Chapter 25: Clint's Farmhouse
"Oops, he did it again," Thor picked up the latest folder when he returned from the loft and dropped it on the kitchen table.
Clint snickered, "Thor, I admire that you made a pop culture reference, and I'm impressed you even got it in the right context-"
"-thank you," he said proudly.
"-now never say it again. If Fury heard you, he'd kill you," he passed the file to Natasha, "More dead ends, I'll bet. Wherever these guys are in the pictures, that was months ago. Safe bet they aren't there now."
Natasha flipped through the photos absentmindedly, "All of the same guy, no name." She tilted her head, "He looks... I don't know, Asgardian?"
Thor came to see the pictures for himself, "That is not possible Natasha. I would know if any of my people-" he saw the face of the man and stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth fell open and all color drained from his face. He even quit breathing.
"Earth to Thor," Banner stood next to his friend and waved a hand in front of his face, "You in there, buddy?"
"Heimdall?" Thor barely murmured.
"What?" Banner leaned in.
"Heimdall?" he sounded like a child who'd seen the monster that lurks under the bed.
"That's Heimdall? Thor, I don't get it, I thought Heimdall was an ally..."
Thor took one long, ragged breath, "Heimdall?" he tore his eyes away from the face and ran for the door. All three followed. As soon as his feet hit the dirt of the back yard he began shouting, "HEIMDALL? ANSWER ME!" he waited, desperate, for only a few seconds, "DAMN THE ALLFATHER'S DECREE! IS IT HIM?! IS HE LOOSE?!" Again, evidently there was no reply, "I MAY BE IN EXILE BUT I AM STILL ASGARD'S REPRESENTATIVE IN THIS REALM AND I DEMAND ANSWERS! IS IT HIM?!"
That, at least, moved the keeper of the Bifrost to disobey orders and speak only one word that echoed in the minds of the Avengers, "Yes."
The prince fell to his knees. He stared at the ground, "Thor, who is he? What's wrong?" Banner and Clint approached slowly.
Thor thought of something and jumped up, the other two flinched back from the manic demi-god. He only activated his communication device, "JARVIS, tell our allies in SHIELD to find Jane Foster. Hide her as well as any on Midgard can hide. Somewhere remote and safe. If there is a path off this realm, shove her through kicking and screaming if need be."
"Thor, stop." Natasha stepped around the boys and confronted him directly, "Tell me who he is."
He held up a hand to stop her and looked skyward, "HOW LONG?!"
"Three days. That is all I will say." Odin would know if he did more, Heimdall had to keep quiet.
"The photographs are new."
"So Morris is alive," this gave Natasha precisely what she needed to prove it to the others- without Berny's pictures.
Banner came to stand by her, "Who is he? Thor, what are we dealing with?"
Thor gulped, visibly shaken, and answered, "My father's elder brother, Cul Borson."
"And that's bad," it wasn't a question, but Thor nodded anyways, "tell us about him."
"He has been locked away since before I was born, since the first days of my father's reign. You call me God of Thunder, my father God of Wisdom, my brother God of Mischief. Cul Borson... He you would call God of Fear."
Clint tried to lighten the mood, "So, no fun at parties?"
Thor was not, as he liked to put it, in a gaming mood, "He draws life from those around him, literally. All his power infects become his slave. My father lost thousands trying to capture him after he was passed over for the crown. Thanks to him, an entire realm fell to flame. It is said to have required the Casket to even contain him."
"Why did he burn the realm?" Clint was willing to bet it wasn't a party trick gone awry.
"You misunderstand," Thor shook his head, "he did not burn the realm. We did. The Counsel of Yggdrasil gave the Casket to the Jotuns- the only ones he could not draw from. They killed every last man, woman, and child to break his hold. Destroyed the home realm of the Valkyrie, and made of the Icari'i an extinct race. Only then, when he had none left to fuel his power, could he be taken. My father threw him in the deepest, darkest cell in all the nine realms, guarded him with thirty destroyers, left him chained with the same metal forged in the same star on the same day as Mjolnir generations ago!" he went from a shout to a whisper, "What sort of creature could have released him?"
"And why partner up with an ex-Hydra lackie," Natasha felt a cold tingle up her spine, "We're sure this Morris guy is human, right?"
"I know not, but it is no coincidence that he is here now. It took a genocide to stop him last time. The Icari'i world burned, their link in the Bifrost was destroyed wholly and completely. It took but a week. If he has had three days and we've seen nothing? Whatever controls Cul, son of Bor, it is evil incarnate."
The words hung in the air for a long time before Banner spoke, "The Jotuns kept the Casket- that's what started the war?" He nodded, "So we probably can't count on their help. Or Asgard's, apparently." Banner considered it, "An old associate of Natasha's, my old friend General Ryker, the Asgardian equivalent to Hitler, Steve and Bucky at one another's throats... Things are getting weird."
"No," Natasha had a hunch, "Me versus Albatross, you versus Ryker, Bucky versus Steve, Thor versus Cul, and Clint versus-" she cut herself off suddenly.
"I'm not important enough for an enemy, apparently," Clint pouted.
Natasha let out her breath, "The point is, he's matching our forces. Not one impossible enemy, one each."
"I don't see Bucky and Steve fighting to the death," Banner was apprehensive. "The 'to the death' bit, I mean. Fighting is very easy to visualize. And, I mean, Clint has a point. If this Morris guy is the recruiter, why don't we have more? Sam, Tony, Clint, even someone for Inessa? She's why Dennisson lost control of New York. If he's smart enough to hunt down our old enemies he wouldn't be dumb enough to count her out. He's gotta be someone to pull this off, I grant you that, but he doesn't look like the type to fight in his own battles. Where are the rest? Cul Borson hardly sounds like someone you keep waiting around until a fight happens to break out.
Natasha just shook her head, "I've got a feeling," she looked to Clint.
"The lady's never been wrong," he nodded, "I say we plan for the worst. If we're wrong, it's a pleasant surprise."
Thor was still pale, "If he has Cul Borson's allegiance, we're already dead."
"Then it's time to call in reinforcements," Natasha returned to the farmhouse to call Steve.
Location: Unknown
Slime dripped from the walls and collected in putrid, green pools on the cave floor. Air did not dare to move in this evil place- not even a whisper of a breeze could be felt.
The women who lived here were warped, gnarled, ancient. So long they had guarded their charge, never leaving the cave, that they forgot the feeling of sunlight on their skin. They found sustenance in the small fish that thrived in the freshwater pools, in what strands of plant life clung to the rocks in the darkness. Total, complete isolation, just as their long-absent god decreed.
Only the pale, thin light of the cryo chamber illuminated their world. Inside their sleeping angel waited for her time of rising.
She was beautiful- flame colored hair, blood red eyes, blue-white skin. A raw spark of fire just waiting to be unleashed. It had been whispered long ago that she was the god's greatest weapon, bred to bring absolute ruin to his enemies. Bred to grant the mercy of death to the watchers in the cave.
The god granted a singular gift when he passed down his charge. He gave them eternal life, immunity to illness or disease, even enough strength to keep them going for nearly a century, locked deep within the Earth. The same potion that made him a god made them his eternal servants- a simple injection an eternity ago. But, at long last, the signal came. Three clicks on a long-dead radio the god himself designed. Three short clicks, and it was time for the world to burn.
While six women went to unseal the tunnel, the 7th and oldest went to the tube. She was hesitant- it had been so long, could they have imagined it? No. Three clicks. It was time. She pressed the little blue button and the machine began to hiss and creak. It would be hours yet, but their angel would wake soon enough.
Sinthea Schmidt, heir to the Red Skull, was returning to the surface at last.
Avenger's Tower: Gym
"Nessie, can I talk to you for a minute?" she stopped rubbing at her arm and sat down on the balance beam she had been pacing along. Steve leaned on it next to her and twiddled his thumbs, how to begin?
"What's wrong?" she hadn't gotten into trouble over her dive off the roof yesterday (though now the balcony door was locked), Inessa just figured they were choosing her punishment carefully.
"We are unsteady, typically unstable, unprofessional most of the time, uneven in abilities, and nearly all of us are stubborn as hell. Basically, we're a train wreck. We manage to figure it out in the end though- how to work together," she didn't see where this was going. "None of us have anything much more than one another and a handful of very close friends, and only Thor even has family anymore."
She really didn't see where this was going, "The point is, there isn't a single one of us who came from a normal home- you included. Thor excluded. I had amazing parents, but they died a very long time ago. The simple truth is that you are a teenager. You're sixteen with the education of a fourteen year old, but I think you're even older than that in some ways."
She really really didn't see where this was going, "Get. To. The. Point," Sam said slowly. He'd come to watch Steve deliver the news, bu this was getting ridiculous.
"Right, um," Steve leaned back and looked Inessa in the eyes, "We don't know anything about how to raise a kid. You've done everything we've asked. You made progress with Doctor Pryor- amazing progress. You've been training every day and listening to everything we ask. Even when we were prepared to give you a pass, you resisted going on an unauthorized Hydra raid and chose to cool off in a nice, safe park," (they'd finally managed to verify Bucky and Inessa's story and track the damned place down). Inessa felt guilty all of the sudden. She was consumed with thoughts of the Helius device, but asking for help would mean admitting she and Bucky had lied. How well would that end?
"We've decided to cut you some slack."
Sam smiled, "JARVIS? Now's good."
Nadya dove from the shadows behind a gym mat the second the frequency was halted- Inessa didn't even realize she'd been trying to open the door. The room darkened considerably and the wolf went straight to it's mistress, jumping up and down and wagging it's tail like a real dog and not some freak shadow-denizen. Inessa tried to ease the tremor in her hands. Nadya licked her neck, "There are rules," Steve continued, "if you follow them, you keep your powers."
She just nodded, whatever they wanted, "You go nowhere without one of us present to make sure you're safe. You keep up with your work, and that includes your sessions with Doctor Pryor. You don't miss a single, solitary one. Plus," he grabbed her hand and squeezed, "you get one more job."
"What?" she whispered, overwhelmed.
"You start studying again. We'll figure out all the fine print, you'll have to have a whole new identity built, but we're scrapping the 'until you are 18' rule and replacing it with 'until you are a high school graduate'. Do you understand?" It was a measure, stunningly, all Avengers agreed on almost instantly (except Tony, who lost his vote when he lost his mind).
"Hey," Steve put a hand on her shoulder when she slid down from the beam, "this is good. It means we trust you to do what's right. The same threats apply as always, but even so- we're all really proud of you."
Somehow that only made her feel worse.
Avengers Tower
"Smooth, very well thought out speech," Sam walked back to the lobby with Steve.
"Shut up," he laughed in spite of himself.
"It was like listening to a Shakespearean sonnet, or Winston Churchill... Or someone with severe brain damage."
"Shove it up your ass," Sam gaped, scandalized. Steve laughed harder, "Stop cheering me up, I need to be serious, there are leader-ie things to do." he punched his friend lightly in the arm. Unfortunately, "lightly" for Steve Rogers was enough to bruise Sam Wilson.
"Well, cheer is important. We have an urgent call from Old MacHawkeye and the gang."
"Oh, sure, build up my mood then, just when it gets good, spoil everything."
"I've already called Bucky down," now there was a downer. Bucky. Never knew if he was going to show up or the Winter Soldier.
"How bad is it?"
Sam thought, "What's one worse than 'Apocalyptic Bad'?"
Steve sighed dramatically, "That would be 'Avengers Bad'."
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