January 18th, 2014

There's a Superman/Wonder Woman comic I read once, called Whom Gods Destroy. It was really weird, had Superman turn into a centaur at one point. But there's a line in it that I love that goes something like this.

'That's the nature of destiny. Some volunteer, others get drafted. Either way, they're all in the fight. And considering the stakes... it's a fight we have to win.'

Wakanda had it's draft notice, courtesy of me. Now it was up to them to accept or pretend they had bone spurs.

Might have lost the metaphor. Point was, the ball was in their court. In the meantime, I had a job to do.

“So then he taught me how to punch people for three hours while yelling at me about protocol,” I told Hawkeye as we walked on a rooftop the next day, telling him about how Steve had 'punished' me the day before for running off with Bruce.

Clint laughed.

The two of us were in the middle of Manhattan, listening to police bands and Foo Fighters. The Pretender was coming out of my Bubble Speaker, the device Jury Rigg had made for me weeks back.

“Well, he's right,” Clint said with a grin. “You kinda went off without a plan, didn't you?”

I winced.

“Bet you didn't even know that would work.”

I winced again.

“How close was the Hulk to taking your head off before you transformed?”

I winced one last time, sighing. “I made a guess. Killed two birds with one stone, you know?”

“Mahmoud,” Clint sighed. “You need to think things through. You've got more power in that watch than anyone I've seen who wasn't named Thor. But you can't just go off for no reason, man. You've got a team to look after and to help look after you. You ain't patrolling alone anymore. As a super spy, I can personally attest to how important having backup is,” Clint said, putting emphasis on 'super'.

I sighed, nodding. I'd gotten used to being on a team the past few days, but I still tended to think of myself fighting on my own. But even Ben, with six years of experience fighting the likes of Vilgax, Animo, Kevin, Aggregor, and everything else in the universe had depended on Kevin, Gwen, Rook, and others to have his back.

As I was thinking about that, the police band on our comms flared.

“Fire on Eastern Parkway and Buffalo Avenue in Brownsville, the address is,” The woman on the radio rattled off the number over the radio as I activated the Omnitrix and Hawkeye turned on his armor.

The suit that came across him was very similar to Bobbi's, with a purple coloration to it. Interestingly, he'd chosen a helmet that looked a lot like the one from his 616 counterparts Ronin costume. A cloak came across his body as well, flowing around him to wind that didn't exist. “This is Hawkeye and Dial of the Avengers, we're on it.”

“...Say again?” came the response from a likely very confused dispatcher.

Hawkeye leaped off the building as I pushed down the Omnitrix and went Astrodactyl. Hawkeye's cloak snapped out into a large glider, allowing him to float down until I got to him and grabbed his shoulders by my foot talons. In seconds we were shooting through the air towards Brooklyn, flying past office buildings under to the speed of sound so we didn't shatter windows with sonic booms.

Even with me modulating my speed, it didn't take long to reach the fire. Hawkeye, on seeing the flames, waved up at me, speaking over comms since the wind would have drowned him out otherwise. “Go in the top floor and drop me over there!” Clint pointed at the top of a nearby building.

“Got it, squawk!”

I fired an energy blast at one of the windows and flew in, letting go of Hawkeye, who glided to land on the building he'd chosen on the way. As I flew inside, an arrow tipped with a bulbous canister flew past me. My feet hit the carpeted floor at the same time as the arrow hit. Hawkeye's arrow exploded outwards in a burst of foam that spread across the flame-filled room, covering me and everything else in the chilly white bubbles. The flames were instantly extinguished, and I tapped the Omnitrix.

“Fasttrack!”

I ran through the hallway with all of my speed, noting the arrow flying through windows and the various holes created by the fire, exploding into more foam, covering desks, bookshelves, and beds around us with the foam, all the arrows moving in slow motion to my enhanced speed. I slowed down slightly as Hawkeye spoke over comms, the light of the Omnitrix on chest flashing with each word.

“Got three people in a closet in the next room to the left. Older woman and two kids,” he told me. When the Avengers had chosen their new armor, Clint had gone for every audio and visual enhancement he could get. In moments like this, he'd be the eyes in the sky, while using his bow to snipe and aid.

I ran into the room he indicated and opened the closet, looking down at the elderly Asian women clutching tightly to a pair of young children, one girl slightly older looking than the other.

“Hi!” I said with a smile. “Sorry I can't be more polite!”

Before they said anything, I picked three of them up and ran for the stairs, moving past the people already escaping, rushing the three out to the sidewalk and running back in.

“One guy, stumbling on the second floor.”

I picked that guy up, a young Hispanic man, and rushed him out as more arrows landed around me.

“I've got two on the top floor, trying to run to the roof.”

It was a white couple, young and panicking. I picked them up and rushed them out as well, the sidewalk getting full.

Over and over, as Hawkeye fired his fire suppression arrows and I picked people up, we emptied out the building. My fur was slightly singed but not much considering my natural toughness and speed and Clint firing suppression foam to keep the worst of the blaze contained until the fire department arrived. Finally, only one person was left.

“It's a kid,” Hawkeye said calmly. “She's hiding under a bed, third floor, middle room on the right.”

“Got it!” I said, running into that room and bending down to look under the bed.

A young black girl stared at me, clutching a stuffed blue T-Rex to her chest in the shadows as flames roared behind me, illuminating her tearful face. “Hey, sweetie,” I said softly, wondering where the hell her parents were. Had I taken them already? Worry later. She was crying, covering her eyes to avoid looking at me. “Hey, it's okay. I'm an Avenger. You know them, right?”

Still crying, her eyes clenched tight, she nodded. “D-Daddy doesn't like them.”

“Oh,” the hell do I do now? “Well, I promise I won't hurt you. I'm just going to take you out of the fire, okay? Then you can be with your parents.”

She looked at me. I reached a hand out and smiled as reassuringly as a blue-furred alien can. Must have been enough because as hesitantly as she did it, she still slowly reached a hand out to hold mine. I helped out from under the bed, tucking the small child into my arms and turned to leave.

Of course, that was when the stairs collapsed. Yeesh, the building was seriously not up to code.

“Huh,” I blinked at that. “Sweetie, hold tight. I think I'm going to make my own exit.”

She nodded, the tiny thing tucking her face into my fur and holding her stuffed T-Rex close. I smiled at that, then reached for the Omnitrix. I entertained the idea of turning into Four Arms before dismissing it. Better to keep him a secret for as long as possible. Plus, his strength and size might end up destroying the building due to how weak the building was. I'd go for strength without going overboard. I tapped the Omnitrix, transforming into something tough and strong enough to tear a hole in the building without hurting the child.

“Rath!”

The little girl seemed to find the sudden thicker fur of my new form comfortable. I gave her fond smile, then bent my legs, holding in my typical bombastic personality as Rath to keep from scaring her. With explosive force, I leaped upwards, crashing through the ceiling. The girl screamed, tiny right hand clutching at my fur and left hand holding her T-Rex close. I landed on the roof and jumped one more, landing on the sidewalk in front of the building, causing only minor cracks in the sidewalk, people leaping away from me and screaming in surprise at the giant tiger man coming out of the sky.

Firetrucks had shown up, staring at the foam covered building as they moved quickly to douse the remaining fire, water beginning to fall onto the crowd as they sprayed the building. I felt some water drip on me and held in a growl of annoyance. Rath didn't like water.

Hawkeye came gliding to join me as I looked around. I noticed the phones filming me, but ignored them. “Listen up! Rath wants to know who's cub this is!?” I raised her high over my head to make sure everyone in the crowd saw her and she could look for her parents. The girl looked around, rubbing at the tears on her chubby cheeks.

“That's my daughter!” A black woman cried out, rushing away from EMT's to come over to me. She had tear tracks going through the soot on her cheeks as she rushed forward. She hesitated, for the barest moment, when she realized just what was holding her daughter.

“Mommy!” the little girl wiggled in my grip. I gently put her down, and she rushed for her mother, who hugged her, the two crying openly.

I smiled at that as Hawkeye came over to join me. It was heartwarming.

“G-Get down on the ground!” the heartwarming moment was shattered when someone yelled at me. I blinked, turning to look.

A cop was pointing his gun at me. For a moment, we all stared at the guy.

“... No?” I said, confused. “Rath just helped everyone. Rath is starting to wonder if you're dumb, and that's saying something coming from Rath!” I finished bombastically.

People in the crowd giggled nervously. Hawkeye tapped his chest, his armor turning into his quiver. “Officer, we're Avengers. Please, put your-”

“Hawkeye, Dial,” Maria said suddenly. “We just got a message from a former SHIELD scientist by the name of Bill Foster! He's asking to be pulled in with an asset, and you two are the closest to him. I'm sending in a Quinjet.”

A Quinjet, one of the newer models, dropped out of the sky just a few moments after that message, hovering into the street and opening its back doors as people shouted and pointed. “X tells us HYDRA is after them.”

Hawkeye and I shared a fast look then, turned and ran for the Quinjet.

“I said freeze!” the nervous cop yelled, shooting me in the back.

I ignored the bullet that bounced off me, leaping into the Quinjet and turning to look out. “Rath is going to go fight HYDRA! STAY BEAUTIFUL NEW YORK!” I raised my fists in the air, the Quinjet closing as cameras stayed on me and a laughing Hawkeye.

------

“That building there,” the Quinjet pilot Maria had sent said. Apparently, he'd been on his way to the helicarrier and had been moved to pick Hawkeye and me up instead. He pointed at a warehouse next to the harbor, where another three Quinjets, HYDRA, were parked by the docks. Our Quinjet's cloaking was keeping us hidden for now. We were hundreds of feet above the building in question and still heading to it.

“Okay, swing over those Quinjets,” Hawkeye said, his bow shifting as he moved towards the back of the Quinjet, with me following quickly.

“You want me to lower down, sir?” The pilot called back at Clint.

“Nah, I'm good,” Clint lifted his purple bow and clenched his hand around the grip. When enough pressure was put on it, the bows catoms moved and flowed, more moving from the quiver on his back to add to it, making the overall bow thicker and longer, increasing its poundage. He picked an arrow tipped with a three-pronged hook from his quiver and pulled back on the bowstring as the Quinjets back door opened up, aiming for the enemy Quinjets' when we passed over them. “So, you think you'll take up archery?”

“I'm thinking about it,” I admitted, watching him.

He fired three times. Seriously, that was how it felt. As though the motion of picking out an arrow, nocking it, pulling on the bow, and firing, was all as fast as though he'd simply been firing a gun. Damn. All three Quinjets had been hit at the exact point where the power could most easily be interfered with and the arrows sent catoms flooding through them, the tiny robots transforming to 'eat' at a three-foot radius from their point of entry.

“Let me know if you ever want lessons,” Hawkeye said with a grin.

The Quinjet flew toward the warehouse and landed in front of it. I leaped out and landed on the ground.

“I'll keep an eye out!” Hawkeye yelled. I nodded, then activated the Omnitrix. Hawkeye's armor flowed back over him, turning him once more into an intimidatingly cloaked and armored being. He pointed his arm at a nearby building and tapped his fingers to his palm. A line shot out, the end tipped in a chemical based on Goop's adhesive, the end attaching. The powerful motor on the other end reeled in the line, shooting Hawkeye towards the roof. As he left, so did I.

I ran into the warehouse through a door that had been blown off its hinges while activating the Omnitrix.

“Fasttrack!”

“There's a man being chased through one of the hallways,” Hawkeye said. “That will be Bill Foster. I've got him. You want to focus on Ava Starr, she's the Enhanced HYDRA's after,” I heard the twang of a bow firing several times. “Foster's headed to the extraction point. Looks like Ava was distracting the other soldiers. She's down the hall in a big room. She's fighting Centipede soldiers along with the normal HYDRA assholes. I'm giving her support.”

“Got it!” In seconds, I was down the hall and looking at a big room filled with crates. One of the doors was open, revealing the river outside the warehouse and giving the whole room the smell of the murky river. Soldiers were standing around pointing at a crate with their guns. Right up until an exploding arrow slammed into one's chest, piercing through the metal roof to make the shot.

BOOM!

More arrows fly in, scattering the forces. I grabbed a soldier running by me and punched him a bunch of times in the chest, turning his ribs into dust, then rushing to the crate they'd been pointing at. Figuring this was where Ava was hiding, I ran around to get to her, only to blink at the sight.

Ava was Ghost. Except Ghost in the comics was a man. I mean, she had the same costume and everything, but she was clearly a woman. Pushing away my brief confusion, I waved at the white-helmeted woman.

“Hi, I'm Dial,” I winced at how cheesy that sounded. “Wanna get out of here-”

“Look out!” she yelled, pointing behind me.

Time slowed from my speedy perspective. I turned to see a Centipede soldier coming out of the smoke, aiming to wrap his arms around me. I stepped into his grasp with my hands raised and started hitting him. Damn. Felt like punching steel. I bashed him in the chest as fast as I could, jabs, uppercuts, and hooks until I felt a couple of my knuckles split from the constant meeting of my fists to enhanced flesh covered in metal.

When he went flying back, I tried to smirk to make Ava feel less nervous. “Yeah, got to hit these guys a lot to cause any damage,” I turned to her. “Come on!”

She got up and I quickly swept her into my arms. I ran out to the extraction point, slipping around soldiers with ease and keeping myself moving until we were outside.

Suddenly, Ava did... something, turning into the Ghost that gave her her codename. She went through my arms, falling to the floor.

“What just happened!?” she yelled up at me as I blinked in surprise. “Did you just-”

“Ava!” the two of us looked up at the Quinjet parked in front of the warehouse, the back open. I found myself staring because inside was Laurence Fishburne, the guy who'd played one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite standalone movies ever. Because it had NEVER gotten a sequel.

I watched as Ava ran into the Quinjet, hugging Bill Foster. “Huh. Morpheus. That's cool.”

With that, I ran back into the warehouse as the Quinjet took off into the sky.

Inside, Hawkeye had pretty much finished most of the infantry, who were running out towards the Quinjets, leaving thirty of their people behind. The Centipede soldiers were still up and fighting though, six of them left. I entered the warehouse and tapped the Omnitrix, turning into someone a little stronger.

“Blitzwolfer!”

In my werewolf-like form, I towered over the men and women around me. One of the Centipede soldiers stepped forward to punch at me. I blocked it on my forearm and punched her in the face, dropping her to the ground. Two others rushing me got a quick sonic blast that sent them flying into crates, wood shattering under their bulk.

A hit to my lower back got a grunt of pain from me. I turned to see a tall man, who backflipped to hit me in the muzzle. I stumbled back as two other Centipede soldiers stepped in to punch me in the stomach.

“ENOUGH!” I roared/sonic blasted, sending all three flying. As they fell to the floor, I jumped on top of one and punched him in the face, knocking him out, blocked another as he rolled up to kick at me, and clawed his chest, leaving deep line across it. I roared once more, my sonic blast destroying crates behind the guy as he flew back into a wall, denting it massively. Then I tapped the Omnitrix symbol on my chest.

“Goop!”

Flying above the room, I spun at high speed and started firing pieces of myself at the soldiers still on the floor and the female one who'd just started to stand back up. I flowed through the room in my spinning form, adhesive goop slamming into the Centipede soldiers until they were all struggling to fight out of the powerful grip of the green slime surrounding their bodies. I stopped and shifted to my bipedal form to look around.

The female Centipede soldier, apparently thinking she'd snuck up on me, swung her fist into my back, coming out the other side in a splash of green liquid. I shifted my body, my head and limbs going the other way so I was facing her. Her blank face looked up at me.

“Rude,” I said from the floating Anti-Gravity Projector above my Goop form. I flowed around and surrounded her, soaking her in my adhesive form, then moved away to leave her in a pile of adhesive. She struggled, left unable to move in the makeshifts bonds I'd created. For a moment, the room was quiet except for the sounds of Centipede soldiers fighting to escape. I noted how none of them really had expressions. It was kinda creepy. Even movie zombies at least growled or something. These guys and girls simply stared at me.

“All done?” I shifted my body to look at Hawkeye in his full armor, who shivered at the way my fluid body moved. “Seriously, that is crazy looking.”

“Sorry!” I said in the robotic voice from my projector. In a flash of green light, I turned back into my human form. “Well, we have prisoners now, right?”

Suddenly, one of the Centipede soldiers began to scream. Hawkeye ran to him, leaning down. “Shit! They're trying to activate the kill switch in their eyes!”

It was something Coulson's Team had told us about. All Centipede soldiers had some useful upgrades, among them a slick eye implant that let them see through walls. But, it was also able to be used to kill the soldier. The ultimate way to keep your soldier from being interrogated was to simply kill them.

“Jarvis!” Hawkeye yelled.

“I'm stopping them,” Jarvis said to us over comms. “But their programming has been upgraded from what Skye and Fisk have told us. I'm pulling in X to help.”

More Centipede soldiers began to scream until all six of those awake were wailing in pain. Others, the ones I, Ava, and Hawkeye had killed or knocked out, started to shake before going still.

I tried to think of some way to help. Brute strength was off the table, Jury Rigg would take to long, soooo...

In a quick turn of the Omnitrix, I flipped through my Omnitrix's menu. In that time, two soldiers died, their right eyes twisting around in their sockets. I pushed the Omnitrix down and transformed. My skin became inky-black with green circuitry.

“Upgrade!”

I leaped towards the female soldier, my body slipping into her eye as she screeched in horror and pain.

“Oh my god!” Hawkeye yelled, the sight of my massive nanite form flowing into a woman through her right eye apparently surprising him. As the last of me entered with a 'slurp-slurp' sound, he held a hand over where his mouth would be under his helmet. “I'm going to be sick.”

I ignored him, instead joining with the woman's implant. It was the work of a quick thought to disconnect her from her handlers network. I flowed through the rest of her only to meet with something interesting.

She had other nanotechnology in her body. And it was angry.

Where I had been thinking of myself as a fluid being, I was suddenly split into millions of tiny bodies, battling nano-sized beings that were constantly rewriting the woman's genetic code, giving her some of her superhuman strength and healing. They were also fucking crazy. If it wasn't for the strange makeup of her body, she would have started exploding at some point. As it was, her platelets had been modified to stop herself from doing that.

The nanotech, obviously Extremis, tried to attack my form, tearing at me. I took the blows and absorbed them, shifting them into becoming a part of me. I flowed through her, into the Centipede device, and winced mentally at the feel of the gamma radiation within it. Seriously, with the way her body had been set up, she'd soon self-destruct without constant maintenance. I didn't have time to fix it, however. The surviving Centipede soldiers were dying. Once I took over her form, I connected to the wireless unit that had been trying to kill her, piggybacking onto it and connecting with the surviving soldiers, Jarvis moving aside to allow me in. One more man died in that time. Then I disconnected them from the wireless, leaving the women connected. I flowed into that link, Jarvis joining with me as we bounced through the internet chasing our opponent. They tried to fight us, but I went through it. Just before I could find it, we received a message. A message that had been sent to someone on the other side. With some work, I realized I'd hacked the email of one of the Centipede soldiers handlers. The soldiers were being controlled. And the people controlling them were... Fuck.

In the millisecond it took to read it, I changed tactics.

“Shit, they're dying!” I said, sending malfunction reports, moving a portion of my body off the woman's shoulder to look around.

Hawkeye stared at me, giving the clearly alive Centipede soldiers a look.

“Go with it, sir,” Jarvis sent him.

“Well, stop them!” Hawkeye yelled, moving to take a mans pulse.

“I'm trying!” I yelled dramatically, rereading the message. Once I knew what I had, Jarvis moved with me, calling out for X.

Soon the three of us had gotten everything. Some of the volunteers had been hired. But most were former computer technicians and such, normal people. They'd been pulled in using what HYDRA called the 'incentives program'. Blackmail.

What we found was a series of images of people. Women, men, children, all locked in rooms, some crying, some angry or confused. They all had guns aimed at them. Over each image was something simple, each personalized. Each horrific.

If you do not follow our orders we will kill them.

You want to see your wife again, don't you?

Do as we say, or we'll kill your son.

Hostages. They were threatening to kill hostages in return for someone to help them. I pulled back, furious. If I went too far, then I'd end up getting innocents killed. I needed to work around HYDRA. We needed to find the facilities they were being held in first. Hill had to hear about this.

I sent false reports of the Centipede soldiers with us dying to the kill switch in their eyes before pulling back into the woman. I concentrated on her for a bit. First, use the Extremis nanotechnology to heal her. Then pull the cybernetics out of her, Extremis repairing her organs and right eye back as I removed the machinery connected to them. The Centipede device and Backscatter eye implant were joined to me.

I left her body through her eyes. In seconds, I was standing in front of her. She gave me a shuddering look. Then she passed out. As she slumped within Goop's green adhesive, I focused on the Extremis nanotech, Centipede implant, and the backscatter eye implant that were part of me, 'spitting' them onto the floor.

“...That was gross,” Hawkeye stated, likely a little green under his helmet

“We have issues,” I said, trying to show how I wasn't even sure what the hell I'd just done. “We need to talk to the Director.”