Chapter 3

Natasha leads the three of us to the now-flying aircraft carrier's bridge.

Numerous men and women spread across the large room man terminals with a vast array of data and controls for the ship. Natasha goes over to one of them, trying to track a man with facial recognition through public surveillance feeds.

Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD. Has Natasha show Bruce and me to a lab set up with a ton of equipment for Bruce to begin tracking "the cube." before showing me to the medical bay and a private room I've been assigned.

It seems Fury ordered Natasha to get more info on me. Her Small questions here and there, along with subtle body movements, try to lule me into divulging more about myself and my abilities the entire way. I said it before: she's extremely good.

When I brought up fixing congenital defects such as a malformed heart and even lost limbs to people who'd lost them to accidents or sickness, it caused her to falter in her near-impeccable, soft interrogation.

She became much more direct in her questions, wanting to know what kind of limitations I had on doing so. When I said I had little to none, she went silent in contemplation. The rest of my "tour" was in silence. Natasha quickly left after we arrived at my room after she received a message through her earbud communicator. It sounded like they had gotten a lead on Loki.

Now, without any minders watching over me, I went toward the medical bay to see if they needed any assistance. I make sure to look for anyone amongst the crew along the way that gave me that feeling of "off-ness" some of them have.

After shortly checking in with the medical crew and them not needing any help, as well as them all not feeling suspicious, I took a "casual" walk through the corridors towards Bruce's new lab and finally found one.

A few minutes after leaving the med-bay, I came across a security personnel walking down the hall I just turned into. Merely nodding as we passed one another, I kept walking until I heard him open a room door not far behind me. 

I subtly turned to watch him out of the corner of my eye, and just as he walked past the threshold of the room, I flexed my power and displaced myself.

Faster than the blink of an eye, I was directly behind him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and displacing the both of us into the unoccupied room, where I slammed him into the back wall hard enough to knock the air out of him.

I seal the room off so no sound or radio frequencies can leave the room before he even understands what has just happened. After throwing his weapons to the other side of the room, I look him dead in the eye,

"So Hydra wormed its way into SHIELD, too, huh?"

His eyes widen, and his heart rate spikes.

'Got it in one...'

All Hydra agents seem to have a suicide method on hand, or should I say tooth if ever captured alive, as he acts like he's about to answer before trying to slam his jaw shut.

Having dealt with this before, I stopped his jaw from closing, ripped out the hollow tooth at the back, and tossed it aside before moving on.

"Well, that just won't do. I have some questions that you ARE going to answer the easy way or... the easy way." I spell out for him with a smirk, "How many Hydra are on this ship?"

He stares blankly ahead and refuses to answer, so I start with a fingernail. I cause it to lift off the nailbed and bend backward, slowly peeling it back.

A small whimpering grunt is all I get from him, so I continue with the next three and finally his thumbnail. That one got more of a reaction,

"I won't tell you shit!" he states, trying to act strong.

"I'll just have to ask more convincingly then..." I smirk again, "How many Hydra agents are here?"

I wrap my hand over his other hand and begin to squeeze. At first, it was as if I was giving too strong of a handshake, but I slowly ramped up my physical muscle strength. 

The tiny bones in his hand grind together, getting a painful grunt from him. Second by second, the squeeze turns to crushing, and bones start to fracture. A final clench of my hand pulverizes every bone in his hand to shards and gets him to scream as his hand goes limp and turns purple.

After letting him scream for a few more moments, I ask again,

"How many of you are here?"

I slowly start healing his hand. Every shard and pulverized bone grinds and shears muscle and tendon as they move back together and heal.

By the third round of this in ten minutes, he finally answers me,

"I don't know! None of us do! We work in isolated cells! Please stop!"

"How many are in a cell?"

"F...five," he whimpers out.

"Where are the rest of your cell?" If they are spread across the ship, this will be a pain in the ass.

"The... security division."

"Thank you for your cooperation," I say with a smile before smashing the back of his head into the wall and knocking him out cold. 

Taking his flak jacket off, I turn it into zip ties for his hands and legs, as well as a bite gag so he doesn't bite off his tongue to kill himself.

Making sure to seal the door shut on my way out so no one can get in or out, I make my way up to the upper decks of the carrier to find Fury. 

'Explaining this to him is going to be interesting, going to have to make sure he isn't a part of this either.'

Not finding him at the bridge, Agent Hill tells me where to find his office, as that's likely where he is now.

Looking at the door, I can only liken it to a bank vault. The security system and amount of cameras are extraordinarily over the top. Not precisely seeing a doorbell, I knock on firmly—nothing. I knock harder—still nothing.

Looking up at the security cameras, I walk away down the hall till I'm in a blind spot before pulling at my power and feeling it wash through my body, turning intangible and floating in place.

Moving into the wall, roughly two or three steps distance. I turn ninety degrees to my left and move forward till I come out another wall inside Fury's office.

What I see sets me more on edge than Fury pointing a gun at my face in surprise. No, it's five shadowed figures that I've seen "before." Quickly, after turning solid again, I hid myself from the sight of anyone in the room by bending the light around me. I watch as Fury stands on a lit platform, speaking to the five figures displayed on screens. It would seem Fury answers to them; my only question is if he knows they are Hydra leadership or not.

Needing to test if Fury was a part of Hydra, I waited, hidden. Until their meeting was over and the screens went black, before revealing myself,

"Do you know you have Hydra agents on your ship, Fury?"

I have to give it to him. Even after working behind a desk for so long, he doesn't hesitate in surprise but spins to me with pistol drawn and aimed straight at my head.

"You know that isn't going to do anything, Fury. I should let you know that I've found hydra agents embedded among your crew."

Fury is shocked. That much is clear as I look for what kind of reaction he'll have. 

"What in the hell do you mean Hydra's on my ship!? How in the fuck did you even get in here?" he says after checking out of the corner of his eye that, yes, the door is still closed and locked.

I explained about the Hydra soldier I currently have tied up in a sealed room and the information I got from interrogating him, which ended up going into how I knew about Hydra in the first place. It was thought they were all gone after WWII.

Concluding, Fury wasn't one of them. I told him my relatively short life story about once being a brainwashed Hydra attack dog and what happened after they tried experimenting on me.

The only way to describe Fury after I had finished was apoplectic. If he had any hair on his head, I'm sure he'd be ripping it out as he cursed and paced back and forth.