AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Yes, I know Bruce leaves at the end of Age of Ultron, but he needed to be in this. So ignoring that ending (it is fanfic, after all).
Thanks to those that have reviewed, favorited or followed. I'm so excited to get this out there. Enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: I really don't own this.
Merlin woke up with leaves pressed against his face. The light of dawn was just beginning to filter through the darkness of the forest. Merlin blinked once and sat up, rubbing the cold soreness out of his muscles. He swallowed hard, trying to clear his dry throat. Merlin wondered how he had ended up unconscious on the forest floor. Something must have happened yesterday.
Slowly, he remembered; his day with Freya, meeting two Avengers and then a strange feeling of… magic. Dark magic.
Merlin pushed himself to his feet, struggling a little from the weight and awkwardness of his backpack. He closed his eyes and reached for his magic. He let it flow out of him, a bit at a time, searching for the source of the ugly magic he had felt.
It was coming from the Lake of Avalon. Which might mean….
Merlin shook his head. He didn't want to think of it. But he had to check. He picked his way carefully back through the forest to the lake, keeping his magic on high alert.
It didn't take long for Merlin to reach the lake. But he couldn't see anything out of place. There was only a feeling of something utterly wrong in the cool morning air. Merlin couldn't describe it. But it was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Merlin growled. He wished that he could contact Freya. But the once a year rule still applied. So that plan was a no-go.
He considered using his seeing crystal, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. The nightmarish visions that came with the crystal weren't worth it, unless things got particularly bad. He would save that to use as a last resort.
Merlin needed to get home and do some research. Maybe he could hack into a few government databases to see what Black Widow and Hawkeye had been doing in Europe. Merlin also decided that he was done with hiking through the woods. He was going to use magic to transport himself home, forget the consequences. There was a flash of gold and a blasting howl of wind, and he was gone.
"There is absolutely nothing on this guy," said Tony Stark, the Avenger known as Iron Man. "I haven't found anything on Michael Nyes. And I'm the best."
Tony dropped his tablet onto the couch beside him. The other Avengers were slumped in various positions around the communal living and dining areas.
Clint and Natasha were playing poker at the table, Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner, better known as Captain America and the Hulk, were each reading a book, Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, was playing a video game, and Wanda Maximoff and Vision were playing with their mind and magic tricks. Thor was currently in Asgard as far as everyone knew, and Colonel Rhodes, the War Machine, was off on a mission.
Natasha looked up at Tony's comment, bored. She dropped her winning hand of triple queens onto the table and Clint cursed, throwing his two pairs onto the tabletop in frustration. "You cheat, Nat," he accused. "Nobody wins that much. Nobody."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Deal with it, crybaby," she said, standing and sitting instead next to Tony on the couch. "Right now we have bigger fish to fry." She picked up the tablet and tapped a command into the keypad.
A picture from the video feed of Clint and Nat's encounter with Michael Nyes appeared on the enormous Stark-Tech TV, interrupting Sam's video game. "That's our guy," Natasha said, ignoring Sam's grumbles of protest. Wanda and Vision, abandoning their tricks, squeezed onto the couch as well. (It was a big couch.) Clint settled for slouching across the backrest.
Natasha continued. "He said his name was Michael Nyes. He was at the lake Clint and I were sent to investigate."
"What were you investigating?" Bruce asked, cocking an eyebrow at the picture on the screen. The man didn't look like much. Bruce wondered why he was such a big deal.
Natasha tapped the screen. Several pages of scientific mumbo-jumbo replaced the picture of Michael Nyes. "This is why we were investigating."
Bruce paled, and Tony cursed. Steve and Sam just glanced at each other, confused. "What is it?" Steve asked.
Tony swallowed. "Those readings are very similar, very, very similar to the energy readings from the tesseract."
Steve blew out a puff of air, reaching up to rub at his temples. Steve was beginning to wonder if he would ever be free of that cube. "I thought Thor had the tesseract."
Natasha nodded. "As far as we know, he does," she said. "But, as far as we know, these energy readings didn't come from the tesseract. They are very similar, but there are several distinct differences. And know that we know what we're looking for, there seems to be traces of this energy all over the place. In some places, the energy is far more powerful, in others, it's barely noticeable."
"Okay," Sam said, setting his video game controller on the floor. "But if it isn't the tesseract, then why are we so concerned? And what does this guy, Michael Nyes, have to do with anything?"
Natasha raised an eyebrow at the interruption, but decided to be mature. "The reason that we're so concerned is that these readings are probably close to a thousand times more powerful than any we got from the tesseract."
"Oh," Sam mumbled. "That's why."
Steve stood, and grabbing a water bottle from the fridge. He emptied the whole thing in one go. "So what does Nyes have to do with this again?" he asked, leaning his elbows on the bar.
"He was at the lake where we first found these readings," Natasha explained.
"Coincidence?" Wanda asked, staring hard at the screen.
"Don't believe in 'em," Clint said. "No. Nyes had something to do with this."
"That's what we need to figure out," Tony said, leaning forward and studying the equations on the screen. "FRIDAY," he called. "Analyze this data and get back to me as soon as possible. See if you can spot something that we can't."
"Yes, Boss," came the voice of FRIDAY, Tony's replacement for JARVIS. "I'll get right on it."
Tony took the tablet from Natasha. The picture of Michael Nyes reappeared on the screen. "I've cross-referenced the name with pictures," Tony said. "I've internet-stalked, but I have found nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada."
"Nothing?" Clint asked. "Not even one mention?"
"None," Tony said. "But then I decided to go for facial recognition. If there's a picture of this guy anywhere on the net, I'll have him. The program only needs a couple more minutes before—wait, never mind, it's done. But you'll need to take a look at them."
Tony swiped a finger across the tablet's screen. A series of pictures flashed onto the television screen. After a second, Clint pointed to a picture in the bottom left.
"There," he said. "That's him." The picture looked like it came from a driver's license. The name wasn't correct, but the face definitely was. There were those slightly oversized ears, and the silly bandana that Clint had noticed the day before.
"Marc Emmy," Tony said, fingers flying. "The guy has a house in Europe, just like he said, several more house in America, one in Ireland and more scattered around the world. His passport has dings all over the place. Russia, Brazil, Australia, Japan. This guy wasn't lying about having traveled, even if he was lying about his name."
More pictures appeared on the screen, some from news sites, some from Facebook and Twitter feeds. In many pictures, Marc Emmy had a backpack, or camping gear.
"So what do we do?" Wanda asked, playing with a strand of her hair.
"I say we give this guy a house call. I want to fix this problem before it becomes a problem." Tony said, standing. If Tony was honest, he was terrified of another possibly world-ending event. He wanted this over with before it began. "His passport says he hasn't left Britain. If we hurry, we might be able to reach him before his nomadic nature catches up with him."
"I'll get the Quin-Jet," Natasha said, stalking out of the room.
"Everyone suit up," Steve called, the authority evident in his voice. "Just in case. We don't know what we could be dealing with."
"Oh, can I say it?" Tony asked pleadingly, rubbing his hands together as he contemplated which suit he would wear. He was thinking of the Mark 53.
"Say what?"
"Avengers, assemble!"