Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Triskelion

  –Nick Fury–

  In all his years of being a SHIELD Agent, he had seen some stuff. Stuff that was kept hidden from the masses for appropriate reasons. Stuff that he wished he fot a was reminded of them occasionally during one of his regur nightmares. Stuff that would probably induce mass hysteria in the world.

  Hell, he had even seen some stuff that even POTUS was not aware of. It was the nature of the job. It came with its perks but it also came with its ows of disturbing nightmarish sarios that the average person would not even think of.

  A, despite havi Carol personally and seeing the footage of Bahrowing Tanks around as if they were mere toys, he could scarcely believe his eyes as he saw someone lift the Helicarrier on their back.

  Sure, one could argue that one side of the Heliacrrier was held aloft by tw engines but that person would be stupid to do so. With the weight of the Heliacrrier tilted dangerously on one side, the amount of force that Green Guardian, Jack Sullivan, had to deal with was beyond astronomous.

  He had thought that the hero had perished saving the Helicarrier and all the agents on board.

  The pragmatic ruthless part of him thought that it would have been fine for him to rescue the people he could and then leave the rest to fall with the Helicarrier. The worth of a single person with that level of bat prowess could not be pensated even if all of the 4 thousand shield personnel on the boat had died.

  A, he was gd that the Green Guardian had chosen to save them all. He had ultimately used his seemih as a rallying point to uhe Avengers, what was left of the Avengers anyway.

  Finding out that he was alive and kig ass in New York was a huge relief but theense fight he had with that Asian fellow was very stressful. Not just due to the fact that man was able to fight oerms with the siro member of the team but also because the skill of that level did not e easily ahey did not know her hide nor hair of that fellow before he was recruited by Loki.

  Apparently, Barton’s memories of his time under Loki’s trol had been spotty at best due to the improper way he was brought out of said trol and he did not want the man to think of the traumatic memories of his time so he had let the issue be.

  He had beeed and somewhat gratified that although Jack had defeated the Asian man, he had not done so without injuries. That proved that Jack was not uable and that was something that was necessary for them to tinue perf their jobs.

  Jack Z. Sullivan, the name of the Green Guardian, ay that was nistered anywhere on any database around the world, a, he khat Jack was being hohe moment he said that. He could see it in his eyes, the fear of death and the acceptahat came with it. In his st moments, Jack did not want his tribution to be nameless so he told Romanoff his name, his real name before he used the st vestiges of power to save Stark from a one-way flight, something that had been firmed by Stark before he holed up in his house in LA.

  He had seen the footage with his own eyes and still winced when he saw the baby face of Jad the wounds he was sustaining as a result of that damned barrier behind him. His face, for one, was riddled with burn marks due to the Tesseract’s energy. A, his eyes were a clear green as he looked straight at Romanoff and told him his name before he started rambling about the fight being uedly hard.

  His st statement was true. Loki had hardly done any real fighting in the Invasion. It was all due to the alien army and the man who had fought Jack to a standstill, taking away most of his time and attention. That was the thing that had prolohe invasion so much.

  And after reading the reports from the analysts, it turned out that Jack’s decision was correct. The way things happened, even though it was an unfortunate i, was literally as perfect as they could happen.

  If Jack had fled from that man and he had set his sights oher Avengers, he was not sure if even the likes of Thor and Hulk could e out of that enter unscathed, less said about Tony and the others the better, such was the powerset of that man. plete and partial intangibility along with daggers that could bypass any defense and cut straight into the skin, as when it bypassed Jack’s iructible barriers and stabbed him multiple times.

  If the sceptre had stabbed Jad closed the portal, the nuke would have no pce where it could have been disposed of safely and if Jack’s body had bee intact, the monsters hiding behind SHIELD would have desecrated in their bid to create more powerful super soldiers, despite their ret failed attempt.

  Creating someone more powerful than even Jad having that power in the hands of any single try was right up there in his nightmarish sarios list, right after the Kree ing back without Carol around to save them this time.

  The se of Jack being skewered straight through the stomach by the sceptre by some unseen force was something that had been hammered into the minds of the masses. Along with his decration that he was the protagonist and it felt o be that, bined with his age, meant that there was a huge uproar in every single try on the p.

  Romanoff had not wasted a single day and uploaded that footage to every siform oer, making sure that it could not be suppressed in any way. Hell, st he heard, even North Korea had some activity in that regard when they saw Jack’s mask e off.

  That meant that there was now a huge uproar about Jad h his memory. There was a small minority that were trying to inquire about the missile but thankfully, they had mao stop the news about the Nuke from getting out to the on public otherwise New York would have rioted and he would have been in handcuffs, watg with savage glee as the members of the World Security cil with simir handcuffs as well.

  Romanoff’s stunt had pulled almost all the pressure that the WSC utting on him to retrieve the Tesseract, as well as the Sceptre along with the DNA of Jad the Asian man who kicked his ass before dying.

  He scoffed to himself, of course, they would not pressurize him anymore. They were now more scared to save their own hides instead of looking for ways to find new aer ons for their bes, not that they would not e back to their ways soon.

  While they had buried most of the unfortable questions, the biggest variable had appeared in their pns.

  The Bck Widow.

  Natasha Romanoff was officially decred as oended leave but everybody knew what had happened. She had e to know that the World Security cil was responsible for that nuke and after a very heated argument with him about bringing the people responsible down, she had left the Triskelion about 3 days ago, o be seen again.

  None of her known aliases had been found on the radar and none of the safe houses had been touched. She had torched all her previous tacts, even so he had sent word out so that he would be notified immediately once sh3e was located. He was not going to force her bato duty but knowing where she was taking her vacation would be immensely helpful.

  There was talk of a gressional hearing of the event and he was sure as hell that ould be called there, after all, she was the st known person to have had tact with Jack before he…died.

  He had eveed to asking Barton to track her down since he knew her best but was surprised to find him denying that request to his face. He had been so taken aback that he had been speechless for a sed before Coulson chimed in, basically telling him that he agreed with Barton as well and they should leave her alone for the time being.

  He khat she was very disturbed, what with her being forced to have a hand in killing a minor once again but he didn’t think that even Coulson would back her on this. Without her skills and knowledge, she would not be free anywhere in the world. If he so wished, he could decre her rogue, and the rest of the tries would finish her off but that was not what he wanted so he stayed his hand.

  “Has she tacted you?” He said as Bartoered the suite where he was staying in Manhattan.

  “No, but I believe she would not miss this,” Barton said as he sat on the sofa in front of him and begaing the apple from his fruit pte. About Barton, he had been ag a little different ever since he came back from being mind whammied by Loki.

  “You should go home. I’ll authorise the paid leave. You haven’t taken one in years if I am n,” He said iween a mouthful of tasty fruits.

  “Hmm? Oh, thanks for that. I was going to ask you about it after this but…thanks,” Barton said and fell silent, his eyes looking in the distance.

  He sighed internally. The invasion had damaged him more mentally than physically. Jack’s intervention made it possible to have just 21 casualties in a full-blown Alien invasioe it being in a poputiore. Even from those, half of the people had died of either panic or heart attacks, only half died from injuries sustained during the invasion.

  They were gathered in New York for the funeral procession of Jack Sullivan. He had exploded in popurity, so much so that even the President oised to make an appearance during the funeral, to erect a statue in his name iral Park.

  ‘Politis’ he scoffed internally, not even leaving this event to make sure that they remained popur and seen doing work instead of staying in their bunker while a literal minor did the job of stopping something that could have grown on to bee the single most devastati since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  That had stung. The part of Jack doing the jobs of adults. Hell, they had a literal god oeam a, Jack had to do the heavy lifting both times when it mattered.

  No wonder, Stark had gone underground in his b down in LA while his Tower here was being repaired. He robably tinkering with his suits, trying to figure out a way to create stronger aer suits that could

  He had seen him stopping the city from ning it and was sure that it was not the st he had seen of Stark Tower.

  They were here to pay their respects to Jack. Even Thor had stayed back because he was adamant about paying his respects to the greatest Midgardian warrior he had e across, and one so young as well. In the meahor had kept the Tessera his custody.

  The Sceptre was kept in SHIELD custody for research purposes but he would make sure that it remained in ste. No way he could allow the World Security cil the ability to have mind trol in their hands. No, that was way too dangerous of an ability for any single individual to have.

  Stark had not e, apparently, he was busy and would join them ohor was ready to go back to Asgard. Captain had already arrived and was busy talking with the Secret Service, ag as security for the President with the Secret Service absolutely fawning over him.

  He sighed and stood up o the window, overlooking the packed street below. Major streets had been closed off with a holiday decred in Jack's name as tens of thousands of people gathered ireets in his memory.

  Preparations had been made but he was sure that it was going to be very chaotic with all the people. He just hoped that sue entity did not take advantage of this. That would not go down well, especially with the presence of Thor and Banner in the crowds below.

  He didn’t know much about the Norse culture but not respeg the dead, especially the fallen soldiers, was akin to bsphemy for them and he was sure that due process of w would not be the first thought in Thor’s mind if he found some punk disrespeg someone he siders a warrior worthy of respect. They would be electrified before they could even begin begging for mercy.

  The less said about what Banner would do the better. The instigators probably wouldn’t eve ing before they were turned into meat paste.

  Banner had a presidential pardon signed as part of the agreement for him to stay as part of the Avengers so he was out here in the open without any possibility of a mad general trying to imprison him to create more Hulks.

  All that was left was looking for Romanoff.

  She had beey shaken with the whole ordeal and it would be pretty amiss if she did not show up.

  Just as he was about to head down sihe President was done addressing the crowd and they were about to march to tral Park….

  “Sir, she’s here,” Barton said as he pulled out his phone.

  Well, let’s get the Widow home then.

  Word t - 2389

  A/N - One more interlude before the Arc.

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