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Location: Unknown
Consciousness returned not with a snap, but with a slow, static bleed.
The world was a smear of charcoal and ash.
There was no sound, only a dull, oppressive ringing, like the silence following a detonated grenade.
47 walked forward, his feet making no noise on the cobblestones that dissolved into gray mist at the edges of his vision.
He knew this place. Or rather, he knew the geometry of it. The slope of the hill, the gnarled shape of the olive trees—though now they were stripped of color, standing like skeletal sentinels in a void.
Ahead of him stood the heavy oak doors of a church. The wood was weathered, the iron hinges rusted by time and neglect.
47 reached out. His hand, pale and monochrome, pushed against the wood.
The doors groaned open.
The transition was violent.
As he stepped across the threshold, the world ignited. The smell hit him first—beeswax, frankincense, and old, cool stone.
Then the light. Sunlight, warm and golden, streamed through the stained glass windows, painting the nave in brilliant mosaics of red, blue, and violet.
The gray was gone. The silence was broken by the soft, rhythmic murmuring of prayer.
47 walked down the aisle. He felt the weight of his existence, the heavy coat, the leather gloves, the burden of forty-seven years of taken lives.
But here, in this sanctuary, the weight felt... manageable.
A figure knelt in the front pew, bathed in the multi-colored light of the saints. He wore simple vestments, his head bowed in devotion.
47 stopped three paces behind him. He didn't need to see the face. He knew the posture.
"Father..." 47 said. His voice was rough, unused, sounding loud in the sacred quiet.
The murmuring stopped. The priest crossed himself, a slow, deliberate motion, before turning his head.
Father Emilio Vittorio smiled. It was the same smile that had greeted 47 in the gardens of the Gontranno Sanctuary years ago—a smile of infinite patience and undeserved forgiveness.
"My child," Vittorio said softly. He gestured to the empty chair beside him. "Sit."
47 hesitated. He felt like an intruder. A wolf walking into the shepherd's home. But the pull was undeniable. He sat. The wood was hard and real beneath him.
"You are praying," 47 noted.
"I am always praying," Vittorio replied, turning his gaze back to the crucifix hanging above the altar. "For the world. For the lost. For you."
"You shouldn't waste your breath on the latter," 47 said, staring at his gloved hands. "I am beyond the reach of prayers."
"No one is beyond reach, 47. Only those who refuse to extend their hand." Vittorio shifted, the wood creaking. "You have found yourself in a rather peculiar situation."
47 looked up at the stained glass. He saw St. Michael casting down the devil. The struggle was eternal.
"Everything has changed," 47 whispered. The confession felt heavy in his throat. "The world... the history... it is not mine. I checked the archives. There is no Providence here. No ICA. No Ort-Meyer. Instead, there are myths made real. A super soldier in the Second World War. A man draped in a flag who fought science with a shield. That did not happen where I came from."
He paused, the turmoil he had suppressed for four months bubbling to the surface.
"I am a ghost in a body that does not recognize me."
Vittorio nodded slowly. "And this frightens you? You, who have walked through fire and ice without blinking?"
"It does not frighten me," 47 corrected. "It... untethers me."
For four months, he had operated on autopilot. He had taken contracts, killed criminals, and played the part of the Urban Legend. But it was a distraction. A way to avoid the gaping hole in his reality.
He thought of them.
He thought of Subject 6—Lucas Grey. The brother who had torn down the veil of their creation, who had died to give 47 freedom.
He thought of Victoria, the girl, who, unfortunately, had experienced the same past as him,
He thought of Katia van Dees. The woman who was the closest that he had as a sister, a woman of fierce intelligence and capability.
He thought of Diana.
The voice in his ear.
The conscience he had borrowed.
The traitor. The savior.
The only person who truly knew him.
They were gone. Not dead—worse. They had never existed.
"I am alone," 47 said. The words were a simple statement of fact, devoid of self-pity, but loaded with existential dread. "Without them... without the context of my creation... what am I?"
Vittorio turned to him fully. His eyes were sharp, holding the wisdom of a man who had heard the confessions of sinners and saints alike.
"You are looking at this backwards, my son," Vittorio said. "You think that because the soil has changed, the tree must die. But you are not the soil. You are the seed."
"I was made to be a weapon," 47 argued. "My purpose was defined by the hands that held me."
"And yet, you chose to leave," Vittorio countered gently. "You chose to garden. You chose to spare the girl. You chose to destroy the Partners, Syndicate, and many more. You have spent a lifetime reacting to the past, trying to clean the ledger of a debt you did not incur."
Vittorio placed a hand on 47's arm. The touch was warm.
"Change is not what you fear, 47. What you fear is freedom. True freedom."
47 looked at the priest. "Freedom?"
"In your old world, you were Agent 47. The myth. The result of Ort-Meyer's madness. Every action you took was a ripple from that stone he threw in the pond."
Vittorio swept his hand around the church.
"But here? Here, there is no Ort-Meyer. There is no debt. No ledger. You are a paradox. A being with no origin. Do you not see the gift in that?"
47 frowned. "A gift?"
"A blank slate. Tabula Rasa," Vittorio said, his voice gaining strength, echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "You are not bound by the sins of your father, because in this world, your father never sinned. You are not bound by the contracts of the Agency, because the Agency never existed."
The priest stood up. He seemed taller now, the light creating a halo around him.
"You can be reborn. Not as a weapon. Not as a tool for someone else to carve their path. But as a man who chooses his own path. That is what defines us, 47. Not how we are made, but what we do. Your will, 47. Follow your will."
Vittorio smiled one last time.
"Accept the reality, my child. The past is a ghost. You are the living. Go. And make this life your own."
The light in the church intensified. It grew brighter and brighter, dissolving the pews, the altar, the priest, until there was only blinding white.
Location: S.H.I.E.L.D. Detention Holding, The Triskelion
47 opened his eyes.
There was no gasp, no sudden movement. He simply transitioned from sleep to wakefulness with the efficiency of a machine booting up.
He stared at the ceiling. It was composed of acoustic tiles, arranged in a 12 by 12 grid.
He sat up.
The room was sparse. A bed, a toilet, a desk, and a chair. The walls were reinforced polycarbonate.
A camera in the corner tracked his movement with a faint whir.
It had been one week since the incident in the Carpathian Mountains. One week of isolation.
One week of silence.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to interrogate him on the first day. He had given them nothing but his name and his serial number.
After that, they had left him alone, likely observing, analyzing, trying to find the cracks in his armor.
They wouldn't find any.
47 stood and walked to the desk. It was piled high with books.
On the second day, he had requested reading material. To their credit, S.H.I.E.L.D. had complied, perhaps hoping to glean some psychological insight from his choices.
He picked up a thick volume: Advanced Theoretical Physics and Dimensional Mechanics. Next to it lay The History of Strategic Espionage in the 20th Century, Neuroscience and the Enhanced Human Condition, and a collection of Russian literature.
He had read them all. Twice.
47 ran a hand over the spine of the physics textbook. In his previous life, he was a genius—a genetic peak.
He spoke twelve languages, understood engineering, chemistry, and ballistics at a master level.
But this... this was different.
Since waking up in the Red Room's tank four months ago, he had noticed the change. But in the quiet of this cell, stripped of the need to hunt, he had finally quantified it.
His mind was accelerating.
He didn't just read the books; he absorbed them. He could recall every equation, every footnote, every comma on page 402. He could cross-reference the tactical history of the Cold War with the structural engineering schematics of the Triskelion (which he had deduced from the vibration of the HVAC systems and the transit times of the guards) in seconds.
It was as if they remade him, remade him leagues better than before, and he had unlocked the final barriers of Ort-Meyer's design.
Enhanced Cognitive function: 400% above baseline.
He thought of Katia van Dees. She possessed a form of precognition—the ability to simulate tactical outcomes instantly.
A survival instinct turned into a supercomputer.
47 closed his eyes.
He visualized the room outside his cell. Based on the footfalls he had heard over the last hour, he knew the rotation.
Two guards at the door. One is monitoring the camera feed. Pulse rates steady.
He ran the simulation.
Scenario A: Violence.
Kick the door (requires 4500psi force). Incapacitate Guard 1 (throat strike). Use Guard 1 as shield. Disarm Guard 2. Access corridor. Total time: 3.2 seconds.
Probability of escape: 94%.
The simulation played in his mind like a 4K movie. He saw the angles. He felt the impacts.
He opened his eyes.
'Is this what you saw, Katia?' he thought. 'If so, it seems that you didn't use it well.' A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips as he thought of that and imagined what Katia's reaction would be to his thoughts.
He was better. Stronger. Faster. And smarter than he had ever been. Vittorio was right.
He wasn't a relic. He was an upgrade.
The past was dead. Diana was a memory. The ICA was a ghost story.
Knock. Knock.
The sound was polite, almost incongruous with the setting.
The magnetic lock on the door hissed. The heavy polycarbonate slab slid open.
A woman stepped inside.
47 turned slowly to face her. He analyzed her instantly.
Subject: Female. Caucasian. Late 20s. Height: 5'10". Posture: Rigid, military background. Heart rate: 65 BPM (Calm, controlled). Weapon: Glock 19 in a shoulder holster, safety on.
She wore the dark blue uniform of S.H.I.E.L.D., but with a subtle difference in insignia that denoted administrative power. She carried a tablet.
"Good morning," she said.
Her voice was cool, professional, betraying no intimidation despite standing in a room with a man who had dismantled an on-air arrow path with a pebble.
"Deputy Director Hill," 47 said.
He didn't ask who she was.
He hadn't seen her face on the news feeds, nor was she in the dossiers he had studied during his months in New York.
But his enhanced hearing had bypassed the reinforced walls surrounding him. He had isolated the sound of her voice days ago, picking up snippets of conversation and hearing her name spoken by subordinates in the corridor.
Maria Hill raised an eyebrow. "You've been doing your homework."
"Your acoustic dampening is insufficient," 47 replied, glancing at the wall. "Although, the theories on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge presented in this volume are somewhat... derivative."
Hill looked at the physics book, then back at him. "…I don't know what to say about that."
She stepped aside, gesturing to the open door.
"You're done with the timeout," Hill said. "Director Fury wants to talk. And I'm told he doesn't like to be kept waiting."
47 picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. He slid it on, adjusting the cuffs. He felt the shift in his own psychology.
The turmoil of his dream had settled into a cold, hard resolve.
He wasn't a prisoner. He was a guest who had decided to stay.
"Then we shouldn't keep him waiting," 47 said.
He walked past Maria Hill, stepping out of the cell and into the corridor.
The acceptance was complete.
The Hitman was gone.
Agent 47 had arrived.