Eye of the Storm (A Marvel Story) ✔️

II. The A Team

Mama!

A small dark-skinned girl with white curly hair crawled on hands and knees through dirt, sand, and rubble.

Mama!

She cried out as the sandy wind whipped at her face. She shielded her eyes with tiny hands spotted with blood. Some that belonged to her, some that didn't. She struggled to her feet as she surveyed the landscape around her. Destruction. Everywhere. Bodies sprawled out across the land. The sky was hazy with sand and debris.

The girl fell to her knees and cried. Blood from her hands brushing against her small plump dirty cheeks.

My child.

The girl looked up suddenly to find the voice. She looked and looked but saw no one.

Ororo.

She whipped her head around to see a figure standing in a beam of light.

Come my child. The voice called to her. She ran and ran but the figure started to disappear.

Wait! The girl cried out running as fast as her little legs could carry her. She stumbled and fell to her knees, rocks and debris penetrating her skin. She immediately got back up and kept running despite the pain.

Wait! She called out again.

Hurry, Ororo. Ororo.

"Ororo!"

Ororo jolted awake. She looked around trying to collect her thoughts. She squinted as she adjusted to the familiar scenery as she looked at the clouds. The plane soared through the sky cutting swiftly through the air.

"You okay?" She looked towards the source of her alertness to see a red-haired woman sitting in front of her with a jet-black suit that hugged her body.

"Natasha," Ororo said acknowledging her.

"You must have been really tired," Natasha's husky feminine voice said.

"Trouble sleeping."

"Yea, I get that." Natasha looked out the window. They sat in silence for a moment.

"About Thor," Natasha started.

"Nat... can we please... not," Ororo sighed.

"Right. Sorry," Natasha said sinking into her seat. She leaned over and poured some whiskey into a glass cup and handed it to Ororo.

Ororo took it from her and smiled. "Thanks."

"So what's this mission about," Ororo asked sipping.

"There's been some unusual underground activity going on in the New England area permeating with intense cosmic energy," Natasha started. Storm raised her eyebrow still sipping.

"They're not our guys nor are they with the state. We ambushed them during a run and interrogated them but they didn't give up any information despite our methods of persuasion."

"By persuasion, I assume you mean torture," Ororo quipped.

Natasha pulled her poker face. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has many methods of persuasion that don't always involve bodily contact."

"Mhm..."

"Anyway... we searched what they had been digging and found that the cosmic energy only gets more intense the deeper we go into that hole. But we don't know what it is. We thought they may have been mining something or... burying something even. We sent a couple of our guys down there but the radiation was too much and we lost some men-"