Iron Before Steel

Strange Visitor: Iron Before Steel

Chapter 13 – Waking from a Dream, Into a Nightmare

October 2nd, 2009 - Westchester, New York

Xavier’s School for Gifted Youth

Clark looked down at the monitor in the security office of Xavier’s School.

The screen showed a small furnished room, clean and sparse, with two occupants who were currently motionless. The “cells” in the Sanctuary at Westchester were nice, nothing extravagant or embellished, but clean, crisp, and functional. They had everything a person would need to be confined to a safe space. Bucky had spoken highly of the room he’d been given while undergoing treatment.

Which was the same room that Clark, Lana, and several of the X-Men were looking in now through the monitors in the security room tucked into the main mansion of the school.

The Professor had checked in on them when they had returned, as surprised as any that a legend out of history would soon be waking up within the boundaries of his life’s work. He had agreed it would be best to put Steve Rogers up in a room in the Sanctuary for the moment, as no one could predict how the man would take the news of his displacement through the years.

Dr. McCoy, ever one to sate his curiosity, was with them in the room alongside Emma, Jean, and Logan. The other X-Men had returned to their duties as the school was in operation, and there were many children to educate and look after. They’d thawed out Rogers the previous day after setting everything up as well as they could. After transferring him to the Sanctuary, they simply had to wait for the man to awaken.

Clark could tell Bucky was nervous as he watched the man fidget in his seat on the monitor. He was so close to getting his best friend back after thinking he was alone here in the “future,” and it meant more than anyone else could know to discover that wasn’t the case, Clark suspected. Bucky wasn’t as eager to share his feelings and thoughts as he once may have been decades prior.

A few decades of torture at the hands of Hydra would do that to a person.

They’d decided it would be best for Bucky to meet Steve alone when he woke up. He hoped that he could convince his friend that everything was alright and that he could explain what had happened.

Barnes was sitting in the comfortable armchair that all the apartments in the building had, though he’d dragged it over to the side of the bed where Steve was currently laid out. Steve’s shield was propped against the end table next to the bed. Pete suggested that it might make the man feel more at ease and comfortable seeing something familiar nearby. Steve was dressed simply in blue jeans and a white T-shirt.

Which was easily a size too small, just like he’d been on screen.

“Who dressed him, by the way? And stuffed him into that undersized shirt?” Clark asked with genuine curiosity.

Emma answered. “Bucky. We have plenty of clothes on hand at all times in various sizes. Kids grow quick; ours sometimes quicker than most,” the blonde telepath said with a snicker.

Clark frowned. “And you couldn’t find a T-shirt that would fit him? He’s gonna think everyone is supposed to wear their shirts too tight like that.”

Emma grinned. “Well, they don’t make clothes for the general public with his dimensions in mind, Clark. Or yours, for that matter.” Clark felt her eyes rake up and down his body at that comment and didn’t even need to glance her way to know her smirk would have been on full display.

Jean and Lana both giggled at that. Clark really couldn’t argue, either. Both Rogers and himself had shoulders big enough to split the seams on a regular-fit shirt in standard sizes.

“Well, you could have gone up a size or two then. Leave the man a little room to breathe, would you?” Clark snarked back at her.

“What would be the fun in that?”

Clark did glance at her then and was gifted with one of her finest winks in return. He just smiled and shook his head.

“Alright, alright. Enough flirtin’, you two. He’s twitching a bit now.” Logan supplied.

He was right. Rogers was moving a bit in his prone position on the bed. The camera wasn’t high definition, as it had only recently become the standard in broadcasting and tech offerings. The school wasn’t made of money, though they were far from being hard up for funding.

I’ll have to make sure that they have additional resources in the future. God knows what will happen when knowledge of mutant-kind eventually becomes public.

After watching for several moments, Clark witnessed the moment Steve Rogers opened his eyes in the 21st Century.

__________________________________

It was warm.

That was the first thing he noticed when the fog in his brain receded enough for Steve to begin taking note of his surroundings. He kept his eyes closed and ears open as he attempted to learn everything he could about the room around him. His training and work with the Commandos had taught him much about being observant of one’s surroundings.

He was on a bed in a warm room somewhere. He wasn’t on the plane anymore, as the sounds around him were too quiet. Too stationary for him to be in a moving, or recently crashed, aircraft. It was also warm, which meant he wasn’t in the ice.

He survived the crash. That was… unexpected. Steve knew his serum had enhanced him far beyond the capabilities of an average person, but driving a plane into the ice of the Arctic nose first was a step beyond what he expected to be able to survive.

Doctor Erskine had done better work than the man could have ever imagined.

Something rustled nearby.

He wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the room with him. Had Howard, Peggy, and the others found him? Could he be safely home at the SSR?

The person’s breathing was deep and steady. Steve’s nose picked up the scent of cologne, too. Familiar. Something he hadn’t smelled since… no. No, it couldn’t be that.

Steve’s eyes slowly opened as he recognized the scent of Acqua di Parma Colonia wafting through the room. Only one man in the Commandos had worn that. They’d given him hell for it, too, using an Italian fragrance instead of a good solid American option like Aqua Velva or Old Spice.

Bucky.

It set him on edge immediately. Someone here was playing games. He wasn’t in the SSR then.

Fine. We can do this the hard way.

He was definitely alive. He could still feel the bruises from the crash, though they weren’t as bad as he expected. His senses told him that everything here was actual, physical reality. He’d have expected to hear his Ma’s voice first if this was Heaven.

The room around him was well-illuminated with fluorescent bulbs. They’d spread like wildfire during the war, whereas before, they’d been uncommon at best. He glanced to his left, where an open door beckoned toward potential freedom from whatever this was. He wasn’t restrained either, so they were going for something more subtle in their trickery.

His shield was sitting just out of arm's reach next to the bed. It was leaning against the fancy end table next to him. That was a mistake. He could reach that shield before anyone around him could get-

“How ya feelin’, punk?”

The voice stopped everything. His thoughts, his breathing, his movement. Almost his heart. He would know that voice anywhere. It was one he knew he would never again hear in this lifetime, and it burned him up to know that Hydra – because who else could it be – would use this against him.

Steve forced the rage down into his chest and shackled it there. He would need it soon, but not just yet. He needed to know more about where he was before he made his move. He briefly considered refusing to turn his head to look to his right where the voice had come from. He didn’t

want to give them the satisfaction of seeing how badly it would hurt him to see their deception. But he knew he didn’t have much of a choice.

Steve turned and saw his best friend in the world sitting calmly in the upholstered armchair next to the bed to his right. He swallowed back the grief and forced out a reply, willing his voice to remain steady and calm. “Where am I?”

‘Bucky’ scoffed at the question. “Good to see you too, punk. I imagine you’ve got more than a few questions rattlin’ around that empty head of yours – I always had to think for us – but you still didn’t answer mine. How do you feel?” Bucky’s face went solemn at that.

Steve almost believed the man behind the mask before him cared what the answer was. It was a good show, to be sure.

“...I’ve been better. And you’re right. I’ve got an armful of questions about what’s going on. How did I get here? Where is here? How long have I been out? But the biggest question I’ve got right now is, who the hell are you?” Steve quickly hopped off the bed into a ready position to his left. He didn’t go for the shield yet but could reach it easily from his current position. He set his bare feet apart, ready to meet any challenge, but kept his arms low at his sides. He met the gaze of the impostor across the bed from him. The man hadn’t bothered to even get out of his chair yet.

The fake Bucky sighed and gave him a sorrowful look before speaking. “Yeah, I get that pal. I don’t blame you one bit for thinking I was dead for those months after the train. I really should have been, but Zola and Schmidt did-”

Steve wasn’t having it.

“Don’t. Not one more word about you being Bucky. I watched my friend die. I saw him plummet off the side of that train into the darkness below, and no one – no one – could have survived a fall like that.” Steve fought back his anger. He didn’t expect them to give up the game this early, but he could try and force them into revealing something.

Damn. Peggy was always the one who could handle this cloak-and-dagger garbage. I’m pants at it.

Fake Bucky didn’t hesitate to drive the dagger home. “You just did. You survived a crash that not even Erskine would have hoped you had a chance to walk away from. That plane was moving, how fast? Three hundred, four hundred miles an hour? More? It didn’t kill you.”

“I had a little help. The serum is better than anyone, even Dr. Erskine, could have hoped for.”

The liar had the gall to smile at him then. “So did I. We didn’t know it then, but Zola and Schmidt did a lot more to me at that POW camp than anyone else could have known.”

Steve’s breathing hitched for a brief moment. Was that true? Had Hydra experimented on his friend before he’d freed him and the others? A spark of hope jumped into his heart. Was he telling the truth? Could this be Bucky?

Steve allowed that hope to kindle, but only for a moment. He remembered his Ma telling him once that if something looked too good to be true, it probably was.

It would have been a fairy tale for Bucky to have walked away from the fall. He hadn’t ever shown any signs of being enhanced like Steve. It couldn’t have been enough to allow his best pal to survive. He wouldn’t hear any of it. Buck’s memory deserved better.

“You look like him. But I remember the mask that Schmidt used to wear to hide what his serum had done. It looked real, too. You sound like Bucky – that voice is perfect, I can admit. But we heard about more than one patrol from the 107th getting ambushed by Hydra agents using their missing friends' voices over the radio – begging them for help. They can fake that just as easily. You’ve done your homework. You even smell like my friend. I don’t know where you dragged up the details on his cologne, but I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so goddamn angry right now. Bucky Barnes was the best friend I’ll ever have, in this life or any other, and it is an insult to his memory every single second you wear his face. I’m going to count to three. If you don’t take off that mask by then, you are going to have the biggest problem of your miserable life, you Nazi pig.”

That got the man’s attention. He sat up straight at the blatant threat, and pulled his arms out of the pockets of his bomber jacket. And that was all Steve needed to see the facade come crumbling down. One of the man’s hands was metal – fingers and all. Steve quickly glanced at the steel glove, or whatever it was, which the impostor noticed immediately.

“Wait, Steve, I can explain-”

No more explanations. Steve didn’t know if it was a man in a suit or some sort of weird Hydra robot – Bucky would have loved that – but he’d had enough.

With the grace of an Olympian, Steve swooped down to grab his shield, feeling comfort and relief as his left arm slipped through the leather straps like they’d been born there. In the same motion, he kicked the edge of the bed between himself and the fake Bucky hard enough to flip the entire thing, frame and all, up onto its axis and toppled it over onto his foe with the force of a speeding car.

Steve turned on his heels and sprinted into the hall, not bothering to check if the man behind him was struggling to follow.

__________________________________

Clark couldn’t stop himself as he slapped his hand over his brow and fought back a laugh at the turn of events on the monitor in front of him.

Shit. Maybe Cap was always going to freak out after waking up from his nap.

The others around him reacted with a bit more alarm, as on the screen, Rogers exited the room quickly and scanned the hallway around him for the exit. Which was easy to see as the giant metal door at the end couldn’t be missed.

Clark sighed. “Well, shit. That could have gone better, I guess. Maybe I should get down there in case Bucky can’t calm him back down.”

On the screen, Rogers sprinted down the hallway, reaching the exit door in the blink of an eye. He stopped momentarily as he appeared to give the big door a once over, likely looking for the way out. He reached out and slapped the big red button that would have opened it had it not been locked.

An alarm sounded through the monitor's audio as hazard lights flashed on the screen. And the doors slowly opened.

“Holy shit! The doors aren’t locked! Why aren’t those things locked?” Clark shouted out to the people around him.

Lana shouted in response. “We told you, Clark! It’s not a prison. We didn’t think about locking them because they were never locked.”

Logan looked at the other screens, where children could be seen in every part of the grounds. Of course, it was recess. “We’ve got a lot of runts out there right now. Call Charles and warn him to get them back in!”

McCoy picked up the emergency phone on the desk and contacted the Professor’s office. “He wouldn’t cause any harm to a child, would he? Even if he thinks they are Germans and he’s been captured?”

Clark answered without hesitation. “No. Not even if they were Nazi kids walking around in uniforms. Steve Rogers wouldn’t purposely hurt any child in his way, no matter how scared or desperate. I can guarantee that.”

Bucky was still in the room back in the Sanctuary and looked a bit dazed from being hit in the face by a bed.

There didn’t seem to be any other staff members nearby on the grounds.

It looked like Clark might have to get involved after all.

__________________________________

It had been remarkably easy to escape their facility. Steve was shocked by that. Apparently, Hydra hadn’t thought he would see through their little lie and walk right out the front door.

He slipped through the large metal doors as they opened and raced up the long ramp toward the end of the building. He burst out of the wide open doors of the wooden frame that housed the underground facility they’d been keeping him in and out into the sunlight.

He had been expecting to emerge into the ruins of a bombed-out city like Berlin itself. Maybe some far-hidden Hydra outpost left over that they had missed or wasn’t on the map he had seen when he freed the 107th. He expected to see the carnage and scars of a world at war.

Not… this.

A clear blue sky behind a brightly shining sun. The air was cool and crisp but not cold. Beautifully kept and clean buildings surrounded him on the expansive green lawns wherever he looked. A large mansion untouched by the horrors of war dominated the horizon before him. And in every direction around him, he could see and hear small groups of children.

Laughing, running, and screaming in joy, not terror. Playing.

What part of Germany was this? Where had they taken him while he had slept, Switzerland? Steve was puzzled, almost beyond reckoning, but he didn’t stop. He ran barefoot through the grass and beneath trees just beginning to change colors.

Autumn!? April had just started when he had gone down in the Valkyrie. If the leaves were changing, it had to be October at the earliest! Steve struggled to understand how he could have been unconscious for six months. He had either been injured far worse than he had thought, or they had kept him asleep somehow for all that time.

Steve sprinted towards the road he could see in the distance beyond the compound's main building he was passing through. The children around him looked on with curious faces as he ran past, chattering to each other excitedly as he went. His superior hearing revealed snippets of their conversations as he ran along, his head swiveling from side to side as he looked at the children all around.

English, they’re speaking English. None of this makes any damn sense!

The realization that he was on the grounds of a school hit him hard enough to stop him in his tracks. He slowed and came to a halt in the middle of the lawn, just a short distance from the main building now to his right. A long driveway that led back to the south, as far as he could tell, and off into the green distance.

“Alright. Stopping was a good start. Let’s take it slow, and everything will be okay, I swear.”

Steve spun around to address the voice that had jolted him from the stupor he’d been caught in for a moment. A large, even for him, man stood in front of him: black hair, blue eyes. The man was even bigger than Steve. He stood several feet away, both arms held out to his sides, with his hands pointed up, palms out toward Steve.

He was trying to appear as non-threatening as possible, it seemed.

Steve settled into a fighting stance, with his shield arm forward and held low, left foot ahead and right arm cocked back with a balled fist. He wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.

The man took another step back. “Easy, easy. I’m not here to fight. I can only imagine how confusing everything must seem, but I promise, no one here will hurt you, Captain.”

Steve raised his chin in defiance. “Likely story. But I’ve dealt with Hydra from the beginning. I know what you guys are and what you can do. All I want to know is which way to the front. If I have to, I’ll fight my way through, so why don’t you make this easier and point the way for me?”

The guy huffed humorously, which wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.

“Well, that’s… a long story, Cap. And there’s no front for you to get back to. The war is over. We won. No small part of that is on your shoulders, Steve Rogers. But your friends did the job. Hitler’s dead, and the Nazis lost. It’s over.”

Steve gritted his teeth and shouted back. “Stop it! I know you’ve been keeping me here for months. Experimenting, no doubt, even with Schmidt gone. I want to go home. So, by God, I will get the answers from you, pal. One way or another.”

The man didn’t budge. Not one step. He just slowly shook his head. “That’s the thing, Rogers. You are home. This isn’t Germany. It’s New York. We’re upstate, Westchester County. Your home, my home… Brooklyn… is only about 50 miles that way.” The man pointed across the lawn toward what might have been south or southwest.

No. He wouldn’t dare believe that. He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting an attack when he did. It didn’t come, though. He turned back, where the man hadn’t advanced one step.

“Hell, I bet we can even see the Manhattan skyline from here if we get up on the top of the mansion’s roof. I know you’re confused and probably scared. But we are just here to help, I swear it. You’re home, Cap. This is America, not Germany.”

__________________________________

Clark watched as Steve Rogers lowered his guard, his eyes bouncing from building to building and person to person as he decided if he would believe what he was being told.

They’d drawn a lot of attention from the students and staff on the grounds during recess. A barefoot stranger with a metal shield sprinting across your lawn at the speed of a car would do that. Clark had taken advantage when something had slowed his advance and quickly approached to try and reason with the former (not that he knew it yet) soldier.

Clark could hear the Professor approaching with a few other staff, including Peter’s heavy footsteps. He could also hear a group of three students on the other side of Steve who were watching intently at what the two of them were doing and slowly sneaking toward them as well.

Steve finally looked him dead in the eye. “You’re telling me I’m back home? In the US? And I can see Manhattan from up there?” He looked skeptical, but at least he was listening. Clark wasn’t sure if they could see that far from four stories up, but there was a good chance.

“I promise, Steve. This is New York.” Clark waved an arm toward the mansion, inviting him to take a look. Just then, the three students walked into Steve’s field of vision. His head turned at their approach, and he froze.

One of the three students was a deep, rich blue color with a waggling tail. Steve glanced at them, then back at Clark, confused.

Uh oh.

“It’s, uh, an extraordinary school. That’s just Kurt.” Clark lamely offered. Steve looked back at the blue-colored boy. That’s where things took a turn.

“Guttentag,” the boy smiled and waved at the bewildered captain.

Oh, son of a bitch...

Steve stared at the small blue child, who smiled up at the men from a few feet away and slowly turned back toward Clark. There was a challenge in his eyes now.

“Now, don’t jump to conclusions. Kurt is German, but this is still New York, really-”

“I think I’ve heard enough from you, thanks.” Steve hauled off and flung the metal disk on his arm directly at Clark. The look of surprise on the man’s face was almost worth the hassle when Clark easily reached up and plucked the shield out of the air without any effort.

Steve blinked at him for a moment and stepped back in shock.

“Yeah, like I said. Special school.” Clark shrugged and sent an awkward smile to the stunned Rogers. Who immediately shook it off and charged him. “Oh, come on. Really?”

Steve sent a flurry of punches and kicks toward Clark from multiple angles and at different parts of his body. Clark managed to avoid the majority without much effort, blocking a few others and only letting a couple of them land harmlessly against his body. Steve stopped his assault as quickly as he’d begun, eyes blown wide as he stared at the man who’d effectively ignored the attack.

“Who’s serum did you get?” Steve asked in amazement, and Clark could see more than a bit of concern.

Clark just shrugged again. “No serum here. I’m something else.”

Another voice interrupted their verbal sparring. “Mr. Rogers, please. We truly mean you no harm. You’re alarming the children, though.”

Steve turned to face the older man seated in a wheelchair and accompanied by several other adults.

As Clark looked around, he thought the Professor might be pushing it with his definition of ‘alarmed.’ He felt at least half the kids around them looked excited or interested in the brief bout between the two.

Steve took in the assembled crowd around the two now and appeared to focus on the children more than anything.

Bucky’s voice joined the crowd and caught Steve’s attention. “Everyone knows that your birthday is the 4th of July because Captain America’s birthday couldn’t be anything else. But you were really born at 11:57 pm on July 3rd. Senator Brandt fudged all of your records to make it look more patriotic in the papers. You’ve never walked away from a fight you couldn’t win, especially before the serum. You

spent as much time in the hospital as a patient as your Ma did as a nurse. You would draw her pictures for her birthday and Christmas each year since you never had enough money to buy a present. The one year you did, she asked if you wouldn’t mind drawing a picture of her wearing the silver necklace you bought. You kept her wedding ring with your dog tags every day, except when you went on a mission. Then you kept it locked with your other valuables and the one picture you had of her when she took you to Coney Island for the first time when you were nine.”

Steve turned and stared at Bucky, listening as the man shared details that wouldn’t be in any history books or found in any intelligence reports. Steve’s jaw progressively lowered with each bit of impossible knowledge Bucky shared.

“The first time your Ma let me take you out for a Halloween party when you were 10, you almost choked on the water bobbing for apples when it went up your nose. You always hated the cold when we were kids because it hurt your lungs. But you loved how clean the snow made everything look the day after it fell. You are the most stubborn, asinine, and absolutely insufferable prick when you know you’re right because you won’t let up. Ever. You can’t walk away from a stray dog without finding some scraps of food to give it.”

Steve’s eyes were filled with tears, as were Barnes’s. Buck had closed the distance as he was talking and was now standing only a single arm’s length away.

“The look in your eyes as I fell off the side of that train will be with me for the rest of my life, punk. I know exactly what was running through your head when you reached out and couldn’t save me. You’d have done anything, everything, to switch places with me that day. I know, cuz it’s the same thing I would have been thinking in your place. You’re my brother, Steve. Now and always. You’ve never left a man behind, and you didn’t that night either. I’m with you til the end of the line, pal.”

Steve crumbled at that last sentence, and Clark had to admit he teared up a bit himself. Bucky surged forward to catch his friend before his knees could hit the grass and pulled him into a tight embrace as both began to cry. “It’s me, Stevie. I swear it. On my Ma’s grave, and yours. Becky’s, too. I’ve missed you, buddy. More than you’ll ever know.”

Steve looked at his lost friend in awe and, through his sorrow, asked, “How?”

Bucky smiled back at the man and replied, “That… is a long damn story, punk. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

__________________________________

October 17th, 2009 – Washington, D.C.

SHIELD Headquarters, Triskelion – Director’s Office

His task force lounged around his office, waiting for their tech team to complete the software uploads to finally get the damn show on the road that he’d called everyone in for.

Fitz and Economos bickered as they tried to finish setting up the display on the screen in his office while Gemma Simmons shook her head in amusement at the pair. Sam Koenig was offered his suggestions, which were ignored.

Fury looked around the rest of his office at the team he had put together. It hadn’t born the fruit he’d hoped for when he started last year, but that didn’t mean it had been a failure. The agents in this room would likely be considered the finest operatives that SHIELD could put into the field on any given day. Which meant most of them were in the running for the best damn intelligence agents on the planet.

Bobbi Morse was sitting between Jessica Drew and Sharon Carter, pointing out something on her phone as the pair watched in rapt attention.

Girl talk.

Emilia Harcourt sat in a chair at the end of that couch and pretended she wasn’t listening to the other ladies as they talked about whatever was so interesting on that phone.

I see you, Harcourt. You aren’t as aloof as you think.

Melinda May stood by his window, looking out over the Potomac.

She’s listening to every conversation in this room—Atta girl.

Coulson and Hill were sitting on the bench by the back wall, reviewing something on an info pad. Likely the duty rosters and rotation for the next few weeks.

All work and no play, those two. No surprises there.

Barton was lying on his second couch in the corner, bouncing a small rubber ball off the wall, ceiling, and floor at his leisure.

No work and all goof there as usual.

Which brought him to the final member of their little SHIELD family, sitting across from him and flashing her most intimidating stare. Which would probably have been effective against almost anyone else.

Hell, it’s almost effective against me.

Nick Fury tilted his head to put his lone eye forward to meet Natasha Romanoff’s focus. He waited for another few seconds before finally speaking.

“Knock,” he offered, restraining the smile that threatened to break out across his face when her expression twitched.

“Are you serious?” Agent Romanoff asked in annoyance. “Are you cheating?”

Fury raised an eyebrow at that. “That’s a serious allegation to make at the table for a friendly game, Romanoff. You got anything to back it up?” He asked in challenge. He loved it when his agents pushed back and showed some backbone. It’s probably why Romanoff charged up the list of his favorite agents so quickly. That and her supreme competence.

And he was totally cheating, too.

“He’s absolutely cheating, Nat,” Barton called from the back couch with a grin you could hear.

“Shut up, Barton.” Fury barked at him. “And stop bouncing that damn ball. You’re like a kid in detention whenever you’re in this office. Annoys the shit outta me.”

Barton laughed.

Hill chimed in after that. “Romanoff always cheats at cards. I’m shocked you haven’t caught her yet, Nick.” She grinned across the room at them both, throwing Romanoff a wink.

“They’re both cheating.” Everyone in the room stopped to look at May, staring out the window at the outside world.

Fury leaned around Romanoff to look at his senior field agent. “One day, I’m gonna figure out just how in the hell you do that, May. And prove it.” He added at the end to Romanoff.

She just smirked and raised one shoulder in a half-shrug in reply.

“We’ve got it!” Economos called out sharply. Fitz joined in with, “It’s ready.”

Fury released a huge sigh of relief. “Jesus, it’s about time. I seriously considered walking out and locking you three in here for the night for wasting our time.”

Fitz ignored the jibe and flipped on the screen. A map of the continental U.S. popped up, and dozens of little red dots began appearing across the country. Everyone stopped what they’d been doing and huddled around the display on the wall to see.

“The installation of more than 400 atmospheric sonic sensors was completed a few days ago – yes, Director, I know it was longer than we initially thought,” Fitz cut Fury off just as he opened his mouth to make a snide comment.

Fine, take all the fun out of my job, you little shit.

“But, after linking them all using the weather stations in every major city in the United States, and a few less than major ones, we are ready to connect them all in an interlaced web of sonic detectors. We’ll be able to detect and locate any object moving at supersonic speeds across the contiguous 48 states.”

Economos jumped in. “We’ve overlapped them to ensure that there aren’t any gaps in the coverage and that we can triangulate any signal received from at least three stations. With the algorithms Fitz and Koenig wrote especially for this program,” Sam Koenig took a mock bow for his contribution, “we will be able to determine the speed and direction of any object that it detects to a degree of 99.98% accuracy.” John smiled a big grin and held his hands out as if waiting for applause.

Which he didn’t get.

He got an eyebrow from Nick Fury instead. “And are you lunkheads going to turn it on soon?”

Fitz did a double-take before handing over the laptop to Fury himself. “We think you should do the honors, sir.” Gemma Simmons rolled her eyes in fond exasperation.

Fury rolled his eyes in slight annoyance but still took the computer. “Which button do I push?”

Economos jumped in. “Just hit Enter. Everything should be set up and ready.”

Fury did as he was instructed and tapped the Enter key. The computer screen flashed black, and then a long string of code began running up and down the monitor. He returned it to Fitz, who sat it on the desk.

On the big screen wall display, the little red dots that indicated a sensor in a city across America began slowly pulsing in sync. Fury looked on with interest.

“The program is now active. The laptop will allow you to bring up specific information from any single sensor in the net by left-clicking on it with the mouse. We can officially track all supersonic anomalies across the country now,” Fitz added with pride and a smile.

Just then, one of the dots on the west coast, southern California, it looked like, began pinging. Fury pointed at the screen and looked at Fitz. He swung the laptop around and punched in a quick command, which zoomed the display on the wall to show a small portion of Southern California. Along the coast, a red line was streaking from somewhere near Los Angeles toward the north.

“What is that? Can you tell?” Fury asked.

Fitz clicked with the mouse on the dot, and additional information popped up on the screen. The object's speed, direction, and approximate size were all displayed for them to see. An extra number also showed an elevation reading.

Nice touch, kid.

“It would appear that Iron Man has made an appearance today, sir. Unless our friend the Marvel has figured out how to run faster than sound at 20,000 feet,” Fitz smiled at the Director.

This he could work with.

“Alright. I gotta admit, it looks damn good boys,” he said. Gemma cleared her throat. “And girls. How long will these sensors last before they need to be replaced?"

Economos answered. “They’ll be good for at least 36 months. We’ve got them set up with the newest thermal and solar tech, and they’ve each got a battery that should last that long. As long as nothing physically takes them down, they’re set for three years.”

Fury smiled. He wouldn’t need nearly that long.

The Marvel had been eluding him for far too long at this point. A man, presumably, of that power and ability needed to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Something like SHIELD. They keep the peace and make it so all the lovely people of Earth can sleep better at night. Getting the Marvel on board would help make a safe and secure world a reality.

Fury knew better than anyone else on Earth where the true threats were.