Thunderbolts Aftermath – Introduction Scene

The quinjet door hissed open like a sigh, not a roar. Strange, given who was waiting on the other side.

A handful of ex-mercenaries, one morally-complicated witch, and Bucky Barnes—all trying, in their own reluctant ways, to be something like better.

And now him. Young. Not quite a boy, not quite a man—though calling him either didn’t feel right. Not even to himself.

The kid stepped off the ramp with his chin up, like he’d practiced it. Shoulders square, steps measured, hands clenched in the pockets of a jacket two sizes too big. The kind of walk that said I know exactly who I am when the truth was… he didn’t. Not even close.

He looked soft around the edges: curly brown hair that refused to stay pushed back, flushed cheeks that made him look permanently embarrassed, and a build that leaned more poet than soldier—long-limbed and narrow-hipped. He had the delicate bone structure of a Renaissance painting, but his hands were always twitching—thumb over knuckle, nervous, like he was trying to memorize a body he still didn’t believe belonged to him.

He was French and Italian by blood, American by circumstance, and absolutely alien to himself.

The cloning ability had surfaced young—too young, really. He didn’t just split into versions of himself.

“Name?” the woman in tactical asked. She didn’t soften her voice.

He hesitated. “Émile,” he offered first. Then, quietly, “Or sometimes Mila. I’m still… figuring it out.”

A glance passed between the handlers. Not judgment, exactly. Just the kind of look people gave puzzles they didn’t have time to solve.

Barnes stepped forward. His hair was shorter now. His mouth still pressed like he hadn’t smiled in a decade. But his tone was neutral. Measured. Not unkind.

“You’re the cloner.”

“I am.”

“You make copies of yourself.”

“They’re real enough,” Émile said, rubbing his arm. “But not... separate. It’s still me. Just different sides of me. Different versions. Fractured out.”

“Like… moods?” another agent asked.

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s instinct. Defense. Sometimes it’s who I wish I was in the moment. I don’t always get to choose which version comes out.”

One of the former Thunderbolts snorted. “So you basically stress-multiply. Great.”

“Essentially,” Émile said with a dry smile.

They led him inside. The halls were quiet, industrial. Clean but not warm. He’d spent too long in places like this—muted lights, security doors, the hum of government secrets down every corridor.

“Most shapeshifters get flashy. You could be anyone,” said a voice behind him—Bucky again.

Émile paused. “I don’t want to be anyone,” he said. “I just want to find out who I already am.”

That earned a moment of silence.

Then Bucky nodded, just once. “Fair enough.”

They passed a glass panel—Émile’s reflection staring back. His own eyes, wide and searching. But just behind them, in the glass, another version of himself flickered—same face, but slimmer shoulders, a sharper posture. Something else in the stance: fear, maybe, or fury, or want.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Yeah. This was going to be complicated.

Later, in the briefing room, Val arrived last. Of course. She wore sunglasses indoors and a grin that said she didn’t care if you liked her.

“Here’s the thing,” Val said, spinning a cracked chair around to straddle it, elbows on the backrest. “We’re not here to hold hands. You’re here because what you do is dangerous, useful, and doesn’t play well in public. That makes you ours.”

Émile blinked. “Even if I don’t… always look the same?”

She smirked. “Honey, half this room doesn’t look the same from month to month. You’re in excellent company.”

That got a twitch of a smile from him. Just barely.

Still, the question hummed in his ribs like static: Who am I when I am no one? When even his reflection was a guess?

Later, in the locker room, Bucky passed him without saying a word—then doubled back.

“You ever need to talk,” he said, voice low, “about not recognizing the person looking back at you… I get it.”