Hello there fello reader and maybe writer...
So here this is.
This is a try-out chapter to see if the main idea for the plot is liked or wether it's not. I really hope it's liked. If it is, then I'll continue updating until the story is done, if it isn't, then I will probably just take it down or something, it all depends on YOU.
So here goes nothing. (Rewritten 27 May 2018)
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X-X-Maiores Oculorum Corporis-X-X
(Eyes Older Than Body)
-.-.-
10th November
-.-.-
His shield went flying against a…Steve hadn't the vaguest idea of how to even begin describing the thing he was fighting. First it was a beautiful woman, then she was something that seemed to resemble the monster that parents told their children didn't exist. First she was wearing red high heels, and the moment later she had a metallic leg and the other resembling that of a donkey. He could only wonder what it was, as the shield flew back into his ready and steady hands.
If he could have a wish granted, he'd wish for this woman to be his only problem, but truth was, it really wasn't. There were others like her and not so much. Other types of these monsters —because he had no doubt that's what they were, stood in between a sort of briefcase and the small team Fury had sent to retrieve it.
Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye by the public, was shooting volley of arrows after volley at the monsters in front of them, but they didn't seem to do anything but pass straight through them. This was forcing him to use his actual bow to physically fight them. Natasha on the other hand, could not use her guns as they were way too short a distance, instead she'd broken off some pipes from the old warehouse they were in, and used that instead. With enough force, they killed.
SHIELD had sent them after this briefcase upon noting its signature being abnormal from what was a norm for them. They went after it, thinking it'd contain some left overs from the Battle of New York, something someone might have liked up and hid in an abandoned building such as this one. After all, New York had happened only months ago. It was still in the air.
Yet the monsters they were fighting looked nothing like the aliens that had followed Loki out of a wormhole in the sky and into the city. No these monsters were something different and it was ending up to be a very hard task to fight them, when they kept chaining in front of their eyes. Maybe too much work for a briefcase.
"What are these things?" Clint yelled over the noise of monsters yelling for their blood and their weapons clashing.
"I don't know," Steve spoke through the com they all had in their ears. "Just keep fighting." It was easier said than done, when they kept on not dying. To never stay down. Time would wear them out and then they'd be toast.
He aimed to make his shield go through another array of monsters, but before it could, something else did. A bronze dagger. Not the rusty type that is found in museums but, shiny bronze glinting in the small light that it caught as it moved. The monster —one of those ladies— like never before, exploded into a shower of dust and fell to the floor to reveal a teenager, barely a man standing behind it.
Steve quickly noted the rage behind the teen's eyes. Having a split second to look more carefully at the guy, he found confession clouding his thoughts as he acknowledged what lay beyond those irises. The years of pain so clearly displayed and so raw. Steve wouldn't have been surprised to know that he was much older than he claimed. After all, he was over a hundred in the body of a thirty year old.
Steve was also quick to note the scar that ran from his right temple down to his cheek. Not seeming to ruin the guy's vision by loads, but still leaving some scarring around the eye. And then there was the hand—not fully visible due to the long coat he wore but he saw it clearly. Metal.
The teen turned around, quicker than human eyes could follow. His dagger swooshing through the air and meeting another target. A kick up and then a stab down, another one of the monsters disintegrate into nothing. The teenager tore through them, looking like a demon for most of it but he seemed to be knowing what he was doing. It took him ten minutes to kill the horde of monsters that after half an hour the three of them hadn't managed to get down. All that remained from them was piles of golden dust, almost like sand.
Steve watched, along with Natasha and Clint, as the teen sheathed his dagger and started to walk to the briefcase. Intent became clear to him and Steve stopped him, "Wait!"
The mysterious teen stopped, not really looking intimidated but then again, he couldn't see the face. He inclined his head just slightly, showing he was listening. But he didn't turn around.
"We need that briefcase—" his words weren't even out of his mouth that the teen was making a grab for the case.
Clint was quicker than him this time, notching an arrow in his bow and pulling back the string. Being blunt about so that the threat mad itself known to the boy standing just still enough that he could possibly hear his own berthing. "Don't move," Clint warned him.
The teen didn't listen, instead moved, just so slightly triggering Clint's response to let the arrow fly. Steve was almost sure they were going to have to explain themselves why they fired at a teenager, what he didn't expect was for the guy, not even a man yet, to twist his body in the split of a second and catch the arrow in his right hand —the one Steve suspected wasn't a hand at all— inches from his face. He didn't even look fazed by it.
After that, he bent his legs to grab the case in his other hand. "This doesn't have to end badly," he said, his voice deeper than Steve had imagined. He wasn't surprised. After aliens invading New York, there wasn't much that could surprise him anyway. The teen snapped the arrow like one would a twig, Steve wasn't surprised, he was confused. "It's better if you turn away and forget you ever saw me." His voice held warning, but also sadness in it. Like he wished it wasn't so.
Steve's grip on his shield tightened. "You know we can't do that," he said. "We were sent here to collect the case. Can't exactly go back without it."
The boy's eyes flashed dangerously, yet it didn't seem like he wanted to fight them. He seemed to be fighting with himself. "I need the contents, I'll give you the case, but I need the contents."
Natasha dropped the two pipes she held in her hands, allowing for them to clatter to the ground and make some noise no one wanted. She stepped towards him, Steve noted him standing his ground, squaring his feet, readying for a fight. Left foot forward and right behind. He was right handed, no surprise there as it was metal.
Her voice was persuasive. "Darling, we didn't come here for a briefcase," she said. "We came for its contents. Hand them over. You don't want this to end in a fight."
His jaw clenched. Muscles in his cheeks feathering. "You're right, I don't," he said. "But I also can't give this to you. It isn't for people like you."
Clint frowned, lowering his bow to his side. "People like us?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Look, how about you come with us, so you get to hold on to the case, and we get to go back to base with it."
"I'm not an idiot," the teen said. Clint's —'Could have fooled me'— was ignored as the guy continued. "Now, please. Let me go."
Steve slacked his hold on his shield as he too, took a step towards him. "Look kid, we need the case and if you hand it over, slowly, without engaging, you can go. No one will know we ever saw you. But we need the case."
"No you don't." Steve saw the decision he was making before he made it. He saw the teen's eyes wonder around the room, looking and then the moment the words were out of his lips, he made a run for it. He spun around and bolted.
Steve had given him a chance to make this end easily, to walk away, it was his own damn fault he hadn't taken it. He sent his shield flying towards the teen, straight towards his back. For a moment he thought he was going to break his back but then the teen jumped —somersaulted— into the the air and when he landed, his feet were on top of the shield.
He didn't pick it up, or throw it back at him, instead kept running in the direction. Natasha and Clint were already on his tail and Steve was running too, picking his weapon upend telling them, "Split up!"
They split into three different directions as the boy ran further inside the warehouse that they had the misfortune to find themselves in. It was big, and tall and Steve —who was following directly behind him— didn't understand why he was going up. It was a dead end for sure. What he also didn't understand, was how the boy managed to keep ahead of him.
A quick thought of a serum came to mind, but he pushed it away. He had the feeling this was something different. This was something else.
Against his thoughts, the teen found ways to go both up and down, since the warehouse was seriously big. They ended up on the first floor of the house. An empty floor where the kid decided to stop and Steve could see why. There was a lot of space, which would be good for a fight, not for him tho. No, they would have the upper hand here.
Steve was behind him, while Natasha and Clint appeared out of two doors opposite each other. They made a triangle around him, surrounding him in between them.
His breathing wasn't labored, not as much as it should be after ten minutes of sprinting anyway. His eyes kept on scanning the area, every corner and ever pillar. Steve could recognize a caged animal when he saw one, and he felt sad for him but a mission was a mission. They wouldn't be beat by a teenager. Not today.
He went for his pockets, and Steve braced himself for a grenade, instead the kid brought out the knife from before. Small, but Steve had already seen it kill and disintegrate. He wasn't about to underestimate it, and his skill to use it. He took a defensive stance, the knife in his right hand.
Steve took a moment to asses the situation, asses him. This was not someone ordinary, he would need to be brought in. He noted how the kid's stance was flawless, something only experienced fighters had. He also noted his eyes, which kept darting across the room towards the doors that could be his escape before looking at Steve.
Clint was the first to attack. Firing an arrow which the kid dodged. Soon Steve followed into the fight, throwing his shield, to which the kid sidestepped, leaving for his metal frisbee to go bounce off a wall and come back at him. Natasha fired a taser at him. He simply grabbed the wired like the electricity running through them didn't hurt and yanked the gun out of her hands.
He aimed a good high kick at Steve's head, just before swiping low with his small knife. He stepped back, making to throw the shield at his face, but the boy switched grip of the knife and with his metallic hand, grabbed the shield and stopped it mid motion as Clint shot another arrow. An arrow which ended up bouncing off Steve's shield once the boy dodged it.
Natasha managed to land a solid punch at is side, making him stumble a little to the side, and Steve grabbed the opportunity to finish his initial act. He managed to smash his solid vibranium shield into his face forcing the kid to stagger back as he brought up a hand to his nose. It came out wet with blood. Something in his eyes flashed upon seeing his own blood.
Then two bullets found their mark in his left shoulder.
Steve didn't hear him cry out. Didn't hear him grunt or make a sound when the bullets hit him, which he found, extremely wrong. The bullets had come from behind him, so Steve turned around, to find Maria Hill standing there, a standard block 17 semi-automatic pistol in her hands and she seemed ready to shoot him again.
Steve was close to telling her to lower the gun, telling her it wasn't necessary when the kid made to move again him more and Agent Hill fired her third bullet. Steve turned to see the kid's thigh start bleeding. He was going to lose too much blood, and then he was going to die, and then they were going to have to explain that.
The kid dropped the briefcase, but he didn't stop walking towards him. So he threw his shield at him, not hard enough to cause injuries or break bones, but hard enough that when it made contact the boy fell to the ground, and didn't get up. He put him out of his misery, for now.
Clint ran up to the unconscious form and checked for a pulse at the neck. Steve would have done it if not for him, instead he walked to him to check the wounds, sending a glare at the female agent as well as saying, "That wasn't necessary. You could have killed him."
Clint was putting pressure to the wounds in his shoulder. "Technically he could still die. He needs a hospital."
Agent Hill shook her head. "No," she said. "We're bringing him to base for questioning. He can be taken care of there." Upon noting the look Steve gave her she added, "I never saw anyone take on one of you, forget three. He needs to be questioned."
"He's a child," Clint argued.
"I'm sure you don't believe that yourself," Agent Hill said. "After he so spectacularly whooped all your asses."
Natasha passed her. "Technically he didn't mine."
-.-
Pain was not welcomed, and truthfully neither was waking up to this world. But after what had happened, he felt like living was all he could do to retaliate for what they'd done to him. It was all he could do in other words. Still, waking up to find he was still of the world of the living, when there was nothing for him there…it wasn't pleasing.
Less so when the pain followed his conscious state. It seared and flared up in both his shoulder and his thigh. The feeling was not welcomed. Not after the fourteen years he'd spent in hell. Literally. The pain he felt now brought up bad memories, especially since his wounds were still sore, even though he had tried to bury them deep down somewhere.
His eyes opened groggily, his hands felt for the soft mattress beneath him. A soft mattress which meant he was in a bed, and…it had been long since he had last slept in a bed, let alone his own. The past few months he'd spent on the streets and…it wasn't like he had managed five star hotels.
For just a moment he closed his eyes, just, hoping he could fall unconscious and perhaps wake up under a bridge, and what he thought had happened had all been a bad dream. Yet the pain seemed very real and very at the moment.
His eyes opened in a flash and in a split moment, he was on his feet, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his right thigh, or in the shoulder. He looked down at his thigh, seeing a change from his tattered clothes, and felt tight fabric against the wound in his thigh, he saw the bandage around his shirt. All under a new pair of pants and top, matching black sweats with the emblem of some society on it.
It was a circle, a sort of bird in the middle of it and the words 'Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division' laminated around the bird. Still inside the circle. He didn't care what it was. He had no time to care about what it was. Right now he had to get the hell away from there, before word got out and… —a flash of lighting clouded his vision— he didn't want to think about.
He looked around himself, at the room in which he was in. It was all grey, the walls, the bed, the covers of the bed, the desk and the chairs. All very dull and boring, but to him grey was something else too. It was a pang of pain in his heart as he saw her eyes looking betrayed and then her leaving. It ruined him. He kept looking around, until he saw the camera at the top in a corner of the room, posed to look at the bed he had been so gracefully sleeping in.
He knew then that whoever had brought him here, knew he was awake and that they'd be making their way to him at the very moment. If he wanted to get out, he was going to have to think of something good and quickly. He hurried towards the window, put his hand on it to see that his right wrist held a band around it, he checked his other wrist. A twin band lay right there.
He looked out the window, he was very high up.
Then the door behind opened two people walked inside and Percy stepped back from them. They didn't seem friendly. One he recognized from their fight, and he had it on good memory that she was part of the team that had saved New York from an aline invasion in the spring. Black Widow. The other man on the other hand…he had never seen him.
He looked like a pirate, if only pirates were real. Wearing a black eyepatch over his right eye, scar tissue all around it. A trench coat that reached behind his knees. His old self might have found the eyepatch something to joke about, but right now, he wasn't in the mood and he knew better than to. So instead he stayed silent and simply looked at them.
The pirate look-alike walked behind the dull desk in the corner of the room, sat down behind it and sent a piercing glare to him, something he might have found intimidating had he not been through what he had. He sent one right back, finding satisfaction when the pirate looked mildly surprised. He extended an arm behind him to the redheaded agent, whom handed him a file, which he placed on the desk and opened.
"Percy Jackson, huh?" he asked, although he didn't give the illusion to be interested. He waved to the chairs in front of the desk. "I'm Director Fury of SHIELD. Have a seat. Be my guest."
That explained the long name around the logo of the sweater he wore. It was an acronym. He thinned his eyes in confusion, how in hell had they managed to find his name. And how the hell was he supposed to explain why it no doubt said he was dead. He sat down in front of the director, thinking it wasn't going to ruin his situation for the worse.
"We had an AI run scans of your face, cooked up this file for me," the man informed him, answering some of the questions he was sure were clearly written in his features. "And as you were taking your beauty sleep I allowed myself to read through it. I must say, it's very interesting. Do you know why?" He only set his jaw firm, clenching his teeth shut. "It says here, you were born in nineteen-eighty. Care to explain how you come to look like you're in your late teens. Or another intriguing fact, it says here that you're dead."
He sighed within himself, knowing these kind of people. That outright signs of boredom was going to trigger them and net he could find himself in a raft prison under water. Yet he couldn't bring himself to talk, he could answer those questions, not without alerting bigger beings than both himself and the director that he was still alive. Without signing his own death sentence.
The pirate guy continued. "But that's not all," he said. "It states here that your mother along with your stepfather died five months ago, which also seems to be the date of your death." He kept his black eye on him, trying to glare to squeeze out a response. He remained still and unresponsive. Fury continued, "Your biological father is unknown, and that you have a younger sister who currently lives in Eastern Manhattan.
"Your parents' death were caused by a sword, a bizarre weapon to carry around these times, don't you think? And yet you were carrying a small dagger with you when my men brought you in, and from their report it seems you can also use it pretty well."
"You're saying I killed my parents?" he asked the director, his voice low and dangerous. It was a touchy subject to him.
The director raised his hands. "I never said it, but you just did."
"I didn't kill them."
Fury stood, he started pacing the room. Going behind Percy. He didn't turn around to look at him, all he needed was to hear the words he was saying. "Do you know what this looks like?" he didn't wait for a reply. "Abusive step-father perhaps, you didn't like him, you went after him, and then your mother was in the way so she was just a casualty. Then faked your own death to not go under prosecution."
"I would never—"
The director interrupted him. "Tell me then, why have you been living on the streets for the past five months?"
Percy remained silent. This was a subject that was touching home and he feared that if he opened his mouth he would start talking and saying things he'd regret. That he was never going to get the chance to avenge them, and he couldn't do that. He had to get out of here.
Fury walked back behind the desk, looking at him from the top, while he lowered his head slightly. "We've got ways to make people talk," he told him, seemingly getting impatient, but it wasn't harsh. It was almost understanding.
He looked up at him, his eyes void of any emotion. "Torture will get you nowhere with me, Director," was all he offered the elder man.
"There are other means to get you to talk," Fury told him, taking a seat back in the chair in front of him. Percy watched him carefully. "Your sister for example—"
He was on his feet, slamming his hands on the table the next moment. He knew it was a mistake —showing them his loyalty, his weakness, but his sister was his sister— but he'd already made it, and so he might as well just get on with it. "You even just look in her direction and I will bring hell upon you." His finger was pointed stiffly at the director.
Fury smiled, leaning back into his chair. "Now, why don't you answer my questions?"
Percy swallowed down, his throat bobbing. He calmed himself down, telling himself that violence would not get him out of there any sooner than what was going on. He glared at the director, he glared at the Black Widow as well just for good measure, then sat back down in the chair. Sinking into it. "They're none of your business," he told them. "It's my damn life, I do what I want."
"One call to the government and there'd be a cell wth your name on top of it in a second," the director told him, his voice low and dangerous. "There is evidence, there is motive. You could be seen as murderer of three, and that alone would grant you twenty years, minimum."
He clenched his jaw, then unclenched it. Looked around himself at the window and remembered how high up they were. Thought that even if he could still survive that high a fall into water, the glass wouldn't break easily. He looked down at his wrists, were the metal bands still lay. He thought about twenty years in prison.
He let a sigh escape through his nose. A deep breath. "I can't answer the questions you're asking me," he said to them at last. "Even if I want to. I can't."
"And why is that?" the Black Widow asked him.
His eyes flickered to her, then back to the director and for the first time he allowed for some emotion to slip through his mask of blankness. He allowed them to see that he was deep down, afraid of the consequences of his actions. Had been for the past five months. "Because they'll kill me if they realize I'm alive. And my sister.
"Who's they?"
"Gods."
-.-
So did you like it? Did you not? Please review and let me know. I'm not asking for a specific amount, but I need to know if it's worth continuing this or if it's just a waste of time. A follow would suffice to let me know you are interested in what happens next.
Thanks for reading
Hunter XD