SHIELD - Reimagined

by gkeveson

An completely new telling of S.H.I.E.L.D from the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring Simon Williams, Wonder Man, and Janet van Dyne, The Wasp. S.H.I.E.L.D. Reimagined will explore newly imagined origin stories of popular Marvel heroes through the communal dynamic of the department.

S.H.I.E.L.D Reimagined

INTRODUCTION

4:07AM, Midtown in Spring.

The sky opens itself across the island. It opens and it is blue. It is blue, stretching horizon to horizon. It floats over the empire lethargically, waiting for a burning white sun to set. Below is silence. It has just happened. It has happened and the words comprising all human language have fallen apart. It clutters the fractured avenues and adorns the broken high-rises as though the letters that composed it were strung together with thread pulled apart by a hole in the blue sky. The embers cool; the danger is over. There is no cheering until the evening news. New York didn't win- it survived.

And, at the epicenter of where what-could-never-happen and what-can-never-be-forgotten fork, he stands. He stands, mouth open, fingers trembling, his eyes on her. He looks at her and he knows. He watches the EMTs kick over the debris to get to her, digging their hands beneath between her still body and the cracked cement, raising her skyward, but he knows. He watches them pull their instruments of healing from their packs and line them across the sidewalk like an army, but he knows. He watches them try, in vain, and he knows. He knows and he watches her leave.

6:40AM, Inwood in the Fall.

The alarm blares out. He pushes out of bed and wonders into a bathroom bathing in morning beams. He pours out a beam of his own and depress the lever. Washing his hands and face, he listens to the song of his alarm. Or is it a code? What is it saying today? He tosses his wash cloth in the hamper and returns to his electronic pet, slamming his palm on its head and stopping its crying.

In a living room, he mounts a treadmill and slowly begins a morning ritual. He is sluggish, wounded, but alive. The pain tells him that. He speeds it up. He breathes in the pain. His ribs, his back. He breathes in and he sees them. Pouring from a hole in the sky like confections from a spout in a candy store. Contorted faces, heavy armaments. Speed up. Sweat bubbles on his brow. He inhales the pain. He sees them, the six little dots among a raging sea, holding back the floods of oblivion. Speed up. He breathes. He sees them, his brothers in arms, the divisions of uniform broken by shared adversity. Speed up. He breathes. He sees her. Speed up. He breathes. He sees her. Speed up. He sees her. Speed up. Speed up. And, as pain claps her icy digits around his limbs, he falls. He curls up on the hardwood, panting, and sees her. The machine continues to exercise without him and, as the tread rotates around its route, it whispers her, her, her, her. This is his morning ritual. This is his mourning ritual. Simon Williams lays on the bare wooden floor and he sees- her.