MARVEL: RE-DO

After the wipeout of my first Hydra base, I followed the route Barton pointed out to me to avoid surveillance and made my way to the base.

When I got to the base I saw Coulson and Barton watching the clip of me demolishing HYDRA’s base.

They turned to me the moment I walked in and gave me different looks as I walked in with a half burnt trouser, bare footed and without a shirt.

“Well that was… something.” Coulson started but even he looked uncertain at the end. It was understandable as both my abilities and the way I killed them was brutal. I literally used my hands to wipe out a base of over 40 HYDRA soldiers.

“Are you okay?” Barton asked, looking sympathetic(?). I didn’t know why he looked that way but it didn’t mean I was a brutal killer who would use the skulls of his enemies as chalices.

HYDRA though was different, being brutal on them was the only way to wash whatever stigma they might have left on me for the past year.

“Just peachy.” I answered. It felt liberating to finally be out of the damned base and do something else. Hell I might even go to the movies just to feel more of this, but not now.

Surely by now they would have received news that one of their bases was annihilated.

“What do we do now? Hit another one?” I was roaring to go mostly because of how I felt during the fights. It was as if my body was storing an enormous amount of energy and I was looking for a way to release it.

“Not today. Fury was called by the Council for a meeting and he said he had an avenue to run a check by, so for now you lay low.” Coulson informed me while still giving me a look that made me slightly uncomfortable.

“Can I ask what you did back there? It seemed as if your body was burning through some kind of energy that made you stronger. Is it some sort of pyromantic-kinetic energy induction ability?” He asked with genuine curiosity.

“What does that mean?” Barton asked as he didn’t understand what Coulson said.

I clarified for him, “He’s asking if I’m using my body heat to increase my body’s natural abilities.” I turned to Coulson and answered him, “It isn’t my body heat but something else. Kinda feels as if I’m a ball of energy.”

“So you are a walking nuke.” Fury came in at that moment. “You look as if you ran away from prison, I presume it went well.”

“It went more than well to me boss. It went bad. A good bad.” Barton said as he indicated to the clip and played it for Fury to watch.

Ok, that was too brutal to watch. I didn’t realize how barbaric it was to watch from a third person POV. Using a punch to break someone’s neck in the opposite direction or piercing through someone’s heart with a searing red fist was only cool in movies, not real life.

“Damn, you sure you OK there? It looks as if someone gave you an aphrodisiac and tied you to a bed in the middle of a strip club.” Fury asked but I could see the mirth in his eyes. He’s found a wildcard.

“I’m fine.” I said, “What’s our next move? There are six HYDRA locations in New York alone, we need to move fast.”

“No we don’t,” Fury said confusing me, “We don’t move fast, we move steady. HYDRA isn’t on the run, we are. We move too fast they’ll catch a pattern, we move too slow and they’ll catch us with our pants down and then its game over. We keep with a pace.”

“And how do we do that?” I asked in curiosity this time. 

“We destroy more bases of course.” He said as it was stupid of me to even ask. 

“You know what, I think I’ll go take a bath.” With that I walked away to watch all the sweat and grime from my body. 

… 

[Phil Coulson – S.H.I.E.L.D AGENT POV] 

It was unbelievable. 

What he saw definitely wasn’t what a human could do. 

A mutant. 

An evolved specie of human descent. 

Sure he had seen some videos of these mutants abilities and while some were as redundant as changing their hair color or secreting glue from their pores, others were powerful like calling forth storms, titanic strength, phasing or controlling magnetic fields. 

He had seen records of these things but never had he been in the same room with one. 

The experience was unreal. 

He watched the video with Barton twice and he still didn’t know how to feel. 

He saw Mr. Cross tear through the body of a person with just his fist. Bullets didn’t kill him as he regenerated from them in less than a minute! Then came his flaming fist. It wasn’t on fire but the heat from it, even though he was seeing it from a screen, was dangerous. It was as if lava were flowing through the veins of his hands. 

This was a mutant. 

Now he understood why the super soldier serum was one of science’s greatest discovery, and this man was made to be better. 

He didn’t know what that meant but he knew this man was at least stronger than Captain Rogers. If Captain Rogers was the ideal soldier then this man was the ideal killer. 

“Sir what do you think?” He asked his director. 

“He is growing.” His boss answered with a casual tone but that information floored him. 

“Growing?” What did growing mean? Was his abilities still in its infancy? He didn’t know but it was a dangerous thought to think. 

“If you watch closely, you’ll see that even he was surprised by what he did so it is safe to assume he didn’t have this kind of ability before or he couldn’t do something to this extent.” Director Fury explained, “My thought is whatever experiment they did on him enhanced his abilities.”

He hummed at that. 

“What about S.H.I.E.L.D?” Barton was way more composed than he was. 

“I’m tailing Pierce right now but his guy, Rumlow, I couldn’t find him. If he ends up showing up in an HYDRA base… then that’s more than enough proof.” Director Fury didn’t sound like he always did. He almost sounded betrayed. He definitely found something out but he didn’t want to say. 

“What about him?” He assumed Barton was talking about Mr. Cross. 

“As of now he’s our ally, which is what we currently don’t have enough of. If his hatred for HYDRA is as hot as we’ve seen then he needs us as much as we need him.” Explained the director. 

“Damn! This wasn’t on the job description boss. Six months into the job and we’re already up against myths, what next gods?” Barton complained with a weak smile on his face. 

“If I knew it was like this, not even I would have signed up.” Laughed out his boss. 

They’d do what they can till they can no longer. It was after all what they signed up for.

… 

[Draul St. Cross POV] 

The bath was nice. I wondered when I had a bath as nice as that, where I could just relax and just let the cold water flow all through my body. 

I entered my room and went to the window side and looked at the night of the city. 

An hub for the unnatural was what this city was. 

I wondered when I could go back home, if I could even consider it that. Everything now felt foreign…. Or maybe it was just the freedom talking. 

After putting on simple clothes for sleeping, I went downstairs to talk about what we had to do and also grab a bite. 

I saw Barton inside the kitchen whipping up some eggs and rice. 

“Kiddies or black.” I chuckled at that. “Black.” There was no way I would trade the first cup of coffee I’ve had in over a year and half for anything else, talk less of juice. 

He poured me a cup and with thanks I took the cup and went to the living room to join Fury and Coulson. 

“What now? I mean we did destroy a base but that was like 1 out of 150. Statistically we haven’t done shit.” I wanted to disrupt HYDRA for a while so as not to miss some cannonical events. 

It was something I remembered when gazing out the window. It was currently 2003 and the most important event happening in 2003 was Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk. 

I was only able to remember it because during my past life it was one of the best Marvel movies released at that time. No other movie released in 2000 - 2003 made waves like the ‘Hulk’ movie. 

There was a thought that occurred to me when I was remembering it – What would happen if I took Banners serum. With my adaptive ability I should be able to survive without gaining an alter ego or becoming an abomination. 

This also raised some questions about my evolutions. Ernst theorized that evolutions could be guided which was already proven tonight with my tryst with HYDRA. 

What would happen if Banner’s serum was adapted to and evolved from to something that suited me. 

The Hulk’s invulnerability was something I needed. 

I looked at Barton as he served the food and started salivating, forgetting what I asked Fury. 

I had three servings of rice before I had my fill while the rest watched me in amusement as I wolfed down the entire thing. 

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just the way you ate like it was the last meal you ever saw.” Barton laughed as he explained their collective stares. 

“If you live on the same diet for over 18 months then you’ll understand.” Was all I said as I finished my last serving. 

We sat down and watched TV for a while with beers before Fury started. 

“Tomorrow you’ll try to hit two bases before 5pm. You think you can do it?” Fury spoke in a low tone without taking his sights away from the screen. 

“We don’t know how the other bases are, but if they are anything like today’s then yeah but why the time.” I don’t understand why he introduced a time frame. 

“For proof.” Was the only thing he said and the room fell into silence.

We went to bed around 3am because we stayed up late watching movies because for some reason we all had. 

Me: “I haven’t watched TV for more than 18 months.”

Barton: “There are hardly any good ones.”

Coulson&Fury: “Work.”

….

[The Next Day] 

Being the alarm clock I was, I rose, not woke up, no, rose from the bed at 5.30am, New York standard time and found Fury on the dining table sipping a mug of black. Apparently he couldn’t sleep. I guess he had a lot riding on what we were doing. 

The risk of failure was huge for him, his life least of all, losing a part of their military, civilian lives and worst case scenario – war. 

An American war was something that would shake the world's economy. Its crash would be most disastrous for the American citizen and it would be all on him, not on any HYDRA politician or military but him because he couldn’t identify the threat sooner. 

Worst of all was that the threat was directly in the midst of the world’s greatest intelligence gathering organization. 

It would be a world war – World War 3, because the other countries would attack like wolves aiming for the meat that was America’s economy. 

Anyone would crash under that kind of pressure but not Nick Fury. He didn’t fold even after three alien invasions and two different outbreak of wars in the movies and comics, this wasn’t near enough to make him bend, no, it would only fuel his paranoia. 

Barton and Coulson came out few minutes later and we had breakfast in dining room this time around. 

4 men in a room eating breakfast in a little house in nowhere, New York, with plans to destroy the world’s no.1 terrorist organization like it was a sports highlight. 

We took less than thirty minutes to get ready. 

Barton remained at the house to monitor my movements during the mission while Fury and Coulson went to a Council meeting. 

This base was in Manhattan. 

I walked in like I did yesterday with the same outfit. I had to make today’s raid as loud as possible, was what Fury said. 

This one unlike yesterday’s, used a saloon as the front leaving me speechless. These guys sure were tenacious. 

Ignoring the shouts of protests, I walked in to back room and saw that it was fitted with monitors showing parts the city – escape routes, abandoned railways, hangars etc. 

Killing them before they could say anything, the sounds from the front, which came from an actual saloon, attracted the civilians and caused chaos outside. 

I connected Barton to the mainframe here and followed as he directed to their hideout behind the saloon. 

Since Fury wants me to be loud, I’ll give him loud. 

Hydra won’t know what hit them.