3rd Person POV:
Somewhere over the clouds of North America...
In the commanding room of the helicarrier, Nick Fury was thinking over the plans of the Avengers initiative when a lone figure walked in, disrupting his train of thought.
Nick Fury, without turning around, stated. "What's the matter, Agent Hill."
Behind him, the slim brunette woman with her hair tied up in a bun swiped through her iPad and handed it to the director.
When Fury received the iPad, his singular eye slightly dilated.
At the top corner of the screen, it reads: "GOI 0137 WAREHOUSE CAM 6".
In the video, a man draped in leather and fur was doing some mortal combat style finisher on some goons.
Fury took his attention away from the iPad, and moved it to the folder open on his desk in front of him, which was coincidentally open to the exact page with a picture of the same fur-draped man.
"...Ursa and Spiderman have made contact with group of interest 0137, the russian mob." Agent Hill stated matter-of-factly.
The director stayed silent.
After watching the videos for a few minutes longer, he finally spoke up.
"...I recognize that fighting style."
Agent Hill quirks her eyebrow.
The director of Shield continues. "That style, though jumbled with a few others, I thought was lost to time."
He pauses for dramatic effect.
"That is the fighting style of the Red Room."
Maria Hill cuts in. "But didn't the red room get destroyed years ago? Aren't only women trained in that?"
Fury, after another short pause, speaks. "Which must mean that this one is either a superior or an instructor who made it through its raze. We need to pay more attention to him. Call agent Romanoff. If anybody knows about the red room, it's her."
"Yes, director."
-o-
Somewhere in Hell's Kitchen...
The office, though housing three men, was oozing with the sound of silence.
The room was pristine. A luxury carpet covered the floor, and paintings and shelves covered every other wall, except for one. The one behind the massive man sitting on his desk, which was a window casting a shadow across his face.
The silence was only subsequently disrupted by the Russian man on the guest couch. The man was large in his own right, but could not compare to the one on the desk. The russian man, the leader of the Russian Mob, was cowering in the presence of this giant.
The final remaining man was a guard, dressed in tactical gear, wearing a hat pushed way down. He was standing on the right side of the giant man, and even though he was the smallest of the three, his presence alone made him terrifying.
An eternity passed in silence before it finally broke.
"...So you're saying that one of the warehouses that I invested in got broken into, with all of your personnel getting taken out." The big man opened his mouth, a deep, gruff voice escaping his lips.
The leader of the Russian Mob quickly shook his head.
"N-No, I never expected anybody with that much power to attack us! My people saying they aren't even human! They were monsters!" The cowering man stuttered out in broken English.
The bodyguard cut in on him. "So did they or did they not." He stated with a cold steel in his voice.
The russian man immediately deflated and looked down. "...Yes"
The large man opened his mouth once more. "So, because of this, you want some extra arms for your next mission."
"Y-yes, sir! My men can't do anything if those monsters attack again! And this mission is a super high priority! Please! The whole Russian Mob will owe you one! Just in case-"
The blubbering man was cut off with a knife lodging into the wall beside his head, grazing his cheek and drawing blood. That shut him up instantly.
The gruff voice rang out in the quiet room.
"I don't clean up incompetence." He said.
Then, a short pause. Past the shadow across his face, all that was seen was the glimmer of his grin.
"However, I do invest in insurance."
The ray of sunlight was redirected for a split second, and on the desk, a nametag could be made out.
WILSON FISK, CEO OF FISK INDUSTRIES.
And with a heavy sigh, he stated. "Dex, accompany this man and protect his little mob from these so-called monsters."
A maniacal sneer crawled up the face of the bodyguard. He took off his hat to reveal a horrendous scar on his forehead, the shape of a bullseye.
The meeting was over.
-o-
Back to Alex's POV:
I lie in my now clean apartment, looking up at the ceiling, preparing myself for a rescue mission at the docks tomorrow.
I haven't been feeling great recently. The guilt of not being able to save the two boys, Gwen's brothers, weighing me down. And apparently, there are more being shipped off to who knows where tomorrow night.
Stop thinking. I need to rest to be at peak performance tomorrow.
...
Of course, I can't fall asleep. With nothing better to do, I check my system.
[Status]
[Name: Alex Lee]
[Stats]
[Strength: B+]
[Agility: B-]
[Durability: B+]
[Skills: Assess (Active), Hand To Hand Combat (Passive), Bear Totem (Passive)]
Yup, no changes. As I thought. I feel like I'm a teenager checking my phone every few minutes to see if I've got a notification, but there's never any, other than those annoying update notifications.
I check the current quests.
[Quest: Preparation is key]
[You have realized that you and the entire world will be in great danger in a year. Prepare for the battle of New York!]
[Reward: ??? (Something to help you survive the battle, based on performance)]
[Quest: Rescue Mission!]
[Save and rescue Howard and Philip Stacy, or however many other civilians, from the Russian Mob.]
[Reward: Random skill card depending on performance]
[Daily Quest: Keeping the Streets Clean]
[You have started your career as a street-level hero! Every day, you will be awarded depending on the number and types of crimes you stop.]
[Reward: ???]
Oh right. I had the daily quests. I forgot to check them for the last week due to the rewards being so... Underwhelming. Last time it was just a driving skill card and some money, right?
[Quest complete x9! Keeping the Streets Clean]
[You have started your career as a street-level hero! Every day, you will be awarded depending on the number and types of crimes you stop. Crimes stopped:
x1 hostage situation (Partial success)
x1 Gang warehouse stormed
x3 Carjackings
X14 Robberies
x1 Arson rescue
x2 Public shootouts
x7 Drug trades intercepted
x17 Petty crimes
x3 Missing persons assisted
x2 Medical emergencies
x1 Helped an old guy get his pet goose out of a tree]
[Rewards: 7000$, health potions x4, Subskill card Intimidation, x2 Desert eagle handguns, Compact SMG, Pump action shotgun, A lil bit of zaza, and a bag of geese treats.]
Damn, what the hell? I solved so many crimes! And what the heck are these rewards? I guess the marijuana is from the drug trades I intercepted, the guns from the armed robberies and shootouts I stopped, the health potions from those times where I did first aid and rushed injured people to the hospital, the intimidation from all the petty criminals I scared off, and the geese treats from... I don't even want to think about it.
I probably already have the Intimidation skill after all that intimidation tactic training with Nat, so I assign it to Peter through the party system. That nerd needs to learn how to make a mugger flinch without apologizing afterward.
I throw the marijuana in the trash, cuz there is no way that I'm going into drugs as a hero. I keep the guns under my bed, you know, just in case, and I put the health potions in the belt of my hero costume. Who knows, I might need it for later.
I'm able to fall asleep a lot more peacefully now that I know I'm more ready than before.
-o-
(a/n final chapter before the final part of this short arc! How's the buildup, eh? Also, I'm back from that short break I needed to finish my finals before summer break. I swear I stayed up for almost 60 hours nonstop to finish all of my overdue assignments. Don't procrastinate, kids. Oh right I also rewrote the creepin cardboard chapter since it was so ass, now its a lot better, with some parts that'll be important to the story later on.)