We All Are Living in a Dream
“You’re late.”
“Yeah, that’s my bad.” Tony closed the door and swaggered his way to a chair in between Steve and Clint. “Was in the workshop when FRIDAY reminded me about this meeting.” Nick Fury seethed. “Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that, it’s only, like, five minutes.”
“Ten,” Steve said. Sam snickered.
“Yeah, thanks for that,” Tony said with an eyeroll. “Are we doing this or what?” Nick glared at him a few moments more before turning his attention to a stack of papers in his hands.
“Some of you aren’t going to like what I’m about to say,” he started. This caught Clint’s attention, who was previously paying more mind to a loose thread on his sleeve than the director. “We found a Hydra base.”
Eyes widened throughout the group, even Natasha’s stony expression seemed to faltar. Steve put a hand over his mouth, his elbow resting on the table, and Bucky looked down, suddenly very pale with a newfound interest in the too-clean floor.
“Are you sure?” Steve asked after a moment. Nick nodded.
“We had a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent spying for a while—Peri Lowe. Got some pretty useful information. It seems to be the only base left, they’re trying to rebuild, branch out. They’re working on something, something big. They’re excited about it, almost finished. They think it will make them powerful again, like before, maybe more so. She never became high-level enough to find out what it was, though. She was killed a few days ago, we think they did it.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room, the sound of voices replaced with tension. Clint looked back to the thread on his sleeve and considered messing with it once more.
“So what do we do?” Natasha asked, a hint of determination laced within her voice.
“You guys are going to raid it. Anyone and everyone gets detained. You’ll be provided with enough cuffs to last a lifetime. Killing is fine, but the more people we have for questioning the better. Make sure to check them all for cyanide pills. When you’re done with that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents will come by for clean up. Taking the criminals left behind, looking for useful information, etcetera, etcetera. Do you think you can do that?” His voice was hard, his question coming in more the tone of a demand.
The Avengers nodded.
“I hardly believe this calls for The Green Guy,” Bruce said quietly.
“You’re right,” Nick stated. “But it’d be beneficial to go, just in case. Stay on the quinjet until needed.”
“When are we going?” Tony asked, fiddling with the sunglasses in his hands.
“Tomorrow morning, so sleep.” He gave Tony a pointed look. “I mean it.” Tony made a ‘pfft’ sound under his breath. “I’ll send the directions tonight. That is all.”
“That was short,” Sam mumbled, standing and stretching his back.
“‘M not complaining,” Clint whispered.
The group made their way from the conference room and spread out throughout the building, preparing for their next fight.
___
A young boy with wide, brown eyes sat in the corner of a cramped room. The room was more of a cell, what with the cement walls, lack of windows, and furniture bolted to the dirty floor, but that didn’t seem to faze him. He was cross-legged, and his curly brown hair and large gray t-shirt was damp, making the chilly air unbearably cold. He shivered and looked down at his wrist.
PP-12
The black tattoo stood out against his pale skin. He supposed that was his name. He had a lot of names. PP-12, Spider, Twelve, Thing, Mutant.
He often wondered why he had such strange names. There was a scary man that would sometimes observe him named Emerson, and the doctors that administered tests had names too. Names like Dr. Davis, Mr. Kelsi, Dr. Brennor, Mrs. Page, and so on. There was a lady with red hair and freckles that he saw sometimes. She was nice. She was the only one who ever smiled at him without having to do something first. One time she asked him who he was, why he was there, if he was the child of a staff member, but she was ushered away by a large man before he could respond. He had to kill her the next day. She was a traitor.
But traitor or not, even she had a normal name. Peri Lowe. He remembered the way she gave him one last smile before he shot her in the head. His first kill.
There were many smiles that day, people telling him they were proud of him, that he’d bring Hydra out of the ashes one day. It’d only been a couple days since the elimination, but he couldn’t wait for his next mission.
He wrapped his arms tighter around himself. He’d made it eleven minutes underwater before passing out. That was a new record for him. Conflicting emotions stirred up inside him. A new record was good, he was improving, making people proud, but the cold vibranium locked above him that kept his head in the bucket gave him nightmares at night. Thrashing and kicking, his lungs desperately aching for air. He didn’t know whether to feel happy or scared. His chest was still sore and he was wet, cold, but he did something right and that’s what mattered… right?
His head snapped up as alarms began to blare, loud and shrill. He clamped his hands over his ears, but it couldn’t stop the noise, his hearing was too enhanced. His head throbbed in protest of the sounds and his face contorted with agony. He pressed his back against the wall and let out a sob.
The boy sat there, wet, freezing, tense, his eyes closed tight and his hands over his ears, his chest and head aching and his eardrums screaming in pain, for what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to fifteen minutes, before the alarms finally stopped. He let out a tearful laugh in relief and removed his hands from his ears, unsurprised to see a small amount of blood on his fingers when he opened his eyes.
What he was surprised to see, however, was the red and gold clad figure standing in his doorway.
Iron Man.