Even back in his original world, Cid had a tendency to only pay attention to those school subjects that he thought would teach him something that would be invaluable for an eminence like him. Unsurprisingly, aside from a classical piece of literature that would be a must-know for a cultured and high class puppet master, there were few things that attracted his interest. As such it was only natural for him to be seen by others as an unmotivated student who always did the bare minimum to not fall behind. In other words: like pretty much anyone attending high school. As such his disguise as a background character in school was near perfect.
That was why it was a matter of high importance to him to maintain that image. The last thing he needed was to stand out in any way.
It should come as no surprise then that, at risk of being late, Cid ran like hell all the way from his rented apartment to the Midtown High School, making sure to keep his speed just below that of an average student who spends all his free time at home behind a computer screen.
It didn't take him long to reach the school. Without slowing down he rushed to the entrance door and swung it open.
Seeing that the corridors were already mostly empty he ran toward his classroom. Just as he was about to run through a corridor intersection he sensed someone else running from the corridor on the right in his direction. Calculating that the collision was imminent and knowing that such around-the-corner collisions were the privilege of the main characters he desperately tried to stop but the squeaky clean floors helped his body carry the momentum and literally slide into a scrawny looking student who had just appeared behind the corner.
The collision sent both boys to the floor. Internally cursing the gods of anime tropes Cid stood up and was about to take off in the direction of his class when the boy he collided with spoke up.
"Oh, my bad! Sorry, I wasn't- Oh, Cid?"
So the stranger knew his name? Turning around and looking the boy up and down he recognised him as one of his classmates.
"Ah, Peter. It's okay I wasn't looking where I was going either."
Peter Parker was a handsome looking 15 year old boy, though a bit on a muscular side. By all accounts he was far from unsightly and yet he still managed to get picked on and was pretty much a definition of a background character whom no one paid attention to. It was something Cid couldn't help but admire.
Especially considering his double life as a superhero.
It wasn't easy to notice if you weren't looking for it but Cid, all too aware of the regular tropes of a superhero-attending-high-school variety, picked up on it fairly soon. Bruises and cuts suddenly appearing one day and vanishing the next one, randomly skipping classes despite being the perfect student and just general behaviour of someone who's always hiding something. Cid had no doubt in his mind that the boy was some sort of super hero, all signs pointed to it.
And yet here he was, playing the part of a background character. This was something Cid could respect.
Meanwhile the boy stood up and smiled awkwardly.
"Guess you're late too, huh? Well I think we'd better hurry if we don't want Mr Harrington to give us an earful. I'm sure he won't be angry if we're just a few minutes late."
Cid nodded and together they ran to the classroom, Cid lowering his speed even further to avoid outpacing the boy next to him and causing potential suspicion, unaware that Peter was doing the same thing.
As they ran Cid decided to prob a little about Peter's secret identity.
"So, Peter, you're pretty smart and always pay attention in classes. How come you're running late now?"
The boy was so caught off guard by the sudden question that he almost tripped but he managed to right himself with surprising agility. Running on as if nothing happened he sheepishly turned to Cid.
"Well, you know how it goes. I've been pretty busy lately and sometimes I lose track of time."
"Really?" Cid said as they turned the corner. He lowered his speed a little, hoping Peter would too to match his pace. The more time Cid had to ask about Peter's secret superhero identity the more information he would reveal.
"Busy with what? Honestly I can't imagine a high schooler busy with anything else beside the school. You know, what with the amount of homework we're given."
That was a bold faced lie of course. Cid had an entire secret organisation to run outside of school. Or at least he acted like he did but that still counted. As for the homework, he would usually pass the boring stuff off to some of the girls and treat it as an 'intelligence evaluation', saying that members of the Shadow Garden had to be knowledgeable on a variety of subjects. Cid really was lucky to have his friends play along to this extent. If not for them Cid would be stuck with doing senselessly boring work.
"Oh, you know, s-some odd jobs here and there to make some money. Nothing too exciting." The stuttering didn't escape Cid's attention. In fact, the moment he heard it he knew he struck gold. Only a protagonist hiding his secret identity would behave that way. And, following this trope, Peter would surely change the subject immediately.
"Ah, anyway, it isn't often that you are late, Cid. Do you do something outside of school too?"
Bingo! The typical change of subject a protagonist uses to draw attention away from him.
'Man, Peter is a natural protagonist. He's 100% a superhero in disguise. And so I must give a cryptic answer to his question so that one day he can look back and know that I was watching him from the shadows.'
"Hmm? Oh, no I don't do much. I usually prefer to stay in shadows, so to speak, out of the way of others. You tend to learn a lot of secrets when people don't know you're there." Cid tried to empathise his words by striking a pose but given that they were running he nearly lost his footing.
"Ahh, sure," Peter's replied awkwardly. "Anyway, here's our classroom."
Running up to the door, the pair of boys stopped, fixed their clothing and knocked on it before awkwardly shuffling in.
Mr Harrington looked meaningfully at the clock and addressed the latecomers.
"I would appreciate it boys if you weren't late to my classes. Seeing as it's Cid's first time I'll give him a pass, but you, Peter, need to do something about that habit of yours."
Under the stares of their classmates both boys nodded and hurried to their seats, both quite uncomfortable. Peter was embarrassed to be late once again, which he was sure Flash would use to make fun of him once again, and Cid was unhappy with all the attention he was getting, which was unbecoming of a background character.
Oblivious to their discomfort the class continued as normal, although Cid could hear whispering from time to time about his and Peter's simultaneous appearance.
Cid could only sigh to himself as he already imagined all sorts of baseless rumours that would spread throughout the class and even beyond before lunch break. The last thing he needed was a word about him spreading, killing his mob status once and for all, as having one rumour about you would inevitably lead to more following.
He had to do something about it. Luckily for him there was just the girl that could help him with that sort of problem.
Once the bell rang, announcing the break, students filed out of the classroom.
Staying slightly behind to walk in the back of the crowd Cid spotted a girl standing in the corridor, seemingly busy with rummaging through her locker. She had short dark brown hair and eyes with the matching colour. Her eyes were covered by thick glass. All in all, a pretty ordinary school girl that few would pay attention to. Cid, however could always tell when she was around and had no trouble spotting her amidst the crowd.
The girl's name was Nu (quite a weird name if you asked him) and she was one of Gamma's friends. Cid wasn't sure what got her so interested to play pretend with them but he didn't mind. The more the merrier. Luckily for him she attended the same school as he did and she was always on board to play along with him even during classes. That's what you call dedication.
And she was his first call to put an end to unwanted rumours. From what Cid had seen she was quite adept at conversing with other high school students. Granted, he had seen her doing that just a handful of times but it was still more conversations than Cid could handle, so he would dedicate this task to her.
Walking past her, he threw a conspiratorial glance her way and headed for the staircase nearby, knowing that it would be empty at the time as he had previously gone there to eat his lunch in peace away from a certain red eyed girl whose name started with 'C-' and ended with '-laire'.
When he made sure there was indeed no one around he turned and found himself face to face with Nu, who was a bit too close for Cid's comfort.
"Nu, I have something to ask of you."
"Of course, Cid, what would that be?"
The girl smiled sweetly and Cid mentally praised her for keeping up the act of two regular school students. The last thing he needed was someone overhearing Nu calling him lord. That would lead to even more awkward gossips going around.
"Long story short, I was late to class and bumped into Peter Parker on my way there. Now there's some rumour going around about the two of us. I want you to do something about it, I don't want all that attention."
Nu was listening intently and gave no reaction other than bowing slightly and assuring Cid that the matter would be handled before disappearing behind the door.
Considering the matter already resolved, Cid sighed, stretched his arms and headed for his next class.
Hellicarrier's bridge
As the hellicarrier kept gaining altitude Nick Fury looked at the men and a woman he had called to take care of the situation that got more confusing and frustrating with every passing day.
Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff stood before him while the agent Coulson was by his side.
"You all know what you're here for, you've been told the basic gist of things," director Fury began, addressing the people sat behind a table at the hellicarrier's bridge. "An unknown organisation has stolen the tesseract and now comes the task of finding it and getting it back. And as if that weren't enough, we've got Loki running around with several of our brainwashed agents in tow. I hope you haven't made any plans for the foreseeable future as we all will be too busy sorting this mess out."
Steve Rogers, aka the Captain America, leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table.
"Do we know anything about the organisation that stole the tesseract and their possible reasons?"
Fury shook his head.
"Not a thing. The only thing we can say with certainty is that whoever they are, they mean business. I don't think I've ever seen the power like the one the intruder displayed. When we confront them we'll have to be careful and smart about it."
"But for that confrontation to happen we'll first need to find them and the tesseract." Natasha Romanoff spoke up. "What's the plan for doing that?"
Everyone turned to Bruce, who was looking more uncomfortable by the minute.
"Well, we can track it by the gamma radiation it emits. It may take some time but I'm positive we can locate it before long."
"And what about the other one, Loki? What are we going to do about him? He's still got agent Barton."
"Do not worry, agent Romanoff," Fury replied. "We've got people searching for him as we speak. Even though he did not manage to take the tesseract he still poses significant security risk for the S.H.I.E.L.D. You can rest assured we'll find and dig him out of whatever hole he crawled in."
Just as the director Fury finished, Steve voiced his own concerns.
"Both of these tasks will require serious amounts of resources and time. Are you sure the three of us will be enough to help you deal with both threats? Do we have any other potential allies?"
Before Fury had a chance to reply agent Coulson addressed the Captain's concerns.
"There are other potential candidates for this mission but as of right now their recruitment is an ongoing process. But we can assure you that you will not be fighting alone."
"And speaking of fighting, what exactly will we do once we have located the tesseract's whereabouts?"
"We will move in, surround them and get the tesseract back," Fury explained. "Time is of the essence, but we can't abandon caution. This enemy is dangerous. I've seen the intruder's attack bisect a man like he was a sheet of paper, so I'd recommend avoid getting hit if at all possible."
"What kind of weapon was the enemy using?" Cap asked with furrowed brows.
Fury shook his head. "No idea, it must have been some advanced energy technology. I've never seen anything like it. So who's to say what kind of surprises might await us at the enemy's base once we locate them."
"Beside their weaponry there's another thing that concerns me." Black Widow began. "The enemy knew where we kept the tesseract, something only a small part of S.H.I.E.L.D knew about. But not only did they manage to locate it, the timing of their attack was perfect. Using the chaos caused by the tesseract's sudden outburst they managed to steal it from under our and Loki's noses. The only logical conclusion would be infiltration. They must have agents embedded deep in our organisation."
Fury nodded grimly.
"We came to the same conclusion. We've already started screening all our operatives but we don't even know what or who we're looking for."
"We tried using our databases to determine who was at the site during the incident." Agent Coulson continued where Fury left off. "And then checking if they're all accounted for. The idea was that whoever had infiltrated us used the chaos to return to their own organisation and as such would be presumed missing in action. However the number of casualties is quite high and few bodies could be recovered. As a result, the amount of potential suspects is too large to work with."
Overall, the news were less than encouraging. Nevertheless, the Earth's finest heroes were not that easy to discourage. They knew that a hard fight awaited them, perhaps the hardest one in their lives, and they were ready to do anything to emerge victorious.
After waiting a few moments to let the severity of the situation sink in Fury once again spoke up.
"Now that you all are intimately familiar with the shit that we're facing I'd recommend you to stay sharp at all times and be ready for action at a moment's notice. For now there isn't much you can do, but the moment we get some intel on either one of our problems I'm going to need you to be fully ready."
"Don't worry, director Fury," Steve, as always, was resolute and showed absolutely no hesitation. "We'll get the tesseract back, whatever the cost."
"And agent Barton too," Natasha added, looking no less determined.
The same could not be said about Banner, though. Compared to everyone gathered at the bridge he seemed and felt out of place. It was clear to everyone he really had no desire to spend more time onboard the hellicarrier than necessary. At the same time, he had an incentive to do his best to assist his new colleagues, as the sooner this whole matter was resolved the sooner he could leave this madhouse.
With the briefing complete agent Coulson turned to director Fury.
"Now that we're done here, I should go. I believe I've got business in New York."
"Yes, and tell that business to bring his metal ass here as soon as possible, without his usual hijinks."
"Will do, sir." Coulson replied before turning and leaving the bridge.
STARK Tower
"I was telling you Tony that inviting all sorts of journalists to the Tower just to stroke your own ego was a bad idea, but no, you had to boast to everyone about being the Iron Man."
"Now, come on Pepper, I never allowed any journalist anywhere past the first few floors. Besides, I always took precaution and kept a close eye on everyone coming in or out of the tower."
"Oh really?" Pepper picked up a small device lying on the table. "What's this then?"
Despite the fact that the question was clearly rhetorical, for a moment Tony wanted to turn on his smart ass mode and give some humorous reply but given how worked up Pepper was about it he decided that he still enjoyed living and kept his mouth shut for a moment. It's not that he could blame her for that reaction, it's not everyday you find out that the entire building you work in has been filled with listening devices by god knows who.
"Don't worry, Pepper. JARVIS is already looking for any remaining devices, as well as sorting through camera footage to find the ones responsible. I can guarantee you that the entire tower will be bugs-free by the evening."
Instead of replying Pepper let out a heavy sigh and sat down on a couch. Clearly his assurances did little to improve her mood.
It was not often that Tony and Pepper had serious fights. But then again, finding out that unknown people have been spying on you for an unspecified amount of time is sure to rattle anyone.
Before Tony had a chance to say something to dispel the awkward silence JARVIS's voice drew his attention.
"Mr. Stark, you have a visitor."
"Not now, JARVIS," the man replied. "Whoever it is, tell them I'm too busy right now."
"It is agent Coulson, sir, and I'm afraid he's already in the elevator and will arrive in approximately 20 seconds."
"What do I even keep you around for?" Sighing, Tony poured himself a glass of whiskey.
"Pour me some too." Pepper asked in a tired voice.
Tony complied and by the time agent Coulson stepped out of the elevator he was greeted with the sight of CEO of Stark Industries and his assistant drinking whiskey in an awkward silence.
"I hope I'm not interrupting," he said stepping out of the elevator.
"I don't believe you," Tony replied. "You have an uncanny talent to pick a perfect time to show up, you are doing it on purpose, I know."
"Hey Phil," Pepper greeted him. "I'd ask you to drink with us but something tells me you're here on business."
"That's correct."
With that he handed Tony the tablet computer he had carried under his arm.
"This is urgent, Mr, Stark. The Aveng-"
"Oh not that again."
"At least hear him out, Tony."
"There's nothing to hear out. Just a scrapped initiative, one that I thought I was even unfit for."
"There have been some unexpected developments Mr. Stark. It's an emergency now."
Seeing how serious Phil was Tony gave a dejected sigh and turned on the tablet, analysing its contents while Pepper was looking over his shoulder out of curiosity.
Even though he was sceptical at first Tony soon understood what the urgency was about. First some kind of alien appears on a S.H.I.E.L.D. base and runs off into the wild while the base itself is infiltrated by an unknown organisation that steals something important right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose.
Tony pauses for a second. 'Infiltrated by an unknown organisation' sounds quite similar to what he had experienced just recently. Of course it could all be just a coincidence but Tony knew better than to discard a possibility instantly, without analysing it first.
Looking at Pepper and seeing her concerned look it was clear to him that she had come to a similar conclusion.
"It seems it has got your attention." Coulson interrupts. Tony swore he could hear a tiniest note of smugness in his voice. "After you're done familiarising yourself with the intel I'd like you to come to the hellicarrier with me."
The urge to refuse was immense, but the way Pepper looked at him as well as his inner voice both told him that the only right option was to go along with agent Coulson.
"All right," he said. "Just let me get dressed first."
A/n: yes this is more of a set up chapter laying the groundwork for the action in the next one. Also I should apologize for the wait, life's been crazy. You won't have to wait that long for the next chapter.
I want to thank the people for leaving the reviews and letting me know their thoughts about the story. It really helps.
