The Marvel Experiment : Prologue

A/N - So, a new fic but I have yet to finalise the plot points for this. ANyways, until then, enjoy this.

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Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel, Disney, or whatever IP I might end up using in this fic. Duh, if I owned those companies, I would be some douchebag billionaire trying to turn people’s lives miserable. Since I don’t, I will instead be using my creativity and imagination, towards something productive, and yes, relaxing is productive.

Arctic, (SHIELD) Operation Icebreaker site [April 2011]

–Smith Montery, Site Dig Leader–

He shivered all over, again, as he had to get out and align the beacons that were supposed to look for stuff under the ice. What stuff? He was not paid enough to know that and he was smart enough to know when to shut up, and the operation he was a part of most definitely fit the bill.

After all, if someone from a supposedly private company approaches you with an all year round ice exploration gig that paid five times as much as your usual rate, in exchange for near total silence, you take notice and pray to high hell that your paycheck reaches your family, and so does the insurance money just in case the silence they required was of the more permanent sort.

Thankfully, for the past seven months he had been working with these spooks, there has not been a single problem on their end. The money was sent on time, without any delays. The insurance policy was more than generous, with time off on Sundays, and an actual lounge area inside the ship, with a working link to the internet.

He could actually talk to his family while being on the job. While that was nice and all, it actually raised even more questions in his mind about the whole thing. For starters, no private company that had this much money would let the dig continue at this point in time because they had already spent over a hundred million dollars and had nothing to show for it, at least from what he could make out from the expressions of these engineers.

The thing about these heavy ass beacons was that they did something, he knew that much, but he did not know exactly what. If he knew, he might have been able to help them a bit more because he had actually been in this area far longer than them but then again, he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

So, as he disconnected the beacon from the wireless network thing they had going on around the ship, by putting a USB key into a port, and waiting for the light to turn red, he whistled and hoped that the 9 month mark rolled around soon enough. Not because he got to go home then, no, this was a year round gig but because after the first nine months, he was going to be paid double to continue working for the rest of the three months. 

At the end of the year, he would either get a month long vacation or double the month’s salary to continue working into the next year. Something like that in the contract told him, Smith Montery, that these guys were looking for something they absolutely had to have, something they did not mind basically burning hundreds of millions of dollars for.

BEEP!

He looked down and stood back up, with the beacon in hand, since the light was now red. Removing the USB Stick, he carefully pocketed it since he did not want to lose the thing which took over an hour every day to program and reprogram because of the stupid security rules aboard the ship.

Taking the beacon in one hand, he took out his phone and followed the directions. The ice didn’t even creak under his weight as it was very cold all around. The ship was about a kilometre behind him as he left his snowmobile behind him and walked forward to the designated location.

The phone was yet another piece of tech he had yet to see on the market. Works like a charm even in subzero temperatures, even with the heavy gloves, which was a godsend. 

That was why it was a damned shame these phones couldn’t even have Facebook installed on them. That would have made it perfect.

Alas, he was left walking the whole distance because going beyond a certain speed and the equipment on the snow bike somehow created interference so walking with the beacon was the best possible way.

“Shit!” He stumbled and fell flat on his face, thankfully with the beacon still held aloft in the air as he tripped on something. The specialised jacket that he wore, that had all the nifty doodads on them, began beeping loudly, and within seconds, a voice spoke into his ear directly.

“Mr.Montery, what happened? I can see a warning from the telemetrics on your person,”

He carefully set the beacon down, sighed in relief when he saw that it was still a constant red and not a blinking red, and stood up carefully, “Uh, I don’t know actually. I felt something hit my—wait a minute,” He said as he took a step forward and kneeled down on the ground, looking at a small metal pole sticking out of the ground, with a much deeper pole visible through the broken ice surrounding it.

He leaned back a bit as the tip of the pole began glowing blue all of a sudden, “Uh, control? Do we have beacons underneath the ice as well? Something that I was not aware of?”

“..No. What have you–never mind, activating the camera,”

He jerked a bit as he heard a faint whirring noise before a light flashed from his helmet and the camera was supposedly turned on. He did not hear anything for a few seconds and just when he was about to ask what was going on, he heard a different, much deeper voice speak into his ear.

“Mr.Montery, stay where you are. Reinforcements are on their way. Please, do not move and preferably, do not look at anything else. Congratulations, your contract will be paid in full and you will be free to leave once we have cleared you. Thank you,” 

“Damn, these guys are weird. I hope I don’t get disappeared.” He whispered as he stood and looked towards the ship, squinting as a number of light sources became visible in the distance.

“...Um, Mr.Montery? Your mic is still on,”

He winced as he chuckled nervously, “Um, about that, I was just joking?”

He received no reply after that.

…….

……

That discovery led to the rescue of one Steve Rogers, Captain America, from the forced stasis his body was under, due to the crashed landing of the Valkyrie deep into the Arctic waters where the temperature and the enhanced Super Soldier body allowed Steve Rogers to sleep away the last 7 decades.

_________xx_______

New York  [20 days later]

In an unassuming looking gym in the middle of Brooklyn, a well built tall blond man was currently doing his absolute best in punching the shit out of an innocent punching bag.

The man was Captain America, to atleast he once was. Captain America was the soldier, the quintessential example given to every single recruit in the Army, the most soldier a soldier could be.

Captain America was the perfect soldier.

Steve Rogers, however, was not.

Perfect soldiers were not supposed to poke their nose into things that do not matter to them, and yet, Steve Rogers was at the very forefront when it came to such things.

The same Steve Rogers was now told to “stay put” by the government agency that found him. Told him that the world had moved on, without him. That the world did not fight in conventional warfare anymore. That he was a relic past its expiry date. That he needed to stay low, live his life like a civilian, like some nobody.

The same Steve Rogers who, while riddled with numerous diseases and Asthma, stood up to a bully, not because he was being bullied but because someone else was, and Steve Rogers just could not stand for it.

Not Captain America, but Steve Rogers.

And that is why the poor punching bag was now leaning against the wall, after it had a hole out of the back of it in the same spot where Steve Rogers had punched it with all his might. His Super Soldier might.

Straightening up, Steve Rogers took one look at the downed leaking bag, alongside the two others in identical states, and then began walking back to a pile of brand new punching bags, ready to be punched into.

He hefted the heavy bag and latched it to the hook, and took a boxing stance. Only, instead of punching the bag, he instead turned around and punched with all his might…

Only for his punch to be stopped cold as a hand shooting out of a black mist grabbed his fist.