Chapter 31: Sebastian Morris' Base - Menno, South Dakota
"Trusting a man to kill his own brother," Sin eyed Berny and shook her head. He was busy prepping the vials of gray serum, but he still caught her in his periphery.
Berny flashed her a sarcastic smile and went back to work. Albatross and Ryker made the same fuss initially, he was used to it. Any second one of his new allies would- "There is no love between them, I assure you." there. He silently thanked Albatross.
"If I thought there were I would have killed him by now," Sin continued to sharpen her knives- though where she was pulling all of them from was anyone's guess. "There is a large gap between not loving someone and killing them. Morris is putting too much faith in a feud between siblings."
"He didn't break my favorite toy," Berny said calmly, "he shot me in the face, left me for dead, and killed most of my friends. He's as much an enemy to me as Natasha Romanoff or Bruce Banner are to Albatross and the good General there," he nodded to John, reading as always.
Sin set down her blade and faced Berny. He finished mixing the syringes- taking very specific quantities from each vial. Once he finished he set them down with the utmost care and faced her as well, "Are we gonna fight or have sex because one won't fly with our employer and the other he just might want to watch."
"Neither, if you please."
"Aw, c'mon Albatross. We can't let you be the only one having fun with the super-women."
Albatross' eyebrows arched, "Just what are you implying?"
"You knew Romanoff a very long time and she is, soon to be was, a very lovely lady. Surely you at least got a taste." he winked.
"She had the physical appearance of a ten year old, and the last time I saw her she'd aged nearly twenty years then promptly stabbed me three times. No, we were never intimate in any way."
"Bummer."
"We were talking about you and your brother, not the sexual history of some two-bit assassins."
"Those assassins are older than you, and they weren't frozen when Schmidt died." John spoke up again, "Respect your elders."
Berny faced Sin full-on, "If you want the story, fine. Just listen carefully because it's the last time I humor you. Then, if you still don't trust me, kill me. But make sure you have a damn good excuse for Morris and his boss."
"All I expect is truth," Sin smiled dangerously.
"Gather round kiddos," he said sarcastically, "it's story time."
"I dislike reruns, no offense," Albatross excused himself and left to find Cul. At least around him it tended to be quieter.
"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Nebraska..."
Marco didn't like thieves. Well- thieves who didn't work for him. When the guards found Trickshot, Clint's old mentor, sneaking around back anyone could see where it was going to end. A bullet through the face. Berny, only 14, sighed as the man was dragged in. He was the junior-most member of Marco's small crew. He would be the one cleaning up.
Bang! Berny began pulling off his suit jacket, best get started. He heard something though- a shuffle from the wrong direction, somewhere above them. Surely Trickshot wasn't stupid enough to bring a deaf boy along for a heist- he was exactly that stupid, sanctimonious old fool. Berny turned and shoved Marco as hard as he could- knowing full well if he was wrong his brains would join Trickshot's on the walls.
An explosion of pain wracked his skull almost immediately. He tried to cry out- his mouth was open- but he couldn't move his face. The agony was ungodly. He fell, turning as he did to see Clint staring down from a skylight, gaping. Marco's men opened fire and he fled.
Berny tried to feel the damage, his mouth hurt so much, there was too much blood. He gurgled and tried to get a full breath, close his mouth, anything. One of Marco's bodyguards puked nearby. When Berny's hand found the shaft of the arrow, he knew why.
It had pierced just below his left cheekbone, blasted through bone, gum, and the roof of his mouth, destroying a full section of his teeth. The arrow pinned his mouth open and continued down at a sharp angle, pinning down the corner of his tongue, more teeth and gums on the lower right side, and finally it emerged out of the lower edge of his jaw, through his neck. He felt sick. He felt cold.
Wherever Marco had him taken, it wasn't a normal hospital. The doctors both wore odd logos on their coats- a red octopus with a human skull. He woke long after the surgeries to repair his face and begin reassembling his teeth. Over the years he'd go on to have nearly a dozen surgeries and as many false teeth grafted in.
"Subject is waking up," the doctor was pretty, young. She had long, dark hair that swung down almost far enough to touch Berny's face as she leaned over him. When she spoke, it was with an accent he couldn't place- European certainly. She smiled at him and he tried his best to smile back. His jaw was wired shut, and most of his face and neck were bandaged. What he managed looked more like a grimace.
"Stay calm, it's-" a young male doctor came over and muttered something in what sounded like Russian.
"Alright," the woman translated. "We are doctors. You're in a Hydra field hospital on the way to Alaska."
Berny thought at first the shifting and swaying of the room was something to do with painkillers. Now he saw it all for what it was- the hospital was shipping containers on some boat.
"Your employer pulled a few strings to bring you here. He said to tell you he always rewards loyalty. You will meet with him once we reach port."
"Is there any way I would be let to persuade you having improved jawbone?" the man's grasp of English wasn't the greatest.
"Anton!" the girl snapped, "I told you already. He is not Hydra. We do not augment, only heal!"
"Emilia," he switched back to Russian to plead his case but she put a hand up.
"I'm medical doctor. You are scientific doctor. This patient is mine, not yours."
"I am bored! They bring me no projects here!"
"If you ever want to get to Astana you will have to learn to survive boredom! Winter Soldier is being deployed. He will rendezvous with us in Alaska for diagnostics after his mission. Play then!"
Anton merely grumbled and vanished from Berny's sight to an adjacent lab, "He is new," Emilia said, as if that explained everything.
Berny was kept comfortable for the remainder of the journey, but he had far too much time on his hands to drown in the dull, constant throbbing of his jaw and the memory of Clint's face. He'd spoiled the side job Swordsman and Berny had going, and now his mothering older brother actually tried to kill him! The ass had everything going for him- athleticism, good looks, even super-peepers! Sure he'd been stone deaf since the car accident, but his binocular vision made up for that pretty fucking well in Berny's book. He was always inferior to Clint, he was sick to death of it.
Emilia- Emilie in English- kept him company and monitored his healing. He couldn't speak with his jaw wired shut (the few times he tried he sounded just like Clint), so she carried the weight of the conversation. He caught Anton sneaking glances every now and then. Berny was only 14, but he recognized a crush, especially since Anton didn't seem to have any grasp of subtlety.
After a few days Berny waved goodbye and was taken by skiff across a narrow channel to a waiting car. An especially terrifying man in a mask with a metal arm took his place on the boat and Berny took his in the vehicle. The drive was short- Marco was waiting for him in the restaurant of a cheesy hotel, the 'Prospector Inn'. Damned place was one of the tallest buildings in the city at only 5 stories. Berny sat nervously across from his boss and waited patiently for him to speak.
"I wanted to express my gratitude to you, Berny- I believe that is your name?" Berny nodded slightly. "You risked your life to protect mine. That's loyalty of an impressive caliber. Anything you want you will have. Money, position, twenty stunning hookers and a week in Vegas- at your age that probably sounds the most attractive, yes?"
A goon handed Berny a pencil and a pad of paper to write his reply. I want to repay my brother, he pointed to the bandages on his face.
"I'll have my men fetch him for you."
Berny tapped the table as Marco turned to get his attention. Can't. He'll know you are coming. He has abilities, he pointed to his eyes.
"The world is seeing more and more of these freaks," Marco mumbled to himself. He considered it for a moment. He could use a kid like Berny. "I know low people in high places. They may be able to help you. My operations are far larger than you know, Berny. Serve me, and as your reward I will help you become powerful as well. Then, as your reward for the heroics, I will see that you meet your brother again and guarantee you will get to pluck those special eyes right out of his head."
Berny considered it for as long as it took to pick the pencil back up. Done.
Nearly a decade passed. Marco was the mastermind behind seemingly unrelated gangs all over the globe- a true emperor of crime. He helped Berny meet researchers, participate in dozens of experiments. Most didn't stick, but the ones that did not only brought him on-par with his brother, they took him even further. Suddenly though, his new friends began to fall. Marco went first- it was dismissed as gang violence. Next was Ivanovich, Castro, Hidaki, Chau, Rodriguez- someone was cleaning house and the upper echelon were on the target list. Berny too.
He saw them well before he was anywhere near visible to their average eyesight- men in suits and tactical gear bearing an eagle crest. He pushed his eyes to their limits to read the fine text around the outside of the icon- Strategic Homeland Intervention and Enforcement Logistics Division- SHIELD. They were the ones responsible for him losing his friends- the only family he recognized.
So Berny hunted SHIELD. At first it was sloppy guesswork- which associates they might go after. When he could, he killed. Like Marco, he quickly made low friends in high places. He eventually managed to track them with a certain degree of accuracy. He followed the heels of a trainee team to Belgium after some female assassin- but all he noticed was their leader.
Berny was a mile away using his enhanced vision to watch some guy and a cripple in a wheelchair scouting out a church from the roof of an adjacent building. The leader turned to watch as the assassin ran out of the church, stopped, and wandered down a side street. Berny's vision went red as soon as he saw the man's face. "Of course," he breathed. SHIELD was ruining his life and killing his friends- naturally among their ranks would be Clint fucking Barton. Sanctimonious piece of shit.
Berny barely resisted killing him then- he didn't have the tools he'd need- a bow or a sniper rifle. Clint would only finish what he started so long ago. Berny's face twinged with phantom pain. He needed the last serum- a sort of catalyst to take his powers to the next level. Then he'd be ready to eradicate the cancer that was his brother.
"Well? What next?" Sin waited.
Berny just shrugged, "One more year finding the drugs. Then I tucked it away somewhere safe until I could track down Clint again. One minute I'm sitting in a nice little Italian restaurant, the next thing I know I'm electrocuted and Clint's little assassin wench is throwing me into a cell. I had most of Marco's empire under my control, Clint could only evade my spies for a week, two tops, I had the last little push I needed to beat him," he held up the syringes, "then I'm rotting in a dark, cold cell that would make people in the stone age feel right at home. All because of Clint's girlfriend."
He waited to see if Sin was satisfied. She said nothing, but picked up her knife once again and went back to sharpening the blade. Ryker glanced over and shrugged. Berny rolled his eyes and settled back in the chair. Berny changed his mind- sex with this woman was out of the question. He wanted to fight the smug brat.
Save it for Clint.
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