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“We go in quiet.” Chan tightened the shield catcher strap on his forearm. “Retrieve the core. Reach the extraction point. Follow the plan.”
“You got it, Cap.” Han whipped up a salute. Sharp. Precise. Only 30% mocking.
Six other voices echoed in the positive.
To be honest that should have concerned him.
For about three minutes and twenty-eight seconds the mission went perfectly. Minho disabled the perimeter cameras. Jeongin got to his high point and blended perfectly into the shadows. Seungmin opened a whirling portal through the locked laboratory door.
Changbin dropped a heavy backpack off his shoulders and Jisung crouched over it to retrieve the containment device. Chan scanned the surrounds. So far. So good.
Then Felix’s voice was soft on comms. “Oh no. Guys?”
Chan touched his earpiece. “Felix? What’s going on?”
“There is a kitten.”
“Leave it,” Changbin rubbed his nose, phantom allergies prickling his sinuses.
“It’s very small.”
A pause.
“Where is it?” Minho opened his comms. A momentous occasion indeed.
Chan closed his eyes and sighed. “Can I remind everyone we are infiltrating a HYDRA weapons facility?”
“Don’t worry yourself, Chan-ah.” Minho’s voice was light. “Focus on the mission.”
Above them, Jisung hovering in his red-and-gold armour, scanned the building.
“So, guys and dolls, the good news is I have found the energy core. Bright. Shiny. Pretty as a new minted coin. Bad news is that it’s been added to something labelled ‘Project Extinction’ which, while I have to admire the audacity, does complicate hyung’s plan of get in, cause no widespread destruction, and get out.”
“Okay, so can you shut down any part of the security…” Chan asked, every fiber of his being tensing.
“Obviously. What do you take me for?”
“…without setting off an alarm?”
The alarm howled overhead.
Jisung landed hard enough to crack the flooring.
“In my defence, they had a bitchy little failsafe I missed. Oops.”
The first wave of guards swarmed the corridor as Felix dropped out of the ceiling.
“Hi!” He waved. “Sorry!”
He webbed three rifles to the wall and flipped a guard over on his back, pinning arms to the floor, while he webbed a fourth in the chest to a vending machine.
“Stop apologising, Felix.” Behind him, Minho slid on a knee below an outstretched arm, turned and deposited the man on his face, removing the pistol he was holding, ejecting the magazine and throwing away the empty shell of the weapon with a sideways toss. “They work for HYDRA.”
“I feel bad. Maybe they had no choice?” Felix brought another guard to the ground, his legs wrapped around the man’s neck, webbing his entire upper body to the ground. “You didn’t.”
“Bringing up my sordid past is not going to convince me to help you convince the team to keep that cat.”
Felix straightened, and stared down at the grey kitten currently staring up at him from where he was tucked into the crook of his arm with all the blue eyed offended feline disgust that a ball of fluff can muster. He looked back at Minho, eyes wide and wounded with betrayal. “You promised.”
Minho’s impassive expression revealed nothing.
“Minho?”
Minho sighed. Apparently he’d gotten soft in his old age. “Fine.”
Felix’s smile was brilliant.
In the central laboratory, Hyunjin coiled his hand, dark eyes bright in the flashing red lights that punctuated the gloom. Four guards hung suspended and whining their fear as whispers of red shadow coiled around them.
One of them moved in slow motion, reaching for his weapon.
Hyunjin flicked a forefinger. “Stop.”
Chan caught a burst of gunfire on his shield, protecting the Scarlet Witch from the burst. “Core, Jinnie. Focus on the core!”
“I’m focused, Chan-hyung.” Hyunjin smiled dreamily. He reached out toward the three guards barricading themselves before the shielded room. With screams, they rose up into the air.
Changbin bent the blast doors of the shielded room with a punch. He had transformed as the alarms started blaring and now crouched, heavily muscular shoulders heaving, one arm of his tactical vest around his wrist. He flicked it like an annoyed cat, snarling at it in frustration as it flapped uselessly.
Jisung looked up from where he was typing rapidly on a terminal, the hulk of his battle-armour eerily empty behind him, just wearing a compression suit while he worked his magic on the interface. “Told you I would make you a proper vest, big guy.” His eyes didn’t leave the rapidly flickering screen. “But would you let me? NoOoOO.”
“You drew him a picture of a ninja turtle, Jisung.” Chan’s voice wasn’t amused.
“What?” Jisung protested. “He would have looked awesome.” The floor beneath them rumbled and tilted. He held up his hands. “I didn’t do it!”
Chan touched his earpiece. “Guys.”
A shimmering circle of light appeared to their right.
“So the fun news. It has …a lot of legs.” Seungmin tilted his head. “Could do with some help.”
The blast doors bent the other way.
The robot punched through the laboratory floor.
Changbin caught a leg and for a second, everything stopped.
Then his feet began sliding.
“Little help.” He wheezed.
Hyunjin released the guards in an unceremonious heap.
He flung both hands forward. Scarlet energy wrapped around a metallic elbow joint and metal screamed.
Jisung ducked as debris flew overhead, and he muttered to himself. “Come on, come on.”
Chan threw his shield, it clanged on the side of the insectoid-shaped skull, hauled a stunned technician clear as a metal foot crushed the terminal he had been hiding behind, and caught the shield again. His hand went to his earpiece.
“Innie! Find a weak point!”
“On it, hyung.”
Jeongin knelt on the edge of the laboratory roof, peering through the skylight. The chaos of the scene below was unsurprising.
Changbin’s meaty fist crashed into the metal plating over its chest, causing the machine to stagger.
He smiled.
There.
“Back of the neck. Looks like an access panel.”
“Slight problem, Innie love. We’re in front of it.” Felix whirled away from a stabbing leg.
From anyone other than Felix, that familiarity would have had a snarl from Jeongin. “I got it, baby. Seungmin, I could use a redirect?”
“3.”
Seungmin’s voice was soft in comms.
Jeongin straightened. He pulled out an arrow and fired. Glass shattered below.
“2—”
Jeongin took out another arrow and drew the bow.
He breathed out.
“1.”
His arrow shot through the broken laboratory skylight.
A flare of golden light in front of him.
The arrow vanished.
A second portal behind the machine opened and the arrow smashed precisely into the access panel, buckling it.
Jeongin smirked. “Yes!”
“You’re welcome.” Seungmin’s voice was imperious.
“Ugh, fine. I guess you helped.”
“Can’t even say thank-you?”
The robot lurched. Light flared from the back of its neck, smoke spilling ominously.
Jisung tuned out the bickering over comms as the terminal flooded with red warnings. His fingers whipped across the interface, and his expression went grim. He tapped his comms. “Uhh, Cap? Slight problem.”
“How slight?” Chan asked.
“It would seem the core is overloading.”
A beat of silence.
“How long do we have?”
“Do you want the reassuring answer or—“
“Jisungie!”
“One minute.”
Chan slapped his shield back on his arm. The compass sigil glowed briefly. “Seungmin, prep an evac portal. Jeongin, need you down here now. Hyunjin, I need you ready to put barriers up. Jisung? What do you need to shut down that core.”
“Need someone to pull out that core.” Jisung’s hands flew across the keyboard. Changbin wrestled with the flailing limbs. Han tugged the containment device from his pocket. “And it needs to be inside this in one minute.”
“Shit.” Chan cursed.
“Language, Captain Kangaroo.” Jisung tsk’d.
“I can do it.” Felix straightened beside Chan, slender and elegant as he stared up at the creature.
“Lix…” Chan’s stomach dropped.
“I can do it.” Felix repeated, and took a step back. A second.
Minho was at his side. He held out his hand.
Felix dropped the kitten into his outstretched palm. “Be careful with—“
“I know how to handle a cat.” Minho clutched the ball of grey fur. “Go.”
Felix fired a web and launched himself over Changbin’s shoulder and up toward the hulking mechanism.
Changbin roared as he ripped metal plates apart. Hyunjin’s boots skidded as he tried to stay upright, he knelt down as he twisted his hand to pull the scarlet shadows back in. Another knee joint on the creature twisted and sparked. He smirked darkly.
Minho leapt over a flailing limb, affixed a tiny device that caused a metallic joint to lock up and shudder, and skidded out of the way.
Jeongin affixed a rope to the top of the building. He watched Felix land lightly on the back of the creature, wobble a bit as it swayed and crouch down to grip on.
“Don’t want to stress anybody, but thirty seconds.” Jisung stepped back into his armour and it closed around him as Seungmin spun up an evacuation portal behind them. “Sunshine, how you going?”
“There is a second housing.”
“Look for a manual release. Switch on the underside.”
A beat.
Two.
“Found it.”
“Turn it clockwise.”
Chan planted himself beneath the metallic beast, shield raised against falling debris. A metal strut snapped with a heave from Changbin’s arms.
“I think…Yes! I got it! Shit. AHHH!” Felix’s triumphant cry was cut off.
There was a flash of blue light.
“FELIX?” Chan’s eyes went wide with horror as the lights went out in the massive beast and Felix slid across the broken housing.
“Felix?!” Hyunjin cried out and raised his hands, scarlet shadows whirling out.
But before they could wrap around the unconscious Spiderman, an arm wrapped around Felix’s narrow waist and hauled him out of harm’s way. Jeongin clutched his red and blue suited friend to his side, hanging onto both their weights from the rope.
Changbin shoved the beast away from him as Jeongin got Felix clear and landed heavily at Chan’s feet.
“Is he okay?” Jeongin asked desperately, arms trembling with effort as he dropped to his knees.
A blue cylinder bounced out of Felix’s hand.
Jisung dove for it and rammed it into the containment device with a breath of relief.
“Felix-ie?” Jeongin tugged off the spider mask and Felix’s bright blonde hair sprung in a halo around his slackened freckled features. “Hey baby, wake up.” He nervously tapped his cheek.
Chan dropped his shield and went to his knees beside Jeongin and hauled Felix’s weight into his lap. He pressed his fingers to Felix’s throat. “Seungmin!”
“I could have….” Jeongin was jostled aside and held up his hands in defeat. “Sure. Yeah. All good, Cap.”
A thud. Then a second as Changbin strode up. “F’lix?” The big man knelt down and one knuckle the size of Felix’s head nudged his unconscious shoulder. “Wake?”
Seungmin dropped elegantly to the ground. “Let’s panic a little less shall we? Let me see him.”
“What’s wrong? Why won’t he wake up?” Chan patted Felix’s cheek desperately.
“Give me some space.” Seungmin gestured lightly, pushing the others back a step.
Chan looked up at him, terror writ large on his face.
Minho scritched the head of the sleeping kitten, eyes intent on the scene, despite his apparent calm.
Seungmin knelt and pressed two fingers to his pulse. Then he picked up his limp right arm. A flare of golden light had them all blinking. “Hmm.”
“Seungminnie?” Jisung had the device clutched in his hands and was bouncing nervously on his toes.
“Shh.” Seungmin murmured softly. Another pulse of light. “The electrical burst just gave his heart a jolt, that’s all.”
“That’s all, he says?!” Jisung’s lower lip trembled. “He’s going to be okay, right?”
Felix convulsed once. Then twitched. And his eyes opened. His breath gasped out. “Oh, that sucked.”
Chan clutched Felix to his chest in a desperate hug. “Oh god, you’re alive.”
Felix flailed and looked helplessly at Minho, who shrugged.
“For the record,” Jisung held out both hands in protest. “None of this was my fault.”
They emerged through Seungmin’s portal onto the rooftop of the 3Racha Industries building.
Chan bent forward, hands on his knees and took a slow calming breath. Felix put his hand on his back and rubbed gently. “You okay?”
Chan looked up at the soot on Felix’s face. Then over his shoulder toward the others.
“Quiet entry,” he said faintly.
Jisung’s faceplate lifted. “We were quiet. At first.”
Nobody spoke.
“Come on. We are all alive! And we got the core! All limbs, digits and braincells accounted for!” Jisung beamed at them all, waving his hands.
Seungmin opened a portal beneath him.
Han disappeared with a startled yell.
Silence for a moment.
“Where did you send him?” Changbin asked, clutching a blanket around his shoulders.
“Home.”
A sloshing sound came through their earpieces. “YOU ASSHOLE! RICHARD! BAN SEUNGMIN FROM THE BUILDING! AND DRAIN THE POOL!”
“Near home.” Seungmin amended.
OF COURSE, SIR. Richard’s smooth tones came through all their earpieces. WOULD SIR LIKE A TOWEL?