The ride back to the Helicarrier was an odd one. The boy was eerily still. His breaths were so soft, that his chest hardly moved, and his eyes were absolutely unmoving. He was small, not only in height but in weight as well. He was so small that the restraints looked ridiculous on him.
They practically engulfed him, covering large segments of his body.
Once the helicopter landed, the tactical teams transported the young boy quickly into the main craft. As he passed under the lights, he seemed to flicker from being a young boy and a weary man. It was unsettling. To be so youthful, yet so old.
The tactical teams deposited the boy into a secure room. Upon removing him from the gurney, they discovered blood. Quickly, they examined him, only to find bloodied bandages wrapped around his torso and shoulders.
The blood drastically changed what they needed to do. If they wanted answers from him, he needed to be alive to give them. Transferring him to the medical wing, they alerted Fury on the way.
The medical staff made quick work of his wounds, but it was odd. For all the slashes and burns on his body, he should have been dead already. In fact, as they were setting all his broken bones, they noticed some of the bruising was disappearing in front of their eyes. Observing this anomaly, they quickly drew samples of his blood. Given the circumstances of his arrival, there was more to this than appeared.
Once the doctors were done with their treatment, Fury went over their notes on the man. So far, it was nothing more than the basic facts: gender, rough estimate of age, and a catalog of all his wounds, prior and present. There was a worrying section at the end. The man seemed to have an accelerated rate of healing. Until further tests could be done, they would not know more, but from the preliminary blood tests, there were anomalies present in his blood. There were two unknown substances in his blood. It was not drugs, that they knew. Beyond that, the substances' properties were unknown.
Fury did not like that, not one bit. This man, he was dangerous. The site he was found at was still being examined, and they could not get any accurate readings on anything. Immense levels of heat were emanating from the site, and the ground was scorched. It seemed like a bomb of some sorts had gone off, incinerating the people there, burning their forms into the very ground they stood.
No known military conflicts were reported in the area. In fact, until now, they did not know anyone lived there. The search they conducted was thorough. They had found a nearby village that was razed to the ground. The village was large enough that they should have detected it's activity. That was worrying. A whole civilization was hidden under his nose till now, and they had technology that was unknown to him. If there were more of them, he needed to know, and he needed to know five minutes ago.
The boy did not wake up. He was not in a coma, yet he would not wake up. They did what they could to wake him, but he did not even stir.
It gave them time to study him. They scientists isolated the two substances in his blood. One was corrosive and began to eat into organic matter immediately. It would even eat into the containers holding it, so they periodically had to exchange the material carefully. Nothing they had could hold it for an extended period of time.
The other was even stranger. When exposed to living tissue, it amplified the rate at which cells replicated. Not in such a way as to cause ageing. In fact, it merely restored said tissue to optimal condition. It undid any deterioration.
When exposing organic matter to both, it neutralized the two in a way. It amplified the characteristics of substance two, as well as creating a new set of properties. Why the boy had these in his blood, or how they were created, they did not know. They desperately wished the boy was awake so they could question him. As it was, these substances were invaluable. If they could only learn more about the strange boy, who knows what they will find out.
The boy woke up after two weeks. It was a quiet affair. He opened his eyes, and then, he just sat there. He did not say much when questioned. He simply gazed at the men, peering deeply into their eyes, judging something they knew not.
With each new person, the intrigue surrounding him grew. Who was this child? What was he hiding? Why was he silent? Why did his eyes tell a tale of a man far older?
Fury, impatient for answers, then sent in someone he knew he could trust to get answers. Phil Coulson. If he could not get answers, he would step in. Until then, he had the Avenger Initiative to handle. He had a feeling that something big was happening, and soon.
And so, Phil Coulson found himself across from the young man. He silently observed the boy, who sat cuffed to the hospital bed. The boy had emerald eyes, the color unlike any he had seen before, with hair that perched on his head like a rat's nest. Eyes cataloging everything, Agent Coulson noticed that he had a distinct lightning bolt scar to the right of his forehead.
They sat in the stillness of sound and movement, neither budging. He sat for hours, observing every twitch and flicker of the boy's eyes. The boy was cautious. Whenever there was noise outside of the room, no matter how faint, he would twitch his head slightly to the sound, observing and waiting to see what response was best. His eyes traced the room lazily, almost as if he was bored. However, Agent Coulson could tell that it was not boredom that motivated his stare, but the wish for more information. The boy was subtly trying to probe for any signs of surveillance while under the guise of a child with nothing to do but observe his surroundings with disinterest.
The boy almost had him convinced that he was just that, a poor boy, someone caught up in a tragedy too harsh for someone his age.
Yet his stance was too perfect. He appeared relaxed, but his body was poised to react, with legs and arms positioned just perfectly to defend himself at a moment's notice. He sat still, in an unknown facility, too calmly to be unaccustomed to such situations. For it was not a hospital, that any trained eye could tell at a glance. There were no decorations. There were no windows. There were no medical pamphlets or posters splayed across the walls.
The boy was familiar with unknown situations, in such a way that he knew that silence was the best approach, till he learned more about his situation. Agent Phil wondered where he learned that from.
"Where am I?"
The boy was the first to break the silence. He knew that he needed to give a little to get a little. Whoever these people were, they needed information as much as he did. They had sent in multiple men, all fishing for knowledge, without causing any harm to him. As long as he watched what he said, he could get out of this.
So I have been writing this chapter for quite some time, and I figured I should just post it. Instead of writing long chapters, or trying to hit a certain word limit, I am going to try my best to post, even if the chapters are short. I have not written for this story in quite some time, so bare with me. I am going to do my best to finish it. It may take me years, but I really want to complete this. I am thankfully for the kind reviews, and I hope I can continue to do my best.