A year after the Blip, there's something not quite right about the newly reconstructed Avengers Compound. It's too empty. Too quiet. And a sinister presence seems to be lurking among the ruins of the old compound.
No one feels more haunted than Grac...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Everything was staticky, noisy, but I saw Tony in my dream. Black and white like an old TV set. He was wearing a suit, Tom Ford or something, not the Iron Man one. He took a sip of scotch. We were sitting at a bar. Or maybe a conference room table. He was angled toward me, an elbow propped up on whatever the surface was. I couldn't look past him to see; everything in the periphery was obscured by grainy nothing.
I said something to him, but I wasn't sure what. I couldn't hear myself over the static.
His voice just barely came through, like a fuzzy, out of range station: "Gracie—" his mouth kept moving, but I didn't catch the rest. He was speaking casually, no urgency at all, like he was just replayed film.
I asked him something, maybe to repeat himself. Rewind. He came back through mid-sentence: "—worry, kiddo. Nothing's gonna—"
Then it went blank. I didn't wake up, not then. It just went dead, no static, like my dream was unplugged. I woke up a second later. It was still only 2:30 in the morning.
I sat up and looked around. I'd gone to sleep with the lamp on, the room dimly lit so the shapes weren't too obscure. Then, I called out softly, a tentative whisper. "Tony?"
No response. Of course. The wind kept howling outside. I closed my eyes and a tear pressed out. "Please," I said. "I miss you."
I pulled my knees into my chest and pressed my forehead against them, crying into my arms. "I miss you so much," I repeated to no one, muffled.
The wind howled louder outside, but I didn't think anything of it until I felt it on my skin again, whipping against my arms. My hair blew against my face. It was stronger than in the training room. Colder, too.
I looked up, straight at the window, and immediately jumped, scrambling off my bed.
Redwing was in midair, hovering over the spot where I'd left it on my windowsill.
"Go back to sleep," I told it. And it did, settling back down, powering off.
Was that the glitch Sam had been talking about? Sleep-hovering?
I was too startled to approach it just yet.
"Tony..." I said, barely above a whisper. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"
No response.
"Well, I guess you saw Ultron," I continued, voice becoming a higher pitch with stress. "So, still really within the realm of science, aren't we? Nothing supernatural about rogue tech, huh? This is...science non-fiction right here..."
I wanted so desperately to talk to Tony. Or anyone who'd understand. Darcy was an astrophysicist. I needed someone exactly on my wavelength. Or, as close as I could get to the way Tony and I had always understood each other. I picked up my phone from the nightstand. I pressed Colin Cross' contact.
