Marvel's Original Sin Prose Novel E-Book

Gavin G. Smith

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 373

Beschreibung

This thrilling Marvel murder mystery is packed with shocking twists and turns in an exciting re-imagining of the comic crossover sensation. Uatu the Watcher, a mysterious being who observes mankind from the Moon, is dead. Nick Fury leads a cosmos-spanning investigation into the murder, forging unlikely alliances and sending Marvel's mightiest heroes to the farthest corners of the universe. To uncover the truth, Doctor Strange and the Punisher must cross deadly dimensions, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Moon Knight and the Winter Soldier head into deep space, and Emma Frost, Ant-Man and Black Panther journey to the center of the Earth. All the while, Unseen forces gather, and just when the Avengers think they've cornered their murderer, everything explodes—unleashing the Marvel Universe's greatest secrets and rocking the heroes to their core! In this novelization of the epic storyline by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato Jr., truths will come tumbling into the light and the original sins of our heroes will be exposed for all to see.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: Meat Night

Chapter Two: Blue Moon

Chapter Three: Lairs

Chapter Four: The Trouble with Team-Ups

Chapter Five: New York Real Estate

Chapter Six: Eyes

Chapter Seven: In the Bowels of the Earth

Chapter Eight: My Best Superspy Life

Chapter Nine: Frank Hates Magic

Chapter Ten: The Fundamental Elements of a Smackdown

Chapter Eleven: Intermission

Chapter Twelve: The Secret Bomb

Chapter Thirteen: Flesh Spelunking

Chapter Fourteen: Stab Cop, Smash Cop

Chapter Fifteen: Brass Breadcrumbs

Chapter Sixteen: Killer

Chapter Seventeen: Too Little, Too Late…

Chapter Eighteen: Walkin’ on the Moon

Chapter Nineteen: A Mind Full of Cats

Chapter Twenty: An Angry Mustelid

Chapter Twenty-One: Master of Puppets

Chapter Twenty-Two: Will the Real Nick Fury Please Stand Up?

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Man on the Wall, Part One

Chapter Twenty-Four: Transatlantic Moonshot

Chapter Twenty-Five: …An Lmd of Infinite Jest…

Chapter Twenty-Six: Captain America is Tired of Your @*$@!.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Job Offer

Chapter Twenty-Eight: An Out

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Assembled

Chapter Thirty: The Ecstasy of Gold

Chapter Thirty-One: Nick Fury vs. The Avengers

Chapter Thirty-Two: Sides

Chapter Thirty-Three: Nick Fury vs. Captain America

Chapter Thirty-Four: Ascension

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Midas Touch

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Exterminatrix Interlude

Chapter Thirty-Seven: If thy Eye Offend Thee…

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Secrets

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Happily Ever After

Chapter Forty: The Man on the Wall, Part Two

Epilogue: The Unseen

Acknowledgments

About the Author

NOVELS OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE BY TITAN BOOKS

Ant-Man: Natural Enemy by Jason Starr

Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Dan Abnett

Avengers: Infinity by James A. Moore

Black Panther: Panther’s Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas

Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda by Jesse J. Holland

Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? by Jesse J. Holland

Captain America: Dark Design by Stefan Petrucha

Captain Marvel: Liberation Run by Tess Sharpe

Civil War by Stuart Moore

Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha

Morbius: The Living Vampire – Blood Ties by Brendan Deneen

Spider-Man: Forever Young by Stefan Petrucha

Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Neil Kleid

Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours Omnibus by Jim Butcher, Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Christopher L. Bennett

Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Omnibus by Diane Duane

Thanos: Death Sentence by Stuart Moore

Venom: Lethal Protector by James R. Tuck

Wolverine: Weapon X Omnibus by Marc Cerasini, David Alan Mack and Hugh Matthews

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Alex Irvine

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Stuart Moore

X-Men: The Mutant Empire Omnibus by Christopher Golden

X-Men & The Avengers: The Gamma Quest Omnibus by Greg Cox

ALSO FROM TITAN AND TITAN BOOKS

Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerealm by Paul Davies

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: No Guts, No Glory by M.K. England

Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Art of the Game by Paul Davies

Obsessed with Marvel by Peter Sanderson and Marc Sumerak

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed

Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover by David Liss

Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Wings of Fury by Brittney Morris

The Art of Iron Man (10th Anniversary Edition) by John Rhett Thomas

The Marvel Vault by Matthew K. Manning, Peter Sanderson, and Roy Thomas

Ant-Man and the Wasp: The Official Movie Special

Avengers: Endgame – The Official Movie Special

Avengers: Infinity War – The Official Movie Special

Black Panther: The Official Movie Companion

Black Panther: The Official Movie Special

Captain Marvel: The Official Movie Special

Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years

Marvel’s Black Widow: The Official Movie Special

Spider-Man: Far From Home – The Official Movie Special

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Official Movie Special

Thor: Ragnarok – The Official Movie Special

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MARVEL’S ORIGINAL SIN PROSE NOVEL

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361956

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361963

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First hardback edition: October 2022

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING

Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects

Sarah Singer, Associate Editor, Special Projects

Jeremy West, Manager, Licensed Publishing

Sven Larsen, VP, Licensed Publishing

David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing

C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief

Special thanks to Tom Brevoort

© 2022 MARVEL

Gavin Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover Art by Mark Brooks.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

This is for Lou, Alex, Vicki, Mark, Sara, Sarah, Trev, Chris and, of course,Yvonne for giving me something to look forward to during lockdown.

PROLOGUE

IN THE Blue Area of the main satellite of the third planet orbiting the star known as Sol is a vast and majestic citadel. The citadel’s technology is far in advance of even that of the greatest geniuses amongst the nearly hairless mammals that dominate said third planet. The technology is, in fact, more sophisticated than that of most species native to this particular galaxy—and even most species native to this particular universe. Technology sophisticated enough to make the sole inhabitant of the citadel, a visitor to this system himself, a god if he had so chosen. Instead of capitalizing on his technological power, however, he just watches events unfold. Seeing them from every possible perspective, every eventuality, every outcome, what is and all the might-have-beens, all the what-ifs. Nothing escapes his sight.

Except today.

*   *   *

THE TWO intruders to the Blue Area of the Moon wore space suits of no little sophistication to survive the vacuum of space. A camera drone, released by one of the intruders, sped across the blue-tinged lunar wasteland toward the alien citadel. Unchallenged, the drone made it inside the structure, moving between huge machines whose purpose the intruders could only guess at, through vast halls that echoed somehow, despite the silence, and finally into a circular chamber. There, the citadel’s only inhabitant floated above the floor in meditative repose. The humanoid wore a simple, yet elegant robe. He was a giant in comparison to the intruders, whose space-suited forms resembled the rough shape and size of the third planet’s hairless mammals. His pupils were white light: burning like a main sequence star through the void of his sclera and, for the moment, completely unseeing. He did not even notice the camera drone orbiting his vast bald cranium.

On the lunar surface, the first intruder viewed the feed from the drone on a tablet and watched the burning eyes flickering.

“Are we sure on our intel here? He really won’t know?” the second intruder asked. He was not an individual given to nerves, but it was no easy thing to look at something that radiated such obvious power.

“Positive,” the first intruder said, eyes still on the tablet. The alien hadn’t so much as flinched at the drone’s approach. “As long as we stick to our schedule”—numbers ticked down in the head-up-displays projected onto their suits’ helmets—“we should be in and out before he’s cognizant again.”

Should.

“Before he’s what?” the second intruder demanded as they approached the outer wall of the citadel.

“See for yourself.” The first intruder showed his companion the tablet screen: the alien in meditative repose.

“Wait… what is he doing?”

The first intruder turned and pushed against the wall of the citadel. The technology in the space suit, while not nearly as advanced as the tech in the citadel, had been stolen or looted from many different species, from many different places and all of it was far in advance of the tech from the third planet. The suits’ phase generators allowed both intruders to push through the wall of the citadel and into the interior. Had the alien been awake, his omnipercipience would have meant that he could have alerted the citadel’s defenses to the intruders and their trespass would have been much more difficult.

“Watchers slip into a fugue state every three years for exactly forty-two minutes,” the first intruder said. “We think they’re uploading memories to their collective. The end result is the same: forty-two completely unobserved minutes.”

They were moving through architecture scaled not just for a different-sized being, but for one who perceived things differently to the intruders. Supports, internal buttresses, and items that could have been furniture, art or machinery protruded from unexpected angles. The colors in the architecture stretched into strange new spectrums, giving the intruders the feeling of walking through the most excessive of psychedelic album covers from the 1960s.

“This is amazing,” the second intruder said, wonder in his voice, “I never imagined I’d see any of this firsthand.”

They moved into the meditative chamber as quietly as they could in their bulky space suits, as though stealth would make a difference at this moment. The alien, the Watcher, silent, unseeing, huge, his sheer physicality a definite and palpable presence, like gravity.

“So bizarre. He’s a giant but it’s hard to focus on him. Like my mind keeps trying to make me look away… make me forget I saw him,” the second intruder muttered.

“That’s their secret. Well, one of their secrets.”

The second intruder stopped and stared at the Watcher through the polarized visor of his space suit.

“Terrifying when you can focus. So vast, powerful, ugly.” The awe in his voice was gone now, replaced by something else. After all, fear and hatred frequently go hand in hand.

The first intruder stopped for a moment as well, also looking up at the unseeing Watcher.

“There’s a theory they aren’t a race of beings at all. That they’re infinite aspects of one powerful entity,” the first intruder said. “A being who experiences time and space in a way we can’t even begin to comprehend.”

“You believe that?” the second intruder asked. They were moving again, through halls of polished metal, their forms reflecting and distorting as though in a funhouse.

The intruders came to a high chamber with a curving wall, a cracked black mirror in which lay multiple realities, a fragmented always-changing map of a Multiverse of possibilities.

“We’re standing before a wall of memories and windows into alternate universes,” the first intruder said. “Where the Watchers are concerned, I’ll believe anything.” The camera drone returned to the first intruder, sinking into the machinery protruding from the back of their space suit. “We have twenty-five minutes before our extraction, so let’s get to work. You tackle his most recent scans; I’ll find his archives.”

The first intruder’s suit’s propulsion system carried him out of the chamber, leaving the second intruder alone before a darkened Multiverse.

Schemata provided by one of the suit’s more intuitive diagnostic systems cascaded down the inside of the suit’s visor, the projected information displaying how the second intruder could access the recent scans. Looking around, he found what he was pretty sure was a control panel and activated it.

“Right, let’s see what you’ve been recording lately, you omnipresent sonuva…”

Images played across the black mirror. Some showed beings with special powers far in excess of the majority of those who inhabited the third planet. Other images were of distant places and strange other realms. His suit recorded it all.

“Have you found anything yet?” the first intruder asked over the commlink.

“I’m not certain. He’s been studying far space and other dimensions,” the second intruder replied. “But there’s no indication if these are events already happening or things in the future. Do we know how far ahead he can look?”

“No. Like I said, he may not even see it as the future.”

“Right. Because he perceives every divergent possibility. What must his mind be like to contain all that?” The second intruder had to resist the urge to look behind him toward the meditation chamber. The Watcher may have been to all intents and purposes… inert, but somehow the alien’s presence was tangible.

“There’s a reason the leader says he’s the most powerful creature in existence,” the first intruder said. The second intruder knew it wasn’t the kind of statement that the leader made lightly.

The second intruder couldn’t help himself. He moved back through the shining metallic hall and looked back at the meditation chamber. Peeking through an archway at the Watcher. It felt transgressive, voyeur-on-voyeur.

“Imagine getting just one glimpse into that memory stream he’s linked to. What you’d see… our knowledge of his insights…” the second intruder mused, not even really talking to the first intruder. There was a hunger in his voice.

“Don’t even consider getting near him, Andrew.” The first intruder’s voice had an edge to it. It shook the second intruder, Andrew, out of his reverie. “Even if we could tap into his upload, you’d just lose your mind.”

“Right, of course you’re right,” Andrew said, forcing himself to move again. It wouldn’t just be a case of losing his mind: it would fracture into countless tiny fragments. Most minds in the universe just weren’t built to perceive all the possibilities of reality simultaneously. Any mind not specifically evolved, either technologically or otherwise, would be driven irrevocably insane. Then again, did they even know enough about the Watcher to know that he wasn’t insane? “How’s it going in the archives? Any luck?” he asked as he made his way back to the black mirror.

“Nothing so far,” the first intruder told him, “but we’ve still got a little time. I’m not giving up, that’s for sure.”

Andrew made it back to the black mirror and started working the controls again.

“Good, I’ll scan more recent entries while you keep digging,” he said. “See if I can find a link between them.”

The images he was watching came to a seemingly inevitable point, a single coalescence of possibilities.

“That can’t be,” Andrew said. “That hasn’t happened.”

He was watching the Earth fall—an apocalypse playing out in front of him, bodies piled high in the street, craters where once stood cities, continents burning, the fall of gods and heroes, and above it all, against a sky of fire, the shape of a familiar enemy: the artificial intelligence, Ultron.

“It’s sick, he’s watching a disaster in our future. Something he could change, something he could stop!” Andrew cried as the first intruder floated back into the black mirror chamber.

“Now you know why the Unseen exists, my friend,” the first intruder said grimly. He left it unsaid that this was the very reason that they had come to the citadel. “Come on. He’s going to wake up any moment now.”

Andrew stared a moment longer at the scenes unfolding in front of him before turning and following the first intruder. They ran through the hall as fast as their servo-assisted suits would allow. They sped past the levitating form of the insensate Watcher.

“We’ve spent enough time in this monster’s keep for one lifetime,” the first intruder said.

*   *   *

“HOW DO they—or it, if there’s really only one of them—how do they not see that it’s evil to stand by and do nothing?” Andrew asked as they bounced across the lunar surface. The gravity was now back to 0.166 g outside the bawn of the Watcher’s citadel.

“Time and tides, Andrew. We’re nothing but ants to them. For now at least.”

Andrew checked the countdown. They had less than thirty seconds left. Thirty seconds before the Watcher awoke.

“Activating the extraction point. Stand back,” the first intruder said.

The quantum bridge appeared, forming a curving tunnel from a glowing green grid. More looted tech.

“Did you find it?” Andrew asked. “Did you get what we came for?”

“Yes. Total mission success.” The first intruder seemed pleased with the mission but it didn’t make sense to Andrew. If this Watcher was omnipercipient, then what difference did it make sneaking away before he awoke? He would know what they had done as soon as he was conscious. He would still be able to see them, unless the Unseen somehow… Andrew smiled. He guessed it was in the name. He leaped into the quantum bridge.

“Now, when the time comes,” the first intruder said to himself before following Andrew into the tunnel, “the Unseen will be able to kill the Watcher. All his secrets will be ours.”

Then the Watcher was on his own once more.

*   *   *

THE WATCHER stood on the barren lunar surface. The impossibly ancient alien stared out into the void. Except it wasn’t the void. It was information, every particle pregnant with possibility. It was his sacred cosmic duty to bear witness to each interconnecting strand branching out to form a possible event, a possible future. His responsibility was to act as a living record to Earth’s chaotic and oft-interfered-with evolution.

And. He. Has. Seen. It. All.

He had walked beyond his own blue realm and into the stark majesty of the empty lunar landscape. It was something he did every subjective morning, if his duties did not keep him, to watch the planetary sunrise. To see the majesty of the star peeking round from behind the blue-marble-like world, so small from this perspective, so insignificant on a cosmic scale—and yet somehow always involved in significant events, somehow punching far above its weight.

The Watcher had seen all the beauty and horror that a planet like Earth had to offer. He had seen more births and more deaths than he could easily count. More war than any other living thing. He had seen colossal events rock the world and echo through history, and watched the quietest moments that changed humanity forever without them even noticing. He’d watched atrocities perpetuated on the subatomic scale and acts of love waged across the heavens. He knew humanity’s greatest secrets: their struggles, successes, and their sins.

The Watcher had seen all that there ever was and yet, with each new day, he found himself full of anticipation over what he might see next. His sense of wonder did not just stem from the great events of the mighty, the events that shook the very pillars of the Earth; in fact, in some ways such days were the least of it. Instead, a newborn’s first breath, the caress of a lover, tears wrought of remembrance in the twilight of a life. Each and every moment was utterly unique, something he had never seen before. He knew that those few humans who knew him considered him voyeuristic, but did they even truly appreciate their own lives, moment-to-moment, in the way he did? The few who knew him thought his life one of solitude, of isolation: not understanding that he was only alone with all of seething humanity in all their filth and splendor.

*   *   *

AS THE Watcher made his way home, he saw the cosmos played out in light against hues of darkness across the sky. He could perhaps perceive too much. The ability to focus only on every living possibility of just one world was a welcome respite to the celestial mechanics of even this galaxy, let alone the entire universe, and his earthly slice of the Multiverse was more than enough for him.

Returning to his citadel, machines older than the Sun and infinitely more powerful came to life all around him. They were useful to his work, a focus, yet it had always been more than mere technology that led him to where he needed to be. To see what must be seen. It was something innate, a feeling, a sense for where and when the world was on the verge of change. He let that feeling carry him to where had had to be, to bear witness as he must. He gave himself to the feeling. Let it transport him.

Today, however, as he walked through dark halls of silent, ancient machinery, today he knew that, for the first time in a long time, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. He knew what he would be watching and where he would be watching it. For a moment he felt a twinge of the emotion he had seen on the face of so many others. For just a moment Uatu, the Watcher, knew fear. He would not run. He would not forsake his duty. He would watch without flinching, even though he must participate, however reactively, however passive that participation must be, because some things cannot go unseen.

Standing under the vast dome of the citadel’s central tower, Uatu sensed these new interlopers before he saw them. They came with a not-insignificant amount of their own power. He supposed it was inevitable. For a very short amount of time, as he measured it, the Earth had been engaged in an arms race. Each generation of enhanced human more powerful than the previous. Sooner or later someone was going to come for the technological bounty, the power that he represented.

But he was Uatu. He was the Watcher and he would keep his eyes open wide… until he could see no more.

He turned to face the direction from which they approached.

“I see you,” he said.

Then the dome exploded.

CHAPTER ONE

MEAT NIGHT

“THAT’S IT, I’m tapping out. One more bite and I’m liable to explode,” Steve said.

From the outside the diner didn’t look like much, though it was nicely situated just off the river and surrounded by the hills of the Hudson Valley. If the staff were impressed at their clientele and the Avengers Quinjet in the car park, then they were handling it well—and by well, Nick Fury thought, he meant unobtrusively. Something all four of them sat round the table appreciated.

“You’re liable to get stabbed, you let that meat go to waste, Rogers. It’s ‘meat night.’ Stop worrying about your damn figure,” Logan said.

Fury liked the short Canadian berserker but it hadn’t always been so. He’d been on the wrong end of the fast-healing mutant’s adamantium claws on more than one occasion. Like him or not, Logan’s presence always made Fury feel like he was in a room with a wild animal. A Wolverine. He guessed that was the point. Logan was the only one still eating, shoveling extremely rare meat into his mouth with gusto. Fury was full. He tried not to eat until he became too uncomfortable these days. Infinity Formula or not, time was as inevitable as cholesterol and he’d put away a lot of meat.

“This is good steak, but the best meat is from an animal you hunt and kill yourself,” Natasha Romanov said. The Black Widow, spy, Avenger, ex-KGB assassin, the only woman at the table and the only person at the table that didn’t have some kind of super-power. Even if Fury’s own “super-power” had just been to live too long. “Next time it’s meat night, I’m taking us to hunt bear.” She emphasized what was left of her Russian accent as she said this. Fury suspected she didn’t even realize that she was doing it, just subconsciously telling the story in the most effective way possible. He could spot the reflexes of a master spy. After all, he’d been in charge of the best as head of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. as it was more commonly known. That was all behind him now, however, he was retired and just about managing to convince himself that he was enjoying it. That said, he had retired from directing S.H.I.E.L.D., not from meddling.

“I’ve eaten bear before, Natasha,” Logan said. “No bear in the world tastes like this ribeye.”

“You haven’t eaten Russian bear,” Natasha said, with even more emphasis on her old accent. “If you had, you wouldn’t be so short.”

Fury smiled. He was leaning back in his seat, just enjoying the banter. Logan took the jibe in his stride, even if it wasn’t a particularly long stride.

“It’s a really good steak, Logan, but I’m stuffed. I’ll have to get up at dawn just to run this off,” Steve said. Captain America, a genuine hero. Fury knew this because Steve, one of his oldest friends, had never been comfortable with the role of hero. He saw it as a responsibility rather than something glorious. He was part of the reason Fury had become who he had become. In private moments, Fury was of the opinion that he was the reason that Captain America could, for the most part, keep his hands clean. In other words, he’d done the dirty work. They were two sides of the same coin. He was pretty sure that Steve wouldn’t have seen it that way, however, and that was probably for the best. Their friendship had been strained, and even broken more than once, but now that Fury was “retired” Steve had relaxed a bit. Sometimes being around Steve still made you feel like you were sitting across from some god, and Fury had sat across the table from actual gods. It was never a comfortable feeling.

“When have you ever not gotten up at dawn just to run?” Logan asked Steve. Natasha laughed. Fury allowed himself a soft, low chuckle. He touched his eyepatch, a reflex: the phantom itches in his blind eye had stopped years ago. Logan was right. Every morning Steve got up, said his morning prayers, drank his milk and then went out for a run. Fury had seen the surveillance footage.

“Tell us, old man Rogers, what was the best steak you ever had?” Natasha teased. It seemed like it was “pick on the old guy” time. Though Steve was only the second oldest, possibly the third if some of the things Fury had heard about Logan were true.

“The best steak? I don’t know guys, maybe—” Steve started.

Fury decided to help him out.

“Christmas, 1944,” he said leaning forward. “Bastogne.”

It went quiet round the table. Three people with their own, very impressive, life stories stopped and listened as Fury spoke. Maybe it was respect, maybe they were just used to it because he’d called the shots when they’d worked together previously, or maybe they were just humoring some old retiree. He still appreciated it.

“We’d been under siege for almost a week, when out of nowhere, a cow comes running into the midst of a firefight. Once it went down, us and the Germans were basically fighting over who could get at it first.” Fury paused, clasping his hands together as he let the memories of the camaraderie, of how shared suffering and loyalty had almost managed to hold the cold, hunger and fear at bay. There was just the slightest smile on Fury’s face, though there had been little to smile about before they’d captured the cow—or even in the days that had followed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bucky fight harder,” Fury finally continued. “That night Bucky butchered it for us. God knows where an army brat who grew up in Virginia learned to butcher a cow. One of the guys from the 333rd had been a cowboy before the war. He fixed up a grill from a burned-out jeep.” Fury could still remember just the slightest taste of gasoline in the charred meat. “It was the first food we’d had in months that hadn’t come out of a can, and the last of anything we’d have for days. By the time we finished eating, I swear the whole damn cow was gone. Tip-to-tail. We gave the bones a proper military funeral.”

They hadn’t gotten into the fight over the cow but the prospect of eating it had provided significant motivation. Even then mankind could fly through the air, cure diseases, explore oceans and were getting closer to the stars than ever before. Two groups of regular guys, who under normal circumstances probably would’ve enjoyed a beer together, were killing each other over a cow. It was the absurdity of it. Except it wasn’t over a cow. It had happened because some evil lunatic demagogue and his cronies had forced the world to dance to their tune.

Fury had been in worse fights, seen worse things. He had been a teenager when he’d signed up with the International Brigades to fight the fascists in Spain. He was a hard man. He had no illusions about what he was capable of even then—perhaps especially then. He had thought he had understood the threat fascism posed to the world when they had targeted civilians during the bombing of Guernica. None of it had prepared him for the camps, however. He’d had to force himself to look. That was when the true horror of the Nazis had become apparent to him. The camps had sealed his fate. Made him who he was. He knew then that he had to do everything he could to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again. He hadn’t always been successful: he’d definitely made mistakes, and he’d backed the wrong side more than once, but he’d tried and that had to count for something.

Didn’t it?

It had gone quiet. Natasha was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Steve was watching him with no-little concern. Logan was still eating. Fury reminded himself to invite Steve to poker night with Dum-Dum and the guys.

“We slept like babes that night, even with the mortars falling around us. Least I did. And we fought like hell the next morning,” he finished.

“Bastogne. I remember that. He’s right, that was the best steak I ever had,” Steve said. He was smiling. Fury suspected he’d only just remembered that day.

“That was the best steak anyone’s ever had,” Fury said leaning back from the table.

“Hard to top that,” Logan said, though Fury was sure that he had similar stories. After all, he’d parachuted into Normandy with the Canuck 1st Parachute Battalion on D-Day, and they’d fought together in the Ardennes as well.

“It would have been better if it’d been a bear,” Natasha said grinning.

Fury had to laugh.

Steve’s phone started ringing. Fury wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that he wasn’t on call himself anymore.

“This is Rogers,” Steve said, answering the call.

Logan was already helping himself to Steve’s leftover steak. “He ain’t gonna finish that damn steak, is he? Give it here.”

There was a reason Logan was shaped like a barrel.

“Thor, slow down—say again?” Steve said into the phone. That got Fury’s attention. He couldn’t hear what Thor was saying but the tone of voice on the other end of the phone made him sound rattled. Fury knew that Thor was an emotional guy—he wore his heart on his sleeve—but the Norse God of Thunder was not easily rattled.

“I think we’re going to need the check,” Natasha called to the staff, playfulness gone. She was all business now. When he thought on it, Fury was astonished at how much she’d changed over the years. Once a stone-cold killer, after she’d defected—even after she’d broken the Red Room’s conditioning—Fury had expected that she’d mostly work on the covert, black ops side of things, and remain one of his shadow warriors. Now she was an Avenger, a fully-fledged hero, much more like Steve than she’d like to admit, and Fury couldn’t be happier about that.

“Are you sure? Is that even possible? Okay, calm down, we’re on our way,” Steve said into the phone. Fury didn’t like the sound of an un-calm Thor at all, but he reminded himself that this wasn’t his problem anymore.

The other three were on their feet.

“You guys go ahead. Go save the world. I’ll handle the tab,” Fury said. This was how he could help these days and he was fine with that. Or so he kept telling himself.

“Actually, you might want to come with us, Nick,” Steve said.

Nick narrowed his one good eye. Of course he wanted to go with them, but this also felt like an old friend throwing him a bone.

“Sorry Steve, but you know I don’t do that sort of thing anymore. That baton’s been passed.”

“I wouldn’t ask, Nick, if it didn’t sound like we might need you on this one,” Steve said. Maybe it wasn’t a bone after all.

“That bad a fire, huh? Where at?”

Natasha and Logan were just watching Steve.

“The Moon,” Steve told him.

Fury gave this some thought.

“The Moon? Yeah, that’s never good. All right, but I’m driving.”

CHAPTER TWO

BLUE MOON

LETTING NICK drive had initially seemed like a mistake, and was definitely a manifestation of his old friend’s desperate need to control things. They’d had to get the spacesuits from their own aircraft anyway. Steve had assumed that the Quinjet, which was capable of limited space travel, would be a better choice than a 1964 DeVille convertible, even if said coupé could fly. He was wrong. Five minutes later he was looking at the Blue Area of the Moon. He knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to advanced technology but he’d barely been aware of any acceleration. He glanced over at Natasha and Logan, wondering briefly how Logan had got shotgun. They seemed to be business-as-usual, so Steve put his surprise at the coupé’s capability down to his age. Then he saw the column of smoke rising within the citadel’s self-generating atmosphere.

As Nick steered the coupé in high over the citadel, circling so they could get a look at the damage, Steve saw the ruptured upper dome of the central tower. He was pretty sure that was where the Watcher actually lived. Everyone in the car was quiet. They’d all dealt with off-the-scale power before, but there was something deeply disquieting about an individual or a group capable of going after the Watcher. The Watcher was more like an act of nature than an actual person. Every time his attention was drawn to the Watcher’s existence and omnipercipience, Steve felt a deeply uncomfortable itch in the back of his neck. He was wearing the latest iteration of his uniform. Once he’d been uneasy wearing the Stars & Stripes—too much responsibility, too much to try and live up to. At times like this, it was a comfort.

Natasha tapped him on the shoulder of his armored spacesuit and pointed back towards the Earth. It took a moment but he saw a speck of darkness against the Earth’s blues, brown, greens and whites. The speck was ringed by the unmistakable aurora of a repulsor blast. Tony was joining them.

*   *   *

IN HIS armor, winged helm, red cloak and hammer in hand, Thor looked every inch the Asgardian God of Thunder. Like Steve, he was one of the founding Avengers. They were all standing in the citadel at the base of the still-smoking tower, surrounded by huge monolithic machines whose purpose Steve couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“I was flying through the cosmos,” Thor told them, “on my way to Midgard, when something struck me in the face. It was blood. There was blood floating in space.”

Steve could hear something in the Asgardian’s voice. Not fear—it took a lot to frighten Thor—but he was not happy. Thor’s apparent disquiet added to Steve’s unease, but he knew he couldn’t let that show. They would look to him for leadership. Even Nick, who was more a “behind the throne” kind of guy. Steve hadn’t always been comfortable with the some of the actions Nick had deemed it necessary to take. Much to his relief, it hadn’t been a source of friction since Nick had announced his retirement.

“Then I noticed the smoke in the Blue Area of the Moon, coming from the Watcher’s Lair,” Thor continued. “I came inside and found him thus.”

Thor’s disquiet was justified. The rest of them were staring at the body. Steve forced himself not to look. He wanted to get the timeline of events straight in his head first.

“I had Mjölnir circle the Moon many times. There was no one else to be found,” Thor continued. “Whoever was here, whoever did this, they had already fled like craven trolls.”

“Hold up. Let’s not go making assumptions and calling anybody trolls, not until we’ve weighed all the options.” Wearing his gold and black armor today, Tony Stark—corporate CEO, technologist, futurist, self-confessed genius, and Iron Man—was another of the founding Avengers. Steve knew that Tony’s trademark flippancy was just his way of dealing with tricky situations. It wasn’t always appropriate, however. “For all we know, this could’ve easily been some sort of accident. I mean, look around. I couldn’t tell you what most of this stuff even does, and I’m the smartest guy I know. There could’ve easily been an explosion or—”

“Tony,” Steve interrupted. As much as he could see Tony’s point. He didn’t want to deal with the reality of the situation either. He just didn’t think they had much of a choice.

“Fine. I know what it looks like. I just don’t want to say it, okay? Something this big? I mean, not until we know for sure,” Tony finished.

“Then I’ll say it,” Nick said. “It doesn’t take a super-genius to see what happened here.”

Steve closed his eyes for a moment then turned with the others to face the body. The Watcher was lying amongst the debris of the citadel’s central chamber, blood floating from several wounds in his head. An entry wound pierced the center of his forehead, but far more disturbing were the bloody gouges around the Watcher’s eyes. Just for a moment, Steve found himself wondering if Galactus had turned serial killer. He guessed the floating blood that Thor had flown through was the result of a localized failure of whatever mechanism generated the citadel’s artificial gravity, or even just the force of the inflicted trauma from whatever weapon had caused the wound. Though it would have to be a pretty powerful weapon to do that, even on the Moon.

“The Watcher was murdered,” Nick said, giving words to the obvious. Steve, not for the first time, reflected that he missed the simplicity of punching Nazis. Still, obvious or not, they had to go through the motions. He let out a long sigh and forced himself to kneel by The Watcher’s wrist. It was thicker than one of his thighs.

“Do we… check for a pulse? Did he even have a pulse? Do we know?” Steve knew it was fruitless, but felt he needed to check. Just in case.

“I’m getting no energy readings whatsoever from the body. I’d say that means he’s almost certainly dead,” Tony said, telling them what Steve was already pretty sure of.

“Yeah, there’s that and the hole in his forehead,” Logan pointed out, not terribly helpfully.

Thor was looking around in the rubble. It was almost as though the thunder god didn’t want to look at the body. After all, if someone could kill the Watcher this easily…

Natasha studied the head wound while Fury examined the injuries around the Watcher’s eyes. Somehow this ad-hoc murder investigation seemed too mundane for a being like the Watcher.

“Who or what is powerful enough to put a hole in a head that size?” Tony asked, an edge in his voice. “Thanos? The Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube?”

Steve tried not to flinch as he heard the Red Skull’s name.

“It was a gun. Judging by the wound pattern. I should know. I’ve seen a lot of wounds,” Natasha told them. Again it seemed so mundane, but now Natasha had said it out loud it also seemed so obvious. “If we’re lucky, there’s still a bullet lodged in his skull.”

“What the hell kind of gun could do that?” Logan asked.

“The kind we need to find quickly,” Steve told him.

“His eyes are gone.” Everyone turned to look at Nick. He was leaning down next to the Watcher’s huge dome-like head. “Both of them carved out post mortem, I’d say. What kind of person takes another man’s eyes?”

Nick said out loud the thing that the rest of them hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. It had been impossible to miss, but for an entity called the Watcher it wasn’t only a mutilation: somehow it seemed like an attack on his identity, his core being, his existence. For Nick to say that, someone who’d seen and done what he had… Suddenly the idea of Galactus as a serial killer didn’t seem so ridiculous. Steve told himself to get a grip. It was a problem. They’d work the problem. Find the solution.

“What is that? A sign? Did he see something he wasn’t supposed to?” Natasha asked. If that was the case, it narrowed down the list of suspects to 7.753 billion, give or take. He saw everything. That was his job.

“’Tis madness, is what it is,” Thor said, finally looking at the body again. Steve was inclined to agree, but such observations weren’t getting them anywhere.

“Logan, any scents you can follow?” Steve asked.

Logan was already shaking his head.

“Nothing, Cap. Just us. Air’s antiseptic. His crazy machines must keep the place scrubbed clean.”

Besides, Steve thought, if they’ve got the tech to take down the Watcher, then they’ve got the tech to cover up their crime.

Tony’s chest piece projected light over a hole torn in the central chamber’s wall. Steve and the others, except for Nick who was still studying the empty eye sockets, turned to look.

“Speaking of machines, I don’t think eyes were the only thing our killer took.” Tony told them. “This damage isn’t just from a fight. This place was ransacked, quickly and crudely. Looks to me like there are all sorts of items missing.” The cavernous chamber on the other side of the rent looked sort of like some kind of storeroom. “Weapons, super-tech, who knows what we’re talking about. I know just enough about the sort of things he kept here to be very afraid right now.”

It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a smash-and-grab robbery. Again the mundaneness of the crime struck Steve as odd, particularly on such a scale of power.

“So… we’ve got a killer on the loose, armed with a gun that can kill a Watcher and now he’s loaded with enough stolen super-tech to do God knows what.” Steve just wanted to say it out loud to get it straight in his own head. This day just kept getting better and better.

“Don’t forget about his eyes,” Logan said helpfully.

“Now do you see why I asked you to come along, Nick?” Steve asked.

Nick stood up from where he’d been crouched by the Watcher’s head. “You need to get S.H.I.E.L.D. on this, Cap. And S.W.O.R.D., and everyone else.”

“We will,” Steve assured him, “but for something this big we need to take point on it. Although… the Avengers aren’t murder police.”

“Neither am I.”

Steve was pretty sure that the L in S.H.I.E.L.D. stood for Law Enforcement, or at least had done once; he’d lost track of the acronym sometime in the ’90s. They weren’t just about intelligence gathering and covert operations. Nick was a more than capable investigator.

“You’re as close as I’ve got,” Steve told him. He left it unsaid that, for something of this magnitude, the case didn’t just have to be investigated—it had to be managed as well.

Nick turned and walked away from the body, gesturing for Steve to follow.

“Steve,” Nick said over a private comms link between their two suits. Steve turned to face his old friend and Nick put a hand on his shoulder. “You realize the list of people who even knew the Watcher existed, let alone who could’ve done this, is extremely short—and not all the names on it are bad guys.”

The first had occurred to Steve, the second not so much.

“This investigation could lead to some very dark places.”

“Someone was murdered. All I care about is the truth.” Steve knew what he sounded like when he said things like this, but it was the only way he knew how to do this work. The simpler, the more