Metallic Lights {Metallic Charms Book #3}

Chapter 22: Revealing Hydra

Chapter 22: Revealing Hydra

~~~~~~~~~~~{Sky’s Point of View}~~~~~~~~~~~

So, after that oh-so-eventful afternoon, the Avengers, plus me, were sent away to the hellicarrier again. I was getting a little ticked off about the constant relocating and moving around because of S.H.I.E.L.D. These days, I almost never stayed in the same place for more than a week.

Tuesday, I’d be at Tony’s in New York. Thursday? Sleeping on Clint and Natasha’s couch in Hawaii. Sunday; Starlie’s garage while she was at S.H.I.E.L.D HQ. And then Tuesday again? Tony’s, but this time in California.

Since Noel got back, we’d been sticking together, relocating a lot. Direct orders from Fury, he thought we were all in danger or something. Scared that we were going to be picked off one by one, as if Noel was some crazy, psychopathic terrorist or something. But she wasn’t. And that’s what made me sick. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I ignored Fury’s orders to get back into the mission. I ignored Tony and Pepper’s getting-scarily-serious relationship. I also ignored Steve’s phone calls. He wanted to talk about Noel –at least, that’s what I’d heard from Bruce. But I didn’t want to talk to him at all. Being trapped on a hellicarrier with him was not going to be easy.

“Sky!” I heard his voice and immediately sped up, trying to get away from him, but my heart also started racing too. Why me? I asked myself and pressed my finger to the side of my head and nodded as if I was getting a message from Fury. It was the S.H.I.E.L.D version of fake texting or a fake phone call to get out of an awkward situation. Before I knew it, Steve sighed and walked straight past me and I ducked into the nearest bathroom and slid down the wall with my head in my hands.

“Calm... Calm.” I chanted to myself. I was okay, Steve was okay. But whenever we were around each other, I went nuts. I didn’t want to, I wanted to hate him for what he’d done to me, but I couldn’t. My pulse and heart rate went up and I couldn’t think straight, my thoughts clouded and all I could think about was how much I wanted him back.

“Uh...” I heard a voice in the room, echoing off the walls. “Skylar, what are you doing in here?”
I looked up and spotted Tony’s grinning face. “I’m freaking out, what does it look like I’m doing?” I quipped.
“In the men’s room?” Tony’s left eyebrow lifted a little and his lips twitched even more, the grin spreading.
My face went red. “Oh. Um. Er...”
“It’s okay.” He laughed. “Steve?”
I nodded. “Stupid, I know.”
“Not stupid.” Tony disagreed. “But I do think you need to distance yourself from him. Time will heal. And after a while, if you meet again under the right circumstances, this might restart.”
“You make it sound like we’re machines, like we’re something that needs fixing.” I smiled and stood up.
“I’m a mechanic, Sky.” Tony wink. “Fixing things is what I do.”

***

“I guess you could say, that the thing that started it all, is back.” Fury declared. “Seventy years ago, Howards Stark and Abraham Erskine created the Super Soldier in order to fight Hydra, the Nazi Deep Science Division. Obviously, that was a success. They managed to create the world’s first super hero. Then came S.H.I.E.L.D, an agency designed to keep our world safe by intervening in homeland security issues before it was even feared. And then you all followed.” He addressed the Avengers, directly.
“Over the years, we’ve added to the Initiative, kept tabs on you in case you were needed. We thought Loki would be the worst of it –that everything after it would be a breeze. We were wrong.” Fury admitted.

Natasha took over, Clint and Starlie following her to the project screen. Hydra symbols and faces were displayed everywhere. Underground tunnels and facilities that had been abandoned, but obviously used in the past year or so.

“About seven months ago, we stumbled upon these.” Clint gestured to the screen where three different flags that all bore the same symbol were displayed. “So far we’ve tracked them from underground New York and Germany to China, Russia –even Australia. They’re everywhere. Most of the evidence we’ve found is only a few years old. Other pieces are vintage Hydra. Stuff from even before World War 2.”

“So, he’s back?” Steve spoke up, his entire body was coiled like a spring, ready to fight or explode or just run away. “Red Skull?”
“We don’t know.” Natasha shrugged. “It is possible that he lived through all that since he had the serum, but we have no evidence that it’s him. For now, it’s being classified as a neo-Nazi cult.”

“When do we go after them?” Tony jumped in. Everyone stared at him like he’d been smoking something (which, let’s face it guys, was highly plausible for him). “We gotta stop ‘em right? When are we suiting up?”

“We can’t Tony. We don’t have a location; we can’t track them with anything. Whenever we even get remotely close to a lead, we get to their underground bases months after they’ve left. It’s like they’re ghosts.” Starlie clicked through the three bases they’d been too. Steve was getting even more worked up; Tony rested back in his chair and pinched his nose. Thor was staring at the screens but he had a dazed look on his face, like he was off on another planet. Bruce was scribbling on paper, probably thinking up ideas of ways to track these guys.

But it was obvious to even Fury that we were up against everything this time. We couldn’t just dive into this like the Avengers had with Loki or even Hammer and Enchantress’ alliance. We had to carefully plan this out. It was a powder keg. We needed to keep filling the keg with gun powder until something finally sparked and blew the whole thing up. Until somebody declared war.

Nobody wanted World War 3 on their hands, not that kind of blood and trauma. But it this time around, a third World War might be our only option.

The only question was when –when was this all going to spill over and explode?

***

Author's Note: Hey guys! So, expect another upload soon because I wrote a few chapters tonight because I knew for at least the next two weeks I'm most likely not going to be uploading at all because of mid-terms. But! On June 21, expect a heap of updates -and if anybody can guess the reason as to why I'll be uploading so much that day, I'll dedicate a chapter to them ^.^

So! With that out of the way, what did you think?

What do you think happens next after this? Long term and short term -hows this going to effect everybody? Because I can tell you that this has explosive consequences for all of the Avengers, and possibly a few of their loved ones.

Looking forward to hearing your theories on the Hydra threat!!

*huggles* arielleblack