[SHIELD VAN – DUBLIN DOCKS, 04:57 AM]
The van rolled in under the mist.
Unmarked. Grey. Easy to overlook.
It pulled into position beside a pair of rusted shipping containers, tucked near the far edge of the docks. Inside, cold blue monitors blinked to life. Cables lined the floor. A small heating unit clicked faintly in the background.
Agent Kwan adjusted a satellite link. "Drone path synced. Southside grid sweep begins in twenty."
Maria Hill entered.
No small talk. No hesitation. Her gaze moved from screen to screen before landing on the one in front of Kwan. A grainy security feed showed a masked figure dropping from a rooftop. Two attackers down in under ten seconds. Silent. Precise. Gone.
"Timestamp?"
"01:17. Nassau district."
Hill's expression didn't change. "Same as the others?"
"Same profile. Low light, rain, no direct facial exposure. Movement matches Incident Alpha-213. Still no conclusive ID."
Kwan switched to a different feed. Social media. The same selfie from three nights ago, now plastered across half the internet.
"#SentinelSpotted trending in four countries," he said. "We're filtering out the cosplay noise. But movement pattern analysis gave us twelve serious candidates. We're narrowing."
Hill didn't reply. Just stared at the photo—white lenses, hood up, alley shadows. Then turned as the door slid open again.
Dr. Elias Malhotra entered, tablet in hand. Lab coat wrinkled. Voice sharper than usual.
"I've finished the metrics analysis," he said. "Dublin footage, the incident near the van, everything from Alpha-213. I compared it to the Rogers benchmark files."
Hill turned fully. "And?"
Malhotra tapped the screen and held it up. Two clips played side by side: Darren, masked, slamming a grown man into a wall; Steve Rogers, Italy, 1943, executing a near-identical takedown. The angle. The torque. The force.
"It's not an exact match," Malhotra said. "He's rougher. No formal training. But speed, reaction time, force output—they're within five percent of Rogers' early serum benchmarks. Especially the lower body power. That kick? Close-range estimate was over 3,800 newtons."
"Not adrenaline?"
Malhotra shook his head. "Consistent across multiple clips. No signs of burnout or strain afterward. If it is adrenaline, it's controlled, sustained, and enhanced."
Hill narrowed her eyes. "So we're back to what we said in Berlin."
"I think we've passed that point. He's not just strong. He recovers too fast. He moves like he's been training for years, but there's no known record of him. And if it was tech-based, we'd see an energy signature."
"No signature. No public record. No origin," Hill muttered. "Could be a mutant. Could be a metahuman. Could be magic."
"No records of serum use. No known enhancement program. No genetic markers in our system," Voss replied. "Whoever this is, he wasn't made by us. Or anyone we know of."
"You want samples."
"I need samples," he said. "Blood, tissue, something we can test. If we've got a rogue super-soldier in Ireland, I want to know why."
Hill gave a curt nod, eyes still on the screen. "You'll get your samples. Just not yet. We keep the city under passive surveillance. University, docks, south industrial. Monitor his activity patterns."
[TRINITY COLLEGE – 12:38 PM]
Lunch smelled like regret and microwaved curry.
Darren sat on a stone bench unwrapping a sandwich that looked like it had been assembled by a blindfolded child. He ate it anyway.
Across from him, Liam nursed a wrap and a grudge against Darren's media opinions.
"I'm just saying," Liam said, "if you rewatch Naruto with ADHD lenses, it's a psychological masterpiece."
Darren squinted. "Mate, he literally paints on the Hokage faces and screams at everyone. That's not a metaphor. That's me unmedicated on Red Bull."
Liam grinned. "Exactly."
Darren laughed, nearly snorted seaweed salad. "Anyway, Tower of God still looks like it was drawn in MS Paint for the first 50 chapters."
"Blasphemy."
Their bickering was interrupted by a girl approaching. Brown curls. Glasses. Big book energy.
"You're Darren, right?"
Brain: System error. Please insert coherent response.
He blinked. "Uh. Yeah. Yes. That's me. Definitely."
Brain: you know her you don't know her what's happening smile? run?
"I liked what you said in Mythology. About the blood-geasa. Really smart."
Darren nodded. "Thanks. I mean… doomed prophecy warrior trauma is kind of my jam."
She smiled. "I'm Áine.
He stared at her for one beat too long.
"I—uh—I'm Darren. But you knew that already."
"Right." She held his gaze, warm but amused. "Well. Just wanted to say hi."
She walked off.
Darren stared into the void for three seconds.
"Help," he whispered.
Liam, already grinning like the bastard he was, said, "You short-circuited so bad I heard the Microsoft error tone."
Darren groaned. "I panicked. She was pretty and had opinions on folklore. My brain just… evacuated."
Liam passed him a crisp. "Here. Snack-based recovery."
Darren accepted it. "This helps."
[SHIELD TEMPORARY OPERATIONS – 2:14 PM]
They'd patched into Dublin's CCTV with a modified Stark Industries script, leftover from when SHIELD still had access to Tony's old S.H.I.E.L.D. servers before he rage-quit them post-Avengers.
"Facial match incomplete," Agent Park muttered. "He's avoiding cameras too well. Even his posture changes between clips."
Hill reviewed the overhead drone images.
"He's used to hiding. That's a learned habit."
Park nodded. "No ID yet. We've tagged twelve possibles. Still narrowing. But movement matches are improving."
"Cosplay noise is high," Park said. "We're eliminating false positives by gait analysis and limb-to-torso ratios."
She swiped through image after image: a guy in a homemade Sentinel hoodie, wrong build. A girl posing on Vine, wrong height. Another wearing a replica mask, too heavy, wrong walk.
Then: a freeze-frame.
Trinity gates. 9:11 AM. Rainy. Students pouring in.
One figure. Hoodie up. Bag slung low. Head down. No face visible.
But the shoulders. The movement. The pace.
It matched.
"Subject 4-1B," Kwan said. "Still unconfirmed, but it's the closest match we've seen. No face ID, but motion trace is 91% consistent with the Nassau footage."
Hill watched the clip again. A student, walking through Trinity's arch like any other nineteen-year-old. Except not.
"Keep eyes on him," Hill said. "Quietly. No contact. Let him think he's invisible."
Then she turned to Malhotra. "Prep your containment gear. If we're right, if he's Rogers-level, we'll need more than cameras."