"Mr. Barnes...", spoke the man, his skin clean, his suit maintained, his hair perfectly combed like he just came out of a swimsuit ad. Didn't help that he was conventionally handsome, even though his face had a smug, know-it-all grin that was flustering the young super.
"Oh, please. Call me..", Ajax paused for a second, grabbing the part of his prison attire where there were numbers inscribed
"...Inmate 3-5-2-8", he then quipped, shifting his sight back at the good doctor. The Doc also seemed to find it amusing, as he let out a heartily chuckle soon after. Why wouldn't he laugh? He was the one on the other side of the glass. He didn't have to eat horrible food, he didn't have to live with a suppressor, no human interaction and a constant bubble of concern over his only family, his sister that was probably worried sick. He was a free man - free of prejudice, free of those shackles. Of course he could laugh.
"Don't worry. You'll get to meet your sister...and we'll remove the safety measures. If you play your cards right, you'll be a free man in no time, 3528.", the doctor spoke telepathically, pointing at the little high-tech crown in the boy's head. Everytime Ajax tried to use his gift, that crown emitted enough volts of electricity to knock him out. He learned that the hard way.
Dumbfounded, Ajax attempted to reply
"You sto-""Stole the words right out of your mouth? Yes, that's my gift.", the man spoke yet again, his grin getting wider by the second.
"Then why aren't you-""Well, that's because I was given a chance, same like you.", he anticipated his question.
"Stop it!", Ajax spoke, a noticeable shift in his tone.
"Worst thing you can do to a teenager who's been in lockdown for so long is invade his privacy.""So long?", the man queried. "You've been here for two weeks!"
"Wait, what?", the boy double-checked the doctor to see if he was messing around. He surely had a penchant for doing that, as far as he could tell.
"Good god! Really? I thought I had just missed a huge chunk of my life.", Ajax spoke, a sense of relief surging through his body. His stay in a darkened cell surely made him lose track of time.
"But anyway, without further ado, I want to lay out a proposal I have for you.", the man declared, clasping his hands behind his back. Ajax could tell from his body language that what he was about to say was serious. His posture changed from that of a know-it-all, to that of a man who's carrying the weight of the entire world in his shoulders.
"The government's assembling a team of gifted who they believe can do good. If you accept my proposal, then you'll be one of them."
His right hand rubbing his hairless chin, Ajax pondered the man's proposal. A team of superpeople? Was the government harvesting their peacekeeping ideas from Stan Lee?
"Even though you probably know it by now, I was running my own hero thing for a while there, Doc. I was doing good, until your lackeys came in and hit me with enough tranquilizer to knock a herd of elephants.", Ajax replied in his sassy manner.
"Commendable, what you did. But we're talking something bigger. Something..global", the Doc replied.
"Global, huh.", Ajax removed his hand from his chin and moved towards the glass which was separating him and the doctor.
"Sure. I always wanted to go to Paris.", the boy declared, his innocent remark putting a barely noticeable smirk on the doc's face. All he had to do was twirl his index finger in the air, and the doors opened. Surely, the good doctor was a man of influence. Two guards emerged from further down the hallway, most likely Ajax's escorts. One of them had a small metallic rod of sorts.
"Stand still.", the guard said, grabbing Ajax by his shoulders.
"Okay." Suddenly, he shoved the rod in his crown, effectively disabling it.
"If you try to do anything rash, I'll cause you so much pain you'll wish you were dead.", the doctor probed his mind, prompting Ajax to nod in a faux friendly manner. They would never remove his crown if they didn't have failsafe in place, failsafe in this case being the Professor Xavier look-a-like.
After a short stroll through the narrow hallways, Ajax finally got to meet with the rest of the prisoners. Well, "meet" might not exactly be the best word to describe it. More like "acknowledge" each other. They were all crammed into a huge elevator and then made to wait as it descended on the lower levels. Only from up close did he actually notice how many oddballs that facility was harboring. A cyborg-looking dude, a white..thing, a girl in a wheelchair. Okay, maybe the wheelchair girl wasn't that weird. But he was all the sudden curious to know what her ability was. Definitely not super-speed.
As more and more of the scenery began to unravel, Ajax was greeted by a sight he only saw once before in one of those Marvel comic issues. A sci-fi jet in an enormous hangar illuminated only by the light of the almighty Sun above. It was single handedly the most beautiful thing Ajax had seen during his stay in the facility, so beautiful he involuntarily let his guard down as a smile covered most of his pale face. He clearly wasn't the only one. The other inmates were just as equally amazed, save for a couple of cold hearted elitists.
"I think the Doc has read a few too many comic books..", a female voice was heard behind, interrupting the boy's magical freedom moment.
"Heh. You can say THAT again!", Ajax pronounced, letting out a mild chuckle in the process. He turned his head around to see that the remark came from the girl in the wheelchair. A close inspection revealed she was actually a teenager, no older than 18, but her mannerisms resembled that of a fully fledged, brooding adult.
The misfits were all directed towards the aircraft. Some of them were already forming some pretty uneasy friendships while Ajax, in a move that was very uncharacteristic of him, decided to sit somewhere in the back where it was secluded. He wasn't ready to mingle with the rest of the group, yet.
A short while later, and the aircraft had landed in a private airstrip. The doors opened to reveal a huge mansion. Normally, Ajax's jaw would have dropped, but they already made their point with the whole dramatic aircraft reveal. This one was just redundant. Still, the thought that they were gonna live inside such an amazing piece of architecture for an undisclosed time did put a half-assed smile on his face.
