New chapter up. Thanks to all who are reading and reviewing.
Cap A. POV
I had been officially dating Alex for two weeks and things could not be better. We saw each other every morning at the cafe for coffee and in the evenings we had shared seven dinners, three movies and two long walks so far.
It was almost 7:30AM and I was sitting at the kitchen table in our common area, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I was alone and it was quiet. I looked up at the sound of the elevator and smiled at Natasha as she entered the room.
"Why are you here? Not that you can't be here, but you usually spend your mornings with Alex." She inquired, getting a cup of coffee and taking a seat next to me.
"Alex called me an hour ago. Apparently she has a field trip for one of her classes today that she completely forgot about, so she had to pass on coffee. She's gonna call later after she gets home."
"Field trip?" Natasha asked, confused. "Do college students go on field trips?"
"She's shadowing an acupuncturist, apparently. It's not literally a field trip."
Natasha nodded. "Well, that makes sense."
I watched as she sipped her coffee. Natasha very rarely drank coffee, usually opting for tea. She only drank coffee before a mission.
"You're drinking coffee. Mission?" I asked.
"Not technically. More like an investigation. A guy was found a few hours ago in an apartment a couple of miles from here. He had been attacked with some type of mystery weapon and left half dead with a black substance running out of his nose, eyes and ears. The folks at the hospital had him quarantined, but some creative shuffling of paperwork got him moved to a SHIELD facility. Banner is still working on analyzing the black substance, but he doesn't seem to think it's a contagion. I'm heading over to the scene with one of Tony's scanning contraptions to try and figure out what happened. At this point we can't rule out anything. The weapon described by the man didn't sound like any kind of weapon I've ever seen."
"Are they thinking alien?"
Natasha shrugged. "These days we really can't rule it out, which is a scary thought. Since you're not busy, care to join me?"
"Sure, not like I had much planned for today, anyway. Might as well do something constructive. I'd hate to see another new and powerful weapon out on the streets for anyone to get their hands on."
We finished our coffee, collected Tony's scanner and were off.
xxxx
Alex carefully forced the apartment door open and slipped quietly inside, doing her best to leave the police tape undisturbed. She had waited nearly two hours for the police to finish up and leave. She didn't know how much time she'd have until the next wave of investigators arrived, so she worked hastily.
Once the door was secured, she pulled a small red orb out of her pocket. This one was about a quarter of the size for the green one she used for communication. She placed it on the floor and took a few steps back. Moments later, a perfect holographic image of every person who had been in the room over the last 24 hours was displayed.
She snorted, waving her hands left and right, removing all the police, EMTs and other emergency personnel until only two images remained. One was standing, holding the device she had been looking for. The other was on the floor, obviously suffering the effects of the device.
Alex smiled, taking a good look at the standing man. She got closer to the image and took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly.
"Got ya." She said quietly, picking up the orb. The images disappeared and she placed the orb back in her pocket. "It won't be long now, my friend. Use it one more time. I dare you."
Suddenly, Alex heard footsteps approaching the apartment door. Quickly and silently, she opened the window, looked to make sure the coast was clear, then slipped out on to the fire escape. She shut the window and was gone.
xxxx
Cap. A POV
It only took ten minutes to get to the crime scene. The place was practically in our backyard.
Natasha ripped the police tape off the door to the apartment and opened the door.
"Well, the door has been forced, but there is no way of telling if it was from the police or the assailant." She commented. It really was amazing how her personality changed when she was working. Her soft, feminine side was now well hidden.
"Not much to the place." I added, looking around. It was just a small, undecorated apartment. Nothing really noteworthy about it at all. You couldn't even tell something criminal had happened here.
"Let's find out how much there is that we can't see." Natasha pulled out a small device, about the size of a cell phone. "According to Tony, this should pick up any unusual energy signatures."
She hit a button on the device and a light on its face turned red, then yellow, then finally green. The whole process took about two minutes. Natasha pulled out her cell phone, called a number and put the phone on speaker.
"Yes?" came Tony's voice.
"I did the scan. Sending you the data now."
There was a pause.
"Got it." Tony confirmed. "Bruce and I are looking at it now."
"It looks like we have two exotic energy signatures. That's interesting."
"One of them seems to have characteristics in common with the black substance from our now deceased victim." Bruce added.
"The victim died?" I asked.
"A few hours after we got to him, yes." Bruce confirmed. "They are not done with the autopsy, but it looks like he died from a every unusual form of anaphylactic shock. The black substance was actually the stuff he was allergic to. It's fascinating. As far as I can tell. Everyone, as in the entire human population, should be allergic to it."
"So, this is an alien weapon." I concluded.
"Looks like." Tony replied.
"Are we thinking Asgard?" Natasha asked.
"Maybe, but I tested Thor's profile against it and he's allergic to it too. I ran Loki's, just out of curiousity, same thing. They were slightly less allergic, but it would still kill them. Probably a bit slower, but they'd still be dead. I have no idea where this weapon came from."
"Maybe it's not technically a weapon. Think about it. Why build a weapon that takes 12 hours to kill a person. It doesn't make sense."
"It could be used for torture or interrogation." Natasha mused.
"Whatever its designed purpose, we need to find it before it's used to kill again. Bruce, Tony, can you guys find a way to track this thing? And possibly a way to treat someone infected by it?" I asked.
We could hear fast conversation on the line. "Give us a few hours, we'll see what we can come up with." Tony replied.
"Wait? What about the second energy signature?" Natasha ask. We were so interested in the first signature, we had almost completely forgotten about the second.
Bruce cleared his throat. " The second signature, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the first. They have nothing in common. It has nothing to do with the weapon. I'm going to have to take some time to analyze it more thoroughly. I can't say for sure that it's even alien. I've just never seen anything like it."
"One thing at a time. Work on the first signature. We'll have time to worry about the second one later." Natasha ordered.
"You got it, spider lady." Tony replied.
"Great. Cap and I are returning to the tower."
We hung up and returned to our car. Something was bothering me, though.
"What about the man who has the weapon? It's possible he just happened upon this device and accidentally exposed his associate to it."
Natasha sighed. "That would be a best case scenario. On the other hand, he might be a full blown terrorist, looking to use the weapon on a large scale."
"And this was just a test. A dry run." I added.
That was a scary thought. We needed to find this weapon and fast.
To Be Continued…
Tada...one more chapter down. Hope you enjoyed.