Chapter 109: Snow Runs Red

Thursday Jan 29th, 2022. Washington, DC. SHIELD HQ.

After Bronte met up with Doctor Strange and Brother Voodoo at the Sanctum Sanctorum on Wednesday, he and The Midnight Suns got the rundown on the meat and potatoes of their mission. On how exactly to make the Montesi Formula work.

It was safe to say he didn't sleep that night. Neither did Ilyana…. Or Jack. If they had a lot on their plate before with a world ending prophecy and randomized terrorist attacks, then what the Sorcerers told them that night simply broke the plate.

Actually the weight of it all atomized the plate. Entirely.

Daken's death was no longer the only one in Bronte's sights.

To save the world, the DarkHold required the blood of the Coven's King, and his highest ranking Knights. Where the magic and blood were strongest, it said.

Bronte ran it over with the X-Men in their knock-off Quinjet as they flew to Washington. Apparently, the director of SHIELD recommended a temporary unification of sorts. Professor X said he offered pertinent information in exchange for some of theirs…..

After Krakoa, Bronte was tired of politics. As short lived as that was. But he swallowed the bullet.

Metaphorically this time.

But it was about to get literal.

He let out a sigh of impatience.

"We've been in here for three hours, did they not ask for us to come here…? What's going on?"

"Special forces dingbats trying to assert dominance." Gabby replied as she typed away on her phone.

"That or the information they offered was a living suspect that went haywire…. hopefully nothing of my ilk." Nightcrawler replied in his heavily accented voice. Now lined with guilt.

"We'd know if it was." Cyclops replied from beside him.

"How so?"

"Demon-boy, wake up. We have three bloodhounds with us. Abandon your paranoia, we're here on business." Emma interjected. In the dark room— that looked eerily similar to an interrogation room, her white blazer and slacks stood out like sheets of starlight. Her flowing golden hair swept to one side was like the sun.

Beside Nightcrawler, Jean placed a hand on his shoulder, "Relax. The worst of that is over. You faced your demons better than any of us."

"Poor choice of words lowkey…" Gabby whispered to Bronte.

"Careful what you say in here. We're surely on record." Professor X reminded everyone.

"Knowing the absolute state of SHIELD after losing their cash cow in the form of the Avengers, they couldn't do anything with our information even if it were the key to erasing us." Emma looked up at the ceiling and leaned back in her chair.

Suddenly the door opened and a hilariously mundane appearing man barged in with three other agents in suits.

"You'd be surprised, Ms Frost…. Then again, maybe you wouldn't. I hear reading minds can take the shock out of most social interactions." Agent Coulson replied to her previous comment.

As if Emma was expecting it, she didn't even look his way.

"Bigots are so predictable."

"What a BEAUTIFUL bait and switch." Mend commented in Bronte's mind.

Agent Coulson blinked and looked away from the Diamond woman. "The X-Men. In the flesh. Your guys' roster changes like the seasons."

"Different people get different jobs done, Agent." Professor X replied.

"Oh, I'd know all about that." Agent Coulson wiped the sweat off his forehead.

Brontë sniffed in his direction, detecting the sweet tang of stress hormones behind the colognes, business threads and body odor. All four of them smelled that way.

Seeing high echelon government agents sweat felt like seeing cars drive on clouds.

Brontë ignored the twist of his stomach.

"Long time no see….. though that's quite common with your types, isn't it?" Agent Coulson said as he looked to Bronte. The words were aggressive coming out of anyone else's mouth, but Coulson was more robotic than he was human. He was simply stating the obvious. Probably after analyzing statistics and superhero baseball cards.

"Something like that." Bronte replied.

Gabby nodded in agreement.

"So, what business did you wish to go over with the X-Men on SHIELDS behalf, agent?" Professor steered them back on the previous path.

"Right." Agent Coulson looked at his fellow agents before they all took a seat across the table from the X Men and Midnight Suns. It was a long table.

"We know there is a global threat of the dark magic kind brewing across the ocean from US soil. We know it's made its way to US soil many times. Too many times….. if there was a phrase for something beyond too many times I would've said that afterwards but there isn't." Agent Coulson said straight faced.

Following his words, the three agents beside him opened up folders showing pictures of bodies drained of blood. Morlocks being eviscerated by Vampire hordes. The Red Nation Incident.

"And if I were to guess, I think it's connected to you." Agent Coulson opened his own folder and slid it to Bronte.

Inside he saw pictures of himself. One was of him in the sewers surrounded by his own ice and frozen vampires. Another in front of hospitals. More similar pictures followed along with notes.

Nothing he didn't know.

"I understand we don't have the greatest track record. Political figures never do—"

"Our existence is not political." Cyclops cut in.

"Of course not. It's not like you can shoot beams from your eyes that could level a small town in minutes." Agent Coulson shot back with the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

"What did I say before?" Emma questioned aloud.

"Something about bigots." Gabby blew a bubble with her gum.

Agent Coulson looked at them all. "You guys got spunk. One of my subordinates taught me that word. I didn't think I'd see the first example in people involved in the end of the world."

"What are you implying?" Professor X questioned.

"Oh— not that you all here are going to end the world. But a Mutant will. Well, he wants to. But personally I'm a patriot— so you know I have to get involved. I watched a lot of Captain America propaganda films as a child." Agent Coulson replied. "But a Mutant is. At least that's what we believe."

"So this is a trade?" Bronte realized. "We confirm your suspicions, you give us possibly useful information to go along with what we already know. You even brought the pictures to show you been spying…. To say you'll find out soon anyway."

Agent Coulson unblinkingly looked Bronte's way. "That's some decent observational skill. Get into politics recently?.."

"Stop playing."

Agent Coulson nodded, "I'm looking to trade. The Directors breathing down my neck about this. The world is looking like it did in the forties… right before all hell broke loose. So, can you confirm or deny that it's one of yours?"

"What are you offering?" Cyclops asked.

"Pertinent information."

"That's all you can say?" Jean raised an eyebrow.

"That's all I'm advised to say."

"Remind me why we came here?"

"Information."

Brontë opened his mouth.

"Don't!" Professor X's words were quick in their minds, "If we claim this act of terror was caused by a Mutant— even one that isn't among us, it goes on record. Records leak. Press and journalists get scoops. The public gets its largest reason yet to hate us. Mutant children… little boys and girls all over the world will then be seen as world breakers in the making. We must tread carefully."

Agent Coulson sat in silence.

Bronte's stomach twisted for a very different reason as he leaned in.

"You know it's Daken."

Everyone on Bronte's side eyed him with varying hints of anger and betrayal.

"Not cool." Gabby said to Agent Coulson.

"You spent a good deal of time with us. The Wakandan government helped you with that." Bronte explained, "If you recognize me now, I know you recognize him. You probably know what happened on Krakoa. You know what it is already, stop pump faking like we don't got work to do."

"Trust test." Cyclops surmised.

"Before we could work on something this large scale, I needed to know I could. In that way…. I guess StormWolf just made this all possible."

The next generation of Mutant children were in that hypothetical increased danger Professor X feared already. Bronte's stomach continued to twist.

"So we have nothing on the table. Nothing to bargain with. Lovely." Emma added.

Agent Coulson held up a hand, "Firepower is the single greatest bargaining chip in the world. And you all have an excess of it." He winked at Cyclops, calling back to his comment about leveling towns. He was trying to tell them the whole time.

"I think it's time I show you our hand. At least the part that concerns you." Agent Coulson stood up.

"Typical SHIELD fashion." Emma said.

"I'll take that as a compliment considering you're a model. Your recent set was very experimental. Id be a fan if I wasn't married." Agent Coulson led them out of the dark room.

"You're married?" Emma asked as she walked at the front with Bronte, Gabby and Cyclops.

"No." Agent Coulson replied.

Everyone looked at eachother in confusion.

"Why is he so weird?" Gabby asked.

"Robot. He's gotta be a robot."

They followed Agent Coulson and the others through the long lower floor hallways of the SHIELD HQ. Nothing but cement and security cams surrounded them. Every door was fit with two guards carrying enough firepower to make anyone think twice about the second amendment.

It stayed that way for a mile. In the distance Bronte could hear vehicles and machinery working away but eventually he only came to focus on the room they approached at the end of the hallway.

Even now, outside of the room, he could hear the man's muffled screams. He could smell the blood and piss and unwashed skin.

"This is why I suggest a team up." Agent Coulson pushed the doors open.

Inside, an older well muscled white man shook against his restraints in a frantic rage. The metal seat he was tied to strained against his power.

"Alexei?" Cyclops questioned.

He kept screaming and thrashing.

"Who?" Bronte asked.

"This was Red Guardian. Russian's attempt at their own Captain America." Agent Coulson replied.

"What the happened to him?" Jean questioned.

"Whatever is over there happened to him." Agent Coulson replied, "And I think we've got an idea of what it is…. What the scale is."

Agent Coulson nodded to the three agents.

They approached Red Guardian and took the covers off his body.

Gabby cringed as his gushing barely scabbed over wounds gleamed under the industrial lights.

They left a message on his chest.

Ilyana stepped forward, "Stones from glass…?"

"He's trying to say humans are hypocrites." Bronte explained.

"They throw stones from glass homes. Hate…. And violence, yet they can't handle even the sight of what he's become. They're too fragile. Like glass." Emma further explained.

"That's not even the best part." Agent Coulson explained.

"What is?" Cyclops questioned.

"Last time we checked, Red Guardian was leading the Winter Guard. And that was recently, without the Avengers, we have to keep an eye on them. We lost sight last week. Then we found him in the ocean. Alone." Agent Coulson explained.

"Oh…. Damn." Cyclops' eyebrows raised above his visor in shock.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Perun and Chernobog... Daken has Slavic Gods on his side now."

"Vampiric Slavic gods…." Agent Coulson corrected. "The Directors having a debrief tomorrow. We're heading to Russia before the month is over."