"I thought I did not qualify." Sherlock Holmes said as he watched the screened where Director Mycroft, his annoying brother who has too much power and too much cake, was listening with exaggerated patience. "I was considered, what was it?" he asked although he knew the answer and answered for himself, "Volatile, self-obsessed, and I don't play well with others."
"While that may be all true." Mycroft said his voice steady despite the small tic in the corner of his eye. "You are needed all the same."
"No." Sherlock said shaking his head. "I am not needed, Iron Man is needed."
"You and Iron Man are one in the same." Mycroft protested. "To use one is to use the other."
"And just how do you wish to use me, brother dear?" Sherlock asked.
Mycroft smiled, an irritating little motion with his mouth that made a wave of dislike pass through Sherlock. "All will be explained, as soon as you join me at our headquarters."
Sherlock mimicked a mock thinking position before he almost immediately said "Not interested. Remember to keep to the diet and lay off the cake." Without waiting for an answer he turned off the screen effectively cutting off their conversation.
He then sighed and shook his head. Talks with his brother always left him annoyed and the beginnings of a small headache.
He rubbed his chest where the arc reactor laid, the glow seen even through his shirt. He winched once more as he felt another pulse, both electrical and physical, shot through him. Sometimes it felt that if he concentrated hard enough he would be able to feel those pieces of shrapnel. Slowly making their way towards his heart. Despite the arc reactor keeping them away. Getting closer and closer to death.
He shook his head firmly. He needed a cigarette.
As he walked through his home, mansion actually a part of his mind corrected, as always he couldn't help but glance at his suits. Beautifully done. Engineers and inventors would sell their lives for only a minute to so much as come in contact with the suits, let alone find out how they work.
Missiles, flight, impervious to bullets and much more. The ultimate weapon and the ultimate defense.
And it was all his.
Seventy years.
Seventy years of being under the ice.
Seventy years of being frozen in time as the world continued moving forward and onward. Going places he had never even dreamed of.
Seventy years.
They were all dead too. His wife, although she did cheat on them and often forgot their kids he had still loved her. His best friend, falling because Greg couldn't save him. Was too weak, too scared, not good enough to be able to save him.
He didn't even want to think of his children and every time he thought about finding out what happened to them caused an iron grip to suddenly take hold of his heart and throat.
Even after seventy years of being asleep.
Greg Lestrade was still very tired.
He couldn't sleep forever however. The last seventy years showed that very clearly.
Instead he trained. He focused on training, even though with the super soldier serum he no longer needed to, and didn't leave the gym until it was late at night.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bit more patient than he would have expected. They were patiently guiding him into the twenty first century and introducing him to all of the modern technology.
He saw the surprise in their eyes when they first saw him. The greying hair, the tired look in his eyes, the wrinkles. He saw the comics and remembered all the makeup he had been forced to put on. He knew that they had expected someone younger. Someone in their prime, not someone who looked to be a few years short of retiring from the force.
There were whispers of course, with his heightened hearing he heard every last word. Wondering on why he had been chosen to receive the super soldier serum. What on earth made him so special?
He could have defended himself if he had wanted to. Say the truth. That he had been nothing more than a guard that day to watch over the process of creating the super soldier. Of how he had watched the man whom they were recreating being shot in the head the moment he had come out of the machine.
How Dr. Erskine, in a pure moment of panic and fear, had desperately pushed Lestrade into the machine with a look of pure sorrow and an apology he would never be able to say before ordering Alexander Holmes to power the machine once more.
How he had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And what had made him so special? Red Skull had asked the very same question and in a moment of pure juvenile rush, not to mention feeling as if his ribs had all been broken, he had said "Nothing. I'm just an officer from Scotland Yard."
He barely looked up as he heard the gym door open. Only one person really came to greet him anymore and he didn't feel like getting a headache today. He continued to punch the bag instead.
"Trouble sleeping?" Director Mycroft Holmes asked, a polite tone coloring his voice. Lestrade wasn't fooled.
"I've been asleep for seventy years." Lestrade said. He could almost feel each one of his acclaimed years in his body as he punched once more. "I think I've had enough rest."
"One would think." Mycroft agreed. For some reason his answer caused hatred to roll through Lestrade and the next punch had the punching bag sailing through the air and onto the ground with its contents pouring out.
"Oops." Lestrade said, not sounding sorry at all.
He sighed then and turned to Mycroft. Most hated person in the world or not he was still in a high position of power and Lestrade still remembered and respected ones ranks. "You're here with a mission, sir, trying to get me back to the world?" he asked almost bitterly.
Mycroft obtained a suddenly serious and no nonsense face. "Trying to save it."
She loved her job.
Granted her past wasn't the nicest nor the most pleasant. In fact many times she had to use her body in order to get what she wanted. Pushed to limits she had placed, pushed by a hand she could never control.
However the hand was gone. Her body was her own once more to control. And she could use it and use whatever limits she wanted as she pleased.
What she had loved the most about her job is that most of her enemies would take one look at her and immediately underestimate her. Because by the logic of so many a pretty face was also a stupid one. Naïve and weak.
It is how she preferred it. Let them think her weak and then at the moment, the moment she craved so much, would arise and she would get to savor the look on their face once more as they realized who she was and what she could do.
Irene Adler thrived on those moments.
It had been instilled into her as a child. How to seduce. How to fight. How to survive anything.
She hated the fighting but occasionally it was needed. Her body was her weapon in more ways than one after all.
However doing her nails over and over again were always a waste and time consuming. That was the only downside to this arrangement she had with S.H.I.E.L.D.
This situation was becoming all too familiar to her. In fact if she wished to be honest, something she never does even to herself, she has gotten used to it and finds comfort in it. Like an act one does until they are completely familiar with it.
Speaking Russian however, the oh so sexy language, was a bonus.
"And here I had thought that the infamous Black Widow was an actual threat." The general sneered. "However it seems that she is nothing more than a pretty face."
Irene looked up at him, her face the purest picture of innocence and naivety. "Do you really think that I'm pretty?"
Her phone vibrated once as a warning before the ringtone started. She swallowed a sigh. It could really be only one of two people who would dare to call her when she was interrogating someone. Hawkeye or Anthea. And seeing as how Hawkeye was guarding something for Mycroft it could only be Anthea.
Molly 'Hawkeye' Hooper never really minded her job. It was an art really, the way she wielded her bow and arrow. A natural gift that came so easily to her.
She knew that some agents would keep track of their kills. She never saw the point in it. She had long ago lost count of how many people she had ended.
All in the name of the good of course.
Although she hated it she also understood why Mycroft had placed her on the so called Tesseract project to oversee the progress. Her sharp eyes never missed a single move that one of the workers or guards made and she reported every little thing back to Mycroft. Perched high up in the lab, on one of the beams high up.
She saw better from a distance after all, just as her namesake.
And then when the Tesseract had gone insane and had brought…someone into their midst she immediately tightened her grip on her gun and watched for an opening.
The man the Tesseract had brought was grinning widely and with a sinister face. He had introduced himself as Loki Moriarty of Asgard, one who was burdened with a glorious purpose.
She ignored the little annoyed face he made as he introduced himself. He had stuck his tongue out at himself and shook his head as he threw his staff, the staff he had used to kill practically all the guards and the point was covered in blood, from hand to hand.
Molly threw a look at the Tesseract. It hadn't calmed down and if anything it looked as if it was going to explode. Mycroft was talking to…Loki in an attempt to buy time. Molly made her way slowly towards Loki as she flexed her grip on her gun. A few more steps.
Before she could even react Loki had placed the pointed end of the staff; covered in blood, staining the metal red, right at her heart. Her body acted instinctively as she prepared for the pain that followed being stabbed.
There was none. A blue light had filled her eyes. Mind. Soul. Heart.
"You have heart." Loki said softly, an almost fond look entering his eyes.
All Molly could do was gape at him motionless as the blue continued to fill her until she couldn't see anything else but the man in front of her. Immediately she knew one thing and one thing only.
She needed to protect and serve the man, Loki , to all of her power.
Her last conscious thought before the blue took over completely was of Irene and her heart clenched for that moment before she was no longer able to think on her own without the blue interfering.
Dr. John Hamish Watson was quite content at the moment regardless of what had happened over the course of the last few years.
The list of the cons was a long one. He had lost his job as a doctor, who also dabbled in the more mad science art now and then. He had lost his wife Mary, she could no longer be with him after the accident. He was a fugitive and on the run from English government. And the accident…
The goddamn accident.
He was never even supposed to be there. Was never supposed to have even a single thing to do with it.
It had been Harry who had brought him there. His older sister Harry had begged him to join her wife Clara on her work. Or at least provide a second opinion as a doctor who at least knew what he was talking about.
She had been begging him for months before he finally relented. One visit. One little visit. It would never hurt anyone if he was just looking at the theory on paper.
Harry never told him that they were doing government work. Government work that included replicating the super soldier serum that had been used in the 1940s to create General Great Britain.
She had never told him that they had believed that they were going to perfect the experiment and were then going to test it on humans.
And she never, not once, believed that her brother would get personally involved in the experiment.
It had started fine. John had been looking over Clara's notes with Clara herself hanging behind his shoulder with explanations on certain factors that he didn't understand.
Then the military had shown up.
The one in charge had come in, demanding their information. Confiscating it on the claims of it belonging to the military seeing as they were trying to create a soldier.
John knew how to fight. Very well actually despite his appearance. He knew however to keep calm and follow orders until the three of them were safe.
Harry however refused to listen and for her troubles a soldier hit her with the butt of his gun across her face.
The look of pain on his sister's face and the bruise slowly forming had brought up memories he had long ago chosen to bury of his father hurting them. Before he even knew what he was doing he had tackled the man and started punching every last bit he could reach.
Anger coursed through him even as the other soldiers had picked him off of their comrade and threw him into one of the sealed cages. Ignoring Clara's screams of how it wasn't safe and please get him out of there the general had pushed her to the side and activated the machines surrounding the cages. All they wanted to do with him was get rid of him in a way that they wouldn't waste any bullets.
They should have wasted just one bullet and saved themselves.
Everything turned green from that point on. Green with red staining his hands.
And a look of pure fear on his sisters face. Directed at him.
And so he had ran. He had ran from Harry, and Clara, and Mary. He had ran from his work and his lifestyle and his friends. He had ran from the military and the government, both wishing to capture him for their own uses, as well as some foreign military as well. And he had been running ever since.
The Hu-…the other guy ran alongside with him. A constant pressure in the back of his mind that he tried to never acknowledge.
He was still a doctor. He could still help people who needed it.
The mantra he told himself every month, every week, every day, every hour, every minute. He wasn't a monster. Monsters didn't care about anyone else. Monsters didn't try to help people who needed their help.
So he settled in the poorest places he could find. Helping those who were sick to the best of his abilities. His soft nature that people saw, combined with his soft voice and how he was hesitant to meet their eyes brought people to trust him easily to his displeasure and pleasure.
His most recent settling was Calcutta. Sickness everywhere, most heartbreaking was that a lot of them were children. He had helpers, unmarried and childless mothers who wish to help prevent what happened to them to happen to others.
He could hear one of his helpers arguing with a child as he washed his hands and glanced in the cracked mirror hanging above the makeshift sink. Telling her to get out of the building that was covered in sickness and death. The child argued back, holding out money in her small hand, and pleading that the doctor come back with her to her sick father.
It was the desperation in her tone and eyes as she said "Please" that finally drove John to grab his bag and follow her to her hut.
I do not own The Avengers or Sherlock.