Chapter 7
The two teams found space around the living room, soon filling every possible couch and chair. Some like May, Trip, and Steve preferred to stand. The two groups had little time to get to know each other before the meeting, but knew that they would get more time later to talk. It was silent as all eyes were on the man in the middle.
"Spill it, Coulson," Clint spoke out from his spot on the arm of an arm chair he was sharing with Natasha.
"We've heard of reports attacks here. All being men with incredible strength. Super soldier qualities," Coulson said, looking around at all the Avengers. "It caught our attention. We have out assumptions as to what's going on, but we wanted to hear what your team has found out before we can come to any conclusions."
"What do you want to know? The weird stuff about the case?" Bruce asked, raising a brow. "Because when is anything not weird with us?" he said, a small smile on his face.
Trip chuckled, a smile gracing his features. "That's too true."
Coulson smiled as well, nodding his head. "Like Bruce said, I'd like to know what the weird things about the case are. Anything out of the ordinary."
"Well, the three men who were causing the attacks," Tracey began, chewing her cheek as she thought over the attacks and all the files on the men, "they were ordinary people. They have families and normal jobs. The least likely to subject themselves to experimentation to become super soldiers. Let alone cause this sort of harm."
"There were also the bugs," Barry spoke out.
Coulson's team all looked at each other. Some had their brows furrowed; others had surprised looks on their faces. Then there was Coulson nodding his head, his mouth in a firm line.
"What bugs?" Jemma asked, looking at Barry.
"The first attack Natasha and Bucky had noticed something fly off of the man's neck," the male Madison twin explained. "They didn't catch a good look at it, until Tracey looked at the security footage from the bank's vault that he broke into."
"And it was a bug?" Mack asked, looking to Tracey.
"The footage was blurry so I wasn't positive," the hacker answered. "But at a closer look it definitely had a bug like appearance. It was robotic."
"Bruce and I tried to examine the picture, but we couldn't get a lot of information out of it," Tony put in, gesturing to the other scientist as he spoke. "That is until Thing Two here nabbed one off the third guy's neck."
"And that explains why you look like you got run over by a train," Skye commented, nodding her head as she looked at the remaining bruises on Barry.
"Yeah, not my best move," Barry chuckled. "Never try to fight a super soldier."
"We know," May said.
"You know?" Steve asked, raising a brow.
"Back when this team first started out a few of us had encountered a similar situation," Coulson said. "Some people were creating these bugs that had extremis that was injected into the men they were attached to."
"Extremis? You're kidding right?" Tony nearly yelled, brow furrowed into a glare. "I took care of that. Who got a hold of it?"
"A group called Project Centipede," the new director answered. "Fitz, Simmons?" he said, nodding to the male and female scientists signaling them to stand up.
Jemma held up a tablet and pressed a few keys on the screen. A holographic image of a robotic centipede on a person's arm appeared in front of her. "As Coulson said, we had encountered a similar situation with Project Centipede."
"They took the um…um…" Fitz said, snapping his fingers as he tried to speak.
"Extremis," Jemma said softly.
"Yes, extremis formula," the male scientist said, not even acknowledging his partner, "and used it to create super soldier formulas."
"We had stopped them, but I guess someone took their design and recreated the formula," Jemma said, looking around at the Avengers.
Tony studied the image of the robotic bug, hand under his chin. "That's not the same but as ours."
"What?" Skye said, eyebrows raised. "You serious?"
"Positive," Tony said as he got up from his seat and walked up to the hologram. He nodded to Tracey, who pulled a tablet out of her pocket and turned it on. An image of the Avengers' robot bug appeared.
"See here," she said, pointing from one bug to the next. "Ours isn't a centipede. It's a lot smaller than yours." She moved her hands and the image enlarged. She turned to the centipede and did the same. "And there's a few more differences in ours."
"When Bruce and I examined the one Barry got us we were able to examine the formula it was using to make its super soldiers," the billionaire said. He tapped a few keys on Tracey's tablet charts and equations appeared. "Now this is the extremis formula," he said, pointing to the first equation. He pointed to the second equation. "Then this one? This is the actual super soldier serum that was used on Cap back in the forties. That's the one that was in our bug."
"You're kidding," May said, raising a brow as she stared at the formulas. "The actual super soldier serum? How could someone get their hands on that?"
"Most likely someone from Hydra," Bucky spoke out, face set in a stern expression as he, like everyone else, looked at the images that were floating in front of the two men and two women.
"He's got a point," Steve said. "Hydra is the only possible people who could have gotten their hands on the super soldier serum formula. They were the ones who infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. Who knows what else they got their hands on?"
"But Tracey recovered all the S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra files," Natasha pointed out. "Now unless someone decided to go old fashion and wrote it down, I don't see how this one man who's causing all this got his hands on the formula."
"That's also a good point," Coulson said, pursing his lips.
"But what if it's Project Centipede again?" Bobbi asked, folding her arms.
"Definitely not them," Tony said. He pulled the two images of the bugs closer together. "The designs on these two robo bugs are completely different. Even if they got someone different to recreate them, it's like you said: they're gone. But Hydra isn't."
"True," Lance said, rubbing a hand under his chin. "But if you're able to tell the difference and a robotic expert like yourself, then you can tell us who the person is that's making this buggers."
"That," Tony said, raising a finger, "is sadly information we don't have, London Bridge." He smirked when he saw Lance roll his eyes, a smirk on his face as well, at the nickname.
"We've been trying to find out who the man is based on the design of the robots," Bruce continued. "Nothing on our databases have come up with a match."
"They don't even look like designs of anyone who's competed against Stark Industries," Tony added. "So you can see why we are stuck."
"Barry, you said that you were able to um…" Fitz said, snapping his fingers again. "Extract the bug from the man's neck during the fight?"
"Yeah, why?" Barry said, cocking an eyebrow.
"Really?" Jemma said, blinking as she stared at the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
"When we dealt with Project Centipede, the robots that were attached to the men, they couldn't come off," the male scientist explained.
"Seriously?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised. "Well then we definitely have someone new if he's able to come up with a design that's able to actually detach from the victims."
Coulson pursed his lips and looked to May, the two sharing a look before he turned his gave back to in front of him. It was silent as the director stared at the ground as he thought things over with the given information. After a few more minutes he broke the silence when he cleared his throat and scanned his eyes at the group in front of him.
"The best we can do is continue searching. My team and I can help," Coulson said, looking at Tony and Steve, "if you allow us that is."
"We can use all the help we can get. Your team has dealt with a similar situation before so we can use the firsthand experience," Steve said, smiling at Coulson.
"It's good to have you back, Phil," Tony said, clapping a hand on the man's back.
"What happened to my first name beign Agent?" Coulson asked with a smirk.
"Eh," the billionaire said, holding his hand up and rocking it side to side. "It goes back and forth."
Coulson chuckled, shaking his head as a smile grew on his face. He had to admit, he missed Tony's personality. He turned his attention back to the two teams as they all stared at him and the two Avengers, waiting for any orders that they might give.
"So for now," Coulson spoke up, "we only have this much information." He gestured to the holograms that were still hovering in the air. "What we need to do is find the man causing all this and see what his game is. What he's planning. Fitz, Simmons," he said, addressing his two scientists. "You two can help Tony and Bruce down in the labs and figure out if you can find a way to trace the bugs back to the original maker."
A large smile broke out on Jemma's face. She quickly turned to Fitz, nearly bouncing in her seat. "Fitz, we get to work with the Tony Stark and Bruce Banner!" she nearly squealed, making the entire group chuckle. A smirk grew on Tony's face at the excitement the female scientist was emanating.
"Uh yeah…I'm excited," Fitz said, smiling up at the two scientist Avengers. He didn't notice how Jemma's face fell when he didn't bother looking at her.
"Tracey," Steve spoke up, looking at the blonde woman. "You and Skye look through any and all security and news footage you can find on these three attacks. Try to find anything you can on them. If something seems out of the ordinary or we missed something, let us know."
"Sounds good," Skye said, smiling at the blonde. "I'm just glad I finally have someone who speaks computer."
"Same," Tracey laughed as she sat down with the brunette. "Two geniuses like us, we'll find what we need."
Coulson chuckled as the two females smiled at each other before he turned to the rest of the two teams. "The rest of you, be on the lookout for anything suspicious on the streets. We need to stay alert. We don't know when or where the next attack will be."
"When you go out, report back as soon as you find something," Steve informed. "Do you understand?"
The rest of the large group all chimed in their own agreements and understandings towards the leaders. All were itching to get a move on with the case and end the madness once and for all. Then there were some like Jemma, who wanted to explore the tower, mostly the labs. She was animatedly talking to the so called Science Bros as others were conversing with the new faces they met today.
"I am so glad that this meeting was shorter than usual. Whenever they have these sort of meetings I usually just tune out and stick to my computer until I'm called on," Tracey said as she and Skye kept to their seats on the couch.
Skye laughed. "Sounds like high school."
"Exactly," Tracey laughed. She smiled as Jemma sat down next them.
"This is so exciting!" the female scientist cheered. "Well, the part where we get to work with the Avengers, not the super soldiers destroying the city part."
"It's nothing too special," Tracey joked, rolling her eyes good naturedly. "After living with these guys for nearly a year, you get tired of some things."
"But I mean you're living with the Avengers. And then there's Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Clint Barton, and Br-" Jemma froze, her eyes flickering from the multiple male Avengers she had been listing off to the two females next to her who were smirking. "I'm sorry, I was um just…" She cleared her throat as her cheeks turned pink.
"Trust me, the glow of living with these guys wears down after a while," the blonde hacker laughed.
"What do you guys even do when you're not working?" Skye asked, crossing her legs as she leaned back in her seat.
Tracey chewed her cheek as she thought that question over. "Well, we usually just sit around the tower or just go walk around the city, which if we have time I'll take you to the best places to eat and shop," she said with a smirk. "I can get a hold of Tony's credit cards. With a little help from his girlfriend."
"Nice!" the other hacker laughed.
"But, like I said, if we have time. Right now I think we should start looking around those security and news footage Coulson asked us to look at," Tracey said, standing up. "Come on, I'll show you around the tower."
"This is so exciting!" Jemma squealed as she and Skye followed the blonde woman out of the floor.
ooOOoo
"Sir," Joseph said as he followed his boss through the base. "I don't understand. What does this one single – not to mention least threatening – girl have to do with the plan?"
The scientist remained quiet as he entered a room and pulled up a chair. Seating himself down onto it, he began turning on some computers and typing away at the keyboard. Different files with different images, blue prints, and formulas appeared one by one all over the screen. His eyes were set in a hard stare as he scanned each and every one of them as quickly as he could. It was silent until he swiveled around in his chair to stare at his henchman.
He glared up at the man standing behind him before he finally spoke. "Because she has skills that will help me get the files I need from that worthless organization we know as Hydra. Now unless you want to wind up like the last man I had help me with these projects, I suggest you find her and bring her to me."
"Yes, sir. Right away," Joseph said, his face turning dark at the memory of the last man who worked with him for their boss. The sight wasn't pretty, especially with all the blood on the wall.
"Then go! Now!"
Joseph nodded one last time before he rushed out the door, leaving his boss to his work with the files.
Hey everyone! So the Avengers and Coulson's team are now working together! Woo! And now we know why they showed up at the tower. I had the idea of some guy copying the Project Centipede bugs for a while and really wanted to bring in Coulson and his team. I've finally caught up with the show and love it so far! But I'm so mad with how it ended! For those of you who haven't caught up I won't spoil anything. But for those of you who have, feel free to PM me and talk/rant about your likes and dislikes of the show. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And if anyone caught in the last chapter, I had Bobbi and Clint have a thing at some point. After I looked up who Bobbi was in the comics I was super excited to have those two interact!
Also I'm not entirely sure when the action will start. Maybe next chapter, but probably nothing too big. I haven't decided yet.
If you'd like to ask the Avengers, Madison twins, and anyone else in the tower any questions, feel free to leave them on my tumblr. If you have any prompts for my oneshot series Life at the Tower, feel free to leave a message on my tumblr, PM me here, or leave them in a review.
One last thing. I would love love LOVE to hear your thoughts on this story so far. I'm kinda nervous with how its going so far. Am I going to fast with the plot? Am I doing a good job at portraying the characters? Because that's one of my biggest concerns. Please let me know in a review or a PM, whichever you prefer. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Thank you guys so much for the reviews, follows, and favorites! They make my day!