Schism In The Safe Place

Chapter 8

My father knocked on the door as I looked up at him, hoping I could trust him on this. The door opened to reveal Sam, the man my dad had met while running.

"Hey, man." He seemed very confused, which was understandable.

"I'm sorry about this. We need to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us." He looked over the three of us and quickly ushered us in.

"Not everyone. You all can get clean upstairs. There's a spare room." He looked at me and pointed. "Okay, I know she didn't have those before." I chuckled.

"I can make you see or not see them at will. Much like a lot of things." I sat down at the table while my father and Nat made their way upstairs. Wilson poured me a glass of water and sat down across from me.

"So you can make things disappear?" I shook my head.

"Not quite. I can get into peoples' minds, so long as I'm looking at them. I can create illusions- make them think they're seeing things that aren't really there- or make them not see what is there. That, and I can pick things up and create shields." He smiled at me.

"So you're a super, like your dad?" I nodded.

"He and I have kind of similar stories, actually. We were both suspended in time and reawoken in the modern day. Only I'm from the 1500s."

"Whoa... So you're really old." I laughed.

"Pushing five hundred." I looked out the window and sighed. "My mother was a psychopath. She was obsessed with living forever so that she could be queen forever, but her body couldn't handle the immortality spell. She took my mind, as well. I became just as crazy as she was. I killed and destroyed pretty much all of New York City when I reawoke, but my father and Tony Stark saved me and got my mother's spirit out." I turned back to look at Wilson and smiled. "I owe a lot of things to a lot of people who helped adjust. Some of them aren't with us anymore, and I regret that. But I can do my best to help the world I tried to break while I still can. And I think that's what matters. There are a lot of people and creatures that want to take this place, but I can defend it from them to the best of my ability."

"That's pretty wise for a teenager."

"Like you said, I'm really old." He chuckled and stood up to start making some food for all of us. Just as he finished, my father and Nat came down.

"I made breakfast, if you guys eat... that sort of thing." I laughed and took one of the pieces of toast.

"We're still people, Wilson."

"You can call me Sam." I nodded.

"Noted." My father sat down next to me while Nat leaned against the counter.

"So, the question is: who in S.H.I.E.L.D could launch a domestic missile strike?"

"Pierce."

"Who happens to be sitting atop the most secure building in the world," I grunted.

"But he's not working alone. Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell."

"So the real question is: how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D officer in broad daylight?"

"The answer is, you don't." Sam plopped a file down in front of my father.

"What's this?"