The Avengers II
Hawkeye immediately grabbed his comlink to SHIELD headquarters and pressed the button to send an SOS alert, but the comlink was dead. "Great," he muttered, fiddling with it. Tony Stark was already looking into the internal wires of the gadget.
"What do we do now?" Thor questioned. Captain America shook his head and turned around.
"Well," Stark said slowly. "I can't get this baby going" (he shook the comlink then) "but I can find out what's so fishy around here. And it's not the tuna I had for lunch, I can tell you that much." Stark drew out of his jacket a little device and went inside of his room. The others followed him in. Bruce nodded and had a knowing grin on his kindly face. Stark attached the device onto his computer and began to hack into the SHIELD systems. "Uh-huh…yep…right…okay…" he mumbled, trying to find whatever it was that he was looking for. "A teenage boy, huh? Well…here we go!" he shouted and began to read off of the screen. " 'Project Outcast—Outcast: 17 years old. Weighs a hundred and eighty-two pounds. Powers unlimited. Exercise extreme caution when near his cell.' Wow. Somebody's got amazingness."
Captain America stroked his chin while thinking. "Hmm. What else is there, Tony?"
"Not much, besides—oh, gosh."
"What?" Natasha said sharply.
"They'll be using this 'Outcast' for our training soon. Thankfully, it looks like they've put some sort of mental block in his brain and it keeps him from using all of his potential, but he's still really dangerous. I suggest immediate "get-out-of-here" action. What do you say, Cap?"
But the captain was still thinking. After a pause, Bruce said, "Well, I'm pretty sure they've got a good reason for all of this, right? After all, they wouldn't let the boy hurt us, and we'd make sure not to hurt him."
"No." Captain America's voice rang out. "What they want is for us to train him. It's not very obvious, but that's how it's going to be. They want to subtly get us to train a lethal weapon."
"Are we going to do it?" Thor asked. "This seems out of hand. Perhaps we should leave. If we are to train such a powerful being to use as a weapon, I would rather go." All of the Avengers nodded but Captain America.
"But maybe we should stay. If we could find out more about this and then go, we could tell Nick all about it."
"What if he already knows?"
"I don't believe Nick would do such a thing," declared Captain America. "Eagleflight 1 is holding someone against their will, and as far as we can tell, he isn't an enemy."
Hawkeye nodded. "It's true. We do need to find out what is going on. Natasha and I will go try to find out where this Outcast is." He and the other spy left the room silently.
Bruce sat down in a chair and said, "Well, I can't do anything. After all, the boy might make the other guy come out. And we definitely don't want that."
"No, but you can stay here and monitor everything going on in Eagleflight 1 with Stark," Thor said. "I will go with Rogers when Hawkeye and Natasha return, so that we four might be able to glean some information from this Outcast."
"Sounds like a good plan," replied Steve. "Natasha knows how to get the information we need, and Barton isn't too bad at it, either." All of them sat down and waited for a half hour. Thor put his hammer down on the floor and sighed. Typing madly on a computer, Tony located the two spies coming back. "Here they come," he said. The door noiselessly opened, and Black Widow placed a dark boot on the floor and slid in. Without a sound, Hawkeye followed and closed the door. The archer nodded to Thor, who had been behind the door, and turned to Steve Rogers.
Steve asked him, "What's up?"
"The Outcast is held in a cell on the seventeenth floor. We can get there through a service elevator, or fly, even climb, to the floor. Tony could get us past the security bars." The stoic archer did not smile much, but the frown on his face was intensified even more than normal. "There are guards at the door. Many guards. But…"
"What?" Bruce questioned.
Black Widow answered when Hawkeye did not. "The Outcast is, like Steve said, is a teenage boy. That was evident, but he has a look about him that appears ancient. He could very well have healing power, and is older than everyone in this building. Maybe older than anyone living right now."
"But, there's more, isn't there?"
"It also seems that they are…torturing the boy. We both saw them apply electric shocks to him. We need to get him out of here."
"When?"
"As soon as possible," replied Hawkeye, getting back into the conversation. "That would be the best option."
"Then let's do it. Hawkeye and Black Widow, I'm certain you can use your tech to get up to the windows. I'll go through the service elevator, and Thor will fly up. Stark," Steve addressed the techno-hero, "you and Banner will stay here and monitor everything. And I mean every little thing. Got that?"
"Sure."
"All right. Avengers, let's go."