Chapter 5
*Clint Barton*
I sat on a tree and watched the target Perseus disappear and reappear from tree to tree, confusing my team mates. I frowned, he might be some ally of Loki, that was the only explanation for how he could do that. That kind of magic was the type I remembered Loki possessing. When he appeared in front of them, I took it as my chance to switch out my arrow for another one that was tipped with a type of poison that would make him pass out. I then took aim. After he said something, the team looked even more confused and shocked then they already were, I took this as the time to shoot him. The arrow flew toward him and went straight through his shoulder putting the poison in his blood as it passed through his arm.
For some reason, he was really calm about the arrow in his arm, he didn’t scream or anything. He just looked over at his shoulder calmly like, Would you look at that, there’s arrow in my shoulder. Then, as expected, he passed out.
I jumped out of the tree then headed toward the rest of my team, putting my bow away as I went along. “So,” I inquired, smirking. “How are we getting him back to base?”
They stared at me in shock, then Cap smiled at me and said, “Nice shooting Hawkeye.”
I shrugged in response. “Anything interesting come up while you were talking to him?” I asked.
“Before, he spoke as if he knew of the Gods on a personal level. And just now we learned that this boy faked his death. He is intriguing, to say the least.” Thor answered.
I looked at him in surprise, he didn’t know the guy’s name? Usually Thor was one of the only few who read the mission files, including Black Widow and myself. For him not to have read it was very shocking. “You didn’t read the file?” I asked him, to make sure, maybe he forgot his name.
Thor shook his head shamefully, “No,” He admitted, “I was using the file to cover up the fact I was eating a pop tart.” I shook my head and sighed, Thor and his fascination for pop tarts…
Cap picked the kid Perseus up and hauled him up over his shoulder, then he had a surprised look on his face. “What?” I asked.
“He’s really light, and I can feel his bones through his shirt. And don’t you think it’s odd that he’s not wearing nicer clothes? If he was working for someone, wouldn’t he be getting money for it? And if that’s the case he should be getting enough money to buy decent clothes and enough food to eat… It just seems odd. Check his suitcase for extra clothes.” Cap said, nodding toward the suitcase that fell out of his grip when he passed out.
Black Widow nodded and unzipped it. Inside it was… brownies and apple juice? There were about five baggies stuffed with brownies, and there were about six bottles of the apple juice. But there were no clothes in the suitcase, no shirts, shorts, undergarments, or socks, just the baggies and a leather necklace with beads that had different pictures on them.
I picked it up and looked at the necklace. The first one was black with a green trident, the second was white with what looked like a golden… something. The third was black with a silver bow, and the fourth was red with a inscription of a maze. The fifth one was blue with what looked like the Empire State building with names around it. The last one was blue with pictures of a golden dragon, a golden staff topped with an eagle with electricity coming from it, a red, fiery owl, black, ominous doors, and what looked like a mud monster sleeping. Around the edge were eight names, each written in a different color.
The names were ‘Annabeth Chase’ in Gray, ‘Percy Jackson’ in Green, ‘Jason Grace’ in Yellow, ‘Piper McLean’ in Pink, ‘Leo Valdez’ in a Red-Orange-Yellow streaked color, ‘Nico di Angelo’ in Black, ‘Frank Zhang’ in Red, and ’Hazel Levesque’ in Gold. I set the necklace back into the suitcase, then closed it.
“Let’s get him to base, I’ll grab this suitcase, someone else grab the duffel bag.” I ordered. They nodded, Widow reached down and grabbed the duffel bag. When she lifted it she grunted then let it fall to the ground. She frowned the picked it up again and pulled it onto her shoulder. “Something wrong?” I asked.
She nodded, “The bag’s heavy, like, really heavy.” I looked at the bag thoughtfully, it could have explosives, weapons, or other dangerous things people could acquire. Who knows how many people we’ve found with magical items left over from the War of New York, they had tried to use them to overthrow the government. It was chaos trying to put out all the revolts, eventually all the magical items were confiscated. That took six months to accomplish.
“We’ll look into it at the base, in case it’s something dangerous.” Cap said, at least there was one other person besides Bruce and I who thought sensibly. We headed out with Cap in the lead along with Thor, Bruce was inspecting Perseus’s shoulder. I felt kind of bad about the arrow in his shoulder, but I aimed to avoid any vital things like veins and muscle tissue, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble to get it healed and fixed up.
I thought back to what Fury said, how frustrated he seemed with this kid. Then it occurred to me, if he was such a big threat, then why haven’t we captured him yet? Why were we just told of him now? Why not sooner when he was twelve, when he first started destroying public items and causing destruction? It was all so confusing.
And this boy intrigued me, he didn’t look like a twenty year old, he looked around seventeen or eighteen. Did we get the files wrong, and if so, how was that even possible? Shield was, and is, on top of every possible information available. We had accurate information on everybody in the whole entire world, files and files worth of information, and the information came from many of our reliable systems. And if he was working for somebody, he would’ve had better clothes, and wouldn’t be as skinny as he was…
We arrived at the base quickly, and used the elevator to go upstairs. Fury was waiting for us. He raised an eyebrow at Perseus on Cap’s shoulder, and eyed the arrow for minute. Then he put his arms behind his back and straightened up. “Good job. Black Widow, I want you to place his belongings in the lab with Bruce. And Captain, place him in the second highest secure prison we have on this ship.” Widow nodded then grabbed the suitcase from me and followed Bruce to his lab. Cap looked surprised, but then complied and left to place him in the prison.
I looked at Fury and asked the many questions that had been on my mind. “Why hadn’t we been told of him sooner, why now when he has an even more dangerous reputation? We could’ve captured him when he was twelve, it would’ve been much easier then. Why didn’t we? And, by the way, he doesn’t look like he’s twenty, he looks seventeen or eighteen, are the files wrong? Isn’t it kind of impossible for them to be wrong?”
Fury sighed, “I’ll answer that when the rest of the team get back from their assigned duties.” He then went and sat down at the head of the table.
Suddenly a distorted shout was heard from the direction I saw Steve go in. I ran out, there was more shouting, so it made it easier to follow. I burst into the door to find Steve in a defensive position and the kid in one of the corners. He looked as if he was crying, but he was also in a defensive position, but facing away from Steve.
“Shut up!” He shouted, then he punched thin air. He then side stepped and did a roundhouse kick. Suddenly he fell and his head went up as if someone was pulling it up. He was still crying. “Please,” He pleaded to thin air. “I can’t watch it again, you’ve done enough already, save it for tomorrow, at least. I don’t think I can go through that again… not right now.” After a few seconds he flinched as if something or someone had hit him. He started crying harder. Then he started saying things. “It’s all my fault! I should’ve protected them, I could’ve saved them, but I didn’t. I’m so weak… so pathetic. I’m so sorry! I should’ve died, not you, not any of you!” He was started to curl in on himself, going into a small ball. He then repeated “It’s all my fault” To himself as he cried.
I stared at him, it was like he was not just reliving something horrible mentally, but he also relived it physically as well. It was a type of nightmare I hadn’t seen before, a type I wouldn’t like to have. I turned to Steve, “What happened?”