#goshiluvarrows

White-gloved hands held a thin StarkPad up close to the crimson-haired alien’s face – far closer than it needed to be. It wasn’t like he hadn’t learned in six thousand years or however long he’d been reading that this would not improve his understanding of the situation presented on the screen. Eros’s blue eyes were wide, horned eyebrows high and furrowed in confusion as he walked through the sterile hall, all serious and drab grays lit up by severe fluorescents. It just made the Avenger’s natural garishness stand out even more, as if highlighting that his presence at S.H.I.E.L.D. was always a bit odd.

It was possible that the Titan was not, in fact, confused. It could have been that he’d rather not have to deal with the information he was reading. It was about Chitauri technology recovered from the Battle of New York, and the diagrams that were made elucidated that said technology had an alarming similarity to devices of Titanian design. He had already been 99.999% sure that his brother was behind the thwarted invasion, but as usual he’d hoped for the .001%. He still did – maybe it was a coincidence.

In his confused – if not slightly distressed – distraction and in his (presumed) solitude buffered by the thick metal walls, the empath let his mental guard down a bit, like one might relax their jaw which they didn’t even know they were clenching. He’d have to get a firsthand look at the equipment, especially at what appeared to be a trashed navigation system. The engineers at S.H.I.E.L.D. were more than competent, but they were still dealing with technology they didn’t have a frame of reference for studying, so maybe there was something misrepresented in the analyses. Or maybe . . .

. . . There was someone else in the general vicinity, coming from somewhere on the left. He couldn’t quite make out anything other than that there was a person and that they were feeling – that was, had emotions – as people generally do. In other circumstances his sensitivity would allow him to already figure out who it was – someone he knew, or a stranger – based on the unique characteristics of their emotions; however the walls here were thick and dense enough to muffle that (though not as much as Eternal had thought – an unsurprising consequence of his detrimental hypersensitivity).

The person wasn’t making much noise but they were getting closer. The emotional information that they emitted became clearer and more intense, until the point that Eros could –

– Well how about that? It was Clint Barton. Hawkeye. Someone he hadn’t seen in – well since the last time he’d been on Earth before this. Starfox lowered the tablet from his face to reveal a giant shit-eating grin just waiting for Barton to turn the corner.

The Mission: Those with a scientific background will meet with hospital lab technicians to secure access to the samples that they have on file and they will then be given use of a research facility nearby in order to work out the exact causes and effects of the virus. Everyone else involved will be responsible for tracking down any leads that they can uncover while canvassing the city and cooperating with the local police departments to gain access to crime scenes. Proceed with caution; much of the city is armed and assumed to be very dangerous.

Gleaming white high rise hotels had staked their claim in the sand long ago, bordering the crystalline blue of the ocean lapping obediently at the shore as it always had; but behind the area devoted solely to tourists and consumerism, the sky was black- filled with the smoke of burning sugar cane, the only visible presence of a poor, working class in an otherwise picture-perfect paradise. The shapeshifter could smell it on the air as they rode along in the taxi with the windows down, the scent of burning plant material interspersed with the sweet scent of the ocean. Maceió, Brasil. She’d read something about maceiós in South America- the name had stemmed from an ancient Indian language and didn’t really have a word in English. It described naturally spontaneous bodies of water that flowed from soil that mostly flowed out to sea. Some eventually became trapped and formed lagoas, as were common in an area prone to high rainfall during its season. The native population often treated the bodies of water as evidence of the divine, and had more recently begun spinning tales of evil emerging from the depths of the earth and infecting those that drank from the pools..

They’d touched down in the very early morning, riding in on the wings of dawn and stepping onto Brazilian soil just as the sun had fully emerged from behind the horizon. It was already hot. Glistening beads of perspiration had already gathered along her hairline and lingered on the delicate curve of her spine. She glanced over at her teammates, crammed into the back of the small taxicab with hunched shoulders. A quirk of her lips was given to the wiry, bespectacled brunette at the opposite window- they’d made Clint sit in the middle and from what she could tell, he was still harboring resentment for it. It was an entertaining scene- the three Avengers all squashed into such a small space, their driver rambling in conversational Portuguese that all but one of them ignored. It’d been decided that a more conventional mode of travel would draw the least amount of attention in a city where tensions were already high. There’d been riots the night before and they would likely keep occurring under the cover of darkness. Maria realized that it had probably not been smoke from cane fires that she’d seen billowing up from the poor quarter of the city. 

The cab slid to a stop. “Obrigada, senhor.” She gave him a handful of crumpled, brightly colored reais before opening the door and stepping out. “Sê seguro, sim?” He gave her a grave nod and a thumbs up before driving away, leaving the motley crew standing on a near-deserted sidewalk at the edge of the rich, tourist center. The homes that bordered the avenues that stretched outward toward the fields diminished in quality the further they were from the main coastline.