"It can't be a coincidence." Tony rubs the bridge of his nose.
"It doesn't prove much or really anything for that matter. Hydra is a well known public enemy, he could just be fooling around like many other kids do with other organisations such as the Illuminati and such." Natasha regards the rest of the team carefully.
Peter's just unbelieving.
"I refuse to believe Connor takes company with terrorists. There's another explanation, he's too genuine for this." Peter throws down his homework, along with another sheet, Connor's homework.
"Look at it." Tony takes the sheets into his hands.
"Is this your homework sheet… and your answer sheet?" Peter shakes his head.
"No… one is mine and the other's is Connor's. Don't you notice anything strange about it?" Natasha swipes the sheet out of Tony's hands to look at it herself and furrows her eyebrows.
"It looks… printed, he doesn't have any unique style of writing, this just looks like it's been typed." Peter nods and points out another variable.
"You see this? There's no working out. I watched him do this myself, he just glanced at it and wrote down the answer, even the parts where you had to measure with a ruler! Everything is correct, the way he did it seemed so… mechanical."
Hawkeye yawns, loudly.
"Look, if it doesn't concern me I'll just be off… I don't know why you called the entire Avengers down for a meeting like this." Just as Hawkeye was about to get up Steve grabbed his shoulder.
"Look, this should concern us, Jarvis, pull up the file on Connor Anderson." Once the file was out and in the open, everybody had a look at the revised facts and what Tony had discovered so far about the boy.
"Blue… blood? The only other humanoid species I know of with blue blood are frost giants, which also have blue skin." Thor comments, now frowning with the rest of the group.
"We can't just say somebody is in the Illuminati because they possess a dollar bill. This could just be a trivial act of teenage rebellion." Natasha tried to salvage the most out of this situation. This wasn't looking good for them… or the boy.
"Even then, this certainly means we should be keeping a closer eye on the boy, Connor." Steve uncrosses his arms, looking far older than his years for once.
"If our theory follows, that means Connor really is an experiment of Hydra, possibly being abused by his 'father', who has no family resemblance by the way and has been psychologically conditioned to not eat anything. As far as we know, this poor boy has never had a bite to eat in his life, and has only been kept alive by artificially inserted nutrients."
Tony stresses his words toward the end, to try and get a harsher response from his teammates. Peter looks positively nauseous, as he himself, a superpower growing teenaged boy, ate up to twelve meals a day to keep himself from passing out, and just the thought of not having enough to eat was terrifying.
Connor doesn't dress up for the occasion, except instead of jeans he wears a pair of black slacks. The black umbrella is held up firmly above his head, and the rain makes the scene feel like a huge… cliche.
Everybody is huddled together as they watch the burial of the two caskets. Gwen and George Stacy. Even though Connor knew Peter was invited, he couldn't seem to find him, anywhere.
Nobody commented on it either.
The affair was short, and many words of comfort were given to the brothers of Gwen and her mother. Connor almost felt something inside him shift when there was the proposed moment of silence.
Almost.
SOFTWARE_INSTABILITY: ^
The priest ended the session and everybody was dismissed.
Connor paused to say something to Gwen's mother, who had tears running down her cheeks.
"I offer my deepest condolences." He nods and tightens his mouth before walking toward the street behind the graveyard, spotting Peter sitting on the ledge of a building.
Peter didn't seem to notice him but was swinging his legs wildly, clear tear streaks dripping down his cheeks. Connor decided to take the fire escape to get onto the roof to stand behind where Peter was. If Peter noticed him, he wasn't acknowledged.
"I didn't see you at the funeral," Connor says plainly, not asking why Peter's sitting at the edge of a New York townhouse apartment. Peter just sniffles and hiccups into his hands, burring his face in shame.
"I didn't deserve to be there. How could I? I couldn't save her…" Peter's shivering and Connor takes note that he's only in loose pants and a t-shirt. He takes the scarf from around his neck and wraps it around Peter's neck, bringing the umbrella closer to keep them both from the harsh rain.
"What could you have possibly done to save her?" Connor questions, he doesn't quite understand why Peter's in such a mood to be blaming himself for Gwen's death, who, according to Connor's current databases, is completely unrelated to Peter in every way.
"Connor… It's because I'm Spiderman!"
PETER_PARKER: STATUS_UPDATE
PETER_PARKER: COLLEAGUE_FRIEND_VIGILANTE
Connor blinks. There is no protocol in his programming to emit a specific response to the current situation that Peter had just revealed to put them in, making Connor feel, or stimulate, feelings of awkwardness.
"The vigilante?" He refers, making sure it isn't just some cosplay ritual that Peter is referring to. Peter nods, looking way ashamed. "That's where you got your injury from, the other day at school?" Once again Peter nods but returns to crying.
Connor does a scan once more and notices the abrasions on Peter's arm sync up with the ones Spiderman would have obtained when fighting Dr Connors, or the lizard when the city had major damage done.
Connor puts a hand down on Peter's shoulder, who flinches at the contact and Connor notices the bruise on his shoulder.
COURSE: LIE_/_TRUTH
COURSE_CHOSEN: LIE
"I would've done the same."
SOFTWARE_INSTABILITY: /\
It's a lie, and they both know it. Connor would've done better, he would've calculated the problems and probability of success and wouldn't take emotionally driven risks.
He was a machine, after all.
Hydra had approached him, once more. He'd been given an access card to a subsidiary government-run organisation called 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' It was a legitimate access card, with level two access. They'd encoded him into the system, as apparently they had already infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and acted as a shadow organisation within it. Controlling all their decisions from the inside.
A majority of the agents in S.H.I.E.L.D. had already been converted to work for Hydra and had been informed of his status. It was alarming how easy he got into the main building to access the archives.
Nobody gave him a second glance, as long as he got past security and had an identification badge on he they didn't raise any questions at his presence, most of them haven't actually seen him before.
Except for one Clint Barton who was at the coffee machine when Connor walked through the main lounge area. Clint looked over to Agent Hill.
"Isn't he a little young, to be working here?"
Agent Hill regards him cooly and looks back toward the tablet she's on.
"We have sleeper agents as young as six years old here. I think a 17-year-old is fine." Clint shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't know… he just looks a little familiar to me. It doesn't feel right. Can't remember where I know him from…" He does take a look at Connor's beanie and mumbles about how they weren't being as strict with the dress code these days. He doesn't take any more notice of it, assuming that he'd seen Connor around the streets of New York City sometime.
Connor gets a message through his earpiece, telling him to go to the training area, to get tested on his current ability. At the shooting range in the far end of the room, Connor sees an eight-year-old girl shoot, and she gets most of the fatal points of the training dummy. Her handler smiles and gives her a scratch and sniff sticker.
First, it was the practical test, and Connor's new assigned handler had trouble keeping up with Connor who excelled in every aspect. They took him to a large treadmill and made sure he could run at a high speed for at least ninety minutes.
They had him shoot multiple moving and still targets from different lengths, which wasn't hard for him to shoot. Everything was running smoothly, just as Connor had expected everything too.
It was in his very programming after all.
SOFTWARE_INSTABILITY: \/
There was a simulated heist for Connor to pass to confirm an official ranking ability wise.
In the simulation Connor handled everything as expected, eliminating all possible threats, with obtaining vital information before they died first. When one culprit seemed to make a run for it, Connor took after them, even when they got into the busy side of the city.
Connor evaded the obstacles around him, sometimes even using it to his advantage and the chase seemed to become rooftop orientated, and eventually, Connor cornered it when there was no more rooftop to run and the next roof was too far away to even attempt to jump too.
Quickly, with practised precision, the culprit began to fight back, and Connor started to fight with him, and they were both fighting for the gun, the culprit was too slow and Connor had grabbed it first, but he had Connor in a chokehold. Connor aimed the gun to the side of his head and tried to shoot behind him, attempting to shoot down the offender.
Eventually, he gave up and shot through his abdomen to shoot to the offender. The offender was in shock, but the shot was nonfatal. Using the offender's shock to his own advantage, Connor shot him in the head.
He left the simulation with a perfect score, which had only once been done before, by Natalie Romanova.
His face displayed no emotion when his shocked handler informed him that he had gained perfect marks, outperforming most people who had taken the simulation.
His physical capability rank was high, and now the written test had to be taken.
The test was only a few pages long and designed to trick you. Connor had answered with exactly the answers that handler wanted him to have. He was showing excellent potential, and he already mentioned that he was an Intern to the one and only, Dr Anthony Stark, which boosted his value as a sleeper agent.
Shield (or rather Hydra) looked at his results and didn't think for a second that they need to train him. He was already the perfect agent.
SOFTWARE_INSTABILITY: \/
It was the following Saturday when Tony had approached him, requesting a private audience with him in his grand office, on the top floor of his tower. Connor didn't seem to find anything odd about the request and arrived promptly at Tony's office without much delay.
"You requested my presence, Doctor?" Connor isn't asking for the reason he's been sent up here, but it's definitely implied and Tony can tell just by the tone of Connor's voice, which is usually flat and unemotional.
"Um, yes. I'd like to ask you what this is." He opens a drawer, the second one down to the right of his desk, Connor notes and takes out the Hydra armband. Connor inwardly swears but shows no outward discomfort with seeing the familiar armband being held by Tony.
Leaving the armband behind must have been an unforeseen malfunction in his programming, a side effect of being away from a Cyberlife repair plant for an extended period of time, Connor speculates.
"Of course," Connor opens his suit jacket, and from the inner pocket he retrieves an identification badge, and explains calmly.
"I am a sleeper agent." Tony furrows his eyebrows, and takes the badge from Connor's hand, eyeing it with almost disgust.
"Shield? Why would you go with them?" Tony's lips curl in a malice like state. Connor takes notice and once again pauses to analyse Tony, not that Tony can tell. It's like Connor froze time and looks over Tony. His heart is beating erratically. Panic, perhaps?
"My father does work for the government." It's not exactly an answer, but it Tony takes it as one.
Tony passes back the badge to Connor.
"Look, is anybody… making you do this?" Tony asks, and Connor waits just a few seconds too long to answer and Tony continues talking as if that was an answer enough. "We can help you, and frankly I'm disgusted that it's Shield who has you. You are dismissed."
Once Connor leaves, Tony takes the luxury of talking to Jarvis again.
"Update his file, you heard what he said."
It's a hard blow to the side of his head that catches him off guard.
⅄ ‾ ‾ ‾ :WɹƖɟN0Ɔ
N/⅄
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He waits a few seconds and the overwhelming amount of errors and warnings that filtered across his vision subdued, and Connor can now process the strange sticky substance against the side of his face.
The bonds are hard to break but within a few shakes of his left arm with immense pressure, they tear. Connor looks in the direction it came from, one Peter Parker is standing there mortified.
"I'm so sorry! I was practising and it accidentally went off!" He looks apologetic but once he realises that Connor had torn through his webbing he's perplexed. He hadn't taken Connor for a super strong person.
Maybe the blue blood mentioned earlier had something to do with it. Peter was practically dying with curiosity about Connor's blue blood and the properties it held, but he couldn't outright ask Connor, Connor didn't know that anybody knew yet.
Or maybe he did and Connor was playing the role of the fool.