Ed POV
Later that day…
After the successful test run for one of my Jaegers, I was heading toward the meeting room when Peggy told me she had some good news for me.
Which was honestly rare enough to immediately grab my attention.
When I walked into the room, I saw Peggy and Sage sitting together, already deep in conversation. Peggy looked unusually excited about something.
"Hey, what's going on?" I asked.
Both of them turned toward me in surprise. I guess neither of them heard the door slide open.
"Oh, nothing," Peggy said casually. "We were just talking."
"Talking about what, if you don't mind me asking?"
Peggy waved her hand dismissively. "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be interested. It's just some girl ta—"
"Pietro and I are going on a date," Sage interrupted without even a second of hesitation.
That completely caught me off guard.
Out of every possible couple I could've imagined, those two would've never crossed my mind. Sage was one of the most logical people I knew. She analyzed everything, calculated outcomes before making decisions, and barely let emotions affect her judgment.
Pietro, on the other hand, was basically powered by impulse and feelings.
I stared at her for a moment, trying to process it.
"Is that the good news? If it is, congratulations," I said.
Peggy laughed a little. "No, that's not the good news I wanted to talk to you about. Though yes, that is good news too."
She pressed a button on the table, and the large screen behind her lit up. A map of the world appeared, covered in Hydra symbols and highlighted locations.
"Thanks to Gamma, Sage, and Fury, we've identified roughly fifty percent of Hydra's global network," Peggy explained. "At this point, it's only a matter of time before we uncover the rest of the organization. We've already located almost all of their heads. Only one is still missing."
I stared at the screen for a moment before a grin slowly spread across my face.
"This is excellent," I said. "Just a little more time, and we can wipe Hydra out for good."
I'd been waiting for this for so damn long. One more push, and one of the biggest headaches in my life would finally disappear.
"I already passed the information to Fury," Peggy said. "He tried not to show it, but he's excited too. Soon, I can finally finish what I started back in the nineties."
There was a cold satisfaction in her voice.
Peggy had spent decades fighting Hydra. She had seen firsthand how deeply they infected governments, organizations, and entire countries. Watching them finally crumble had to feel personal for her.
And honestly? I couldn't wait either.
With everything happening in this world, the last thing we needed was a secret Nazi organization operating in the shadows.
My thoughts drifted toward the twins.
They had given me a two-week update on their mission, and logically, I knew they were fine. Still, that didn't stop the worry sitting in the back of my mind.
I missed them. I just wanted to talk to them normally again, instead of talking about the mission.
Eta POV
"I'm really confused, boss. You're not happy that we're almost done sniffing out Hydra?" I asked while lounging across one of the couches in Fury's office.
"Eta, show a little more respect, please," Iota said immediately, standing straight with her hands behind her back like the perfect soldier she always tried to be.
I just rolled my eyes.
She was always way too serious.
Right now, we are sitting in Fury's office with Natasha, Clint, Coulson, May, and Maria. A couple of months ago, SHIELD barely trusted us enough to let us walk through the halls unattended. Now? Fury had us running high-level operations.
Turns out not being Hydra already puts you above half the organization.
That, and the fact that Iota and I were really good at what we did.
Efficient missions. Clean results. No unnecessary casualties. Fury and the others started trusting us surprisingly fast after that.
Honestly, joining SHIELD had been way more entertaining than I expected. Sure, the original plan was just to keep an eye on Fury and make sure he didn't do anything catastrophically stupid, but somewhere along the way, I actually started liking some of these people.
Especially May and Natasha.
May barely talked, which somehow made me want to annoy her even more, and Natasha had this constant "I know you're up to something" look whenever she stared at me. It was fun.
"That's not why I'm rubbing my head," Fury muttered. "Have you not seen the news? It's been playing all day."
"Oh, you mean the giant robot?" I asked. "That thing was awesome. Arsenal seriously has some insane toys."
I leaned back further into the couch with a grin. The room instantly went silent. Every single person stared at me. Natasha looked concerned, Clint looked like he was trying not to laugh, and Coulson blinked twice like he was questioning reality. Even my own sister was staring at me now.
"What?" I asked defensively. "Don't act like you wouldn't want to pilot a skyscraper-sized death machine."
"This is why I want to know who Arsenal really is, because if he got that type of weaponry on his sleeve, what else does he have?" Fury decided to ignore my last comment.
"Do you think he got a satellite that can shoot lasers because that would be pretty cool," I said.
"Eta, can you take this seriously? You can see the problem behind this, right? If Arsenal has one of these robots that can kill a Kaiju easily, imagine what else he got we don't know about," Iota said.
"Probably, but why should we worry? We're on the same side as him," I ask.
"For now," Fury said, " One reason why Arsenal is working with us is that we have a common enemy and that is Hydra, once the enemy is gone I don't know what he's going to do, he wild card having a whole organization of superheroes, the only thing we know about him that he revealed on his interview, that he got scientists doctors and gains power randomly."
"You're afraid one day you and he won't see eye to eye on something, or he might do something that will upset the government," I stated, "that's why you're trying to work on contingency plans to put an end to him, as you got on Superman."
Fury has some Kryptonite Weaponry. He got some Kryptonite from a meteor shower a year ago; luckily, it wasn't a lot, and he only got 15 made, and they all accounted for, so Hydra doesn't get their hands on it.
Iota and I already told Ed about that.
Fury stayed silent for a moment before finally speaking.
"Arsenal is a very dangerous variable to every contingency plan on the planet. When someone has that much power, the logical thing to do is prepare for the worst-case scenario. Even if he's a hero, we can't leave humanity's survival up to blind faith that he'll never turn bad. Power corrupts eventually."
I raised both my hands defensively.
"Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out facts. Mainly the fact that we literally have no actual contingency plan for Arsenal because he's just that powerful."
And it was true.
SHIELD had absolutely no idea how to fight Ed.
They were basically praying the upgraded Nazi murder robot would somehow be enough to slow him down for a few seconds.
Personally, I doubted even that.
It didn't matter how many upgrades Fitz and Simmons shoved into the G.I. robot; they were never going to build something strong enough to beat Ed head-on.
Fury exhaled slowly and rubbed his eye.
"I know," he admitted. "That's why I'm trying to make one."
That got my attention.
"I've got scientists studying a new element called gravitonium," Fury continued. "They're trying to weaponize it. We're hoping it might be capable of actually hurting Arsenal."
He paused for a second before grimacing.
"But what they really want is his DNA."
Maria crossed her arms.
"We've been trying to get a sample for a year," she said. "Every time Arsenal gets into a fight, we monitor everything, hoping to find some kind of weakness."
Her expression became more frustrated.
"But he never takes any type of damage and leaves the battle without leaving a trace of blood or hair."
"Not to mention we can't even infiltrate his organization," Natasha added. "I'm pretty sure Arsenal already figured out that we tried to plant moles in his organization."
I nearly laughed out loud at that.
Fury was trying to do the exact same thing Ed had already done first: place spies inside another organization to feed information back.
Too bad Ed was way ahead of everyone.
Honestly, the agents pretending to be Vigilantes weren't even impressive. None of them had powers, enhanced abilities, or anything remotely special. If Ed wanted to expose them, he probably could've done it on day one.
He was most likely just letting them stay because he found it amusing.
"Hey, boss," I said.
Iota immediately shot me a death glare.
"I mean Director Fury," I corrected myself with a sigh. Seriously, she was way too strict sometimes.
Fury narrowed his eye at me. "What is it, Eta?"
I leaned forward on the couch.
"Why don't we stop focusing entirely on contingency plans and actually build our own superhero team?" I asked. "Because I already got some candidates in mind."
He raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"SHIELD's database," I said casually. "You can find a lot of useful things in there if you're willing to dig deep enough."
I pushed myself off the couch and walked over to the large TV mounted on the wall. Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out a flash drive and plugged it into one of the ports.
The screen immediately changed.
Multiple files and images appeared across the display, each one showing a different potential candidate.
The room grew quieter as everyone focused on the screen.
"Tony Stark," I said as his picture appeared on the screen, "is one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet and the head of one of the biggest technology companies in the world. After coming back from captivity, he shut down his weapons division, but that doesn't mean he stopped being useful. He could massively upgrade SHIELD's non-weapon tech."
I crossed my arms.
"Plus, we still don't fully understand how he escaped those terrorists in the first place."
The next file appeared.
"Hector Ayala, also known as White Tiger. He used to be pretty well known before retiring years ago. But recently, there have been reports coming out of Hell's Kitchen about someone wearing a White Tiger suit going around beating criminals half to death."
I smirked slightly.
"I'm pretty sure it's his daughter, Ava."
A new image appeared showing surveillance shots of White Tiger in action.
"She has enhanced senses, superhuman strength, agility, reflexes, and combat instincts. She's also apparently fearless, which honestly might be more dangerous than the powers."
Another file opened.
"Psylocke. Mutant mercenary. Very little reliable information exists on her, which honestly makes her even more interesting."
The screen shifted to blurry combat footage.
"She can generate psychic energy blades, she's an extremely skilled fighter, and according to a few scattered reports, she might be telepathic too. The mind-reading part is still unclear."
I glanced over at Fury.
"Considering how paranoid you are, I know this one probably isn't going to appeal to you, but I added her anyway just in case."
Fury narrowed his eye at me.
I ignored the look and kept going.
"Deathstroke, also known as Slade Wilson," I continued as another file appeared on the screen, "was military before a super soldier experiment went wrong. According to the reports, he slaughtered everyone at the facility and disappeared."
The screen shifted to classified photos and old military documents.
"A few years later, he resurfaced as a mercenary. Extremely dangerous, highly skilled, enhanced physically, and apparently impossible to kill."
I shrugged.
"Even I'm not completely sold on this one, but I'm pretty sure if we paid him enough, he'd work for us."
"But people like that aren't loyal," I added a second later.
Clint immediately nodded. "The second someone offers him a bigger paycheck, he'd betray us without hesitation."
"Yeah," I admitted. "Probably."
The next image appeared.
"Black Lightning. Real identity unknown. He used to operate publicly years ago before vanishing. But recent reports suggest he's becoming active again."
Security footage filled the screen, showing flashes of blue lightning tearing through a group of criminals.
"He's extremely powerful. Complete control over electricity. He can generate it, manipulate it, absorb it, and redirect it pretty much however he wants."
I switched to the final file.
"And then there's Red Streak."
The screen showed blurry security footage with nothing but streaks of red light.
"Identity unknown. Honestly, we barely have anything on him because he's ridiculously fast. Cameras can't properly track him. The only consistent thing witnesses report is a red blur."
I pointed at the footage.
"He's been active for a while, but nowhere near as long as the older heroes. My guess? He's a newbie with zero formal training who's relying almost entirely on raw powers."
I finally finished and turned back toward the room.
Everyone was staring at me with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
"What?"
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "For once in your life, you actually studied something seriously, and it paid off. Hell might actually be freezing over."
"Tread lightly, bitch," I shot back jokingly.
For a split second, Natasha almost laughed.
Almost.
But she pulled herself together way too fast.