Dark Pasts
Chapter One: Everyone's Waiting
I was humming Everyone's Waiting as I placed my new key into the new lock. '"Just swallow and breathe," she says, "Remember this ain't for you it's for them and all of those painful lessons you've had to learn you gotta use them now or never"' I began singing as I pushed the stiff door and walked into my new apartment.
Cerberus padded around me and sniffed the kitchen area. Thank the Dark Goddesses that the kitchen that I had ordered was delivered and set up with me having to be here. Driving from San Francisco to New York had been a bit… messy. Cerberus liked to slobber after eating. Speaking of my little hellhound, he began scratching at the fridge door. "Hey, quit that. You know there probably isn't any food in there" I scolded. Cerberus, however, was the eternal optimist today and continued to scratch. I sighed. "There's probably a fast food place around the corner you silly puppy" I said as I gave him a scratch behind the ears, "First off, let's get all these boxes out of the lobby, huh?" Cerberus barked and followed me out of the apartment and into the hallway.
In the said hallway, we met a tallish, good looking brunette on the phone to someone named Alex. She had finished her conversation by the time we got close, because my senses I caught the tail end; "Stop destroying Taskmaster's CDs, how old are you anyway? Three? Alex, I don't care if most three year olds don't know about battery acid. Quit it". Cerberus , having moved on from being the eternal optimist, became very friendly and started to sniff my new apartment mate. "Oh hello! Well aren't you a cute doggy?" Said new apartment mate surprised and rubbing Cerberus' neck. See, Cerberus has a neat shapeshifting ability. For the first apartment mate he took on the form of a pitch black golden retriever. He had the big bushy tail and fur and the forever confused look on his face. Tres cute. New apartment mate was suckered almost immediately.
A few months ago, I would have stolen her purse and maybe her jewellery then and there, but I play everything by the book now. Since I got burned by an angry former client and turned into SHIELD, the international counterterrorism agency directed by the United Nations, that is. Because SHIELD doesn't belong to or take orders from a single country or entity, they are given a lot more power, resources, better dental and less people looking into how ethical their operations or how they treat their prisoners. See there? You reader just learned some valuable information that wasn't given in the movie. Especially the dental. No one ever remembers the dental part. Anyway, back to the backstory. I made a deal with SHIELD; I would be cleared of all charges on US soil and in return would have to work for SHIELD for a year. Any more charges would add extra time and I don't particularly like playing on the side of angels, so for the time being I'm pretending to be one.
"My name's Sandi" introduced the young woman.
"I'm Ari. This is Cerberus" I said, pointing to the black retriever who was really a massive Rottweiler with three heads and ate anything and everything. Use the word big to describe him actually. Massive makes him feel fat. He is a bit really. It's all the Mexican food we eat. Speaking of Mexican food… "Do you know where we can get some quick food around her?" I asked Sandi, "We just drove from New York and we'll grab some food after we move the boxes from the lobby". Sandi nodded and continued to give Cerberus the head scratch of his life.
"Well there's a McDonalds around the corner, a Taco Bell and a Wendy's a block from here, a doughnut place down the street and a small Mexican restaurant next door to the doughnuts. Me and a few friends are going to the Mexican place soon, so maybe we'll see you there?" Inquired Sandi. I looked down at Cerberus and he looked at me in return and gave me the affirmative bark.
"That's a yes then" I grinned. We said our goodbyes and parted ways on the elevator, which barely worked since it was so old. Sandi went to the fifth floor, the floor above, and I went to the ground floor to retrieve those boxes I've talked so greatly about. If you wanted to her me go on about boxes, then bad luck for you. Personally, I hope the author just does a time skip and misses me getting an unpacking my stuff. I really hope.
Good news! She skipped! I walked into the small and quite clean Mexican restaurant at about 8 o'clock at night, after spending the past 3 hours unpacking. Not much fun to say the least. I looked around and saw Sandi waving us over to a table with 4 other people. Interesting people. One had a dark blue hoodie and another had a red and black hoodie on. They had their backs to me but I could tell that they were pretty physically built. The other three people were Sandi, a woman and another man. The woman had blonde hair and a risqué cowgirl outfit on. The man had a grey jacket on, looked slightly Asian in appearance and had some kind of orange glasses on. They were sitting in a booth so I had to pull up a chair. Cerberus, feeling very friendly, hopped onto the space next to the guy in the red and black hoodie. The guy didn't mind at all and started to pat him on the head. Good day for Cerberus. A very good day indeed.
"This is the woman I told you about. You know, the one living next to me and across from Deadpool?" Said Sandi. "This is Outlaw", pointed to the blonde who gave a little wave. "This is Alex", pointed to the grey jacket who was looking at the menu. "This is Taskmaster", pointed to the blue hoodie who I think was staring at me. Hard to tell with a metal mask on his face. Looked a lot like General Grievous from Star Wars if you asked me. "And this is Deadpool", pointed to red and black hoodie who I saw was wearing a full face red and black mask. Likes red and black I see. "Everyone, this is Ari" Sandi said as she finished introductions.
"So what is everyone having?" I asked as if I was interested in the topic.
"Well we would decide if Alex and Taskmaster would quit hogging the menus" shouted Outlaw with a Texan twang.
"Whatever. I've already decided" shrugged off Taskmaster who gave the menu to Deadpool.
He started pointing to things on the menu and asking himself if any were good. Cerberus of course gave his opinion. Alex finished deciding his meal and gave the menu to Sandi and Outlaw to share. Realising that it might take a while to get my turn with the menus, I got up and moved towards the counter to procure another one. However as I reached the aforementioned counter, I saw a man reflected in the polished silver bell that was on the wooden surface. I turned around and recognised him. His name was Higashi and he was one of the leaders of the Japanese crime organisation known as the Four Winds.