『ᴀʀᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇʟ || ᴀ ᴍᴀʀᴠᴇʟ ꜰᴀɴꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ

Ch. 28: Scarborough

Bruce was focusing on the screen in front of him, half of a sandwich bitten and remained uneaten beside him on a plate. Jeremiah was sitting away from me, quiet and uncomfortable with the atmosphere. He glanced from Bruce, then to Tony, then to me, and got to his feet. He made his way out of the room, hugging himself in the process.

Tony's gaze followed him, before he turned his attention towards me, "Jeremiah slipped up earlier."

I raised a brow, "Slipped up?"

"Yeah, slipped up, Nicole," Tony grinned, leaning forward in a taunting manner as he pointed at me, "I know your name~"

"I've always known your name~" I mimicked his voice, turning from him as I looked at Bruce, "Anything new?"

"Two of them haven't moved. Yours is still in the same area, and the remaining one is just moving slowly," he replied.

I nodded, "That one person might be Steph... But shouldn't there be more signatures? HYDRA used the Tesseract to give them their powers."

Tony snapped his fingers, "Maybe not all of them."

I looked at him, "What?"

"Think about it- Spangles got his powers and abilities from a test tube. That had nothing to do with the Tesseract at all. Just pure science," Tony explained, "We're more developed today. This isn't the 1940s. It's 2014, 74 years later."

"Technology is developed. More futuristic," I mumbled, nodding my head as well, "More scientific experiments can happen because of our technology."

Bruce looked back at us, "But they need to have knowledge of what they're doing. Mistakes can lead to malfunctions, and when a malfunctions involves a human..."

I breathed out, "Death or retaliation... I was a malfunction! I had to have been!"

Tony nodded, "That's why you were wiped. You couldn't be rewired like everyone else."

"But why just not end me? I mean, I knew too much. Louis must've known about the flaws in Samuel's abilities on altering the human mind. It will always be there, no matter your attempts on forgetting things. It can't disappear."

Bruce turned around in his chair, his attention landing on me, "Louis never gave you much information, just who and where? Never the 'what ' or 'why', right?"

"Yeah. Last time was the first time he ever trusted to give me the 'what'. He just said to escort Samuel back to base and make sure he had files on him. He didn't go much in depth."

Tony sat down on a table, brushing bolts and wires away from him with a flick of his hand, "So Louis' HYDRA work- they didn't know that you could remember what Samuel reversed?"

I shook my head, "Samuel was close with Louis. They had trust that everyone else wanted. If Louis disappeared, there would've been no doubt that Samuel would've taken over for him. But since they had that bond, Louis believed he was strong enough, that his altering couldn't be reversed.

I turned to face Bruce, looking between the two of them, "When I encountered Steph, it seems like she only remembered bits and pieces. Select things about her past. She said her reason for her work was because she lost me. Louis found out the effect I had on her, and manipulated it to his benefit."

"Sick bastard," Tony grumbled.

"Steve would be ashamed Stark," I teased at the billionaire.

"You're not any better."

"Try me."

"I- Holy shit- Guys!" Bruce stammered, catching our attention. I lifted my head in his direction, my eyes focusing on him as he pointed at the screen. Only three simples were there now.