"It's awfully quiet."
"Too quiet."
"You'd think Hydra would have more security for one of their top secret facilities."
"Maybe they weren't expecting us."
"Maybe they were."
The team fell silent, as they cautiously made their way into the Hydra facility. SHIELD had spent who knew how long tracking this place down, and decided to send in a few people to check it out. And, if necessary, take it out. SHIELD intelligence suggested that a certain criminal and potential super villain was located within the building. She was the main target, but with Hydra, you never knew what you might run into. Best to be prepared for anything and everything.
That team consisted of Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, and Clint Barton. Tony Stark was not supposed to be part of the team, but he had of course hacked into SHIELD's database and found out about the mission, then proceeded to invite himself to the party. The team didn't feel like arguing- though they would never admit it, they were glad to have another Avenger joining them. There were too many unknown variables, and the more people the better. The only person missing was Thor, who was busy on Asgard.
So, currently, Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, and Banner were creeping through the dimly lit hallways. Hawkeye was stationed outside, in a tree. Tony had his faceplate up, feeling it unnecessary to have it down at the moment, and Banner was needed as Banner, not as the Hulk. Yet.
"This appears to be some sort of scientific research facility, not weapon development," Bruce observed, noting the number of doors with signs labeled "Lab _" with number, letter, and word combinations. In fact, nearly every room had such a label.
"Maybe this wing is lab work, but there could be weaponry in another part of the building," Steve reasoned. Best to be prepared for anything.
Natasha simply hummed in agreement.
"This hallway is in pretty crappy condition. It doesn't look like anyone has cleaned in forever," Tony commented, looking around and wrinkling his nose at the lack of maintenance. "Really, you'd think they'd take better care of their stuff."
"I think... I think we may be in an abandoned wing," Bruce stated cautiously. Everything was rather dusty, and the area looked like it had been out of commission for a little while.
"That would explain the lack of security, but Hydra has been known to hide out in supposedly abandoned facilities. My guess would be that we will find more activity either towards the center of the complex, or on a lower level."
"Cap's right. It's a textbook way for organizations to hide secret projects," Natasha commented, glancing around for hidden cameras.
The group continued, weaving through seemingly abandoned corridors, until they came to an intersection.
"Which way?"
"Eenie, meanie, miney, who the hell cares, pick a direction. You know what, I'll pick a direction. We're going right," Tony, ever impatient, began strolling down the corridor on the right before anyone could protest. Steve sighed, but the group followed suit.
Another five minutes of traveling, and still no sign of activity.
"We should split up," Steve said at last. "We're wasting time. We need to cover more ground, find what we can, and report back. If the target is here, we'll never find her at the rate we're going."
"Sounds good. I'll go with Brucie here, we'll go this way and-"
"No, I'll go with Banner," Natasha interrupted Tony, "If this is just scientific research or experiments and not weaponry, each group should have someone who knows their stuff. Stark, go with the Cap."
Tony huffed. "Fine."
Natasha and Bruce headed off in one direction, while Steve and Tony took another.
"Did Fury give us the wrong address or something? Seriously, we should have found something by now. I'm getting bored."
"I think that's the point. Knowing Hydra, there should be some sort of inconspicuous door or hidden passage that leads to the main part of the facility. The abandoned area will be mostly blocked off, but there will still be at least one connecting entrance/exit in case of evacuation or they need to hide something during an attack," Steve commented, reflecting on his past Hydra encounters.
"They seem to have pulled off the 'hidden' aspect well," Tony deadpanned. Then, he paused "Wait a second, this looks interesting..." The billionaire leaned towards a labeling plate, examining it. Then, swiftly, he ripped it off the wall.
"What are you doing?" Hissed Steve.
"Rewiring. If that fails, I'll just blast through the door. No problem." Tony poked around with the wiring for a moment. "And there we go."
The door slid open silently, and lights flicked on all along the hallway that had been hidden by the door.
"Stay sharp," Steve said, stepping through the door, Tony following, before pressing a hand to his ear. "We found something. Not sure what yet, but it looks like a way in."
Natasha's voice came back over the comm. "Good luck, we'll keep looking over here."
"Roger that," Steve replied, dropping his hand back to his side.
Despite the better lighting and the fact that this area was obviously used more often than the empty corridors the team had been traveling, this hall didn't seem to be very special either. There were no doors, no suspicious rooms, and more importantly, no guards. At the end of the hall, Steve and Tony discovered a staircase, which they descended quietly, and which lead them to another winding hall. This one, however, had a door at the end. A reinforced solid-looking metal door, with a keypad beside it.
"Finally, something interesting," Tony muttered, as he attempted to hack through the system. Finally, he just smashed it, and somehow the door unlocked. There was no handle on the door, as it was the sliding sort, so Steve and Tony had to pry it open.
"They must be hiding something big if they have a door this solid," grunted Steve as the pair pulled the door back so they could get through.
Once again, lights illuminated the area as soon as the pair entered. However, they stood fixed in place as they looked around.
"What the hell is this?"
The two Avengers had entered a very large round room, with doors to smaller rooms around the perimeter. In the center of the room was some sort of cylindrical transparent containment cell, looking much like the cell that SHIELD had built for the Hulk and used for Loki. All around the cell were lab benches, computers, medical tools and devices, etc.
A muffled roar caught Steve's attention, and he walked over to one of the doors on the perimeter. Peering through the little window in the door, he discovered a lion pacing in a very small metal-walled cell. Furrowing his brows, he peered through the window in the next door, and found a cheetah. The next cell held a leopard, the next a wolf, so on and so forth. Every cell on this side of the space held an animal of some sort, crocodiles and rhinos and bears and monkeys and horses and birds and more. Over fifty different species, and Steve had no doubt there was another level with more.
"Is Hydra starting a zoo or something?" Tony asked, coming to stand beside Steve and raising an eyebrow at a group of squirrel monkeys.
"Whatever they're doing, they didn't just start. This has been going on for a while," Steve commented.
Another door stood directly across the room from the door through which the two Avengers had come, this one just as sturdy as the first. After unsuccessfully attempting to open it, Tony fired his repulsers at it, and managed to blast through it. Behind the door was a hallway, not extending forward from the door, but running past it. Like the door lead off from the hallway, instead of the hallway leading from the door.
"Still no security," Steve commented, turning right and heading down the hall in that direction, Tony beside him. The hallway was lined with doors on both sides, but the doors were fairly distanced, indicating medium to large sized rooms. The doors on the right side of the hall were closer together than the ones on the left, and when they peered through the small windows some of the doors on the right had, they discovered more animals. But not normal animals.
"This looks like cross-species genetics," Tony stated as he looked at a tiger with scaley plates on its side, sounding both intrigued and appalled. Intrigued because the concept was fascinating. Appalled because there was no way Hydra would stop with animals.
Sure enough, his suspicions were basically confirmed when he saw a cot in one of the empty cells. A small sign beside the door read CSG-HSCL01.
"They're doing human experimentation," Steve stated, his tone and expression unreadable.
"Ten bucks says our target is one of their subjects."
The faint click was the only warning the two got, before a bullet pinged off of Tony's armor. Steve whipped out his shield and Tony lowered his face plate, both of them dodging and deflecting the rain of bullets that followed. An alarm sounded somewhere, and running footsteps could be heard from down the hall. Now that the Avengers were aware of the enemy, it seemed the enemy saw no point in being stealthy. Steve and Tony were forced to split up to take out the Hydra hostiles.
"Romanoff! They know we're here. Where are you two?" Steve yelled over the comm.
"I figured that out. We haven't run into too many hostiles yet, since we didn't find a way in, and these halls really do seem deserted. I assume you two got in and subsequently set off the alarm. Did you find the target?"
"Negative. We found some clues but no target."
"We have company out here too," Clint's voice sounded over the communications system. "Looks like this was all a setup, they knew we were coming and are planning to take us down from the inside and out."
"Romanoff, both of you need to get out there and help Hawkeye. Stark and I will deal with these guys and meet you."
"Roger that."
Steve swung his shield, taking out the guy nearest to him, and kicked another coming at his other side. The sound of gunfire and Tony's repulser beams filled the hall, along with a fair amount of shouting and of course the blaring alarms.
"Better watch out Cap, I'm gonna go Night at the Museum on these guys," Tony's voice called over the comm.
Steve barely had time to puzzle over the reference before an angry roar was heard over the sounds of gunfire. Oh no. The tiger with scales came barreling down the hall, taking out the Hydra gunmen in its path. But it didn't stop there. It kept coming.
"Oh no," Steve turned and bolted down the hall, having to dodge bullets and avoid an angry tiger. Knowing he wouldn't be able to outrun the beast for long, Steve slammed his shield down on the doorknob of the closest door, and took out the keypad as well, before throwing his full weight against the door and stumbling into a room. He barely took a moment to glance around, briefly noting that this appeared to be some sort of observation area, with what was probably a one-way window spanning the length of one wall. A lab lay on the other side of the window, and it appeared that this observation deck was a level above the lab, looking down into it. Throwing a last glance behind him to the door he had just broken down (and the bullets flying outside it, the tiger was nowhere to be seen), Steve ran forward, held up his shield in front of him, and crashed through the window.
The Captain landed in a roll, leaping back to his feet and scanning the room for exits. The tiger and his unusual escape route had bought him a few seconds, maybe a minute at most, to find a way out of here.
As Steve turned, spotting a door, he spotted something else. A metal table, partially hidden from view by lab and medical equipment. Cautiously, he approached it, shield up in front of him, a voice in the back of his mind warning that he was wasting time.
He came to a stop several feet from the table, now having a full view of it. It was made of cold grey metal, and surrounded by lab equipment and small tables and lab benches holding various medical supplies and monitors and such. But it was what was on the table that caught Steve's attention.
A girl, no more than eighteen years of age, lay on the table. She wore a white spaghetti-strap tank top and a pair of shorts, no socks or shoes or jewelry or anything like that. Her hair was a medium brown color with thin grey streaks, and her eyes were closed, indicating she was either asleep or unconscious. Various monitors were hooked up to her, monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, and numerous other things. She had cuffs around her wrists and ankles that fastened them to the table, and a leather strap ran across her midsection, strapping her down.
"I think I found the target," Steve stated over the comm, talking to nobody in particular.
"Careful, she's dangerous. You should-"
"She's unconscious."
"Then what the hell are you waiting for? Get her and get out. Where are you? I took care of things up here, but we need to get out before another wave comes and blocks our escape route."
"Not sure. Some sort of lab. I had to break down the door to an observation deck and crash through the window to escape that tiger you let loose."
"Tiger? What are you guys doing in there?" Natasha asked.
Steve didn't answer, because the door he had been eyeing suddenly flew open, and in came more guys with guns. "Stark, I'm gonna need some help to get the target out of here."
"On my way."
Steve ducked as a bullet whizzed by his head, then raised his shield and slammed the edge on the chains that attached the girl's cuffs to the table. The chains broke under the shield, and Steve proceeded to tear the leather strap and remove all the monitoring devices. Tony flew through the window that Steve had jumped through just as Steve placed the shield on his back and was lifting the kid into his arms. "Cover me!" He yelled, dashing across the room. He spotted a door that hopefully lead to a staircase back up into the observation area (it did), threw his weight against the door (it wasn't reinforced like the others, making his job significantly easier) and dashed up the stairs. Tony followed, taking down the hostiles and protecting Steve who was carrying the target.
Somehow, they made it out of the building. Outside, Natasha, Clint, and the Hulk were fending off the last few members of a swarm of Hydra agents.
"We got what we came for! Let's go!" Shouted Steve.
Everybody fired their last shots, before getting out of there as fast as possible. A Quinjet picked them up a little ways away from the Hydra facility.
Once up in the air, Bruce exhaled slowly, sitting down on one of the benches. "Well, that was interesting."
"What did you guys find?" Natasha inquired, glancing at the girl Steve had set down on the other bench. She was still unconscious, which was slightly concerning. All that noise and she was still out cold.
"Besides, you know, the target," Tony began, now out of his suit, jabbing his thumb towards the teen, "we found out that Hydra decided to put We Bought a Zoo into action."
"So that would be the tiger I heard Steve mention."
"No, that was a different tiger," Steve said, checking the kid's pulse to be sure she hadn't died on them. "Hydra had a vast array of animals, both wild and domestic, locked up in small cells. Presumably for some sort of research. But they also had an array of animals that were being tested on. Tony called it-"
"Cross-species genetics," Tony interrupted, "the tiger that was stalking Cap here seemed to have some sort of reptilian traits brought about by a process I'm not gonna bother trying to explain since it will go right over your heads."
"I'm sorry for not being a science genius," Clint stated dryly.
Bruce looked up. "Cross-species genetics?"
"Yep," Tony replied.
"Can't the target turn into a wolf?"
All eyes turned to the unconscious teen.
"Steve," Natasha said slowly, "where did you find the target?"
Steve's expression darkened. "Strapped to a metal table surrounded by labratory equipment. In fact, I haven't had a chance to get the cuffs off her wrists and ankles."
Natasha walked over and lifted the girl's arm, examining the cuff around her wrist. It appeared to be made of some sort of rubbery material, probably to avoid cutting into the girl's wrists and ankles. A band of metal was encased by the rubber, with a loop sticking out at one point that would be fastened to a chain. The only other metal part was the locking mechanism. "At least they weren't cruel enough to use metal cuffs. Those would have caused quite a big of damage if she struggled at all."
"If is a big question. Assuming she is a human lab-rat, is she a volunteer or forced?"
Bruce made a good point. They didn't know how loyal this kid was to Hydra. "I guess we will just have to wait for her to wake up. Fury is going to want to interrogate her anyway," Steve sighed.
Meanwhile, Natasha had managed to get the cuffs off of the teen's wrists and ankles, only to fasten a standard pair of handcuffs on her wrists. "Safety protocol," was the two-word explanation.
A short while later, the Quinjet reached SHIELD HQ. The kid was brought to the medbay, just in case, while the Avengers set off for a debriefing with Fury.
I hope you all have enjoyed the first chapter. This is my first time attempting an Avengers fanfic, so my apologies if anything is a little off or any of the characters are a little OOC. If they are, I would love any tips anyone has for keeping them in character.
Just to let you know, I don't have the plot for this story fully planned out. So, later on, if anyone has any ideas for missions and things they'd like to see, let me know!
As always, please review! Reviews make writers feel like people are reading, which in turn encourages us to keep writing.
Coming up next: we will see a little more of the target...