Seeing Howard

Dutch rolled her eyes in annoyance. She was on the plane with Lady bell and A.

They both looked at the bone fragment confused. Lady bell picked it up. It was the size of a baseball.

"So what is it?" A looked at Dutch.

Dutch raised a brow, she looked at Lady bell, who looked just as confused.

Dutch snickered, "you don't know. Who knew the hand could keep such a secret."

"It's not that I don't know, it's that I don't care to learn their secrets." Lady bell frowned, before defending herself.

"Sure." Dutch mocked.

"Anyway, that's a dragon bone." Dutch saw Lady bell immediately become uninterested.

"It's one of the dragons from K'un-Lun. They use it to make something they call the substance." Lady bell eye brow raised. Her interest piqued once again.

"The substance is a elixir made from the dragon bones to resurrect the head members of the hand, along with anyone they find useful to them." A frowned heavily.

"I understand extending your life span, but cheating death? Absolutely not." A spoke with disgust. Lady bell nodded along with her.

Dutch was surprised with at this. She knew they both lived a life on the edge but she didn't think they wouldn't want to come back for anything.

"So, other than resurrection, this thing is useless?" Lady bell put the bone down and poked at it.

Dutch shook her head. She pulled the box over towards her. She put both her palms above the bone.

Soon a warm current radiated off the bone. A faint golden light appeared in the bone. The light slowly got brighter as the warmth became more apparent.

"Other than that, the dragon bones, even a small fragment hold enormous amounts of chi." Dutch smiled. She didn't actually think this was going to work.

She had dealt with several chi users. So she had an idea of how to to sense this energy. She was even able to feel a faint amount in herself. She used that to awaken the chi inside of the dragon's bone.

Moving her hand away, the golden light and warm current slowly started to disappear.

"How much do you want for it?" A spoke up after a minute of thought.

Dutch shrugged, "how much you got?" Dutch didn't know how much to value these things. If wouldn't matter if she did or not anyway.

She had too much wealth at the moment. She genuinely didn't know how assassins live their whole lives like this, knowing they were filthy rich.

Dutch eyes lit up. "Give me a tablet with the holographic screen, and few other devices, and Howard starts location." If she had to much wealth might as well make more from it.

"Also the verison of A serum." Dutch added in.

"You want to hire an outsider." A frowned.

"Shut up, Howard Stark is a genius and if he had access to the technical advances that you guys have, he would be far surpass you." Dutch defended.

"She is right, but he won't join you." Lady bell nodded in agreement.

"Many have tried…" A sighed.

"Well, it doesn't matter. I want this as payment. What I do after the deal is done isn't any of your concern." Dutch frowned. A couldn't tell but Dutch sure could.

Lady bell wanted to Dutch to approach her with whatever deal she was going to make with Howard. Dutch didn't like this.

If she relied on Lady bell for everything she will never be able to break away from her. That's exactly what Lady bell wanted and Dutch couldn't allow that.

Dutch glared at Lady bell, before turning toward A. Lady bell rolled her eyes. "Don't come crying to me when you fail."

"Ok, deal." A smiled, she went to grab the box. Dutch held onto it.

"You can get it after I get my payment." Dutch smiled, seeing A's glare.

**********

Arriving at A's base, Dutch saw all her items already prepared. She smiled at this.

"Can I get the bone now?" Dutch shook her head.

"I have to check the goods." Dutch furrowed her brows as she went to the table.

She slowly checked all of the items. She was surprised, when she got to the last item. "You guys have supercomputers!!"

"Ok you got to tell me, how did you guys get such advanced technology?" She turned and looked at both ladies.

"Aliens, mostly." A shrugged.

"There's also a earth were there's a robot apocalypse." Lady bell smiled her face filled with excitement.

"Do you travel to other earths?" Dutch looked at Lady bell.

"Not as often as I used to." Lady bell frowned.

Dutch nodded not asking any further questions. She turned and handed the box to A.

"How do you know so much about advance technology if you haven't been around any of it yourself?" A questioned Dutch. She didn't understand how Dutch could possibly know about supercomputers and other things.

Dutch turned to look at Lady bell. "Do you know where the The Ozunu Clan is located."

Dutch ignored A, who frowned when seeing this. Lady bell nodded casually. "I work with them on occasion."

Dutch nodded, "I'm going to need to go there to get that person I'm supposed to be looking after."

Dutch had already looked in the database. The boy in the picture was a registered assassin under The Ozunu Clan.

A then handed Dutch a piece of paper. Dutch looking at it realized A never planned to give her the actual serum but the formula. This didn't matter if anything it would be better than the other option.

"Oh, before I leave, I checked Lee's networks, he hadn't had any communication with Ort-Meyer since he went into hiding." Dutch packed the items into a duffle bag, while speaking.

"He suspected, Ort-Meyer paid Arkadij Jegorov to smuggle some of his things to his new base.

He set up a meeting with him a while ago, but Jegorov has been dodging him. I'll go see what I can about that after I go see Howard." Dutch put the duffel bag over her shoulder.

"Lee's network? How'd you get access to that? We took over everything and as soon as we touched that, it completely collapsed." A crossed her arms. This time she wouldn't let Dutch avoid the question.

"I paid his women to tell me what they know." Dutch shrugged. Lady bell snickered.

"What?" A looked back at C, who was standing by the door. He quickly nodded and walked out.

"You know you sure are dumb. Everyone knows Lee Hong had a weakness for women. He often used them to gather information about his competitors. Like Lam Fung's wife… She's one of his girls." Dutch walked away no longer caring about any of this.

"Also, your still not off the hook for continuing to pursue the blue lotus." Lady bell stepped forward.

"Sorry I should have told you. Once I start a contract it can't be broken. Goes against my principles." Dutch didn't look back as she spoke.

**********

Using Lady bell's plane, Dutch landed in New York. She went to the continental. She saw a familiar looking man behind the desk.

"Good morning sir." Dutch smiled pleasantly.

"Good morning Ms. Dutch. It's good to see you again." Charon smiled equally fondly.

"Good to see you as well, I'll be staying for the night, but must keep traveling tomorrow." Dutch sounded disappointed.

They both spoke while Charon got the room for Dutch. Mostly Dutch telling him about her adventures in Hong Kong.

Dutch grabbed the key. "I'll see you later Charon. I need to take a shower." He nodded.

"Oh, I got you a souvenir." Dutch brought out a green glowing sword. She took it from Lee Hong's stash. She was angry that he didn't even try to use it on her.

She placed it on the counter. "It was Lee Hong's famous sword." She smiles and walked away before he could reject it.

He smiled lowly at this.

**********

Dutch laid on the couch. She turned on the tv, while opening the duffel bag.

She took out the items. Taking the back panels off she took out a small device. Dutch shook her head, Lady bell's warning paid off.

**********

Howard stood in the middle of a tent looking out at a frozen field. Wearing a thick jacket and gloves while holding hot chocolate, he watched people dig in the frozen ground.

"Can't believe , something like this is even possible." Howard frowned, hearing Peggy's voice.

"The greed of man knows no bound." He took a sip of his hot Chocolate.

"Dad they found something!" Tony rushed in.

Howard put down his cup and followed Tony along with Peggy. They came to one of the holes.

Looking down they saw a frail little girl frozen. Her clothes tattered and covered in blood. She looked malnourished, while her fists were balled together.

Peggy turned around to look away. Tears threaten to fall. "So it's true. This used to be a training place for the red room." Tony spoke lowly.

If you compared him to before he was a lot different now. He carried an air of maturity. One he could have only gotten from experiencing the real world.

**********

In the underground hideout, Tony stood in front of the room. He paced back in forward with a serious look on his face.

"As you can see, me, my father, and Peggy went to the one of the red rooms old bases.

During this trip we found 157 girls. All with various different wounds, malnourished, and frozen to death…"

Tony led the talk to day. Peggy glanced at Howard. She had known from the start, that after the car incident, Howard started to train Tony to take over for him.

"Wrong!" They all stood to their feet's fast. A voice sounded from out of nowhere.

Click Click Click

They all pulled out guns and surrounded Howard and Tony in a protective circle.

Thud

"Relax, Howard and I are old buddies." Dutch dropped down from the roof. She was surprised none of them shot at her.

Howard seeing who it was wided his eyes in shock. "You!"