Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

Jean groaned in pain as she sat up and looked at the ceiling of the access vent to see it covered in debris. Then as she sat up she saw a hand offering her help. She looked at the owner of the hand and saw it was Felicia.

"Need a hand?" Felicia asked with a slight smile on her face.

Jean chuckled as she accepted the help and stood up, but flinched when she stood. Felicia caught on and supported her as they started walking towards the exit. "I thought you would have stayed with the rest. Why did you come back?"

Felicia shrugged as they walked, "I came back to see if anyone got left behind. What did you break?"

"My leg, I landed on it wrong when I hit the ground after I dove into the hole." Jean explained.

"Dove? Sounds like the fighting took a turn for the worse." Felicia spoke with a chuckle in her tone. That actually put a grin on Jean's face.

"Actually the fight went fine. It was the idiotic Scott Summers that caused a problem. He has developed a shoot first and ask questions later attitude. Which obviously caused the building to completely collapse this time and almost killed us in the process." Jean sighed, clearly annoyed by her ex-boyfriend's behavior. "We were lucky this time because Colossus can survive having a building dropped on him, while I was close to the access vent."

"Endangering your comrades does not sound like very… X-meny behavior." Felicia nodded in agreement. Getting another chuckle from Jean from Felicia's comedic commentary.

"I still can't believe I dated that idiot. Anyways I hope those other three that were helping us got out okay." Jean stated.

"You mean that brotherhood trio?" Felicia asked.

"Uh… no. They bolted the moment these other three came in. These three were Iron Man, or rather Mister Stark. A guy with a patriotic shield and outfit. Then the last one had a bow and arrows." Jean explained with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Huh… I guess… weird gimmicks are in?" Felicia chuckled.

"Yeah… but I would welcome it. It isn't every day you get to fight with some surprisingly capable allies. It is especially nice since it means there are more heroes out there to help us."

"I guess so, here we are." They walked out into a service access area. It had all the students and teachers as well as some police and EMTs assisting and taking statements respectively.

Felicia walked past them and over to Ethan who was being treated by an EMT while he was surrounded by the Xavier school students. They were laughing hysterically every once in a while. Felicia's eyes lit up with affection when she saw this sight.

While Jean grumbled, "damn. I never heard the children open up so quickly to someone before. You scored yourself a perfect man." While she did notice him being well liked by the children, she knew from his devices that he and Felicia were using that he was very intelligent. Now she saw him shirtless and he was fit in the nice slim but sexy fashion.

Felicia chuckled hearing Jean's words.

"Look kids! Here comes your teacher." Ethan nodded in Jean's direction. The kids looked in Jean's direction and saw her limping over with Felicia in tow. They started getting up and some jumped up as they ran over to them.

"Miss Grey! Miss Grey!" They chanted then one of them started jumping up and down in front of her, "did you catch the bad guys?"

Jean shook her head, "no, unfortunately the bad guys got away this time. But next time we will get them for sure!" Jean started patting the little girl's head.

"Really, was it Mister Summers' fault?" She asked. Causing Jean to freeze and frown. Before she realized what was going on after remembering something.

"You are the one that has super hearing aren't you?" Jean stated while looking at the little girl who stuck out her tongue.

"Yup! I also heard you call Mr. Ethan 'the perfect Man'!" That gets some giggles from the girls, frowns from the boys, a chuckle from Felicia and the EMT. Ethan started laughing for a moment until he stopped and put a hand on his side while downgrading from laugh to a chuckle.

Jean was red in the face and bit her lip, "okay that is enough of making fun of your teacher. I need the EMT to check over my leg." She then limped over and sat next to Ethan while the EMT came over and started checking her over. "Are any of the kids hurt?" Jean asked the EMT.

"Uhh… no. There are some scraps and scratches from rushing through the access tunnel quickly. But nothing too worrying. Heck, I would say you two are the most injured with your broken bones." The blonde woman responded as she started pressing on Jean's legs, quickly receiving a reaction when she pressed on her right leg. "Looks like a broken leg, but probably only a minor break. Possibly only a fracture, otherwise the bruising would be far worse."

"Ahh… So he has the most damage?"

"Umm… no actually he has no major or debilitating broken bones. You both will just need a cast for a month or two and you should be good." The woman stated. "You should get a proper check-up at a hospital though."

"Just casts? Weren't you thrown through a door?" Jean asked in surprise.

"Two doors." Ethan's response got laughter and chuckles from the children. Jean did not quite understand but it seemed to be a joke.

"Well… okay then. Thank you… um… I did not catch your name."

"I am Jane Foster and don't worry about it. I work as an EMT in my free time." Jane stated as she started applying a splint to Jean's leg.

"Miss Foster, are you not an EMT as an occupation?" One of the kids asked while raising his hand.

"No, I am actually an Astrophysicist who focuses on space-time disturbances and wormholes." Jane's response earned several 'ah's from the kids. "I do EMT work because there are not many jobs for a quack like me."

"I don't get it…" One of the kids' responses earned a few nods from the others.

"It means I get to look into weird stuff. Like how that Thor hero is able to teleport from Asgard to here and vice versa." Jane explained with a smile on her face.

"Ohh… I still don't get it." The child said again. Which caused Ethan to laugh until he grunted in pain because of his ribs.

—--------------------------------

Hawkeye had experienced many things while working for SHIELD. Acting as an operative with 'superheroes' was probably the newest thing though. They weren't even supposed to be here. Tony made Steve a proper battle suit and was showing him when he got an alert about the Chess Tournament being attacked. They raced over, only to find Hydra goons swarming the place. When they finally made it inside they caught the head honchos off guard and managed to push them in further. Then with the help of the X-Men, they were able to corner them. Until that idiot with the laser eyes screwed it all up.

Clint Barton, propped himself up against the police car as he grunted in pain. "Damn that hurt."

Tony's servos whined as he stood himself up rather shakily. Grunting as he did. "My boot thrusters went out. I might need a ride home."

Steve stood up and rotated his arm for a moment, "I am okay, nothing is broken. How about you two?"

Tony put a thumb up. While Clint grunted as he stood up, "Brused, but nothing is broken… I think. I'll have an EMT check me out."

Steve nodded, "okay, do that." While Clint limped towards the EMTs he turned to Tony, "do you think there was anyone else in the building?"

Tony turned to the structure and responded quickly, "aside from one person who seems to be digging themselves out of the rubble. As well as two others that are using an underground tunnel to walk away from the scene. There are no signs of any victims nor of those attackers. Who were they anyway?"

Steve sighed as he bent over to pick up his shield, "Hydra, it appears they never truly died."

Tony's mask opened up, "it seems unlikely that a spy organization like SHIELD wouldn't notice the tail of a snake like Hydra. It seems especially likely they would have realized a haphazard terror organization like the Brotherhood of Mutants was in the city and somehow failed to warn the Xavier School."

Steve frowned when he heard this, "is that something that should have been done?"

"Yes, if I knew the Brotherhood was in town I would have personally handled security. Not to mention how I was not alerted that security was even compromised. I have to see what went wrong, but I already have a feeling that a certain spy organization was involved." Tony explained a dialing tone could be heard from his helmet as it closed, "hey Pepper…" He walked away as he started to talk to Pepper.

Steve sighed, he really needed to figure out what was going on with SHIELD. If Tony was right it might really mean they were not just keeping secrets from him but also putting civilians in danger, which seemed counter productive. He walked towards Clint as he thought about this.

—---------------------------

Some distance away in an empty apartment building overlooking the rubble that was once a building, stands Natasha Romanov. Or better known, Black Widow. As she stood she had a black eye and an aching head and frowned at the scene before her.

Her phone suddenly rang and she clicked her tongue when she saw the caller ID before she answered it.

"Natasha, how is our Hydra bait doing?" She recognized Fury's gravelly voice.

"Alive and kicking… I think."

"Well… doesn't matter that much," Fury really sounded like he did not care, which actually reminded Natasha of her time working for the Red Room, when civilian casualties did not matter. Except they did not hide that they were not good people. Fury on the other hand did, "How many Hydra operatives did we scoop up?"

"None. We only got their hired guns. I doubt we will get much if anything useful out of them." Her answer was monotone.

"MOTHERFUCKER!!!" Natasha pulled the phone away from her ear as Fury started spouting off curses in succession. It lasted for a few minutes before he went quiet. "What happened?"

"With the tournament? No clue, I was knocked out beforehand, Mystique snuck up on me. Never saw her coming. But if we are going to want anything we are going to have to get it from the police. They are throwing the cuffs on the hired goons as we speak." Natasha explained, preemptively moving the phone away from her ear.

But instead of yelling there was a string of murmured cursing, "Okay… did anything not go wrong?"

Natasha stayed silent for a few minutes as she thought of something that could remedy it. "The old relic and Clint showed up, so we can play the 'we didn't know' card with the Feds."

Nathasha could swear she heard him grumbling about it, "damn…" A minute later he knew what to do, "okay follow my orders to the letter…"

—----------------------

"Scott, why did you do that?" Havok suppressed his urge to yell after the building collapsed.

"I was stopping those guys from getting away!" Scott yelled at him.

"No, you fired without knowing what was going on. You jumped into a fight without knowing anything and nearly cost people their lives, instead you should have waited for the others. If it wasn't clear from Jean and Iron Man's yell, they knew that attacking at that moment was a bad idea." Scott's brother shook his head in shame, "you really need to remember to look at the lay of the land before doing anything."

Scott gnashed his teeth in anger, "whatever. Let's just find the others."

—---------------------

"Reed, you have been working non stop since our abilities started stabilizing. What exactly are you doing?" The blonde woman asked as started tossing food wrappers into the trash bag she was carrying. She was a mixture of annoyed and happy. Happy because he was at least eating and wasn't starving himself while he worked. Annoyed because her fiance went from a life changing disaster and jumped back into work like nothing had changed.

"Susan… I figure with our newly enhanced biology we could have an easier time with exploring the unexplored. Like other dimensions, universes, or even outer space. Because of what the mystery cosmic particles did to us, we have been enhanced to survive more strenuous environments. Which makes us the perfect explorers." Reed fervently explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Susan sighed as she shuffled more trash into the trash bag, "what about 'your friend', what is his name 'Doctor Doom'?" Susan could only shake her head, "or how about helping me convince Johnny that this superhero business isn't right. Or helping Ben get out of his room? Ever since he changed he's felt like a monster, maybe if his friend talked to him-"

"Ben's fine, he can deal with it himself. Johnny is an adult and he can make his own decisions. As for Victor… he is fine, just asking about some projects that compete with his work. Nothing too worrying." Reed mentions nonchalantly.

"Reed…" Susan pinched her nose in annoyance, then after a moment she seemed to come to a decision. "Fine, I will just leave it all alone. I don't care what you do but make sure you finish those projects from the DoD and the city. If you can't get them done I will hire you an assistant so… get to it." Then she started walking towards the exit.

"Yeah…" But once the elevator dinged as it closed, Reed fully processed his fiancé's words, "wait assistant?" He was not fully listening now he wishes he was.