Chapter 9
Rumlow stood before Nick Fury in his office. Maria was standing by Fury’s desk, frowning as she trailed her eyes between Fury and Rumlow.
“What did you find in your investigation of Xavier’s home, Agent?” Fury asked firmly, looking at Rumlow with an expectant look like he was ready to analyze each word the man was about to say.
“As ordered, we checked every inch of the place, sir.” Rumlow started his report, looking frustrated and pissed about something. “We used all our advanced investigating equipment to check all the walls that were affected by the attack and the spot where the attack had happened and checked every piece of furniture there.”
Then his frown deepened in annoyance as he continued in frustration. “I wasn’t able to question those Mutant children, since that shapeshifter woman with the help of the remaining Avengers managed to hide with all the children. If you allow me, sir, to hunt them down to get-“
“You are not coming near those children.” Fury cut him off sternly, raising an eyebrow at him pointedly. “We are already risking Xavier’s reaction to what happened to his partner and his school, if we messed with his students as well, there will be consequences we won’t be able to deal with right now. We can’t have Xavier as an enemy, we will lose before we even have time to fix it. Stay away from his students, we don’t need any more problems.”
“But sir-!”
“Do as you are told, agent,” Fury growled, ending the discussion on that subject, before getting back to the point. “What did you find from your investigation?”
Rumlow pursed his lips at being shot down like that but answered in frustration. “A chemical substance, that has a minor acidic effect, and thin glass shards, that looked like it belonged to a fragile glass body that was shattered to several pieces.”
“What kind of chemical substance?” Maria asked in interest.
Rumlow hesitated for a second, then answered. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?! What do you mean you don’t know?!” Fury snapped angrily, hitting his desk with his fist, and making Maria flinch. “Your team has a highly advanced liquid analyzer in all of SHIELD! It can detect over 30,000 substances! From simple matter to chemical compounds, natural and artificial, with an accuracy of 99%!”
“That chemical substance we found is not from those 30,000, sir,” Rumlow uttered with a deep frown on his face.
Fury and Maria stared at him in surprise, not sure they heard him right, before exchanging a look and then turning to look at him again.
“Did you check again?” Maria asked carefully.
“We checked six times. Every time the same result. An unknown substance, made of six elements. The system recognized only four of them, Carbon, Phosphorus, Sodium, and Nitrogen.”
They stared at him with wide, surprised eyes trying to comprehend what he was implying.
“What do you mean there are two elements that were unknown?” Maria frowned, looking at him in disbelief. “You know that every element on Earth is known from its atomic weight to its boiling point and every possible feature. Even the new metals that were brought by any alien invasion we dealt with so far are now added to the periodic table. How what you are saying is possible?”
“I don’t know how that happened. No matter what we do, we always find the same result. We don’t know how that happened, but it did.” Rumlow shrugged, getting even more frustrated.
“You say you checked six times?” Fury checked with him again.
“Yes, sir. We even sent it to the labs here so they can check for themselves. Same results.”
“What about the glass shards?” Maria asked curiously.
“We didn’t have the equipment to check it ourselves, so I sent it to the labs as well so they could do that instead.”
Fury nodded in understanding, before looking at him again. “And what do you think this all means?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Rumlow shrugged, looking confused now. “I am waiting for the results to draw a full picture of what’s happening.”
“Waiting for the results… all right then.” Fury sighed with a shake of his head. He wasn’t going to admit how much he was regretting not involving the Avengers. He was currently needing their brains now. Tony Stark, Charles Xavier, and Bruce Banner would have figured all that out by now if they were the ones here. But he still couldn’t involve them. “All right, agent. Get back to your work.”
“Yes, sir.” Rumlow hesitated to leave yet, then asked carefully. “What about the remaining Avengers, sir? Stark, Winchester, and the angel?”
“What about them?” Fury snapped, looking at him warningly.
“They, uh, they disobeyed direct orders, and threatened-“
“They are not SHIELD agents; they don’t need to obey our orders all the time if they don’t want to.” Fury cut him off dismissively. “Don’t think about them.”
“What do you mean, sir?! They-“
“I said, don’t think about them!” Fury interrupted again even more sharply, glaring hard at him. “They are my problem; I will deal with it myself! Now, go back to your work, agent!”
“Yes, sir.” Rumlow’s face turned red in frustration as he choked out, before turning and leaving the room.
When the door was closed, Maria murmured with wide eyes. “Two unknown elements?”
Fury sighed as he stood up and walked towards the large map on the wall, the dot of the Avengers’ car disappeared from it.
He rubbed his chin as his face turned grim and more worried. His jumbled thoughts only thought about the team, and what was happening to them now.
***
Everyone in the hospital stared in panic, as Castiel and Tony stormed through its doors, with the former carrying the unconscious Dean on his back, the three of them wet to their bones.
“A doctor! We need a doctor here right now!” Tony yelled the moment they entered through the doors, looking around frantically.
A group of doctors and nurses rushed over immediately with a stretcher and took Dean from Castiel, before wheeling away with him as fast as they came, towards the ER.
“What happened to you?” Doctor Johnson, who rushed over when he heard the chaos, remained with the panting, wet Castiel and Tony, staring at them in surprise and worry. “Did your car fall into the river or something?!”
“That was a strangely accurate guess,” Castiel muttered with a raised eyebrow, turning to narrow his eyes at the doctor suspiciously.
“What? Then how did you come here then?!” Johnson asked in surprise, looking even more concerned now. “Why didn’t you call an ambulance?!”
“There was no time for that,” Tony murmured bitterly, his shoulders hunching from exhaustion and despair. “We stopped a car and the driver was kind enough to drive us here fast.”
One of the doctors who disappeared in the ER with Dean came out and rushed towards Dr. Johnson, looking very nervous. “Sir, please come look at the patient, he is-“
“Suffering from first-degree burns, in a deep coma even though his brain waves are working perfectly fine?” Castiel finished for him, looking tired and exhausted. Tony thought he aged ten years in a matter of hours.
The two doctors stared at him in surprise. “God, so you mean-“
“Yes, he is the third victim, the third one we bring here today,” Castiel muttered in frustration, biting his lower lip bitterly, looking to be on the verge of going berserk and hitting something until he was satisfied. “Third one falls from our family.”
Tony closed his eyes bitterly as he clenched his teeth to keep from sitting on the floor and crying in frustration.
Why won’t this fucking day end? How much more are they going to suffer like that?
He and Castiel now resembled two lost kids. They both feel alone and confused, not even sure what they are supposed to do now or where to go.
They were truly alone and on their own now.
The doctors didn’t waste any more time, Dean was moved to a private room next to Steve and Erik’s rooms. Dr. Johnson checked him again, before shaking his head sadly.
“Same symptoms, I am afraid.” He sighed as he faced Tony and Castiel, who were just standing there, looking lost. “I must report that to Dr. Kowalski.”
That got Tony’s attention, he frowned and looked at him in confusion. “Who is Dr. Kowalski? Is he some specialist for mysterious comas or something”
“How do you not know him, Mr. Stark?” Johnson looked at him in surprise. “He came here after he got your permission!”
“What?!” Tony frowned, as Castiel looked at him in confusion. No one tried to contact them all day, how was that possible? “What are you talking about? Who is that?!”
“He is one of SHIELD’s specialists! Before coming here, he said that he checked with you first and got your permission to take a look at Captain Rogers and Mr. Lehnsherr! He asked to be alone with them and-“
Tony and Castiel exchanged a very worried look before they turned back to the very nervous doctor.
“Did you check his identity?” Castiel demanded, looking very frustrated by each passing second.
“Well, I didn’t ask to see it actually,” Johnson admitted nervously, looking at Castiel with some fear. “He looked like a very solemn, elegant man so I didn’t feel the need to-“
“Shit! Fucking shit! What did he do to them?!” Tony exclaimed in pure rage, as he and Castiel rushed quickly towards Steve’s room first.
“Did-did I do something wrong?” Johnson murmured in worry, heart pounding hard as he rushed behind them, catching up to them in Steve’s room.
“Everything seems normal.” Castiel pointed out uncertainly, eyes trailing around the room for anything wrong.
“Oh, no!!” Johnson gasped sharply, rushing towards the Electroencephalograph machine attached to Steve, pointing at it frantically. “The brain waves are no longer active as they used to be!”
A look of pure panic crossed Tony and Castiel’s faces at the same time before the former gripped the doctor’s arm hard. “I want Steve and Erik to be fully checked on again! A complete check-up! Leave nothing unchecked! You hear me?!”
“If they are harmed in any way, I will make whoever is responsible pay for it,” Castiel growled, his eyes glowing with his anger, his entire body seemed to react to his rage, a sharp glow was surrounding him now. “No matter who they are or what their status is. I will make them regret the day they were born.”
His words were filled with icy rage and pure anger, that sent a shiver down Dr. Johnson’s spine.