Hal and Illyana moved across the scorched fields, the aftermath of chaos laid bare before them. Smoke curled into the sky from the wreckage of the convoy—armored vehicles burning in the distance, some flipped over like discarded toys. Roberto floated in the air, gliding in slow, deliberate arcs, while Sam sat slumped in the grass, his chest heaving with exhaustion.
Ahead, one vehicle remained untouched—sleek and upright, its array of antennas marking it as the control center. Hal and Illyana approached it. Behind them, she dragged what was left of Vision's body: a twisted, half-destroyed husk. Its limbs were gone, wires spilling from its open chest where the arc reactor had been destroyed. With a grunt, Illyana hurled the carcass at the side of the command vehicle. The impact dented the frame and nearly knocked it onto its side.
"Come out," Hal called, voice sharp. "Your men are either down or dead. It's over."
After a long pause, the back door creaked open. Four agents stepped out slowly, hands raised in surrender. One of them—the same man Sam and Roberto had faced earlier—locked eyes with them, fury simmering behind a mask of restraint.
"You murdered them," the man said coldly. "You think you'll just walk away?"
"That was self-defense," Hal replied flatly. "You knew what we were. You still hunted us. You brought this... Frankenstein machine. And not even a good one."
"You're a threat to society," the man snapped. "All of you. Your kind."
Sam stepped forward, bitter anger in his voice. "Says who? I ain't done nothin' to hurt nobody."
"Your existence is a threat," the man shot back. "You wiped out an entire battalion. You're barely adults—and this is the destruction you're capable of? That's exactly why we need control. We need to counter you. And the best way to fight a mutant... is with another mutant."
"By brainwashing us, right?" Roberto landed heavily beside him, still glowing with heat and fury. His voice was edged with disgust. "Stick us in a lab. Feed us orders. Rewrite our minds until we think you gave us purpose."
The man let out a low, bitter chuckle. "And what would you have me do? Wait around while you start empathizing with the others like you? Let chaos unfold? Untrained mutants are dangerous. But trained ones... that's an entirely new level of threat."
Sam's voice cracked with restrained rage. "All we ever wanted was a simple life. Just a decent job, a shot at a normal future. We sure as heck didn't ask for all this mess."
The man's eyes were hard. "You don't get to be normal. Not anymore. I don't have the luxury of seeing you as kids. You're weapons. Living, breathing, ticking time bombs. And if I can't control you—then it's my duty to contain you. By any means."
Roberto's fists tightened. "We don't want a fight. We're just trying to live. Let us go home. You'll never see us again."
The man sneered. "You think it's that simple? You are the byproduct of a disaster the world has barely begun to comprehend. If the public knew the truth—how you were made, what you are—they'd fear you. Hate you. I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks. If you disappear off the radar and start to do what you want, how long do you think that secrecy lasts? Some of you can't even control yourselves."
Hal stepped forward, eyes dark and steady. "There's a difference between protecting someone from themselves... and using them as weapons."
The man leaned in close, voice dropping to a whisper only Hal could hear. "You already are a weapon. The only difference is—I'm the one who wants to leash you all before you burn the world down."
A sudden roar of an engine shattered the tense silence. A sleek, high-end Audi surged onto the scene, tires screeching as it drifted to a sharp stop near where Hal and the others stood. The door swung open, and two figures stepped out.
The first—a woman with bleached blonde hair—moved like lightning, raising a pistol with practiced ease. Beside her was a tall man, calm, carrying two compact black shields, one strapped to each arm.
Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff had arrived.
"Everyone, stand down," Natasha commanded, her voice cutting clean through the tension.
The man in tactical gear—still trembling slightly—dropped his hands with an exhale of relief. "Took you long enough. I sent that backup request nearly thirty minutes ago."
Steve didn't even blink. His gaze locked onto the man. "Director Hayward, I presume?"
Hayward's jaw tightened. "That's right."
"We're here now," Steve continued, his tone steely. "One of their friends told us everything. You've got a lot of explaining to do."
At that, Hayward clicked his tongue in irritation and looked away, jaw clenched. Whatever control he thought he had, if there ever was—was slipping fast.
—
Back at the Avengers Compound, Steve and Natasha stood inside the dimly lit meeting room, tension thick in the air. Across from them sat Director Hayward, nursing a bruised shoulder—the only visible injury he'd sustained. His subordinates hadn't been so lucky. Some were recovering in the infirmary. Others… were being prepped for the morgue.
A projection flickered to life above the table. Grainy, wide-angle footage played: the full confrontation laid bare—chaos on the road, destroyed vehicles, and teenagers wielding terrifying, raw power. The room was silent but for the sound of battle echoing from the speakers.
"You see what I'm dealing with, Captain?" Hayward finally said, voice low but defensive. "They're not just 'kids.'"
Steve didn't look away from the screen. "You're bold, Director. Trying to kill teenagers right on our doorstep."
Hayward leaned forward, unbothered. "At the end of the day, you served this country, Rogers. So did I. I'm just doing what needs to be done—the things you can't do in the public eye. The dirty work."
Steve's eyes narrowed. "Killing and capturing kids isn't dirty work anymore. It's something much worse."
The director didn't flinch. "We've had twenty separate incidents. One kid razed an entire small town in the south. Another—your new guest, the Native American girl—wiped out a reservation. Fifty dead. Mutant awakenings that go out of control. Panic, destruction, death. And I've covered every single one of them to avoid sparking a national hysteria. This isn't a theory anymore, Rogers. It's an epidemic."
"You think the solution is extermination?"
"Containment," Hayward corrected, though his tone wasn't convincing. "Until containment fails. Like it did with those six. They leveled the facility where we housed them. Not a building left standing. Just a crater. And twenty more men—my men—dead trying to bring them back in. Captain, your active Avengers roster has what? Ten, maybe twelve people? How do you fight hundreds of enhanced individuals? Not just strong ones like you. Kids who can level cities, burn forests in seconds, or tear a hole in the sky. That's what's coming. And I'm being asked to stop it with half a task force and a slashed budget."
Steve folded his arms, stone-faced. "Doesn't justify making monsters out of children."
Hayward scoffed. "They're already monsters. I'm trying to leash them before they realize it."
Natasha, silent until now, finally spoke—her voice calm, but cutting.
"Why is it always teenagers?" she asked. "Why not adults? Where are they?"
Hayward paused. For the first time, his expression faltered.
"Because the gene only began to manifest after Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet," Director Hayward said. "The energy that surged from it during the Snap mutated thousands across the globe. Adults were affected too. But the gene doesn't activate on them. Because it lies dormant... until puberty, the ones that have gone through it won't activate it. And in some cases, extreme psychological stress could activate it as well."
He glanced between Steve and Natasha, measuring their reactions.
"That's why most mutants are teenagers," he continued. "What's more troubling is the long-term effect. Those adults carrying the dormant gene? Their children could be born as full-fledged mutants."
Natasha's expression hardened. "Do you have numbers?"
Hayward nodded, his voice dropping lower. "Rough estimates suggest one in every fifty thousand has been affected. That's just the active ones. Carriers? We can't even begin to track them. And this is global."
Nat let out a slow breath. "How is this the first time we're hearing about it?"
"Because I made sure you didn't," Hayward muttered. "Containment, silence, cover-ups... it's what I'm trained to do in these scenarios. You haven't had to deal with it because I've kept it off your radar. Until now."
"I'll stop you right there," Steve said sharply, stepping forward. "We created the Avengers to be better than SHIELD. More transparent. But we can't protect the world if world governments—our own allies—hide something this big from us. And from where I'm standing, SWORD is looking a hell of a lot like SHIELD 2.0."
"We're not SHIELD," Hayward insisted. "We're independent. Autonomous. Our main directive has always been observation."
"Then why act now?" Steve asked.
The director hesitated, then said, "Because I have a conscience. My predecessor believed in letting things take their course, and cover it up afterwards. But now more and more teenagers have awakened their powers, and I couldn't keep sitting back while innocent people got caught in the crossfire."
Nat folded her arms, eyes narrowed. "So instead of helping these kids, you decided to cage them? Indoctrinate them? Use them as weapons?"
Hayward's voice dropped to a murmur. "Sometimes, Agent... The only way to fight fire is with fire. I'm not proud of it. But it's the only option I see."
Steve clenched his fist, his voice low and tense. "How many other facilities are holding these kids?"
"Four," Director Hayward answered without hesitation. "All across the U.S. Security has been increased tenfold since the last escape."
"I want them released."
Hayward raised a brow, almost amused. "And sent where, exactly? These kids are unstable, Captain. You can't just toss them back into society like nothing happened."
"He's right, Steve," Natasha said quietly, avoiding his gaze.
Steve turned sharply. "What? Nat—seriously? You of all people should understand. You were one of them once."
"I'm not defending him," she replied, firm but calm. "I'm saying the situation is complicated. We can't just drop these kids back into homes that might've kicked them out. Some of them might have blood on their hands. We need to help them—but not like this."
Steve exhaled through his nose, jaw tight. He turned back to Hayward. "How many kids?"
"Twenty."
"I can make a call," Steve said. "Place them somewhere else. You can monitor their activities, but I will not let them live in your facilities so that they could be trained to fight for you. They will live normal lives. Go to school. Make friends. Be teenagers."
"You can't just—"
"Actually, we can," Natasha interjected. "You're treading dangerously close to criminal territory, Director. Brainwashing minors to serve as weapons? That's illegal. No amount of red tape will cover that up."
Hayward sighed. "What I did isn't above the law, Agent, I have documents to prove that I've been authorized to do it. You cannot put me to jail over it."
"Who authorized you?"
"Central Intelligence," said Hayward. "But you are the Avengers. You'll get what you want, and in a few years, you'll see that I am right."
"I don't think we'll regret giving kids their proper teenagehood." Nat muttered.
"And Vision," Steve continued. "What did you do to him?"
The director rubbed his temple. "We tried everything to bring him back. Every power source known to man. Nothing worked."
"But something clearly did," Natasha said, her tone cutting.
"Not revival—repurposing," Hayward admitted. "We couldn't bring back Vision as he was. But his vibranium body? Too valuable to waste. We reengineered him—"
"Using Stark's tech," Steve interrupted. "Did Tony help you?"
Hayward gave a tight smile. "We tried reaching out. He never responded. But we found someone… qualified. Someone who is able to understand Stark's work."
Natasha stepped forward. "We want him back. What you did—it's desecration."
"He's a synthetic," Hayward said flatly.
"He was sentient," Steve snapped. "And he deserves a proper funeral. A proper goodbye."
"I can't allow that," Hayward replied, shaking his head. "billions in vibranium. We can't just bury that."
The room fell into a tense silence. Steve looked to Natasha, but she only shook her head slightly. His frustration deepened.
"Then we're done here," Steve said. "If we catch you capturing mutants again—or trying to mold them into soldiers—then we'll treat S.W.O.R.D. the same way we treated HYDRA. No exceptions. No warnings."
Hayward's smile was thin and sharp. "Captain America making threats. Duly noted."