Chapter 3 : THE VIRAL MOMENT
The apartment felt smaller when I got back.
I locked the door, checked the windows, and finally let myself collapse onto the bed. My hands had stopped shaking, but my pulse was still elevated. The fight kept replaying behind my eyes. The knife. The twist. The way the second guy's face had bounced off brick.
I'd hurt people. Probably broken that man's nose, maybe his orbital socket. And I'd done it without hesitation, without planning, without the fear that should have paralyzed me.
The reflexes Jake had copied were better than his journal suggested. Way better. Either he'd undersold them or they'd developed significantly since his last entry.
I sat up and flexed my fingers. The knuckles were scraped—when had that happened? During the wall slam, probably. Minor pain, already fading. The durability fragment was doing something, at least.
The burner phone buzzed.
I stared at it. No one had this number except the pizza place and the employment agency. The screen showed an unknown caller.
I let it ring out. Probably a scam. Or—
My stomach dropped.
SHIELD.
They had resources I couldn't imagine. If that video was already circulating, if someone had flagged my face, if they'd traced the phone—
The phone buzzed again. Same unknown number.
I picked up.
"Hello?"
"Jake Mordered?" A woman's voice, professional, clipped.
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Agent Carson. I'm with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. We'd like to have a conversation."
I almost laughed. Four hours. It had taken them four hours to find me.
"A conversation about what?"
"About the footage from Pershing Square. About your abilities. About whether you'd like to use them for something meaningful."
I let the silence stretch. Play it right, I told myself. Don't seem too eager. Don't seem too reluctant.
"I'm listening."
"Tomorrow. 9 AM. We'll send a car."
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone and stared at the ceiling.
It was starting.
---
The video was everywhere by nightfall.
I found it on three different social media platforms within ten minutes of searching. "Mystery Man Stops Mugging With Superhuman Speed." "New Avenger in LA?" "Holy Shit Watch This Guy Move."
The footage was shaky—cell phone quality, crowd noise, bad angles. But you could see the important parts. The first attacker going down in a blur. The second one hitting the wall. Me standing there, calm as death, telling the survivor to stay down.
Comments ranged from "fake" to "he's gotta be enhanced" to speculation about which Avenger's sidekick I might be. Someone had already started a subreddit.
I closed the browser and threw the phone on the bed.
This was the plan. Get noticed, get recruited, get inside. But seeing it happen—seeing my face on a thousand screens, knowing SHIELD analysts were probably dissecting the footage frame by frame—made it feel terrifyingly real.
There was no going back now.
---
The food truck near my apartment sold tacos that cost four dollars and tasted like they cost forty.
I sat on a bench with my dinner and watched the sun set over the city. Orange and pink bleeding into purple, smog turning the light hazy and strange. Beautiful, in a toxic sort of way.
The taco was perfect. Carnitas, cilantro, a lime wedge I squeezed until it had nothing left to give. I'd been poor before—the old me, the warehouse worker me—but I'd never appreciated food the way I did now.
Second chances made everything taste better.
A couple walked by, arguing about something inconsequential. The man was a dormant Inhuman. His signature brushed against my awareness and passed.
How many people in this city would never know what they could become? How many would live and die without ever touching their potential? The thought was sad in a way I couldn't articulate.
I finished the taco and crumpled the wrapper.
Tomorrow, SHIELD would send a car. I'd meet whoever they sent—probably someone low-level at first, assessing threat potential. I'd have to walk a careful line. Seem capable but not too capable. Willing but not desperate. Honest about my powers but vague about their origin.
The cover story was simple enough. Orphan discovers strange abilities. Wants to help. Doesn't understand what's happening to him. Classic origin stuff.
The truth was more complicated, but they'd never know that.
---
The apartment was dark when I got back. I didn't turn on the lights.
Instead, I sat by the window and watched the city. Somewhere out there, Skye was in her van, hacking into systems she shouldn't have access to, searching for answers about parents who'd abandoned her. In a few months, she'd be recruited too. We'd end up on the same plane, part of the same team, fighting the same battles.
I could feel her. That faint pull, constant as a heartbeat. Northwest. Always northwest.
"I'm going to find you," I said to the empty room. "And I'm going to make sure this world doesn't break you."
It sounded like a promise. It sounded like a threat. It was probably both.
I went to bed, but sleep took a long time coming. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the timeline stretching out ahead of me—all the disasters, all the betrayals, all the deaths I knew were coming.
Ward would turn. Garrett would reveal himself. HYDRA would tear SHIELD apart from the inside.
And I was going to stop it.
---
The knock came at 8:47 AM.
I was already dressed. Already caffeinated. Already running through scenarios in my head.
Two agents at the door—a man and a woman, both in dark suits, both radiating that particular blend of competence and danger that said don't mess with us. The woman was Agent Carson, based on her voice. The man wasn't introduced.
"Mr. Mordered."
"Agent Carson."
"Ready to go?"
I grabbed my jacket—the one with all the pockets, stocked with everything I might need for an uncertain future. Wallet. Burner phone. Jake's journal, hidden in an inner pocket close to my chest.
"Born ready."
She didn't smile.
The car was a black SUV with tinted windows, exactly what you'd expect. I climbed in without comment. They flanked me, one on each side, professional and silent.
We drove.
The city passed by the windows—familiar streets becoming unfamiliar, the route taking us toward downtown and then past it. Industrial areas. Warehouses. A lot of nothing.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"A facility where we can talk properly."
"Talk. Right."
The woman's expression didn't change. The man kept his eyes forward.
I settled back against the seat and let my detection ability sweep outward. Neither of them was Inhuman. Neither showed any signature beyond baseline human.
But somewhere ahead, somewhere in the direction we were driving, there was a pull. Faint but familiar. Not Skye—wrong direction for that.
Someone else. Someone I should probably recognize.
The SUV pulled through a security checkpoint and into an underground garage.
Time to perform.
---
The interview room was exactly what I'd expected. Gray walls, single table, two chairs facing one. One-way mirror on the east wall. Probably cameras I couldn't see.
I sat in the suspect's chair and waited.
Fifteen minutes. They were making me sweat, which was standard interrogation technique but also ineffective when the person being interrogated had watched enough cop shows to know the playbook.
Twenty minutes. I counted ceiling tiles. Fourteen. The fixture overhead hummed at a frequency that was slightly annoying.
Twenty-three minutes.
The door opened.
The man who walked in wasn't Agent Carson's silent partner. He was older, early fifties maybe, with receding hair and a face that knew how to smile but wasn't doing it now. He wore a nice suit and carried a folder that probably contained everything they'd already learned about Jake Mordered.
"Mr. Mordered. I'm Agent Phil Coulson."
Everything stopped.
I'd known this might happen. I'd hoped for it, even—Coulson was the key to everything, the lynchpin of the team I wanted to join. But seeing him in person, real and solid and alive, hit different than I'd expected.
He'd died. In the timeline I remembered, in the movies, Loki's scepter had gone through his chest. He'd said something to Fury about watching the Avengers, about the cards, about never getting them signed.
And now he was here. Resurrected by alien blood and probably already forgetting the details under TAHITI's memory blocks.
"Agent Coulson." I kept my voice steady. "I've heard of you."
"Have you?"
"Hard not to. You're famous in certain circles."
Something flickered in his eyes—interest, maybe. Suspicion, definitely.
He sat down across from me and opened the folder.
"Jake Mordered. Orphan. Raised in the foster system, moved out at eighteen. Series of odd jobs, nothing permanent. No criminal record. No known associates. Until yesterday, no one remarkable."
"Circumstances change."
"They certainly do." He slid a printout across the table. The video. A still frame of me twisting the knife away from the first attacker. "Want to tell me about this?"
I looked at the image, then at him.
"I saw people in trouble. I helped."
"Most people couldn't have helped the way you did. Most people can't move like that."
"I'm not most people."
"Clearly." He leaned back. "So what are you, exactly?"
The million-dollar question. I'd rehearsed the answer a hundred times in my head.
"I don't know. Not completely. A few months ago, I started... noticing things. Feeling things. People who were different. And then I started changing too. Getting faster. More durable. I don't understand it."
"You're enhanced."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm something else entirely."
His expression didn't change, but I could see the wheels turning. SHIELD dealt with enhanced individuals constantly—the Index was full of people with unexplained abilities. I was presenting myself as just another entry in the database.
But I was more than that. I knew things he didn't. I had plans he couldn't imagine.
"What do you want, Mr. Mordered?"
I met his eyes. Let him see the sincerity I didn't have to fake.
"I want to help. I spent twenty-eight years watching heroes on screens, wishing I could matter. Now I've got these abilities I don't understand, and I can either use them for something meaningful or waste them being scared. I'd rather not waste them."
The silence stretched.
Coulson picked up the folder, tapped it against the table once, and stood.
"Wait here."
He walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I sat in the gray room with the humming light and the one-way mirror, and I smiled.
The hook was set. Now I just had to reel them in.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1