The girl hosted her bag higher on her arm, looking subtly over her shoulder as she did so. The man was still following her. She tried to breathe evenly. She didn't think he knew that she knew she was being followed. Act normal, don't walk too fast, get to the street. She repeated her dad's instructions in her head. Don't lose the data.
The man's footsteps were closer now. She had a choice; speed up and let him know she knew he was there, or act normal and possibly get caught away from witnesses.
She chose to start running.
She gripped the bag in front of her and weaved in and out of the junk that littered the alley floor. Her stalker was running behind her, his breathing heavy and labored. There was a chain link fence ahead of her that sealed off the alley. She could see the street about ten feet away on the other side of the fence.
Grunting, she heaved her heavy mailbag over the fence and started climbing. The freezing metal cut into her hands as she climbed. She swung one leg over the top and nearly made it over, but then the man grabbed her ankle and twisted, hard.
She cried out in pain, anchoring herself to the fence with her right hand and foot, and reaching into her boot with her left. She pulled her knife out of its ankle sheath and slashed blindly at the man's face.
He let go of her ankle, cursing loudly. When she jumped down her ankle made a loud crunching noise. She nearly blacked out from the pain. It was definitely broken. She grabbed the mailbag and hobbled toward the street as quickly as she was able. She looked back; he was climbing the fence again. The blood on his snarling face looked black in the moonlight. He made it over the fence, landed in a roll, and then got up running after her.
She made it to the street and hailed a cab, sliding into the backseat and slamming the door.
"Go, just get out of here!" She yelled at the cabbie.
She locked the doors just as a heavy hand slammed on the door handle and yanked. The taxi took off, tires squealing.
She peered through the back window. The man was standing in the middle of the street, staring after them. She relaxed against the leather of the seat, hugging her bag to her chest. She was safe.
For now.
/
"She's got a smile, that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories," Savina 'Shorty' Jones sang. "Misha! Misha Harris! Sing! You love this song!"
Misha grimaced and propped her leg up on the dashboard more securely. "I've got a headache, could you turn it down a little?"
Shorty lowered the radio volume after a minute, glancing over at Misha worryingly. Misha rubbed at her eyes, yawning. She hadn't been sleeping well since that night. The man's face haunted her dreams every time she tried to sleep. She would wake suddenly, panting, cold sweat rolling down her temple. Her heavy cast did nothing to help her relax, either. It was itchy and hot and Misha couldn't wait to get it off in a few weeks.
Shorty was trying to amuse her. Misha had been bored out of her mind ever since she had broken her foot. Shorty was taking her to a coffee shop that she liked that she normally stole wifi from in the upscale part of NYC.
Shorty pulled a chair out for Misha when they arrived, then went and ordered their coffees. Misha pulled her laptop out while she was gone. She booted it up and entered her many passwords, then logged onto the internet.
She went through her usual safety procedures, setting up blocks against anyone or anything that could try to track her internet movements. By the time Shorty was back with her frappe she had finished signing into the secure chat room she used to talk to her dad.
The package is secure. I am too. She wrote. While she waited on a reply, she drank her coffee and talked with Shorty.
Misha had just graduated high school, which was the only normal thing she had ever really done. Her dad had been teaching her computer coding since she was seven years old. She had been his assistant with his research since the age of twelve. She was now eighteen, and had been a known name in the hacker world since the age of fourteen. And no one knew but her dad.
Shorty knew that Misha was uncommonly good with computers, but Misha hadn't told her the ugly side to it. Her dad was on the run, and while she didn't know all the details, Misha knew it was bad. He knew something extremely valuable, and it might just get him killed. The information was on the USB stick she had in a secret pocket in her bag. She hadn't looked at it on her computer yet. She was honestly kind of scared to.
"So I had a thought the other day," Shorty said, crossing her legs.
"There's a surprise," Misha said, yanking her mind to the present. "I hope you didn't strain yourself."
"Shut up," Shorty rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I was telling this guy I met about how smart you are, right? And he was being a butthole and talking about how cool Tony Stark is and stuff and I told him, 'Dude, my girl Misha is like Tony Stark but you know, hot. And female.'"
"Obviously." Misha said, deadpan. She didn't like where this was going.
"And he totally didn't believe me so I told him you had like maybe actually hacked into one of his Iron Man suits while he was near you one day and he didn't believe me so I told him to meet us here in about five minutes because this place is near Stark Tower and I told him you would hack it and-"
"You did what?!" Misha shrieked. "Shorty, call him right now and tell him I'm sick or something, there is no way I am going to hack into Tony Stark's Iron Man suit-"
"I knew she was making it up."
A tall boy slid into a seat across from Misha, flipping his black hair out of his eyes. Misha wished she could say she was a nice person who waited to make a judgment on people, but the truth was that she just hated the guy on sight. His condescending smirk made her grind her teeth. Shorty looked between them, begging Misha silently with her puppy dog eyes.
"Again. I mean I won't hack it again." Misha finished.
Shorty looked like she could kiss her. Misha fervently hoped she never looked at her like that again.
"And who are you?" Misha asked. She immediately adjusted her body language to mirror that of superiority.
"The name's Jake, Jake Willis." Jake said.
"Well, 'Jake, Jake Willis,'" Misha said, making air quotes. "I'll have you know that I have hacked one of Tony Stark's Iron Man suits. So you can take your snotty little attitude elsewhere."
Jake crossed his arms. "Prove it, Missy. Unless you're just tryin' to make yourself look smarter than you actually are. But who am I kidding," Jake stood and made like he was going to leave. "Everyone knows girls aren't good hackers."
Misha saw red. "Give me five minutes and you'll see." She ground out. "This girl is going to make your jaw drop."
"This outta be good," Jake said. He sat down and stared at her, drumming his fingers on his crossed arms.
Shorty was very quiet, and Misha was thankful. She needed to think. She logged out of the chat room; her dad hadn't replied and probably wouldn't for a while. Misha stretched a little and cracked her knuckles.
She needed an in, a way to get into Stark's program without touching any of his tech physically. Which meant his internet connection or wifi.
Misha didn't want to raise any alarms by just breaking into Stark's wifi. That meant she needed a password, and there was a few ways to get those. Firstly, through the person with the wifi. Secondly, through the company they got it from, and last and her least favorite: Guessing.
Misha had no way of getting it through the first method, and not enough time for the second, so that last the third option. But a guy like Stark wouldn't be hard to figure out. Most people use a pets name, their first address, their phone number, very personal things. Misha figured that the most personal thing Stark had was well... Himself.
She typed in tonystark and hit enter. And she was in. Her own passwords were complicated number sequences, all of which were stored separately on hard drives in a hidden safe in her wall. She had two master lock passwords that opened the safe and hard drives. Tony Stark was an incredibly smart man, but his arrogance would cost him a little pride today.
Misha lost herself in another world, even as the rest of the patrons around her went about their daily business, unaware a crime was being committed at the table near them. She could hear Shorty and Jake arguing, but she paid no attention. She was bypassing security codes, blowing through stock information, and leaving random smiley faces in business reports. Eventually she hacked her way into Tony Stark's blueprints, which took her longer than she liked. She checked her watch; she still had a minute left.
She shifted through file after file, and then she found one on the Iron Man suits.
Thirty seconds.
The information in the file was all she needed to access the suit's controls wireless. She typed in a command.
"Done," She said. She spun her laptop around to face Jake, who stared at the screen, speechless. And yes, his jaw did drop. She felt maybe a little too smug about her felony.
Misha had hacked Stark's security footage too, and they all watched as one of the Iron Men came alive and began to do an extremely awkward robot dance in a large garage.
"B-but how?" Jake stuttered. Misha stretched again. "Sorry Jake, I don't kiss and tell." Misha said. "C'mon, Shorty, I've got places to be and people to see."
They sashayed out the door, leaving Jake to stare open mouthed after them. If Misha tripped up a little because of her crutches, well, she was still cool.
/
"Sir, there seems to be a security breach," JARVIS turned down the volume of the rock music blaring through Tony Stark's workshop.
"Standard protocols apply." Tony said, elbow deep in the Mark XLIII suit. "Flush 'em out." Tony didn't look up until JARVIS spoke again.
"Sir, my protocols have been overridden. A person or persons unknown are currently accessing our secure database. They are looking at files on the older suits."
"Get me an IP address and start a trace," Tony said. He grabbed a cloth and wiped his greasy hands. "And do the password rotation a little early."
Tony walked to his desk and brought his screen up. Red alerts were popping up everywhere. "JARVIS, they've been through everything in the space of four minutes!"
"They seem to want access to a suit- Sir! Behind you!"
A suit put up on the wall suddenly lit up and began to move. Tony dove for one of his repulsor gloves and rolled behind his desk. He peeked around it when there was nothing but heavy clunking noises.
He almost laughed when he saw his suit doing a very awkward version of the robot. Tony aimed his glove at it and waited a moment. After about ten seconds of stilted dancing, the suit walked back into place on the wall and powered down.
"JARVIS, do I have the all clear?" Tony whispered.
"Yes, sir. The person or persons who hacked us seemed to have accessed all of our files but only read the ones pertaining to the Iron Man suits and how to power it remotely. There is no trace of the hacker in our computers, they did not leave a virus."
"Did you get an IP address?" Tony asked.
"A trace is nearly complete, sir." Jarvis replied. Tony sat his repulser glove on the desk and went back to his computer. The IP trace was complete. He pulled the name the computer was registered to and his eyes widened.
"JARVIS, put a call through to Coulson. We've got a trace on James Harris."
/
Misha barged into her apartment and started locking the place down. When she keyed a command into a keypad beside the door, steel window shades rolled down, the door locked, with four extra deadbolts slid into place. She had designed and built the security system herself, a bored science project she worked on while her dad was in his lab. If anyone tried to break into the apartment than it would send an alert to her phone, and lock down the entire place. It would be impenetrable.
Misha pulled the flash drive out of the bag and sat at her desk. She drummed her fingers impatiently while her computer booted up. And then she froze, the flash drive poised to connect.
Did she really want to know what her dad had been doing?
All her life he had hidden his work from her. And it honestly made her furious. She had willingly let him use her for experiments, letting him take blood and DNA samples from her frequently, and he had never thought to actually tell her what he needed it for. She had never asked him because she trusted him, it was as simple as that. But now he was gone, and whatever was on this flash drive might be the key to helping him.
Misha connected the flash drive to her computer and waited. If she knew her dad like she thought she did, the flash drive would be heavily locked.
She was right. A box popped up on her screen asking for the password.
James Harris had a love-hate relationship with passwords. He had always forgotten them and had never remembered to write them down. So he and Misha and he had designed a system. The first password of any locked file that was to be shared between them was to always be the same password, a series of numbers that meant nothing to anyone else but Misha and her dad.
37210307021
3, ,7, and 21.
They were Misha's favorite numbers and the only personal thing James' could remember about her. Misha had stopped letting that hurt her a long time ago. Her dad was brilliant, but he couldn't connect emotionally and had trouble remembering anything about the people that didn't pertain to his work.
Misha typed in the password. She opened the first file and scanned through information on intelligence agencies around the globe. Every agency that had a file on James Harris was there. The one with the largest file was HYDRA.
Misha read though HYDRA's file first. It was extensive, and most of the information pertained to people with exceptional abilities, cross species genetics, and even magic.
And all of it detailed her dad's work on each of those subjects.
Misha was officially freaked out.
"Okay, negligent father turns out to be a mad scientist, my life is a book outline." Misha muttered.
She had reached the end of the file. A new password box popped up on the screen. It was a complicated mathematical equation. Misha raised an eyebrow and set back. This kind of password was new for her dad. Math problems can be solved, unlike most passwords. This seemed to be something to slow her down. Misha was good with math, but this kind of equation took her longer to solve.
She grabbed a pen and paper and started working, with a Guns & Roses Greatest Hits album playing as a distraction. She got up a few times and awkwardly crutch-ed herself to the kitchen, opened the fridge and closed it, then sat back down.
She fiddled with her calculator for a while, worked on the problem some more, then gave up and called Shorty.
"Hey, I'm bored, what are you doing?" Misha asked. She stuck her broken foot on the desk.
"I'm actually almost to work, but we should hang out tomorrow morning if you want," Shorty said. "And this time I swear I won't make you commit a potential felony."
"S'not my first," Misha muttered.
"What?"
"I lost my purse," Misha said. "I think it's in your car." She looked down at her brown purse beside her desk.
"Anyway, I'm at work, I'll text you later." Shorty said. "Kisses! Bye!"
Misha didn't bother replying and let Shorty hang up. She stared up at the ceiling aimlessly.
"Oh!" Misha said, then sat up and solved the math problem.
She typed in the answer, grinning manically. She loved her random bursts of inspiration.
The files opened and she started reading. It occurred to her she should take notes. Then she remembered that she had an eidetic memory and would remember anyway.
This file was possibly creepier; it contained detailed reports of all HYDRA operations that were completed and ongoing. Misha realized she could probably sell some of this information and maybe get a new car, but she didn't think her dad would be too impressed with that. She scrolled down tot he ongoing files and looked through them idly. One was titled Operation Control and it looked interesting. Misha opened it and read it.
"Oh, gosh," She said, mouth agape. Robot Apocalypse? Really?
/
Peter Parker really wished that he got to go back to his apartment and sleep, but his luck didn't run that way. S.H.E.I.L.D. had called him in at the last minute as backup for an extraction team. So as tired as he was, he suited up and swung out through the city streets to the meeting point.
The extraction team leader explained to him what they were doing, a simple in and out job. Grab the guy, get the data, and get back to base. He didn't even have to go in unless something went wrong. Peter rolled his shoulders to loosen them up. The team moved into the apartment building and out of sight. Peter occasionally heard something over his comns.
Peter sat on the hood of one of the black SUV's that S.H.E.I.L.D. was so fond of, kicking his feet. He really should be writing a paper right now, it counted for 25% of his grade for this semester, and he really needed to get his grades up.
The team had been in for about five minutes when Peter heard the gunshot. He went on alert, waiting to hear anything over the comns. Then, suddenly; "Spider Man, move in, man down!"
Peter was on the roof of the apartment building in three seconds. "Status report," He said.
"Man down, called medics in, suspect is white teenage female wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, she is using crutches."
Peter snorted. "How did some girl with crutches avoid your team again?"
Peter was on the roof top of the building beside the apartment before the team leader managed to reply. He looked down; the girl had made it down the fire escape and was managing to go pretty fast with a pair of crutches. Peter spotted a red cast on her foot. He lightly ran along the top of the roof.
"Where are you gong?" He asked. He dropped on a thread in front of her. She shrieked and whacked him in the face with her crutch. Peter cursed and dropped to his feet.
"Look, I just want to talk!" He said. "Why are you running?"
The girl looked ready to take off again, but drew herself up at his words, furious. "Why am I running?" She asked. "Ten armed men just tried to break through my door and I have no idea why, of course I'm running!"
"Lady, I'm just supposed to be here for backup, I really don't feel like getting into a debate with you over S.H.E.I.L.D.'s admittedly shady tactics, but you shot someone and this is my job now so I'm going to just kinda-"
Peter shot a web at her and stuck her to the wall. "Sorry about this," He said. "I'm sure you're actually really nice."
He webbed her securely and then propped her crutches against the wall beside her. She was struggling against the sticky webbing across her arms and torso.
"Suspect is apprehended, in the alley beside the building." Peter said in his comns. "Sir, I'm going home to sleep, don't wake me unless there's an apocalypse or something."
He turned to shoot a web, but the girl yelled at him to stop.
"Wait! There's actually an apocalypse about to happen," She said.
She couldn't see his facial expression, but the look Peter was giving her could kill a hydra.
"You said you work for S.H.E.I.L.D?" She asked. "They're the good guys, right?"
"Good guys is used loosely here, but yes." Peter said warily. He turned back and folded his arms across his chest.
"And Tony Stark works for S.H.E.I.L.D?" The girl asked.
"Um he's an Avenger and I think that's separate, but they collaborate." Peter said. "What does this have to do with Tony Stark?"
The girl took a deep breath. "Well, I just found out that every Smart-Stark appliance that has been manufactured in the last six months has a virus that's about to hack everyone who has a Smart-Stark appliance's credit cards, SS Numbers, and medical records."
"One week of not having to save the world," Peter looked imploringly to the sky. "One week, PLEASE."
Peter grabbed his cell phone and dialed the private number.
"Coulson."
"Tell the Avengers to assemble," Peter said. "We have another apocalypse."
Savina Jones _ Steve Rogers?
Misha Harris_ Peter Parker or Iron Man
Black Widow_- Hulk
Misha's perception of her dad was violently disillusioned after she found a file on herself in an intelligence agency's database that went by the name of S.H.E.I.L.D. Misha had to stop reading her file for a moment and she put her head in her hands. All those experiments... For this?
Her dad had taken her DNA and twisted it somehow, and Misha didn't fully understand the medical terminology but it sounded like there was something in Misha, that would emerge soon.
And her dad had put it there with the help of a HYDRA scientist by the name of... Dr. List.
Misha ran to the toilet and threw up.
Misha Harris pulled her laptop out of her bag and sat on the cold stone wall. As she waited for it to boot up she checked her phone for texts. She had a couple from Yvonne "Shorty" Jones, asking where she was.
I'm outside. I need to talk to you. Misha sent back.
OK. Shorty replied.
Misha entered her password on her laptop, then hacked into the wifi at the apartment building beside her. She couldn't afford to pay for wifi on her student salary, so most days she went to Starbucks for wifi or hacked into it.