Family connections (part 1)
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to their respective owners.
Note: this story contains minor spoilers for the official series.
Donnie Gill was adrift without a paddle.
Well, actually, he was adrift without a boat either. Instead of a vessel, with paddles and/or a sail, Donnie Gill was drifting across the sea in a block of ice, which he had generated personally, after either S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra had shot him in the back and sent him overboard.
Despite this state of affairs, Donnie Gill was alive.
And he was also angry.
When he was first contacted by Ian Quinn, Donnie did not really care about S.H.I.E.L.D., or Hydra, or anything else – he just wanted to make some money, impress Quinn with his talents, and, generally speaking, 'to be made' – to be somebody important, that is. Period. Anything else was just redundant.
But then... things went apart .And it wasn't even the arrival of Ian Fitz and Jemma Simmons – full-fledged agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – that caused it; the whole damn situation just fell apart, when Donnie's (well, not just Donnie's) machine misfired – and Donnie suddenly acquired powers over ice and snow, and suddenly found himself on top (if not on top) of everyone's list – or at least the list of S.H.I.E.L.D. And Hydra.
And one of them shot him in the back.
And that was annoying. No, 'annoying' was an understatement – Donnie Gill was angry.
Well, at this moment he was also in a block of ice, drifting in the watery depths, not quite alive, not quite dead, but certainly aware of his surroundings, such as they were.
And as such, they were empty. Oh sure, there was an occasional shark or some other deep-water fish, a pod of dolphins or a smaller family group of big whales, but otherwise? Empty.
On occasion Donnie was aware of something moving overhead, back in a warmer, more sunlit world – and not just a proper boat or some other vessel, but a sea bird – a gull, a tern, or perhaps even something bigger – flying and skimming over the top of the sea as well.
A few times Donnie – who was not a big savant of wildlife, BTW – thought that there had been something off about the sea birds – they were just too big, their heads too rounded – to be normal. But, since they were up there, and he was down in the watery depths instead, he did not care. He was too busy staying alive – sort of – amidst all this ice and water, and as he did, he fell himself steadily growing stronger, more powerful, and more cold – and the last bit was perhaps the most confusing to him; perhaps because it fell so natural.
And then Donnie Gill found himself abruptly on dry land – the deep-water currents had cast him ashore at last. With a determined snarl, he burst from his ice container, and looked around.
Nothing. No one, but some rocky shores and more sea birds flying overhead.
"Well, at least there's vegetation," muttered Donnie, and went forth to make himself a fire.
TBC