38 Chapter 38

Oh my god!" Steve yelled in horror as we watched a snake-like creature burst from John Hurt's chest. The super-soldier yelled again, ignoring Tony laughing at him.

"Whoa," Bucky said, blinking as the crew of the Nostromo screamed in horror at the sight of their friend giving what I've heard described as 'violent chest birth.'

"How awesome is that!?" I yelled, grinning at the reactions of Bucky and Steve. "And you guys thought it wouldn't be scary!" I thought about mentioning how the actors fear was real since the directors had never told them what was going to happen. But that was better told after the movie, to make it better for a second watch.

Steve continued to stare, eyes wide with shock. Bucky only shook his head, not as shocked, but still looking surprised. Guess everyone reacts differently to the chestburster scene.

We'd watched Frankenstein already, of course, so Alien had been the obvious next film. As Steve and Bucky continued to watch though, I realized eyes were on me.

I looked around. Creel, Sam, Tony, and Clint were all staring at me. No, wait. They were staring at the Omnitrix.

A sigh left my lips as I rolled my eyes. "I told you, there are no Xenomorphs in the Omnitrix."

"Oh yeah, but there are Frankenstein aliens?" Creel pointed out smugly.

"I'm with Mr. Periodic Table over there, I'm not taking your word for it," Tony said with a grunt. "Barton told us about you going into that ladies eye."

"Her eye was cybernetic!" I complained, leaning away from the couch to look at a disgusted Tony. "It's just how Upgrade works!"

"..." Bucky stared at me, his robotic arm very carefully moving to hide behind his back.

Before I could decide if that was speciesist towards Upgrade or not, Sam sighed. When I looked at him, his mind clearly wasn't on the movie. I nudged him until he looked at me.

"You okay?" I asked, slightly concerned.

"...Just want to go on the next mission. Feels like we should be doing something right now," he admitted.

The mood lowered. In truth, I think we all felt that way. Like we were just forcing things.

"We'll go soon," Steve said, putting a hand to Sam's shoulder. Bucky frowned at that but didn't speak. "We're just waiting for Hill to finish the interrogations. In the meantime, we need to take our chance to breathe. Too much time on the front lines will wear anyone down, you know it as well as we do, Sam."

"I wonder how those interrogations are going anyways," Creel said idly.

"Probably great," Tony said with a smirk. "I heard she's threatening to sick Upgrade on the Centipede soldiers."

"Seriously?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, the ones who weren't being given 'incentive'," Tony said with disgust. "Apparently the chick you 'cured' is screaming about how you stole her powers."

I had no idea what to think of that... I thought I'd been doing a kindness, considering how destroyed her metabolism had been

Steve sighed, reaching for the remote and pausing the movie. We probably weren't going to focus on the movie anyway. "Hill says that she's working to find the people who are being held hostage, but it'll take some time," Steve shook his head, a deep sadness in his eyes. "Still no word on Sharon, Trip, and Jennifer though."

"Well with that, the mood is officially ruined," Clint mumbled, though he seemed as dismayed as the rest of us.

Sam gave Clint a look, shrugging. "Sorry, Clint."

"What, for ruining a party?" Tony asked sarcastically, grabbing a package of Oreos and taking a stack of them out. "Turning us all into angst-ridden teenagers?"

"Tony," Steve said, glaring at him. "Sam's right. We're trying but... I think we all know HYDRA is on our minds."

"Hey, I'm just saying," Tony replied. "Could have spent a bit of time talking about how there are apparently alien Frankensteins out there in the universe. Instead, we're talking about HYDRA again. I'm seriously getting tired of those guys dominating my thought processes these days. Could be making more cool toys with those brain cells."

In his defense, Tony was right. Ever since the Triskelion, pretty much every conversation I'd been in came back to HYDRA at some point. Seriously, I was pretty sure the Avengers ended up fighting other bad guys. Where were AIM, Ultron, Galactus? ...Actually, thinking about the last one, I felt a bit of relief in retrospect. I didn't want to even see Galactus without at least Atomix helping me.

"That's the way war is," Steve said with the wise and sad voice of experience. "HYDRA is always going to be in the back of our minds."

Tony didn't seem satisfied with that. I don't think any of us were.

"Well, on that depressing note," I said with a sigh, rising off the floor. "I gotta meet Skye. You guys can hang out here, just please clean up when you finish," I directed the last bit more at Sam and Steve, the ones I actually trusted to do it.

"Skye, huh?" Tony said with a glimmer in his eyes I didn't like.

I decided to ignore him, said my goodbyes, and walked out to head to the elevator. It didn't take long to get to the Claytronics lab from there. Inside I found Fitz-Simmons and Bruce were there working already. As soon as I stepped in, Fitz-Simmons were on me.

"We heard you met Dr. Foster!" Simmons said excitedly.

"What was he like?" Fitz added with equal amounts of enthusiasm.

"Did he talk about working with Dr. Pym?"

"Did he say he'll help us make Pym Particles?"

"Can you imagine the implications?" Simmons asked Fitz, looking positively giddy.

"God, yes," Fitz said with a sigh. "Being able to make any material you need giant sized-"

"Creating full sized machinery, then shrinking them to a nano-molecular level," Simmons continued.

"Nano-surgery, super-precise manufacturing, scientific study on a molecular level...!" Fitz replied.

Seeing that I was no longer necessary for their conversation, I stepped around them to walk towards Bruce, who was working on his own project now.

"Any luck?" I asked him as he worked at a computer.

He shook his head, taking his glasses off to rub at his eyes. "Not so far. I really thought this was worth a shot, but something keeps blocking me."

I grunted in acknowledgment. Since finding out gamma-enhanced beings were being created and used, Bruce had started using a method he'd developed with Tony during the hunt for Loki to try and track gamma radiation activity that could match what HYDRA was doing. But apparently, HYDRA had planned ahead for that.

"Hey, Mahmoud," I turned to see Skye walk in, grinning at me. I smiled back. "You ready?"

"Yep," I said with a grin. "We just need a blood sample," I turned to where Simmons and Fitz were still getting hyped for Pym Particles. "Simmons?"

"Hm?" Simmons turned to look at me, then smiled at the sight of Skye. "Hey, Skye!"

"Hey guys," Skye said with a returning grin. "Mahmoud says I need to give a blood sample?"

"Oh, it's to make sure no one else can use whatever armor you get," Fitz said, the two British genius walking over to the Claytronics Nanoforge, newly named after Tony cracked one too many jokes about the other name.

Simmons went over to her station, which was a lot cleaner than mine. In my defense, Jury Rigg was very untidy, in the sort of organized chaos kinda way where he knew where everything was, even if no one else could figure it out. Simmons pulled out a syringe and turned.

"Um, actually," Bruce interrupted, walking towards her. "I'm going to get a set for myself as well."

We all stopped to stare at him. Bruce blinked, blushing slightly.

"You want armor?" Skye asked, looking much like I felt. "I mean, the Hulk in Iron Man armor is kind of-"

"-overkill," I finished. "And I'm saying that. But hell, I'm down to do it."

Bruce chuckled. "No, uh, I just want to have something that will change with me. Something tough enough to take some hits. That way I can stop spending so much on extra pants."

"No extra bells and whistles?" Fitz asked, sounding excited. "We can give you the sword we gave Mahmoud and Isabelle?"

"A sword?" Skye asked me. "Isn't that a bit redundant?"

"Right up until I cut Wendigo's arm off," I said in reply, crossing my arms. It was honestly one of my proudest moments. Granted, it had been scary as fuck at the time, but taking on a giant monster with a suit of power armor was still a cool moment for me. "And Fitz has a point, Bruce. Having some weapons for Hulk in an emergency would be good... and it's worked before."

Bruce, one of the few people who knew I had some knowledge of alternate universes, seemed thoughtful. Skye turned to me. "So what about me? Do I get an Iron Man armor?"

"As soon as we get your blood work in," I said simply, looking Skye up and down. Skye was one of a few people I interacted with who didn't have a comic book counterpart, most of whom were in Coulson's team. I didn't remember anyone named 'Skye No-Last-Name' in the comics. "What were you looking for, anyway? Something like what Pepper got?"

"Yeah, basically," Skye watched as Simmons pulled out a blood sample from her arm, wincing a bit. "Just flying would be cool. I always wanted superpowers, you know?"

I felt the same way. Having the Omnitrix was a dream come true really, even though I was nowhere close to unlocking it's real potential yet. Flying at sonic speeds with Astrodactyl, running through New York like the Flash with Fasttrack, brawling with the power of Rath or Four Arms, feeling power run through me as Frankenstrike, feeling the world as Wildmutt and Bliztwolfer, or the brilliance of Jury Rigg, and the feel of merging with tech as Upgrade. I'd often dreamed of having just one of those powers. Now that I had them all, I really felt like giving people some portion of them would be awesome.

"Okay, let's look at your blood in the new genetic sequencer," Simmons said, putting Skye's blood inside before going to Bruce. I went over to the machine myself, curious. Skye walked over as well.

The machine was basically a microwave with a computer screen on top. Mostly because Jury Rigg had made it out of a microwave, a computer screen, and Fitz's smartphone.

"Still can't believe you stole my phone and broke it," Fitz said sourly, glaring at me.

I winced. "Sorry, Jury Rigg just kinda got in the zone. Besides, we got the genetic sanguine sequencer out of it," even if the name Jury Rigg insisted on was kinda dumb. 'Sanguine', really? Plus, Simmons apparently hated the name for its inaccuracy.

Fitz glared at me harder in the memory of his phone. I focused very hard on the computer screen.

"What does this thing do anyway?" Skye asked me.

"Well, all sorts of things, really. But it's going to be the only one of it's kind for a while," since Skye's DNA was taking a while to be read, I switched the screen over to some of the stored data. "I made it to be able to read and interpret the genes and such of people. I'm not much of a scientist, sadly, so I can only really give layman's terms about what it does. Uh, sorry in advance for how dumbed down this is going to sound to you, guys," I said to Bruce and Simmons.

"Oh, don't worry," Simmons said, giving me a smile as she took Bruce's blood. "I don't expect you to know anything," when I gave her a look, she seemed to realize what she had said, and became very flustered. "Um, I didn't mean-"

"I get it," I said, sighing a bit. Real tough being the dumb one in the room when not in alien form. Can't wait to unlock Grey Matter or Brainstorm... "Anyways, basically it reads DNA like I said. This is Tony's," I showed the swirling pillar of sequences to Skye, who at least feigned interest. "And here's how it compares to Steve's."

Skye blinked, noticing what I did. The sequencer flashed at the differences in Tony and Steve's DNA. The super-soldier serum had made a whole lot of things more... refined in Steve's DNA. I could barely understand the differences and what they meant, but they were what made him a super badass patriot.

Then I showed mine, and Skye looked up at me. "Why is your DNA changed too?"

I pointed at the Omnitrix. "It's bonded to my DNA. Anyone trying to steal the Omnitrix without knowing how my baby works will get nothing but trouble."

Skye's DNA was still being read. I took the sample of Bruce's blood from Simmons and put it in the machine. When I tapped at the screen, one of Jury Rigg's programs activated.

"Oh, come on," I grunted in annoyance. Instead of DNA, footage from Godzilla vs Megalon popped up. I slapped the machine as Skye gave me an amused look. At which point a panel rose up and slapped me right back in the face.

'Of course, Jury Rigg would make that a feature,' I mentally grumbled as I nurse my nose and pride as Skye tried hard to suppress her laughter. To little success based off her growing laughter.

"Huh," Bruce said as Godzilla slid on his tail to slam his feet into Megalon while Jet Jaguar held the monster in place. "That's... not really plausible."

"Yeah well, that's the magic of Godzilla in the Showa Era of movies. Less about reality, more about fun," I looked up at the group. "Simmons, Fitz, can you guys-"

"Yes, let me," Fitz stepped forward and started to type at the screen as giant monsters continued to fight. He somehow turned it off, then activated the program again, bringing up Bruce's DNA. "Okay, Simmons?"

"Yes, right there," the redhead pointed at the DNA. "Is that the Gamma gene, or some evidence of the Hulk?"

"I have no idea," Bruce admitted. "I'd need to find someone with the gene who isn't already enhanced."

"Well, Skye's DNA is next. And it's..." I stopped, staring at her DNA. "...Goddamn it."

Skye stared at me, surprised. "What, what's wrong?"

I sighed. "I'm just tired of surprises, Skye," I pointed at the screen, rubbing my eyes. "Your DNA is human, but only about 99.8 percent. The rest is something new."

"The Gamma-gene?" Simmons asked, sounding fascinated.

"Or maybe from when we injected her with the GH.325 formula?" Fitz continued.

Skye looked a little freaked out at this point. "Guys, what does this mean?"

I kept rubbing my eyes, feeling a little overwhelmed. Kidnapped allies, Graveyard refugees, Gamma-enhanced beings, cyborgs, a Quantum powered assassin, and now a friend with clearly modified DNA. This was getting exhausting. There were so many balls up in the air for me now. And the worst part was, I knew it was selfish to think that way. Skye was giving me a hurt look, clearly pained at the idea that I was treating her like a problem.

"You should be good," I said with a smile. "Just in case, Omnitrix? Can you detect any damage to Skye's genetics?"

"Skye's DNA is undamaged," the Omnitrix said in my voice after a quick scan.

"Then what's wrong with me?" Skye said, sounding shaky. Bruce stepped into her line of sight getting her attention.

"Don't worry," the older man said. "We'll figure it out. We've got enough geniuses in this building to find out what's happening, okay?" his smile was gentle. "Believe me, I know what you're feeling... at least, on some level."

Skye didn't seem calmer, and I only frowned.

What was it? The Gamma gene? Was she part alien, or even just a latent superhuman like the Inhumans, X-Men, or even some sort of magically enhanced person?

"Fuck it," I said simply, shutting down the machine.

"Mahmoud?" Skye asked me, confused.

I glared around. "I promised armor. I'm making armor."

"I think we have bigger issues-" Simmons said gently.

"We'll always have bigger issues," I said as firmly as I could. "There'll always be another bad guy, another superhero, another assassin, another world ending or controlling threat, more of us getting hurt, more of us finding some deep dark secrets we didn't even know about ourselves at times," I looked around. "Who cares? I want to make power armor for my friend so we can go flying together. I'm going to focus on that now. Skye? You want to choose the color?"

Skye looked at me. When she spoke, it sounded a little forced. "Well... I do like pink. And orange. But those wouldn't be good colors."

Yeah, little forced. But I'd go with it. I went to the Claytronics Nanoforge and started moving the display around. "Yeah, you'd end up looking like a Power Ranger with either of those. Not saying Power Rangers aren't awesome, but..."

Simmons, Fitz, and Bruce gave Skye and I a look as I forcibly ignored the issue of Skye's DNA.

"I'll... run tests," Simmons said, giving Skye a worried look. "I'll have to inform the director."

Skye frowned. "...yeah. Okay."

Simmons gave her an apologetic smile. Going to the machine, she hesitated. "Dark blue was always a good color for you?"

Skye looked up at Simmons, giving her a smile and nodding. "Yeah, I think that would be good. Mahmoud?"

"Dark blue," I nodded, tapping at the controls and shifting the color screen. "The design will be similar to the Iron Legion and Pepper's armor, with the defenses and such. Any extras?"

As Skye moved up to chose her armor, I tried to focus on her. It was oddly easy for me.

Still, Skye's odd DNA was exactly why I would never mass-produce or improve on the genetic sequencer. A machine that could read DNA, find what was 'superior', what was different or strange? Yeah, knowing the Marvel universe, that was something I didn't want getting into the wrong hands. People would either become Magneto or Trask. Using the thing to decide who was and wasn't human, when the difference was negligible.

Screw that. Being human wasn't the difference. Being sentient, being capable of giving a damn for others regardless of race or origin, that was what mattered. Azmuth made the Omnitrix to be the best tool for ambassadors, to allow someone to walk in another species' shoes alongside it's other functions. If I had to use it to represent and protect humans, super-soldiers, gamma-enhanced, cyborgs, metahumans, and people like Skye, then I'd do it, alongside all the aliens.

I pushed aside those melodramatic thoughts and focused once more on making power armor for Skye.

"Just be careful with it," I said to her as we worked. "No fighting unless necessary."

"Got it," she confirmed.

January 19th, 2014

The day after finding out about Skye's DNA, we caught a break in the hunt.

"The facility is the last place we managed to track all the communications to," Hill said from across the hologram of the facility in question. In the main gathering room for our forces in the Enterprise were three groups. One was the Avengers, all of the original founders in the center, with Steve closest to Hill. The second was us Reserve Avengers, Sam standing behind Steve, me next to Rhodey.

The third group was a mixture of new and old, joined by someone I was kinda giddy/terrified to see.

Frank Castle, the Punisher himself, was in the center of BRIDGE's new Elite unit, looking like he didn't know what to think, but still being professional as possible. He wasn't as massively muscled as I was used to, and he was only wearing the BRIDGE casual uniform of a blue sweater, but it was the Punisher, before his wife and kids were killed. Which I was damn well going to keep from happening. He was sitting on a metal folding chair with the other Elite's, all of them watching Maria give the briefing. Coulson and his people were there as well, Coulson looking pissed.

"As far as we can tell, this place was a decommissioned Air Force base, with no relation to HYDRA until recently. They've been using it to land their ships and refuel them. Davida's girls managed to get a photo of it to us, and our people discovered their location. I'm sending two members of the Avengers and Reserve Avengers there."

"Only two, ma'am?" one of the BRIDGE soldiers next to Frank asked, a guy by the name of Gunter.

"Four, technically," Maria corrected. "Dial, Hulk, Iron Man, and War Machine."

The four of us stepped forward.

"Another group will be here," Maria waved at the hologram, which changed to show somewhere pretty familiar to me. After all, I'd been living there before showing up in New York. "Portland. A woman by the name of Audrey Nathan, a cellist in is at risk of attack. We believe one of the prisoners HYDRA captured is going to attack or kidnap her."

Tony stared at her, shocked, then looked at Coulson. Coulson nodded, his eyes hard. Tony... I mean, I'd never seen him be truly angry. But he looked it then. He looked...

"We'll be sending-"

"Maria," Tony interrupted. "I'd like to go on that second mission, if it's all right."

Tony was being polite. Not a hint of snark. One hundred percent serious.

Maria, after a moment of staring at him, panned her eyes to Coulson. He nodded, and Maria looked back at Tony. "Okay. Nomad?" Bucky stepped forward. "You'll join the attack on the facility."

He didn't seem to mind, only looking over to nod at the rest of us.

"As for Portland, I'm sending in heavy forces. Audrey Nathan will most likely be attacked by one Marcus Daniels AKA 'Blackout', a man who has the ability to use what we call 'Darkforce' to absorb energy and attack others. He is one of the many prisoners broken out of the Fridge and most likely recruited by HYDRA. As he is a confirmed Enhanced with the possibility of other forces aiding him, I won't be taking any chances. I want Audrey safe, and I want him taken down hard."

Maria's eyes panned across the room. "Falcon, Black Widow, Punisher," Sam, Natasha, and Frank looked up. "You'll defend the perimeter with your teams while Coulson, Captain America, and Iron Man meet Ms. Nathan and bring her in."

Coulson paled at that.

"You have your assignments. Move out."

Later, Bruce, Tony, Skye, and I met up with Coulson on the Bus in his office, where he was preparing his team.

"You going to be okay?" Skye asked Coulson.

Coulson only gave her a look.

"That bad, huh?" she asked quietly.

"Well, he did break up with her via death," Tony said unhelpfully.

"Tony!" Bruce shouted, shocked.

Coulson seemed legitimately hurt. He sighed, sitting down in his chair. "...I didn't want to see her again like this... With Daniels attacking again."

"Well, we'll keep her safe," Tony said, his eyes hard. "I've got something to bring him down. And if anyone else tries to back him up, we'll take them down too."

As Coulson seemed to relax at that, I realized once again that Tony and Coulson had a really complicated relationship.

"Well, we'll finish up as soon as we can," Bruce said, his eyes flashing green. "Maria thinks Daniels or the base will have information on where Jennifer is. Um, and Sharon and Trip too," he said quickly. It was clear where his thoughts lay though. "We'll stomp the base out, then come to you if you need us."

"We won't," Tony's eyes were flinty. "Believe me."

Yep. Tony was a scary fucker when he wanted to be.

"In the meantime, Skye," I said to her. "I know you have your armor now, but don't use it in combat unless necessary. We don't know what sort of effect Darkforce will have on arc reactors and Quantum batteries."

Skye snorted. "Yeah, fine. No using my cool new armor to fight bad guys," she said, feigning disappointment.

I frowned. "Skye, seriously, I'm not just saying it to be careful. We can't make any assumptions."

She looked at me, glaring. "I'm not an idiot, Mahmoud. I'm not just going to run in and fight."

"I know that, Skye, I just-"

"Just what, think I'm going to rush in like a moron?" she crossed her arms.

"Skye, I just don't want you to rush in and get hurt."

"Yeah, you keep saying that. You know, I handled myself pretty well before you showed up to nag me about something I already know not to do."

What the hell did I do wrong? For some reason, I felt like the older guys in the room were amused. "Skye, I know you're smart, I just-" she turned and stormed out leaving me with my mouth gaped. "I don't... what the hell just happened?"

"You made it seem like you didn't trust her to be smart or capable at her job," Coulson said simply.

"Wha- I just meant I wanted her to be-" I frowned, trying to figure out where I went wrong. "I feel like I was being reasonable."

"You were," Tony said. "But then you piled on. That's around the sixth time today you've told her to be careful."

Damn it, really? I didn't even notice.

Left feeling a bit off, I finally turned to Bruce.

"Hey, you made a mistake. You just need to apologize," Bruce said with his hands raised to say this wasn't his problem.

...Nope. I'm just going to ignore it and go fight HYDRA.

Four Arms time baby.