Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

As Ethan finished zipping his jacket he reached for his messenger bag. He then walked over to his kitchen and opened the area under his sink and inside he opened a box then he grabbed out the grappling hook that was inside and put it in his messenger bag. He then opened one of his drawers and took out a flashlight, it was small enough to fit in his pocket so that is where he decided to put it. Then he went to his cabinet where he hung up his shirts. Inside, hidden behind some shirts, was a bag with tools, he reached inside and pulled out a multitool. He was about to walk away when he seemed to think for a moment before he reached inside again and pulled out his combat knife and sheath as well.

He put his multitool in his pocket with his pen flashlight. As for his sheathed knife he hooked it up to his back, attached to his belt, but hidden under his jacket. He then stepped out of his apartment and made his way towards Felicia's sorority house. When he arrived he could literally hear the moans of several women and grunting of men coming from the living room through the front door. So instead of knocking on the door he backed up to the side walk and just texted Felicia that he had arrived.

A moment later he saw one of the windows open and Felicia scaled down the side of the building. When she got down he could see the blush on her face. "Let's go…"

Ethan only nodded in agreement before he led the way, with no more words exchanged between them. Soon enough they arrived at an old warehouse that was across the street from a hotel and in between a doughnut shop and a police precinct.

Felicia only looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Ethan shrugged then walked towards the alley between the warehouse and the doughnut shop. It was a gravel encased walkway stuck in between two brick walls that was about an arms length in width. When he was about halfway down he stopped and then pointed at the brick wall between them and the warehouse, "do you need a boost?"

Felicia smiled then shook her head in refusal before she ran at the wall then ran up the wall and launched herself over it. Ethan smiled before he ran at the opposite wall and bounced off the wall between the alley and the doughnut shop and then vaulted over the wall for the warehouse.

Felicia smirked at him, "did you need a boost?" While stating sarcastically.

Ethan shook his head as he walked towards the warehouse, while a smile graced his face. When he arrived at the wall, which was multiple metal sheets set up along beams, he looked around until he found a metal sheet that had started peeling away. He opened it a bit more and Felicia slipped in before he could even say anything. Then he maneuvered inside as well.

Once inside he saw Felicia looking inside two of the only crates in the warehouse with a flashlight. He shook his head when he saw that. But instead of saying something he walked towards the guard shack that was in the corner of the warehouse. Once he was there he started looking around.

"I thought you said this place might have sciency stuff. Where is it?" Felicia asked once she deemed those boxes were truly empty. With a note of disappointment in her voice.

"Actually I said the facility might have stuff. The warehouse, although abandoned, obviously wouldn't have anything in it. Now then where is it?" Ethan explained.

Felicia made an 'O' face as she understood, "what are you looking for?"

"A- ah" Ethan turned to look at Felicia when he noticed a clock on the wall. He walked up next to her and then turned the clock's hands.

*Groan* 

There was a slight shaking as within 10 feet of the guard shack the ground started moving and a descending stairway revealed itself out of the seemingly complete concrete floor.

"Fortunately the clock is broken because if it was working then we might be on a time limit." Ethan exclaimed as he approached the stairs.

"Actually it looks like this clock runs on power from the building to function." Felicia inferred as she looked at the back of the clock for a moment.

Then she glanced at Ethan who was already climbing down the stairs. Rushing down to see the facility. As they walked down the stairs they ended up at a corridor where they walked for about 5 minutes before Ethan stopped, looking at a part of the corridor that fell apart. Unfortunately it appeared the corridor was a suspended walk and when it fell apart, it fell into an area below. He shined his flashlight down and saw a large area below.

"So-"

"Okay this time I really am going to need a hand." Felicia claimed as she looked at the other side of the corridor. "Or a moving foothold to be precise."

Ethan glanced at the corridor then back at Felicia and nodded in understanding. He then partially crouched and stood in a spot where he could launch Felicia through with a foot hold. Felicia walked back a few feet before she suddenly started running forward. When she got close she put her foot on his hands and he tossed her as she kicked off his hands. Which gave her enough force to land on the other corridor which shook for a moment.

"Okay, I am kinda glad my dad recommended I learn gymnastics now. Now how do we get you across?" Felicia started looking around when she noticed him backing up. He then made for a running start, but he was angled diagonally to the corridor. Once he reached the side he kicked off the side of the corridor. Which launched him vertically and horizontally. But he forgot his new strength and only remembered when he landed perfectly in the corridor when he thought he would only land just on the edge. But when he looked at Felicia he saw the stunned look on her face.

After blinking for a moment. He walked past her as if it was nothing, no point in dwelling on it now. "Come on, you gonna stand there all day?" Ethan asked smugly. He then thought back to his landing earlier. He should have had some issue with the force and momentum keeping his motion going forward but if felt like when he landed he had stuck to the floor instead. He would have to check that out later.

Felicia nodded, "okay that is fair. Y'know for a guy trained in all sorts of martial arts you are fairly dexterous and nimble. How's that?"

"Hmm…" They finally arrived at a pair of stairs which they started walking down, "most of my teacher's had me learn workouts that forced me to practice my flexibility."

Felicia frowned at that, "you do know that is weird right?"

"Oh yeah, I am perfectly aware." Ethan said. Thinking about it alone gave him a headache. His parents were making an effort to train him, that much was clear to even his aunt and uncle. Not that they ever talked about it.

They walked down again only to open the door to the large area they saw earlier. But now that they had a better view he could see what this place had to offer.

"First off before we go touching anything. We should check the files." Ethan walked towards what should be a filing cabinet pulling out his multitool and within five minutes the cabinet was in pieces scattered across the floor. Ethan himself was putting his multitool back as he looked at the four files that were in hand. Each one had a canceled label on them.

"Okay let us start with the more recent ones," Ethan then opened a file that was labeled with the year 1973. "Project Gear… blah blah blah… freeze gun… defective… single prototype… disc gun… defective prototype sent to another lab for possible uses." He put the file in his bag, "looks like there is a freeze gun around here, it should look like a pistol with blue pellets for ammo."

Felicia nodded as she looked around while he looked at the other files. "Found it. I also found a fridge with glass containers with various colored liquids."

Ethan nodded, "there should be a Project Hail Mary with five containers, Project Stratious with three containers, and Project Symbiote with five containers and two sealed canisters. Be careful with those last ones, apparently they are sentient creatures." Felicia frowned and then walked over and handed the freeze gun to him, she found it fairly quickly it was near the fridge on a table, which he put in his bag along with the remainder of the files. He then walked towards the only desk with a computer in here, which was still a mystery to him. But after what he saw in those files it was probably just the tip of the iceberg.

While he approached the computer, Felicia pulled off her back pack while she was in front of the cold storage unit; it seemed to be wired into an off-the-grid's electricity system. She opened her armored bag which also had thermal shielding so it doubled as a temporary cold storage unit then she first took out the two bigger canisters and put them at the bottom. She then started putting the rest of the vials and containers. Once the storage was empty of every useful thing she started walking away. Not noticing that the fridge door was slowly closing. When she got back to Ethan he was shoving an old computer harddrive in his messenger bag while a dismantled computer sat in front of him.

"All done?" he asked.

"Yup, let's go." They then quickly made their way up the stairs. While the cold storage door was slowly closing. "Why are we moving at a hurried pace?"

"Because something will go wrong, it always does. Come on, let's go." Ethan quickly ran to the broken passage and set up to toss Felicia. Felicia noticed and immediately picked up speed and used his hands as a boost again.

Once she was across Ethan backed up and at that moment the lights for the facility suddenly came back online, as the cold storage door closed. Ethan was stunned for a moment but quickly remembered, "run!" Yelled Felicia from the other side. Then he made a mad dash and jumped the gap. As he was jumping he noticed the emblem on the wall of the facility was not the SSR emblem.

When he landed he had seen Felicia already ahead of him, further down the corridor. But the corridor shook when he landed so he started running immediately and could hear the corridor collapsing behind him as he ran.

Felicia had already made it up the stairs and was in the warehouse when Ethan bolted out of the stairs just as it was closing. He only took a moment to rest though as he approached the way they came in and slipped out of the warehouse to see Felicia who happily squealed, then he followed after her. Felicia and Ethan jumped the wall again to get to the alley. They then went to the sidewalk and started walking down the sidewalk away from the warehouse in a hurried pace. As they walked they could hear the crash as the warehouse slowly collapsed in on itself.

Felicia's heart was still racing, she latched herself onto Ethan's arm as they walked. Eventually they arrived at Ethan's apartment. Ethan barely got a moment to set down his bag and relax before he was pounced on by Felicia as she started pulling off his shirt.

"Oh God, that was so tense! Is it always that exciting!?!" Felicia started kissing his neckline as she pressed her lean body against his feeling his hardness through his jeans.

"If activities like that get you turned on I might have to center more dates around them." Ethan slipped his hands under her clothes, one hand grabbed and groped her ass while undid the clasp on her bra.

—---------------------------------

Almost a minute after the power was tripped back on at the secret facility, Director Fury got a notification he had never received or even realized existed before. Apparently a facility that they were secretly watching had turned itself back on.

Fury sent in agents to commence a normal check-in and it appeared the above ground cover had collapsed upon the hidden facility itself.

Fury was in a car within a minute of being notified. He was sitting in the backseat while looking at a classified file he had no knowledge of before labeled as 'Operation Dragon Watch'. The file detailed that the facility was an old SSR facility that was sold to a private firm, but it was believed that the firm was a front for Hydra so they kept tabs on it even after it was shut down in 1973. In the front seats was a pair of SHIELD agents.

Fury pulled out his phone and was about to call Coulson, but he stopped when he remembered he was on a special assignment. He instead called Hill, the phone rang for a minute before she answered.

"Yes boss." She sounded a bit groggy.

"Hill, wake up the super soldier and bring him to the address I am about to send you." Fury then hung up and continued reading through the file. There were two other addresses that were suspected of being Hydra facilities. How did such a gem of knowledge avoid him for so long? He had no idea. He would have to look into it.

—----------------------------------

The next morning Felicia awoke to the sound of sizzling, she looked towards the sound to see Ethan cooking something on the stovetop using two pans and a spatula. She sniffed the air and smelled meat.

"Mmm… smells good." Felicia stated as she stretched out on the bed. Her body felt sore and fatigued. She kind of wanted to stay in bed all day.

Ethan shrugged, "wheat cakes and bacon. As well as fruit if you want." Ethan glanced at her in time to see her put on one of his shirts as she climbed out of bed.

"Ooh… that looks good. I am surprised that you don't have a computer in here." Felicia looked around again, "scratch that I am more surprised that you would live in a place so small."

"Well I have never really needed a big place." Ethan flipped a wheat cake onto a plate then tossed two pieces of bacon on the plate and handed it to Felicia.

"So I guess that means you usually ended up at the other person's place. By the way, those are called pancakes." Felicia took a bite of her bacon.

"They are the same thing and what do you mean?" Ethan poured another batter of mix into the pan.

"I once heard that techniques like the ones you showed off last night come with experience. So-"

"Your mom?" Ethan interrupted her and looked straight at her with a raised eyebrow.

*Cough* Felicia blushed while coughing into her hand.

"Anyway. So that must mean you have had plenty of partners in bed. Did you ever get serious with any of them?" Felicia asked but regretted it a moment later.

Ethan's expression broke for a second and she could see sadness in his eyes, "yeah, one. Can we switch to a different subject? I don't feel comfortable talking about this with you just yet."

Felicia nodded in understanding, "sure. In that case what did you do with that stuff we found last night?"

Ethan pointed at the fridge, "I put the cold storage stuff in the fridge. In an hour if you are feeling up to it we can take them to the hideout to store them."

Felicia glanced at the bed again. Blushing at the memory of last night's passion. Then flinched as she shifted in her seat and felt the pain in her rear end. Then she also remembered what got her so excited last night in the first place. The possibility of getting caught. "Sure. By the way, is that place set up with lab equipment?"

Ethan shook his head, "no. I can get the equipment eventually but it will take some time. Fortunately I do have an off the grid power system and plenty of cold storage devices."

"Hmm… in that case I can look up the kind of equipment needed for my research." Felicia looked down at her finished plate of food then she reached for the fruits. "Anyways do you think anyone noticed we were there?"

"Well considering the underground facility and aboveground warehouse started collapsing in on itself I would say there is a high probability." Ethan reminded her of the tremors they felt when they were walking away. "Anyways while I was looking at those files earlier I noticed that they were labeled Hydra. Except one which was labeled as SHIELD instead."

"So chances are they might look for us. What are the chances of them finding us?"

"Zero, we wore gloves and all the camera's within a mile radius were disabled. But honestly I would be more worried about Hydra. Chances are they heard about it as well."

Felicia sighed, "then we wait and stash the stuff." Then she frowned, "Hydra?"

—-------------------------------

Meanwhile back at the warehouse.

A blond haired man looked at the symbol on the wall with a scowl on his face. "Fury, do we know what happened here?"

"Only guess work. According to one of Director Carter's files this was an old SSR facility that hydra got a hold of. But at some point they abandoned the facility. Taking almost everything. They might have left some things behind but both the hardcopy files as well as the harddrive for the computer were missing." He then looked over at the symbol that the other man was looking at.

It was a legendary dragon with several heads, a Hydra, that was painted on the wall in a faded red color. It was a large and imposing symbol but was clearly faded by time.

"If Carter knew this place was Hydra why didn't she search the facility?"

"Probably because after the war things became mixed up. Politics and what not, she could not march straight in here. This place in particular was sold to a military contractor that was doing spywork for the U.S. during the Cold War." Fury was suddenly handed a report by one of the technicians. He read over it for a second.

"The people that broke in are more than likely not related to Hydra. It looks like the place collapsing was an accident. The underground corridor collapsed which caused a cascade of structural damage and made the rest of the attached facilities collapse." Fury read through the report. "They also verified there were vials and two larger containers in the cold storage from the dust inside."

"People?" the man asked.

Fury nodded, "yes. They left no evidence of themselves even being here, not even a foot print. But according to an officer who was working the graveyard shift last night he saw two silhouettes, a man and a woman come out of the alley next to the warehouse about 5 minutes before the entire place collapsed." Fury then closed the file. "I guess this means we don't need to search very hard for them then."

"Actually that is all the more reason to find them." the man stated.

"What do you mean?"

"Two people, possibly unrelated to either Hydra or Shield, knew about this place. Not to mention a perfect break-in. Whoever they are, they found this place in such a way that could help us find other facilities, without Hydra knowing." The man explained.

"Hmm… maybe," Fury then smiled as he handed the report and Carter's file to him. "But I am not going to waste Shield resources on something that has literally no leads." As Fury walked away he motioned for his people to finish cleaning up, "if you want to look into it, Captain Steve Rogers, then by all means go for it."

Steve shook his head as he looked at the two files that were in his hands. He then walked up to the street and hailed a taxi. As soon as he stepped inside, "New York Public Library."

He then started looking through Carter's file, according to the file there are four possible locations they might've gone to or go to next. Rogers smiled as he looked over the file. It was labeled for only the places in New York. Which meant that there was a whole slew of files like this in the archives. He would have to ask for the rest of the files to look into them later.