Hearts of Avengers

by lyokoMARVELanime

Instead of Traverse Town, Sora lands in New York after Destiny Islands fell and just moments before The Breakout happens. One superhero team-up later, and the Keyblade Hero is now a member of the Avengers. It's the story of Kingdom Hearts with a marvel of a new spin. Just see how Sora and the Avengers will affect both of their adventures, now.

17. Widow's Sting

AN: Welcome back everyone, to another chapter of Hearts of Avengers! I suppose that technically speaking, this could be considered the first major story update of 2025.

Sora: What about that update you did for SLVR Chibi back in January?

AN: I said first major story update. SLVR Chibi is a comedy spin-off from it's main story, so it doesn't technically count in that regard. Either way, I'm actually pretty excited for this one, because I have been very eager to get this chapter posted.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, and since I know someone might ask in the reviews, I just want to go ahead and say, I saw the new Captain America movie, and I LOVED it! Like WOW! My boy Sam Wilson coming in with all the good stuff with this one. 10/10, highly recommend to anyone who's a true fan of Captain America, Sam Wilson, or even just Harrison Ford, because that man absolutely nailed every second he was on screen. Not to mention the big aerial fight Sam and the new Falcon had, I was like, OH SNAP! That's what I'm talking about! If this gets me flames or any comments about how I'm crazy for liking said movie, I don't care. I know what I like, and nothing anyone says can change my own opinion. Everyone's entitled to their own thoughts and opinions and you should not let others decide them for you.

Hawkeye: Wow, okay, did not expect for his fanboying moment over the new Captain America movie to go in that direction.

Riku: Hey, if it works, why not?

AN: Anyways, let's not keep everyone waiting any longer, shall we? We've got quite a few surprises in store for you all this chapter.

Yuffie: Somehow I doubt it's going to be anywhere as good as the moment when me and Sora end up...

AN: DAH! SPOILER! [hits the button for the first time in what seems like ages. Seriously, when's the last time we did this?]

Yuffie: Oopsie. [suddenly finds a rope wrapping around her leg before she's yanked off her feet and into the air by a fast moving plane] WAA-AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! GULP! I'm gonna hurl.

AN: Phew! That was close. Anyways, time for the annoucements and then, Avengers, to the chapter!...

If you haven't already, please check out our YouTube channel "Studio Fandom". It's the best place to get updates as to what I'm doing with my writing stuff at the time along with various other content. And if you want to look at some pretty cool artwork, we've also got a DeviantArt page now "studiofandom", so check that out too, when you get the chance.

Speaking of the YouTube channel, we're still looking for voice actors for the Remnant of the Key Reading Series videos. Not only that, but we're now looking for artists who might be interested in helping to create images for said videos as well. For more details on what to do to sign on and/or qualify, go check out episode 8 of Studio News for full details on the voice actor stuff. Or even check out the latest episode of Studio News, (that being Episode 12) for all the details on both the voice actor stuff and the artist stuff. I should mention now though, since I'm not sure if anyone's really been paying attention when I say it in the video, the artist thing is not a paying job, not because I can't afford it, but because I'm unable to pay you. If that's a problem, then I'm sorry. Otherwise, assuming you just create things like this just for the fun of it like I do, you know where to get the info.

I do not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or MARVEL franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

Chapter XVII

Hank and Janet's late night visit to Carol ended up being a lot more exciting than they had expected. The whole thing turned into an extremely close encounter with an alien race known as the Kree, and probably would have seen the end of all life on Earth were it not for the two size-changers, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor. A massive robot known as a Kree Sentry had landed on Earth and threatened to unleash untold destruction on the planet. Had it not been for the bravery of the Avengers and their unexpected ally, Captain Mar-Vell, the whole world would have ended up a barren, lifeless wasteland. The only downside was that Hank and Carol both got really badly hurt, but luckily the two would live to see another day. Carol's survival did come with the side effect of her gaining super powers, but it was a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

Not that any of this made Sora, Riku, or Yuffie any happier about missing the whole thing mind you. The team's first adventure fighting aliens, and all three of them had to miss out just because it was a school night. It was completely unfair if you asked any of them. Of course, Janet tried to argue and say it was completely fair after all the times she had missed out on going to another world with them, but Sora easily shot that down by pointing out he was still learning how to keep it from happening right away, so it was nowhere near being the same thing. Regardless of how childish the argument got, there was a much different issue that the Avengers had to deal with at the moment.

Ever since he had joined them, the Avengers knew trouble was likely to follow in Hawkeye's wake. His overall attitude on most things did little to discourage the idea too. Sure, he had softened up a little over time, but only by a small amount and part of that was no doubt due to one thing in particular: his on-going hunt for Black Widow. Now do not misunderstand; everyone knew he was going to keep chasing after Widow when he first joined, but they were all under the impression he was going to let at least some of his new teammates help out a little bit with his hunt. Instead, he normally went out on his own, be it to track down potential leads or even to investigate a last-known location. Sure, Sora, Yuffie, and Riku would sometimes join in, and the same went for Captain America, T'Challa, and even Spider-Man if the web-head happened to be in the neighborhood, but usually they were only able to do so at the last minute or after basically fighting to convince Clint into letting them help.

It had now gotten to the point where Clint was going so far as to interrupt meetings HYDRA was having with just about any potential business partner, including the likes of AIM. While it was commendable that Clint was so willing to face major players like Reaper and MODOK on his own, the fact his actions were now starting to interfere with some of SHIELD's operations in taking down HYDRA was making it a pretty big problem. So much of a problem that Clint's latest interruption had landed him and some of the other Avengers into a face-to-face meeting with Nick Fury on the Helicarrier. Of course, it was less of a meeting and more of Fury chewing out the former SHIELD agent while Iron Man and the others watched at this point.

"The last thing I need is you sticking your nose into a SHIELD operation, and if I recall correctly you quit," Fury snapped at Clint. "We have the HYDRA situation under control, or we did until you showed up."

"Under control? Is that supposed to be funny? If you've got things under control then where's Black Widow?" Clint demanded, clearly more than a little incensed by this whole thing. Not surprising given the last time he was involved with SHIELD they had branded him a traitor.

"More importantly, if it was such a big SHIELD operation, why did they wait to show up until after Hawkeye had beaten both HYDRA and AIM to the point where they were all running for the hills?" Riku quietly whispered to his friends. His reward for the comment was a sharp elbow from his best friend. "Ow! What? I'm not wrong!"

"I know that, but you still shouldn't be saying things like that about SHIELD in their own headquarters, let alone in the same room as Nick Fury. Literally everyone here could probably pick up on even the smallest of details or the quietest of whispers," Sora whispered back. Just because he did not want to sign up with SHIELD after arriving on this world did not mean he wanted to get on either theirs or Fury's bad side.

"Yes, we can, and I'd appreciate it if the two little island kids didn't stick their noses into things they don't know about, Keyblade wielders or not," Fury called out to the two, proving Sora's point with just that comment.

"Hey, they may be smart-mouthed brats, but they aren't stupid or wrong," Hawkeye picked up, though whether or not he was trying to come to Sora and Riku's defense at the same time it was hard to really know for sure. "You're tapped into every phone, satellite, and camera on the planet, and you still can't find Widow. Face it Fury, SHIELD is dropping the ball big time."

"Doesn't exactly help your case when the woman in question tricked you guys into arresting the wrong person so easily," Yuffie added on, earning her a glare from both Clint and Fury. "Hehe. Too soon?"

"This is why I hate kids," Fury muttered before returning his attention to Hawkeye. "Barton, you of all people should know how resourceful the Black Widow is. She was your partner."

"You think I forgot?" Clint shot back, only just barely noticing the looks Captain America, Black Panther, Sora, Riku, and Yuffie all exchanged with one another at Fury's reminder out of the corner of his eye.

Fury must have realized he had stepped onto a very sensitive land mine, because he quickly redirected things back onto the main reason why he had Coulson and Quartermain bring Barton here. "Leave Widow and HYDRA to SHIELD. If you Avengers want to go after supervillains, that's fine. If you want to battle it out with the Heartless, by all means, I'll clear out the area for you. But HYDRA is too complicated. You can't just take them on one at a time. Cut off one head, two more take its place. That's HYDRA."

"We know. We were literally just studying that in history class the other day. Along with how one of our teammates, Captain America, was largely responsible for taking down HYDRA back in the day. Wouldn't SHIELD benefit more from having us help out?" Riku interrupted again.

His comment earned him another look from Fury while Sora just sighed tiredly at his friend's need to challenge this particular authority figure. Where was this Riku when he was trying to convince Tony to let him fly the Quinjet? Before he could offer any kind of response to keep his best friend out of hot water, Yuffie raised her hand and asked, "Question! What if HYDRA started working with the Heartless? Or a possible HYDRA base was suddenly overrun by them? Wouldn't we need to go after them then?"

"If we learn HYDRA is foolish enough to try messing with those little beasts, then we'll give you a call. Otherwise, you stay out of it," Fury calmly told Yuffie, but anyone could tell there was an edge of annoyance underlying his tone.

"Right, because the Heartless are totally going to wait for you to make that discovery, let alone call us before they consume everyone there. Just like they did to most of my friends and comrades back home," Yuffie retorted, her normally cheerful face forming a full blown scowl.

Now it was Iron Man's turn to mediate before things escalated any further, but when he did step up to say something, it ended up being something none of them were expecting. "Okay, I'm horrified to say so, but I have to agree with Fury on this one."

"What?!" Sora, Riku, and Yuffie all gasped in disbelief.

"You've got to be kidding me," Hawkeye nearly shouted, looking like he was ready to start fighting Tony as well.

"Look, the Black Widow betrayed you. She sold you out. I get it. I've been there, but HYDRA is a quagmire," Tony tried to reason.

"Uh…it's a what?" Sora asked.

"A quagmire. It means a situation full of problems," T'Challa explained for Sora as simply as he could.

"Oh."

"Right, and while the Heartless would be a big reason for our resident Keyblade wielders to step up, if the Avengers go in all the way for anything more, it'll just make the situation worse," Iron Man continued on from there.

"Really? Did they teach you that in business school?" Hawkeye retorted to no one's surprise. Even after all this time, Clint still could barely see much more of his teammates beyond the surface level stuff. At least not until it was out in front of him for everyone to see.

"Ignoring that," Iron Man sighed tiredly, showcasing one of his few moments of maturity when he did. "Look, we've got our hands full as it is with the breakout alone, never mind everything involved with the Heartless. You have to look at the big picture. Not get caught up in revenge. Let it go, Clint."

Everyone was silent for several minutes, not wanting to speak with how tense things had suddenly become, until Clint gave his answer. "You need me to save the world, fine, I'll be there, but I don't need SHIELD for this and I don't need the Avengers. I'll find Widow on my own."

With that, Hawkeye shoved his way past Iron Man and stormed out. Sora, Riku, and Yuffie were just about to follow him when Tony called out. "Let him go, you three."

"What? Let him go?" Sora questioned in surprise.

"Yes. If Clint wants to handle this problem by himself, that's his choice, but the last thing I need is any of you getting caught up in his little revenge mission. Like Fury said, if the Heartless are ever involved in something HYDRA's doing, he'll give us a call, until then, stay away from anything involved with HYDRA. Understand?" Iron Man ordered.

"But aren't some of those HYDRA guys on our Most Wanted List?" Sora tried to point out, but Tony did not want to hear it.

"Sora, this is not up for debate. You might've handled some tough customers and bad guys, but HYDRA is an entirely different thing. They will more than likely try to kill you at the very least, and that's if you're lucky. Imagine what they would do to you three if they ever got their hands on you. Now, all three of you go back to the mansion, and leave anything HYDRA related alone," Tony ordered, this time more insistently.

Seeing that Tony was in no mood to hear any arguments, the three just nodded and slowly trudged off the bridge. Granted, two of them did so with angry grumbling, prompting Tony to sigh once again and mutter, "Teenagers. Well, at least none of them punched anyone."

"You just talking about the actual kids, or is Hawkeye included in that list?" Fury could not help but ask.

Tony's only reply was a simple, "Yes."

Neither of them noticed that Captain America and Black Panther had quietly slipped out of the room before the conversation with the kids, but then again it was not like either of them would have any reason to believe either of those two would do or say something to get the kids into trouble or Hawkeye to keep pursuing Black Widow.

---

"Hawkeye wait," Captain America called after the archer once he and Panther had caught up with him in the hallway, not knowing he was about to prove Tony wrong.

Clint did stop, but he was not too willing to listen to anything right now. "Oh, now you talk," he snarked upon turning to the other two. "Thanks for backing me up in there, team."

"Calm down for a minute, son. You're letting revenge blind you," Captain America started to say, but Clint interrupted before he could get any further than that.

"I can't believe you, of all people, are telling me not to go after HYDRA," Clint argued.

"You think that's what I'm telling you?" Steve demanded, surprising Hawkeye into silence so he could make his point. "What I'm saying is that if you take on HYDRA like this alone, you won't come back."

"I know how isolating mistrust is. I know that some battles must be fought alone, but it does not hurt to have backup," T'Challa chimed in, and they all knew he was speaking the truth. After all, it was not too long ago that he and his entire nation were keeping themselves closed off from the rest of the world. All the same, Clint was still surprised by what both of these two were clearly offering to do right now.

"You want to help? You know, would it have killed you two to say this while I was getting chewed out by Fury and Stark in there, and not just leave it to the brats?" Hawkeye questioned in disbelief.

"Hey! We're standing right here," Yuffie called out, prompting all three men to turn and see her, Sora, and Riku all standing at the end of the hall.

"And like I said back on Spira, no Destiny Islander worth their salt would ever go back on their word. I said we'd help you find Widow back when you first joined, and I'm sticking to that promise," Sora reminded him.

Clint appreciated that, but he still had to point out a small flaw in Sora's logic. "Sora, no offense…"

"That'd be a first," Riku grumbled.

"…But unless your Keyblade has suddenly given you an ability that would help you find people in an instant or something, how are you gonna help me with this?" Hawkeye finished, largely ignoring Riku's comment.

"Hey, I've got plenty of skills and abilities aside from the ones I get from the Keyblade ya know," Sora insisted.

"Yeah? Like what? Fishing? Sailing? And what about Yuffie? She might be decent in a fight, but finding clues or people? Not so much," Hawkeye quipped in response.

Yuffie and Riku were both about to offer up a retort to Clint's insults when someone else joined the conversation. "Still the same old charmer aren't you, Hawkeye?" a beautiful masked woman with long blonde hair and clad in a dark blue and white outfit quipped as she approached the group with an easy-going smirk. "Nice to see you haven't matured at all since you left SHIELD."

"I uh—I—do I—do I know…?" Hawkeye stuttered, clearly enchanted by this vision of beauty that had just walked up to him. It was only when she stood right in front of him with the same smile still in place and blue eyes sparkling with mischief that he finally recognized her. "Morse? What's with the get up, Bobbi?"

"I took your place on SHIELD's special ops team, codename Mockingbird," Bobbi Morse proudly replied. "I've come a long way since the days of driving you around."

"That was, like, three months ago," Hawkeye pointed out.

"Ahem. Clint, are you gonna introduce us or just keep us guessing as to who this very lovely lady is?" Riku interrupted, albeit with a slightly joking tone.

"Way too old for you, kid," Mockingbird joked back in reply before stepping over to Sora and holding out a hand for him to shake. "Like we were saying, I'm Barbara Morse. Bobbi to my friends. Codename Mockingbird. I was part of the special ops team that acted as support for Clint and Widow back when they were on SHIELD's payroll. After Widow framed him though, they needed someone to fill the gap, and since I already had some of the basic training, I was fast tracked through the rest of the program for field action."

Sora was a little wary at first, mainly because of his experience with most SHIELD agents so far, but only for a few seconds. He could tell just by looking at her, Bobbi was more than alright. "Nice to meet you, Mockingbird. I'm…"

"Sora, the Keyblade Samurai. I know. I've read your file, and those of your teammates and friends," Bobbi finished for him. She spared a quick look at Riku before adding. "All of them, except for him, but only because he's so new to the scene."

"SHIELD has a file on all of us?" Yuffie asked in surprise.

"SHIELD has a file on everyone of interest, especially in the case of anyone with super powers. You should see what they've got on your web-slinging pals," another person replied for Mockingbird, only this time around most of the group knew she was.

"Hey Daisy! Long time no see," Sora waved as the young SHIELD agent joined up with them.

"I'll say. We haven't heard anything from you since the whole Gamma World incident," Yuffie added on as she shook hands with Daisy.

"Yeah, I would've called or texted, but I got a bit tied up working some cases with Coulson and the rest of his team. That and I wasn't sure if SHIELD higher ups would've had a problem with me having a social life with our newest superheroes," Daisy partially joked back in reply. Her gaze then found its way to the silver haired boy who seemed completely transfixed on her with wide eyes and a slight tinge of red on his face. "I don't think we've met yet. Daisy Johnson, codename Quake. And you are…?"

"Uh…Um…I-I…uh, my-my name's…" Riku sputtered, surprising Sora quite a bit. Normally his best friend had no trouble talking to anyone, and never once got flustered over anything, and yet here he was barely able to string two words together while his face became redder and redder by the minute.

"Are you always this articulate?" Daisy could not help but tease.

"Riku! I mean—ahem. My name's Riku Yoake. No hero name or whatever you prefer to call it yet. I'm still working on ideas," the silver haired boy finally managed to say.

Judging by the growing smirk on Sora's face, everyone had a hunch that Riku would be the subject of relentless teasing pretty soon if not in the near future. Sure, Sora had a hunch something like this might happen after their trip to Agrabah, but he had no idea it would be to this level of extreme. Oh the amount of payback he could get for all the times Riku had teased him about Kairi brought a wide grin to Sora's face, and from the way she was smirking, Yuffie was just as eager to join in on that teasing purely for her own entertainment.

Hawkeye on the other hand was a little more interested in why both Daisy and Bobbi had just joined their conversation out of nowhere like this. "So what exactly are you two doing here?" Hawkeye asked of Bobbi. "I get the feeling it's not a coincidence that you just happened to be on the Helicarrier at this exact moment."

That wiped the smiles off both Mockingbird and Quake's faces as the former replied, "We heard you're going after Widow. I want in."

"We both do," Daisy added on. "She didn't just betray you, Clint. She betrayed her whole team, and all of SHIELD."

The kids did not seem to see any kind of problem with having a few extra hands in tracking down Widow, but from the looks they exchanged, it was clear that Captain America and Black Panther both sensed there was a bit more to the story than this. Whether or not Hawkeye had picked up on this though was up for debate. Realizing this, Captain America started to step up and cautioned, "Hawkeye, I don't think that's a good…"

"You're in," Clint agreed, immediately shaking hands with Mockingbird and then leading the way to the hangar where the Quinjet was waiting for them.

"…idea," Captain America half-heartedly finished.

As they all watched Hawkeye leave, Yuffie figured out what Cap had been likely trying to tell him, and turned to Daisy so she could ask, "So how do we know you're not going to rat us out to Fury?"

"Technically, if I wanted to stop you, Sora, and Riku, I'd have to rat you out to Stark. Or did I imagine things when he specifically told you not to go after HYDRA?" Daisy pointed out, surprising the others when she said that. "I may have hacked into the bridge's security systems so I could hear and see everything being said in that meeting. It's not every day you see a bunch of famous superheroes coming onto the Helicarrier for a meeting with Director Fury, you know."

"Hold on. If Tony said you three shouldn't be doing this then…"Captain America started to say, but Sora interrupted.

"Cap, I don't want to go against orders, but the Heartless could show up anywhere at any time. Plus, Zemo had control of the Heartless back when he attacked us at the mansion, and unless I missed something in history class, he was part of HYDRA for years. Who's to say he hadn't gone back since the breakout, or even when he might have gone back?" Sora insisted, making several solid points in his and his friends' favor. "We have to make sure HYDRA doesn't have any connection or even an idea about the Heartless."

"Yeah, a lot of us learned the hard way what happens when you go messing around and experimenting with those little monsters," Yuffie added on, subtly reminding them all of the fact she was from the same world as Ansem the Wise, the man who had been doing research on the Heartless before his world fell.

"Besides, if all goes well, we won't have to get involved. We'll just stay in the Quinjet the entire time, and if Tony asks, we just happened to be on the jet when you guys left because one of you promised to let us practice flying it or something," Riku suggested.

Seeing there was likely not going to be anyway they could dissuade the kids from coming along, T'Challa and Steve both shrugged in defeat before turning to the last person they were concerned about. "And what about you, Agent Johnson?"

"Technically speaking, only Mockingbird was supposed to tag along to keep an eye on you guys. I was just here to get some rest after my last mission with May and happened to overhear what was going on," Daisy revealed to them with an easy-going smile. This seemed to worry Steve a little more, so she added on, "Besides, this wouldn't be the first time I went and did my own thing without approval from SHIELD. After all, part of the reason they recruited me was because I kept hacking into their systems."

"You hacked into SHIELD and they recruited you to work for them?" Sora asked in surprise.

"I hacked into SHIELD several times, and didn't get caught until the last time. They tend to prefer putting people capable of that on their payroll more than into a box," Daisy shrugged.

"I vote she comes with us," Riku quickly insisted, drawing surprised glances from everyone. "What? She seems more than capable of keeping up with us. And cool enough."

"You've never even seen her in action before," Sora tried to point out, but Riku was already leading Daisy away.

As the others watched them go, Panther could not help but joke, "At least we know Hawkeye and Riku's weakness now if they were to turn on us."

"Honestly, this is the first time I've ever seen Riku act like this. Even when he thought he was crushing on Kairi for a bit, he was still his usual cocky, confident self," Sora admitted.

"That's how you know someone's caught feelings," Yuffie sang as she skipped after the others.

Not really seeing any point in voicing any opinions about Yuffie's last comment, the other three just shrugged to one another and proceeded to follow their teammates and their new tagalongs to the Quinjet.

---

A couple hours later, the impromptu team of heroes was flying over New York in the Quinjet with Black Panther manning the controls. Sora was currently in the copilot seat, but still pouted at the fact he had been denied yet another chance to fly the jet. Sure, he understood it was important for an experienced pilot to be at the helm right now, but how was he ever supposed to get any experience if he never got the chance to try? That was a point he was going to have to remember for a future argument. Right now, he needed to pay attention to the matter of conversation that had filled the cabin.

Mockingbird had quickly taken point as she briefed the team on what intel that she could provide them. "SHIELD has pinpointed several HYDRA facilities in the city. We know the locations of multiple safe houses, storage facilities, and—"

"You can stop now, ma'am," Captain America interrupted.

"What?" Mockingbird asked, both annoyed and confused by this sudden turn.

"We know Fury sent to keep us busy; to get us out of the way," Hawkeye revealed, prompting Mockingbird to turn a quick glare on her younger coworker. "Hey, don't go giving Daisy any grief. We knew even before she said something to us. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out anymore than the fact she's mainly here to keep the kids entertained."

"She is?" Sora, Yuffie, and Riku all gasped in surprise, sending Daisy slightly hurt looks at this revelation.

Daisy had the decency to bow her head slightly in shame before she shrugged and said, "It wasn't anything personal, you guys, but you are starting to make a few of the bosses a little nervous with some of your actions lately. At least in regards to the ones you've taken to help Hawkeye."

"Hey, don't sweat it, kid. We all know you two are just doing your jobs," Clint reassured her. He then turned back to his old pilot and added, "More importantly, we're not looking for scraps, Birdie. We're after the Black Widow, and to get to Widow, we need to get to Strucker."

This surprised Daisy a little bit, but Mockingbird still kept an even gaze on Hawkeye, doing her best to hide her confusion over one thing. "If you knew, why'd you let us come along?"

"Eh, the costume didn't hurt," Hawkeye quipped shamelessly, keeping his gaze on Bobbi as he did.

This made Bobbi scowl a bit at Clint, being more than familiar with his antics, but before she or Daisy could call him out on it, a sudden beeping grabbed everyone's attention. "I have the signal," Black Panther announced.

"What signal?" Daisy asked.

"The one from the tracer I planted on the Grim Reaper earlier, when I was sticking my nose into SHIELD business," Hawkeye revealed.

"Huh. And here I was thinking you just dropped down to beat the information out of those guys while humiliating the oversized noggin that leads AIM," Yuffie joked, earning some chuckles from the other teens in the room.

Clint could not help letting out a smirk of his own in response to Yuffie's joke, but he got serious again when he turned to Mockingbird. "Your choice, Bobbi," he said. "You want to fight the good fight or be a SHIELD stooge?"

Bobbi glanced away for a second, but in the end, she did nod in agreement and said, "Yeah, okay. Let's go."

Clint nodded back before turning to Daisy, but before he could even pose the question she just smirked and said, "Hey, I was all for fighting the good fight even before I joined SHIELD. It just so happened that doing so lined up with that at the time."

"And now?" Riku asked.

"Well there does seem to be a few more reasons helping you guys out fits the criteria more than trusting in the system," Daisy admitted.

That was all Clint needed to hear, but he still had some conditions he needed to lay down for the kids. "Hey listen, I know you guys want to keep your promise or whatever, but unless any of your creepy-crawly friends show their faces down there at any point, I want you three to stay here in the Quinjet. No point in getting you into bigger trouble with Stark than you're likely already going to be just from coming with us."

"Seriously? We're not children, you know," Sora tried to argue.

"You're right. You're teenagers, and that's even worse," Clint joked. He got serious again quickly enough. "Just trust me on this, okay? I'm sure if the Heartless do have some connection to HYDRA this will bring it to light, but if it turns out they don't, I'd rather avoid putting you guys in the doghouse for no reason. Better you guys are just the wheelmen on this job than getting directly involved."

Seeing Clint's reasoning and not wanting to get Tony too upset with their defiance, Sora, Riku, and Yuffie all nodded in agreement. Though Sora did have one last parting shot to give as Black Panther turned the jet in the direction the tracker signal was coming from. "I'm pretty sure wheelmen are supposed to actually be driving, you know."

"Let it go, Sora," Riku and Yuffie chorused at once.

---

It is not uncommon for villains to secretly meet up at abandoned locations, even in the case of former military bases. Though for HYDRA, there was an extra special element of rendezvousing with their agents at a base that was once used by their enemies. Tonight was no exception as several HYDRA troopers were loading up a ship while awaiting the arrival of Reaper. They did not have to wait for much longer, as a black limo pulled into one of the many hangars at the perimeter of the base just when they were close to loading up the last of their supplies.

"I've met with the fat man. He won't stand in our way," Reaper reported to whoever was on the other end of his current phone call as he exited the limo. Most of the agents were wondering just what fat man he was referring to, but they had to figure it was the latest New York crime boss who had recently risen to power in the Big Apple's underworld. Any further contemplation on the matter was put on hold when several arrows suddenly struck the back of Reaper's limo, causing it to explode seconds after.

As a few agents moved to assist Reaper back onto his feet, the others all turned to see Hawkeye soaring in on his Sky-Cycle with a smug smirk on his face as he quipped, "Miss me?"

Reaper could only chuckle at the archer's reappearance before him. "I've never met a man so tired of being alive."

The HYDRA agents took this as their cue to attack. Too bad for them Hawkeye was not alone this time, as Mockingbird made quite clear when she swooped down and knocked out two agents with ease. Upon dismounting from his bike, Hawkeye let loose several shock arrows in order to down some more agents, opening up an easy path for Mockingbird to sweep away a few more agents with her staff. The two then had a clear path for Reaper, and Hawkeye made sure it stayed that way by zapping another pair of agents with two more shock arrows. Mockingbird immediately swung at Reaper with her staff, pushing him back a little, and when he tried to slice her weapon in two, she immediately split it apart into two smaller staves so she could land a hard blow to either side of his head.

The two were more than prepared to knock Reaper out for good, or at least long enough to pull whatever info they needed out of him when a sudden rain of gunfire alerted them to more HYDRA agents arriving. Oddly enough, only a few were actually shooting at them. The others seemed preoccupied with something in one of the crates they had been loading onto their ship, but Hawkeye and Mockingbird were not too concerned about that at the moment.

"You take Mister Happy. I'll handle these guys," Mockingbird told her old teammate as she reconnected her two staves into one before pole vaulting right into the middle of the agents that had been firing at them. She wasted no time in dispatching the nearest of the shooters before spinning around to knock out a few more.

Seeing as she had things under control, Hawkeye did as instructed and engaged Reaper directly. His first few arrows ended up being sliced in two by Reaper, and his bow soon followed after, but contrary to popular belief, Clint was in fact more than capable of handling a fight without his primary weapon. Reaper found this out the hard way when Clint managed to duck away from the next swing of his scythe and then landed a pair of blows right into his front before having to leap back again. Using the time he had bought himself, Clint reached back to his quiver and easily removed one of the heads of his arrows so he could throw it at Reaper. When the arrow head connected with his scythe arm, Reaper was hit with an electric shock that left him disoriented enough for Clint to kick him back again. He did not let that stand for long though, because the HYDRA enforcer was quick to reengage Clint again, but Hawkeye was careful in keeping a few moves ahead of his opponent.

What Clint did not expect was for something else to attack him from behind, or for said something to do so with some really nasty claws. When the slash attack had struck, he could not help but cry out in pain, and his moment of pause to see what had hit him ended up being just what Reaper needed to finally land a blow on Hawkeye. Crashing into the crates behind him only added to the pain he was currently having to shrug off, but it did allow Hawkeye to see just what it was that had hit him. Much to his surprise, it was a single Soldier Heartless, and it was soon joined by more of its buddies, along with a few Shadows and Armored Knights. Glancing over to where Mockingbird's fight was still going on, Clint saw a few Neo Shadows and Wizards, and he knew that they would not be able to handle both the HYDRA stooges and the Heartless. Much as he did not want to, there was only thing to do in this situation.

Rolling away from Reaper and the Soldiers' next attacks, Hawkeye immediately retrieved his Avengers ID card, tapped the call button, and said, "Hey kid. If you still want to help out, we've got a few Heartless down here that need some playmates."

The results were instantaneous, because one flash of light later, and Sora, Riku, Yuffie, and Quake had all arrived on the scene and began moving to engage the Heartless. Riku and Daisy put most of their focus on assisting Mockingbird, while Yuffie and Sora backed up Hawkeye by wiping out the Shadows and Soldiers that were trying to shred him to pieces. As this went on, Reaper quickly noticed how easily the two boys were dispatching the shadowy creatures, and could only smirk as a new idea came to him.

"Looks like we've got some new people of interest to acquire," Reaper noted to the nearest HYDRA agent, who immediately nodded in understanding. The next thing anyone knew, Sora and Riku were the focus of both the Heartless and the HYDRA agents.

Quake managed to blast a few back before they could get to close to Riku, but doing so ended up leaving her open for some agents to tackle her from behind and then pin her down long enough for someone to pry her gauntlets off of her. Seeing her friend in trouble prompted Yuffie to rush to the rescue, but she was quickly subdued as well along with Mockingbird afterwards.

"Hawkeye. Hawkeye!" Mockingbird called out, only to gasp in shock at seeing Clint had been knocked out by someone in all the chaos, leaving only Riku and Sora to fend for themselves.

Thankfully, the two best friends were more than capable of holding their own, and easily dispatched anyone who tried to take them down, be they Heartless or HYDRA. Sora would set up some Wizards for Riku to slash in half, just before Riku would blast some Shadows and Neo Shadows with fire magic so that Sora would have cover to cut them down. When some HYDRA goons tried to grab Sora from behind he immediately ducked and rolled away, letting Riku leap over him to kick them down while he hacked apart the rifles being used by the agents that had previously been behind his best friend.

This could have gone on for a bit longer had Daisy and Yuffie not suddenly let out pained grunts, prompting them to turn and see some agents had grabbed both girls by the hair and was now pointing a blaster at their heads. "Be smart, kids," Reaper ordered the boys. "Surrender yourselves or watch us blow their heads off."

"Don't listen to him, guys. Keep fighting," Yuffie insisted, only to be yanked up a little more roughly by the agent holding her.

Feeling they had no other choice, Sora and Riku both dismissed their Keyblades and raised their hands up in surrender, allowing another pair of HYDRA agents to knock them both out with the butts of their rifles. Reaper could only grin at the good fortune that had fallen into his lap. "Must be my lucky day. We've caught some Avengers, including the boys with the special weapons. And it looks like they're especially talented at dealing with our new pets. Put them all on the transport. Baron Strucker's gonna enjoy this."

As Reaper's sinister laughter echoed across the former military base, the agents easily loaded up all six of the heroes while taking extra special care to ensure they were all completely restrained and disarmed. They even went so far as to make sure that Sora and Riku's shackles covered their hands so they would not be able to properly summon their Keyblades. Before long, they were all flown out of the base on a HYDRA transport heading for parts unknown. What they did not know was that the Quinjet had been hovering nearby in stealth mode, or that Captain America and Black Panther were maintaining a constant watch on every tracking method their teammates currently had in place at the moment as the ship flew away.

"They're in," Captain America reported as he steered the Quinjet onto a pursuit course, making sure to keep enough distance between them and the HYDRA ship to avoid being detected.

"Yes, and with more than just who we were hoping for," Black Panther noted aloud.

"That was a given even before the kids had joined the fight," Captain America pointed out. "Mockingbird wasn't supposed to be part of this, let alone Quake."

"Regardless, Hawkeye's plan is proving sound. They are all more valuable to HYDRA alive…for now," Black Panther pointed out.

"Still, I don't want to imagine what they might do to Sora and Riku after seeing what they could do to the Heartless," Captain America sighed worriedly.

"From what we observed, they may be safer than Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Quake, or Yuffie. Unless you believe they would harm the boys to get whatever they want from them," Black Panther tried to assure his friend.

"The old HYDRA would do anything to get what they want, and from what I've seen and heard, there are even fewer lows they would sink to now. I have little doubt Clint, Yuffie, and the boys will be able to handle themselves, but I am a little more worried about Mockingbird and Quake," Captain America admitted. When Black Panther looked at him in surprise, Cap could only smile as he said, "They just seemed like nice ladies."

---

"…So the guy says, 'I don't know, but his face rings a bell,'" Mockingbird smirked as she finished a story that had all the HYDRA soldiers guarding them laughing the whole time. Of course, getting them eating out of the palm of her hand was only step one, and she was sure she had enough to go for step two as she fingered the collar they had strapped onto her neck. "Man, this collar really hurts. You think you can just loosen it a bit? I mean, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

The guards could not help but exchange some looks. They had to admit she had a point. After all, Mockingbird and the other heroes were all pretty heavily chained up, so it made the collar seem a little unnecessary. Add in the fact they were pretty high up in the air and flying at cruising speeds by now, and it did seem a little silly to think she could go anywhere even if she did get loose. Plus they had to be close to HYDRA Island by now, or at least close enough to where someone would be able to shoot her if she did get out, so what harm could it really do to loosen her collar a bit.

One of their guards was just reaching for the collar to grant Bobbi's request when the door opened to admit Reaper into the room. "Don't," was the only word he had to say to stop the guard dead in his tracks. He then looked at Mockingbird and snarled, "And if you don't keep your mouth shut, I'll shut it permanently."

Reaper spared another cross look at the guard who almost loosened the SHIELD agent's restraints before he turned to lead everyone out of the holding area, leaving Mockingbird with her fellow captives for the time being. "Huh, I'm impressed," Hawkeye admitted. "That was a good joke."

"Thanks," Mockingbird nodded, knowing he meant a bit more than what he actually said. All the same, she had to point out one of the biggest flaws in Clint's plan. "You know, this is a pretty big gamble even with your Avenger pals tracking us."

"So why'd you come?" Clint posited in response.

"Hmm, the costume had a lot to do with it," Bobbi easily quipped back with a sly smile, though something about the look in her eyes made Clint's smirk slowly ease its way into something a little softer. At least until someone interrupted the moment he and Bobbi were sharing.

"Hey guys. We're still here, you know. Is this really the time for you two to be making goo-goo eyes at each other?" Yuffie called out from where she had been seated.

"What?! We're not doing that!" Hawkeye and Mockingbird both denied at the same time, only to spare each other a brief glance before looking away again, even as their faces turned redder and redder.

"Aw, Yuffie! Why'd you have to ruin it? I could've gotten so much blackmail if they kept it up for just a few more seconds," Daisy playfully complained.

"Oh you wish," Bobbi scoffed. "Like you actually have anything that would prove something like what Rěnzhě was implying."

While Yuffie muttered something about how it seemed like that was likely going to end up being her official codename, Daisy just quietly smirked back at Bobbi in response, not knowing her silent retort had left someone a little more impressed and feeling a bit more guilty. "I'm just sorry we got you guys dragged into this," Riku told her.

"Hey we volunteered. Besides, if I hadn't been there you would've ended up full of holes or worse," Daisy pointed out to him.

"Eh, I coulda handled them," Riku brushed off. "Maybe you didn't hear, but I stopped a small invasion of Heartless in New York just a few weeks ago."

"Um, what do you mean you stopped it? You didn't even show up until the very last second when the fight was practically over," Sora reminded his best friend, knowing Riku was talking about the incident the Masters of Evil had created to distract him from their attack on Avengers Mansion.

"Sora, you guys were just barely holding on until I showed up, and then afterwards, they all practically ran for the hills," Riku boasted, making Sora shake his head in tired disbelief.

Sora ended up refocusing again afterwards. "More importantly, are you gonna be okay when we do make our escape, Daisy? I mean, they took away your gauntlets so…"

"Hey, I'm an agent of SHIELD, remember? I'm a lot more than just some fancy tech," Daisy assured him. "If anything we should be worried about you and Riku. You can't exactly summon your Keyblades with your hands covered up like that. And even then, they took all of your toys too."

Sora and Riku could only glare at the shackles covering both their hands upon receiving Daisy's reminder. Say what you would, but those HYDRA creeps made sure the boys were stripped of anything they could have used to help in their escape attempt, even going so far as to confiscate their helmets and gauntlets. Still, they did not seem all that worried, and Daisy could not help but wonder if they really had that much faith in their friends, if it was confidence in their own abilities, or if it was just something else. Whatever the case, she found it pretty easy to relax knowing these two were still keeping their cool.

---

What the young heroes did not know was that HYDRA had a few tricks up their sleeves to throw a wrench into the plan, including a cloaking device on the ship transporting them to whatever base they were flying to. The second it activated, T'Challa and Steve lost sight of it completely. Not that either of them were too worried; they still had a few other methods of tracking their friends' location. At least they thought they did, until T'Challa checked the scanners for said methods and let out a frustrated hum.

"Is everything okay?" Steve had to ask.

"The Reaper's tracking signal has stopped transmitting. We have now lost radar and visual on the HYDRA ship. And all of our friends' ID cards," T'Challa reported.

Steve did not like the sound of that at all. "Keep trying to get those signals back while I point us in the last known direction they were headed in. We've got to find them."

"And if we cannot reestablish contact with any of them?" T'Challa asked.

Steve only hesitated for a moment, but only because he knew what their only other option would mean if they used it. "We're going to have to call Tony."

---

Out in the middle of the ocean sat HYDRA Island, the central base for all of the terrorist organization's operations. It was from here that Baron Strucker and others before him had commanded the organization ever since it's resurrection after World War II. Many of HYDRA best operatives and leaders worked out of this location, and just as many of their plans and experiments were formulated here as well. Of course, like any other organization, there were the more tedious and mundane tasks that needed to be carried out, and one such task was being dealt with in Baron Strucker's throne room at this very moment, and after the little scene Zemo made when he came into the base, Strucker was hoping for something good to come of this.

"Report," Strucker commanded of his lieutenants.

"I've made contact with the Yashida clan in Japan, run by a man named Gorgon. They seemed open to negotiation," Madame Viper informed her leader.

"I have begun talks with Count Nefaria and his Maggia, as well as the industrialist Alexander Lukin, who has strong ties to the Russian underworld. Both are eager to keep peace with HYDRA," Black Widow quickly added on afterwards as she made her grand entrance.

"Of course they are," Viper scoffed at the redhead. "Word spreads of HYDRA's power, and when AIM finishes construction of—."

"Enough!" Strucker interrupted before Viper could finish. Clearly he did not want anyone talking about his secret project with AIM so openly just yet. "What of the creatures that have been appearing since the breakout? These so-called…Heartless."

"We've learned little more about them since their first appearance," Viper reported. "They do not seem to have any pattern to their appearances, and clearly act with a mindset similar to a basic animal."

"The most only other thing we've learned is that they typically appear wherever the Avengers' youngest member is, and that there does seem to be a select few who are able to control and even summon them," Widow added on, using one of her bracelets to display images of Sora battling the Heartless and of Night Hunter and Enchantress summoning them.

Strucker silently studied the images for a brief spell before stating, "We must find out how they are controlling and summoning these beasts. With them in our control, HYDRA would have easy access to an endless army." Just then the doors open to allow Reaper and his party to enter, and they were dragging six chained up individuals behind them with sacks over their heads. "Reaper. You've returned."

Reaper merely nodded to his boss before his troops forced the prisoners to their knees with a quick tug on their chains. "Would you like the good news first or the bad?" he asked Strucker. Strucker remained silent and that was all the answer Reaper needed. "The bad news is that MODOC wants more money, and he's insisting that AIM will have no business in helping us study the Heartless." Reaper then turned to signal the guards to remove the prisoners' hoods, allowing a gagged Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Sora, Riku, Yuffie, and Daisy to all finally get a good look at their surroundings, even as Reaper finished his report. "The good news is that HYDRA's captured some Avengers."

For some reason, Sora could swear he saw Widow's eyes widen by a small fraction when she realized he and Clint had both become prisoners of HYDRA, but he was more concerned about how Reaper mentioned HYDRA was studying the Heartless. The same could be said for Yuffie, given how she was now struggling to say something even through the duck tape they had placed on her mouth, but they put all of that aside when Strucker stood up from his throne and moved to stand before Hawkeye with his demonic, red claw already starting to glow.

"The world will know HYDRA's power," Strucker decreed. "They will know that not even the Avengers can stand against us."

To his credit, Hawkeye did not flinch even in the slightest as Strucker's claw hovered before his face, and he was more than determined to keep that confidence for as long as he could. Just when Strucker was about to fully grab onto him with the Satan's Claw though, Viper stepped in to stop him. "Baron, having even just one Avenger as a captive could be…useful, even more so with multiple. A bargaining chip if we were ever to need it. More to the point, the children have been sighted around these Heartless quite a few times now, as Black Widow previously stated. They may know something useful about them."

"Oh, they're more useful than that," Reaper revealed, now grabbing everyone's attention. "When we were forced to let some of the Heartless we captured loose, the boys somehow managed to destroy them. Not just disperse for a few seconds, but completely destroy them, and in spite of that the Heartless focused on them more than any of the others. Seems pretty interesting if you ask me."

"All the more reason to consider the benefits of keeping them alive. For now at least," Viper reasoned.

Hearing all of what was just said made the heroes narrow their eyes at both Widow and the other villains a bit more, already having a hunch as to where the latter point seemed to be going, and unfortunately, their hunch proved correct. Strucker powered down his claw and then ordered, "Take them to the dungeons. Except for the Keyblade Samurai. Take him to the lab. He has been sighted battling the Heartless longer than the others, so he will be the first subject we question and test."

Riku and Yuffie immediately started struggling a little more against their restraints and captors as Sora was separated from their group, but their efforts were ultimately futile in preventing their friend from being dragged away. All the while, no one seemed to notice how Widow was watching both departures with a very measured gaze. What she was thinking only one person could possibly know, and she had no intention of sharing with anyone right this second. The only problem was, if what she was planning had any chance of working, she would likely have to take a very big gamble.

---

Despite their best efforts, Captain America and Black Panther were unable to find their friends on their own. Even after flying around for a few hours and then circling back to where they had first lost the signal so they could start a grid search, they had no luck in reacquiring the tracking data from any of the devices they were using to follow their path. So with little other options, they put in a call to the mansion so they could inform the rest of the team of the situation. All things considered, Tony was taking the news pretty well.

"You LOST Hawkeye?! AND THE KIDS?!" Iron Man angrily shouted, making Hank wince a little from the volume of his voice. It did not help the size-changing scientist had been sitting right next to Tony when he said that.

Still, in an effort to keep things both professional and peaceful, Hank quickly gave a report on their own attempts at locating the missing heroes. "We're not picking up anything, Cap. I'll expand the satellite view."

"I can't believe you two were helping him. Hell, I can't believe you let the kids help him, even after I told them not to," Tony scolded, clearly not willing to let this point fly past without a few more words. "I told Hawkeye to let it go, and for the kids to stay away from HYDRA. Maybe you remember that?"

As much as he hated to admit it, Hank did think Tony had a point. While T'Challa was still having some trouble with following orders and communicating with his teammates, it was very unlike Steve to go against orders like this, so he was a little curious as to what explanation the captain might have.

"In regards to Hawkeye, it sounded more like a suggestion than an order," Captain America shrugged. "And as I recall, you told the kids to only get involved with anything related to HYDRA if the Heartless appeared, and along with the reports from Clint, the Quinjet and the kids' own equipment show clear signs of them being there, so…"

"Then why did you let all of the kids go down there? Why not just Sora or Riku? Surely there was no need to send all of them," Hank countered.

"We didn't know that for sure, and Sora has stated in the past that any battle with the Heartless is much easier when you have someone to assist you. Since Hawkeye and Mockingbird were more focused on HYDRA, it only made sense to send Riku and Yuffie with him, along with Agent Johnson," Captain America explained.

Tony was big enough to admit Steve had a point there and the scans he had just pulled off the Quinjet along with the last scans he found from Sora and Riku's helmets did confirm a Heartless presence during the fight, but that did not make any of this okay. Just when he was about to say as much, T'Challa cut in with his own two cents. "Wakandan elders teach that the line between revenge and avenger is easily blurred. And Sora had given Hawkeye his word that he would assist in his hunt for Black Widow. I would find it more worrisome if he broke his promise, or if he were to continue assisting Hawkeye either alone or without any of our knowledge."

Tony did not have any reasonable argument for that, other than the obvious one about how much trouble this would likely land both the kids and their team into not just with HYDRA but with Fury as well, but somehow he doubted that anyone would be too willing to listen to him right now. Even so, he also did not want to leave any of his team to fend for themselves in such a dire situation, so he quickly grabbed a seat so he could help Hank with the search effort. Not that it stopped him from grumbling, "You see what I have to put up with?"

Hank said nothing in response, but he got the feeling he did not need to say anything. Tony most likely already knew his thoughts on that last comment.

---

Even though his hands were no longer covered, the Keyblade still would not be of any help to Sora. Not while he was strapped down to the lab table those HYDRA goons had left him on after dragging him into this lab. Glancing around the room, Sora could see he was not the only thing of interest HYDRA was studying here, at least when it came to anything involving the Heartless. A number of different Heartless were locked up in various containers like one would some lab animals, and in a few tubes he could swear there was the shadowy essence or remains of a Heartless that had recently been either dispersed or destroyed. He was not sure which was more worrisome, but Sora did know one thing for certain: he had to get out of here and get rid of everything Heartless related.

Of course, there were a few problems with doing those things. First and foremost was that there was bound to be a lot of computer data on the Heartless, and while he was getting better, Sora was still pretty bad with anything involving computers. Or at least, anything beyond the basic stuff, so hacking in and finding specific files was going to be a challenge. The second thing was he had no idea if this was the only lab HYDRA had doing research on all things Heartless. If there were other labs, then he would most likely need to go and repeat the process in each one of those as well, and there was no way he could do that alone before someone figured out what he was up to. The biggest problem though, and the most important one right now was figuring out how he was even going to break out. He could not use the Keyblade while tied down like this, and he was not too eager to try using any magic to break out either. Sure, he had gotten better, but most of his best tricks still required use of the Keyblade, and even then he could just barely get what he wanted to happen a lot of times. Add in how thorough HYDRA was in removing his equipment, and Sora was running pretty short on escape plan ideas.

He had just been brainstorming a way to get either get loose or signal his friends when he heard the doors opening again. At first he thought whatever crazy scientist HYDRA had in mind to experiment on him had finally arrived, but a flash of red and black cast that idea to the winds. Looking up as best as he could, Sora found himself face-to-face with Black Widow himself, looking as stoic as ever, and thus getting him more than a little upset.

"What? Here to gloat? Maybe get another last look at the first Keyblade wielder you ever saw before HYDRA tries to cut him open?" Sora demanded as best he could. Widow did not say anything, but Sora was not going to let the silence sit for long. "You know, I used to think I was a pretty good judge of character, but then you had to go and prove me wrong. I mean, I really thought you were one of the good guys when we first met, but all the while, you were just putting up some pretty little act. Let me guess, you're the one who told HYDRA about the Heartless, right?" Still, Widow said nothing. "Of course you did. I mean, the only ones who actually knew about them outside the Avengers was SHIELD, so it'd make sense their resident traitor would spill those secrets out to them."

"Sora…" Widow started to say, but he did not get let her get a word in.

"You know you really hurt Hawkeye, right? He was your partner, your friend, and you not only stabbed him in the back but framed him for your crimes too. Do you have any idea what that must have done to him? Or do you even care about anything other than your own agenda?" Sora questioned. Widow was silent once again, and it was now officially getting Sora angry. "Well? Whatever you're gonna do just get it over with. I doubt you'd really care what happens to me one way or the other anyway. So long as you get what you want, right?"

"…Wrong," Widow quietly stated before she raised her bracelets up to aim them at Sora, much to his surprise.

The instant he heard the Stinger fire, Sora shut his eyes and braced for the end, but to his surprise he did not feel any pain at all. If anything, something felt lighter. Namely something around his wrist. Peeking one eye open, he saw the Stinger had fired, but he still felt okay, something he confirmed as he patted down his front with one hand. That's when he realized what was off. He should not be able to pat himself down with either hand, and yet he was doing so with one right now. Sora glanced down at the hand he had been using before looking back at where it had been shackled, only to find it had been blasted open. The sound of Widow firing her Stingers three more times brought his attention back to the situation at hand, just in time for him to catch a bag that Widow had tossed him. A bag he quickly discovered was carrying all of his confiscated gear.

"We haven't got much time. Hurry and get geared up," Widow instructed as she rushed over to the nearest computer before plugging in a flash drive.

For a few seconds Sora could only glance back and forth between Widow and his gear before he finally started strapping on his gauntlets and helmet on autopilot, but only activating the former. By the time both gauntlets were on his wrists, Sora had finally regained enough of his wits to get out the only question he could think to ask right now. "What…? Why did…? What is going right now?"

"Like I said, we don't have a lot of time. I have to copy and erase every bit of data HYDRA has gathered on the Heartless before they realize I'm the one doing this," Widow explained, though Sora was still confused. His confusion only grew when she spared him a sad glance and admitted, "I wish Clint hadn't dragged you into this, Sora, but right now, I'm kind of glad he did. This would be a lot harder to do without you here."

"Huh? You're glad I'm here? I don't get it. Aren't you supposed to be a SHIELD traitor and working for HYDRA? Why are you sabotaging them now?" Sora asked as he moved to stand next to Widow.

"Simple. I'm not actually a traitor," Widow finally revealed, making sure to look Sora in the eyes to better show she was telling the truth. "I'm working as a deep cover spy for Nick Fury. He needed me to get inside HYDRA by any means necessary."

"Why? Does it have anything to do with HYDRA's interest in the Heartless?" Sora asked.

"No, at least not originally. Like the rest of the world, HYDRA didn't even know the Heartless existed until the Breakout, and it was only after Zemo and Zola's attack on your team that they started to take more of an interest in them," Widow clarified for him. "The reason Fury assigned me to this mission was to find out the details of the deal HYDRA currently has with AIM. They hired MODOC and his scientists to build them some type of weapon, but as to what it is or does, we didn't know. My job is to find out the answers to those questions and then neutralize whatever weapon it is that AIM is creating for HYDRA."

"Which became harder after Clint's name was cleared and he started hunting you down for how you framed him," Sora realized.

"Pretty much," Widow confirmed. "Fury's the only one who knew anything about this, so obviously I'm going to be asking a lot when I tell you that you can't tell anyone about my mission. Not even your fellow Avengers. Right now, the world needs to believe that the Black Widow betrayed SHIELD for HYDRA otherwise I run the risk of blowing my cover and losing any and all favor with Strucker at best."

Sora did not like the idea of keeping secrets this big from his friends, especially since he knew it would probably help Hawkeye if he knew the truth about Widow's mission, but considering how much she was putting on the line just to help him right now, he could understand why it was necessary. There was just one thing he did not understand. "Why help me escape like this though? Wouldn't that put your mission at risk?"

"Partly because I need your help with this," Widow explained. "Fury and I set up a private communication channel so that I could send him updates on my mission without anyone knowing, and I was about to use it to inform him of HYDRA's recent research into the Heartless. It was my intention to ask him to send you to destroy the Heartless HYDRA had captured and whoever else was necessary to destroy the data they had already gathered, but then Hawkeye pulled this latest stunt in his vendetta against me, so obviously now I'm having to improvise a few things."

"Still considering what I've heard about you, you could've found another way to do all this without ever telling me about your mission, so why do things like this?" Sora asked.

Widow could not help but spare him a small smirk, "Guess I felt like I needed a little extra insurance in case something else went wrong, and I could tell from the first moment we met you seemed like a trustworthy kid."

"Just like that?"

"In the life I've led, people like you have proven hard to come by, Sora. Next to impossible really. Knowing that just one person like you exists…well, it makes things a bit unpredictable, which can either help my mission or hurt it. I'm just hoping it's the former," Widow confessed. She then got serious again as the computer beeped to signal the completion of its current task. "That's it," she said after pulling out the flash drive and handing it to Sora. "Everything HYDRA's learned about the Heartless is now contained on this drive. Make sure that Fury gets it no matter what. Now, I just need you to trash everything in this lab and destroy all the Heartless in here. There's at least two other labs just like this one that also need to be destroyed."

"Wait what about Riku, Hawkeye, and the others. I can't just leave them," Sora started to say.

"You won't be. If I know Clint, then he probably found a way to escape just seconds after I left him and Mockingbird," Widow revealed, her expression turning a bit more down after saying that. "As you can probably guess, it was not a…happy reunion."

"Yeah, didn't think it would be. What Riku, Yuffie, and Daisy though?" Sora asked.

"They were put in another cell block; one that's actually close to the labs you need to trash. As soon as I leave, you need to start trashing this place and then go free your friends afterwards. Not a second later, and not in any order other than what I just said. I programmed the locations of the other labs in the HUD on your helmet," Widow instructed.

On instinct, Sora activated his helmet and saw the blips indicating the locations Widow had mentioned. Seeing the information appeared good, Sora nodded to Widow in thanks and then summoned his Keyblade so that he could start his demolition work the second she was out the door. Right when Widow had turned to leave though, something in one of the other tubes seemed to react to his Keyblade, and immediately started banging against the glass like it was trying to get out.

"What the—?!" Widow and Sora both gasped in response.

"I'm not sure what's in that thing, but I don't think it's never reacted to anything before, let alone like that," Widow noted aloud.

Sora was about to offer his own two cents when a familiar voice suddenly spoke out in his mind. "…Help…Help him…" Sora glanced around, trying to find the speaker until he finally laid eyes on the person in question. A person he had seen only in visions and that one time at Doctor Strange's house. "Sora, please. Help him," Ventus pleaded with him.

"Ventus?" Sora quietly breathed in awe. "I don't understand. Who are you…?"

"Please Sora. Help him," Ventus repeated before he vanished yet again.

Sora was not sure what it was about the thing inside this tube that made Ventus come out, but if he was saying to help then Sora was not going to ignore it. So, he aimed his Keyblade at the tube and launched a spell to break it open, much to Black Widow's protests. Sure, he got a Blizzard spell instead of the Fire one he was going for, but it hardly mattered either way. All Black Widow knew was that Sora likely just made things a lot more complicated by releasing whatever horrible creature had been kept in that tube and she immediately readied her Stingers for action. She did not know what Sora had just unleashed, but if HYDRA was keeping it contained it had to be some horrible monstrosity capable of destroying everything on the planet.

As the smoke cleared, a figure started coming into view, while a low, almost guttural growl emanated from it. This put Widow and Sora a bit more on edge, with the latter even going so far as to wonder why Ventus had told him to help this thing, when suddenly it lunged forward with a vicious roar, colliding with the table Sora had been strapped to before. The thing then lifted it up over its head and gave it a toss, smashing the computer completely as it laughed in an almost maniacal manner before dashing over to one of the cabinets and breaking it open. Upon jumping down they could see the creature was now armed with a pair of blasters.

The two braced themselves for anything this thing might do next, but what they did not expect was for it to speak. Though what it said neither of them could tell you, as it sounded like utter nonsense. "Meega nala kweesta! Ah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"Wait, did it just…" Widow started to ask, thinking it sounded like something she had heard somewhere only once before.

It was at this point that Sora and Widow finally got a look at the creature they just released. For the most part, it looked like a four-armed, blue furred koala with spines on its back and a pair of antenna on its head, but even more interesting was the red and yellow outfit it wore as it grinned widely with sharp teeth at the two heroes. When it turned to Sora again, it stowed its guns away somewhere in its suit before going over and sniffing at him like a dog. Once it had finished examining Sora, it stood up again and spoke once more.

"Ven…Terra…Ah-koo, wah," the creature asked.

"What? You know Ventus, Terra, and Aqua?" Sora gasped in surprise. Seeing the look of confusion on Widow's face, Sora quickly explained, "They were Keyblade wielders like me, but they disappeared a long time ago."

Widow just nodded while the creature retrieved something from its suit. It looked to be made mostly of odd bits and pieces, and held together by tape, like it had been broken and hastily repaired. Still, he held the trinket carefully as he presented it to Sora. "Fren…Circle."

Sora was not sure what that meant, but the vision he was now starting to get was about to clear that up very quickly.

---

The three best friends were all gathered together doing a little stargazing when Aqua suddenly remembered something. "Oh yeah! Terra, you and I have our Mark of Mastery Exams tomorrow," she exclaimed before pulling something out of her pockets. "I made us good luck charms."

"Whoa," Ventus gasped in awe once Aqua had passed Terra's charm to him. His surprise only grew when she handed him one just like it, save for how it was green instead of orange. "I get one too?"

"Of course. One for each of us," Aqua stated as she showed off her blue charm for them. "Somewhere out there, there's this tree with star-shaped fruit, and the fruit represents an unbreakable connection. So as long as you and your friends carry good luck charms shaped like it, nothing can ever drive you apart. You'll always find your way back to each other. Technically, I think you're supposed to make them with seashells, but I did the best with what I had."

"Oy, sometimes you are such a girl," Terra could not help but tease.

"Hey! What do you mean 'sometimes'?" Aqua demanded.

"So this isn't a real good luck charm?" Ventus asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

"Well, that remains to be seen. But I did work a little magic on it," Aqua assured him.

"Really? What?"

Aqua could only smile with a small laugh when she responded. "An unbreakable connection."

---

"Amazing is he not?" an alien scientist asked Terra once he had led the boy into a large room in which a small, blue furry creature was currently locked inside of a glass container. Terra was not sure why this creature or the scientist were locked up, but from what he understood, they were both wrongfully imprisoned, and this creature was supposedly capable of helping to destroy the Unversed much more easily than he could. The scientist had stated the creature was bulletproof, fireproof, capable of thinking faster than a supercomputer, able to see in the dark, and move things 3,000 times his size. Given all of this, Terra could understand why this Federation Council Jumba had described would be afraid of the creature.

"He's a bit…smaller than I was expecting," Terra admitted.

"Yes, well don't let Experiment 626's adorable, fluffy exterior fool you, Terra. He has tremendous power in such itty-bitty package," Jumba insisted. "Truly, he is the one and that's the only—the mightiest creature in all of galaxy. And his only singular instinct—to destroy everything he touches! See?"

"Wait, what?!" Terra gasped. He had been told Experiment 626 was capable of great creation not destruction. It seemed Jumba had played him for a fool, but before Terra could do anything to stop him, Jumba had opened the container 626 was kept inside of, and the little blue creature immediately jumped towards him. Terra tried to shake Experiment 626 off of him, but the little guy held fast as he crawled all over him, until he finally jumped off Terra and onto the ceiling. He did not get away empty-handed though, as Terra soon realized when he saw his good luck charm in Experiment 626's hands. "When did you—give that back!"

"Too late. Is already marked for destruction," Jumba immediately dismissed.

That made Terra start to panic. "No, stop! My friend gave me that!"

Terra was a bit surprised those words had come from him, given the recent falling out he had just had with Aqua and Ventus, and he was not the only one who had paused at his statement. Experiment 626 seemed to grow a bit more curious about the charm as well, and why Terra was so insistent on him not destroying it. Jumba did not seem to notice this.

"'Friend'? Are you joking?" Jumba chuckled before he fell back laughing on the floor. "Such concept is totally lost on 626."

Jumba's words ended up proven wrong though, as after glancing back and forth between Terra and the charm for a few more seconds, Experiment 626 tossed the charm back to Terra and ran off. The scene seemed to get a little grainy for a moment before it suddenly jumped forward by a few minutes or so, to a point where Jumba was on his knees before Terra, while the Keyblade wielder in question looked like he had just been in a difficult fight. Of course, both of their attention was soon diverted to another part of the room when they heard something approach. To their surprise, it was Experiment 626.

"What is it? Why have you returned?" Jumba asked, completely baffled by this sudden change in his creation's behavior.

Experiment 626 only spouted out some random gibberish that is hard to really put into written word, but Terra had a small idea that was seeming more and more likely with every passing second. "Maybe he's wondering what a friend is," he suggested as he slowly approached the little experiment.

"Ridiculous!" Jumba scoffed, but Terra disagreed. It was the only thing that really made sense to him and figured he should start by introducing himself to 626 properly.

"My name is Terra," he said.

"Ter…ra…" Experiment 626 repeated in slow, slightly broken English, like he was testing out the language for the first time.

"Yes," Terra confirmed with a smile. "I can't explain friendship. When you feel it, you'll know it."

---

"Is time to give up," Jumba informed Experiment 626 after cornering him in the launch deck. "Then I will fix abnormality, and ridiculous behavior stops."

Experiment 626 let out some angry gibberish that only made Jumba frown in annoyance, but they both became a little more concerned when someone shouted, "Hold it right there!" Turning to the speaker, the two came face-to-face with Aqua, who was already marching towards them like a woman on a mission. "Doctor Jumba, Experiment 626, I've been authorized to take you into custody."

Jumba was a bit worried now, clearly realizing they had been caught, but Experiment 626 was more focused on the star-shaped object Aqua was currently holding in her hand. All at once, he lunged towards her, much to Aqua's surprise, and swiped the object away from her. To Aqua's continued surprise though, he did nothing else after that except cuddle with the object, which she had long since pieced together to be a crude imitation of the Wayfinder charms she had made for herself and her friends. Seeing the way 626 was holding the charm, Aqua could only come to one conclusion.

"So it really does belong to you," Aqua realized. "But…where have you seen that shape?"

"Is copy he made of good luck charm that boy Terra show to him," Jumba explained, gaining Aqua's attention as he approached them both. "Terra said friend gave him charm, was very protective of it."

"He really said that to you?" Aqua exclaimed.

"Yes."

Aqua could not help but smile in relief as she sighed, "Then you're still all right, Terra."

Jumba did not seem to notice any indication of Aqua's relief, because he was much more focused on the current behavior of his genius, destructive experiment. "And now, because of Terra and his little bauble, my genius creation is hesitating in his genetically programmed destructive instincts. Just look at him!"

The scene faded a bit again before clearing up, clearly showing the aftermath of another fight, and a tall alien woman watching on with a small smile as Aqua conversed with Experiment 626. Of course, she was not the only one as Aqua was smiling down at Experiment 626, who could only look back at her with a curious look. "I like the charm you made," Aqua told him. "Do you think maybe my circle of friends could become part of yours? My name is Aqua. My friends are Terra and Ventus."

"Ah-koo, wah, fren…Terra…Ven," Experiment 626 slowly recited with a smile, drawing an equally happy smile onto Aqua's face, even as she watched him leave with Jumba and the alien woman.

---

One last shift in perspective showed Ventus shortly arriving on the same ship Aqua and Terra had both been on, and he was hurrying off to somewhere important when something dropped down in front of him, much to his surprise. The thing in question was Experiment 626 who seemed to realize who Ventus was pretty quickly.

"Ven…? Terra…Ah-koo, wah…" Experiment 626 said.

"What? You know Terra and Aqua?" Ventus asked.

In response, 626 pulled out his Wayfinder charm to show Ventus, as he said, "Fren…Circle!"

"Hey…is that a Wayfinder?" Ventus gasped upon seeing the charm.

Suddenly the scene shifted once again to a different location, and from the look of things, Experiment 626 was incredibly upset. Ventus tried calming him down, but his efforts ended with him being thrown back onto the floor. Even so, he had a feeling it was an accident, so he could not help but ask, "What's gotten into you?"

Experiment 626 seemed to finally calm down, and then slowly turned around so Ventus could see the sad look on his face, along with the shattered pieces of his make-shift Wayfinder. Couple that with the sad little sounds 626 let out, and Ventus had no trouble figuring out what was wrong. "I see…Your Wayfinder broke," Ventus whispered. He then walked over to give the little guy and affection rub on the head, much to 626's surprise, and said, "Well don't worry. Friendship's more than an object."

"Fren-ship…Cir…cle?" Experiment 626 asked, surprised to hear that his newfound friendship was still intact, to which Ventus could only nod in response.

The moment ended up being killed though when something really big dropped down behind them, and Ventus immediately turned to see a giant, alien man who looked a bit like a large fish holding a blaster on both him and Experiment 626. "Hmph, don't let the little mimic fool you," the fish alien growled. "You saw for yourself what kind of monster that thing is. All it knows how to do is hurt and destroy."

"Monster? He helped me stop the monster," Ventus insisted.

"You must have triggered some sort of mutation hidden in the little freak's genetic coding," the fish alien muttered.

Experiment 626 had a different explanation though. "Ven. Fren!"

"That's right. We are friends," Ventus confirmed for him, putting a smile on 626's face and a scowl on the massive alien still glaring at them.

"Better say your goodbyes now, because 626 is about to be destroyed!" the fish man growled, only to jump back in shock when the experiment in question suddenly jumped onto his face. "Hey! Stop that!" 626 did no such thing, and instead brought the big alien down before turning back to Ventus.

"Ih gah-gah-jah-bah, EE!" 626 shouted out to Ventus, which the boy took to me hurry up and follow me. Advice he was more than willing to follow.

"C'mon!" Ventus called to the little guy as he led the way out.

"Sound the alarm! Prisoners on the loose! Don't let them get away!" the big alien shouted as he started to pull himself up.

The last thing that could be seen was Experiment 626 blasting off to parts unknown in a red spaceship, while Ventus was blown away by the shockwave released by the sudden acceleration of his ship.

---

"Experiment 626," was the first thing Sora said when the vision finally ended. Even though it seemed like several minutes had gone by, it was clear everything he saw had all happened in mere seconds for everyone else. Still, his words had surprised both of the other occupants in the room. "You're name is Experiment 626. You met Terra, Aqua, and Ventus when they found their way onto the ship you and your creator were being held prisoner on, and they taught you about friendship."

"Ih. Fren-ship…Cir…cle. Ven. Terra. Ah-koo, wah. Frens," 626 stated happily, but Sora got the impression that he was also asking him a question.

"I don't know them, personally, but some of my friends have met them. I could get you out of this place and take you to meet them if you'd like," Sora offered.

626 seemed to ponder this for a minute before he finally nodded, clearly eager to get out of this lab at last. Black Widow on the other hand was of a different opinion. "This is a bad idea. I may not have been there when HYDRA found him, but from what I've read in their reports, this thing easily tore apart several HYDRA ships, Dreadnoughts, and soldiers, singlehandedly before they finally found a way to subdue and capture him. There's no telling what it could do if let loose on the world."

"Hopefully something really good like becoming a hero. I mean, would you rather leave him here so he can be turned into a HYDRA weapon?" Sora pointed out.

Widow seemed to consider this for a few seconds before she finally yielded this argument in Sora's favor. "Good point. At least taking him to SHIELD might offer some better…"

"No, not SHIELD. Avengers Mansion," Sora interrupted.

"Sora…"

"No! He's already been held prisoner by two different organizations that are more likely to lock him up and throw away the key. At least if he comes home with me, he'll be surrounded by people that can actually teach him about right and wrong, and what it means to have friends and family. I get the feeling that's all he really wants at this point. To be given a chance to live his own life, and if he does feel like he needs to tear something up, he can do it to some actual bad guys," Sora insisted. He then looked over to 626 and asked, "What do you think? Does that sound like something you'd want to do, Stitch?"

626 just quirked his head to one side in confusion, surprised that Sora was actually offering him a choice and wondering why he suddenly called him such an odd name. "Stitch?"

Sora seemed to realize his small slip-up, and said, "Sorry, I just…Experiment 626 doesn't really seem like a good name, so I figured you'd like an actual one better. What do you think?"

"Hmm," 626 pondered for a moment, before he smiled back at Sora and clapped a little. "My…name…Stitch, now."

Sora just grinned in reply. "Great, so what do you say, Stitch? Do you want to come home with me and meet my friends?"

"Ih, Stitch go with…fren?" Stitch asked, clearly checking to see if he was reading the room right.

"Yeah, we are friends. My name is Sora. My friends Riku, Yuffie, and Daisy are all here too, so we've got to help them escape before we can go. Is that okay?" Sora asked.

Stitch immediately nodded in reply and then whipped out his blasters again, clearly showing he was ready for any action. When Sora turned to look at her, Widow knew she really could do nothing to persuade him into any other choice, so she simply sighed moved to leave. But not before offering one last piece of advice. "Don't do anything until after I've been gone for about three seconds. Five at most. And remember; don't tell anyone the truth about my mission, Sora. I'm counting on you with that more than anything right now."

Widow had left by the time Sora had nodded in reply, and then carefully counted out five seconds before he summoned his Keyblade again and proceeded to trash the lab along with Stitch. When they were done, everything in the lab was trashed, and any Heartless in the lab had also been destroyed. Sora still took a moment to survey the room for anything they might have missed before he finally determined, "That's one head cut off. Now let's go free our friends and find the two that took its place."

Whether or not Stitch understood the reference Sora had just made did not really matter. The little guy was just eager to go and smash some more of HYDRA's stuff and make some more new friends.

---

"Uggggggh! This is so boring! This is even more boring than…Wow. I'm so bored I can't even think of a way to finish that sentence," Yuffie moaned loudly from the cell she was currently locked inside.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, Yuffie," Daisy admitted.

"And yet, she came up with a whole song about how she's so bored just a couple minutes ago," Riku reminded both girls.

Neither of them had a comeback for that remark. For all of two seconds. "Hey, it's not like she came up with a best-seller song or something."

"Yeah, I'm definitely no Aerith. Sure, she basically ended up being a one-hit wonder, but man, that song she wrote and then sang later this one time was absolutely beautiful," Yuffie could not help but reminisce.

"Was it about how to break out of an evil bad guy prison? Because that would be helpful right now," Riku asked.

"Geez, chill out, Riku. Haven't you tried your Keyblade yet? I mean, they did take off your shackles after locking you in there," Daisy reminded him.

"First thing I tried. There must be something in this cell that's keeping me from summoning my Keyblade. I can't even use any magic. Besides, Sora and I need to actually see whatever counts as the lock in order for that trick to work, and last I checked the lock for my cell door is on the other side of said door," Riku explained. He let out a frustrated huff as he added, "Can't believe I go from being stuck on an island to locked up in a prison cell."

"You really hated your world that much?" Daisy could not help but ask. When she received only silence in response, she figured it was because he was surprised she knew about that. "It's in your SHIELD file. How you two and Sora are all from other worlds. Not that it was hard to figure out in Sora's case. I mean, as far as SHIELD knows, no one on this world has ever been chosen by the Keyblade, so…"

Riku still kept quiet, but eventually he did say something. "It's not that I hated my world. It's just… Destiny Islands is so small. There's really nothing there worth talking about. At least, not for someone who grew up there for their entire life. Listening to the stories Sora's mom used to tell us about the adventures she and his dad used to go on didn't really help much. It just made me want to leave more. I just felt…trapped."

Daisy said nothing for a few seconds, but she knew she would have to say something eventually. "I get it," she confessed. "I used to feel the same way before I joined SHIELD. Truth is, I was abandoned by my parents when I was really little. They weren't exactly good people, but they were still my parents. For a while I bounced around between foster homes, but I never really fit into any of them. It didn't help that everywhere I went something terrible seemed to follow after me. Eventually, I got tired of waiting for my parents or really any part of my past to find me and just started looking myself. That's largely why I became a hacker. Then I hacked into SHIELD a couple times, and after a few…events, I became the agent I am now."

"Sounds rough," Riku noted.

"Eh, everything has its ups and downs," Daisy shrugged. She then glanced at the wall separating her and Riku and asked, "Do you miss it? Your home, I mean. From the way you were talking, I didn't really get the impression that you would be homesick."

Riku remained silent for a second before he finally admitted, "A little bit. I mean, that night when everything happened I had a feeling we wouldn't be able to ever go back, but I didn't think it would be because our home wasn't going to exist anymore. But then again, it's not like there was really much for me to go back to."

"Not even your family?" Daisy asked.

Riku let out a small scoff. "You're not the only orphan here, Agent Johnson. My parents died at sea a couple years ago. That kind of thing happens so rarely no one back home really knows much about what to do when it does, at least in regard to whoever is left behind afterwards. Sora's mom all but officially adopted me afterwards, but for the most part, I've been on my own for a while."

"Really," was all Daisy could say, pondering this little detail over in her head for a bit.

Feeling like things were getting way too heavy with the current line of conversation, and that the other two forgot she was even here, Yuffie took this as her chance to finally ask something she had been wondering about for a while. "You know, I don't think any of us ever did ask about this before, but how did you escape the fall of Destiny Islands, Riku?" she asked. "Like, we know Sora survived because he got the Keyblade, but how did you? And how did you get to this world if you didn't end up here from the start like Sora did?"

Sure, it might not have been as much of a lighthearted topic change as most people would expect, but Yuffie was mainly going for something to remind the other two that she was still here more than anything. Still, Riku did not have a problem with answering, save for one or two things. "Honestly, I don't really remember much," Riku admitted. "The last thing I clearly remember was the storm and all the Heartless and the moment I encountered Sora, but everything after that is…kind of a blur. I know I definitely ended up on a different world than this one at first, but I can't really remember much about it. A few strange waterfalls, a weird-looking castle, and a sense of foreboding all around me, but nothing else. Everything other than that is pretty hazy until I woke up in New York right when Sora, Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman were fighting that Heartless incursion."

"Do you even know how you got your Keyblade?" Yuffie asked, truly surprised at how little Riku seemed to recall from that time period.

"Not really. I just kinda knew it was with me when I ended up in New York. Good thing too, otherwise I probably would have been eaten alive long before I reached Sora," Riku admitted.

"Seems like you guys are making a habit out of collecting mysteries that need solving," Daisy could not help but joke.

"Well if we ever need a little extra help from SHIELD in solving them, I do hope you're the agent they send to lend a hand," Riku smoothly replied.

"Ooh. Now that was smooth. You say that to all the girls?" Daisy questioned.

"Only the really pretty ones," Riku fired back. When he realized what he said though, he became thankful no one could see his bright red face even as he started to backtrack. "N-not that there are any other girls. I-I mean, there are, but not any that I really had a lot interest in. Like that, I mean. Not saying I'm only interested just because you're pretty, I mean, you're beautiful, but…Wait, what…"

Daisy could not help but grin a little at how the boy was tripping over his own feet right now, but before she could offer up another tease, the sound of distant fighting caught her ears. The other two must have noticed as well, because they both fell silent afterwards to listen out for what was happening. Shortly after, the fighting sounds stopped, and the sound of something tapping against a cell door could be heard, right before Riku's cell opened up to show Sora standing in the doorway, Keyblade in hand and grin in place.

"You know, it's starting to become a bit of a habit for me to be rescuing you, Riku. Aren't you supposed to be better than this?" Sora teased.

Riku just grinned back at his friend as Sora helped him up, too happy to see Sora was okay to really care about the teasing at the moment. The sound of something breaking quickly caught his attention though and he looked past Sora just in time to see a little blue creature ripping open Yuffie's cell with its bare hands. Apparently Yuffie was just as surprised as him, given the wide-eyed look she was giving the creature, and Daisy was no better when it repeated the same action with her cell door.

"Uh Sora? What is that thing?" Riku asked.

"His name's Stitch. HYDRA had him locked up in the lab with me and I busted him out while I was escaping," Sora explained as quickly as he could as Stitch came over to them.

"Aw, well he's a cute little fella, aren't you, boy?" Yuffie cooed. "Hi there, Stitch."

"Hi," Stitch waved before running up and giving Yuffie a quick hug, much to the ninja girl's surprise.

"Whoa! He can talk?!" Yuffie gasped in awe.

"Among other things," Sora revealed. "Think Tony'll let me keep him, or do you think I'll have to mention he knows Ventus, Aqua, and Terra to make it happen?"

"I think you should be more concerned about whether or not SHIELD will let you keep him," Daisy pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm not giving them a choice. Especially since I found out HYDRA's got more than one lab in this place for experimenting with the Heartless. So much for letting us know when HYDRA starts messing with them, huh?"

"Wait, HYDRA really is messing with the Heartless?" Daisy and Yuffie both exclaimed. Given how genuine the former's reaction was, Sora had to figure she really did not know. Whether or not that applied to Fury and SHIELD as well was still to be determined.

"Yep, and I already trashed the first lab while getting everything they had already learned off their computers," Sora reported.

"You did?" Riku gasped in surprise. He knew better than anyone how bad Sora was with computers, so his surprise was more than reasonable. "You? Hacked into a terrorist organization's computer system and stole everything they learned about the Heartless?"

"Yes, that's what I said," Sora insisted.

"How?"

Now Sora was a bit stuck. It was not like he could tell them Black Widow gave him the information, but he did not really know how else to explain it. At least until he looked over at his newest friend. "Uh…Stitch helped. Isn't that right, boy?"

Stitch looked at Sora in confusion, but a quick look from Sora immediately reminded him about the secret they were supposed to be keeping, and he quickly confirmed the story. "Ih. Stitch help."

"Uh-huh," Riku muttered, clearly not buying it.

"Look, we don't have time to go over all the details. We've gotta trash those other labs and then get out of here," Sora pointed out before tossing Riku and Yuffie their gear. He had made a quick stop to gather it all up on his way there. The only downside was that he wasn't able to retrieve Daisy's gauntlets before more HYDRA soldiers showed up.

"What about Hawkeye and Mockingbird?" Yuffie asked.

"Who do you think helped me get away from the HYDRA goon squad after I got yours and Riku's stuff?" Sora asked.

In truth, he definitely would not have gotten away had Hawkeye and Mockingbird not shown up when they did, and after explaining the situation to them, Clint insisted he come here to free the rest of their friends and deal with the Heartless lab while he and Mockingbird went tried to get a signal to Cap and Panther. Sure, it meant they would also be going after Widow without any of them afterwards, but anything involving the Heartless definitely took priority over everything else.

Still, there was one problem they had to address. "Sorry I couldn't get your gauntlets back, Daisy, but I wasn't able to find them before HYDRA's security teams caught me. If you want to keep your head down while we deal with this…"

"No way. I'm coming with you," Daisy insisted, much to their surprise. "Hey, I'm an agent of SHIELD, remember? I've got plenty of tricks up my sleeves with or without my gauntlets. Besides, what're these HYDRA goons gonna do? Kill me?"

Even though that was a very real possibility, the others still appreciated Daisy's attempt at humor to lighten their concerns. Enough to where they could not think of any reason to not bring her along. Besides, if there was a chance she could find something Sora might have missed in the computers, all the better. So with no other arguments, the five immediately sprinted out of the dungeons and up to the labs, following Sora's lead as he tracked the locations on his HUD.

In no time at all, the team of young heroes had found the first lab, and when she saw the various containment units with Heartless inside, Yuffie did not hesitate for a second before whipping out her shuriken. The next thing anyone knew, she was not just throwing the large weapon at anything in the room, she was also using it to slice up anything and everything she could in order to totally trash the place. Daisy had immediately rushed to the nearest computer so she could pull some data out of it, wanting to make sure they got everything HYDRA had on the Heartless while it was still intact, but like the others, she was more than a little surprised by Yuffie's vicious outburst just now.

When the last container had been smashed and the last Heartless slain by Sora and Riku, they all had to pause and watch Yuffie carefully as she panted heavily with an angry scowl on her face. Even Stitch looked worried for his new friend, but just when someone was about to ask if she was okay, Yuffie turned to Sora and asked, "Where's the next lab?"

"Uh…Just-just a few feet down the hall from here," Sora replied as quickly as possible.

"Let's go," Yuffie ordered taking point as she marched out. "We can't let it happen again. I won't let it happen again. Never again will this kind of thing endanger the worlds."

Given what they knew about Yuffie's past, it suddenly made sense to Sora and Riku why she went ballistic on the lab. After all, her world had been destroyed by the Heartless largely in part to someone doing experiments on said creatures, so it would have been stranger if Yuffie did not have some baggage over the matter. Regardless, they quickly made their way to the next lab, only pausing when a sudden explosion seemed to shake the whole base, followed by several alarms going off at once.

"Something tells me Hawkeye and Mockingbird are really tearing things up wherever they are," Sora noted aloud. The others were all in agreement of his assessment, but they soon began considering another idea when they heard a certain announcement over the base's speakers.

"Destruct Sequence initiated," a synthesized computer voice announced.

"Did you guys hear that too?" Yuffie asked, suddenly out of her anger haze and very worried.

"Ih," Stitch confirmed.

"There's no way this is just from Hawkeye and Mockingbird escaping. Or even just because someone found out what we're doing," Daisy noted aloud, knowing HYDRA would not likely be reacting this extremely over either or both of these details.

Hearing Daisy say that immediately gave Sora an idea as to what was going on, and he quickly tapped the side of his helmet. "Sora to any Avengers. Does anyone copy?"

"Sora! It's Steve. Glad to hear you're alright, soldier," Captain America immediately responded. "Black Panther, Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and I are all in the throne room, but Strucker's attempting to escape."

"I'm guessing he's the one who set the base to blow," Sora quickly deduced as Daisy opened the door to the lab and then allowed, Yuffie and Riku to go to town on everything inside while she and Stitch dealt with the HYDRA guards. Since he was in the middle of a call, Sora just did a little bit of both.

"You'd assume correctly. Are Riku, Yuffie, and Daisy with you?"

"Yeah, along with another prisoner that we helped break out," Sora reported.

"Alright. I'm sending you the coordinates for the Quinjet. Get yourselves out of here before its too late," Steve ordered.

"Sorry Cap, but we can't do that," Sora immediately refused.

"Sora…"

"Just hear me out! HYDRA's got tons of research on the Heartless along with several more in containment. If we don't get rid of them now, we may be looking at the start of what happened to both Yuffie's world and Destiny Islands. Just worry about getting yourselves out and we'll find our own way if we can't get there in time," Sora insisted.

"…Alright, Sora. Just hurry and you all better make it out alive. That's an order," Captain America finally agreed, though he clearly felt he had to add that last part.

"Aye-aye, Captain," Sora could not help but joke in return, even if he was being completely serious with his response. With that done, he finally turned his full attention to dealing with whatever Heartless or HYDRA goons were left, only to see there were none. Daisy had just finished pulling the data she needed from the computer too, so all that was left was to trash the lab. Something Sora was not okay with leaving to the HYDRA base's self-destruct. So, he raised his Keyblade and called out a spell. "Thunder!"

Instead of a bolt of lightning though, Sora's Keyblade shot out a powerful fireball. This one was even bigger than the one he normally got from casting a fire spell, much to his surprise, but it was still not quite what Sora was going for, as everyone had noticed. "Wrong spell, Sora," Riku lazily informed him.

"I noticed! But it's not like it's any less effective than what I was going for," Sora pointed out.

"Let's go!" Daisy interrupted before the boys could get deeper into their little argument.

No one argued with her, as they all raced out of the lab as everything in it burned up in the flames. Now all they had to do was get out of this place. Unfortunately, the way they came ended up being blocked by several doors closing or rubble falling to block the way. Looking to Sora, everyone waited as he pulled up a map of the base on his HUD in an attempt to find another way to the Quinjet, only to come up short.

"We're never gonna get out of here in time if we try to get to the Quinjet, but maybe we can swipe one of HYDRA's ships. The hangar is close by," Sora revealed.

"I know how to get those things going. Just lead the way," Daisy told him.

Sora nodded and proceeded to lead the charge. Sure, they encountered a few HYDRA guards along the way, but a few quick tosses of Yuffie's Shuriken and a blast of fire magic from Riku easily took most of them out. The others were easily dispatched by Sora, Daisy, and Stitch taking them out the old fashioned way, though Stitch did add his own little extra flair by crawling all over his opponents at one point and making a point to either hit them with their own weapons or just slobber all over them.

No one had time to scold Stitch for the last bit, or even make a joke about not knowing where these HYDRA soldiers had been, as they were all scrambling as quick as they could to make it into the hangar before the doors closed. Luckily, Sora was able to get off a quick bit of time magic to hold the doors open long enough, and any soldiers that were on the other side were immediately taken out by Daisy. The others were pretty amazed by the sight, as even without her gauntlets or really any weapons at all, Daisy managed to take down every HYDRA goon she came across through an impressive martial arts display. A quick roundhouse kick allowed her to knock out the last agent, and gave Sora, Riku, and Stitch a chance to start laying down some covering fire so they could all board the nearest HYDRA ship.

Once they were all on board, it did not take any time at all for Yuffie and Daisy to toss out the soldiers that were already on board, and even less time for Daisy to seal the hatch behind the rest of her friends. A few quick keystrokes later and the ship was all geared up and ready to fly, save for one last detail.

"How are we gonna get out this thing out of here? Because I don't think they're gonna be too eager to open the door for us," Riku asked.

In response, Daisy turned back to the others and asked, "Any of you know how to fly?"

"I prefer not, since I typically get airsick just from being a passenger," Yuffie insisted.

"Ih! Ih! Stitch fly!"

"No," Daisy immediately told the little guy. She was not too eager to let this thing fly them out of here given everything else she had seen this thing do so far. "Sora? Riku?"

"Well…" Riku hedged, having not gotten as much time on the Quinjet simulator as the other Avengers.

"Yes," Sora insisted. "I mean, mostly in simulations, but I'm really good."

"Good enough for me. Take the stick," Daisy ordered, ushering Sora into the pilot's seat.

As eager as he was to finally be flying something, Sora was still more concerned about what his friend was planning. "Daisy, I know you're resourceful and all, but there's no way you can rig up a new pair of gauntlets in just a few seconds. Even Tony can't work that much of a high-tech miracle."

Daisy's only response was to smirk at Sora and say, "I don't need to."

Before anyone could ask what she meant by that, Daisy had opened up the ship's canopy, raised her hands towards the door, and much to everyone's surprise, released a powerful blast of vibrational energy from her hands. Having only ever seen do that while wearing her gauntlets, Yuffie, Sora, and Riku could only look on in shock and awe, and the surprises just kept on coming, but the shockwaves Daisy was putting out now seemed even more powerful than normal, even if Daisy's brow was deeply furrowed in concentration. A few more seconds of continuous blasts soon blasted the hangar doors wide open just when the other explosions started following them from where they had come from.

Sora did not need anyone to say anything, but he did at least wait for Daisy to close the canopy before firing the ship's thrusters. A second later and he had gunned it to maximum speed, taking them out of there and away from the explosions. Everyone held their breath and kept tight grips on whatever was currently tied down as they flew away, until at last, they were high up in the air and well away from the base, drawing excited cheers from everyone.

"Cowabunga!" Stitch even hollered at one point.

"How does he know that word?" Yuffie asked, curious as to how Stitch could possibly have learned that word already after spending so much time as HYDRA's prisoner.

"Who cares? I'm more curious about a certain someone pulling out a last minute surprise on us," Riku reminded everyone, drawing all attention to Daisy. "That was amazing!"

"And surprising. I thought you said your powers came from gauntlets," Sora recalled as he turned his gaze away from the sky ahead of them long enough to address Daisy.

"Technically, you came to that conclusion on your own. I just never denied it. The truth is they were never the source of my powers; just a means helping me focus them," Daisy revealed, and as he thought back to the moment in question, Sora easily realized she was right. She then turned away in a bit of shame before admitting, "Look, it wasn't anything personal against you, but I don't really feel comfortable sharing the fact I have powers with anyone."

"Why? Are you…one of those mutants I've heard about in the news and stuff?" Sora asked.

"No, I'm not a mutant, but I'm not a superhuman either. I'm…well, for lack of a better term, we've been calling people like me Inhumans. Basically similar to mutants, but our powers don't awaken without a special set of circumstances and conditions being met," Daisy revealed. "Like I said though, I didn't want it getting out, because…well, people are already pretty nervous about mutants, to put it mildly. Imagine the reaction to finding out there's another type of people out there who have the potential to awaken some kind of crazy powers hidden in their genes. The only ones who know the truth aside from Nick Fury are the members of Coulson's team, and they've made it a point to guard the secret just as closely as I have."

"Well, now you've got a few more people willing to do the same," Riku promised her with an easy-going smile and a hand on one shoulder.

Looking around and seeing the others sharing similar smiles with her put Daisy a lot more at ease, and she could only nod back to them in thanks for their understanding and support. The moment was soon ended when a familiar voice sounded over all their radios. "Avengers, do you copy? This is Nick Fury," the SHIELD director called out. "I've got Mockingbird. Get the hell out of there."

"Wait, what about the kids?" Hawkeye could be heard asking, clearly worried for them.

"Relax, Hawkeye. We're all okay. We just had to swipe a HYDRA ship to get out of there, so if you see one that has a signal from mine, Yuffie, and Riku's Avenger ID cards, that's us. Meaning, don't shoot us down, please?" Sora informed them.

"Copy that, Sora. We've got a lock on your signal and I just relayed the information to my agents. Just hurry up and get moving so we can lower the chance of you kids getting hit by friendly fire," Fury ordered, and from the sound of his voice, he was not just making a joke.

A few seconds later, they spotted the Helicarrier flying away from the island, and the Quinjet soon came up alongside them a short time later. Looking over to their ship, Sora could just see inside the cockpit enough to notice Captain America giving them a thumbs-up. Sora returned the super soldier's gesture with a thumbs-up of his own, but it still left one burning question on everyone's minds.

"So, how mad do you think Fury's gonna be?" Yuffie eventually posed aloud for everyone.

---

The answer to Yuffie's question was obvious from the moment they had all stepped onto the Helicarrier's bridge, even before Fury started laying into everyone. Sure, it was mostly Hawkeye, but none of the assembled Avengers missed how Fury was throwing an angry glare at all of them the entire time he spoke. The fact Sora brought back evidence of HYDRA's Heartless experiments did help quell the storm a bit, but not to the point of wiping it out entirely.

"I told you to stay out it!" Fury shouted at Hawkeye. "You were SHIELD agent, one of my best. You should've trusted me."

"He did trust you once. And you locked him up for a crime he didn't commit," Riku reminded Fury on Clint's behalf. Something Clint did appreciate if his quick smile was anything to go by.

Fury looked ready to snap at Riku for his remark, but Captain America quickly stepped in front of the kid to remind Fury of some other details he seemed to be forgetting. "We did take down HYDRA Island, Nick. And we captured the Grim Reaper while Sora and his team took out the labs they were using to research and experiment on the Heartless."

"I didn't want HYDRA Island taken down. Not yet. I am on top of this," Fury started to snap, only to be cut off by a very incensed ninja.

"Oh really? So I guess that means you knew all about their Heartless experiments? Or how they were collecting Heartless like trading cards? If that's the case, then why didn't you call us like you said you would? Hm? Did you just happen to forget everything you've been told about the dangers in messing around with those things?" Yuffie demanded.

"I didn't know about the Heartless research HYDRA was doing. Not until you went and stuck your noses where they shouldn't have been," Fury reminded her.

"Well if you ask me, it's a good thing we did, otherwise this world would probably be halfway to ending up like mine is right now," Yuffie practically growled.

Fury did not have a retort for that, but he was still not going to let this slide. "Fine. I'll admit, it is good you found out about that and put a stop to it, but it came the cost of a major SHIELD operation. If we catch wind of anymore Heartless related matters, we will let you know. Otherwise, I will deal with the Black Widow." He then turned to Hawkeye, making it clear he was mainly addressing him with his next statement, though no one failed to notice how his gaze hung on Sora for a little bit as well. "And if I catch you or the Avengers sticking your noses in SHIELD business again, there will be no more Avengers. And don't think for a second your Keyblade wielder status will keep you safe from that, either. Am I clear?"

"…Crystal," Hawkeye complied, truly not having any other thing he could say, because it was only now that he realized just how much trouble he had now created. Both for him and his teammates.

Fury looked at Sora and Riku, waiting to see if they understood what he said, until finally, Riku just huffed in compliance, while Sora offered up a few words of his own. "Sorry Fury, but you and I both know I can't guarantee anything in that regard. Not while the Heartless are a threat to all the worlds. I can only promise to do my best."

The others were amazed to hear something like that from Sora, but even more surprising was how Fury did not say anything in retort. Clearly he knew this was the best he would get from the Keybearer, because what Sora said was true. As long as the Heartless were threatening the worlds, every active Keyblade wielder would have to be anywhere and everywhere they could to deal with them. Of course, no one noticed that there were a couple people missing from this dressing down that Fury was giving.

"I want to talk to Mockingbird," Clint requested.

"No, you're dismissed," Fury immediately denied before turning to walk away.

"What about Quake? Can we talk to her?" Riku asked.

"I said you're dismissed," Fury repeated a little more harshly, effectively answering Riku's question.

No one wanted to press their luck right now, and they all quickly exited the Helicarrier bridge. Of course, that did not mean they were done with hearing riot acts just yet, and Black Panther's next statement only served to remind them of this. Of course, it also put a bit more dread into the kids' stomachs than anything Fury just said to them.

"Iron Man implied he would like to have…a word with us when we return," T'Challa informed them.

"Right…That's what we're going to call it," Yuffie groaned miserably.

"How mad did he sound?" Sora had to ask.

"That depends. Are you referring to when we had to call him to say we needed help finding you after losing your tracking signals or after everything that just happened?" Captain America had to ask.

"Something tells me you don't want the answer either way, Sora," Clint insisted before the boy could answer. He then let out a tired sigh before turning to the group and saying, "Look, I'm sorry you guys. I didn't mean to bring SHIELD and Stark down on you like this, but thanks… Thanks for having my back."

"That's what being on a team means," Captain America insisted with a smile.

"Not just being on a team. It's what friends do, Clint," Sora easily added.

Hawkeye gladly returned Sora's smile, very appreciative of the sentiment even if he did think it was a bit corny, but for once, he held his tongue on the matter. Given all the trouble he just got these guys into he did not feel right to so much as tease them for anything at the moment. Still, there was one thing bothering him that he just had to ask their opinion on. "I can't figure it out though," Clint admitted. "Why'd she do it? Why'd Natasha save me?"

The others could not help but adopt various different thinking poses as they pondered the question as well. The kids had only just heard about Hawkeye's encounter with Strucker and Widow after landing on the Helicarrier, along with how Widow had stopped Strucker from draining the life force out of Clint with his Satan's Claw, but they were still just as puzzled as the others as to why a SHIELD traitor would save the man she had framed for her crimes. Well, almost all of them were confused.

Sora on the other hand did know the reason, but he knew he could not share it with them, much to his frustration. Clint deserved to know his old partner had not really betrayed him and was just doing her job, but he had given his word that he would not tell anyone. At least not yet. Still, he wished he could tell someone about this other than Stitch, but he did not know if that was going to be a likely possibility any time in the near future.

He was just about to offer up a possible idea behind Widow's actions that did not give away her mission, when Clint turned to him with another question. "Are you really sure it was a good idea to keep our new little, fluffy friend a secret from Fury?"

"Positive. He's been through enough as it is," Sora insisted, knowing Hawkeye was referring to Stitch.

"Okay, but do you really think Stark is going to let you keep him?" Clint then asked.

"I mean, if he does say no at first, we do still have the option of mentioning he's friends with Ventus, Aqua, and Terra, so…" Sora pointed out.

The others admitted Sora did have a point there, but it still did not detract from the biggest issue they were facing: the exact extent of Iron Man's rage, because something told them they were not going to like it.

---

"Okay, let me see if I've got this right," Peter told the young Avengers when they all met up with him, Gwen, and Miles for lunch at school the next day. "You guys took down the biggest HYDRA base in the world, helped capture one of the most dangerous people on the Avengers' most wanted list, stopped HYDRA from conducting research and experiments on the Heartless, freed another prisoner who is now your pet, and…you got grounded?"

"No, we did not get grounded. We just can't go any missions for a few weeks, and are only to leave the mansion for school, a possible Heartless attack, or something related to any part of our training, be it magic or fighting," Sora insisted.

"And don't forget about the whole no TV thing for the same amount of time," Yuffie reminded him.

"Yeah, pretty sure that's called being grounded," Miles informed them.

As much as he wanted to say otherwise, Sora knew he could not dispute this, so he decided to switch tactics. "In fairness, we did technically go against Tony's orders to do all that stuff, so…"

"Still doesn't make it anymore fair. If we had listened we probably wouldn't be here right now to have this conversation," Riku protested. Something which Yuffie immediately nodded in agreement with.

"I know, but we also helped put the team in a bit of trouble with SHIELD too, so there's also that," Sora reminded him.

Peter could not help but wince when he heard that and said, "Yeah, getting on Fury's bad side does tend to leave a trail of destruction in your wake, but at least he's willing to let you know you did go when you do something to help him out."

"How would you know that?" Gwen asked.

"Oh, because I teamed up with him and a couple of agents last summer to stop Chameleon from doing something that would've potentially started a war between Latveria and Symkaria," Peter revealed with a small smirk of pride. "Let me tell you, it felt good to hear someone actually thanking Spider-Man for something, but not as good as knowing that I'd never have to worry about Chameleon causing trouble for me again now that he's locked up in a SHIELD prison."

Sora, Riku, and Yuffie all winced a little upon hearing that, but only Sora was brave enough to ask the question. "Peter, do you know what prison Chameleon was being kept in?"

"I don't know. Probably one of those super max prisons like the Vault or…" Peter stopped short when he realized when Sora was getting at. "Oh right. The Breakout."

"Yeah," the three Avengers all nodded to their part-time teammate.

"Well, I know what I'm going to be checking for the first thing after school lets out today," Peter sighed in despair. He really did not want to deal with the master of disguise again after all the trouble he had already put up with from Chameleon in the past.

Gwen could only pat her boyfriend on the back as a way of comfort before turning back to the other three. "So what do you think happened to Mockingbird and Quake?"

"Don't know, but it can't be any worse than being grounded for saving the world," Yuffie replied.

"I think that depends on how you look at it," a familiar voice told Yuffie as a new presence made itself known behind her. Turning around, all of the teens were met with a young woman that only the three Avengers were familiar with, only now she was not wearing the SHIELD suit they had seen her in every time up until now. Instead, she was clad in a black t-shirt with a violet leather jacket, purple pants, and black boots, while a necklace with a green gemstone hung from around her neck. Either way, there was no mistaking who it was that had just walked up to their table.

"Daisy?!" Riku, Sora, and Yuffie all gasped, the silver haired boy being the only one to stand up, if only to make a little room for her at the table. A good idea since it was clear by the lunch tray in her hands she was not just stopping by to say hello.

"What…What're you doing here?" Riku asked as he watched her every move, even after she sat down next to him.

"Officially, I'm a transfer from another school, here to join you all in this place's attempts at molding young minds," Daisy told them with a smile. She then glanced about before whispering, "At least, on the surface. The truth is, after our little adventure, Fury figured he should have someone from SHIELD keeping an eye on you guys at all times, or at least as close to that as possible, and I'm one of the only agents he has that he can send in undercover as a student. I'm pretty sure he tried to get Coulson to participate to by sending him in as the new principle, but…"

"Uh, are you sure you should be telling us stuff like that when there are civilians hanging around?" Yuffie asked, pointing out Miles, Gwen, and Peter as she did. She had a hunch it was probably pointless, but if there was a chance Daisy did not know she was not going to let it be given away.

"Hey, if they're friends with you guys, I figure that makes them cool enough to be in the know on this," Daisy shrugged. She then gave Peter a subtle wink as she quietly added, "Besides, I figure if you can't trust your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man then who can you trust? Especially when his partner is Captain Stacy's daughter."

Hearing this made Peter and Gwen both freeze up for a bit, but the former did manage to regain enough composure to ask, "How do you…?"

"Dude, I got recruited by SHIELD because I was able to hack into their systems more than once. Figuring out your secret identity wasn't exactly hard, and it was even easier discovering who your girlfriend was afterwards," Daisy told him. "Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone in SHIELD has known who you are since you helped us stop Chameleon last summer."

"Oh great," Peter sighed. He was glad to hear neither he nor his friends had let something slip, accidentally or otherwise, but it was still a little upsetting to hear an entire spy organization knew his and Gwen's secret identities.

Daisy must have read this on his face because she quickly reassured him, "Don't worry. None of us ever plan on telling anyone. And besides, until I hear otherwise from Fury, I'm sticking around here for a good long time. So that's one more person on your list of amazing friends to help save the city."

"And we all look forward to having you around," Riku assured her, much to Daisy's smiling pleasure.

Sora and Yuffie knew Riku meant a bit more than what he actually said, and considering the sly looks they were able to share with their three friends, it was clear they had realized it too. Heck, when they finally joined them at the table, even Anya and Peter and Gwen's friend Mary Jane were able to pick up on the signs of sparks starting to fly between the two. So what if the teen Avengers were grounded for a few weeks? They took down HYDRA Island, and now they had Daisy as part of their little friend group. It all just meant things were going to get a little more interesting from here.

---

Meanwhile, in a place worlds away from Midtown or really anywhere on Marvel-topia, the Council of Villains were in the midst of another meeting to discuss recent developments. Both on their own worlds and in regards to their overall goals. Especially when it came to anything involving the Keybearer. "Humph. So much for the 'mighty' HYDRA," the blue-skinned man noted as he skimmed through the details they just learned about from Marvel-topia. "Guess that's just another reason why you had Enchantress recruit Zemo to the cause and not the organization he used to be part of. If their main base could be taken down so easily in one day, then there's no telling how long it would take them to botch up our operation."

"Please. Like you need anyone's helping botching your operations, Doctor D. You do plenty well with that on your own," a woman teased from behind the blue man.

"Grr, Shego! Not now!" the blue man hissed as the infamous Doctor Drakken finally moved into the light to be seen by all, glaring at his sidekick as he did so. "Ahem. Anyhow, does anyone else want to bring up the fact the brat and at least some of his friends could've been dealt with for good if a certain someone had bothered to be a little more helpful to Jafar?"

"Hey, I did my part. I brought the princess, didn't I? Besides, if I did anymore than I had, I would've tipped my hand to Sora and the other heroes," Night Hunter growled angrily, knowing full well what Drakken was implying.

"No one person is at fault for Jafar's fault, save for perhaps Jafar himself," Loki interrupted before any fighting could break out between his allies. "He allowed himself to be consumed by his own hatred and desire for more, and thus opened himself up to a darkness there is no escape from. One should always be careful to not let such dark flames burn too fiercely, lest the Heartless find themselves with a more desirable target."

"Bah! Please. Those little cretins are of no concern to me," Drakken waved off, clearly believing he was be patronized for some reason. "Whatever magic tricks you've used to conjure those creatures may be of some benefit, but ultimately, it'll only be a footnote in my ultimate victory."

"Uh-huh, sure. Not like you didn't come begging to these guys to let you in when Loki first showed up on the doorstep," Shego reminded him.

"Hey, it never hurts to have a little extra insurance," Drakken insisted. "Besides, it keeps a certain pesky teenager all the busier from discovering the true genius behind my latest evil scheme for world domination."

"Riiight," Shego drawled, clearly not buying it.

"At any rate, I hear someone has earned himself a nice little reward, hasn't he?" Drakken indicated as he prodded Night Hunter a bit.

The masked boy just looked at Loki, silently asking if Drakken and the information had recently received was good. In response, Loki merely smirked and waved his hand as an image came into being between them while he said, "As promised, you help us, and we have granted your wish."

Night Hunter gasped in awe at the image being displayed to him before turning to the one person in the room who was familiar with the world this image was coming from. "Rest assured, lad, she's safe and sound aboard my vessel so long as you don't allow anything particularly foul to happen," Captain Hook promised, brandishing his hook at Night Hunter in silent threat.

"What I'm wondering is the exact progress of your other mission," Loki told his masked ally, not wanting to risk saying the words aloud in case anyone here ended up doing or saying something that might let this particular plan slip.

"The blade grow has been growing stronger with every passing day. Especially since now I know where one of the other remaining princesses' hearts is hiding. Still, why not just claim the heart from its hiding place now like we have the others?" Night Hunter asked.

"Because we are still one short. Even with Jasmine, we only have five of the seven maidens. But rest assured, my friend, it is only a matter of time before we find her, and then, our ultimate goal will be within reach," Loki promised.

"It better be," Night Hunter growled, and with that he turned to march out of the room in a huff. "Let me know where you need me next. From what I hear, Enchantress needs some help with recruiting a few more people for her Masters of Evil."

Loki nodded in response as they watched the only masked member of the circle leave the room, some a bit more on edge than others. "So…are we sure we can really trust him?" Shego asked, being the only one brave enough to do so. "I mean, I get he's like a big deal in this whole thing, but he's clearly working an agenda of his own under that helmet thing of his."

"Oh believe me, my dear, there is no one more dedicated to making this happen than him. Especially since we have the thing he desires most in our hands," Loki assured her. He then waved a hand to change the image of the projection so that it now showed Sora and the other Avengers. "That said, the boy is becoming more and more of a problem with each passing day. His power is growing more quickly than I had expected, and he's already sealed several Keyholes. We may need to consider some more extreme measures in any future dealings we have with him and his little friends."

"Thankfully, the king's fools are not always around the little cur, but who knows how long that will remain true," the other pirate captain in the room noted.

"We will know exactly when that changes. After all…there are benefits to having a man on the inside," Loki promised, and his sinister grin soon spread to the others like wild fire, as they were all aware this particular plot would probably prove to be the most beneficial to their cause. The only question they had was just how much of a blow it would be to the heroes when they found out just how well and truly they had been fooled, and they could not wait to savor every moment of their despair when the Avengers found out.

---

AN: And that's a wrap. Yeah, a lot of stuff happened here today, some of it, admittedly took inspiration from various other Marvel franchises outside of Avengers EMH, but I think it all blended in well to work here.

Also, hey look at that! Stitch is here! Give it up for everyone's favorite little alien experiment everybody!

[audience applause]

Stitch: Meega, nala kweesta! AH, HAHAHAHAHA!

AN: Stitch!

Stitch: Hm?

AN: Language! Don't think you can get away with it more than once today, Mister.

Stitch: Stitch sorry.

AN: It's okay, buddy. Yeah, I know, maybe I could've waited a little bit to debut this chapter so that it lined up with the release of the new live action version of Lilo & Stitch, but hey, it's still pretty close to when we got the newest trailer for said movie, and I gotta say, it looks so good! Can't wait to see that when it comes out.

Sora: Question! Why have Black Widow tell me about her secret mission?

AN: I'm pretty sure I explained all the reasons for that in the story proper. But if you want the reasons outside of that, because I wanted to give her some way of affirming for Sora that he was not mistaken in his initial assumptions about her. I mean, sure, their first meeting wasn't very extensive, but it was enough for him to think she was one of the good guys, so having her reveal she is in fact a double agent working for Fury helps assure him his people-judging skills have not suffered. Not saying it'd be a bad thing if he was wrong about her, I mean, this IS Black Widow we're talking about, but for an early days Sora like the one we've got here, every little reassurance can help.

That said, want to know what everyone thought about Daisy's inclusion in this chapter. I know, it's been more than a minute she's had some proper screen time, but considering that I am in fact setting her up to be Riku's love interest in this series, it's only proper that I give her a bit more than just one chapter's worth of adventures.

And yeah, we skipped over the introduction to the Kree, because really, there was no real reason for Sora or any other KH character to be there other than just because. Having them partake in Hawkeye's pursuit of Black Widow, as you can see, definitely had a more significant impact in more ways than one. Also, yes, Stitch is officially adopted by Sora. Or at least he will be officially adopted as soon as Sora's no longer grounded.

Sora: So not fair. We basically stop HYDRA and we get grounded?

Spider-Man: Welcome to my world.

AN: Anyways, I like to think I did a decent job of getting Riku and Daisy some early bonding moments. And yeah, I made Riku an orphan here. I know, pretty lousy move on my part, but out of the entire Destiny Island Trio, he's the one who's family we've got the least knowledge about. Granted, we don't know a lot about the other two's families, either, but we at least know Sora had his mom in KH1 and Kairi was adopted by the mayor. Riku's the only one who's family we knew absolutely nothing about, so that makes his background a giant blank slate. And if you ask me, it does make a little bit more sense to explain why he was so eager to get away from the Islands and see what's out there. I mean, if the only things keeping him there are his best friends who want to get out and see the other worlds too, why would he feel like it would be a problem if he could never come home again?

Moving along, now Daisy's attending Midtown with the crew, and I guess you could say we've got our little team of Young Avengers fully completed for this story. Because yeah, if we're talking about a team within the team, this would be it for this story: Sora, Yuffie, Riku, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Quake, and (technically speaking) Miles. I mean, yeah, Anya might join in eventually, but it's not going to be happening any time too soon. Either way, here's your Young Avengers in this story.

Oh, and yeah, I had to include those little vision moments for when Sora first met Stitch, both to explain the Wayfinder for him better (or at least the inspiration behind Stitch's) and how the little guy knows Aqua, Ventus, and Terra. In case it's unclear, unlike in the Keyblades Unleashed Series, Stitch in this series falls more in line with the one we see in Kingdom Hearts canon, meaning he doesn't travel to Hawaii and meet Lilo, but he does find his own Ohana just from meeting Sora and the Avengers.

Now, I think that covers the major details of this story, so let's answer a few reviews, shall we?

Firstly, in response to the reviewer "Traveler52"'s review for Chapter 15, sadly, no, Kamala will not be in this story. You have to keep in mind, it's a little hard for Kamala to become Ms. Marvel if Carol Danvers hasn't assumed any of her heroic identities as of yet. Maybe she'll make a cameo in the next story, or heck, even show up as a full time character in the third story of this series, but as far as this story is concerned, we will not be seeing Kamala here. But I do agree; she and Sora would be very good friends. Assuming she's able to stop squealing in excitement over meeting another hero close to her age long enough.

Kamala: Hey! I'm not that bad!

AN: Aw, relax Kamala. I'm only kidding. You know we love you.

Moving right along, "Dragon Rider 66", glad you liked the last chapter so much, and yeah, I thought it'd be a nice touch to have Tony zapped back to the Iron Man Mark I for a little bit. If any suit really helps to show off the fact he is Iron Man, it's always gotta be the suit he built in a cave with a box of scraps. Sorry to say though, Tony won't be part of the Neverland team. To answer your question about why the sultan didn't try to wish for Genie to bring Jasmine home, well...part of the reason (which can be applied to both me and the characters) is that no one had really thought of that at the time. But the main thing is because he was still just getting used to the fact that the legendary genie of the lamp is real, so asking him to just jump right on that band wagon after everything else that had happened in the last 24 hours would've been a bit much for the poor guy.

You'll definitely see the Avengers incorporating gummi block tech onto the Quinjet later on, but it won't be for quite some time before we finally see it done in full. And let's just say while the events of the Captain Marvel movie do play some part in explaining Aqua's encounter with Nick Fury, I wouldn't go so far as to say the events of said movie itself were the entirety of the encounter. Maybe this is a bit of a spoiler thing, but if you're familiar with Avengers EMH, then you know that in season 2 it was revealed (or at least heavily implied) that Fury lost his eye during a mission when he came up against the Winter Soldier. It'd be during that mission in which he met Aqua, only this time around, there were Unversed involved.

"twilightnite13", yeah, Janet's going to get upset about not being part of the teams that go to other worlds for a while (at least when she finds out about it), because that is going to be a major running gag for this story until it finally happens.

Janet: And just when will it happen?

AN: Ha! Like I'm gonna tell. Anyways, no, Sora, Riku, and Yuffie won't be meeting Carol Danvers in this story. Or at least not for a very long time.

"Spiderfan626", well, safe to say it didn't take three years for this update to come out, hehe. And glad you enjoyed my work on the previous chapter. Same goes for everyone else who gave me props in combining the three different versions of Agrabah's story into one for last chapter, because let me tell you, some parts were a bit harder than others, but I'd say the end result...totally worth it. Yeah, Jasmine has been taken by the Council of Villains (as if that was ever in doubt), because you can't have the big finale event of KH without all the princesses being taken to Hollow Bastion and needing to be rescued. Of course, who's to say that will be the only reason for our heroes to travel to said world?

Ant-Man: Well that's eerily ominous.

AN: As it should be. And look at that, the Daisy&Riku ship is looking like it's already preparing to set sail soon, and we're not going to let up on that for quite a bit. Hope you enjoyed that set up.

"The Keeper of the Worlds", I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of any connections between Riku and Night Hunter. At least not beyond anything that is suggested in the main story, and not without giving away spoilers. But maybe I've already said to much as it is. You'll all just have to wait and see how that plays out.

And to everyone else who reviewed, thank you all so much for your continued support and praise of this story. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as well, and will continue to enjoy what's still to come.

Now, let's move onto the preview!

The kids' grounding flies by a bit quicker than they expected, and life seems to settle down a bit for Earth's mightiest heroes. That will all quickly change when a man called Kang appears before them claiming that he's here to save the future from destruction. Considering his method of doing so is to conquer their world, it's easy to see why they are doubtful of his "noble" intentions, but just why would he target the Avengers beforehand? Or more accurately, why would he target one particular member of the team above all the others? Discover the identity of the man who stole tomorrow in the next chapter.

Once again, be sure to check out my YouTube channel "Studio Fandom" and the DeviantArt page "studiofandom" if you haven't already. Always looking for more followers and subscribers on both.

And don't forget, we're still looking for voice actors for the Remnant of the Key Reading Series videos. Not only that, but we're now looking for artists who might be interested in helping to create images for said videos as well. For more details on what to do to sign on and/or qualify, go check out episode 8 of Studio News for full details on the voice actor stuff. Or even check out the latest episode of Studio News, (that being Episode 12) for all the details on both the voice actor stuff and the artist stuff. I should mention now though, since I'm not sure if anyone's really been paying attention when I say it in the video, the artist thing is not a paying job, not because I can't afford it, but because I'm unable to pay you. If that's a problem, then I'm sorry. Otherwise, assuming you just create things like this just for the fun of it like I do, you know where to get the info.And as always...

Please read and review, and see ya real soon, fellow true believers!