Only Fools Bet Against You
Oslo ran through the empty hospital until he was stopped by two armed secret service agents. They pointed their guns at him and he froze.
“This is a restricted area.”
“I’m looking for Sonya Falsworth.”
“This is a restricted area!” the agent repeated.
“I work with Sonya!”
“Nobody in, nobody out, turn around now, before we arrest you.”
Oslo stared at the agents wondering if they were really skrulls, a nobody in, nobody out policy seemed both questionable and also the safest move to keep skrulls from sneaking in and out but the problem it posed if a skrull was already in the room was high.
Oslo was at standstill with the agents as he didn’t want to leave but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. Suddenly the door the two agents were standing at started to open a bit.
“You wouldn’t happen to have…” Sonya’s voice said calmly but she stopped speaking as she saw Oslo.
“Oh! Oslo! I need him. That’s my guy so-to-speak.” Sonya paused “We aren’t in a relationship or anything if that’s what you are wondering, it’s more of a professional colloquial use of the term ‘that’s my guy.’” Sonya droned on the agent looked annoyed.
“Lady, you and the Director said ‘no one in, no one out’ this is someone coming in and you are half way out.” The agent huffed annoyed at Sonya.
“Ahh, yes, well, I did indeed say that, but now I am saying this.”
The agent just glared at Sonya.
“You are in my country after all.” Sonya reminded.
“God, I hate this country.” The agent muttered.
“Well, this country is keeping your President alive, so…”
“Or getting him killed.” The agent and Sonya exchanged a glance.
“What is the problem?” Val yelled from inside the door.
“Nothing ma’am.” The other agent yelled into the room and Sonya raised her brows at the two agents rolled their eyes at her.
“How do you know he’s not one of those things?” One agent asked.
Sonya sniffed the air.
“Well, I was sitting in a car with him, and I don’t think skrulls have the ability to shape shift scents and he smells pretty awful, doesn’t he?” Sonya joked.
The agents were unamused but allowed Oslo to pass through the door. When Sonya turned her attention back to Val Oslo sniffed himself trying to be non-obvious.
Val looked over at Oslo who entered the secured room.
“What the fuck is this? White Nick Fury, Jr.?” Val looked Oslo up and down. “If you’re supposed to a skrull pretending to be Fury.. uh not your best work.” Val started and Oslo rolled his visible eye.
“I’m not a skrull, I just blasted one in the head in the hallway pretending to be Agent Hill.”
Val, Sonya, and Ritson paused.
“Hill was a skrull…?” Val muttered in disbelief.
“Well, the one in the hallway was.” Oslo clarified.
“Hill chased that god damn skrull out of the secure room and if she got herself killed I am going to revive her just so she could wish she was dead for not listening to me.” Val muttered to herself and Oslo raised his brow and looked at Sonya, and then at Val, and then at Ritson and a whole bunch of other security people he didn’t know. Oslo looked very confused.
“Ah, let me catch you up, Oslo, everyone in this room knows that Colonel Rhodes has been abducted and replaced by an evil skrull along with Directer Weatherby and numerous others. They are now aware that we sent good skrulls to free the hostages from their radioactive compound as humans cannot go there.”
“Am I the last guy to know about all these god damn skrulls?” Oslo sighed to himself.
“Tell me about it.” Ritson huffed to himself and Oslo looked over at him raising his brows.
“Hi, I’m the President of the United States, what’s up?” Ritson said sarcastically.
“Huh. Hi.” Oslo looked unimpressed as he observed the President in a hospital gown laying in a hospital bed. “What a weird week.” Oslo said quietly to Sonya.
“Do we know Agent Hill wasn’t a skrull when she was here with us, she was pretty ‘politically correct’ about the skrulls.” Ritson asked.
“She’s just like that.” Both Val and Oslo said in unison not even looking at each other and then they looked up at each other and the two of them realized they did recognize each other.
“You were at SHIELD, weren’t you? Same time as me.” Val asked.
Oslo nodded.
“I knew it.” Val sighed as she vaguely remembered Oslo from way back in the day but she could not place his name.
“The real Agent Hill was here, I know she was.” Sonya confirmed, she went to the hotel to meet the American delegation I saw her before she left.”
“Did she have bandages and cuts on her hands?” Oslo asked.
“Yes.” Sonya confirmed.
“The skrull didn’t.”
“She had those in here.” Val recalled.
“The skrull could have have had bandaged hands and took them off later…” Ritson muttered.
“Fury was the one who called it.” Oslo explained.
“The real Fury or the fake Fury…” Val asked concerned now.
“I saw her turn green into one of them, it wasn’t her, it was a skrull.” Oslo confirmed again.
Val and Ritson and the others stared at him.
“How do we know you’re the skrull?” Val asked, and the agents in the room gripped the guns.
“Oh, for god’s sake.” Sonya loudly groaned. “I have had it with these alien imposters. There is enough going on in the world that we don’t need this mess too!” Sonya looked a Oslo angrily and she lifted up his eye patch to see the cut around his eye.
“He’s not a skrull, his eye doesn’t work and I don’t think they can fake disabilities that are non genetic.” Sonya placed the eye patch down.
“They can’t copy smells and disabilities… huh.. okay I guess we have some ways to detect who is who.” Ritson looked unimpressed.
“Well… the fake Rhodes was walking around just fine.” Val pointed out.
“He said it was from a surgery.” Ritson sighed to himself, they should have known
“There are cameras here, right? I mean, we should be able to get up on security footage and see what happened to Agent Hill rather quickly…” Sonya stated obviously looking at the other people in the room, they should be able to get some video and the people in the room nodded that was possible.
“I am a sitting duck in this hospital! Do you understand? I need to leave, I need to get out of this freaking country and back on American soil, where no President has ever died!” Ritson huffed loudly.
“I mean, historically speaking, they’ve all died on American soil, even the ones who were assassinated…” Oslo pointed out.
“True, statistically you are safer here.” Sonya added in a little smugly and Val looked at the two of them trying not to laugh to herself.
“But, yes. I do understand, Mr. President.” Sonya agreed. “Except, Mr. President, the problem is, you just got out of surgery and need to be monitored and we have no idea what else Gravik and his rebels have planned and how many other people working the Royal Intelligence Service and our other security apparatuses are compromised.”
“And…” the national security advisor butted in “we are getting reports that Russia is ramping up military support at its borders.”
Everyone shot a look over at the national security advisor in shock.
“Why!” Val yelled irritated.
“Well, that’s great, my CIA director over here, shocked by intelligence.” Ritson mumbled, this was a huge mess.
“There’s definitely skrulls in the Russian government pulling strings. I was working a job there for a long time, when the warning came in about the bombing people deliberately ignored it, got civilians killed. It was so bizarre, I knew something wasn’t right, Russia doesn’t take chances like that, they love stopping something in its tracks, once they shut down an entire new years event because they got a report of illegal fireworks being sold. There are people there trying to exacerbate the situation. They are probably being told you are going to strike because of the attack on the motorcade.” Oslo explained.
“I need President Vladimov right now!” Ritson yelled and National Security Advisor nodded. Ritson had people to talk him down from doing anything crazy, but what if Vladimov had the opposite? Skrulls hyping him up, lying to him, what if a skrull pretended to Ritson and faked a phone call with him.
Val walked over to Sonya as others worked on arranging a call between the Presidents.
“You know I just came on this trip to make sure we got Hill back so I could fire her in person. Now I am taking care of the man baby we have for a President.” Val said barely audible.
“Well, at least your boss didn’t turn out to be an alien invader like mine.” Sonya shrugged and Val sighed.
“I mean, no one has checked for sure…” Val mumbled quietly and the two women exchanged a glance.
Sonya then walked away from Val and tried to call Fury but he didn’t answer.
“I’ll work on getting the security footage from the hospital.” Sonya mumbled to no one because now she was concerned about Maria and Fury but the President was right, he was a sitting a duck in this hospital but who knew what was being amped up against him, they already tried to attack him once and if there were skrulls amping up Russia to attack things were going to get really bad—well worse really fast.
—
Back in New Skrullos, Pagon ran to turn the machine on and enhance himself with the DNA of the Avengers. He ignored the calls for him to stop from G’iah and Talos.
“Pagon, you are going to kill yourself!” Talos warned as he tried to get up from the ground.
“It says it’s pure.” Pagon tried to call his bluff.
“It’s a trap for Gravik, Pagon. You don’t have to die for that conman. Lots of skrulls turned on him, more and more realize he is not good for us, he is just using us.”
“Fury is the one who uses us.”
“This isn’t about Fury! Don’t let Gravik’s obsession with that man infect your mind.” Talos yelled.
“Gravik’s obsession, what about yours?” Pagon snapped back quickly.
“Fury is my friend, and he is a friend to skrulls, he has been ever since I’ve know him.”
“A friend who lies?”
“Gravik lies, is he your friend? Gravik kills skrulls.”
“Fury kills skrulls, how many skrulls died on the attack on Ritson?”
“Well who put them in that place to die? Who fed them lies and manipulated them and told them they stood a chance against the best military in the world? Who told them that? Gravik knew they were going to die, lots of them, that’s why he sent so many. It was a plan that would never work. C’mon, Pagon. He knew that plan would fail, he was just making a show of it and now he set you up! He didn’t trust you and he sent you here.”
“Gravik is done!” Pagon shouted loudly. “Who cares about him or what he’s done in the past, really? Once I become the super skrull, I’ll lead the skrulls and carry out real plans and get what Queen Veranke really started in motion. You think I’m Gravik’s pawn!? He’s mine.” Pagon glared at Talos.
“Then do it.” G’iah said finally ending Pagon’s tirade.
“Turn yourself into a ‘super skrull.’ See what happens. See if you can beat ALL the Avengers, who destroyed Thanos’s army and the chitauri and every other threat this world has faced. You don’t even have the DNA of most of ‘em, it’s not how their powers work.” G’iah rolled her eyes.
“Why would Fury take it then, why would he make Gravik gather all of this and why would he hide it! If it wasn’t worth anything?” Pagon asked.
“An insecure man does a stupid thing at a time of great panic, that’s the history and downfall of almost all worlds and people.” G’iah sighed loudly and Talos nodded.
“But, maybe you’re different, or maybe you are just like everyone else. You’re just a fall guy for Gravik, and when he falls, which he is, you aren’t going to pick up where he left off. You’ll be dead too.” G’iah warned.
“Yeah, you’re right, G’iah, the daughter of the disgraced skrull general whose only skills are pouting and picking up a bag. Not an ounce of loyalty or strategy in you. Are sure she’s your daughter?” Pagon laughed.
Talos and G’iah glared at Pagon and he looked back at the machine.
“You’ll thank me in the end.” Pagon huffed as he stepped inside the machine.
“It’s not going to work…” G’iah warned and then she looked to the side of the laboratory and she noticed the syringes with extremis where she stole one from before. She moved over and toward the table and grabbed two of them, discretely putting them on her back pocket.
As the machine started to work, G’iah and Talos ducked from the machines rays and light took over the room. Pagon yelled a ferocious yell as he felt invigorated by the machine infusing him with powers.
Pagon felt an unsettling sensation rippling through his veins. He felt a surge of power, a surge of something unknown to him as the lights from the machine filled the room. G’iah moved closer and closer to the machine. Finally when it finished Pagon crashed out of it wildly energized.
“Oh, it doesn’t work huh?” He said confidently as he held his hand up expecting his fist to change into that of the Hulk’s but nothing happened. He furrowed his brows as he stared at his hands, he could feel the powers in him, the machine did something, didn’t it? As he glared at his fist in a moment of confusion G’iah stuck him with the injection of extremis and he quickly turned and whipped himself around throwing her to the side. Pagon let out a loud roar.
“What is this!”
“We tried to tell you.”
“What did she put in me!” Pagon yelled at the two of them as Pagon raised his gun and held it at G’iah.
“Well, you went through all that so I thought maybe you could at least get one superpower..” G’iah tried not to smirk at her sarcasm and Pagon went to shoot G’iah but then felt waves of discomfort rolling through his body.
“What is happening?” Pagon asked in a panic he could feel something was not right, he could feel his skin burning from his inside. “What did you do to me!” He shouted at G’iah as sensation started to overtake him. Pagon was overtaken by his rage as he lunged at Talos fueled by a potent mix of rage and betrayal.
G’iah raced over and started to fight Pagon off of Talos. G’iah knew they couldn’t be too close to Pagon as the extremis was starting to take over his body. As G’iah and Pagon battled, G’iah knocked the gun out of his hand and Talos grabbed it. G’iah stuck him again with a second dose of extremis and Pagon screamed a painful blood curdling scream as the second dose burned through his body. Pagon knew he was going to die, there was no question from the pain that was now causing his body to convulse, he knew extremis could could an explosion, and if he died, G’iah would die too. He wasn’t letting her go.
G’iah struggled underneath Pagon and Talos went to shoot him in the head.
“NO!” G’iah called out. “It might explode and kill us both!” She warned. “You have to go!” G’iah yelled to Talos but instead of leaving Talos raced of to G’iah as Pagon’s body started to to turn a bright fiery orange over her.
“We’ll all burn together, the way skrulls are supposed to go!” Pagon shouted in agony as he refused to let G’iah go from the ground.
Talos kicked Pagon burning himself in the process and he yelped but he loosened him just enough to grab G’iah whose wrists and part of her face was covered burns that were starting to heal.
Pagon tried to get up and chase after them, but Talos raced G’iah to the door and just as he closed the laboratory door bending them, the heat burning the skin, as flamed erupted behind them and Pagon’s body started to convulse in pain, he was writhing in agony as the extremis overwhelmed his system and he was consumed in a blaze of self destruction. His cries of agony echoed through the laboratory, the sound was chilling to both Talos and G’iah, as they knew this was a painful way for him to go. The laboratory started to fill with smoke as the flames roared inside the closed room.
Talos and G’iah could not even feel victorious for a moment as the graphic nature and sound of what they just witnessed was so mentally scarring.
“We have to get everyone out of here, now.” Talos said quietly and G’iah and Talos exchanged a solemn nod as they raced down the hallway having barely averted a catastrophic threat to themselves.
——————
Back at the hospital where Fury, Maria, and Gravik were..
“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. It felt like it was working and Gravik wasn’t sure what he was injected with, but for this moment it seemed like he could hold off the rise in temperature of his blood. As Fury observed him, he could tell Gravik was feeling the rise in temperature but trying to control it. If he stopped focusing on it he would probably lose the ability to regulate himself, and that’s where Fury knew he could get him.
“Let’s go! I’m sick of these motherfucking rebel skrulls on this moterhfucking planet!” Fury yelled loudly back at Gravik, Fury’s true character coming back to him. Maria was relieved to hear it. That was the Fury she knew, she could already tell he was steps ahead of Gravik in this moment.
Fury was riled up from Gravik trying to pull one over on him with the fake Maria, and then what he saw what Gravik did to Maria for real, just to get him personally, Fury could feel the rage in his blood like Gravik could feel the heat in his.
Keeping Gravik from being able to focus and regulate his body temperature was essential for Maria and Fury to succeed in this fight. The extremis could take over itself because if Gravik was trying to regulate his body temperature he wasn’t regulating the extremis and it could cause Gravik to implode, that’s what happened to humans when the testing was being done but Gravik’s reptilian nature allowed him more control over regulating his temperature and kept the extremis stable instead of the ticking time bomb that existed years ago.
Maria also knew that users of extremis were weakest when healing and regenerating. Gravik had amazing skill at regeneration, he had been shot in the head, and in the face and healed himself quickly but only because he could focus the regenerative powers. If too much was going on he wouldn’t be able to do that. Maria and Fury knew the best places to hit him were in the head and heart, cut off the blood flow to the brain completely, that should stop him from being able to regenerate. And if Gravik couldn’t stabilize the extras would tae over and his own desire to be unstoppable would be his undoing.
But suddenly Maria realized the danger of Gravik imploding in the hospital as she could make out a 'no smoking, oxygen’ sign in the room as her vision started to clear. If Gravik burst into flames over an oxygen line in the hospital it could get them all killed and potentially a lot of other people too. Gravik wasn’t supposed to be at the hospital so they hadn’t really considered this yet. As Maria realized it she wondered how she could communicate this to Fury without tipping Gravik off what they were trying to do.
“All you wanted was someone to pay attention to you, never even realizing all your power comes from the shadows.” Fury talked down to Gravik as the two men stared each other down intensely.
“I know where my power comes from!” Gravik yelled back at Fury struggling to get comfortable and think as he could feel his hot blood racing through his veins every place in his body, as if it was burning through his skin.
“Your stolen power.” Fury corrected
“You know a lot about stolen power, don’t you, Fury? Did you ask your so called friends if they are fine loaning out their DNA for anyone to replicate and use? Or did you just think you could slide it under the radar? Did you think they wouldn’t notice?” Gravik scoffed.
“That’s not the power I was talking about. Stealing your leadership?” Fury wanted to keep Gravik talking the more he talked the less he could think, but Fury was surprised that Maria hadn’t shot at him again, that was the original plan. There were two of them and this could be over relatively quickly. Something had to be wrong if she wasn’t doing it. Gravik didn’t even seem bothered by Maria holding her gun so close to him. Like he knew he could survive any shot taken against him.
“You steal everything your whole career, STOLEN, stolen from the work of my people! A black man, in America, stealing his life’s work from an oppressed population, sick. It’s disgusting. You didn’t just steal your career from the skrulls, from people? Look what you did, co-opting the careers of successful people getting them to work for you, risk their lives for you, lie for you, convince them to be willing to DIE for you? You’re a cult, a sickness that infects people like me, like her. You corrupt lost people who need you, who think they have a friend in you, but you just know they are sad and desperate enough that any amount of skill they have you can take and make it yours. Don’t you have a shed of remorse or regret? You stand here and act like it’s so obvious that I am the villain, but I’m trying to free my people from the deceptive, manipulative, likes of you. If that makes me a villain, so be it. If some people have to die along the way, so what? ”
“You’re just mad, you’re mad that those skrulls who outed your plan for nothing, they betrayed you in a minute, no one has ever shown you an ounce of loyalty, because they don’t believe in you.” Fury shot back and Gravik narrowed his brows at Fury angrily.
“I’m the real thing, you’re the fraud. I am not surprised though people always fall hard for the con. They’ve never been loyal to me? You’ve never been loyal to anyone but yourself. You manipulate people and pretend you care about them, you fail them and then you fuck off and let them think it’s their fault. You are sick, you liar, you’re nothing but a fake. You have manipulated people in your circle so severely that they think they would rather be beaten to death than ever betray you and you can’t even show up for them? You think I am mad some useless skrulls acted for personal gain, I’m used to it, that’s all I ever knew. I’m proud of them really.” Gravik lied trying to raise his position in the conversation, but Gravik was uncomfortable, struggling to cool himself, and Fury could see the discomfort in his face. Maria still wouldn’t fire on Gravik.
“You know what, fine. Gravik, you’re right, I told you were right already, but now you sound like a broken record. You’re the real thing, huh? Fine. It should have been you, is that what you wanted to hear? If you want to fight, you want to duel, then let’s do it, the real way, let’s go, just you and me.”
“Well…” Gravik chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting you to ask me to kill Hill.” Gravik snickered as Fury stepped forward closer to him and Gravik stepped backward closer to Maria who was still sitting on the ground recovering trying to figure out what she could do.
“Gravik.” Fury growled in low serious tone. And Gravik pressed his eyes shut briefly as he felt his blood starting to burn him.
“You know what? Fine.” Gravik mimicked Fury he tried to smile but he grit his teeth in pain. “She can go.” Gravik smirked like he as setting a trap as he stepped backward again, much closer to Maria now. He and Fury locked eyes. Fury was daring him to try something and Gravik looked like an excited child about to test him, but then Gravik’s eyes widened in shock as he felt a jab into his leg and strong electric pulses took over him. A purple light emulated his body and he convulsed from the radiating electric shock from the skrull taser that Talos gave Maria. Gravik fell backwards into the wall.
“Nick, the sign.” Maria warned as Gravik fell backward and Fury saw the oxygen sign. Fury knew something was up and when he saw the sign Maria noticed he realized why she was changing the plan. They had to get Gravik out of this room before they turned his extremis against him. But Maria was stuck in this room for the moment until she could get uncuffed from the metal railing.
This enhanced version of extremis was really tricky to navigate. Normally a shot to the head could take out an extremis human user, but not a skrull. Gravik had co-opted and manipulated it specifically for skrulls’ capabilities and it required more than a shot to head or heart to end the extremis regenerative powers . Gravik already two and was coming back, but Maria and Fury were aware it was far slower this time around as Maria was still holding the taser on him. As she held the trigger down she felt sharp pain radiating through her hand, she didn’t dare let go of the trigger but she knew she was going to have to soon so Gravik didn’t become so unstable he exploded. She didn’t know why she thought this was a better idea than shooting him but she just figured he probably wouldn’t be able think or listen under that strength of electric shock.
They were going to need a new idea and one that was really fast. Potentially, they could find a way to just energy drain Gravik so much that he was in a totally weakened or delirious state, but that still risked the unstable nature of the extremis going off at any moment. And Gravik wasn’t a human after all, he a skrull with some extraordinary capabilities, he had groot powers, frost beast powers, so they had to think outside of the box.
It looked like Gravik was unconscious for a moment and Maria let up on the taser as she was worried she had made the wrong choice.
“Was that a good idea?” Fury asked Maria.
“Probably on the level of injecting him with the thing that makes his blood boil.” Maria rolled off in her true sarcastic nature and Fury was glad to hear it.
“The signs could be in every room as precaution.” Fury pointed out.
“Let’s risk it then.”
Maria and Fury exchanged a brief glance without tension.
“The hospital is mostly evacuated already with the arrival of the President.” Maria added.
“You just have to get everyone out, you can do that and I can hold him stable until then.” Fury offered and Maria shook her head no because she knew what Fury was really saying—essentially, he was agreeing to die to take out Gravik.
“Yes.” Fury nodded.
“No. There’s another way.”
“Hill, you know there is only one right answer.” Fury raised a brow at Maria, because she did know he was right. “There isn’t another way. It’s too late. I gotta see this through and if I go out with the problem I created, that’s what I deserve, but you don’t, and they don’t.”
“You can’t just like put a bag over his head, while he’s down?” Maria asked.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes!” Seemed like a good idea to Maria, but really she didn’t know what an extremis enhanced skrull would do with rising blood temperature and surged with electric charge would do. He could explode or he could die and come back to life, who knew.
“Can you can get going!” Fury said like an irritated father.
“I need some help?” Maria pulled on the cuff on the metal railing.
“You couldn’t do that yourself?” Fury looked skeptical at that.
“With a broken hand?” Maria helped her very free injured hand.
“Is that the one you were shooting with?” Fury looked dismayed, kind of a big risk to take aim with that broken thing.
“Yep.”
“Is that why you were a few inched off in the back of his head?” Fury asked.
“We got about five seconds left before that wears off him, this could be the last time we ever talk to each other, and you want it to be you correcting my aim from a shot with a broken hand?” Maria asked slightly annoyed.
“I don’t really think an injury should have affected the aim that much.”
“It didn’t, I moved it to the left so the bullet that went through the side of his head, wouldn’t hit your head on the way out.”
Fury chuckled and Maria looked real annoyed like this wasn’t the moment for an old joke.
“I know.” Fury mumbled and Maria raised her cuffed hand so the chain was in view and Fury shot the chain with his gun freeing Maria from restraint.
Maria wondered how she was going to run down the halls and get everyone out because she was so hurt and now pretty sad, because there was no way any human could survive an fiery explosion over an potential oxygen line. It wasn’t possible.
When Maria was finally freed from the railing she lunged and hugged Fury despite how much it hurt her to move so quickly.
“Come back, he’s not the end of you.” Maria whispered to Fury as they embraced in an emotional potential goodbye. Fury’s gaze softened at Maria even though she could not see it.
“Go. He’s not the end of you. You’re going to do great things. I’ve known that for twenty years, since the day I met you. Only fools bet against you.” Fury whispered back, his voice filled with emotion, he didn’t want to say goodbye, but he didn’t want to not say goodbye either. As his words hung over Maria she knew what he was doing and she wanted to hate it. She was not sentimental, but she knew the depth in his words, the personal nature of them she felt deeply. This basically Fury telling her that he loved her without having to say it explicitly and she knew that. Maria started to shake her head no but she knew she was out of time and she had to go. Maria and Fury broke from the quick embrace and Fury gave Maria his phone and she stopped to look at him because this hi was just something someone who knew they weren’t coming back was going to do. Fury knew she needed it more than him. This moment hit Maria so hard but she couldn’t even take a second to process it. Maria headed out of the hospital room and started down the hall. She took out her phone and called Sonya telling her to get the President out and that Gravik was here, fighting Fury.
As Gravik came to, he realized the plan that Fury and Hill were putting forward. That they could destabilize the extremis and kill him, but they couldn’t do it without risking everyone inside—and knowing Fury and Hill Gravik knew they wouldn’t risk it. Gravik could feel these strong burning sensations from within as he tried to regulate his system, sometimes it seemed like it was working and sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t. He couldn’t really tell from the blood boiling agent that was make it difficult for him to regulate his internal temperature. He could see the veins in his skin burning red through his arms, and Gravik realized he actually might not be able to keep the extremis stable as he recovered from the electric charge, and felt the burning sensation and tried to battle Fury. Gravik realized he was probably going to die, but that didn’t mean Fury had to live.
“Aw, were you saying goodbye or sending her on one of your errands?” Gravik mocked as he moved up from the ground. His skin was starting to turn red and his eyes were squinting.
Fury looked at Gravik with disdain, and his gun pointed right at him.
“Go ahead, do it.” Gravik snickered, knowing he wouldn’t. “What are you waiting for? Why wouldn’t you kill me when I was out? You too good of a guy to go the easy way? I’m awake now, take me down.” Gravik laughed at Fury, right in his face and the two men stared at each other, one on one. Gravik almost burning through his skin but trying to keep his composure, but it felt like flames could burst through his skull at any moment. If this was going to be how Gravik went out, he was going on his own terms, in his own way, not Fury’s.
Maria just hung up with Sonya and tried to run down the hallway, she wasn’t moving as quickly as she wanted, then she felt something grip her ankle, like a root tightly wrapping around it pulling her foot from under her and she fell forward, using her good arm to break her fall. Gravik extended his arm into a root and started dragging Maria back as a way to bait Fury. Gravik wasn’t letting go of Maria’s ankle as he dragged her back toward the hospital room. If he was going to go, then Fury, Maria, and everyone else in this hospital was going to go with him and he knew the way to do that was to bait Fury into firing and setting off a chain reaction in the extremis overload. This was after all, a zero-sum game.
“C’mon, Fury. I’m right here! I got your girl, again. How many times you going to let me go at her, huh? I thought with you only once would be enough but maybe third time’s a charm?” Gravik baited with a grin and clawed at the door frame unsuccessfully.
Maria was also afraid to shoot at Gravik now, knowing they could advance the extremis taking over him faster if they forced it to attempt to regenerate when he couldn’t regulate it. The only way to destroy Gravik was to kill themselves too and everyone knew that was what had to happen. Maria stuck the skrull taser into the root arm Gravik to try and free herself as he dragged her back on the ground into the room but she knew she could not do it very long. The root disbanded from Maria’s ankle briefly and then wrapped the root around both of her ankles this time to hold her in place.
“I guess a sister is doing it for herself.” Gravik muttered. “Should have taken the blunt force trauma.” Gravik said to Maria. “Would have been a better away to go than in a ball of fire, if you want to be strategic about it.” Gravik said sinisterly to Maria as Gravik felt the burning growing inside him, his limbs felt hot and Maria could feel how hot his limbs were wrapped around her ankles, even slowly started to burn her. Gravik knew she could feel it too, and assumed she’d shoot or tase herself free and set off the reaction he was hoping for, but Gravik wanted Fury to do it.
Maria had gotten a call to Sonya and she had to hope Sonya could move them out quickly. If they could just hold on a few more minutes then Maria and Fury could take them selves out with Gravik. Maria couldn’t help but start to cry a bit in pain from feeling burning through Gravik’s limbs and Fury knew he had to fire on him but it hadn’t been enough time.
Maria took out her gun to fire at the roots, she had to she couldn’t help it. But Gravik used his other arm to knock the gun out of her hand this time with another root wrapping around her wrist. Maria really felt the burn from that one and she called out loudly from the burning feeling and Fury tackled Gravik and hit him in the jaw causing the roots around Maria’s limbs to dislodge again as Gravik wrestled with Fury briefly. Gravik being a skrull, he was much stronger than Fury and he quickly knocked Fury off of him into the floor. Maria crawled over to her gun that had been knocked over by the unconscious Raava.
“I thought this was a battle between you and me!” Fury reminded.
“It’s not a battle at all, cat got your gun, for some reason? She’s the only one willing to fight me.” Gravik looked at Fury, Gravik was far too smug for someone who knew he was about to die, but he was so sure they were going down with him. He saw Maria moving toward the gun he pushed out of her hand and Fury getting up and coming at him at the same time. Gravik extended a root out from each arm, one for each of them. One grabbed Maria by the upper arm and pulled her away from her gun and the other wrapped around Fury’s neck, really baiting Fury now to shoot at him. Maria felt a buzz from Nick’s phone and saw the message from Sonya ‘everyone’s out’ was all it said, but now her gun and taser were both out of reach from being knocked from her hands.
“Nick! You have to do it.” Maria called out to him, as she knew the only reason he was hesitating was because she was still in the room. She knew that and she couldn’t believe it. “They’re out!” Maria called to him as Gravik started to increase pressure on Fury’s neck making it harder and harder for him not to shoot Gravik.
“NICK!” Maria yelled again he had to shoot Gravik and kill everyone. He was just making it more dangerous every second he waited and let more of the overwhelming unstable time bomb of the extremis start to take over.
Maria was right, Fury didn’t want to shoot Gravik and risk the explosion with Maria in the room, but every second he waited the more potential grew for bigger and more deadly explosion. Finally, Fury aimed his gun at Gravik as he could see the red and orange embers starting to peer through Gravik’s skin.
“Too slow!” Gravik called out in a roar as undid the grip on his neck and wrapped it around his wrist instead forcing the gun to aim upwards. Now Gravik had decided he was going to take them both out.
Maria still couldn’t reach the gun near Raava’s body as she tried to move toward it. She could end this, she could do it. As the chaos continued, Raava started to wake up, human tranquilizers were really no match for a skrull. It might knock them out for a bit but they need much stronger ones to sedate them fully. Raava could see the monstrous looking Gravik, like he was ready to burst into fiery pieces and Maria reaching for the gun for some reason. Raava didn’t understand anything that was happening, but she knew that they were trying to Gravik out, that seemed clear from what she observed. Maria saved Raava twice, and she woke up and came too, she realized she was going to have to save Maria and Fury, but it wasn’t for Maria or Fury, it was for the skrulls, all the skrulls that they had saved by keeping Ritson from bombing New Skrullos.
Raava grabbed the gun and swiftly jumped and lunged at Gravik, with the force of a skrull knocking him off his game and onto the ground and the roots dislodged around Fury and Maria.
“Raava, no!” Maria called out as a warning as Raava and Gravik started to fight but Fury took the opportunity and raced toward Maria pulling her from the ground as she tried to leap upward. She wanted to help Raava but Fury then pulled Maria out of the room and ran faster than they had ever run. It was faster than Maria even thought possible and then they heard a shot and a booming sound as they made it out of the range of the blast but a large ball of fire and smoke roared down the hallway as they ducked in in a corridor toward an emergency exit. Fury covered Maria protectively as they both cowered in the corner for moment unable to move. The heat from the blast was immense, both their ears rung and they couldn’t hear any sounds, the sprinklers in the hospital poured on above them, soaking both of them and smoke continued to fill the corridor as they started to cough. It was a nightmare, they knew an exit was close but the smoke and the sprinkler was making it hard to navigate. Maria didn’t think she could move anymore but adrenaline kept her going, and Fury was pushing her toward the doors as they made it into a back parking lot of the hospital. Both Maria and Fury were ready to fall over onto the ground. Fury found strength in places he couldn’t explain to keep moving Maria forward away from the building incase anymore blasts were to come.
Maria’s hands were shaking as the moved into the bitter cold November English air, soaked from the sprinklers, the ringing in their ears preventing them from being able to do anything but rush away. The sound of countless sirens carried through the air and it as they heard the sounds coming toward the hospital it was almost like the ringing in their ears had never stopped.
As Fury and Maria finally made it out and could breath the outside air, neither of the sad a word. Maria was both shivering and still as the shock of barely escaping consumed her completely. She couldn’t even feel all the pain she had in this moment, and then her emotions overtook the shock and Maria just turned head into Fury’s shoulder and cried. Fury couldn’t help it, his eyes watered too as he just held Maria there for a moment, as they both escaped death by mere inches.