The One Calling The Shots
Upon Fury, Sonya, and Oslo’s arrival to the hospital the group split up. Fury and Oslo went together and Sonya went to go find Val or Ritson. Fury and Oslo wandered the halls of the hospital that had been almost entirely shut down to care for the President due to the security concerns. It was rather eery to walk the ghostly halls of the place hearing nothing but their own foot steps as they moved both quickly and quietly. Fury assumed there would be more security present and he could tell something was not quite right about this set up. Like a trap was pending for him or someone.
As Fury and Oslo turned a corner they heard rushed steps coming down the hallway and they both hid along the wall for the on corner to catch the runner off guard. As the hurried steps moved closer and closer, and Oslo and Fury held their guns up a brown haired woman in a gray sweatshirt ran past them they both held their guns out and Maria stopped dead in front of them.
Fury and Oslo lowered their weapons at the sight of her.
“What are you doing?” Oslo asked.
“Saving the President, what are you doing?” Maria asked Oslo and then looked at Fury.
“Where is he?” Fury asked.
“He got moved to the west wing but almost every one in his security detail are skrulls in disguise, we have to take out all of them.” Maria said urgently.
“How do you know?” Fury asked surprised at this revelation.
“The skrull who is Colonel Rhodes I heard him on the phone, he said ‘at least the those left at the hospital are ones of us.’” Maria explained and Fury and Oslo both raised a singular brow as they each had one eye covered with an eye patch.
Oslo did think it was odd that Maria hadn’t cracked a joke about the eye patch twins yet, but given the situation he guessed she would save it for later.
Maria pulled her gun out from under her sweatshirt and she started to run down the hall waving at the two of them to come with her. Neither Fury or Oslo questioned it as they raced with Maria to go save Ritson.
As they rushed toward the west wing of the hospital, Maria heard someone coming and she stopped dead in her tracks.
“Fury, stop.” She whispered and she used her right arm to push Fury back against the wall the way a mother would protect a child in a car accident.
After things quieted down Maria took her hand off Fury, but Fury grabbed her arm quickly and pushed her right back into the wall with his all his might, stunning Oslo. Fury bashed the gun out of Maria’s hand and it fell to the floor.
“Fury, stop! What are you doing?!” Maria asked shocked and appalled as Fury pushed her up against the wall and pointed a gun right in her face.
“Fury! What the hell!” Oslo huffed. Maybe this had been a fake Fury the whole time. Maybe it was the one who tried to kill Maria, was it still him? Oslo pointed his gun at Fury.
“There’s only one person in this world who doesn’t call me Fury…” Fury said eyeing Maria closely. “Do you wanna guess who that is?” Fury muttered, his voice was ice cold, seething with hate an anger. If the first ‘Fury’ this fake Maria said didn’t synch it for him, this second one definitely did. This was not Maria, this was a skrull in disguise.
Oslo’s eye widened as he was stunned at the scene of Fury holding his gun up to Maria’s face against the wall. This is what Fury was basing this off of? And Oslo had to think about what Fury was saying.
“Shoot him!” Maria yelled to Oslo. “It’s not, him, he’s one of them. It’s just like before. They’re pretending to be him again.” Maria pleaded to Oslo, she looked terrified and it certainly was compelling for Oslo, it sounded like Maria, it looked like Maria.
“Where is Hill!” Fury yelled in Maria’s face.
“Nick, I am Hill, it’s me, Maria!” Maria pleaded again her eyes watering.
“I have one sure way to find out.” Fury threatened menacingly.
Oslo didn’t know what to do, was Fury right or was Maria right? Which one was the fake? How did he tell without hurting both of them? Was Maria a skrull all along and the real Fury tried to shoot her because she was a skrull? This was complicated.
“We don’t have time for this, Nick, please!” Maria continued to cry like she was begging for her life, and it was certainly convincing for Oslo but Fury seemed undeterred. Maria wasn’t even making a plea to Fury, going right to Oslo, and it seemed like a sure sign to Oslo that it was definitely Maria not even bothering arguing with a skrull that this Fury could be. Or maybe this was the real Fury and he was just confused.
“Fury, it’s her.” Oslo said to try and assure him.
“Listen to him, it’s me!” Maria cried again.
“Where is Agent Hill!” Fury yelled in Maria’s face.
“He’s wasting time, we have to go, he’s the skrull, they are stopping us from getting to Ritson. Shoot him!” Maria cried to Oslo.
“Please, he’s going to kill me and then kill you. Shoot him now before it’s too late.” Maria cried to Oslo and Oslo held his gun on Fury still, and Fury seemed wholly unbothered by Oslo holding his gun at him. Fury didn’t even make a case that Maria was a skrull, he made no argument other than Maria calling him ‘Fury’ which could have just been a slip of the tongue. Maria wasn’t even begging for her own life, it was to kill Fury so they could go save Ritson, and I really had Oslo sold that this was really her, and they had somehow been tricked by a fake Fury.
“Drop the fucking gun, Fury!” Oslo yelled.
“Shut up!” Fury yelled angrily at Oslo, that kid had no idea what he was dealing with, he was being played. “This is the skrull. She’s the fake.” Fury pushed Maria into the wall again and Maria looked helplessly trapped between Fury and the wall with a gun pointed at her. It was a tough sight for Oslo to watch, it turned his stomach.
“Aren’t skrulls really strong? If she was a skrull she would just push you off her?”
“No, because she wants you to shoot me so she can then shoot you. Do you understand the games they are playing?” Fury banged Maria again against the wall and she grunted painfully and cried from it.
“And if this is a skrull, which it is, that means they have, or killed the real Agent Hill.” Fury glared down the terrified Maria in front of him. “There’s a reason she’s talking to you and not me, this reptilian motherfucker knows that I know skrulls, that’s why it wants you to do its dirty work.” Fury huffed back to Oslo but kept staring down Maria.
“This is your last chance.” Fury yelled coldly without compassion in Maria’s face. Maria pressed her eyes shut and avoided looking at Fury directly, then she was looking right at Oslo, pleading with him to shoot Fury.
“Nick, I’m right here. It’s really me, look at my face.”
“I am looking at your face, your the one who won’t look me in the eye.”
“Because I’m afraid! You’re going to kill me, you’re being crazy, you’re acting insane. You’ve lost all sense of control and reason. You’re going to kill me because of something I said in a rush, in a panic? You want me to look you in the face when you make this mistake?” Maria cried tears falling down her face and it was painful to watch for Oslo, and Fury too really.
“I’m right here, Nick. I’m right here. Don’t do this, don’t fall into their paranoia this is what they want us to do. I’m sorry I thought you were skrull, you’re not, it’s you, I know it’s you, I’m trusting that this is really you, believe me when I say it’s me.” Maria pleaded again desperately and it looked like Fury was starting to believe her.
“Gravik is here, he is going after Ritson and his security team is going to help him. We have to get those agents before it’s too late. I got the President moved to the other side of the hospital, I was going to help him.” Maria continued her face wet from the tears rolling down it. Fury started to take a slight step backward and let up as he wondered if he did indeed just make a big mistake. Maria always trusted him and now he didn’t trust her. Over what? A stupid little thing that didn’t mean anything? She already had to suffer through a fake him shooting her, now the real Fury was threatening to do the same, it had to be traumatic.
Oslo lowered his gun slightly and then he looked down at Maria’s hands and his eye widened as he noticed that her hands were not bandaged like they had been and that they were devoid of any cuts and scratches from the car accident a few days ago. Maybe this hospital had very advanced healing technology reserved for the finest agents and leaders in the world, but then why hadn’t they healed the bruise and cut on Maria’s face, which Maria still had? Oslo also noticed that Maria never used his name when she was talking to him. As Oslo thought about the trap that had been set for Fury and Maria back in Moscow that was so elaborate and personal, he started to suspect exactly what Fury was thinking before was true, but now Fury seemed to be on the fence.
As Fury stepped back away from the crying woman he shoved into the wall, he seemed a bit astonished with what he had done. Did he over react? He was so sure, even though he felt sure that this was a skrull, something about what he had just done to her seemed over the line. He wanted to shoot this skrull but it looked so much like Maria and listening to her plead and try to convince him it was her just broke his heart. He didn’t know how he could shoot her even if it was a skrull. It was harder than he thought it would be to kill the portrayal of someone he cared about even if it wasn’t really them.
Oslo saw Maria step slightly forward and one of her hands moved behind her and he saw her reach for another hidden gun she had on her and then Oslo fired right at Maria’s hand, because he wasn’t totally sure it wasn’t her either, so he followed the same move Sonya made against Weatherby.
Maria fell forward to the ground she tried to cover her hand with her sweatshirt but both men stepped over her and the barrels of their guns pointed right at her on the ground. Purple blood started to seep through her light grey sweatshirt. Oslo pressed his gun into the back of Maria’s head and Fury stepped on her sweatshirt sleeve pulling the cuff back with his foot to reveal a green hand.
“I’m only asking this question, one last time, where is Agent Hill?” Fury repeated.
Frain was silent on the floor as his ruse had been shattered. Once again, he was feeling a gun pressed against his head. He thought he had had been quite convincing, he almost got Fury. Gravik would have been thrilled. Frain saw what happened to those who betrayed Gravik, but he didn’t thin the outlook for him looked any better if he didn’t start talking.
“Gravik found her first. You are too late, Fury.” He said still as Maria and his words did hit Fury hard, that was what Maria said on the phone before Fury got here, ‘don’t be late.’
Oslo and Fury exchanged a glance and Fury gave Oslo a silent nod and Oslo fired his gun into the back of Frain’s head. His face returned to his true skrull face from Maria’s and he laid on the ground lifeless. Fury and Oslo exchanged a glance again, one of anger and sorrow.
“Thanks.” Fury said to Oslo, thanking him for doing what he couldn’t and the two men nodded at each other. Honestly, it was hard for Oslo to do it too, but it wasn’t the same for him and he knew that. It was fake a show to tug at their emotions, and it did work. Now they had to hope Maria hadn’t met the same end as the skrull pretending to be her.
“Do you think Gravik is really here?” Oslo asked.
Fury looked down the hallway toward where the skrull wanted them to run.
“Call and find Sonya, warn her that Gravik might be here.”
“What about the skrull claiming all the security around Ritson is skrulls?” Oslo questioned.
“I don’t know about that yet. But if Gravik is here, he’s going for something deep and personal and he’s going to make a show of it.” Fury sighed and Oslo nodded in agreement.
As Oslo and Fury split up, Fury called Maria but no one answered. He texted Talos that Gravik probably called his bluff and wasn’t in New Skrullos and then Fury went the opposite way of Oslo. Fury knew he could trace Maria’s phone from his own, maybe he’d be able to find her and Gravik, but he hoped it wasn’t too late like the skrull had claimed. Even though Fury tried not to show it, he was shaken up from the interaction with the fake Maria.
———————————————————
Meanwhile in New Skrullos…
G’iah led Talos to the hidden lab in New Skrullos, everything was dimly lit, dark and quiet. Talos hid in the shadows of the lab as G’iah started to wander around but then she heard something and she ducked behind some shelving.
“Come out, come out wherever you are!” Gravik’s voice called out hearing the noise.
“Are you sure about that?” G’iah said as she walked out from behind the shelves holding her gun at him.
“G’iah?!” Pagon asked still disguised as Gravik as G’iah walked forward in her traditional human shell. Talos and G’iah learned that Gravik wasn’t really at New Skrullos, so they knew they were dealing with a fake.
“You’ve risen from the dead?” He scoffed eyeing her up and down as she stood alone in the far corner of the lab.
“Dead? Please, just because you believe something, doesn’t make it true.” G’iah said unaffected and confidently.
“Did you see what happened to your daddy dearest? All over the news?” He taunted.
“No, must’ve missed it.” She raised her brows.
“Shame. He screamed like a pathetic crying girl.”
“I don’t remember that part.” Talos said in his usual human form emerging from the shadows.
Pagon squinted his eyes at Talos and G’iah.
“How!” Pagon yelled in disbelief, both of them still alive? That was not possible.
“All kinds of surprises lurking around this place, isn’t there?” Talos asked.
Pagon paused, truly he didn’t know if G’iah and Talos were really standing before him. Anyone could be pretending to be them to throw him off. Fury was trying to play a mind game on Gravik, clearly, but Pagon was confused.
“Where’s Fury? Too much of a coward to show himself? Sends a girl and an old man in his place? That’s what he does, though, uses girls in his place while he goes and hides and comes out Scott free.” Pagon snickered.
“Yeah, and what do you do? Let all the people who believe in you die in your place? Send hoards of skrulls to die for nothing? Is that something to be proud of?” G’iah scoffed right back.
“Fury did that!”
“No. You did that. You, the brilliant mastermind behind sending hundreds of us to be slaughtered. Thinking you could single handedly take on the American Military Complex as if it’s not the most advanced military and national security apparatus in the world.” G’iah laughed.
“Watch your tongue you traitorous bitch.” Pagon snapped.
“Watch yours.” Talos said coldly.
“Need your daddy to protect you, still?”
“Keep talking, boy.” Talos continued.
“Is Fury not going to show?” He asked.
“I think you have bigger things to worry about.” Talos eyed Pagon.
“That pathetic worthless sneak sent puppets in his place, huh?” Pagon snarked in his best Gravik voice.
“Do you mean Gravik?” Talos asked with a smirk and then Pagon glared at him and frozen as he realized that G’iah and Talos must’ve known that he wasn’t Gravik. Then Pagon lunged at Talos but G’iah jumped in front of him and shot Pagon in the arms.
“C’mon Pagon!” G’iah yelled as Pagon fell backward.
“A useless girl and a washed up old man? Fury really sending his best to fight for him!” Pagon stood up as the extremis healed the shot from G’iah. Pagon changed to his usual human shell from Gravik’s. G’iah and Talos feigned surprise at Pagon’s ability to heal himself.
“Did you think this would be easy?” Pagon gloated as he fired shots at Talos and G’iah, both of them ducking quickly out of the way.
“You want to die for Gravik? He is a coward like no other.” Talos yelled to Pagon.
“Fury’s the coward, he always has been!”
“Fury is not here!” G’iah yelled.
“That’s the point!”
“No! The point is Gravik knew Fury wouldn’t be here and he sent you anyway. What does that signal to you?” Talos asked Pagon.
“That he trusts me!”
“That he thinks you’re expendable.” G’iah corrected.
“We’re all expendable to his grand scheme of things.” Talos added in.
“No, he sent me here because he trusts me, I know it Traitors are the ones he punishes, and the skrulls that fight for him die for a cause, not for Gravik.”
“There are no traitors, just skrulls!” Talos yelled back at Pagon.
“You’re either with us or against us, there is no in between. I know where you two stand, good thing you won’t be standing for much longer.” Pagon fired at both G’iah and Talos again, both of them barely missed the shots fired at them.
Talos tried to reach out again and talk to Pagon, “If you really cared about skrulls” — “SHUT UP” Pagon yelled and fired a shot right at Talos, Talos ducked behind the machinery in the lab again.
“Pagon, listen to me.” Talos wanted to reason with him. So many skrulls had died recently he hoped he could just spare one of them and help them see the light.
“Talos, skrulls have spent decades listening to you and getting nowhere. We finally came to earth, after you told us it was safe for us and you lied! You tricked the humans and you tricked the skrulls. You are done, you are finished. You brought us here, you brought this rebellion to earth. This is the price of your decision, not of Gravik’s! Gravik is just finishing what you started, what you couldn’t do. Even G’iah believes that, don’t you. That’s what she told us when she joined us.” Pagon scoffed and glared at G’iah who frowned deeply as Pagon recounted the things G’iah said about her father to him and Gravik.
Talos was silent for a moment but then he nodded.
“You’re right… She’s right. All of the things you are saying are true. I never found us a home, I convinced us to work for Fury on a promise that I knew and he knew was never possible, and then I called more of you here, especially when Fury was gone and half the world was gone, giving you all some false hope that you could live here as yourselves.. as ourselves. But I was wrong. I was wrong. This isn’t a home for us, this is just part of our journey until we find our place.”
“We are done being patient, the humans can fight for this home if they want it. We found our place!”
“They will! They will fight for it, Pagon, and they will win. Earth has an astounding collection of heroes that would decimate the skrulls, they would kill us all, every last one of us who remains, and with good reason. Did you see what they did to Thanos’s army! We are nothing compared to that.” Talos tried to explain.
“That’s what the harvest is for!” Pagon shouted.
“What is that going to do? How many Avengers even have powers that can transfer through DNA? Not that many. This is a bad plan, it will not work. It was never a plan to help the skrulls, getting the Harvest was just about helping Gravik, so he could have powers so he could control the skrulls.” Talos walked over slowly toward Pagon, trying to get him to lower his gun and Pagon lowered it as he had his own doubts about Gravik’s plans but facing them was hard and emotional for him.
“At least we are trying! You sat around and did NOTHING for decades.” Pagon growled as Talos came closer.
“Because Pagon, because there wasn’t anywhere to go then, but things are different now.”
“No they aren’t, you know they aren’t.”
“I know they are!” Talos pleaded again trying to convince Pagon to come to his senses.
“He’s too far gone.” G’iah muttered as she was getting concerned at how close Talos was getting to Pagon trying to reason with him.
“No one is too far gone.” Talos said kindly. Pagon lowered his gun completely to his side as Talos stepped closer.
“You don’t have to risk your life for him, you can live, with your family, your friends, there are others who refused to die for Gravik and helped us instead, you can do that too. You don’t have to die for” Pagon lunged at Talos tackling him to the ground and the two wrestled each other, knocking their guns out of their hands as they fought.
“SHUT UP!” Pagon yelled filled with a brute emotion as he started to punch Talos in the face. G’iah ran over and pummeled Pagon to the ground off her father. Then Pagon toppled G’iah in the roll over and struck her face too. G’iah fought back unsuccessfully and then Pagon started to ruffle through G’iah’s pockets as he could hear Talos start to get up.
“Don’t move old man!” Pagon pointed his gun at him and Talos froze, then Pagon pulled out a clear vile from G’iah’s jacket pocket as G’iah coughed from being injured and tackled and hit.
“Well! What is this then? This is it, isn’t it?” Pagon held up the clear glass vile between both of the injured skrulls.
“You didn’t think Gravik would be here and you brought him the harvest anyway? You two thought you were playing us, well, look again, we were playing you!” Pagon gripped the vile in his hands. As he stepped off G’iah and held his gun on Talos.
“G’iah if you move, I’ll murder your bastard father right in front of your traitorous face.” Pagon said as he started to walk slowly backward toward the skrull machine that Gravik and Dr. Dalton were building.
“Pagon don’t do it.” G’iah warned.
“We’re trying to help you.” Talos warned.
“Gravik didn’t want to become a singular super skrull, he wanted us all to become super skrulls.”
“Pagon!” G’iah warned again as he moved over toward the computer and placed the vile into the reader that started to upload the Avenger DNA into the machine.
———————-
Back in the hospital room where Gravik was torturing Maria to force her to betray Fury before he finished her off for real this time…
Maria’s face was bloodied and her vision blurred, she had deep aching pains in her face, hand, and head. Maria was ready to fall over she was physically and mentally drained. The only reason she was standing at all was because Gravik was holding her up.
This was a very calculated game if she just lied or made something up she knew Gravik wouldn’t believe her. He wanted to cause her pain and make her betray Fury by her own will. Maria did think about doing it, too. Gravik was right, being a human did make her weak, and flawed too. This whole time they pretended to be ahead of Gravik, but in reality they just got a little lucky in the beginning, everything else since then they had been flying by the skin of their teeth and now it was over, wasn’t it. Gravik was going to lose and Fury was going to lose too. That’s how this ended with both of these men sad and defeated in some way, both taking deep personal hits. Maria, Talos, and the skrulls who were lost in this vendetta were just collateral damage for this feud. Maria knew it what was coming for her, it had literally been chasing her this entire week. She was wrong to think she could escape it. Since she knew it was coming, she definitely wasn’t leaving this world giving up Fury’s plans at least maybe he could still kill Gravik.
As Gravik head a tight grip on Maria’s hair, gripping her close to her scalp he put his face right up against her ear as she couldn’t really hold her head up anymore. She was so exhausted, tired, defeated, why she ever thought they could make it out of this alive she really questioned herself.
“I’m sure your mother and Fury used to tell you how brave you were, that you were just the bravest little girl known to this world.” Gravik snickered to himself before he could even finish his own thought, “but in the end, you’re just a fragile, pathetic, weak little human just like all of the rest of them. And humans, they always break, they always crumble from pain, there’s no love, hope, or loyalty that beats the pain coming your way.”
“Don’t you dare pretend I didn’t warn you, or give an out. We live with the choices we make, Fury made his and you made yours. Too bad yours always just work against you.” Gravik snarled in her ear.
Maria had moved her injured hand behind her back, painfully gripping the handle of her gun as Gravik continued his smug tirade admonishing her. ‘Head, spine, heart.’ Those were the places she had hit, repeatedly with her shots to keep his extremis from working, in rapid succession, she could tase him too, but could that be enough to keep the extremis from working. How was she the only person who go left out of the laboratory meeting with the skrull scientist? Oh, right, because she was trying to save the president and keep on top of fake Rhodes. It just figured Gravik would exploit their one weak spot in the plan. She should have known, that’s what he always did. But Maria knew she did this to herself too, she was the one who ran after Raava, who tried to help her instead of staying put. It was just like Moscow all over again, Maria stayed to help and she got shot. She was predictable, no wonder Gravik went after her.
“Where is Fury?” Gravik asked for a third time.
Maria hesitated, her lips quivered from fear. She was looking at the ground and sh could see her own blood dripping onto the white tile floor.
“Break’s over!” Gravik yelled at her as he had given her a moment to make a decision and feel the pain he had caused so far and then kneed Maria in her stomach and she grunted and coughed from the pain grabbing her stomach with her free hand trying to cower in the fetal position the best she could to protect her organs. Gravik let her fall to the ground this time.
Maria wasn’t sure how much longer she could stall Gravik this way. As she laid on the floor sideways with arm hanging from the bar above her, bleeding and holding her onto stomach she realized she was going to have to take a gamble could she shoot Gravik enough times to prevent his extremis from healing him? What if it was just enough time for her to get away? At least if she was here with Gravik, he wasn’t killing someone else.
Maria mumbled something inaudible and Gravik pulled her up again by hair again so she wasn’t laying on the ground but sitting on it instead.
Maria didn’t know if Talos, Varra, and G’iah had been caught or discovered, she didn’t know if she could lie. If Gravik was asking where Fury was, Gravik must’ve known something.
“If you think you hurt now, just wait until you see what’s coming for you.” Gravik practically grinned.
“Last chance…”
And then she could see from the floor, the door of the room silently barely open, she took loud breaths and coughed to try and cover any noise and pulled her cuff against the metal bar rattling it in a struggle to keep Gravik’s attention.
“Where is Fury!” Gravik huffed at Maria.
“Right here!” Fury’s loud angry booming voice called over Gravik.
Gravik paused and then he let his fist go from Maria’s hair and he smiled widely.
“Oh, you were scheming on me?” Gravik muttered to Maria.
“I knew it.” Gravik mumbled to himself. Fury wasn’t going to New Skrullos like he claimed, but Gravik wasn’t sure he was going to come here, but he knew Hill would know where he was.
“Look who finally joined the party!” Gravik yelled, amping himself up and turning to look at Fury with joyous delightful rage.
Fury’s anger was clear on his face.
“You’re the one who changed the location.”
“You were never going to show there, you were never even going to bring me what I wanted.”
“It doesn’t exist anymore, Gravik.”
Gravik snickered. “Did you two rehearse that line together?”
“That’s the truth, it’s gone.”
“You think you can just lie to me? That’s all you ever do isn’t it? Lie to get what you want, trick people, manipulate them, manipulate them to kill people for you. People we don’t even know, kill them for reasons we don’t even know! Just to help you. Pretend your mentor, a father-figure, a something for people who need that in their lives, you think I’m cruel? Look what you’ve done, look what you’e done to so many people who trusted you, believed in you. Used them, let them down, made them draw blood and kill for your personal gain! I could have had a normal life, but you didn’t let me. She could have a normal life, but you didn’t let her either, did you! I had to work for a right to live here, I had to prove my worth to you over and over again doing the jobs that were dark, dirty, unforgivable and what do you do? You fuck off without a care! And then, you told everyone else to fuck off too. You created this mess, you did this! You created the harvest you roped me into it, and you thought I was such nothing a nobody that I’d never tell, I’d never turn against you. I don’t matter, I’ll pick up the pieces so Fury can have his little back up project, since his first Avengers project went to shit.” Gravik droned on and Fury made a face at that.
“Oh! You don’t think it went to shit? Huh, where are they? The world is on the brink of nuclear war, alien invasion! Call your little initiative together! ASSEMBLE!” Gravik yelled mockingly. “Is Thor coming for me? Where’s Iron Man? Captain America? Spider-Man, where are you, come get me! Hulk! My green brother, c’mon, let’s go!” Gravik laughed. “They are failures, they left everyone dead for five years, you dead, they got tricked beat, by a half skrull. Now imagine what a full skrull could do to them? A super skrull, they’d be unmatched the very, very few of them that are left anyway.” Gravik continued to bait Fury. Fury moved closer to Gravik as he spoke, but he moved slowly, trying not to make it obvious.
Even though the things Gravik said in his tirade were hurtful, Maria appreciated the break. There was nothing better than a villain who loved to talk non-stop. It gave her some time to think and clear her head, and dry her eyes so she could see. Fury and Maria they didn’t even need to speak to know what they needed to do together. Gravik was so close to Maria, if she just had that syringe she could have stuck him by now.
“What do you have to say for yourself!” Gravik yelled at Fury.
“I’m sorry.” Fury said sincerely in a quiet tone and Gravik tilted his head surprised by his words.
“You’re … ‘sorry’?” Gravik repeated and then laughed a little.
“Yes. I’m not here to escape any accountability on my part. After a few years, I knew that finding a home world for the skrulls probably wasn’t looking good. The thing is, there aren’t too many habitable planets uninhabited floating around, and I didn’t want to send an army of skrulls somewhere to root out and kill others.”
“We can’t kill for ourselves, but we can kill for you?” Gravik growled.
“Yes. While you were here, working for me, doing my dirty work, I stopped looking, it focused on other projects, other initiatives, and you did, the skrulls did move to the back of my mind. Then I blipped, I came back I put you and everyone I wanted back to work, like nothing had changed and then abandoned all of you. You didn’t deserve that, no one deserves to be treated like that.” Fury said sincerely.
“You looked up to me, and I let you down. I knew you were looking for someone to make you feel like you belonged somewhere, that you had someone who supported you, and that was useful for me. It wasn’t a fair dynamic, it wasn’t a good system, and it was manipulative, and dishonest. Everything I did, I did for me, not for you, not for the skrulls.”
Gravik pressed his eyes close together as he was shocked and in awe as he heard Fury apologize to him with astounding sincerity.
“So you admit you have always been a lying, deceiving, manipulative, self-serving piece of shit.” Gravik said with disdain.
“Yes.” Fury nodded. He knew he made a lot of mistakes.
“Did you hear that?” Gravik asked Maria tauntingly. “Did you hear that man, that you put all your trust in, who didn’t even come back for you, who you let me beat you half to death for, did you hear that that man just confessed? Probably should have just given him up.” Gravik snickered.
“So, where is it Fury? Where’s the harvest? What did you really do with it? I know you didn’t get rid of it like you two pretend.”
“It’s gone.” Fury said solemnly.
“You think I’m fool? You always thought I wasn’t enough, I was less than. Just some orphaned skrull from nowhere!” Gravik yelled at Fury.
“No one thinks that.”
“Not anymore you don’t. Fury, Fury the Great.” Gravik mocked. “I’m the one calling the shots, now. Using your own bad choices against you, turning the world against you like you turned your back on us. You didn’t even think I was a real threat. You still think that I am some lost helpless kid you can manipulate. When you saw me, in Moscow, what’d you call me, ‘son’?” Gravik growled.
“That’s right, Hill, he saw me, in the square, pointed his gun right at me and didn’t even shoot me, so then I went and shot you.” Gravik bragged with a smirk at Fury.
“Didn’t take me seriously then, did you, Fury? Still wouldn’t give me what I wanted. Wouldn’t even trade it for your golden child, the one you pretend you actually care about, she’s the only one who still believes in you, for some reason can explain. Still believe in him now?” Gravik kicked his foot at Hill’s side and she just grunted.
“Gravik.” Fury said in a low serious tone. “I know you’re serious, I know you’re a threat.”
“Yeah, good. This time you aren’t going to forget it because I’m going to shoot her in the head and you’re going to watch and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Gravik said gleefully as he pointed a gun in his hand at Maria’s head and glared at Fury as he used his other arm to extend into a root to wrap around Fury but just as the root wrapped around Fury’s arms it loosened and extended back to Gravik, Maria shot Gravik in the back of the head with her hidden gun. Gravik paused as the extremis started to work and the gun in his hand next to Maria fell forward just out of reach for Maria.
Fury moved toward Gravik quickly as he was healing injected him with the blood raising element. Gravik came back as the syringe dropped the floor and he felt a rage rise through him, his body temperature heating up. He thought it was some of his powers coming together but the temperature kept rising and it started to hurt and become painful for him.
“You want to duel, Fury!!” Gravik screamed in a overpowered rage and he let some ice powers take over him to cool himself and try to stop his temperature from rising.