Soldier Of Summer: The Equinox

Twelve But Four

    Over the next week, I met everyone in the tower and even started training. Tony didn't want me to at first, but Auriana convinced him that they needed all the help they could get when it came to the Frost Giants, and along with Thor and Loki's agreement, he finally gave in.
    Bucky was kinda weird. When Auriana introduced him to me, he looked scared, like he wanted to talk to me, but if he did I would have killed him. One thing was certain about him: he was not who I thought he was, based on the rumors I heard.
    I figured out that Wanda was the one giving me the headaches. Turns out she was poking through my memories and thoughts. I would have preferred to know that she was the one behind that. Vision was super cool too. I get that I was freaked out before, but he was actually really nice and told me all about how he was created and born.
    Peter was the best. He introduced me to all these different kinds of music, and we totally vibed to it in the gym. Not to brag or anything, but I beat Spiderman while sparring, twice.
    I'm not super proud of this in hindsight, but when I wasn't training or meeting new people, I was snooping around the tower, trying to find any info on Wakanda and the serum that I could. Mostly I tried to pry more information out of poor Banner, but we actually ended up having some interesting conversations about biology and life.
    "If you could control microorganisms," he once said, "Technically and scientifically speaking, you could make things hover or even move around. You could have the hidden power of telepathy."
    "I've never tried to control something that I couldn't see before," I shrugged. "Maybe it could work, but I wouldn't even know how to go about it."
    He fiddled with his pen as he looked around the lab we were in.
    "I'll see what I can search up, and in the meantime, I found your HYDRA file. I snuck it out of Tony's office. I think you and your sister should see it, but don't tell anyone else."
    He held out a flash drive. I took it and headed up to my bedroom, where I plugged it into a computer that I recently acquired from Steve. He said he didn't need it, so he gave it to me.
    What I found on my file made me want to vomit. It was real, but I didn't realize how different it was from the one I had found back in captivity.
    I had eleven siblings. Seven of them were dead. Only the youngest four were still alive, and I had all the information right here, on this flash drive, right in front of my eyes.
    The eldest of the living was a dude I had never met before named Zeus, the second was Auriana. The third was Barren, and the last was me.
    Information on my Serum was here too, but most of the ingredients had been redacted, including the Wakandan herb.
    "Friday!"
    "Yes, Ms. Green?"
    "Call Auriana to my room!"
    Even though I was happy about the last name changing to the one I had given myself, I was almost physically sick.
    Eventually, Auriana knocked on my door and came in. When she saw me at the computer, she rushed over.
    "What'd you find?" She asked, leaning on the desk with her metal hand, her flesh hand on the back of my chair.
    "Our file."
    Her eyes widened.
    "Really?"
    "Yes! It's all right here, it's all right here. Information on us, on our abilities-" I paused- "On our siblings."
    Somehow they widened even more.
    "You mean there's more?"
    I nodded and scrolled to the list.
    "All but four are dead. There were twelve of us, Auri, and now we're the only ones left! You, me, Barren, and this guy Zeus."
    I paused when I saw one of the death dates.
    "There were five left exactly one week ago."
    "What?"
    I pointed to one of them. He was a boy named Jodan, and he had died one week ago, at the age of twenty.
    "We gotta show this to Bucky," Auriana mumbled, but I stopped her as she moved for the door.
    "No, Banner said not to show this to anyone but you."
    She paused before nodding, understanding why it would be a bad idea for him to know now. We all had a bigger problem to attend to.
    "Okay, so what do you want to do about it?" she asked me.
    "I don't know, we should beat the Frost Giants first," I said, taking the flash drive out of the computer and hiding it in a drawer.
    Auri smiled a little. "Hey, if you're gonna fight, you're gonna need a suit."
    She grabbed my arm and took me to Stark's lab to get measured for a suit. She had to beg him, which was kinda weird to watch.
    "Come on Tony, you've agreed to let her fight, give her a suit! Please?"
    "I wish the rest of you were rich," Tony muttered before agreeing. "Fine, but I don't even know where to start with you, so you're gonna give me designs. I get Veto power, you have three days. Go."
    He shooed us away and turned around to go to his desk. We laughed the whole time we were in the elevator, and we went to Peter, who designed one of his suits himself.
    "Peter! We need your help!" I called him across the gym. He was working on balance and footwork with Natasha. He ran over to us and even did a backflip to show off.
    "What's up?" he asked as he landed. His wavy brown hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.
    "You designed your own suit right?" Auri asked him. He nodded.
    "Yeah, why?"
    "We need your help designing Evyr's new suit," she squealed, sorta jumping up and down. This was not something I was used to seeing in anyone, let alone the Summer Soldier.
    "Wow, you're gonna fight?" he looked at me with a huge smile on his face.
    "Yeah, can you help me get some designs on the table?" I asked, an eyebrow raised. He looked me up and down, his brain already going a million miles an hour.
    "I can help you."