A/N: So, after an unexpectedly long hiatus, "Avengers: Eleventh Hour" is officially back, and I will be updating regularly for the foreseeable future. I wasn't planning on taking a break for this long, but I started getting ideas for how to incorporate other "regions" of the MCU like Agents of SHIELD into the fanfic, but not until I was fully caught up with them. And now that I am all up to date, "Eleventh Hour" is back. To the "SHIELD -is-not-canon" crowd, you're free to leave now if you'd like, because you probably won't like the direction the story goes from here lol.
Anyway, please read, review, and enjoy!
I do not own Avengers or Gravity Falls.
When Clint awoke, for one blissful second he thought that everything that had happened that night had been a dream, that he was still back home with Laura and the kids….
Then, of course, he went to sit up and found that he was sitting in a cold, metal chair, with both hands handcuffed to a table in front of him. Sitting in a chair next to him was Wanda, who was still asleep, her head bowed. That's right. They'd been infiltrating the old Project PEGASUS base when those soldiers had knocked them out with their tranquilizer darts.
The room's walls were made of cinderblocks, with a door and what Clint assumed was a one-way mirror both on the far wall. Harsh white light shone down from recess lighting in the ceiling.
He shifted against the back of the chair. His quiver was gone. Honestly he'd expected as much, but still had faintly hoped that maybe whoever captured them had slipped up and forgotten to confiscate the quiver. Then again, even if he still had the quiver, it would hardly be of any use to him while he was handcuffed.
And besides, he had a far more useful weapon that could be used to break out, if he could just wake her up.
"Wanda," he said. "Wanda, I need you to wake up. We're trapped, and I can't get us out on my own. Wake-"
The metal door banged open. Into the room strode a man with light brown, close-cropped hair and…what might've been the faintest wisps of facial hair. He wore a black suit and tie decorated with an American flag-shaped lapel pin. "Stop it, I can do this," he said out of nowhere. "I'll be fine. I'm not some incompetent fool who's never done this before."
Clint craned his neck. It looked like there was a comms device in the agent's ear.
"Thank you." The agent shut the door behind him. He stood across the table from Clint and Wanda, adjusted his pin, and folded his hands behind his back.
Someone sure as hell had an inferiority complex.
"Are you supposed to intimidate me?" Clint said. "Look, man, I've stared down gods and killer robots and…bigger killer robots. So if you want to get anything out of me, you're going to have to try a lot harder than that."
The agent gripped the table and leaned towards Clint. "You think I'm playing the good cop here?"
Clint snorted. "No, I think you're the college kid who dreams of one day playing the good cop."
The agent frowned and narrowed his eyes. "I'm not going to do anything stupid, Powers. Stop mother-henning me." He took a step back from the table. "Why did the Avengers send you here?"
"Oh, so you do know who we are."
"Answer the question."
"Why did you bring that thing here from San Francisco this morning?"
The agent smirked. "That's what I figured. See, Powers, I told you – no, you did not say it first! You were the one who thought it was impossible that word of this could've gotten to the Avengers so fast! That's what I'm going to ask next; stop telling me what to do!"
With teamwork like this, Clint was surprised these agents had even thought to handcuff him and Wanda.
The agent grunted. "Alright, Hawkeye. How did you learn that we were out in Frisco this morning?"
Clint chuckled. "How about I tell you that when you tell me why you brought that alien slime here?"
"Because that information is classified. You know all about that, right? Like how your friend Stark has gone out of his way to make sure the rest of the world has no idea exactly how he created that killer robot that almost killed the entire human race."
And almost killed me. If not for Pietro….
"Well, you know Tony. The guy's never been asked a question he can't evade."
"Not all that different from how you're acting right now."
"Look, you want to get information out of me? You're going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than that."
"I figured you might say something like that." The agent rapped his knuckles against the mirror. "Bring it in."
A few seconds later, the door opened. In walked another suit-wearing agent, this one with a buzzcut and a close-cut, black beard. He placed a briefcase on the table, spun it around, and opened it. The first agent reached in and pulled out a syringe. "You sure this is it?" he said.
"Yes," the other agent snapped.
"Hey, you're the one who somehow filled these things with tap water last time."
Clint strained against the handcuffs, to no avail. Given how incompetent these guys seemed, he was surprised the cuffs weren't made of plastic. "What's that?" he asked as nonchalantly as possible.
The agent with the brown hair flicked the tip of the syringe with his finger. "This…is truth serum."
Clint snorted. "There's no such thing as truth serum."
The agent smirked. "That's what they all say." He strode around the table towards Clint and shooed the other agent out of the room. "You'd be surprised the secrets this has made people divulge. Now hold still."
In the mirror, Clint saw Wanda's mouth moving, like she was talking in her sleep. He turned towards her, but the agent turned his head back around so he was facing forward. "Hold still, I said," he ordered. A second later, he felt the needle jab into the side of his neck. The agent continued, "It shouldn't be long now before you're more willing to talk. I'll be back for you in a few minutes." The second agent packed up the briefcase, then they both left the room and shut the door behind them.
As soon as they left, Clint turned back to Wanda. "Wanda, I need you to wake up now and get us out of here. All they've got us restrained with are handcuffs; that shouldn't be any match for your powers. I don't know when they'll be back, and…I don't really buy this truth serum stuff, but, you know, part of me wonders if it is real, and if so I don't want to be telling them any sort of top-secret Avengers information. I mean, come on, I'm an Avenger, and all that's stopping me from getting out of here is a pair of handcuffs. This is-" Oh crap, the truth serum is real.
No more talking it was. Of course, that was if the truth serum gave him any choice. Maybe as soon as he was asked a question, he'd start answering it, whether he wanted to or not.
"Pro…tect…," Wanda croaked.
Clint turned to her. "Wanda, are you awake? 'Protect'? What does that mean? Protect what?" She'd said the word slowly, like she was pronouncing it for the first time. "Protect who? What are you talking about?"
"Pro…tect," she repeated. "Pro…protect…fa…ther."
Father? Her father had been dead for years, killed in Sokovia by a Stark Industries bomb. The agents had obviously given her a larger dose of their tranquilizer than they'd given Clint, seeing as how she was still asleep. Was some side effect of that making her flash back to her parents' death?
"De…troy…. De…de…destroy. Protect…father, yes…protect…father…destroy-"
The door banged open, and the first agent walked back into the room. He slammed his hands on the table across from Clint. "What the hell are you doing to her?"
"I'm not doing that," Clint said. "I think the real question is what the hell did you put in the tranquilizers you shot her with?"
"The same stuff we gave you."
"Destroy…th…the-"
"Make her stop!" the agent snapped.
"I already told you I can't!"
The agent turned back to the doorway. "Bring in more of the tranquilizers." He turned back to Clint. "Whatever you're doing, you can't do it if you're asleep."
Wanda's voice was slowly becoming steadier, but also had a raspy intonation Clint had never heard from her before. "Destroy…the…de…de…deceiver."
The agent reached across the table and smacked her across the face. "Stop it!"
Clint gritted his teeth. "You're going to regret that."
"What are you going to do about it?"
Suddenly, Wanda's head snapped up. Her eyes opened, revealing that they were rolled back in her head. She turned towards the agent and tilted her head to the side. "Destroy…you."
The agent stiffened. "What did you say?"
"Destroy…you. Destroy…you. You. You."
The second agent returned to the room with another briefcase. "You called for more tranquilizers, Agent Trigger?"
Agent Trigger? Was that seriously his real last name, or some on-the-nose codename?
Trigger pointed to Clint. "Sedate him. He's doing something to rile up Maximoff."
Wanda gave an evil grin. "Not…him. Not him. Me."
"That! Exactly like that!" Trigger said. "Put him under, now. It's freaking me out."
The second agent opened the briefcase and pulled out another syringe. But as he started towards Hawkeye, a third agent, this one clean-shaven and bald, rushed into the doorway. "Sir…we've got a situation."
"What is it?"
"We just lost all visuals and comms with the containment block." He swiped across his tablet a few times, then spun it towards Trigger. "But before that happened, this was the last footage we got." From the tablet came the sound of screams and gunfire, all of which were cut short by a slashing noise.
"Dear God. What the hell is it doing?"
"I…have no idea, sir. But if it continues on its current path, it's heading right towards us."
"What's going on?" Clint asked.
"Shut up," Trigger said.
Well, Clint hadn't dared to hope he'd get a solid answer, but he had to try anyway.
Trigger pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and clicked it on. "Agent Duran, come in. We have a problem down in the containment block." He strode out of the room; Clint couldn't hear anything he said after that. The third agent followed him out, while the second continued towards Clint.
Clint shook his hands, the cuffs on them rattling. "Help me get out of here. Whatever's going on, I can help you. I'm an Avenger. Just give me back my bow and arrows."
"You're not tricking me," the agent said.
"I've been injected with truth serum, apparently; I literally can't lie. I'll help you deal with whatever's going on if you free us, I swear."
The agent hesitated for a second. Then he shook his head. "Boss's orders." But as he was about to jab Clint with the needle, the wall behind them exploded. Fragments of concrete sprayed all over the room, and Clint ducked his head below the back of the chair as debris battered it.
Suddenly, a massive tentacle of swirling red…something shot past Clint and speared through the agent's gut. He grunted and dropped the needle on the floor, blood trickling from his mouth. Clint turned his head as much as he could, but a cloud of dust from the destroyed wall still hung in the air, preventing him from seeing who or what was attacking them.
"Wrong…man." The raspy words came both from Wanda, and from the darkness behind Clint. "No…matter." What the hell was happening to her? Was it somehow connected to whatever this thing was?
A series of spines erupted down the length of the tendril, tearing through the agent. Clint gasped in horror. The tendril retracted, and the man's mutilated remains dropped to the floor. The dust drifted aside, and a figure staggered through the hole in the wall. He looked like one of the guards who had ambushed Clint and Wanda in the garage, only he wore no helmet, his sleeves were raggedly torn off near the elbows, and his black uniform was splattered with blood.
He and Wanda turned towards each other. "Hello," they said. "Found…you."
"Wanda, what the hell is going on?" Clint said. "Snap out of it! Whatever this thing is, it can't be good!" He pulled against the handcuffs, to no avail.
The third agent reappeared in the doorway with a handgun aimed at the guard. "Stop right there!" he said. "Stop or I'll shoot!"
"How…cute." The guard took an uneasy step towards Wanda.
The agent promptly fired three rounds into the guard's chest, which seemed to have no impact on him. The guard turned towards the agent, and his arm…changed. The same red substance that had killed the other agent oozed from his skin, winding around itself like wires forming a steel cable. And at the end of the appendage, the substance flattened into a giant axe blade.
"Destroy…you."
Before the agent could react or even scream, the blade flashed forward and bisected him from his right hip to his left shoulder.
I've got to get out of here now. I could be next.
The guard put his hand on Wanda's forearm and closed his eyes. The red extension of his other arm retracted into his body, and something emerged from his hand onto Wanda. It was the same muted red as the axe blade had been, but was….
"Oh shit," Clint muttered.
Aside from its color, it looked the exact same as what he'd found on his lawn the previous night. It had somehow gotten inside the guard and given him those abilities…and now it was seeping into Wanda too. This must have been the one they took from San Francisco.
"Get out of her!" Clint shouted. "Get out!" Could all the aliens who had arrived overnight do this too? If so, the other Avengers had no idea what they were in for.
The alien slime completely vanished into Wanda. The guard it had been in before slumoed to the floor, either unconscious or dead. "Wanda?" Clint asked. "Wanda, are you okay? Can you-?"
Heavy footfalls came from the corridor outside, and several guards arrived in the doorway. "What the hell happened here?" one of the guards said. "Where's Agent Trigger?"
"I don't know. Listen, that thing you took from San Francisco last night, it was in that guard-" He pointed behind him. "-and then somehow, it ended up in Wanda here. We have to get it out of her, I don't know what it's-"
"Fasci…na…ting," Wanda growled. "These…powers." Her hands glowed with red magic, and then she snapped her handcuffs in two.
The guards raised their rifles towards her. "Don't move!" the lead guard said. "Keep your hands where they are or we will-"
"Noyouwon't." The words were said as though they were one instead of three, a sharp departure from how Wanda had said everything else recently. She turned to the guards and gave a guttural chuckle. A shockwave of energy blasted from her across the room. Clint, his chair, and the table all went flying towards the guards. The chair clattered into the corner, while the table crashed back to the floor in the hall. All but two of the guards were hit by it and tumbled to the ground with Clint.
He groaned in pain and looked down at his hands. They were still cuffed to the table, but Wanda's attack had damaged the table near the points where the handcuffs were attached. Maybe now he could pull himself free. He pushed the table against the wall, then braced himself against it with his legs and yanked on the handcuffs with all his might.
The two guards who were still standing, meanwhile, opened fire on Wanda. But just like with the guard the slime had been inside, the attacks did nothing. Wanda shot a pair of red tendrils, one from each arm, at the guards. Both of them were skewered to the wall, shouting in pain. The tentacles wound around their necks and twisted, and the guards fell silent. The tendrils retracted.
"Come on, come on, come on." Clint pulled back and forth, back and forth on the cuffs. The metal table groaned in protest, but the handcuffs were definitely looser on the table than they'd been a minute earlier.
Through the doorway, Clint could see that portions of the interrogation room's walls and floor had been scorched by Wanda's attack. The white lights hung loose from the ceiling, flickering and sending down occasional showers of sparks. And in the center of the room stood something that wasn't Wanda. Rapidly coiling around her body were a multitude of red tentacles, with several more sprouting from her back and angrily writhing about. As the alien covered her face, her mouth was replaced with a nest of black fangs, and her eyes with blank white patches surrounded by a black, necrotic-looking region. Two small horns poked from the top of her head.
Clint yanked harder on the handcuffs.
The creature started speaking again; through its exterior, Clint could still see small parts of Wanda's face, and her mouth moving in unison with the alien's. The words were spoken with an almost frantic speed. "Protect father yes protect father destroy the we are destroy the deceiver we destroy we are protect father deceiver we are destroy the deceiver-"
Clint gave one final tug on the handcuffs, and they snapped free of the table with an echoing CLAK! The creature stopped talking and turned in his direction. Through a tiny gap in its exterior, Clint could see Wanda's right eye, glowing red. The alien strode towards Clint.
"Protect father destroy the deceiver protect father destroy the we are deceiver protect father protect father protect…."
As Clint scrambled to his feet, it suddenly stopped talking and bowed its head. Clint went to run down the hall, but looked back when he noticed the thing had stopped. Was Wanda fighting back against it?
"Wanda?" he called. "Wanda, are you in there?"
The creature slowly lifted its head. Wanda's face was gone, completely replaced by the red monstrosity. It spoke once more, with neither the uncertainty or rapidity it had before, replaced by a slow intonation dripping with malice.
"Wanda is gone. We…are…CARNAGE!"
A/N: Chapter 12 (and the first big Agents of SHIELD connection) coming soon!