Location: Undisclosed Safehouse, Night
Riven sat cross-legged in the dim glow of the safehouse's main room. No lights on. Only the silver touch of moonlight slipping through the half-shut blinds. The walls around him were quiet, still, holding secrets in their silence. It had been days since he left the Avengers Compound—days spent alone, training, recovering, planning.
His jacket hung from the chair, damp from earlier rain. The black motorcycle he arrived on rested quietly in the garage below. The safehouse, gifted by Tony, was equipped with everything: encrypted laptops, offline maps, medical supplies, secured weapons lockers, and a simple bed. A war room disguised as a forgotten cabin.
The whiteboard beside the desk now bore twenty-six names. Sites. Locations. Each one a scar waiting to be reopened. Five were already crossed out in red. Five facilities that no longer existed. The most recent one still smelled faintly of fire in his memory.
He exhaled slowly.
His body had changed again. More than he expected. Without Hydra's sedatives dulling his nerves and mind, everything was sharper. Cleaner. His thoughts moved faster. His body responded with impossible precision. His strength—while still grounded in flesh and blood—now bent steel when needed. His healing wasn't instant, but it no longer took hours to mend wounds either. And his telekinetic ability—
He raised his hand.
A combat knife from across the room floated smoothly toward him, no trembling, no strain. It hovered an inch above his palm before he caught it in a practiced grip. Controlled. Silent. Exact.
He stood up slowly and moved toward the reinforced floor in the training corner. With a soft breath, he jumped—and landed clean on the ceiling beam fifteen feet above, landing with the quiet balance of a predator. No telekinesis. Just him.
The sound of his burner phone vibrating broke the silence. He walked over, flipped it open.
Logan: "You hitting the next one soon?"
Riven: "Yeah."
Logan: "Need backup?"
A pause.
Riven: "Not yet. I need to do this alone. Just be ready."
Logan: "...Always."
He ended the call. The silence returned. He looked once more at the board, at the twenty-six left. His fists clenched at the memory of what each one represented.
He would burn them all.