Chapter 115: New York Chatter

"Dad was tortured by Loki?" Skye asks again as she is confused by the whole situation. First, she saw her dad fighting with the aliens. Why the hell did he have wings? 

A building fell on him and he is fine? Would he teach her how to survive like that later?

Why does dad's hair turn white?

She has so many questions, but Natasha and Coulson are censoring some information about the incident as they are not sure. 

When Skye heard what Loki did to her father in Stuttgart, she wanted to kill the god herself. 

Natasha and Coulson are following Skye from behind, waiting for her to talk to Kai. 

"Hey, Natasha…Uncle Phil. I think that…you shouldn't come in," Skye says resolutely to the agents. She is disappointed in them. Although Phil and Natasha are innocent, what Shield does to Kai couldn't be overlooked. Her father is too soft to ask them to go. That is why she will be the bad guy. 

Natasha's eyes lost all of their glints. Coulson glanced at Natasha but failed to see the emotion coming out of the highly trained agent. He missed it by 0.2 second. She had switched back to her poker face. 

"Skye, make sure he goes home and rests if he doesn't want to get a checkup," Natasha advised Skye. Kai has been working for hours now that Natasha managed to calm herself during. From her observation, he looks physically healthy and shows no sign of being in pain. Not that she doubted Thor, but she thought that Kai life won't burn out today. Kai bringing the little girl he found here supported her theory. 

"Tell him that Doreen is an orphan. She was adopted a few weeks ago, but now the foster family is nowhere to be found," Coulson gives a document to Skye. He had helped Kai transfer the little girl to the hospital. He ordered some of his trustworthy agents to do so. Doreen has been hanging in the hospital, waiting for Kai to finish his work.

"Who's Doreen?...Nevermind, I'll find out later," Skye said as she turned her back on the duo and opened the door to the emergency ward.

She walks into the ward and goes to find her dad. But Kai is doing a surgery at that time. She has to wait for a while. Looking around the ward, she saw a place to sit near the nurse's station.

"Hum huhum humm," A little kid is humming a song next to Skye as she enjoys her lollipop. She is moving her dangling, short leg that couldn't reach the floor in the air. 

Skye grinned as she saw the chubby cheeks of the brown-haired girl. The girl is eating the lollipop like a squirrel, smushing it inside her cheeks. Skye didn't bother her, and is waiting patiently for her dad. 

Natasha is standing still outside of the ward. Coulson is standing there with her. 

"Natasha, we should leave. Fury is calling a meeting," Coulson said as he checked his phone.

Natasha is still silent. She ignored what Coulson was saying. Her eyes are tracking a pair of men and women in casual clothes who are walking out of the hospital. They are carrying a bag with them.

"Hey, Phil. Those people are agents, right?" Natasha whispered to Phil.

"What?" Phil turns to look at them, but they drive off hurriedly. They got a very high level mission to steal something in the hospital. Not that the mission is difficult, but they have to do it under the watchful eyes of extraordinary people like Kai or Natasha.

Natasha and Phil turn to each other and nod. Natasha rides the bike that she uses to come to the hospital and starts to follow those agents. 

"Shit, she saw us," The agent in his 20's said. 

"Damn it," The female agent exclaims. Natasha cuts off the car route and forces them to stop. The agents know who Natasha is and they don't resist. Coulson arrives in a black sedan as the agents are coming out of the car. 

"What's in the bag?" Phil asks calmly. He is a high level agent in Shield. Those two are just beginner agents. He didn't expect to hear that response from them.

"I'm sorry sir. It's confidential," The female agent says. She got an order from someone even higher than Coulson. She couldn't let them see inside the bag.

Natasha isn't in the mood for a power play. She approached the agent and grabbed the bag from them. The agent tries to resist, but a gun on her head makes her impulse die instantly. Natasha tossed the bag to Coulson as she kept pointing the gun at the agents. 

Coulson unzips the bag and checks its content. He found a bloodied suit with the clothes ripped on the backside inside the bag.

"This is Kai's suit. Why do you have it?" Coulson's tone became serious. He is no longer calm. He is afraid of the answer. He knows that it will happen sooner or later, but not this soon. 

"Answer him," Natasha cocked her gun. 

"It's…We…" The male agents stammered, trying to find the right words. 

After interrogation by Natasha and Coulson, they found out the reason. Coulson's fear came true. 

"There is an order to retrieve Kai's blood sample. I guess they thought he was an alien too," Coulson sighs. 

With Kai's display of strength and supernatural power, Shield is making a contingency plan for him. The cracked relationship between Kai and Shield is a possible hostile situation, so they need to get prepared. They want to study him, and find out his weakness. 

"After ALL that he did?" Natasha complained while being furious. Kai exchanged his life span to save people. After all of that, Shield is still suspicious of Kai? Natasha is greatly disappointed in her organisation. 

"(sigh) Lets go," Coulson said to Natasha as he confiscated the bag from the newbie agents. He knows that the bag isn't worth much. He had run multiple missions like this. It is impossible for a newbie agent to be dispatched.  

The newbies are only there for a distraction. The blood sample from the suit was already collected by a more experienced agent without the newbie knowing about it. 

It wasn't Fury's order to do that. It was another level 10 agent who is sitting in jail right now. Alexander Pierce. Hydra has become alert when they see the Avenger power. Kai claims he did not attack humans, but Hydra still needs to be sure.

The war battle reports are concluded. There are a total of 8,023 Chitauri gliders, 15 Leviathans, and 7030 ground troops. Kai manages to kill off 5 leviathans, 2323 gliders and almost 2000 ground troops. His number is just under Ryan who had been fighting the gliders and army using the massive number of combat drones. 

Stark is desperately wishing that Kai didn't remember their bet. He didn't want to do Kai's laundry for a week. His wish has come true, but he still has to live in fear because if he checks with Kai…then he will make Kai remember it. 

In the hospital. Kai comes out wearing a blue scrub and a stethoscope on his neck. The scrub is looking tight on him. His muscles contour are shown, making the ladies, even bruised or bloodied, wanting Kai to become their doctor and is willing to wait. Too bad Kai only handles the emergency cases. 

Skye's eyes lit up when she saw Kai. "K-" She uttered a word, but the little girl next to him yelled louder and drowned out hers. 

"ANGEL!" Doreen yelled and ran to Kai. She hugged Kai's leg tightly when she arrived. 

Even though she is walking quickly in the same direction, Skye arrived a second late.

"Dad," Skye hugged Kai suddenly and tightly. She was so worried when she saw the building fall onto him. Kai is startled at first, but then he patted her in the back as she is hugging him. 30 second pass and she still isn't letting him go.

"Alright, get off me," Kai said to Skye. 

"Also Doreen, don't yell inside a hospital," Kai said as he ruffled the little girl's hair. 

Even though he had asked, Skye refused to let him go.

"Let's go home dad. You've done enough," Skye looks at Kai's face with puppy-dog eyes as she is hugging him and tries to change Kai's mind. 

"Skye…" Kai muttered. He felt a little guilty for making her worry, but honestly, he is fine. After his ascension to the Epic stage, his injuries are healing quickly. It's like he has a minor healing factor. The Corpse vine who is staying at his hand also helps him recover. 

He wants to push her away, but then a man with a clean cut face and gelled hair walks quickly toward him. 

"Dr. Vera. I am here now. You take a rest and go have a checkup," Dr. Stephen Strange ordered. Christine Palmer had called him who was in Miami during the war. His rare vacation time was cut short and he returned back to help. 

"Dr. Strange. All right, now that you're here I can rest easy," Kai handed over his medical record to Strange. Christine Palmer who saw this grinned. The two doctors trust each other's skills completely. 

Kai didn't have a checkup, instead, he went home. Strange let him borrow his clothes which he kept at the hospital. "It's very tight, but I'll make it for now."

"Just leave," Strange said in irksome. The clothes look much better on Kai than on him.

"Strange, you must consider growing a beard. I think you will look much more handsome with it," Kai says playfully, annoying Strange. He said goodbye to the doctors and went home with his childrens. 

"Dad, I've been meaning to ask. Why is she coming with us?" Skye asks Kai who is holding the sleeping Doreen in his arms. Kai smirks and says playfully. 

"Of course she will come with us. Where else will your sister live?"

Kai decided to adopt the little girl after knowing her condition. He did it without hesitating at all. Skye grinned and pinched the sleeping Doreen's cheeks. 

"Welcome to the family, Doreen," Skye said in anticipation. She always wanted a sister. 

…

Steve Rogers volunteered to lead the search and rescue.He did it with such vigor as he never got to the end of a war before. Of course, he changes out of his suit first and is posing as an ordinary agent. 

He is also sure that his existence is known to the whole world. Even to the people who he didn't want to let them know. His figure is displayed on the television screen and the internet as his return is becoming a sensation. 

"Steve…?" Peggy Carter muttered as she was watching the battle from her bed. She is 89 years old this year, and is showing signs of dementia. Her hair is white and her skin is wrinkly. The familiar face jolted her spirit awake, making her previous self come back. Too bad she will soon forget about him… again. 

Taking out a pen and paper, Peggy wrote something to give to her niece, Sharon Carter. All these years, her house address is kept a secret. Even Fury didn't know about it. 

She wrote specific instructions to Sharon before she fell asleep again. She hopes that when she wakes up, she will see him again. 

…

Fury arrives in New York. Instead of going to Ryan's house, he went to Stark's.

"Stark, where is the tesseract?" Fury asks calmly. 

"It's with Thor," Tony answered non-committedly. 

Thor is hanging out with Banner and Selvig before Loki requests that Thor come to him. Loki complained that Hiddle had been treating the war prisoner poorly and shot him 5 times. Two in the chest, three in the abdomen. 

When Thor looks at Hiddle's puzzled face, he knows that Loki is lying again. Hiddle smirks at Loki as he leaves while hiding his face from Thor. Loki's eyes widened and for the first time since he got to Midgard, he felt fear from the ordinary mortal.  He felt like he got punched by his brother with full strength when he got shot by the old man. Loki then behaves the entire time he is in the prison, waiting for the time he is going home.

It is almost dusk in New York. The people who lost their homes are placed in hotel rooms in the city, outside of the battle area. Most belongings are lost, so Tony is handling the displaced people as Ryan requested him.

"Will you just let Thor take the Tesseract? It didn't interest you?" Fury asked Tony. 

Rather than him asking Tony a question, more like he is asking for advice. 

But Tony has a bad impression on Fury right now as he feels that he has been fighting Fury's war. Not to mention his best friend got the shortest straw during the battle and is fighting for his life right now.

"If you want me to get the cube back from Thor, then forget it. I have more important things to do right now," Tony said in annoyance. He is busy trying to get help for the people there. 

The politicians are making the process unnecessarily hard. The government is of no help either. They want pictures with the victims. They want credit for approving a minor process. It's making Tony want to pull off the wigs from the politician's head and burn it using a flamethrower. Only the DODC under Ryan is moving without much hassle as the politicians are afraid of Tim Knight. 

Tony is ignoring Fury and is focusing on his monitor. Fury shakes his head slightly. Being a top spy, he is always alone with no one to understand him. He is used to it that Tony's behavior didn't affect him.

"You know, the alien chick is right," Tony suddenly let out as Fury wanted to leave to get the agents out of their justified imprisonment. 

"The green one? Or the cat?" Fury asks calmly. He already knows the conversation the Avenger's have with the alien ally. 

"Both, we are the rapacious aliens we fear in our fiction," Tony sits down as he is resting for a while. He needs to talk to someone about it. He wants to do it with Ryan, but…

"We are a form of pseudo-intelligent virus, consuming everything, and killing our host for profit," Fury quoted the talking cat alien. 

"That is true though," Tony supported the cat's words. Meowth will be proud as he thinks about the sentence himself. Even Yelena was shocked at that time.

"Our world was always known by aliens..No, they are other…civilizations. Did you already know that Fury?" Tony asked. 

"I do," Fury answered. He had faced them before. In 1993. 

"Most aliens think of us as a primitive planet.  We only move at the pace of our slowest institutions,our governments, run by fearful , power-hungry individuals who will only do things that advance the species when it fattens their pocket," Tony is quoting Yelena.

"Some civilization wishes that Earth will never enter the galaxy because of our nature," Tony said again, as the short conversation he has with the aliens is shocking him to the core. 

"I wish I could say that they are wrong," Tony pours a glass of whiskey for Fury and for himself. After the battle, the victims had to pay for their own healthcare. Tony wants to help, but the government is delaying the process intentionally to obey the healthcare giants? 

Not to mention the other stuff. Tony sighs in realisation of the deep rooted rot that is slowly killing their species. Tony then asked Fury the question that is lingering in his mind. 

"Did you create the Avenger for this? To show civilizations with bad intentions that we are capable of protecting ourselves?"

" I know you won't believe me even if I say it. But I too, believe in heroes," Fury answered. Stark and Fury's conversation stops and doesn't move any further. Fury who doesn't explain himself because Stark isn't in the mood to understand why he does things the way he does. 

Fury finishes his drink and gets out of the apartment. He still needs to do a lot of work. He also needs to find out who he can trust. The war had shown him the weirdness inside of Shield. He needs to investigate his own people after this. 

…

After getting out of prison, Alexander Pierce is moving with Agent Sitwell to get to their base. 

"How long till the insight project is completed?" Pierce asked. 

Today has opened his eyes to the dangers his organisation is facing. He knows that Fury won't stay still for much longer. And once Fury finds out about the snakes inside Shield, the purge is coming.

"Sir, it is estimated to be completed in a year and a half," Sitwell reported. 

"That's too long. I need it done in 9 months," Pierce ordered. 

"That will increase the risk of our plan being exposed," Sitwell said.

"Once the project is done, it doesn't matter anymore," Pierce says confidently.

…

Mephisto: How long till you can create the scroll?

Hydra: My other self is doing it in space. He will arrive at my place around dawn. 

Inside his fixed apartment, Ryan is chatting with the members of the chat group. He asked Gwen to rest now. Even though Gwen is reluctant, she is resting next to Ryan. Without her realising it, she is now napping. 

Night comes quickly, but the sensation of the alien invading New York isn't dying down. 

Ryan is watching the news as he is chatting with his interdimensional friends. 

GreenWitch: @Hydra how many quests have you done during the Chitauri invasion. I know that there are a lot of quests given for the specific event. 

TheDoctor: I think there is a quest to write "Thanos is bald" using the chitauri bodies during the war right? Did you do that one?

Hydra: Like hell will I do that! I don't want to face the final boss this quickly. 

VampireKid: Then what did you do?

Mythic: Did you do the Hulk commercial? 

Hydra:..... I don't want to answer that. 

RedWidow: Did you do the dancing alien quest? (stares.gif)

Hydra:.... I am pleading for the fifth. 

RetiredMechanic: He did my quest! I am proud of you, kid. You will become a great virtual mechanic. 

Mythic: What quest did you give the only tier 2 member here @RetiredMechanic?

KickBaal: Me too. He did my quest too. HAHAHAHA

Hydra: Can we talk about it when I get better?

TheDoctor: Do you have any useful things to do now?

Hydra: Not dying. 

TheDoctor: That didn't count.

Hydra: Well, no but…

TheDoctor: Then you can tell us what you do. (NoEscape.gif)