The Reluctant Avenger

Chapter 2 - Beginnings (Part 2)

Italics = thoughts and phone conversation
Bold italics = flashback

--

(January, 1992 - Night of Dr. Gerald and Deborah Turner's murders.)

Matthew Turner, brother of Dr. Gerald Turner, had just said goodbye to his brother's family who left for their return trip to New York. At around 10:05 pm., Matthew was on his way to bed when he heard a sound coming from the living room.

*SNIFF SNIFF*

That was followed by the sound of a child crying.

"I must have left the t.v. on." He muttered to himself.

He grabbed a baseball bat for defense just in case someone was illegally enjoying his big screen. Once he made his way to the living room, he rounded the corner of the couch and was shocked to see his baby niece, Gwen, curled up on the cushions crying. Matthew carefully picked up the child and noticed the blood on her clothes and the scratches on her body.

"Gwen? What happened, baby? Where's your mom and dad?" He asked with concern. The little girl cried into her uncle's chest as she tried to speak.

"They're dead! Our car crashed in a ditch and... a bad man killed them!"

Matthew couldn't believe his ears. His brother and his wife were dead... murdered. And Gwen was the only witness. He tried to calm the child down enough to get more details from her.

"Do you remember what he looked like, sweetheart?" Gwen nodded.

"He was tall, had dark clothes, long, brown hair and he wore a mask that covered his eyes and face."

For a child, that was a very good description especially after suffering such trauma. But she wasn't done.

"There was something weird about him."

"Like what, honey?" Matthew asked.

"He had a metal arm."

Matthew went pale when his niece shared that piece of information. In his military career, he'd heard stories of an assassin with a metal arm - the Winter Soldier. He figured he was sent to capture Gwen and killed her parents to get rid of witnesses. He also knew of the history of both sides of the family regarding Deborah's power and the possibility of the energy of the Tesseract within Gerald's DNA. That, alone, was reason enough for Hydra to come after the child. He also knew that if the Winter Soldier was here, she was no longer safe here. He held his niece as she cried herself to sleep.

"I'm getting you out of here, baby. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe from Hydra."

That very night, Matthew packed only a few belongings for himself and Gwen. He loaded his car and put Gwen in a car seat in the back. He had a place in mind where they could disappear:

"Next stop: Los Angeles."

--

(1996, Stark Industries.)

Ever since Tony Stark took over the operations and discontinued all production of weapons, Stark Industries was seen in a much better and more favorable light as a technology developer. To garner more good press, Tony Stark invited a class of first grade children for a field trip through his company. A class of over 30 children, led by their teacher, were escorted through the front door by Pepper Potts.

"Welcome to Stark Industries. I'm Virginia Potts, but you all can call me Pepper." The children laughed. "I'll be giving you the grand tour of our company. What we do here is we make some of the coolest computer stuff on the planet." As she explained, a robot rolled over to the children and greeted them in a robotic voice.