By 6:42 PM on Wednesday, exactly forty-eight hours would have passed since the gray symbiote first slithered into Grant Ward's bloodstream. The biological timer was ticking. Once that threshold was crossed, the Codex would be permanently forged, locking Ward's genetic and neural engrams into the Klyntar hive-mind.
But for now, it was only the early, pitch-black hours of Wednesday morning. And deep within the subconscious architecture of Ward's mind, Riot was hunting.
The alien organism sifted through Ward's darkest, most violently repressed memories like a man thumbing through a morbid scrapbook. It tasted the ash and gasoline of a burnt-down Massachusetts home. It felt the bruised ribs and split lips dealt by an abusive older brother. It experienced the suffocating, concrete isolation of a juvenile detention center. Ward had been a broken, violent kid with no compass and no future.
Then, the memory shifted. The heavy steel door of the detention cell slammed open.
John Garrett stepped into the light. A Level 8 S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. A high-ranking HYDRA sleeper agent. A predator who looked at a fractured, angry teenager and saw the perfect clay.
Riot coiled around this specific memory, fascinated by the profound psychological weight it carried. Garrett had dragged Ward out of the dirt, isolated him in the wilderness, and stripped him down to his base instincts. He had told Ward that his own blood family wanted him dead, and that only he could provide true protection.
Father. That was the human concept Riot isolated from the tangled web of Ward's synapses. The symbiote didn't entirely comprehend the biological sentimentality of a parent, but as an apex parasite, it understood leverage. If it wanted absolute, frictionless control over this host, it needed to pull the strings of the father figure.
Riot flooded Ward's REM cycle with a highly manipulated, hyper-realistic nightmare.
The air turned freezing. Ward found himself standing in the dense, snow-covered Wyoming wilderness. The heavy stock of a hunting rifle was pressed against his shoulder. His finger hovered over the trigger guard, trembling violently.
Standing twenty yards away in the snow was his dog, Buddy. The only living creature that had stayed by his side during his brutal, months-long isolation. The only thing that hadn't hurt him.
Kill the dog, Ward, Garrett's voice echoed through the freezing trees, an absolute, unforgiving command. Cut your attachments.
In the dream, just as in reality, Ward's breathing turned ragged. His chest heaved. He stared down the iron sights, looking into the dog's trusting, golden eyes. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill the only piece of his soul he had left.
Ward jerked the barrel upward and squeezed the trigger.
BANG.
The gunshot echoed off the mountains. Buddy flinched, turned, and bolted into the tree line, disappearing into the thick brush. Ward let out a massive, shuddering breath, his arms dropping to his sides in sheer relief. He had let the dog run. He hadn't betrayed his conscience.
CRACK.
A high-caliber sniper round tore through the quiet forest, echoing from a ridge a mile away.
Ward froze. His blood turned to ice.
John Garrett stepped out from behind a massive pine tree, casually lowering a heavy sniper rifle from his shoulder. He looked at Ward, his expression an unreadable mask of disappointment.
"You didn't do it," Garrett said, his voice grating against the freezing wind.
Ward swallowed hard, the cold biting at his throat. He couldn't speak.
Garrett stepped closer, his heavy boots crunching in the snow. He didn't yell. He just motioned for Ward to sit by the remnants of a dead campfire. "Do you want to know what I like most about you, kid?"
"I... I don't know," Ward stammered, staring at the snow.
"I taught you how to survive. I taught you how to fight for your own freedom," Garrett said, crouching down to meet Ward's eyes. "But freedom is a fragile thing. It requires absolute, ruthless strength to protect it. To protect your freedom, you have to eliminate anything that might get in your way. Anything that might make you hesitate."
"Buddy wouldn't—"
"If you were both starving out here, can you guarantee that dog wouldn't turn on you?" Garrett interrupted, his voice dropping into a dangerous, hypnotic cadence. "When you reach the point where you'd rather starve to death than eat him, can you guarantee he wouldn't bare his teeth and tear your throat out to survive?"
Ward stared into the ashes. Doubt, cold and heavy, settled in his stomach. He was sure he loved the dog. But could he guarantee absolute loyalty?
Ward's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, his chest heaving as he stared up at the dark metal ceiling of his quarters on the Bus. He slapped his hand against his alarm clock, killing the faint red numbers, and threw his legs over the edge of the narrow cot. He dragged himself into his small private bathroom, turning the faucet on full blast. He splashed freezing water over his face, gripping the edges of the porcelain sink until his knuckles turned white.
When Ward looked up into the mirror, the water dripping from his chin, the reflection didn't feel entirely his own.
For a fraction of a second, the shadows in the corner of the mirror shifted. The broad, grinning face of John Garrett hovered just over his shoulder.
Protect your freedom, boy, Garrett's voice whispered, echoing directly inside Ward's skull. Protect your freedom, Ward.
Ward blinked. The hallucination vanished.
He inhaled a sharp, rattling breath. A strange, electric heat was humming beneath his skin, completely burning away his fatigue. He couldn't place the feeling, but he needed to burn the excess energy.
Ten minutes later, Ward was in the cargo bay gym, his hands wrapped in thick white athletic tape.
Thwack. Thwack. CRACK.
He drove his fists into the heavy leather punching bag with brutal, mechanized rhythm. Sweat flew from his brow, pattering against the metal floor grates. He wasn't just working out; he was punishing the leather, his strikes carrying a localized, terrifying force that tested the integrity of the heavy iron chains suspending the bag.
A muted news broadcast played on the small, wall-mounted television in the corner. Aerial footage of Spider-Man swinging through the concrete canyons of Manhattan flashed across the screen.
Ward threw a devastating elbow strike into the bag. His eyes flicked to the television.
The HYDRA indoctrination buried deep in his psyche began to rise to the surface, perfectly guided by the alien passenger in his veins. Humans are biologically engineered to desire freedom, but only the truly powerful can actually afford it. The weak willingly surrender their freedom in exchange for the illusion of security. True freedom belongs exclusively to those who hold the power.
That was the core tenet of HYDRA. Control through absolute strength.
But since the dawn of the superhero age, the balance of power had violently shifted. Mutants, billionaires in high-tech armor, super-soldiers, and web-slinging vigilantes were the new gods of Earth. They possessed the ultimate power. And not a single one of them aligned with HYDRA's vision. They were systemic anomalies. They were obstacles.
What happens when Spider-Man gets in my way? Ward thought, his breathing steady despite the intense physical exertion. He planted his feet, delivering a rapid combination of body blows to the bag.
The tactical answer was incredibly simple. To defeat Spider-Man, he needed to acquire a physical force that eclipsed the vigilante's enhanced biology. He needed absolute power.
That power is already within your grasp, Garrett's voice murmured in the back of his mind.
Ward froze, his taped fist lingering an inch away from the leather. He stared blankly at the bag, processing the strange, intrusive thought.
The heavy thud of combat boots on metal grating broke his concentration.
Ward smoothly dropped his combat stance and turned. Melinda May walked into the gym area, holding a steaming mug of black coffee. Her dark hair was pulled back, her expression as unreadable and impenetrable as ever.
"You're hitting that harder than usual," May observed quietly, taking a slow sip of her coffee. "You seem out of sorts."
Ward wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his taped wrist. He turned back to the bag, delivering a measured, controlled jab. "I was just running tactical scenarios in my head," Ward lied smoothly. "We're encountering more and more enhanced individuals. Aliens, mutants, weirdos in masks. One day, we are going to run into a hostile target that completely outclasses standard S.H.I.E.L.D. ballistics. What do we do then? The Avengers aren't always going to be sitting on standby to bail us out."
"That is exactly the meaning of our existence, Ward," a new voice chimed in.
Phil Coulson walked down the metal spiral staircase, holding a sleek Starkpad. His suit jacket was perfectly buttoned. "We might not be able to punch through a brick wall or fly, but we build the barrier between those enhanced individuals and the civilian population. Even if we are outgunned, we hold the line. That's the job."
Coulson stepped up to the gym mats, tapping the glass screen of his tablet. "Besides, we have our own advantages. Yesterday, Fitz walked me through the data on this thing. I'm still getting the hang of the interface, but it's currently maintaining a live track on the symbiotes' localized sonar pings."
Ward stopped punching. He grabbed a towel from a nearby bench, draping it over his neck. "Are the targets still broadcasting?"
"Non-stop," Coulson nodded, swiping across a digital map. "And it's not just the two we locked up in Avengers Tower. The massive organism Director Fury put on ice up in the Arctic is also pinging. The Avengers are running deep-scan diagnostics on it; they likely won't be back in New York until Friday at the earliest. Until then, containment is entirely on us."
Ward dried his hands, his tactical mind cataloging the data. "What about the fourth specimen? The gray one that Doctor Octopus claimed escaped into the Hudson?"
Coulson frowned, tapping the tablet. "Nothing. Dead air. Not a single blip on the radar."
Ward nodded slowly, his expression perfectly neutral while the alien intelligence within him purred in satisfaction. "So, the captive symbiotes and the frozen one are all actively broadcasting on the same frequency... but the escaped one is completely radio silent."
Ward tossed his towel onto the bench and looked directly at Coulson.
"So, what exactly are they saying to each other?"