Chapter Text
May 4, 2012
297 Lafayette Street
New York, NY
United States of America
Amongst the hustle and bustle of New York City was nestled a red-stone building, fading brick painstakingly restored to a splendor that drew the eyes of countless passerby, accented with white arches bordering every window, giving it a regal air which stood out from the rest of the buildings on the block. On such a street as this one it almost seemed as if man’s mastery over nature was complete— flawless in a way only the modern world of machinery could achieve. Any regular of that particular red stone building would simply laugh ‘Not so!’ They may even go so far as to claim that nature was the most charming facet of their beloved red stone building, manifested through a particularly stubborn plant, a vine of some indiscernible origin and species, which had managed to climb its way up to nearly the uppermost reaches of the building, curling elegantly around the manufactured lines of the building. But how did it get there? some ask. Why did they let it grow? Why not just weed it out? Regulars laugh, and shake their heads.
The vine almost carpeted a side of the building by now, and it had reached its vibrant tendrils around the corner of the building to cradle a pristine sign. It was a deep green, with golden letters proudly proclaiming that this building was, indeed, Le Tournesol Academy of Dance— known more simply as The Sunflower Academy. A pretentious name, perhaps, but most would not dispute that dancers tend to be a pretentious crowd. And within that exclusive community, even in such a competitive atmosphere as the famed Big Apple, home to Broadway and enough bodies on the sidewalk vibrating with talent to daunt any newcomer, it is even said that this little academia is a veritable garden for up and coming stars.
Le Tournesol was, among other things, one of the most popular dance academies on Manhattan Island. Nestled on the corner of Lafayette and 7th, it was home to many dancers of all ages. The old building was host to a fantastic array of people, from countless backgrounds, and with as many unique personalities as stars in the sky…
CRASH!
CLANG!
…some, more unique than others.
“Luke!”
“Lucas!”
“Ducard, you damned lunatic!”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t you ever learn?!”
A chorus of voices rose up in a berating cacophony against one Lucas Ducard, talented dance instructor, reckless twenty-something, and resident klutz. A man who currently could only grin cheekily up at his friends and coworkers, trapped as he was under nothing short of a few boxes of equipment he had been carrying in (much too many for one trip, this man never learns), a chair, a metal shelving unit, and all complete with a pair of ballet slippers twisted around his head like a baby’s bonnet. And were those twigs in his hair? How the hell?
(The regulars at Le Tournesol, the Sunflower Academy, had long since learned not to question this particular enigma.)
One Lucas Ducard, newly freed from the results of his latest blunder and miraculously free of injury, was currently occupying his time with grinning at one of his friends. Grinning, as in attempting to dissuade a reoccurring lecture from commencing (yet again!), and friend, as in his boss. The director of Le Tournesol, the (former) queen of New York ballet, the madwoman herself: Madame Yvonne Beaulieu. She stood at an imposing 5’4”, thin as a whip with twice as much bite, chestnut brown hair graying in dignified streaks and delicate crows feet gracing her aged face.
“Miss Yvonne! Good morning!” He started brightly. “I would just like to say that your hair looks wonderful toda-”
“Enough, fainéant,” Madame Beaulieu snapped. “Don’t try to to flatter me, you idiot. You’re late for your class already.”
“Oh, right, Madame B! But, uh, I really did want to apologize…”
“It is forgiven, you idiot! Now what am I paying you for? Get going!”
“Yes, Madame B!” Lucas was already speeding past her, making a mad dash for the stairwell. Before he reached it, however, he skidded to a halt and backtracked to the front desk, setting down a latte for Amy and flashing her a blinding smile (of all the things that escaped from that catastrophe of an entrance, it was that?). And, casting a fearful glance at the Madame, he sped upstairs to the studios, laughter fading as he went.
The Madame simply shook her head.
Of the many, many dancers who toed over the wooden studio floors, ingraining their sweat and tears of frustration and joy into the woodwork, some were specially treasured by certain instructors. Lucas Ducard, as much as he treated every student (or sunflower, as he sometimes dubbed them, to their equal joy and dismay) with fairness, was still prone to this certain weakness. His current Achilles heel: Vasily Sorokin.
Vasily was pale, with short mousy brown hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks. At seventeen he was still relatively small for his age, and quiet enough that he faded into the background. Or at least, he used to. Lucas had made it his personal mission to ‘get him out of his shell’— a plan met at first with incredulity from other instructors, who had known the boy since he was just a child and had similarly tried to get Vasily to open up, but with minimal success. Lucas, as bullheaded and full of sunshine as he was, somehow had gotten the soft, quiet boy in the advanced ballet class who always frowned while he danced, nearly terrified to make a false twitch, to smile.
Currently, after nearly a year under Instructor Ducard’s tutelage, Vasily had managed to open up to his fellow dancers. He was talking to Madeline and Eiji while doing their stretches (Lucas was late so often that they had adapted to doing it on their own when the clock struck 3:00) when, lo and behold, the sound of pounding feet came from the hallway.
“Hiya, Sunflowers!” Lucas threw open the door and beamed at his students. Vasily rolled his eyes. ’Sunflowers’— of all the things he could call them!
“Hi Lucas,” the class chorused. Lucas quickly sat down his bag stood in front of the class.
“So!” He began, clapping his hands. “I seem to be late again as it is…” he trailed off, craning his neck backwards to look at the clock directly above him and drawing some laughs from the dancers, “3:15! My, how time flies. And I would guess that you’re all done with your stretches?” A sea of nods answered him.
“Good!” He smiled, spinning swiftly towards the stereo to set the music. “Then let’s get started!”
It was 3:45 when it started. Nothing that anyone really would have noticed, at first, caught up in the music and the routine as they were, but the thing that alarmed them was simple— Lucas stopped. He closed his mouth mid sentence, standing absolutely still, the smile sliding off his face, replaced by furrowed brows and a drawn expression. The studio went completely silent in just a few moments, and then Vasily noticed it.
The birds had stopped singing.
Normally that would be no cause for concern, but Lucas, always smiling, goofy, happy-go-lucky Lucas, was for once completely serious. And that was cause for alarm.
Lucas strode to the windows and threw them open, leaning out. Vasily and the others quickly followed suit, peering out the glass and crowding behind Lucas.
Vasily couldn’t help but gasp in horror at what he saw.
A hole, a hole had opened up in the sky. A hole (a portal?) had appeared over the island of Manhattan! It was black as the abyss and ringed with blue fire, angry clouds swirling around a nonexistent cyclone, with a pulsing beam of pure light connecting it to the roof of a skyscraper. And… and things poured into the sky from the hole. From this distance, they looked like ants or flying bugs, but there were hundreds, thousands, a swarm of black dots converging on the city. Vasily had a feeling that they would not be so harmless as bugs.
He stood frozen, shock crystallizing like ice in his veins. This wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. That same assertion ran though his mind in a desperate mantra.
—And then Lucas started moving.
“Come on!” He barked, expression urgent. “Everyone, get your things. We have to get somewhere safe!” That managed to snap them out of their daze.
Lucas dashed to the studio door, wrenching it open and nearly crashing into Jackie, the jazz instructor. “Did you see—?” Her brief question was answered with a nod. As one entity, the second floor instructors led their dancers down the stairs, joining a flowing stream of scared students and instructors, who were only marginally better at hiding their fear. One instructor, Reggie, started to usher the kids through the front door, but Lucas stopped him with a strict rejection.
“We need to get somewhere underground!” He exclaimed.
“They need to go home!” Reggie returned.
“They need to stay off the streets! Those things will hardly care that they are children.” And wasn’t that a comforting thought? One of the little girls from the beginning ballet class, who couldn’t have been older than five, with her brown hair up in piggy-tails and dressed in a bright pink tutu, began crying. Vasily did the only thing that came to mind, and scooped her up, setting her against his hip and hugging her. It had always worked on his baby sister.
“What’s your name?” He whispered. The instructors were still debating on where to take the students. Luke’s and Reggie’s voices had become nearly overwhelmed by the others’. The entire lobby and first floor was packed with students, except for the small area around the front desk taken up by the ‘adults.’ Most of the students from the upper floors were crowded onto the stairs, leaned over the railing to listen to the argument, some looking out the windows, trying to glimpse the changed sky.
“Chloe,” she whispered. “I’m scared!” She buried her face into his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Vasily said. “It’ll be okay…” God, he hoped it would be.
“Quiet! All of you!” A clear voice rang out from above. Madame B, furious and deathly calm at once, stomped down the staircase. Students parted for her like the Red Sea. “Fainéant! I thought you at least would have a head on your shoulders. Get everyone to the basement!”
Everyone stared at her, in a sort brain dead silence. Reggie and Lucas looked like children caught with hands in the cookie jar, despite the grave situation. Lucas opened his mouth to protest (obviously that of course he wasn’t stupid, he was arguing for exactly that, it was Reggie who was stupid)—
“Maintenant!” Madame B bellowed. “Now!”
And as if they had been struck by lightning, students and instructors alike jumped to life and streamed to the basement.
The basement was dark and unfinished, really just a box of cold grey concrete. It was overstuffed with boxes of costumes, equipment, and countless other objects that had found their way down here over the years. As such, it was very crowded.
Vasily was huddled in the corner closest to the staircase, with Madeline, Eiji, and the rest in his class. Chloe was still huddled close with him, crying as silently as she could into his shirt. Lucas and Reggie leaned against the wall close to them, eyes darting to the staircase every now and then. Well, that was what everyone’s eyes were doing, ever since the noises had started. And the shaking.
A muffled explosion, a crash, and ugly, inhuman growls and roars, faint but not faint enough, reached their ears. The room shook again, and dust fluttered down from the ceiling. Everyone huddled closer to each other.
Another explosion sounded, closer than before. And then Vasily heard those awful, chattering growls again— too close. Sounds, creaking, the high pitched whine of whatever the things carried with them. They were in the building.
Everyone watched the staircase, fearful.
Footsteps grew louder, closer, overhead.
A sudden shuffle of movement beside him nearly made Vasily scream. But it was only Lucas. Lucas, who was looking at the door with more intent than fear, who was standing up and starting towards the stairs, when he should really be crouching down and staying quiet.
Vasily grabbed the edge of Luke’s shirt. Don’t, he mouthed, shaking his head. He knew his eyes were filled with fear. Lucas only looked at him. That look was enough. The steel in his eye was all the answer Vasily needed.
Please, he thought, letting the shirt slip from his fingers. Lucas walked to the staircase. The sounds were louder now. With graceful silence Lucas treaded up the stairs. All their eyes followed him up, up, until he disappeared, shutting the door silently behind him.
Don’t die.
It had been forever since Vasily had seen Lucas. Really, it couldn’t have been longer than an hour, probably closer to thirty minutes, but it felt like an eternity. At first, when Lucas had just rushed upstairs to draw those monster things away, distract them, fight them, whatever, there had been a flurry of noises. A series of thumps, thuds, growls, an inhuman roar and a high pitched whine and what must have been the discharge of some sort of alien weapon. What had followed had sounded like a fight, however brief, and then footsteps had thundered up to the upper floors. Vasily hadn’t been able to make out much after that. Just more of the same roars and growls, that sinister high pitched whine and thrum, shouts, breaking glass, and a battle cry.
That had been a long time ago though. Maybe Vasily or someone else should have gone after him, but no one had. After all, it wasn’t like they could fight those things and win. And they didn’t have that kind of rash courage that Lucas did.
Now, over the last few minutes, even all the peripheral sounds had gone silent. There had been a peak just a few minutes before— everything was so loud it sounded as if they were in the eye of a hurricane— and then, everything suddenly stopped, save for a few earthshaking rumblings, which sounded like airplanes were hitting the ground outside.
But now everything was quiet.
That could only mean two things. Either they had won, or those things had. Everyone held their breath, hoping against hope that it was the former. It had to be.
Footsteps broke the silence, a jarring thump, thump, thump that mirrored the pounding of Vasily’s heart. The door to the basement creaked open, broken glass tinkling and crunching as whoever was above them moved.
No one moved. Vasily could only pray that he would see…
Lucas came into view.
Vasily wanted to cry. He wanted to shout in joy. He wanted to run up and hug Lucas, appearances be damned, because he hadn’t though he would see him alive again. But after that initial elation a dull horror crept in because— well, because Lucas looked awful. His normally pristine blond hair was pulled almost completely out of its ponytail, he was covered in dirt and grime and small bleeding cuts, and he had large red marks that looked like they would bruise terribly.
But he was alive!
And all at once, everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Lucas smiled, tired and hurt, but it was still his wonderful, normal, happy-go-lucky smile. Everything would be okay. Vasily felt a smile spread to his own lips. Everything was going to be okay.
One year later…
“The Triskelion” S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters
Washington D.C.
United States of America
“Oh.” Agent Myers squinted closer at his computer screen. “Oh, oh no.”
“What?” Agent Martin leaned over his shoulder, popping her (prohibited! unprofessional!) gum by his ear. “Something wrong?”
“Take a look at this.” He rewound the video and pushed his chair back a bit, knowing very well that Martin would just push him out of the way anyways. Martin twisted around in her seat and actually looked at his screen now. Her eyes narrowed and her lips tipped down into a frown when she saw that it was, of course, more of those god-awful recordings from the Incident. They, as lower level, walked over ants in a vast organization had been part of the force assigned to comb through every single traffic camera, security tape, whatever SHIELD had somehow got their dirty little hands on. And, even a year later, they weren’t even halfway through. With an entire department devoted to this shit!
“I swear Myers, if this is more weird Chitauri bullshit, I’ve told you before, just document the activity, give the info to the department in charge of cleanup if they left anything behind!” She shook her head in disgust (fond exasperation) and began to retreat.
“No, this is serious Martin. This is different.” Myers was, as always, completely serious. Nevertheless, Martin turned back to the screen, and clicked play.
The grainy video sputtered to life, image quality not the worst she had seen, but far from the best. It was focused on a couple buildings on a deserted street, apart from, you know, the aliens invading the city. Five of them, to be exact, were in the frame. After some sort of signal (which Martin had learned after hundreds of mind numbing hours of observation meant roughly “there are people to kill in here”), one of them entered the nearest building, freaky alien gun in hand.
A few seconds went by on the video.
“Myers, this is literally the same shit we’ve seen for the past year, wha-”
“Just keep watching.”
So she did.
And, of course, not much later (because according to protocol they weren’t allowed to skip forward on any video, ever) she saw what had spooked Myers.
Out of the second story window of the building the Chitauri had entered crashed two figures. One of them, now obviously a human male, tussled with the alien as they landed on the ground. He had pushed the alien out the window, using it to cushion his fall. Smart (for a civilian). And then promptly stood up, backed away from the alien, and assumed a defensive stance, brandishing… was that a knife? Maybe not so smart (desperate, brave maybe). A knife wouldn’t do shit to a Chitauri soldier. After all, there was a reason that Agent Barton had only ever shot them in the eyes— they were like the Nemean Lion, they had almost no vulnerability, their skin was as hard as rock, they—
What.
The Chitauri soldier the man had been fighting was now headless, dead, and draining black gunk into the street, while four more angry aliens closed in on the guy who had just. Decapitated a Chitauri.
What. The. Fuck.
Martin, of course, voiced her opinion. Myers, obviously too caught up in the moment to nag at her for cursing, only nodded.
“Do you think that could have been a fluke?” He asked. The man was still battling Chitauri on the screen (three were dead now).
Martin shook her head. “There’s no way.” They had gone over countless videos of the attack, from every possible angle, seen more than the people on the ground probably had. There had never been a single instance where someone had been able to pierce Chitauri skin and actually kill one without A.) turning their own weapons on them (anyone competent), B.) aiming for their eyes (Barton, obviously), or C.) using copious amounts of blunt trauma (none other than the Avengers heavyweights, Hulk and Thor). Until now.
Agent Martin gulped. Had the room gotten colder, suddenly?
“Myers?” She said faintly.
“Yeah?”
“I think this is above our pay grade.”
“Yeah.”
Director Fury was a calm man. Intense? Of course. Dangerous? You bet your sorry ass. Hell-bent on anything he set his mind to? Anyone who’d met him for five minutes could vouch for that. But patient? No, Nicholas J. Fury was not an overly patient man.
Which saw him to his current situation, where the only alleviation for his budding headache was pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering curses under his breath. It wasn’t working very well.
“Hill, why didn’t we know about this sooner?”
“Sir,” Agent Maria Hill looked up from her clipboard, expression a little irked. “The division in charge of analyzing video evidence from the Incident had nearly three years worth of film to process. It makes sense, but—”
“I know that!” He cut her off with a tired wave of his hand. “What I wanna know is how we haven’t had any record of this guy, no sightings, no nothing?”
“It’s entirely possible that he simply was never active before the event.”
“Hill.” Fury nodded towards a tablet, still replaying the fight between one man with a small knife and five iron-skinned aliens. A fight with an outcome that should have been impossible. “No one learns to fight like that without being active.”
Hill tilted her head, eyes calculating. “So you’re saying he’s a soldier?”
“No. I’m saying he’s a warrior.”