Spectrum ⇒ Avengers [ 1 ]

Vertigo

Well, I muse, walking back along the corridor. That could have gone better.

Maybe I should get a shirt reading 'Don't make me angry' on it. My blood's still boiling in my veins, and I'm finding it hard to concentrate again. I zone out so much I end up turning straight into a wall, smacking my head agains the plaster.

"Ugh..." I run my head and kick the wall for good measure, after glancing up and down to see if Tony was about to appear. Somehow, he seems to have a sixth sense relating to people 'hurting' his tower. However, the person who appears isn't Tony at all. Pepper pokes her head around a door a little further on, and studies me closely.

"I take that it didn't go as well as you'd hoped?"
"Worse." I mutter. She straightens up and opens the door wider, and I traipse after her. I've never been in this room before- unsurprising, since there are literally hundreds, and this one looks like an office. I don't see Pepper so much anymore- unsurprising, since she runs one of the world's biggest and richest companies- and I miss her whenever she's away.
"Sharon warned me that he was..."
"Brainwashed." I finish with a sigh as she walks around her desk, her heels clicking on the floor. "He's convinced that... Woman is the best thing that ever happened to us."
Pepper's face tightens slightly. "She's clearly had a lot of influence over him."
"Yeah, but she's not working alone." I think back quickly to what Lee said. "He mentioned a man called Hades, and I've been trying and trying to remember the name but I just can't."

"Hades, as in the Greek god? Lord of the underworld?" Pepper asks.
I nod. "They seem to have a thing for Greek mythology. It's weird that her name doesn't match..."
"Maybe her real name does." I blink in surprise. I hadn't even thought of that. "I'll add it to the search parameters- Tony's having the computers run through birth records for the past forty years in the countries she's appeared most in." She informs me. "Hopefully she hasn't been off grid since she was a child, or we won't be able to find her."

Great.

But I smile anyway, grateful that they care- that they're trying to do something, anything to help me.
"And Brynn?" I look up again. "Don't give up on him- on Lee. That's the last thing he needs right now."

I only wish he hadn't given up on himself.

"So who does the tech work on these things?"
I lean against the door, watching Tony pick up what I recognise to be one of Peter's web shooters. Originally, I thought he created the webbing himself, but he later told me that he had built mechanical web shooters to keep in with the whole 'spider' theme.
"Uh, I made them." Peter says nervously. He's sort of in awe of both Tony and Bruce- I suppose if you're interested in science, you would be.
"Oh my god, he's a science geek." Tony grips Bruce's arm excitedly, almost dropping the web shooter in the process. Bruce catches it just in time, pushing his glasses up his nose and inspecting it closely. "You're a science geek!"
"I'm not, like, PhD or anything." Peter says. Tony rolls his eyes and spins around the desk.
"You designed web shooters," he says, pointing at him. "Because apparently being made radioactively capable of climbing hundreds of stories of buildings with your hands wasn't enough." His face curls into an enormous smile. "You're plenty science geek for this crowd, I can almost get behind you dating-"
"Brynn! How did it go?" Bruce finally catches sight of me.
"I think 'massively not good' would be an understatement." I say miserably. Bruce's face falls slightly, and even Tony's eyes flicker, though he recovers first.
"Well, we've got all the time in the world." He says briskly. "We'll keep chipping away at Kid Icarus until he remembers who he is."
I roll my eyes at him, too tired to disagree with him. "What're the science bros doing, then?" I ask.

"They're showing me around the labs," Peter says, awe in his voice. "I've never even seen some of the things here, only read about them-"
"-what can I say? I'm brilliant." Tony says smugly. Bruce rolls his eyes.
"We're also trying to come up with some sort of cure- get rid of the wings."
"Can't you just amputate?" I frown. It's what I had presumed whenever I had thought of the broken boy with the angelic body.
"Unfortunately not." Bruce spins a screen around to show me. It's an image of a body- obviously Lee's, the wings are clearly shown. "The wings are bonded to his spine- any attempt to remove them could paralyse him." The spinal column of the onscreen figure lights up a bitter, dangerous red. "They're part of him now-"
"-just like the hulk is a part of me." I finish sourly. "But the hulk already exists- have you ever seen anyone with wings before?" It's a joke, sort of, but the two men exchange a glance. "Seriously?"
"Nagasaki, there were rumours-" Tony murmurs.
"-never confirmed." Bruce argues. "They'd never try and build an army. Not after-"
"Hello?" I wave. "Is anyone going to tell me anything?" Peter shifts next to me.

"It was said-"
"Rumoured," Bruce puts in.
"Fine, rumoured," Tony rolls his eyes. "That someone was experimenting with the fallout from nuclear radiation in Japan in the 1950s."
"They'd never do that." Peter protests. "Not after Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"No, the Japanese wouldn't." Tony agrees, as images of mushroom clouds flare in my mind. "They'd never dream of it, not after such a slaughter. But the Americans and Russians were all over nuclear power at the time, and sometimes with disastrous results." 
"Half people, half animals, enormous monsters, mutated limbs." Bruce volunteers uncomfortably. "It was said some people had wings."

A chill creeps over my skin.
"The Russians, again." I point out nervously. "Wasn't that were the Tarantula was from? And the Black Widow programme?"
"I don't think this woman has worked for any country for a long, long time." Bruce says quietly.
"Because of the ethics?" Peter asks.
"Nah, that wouldn't stop the good ol' USA." Tony looks me up and down. "The army's been after the hulk for years. No, she's got a spectrum of targets- she wants the whole damn world at her feet, and she won't stop until we beat her."

Or until she wins.

"It was like talking to a brick wall, or a robot or something." I say, swinging my legs. I don't look down, down at the hundreds of stories between me and the ground. Instead I stare into the distance, the twinkling lights of the very tops of skyscrapers, and beyond, into the vast sky. You can't see the stars in New York City.
"He needs time to heal."
"He remembers." I look at Peter as the electric blue of his voice fades into the obscurity of the colours of the city. "Would I be like that, if I remembered?"
"No- you know who you are. You know she was wrong." The blue spikes, sparking in my eyes.
"And how much... Convincing did it take, to get him to become that?" I think of the marks on his body, and a wave of nausea washes over me. "I don't remember much about him- Lee, I mean. I think he talked in his sleep- cried in his sleep."

"Brynn, it's over. You're safe." His hand covers mine gently, alarmingly warm.
"They're not. Freya, Jo, Killian- Jake." My voice cracks on his name. "She's turning us into freaks, weapons. What's she doing to them right now?"
I can see dark hallways and patches of light, smell surgical gloves and see needles dripping poison, ugly, spitting, hissing, and her voice, her bloody voice, rising above it all.
"I don't even remember the colour of his voice." I whisper. Peter's hand tightens on mine. "I don't remember Jake's voice, how awful is that?" The thought is dizzying. I don't forget colours, not now and not ever. But his is gone, lost, and even in memories I can't find any shade, any part of the spectrum that surrounds me.
"What's my colour?" Peter asks suddenly.
"Blue." I stare at our entwined hands, and rub my thumb across the pale ivory of the back of his hand. "Electric, I always think. It gets brighter when your emotions get stronger." Like now, I think.
"I can't imagine it."
"Yeah, it's strange." I agree. "Overwhelming, y'know? Especially in a city like this." The colours tinge the edge of my vision, and I look down. The whole city gapes beneath my feet. If I let go, I'd be incredibly and definitely dead.
"Whoa, careful." Peter reaches out to steady me. "I don't want to have to save you."
"Maybe I should let go," I tease, wiggling my fingers. "Because then you'd have to save me, and we'd be equal, or splat-" I falter at the look on his face.

"He dropped her, she fell, I wasn't fast enough, and her neck snapped."

"Oh god, Peter, I'm so sorry-" I push myself back from the ledge, tumbling backwards onto the ground. He falls with me, as I'm still clinging to his hand, and ends up right next to me. "Oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have- I should have thought- oh god."
I let to of his hand, horrified, and push myself away. How could I be so selfish? After he entrusted me with one of his heaviest burdens, I throw it back in his face, dancing on a precipice as if it couldn't end me. As if he hasn't seen it happen before.
"Brynn-"
"I'm terrible, I should have thought-" his arms wrap around me tightly, halting my stumbling flow of apologies, and my face is suddenly buried in his chest. His heart thumps painfully in my ears, a soft, wood coloured sound.
"Brynn, it's okay, really." He murmurs. "It's alright."
I huff. He smells good- really good. Aren't girls supposed to be the nice-smelling ones? This really isn't fair. "It's not."
"You haven't upset me. Maybe scared me for a minute there, nothing more." He assures me. "Perhaps just stay away from high places?"
"Despite living in a tower of hundreds of stories, I'm sure I can give it a shot." He laughs, rumbling up from his chest, and I giggle slightly too. "I am sorry, though. About Gwen."
"So am I." I close my eyes. "But you're right. I'll find the Goblin again. And this time I won't lose anyone else."