(Betty Ross)
Part of her wanted to stop the interview, the interview that would destroy her father's career…. but Betty knew that the General would deserve it. He'd committed many crimes over the past few years, many times abused his power to control her, to advance his career and as the attack at Culver University was just proof how far he'd fallen.
Innocent lives didn't even factor into things for him.
"And that was when the dropship was called."
"From what I understand the ship was brought down by the Hulk," Doyle spoke, leaning in close to the mic on the table. "Due to the suppression of the events, I'm not sure if there was any loss of life from the attack?"
"I wouldn't know… when I'm it… " Bruce sighed, not having the strength to finish the sentence and allowing his hands to pull at his hair nervously. Betty slid to the stool next to him, grabbing his hand and giving it a tight squeeze. A small smile appeared on his face, the tension drained like steam in a sauna. "When I'm the Hulk, it's like a drunk blackout. I can't recall anything I do like that when I wake up."
"And you… you both say that the General never informed you two on the true nature of the project that you were working on," The reporter made circles in the air with his hands, as if it somehow illustrated his point. "How dangerous was this? Ignoring the illegal nature of super solider projects in the current world climate."
"Very dangerous," Betty found herself interjecting. While this was mainly an interview with Bruce and Doyle, the younger man thought that adding her own input to it would be good for adding legitimacy. "Without knowing the results other groups were aiming for with the project we didn't have a hope with making any adjustments."
"And given that this all involved radiation that was potentially lethal."
It was obvious to Betty that Doyle wasn't ignorant of science. He was informed enough that he knew some of the questions that needed to be asked. But not enough to know what exact terms always meant, anything more complicated than a College Freshmen's level of understanding was above him.
But only meant that Bruce and she needed to coach him a little just before starting the interview.
Before there was another question coming out of the Irishman's mouth, Sterns burst into the room, his eyes wide in excitement.
"It's ready!" he yelled, running back into the lab with the same energy that one would expect from a child Christmas morning. They paused the interview for the moment, they'd already gotten a few crimes that her father had committed out of the way first thing, just in case the General's forces get here sooner than they feared.
So they prioritized the cure over the interview.
The three of them moved fast, catching up with the Professor as he ran around the cramped room, as the operating table in the center took up so much space. Pat stood out of the way, in the one empty corner of the room. Betty moved to help Sterns strap Bruce onto the table.
"Now, I do want to remind you, not to get your hopes up too much," Sterns spoke, his hands lifting up a large tube of liquid, the supposed cure. "Even if this works in this instance, there's no way to know if this will be permanent. It could even kill you given the levels of toxicity we're playing with it here. "
"I understand," Bruce replied, his eyes though were still full of so much hope that it almost broke Betty's resolve not to give him constant hugs, just to reassure him. It would be too much, too fast. "Just do it."
The straps were the first thing that they did, fastening them before attaching the needed instruments to the temple of the gamma-powered superhuman's forehead.
Betty glanced back to Doyle, noting his intense gaze towards Bruce. It reminded her of her father's stare, it wasn't hostile but it had the same style of prepared readiness that one would expect from someone that had been trained to anticipate danger at any moment.
It was a bizarre contrast from the eccentric and passionate reporter that she'd been speaking to. Almost like the man had a switch in his head that turned him from naive and kind of goofy, to serious at a moment's notice.
"Now, this might sting."
As Sterns said this, he pushed a button down on the console nearby, initiating the first phase of the process. Inducing an episode, turning him into the Hulk in a slow, painful-looking process. Bones snapped up, muscles expanded as his skull did the same. His skin gradually started to change in tone, going from a normal, if slightly tanned, caucasian to bright emerald green.
Sadly the restraints were designed for a normal man, they started to bulge and snap as Banner transformed, the operating table compressing slightly under the increased weight of the man as the process continued.
Sterns went to start the next phase, applying the cure.
"No!" Betty found herself yelling, her hand up in the air as if it would stop the man. "There's more."
Out of the corner of her eye, Betty could barely make out Doyle stepping ever closer to the table, his hands coming out of his pocket and rising till they were just above his waist. As if he was getting ready to stop the Hulk if he went on a rampage.
Obviously, the reporter hadn't researched Bruce to the fine detail that he wanted people to believe.
When the Hulk started to snap his remaining restraints, Betty was ready, practically leaping on top of the emerging emerald giant. Keeping her voice low, she spoke soothing words that seemed to calm the Hulk, if only briefly.
"Sterns!" Betty yelled once more, keeping her eyes staring into the Hulk's own. "Do it now!"
While that little event happened, Betty didn't see Doyle's head snap in the opposite direction. His face snarling and his ears metaphorically pricking up. Before the reporter yelled out.
"We've got company!"
Betty nearly glanced back to the reporter but instead continued to look down below, as the green face of the Hulk started to sink, his skin returning to the normal color of a man belonging to his race. It wouldn't matter if her father brought the entire armed forces in here, not if Bruce was cured.
She could hear the door in the other room be kicked in, so hard in fact that the wood and glass that were part of it shattered as it hit the opposite wall. Doyle moved fast, charging into there with nary a concern on his face, the door closing shut on the way behind him.
The resulting gunshots told Betty all she needed to know… that was till there was even more gunfire.
Being the daughter of a general, Betty recognized the caliber of the gun, if not the exact model. It was a standard-issue 9mn pistol. Letting her count the number of shots that were fired so she could tell when it was going to run out. Of course, she knew it only takes a second to replace the magazine.
Which gave them some chance, given Bruce was now knocked out and no longer the Hulk beneath her body. As fast as the woman could, she stepped down from Bruce's body, who was still squirming beneath the few bindings that remained.
It was at the end of this process when Doyle was thrown back through the lab door, smashing onto the ground and sliding them across the surface till he reached the leg of the table. A man came out, Betty recognizing him as the man from before, the one that had tried to take the Hulk on his lonesome.
It was a surprise that the man was on his feet and not in a hospital bed.
"No," he whispered, his face curling up into a fierce snarl as his eyes caught the sight of Bruce on the operating table. "No! You won't rob me of a rematch!" The Soldier threw himself forward, coming at Bruce with his combat knife held out.
But just as he was within a single inch, suddenly Doyle stood up, pulling the soldier up into the air by the ankle and slamming him down into the floor with so much force that blood splattered into the air.
Bruce came to his senses at this moment, the jerk of movements drawing Betty's eyes away from the amazing scene that had just transpired. This meant that she missed the sight that both Bruce and Sterns saw… bullets popping out of Doyle's head and hitting the floor with only the lightest of pings.
"Incredible!" Sterns yelled,
"We don't have much time," Doyle spoke, spitting out a wad of blood onto the still form of the soldier. "Sterns with me, Banner and Ross need to leave now," Nearly slipping on the bloody floor, the reporter threw a heavy overcoat towards Bruce. it was bigger than the scientist, hopefully, would disguise the ripped pants and lack of top. "The rest could get here in any second."
Silently, Betty helped Bruce to his feet, shoving his arms into the coat with little force before letting him lean his weight onto her shoulders for support. It wasn't long before they were making their way out of the room. Betty turned around to thank the reporter… only to find something odd.
Doyle was trying to swallow his recorder, the device not properly fitting in his mouth. At least, not with the plastic bag he had wrapped around it, the air in there bubbling up and stopping it from going past his front teeth.
Betty decided that she didn't need to thank him yet.
"You'd think that someone like him would've heard of USB Drives at this stage," she couldn't help but wonder out loud.
(General Thaddeus Ross)
"Blonsky!" Ross screamed over the radio, the other man clearly being heard on the other side throwing his own radio off his ear and to the ground. It was only the cameras they had looking at the building that allowed him to see the former royal marine sprinting towards the building moving at a far faster rate than any man had any right too.
"That's our taxes running off," One of the technicians muttered, his voice going unnoticed by the General as frustration caused the man to growl loudly.
With that same sort of energy, Ross grabbed his own pistol, yelling out for their entire forces to move in now. While it wasn't how he wanted, the General knew that thanks to Blonsky going off like this, it was the time to act now.
Before Banner had a chance to transform into the Hulk again.
There was a clinical precision to the movements of the General as he made his way towards the building. Usually, he wouldn't put himself so close to the frontlines, not because the man wasn't willing to take the same risk as his men, but because he knew with his advanced age, his place was no longer on the frontlines.
Ross's experience in leading men now mattered more than his experience in killing men.
But when it was his daughter at risk, Ross was willing to risk death.
It only took a minute and a half to reach the lab of Dr. Sterns, where it had taken Blonsky twenty seconds. The door had been broken, barely hanging onto the frame by a single hinge on top. They surrounded the entry into a side room, tranquilizers at the ready for Banner.
Ross took note that Blonsky was nowhere to be seen, even though there was a clear sign of a struggle, given the number of bullet holes the General could make out around the room. But it was then that his eyes caught the trail of blood that lead to the side room.
With a hard kick, they all went into the room…
"Hello, there," Dr. Sterns said in response to this, his expression a nervous smile, while a twenty-something brunette man sat on a nearby operating table, his own face staring down at the unconscious Blonsky beneath his feet.
"Are you after this man, sir?" The unidentified male asked, pointing down at Blonsky, his face just as nervous as Sterns's. "Because if you're not, I swear, this isn't what it looks like."
"And what does it look like?"
The youngest man among the group glanced around the room, an act that Ross couldn't help mirroring, taking in their surroundings with a far more analytical eye than he would usually use. There were shards of broken glass all over the place, chemicals were dripping from shelves.
There were even large machines, with equipment that reminded the General of electrical shock therapy.
"Doesn't this look like an evil lab?" The young man shrugged, bringing Ross's attention back to him. From the rather peeved expression on the doctor's face, it seemed this insulted Sterns's feelings.
"We don't have time for this, where is Banner?" Ross held his pistol right between the smart mouth's eyes, something that caused him to visibly flinch. "I don't want this to get messy, son."
"Banner?" he responded, his eyes shifting towards Sterns as if asking him a question. "No idea who that is."
"Mr. Green!" Ross screamed, his face heating up from rage. "Where is Mr. Green."
"But… I am Mr.Green."
(Doctor Sterns)
Sterns felt that he was lucky to be placed in interrogation with Doyle. This was likely done because the military was short on time, but it also spoke to him of the sheer illegality of the events going on here. General Ross didn't want this to get out.
Just like Doyle had expected.
Even down to how they were handcuffed to the table. Honestly, any plan that involved getting handcuffed just made Sterns nervous.
"Tell me, how does a college professor and a reporter meet?" It was the General doing the job, interrogating the two of them with a harsh glare. The room they were in was another back room in the college, a storage room if the doctor's memory wasn't failing him.
With a single light source set up in the room, no doubt some part of a mental trick that they use to mess with people.
"W-well," Doyle started, stuttered and gasping his hands together with a nervous energy that Sterns had only seen from freshmen or seniors after cramming all their studies into a single night for a test the following morning. It was an impressive act. "I was r-researching things for an s-story. An elderly man… "
His fingers turned pale as he trailed off, they were intertwining and rubbing against each other to cause this effect. Doyle even let his line of sight fall to the floor, his eyes now staring at his shoelaces as they blinked rapidly.
"... well," he eventually picked up, seemingly gaining confidence as he started to speak. "He died from gamma radiation, something that I was told he picked up from drinking soda. Now, I wanted to write an article on this, weaving this into one on the dangers of gamma overall. So I looked for someone online. Found some forums, spoke to a few people and Mr. Blue here came up."
Sterns noted that it was a good idea, using his online alias like this. Dangerous, because it brought attention back to him, which was something Doyle said would be bad in this situation.
"That's convenient," Ross replied, "Sterns this-"
Doyle did something odd, something that was out of the character that he seemed to like playing. He openly scoffed, even rolling his eyes into the air.
"Something funny, Doyle?" Ross asked, the door behind him, opening up to reveal a female soldier, dressed in green camo walking in to sit beside the General. Sterns could barely make out the badge stretched on saying, Major Kathleen Sparr.
"Why is it convenient?" Doyle spoke, his grin sharp, his finger now pointing at the center of the table they'd been cuffed to. There was a odd amount of anger there, for what was an otherwise innocent enough phase. "Is it convenient that without any justification that I've been confined, not for anything resembling wrongdoing… but because you found a generic ass alias online? That's not convenient, that's inconvenient… and a waste of time."
"How'd you know that we found you by that alias?" Major Sparr asked, a single brow raised as if she'd caught him out.
Doyle wriggled a finger at the general, suddenly being far too cheeky for his own good. It also wasn't part of the plan, they were meant to act scared and feeble.
"The General here, he opened with it."
Doyle seemed to take pleasure in changing his mannerisms every few seconds. One stage he'd be a nervous wreck, next he'd be an expressionless face, and now he was a smug ass. Sterns wasn't sure if this trick would put the two off their game.
But he hoped.
The Major sighed, glaring slightly at her superior, but only from the corner of her eyes. Meaning that Ross didn't spot it. It was something that gave Sterns a small amount of hope that the General wasn't just going to lock him away in a cage somewhere.
Not if there were some people working for him that would squeal on him at any rate.
"So… you two are saying that it's a coincidence?" Ross asked. "That the two of you are here, where we've have images of a wanted fugitive entering the building then?"
Doyle glanced towards Sterns, and for a second the older man was taken back by the raw smugness that the reporter started to show. Because the man leaned back into his seat and stared Ross right into the eye and said;
"Yup."
Ross slammed his hands onto the table, causing Sterns to jerk back in fright, the general snarling at the pair before roaring out, causing two reactions. The first came from Sterns once more, the man letting a whimper out as he tried to cower away from the military man.
And the other was Doyle, nonchalantly whistling as he placed his hands into his pockets.
"Do you think this is a game?!" The General continued to roar, his face growing ever redder, even as he grabbed the reporter's collar and lifted him up, his nose just an inch away from the other man's. "You've both committed treason against the United States, that's an executable offense."
Doyle scoffed once more.
"Please, we wouldn't be held in a random room in Greyburn College if you could pin something like that on us."
Sterns gulped, the noise loud in the oppressive silence. Doyle was walking a thin line, it wouldn't be good if the General decided to Blackbook kill them in this room, maybe he'd even pin it on Banner.
"You seem sure of yourself," Ross returned, letting go of Doyle's shirt, something that allowed the reporter to smooth out the creases caused by the interaction. "You think yourself invincible."
There was an unsaid threat left lingering in the air, something that Doyle ignored, instead he focused his attention on the major.
"Tell me, has Ross here committed a lot of illegal activities at late, plenty of a black ops stuff that… really he shouldn't be allowed to," Doyle shrugged as he sat back down, the woman staring at him as blankly as she could, though Sterns could see how she bit the inside of her mouth to keep herself from talking. "Especially given his failure rate at… well, life."
"You seem to know a lot about me," Ross held up a hand, stopping Major Sparr from speaking out. "Where did you get your information from? What's your source?"
"You are."
There was a beat of silence, one where the Major couldn't help the smile that lit her face up, while the General couldn't help when another growl passed through his lips. The man had made that noise so much now that Sterns couldn't help but wonder if the General hadn't had some work done on himself.
"What?" It was a flat response, as flat as one could make it at least when coming off a growl.
"Every time I open my mouth, you give me just a little more information," The reporter began to explain. "Every question you ask doesn't just tell me a little bit more about this whole incident, it tells me more about you."
"I doubt it," Was the General's only response. "More likely you're just taking random shots in the dark."
"What about this, you came here because of an alias getting triggered," Doyle pointed at Sterns but never stopped staring at Ross. "This alias belongs to a fugitive, one that you've been tracking for some time if your demeanor is to be trusted."
"Does this have a point? You're just repeating what I've told you back to me."
"You're right, but it's also why I know you're such a failure."
Ross snarled, his fist tightening on the table, an event that seemed to go by unnoticed by the reporter, who went on to explain the failure further.
"You've been chasing this one man, whoever it is doesn't matter, but what… he's just always out of your grasp. You can never catch one man, you ever think that you're just a dumb jock preten-"
The punch that happened next took Sterns by surprise, causing the man to yelp and nearly fall off his chair, his fear rising with each passing second Doyle didn't respond to this. Instead, he just rotated his head lazily around.
"You sure that you're a general?" Doyle asked, his chin lazing on the palm of his right hand, the links of his cuffs staining enough that Sterns felt the need to kick the other man under the desk to stop him from snapping the thing into pieces. "Seems more like a hotheaded ensign."
"Watch your mouth, punk I was serving this country before you were a glint in your father's eye," Ross said, rubbing his bruised knuckles while glaring at the unresponsive form of Doyle, who only took in a deep breath and kept his eyes closed.
"I'm pretty sure that my Dad was older than you."
"You might think I can't just kill you and throw you in some hole but-"
The door to the room was knocked on, interrupting Ross from making his threat and causing the door to shake as if the person on that side were running from the hounds of hell. Stern could see Doyle open his left eye only slightly before a wide tooth-filled grin took over his face.
"I said that I was not to be disturb-"
"General Ross," A blonde woman, dressed in a suit and wearing a pair of dark sunglasses entered the room. There was a small but polite smile on her lips. "I'm agent Bobbi Morse, of SHIELD, I'd ask that you'd release both Mr. Doyle and Dr. Sterns."
"On what grounds? We have jurisdiction on this matter."
It was the Major that brought this up, due to Ross not even bothering to speak. Instead, he continued to stare right into Doyle's grinning visage, as if seeing a challenge in the younger man's eyes that the General couldn't stand to see unbroken.
"Fortunately, you don't," Agent Morse nodded, handing the Major a white sheet of paper, Sterns couldn't make out most of what was on the sheet, just the US and SHIELD crests that were marked on the corners. "The second that you used SHIELD assets without informing my agency this became a SHIELD matter. So once more, I'd ask that you release the two into my custody."
There was a tense few seconds of silence, one punctuated with Ross sending each and every person in the room a powerful glare. Major Sparr placed a hand on the General's arms, there was a loud aggressive sight that came from Ross's lips after that, before he reached into his pocket and threw a pair of keys down onto the table.
"Oh, I don't need that," Doyle said, raising his hands with an evil grin on his face. With a cling, the cuffs fell to the table, not broken but having already been unlocked. "See I nicked the key off you when you ruffled my collar and even put the damn thing back in before you noticed."
Ross's mouth dropped open as Doyle picked up the key and released Sterns. The two of them walking after the Agent of SHIELD, an agency that Sterns didn't recall having heard of before now.
That was something that set him on edge, given Doyle's behavior overall during this. Like he'd expected it.
Had Sterns walked in from one government run by a General obsessing with putting away his daughter's boyfriend, to one where a man had handed him over to a shadowy spy organization?
"That was fun," Sterns said, as they stepped into the female's car. The two of them turned to him, Doyle having let out a massive sigh of relief, while Morse turned to face the doctor. "Can my cells be away from his, he kind of scares me."
(Emil Blonsky)
He woke up his head… feeling fine. One would think that having it smashed against the floor of a lab that the former marine would awake with his head-splitting, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, he woke up with his nose blocked, and from what he could tell…
… the blockage was merely dried blood that had crusted around the top of his nostrils.
Blonsky stood up fast, ignoring how heavy his head felt or how his vision swarm. Instead, he blew hard out his nose, holding one side close so the most force could be concentrated through
one nostril. A blob of blood ejected out of his nose and splattered against the floor.
A medic took notice of the man now standing, the former marine having been taken to the command bus to get treatment for his injuries.
"Blonsky, you-" Before the unnamed man could finish his sentence, Blonsky took the tray from his bed and smacked him in the head with enough force that it caused the man to be imprinted in the metal. With a thud, the medic fell down.
"Get out of way," Blonsky could feel his body sweat, could feel parts of his arms twitch and bulge in time with the beat of his heartbeat. There was a threat, he could feel one nearby, Blonsky knew he needed to deal with it.
Deal with all the threats.
But he couldn't do that, do it like he was now.
He needed more power… but the biggest issue was Blonsky wasn't sure where he'd get more power. It was unlikely that Ross would be willing to let him have another injection of the serum, Blonsky could tell from the sound of his voice, from the way that his body sweated and tensed.
The General would only think of him as a junky.
But it was more than that, it was the thrill of a fight.
It was then that Blonsky recalled just how he ended up in this bed, the man that he shot, the man that got up from that like it was nothing. A realization churned through his mind.
"Another one," Emil smiled, pulling off his military gear as he began to get dressed into civies. "If I get him, I get more."
It was a simple enough concept to grasp, someone with that level of physical prowess couldn't have been a normal human. The man must have been a super soldier just like him. It would make sense that Banner would try and meet with a fellow like that, someone that could help him keep under control while trying out the cure.
But now Blonsky needed to find out where this new man was, who he was, and how he got his amazing powers. Then once he had the secret and gained the power for himself, the former marine would finally get the fight he needed; the fight he desperately deserved.
Oh, how Blonsky burned to be tested, how he burned to force himself to higher levels of power, all the while showcasing how his superior experience and skills would allow him to overwhelm those with a slight power advantage.
It was as he put on his t-shirt that Blonsky felt his vertebrae cut through the thin material of the shirt, ripping further as it came down to his waistline. Growling softly, Blonsky grabbed another shirt, something left out for when injured soldiers to replace their clothes if they needed to be cut out of their's so their injuries could be treated.
Blonsky threw two such shirts over his own, before grabbing a tacky jean jacket nearby and buttoning it up as tight as the clothing could be. It was the cap that he grabbed on his way out that didn't fit him at all, it only hung loosely around the top of his head.
Slowly, Emil made his way out, managing to get around the few patrols Ross had left nearby with use of both his superior stealth training and his newly received prowess letting him move in ways and with such speed that no would think that a person had just passed them.
Soon, the former marine managed to disappear into the night, into the city crowds. Ross wouldn't realize till later that his new pet project had gone AWOL. Something that wouldn't help with the General's mood when he saw the evening edition of the New York Bulletin.
Rage seemed to be the theme of the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project.
(Pat Doyle)
This was not how I thought my morning would go. It was meant to be a simple in and out before anything really happened. Then reveal to the world just what kind of man we were dealing with General Ross, ruin that son of a bitch's career and even make my own career seem all that brighter.
What I hadn't expected was puking my guts out in the back of a secret agent's black sedan.
"I mean it was insane," With my head down between my legs and my mouth open into a plastic bag, I couldn't see Sterns as he said that, but I could hear him moan on about it from his seat beside the driver of this little vehicle. "We had a plan and he didn't even stick with it, Doyle's there provoking the man. Given what both Banner and Dr. Ross were saying about the General, I'm surprised that we weren't killed and put into an unmarked grave."
"Hey," I groaned, a plastic bag having passed painfully through my mouth at last. Meaning, I could finally stop inducing the puking effect, "Ross isn't capable of killing me… you on the other hand… "
"How is that meant to be reassuring!" Sterns yelled, his face red and his body-hopping up and down on his seat. I laughed, winking at the man as he turned around to face me. I noticed that Morse was grinning in the rearview mirror, probably finding the byplay between us funny as she drove us to…
"Where are we going?"
Sterns had another fit of yelling at this, I wasn't sure exactly what he was saying probably something about gambling and lives? Not sure, I wasn't really listening to the man at this stage; instead, I waited for the SHIELD Agent to actually reveal something to me.
"I'm taking Sterns to a safe house for a week," Morse spoke, her eyes clearly on the road before us. "Then after that… Fury has an offer for you doctor." Sterns didn't say anything to this; in fact, I couldn't tell if he was excited about the idea or if he was still angry that I plan on the anger game with Ross.
"And I?"
"You?" she responded, her left brow quirking up and her lips gave me a sweet smile. "You get to go home, write that story that the director seemed to have led you to."
There was something odd about the situation. Something that I couldn't put my finger on. Maybe it was the way that Fury seemed to want Ross taken out of the picture, at least in terms of influence. Maybe it was the ease that he'd given me information.
I'd known from the beginning that he was using me, but when I've been given such a juicy target to take down. How could I've resisted taking a bite out of it?
What I didn't know was… what had Ross done to piss off Fury?
The Director of SHEILD wasn't the kind of man to shy away from doing the same deeds that Ross was about to get hung out to dry for. If anything I knew about Fury from the Ultimate Marvel line applied here, and given his appearance it seemed likely, then I couldn't let him know that I suspected that he knew that I knew that he was using me.
Let him think he was one step ahead of me.
I was fast enough for that not to matter.
"So what's in the bag?" She asked, glancing at the bag of sick that I held in my hand. This was something that I wish she hadn't done because if she hadn't mentioned it I would've been able to ignore the horrid smell of the puke bag in my hand. "I mean, I know it's a recorder but what did you record?"
I glanced at the mirror, her eyes meeting mine for a few seconds while the two of us gauged the other. There was a moment where I became worried that she was going to crash due to staring at me for far too long.
"I'm calling it the Banner/Ross Interview: The Truth of a Patriot."
To her credit, the woman didn't flinch, nor did she grin at this news. Instead, Morse wore a carefully crafted bland expression that betrayed nothing of her feelings on the matter, neither positive nor negative.
"That's a big story," Morse replied, her eyes returning to the world in front of the car while her hands tightened around the steering wheel. From his spot beside the woman, Sterns stared at me mouthing words that I didn't quite get. "Your second in two days, you certainly don't wait for the ink to dry, do you?"
"The truth doesn't wait for anyone, Agent," I replied, leaning back and closing my eyes. There was only one issue with the last two days of events as far as I was concerned… I hadn't let myself sleep at all. I was too busy researching things through the night, too busy connecting the dots together so I could produce a story that Ellison would accept, with evidence and dates, with the tape I had now, that meant I had more than conjecture. "You gotta grab it and push it to the spotlight. So all the world will know and no one can deny."
But even the current story would be hard for the man to accept. There was a lot of flak that the paper could get from me bad-mouthing someone as celebrated for his long time serving the country. Even if he had been a major, talking about one of American's patriots like this would get push back from both sides of the media.
Most left-leaning and right-leaning media companies didn't like people calling on the military like I wanted to do.
But I was sure I could wear the man down to publish the story. It was just too big of a story for him to ignore, it was bigger than the Ock Story, if only because of how high-ranking Ross is, how much influence and how many lives and resources he'd wasted hunting down an otherwise innocent man.
My eyes closed for what only felt like a second, but as I knew from how the sounds of the world outside the car passed us by that it was for longer than that. I'd fallen half-asleep, it was sort of embarrassing but I've learned from a long childhood with a lisp that there were far worse things.
"This is your stop," Morse spoke, her voice softly waking me from my sleep. It seemed that I'd been asleep for around an hour if we'd gotten to the Bulletin in such a short time, though I'd say given how traffic usually is, it could've been two hours.
Before I could open my mouth, my ears perked up, the sound of an engine roaring filling them. It was too late for me to warn anyone about this. The crash that came flipped the car over as the door next to me was hit with so much force that I felt it.
The world swarm around, the lights blending together in a soup that I could only describe as nauseating. Shutting my eyes tight in an attempt to combat this feeling, the next thing that I could make out was the sound of someone breaking apart metal above me. It was then that I could feel a hand, cold, clammy and sweating like a pig, pick me up by the collar.
I was pulled up and out of the car, letting me feel the blood pouring out of my forehead, a cut split open there.
"I've got you now, punk," A man spoke, his voice unfamiliar but the one thing that I could make out the pain the speaker was feeling, it was strained and sounded out of breath as if the man couldn't breathe right. To my inexperienced ear, it sounded like a person who was jonesing for a fix, an addict that was looking for just one more dose of their fave.
Have I been taken out by a druggie?
"Tell me," he said, pulling my eyes open with two of his fingers. This revealed that the attacker was Ross's pet super soldier. Emil Blonsky, something that Fury had warned me about. "Where did you get your juice from? Russians? No, maybe some kind of Irish attempt to replicate Captain America?"
Huh, was hoping that I hit him hard enough that he wouldn't remember that I had super strength.
Before I could even try to speak, his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing tightly and hard. Blocking my airflow and causing me to gasp more out of shock than pain but it at least worked to block my airflow, but not to cause me pain.
Something that confused me… but not something that I had time to ponder on.
Acting without much thought, I punched him in the chest, causing the soldier to be flung back into his car, smashing the windshield with so much force that it was shattered into tiny pieces, the shards digging into his skin and his blood pouring out onto the front seats of the vehicle.
I wiped my own blood from my face, something that seemed to combine with my wounds sealing to return my sight to normal. My heart rate slowed back down to normal, my head stopped arching and I took a deep breath, letting oxygen fill my lungs.
I turned around, moving to the wreck of Morse's car with steady but slow steps.
"Hey, you guys ok!"
"Yeah!" Morse was the one to reply, her face popping out of the open side window before she dragged herself out of the car, her hand coming down to pull Sterns out as well. "I'm fine, the doctor though should go to a hospital, guy's pretty cut up."
"That-" Before I could finish the sentence, I heard a gun cock, my body spinning around so fast that the coming bullet was moving in slow motion, allowing me to try something that I'd always wanted to try.
"Yoink!"
Much to the surprise of the already healed and upright Blonsky, I dropped the bullet of his 9mn pistol to the ground, letting him see the near-perfect condition projectile roll across the asphalt. I could make out the excitement of a forming crowd along the sidewalks, from the cars that had stopped in the road, trying to not run into either the wreckage or me and Emil.
"I don't believe it?" he whispered, looking to his gun, before firing off every round left in the clip. Twelve rounds were fired in rapid succession, each one accompanied by a wave of my hand, letting him see how each seemly disappeared before I let them all drop into a single pile of bullets.
"Believe it!" I held up a fist in front of my face, watching him throw the gun to the ground before running over to me with a yell.
I hadn't expected him to be so fast, but I still weaved around his kicks, his punches and even a headbutt with ease that only seemed to anger the man further. But sadly for what I was now hoping would be an easy ride, my punch was ducked, his body rolled back so when his legs kicked out, I'd flip over him.
Thankfully, the ground and I had come to an agreement with each other, so instead of crashing into it, I floated a few inches above the ground and stamped out my momentum, then touched down on the ground and flipped back to my feet.
"So do-" Instantly, I was knocked back, an explosion ranging in my ears. This time, there was no pain, I was only knocked onto my back, my coat being ripped apart by the mix of heat and motion of sliding along the asphalt.
I looked up to find Blonsky holding a grenade launcher, the barrel of the gun smoking at me while he smirked, his eyes almost bulging out of his sockets with excitement. Before he could get off another grenade into my face, a few rounds were fired into his weapon.
It was Agent Morse, her sidearm aimed perfectly, and so it took only two rounds hitting the chambers before the whole thing exploded in Blonsky's hands, red chunks and smoke flying everywhere around us.
When it finally cleared… Blonsky was somehow still alive, though groaning from his position on the ground, his limbs were wrecked messes that I couldn't even have begun to describe.