DECEMBER  YEAR THREE 438 "Internal Affairs" by Adam Di Stefano, with Scott Harris

And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born-- to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! Through the years, their roster has prospered, changing many times, but their glory has never been denied! Heed the call, then-- for now, the  Avengers Assemble!

Wendell Vaughn, the man known as Quasar, was bent in half at the waist. He was hungry… and the fridge was empty.

"This fridge is never empty."

Quasar was in full costume. He had just returned from his leave of absence that morning, and he looked as if nothing had changed. He still wore the same uncharacteristic grim demeanor he wore when he had left.

"Jarvis should be back any minute now," said Hank Pym as he leaned against a countertop, a half-eaten apple in hand. He wore his lab coat, with his Yellowjacket costume beneath it. His blonde hair, although not as vibrant in colour as it had once been, was still thick. The damp locks clung to his forehead in certain places.

The two heroes had been discussing recent events. Hank had explained the team's battle alongside the new Freedom Force, and the tragic outcome.*

(* Last issue -ADS)

Quasar straightened himself up and shut the fridge door with a little more force than was necessary. He gave the kitchen appliance one more dirty look as if to say, "you'll pay for this," and then turned back to his fellow Avenger. "Hank, I feel terrible about not having been there," he said with a tone that was obviously sincere.

"I'm sure it was a matter of grave importance, Quaze," Henry Pym said. He hoped that it would open the door for an explanation of his teammate's leave of absence.

No such explanation was offered.*

(* look for Quasar's disappearance to be seen in detail at a later date -ADS)

"So, what now?"

Hank Pym sighed. "I haven't gotten to the end yet. The government's worried about the Avengers' 'carelessness' in the last battle so they're appointing a government liaison. To make matters worse, it's Forge. He just saw his new team get slaughtered and now he's going to come in here, thinking it's our fault."

Quasar winced. "So, when does our new liaison arrive?"

Henry Pym looked at his watch. "If I'm not mistaken, right about now."

Captain America moved to the door and opened it. Jarvis was not home, but even if he had been, this was a guest that only the Avengers' leader himself could welcome.

The government had once again forced a member onto the Avengers. This time, though, the member would carry a chip on his shoulder larger than any before.

The door swung open to reveal a Native American male. The man's black hair seemed to absorb whatever light was left outside. The day was a dreary one. The sky was overcast, and the sun had not shown itself in a long while. The man at the door seemed to reflect the weather.

The man's skin was of a darker tone than most caucasians and his features were more pronounced. His eyes were dark and narrow and it looked as though some of the clouds from the outdoors had taken residence in their depths. He wore a black business suit with a charcoal shirt and a black tie. As smart as the suit itself looked, the man did not appear at home in it. He seemed ready to rip off his tie and throw the suit's jacket to the wind. However, a sense of professionalism restrained him.

Captain America offered his hand to the newcomer and put on the warmest smile he could muster. "Welcome Forge."

The mutant man took Captain America's hand and shook it in a solid handshake. He did not speak, but was merely contented to nod.

Captain America wanted to say something conversational. He wished he was a politician so he could come up with some form of small talk. Something all together unrelated to any topic of importance.

He was not. Captain America was a soldier. He was a soldier and a man. He felt emotions as vividly as anyone else. At the moment, the single most overwhelming emotion that he felt was guilt.

Ever since their poor performance in combat that day, Cap had suffered with the weight of four deaths on his shoulders. They should have been at the scene earlier. They should have been able to keep the youngsters alive. The Avengers had failed.

Since then, they had been training three times as hard, and no one had objected. They all had felt the pangs of guilt. Even Ms. Marvel who was the most outspoken of the current Avengers had not uttered a word of protest.

"Forge, I just want to say I'm deeply sorry for your loss," he said, the words coming out quickly and strung together. He hoped it would be like ripping off a band-aid. It was not.

Forge simply nodded. There was no change in expression on his face. "Thank you."

Captain America had never been the best at inter-personal relationships. He was not reknown the world over for his ability to distinguish emotions in the eyes of another. However, even he could see that beneath Forge's expressionless façade lay a turbulence of emotions, much like the grey clouds in the sky. He could not identify the emotions, but he guessed they were in the vicinity of anger, remorse, sadness, perhaps even guilt.

The two men seemed to stand and stare at each other without a spoken word for what seemed an eternity. In fact, it was no more than two seconds.

Forge broke the silence, "Captain America, it is still early in the day, and I believe I can get a decent amount of work done before I have to retire. So, if you would be so kind as to give me the tour?"

"Yes, of course, forgive me," Cap said, knowing full well that Forge was dead tired and was probably suffering from jetlag. Judging by the suit, he had either come here straight from a meeting in Washington, or he felt it necessary to look the part of a government liaison. Nevertheless, the man wanted to get to work, to see to it that the Avengers were kept under a watchful eye.

As Steve Rogers walked around the mansion with Forge at his heels, he pointed out certain points of interest.

Forge was mumblng platitudes such as, "Ah, yes," or "I see," or "Interesting."

As Captain America walked down one of the more mundane hallways in the mansion doing his poor imitation of a tour guide, Forge broke his string of platitudes. "Captain, I am going to need to see the Avengers' files to verify that everything is in order."

Cap bit back his rising emotions. "Of course. I'll show you to the file room as soon as we're done here."

Captain America felt an emotion within him that he didn't quite recognize. All he could say for sure was that he had spent the better part of his life since he had returned after his disappearance gathering the information in those files, and now, just because the government said so, Forge could just walk in and browse through all of them.

Captain America wanted to be angry. He wanted to object, but every time he looked at the hero clad in a business suit, he felt blood on his hands. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. Captain America could almost convince himself that Forge's presence was for the best.

Hank Pym, Yellowjacket, was once again working away vigorously in the Avengers' underground lab. His brief break had lasted all of ten minutes.

In front of him lay a spread of various tools, and a contraption that looked something like a futuristic gun. Sweat was again forming on the scientist's brow.

Henry Pym dropped a tool, and stood up straight for a moment. He wiped a bead of sweat away from the bridge of his nose before it could reach his already stinging eyes. He walked to a nearby bench where he picked up a bottle of water. He drank deeply from it and set it back down precisely where he had found it.

Hank moved his neck from side to side, and then rolled it clockwise followed by counterclockwise. It had been nearly a week now that he had been working on this 'project'.

He looked over to where the futuristic gun lay. Then he spoke aloud, "Hank, you're doing the right thing."

Hank bit his lip and looked like he was in deep contemplation. Then he answered himself. "What if I'm just being paranoid, though?"

Again, the look of deep concentration fell over his features. He began nodding and answered his question. "There's nothing wrong with being paranoid. Better safe than sorry, right? Right."

At first Henry Pym looked uncertain. As if the final word had been a question. Slowly, though, his face grew more determined, and a look of certainty took over the one that was less so. When he said the final word the second time, it was indeed a statement of fact.

Hank Pym shook himself off one more time, and with that bit of a reassurance, walked back over to his workbench.

Forge sat in the small square room, which was home to the Avengers' files. The room was plain and dull, and anyone who sat there for too long would likely die of boredom. The walls were painted a dull shade of beige, the door was white. The floor was done in a greyish linoleum.

Three of the walls were covered with grey metallic filing cabinets. These contained the files the Avengers had amassed since their inception. This room represented the endless hours of paperwork that had to be done in addition to all of the superheroics. It was the part of being an Avenger that the average citizen never bothered to think of when he saw an Avenger fly by.

No one thought, "Hey, there goes Thor. He must be tired from filling up that report for the past four hours."

The end result was an impressive collection of data and information regarding every person, place and thing, the Avengers had ever encountered and then some.

Going through the mountain of paperwork was not an enviable task.

Forge had been sitting at the small square table in the center of the room for the past three hours and twelve minutes. He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes in an effort to stop the words on the page from dancing around.

He was skimming through an overly-complicated and overly-thorough file about some mythical goat or donkey or some such from Asgard. Judging by the overly expressive language and the occasional appearance of words that weren't often used in modern english, Forge ventured that the file had been written by the Thunder God himself.

Forge closed the file setting something down on a clipboard he had next to it. He had deemed the file complete if not utterly useless.

He went to grab the next file on the large pile. When he attempted to read the title which was stamped in a large font on the front of the file, he realized that the letters were still swimming around. He pushed the folder away a few inches and leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden chair, he closed his eyes and repeated the action of rubbing his temples.

He was tired. Truth be told, Forge was exhausted.

Ever since the tragedy, he had been unable to get a decent night's sleep, and yet he spent he had been spending fourteen hours a day in bed.

For days he had felt the guilt and the pain. He had thought himself responsible for their deaths. He had fallen into a hole and was not looking like he could find the strength to climb out.

It took days, but Forge finally brought himself to grips with what happened. The tragedy was not his fault. He had done all he could to prepare them for what was to come. The truth was, their first major assignment should not have been something of such large magnitude. Something like that was for the Avengers to deal with.

It was the Avengers' duty to deal with that threat properly. They had failed to deal with it properly. It was their fault. It was their lack of training and organization that had caused four members of his team their lives.

When the government had come to the same conclusion and had offered him the job of keeping an eye on "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", Forge jumped at the chance. He had told himself that he would make sure that no similar injustices occurred.

Now that he was here, he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do. The Avengers were training, and they were quite professional. The organization of their files while not perfect was still quite well done for such an impressive volume.

Forge shook off the fact that he hadn't slept well in weeks, and that he was still suffering from jetlag and got back to work. As he skimmed the new file, he used his right hand to discard his already loosened necktie. The tie landed on top of the suit jacket which was draped across the only other chair in the room.

He completed the file, marked a note on his clipboard and moved to the next one on the pile. He regarded the title, and then looked back to his clipboard slightly confused. He thumbed through the next few folders in the pile, but still wore same stumped expression.

Forge made his way to the filing cabinets, clipboard in hand, and began going through them one by one. Thirty-seven minutes later he came to a startling conclusion.

"There's a chunk of files missing. I'll have to talk to Captain America about this," Forge mumbled to himself as he leaned against a filing cabinet on the wall opposite the door.

"Is everything okay in here?"

Forge looked up to the door, to see who had spoken. In the doorframe, he saw the man called Dr. Amazing. He was dressed in full costume and stood regarding Forge in the doorway.

"Yes, Dr. Amazing, everything's fine. Nothing for you to concern yourself with," Forge replied shortly.

"Are all our files in order?" Dr. Amazing asked as he took a step into the room, an odd smile about his lips.

"Actually, there's a few missing," Forge said matter-of-factly.

"Really? That's odd," Mark Amazing said, the odd smile never leaving his face. Then, slowly and deliberately, Dr. Amazing raised his psionic gun, leveled it at Forge and fired.

An incredible pain seared through Forge's head. The attack had been so unexpected, so out of the blue, Forge had not thought to protect himself.

The searing pain subsided slightly, and Forge had just enough presence of mind to hit the emergency button on the commlink Captain America had given him.

"Are you calling the Avengers for help?" Dr. Amazing asked, the smile still present. "Well, that's pointless," he continued.

The wall behind Dr. Amazing exploded, and behind it were the Avengers. They stood there motionless, each had a glazed look in their eyes.

"It's pointless because the Avengers are under my control!" Dr. Amazing laughed maniacally.