?” Dean muttered, looking at them carefully.
“It means our filtration is happening under Fury’s knowledge,” Castiel concluded with narrowed eyes, fists clenching. “And he is doing nothing to stop it.”
“But why? We didn’t do anything to harm SHIELD in any way! We barely crossed paths in the last few months!” Tony pointed out incredulously, not understanding their sudden hostility towards them. “Fury was the one who assembled the Avengers in the first place! What the hell changed then?”
“Maybe he is trying to replace us with S.T.R.I.K.E?” Dean pointed out with an annoyed look on his face, hating how complicated things were getting. “Or maybe he got bored of us? Or even someone assassinated him and the one in charge now hates our guts or blames us, I don’t know I am fishing in the dark here.”
“Oh, God, what do you think happened to our friends who went on SHIELD missions right now?” Tony’s face paled even more at that. “Clint, Bucky, Sam Wilson. Shit! Are Sam and Natasha even okay?! I couldn’t reach any of them when I tried! What the hell are they doing to us?!”
“Whatever the reason is, we will not just roll on our backs and accept it.” Castiel announced firmly, eyeing them both pointedly, “We will fight our way out of this and we will find out what happened to the others. Right now, we need to focus on whatever targeting us and how to wake our fallen friends.”
Tony and Dean straightened, determined to do as Castiel said and focus on one problem at a time. Right now, they need their main focus to be on the Fireball and what it did to them. That’s all they need to focus on for now.
“Tony, can you hack into that more classified information?” Dean asked Tony curiously, watching as Tony’s hands were already flying over his tablet.
“It will be complicated even for me,” Tony answered, focusing on his tablet as he spoke. “If I have more time, I may be able to-“
“They’re back.” Castiel cut him off, looking alert all of a sudden.
He pointed towards the broken windows in front of them.
Far ahead of the road, Brock Rumlow’s car was coming back, followed by two of those big cars that carried armed soldiers.
“That means we need to abandon ship.” Dean clenched his jaw as he grabbed Tony’s and Castiel’s arms, and then together they all started rushing out of the mansion. “Let’s go.”
“Charles will be very pissed at what happened to his mansion,” Tony muttered nervously, as he let Dean lead him out of his childhood friend’s home.
They didn’t use Dean’s car. They had to leave it there to not be too obvious as they escaped since Dean’s car was known to everyone, so it wouldn’t help them right now. Dean wasn’t happy to leave his baby behind, but he grudgingly acknowledged their opinion.
They used one of Charles’ cars instead. They suspected Charles wouldn’t mind much when they told him later.
The moment they were all inside a car, they drove away as fast as they could.
“Does that make us outlaws now?” Dean wondered as he drove them away, looking behind them at Brock’s car as it reached the mansion. “I missed being an outlaw!”
“Things are just wonderful!” Tony muttered cynically in the back, fists clenching as he glared at the floor. “Steve and Erik are in a suspicious coma. We don’t know what happened to everyone else. We can’t reach anyone. We are on our own. We don’t know what will happen to us, and SHIELD is considering us outlaws now. This is just great! Awesome! I am having the time of my life!”
“Not with that attitude.” Dean rolled his eyes, ignoring how Tony’s words made him clench his fists to the steering wheel hard.
“We’ll figure it out,” Castiel muttered, to them or himself, he wasn’t sure. “We always do.”
“They are getting away! After them!” Brock screamed to his men as he saw their car speeding away from the mansion. He turned his car around and started chasing them down, followed by the two huge cars of soldiers.
And a car chase had begun.
***
Nick Fury stood grimly in his office, facing the windows, watching the city moving, oblivious to everything happening right now.
Maria Hill marched into his office, looking displeased and annoyed, standing at attention by his desk, his back still facing her.
“Agent Rumlow is chasing them right now,” Maria announced with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t get it, why didn’t they just stand down? Why did they have to be so stubborn? They could have just stepped back when they were told, it’d have been easier this way!”
Fury didn’t answer for a few seconds, still watching New York’s traffic silently.
“What would you have done if you were in their place?” Fury finally murmured, still not facing her. “Two of their members had fallen. It’s obvious they won’t just step back and ignore it to let someone else deal with it. Especially if they were the most stubborn three people on Earth like those three.”
“They are just making this even harder than it already is!” Maria exclaimed, looking very frustrated and on edge already. “If they had just-“
“Order Rumlow to stop chasing them.” Fury finally turned to look at her, announcing his words firmly.
“What?” Maria blinked at him, startled.
“Order Rumlow to stand down right now.” Fury faced her completely, his words firm and absolute. “Tell him to turn around, return to The X Mansion, and finish his investigation there. Leave the Avengers alone.”
“Sir! That will mean-“
“Fine. I will do it myself.” Fury raised his watch towards his mouth and called out angrily. “From command Zero to 1003. Drop the chase right now and return to your mission.”
“What?!” Came Rumlow’s indignant voice, answering back to him. “Sir! We are so close! We almost reached them and-“
“I said Drop the chase right now and return to your mission, 1003!” Fury shouted at him angrily. “Or I will consider your actions as defying orders and you will be arrested for it! Stand back. Now!”
Maria frowned in displeasure, while a long silence fell on the room until Brock’s choked-off, frustrated voice finally replied back. “Roger that, sir.”
Fury ended the call and Maria gave him a long silent look.
“Things are not as simple as you think,” Fury stated calmly as he looked towards a screen that showed New York’s map, a glowing spot was moving fast on it. The team’s car. “You can’t deal with those three in this way. They won’t stand down.”
His eye glinted as he watched the glowing dot moving.
“There are better ways to deal with this.” he looked at Maria, who was looking at him with nervous confusion now. “Way more rewarding ways.”
***
“They stopped chasing us!”
Dean announced in surprise, watching from the mirror as Brock’s team retreated and turned around to return to where they came from.
“Why? They were almost on us.” Tony frowned in confusion, looking from the rear window in confusion. “Why would they just stop?!”
Dean didn’t have an answer to that so he just frowned nervously, while Castiel furrowed his brow, thinking hard at what that would mean, before turning suddenly to Dean.
“Go to the hospital to Steve and Erik. Now!” Castiel announced firmly, looking worried and unsettled all of a sudden.
“What? Why?!” Dean exclaimed in confusion but was already directing the car to get them to the road to the hospital.
“What are you thinking, Cas?” Tony asked from the back, looking very worried at Castiel's sudden announcement.
“This is the only place we need to be right now.” Castiel clenched his jaw, still looking very unsettled. “Rumlow would never just step back and abandon the chase like that. Unless-“
“He got an order from up high.” Tony caught on to what Castiel was saying. “Very up high!”
“From Fury? Isn’t that a good thing? That means he is on our side, right?” Dean pointed out, looking unsure and confused now.
“Unless-“ Castiel repeated, looking like he fell into deep thought, a frown marring his face, indicating whatever he was thinking wasn’t a good thing.
“Unless what, Cas? What?! You are making me nervous here and-” Dean was yelling impatiently, but choked on his own words as his eyes landed on the rearview mirror and cursed very loudly and accelerated the car to its maximum speed, startling the other two.
“What? What?!” Tony turned around fast to see what made Dean act like that, only for his eyes to widen so hard, that they almost bobbed out of his head from how wide they got as he stared with a slacked jaw and full body shiver at what he saw. Like he was shot with a one-thousand-volt lightning bolt, he let out a loud, panicked shout. “No! No! Not again! No!!!”
That’s because. Chasing down their car, was the Fireball. Glowing with a blue flame that was changing to green as it got closer and closer to them.
Meaning that the Fireball had chosen its next victim and was coming to add another fallen one to the list.