The Fullmetal Avenger

Chapter one

One of the first things Edward noticed when he returned to the alternate side of the gate with his brother, was that neither one of them was ageing past the age they were when they arrived.

"Brother," Alphonse's high voice said. Edward turned to face his younger brother.

"Yeah, Al?"

"What do you think about the Hammer drone strike? I mean, it was pretty scary. Do you think that something like that might happen again?" The 'strike' had happened one maybe two years ago but had been dug back up for public panic to spread. It was incredibly stupid.

"No way to say, but I don't think we need to worry too much. We'll be out of the city soon. Never really liked it in New York. Too much like Central," Edward frowned. They had, along with none ageing bodies, an annoying problem with the fact that they didn't die. That wasn't necessarily true. They didn't know if they would die in the advent of murder or an accident, but they didn't die of old age. It was now the twenty-first century. To be more specific it was two thousand eleven, or maybe two thousand twelve. He had a hard time remembering after so many years.

"Huh? We are leaving already?" Alphonse asked.

Edward smirked at Alphonse's confusion. With a body that never changed from the thirteen year old form it held, Alphonse had a hard time finding a job, and there was no way he could go to a school where he wouldn't age and every one would know the secret the two tried hard to keep hidden. Without something to help him count the days, Alphonse often lost track of the turning of time.

"Yeah, Alphonse, it's nearly been five years. Far too long to have stayed here. I have already given my two week warning. Actually I have it one week ago. I was going to tell you, but it never came up," Alphonse nodded in acceptance. He knew that Edward was right about them being in New York for too long to be a good idea. "I'll go down and tell Miss Ronyilda that we will be moving out shortly."

"Brother, before you go, is there a reason we are moving so suddenly?" Alphonse was well versed in Edward's reactions so the second of tenseness had not gone unnoticed.

"No, Al, we just can't stay in one place to long. You know that," Edward was hoping that Alphonse would just take the lousy excuse and let him go on.

"Okay," Edward managed to hold in his sigh of relief till he exited the small apartment. He waited until he was a safe distance from the door before he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the envelope. He ripped open the seal and removed the contents with his flesh hand. It was a bundle of photographs. What made the thing worrisome was that they were all of Edward over the past several decades in different cities. Someone was watching them. And not only were they watching them. They wanted Edward to know.

---

Tony Stark leaned back in his office chair, reassembling a child who dared to prop his chair in a dangerous angle just for the fun of feeling a panic for a second.

"Tony, are you even listening to me?" Proper Potts did not sound pleased in Tony's opinion.

"Whatever it is I trust you. I mean, I made you CEO of my company when I was dying. How could I not trust you?"

"You are unbelievable. Unbelievable!" Tony just smirked at that.

"Sir," Jarvis's slightly metallic voice rang into their conversation, "there was a breach in your networking."

Tony was defiantly surprised with the news, but he took it rather well, that is after his chair fell backwards when he jumped.

"Is it S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"No, Sir."

"Trace it back to the hacker!"

"I have already attempted that, Sir. There is no way to trace the breach. All attempts have failed."

Tony cursed. The hacker, or hackers, were obviously talented in keeping themselves unseen.

"Sir, their has been an unauthorised uploaded file labelled Immortality's key."

Tony had his interests peaked.

"Are there any viruses or coded hacks."

"None that I can detect, Sir. Would you like me to open it on a separate computer?"

"Yeah, send it to the default laptop."

Tony reached down and opened a drawer. Inside the drawer was a standard laptop, not without heavy fire walls, though. He pulled it out and opened it. Unlocking it, Tony found the new file. He almost suspected this to be some kind of joke. The file was a bunch of pictures of a young man or an even better word boy. He would have played it off as nothing more than a joke if not for the fact that the hacker had obviously gotten past his defence system for a reason. Upon further inspection he took in account that the boy in the pictures was not ageing even with the obvious lapse of time.

"Jarvis, check the authenticity of these pictures."

Pepper, who had sat quietly through the whole ordeal finally spoke up. "Tony, are you sure that this is a good idea? What if something gets into the system?"

"Default laptop," Tony said holding up the laptop he was browsing.

"Sir, all the photographs are one hundred percent real. The backgrounds in each file indicate that these photographs we're taken over the span of nine decades. They are also all taken in different cities."

"This is something I imagine S.H.I.E.L.D. would be interested in."

"Should I attempt to get in contact with Nick Fury?"

"Oh, no, no, no. I said 'interested'. I never said I would give them this," Tony slyly smirked. He first needed to find out who the boy was. He probably should have finding the hacker who had managed to bypass his security as the top priority, but that could easily be determined later. He needed to work on the strange pictures. Who knew if the file had some self deletion encryption. "Jarvis, put the pictures through a face recognition. There was a minute of tense silence.

"Sir, the man in the file does not exist, but he does have a job at a small café in Manhattan, New York. Would you like me to clear part of your schedule for a coffee break at the Armstrong Café?"

"Yes, Jarvis, and get me a map of the café."

"Would you like that to go to the 'default laptop', Sir?"

"Yes." Tony stood up and grabbed the laptop, bringing it with him.

Wait, Tony! This is important. Where are you going?"

"I'm getting some coffee from a kid that doesn't exist."

---

A/N: Here I am, starting another story. I don't know how often this will be updated. Hopeful I will be able to upload new chapters, at least, every month.

So, I'm not actually American, so if you find subtle mistakes than I will have to blame it on that. I do try my best, though.

- filltheseawithtears