Nothing Like Kidnapping to Wake you up in the Morning
Michelle wasn’t one-hundred percent sure that she minded being kidnapped from school. It was a boring day anyway, an awkward phase in the annual rally cycle where she was done with all her previous protests and prepared for all her upcoming. Right now, Michelle was bored.
Ahh, the pains of activism.
She knew that Peter Parker was gone, on a suspiciously short-noticed trip for his suspicious Stark internship. It wasn’t that Parker wasn’t smart enough to be an intern for the prestigious company, but he was a high schooler in a college internship program that he did not apply for to Michelle’s knowledge. Or Ned’s knowledge, which was a mighty suspicious act within itself as Peter may be able to keep his mouth closed, but Ned couldn’t. The first thing Ned said during their increasingly boring lunch break was about how Peter was in Germany for an internship for Tony Stark. For Iron Man. Unfortunately, Michelle wasn’t the only one who’s interest was piqued at the peculiar absence of Peter Parker’s. Or the only one who heard Ned.
“Penis Parker?! With Iron Man? Suck my balls!”
“I would prefer not to, Flash.” Was the witty response of Liz Allen, the resident senior heart throb of Midtown.
“Liz, Iron Man isn’t even in Germany!”
“That sounds like stalkerism.”
“Stalkerism isn’t a word, Abe!” Exclaimed decathlon member Cindy Moon..
“I don’t care about fucking grammar, Tony Stark isn’t in Germany! Penis Parker is ly-“ Flash never got to finish his sentence.
Because as soon as Michelle blinked, she was gone.
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Michelle came to in what looked to be an old, unused, cafeteria. The walls were stark white, with what looked to be a large screen settled on the front wall. Comfortable cushions and squishy bean bags littered the ground. But what was the strangest, was the elderly man standing in the front.
The man had white hair, styled back out of his face. He wore tinted glasses, round and had two wires connecting them at the bridge of his nose. His tannish skin was worn down, the leathery look that comes with age, but amongst the wrinkles held laugh lines. Lines of a very happy, joyful man. Under a green sweater, he wore a crisp white collared shirt. Oddly, Michelle felt as if she had seen him before.
“Hey! It’s the bus driver!”
“No it’s not, he’s the FedEx guy, Flash!”
“What?! No. Both of you idiots are wrong. He’s that guy who lives downtown.”
The entire student population of Midtown Academy of Science was there.
The entire population of Midtown Academy of Science was kidnapped.
Oh fuck.
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During the middle of yet another argument between the decathlon kids, the man laughed. It was a loud laugh, echoing of the pale walls and large room. The teenagers scared.
“What?! You’ve never seen a Celestial, Cosmic, Being before?!” When he was met with stares, he sighed. “Kids these days.” He moved slowly to a beanbag in the front, and promptly sat down. “Ah, what are you kids waiting for?! Sit down!” So Michelle did. “Now, I’m sure you kids have questions. Go ahead, ask away!”
“Who are you?” Michelle honestly didn’t think she was going to actually ask a question, and going off the shocked faces of her classmates, neither did they. The man laughed.
“Why, the Watcher of course!” The ma-the Watcher smiled. “I watch the universe, and this is the one time I get to interfere with the doings of you mortals!” You mortals sounded considerably less ominous that it should in the given situation, seeing as they were kidnapped. Liz raised her hand.
“What are you doing here?” The Watchers smile disappeared, and a hush fell over the teenagers. “Children, some very bad things are going to happen in the span of a few years.” His youthful joy was gone, replaced by sadness. “In my timeline, my old timeline to be more specific, some incredibly bad things happen, and we weren’t able to stop it.”
“Yeah right,” said Flash. “I bet the Avengers could stop it.”
“No, my boy. Not even the Avengers could stop this. You can, though.” Murmurs overtook the crowd. If the Avengers couldn’t stop it, how could we? “You children are our future, so, you children need to save it.”
“Wait, I can’t save the world!”
“Yeah, I can’t even drive yet!”
“I’m grounded this month, so you kind of picked a bad time for me, personally. Otherwise I would totally go save the world.”
“SILENCE!” The mans face was tired, his laugh lines less prominent. “If you can’t save the universe, we will all perish.”
“Uhh, Mr Watcher? How are we supposed to the save the universe?’ Intelligent questions from Ned.
“Well, I have prepared the past, present, and future into movie formats. You will learn what happened, what's happening and what will happen.”
“Who are these movies about?”
“The Avengers.” And The Watcher disappeared.
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The screen upfront started lighting up, and the teenagers waited in anticipation.
Search Team Leader: Are you the guys from Washington?
“Wait, is that Antarctica?” Asked Ned. Michelle didn’t care for the location, per se. She had a hunch about who this was about, but wasn’t completely sure.
SHIELD Tech: You get many other visitors out here?
SHIELD Lieutenant: How long have you been on site?
Search Team Leader: Since this morning. A Russian oil team called it in about 18 hours ago.
SHIELD Lieutenant: How come nobody spotted it before?
Search Team Leader: It’s really not that surprising. This landscape’s changing all the time. You got any ideas what this thing is exactly?
SHIELD Lieutenant: I don’t know. It’s probably a weather balloon.
Search Team Leader: I don’t think so. You know we don’t have the equipment for a job like this.
“Wait, what job are they talking about?”
SHIELD Tech: How long before we can start craning it out?
Search Team Leader: I don’t think you quite understand. You guys are gonna need one hell of a crane!
[as the shot widens we see a massive frozen ship revealed]
The teenagers gazed upon in awe.
“Holy fuck.”
“Is that…?
“I think so.”
[after breaking into the metal aircraft]
SHIELD Lieutenant: [speaking into his comm] Base, we’re in. [looking around] What is this? [The technician nearly slips on the ice covering the ground] Careful.
SHIELD Tech: [finding the frozen shield of Captain America] Lieutenant! What is it?
“Captain fucking America!”
SHIELD Lieutenant: My God! [into his earpiece] Base, give me a line to the Colonel.
Voice from Earpiece: It’s 3 a.m., sir.
SHIELD Lieutenant: I don’t care what time it is. This one’s waited long enough.
“That's The Valkyrie!”
“Wait, that's how they found Captain America? Kind of anticlimactic.”
“What were you expecting, Flash? For him to rise from the grave like some red, white and blue Jesus?”
[March 1942 Tønsberg, Norway]
“We’re somewhere else now!”
“Well, no duh!”
[a villager, Jan, is running to a church]
Jan: [subtitled] They have come for it!
“Wait, who are they?”
Tower Keeper: [subtitled] They have before.
Jan: [subtitled] Not like this.
Tower Keeper: [subtitled] Let them come. They will never find it.
“I think they just jinxed themselves.”
[rumbling is heard and something breaks down the door, the stones killing Jan]
Silence overtook the cafeteria. Michelle couldn’t tell herself that didn’t actually happen because it did. Michelle, and the rest of the student body just watched a man die. If this is the first one, how bad are the rest of the films going to be? Liz and Betty were already openly crying.
[the tower keeper closes Jan’s eyes and sees a machine moving away as HYDRA agents come in]
“Fuck.”
“Hydra.”
[a car drives up with the HYDRA symbol on the hood]
[HYDRA agents try to lift the lid of a coffin]
“Ew, that’s kind of disgusting.”
Hydra Lieutenant: Open it! Quickly, before he…
Johann Schmidt: It has taken me a long time to find this place. [to the Tower Keeper] You should be commended. [to one of his soldiers] Help him up.
“Wait, why is Red Skull helping him?”
[one of the soldiers helps the tower keeper to his feet]
Johann Schmidt: I think that you are man of great vision. And in this way we are much alike.
“That assholes cray-cray!”
“Like you, Samantha.”
Tower Keeper: I am nothing like you.
“I second that!”
“Shut up Samantha!”
Johann Schmidt: No, of course. But what others see as superstition, you and I know to be a science.
Tower Keeper: What you seek is just a legend.
Johann Schmidt: Then why make such an effort to conceal it? [opens an old tomb and picks up the glass cube from the skeletal remains of an old Viking] The Tesseract was the jewel of Odin’s treasure room. [he turns to face the tower keeper and deliberately drops and smashes the glass cube] It’s not something one buries. But I think it is close, yes?
“Fuck, is he trying to..?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
Tower Keeper: I cannot help you.
Johann Schmidt: No. But maybe you can help your village. You must have some friends out there. Some… some little grandchildren perhaps. I have no need for them to die. [A big tank outside turns his guns towards the village threateningly.]
“Oh, Oh my God.”
[referring to the carving of the tree on one of the tower walls]
Johann Schmidt: Yggdrasil. Tree of the world. Guardian of wisdom and fate, also. [he presses a button on the carving of the tree and it opens up to reveal the real cube] And the Führer digs for trinkets in the desert. You have never seen this, have you?
“Shit, Shit, Shit!”
Tower Keeper: It’s not for the eyes of ordinary men.
Johann Schmidt: Exactly. [he closes the box containing the glowing cube and turns to his soldiers] Give the order to open fire.
“No. No, no!” Ned ran out of the room, and Michelle (for some reason unknown to her) chased after him. She found herself off in a small closet, she assumed, as Ned sobbed on the floor. “He promised!” Ned wailed. “He promised! He’s gonna kill a bunch of innocents!” Michelle crouched down. She wasn’t very good at the whole comforting thing. “Hey Idiot.”
“Michelle?”
“I’m here Idiot. Hate to break it to you, but those guys are shitty people.” He only sobbed harder. “No, no, no! I mean, yeah, they suck. But we don’t have to give them the satisfaction of remembering their wrongdoings, we remember the victims. Have you ever heard about a slave owner in history?”
“Thomas Jefferson.”
“Bad example, but the fact is that there will always be bad people. We don’t remember them, we remember their victims. We remember their strength, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And Ned?”
“Yeah?”
“You can call me MJ.”
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Ned and Michelle entered to concerned looks for all there classmates. Well, not including one. Michelle mouthed ‘were good’ at Liz, and the movie continued.
Hydra Lieutenant: Jawohl! (Yes!)
Tower Keeper: Fool! You cannot control the power you hold. You will burn!
Johann Schmidt: I already have. [He shoots and kills the tower keeper]
“Holy fuck, this asshole is messed up.”