Chapter 87 Welding Gate
The moment ADAM-0 lunged, Lynn's Spider-Senseexploded on his retina, leaving a scene of utter devastation.
It wasn't a warning, it was a scream, like someone had stabbed a needle directly into the optic nerve.
He didn't dodge because the resonance node was right behind him, and behind the node was Wanda.
He took half a step forward, his shoulder slamming into ADAM-0's armpit, using his weight and momentum to push the other man down.
The two of them crashed to the ground together. Lynnlanded on her left shoulder first, the bone hitting the metal floor with a dull thud, like a hammer hitting wet wood.
It hurt, but Captain America's bone density held up and it didn't break.
He spread his right hand and dug into the gaps in the alloy plate on the ground. Spider-Man's suction power activated, creating a vacuum between his fingertips and the metal, pinning him to the ground.
ADAM-0 writhes beneath him with inhuman strength, like a runaway hydraulic press.
Lynn's legs wrapped around his waist and hips, locking them in place. Wheel King's body control allowed him to precisely engage every muscle, like a python coiling around its prey, not aiming to strangle, but simply to immobilize it.
"You're asking for it!"
ADAM-0 said that his golden pupils were less than ten centimeters from Lynn's face, and his breath sprayed on Lynn's chin, carrying a metallic sweetness and a putrid stench.
"You're the one who's asking for death."
Lynn forced out the sound through gritted teeth; there was blood at the corner of her mouth, from the impact she had just suffered.
"The old man said that resonance requires three people. You missed a step in the calculation."
He slammed his right hand down on the ground, pressing his palm against the protrusion of the resonant node.
The reactor's energy flowed into the ground through his arm, and blue light, like silvery water, exploded along the lines, instantly filling the entire laboratory.
The old circuit board on the wall lit up again, emitting a buzzing electrical sound, like an old generator being forcibly started.
Wanda knelt beside the node, her face ashen, her lips covered in blood from biting herself.
She saw the blue light explode, and without hesitation, she pressed her hands to the floor. Red Mist gushed out from between her fingers, not scattered, but twisted into a single stream, like the fire flame from a welding torch, shooting directly at Lynn and ADAM-0's entangled bodies.
" Wanda!"
Natasha shouted from behind, her voice torn apart by the static.
"What are you doing?!"
"Weld the door!"
Wanda shouted back, her voice cracking, tinged with both tears and fierceness.
"He said he wanted me to be a catalyst! Fine, I'll be one! I'll accept being burned to death!"
The moment the Red Mist collided with the blue light, the air temperature in the laboratory soared.
Natasha had to back away, her cheeks burning from the heat, and the tactical knife in her hand was so hot she could barely hold it, so she had to put it back in her boot.
She tried to pull Wanda, but the barrier formed by the interwoven Red Mist and blue light bounced her away, as if she had hit an invisible wall.
Lynn felt her skin burning.
It's not a metaphor, it's really burning.
Red Mist burrowed into the gap between him and ADAM-0 like a living thing, burning their serums and forcing the two homologous frequencies to collide, merge, and then solidify. The back of his shirt instantly turned black, his flesh sizzling. Captain America's healing factor was working frantically, new tissue growing out was burned as soon as it appeared, then grew again, and burned again.
ADAM-0's struggle intensified.
He opened his mouth, but what came out was not a human voice; it was a high-frequency shriek, like metal shattering in ultrasound.
His skin began to crack, and golden light shot out from the cracks, but it was pushed back halfway by Red Mist, like steam from a pressure cooker being forcibly stopped by a valve.
"You...are also canned food..."
ADAM-0's golden pupils began to dilate, and cracks crept from the corners of his eyes to his cheekbones, like porcelain freezing over.
" Howard …put us…into cans…"
"right,"
Lynn gripped the back of his neck tightly, her fingers digging into his pale flesh, golden light seeping from under her nails.
"We are all canned goods. But some cans rust and some don't. You're rusted today."
He pressed the head of ADAM-0 onto the ground node.
There is a circular groove in the center of the node, which is exactly the size of the reactor.
Blue light erupted from the recess like a fountain, illuminating their faces in a ghastly white light. ADAM-0's body began to sink.
It wasn't being pressed down, it was being sucked in.
The metal floor, like molten wax or the stomach of a living creature, was devouring him.
Wanda's red mist grew thicker and thicker, and blood began to flow from her nostrils and the corners of her eyes. The blood droplets were immediately vaporized into red steam by the high temperature as soon as they left her skin.
Her knitted sweater sleeves were scorched, and a string of blisters had formed on the skin of her wrists, but she didn't pull her hands away.
"Almost done..."
Lynn managed to squeeze out a sound amidst the excruciating pain, speaking to Wanda, and also to herself.
"Burn for three more seconds..."
"I counted!"
Wanda screamed, her voice no longer sounding like hers, but like some kind of wounded bird.
"Three! Two! One!"
boom.
It wasn't an explosion, it was a depressurization. The blue light and red mist contracted simultaneously, like liquid being sucked into a syringe, and were suddenly poured into the ground node.
ADAM-0's body froze in mid-air, its golden pupils flashing one last time before going out completely.
His skin changed from pale white to grayish white, and then to a metallic silver-gray, as if it had been instantly plated with chromium.
Finally, he was like a statue cast into mud, half-embedded in the alloy floor and half-submerged in the seam of the wall, his eyes still open, but there was nothing inside them.
Resonance ceased.
Lynn let go, fell backward, and hit the ground with a hollow sound.
His chest heaved violently, each breath accompanied by a cracking sound from his broken ribs. Captain America's healing abilities finally prevailed; the charred skin began to peel away, revealing pink new tissue underneath, but the process was excruciating, like someone was sanding his nerves with sandpaper.
Wanda stumbled forward, but Natasha caught her from behind. Her Red Mist had completely disintegrated; her fingers dangled, the tips covered in blisters and scabs.
" Wanda?"
Natasha patted her cheek.
"...not dead,"
Wanda's voice seemed to drift back from a very far place, so soft it was almost inaudible.
"It's just... dried out..."
Natasha laid her flat on the ground and tore off her own coat to put under her head.
Then she walked over to Lynn, squatted down, and nudged his shin with the tip of her boot:
"Still alive?"
"...pain,"
Lynn said that his eyes were closed and his lips were covered in blood.
"But it's alive. Help me check... is that thing still breathing?"
Natasha walked up to ADAM-0, which was embedded in the seam between the wall and the floor, reached out and touched the tip of his nose, then pressed the side of his neck.
The metal was cold, there was no pulse, no breath. But she noticed that a faint light still lingered in ADAM-0's golden pupils, like the tungsten filament of a light bulb after the power was cut off, the red heat fading but not completely cooled.
"Not panting,"
Natasha said,
"But the eyes were still lit. Like standby lights."
"That's fine,"
Lynn lay on the ground, one hand clutching her ribs, the other covering her eyes.
"It's welded shut... the latch is in place... he can't pry it open anytime soon..."
A deafening crash came from above, like a meteorite shattering the ceiling. Concrete debris and dust rained down, and Natasha instinctively covered his head.
A huge green figure squeezed through a hole in the ceiling, its shoulders too broad to be held together by steel bars, and roared angrily.
Hulk.
His fist slammed into the ground, and the entire laboratory jumped.
He looked around but saw no enemies, only a scene of devastation and metal figures embedded in the walls. He walked over and roared at the statue of ADAM-0, spitting spittle and anger onto the metal surface, but the statue did not react.
" Hulk ..."
Lynn lay on the ground, raised her hand slightly, then lowered it again.
"No more enemies... Let's go back... Banner still needs to... pay the car loan..."
Hulk looked down at him, his golden-green pupils still burning with anger, but gradually replaced by confusion.
He sniffed the air, smelling a strong odor of burning and blood, then let out a disgruntled grumble, like a dog whose prey had been stolen. His body began to shrink, the green skin receding into him like the receding tide, his bones rearranging themselves with a clattering sound.
Ten seconds later, Banner crouched naked in the rubble, her hands covering her head, her lips trembling:
"...Did I...hurt anyone?"
"No,"
Natasha picked up a rag from the ground and threw it to him.
"Cover it up. You've come at the right time, clean up the mess."
4:50 p.m.
When Hill arrived with SHIELD's cleaning team, the lab was already shrouded in gloom from the temporary lighting.
Technicians are scanning ADAM-0's metallized body in an attempt to determine whether he is dead or in hibernation.
The medic was putting a brace on Lynn's ribs. Wanda sat next to her, holding a glass of glucose water. Her fingers were still trembling slightly, but she was already able to hold the glass by herself.
Banner, wearing a blanket borrowed from an ambulance, squatted in front of a blown-up metal cabinet, clutching a yellowed document in her hand, her brow furrowed.
" Lynn,"
Banner said the voice was very soft, but everyone could hear it.
You need to take a look at this.
Lynn was helped over, and with each step, the rib fixation straps made a rustling sound as the plastic rubbed together.
He looked down at the document in Banner's hand, which bore the Hydra logo—red and black with skull tentacles—printed at the top of a German document.
"This place is not just Howard's lab,"
Banner said, pointing to a string of numbers in the corner of the document.
"This is a B-12 auxiliary site of Hydra. It was built in World War II and later taken over by SHIELD, but Hydra's files were not destroyed, they were moved."
"Where to transfer to?"
Lynn asked.
Banner didn't speak, but simply stood up and walked to the innermost wall of the laboratory. That wall had previously been half-hidden by ADAM-0's metallic body, but now that the body was suspended, a hidden door was revealed behind it.
There was no handle on the door, only a palm print reader and a small display screen, half of which was broken but was still flashing red.
Hill walked over, pulled a small decoder from his waist, and connected it to the palmprint recognition device's circuitry.
The screen flickered a few times, then a German message appeared, followed by an English message:
"STARK OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. ACCESS GRANTED."
The door slid open, and the hissing sound of the released air pressure was like a sigh.
Inside is a cold storage room, where the temperature is at least 20 degrees Celsius lower than outside.
Cold air rushed out, forming a layer of white frost on the door frame.
Everyone involuntarily took a step back, except for Lynn, who gritted his teeth and, supported by Natasha, managed to take two steps forward.
The cold storage is small, only 20 square meters.
In the center stands a transparent cylindrical container filled with a pale blue liquid, in which a person is suspended.
A man. Blonde hair, eyes closed, face without wrinkles, as if asleep.
He was wearing a dark blue uniform with a white star on his chest, and he was holding a shield in his hand. It was a round shield with red, white and blue markings and a silver star in the center.
Captain America. Steve Rogers.
Lynn stared at that face for a long time, so long that the medic next to him urged him to go back to lie down.
He suddenly smiled, not a happy smile, but a helpless, bitter smile, as if he had been tricked by fate.
"Old man,"
He spoke in a low voice, his words echoing in the cold storage room with a slight tremor.
"How many surprises have you hidden? Hydra's refrigerator, SHIELD's door, and a World War II hero as a roommate. You fucking... know how to live well."
Hill walked into the cold storage room, pulled a file from a metal shelf in the corner, and quickly flipped through it, his face growing increasingly grim.
"This isn't the main SHIELD file. It's a copy of Hydra. They've known Rogers was here for a long time, treating him like... a strategic reserve. Frozen out, to be thawed when needed."
Why thaw it?
Natasha asked, "As a mascot?"
"As a weapon,"
Hill said that when he closed the file, the pages made a loud clattering sound.
"Or as a serum source. Rogers ' blood contains the complete sequence of the original super-soldier serum.Hydra has been waiting for the technology to mature so that it can be mass-produced."
Wanda stood at the entrance of the cold storage, holding a glucose water cup in her hand.
She looked at Captain America in the icebox and suddenly said:
"He...was he also created by Howard?"
"It's not fabricated,"
Lynn shook his head; the rib brace restricted his movement, and he could only shake his head slightly.
"It was a discovery. Howard found him and hid him here, along with Hydra. Perhaps to protect him from others, or perhaps..."
"It could also be to protect himself,"
Banner spoke softly, as if afraid of waking the people inside the ice pod.
" Howard created you, created ADAM-0, and discoveredRogers. He held too many keys in his hands, and in the end, he couldn't even tell which one was for opening the door and which one was for closing it."
Lynn turned and walked away slowly, each step aggravating his injured ribs. As he passed Hill, he reached out and took the Hydra file from her hand, tucking it into his own pocket.
"Move him back,"
Lynn said, her voice hoarse but clear.
" Stark Tower, thawing room. Tony pays the bill."
" Tony swears,"
Hill said.
"Let him curse,"
Lynn said,
"He'll do it after I scold him. He's stubborn, but soft-hearted. Just like his father."
He walked out of the cold storage and stopped as he passed ADAM-0's metallic body, glancing at it sideways. Those golden pupils were still open, but the faint light within them had completely died out, like two lamps that had been unplugged.
"It's welded shut,"
Lynn spoke to the metal statue in a voice so low that only he could hear it.
"Go to sleep. I'll come find you after I figure out how to disassemble the welding torch."
He didn't turn around, and with Natasha's help, he walked step by step toward the vertical ladder leading to the ground.
Wanda followed behind, her empty glucose water cup crumpled in her hand, the plastic making a soft groan.
Chapter 87 Wanda's Decision
The drop-off area outside Terminal 4 of JFK Airport.
Gwen dragged a black carry-on suitcase, its wheels making a soft rumbling sound as they rolled over speed bumps.
"Just leave it here,"
She stopped in front of the revolving door without turning around.
"Going any further in would take you ages to navigate, it's a hassle."
Lynn leaned against the car door, pulled a firearm from her pocket, twirled it around, and then didn't press any buttons.
"How many days will you be gone?"
"Two weeks,"
Gwen said,
" Kangnas has a branch project in California that's short-staffed. I'll go there to fill the gap."
"Return it after you've finished repairing it?"
"It depends,"
Gwen finally turned around, her blonde hair blowing wildly across her face. She brushed it away with the back of her hand.
"I might come back, or I might apply directly for a PhD program there. Peter wrote a letter of recommendation for me; his handwriting was terrible, but the content was alright."
Lynn put the firearm back in her pocket, then pulled a small object from her trouser pocket. It was an old Stark Industries badge, its edges worn smooth and shiny. She tossed it to her.
"Take this. If you need money over there, pawn this and you can get two plane tickets."
Gwen caught it, rubbing his thumb against the surface of the badge twice, feeling the cool metal seep into his palm.
She walked over, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. Quickly, like a stamp, her lips touched for half a second before pulling away, leaving a faint minty taste.
"Keep the records,"
She said,
"Come back and collect it. Don't try to renege."
"It's not certain who's to blame whom,"
Lynn said.
Gwen smiled slightly, the corners of her mouth curving into a shallow smile, then turned around, dragging her suitcase, and disappeared into the crowd through the revolving door.
Lynn stood there, touching the corner of his mouth with his finger, for about two minutes, until the black SUV behind him honked its horn to urge him to move aside.
He bent down and got into the car, started the engine, and the jazz music wasn't playing; the only sound in the car was the hum of the engine idling.
7:20 PM, Stark Tower underground parking garage.
On the B2 level, one of the light tubes was broken, and it was flickering overhead.
Wanda leaned against a support column, holding two cups of coffee in her arms.
One cup was pressed against her chest to keep it warm, while the other was held in her hand, the paper cup covered in water droplets that trickled down between her fingers.
She saw Lynn's car headlights cut in, straightened up and walked over, her high heels making a crisp sound on the muddy water.
Lynn got out of the car and handed the cold glass in through the window:
"I guessed you drank it, so I bought it iced. But you were gone for two and a half hours, and the ice melted."
Lynn took the paper cup; it was limp and he shook the water off his hands.
"This is tap water that tastes like coffee."
"Just drink it as is."
Wanda said,
"It's bitter. You don't like sweet things."
Lynn took a sip; it was indeed bland, but the bitterness lingered, like some kind of obsession that refused to completely disappear.
He leaned against the car door, looking at Wanda:
"Haven't eaten yet?"
"without,
Wanda took the warm cup from her hand.
"Waiting for you. Pepper said a new Polish restaurant opened downstairs, they have dumplings. Sokovia is next to Poland, the taste is similar."
"You're treating?"
"My salary is low,"
Wanda's lips twitched, as if she were smiling, but her eyes were lifeless.
"If you treat me, I'll eat less, so it'll be a good deal for you."
Lynn closed and locked the car door.
"Okay. Get in the car."
The restaurant is small, tucked away at the corner of two streets. Its sign is a piece of frosted glass with "POLSKI" written on it in red paint.
There were six tables inside, four of which were full. The voices were a jumble of Polish and English, like an overcooked stew.
Wanda ordered sauerkraut dumplings, borscht, and potato pancakes. Lynn only ordered a grilled sausage and a dark beer.
The food was served slowly, so Wanda poked at the dumplings with her chopsticks. They actually had chopsticks here, probably to cater to the students nearby. The filling was sauerkraut and mushrooms, so sour that she squinted.
"You're not eating enough,"
Wanda looked at the barely touched sausage on Lynn'splate.
"Fewer than cats."
"Thinking about something,"
Lynn spun the beer glass around, leaving a white streak of foam on the glass.
"Thinking of Gwen?"
"Missing the old man,"
Lynn said,
" Rogers has something in his head, there's something welded onto ADAM-0, and there's something hidden in Hydra's file. He's dead, leaving behind a bunch of Zeroparts without instructions, leaving me to guess."
Wanda put down her chopsticks, and the ceramic clinked softly against the plate.
"So that's why you live such a tiring life? Writing instruction manuals for him?"
"Otherwise what?"
Lynn tilted his head back and took a sip of beer. The foam stuck to his upper lip, which he wiped away with the back of his hand.
"Who told him to be my father? Even though he didn't ask for my opinion when he made me."
Wanda stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly said:
"What if you weren't his son? What would you do if there weren't these instruction manuals to replace?"
Lynn paused for a moment.
No one has ever asked him this question.
He put down his cup, the bottom of which tapped against the wooden table with a muffled sound: "I don't know. Maybe... I could open a car repair shop?"
Wanda laughed briefly, then covered her mouth, her eyes crinkling into slits.
" A Stark Family employee doing car repairs?"
"Cars are more honest than people,"
Lynn said, her lips curving into a slight smile, but she quickly looked away.
"If it breaks, fix it; if it can't be fixed, replace it with a zeropart. People aren't like that. If a person breaks down, you have to coax them to get it fixed, it's too much trouble."
"What about people?"
"people..."
Lynn thought for a moment, then tapped her fingers twice on the table.
"People can go astray on their own, and they can drag others down with them. They can't be fixed."
Wanda didn't respond.
She finished the remaining dumplings and the soup, then pushed the plate forward with a loud thud.
"Let's go for a drink."
"Are you still drinking?"
"drink,"
Wanda said,
I want to drink it today.
The bar is right across from the restaurant; it has no sign, just a brass bell hanging at the entrance.
Pushing open the door, the interior is quite narrow, with a bar taking up half the space, and behind it, on the wine cabinet, are bottles of various colors, like a row of chemical reagents.
The bartender was a fat old man wiping glasses. He glanced up at them but didn't greet them.
Wanda sat on a high stool and ordered a vodka, straight, no ice. Lynn sat next to her and ordered a whiskey.
Wanda drank very quickly. He took the first sip and half a glass went down. His throat bobbed, and his cheeks immediately flushed red, spreading from his cheekbones to his ears.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, slammed the cup down on the table, and the glass and wood collided with a crisp sound.
"I've figured it out,"
She said her voice was rougher than usual, like sandpaper rubbing against wood.
"Connect to what?"
Lynn swirled her glass but didn't drink.
"I'm not a latch,"
Wanda stared at the clear liquid in the glass, tracing circles around the rim with her finger.
"It's not a catalyst. It's not the Zero part you use to weld doors. I am Wanda Mark Simov. "
I slept with you not because you saved me, but because I wanted to.
I'm welding the door for you, not because I'm a catalyst, but because I'm standing there, and I want to stand there.
Lynn turned her head to look at her.
Her pupils were bright in the dim light of the bar, her eyelashes trembled, but her spine was straight, like a freshly shaved bamboo.
"You get very bold after drinking,"
He said.
"Not drinking makes it bigger,"
Wanda turned her head and met his gaze.
"I just keep it under control. I got used to being pressured by Strucker and thought that I could survive by doing that. Now I don't want to be pressured anymore."
She leaned forward, her nose almost touching his chin:
" Lynn, I want you. Not tomorrow, not next time, but now. Do you want me?"
Lynn didn't say anything.
He finished his whiskey, placed the glass on the bar, and pulled out a few banknotes from his pocket, placing them at the bottom of the glass.
Then he took Wanda's hand and pulled her down from the bar stool. Wanda's steps were a little unsteady, but she steadied herself, her fingers intertwined with his, gripping tightly.
"hotel,"
Lynn said,
"The nearest one."
The woman at the hotel reception yawned, handed over the room key, glanced between the two men, and didn't ask any further questions.
Inside the elevator, Wanda leaned against the mirror, looking at her figure and Lynn's figure stacked together, her breathing heavy.
The door closed behind me with a click.
Wanda didn't turn on the main lights, only leaving the bathroom light on, which shone through the frosted glass, casting a soft, milky light in the room.
She stood by the bed, her fingers slowly unbuttoning her shirt. The third button was off, and her fingernails scraped against the fabric, making a soft rustling sound.
Lynn went over, took her fingers, and pressed her hand down:
"I'll do it."
Wanda had thin shoulders and a small mole below her collarbone, which looked like a speck of dust in the soft light. She wasn't covering herself; her eyes were closed, her eyelashes trembling, and her breath was hot on his chin.
Lynn picked her up, very lightly, like holding a wet cat, and placed her on the bed.
The sheets were white, a bit stiff, and had been washed many times, smelling of disinfectant. Wanda opened her eyes and looked at him, her fingers unconsciously gripping the sheets, creating deep wrinkles.
He covered it up.
The movements were slow, like unwrapping a precious gift rather than conquering.
"This is...my first time,"
Wanda said, her voice as soft as a sigh.
"I know,"
Lynn said.
He lowered his head and kissed her, from her lips to her earlobe, and then to the throbbing vein on the side of her neck. His lips were hot, but his movements were very light, like a feather writing Braille on her skin.
Wanda's tension slowly melted away under his fingertips.
Like a flower bud peeling open layer by layer in warmwater. Lynn's hand reached down, found her most sensitive spot, and gently massaged it with a slow but steady rhythm.
Wanda's breathing became erratic, from calm to rapid, and her fingers dug into his hair, her knuckles turning white.
A soft whimper escaped her throat, like that of a wounded bird.
Lynn stopped, forehead to forehead, waiting for her breathing to become even. Her eyes were a little moist, but the corners of her mouth curved into a smile:
"...It's alright. Continue."
He continued. Not in a hurry, not recklessly, like a boat slowly propelling itself in a narrow river, the rudder held very steadily.
Every slight adjustment of the angle brushed against her most sensitive spot, like a key slowly turning in a lock, finding the perfect groove.
Wanda's movements went from intermittent to continuous, like a line being slowly stretched out. When it reached its limit, his whole body was taut like a bow, and his fingernails scratched several red marks on his back.
Red mist spilled uncontrollably from her fingertips, faint like pink gauze, swirling on the sheets and floating in the air, like the embodiment of some emotion.
The mist touched Lynn's skin, cool like mint, harmless, just swirling around them, enveloping the two of them in a small, soft cocoon.
When the storm subsided, Wanda slumped in his arms, her chest heaving, her bangs plastered to her cheeks. Her fingers traced circles on his chest, stopping on the third circle, her voice muffled:
"...It hurts. But...it's good."
Lynn kissed the top of her head, her fingers running through her sweaty hair:
"I'll do even better next time."
Wanda chuckled lightly, pinching his side with her fingers:
"How...can you do everything?"
"Practice more,"
Lynn said.
"A scumbag's comment,"
Wanda mumbled, burying her face in his neck, her nose touching his collarbone, her breathing quickly becoming long and even.
3:17 a.m.
Lynn lay on his back, with Wanda nestled on his chest, asleep, breathing evenly with her lips slightly parted.
He stared at the ceiling, his fingers unconsciously tracing patterns up and down her back, like stroking a sleeping cat.
Suddenly, a wave of heat seeped from my very bones.
It wasn't a fever, it was an itch that seemed to crawl out from the very marrow of his bones. He raised his left hand, and in the light filtering through the curtains, he saw an old scar on his palm.
It was burned by ADAM-0's energy when White was welded to the gate. It is fading and shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye, and finally turning into a whitemark. Then even the white mark is almost invisible.
That's not all.
He felt countless tiny tentacles crawling beneath his left ribcage, on the skin that had been charred black by the resonance and barely repaired by his Captain Americaphysique. It was like ants building a nest in the cracks of his bone, so itchy that he almost cried out. But it wasn't pain; it was regeneration, a deeper, cellular-level rewriting.
In my mind, the system interface popped up on its own for the first time without triggering a task, like an email that had been forcibly shoved in:
[ A deep life resonance was detected between the host and the Chaos Magic Source]
[Accelerated gene recombination, self-healing factors exceed threshold]
[Unlock new template: Wolverine - Ultimate Self-Healing and Pure Template]
[Abilities: Ultimate regeneration (limb regeneration/internal organ repair), bone adamantization (ultimate density), immune toxins/diseases, anti-aging, immunity to fatal trauma]
[Note: This is the foundation of the "lock." He who welds the door must first weld himself.]
Lynn stared at the skin on her palm; the new flesh was smooth, and even the lines on her palm were clearer than before.
He clenched his fist, his knuckles making a deep crack, like two pieces of fire -treated metal colliding. He turned his head and saw Wanda's sleeping face, a tear stain still clinging to her eyelashes, but the corners of her mouth were upturned.
He lowered his hand without disturbing her.
Wanda stirred in her dream and mumbled indistinctly:
"...Why are you shaking?"
"fine,"
Lynn said her voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of breaking something.
"It seems to have become more resilient."
Wanda rubbed her face against his chest and said in a muffled voice:
"You were already tough enough to take a beating... and now you're made of iron?"
"almost,"
Lynn touched her hair.
"From now on, doors won't melt when we weld them."
Wanda didn't speak again, but reached out and hugged his waist, gently touching the scratches on his back with her fingers, as if apologizing for the wounds, or as if confirming that he was still intact. Her breathing quickly returned to normal, and she fell asleep.
Lynn stared at the ceiling, her mind racing with the system's notes.
The cornerstone of the lock. Ancient One said he wanted to become a lock. Now, he has the strength of a lock.
But even with enough rigidity, the door is still there.Hydra's file, the anomaly in Rogers' mind, and Radar waiting to watch the show in the Himalayas.
He closed his eyes and pulled Wanda closer to him.
At least for now, it's warm in my arms.
Outside the window, the sky over New York was still dark, but in the distance, garbage trucks were collecting bins, the clanging of metal making a solid sound. Before a city truly awakens, it always has to empty out yesterday's mess.
Chapter 88 The Neighbor Downstairs
The underground medical level of Stark Tower.
Banner placed the third cup of coffee on the instrument table, making a very soft tapping sound.
He didn't drink it; it had already gone cold, and a thin layer of grease had formed on the surface, like someone had covered it with a plastic film.
His left hand was gripping the heart rate monitor, the wires wrapped around his wrist, leaving red marks, like he was wearing an ill-fitting bracelet.
"The brainwaves are jumping again,"
The banner points to the home screen; its curve resembles an electric snake.
"The frequency is still wrong. It's not normal nerve resuscitation, it's like...like someone is changing the station, but the knob is stuck."
Tony pushed his goggles up, revealing two deep red marks, as if someone had pinched his forehead.
He leaned close to the screen, his nose almost touching the glass:
"Then help him turn the knob. Add a dose of serum stabilizer, 0.3 mg, intravenously."
"no,"
Banner blocked his hands, his palms resting on the keyboard.
"His cells are renewing themselves, and the original serum and frozen metabolites are recombining. Adding foreign serum at this time is like pouring a bag of yeast into dough that is already fermenting. It will explode."
"It won't explode,"
Tony said,
"I've calculated the dosage."
"You're calculating a theoretical value,"
Banner's voice was strained, like steel wire digging into rubber.
"His theoretical values were outdated in 1945. The chemical reactions in his body now are completely new, and even he himself doesn't know the formula."
Tony opened his mouth to refute, but the door to the medical floor slid open.
Lynn walked in, one button on her shirt was on the right, but the second one was wrong, and one side of the hem was tucked into her waistband while the other side hung down.
Wanda followed behind him, carrying two paper bags filled with leftover dumplings from a Polish restaurant, microwaved and emitting a mixture of sauerkraut and lard odors.
"Eat first,"
Lynn placed the paper bag on the instrument table, weighing down Banner's cold coffee.
"You've been arguing for two hours. You're not hungry, but the equipment is."
"Instruments don't eat dumplings,"
Tony said, but his hand had already reached into the paper bag, pinched one out, and stuffed it into his mouth.
It was so hot that he kept panting, but he didn't vomit.
Wanda did not approach the instrument table.
She stood three meters away from the ice chamber, looking at the man in the dark blue uniform inside.
Rogers ' face looked serene in the pale blue liquid, as if he were asleep, his blond hair floating in the water like a diluted blob of paint.
The stabilizer on her wrist wasn't on, and all the LED lights were off, but a thin red mist began to seep from her fingertips, like smoke rising from damp wood.
" Wanda,"
Lynn called her name.
"He's calling me,"
Wanda said her voice was very soft, as if she didn't want to wake something.
"It wasn't with sound... it was with vibration. It matched a certain frequency in my brain..."
Banner suddenly turned to look at the monitoring device.
The brainwave noise on the screen is becoming more regular, like a tangled mess being slowly straightened out. The rhythm of the undulating curves perfectly matches the frequency of the Red Mist flashing at Wanda's fingertips, like two tuning forks striking each other in the air.
"harmonic,"
Banner murmured, her fingers rapidly tapping on the keyboard.
"Her chaotic magic resonated with the abnormal frequencies in Rogers' brain. This is no coincidence... Howard may have reserved some kind of... interface when designing the ice system."
"interface?"
Tony swallowed the dumpling, his brow furrowed. "What does this mean? Did the old man design Captain America's head as a USB port?"
"almost,"
Banner pointed to two sets of curves on the screen.
" The abnormal signals in Rogers' brain are not Hydra's backdoor, but Howard's... keyhole. Wanda's Red Mist is the matching key."
Wanda took a step forward.
The red mist thickened, like blood dissolving in water, drifting towards the ice chamber.
Rogers ' eyelids trembled in the liquid, his eyelashes brushing against the inside of the glass dome like butterflies bumping against a window.
"Stop,"
Lynn reached out and put her arm around her shoulder.
"If you get any closer, you might get sucked in."
"I'm not afraid,"
Wanda said, but her steps stopped.
Her pupils gleamed a pale crimson under the bright lightsof the medical ward, like bloodstains that hadn't been wiped clean.
"He was dreaming. It was cold in the dream, and someone was calling his name. Not in English... but in German."
Hydra's number.
The medical staff fell silent.
Tony was holding a second dumpling in his hand, but didn't put it in his mouth.
Banner's heart rate monitor emits a very soft beeping sound, like a stopwatch counting down.
The door slid open again.
Hill walked in, wearing a dark gray trench coat, holding a tablet in her hand, her hair was messier than usual, and there were two dark circles under her eyes.
She slapped the tablet on the instrument table. The screen lit up, displaying a scanned document with a German title and the Hydra logo printed below it—a red and black skull tentacle, like a spider pinned to the paper.
"The files have been declassified,"
Hill said his voice was hoarse, like he'd been smoking all night.
"Triple encryption, a trick of Pierce's old guard. It took me six hours to peel back the first layer and find that there was more than just Rogers inside."
She swiped the screen, and another photo popped up. Black and white, blurry, as if it had been taken from surveillance footage.
A metal cabin, its hull covered in white frost, with a label that read "WINTER SOLDIER - BACKUP SEQUENZ 07".
" Winter Soldier Backup Sequence,"
Hill said,
Hydra had another card hidden near Rogers. Not BuckyBarnes, but his clone, or… a different branch of the same serum. The location was…
She paused, then looked at Lynn.
Directly below Stark Tower
" Lynn continued, her voice flat, "A deep cavity. Just a wall away from where ADAM-0 was welded shut."
Banner's hand trembled, and the cold coffee was spilled, the dark liquid spreading across the instrument table like someone had splashed soy sauce.
He didn't bother wiping it; he just stared at the photos on the tablet.
"... United States heroes are buried downstairs, and Hydra's assassins are buried downstairs too. Howard Starkreally knows how to arrange his neighbors."
"Not a neighbor,"
Natasha's voice drifted out from the ventilation duct.
She had been crouching there sometime during the night, like a cat, twirling a dagger in her hand.
"It's a safety latch. Rogers is the front door, and Winter Soldier is the backup door. Hydra always keeps two doors open."
She emerged from the shadowy figure, sheathing the dagger back in her boot:
The question is, which door should be opened first?
Rogers is thawing, while the backup downstairs is hibernating. If the abnormal frequency in Rogers' brain is the keyhole, then the backup downstairs might also be waiting for the same frequency.
Wanda's Red Mist suddenly recoiled, like a tongue that had been burned.
She took two steps back and bumped into Lynn's chest.
Her fingers gripped the hem of his shirt, the fabric crumpling in her palm:
"...I sensed it. Just now, during the harmonic resonance, it was transmitted down through the floor... There's not just ADAM-0 down there. There's a second heartbeat. It's slow, but very heavy. Like...like a bear in winter."
Lynn looked down at her, then looked up at Hill:
"Can you seal off the lower passage?"
"It's already locked down,"
Hill said,
"But what's blocked is SHIELD's standard door. If that thing is from the same source as Rogers, or ADAM-0, the standard door won't be able to stop it."
"Then weld it shut," Tony tossed the dumpling into the trash can and clapped his hands. "Like welding ADAM-0. Reactor, Red Mist, resonance, the whole thing."
"no,"
Banner said the voice was even tighter than before.
" Rogers is still thawing. If we activate the resonance downstairs, the frequency will travel up through the concrete and interfere with his brainwaves. He may never wake up, or he may wake up… but his brain is Hydra's."
Lynn didn't say anything.
He walked to the ice chamber and placed his palm on the glass cover.
Rogers ' face floated in the liquid, like an oil painting soaked in water. His fingers curled unconsciously, his nails scraping against the bulkhead, making a very soft sound, like a cat scratching a blackboard.
How long until he is fully thawed?
Lynn asked.
"At the current pace, forty-eight hours,"
Banner said,
"But if Wanda continues to provide harmonic resonance, it could be shortened to twelve hours. However..."
"Just what?"
"But during the resonance process, Wanda's frequency also tends to penetrate downwards, "
Banner pointed to the floor, "It's like sending an invitation to the backup Winter Soldier downstairs at the same time. He's hibernating, but his senses are probably still active. He's waiting for this frequency."
Wanda stepped out from behind Lynn, her fingers gripping the stabilizer's strap, her knuckles white.
She looked at Rogers in the icebox, then looked down at the floor as if she were looking through the concrete.
"Then I'll choose,"
Wanda said the voice was soft, but very clear.
"I'll help Rogers. Twelve hours. Within twelve hours, you go downstairs and take care of that backup. Weld it up, blow it up, whatever. After twelve hours, I'm done."
What do you mean by "you don't care"?
Pietro burst in from the hallway, clearly having been eavesdropping for a long time; his hair was sticking up, his shirt was on backwards, and the tag was sticking out from behind his neck.
"Are you going to be bait again? A catalyst? A bolt?"
"I am myself,"
Wanda said without turning around, " Pietro, go upstairs and keep Mom company. Don't get involved in what's going on here."
"I'm going to get involved anyway!"
Pietro rushed up to her, pointed his finger at her nose, then at Lynn.
"What were you two doing last night? Don't think I don't know! Now she's going to risk her life again, you..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
Lynn reached out and grasped his fingers. Not squeeze, but hold; her palm pressed against his knuckles, the temperature hot. Pietro tried to pull away, but couldn't.
"Twelve hours,"
Lynn said her voice was low, as if it were vibrating from deep within her chest.
"Your sister will weld the door for me, and I'll weld up the stuff downstairs for you guys. Twelve hours later, I'll take her out for pickled mushrooms. Authentic ones. You're coming along, we'll split the bill."
Pietro stared at him, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.
Finally, he abruptly pulled his hand back and wiped it on his trouser leg, as if wiping away something dirty.
"...Twelve hours. If it's even a minute longer, I'll go down. Whatever you're welding, I'll burn it all."
He turned and walked away, his steps heavy, as if he wanted to stomp through the floor.
The door slammed shut behind him with a dull thud.
Hill folded up the tablet, the hem of his trench coat brushing against the ice pod base:
"I'm going to call in SHIELD's blockade team. Natasha, are you coming with me?"
"I stayed,"
Natasha said, leaning against the wall, she started twirling the dagger in her hand again.
"If that thing downstairs wakes up early, someone has to be the first to stop it."
Banner rewound the heart rate monitor's wires and took a deep breath:
"Then I'll adjust the thawing plan. Wanda, come here and stand here," he pointed to a mark on the left side of the ice chamber, "At this angle, the harmonics are most concentrated and the downward penetration is minimal."
Wanda walked over.
Lynn followed behind her, and after she stood still, she reached out and gently supported her lower back to help her regain her balance.
Wanda turned to look at him, her lips curving slightly, but her eyes didn't smile.
"Did you bring the reactor with you when you went down?"
"I brought it,"
Lynn said, patting her pocket; the metal inside made a very soft clinking sound.
"And this too."
He opened his palm.
There was a newly healed white mark on my palm, the skin so smooth that the lines were almost invisible.Wolverine's self-healing ability flowed quietly beneath the skin, like an invisible river.
"Now weld the door,"
Lynn said, "Weld yourself first, then weld others."
Wanda reached out and touched the white mark on his palm with her fingertips, as if checking the depth of the keyhole.
Then she withdrew her hand, and Red Mist flowed again from her fingertips, drifting towards the ice chamber.
Rogers ' eyelids twitched again. This time, his lips parted slightly as if to say something, but he only exhaled a string of bubbles, which rose in the liquid, burst, and made a very soft popping sound.
Banner stared at the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard:
"...Brainwave synchronization. Wanda, maintain this frequency. Don't move."
Wanda didn't move. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes trembling, like a butterfly perched on a flower's heart, its wings fluttering in the wind, but not yet flying away.
Lynn turned and walked toward the door.
Natasha followed, sheathing the dagger in her boot, her footsteps light: "I'll go first in the downstairs passage."
"You go first,"
Lynn said,
"But don't fire first. I want to see what the neighbor Hydraarranged for my dad looks like."
They stepped into the elevator, and the doors slowly closed. Only the hum of the machines and Wandaremained in the medical room. The Red Mist makes a very light, rustling sound, like the friction of silk, as it flutters.
Chapter 89 Sixty Years
11:40 AM, Stark Tower, underground medical level.
Wanda's knees trembled. Red Mist drifted from between her fingers into the ice pod. Blood trickled from the tip of her nose; she licked it away, the taste of blood spreading on her tongue, a mixture of rust and salt.
"The brainwaves are returning to normal,"
Banner stared at the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, hesitant to type.
"Just one more minute... just one more minute and he'll..."
Rogers ' eyelids twitched.
Blue liquid from the ice chamber clung to his eyelashes, as if someone had applied mascara to them. Then, he opened his eyes.
Those eyes were grayish-blue, like the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in winter, just emerging from the deepwater, unfocused, just instinctively wide open.
His fingers spread out in the liquid, his nails scraping against the bulkhead, making a very soft sound, like a cat scratching a blackboard.
Then, he sat up abruptly, his upper body slamming open the hatch, and the liquid spilled out, splashing onto Banner's white coat and Wanda's charred cuffs.
"Cough!" Rogers coughed violently, his lungs filling with the first breath of air in sixty years.
He gripped the edge of the cabin, his knuckles white, the muscles in his arms taut like a bowstring.
He glanced around, his gaze sweeping over Banner, Tony, and Wanda before finally settling on Lynn by the door. His eyes shifted from confusion to alertness, like a bear just awakened from hibernation.
"Hope xx,"
Rogers spoke, his voice hoarse as if sandpaper were scraping against a rusty iron pipe.
"Dead?"
"Dead,"
Lynn leaned against the doorframe, hands in her pockets, shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
"Sixty years ago. You killed him yourself."
Rogers stared at him, his chest heaving.
He looked down at his hands; his skin was still young, without wrinkles, and there was still dirt from before the freeze under his fingernails.
He looked up again at the instruments in the room: the LED lights, the floating screen, and the glowing reactor on Tony's chest. His pupils contracted, as if in a protective manner when receiving too much information.
"Sixty years,"
He repeated it, as if confirming the pronunciation of some foreign language word.
Then he stopped talking, just lowered his head, his forehead against the edge of the ice chamber, waterdroplets dripping from his hair and falling onto the metal edge, making a very soft ticking sound like a stopwatch.
Wanda's Red Mist has completely fallen apart.
She fell backward, only to be caught in a tight embrace byPietro from behind. Pietro's face was even whiter than hers, and his fingers gripped her shoulders tightly.
"elder sister!"
"...not dead,"
Wanda's voice seemed to drift back from a very far place.
"It's just... dried out..."
Banner rushed over to help Rogers and draped a thermal blanket over his shoulders.
Rogers didn't refuse, but he didn't thank her either. He just mechanically gripped the edge of the blanket, twisting the fabric into a rope with his knuckles.
12:15 PM, medical corridor.
Fury stepped out of the elevator, wearing a black trench coat with the collar turned up, his single eye resembling a polished obsidian in the dim light.
Two agents in suits followed behind him, carrying metal cases with the SHIELD eagle logo printed on them.
" Captain's status?"
Fury asked, his voice flat, like a steel plate.
"Clear-headed, able to speak, and able to recognize people,"
Banner came out of the room, took off her glasses, and wiped them with the corner of her clothes.
"But his understanding was still stuck in 1945. He needed... time."
Fury nodded and walked straight into the room.
Rogers sat on a makeshift chair, wrapped in a blanket, holding a glass of hot water poured by a banner, but he didn't drink it; he just held it as if it were some kind of talisman.
He looked up and saw Fury, his gaze lingering on the man's face for a moment before moving to the SHIELDbadge on his chest.
"Strategic Science Corps,"
Rogers said the voice was a little steadyer than before.
"You've taken over?"
"It's been renamed."
Fury said he pulled over another chair and sat opposite Rogers, their knees almost touching.
"Now they're called SHIELD. Your former teammate...Carter." Agent is one of the founders.
Rogers ' fingertips tightened on the cup's surface. The ceramic emitted a very faint, cracking sound.
"Peggy,"
He said it wasn't a question, it was a confirmation.
Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at Fury; something burned in his grey-blue pupils.
Where is she?
Fury was silent for two seconds.
In those two seconds, the humming of all the instruments in the medical ward became unusually loud.
" London,"
Fury said,
"Alive. But she thought you had been dead for sixty years,Captain. She has a husband and children. Her life goes on, just… without your part."
Rogers ' shoulders slumped.
It didn't collapse suddenly; it was like a bridge that was slowly hollowed out by worms. First, the internal structure broke, and then the cracks appeared on the outside.
He didn't cry; he simply placed the cup on the small table beside him, moving very gently, as if afraid of waking something. Then he buried his face in his palms, running his fingers through his blond hair, his knuckles pressingwhite marks into his scalp.
"I need to..."
His voice was muffled in his palm, like an echo rising from a deep well.
"Give me some time. Don't ask me questions, don't make me watch the news. Give me a room, let me... calm down."
"48 hours,"
Fury stood up, the hem of his trench coat brushing against the chair leg.
"The safe house is in Brooklyn, near your hometown. It contains documents, history books, and a TV without internet access. I'll pick you up in 48 hours."
He turned and walked out, lowering his voice as he passedLynn:
" Stark, don't follow him. He doesn't need a landlord right now, he needs an empty room."
Lynn didn't move, but simply took out the old badge from her pocket—the one she had given Gwen before, the one she had slipped back into his hand before leaving—and twirled it between her fingers.
"I'm not going with them. But I have to collect rent. That refrigeration unit consumes a lot of electricity."
Fury's lips twitched, but she didn't laugh. She just patted him on the shoulder and left.
Rogers was helped into a wheelchair.
As he passed Lynn, he stopped and looked up at him.
That look was complicated, like looking at a stranger, yet also like looking at the figure of an acquaintance.
" Stark,"
Rogers said,
"Your eyes look like his. Howard."
"My nose looks like it too,"
Lynn said,
"But he's more straightforward than me."
Rogers twitched the corners of his mouth, but didn't actually laugh.
He was pushed away, the wheels making a soft rumbling sound on the ground, like some small animal retreating.
Zero 3:00 PM, Stark Tower underground parking garage.
Lynn leaned against the car door, her finger hovering over her phone screen for a long time.
The screen displays a text message from Gwen, sent twenty minutes ago:
"My flight had a mechanical problem and I've been rebooked for tomorrow. I'm at the Ritz near JFK, room 1207. If you come, I'll stay another day. If you don't, I'll leave tonight."
He stared at the text message for ten seconds, then put his phone back in his pocket, opened the car door, and got in.
The engine started, and the exhaust pipe emitted a heavy panting sound, like a dog that had just finished running.
2:20 PM, Ritz -Carlton Hotel, Room 1207.
The door wasn't locked.
Lynn pushed open the door and entered. Gwen was sitting on the edge of the bed, her suitcase spread out beside her, only half-filled, the other half scattered on the bed.
She was wearing one of his old shirts. The one he'd left with her last time; the cuffs were frayed, the hem hung down to mid-thigh, and the buttons were fastened wrong—the third button was tucked into the fourth.
"You've come,"
She said, without turning around, her fingers folding a cardigan inside her suitcase.
"They're here,"
Lynn closed the door with a click.
"The rent hasn't been collected yet."
Gwen stood up and turned around. Her eyes were a little red, but her makeup was intact, only her eyelashes were still slightly damp.
She walked over to him, looked up at him, her nose almost touching his chin: " Rogers is awake?"
"woke up,"
Lynn said,
"Ask where Peggy is. Fury gave him 48 hours to recover."
"And what about you?"
Gwen asked,
Do you need to slow down?
Lynn did not answer.
He reached out and unbuttoned the mis-buttoned shirt, then buttoned it back up. His fingertips brushed against her collarbone; it was very hot.
Gwen flinched, but didn't flinch.
"My approach is different," he said.
"In what way?"
"Pay back your debts."
Lynn said that his palm pressed her towards him.
"You owe me money, settle your debt."
Gwen chuckled softly, with a slightly nasal tone.
She took the initiative to kiss him; his lips were soft and had the coolness of mint toothpaste.
This kiss wasn't as hurried as before.
What happened next was slow.
The curtains were drawn, and the room was dark, with only the hum of the air conditioner, like the slow breathing of some huge creature.
It's slow, but deep, like a key slowly turning in a lock, finding the perfect groove, then stopping, and turning half a circle again.
Do you remember that time?
Gwen leaned down, her lips brushing against his earlobe, her voice soft, as if coming from a great distance.
"In the car. You looked like you hadn't eaten for three days..."
"Like a wild dog,"
Lynn responded, running her hand through her long hair to support the back of her head.
"And now?"
"Now it's like a satisfied cat,"
He said, a slight smile curving his lips.
"No rush."
The wind and waves subsided very slowly, like the receding tide, wave after wave, until only the dampness remained on the beach.
" California, I'm going!"
She said, her voice muffled.
"But the debt has been settled first. I don't owe you anything."
"No debt,"
Lynn said, running her fingers through her sweaty hair.
"But I still owe you."
"What do you owe?"
"I owe you a refund,"
He said his voice was very soft, as if he was afraid of breaking something.
"Come back to collect the debt in two weeks or two months."
Gwen didn't speak, but simply reached out and hugged his waist, gently tracing the scratches on his back with her fingers. Outside the window, planes were taking off in the direction of JFK, their engines roaring like some kind of giant bird migrating.
Chapter 90 Follow-up Plans
Stark Tower, medical floor. Pietro moved the plastic chair closer to the hospital bed, the chair legs creaking loudly as they scraped against the floor.
He twirled a screwdriver in his hand, the metal handle flashing a silver light between his fingers before landing with a snap in his palm.
The screwdriver bit was chipped off; it had been broken off when he was repairing a radio before. But he didn't throw it away; he kept it in his pocket.
Wanda lay there, breathing very lightly, her chest rising and falling so little it looked like she was counting money.
Her fingers rested on the edge of the sheet, her knuckles covered in hardened skin from the water scalds, burn marks from welding the door yesterday.
The temporary stabilizer was fastened back to my wrist, the LED lights were all green, like a row of frozen fireflies,jumping very steadily.
The door slid open.
Lynn walked in, still buttoning one button wrong on her shirt; the second button was tucked into the buttonhole of the third, and the hem was uneven, one side longer than the other.
He was carrying a paper bag containing leftover dumplings from a Polish restaurant. They had been microwaved twice, and the sauerkraut had gone bad, mixed with the greasiness of pork.
"She's not awake,"
Pietro didn't look up; he spun the screwdriver between his fingers again.
"You were gone for six hours."
"went to the airport,"
Lynn placed the paper bag on the instrument table, covering the heart rate chart that Banner had forgotten there.
"Sending someone away."
" Gwen?"
Pietro finally looked up, his eyes red, not from crying, but from exhaustion, like two rotten peaches.
"You have so many women."
"Not as many as your sister,"
Lynn said. He walked to the other side of the bed and looked down at Wanda's face.
Her lips were chapped, with a scab-covered crack on her upper lip from biting herself yesterday. Lynn took a lip balm out of her pocket, twisted it open, and knelt down by the bed to apply it to her lips. Her movements were slow, like oiling a rusty keyhole.
Pietro stared at him for a few seconds, then the screwdriver stopped turning. He stuffed the tool back into his pocket, stood up, and his knee clicked.
"Where's that thing downstairs?"
"She's asleep,"
Lynn said, her finger still gently stroking Wanda's lips.
"temporary."
What does "temporary" mean?
"The welding rod hasn't dried completely yet,"
Lynn closed the lip balm and put it back in her pocket.
"Don't kick the door, it's okay."
Pietro walked to the bedside, picked up the water glass, dipped a cotton swab in water, and moistened Wanda's lips.
His fingers trembled more than Lynn's. He dabbed the cotton swab three or four times on Wanda's lips, and half of the water dripped down his chin. He wiped it with his sleeve, which frayed the cuffs.
When will she wake up?
Pietro asked.
" Banner said within 24 hours,"
Lynn pulled over a chair, sat down, and the chair legs madea duller, different sound than Lynn's.
"Her fog has been depleted, like a phone that's run out of battery; it just needs to be charged."
"And what about you?"
Pietro set the water glass down, the glass bottom tapping crisply against the metal tray.
"You broke three ribs, and they healed on their own?"
Lynn lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing her smooth skin below her left rib, with only a faint white mark, like a pencil mark erased by an eraser:
" The Wolverine bill was settled last night. It feels flat to the touch now, but it's still itchy inside, like ants are crawling on it."
Pietro frowned, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just muttered:
"...monster."
"Um,"
Lynn put the shirt down.
"monster."
8:30 a.m., Tony's lab.
Tony pushed the holographic projection to its maximum, and the scanned image of the Winter Soldier backup pod floated in mid-air, like a skinned skeleton.
He held a cup of coffee in his hand; it had gone cold, and a layer of grease had formed on the surface. He took a sip, his brow furrowed, and then put the cup down, leaving a brown stain on the table where the bottom of the cup had tapped.
"Empty,"
Tony said he drew a line on the projection figure with his finger, magnifying the internal structure of the cabin.
"It's not that there's no liquid inside, it's that this thing was never meant to hold people. It's a receiver, like an antenna, like a router."
Banner sat beside her, holding her third cup of coffee, her eyelids drooping like a damp towel.
"Receive what?"
"Receive Rogers ' brainwaves upstairs,"
Tony switched the projection figure to a spectrum graph, with two curves side by side.
"Look, the neural impulses Rogers made when he was thawed perfectly match the resonant frequency of this wrecked pod downstairs. Someone is using this thing… to synchronize his memories, or to copy his consciousness, or…"
"Or remote activation,"
Banner chimed in, tapping the keyboard twice with his fingers.
"If the hull is a relay station, then the real Winter Soldierbackup could be anywhere with a signal. Even..."
"It doesn't even exist as a physical entity,"
Tony swept the coffee cup aside, spilling liquid onto the keyboard, but he didn't bother to wipe it up.
"It's consciousness uploading, it's digital backup. Hydralikes to play this game, treating people like USB drives, plugging and unplugging them."
Jarvis's voice drifted from the speakers, with an upgraded, more human-like tone:
"Sir, the keyboard got wet. Should I start the drying program?"
"Shut up,"
Tony said,
"We just analyzed up to 37%, let's continue."
"Analysis interrupted,"
Jarvis said,
"Because the keyboard got wet."
Tony cursed and grabbed a tissue to wipe the keyboard.Banner, watching from the side, suddenly said:
"If the backup has already been activated or digitized, where is it? Who is it waiting for?"
Tony stopped wiping the keyboard. He looked up at the banner, his eyes bright.
"Wait for the key. Just like with ADAM-0, wait for Lynn to open the door."
At 10:15 a.m. on the same day, at the Brooklyn safe house.
Rogers sat by the window in a hard wooden chair without a cushion.
He was wearing a casual outfit Fury had given him: a grey hoodie, jeans, and sneakers with the tags still on and price tags still attached to the shoe tongues.
He wasn't used to it; the hoodie was too loose, the jeans were too tight, and the soles of the sneakers were too soft, like walking on cotton.
On the table in front of me lay a thick booklet, SHIELD's "Chronicle of World Events After 1945 ".
He turned to the page about the Vietnam War. The photos were black and white, showing soldiers carrying stretchers in the jungle while helicopters sprayed fire overhead. He stared at them for twenty minutes, his fingers tracing the creases along the edges of the photos, his fingertips rubbing the paper until it became rough.
Then he closed the book and didn't look at the back. He was afraid of seeing more people he knew die, or more people he didn't know die.
Someone knocked on the door.
A young agent walked in, carrying a paper bag containing hamburgers and cola.
The agent placed the items on the table, said nothing, and turned to leave.
"etc,"
Rogers spoke, his voice more steady than yesterday, but still with a thawed hoarseness.
" Howard Stark. When…did he die?"
The agent paused for a moment, clearly not expecting this question:
"1974, sir. Car accident."
Rogers pulled a newspaper from his sweatshirt pocket. Itwas given to him by Fury's people yesterday. It had a picture of Howard in the 1960s, standing in front of an airplane, with a big smile and very white teeth.
Rogers spread the newspaper on the table and pointed to the photograph:
"His son. I met a young man named Lynn at Stark Tower. He said he was Howard's son."
"Yes,"
The agent said, his gaze drifting towards the door.
" Lynn Stark. Mr. Howard's...youngest son. "
" Howard was already in his thirties in 1945,"
Rogers said, his grey-blue pupils staring at Agent like two unmelting blocks of ice.
"This young man looks to be in his early twenties. Even ifHoward had a child late in life, the timing doesn't match up. And…"
He paused, his fingers creasing the edge of the newspaper deeply.
"And his eyes. They're so similar. Not the son's, but a copy."
The agent's Adam's apple bobbed:
"Sir, these details… may require Director Fury's personal explanation. I…"
"You know nothing,"
Rogers finished speaking for him, folded the newspaper, and put it back in his pocket.
"Go ahead. I won't make things difficult for you."
The agent fled as if running away, and the door slammed shut with a loud thud.
Rogers sat on a wooden chair, looking out the window at the streets of Brooklyn.
The buildings are still the same, but the signs have changed, the cars have changed, and the clothes people wear have changed.
He reached into his pocket and found an older photograph, a letter Peggy Carter had written to him in 1945, with the words "Teach me to dance when the war is over" on the back.
The ink in the photo has faded, as if it had been washed with water.
Zero 3:00 noon, Stark Tower medical floor.
Wanda's finger twitched.
First the little finger, then the ring finger, like a steel Jeantesting keys.
Lynn sat on the edge of the bed, peeling an orange. The peel broke several times, and juice splattered onto his shirt cuffs, turning them yellow like rust stains.
He saw Wanda's fingers move, but instead of calling for help immediately, he put down the oranges and wiped his hands on his trouser leg.
Then I took her fingers and gently stroked the back of her hand with my fingertips, like stroking the fur of a sleeping cat.
Wanda's eyelids fluttered, and she opened them.
Her pupils were still that deep brown, but they held a light within them, as if she had just surfaced from deep water. She stared at the ceiling for about three seconds, then slowly turned her head to look at Lynn.
"... Where is Rogers?"
She asked, her voice hoarse like a broken bellows.
"Slowing down,"
Lynn said,
" Brooklyn. Safehouse."
"Slow down what?"
"Sixty years later,"
Lynn tightened her grip on her fingers. "You get twenty-four hours. He gets forty-eight. Fair. "
Wanda's lips curved into a smile, but she immediately frowned again, as if a painful nerve had been touched.
"I... am hungry."
The door was suddenly pushed open.
Pietro burst in, carrying a paper bag filled with hot dogs and fries, sauce smeared all over the outside. He sawWanda's eyes widen, stopped in his tracks, and nearly dropped the bag.
"sister?!"
"She's hungry,"
Lynn said,
What did you buy?
"Hot dogs! She used to love these! The kind from the streets of Sokovia!"
Pietro rushed to the bedside, placed the paper bag on the blanket, and frantically began to unpack it, smearing sauce all over his hands.
"It has pickles and mustard! And fries! A large portion!"
Wanda frowned even more as she looked at the pile of greasy stuff.
"...I want to eat porridge. White porridge. With a little bit of sugar."
Pietro froze, still clutching half a hot dog in his hand:
"...ah?"
"Go,"
Lynn stood up and patted Pietro on the shoulder.
"The Chinese restaurant downstairs serves white congee with white sugar. Hurry up, or she'll yell at you if the congee gets cold."
Pietro stuffed the hot dog back into the paper bag, turned around and rushed out, almost bumping into the door frame.
His footsteps thumped in the corridor, like a dog that had been robbed of its food but had found its way back.
Wanda looked at his back, smiled slightly, then immediately took a breath and pressed her acupoint:
"...My head hurts even when I laugh."
"normal,"
Lynn sat down again, peeled the last segment of the orange, and brought it to her lips.
"I'm exhausted from all this fog, my brain is still spinning. I need something sweet to replenish it."
Wanda opened her mouth, put the orange segment in, and gently bit the flesh with her teeth, the juice bursting on her tongue.
She chewed twice, swallowed, and then suddenly reached out, grabbed Lynn's wrist, and pressed her fingertips into his palm.
"The scar on your palm,"
She said, her voice still soft but clearer, "It wasn't there yesterday. Why is it white today?"
"The newly settled accounts,"
Lynn said,
" The Wolverine pen. It healed on its own; the scar is still there, but it's faded."
Wanda traced the white mark on his palm with her thumb, as if reading Braille:
"From now on... will you not die?"
"He will die,"
Lynn said,
"It's just that it dies a little slower. Like rusty iron, it doesn't break all at once, but crumbles little by little."
"That's good,"
Wanda said, burying her face in the pillow, her voice muffled.
"I died too quickly, and the debts haven't been settled yet. I'm not reconciled."
Lynn didn't say anything, but simply tucked her exposed hand back under the covers and tucked the corner of the blanket in.
At 2:17 PM, Lynn's phone rang. It was Fury's number.
" Rogers asked about Howard,"
Fury's voice was flat, like a steel plate rubbing against something, "When they ask about your age, how do you explain that?"
"No explanation,"
Lynn stood at the window in the corridor, looking at the buildings outside.
"Let him ask the old man himself."
Howard is dead.
Fury said.
"So I answered for him,"
Lynn said,
"Once Rogers has calmed down, come and confront me. I'll be right here."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone. Fury's breathing was heavy, like an old-fashioned blower.
"The backup compartment downstairs,"
Fury changed the subject.
" Hill said it's a relay station. The real backup may already be online, or it may have already been activated and is hidden somewhere we can't see it."
"Then let him hide it,"
Lynn said,
"If it's hidden away for too long, it will rust."
" Lynn,"
Fury suddenly spoke, lowering his voice by an octave.
" Rogers isn't an ordinary man. He's Captain America. If he recovers and discovers that the world is more chaotic than he imagined, and that Howard created something like you... what will he do?"
"He'll go dancing,"
Lynn said.
"What?"
"Peggy Carter promised to teach him to dance,"
Lynn switched the phone to the other ear.
"He hasn't danced in sixty years, so he has to practice first. When he's practicing, he doesn't have time to pay attention to me."
Fury hung up.
Lynn put her phone back in her pocket and turned to walk back.
As he passed the entrance to the medical floor, he sawPietro squatting on the ground, holding a bowl of whiteporridge in his hands, blowing on it to cool it down.
His lips were red from the heat, but he didn't stop, blowing very seriously, as if he were conducting some kind of precise experiment.
Lynn stood at the door for two seconds, but didn't go in. She just turned around and walked towards the elevator.