Golden Widow #1: Awakening

1

"Well, Fury did tell me to alert you if we found anything..." Daniels sniped, as if I were a thorn in his side. Oh please, does he realise how annoying I could get? Apparently not. "And anyway, I don't think so. Not a weather balloon. It's bigger. A lot bigger."

"You know, we don't have the equipment for a job like this." The first man denoted, looking at us concernedly.

"How long before me can start craning it out?" The second man counteracted the first, ignoring his previous statement.

"I don't think you quite understand." Daniels began, as we began to reach it. "You guys are gonna need one hell of a crane."

My eyes met something sticking out of the icy ground, surrounded by people with red light sticks. One man stood at the summit, holding an icy blue torch, shining it on the discovery. My hand fisted inside my pocket for the image Fury had given me when I had left headquarters, displaying the Valkyrie. The plane that had gone down, taking my brother with her. I felt the tears start to freeze in my eyes, burning them for something so cold. My other hand lifted to wipe them away as the first brought out the sheet of folded paper. It began to unfold with the wind, and I instantly began to see similarities between the wing shapes, although obviously the one in front of me was covered in chunks and shards of ice.

"Well?" Daniels looked at me expectantly, trying to restrain himself from ripping the photo from my hands to look at himself. "Is it? Or did we call you out here for no reason?"

"It's a match, or as close a one as we will find." I clarified, lifting my head back up to the wing. One of the men beside us slowly took off his frosted over glasses in amazement, gazing at the sight. Two realisations spread like butter over me, one being that we had found him, the other...

Frantically, my feet pushed me up toward the wing of the fallen bird, my hand scrabbling for anything solid to hold onto to help me up. The man at the top grabbed my hand, smiling sincerely as he helped to pull me to the top.

"You seem eager." He pointed out, chuckling as he spoke. Despite the pit that was growing deep in my stomach, my lips still lifted in a wide smile.

"I'm getting closure to an almost lifelong mystery. I... I just want to know what exactly happened to him." I addressed him, as I climbed up to the top.

"Are you his granddaughter then?" The man asked. I shook my head, gazing at the ice beneath our feet, a rusted image of a skull with tentacles meeting my eyes, my stomach flipping as memories screamed through my head.

"No. His sister."

The man began to laugh as my head lifted back up to face him. His laugh became more awkward as he began to realise the truth behind my words.

"You're not joking? Why do you look so... so..." He stumbled, studying my face through the blowing snow.

"It's a long story." I sighed, walking over to a group of people using some heavy machinery to lift up a large laser.

"Is this how we're getting in?" I enquired, nodding my head at the high tech monster as they pushed it into position.

"Yeah." A woman replied, turning to face me with her gloved hands still on it. "What's gonna happen is it's gonna cut a circle in the metal, allowing us to get a closer look inside."

"And it won't harm him if he is inside?" The woman looked to one of the others around us before answering.

"It shouldn't do... as long as he isn't directly underneath it..." She finally answered, turning back to me. There was no way that I couldn't detect the uncertainty that was laced around her tongue like a dangerous thread.