"Barton... Barton..."
Phil Coulson called out twice before getting a response.
Clint Barton, the legendary Hawkeye, was covered in a cold sweat.
Hundreds of ice shards were suspended in the air around him, each one pointed directly at a vital organ. The killing intent was palpable, plunging the temperature around him to arctic levels.
"Phil. I'm here."
As the ice shards dissolved into harmless mist, Barton finally pressed his earpiece.
Coulson lowered his voice. "Threat assessment?"
Barton exhaled slowly. "Another Magneto."
Coulson blinked, genuinely surprised. "That high?"
"If you had pushed him one inch further, I'd be dead. Our assessment of the Ice Demon was severely lacking. He's dangerous, Phil. Extremely dangerous."
Barton had survived countless missions, but he had never felt so close to the edge as he did just now. The kid had spotted him instantly and neutralized his overwatch without even looking.
"Let's go, Phil. Let's get out of here."
This wasn't over. But for now, they were outmatched.
Coulson knew Nick Fury. After this report, Fury would realize that SHIELD's usual strong-arm tactics wouldn't work. The Ice Demon had the power to back up his arrogance.
More disturbingly, the kid didn't act like a high schooler. He had the cold, calculating demeanor of a veteran.
As the black Ford SUV disappeared down the driveway, Vincent stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of his new estate, swirling a glass of vintage red wine.
"They came sooner than I expected."
He checked his Desire Points.
He wasn't in a rush to Awaken the Ice-Ice Fruit yet. "Mastery" level was enough to handle almost any threat on Earth, short of a nuclear strike or cosmic entities. Awakening risked turning New York into a permanent glacier.
"I need to keep stacking missions. If I can pull a Gold or Black Blind Box, maybe I'll get something that scales better without environmental destruction."
The System hadn't issued a new active mission, but the "Infinite Main Quest" regarding female heroes was always active.
Jessica Jones: Check.Gwen Stacy: In progress.Black Widow: Likely next, given SHIELD's interest.
Scarlet Witch (Wanda) hadn't appeared yet—the timeline was pre-Avengers.
"I'm just a high school student," Vincent mused, finishing his wine. "I need to shine bright enough to attract the moths."
He was an ordinary man with a System. If he hadn't known the plot, he'd be dead in a ditch in Hell's Kitchen. But now? He could write the plot.
"Nick Fury. Don't disappoint me. Stepping on your bald head is the only way to climb the ladder."
He decided to maintain the "Ice Demon" persona as a deterrent. But he could also play the role of a "Legendary Hero" if the situation demanded it.
Inside the SHIELD SUV.
Coulson drove while Barton stared out at the passing Long Island scenery, still shaken.
"Phil, we know too little about him," Barton said. "He's a ticking time bomb."
"I'll let Nick make the call," Coulson replied, his face grim.
"Nick... yeah. Good luck with that."
Coulson tapped the steering wheel. "He knows too much. He knew you were there. He knew who we were. I'm worried he's part of another organization."
The dossier on Vincent Hall was baffling.
He shorted Stark Industries at the exact moment Tony shut down weapons manufacturing.Then, when the stock tanked and everyone panicked, he leveraged everything to buy back in.
It was almost... prophetic.
"If someone doesn't guide this kid, he's going to develop an anti-social personality disorder," Barton said, picking up the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey Coulson had brought.
"No normal teenager writes a book like this."
Barton waved the book. "Only a deviant could come up with this stuff. Especially at sixteen."
"There are over a thousand bodies in the morgue right now," Barton added quietly. "Calling him a demon isn't an exaggeration."
Despite the body count, Barton felt a strange pang of pity. An orphan, thrown into Hell's Kitchen, witnessing his parents' murder. It was the perfect recipe for a supervillain. The twisted psychology in the book was probably a coping mechanism for the darkness he lived in.
But pity didn't change the threat level. If the kid snapped, he could freeze a city block in seconds. He was far more dangerous than Bobby Drake (Iceman) ever was.
"Where are we going now?" Barton asked.
"You know Hell's Kitchen has another Devil, right?" Coulson asked.
The files showed Vincent had contact with Matt Murdock.
Coulson had considered approaching Jessica Jones, but Intel suggested the Purple Man (Kilgrave) was active in New York. Coulson didn't want to risk exposing Jessica and triggering Kilgrave to flee.
(Little did they know, Kilgrave was currently fish food in the Atlantic.)
"We need to talk to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," Coulson decided. "Maybe he can tell us what makes the Ice Demon tick."