A lot has happened in the past week, and it's pretty insane and I still sometimes can't believe this is real life.
I'm not gonna go into detail with what happened, it's just terrible and no one here wants to be bothered with this stuff. Just remember to enjoy the times you have with your loved ones, from your spouses, significant others, siblings, friends, parents, other people who matter most to you, take care to always part with them on good terms because you never know when it will be the last time you'll see them. I was lucky to at least parted with them on good terms, not knowing that it would be the last time I shared a laugh or two with them before they were taken.
This chapter is the one you guys have been anticipating since you started reading this story, and it would be cruel of me not to follow through as intended by the course of action. So far, Anemone has been avoiding all MCU characters because of reasons, one of them being that she is still referring to them as sort of characters. All she can think about as that they have the faces of the actors in her world, RDJ, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, and so she's at this half and half point where she believes its real yet at the same time not. Her universe and this universe she's stuck in is messing with her, and it would probably drive her nuts.
Like, she's been through bad shit so she knows that's real, and suddenly when she's escaped from the horrors of her prison and into the real world, suddenly there's this guy who has RDJ's face claiming to be really Tony Stark, not the actor pretending and trying to get publicity for his upcoming movie. I've tried to read Self-Insert fics where the author's MC has something similar to this sort of process thinking, but I get too distracted with how their story turns me off with how their OC is blurting out spoiler shit they should have no idea about (one of my pet peeves as I explained in one of my previous chapters). So, this story of mine I'm trying to do some justice because like a reviewer said: just because Anemone suddenly has super powers doesn't mean she's automatically a BAMF. Nope, she's still this young woman who's afraid, shifty-eyed, paranoid as hell, wants to call for help but knows she can't, and most likely cries in her pillow for her mummy and daddy to save her like most children would.
She's really young. She's trying so hard to keep her head above the water, trying not to slip up with those people hunting her, and trying really hard to make sure nothing falls into a chaotic mess like it did in the aftermath of the Fall of SHIELD. If her situation had been any worse than it already was, I'm pretty sure she would have pressed the doomsday button and let every agent fight for themselves, but since she's sort of in control and has a goal set, she keeps her hands away from the button. The right thing to do, is give the button to someone who can take their time dismantling the organization.
So here's another chapter for you, enjoy!
Warning: Language, Violence, Adult Content, possible Triggers (there will be heads-up for these things), and whatever comes to mind.
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ᴀʟᴏɴɢ ᴄᴀᴍᴇ ᴀ sρïdєя-ωσмαη
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I never been so high. And no, I'm not referring to that kind of high.
The next day was spent going over a carefully placed plan, reading the maps and blueprints of the area and building which the meeting would take place, watching some news for any updates, and looking through the bunker for anything that could be useful.
I hit the jackpot when I came across some EMP gadgets similar to that of the one Rick used on the plane to temporarily blind the agents. There was some tiny ones, and then there was some big ones that I guess could knock out an entire block in a temporary blackout. The city was littered with CCTV's, and Stark was armed with not only his intelligence, but his all powerful AI butler keeping an eye on things, tracking every movement of Stark's employees and friends alike. I could only imagine how high security has gone up after Stane's reveal as a benefactor to terrorists getting their hands on Stark's high tech weapons, all of it operated under the billionaire's nose.
I was taking all the EMP's with me to ensure that JARVIS would never see me coming. This was between me and Ms. Potts, I didn't really want to set off an alarm to Stark that his attendant was in danger.
Now, I just had to set up a route, destroy a few cameras, and find a place where I could change in my new suit, go out, deliver the package, return to the place I changed and return to my average bystander clothes, and walk away like I was coming out of a parking lot of a shopping mall.
Careful to keep the maps and blueprints hidden as I explored the area, it took several hours until I found the perfect route where there was less security cameras stationed. It was a parking lot, looking shady like most with creeps hanging out. Parking lots were a danger zone to women, practically hunting ground for muggers and predators alike. Two men attempted to mug me while I was looking around for any signs of CCTV's, but all they got from me was nothing but a broken nose and dislocated wrist. They ran with tails between their legs and I just went back to looking around for the cameras before catching sight of two of them, but finding them broken because of how mangled they appeared.
Marking this spot as my entrance and exit route, I did another quick scan until I was satisfied and did the same with two other floors in that were near the shopping elevators. If there was a way I would get caught on camera, I would simple appear as a shopaholic woman who forgot her car keys and had to walk her way out. I went and grabbed two bags, wanting for the act to be convincing for someone to be looking back through the cameras.
'God, this was a lot of work!'
But it was well worth the effort. I bought some nice-looking clothes and shoes, and removing them out of the shopping bag, I replaced it with the suit. The mask stared back at me, it's bug-like lenses penetrating the core depths of my heart and soul. It was as if it was asking if I was prepared to go through with this, if I was prepared to finally start moving in through the dark in order to make my way out.
"Whatever happens," I said out loud, meeting the mask's stare. "We did our best."
And I did do my best; I did my best to rebel, escape, survive, learn, adapt, and deceive. I made it this far, and without several of the people who helped push me along the way, I don't think I would have lasted so long. But chances and opportunities came and I took them, and now I was right here prepared to do something and slam it in the faces of the ones who hunted me like an animal.
I walked out of the parking lot after stashing away the items, almost accosted once more by different muggers (or predators, I really couldn't tell), but they were once again sent limping back home with bruised ribs and broken jaws.
Tomorrow was the big day.
There wasn't trouble getting some sleep, not like how I was when there was an exciting event happening like Christmas or a family holiday spent elsewhere. Exhaustion and stress from running, working, searching, and hundreds of other things finally put me to sleep. An alarm clock set up on the computer, ticking away on the virtual clock as the hour of the mission was just hours away from starting.
So, the moment my head touched the pillow, I was out like a light.
beep! beep! beep!
I was sitting in a bunker, I was lying somewhere in the dark, and that was a computer alarm clock; I was not back at my apartment, I was not in my bed, and this was not my brother trying to annoy the hell out of me with his knick-knacks because he was feeling particularly bored that he decided to torture me in order to relieve himself in some way. For a long while I sat there, staring at nothing but the walls and computers and sterile labs, shuddering for a moment of the other labs I had been inside of some time ago.
Sometimes I thought, while waking up from the comforts of sleep, that I was back home in my bedroom in California, or even better, back in England. But there were times when I jerked awake when I thought I was back in my prison, so cold, and this bunker gave me the chills of phantom memories that left goosebumps on my skin.
Home truly was where the people you loved were.
Home was where you were the warmest, safest, and most loved. All three things which were missing since I came here, and would most likely never get back to if things were going the way they were. All I could do was offer up a way to make the world a little more safer by giving away something passed on to me by Rick, hoping for the best that Stark would give it his all in dismantling the organization, following true to his sense of justice that he would ensure that the lives of the people were out of the firing range before the shooting squad came to kill the multi-headed serpent.
Banishing those depressing thoughts for the nth time, I rolled the blanket off my pajama clad form and headed straight for the bathroom to brush my teeth, take a quick shower, and begin the operation that had been on my mind since that announcement on television.
Turning on one of the computers whilst I dried and slowly dressed myself, I listened to the updates. The cries of the crowd from the telly made me stop in the middle of clicking on my bra straps, and watched the the telly's camera went in a panorama view of the thousands of New Yorkers giving cheerful waves to the news crew.
"The 2010 Thanksgiving Parade march will be at full blast! You can even hear the band playing all the way from—"
'A parade?'
I went over the maps again, checking on the computer for the route of the Thanksgiving Parade's street routes. I winced when I saw the march would be passing close to the building where Ms. Potts was going to have her meeting, but then I thought about it carefully. This march was going to last for about two hours, so maybe I could use this as a distraction while visiting the Ms. Potts before making a quick getaway in the confusion of it all.
That sounded it could work.
I hurried in dressing up while gathering the tools.
Black winter dress that reached close to my upper knees, dark pantyhose, black pumps, a puffy scarf, and a suede coat with wooden buttons and belt to tie it around my waist. I looked like a fashionista, and I was glad I went through a series of magazines to research what fashionable women in New York wore. Hopefully no one would catch me stumbling out of the dirty, crumbling building in a state like this.
Operation: Whistleblower was a go!
Ducking out of the run down building while making sure the coast was clear, I scurried out on the streets with a fake purse, quickly getting through the streets and ignoring the mad rush of it all, taking care of the arseholes who tried to give me problems by tripping their feet to get them to leave me the hell alone. I finally reached the parking lot, used the stairs to quickly find the floor where I stashed my suit.
It was still there, to my relief.
With quick work and hiding between two vehicles, I changed out of my nice stylish dress and shoes and slipped on the skin tight suit, and I was glad that this thing was very resistant to the cold. Pushing the clothes inside the shopping bag, I placed it back on the perch of the hiding spot, grabbed a few of the EMP tools in a small backpack I got, and placed it in a place where I had easy access to them. Inside the backpack was also the most important item of them all, waiting to be handed to the personal attendant of the billionaire hero.
I pushed one EMP button and the world got plunged into darkness.
Quickly heading out, I jumped through an opening that led outside before I released a string of webs to cling on the side of the building, vaulting me towards the upper part of the building. When my hands clung to the side, I looked down and nearly dropped myself in surprise.
I was really high up on the building. The people looked like tiny ants down below. Pulling up my wrist, I was pleased that the opening slit had worked well into the suit. I was afraid it wouldn't work while trying to fit some plastic tubing to make an opening for my web otherwise I would have trouble getting across the city because my webs were blocked by the suit, but with some quick work, I was able to fix that problem real quick. It took a few trials and errors, but I eventually got the thing to work to my favor; it just left one corner of the building covered in cobwebs. Yay for the spiders holed up in the building.
"Okay, just one step at a time!" I prepped myself, reaching for a bigger EMP in the backpack strapped on me. "You can do this, darling. You can do this!"
Looking towards where the parade was coming from, able to hear it in the distance beyond the cars and crowds that made noise, I could almost see the giant inflatable balloons, some shaped as Dr. Suess' characters.
The big EMP went off, and to the shock of not only myself but the crowds below, cars went dead, the phones were down if the way people held their phones in outrage wasn't enough of a clue, a few blocks of electricity went out.
The time to go was now!
And I went. It was kind of like that free fall feeling I experienced from the plane without the parachute to save me, and for a moment I almost forgot that I was able to shoot webs out of my wrists. Until finally my body jolted me back to brain by my arm instinctively shooting a rope of web to catch some different building, steering my body away from splattering messily on the ground floor.
'I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,' the mantra continued in my head.
And I went swinging across the streets from overhead, keeping clear of the wide streets where people could probably spot me (and I didn't doubt they did because how could someone truly miss seeing a person swinging off the buildings like a modern-day Tarzan?), and my only saving grace was that phones and cameras were too dead to actually catch a glimpse of the figure in black and white.
I took to the rooftop buildings when I got close enough to the Thanksgiving Parade, and once an inflatable was passing by the building I was crouching on the edge of a rail on, I stared down at the crowd through the lenses of the mask.
Ms. Potts meeting place was right on the next block. Given how important of a figure she was to Stark Industries and with the close ties she had with her superior and friend Tony Stark, it was going to be watched carefully. Pulling out another big EMP, I just hope this thing lasted long enough for me to give the package to her before JARVIS forced a reboot in the system to track down what he perceived was a threat to Stark's allies.
I leapt on the back of the Cat in the Hat, careful to stay balanced on the wobbling giant balloon's back. Slowly, it settled and I was able to lean back and enjoy the ride for awhile, waiting for the time when the march would come close to the building. It looked just pretty sleek and full of reflective glass windows on one side while the very other corner had concrete with tiny windows. The concrete side was going to serve my entrance way since I didn't cause a scene by breaking my way into giant window panes that will probably scare the crap out of people.
Pulling out thick binoculars I also found in the lockers of nifty things, I tried to search for which floor Ms. Potts was hold up in.
Honestly, it was like playing Where's Waldo. I finally caught the ginger hair of the woman, a group of men and weapon dressed in their classy business attires. The floor was near the highest part of the building, and their meeting was taking place at the other corner where they all filed inside the room. Perfect. Despite the reflective windows, these binoculars could see practically almost everything, I was going to keep this with me, yep! I settled down on my spot, feeling the balloon jostle slightly that I was left bouncing a little.
'Hey, where does this whole thing remind me of?' I thought as my body bounced on top the helium-filled surface.
Oh, of course, I thought while rolling my eyes behind the mask. That movie. The first Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire, the Green Goblin making his first appearance to the general public by killing Norman's former business partners and wreaking havoc upon the people below. Good God, I hoped nothing of the sort would happen here, and especially during something as important as this. I would literally lose my shit if things took a wrong turn.
Alright, I was coming up pretty close, I so had to act fast. Once the inflatable was near, I pushed the giant EMP button and watched as half the crowds and couple of television crews move in a flurry on confusion. I bounced from the back of the balloon and onto its head before jumping to attach myself to the side of the building to the nearest window. Checking quickly for any signs, I hit the jackpot by landing near a window that appeared to be a bathroom for men. I gave a great push against the window frame until it gave under my strength, cracking a but of the glass until the entire frame fell forward inside. I hurried inside.
I burst out of the bathroom into the empty and dark hallway, the walls decorated with stylish artistic frames most office buildings had to give it life while the rest seemed boring (in my opinion, at least).
Needing to act quickly in climbing two more floors up (the windows were mismatches with the floors, apparently), I had to reach Ms. Potts quickly before there was a system reboot in this building along with the rest of the block who were temporarily experiencing a black out. Running down the hall, I searched then found a door leading to the stairway, and I threw myself through the door and ran up the flight of stairs until I reached the floor I needed to be.
Once I was on the floor, I jerked when I heard a yelp which meant I was spotted.
"What the hell?!" two officer workers watched me with wide eyes, one woman who looked to carrying a box of coffee and doughnuts while the other man looked to be pushing a small cart of paper. "A bit late for Halloween, ain't ya?"
"Uh," I stumbled. "The meeting with Ms. Potts, please?"
Thankfully, the one lady quietly pointed for me the right direction, the other too engrossed in gawking at me.
"Thanks!" I shouted over my shoulder as I ran.
I ran past startled workers, ducking, diving, weaving, and jumping past them as I hurried. Up ahead, where I spotted a hallway which split itself to opposite directions, thinking that I was about to lose time in trying to find Ms. Potts, my dashed dreams in a simple delivery came back with a force when a group of businessmen and women turning the corner. And amongst them, to my delight, was Ms. Potts—and Hogan.
Happy Hogan the bodyguard.
Happy Hogan who spotted me and halted in taking another step forward where I was coming from.
Happy Hogan who was then shouting in alarm and reaching for something in his jacket and—Oh, bugger me!
"FREEZE!"
Several men who were there also pulled out taser guns, or you know, actual firearms, and aimed them right at me. The men and women suddenly ducking and backing away in fear at the danger they thought they were in.
I could have tried to explain myself, or something, but there was just no time. So, with a heave, I started firing my web to catch the men off guard, and while they were stunned, I quickly moved in kicking them against the walls and sticking them there like giant flies caught on my cobweb. With Hogan, I went a little more easier with because I knew how much he meant to Stark and the rest (his boss literally went to war with a terrorist, however fake, for his driver and bodyguard being put in the hospital). Tying the web around him like a rope and attaching it to the ceiling of the hallway, I gave a final scan around the room of struggling men before I turned my attention to the frightened group.
They looked like a bunch of startled sheep, cornered and afraid, some of them even crying. But my eyes caught the bright orange hair put in a neat bun, nervous but standing tall, and really, was it a wonder why Stark wasn't over the moon for her?
"What do you want?" one of the businessmen, putting an admirably brave front, demanded as he looked down at my smaller form.
I reached for my backpack, and all of them tensed. They probably thought I was some crazy bomber in a stupid costume. I pulled the zipper open and pulled out the small cardboard box I made, holding the precious cargo. Shifting it a little towards the group, all of them saw what was written in bold and block letters to make sure it never matched with my handwriting.
FOR TONY STARK
I slowly approached Ms. Potts and some of the people parted away like the Red Sea, and I could hear Hogan struggling furiously at seeing me come near her. Finally, when I was close enough, I stretched my arm out and held it out for her to take it.
She stared at it, wary and speechless before her green-grey eyes flickered towards my masked face.
"What do you want with Stark?" she demanded, voice fierce and protective.
I couldn't speak. I was afraid to talk to her, hell, I was afraid of being looked at by her. My heart was racing like crazy, drums beating harshly against my prison of bones, and just looking and speaking to her brought a sick feeling in my stomach.
Once again, I urged for her to take the package, and this time, with clear trepidation, she took the package from my hands with her perfectly manicured red finger-nailed hands. Seeing her take it, I finally stepped away from her space and turned around, making my way past the group of struggling bodyguards who were escorting the people from the meeting.
"Who are you?" I heard her call from behind me.
My step faltered a little—
(whoareyou?)
But I kept going until I started to run down the hallway.
Again, I passed up the startled office workers, giving a quiet salute to the coffee and doughnut lady along with her still gawking companion then took the stairway door, jumping down, and running towards the men's bathroom. I surprised a couple of men who were inspecting the open window, and they all shouted in alarm when I had gone and leapt out to the floating inflatable from the window, bouncing on it before jumping to the next building across, discharging another EMP to create another blackout.
I swung in random place, my web slinging awkward since this was the first time I've traveled like this. I needed to head into the gym or something, get back to my roots as a gymnast, doing vaults and flips in my younger years. And not only that, but probably pick up classes on self defense and some martial arts because while I was okay, I was mostly swinging my fists and depending on my web to catch things or fling me away from danger. And, I thought in exasperation, I needed to work on strategy and planning because that was pretty poor and flimsy.
But that work was all because I was by myself, and because I had Rick's computers and gadgets to help me go in and escape from places. I was really one lucky little bug.
Speaking of which...
'Holy shit,' I stood on the roof, breathless and surprised by the excitement. 'I did it.'
I delivered the package.
And now, I thought as I looked back to the building, it was time to see if Ms. Potts will actually give that to Tony Stark. Here's to hoping she won't actually throw it away, or Hogan will smash it to pieces under his foot because he was feeling angry at not stopping something that could have potentially harmed the person he was trying to protect but was unable.
I made my way back to the building where I hid my things, discharging another EMP to blind the area from seeing me coming. I quickly replaced my suit with the clothes I came in, replacing my modified Croc shoes with pumps, and suit with black dress. Grabbing the two Macy's bags, I made my way out the building, looking like a distressed woman because her car keys were stolen and her phone just died from whatever electronic problems it was getting. The people around me were just as boggled and upset with their dead cars and phones as well, cursing up a storm that this happened a second time.
I was going to be in so much trouble should this entire thing blow up in my face if it was ever brought up in the light.
Now, onto the next project I had been planning since several days ago.
The creation of my new identity to register into the system.
This was no way to live, and I don't think I could take any more of it like most people did. I didn't want to try to talk around why I didn't have ID cards or bank accounts, I needed papers and a social security number. This would be a cover up, of course, but it would be a cover I had to live in because it would be everything I had in order to truly disappear.
The person the organization was looking for no longer existed. Even if I thought there would be a day when I was actually able to return with my old name and face, it would be like trying to put on an old shirt that no longer felt comfortable for me to fit in. It would feel empty and not mean much, memories being the only thing to keep it connected, but no physical attachment to it. But this... this was probably for the best. The organization knew who they were looking for, and I was anything but the person who came to this new world from the blue portal who tossed me through dimensions and universes.
This new life and new name I would have to keep with me would be painful, and it would take some time getting used to, but it was only thing I had to keep going.
