Chapter Text
Warren Barnes was trained in a lot of things. He had been taught to lie since he could talk, taught to fight since he could walk, and taught to kill since he could understand what the word meant. There were, however, several things that Hydra didn't necessarily train its experiments for. For example: charm.
Warren Barnes was not charming. Warren Barnes had a knack for thievery, troublemaking, and unintentional bullying. A knack that seemed to drive foster families away. When a new family took him in, they often believed that they were the special one. That they would be able to use their expert parenting skills to put Warren in his place and make an angel out of him. Those parents did not know Warren well enough yet.
There was not one family that was able to handle the boy for more than a month. The fastest he had ever gotten sent back was two days. It was intentional in the beginning, but became less so as time went on.
See, Warren never intended to end up in the grimy hands of New York State's Office of Children and Family Services, passing him between volunteer parents every other week like a game of hot potato. In fact, his intention was to avoid all governments of all nations. But seven-year-olds didn't easily go unnoticed when they were spotted wandering the streets of New York City alone-even trained assassin seven-year-olds. There would always be that lady with the little, expensive handbag and iPhone in her hands, calling up the police as she watched a little boy jump into a dumpster. And when the police found out that the boy had no parents, that boy would go directly into foster care.
If Warren really wanted to and had the energy to, he could have slipped away from the system with little difficulty. But what he learned over time was that foster care meant food, a bed, and clothes. He may not have wanted to get close to any of the parents he was placed with, but he was very happy to use them for what they had. That was why it was better not to stay in the same house for too long. The parents wouldn't get too attached and wouldn't expect any emotional bonding if Warren made it clear to them that he hated their guts and had no interest in forming any kind of real relationship with them.
Usually, the trip to a new family went like this:
1. Warren packed up all of his belongings into a garbage bag and waited on the front steps of the home he was leaving for a social worker to show up.
2. Warren sat in the backseat of his social worker's car as he was driven to the front doorstep of some other home.
3. Warren met his new family and scoped out the home, taking mental note of anything that might be useful to take as his own.
This trip, however, was very, very different considering the fact that, at his last home, Warren made a very, very big mistake.
The thing about Warren was that he was an experiment. And that meant that things were tested on him that gave him an incredibly special ability. The experiments done on him gave him the ability to vanish into thin air. The ability to turn himself invisible.
On this unfortunate morning, Warren was sneaking back into the house after an early morning trip to the grocery store to steal a pack of Mini Muffins. He didn't expect his new foster parents to be up and about at 5:27 AM, but they were. And when Warren made himself visible again in the living room, he didn't expect for his foster parents to be walking into the room. When Warren appeared out of thin air, the woman had let out a loud scream, and the man had instantly pulled out his phone, calling up OCFS.
Now, Warren sat on the front steps of the home he had been living in for the past week or two, and he contemplated his options. He could run away. If he did, though, he would have to go back to stealing breakfast, lunch, and dinner along with clothes and other basic necessities. Like a street dog. He wouldn't be able to shower anymore, and he would have to use gas station toilets. That sounded suboptimal.
On the other hand, though, if he didn't run away, he had no idea what was going to happen to him. Maybe the social worker would just think this family was crazy for thinking they saw what they saw, and Warren would be sent to a new family, just like normal. But maybe the social worker believed the parents. Maybe Warren was about to be locked in a cell, or maybe tested on even more. He hated tests. All kinds of them. Whether he had to answer questions or have a needle poked into his arm, he hated them.
The choice was hard. Because he knew what it was like to be on his own in the world. He did it for a little while before OCFS got hold of him. He knew how awful it was. But he didn't know at all what was going to happen when he was taken away from this house. It could be the worst of the worst, or it could be the best of the best.
Sometimes in life, one has to take chances. That is what Warren did when he escaped Hydra. He took that chance and he survived. Maybe he would survive this chance, too. If the people who were coming to take him were bad people, then he would just take another chance and run away again. It wouldn't be very hard. At least he didn't think it would be. It wasn't very hard to escape HYDRA. The hard part was figuring out that he needed to escape in the first place.
So, Warren waited. He stayed sitting on those steps and he tried his hardest not to pay any attention to the feeling of his now ex-foster-parents staring at the back of his head from the window.
It took about twenty-five minutes for his social worker to show up. And when she did, she was not alone. Two other cars were with her. One had some sort of agent inside-a woman with brown hair and a look of authority-and the other had what looked to be soldiers inside. Warren pretended he wasn't at least slightly intimidated by that.
Luckily, the soldiers stayed inside the car. Except for one, who got out of the backseat and leaned against the side of the SUV. The woman with the brown hair got out of her car, too, and she approached behind Warren's social worker, who was walking toward Warren on the front steps.
"Hello, Alexander," the social worker-Miss Alice-said in her normal, very soft voice.
"Hi, Miss Alice," Warren replied, looking at the woman's shoes.
"I heard something happened." Miss Alice gave a frown, but not the kind of frown that was supposed to make Warren feel bad about himself. It was the type of frown that was supposed to mean that she felt bad for Warren and that she was worried about him. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked, although she already knew very well what happened.
Warren shrugged. "Don't know. Who's she?" he asked, pointing to the brown-haired woman behind Miss Alice.
"This is my friend Maria. She's come to help me find out what is best for you today," Miss Alice explained. Maria gave a small wave and a quick smile, although none of it erased the 'she means business' look she had about her. "To figure out what's best for you, Alexander, we have to know what happened. Can you tell us that?" Miss Alice asked, now crouching down in front of Warren to match his eyeline.
"I don't know," Warren said again.
He knew very well what happened, but he had no problem whatsoever with lying. Hell, the woman still thought his name was Alexander.
Warren couldn't decide what he wanted to do. Whether he was about to bolt and hopefully never be seen again or if he was about to tell these women the truth about himself was a mystery to everyone. His eyes darted around between the people. From the soldier, to Maria, to Miss Alice again.
"I can promise you one thing, sweetheart." Miss Alice reached out and took Warren's hand in her own, giving it a comforting squeeze. "No one is gonna hurt you. No matter what, we're here to keep you safe. Alright?"
With that information, Warren could finally make his decision.
"Well, I turned myself invisible and they saw."
✮
Warren was not exactly sure where he was going. Miss Alice had been driving for a good long while now, and the brown-haired woman, Maria, was sitting in the passenger seat. Warren kept catching her staring at him through the rearview mirror. Like he was being monitored just to make sure he didn't do something rash.
He wouldn't, of course, because he needed the resources they would provide him with, though the idea of doing something just to get a reaction out of Maria tempted him.
Anyway, the drives to new foster families did not typically take as long as this drive was taking. Warren felt like he had been in the car for years and his legs were in desperate need of a stretch break. He didn't usually like to talk very much on these car rides, especially not with Maria intruding, but Warren was dying to know just how much longer the car ride was going to take.
Hesitantly, he sat up a little straighter and asked, "How much further?"
"We're about halfway there, sweetheart," Miss Alice answered. Her fingers were drumming along the steering wheel like she was a little bit nervous. Warren wondered if she was scared of him or for him. "We're going somewhere new this time," she said, like that put a positive spin on the situation.
Letting out a little bit of a huff, Warren leaned against the window and tried to pretend that he was somewhere else.
"Is it really necessary to drive all the way to DC? Couldn't they just come visit him out here?" Miss Alice asked Maria very quietly. Warren heard it, though, because he had very good hearing and was an expert at spying on people.
"They want him at the facility," Maria said. It made Warren's stomach twist a little bit. Facility. He didn't like the word. "Preferably, we would have taken a quicker vehicle, but I couldn't get a jet on such short notice. So, road trip it is."
Riding on a jet would have been way cooler and taken way less time. Warren wished they were in the sky instead. The car ride did give him extra time to think, though. It gave him an opportunity to consider all of the things Maria said quietly to Miss Alice and decide whether or not he was going to tell the truth when he got to this facility they were taking him to. He was leaning towards lying at the moment, but he guessed his final decision would be made when he was right there at the facility.
✮
In the dimming evening sunlight, Warren was finally let out of the backseat of that stupid car. It was starting to feel like another cell and Warren wasn't sure how much longer he could take it.
Miss Alice took Warren's hand in hers, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "Are you ready?" she asked with a soft smile.
"For what?" Warren muttered.
Really, they hadn't told him much of anything about what was going on. That was why he still had yet to make his decision, even standing there in front of the building. He didn't know what was going to happen when he went inside, so he didn't know if it was going to be better than what would happen if he didn't go inside. And he had no idea the repercussions of telling the truth versus lying. He had no idea whatsoever whether or not to get the hell out of there.
Either way, Warren wasn't exactly experienced in making his own decisions. The first time he made one wasn't that long ago-the day he decided to escape. He had been making some decisions ever since then, but for the first seven years of his life, he never made a single one. Turned out, it was harder than it looked.
"We're gonna meet some new people and they're gonna ask you a few questions," Miss Alice told the boy. He stared warily at the big front doors to the building. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll stay with you every step of the way."
And even though Warren wasn't sure whether he particularly liked Miss Alice, he was comforted by that thought. The thought that, no matter what happened inside, she'd be there next to him. She had been there for him for months now, in and out of homes, and she hadn't been cruel to him even once. It was strange, really. Warren originally thought that she would be just the same as the other grownups he'd met in his life. Life was a lot different outside of a cage.
"This way," Maria said as she stepped around the car. When she started walking up to the big front doors, Miss Alice and Warren followed behind her.
Unsurprisingly, the inside of the facility was a lot scarier than the outside. Outside, it looked pretty much like any other large building. Big windows, modern architecture. On the inside, though, there was a massive amount of security. Like, so much security. Maria scanned some sort of badge and nodded at some of the guards, either saying 'hello' or confirming that Miss Alice and Warren could be let inside.
After getting in through the first doors, Warren had to walk through a weapons detector, and luckily, he had nothing on him. In his bag, which is still in the car, he had an old pocket knife he found outside some bar a few weeks ago. Other than that, though, all his weapons were still with HYDRA. That was lucky. Warren wasn't sure what they would do to him if he did happen to have a weapon on him. This was his first time being in a place like this without being dragged around like a disobedient puppy on a leash.
It was very strange inside. A lot different from HYDRA. In the lobby, there was even a big statue of an eagle-like symbol. Warren knew that symbol. HYDRA hated that symbol. Warren was not sure how he felt about it. He still didn't know if HYDRA was right or wrong about things. He only knew that he hated being there.
Soon after getting through a whole bunch of security measures that Warren thought were pretty unnecessary, Maria led him and Miss Alice into an elevator (which Warren hated) and they went up to a higher floor. On that higher floor, they went down a hallway all the way until they entered a large room with a bunch of chairs and a fancy desk by the window. It was an office, obviously, but in Warren's opinion, the room was about seven times larger than necessary for being an office.
Anyway, sitting at that desk by the windows, there was a man. Warren had seen this man before. Only in pictures, though. He was in charge of SHIELD, Warren was pretty sure. He had an eyepatch over his left eye and wore only black. He had a serious look to him. Warren made sure to glare, just in case HYDRA was right about hating this guy.
"Fury," Maria said as she walked over to his desk.
"Agent Hill," Fury responded, giving a nod as a greeting. He then turned to look at Warren, who was standing just a little bit behind Miss Alice. "Is this our Invisible Boy?"
"Sure is," Maria said. She pulled out a chair for Warren and a chair for Miss Alice. "Wanna have a seat?"
Miss Alice smiles and ushered Warren over to the chairs, where they both sat down. "I'm Alice and I work for the Office of Children and Family Services in New York. This is Alexander," she introduced without letting her smile slip.
Fury seemed amused by her words. "Alexander, huh?" he asked with a smug look on his face.
When Warren didn't reply, Miss Alice whispered for him to say 'yes, sir,' and so he did: "Yes, sir."
"Hmm. Well, alright, Alexander. You wanna tell me how you managed to turn yourself invisible in your living room this morning?" Fury asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.
Warren shrugged. "Just did."
"Were you able to do that since you were born?" Miss Alice asked, hoping that she would be able to make the question more clear for Warren. Warren knew what Fury meant, though. He just wasn't sure if he wanted to answer the question.
"I don't remember being born," Warren told them all.
Fury let out a scoff-like laugh. "I'd hope not," he jokes. Warren did not laugh at his joke because he was much too anxious to. "Where are you from, Alex?" Fury asked next, putting suspicious emphasis on the boy's name.
"New York."
"Where in New York?"
Warren shrugged again. "New York."
"And your parents?"
"Don't know."
Maria let out a huff. "This isn't getting us anywhere. I say we test him and-"
Warren instantly tensed up, his eyes growing wide without his control. "I don't want any tests," he told them urgently.
If there was one thing that Warren knew for sure, it was that tests involved needles and cages, and he hated both of those things. He was already in that backseat for hours. He didn't need to sit alone in an empty room, too. He wanted to go to a new family and sleep in a bed. He didn't want to sit alone in a cage. He really, really didn't want to. Maybe he should have just run when he had the chance.
Miss Alice's eyebrows pinched together with concern. "It'll be just like a doctor's trip, sweetheart. They'll just take a little blood just to make sure you're not sick or in danger." She wasn't positive that that's what the blood samples would be for, but she was positive he was going to have to let them take them whether he wanted to or not. Maria warned her about this. They needed to test his blood at the very least. "Don't you want to be healthy, Alexander?"
"No. I don't," Warren spit. His hands were starting to grip the arms on his chair, and the grip got tighter when Fury spoke again.
"What's your last name, Alexander?" Fury asked. When Warren didn't answer, Fury leaned forward on the desk, resting his weight on his elbows. Miss Alice opened her mouth to answer, but Fury shushed her and turned back to Warren. "My name's Nicholas. Nick for short. Last name is Fury. What's yours?"
The truth was, Warren never really came up with a last name for himself. He must have told Miss Alice one back when he met her, but he had absolutely no recollection of what that name could have possibly been. He chose the name Alexander because of a book he found in the library. It was called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and when Warren got taken by OCFS, he was having a pretty terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. So the name Alexander seemed quite fitting. This day was shaping up to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, too.
Now, Warren's heart began to beat quickly in his chest. He dared to glance up from his shoes, meeting Nick Fury's intense stare. He opened his mouth to speak, but as if his lungs had stopped working, he couldn't manage to say a thing. Nothing at all came out of his mouth.
"Is Alexander the name HYDRA gave you, or did you choose that one yourself?" Fury tested.
When Warren visibly tensed at the word HYDRA, Fury knew his suspicions were correct.
"Huh. Alexander doesn't know his own name."