Early morning at an empty old airport, Jack arrived in his suit.
"Red Queen, is this the place?"
"Yes, this is the place Natasha told us to arrive."
It was still dark — early enough that the sky hadn't shifted yet.
I hope I can finish this mission before the weekend's over, Jack thought as the minutes passed quietly.
Then he heard it. An engine. A sleek silver Gulfstream G550 rolled in slowly from the other side of the runway, headlights cutting through the dark. The door opened and Natasha walked toward him.
"Is this your alien transformation? It looks pretty normal compared to what I expected," she said casually, like she was talking to a friend.
"You're late," Jack replied, his voice coming through the suit's filter.
"You're the one who messaged me a few hours ago out of nowhere asking me to bring items Tony used recently. Do you have any idea how hard it is to track down something he used three months ago in just a few hours?" She said it with an annoyed look, though not a sharp one.
Jack didn't have a good answer for that.
As they boarded the plane, he asked, "So how did you find the items?"
"Our organization had a few samples, but our agents never used them when searching for Tony in the desert — the people who kidnapped him were smart about it, used other scents to throw off the dogs." She glanced at him. "Are we actually going to try tracking him by smell?"
"Something like that," Jack said.
As the flight took off
Jack noticed it was just the two of them in the cabin.
"No other agents coming with us? I figured there'd be more."
"There are agents already stationed in Afghanistan. Right now it's just me and Clint," she replied, sitting across from him with an easy posture.
"So Clint's the one flying." Jack glanced toward the cockpit.
"Yes — he's a professional pilot. Can handle pretty much any vehicle you put in front of him," she replied, still looking at him.
"That's cool."
The cabin went quiet. Natasha was looking at him and Jack felt the silence stretch a little too long.
"So when do we land?" he asked, more to fill the air than anything.
"Normally it's over twelve hours, but this plane's been optimized by our scientists — it'll take around ten."
Ten hours. Jack leaned back slightly. He hadn't planned on spending ten hours sitting here staring at her in the early morning. That wasn't how he'd imagined this going.
"Is there no faster way?"
"That's already the fastest we can do it. Ten hours isn't that long — it'll pass." Natasha shrugged.
Should I just use Upgrade and push the plane faster? He turned the idea over for a second, then let it go. The twenty-minute cooldown would basically be announcing his time limit to SHIELD's face, and even with the boost it would probably only cut the trip by a few hours. Not worth it.
"Why don't we talk?" Natasha said. "About your life. Your planet. I've been interested in aliens since I was young."
Jack looked at her for a second. Sitting here in silence for ten hours wasn't exactly a better option.
"What do you want to know?" he asked.
"The transformation — is that your ability, or something else?"
"That's a secret."
She didn't look offended. Just moved on. "Then tell me about the red four-armed alien. The one you've used before."
Feeling the time stretching ahead of him, Jack started talking. The species name — Tetramand. Their homeworld, Khoros. The combat-based society, the culture, the history. He pulled from everything he remembered and laid it out, and to her credit, she listened to every word.
"What about you?" Jack asked eventually. She'd been asking questions the whole time — seemed fair.
"You already know my name. Natasha Romanoff." She said it plainly. "I was born in Russia. Trained as an agent from a young age by an organization called the Red Room. Have you heard of them?"
"I've heard of them," Jack replied.
"Not surprised." She didn't react much to that. "In 2005, I crossed paths with Clint — he was sent to eliminate me." She told the rest of it in a short version, keeping the details brief. "After the Red Room's leadership was taken down, I joined SHIELD."
The conversation opened up after that. They talked for hours — about SHIELD, about aliens, about missions, about things that didn't fit neatly into any category. At some point Jack caught a short nap, and by the time he opened his eyes again they were already close to the destination.
"That was at least not boring," Jack said as the plane began its descent.
"I genuinely learned a lot," Natasha agreed.
"We're about thirty minutes ahead of schedule," Clint called back from the cockpit.
They stepped off the plane into the dry heat of the Afghan airfield. A group of agents was already waiting, and one of them stepped forward.
"Good to see you, Mr. Omnix. I've been expecting you. I'm Phil Coulson."
"Hello," Jack replied simply.
"Coulson — good to see you out here." Natasha glanced up at the sun already beating down hard. "Hope the desert hasn't made you go bald yet."
Clint smirked. Coulson reached up and touched his hair instinctively, then caught himself.
"Let's head to where Tony was taken first," Jack said, moving things along.
"It's about two hours out," Coulson replied.
They loaded up and set off. Along the way, Coulson walked them through everything he'd investigated so far — the organizations he'd looked into, what had been confirmed, what hadn't, and the dead ends he'd run into.
Inside the suit, Jack felt the heat pressing in even through the material.
I need to make this suit more heat-resistant. Adding that to the list.
"So how are we going to find him?" Coulson asked, looking at Jack.
A/N:
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