A Twelve Step Program to Omnipotence

[Bakkughan]

Name?

"Michael McCole."

Sex?

"Male."

Age?

"24."

Method of awakening in target universe?

"Reincarnated into a baby, while maintaing full meta-knowledge."

Early stages of new life?

"Spent in an orphanage, focusing on mastering programming and engineering as best I could, without showing myself as the second coming of Tony Stark, since that would probably draw a lot of attention which I couldn't protect myself from."

Current goals in new life?

"To become powerful enough that I will never be collateral damage in this universe, just some background fodder killed off in order to give the heroes motivation to fight. To become powerful enough that nobody in the universe will ever be able to harm me."

Cost acceptable for completion of current goals in new life?

".... Everything."

Thank you for filling out the passenger form. Please proceed to the boarding hall, and thank you for flying Trans-Dimensional Airways, we hope you have an interesting flight.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 1: FIRST STEPS​

I waited patiently until Pepper Potts and her escort of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents entered the Stark facility, biding my time in the shadow cast by the buildings on the other side of the compound. I could try and sneak in after them, but it would be far easier to just wait for Stane to provide a distraction and then simply walk in, no sneaking required.

BOOOMM!

And that is my queue. Thanks Stane, I owe you one. Well, not really since a: you're an evil, terrorist funding, bastard and b: you'll be dead by the time I get what I came here for.

As the building is lit up by bright flashes and the stacatto blasts of gunfire, I simply walk inside and make my way deeper into the complex where Stane is walking around in the twisted love child of the Iron Man armor and a tank, squashing S.H.I.E.L.D. agents left and right.

The ridiculously high turnover rate of agents (not to mention them being a shell for the most evil human organization in history) had kept me from entering the spy agency in order to get my grubby hands on all of their fancy toys in my quest for godhood.

Because when you find yourself in a fictional universe with gods and monsters and aliens, you could either try and become buddies with the heroes (in the case of females this required you to be both ridiculously pretty as well as emotionally connected to at least one of them or in the case of men, you were ridiculously badass with about every superheroine salivating over your body) or you could realize that magic was real and decide to supplex reality in being your little bitch.

Within the first ten minutes of being born in this world I decided on the latter.

And the first step in my Twelve Step Program (more like Twenty Steps but who was keeping count anyway) involved salvaging whatever I could from Stane's reverse engineering of Tony Stark's masterpiece.

Of course his true masterpiece, the Arc Reactor, was out of my reach until I was powerful enough to rip it out of his chest with my bare hands, but in the meantime I could at least try and take his armor for myself. Or just wait until Whiplash manages to make an Arc Reactor on his own. Better make that Twenty-one Steps then.

During my musings Stane had been ever so kind to keep the spotlight on him, allowing me to enter the hangar where he first activated the Iron Monger unchallenged, with the exception of the odd dead agent I had to watch out not to trip over.

That'd just be embarrassing.

Once in the hangar I immediately began tearing every single blueprint off the walls and tables leaving nothing behind, stuffing it all in my oversized duffelbag. I could sort this all out in the safety of my apartment without a spy agency and one of the smartest and dangerous men in the world breathing down my neck.

Despite the fact that I knew nobody was in a position to stop me from stealing the plans to the most advanced armor in the world, on the account of nobody knowing I was here or even existed for that matter, too focused as they were on the metallic slugfest between Stane and Tony judging by the familiar whine of repulsor blasts, I still felt sweat pouring down my neck, soaking my shirt, making it cling to my chest in the most uncomfortable way.

I felt like I was in the most dangerous fight of my life despite the fact that all I was doing was walking around stuffing paper in a duffelbag. After what felt like hours of running around with my heart trying its best to hammer its way to freedom straight through my ribcage I had finally managed to rip the last blueprint (a giant poster with what at a glance seemed to be the overall outline of the Iron Man/Monger armor on it) off the wall, trying my best to ignore the smoking hole in the metal right next to me. I knew that I had to hurry up now as I could hear the fight getting closer again, which meant an increase of threat against my continued good health, either by massive explosions or overeager spies who might be Nazi's in disguise.

As I made my way to the exit of the building I had the biggest scare of my life when from the roof of the building came a crash that shook the entire structure. Worse than that however was the sound of someone shouting orders ahead from me, with what seemed like a dozen footsteps running towards me in an orderly yet hurried fashion.

Looks like S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements have (unfortunately) arrived on the scene.

As panic tried (and somewhat succeeded) to rear it's head I threw myself and my duffelbag into one of the sidehalls in the mazelike interior surrounding the hangar like area where Stane first activated his monstrosity. Throwing myself to the ground, I was briefly thankful for my decision to wear a generic suit which, combined with the poor (or rather, non-existant) lightning allowed me to pass as one of the nameless grunts already littering the hallway.

Within the first ten steps of my Twenty-one Step Plan, no human would be able to harm me anymore. A few steps later and I could at the very least survive a fight with Thor, who managed tank a blast from a neutron star and live to tell about it. By the end of my plan I would be effectively omnipotent.

Now though? Now all I was capable of was lying down, covered in sweat while trying to get some measure of control over my harsh breathing, playing dead in the hope a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. goons wouldn't find me.

Perhaps not the grandest start to galactic domination but I had to begin somewhere.

I desperately held my breath as I heard a squad of agents barrel down the hallway I had been walking in only moments before, praying to whatever deity that was on my side (given how many there are in this world, sheer probability dictated that at least one should be. Right?) that the agents were distracted enough by the lightshow on the roof to not check their dead.

My silent terror sky-rocketed when I heard a commanding voice call out in a soft whisper, as the multitude of footsteps slowed down to a halt.

"Fan out, keep your heads on a swivel."

'No, don't fan out! Don't fan out! Keep going straight ahead, there's a bad guy with power armor there, that means instant death for you guys, shouldn't you be running face first into that!?' I screamed internally, trying to keep as still as possible.

I could only lie there, paralyzed by fear as I heard soft footsteps creeping ever closer to where my sweat soaked body was lying face down on the harsh ground.

Any second now, he would see that I was still alive. Any second now I would be captured by an organization which was run by the most evil bastards on earth. Any second now my life would be over before it even had a chance to really take off. Every second now-

"We got incoming! Everybody move, move, move!"

My quiet sigh of relief went unheard in the middle of the pandemonium that resulted after yet another explosion rattled the building. Feeling more than seeing that the superpowered brawl between Stane and Tony was coming to an end, I waited till I heard the last of the footsteps run deeper into the complex before I made a mad dash towards my overstuffed duffelbag.

I hurriedly made my way to the exit, not wanting to see Stane (and by extension this building and therefore me) go up in flames.

Running away was surprisingly galling but the sheer terror that consumed me when I was nearly discovered quickly beat my sense of pride into submission, leaving it a snivelling wreck before taking the wheel of my motor functions, telling me nothing was more important than getting the fuck outta here.

I was supremely grateful for its sense of initiative when not moments after I had left through the back entrance (the front was surrounded by a small army of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents) the entire building seemed to explode, a wave of heat and pressure slamming me to the ground.

Chancing a quick look over my shoulder, I saw that it was only the main hall, where the giant Reactor stood, that had been obliterated.

Not to mention the bits of Obadiah Stane that were most likely raining down everywhere.

Scrambling to my feet, ignoring my scuffed hands and ripped pants, I hurried my ass out of there to where my car was parked a few blocks away. A modest Honda civic it probably wouldn't draw any attention as I made my way to the middle class neighborhood I lived in.

It was nearly 3 AM when I had finally managed to come home, shrug off my dirtied clothes and dropped onto my bed, completely exhausted.

Stealing blueprints to advanced weaponry from underneath the nose of the greatest spy agency in the world as well as the inventor of said weaponry was surprisingly tiring.

Resolving to look at my loot first thing in the morning I switched off the lights and immediately I was dead to the world.

//

Stark is a genius. Let me rephrase that: Stark is a fucking genius. I mean, I knew he was, everybody both here and in my old world knew he was. But to actually look at his work, botched by Stane as it was, actually drove home just how much smarter the Merchant of Death was than me.

If it wasn't for Stane having to dumb most of it down for himself and the scientists on his payroll I probably wouldn't even know what I was looking at. As it stood, while I had a decent understanding of how the armor worked (operating under its own weight without crushing the wearer, or how inertia dampeners allowed Tony to be punched through a wall with only a bruise to show for it, that kinda thing) the Arc Reactor was completely beyond me.

I sorta got the theory behind it, but I had absolutely no clue how to go and actually build the damn thing, especially small enough for it to be carried.

Sorry Ivan, but it seems I'm gonna have to take your stuff.

Filing the armor away for now (and I do mean file. With all the supernerds in this universe there's no way in hell I'm digitizing any of this. For now the plans go behind a false plank underneath my sink) I start trawling through the internet trying to get my hands on as many news outlets as possible and visiting every forum there is. With my meta knowledge separating hoax from truth is a walk in the park and I'm hoping that somewhere among the rumors and speculations I can find clues for my master plan of Galactic Domination.

…

You know, I really feel like an evil laugh would be appropriate there but the walls of my apartment are thin and I can do without any noise complaints.

Ah well, I'll just do them later once I have a proper lair.

Suddenly a news article grabbed my attention with all the subtlety of Thor trying to put IKEA furniture together using Mjolnir.

'Soda factory in Rio shut down due to massive structural damage , witnesses claim to have heard gunfire and have even claimed to have seen a monster. Neither the authorities nor the executives of the company were available for comment."

I smirked as I read the short article, skimming over the fact that some employees had apparently been injured in what was being presented as a work related accident.

I knew better.

"Hello Bruce." I said softly with a grin that would make many a sailor break out in cold sweat and mutter something about needing a bigger boat.

Unfortunately I couldn't act on this yet as it was part of Step 3. For now I would need to focus on Step 2. After well over two hours of caffeine supported digging through the most untrustworthy and speculative parts of the internet I finally found what I was looking for.

An apparently leaked memo that hinted at Stark Industries planning some sort of big event. Ideas were thrown around about what this could be, one more ridiculous than the last (one presented the idea that Tony would unveil a sex oriented line of Iron Man… paraphernalia) but I knew what it really would be.

Time to put on my nice suit, I was going to the Stark Expo.

As a compromise, this time I laughed inside my head. So what if that makes me crazy? Everybody else already is.

'Bwahahahahahahahaha.'

//

It's amazing the places you can get into with just a safety vest and an expression that says that you know what you're doing. I quickly realized that my salvage idea that I used in Step 1 might not work here due to it being far more in the open and with thousands of people present. Infiltrating Hammer Industries was also out of the question since I simply wasn't good enough for it and I seem to remember that Black Widow already was doing that.

Hijacking control over the drones was a no-go since not only was Ivan a way better programmer than me, he did everything in Russian which I could speak well enough to either order a vodka or get my teeth kicked in.

Certainly not well enough to try and out hack a genius.

So, instead of scavenging stuff after the fact, I decided to come in way in advance. I helped setting up the stages, laying down the wiring, everything you could think of, I tried to do. While I was hired for construction, which meant that thankfully I got payed for all my time there (even Galactic Overlords need to eat) I used my vest, id-badge and sheer confidence to get to areas where I technically wasn't allowed to go.

Such as the unloading area where Hammer's drones would arrive before they'd be placed on the platform where they would be revealed on stage. Underneath my bulky work clothes I was wearing a bare bones version of the Iron Man armor, made from the material I had managed to pilfer during my time setting up the Expo.

You wouldn't believe the amount of raw material that went in to making all of the stands, visitor areas, walkways, hell, even parkings required tonnes of stuff to make.

And with my almighty safety vest, I had access to all of it. Of course I had to be careful about what and how much I took, so I was limited to small amounts of steel and power tools (not to mention the size of the boot of my Honda) which was why I applied months in advance.

During my time working here I had stolen enough material and tools to make at least the skeleton of the power armor. It was basically just a frame on my torso and limbs hidden from view by my uniform. It offered me no protection but it did give me superstrengh.

As I walked into the loading area with my toolbox in hand I was stopped by an armed guard stepping in my way. As I tried to keep my breath even I was immensely relieved to see that while the guy was alert he wasn't suspicious of me or wary, his hands resting loosely on top of his gun.

"This is a restricted area sir, I'm going to need to see some id."

"Oh, yeah sure. Here you go." I replied, trying to keep any tremors out of my voice as I reached into the back pocket of my overalls with my bulky gloves, fishing out the card and presenting it to the security guard.

The card said two things: the first was that I did indeed work for the Stark Expo.

The second thing it said was that I wasn't actually allowed in this part of the Expo.

Thankfully, given where I had just pulled the card from made the guard somewhat disinclined to look all that closely at my badge. Not taking any chances I tried to reassure the man with the submachine gun in his hands.

"I'm just here to fix the wiring. Lights are acting up."

Right on cue the lamps in the ceiling sputtered in pitiful protest before dimming slightly. As they should, given the fact that I had sabotaged the wiring not 5 minutes ago.

Giving a glance towards the ceiling before glancing at my card again, the guard looked at me again before giving a shallow nod.

"On your way then."

Dipping my head in thanks I made sure to walk away in an unhurried tempo without making it obvious I was trying to do so. I needn't have bothered as the guard deemed me completely uninteresting, turning away from me and watching the open end of the loading bay where the trucks with the Hammer drones would enter.

Making my way towards an adjacent room on the other side of the hangar (this one without a guard thankfully) I sat down at one of the many terminals that were scattered all over the backstage area, due to the amount of robotics, pyrotechnics and whatever other -technics you could imagine being used in the Expo which required massive amounts of data.

I had no clue what the terminal I was sitting at was supposed to do, my briefcase with tools and important looking manuals (one was for the blender I had at home as it had stopped working for some reason) opened beside me but I knew one thing for sure: it wasn't for fixing the lights.

After about ten minutes of me looking busy (while actually trying to figure out why my stupid blender apparently couldn't conquer the might of the ordinary banana) I saw the guard who looked extremely bored after his eight hour shift of just standing around, perk up slightly.

As the sound of heavy engines met me I understood why: the drones have arrived.

I kept "working" at my terminal (honestly it was a banana, a toothless grandma could chew it, so what the hell blender?) as the heavy crates containing the drones were offloaded and unpacked. I waited until the hustle and bustle of the entire process was winding down before I heard a hesitant knock on the door frame.

The guard from before gave an uncomfortable look at my toolbox with its foreboding manuals promising ultimate boredom and at me, kneeling in front of the terminal with my arms up to my elbows in its guts (I had given up on the mystery of the only blender known to man who was apparently allergic to bananas and out of pettiness had decided I might as well try and figure out what this terminal was actually supposed to do).

"You alright there?"

Giving a non committal shrug I turned back to the inner workings of the machine in front of me (mostly to try and hide the heart attack he had given me) as I replied, making sure to line my voice with annoyance.

"Sure, sure. Some idiot tried cutting corners in laying down the wiring so instead of a sequential relay I'm now dealing with a parallel circuit so's now I gotta go and run diagnostic's on every goddamn breaker, which is gonna take more time than actually laying the wiring right in the first place!"

The guard gave a confused blink at my torrent of inane techno-babble (as intended) before evidently deciding it was not his problem.

"Right, guess that sucks huh? Look, the shipment has been unloaded but the crew that are supposed to take the lot to the stage area haven't arrived yet but my shift technically ended about 35 minutes ago and I ain't getting paid overtime. You mind keeping an eye on things till they or the next guard shift turns up?"

While the overworked guard was clearly surprised (and angered) by the tardiness of the next shift, I on the other hand felt only satisfaction. Then again, I had the advantage over the guard in knowing why the next shift was so late: because I arranged it to be so.

I might not be willing to try and hack a criminal unstable genius like Ivan Vanko, but Jennifer from Administration?

Bring. It. On.

One sleepless night spent hacking the work schedule for this week using keycodes and passwords swiped from meeting rooms where I had technically no access to (thank you invincible safety vest!) and I had given myself a half hour window between this guard's shift and the arrival of the drones and the start of the next shift. More than enough with the superstrengh granted by my armor and with my tools in my toolbox.

"Yeah, sure not a problem. Something happens, I'll just give a yell or something." I said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, giving a nonchalant wave with one of my grease stained gloves as I turned back towards the mass of wires and circuity in front of me.

The guard was clearly uncomfortable with leaving some electrician watching over a shipment of advanced military grade weaponry, but he turned out to be even more uncomfortable with working for more than nine hours straight by now (courtesy of yours truly again).

"Right. Good luck with the… thing." He muttered, before being waved off as I just turned my back on him.

I waited until the door on the far side of the hangar clicked closed, before I bolted towards where the drones were packed in neat rows. I had at maximum a half hour before the next shift was supposed to show up, but I still remembered the near miss at the showdown between Stane and Stark. At any moment someone could show up and massively screw up my plans.

Sure, my power armor would allow me to at least get out of here alive, but I'd be on so many radars it wasn't even funny anymore.

But I hadn't put on the armor for a fight, as counter-intuitive as it felt to every teenager in the universe, but for something more… utalitarian.

The drones were massive solid metal forms, protected from tampering by strong plates and internal software. An obstacle easily overcome by me ripping away the plating at the neck of one of the Navy-model drones. I knew Ivan had trackers in the drones, but I also seemed to remember that taking out their heads cut off his remote control. Now obviously I couldn't simply rip off the head entirely, that was rather likely to be noticed. But tear out the online connector?

Now that I can do.

Slipping a signal jammer inside the body of the drone for good measure, I slap the plating back roughly into place using some of the more sophisticated tools in my arsenal (fine, I'll confess, I used duct tape) before making my way around the other models, each time only disabling a single drone in each batch as too many would draw too much attention.

Surprisingly, despite me expecting to be found out at any moment I actually managed to finish with ten minutes to spare. I quickly gathered all of my stuff, triple checking to see if I left any clues behind that could lead back to me, but thankfully not finding any.

I wasn't worried about the cameras that covered the hangar since I knew they didn't actually have any power.

I should know, I installed them myself.

Seeing nothing more I could do to cover my tracks I swiftly made my way towards the main stage area, my pass and mighty safety vest easily granting me access to the backstage area where in a couple of hours Justin Hammer would make a fool of himself, courtesy of Whiplash.

And now, all I had to do was wait.

//

I calmly sipped my soda (no beer for now as I wanted to be completely sober for what came next) as Hammer's world went up in flames.

Quite literally, as one Air Force drone bombed the stage next to the one he had been standing on.

Despite the general mayham and pandemonium I was perfectly calm. Unlike everybody else here, I knew that Tony Stark had managed to get his head out of his ass, massively improve his Arc Reactor and was now on his way to punch Ivan into next week.

And sure enough a gold and red blur arrived and started shooting the drones out of the sky with well-placed repulsor blasts. Taking that as my cue, I walked towards the back of the stage which was deserted as all the employees had deemed the explosions too close for comfort and decided to take off towards safer pastures.

I took control of the lifts that had raised the drones on platforms onto the stage behind Hammer during his speech and ordered them down again. When Ivan started his attack, almost all of the drones took off and started raining down death and destruction upon the audience of the Expo. A few of the drones however had remained unresponsive on the platform.

They were my drones now.

Using my superstrengh I knocked down a portion of the temporary wall behind the main stage, which opened up to a large parking lot filled with company cars and trucks.

My car, with a trailer attached to it as was nearly every vehicle there, was right in front of the hole I had just punched through the wall (there is something inherently satisfying about having a punching match with an architectural element and coming out on top. This might just be my new favorite hobby).

Wasting no time since the dogfight over the Expo seemed to increase in intensity, I hurried back to the platforms with my unresponsive drones on them, throwing one over my shoulders. Each one weighed around half a tonne, but with my armor on I could take it (though it gave a distressed whine when I lifted the Army model with its oversized turret).

Throwing it onto the trailer I quickly covered the heap of robots with with some tarp, got in my car and drove away from the Expo, where in all likelihood Stark and Rodey were fighting off Whiplash.

I was greatly tempted to stick around to try and get my hands on Ivan's Arc Reactor but once again S.H.I.E.L.D. was on the scene and I didn't want to push my luck just yet.

It was the same reason why I didn't go to Hammer's base to go for Ivan's blueprints since the Black Widow was currently there. At the moment I vastly outclassed her in the strength department, but I was sorely lacking in defensive options, while she was both faster and more skilled than me, which meant there was a chance she could disable me.

No, I'll have to be content and take my drones to my storage unit, rip them apart and put them together for my own armor.

No matter, there were other steps down the line which would allow me to have another chance at obtaining the Arc Reactor for myself, I just had to be patient a little longer.

Step 3 was close to commencing and with the treasure trove of robotics in my trailer I'll be ready.

I'm coming for you Bruce.

Or rather, I'm coming for your blood.

//
Fun Fact: Loki's first appearance in the Marvel Universe predates that of his brother Thor's first appearance by 13 years.

 

[Bakkughan]

-SHIELD meeting room, after the Stane Incident-

Nicolas J. Fury was not the kindest of men. In his line of work, kindness could and would get you and everyone else killed. Still, he avoided more irrational and useless actions, such as screaming at incompetent agents.

He was really struggling with that right now.

Looking around the meeting room at his 'Elite' agents, he was having a hard time holding back on his volume. "So, you are telling me, that not only was Stane's suit completely destroyed, but also all of his plans and records were stolen right under our fucking noses during the battle?"

"Yes, sir," Coulson replied, as stoic as ever. Neither Fury nor his right hand, Maria Hill were impressed.

"Do we know WHO stole the plans?"

"No, sir. We have security footage of a white male, around two meters tall, with brown hair, entering the building not long before our men did. He spent about twenty minutes inside, we estimate, before he exited out of a side exit, where he once again skillfully hid his face from the security cameras, and left on foot. We assume he had a vehicle close by, but are unable to confirm that."

"And of course, we can't track him down because half the western hemisphere matches that description?"

"Yes, sir," Coulson once again dutifully replied.

"WSC is not going to like this one. Do any of you have some GOOD news for me? No?" Fury sighed under his breath, "Dismissed."

-SHIELD meeting room, after the Vanko Incident-

"So once again, our tech thief hit Stark?" Fury questioned his agents, "The same one from the Stane Incident?"

"Yes, Director," the Black Widow replied. As the senior agent part of the incident, it fell to her to act as spokesman for the attending agents. "He apparently pass for, or was hired on as, a construction worker for the Expo. He is the reason why we have no functional cameras in the loading docks. Thankfully, we managed to catch a look at him onstage, where he was stealing one of each type of drone. Apparently, he messed with the network connection, so Vanko could not give commands to them, and smuggled the drones into a vehicle nearby. Once again, he was able to avoid detection by most cameras when driving, and the few that did see him, did not get the license plate number. Our only new information on his appearance is he has brown eyes, which once again does not allow us to narrow down who he is. The picture quality is not good enough for facial recognition."

Fury silently laments the low quality of Hammertech. "So we have a complete unknown, with a penchant for stealing advanced technology, is good enough to avoid cameras as well as our average agent, and is completely unremarkable in looks?"

"Yes, sir," Hill responds from beside Fury.

"Do whatever you can to find this guy. We either need him to join SHIELD, or no longer be a problem. Now then, what about this Norse God I am hearing about from New Mexico?"

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 2: I VANT TO STEAL YOUR BLOOD!​

I'm bent over my workbench with my powertool in hand, a gutted Hammertech drone in front of me, when I hear a chime come from my computer on the other end of the storage area where I'm working on my own Iron Man armor.

Everything here is stolen from the Stark Expo, the tools, the soundproofing, the equipment, which means that it's all state of the art and I can work without fear of drawing the attention of someone outside. Likewise the computer, while not the fanciest model out there, was still heaps better than what I should be able to afford on my wages from my dozen odd jobs, which is why I hid it here.

As far as superhero lairs go, a teched out storage unit isn't the most glamorous, but it's a start.

Unfortunately my Twenty-four Step Program (the Steps keep increasing because I keep thinking of cool stuff I can steal/scavenge/build) is solely based on acquiring power, not wealth, so until I've made myself effectively immortal (Step 6 to 8) I'll just have to suck it up and try to get by on my minimum wage.

Sure I could use my tech and powers (when I get them) to steal money, hell, with what I had right here I could just walk into a bank and punch the vault door straight off its hinges, but that would suck me into a villain narrative.

Before you know it, like clock work I'll be running around in spandex with some ridiculous scheme to steal all the gold in Fort Knox using the cunning power of goldfish, only to be defeated just in time for dinner and locked away yet again, all the while screaming things like 'damn you Spiderman!'.

No, instant ramen will have to do. For now.

Shutting down the power saw that I had been using to dismantle an Air Force drone and shrugging off my thick gloves I walked over to my desk, which was covered in notes, blueprints and a couple of Stark Industries computers, my power armor whirring as I moved.

Until Step 3 was completed I was still a squishy human so I wasn't taking any chances and always made sure to wear the armor, just in case I missed something and someone managed to track me down. Nobody was going to catch me unawares.

Besides, the armor was a bitch and a half to put on or take off, so I tried to keep it on as long as possible.

Reaching my desk I leaned over one of the computers to see what triggered one of my alerts before an immense grin flashed across my face. One of the simpler programs I've written, designed to flag certain keywords, had managed to catch what I had been looking for.

"Shoot-out between U.S. Military and a monster at Cornell University Campus!"

Someone had managed to take all of the footage students had managed to capture and combine it in a short film of about 5 minutes. It had almost immediately been banned (S.H.I.E.L.D.'s work no doubt) but by then it had already had thousands of views and in a matter of moments 10 more versions sprung up at various forums, and the numbers just kept increasing.

'You screwed up, Ross, cat's outta the bag now. No way even S.H.I.E.L.D. can contain this, and even if you can keep this off the major news channels, people won't forget this.' I thought to myself in vicious amusement, before straightening and cracking my neck.

If I remembered correctly (and I knew I did, since I had made a gigantic poster of the MCU timeline and had hung it on the wall off my storage unit) then the Hulk would flee to some forest somewhere, and then he and Betty would make their way towards the only man they thought might cure Bruce.

Mr. Blue, at the Grayburn College here in New York.

I had no clue where the forest was where the Hulk was hiding out, and I had no idea how long it would take for Bruce and Betty to make their way towards New York, but that didn't matter. I already was in New York, and I was only days away from completing the first version of my armor, which would be enough for my current purposes.

Hell, a balaclava would do for my plan, but there's something comforting about wearing hundreds of pounds of metal and weapons when two behemoths start wrecking your neighbourhood.

Quickly setting up another program to flag any mentions about happenings in Harlem or the Grayburn College, I pulled my gloves back on and slammed my welding mask back down over my face.

There was work to be done.

//

It had taken roughly two weeks for Bruce and Betty to reach Grayburn College, which meant that I had managed to finish my armor a few days before schedule. As a result, I had taken the opportunity to hang around the College, pretending to be a janitor, as it allowed me much more freedom of movement than pretending to be one of the students.

I had made extra sure to hang around the office of one Samuel Sterns, which had been made significantly easier by the man's stereotypical nutty professor persona: as I wasn't an academic or of academic interest, I almost didn't even exist to the man as he hurried down the hallways deep in thought.

While I was tempted to break into his office to get the synthesized blood of Banner right now, I held off on it, mainly because I couldn't remember wether the blood had been hidden or even stashed at his office at all. The movie had come out almost a decade before I was removed from my original universe, so details like that were extremely hazy.

No, better use my tried and true tactic of waiting for a villain to bring the fireworks, and while the heroes were distracted, make my getaway with the shiny loot.

And I was counting on the Abomination being one hell of a distraction.

So, I'll wait until Blonsky gets his fix, and while he tears up Harlem, I'll walk in with my armor on (which was currently dismanteled and stashed in the back of a rental van bought under a false identity, which was riding uncomfortably low on it's axels) take the blood and most importantly, try and take Sterns as well.

Stan Lee died of drinking a single, diluted drop of the Hulk's blood; I was planning to inject myself with a full bloodbag.

I needed a man like Sterns in order to see wether I would even survive the process or not. If he wouldn't come with me, or if he discovered that the blood would kill me, I'd have to wait for another serum which would boost my regeneration and constitution before trying again.

I really hoped not though, as most of those serums were only available in later Steps, and I desperately needed a boost now.

Shaking off my worries, I made my way towards my van when I saw Banner (in his Ruffalo portrayal, I was wondering about that, seemed this universe retroactively edited itself) and Betty made their way into Sterns' office.

Tonight the showdown between Hulk and Abomination would occur; tonight would be the night I made my first Step towards evolving my body to a higher plane.

Unable to resist, but not wanting to draw any attention to myself, I conceded to the urge to let out an evil laugh, but made sure to do so softly, under my breath.

"Bwahahahahahaha…"

You know what, it's a lot less impressive when you need to whisper your diabolical laughs.

//

Right as I slid on my helmet, an almighty crash thundered across the College. Seems like Blonsky got his fix then. Quickly making my way back inside the building I ran towards where I now know Sterns and his batch of Hulk-blood is, not caring about the few people that are around to see me, as my identity is safely hidden underneath my helmet, and my armor is painted in muted colours in order to blend in with the darkness of the night.

Reaching the room where Blonksy transformed into the Hulk, I ignored the door in favour of simply running straight through the wall, showering a surprised and slightly mutated Sterns in brick and mortar (I could have used the door of course, but I couldn't resist the urge to once again inflict grivious harm upon architectural elements. It's addictive I tell you).

"W-who are you?" a dazed Sterns mutters as he stares up at me in confusion, the small cut across his temple still flowing with blood, even as his cranium starts to expand a bit.

"I'm the guy who's getting you out of here." I state, a modulator in my helmet making my voice unrecognizable and suitably intimidating.

"What? I… I don't understand…" Sterns mutters, though I get the impression he's talking more to himself than to me.

Not wasting any time, I reached over and hauled the man to his feet, ignoring his wince as I jostle some of his probably broken ribs.

"We need to get moving. Where's Banner's blood? The Army is everywhere and S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Black Widow are on their way, and when they get here, they're gonna arrest you, and destroy the blood."

At that I finally managed to get his attention, wild eyes settling frantically on my blank facemask.

"No… No! They can't have it! It's mine! Mine! I can do so much with it, so much more… you must save it!"

Grabbing the frantic scientist by his shoulders I forced him to stand still, using my larger frame to loom over him, making him stop his rambling.

"I will save the blood and I'll save you. You can't work on the blood when you're in prison can you?" I rumble, trying to sooth the confused scientist, who gives an agreeing nod at my words.

"So, here's what's going to happen. You'll lead me to the blood. I bag everything in sight. I'll take you to my safehouse, where we'll lie low so we can avoid S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Army. In my safehouse, you'll be able to expirement all you want. I want that blood, Sterns. What Blonsky and Banner have? I want that too."

At the mention of expirementing, Sterns' frantic eyes lighted up with a mad gleam, and he visibly tried to straighten himself despite his injuries and quite frankly ridiculous oversized head.

"Right. Follow me."

//

There were a few army grunts still around, but most of the attention was focused on Blonsky, who was cutting a swath of death and explosions through them, laughing like a maniac all the time.

As we reached the lab where Sterns kept the gamma-blood, three soldiers burst through the double doors on the other end of the hallway, immediately raising their rifles in my direction, the death of their comrades clearly putting them on high alert.

Pushing my trusty duffelbag in Sterns hands I shoved him towards where the bloodbags were hanging, not taking my eyes off the soldiers, who were predictably shouting orders at me to get on the floor, hoping that their raised voices masked their fear (it didn't).

"Everything you think you need, put it in the bag. Leave the rest. Now."

At my growled command, made more pressing by the modulator in my helmet, Sterns gives a quick nod (making his oversized head bob precariously on his neck) before he starts shoving bloodbags and notebooks into the duffelbag.

This clearly upsets the army grunts, as they now started moving closer towards me, their shouting increasing even as they train their peashooters on my still form.

Right, let's see what this baby can do.

Steadily walking towards them apparently freaked them out, as one lost control over her triggerfinger and opened fire on me. Now, even safely entombed within one of the most advanced DIY-armors in the world, I couldn't quite stop the knee-jerk reaction to flinch before the bright flashes and thunderous gunshots (which was thankfully hidden by my solid faceplate).

But other than what felt like a kid throwing pebbles against my armor, I didn't feel anything from the gunfire (though the paint-job was absolutely ruined) and before I consciously knew what I was doing, I was sprinting down the hallway in my armor that weighed in at just a little more than half a tone, cracking the floor underneath my feet as I went.

One of the soldiers completely froze up when I ran at her, and instead of dodging like her colleagues did, instinctively hunkered down and started emptying her clip into my approaching form.

Other than sparks flying across my armored plates I didn't show any sign of noticing the spray of bullets (though Sterns dived underneath his desk with an undignified squak of fear) and before either of us knew it, I was upon her.

Now, like I said, my armor was more than half a ton, while the hallway was about thirty feet long. As a result, I had built up quite a momentum.

More momentum than I could handle in fact.

Before I even knew what had happened, before I had been able to turn, or slow down, or do anything really, I had trampled the soldier into the floor underneath my feet.

It was a grisly sight, and it shocked both me and the remaining soldiers into silence. The soldier on my right showed his greater experience though, by snapping out of it first, a hand flying immediately to the radio on his shoulder.

Unfortunaley, the sudden movement made me lash out on instinct, and before the grunt had managed to call into his radio, my fist slammed into his chest, sending him crashing into the wall, denting it far enough that he actually stuck there.

He wasn't dead, as he wore body armor, but he was out for the count for now, so I immediately turned towards the last soldier-

SMACK!

-only to get the butt of a riffle slammed into my armored chin, making my head tilt slightly upwards. Stunned by surprise, both me and the soldier stood frozen on the spot, before I pushed my chin (and the rifle) back down, fixing the army grunt with a glare through my solid faceplate.

I had to give the guy credit though, because after swallowing his nervousness, he dropped the rifle in favour of unsheathing a combat knife and bringing it towards my midriff in one smooth movement.

I caught the knife by the blade in one armored glove, and used my other to shove him in the chest, sending him sprawling into the other wall, forcing him to let go of the knife.

Acting on instinct, I flipped the knife, and before the dazed soldier had a chance to right himself, or even bring up a guard of some kind, I slammed the weapon straight into the base of his neck.

Blood spurts out from the wound, splashing across my armor as I stare in mute horror as the man lets out a wet gurgle which will haunt my nightmares for days to come as he slides to the floor.

Still in a daze, I heard a gasp and a curse, before a gunshot rings out and I feel something ping off the back of my helmet. Turning around (getting another shot to the face) I see the other soldier, one hand grasping his chest and fractured ribcage, the other holding a hand gun, which he is emptying on me with a murderous expression on his face.

Ignoring the bullets (I barely register them. In fact, I'm barely registering anything at all right now) I walked towards him and punched him in the face.

Boxers wear gloves, yet still manage to occasionally kill one another when in the ring by an (un)lucky blow to the head.

I was wearing something a bit more dangerous than boxing gloves.

My punch shatteres his nose and cheekbones, sending shard of bone into his brains even as his eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, while his upper jaw looses all it's front teeth.

I nearly hurl inside my helmet, the only thing keeping me from doing so is the fact that that would be utterly disgusting and the gunfire, explosions and occasional roars coming from outside the building.

Right, I'm on a schedule here.

I turned towards Sterns and his lab, trying (and failing) to put the soldiers out of my mind as I approached the mutated scientist, who was running around with a frantic grin on his misshapen face.

"You got everything?" I ask harshly, grateful the modifier keeps any tremors from showing through my voice.

Sterns looked from the lab to the overstuffed duffelbag with a forlorn expression on his misshapen face, before giving a sigh and a nod. It's clear he wanted to take more of his work with him (and I'm sort of on his side on this, as the more research he can take with him, the less time it takes for him to make me superhuman) but the bag was bursting at the seams and he's clearly struggling with the weight.

Grabbing the bag with one hand, and him by the shoulder with the other, I marched him towards the rear-exit of the building. I don't know where S.H.I.E.L.D. is and I'm not willing to stick around to try and find out. Ross and his army are currently focused on the 10 feet tall monster who is ripping apart the neighbourhood and his men with equal glee.

In other words; it's time to get the hell out of here.

Thankfully we met no more soldiers on our way out (though we did spot the odd terrified looking College student hunkered down underneath desks and the like) and we burst through a service corridor to the outside world without anyone the wiser.

We quickly made our way over to my van which was parked right in front of the corridor (memorizing floorplans for the win!), me getting in the back, while Sterns takes the wheel and we peel away from the scene of destruction.

I absent-mindedly gave Sterns directions to where I parked my car, and once we get there we quickly dumped the van (I pause to make sure nothing can be traced back to me, the fake id is already destroyed and I vigourously wipe down everything Sterns had touched so he won't leave any prints) and we get in my Honda, the duffelbag in the trunk, me in the backseat and the scientist once again behind the wheel.

As we made our way towards my storage unit/secret lair, I kept thinking back to the three soldiers I killed.

I knew, on an intellectual level, that becoming a god wouldn't be without sacrifices or collateral damage, but I hadn't expected it to be so soon in my plan or so… up close and personal.

Closing my eyes, trying to ignore the wet sound of the knife entering the soldiers throat, I went over my thoughts about killing three humans in the span of a minute.

Did I feel guilty? Oddly enough, not as much as I thought I would. Yes, it was unfortunate that our confrontation had to end with their deaths, and if I could do the encounter over again I might handle things differently, but the fact of the matter was that my existence was hidden from the authorities for just a little longer, which was invaluable to the success of my plan.

So no, I didn't feel guilty for killing those soldiers. What I did feel, was anger. Anger at Ross, who couldn't leave well enough alone, a man who was powerhungry enough that he was willing to waste lives and millions of dollars of equipment hunting down a man who above all else just wanted to be left alone, in order to make his own army of monsters.

The deaths of those three soldiers?

They were on him.

The equipment destroyed by the Hulk?

That was on him.

The deaths caused by Blonsky even now?

All of it was on him.

Opening my eyes again, I now no longer felt any queasiness, feeling only determination instead. I have no doubt that the images of the mangled bodies of those nameless grunts will haunt my dreams for the coming nights, but now I know what I'm going to do about it.

Step 4: Ruin Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross' life.

I'm looking forward to this one.

//

"I'm gonna need a what now?"

"A primer. The gammapulse which triggers the change comes from the amygdala. The primer created by Dr. Ross allows those cells to temporarily absorb that energy, which makes sure you don't die of radiation poisoning. I don't have that primer, so if I just inject you now, you'll most likely die of the gamma energy inside Dr. Banner's blood, not just the blood itself." Sterns rambled at me in excitement, waving his hands in front of a whiteboard I had hung up on one of the walls inside my storage unit.

It has been less than a week since the fight between the Abomination and the Hulk, and during that time both Sterns and I have been busy. While I was eager for some of the power of Banner's alter ego I had watched enough movies to know that just injecting some of the blood into my body could only end badly.

So I had controlled my impulse and allowed the scientist to set up as much equipment as he could fit inside the now cramped storage unit and would need to turn me superhuman. It was extremely basic, but thankfully Sterns' massively increased intellect found ingenious ways around that, though that didn't stop him from pestering me to find him more and more expensive equipment.

While trying to find a middle-ground with the mutated scientist (yes, I understood that without proper equipment and tests I might die horribly, no, I wasn't going to get him the materials he needed to create a hadron collider) I spent my time executing Step 4.

My armor had cams on it, so I uploaded the footage of that night (minus my fight with the soldiers) to show all of the death and destruction Ross' ambitions had wrought, going back to Harlem during the week with hidden camera's to add to the story (it's much harder to hide the ugliness of the truth in broad daylight).

While I had the public on my side (basically all of Harlem had taken up arms against the U.S. Army and the top brass especially) it quickly became clear to me that Ross was protected, most likely by S.H.I.E.L.D. on orders of the World Security Council, as those assholes seemed to determined to do everything they could to make the world a worse place.

Surprisingly, I managed to get Tony Stark on my side, who was most likely still smarting over the Army taking away his armor and turning it into their own plaything, only to screw up and loose control, causing wanton death and destruction (again), while for Stark the armor was a symbol of him pulling out of the Merchant of Death persona and all of its horrible concequences.

To say he was angry was like stating that Antartica might be a bit chilly this time of year.

Public opinion kept the ineptitude of Ross in the news, while Stark's lawyers started digging up every single code violation the obsessed general had committed (of which there were many). Ross was still in position, but rumours began to float around that his backers were concidering that defending him was more trouble than it was worth, especially when it came to light he had abused whatever little of the Super Soldier serum they still had, wich meant their only source of unlocking the power of the Hulk was now inside Blonsky, and everybody was wary about involving him, even the idiotic WSC.

Guess survival-instinct overrules a lack of common sense.

So, Ross would soon be on his way out if Tony got his way (which he always did) but that still left me stuck in a storage unit with a somewhat unstable scientist and apparently no way to currently survive enhancing myself with mighty Hulk-blood.

"You survived his blood, didn't you?" I ask Sterns, my voice still modulated by my helmet which I wore everytime I went by the storage unit to get an update on his progress and to continue my war on Thaddeus Ross.

"Yes, and while utterly fascinating, I don't think this is what you're going for, am I right?" Sterns replies with a grin, pointing at his massive cranium.

While it gave him an immense boost to his intellect and memory ("I can recall every paper I ever graded!") he was correct that I wasn't really aiming to get his look as well, concidering the fact that he looked… well, to be honest, he looked grotesque.

Sterns himself however could not be happier with his new image, and everytime he wasn't setting up his equipment, or testing the gamma-blood to see if I could incorporate it, he was experimenting on himself, trying to see just what had happened to him.

Making a face underneath my helmet (which of course he couldn't see) I replied to the enhanced scientist in my teched out shed.

"So what do you need to make your primer? Or anything really that would keep me alive?"

At this, Sterns let's out a massive grin, nearly bouncing on his toes in excitement.

"Aha! That's why I called you here today! I wanted to wait until everything was ready, but I just couldn't contain myself anymore. Besides, I finally have all the equipment to do some real work on this!" he babbles as he nearly skips his way towards one of the many coolboxes stacked inside the storage unit (one of the many reasons why it had become so cramped. I had to rent another unit just for storing all the disassembled parts of the drones that I hadn't incorporated into my armor).

Before I could ask what exactly this is, he fished something out of the coolbox he had been rummaging in, turning around and holding it aloft with a flourish and a proud grin on his face.

"Tadaa!"

It was a vial, filled with a reddish liquid. I squinted at it, before giving up.

"Allright, I'll bite. What am I looking at?"

"This, my friend, is a bit of Blonsky's blood before I administered Dr. Banner's blood to him. I didn't know what he had already put inside himself, so I managed to get a bloodsample from him, before starting the procedure. Now I can finally figure out what had already enhanced him and then I can give it to you as well!"

At that I straighten in shock, clearly taking Sterns off guard. I on the other hand have completely forgotten about the mad scientist as I stare at the innocent looking vial in awe.

"The super-soldier serum…" I whisper, though clearly Sterns has heared me, since he is now looking at the vial in a mix of awe and excitement as well.

"Really? Oh, I had hoped it would be something exiting, but this… Erskine is said to have been a genius unmatched even by our generation… This is going to be incredible!" Sterns gushes and I can't help it, I start laughing alongside him.

"Well done doctor. Let's see what mysteries we can uncover, shall we?"

And with that, we both committed ourselves to the task of unravelling Emil Blonsky's blood.

The completion of Step 3 came closer and closer.

//

While our enthousiasm didn't diminish, it turned out that cracking a supelsodier's chemical and genetic make-up was surprisingly difficult, especially when done with subpar machines in a storage unit.

Still, progress was made, though in slow increments. This did give me the opportunity to give my attention to the completion of Step 4 as well. Somone within the Army, perhaps one of the scientists, had blabbed, and Blonsky's mission in Rio in pursuit of the Hulk on Ross' orders had leaked.

It sparked an international shitstorm, with even representatives of the soda-factory Banner had worked at knocking on the door of the Pentagon, asking for reparations as the blame for all the damages were laid solely at Ross' feet.

Top brass at the Army felt this was getting out of hand, and branded the operation on foreign soil as unsanctioned and of Ross' own initiative, effectively getting themselves the hell out of dodge.

I didn't care about them however, I only wanted Ross and this had given both me and Stark the perfect opportunity. Because, as of right now, General Ross was effectively a rogue element within the U.S. Army.

Stark's army of laywers were quick to find the pressure spots within the Army's hierarchie, finding soldiers, officers and families of soldiers alike who would benefit of Ross being forced down a peg or two, either for emotional reasons or for career advancement.

The General's position within the Army began to rapidly to destabilize as he lost more and more of his support base, since very few of the people underneath him were all that happy with carrying out operations on American soil, only to get cut down by a monster who turned out to be someone Ross had originally brought on board in the first place.

It seemed extremely likely that he would be shipped off to some remote outpost in the middle of nowhere, stripped of rank and any career possibilities, but then came the final blow that ended his position within the Army for good.

Surprisingly, it didn't come from me or the crowd I had been whipping up, or even Stark's army of lawyers, but from Betty Ross.

If General Thunderbolt had a single redeeming quality, it was that he cared about his daughter.

Ironically that became his undoing.

Betty went on public record, reveiling everything that her father had done from the moment he had approached Banner on creating the next supersoldier to sending men towards their death against Blonsky. Most notably however, was that she revealed that despite being an accomplice to Banner (by Ross labelled as a bio-terrorist, but that was thrown into question by Betty's confessions) she hadn't been arrested as he had, on the grounds of being Ross' daughter.

It was more than the Army could ignore, and when the WSC decided that they didn't need Ross anymore as the Abomination was in their custody already, so they could create supersoldiers on their own, there was nobody who could (or even wanted to) save the General's position.

On June 9th, 2011, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross was dishonourably discharged from the United States Military, thanks in large part by the efforts of his own daughter, who was now protected from the Army who wanted her hide for spilling their secrets by Tony Stark himself, and had begun working at Stark Tower as part of a scientific team doing research into clean energy.

Step 4: Complete.

//

The cold metal of the gurney was uncomfortable against my bare skin, while the various electrodes placed on my torso were itching like mad. I tried to keep my breathing even, but I couldn't quite contain a quiet panic from strangling my lungs.

There was a not-insignificant chance I could die from this, and even if I were to survive, I might end up looking horribly mutated or worse, I might even loose my mind like Blonsky did.

But I had come too far to turn back now. Too many plans already set in motion to chicken out now. I had no choice but go through with this and hope for the best.

Give me omnipotence, or give me death! (Though I'd much rather you not give me death, please, thank you)

"Are you ready?" came the exited voice of Samuel Sterns, massive machines surrounding him and me, while he was holding a very large needle in his hands.

"I'm ready." I replied, trying to mask my nervousness, cursing that I didn't have my helmet on so my voice would be modulated to its gravelly, intimidating version of itself.

Giving a happy nod, Sterns bounced over to where I was strapped down on the gurney, needle poised over the veins in my arm before he hesitated, glancing at me from underneath his massive cranium.

"What?" I grunt out, wanting him to get it over with and not just stand there with that large needle (that very, oh so very large needle) hovering over my veins.

"It's nothing! Well, it's just that… well, I hadn't expected for you to be so young."

Lifting my head a bit from the gurney, I raise an eyebrow at him in surprise. I was in my mid-twenties, that wasn't that young, was it? Then again, it might be somewhat on the youthful side in the 'advanced technology thief and scavenger' business.

I wouldn't know, I had yet to meet someone in my line of work.

We were an exclusive bunch, you know?

Rolling my eyes, I motioned the scientist to just get on with it, not trusting my voice at the moment. Giving an embarrassed nod, Sterns quickly prepped my arm before lining up the needle with the serum that had enhanced Blonsky and-

"MOTHERFU-"

Oh God. Oh God, that fucking hurt! I was surprised I didn't have a massive hole in my arm from the size of the metal that Sterns had just basically shived me with.

"Right Mr. McCole, I need you to try and stay calm if you could please. Unfortunately, the pain is just about to begin, I'm afraid."

And with those words, Sterns hitched me up to an IV of Banner's blood as Blonsky's serum ran its course through my veins. Already I could feel the changes coming over me.

How could I tell, you ask?

Well, feeling like every single bone in your body is broken in half, then put back together again by a toddler with no idea what he was doing, but with superstrength, a sunny disposition and heaps of duct tape, tended to clue you in on such things.

Over, and over, and over again.

I'd like to say that I remained strong throughout it all. That I had remained the picture of stoic determination, or even that I roared in such pain it rattled the storage unit, or something else that sounded heroic and awesome.

Truth was, I bawled like a baby.

By the first hour I was screaming so much that I probably damaged my throat.

By the second hour I was sobbing openly, my vision blurry from the pain and the tears that streaked down my face.

I'm pretty sure that by the third hour I was begging. Either for my mother or for death I can't quite recall, I was pretty out of it by then.

By the fourth hour I finally fell unconscious (though Sterns later told me that even unconscious I kept on screaming when the serums started working on my spine).

When I woke up, the sun had already set and come back up again (though I couldn't tell as my storage unit didn't have any windows) and I felt sore from my scalp to my toes, while my throat felt like someone hadn't been able to decide wether to pour a bucket of sand, or a bucket of crushed glass down my throat and had just given up and decided on both.

My groan woke up Sterns, who was snoring in what seemed to be a ridiculously uncomfortable position at our desk, his oversized head snapping up from where it had been lying on the keyboard, taking a few of the letters with it as he blearily blinked around.

Upon seeing me awake, his eyes snapped open and now completely alert he nearly vaulted over the desk, quickly beginning to check my vitals, while prattling against me, my head (feeling like it was stuffed with cotton) only picking up about half of his words.

"Hey there champ, how are you feeling? What am I saying, you probably feel like crap right now. Let me tell you, it was… harrowing, seeing you scream and thrash about on the table as you were. I guess this confirms our guess that modifying the serum to affect the subject in a more natural manner over a longer period of time will also be more painful. But I think we made the right choice there, since…. Since it worked…" Sterns trailed off in an awed whisper, those last words finally snapping me out of my dazed state.

"What did you say?" I bark, quickly sitting up on the gurney, my hearing picking up an odd snapping sound, though I ignored it for now in favour of staring intently at the Doctor, who is alternatively gazing at me to the screens and back at me again in wonder.

"It worked." He breathes again, this time pointing at my waist.

Looking down in confusion, I can't help a small gasp escape me. Because around my waist, wrists and ankles are the ruined remains of the belts that had managed to secure me tightly to the table before I had the procedure.

My body had visibly changed as well. I didn't have the thick, hulking bodytype like the Abomination, Thanos and Hulk had, but I was definetly bigger than Steve had become after his procedure.

I looked like the Rock's bigger, meaner brother.

If he had been born in Chernobyl, that is.

I knew that mutations were very likely, given what Banner's blood had done to Sterns and Blonsky, but it still took me off guard to actually see them.

Like the Abomination, I had a sort of "raised" skeleton. Despite being packed with big bulging muscles (I had abs! And pecs!) my spine and ribcage still visibly showed up, though thankfully my legs hadn't become digirtrade like Blonsky's had become.

Gently stepping of the gurney (trying to ignore a flash of pain as I did so) I realized that, as my head nearly touched the ceiling, that not only had I lost all of my hair, I was also really tall, Sterns with his overly large head only reaching my chest, while at the shoulders I was twice as broad.

Forget what I said about the Rock, I was roughly the size of the Mountain that Rides, if the Mountain had the muscle definition of Arnie in his golden days and with a ridged spine jutting from his back.

As I flex my biceps (I have biceps now!) I can just feel the power coursing through my muscles, Sterns looking on in amazement.

Wanting to test something, I walk towards one of my workbenches that lined the wall of the storage unit, picking up one of the metal plates that I had stripped from the Hammer drones. Grasping it firmly between my massive hands, I grunt in exertion, my muscles swelling with strength, before with a groan of tortured metal, the plate in my hands folds neatly in half.

Sterns mouth drops open in amazement, before he lets out a loud laugh, clapping his hands in excitement.

"Now, how are you feeling my friend? Not having any… destructive urges, do you?" Sterns asked, getting a bit more serious (no doubt recalling what happened to him when he preformed this procedure the last time) though he still can't quite contain the glint of excitement in his eyes.

I turned back towards him, once more caught off guard at how small he (and everything else really) looks now, before giving him an assuring grin.

"I'm feeling fine Doctor. It's still me… just better." I reply, only now noticing that my voice had dropped down in pitch to a rumbling bass that would feel right at home in te company of the likes of Louis Armstrong or James Earl Jones.

The urge to test my strength is there, that urge for something or someone to challenge my power only to receive the worst smackdown of their lives, but I recognize that it's there and surpress it. I'm still in control.

Flexing my arm once again, looking down at my towering body with its massive frame and pronounced skeleton, I can't help it: I finally unleash my proper diabolical laugh, Sterns joining in with me.

"BWAHAHAHAHAAHAH!"

As we come down from the high of our success, still chuckling and marvelling at the towering ode to strength that my body has become, I can't help but let out a savage grin, unknowingly showing off pointed, gleaming canines.

"Step 3: Complete."

//
Fun Fact: Wolverine was originally intended to be a genetically mutated wolverine rather than a human mutant. Stan Lee himself vetoed the idea.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 3: TURNING UP THE HEAT​

Night has fallen over New York City, and I'm bent over one of my tool tables with my dissembled armour lying on front of me, a scowl on my face, one of my canines gleaming in the light provided by stolen Stark Expo lamps.

"I didn't think this through."

While my new body was absolutely amazing, and I still marvelled at the sheer strength now at my disposal every time I flexed one of my numerous bulging muscles, there were some unforeseen drawbacks.

Or rather, there were some drawbacks that I should have foreseen.

The biggest one was that stealth was now significantly harder than it used to be.

While I might still be able to sneak around under the cover of night, ploys such as the one I used to infiltrate the Stark Expo were now completely out of the question, which was a bummer because that operation had been the most fruitful endeavour of my admittedly short career of a super thief/scavenger.

Another drawback was that I now no longer fitted in my armour.

The armour for which I had braved discovery by S.H.I.E.L.D., the armour for which I had stolen, lied and cheated my way around, adrenaline rampaging through my veins for months on end in order to get the parts I needed, the armour which I had made during countless sleepless nights, pouring over Stane's blueprints until my head hurt, trying to make sense of the advanced technology of this different universe.

And I no longer fitted inside.

Of course, it wasn't as if the possibility hadn't crossed my mind, but I had always brushed it off, simply thinking I'd pull my armour apart and build it bigger.

But I had forgotten to take into account the new size of my primary manipulators, otherwise known as hands. The Iron Man armour was filled to the brim with cutting-edge electronics and robotics, and all of it was smoothly hidden underneath the interlocking plates of the armour.

Where my hands now had difficulty reaching.

There were two minor lights in the crushing, all-consuming void of my despair (slight over exaggeration there): one, I had a hyper intelligent scientist on hand, though getting him away from his own projects in order to help me with rebuilding my armour was a herculean task of its own (I'm a geneticist, not an engineer! I have a degree!) and two, I found that I could ditch some of the electronics.

The Iron Man armour was so powerful, much of its inner workings were designed solely to keep its wearer safe from itself (the torso of the armour could technically rotate 180°, which the average human body could not). Much of this was focused around the servos, making sure they didn't rip a limb off whenever you lifted your arm, or in order to take its own weight so that the wearer wouldn't be crushed like in those 'Object vs. Steel press' that were becoming popular on YouTube these days.

This wasn't as much of a problem for me however (though I kept the function that would keep my torso from suddenly turning the wrong way as that seemed like a nasty way to go), which allowed me to strip much of the inner shells from the armour.

Ironically this ended up making the armour a lot lighter, which in return allowed me to strip even more as I could easily handle the weight of the armour, even after I enlarged the plating to fit over my body (as I was now about the same size as the Hammer drones this was made surprisingly easier than making my original armour had been, as I didn't have to resize the plating this time).

Tony's armour was as much cutting-edge technology as it was a piece of art. Stane's armour had a military, rough look to it. Vanko's original armour, the one in Monaco, had a prison-made appearance (in as much as you could call it "armour").

Mine somehow looked even uglier.

Thick plating across the torso and limbs, with a robust frame (one more reminiscent of the one used by Matt Damon in Elysium than anything Marvel-like), my armour looked like it was made from stolen materials and put together in a shed.

Which is exactly what it was.

However, it did have one major advantage over the other armours, as it had something that none of them had.

Me.

June had already turned into August by the time I finished rebuilding my armour, but when I put it on I couldn't quite contain my glee at the sight that greeted me from the cracked full-length mirror I had stolen during one of my nightly scavenger runs around the city (and I do mean runs: I didn't know my exact top speed, but I had managed to keep up with New York traffic easily, and cleared the spaces between buildings with a single bound. Parkour had become my bitch in the month since my transformation).

The armour, with its thick plating and rough framework, had a no-nonsense, utilitarian vibe to it on its own, but when strapped to my hulking, 7 feet tall frame, it became downright menacing, aided by the new helmet I wore, modelled after the one Crossbones wears during his brief fight with Cap in the Civil War-movie.

This armour, unlike the one I had worn when I had picked up Sterns and Banner's blood, was filled to the brim with all the weapons I could fit on it, which included the Infantry tank gun and the Navy missiles from the Hammer drones.

In short?

I looked Bad. Ass.

But while it was extremely satisfying to see my finished armour after the months of blood, sweat and tears I had poured into rebuilding it, I was still stuck with one of the unforeseen drawbacks after my transformation, which brings us back to my brooding form as I sit at one of the worktables.

I had my transformation on the 12th of June 2011, only recovering on the 14th. The next Step would involve Loki's attack on Midgard. The problem however, was that that would only occur on May the 4th, 2012.

So what now?

I briefly contemplated killing Ulysses Klaue and taking his stash of Vibranium which he has squirreled away for some time now, but he's hiding somewhere in South-Africa, and is probably being watched.

Besides the logistics of actually getting my butt to South-Africa undetected, there's still the fact that even if I had Vibranium, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

I'm no metalworker and neither is Sterns, so trying to make a new armour out of the miracle meteorite-metal is out of the question. I briefly entertained the notion of lining my bones with Vibranium, but I don't think my healing factor is strong enough to keep me alive through the operation (I can heal small cuts within a few hours, while a broken bone takes about a day, which I discovered by accidentally dropping the mostly intact Navy drone on my foot. Wolverine survived getting shot in the chest with a cannon during the Civil War and he almost didn't make it through the bonding-process).

I could use the Kree-blood that S.H.I.E.L.D. has hidden away, as Hydra has proven that it can bestow humans with a sweet regeneration factor, but given that it is inside a secret base I don't even know where I should begin to go look for it.

Extremis on the other hand… Killian already has the formula, the only problem is that it has a chance of blowing up the recipient. I, however, am an already enhanced human with a (slight) healing factor, so I might survive the virus (which isn't a virus at all, but that's neither here nor there).

Then again, the two serums might also decide to not play nice with each other and blow me up, but thankfully, I have one of the foremost experts in human engineering right here in my storage unit.

Getting out of my funk, I straighten up and turn around on my chair, grinning as I call out to Sterns who's hovering over a microscope, engrossed in his own experiments of trying to use whatever happened to his brain as the basis for a cure for Alzheimer's (if he suggests experimenting on monkeys I'll pull the plug. No Planet of the Apes for me, thankyouverymuch).

"Sterns!" I rumble, my voice a deep bass that would probably be able to rattle windows should I yell at the top of my lungs (which I did when I dropped that Navy-drone, but as the storage unit didn't have any windows I couldn't tell. Scared the crap out of Sterns though).

The aforementioned scientist looked up at me with a sigh, clearly annoyed at being once more pulled away from his own research, fixing me with an impatient glare.

"What is it Mr. McCole? I've introduced a reagent to the chemicals saturating my bloodstream and I should be able to see a reaction at any time now." Sterns says hurriedly, as I stand up and with a few great strides cross the distance between our desks, placing my massive fists on either side of his microscope as I loom over the mutated scientist.

"How would you like to run tests on a serum which unlocks the hidden potential within the human genome?"

The answering grin is all the response I need.

//

Finding Killian is surprisingly easy: I just looked him up on LinkedIn.

Since AIM has yet to reveal that they're an evil organization, they are still very much in the open, with advertisements, contact info and they even have their own website (it's pretty sleek, to be honest). All of it is available to the public.

Except for where they are located.

A quick search gives me nothing, no home address for Killian, no locations of any headquarters, not even a shipping address. All contact is done through the internet, and when you manage to set up a meet, then one of them will come to you, not the other way around.

This complicates things somewhat.

I know that in November, one of Killian's test subjects (given that most of them are disabled veterans they might even be victims of Blonsky's rampage) will explode, and the media will label it as a suicide bombing, which Killian will enforce by "creating" the Mandarin in January of 2012 (still the dumbest reveal in MCU-history to date, really dropped the ball there Shawn Black, though I love your Lethal Weapon movie).

This gives me something of a window to try and track down Killian, but that is also more complicated than I'd like for it to be because of one very big problem.

We're running low on funds.

Much of the material for my armour I had managed to steal during my time working at the Expo and even afterwards, getting my hands on tools and the like had been rather straightforward.

Nothing about Sterns' equipment could be called straightforward.

When I took him and the Hulk-blood, all that he had been able to put in the duffel bag was most of his research and the blood itself, and almost none of the equipment, as it was either too delicate or too massive to take with us.

During the few days of chaos after the fight between the Hulk and Abomination I had managed to sneak into the College a few times and take some of the smaller machines (thank whatever deity is willing to listen that I hadn't gotten rid of my janitor-disguise yet) but after clean-up had mostly been organized we had to find an alternative.

Like I said, Sterns' massive intelligence managed to find some ways around our less than stellar equipment but he still needed something to work from, and despite the fact that both of us had withdrawn our lifesavings (in his case just in the nick of time, as his assets were frozen a few hours later) the equipment I had to buy for him was a massive drain on our monetary funds.

There was also the fact that due to our mutations (the brain is the most energy intensive organ in the human body and Sterns' had just doubled in size, while I had almost doubled in size in general) we ate a lot.

Like, seriously a lot.

So, as it stood, I neither had the time nor the resources to sink into a wild goose chase for AIM and their exploding goodies.

After giving it a lot of thought (which included many sleepless nights simply staring at the ceiling above my bed while my legs from the calves down hung over the edge) I had a tentative course of action.

Step 5: Find a source of income that at the very least will keep me and Sterns fed, and hopefully pay for the equipment we need.

Step 6: Track down AIM, or track down the subject which will explode in November, depending on which I find first.

Step 6a: In the case of finding AIM first, burst in, kill everyone that is trying to stop me (they are exploding villains which means that on the emotional trauma versus killing people scale, they are in the safe zone. For me, of course. They are very much not safe), steal their research and serum and unleash the intellect of Sterns on it, then inject myself with a version of Extremis that won't end with me as a new coat of paint on the walls, floor and ceiling.

Step 6b: In the case of finding the "suicide bomber" first, find a way to either subdue him, or get a piece of him to bring back to Sterns if I'm too late, let him try and reverse-engineer it and then inject myself with a version of Extremis that won't end with me as a new coat of paint on the walls, floor and ceiling.

I was really hung up on that last bit, finding it crucial to my plans.

Sterns was less concerned about it.

//

It was the first week of October, when, while I was perched on the roof of one of the high-rises in Manhattan, trying to scout out the building that at one point would be the headquarters for one Wilson Fisk (what? He had money, I had none, this was as close as I could get to being Robin Hood), I had an epiphany which struck me with enough force that I nearly lost my footing.

On the one hand, I had Killian, who was trying to unlock the dormant parts of the human genome (probably courtesy of the Celestials, but honestly who could tell?) in order to promote massive regeneration, while trying to keep his test subjects from blowing up.

On the other hand, I had Sterns, who was trying to reverse-engineer whatever process his brain had gone through in order to find a cure for Alzheimer's, while trying to keep his test subjects from rising up in a revolution against all humans.

Killian had money to spare.

Sterns (and by extension, me) were struggling with funding.

And just like that, the solution to both Step 5 and Step 6 presented itself to me.

//

"Hello? Yes, this is Michael McCole from McCole Solutions speaking. I was wondering if I might speak with Dr. Killian please? Yes, I'll hold."

I'm once again on the roof of the high rise looking out over Wilson Fisk's headquarters (still haven't seen him yet, so I don't know whether or not he is in New York already, though I know he becomes active somewhere in 2014), my booted feet dangling over the edge as I wait patiently with a burner phone against my ear. I'm uncomfortable with using my real name while talking with a supervillain over the phone, but there's no way in hell these guys can't preform a decent background check so using a false name would only raise alarmbells with them if I tried to fool them like that.

Not that there was much to find honestly; after leaving the Angel Guardian Home in Brooklyn at the tender age of eighteen, having immediately gotten his GED on his birthday, Michael McCole had lead a wholly uninteresting life (though the keen observer would note the oddity of someone who concistently scored the highest marks in computing class never seemed to be able to hold a steady job despite the overabundance of tech-companies in the city).

Suddenly the cheerful tune I had been listening to ends, and a voice that can only be described as oily worms its way into my ear.

"Ah, Mister… McCole. How intriguing to get a call from you at such an hour. What can I do for you?" Aldrich Killian, founder of AIM and the mcu-villain with the weirdest name (given that some of those villains are aliens, that's saying something) murmurs through the phone.

"Greetings, Dr. Killian. ('Greetings'? 'Greetings'?! What's next brain, 'Salutations on this fine morrow to you as well'?!) I was hoping to discuss a business proposition with you."

A short silence falls between us, while a few errant birds coursing along the New York City skyline look at me in confusion.

"I must confess, I get many business propositions these days. Why should I concern myself with yours, considering you claim to own a business which doesn't exist?"

Found that out did you? No matter, the front was never meant to stand up to intense scrutiny, it just had to appear real enough to warrant me an audience with the guy behind the "Mandarin".

"Because technically, I don't exist either, Dr. Killian."

That I can tell gets his attention. It's not true of course, since there are a few records of me, but considering I woke up in this universe in an orphanage as a newborn baby with nobody knowing who had left me there, my documents were rather bare, and easily altered once I left.

"Me and my associate know about the research you have been doing Dr. Killian. While others might find your subject somewhat… explosive, we consider ourselves fans of your work." I quickly press on, though I know I'm treading on dangerous ground by tipping him off to the fact I know about Extremis.

This time the pause is longer and when he speaks again, the smooth oiliness is gone from his voice, instead replaced by a barely contained fury.

"What do you want, Mr. McCole. I find myself getting impatient."

"I believe we can help you stabilize it."

"And why should I trust your claim? I have never heard of you or your organization, and I have no clue how you came by any information regarding my own… research."

"But I bet you've heard about Erskine and his super soldier formula. And I'm willing to bet you've heard about the Abomination which ravaged Harlem."

Again there's silence on the line, longer than all the others combined and I'm beginning to worry that I chased him off, that I might have pressed too hard-

"You have Erskine's formula?" he breathes into my ear in excitement, making me feel dirty enough I briefly take the phone away from my head with an expression of disgust on my face before I reply.

"We've cracked it, Doctor. We have managed to recreate Erskine's masterpiece. But I'm afraid that in doing so we have nearly exhausted our meagre funds. Which is why we were hoping to approach you with our offer. You see-"

"So, this about money then?" Killian cuts me off (rude!) before continuing, arrogance and disdain easily showing through his voice.

"Never mind, of course it is, it always is. You have some of the original sample left, I hope? Your offer is useless to me if I first have to unravel whatever botched experiments you have performed with Erskine's miracle."

That gets a rise out of me (probably his intention in the first place I later reflect) and I reply in my coolest voice, trying to get across that I'm not someone he should try and mess with.

"I assure you, Doctor, that merely because we require more funds, does not make us any less competent scientists." (Technically I wasn't a scientist at all, so there's hardly a way for my competence to decrease) "We wished to approach you because you possess money while lacking morals, but there are other such organizations out there who would kill in order to fund us, especially considering we possess a live specimen, fully enhanced by Erskine's formula, whose physical traits outstrip anything on record about Erskine's first, and only, subject: Captain America."

Once again his voice returns to one of breathy excitement, making disgust roil through my stomach.

"You possess a live enhanced subject?"

"Dr. Killian, you are speaking with him right now." I cannot help but grin.

Sure, I'd rather not have revealed that we had a super soldier on our side, as it was likely to make him warier of me and decide to bring more muscle to our meet, but at least this way I was absolutely guaranteed that he would agree to a meet in the first place.

I can almost hear Killian salivating on the other end of the phone, before he manages to give his reply in a smooth voice, though I can still pick up the sheer excitement the man is feeling right now.

"Meet me at the Red Hook Marine Terminal in the New York harbour, this Friday at seven. We'll discuss any further business ventures there. Don't be late."

And with that, the Mandarin hung up on me.

With a savage grin, I rip the phone to shreds with my bare hands, before letting the pieces scatter on the wind. With a slight grunt, I get to my feet, before making my way down the high-rise, jumping from one ledge to the other, my superhuman body easily absorbing the shocks of my 10-feet drops.

As I'm descending, I open up a secure channel on my earpiece.

"Ah, hi there Mr. McCole. What's up?" I hear the cheerful voice of Sterns, who has been in a good mood ever since I managed to get him a centrifuge for his experiments (bought for cheap at a lawn sale, of all things).

I'm about to make his mood even better.

"Sterns? He fell for it."

Slightly manic laughter is all the response I get.

//

"So why are you up on one of the warehouses instead of where you said you were going to meet with Dr. Killian?" Sterns asks me over my earpiece, as the visor in my new helmet zooms in on the walkways between the story high mountains of containers that line the pier.

"Because, Sterns, he's going to betray me." I absent-mindedly answer him, trying to keep a lookout for any suspicious activity (considering this were the docks of New York and I knew absolutely nothing about shipping of any kind, this included just about everything).

"Oh. How do you know that?"

"Because if he wasn't planning on betraying me, we wouldn't be having a meeting at the docks at night. He would've wanted to meet at a restaurant or club or something else high-end and fancy."

"I see. Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna betray him first, of course."

"Right. Of course."

And with that, our conversation is put on hold, because I spot three black sedans with blacked out windows slowly drive up the pier in an orderly column.

Now, if I were a villain, I would show up with my own crew, have some veiled dialogue with Killian that would hint at higher machinations before he would reveal his intent to betray me, upon which I would unveil my plans to betray him in return.

If I were some masked vigilante on the other hand, I would stay up here, trying to listen in on Killian as he would meet with another villain, until I (or rather, my sidekick) would inevitably screw something up, leading to our discovery, which would lead to either me kicking my way to freedom or being captured and tied up waiting for rescue by my allies.

If I were a hero of this cinematic universe, I would go in with a funny quip, and beat everybody up in an awesome choreographed display of action with generously applied slow-motion at key moments (me jumping, me scowling, me punching someone, you get the drill), after which someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. would show up in the stinger with some ominous message that would be the hook for my next adventure.

Unfortunately for Killian, I was none of these things.

Taking aim at the centre car, my Infantry tank gun swoops low, takes aim at its target and unleashes hell.

Unlike Hollywood would want you to believe, cars don't regularly explode at the slightest hint of damage, and even in the most extreme cases will simply go up in flames rather than explode.

Under my tank gun, created by Ivan Vanko, placed onto a platform designed by Tony Stark and weaponized by Obadiah Stane?

The car ended up shredded.

I didn't bother holding back on my lethality, since I was counting on Killian bringing some of his Extremis subjects with him after knowing that I was a super soldier of Steven Roger's calibre (even seventy years after he went under the ice, he's still held as the pinnacle of what a soldier could achieve).

Given the extreme regeneration Extremis allowed, I could simply blow this pier to bits and still expect at least some of the subjects to be alive. Even if they didn't there probably would be enough of them left intact for Sterns to work with.

I'm proven correct when one of the doors is kicked straight off the car, a glowing and smoking form falling out of the mangled remains of the vehicle. I'm surprised to see that it's Killian himself as I had half suspected he might not even show up to the meet in person.

Seems that the possibility of seeing a real-life Erskine enhanced human made him forgo his cautiousness.

About a dozen men and women in tactical gear pour out of the remaining cars and rush towards the downed Killian, who despite being alive is clearly very much hurt as he is unable to stand on his own and he remains bent almost double, holding both arms (or what's left of them anyway) pressed against his abdomen which is sporting more holes than is medically advised.

Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Just as the first of Killians' security team reaches him, hand outstretched to take him by the arm and drag him to safety, I unleash the shoulder-mounted guided missiles taken from the Navy model, which slam into the car column in a series of deafening explosions, which shakes the entire pier down to its foundations.

By the time the dust settles, only Killian himself (who looks even worse off now) and three others remain alive (one of them only in a technical sense as they now only have one limb attached to their torso).

Wanting to get this over with, I activate the repulsors in the legs of my armour and take off in a graceful arc, landing in the classic superhero pose (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, it just feels awesome, you know?) on the edge of the scene of destruction (the residual heat of the explosions, not the mention what the Extremis enhanced humans are giving off, is too hot for me to handle right now) and take aim with my wrist mounted machine gun (courtesy of the Air Force model) at one of the men still standing.

While he sees me aiming at him, he's obviously still dazed from the explosions (there's blood running out from both ears and his nose and his eyes don't focus on anything) and he makes a stumbling half-step before my bullets tear into him, slamming him against the burned out husk of one of the cars.

With his torso a bloody mess and with half of his head gone, I'm confident he's finally dead, so I turn my machine gun on the other one-

"TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD!"

-only to apparently have miscalculated the time it took for her to recover, as made clear to me by her running up to me, grabbing my arm and crushing the armour underneath her glowing hands.

I can already feel my arm starting to burn due to the frankly amazing amount of heat that is pouring off the woman's hands, so I quickly slam the armoured fist on my free arm straight into her midriff, lifting her off her feet and sending her hurling across the melted asphalt of the pier and into one of the car wrecks, her hands ripping away some of the plating as she goes flying.

Not underestimating her again I take aim with the coil laser in my undamaged arm salvaged from the Navy model and open fire-

SLAM!

-only to get a mangled car door thrown into my face with such force it cracks my helmet.

She hasn't gotten away unscathed however, as she is now missing everything below the elbow on her left arm. Seeing that clearly triggers something within her, because she lets out a grief-filled howl of pain, before charging at me like a wild animal.

Unable to use most of my weaponry at such a close range, I instead shift my arm from her to the stumbling form of Killian (Extremis is truly amazing, since apparently the massive holes in his abdomen have already scabbed over) and nail him in the back of his knees, nearly blowing one of his legs clean off.

And then I have to focus on the woman again as she slams into me, making me stagger despite my near tonne of weight, before she kicks me in the stomach with enough force that flame bursts from the impact.

Had I still been a baseline human, then that blow would've probably finished me then and there, armour or no armour.

As it is, I immediately retaliate by kneeing her in the chest, feeling some of her ribs snap under my mighty blow (though the heat nearly scorches my skin and I can hear her bones setting themselves).

In her berserker rage the woman doesn't even seem to notice the grievous injury, and instead unleashes a flurry of blows with her feet and one remaining arm. Due to her lithe form and greater speed I am forced to block most blows instead of dodging them and the longer her attack goes on, the hotter it's getting, several parts of my armour taking on the dangerous dull glow of metal that's getting heated.

While her rage has put me on the back foot, it has also given me an advantage. With how much heat she's giving off, striking me is far less effective than if she were to try and grapple with me, since then heat-transfer would be much easier and she could just cook me inside my armour.

Of course, the moment I think that, things are starting to go wrong.

As I give a punch of my own, the woman manages to dodge, grab the arm with her remaining hand, place a foot on one of my knees and pushes off, pulling herself up over me-

"BURN ASSHOLE! BURN!"

-and just like that, she had both legs wrapped around my neck, where my armour is thinnest.

Already I can feel my skin burning, while the delicate electronics in my suit are starting to short out. I'm panicking at this point, and in desperation I reach up, grabbing her in her sides hard enough to actually dig my armoured fingers into her flesh (and getting my hands burned because of it) before I slam her with all my might into the ground hard enough to leave a crater.

Even though I heard her pelvis and ribs breaking, she doesn't loosen her grip and the healing only seems to increase the heat even more.

I'm getting desperate, especially since I can feel my thoughts starting to dim despite the incredible amount of pain that I'm in. I need to get her off before she literally melts my brain. Unfortunately, I'm too far gone to really have a plan (I just rear up and slam her down again, and even though she gives out a scream of pain she doesn't let up) so I let my fight-or-flight instinct kick in, no longer shutting out the primal roaring that had been thundering around in the back of my brain ever since the fight begun, instead letting it rush to the fore.

My body is clearly faster on the uptake than I am, since it immediately decides that since fighting hasn't worked, flight is the course of valour (or maybe not valour but at least survival, which is far more important than valour anyway) and before I really know what I'm doing I've activated the repulsors in my legs and back and take off with a blast that almost dislodges the mad women lodged around my throat.

Almost, but almost isn't good enough.

Slamming into (and almost straight through) one of the thick pillars of the cranes standing on the pier turns out to do the trick though.

Probably because I could hear her spine turn to splinters this time.

Extracting myself from her broken form, I rip off my helmet, taking grateful gulps of fresh, uncooked air in what feels for the first time in my life. Amazingly, even with her spine practically gone, the woman is still alive, glaring at me with a literally burning gaze filled with hatred.

"You… really… need to die." I gasp out, that sudden vicious side of me slowly slinking off into the depths of my conciousness, tired from the fight, before I grab her head with my ruined arm, my glove covering her face.

Briefly I can see one of her eyes peering through my fingers in alarm, but then the whine of the repulsor spools up and I avert my gaze. I keep firing until I can no longer feel her struggling and the scent of cooked flesh becomes too much to bear.

I let go of her head (resolutely ignoring the way some of her clung to the metal of my glove) and make my way back towards where I ambushed Killian, forcing myself to not look back.

As I reach the cars I can see that Killian is actually capable of walking again, though the damage seems to be getting to him as he falls down a lot, and doesn't seem to have a sense of balance anymore, nor does he hear me approaching him from behind (and weighing in at a tonne, slightly less now that the berserker woman destroyed parts of it, I'm not exactly quiet).

The sole Extremis enhanced I didn't have to fight is lying a few feet away from where I left him, having apparently tried to drag himself away from danger with his one arm and the stumps that are growing out of what remains of his legs. He hears me coming and lets out a choked scream of fear, but it seems that Killian really has lost his hearing as he doesn't give any indication he even registered his teammates' plea for help.

As I stand next to the downed Extremis subject, he glares up at me in a combination of tear-filled fear and hatred-fuelled anger. I half expect him to either beg for mercy or try and fight me even in his condition, but he seems resigned to his fate, as all he does is spit at my feet (the spit sizzles, my mind absently notes) before he glares at my uncovered face.

"Come on then, you fuck. Get it over with! Come on, do it! Do-"

I blow his head off before he can continue.

In a daze, tired, burned and in pain, I make my way towards where Killian has once again fallen on his face onto the still burning asphalt. I don't bother with a quip, or some clever boast, or even a monologue on how smart I am and how powerful I'll become with Extremis.

I don't say anything at all, simply opening up a compartment in the banged up plating of the armour on my torso, bringing out a syringe (one of many, most of which are broken. Which is why I brought so many to begin with) and jam it without ceremony in Killian's neck.

In order to subdue Extremis, preventing Killian from breaking free and murdering me while Sterns tries to fix the serum, I've given his system something to fight.

A flu shot.

Well, something a bit stronger than a flu shot, but it works on the same principle.

I've given him a combination of every vaccine me and Sterns could get our hands on, malaria, polio, chickenpox, you name it, we put it in a bottle.

By giving him essentially neutered versions of diseases, I make sure I don't accidentally kill him, while also making sure he can't recover too much of his strength. It's very likely that Extremis will (literally) burn through the diseases but by then Sterns will probably have whatever he needs from Killian's body.

Almost immediately the heat coming off of Killian starts to lessen, while the bright glow on his abdomen and knees start to dim, pulling 'inwards' so to speak. He gives a pitiful groan of protest, but having been shot with a tank gun, guided missiles and a coil laser has clearly taken its toll and he falls unconscious.

Picking his limp body up, I sling it over my shoulder and activate my repulsors (my hearing picks up sirens approaching) and blast off before the authorities, S.H.I.E.L.D. or a hero can show up, making my way towards my lair (storage unit) in a roundabout pattern that will hopefully throw off any tails I might have picked up.

All in all, my ambush of Killian has taken roughly fifteen minutes.

Behind me, the crane that I slammed into comes crashing down with a tortured groan of warping metal.

//

My landing at the storage unit wasn't exactly dignified (nor could you really call it a landing per se. Crash was more accurate) but at least it alerted Sterns that I have arrived as he almost immediately pulled open the door in order to let me in, gazing in shock at my and Killian's burned forms.

"Jesus Michael! You look like shit, what the hell happened out there?"

Throwing the still unconscious Killian to the ground, I started stripping off my armour, not bothering with neatly packing it away like I usually do, instead being content with just letting the plates drop to the floor.

I gave a tired groan of pain as I bend down to unclasp the plating around my leg, as I answered the hovering scientist.

"There were complications. Extremis is… stronger than we thought. One of them managed to get a couple of good hits in."

"A couple of good hits? That's what you call that? Michael, I don't know if you realize this, but you look like you jumped on a barbecue!"

"Just… shut up. Please? Do you have something for me too drink? Something cold please."

Grumbling a bit, Sterns nevertheless does as I asked, handing me a water bottle which I nearly emptied in a single gulp. As I finished the first bottle he's already back at my side with another, a damp cloth in his hand.

Taking both items with a murmured thanks I tried to clean myself up as best I could, though I stayed away from my sore neck and shoulders, quickly making my way through another four bottles.

When I laid the (now dry, but still cold) cloth on my burned neck, Sterns spoke up again, having done a quick check-up on Killian.

"This might be a problem, Michael. I'm willing to bet your fight drew the attention of this S.H.I.E.L.D. you mentioned a couple of times, and that's not even taking into account the sheer amount of evidence you've left behind. People are going to know that Extremis, or at the least something like Extremis is out there, and that a guy in stolen Stark and Hammer armour took them out."

"Just… say what you want to say, Sterns. I'm… tired, right now. All I want is to shower and sleep for a week." I mutter at the pacing scientist, and even though I'm slouching against the wall, I'm still taller than him, forcing him to glare up at me when he responds.

"What I'm saying is we might not have a week. Too many eyes are on New York, we have to accept that we might need to leave, or risk getting found out."

I glanced up from the floor at Sterns, before giving a glance around the storage unit we were in. It was getting cramped, even with the hole I punched to the adjacent unit I had also rented the moment the previous owner signed off on it. I was making more and bigger impacts, and though I enjoyed relative anonymity, between my mutations and the shitstorm at the docks, after tonight moving around freely was definitely out of the question.

I needed to lay low. I needed to remain free at least until May 4th, 2012. Steps 7 through 9 would (hopefully) make sure I'll never again have to worry about S.H.I.E.L.D. shadowing my every move.

But where to?

As I glanced around, my eyes fell on the poster I made when I first started out, detailing the timeline of the mcu as closely as I could remember it. It is a far cry from the orderly and crisp diagram it started out as, covered in crisscrossing lines, post-its and coffee stains as it was, but one word stands out to me.

Vibranium.

Earlier I had decided that getting to Ulysses Klaue was too inconvenient, between not knowing how to get to him in the first place and the fact that I couldn't really do anything with the metal should I get my hands on it.

But now…

Now I had a man with one of the greatest healing factors in the world in my shed, and the docks are in complete disarray.

I'm willing to bet that some of the cargo there will eventually end up in South Africa.

"You're right Sterns. You're absolutely right." I mused aloud, though I don't take my eyes of my timeline schedule, plans flying through my head at ever increasing speeds.

"I am? I mean, of course I am! But why?"

"Sterns, listen to me. Here's what we're gonna do…"

//

Have you ever been inside the hull of a cargo ship as a stowaway on a transatlantic voyage?

Let me tell you from (newfound) experience: it's extremely uncomfortable.

Especially when you're 7 feet tall and with a build that would give a grizzly bear self-esteem issues.

In other news: turns out that even in this life, I get seasick ridiculously easily.

Yeah, this trip was quickly shaping up to become one of the most unpleasant experiences in my new life, and considering my life up till now had involved multiple cases of near-death and transformations painful enough I had torn my vocal chords, that's really saying something.

I was sitting with Sterns in one of the cramped spaces between the endless rows of shipping containers, a small electric lamp placed between us being the only source of light, a small briefcase resting besides Sterns our only luggage (or visible luggage anyways, as most of our equipment is stashed in the various containers around us).

"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Mr. McCole? It's just that… well, considering last time…"

"I'm sure Doctor. Just make sure you get somewhere safe after you've administered the serum to me." I say, trying to project an air of implacable heroism, though it is diminished somewhat by my green complexion (thankfully it's not a side-effect of the Hulk's blood, though at this time it's almost preferable over the week-long bout of seasickness I've been dealing with).

Giving me a sceptical once-over again, Sterns shook his head in defeat, before opening the case, which held the same enormous syringe he used to turn me into the hulking brute I am now (while I wasn't overly fond of the massive needle, anything smaller would fail to penetrate my thickened skin), once again filled with a reddish substance.

Killian had been a treasure trove of information for Sterns in order to work with the Extremis serum, since the AIM leader had been the very first subject and because of that was technically the most stable subject as well, given that he had survived the longest of all Extremis enhanced individuals without going 'kaboom!'.

Between the unusually stable reaction between his genetic code and the serum, and the extensive bloodwork Sterns had performed on me both before and after my transformation, the hyper intelligent scientist had enough data to work from in order to create a serum which would (probably) not kill me in the process. We had been underway for about a week, and Sterns had been working on perfecting the serum day and night, though he spent a lot of time complaining that hadn't been able to perform enough substantial work on the serum for it to be 100% safe, since most of the equipment needed for that was hidden inside the shipping containers, so I had to make do with what we already had. Sterns refused to inject himself with a serum he wasn't absolutely sure wouldn't kill him, and concidering his mutation dealt with brains and intellect, without giving him a noteworthy healing factor, I could understand that, even if I ignored his pleas to wait a few more months.

Still, the risks were substantial, and this time we didn't have a controlled environment like the storage unit during my first transformation.

Basically our plan boiled down to him stabbing me with the syringe, and then running like hell, hoping I didn't burn a hole straight through the hull of the ship, making us all sink to the bottom of the ocean (though if the serum turned out to work I might just be able to survive that).

"Right, I'm ready Doctor, apply- MOTHERFU-"

Damn, that still hurt like a bitch, bastard didn't even wait for me to finish before shivving me again with the sword he tried to pass of as a needle.

Still, the Doctor quickly became the least of my worries as I heard his footsteps hurrying away across the metal grating, as I seemed to start burning alive from the inside.

The pain from my first transformation was nothing, compared to this.

The pain from the burns I got fighting the Extremis woman was nothing, compared to this.

There was no pain in the world imaginable, which could compare to immolation from the inside out.

If there was one positive to finding myself suddenly in hell, it was the fact that I locked up before I could start screaming, and blacked out after a few minutes (though it felt more like an infinite amount of lifetimes).

//

"Hey there, Michael. Try to lay still, huh? Everything's fine, everything's gonna be just fine…"

The soft whispers of Sterns slowly dragged me from the dark void of unconsciousness I had been blissfully drifting in after escaping the pain. One of the first things I felt was heat. I knew that it should be far too hot for me, way past the point of 'burning up with fever' and right into the area of 'setting things on fire', but it felt… right somehow.

Comforting.

Groggily opening my eyes, it takes a while before the blurry, unfamiliar surroundings make sense to me again. As everything slowly becomes sharper, I see Sterns crouched next to me, his misshapen face looking at me in a combination of excitement and worry.

"You, my friend, are a true medical wonder." The scientist softly laughs, gesturing at my body.

Oddly, I feel a breeze across my torso, and as I look down I quickly realize why: I'm completely naked, with only a blanket across my lap protecting my modesty. The air is filled with the stench of burned synthetics and cotton, and surrounding me are blackened scraps which once upon a time were my clothes, having been burnt straight off my body by the heat of my transformation.

What grabs my attention isn't my state of undress, or the state of what once used to be my dress. No, what draws my attention is the red glowing veins running through my limbs and the glowing spot on the left side of my chest, which pulses with regular intervals.

I'm staring at my own heartbeat.

Trying something, I focus on my hand, willing the heat to move towards it, to increase, to burn. As I do so, the veins start to burn even brighter, and my hand quickly starts glowing, the air shimmering around it from the heat it's giving off.

With a grin, I place my hand flat against the shipping container next to me, watching as the metal first starts glowing, before slowly beginning to sag where I'm pressing against it.

Turning back towards Sterns, who's looking at the display of my new powers in awe, I let out a giddy laugh, unknowingly showing off the reddish glow at the back of my throat, as if it were the mouth to some hellish furnace, my eyes literally burning with glee.

"Step 6: Complete."

//
Fun Fact: Iron Man was created by Stan Lee as a challenge to create a hero no one should like and force people to like him.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER FOUR: I LIKE MY WEAPONS HOW I LIKE MY MUSIC​

Something I hadn't expected: apparently Extremis can't cure me of my sea sickness.

Combined with the fact that my innards were comfortably resting at a temperature hot enough to melt steel, 'projectile vomit' suddenly becomes a far more dangerous expression.

Still, at least Extremis kept me from feeling like absolute shit, and the journey towards South-Africa was progressing relatively quickly.

However, as there is virtually nothing to do inside the hold of a cargo ship, I was mostly stuck with either eating, sleeping or getting prodded and poked by Sterns, who took the opportunity of having me in a position where I had nowhere to run to in order to perform a whole battery of tests.

While uncomfortable (Sterns has seemed to have developed quite a fondness for the pike he claims is a syringe. He keeps stabbing me with it), the tests were very informative.

Turns out that the Hulk-blood and the Extremis serum not only played nice with each other, they apparently worked on top of each other, due to the different ways they used to enhance me. The effect was a multiplication instead of a sum.

Extremis basically supercharged my muscles and organs, raising the temperature of my body to ridiculous extremes, while giving me super strength and regeneration (it was why the lithe Extremis woman had been able to match me blow for blow, despite the fact that I was twice her size and wearing power armour).

Hulk-blood enhanced me in a different way, as it made my muscles and bones not only larger, but immensely denser as well (the Hulk and Abomination had become so durable that bullets simply bounced of their skin).

So, baseline human + Hulk-blood = Big, though human who is strong enough to bend steel.

Baseline human + Extremis virus = Strong, regenerating human running quite a fever.

With me, things were somewhat different.

Extremis didn't have to work with ordinary, puny human muscles, but with muscles enhanced by Hulk-blood to be larger and denser than normal, which on their own made them plenty strong already.

The result?

Supercharged, superheated Hulk-enhanced muscles. Basically, I was stronger than any human injected with Hulk-blood, and I was capable of reaching higher temperatures than any human enhanced by Extremis.

As was made clear to me when I started bench-pressing one of the shipping containers, the veins in my arms glowing brightly in the dim belly of the hull as my bulging muscles exerted themselves in lifting multiple tons of steel and cargo.

It wasn't effortless, but considering the container weighed in at somewhere around 3 tonnes, I should either be wearing power armour for this or be squashed flat like a bug. Instead, I had been lifting the container for half an hour now, the massive regeneration keeping my muscles from tiring, though probably not indefinitely.

Briefly, the urge to find someone to test my strength against overwhelmed me when I lifted the container with the ease that I did (or rather that I managed to do it at all), the haze that came over me right after injecting myself with Hulk-blood rushing back with some familiarity, but I was quickly snapped out of it when I realized that the heavy hitters on the Avengers can probably lift 10 times that.

And there are beings out there who are even stronger than they are.

That quickly cooled my enthusiasm (figuratively of course, considering the Extremis-fuelled volcano that now seemed to live inside of me), but I quickly came out of my funk by experimenting with my new powers.

I had never realized that breathing fire could be so fucking awesome!

I felt like a dragon or something, and (much to Sterns's annoyance) I kept the rest of the journey randomly spouting great bursts of flame, then grinning like a loon at my newfound status as living flamethrower (which are awesome on their own. Having one in your throat only multiplies the amount of awesome to critical levels).

Sadly (sarcasm much?) our wonderful sea-trip had to come to an end as we made port in Cape Town, South-Africa (and no matter what Sterns tells you, I did not end up on my knees kissing the ground, tearfully thanking it for not moving so damn much. I already destroyed the pictures so there's no proof).

Still, we had finally made landfall, on the 16th of August, 2011, which gave me around half a year to finish Step 5: get money, while also completing Step 7: take Ulysses Klaue's stuff.

Unfortunately, I still had to actually find Gollum. Fortunately, I had Google Maps, and I knew that Hulk fought the Hulkbuster-armor in Johannesburg, so I could just find the nearest beach and start looking there for Klaue's derelict ship. Unfortunately, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and taking a plane there was out of the question.

Most unfortunately though?

Johannesburg is an inland town: there are no shores anywhere near it.

When I discovered that I spent a good twenty minutes roaring in anger, fire literally spewing from my mouth as I cursed the producers of Marvel Studios for not doing their goddamned research before making their movies (then again, I only discovered the problem just now, so was being a tad hypocritical, but at the moment I didn't care).

Eventually I calmed down enough to realize that whatever I was going to end up doing, I couldn't stay hidden inside the cargo ship forever (especially since they had begun unloading it), so my best bet was to simply make my way to Johannesburg, and then use a outwards spiralling search-pattern to find Klaue.

But first, I had to get off this ship.

Getting on the ship had been surprisingly easy: in the dead of night, when the only people present were exhausted firemen trying to contain the hellish nightmare the pier I had fought on had turned into, I came in with sealed boxes with our equipment inside from underneath the water (I had almost forgotten that since I had salvaged most of my armour from the Navy model drone, it also doubled as a submarine), then put those boxes inside the containers that I knew where meant for Cape Town (which were easy enough to find, as most shipping manifests were shockingly easy to get to if you had a motivated, hyper-intelligent genius on your side). Then, when they were scheduled to be shipped out, me and Sterns simply hid ourselves inside one of them and presto, we were on board a trans-Atlantic voyage.

Now, we simply did the same but in reverse.

During the day, the containers (and therefore, us as well) were offloaded from the ship and stacked onto the harbour, waiting for their further distribution by train or truck or whatever other mode of vehicular transportation.

When night fell, I kicked open the door of the container I had hid in, and started ripping open the doors of the units in which I had stuffed Sterns and the rest of our stuff. While I began loading everything in a single container, Sterns went off to find us a truck which we could borrow for an unspecified amount of time, without asking (stealing is just such a harmful word, you know?).

While Sterns went off to procure our transportation, I kept on working as fast as I could, trying to get everything done before someone (dockworkers, drugdealers, hell, maybe even a few spies. In this universe, anything was possible) could show up and notice us.

Which is of course, the exact moment someone did show up.

It was a group of four men, and judging by their shifty expressions, lack of protective gear, and the way too fancy suitcase the guy in front was carrying, cuffs linking his wrist to the handle, I could tell they had just as much right being here as I had.

Which meant, none at all.

Thankfully, I was standing in the shadows cast by the container I was currently stuffing to the brim with advanced scientific equipment, so the dealers (of what exactly I didn't bother to think about) could only see a giant silhouette.

Turning towards them (making sure my features stayed hidden in the shadows) I focused on willing the heat in my eyes to increase, which as Sterns had told me, made them glow up like a pair of overheated coals.

"You saw nothing. Keep moving." I growled, trying to do the Christian Bale version of Batman while I spoke (which meant that I sounded like I sprinkled gravel over my cereal every morning).

However, when combined with their already existing nervousness, it appeared that my deep rumbling voice, glowing hellish eyes and massive shadowed frame sufficed to get my meaning across, and resolutely not looking my way, they hurriedly walked onwards, towards whatever nefarious meeting they had planned.

I paused in my work long enough to keep an eye on them until they turned a corner and were out of my sight, before I hurriedly finished my work, trying to get all of it done until either they regained their courage or until someone else showed up who proved to be less easy to scare off.

Thankfully, I was almost done when those dealers showed up, and within three minutes everything was packed up and ready to go. It took another two minutes for Sterns to show up (as he had never driven a truck before, his arrival was heralded by the sound of an engine and gearbox, slowly being tortured to death).

Hitching up the container to the truck was somewhat of a hassle, but between my super strength and Sterns's intellect (not to mention several Google-searches and YouTube instructional videos) we got it done right as the dawn hesitantly shone its first lights upon the shore of South-Africa, as we drove off into the remains of the night.

/

Like I said, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and every time it was Sterns's shift to drive again (which always made me feel slightly guilty towards the engine of our truck) I spend pouring over maps we had liberated from whatever tourist info centre we came across.

During those long sweltering hours on the road (or at least, Sterns kept complaining that they were sweltering. I barely even registered temperature anymore, always feeling comfortably warm) my mood kept getting worse and worse as I realized how truly fucked I am due to the MCU-producers not knowing their topography.

Because there is no such thing as a shore near Johannesburg, I now had no idea where to go look for Gollum other than in an ever widening search pattern. Finding Ulysses by just going around and looking for him would take ages, and while I had some time before Loki showed up, I wanted to be back in America well beforehand.

So, after getting rid of the map in frustration (it burned up in my hands after my realization that it was absolutely useless in helping me find Klaue made me nearly burst into flames, which annoyed Sterns to no end as he now had no idea where we were going), I spent the rest of the trip to Johannesburg (a full six hours of either staring out the window, or trying to keep the old truck going after the abuse it suffered under Sterns's inexperienced driving) sulking about my problem, plotting and dismissing hundreds of idea's as how to get my hands on that shiny Vibranium.

It was only due to the efforts of some misguided idiots that I finally found my answer: we were being carjacked.

Or at least, that was the intention of our would-be robbers. We were still about an hour out from Johannesburg, finally hitting asphalt again, when out of the underbrush on either side of the road sprang three beat-up cars. They quickly sped up, two riding in front of us, two on either side of the cabin, and two behind us.

There was a lot of shouting involved, and guns being waved, and while Sterns was clearly panicked by the violent demands for us to stop the truck, I couldn't help but grin, a deep thrumming in my veins suddenly roaring up in anticipation.

Foolishly, I dismissed the feeling as merely being the effects of adrenaline kicking in.

"Sterns. Stay down. I'll handle it."

Taking a good look at the thuggish looking brutes waving around pistols and machine guns, the scientist simply gives a jerky nod, before slamming on the brakes, killing the engine and diving underneath the dashboard (in the process almost making the cars behind us slam into the container, and given the fact none of them wore seatbelts I could see the criminals getting thrown around their cars when the drivers were forced to slam on the brakes as well. That should teach you: always wear your seatbelt).

As we all come to a stop in a great cloud of dust, a lean guy jumps out of the car on my side of the cabin, waving around a machine gun while yelling at me to open the door or else get my brains splattered across the ceiling.

I make no reaction to show I had even heard him, sinking a little further down in my seat instead. This clearly infuriates the car thief, as he runs up to the cabin, hand outstretched to the door handle, ready to rip it open-

BLAM!

-right as I kick it straight off its hinges, sending it (and with it, the would-be mugger) crashing back into the car with enough force that it completely crumples around the impact, killing both the thug and the driver, and at the least knocking out the occupants on the other side of the car. There's no moral hang-ups this time; these people wanted to rob and maybe even kill us, so I currently don't feel like holding back.

In the shocked silence that follows, I jump out of the truck, sprinting towards the two cars at the front of us with a speed that would put a cheetah to shame. Heat is starting to build up inside me, and even though I can't see it, I just know my eyes are lighting up like gateways to Mephisto's bedroom.

Within seconds, I reach the car on the right, and in a beautifully executed Spartan kick, slam my booted foot at the top of the frame where the front and back door meet. The car nearly tips over from the force of my blow, and before it can settle back down, I reach into its belly and lift it straight from the ground.

By now, the four thugs in the other car have gotten out, two on either side of it, but due to their shock they have yet to open fire, a mistake for which they pay for with their lives. I throw the car at the two guys on the left side of the other vehicle, with enough speed that it catches them both and then keeps on flying for about 10 feet, before it comes crashing down and slides along another 5 feet, reducing them to mangled corpses.

While this is happening, I have already ran towards the remaining two would-be thieves, vaulting over the boot of their car before nailing the guy in the front with a sweeping kick that slams into his chest, which blasts him into his accomplice with enough force it shatters both their bodies.

As I straighten up, I can hear a staccato of thundering bursts, before the car I'm standing behind let's out groaning shrieks of metal as its body is pierced bu bullets, a few cutting through the air next to my ear with whizzing sounds. Apparently now the rest have caught on, opening fire with their machine guns and pistols, the truck completely forgotten in their rage and panic.

I quickly duck behind the car, before grabbing the underside and with a heave, throwing it on its side. Then, I pick it up by the axels and using it as a battering ram, charge for the guys on Sterns's side of the truck.

However, between the larger distance between this group and the one I had just disposed of and the way dragging the car is slowing me down, I don't manage to actually catch any of the guys (three this time), instead ploughing into their car with my makeshift shield, totalling both vehicles with an ear-deafening crash.

They had to jump out of the way from my charge though, and were more disoriented than me from their sudden tumble in the dust and the bang that had just gone off right next to their ears, so I still have the initiative.

I turn towards the two guys on the right, and before they can point their guns at me, I leap towards them, grasping each head in one of my hands, before I bring them together like I'm trying crack a couple eggs for my omelette.

Though I prefer my omelettes with a bit less brains, thankyouverymuch.

As I straighten however, a gunshot rings out behind me, and pain explodes in my lower back.

Intellectually, I knew that apart from a headshot (and maybe even then) I had nothing to fear from small-arms gunfire, as I could survive it. Still, knowing that you're going to be fine after getting shot, and actually getting shot I discovered are two vastly different things.

I might have screamed, but if I had, then the noise was drowned out by a further six gunshots barking across the battlefield, each shot hammering into my back with enough force it felt like I was getting punched by the berserker Extremis woman all over again.

The shots throw me towards the ground, as I land on my hands and knees in whatever remained of the ex-car thieves heads, pain and heat flaring all over my back, even as bits of grey matter stick to my pants and shirt.

But with the heat, comes rage.

That urge to let loose, to truly test my strength, that ever-present itch that had been at the back of my skull ever since I had taken part of the universe's most infamous rage-monster into myself flared back to life again, roaring to finally be unleashed.

And so I let it.

As the soon-to-be dead man hesitantly approaches my hunched form, I suddenly yell out in rage, the temperature inside me reaching extreme new heights, my shirt catching fire in a great ball of flame as I do, revealing my ridged spine and raised ribcage as its ruined scraps slowly fall off my torso onto the stained dirt.

Straightening myself, feeling the bullets stuck in my back being pushed out from their entry wounds while also slowly liquefying, I turn back towards the idiot who shot me, flames dancing around my torso, the air shimmering around my body as tarmac melts underneath my feet.

The guy has just enough time to swallow and lift the gun towards me, before I'm suddenly right there, my white-hot glowing hand shooting forwards, fingers outstretched, slamming through his ribcage and emerging through his back, though there is no blood as the massive wound was immediately cauterized, the beast inside grinning with glee at its kill.

Lifting the corpse stuck on my arm, I turn towards the two remaining cars at the back of the truck (I could see the muzzles of their guns flashing, I could hear the shots ringing out, I could feel their bullets impacting my flame-wreathed from. I just didn't care), before reaching back like a pitcher at a baseball game. Then I throw the guy I had turned into a shish-kebab at the car on the right, sending him straight through the front window and into the boot.

That was apparently too much for the guys in the remaining car, as they stopped shooting, jumped in and tore off without even looking back. The other criminals weren't so lucky, as I had just broken their car, so they were stuck with me.

With desperate eyes they glance at each other, before resuming their shooting at my flaming form, yelling as loud as they could to mask their own fear, all the while slowly backing away as I advance, trying to keep some distance between my white glowing fists and their vulnerable bodies.

It was useless.

The beast inside me was raging to its heart's content, but I was still there, and I subtly reminded it that we also had a ranged option. And with that, I stop, opened my mouth, and breathe the biggest flame I had ever seen in either life so far (and between the two lives I've had, I've seen Rammstein in concert five times, so that's saying something).

With my massive body also came massive lungs, and I kept up my flame throwing for a full five minutes, long enough for all the screams to die out. When I ran out of breath (and enemies to fight) the inner beast (which I was surprised to find I even had, as I had chalked up my more aggressive impulses to my own changed personality, rather than an internal alter-ego) subsided and I got control over my body again.

And promptly threw up.

The smell of burned flesh is horrible, yet was everywhere around me. The feeling of a human being dying underneath your hands is somehow worse, yet I kept picturing the man I had shoved my arm straight through, over and over again.

I fell to my knees on the ruined road (some small, numb part of me noticing I was naked again) simply staring at the vision of hell that was before me.

That I had created.

Dimly, I heard the remaining door of the truck open, before hesitant footsteps approached me.

"Michael? Michael, what's going- oh Jesus!"

I could hear the scientist retch behind me, but still I didn't move from my kneeling position, noticing that I'm not crying. Whether that is because my tears keep evaporating, or because I'm still in shock I don't know, and frankly, at the moment I don't care.

"Michael? What the hell happened?"

It takes a monumental effort before I managed to work my jaw enough to from words, and when I finally manage to, they surprise both Sterns and me as well.

"I lost control."

Because that's what all this was. This was what happened when a superhuman (a category which as of this year, suddenly includes me) loses control: others die.

I had never been a fan of DC's 'no killing rule', especially when it came to irredeemable psychopaths like the Joker, nor did I ever really buy into the whole 'humans hate/fear mutants' that the mutant storylines were based on (people somehow cheer for the Avengers, but hate mutants, while some Avengers aren't even human at all? Where's the logic in that?) but looking at the devastation around me, which I caused because I became angry enough to lose control?

I got it now. When people could do things like this, especially when they get angry, you cannot help but be afraid. Because even without superpowers, humans were capable of doing horrible things after just one, really bad day. Throw in superpowers, and the damage people could do to each other would monumentally increase.

This wasn't supposed to happen though. Not to me. Not in a Self-Insert. Those were all wish fulfilment stories, a little bit of mindless fun. Become friends with your favourite superhero, shag your celebrity crush(es), be adored by your allies, feared by your enemies and all that.

'Except, you chose to do none of those things, did you?' a tiny voice (either my conscience or Ant-man) whispered inside my mind.

"Michael? What are we going to do?"

Sterns's hesitant voice dragged me from my morose contemplations, and feeling as if my head was made out of lead, I raised it enough so I could look him in the eye, exhaustion filling every part of my being.

"We're going to go with my original plan. Before all… this happened. We ask them where we can find Klaue."

"Do you think they know where he is?"

"If they don't, they'll know someone who does."

/

Turned out that Sterns and me were both right, the guys who were left alive (five men, out of a group that started out with roughly twenty or so) didn't know where Klaue was, but they did know someone who probably did.

Some small-time weapons dealer, who bought from the massive stocks that Klaue and his like had on hand, and sold them in turn to the various gangs in and around Johannesburg, like the one that had tried to rob me.

Getting the location had been easy enough. While they all feared the weapons dealer enough to not snitch on him to the authorities or rival gangs and the like, they feared me on a whole other level.

What came after was significantly more difficult though.

"What are you going to do to us?!"

It was one of the survivors, yelling at my back as I turned away to walk towards where Sterns already has the truck ready to go. Looking over my shoulder at the desperate man (who flinches when my glowing eye sets on him, cradling his shattered leg with a grimace of pain) I briefly stand still in order to think about his question.

What was I going to do with them?

The smart thing to do would be to quickly kill them. If I let them go, then best case scenario is that they grab more weapons and friends and come back to try again, or worst case scenario is that they blab about me and my abilities to the wrong people (which at the moment includes just about everyone, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are at the top of the list, and they definitely will find out).

On the other hand, I have definitely had my fill of killing (my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh), and the thought of disposing of these defenseless men as well makes me vaguely ill.

Before I could make a decision either way, I suddenly remember the car that got away from me, probably three men inside. So, cat's already outta the bag, no need to kill these guys as well since containment is no longer an option either way.

I realize I'm rationalizing, and that it's probably a bad idea, but I can't bring myself to care with the stench of burnt human still filling my nose.

So all I did was shrug at the man, turning away from him and his friends, walking towards where Sterns is waiting.

"I'm not gonna do anything. Just forget you ever saw me and don't get in my way."

And with that, I jumped into the cabin, and Sterns drove off, towards where the next lead to Ulysses Klaue and his Vibranium is located.

/

Finding the arms-dealer's hideout is easy with the directions the carjackers gave me. Getting in is even easier. It's located in the back of a whore house, with your stereotypical goons one either side of the door, which is probably locked from the inside with a heavy bolt, a small flap allowing for someone to give a passwords or something.

I just walk up without saying anything, ignoring the warning scowls the guards send my way, smash the head of one goon (they're pretty big. I'm bigger) into the wall, kick the other one in the knee, then knee him in the chin, before I kick the door into the hideout, taking mortar and the bolt with it.

As I step inside, shocked silence greets me.

All around the room are stacks of cash, crates filled with weapons and ammo, while a dozen or so guys are seated on ratty couches or at dingy tables. They were all either playing cards, video games, or with the half-naked women in their laps, and the scent of drugs is an almost physical thing, hanging in the air.

Some slowly reach towards their guns as the people inside regain their footing, the women clearly not knowing whether to scream or go hide in a corner.

All movement is halted as I remove the ratty blanket I had thrown over myself as a makeshift cloak in order to walk the back-alleys of Johannesburg relatively unseen. However, as I throw it off myself, I show them just how huge my muscles are, the raised ribcage jutting out from my skin, the glowing pulses in my chest showing my heartbeat.

"Anyone here by the name of Mandingo?" I rumble, my voice and expression clearly conveying just how done I am with all of this shit, and someone better answer me within the next ten minutes or this part of Johannesburg goes up in flames.

A tall guy with dreadlocks warily steps up, an Uzi (or at least, I think it's an Uzi. I wouldn't know, I've never really been a fan of guns) grabbed securely in his hands, his fingernails blackened from filth and drug abuse.

"I am Mandingo, freak. What the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you want?" he spits, but I can clearly see through the front he's putting up for his gang.

If he wasn't terrified of me, he would've already shot me for being in his secret hideout uninvited.

Completely unbothered by the multitude of weapons that are within reaching distance of some of the worst scum in South-Africa, I take a few slow, measured strides towards Mandingo, until were about an arms-length away from each other.

Even from this distance, I'm looming over the arms dealer, who has to crane his neck a little to look me in my burning eyes, something he clearly has difficulty with. Most of them do, I notice, the dim lighting of the hideout throwing my glowing veins and pulsing heartbeat in high contrast.

"I want Ulysses Klaue."

That clearly takes him by surprise, as he briefly forgets his fear.

"What the fuck? Fuck no! I ain't telling you fucking shit, you motherfu-"

Faster than anyone can react, I've reached out, my massive hand closing around his throat and lifting him high above my head, making his feet dangle way above the floor. Immediately I hear the sounds of hammers being cocked but I ignore them, instead heating up my hand just the tiniest bit.

Immediately, the sounds and smells of burning flesh fill the hideout (I have to force myself not to hurl as an image flashes before my eyes of my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh) Mandingo screaming bloody murder.

"Tell your men to stand down. Now."

"Stand down! Stand the fuck down assholes!"

As the men lower their weapons I drop Mandingo to the floor, letting him smack down with a meaty sound as he keeps writhing in pain from his burned neck.

"I'm gonna ask you again. And this time, you're going to tell me everything I want to know. And trust me, Mandingo: their ain't gonna be a third time."

I bend down, grabbing the wailing dealer by his dreadlocks, hauling him up so I can look him in his blood-shot, panicked eyes.

"I. Want. Ulysses Klaue."

"All right! All right! I'll tell you! He's down at the Three Rivers, near Eikenhof, just South from here!" Mandingo screams out in a panic, any thoughts of keeping his dignity in front of his gang forgotten after his near-death experience.

Unfortunately I don't know where that is.

With that realization, I drop him to the floor again and straighten up, looking over the other gang members, who are all looking at me with a combination of wariness and anger. I look back down at the whimpering Mandingo, before I make my decision.

"I'm taking you with me."

And with that, I grab him by the neck (making him cry out again, this time cursing me, my ancestry, and the ancestry of the goat my mother has apparently lain with in order to conceive me. Or something like that, I don't really bother with listening) and turn around, making my way towards the exit, before I pause as my gaze falls on a duffel bag filled to the brim with cash.

I bend down, zip it up and sling it over my shoulder.

"And I'm taking this as well."

One of the bigger grunts opens his mouth in anger, the grip on his gun tightening, but I suddenly twist towards him, my eyes nearly bursting into flame with the heat I'm channelling through them, making him stop in his tracks, fear flashing over his face.

Tracking my hellish gaze over the other occupants of the room, I challenge all of them to try and stop me.

None of them do.

"You ever speak of me to anyone.... you ever so much as hint that you know I exist.... I will know. I will track you down. I will find you. And I'll shove my hand in your stomach and set you on fire from the inside out. Do we have an understanding?"

As I finish delivering my threat, I force heat to rise to the surface of my skin instead of just my eyes this time, and in response veins all over my body and face start flaring up as if it were lava flowing through them instead of blood, the temperature inside immediately becoming sweltering in response to the amount of heat I'm putting out. Making sure to look everyone in the eye who doesn't appear stuitably cowed already, forcing them to back off after staring them down, I finally feel somewhat secure that they won't go blabbing about me the moment I turn my back, though I can't tell how long their silence will last.

And so, with a cash-filled duffel bag over my shoulder and with a cursing and spitting arms dealer in my hand, I turn my back on Johannesburg.

/

As Sterns and me are walking up to what Mandingo assured me was Klaue's base I was surprised to find that it wasn't a ship, before I kicked myself for forgetting the timeline (Klaue only gets the boat in 2015 I remember now).

So looking for the non-existent coast had been a bad idea from the start, as the weapons merchant wasn't even based there yet.

It's yet one more thing that hammers home to me that, while I had abhorred Mary Sues in my previous life, not being one now sucked in the extreme. Just one more mistake that I really cannot afford to make, because this world isn't like my old one, because this is a world of Gods and Monsters and I'm just a nerd trying to get through it all alive.

The hide-out is apparently a warehouse that seems to have been abandoned decades ago, graffiti on every wall and most of the windows smashed in.

Basically, it looks like crap.

I turn a sceptic eye on Mandingo, who visibly gets nervous under my scrutiny.

"This is the place?"

"Yeah man, I swear man. This is where that fucking Klaue is, I come here all the time to do my business man." The arms dealer hurries to tell me.

"Really. All the time, you say. Then you go first."

"What?"

And with that, I grab him by the back of his stained shirt with one arm, reach back, and throw him through the front door, which yields under the criminal's impressive momentum in a wonderful shower of wood splinters.

Ignoring the pained groans from Mandingo and the panicked shouts from inside, I step into the warehouse, Sterns making sure he stays behind me, which is rather easy to do as I am almost twice his size.

What greets me are several mountains of crates, cashes, storage units an even a few cubicles.

Oh, not to mention well over a dozen gun barrels.

I'm not worried however, as this time, I'm wearing my armour, fully kitted out with every weapon I could fit on it, which means that I outgun all of these men combined.

Hell, my tank gun alone would be enough to take out most of them, but I'm keeping that one as an ace up my sleeve for now. I don't know what Klaue will do, or what kind of toys he has, so better be safe than sorry.

I'm done making mistakes.

"Well, what's all this then?" A voice comes out of one of the cubicles, and as I hear the sound of an office chair rolling, Gollum himself peaks around the corner, one eyebrow raised in questioning, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, what seems like a Desert Eagle in the other.

Walking forwards, my boots clanking on the bare floor with metallic slams at every step, I ignore his henchmen training their weapons on me as I walk further inside.

"Meneer Klaue. Ik heb een voorstel voor je." (Mister Klaue. I have a proposition for you.)

The Belgian man is clearly surprised at my Dutch, but even though he grins at hearing the closest thing to his mother tongue in what is likely decades, he remains wary.

"Really? En wat voor voorstel heb je dan, waarvoor het blijkbaar nodig is dat je mijn voordeur intrapt?" (And what kind of proposition do you have, which apparently requires you to kick in my front door?) Klaue asks, arrogance lining his voice, though he seems to take me more seriously as he realizes I'm in power armour, standing up and putting away his bottle of Jack.

Sterns taps me on the shoulder, and as I tilt my head to show that I'm listening, he hesitantly asks a question.

"Mr. McCole, what are you two saying?" he whispers, though in the vast space of the warehouse this is useless, his voice rebounding of the bare walls.

"I just told him that I had a proposition for him, he wondered what kind of proposition involves me kicking down his door." I reply, not bothering to keep my voice down, before I turn back towards Gollum, who seems to be amused at our byplay.

"Het soort voorstel dat ons allebei schatrijk zal maken." (The kind of proposition that will make the both of us extremely rich) I say to him, trying to catch his interest by promising him riches.

"Aha." Klaue grunts, and his disbelief is almost visible as his gaze tracks my armour from my boots up to my helmet, finally resting on the turret of my tank gun that sticks out over my shoulder.

"Is dat Stark's speelgoed dat je daar hebt?" (Is that Stark's toy you have there?) he asks about my armour.

"Als je mijn voorsteel aanneemt, dan kan het jouw speelgoed worden." (If you accept my proposition, it can be your instead.)

Again a tap on my shoulder, and as I turn back towards Sterns he clearly looks uncomfortable with being the only person in the room who doesn't understand what's going on.

"What are you saying now, Mr McCole? I don't like the way he looks at us. Or rather, at the armour."

"I just told him that if he accepts my deal, the armour is his."

Ignoring Sterns's outraged sputters behind me (for all the he claimed that as a geneticist he had no business helping me build power armor he rather acts affronted at the thought of losing something he has invested days of work into), I turn back towards the Belgian arms dealer, who I can tell is really intrigued by the possibility of getting his hands on Stark's latest tech.

The arms sector took a historically large hit when Tony Stark pulled Stark Industries out from weapons manufacturing, and despite people like Hammer trying to jump in and fill the gap, people all over the world only hungered even more for Stark tech, which had just become even more exclusive.

What is it they say about artists? The best thing they can do for their art is die?

As far as people like Ulysses Klaue were concerned, that's exactly what happened, and the thought of getting his hands on post-Iron Man tech was clearly catching his fancy.

"Ik neem aan dat er bij zo'n mooi aanbod ook een heftige prijskaart is inbegrepen. Wat moet je ervoor hebben?" (I assume that such an atractive offer also includes a heavy pricetag. What do you want for it?)

At his question as to what I want in return for my armour, I simply grin, hands outstretched in a grand gesture, as if I was a showman presenting my greatest prize.

"Vibranium. Alles wat je hebt." (Everything you have.)

At that, Klaue's expression immediately closes off, and in a flash he has trained his hand cannon on my helmet, his thugs quickly following his example.

"Geen sprake van. Het is niet te koop. Wegwezen met dat kut harnas van je, of ik blaas een gat door je kop!" (Absolutely not. It's not for sale. Get your fucking armor out of here, or I'll blow a hole through your head!)

This time, I almost expect Sterns's tapping on my shoulder, the scientist looking extremely worried at the amount of guns that are now pointed in our direction.

"Michael! What the hell did you say? What the hell did he say?!"

"Oh, I told him that I wanted all of his Vibranium in return for the armour, he told me it isn't for sale and that I should leave before I get a hole shot through my head."

"Aha. I see."

"In dat geval zal ik maar gaan. Maar voordat ik vertrek, mag ik misschien nog één ding zeggen?" (In that case I'll leave. But before I do, may I just say one thing?)

Frowning at my request to say one last thing, Klaue makes a 'get on with it' gesture with the cannon in his hands.

"Oke, je hebt waarschijnlijk wel eens gehoord dat wij Nederlanders grappen maken over Belgen, toch? Nou, zeg maar wat je van deze vind: Hoe vermoord een Belg een vis? Hij laat hem verdrinken!" (Alright, you have probably heard that us Dutch folk enjoy making jokes about the Belgians, right? Well, tell me what you think of this one: How does a Belgian kill a fish? He tries to drown it!)

Other than a snort from one of the goons surrounding me and the furious expression on Klaue's face, there's no reaction at all, besides the frantic tapping on my shoulder from Sterns, whose clearly freaking out about the look Gollum is sending us.

I head his question off before he can ask it, not taking my eyes off the infuriated weapons dealer.

"Before you ask, I just insulted both him and his entire people."

"What?! Why?!"

"I thought it was funny."

"What are we going to do?!"

"You are going to duck."

"What?"

"Now."

And with that, Sterns hits the floor as I activate the submachine guns hidden underneath the plating on my arms, which are still outstretched in my showman pose. The moment Sterns ducks, I fire up all the repulsors on the left side of my armour, and as I get hurled around in a circle I keep my fingers on the triggers, gunfire spraying out in twin cones of death, taking down everyone who wasn't fast enough on the uptake to duck alongside Sterns (Klaue and two others are the only ones left alive, not to mention Mandingo, who seems content to simply lie very still were I threw him).

As I come to a stop in the classic hero pose (by accident this time, as I'm extremely dizzy and I almost fell down before I managed to catch myself in a way that at least looked cool), one of the guys that ducked in time, nails me in the head, making my helmet jerk back as the bullet glances off in a shower of sparks.

My panicked response to being literally shot in the head is to blindly fire in his direction until I hear a cry of pain and a wet smacking sound.

Standing up straight, I see Klaue looking at me (or rather, my armour) in something close to amazement before he unloads his clip with a snarl. I let the bullets ping off my armour until I can hear his gun click empty, before I slowly approach him.

The last guy alive throws away his gun and backs away as I turn to look at him. For a moment both me and him stand absolutely still, before my tank gun suddenly swoops low and takes aim at him, prompting a small "oh god" and a wet stain at the front of his pants.

"You saw nothing. Leave."

Giving a hurried nod, the hardened mercenary high-tails it out of the warehouse, not even looking back once at his former employer.

I step up to Klaue, hauling him to his feet with one hand (the new model of my armour leaves my hands free, making his eyes dart to the glowing veins with surprise, even as he starts sweating at that much heat so close to his face.

"Je Vibranium, Klaue. Alles wat je hebt."

He growls at my demands for his hard-earned(stolen) miracle metal, but he refrains from antagonizing me, the combination of his feet dangling of the floor and the heat steadily burning his shoulder keeping him from spouting off.

"Of wat? Arresteer je me?"

I almost chuckle at his idea of me arresting him, before my other hand glows white and comes up in a cutting motion, severing his arm just below the elbow. I drop him to the ground (more to keep the smell, my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh, from getting to me, but it hopefully comes across as callousness instead) where he lies screaming in pain, clutching at the cauterized wound.

I shut him up by placing my armoured boot on his chest, and pressing down slightly, which causes his eyes to fly to my helmet.

"Dat kan het laatste stukje zijn van jezelf dat ik verwijder, of het eerste. Jouw keuze. Waar is het Vibranium, Klaue?"

Between the option of his arm being either the first or the last piece I remove from him, the weapons dealer is quick to choose the latter. Directing me to the back of the warehouse, at the bottom of a small mountain of cashes and other crates, Klaue, who is looking decidedly bleak from shock, points out the largest crate.

"Daarin."

I grab the crate by its sides, before ripping it from underneath the larger stack, not caring when it comes crashing down like a bad game of Jenga, my eyes glued to the box in front of me. Without ceremony, I rip open the lid with my bare hands, and there it is.

The metal I have crossed an ocean and a country for, a journey during which I had evolved to a new form and during which I had a minor existential crisis.

All there, neatly packed in tubes, right in front of me.

Vibranium.

"Step 7: Complete."

/
Fun Fact: The Hulk was originally meant to be gray. However, due to the printers giving each different panel a different shade of gray, it was decided that he should be green instead. The run during which the Hulk was gray instead of green was later explained as being a completely different alter-ego of Bruce Banner, called Joe Fixit.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER FIVE: FIRING UP THE TORCH​

"You want me to do WHAT?!"

Wincing slightly from the sheer volume the mutated scientist produced, I rub one of my ears as I repeat myself.

"I want you to lace my skeleton with Vibranium."

Vibranium is truly a miracle metal. It's one of the hardest, densest materials out there, but weighs about as much as steel, and the way it deals with kinetic energy is literally out of this world. If I were to lace my bones with it, then there was no force on Earth which could break them.

I could take a punch from the Hulk to the face and only loose a tooth (which would grow back in a minute or two)

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like Sterns was sharing my enthusiasm.

"Do you even hear what you are saying!! You want me to put metal on your bones!! I'm not sure how well you did in Biology classes, but newsflash: metal isn't supposed to go there!! You. Will. Die!! Even if the procedure to get the metal through your skin, muscles and fat onto your bones doesn't kill you, you'll effectively be suffocating your bone marrow and not last the week! Even if, if, I would be able to get the metal on your bones and not immediately kill you, do you have any idea how hot the inside of your body is? You could melt the metal straight off you skeleton and then what?! I'm telling you it cannot be done!"

At that I frown. Because I know that it has in fact been done. Multiple times, even. For all that Adamantium is treated as a legendary metal that's rarer than an honest politician, there are a rather large number of individuals running around with the stuff inside their bodies.

Though didn't Wolverine die due to Adamantium poisoning, both in the comics and in that (awesome!) movie? I still wasn't sure how my healing factor stacked up to his, and that's not even considering whether or not he exists in this universe (though I think he does, as the Howling Commandoes are a thing, and Logan used to partner up with them occasionally).

So, given Sterns's sheer outrage at my suggestion, the chance that lacing my bones with Vibranium will indeed kill me is significant (not to mention that even if it doesn't, it might still end up useless if I turn out to be hot enough to melt it, which is a possibility).

I thought back on my newfound conviction after my road rage incident, and decided to honour it now as well, no matter how disappointed I was by not being able to become indestructible.

No more mistakes.

Giving a deep sigh, I try to placate Sterns.

"Fine. No metal on my bones, I got it. But I'm not walking away from this empty-handed Sterns. I will use that Vibranium."

"Then build an armour out of it! That's what metal's for!"

"And do you know how to smelt and mould Vibranium to make armour out of it?"

"Well… no, not exactly…"

Giving a deep sigh, I plop back down on the workbench in one of the cubicles that Klaue had stored inside his warehouse. We haven't moved yet, partially because we don't really have anywhere to go, and partially because I suspect people have become aware of my existence, and some of those people will try and track me down.

Once they succeed, I'd much rather sit on a huge pile of military grade weaponry then be caught off guard somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

"I need an edge, Sterns. I've been making bigger and bigger waves, but other than getting Extremis, I haven't become more powerful. Vibranium was supposed to be that edge, and now you're telling me I can't fucking use it!" I roar, jumping from the chair, flames spewing from my mouth, the air beginning to shimmer due to the heat I'm giving off.

Sterns remains remarkably unfazed (seems that his time with me in the cargo hold while I was experimenting with my newfound status as resident flamethrower has done wonders for his nerves) simply fixing me with an incredulous stare.

"More powerful? Michael, you bench-pressed a shipping container! You throw cars around like they're toys! You breathe fire for God's sake!"

Containing my frustration (and heat) with great difficulty, I slump back down again, my head cradled in my hands.

"There are beings more powerful than me Sterns. Hulk and Abomination are just a few of them. Aliens, gods, there are people out there who can lift ten times what I can. And I think that eventually, I'll piss off every single one of them."

Glancing up at the scientist, I gave him a wry grin.

"Indestructible skeleton now making more sense to you Doc?"

Sterns seems briefly stunned, before giving a sigh of his own, crossing his arms with a scowl on his misshapen face.

"I'm still not doing it Michael. I'm not going to murder you."

Giving a slow nod, I lean back into my chair (which groans under my weight) as I close my eyes and massage the bridge of my nose.

Seems like I need to revise my Twenty-Seven Step Program. Step 7 had been acquiring Vibranium. Step 8: using the Vibranium (or acquire any other sort of edge) turned out to be significantly harder to complete

"Fair enough. But that leaves us with a cache of miracle metal, not to mention the attention of the criminal underbelly of South Africa. I'm not selling the metal, but I can't use it either. So, what are we going to do Sterns? Because this trip of ours seems to be shaping up to be one enormous shit-show."

For a moment Sterns remains silent, and I'm thinking he's given up and decided to leave or something, before his voice suddenly jerks me away from my musings.

"Give me three days."

Glancing at him with a raised eyebrow from underneath my hand in confusion, Sterns (still with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face) seems to ponder something, before looking back at me.

"You need an edge right? I can't think of a way to make you even stronger than you are now, not without other materials to work from, but I can make you smarter."

Giving a significant look at his massive cranium (which adds almost a foot to his height) I sit up straighter, excitement hesitantly growing inside of me.

"You mean you-"

"Cracked it? Sort of. I could give you my brain size and the increased intellect that comes with it right now, but I doubt you'd go for that, and given how often you get shot at, having a massive brain for a target doesn't sound very smart. What I've been working on for these past couple of months is a way to increase a being's intellect, without giving them my deformity."

"And you know how to do that?"

"Give me three days and I will."

/

For the next two days, I barely even see Sterns anymore, as he is holed up in the cubicle in which I have dumped all of our equipment and which has now been transformed into Sterns's makeshift lab.

Which, for the first time in a while, left me with time on my hands.

Time, and a prisoner.

Slowly, as Sterns is tinkering away and I look at the stirring Klaue (who passed out from shock shortly after I finally managed to get my hands on his Vibranium) the beginnings of a plan fall into place.

When Klaue wakes up, he sees me sitting not ten feet away from him, and hurriedly scurries away from me until his back hits one of the mounds of crates that are stacked throughout the bottom level of the warehouse.

"Shit! The fuck do you want from me, freak!" Ulysses spits out, grasping the stump of his left arm in pain.

He's clearly wondering why he's not dead yet, but the answer is rather simple; he's still useful. I have no doubt that for taking his arm he'll try to find a way to eventually kill me, so I have no qualms taking him out permanently, but before that he will still help me.

Whether he wants to or not.

Klaue is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world, a rather reputed name in certain circles of the shady underground of selling tools of death and terror.

So naturally, he has contacts all throughout the U.S. Government and Army.

I'm only interested in one though: Erik Killmonger.

Currently in Black Ops racking up quite the kill count for the American government, the cousin of T'Challa could turn out to be the key I needed in utilizing Vibranium.

"Ulysses. Je gaat een telefoontje voor me plegen."

At hearing my request for him to make a phone call, and seeing my fanged grin, Klaue visibly swallows his nervousness.

"En waarom zou ik jou helpen?"

Why should he help me? Well, how to convince him? Oh, wait, I got it!

Without a word, my hand lights up until it's burning a glowing white, air shimmering around it from the immense heat that it's giving off. Slowly glancing from the lightsabre my hand has become to the sweating Klaue, I just raise an eyebrow.

Ulysses is quick to make the call.

All of this is a smaller part in the bigger plan to complete my most ambitious Step yet.

Step 9: Use Wakandan information or technology to make use of my cache of Vibranium

/

"You really like that damned thing, don't you Doc?"

Sterns lets out a tired grin at my grunted assessment and the weary look I'm sending at the syringe (*cough* medieval longsword *cough*), giving a shrug even as he starts prepping my arm (the alcohol dissipates the moment its rubbed on my skin, but between my glowing veins and massive healing factor, the prep work is more a thing of routine than necessity).

"It has grown on me. Watching you squirm away from it every time remains funny."

He's completely unfazed by the glare I send him, and without warning, shoves the needle into the brightly glowing vein in my arm.

"MOTHERFU-"

Thankfully, because of Extremis the pain in my arm quickly vanishes, but it doesn't appear to do anything against the migraine that suddenly explodes in my brain. With a muffled groan of pain I fall of the chair I'd been sitting on, curling in on myself as my head feels like someone is taking an axe to my forehead with an unhealthy amount of sadistic enthusiasm.

While the pain isn't all consuming like the Extremis-transformation had been, this one feels somehow worse, the pounding against the inside of my eyes increasing with every heartbeat, my brain feeling like it's either liquefying or exploding.

Or maybe both.

The Hulk-transformation had taken a little over six hours to complete (with me only conscious for about three of those) while the Extremis-transformation had taken only half that.

This serum took effect immediately, and the pain started to gradually ebb away after about an hour and a half, but the migraine stayed with me for the next two days.

I hadn't quite known what to expect from suddenly having my IQ nearly doubled (and though not exactly off-the-charts, it had been nothing to sneeze at either), but all that I could say about it was… that it was weird.

No, but I mean, like really fucking weird.

It wasn't as if I had suddenly gained tremendous arcane knowledge or something, I didn't automatically just knew new things.

But I understood them.

Before, I had a rudimentary knowledge of why the arc reactor worked, but now I also understood how it worked, understood the way Stark had utilized the fields created by the coils of the reactor to keep itself from blowing up in a spectacular way.

Everywhere I looked, I just understood what it was, how it worked and why it worked, while idea's flashed through my mind faster than they ever had before.

From my kneeling position on the floor, I gaze up in wonder at Sterns, who is looking back at me with a tired smile on his face at my amazement.

"This is how you see the world… all the time?"

"Breath-taking, isn't it?" the geneticist replies, and all I can do is nod, as my eyes have fallen on his laboratory, and my basic scientific knowledge (which before had just about grasped the basics of Sterns's work) now apparently was enough to extrapolate the functions of most machines, and predict the likely outcome of combining the various chemicals the scientist had stocked in his lab.

I'm drawn from my reverie by the sound of something heavy slamming on the table next to me. Turning around, I raise my eyebrows (still on my normalish face thankfully, it was the first thing I checked for after the pain ebbed away enough for me to regain control over my limbs) at the tower of science books Sterns has just dumped on our desk, giving me a somewhat savage grin.

"What is that?"

"Homework."

"What."

Sterns simply laughs at my flat reply (the bastard) and turns back towards his laboratory, his earlier tired slump now replaced by an air of victory.

"You didn't think I would just give you the second best brain on the planet and not have you use it? The procedure didn't give you any new information you don't already know, it just allows you to absorb and combine new information on a whole different level of speed. So, get to absorbing. After you're done, its online college courses for you, and after that, chess games with me. Until then, good night."

Staring at the tower of books and the retreating back of Sterns, I can't help but call out at the scientist.

"It's noon, you know!"

"Don't care! Go study!"

With a grin (and a killer-headache) I sit down at the desk, and pick up the book at the top of the small hill.

"An Introduction to Molecular Chemistry, by Dr. S. Sterns… oh come on, you referenced your own books?! Only asshole professors do that you know!"

"Go study!"

Still grinning, I crack open the book and prepare to enhance my knowledge of the science this wacky universe runs on (because on a fundamental level, something must be different, given the fact that some things that happen in here were considered blatantly impossible in my old one) when I'm stopped by an incredulous snort from the chained up Klaue on the only other office chair in the corner.

"Jullie zijn gestoord. Compleet getikt."

At his exclamation that me and Sterns are completely mad, I just let out a fanged grin, channelling the heat in my eyes (ow! ow! ow! stupid migraine) until they are glowing with a hellish light, making Gollum flinch away.

He doesn't interrupt my study session anymore after that.

As I'm reading and expanding my knowledge at an incredible speed, I keep grinning to myself.

"Step 8: Complete."

/

Night has fallen, and in the near-darkness of the warehouse, I'm playing chess against myself fully clad in my armour, my only company a clearly nervous Ulysses Klaue sitting across the desk from me.

I'm not really sure what makes him more nervous, me in front of him, or the fact that somewhere out there, there's an elite Black-Ops team led by an unstable psychopath with a chip on his shoulder.

I like to think it's me, since given the sheer balls he has displayed in all his mcu appearances and during his 30 year long stint of making a fool out of Wakanda I don't think he's all that afraid of anything that might be out there, but I'm an unknown that has crippled him, captured him, and has only fed him water for the past three days.

As one of the walls to the warehouse is blown inwards, I reflect that it's probably not me.

A squad of six, heavily armed men in tactical gear burst through the hole they had just made, their weapons already aimed at me.

Which is when the IED's, hidden underneath the floorboards in that wing of the building, explode in a great fireball, wiping the team of contract-killers from the face of the earth.

To my assailant's credit, there's only a short lull in the fighting, before smoke grenades are tossed inside through the broken windows on the ground floor, while I hear smashing coming from the windows on the second floor, where another squad has now landed on the various walkways there, while a third squad bursts through the door I had just installed yesterday.

Which, of course I rigged with more explosives.

The group at the door taken care of, I stand up and turn towards the walkway behind me, where the operatives have already ducked down and opened fire (my chess set is absolutely ruined, while a cursing Klaue is hiding underneath the desk).

Smoke starts to fill the open space of the warehouse, but it has hardly any effect on any of us (with the exception of Klaue, who is the only one without a helmet and whose cursing has transitioned into coughing).

Not even bothering with the bullets that shatter against my armour (the few that find the gaps between my plating hurt with a lancing pain, but Extremis is quick to sooth and heal the wounds so I manage to grit my teeth and pull through) my tank gun swoops low and takes aim at the walkway my would-be-killers are stationed on.

Briefly, there's some panicked shouting, before the night is filled with the explosions my tank gun creates, completely destroying the walkway they had been standing on (and consequently, them as well).

Which is when finally, Killmonger himself enters the battle (given his singed and dusty uniform, he was probably thrown clear by the first chain of IED's and has only now recovered), as shown by him shoving a short sword through the base of my tank gun, sheering it off my armour almost completely in one masterful stroke.

I immediately react, my gauntleted arm coming around in a wild hay-maker, but Erik ducks in time, and uses the movement to spring forwards, aiming his sword at my abdomen the moment my arm passes over his head.

Right before it can pierce my armour however, my other hand shoots out, and stops the weapon cold in its tracks by gripping the blade, the razor-sharp steel cutting into my superheated flesh.

Even though he is more skilled, I'm still stronger and faster, and despite his shock at my unflinching catch of his sword with my bare hands, when he starts pushing, I don't budge.

The blade is already hot due to slowly being covered in my lava-like blood, but when I heat up my hand, the entire blade comes alive with a dull glow, smoke coming of its handle, forcing Killmonger to let go with an angered hiss.

Throwing the sword away, I lift my hands (already healed) towards my helmet, taking it off in a slow, dramatic movement (after thoroughly and triple checking the rest of Erik's squad is, in fact, dead), allowing the helmet to fall to the ground with a resounding clang.

"No more weapons. No more armour. Face me in combat, and prove that the blood of your father runs strong in you, N'Jadaka son of N'Jobu."

That grabs his attention.

With a snarl, he removes the mask from his own face (due to all of the broken windows of the warehouse, not to mention the two giant holes in its walls, the smoke has already dissipated) glaring at me with an intense gaze, which would probably have cowed me a bit, weren't it for the fact that he has to look up in order to meet my eyes.

It's amazing what height will do for your confidence, especially when it's stretching human limits.

"Who the fuck are you!? How do you know my name?! Did Wakanda send you!?"

At his roar, I simply chuckle, my deep, rumbling voice easily filling the ruined warehouse.

Slowly, I start removing the armour on my torso, and as I undo the last clasp, the plating falls away with a heavy clanging noise and my mutated body is shown to the world, my glowing heartbeat visible and steady.

"Do I look Wakandan to you?"

Taking a few steps back and dropping into a fighting stance at the sight of my enormous muscles and raised ribcage, Killmonger gives me a weary look.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Who I am is not important. You are, on the other hand. Or rather, on what you plan to do with your life."

At my confused look, I start stripping off the rest of my armour, leaving me in only my cargo pants and combat boots, all the while talking in a relaxed, easy manner.

"Do you want to keep killing for your mother's country, the country that spat on her, that locked her up, that killed her, until you're so full of scars you won't even recognize your own face when you look in the mirror?"

At me mentioning his scars he's visibly taken aback, his fists clenching as it slowly dawns on him that I know far too much about him than should be possible for a complete stranger.

"Or… will you honour your father?"

And that's the final nail in the coffin, as Killmonger slowly drops out of his stance, confusion warring with cautiousness on his face.

Eventually, the urge to know more about the man who has shaped his entire life wins out.

"What do you know about my dad?"

"I know that he was a great man. That instead of allowing one country to selfishly hoard amazing riches for themselves, he wished to share it with the world, to lift all of humanity to a higher level. And that he got killed for it."

I pause in unclasping the greave on my thigh, glancing at the now silent psychopath with a knowing look.

"By his brother, no less."

"What?!"

Killmonger is trembling in fury, and the only thing that's keeping him from attacking me is the fact that I apparently hold the answers he's been after his entire life.

"The current king of Wakanda, T'Chaka, tracked down your father after he was betrayed by a man he thought his friend. Your father was confronted by his brother, the king, then still the Black Panther, but instead of showing mercy to his own flesh and blood, he gutted his brother like a common criminal and took off, leaving you an orphan, and the grand plans of your father unfinished."

Approaching the fuming soldier, I keep talking, keep filling his heart with hate, until he's ready to be pointed in the direction I want him to go.

"The claw marks…" he whispers to himself, but in the silence of the warehouse (Klaue is wisely pretending not to be there at all) my enhanced senses easily pick up his words.

"Yes. The people of Wakanda call him king and protector, but you know better, don't you? You know the truth. The Black Panther is no hero: he is a murderer, a kinslayer, a man who would kill his own family rather than help other people. But what are you going to do about it?"

At my question, Killmonger's gaze snaps up to my own, as he bares his teeth in a snarl.

"I'm going to kill him!"

"You can't."

My words register with him almost like a slap to the face, making him stumble back half a step, before his rage roars back to life inside him and he's suddenly chest to chest with me (holy shit, I think this guy has balls made of Vibranium) stretching to his full height as he clenches his fists.

"Bullshit! I've trained and bled and killed, all my life, just so I can kill him!"

And with that, he takes a few steps back, desperate hands grasping at the clasps on his own body armour, before he tosses it off him with jerking, angry movements, displaying the crocodile-like scarring all across his torso.

Looking at me with a challenging expression, Killmonger opens his arms wide, showcasing his macabre trophies to the world (the world in this case just being me and Klaue, but he doesn't seem to care).

"Every carving stands for one more scumbag I took out. The hardest criminals and mercenaries anyone had to offer, and all of those shitstains are now nothing more than marks on my skin. I will kill the Black Panther!"

I turn my back on him (mostly so I can keep my face from showing my shock at seeing such extensive self-mutilation) and try to make my voice sound disinterested as I slowly walk away.

"You will try, I'm sure. But you will fail."

"I WON'T FAIL!"

At his roared exclamation, I pause, before dramatically half-turning, sizing him up with a single eye over my shoulder.

"Then prove it. Fight me."

My challenge takes him off guard, and his rage is quickly replaced by wariness once again.

"Why do you want me to fight you? "

"Because not only is the Black Panther not a hero, he isn't really even a man. He's a monster in human form, a… freak like me." I say with a wry smile as I turn to fully face him.

"The Black Panthers are enhanced by the Heart-shaped Herb, a powerful medicinal plant that enhances anyone who eats it. Traditionally, whenever the King is challenged for the throne by his kin or the leaders of the other tribes, he must be stripped off his powers. But you know what kind of man he truly is: do you really think that a murderer like him will stoop to your level?"

I cross my arms and give the fuming soldier a savage grin.

"No, if you were to challenge him, he would just as easily gut you as he gutted your daddy."

"He won't get the chance to even touch me." Killmonger growls, sinking a bit lower into his combat stance.

"So prove it. Last in a fight against me, show me that you can defeat a superhuman, and then we'll talk about how I can help you get your revenge. Fail, and you just prove you're useless to me. An American lapdog, not worthy of the blood of the noble N'Jobu."

And that appears to be enough to tip him over the edge, as he charges me with a roar of hatred.

He's fast, really fast, unleashing a flurry of spinning kicks that force me back, and though I'm quicker, he proves his far greater skill by using every failed attack to set up the next one, targeting weak points in the basic guard I've put up.

And all the while he is trying his level best to kick my head in, I'm watching his every move.

Learning.

It's only when he comes in with a sweeping kick at my left thigh that I counterattack, taking a page out of his book in how he uses the momentum of his body to fuel and chain his strikes as I turn and raise my knee, smashing it into his leg and throwing it back, making him lose his balance for just a split-second.

In a flash, I've extended the leg I've countered with, my boot slamming into his chest and throwing him back well over ten feet, where he crashes to the ground with nothing but a pained grunt.

As he quickly works his way to his feet (trying not to put any pressure on his cracked ribs), I slowly chamber my foot again, still standing in perfect balance on one leg, before I bring my other leg down and loosen my stance again.

Which is the moment Erik charges back in once more.

I have to hand it to the guy, even with cracked ribs he hasn't noticeably slowed down, and is even getting in closer now to add punches to his attacks, making sure to get shots in with short fast jabs, more striking true than missing.

And still I'm learning.

When he jumps up, I raise my arm to block his flying punch, briefly obscuring my vision of him, which he immediately exploits by ramming a knee into my diaphragm, and the moment he lands, he twists forwards with his elbow poised to strike the same place again, clearly trying to cripple me as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, as strong as he is, he isn't strong enough to really damage me, and instead of being winded by his knee strike, I'm still fresh and I twist my torso to the side, letting him slide in front of me.

I can see his eyes widen in shock the moment he realizes the opening he has left, but by then it's already too late.

Now behind him after his failed elbow strike, I shoot forwards, my massive arms wrapping around his middle, and before he can react I heave him upwards over my head, then slam him into the ground, striking the breath from his lungs.

As he lies there gasping for air, my boot crashes into his side, lifting him up and sending him flying into one of the stacks of crates, letting him fall to the ground at the base of the small mountain.

I patiently wait for him to regain his breath (2 minutes, having a few definitely broken ribs is probably not helping things any), and when he works himself to his feet he's swaying a bit, but the murderous look in his eyes hasn't dimmed in the slightest, and as he glares straight into my glowing eyes, he snorts in disgust, and spits out a wad of blood, before rolling his shoulders and getting back into his stance again.

This time, I'm the one to approach him, letting out a few testing punches of my own, our different levels of skill immediately apparent when compared to his earlier flurry of seamlessly chained attacks. In contrast, my own attacks are all very telegraphed and clearly not part of a greater combo like his were.

Erik manages to take advantage of my lack of skill, guiding away my heavy handed strikes rather than try and block their super strength. Each time he dodges, or forces one of my fists to the side, he exploits the opening he has created, by pummelling me with knee strikes and quick series of punches.

But he's tiring.

I'm not.

After nearly a full minute of me inexpertly wailing on the nimble form of Killmonger, he turns out to be just half a second too late to properly dodge one of my punches, which clips him in the shoulder.

Usually such a strike wouldn't be enough to create a proper opening, especially against someone of Killmonger's calibre, but when coupled with his current state and my enormous strength, it almost sends him spinning.

Immediately, like I've learned from him, I exploit the opening and punch him in the chest with a left hook, sending him crashing back into the crates, and as he's reeling, I turn in and punch him straight in the liver with my right, making him gasp out, though no sound escapes him. As he can't help but curl in on himself a bit (I don't care who you are, or how powerful you might me: a liver-shot from someone of greater strength will hurt like a bitch) I shoot towards his left side, fist raised high.

He brings up an arm in defence (impressive given the state he's in and how much faster I am) but it's useless as I let fly, my fist slamming through his feeble guard and into his jaw, sending him crashing to the ground.

I can feel his jaw dislocating under my fist, and when he goes down, for the first time during our fight he remains still for a moment, his world filled by exploding pain.

He impresses me however, by propping himself up on trembling arms, glaring at me with nothing but murder in his eyes. Then he goes and tops that, by grasping his dislocated jaw with one hand, and shoving it back into place with nothing more than a grunt (I feel slightly queasy at the sound of the bone popping back, though hopefully it doesn't show on my face).

And then he goes and tops that too, because before I can react, he comes up in a spinning kick that catches me in the back of my knee, making it collapse underneath me. While I'm brought low, he turns the spin of his kick in a leap towards the crate I had punched into, pushing off the moment his feet hit the wood, coming up in a cork-screwing back-flip, one leg snapping out and crashing into my cheekbone, making my head snap to the side.

The moment he lands, with me still off guard, he blasts off, nailing me in the chest with a flying knee, forcing me to the ground with him kneeling on top of my torso.

And he starts wailing on my face, roaring in pain and hatred all the while.

I can feel the impacts, but they don't exactly hurt; the best I can describe the sensation of his punches crashing into my super dense skin and muscles is like getting repeatedly shortly but firmly shoved.

Sure, you'll feel it, but it won't hurt you.

After about twenty seconds of him unleashing all of his fury, he slams his last punch into my face with a final yell of exertion. Slowly I turn my face back to look at him, wondering at what I can feel on my cheek.

Bringing a hand up to rub at the spot on my face, both me and Killmonger gaze in amazement at the glowing, burning blood on my fingers.

Looking at the shock I can see in Erik's eyes at the sight of the superheated liquid on my fingers, I just can't help myself, a grin growing on my face.

"All that… for a drop of blood."

And with that I come up and head-butt him in the chest, throwing him off of me. We both scramble to our feet, but he's tired and bloody and broken and other than a small cut on my cheekbone I'm still as fresh as when we started.

And with that I come back in again, this time my attacks noticeably better than five minutes before. I can see Erik's eyes widen when he realizes I'm chaining my attacks in the same exact way he has been doing all our fight.

Every time he finds an opening in my pattern and exploits it, the next time he tries to do the same thing, I block him perfectly. Every time he blocks or dodges one of my punches, the next one connects flawlessly.

All of it amounts to a merciless beat down, as I'm wearing him down bit by bit, while my regeneration keeps me at the top of my game.

It all comes to an end when he blocks one of my backhands. Seeing his midriff unprotected, my right fist snaps forwards in a perfect replica of the dozens of punches he has landed on me tonight.

Catching him full in the stomach, Killmonger slumps over with a pained grunt. Not letting up, I step forwards, bringing up my knee in a brutal strike against his chin, straightening his body with a snap, his feet nearly leaving the ground. As he slowly tips backwards, my hand shoots out, grasping him around the throat, before pulling him back.

I raise him high above me in the air with a single hand as I stride quickly towards the shot-up desk with a few great strides, before jumping up myself, and slamming down the black-ops soldier with an almighty crash straight through the furniture.

As I straighten myself, Killmonger doesn't get back up again.

I stand beside his broken form, gazing down at the man who once would have almost conquered the nation of Wakanda. He's barely clinging to consciousness and as he looks up at me, I can see the realization in his eyes.

He's dying.

I've done too much damage to his organs, ribs and spine for him to make a recovery without extensive surgery and extended hospital stay, both of which he isn't likely to receive in the rundown shithole that used to be Klaue's base.

But I can offer him something better.

As a door at the back of the warehouse opens, soft footsteps nearing us, I crouch down besides the broken Killmonger, keeping his gaze fixed on me.

"You are bleeding out, N'Jadaka son of N'Jobu, just as you would have if you were to challenge the murderer T'Chaka. But I offer salvation! I offer you a chance, to become stronger, to stand above the broken form of the Black Panther as I'm standing over you right now."

As I finish speaking, Sterns comes up next to me, looking down at the JSOC Ghost with a closed-off expression, in his hand a syringe with a brightly burning serum inside.

Extremis.

Killmonger's eyes widen minutely at the sight of the mutated scientist, before his gaze tracks back towards me again.

"All you have to do…" I hold my hand out towards the marine "… is to accept."

Briefly indecision wars in his eyes, but eventually his pain and looming death, as well as the chance to do what I did to him to Black Panther, win out, and he lets out a feeble groaning sound, his hand slowly, trembling, rising from the splinters of the desk he's lying in.

And he clasps arms with me.

The moment he does, Sterns steps forwards, injects Erik and then hurriedly leaves the scene of carnage the warehouse has become, not looking back as I follow after him, grasping an awed looking Klaue from the ground where he threw himself when I went for the desk he had been hiding underneath during my fight with Killmonger.

And behind us, the screams of Erik ring out into the night.

/
Fun Fact: There are several people worthy of wielding Mjolnir. Amongst them are Captain America, Black Widow, Storm, Conan the Barbarian, Superman, Wonder Woman and even Loki.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 6: WAKANDA SHIT IS THIS?!​

I block a punch, the air wavering from the impact of two superheated objects striking each other with tremendous force, before I grab the offending appendage, reeling my assailant in and delivering a picture-perfect Spartan kick to his chest, feeling something snap underneath my boot as I sent him flying straight through a couple of trees, before he slams into the trunk of one big enough it would take three of me to circle it.

Standing up from the charred and broken imprint he has made in the old tree, Erik Killmonger straightens with a savage grin on his face, his ribs already healed, his eyes burning with a bright orange light.

We are deep in the jungles of the heart of Africa, having begun travelling immediately after Erik recovered enough from his Extremis-transformation, taking Klaue with us as he is the only one who knows the way.

Sterns has already left a week before we set off, with the Vibranium and our lab equipment stashed inside the truck, travelling like we currently were to the heart of Africa, agreeing to wait for my return in a small town near where I think the borders lie of Wakanda.

It was difficult for me to trust him with the Vibranium, simply standing by as he drove off with billions worth of metal in the back of the truck, but I had no choice, since both he and the Vibranium were no longer safe this close to Johannesburg. The amount of attention I've drawn was once more made clear to me when, before we left, I liquidized as much of Klaue's assets as I could, and within an hour of having made my search for a buyer know, there had been a small army of thugs and spooks on my doorstep, their quick response time only possible if they had been close from the start.

By making sure to stay behind, giving Sterns a head start, I tried to keep all attention on me, which was rather easy to do, considering the kind of deals I was willing to make as long as it transferred all of Klaue's hardware in usable money.

Klaue nearly went mad with rage at me selling his stock that cheap (or at all, for that matter, but doing it this way also targeted his professional pride), but between two super powered people capable of cutting off his limbs with their bare, superheated hands, he held his tongue.

Though he has been steadily cursing me out under his breath every step of the way ever since we left Johannesburg behind us.

"Would you quit that! It's bad enough having you two throw down every chance we get, but we're getting close and I, personally, prefer not to alert the entirety of Wakanda to our approach, by setting their entire fucking jungle on fire!" Klaue yells out, having apparently had his fill with the impromptu spars me and Erik have been having all along the way.

My new brain allows me to learn anything at a terrifying speed which means I'm literally getting better during every fight, while Erik is just happy to test his newfound strength against a worthy opponent (though he's pissed off I'm still stronger by a wide margin, and the fact that he can't reach the same temperatures as me) so its profitable for the both of us.

Though I suspect that Killmonger is also taking this as a chance for revenge as he holds me responsible for the disappearance of all his hard-earned scars.

While I concede to Klaue's warning, as I drop out of my guard and turn away from Erik, I don't let his outburst go by completely unpunished as I walk up to him until I'm chest to face with him, the arms dealer craning his neck to look into my burning eyes.

"Perhaps if you're so scared of discovery, then the next time you have some advice, you give it while keeping your voice down. Understood?"

I keep my glowing eyes on him until he reluctantly looks away, no longer able to meet my gaze.

"Understood."

And with that, we move on in silence, exchanging the scenery of luscious green jungle for, you guessed it, even more luscious green jungle.

I have no idea where Klaue is leading us, and over the next few days of trudging through stifling green, trying not to trip over what feels like every single root tree in the fucking galaxy I begin to suspect that he's tricking us, despite the very graphic threats I delivered when I warned him about doing so (many a white-glowing appendage had been waved around).

I'm proven wrong however, when after what feels like months, stuck inside that godforsaken jungle, out of nowhere Klaue, who is walking in front, nearly guts himself on the spear that is held in front of him.

As he slowly steps back towards us, our little group draws closer, and as I look around I can see several women approach us through the underbrush, most of them moving with enough grace they don't disturb a leaf, and all of them are utterly silent,

I don't know how long they've known we were in their backyard, but given the fact that they have chosen to reveal themselves now makes me believe that we are close to Wakanda itself.

Getting discovered sucked, as I'd much rather sneak in and out of the kingdom undetected, but with how little I knew about it and its defences I hadn't been counting on it.

This would work for my plan just the same.

The woman who nearly allowed Klaue to walk straight into her spear barks out what seems to be a question, to which Killmonger steps up and replies in a clear voice, showing no fear at being surrounded by the warrior-women.

While I can't speak Wakandan (yet) Erik has been teaching me the bare basics of the language, so I can sort of get the gist of the conversation.

It basically boils down to the women wondering what kind of suicidal idiots we are to wonder so close to their territory, while Erik is trying to convince them to let us past, as we are friends to the Wakandan people.

There falls a silence in their conversation when I hear Killmonger say the word that I think translates to 'gift'.

The leader of the squad raises an eyebrow in scepticism, but at least she drops out of her combat stance, letting the butt of her spear rest on the jungle floor as her eyes track Killmonger up and down.

"What gift?" she asks in heavily accented English, and without preamble, Erik jerks his head in Klaue's direction.

"Him."

"What?! You son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you're playing at! I'm going to-"

Klaue is stopped mid-rant by suddenly finding a Vibranium spear tip resting on his Adam's apple.

"You are going to be silent."

Despite the soft tone, the woman's words cannot be mistaken for anything else than an order, and Klaue, with a spear at his throat, simply nods (very carefully as to not cut himself).

Turning her head to look at Killmonger again (though she doesn't remove her spear from Ulysses' neck), the woman seems somewhat intrigued.

"You offer us this man? Why? What worth is he to Wakanda, that you think giving him to us is sufficient payment to allow you safe passage?"

"Because, that's Ulysses Klaue."

It's clear that said arms dealer wants to spit in rage, but he's held back when the woman presses her spear just that little bit closer, drawing a drop of blood as interest now becomes clear in her eyes.

"Is he now?"

As hushed whispers go around the group that has ambushed us, it quickly becomes apparent that Ulysses is somewhat of a celebrity amongst the Wakandan people, though probably not in a very positive manner.

Being one of the very few people who managed to steal from Wakanda and live, as well as evading capture for more than three decades will do that for you.

After an intense discussion with what appears to be her second-in-command, the leader of the group turns back to us, her chin held high as she gives her next order.

"The King shall decide the validity of your gift, and whether or not this man is who you claim him to be. You shall follow us."

/

The Golden City of Wakanda is both impressive and odd.

Probably because of how organic everything appears. Everywhere you look, there's green, and the massive buildings that are towering amongst it all have an almost natural look to it.

Whereas cities like New-York are sometimes described as concrete jungles, this city is in harmony with the jungle instead.

It's difficult to remember we're still on Earth, instead of walking amongst the works of some alien civilization.

Still, as pretty as the Golden City is, I barely have eyes for it.

Instead, all of my attention is focused on the looming Royal Palace, and the technology that is squirreled away in there.

The Panther Habit.

While various members of the group that's escorting us are switched out several times by what appear to be different tribes at different locations within Wakanda, the woman who captured us remains leading us in the front, and is probably responsible for allowing us to be led into the heart of the city so swiftly, armed guards bowing out of her way.

And then we're finally there, walking through the grand entrance of the Royal Palace, armed guards lining the walls, Klaue and the woman in front of me, Erik next to me, and another guard squad behind me.

And at the end of the hall, sitting on his throne, is T'Chaka with T'Challa standing next to him with his arms behind his back, regarding us coolly.

Which contrasts with his father, who's eyes narrow dangerously when he recognizes Klaue.

The arms dealer himself merely lets out a cheeky grin at being confronted by the king of an isolationist country from who he stole literal billions worth of unique metal.

Whatever else he is, Gollum ain't a coward.

As our procession comes to a halt in front of the throne, T'Chaka raises to his full length, as the woman who has captured us kneels in front of him, rapidly recounting in Xhosa how she captured us, and decided to bring Klaue to him as she couldn't verify whether Erik was telling the truth, but if he was, then it was T'Chaka's right as King to pass judgement on the man.

After the women has finished recounting her tale, the King of Wakanda gives a grateful nod, before fixing Ulysses with a stern gaze, though it doesn't seem to have any effect on the weapons dealer.

With slow steps, T'Chaka approaches us, clasping his hands behind his back as he tries to stare the Belgian criminal down.

"Letting you escape is a mistake that has haunted my reign for these last 30 years. It is good to see that this mistake shall finally be corrected, and judgement passed on you, thief."

Klaue grins at the King's speech, his entire air on of nonchalance.

"I'd say nice to see you too, but well… mother did raise me not to lie, so I won't."

I see anger flash across T'Challa's face at the disrespect his father is shown, but T'Chaka is made of sterner stuff, and doesn't even so much as twitch, instead looking at Erik, his gaze softening.

"Thank you, young one, for bringing this criminal to justice. Wakanda and its people owe a great debt to you and your… friend." The king trails off, looking at my massive form.

I'm not worried by the King's scrutiny however as there's something far more attention grabbing going on next to me.

The temperature in the hall is sky-rocketing.

"You, owing me a debt? You don't even know how right you are, murderer."

The moment the word falls from his lips, the guards draw their weapons, while T'Challa snarls in fury, striding towards us with clenched fists and anger in his eyes.

"How dare you?! You have no right addressing my father that way!"

"I HAVE THE ONLY RIGHT!"

And heat explodes from the literally fuming Killmonger, whose sheer rage stops T'Challa and the other guards in their tracks.

"I gained that right, when one night, I find my father, in our house, gutted like an animal! And all that I had to go on, were the claw marks in his body and his notebook talking about Wakanda!"

He reaches around his neck, ripping off the necklace that had been hanging there, showcasing the enormous ring dangling on the end of it, before throwing it at T'Chaka's feet.

"That gives me the right!"

While the other guards and T'Challa look merely confused at the Royal Ring this stranger has just revealed, T'Chaka looks like he's just seen a ghost.

In a way, he has.

"You…" he whispers in a shocked voice, backing away a few stumbling steps as if he can't believe his eyes.

"Say my name, old man. Tell them who I am, murderer. TELL THEM MY NAME!"

In the silence that follows his echoing roar, T'Chaka's wavering reply is heard by all.

"N'Jadaka, son of N'Jobu…"

That last name clearly rings a bell with the older generation present, but T'Challa and the younger ones still look confused until their King turns to his son with a mournful expression on his face.

"… your cousin."

While T'Challa seems floored by the revelation, T'Chaka turns back towards Killmonger, who is giving off more and more heat the longer he's staring at the man who killed his father.

"My boy… why have you returned? Why now?"

"I've come to kill the Black Panther. To kill you."

Before he has even fully finished speaking, T'Challa is upon him with an animalistic snarl, kicking Killmonger in the chest with both feet, sending him sliding across the marble floor, though he turns his fall into a springing handstand, landing on his feet again.

"You will not so much as touch him!" T'Challa snarls, as he and his cousin both straighten, eyes fixed on each other with murderous intent.

"I understand your pain, child-"

"You understand NOTHING! You murdered my father!" Killmonger screams at him, his eyes glowing with the Extremis running hot through his veins.

"And in doing so, I killed my own brother, forever staining my hands with the greatest sin imaginable. I lost family too that day. But I am no longer the Black Panther. I now merely rule as King of Wakanda, while my son, T'Challa, has instead taken the mantle of the defender of our people."

As he says this, he places a hand against T'Challa's chest, forcing him backwards as he tries to reason with his murderous nephew.

"My son had nothing to do with your father's death. He has never wronged you; how could he, when he did not even know you exist? Leave him out of our feud, N'Jadaka. He is the protector of our people, and despite what happened between my brother and I, you are still one of ours."

Briefly, Erik seems to take the words of his uncle into consideration, before the hate I've fuelled in his heart with my words and with Extremis cause his rage to come back, and the air starts to shimmer around his body, smoke beginning to rise from his smouldering clothing.

"I'll never be one of yours. You will pay for what you did do my dad. I'm going to kill you."

Again the death threat seems to spur the guards into action, T'Challa even bearing his teeth, but T'Chaka silences all movement in the hall by raising a hand.

Briefly, he closes his eyes, before fixing Erik with a heavy, tired gaze.

"If you kill me, then will your quest for vengeance be completed? Will you leave this land and its people be in peace?"

"Father, you can't! We-"

"AM I NOT STILL KING!?"

At T'Chaka's roar, all protests abruptly halt, silencing the hall once more, before he turns back to Killmonger, who despite his rage, apparently still recognizes the power in the older man's eyes.

"Do I have your word on this? My life, in exchange for your peaceful departure from these lands?"

There's no hesitation in Killmonger's answer.

"Deal."

And with that, he unsheathes his short sword with a metallic ringing noise.

As T'Chaka makes to approach his nephew and executioner, T'Challa stops him in his tracks, whirling his father around to face him, rapidly talking to him in heated Xhosa, but due to its great speed, I only understand the basic gist of it.

"Father, what are you doing?! Your life is worth more than a bargaining chip! The Dora Milaje will escort him out of our borders and then-"

"And then in the next year, or the next five years, or the next ten years? He'll come back, and this time not with a bound criminal as a gift, but with an army at his back, and it'll mean war for Wakanda. I know his kind, he's not one to give up, because we wouldn't either. I cannot defend my people as the Black Panther anymore, but at least as King, in this way I can spare them from the suffering of war."

"Then we kill him and be done with it!"

"My son. Twenty years ago, I killed one of my own kin and that moment has haunted me every day and night since then. Do not be so quick to repeat my mistakes. After today, there shall be no more kinslaying amongst the Golden Tribe."

It's clear that T'Challa wants to rage against his father's plan, but the aged king places a hand on the young man's shoulder, a sad smile on his face.

"I understand your fear and your sadness. I had wished for you to remain free from Kingship for a while, allow you to simply remain the Black Panther while I took care of politics for you. You've always hated them." The king says with a chuckle before continuing.

"But it seems it now cannot be. Our paths diverge from this moment, and no longer shall you be able to simply remain the defender of the Wakandan people, but be their King as well. And yes, that involves politics as well. You shall decide the course of our nation, and there is no doubt in my mind that you shall lead them well. But, you shall do so, without me."

Leaving his son nearly in tears, T'Chaka turns towards the waiting Killmonger, approaching his nephew with calm, measured steps, his entire posture one of unwavering confidence.

This is a man who looks death in the face, squares his shoulders and says 'bring it.'

As he stands in front of the now pacing Killmonger, T'Chaka straightens his jacket for a final time, before lifting his chin, looking Erik straight in the eyes.

"I am ready."

Killmonger lets out a savage grin, the veins around his eyes lighting up with a hellish glow.

"This one is for dad."

"Yes, indeed it is."

And without further ceremony, Killmonger draws back his sword with both hands, T'Chaka closing his eyes, his expression one of peace while Killmonger's is one of hatred, the blade of the soldier's sword slicing through the air, whistling as it comes around in a graceful curve, inching towards the King's neck-

CLANG!!!

-only to be halted in its tracks at the very last moment, sparks flying where a spear is holding the blade at bay, mere inches from T'Chaka's neck, whose eyes fly open in shock.

Standing there next to him, muscles bulging under his ceremonial shirt, the current Black Panther strains against Killmonger's sword-strike.

"You said it yourself father; I am the protector of all Wakandan people. That includes you."

And with that, T'Challa kicks his father in the chest with his heel, sending the man sliding back, Killmonger's heated hand closing into an empty fist where his head had been a mere second ago.

Roaring in rage at his denied kill, Killmonger starts hacking away at T'Challa, who uses the larger reach of his spear to desperately ward off his cousin's attacks, before in a spinning move he slaps Killmonger's blade to the side and out of his hand and ramming the tip of his spear in the opening he has created, the Vibranium weapon easily punching straight through Erik's abdomen, emerging through his back.

"I am T'Challa! Son of T'Chaka! Heir to the Throne of the Golden City and the Black Panther, defender of the Wakandan people! As long as I draw breath, you shall never harm a single one of them!" T'Challa roars at his slumped over adversary, keeping him upright with the weapon he has impaled him with.

There's a lull of silence after the Black Panther's challenge echoes throughout the hall, before it's broken by a soft chuckling. The chuckling keeps increasing until it's full-blown laughter, coming from the shaking, bent over form of Killmonger, which clearly freaks T'Challa out.

Glancing up, Erik lets out a vicious grin, glowing blood staining his teeth.

"Fine by me."

And in a flash, he straightens and kicks T'Challa in the chest. The prince goes flying and hits the ground hard, while Killmonger rips the spear out of his belly, flips it in his hand, and hurls it at the Black Panther. As T'Challa throws himself to the side, the spear pierces the thick marble slabs of the Palace floor and shudders with the impact.Briefly both cousins gaze in each other's eyes, fury and wariness present in equal measure.

Then both let out a roar of defiance and the battle has begun.

/

While all this had been happening, me and Klaue had slowly been backing off, until we stood way at the back of the crowd that had formed, our backs against the wall, completely forgotten in the dynastical drama that had begun to unfold.

"En nu?!" Klaue hisses to me, trying to not draw any attention to us, asking what we're going to do now.

"En nu zorg jij voor een afleiding." I lean over as I tell him he's about to be a distraction, grasping the chain of the manacle that keeps his remaining hand secured to one of our guards, who is far more interested in the yelling match between Killmonger and the royal father and son duo.

"Wat?" but as he asks that the chain is broken due to the melting heat of my hand, and I give him a hard shove that sends him flying towards the exit of the hall. Just as Killmonger and Black Panther start their brawl, one of the Dora Milaje spots him, and with a yell of 'the prisoner is escaping!' charges at him, which causes Klaue to bolt, shooting one last poisonous look over his shoulder at me before he's off, half of the guards inside the palace following him out, the rest completely engrossed with the fight that's happening in front of them.

Perfect.

Making my way around the hall, I reach the area behind the throne, where I can spot where the rest of the Golden Tribe is standing, worry clearly on all of their faces, but it's only one of them I'm interested in.

Ramonda.

And there she is, standing behind the throne, one hand kept on the small form of the still 11-year old Shuri while worrying her lip, watching as her son is doing his best to not get the shit kicked out of him by her murderous nephew (as he isn't a charred corpse yet, he's doing better than about 90% of all beings on earth).

With a few great strides I'm standing next to her, greatly startling both her and her daughter, one of my hands on each of their shoulders (though I have to bend a little to reach the tiny Shuri), gripping them with enough force to show them they have no hope of breaking free, but not enough to make them cry out in pain.

"What-!"

"The labs." I cut her off, walking backwards, taking both of them with me, tightening my grip when it seems they're about to protest.

"Lead me to the Wakandan labs." I explain, only to get a scoff from Ramona.

"There's no way in hell I'm taking you to the laboratory-"

This time I cut her off by slowly increasing the heat in both my hands, quickly reaching uncomfortable levels, though not hot enough to start burning them.

Leaning down between them, I force Ramonda to look into my eyes, which appear like two molten pools of lava, before I slowly open my mouth, letting her show the Balrog-like inferno at the back of my throat.

The message is clear: I can go way hotter.

Glancing at her squirming daughter, Ramonda glares at me with murder in her eyes, before jerking her chin towards one of the numerous exits behind us.

"Follow me."

/

Of course, there are still more guards stationed throughout the palace other than in the hall, and it's clear that the Queen Mother had been counting on that, trusting that I'll find myself suddenly and violently impaled upon their weapons.

Unfortunately for her, I have been spending every day for the last two weeks getting into fights with one of the greatest baseline human combatants on the planet, and every second of every fight was recorded and recalled in perfect clarity by the second most advanced brain on the planet.

That being said, the first guard takes me by surprise.

The very moment we turn a corner in the maze-like belly of the Palace, Ramonda violently rips herself from my grip, taking her daughter to the floor with her in a mad dash. Before I can even comprehend what she is doing, a guard, having apparently heard our approach, jumps out at me from around the corner, swinging his sword around in a wide arc which passes over the floored Royal pair and sending the long blade biting deep into my chest.

Or at least, that's his intention.

Due to being caught off guard within such close quarters, there's no chance for me do dodge or block, so the metal edge of the weapon slices through my shirt and skin with ease, sinking into the raised sternum directly underneath.

And sinking in no further.

Both the guard and me stare wide-eyed at the blade is now stuck in my chest like a demented staple, before our shocked gazes meet. The moment fear rises in his eyes is the moment that terrible haze of anger (which I had pushed down into the depths of my soul, trying to forget its existence ever since the Road Rage incident) rises in mine.

My hands burn white-hot as a snarl that is more animal than man tears itself from my throat, and as the guard falls backward in a desperate move to escape, I shoot forwards, a flaming fist burying itself deep into the man's stomach, crumpling the metal around it and lifting him off his feet.

As the man falls to his hands and knees with a breathless gasp of pain, the sheer anger I feel causing me to growl deep in my chest, a terrible rumbling sound, much like an earthquake. Then, before I can even try to regain control of my baser (and angrier) side of me, I bend down, grabbing the man by his neck-guard and his belt, before effortlessly lifting him above my head.

I know what I'm instinctively about to do before my muscles even tense, but it all happens so fast I'm helplessly to stop it.

Before the shocked eyes of the Queen Mother and her daughter, I slam the palace guard down over my knee, his back breaking with a wet snap. Shuri's scream is suddenly cut off as her mother slams her hand in front of her daughter's wide-open mouth, drawing the little girl closer to her as she looks up at my snarling form in naked fear for the first time.

Fighting my rage down is like trying to swim my way to the surface of a lake of molasses with cinderblocks tied around my feet, it's just so tiring and I feel like giving up multiple times, just let it take control, but with nothing around to fight me anymore, it gradually backs down.

But it's not gone dormant completely; I can still feel it prowling around the back of my mind, just waiting for the next chance to cut loose.

Taking a deep breath, I walk towards Ramonda, who hurriedly shoves the now silent Shuri behind her back, climbing to her feet and gazing at me in defiance, chin lifted high.

I keep walking until were almost chest to chest, before I look down at mine, or more specifically, the weapon that's still stuck in the raised plate of bone that my sternum has become after my first transformation.

When I see her eyes looking at the sword as well, I focus the heat in my chest to increase, the glow of my heartbeat now becoming visible underneath the cloth of my rough shirt.

The blade starts heating up until its glowing white-hot at the place where it's stuck in my flesh and as the metal starts to slowly melt, it slides out of the wound, falling to the marble floor with a clang and a smoking hiss.

Sure, far more painful than just taking it out, but it apparently works as an intimidation tactic on the Royal pair, as Ramonda has her lips pressed together in a thin, nearly non-existent line, while Shuri is staring at me with eyes wide as saucers.

Bending over closer to Ramonda, I growl at her, rage still singing in my glowing veins.

"No more games. No more tricks. The labs, your Highness. Now."

We meet only half a dozen guards on our way to the labs after that.

None of them last longer than ten seconds. While the wave of anger doesn't take over again, it does hurry me along. My muscles are capable of lifting more than three tonnes. Their muscles can resist far less than that.

I don't bother fighting them, or disarming them, simply sending superpowered punches and kicks through whatever defence they try to put up. It's rather like watching someone throw their hands up, expecting for it to help them survive getting hit by a truck.

Maybe some of them survived, but I don't bother to check the broken bodies I leave behind, pushing Ramonda and Shuri along in a hurry. The longer I'm here, the higher the chance of the Wakandans killing Erik or Klaue, which increases the chances of my own discovery significantly.

Finally we reach the labs (I suspect that Ramonda has been taking the long way round) and I finally lay my eyes on that which I have breached one of the most advanced countries in the world for.

Because, right in front of me, is one of the Panther Habits resting on a mannequin.

Leaving the suit (for now), I throw the Queen and her daughter (the small child petrified in silence after seeing me snap the first guard we came across in half over my knee) inside the lab, before approaching one of the multiple terminals that fill the advanced laboratory.

Grasping her bruised shoulder, Ramonda tilts her head high, giving me the coolest, most disapproving look I have ever seen in either life as I navigate the terminal, gathering her crying daughter in her arms.

"Do you honestly think you can get away with this? This laboratory is protected by the most advanced security programs in the world. Even if you were to breach it, the people of Wakanda won't forget the blow you have struck against us today; our War Dogs will hunt you down. There is no place on this Earth that you can hide where they will not find you. They are everywhere. Than could be anyone. You'll never be safe."

"Really? Ulysses seems to have been doing just fine for over three decades before I came along though." I blandly reply, which briefly stuns the Wakandan Queen into silence as I breach the security system and start downloading all of their data onto the heavy duty stick I've taken with me.

"W-What? How did you do that!" Ramonda asks in shock, the idea that her scientists have been outsmarted clearly not something she knows how to deal with.

The answer? Homework.

Or more specifically, spending literal days reading through programming manuals and watching just about every instructional video I could find on the internet. With my ever expanding knowledge about programming came an ever increasing supply of databases that I could access, as my hacking skills increased with every target that I managed to hack which allowed me to hack more difficult targets and so on and so forth.

Combined with a brain that can think about twice as fast as the normal human can, and there was hardly any system that could keep me out.

Finishing my download of all of the information on advanced Wakandan technology that's stored on site, I pocket my trusty stick again, and turn back towards the Panther Habit-

"To hell with you, monster!"

- only to get punched in the face, hard, which sends me flying into the terminal I had just used, it's metal folding around my massive frame.

As I work my jaw, feeling the tooth that had been knocked loose slide around in some superheated blood, I lift my eyes to see Ramonda standing in front of me, her form one of regal confidence and justified anger, wielding those panther-themed gauntlets that Shuri would end up using, though these seem… unfinished, compared to the ones her daughter would wield in five years against Killmonger.

"How does that feel, miscreant? These are Wakandan-made weapons! They shall bring about your fall, swifter than any Stark-weapon ever could!"

And with that, she pulls back one of her arms, before sending her panther-gauntlet at my head again, the blue glow at the front of her hand nearly filling my vision.

Before I catch her punch.

Though I try my best not to show it, doing so had broken nearly every bone in my hand (I bite my own tongue in order not to scream out in pain), but seconds after the impact, they are already rapidly healing, which causes my hand to heat up immensely.

I can feel that darker side of me rising up in anticipation, but I desperately fight to stay in control of my actions, my respect for Bruce Banner rising to immense new heights.

He had to deal with something far worse than this on a daily basis, and yet managed to work in third-world countries as a doctor, spending his time helping people, which can't have been the most stress-free job environment.

It was honestly a miracle we weren't all dead yet.

Glaring at the Wakandan Queen, I swirl my tongue around in my mouth for a moment, before spitting out my tooth to the side, the blood sizzling against the metal floor the moment it lands.

"W-What?" Ramonda briefly seems stunned, before she recollects herself masterfully, and with a controlled expression of ice-cold rage sends her other gauntlet towards my side, aiming for my liver.

Having learned from my newfound experience, I catch this punch by the plating around her forearm, instead of meeting her attack head on. Rising from the wreckage of the computer, I loom over the fuming Queen, and start crushing the metal of her weapons underneath the strength of my hands.

"Trust me, your Highness. You don't hold a candle to someone like Stark. You managed to make these after years of access to one of the most versatile materials on the planet, using a lab others have made for you over the span of hundreds of generations. He made the Arc Reactor, the greatest piece of technology any human has ever produced, in a cave."

Finishing my rant, I raise both my hands, forcing hers up as well, until she's struggling to remain standing on the tips of her toes.

"What's your next move, my Queen? You're out of options." I rumble, but Ramonda's eyes simply flash in defiance.

"Not entirely."

And with that, she twists her hips, sending her leg flying forwards, and as close to me as she is, her aim is true: it comes crashing straight into my family jewels. Pain explodes in my nether regions as my gut gives a violent twist. With a pained grunt, I let go of her arms, sinking to my knees as I try to blink away the stars in my vision.

Extremis kicks in almost immediately, soothing the pain, but before I can recompose myself, Ramonda has taken advantage of my temporary weakness, and sent her gauntleted fist crashing into the sweet spot on my chin, knocking my head back as I nearly bite the tip of my tongue off.

Still reeling from those blows (had I still been a normal human, they would've been enough to floor me) I'm too slow to defend myself against her next attack, and briefly my vision is filled by a purple glow before her mangled (but clearly still functional) gauntlet slams into my face and I can feel my nose breaking with a spurt of lava-like blood.

As I'm bent over, blood flowing from my smashed nose, the Queen rears back for another punch, but by then the roaring anger inside my mind has become unbearably loud, so once more I allow myself to lose control.

Right as her glowing Vibranium gauntlet descends towards my face, I turn towards her with an animalistic growl leaping from my chest. In that same twisting motion, my left arm comes round in an arc, crashing into the side of her gauntlet, slapping it to the side. Simultaneously, I heat up my right hand, and before her daughter can even let out a wail of horror, slash it across Ramonda's throat, the cauterized wound smoking as the woman stumbles back, shock written across her face.

As Black Panther's mother collapses to the floor, her daughter runs at me with a grief-filled wail, tiny fists raised in a futile gesture, before I grab her by the throat, and lift her up, her feet dangling several feet above the floor as she keeps struggling.

My attention shifts from the dying Queen to her crying daughter, but the moment my gaze lands on her, I rail against the all-consuming haze in my mind with a horrified roar, powering through the lethargic feeling from before, desperation fuelling me. Killing children is a line that I shall never, ever cross, not even when someone else is in the driver's seat, so to speak.

If the dark manifestation of the rage inside me is surprised by my sudden fighting spirit, it doesn't show it, and as it slowly backs down, all that I'm getting from it is a sort of disgruntled sensation.

The moment I'm fully in control again, I let the struggling Shuri fall to the floor with a shocked gasp. My breathing is hurried, but I ruthlessly try to suppress the panic that it threatening to rise up within me.

As I'm bent over, hands on my knees, trying to control my breathing, I look up at the soft crying sounds the little princess is making, seeing that she's abandoned her short-lived attack on me and instead has crawled over to her fading mother, cradling the Queen's head in her lap, all the while calling out to her to not leave her in between her sobs.

Ramonda raises a trembling hand towards her daughter's tear-stained cheek, caressing it softly with a shaky smile, before the expression slowly fades away, her gauntleted hand falling to the grating of the laboratory with a metallic clang.

And just like that, Ramonda, Queen Mother of Wakanda, is no more, leaving her crying daughter behind, cradling her corpse.

Briefly I consider what to do with the distraught princess before I settle on just knocking her out cold with a soft tap to the head. Stepping towards the kneeling little girl, she looks up slowly at me, tears filling her eyes. Then her face twists with the most hatred I have ever seen someone display, her lithe form shaking with barely contained rage.

"I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna grow strong. And then I'll kill you."

For a moment, I just stare at the young Shuri, seeing the burning hate within her gaze, before my expression softens somewhat as I go down on one knee, bringing our eye-levels closer together, lifting a hand and holding it in front of her forehead.

To her credit, she doesn't shrink away, nor even do so much as flinch, instead just staring at me with that murderous look in her tear-filled eyes.

"I believe you."

And with that, I flick her in her head, causing her head to snap back, her eyes rolling back into her head as she slumps down next to her mother, unconscious (I know, I checked).

Stepping over the Royal mother and daughter duo, I walk towards the Panther Habit, ripping it off its mannequin and quickly shoving it inside my backpack.

With that, I turn my back on the science wing and start making my way to another part of the Palace I had passed on my way to the labs, its smell immediately catching my attention.

I think I found the location of the Heart-Shaped Herb.

/

There are hardly any people near the gardens and only two guards on opposite ends of a walkway, though they're clearly nervous at all of the commotion that is happening in and around the Palace.

Since stealth isn't really an option (not that I'm in a mood to try it anyways) I instead decide to run up to the guard closest to me, and just as he turns around with an alarmed shout, spear raised in defence, my hand shoots forwards, smashing through the wooden base like it's a tooth pick, and grabbing the man by his breast-plate, the metal buckling underneath the strength of my grip.

By that time, the second guard is approaching us in a run, spear lowered in an attacking position, a roar on his lips.

Which is when I throw the guard in my hand straight into him, sending both to the ground with an almighty crash, either knocking them out or killing them (I neither feel the need, nor have the time to check on which it is).

Now unopposed, I finally lay my eyes on one of the most bullshit power-ups in this universe for the first time.

The Herb itself is very odd to look at, the soft purple glow somewhat off-putting. It's all fine and dandy to see glowing stuff that you know has been made with CGI on the big screen in the cinema, it's another matter entirely to see something in real life that's glowing, especially when it has no business doing so.

Still, I quickly rip a few bushels from the ground and stuff them inside my back-pack as well.

I briefly contemplate ingesting one of the leaves right now (or why even stop at one? Why not eat this entire garden like some demented goat? Wouldn't that make me even stronger?) but since I don't know how long the acid-trip will take once I do, while being defenceless for the duration of its mystic effects, I quickly decide that I should get the hell out of dodge first before trying.

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I briefly gaze around the Royal Garden, the glowing flowers swinging softly in a peaceful little breeze. Tens of thousands of years of staunch tradition had been based around the mystic powers of these plants. To the Wakandans it represents a link to their earliest history, the land they currently live in and the land they will end up after they die.

To me, it's a liability.

Given how many people will want my head after killing the Queen, I can just imagine several people ingesting the leaves for its power in their quest for revenge.

That's just proper narrative at work there.

Besides that though, if my plans work out then Wakanda will end up exposed to the world at best or destabilized at worst. In either case, the outside world will know about the Herb and its powers, and every single spook, criminal or even ordinary citizen will fantasize about being on the same level as the iconic Captain America.

Briefly a horrifying image passes in front of my mind, of Hydra-labs with fanatics being enhanced with the leaf, breeding an army of supersoldiers, or the Fingers, unbelievably dangerous already after spending so many lifetimes in the shadows, now with even more dangerous enhancements, an Alexandra unburdened by the failing of her body or the fear of true death looming over her.

Taking a deep breath (literally), I set all of it on fire.

Getting out of the chaos that has become the Golden City (it seems that Klaue has managed to set off bombs or something, as parts of the city are on fire, while judging by the sounds of battle coming from the palace, the fight between Killmonger and Black Panther is still going strong) is easier than I had feared it would be.

In all of the disorder, people have abandoned their vehicles, and I jump on the nearest bike I can find, its frame groaning underneath my weight but thankfully holding. With a roar of the engine (a sound lost amongst the cacophony of noise that is the distressed city) I blast off towards the jungle, not slowing down for people, obstacles or even when I enter the jungle itself.

I don't plan on stopping until Wakanda is way behind the horizon.

/

It had taken two days of running away from Wakanda like the Devil was on my heels (the bike ran out of fuel after four hours of going at top speed), but I finally managed to burst from the stifling jungle, finding myself on a dirt road that seemed to trail off into a tiny little collection of hovels way off into the distance.

Meeting up with Sterns is surprisingly easy; he has the only motorized vehicle in this little town in the middle of nowhere. What's really surprising though, is that he seems to now hold a rather high position within the village's hierarchy, something like a medicine man after treating a wave of illness that struck its people.

Walking through the low-tech rural village, I make my way towards the biggest house there, the truck parked next to it like some massive metal steed come from the future. The villagers look at me with weariness in their eyes, quickly getting out of the way of my massive form, but they don't seem to fear me completely.

Seems like Sterns has been telling the local populace about me then.

Entering the house of what is either the chief or the Mayor of this little town, ducking my head in order to not make a hole in the tiny doorframe, I lay my eyes on my partner in crime for the first time in more than three weeks.

He doesn't seem all that happy to see me.

Glancing from me to the man sitting next to him, Sterns leans over, saying a couple of softly whispered words, prompting the man (chief? Mayor? Warlord?) to give a nod, rise from his seat and walk outside, ducking around my form still standing in the door opening.

Regarding me with an unreadable expression on his face, Sterns gestures towards the now vacant seat. Somewhat tense at the silent treatment the scientist is giving me (not that I had expected hugs or anything, Sterns and me were more accomplices than real friends, but his cool demeanour was setting me on edge) I take the seat, placing my trusty backpack between my booted feet.

After a brief silence, Sterns is the one to start talking.

"For a while there I thought either Klaue had left you to get lost in the jungle, Killmonger completely flipped and tried to kill you or Wakanda found a way to actually kill you."

I can't even tell whether he's satisfied at that not happening or disappointed, so I just shrug.

"Klaue kept his word, oddly enough, and Erik managed to keep it together until we were inside El Dorado itself."

"And yet there's a rather glaring lack of either person present."

"Last I saw, Killmonger was kicking the shit out of Wakanda's prince and protector, and Klaue was running off with half their military might behind him. They'll be fine."

At my explanation, Sterns raised an surprised eyebrow (which combined with his enormous forehead gives for some rather… interesting effects).

"Any reason for you not currently sitting on the throne there?"

It wasn't that I hadn't thought about conquering Wakanda for myself. But I was a white mutant, which means that I would never be accepted by their populace and have to spend much of my time either ruling or swatting down rebellions.

My Twelve Step Program (though by now the amount of Steps had more than doubled) also required me to remain mobile, which was impossible if I was King of a country with the intention of actually staying its King.

But the thing that had convinced me the most that I should just leave Killmonger to raise hell in there and probably unleash a civil war, was the fact that it would inevitably reveal the country to the world.

Organizations as S.H.I.E.L.D. had been aware of Wakanda's true nature for years already, but the more public agencies (CIA, Interpol, UN and the like) still had no idea.

The moment they found out there was a country that was decades ahead of the rest of the world?

People would be screaming for open borders and global trade faster than you can say 'Vibranium'.

Wakanda would refuse of course, prompting everyone to immediately ignore their protests and send in their covert groups in to acquire their tech (while grinding Wakanda down with diplomatic bullshit), which would cause Wakanda to kill them, causing international tensions.

Organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. would be so busy averting World War 3 I could basically continue with my plans unopposed, completely forgotten in the grander scheme of things.

That was the idea, at least.

"The throne looked very uncomfortable. 'Sides, I'm a wanderer at heart: sitting on one chair for the rest of my live just sounds horrible. I'd much rather just travel around the world, you know? See the sights, meet new and interesting people, steal their artefacts, beat the shit out of their protectors, that kinda thing."

Sterns's face remains completely unresponsive in the face of my blatant lie, before he frowns slightly ('slightly' of course being a subjective term in his case, as his eyebrows drawing together caused the facial equivalent of tectonic plates shifting).

"During the time that I've hung around you, I have turned into a mutant, have seen you come back to base shot up and burned, have seen men go up in flames and explosions, and have more guns pointed in my direction than I had ever wanted in my life."

The small hut is filled with an oppressive silence after the scientist's rant, with him staring intently at me, while I'm just tensing my muscles underneath my shirt in preparation for a fight.

Suddenly the tension is drained away as Sterns lets out a mischievous grin.

"So, where are we going next?"

At my incredulous expression, Sterns just snorts in amusement.

"In half a year, I have seen the borders of known science advanced by decades. My brain has reached levels of understanding I couldn't even have dreamed of before, because I simply didn't possess the computing power to even comprehend such levels. If you think I'm backing off now, then you got another thing coming: I'm going to see this through Mr. McCole."

Briefly I feel stunned at my accomplice's words, before I hesitantly put my hand out towards him.

"Partners then?"

Without hesitation, the smaller man grips my hand in a firm handshake, determination written across his face.

"Partners."

I'm more moved than I thought I would, but my new and improved brain quickly provides me with an explanation: as of right now Sterns is the first friend I've made in this universe.

As a child I was completely focused on preparing myself for my Plan, dedicating myself to mastering engineering and programming since Phase One of the MCU was centred so much around Iron Man, making me forgo making connections with other people.

Even during the execution of the Program I had only ever seen other people, including Sterns, as chess pieces, pawns for me to use in order to increase my own power, until there was no force in the universe that could ever harm me.

Until now.

Shaking myself from my contemplations, I let out a grin, opening my backpack.

"You know, I brought a souvenir for you."

"Really? Of all things I had expected from a nation like Wakanda, a gift shop hadn't been one of them."

Grinning at his joke, I withdraw the Panther Habit, and place it on the rough wooden table in-between us. Sterns's eyes widen in amazement at the suit, running nimble fingers across the woven material with an exited look on his face.

Before he can say anything about the advanced suit in front of him, I place my stick on top of the suit. At his questioning look I explain with a grin.

"All of the data I could snatch from the Wakandan labs. That right there, doctor, now has some of the most advanced human technology on the planet stored inside. Enjoy."

"That's some gift shop…" Sterns mutters to himself in awe, before he looks at the Heart-Shaped Herb bushels that I withdraw from my back-pack, one eyebrow raised as I start plucking the glowing leaves (which still freaks me out, by the way).

"This is what makes any ordinary man capable of taking on a Erskine-level enhanced human by just eating a single leaf. So, I'm going to eat all of the leaves. However, due to its mystical properties, I'll probably go into a deep meditative state, so I couldn't ingest it while still in Wakanda."

Hearing the scientist scoff at the mention of magic, I can't help but grin, thinking about the feats displayed by Doctor Strange, who arguably gave the best showing against Thanos amongst all non-god beings (though Iron Man himself fought the Titan with such sheer awesome the Galactic Overlord himself complimented him).

"Do not be so quick to dismiss Magic, Doc. There are species out there who are so advanced that Magic and Science have become indistinguishable from one another, like in the case of the Asgardians. In fact, I'm suspecting that Vibranium itself isn't a naturally occurring material at all. It's properties are something truly unique, and given the mystical element it possesses I'm thinking that the chunk that fell to Earth so long ago instead comes from such an advanced civilization."

That would explain a lot, especially given Wakanda's enormous leaps in technological advancement after finding the miracle metal. Despite the incredible difficulty shaping the kinetic-absorbing metal into complex shapes, Wakanda had gone from wielding sticks and stones to overtaking the European Industrialisation, completely skipping several fundamental steps.

But since its mystic properties apparently included talking to deceased forefathers, there was a possibility that echoes from its original creators seeped through enough through the Astral Plane in order to give them the necessary knowledge. It would also explain the alien feel that El Dorado had to it, if its citizens were influenced by hyper-advanced aliens on a subconscious level.

During my musings, I've finished plucking all of the leaves (around 40 to 50 in total) and gather them in my massive hands in a little heap.

Sterns regards me warily, still mulling over what I had just told him, rubbing his chin as he looks at the glowing, mutated leaves in my hands.

"How are you-"

CHOMP!

"What is wrong with you!? You just don't put glowing foreign plants inside your mouth like that! What if you turn out to be allergic!"

"Ethrmith."

"What?"

Quickly swallowing the leaves down (ugh, so bitter. And… metallic?) I repeat myself.

"Extremis. Even if the leaves have adverse effects on me, I'll survive it."

Briefly looking at me completely gob-smacked, Sterns eventually throws his hands up in the air with a huff of despair, before grabbing the Panther Habit and the stick from the table and making his way outside.

"Just… just lie on the table and try not to die, I guess. Honestly, some people…" the scientist continues muttering as he walks away, grumbling under his breath at my rash actions.

"Sterns!" I call out to him, and as he turns back towards me with a questioning expression on his face I'm overcome with doubt.

Should I tell him about the darker side of me which has been rearing its ugly head more often lately? We just shook on being partners, yes, but do I trust him with this? Can I trust him with something that I barely dare to acknowledge myself?

Yes, I was willing to go to incredible lengths in order to make myself untouchable, but losing my mind was not a sacrifice I was willing to make.

"… Thanks. For wanting to be my friend. I… I haven't really had any, before."

I can tell that Sterns knows that isn't what I was about to say, but after a pause he apparently decides to let it go, just giving me a smile.

"Sure thing Michael. Now go lay on the damned table and try not to burn us all in the worst case of fever in human history, got it?"

And with a laugh he's gone, leaving me chuckling to myself inside the chief's hut.

Getting up, I lie down on the rough table (which groans worriedly as I do, but I don't crash down immediately, so it's all good), fold my hands on my stomach and close my eyes.

Darkness fills my vision as I feel the world steadily falling away, before I feel like I'm floating in a great void, swirling around in an all-encompassing nothingness. Briefly I fear that I've overdosed or something, but before panic can set in (it's only then that I realize all my emotions have been muted) the darkness starts solidifying around me, for a lack of a better word.

Time is utterly meaningless when there's nothing around to experience it, and only after what feels like an eternity, the blackness around me had finished shifting enough that I feel ground underneath my feet.

Which brings my attention back to the fact that I actually have a body again.

Glancing down at what I suspect is my astral projection, I'm extremely confused.

It's my body.

My original body.

The one from my first life, where this place was nothing more than a scene on the silver screen in my local cinema.

But it's off.

It's recognizable as a human body, physically there's nothing wrong with it (other than some slight chubbiness around the middle), but the angles are… wrong. Like the breaking of an image when seen through the surface of water, or through a lens or something, only deepened in a dimension I can't really put my fingers on.

Studying it for too long makes me feel dizzy, so I shake my head and look in front of me.

Where I can see an enormous, swirling form made of smoke, two violet stars of light glaring down at me from a height stories above me, the power (and anger) unmistakeable.

There's no change in its facial expression (for all that it really has a face to speak of, with it being a smoking manifestation and what not), but as it speaks the very air reverberates with its words.

"PLANEWALKER. YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE. YOU HAVE TAKEN THAT WHICH WAS NEVER MEANT FOR YOU." Bast, the Panther God, who is responsible for leading Wakandan souls to the afterlife and who guided Bashenga into becoming the First Black Panther, speaks to me, hear words slamming into my brain with an almost physical weight to them.

And she sounds pissed.

"Well. Shit."

/
Fun Fact: One of the features of the early Iron Man suit used to be rollerskates.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 7: TRIAL OF THE MIND​

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO THE POWER YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM MY PEOPLE."

I try to swallow, but find that my throat is too dry as I'm trying to find ways to get myself out of this, at the very least alive and hopefully with the enhancements of the Herb.

For the briefest of milliseconds, the idea of lying flashes through my brain, but the exact moment it does, Bast billows forwards in a great tsunami of smoke faster than the eye can see, and I fall to my knees, unable to draw breath or even remaining standing upright due to the feeling of thousands of tonnes of weight suddenly pressing down on every inch of my body.

I can tell that she isn't even doing anything: this is solely the effect of what I'm beginning to think is my soul being that close to the presence of a god.

So, honesty is probably the best policy here.

"No Bast, I do not." I wheeze out with the last molecules of air that had been present in my compressed lungs, the weight of her aura keeping me from taking a new breath (which a small, disconnected part of me notes is odd, considering this is my soul and thus shouldn't even need to breathe, but it's probably my mind translating whatever metaphysical force her presence is applying to my metaphysical manifestation of self. Or something).

Bast remains perfectly still for a few moments, the two glowing suns of light that represent her eyes glaring balefully down upon my hunched body from stories above me, no pity to be found. Slowly, she retreats from me, allowing her presence to lift enough for me to heave in great gulps of air, but not enough that the weight disappears completely, remaining an ever-present reminder of how precarious my position is.

"YOU SHALL NEVER BE MY CHAMPION."

"W-what… does that… mean?" I manage to gasp out, slowly steadying my breathing, though I remain bent before the Panther Goddess, trying my best not to offend her further.

"IT MEANS, PLANEWALKER, THAT THE POWER OF THE BLACK PANTHER WILL NOT BE YOURS TO CLAIM. I WILL SLAY YOU WHERE YOU STAND FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST WAKANDA."

Indignation threatens to well up inside me, but a gentle flex of the bands still pressing down around my chest and on my shoulder quickly disabuses me of that notion. Still, I can't let this go without some semblance of protest.

"I ate the plant! Its powers belong to me now! Why do you get a say in who is allowed to use its power and who is not?!"

"BECAUSE I AM A GODESS, TIED TO THE VERY LAND THAT GIVES THE HERB ITS POWERS. AND NOW, IT'S TIME FOR YOUR STORY TO COME TO A CLOSE."

With that, Bast rears up, a great billowing skyscraper of smoke and shadows, her purple eyes rising infinitely high, a paw as large as a suburban house raised in preparation to smite me into oblivion.

"WAIT!"

It's only after a few tense seconds (during which Bast has yet to kill me) that I hesitantly open one eye, realizing that I had been the one to yell. Quickly continuing in a waterfall of words before I can lose my nerve (or life), I try to beg the Panther Goddess.

"I can do better! I can prove myself worthy of its power! Please don't kill me!"

High up in the darkness above me, Bast tilts her head.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN PROVE YOURSELF TO BE WORTHY OF THE SAME POWERS GIFTED TO MY CHAMPIONS? AFTER ALL THAT YOU HAVE INFLICTED UPON MY CHOSEN PEOPLE? WHY SHOULD I EVEN ENTERTAIN THE THOUGHT?"

"Because…" I start off in a yell, only trail off in a whisper, as I come to a realization.

Bast was right. What reasons had I given her for her to accept my desperate plea?

Precisely zero.

Looking up at the enormous goddess that is about to erase me from existence, there's only one thing that I can think of to say.

"Because I don't want to die."

The reveal of the motivation that had dominated my new life from the moment I was reborn is enough to stay Bast's smiting hand for just a little longer, so I continue talking in a soft tone of voice.

"Ever since I woke up in this universe, that's what I've been most afraid of. And so I tried to do absolutely everything that I could in order to fight that. I've lied, I've stolen, I've killed in order to keep myself as safe from dying as I could possibly be."

I give a weak chuckle.

"And now trying to advance that goal I get killed because of it. But you know what? I'm not done yet. I don't want to die, and I'm sure as hell not just gonna keep quiet and drop dead because you want me to! Go ahead, punish me for my sins, or test my worthiness for the Herb's power and see for yourself that I earned gaining its might! But if you decide to kill me anyways, then you better make goddamned sure you get it right, because I swear I'm gonna claw my way out of the depths of whatever Hell you'll send me to, stronger than before, and then I'll come back here and kick your ass!"

What I'm doing is dumb. I know that it's dumb. Suicidal, even. Who goes and yells at the goddess who was already pissed off at him to begin with? I think quite a few people honestly, when faced with imminent destruction.

There are those who would either bow their heads and take it, or wail, or pray, or remain stoically silent, or they would start raging against the heavens in their final moments.

Apparently, I belonged to that latter category.

For a moment time was stretched out into what felt like eternity, Bast's pools of purple power staring into my own eyes, nothing showing what the goddess was thinking about the tantrum I had just delivered.

Then she lowered her paw, settling on her haunches, a smoky tail the size of a freight train wrapping imperiously around her.

"YOU CHALLENGE ME… TO CHALLENGE YOU?"

It's the first and probably only time that I hear a goddess that sounds confused of all things, before I shrug off the thought and square my shoulders and lift my chin.

"You want justice for what I did in Wakanda, I want the power of the Heart-Shaped Herb. So here's what I suggest: a test. If I complete the test, you'll let me go with the power of the Heart-Shaped Herb, but if I fail it then I'll accept whatever punishment you see fit, even death."

Bast hummed in thought, the twin suns that were her eyes slowly burning in contemplation.

"I FAIL TO SEE HOW THIS WOULD BENEFIT ME PLANEWALKER. SINCE THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING ME FROM METING OUT PUNISHMENT AS I SEE FIT RIGHT NOW."

And with those words, the Panther Goddess flexes the tiniest amount of her immense power, and suddenly I'm on my knees again, the air forcibly pushed from my lungs as it feels like a hydraulic press is currently clamping down on my torso.

Right, just because she's holding off on vaporizing me on the spot doesn't mean she suddenly isn't completely pissed off anymore.

"P-point taken." I wheeze out, after which the vice-like grip on my lungs is abruptly removed, leaving me to gracelessly flop to the floor in a gasping heap.

I clearly need to up my offer.

"Those that are granted the power of the Heart-Shaped Herb are to become your champion, correct? If I complete your trials, then I shall have proven that I have what it takes to be one as well. So, after you let me go, you may give me one order to complete and I shall try to fulfil it to the best of my abilities."

The lights in Bast's eyes briefly increase in brightness, before dimming down to their usual inferno of violet power, but I know what it means: despite her rage, I've peaked her interest.

"ONE ORDER, AND I SHALL GUIDE AND STAY YOUR HAND AS I SEE FIT AS YOU ATTEMPT TO COMPLETE IT."

"Three orders, but you don't interfere."

A deep rumbling sound rattles not just the floor I'm standing on (almost sending me crashing to the ground again), it shakes the very air around us, this entire dimension reflecting Bast's annoyance.

"DO NOT FORGET, PLANEWALKER. YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO MAKE DEMANDS HERE. I AM NOT ONE TO BE BARGAINED WITH AS IF I WERE SOME COMMON MARKET WENCH PADDLING HER WARES. I HAVE DECIDED, AND YOU HAVE ONLY TO FOLLOW."

Bast doesn't shout: she doesn't need to as her point is made just fine at her normal volume. I quickly decide to follow her advice and refrain from weaselling my way through deals and clauses in order to advance my chances.

Instead, I'll just have to be content with not being turned into cosmic space-dust on the spot.

"I bow to your wisdom, oh Great Bast." I say demurely, bowing at the waist for good measure, trying to appease the angered god in front of me.

"THERE SHALL BE TWO TRIALS: ONE OF THE MIND AND ONE OF THE BODY. SUCCEED IN BOTH, AND I SHALL ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE THIS PLACE. FAIL, AND YOU WILL DIE A DEATH SO TERRIBLE, THE STARS THEMSELVES WILL SPEAK IN TERRIFIED WHISPERS OF YOUR DEMISE."

Swallowing down my primal urge to gibber in fear at the implied threat, I hesitantly straighten from by bow, though I try to maintain my submissive posture as I softly ask my question.

"When does my trial start?"

"RIGHT NOW. YOUR GUIDE HAS ALREADY ARRIVED."

I raise my eyebrows in surprise at that.

"Guide? Who's my guide?"

"Me."

Turning around in a shocked whirl at the hauntingly familiar voice behind me, I can feel the blood drain from my face as I lay eyes on my guide for the first time.

"You…" I softly whisper, completely floored.

Gazing at me with an imperious tilt to her regal head, Ramonda, former Queen Mother of Wakanda, the woman I had killed in front of her own daughter, stands before me, not a blemish on her skin.

"How…"

"Bast guides the souls of the Wakandans that have passed on to the Green Veld, where they are free forever. I asked to wait before entering the blessed Djalia, since I had unfinished business that needed to be concluded first."

The look she sends me makes it clear just what (or rather, who) she means with 'unfinished business'.

"LET THE FIRST TRIAL COMMENCE."

And with those words, reality itself stretches and heaves, and with a spinning blur of colours and motion, while remaining perfectly still, the dark savannah we had been standing in had suddenly been replaced with a burnt out pier, the Panther Goddess herself nowhere to be seen, Ramonda standing next to me.

Briefly the disorientation gets to me, making me lose my footing (while the Queen's clothes aren't even ruffled) but the scenery quickly grabs my attention, since I recognize this charred husk, despite the vague, shadowy look everything has, showing that we are still in the Astral Realm, only viewing a different time and place.

It's where I ambushed Killian.

"What is this? What are you trying to show me?" I ask suspiciously, glancing back over my shoulder at Ramonda, who merely inclines her head towards the side.

Following her gaze, I only now spot the emergency workers that are bustling around on the pier, all of them covered in soot, with exhausted expressions on their faces.

Most of them are currently busy with placing body bags on stretchers.

"Would you look at this one? Both her spine and face are gone Jacob. Gone. What kind of monster does that kinda thing?"

Turning around I watch as two guys in medical overalls are busy extracting the remains of the berserker woman from the twisted base of the fallen crane I had smashed her into.

"I don't know Jerry." The man answered, his tone wearied, his posture tired.

"You know how we found her: whatever kind of monster did this to her, I'm betting she ain't exactly an angel herself neither. Just be glad those freaks are killing off each other on piers rather than in neighbourhoods. Less chance of you dyin' that way."

With a grunt and a heave, the corpse is finally freed from the destroyed metal and placed in a body bag nearby. As the elder Jacob starts zipping up the bag, Jerry straightens up, stretching his back as he looks down on his partner.

"That's harsh man. Real harsh."

Jacob only pauses in his work in order to give Jerry a raised eyebrow, before he frowns, motioning his partner to help him lift the bag.

"Right, I forgot. You weren't there for the clean-up in Harlem."

With a heave, the bagged woman is placed on a stretcher, and as they make their way towards the ambulances on the other end of the pier, Jerry looks over his shoulder at the elder man.

"Why? That bad?"

"You ain't even know the half of it kid. Two freaks, tearing up the streets in the meanest slugfest of the century. Two days later, and we're still finding body parts in the rubble and car wrecks. Sure, Army got its hands burned for the mess, but that's too little too late. I had to bandage more scrapes and cuts in those 48 eight hours than nearly 40 years on the job."

Jerry seems to take his partner's words into consideration, before Jacob gives his final two cents.

"Mark my words kid. World's changing, with freaks crawlin' up outta the woodwork everywhere, and the little guy is the one that gets hurt for it. Guys like us, ordinary folk? All we can do is sit tight, wait for hell to blow over and then pick up the pieces."

And with those words they turn a corner and are out of my sight.

"What an interesting word choice. Monster. Freak. How does that make you feel, I wonder, to know those are the words people think of when they look upon your works?"

I growl at the cool voice of the Queen of Wakanda, whirling around to face her.

"What the hell is this? Is this supposed to be some sort of guilt-trip or something? Killian was going to betray me and if left to his own devices would commit acts of terror on these people, and that woman nearly killed me! So if you're expecting me to feel sorry for them, then you can guess again, Your Highness. Only thing I feel is satisfaction at getting them, before they could get me."

Ramonda doesn't even bat an eyelash at my rant, simple crossing her arms, her emotion schooled into an impenetrable mask of calm.

"Yes, I had somewhat suspected you might feel this way. But what about the people in their lives? No person is truly alone in this world, Mr. McCole, not even those villains. What happens to those who remain behind, after you've torn their loved ones from their life? Let's find out."

"Wai-!"

Before I can finish my sentence, the kaleidoscope of dizzying colours is back again, and with a stumble we come to a stop in a rundown neighbourhood, graffiti covering the walls with windows boarded up and litter filling the street.

As I hear South-African being spoken, I think I know where we are. My suspicions are confirmed when the corrugated sheet that is serving as a door in one of the decrepit houses is thrown open, a child no more than twelve storming out, his clothes dirtied and his face gaunt.

Following him out is a wailing woman who I assume to be his mother.

"Please! My boy, don't do this! We can find another way, any way, just not this! Please Axel, don't go to that man!"

"And do what!?" the child rears around, screaming, though I can see the tear tracks on his face.

"Watch you and Nikki starve!? Dad's not gonna come back mom, and I ain't sitting around waiting to die too! I'm gonna join up with Declan's group, Ethan and Luke already joined so you can't stop me!"

And with that, the boy runs off, bare feet slapping against broken cobblestones, leaving his sobbing mother to fall against the doorframe of her hovel, sliding down to her knees in grief.

Behind her, a four year old girl, wearing a tattered, worn down sundress hesitantly approaches her mother, laying a tiny hand upon her arm.

"Mamma? Where's Askel goin'?"

With a cry of pain, the bereaved widower (and I know, deep down in my gut, who is responsible for that) throws her arms around her remaining child in a desperate hug, her body wracked with sobs.

At first I wonder why nobody is reacting at the drama unfolding before me, but it just takes one look at the downcast expressions, those haunted eyes, those too-thin bodies, and I have my answer.

This has become the norm for these people.

"Well, Mr. McCole. What has this woman done against you, that she deserves such a fate?" Ramonda asks as she steps up next to me, but I don't move, my expression sombre as I keep my eyes fixed on the crying mother and daughter in front of me.

It takes a while for me to answer, but when I do, I deliver it in measured, thoughtful tones.

"She doesn't. Nobody deserves this. But you're mistaken if you think this is my fault. Her husband was a criminal, assaulting and robbing people while armed with a submachine gun. There was never a way their tale wasn't going to end this way: they're a product of the world they live in."

The Queen tilts her head a bit at that, giving me a sidelong look.

"And yet, with all that power that you have hoarded for yourself in your hunger for yet more power, haven't you had the means to change that world? Preventing such a tragedy from happening in the first place?"

At that I turn towards her, my face drawn in rage.

"Don't you dare give me that crap! How long has Wakanda sat on its advanced technology? How many cures were withheld from the rest of the world? How many wars could have been prevented? How many lives, over thousands of years, could have been saved had Wakanda not decided to retreat into the shadows, hiding underneath the safety of their force-field, closing its eyes to the pain of the world?!"

The Queen rears back as if slapped, before her nostrils widen in fury, a fire exploding in her eyes (in the figural sense, not the literal Extremis-version), but as she opens her mouth she seems to think on my words, and slowly deflates, gazing at the now softly sniffling mother with a drawn expression on her face.

"Perhaps our ancestors were wrong to hide our nation; perhaps it takes far more than just a single person or even a country to change the world. It would take everyone working together towards a better tomorrow, in order to make sure that such a pain-filled world shall become a thing of the past. Wouldn't you agree?"

Both of us remain silent as the mother, now with no more tears to shed, shakily stands up, lifting her sleeping daughter in her arms, shuffling back inside the small home.

"Perhaps. The world isn't so easily healed, not even with the legendary powers of Vibranium." I concede.

"But there is one thing where you are wrong, Mr. McCole. You assume you bear no guilt to this woman's hurt, because that is simply the world she lives in. But what about those who do not live in such a world, who believe that such pain is not something that they should ever had to live with?"

Before I can ask what she means, the scenery blurs by once again, but this time I managed to resist the breakneck speeds a bit better, and other than missing a step when we arrive, I've come out reasonably unruffled.

The Queen of course still emits an air of regal perfection, not a single hair out of place.

We have arrived in a graveyard, and a little bit further down the gravel path I can see a small group of people clustered around a hole in the ground, a coffin covered in flowers resting above it.

The sight of people in military dress-uniforms clues me into who is most likely inside the coffin.

Not waiting for Ramonda I make my way towards the group, and a picture of a smiling young man in army fatigues confirms my suspicion.

It's the guy who I stabbed in the throat with his own knife.

The moment flashes before my eyes, replaying the scuffle, the mad grab for the blade, and then blood spattering across the visor of my helmet.

One man steps forwards and with a choked voice tries to speak a few words, his face filled with grief and with a sudden start I realize I'm looking at the Frank Castle from 2011, before his family is killed and he is shot in the head and flat lined for a few seconds, before coming back to life, being literally too angry to die.

"Tom was, uhh. Tom was a real good kind of guy. You know? The kind of guy that didn't hesitate in having your back. That was Tom, that was."

As Frank tries to work through the eulogy, I let my eyes roam across the assembled people, seeing the woman and children in tears, while the men try to remain stoic, some of them having tear tracks on their faces.

I can hear Ramonda step up beside me, can feel her eyes on me, so I answer her question before she even gets the chance to ask it.

"Those three soldiers… they knew the life they chose, knew the risks involved. They might not have known they were going up against Blonsky as he was, but they were there at Cornwell University: they knew what gamma-monsters are capable of. I didn't want to kill them, but that's the reality of a fight."

Inclining her head to what appears to be Tom's wife, the Wakandan Queen's tone is colder than ice.

"I wonder what she would say to that. Or what anyone currently standing here would say."

I know what at least one of them will say: nothing at all.

Frank would just put a bullet between my eyes.

I remain silent as the music starts and the coffin with the soldier whose neck I slit is slowly lowered to the ground. It somehow feels wrong, watching that happen. Like the poor man is punished for dying, and gets trapped inside a box and buried in a dark, wet hole in the ground as a result.

Right then and there, I decide that if I do bite it (either by failing these challenges, or later down the road by Thanos-snap or Hulk-smash), then I'll ask to not be buried. Put my body in a pod and shoot it into the sun or something.

As the dull thuds of earth being thrown onto the coffin continue to drone on, I think to myself that I really don't care what happens to me during my quest for Omnipotence.

As long as it isn't this.

As the last shovel of dirt is thrown onto the fresh burial mound, Tom's wife has apparently used up all of her strength, falling into her chair with a soft, chocked up gasp. Frank is there, awkwardly gripping her shoulder, before glaring at where his Army buddy is now entombed, waiting to rot away while his family has to find a way to go on without him in their lives.

"We're gonna catch him Mary. The bastard that did this, he ain't getting away with it. Not with this. You hear me, Mary? Not with this he ain't." Frank murmurs to the woman, but she's completely unresponsive, hollow eyes fixed on the resting place of her husband.

The man that I took from her.

"Well, Mr. McCole. Where is your defence now?"

This time the silence stretches the longest of all since the Queen has taken me on this Christmas Carol rip off, but she refuses to break the silence, forcing me to work through my thoughts and emotions, to examine facets of my being that I had been comfortable with pushing away and out of sight.

It was torture, and I started to understand why Bast thought merely revisiting the people I had killed would suffice as the first trial.

Nobody likes being confronted with the worse sides of themselves.

"I stand by what I said. The man died in battle, knowing when he signed up that that would be a possibility. It's unfortunate that he died fighting me, and if I could do it over I would probably have done things differently, but the fact remained that he died and I got away with what I needed."

I believe in the words I tell her, but they feel hollow, even to my own ears.

Turning away from the grieving widow and fuming Hank, I look at Ramonda, my face lined with the weight of the decisions I have made now resting on my conscious.

"We're done here. Take me to the next one."

I almost expect the scene of our next location. We're standing in the Palace Hall in the Golden City of Wakanda. The hall isn't as crowded as when I, Erik and Klaue were led before T'Chaka, only about a dozen people standing in front of the throne.

And sitting on the throne, clad in royal robes and with burning eyes, sits Killmonger.

While I'm not surprised that Killmonger won his fight with T'Challa (the Herb puts a person on par with an Erskine-supersoldier. Extremis puts a person on par with an Iron Man suit) I am somewhat surprised that the rest of the Wakandans didn't kill Erik on the spot after winning his fight.

These people really adhere to their traditions.

There are several people standing in front of Erik's throne, and from what I can make out of their muttered dialogue, I think that they have some sort of advisory role, and they seem to discuss the distribution of Vibranium, as well as production levels within Wakanda.

A man I don't recognize is standing next to Erik, holding a hushed conversation with him, though since I'm currently on a different plane than them I simply walk up to the pair unseen.

"Another operative lost, Your Highness, in China this time. Apparently one of ours got into a fight with a Loyalist War Dog and they both blew their cover, so Hong Kong came in and killed them both in a massive shoot-out."

Killmonger growls deep in his chest, and smoke starts to come from his robes at his increased anger.

"How many War Dogs does that make?"

"Fifteen Your Highness. It appears that your cousin has managed to make contact with several groups of War Dogs while we were still containing the damage to the city, and intends to wage a guerrilla war against your reign."

Letting out a deep breath of air (hot enough to force the advisor to back away a few steps), Erik folds his hands underneath his chain, a thoughtful frown on his face as he considers his options.

"And the status within Wakanda?"

"We have the power, my lord, as we control both the military and the mining and production operations. The outer tribes bow to your victory over your cousin and recognize you as leader of the Golden Tribe, but within the city… the former king, may Bast guide his soul, was much beloved, Your Highness. Of course, the reveal of his crimes has done much to correct that, but people's hearts are not so easily swayed."

"Do we need to fear a revolt?"

"Not unless they receive an outside backer, my lord. The return of your cousin, or one of those foreign dogs that have been sniffing around our borders. But for now, your reign is secure as King. There are quite a few people who have always viewed Wakanda's retreat from the world as a mistake. We are eager for you to lead us out of the darkness and take our rightful place upon the world-stage."

As Ramonda walks past me, my attention is dragged away from the fruits of my labour, following the Queen's stricken gaze and my eyes land on a furious looking Shuri who is hiding in the shadows at the back of the hall.

As Erik desperately tries to consolidate his power in a land which apparently thought that a duel for the throne was a legitimate way of succession, Shuri merely turns around and runs out of the Hall, feet slapping against the tiles with tears streaming down her face.

Ramonda immediately follows her daughter, not sparing anyone else (including me) a second glance, and with some idea of what's about to come, I follow the Queen through her Palace, passing both flurries of activity and passageways that are completely abandoned.

It takes nearly fifteen minutes of walking, during which neither one of us has spoken so much as a word, before we arrive at a room in what I'm guessing is the wing housing the living quarters of the Golden Tribe.

Without breaking her stride, Ramonda walks straight through the closed door, the ebony wood rippling slightly as she does, but otherwise showing no effect. After a second of hesitation I clench my jaw, close my eyes, and step through the door as well.

When I open my eyes again, I'm confronted with what I expected to see.

A crying Shuri, who is running around her room in a whirlwind of hurried movements, stuffing a large back-pack to the brim with various odds and ends whose functions I cannot even begin to guess at.

While Shuri sobs as she grabs a photo picturing her family with shaking hands, I turn towards the Queen, who is displaying the first sign of emotion during my entire trial, her lip quivering and a single tear rolling down her face.

This time she doesn't ask me a question, and I allow her the small comfort of silence as we look on as her little girl runs to her sheets and starts ripping them up.

It's clear: we're looking at a break-out.

Shuri's escape is even impressive on some level, since she managed to get out of her room and down two floors before she gets spotted by a guard, who sounds the alarm. I suspect that Shuri knows the palace like the back of her hand though, because even with her vision blurred by tears, she manages to evade patrols by hiding in all kinds of nooks and crannies that I hadn't even realized were there.

She even uses three secret passage ways on her mad dash out of the Palace.

After nearly twenty minutes of following the fleeing child, me and Ramonda having no trouble keeping up with her daughter, Shuri finally managed to escape the Palace by using a barely used service corridor which opened out at the back of the complex.

From there she abandoned all stealth and just sprinted towards the treeline, hiding in its underbrush even as Killmonger's guards were still turning the Palace upside down.

After her successful escape, me and Ramonda kept following the little girl for the next two days, and during that time, the Queen hadn't once taken her eyes of her daughter that she could never hold in her arms again.

It was on the third day that happened what I assumed the Queen had intended to show me all along, though she had dropped us in early, probably not being able to control herself wanting to see more of her daughter one last time.

Because on the third day, Shuri fell into a trap.

It was even such a ridiculous movie-trap as well, the one where a character steps on a hidden mechanism and suddenly they find themselves strung up in a net like the world's weirdest piñata.

Ramonda stiffened when her daughter was hoisted in the air, screaming in fear and shock as she went, but the Queen actually growled and bared her teeth when a familiar figure stepped out from the underbrush.

"Well well. What do we have here?" Ulysses Klaue asks with a grin as he looks at the Wakandan princess.

"Let me go!" Shuri cries, but it just makes Klaue laugh, which in turn causes Ramonda to clench her fists.

"Now, why would I go and do something like that, little girl?" the arms dealer asks, scratching the beard that has been growing since his flight from the Wakandan capital.

Briefly Shuri is silenced, before her eyes flash across Klaue's outfit, the bags under his eyes, the way his pants are loose around his hips, his chapped lips. Then she grins triumphantly.

"Because I can show you the way out."

Klaue narrows his eyes in suspicion, slowly approaching his catch, his remaining hand resting on the machete he has hanging in his belt.

"What you mean with that girl?"

"You're lost aren't you?"

Klaue growls at the question, but it just causes Shuri's smile to grow even wider.

"You are, aren't you?"

"Oh give me a break, kind, it's been thirty years since the last time I had to run away from Wakanda, and I didn't exactly had the time to take in the scenery then." Klaue mutters annoyed, but Shuri doesn't seem to even care she's pissing off a world class criminal that currently has her captured.

"But I do know the way! I know all the ways into and out of Wakanda! You cut me down and take me with you, and I'll lead you away from here."

"And why would a little girly like you be so desperate as to be willing to come along with a vicious thief like meself in order to run away from her comfy life in the palace, eh?" Klaue asks mockingly, though I can see the gleam of interest in his eyes as he's suddenly presented with the option of having a guide out of this endless jungle.

At the man's question, Shuri's lip starts wavering, while tears start welling up in her eyes. Furiously wiping her sleeve across her face, the 11-year old haltingly answers the arms dealer.

"There's nothing there for me. Killmonger almost killed by brother until my dad threw himself on that creep… and then my brother had to go and run, father was begging him to, even as he was holding down Killmonger… A-and then, K-Killmonger killed him… And I didn't even see it, because this, t-this monster kidnapped me and mom! And he… and he… he k-killed her too. I lost… everything." The little girl softly says, her speech interrupted by hiccups and sobs.

Klaue is remarkably silent throughout it all, though I can almost see the gears in his head whirring away at top speed. Then apparently having settled on a course, he grabs the machete and in a single swing-

"NO!"

-slams it through the rope that had been holding up the net Shuri had been caught in, letting her fall to the forest floor with a squawk.

I glance at Ramonda from the corner of my eye, seeing her arms outstretched as if to stop Klaue's swing, before she slowly lowers them, her attention completely focused on her daughter, who has freed herself from the tangles of the net that covered her, standing in front of Klaue in torn clothes, with twigs in her hair and mud caked on her face.

For a moment there's silence in the small clearing, before Klaue bends down on one knee, his tone softer than I had ever imagined the criminal even capable of.

"That monster. The monster that took you and your mamma? He took something from me as well."

"What?"

Lifting the stump of his arm, Klaue gives a chuckle at the girl's wide-eyed look of shock.

"He took my arm, threatening to take even more if I didn't give him all of my treasure. It took me thirty years to gather it all and then one night, that monster walks in and takes my arm and my treasure. But…"

"But…?" Shuri asks, having fallen for Klaue's sob story hook, line and sinker, causing the criminal to show yellowed teeth in a vicious grin.

"But I think we can help each other. You see, kind, you know all of the passages into and out of Wakanda, but how much do you know about the rest of the world? Not much, I imagine."

Fire sparks in Shuri's eyes, and the girl places her tiny fists on her hips.

"I know lots! I know all the names of all the countries and places!"

"Bah, that's just boring school stuff! But do you know the real parts of the world? Where all the real borders are? Which area is claimed by which Cartel? Where crime ends, and government begins?"

At that, Shuri gives a hesitant shake, and Klaue gives an indulgent smile, though I can see the ruthlessness in his eyes as he keeps up his act.

"The world out there is dangerous, kind. But I can help you. Keep you safe. All I need, is one thing, just this tiny little thing, why it's not even worth mentioning really…"

"What is it? What do you need?"

At Shuri's question, Klaue glances around with exaggerated motions, before leaning in a little bit closer, giving her a come-hither motion, and the naïve Princes leans in as well.

"Access. I need access to Wakanda, or at the very least its tech."

Almost reflexively a frown settles on Shuri's face, but Klaue immediately straightens, brushing the little girl off as he turns around, one hand rubbing his neck as he muses out loud.

"Ach, what am I saying. There's no way a little girl like you could help me with that. After all, I need it for a secret, a very big secret, and little girls really wouldn't be able to help me with it…"

Indignation flashes in Shuri's eyes at the dismissal, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Sure I can help! I'm the smartest person I know! Tell me your secret! Tell me!"

Half-turning with lidded eyes, Klaue lets out smile at the fuming child.

"Oh, I was going to try and kill that monster."

Giving a theatrical sigh while Shuri's eyes widen in shock, Klaue turns his back on her again, shaking his head in defeat.

"But I can't kill him with what I have now. No, no, that wouldn't work at all. To kill a monster that dangerous, well, that would require some really powerful weapons. Weapons like, say Wakanda has perhaps? But it's no use, obviously you can't help me, and without your knowledge of Wakanda I'll never be able to get it. Ah well, I guess I just have to give up and let the monster go-"

"NO!"

From where we're standing, me and Ramonda can see the cruel smile from on the criminals face, before he schools it into a wondering, innocent expression, turning back around to face the murderous looking eleven-year-old.

"No? What 'no'?"

"I won't let him get away. I'm gonna kill him." Shuri hisses, and I can tell that the sheer anger and conviction in the child's tone takes even Klaue off guard, though he barely lets it show.

"Really? My what a coincidence! But no, no, no, I can't let a little girl try and kill that monster! I used to be a criminal, but I'm not evil! No, you cannot help me-"

"Yes I can! I'll lead you in and out of Wakanda, so you can get what you need to kill him. But I have one condition." Shuri demands and Klaue gives an indulgent chuckle, victory shining in his eyes.

"What's your condition then kind?"

Shuri surprises all adults present when she fearlessly walks up to the arms dealer and pokes him in the chest with her tiny finger.

"You help me get stronger. The best teachers. The best weapons. I'm good with inventing, so you promise to get me what I need for it. And when you track down the monster that killed mom, you'll take me with you."

Klaue is silent at the Princess' declaration, and I can see some measure of respect rise within him as he stares at the amount of determination the little girl is displaying. After a few tense seconds, he gives a reluctant nod, holding out a grimy hand for Shuri to shake.

"Deal."

There's no hesitation as Shuri slips her hand in Klaue's bigger one, her grip firm and steady.

"Deal."

And with a shake of their hands, Klaue straightens and turns away from the little girl and walks slowly into the underbrush.

"Well? You coming? The monster isn't going to wait for us to show up and kill it you know?"

"Wait, I'm coming, I'm coming!" Shuri calls after the arms dealer, picking up her dirtied back-pack and running off after him.

"You know, I should walk in front. I'm the one who knows the way after all." The girl's voice drifts back to me and Ramonda, Klaue giving a rumbling answer we can't make out, though Shuri's indignant squeak reaches us clearly.

And then the clearing is still and silent.

For about a second.

Then Ramonda whirls around, slapping me across the face.

As I rub my dimly stinging cheek (absently noting that, like with the visuals of my Astral Projection, this sensation to seemed to come from very far away in an angle that hurts to think about) the Queen Mother stands in front of me, her entire form trembling with rage.

"And what excuse do you have for this?! How will you rationalize throwing my country in disarray? How can you possibly justify driving my daughter in the arms of such a disgusting thief?"

I wait with answering the irate Queen until she's managed to collect herself a bit, though the anger doesn't fade from her eyes.

"I needed to know what your people knew about Vibranium. Howard Stark was one of the smartest people of his time, and all that he managed to do with the Vibranium he had on hand was turn it into a Frisbee."

Granted, that Frisbee had gone on to become the most iconic weapon both in this universe and my old one, but still.

"I'm not in this to save the planet, Your Highness, but neither do I want to end up standing amongst its ashes. My entry into your country would either result in Erik's immediate death, in which case I would have to run like hell. If he was allowed within ten feet of your husband however, then either he would kill him or be killed. Either way he would provide ample distraction and he has. Him actually managing to claim the throne is not something I had expected, but that is a result of your customs and traditions, not a fault of my own."

Clearly the Queen isn't convinced by my arguments if her flaring nostrils are anything to go by, so I try a different approach.

"Think of it this way. After consolidating his powerbase, Killmonger will most likely try to expand: there's no better way for a ruler to become popular than having a couple of victories under his belt. Now, I have no idea how much he'll end up conquering and honestly I don't much care, but I can guarantee that the living conditions within his borders will be vastly better than they are currently in those areas. But with the rise of Wakanda comes a rise of tech-levels in those countries, while an increase in the length of her borders means more and more people slipping through the cracks, taking technology back to their own people to reverse-engineer. As a whole, the development of the world will increase."

"At what cost? Global conflict on a scale that we have only seen twice before? How much blood must be spilt before the 'positives' of your plan become reality for those other than yourself?" the Queen spits at me, and though I struggle to put my answer in words, I can feel my conviction growing as I reflect on all that I have done in this universe.

"There has never been advancement in this world that hasn't been achieved at the expense of someone else. That's just the Law of Equal Exchange. And I will advance myself further and further at the expense of whoever stands in my way. And when all is said and done, and I stand victorious above the broken bodies of the most terrible evils in this dimension? Then Earth shall have the greatest champion in the entire goddamned universe. That's their positive, your Highness."

The Queen draws back at my answer, a disapproving look on her face, but I merely feel confidence as my answer truly sinks in with me.

I had been so focused on gathering personal power that I had lost sight of any long-term goals. I was going to need a purpose beyond becoming omnipotent, or within months of actually achieving that level of power I'd probably try to blow my own brains out in order to try and alleviate the boredom.

The likes of the Collector and the Grandmaster had possibly only survived since the beginning of the universe by being consumed by their obsession to the point it governed every moment of their immortal lives.

Becoming a champion to Earth seemed like as good a way as any to spend the rest of my infinite time in this universe.

I feel something click (it's hard to put into words, but there's definitely something shifting in the metaphysical manifestation of my soul) inside me as my realization fully sets in and I can see Ramonda respond to it as well, her lips thinning to the point they're one flat line.

"You have faced your past deeds and remained firm in your resolve. You are ruthless, but not without mercy. You are guilt-free, but not incapable of remorse. Bast has judged you, and you have not been found wanting. You have completed your first trial."

I suppose that hearing that I was half-way there to not getting my soul obliterated by an irate Panther Goddess should have me jumping with joy, but as I'm emotionally strung out, I simply give the Queen a serious nod.

Ramonda glares at me with an unreadable expression on her face, before turning her head away from me, looking at where her daughter ran off after Klaue in her quest for vengeance.

"My daughter will come for you. She's smart, far smarter than anyone I know. If she's allowed to grow, then she'll eventually be able to hunt you down. She will kill you."

She glances at me as she speaks and I can hear her unspoken question.

Will I go after her daughter and put a stop to her before she becomes a danger to me?

It's not that I don't consider it at all, but I rather quickly decide against doing so. For all that she might become a threat to me later, right now she's a kid. An angry, scared and hurt kid that wants my head on a platter, but still just a kid.

Then there's also the fact that I'd have to track her down first. I don't know if the scenes that Ramonda have shown me are all in the past or in real-time. Hell, given the weirdness of this dimension and the fact a God is involved, there's even a chance I'm looking at the future. Which means I have absolutely no clue where she and Klaue currently are, or where they will end up going and considering the bee-hive Africa has become, I rather get out of here sooner than later.

So let her grow; I would as well. And in five to ten years, we would see which one of us had grown the most.

So I merely shrug at Ramonda's words, and repeat the words I had told Killmonger what seemed to be so long ago.

"She will try."

Apparently catching the hidden meaning of my answer, the Queen merely gives a nod, her eyes still fixed on where her daughter disappeared as she addresses me.

"I go to the Green Veld now, where my soul shall join my ancestors and my beloved husband. We shall be waiting for the arrival of our children, but mark my words, Michael McCole. If our daughter joins us before her time, there will be hell to pay."

I open my mouth to respond, but Ramonda cuts me off, as both she and our surroundings start to fade away into infinite darkness again.

"I leave you to your next trial, Mr. McCole. It shall begin… now."

And with that word, the darkness around me disappears as sound and colour rush back in against and I fall to my knees in golden sand. As I hurriedly glance around, I find myself in an arena of some kind, though all of the stands are completely empty and the utter silence is deafening.

"ARE YOU PREPARED TO FACE THE TRIAL OF THE BODY, PLANEWALKER?" Whirling around I see Bast lying down in a separate section of the stands, reminding me somewhat of where Roman Emperors are always portrayed as sitting in arenas.

As I look around in confusion, the gate on the other end of the arena suddenly gives a loud groan of tortured metal before it slowly begins to rise up, dust and sand falling down in thin streams.

Within the gaping maw of the arena I can see two orange flames light up in the darkness, before they slowly come closer to the sands of the arena, finally stepping into the light, making me gasp in shock as I fully see my opponent.

It's me.

Or rather, that darker side of me that had begun to crop up more and more since enhancing myself with Hulk-blood. Instead of appearing like my original body like my Astral Projection does, it looks like my new body still currently lying on a table in the middle of nowhere, but… meaner looking somehow.

The skeleton is even more pronounced, and instead of merely glowing veins its entire skin is burning a reddish colour, while its eyes seem to actually be two pools of liquid fire. It snarls at me, showing pointed teeth and a slobbering tongue, but it's held back by enormous chains made of shadow which stretch back into the darkness behind it.

But it shouldn't be here! It shouldn't be separate from me, right?! Sure I had gotten more aggressive since taking in two serums which had shown to be detrimental to a person's emotional stability, but so far Bruce Banner had been the only one to actually develop a completely separate identity.

"What the hell is this?" I whisper in shock, but Bast has clearly heard me, as she gives a deep rumbling chuckle that shakes the stands with its sheer presence.

"ENHANCING YOURSELF WITH SERUMS AS YOU HAVE DONE HAS FED THE DARKNESS INHERENT IN ALL CREATURES. EMPOWERING YOURSELF WITH MAGIC MERELY GAVE IT FORM AND SENTIENCE."

At that, the monster in front of me strains against his shackles, letting out a roar powerful to blast the sand around its feet away.

"WELL. FORM AT THE VERY LEAST." Bast says with a dismissive turn of her head.

"But how?! Blonksy went mad from Hulk's blood, yes, but he didn't get an alter-ego. And whatever else happened to Killian's brain after Extremis, he didn't have that inside it!" I scream, pointing at the frothing manifestation of my rage.

"TRUE ENOUGH. BUT THEN, NEITHER ONE OF THEM INGESTED A MYSTICALLY ATTUNED HERB AND THEN ENTERED THE ASTRAL PLANE WITH THE SOUL OF A PLANEWALKER. YOU ARE SOMETHING UNIQUE, AND IT SHALL BRING ABOUT YOUR DOWNFALL."

I gape like a fish out of water at the words of the Panther Goddess, my eyes glued to dark manifestation of my internal rage, before I manage to choke out a question.

"What are you even saying? Magic gave it life?"

In response, Bast shifts one her perch, turning her blazing eyes one me.

"FOR A CERTAIN DEFINITION OF LIFE. MAGIC IS A COSMIC FORCE OF UNIMAGINABLE POWER AND UNKNOWABLE RULES. MANEFESTING EMOTIONS SUCH AS WILLPOWER, FEAR, HOPE AND EVEN RAGE ARE NOT THINGS THAT ARE OUTSIDE THE REALMS OF WHAT IT IS CAPABLE OF."

Straightening from her seated position, Bast places one enormous claw on the hewn stone in front of her, bending her billowing form forwards a bit in order to better trap me with her burning gaze.

"ENOUGH TALK. THIS SHALL BE YOUR SECOND TRIAL: SURVIVE."

And with those words, the shadowy chains fall away from the manifestation, and it blasts across the sand of the arena, slamming into me with all the might of a freight-train. The hit throws me clear across the rest of the arena and embeds me in the towering wall that lines the sand.

As it sprints towards me for a second hit, all I can do is feebly lift up my arms in defence, but it proves useless as it ignores my guard completely and sends its burning fist straight into my face.

And all I know is pain.

/
Fun Fact: Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman tried to talk Stan Lee and Steve Ditko out of introducing Spider-Man because he insisted that kids hate spiders.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 8: TRIAL OF THE BODY​

I fall to my knees in the golden sand, blood staining my teeth as I gasp in pain. I have barely any time to react to the sensation of having my nose crushed, before I can feel a great burning hand grasp me by the neck and hurl me towards the other side of the arena.

I land in a cloud of dust, coughing desperately as I feel pain lance through my back. There's just one thought consuming me as I can hear the manifestation of my inner darkness approach with snarling sounds.

'Why am I not dead yet?'

I have been smacked around for nearly a full minute now, and yet all I can think about is the fact that just that first hit should've been more than enough to turn every bone in my body into dust. Before I can think further, a foot slams down on my back and I can't hold back a scream as my entire mind is filled with pain.

The foot is only removed after what feels like an eternity to me (given that this is the Astral Plane, it very well might have been) and I can feel myself lifted off the sand by my throat, my rage personified holding me so we are face to face, mindless anger burning in those glowing eyes.

'Think! Think! Goddammit, if you don't think you'll die! Think asshole!'

But I can't think, because a flaming fist buries itself in my stomach, though the hand around my throat is keeping me from flying away, leaving me in the perfect position for another three strikes in rapid succession.

By then, my opponent has apparently become bored of using me as his punching bag and lets go of my throat. However, before I can even hit the ground, a foot slams into my chest and once more I'm thrown across the length of the arena.

Once again I slam painfully in the sand, throwing up a cloud of dust, but as I'm lying there on my back staring at the inky blackness that is the sky above me, gasping for air, I finally notice something.

The weird properties of my Astral Projection.

It wasn't just that the angles were… wrong in a way that would make Escher scratch his head in confusion, or that I just knew that there was a depth to my form stretching in dimensions only H.P. Lovecraft himself had understood.

It was also the way that sensations registered.

The faint stinging feeling of Ramonda's slap came to mind, the way it felt as if the impact of her slap had to travel unimaginable distances before the pain impulse actually reached my brain. The pain of getting punched by the rage manifestation was simply so all-consuming that I hadn't noticed it, but I suspected even its attacks were muted somehow.

Like I wasn't really completely here, or at least on the same dimensional level.

Of course, that realization did absolutely nothing in stopping the manifestation from descending upon my prone body, knees on either side of my shoulders, and to begin punching my face.

'Think!'

A punch slams into my face, snapping it to the right.

'Come on, you need to think!'

Another punch, this time slamming my face to the left.

'You're dying here! Come on think of something, anything!'

But I can't think, because this time a punch descends with such violence it knocks loose a tooth, spraying blood across the sand.

I can't think.

I can't think.

I can't think.

I can't-

A punch nearly bursts my eye socket, but the lancing pain gives a sudden clarity to my thoughts.

This is the Trial of the Body.

Of course thinking isn't doing me any good. I'm up against a manifestation of all of my darkest emotions, and I'm trying to outthink it. Considering the blood that is splattered across the sand, that approach clearly isn't working out for me.

So instead, I just stop thinking entirely and just react.

As the monster on top of me rears both arms back in order to deliver a brutal hammer-blow down upon my head, I let out a roar of my own and punch it straight in the diaphragm.

The result is… interesting to say the least.

My fist sinks far further into its flesh than it has any right to, but it also feels weird, as if I'm just stretching my arm further and further out, no end in sight. The non-Euclidian angles of my body sharpen somehow, and despite that fact that the fist of my Astral Projection is just human size, there's an imprint the size of Cap's shield on its chest.

The rage monster gets thrown off of me, but even that is wrong somehow. Instead of being blasted away due to the impact of a high-powered object (like I had been forced to endure during our entire fight) instead it almost looks as if it's being carried away from me by some giant, invisible fist.

This time, it's the manifestation which crashes into the arena wall creating a cloud of dust, and as I slowly struggle to me feet, I can see Bast sit up a bit straighter at the sudden turn-around.

A mindless roar blasts away the swirling dust, and the being made of rage seems just even more pissed off now. Before I can even think of my next move, it once again blasts off towards me, springing across the blood-stained sand on all fours, so instead of thinking I once again react.

Right as the darker side of me reaches me, raising one arm the size of tree trunk with the intention of pulverizing my head, I strike as well, our fists impacting each other's face at the same time, that feeling of being… larger underneath the skin of this Projection filling my senses.

As every time before now, I'm sent flying by the sheer force that monstrous part of me possesses, but this time I'm not the only one eating dirt. Even as I'm sent flying, I can see through my one non-swollen eye that the monster is blasted into the sand as if being bitch-slapped by the hand of God.

I crash into the unforgiving stone of the walls again, fire shooting up through my spine and I cry out in pain as I fall to my knees.

Through my one good eye I look up, supporting myself on trembling arms and I can see the monster work itself to its feet as well, while behind him, not having moved an inch, sits Bast, regally gazing down upon our duel like an Emperor watching a gladiator match.

Something about that image strikes a chord within me, and for the briefest of moments a scene flashes before my eyes: a city of skyscrapers, twisted onto its side, while an old man imperiously glares down upon two combatants wielding swords as large as they are, the one looking like a ghostly version of the other shouting something about being King with mad glee.

The scene is forcefully removed from my head as a flaming knee strikes it with enough strength to shatter stone, and I'm blasted back into the crater I had already made in the arena wall.

The monster makes to punch me again, but I shoot forwards as well, my open hand grasping his fist (but even that's wrong somehow, those angles that are off, those dimensions that are just too large making it feel like an enormous hand is clamping down upon its entire arm) gritting my bloodstained teeth against the feel of my skin burning, before I kick it in the chest.

The manifestation is carried much further away from me than my leg is actually long and it crashes into the opposite wall much like I just had.

I can tell that I'm on the right track in abandoning thinking my way out of the Trial of the Body, but I can also tell that there's still more to it.

Both my Astral Projection and my inner darkness climb to their feet, and we only lock gazes for a moment before it lets out a roar filled with mindless hate and charges once more at me.

This time I run out to meet it (though it's vastly faster than I am) and as we meet on my half of the arena its beefy arms descend down upon me with the intention of literally hammering me into the ground. This time I reach up to catch its attack, and even though I feel like the bones in my arms are snapping upon impact, I remain standing, sweat and blood pouring down my face in equal measure.

It roars in my face, its fiery breath nearly burning my eyebrows off and acting purely on instinct I roar back (though its far less impressive of course, on the account of not rattling my bones with the sheer amount of volume)

But this can't be it, right?

Just wailing on one another, until either one of us is beaten to a pulp? Sure, Bast might think my physical pain is amusing, but why use this manner to go about it? Why pit my original body from my original universe (which is probably part of why I don't really fit in this dimension) against the impulses of my new body?

My frantic thoughts are interrupted by the being kicking me in the chest, sending me to the ground yet again, but when it descends on me with a stomp I lash out in instinct by kicking it in the side.

Though my foot only makes contact with a bit of skin above its hip, the monster's entire body is lifted up, the skin yielding underneath an invisible force as large as it is, the Lovecraftian angles of my body whirling and shifting in ways that make me dizzy as I look at them too closely.

The monster is thrown clear from me and bounces a couple of times across the sand before slamming into the gate he had first come from, crumpling the metal around its massive frame. As both me and my opponent struggle to our feet again (whatever damage I have managed to inflict upon it, if any at all, has already healed) I can't help but think back towards that scene that flashed in my mind moments ago.

I glance up at where Bast is reclining, and I can feel hate building inside of me as I glare at the unmoving Goddess. Time to ruin her little show.

Every sane thought I have in my mind is railing against my actions, screaming that the risk is too great, bombarding me with every what-if scenario they can think off, crying out that what I'm about to do is a bad idea in every way, shape and form.

Thing is, this is the Trial of the Body.

This is no place for thinking, but acting.

And so I act… by doing nothing.

The manifestation has already blasted off, one of its hands lighting up with a white hellish glow, fingers held straight in a piercing move, but I don't put up a guard (which would be futile anyways) or even try to dodge or just run like hell.

I keep standing right where I am, arms held loosely at my side, broken and beaten but unbowed.

And then its hand pierces straight through my chest.

The entirety of the abuse I have suffered during my fight doesn't even compare to a tenth of the sheer amount of agony I'm enduring right now. I can't even scream, as the pain has completely paralyzed every muscle and nerve in my body.

And for a moment, I think I've made a mistake.

That this will be the end, just because I thought I was being clever. That this is where I'll die, despite everything I've done trying to avoid that fate.

But then I realize something strange.

I'm not dead.

Focusing my one good eye on the monster that currently has his arm shoved inside my chest (it's up to its elbow inside my ribcage, but there's nothing emerging through my back, as if I'm far larger on the inside than the outside) I notice that it stands completely frozen and for the first time since I've laid eyes upon it, it doesn't have an expression of mindless hate on its twisted face.

Instead, it looks utterly confused.

"I get it." I whisper through a sore throat, despite the fact that by all rights I had just had my lungs utterly destroyed.

At my words, the manifestations eyes snap towards my bloodied face, confusion warring with rage, but before rage can win I keep talking.

"You're a part of me. Which means you're scared of the same things as me. You don't want to die, I get that, for fucks sakes I get that. I want to live as well. So work with me here. Because if it's up to her-" at which I point my bashed in head in Bast's direction, who has gone utterly still after my suicidal move, "-then one of us will die. Lend me your strength and I swear I'm gonna do everything I can to keep us alive. Anything. I can help you! You just have to let me."

The monster in front of me keeps his eyes locked on mine, his free hand clenching and unclenching, his entire body trembling with rage that's barely held in check. Then its burning gaze shifts from me to the Panther Goddess, who has yet to move since she saw me apparently allowing my darker side to murder me.

"She wants us to die. Either one is fine, she doesn't care which. So why give her that satisfaction? You could play her game and kill me and a part of you will die. Or you can work with me. And together, we'll beat the ever-loving shit out of whoever was stupid or weak enough to challenge us. If we're apart we'll die, but if we're one, then we can become unstoppable."

The manifestation had unwaveringly been staring straight into Bast's burning violet eyes, but as I finish my plea, it slowly looks back towards me. Briefly it seems to contemplate something, but then I realize that I'm looking at the manifestation of the subconscious feelings that have been developed by my super serums and given sentience by the mystical properties of a Vibranium-enhanced herb.

A better description would be to say that the manifestation was merely taking the time to let its feelings guide it to a decision.

And apparently it had come to one, as the arm inside my chest is glowing a blindingly white and I can feel my torso start burning.

Fear and pain consume me in equal measure, but all I can do is widen my eye and let out a shocked gasp as I can't seem to manage to form words anymore.

But then I see that the manifestation is still looking at me without rage still consuming its expression, and once again I'm floored to find that, despite having suffered damage beyond what any human should be able to survive, I'm still not dead yet.

As the heat and light in my chest keep increasing I can see that the rest of my baser parts is beginning to light up as well, until it's more a burning silhouette of white light rather than a defined being.

Bast has placed both enormous paws on the balustrade in front of her, a growl coming from her that shakes the stands, but it's too late to stop whatever's happening to me.

Which is when the manifestation explodes.

The entire arena is consumed by a swirling whirlwind of fire, with me at the epicentre. I imagine this is what standing on the surface of the sun is like as the firestorm keeps roaring around me, licks of flame drawing closer and closer in an ever-tightening circle.

Soon I'm in a column of the hottest flame I've ever felt, and the fire start to cover my skin, flowing over it like a stream over a smoothed riverbed. I fall to my knees, curling up in a ball in a futile attempt to protect myself against the agony of being burned alive, even as the flames keep drawing ever inwards, being sucked inside my body through the flaming crevice in my chest.

However, eventually even this torture comes to an end, and the last swirls of flame sink underneath my skin, leaving me to gasp deeply for air for the first time in what feels like hours.

And as I do, I notice that I feel… good.

No, scratch that, I feel fucking amazing.

Gone are the aching pains that had begun to build up during my gladiatorial match, gone is the feeling of being on a different wavelength than the rest of the dimension. There's still that sense of being somehow more than my current form, but at least now it feels real, tied down to reality in a way.

And it's my new form as well, though the angles are still off, and the dimensions are still too deep somehow.

But it's me. More than the unfamiliar body I had woken up in more than twenty years ago and had enhanced, more even than the dizzying original body that I had entered the Astral Plane with.

This was all me.

Opening my now healed eyes, I see that the entire floor of the arena is now twisted, glowing glass, with me standing in the epicentre of all that destruction. Slowly straightening (while revelling in the absence of all the damage I had suffered only minutes before) I turn towards the still standing Bast, who despite the near cataclysmic event of both of my halves merging, remains completely unruffled.

Silence hangs thick in the air between us as we just stare at each other, before Bast finally breaks it.

"PLANEWALKER. YOU HAVE SURVIVED AND THUS PASSED THE TRIAL OF THE BODY. YOU HAVE PROVEN TO BE WORTHY OF THE POWER OF THE HERB."

She sounds as if she's tasting something foul, but despite my anger towards the goddess I have enough sense of self-preservation left to not call her out on it.

"YOU ARE FREE TO RETURN TO THE MORTAL REALM. WITH THIS, I SHALL GIVE YOU YOUR ORDER."

With that, the Panther Goddess leaps from the stands, landing on the glowing glass of the arena without even a whisper, her shadowed paws ghosting across the burning surface as if it weren't even there, before she halts in front of me, her violet eyes burning into my own flaming ones.

"SAVE EARTH."

And with that I hear a finger-snap in the background, and with that the world around me fades away into particles of dust, until only two glowing purple suns remain in the endless void around me.

Then those to fade out, and I shoot awake with a terrified gasp.

It takes a moment for me to recognize my surroundings, but as I start to regain control over my breathing I realize I'm lying on the table in the largest hut in a village in the middle of nowhere in the heart of Africa.

Hearing soft snoring from behind me, I vault over the table in a back-flip, while in mid-air I hook my toes underneath the edge of the table flipping it into the air as well. The moment I land perfectly on the balls of my feet, my hands shoot out and grasp the table, holding it out so it can be used as either a shield or a bat.

All in the span of second.

Slowly lowering the table, I glance in wonder down at my body. There aren't any visible changes other than somehow looking even fitter than before, but there's this whole new feeling to my body. As if I can feel every single part of it down the finest detail, and yet have full control over all of them. It makes me feel as if my skin had always been somewhat too tight, but now it had been turned into a handmade suit, specially crafted for my body to absolute perfection.

Seeing that the snoring had come from Sterns who was lying on a cot in the corner, I stretch my arms above my head as I stare longingly at the open space at the other end of the large hut.

Not being able to contain myself, I jump forwards, landing on my hands. There's not a waver in my form, not a moment of unbalance. Then I slowly remove one of my hands, but it feels completely natural, as if I'm still completely in tune with every single action my body makes.

And then I stretch my fingers.

I weighed in at somewhere under 470 pounds (or 213 kilo's as the rest of the world would say) and yet I was merely standing on the tips of my fingers, without any noticeable effort or the slightest twitch or waver in my form.

I use my other hand in order to flip myself upright again, a massive grin firmly glued to my face.

Still, as awesome as being enhanced by the Heart-Shaped Herb feels, that had not been the main reason for ingesting the Black Panther power-up.

But before I can try to master the mysterious ways of the Arcane Arts, I had something else to do first.

Walking towards where Sterns is still blissfully snoring away, I gently shake him awake.

"No mom, five more minutes please…."

Right, I firmly shake him awake.

"AGH! Stay back! Back! I know karaté!" Sterns yells in blind panic, whirling around and jumping out of bed with such vigour, his legs end up tangled in the thin sheet and he comes crashing down flat on the dirt floor.

Sitting down on the side of the bed, I simply look on with a grin as Sterns (with a lot of rather inventive curses) frees himself from the clinging grasp of his sheet, before he finally sees me, my glowing eyes, veins and heartbeat making me easy to spot in the near-darkness.

"Michael? Oh thank God, you're finally awake." Sterns explodes with an exhausted sigh, walking over and sitting down next to me, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes.

The sheer relief in his tone catches me off guard.

"What makes you say that? You look panicked. How long was I out for?"

At my question, Sterns blindly graps for something on his bedside table, holding up a digital watch to his face with a squint.

"Well, as of right now? About sixteen hours, give or take half an hour."

Sixteen? It certainly hadn't felt like a mere sixteen hours, but then again, time did flow differently in the Astral Plane.

"What the hell happened Michael? None of the other serums took this long, and I've never seen you so… still before. After six hours I posted someone by your side in shifts just to keep an eye on whether or not you were even still breathing."

Briefly I wonder how I should answer the concerned scientist, before settling on a half-truth as he probably wouldn't believe me if I told him the whole truth.

"Honestly Sterns, I either went on a combination of the biggest acid-trip in history combined with an out-of-body experience that would put enlightened guru's to shame, or I just had a religious experience."

For a few moments, Sterns just stares at me with a flat expression on his face, before he rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"Only you would take the psychedelic reactions of an unknown, glowing plant as a religious experience McCole. Only you."

Standing up from the bed, Sterns makes his way to the other side of the room, where a basic kitchenette is placed and starts going through the mystical process of making himself a cup of coffee (as I've never liked coffee in either lifetime I don't know what half the steps are for, but the moment I think that my new brain starts feeding me information on possible uses of all the objects Sterns is handling).

"So, what's next?" the scientist asks over his shoulder and at his question I fold my hands underneath my chin and try to envision my map with the MCU timeline on it (which ends up being ridiculously easy to do with my new eidetic memory).

"We can't stay here. Not just here I mean, in this village, but in Africa itself. Wakanda will try to expand soon and this entire continent might end up being a hotbed for spy-activity. And a white 8-foot tall behemoth and his even whiter, literal egghead of a friend will stick out like a pair of sore thumbs." I say with a wry smile on my face, prompting a chuckle from Sterns.

"To be fair, it'd be pretty hard to find a demographic in which we wouldn't stand out."

I laugh at his joke, but secretly my mind flashes to the Afterlife, the village built for Inhumans by Daisy Johnson's mother. We could fit right in there (disregarding the whole, you know, murdering all humans bit).

"So where to shall we run, oh fearless leader?"

I barely withhold a snort at the unintentional irony in Sterns question, before I re-examine my 12 Step Program. It's November now, which means that I still have roughly five months before Loki's attack on Earth.

I have achieved my primary goal of at least managing to survive the immediate area of an Avengers battle and I have my hands on one of the most versatile materials on the planet and likely in the universe (Uru notwithstanding, but actually managing to get my grubby little hands on any of that would probably require lengths I'm unwilling to go to).

So what now?

As I keep looking at all of the names and events in my timeline a plan starts to form. Yes some of those events have yet to happen years down the line, but the people involved are very much alive today.

Alive… and useful.

"America. We're going to America, preferably New York or somewhere in its proximity. And then, we're gonna start making some friends."

As the kettle comes to a boil behind him, Sterns furrows his brow.

"Friends? What friends?"

Looking up at the scientist with a mischievous grin, I can't help but let out a chuckle.

"Tell me something Doc. Does the name Noah Burnstein ring any bells?"

/
Fun Fact: Marvel Comics and DC Comics have co-owned the trademark for the phrase "super hero" since 1981. They pursued this action because the toy company Mego, which made licensed toys of DC characters, had beat them to it. Mego gave up the trademark when the two companies threatened legal action.

 

[Bakkughan]

Maya Hansen was up to her elbows in her work, documents piled up high on her desk as she worked long into the night. She had been working for close to fourteen hours on end now, and while every other sane person would have packed up and gone home long ago, Hansen refused to give up, even as the sun went down under the horizon, her only lightsource her desklamp and the stars outside.

Or rather, she couldn't give up.

Her backers had been rather insistent on seeing results after all, and they were the kind of backers that when they insisted upon something, then they would receive that something, no matter the cost.

At that very moment, her telephone started to ring.

'Speak of the devil…' the scientist thought to herself, and given who she suspected was on the other end of the line she didn't even know wheter she was talking metaphorically or not.

Lifting the phone to her ear (making sure to steady her hand with her other arm in order to keep it from trembling too much) she took the call.

"Doctor Hansen. I do hope you have some good news for us this time. We would be most… displeased if we were to discover that our funding into your little think tank had all gone up in thin air."

Hansen chose to ignore the fact that technically A.I.M. was backed by the U.S. Government, though there were clearly individuals within that were actually pulling the strings behinds A.I.M.'s research, sending them more money than she had ever seen and waving away every objection FDA might have (which probably would be every single one).

"We are in fact seeing some promising results. Massive regeneration of damaged tissue, and even restoration of tissue that is completely lost. The exothermic reactions are interesting in that-"

"Yes, Doctor Hansen, I do read the reports you send us. But I'm not interested in what you've chosen to reveal in your reports. What you've chosen not to send us, now that's really something worth investigating, wouldn't you agree?"

"I can assure you, I don't know what-"

"Are your subjects stable, Doctor Hansen?"

Clenching and unclenching her free hand in nervousness, Maya swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

"Doctor Hansen. Are your subjects stable?"

"Ah well, we do have subjects that remain within nominal levels and I believe-"

"Yes, nominal levels you say. Unfortunately for you, Doctor Hansen, I do not consider regular injections, tests and constant regulation a stable subject."

"We are getting there, sir. Every subject that survives the initial injection is a continuing source of data on how the virus interacts with the bio-electric system and metabolic processes in the body. We just need more time."

"Yes. More. Something that I have noticed in our conversations with you, Doctor Hansen, is that this word just keeps propping up somehow. More money. More researchers. More time. Just more and more and more and more and yet: we have actually to see any returns on our rather substantial investment, Doctor Hansen."

She didn't know what annoyed her more; his constant attempts at getting a rise out of her by repeating her name so often, drawing it out in an oily drawl, or the fact that it was working.

"Making super soldiers isn't easy, sir."

"No. No it certainly isn't. Which is why I was so surprised at the reports I received about that little showdown on the docks. I'm sure even you've heard something about that as well, even as holed up as you are in that facility of ours, Doctor Hansen."

"Yes sir, I have."

"Ah, good. You see, the thing that made me so surprised was that investigations of the firefighters, the police, both CIA and FBI, as well as our own operatives all came to the same conclusion: this was an attack from somewhere else on the pier, rather than something that spontaneously happened from the site of the car wrecks."

Maya felt something pricking in her eye and realized with a start that she was completely covered in ice-cold sweat.

"Oh. What a surprising conclusion." She said, hoping that her voice remained neutral and that the tremor in her tone was only in her imagination.

"Yes. Very surprising, especially when one takes into consideration that it was you Doctor Hansen, who told us that it was just probably one of the Extremis-subjects… malfunctioning."

Maya opened and closed her mouth a few times, though no sound escaped her. A chuckle came from the phone, but it was a sound cloaked in a hidden promise of malevolence, rather than just a sound of mirth and the main scientist of A.I.M. felt her heart skip a couple of beats as it wormed its way into her head.

"Of course, we all make mistake sometimes, do we not, Doctor Hansen. But imagine my sheer shock when I hear whispers from Africa. Whispers of a demon, crippling gangs and taking Ulysses Klaue hostage of all things, only to sell the entirety of the man's stock and tear off towards the jungle, a JSOC Ghost in tow."

Swallowing down her fear, Maya tried to answer the man's unspoken question.

"And exactly how is this… demon, relevant to A.I.M. or the Extremis Project?"

"Because, Doctor Hansen, all the reports agree on one thing: the demon has eyes of fire." The voice said, and the faux warm tone of voice was gone, instead replaced by a cold rage, barely contained by the merest shreds of civility.

Maya felt the room spin at the man's words, and gripped the phone with such strength her knuckles turned white out of fear of suddenly dropping it (much like she felt had just happened to her heart, in fact).

"Someone, somewhere, is running around with Extremis in their bodies. And they. Don't. Blow. UP!"

"Sir, I don't-"

"You keep asking for time and money and recourses, Doctor Hansen, and we've been more than fair in acquiescing to your request, content with remaining in the background and allowing you a rather… unique amount of independence. We did this on the ground that we held the utter conviction that you wouldn't be so foolish as to make us regret doing so. Clearly, we need to readjust that belief."

"I promise you that we are working as hard and fast as we can-"

"You're not fast enough! In fact, you are already behind, Doctor Hansen! There's already an Extremis subject out there, and it's not one of ours. This is unacceptable, Doctor Hansen. We entered into a deal with you in return for super soldiers, and so far the only one who has seemed to have profited from it is some shmuck in Africa, knocking over gangs and arms dealers!"

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Maya tried to keep her fear from coming through in her voice.

"We have made great strides in the creation of the Extremis virus, sir. It's the host that is the problem, and it's a problem that we are closer to solving every day. How someone else managed to get his hands on enough of the virus to enhance himself with I don't know, not to mention how he hasn't blown himself up yet. But as it is, I can work as fast as you wish me to, but all that'll amount to is more people going critical. We need something that'll allow the host to fully integrate the effects of Extremis into its DNA without getting overcharged, and finding that something will either take a ridiculous amount of luck, or consistent, careful testing and experimentation."

Breathing heavily after her rant, Maya felt her nerves singing with mounting fear as the silence on the telephone kept on stretching longer and longer. It was difficult to say what was more terrifying: the continued silence or the man's possible answer.

"We are getting impatient, Doctor Hansen. See to it that it shall be remedied in the near future. However, we are not so foolish as to neglect the use even failed subjects might have. Explain to me what 'going critical' fully entails, Doctor Hansen."

Shuddering at the way the man dragged out her name (and hating the ease with which that riled her up, just knowing that he was fully aware of it even through the phone) Maya tried to answer his question.

"Extremis users are able to consciously control the amount of heat expelled from their body, but this effect has been shown to be unstable in the event of an Extremis overload in the body. If the virus is not accepted by the body or regulated inside it, the metabolic process that causes the user to generate heat, as well as the bio-electricity harnessed by Extremis, will overload, causing the user's body to rapidly build up energy and force, causing them to explode and produce a powerful shockwave. The resulting explosion is in the excess of 3,000°C and instantly vaporizes the Extremis user's body, along with anything within a certain proximity of the explosion, leaving behind shadow-like marks of objects that were vaporized, much like in nuclear explosions."

Again there's a silence after her explanation, though this one is thankfully a lot shorter and less nerve-wracking.

"I see. Very interesting. And potentially not without its uses I suppose."

Personally Maya couldn't really see the use in having people explode in flaming conflagrations of death, and she quickly decided that she definitely didn't want to know what kind of uses the unknown man had in mind.

Ignorance is bliss, after all.

"Continue your testing, Doctor Hansen. However, the survivors of the injection are to place directly into the field. They shall be led by an associate of ours. They will of course bow to your medical expertise and recall the subjects if you deem that they are in need of a stabilizing agent, though in some cases we might… advise against such an action."

Trying (and only somewhat succeeding) to suppress the knowledge that she was just told to occasionally let men and women explode whenever her mysterious backers found that more useful than keeping them alive, Maya swallowed down her building revulsion.

"Who's the associate? Sir."

"You can see for yourself."

And with that, the line went dead. Glancing at her phone in shock, Maya's face twisted in a scowl as she drew her arm back and threw the mobile at the nearest wall, shattering it into pieces.

Falling back down into her chair with a huff, the scientist rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine coming on.

"Fucking asshole." She muttered to herself, though softly enough to barely be heard (she was half convinced every single part of this facility had been bugged, given the man's apparent knowledge on the state of her research).

"While I do not approve of the language, I can certainly understand the sentiment."

Shooting from her desk in fear, Maya looked wildly around, only to squint her eyes as the light in the hall of her office was suddenly turned on. As her eyes slowly adjusted to the glaring light, she began to make out the silhouette of a man sitting in the corner of her office.

"Who the hell are you?! How long have you been there?!"

The man shifted, and Maya could see light flash across a heavy pair of aviator glasses, set above a bushy beard, concealed by a wide hood.

"I've been here long enough. And as to who I am… I am merely a teacher, though there are those who call me terrorist. To others… I am the Mandarin."

And with that the man rose, throwing off his hood, revealing an aged face, set with hard lines and a deep tan. As the man approached her, Maya's senses kept screaming at her that he was dangerous, a predator stuck in the same room as a rabbit. She tried to back away, but after a few steps her back had hit the wall, while the self-proclaimed Mandarin kept closing in, until they were less than an arms-width apart.

For a moment, silence fell between them, the terrorist studying her face with odd little twisting motions of his head.

"I understand how… difficult these last few months must have been for you. The leader of your organization: gone. Mysterious backers, crawling out from the shadows, demanding results that you cannot deliver. And all the while, someone out there, is running around, enhanced with the very pinnacle of your work, yet you don't know how to replicate it."

Maya remained silent, noting to herself that the man had odd inflections when he spoke, as well as an accent she had never heard before.

"But, there's no need to flounder, not anymore. I am here, because you can help me, Miss Hansen, and in return, I can help you. You see, I seek to… educate America. And those, marvelous, creatures you have created… yes, they shall do very fine indeed as instruments of my lessons."

Getting the sense that the man before her was either mad or a terrorist with megalomaniac tendencies, Maya decided that staying silent was a better option than risking setting the man off.

"Those mysterious backers of yours… those people hidden in shadow, that try to control you, to chain you. They tried to shackle me as well. But while I have gladly made use of their funding, they are mistaken to think I am still bound in their grasp. I possess contacts of my own, powerful friends, ancient friends. And I can use them in order to protect you as well."

"Why?" Maya whispered

Letting out a sharp grin, the man clasped his hands behind his back and started pacing around her desk.

"Tony Stark. First his weapons decide which way victory swings in the conflicts surrounding the beautiful region of the Middle-East. And then, he no longer makes weapons, and I think that finally, there's an end to the hand of America in the war of my country. But, what descends from the sky, but none other than Tony Stark yet again, this time in a weapon that he hoards for himself and once more my people feel the sting of America, feel the toll it demands from them. No longer!" the man turned around with a roar, nearly scaring Maya to death.

"With an army of those… demons, you have created, this time it shall be my people, extracting the toll from the riches of America. Nobody will see me coming, and nobody will be able to stop me. But of course, if your backers snap up the finished product, then this shall no longer be a possibility. For now, my lessons and their agenda align, but I do not intend to let the main prize slip through my fingers."

"So you want me to exchange one master for another?" Maya said with a bitter chuckle, though the sound died in her throat when the Mandarin turned to look at her through those dark aviator glasses.

"We all have masters we must answer to, Miss Hansen."

Wiping her sweating hands on her pants, Maya looked away from the man's intense stare.

"And who's your master?"

"My masters… are the type of people who would have your head if they knew you possessed even a sliver of information about them. And they will find out."

Suppressing a shiver at the threat, Maya tried to switch to a different subject.

"What are you going to do? Are you going to remain here?"

Stroking his beard with one hand (showcasing the heavy rings he wore, one on each finger), the terrorist seemed to contemplate something, before chuckling.

"Yes, for now I shall remain upon the soil of my greatest enemy. Where better to strike at its heart, then from within?"

"You could get caught." Maya pointed out, though not out of any sense of concern for the madman, but rather out of hope that it would make him decide to finally leave.

It was useless however, as it simply made the Mandarin laugh.

"Ah, such a chance is slimmer than you think. There are very few people with the knowledge of my appearance. Besides that however, I must say that I have always rather enjoyed drama and acting."

And with that, the man just… shifted. It was still the same body, the same clothes, but the oppressive aura of danger that had been weighing down the air in the room had suddenly disappeared, making Maya feel as if she could breathe properly for the first time in hours.

It was just something in the man's stance, the way he carried himself that had completely transformed him right in front of her eyes. Reaching up, the Mandarin took off his aviator glasses, showing her his dark eyes, though they were crinkled with innocent mirth.

As he spoke, she was completely caught by surprise by the man's heavy Cockney accent, as if the man had been born and raised in the streets of London for all his life.

"Don' worry 'bout any 'o that now, luv! I'll be fine I tell ya. Just call me… Trevor, why dontja? Trevor Slattery."

//
Fun Fact: In the first Iron Man movie, while Stane is telling Stark that he has been locked out of Stark Industries, he is casually playing a piece known as "Larghetto", composed by Antonio Salieri. Salieri is remembered in history as the bitter rival and enemy of Wolfgang Mozart, and many believe that he even went as far as plotting Mozart's death. Who knows how the movie might have ended had Tony been more of a music buff.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 9: THICK SKIN​

Getting out of Africa was significantly easier than getting in. After taking our leave from the village Sterns and I had rendezvoused at (which involved a lot of crying on the part of the villagers and reluctant promises to return from Sterns) we started making our way towards the East Coast. While Cape Town was one of the bigger ports on the African continent it was also where we had first made landfall and if there were people hounding my steps (which I was convinced that there were) then going back there might put me back on their radar.

No, we were going to Mombasa in Kenya. It was the third largest port in Africa and known for two things: being corrupt and having extensive warehousing facilities. Also, it's the largest point of import for Uganda as well, which is lying directly next to it.

Which in turn lies next to Wakanda.

While travelling around Africa would increase our travel time to almost a month, it beat chancing discovery by whoever might be looking for me in South-Africa, and travelling to a port on the West Coast would mean travelling over the width of Africa by land, going through near a half-dozen countries (and subsequently a dozen border checks).

We made good time travelling through the heel of Uganda (mostly because Sterns was capable of learning even faster than me and by now was driving as if he was born in a truck) avoiding the bigger town and keeping to the side roads.

Sterns had managed to arrange for the village to give us enough supplies so we didn't have to stop during our trip for food and as I needed less sleep than the average human (I only required about three hours a day, though I was completely dead to the world during those hours) I just kept on driving through the night as Sterns slept.

We only had to stop a couple of times for gas (being as rural as it was, the village didn't exactly bother with hoarding jerry cans of fuel) during which the eggheaded scientist would stay in the cabin under a cloak, while I wore a long-sleeved shirt and sunglasses in order to hide my secondary function as a walking glow-stick.

The only real obstacle we ran into was the border-patrol when we were about to enter Kenya. As we came upon the road-block, I briefly thought about simply ramming the truck straight through, but eventually decided against it. Every guard there was armed with a machine gun, and while that wouldn't really pose a threat to me, there was a lot of sensitive equipment in the trailer which functioned much better without bullet holes in them.

Oh, right, and there was the fact that Sterns wasn't bulletproof of course.

So instead I slowed down to a halt when a particularly surly man was holding up a white-gloved hand in the universal stop sign. Walking up to my side of the cabin, he rapped on the metal with his billy club, talking to me in Ugandan.

I didn't quite catch what he was saying, but I got the gist of it, so reluctantly I got out of the truck, landing with my booted feet in the mud right in front of the guard. As I straightened, I saw the man suddenly grow a lot wearier when he noticed that he was on the same eye-level as my diaphragm.

Tilting his head back to scowl at my face, he extended one hand, palm flat as he barked another order. Seeing that I hadn't really understood, the man scowled even more severely, before switching to heavily accented English.

"Papers! Now!"

Giving a placating nod, I (slowly, as the man seemed skittish enough) slipped my hand in the back pocket of my cargo pants, retrieving a small booklet. Placing it in his hands, I simply stood and watched as the border guard opened the little book.

Of course, there were no papers inside. Whatever few identification papers I had had after leaving the orphanage had either been just the bare-bones basics, or fake. Now, however I didn't have any at all due to the simple fact that I no longer looked anything like my old pictures.

For one, on those my eyes didn't glow as if I'm some B-List monster.

So the booklet I just gave the guard was filled with empty pages.

Empty pages…. and a stack of 5.000 US dollars.

Compared to what I had made when I sold Klaue's stock, even at ridiculously low prizes, 5.000 dollars was something that I could spend without worrying about emptying my funds. It wasn't a pittance, but for a bribe it was money well spent.

Especially when you consider that 5.000 dollars is equivalent to roughly 18,6 million Ugandan shilling.

As the man's eyes fell on the stack of paper that would instantly make him a millionaire, I saw him stiffen completely, a small tremor in his hands the only thing signifying that he wasn't a statue.

As the man slowly (almost tenderly) closed the fake passport, he looked up at me with a stony expression, and briefly I wondered if I made a mistake. Don't tell me I just had to stumble on the rare incorruptible official in Uganda just as I was standing not even twenty feet away from its borders.

But then the booklet closed with a snap, and he held it out towards me, face still fixed in the same expression. Hesitantly, I grabbed my fake papers, and as I pulled it from his grasp I could see the tips of his fingers grip the stack of money, which smoothly slid out of the booklet and into in his hand as I took the passport in mine.

In a single move, born from what can only be decades of experience, his hand went across his chest, and the money disappeared underneath his buttoned shirt as he turned around, gripping his billy club.

To the other guards, it probably just looked as if he shifted his baton from one hand to the other.

Making a hand gesture to have the barrier raised, he looked over his shoulder at me (still with a scowl on his face even after I just made him a multi-millionaire, so I'm thinking this guy is either always angry, all the time, or an Inhuman with the specific mutation of not changing his expression) and gestured towards me to get back in the truck.

I wasted no time in following the order, glad I kept the engine running, and at his shouted command of "Go!" I was off through the checkpoint without a second glance.

And that's one country less between me and the completion of my next step: Step 11 recruit scientists that can be useful in enhancing me or advancing other Steps of the Program.

Step 11a: Recruit Noah Burstein and have him make me bulletproof.

Onwards, to Mombasa!

//

Mombasa is… loud. The amount of traffic is mind-boggling, and I don't mean just the streets. The port itself is an absolute madhouse of activity and there's not a berth that isn't filled to the brim with ships, cargo and people.

In a way, it's perfect for me and Sterns, as this chaos makes going around unseen a lot easier for two mutates.

On the other hand, that many people packed together means that the sounds, the sights, the smells… well, let's just say that I don't see Bruce Banner having a good time here any time soon.

Still, hive of scum and villainy as it was, it still perfectly suited my needs, and slipping a couple of dollars to a dock-worker in what seemed like an official looking vest gave us directions to a warehouse that stood empty.

Most of the vast amount of warehouses in Mombasa were currently in use to store cargo which would either be exported further inland (mainly towards Uganda) or overseas (hopefully towards America).

Which meant that the ones standing empty were the ones nobody really wanted to use unless absolutely necessary.

Looking at the hole in the roof and the army of rats in the various nooks and crannies, I certainly understood the sentiment.

Still, while it wasn't much (understatement of the year there) a few bribes had ensured that it was mine to do with whatever I pleased, guaranteed no questions asked.

'Sides the neighbors were really nice people, even if they were drug dealers.

All I had to do now was keep an ear to the ground (figuratively of course, I think even Extremis would have trouble combating the myriad of diseases that flooded the dirty streets of the harbor) in order to spot a ship that would head towards America.

Unfortunately, the first ship that went even remotely in that direction wouldn't leave in over a week.

Fortunately, that ship would go immediately to New York.

Unfortunately, driving from New York City to the ferry in Georgia (which was the only legal access point to Seagate Penitentiary) was a twelve hour trip.

Hopefully Burstein only commuted to the prison, instead of actually living on the island, but knowing my luck that wouldn't be the case. Which sucked, because while springing some of the inmates was a really interesting idea (Justin Hammer, for all his faults, had at one point commanded an army of robots. At least, for a short while) I think that freeing supervillains from prison might place too much heat on me.

You see what I did there? Because the Extremis… and heat… oh never mind.

So no, if I could grab Burstein outside of the prison, then that would be great as it could be seen as the man just suddenly quitting his job. However, if I went in there (which with my altered form would certainly raise questions I'd rather not answer) and then took him, it would certainly be seen as a kidnapping, which would bring down the authorities on me.

But if how did I find out where he lived? And if I approached him at home, would he even be able to perform the experiment or did he require equipment within Seagate? And on and on the list of pros and cons went, since I realized that how I handled Burstein would shape how I would handle the other scientists as well.

Whatever approach I would end up using would tell me what to do and also what not to do if I went after the other people on my list.

So, grab him at home, or at work?

This dilemma kept tumbling around in my brain even when we managed to 'book' passage on the cargo ship (it's amazing, having money! It makes bribing people so easy!) and I was still thinking about it after we'd loaded in the truck (Sterns had spent his time waiting on me to arrive from Wakanda fixing it and now he'd gotten attached to 'Oliver') and I hadn't stopped thinking about it even when we were already out at sea.

Finally Sterns got fed up with my moping (his words, not mine. I insisted I was plotting. He disagreed) and decided to lift my (his) spirits.

By hitting me over the head with a wrench.

"OW!"

Sure I was durable enough to not really get damaged other than a light scratch which healed itself in seconds, but damn, that didn't mean it didn't hurt!

"Goddammit Sterns, what the hell was that for!"

Completely unbothered by my fuming expression, the egghead turned back towards where he had Oliver's engine block set up with an uncaring shrug, fiddling around with it in order to give his 'little friend' more torque.

"Looking at the same sullen expression on your face for almost a week was getting boring. So I decided to have you make a new one."

"What kind of bullshit excuse is that!?"

Looking at me over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow, the scientist let out a cheeky grin.

"It worked, didn't it?"

My annoyance soared to new heights, and there was almost literally smoke pouring from my ears, but I took a deep breath which I let out in a great heaving sigh (almost setting the papers with the rough outline of my plan on fire) as I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"This is important Sterns. I have absolutely no idea how to go about recruiting people to my cause, or even how to keep a small group in line and following my lead."

Reaching up to his elbow into Oliver's engine, Sterns gave a thoughtful grunt.

"You seemed to do fine with me. And Klaue. And Killmonger."

"To be fair, you didn't need much convincing. And I forced Klaue to work for me under the threat of dismemberment, which last I checked, doesn't really build a healthy working relationship. And Killmonger, well he was angry enough that all I had to do was mix some lies with some truths, and then point him in the direction I needed him to go."

He also seemed to do fine without me.

While conflicts (skirmishes, shoot-outs, assassinations that kinda thing) kept occurring all over the world, courtesy of the hidden shadow war between different factions of War Dogs, Wakanda itself was making great strides.

The world had come down like a ton of bricks on the hidden utopia, and most organizations (UN, NATO, EU) were chomping at the bit to gain entry to the country, citing that since healthcare had been sent while it obviously hadn't been needed, some kind of refund had to be made.

A lot of questions were being asked about Wakanda's economy, especially how the hell they got so rich while pretending to be poor in the first place. How much money laundering and financial shenanigans did they have to commit to hide all that money? Any banking or financial transaction creates a trail, yet every organization checked their books and found barely any mention of the country. So they never traded with any country at any time? Vibranium is the source of all their wealth, but where and how were they getting all that money from if they didn't trade or sell their most valuable resource to anyone in the outside world (Saudi Arabia didn't become so rich from not selling their oil after all)?

Other nations had thought of Wakanda as a poorer, simpler country than they were. Revealing they've actually been hugely wealthy for a very long time had made a lot of investigators around the world very interested in what else and how much they've been hiding.

Killmonger (though he went by his Wakandan name N'Jadaka now) had acquiesced to the global community's demands, and had started exporting small amounts of Vibranium.

Which people had to bring back to Wakanda in order to make futuristic technology out of, since only Wakanda had the know-how for manipulating the metal for complex structures and machines. For now, at least.

While Vibranium itself was a miracle metal (the auto-industry alone nearly fainted when they cottoned on to the full implication of using kinetic energy absorbing metal in their vehicles) its absurd properties meant that using it in the way Wakanda had shown to be capable of was incredibly difficult to figure out (which supported my idea of the metal being artificially made by advanced aliens who used its mystical properties to imprint information on the metal itself. According to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show the Kree had managed to do basically the same with their DNA what with the Words of Creation and all).

Killmonger's tactics showed his MIT-background: he knew that merely sitting on valuable export materials wasn't enough to make your country prosperous. Niger was (behind Wakanda of course) a country with some of the most expensive natural resources on the continent, sitting on one of Africa's largest deposits of uranium ore (being the 4th largest supplier of the stuff in the world), as well as huge supplies of gold, coal and oil.

It's also ranked by the UN as the second least-developed country in the world, with 45% of its population living below the poverty line and with only 20% being literate.

N'Jadaka wasn't promoting Vibranium: he was promoting human capital.

Still, what my former ally was up to in the heart of Africa wasn't really my concern as the distance between us kept being increased by the Atlantic Ocean. Let him carve out a piece of the world for himself, let the rest of the humanity make the most advanced metal in the universe theirs through whatever means necessary.

As long as I completed my 20 Step Program, I didn't care.

Another thwack across the head made me snap from my musings.

"What the hell Sterns!? That hurts, dammit!"

"You were brooding again."

//

We were sitting outside underneath the starry night sky, having taken a break after 9 hours of driving after our arrival back in the Unites States that day. Thankfully, as there weren't any border checks between states in America we could make use of the main roads and had made good time.

Right now, however we had decided to stop by the side of a little off-road path in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by tall pine trees and a small campfire merrily crackling away in-between us.

"So, what's the plan?" Sterns asks, slurping from his bean soup, with his back against his beloved Oliver.

"Get Burstein. Help him in his research. Have him make me bulletproof."

"Right, right, I get that part. But after?"

I pause in eating my chili con carne straight from the pot (one of the more conventional benefits of Extremis is never having to use oven-mitts anymore) spoon raised half-way to my mouth as I look at the scientist in confusion.

"After? After what?"

"After we get the scientists on your list? What then? Are you going to keep us on the run? Michael, if this works out, and they accept being enhanced, then we'll have some of the foremost geniuses on the planet in a single group. The way we could advance science, advance medicine! It's incredible!"

Slowly I stir my food as I contemplate my friend's words.

It wasn't like I hadn't thought about it (with my new brain and improved sleeping schedule there really wasn't a lot left which I didn't think about) but while I agreed with the sentiment, I was struggling with the execution.

Thing is, scientific discovery can take anywhere from 5 to 10 years before it's trickled down to the general populace. Pharmaceutical innovations could take even longer before they were approved to be marketed.

Sure, my Steps insured that I personally had a lot of power, so I didn't really need to fear anything less than a visit from top-tier Avengers (say, the Hulk or Thor), but this wasn't the case for those who were working under me.

Though I didn't believe Sterns for a second when he told me he hadn't given Oliver various sci-fi weaponry and gadgets.

But if I wanted an organization of my own, it would need to be a public one as I didn't know the first thing about setting up shadow organizations and unfortunately there weren't really any self-help books on the subjects. Not to mention that I didn't fancy trying to compete with organizations that had been at it for decades, centuries or even millennia in some cases. No, for my organization to remain safe from the shadowy clutches of Hydra or the Hand and the like, it needed to be put on the map instantly, not wait 5 to 10 years before the general public even knew it existed or what I could offer them.

I would need to do something drastic.

"We'd go public."

Sterns nearly chokes on his bean soup, and I patiently wait until he's capable of breathing again before I can continue.

"We would target different groups. First we appeal to the masses, make the technology of Stark and Wakanda available to everybody, for a price of course, and nothing that could be turned against us. They'll kill for what we can offer, and if someone would try to shut us down or anything like that, there would be rebellion. But we supply those types of tech that would have everybody in the Army and whatever Agency perk up at the possibilities it presents. They'll circle us like sharks, and ironically, in doing so they'll protect us from being… disappeared by the likes of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Sterns is clearly skeptical.

"Let me get this straight. You want to get public opinion behind you by giving them goodies based of advanced technology, which incidentally could also be used for military purposes, making us too high-profile with the masses and too valuable for the military so S.H.I.E.L.D. can't take us down from the shadows?"

Ignoring his incredulous look in favor of continuing with my chili con carne, I simply nod.

"Think about it. We bring something for the masses, make our name known to just about everybody in an instant. This of course will draw the attention of spooks and the like, but then we'll release something amazing, something ground-breaking. Nobody will be able to stop talking about us, we'll be asked for interviews all over the country. There'll be so many spotlights on us, shadow organizations wouldn't dare to come within ten feet of us. And in that void steps the Army and private contractors, like Pym Technologies, and all S.H.I.E.L.D. can do at that point is observe from a distance if they want to keep their anonymity."

Sterns gives an explosive sigh at my explanation, staring at his soup deep in thought.

"That's a lot of if's, Michael."

"It's just called hiding in plain sight Sam, animals do it all the time."

"Well yes, but they don't generally have to deal with an international spy organization out to get them."

"With S.H.I.E.L.D. you never know. Who knows what sort of hobbies those people keep hidden?"

We share a brief chuckle at the joke, but silence quickly returns as we both resume staring at the flames of our campfire. Recruiting more people was both a benefit and a liability: it meant more people who could help in completing my Plan, but it also meant more people who could be captured and/or interrogated.

"So what were you thinking about marketing then? In order to get the masses behind us?"

"The Arc Reactor. We'll market the old version, not the one with Vibranium, so it breaks down after a while which will mean people have to buy new ones. It could literally be used for everything that currently uses energy; transportation, lighting, house-hold applications. It'll allow us to break into every market at once."

"Stark will sue the shit out of us. Hell, if it were up to him, our grandkids would still be in debt."

"He'll certainly try, yes. Thing is, he ain't that popular with the Government since he has stopped sharing his toys with them. We'll supply to everyone, everywhere. In every house, every school, every public building there'll be one of our Blue Boxes. A Blue Box which holds an Arc Reactor, making it different on the surface than one of Stark's inventions. It would be a paper-thin disguise at best, I don't think we could keep something like this hidden from him for more than a month. But I can guarantee you, there won't be a judge in the world that'll rule in favor of having all of that sweet tech that she uses to commute to work without a CO2-emission removed and handed over to Stark."

"You don't know that. They might decide to do their jobs and actually follow the law, you know? Just throwing it out there as a possibility."

I grinned at Sterns miffed tone.

"Sure. But they're still human. And if there's one thing that unites all humans is that we're all capable of being bribed."

Sterns lifts up his nose at the mention of bribing government officials, but he doesn't dismiss it out of hand. Seems his time with me on the run has bled some of that idealism from him.

"So, we rip Stark off and get noticed in every single branch of industry that could use the next source of energy after the invention of the internal combustion engine. What's next? Sure, people will talk about us, but I can't see them take up arms if we were to suddenly be… disappeared."

"Pharmaceuticals."

"Pharmaceuticals? Really? Michael, marketing a new drug can easily take decades, and if you're thinking about what I'm thinking you are thinking, then decades is an optimistic estimate."

"I know that. But we don't need to hit the market. We just need to impress the people with the fact that we could market this. Think about it Sterns. With what you've learned from the way Extremis boosts and repairs the body, you could basically heal any wound, right?"

The eggheaded scientist briefly mulls this over, before giving a hesitant nod, clearly wondering where I'm taking this.

"Now, imagine using that knowledge, and make it into a cure for an ALS-patient. Or using the same method you used to enhance my brain, and turn it into a cure for Alzheimer's. And that's just the tip, Sterns. With Extremis and the Supersoldier Serum, everybody can be as perfect as Captain America himself. Hell, given the internal temperature of an Extremis subject, we could literally burn the HIV-virus from the human race!"

Sterns folds his arms in front of his chest, a severe frown on his face as he thinks my proposal over.

"I don't know Michael. Auto-immune diseases are so difficult to treat because it's the body attacking itself. If you were to enhance the body… that might turn out very badly. And don't even get me started on messing around with brains-"

"-But could you do it?"

"Well-"

"Sterns. Could. You. Do it?"

There falls a long silence between us, as the scientist keeps looking at the noses of his shoes as he sinks deep into thought. Eventually, he glances up at me from underneath his gargantuan forehead, and gives a hesitant nod.

"With enough time… and maybe a few more enhancements to my intellect… but yes. Yes, with all of the different ways to enhance a human I've seen so far, I could eventually cure humanity of nearly every disease."

With a grin splitting my face, I give a loud clap of my hands in triumph.

"Them's fighting words Doc! Alright! And that's exactly what we'll tell every pharmaceutical company, every university and every research lab that we can reach."

"I assume this is where your smoke-screen of Army and contractors comes into play then?" Sterns asks in a droll voice, but I can see the amusement flickering in his eyes.

"Of course. Even the Army can rub enough neurons together to understand that if we can turn someone who's ill into someone who's in perfect health, then applying the same thing to someone who's already healthy…"

"… will make superhumans."

"More importantly, it'll make supersoldiers. Ever since Captain America, all everybody has been able to think about is making more of him. And they'll bend over backwards in order to get their hands on a steady supply of them."

Shifting on the log he had been using as a chair, Sterns looks at me in apprehension.

"I don't know how I feel about making supersoldiers Michael. Blonksy kinda soured me on the whole concept of it."

I wave away his worries though.

"We won't actually give them supersoldiers. Just enough to keep them on a leash. A pill to make their soldiers smarter, or a gel that seals any wound. There's a lot we can do with your smarts and the tech I stole. The Army is merely useful in that it's larger than any other organization that could be out to get us, so if they're in the way then maneuvering around them will be a bureaucratic nightmare. No, we're interested in trade, mostly with other advanced companies. Imagine what we could do if we entered a partnership with Pym Technologies. Imagine what we could do if we enhanced Hank Pym himself!"

Slowly, Sterns gets more and more exited at the prospect of getting back onto the scientific stage again, especially if he can uplift his fellow scientists as well.

"You know what? That doesn't sound too bad actually. I'm sure we can find the cure to some of the more prominent degenerative diseases within a couple of years. Hell, with what I know now I think I can even come up with a serum that would negate Parkinson's entirely!"

I grin at his growing enthusiasm.

Back in my old universe I occasionally watched the animated show Family Guy, and while it was a silly comedy, sometimes it came with some rather startlingly deep insights. And a line that had stayed me, even after I got reborn into an entirely new universe, was one regarding health care.

"Because there's far more money to be made in treating a disease than curing it. Why cure someone of cancer in a day? When you can treat them for a lifetime and bill them every step along the way."

But Sterns wasn't like that; despite what he had been through from the moment I crashed through the wall into his lab, he still was an idealist, and he would not be satisfied with anything less than a complete cure, which the various serums and his own new brain would finally allow him to create.

It would be just one more thing that would catapult us to the top of pharmaceuticals.

'Oh no! You're poor baby has a genetic disease that'll bleed you and yours dry for the entirety of its life due to expensive medicine our competitors are selling? Fear not! For we can simply give him a shot now, and it'll be as healthy as can be for the rest of its life!'

I could hear the jingle already.

"So, the plan has passed muster then?" I ask with a laugh as I scrape the lasts bits of meat from the bottom of the pan.

By now Sterns has begun pacing in his excitement, and he turns towards me with a gin of his own.

"Honestly? I think S.H.I.E.L.D. will knock down our door the moment you take your shades off on TV. But I'm certainly interested in seeing what a group of hyper-intelligent scientists can come up with before we're all thrown in jail."

I laugh at his bleak prognosis, opening the cool box next to my lawn chair, throwing Sterns a beer and taking one for myself as well (we had bought it mostly on my insistence that a road-trip just wasn't complete without beer, even though neither one of us could really get drunk anymore. Extremis literally burned through it, but how Sterns managed it I don't know, though it might just be he can really hold his liquor well).

"To the Plan!"

Opening his own beer, Sterns raised it to the night sky with a laugh as well.

"To the Plan!"

//

Miracle above miracles, it turned out that Burstein was a commuter, instead of living in the facilities of Seagate itself. Finding his address had been stupidly easy, as he had his contact information on his Facebook-page (which sported the deliciously awkward profile pic of him doing the hover-arm manoeuvre with Megan Fox of all people).

So instead of having to enter Seagate penitentiary without being seen, I just decided to wait for the scientist at home. Even if it turned out that he couldn't enhance me due to a lack of equipment, then I could still offer him enhancement or at the very least take his research.

I gained Hulk-enhanced muscles and made my own power armour in a storage shed, and injected myself with the Extremis-virus in the hold of a cargo ship, so I literally had dealt with worse than stealing blueprints to take back to the smartest person on the planet and a trailer with scientific equipment set up.

Still, things would be made a lot easier if Burstein decided to join us. Not only would it shave months off of the time we would've needed to recreate the experiment that made Luke Cage in an even bigger badass than Carl Lucas had been, having another super-intelligent scientist around would speed up my plan for going public immensely since we could then afford a much greater workload.

So in order to get him on my side, I decided to go with the shock-and-awe technique.

Which meant being decked out fully in my new and improved armour, hiding inside his house after landing in his garden, where I would wait in accordance with the classic horror-movie formula (wait until the person is bucking at something, then suddenly stand behind them when they straighten again).

Honestly, my armour has changed immensely ever since I had left it in Sterns' care when I went off to infiltrate Wakanda. Whenever he hadn't been busy with upgrading Oliver (and it worried me just a bit that I couldn't really spot anything out of the ordinary other than the utterly silent engine) he had gone over the armour, mainly trying to improve minor things like software.

Then I gave him a cache of Wakandan technology and Vibranium and he went wild.

While we needed more advanced facilities to make use of the Vibranium on the same level as the Panther Habit, the heat my Extremis-fuelled body produced proved enough to melt the metal (which though awesome also kinda sucked, since lining my body with metal was apparently a no-go since Extremis) so we could shape it into basic forms.

Which meant I now had a helmet and reinforced spine on my armour, made out of Vibranium, through which ran some of the most advanced electronics on the planet. My breastplate was also covered in a thin sheet of the meteor metal, though I didn't want to use too much of my limited supply on what wasn't the final form of my armour.

I'm no Tony Stark, I can't just sink millions into a suit, then put it on a nice display and start working on a new one. Every time I gained (= stole) new technology I would need to be able to incorporate it into the armour, slowly evolving it over time.

Like the two extra arms coming out of the back of the suit and arching over my shoulders.

With all the advanced technology I had stolen from Wakanda I had hoped to have Sterns make me Doc Ock's arms out of Vibranium. Not only did it have amazing combat applications, it would also allow me to bypass how unwieldy my large hands were for precision work. It could enable me to work in environments that were dangerous to even someone like me (like Chernobyl, or something).

Unfortunately, manipulating such highly sophisticated arms simultaneously required a level of multitasking my brain just wasn't capable of. Yet. How Octavius managed it in the Sam Raimi movies I'll never know, though the chip on his cerebellum probably had something to do with it, but since that was also the only thing between him and insanity, I wasn't eager to try my luck with them.

Sterns of course had gleefully made himself a suit with six arms, which he could have perform complex tasks simultaneously.

While his smugness was nearly unbearable, it also allowed him to work six times faster, and during our trip from Mombasa, Kenya to Savannah, Georgia he had crafted two simpler arms for my own armour.

I honestly thought they looked something like a cross between the Yellowjacket Suit that Darren Cross would end up making in a couple of years and the back-pincers of a zergling.

Two separate Arc Reactors (still from the very small supply I scavenged from the Vanko drones, since creating a Reactor of my own would require some materials that would be difficult to obtain from the trailer of a truck) inside a Vibranium-shielded, flat 'back-pack' provided both energy and the anchoring point for the additional appendages, while Stark servos were combined with advanced Wakandan software in order to have them react smoothly to my will.

A powerful battery in the head of the arm, behind the pointed, bladed tips, drew energy from the Arc Reactors and were used to power the lasers that were hidden in a thin split down the blade of the pincers.

Which, of course, were made out of Vibranium as well.

On its own, my new and improved armour looked lethal.

In the dark of a sub-urban home, standing directly behind its occupant who had no clue I was even there, my eyes visibly lit up behind the lenses of my helmet?

Well, if Burstein's high-pitch scream in combination with throwing his carton of milk in the air (and subsequently all over me) and falling down onto his kitchen floor were any indication, I could look absolutely terrifying.

Well, less so now that Burstein had spilled milk all over me in his panic, but still.

"W-W-Who are you?!"

Trying (and somewhat failing) to contain my anger at this oaf who threw milk all over my shiny, new, expensive armour, I walk closer to the scientist as he scoots away from me, until his back hits the fridge. I bend down on one knee so were closer together, my massive armoured form looming over his shaking one, slowly extending my pincers, the Vibranium blades hovering on either side of him.

Which is when my face plate slams up, showing my smiling expression.

"Hello there Doctor Burstein! My name is Michael McCole and I'm putting together an extraordinary science team! How'd you like to be the second-smartest man on the planet?"

Which, of course, is when he faints.

//

"Really Samuel, this is amazing! I cannot thank you enough, the way I now look at my research it's…"

"Uhh, guys…"

"I know, Noah, I know. I felt the same about my own work when I first got enhanced as well. Things that I had agonized over in the past now looked so… simple, you know? Everything started making sense; it was just taking the obvious, logical next step in my research."

"Hey, guys…"

"Yes! Exactly! I look back on my research of years and all I can keep thinking is: how could I have possibly missed that an exothermic reaction was needed as catalyst for the procedure!"

"GUYS?"

At my shout Noah nearly jumps a hole in the ceiling of his shed, though Sterns remains completely unfazed, merely lifting his head enough so he can peer disapprovingly at me over the edge of the monitor he's squirreled away behind.

While Burstein was quick to acquiesce to having his intellect increased (especially since Sterns vouched for it, as it seemed they knew each other peripherally through shared fields of study) he remained scared of me after I pulled my horror-movie trick on him.

Serves him right, that should teach him to not throw milk over my beautiful new armour.

Still, once he had experienced the eye-opening new way intellectually enhanced people saw the world (to this day, despite the skull-splitting head ache I had at the time, that moment when I regained control over my senses after Sterns boosted my brain remained one of my favourite memories) he was quick to join us, excitement at the thought of advancements we would make in science swiftly removing any objections he might have had.

Still, while I encouraged him and Sterns bonding over techno-babble and hyper-intelligence as it made him more loyal to us, that didn't mean I enjoyed being suspended naked over a bathtub (well, technically two bathtubs, as I was too big to fit into one, so I sawed the ends on one side off and welded them together) filled with acidic liquid, strapped down to a metal gurney in the shed of a guy who I had known all of two weeks.

Yeah, my life had gotten really weird.

"Can we get on with it? Please? If past experience has taught me anything, then enhancing myself like this is gonna hurt like a bitch and a half, so let's not drag it out any further, yeah?"

Briefly, the two scientists shared a look, before Sterns fixes me with a stare again, and though I can't see his face behind the monitor I just know he's grinning.

"Sure, your call."

And with those words I'm dropped into a bathtub filled with acid.

As expected it hurts like a bitch, the entirety of my skin screaming out in pain as it's being eaten away, only to grow back, the heat Extremis is giving off as its going into overdrive in order to heal the massive amounts of damage I'm going through boiling the water around me.

And that's before Burstein flips the switch and electrocutes me.

I had been tied down to the steel gurney (which is beginning to oxidize, but I'm too consumed by pain to really notice) with heavy iron chains, but when the electricity slams through my every nerve they might as well have been made out of wet tissue paper as all of my muscles lock up and I start trashing.

Dimly, as if they're miles away from me, I can hear Sterns and Burstein's panicked shouts as I punch a hole straight through the bathtub, acid leaking around my clenched fist through the hole onto the concrete floor of Burstein's shed.

And as the level of liquid inside the tub slowly starts to decrease, and the scientists panic rises, one thought claws its way through the combined pain of being electrocuted and slowly dissolved simultaneously.

'I'm not doing this shit again'

In Seagate prison, Luke Cage was created after the racist prison guard Rackham turned the dial up to eleven, causing an explosion. In Burstein's shed, Luke Cage was healed after Claire Temple realized the same thing and proceeded to possibly cook her potential love interest alive.

Me, on the other hand?

I could go hotter than that.

Way hotter than that.

Focusing on the pain that was eating away at my skin and thundering through my nerves, I crack one of my molars as I grit my teeth, pulling deep at the heat inside me, deeper than I had ever before.

Light starts to consume my vision as my chest starts to experience a horrible aching feeling, and for one delirious moment I think I'm back in the cargo hold of a ship on its way to South-Africa, burning away from the inside as Extremis sets me on fire.

I don't stop.

More and more heat is pouring off me, until I feel that I could explode at any moment.

And considering the cocktail swirling inside my body, that isn't a metaphor.

I don't stop.

By now I don't have any coherent thoughts in my brain anymore, my world is just pain and heat as I will myself to burn hotter and hotter. I can't even be afraid that what I'm doing might kill me as agony overrides any thought I could have.

And then, in a bright flash of heat and flame, it all just stops, the bathtub exploding in a shower of ceramic.

Lying on the cracked concrete floor of the shed, I'm flat out on my back, barely drawing in pitiful gasps of air. I nearly freak out when I realize that I'm not immediately starting to get better, as there's no heat signifying that I'm healing, but then I realize that my entire body feels hot.

Rolling over onto my stomach, I slowly push myself up on trembling arms, which is when I notice that I'm completely dry.

The acid had been evaporated.

Sluggishly I try to straighten, though I almost fall immediately to my knees. I straighten again, and this time I manage to remain upright and slowly, oh so slowly, I can feel Extremis kicking in, almost as if it is as tired beyond measure like I am.

Looking at my arm, I can see the air simmer around me, thin trails of steam rolling off my skin, showing the after effects of focusing Extremis throughout my entire body. More importantly than that, however, is the fact that the texture of my skin has changed.

It's very subtle, and you'd need to get closer than most people will ever get to me and live to tell about it, but my skin didn't look like human skin anymore.

It had a rough, raised texture to it, layering itself in nearly invisible lines.

Like seashells.

Hearing a door open behind me, I turn to see Sterns and Burstein peek through the doorframe, the former analysing the damage that last flash of heat had done to the shed and equipment, while the latter gawked at my mutated form (like he did every time he saw my raised skeleton).

"D-Did it work?" Burstein asks haltingly as both scientists step into the shed, my newest asset only now noticing the damage to his property if his outraged sputters are anything to go by.

Sterns on the other hand merely looks at my smoking form with narrowed eyes, giving out a humming sound as he seems to consider something.

Then he whips out a silenced pistol and shoots me in the chest.

While Burstein drops to the ground with his hands over his head, I'm still too numb from my latest ordeal to react fast enough to the bullet, and stare somewhat numbly as the piece of supersonic lead flattens itself against my pec, and then falls to the floor, smoking a bit at the tip.

Slowly I look back at Sterns, who is still holding the silenced gun (and I do mean silenced: using the properties of Vibranium and the technology from Wakanda Sterns had made a silencer that reduced the explosive sound of a gunshot to the level of the fart of a mouse), massive grin on his face.

As my brain works through the last ten seconds, realization steadily begins to dawn in my tired mind.

"You shot me."

There's no anger or accusation in my voice, as I'm far too spent for displaying any such emotions. At my flat statement, Sterns pockets the pistol in his lab coat, grin widening even further, even as Burstein hesitantly works himself back to his feet again.

"Yes. But did you die?"

Looking from the friend who moments ago had shot me in the chest, to said chest, and then to the bullet in question a grin slowly starts to form on my face as well.

"Didn't feel a thing."

And I start laughing, slowly at first but I keep laughing louder and louder until I'm gripping my sides, eventually Sterns joining in and even Burstein giving a nervous chuckle or two.

Because only in this universe can you get thrown into acid, get electrocuted and then turn yourself into an explosion of heat, and come out bulletproof.

Watching a bullet literally flatten itself on your skin?

I dare you, I double dare you to find a feeling more awesome than that.

Coming down from my hysterics, leaning over with my hands on my knees, the raised ribcage over my chest heaving with my harried breaths, I look back at my little team, longer than normal incisors gleaming in the light of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

"Step 11a: Complete."

//
Fun Fact: Bill Sarnoff, the head of DC Comics' parent company Warner Communications, approached Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter in 1984 about licensing the publishing rights to the entire DC Universe. Sarnoff figured that Marvel, who dominated the market at the time, were better suited to making successful comics featuring Batman, Superman, and the Justice League. Marvel's publisher at the time, Jim Galton, declined Sarnoff's offer, thinking that those comics weren't selling well because the characters weren't very good.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 10: A BOLD ESCAPE!​

Let me just restate this for the record, so we're all on the same page here.

Unbreakable skin is fucking awesome!!

I decided to recreate the trick that Luke used to show Jessica he was superhuman as well, and seeing the blade of a saw literally blunt itself as it just sends sparks flying from your skin is the most badass feeling in the world.

I had to fight to urge to step outside, cackle to the sky and shout: "I AM INVICIBLE!"

Fortunately, the Overlord List had taught me better than that.

Still, I was quickly brought down from my short-lived power trip by the two scientists ushering me from the shed and into the pouring rain, both apparently scolding me for just standing there in the toxic fumes that remained after I vaporised the acid bath (probably the reason for my manic bout of laughing and why it took Extremis so damn long to kick in).

After testing whether I was stronger than I was durable by repeatedly stabbing myself with the sharpest knife I could find in Burstein's kitchen (turns out that not even I can pierce my own skin, though I definitely felt the impacts) I took a well-deserved shower, washing the grime off my newly changed skin.

It even felt weird now, with a really rough texture almost like I had been rolling in gravel while covered in glue or something.

If the trade-off for becoming unbreakable was a little rougher skin, then I would gladly pay the price.

It was when I stepped out of the shower, still towelling myself off when shit began to go wrong.

The doorbell rang.

Thankfully the bathroom had a view of the street in front of Burstein´s house, so wrapping the towel around my waist (though due to my size it ended up more like a loin-cloth) I went over to the window and looked outside.

And nearly had a heart-attack when I saw a column of black SUV's parked on the road in front of the house (could I even get heart-attacks anymore? Food for thought).

My hearing picked up panicked shuffling from downstairs as Sterns and Burstein were figuring out what they should do.

Obviously, neither me nor Sterns could really answer the door, so it would have to be Burstein, who (judging by his frantic whispers) really didn't want to try and turn away what was likely to be a government spook at the door.

Making a snap-decision, I hurried downstairs, keeping the towel roughly in place with one desperate hand, bursting into the kitchen where both scientists were running around, stuffing notes and equipment in chests and bags.

Both looked up in shock at my sudden entrance, their eyes widening and mouths falling open at my current (lack of) clothing, but we didn't have time for any of that now.

"Noah, open the door, stall for as long as you can. If you can't make them leave, then the moment they get inside, run towards the garage and get in the car. Sam will be waiting for you there. Sam, throw all of our notes into the car, leave everything that's too big for you to carry. Most of it would be useless without the research anyway. Put the car in drive, but wait with leaving until Burstein and me are inside as well. Then we'll get to the truck and try to shake them off."

"What will you be doing?" Burstein asked hesitantly, even as Sterns just upped his pace, snatching his fellow scientist's keys off the kitchen counter.

The ringing of the doorbell cut off what I was about to say, so I just grabbed Burstein by the shoulder with my fee hand and pushed him towards the door.

"Come on, go!"

And with that Burstein rushes to open the door, while Sterns leaves through the back to his colleague's garage, where an old, banged up Toyota Corolla stood waiting.

While my accomplices were off to tend to their respective tasks, I ran upstairs again, wondering who could be at the door.

S.H.I.E.L.D.? Had they finally caught up to me after chasing me around the world? Or were it the local authorities, called in by neighbours because of the loud bang of the bathtub shattering? Then why the black vans? Did I set off some watch list I wasn't aware of when I entered the States again, and had the NSA or CIA cottoned on to my existence?

However, my worst fear was confirmed when I heard Burstein open the door, and the stranger introduce himself.

"Good morning. I am Agent Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistic Division. May I come in?"

I heard Burstein give a nervous chuckle as he answered, and I could easily imagine the sweat that was probably pouring down the nervous scientist's face in rivers as he was confronted with what I had made out to be the bogeyman.

"T-That's quite a mouthful."

"We're still working on the name. May I come in?"

Looking around in a hurry, I spotted the twin-size bed that Burstein usually slept in, and more specifically the thick covers spread over it, and in a weirdly lucid moment, I was suddenly reminded of a fairy tale.

Honestly, I didn't have a lot of options or time, so I just had to improvise and hope for the best.

"Oh, ah, well, why do you need to come in?"

"There have been some complaints about the noise sir. Construction, explosions, that sort of thing. People tend to have trouble sleeping with such noises you see."

"Ah yes, yes of course."

Pulling back the sheets, I jumped into bed, pulling the covers back all the way to my chin.

"So, may I come in?"

"Aha, well, you see uh… No? I mean, uh, I'd rather not?"

I snatched the biggest book lying on Burstein's bedside table, opening it close to my face as I heard Coulson give a soft chuckle from downstairs.

"It wasn't really a question, Doctor Burstein."

"But you asked if you could come in…"

"Well, there's no reason to be rude about it."

And with that, I could hear Coulson enter the house… as well as the sound of combat boots thundering through the hall behind him, most likely having shoved their way right past Burstein.

'Come on Burstein, get to the car! This needs to be timed perfectly if we are to get it right!'

As I heard Coulson and his team hurry up the stairs, I was actively trying to control my breathing and heartbeat, hoping that I could keep the Extremis-fuelled heat to a minimum.

If this is to work, then I need to buy my colleagues as much time as possible, and Coulson is less likely to be willing to talk to me if I'm glowing like the sun because I'm a bundle of nerves.

There's also the danger of me setting the blankets on fire if my heart keeps hammering like it is.

And then I nearly throw the book out of my hands with a jolt of surprise when the door to the bedroom is suddenly busted down in a shower of woodsplinters, three S.H.I.E.L.D. (Hydra?) Agents bursting into the room and fanning out.

With Coulson leisurely walking in on their heels, looking for all the world as if breaking into people's bedrooms is just a regular thing for him.

Who knows, it just might be.

Despite the sudden jumpscare, I managed to firmly keep my grip on the book in my hands (maybe a little too firm, as the pages are tearing with the strength I'm exerting on them), and I kept it raised in front of my face.

Time to put my acting skills to the test it seems.

"What the hell is this? Can't you people see that I'm sick? I'm trying to read here goddammit!"

That tremor in my voice, that had to be in my imagination, right?

Right. Positive thoughts, Michael, positive thoughts.

"My apologies for the sudden interruption. It's just that getting a hold of you had been remarkably… difficult. I didn't want to risk missing you before you left again. My boss is very interested in having a… discussion with you."

Ah, shit.

"Oh. Well, maybe I don't want to talk with him."

"I'm afraid he insists."

Ah, SHIT.

"This is an outrage! Honest, hard-working American citizens, just trying to get over a cold, reading peacefully in their beds-"

"So you're American?"

Briefly the question takes me by surprise, almost lowering the book in my confusion, before I remember that I really don't want these people to have a good look at my face and I almost press the pages to my face.

Did they really not know? Or was this just a tactic for getting me to talk and let something slip?

Gah, spies and their stupid little psychological games!

"Of course I am an American! And proud of it! I will not just stand here-"

"You're lying in bed."

"… I will not just lie here and be insulted like that! I have my rights!"

I could hear Coulson chuckle and approach the foot-end of the bed, his guard fanning out more evenly through the room, allowing for enough space for another two guards to enter the bedroom, taking up positions behind Coulson from the sounds of it.

"Beg your pardon. It's just, from what we've heard about you, you don't really look all that… American."

"Well what else could I possibly be!"

'Five guards in the room, with Coulson at the end of the bed, and two of them behind him. One on my left side, but two by the window, probably in case I was thinking about making my escape through there. Which I was, so that's a problem. Unknown number in the rest of the hall, but judging by the amount of cars, their total numbers can range from a dozen agents to roughly twice that.'

Again Coulson chuckled, but the sound fell flat, and there was a hidden tension in his voice when he replied.

"Well, from the stories we've heard, you're a demon, terrorizing and punishing the wicked in Africa. My bosses think you're something that Wakanda let loose, but I personally don't think that's the case; the timetable is wrong for that, since they only revealed themselves to the world after whatever you did to Klaue. No, I think you're something else, though that's mostly because I'm admittedly somewhat biased due to past experience."

I almost drop the book again when Coulson unintentionally lets loose some important information.

'They haven't linked my actions in Africa with my theft of Stark and Hammer-tech here, or my ambush of Killian!'

It was an easy mistake to make, as people usually didn't go through such drastic changes like I had in such short a time-span (there was Blonsky of course, but he lasted all of a single night before he was taken in, while I had been operational for about a year now).

Still, this worked out in my favour.

"Really? Then what do you think I am, if not a proud, honest American?" I ask in my most imperious voice, but Coulson's answer completely floors me.

"I think you're an alien. Maybe you crash-landed here, or you were sent here with some sort of purpose?"

I'm silent for a few moments, mulling over both the spy's question as well as what my answer should be, coming down from the instinctive jolt of fear that accompanied thinking about S.H.I.E.L.D. since dicovery by the organization had been plagueing my thoughts ever since I woke up in this universe. But during that time, I had been a squishy normie with more knowledge than he should have, now they had literally nothing that could so much as scrath me even if they tried their hardest.

Still, Burstein and Sterns were a lot more allergic to bullets than I was.

My meta-knowledge allowed me to read between the lines of Coulson's question: S.H.I.E.L.D. was absolutely terrified of an alien invasion happening, either since Thor crashed to Earth, or simply becoming more worried than they already had been.

As Fury will say on the helicarrier in a couple of months, Earth is not only not alone in the universe, it is hopelessly outgunned.

That was why Coulson was being so careful with me, why his guards had yet to do more than point their weapons at me, why he asked whether or not I was sent here.

He was fearing an alien invasion, and was wondering if I would be the vanguard.

"Aliens aren't real sir." I stubbornly said, hoping that it would placate the spy somewhat.

While the alien-angle might be useful as a smokescreen that would have S.H.I.E.L.D. chasing down wrong leads, it could also backfire if they decided to take of the gloves because they thought I was (the prelude to) a planetary threat.

Coulson chuckled again, but I could tell I hadn't convinced him yet.

"You'd be surprised. Actually got to meet a few a while ago."

"Well, I don't care what you think you saw, sir. I certainly ain't one." I say with an annoyed huff.

"Then why not show me your face?"

Shit!

"I, uh, I can't. I'm busy reading."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"You're not"

"How would you know?!"

"Besides the fact you have yet to turn a single page? You're holding it upside down."

SHIT!

"Lower the book. Sir."

It was clear from the spy's tone he was done being polite. He hadn't yet switched to an aggressive approach, but it was clear to all of us that unless I would start to cooperate, he'd be ready to turn to it within a moment's notice.

Seeing no way out of this without antagonizing the senior S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent, I slowly lowered the book, showing Coulson my face.

And nearly bit my tongue in order to keep myself from laughing when I saw what almost seemed like disappointment on his face when he looked at my bald, human looking head.

What had he been expecting? That I was green with antennae?

Still, he rallied himself masterfully, simply crossing his arms in front of his chest as his face reset itself in its smiling mask.

"Please get out of the bed sir."

And with those words he gave a significant look at where my chest was completely covered from view by the blanket I had pulled up to my chin.

'Shit! If he has heard about me through rumours out of Africa, he's probably also heard that my ribcage is raised!'

"Ah, I can't do that."

I can see the guards tightening their grips on their weapons, and while I've only been bulletproof for a day I already completely dismiss them as threats (and I notice that I was correct in thinking they still had forces in reserve standing ready in the hallway) as Coulson allows a hand to drop to his waistband.

Where his gun is holstered (which didn't really serve as an intimidating gesture, since I knew that his bullets would simply flatten themselves on my unbreakable skin).

"And why is that? Sir?" he asks, almost sounding smug this time if it weren't for his peaceful expression.

"Well, because… because I'm naked." I admit, and it's the first honest response I've given ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. busted into the room.

There were a few uncomfortable shuffles and looks around the room at my answer, but Coulson didn't do more than just blink.

'Damn, the guy has a good poker face.'

"I wasn't aware that Doctor Burstein was romantically involved in such a manner-"

"NO! No, it isn't like that, I just sleep here. He stays in the guest room. This bed is… better for my back."

Again, all Coulson did was blink, smile still on his face, even as he rested his hand on the handle of his gun (which immediately snaps the other Agents to high-alert).

"I see. In that case, please lower the blanket to below your chest sir."

"Uh, isn't that, you know, impolite to ask?"

"It would be. If I was asking, that is. Lower the blankets, sir."

Thoughts and plans were thundering through my brain at light-speed as I slowly grasped the edge of the sheets in my large hands, thinking about how I'm going to get myself out of this mess. Sure, physically I had nothing to fear from these people, but that didn't mean that S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't make life extremely difficult for me if I completely curb-stomped one of their senior agents.

Which is when my colleagues finally came through for me.

The radio on Coulson's waist crackles to life, an urgent sounding voice blaring from the little speaker.

+Sir! Sir, we got movement in the garage! I repeat, movement in the garage! Please advise!+

I'm so high on adrenaline (and various serums and mystical plants) at that point, it's almost as if the world is suddenly put on slow-motion. I can see Coulson's eyes slowly drift from me to the radio at his belt, see how the guards instinctively turn their heads a little towards the sudden sound.

For a split second, the attention of my adversaries had been broken, though their top-notch training would undoubtedly kick in almost immediately and then my window of opportunity would've been gone.

Unfortunately for them, a split second was all I needed.

The exact moment Coulson's eyes are off of me, I grip the blanket and in a twisting move throw the cloth towards him and the two Agents standing behind him, temporarily obscuring their vision of me.

In the same movement that I use to throw the sheet at the spies, I twist off the bed to the right, where two guards raise their assault rifles towards me, even as my bare feet slap against the floor.

I hear the bark of gunfire behind me (the sole guard that had been standing on the other side of the room) but other than a few taps against my back I don't even notice the bullets flattening themselves on my skin, my form not even stumbling as I burst towards the window.

The two guard that had been standing next to it had now finally trained their weapons on me, but the close quarters combined with the proximity of their colleagues made them hesitant to fire.

And before they could find their resolve, I had run straight through the wall of the house, hanging weightless in the air for one precious moment, before gravity stopped gaping at my majestically displayed airborne nudity and reasserted itself on my form, making me crash down to earth.

Or I would have, if it weren't for the black SUV that had been parked in Burstein's driveway underneath the former bathroom window, and instead I crashed onto the car instead, its roof buckling underneath my impact, its chassis pressing into the tarmac underneath.

As the occupants of the totalled vehicle (who were thankfully all standing outside with their weapons in hand, since I didn't want to imagine the shitstorm that would occur if I killed a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent) were openly gaping at my sudden landing, a banged up Toyota crashed through Burstein's garage door, Sterns grinning behind the steering wheel, a chalk-white Burstein gripping the dash with an iron grip.

S.H.I.E.L.D. flunkies dove out of the way as Sterns made a handbrake turn around the totalled van, positioning the rear door of the Corolla right next to me.

"Get in!" my friend shouted, before his eyes landed on me, and his eyes bugged nearly out of his head.

Briefly, there was no sound or move made on the impromptu battlefield, everyone gaping at my hunched over form in the crumpled remains of a black SUV.

The absurd moment was shattered by a dry voice coming from the hole in the wall I had just made.

"Huh. He was telling the truth."

"GO GO GO!" I roar at Sterns as I jump out of the wrecked remains of the vehicle that had briefly (and probably involuntarily) served as a landing platform, ripping the door of the Toyota nearly off its hinges as I dove inside, the egghead already burning rubber the moment I was mostly inside.

We tore through the streets of Savannah, Sterns driving like a madman, tossing me around on the backseat with every power slide he made around corners, leaving the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents scrambling behind us in the dust, while Burstein just kept clamping himself to the dash, whimpering slightly whenever his car touched the ground with less than all four wheels.

The thing was, the sheer amount of processing ability and speed that Sterns unique brain was capable of gave him the potential to be the best racing driver on Earth, as he was able to look at the entirety of the road, feel the G-Forces acting on us and parse the information the car was feeding him in the blink of an eye.

It all amounted to the fact that Sterns was driving the Corolla to its absolute theoretical maximum, while the drivers behind us were slowed down significantly by their inability to immediately swerve around obstacles, or keep the gas flat down when approaching corners due to that instinctive apprehension all humans feel when speeding towards a turn (with the exception of racing drivers, who instead just feel the need to go even faster).

It took fifteen minutes (and ten years off of Burstein's life expectancy he would later claim) of speeding in random patterns towards our destination, but the combination of S.H.I.E.L.D. being caught off guard and Sterns manic driving style was enough that when we arrived at the dingy motel where we had parked Oliver, we had a window of about five minutes.

All three of us jumped out of the battered Toyota (Burstein a little wobbly) and started throwing everything Sterns had stuffed in the car into Oliver's trailer. We just threw the last bag filled with notes in when my hearing picked up the sounds of squealing tires.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!"

We quickly climbed into the cabin and were tearing out of the small town right as the S.H.I.E.L.D. vans swerved around the corner on the far side of the road. Despite the fact that Sterns was pushing the gas pedal almost into the floor, pushing Oliver to above 100 miles per hour (or 160 kilometres an hour in units that make sense), S.H.I.E.L.D. was still slowly but surely gaining on us.

Truthfully, they didn't even need to overtake us: they just needed to remain on our tail until we eventually had to stop, or just wait until we led them to our base (not that we even had a base, but all the same I'd rather not have S.H.I.E.L.D. know where we were going).

"Come on Sterns, you've been messing around with Oliver for months now, please tell me you got something that'll let us shake these guys?!" I yelled from my side of the cabin as I struggle into a set of sweatpants (showing Burstein far more than either one of use would ever be comfortable with).

Briefly Sterns worried his lip, clearly considering something, but he seemed reluctant to go through with whatever he was thinking off.

"Whatever it is, DO IT!"

My friend let out a morose sigh at my panicked shout, gazing wistfully at the dashboard.

"I really wanted to keep this one a surprise for a little while longer, but oh, well…"

And with that, his face transformed from somewhat disappointed to absolutely manically gleeful, a grin nearly splitting his face in half. He pressed some hidden mechanism on the dash, making a part of it slide away, revealing a big, ominous red button.

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach which had nothing to do with the black SUV's that were still creeping towards us, especially when Sterns turned to look at me, a gleam in his eye that made the hair on my neck stand on end (if I had any, that is).

"Hold on to your socks!"

Then he quickly glanced at my bare feet, and gave a shrug.

"Where applicable of course."

And then with a laugh he pressed the big, red button and the world… blurred.

A whine loud enough that it felt as if it was rattling the teeth out of my skull rose to fill the cabin, while outside the world turned into long streaks of colours as we tore across the highway.

That's when I realized that the whine was familiar, but before I could really comprehend where I had heard it before, there ran a deep shudder through Oliver's frame, and then I was pressed even deeper into my seat as the sensation of speed only increased.

And Sterns just kept on laughing.

I was pretty sure that Burstein was either praying or unconscious at this point.

The blurring sensation kept on going for a full ten minutes, during which I couldn't make out any SUV's hounding us anymore (though that wasn't really saying something as I had trouble fully keeping up with the outside world in general).

I was getting really suspicious of just what exactly Sterns had done to his brain behind my back; given that he seemed to take in everything just fine, the speed at which his brain was capable of processing data was even higher than I had previously assumed and definitely higher than what he had been capable of when I picked him up when he had mutated.

Still, eventually I got the sense that Sterns had gone off-road at some point and was now blasting off to somewhere in the middle of nowhere. After another five minutes, we fell out of the state that I had dubbed 'hyperspeed' inside my mind, and we kept on tearing along little side-roads through the American country-side, easily clocking in at over 100 mph/160kmh.

Twenty minutes later, we were standing on an empty plain of grass, miles away from civilization. Me and Burstein quickly got out of the cabin (well, I got out, Burstein just sort of… flopped to the ground), but Sterns instead swaggered out, giving a loving pat on Oliver's grill.

Looking over the truck, I was only somewhat surprised to see that the tires were smoking, and a few cracks had shown up in the windshield. Still, it was something on the trailer that caught my attention, and I suddenly realized why the whine I had heard sounded so familiar.

Not taking my eyes off the turbines that stuck out to the side of the trailer's chassis I called out.

"Sterns!"

"What?"

"Did you make our truck jet-powered?"

"… Maybe?"

"For fuck's sakes, Sam…"

"Noah helped!"

"Hey!"

This was going to be a long day.

//
Fun Fact: Most superhero identities have been held by different people at different times. Considering Cap is one of the oldest superheroes in comicbook history, he has been replaced a surprisingly low amount of times. The most prominent of his successors are Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson (the Falcon), with the most infamous being a run during the '50s where William Burnside took the mantle, but became paranoid and turned to become the leader of a Neo-Nazi group. A weirder example still is the Punisher theming himself after Captain America after the events of Civil War.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 11: THE RIGHT KOALAFICATIONS​

Thankfully the drive from whatever forsaken plain of grass we had ended up in after going 'hyperspeed' to the outskirts of New York City went fairly smoothly. However, instead of the twelve hours me and Sterns had spent trying to get to Burstein, this time the trip took two days, because I was being paranoid and insisted we kept to the side roads and avoided all major points of civilization.

Either S.H.I.E.L.D. had backed off after seeing me shrug of bullets like they were nothing, running through a wall and totalling a vehicle without any visible effort only to jump into a jet-propelled truck, or they were simply biding their time.

Still, the relative quiet had given me the time to calm down a bit and actually start using that super-smart brain of mine to its fullest potential.

Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D. now knew what I looked like (what all of me looked like) which would make hiding in the shadows even harder than it had been so far, but it also gave me an opportunity if I was bold enough to take it.

I could step fully into the public eye.

Repeat the whole 'I am Iron Man' thing that Tony had done.

There would undoubtedly be back-lash from some parts of the community (apparently my appearance was enough for people to label me a demon back in Africa) but for the majority of the masses I would be something exiting and new.

For the companies that I was trying entangle in my intricate web, I was a living proof-of-concept.

Let S.H.I.E.L.D. tire itself out, trying to puzzle together a file over me, only to look on in a stupor as what they had so painstakingly tried to gather will be made obsolete when the whole world knows more about me than they do now after I've gone public in a few months.

If only I could see the look on Fury's face.

But if I wanted to pull that off, then I needed to be more than just a curiosity for the masses. I needed to be seen as important, both to the world in general, and to them personally, because of what I could offer them through my company.

Which mean that I needed someone who was experienced with the business world.

Sure, I could probably read every book on finance in the world and figure out how to set up a successful company on my own, but that would take time, because while I could easily absorb knowledge about business, I had absolutely no experience in it.

And Loki's invasion was getting closer and closer every day, so I really didn't have any time to waste trying to build up my business-savvy.

No, better to just outsource my problems to someone experienced in that field, leaving me with more time to improve myself and gather even more minions- uhm, I mean allies.

Yeah, allies.

Still, none of my plans could be set in motion before I was actually in New York, due to needing to find some people first and set up a proper workshop for my two scientists.

When we reached the outskirts of New York City, I had Sterns drive off-road into the underbrush of a small forest, where we covered Oliver in a tarp that I had Sterns and Burstein make while I had been driving these last two days.

A combination of camera's and LED's made sure that the truck became nearly invisible, and as it was hooked up to a small (but more importantly, a silent) generator it would stay hidden for months if need be.

Then I sent out Burstein with a back-pack filled with cash (our reserves, which consisted of all of our savings and what I made from Klaue, were starting to dip somewhat but not yet worryingly so) and told him to visit a second-hand car dealer and buy any car spacious enough that we could ferry our equipment from the truck to whatever workshop we'd end up establishing within New York itself.

While it would've saved us a lot of effort and time, driving Oliver into New York was out of the question, as S.H.I.E.L.D. would have eyes on us in minutes, and while I had decided that I'd stop running from them, I still wasn't ready to challenge them out in the open.

Burstein returned in under two hours in a Chrysler Voyager, which while not the most prestigious of cars, would at least get the job done, which was all that mattered really.

Our first destination was the storage unit me and Sterns had worked out from, what seemed so long ago now. We had stripped most of it down when we left, but for now it would do as our temporary staging area.

Once more I sent Burstein out as our errand boy due to him being the most human looking of us (I really needed to gather more minions, I couldn't just keep pulling scientists away from their work in order to fulfil chores) with the assignment of getting us a warehouse without too many questions asked.

As we could easily supply our own power, it only needed to have a water-supply, and if it could all happen off the books then all the better.

Leaving the nervous scientist to go broker a deal in some of the seedier parts of New York made me uncomfortable (a part of that was also annoyance due to the fact that I just knew we'd get screwed over with the price as Burstein had absolutely no concept of haggling), but it had to be done, since Sterns couldn't go into public just yet, while I was too busy with my own assignment.

I was going to recruit our next team member.

Phineas Mason.

The Tinkerer.

The construction worker who had managed to rip apart Chitauri tech and repurpose it for his own needs, working out of an illegal workshop.

Yeah, that guy was definitely on my list of scientists to employ and enhance.

Taking what I had learned from my attempt at recruiting Burstein, as well as the fact that I just knew this guy would drool at the sight of advanced tech I had at my disposal, I decided to wait until nightfall and then pay him a visit in my armour.

Though I would refrain from repeating my ill-fated horror-monster shtick, as a precaution against lactose-related shenanigans.

Finding Mason was a little more difficult than finding Burstein had been (for one, Phineas' last name was a lot more common than Noah's) but he also didn't have a Facebook page.

Interesting thing about Facebook, it never got big enough to really dominate the social media market like in my home universe, meaning that even if I had the capital to invest in stocks (which as an orphan, I most certainly hadn't) investing in companies like Facebook or the like (Apple was likewise just a name amongst many others, instead of a technology giant) would have been useless anyway.

The other problem with actually finding where Phineas lived was that even when I finally found his profile page (on a site which hadn't existed in my old universe, the closest thing I can compare it to is some sort of 'grown-up' version of MySpace) he hadn't been so accommodating as to list his home address.

Still, using my increased intellect (and just plain ol' common sense) had led me to find Bestman Salvage, the company where he and Adrian Toomes worked at (who did have a profile page on Facebook, though his only friends were his wife and daughter and it hadn't been updated in 5 years).

Finding their personnel registry had been somewhat more difficult, but honestly after breaching the labs of Wakanda (for which I had to learn an entire new programming language from whatever I could puzzle together from Killmonger's dad's notebook) hacking the files of a salvage company was child's play.

As I was busy tracking down my next target, while Sterns was salvaging what he could from the equipment we'd left behind in the storage shed (some of it had become obsolete by now with what we had in Oliver's trailer, while some of it would need to be disassembled completely before it could be moved) Burstein returned to us, a massive grin on his face.

A short drive later, and I could understand why.

Apparently Burstein had the same idea about his bartering skills as I had, and instead decided to use that to his advantage. Walking into the office of a local real-estate agent that had warehouses for sale, he simply went up to the office of the man in charge, planted his back-pack on his desk and opened its zipper.

Within three hours, we were down two-thirds of the content of the bag I had given Burstein (which amounted to a little under 10.000 dollars), but we had gained a warehouse near the docks in return.

It wasn't the newest building (or even the cleanest, really) but there was one massive advantage to it, besides the great amount of space it offered.

It was completely off the grid.

It had water, electricity and even gas, but instead of being hooked up to the local networks, it leeched its power from a dozen surrounding ones, which effectively meant that we paid no bills, and as far as the government was concerned, this building didn't use any power at all.

The last time they had even bothered to check this part of the docks was nearly twenty years ago now, so it was unlikely we would be noticed before we were ready to burst onto the world-stage of international business.

But Burstein had immediately bought it after laying his eyes on it for another reason entirely.

Lining one wall of the ground floor were some monumental vats suspended on a solid looking brickwork frame, which seemed to be capable of tumbling, much like a concrete mixer you sometimes see at construction sites.

Pushed against an adjacent wall were basins in the floor, their edges ground smooth by decades of use.

What kind of use was completely lost of me, though I could see that Sterns was starting to cotton on.

Unable to contain his excitement, Burstein blurted out why he had chosen this particular facility based on the barrels and the basins.

"This used to be a tannery!"

At my nonplussed look, he elaborated.

"For making leather!"

"I know what a tannery is for, Noah. What I don't know, on the other hand, is what on Earth we need a tannery even for. We're going to be a technology and pharmaceutical company, what use is making leather gonna be?"

Rubbing his hands excitedly, Burstein had a triumphant smile on his face as he explained.

"Do you know how expensive Kevlar is?"

"240 dollars for a five yard roll, give or take, if you talking about the heavy-duty sort that is." Sterns immediately rattles off, causing me and Burstein to turn towards him in surprise.

Shuffling uncomfortably at mine and Burstein's weirded out looks, the egghead half-heartedly tries to defend himself.

"What? We do get shot at more often than average, you know. Or is even recommended, for that matter. I thought it couldn't hurt to look the stuff up."

Shaking off the weirdness of his fellow scientist, Burstein continued.

"Right. But do you know how much a similar amount of leather costs?"

"Between 40 to 60 dollars, depending on what sort of cow it's made from."

Again, me and Burstein turned to look at Sterns, who was nearly blushing this time.

"Look, sometimes I just keep clicking through on Wikipedia when I get bored all right?"

Putting my friend's weird habits out of my mind, I looked at Burstein instead.

"Right, leather is cheaper than Kevlar. Not really a surprise, and honestly I'm still not really seeing how it is in any way relevant to us?"

"Because you are more durable than Kevlar!"

Sterns was the one who cottoned on first.

"You want to use the procedure we used on Michael to make bulletproof leather?"

With an enormous grin on his face, Noah placed his fists on his sides in triumph, happily nodding at Sterns incredulous question, even as I pinched the bridge of my nose with a sigh.

"Noah?"

"Yes Michael?"

"We are in New York City."

"Yes?"

"Where the hell are you gonna get cows from?"

"… Ehrmm"

After assuring me that he would look into how to procure untreated bovine hides in amounts that our estimated production would be able to handle, I started moving what was left in the storage unit to our new warehouse (after thoroughly cleaning house), while Sterns was doing the same with the stuff left in Oliver's trailer.

Though I had to put my foot down when Sterns proposed to make the entire truck invisible and drive it here.

This is a movie-based universe, there is literally no way in hell that the narrative would either let that go off without a hitch (a flicker of the light, right as some spunky cop is looking in the truck's direction, setting up a cop-centric storyline) or without letting it fall into enemy hands (a bit falls off and is found by Hydra, who manage to reverse engineer it and then spring it on me without any warning beforehand).

We were going to do this on a basic level, and hope our shenanigans stayed under the radar of the Narrative (which I'm half-convinced has to be an actual deity in this universe, right?) so we won't suddenly be saddled with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents carrying cloaking technology.

They were worrying enough already without the ability to become invisible.

It took all of a week to completely clear the storage unit out, scrub it down, and then cancel the rent, after which I destroyed the false identity I had created when I first rented it. Sterns was done with ferrying our equipment from the truck to our new base in roughly the same amount of time, and so we all got to actually turning the empty warehouse into a proper laboratory/factory, while we refurbished some of the offices on the second floor as our living quarters.

At the moment it was just a couple of chairs and an old television I had managed to get off the internet for cheap, as most of us were so absorbed in our projects that we barely made us of the new quarters other than to occasionally sleep or finish off some left-over pizza.

Using my part of the laboratory (which was mostly focused around my suit and the tech from Hammer, as that was easiest to reverse engineer to a mass-producible level) I finished up my search of Mason, finally getting his home-address from the files I had hacked from Bestman Salvage.

Which led to me standing on the roof of the building across from the modest apartment where Phineas Mason lived on the following night, thankful that the heavy cloud cover made me blend seamlessly with the surrounding darkness.

Even though I was a Marvel fan in heart and soul, feeling like Batman made me want to cackle out loud.

Which would be counteractive to the whole stealth-thing I got going on, so I just hunkered down and waited for the Tinkerer's arrival.

And waited.

And waited.

And then I had to wait some more.

Until after a stake-out of nearly four hours, at two in the morning, a worn down Smart car pulled up to the curb, an exhausted Mason stepping out, and shutting the door behind him, turning to walk up the steps to his small home.

Which is when I jumped from my perch.

I didn't use any of the repulsors in my suit, due to the fact that they would've made too much noise and light. Instead, I used the raw strength of my body, which proved enough to propel me across the entire street, actually overshooting Mason himself (my original plan had been to land behind him, but it seemed I had underestimated my strength).

You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you're really high up an you look down?

That feeling rose up in me when I was at the apex of my jump, and I looked down and realized that the ground was getting rapidly closer while I was hanging unsupported in the air at twenty feet and with nothing to catch my fall.

It was like going bungee jumping without a rope.

And then I crashed to the pavement with a heavy thud, the tiles of the pavement cracking slightly underneath my booted feet. The noise was louder than I had wished it to be, but it was still a lot softer than using my repulsors would have been, so I would just have to roll with it.

Rising slowly from my classically heroic three-point landing (mostly because I had needed to catch myself due to the sheer range of my jump catching me by surprise), I dramatically turned around, ready to give my recruitment pitch-

"Nope! Nope, nope, nope!"

-only to see the back of one Phineas Mason as he high-tailed it out of here, putting on a surprising amount of speed for a man of his size.

I blinked a couple of times in surprise, before annoyance rose within me, and with it the familiar Extremis-fuelled heat. I quickly slammed a lid on it though, due to the fact that because some of my enhancement actually multiplying each other's effects, the temperatures I could reach if I wasn't careful were enough to completely destroy my suit.

Still, that didn't mean that I would just allow my prey to slip through my fingers like that.

Ahem, I mean ally of course.

"OI! Get back here!"

And I blasted off as well. Now, while Mason certainly wasn't slow, I on the other hand was fast enough to make Usain Bolt (who interestingly enough was an Olympic champion in this universe as well) look like an elderly person with the worst case of arthritis in the history of mankind.

So within a couple of seconds (and a beautifully executed vaulting jump over a parked car which I was quite proud of honestly) I slid to a stop in front of the fleeing Mason, who turned on a dime and made to run away from me again, before I snagged him by the collar.

"Look, if you'd just listen-"

"Don't punch me!" Mason begged, even as he whipped around, fishing something from his baggy jeans and spraying me in the face with… pepper spray?

For a moment we just remained motionless, me holding the fat man by the scruff of his neck, as he looked at me with wide eyes and a flushed face as the capsicum-filled liquid slowly dripped from my full-face helmet.

"Really?" I asked in a flat voice, though my annoyance was unmistakable.

"Sorry?" Mason hedged carefully, and I just gave an annoyed sigh as I wiped my faceplate off with my other hand.

"Why run like that anyway? I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Man, I was there during that whole mess at Harlem. I'd like to see you do any different than me, after you've gone through something like that and then one night something big and scary comes dropping from the sky right in front of you!" the tinker responds heatedly, though I can still see that he's somewhat scared of me.

I consider his words for a couple of moments, before I give a slow nod.

"Fair enough I suppose. Sorry for scaring you like that I guess."

And with that I release my grip on the back of his shirt, though I'm ready to chase him down when he tries to run again. However, it seems that my advanced armour has finally registered with the fat man, and I can see his eyes light up with interest as he fully takes in the suit of advanced technology strapped to my imposing form.

"Woah… I didn't realize Stark was selling his toys again…"

"He doesn't."

"Wait… you're saying you made this?!"

At his incredulous tone, I merely grin and give a confirming nod.

"Yep. With my own hands and smarts, in a storage shed I rented a while ago. But now I want to make more. A lot more. You heard about Wakanda, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, they are this country in Africa, right? They pretended to be all poor and stuff, but actually they're like, really rich and have really sweet tech?"

Once again I nod, before I lean in a little closer, my voice a secretive whisper.

"I got my hands on their designs, and the smarts to figure it all out. I can replicate, hell, I can improve their stuff, but I need more people to do it. You in?"

He's clearly interested, I can tell. He's probably dying to play around with advanced technology that has been hidden from the world for millennia. Still, he isn't entirely swayed, whatever loyalty he has to Toomes most likely holding him back.

It seems like I'll need to sweeten the deal.

"I can make you smarter as well. Smarter than near anyone really. You'd be one the same level as Tony Stark himself and the like."

His interest is replaced by wariness and disbelief at my wild claim, but I'm not worried about losing him as I reach into a satchel on the side of my belt (Sterns kept on insisting that it was a fanny-pack. It wasn't. It was a highly respectably satchel, end of discussion) and retrieve a small notebook, which I patiently hold out to him.

Eventually his inborn curiosity overcomes his worry and he takes the booklet from my hand in a quick, jerking motion. Opening it to the first page, I can see his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he reads the scribbles on the first couple of pages.

Looking at me in askance, he's clearly wondering something, before he blurts out his question.

"These look like… plans of some kind. But it's nothing like I've ever seen before…"

I'm honestly somewhat surprised. On those pages were outlines for the machinery of the new pincers on my back (which were folded neatly against my frame, as they would only serve to freak out Mason even more if I had them extended), as well as the slew of programming that went into each part of the arm in order to have them to respond smoothly to my every thought.

Given the fact that they were a mash-up of Stark and Wakanda-tech which was then put through a simple cipher of my own design, I had certainly not expected the tinker to get so much from the pages at merely a quick glance.

Giving a short nod, I started explaining.

"In there are plans for advanced technologies, as well as the next step in programming. Now, I'm sure that given a couple of years or decades that you'll probably decipher most if not all of it. But here's my proposition. You read through that and come up with a viable design of your own based on those plans within the week, and I'll not only see it put into production, I'll also introduce you to technology that would make this seem like the plans to a Lego-set, and more money than you can spend in your entire life."

Clearly the offer of money and advanced tech has rekindled his interest, but as his eyes fly over the schematics in the notebook, I can see apprehension rise on his chubby face.

"A week? That's… that's impossible. If I had more time then sure-"

"No exceptions. One week, or the deal is off."

"Look, I'm telling you, I can make this work, but not in a week."

"As you are now, no you cannot. But-"

And with that I reach into my satchel (shut up Sterns) again, and withdraw a capped syringe, which I present to Mason, who seems reluctant to take it.

"-but when you're as smart as Tony Stark, well then it would turn it from an impossibility into child's play."

He's clearly sceptical, eyeing the syringe warily.

"Really? That stuff in there is supposed to make me as smart as Stark?" he asks in a dubious voice.

"Well, it might also turn out to make you smarter."

And that clearly increases his interest again, and for good reason. Stark might be the most prolific genius on earth, but he isn't the smartest (for one, Steven Hawking also exists here, and he seems to be even more of a genius than his alternate counterpart, judging by his books I read after my mental upgrade, due to them being undecipherable to me before Sterns boosted my intellect).

Still, the people that could boast to be smarter than the scion of Howard Stark could be counted on one hand, and to be among them was almost a bench-mark in the scientific community.

To be offered such a prestigious position all in a single shot, honestly, I could only see very few scientists actually turning such a proposal down.

Clearly the heavy set construction worker wasn't one of them (then again, he wasn't a scientist in the first place, he was just scary smart) as he took the syringe with trembling hands.

"One week, Phineas Mason. Return to me in one week, and you shall have your part of the treasures of this world. The address is in the back of the notebook."

And before he can protest, I bend at the knees, powerful muscles bulging underneath my reinforced cargo pants and then I'm off, clearing the row of houses on the side of the road in a single bound, and I've disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Using parkour to get from Mason's neighbourhood to the area near the docks where my base of operations was stationed (and man, parkour became awesome when you could make leaps of nearly thirty feet at a time, combined with the reflexes, balance and grace of a cat) it took me roughly twenty minutes to arrive, and as I entered through the door at the back (which merely looked worn-down, but was actually equipped with advanced biometric security), I was greeted by an exited Sterns.

From where I was standing in the hallway, I could see Burstein snoring away on the couch of our 'living room'.

"Well? How did it go?"

Giving my friend a smug grin, I merely chuckled.

"I think I hooked him. Gave him a small amount of tech and software to figure out, as well as the syringe with Brain Booster. I even added an incentive to make him use it too; if he doesn't, then he won't be able to join our group, but if he does, then he gets even more tech to play with and all the money he could ever ask for."

"You really think it was a good idea, just giving him the Boost straight off the bat, without making sure he works for us first?"

"Give it a few days Sam, and he'll be knocking our door down, begging us to let him join the group."

Sterns remained somewhat sceptical, but I was proven right when three days later (two days earlier than I had expected) there indeed was a knock on our door, the security camera's showing the exited form of Phineas Mason.

When I opened the door for him, Burstein and Sterns behind me, Phineas didn't even say a word, merely stepping forwards, holding the notebook out for me to take with a huge grin on his sleep-deprived face. I quickly flipped through it, and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head as I took in the thick script that lined every square inch of every single page in the booklet.

Closing it after quickly reading through what appeared to be an exoskeleton based on the blueprints of the pincers and even what seemed to be reverse engineered parts from what he remembered seeing from my armour, and passing it to Sterns behind me, I let out a grin at the Tinkerer before me.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Mason."

/
Fun Fact: Neal Tennant, the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys, was an editor at Marvel's U.K. office in the late '70s.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 12: UNHOLY TRINITY​

Immediately after accepting Phineas into my group I put him on creating a Blue Box, as it was crucial for my plans of actually putting my company on the map fast enough that S.H.I.E.L.D (or someone even more shady) couldn't try and shut me down.

Well, almost immediately.

As it turned out, after agonizing over the notes I had left him for over a day, Phineas finally succumbed to the temptation of using the Brain Booster in order to solve the schematics.

And after that he hadn't stopped.

Which mean that when he knocked on my door, he had slept a total of four hours in the last three days. As I didn't want to find out what happened when you combine sleep deprivation with Arc Reactor-experimentation, I ordered him to rest in the living quarters, where he fell asleep the moment he crashed onto the couch.

While Mason slept off his insomnia, the rest of us got to working on our respective projects. Burstein had finally found a supplier for the bovine hides small enough that it wasn't likely to show up on anyone's radar (in this universe, you never knew who was watching, just that someone probably was), and while he was waiting for them to arrive, he was helping Sterns with developing an Omni-cure.

It was a medicine that was based on the regenerative abilities the serums had granted me, and once perfected should be able to boost every single human to just beyond Captain America in terms of physical health and strength, without giving them gamma-mutations or Extremis-heat.

The greatest problem developing such a cure was that it had to work on every human, and given that every human had unique DNA (not even twins were absolutely identical in their DNA as they grew older) finding a way to make the Cure work for everyone without accidentally killing those few who turned out to be incompatible proved to be extremely difficult.

Combining their super intellect, Burstein and Sterns estimated they would have a prototype within five years.

While it would take too long for it to be useful in the months leading up to Loki's invasion, I was mainly interested in the derivate Sterns was making based on the combined research he and Burstein had performed.

Using SCIENCE! Sterns had managed to isolate the part of Extremis that retroactively fixed the user's body like it had done with Killian, and used it to program Extremis in such a way that it used the bioelectric and metabolic processes of the body to "repair" the body to an ideal version of itself.

Basically, he had created our very own Fountain of Youth.

Actually bringing it to the mainstream market could take decades, but I wasn't really worried about that, since I had an entirely different demographic in mind. Every year, roughly 16 Billion dollars is spent on plastic surgery and various other ways to halt the signs of aging, with the rich and famous of course bringing up the biggest share in these monumental expenses.

Imagine what they would be willing to pay for the only thing capable of returning their youth back to them with 100% natural looking results, as opposed to the plastic mannequins that surgery ends up making, all with just a single shot.

Imagine what they would be willing to do…

So, I had Mason working on a project which would put us on the map of the masses and Sterns on a project which would entice people with more money than sense to be willing to pay through their noses for our product, helped by Burstein, who's idea for indestructible leather would probably increase our favour with law enforcement and the like to great heights, as we were planning to sell the armour at a vastly cheaper rate than Kevlar, while still making 100 dollars apiece.

And while my team of scientists gleefully put their super intelligent brains to the test, I was working on a project of my own, one for which I dragged Phineas along, since his connection to my target could turn out to be the decidingfactor for a positive outcome of this particular meeting.

"Hello there, Mister Toomes! Michael McCole, may I come in please?"

Standing nonplussed in his hallway of his house after he had opened the door at my knocking, Adrian Toomes looked up at my massive form with surprise clearly written on his face.

This time I wasn't in my armour, but instead I was in civilian gear, consisting of a pair of jeans tucked in combat boots, and a windbreaker zipped up to my throat in order to hide my more visible mutations. Originally I had bought a suit for this meeting, which 'unfortunately' had to be handcrafted, as I couldn't find one that fit me well enough due to my large size (and also because I couldn't quite resist the need to splurge when Burstein returned the back-pack I had given him, which to my amazement still held roughly 5000 dollars). However, I quickly realized that showing up to this guy's door in a handmade suit would probably serve to only set him against me from the get go.

No, just sturdy workman's clothing would be the best approach, as it would increase my chances of building a positive rapport with the blue-collar worker. Standing in his grease-stained overalls, Mason was clasping his hands behind his back next to me with a grin on his face.

"Phineas. The hell is this?" Toomes muttered lowly, though his eyes didn't leave mine.

"This is the guy I called you about! He's the one that gave me a new job! That's why I, you know, haven't really been showing up lately." Mason trailed off, as Toomes turned his head to look at his former colleague with a flat stare.

"Really? Now I'm wondering what kind of job requires you to just up and leave without letting your co-workers know anything at all. Just 'poof!', vanish from the face of the earth like that."

And with those words, Toomes turns back towards me again, fixing me with a stare that would probably have been intimidating if it weren't for the fact that (as he was now) he posed literal zero threat to me.

So I just let out a generous sounding laugh as I try to releave some of the tension that had sprung up between us, placing one enormous hand on the man's shoulder (which prompted a raised eyebrow and an impressive scowl from him), as I leaned forwards a little.

"I'm sorry about the hurry with which Mason left your employment Mister Toomes. But, he has told me a lot about you in the short time he's worked for me, and I think that I have found a way to pay you back for your troubles." I say with an easy grin, trying to win the man with my charmes, but it looks like Adrian is intending to play things close to the chest, as he doesn't say a word at my reassurance.

Instead he looks past me in order to fix Phineas with a heavy look, raising an eyebrow in question.

"He for real?"

"Don't worry about it man, he checks out. I swear, you're gonna wanna hear what he has to say." Mason says in a serious voice, though he can't quite keep his excitement from showing through.

Mulling it over for a few moments, Toomes finally seemed to cave to his ex-colleague's assurances, taking a step back from me and motioning us inside with a short jerk of his neck.

"Come inside then. Let's hear what you got to say."

And with those words, I entered the Toomes residence.

It wasn't the fancy modern house that I saw so long ago in the Spiderman: Homecoming movie, since Adrian had bought that with the money he had managed to acquire as the Vulture. Instead it was just a modest two-story house in Queens, thoroughly lived in and well-loved if the family pictures that lined the walls were anything to go by.

Leading us to his living room, Adrian gestured half-heartedly to his couch for us to take a seat why he walked on to the kitchen.

"You guys want a beer?"

Both of us acquiesced (even though it wouldn't really do anything to me, it would still be rude to decline when a man offers a stranger a beer from his personal stash) and in a few moments Adrian had returned, handing me and Mason a bottle as he took a seat in a heavy armchair with a deep sigh.

Not really paying attention to the beer in my hand, I twisted the top off without any effort, though I was taken off guard when I saw Toomes' eyes widening at the casual act.

Looking at the cap in my hand, I understood why.

This brand didn't have screw caps on their bottles.

Glancing at the villain in the making, I let out a sheepish grin, giving a careless shrug.

"Always ate my vegetables as a kid." I give as an explanation for the small feat of strength, and thankfully Toomes didn't push, simply shaking his head and using a bottle opener to get to his own beer.

After taking a long gulp, he gave a satisfied sigh and licked his lips, before he looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"You said something about paying me back?"

Scooting forwards on the couch, I let out a massive grin as I start putting my plan in motion.

"Mister Toomes, how long have you worked in construction and salvage?"

"Near on twenty years I reckon. Why?" Adrian asked suspiciously, but I just continued my questioning, confident that all those self-helpbooks about social interaction I had read would guide me through the conversation to a desirable outcome.

"And during those two decades, how many men and women do you know that by now have become, for whatever reason, unable to continue working, or hold a steady job?"

The rather personal question sets him off, and he sits up straighter in order to tear me a new one when he's held back by the placating motions of Mason, proving that my hunch in bringing him along in order to smooth things over had been correct. Settling back down in his armchair, Toomes fixed me with an angry glare, before answering my question.

"About thirty, I guess, give or take. What's it to you?" he says curtly.

At his wary question, I spread out my arms in a gesture of absolute generosity (nearly smacking Phineas in the mouth on accident) as I beam at the other man.

"I want to hire them!"

Clearly disbelieving my claim, Toomes scratches his cheek as his eyes study my face, trying to discern my motives.

"How many, and what do you need 'em for?"

"All of them!" I reply with a happy grin, which only serves to make Adrian even more weary, though I notice the interest in his voice and eyes, and I know that I got him hooked.

Now all that's left is to reel him in.

"The hell you need thirty cripples for?"

"I'm starting my own company, Mister Toomes. It's going to mainly focus on technology and medicine. Now, what I'm suggesting is that those people you know that are unable to get employed, start working for me. They get a respectable pay-check, and in return I hope to learn from them how to heal and support people like them to the point that they can be reintroduced to the job market as fully capable workers."

It's a load of sentimental crap: what I'm doing is taking a page out of A.I.M.'s book in regards to the types of mooks they recruited. Most (if not all) of them had been disfigured or disabled veterans, who when healed proved to be not only a capable workforce, but also a very loyal one.

I'm hoping to apply the same principle on whatever mooks Adrian can set me up with.

While it seems that Toomes has some suspicions about my story being a load of bull, the prospect of setting his friends up with a job was clearly making him consider accepting my proposal.

Finally, it was Mason who sealed the deal for me, just as I had planned for him to do.

I love my super-smart brain.

"C'mon Adrian. I'm telling you, this guy is for real. This isn't any of that feel-good crap, from what I've seen we have a real chance of making people better again. And the pay is good. It's nothing amazing, but it's good. Everything's better than nothing at all, right?" Phineas says softly in an urgent tone, making Toomes sink deep in thought.

After nearly a minute of silence (during which the beer in my hand has become disgustingly warm, of course) Adrian looks at me with a considering glance, before placing his beer on the coffee table, leaning forwards in his chair, hands folded underneath his chin.

"Allright. Let's talk business."

//

It was three days later that I stood in the centre of Manhattan (finally in my fancy new suit, yay!) with a bulky case in one hand, facing the imposing façade of one of the most well-known law firms in the universe (or at least, for those back in my old one it was, here it was just one of many).

Striding through the revolving doors with confidence oozing from every square inch of me (which considering my size, amounted to a lot) I made my way to the enormous counter standing in the central hall, which had a cute secretary sitting behind it, turning from her screen to me with a practised smile.

Which slowly fell from her face the more and more she had to crane her neck to look up at me, seeing my shades-wearing face grin back down at her.

"H-How may I help you? Sir?"

Placing one elbow on the countertop, I leisurely lean against the black marble, my tone easy and somewhat flirting.

"I'm here to see one of your lawyers."

"And who might that be sir?"

"Jeri Hogarth."

//

"Sir! Sir, you can't just walk in there! Sir! Sir, you don't have an appointment!"

I ignored the calls of the secretary, who amazingly enough had followed me all the way to Jeri's floor as I just kept on walking, my great strides due to my long legs easily keeping me ahead from the flustered girl in her high heels.

Finally I spot Trinity's office, and without further ado, I simply barge inside, making the lawyer-lady nearly jump out of her chair in surprise, before her eyes fall on me and her nostrils widen in rage.

"How dare you just waltz in here like that!"

Before I can reply, the secretary has finally caught up to me, her entire face going white as she spots the furious face of Hogarth.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I told him that he needed an appointment in order to see you, but he just wouldn't stop."

"Thank you Martha, I'll take it from here. Call security, ask them what the hell they are doing that this man can just walk into my office unopposed, then have them come here and throw him out at once!"

If she thought her tirade would scare me off, then she was sorely mistaken as I simply sauntered over to the chair in front of her desk, slowly lowering myself onto the furniture as to not accidentally crush something underneath my weight by just flopping down on it.

"R-Right!"

And with that, the girl turns on her heel, making her skirt flare nicely around her hips as she stalks away. Looking at Hogarth from the corner of my eye, I can see her give the secretary an equally appraising glance, and I can't help but chuckle.

Seeing the questioning look she sends me, I decide to elaborate.

"A fine choice."

Somewhat made uncomfortable by my apparent ease even after I had just heard that security was on its way to throw me out, Hogarth slowly sat down in her office chair again, regarding me warily.

"Yes, Martha is a highly qualified secretary-"

"Not what I meant." I interrupted, giving the woman a knowing smirk, causing her eyes to widen and her lips to compress.

"I'm sure that I have no idea what you are replying." She says primly, though her tone is dangerous and getting the hint I back off with a smile.

For a moment, an awkward silence falls over the office as we just look at each other, one which I deliberately allow to stretch in order to make Hogarth as uncomfortable as possible, as I'm hoping that if I can get her on the back-foot, she'll be easier for me to employ for my own causes, instead of getting trapped in her lawyer-talk once she gets going.

Seeing her shift in her chair, I decide to start Step 11b: Have Hogarth make sure that my company is up to standard and ready to take the world by storm.

"Tell me something, Miss Hogarth-"

"Mrs. Hogarth." She interrupts with the frosty voice, absent-mindedly rubbing at the wedding band on her finger, though the reply seems more of a reflex to me than genuine outrage.

"Mrs. Hogarth." I acquiesce with a smile, before continuing.

"I have a business proposition for you."

Trinity narrows her eyes at my blasé tone, before dismissing me with a wave of her hand.

"In that case, you should've made an appointment, as Martha has told you repeatedly."

"Let's not kid ourselves here, Mrs. Hogarth. It would've taken months before you would've even considered seeing me, if at all. I thought it better to get your attention this way."

And with that, I reach forwards (seeing Hogarth lean back in response, maintaining distance between us) as I place the bulky case on her desk, ignoring her fuming expression as it's now sitting one what seemed like important files she had been in the process of working on.

"Sir, I don't know what the meaning of this is-"

At that moment, the door behind me opened, and glancing over my shoulder I could see an older overweight gentleman with two brutes besides them (though compared to my own bulk they really didn't look like much) and Hogarth continued in a smug tone as her security team stood behind my chair.

"-but this is the part where you leave my office. I would say good day to you, but we lawyers already have a reputation for being liars, so I'll just admit that I sincerely hope I'll never see you again."

After she's done speaking, the fat man walks forwards, placing a chubby hand on my broad shoulder, his voice hard as he glares at me.

"Right son, fun's over. Let's get you out of here."

Slowly I can see his expression going from an attempt at intimidating to confused, and briefly I wonder why when I notice that the knuckles on his hands are white with the pressure he's exerting on my shoulder.

Besides a very light touch, I don't even feel it.

Grinning to myself, I turn back towards Hogarth, who'se looking confused as to why her security is merely touching me instead of hauling me off.

"I'm not leaving until you've opened the case, Mrs. Hogarth."

My refusal to leave spurs one of the brutes into action, who approaches my other side, placing his hand underneath my arm with an annoyed grunt as he gives a heave.

"All right, sir, you're leaving now-"

Only to nearly dislocate his arm as I don't even budge. Smiling to myself, I cross my legs as I lean back into the chair, folding my hands underneath my chin as I keep my eyes focused on Hogarth, who I can see is starting to understand just what's going on here.

"Open the case, Mrs. Hogarth. Inside you'll find something that'll make the both of us very rich."

"What the…" the older security guard murmurs to himself in shock, as his colleague is now violently tugging at my arm, throwing his whole body into the motion.

It's like watching someone trying to tear down a statue with his bare hands.

While I could easily fight off Hogarth's entire security team, that would honestly be some really bad PR for me, since beating up guys who're just doing their jobs is unlikely to go over well with the masses and I doubt that Trinity would like to do business with me after seeing me curb stomp these squishy humans.

So instead, I just remain seated in my chair, as I slowly start heating up my skin, making both guards let go with yelps of pain.

Glancing from her guards to my unmoving position across her, Jeri finally glances at the case in front of her, and I can see her thinking about my offer of riches, before she squares her shoulders.

"This had better be something good, Mister-"

"McCole. Michael McCole."

Catching the eye of her head guard, Jeri motions for him to leave, which he does very reluctantly, him and his two goons throwing distrustful looks over their shoulders back at me, before they're finally gone through the door and I'm alone with Trinity.

Giving me one last weary look, Hogarth undoes the clasps on the side of the heavy-duty case, and in one quick movement throws open the lid, quickly scooting backwards as she does so, carefully looking inside to see-

"What am I looking at?"

"I call it a Blue Box."

Looking at me over the edge of the case's lid, Hogarth gives me a very droll look.

"How… imaginative."

I merely shrug at her barb, still in the same position as when her guards experienced first-hand what the difficulties were of moving someone with super durability who has no intention of moving.

"Do you have any blueprints?"

"They are underneath the device."

I hear the shuffling of papers as Hogarth thumbs though the small booklet in which the specs of my Blue Box are written, dumbed down enough for a high schooler to understand.

And Jeri understands it just fine, if her small gasp is anything to go by.

"These numbers, of what it can generate… are those real?"

"100% real, Mrs. Hogarth, confirmed after extensive testing by myself, as well as two doctors and an engineer."

"The part in the file about emissions. Where's the rest of it?"

"That is all of it."

"You're fucking with me."

Hogarth's flat tone and unexpectedly course language takes me by surprise, and I let out a chuckle before I can control myself.

"No ma'am, those numbers are very real."

For a moment, Jeri just looks at the Blue Box in wonder, and I can already see plots and calculations forming behind her eyes.

"If this is true, then…"

"It would revolutionize the way the world uses energy? A new era for transportation, for machinery, for standards of living? All that and more, Mrs. Hogarth, all that and more."

Giving a slow, thoughtful nod in agreement, Hogarth's eyes remain fixed on the Blue Box, as she starts to catch on to the full implications of the advanced piece of technology in front of her.

There's still one problem though.

"I'm inclined to believe you on whether this thing works or not, and that it is in fact capable of doing the things you claim it can do."

Before a smile can fully form on my face, she cuts in again, raising a hand to stop me from interrupting her.

"But, that's because of a single reason, which as it happens is also the reason why I won't help your company market it."

While I had expected something like this, it was still somewhat disappointing to just hear my proposition denied like that, and I can't keep it entirely from showing through my voice as I reply to her.

"And just what might that reason be Mrs. Hogarth?"

"I've heard of these kind of numbers only once before, and while I might not be a scientist, I know enough to recognize Stark-tech when I'm looking at it. I'm not going to waste my life and career trying to fight Iron Man on corporate theft."

I try to placate her fears, but I already know that I'm fighting a losing battle. Tony Stark was the man in business. Sure, the Army didn't like him at all since he had stopped making weapons for them, and Fury most likely felt the urge to strangle the smug man at least thrice a day, but the public loved him, and Stark Industries had been a giant in global industry ever since World War II.

Stark (both father and son) had appeared untouchable for so long, people like Hogarth didn't even consider trying to get into a fight with them, even if they had a chance at winning. Hammer had tried it for years, and all that he had to show for it during that time was being forced to play second fiddle to Tony, only to end up in jail.

People who crossed a Stark generally tended to regret doing so eventually.

Still, there's no harm in trying.

"Mrs. Hogarth, do you know how many people have made an Arc Reactor for public use?"

Trinity gives a slow blink as she considers my question, looking for the hidden angle in the obvious looking question.

"Tony Stark, of course."

I give a grin at her answer as I lean forwards in my chair, Hogarth subconciously mimicking my movement.

"Nope! Sure, he has made Arc Reactors for himself, but nobody else is flying around with that kind of tech in their chest. Nobody, Mrs. Hogarth. Not just the public or other tech companies, the goverment and all their various organizations don't either, even though Stark used to be their biggest contractor. Now, what does all that tell you?"

Slowly I can see realization dawn in the woman's eyes, as she leans back into her office chair a little, her gaze distance as she mulls over the full implications of what I'm telling her. Then her eyes snap to mine, and I can see a predatory glint in her eyes when she figures it out.

"He didn't take out a patent on it. Technically, we could be the first ones to bring the Arc Reactor to the market." she says in awe.

Clever girl.

I give the lawyer a sly grin as I place my fist underneath my chin, my entire posture one of practised nonchalance, my entire air a mix of just the right amounts of carefree and determined.

"We could win this, Hogarth. If you're up for it it, that is."

I can tell that she's seriously considering it, and for a moment it seems as if she's going to agree as her eyes travel from the rapport to the Blue Box and back again, but then she lets out a sigh and closes her eyes with a shake from her head.

"Even if we might, might, win, Stark will come down on us like a ton of bricks. For fuck's sakes, the man gets captured, escapes using self-made power armour, only to return there and blow his kidnappers to kingdome come! And over here, he has a multi-billion company and an army of lawyers behind him! And you want me to fight that man? Again, what you got here is clever, I won't deny that, but I won't risk my career by pissing off a man as powerful as Stark. I won't do it." she says with heavy emphasis, and I can tell that she fully means it too.

I gave a deep theatrical sigh at the lawyer's words, fishing something from the inside pocket of my suit jacket, fiddling with it in a painfully obvious manner as I start talking to myself in a clearly fake morose tone of voice.

"Ah, that's such a shame. Understandable, of course, but a such a shame nonetheless. Why if only there were something to help me convince you. Just this one thing, but oh what could it possibly be?" I muse to myself, glancing at Hogarth from the corner of my eye with a sly smirk.

Who kept following the small vial that I was rolling around between my palms with her eyes, until curiosity got the better of her and she gave an annoyed sigh.

"What is that, Mr. McCole?"

"Oh this little thing?" I say in a faux-surprised tone, and to my amusement I can see that my purposely bad acting is getting on her nerves.

"Why it's just a little something that me and my team cooked up. It's not even all that useful really. All it does is return someone to the prime of their life, without any drawbacks or a hint of pain, at a fraction of a cost of years of plastic surgery."

And with that, I gently place the vial in front of Jeri on her desk, who can't keep her eyes off of it after my bomb-shell.

"What?" she mutters to herself in awe, and pressing my advantage now that I had broken her suspension of disbelief, I gesture to the case once more.

"Of course, I wouldn't make such a bold claim without any proof to back it up, so if you would please pick up the tablet on the bottom of the case, please?"

Hesitantly following my instructions, Hogarth picked up the tablet, only to nearly drop it when it immediately switched on, showing Burstein sitting in the living room of what could only be the house of an elderly person, judging by the sheer amount of knitting that was visible, as well as the old, shrivelled up lady that was sitting next to my scientist on the plush couch.

The old lady was actually someone Toomes had put me in contact with, partly to mess with me and partly to see how I would react, and just what my plans were exactly. The venerable old lady was nearing 80, but a rough life as a single mother of four had taken its toll, and while she was beloved by most of her neighbourhood (including Toomes) due to always standing ready for anyone if they needed help, she was unable to support herself in her old age, living mostly of donations from her friends and remaining family.

Today, that would change.

Before I had come here, I had tried to calculate every possible outcome of my conversation with Hogarth (and while it was of course impossible to determine every social human interaction, I felt I came pretty far nonetheless) and I had taken into account that I would need to show her my greatest trump card at the moment in order to convince her to work for me.

So I had sent Burstein to the house of the old lady with a tablet and a vial, and told him my plan, only to enact if we contacted him through the devices. When Jeri inadvertently face-timed them by picking up the tablet from the case, they were both drinking tea from fine china, and apparently Burstein saw something switch on the screeen at his side of the conversation, as he lowered the cup with a smile, giving an excited little wave at the screen.

To my immense amusement I saw Hogarth start waving as well in her stupor, before she caught herself, sending me a deathly glare when she caught my amused snort.

"Ah hello there, Mrs. Hogarth, correct?" Burstein called out, and at Hogarth's confirming nod, he continued.

"Right, I'm assuming Michael told you about our Rejuvenation Serum, which is why we're face-timing right now. In order to give you proof that it actually does indeed work, I have my lovely assistant here with me!" Burstein says with a happy smile, turning to his side with a wide sweep of his arm, indicating the old lady sitting next to him, who raised her hand and gave a shaky little wave of her own.

"Now, Ms. Jackson, if you would please ingest the Rejuvenation Serum? Here, let's wash it down with some tea shall we?" Burstein told his 'assistant', who nodded at the scientist's exited proposal, giving a soft smile of her own as she held out her little cup and saucer.

Pulling the stopper from a vial similar to the one now lying on Hogarth's desk, Burstein emptied the contents into Ms. Jackson's cup, stirring it gently with a silver spoon, before handing it back to her.

To the aged lady's credit, she nearly downed the entire cup in one go, a small shudder going through her frame as she squeezed her watery eyes shut with an adorable scrunched up face.

"Oof! So bitter!" she said in good humour.

And that's when Hogarth nearly screamed out loud.

Because, right in front of her, in real-time, she was looking on as Miss Jackson slowly started to de-age, looking like she was in her early sixties within ten minutes, and looking not a day over forty after another fifteen minutes.

Unfortunately for Miss Jackson, we hadn't dared to make the effects more powerful, as we were afraid that the impact of Extremis on such a frail body would give a too great of an initial shock to her system, killing her before the effects could really take effect.

Still, looking forty years younger after roughly half an hour was more than enough.

Slowly tearing her eyes away from the tablet in front of her (which showed the 80 year old lady literally jumping from her couch in a single smooth movement, catching the laughing Burstein in a bear-hug that nearly lifted him off his feet) her head turning towards me as her face was filled with shock.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no words came out, before her eyes settled on a familiar looking vial in front of her on her desk, shining innocently in the light streaming into the office from the windows behind the powerful lawyer.

Once more Hogarth looked at me, before she put her trembling hands flat on the wooden surface of her desk, squared her shoulder and took a deep breath, before she looked at me with the professional mask of a top-tier businesswoman (though I could see her eyes keep flitting back towards the vial occasionally).

"And just who shall I be representing, Mr. McCole?"

I grin in triumph at snaring yet another pawn for my short-term goals, and as I lean forwards I tell her the name of my company, which I had chosen after realizing who my true rival was in my quest for omnipotence, even if we had yet to cross paths.

"Titan Solutions."



//

My company struck the global market like a bomb. Within days, I had offers from just about every major car company in the world, every single fabricator of airplanes, as well as public transport.

And that was just the motorised side of things.

Hogarth (who now looked to be barely thirty) had really come through for me, and made sure to promote the multi-functionality and low-emission of my Blue Box with the major players in various branches of industry and even the government and local authorities (how she even got the pull for such things I didn't know and frankly I'd rather not find out).

She found other lawyers and business officials who she felt could be trusted not to screw me over, who in turn started brokering deals between Titan Solutions and the veritable tidal wave of companies that wanted to get their hands on the advanced piece of technology, given that it was currently the only one of its kind (on the market, that is).

Truthfully, I had neither a head for business, nor a taste for it, so I was more than happy to just hand the reigns of turning my new company into a technology giant over to Hogarth, who just stared at me like I was an idiot at the amount of freedom I gave her, before she just shook her head and got to work.

Making me a millionaire.

Honestly, I had preferred for one of my scientists to take the lead in the company, but after I came back from my meeting with Hogarth late at night (we had kept on discussing our strategy for another six hours, before she sent me home with the message that we would pick up where we left off the following day) I sat down in our living room, Sterns and Burstein on the couch reading scientific journals (Sterns was reading two at once) with Mason lying on his stomach in front of the TV on the rug I had bought, a dissasembled Blue Box in front of him.

When I took a seat in my favorite armchair, snagging a piece of left-over pizza from the coffee table as I did, I offered them the CEO position of Titan Solutions.

All three just immediately went 'not it!' and then gleefully laughed at my expense of being stuck with the corporate side of things for the forseeable future, instead of the SCIENCE! part of things.

While the Blue Box had fulfilled its task of putting my company on the map quite beautifully thanks to Hogarth's contacts and knowledge of what to outsource to whom, it was the next piece of technology that Titan Solutions put out that won the heart of the common people and captured their imagination, making sure that I was untouchable as far as S.H.I.E.L.D. was concerned.

We didn't reveal the Rejuvenation Serum to the public, as that was meant to be something that would spread from word of mouth amongst the richest tiers of society, which would allow us to bleed them dry while circumventing FDA-regulations.

No, we promoted something even more amazing.

We told the world that we had found a cure for Alzheimer's.

Using the way the amount of neurons in his own brain had increased, as well as the way the neurons in mine (and Burstein's and Mason's as well) worked far more efficiently, Sterns had found a serum which would counter-act the degenerative effects Alzheimer's had on the brain, effectively curing it.

Unfortunately a lifetime solution was nearly impossible to create (though that didn't stop Sterns from working on it), but with the way things stood, we could cure people of one of the most terrible diseases that plagued the human race, with only one shot every two to three years when the effects of Alzheimer's started to act up again.

Revealing that had secured us interviews with every major news outlet across the country, even though we kept stressing that, due to FDA-regulations, it would still take a very long time before we could actually start curing people.

Nobody cared.

To them, we had gone from complete unknowns, to national heroes overnight.

Which brought the scariest part of this venture with it.

Actually going public.

It would be the first time in more than half a year that Sterns would be walking freely in public (disregarding the rural little village in Africa where he had become some sort of witch-doctor to the local people), and I certainly wasn't entirely comfortable myself with showing my face on every TV in America, effectively taunting S.H.I.E.L.D.

Still, everything went better than expected really. Audiences usually reacted with shocked gasps whenever Sterns walked onto the stage, but with my hulking form beside him (I always made sure that my eyes were glowing a bright orange, though I also made sure to sound as eloquent as possible whenever I was asked to speak in order to not be seen as a mere brute) nobody got it in their minds to harass him over his mutated appearance.

And then when he delivered our pre-prepared sob story about how the Abomination had forced his mutation, which caused him to hide out of fear, but not give up on trying to help humanity from the shadows because of his inherent humbleness, he quickly turned into an almost martyr-like figure. Someone who used a deformity cruelly enforced on him to better the people around him.

While it didn't go viral like the Blue Box and the Alzheimer's cure had gone, the finished product of Burstein's bulletproof leather experiments were very positively received by the NYPD, as we were willing to supply a material far superior to Kevlar at a way cheaper price.

I had also used the pieces to line the insides of my armour, both as yet another layer of durability as well as an isolating material, which allowed me to reach greater temperatures without worrying about frying my suit.

As far as the world was considered, Titan Solutions had made it, and made it big time too.

Of course it couldn't last. Sooner or later (and I was banking on sooner. Maybe something between one and two weeks, if Pepper didn't alert him before that of course) Tony Stark would put two and two together and realize that the new technology that had taken the energy industry by storm had awfully similar specs as his own tech and then there would be hell to pay, though with Hogarth at my side I had at least a hope of stalling (or hell, even winning from) the genius until I was powerful enough that it really didn't even matter anymore whether or not he would win the inevitable lawsuit.

And that's not even getting into regular spooks like the CIA taking one look at my super strong body or they would try to get their hands on my research, with S.H.I.E.L.D. right on their heels.

However, just 'disappearing' me or seizing my company was completely out of the question, if the sheer amount of times I showed up on social media sites or on TV in a top trending article was anything to go by.

I was a huge celebrity, with some decrying me as a freak or even a demon, but also with a smaller group of people calling me the next step in human evolution.

The majority merely thought I was something to fanboy about when they saw me lift a school bus over my head with ease for a publicity stunt (which incidentally involved a lot of structural shenanigans worthy of a Penn and Teller preformance).

Gone was the need for stealth, or trying to operate without getting seen, now I just walked around in public in broad daylight, someone stopping me every ten meters or so, asking for a selfie with me. Apparently the deals Hogarth had my army of lawyers broker as well as my newfound celebrity status had made various shadow organizations to keep to a 'wait and see' approach for now, as I was too much of a public figure to move overtly against.

After all, I was the guy who found the tragic hero, Doctor Sterns, and who had allowed the good man to experiment on me, offering myself up as a guinea pig so that humanity could be advanced.

The parallels between Steve Rogers and myself which I deliberately enforced (I taught myself to speak with an authentic Brooklyn accent, and even lied about being an infirm youth before my transformation) certainly didn't hurt.

One of the more unforeseen benefits of suddenly finding myself amongst one of the most famous people in the world (or, well, at the very least New York) is that other famous people wanted to hang out with me (more likely though they just wished to be seen with me).

Still, I had Will Smith listed in my phone's contacts!

How awesome is that!?

And abusing my newfound status as one of the (soon to be) rich and (most definitely) famous, I had managed to get myself a V.I.P-ticket to an event tonight where an upcoming singer would be making her debut.

Trish Walker, with her hit song 'I want your Cray-Cray', or whatever it was called.

I walked towards the club, making sure that people saw me going to the party and stopping for every autograph and selfie request that was made in order to make people even more sympathetic to me. Feeling particularly cheeky, I waved to my CIA tail for the night, which I saw was a different one that had been posted outside of my factory the day after I had gone public.

Oh look, my NSA tail thought I had been waving at him!

Goverment spooks (or worse) had been hounding my steps every moment since my great big mug had been shown on national television, but not a single one had dared to make a move as I made sure to be seen by the masses every moment I stepped outside, interacting with regular civilians.

All of it just to keep me in the mind of as many people as possible in order to label myself as too hot to handle for covert organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D.

Finally, after a three hour walk, I finally entered the club, and there she was in all of her beautiful glory.

Trish Walker, in a red latex corset on the big screen.

And oh yeah, Jessica Jones was there as well I guess.

Walking towards the sullen girl who was trying her hardest to gain attention by looking as broody as she could, I couldn't help but compare the two sisters to each other.

One was almost frail looking and flat as a board, while the other had a strong, feline face with a body that had all the right curves in all the right places. One had bleak skin and listless black hair, while the other had a healthy tan on her and vibrant golden hair. One dressed herself as is she bought her clothes from a thrift shop, the other was currently dancing in a short Gucci-dress.

In my previous life, I had somewhat of a crush on Trish Walker, and it seemed that my tastes haven't really changed, even after rebirth.

Though in this life I did like Asparagus for some weird reason.

Unfortunately, tonight I needed to deal with the sister that looked like a depressed, bedraggled cat that was accidentally dragged inside, instead of her bombshell of a sister who was currently having the time of her life.

Of course, before I could get to her I needed to worm my way through a throng of people, which wasn't made any easier when they began to recognize who I was (I have a fairly unique body type after all) and they started swarming me, Trish's performance forgotten for the moment.

While annoying, good PR is currently all that stands between me and shady government officials who want to cut me open and see what makes me tick, so I put on my best smile and started shaking hands and signing autographs (a highlight of the night was when a girl, instead of offering me a piece of paper or something, simply lifted up her shirt with a challenging grin) as I went over to Trish and her posse.

"Michael! You came!"

I could tell Trish was pretty far gone by this point, as she let out a great holler of glee and hugged me with a flying tackle. Taking it in stride and deciding to just enjoy having a beautiful woman in a thin dress press herself close to me, I let out a booming laugh of my own and hugged her back.

"Of course Trish, when I got the invite I just knew I had to come!" I replied, putting on a faux-enthousiastic tone of voice which grated on my own ears.

Anything to keep the public mask in place.

PR is life.

Literally.

"Oh! Oh, oh oh! Have you met my friends?!"

And with that she drags me off to shake hands with what I have labelled in my head as 'the most boring people on planet earth'.

Seriously.

How could you possibly stretch a discussion about shoes to last more than an hour!?

Still we finally, finally came to the real reason why I had responded to Trish's agent contacting me for this night's party.

"And this is my sister Jessica!"

Said sister turned around with a roll of her eyes, undoubtedly annoyed at one more 'friend' of Trish's she has to meet, but when she finally saw me, her eyes lit up with interest.

As I'm the closest things she's come to meeting someone who is like her, I'm not surprised.

"Hello there!" I boom easily over the loud music, getting a hesitant nod in return.

For the following hours I remained close to the two siblings, making sure to strike up conversations with Jessica as often as I could, though Trish seemed to be the jealous type, as she kept demanding my attention.

Eventually, the events played out much the same like in the show (though I was surprised to find that this time, I featured in the heated discussion between them when they left the club, with Trish drunkenly exclaiming that Jessica always took her stuff, even her new friends) after which Jessica demolished an ATM and Trish took off in a limo.

Honestly I'd much rather have gone with the limo instead of following Jessica's footsteps as she made her way from the party in some aimlessly wandering direction, but Jessica was useful to me, while Trish (other than a possible one night stand, which might even turn out to be deadly for her given the internal heat of my body) simply wasn't.

Which lead to me calling out to the lithe woman with bills stuffed down her shirt roughly two blocks away from the party as we were walking across a small plaza which had stone tables for playing chess scattered across it.

"You do know stealing is wrong, don't you?!"

Jessica froze in her tracks, before shooting a furtive glance at me as I approached her from behind.

"The fuck are you talking about?"

I continued to walk until I was standing in front of the young woman, who was somewhat hunched over and holding her arms protectively in front of her stomach.

"You know, I have seen a lot of weird shit in my life, put a girl who's what, a hundred pounds soaking wet, rip apart an ATM like it's made of rice-paper? Now that's something you don't see every day." I said with a deep chuckle, keeping an eye on passer-by's.

Thankfully, due to the late hour there were hardly any people on the streets, and while I did get a look or two, most people seemed content to just hurry on home to their beds.

"Look, I don't know what you think you saw-"

"I saw you rip apart an ATM, then reach inside and take the cash."

"…. No matter what you think you saw, I didn't do shit."

And with that she walks past me, trying to shoulder me out of the way as she goes, which surprises me when she actually succeeds in moving me, and which surprises her when I barely stumble from her shoulder check.

Turning with her, I call out to her as she tries to walk away from me, though I can see the interest in her eyes increase at actually experiencing a portion of my strength first-hand.

"Aren't you tired?"

Giving me a puzzled look, Jessica doesn't stop walking, forcing me to try and keep up with her, which my longer strides allow me to do easily.

"Tired? Of what, you?" she bits out, but all I do is laugh, which as expected, only serves to make her even more annoyed.

"No, of hiding what you can do."

That puts her to a stop, looking down at the nose of her boots, her black hair falling across her face like an imitation of a particularly unflattering curtain.

"I have to hide."

"Why?"

"Because-!" Jessica starts to yell, whirling around to face me with fire in her eyes, but the fight quickly leaves her when she actually starts to consider what she's about to say.

"Because? Because of what? Your sister?"

Not getting a response from the heartbroken young woman in front of me, I decide to press on.

"Look, I didn't hear all of what you were shouting at each other outside of the club back there, but I did catch an argument revolving around money."

Jessica still doesn't react, so I'll take it as a positive sign and continue talking.

"Let me guess, she's the rich one, and you're the poor one that needs to mooch off of her?"

Finally I get a reaction from her, as her head whips up to face me, and she shoots forwards until we're standing chest to chest, her finger poking me heard in the stomach (hard being somewhat relative here: had I been a baseline human, those taps would've been enough to send me to the ground, gasping for air, but as I was now I barely even registered them other than soft little impacts).

"I don't fucking need her! I don't need anybody!"

"Yes, as you have so astutely proven by robbing an ATM. Clearly, you are doing great for yourself." I reply, sarcasm almost physically dripping from my every word, and while Jessica wants to contest my claim, the fact that she is currently pressing said stolen money against her stomach clearly takes some of the fight out of her.

Time to go for the kill.

"Allow me to propose a deal."

At my words, Jessica gives me a disgusted look and quickly backs away from me, her arms closing a little tighter around her body. For a moment I don't understand her sudden reaction, but when it hits me I nearly face-palm.

"Not that kind of deal! God, what the hell is wrong with you!"

"Me?! You're the one that goes up to me in the middle of the night, and offers me a 'deal'! What the hell was I supposed to think, creep!"

"Are you kidding me right now?! I'm not a creep!"

"Is exactly what a creep would say!"

"For God's sakes woman, you're not even my type!"

"See! This is about sex with you isn't it!"

"Would you just-" I trail of in fury, my hands itching to strangle the enraged woman in front of me, before I let out a deep breath in order to sooth myself (which due to my high temperature and the cold of the December night, makes me billow out a great cloud of steam) as I pitch my nose in a desperate move to try and stay calm.

"Look, I was just going to offer you a job, so you don't need to mooch of your sister anymore, or rip apart ATM's for a bit of cash."

Calming down a bit at my offer of a job, Jessica gives me a sceptical look as she starts to lose her aggressive stance a little.

"You? Give me a job? Why?"

'Because I really want to see just how the same chemical gave Matt Murdock super-senses and you superstrength and (more importantly) flight.'

I give an careless shrug, and decide to mix in a little truth here, in a bid to try and fool her detective senses.

"You seem plenty smart, and I could always use someone in my company who is about a sixth as strong as me."

Now, that wasn't an accurate statement (truthfully, while I knew that I was stronger than Jessica by quite a margin, I had absolutely no idea just how large that margin actually was so far all I knew a sixth was actually the true scale) but that didn't matter as I had said it solely to rile her up.

"A sixth?" she asked irritated, at which I gave the most nonchalant expression I could get to form on my face.

"Eh, somewhere about there, if not a bit weaker."

"I'm not weak." Jessica nearly growls, and it's honestly almost adorable coming from such a little women like her.

Letting a grin cross my face, I cross my arms in front of my broad chest, lifting my chin in challenge.

"Prove it. I propose an arm-wrestling contest, and here's the wager; if I win, then you come work for me, with a salary of about what you're holding there each month. In the extremely unlikely event of you winning, I'll give you ten times of what you stole tonight and never bother you again."

My challenge, combined with the promise of a lot of money and all of the alcohol already in her system, has her quickly fired up, and she walks over to one of the chess tables, taking a seat and lifting her arm with a confident smirk.

I take a seat across from her, and engulf her tiny hand in my massive one, smirking right back at her.

"Ready? One. Two. Thr-"

"Haha! Suck it!"

Of course she would start pushing before I finished counting.

What amazes me is the fact that she's actually making something of a headway in working my arm towards the marble table top (despite the fact that I'm not even really trying to stop her right now), even though she is not even half my weight.

'Damn, what the hell is in those chemicals? I gotta get me some of that.'

As I'm contemplating that, I can see that Jessica is both grinning at her oncoming victory as well as puzzlement furrowing her brow due to the fact that it's taking her this much effort, as she's getting red in the face and is sweating quite profusely.

Which is when I start pushing back.

Briefly I can see the shock in her eyes when our clenched fist suddenly tip to the other side of the table, but to her credit, even when using roughly a quarter of my strength, she's still not out for the count yet.

Which is amazing, because at this level I'm pretty sure that I could throw around cars.

Still, it's clearly taking a toll out of the lithe woman in front of me, as she's desperately panting in exertion, her entire body trembling with all the effort she'd putting in keeping her fist from touching the table.

So being the sportsmanlike gentlemen that I am…

I turned my strength up a notch.

"SHIT!"

And with those eloquent words, Jessica's fist is slammed straight into the stone table, cracking it across its length as she's nearly thrown to the ground due to my final feat of strength.

Standing up from my seat (and shaking my hand loose, because damn that girl got a grip) I turn my back on the shocked looking Jessica as I slowly walk away, leaving my business card on the table as I do so.

"You start at nine in the morning. Don't be late."

And with those words I'm gone, disappeared into the night.

//
Fun Fact: Chris Evans turned down an offer to play Captain America, not once, not twice, but three times. Due to his past experiences playing the Human Torch in Marvel's Fantastic Four franchise, Evans knew what it was like to be a part of a high-budget film with less than favourable reception. Eventually Evans agreed to accept the part when he was able to negotiate his contract down to six films instead of the original nine and got over his fears.

 

[Bakkughan]

"Tony, have you seen this?" Pepper's question rang out through the inventor's workshop as she burst inside, crimson hair trailing behind her like the vengeful tail of a comet.

She came to a halt by a surprising sight, however.

Tony wasn't inventing.

Instead, the brilliant scientist was seated behind his desk, leaning back in his chair as his eyes were fixed on the holographic screens in front of him with an uncharacteristically dark look. The holograms showed the press-conference that Pepper has just been watching and which had caused her to run to Tony's lab as she felt that he needed to be aware of this.

She hadn't expected him to already be on top of this though.

As if he could hear her unasked question, Tony replied, though his eyes were still fixed on the screen in front of him.

"Yeah. JARVIS picked it up and sent it to me, he thought I should have a look at it."

And what he was looking at made him both angry and wary.

Because right there on the screen, clad in a nice suit, stood a behemoth of a man (though not as large or bulky as the Hulk was reported to be) with glowing eyes and a winning smile.

"We at Titan Solutions believe in helping everyone. And with our Blue Box, we will help everyone. The Blue Box is an advanced piece of technology which is capable of producing enormous amounts of energy, without the drawback of polluting emissions which has become the staple of fuel today. Instead, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the fuel of the future!" Michael McCole, the man who had allowed a gamma-mutated scientist to enhance him with God knows what, spread out his enormous hands in a picture-perfect gesture of generosity.

As a loud cheer and a wave of applause filled the conference room, Tony felt unease twist in his gut.

Not so long ago, he would have either been amused or intrigued at the notion of someone else claiming to possess advanced tech on the same level that he could produce.

That had changed ever since Vanko showed up and nearly killed Pepper and Happy right in front of him.

He had managed to recover (somewhat) from the betrayal of his mentor Obadiah because the man's Iron Monger armour had been stolen from his designs, though the memory of the man standing above him while he was helpless to stop Obadiah from (in a way) literally tearing his heart straight out of his chest would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

He couldn't make the same excuse when it came to Vanko however.

Yes, his Arc Reactor had been inferior, but it had been all made by the criminal with his own two hands, and it had been improved upon after he so foolishly gave the man the info he had needed to do it.

That had been the day that Tony Stark had to swallow a bitter pill.

There were others out there who could do what he did.

So no, he wasn't just going to laugh about or ignore this brand new company nobody had heard about before last week, that claimed they could distribute highly advanced tech to the masses, just because he had thought he was the only one capable of doing so.

He refused to make the same mistake twice.

"What are we going to do about this Tony? That man is clearly trying to sell-"

"-Arc Reactors."

Seeing her blink in surprise at his brusque tone, Tony swivelled his chair around to face her fully, his expression softening somewhat as he looked at her, his face more serious that she was used to seeing outside of life or death situations.

"It's a piece of technology that is literally close to my heart Pepper. They can dress it up all they like, give it fancy names and stuff, but there's no way in hell that I wouldn't recognize what is keeping me alive."

Walking up to him, placing a dainty hand on his shoulder, Tony saw her brows furrow lightly as she looked back at the screen again, where McCole seemed to be shaking hands with the CEO of Honda, which not only made cars for the big consumer market, but also engines for just about every field of motorsport, including F1, which boasted a multi-million budget per race.

Netting this deal (amongst many others) meant that Titan Solutions now was worth billions.

She should know, she had dinner with that very CEO just last week in order to arrange a deal for Stark Industries.

"How did they get Arc Reactors Tony?"

Shrugging, the scientist placed his hand on top of hers as he too looked towards the screen.

"Probably from the Stark Expo fiasco. There were plenty of pieces flying around there, so someone might have picked it up and sold it to a bunch of scientists or something. That or S.H.I.E.L.D. screwed up when they breached Hammer Industries looking for Vanko and didn't secure his blueprints thoroughly enough."

Standing up from his chair, Tony walked towards one of the multitude of tables in his workshop, his restless hands mindlessly picking up an Iron Man helmet (it would be part of his Mark VI armour, which was meant to be the first one to be fully capable of operating underwater) as the inventor inside him started to get to work, leaving him to mull over his thoughts in peace.

"How they got their hands on it doesn't matter. What matters is what we are going to do about it."

"We're going to sue them. We'll bleed them dry." Pepper's voice came automatically, cool and self-assured, born from her experience in guiding Stark Industries to the top of the market which such vigour she had been named business woman of the century.

Still, Tony just absent-mindedly shook his head as his hands kept on working (lining the wiring just so ought to make the data stream to his HUD 0,0056% more efficient) as he replied over his shoulder.

"Maybe. I don't think it's the best idea though. I never took out a patent on the tech, Pepper. I just figured that if I did, I'd only turn back into the Merchant of Death again by giving the people a new kind of weapon to play with. And I wasn't worried about someone making it themselves, because… well, honestly, until Vanko showed up at Monaco I never figured that anyone could."

"But this is clearly corporate theft!"

At her indignant shout, Tony sighed in frustration, placing the helmet back down and turned around to face her, leaning his back against the workbench as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, hiding his own Arc Reactor from view.

"Yes, it is. But how's it gonna look when we call him out on it Pepper? They are out there, right now, selling this tech to just about everyone willing to pay for it. Which, basically, includes just about everyone who can pay for it. And only after deals have already been made between Titan and everyone else, does Stark Industries come out and sue them for doing it."

"Legally, we are fully in our right-"

"Pepper. People don't care about legally. All they care about, is that their cars and homes will become a lot cheaper to provide with energy, and when they see Stark Industries come in and try to take it all away because we have been sitting on the same damned tech for well over a year, do you know what they'll think? 'Well, if Tony Stark has had this for so long, then why didn't he try to make our lives better?' And they aren't wrong."

"Tony, you're not being fair to yourself." Pepper murmured softly as she approached him, her slim arms coming up around his neck as she rested her head on his chest.

Wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her fiery hair, Tony looked conflicted, his usual playboy tendencies pushed to the background now that he was confronted with questions he hadn't even known were there, waiting to be answered.

"Am I though? Every time someone got their hands on my tech, they tried to use it to hurt me. To hurt you. Or they tried to turn it into weapons again. Or both. And that made it so easy to justify keeping all of it to myself. But here comes this new guy, right? And he has his hands on my tech, and all he's doing is making deals for engines and generators and stuff. The closest he has come to making weapons is getting into a partnership with Pym Technologies, but for the rest he turns out clean and I'm just left thinking…. You know?"

"When's the other shoe going to drop?" Pepper finished with a soft smile, pulling back a bit so she could look him in the eyes as he sighed in admittance.

"Yeah. Does that make me paranoid?"

Pepper let out a short laugh at that, before she fondly shook her head.

"No Tony. It just means you have been through a lot. More than most. And all you can think about is making sure that other people don't have to. That doesn't make you paranoid; it makes you a hero."

Tony smiled at her reassuring words, before he gently leaned in and kissed her softly, trying to convey with that action all that words failed to say. She leaned closer to him for a moment, before they both pulled back with smiles, and Tony felt that heavy weight that had been resting on his shoulders ever since he saw the conference fall away a bit.

Looking back towards the screen, he couldn't help but frown though, as he saw that McCole character wave to an adoring crowd as he walked off the stage, giving out signatures as he went, his towering size meaning that he remained clearly visible even amidst a throng of people, due to most of them only reaching the man's shoulder.

And because of the fact that a little woman only half McCole's size just kept walking in a straight line, uncaringly shoving people out of her path with contemptuous ease and a bored expression on her face, carving a clear way for her boss to walk through.

'One of those people that had volunteered to be enhanced by him, maybe?'

Tony didn't know how the man had done it (though mostly likely he hadn't, considering the fact that walking behind him was a suspiciously young looking Jeri Hogarth, a lawyer that even the genius inventor had heard about), but Titan Solutions had managed to include a clause in their employee contracts that stated that said employees were free to participate in human testing of experimental drugs.

Where he had found the people, Tony had no clue, but within the week of Titan Solutions entering the global market, reports had been flooding news-outlets as it became clear that the man had hired injured and maimed construction workers, and restored them to perfect health using unknown means.

Looking at one such man walking next to McCole, who Tony knew had been in a wheelchair just last month, Tony couldn't quite suppress the new wave of doubt that came over him as he once again considered just how him being Iron Man had helped the little guy.

Neither he personally, nor Stark Industries as a whole, had focused as much on medicine as they had on tech, but that was mostly because of his own preferences, not due to a lack of ability.

How many cures could he have created, had he sunk his time in researching that instead of trying to figure out a way to cram even more missiles into his armour?

How many more people could he have saved if he had done that?

Sure, fighting terrorists in the Middle East had not only been cathartic, it had helped stabilize the region as well, but what had it done for humanity at large?

Sighing again (Tony was really starting to dislike how Titan Solutions made him feel, with their moral dilemma-raising antics) he looked at Pepper with a wry smile.

"Honestly? I don't feel much like a hero. Yes, I am Iron Man, with or without the suit, and as Iron Man I've done a lot to help people, but what have I done to improve all of humanity?"

Pepper pressed her lips together, worry rising within her as she looked at her uncharacteristically morose lover. He had been behaving erratically during that awful period where he had been dying, and the betrayal of Stane combined with Vanko's attempts on his life still weighed heavily on him, but she disliked seeing him so down like this.

"Iron Man has done a lot to help people, yes, but Tony Stark has helped just as many, if not more. I know that you leave much of the company to me, and I love you for that amount of trust, but you should really take more of an interest occasionally into what it is that we actually do. Relief-efforts, building infrastructure, providing safe water and food to third-world countries… Your company, Tony Stark, is focused on making this world a better place, and even if I do say so myself, it's doing a damned good job at it too!"

For a moment Tony remained silent at her short tirade, took in the fire in her eyes and the heated blush on her cheeks, before he captured her lips with a laugh, seeing her eyes widen in surprise, before she grinned and kissed him back.

"Where would I be without you?" he muttered softly when they released each other, though they kept staring into each other's eyes.

"Either broke or accidentally murdered in your sleep by Dummy." Pepper answered with a laugh, which caused him to chuckle as well, before they both trailed off into a comfortable silence, content with just holding on to each other for now.

"We really do need to respond to this though, Tony. Just from a purely business point of view, we can't let such an up and coming challenger grow unopposed. Right now, even with the deals they are rapidly making, they are still fairly small. You can see it in who they partner with: all of them are companies that have large enough facilities to produce Blue Boxes on their own. At this point Titan Solutions is too small to start producing tech themselves on a massive scale, so they keep selling plans to companies that can, until they are big enough to start producing their own tech for the market. We need to have a response ready before that happens or we could have another Rand Enterprises in terms of competitors." Pepper rattled off, her keen business mind picking apart the weak spots in her opponent with practised ease born from nearly a decade of experience.

"I thought you said you liked Rand Enterprises." Tony said with a grin, which only increased at Pepper's answering sniff of disdain.

"No, I said I liked Joy. The rest of Rand feels… dirty, especially since a couple of years ago. I keep telling you Tony, there's something that just isn't quite right with them."

"Yes, you have, which is the reason why we and Rand have generally stayed out of each other's way. I do listen to you, you know? Occasionally."

For a moment, both fell silent, before Tony pulled back a bit so he could look Pepper in her eyes, his face serious though his tone was concerned.

"You really think that this Titan Solutions could turn into another Rand Enterprises?"

Pepper didn't even have to hesitate in giving her answer.

"Tony. The man allowed a gamma-mutated scientist to preform unknown experiments on him, which made him 8 feet tall and his eyes glow like he's some kind of demon. Whatever else they're trying to sell, cheap energy, a cure for Alzheimer's, I don't care. A company with a man so desperate for power he's willing to be turned into that? If anything, they'll end up worse than Rand. At least with them, they pretend to be above board."

Glancing at the screen (which JARVIS had helpfully paused on a frame of McCole looking straight into the camera, his burning eyes blazing from the hologram) Tony conceded to her point with a slow nod.

"So, no partnership then?"

"No Tony, no partnership."

"Right, then we'll have to push them out of the market while they're still small enough to be vulnerable to that kind of tactic. I'll start releasing a bit more of my Iron Man tech through Stark Industries, though nothing that can be turned into weapons. It ought to give you enough leverage at least to secure some of the bigger agencies to our side. I know for a fact that NASA has been almost literally drooling at the thought of using repulsor technology in their space-crafts. Also, get in touch with Doctor Ross and her team, see where they're at in their research and if they could use my help."

"And the Arc Reactor? What are we going to do about the fact they clearly stole that tech from you?"

"Sue them, but expect a long battle. I've heard enough about Hogarth through the rumour-mill to know she won't go down without a fight, and right now she has the public on her side. So before we drag Titan Solutions to court, we need to do what they are doing. Only better. That way, when they try to defend themselves using the public angle, they'll find that they don't have a leg to stand on since SI is already out there, helping people."

Pepper let out a sly grin at his fierce words, and when he looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a questioning look, she couldn't quite contain her laugh.

"I love it when you talk all business-like." She said huskily, prompting a grin from the inventor, who picked her up in his arms with ease, prompting a startled laugh from the redhead.

"Oh yeah? Well here's some more for you Miss Potts: monthly quota. Taxes. Depreciation. Fiscal bookkeeping."

"Oh, Mister Stark don't stop!" Pepper crooned in a faux-innocently high tone of voice, though Tony could see the glint in her eyes, and with a grin he started carrying her up the staircase, towards their bedroom.

Or the couch, depending on how long he could contain himself.

And as the inventor walked out of the workshop, the woman of his dreams in his arms, and corporate jargon and laughter floating down the stairs in equal measure, the burning eyes of one Michael McCole kept staring out from where they were captured on the holographic screen.

//

Fun Fact: In order to give you an idea just how old Marvel really is: Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman was meant to be aboard the Hindenberg on the day the ship famously crashed, but changed his travel plans at the last minute.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 13: AN OFFER I REFUSE​

I sat at my desk in the workshop Burstein had purchased a few weeks ago, a highly advanced microscope (built by yours truly) examining Jessica's blood in front of me (which nearly ended up with me being kicked in the balls when I asked for it, until I managed to explain that it was solely in order to figure out just how the chemical enhanced her, so I could either enhance her further or cure her completely. She became very quiet after I said that, before she hesitantly agreed and she still won't tell me which option she'd actually prefer).

Usually delicate lab equipment would be too small for me to manipulate with any degree of precision, but this one was special because I had taken the blueprints I stole from Wakanda so long ago, and made a haptic interface for it, like I remembered seeing from the Mass Effects games back in my old life (they sadly didn't exist in this one).

The haptic overlay was very simple, as it was nothing more than scaled up hard-light versions of the various knobs and buttons on the microscope itself, which allowed me to turn 'fake' buttons the size of dinner plates with ease, and they then translated the movements to their corresponding parts, allowing me to work in great detail.

Or it should, had I actually been working.

Instead, I was merely leaning back in my chair, long legs stretched out in front of me as I crossed my massive arms in front of my chest, Sterns wearing his six-armed exoskeleton standing next to me as we were both staring at my computer screen.

"Well, I certainly didn't expect him to do that." Sterns remarked in a flat tone of voice, and I can't help but nod my head in agreement as my burning eyes take in the scene in front of me.

The workshop was a hive of activity, the people Toomes had sent me gladly assisting my other two scientists on whatever project they were working on, using their enhanced strength (wherever applicable of course) in order to ferry stuff around and help with production.

Still, despite the ruckus, the speakers of the screen made themselves clearly heard above the din of the workshop. And what they broadcasted had the potential to turn into very bad news for me.

"We're looking here at what Tony Stark has claimed to be the first of many new cars for the New York metro system, which reportedly has technology inside it based on the inventor's famous Iron Man suit! These new cars will travel smoother, quieter and run on a vastly more sustainable source of energy, claims the CEO of Stark Industries. Stark Industries has released an official statement, in which they say that upgrading public transport within the city is the first step of many in improving the daily lives of all citizens and indeed, the entire world." A young reporter said, her back to the tracks of one of the many metro stations in New York, on which sat an entirely new coach.

If the old metro looked like a repurposed toaster, this new one looked like it could be a space shuttle's classier brother.

The scene switched to an easily grinning Stark, who was being surrounded by microphones and reporters on all sides, heavy shades hiding his eyes from view and reflecting the bright flashes of their cameras.

"Mister Stark! Mister Stark! Is it true that you have only now begun to release your Iron Man technology to the public because of the rise of Titan Solutions and their innovations?"

Whoever the hell that was, I was gonna find him and wring his neck for asking a leading question like that. Igniting a feud between me and Tony might end up as good publicity for him, but for me it would probably turn into enough of a nightmare that I just might turn to drinking heavily.

Not that it would do much, but it's the principle of the thing.

Turning towards the reporter, easy grin still in place, Tony reached up and took of his sunglasses, revealing smiling eyes, though the resolve in them was unmistakable.

"Titan Solutions can certainly be called ambitious in their claims, and I can honestly say that it warms my heart to have inspired such bright young people to try and make this world a better place, just as I set out to do when I became Iron Man. Seeing their attempts at following in my footsteps has made me realize that, despite all that I have done for the people of Earth, I can always do more. A year ago, I said that I was Iron Man. Today, I say: we can all be Iron Man!"

At his bold shout, a massive cheer rose up from the crowd around him, enough to completely drown out the questions of the reporters, so Tony merely put his sunglasses back on and made to leave, but right before he slipped them in front of his eyes, I could see him look straight into the camera (and thus, at me) and give a sly wink.

I got the message immediately.

The game is afoot.

With a growl and a wave of my hand, the screen shut off (Sterns took one look at the haptic interface I had slaved over for three days in order to make, then made all of our equipment capable of responding to simple gestures in just two. He said that he did it in order to make us all work more efficiently. I maintained that he did it just to show me up) as I leaned further back into my chair, rubbing a hand over my face.

"So, what are we going to do?" Sterns asked idly, two of his robot arms extending smoothly in order to interact with the microscope as he started looking over Jessica's blood, despite the fact that he was still standing next to me, his arms feeding data directly into his gargantuan brain.

I swear, at this point I'm convinced that not only is Sterns trying to give himself technopathy, he's actually making quite a bit of headway too.

Giving a tired shake of my head, I got up from my chair and started pacing in front of my desk, watching from the corner of my eye as a third robotic arm started writing on a pad of paper as Sterns stood motionless, sifting through data.

Honestly, I'm glad he has Oliver. Despite all of his grumbling shortly after I rescued him from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s clutches whenever I asked him to help me with my armour, he has certainly taken a shine to engineering. If it weren't for the fact that he enjoys working on his pride and joy with his own hands, I could definitely see him end up in some sort of Mobius-chair, controlling a host of robotic tentacles with his mind in order to interact with the world since he has allowed his body to atrophy.

Yeah, gotta keep an eye out so he doesn't go down that road.

As I continued my pacing, I answered my friend's earlier question.

"I don't know Sam. Frankly, I don't want to know. Don't get me wrong, I like the bigger workshop, and actually having large amounts of money is more fun than I could have ever imagined, but I never wanted to run a business. I'll just sic Hogarth on Tony and continue with my own projects-"

Before I can finish my sentence, the phone in my pocket starts to ring, and as I look at the caller ID, I can't help but chuckle. At Sterns questioning look, I elaborate.

"Speak of the devil and all that."

Seeing his answering grin, I take the call as I resume my pacing (a habit left over from my previous life, where I would literally get up from my chair in order to walk while I called without even meaning to do it).

"Hello Hogarth."

"I assume you've seen the news?"

Straight to business then, as expected from a stern woman like her.

"If you mean whether or not I saw Tony Stark come out swinging by bringing parts of his own tech to the market, while dissing us at the same time, then yes, I have indeed seen the news." I reply, annoyance colouring my words as I think about how the man just subverted every expectation I had of him.

I had been prepared for the man to get riled up; I had even envisioned a scene somewhat similar to the Senate hearing in the Iron Man 2 movie, but this time with me instead of Hammer trying to go against Stark.

I certainly hadn't expected for the man to just… not sue me right from the get go, and start acting as my competitor instead.

A competitor with larger facilities and a longer history in the business than me, as well as enjoying far greater popularity with the masses.

Still, while I hadn't considered that as a possibility, Jeri Hogarth had, if her steady tone was anything to go by.

"This is unfortunate, but it gives us a chance to expand our contacts, as well as dig ourselves in in our niche of the market. I assume you have a lot more technology ready to be rolled out? The Blue Box is great for selling to large corporations, but you'll need something far more visible if you want to swing the public back to your side again."

Thinking back on the cache of Wakandan technology I have stolen, mentally flipping through the hundreds of designs, I give a slow nod, though I belatedly realise that Hogarth of course can't see it.

"Yeah. Give me two days, and I'll have something to market."

"Make it quick. We can't allow a man like Stark to build up momentum, or the hits will just keep coming."

"I know Jeri. Two days, then you'll have something new to fight back with."

I can hear her sigh across the line, her voice sounding tired. Then again, she has been working non-stop for the past two weeks trying to turn my crazy schemes into a billion-dollar corporation, so I suppose that is to be expected.

"You know, Titan Solutions could really benefit from having you at its helm. And I don't mean that from just a purely PR point of view. I'm just your legal counsel, Mr. McCole, a company like yours should be run by its CEO."

I scuff the concrete floor of the workshop in thought, glancing at Sterns from the corner of my eye. He has stopped fiddling around with the microscope, and is instead standing about twenty feet away from me, bent forwards up to his waist in the machinery under Oliver's hood, though one of his robot arms is fixed in my direction, and when it spots me looking at it, I can see Sterns shrug (without looking back at me) clearly indicating that I should decide for myself.

"Look, Hogarth. I'll make an effort to make more appearances. More interviews, more meetings, more press-conferences, all that kinda stuff. But I don't want to run the business. None of us here do, we're cool with just inventing new stuff. You've been doing fine so far: I trust you to keep the company going for a little longer, just until I find someone suited enough to take the job permanently." I say with a heavy sigh as I start using my meta-knowledge in order to see if there was anyone in this universe that I would want to have run my business for me, making me tons of money without the fear of them stabbing me in the back.

Jeri's tired chuckle brings me back from my musings.

"You do realize you just said you'd trust a lawyer with your money, right?"

"Trust me Mrs. Hogarth, that's not the weirdest thing I've done. Not by a long shot." I say with a laugh, prompting another chuckle from the stern woman.

"Very well then. Tomorrow, at three pm. You'll be heading the meeting with Mr. Cross from Pym Technologies. Think you can handle that?"

"Yeah, I'll be there. Thanks Hogarth."

"Thank me when we're rich."

"We are rich."

"When we're richer then. Goodbye, Mr. McCole."

And without waiting for my answer, the line goes dead, the lawyer having hung up on me. Taking a considering look at the phone in my hand, I give an amused shake of my head as I slide it back into my pocket, walking back towards my desk so that-

"Who was that? A secret admirer, perhaps?"

"GAH!"

Whipping around, my hands come alive with a hellish glow, before I blink a couple of times in surprise at the smug grin Jessica Jones is sending me from where she snuck up behind me.

"God woman, why would you even do that!?" I say as I calm down a bit from the sudden jumpscare, as I look at the woman in a new light.

My senses had been enhanced both by the serums and the Heart-shaped Herb, and I still hadn't even heard a whisper of a sound indicating her approach. She was good.

"Because I think hearing you scream like a little girl is funny?" Jones answered bluntly, her face still showing a massive grin.

"I do not scream like a little girl. I didn't scream at all, I just… yelped." I rumble in dissatisfaction, not helped at all by Jessica's snort at my lame comeback.

Switching to a different tack, I sit back down in my chair again, looking at her from the corner of my eye as I grab the notes that Sterns has scribbled down during his look through the microscope.

"If you're back already, then I assume you've finished your assignment?"

"Yeah, yeah. One Melvin Potter and Betsy Beatty, standing in your oh so grand lobby. Also, the parents of that poor girl should be sued for child abuse. Really, setting your kid up with that kind of name?" Jessica snarks as she walks closer, hopping onto my desk, legs dangling as she glances at me.

"Why the hell did you send me out to find them anyway? Sure New York is big, but I figure that finding Sterns or Burstein or Mason was just as hard. You could've done this yourself, so why send me?"

Turning to face her with an annoyed look as I see that she's deliberately sitting on some of my research notes, I give her an answer in the most sarcastic drawl I can manage.

"Because I think sending you out as my errand boy is funny?" I echo back to her, only to get swatted on the shoulder for my cheekiness.

Ignoring the hit (while it would've dislocated the arm on a baseline human, to me it just felt like a faint tap) I place Sterns notes back onto the desk in order to look through at a later time as I stand up and start walking towards where Potter and his sweetheart are waiting for me.

"Mostly because I've been swamped with being the public face of Titan Solutions, which is precisely why I didn't want to be the CEO of a large corporation. I got better things to do than just sit around all day stuck in boring meetings. Also, because I figured that keeping you cooped up in the workshop is a hazard for the people that work here."

Again I get swatted in the shoulder, and again I ignore it. It didn't take me long to figure out that the reason Jessica enjoyed getting physical with me (oh get your brains out of the gutters, I meant the hitting and the kicking for God's sakes!) was because I was the only person she knew that she could do that with safely.

While I had started to find Superman less and less interesting as I grew up more, there was one speech of his that I always found very impressive, and it was the one about living in a world made of cardboard.

While not on the DC Comics superhero's level of strength (honestly I had a hard time figuring who in this dimension was on his level. Ego, maybe?) Jessica had something of a similar problem, considering humans were just so squishy.

She always had to be careful with her strength, in order to not crush bones whenever someone offered a handshake, or to not break her sister's spine in half whenever they hugged.

I was the only person she knew that she could act with as if she were just a baseline human, without the worry of her superstrength breaking everything.

Still, if she could tone down the kicking, that'd be great.

"Look, I got another assignment for you-"

"Another one?! I just got back from the last one! Find whoever you're stalking yourself, creep!"

"For the last time, woman, I'm not a creep!"

"Says the guy who hires innocent young women to track down unsuspecting citizens!"

"You? Innocent? You better tell me who you stole that sense of humour from, I'm betting they want it back by now."

We kept bickering until we reached the 'lobby' as Jessica had so charmingly put it, which didn't really amount to more than a cleared area around the entrance, with a few comfortable couches placed inside and with a coffeemaker.

Seeing Potter and Beatty look around with wide eyes at the frantic levels of activity around them, I place my hand on Jessica's shoulder (the first time I did that she tried to dislocate my arm out of reflex, but my immense durability coupled with my greater strength meant that she just ended up dangling from my outstretched arm like some demented sloth) bringing her to a halt and ignoring her furious expression at the physical contact.

"Look, take your time before you head back out there, all right? I really want to meet this guy, his name is Holden Radcliffe and he's a brilliant scientist, but given the sheer scope of the project I'm thinking of putting him on, there really isn't that big of a time constraint on the mission since it'll take too long to be of immediate use anyway, whether you grab him today or next month. Just find him, and then report to me whenever you feel up to it. In the meantime? Go do something for yourself, try to relax and unwind. Go visit your sister, I'm betting she misses you since I know you haven't talked to her ever since you started working for me."

Jessica is silent after my short speech, and I can see indecision warring inside her at the mention of her sister. Finally her shoulders slump as she lets out a sigh, waving a hand in annoyance.

"Fine, fine. Give me my cash, and I'll be out of your hair. Figuratively speaking, of course." She finishes with a grin, drawing an annoyed grumbling from me as I get out my wallet and start counting out her 'finder's fee'.

"You know you don't have to bring up my baldness in every conversation we have, right?"

"Yeah, I do. I just think it's funnier that way. See ya later dumb-dumbs! Mamma needs her booze!"

And with those charming words and a cheerful wave, Jessica stalks right past the confused looking Potter and Beatty, stepping outside into the New York City high-life, and I suspect on her way to the nearest liquor store.

Shaking my head at the superhuman's antics I walk over to the lost looking couple, my best smile shining at full power as I spread my arms in a gesture of generosity.

"Ah Mr. Potter! And Mrs. Beatty! How nice of you to join us!"

Melvin looks up at me with a very child-like expression on his face, placing one arm protectively around his girlfriend's shoulders.

"The girl said you can keep Betsy safe. Can you?"

Folding my hands behind my back, I give them the most reassuring smile I can.

"Mr. Potter, I can make it so she's even tougher and stronger than your greatest suit."

Surprisingly, that statement gets a laugh out of the savant.

"Nah, sir. I make very good suits and Betsy's very little." He says with pride, though at which part of his statement I'm not entirely sure, but I can see his girlfriend roll her eyes fondly, though when they rest on me her apprehension is clearly visible.

Obviously, the little woman (and Melvin is correct, because Betsy is indeed very little, barely reaching her boyfriend's shoulder) is wondering whether I'm genuinly trying to help, or whether I'm just another asshole trying to take advantage of the blacksmith's unique mind.

Thing is, it's a bit of both.

I have got a bit of a soft-spot for people like Melvin ever since in my previous life I worked with the mentally disabled as part of a community project for my high school. I originally thought that I was going to help kids at a local preschool with arts and crafts, but instead I had unknowingly signed up for a charity organization that used the school's supplies in order to give the mentally handicapped a hobby.

Standing next to a tiny woman with Down's as she's proudly holding up the fully functional toy train she made in the same time it took me to hammer together a box (it wasn't even a good box. It was ugly as hell, and fell apart a few months later), remains one of the most heart-warming memories I have left from my previous life.

So yes, having Potter on my side could only work out to my benefit, but I wasn't going to exploit the savant for his skills.

Before I can try to convince her of that however, Burstein comes in and unknowingly does it for me.

"Oh Michael, is this the blacksmith you've told me about? How do you do, how do you do? Now, I really want your opinion on this. I came up with it myself, but I'm a scientist, not a blacksmith, and while the NYPD was enthusiastic enough to place an order for the next five years, they have requested that we make their new body armour a bit more… stylish." Burstein babbles as he comes walking towards us from his part of the warehouse, shaking Melvin's hand vigorously with one arm, and holding out a piece of treated bulletproof leather with the other.

Despite being caught off guard by the scientist's sudden and enthusiastic greeting, I can see Melvin's eyes snap towards the piece of leather, recognition showing on his face.

Figures a blacksmith in the business of making bullet/knife proof clothing for criminals would hear about the indestructible leather that was suddenly being provided to the police.

As both he and Burstein start walking back towards the scientist's team (all of which are looking on in amusement at their boss' sudden departure and excited air), talking animatedly as they walk, I turn towards Betsy, who is looking at her boyfriend with a fond look.

Feeling my gaze on her, she turns back towards me, and despite the fact that she needs to crane her neck in order to look me in the eyes, I can see the determination within her.

"Don't hurt him. He's not stupid, he's just… special. Talented. A lot of people have taken advantage of that." She says softly, though her voice doesn't waver as she keeps looking straight into my burning eyes.

Giving a gentle smile, I half-turn back towards my part of the workshop, holding my arm out in the universal gesture for 'after you'. As she walks deeper into my lair, I try to put her mind at ease.

"Don't worry, Miss Beatty. I meant what I said; I'm going to make you more durable than even Mr. Potter's hardest suit. That way, you will be completely safe from whoever would want to put him and his talents to their own uses, and instead he gets to work with an entire team of people who will appreciate him for his expertise."

"How are you planning on doing that Mr. McCole? Melvin wasn't boasting; he doesn't really know how. But his suits really are very durable."

"Well, Doctor Burstein, that excitable fellow you just met? He has discovered this procedure…"

//

"Look, I get that you made me, like, really smart and stuff, but do you even hear what you're asking? You want me beat Tony freakin' Stark in an innovation race!"

"C'mon Mason, between the Brain Booster I gave you and all the Wakanda-tech we have, I'm sure we can come up with something."

It had taken most of the previous day in order to both enhance Betsy as well as Melvin (the blacksmith refused to let his girlfriend to the procedure alone the moment I said that it could be a bit painful, and as I had been too tired of the day's events I had just said yes and preformed it on him first), and it was bright and early now as I sat in front of Mason, telling him that Hogarth needed something to market by tomorrow or Stark would try and take the lead.

The overweight man rested his head in one hand, various tools orbiting the bulky glove he wore on the other (after seeing my haptic interfaces and Sterns motion-reactive equipment, Mason refused to be left behind and made his tools respond to magnetic impulses from the glove, giving himself pseudo-telekinesis solely applicable to a small pre-prepared set of tools. I was honestly kind of scared to find out what Burstein would come up with in response).

"Right, right. Look, I don't doubt that there's something that we can make for the masses, transportation, telecommunication, or anything like that really. Between us and Wakanda we could make shit in those area's decades ahead of the competition. But, I can't see us building anything in those branches that Tony Stark either doesn't already have, or can't make himself in a couple of months."

Ignoring Mason's slight hero worship of the genius inventor for now, my mind instead snagged onto what the chubby man in front of me had just said, and I was suddenly reminded of a particular aircraft in the Wakandan arsenal, my advanced brain immediately coming up with half a dozen viable designs.

"-and then there's the fact that metallurgy is something that both our fathers taught us and-"

"Flying cars."

"Eh?"

Turning to look at the nonplussed scientist with a grin, I swipe a hand above his desk, making a haptic screen blink into life, and I start pulling up schematics, feeling like Tom Cruise from the Minority Report movie (and oh boy, was Tom Cruise popular in this universe. Probably due to the fact most actors from my own universe were actual superheroes here, so a lot more movie roles automatically went to him).

"What's every boy's dream Phineas?"

"To have sex with Lucy Lawless?"

I pause in my motions, my head slowly turning towards the scientist, who is now blushing furiously, rubbing his hands together as he resolutely looks everywhere in the busy workshop except me.

"What? I got really into Xena when I was younger, all right?"

Giving a tired sigh, I decided to just let it go, focusing on the schematics on the screen in front of me instead.

"No, Phineas, that wasn't what I meant. What I mean is this! Flying cars!"

And with those words I twist my hand, making the screen swing around the desk until its right in front of Mason's face, whose eyes widen as his Boosted brain immediately starts putting together my rough blueprints.

"This… yeah, this could work."

Looking over (or through, depending on who you ask) the screen at me, Mason let out a giddy laugh, mirrored by one of my own.

"So, flying cars huh?" he repeats to himself, his own hands coming up in order to mess with the blueprints, and I can't help but chuckle at the thought of the look on Coulson's face when we market this.

"Yeah. Flying cars."

//

It was one pm when I stepped outside of the workshop, intent on making my way towards the meeting with Cross as I had promised Hogarth I would do. However, what greeted me almost made me snort at the clear cliché.

A black limo, two bodyguards standing outside, and of course the moment I closed the door to the warehouse behind me, the door to the limo opened smoothly, though the interior was too dark to make out an occupant.

Letting out a deep chuckle, I place my hands in the pockets of my suit (sadly not a Potter design, since Melvin told me he'd need a lot more time to make something that fit someone as large as me, all the while looking at me with big puppy eyes).

"So, I'm guessing that this is the part where I give a dramatic sigh and get inside, only to meet with a shady backer of some kind of organization?"

Neither guard so much as twitches at my jest, though the one on the right inclines his head somewhat.

"Ideally, yes." He says dryly, prompting another laugh from me.

Because honestly, why should I be afraid of these goons standing next to their limo, when they barely even reached my chin and they had nothing that could so much as scratch me, whereas I could literally pick the car up and chuck it down the street?

"And what if I decide that I don't want to do that?" I ask with a leisurely smile, but it's quickly wiped from my face because of the familiar croaking voice coming from inside the shadowy depths of the interior.

"If you decide to pursue such a foolish action, then my colleagues will be quite… cross with you. You have shown the world that you are strong, Mr. McCole. But are you also immune to the deadly edge of a blade, hidden in the shadows of the night?"

'Yes, actually, but I'm not going to just tell you that. Let's wait and see the look on your face when your sudden but inevitable betrayal fails, because instead of cutting off my head, all you'll succeed in is breaking your sword on my skin.' I think to myself, though I let none of my thoughts show on my face as I approach the limo with slow, measured steps, acting the part of a cowed business man as I work my way inside the vehicle.

While I almost need to bend myself in half in order to fit through the door (God I miss Oliver and his easily accessible cabin), the unparalleled agility granted to me by the Hearth shaped Herb allows me to pull it off smoothly (I hope). As my eyes almost immediately adjust to the dimness of the interior, my eyes fall on the person who had spoken, and my suspicions are confirmed.

'Hello Madame Gao.' I think to myself, though I remain silent, my face not even showing a hint of surprise at seeing an old-shrivelled up lady in ratty clothing sitting in the back of an expensive looking limo, which causes her eyes to narrow in suspicion.

Not saying a further word, the evil old bat of a woman extends a gnarled hand, offering me a fancy looking phone which I take with only the barest of hesitation. Even if they filled it with explosives, all it would result in would be a ringing in my ear for a few minutes.

I almost expect the voice before I hear it.

"Ah, hello Mr. McCole, how nice of you to take my call." Alexandra Reid murmurs through the phone in a definitely amused tone of voice, though I notice the barely constrained hunger as well.

Time almost seems to slow down to a crawl as I start buying time, my craziest scheme yet starting to from in my mind.

"Well, from the looks of it, I didn't have much choice. Unfortunately I actually have an appointment, so-"

"-oh yes, of course. With Darren Cross of Pym Technologies, correct? Not to worry, my chauffeur is taking you there presently. That should give us enough time to talk."

The conversation is dim, merely background noise to the whirlwind that are my thoughts as I rapidly start weighing pros and cons, trying to calculate how my answers are going to end up impacting the future.

"Very well. Who am I talking with, actually?"

"Oh, I find names so… constricting don't you think. I'd much rather talk with you on far more intriguing manners. Such as just what it is you have done to one Jeri Hogarth, or the various cripples in your employ that are now walking around, healthy as can be." she says in a voice that's clearly meant to intimidate me, but I'm only half listening as I keep trying to look at my impromptu scheme from all possible angles.

I could pull it off. Maybe. With enormous amounts of luck. The problem was that the plan just reeked of 'this is so crazy, it just might work!' which didn't exactly fill me with trust, as such an exclamation is usually followed by a harrowing escape, only to meet the Final Big Bad.

And considering I'm on the phone with Alexandra Reid, I'm really not interested in seeing who the narrative will shove forwards as the Final Big Bad in the case I go through with my crazy idea.

On the other hand (ha! Get it?) if this works out… the benefits would be incalculable, just as the possible fall-out could be.

Screw it, new Step 12: pit the Hand against one of my greatest enemies.

"Oh, that? It's a miracle what a proper diet and regular visits to the Spa can do for you. No, with me it's rather the reverse of your opinion: I'm very interested in names. I feel they can tell us so much about a person. Wouldn't you agree, Alexandra?"

Silence greets me from the other end of the phone as I see Madame Gao's eyes open wide in shock.

"How do you know that name?" the leader of the Hand asks in a seemingly calm voice, but her rage is large enough it almost feels like it's physically bursting from the phone in order to fill the limo.

"Allow me to relay to you what your associate told me in order to get me into this tin-can of a vehicle, and let's see if you can figure it out from there, hmm? You see, Madame Gao over here" (que shocked look and white knuckles gripping a cane with more strength than a decrepit old lady has any right to) "implicitly threatened to cut off my head if I didn't comply, and I honestly thought this was rather funny."

"And what, exactly, makes the threat of decapitation so funny to you?" Alexandra seethed through the phone.

And now, for the finale of my masterclass of acting:

"Because, my dear, when you cut off one head, two more shall rise." I hiss through the phone, and I can see the exact moment where Madame Gao realizes that she has made a grave mistake, trying to put pressure on me.

Though because of the wrong reasons of course.

It's silent on the other end of the line, so I continue talking, trying my hardest to sell the illusion, since I need the Hand to believe completely and utterly in the lie I'm spinning here.

"Your organization is old, Alexandra, older than mine. But we have grown. Both in number and with the times, which cannot be said of you and your associates. Oh you all hold great power, I will not be so crass as to deny that, but what of your subordinates? Just how assured are you that they are truly loyal to you? You are mistaken if you think that we are powerless, Alexandra. The world has changed, and we with it and now it is ours, ripe for the taking. So skip these foolish attempts at intimidation as if I was some mere airheaded business man and tell me what it is you seek."

For a few moments more, there's only utter silence on her end of the line, before I can almost hear her literally grinding her teeth.

"The Rejuvenation serum you have. I want it."

"No."

Sheer rage blasts through the phone again, but to her credit, there's hardly a waver in Alexandra's voice, even though I just flat-out told her I would keep the one thing from her that had a chance of keeping her from dying without resorting to the Elixir.

"I'd be willing to pay-"

"No. The serum is not for sale."

"Listen here you-!"

"No, you listen! For over a century we have looked up to the Hand because they did not need to fear Death. And we too strived to achieve that same level of power, and now, after decades of sacrifice, you expect us to give it up to you?! Hydra will never share the secrets it has uncovered about the human body!" I say in a harsh whisper, playing up my anger, hoping to bait the desperate Alexandra into making an error in judgement.

"You should take care of how you speak, Mr. McCole. Your organization may have found a way to conquer death, but you can still die. What shall you do when I tear your secret society down around your ears until nothing but rubble remains? Will you remain as obstinate as you are now?" she hisses, and it takes all of my willpower to keep a smile off my face in order to not tip off Madame Gao, who is still staring at me with wide surprised eyes.

"Truly your long life has made you arrogant beyond your wisdom, Alexandra. Do you really think you have the power to bring us down? We have been hiding, growing for seventy years, and we will not be cowed-"

"I have grown this organization for seven hundred years! You think you can stand against me?! Insult me?! Your organization is no mighty Hydra, I have seen such beasts before they became myth and legend and you are an insult to the very name! Rats, that is what you are, filth, hiding in the shadows and licking their wounds. Tell me something, Mr. McCole, how long do you think your organization can remain in hiding, when suddenly the world knows of its continued existence?"

Bad part of me doing this?

There's a chance of Alexandra getting the public to believe I am a Neo-Nazi.

The good part of me doing this?

The actual Neo-Nazi's are gonna be pissed, and they probably won't take to kindly to someone exposing their existence, even if they pointed at the wrong person.

Honestly, all I'm hoping for here is that the Hand and Hydra end up taking each other out, though I'm very well aware of how this might blow up in my face, and reflect on the company.

Still, with the alternative being the Hand constantly trying to lean on me to do their bidding, then I honestly prefer this. I absolutely refuse to go down the same road that Harold Meachum did about 7 years ago now, even if actually killing me will turn out to be a lot harder, if not completely impossible. On the other hand, they know magic from Kun Lun, so they're probably capable of finding a way. 'Sides, I'm already too far gone to back off now, so I try to reply in the haughtiest, most arrogant voice I can manage.

"I'd like to see you try, Alexandra. But I should warn you: we are everywhere. We could be everyone. And if you manage to cut one of us down, then two more shall take their place."

And before she can respond, I crush the phone effortlessly in my large hand, and instead focus all of my attention on Madame Gao, who has yet to even move ever since she handed me the phone.

"Now then, I think this is my stop."

A quick glance showed me that we were nowhere near Pym Technologies, but in a stroke of genius a few weeks back I had all Brain Boosted individuals spend an entire day on Google Street View, literally memorizing every road in New York.

We were now some of the very few people here that just couldn't get lost.

I'd be fine.

Madame Gao gave me a long considering glance, before giving a slow nod.

"Yes. Indeed it is."

And with those words, she tapped the floor of the limo twice, which came to an abrupt halt. Not bothering to look back, I folded my way out of the car, and began running in the direction of Pym Technologies.

I had a deal to make. That uber-useful goo-gun just wasn't going to find its way into my arsenal on its own, and Darren Cross could do with a little boost to his intellect.

He'd be a lot easier to manipulate than Hank Pym into making Pym Particles for me, once he actually figures out how to make them that is.

But first…

"Hey, Sam?"

"Hey Michael, I hadn't expected you to call so soon? I thought you were on your way to a meeting with that Cross guy, at Pym's?"

"Yeah, about that… listen, I may have done something stupid…"

A sigh is my only answer, before he responds in a weary voice.

"Right, just how stupid are we talking about this time? Your general 'let me just inject myself with these untested serums!' kinda stupid, or big time, like 'hey Sterns, lace my bones with metal, even though that is physically impossible to do!' kinda stupid?"

"You're never going to let the bone thing go, are you?"

"Not on your life. Now, what did you do?"

"… I might have pissed of an ancient shadow organization by pretending to be part of another ancient shadow organization, which means they'll either take out each other, or we end up dead."

"…"

"Sterns?"

"HOW? HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY MAKE A WORSE DECISION THAN THE BONE THING?"

"Hey, it might work out!"

"Michael, I just want you to know, that…"

"What?"

"… when we're all dying slow, agonizing deaths, I'll be blaming you."

"Oh come on! It won't turn out that bad!"

"Yeah, definitely blaming you."

//

Fun Fact: Jim Shooter, Marvel's editor-in-chief in the '80s, bought the idea for Spider-Man's black costume from a fan for $220, and gave the fan a shot at writing the comic, though that didn't work out. The black costume was introduced as an alien "symbiote" and eventually became one of Spider-Man's most famous villains, Venom.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 14: SMALL ARMS​

Though my meeting with Alexandra had left my brain spinning at highway speeds as it tried to come up with plots and plans and contingencies, my feet kept on carrying me towards my meeting with Pym Technologies, which would take place at Hogarth's office building, roughly two blocks away from where Madam Gao had kicked me out of the car.

I still had a job to do.

I promised Hogarth after all.

While I could easily outrun the cars in this urban traffic jam, running across the street like that could get me a ticket for jaywalking, even if the cops couldn't bill me for breaking the speed limit.

Now, getting a ticket for a few dozen bucks from the police in itself wasn't really something worth worrying about (I'm still getting used to the idea that I actually have money to spare now, it's so awesome!), but Stark was clearly itching to throw down with me if his press-statement was anything to go by, so the more squeaky clean I could present myself as, the less ammunition his army of lawyers had to try and drag my image down.

Then again, outrunning cars on the sidewalk wasn't likely to do me any favors from the general public either.

The solution?

Why, take to the rooftops, naturally.

It had taken me just two leisurely wall jumps in an alleyway in order to reach the roof of a six story building, and then I was off, powerful sprints throwing up gravel behind me as I dashed to the edge of the building, enormous muscles bulging as I jumped from rooftop to rooftop with ease, crossing tens of feet at a time.

God, I love parkour.

It took me all of five minutes before I saw Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz looming up across the street, so I put on even more speed and the moment I hit the edge of the building I was on, I jumped with enough force to crack the brickwork underneath my feet.

Oops.

Meh, who'd bother to come up there to check the floor anyways?

Any and all property damage was quickly pushed away from my mind however, as once again I was flying through the air with my stomach doing flips in my belly and my heart jack-hammering away in my throat as I realized that I had underestimated my strength.

'One of these days I really should test my limits in a controlled environment. Figure out just what I can do.' I thought wryly to myself as the ground came up to meet me with the speed of roughly 10 meters per second squared.

In other words: fast.

I landed on the pavement with an almighty crash, though thankfully this time I didn't do any damage to the surface, mostly because I skidded along a few steps, jogging to a halt.

Looking around, I saw that I had overshot my mark, as I had intended to land on the pavement in front of the big steps leading towards the large double doors. Instead, as I looked to my left, I saw a completely stunned security guard standing frozen next to the door as he stared at me with his mouth hanging wide open.

Looking in front of me, I realized that I had cleared the entirety of the main street, landing right before the entrance to the office building, close enough that I had ruffled the guard's clothing. Trying to play it cool as if I had intended to land this precisely (who knows, with how advanced my brain was, I just might have calculated this on a subconscious level) I turned back to the gobsmacked security guard with a raised eyebrow and a nonchalant smile.

"Nice weather we're having, right? Have a nice day." I said while nonchalantly walking through the doors as he kept staring at me like I was some kind of exotic creature.

And while it was a kind of accurate description (technically I was the only one of my species after all) getting stared at so openly like that made me somewhat uncomfortable, so I continued my way through towards the enormous lobby with hurried strides (though normies probably would've called my speed a jog).

Surprisingly, Darren Cross was already inside waiting for me, standing alone at the desk flirting with the secretary, a practised smile on his face. While I had asked for him to come alone, I'd expected for him to bring a lot more people as his retinue anyways.

While he might be the CEO of Pym Technologies and what we were discussing wasn't as big like say a merger or something, I had very much doubted that his board of directors would just let him run off from San Francisco to New York on his own to go talk to the monstrous looking guy that had pissed of the Iron Man himself without them there present to get something out of it for themselves as well.

Apparently my promise to help him with recreating Pym Particles really put me in his good books if he decided to ditch them all and meet me in person as I had asked him to.

Which made completing my objective here a lot easier for multiple reasons, one of the biggest being of course that I wasn't willing to share what I was planning to use to convince Cross with, with more people than absolutely necessary, and some unnamed background characters were definitely not considered necessary in my book.

Hypocritical of me to think that way considering my motivation when I was reborn, perhaps, but that was just the reality of the situation.

However, it was also beneficial because working with someone who wasn't hostile to you just went much more pleasantly, and subverting an individual is in some ways easier than subverting a group. Which meant it would be easier to sway Cross to my side now that he's here on his own, than if he was being held back by the doubts of other business men.

But the primary reason why I was so pleased that he had followed my politely worded request was because it revealed to me that Cross really wanted the Pym Particles and was willing to forgo all the corporate bullshit just to get me working on it as fast as possible.

The man was obsessed, and considering the deals he was fishing for with his Yellowjacket suit, probably getting desperate for a working solution as well.

Good.

I can work with desperate.

All of this monologuing shot through my brain like lightning and not even a second had passed before I engulfed Cross' hand in my own enormous paw, placing the other one on his shoulder as I gave him a bright smile.

"Darren! How nice to finally meet you! I'm really looking forward to seeing just what amazing new technological marvels we can create by combining the efforts of Titan Solutions and Pym Technologies."

"Hello Mr. McCole, the pleasure is mine. And it's Cross Technologies, actually. Or, it will be, once the paperwork is through that is." Cross replied with an eager grin, and it wasn't difficult for me to figure out why.

Under Cross' management, profits for Pym Technologies had risen (mostly because unlike Hank, Darren was willing to sell everything to everyone) but innovation had stopped, leading many on the market to question how Pym Technologies would continue to remain profitable.

Meanwhile, Titan Solutions was apparently innovative enough that it got Tony Stark of all people back in the game again, repurposing his Iron Man technology for the public good.

Yes, a partnership must have sounded like music to Cross' ears when Hogarth managed to get a hold of him.

"Oho, Cross Technologies, is it? Congratulations Darren, it seems as if you continue to rise up in the world." I said smoothly, plying him with honeyed words as I led him further inside Jeri's headquarters.

Meanwhile, I kept trying to remember whether he moved as openly as he did against Hank Pym this early in the "canon" timeline. No, right? I'm pretty sure that he only rebranded the company during the events of Ant-Man, which would be three years from now. My memory was through the roof ever since Sterns upgraded my brain, but even so it had been well over twenty years since I had been born in this universe, and Marvel Studios had been going at it for a decade before I somehow ended up switching universes, meaning that little details were getting increasingly difficult to recall.

'Holy shit, it's been thirty years since I first saw Iron Man!'

I was shaken from my sudden realization when my question answered itself as Cross replied in a proud voice, walking with me to the elevator, basking in the awed looks that Jeri's staff were sending us (or mostly me, actually, but I doubt someone like Cross would've liked anyone bursting his bubble by telling him that).

"Well, seeing your company burst onto the scene like it did, challenging Stark of all people, especially after what happened to Hammer… well, it made me realize something." Cross explained, as I pressed the button for the elevator, before turning back to him, being greeted by a secretive smile on his face that was probably meant to convey that the two of us were in league somehow, but instead just ended up looking like he had a nervous tic.

"There's no need to keep bowing down to the older generation. They are just that: old. Obsolete, even. The future is now, and if it is to be ours then it needs to be shaped by us as well, not by fossils that think they know better than us." He said with a wink, and it took every bit of my monumental control not to just burst out in laughter at his pathetic attempt to sound sage and wise, instead giving a grave nod in agreement.

'God, not taking Jessica with me might just be the smartest move I've ever made. She'd either laugh in his face, or throw him out the window within the first five minutes.'

Thankfully, I was saved by any further "advice" as the elevator finally arrived, and from there it was a short trip to the conference room Hogarth had set aside for my use. While somewhat bland (though that might just be my personal distaste for everything corporate shining through) it was very spacious and offered a nice view on the impressive skyline of New York, Stark Tower jutting towards the heavens as a glittering monument of glass and steel to one man's ego, and I found myself standing in front of the full-length windows with my hands clasped behind my back.

Spotting movement from my side, I half turned to find Cross standing there with a hungry smile on his face and offering me a glass of whiskey, holding one himself as well, taken from the small drink cabinet that had been sitting in one of the corners of the room.

While I did not care much for the taste (not to mention any lack of effect it would have on me anyways) it would be a simple courtesy to accept the drink, as refusing it would only serve to wound Cross' easily bruised pride, and things would just go so much easier if he was working for me willingly, if unknowingly.

Clinking our glasses together (me using every ounce of control I had to not smash both of them apart with just a fraction of my superstrength) I gave him the most gleaming, enthusiastic smile I could manage.

And considering the lengths I'm willing to go to in order to achieve omnipotence, talking business with a weasel like Cross is something that I can manage just fine, so the smile came out big and appearing genuine.

"Cheers!"

"To good business!" Cross said in return, and after a quick gulp of the whiskey (nope, still tasted like gasoline to me, just like it always had in both my lives), we sat down at the large table, Cross shifting in his chair in a (failed) attempt to look important.

'Right, time to execute Step 13: get Darren Cross to release his research into Pym Particles to me. For fuck's sake, Step 13?! I should've been omnipotent already!'

"So-"

"So how far are you in recreating the Pym Particles?" I cut in, causing Cross to suddenly become very still as he gives me a wide-eyed look that was somewhat reminiscent of a deer looking at oncoming headlights.

Coming on this strong in such a blunt manner was risky, yes, but my advanced brain had kept on analysing Cross and his mannerisms and micro-expressions from the moment I entered the building, and I soon realized that my earlier assessment was correct.

Darren Cross was getting desperate.

Not desperate enough to turn a co-worker into goo in the restroom, but he was steadily getting there.

So, keep him on the back foot with sudden questions that show that I know more than should be possible, while simultaneously drawing him in with promises of power and prestige.

"What do you know about the Pym Particles?" Cross asks wearily after a few tense moments, drawing a half smile from me.

'Countering a question with a question, making sure that you neither confirm nor deny. Well, no-one ever said you were dumb. Completely bat-shit, sure, but not dumb.'

"I know that you think the Ant-Man is real. I know that you think he was using Pym Particles. And I know that you've trying to replicate it. The keyword here being trying. And that's where I come in."

"Really? In what way?" Cross asks in response, and while his tone and answer are guarded, my brain picks up the way he leans slightly forwards, the way his eyes light up as he studies me intently, the way one hand subconsciously starts tugging on one of his cufflinks.

I got him interested.

"Darren, within Titan Solutions I have a think tank made up of scientists with each and every single one of them being on par with Tony Stark, and you've seen what Dr. Samuel Sterns is capable of. The man is as smart as two Hank Pym's put together!" I boasted, not caring how (in)accurate my statements were, as long as they could draw Cross in.

"They'll have the Pym Particles cracked within the year, at the very latest!"

Cross chuckles and shakes his head, but I can see that this is the business man in him, wary of committing to any kind of deal before he's seen it from every possible angle and extracted every last bit of advantage he can get from it.

But he fails to hide the scientist within him from my keen eyes, and I can tell that he knows I can make good on my promise of delivering him fully functional Pym Particles.

And he wants them bad.

"So… what? What's your plan here? That you ask and I just give your scientists my research on the Pym Particles? Just like that?" he asks with a sarcastic tone and a demeaning chuckle at the ridiculousness of my proposal.

"Yes." I reply bluntly, taking his business persona off guard by not playing by the rules of the corporate game by showing my motives so openly.

"What do I get in return for that? For that matter, what do you get in return for that?" Cross blurts out, as the scientist within him starts to win from the flat-footed businessman.

"Well, what I get out of this is simple. I get the Pym Particle formula."

"What good is it to you? You don't have the facilities to mass-produce any tech with it yourself, and there's not a chance in hell that I'll enter into a deal that would allow you to sell as a competitor with my designs." Cross says with narrowed eyes, but I just smile in response.

"And you're absolutely correct, Darren, as usual of course. I don't have the means to market my own tech with it, and you're perfectly within your rights to not want me to sell the tech separately from yours, you're absolutely right. Fortunately, that won't be a problem!" I say with a happy grin and a clap of my hands (which due to their size and my strength, produces a sound much like a gunshot, making Cross jerk in his chair in surprise).

"It won't?" the CEO asks, taken off guard by the strange way this conversation is going.

"Nope! I don't plan on marketing the Pym Particles at all. Feel free to draw up a deal where you can sue me for everything that I have if I end up selling the stuff, I don't care."

"If you're not going to sell it, then why do you want it?" Cross asks, sounding genuinely confused at my motives.

"Mostly academic interests, partly the personal pride I would get from reverse engineering one of Hank Pym's greatest masterpieces. Honestly, I think that the Pym Particles can turn out very useful for Titan Solutions, both in our research and in optimizing our admittedly small facilities, but I can assure you Darren, I don't want it for economic purposes."

He looks at me disbelievingly, but I just stare back at him with an open smile on my face, betraying none of my actual motives. After a quick sip of his whiskey in order to centre himself, Cross nervously wets his lips, before he glances back at me again and I can tell that he's bothered by the fact that he doesn't know where I'm going with all this.

"Alright, say that I believe you… what's in it for me?"

"You mean other than the one thing you have been endlessly pursuing ever since you started working under Pym when you were barely in your twenties?" I ask coolly, making my eyes flare up as the temperature inside the conference room quickly starts to rise, curbing his greed by reminding him subtly just who it is he's dealing with.

And what I'm capable of.

"Right. Besides that." Cross says with a nervous swallow.

"Think about it Darren. Really think about it. You said to me that we don't have to bow down to the older generation, so why are you planning on doing just that with the Pym Particles?" I ask, my eyes intent as I start twisting the man in front of me in order for him to suit my needs.

"W-what do you mean?" he asks in confusion, and I lean forwards, not letting up the pressure, forcing him to look me in my burning eyes.

"Tony Stark pulls Stark Industries from the weapons market and then in the same year reveals that he has developed new technology decades ahead of the rest of the world, and what does he do with it? He builds a suit. But instead of following in his footsteps, I broke free. I refused to follow the lead of a man like Stark and instead of parading out in armour made of gold so I can punch bad guys in the face as if I'm living out some childhood fantasy, I started up Titan Solutions. Right now, the face of energy and motorization is changing as we speak thanks to me, and medicine is about to go through a revolution of unrivalled proportions. Instead of finding increasingly ridiculous ways to strap missiles to myself, I am instead standing on the cusp of making disease a notion of the past. I've forged my own path, Darren. Why aren't you trying to do the same?" I lie passionately, trying my best to get through to the thoughtful looking Cross.

"I think I'm doing just fine in the "breaking free" department, thank you. In a few months, Pym Technologies will be replaced by Cross-"

"Bah, just slapping a new label on your mentor's company is nothing more than a first step, a cosmetic change. But Hank Pym still has his claws in you, even if you can't see it." I wave away his rebuttal, and I can see anger flare in his eyes.

"Hank Pym is nothing-"

"Tell me, what did he do with the Pym Particles?" I ask calmly, completely at odds with the incensed Cross as I lean back in my chair with a disinterested look on his face.

I can tell that my sudden question takes him off guard, and he takes a few moments to calm down again before he answers.

"Well, officially it was all purely theoretical of course. A new field of study, an extremely fascinating field, but with little practical application. They could not be created, much less used in any useful capacity."

"And unofficially?" I press as I raise an eyebrow.

"Well… there were these rumours. Tall tales, Hank would say. About an… about the Ant-Man."

"What he did, Darren, is exactly the same thing that Tony did. They revolutionized science as we know it, and then they built a suit with it. They ignored humanity's struggles, our ever-dwindling resources, our rising population numbers, our increasingly failing environment, and instead they made TOYS!" I roar the last word, slamming my palm flat down on the metallic table, leaving a glowing imprint in the glossy material, making Cross nearly jump out of his chair in surprise.

"And now you are seeking Pym's technology for yourself, thinking that you've freed yourself from your mentor's influence just because you're going to get a new logo for your company. All the while blind to the fact that you're still following him like a lost puppy! Tony Stark made a suit! Hank Pym made a suit! And what are you planning on making, Darren Cross?" I growl out as I lean forwards, seeing his eyes widen in shock as I reveal just a little bit more of my knowledge.

"How… That project is strictly confidential!" Cross blurts out, but he fails to summon any heat in his accusation as I keep staring at him, the thunderous expression on my face making him shrink back a little in his leather seat.

"What. Are. You. Going. To. Do?" I thunder clearly, and I have to hold back a snort as I can see his eyes flit around the room, looking at everything but me.

"Make a suit…" he mumbles, and now I know that he's in the right mental state for me to try and twist him to my needs, just like I had done with Killmonger.

Cross was a businessman (and a pretty good one too, actually) so by all rights me revealing knowledge about secret projects within his building should ring all kinds of alarm bells about corporate espionage, especially considering the kind of suspicion that was subtly directed towards Titan Solutions for suddenly coming up with Arc Reactors of its own so shortly after Tony had made the technology viable, in contrast to the big reactor that never did any better than just breaking even.

But his hunger for the Pym Particles, as well as the way that I had been directing our meeting, made that his business savvy had been thrown for a loop, leaving me to not deal with the CEO of Cross Technologies, but just another scientist, desperate for the next great scientific advancement of the century.

Standing up from my chair, I make my way towards him with slow measured steps, coming to a halt behind the man, one hand nonchalantly in my pocket, the other resting assuringly on his shoulder. Meanwhile I keep talking.

"Making a suit. Can't you see it, Darren? You're on this great quest to unravel what can just turn out to be the most versatile technology humanity has discovered so far, the same technology your mentor has so selfishly hidden from the world for decades. But instead of breaking free from your mentor, you're ending up on the same path as him!"

Leaning down a bit, I make sure that he looks me in the eyes before I continue feeding him with what he wants to hear, and what I want him to hear.

"Tell me something, Darren. How long have you asked Hank Pym, your mentor, the man you could even consider a father, to share his greatest creation with his protégé, the one person he should be able to trust? How long have you begged to be told about the Pym Particles?"

"Decades…" he whispers, and I can see anger and hate start to build within him.

Perfect.

"Decades…" I repeat in a thoughtful tone, before I continue.

"And in all that time, he has been hoarding his greatest creation for himself, as selfishly as a dragon with his treasure hoard. Refusing to share the Particles with humanity, refusing to try and make the world a better place. So, why don't you?"

His head whips around to stare at me in confusion, and I give him a sly grin as I spread my arms wide in a gesture meant to convey endless possibilities.

"Think about it Darren! What better way to completely break free from Pym, to show him that you no longer follow his ridiculous orders, that you now stand above him, than taking the one thing he has always kept to himself, that he has kept from you, and being the one to share it with the entire world! What good will making a suit do for you? Show you that you can mimic your mentor, that you can follow his lead? If you truly want to break free, Darren, then you need to do the opposite!"

I can see that the idea that sticking it to Pym resonates with him by the hunger in his eyes, so I go in for the final strike, leaning forwards a bit as I do.

"Think of the profits. Just take shipping, for example. If you were to shrink every container in the New York harbour, and enlarge the largest cargo ship we have, then you could fit all of New York's trade in a single ship. And combine it with technology based on my Blue Box, and that ship could take that cargo all over the world without having to stop for fuel even once! Do you have any idea just how many people are willing to pay us billions if we were to market something like that? And that's just shipping Darren! The same principle could be applied to every sector there is! We could turn Pym Particles into a common commodity, and all Hank Pym can do is tear out his hair in despair as he watches the treasure he has spent so long hoarding for himself is shared with the entire world, by you!"

As his brain goes through the calculations to quickly figure out just how much he could make by applying the Pym Particles that way, I can tell that I have him now.

Like I said, Cross is as much a business man as he is a scientist. And while the military sector in America is probably the richest sector in the entire world (roughly four times as much money is spent by the Government on it than the number two, China), it absolutely pales in comparison to the combined amount of spending in every other sector, such as transportation and communication, on a global scale. And Cross, being a business man, quickly reached the same conclusion.

Sure, selling to military contractors would result in a nice fat cheque, but what they could offer him was pocket change compared to what he could make if he started to market Pym Particles-based technology on a worldwide scale.

And now, for the cherry on top…

"Besides, you've already rebranded Pym Technologies to Cross Technologies. What's to stop you from marketing Cross Particles as well? Pym kept his own Particles a secret for decades, he'll either look like a madman or the greatest asshole in modern history if he suddenly calls you out on it because he had been sitting on the same tech for decades and yet it never saw the light of day. Think about the headlines here, Darren: young CEO of Cross Technologies markets Cross Particles, set to be the greatest invention in the history of humanity. Obsolete old man Hank Pym left in the dust."

The answering grin is all the answer I need.

Seems like Titan Solutions is going to end up in a partnership with Cross Technologies.

/

"So how did the meeting go?" Jeri Hogarth asks me the moment I stepped into her office.

After Cross and I had hashed out some more details for a possible partnership between our companies, I had escorted him to the lobby of the building, after which I made it back to Hogarth's floor, as I had promised her I would show her the kind of tech me and the boys thought she could market once my meeting with Cross Technologies was finished.

"Pretty well honestly. Cross is heading back to San Francisco this evening, he has already phoned ahead, so my people should get a call from his people at any moment now." I reply as I sit down in the extra-large chair with a reinforced frame which supports my body like a smooth handmade velvet glove, a little gift from Hogarth as thanks for the Rejuvenation serum.

"And considering that I am 'your people' that means that for the foreseeable future I can expect random phone calls in the middle of the night, correct?"

"If it's any consolation, me and my team have been trying to develop a drug that cuts down on the amount of sleep people need?"

My peace offering is rejected with a disinterested snort as Jeri Hogarth keeps typing away on her computer, looking at me from the corner of her eyes (now completely without wrinkles, thanks to yours truly).

"Your idea of thanking me is making me sleep even less. No thanks, I'll pass. I'll take whatever else you got though, because Stark, or should I say Potts, isn't letting up."

Taking note of the seriousness in her voice, I sit a bit straighter, our banter forgotten.

"Are we going to be in trouble?"

"From a legal standpoint? No. Not yet, at least. Stark Industries' lawyers are circling us like sharks, testing the waters, but none of them are willing to make the first move. For all that Stark is content in blowing his money on the most idiotic of things like it's nothing, Potts won't tolerate her company bleeding money without getting anything in return, so they aren't ready to take us to court for a long expensive battle while they're still scrambling for something that they can use to nail us to the wall with."

"Then what's the issue?"

"We lost Honda."

"What?! How?! More importantly, why?! Hachigō has to know that if he backs out of our deal his competitors will gladly take his place!"

"Apparently, Miss Potts is very close to both him and his family and they have offered him alternatives."

I lean back in my chair in shock as I look at the stern faced lawyer in front of me, disbelief clear on my face.

"Stark is selling his Arc Reactor?"

Relief floods me as Jeri shakes her head in the negative. Right now, my Blue Box deals were my greatest source of revenue, due to the medical side of my company still having to face years of FDA-testing before it became profitable. Outdoing Stark economically had never been the point of Titan Solutions, but if Tony were to sell his Arc Reactors, it would mean a catastrophic hit to my company, and consequently the safety of my allies.

"No, not the tech. Potts has promised Hachigō that Stark himself will make him one engine per branch that Honda is involved in, to the best of his abilities. Depending on how Hachigō can swing the deal, it means that Tony Stark will be personally designing up to twelve different engines for the company. That, combined with his closeness to Miss Potts, has convinced him to back out."

I rub my face with a sigh as once again I reflect that making plans is all fun and games, but that none survive first contact with the enemy. To me, all of these people used to be actors, with their set lines to say and actions to perform.

But now, they are living, breathing, thinking people with a will of their own, and it's nearly impossible for me to predict how they'll react to me, since my presence here is obviously not part of my meta-knowledge.

However, even as I contemplate this, I can see Jeri give a smug little smile at her computer screen, and I can't help the curiosity that wells up inside me at the uncommon sight.

"What the hell got you so happy?"

Turning to look at me fully, Jeri leans forwards a bit, placing her arms on her desk and folding her slender hands together, the perfect picture of poised calm.

"Ford just doubled its offer on the condition that they also get the deal we had with Honda."

"But we made that deal with Honda specifically because they are involved in so many different branches of motor racing, way more than Ford is? Why do they want that deal as well if their company isn't geared for it?"

"They're thinking of expanding their interests. According to them, working with the level of tech that Titan Solutions can provide will give them the final push they need to grow into various other branches of the automotive industry. Their words, not mine."

"Meaning?"

Sure, it would be a matter of mere moments for my boosted brain to figure out their motivations myself, but after the meeting with Cross I had just had, it was nice to just kick back and let someone else do the thinking and explaining for once.

"They're shitting their pants, absolutely terrified of falling behind in the energy arms-race you have unleashed, and are desperate to make the most of the deals we are willing to make now while we're still negotiating as a small, young company, meaning from a position of relative weakness. Congratulations, Mr. McCole. You just turned losing one of your greatest backers into a multi-billion dollar deal." Jeri smiles, drawing a scoff from me.

"I hardly had anything to do with it, its Ford's paranoia that will make us the big bucks."

"That would be the Army, actually."

"They came through?"

"They did. Grudgingly of course, and they won't stop pestering me to try and make you reconsider your 'no weapons' policy, but considering that Tony Stark isn't working with them anymore, they hardly have any choice but to come to us now for their toys. The way we can revolutionize their vehicles, especially that "Tumbler" you showed me, almost has them begging on their knees, and I'm pretty sure that we made the EOD branch cry tears of joy when we sent them the specs of your new leather armour."

"If all that's true, then why are you so desperate for more gear to market?"

"Because making deals with big energy and car companies and the army is all well and good, but it's nothing more than background noise for the general populace. It's something they might skim over in the financial pages in their newspaper, but it's hardly something that'll stay on their thoughts throughout the day. Meanwhile, by the time it's 2014, roughly 6 million people will be travelling in Tony Stark's brand new subway cars every day. We need something to counteract such a massive public presence or nobody will even bother to care when Stark Industries tries to fight us behind closed doors."

She made a lot of sense of course, though the high numbers took me off guard for a moment.

"Right, right, of course." I say, taking a see through rectangle of glass from my pocket, about the size of my hand, placing it flat on Jeri's desk.

As I do, a holographic screen fills the glass, several haptic buttons appearing off to the side, functioning as an interface. Ignoring Jeri's wide-eyed look, I flick my wrist, making the holographic screen suddenly shoot upwards, hovering roughly a foot above the glass. A gesture of both my hands (a pulling motion away from each other) makes the holographic 3D model expand suddenly until it's about as large as Hogarth's desk, showing a grid of files and maps.

"Right, me and the guys thought up a lot of stuff which we thought you might find useful, like flying cars-"

"Michael."

Jeri's steel clad voice cuts through my words with the razor edge of a Vibranium blade, and I find myself blinking as I look at the lawyer's intense gaze in surprise.

"Yeah?"

"What is this?"

"This? It's just a bit of tech we developed for day to day use. The glass sheet is easy to make and pretty cheap too. Getting the wiring small enough was a bit of a challenge, but Mason figured it out after a couple of hours. The holographic interface was just to make it easier to use. Why?"

"Why?! Michael do you even know what you have there?!"

Despite my advanced brain, I still find myself thrown for a loop, as I look from the wide-eyed Hogarth to the haptic interface and back to Hogarth again, raising my eyebrow in a question.

"It's just a hologram Jeri… it's not that special?" I hesitantly venture, making Hogarth's nostrils flare in indignation.

"Not that special?! Not that… How on Earth can you be so smart and yet still be dumb!?"

"Hey that's not very nice-"

"Holograms aren't just 'not that special' Michael! I know that you and your bunch of science friends are comfortable with Stark level tech, but you need to get this through that massive skull of yours: the rest of the world isn't!" Hogarth hisses at me, deflating a bit as she considers what she just said.

"Or well, most of the world anyways. Who knows what that Wakanda has, the rumours you hear about that place…"

Meanwhile I'm still coming to grips with the realization that Hogarth just dumped on me. I had been so focused on the major players on Earth, being in contact with advanced tech on a daily basis, that I had completely forgotten that the rest of the world was still at the same tech level as my old world had been.

Some of the stuff that I use on a daily basis was still considered fancy sci-fi to the rest of the world.

'When I was brainstorming with Phineas, I was using holographic interfaces, while he had a glove on that gave him pseudo-telekinesis, and both of us thought those things so mundane that neither of our advanced brains even registered them as special or marketable.'

"Just think about this, Michael, really think! The way we could revolutionize communications, advertisements, instructions, hell even video-games! This technology is applicable to literally everything we now use that has an interface!"

All I can do is nod at Jeri's rant (I've noticed she's become a lot more animated now that she's thirty years younger), all the while kicking myself for forgetting the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Of course my hyper-advanced brain would come up with hyper-advanced solutions, while the simpler option was staring me right in the face.

"Michael. You are going to describe to me every single thing that you guys use in that workshop of yours. And don't you dare leave anything out, you understand?"

Giving her a determined nod, I start recalling every piece of equipment that's currently inside the warehouse, to the mountain of tools Sterns insists are necessary for his endless upkeep of his beloved Oliver, to the A/C unit that Burstein had installed to both deal with the temperature, as well to completely neutralize the smells coming from his leather-working production area.

Time to sell my inventions and make everyone super.

"Right, we got this autodoc in the labs for quick response, if someone messes up a chemical reaction or something, you know? But I think that with a carbonfiber frame and a body of inflatable vinyl…"

/

I made my way back towards the workshop feeling pretty damned pleased with myself.

While Darren's legal team had to first hash out all the boring details with my legal team, I wasn't really worried about that, considering that my legal team had a revitalized Jeri Hogarth at its head.

Me and Jeri had spent well over three hours walking through the tools that were used in my workshop, trying to come up with as many possible uses and ways to market them as we could, from altering our cheap 3D-printer to be able to mass-produce metals, ceramics, glass, and plastics, to the repurposing the gasmasks we occasionally used to also fit radio and a HUD, while being treated so it's as strong as Kevlar, while still being as thin as plastic.

As I was just walking across the sidewalk like your ordinary baseline humie, I could spot several of my tails again, amusement welling up inside me as I considered taking to the rooftops once more.

It's notoriously hard to shadow a guy if he makes jumps as high as several stories, and outruns cars.

Gonna need a lot of crossfit before you can keep up with that kind of athleticism.

There were the obligatory black vans of course, following me several dozen feet behind in a neat column, standing out like a sore thumb. That means that they are the kind of spies that people know exist, so probably CIA. The guy that has been walking at a constant 15 feet behind me is subtler, but his focus is obvious, indicating inexperience in dealing with non-baseline humans and their superior senses. NSA perhaps? One of the myriad of CIA special agent programs, like the Bourne and Mission Impossible movies told us about? Maybe FBI, but from what little I know about those guys, I figure that their preferred method is just bull rushing a target using a bunch of people in suits and shades, flashing their fancy badges.

Though that might just be my Hollywood enforced misconception speaking.

I didn't spot any tails that I could attribute to S.H.I.E.L.D., which meant that they either sent someone good enough that I couldn't spot them, or they didn't bother to put a tail on me at all. Considering the extensive monitoring equipment the agency had access to (in the words of Coulson "everything that has a camera") as well as the top-tier humans they employ, both are entirely possible.

No, what worries me is that I can't spot any tails that might be from the Hand.

Then again, they wouldn't really be proper ninja's if they could be spotted.

Given that they were a secret organization, deeply imbedded in both the upper elechons of New York society as well as its criminal underbelly (basically the same thing really) I had no idea how quickly they could mobilize, though I was hedging towards the idea that they'd probably need a couple of days to gather enough men for a proper strike.

Then again, they were a hidden society of ninja's, the quintessential assassins, meaning that they didn't really need to gather enough men; they just needed one, in the right place at the right time.

Reaching the workshop I decide to put the thoughts of ninja's out of my mind for now, throwing a cheeky wave over my shoulder at the column of black SUV's behind me as I made my way inside-

"GET A HOLD OF IT!"

"CAREFUL!"

"WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS IT!? OH GOD I CAN'T SEE IT!"

"AAARGH!!! IT BIT ME! GET ME SOME ANITSCEPTIC, NOW!!"

"WHERE THE HELL IS THE FIRE EXTUINGISHER?!"

-only to walk into absolute pandemonium.

There were a lot of people shouting at the top of their lungs, others were running around like headless chickens, the sound of (expensive) things falling and shattering kept ringing out, while I could spot at least three small fires scattered throughout the workshop.

Even as I stared completely frozen at the sight of chaos in front of me, I could hear crashes coming from the set of offices to my right, and I turned just in time to see Melvin Potter run straight through the old brickwork walls, showering the both of us in dust and mortar.

Appearing completely unbothered by the fact that he just destroyed a wall with just his body, the blacksmith simply lit up when he saw me standing there, straightening up and giving a happy wave, a big grin on his innocent face.

"Hi there Mr. McCole! Glad to see you're back!"

"Melvin… what the hell is going on?"

"Oh, Mr. Noah did an experiment, and it escaped!" was the answer, delivered as cheerfully as if he just said that the world had just outlawed taxes.

"… an experiment?"

"Yeah!" and with that he pointed behind him, and as I leaned a bit to the side to look around his broad frame I could see a black blur shoot low across the floor of the workshop, one of the workers that Toomes had put me in contact with chasing after it.

In his haste however, the man (now working security for my company) failed to see a colleague coming up from the other side, hands spread out in order to catch the blur as it approached him. Whatever the hell it was, it proved too fast for him though, and his hands closed on empty air, the blur flitting in between his legs. The man that had been in pursuit proved to be less nimble however and I could see their eyes widening in shock moments before they crashed into each other.

Now, while in any other situation this might've lead to some innocent slapstick and a bit of embarrassment, all of the people that I had put in the security department of my company had been upgraded with both the supersoldier serum, as well as the Luke Cage treatment.

Meaning that instead of tumbling down in an heap of limbs, the first guy slammed into the second one with an almighty crash much like a car collision would produce, lifting his colleague straight off the ground, and inadvertently running/falling forwards, shoulder checking the other man straight into the wall of my building.

And nearly clear through it as well.

"STEP ASIDE! MAKE WAY!"

The harried sound of Sterns' voice dashed all hopes I had of cooler heads prevailing over the chaos as I saw my friend hurrying forwards above the din of the battlefield of upturned desks and small fires on all six of his metal legs.

A few of them shot forwards, but once more the devious blur (and just what the hell had Burstein created?!) proved to fast for its pursuers, and somehow Sterns metal arms got caught up in each other and the egghead fell to earth with an undignified yelp.

Growling deep in my chest at the chaos that had taken over my workshop, I ran forwards, ducking and weaving around the scattered furniture and panicked people with more grace than the world's greatest dancers and athletes, the cat-like reflexes the Heartshaped Herb granted me really paying off now.

Vaulting over a desk covered in broken beakers and ruined papers with the tips of my fingers just barely brushing the wood, my feet hit the ground smoothly, immediately propelling me to the right and down, my hand shooting out quick as lightning, catching the blur by the… tail?

Completely nonplussed, I shifted my grip on whatever creature Burstein had created, placing my enormous hands on its torso, nearly circling it completely. Making sure that my grip was secure (the thing struggled like a cat on a mix of steroids and heroine, and proved almost a slippery as an eel) I straightened up, lifting up the being in front of my face.

And I was greeted by teeth.

Lots and lots of teeth, each one about as large as the pinkie finger on a normie would be.

"Ah, Michael (*huff*), good to see you captured Experiment 626 (*huff huff*)."

Slowly turning my head from the creature to the sweating form of Burstein, there's only one thing that I can think of to say.

"Burstein… what the hell?!"

'I really need to put up some safety rules here, or mad science will kill us all before the Chitauri even have a chance to get here.'

Wringing his hands, the scientist looks just a tad guilty at me, as around us people are giving out relieved sighs as they start helping each other up from the floor (or out of the walls, in one case), starting to put the place back in order again.

"Well… it's just that, you came up with the haptic interfaces, then Sam came up with the motion-responsive tech and then Phineas made that pseudo-telekinetic gauntlet of his and… well, I just wanted to make something as well. And well, remember when we watched Jurassic Park on movie night a couple of weeks back…" Burstein says haltingly, wincing a bit as next to us, one of the workers picks up a stack of papers, only to have them spontaneously combust in her hands due to the mix of spilled chemicals everywhere.

Thankfully, she had been one of the amputees that Toomes had sent me, and due to being healed with Extremis she was unharmed by the sudden fireball, though she sent Noah a very annoyed look at her now singed shirt, the scientist giving a nervous smile in response.

Ignoring the by play for now, my mind snags on a little thing that the scientist had mentioned.

'Jurassic Park?'

Mechanically turning to look at the creature that I was holding an arms-length away from me (it was still squirming and snapping its multitude of teeth) I actually take the time to examine it properly.

The long tail.

The big snout.

The powerful hind legs.

The teeth.

"Noah?" I say, my voice completely flat and void of any emotion as I keep my eyes on the creature in my arms, which has finally accepted that escape is no longer an option, calming down a bit as it settles for glaring at me instead (which proves about as effective as gnashing on my unbreakable skin had been).

"Yes Michael?" the scientist replies in a despondent voice, his head hanging low as he dreads the question that he knows is coming.

"Why the hell am I holding a T-Rex?"

"Ah, well, like I said you guys were coming up with all this cool stuff, and we've pretty much perfected my enhancing treatment, especially with the help of Mr. Potter, so I wanted to start on a new project…" the scientist rambles.

My mind at this point is in an unnatural calm state as I look at the dog-sized dinosaur in my hands, the shock having proven too much and causing me to just run fully on auto-pilot right now.

"I see. You mean to tell me that in the span of two weeks, you brought back a species that had been extinct for 65 million years?"

Shuffling his feet a bit, I could see Burstein place his hands in his pockets only to take them out immediately again, wringing them nervously.

"Well, not exactly. I've been working on this ever since you and Sam upgraded my brain. It's just that the last two weeks I've been putting my research into practice."

"So that was what was inside your super-secret room that none of us were allowed to enter?"

"Yeah, some of the equipment there like the Incubation Chamber is really delicate, and I also figured that it would immediately spoil the surprise of what I was trying to do."

"Creating a dinosaur." I state flatly, as if to convince myself that, yes, this is in fact, real.

Meanwhile, the T-Rex in question has become bored from not setting me on fire by the power of its glare alone, and has begun squirming again, its yellow eyes flitting around the workshop as it seems to contemplate causing havoc and mayhem once more.

"Well… she's not a dinosaur in the strictest sense. As you know, getting DNA from dinosaur remains is impossible, as DNA doesn't last more than 5 million years, but traces of saurian DNA can still be found in the dormant parts of the genetic structure of their descendants. Considering that birds genetically speaking are dinosaurs I just sort of… back-tracked, using extensive knowledge of palaeontology and genetics to guide me, with the Saltwater Crocodile as a rough baseline."

"So… what you're telling me… is that I'm basically holding a chicken with teeth?"

"An ostrich actually. Also, uhm, I don't really know how to say this…"

"Noah. What the hell did you do?" I ask dangerously, before the T-Rex ostrich in my hands suddenly locks eyes with me, and somehow I can tell that it's confused about something, before it-

FWOOSH!

-before it hiccups, spouting a great gout of flame straight into my face. As I blink the sudden spots away, I'm greeted by the smuggest look I've ever seen a reptile make, only now noticing the subtle glow on its chest, reminding me somewhat of the Deathwing dragon from that World of Warcraft game that became incredibly popular a couple of years back.

The reason I hadn't even noticed its high body temperature was because I was burning so hot that outside heat barely even registered to me anymore.

"Noah. What. Did. You. DO?" I growl out, the baby T-Rex's tail lazily wagging back and forth as it amuses itself with chasing a speck of burned up paper floating around its head.

"… I uhh, may have decided that, since I was busy with coding its genetic structure, I uhh, you know, might as well go a little crazy. But you need to realize Michael, this was just an experiment, I never expected it to actually work!"

"Noah…"

"…"

"Noah!"

"You're not going to like this…"

"I'm already not liking this, now tell me whether or not you've done what I think you've done!"

"… well, I enhanced her with Extremis-"

"Shit!"

"-and the Brain Booster as well."

"SHIT!"

In the silence following my sudden outburst, I can hear the door to the workshop open and close again, boots walking a few steps as a voice rings out.

"Michael! I found where that Radcliffe guy of yours is…. Whoa…" I hear the familiar voice trail off, the sounds of her feet coming to a dead stop, and looking over my shoulder, I can see Jessica looking around the chaos with a confused look on her face.

"Hey guys, what the hell happened here? Looks like a bomb went off or something…"

She trails off in stunned silence however, as her eyes land on the T-Rex dangling in my hands, happily chewing away on my thumb, before the little monster notices Jessica as well, letting go of my digit in order to tilt her head at the woman much like a curious puppy would.

You know, if that puppy had scales that is.

And could breathe fire

"Is that… a dino?"

"Yes…" I reply with a sigh, looking back at the baby in my arms-

FWOOSH!

-only to get blasted in the face again.

Intentionally, this time, I'm sure of it.

Just one look at that smug little face confirms my suspicions.

"Holy shit, did the dino just breathe fire at you?!"

"Yes…" I answer with gritted teeth, but the damned lizard seems completely unimpressed by my thunderous expression, just grinning at me with her legion of sharp pointy teeth.

For a moment, there's only the sound of people shuffling about, trying to clean the place up as best they can, before Jessica's dry voice cuts across the din.

"Your life is so weird."

"Tell me about it." I say in a suffering tone of exhaustion.

Meanwhile, the little T-Rex keeps on happily wagging her tail.

/

Fun Fact: Larry Hama's vision for G.I. Joe was originally intended as a new direction for Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

[Bakkughan]

First thing after making your labs/workshop at HQ: make a vibranium plaque engraved with the Ten Commandments of sensible Mad Sience to put at the lab's entrance

1.- It will be ready when it is ready. Rushing a mind-boggling physics-defying invention because of some hypothetical nebulous future war will result on monsters or superpowered madmen.

2.- We adhere to international safety standards, even if we risk ripping a hole in reality every friday. Keep dangerous or important chemicals or machines labeled, on safety containers, locked, below elbow lever, etc.

3.-Human testing is the absolute last stage. Even then, prisioners in death-row, indiviuals with psychological issues, disorders or illnesses; or a crime history are not elegible for any such precedure.

4.-Any test, even consecutive ones, do require a previous (visual) inspection of the testing site before proceding.

5.-Any device to be tested must have be rigged with a handy emergency stop button. On the same vein, any prototype held on-site will be rigged with redundant (and off-circuit) anti-theft measures and trackers.

6.-While privacy on personal proyects is acceptable, unreasonable secrecy will be cause for an investigation. Be reasonable, we all have worked on crazy stuff; if you want to hide to hide somehting from the rest we might get worried. Seriously, just tell us; we migth want to help anyway.

7.-Any new entry will have to submit a working proyect. Should the project not deliver the stated results it will be graded according on how close it was and much it did, taking on account the estimated dificulty. A portable teleporter that kills organics is still a portable teleporter, with just one flaw to work out. Purely theoretic work pending actual experimentation will be reviewd and if found acceptable may recieve founding.

8.-Any night guards will be hooked up with a thermos of Sterns' abomination of a coffee.

9.-In the remote case that a school trip is somehow allowed, they will all follow a route that separates them from the labs by thick antiartilliery glass on a path that in no moment intersects routes in or out of laboratories or restricted areas. The group will be accompanied by a four guard team; two leading and two on the rearguard; no delays tolerated or pictures allowed. Any deviation or 'accidental' invassion of restricted areas may be treated as an attempt of corporate espionage and may require a full physical examination of the trespasser.

10.-Keep mad laugther to minimum while we have visits.

 

[Bakkughan]

In the grand tradition of illegal hideouts all over the world, this particular backroom behind an underground casino had a barely visible interior (more due to the heavy fog of cigar smoke that coated everything rather than because of the poor lighting) and the parts of it that were visible spoke both of great wealth, as well as low maintenance.

For instance, on the great oaken table that sat in the middle of the room, the rich original colour of the wood had faded with age, and instead had been replaced by the grimy combination of spilled tobacco, spilled alcohol and spilled blood, puckered pockmarks of bullet-ricochets and deep gashes of knife-slashes marking the table as if it were a tapestry of its violent history.

As a contrast to the shabby nature of the table however, small mountains of cash were strewn about on its top as if those riches were nothing more than pocket change to the five men seated around the table, themselves dressed in fine designer suits and adorned with heavy golden chains and watches.

It spoke of the kind of money that was either inherited or illegally gained, but never properly earned.

The five men were playing poker, two men on either side of the long end of the table, the last one seating at the head, leaving an empty chair at the other end. If an observant man would happen to look at these men, then he would immediately notice that their attention was more on the chair than on their cards.

A wise man, however, would keep his mouth shut about it after seeing all the guns and knives that were tucked away in belts and hidden inside designer jackets.

"He's late." The sharply dressed man at the head of the table said in a calm tone of voice, which was at odds with his eyes, fixed on the chair across from him.

They showed a barely contained rage, just waiting for an outlet, and excuse for violence.

A sentiment that was shared by the other occupants of the table, considering that the missing person had been the one to request this rare meeting, as a dark skinned man to his left let out a scoff, throwing his cards down.

"O course him late! Him tryna show us, him betta than us! Mad disrespec, zeen?" the man spat, his anger causing his Jamaican drawl to come out even thicker than usual.

"Come on Nigel. Do you really think that little of me?" A voice suddenly called out, causing hands to fly to the handles of guns and to curl around knives in reflex as a one armed man strolled through the door.

"Klaue. Who do ya think ya are to just barge in here after making us wait for an hour?" a tall man with a heavy Irish accent growled, half-turning in his seat in order to look over his shoulder, incidentally also showing off the hand cannon tucked in the back of his belt.

Ulysses Klaue, once one of the most infamous arms dealers in the world, merely smiled at the anger being directed at him, giving a half-shrug in response.

"Got stuck in traffic. 'Sides, your guards here, they just let me walk in."

Right on the heels of that statement however, came the sounds of a struggle from beyond the doorway. The men around the table exchanged quick glances in confusion, before there was a cry of pain, and the large form of what was obviously a bouncer flew into the room, crashing hard against the opposite wall with enough force to put a hole in the plaster.

"After a bit of convincing, of course." Klaue said, his smile widening as behind him, a little girl walked into the room, her face drawn in a scowl as her eyes kept flitting around the people sitting around the table, scanning its occupants with a deadly gaze.

As Klaue walked over to the table to take the empty seat, the man to his left who had been sitting across from the Irish man turned towards him, fists clenched as he bared his teeth in anger.

"You ask for this fucking meeting, then you make us wait, then you come in here and beat on our people and you think you can just sit at our table, as an equal?! Who the fuck do you think you are, puta!?" the Mexican growled, a switchblade suddenly flashing in his hands, the point unwaveringly aimed at Klaue.

Stilling his motions, Klaue slowly turned his head towards the gang leader, his expression hewn from stone, before he coolly lifted an eyebrow.

"Shuri."

Directly on the heels of the command, something flew through the darkened interior of the room, slamming into the blade of the Mexican's knife with a metallic ringing sound, wrenching it from his hand and carrying it to the far side of the room, slamming into the wall.

Before the rest of the occupants could react, five more objects flew through the room, each one imbedding themselves in the cards that each player had put on the table when Klaue had entered the room, revealing themselves to be slim throwing knives of an unfamiliar design.

Slowly, the gazes from the men went from the trembling blades stuck in their cards to the lithe form of the girl that was standing behind Klaue, her arms outstretched as she gave a challenging smirk. Leaning a bit forwards in his chair, making all eyes snap from the girl to him again, Ulysses stared the shocked looking Mexican straight in his eyes, his voice a low growl that easily carried across the silent room.

"I'm Ulysses fucking Klaue. I'm the man who stole billions worth of the most precious material on Earth from the most advanced country in the world, and then evaded their best spies and assassins for thirty years. Every single black ops organization out there has bought their weapons from me. During the Cold War, both the West and the Commies bought their weapons from me. I have made more money in a year than you and your gang combined will ever see in a lifetime. I know people in the darkest corners of the world that are capable of tearing down this city to its bedrock if I were to ask them to. And if you ever, ever insult me again, then I will track you down, cut you open from your throat to your dick, and hang you by your own intestines. Capiche?"

For a moment, utter silence reigned across the room, before the Mexican, wide eyed and sweating, gave a hesitant nod.

"I don't doubt your claims Klaue. But it makes me ask myself: the fuck are you doing here? We all control parts of New York, but outside of our turf there are other cats calling the shots around this city. If you're so global as you say you are, then why come to locals like us?" the man opposite Klaue asked leisurely, his posture one of supreme confidence and utter nonchalance.

"Glad you asked, Cottonmouth." The arms dealer replied, a smirk on his face.

For a moment, the other people's eyes flickered between Klaue and the now named Cottonmouth, as the tension in the room suddenly spiked when the Harlem gang leader's face suddenly went flat.

"I hate that name." Cornell Stokes slowly said, his voice low and full with the hidden promise of violence, but Klaue didn't seem to care, smile still on his face as he stared the murderous looking gang leader straight in his eyes.

"I don't give a fuck. Now, to answer your question, you all been watching the news lately, yeah?" Klaue said in response as he leaned back in his chair, drawing a few confused looks from the gang leaders, the Irish man letting out a scoff and a shake of his head.

"Course we have. What of it?"

"Then I suppose you all know about that new guy, McCole? Pretty big? Glowy eyes? Thinks he can take on Stark? Ring any bells?"

"Again, course we have. Now what of it?"

"He's the one who took my arm." Klaue bluntly replied, making all the other men sit a little straighter in their chairs as they couldn't help their eyes from flitting to the empty sleeve of the arms dealer's shirt, hiding the missing appendage.

They were taken off guard at the massive grin that grew on Klaue's face however.

"So in return, I'm gonna take his head."

For a moment, silence reigned across the table, before a diminutive Puerto Rican man spoke up for the first time since Klaue and Shuri had entered the room.

"Then what you need us for? You keep saying how scary as fuck you are, then go and put a bullet between the fucker's eyes." The man said, running a hand across his slicked back hair, getting nods of agreement from the other criminals, but Klaue just shook his head.

"It ain't that easy. He's one of them super freaks. And I'm positive that the rest of the people, that work at that factory of his, are a bunch of freaks too."

"So wat you is sayin' is tat you need a crew?" Nigel asked him, rubbing his chin in contemplation as he stared intently at the crippled arms dealer.

"I can pay for a crew, that ain't the problem. Fucker sold all my hardware, but he was stupid enough to think he got to all my liquid assets as well just because I told him that he did. No, I promised the girlie here that she could join in as well." Klaue said while pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Shuri, who hadn't moved from her spot ever since negotiations began.

While the gang leader's first response was to scoff at the idea of the little girl taking on the behemoth of a man, all of them couldn't help but quickly glance at the knives imbedded in the table in front of them.

They wisely kept their doubts to themselves.

"Which is why I came to you. It'll take a couple of years before little Shuri has grown into a proper threat, so if in the meantime I can fuck up his neighbourhood by selling my wares to the gangs of New York, then that just sweetens the deal."

"You got stock again?" Cottonmouth asked, keen interest clear in his eyes, but the Puerto Rican man instead frowned as he stared at Klaue in deep thought.

"Wakandan made, and I'm the only one that can get it to you since they keep putting down everyone else comin' through their borders without waving a white flag. Guaranteed Stark level tech, and since he's out of the business, it's the best shit you're gonna get your hands on. I returned there when they had that… change of regime going on, took some presents with me." Klaue said with a wide grin, his hand going inside the shirt that he wore, withdrawing an enormous futuristic looking gun, making all the other criminals jump from their chairs, pointing their own weapons in his direction.

Neither he, nor Shuri seemed all that bothered at the multitude of weaponry now trained on them and instead, Klaue just pointed his gun off to the side, nonchalantly pulling the trigger. There was a brief, soft hissing sound, before something slammed from the barrel and into the far wall faster than any of them could blink, smashing apart the ancient brickwork in an explosion of dust and mortar, a torso-sized hole punched into it.

The gunshot itself had been almost utterly silent.

With shocked looks, the criminals switched their gazes from the weapon to Klaue and back again, as they all slowly sat back down in their chairs, though they all kept their hands on their weapons.

"It's amazing, the things that Vibranium can do with sound. Sound's just vibrations in the air, you see, so you can do all kinds of cool shit with it. And then strap it to Stark-level weaponry, and well, that's the result." Klaue mused with a nonchalant wave to the crumbling wall, and it didn't take a genius to see the interest and greed rise in the eyes of the gang leaders.

Except for the Puerto Rican man, who kept his eyes fixed on the massive cannon in Klaue's hand.

"You ain't telling us the whole of it, Klaue. First off, you ain't the only one with this kinda tech. After Hammer got locked up cause of that whole Expo mess and you had that yard sale of yours, someone else got their hands on massive cashes of Hammer-tech. New player, goes by the name of Diamondback. If you just wanted to flip your weapons, then you would be talking to him, he's been buying to add to his stock like some crazy mamabicho, like he's readying for war or some shit like that. And if you just wanted New York fucked, then you would've gone to the big player. Don't know his name, nobody does, but he's got Japs and Russian and basically everyone else working for him. Dude fucking owns the police. You want the whole of New York fucked, you go to him. No, you're here for another reason." The man mused, dark eyes settling unwaveringly on Klaue's.

Behind the arms dealer, Shuri's hand slowly crept to the back of the belt she wore, but her movements were halted by Klaue raising a hand, while the cripple didn't take his eyes of the Puerto Rican.

"Colon, wasn't it? Domingo Colon? Ain't you a clever one. I'm gonna keep my eye on you." Klaue said with a grim little smile, and nobody around the table knew whether or not Colon had just made a tentative ally, or a hateful enemy.

Probably the latter, they simultaneously decided.

"But, to be fair, you ain't wrong. Thing is, I came to you cause I know you guys. I don't know this Diamonback, heard about him though. Fucker was one of my biggest competitors for the Hammer-stashes that flooded the black market after the shit show the company went through, but I bid him out. Until McCole screwed me over, now he's got his hands on it anyways. And I sure as hell ain't getting tangled with a guy who nobody knows the name of. I got enough contacts in the government as it is, I don't need a guy like him to rule the police for me. But above all, I came here for you." And with that, Klaue pointed his hand in Nigel's direction, who looked nonplussed at the sudden attention.

"Me? Wat ya need me fo?"

"Oh, I don't. She does." Klaue said, pointing at Shuri again.

Seeing Nigel's confused look, the arms dealer elaborated.

"I promised the girlie that I would make her as strong as possible. We're already making some progress in that-" as he spoke, he glanced at the slumped over security guard who was still embedded in the wall, the criminals looking somewhat uncomfortable as they followed his gaze "-but she needs more."

For a moment, Nigel's eyes kept flitting between Shuri, Klaue and the massive gun that Klaue had lain on the table, before they slowly went back to Klaue again, caution visibly warring with greed on his face.

Being a criminal leader, Klaue wasn't surprised to see greed eventually win out.

"Ow can I 'elp ya, tap a di tap?"

Smiling at the respectful title, Klaue leaned a little forward in his chair.

"I need you to contact one of your guys. McIver. Johhny McIver."

"Johnny? Memba, mi tell yu, him is a squeako, wat ya want a crazy like him fo?"

"From what little I heard, he's all into that mumbo-jumbo you Jamaicans are so damned proud of. Figure he could pass a little somethin' down to little Shuri here."

"Dinnae tell me ya actually believe any 'o tha crap Klaue. Magic and shite like that." The Irish man scoffed, drawing a scowl from Nigel, but the arms dealer merely smiled, glancing over his shoulder as he did so.

"Let's just say, what I saw back there in Wakanda? It really… broadened my horizons."

/

After Nigel had promised to try and track down McIver, and tentative deals for weapons had been struck with the other criminals, Shuri and Klaue were walking back towards their hideout, the sun just starting its slow decent towards the Western horizon (it's a stubborn myth that all illegal meetings have to happen at midnight. Only some do, and those are usually done by those on the lower rungs of the criminal hierarchy. Those at the top can afford to go to bed at the same reasonable time like everybody else, and after a lifetime of crime and unreasonable working hours, most tend to make abundant use of the fact), when the girl spoke up.

"Ulysses… about what you said, to the Mexican? About the whole… strangling and… cutting? You didn't really mean that, right? You just said that stuff to scare him, right?"

Coming to a halt, Ulysses looked at the little girl next to him, scratching the scruff on his cheek as he tried to figure out what he should say.

"Look… what happened back there, that's just the way things work. It's all about respect."

"People respect you when you threaten them?" Shuri asked in confusion, but Klaue just nodded his head.

"In a way. Just think about cops. Without cops, laws are just ink on paper that nobody other than lawyers bothers to read. But we still respect those laws, because there are cops, and they threaten to hurt us and lock us up if we don't."

"We've been here almost a week and I haven't seen cops threaten people?" the little princess asked with a confused tilt to her head.

"That's because they're civilized. Or at least, everyone pretends to be. They don't go around saying they're threatening people, the badge makes it… implicit. Meanin' everybody knows that they gonna fuck your shit up if you don't respect the laws or the badge. But back there? Ain't nobody pretending to be civilized. That's the real world, girlie, and in the real world there ain't no bloody cops and a badge doesn't mean a fucking thing. You gotta take your place in the world, and say 'fuck off!' to everyone that tries to push you around and away from your spot, you got me? Back there, I took my place at the table, but the Mexican insulted me, tried to push me around. So, I needed to threaten him, show him that he should respect the place I chose or I'd push back."

For a moment, Shuri and Klaue remained standing on the sidewalk, the throngs of people smoothly parting around them, completely oblivious to their existence (though Klaue had drawn a few outraged stares from mothers walking with their children when they picked up snippets of his cursing. Not that the criminal cared).

"And if you pushed back… you'd really-"

"No! No, no, of course not! Uhh, it's just, uhh, making yourself scarier than you are, you know? Yeah, 'cause, uhh, that way you don't need to push." Klaue hurried to assure the stricken little girl, bending down on one knee as he desperately lied in order to keep Shuri's loyalty.

The little girl was obsessed with killing the man who murdered her mother, and was willing to go to extreme lengths in order to achieve that (like beating up the bouncers from the casino they had just left behind) but most of all she was still a little girl and the mention of cold-blooded torture like the kind that Klaue had threatened with still shocked her.

And if Klaue wanted to keep his 'get out of Wakanda free' card, than he had to make sure that she kept seeing him as the (relative) good guy.

"You mean like the grey catbird does?" Shuri asked in a small tone, some measure of relief coming through in her voice.

"Yea-, wait what?"

"The grey catbird. Male grey catbirds fluff their feathers and spread their lower tails to defend their territory when threatened by another male. The bird that is capable of puffing up and appearing to be the biggest will win the territory." Shuri stated proudly, as if reciting word for word from a book.

"Yeah. Sure, let's go with that." Klaue replied, shaking his head as he straightened and they continued walking.

After a few dozen steps, Klaue couldn't help but gaze at the little princess from the corner of his eyes, raising an eyebrow in question.

"How come you know so much about this, catbird thing?"

He was surprised to see Shuri blush a little, and the girl sped up her walk in embarrassment, prompting a deep laugh from Klaue.

"Oho, what's this? Little Shuri doesn't want to tell me how she knows something? My my, the world must be coming to an end then!" Klaue teased, grinning even wider when the little girl stopped walking, stomping the ground with a tiny foot, arms crossed in front of her chest as she glared up at the arms dealer with an annoyed huff.

"Cause I thought they were catbirds! I wanted to know what mix between a cat and a bird looked like okay?"

"HAHAHAHA!" Klaue burst out in booming laughter, causing people to stop and turn in his direction with questioning looks, while Shuri just kept on blushing harder and harder.

She quickly got fed up with her mentor's laughter however, and delivered a sharp kick to Klaue's leg, which quickly put a stop to his fun, though he couldn't keep a smirk off his face as he looked at her.

"And? What did they look like? Was it everything you hoped for?" Klaue said with a grin, which only increased when he saw her pout.

"Nah, they just look like these little grey birds, like a sparrow or something. Now! You're going to buy me pizza!"

"I am?" Klaue asked flatly, giving the little girl a look that said not to push her luck.

Shuri, being a girl of twelve, promptly ignored the look.

"Yeah, New York's pizza is supposed to be the best in the world, it says so in the folder, so I wanna try!" Shuri said excitedly, waving around a piece of paper that Klaue recognized from the tourist stands that lined the pier when they arrived by boat a few days ago.

"You know that everything that's on there is a tourist trap, right? Better to go to one of them little places, the authentic ones. Sure, they're not on that map of yours, but I guarantee you that their pizza is way better." Klaue rumbled as they kept on walking at an easy pace.

"Well do you know any of these 'authentic' places?" Shuri asked in a haughty tone, drawing a chuckle out of Klaue.

"Nah, I've only been in New York a couple of times, and most of 'em I spent around the docks, no more than a couple of days. But I do know how to blend into a crowd, and more importantly, how to lose one too. You wanted to become the best killer you could be, right? Then here's an assignment for you: find us a place to eat, without getting spotted on any camera. Got it?"

Seeing Shuri's determined nod, Klaue gave a light laugh, waving her off with his arm.

"Well, go on then!"

With that, Shuri nodded again, before turning on her heel and striding forwards while keeping her eyes up in order to spot any CCTV camera's, intent on completing this challenge with flying colo-

"Again!"

"What?! I just started! There aren't any surveillance cams here, I checked!" Shuri yelled in frustration, and while the strange sentence drew some suspicious looks, people immediately brushed her off as playing a silly game with her guardian as they looked from the little girl with her hands on her hips to the smiling man that walked a few paces behind her.

"I know. But you missed the bunch of tourists on the other side of the street. Congratulations, you just made an appearance on over a dozen pictures." Klaue said with a smile, inclining his head towards where Shuri could spot a large amount of people bundled up in winter clothes, following a tour guide as they kept photographing the splendour of a New York City covered in fresh snow.

Placing his hand on her narrow shoulder, Klaue leaned down with a smile, forcing Shuri to look up at him.

"And that's why we avoid tourist traps. Understood?"

Getting a nod from the little girl, Klaue gave a nod of his own as he straightened and began walking again, forcing Shuri to hurry in order to keep walking ahead of him.

"Now, again!"

/

Fun Fact: Marvel Comics owned the rights to the word "zombie" from 1975 through 1996, until they realized it was impossible to enforce the trademark.

AN: While halfway through binging the new Luke Cage season, I suddenly came up with this Interlude and I wanted to write it out before inspiration left me.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 15: PLANS FOR THE FUTURE (demise of my enemies)​

I was sitting next to Burstein on a couch in my "lobby" as we stared in silence as across the room, Melvin Potter was eating his lunch.

Or trying to, anyway.

The process of actually bringing the sandwich that Betsy had packed for him to his mouth was made significantly more difficult by a petulant dinosaur trying to get said sandwich for herself.

Even though she had raided the fridge we kept in the workshop not even ten minutes ago.

A lot of people were giving Burstein the stink eye as they held him responsible for all of their lunches now being inside the blazing insides of a baby T-Rex, but while the scientist was morosely hanging his head and watching the noses of his sneakers, I could spot some of the men and women slip the little dino some snacks under their desks, careful not to show Burstein.

A fire breathing juvenile T-Rex was a headache and a half, and something that had no place in modern society.

She fitted in just fine in my workshop, if the little smiles she kept getting were anything to go by, as she strutted around, warbling at people as her curious eyes took in her surroundings.

Currently however, the little T-Rex had eyes solely for Melvin's sandwich.

The blacksmith of course just went on with happily munching on the lunch his girlfriend made him, completely ignoring the fire breathing dinosaur sitting at his feet.

Said dinosaur didn't take too kindly to that apparently, judging by the low growl coming from her.

With a sudden leap, she jumped at the sandwich in Melvin's hand, her jaws snapping shut mere inches away from her target, as the blacksmith calmly held her back with his other hand.

"No! Bad dino!"

Angry at being denied her prize, the T-Rex instead decided that the hand on her body was a much more accessible target, and with a yowl of victory she threw herself on Melvin's hand, her jaws chomping away with glee.

Melvin, being superdurable, took this as calmly as one would take a newborn kitten batting away at them, lifting his hand as he stared at the dinosaur with a raised eyebrow, as she kept clinging on with just her jaw, her legs dangling off the floor.

Giving a little shake, making the T-Rex swing side to side, Melvin's brow furrowed as he tried to lose the reptile that was clinging to him like a limpet, her teeth scraping across his unbreakable skin without leaving a mark.

"Bad dino! Let go!"

Not taking my eyes off this spectacle, I started talking with Burstein, who looked on with something between resignation and panic clear in his eyes.

"You do realize why making her was a bad idea, right?"

"I told you, Michael, I never actually expected this to work! I mean, honestly, creating a dinosaur?! That's impossible!"

I inclined my head pointedly at where Melvin had given up on gently shaking the T-Rex loose, and instead had just decided on giving a wide swing with his arm, making the dinosaur sail off further into the workshop with an indignant yowl.

She'd be fine, Extremis combined with her natural toughness, even at such a young age, would make sure of that.

"And yet…"

"I know. I know, okay!"

"I mean, I put up a sign and everything…"

"Look, turning my theories about manipulating the genetic structure of an organism into practical experimentation was a bad idea, I get that now and it won't happen again, I promise."

I was about to respond when I saw the little T-Rex come flying through the air in an impressive leap at Melvin's sandwich, jaws opened wide, but the blacksmith turned away with a surprising amount of grace, letting the dinosaur sail by with an indignant squawk.

Melvin of course just kept eating like nothing happened.

"It's not that you put your theories into practise that pissed me off Noah. I'll be honest, your research is pretty amazing and the fact that you could actually pull it off blows my mind. But making a dinosaur? It's not something we can afford to deal with right now Noah. Hell, it's something we can never really afford to deal with! T-Rex was estimated to weigh in at around 8 tonnes, do you have any idea what an animal like that can do when juiced up on Extremis, with brains to boot?"

Watching numbly as the little dino decided to tackle Melvin himself instead of his illusive sandwich, I could do nothing but look on as an extinct reptile the size of a medium dog barrelled into the unbreakable blacksmith, toppling him from the couch he'd been sitting on.

"Why couldn't you have experimented on something smaller? Like mice? Fluffy cute little mice. Everyone uses mice, you know."

Burstein's amused snort takes me off guard, and I glance at him from the corner of my eye in question.

"You'd prefer Extremis-enhanced rodents? Really?"

Turning to look at him fully (thereby blissfully avoiding having to look at the wave of heat and angered yelling that's now firmly out of my view) I give my answer in the sternest voice I can manage.

"I'd prefer all animals not on Extremis in the first place, thanks."

Seeing the scientist look down in guilt I let out a deep sigh.

"Look, like I said, the research itself is incredible. Not only mapping the genome as extensive as you did, but manipulating it as well… the medical applications are through the roof. If you could make this work on humans, then we could make designer babies a reality. An entire generation of humanity that will never have to suffer from genetic diseases. A generation that will always be at the peak of health, one that could live for centuries."

"You know people are going to protest us changing humanity in such a large way."

"A minority. A vocal one, true, but still. The majority of the people will want in on this, and the more important minority, the one at the top, the one with actual power, they'll pay and do anything for perfection."

"It's one step closer to the Omni-Cure."

For a moment, both me and Burstein are silent, as the true ramifications of what he has done start to sink in with us.

"I'm pulling you away from our indestructible armour production. You said it yourself, the procedure is as good as it can be with the facilities that we have here, and Melvin knows enough about it to lead that team on his own. It's only about six people and they all like him, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Then what will I be doing?"

"Take over from Sterns. My meeting with Hogarth went very well, and most of what we came up with in order to stay ahead of Stark I will put in the hands of Mason, he's probably the best of us at tech, even better than Sterns. He and his team can handle the workload, after all we just need enough for proof of concept and personal use, we'll sell the designs for mass production to the big companies anyway."

"You want me to take over from Samuel? Alone?" Burstein asked, his tone an odd mix of hopefulness and nervousness.

Before today, I had only ever allowed Burstein to assist on Sam's various projects, with the egghead always taking the lead. Noah had always been fine with this, recognizing that even brain boosted as he was, Sterns raw intellect still outclassed his by several levels. Both being geneticists, they generally got along pretty well whenever I put them to work on something, like the Rejuvenation Serum that had turned out instrumental in getting Hogarth on my side.

Other than the leather-production though, he had never headed any such projects on his own.

And considering his own independent foray let to Melvin rolling around on the floor of the warehouse, tangling with a live dinosaur as he desperately pushed her nose away from his sandwich, well…

I could understand why he was surprised that I was essentially promoting him.

"I trust you to come up with a solution whenever I present you with a problem. Sam himself told me that you could handle the stuff I currently have him working on for me on your own. He's much more interested in the Pym Particles. Or soon to be Cross Particles, I suppose. He wants to see if their unique properties allow for cold-fusion. Applying that level of tech to the Arc Reactors…"

"Since when is Samuel an expert on low-energy nuclear reactions?"

I couldn't help myself.

"Since last night."

Seeing his incredulous stare, I chuckle and elaborate, desperately trying to ignore the way that Melvin just grabbed the T-Rex by the tail, swinging her around his head a couple of times, before throwing her back into the workshop again.

"Ever since I told him that I wanted to get on board with Pym Technologies, he's been researching it on his down-time. So around two to three weeks or so. Most of the theoretical research has been done already, but nobody out there knows how to put it into practice. Sterns might."

Getting an understanding nod from my scientist we both turned back towards the couch on the other side of the room, Melvin sitting down with a contended sigh as we did, smoke coming from his shirt.

As we watched, a bedraggled, exhausted looking dinosaur trudged over towards him, climbing onto the couch with some difficulty due to her short hands, before she finally settled on the cushion next to Melvin, resting her head on her tail with a pout.

It was the first time I'd seen a dinosaur mope.

Then again, before today I had never seen a dinosaur at all, so for a while it would be a time for a lot of firsts, I suspected

"Are you… are you going to, you know? Terminate her?" Burstein asked hesitantly, afraid of my answer, but willing to abide by my decision all the same.

I meant what I said to him. We can't afford a distraction like a fire breathing dinosaur. Maybe not ever, but definitely not now. Not when Stark threw me for a loop by stepping into the corporate ring with me, willing to play ball and showing in his opening move that he was far better and more experienced with it that I was. Not when Hogarth was leaning on me to release tech that would end up pushing the way humanity lived forwards by at least a decade.

Not when the Hand was out to drastically and permanently increase the distance between my head and my neck.

Preferably by using a sword.

No, I definitely meant what I said. It was the smart thing to do. There would be people out there that would argue that it was the right thing to do as well. And after all the blood that was already on my hands, what more was one animal, especially one that could monumentally disrupt my plans?

And yet…

As I looked on, I couldn't help but smile as Melvin raised what was left of his sandwich to his mouth, before he looked over at the sad little dinosaur sitting next to him. And of course, being the gentle soul that he was, Melvin gave a sigh and held out his lunch towards the T-Rex.

The little murderlizard looked up in surprise, looking closely at the blacksmith with a calculating gaze, wary for any traps. Then, fast as lightning, the sandwich disappeared into her fiery gullet, the T-Rex having an immensely pleased expression on her face as she licked her chops.

As Melvin let out a hearty laugh when the dinosaur burped, spouting forth a torrent of flames, I turned towards Burstein with a half-smile.

"No. She's ours now. We'll just have to deal with it, I suppose."

Seeing his relieved expression, I give him a pat on the back (sending him nearly flying from our couch) as I stand up and start walking over to my desk, throwing a last barb over my shoulder as I see Melvin leaning back into the couch, patting the little dinosaur on her sleepy head.

"You're going to walk her though! And feed her! And clean up after her!"

"What?! NO! Michael! Michael, you can't do this to me! She'll eat me alive! Michael!"

"Have fun you two!"

"MICHAEL!"

//

"I'd say a penny for your thoughts, but listening to you is something that really should be considered a high-paying job. So let's just agree on five bucks, and leave it at that, yeah?"

"Hello Jessica. Done with cleaning out every liquor store in a five mile radius already? Impressive, I thought after last time they'd have upped their stock. You know, selling by the keg instead of per bottle, that sorta thing."

"Funny. But I know you can be wittier than that. You didn't even use a pun, sooooo, hmm, a 3 out of 10 this time."

"Ouch. The pain. It is unbearable. Surely, my soul has been rent asunder. Oh, woe is me."

"Yes, yes, Mr. Edgy McEdgelord, having millions really makes you sad, I get it, 100 dollar bills are a pain to wipe your tears with and all that jazz. Now, you're going to tell me why you've been brooding at your desk for an hour, or do I have to get Susan to burn your paperwork to ashes?"

Turning to look up at her with a raised eyebrow, I couldn't keep the confusion out of my voice.

"Susan? Who is Susan?"

Pointing over her shoulder, I see the little T-Rex stomp her feet as she's glaring up at one of the women that I had healed with Extremis. Angered at something, the dinosaur let out a gout of flame, looking immensely pleased with herself when she managed to scorch the woman's pants.

That is, until the woman opened her mouth and let out a burst of flame of her own twice the size of what Susan had managed, sending the T-Rex flying towards Burstein's desk with a panicked shriek.

"You named a firebreathing dinosaur that will grow up big enough to swallow humans whole… Susan?"

"Hey don't look at me, Burstein came up with it. She's named after some T-Rex skeleton or something, I didn't care so I wasn't paying attention. Now, stop trying to avoid the subject, what's got you brooding this time?"

"The Hand."

"Oh."

I was no Holdo, making complicated plans that I kept only to myself, thus ensuring confusion and distrust within my ranks, leading only to catastrophic failure and loss of life that could have easily been avoided.

No, right after things had calmed down and we were done cleaning up the mess that Susan (apparently) had caused, Sterns had come very close to trying to find out whether or not he could smack me around with those six robotic arms of his.

Only the promise that I would explain in detail to everyone what had gone down during my conversation with Alexandra kept him at bay.

So I did exactly that, telling them what happened, though I edited it somewhat to make it seem as if the Hand had revealed itself, rather than me already knowing of their existence, as well as making it look as if the whole Hydra thing was just something that I let slip out of panic and I was just as surprised as the rest of them to realize that the Hand clearly believed Hydra still existed, honest.

I know that neither Sterns nor Jessica fell for it, and Burstein might suspect something, but they decided to keep quiet about it.

Probably because after I told everyone my version of what had happened, I impressed on everyone in my workshop (in total about twenty people) just how dangerous those two organisations were, just how far their influence reached and to what levels of power as well. Whenever someone asked how I knew all that, I just deflected their questions, citing my hacking skills as my source.

For all that they were annoyed that I was lying to them about how I knew what I did, Jessica and Sterns at least appreciated that I tried to impress on everyone just in how much danger we possibly were, and they understood that it was in the best interest of everyone if we collectively kept our head on a swivel, instead of questioning my sources or the authenticity of my warnings.

Didn't mean that they had to like it though.

"So, what about the Hand? You found a way to deal with them yet?"

Leaning back into my office chair, placing my huge paws behind my bald head, I glanced at Jessica as she's leaning against my desk, arms crossed in front of her chest. Should I tell her what I'd been mulling over? So far in this new life I had always kept my plans close to the chest out of necessity.

If anyone knew that the silent kid at the back of the class was actually making plans on how to achieve omnipotence, I'd be in a mental asylum faster than you could say "dying to bullets even though you have superspeed is dumb".

Still, it was getting increasingly difficult to keep this many balls in the air simultaneously on my own. I couldn't bother Sterns since he was swamped with passing on his projects to Burstein, getting started on perfecting the Pym Particle theory (apparently changing that name was impossible, just like Newton's Third law would always remain Newton's Law) into the marketable Cross Particle technology (officially, there was no Pym Particle technology, because officially, there was no Ant-Man) and of course on maintaining his beloved Oliver.

Considering all that Sterns is capable of, I wouldn't be surprised if the truck could leave the atmosphere at this point.

Still, having a soundboard for the whirlwind of thoughts currently in my head to bounce off on might help somewhat in formulating a plan on how to deal with the current crisis.

"I know who's in their inner circle. I'm just trying to figure out how to get to them and kill them without getting seen. A murder charge would be really unfortunate to have when Stark finally drags my ass to court." I say, trying to inject some levity into my voice, but by the stern look on Jessica's face, I can tell that my bleak humour falls flat.

For all that's she's a hard-ass, Jessica has a surprisingly rigid moral compass.

Sure, she plays fast and loose with the law occasionally (as shown during our first meeting, where I caught her ripping apart an ATM) but she was very strict in her moral convictions.

She wasn't above smacking crooks around for a bit, but she refused to kill.

My impassioned speech on how dangerous our hidden enemies were (and how little effect the law would have on them) had made sure that she at least didn't protest me going out to try and kill them, but I could tell that she disapproved, and if I were to ask her to accompany me on a strike against either the Hand or Hydra, then she'd probably decline.

"You want to kill them so bad, why not wait for them at night in their house, like some common murderer?"

Choosing to ignore her frosty tone (having long since realized that for all that she tried to portray herself as a bad ass, she was still very naive compared to her older counterpart from the show), I instead closed my eyes in thought.

"Because these kind of people probably don't live in houses in the suburbs. They're the rich and powerful in New York, they're the kind of people that live in those fancy penthouses, smack-dab in the middle of Manhattan."

"So?"

"So, camera's. Lots of 'em too I'd guess."

"Well, it looks like executions are off the table then." Jessica said stiffly, but I could hear the unspoken relief in her voice.

Seems that working for a company in which the CEO actively set out to throw people off skyscrapers didn't sit too well with her, despite her tough guy act.

"I explained to you why these people need to die, Jessica. It's not something that I do for my enjoyment, it's just a fact that if I don't kill them first, they will try to kill all of you. And not everyone here regenerates limbs or has unbreakable skin. You work for me now, it's my job to keep you all safe-"

"I don't need fucking anybody to keep me safe! I can take care of myself!" Jessica bit out harshly, pushing off from my desk, feet planted firmly as she looked at me challengingly, a glint in her eye.

Oh boy, stress was getting to her again. Despite my earlier joke about her raiding liquor stores, the truth was that between this shit storm going on, her assignments for me and the mess that was Susan, she had severely cut back on her drinking habit, just out of sheer practicality.

She wasn't showing withdrawal symptoms exactly (could people like her and me even get addicted anymore now that we healed the way we did?) but she felt a lot more stressed all the same. Combined with my statement that I wanted to kill as many ninja's and Nazis as I could get my hands on, meant that she was itching for a fight.

"I meant my people in general. Sterns. Mason. Burstein. They're smart, but just as fragile as any baseline human. And the Extremis people heal fast, sure, but you can't heal if your head is cut off. And unbreakable skin is nice, but they still need to breathe. And you… you're strong Jessica, but you ain't bulletproof and you don't heal-"

"I heal!"

"Not fast enough!"

"So then make it fast enough!"

"I CAN'T!"

For a moment, there's a circle of silence around my desk, before people hurriedly bow themselves over their paperwork and assignments again, so obvious in trying to pretend that they hadn't been listening in they might as well have been shouting it from the rooftops.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

Rubbing my face in frustration at Jessica's hesitant tone, I couldn't help but let out an explosive sign.

"Sterns and I looked over your bloodwork. You're genes, they've been… altered. At first I thought you were doused with a certain chemical, I have heard of it working in other cases but… We've mapped your genome and isolated the parts in it that have been changed, but honestly, we have only the vaguest idea what it actually is, not to mention how it gives you your abilities. Sterns has been running a spectrum analysis on your blood for two days now and we still don't know what's inside you that gives you your strength or flight. We're getting there, if Burstein can turn a chicken into a dinosaur then we can also figure out just what the hell has been done to you, but we need more time. At this point we think you produce some kind of energy, but since on a fundamental level everything is energy, that really doesn't get us any closer to understanding what it actually is. Which means that we also don't know how it reacts to certain triggers."

Yeah, finding out that Jessica hadn't been doused in the same chemicals that Matt had been like in the comics was a punch to the gut.

'I really should have bothered watching season two of her show, instead of occasionally looking something up on the wiki, like who the new villains were...'

"Look I get that you and egghead are science buddies and whatever, but just tell me in English what's going on." Jessica demanded irritated and after a short pause, I tried to explain my thoughts to her in a clear way.

"If I were to inject you with Extremis… you might blow up."

"…what."

"Extremis is the most likely scenario in where you blow up, but honestly with what we have discovered about how your genetic code has been altered, you could blow up with any enhancement we give you. We performed a whole battery of tests on synthesized blood made from your sample, and sometimes it turned highly flammable, other times it was flame retardant and one time it actually turned radioactive. As you can guess, combining a serum which rewrites your genome again in order to kick your body into overdrive and literally burn you up... well we know very little about how your energy field works, but we're pretty sure getting splattered across the workshop would be bad for your health."

For a moment, she's completely silent, slowly turning towards my desk as she leans heavily on the wooden surface.

"You okay there Jessica?"

"I'm fine! Just… just shut up and give me a moment… please."

I patiently waited until she let out a deep breath, before she turned around and leaned against my desk again. For a moment, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, before I decided to just say 'fuck it'. It wasn't as if I had the concentration to finish my projects anyway, not with the Hand looming over my head.

Reaching over to my left, I opened my bottom drawer, taking a bottle of Limoncello out of it, which I placed on my desk next to the little stack of paper cups. Under Jessica's amused stare, I poured both of us a generous cup, before screwing the lid back onto the bottle, taking my own cup in hand.

Slowly, Jessica took her cup as well, staring at the lemon-yellow liquid with a half-smile before she glanced at me with a teasing look.

"Really? This soft crap?"

"What? I like sweet, and not all of us can secretly be a trucker deep down in our soul and chug down Jack Daniels like it's nothing. Some of us actually have something called taste, maybe you've heard of it?"

Taking a sip from her drink, Jessica gave a theatrical shudder, fixing me with a mock-glare.

"Well, after this I'm not sure I ever want to taste anything ever again."

"Just shut up and drink Jones."

She laughed, but she didn't protest me filling up her cup again once she was finished (before me of course, I was still sipping and enjoying the taste of the sweet alcohol).

"So."

"What?"

"So, apart from finding out someone messed with your genetics, why did hearing that I couldn't enhance you get to you so bad? You already have powers, and the first time I brought up getting more when I asked for that sample of your blood, you didn't talk to me for a day. I just figured that you didn't want more powers."

For a moment, Jessica avoided my gaze, hiding behind her cup before she realized it was empty already. Giving a tired sigh, she held out the cup again, and dutifully I poured her another, as she seemed to mull over her words.

At the rate we both could put away alcohol, we might just end up raiding the local liquor stores after all.

"I don't. Want more powers, I mean. The ones I have… the cost for getting them, it was… and really, what have they done for me except just keep on dragging me into more and more shitty situations?" Jessica laughs bitterly, and some primal part of me, passed on in men from generation to generation from the moment we invented fire, kicks my survival instincts into gear and I realize that she doesn't expect an answer.

So, I just keep my mouth shut and let her rant, dutifully filling up her cup whenever she pushes it my way (she's on number three. I'm almost finished with number one).

"So no. I don't want more powers. I don't. Except that… except that I do. That night, when you beat me at arm-wrestling? That was the first time since the… since the accident, that I actually lost to someone. I forgot how that felt. Scared the shit out of me. But… it was also exciting. I could feel how strong you were and I… I wanted that too. And now you keep trying to scare us, telling us there's ancient ninja's after us, that Hydra is still alive, that everyone in the alphabet, from CIA to NSA and all of 'em in between, are after our tech and enhancements. For fuck's sakes Michael, you won't let any of the smart guys go out without a guard of at least two unbreakable guys."

Shrugging at the look she sends me, I knock back the last of my own drink and start refilling it immediately (I like the taste and I can't get drunk so technically I can drink this stuff like lemonade, but I can't shake that uncomfortable feeling of being improper whenever I show up at eight in the morning with liquor in my hands so I save it like any baseline would).

"I just figured that being bulletproof is more useful for protecting someone else instead of just being able to heal yourself pretty quickly. Someone tries to take Sterns out with a sniper round, he could just shoot through an Extremis guard. A Burstein-guy could just stand in front of Sterns instead and they'd both be fine." I say nonchalantly, getting an exasperated shake from Jessica.

"You have a really weird form of paranoia, you know that right?"

"It ain't paranoia when they're really out to get you."

"True, but you have pretty strange ideas on who is out to get you, and how they want to go about doing it too. Sniping through someone? There's nobody alive that would take a shot like that." Jessica scoffs.

I can't help but see characters flash in front of my eyes at her confident statement. Hawkeye. Bullseye. Black Widow. I'm pretty sure that once he gets his powers, Peter Parker could make such a shot. Then there's all the supersoldiers running around of course.

Except, here they aren't just characters.

Here, they are actually out there, somewhere. And they could strike at any moment, and none of them will be so courteous as to give a nice little heads-up that they're going to blow my best friend's head straight off his shoulders.

Shaking the morose thoughts from my mind, I glance up at Jessica with a smirk.

"You said it yourself: my whole life is strange."

"Touché." Jessica said with a roll of her eyes, a small smile on her lips.

Seeing that her mood had settled somewhat, I hazarded a question.

"So, you never really decided on whether or not you wanted more powers?"

Biting her lip, Jessica let her eyes roam across the workshop a few times before they finally settled on me.

"Look. On the one hand, I've been through enough shit because of the powers that I already have. On the other hand, I like the idea of having your level of strength, and considering the type of assholes that are after us, getting more powers might turn out handy. And in the middle of that dilemma, you just come out and tell me that getting more powerful might fucking blow me up if we tried to do it now!"

"Right, I can imagine how that would be something you'd rather not hear."

"No shit, Stark."

You know, even after more than twenty years of living in an entirely different universe, it's the little things, like subtly different expressions, that always drive home to me just far from home I actually am.

Rubbing a hand over my bald head, I knock back the last of my Limoncello, filling both our cups again as I mull over my next words.

"I can't give you Extremis, Jessica. The way it rewrites the DNA of its host is too unpredictable, too extensive, too volatile to combine with the changes that's already been made to your genome. We know where the changes are made, we know roughly how it affects your body, but until we are absolutely a 100% about how your powers function, I'm not taking the risk. You're not an ostrich embryo, you're a grown woman and an employee in my company, so pulling another Susan is going to be a hell of a lot more difficult, but we're getting closer each and every day. I've put Burstein on cracking what it actually is, considering what he has shown to be capable of it should be a piece of cake. And the very moment we know how your genetics work up to the finest details then we might try and enhance you with the tamer ones. The supersoldier serum, or the Brain Booster."

"Why can't you do those now?"

"We could give you the Brain Booster, next to the Burstein-treatment it's the only one that doesn't drastically change your DNA. We're not going to give it to you right now though, since we have no idea how the energy is regulated inside your body. You still have powers after all this time since whatever experiment was performed on you, which means you're producing the field yourself, though we'd have to put you in a CAT-scan in order to see just how you're producing that energy, and we don't have that here. Sterns could probably whip up a portable one in a day or so, but with this whole Hand-mess going on he hasn't had the time. In any case, messing around with your brain might also mess up the production rate of the energy, or change its make-up. Either result isn't pretty."

"And the supersoldier serum?"

"Brings you to the absolute theoretical peak that you can be. If it considers the changes inside you as a disease or something that's malformed, it might just try to 'fix' you. Again, the result wouldn't be pretty."

Jessica mulls my answer over for a few moments, before she fixes me with an intense stare.

"And the Burstein-treatment? You said it yourself, it doesn't mess with my DNA too much."

"Dunking a woman filled with an unknown energy field in an acid bath and then heating both to immense temperatures? Yeah, that's not going to happen. Hogarth made me rich, but I ain't got the cash to replace all the docks of New York." I said sarcastically, glad that it at least drew a chuckle from the dour woman.

"Right. Guess that makes my choice for me, huh?" she tries to say calmly, but I can hear the bitterness in her voice, but whether that is because she can't get more powers, or can't decide to turn down more power I cannot tell.

"We'll figure it out soon, Jessica. You have the smartest people in the world on your team now. It'll be fine." I try to reassure her, my hand reaching out to grab the bottle, only to find that we finished it all during our talk.

And it was such nice Limoncello too.

"What a fucking pity party." Jessica muses, pulling herself up on her arms, planting herself down on my desk, legs dangling over the edge as I look at her from the corner of my eye.

"I can't get more powers which would leave me better prepared against a bunch of assholes that might try to kill me, while you can't figure out a way to kill those same assholes first."

Chuckling a bit at her bleak prognosis, I start tapping my foot as I look up at the ceiling, deep in thought.

"I have vague ideas about our offence. I know what they're after, what they're desperate for. If I can rip Midland Circle apart brick by brick, I think I might just get all of them anyways. Even ninja's get aneurysms, right?" I say with a grin directed at Jessica, who rolls her eyes in response.

"Midland Circle huh? Guess you 'hacked' that too, did you?" she says, only barely refraining from making the actual rabbit-ears finger motions, though she tries to substitute them with an impressive scowl and eye roll.

"I did, yes." I answer, my face completely flat, and Jessica gets the hint as she quickly drops the subject of my unexplained amounts of knowledge.

"I'm iffy on if I should do it though. Not only could I get spotted, going on the offensive would leave us open to a counter-attack, and at the moment we're far more vulnerable than the Hand is, even without their precious Midland Circle."

"So you want to up our defences first?"

Giving a nod in response, I can finally feel the next Steps forming in my mind. I'll turn this workshop into my bastion, and make sure that my people are kept safe. But that didn't have to mean that I should allow both the Hand and Hydra any prepping time.

There were plenty of other people that would be all too happy to hunt those guys down for me.

Step 14: Enhance everyone not already upgraded with Brain Booster, then drill them mercilessly in CQC and weapons handling. I have a couple of vets here, as well as ex-security, they can train their new colleagues in how to defend themselves. The Brain Booster should allow everyone to reach a sufficient level of capability before the chips are down.

Step 15: Fortify the workshop even further by getting Radcliffe here, Brain Boost him and put him on making me an AI that can defend the building even further from cyber warfare. Put some weapons on the outside of the building so it has a little teeth as well, so to speak. Hell, after this is all over, I could have a LMD made for the AI and have her be the CEO. Only after me, Sterns, Mason and Burstein have gone over her code twice in order to avoid a Skynet-scenario.

Step 16: Use the Revitalization Serum on Peggy Carter and have her start a crusade against Hydra. Whether she succeeds or not is irrelevant, as long as she makes life hell for the Nazi's to the point they can't launch a proper counterattack against the Hand. Or me, for that matter. If she puts in a good word for me with Steve, then that's just the cherry on top.

I can take care of Step 14 right now, it's a little over half past five in the afternoon, so everyone's still here. As for Step 15, in the process of trying to complete Step 11c: recruit Radcliffe, I had Jessica track the scientist down, and she said she had found him. All I needed to do was have her get him here. Time was of the essence, so she could be as forceful as she thought necessary to get his ass over here.

The guy would be so enticed by the idea of the Brain Booster and unlimited research that his loyalty was all but assured.

Just had to keep him away from the Darkhold.

The only problem with Step 15 was sending out Jessica. I didn't know what the usual response time was from the Hand against such a threat like I had made them believe there was, but I wouldn't put it past them to already have people in place in order to start picking off my employees one by one.

And like I had just explained to her, I didn't dare upgrade her until I knew more about the genetic treatment that had enhanced her.

I needed to get into contact with Karl Malus. The man was a genius who achieved with science the same thing that the Hand had been obsessed with for the past thousand years or so.

Unfortunately, he was also married to Jessica's psycho mom.

I glanced at Jessica from the corner of my eye, debating on what (if anything) I should tell her about her mother and what little I could piece together about the origin of her power based on half-remembered wiki pages.

No, better leave that crisis for another day, fix the current one first. Still, a greater understanding on just what made Jessica's powers work would not only afford her a far greater deal of motion if it turned out I could give her more enhancements, it would also allow me to perform a similar procedure on myself.

Self-powered flight...

Track down Malus first, between my think tank and Jessica's investigative abilities it should be possible. Reel him in with the promise of the Brain Booster, telling him that it holds the answer to curing Jessica's mom.

If he cures her, then Jessica gets her happy ending. If he can't, if Alisa turns out to be permanently damaged, then I'll kill her before Jessica can figure out the connection between them.

It would probably mean killing Malus too, unfortunately.

If it comes to the second option, then there's not a doubt in my mind that she'll hate me from the depths of her soul if she ever finds out that I killed her mother, but it can't be helped.

I'm absolutely convinced that if it turns out she can't be cured, Malus will beg me to lock her up instead, which will inevitably lead to her escape, or twisting Jessica to her own ends somehow, leading to even more death and misery.

Narrative demands it.

Well, in my professional and cultured opinion, narrative can go on right ahead and fuck itself

Frank was right, that night he met Matt up on the roof.

The whole hero/vigilante act was just a half-measure at best. If you wanted to get shit done, if you wanted results than you just had to sacrifice your morals and get your hands dirty.

What was my own piece of mind, my own satisfaction with my pristine moral compass, when it is paid for with the lives of innocents?

Chew on that Batman.

Think twice before you let the Joker live because you think 'it's the right thing to do' next time.

A firm shove against my head sends my office chair sliding meters backwards, snapping me from my musings. Rubbing the spot on my cheek in confusion, my eyes fall on Jessica whose rubbing her raw knuckles with a grimace, though her eyes shine with a sense of victory.

"The hell Jessica?!"

"You were brooding again!"

"... you've been talking to Sterns again, haven't you?"

//

Standing outside of a diminutive retirement home in downtown New York, I can't help but feel a little nervous, mostly due to feeling dozens of gazes on my back, sending pinpricks and needles up and down my neck.

Ridiculous, I know, after all I had anticipated that the home would be watched, and I knew that none of my watchers were capable of even scratching me, but still.

There's something primal about knowing that you're being watched, without seeing who (or what) it is that is watching you.

Why do you think the original Predator movie was such a hit?

Squaring my massive shoulders underneath the nice suit I'm wearing I put my observers out of my mind (the very few beings on this planet capable of really hurting me don't have the need to remain stealthy anyways, so I know I'm perfectly safe) as I walk up the few steps to the door, pressing my sausage like finger to the doorbell.

In a matter of moments, a nurse opened the door for me, her inviting smile quickly running away the further she needed to crane her head in order to look me in the eyes as I loomed in the doorway.

Sure the media loved me, as did a large portion of New York, but most people would feel uncomfortable when there's suddenly a hulking behemoth with eyes like the devil standing on your porch.

"Ah, Mr. McCole, right? How may I help you?" the nurse asks timidly, and I can't tell whether or not it's genuine or just a very good act from an undercover spy.

A few conversations would be sufficient for my advanced brain to start profiling her against a proper baseline, based on her micro expressions, breathing and heart rate as well as perspiration.

For now though, I'd just assume she was a spy, though for who was anyone's guess currently. There's no way in hell that I'll believe that the person I'm visiting isn't under constant watch, even if it's only a skeleton crew.

Already placing an enormous designer clad foot on her doorstep, I lean even further forwards, my bald head nearly brushing the top of her doorframe as I force her further inwards by the sheer force I'm naturally excluding, a friendly expression and bright smile on my face doing nothing to stop the woman from keeping a healthy distance from me.

"I'm here to see Peggy Carter, may I come in please?"

//
Fun Fact: Michael Jackson looked into buying Marvel Comics in the late '90s because he wanted to play Spider-Man in a movie.

Special thanks to my Patrons AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn and Daniel Dorfman, you guys are awesome! If anyone else finds themselves with too much money on their hands, feel free to throw it at my face! You'll get neat little extras in return! You can find me under the same username.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 16: FIRST STRIKE​

As I walked into the room where Peggy Carter was resting I was struck by how… frail she looked. Intellectually I knew of course that she was a really old lady by now, but it was still jarring to see the woman who I knew once flattened a marine with a single punch lying in her bed, her head slowly turning in my direction with a confused glance, her hair long turned silver and her face wrinkled with age.

The nurse (who had offered some feeble protests as I basically just invited myself inside) came up next to me, her hands on her hips and a stormy expression on her face.

"Sir! I must ask you to leave, Mrs. Carter is not receiving visitors at the moment, she needs her rest-"

"It's all right Lucy. Let him in. I'll call you if I need anything sweetie." Carter interrupted from her bed, a gnarled hand giving a weak half-wave as she gave a gentle smile towards her caretaker.

The nurse's eyes flitted from Carter to me and back again, before she let out a huff, walking around me and over towards the bed. Fluffing up the pillows, allowing Peggy to straighten up somewhat, Lucy poured the old woman a glass of water, before giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

"If you start to feel tired, or if anything hurts at all…"

"Oh, I'll be fine Margaret. You run along now dear." Peggy said with a generous chuckle as she patted her caretaker's hand, missing the flash of sadness that crossed the nurse's face.

'Her emotional reaction implies positive feelings towards Carter, meaning a decreasing likelihood of her being loyal to Hydra. Not going to rule it out just yet, but it's promising at least.'

Giving a soft smile at the confused old lady, Lucy (or Margaret. Or neither) straightened and made to leave the room, giving me a stern look that clearly said that I had better not push Peggy too much, or else. Laying an enormous paw on her shoulder as she was about to walk past me, I turned to look at her, my expression open and honest.

"Don't worry, I won't push her too hard. If I may ask, could you contact one of her relatives for me please? A niece, her name is Sharon. I have some matters to discuss with Mrs. Carter for which I believe it would be only prudent to have a member of her family in attendance."

'There Fury, I just gave you an easy in. Are you going to take it, or will you realize that I want you to send Sharon and throw me off by sending someone else as a test? We'll see. Better not disappoint Nick. The game has only yet begun.'

The nurse gave me a narrowed-eyed look, before giving a curt nod, making her way further into the house, presumably towards a phone instead of, say, a silenced pistol or something (not that it would really do much to me, but it would surely put a damper on negotiations).

Turning back towards Peggy, I gave her my most convincing smile as I slowly take a seat next to her bed, careful not to crush the wood underneath my weight.

"My, you're a big one, aren't you?" Peggy says with a chuckle, and there's this small spark, hidden in her eyes as she says it, some remains of the legendary spy coming back to the surface as she tries to analyse me.

"I suppose I just ate my vegetables as kid, ma'am." I reply with a friendly smile, chuckling somewhat as the ninety year old woman somehow manages to pull off a half-decent 'are you shitting me right now?' look.

"All right, all right! I have a friend, who got into an… accident, which left him really smart. I was a reed-thin, sickly young man, and I allowed my super smart friend to perform an experimental procedure on me. And I transformed from a tiny little guy into the hunk I am today."

The lie clearly sparks something in the murky mists of her remaining memory (just as it was supposed to do) as I see a light shine in her eyes as she struggles to sit up a little straighter in her bed.

"Steve…" she whispers in a heartbroken tone, and I can't quite stop myself from feeling pretty bad for both her and Steve right now.

"No Peggy, I'm not Steve. I'm… I'm like Steve, do you understand?"

"You're… not Steve?"

"No Peggy, I'm not."

"Then… why are you here?"

The hopelessness in her voice almost makes me reconsider my actions, before I harden my resolve. I need Agent Carter fully back into the saddle in order to raise hell against Hydra before they find out I antagonized the Hand into waging war on them as I do not fancy a two-front war. Besides, I'm doing her a favour. A life like this… was it really worth living?

Shaking myself from my dark thoughts, I lean in a little closer, a smile still firmly plastered on my face.

"Well, I want to help you, Agent Carter. An old enemy has returned, and I- no, the world needs you right now. So, what do you say? Do you want to get better again and save the world with me?"

Sitting up a little straighter, she focuses her gaze on me with great effort, some clarity coming back into her eyes as my message slowly starts to sink in with her.

"You can make me better again? So I won't… so I won't forget all the time?" she asks me, clearly trying to insert her old fire into her voice, but it still comes out weak and feeble and despite my best efforts to remain stoic, it still succeeds in tugging at my heartstrings.

"Yeah. I can keep you from forgetting Peggy. If you help me against our old nemesis, then I promise you that you'll be all better again."

For a moment, she mulls over my offer, her eyes slowly sliding away from my face as they start to droop a little, before the old lady somehow manages to pull on a hidden reserve of willpower as she stares me straight in my softly glowing eyes.

"Who's the enemy?"

"Hydra."

The sight of her fury is a thing to behold.

//

I'm lying on the couch in the living room of the retirement home, my legs from the knees down dangling over one armrest, while my head is lolling over the other one. I'm idly tapping away on the holographic buttons projected by the sheet of transparent glass clutched in my hand.

One of the smaller projected screens in the top right corner showed a small map with a glowing dot moving along the streets. It showcased Jessica's position, as I had sent her out this morning in order to acquire Radcliffe, giving her Oliver to use.

In order to guarantee her safety while we waited for the Hand's inevitable opening move, I had her wear a (rather stylish) leather duster which was enhanced with the Burstein-treatment, though Potter had ended up calling it the Amber Armor, which had caught on with my other employees.

Of course, being the paranoid bastard that I was (what? You would be one too if you knew half the universe would end within the decade) I hadn't been content with just a piece of armour, so I had sent my chief of security along as well, an old army vet by the name of Jim Harper.

Harper was sent my way by Adrian Toomes when he figured out I was for real when I said I wanted to heal any cripples he wanted to recommend, and that I was actually capable of fulfilling that promise as well. Harper came back from a tour in Vietnam after the war ended, without his legs and pretty messed up in the head, and the cold shoulder he got when he got back home really didn't help matters any. In order to deal with it all, he resorted to drinking.

A lot.

Eventually, old, washed-up and broke, Harper realized that he needed to turn his life around before it was too late and he started attending counselling sessions led by Curtis Hoyle of all people. With a monumental amount of effort, Harper managed to clean up his act, but found it nearly impossible to get a job, since nobody wanted to hire an old man with a history of alcoholism and vagrancy, who was confined to a wheelchair.

Toomes did what he could for Harper (Toomes' dad grew up in the same neighbourhood as Harper or something, neither man really wanted to talk about it so I wasn't entirely sure), but life was still a daily struggle for the crippled veteran.

Until he met me.

The look he gave me when I gave him back his legs told me everything I ever needed to know about the man: from this moment until the day he died, I had his absolute loyalty. As such, Harper was one of the very few people that I employed that had received multiple enhancements (before I had everybody Brain Boosted yesterday evening, that is).

He had been enhanced with the Brain Booster, the Rejuvenation serum and the reverse-engineered Erskine formula, before I healed his legs with Extremis and gave him Amber Armour skin.

The combination of multiple enhancements and his amount of experience meant that he was one of the most capable and dangerous people under my control. The only way Jessica would be any safer other than with him would be if I personally went along with her, but I had too much to deal with here in New York, which meant that I couldn't just run off in order to recruit more mad scientists to my think tank.

Accompanying Jessica and Harper, was Sterns.

Why?

Well, in the words of my friend: "You're mad if you think I will ever let someone else drive Oliver! Completely mad!"

So yeah, Sterns went off to find Radcliffe as well. I worried for his safety, since the fact that he had raw gamma energy coursing through his body (because for some reason, he was the only person alive who didn't need a primer in order to be enhanced by the radiation) meant that he was stuck with a similar problem as Jessica, so he couldn't be enhanced with either Extremis or Amber Armour either for now.

Still, Sterns assured me that between the upgrades he had given Oliver, and the careful changes he had made to his own genetic structure (he revealed to me that one of the changes he had made had ended up fusing his ribcage, so that instead of individual ribs, he now had segmented plates covering his vital organs), he would be fine for a few days at least, promising to return in time for the New Year's party which Jessica had forced me to promise I would throw for the employees of Titan Solutions.

Unfortunately, Sterns going off on what was essentially a side-quest meant that there was a delay on the Pym Particle research, but considering it was only by a few days to a week at best, it should still be concluded fast enough to keep Cross from giving me any trouble (meaning that it was unlikely that the somewhat unstable man would get impatient enough to pull his goo gun on me, which was one of the very few things in this universe that could one-shot me).

A bigger screen which took up the bottom half of the holographic projection showed a newsfeed with Stark shaking hands with a downright giddy looking spokesman from Nasa, right after the brilliant inventor revealed that he would be working with the space agency by using his repulsor technology, which would revolutionize spacefaring as we knew it.

As a response to the news I was watching, a smaller screen in the top left showed the email I was writing to Elon Musk (who I already knew existed in this universe, because I remembered seeing him in Iron Man 2 talking to Tony), with an offer to start up SpaceX a few years earlier than he originally would have.

Tony's move to use his repulsor technology for space craft was absolutely brilliant on his part (and I didn't mind giving out that praise, since it had been my plan as well. Stark just beat me to it), but I had an even bigger ace up my sleeve.

Sure, sending stuff up cheaper and easier was like finding the golden egg of spacefaring, but sending up an entire base shrunk to the size of a Lego set in just a single go was the golden goose instead.

Thanks Pym Particles!

Right as I hit send, I could hear the front door open, hurried footsteps storming inside.

'Single person, walking in high heels. Judging by the time between the clicks of her heels and thus the distance she covers which each step, a woman of small build. Has a key. Meaning that it's probably-'

Right at that moment a young woman storms into the room, her blonde hair swirling around her head in her haste, and I feel a grin coming to my face as I leisurely sit up on the couch, placing my glass phone into the pocket of my suit jacket.

"Hello there Sharon."

"Mr. McCole. Might I ask what you are doing here? I don't remember someone making an appointment to see my Aunt. She doesn't really take any visitors at the moment you see." Sharon said, her voice hard and straining within the limits of what can be considered polite, worry for her family member clearly visible in her expression.

'It's been four minutes since I asked the nurse to call Sharon, meaning that she was either already in the vicinity, or was transported here by alternative means other than public transportation or by car, something fast, like a quinjet or something. It's probably not the latter though, I think I would've heard that, which means that she certainly didn't come after the nurse called her, it would've taken her longer to get here if that was the case. Flushed cheeks and slight sweat on her forehead means that she exerted herself, but not for long. So, were you already around here somewhere, keeping an eye on your Aunt, or did Fury have you transported here the moment he realized I was making my way towards Carter? Slightly hoarse voice, indicating a shouting match held very recently. Ah, I see now. You were probably already in the neighbourhood as part of the surveillance on your Aunt, and the moment that the nurse called, saying that I asked for you, Fury wanted to send someone else in order to test me. You disagreed and managed to argue until he conceded, which brings us to the here and now. But now for the million dollar question: are you wearing a wire or not?'

It took maybe all of half a second for me to deduce that, my smile still firmly on my face as I fully straighten, chuckling at the wariness that enters Sharon's form without her even knowing it as she realized just how big I am compared to her.

"Ah yes. That's because I haven't made an appointment, Miss Carter. I was simply in the neighbourhood and decided that, considering my vast amount of rather impressive abilities, it was only appropriate that I show some respect to one of our nation's greatest heroes." I say enthusiastically as I cross the living room with three great strides, placing my arm around her shoulders, which earns me an uneasy glare which I promptly ignore.

I can tell that she knows that what I'm saying is a load of bull, but she can't exactly call me out on it without pissing of a billionaire businessman and one of the more dangerous people on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list.

So she grits her teeth and gives me a strained smile as I lead her towards Peggy's room. It's clear by her posture that she tries to hang back a bit, trying to delay me, but I hardly even notice her efforts as I just keep on walking, making sure that the harmless smile stays firmly plastered on my face.

"And just how exactly were you planning on showing my Aunt respect, Mr. McCole?" Sharon asks with a firm voice, which is somewhat undermined as at this point I'm basically just shoving her forwards without any effort at all, still portraying a genial air of innocence.

"Oh, well nothing much really. Just something small, you know, nothing really extravagant. So I was thinking about simply healing her Alzheimer's and reversing her age to restore her to the prime of her life."

That makes Sharon stumble, her eyes widening as she stares at me with a gaping mouth, and I can't keep myself form chuckling, a deep rumbling sound that's more reminiscent of a rockslide than a laugh.

'Oh, that expression is priceless. I'm almost hoping that you actually are wearing a wire, Sharon. God, the look on Fury's face when he finds out that I consider healing Alzheimer's or reversing age as something small. No doubt it'll make him wonder just what I consider something big then.' I think to myself with a snort, before I school my expression again as we arrive at Peggy's room.

Sharon's eyes go from the still from of her Aunt to me with an accusing glare, but I assuage her worries as I gently push her into the big armchair next to the bed.

"She's just resting, Miss Carter. When I told her what I wanted to do for her, she got overwhelmed and requested that she was given some peace and quiet. I, of course, acquiesced and removed myself to the living room, where you found me."

The truth was that she got in such a fit when I told her that Hydra was still alive she tired herself out in her anger and just sort of… dozed off mid-rant. Of course, I wasn't going to tell Sharon that I basically upset her Aunt to the point that she lost consciousness, so this little white lie would do.

Especially since it seemed to work, as Sharon took one of Peggy's hands into her own, looking at the frail old woman with a soft, genuine smile on her face. Not taking her eyes off the aged founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sharon began talking to me, stroking the wrinkled skin of Peggy's hand with gentle movements of her thumb.

"Is it true? Can you really… can you really heal her? Keep her from forgetting all the time?"

By the tone she uses, and the look she has in her eyes, I can tell that it's not the spy in her that's asking about my abilities, but just a niece that wants the best for her favourite aunt. This was the reason that I asked for Sharon: I could've just gone ahead and made Peggy swole as fuck, but there would be all kinds of legal loopholes concerning consent that Fury would immediately throw at me in order to try and get me under his thumb (or at the very least somewhat indebted to S.H.I.E.L.D.) that it was easier to just do it this way.

If Peggy consented to trying experimental healing, and Sharon gave me permission to perform the "procedure" (for as much as sticking someone with a needle can be considered a procedure), then it would be a lot harder for Fury to leverage this into something he could use against me.

"Yes, I can really heal her. There are numerous people in my employ that have recovered from spinal injuries, head trauma and even lost limbs. My friend, Dr. Sterns, has in combination with a prestigious think tank created a serum that will counter the effects of Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, due to the aggressive deterioration as well as the delicate structure of the brain, Sterns was forced to work very carefully, and as such we have not yet been able to create a permanent cure. If I administer this, then it's very likely that your Aunt will eventually start suffering from the effects of Alzheimer's again. Luckily, another dose of the serum will reverse those symptoms as well, bringing her back to the same healthy state as before the disease set in."

"So she'll need shots for the rest of her life?"

"Unfortunately yes. At least, until Sterns manages to create a permanent cure, but at the moment, we're not really sure how long that would take."

"I see. These shots… how often would she need to take them and how expensive are they?"

"Well, once a decade, though that's somewhat conservative. And free of charge."

At that, Sharon's head whips around to me, her eyes wide while her mouth is agape, causing me to chuckle once again. Then Sharon's eyes narrow suspiciously and I can tell that the concerned niece is gone, replaced by the S.H.I.E.L.D. spy.

"Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you offering to heal her, and for free at that? What is it that you're trying to get out of this?"

I raise my hands in a placating gesture, trying to subtly retake control of the conversation. I don't really need Sharon's approval, but things will go so much smoother if she does, so I'll play along.

For now.

"Like I said, I feel that in recognition of what we as a society all owe her, this is just something I should do, not only as an upstanding citizen, but as a decent human being as well. And considering both my capabilities and my resources, healing one woman is something that I'm perfectly capable of doing without needing to be compensated for it." I say softly, forcing my tone to remain calm and confident.

I can see Sharon's conviction's waver, her personal love for her family warring with her professional attitude as a spy who's clearly uncomfortable with letting someone on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list have their way with someone so closely tied to the very roots of their organization. I just need to give her a little push in order to get her over the tipping point, and then I'll basically have my own Hydra-hunting dog.

Leaning forwards a bit, folding my hands as I dim the glow in my eyes to the lowest they'll go, I gaze at Sharon with all the sincerity I can fake (which, considering I followed an acting workshop online on a lazy Sunday only a few weeks back, is a lot of sincerity).

"Look, Sharon. I'm going to be honest with you here. I meant what I said: the whole world owes Peggy Carter a debt. That's not just something I'm saying in order for you to trust me, it's something I believe from the bottom of my heart. It's not just her personally, it's also her legacy, how even now we feel the effects of her great deeds. Who knows what the world would look like without S.H.I.E.L.D.? And yet, all that she's given in recognition of that fact is a single paragraph in the Smithsonian. She deserves better than this Sharon, Peggy deserves more than just being forgotten, all the while forgetting everything herself. Don't you want her to look at you with clarity again? To have her hold you in her arms, and to remember what you told her the week before? To walk and dance and laugh as if she's in the prime of her life again, instead of lying in bed all day? Don't you want your Aunt to live again Sharon?"

Tears are flowing down the spy's cheeks as she keeps on staring at the sleeping face of her Aunt during my passionate speech, before she slowly turns to look at me. I can practically see the last shreds of her guard fall away, as she makes her decision.

"Please. Heal her."

Reaching over the bed, I place my enormous hand on top of Sharon's and Peggy's intertwined ones, giving a gentle squeeze as I allow a reassuring grin to grow on my face.

"I will."

And with that, I reach in the inner pockets of my suit jacket, retrieving three syringes. One is filled with a watered down Rejuvenation serum, focused more on just strengthening the body, while the second has the full-strength Rejuvenation serum, focused entirely on repairing the body to the healthiest state it can be or ever has been. A component extracted from the Extremis virus, for Killian this had meant the curing of his deformities.

For Peggy, it would mean the "curing" of the wear and tear of her aged body.

The reason I would use the watered down version first, was solely because I needed Peggy as strong as she could currently be, if she wanted to survive the stress the second serum would apply to her frail body. Yes, the end result of the serum would leave her in the prime of her life, but such a massive change had to start from somewhere, and I couldn't risk the stress of such an extensive transformation killing her.

The third serum was the Alzheimer Cure, which I would apply right before injecting Peggy with the second serum, since I didn't quite know yet what the Extremis-derived cure would do with the elderly woman's damaged brain (I mean, we had theories, but it isn't like we really had any empirical data we could use to back those theories up), and just how it would try to fix it. Better to just have it healed before that even had a chance of becoming an issue altogether.

Sharon's eyes light up with interest the moment she spots the syringes, but she remains silent, having made her decision and sticking with it, apprehension and curiosity warring on her face.

"Peggy? Peggy, wake up please. I'm going to heal you now. I'm going to stop you from forgetting all the time."

Slowly, the old woman opens her eyes, her eyelids remaining droopy as she slowly looks from me to Sharon. Upon seeing her niece, her expression softens, a tired smile growing on her face.

"Oh Amanda, how nice of you to finally visit!"

I shoot Sharon a confused look, and with pain in her eyes, she mouths 'my mother' to me. Giving an understanding nod, I back off a bit as Sharon leans closer to her Great Aunt, giving a reassuring smile as she softly brushes Peggy's silver hair.

"No Auntie, it's me, Sharon."

Peggy's brows furrow for just a second in confusion, before her expression lightens up, a small laugh coming from the elderly woman.

"Sharon my dear! How lovely to see you again! Lovely! And… who is he?" Carter asks with a loud whisper as she points in my direction, getting amused snorts from both me and Sharon.

"That's Mr. McCole, Auntie. He's here to make you better again."

"Really?"

"Yes Auntie, really. It's just that… his cures are still very experimental. I've given my permission for him to try them anyway, but I'd still like for you to give your consent if you want. Or not, of course. If you don't want it then that's fine too."

Peggy gives a thoughtful frown, before she peers closely at me again. It's only because I'm paying such close attention to her that I can spot the spark that suddenly fires up in the old woman's eyes, before it's quickly hidden again by a vacant stare, her expression having not twitched so much as muscle.

Still, it's enough for me to know what's going on, and I try my hardest to keep my grin hidden from Sharon.

Because I'm fairly certain that Peggy has just remembered me and the conversation we had not so long ago. And she caught on quickly enough to keep it hidden from Sharon, who works for S.H.I.E.L.D., the agency which I told her was compromised by Hydra itself, without even betraying a sliver of emotion.

Say what you want about Peggy Carter, but even at age ninety, the frail superspy still had it.

"All right dear. If it can keep me from forgetting all the time, then I'm even willing to try this… weed, that's all the rage these days. I'm quite curious actually. It sounds like fun!"

Sharon can barely keep her laugh contained, even as I let out a booming chuckle of my own, before getting down to business. I can almost taste Hydra's panic as I prepare to bring back one of their greatest enemies back out of retirement.

"Right Mrs. Carter, let's get started right away, shall we? I will first apply this serum to you, it is just something basic that boosts your health so that you are as healthy as you can possibly be at the moment. This is just a matter of precaution, a stepping stone for the more powerful serums, if you like to think about it that way. Ready? Here we go!" and in one fluid movement I take the cap off the syringe, place the needle against the vein in Peggy's arm, and administer the first serum so fast it leaves Sharon and her Aunt blinking in surprise.

Sharon opens her mouth, but my supernaturally smooth movements are ahead of her, already in motion as I take the second syringe and remove the cap, while on the bed, Peggy is visibly growing healthier by the second, her cheeks which were sunken in now full and healthy, her feeble arms filled with some muscle again.

In the stunned silence that follows as both women look on as the ninety year old lady proceeds to look better and better, I start the prep work for the second injection, removing the now empty syringe from Peggy's arm (now with far less wrinkles and with some meat on those bones for the first time in decades), placing the needle of the second one against the back of her neck, gently moving her head a bit to the side in order to reach her spine.

"Now then, Mrs. Carter, this one will sting a bit as I need to administer this serum directly to your nervous system. The serum will use the connection between the nerves and the brain to directly affect both the hindbrain as well as the pair of cortex. These shall then start the process of reversing the effects of the Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, while the remaining tissue will be revitalized, parts of your brain shall have to be remade from scratch and as such, they shall lack the ingrained paths of your original synapses. Some gaps in your memories are to be expected, but there's a high chance that your muscle memory shall remain unaffected, which means that you might keep all of your previous skills, though of course they'll be somewhat rusty. And done!" I keep on talking in a steady murmur in order to keep both women calm, much like a paediatrician keeps talking to kids in order to distract them from the scary needle that he's simultaneously jabbing into their arm.

Peggy gives a startled blink at the piercing feeling of the needle, but as expected of the badass lady, she doesn't give a peep, even as Sharon gives her a worried look, which only increases as her Aunt suddenly winces, squeezing her eyes shut as if suffering from an enormous headache.

"Auntie! Are you all right?!"

"I'm f-fine dear… i-it just… h-hurts a bit…" Peggy says through gritted teeth, causing her niece to whirl around to face me with a stormy expression, but I cut her off before she can really get started as I take the last syringe.

"Not to worry ladies, this is simply a side-effect of the revitalization of Mrs. Carter brain. During the process itself, you might feel as if you are suffering from a migraine, and after the process has been completed, you'll probably have a mild to severe headache for a day or two. I must urge you to not take any meds against the discomfort, no matter how overbearing it gets. Your brain is one of the most delicate organs in your body, and is currently undergoing a massive transformation, any medication has a chance of negatively affecting this change."

The only reason why I was administrating these serums here and now was because I knew that Peggy currently wasn't on any meds, just a few fluids that were very unlikely to have any effect whatsoever. I was fairly sure that most drugs at this point wouldn't really have that much of an effect either since most of the changes were made to her DNA, but that didn't mean that what I said wasn't true. The brain is extremely delicate, and there's always a chance of things going wrong, so I'm not taking any risks.

"Right then, with those two serums in place and coming along nicely, it's time for the last one. This one goes into the bloodstream, so Mrs. Carter, if you would give me your arm please, thank you. And there we go, this serum will restore you to your body's prime condition, meaning that you will appear as you were at the age that you were at your physical peak, with the physique to match. Of course, from then on you'll age normally again, but the results should be very impressive nonetheless."

And as I retract the needle, my words prove true, going by the shocked gasp of Sharon, who flies out of her chair in moments, her back slamming into the opposite wall as she stares at her Aunt, who herself is staring at her hands in wonder.

Remember that scene in the second Lord of the Rings movie, where Gandalf drives Saruman from Théoden of Rohan? You know, the one where he goes from ancient, decrepit looking corpse to a healthy middle-aged guy in the span of seconds.

Yeah, try to take that image and then apply it to the old lady you saw talking to Steve in the movie.

Not gonna lie, I felt incredibly pleased with myself as I took in the change happening in front of my eyes. Peggy's form visibly swelled up with muscles, the wrinkles in her skin disappearing as if some higher being simply took an eraser and smoothed them away without any effort. Her liver spots simply faded into non-existence, while colour returned to the woman's cheeks, sking and eyes. Even her hair, still silver of course, appeared as if it were more vibrant than before.

Sitting up straight in her bed without any effort, Peggy watches on with wide, clear eyes, as her hands become as smooth as they were when she was in her twenties, the wrinkles and spots and arthritis gone completely as if they had never been there before.

"Auntie?"

Her head snapping up sharply at the soft whisper, Peggy's eyes (which had been watery and droopy ever since I saw her) homed in on her niece in a flash, clear and alert.

"Sharon?"

Even her voice has changed. Gone is the feeble tone, the slight croak in the back of her throat. It's the voice of a strong woman, not only used to having her words heard by all, but followed immediately as well.

Slowly, Sharon, looking completely gobsmacked, approached her Aunt, who instead of looking her ninety years, looked exactly as she did during World War 2, though now with thick, silvery hair framing her face, which will probably be gradually be replaced by new, red hair. While there's an age difference of more than half a century between the two women, Peggy could now easily be mistaken as being Sharon's older sister or something.

The two clasp each other's hands in a mix of desperation and tentativeness, as if they're afraid that if they don't touch what they see, it might turn out to be an illusion, but also afraid that if they do touch what they see, then it might shatter and come to an end.

However, after a few moments of holding hands and staring at each other with tear-filled eyes, the reality of the situation slowly starts to sink in with the two women and with a choked sob of happiness, Sharon throws her arms around her Great Aunt, who easily returns the gesture with equal vigour.

Despite the fact that I've orchestrated this mostly for my own benefit, I can't help but feel the a glow of satisfaction in my chest as I look at the heart-warming scene for a moment, before I slowly rise from my chair.

Peggy's eyes snap towards me at the slightest hint of my movement, but Sharon is still bawling her eyes out as she's holding her cured family member. Giving a soft shake from my head, I reach inside my pocket as I soundlessly mouth 'later' to Peggy, getting a tiny nod in return as I place my business card on the cabinet in her room.

On the front of the card, stamped in a neat, business-like font was my contact information listed, with the address of Titan Solutions headquarters.

On the back of the card was scribbled the address of a certain gym, which would be frequented by a mutual acquaintance of ours…

I extrapolated its location due to the fact that the diner Steve ends up in after his defrosting was close to his Safe House, and also close enough that it was in direct view of Stark Tower. All I had to do from there was Google gyms in the immediate vicinity, and then look for the oldest ones still in use.

Leaving the women to celebrate the newly regained health of Peggy Carter, I make my way downstairs with a smile, before the glass plate in my pocket unexpectedly gives of a sharp alarm.

'Huh? I didn't have anything else planned for today, so why would anyone need to call me? Don't tell me that they need me to be the tie-breaker in order to decide which type of pizza we'll end up ordering tonight, again. I'm so tired of that, no matter what I decide we just end up going with pepperoni every time anyways!'

Continuing to exit the retirement home, throwing an absent wave to the nurse as I do, I start walking back towards the warehouse at a leisurely pace, snow crunching underneath my feet, as I activate the holographic screen of my phone.



"Yes, Michael here, what's-"

"MICHAEL! YOU NEED TO GET BACK HERE NOW!"

I'm taken completely off-guard when I see the panicked face of Mason fill the screen, the sounds of screaming and thunderous crashes ringing through the phone, causing people on the street to turn in my direction with questioning looks, while I feel as if ice is slowly being poured into my veins.

"Phineas, what-"

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! I DON'T KNOW WHO OR WHY, BUT THEY HAVE WEAPONS, MICHAEL, ADVANCED ONES!"

Without me even realizing it, I've started running towards the warehouse, my feet slamming against the pavement with the sound of jackhammers as I run at my top speed, swerving around bystanders with only the minimal amount of margins, the Heart Shaped Herbs in my body working overtime in order to keep me from just bulldozing over other pedestrians as I'm easily clocking in at highway speeds.

"What do you mean, advanced ones!?"

"ADVANCED AS IN WE DON'T HAVE A FUCKING FRONT WALL ANYMORE!" Mason screams in panic, and a low growl starts to form in my chest as I pour on even more speed, the desperate need to get to my people fuelling my movements to even greater heights.

I can see bright flashes in the background, while the rest of the warehouse seems to be on fire. It looks like Mason is lying low behind an upturned desk, but even enlarging the holographic screen to the size of my torso doesn't allow me to make out any details in the total chaos going on.

"Phineas! Try to stay low! I'm coming! You hear me, Phineas!? I'm on my way!!"

"JUST GET HERE, WE'RE –urghk!"

Suddenly, Mason's face goes off-screen as the screen itself starts spinning out of control, before it comes to a stop on the floor, several cracks showing as I'm treated to an image of where the front of my building used to be. Instead, there's a massive hole in it, from the bottom floor all the way to the roof. Through the hole I can see the street, where a small column of taxi's and limousines are parked.

People are hiding behind the cars and mercilessly opening fire on the warehouse with what appears to be heavy-calibre weaponry, as brick and mortar explode in showers of dust at every shot they take.

I can only look on in helpless anger as I see one of the people in my security force with the Amber Armour enhancement ('Will Driver, age 35, a friend of Toomes. Resorted to drug abuse after a charge got killed on his watch, ended up in jail. Reformed and clean for six years, but due to being an ex-convict got refused from every security agency he applied for. Likes teriyaki and is one hell of a blackjack player.') stand up with a desk in his hands, trying to provide cover for two colleagues who had the Extremis enhancement and are trying to crawl away from battle, both having several limbs blown clean off, which would still take a little while to regenerate, leaving them vulnerable for follow-up attacks.

One of the attackers let out a shout, pointed a massive cannon with various glowing parts in Will's direction and opened fire, the muzzle of his gun lighting up with a hauntingly familiar purple hue.

The desk splinters into a million pieces, and Will is picked up like a ragdoll, thrown clear into the warehouse, landing with a wet smack only a couple of feet away from where Mason dropped his phone.

He isn't getting up.

Rage comes roaring to life inside me as the glass plate melts in my hand, hatred that I haven't felt ever since my acid trip to the Astral Plane where I was confronted with my baser instincts filling my burning veins.

The personification of my darker instincts, which I had accepted as being a part of me, rather than something artificially created by the multitude of enhancements within me, made its presence known again, but this time, instead of feeling as if I need to fight the heat inside me lest it burns my world to ash, it now feels as if we are one, working in tandem.

It wants to see those scumbags who dared to attack my people BURN, just as much as I do.

I don't even notice the snow melting around me in a sphere several feet in diameter, leaving sloshing water running off the sidewalk behind me as I take to the rooftop of the building next to me in a mighty leap, leaving cracked pavement in my wake, my suit burning up around my form as I keep getting angrier, and therefore, hotter as well.

Due to my immense speed, combined with the ability to travel in a mostly straight line, it takes only a couple of minutes to get close enough to hear the thunderous gunfire, as well as see the glow from the burning warehouse.

It takes another minute before I'm close enough that I'm looking over the scene, spotting the line of attackers, hidden safely behind their cars (though a few have been reduced to burning wrecks already) as they keep their heavy fire on the building, where I can see my security force of mostly Amber Armor enhanced individuals trying to evacuate their more vulnerable friends from the battle field, unable to launch an effective counterattack due to the combined fire of their enemies and the burning warehouse around them (they can withstand the flames, but even they still need to breath, and currently there's more smoke than oxygen in the ravaged building).

I can see several of the attackers break off from the main group as they set up a shallow perimeter at the head and tail of the column, opening fire on both ends of the street, where black SUV's are intermingled with police cars, the NYPD working together with the various spy agencies that had been casing the warehouse in order to keep the fighting contained.

They're still losing, as I spot one of the attackers point an enormous hand cannon over the hood of the taxi he's hiding behind and squeeze the trigger once.

At the end of the street, the door of a police cruiser is torn clean off, sending the people taking cover behind it in panicked disarray.

But even as I take all of these events in with just a quick glance, there's one thing that immediately draws my eye, and my suit explodes in a great ball of fire as the heat of my body skyrockets, showing off my towering form and raised skeleton to the world.

Because I can see the broken forms of some of my people lying in front of the warehouse.

And they aren't moving.

A roar rings out over the battlefield, rattling windows of buildings and cars alike, forcing a short lull in the pitched gunfight as people exchange frightened looks at the monstrous sound.

It takes me a few moments to realize that the sound came from me, but by then I'm already moving, having jumped from the roof I was standing on towards the street below me, my entire form wreathed in flame.

I crash onto the roof of the taxi in the middle of the column, its frame crumpling into unrecognizable wreckage under my impact, fire rolling off my form in waves. The attackers whirl towards me, fear visible in their eyes as they raise their futuristic weapons towards me with trembling hands, ready to open fire-

BTTOOOOMMM!!!!!!

-right as the car underneath me explodes due to the heat I'm giving off setting the gas inside its fuel tank alight, throwing the would be attackers to the ground, and spraying shrapnel in all directions, forcing the nearest scumbags back with shouts of pain and alarm.

I of course, remain completely unharmed, slowly straightening to my full height as I stand in the burning wreckage of one of their vehicles, my burning eyes slowly tracking across their trembling forms.

Then my head is suddenly jerked to the side, right after which a loud bang reaches my ears, and my rage continues to grow even further. Whirling in the direction the shot came from, I see a man lying on the ground with what can only be described as a sci-fi heavy rifle clutched in his arms.

He stares up at my burning form with what is clearly a mixture of absolute terror and complete confusion.

I don't care.

With a roar tearing from my throat, I rush towards him in the blink of an eye, ripping the twisted frame of the car wreck I'm standing in apart like wet tissue paper without even noticing. My speed turns out to be too great for any of them to react to: before my attacker can really do anything other than scream, I'm upon him, my fist descending towards his head.

The crash is enormous, the street buckles underneath the impact of my strike, heat once again blasts away from my skin and the man's head is…

Well, it's gone.

I pick up the sound of retching coming from behind me, but that darker part of me pushes my body forwards, utterly unconcerned with the reactions of the people around us, willing only for them to burn.

And I'm completely on board with that.

Harsh impacts keep slamming into my body, much like one of Jessica's punches, and while painless to me, it makes me understand why these soon to be dead men are capable of hurting my people if they're coordinated enough to concentrate their fire, but I push through it, whatever little damage they manage to inflict healed in mere seconds.

Once again, my sheer speed proves itself too great for these scumbags, and my hands sink into the soft metal of the hood of the closest limo. With a roar and a heave, I lift the vehicle straight off the ground, bringing it around in a wide arc, smashing it into the three guys that had been taking cover behind it.

One of them is reduced to paste, the other two are thrown several dozen feet away, coming back down in pathetic bags of broken bones and meat, but I don't even bother to really pay any attention to them, already moving forwards towards my next prey.

One of the attackers at the back of the column takes one look at my demonic form and promptly decided to make his getaway, proving himself to be the smartest of the bunch with that single action.

Unfortunately for him, I don't intend for any of these fleshbags to get out of this alive.

Lifting the mangled wreck of the limo above my head, I take a massive leap towards the guy's car, clearing three others in a single jump. The attacker has just long enough to stare up at my descending form with an expression of mind-numbing horror, before I slam my improvised bat into his car, pushing it into the pavement, the shockwave my attack produces proving powerful enough to send the two closest enemies to the ground.


Annoyingly loud bangs sound behind me, and I feel numerous impacts all over my hunched back, as if there are a dozen Jessica's lightly punching me from behind. Turning around to face them fully, I can see a small squad of assholes standing clustered together, each of them holding a heavy looking rifle and opening up a continuous stream of fire.

I can see fear rise in their eyes as I don't buckle under their onslaught, as instead, the fiery pits that are my eyes increase in intensity as I glare at them while their shots slam into my unbreakable skin, shredding what few scraps remained of my shirt.

And all that I can think of through the intense haze of hatred that roars in my ears is a single, strangely lucid thought.

'Fuckin' mortals shouldn't have stood so close together. Idiots.'

And with that, even as my attackers keep on firing, I take an immense breath, before I spew a veritable tidal wave of fire at them, and the next two cars behind them as well. There's a brief cacophony of screams as they and their allies burn alive, before there's two subsequent explosions, which quickly silence the death throes of these foolish attackers.

There had been a total of eight cars during my initial assault (disregarding the two burned out husks which my people had already taken care of), with roughly four men to each car. I had crushed one during my arrival, had used a second one to completely flatten a third one, and had just set two more alight.

This left one car behind me, and the two forming a barricade against the police and various agencies at the other end of the column.

Already I could make out three people hurriedly getting in one of those cars (the other seemed to be non-functional due to being liberally peppered with gunfire to the point all of its tires were flat), obviously willing to take their chances with the police, rather than with me.

'NO! I can't let those fucking meatbags get away! They will burn for this!'

With an angered growl, I dash towards the car behind me, snatching a guy that didn't manage to get out of my reach fast enough by the head. Not breaking my stride, even as I feel weapon fire slam into my body, I raise the fool above my head, ignoring his screams of pain as I burn his face off, before slamming him into the ground with enough strength to create a crater.

His cries end immediately.

The last car in the column was placed sideways on the street, forming an impromptu defence against the handful of cops at the intersection only a couple of dozen feet away, with the driver's side towards me.

One of the attackers jumps through the open door, desperately turning the key in the ignition, but the engine keeps stalling. He has enough time left before I reach him for another two frantic tries, before he turns to look at me with tears flowing down his face.

I think I can see his lips form the words 'please' but I don't bother to pay enough attention to really care, instead just tucking in my head as I tilt my shoulder forwards, right before I slam into the car, it's frame buckling around my body as I tackle it hard enough to produce a thunder-clap.

My momentum it so massive, the car is shoved back ten feet, nearly tipping over completely, the driver's side virtually non-existent now, nothing more than a smouldering wreck as if it was just T-boned by a truck on fire.

In a way, it was.

Acting before the car can crash back down again, I step forwards, ramming my hands in its underbelly, before I give another heave, and lift the entire thing above my head.

Giving a roar that can be heard at the other end of the column (my attack had taken all of three seconds, meaning that they were still trying to get in the car), it's terrifying enough that it halts all movement there as I can see scumbags turn in my direction in fear.

Building up a bit of momentum, I make a short dash forwards, before heaving with all my might, throwing the car in my hands clear over the rest of the column. The thugs have just enough time to scramble out of the way, before my impromptu missile slams into their getaway vehicle, carrying it nearly all the way towards where the NYPD is holed up in a great shower of sparks and the wail of tortured metal, all of them looking at me in clear shock.

A satisfying scream tells me that at least one of the mortals wasn't quite quick enough to get out of the way of my attack, having lost a leg and losing massive amounts of blood from the grisly wound. He's dead already, if he doesn't receive immediately medical attention.

He won't.

I haven't been idle during my previous attack, shooting towards one of the remaining attackers (they started at roughly thirty, they were now down to less than half that), punching him in the chest so hard that he appears as a blur as he slams into the building on the opposite side of the street.

Bursting towards two more meatbags I perform a sweeping kick on one, nearly separating his torso from his legs as I send his corpse sailing down the street, while I cut another nearly in half by heating up my hand until it's a blinding white-hot colour, steam and flames roiling off of it in waves.

I'm closing in on another human, my glowing hands high above my head in a superheated double hammer blow, the baseline below me cowering in fear as he looks up at me with tear-filled eyes-

"Eat this freak!"

-before a blast slams into my face, jerking it to the side in a harsh movement of immense force. This blow is different from the other ones.

I actually felt this one.

Turning my head towards where the sudden blast came from, feeling another slam into my chest with enough strength to force me back half a step, I spot a burly man with what can only be considered a cannon in his arms.

'The guy that took out Will. That's the guy who took out Will! I'LL BURN HIM TO ASHES!'

Tarmac melts and buckles underneath my feet as I sprint towards him, vaulting over the burning remains of one of their cars in a single smooth movement, but a massive blast slams into my chest, and due to being in mid-air (meaning I don't have anything to brace against) it forces me into the wreckage of the vehicle.

I immediately try to get up, but get blasted by another cannon shot to the face, and due to lacking anything stable to support myself with (the burned out frame of the car I'm half-lying in buckles each time I try to put some force on it) I get shoved back again.

Then a continuous stream of impacts comes from my left side (one of the remaining guys picking up a heavy rifle from what I can tell from the corner of my vision), but as I turn towards him with a growl, yet another cannon shot impacts me, forcing me back, quickly followed by a second, and then a third.

Two more streams of fire join the first one, and though they don't do too much damage to me, they have enough force to limit my movements, especially since every time that it appears that I'm about to work myself to a standing position, a cannon shot slams into my face, or one of my knees.

I'm still pretty much unharmed, other than a ringing in my ears and some spots in my vision due to the repeated cannon shots to the face (the bastard has been steadily closing in too, making each shot more powerful than the last), but it appears I'm pinned down under the onslaught of their heavy weaponry.

The very notion of these meatbags being able to hold down someone like me, as if they're greater than me, just makes me even angrier, and as yet another cannon shot slams into my knee, making it buckle underneath me, at the same time that two streams of gunfire concentrate on my right eye, reducing it to pulp, I've had enough.

The roar I utter is loud enough that it forces the guy closest to me to drop his heavy rifle as he clasps his hands over his ears, as the heat coming from by body is great enough that I'm standing in what appears to be a small pool of lava, the tarmac having long since melted, the burned out remains of the car wreck around me being reduced to a glowing hunk of burning metal.

The air becomes unbearably hot, forcing my attackers back by several feet, despite the careful distance they have kept so far. At this point, it's not just my hands that are glowing white-hot, it's my entire body, forcing them to squint their eyes as they look away from the glaring light I'm giving off.

Unfortunately for them, this also means that they have stopped firing.

The moment the two mortals to my right have realized this fact, they're already dead, my glowing hands ploughing straight through their chests, my burning body leaving a bright after image and melted tarmac in my wake.

Lifting the corpses stuck on my arms, which are being immolated from the inside out, I twist towards the sole guy behind me, the one that dropped his heavy rifle. He makes a dive for his weapon right as I throw the first corpse, which clips him in the shoulder.

Other than a shout of pain and panic at being hit by the burning object, he continues his roll, coming up on one knee, aiming down his sight at me right as I throw the second corpse, this one on a straight collision course with him.

To his credit, he immediately opens fire, which takes out a huge chunk of the corpse's torso while sending it veering way off course. He next aims his weapon on me again, but this time, I'm not pinned down.

He manages to get off three shots, two which impact my raised ribcage, and one which strikes me in my regenerating eye, which hurts like hell. But it hasn't slowed down my charge towards him at all, and all I see is the slight, disbelieving widening of the eyes in the face of inevitable death, before a sweeping, superheated kick takes his head clean off.

Hearing movement behind me, I half-turn, my burning eye looking over my shoulder as it pins the man with the cannon in place. His face is ashen with terror, and I can see a dark stain in the front of his pants, but he still raises his weapon towards me.

"STAY BACK! STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, DEMON! I'LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL! DON'T YOU FUCKING COME NEAR ME! YOU HEAR?!"

The idea that this… this… this mortal thought he could tell me what to do, after he attacks my company, assaults my people, hurts my friends?! He'll BURN!

Turning to fully face him, I absently feel a dark grin forming on my face as I slowly approach him, with him backing away from me in tandem with my steps. He lets out an inarticulate scream, fuelled by rage and despair, by anger as much as fear, and starts firing wildly at me.

In his panicked haze however, his accuracy is severely reduced, and this time he doesn't have the luck of catching me in mid-air. Most of his shots go wide. Those that don't, I'm capable of dodging, merely by moving my head to the side, or by twisting my torso out of the way.

I'm less than ten feet away when he bumps into something.

Or rather, someone.

Towering behind him, blood splattered across his mouth from his internal wounds, stands Will Driver.

And he looks pissed.

Before either me or the attacker can react, Will slams his arms around the cannon-wielder in a flash, trapping him in a bearhug. The attacker feebly tries to raise his weapon, before I see the muscles in Will's broad arms flex, and two loud cracks resounds across the battlefield, while the cannon falls out of the man's now useless arms.

The man screams in pain, but Will just keeps on making the bearhug tighter and tighter, and after a series of more wet snapping noises, the screams come to an end as well.

Letting the still corpse fall to the ground, Will gives me a tired grin, showing his bloodied teeth, before his eyes roll into the back of his head and he collapses as well.

Looking around the fiery battlefield, I can see that the remaining attackers (a grand total of five out of the original thirty or so, including the guy that lost his leg) are currently being… taken care off by the remains of my security forces and some of the Extremis users.

Seeing that there are no more enemies/prey to take care of, I fight down the raging inferno in my veins, which is surprisingly easy to do. I just chalk it up to the weirdness of the Astral Plane trip I undertook, before putting it out of my mind, instead dashing over to Will's fallen form.

To my relief, he's still breathing, but it's irregular and very shallow. Those with the Amber Armoured skin do have a healing factor, but it's nowhere near on the same level as the one that the Extremis enhanced possess. And internal injuries are always dangerous for everyone, even regenerators.

Thankfully I can already hear sirens closing in fast, by my estimate they're only a few streets away, so at the very least Will shall receive some basic medical attention. His unbreakable skin means that the trauma surgeons will be limited in what they can do for him, but it's more than I could currently do for him out here on the burning street.

Making sure to gently place him on his side in order to avoid any choking hazards, I make my way inside, stopping by every fallen from of my people that I spot. Some of them are still breathing, in the case of the Extremis individuals even when missing multiple limbs or entire parts of their torso, and I do what little I can for them, but four people are beyond helping.

Three of them are… were Extremis-enhanced, two of them, a man and woman, having worked construction with Toomes before the man lost an arm and the woman (the one who I remember breathing fire at Susan after the little dino managed to scorch her pants yesterday) suffered from a spinal injury. The second man was an army vet who came back in a wheelchair and a body full of scars after he jumped on an IED in order to save his convoy.

They had been reduced to a grisly sight, clearly having suffered from multiple heavy-weapon attacks, judging by the pulped state of their remains.

The fourth loss was a man from my security team, who went by the name of Dave. Honestly, I didn't really know all that much more about him than that, but Adrian told me that he was a good guy, quiet and reliable. Given that he was lying outside, next to one of the car wrecks that were already on fire before I have even arrived, I now shared Adrian's beliefs of the man.

It wasn't entirely clear how Dave had died, but judging from the amount of blood that came from his mouth, eyes and ears, as well as the state of the asphalt surrounding his head, I think that at one point he was forced to the ground, and then they just kept on shooting at his head until the impacts damaged his brain enough to cause internal bleeding.

I hadn't been as close to these people as I was to my scientists or even Jessica, and I had mostly just recruited them from Adrian because I needed a loyal workforce that wouldn't ask too many questions while still being capable of standing up to the various dangers that the world had to offer.

That didn't mean I didn't care. Each and every single one of these people had suffered enough in their lives, through whatever circumstance. Joining up with Titan Solutions had in some cases been a literal life-saver, and despite them only working for me for about of month, some of them had quietly told me that they were currently happier than they had been in years.

And now four of them were dead, by the looks of it another dozen were badly injured (though due to their healing factors everyone was expected to make a full recovery in time) and the survivors were traumatized.

Making my way further in the burned out husk that used to be Titan Solutions, I silently start moving rubble and aiding the survivors, continuing my grim work even as the firefighters arrive, most of them clad in leather Amber Armor. I wordlessly accept a wide cloak from one of them in order to cover myself up as only mere scraps remain from my clothing, but I keep on working.

Thankfully, the decision of my security team to evacuate instead of entering the fray (and while there's not a doubt in my mind that they could've won, I can't help but be relieved that they had adhered to different priorities) had saved not only the lives of my employees by leading them out the back entrance, meaning we only found a few people still stuck in the burning building amongst the rubble, but had also saved much of Titan Solution's data.

Sure, much of the paperwork and assignments were now reduced to ashes, but I had several black boxes as well as back-ups. Combined with the survival of my people, I could rebuild.

It would take time and a monumental amount of effort, but Titan Solutions would survive.

I'm ripped from my musings when I can hear some rubble shifting a couple of feet to my right, and in a precarious mix of haste and caution (it wouldn't do to just go tearing away at the rubble with my superstrength, since that might cause a collapse, endangering any trapped people even further) I make my way over towards the pile of what appears to be the collapsed recreation room from the second floor, which has now fallen down onto the ground floor.

Steadily and carefully digging away at the rubble with my bare hands, sharp stone and jagged metal scraping against my skin to no avail, I manage to make some headway in the large pile, before my hearing picks up a voice from underneath the debris.

"Hello! This is Michael! Don't worry, I'm getting you out of there, all right?! Stay calm, I'm coming to get you!"

I keep yelling reassurances as I up my pace, tearing away at the rubble in order to get to whoever's trapped underneath, before I can make out their voice.

"M-Michael…"

"PHINEAS! Phineas, I'm coming, hold on! I'm almost there Phineas, stay with me all right?!"

Despite my enormous strength, fuelled by desperation as it is, it still takes well over five minutes to open a hole large enough to actually see one of my scientists, due to the care I need to take in order to not inadvertently cause a collapse which might kill my friend.

As I lay eyes on Phineas for the first time since yesterday (he came into work after I had left in order to heal Carter, which seems like a lifetime ago now) I'm struck by what I see.

The Tinkerer is leaning against a large block of concrete, his face gaunt with blood flowing from a cut above his brow, one of his legs trapped under what appears to be one part of an I-beam.

And cradled in his arms, is the unconscious form of Susan.

Seeing my look, Mason gives a weak chuckle, which transforms into a wet cough halfway through, causing me to immediately start digging again.

"She saved me you know. When we were attacked… she wanted to go out there and fight whoever was shooting at us, but then they just started… punching holes through the wall… she came back inside pretty hurt… Extremis kept her alive though… she was close to me when I called you but then… the roof came down, Michael, right on top of me… I thought I was gonna die…. Susan tackled me out of the way of the worst parts, but the beam… crushed my leg, trapped me… she stood over me, trying to bat the debris away with her body, but she's not very big… she got hit on the head by a piece of wall and was unconscious immediately… still breathing though… definitely ain't a quitter, this one…" Phineas raps, his speech fading in and out with his laboured breaths.

As his speech starts to peter out completely and his eyes start to droop, I begin yelling at him, redoubling my efforts to dig him out. Unfortunately, while the hole is large enough to just barely fit him through, it doesn't fit me, and I need to get closer to Phineas in order to get that I-beam off his leg.

"Phineas! Phineas! Don't go to sleep you hear me!? Keep talking! Come on, tell me what happened! Who attacked you?!"

"Dunno… was just minding my business… then we hear tires squealing… then boom, there's a big-ass hole in our wall… what the hell did they do Michael? Did they bring a cannon? It sounded like one…."

"In a way. Come on Phineas, keep talking, I can almost reach you!"

"Burstein's fine, by the way… saw him leading a group of people out the back… when I phoned you… didn't see him after though, cause I was… well, here….Michael, are those people gone now? Did we win?"

"Yeah, yeah I drove them off. They're gone now Phineas, we won. Look, I'm here now, okay? Let's get this piece of junk of your leg, and then get you and Susan some medical attention, what do you say?"

"I say… I say… that it was really fucking dumb to wait so long with the Amber Armour… did you know… Michael, did you know… that I was gonna ask Potter to perform… to perform… the procedure… today? Heh…"

"Phineas? Phineas! No, no, no, stay awake! Come on you need to stay awake! Talk to me, come on, you need to talk! Phineas! Phineas! PHINEAS!"

//

AN: Originally, this chapter was going to be even longer, but I felt that this was a good place to cut it off. At the rate this story is going, I think we still have about two to three chapter to go until the Hand Arc is complete.

Fun Fact: The Human Torch wasn't used in the '70s Fantastic Four cartoon because Universal Studios had licensed the character and blocked the use of him in the show, and not because the network was afraid children would light themselves on fire emulating the hero, as was apparently rumoured.

As always, I'd like to thank my Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn and Daniel Dorfman. Thanks so much for your support! To all my other lovely readers, should you feel that your wallet is getting too heavy to carry, then feel free to offload some of that money on me! or not, I'll still upload either way, so other than getting fancy stuff in return it doesn't really matter.

 

[Bakkughan]

30 Minutes after the Massacre
The cacophony surrounding him was a sea of noise crashing futily against his ironclad composure as he made his way towards his target, broken tarmac crunching underneath his black combat boots, avoiding the still glowing patches of road and the occasional burnt-out car wreck as he went.

Thankfully the bodies had already been removed from the scene, so he didn't need to step over corpses in order to reach his goal this time.

Not that he really had a problem with that (after all, he had been forced to do it often enough in his long career), but leaving roughly thirty bodies lying in the open, right in view of the army of journalists that were barely held at bay by the police cordons, was something that he'd rather do without.

As he got closer to the ruin that had only this morning been the headquarters of Titan Solutions, he was forced to steel himself as the smoking remains were still giving off waves of heat.

Even inside their indestructible new leather uniforms, the firemen clearing the rubble were still sweating bullets as they slowly made their way through the burnt out remains, dousing hotspots as they went.

He felt an odd sort of kinship with them, feeling as if he too just was walking around from one fire to the next, putting them out as quickly as he could, but every time he turned around he found that something else was set ablaze in the meantime.

Hopefully, if he could leverage this conversation the way he wanted to, then he could at least enforce some measure of control on the one responsible for quite a few of those fires (though his experiences with Tony Stark told him not to get his hopes up).

He had gotten close enough to his target now that he could see that the man was talking to someone on what appeared to be a holographic communicator. It took a few moments before he recognized the person on the other end, but then again, until just now he had thought she still had both eyes.

"Jeri, I promise I'll come by as soon as I can, all right? For now, please just stay put, don't go home. If the assassin was bold enough to attack you at work, then he'll definitely be bold enough to attack you in your home as well. At least at work, you'll be out in the open, making it more difficult for him to strike again. I'll send two body guards over right away, all right?"

Hogarth, her right eye held closed while that side of her face was splattered with blood, clearly didn't like to be ordered to stay out in the open after what appeared to be a failed attempt on her life (and damn it all, he already had enough on his place without worrying about assassinations as well), but she gave a curt nod nonetheless.

She opened her mouth to speak, but right at that moment some gravel crunched underneath his boot and he saw his target stiffen.

"I've got to go now, Jeri. Just trust me, okay? It'll be all right, I'm gonna make sure of it."

"Fine. Stay safe."

"You too."

And with that, the connection was cut, and his target stood up from the small pile of rubble he had been sitting on, turning around as he slipped the plate of glass in the pocket of the leather duster he wore, along with a dirtied pair of cargo pants.

Burning eyes analysed him in a flash, increasing in intensity just the slightest amount as recognition became clear in them.

'Interesting. How come that you know what I look like, Michael McCole?'

The CEO of Titan Solutions crossed his beefy arms in front of his massive chest (hiding much of his interesting ribcage from view as he did), glaring down at him with a look that clearly showed just how pissed off the behemoth truly was.

It was probably only the lack of any enemies around that kept the man from literally spitting fire right now, but just because he wasn't setting things alight at the moment didn't mean that he was any less enraged than he had been during the Massacre.

He was just keeping a lid on his anger.

For now.

"And what can I do for you? As you can see, I'm very busy at the moment." Came the rumbling bass of the Enhanced, his glowing eyes burning just a tad brighter as he spoke.

Pressing his lips together in a frim line, Nicholas Fury clasped his hands behind his back as he stared McCole straight in his eyes with his own, interest rising within him when he noticed that while the man clearly became a bit uncomfortable, he didn't look away from the Director's piercing gaze.

There weren't very many people in the world capable of that.

"Unfortunately, I think you'll have to make some time for me, Mr. McCole. This conversation has been coming for a long time now, but you've turned out to be a very difficult man to get a hold of."

"You can look up the visiting hours of Titan Solutions online. If you want to schedule a meeting with me personally, then I suggest making an appointment with Hogarth, Benowitz and Chao first."

"Yeah, see the thing about that is: I ain't interested in talking to Titan Solutions. Now I am definitely curious, as to how Hogarth suddenly looks decades younger, or why it is that she's suddenly short an eyeball. But currently, I ain't interested in talking to her either. Not right now, at least."

"Look, not to be rude, but at the moment I don't give a fuck as to what you're interested in-"

"-What I am interested in, is how a young man from New York goes from being a regular, unassuming baseline human, to one of the most dangerous beings on the planet in the span of a single year. I am especially interested in how said human, runs off to hunt criminals and arms-dealers in Africa, and then comes back to start a corporate war with Stark. And then, how that young man goes from giving the founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. her youth back, to setting an entire goddamned street on fire in the span of a day."

Seeing McCole stiffen in response to his little monologue made Fury want to smile in grim amusement, though his expression remained fixed in a practiced mask of determined neutrality. He made sure to not put too much pressure on the man, the destruction he had to wade through in order to speak to the Enhanced still fresh in his mind.

He had decided to confront McCole at this moment precisely because the man was probably at his most vulnerable right now, and as such was (hopefully) easier to lean on than would have otherwise been the case. The flipside of that, however, was that due to that vulnerability (metaphorically speaking: Fury had seen the footage, and any being capable of shrugging of a cannon-shot to the face is as pretty fucking far from vulnerable as you can feasibly get in his opinion) he was also more likely to instinctively lash out.

And as the world had discovered today, when McCole lashed out, things had a tendency to go up in flames around him.

Including people.

Coulson had argued vehemently against Fury confronting McCole personally because of this, but the Director had shut that down hard. Arriving in force had spooked McCole the last time, and the man had been able to slip from their radar until the moment they picked him up suddenly being the CEO of a company in New York City. If they were to approach now in full force, then he might not only decide to bolt again, but there was also every chance of the man choosing to fight instead.

Sending a single operative was the best course of action here, and considering the plan to have Black Widow infiltrate his forces like she had done with Stark was put on indefinite hold with the destruction of Titan Solutions, they had to send someone else in to talk with the enigma that was McCole face to face.

It had to be him. Someone else might get it wrong.

Continuing where he left off, Fury pinned McCole with a heavy glare.

"Now, I can ignore rumours of criminals running into a demon in Africa. I can even ignore a man who runs away from my people, crashing through a wall in the process: we'll just track him down again after all. What I can not ignore, however, is when that someone sets part of New York on fire, as he murders thirty people on national television!"

A growl leapt from McCole's throat as he uncrossed his arms, walking up to Fury in a few great strides, towering over the Director as he glared down at him, and it took quite a bit of Fury's not inconsiderate amount of willpower not to flinch from the heat coming off the giant, absentmindedly noting that the CEO's cargo pants began to lightly smoke, while the enormous duster remained just fine.

"You got some nerve coming in here and accusing me of murder even as we stand in the remains of my destroyed building Fury." McCole spat out with a snarl.

Fury raised a single eyebrow as he caught McCole's subtle eye-twitch when the man immediately realized his slip up, given that the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. had yet to introduce himself.

'So, he's angry enough to make mistakes, but not angry enough to not realize when he does make them. I can work with that.'

"The video evidence doesn't lie, McCole. And there's a lot of evidence: there's mobile footage taken bystanders with their phones, to footage taken from the news choppers that have been circling around like goddamned vultures, ever since this whole mess began."

Honestly, there was far more evidence than Fury was pleased with, meaning that there was just no way this could be swept under the rug, unfortunately. This was like when the Hulk broke Harlem all over again. At least Thor's fight with the Destroyer in Puente Antigo (though that had turned out even more destructive than McCole's rampage) had been in a small town, with people too busy with running for their lives to stand and film the destruction, and without any news choppers to catch all the gory details from above.

All that was left after the fight was the clean-up (and hadn't that Destroyer-armour turned out to be just so very interesting to study?), making sure they caught whatever little footage there had been made, and to strongly impress upon the locals that what they had seen was a matter of national security and as such they were never to speak of it again if they didn't want to end up locked away in a government facility in the middle of nowhere for the remainder of their lives.

A lie, of course, considering that while S.H.I.E.L.D. did have a lot of power, even they couldn't just cart an entire village off to prison.

Not that the people of Puente Antigo were aware of that fact of course.

But this was New York. News choppers rivalled pigeons for the top spot of most annoying pest in the air, and the people were more likely to run towards danger than away from it, just in the hope of getting a glimpse of the action.

And judging by the multitude of videos, pictures and gif's that were popping up all around the web, there had been a lot of action to be had (the one where McCole took a deep breath and let out a fucking wall of fire was currently trending on just about every media platform there was, though because he was actively killing people in that shot, it kept being taken down, only to pop up again moments later on another site).

Meaning that Fury had to switch tactics, much like he had been forced to do when Stark decided to be his annoying self, announcing "I am Iron Man" to the world, as if Fury didn't already have enough headaches as it is. Just barging into private property and taking whatever they deemed necessary wouldn't work here, since that would definetely lead to a fight with an angered McCole.

No, patience was key here.

Of course, being a trained spy, it took only a few seconds for these thoughts to pass through Fury's mind (the fact that he had been thinking them from the moment he left his office in order to come down here certainly helped), so when McCole started talking again barely any time had passed.

"You say the footage doesn't lie. I agree. It will clearly show that what I did was in self-defence. That scum attacked us first, I simply retaliated." McCole growled angrily, the temperature around them skyrocketing when he mentioned the attackers, his tone suddenly becoming much darker, but Fury stood his ground.

He had faced worse things than a 7 foot tall giant with suspected hyper-intelligence, capable of breathing fire and throwing cars like they were toys.

Granted, he couldn't currently think of any, but he was sure that he had.

"You think that is going to matter in court? Hell, do you believe that you're going to end up in court at all? I currently have three different agencies out there, screaming their heads off that, not only should they have all the weapons the attackers used, but that they should impound every scrap of tech Titan Solutions has as well. I have at least three more, that believe that you are a danger to national security, and guess what?! They don't just want your tech, they want to cut you open too and take a look inside to see what makes you tick! I had to call the goddamned president in order to make him reconsider calling in the National Guard for fuck's sake!"

Growling at the threat to both his person and his tech, McCole balled his fist while the temperature surrounding the giant just kept on climbing in response to the man's emotions.

"They want my tech? They want me on a fucking slab? You know what I say to that, Fury? Let them fucking try."

The Director frowned at McCole's anger, and decided to dial it back a bit. Pushing the man's buttons was fine if it took him off guard, leaving Fury at least with something to work with, but if he pushed too hard then he would be back at square one, on top of McCole actively hating S.H.I.E.L.D. as well.

No, he had used the stick, riling the Enhanced up, making him angry at the world. Now it was time to extend the carrot, to impress upon the man just how much he needed S.H.I.E.L.D., to make him see just how useful an alliance could be.

Or at the very least, co-existence.

"They aren't going to try, because I'm not going to let them. The weapons used by the attackers have already been impounded by S.H.I.E.L.D. before they could get their hands on it, since it is literally our job to deal with these type of situations. And as for you and your company? Well, I'm sure something can be arranged…"

McCole scoffed as Fury trailed off, but the Director noticed that the temperature finally started to cool down again, while the behemoth took a step back as he began to pace back and forth, heedless of the glass that he crushed underneath his bare feet.

"So, that's how you're going to play it? S.H.I.E.L.D. swoops in to save the day, taking the scary weapons of the street, which just so happens to result in it all ending up in your clutches, while all I need to do is bow my head to your demands if I want to avoid conflict with just about every agency out there?" the giant said bitterly, and Fury realized that he needed to calm the man down before he started shutting him out.

"More or less, though I think you're being a bit unfair towards me and my people here McCole. We're not tyrants. We don't want to blackmail you into submission, 'till you're working for us, we want to protect you, so you're free to work with us. We can help you, McCole. You just need to let us."

For a few moments, McCole just kept on pacing, shooting Fury suspicious glances every once in a while. The Director remained stoic as he stood in the sweltering heat, his single eye unerringly following the man in front of him, even as it seemed that McCole might end up dismissing his offer after all.

Finally, it seemed as if the behemoth had come to a decision, letting out a deep sigh as a massive hand came up to pinch his nose, eyes closed in a deep frown.

"Alright. This is a quid pro quo thing then? 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' sorta thing, huh? Fine. Say I accept: what's your price gonna be? What the hell do you want in return for making all this go away and for keeping any suits off my back? And don't try to pull any bullshit on me, like doing this from the good of your heart, or some shit like that."

Easily keeping his grin from showing, Fury allowed a casual expression to show on his face.

"Just a couple of things, along with some information. Nothing you aren't already marketing, really. What's it that you called those fancy suits you gave the police? Amber Armour, right? Now, that is something my people could use. Of course, there's that truck that you made your getaway in, when I had one of my men try and talk to you. All kinds of things like that. I'm sure we can work something out McCole."

"We'll see. I'll have Hogarth draw up a list of items that we're willing to sell to S.H.I.E.L.D. Don't bother getting your hopes up. We won't sell you any supersoldier-formula's." the Enhanced said, clearly still wary of any hidden traps, but unable to come up with a better alternative on the spot, not when they could both see the small army of goverment spooks standing on the ruined street, staring at the burnt-out husk of Titan Solutions with barely concealed greed.

"Fair enough. Like you said, we'll see." Fury replied easily.

"You mentioned information. What did you have in mind?"

"Like I said, nothing much. I can tell you're not exactly, chomping at the bit, to break open that treasure hoard of yours. So, we'll keep things nice and slow at first. Let's begin with this one: what's with the dinosaur?"

Now that was a line he never expected he'd ever have to say. When one of his Agents burst into his office with her phone in her hands and a bewildered expression on her face, he was ready to sternly remind her of what proper decorum was: not barging into your superior's office when he was preparing to go off and do some much needed damage control, for starters.

Then she showed him a trending video of a motherfucking T-Rex of all things running out of Titan Solutions and breathing motherfucking fire at one of the cars, setting it alight before the returning fire from the attackers wounded it, forcing it back inside.

He would never admit it, but for a few moments his face had mirrored his Agent's confused expression, before he managed to school it into a neutral one, already imagining the headache he would get once the public debate really started to get going, after people overcame their shock and fully comprehended the fact that dinosaurs were no longer extinct.

"Science experiment. Next question." McCole said gruffly, and it was only his great experience in the field that allowed Fury to keep his irritation from showing in his expression or tone of voice.

"You know what? Fine. I don't even want to deal with dinosaurs right now. Instead, let's talk about who the motherfuckers are, that thought shooting up your building was a good idea? Because, I couldn't help but notice, those are Wakandan weapons out there. What happened McCole? You pissed off a couple of people over there or something?"

Fury knew that McCole had been to Wakanda during the old regime, when it was still closed off to the world. He also knew that McCole had travelled there with Ulysses Klaue and JSOC-agent by the name of Erik Stevens, though he now went by the name of N'Jadaka, King of Wakanda. What Fury didn't know however, was what the hell had happened in the previously isolationist region that had left the ex-Navy Seal the King of the most advanced country in the world and it's prince T'Challa in some sort of shadow war against his cousin.

"Or something." The giant rumbled, eyes narrowed as he took in Fury's words.

The Director could tell that McCole wasn't buying it however; he clearly thought someone other than his former ally had been behind the attack. Well, Klaue was still unaccounted for, and he had shown in the past that he was capable of stealing from Wakanda… Something to look into, Fury thought to himself.

"Really? You goin' to keep quiet on all of this shit?" Fury said grimly, and this time a bit of his frustration leaked through in his voice, though McCole didn't seem to be at all bothered by it.

"It's my fight, Fury. I'll take care of it."

"All right. I could go on and on about how running off to get revenge is just a dumbass thing to do in general, but I can tell you're just gonna ignore me anyway. So let's save the both of us some time instead and just skip that whole part. Let's try something else then, something small. Like what the hell you did to Agent Carter."

"Agent Carter? She back in the field already? Damn, Fury, didn't think you'd stoop to recruiting little old ladies like that." McCole said with a wry grin, clearly trying to get a rise of out Fury.

Unfortunately for the behemoth, Fury had been dealing with Stark for years, meaning it would take a lot more than some teasing to get him flustered these days.

Though he had to admit, seeing a fucking dinosaur today had come pretty close.

"Well, normally I wouldn't. But then again, normally, most ninety year old ladies aren't fit enough to knock out one of my people with a single punch, when they try to keep her from entering a supposedly hidden safe house. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

It was clear that McCole was extremely reluctant with the idea of sharing even a single one of his mysterious secrets, but it was also clear that he disliked the idea of fighting for his tech (and possibly his life) against all of the agencies, that were currently being manhandled away from the scene by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, even more.

Of course, had the man not been somewhat frazzled from the intense battle he had just gone through, then his calmer mind might have come up with alternative solutions, but at the moment he was just distracted enough to be manipulated by Fury to the extent that he would consider a tentative alliance.

Which was the whole reason why the Director decided to approach the Enhanced right now, before he had a chance to recollect himself.

"Fine. My people have discovered a way to repair the human body on a scale that until now had been thought to be impossible. I used that in order to "repair" all the wear and tear of Mrs. Carter's aged body. Essentially, I "fixed" her old age by healing her to the healthiest she has ever been in her life." the giant told him reluctantly.

Fury immediately noticed that the only question McCole had answered so far had been one that Fury already had some information on, but at the moment there was no real way to call the CEO out on it. At least what he said confirmed Sharon Carter's report, though she had mentioned that McCole had used three serums, one of which had contained the cure for Alzheimer's. Fury suspected that both cures were in some way connected, probably to the same thing that had given some of the workers in Titan Solutions their legs back.

Now if only he could convince McCole to share that technology with S.H.I.E.L.D… the amount of Agents whose lives could be saved… But asking for that now would be pushing the man too hard, so it was best to back off for a bit, and once negations were fully underway, to slowly start pushing for it.

"Anything else?" McCole drawled in a sarcastic tone, and Fury couldn't quite stop himself from giving the man a wry grin.

"For now. We'll keep in contact with you, Mr. McCole. You don't have to worry about your people or your tech for the moment. S.H.I.E.L.D. will take care of it."

"And doesn't that just give me the fuzzies." McCole growled as Fury turned around, walking away as he stuffed his hands inside his coat, his own tone easily matching the giant's sarcasm (something he mastered after years of dealing with Tony Stark).

"You're very welcome. We're just happy to help. By the way, have you thought of a name yet?"

"A name? I already got one, what the hell do I need another name for?"

Half-turning in order to peer at the man from over his shoulder, Fury's smirk widened just the slightest amount.

"I don't mean your real name, McCole. I meant your codename. What do you want people to start calling you?"

"I'm telling you, I don't need another name. I ain't a goddamned superhero, I ain't got some secret identity I need to keep safe or a stupid mask on my face, I'm just me." The CEO of Titan Solutions growled out in annoyance, causing Fury to shake his head in amusement.

"Not a superhero? Neither was Ivan Vanko, but the news ended up calling him Whiplash all the same. Same goes for Blonsky, everyone started calling him the Abomination. And I think that the name Iron Man is more famous than the name Tony Stark at the moment. But, what are they going to end up calling you? You better come up with something, McCole, because I guarantee you that if you don't, they will."

With that last piece of advice said, Fury started walking away again, glad to finally get out of the sweltering heat of the ruined building. He had accomplished his goals here since he had suspected from the beginning that he wouldn't be able to get McCole to trust him fully, which is why he hadn't pushed for cooperation all that much. A simple exchange of material and information would do. For now.

So on to the next fire it was.

Before he had fully exited the building though, McCole's rumbling bass called out to him, halting him in his tracks.

"Hyperion!"

Turning around with a questioning look, he saw the giant man cross his arms in front of his chest again, giving an impressive scowl as his eyes burned like embers.

"They will call me Hyperion."

Giving a nod and a small smirk, Fury turned back towards his ride, before McCole's voice once more halted him in his tracks.

"Fury! Be careful of who you trust. There's monsters hiding in the shadows, you know. They're really persistent fuckers too: every time you behead them, they just come back twice as bad as before."

Trying his best to ignore the cold chill that shot up his spine at those ominous words, Fury simply gave a quick nod, showing he had understood the man's cryptic message, before he continued walking towards the black SUV that was already waiting for him. It wasn't the first time he had received a dire warning (in his line of business they were about as common as talks about the weather or something), but if McCole had meant what Fury suspected he did...

As his mind kept re-examining what the Enhanced told him, he idly noted all the Agents that were running around, securing the futuristic weaponry in large cases, emblazoned with the proud eagle of S.H.I.E.L.D. on their lids, suits from the CIA, NSA and FBI looking on in helpless fury as the advanced tech was snatched out from under their noses.

As he got inside the SUV, giving directions as he sat down in the backseat, Fury's mind kept on rolling McCole's words over in his head, before he decided to shelve it for now. There was hardly anything he could enact at the moment: he'd need to talk to a couple of people before he even begin formulating a plan of action, a recently reinstated top-Agent coming to mind. Instead, he thought about the codename the CEO had given him, unknowingly giving a small grin of approval as he glanced back at the burnt out building.

'The Titan of Light and Fire, huh? Dramatic enough, I suppose. Well then, let's see what you're going to do in retaliation, McCole. Who do you think is responsible for the attack? I got some ideas, especially after you gave me yor message, but I'm curious who you're going to go after. No way in hell a guy with a name like Hyperion is going to let this attack go unanswered.'

Twenty minutes after the Massacre
Pain lancing through her skull with every heartbeat, Jeri Hogarth, legal advisor to the famous Titan Solutions company, grasped at her phone with trembling hands, her fingers, slick with blood, sliding over the smooth glass every time she tried using the damned thing.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, she managed to hit the call button, sliding down the marred wall of her office she had been leaning against until she was sitting on the floor, heedless of the way her clothes rumpled around her as she stared at the corpse on the other side of the room.

It took six rings before the holographic screen lit up, and the exhausted face of Michael McCole, the CEO of Titan Solutions stared back at her. She saw his burning eyes widen in confusion when he took in her blood-splattered appearance, his mouth falling open in shock.

Jeri herself felt dull surprise as well, though it was probably the shock she was currently in that kept her from currently experiencing any intenser emotions. Her eye flitting to the corpse that was still bleeding out on her floor, Jeri decided that she was rather grateful for that.

"Jeri?! Fucking hell, Jeri what happened?!"

Focusing back on the holographic screen in her hand, the lawyer tried to put her scrambled thoughts in order, deciding to ignore Michael's burning surroundings for the moment.

"An assassin… I was just looking over the reports you sent me on my computer, when I hear my window open behind me… and I turn around and all I see is this flash of steel… his sword bounced off my neck, Michael, it just bounced straight off…" Jeri tried to explain, but her mind felt like it was stuffed with wool and she noticed with a small part of irritation that her hands were still shaking.

Looking at them with a frown, the lawyer almost missed Michael's hurried questions, focusing back on his words with a monumental amount of effort.

"Jeri, please! I need you to tell me what happened, beginning to end, all right? Walk me through it Jeri, you can do it."

Taking a deep breath, Jeri tried to think back to the events that had happened mere minutes ago, resolutely keeping her eye averted from the cooling corpse across from her.

//

Honestly, it had felt just like any other day for her: there was nothing about it that tipped Jeri Hogarth off to the fact that someone would be trying to cut her head off today. No, for now, all she was doing was sitting behind her desk, as usual, working her way through a dozen emails, as usual, and bemoaning the fact that, despite the fact that she was working in one of the most respected law firms in New York City, the machine on her floor still poured coffee that tasted like dirt, as usual.

Of course, what happened next was as far from the usual as you could possibly get, and considering the man she worked for, that was saying quite a lot.

She was just taking a sip from the godawful coffee (just because it tasted like dirt didn't mean that she wouldn't drink it. She had grown up with far worse, after all) when she heard a soft noise behind her, like an echo of a whisper almost.

Placing her mug on her desk as she half-turned in her seat, all that Jeri saw were a flutter of darkened cloth and the shine of steel descending towards her neck.

Now, Jeri Hogarth was a self-made woman, someone who had crawled and clawed her way from the bottom all the way to the top, fighting each and every day to cast off her poor beginnings in her quest for power and control.

As such, she was a person who despised procrastinating.

So, when the madman she worked for told her that he had a method that made her completely invulnerable to conventional weaponry, she had pressed him in order to perform the procedure on her that very same day.

She had declined his combat augmentation on the grounds that she didn't really see much use for it (and she didn't quite like the idea of her eyes burning like Michael's did), though she acquiesced to the intelligence enhancer, since eidetic memory sounded like a godsend in her line of work.

But being protected from all harm, even car crashes if what Michael promised her was true? Her entire career, her entire life had been focused on acquiring power as a means of protecting herself, and here this man could achieve something far more tangible in a day?

All of it meant that when the sharpened edge of the steel blade met the soft skin of her neck, the blade lost.

The sword bouncing off her with a dull clanging sound, both Jeri and her masked attacker were frozen for just a second, her scared eyes meeting his surprised ones.

Of course, this couldn't last, his experience snapping him from his shock, while Jeri's Brain Booster made her fast enough on the uptake to jump away from the assassin as he swung again.

The blade barely missed her, cutting through her jacket as the wide swing ended up burying the sword deep into her desk. Breathing heavily, time seemed to slow down around her as she saw her attacker rip the blade from her desk with an ease that showcased an enormous amount of hidden strength.

For all that she was now superhumanly durable and strong, she wasn't a fighter, other than the pepperspray she kept in her bag. Unfortunately, Jeri didn't think that a can of mace would be sufficient in warding off what appeared to be one of those honest to God ninjas that Michael had been warning her about, and she was even less confident in her ability to overpower the assassin.

So she ran away instead.

Or tried to, at least.

She felt something slam into her back with enough force to imbalance her mid-run, forcing her to the ground, though whatever had smashed into her gave a wheezing grunt as they collided.

Looking over her shoulder, Jeri saw that the ninja had tackled her to the ground, but judging by the way his hand briefly flew to his shoulder, he had broken something when they smashed into each other.

Not surprising, considering that he might as well have run into a brick wall.

Still, he was already on his feet, while she had just worked herself to her knees, and once again the blade came down on her exposed neck. She could hear the assassin give an angered growl as his sword once more failed to even scratch her, before she managed to straighten herself somewhat.

Just in time to see him perform a roundhouse kick that wouldn't be out of place in one of those kung-fu movies her brothers used to watch all the time. The moccasin-clad foot descended towards her face at breakneck speeds and-

"Aargghh!"

-broke with a wet crunching sound on her chin, the assassin taken off guard enough that he let out a strangled scream of pain, jumping away from her as he threw a brace of knives at her, all of them cutting through her clothing only to bounce off her skin.

Working herself to her feet, Jeri took a few deep, gulping breaths as she stared at her assailant across the room, who was carefully keeping his weight off of his broken foot, though his eyes stared unwaveringly into her own.

Feeling a bit more self-assured, Jeri squared up, her fists raised in front of her as she stared the trained killer down. Now, the lawyer might not have been a fighter, but she had grown up with three older brothers, and was now faced with someone who literally couldn't even scratch her.

'Right. I can do this. All I need to do is land one punch, or even just give him a really hard push, and then I can make my way out of here. Michael said these ninja-wannabe's are part of some sort of hidden shadow organization, so if I go out in the open, he'll probably be forced to back off. Now, I'll advance towards his right side, since that side is probably weaker because of his broken foot, and then I'll-'

Jeri's thoughts were halted in their tracks by the sound of the door to her office opening, and as she watched, she could see the assassin's eyes move towards something ('no, someone') behind her, one of his hands already dashing inside the loose vest he wore.

"Jeri, what's going on-"

Turning around with a horrified expression, Jeri tried to run towards Pam, a warning already tearing from her throat, but she knew she was too late when she saw several blades fly past her head, two of them striking her girlfriend in the chest, a third one slamming into the blonde's abdomen.

She was dead before she even hit the ground.

Skidding to a halt on her knees next to her downed lover, Jeri tried to do whatever she could for the woman, even though intellectually she knew that Pam was already gone.

Blinking tears from her eyes, the lawyer completely forgot about her assailant as she tried to put pressure on Pam's wounds, the young woman's dress already being covered in an ever-expanding pool of blood.

And then her would-be murderer made his presence known once again by placing a plastic bag over her head.

While her skin might be indestructible, her insides were decidedly not, meaning that while she could withstand bullet-impacts and sword slashes just fine, she still needed to breathe.

How her attacker had figured it out so soon she didn't know, but at the moment her mind was far too overcome with panic and grief to really bother thinking about it, so instead she simply surged to her feet, trying to head-butt the man trying to choke her.

The ninja wasn't caught off guard however, leaning backwards every time Jeri tried to strike at him with her head or with her elbows, easily staying out of her reach while he kept the pressure on the bag.

One of Jeri's hands came up to tear at the thick plastic, but her fingers kept scrabbling across the smooth surface, and before she could find any proper grip, she could feel the assassin giving a harsh tug on the bag, unbalancing her and nearly forcing her off her feet.

So Jeri did the next best thing she could think of through the haze of panic that strangled her advanced mind.

She began running backwards.

She could tell that the assassin was taken off guard, and trying to keep up with her desperate charge, but the suddenness of her attack combined with his broken foot meant that she managed to crash into him.

She kept on running.

The assassin clearly caught on to what she attempted to do, based on his increased struggles, but it turned out to be futile, in between the rather modest size of Jeri's office, the speed of her charge and her enhanced strength.

In the span of mere moments, she had slammed into the wall of her office with a massive cracking sound, the assassin caught between unforgiving concrete and the even more durable body of Jeri Hogarth. As she felt the man's grip on the bag lessen, her hands came up, ripping it off her head as she took in several long, deep gulps of air.

It turned out to be just enough time for the assassin to regain his senses, because as she whirled around with her elbow coming up to strike at him, he had already moved to the side, letting Jeri's elbow slam into the concrete next to his battered torso, shattering the stone with the force of her attack.

Jeri tried to turn her failed elbow-strike into a wild hay-maker, certain that with how close the two of them were standing now (almost chest to chest, in fact) she would inevitably end up hitting some part of the battered assassin, which would be enough to force him to the ground and allow her to splatter his brains across her carpet.

However, their close range turned against her when the ninja still proved to be the better fighter of the two when a blade slipped into his hand, which came up in a flash right as she was about to take a swing, a white-hot burning pain suddenly lancing through her skull.

Jeri let out a pained scream as she took a few stumbling steps back, one hand clutching her right eye, a small knife showing underneath her clenched fingers. Even through the inferno of pain she felt roaring inside her brain, her other eye caught the interest and understanding that showed in the assassin's gaze, a second blade falling in his hands as he leaned forwards.

There was a flash of light as the sun struck the metal of the blade shooting towards her face-

'clang!'

-before her left hand closed around the weapon, stopping the ninja dead in his tracks, the straining metal of his blade scraping against her skin without any effect. Even as the man tried to recover, there was a disgusting wet tearing sound, before Jeri's right hand came up, clutching the handle of the first blade, the metal covered in gore, which she buried in her assailant's left shoulder with a hate-filled snarl.

The ninja gave a surprised grunt as he was jerked back a bit from the strength of Jeri's sudden attack, before the one-eyed lawyer suddenly let go of the other blade, her fist shooting forwards and crashing straight into the assassin's chest, throwing him back several feet until he crashed against her windows, cracking them and falling to the ground with a pained grunt.

But Jeri wasn't paying attention to the man anymore, sinking to her knees while both hands were clasped over the mangled ruin that used to be her right eye, a pained screamed tearing from the usually stoic woman's throat.

Slowly, oh so very slowly, Jeri removed her bloodied hands from the gaping wound, the regeneration factor the Amber Armor gave her making itself known as the unbearable pain lessened somewhat, to the point that the woman could finally string together a coherent thought.

Grasping the crumbling concrete next to her, Jeri pulled herself to her feet, wary of another attack, before she managed to wipe away the tears in her remaining eye (unknowingly smearing her face even further with blood) and saw that the assassin had left, a thin trail of blood leading from underneath the cracked window to the one that stood open, where he had entered her office in the first place.

With adrenaline still roaring through her veins, Jeri gave a choked sob, fumbling in her pocket for the phone that Michael had given her, trying her best to not look at the cooling corpse of her girlfriend that was lying across the room from her.

She needed to call Michael.

He would know what to do.

He would know who had to die.

//

After haltingly telling Michael what had happened, she saw him frown in concern, even as her hearing picked up hurried footsteps coming from the hallway. Seemed like someone finally decided to investigate the strange noises that had come from her office.

"Jeri, I promise I'll come by as soon as I can, all right? For now, please just stay put, don't go home. If the assassin was bold enough to attack you at work, then he'll definitely be bold enough to attack you in your home as well. At least at work, you'll be out in the open, making it more difficult for him to strike again. I'll send two body guards over right away, all right?"

Jeri, her right eye held closed while that side of her face was splattered with blood, looked at the concerned face of Michael projected from her phone, and felt unease twist inside her gut.

She didn't like the idea of remaining out here in the open, surrounded by innocents (her eyes remained resolutely fixed on the screen in her lap) when there were clearly fucking ninja out there trying to kill her. Still, what Michael had said made some sense at least, and she couldn't deny that the idea of having two people from his security watching over her gave her a small sense of comfort, so she gave a curt nod nonetheless.

She opened her mouth to speak, but right at that moment she saw Michael stiffen, and his eyes flit to the side, as if he was caught off guard by something off screen.

"I've got to go now, Jeri. Just trust me, okay? It'll be all right, I'm gonna make sure of it."

"Fine. Stay safe."

"You too."

With that the connection went silent, and with a shaky sigh she let the bloodied plate of glass slip from her trembling fingers, tilting her head back as she just stared at the ceiling above her.

She knew that she should be on her feet, trying to do damage control after Michael had briefly told her what had happened on his end. His fight had been very public and was likely being televised even now, with everyone desperate for their five minutes of fame appearing on screen in order to share their thoughts on what had happened as so called "experts", just like it had been when those two gamma-monsters had fought in Harlem.

But she couldn't move. She just remained sitting in place, the back of her head resting against the cool concrete of her ruined office wall, a trail of blood slowly dripping from the gaping wound down her cheek like a twisted mirror of the tear tracks her other eye were making, all the while simply staring at her ceiling.

She remained in that position, even as she heard a horrified gasp coming from her office door.

She remained in that position, even as the security from her company burst into the office, looking around bewildered as they took in the damage and one of them gagging when they saw the body of Pam lying on the floor.

She remained in that position, even when Michael's guys came in, both of them faintly smelling of smoke and not saying a word, one going over to stand in front of the window, the other walking over to stand next to her seated from.

She remained in that position, and all she could think about was one thing, repeating itself over and over and over again in her mind, like a broken record as it kept looping in on itself.

'I'm going to kill the Hand.'

Four hours after the Massacre
"New York, and indeed, the world, was shocked today, as the city is being struck by waves of violence and crime. Gangs with advanced weaponry have been reported all over the city, and in one place in particular, tragedy occurred. At roughly three pm today, a column of cars parked in front of the Titan Solutions building, and opened fire, doing massive amounts of damage. There is currently no information available on what caused such a violent attack, but the world has seen how it was ended."

Sitting on the side of a bed in a non-descript motel a few hours outside New York, Jessica Jones felt oddly hollow as she stared at the old TV in their room, where some news lady she didn't bother to remember the name of was staring in the camera with a carefully practised expression of concern.

After the woman finished her little intro, the scene switched to something she had re-watched a dozen times today already. It was footage taken from a news chopper, and it showed a line of cars opening fire on the workshop, each shot taking out worryingly large gaps of decennia old brick and mortar.

On a banner in the bottom of the screen, the words 'Caution: the following images are graphic and may be found disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.' kept on rolling past.

For once in her life, Jessica didn't scoff at the message, as she looked on how a man wielding what appeared to be a fucking cannon aimed his monstrosity at the front of the building, and with a blinding shot, punched an enormous hole straight through it.

And things just kept on getting worse from there, as little Susan busted down the door of the warehouse in her charge at the nearest car, proudly showing off both her existence and ability to breath fire to the entire world as she managed to set the vehicle alight.

Despite the shock that most of the attackers felt at being suddenly confronted with a fire breathing dinosaur, some of them proved to be quick on the uptake, taking aim at the little lizard that Jessica had secretly grown quite fond of during the dino's short existence.

A few shots later (and Jessica could almost swear that she heard Susan's pained cries over the television) and the bleeding dinosaur ran back inside, while the attackers kept on tearing at the wall of the workshop, punching enormous holes in it.

From what little she could tell from the angle the news chopper was at, the people still inside the now burning building were running around and trying to evacuate, rather than attack, even though it was likely to end in their favour due to their powers.

But outside of those few people that were ex-army or had worked in security, most of the people in there were just civilians, and like all civilians, they panicked when they suddenly found themselves under heavy artillery fire out of nowhere.

One of Michael's people chose to buy his colleagues time, and burst through the weakened wall like a human sized wrecking ball, running towards one of the cars, shouldering an attacker out of the way with enough force to send the man flying several feet.

Shots kept impacting him, tearing away at his shirt and jeans, but the man (and to her hidden shame, she just couldn't remember his name) soldiered his way through them with a grimace and when he finally got close enough to one of the cars, punched straight through the hood of the vehicle, his fist disappearing into its engine block.

For a moment nothing happened, before the front of the car exploded, throwing everyone around it to the ground, including the man that had worked for Michael. Being closer to the blast and weakened from the earlier shots, the man was slower than the attackers in working himself to his feet.

Before he could fully get up, one of the enemies' grunts wielding a heavy rifle ran up to him, placed the barrel of his weapon almost flush against his head, and pulled the trigger.

Again and again and again and again, even as he was joined by three of his colleagues, the man's head disappearing in a shower of gunfire and broken tarmac.

Even before the dust settled, Jessica knew that the man was dead, and without even thinking about it, she crushed the beer can in her hands into a flattened disk, though her expression hardly even changed.

Still, cooler heads prevailed, since the footage was high enough that it managed to capture people escaping through the back of the warehouse, a man she thought was Burstein clearly directing people outside, based on his wide and frantic gestures.

And then things got even worse.

Michael arrived.

The way the footage was shot meant that there was no view on the opposite side of street where the Titan Solutions warehouse had stood, since that had been directly underneath the helicopter. Meaning that out of nowhere, a burning blur descended from the sky, suddenly crashing into one of the cars in the column and crushing it underneath its weight.

As the fire-wreathed being straightened up from its crouch, Jessica got her first good look at Michael McCole when the man was pushed to beyond his limits, his burning eyes managing to be intimidating even through the footage taken from several stories up, and shown through a dingy TV.

What happened next could only be called a slaughter.

Michael moved fast enough at points that the camera had trouble keeping up with him, and each strike was lethal, picking up and wielding cars as if they were made of paper, even breathing a fucking inferno at his enemies.

All the while his suit kept burning up around him, making it appear at times as if he was made from flames, and shrugging off weapons that had been shown to be capable of demolishing an entire fucking building.

As she kept on watching with a flat stare while Michael kept burning people alive around him, standing in a pool of lava and with a blinding white-hot glow coming from his body, uttering a roar that she felt even through the TV, she could hear someone walk up to her, though her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

Right until someone used the remote to shut it off. Glancing to her side, she saw Sterns standing next to her, a worried look on his misshapen face as he looked at her.

"Jessica, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She said quickly.

Too quickly.

Trying (and failing) to ignore Sterns' knowing look, she reached out with her hand, stubbornly keeping it outstretched as she stared at the now blank TV until she heard a sigh coming from the scientist, and felt the weight of the remote being placed in her hand.

"It's going to be all right, Jess. We took a hit, yes that much is true. We lost some of our people, we lost our building, we even lost some of our secrets, now that Susan is known to the world. But we can come back from this. We can fix this Jessica."

Jessica couldn't help but give out a harsh bark of laughter, even as she clicked the TV back on, though she was secretly thankful that the footage of Michael's rampage had been replaced with the annoying news lady from before, who was now talking to a team of "experts" on what this new development meant for the world and all that kind of pretentious shit.

As if any of them knew what it was like to live with powers in a world that was just so… fragile.

"What's there to fix? The fact that some of our people are dead? The fact that our boss is an unstoppable murderer? Or maybe the fact that his little killing spree is being shown on national television?"

Shooting Sterns a heavy glare as she reached over for another beer can, she angrily shook her head.

"There's nothing to fix, Sterns. We're fucked. We're all fucked."

Taking a gulp of the cheap beer, Jessica tried to ignore the weight that settled on the bed next to her, stubbornly staring ahead as she and Sterns sat side by side. The mutated scientist remained silent for a few moments, before she saw him looking at her from the corner of her eye, a surprisingly gentle look on his face.

In all the time that she had known him, the word that would best describe the mad scientist would be "excitable". He always had this gleam in his eye when he looked at the world around him, a massive grin on his face whenever he was working on some advance piece of technology decades ahead of its time.

So the man having a gentle look on his face took her off guard for a moment, something which she would later end up blaming her reluctant openness on.

"Jessica. What's going on? What happened was bad, yes, really bad. But you're one of the toughest people I know, and that's coming from the guy whose best friend once asked him to lace his bones with an indestructible metal."

Despite herself, a small grin came to Jessica's face as she heard the exasperation in Sterns' voice, looking down at the can in her lap as she fiddled with its lid.

"You really aren't ever going to let that go, aren't you?"

"Nope. Never. Someone needs to keep that oaf in line sometimes." Sterns said with a small laugh in his voice, before the sombre mood from before returned as he trailed off.

"So, what is it? It's alright to talk about it, you know? I know that bottling things up might seem preferable, but trust me when I say that in the long run, sharing how you feel really does help. And yes, hearing myself speak does make me realize how incredibly corny that sounds." Sterns idly told her, prompting another bleak smile from her.

"It is very corny, yes."

"Not untrue though."

For a few moments, silence fell between them as Sterns was willing to wait for her to start talking if she wanted to. She debated it for a few moments, knowing that the scientist wouldn't hold it against her if she decided not to take him up his offer, but when she caught yet another rerun from the massacre on the TV from the corner of her eyes, the dam broke.

"It's just that… I know he's stronger than me. Have ever since I began working for him. I could feel his strength when we arm-wrestled, so it's not a surprise or something. But that much stronger… I'm pretty sure I could lift, like, a car above my head, but to throw it around like it was a fucking toy or something… to crush someone with it…"

"Is that what is bothering you? The difference in strength between you?"

"You know what, sure, let's go with that."

"All right."

And with that, they fell silent again, the only noise in the room the TV across from them. At any moment, Jessica expected the scientist to start prodding her again, to call her out on her obvious lie, but he just remained quiet next to her, not pushing her at all.

Which just made it all the harder for Jessica to keep quiet as well.

Finally she gave out a sigh as she cursed the well-meaning scientist in her mind, before turning slightly on the bed in order to face him a bit better, her hands still playing around with the can she held in her lap.

"I mean, it's not that. It's… It's that I thought I knew him, you know? We laughed together, we drank together, we joked together and then just… then suddenly, one day he shows up on the news, killing people!"

Giving an understanding nod, Sterns clasped his hands together as he looked at her with earnest eyes.

"But you knew that he was planning on killing the Hand and Hydra didn't you? He told all of us about the dangers of those organizations, but he really only talked about possible countermeasures with me, Burstein, a few people in Security, and you."

"Well, yeah, but that was just… theoretical. I've never seen him actually kill someone before. Hell, I've never seen anyone kill anyone before!"

"I see. I'm sorry to say this Jessica, but that's just the reality of the situation. It sounds harsh, I know, but it is how it is. Michael is upsetting the current status quo something fierce, pushing boundaries everywhere he goes. It was simply inevitable that someone ended up pushing back."

"I understand that. A bit, I guess. Doesn't change the fact that the man I work for is now on every goddamned news station and internet page, setting people on fire with his bare hands and just generally looking like a demon from hell or something."

"Yes. That does complicate things, I agree."

For a moment neither one talked, both just going over the events of the day in the privacy of their mind, before Jessica looked at the sombre scientist sitting next to her.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yes?"

"You know Michael the longest. Have you ever seen him k-… do that before?"

Sterns looked extremely uncomfortable at her sudden question and for a moment Jessica thought the scientist would refuse to answer, before the eggheaded man gave out a tired sigh.

"Yes. I have seen him kill before. Not on this scale, however."

The answer made her feel… made her feel…. Made her feel what, exactly? Betrayed? Sad? Disappointed? Hell if she knew, but she was fairly certain that whatever emotions she was currently feeling, she didn't like a single one of them.

"What happened?"

The scientist gave a grimace of discomfort, but he answered her question nonetheless.

"We were in South-Africa, on our way to Johannesburg in Oliver. We were a few hours outside the city, when a couple of cars jumped out of the underbrush on the sides of the road. There were six of them, and they boxed us in, waving machine guns at us as they screamed to stop the truck. Michael told me to do as they said, so I did and then I hid underneath the dashboard. I can't tell you exactly what happened next, but there was a lot of screaming, people firing guns, and the sound of several car collisions. When everything turned quiet, I got out of the cabin and he… he had killed most of them, set a part of the road on fire."

Giving a slow nod at the scientist's story, Jessica turned back to the TV again, though she hardly registered what it was showing as she kept going over Sterns' words inside her mind.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

It was only when she heard Sterns' question that she realized that she had been the one to speak first, and gripping her beer a bit tighter, she forged on.

"Why does he react like that? I get that he was trying to save people, I do. I understand that when you're faced with people like that, it's either them or you. But that… what Michael did… there's just so much… rage…"

Sterns seemed to fumble for an answer, before his shoulders slumped somewhat as he looked at her with a tired, bleak little smile.

"Tell me Jessica. Do you know what Michael is afraid of the most?"

For a moment, the very idea that the giant of a man, the same man who had thrown around cars like they were made of cardboard, was afraid of anything at all was so absurd that she nearly let out a laugh, despite the gloomy mood that hang over the cramped room.

But she could tell that the scientist was completely serious, so she reigned in her incredulous response and tried to think of the answer. When nothing came to her, she just shrugged as she looked at Sterns with a raised eyebrow.

"I dunno. What's he afraid of?"

"Death."

"…"

"…"

"Death?"

"Yes."

"You're shitting me."

"No, I'm completely serious."

"Really? Death?"

Giving a nod at her incredulous look, Sterns elaborated.

"He hasn't told me so, and he won't ever admit it, but Michael's absolutely terrified at the thought of dying. I've been around him for a year Jessica, and his every waking moment is spent trying to find ways to become more powerful."

"Doesn't that just make him greedy though?"

"I thought so too at first. But then I thought at how he was acquiring that power. He wasn't going around gathering people under his banner, or trying to make allies. He only started up Titan Solutions after he gained his current powers. No, every move he made, was to enhance himself. To make himself safer."

"I don't get it."

"I always joke about the time he asked me to lace his bones with Vibranium, but really think about it Jessica. Think about why someone would be so desperate, that he's willing to undergo massive amounts of experimental and invasive surgery, in order to have an indestructible skeleton, despite the fact that he already has superstrength and an incredible healing factor. And that's not even considering the fact that he made a beeline from the heart of Africa to Burstein's home in order to be made bulletproof on top of that. Every single move that I have seen Michael make, was in order to make himself stronger, more powerful, more durable."

"All right. I can see it. Weird, but I get what you're getting at. But how does that answer my question?"'

"Because on both occasions, the things that he needs in order to become more powerful were threatened. Without me, he would have torn his own body apart long ago, with all the different means he keeps enhancing himself with. Without Titan Solutions backing him, he's just one man, and considering who some of his enemies are, being on your own is tantamount to being 'disappeared' in the middle of the night."

As she went over Sterns' words, she could finally identify one of the emotions she was currently feeling. Yep, there's that familiar sour taste of disappointment, something that she knew all too well unfortunately.

"So the only reason he went flying off the handle like that was because we're useful enough to him to be protected? Figures."

It was only once the words had left her mouth that she realized just how bitter they sounded, but Sterns just looked at her with a gentle smile and a small shake of his head.

"Not what I meant, Jessica. Or at least, not entirely. He has several serums inside of him which in any other person before him have shown to lead to mental instabilities. It was only after our trip to Wakanda that his psyche settled somewhat, and I used what I learned from his body to make Extremis safe enough to the point that such a thing is no longer a danger, and we don't plan on enhancing people with gamma-radiation period. But despite the fact that he's now a lot calmer than he used to be, he still has those old triggers and altered impulses. And when they are brought up as strongly as they were during that attack… well, I think it's debatable just how much of that was Michael and how much of that was… something darker."

"So what you're actually saying is… what?"

"We're working for a dick."

The blunt reply took her off guard, and before she could stop herself she let out a surprised laugh, quickly joined by Sterns' chuckling, before the scientist looked at her with a small smile.

"But, he's also someone that cares about us. In his own, dickish way, of course."

"Of course." Jessica replied wryly, getting a wink from Sterns in response.

Though she hated to admit it, even to herself, the scientist had turned out to be right: their little talk had left her feeling a bit better. Her emotions were still all over the place (though she'd die before she'd ever admit it), and she still wasn't completely sure how her thoughts about Michael had changed, but at least she had calmed down enough to the point that she decided to not worry about it for the moment.

When they returned to New York, then she and Michael would talk, but for now she still had a job to do.

Right as she thought that, she could hear the door to their room open and close again, heavy footsteps making their way towards where she and Sterns were sitting on one of the two beds.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Jim Harper, head of Security, approach them, his face impassive as it always was, his booted feet thudding against the carpet as he made his way over to the bed as well, where he sat down on Sterns other side.

"Done with your perimeter check then?"

"Yes ma'am." Came the dry response, and Jessica couldn't quite help herself from rolling her eyes at the stoic sixty year old (though he looked not a day over thirty).

The man was as emotive as a brick wall, and had a sense of humour to match. Still, he was dependable enough that Michael had given him multiple enhancements straight off the bat, and he had proven himself during their little road trip, so Jessica had decided to give the man some slack.

"All right then. Shall we call Michael now?" Sterns asked them, getting a 'yes sir' from Harper and a grunt and a shrug from her.

Reaching into his pocket, Sterns took out a slim piece of glass, opening the holographic interface with a flick of his finger. Quickly selecting Michael's contact, the phone connected with a few sharp rings before their boss answered, his exhausted face filling the small screen.

"Oh good, you called. I assume you've seen the news by now?"

"Yeah, we did. How is it going over there? Hang on, let me put you on viewing mode."

And with that, Sterns flicked his thumb up, sending the small screen flying upwards from the glass plate, hovering a foot away from them and three feet off the ground. Another finger flick, and the screen enlarged until it was larger than the TV in their room, like a slightly translucent flatscreen just hanging in the air.

"So, what's going on?"

Michael gave a deep sigh in response, as one massive hand came up to rub his face, before he placed his chin on his fist, fixing them with a flat stare.

"Honestly, better than expected, worse than I'd hoped. Finished going through the rubble of the warehouse, salvaged what we could. The police is keeping the journalists at bay, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing the same to all the other suits that want our tech for themselves, so on that front we're doing all right for now. It's more that we're floundering for what to do next. On the one hand, I want to tell people that they should go home to their families, but on the other hand, I need people here in order to keep guard over everything we salvaged, which I can't place in a secure location at the moment, since we're holed up in a hotel right now. I'm thinking about buying another warehouse for the time being, while we start building a fortified base somewhere, but that kinda shit takes time to process. Especially now that Hogarth's out of action. Her team is picking up her workload, but honestly she was better than them even before we enhanced her, so-"

"Wait, what do you mean, Hogarth's out of action?" Sterns asked with a bewildered expression.

"She got attacked Sterns. An assassin, sent by the Hand to take her head off. Got the surprise of his life when his sword didn't even manage to cut her."

"Is Hogarth all right?" Jessica asked in a worried tone, shoving her complicated thoughts about the man on the screen to the side for now.

"… No. Not really, no. The ninja figured out pretty quickly that only her skin is superdurable, so he took out one of her eyes."

"But she's got regeneration right? The eye will grow back, right?" Jessica asked.

While she wasn't exactly close to the hardass lawyer, she still respected the woman due to the fact that she had taken the plans of a small group of supergeniuses and used them to stamp a mutli-billion corporation out of the ground, practically overnight.

The fact that she was somewhat infamous within the ranks of Titan Solutions for taking no shit from anyone, not even Michael, meant that the lady was all right as far as Jessica was concerned.

"Yeah, the eye is growing back, but the damage was massive, so it's unclear whether or not it'll heal completely. It might regenerate, but with lessened vision or something. Doesn't really matter in the end, since we can still give Hogarth Extremis and it'll grow back fine. Her assistant though… the girl walked into Hogarth's office while she struggled with the ninja. Asshole killed her before she even knew what was going on. Jeri's devastated, they were… close."

For a moment, Michael fell silent, and the already grim mood in the tiny motel room turned even more sombre, before their boss visibly shook himself, looking at the screen with a focused gaze.

"Now's things on your end? Everything's fine? Are you guys all right?"

"Well, we are unharmed, if that's what you're asking…" Sterns trailed off, clearly somewhat unsure how to continue.

Jessica saw Michael's eyes widen just a bit, before the man gave a bone-tired sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"What happened?"

"Well, what happened is… Well, I think Jim might explain it better. He told us to keep back and took care of everything, so I honestly don't know all that much. Jim?"

Giving a curt nod and a grunt in return, Harper turned to look at the large screen, ordering his thoughts for a short moment as he crossed his arms in front of his broad chest.

"We were about sixty clicks out of New York when I started to suspect that we were being followed."

"What made you think that?" Michael asked with a frown.

"The same white van kept a consistent six cars lengths behind us for over twenty minutes sir. Still, I wasn't sure, so I had Dr. Sterns drive into the nearest town, and had him make four right turns. When the car I spotted kept following us, I had confirmation that we had picked up a tail." Harper explained, which drew a scowl from Michael.

"You were followed? Shit. Not unexpected, as Oliver isn't the most inconspicuous vehicle in the world, but still. It's a moot point now, I suppose. What did you do once you had confirmation?"

"I told Dr. Sterns to pull into the nearest motel he could find, and had Miss Jones call you for further instructions. Both you and HQ couldn't be reached, so I considered our situation a field op and took charge."

"Fair enough. I lost my phone when I hurried to stop the attack, and people at HQ… Well, like I said, you've seen the news. Go on." Michael ordered, getting a brisk nod from Harper.

"Yes sir. We went to the motel that Dr. Sterns had found, and I had him and Jessica exit the vehicle and enter, where they rented a room. I snuck out of the vehicle after they had entered, making sure that I wasn't seen in the proximity of the truck. I then went inside myself, and also rented a room. While the clerk's back was turned, I placed a miniature microphone underneath the desk, and once I received my key, met up with Miss Jones and Dr. Sterns at the agreed upon rendezvous, where we switched rooms."

"Wait. Miniature microphone?" Michael asked with a raised eyebrow.

Giving a stoic nod at Michael's confused tone, Harper quickly explained.

"After you told us about the danger of the Hand and Hydra, and that I was going to go accompany Miss Jones and Dr. Sterns on a mission to recruit Dr. Radcliffe, I had a set of equipment made by Mr. Mason. Small gear, such as mics, trackers, flashbangs, anything that I could think of that we might need and that he could build in under two days."

"I see. Well done, I suppose, especially since it seems that you did in fact need it. Just, next time make sure to tell me about it, all right? I can then pitch it to the other scientists, or to Hogarth. Maybe some of it can be made on a larger scale, or repurposed or something, or even marketed." Michael advised, getting a grunt of acknowledgement from Harper.

"Will do, sir. After we rendezvoused, I asked Miss Jones to take the Doctor to my room and protect him there, while I went to the room they had rented. I started listening to the hidden mic, and after approximately 6 minutes, I heard two men talking, asking the clerk which room two people matching the description of Miss Jones and Dr. Sterns had rented, which confirmed my suspicion that we were being watched. Knowing that the men would be coming to my room, I settled in to wait for them, messaging Miss Jones that she and Dr. Sterns should remain put."

"All right. So these unknowns, they what? Just knocked on your door?"

"They did, sir. I could tell that they were surprised to see me, and they asked me about the whereabouts of Dr. Sterns specifically. When I asked for verification, they just told me they were CIA, but they didn't produce any ID. After I refused to give up the location of Dr. Sterns, they got angry. One of them said to the other that 'they didn't have time for this shit', and pulled a gun on me."

"Really? Clearly they were misinformed about your abilities then, so that's a relief at least. Then what happened?" Michael asked.

"He shot me in the head, sir."

Jessica barely withheld a snort of laughter at Michael's dumbfounded expression as he took in Harper's characteristically blunt answer.

"Ah. I see. And then what did you do?"

"I put him through the wall, sir. He didn't bother me again after that. Didn't have the proper faculties for it no more, I reckon."

"Right. Right. Most people wouldn't, I suspect." Michael said dryly, as he adjusted to Harper's flat manner of storytelling.

"How did his partner react?"

"He tried to shoot me in the head as well, sir."

"Naturally. And how did you respond? Put him through the wall as well?" Michael asked with some bleak amusement shining through in his voice.

"No, sir. I needed someone to interrogate after all. So I just closed my hand around the barrel. Messed it up pretty bad when he tried to fire anyways, though it didn't hurt him too much. Scared the shit outta him, that's for sure though."

"A rather understandable reaction I suppose. And did you manage to interrogate him?"

"Yes I did, sir. I just asked him nicely who he was, and why he was followin' us. When he didn't want to tell me, I asked again, but less nicely. He started talking, but he lied, so I had to ask again, but a bit meaner this time. He told me the truth after that one."

It might just be the biggest understatement Jessica had ever heard in her life, told with about as much emotion as you would expect from a toaster. They had heard the screams all the way from the room Harper had forced her and Sterns to hide in.

After nearly fifteen minutes, the head of Security barged into their room completely covered in blood, and sirens were already closing in, so they had literally jumped out of the window (how Sterns had managed to fall without even so much as a scratch she didn't know) and had hightailed it out of the little village, not stopping until they reached this dingy motel after driving for another three hours.

"As simultaneously horrifying and intriguing as that statement is, Mr. Harper, I'm going to ignore it for now. What did you learn?" Michael asked after visibly shaking himself.

"They were being sent by Hydra. They know that Dr. Sterns is behind most of the enhancement serums, so they wanted to grab him and force him to work Hydra. They were specifically after the Rejuvenation Serum."

"The Rejuvenation Serum? Really? I'd expected them to be more interested in Extremis, what with their raging boner for supersoldiers and whatnot. Did you get the name of the one who sent them?"

"It took quite a lot of asking, sir, but I did. Some guy by the name of Whitehall."

"… Shit."

//

AN: Gonna be honest with you guys, I really don't think that I captured Fury's tone right. Samuel L. Jackson always plays Samuel L. Jackson (much like Anthony Hopkins will always be Anthony Hopkins in every movie) but you can't just keep slapping Motherfucker in his sentences to make his characters sound like him, because all of them are slightly different from each other in subtle ways. I dunno, let me know what you think.

Spoiler: Why Hyperion?

I struggled very hard with what the name of Michael's 'alter-ego' should be, and I took all of your suggestions into account. One that was mentioned a couple of times was Vulcan, being the God of Fire and Crafting. I almost went with that, but as I reread through your comments, and those over on ff.net, I saw that there were a couple of you that pointed out that Michael is slowly turning himself into humanity's version of Thanos, the Mad Titan. And then things just sort of clicked and I knew that I wanted to give Michael the name of a Titan of Fire. The three main contenders were then Helios, Perses and Hyperion. I didn't go with Helios, because he's more closely associated with the Olympians than the Titans, and is very closely tied to the Sun specifically, rather than just Fire in general. Perses, while somewhat more obscure than the other two names, is closer to being a Titan of Fire (as well as the God of Destruction) than Hyperion, who is technically only the father of the celestial bodies, the sun and the moon. However, Hyperion was also noted for his incredible amount of wisdom, and given Michael's think tank and Brain Booster, I felt that Hyperion was better suited as a name. That, and I just think it sounds cooler than Perses.

Fun Fact: Before settling on Spider-Man, Stan Lee considered calling the new superhero he and Ditko had created either Fly-Man or Insect-Man.

RIP Steve Ditko (1927-2018)


As always, a truckload of thanks to my wonderful Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn and Daniel Dorfman and a very warm welcome to ReaperScythe! You guys are the best! I mean, all of my readers are awesome by default, but you people are something else. In the words of All Might: Plus Ultra!

 

[Bakkughan]

Six hours after the Massacre
Straightening her skirt out of habit, Peggy Carter raised her fist (for the first time in decennia without any wrinkles, something she was still getting used to) and knocked on the door of the hotel room in which the most infamous CEO in the world had currently moved in.

She only had to wait for a moment, before a deep rumbling voice called out to her from within the room.

"Enter!"

Turning the handle, Peggy opened the door, before slowly allowing it to fall closed behind her. However, at the very last moment, she hooked her toes around the edge of the door, keeping it from falling completely into the lock.

Almost immediately, she felt the weight of the door lessen, and let go, the door remaining in place, from a distance appearing to be closed.

This all took all of a second, and then Peggy was striding through the hallway, as if nothing had happened, and most people wouldn't even have noticed that anything had.

"Mr. McCole?"

"In here!"

Following the sound of his voice, Peggy walked into the living room, seeing the enormous CEO stretched out on the couch in front of the TV.

Wearing a fluffy white bathrobe.

For a moment, the sheer surrealism of what she was seeing made her pause, as she tried to reconcile the image of the flaming demon that had been dominating the news all day with the man who was just lying there, fluffy slippers on his feet.

Without looking away from the TV, McCole spoke up, his voice tired but calm.

"Hello, Mrs. Carter. I hadn't expected to meet you again so soon. What can I do for you?"

Shaking herself from her confusion, Peggy crossed her arms in front of her chest, her lips pressing together to form a stern line.

"What are you doing, Mr. McCole? For that matter, what are you wearing?"

Giving a deep sigh, McCole turned his head towards her, pushing himself up until he was resting on his elbows.

"Well, what I'm doing is trying to relax a bit before I try to go and get my three hours of sleep. As you can imagine, after the day that I've had, I'm feeling exhausted. What I'm wearing is a custom tailored bathrobe generously provided by the hotel. You saw what happened on the news. I felt like having a shower, and this thing is surprisingly comfortable."

Shaking her head at the man, Peggy's lips thinned even further as she fixed him with a severe look.

"So you're just going to lie there, watching Friends reruns?! Do you even know what's going on out there?!"

McCole's brow furrowed as she saw irritation rise in the giant man, though he didn't get off the couch.

"Presumably, everybody's calling me a monster and menace, something to tell their children to be afraid of. Everybody and their mother is holding debates on just what needs to be done to me, because I scare them. Considering the day I've had, I don't particularly feel like listening to all that crap, hence the Friends reruns."

"Well, if you had been keeping an eye on the news, then you'd have known that people aren't just talking about you and your dinosaur anymore." Peggy said primly, drawing a confused look from McCole.

"Really? Huh. Not to sound vain or anything, but I'd kinda expected for me and Susan to remain news for a couple of weeks at least." The giant mused, and sounding just vaguely disappointed.

'Of course he names the firebreathing dinosaur Susan of all things. Why am I not surprised?'

Not letting her thoughts show on her face, Peggy gave the man a curt nod.

"The gangs of New York, equipped with heavy futuristic weaponry and shooting up everything in sight, will tend to do that. But even that pales in comparison to six high-profile assassinations throughout various branches of the government Especially considering their rather… bloody common theme."

That got his attention.

Sitting up fully on the couch, McCole fixed her with a heavy look, the glow in his eyes increasing in intensity.

"There were other assassination attempts?" he asked, getting another nod from Peggy.

"Not including the attack on Jeri Hogarth, there have been six assassination attempts, all of them on high-profile targets within the U.S. Government, all of them completed successfully, and all of them carried out in the same manner."

"What happened?" McCole asked as he stood up straight, his face set in a serious expression (which was somewhat ruined by the fluffy bathrobe, which Peggy noticed didn't quite reach the giant's knees).

"At one pm today, Senator Stern was last seen alive when he entered his office. At one-thirty pm, his secretary entered after repeatedly calling out to him, having received no response. He was found still sitting behind his desk… beheaded."

She saw Michael's eyes widen in surprise as she continued.

"Throughout the day, five more people had been found, three of them at their desks, one of them in the bathroom, and one of them at home. They were either Senators like Stern, or were attached to various branches of the military. All of them beheaded as well."

"Jezus." Michael said softly as he clasped his hands behind his back, walking over to the full-length windows of his room which offered a magnificent view of night-time New York.

"Are there any theories surrounding the murders? Any suspects, or motives, or anything like that?"

Moving over to the couch, Peggy sat primly on one of the armrests as she answered.

"See, that's the thing. Each individual had their own enemies, that much is true. But there's not a single person that they shared animosity with. A further look into the deceased's personal lives provided evidence that two of them had social circles that didn't even came into contact with the other ones. Meaning that there's no motive for killing all six of them on the same day, and thus, there aren't any obvious suspects."

McCole was nodding along, before he suddenly stopped, half-turning towards her with a confused expression on his face.

"Wait. How do you know about all this? Just this morning you were stuck in a retirement home."

Rolling her eyes, Peggy smirked at the giant man.

"Like I said. The news. You really should pay more attention to it occasionally, very informative at times. Well, that and what Fury was willing to tell me about it."

"You spoke to Fury already? For a ninety-year old lady, you sure do move fast, Mrs. Carter." McCole asked as he turned to gaze out the windows again, with far less heat than she had expected from the man, considering the conversation he and Fury had had today.

"Well, when a ninety year old ex-Agent and former founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. shows up looking younger than he does, he's going to have a couple of questions anyways, so I thought it best to get it all sorted out as soon as possible. Had my debriefing, got my former rank back and was ordered to take on an assistant who could put together a database for me on all the things that I need catching up on. Sharon was all too happy to say yes when I asked her for the job."

"I can imagine." McCole said with a small chuckle, before she saw his burning eyes shift in the windows, looking straight at her through his reflection.

"You're being awfully openhearted about what's going on inside S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I haven't told you anything classified, now have I? After all, the most exciting thing currently happening there is the investigation into these murders, and the gossip going on about me." Peggy explained with a shrug and a smirk.

Honestly, her return had been a bit underwhelming. The people at the top, those old enough to have been rookies in S.H.I.E.L.D. when she had still been running things, they had reacted with the appropriate amount of shock upon her return (she was pretty sure she had given Pierce a heart-attack).

But for the rest of the people she had met, those she had crossed in hallways?

Nobody recognized her. She looked familiar of course, as the founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. she was sure there were still a few pictures of her around, somewhere. Combined with the fact that she had been one of Captain America's closest companions, like an honorary Howling Commando, and she had gotten more than a couple of curious looks of vague recognition, people clearly wondering just why she looked familiar to them.

But there was nobody who immediately recognized her, simply because most of the people that would have were already dead. She was the last of her generation, and it was only once she had been de-aged and healed that she truly understood what it meant to live the longest.

It just mean that the rest died first.

"So, why are you here then, Mrs. Carter? Not just to tell me that both the attack on Titan Solutions and Jeri Hogarth apparently weren't isolated incidents, I'm sure." McCole said, snapping her from her musings as the tone in the room suddenly turned a lot sharper.

Standing up from the armrest, Peggy uncrossed her arm, clasping her hands behind her back instead (with her thumb slowly moving over the grip of the handgun she had tucked in the back of her belt, hidden underneath her jacket).

"Precisely because those attacks weren't isolated. Except for the fact that they do not fit at all with the other attacks. Titan Solutions was the only location targeted so heavily by the gangs, and it is the only reported instance of multiple gangs working together in this whole wave of violence." She said curtly, getting only a slow, considering nod in response.

"Well, I did help out law enforcement quite a lot with the Amber Armor. Maybe they were just really pissed off at me?" McCole said blithely, appearing completely unbothered by the tense spy standing not even ten feet away from him.

Then again, this was a man who had taken an entire barrage of high-powered weaponfire to the chest, and shrugged it off.

"Even then, the assassination attempt on Jeri Hogarth doesn't fit with the other assassinations." Peggy forged on.

"She did say that her attacker was very insistent on trying to cut her head off. So it does fit with the general theme of the other attempts. It just didn't take with her, that's all." McCole said with a raised eyebrow.

"True enough. I'm not saying that the way an attempt was made on Mrs. Hogarth's life doesn't fit in with the other assassinations. I'm saying that the attempt itself doesn't fit at all." Peggy said with her chin raised high, not giving an inch when McCole slowly turned around, a flat expression on his face, though his eyes were glowing very brightly now.

"What are you trying to say, Mrs. Carter?" the giant asked in a low, deep voice, but Peggy didn't hesitate in answering nonetheless.

"The other six all had functions within the U.S. Government, or one of its military branches. Jeri Hogarth is a lawyer. A good one, to be sure, but she doesn't hold the same function as the others did. Which brings us right back around to suspects and motives."

"How so?" McCole asked, but his eyes hadn't left hers for a second, and when the behemoth took a step forwards, she automatically took one backwards.

"What do these seven persons have in common? Which enemies do they share? Why were they beheaded, and who has the skills to pull it off in broad daylight, at seven different locations? Just like the rest of the world, I couldn't find the answer, until I thought back to what you said before you healed me. 'An ancient enemy', is what you told me."

"What exactly are you trying to get at, Mrs. Carter?" McCole asked, once again taking a step forwards, and once again she took one backwards as well.

"I'm trying to get at nothing. I'm just wondering something." Peggy said, her voice still calm, even as adrenaline began to sing in her veins in preparation of a fight.

"Wondering, what?"

"Am I looking at one of the ancient enemy right now?"

For a moment, silence fell across the room as McCole froze in his tracks. Peggy's fingers creeped ever so slowly around the handle of her hidden gun. She knew that it wouldn't do much, if anything at all, against the behemoth in front of her, but she bet she could buy herself some time if she shot him in the eye-

"Heh. Heheh. Haha! HAHAHA!!"

Peggy's musings were rudely broken when McCole tilted his head back, letting out great bellows of laughter, which only served to make her even more nervous.

"W-Wait a second… hehe, you think, haha, you think that I am Hydra?!" McCole said with wheezing laughs as he straightened to look at her with mirth in his glowing eyes.

"Seven people were targeted, six of which were successfully beheaded. It's clearly meant as a message, a provocation. And one of those seven, is a woman who works for you, the CEO of a company which was the sole target of an attack coordinated by multiple gangs using advanced weaponry. Clearly, someone wants to hurt you and people they think are affiliated with you. Taking into consideration that you just so happened to warn me of an organization famous for having beheading in their motto, and yes, the thought has crossed my mind." Peggy explained, her voice as strong as steel, despite the fact that McCole's reaction was making her slightly nervous.

"Is that why you have Captain America waiting behind the door?"

Peggy's blood turned into ice in her veins, and she couldn't quite keep her eyes from widening in shock.

"I don't know-"

"C'mon now, Mrs. Carter. One of the greatest spies in history, who doesn't properly close the door behind her when she's about to confront a target? It was only to be expected that you would seek him out as soon as you were able to. I wonder, did you find him by using the address that I gave you, or did you ask someone in S.H.I.E.L.D.?" McCole asked her with an enormous grin.

For a moment, Peggy just looked at the man in surprise, before her lips pressed together as she narrowed her eyes at the men, calling over her shoulder.

"It's alright Steve. Come in."

She heard the door open and soft footsteps quickly striding through the hall, before they came to a halt a couple of feet behind her to her left. Even now, just knowing that he was right there, just like her not a day older than when he went under the ice… it was sending lightning through her nerves, a tingling feeling that spread to every part of her body.

She resolutely kept her eyes on McCole, afraid of losing her self-control (again) if she were to look at the man who she had loved and mourned for the better part of a century.

When she had tracked him down to that gym that McCole had written on the back of his business card, she had caught him in the middle of a workout. For a few long moments, she just stared at the man who she thought she'd lost forever.

When he turned around and saw her, he had frozen in place, and all he said was a small 'wow', followed by 'I guess I died after all'. She had slowly approached him, drinking in every inch of him, just like he was doing to her. Then, as if afraid that it would turn out to all be a bittersweet dream, she had softly laid a hand on his chest, a brilliant smile coming to her face when she felt solid skin underneath her hand.

She had swallowed a few times as she looked up into his shocked, perfectly blue eyes, before she smiled sadly at him.

"I know I'm seventy years too late. But I was wondering… do you still want to have that dance with me?"

For the following four and a half hours, there had been a mix of tears, laughs, her telling him her life story, and how the world had changed, and of course, a lot of enthusiastic… dancing.

Though as she reminisced on what was probably the happiest day of her life, McCole's knowing grin made her consider just looking at neither man at all, instead contemplating if staring at the floor would be too out of place.

"Hello there, Captain. It's truly an honour to meet you. You've probably heard this a lot by now, but I grew up with tales about you. We used to play 'punch out Hitler' in the schoolyard you know." McCole said to Steve, his smirk turning into a genuine smile as he walked forwards, his slippers making barely making any sound as the man extended his hand.

"Ah. Yes, yes I have. It's… a bit getting used to, I suppose." Steve said in that ever-polite voice, and before she even knew it, she had turned in order to look at him.

Steve had always been the picture of physicality, while still having a natural look to him, as if he was simply born as the absolute peak of humanity. But shaking hands with the enormous McCole… Peggy was starkly reminded of the tiny little man who she shared a car ride with, as he twiddled his thumbs and shyly admitted that he hadn't had much success with 'dames'.

But even then, Steve had never shied away from those that were bigger than him (which had been basically everybody) and he shook the giant's hand without a second of hesitation, powerful muscles shifting underneath the plaid button shirt that he wore.

'God, it's like he just stepped out of a picture.' Peggy thought, before she managed to recollect herself.

Adjusting to her vastly younger (and more active) body was still a work in progress, after all.

"Now, Mrs. Carter. Why would I be Hydra? I healed you. I gave you the Captain's contact information. I warned you about Hydra. What exactly about that screams 'Neo-Nazi' to you, I wonder?" McCole asked with a smile as he looked towards her, hands stuffed in his ridiculous fluffy bathrobe.

"Well, Hydra mainly consists out of cells, which loosely operative which each other, but are each individually focused around a single project. Red Skull was the lynchpin: without him, and if Hydra does still exist after seventy years in hiding, those cells would now operate with great independence from each other. You could try to take out your rivals by having Peggy focus on them, while keeping yourself free from any suspicion by pretending to be an ally." Steve said promptly, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest.

Glancing at the supersoldier from the corner of his eye, McCole smirked a bit, keeping up his casual air.

"A bit farfetched, don't you think Captain?"

"I'm not sure. Hydra is capable of a lot of things most would think are farfetched, and they aren't exactly regarded for their extraordinary sense of loyalty." Steve said coldly, his eyes staring unwaveringly into McCole's burning ones.

"Fair enough. So what was the plan here? Mrs. Carter was going to try and trick me into revealing my evil master plan, then shoot me with that toy she has kept hidden in the back of her belt? Which would fail, of course, which brings us to your part. You would heroically burst into the room and…?"

"And I'd push you out the window." Steve said calmly, not even batting an eye at McCole's incredulous look.

"Really? You'd kill me? Just like that?"

"If you turned out to be Hydra? Yeah. Just like that." Steve answered.

"Besides, would a fall from this height even kill you? We're only fourteen stories up, I'm pretty sure you could survive that." Peggy cut in, successfully masking her shock when McCole casually mentioned the pistol she had kept hidden (or failed to, apparently).

"Probably. It would be far from pleasant though." McCole answered with a shrug, appearing completely at ease with the idea of being attacked by Steve, who was widely regarded as the best soldier America (or the world, really) had ever produced.

Turning around, McCole walked over to the desk that stood at the other end of the room, rummaging through the top drawers.

"Now, I'm not Hydra, but I also realize that I can't exactly prove that I'm not, since everything that I could use to convince you, you'd probably see as something that a Hydra-agent would do instead. But, what I can do, is show you who is in Hydra."

And with those words, McCole turned back around again, holding two usb-sticks in one hand, and three syringes in the other, two of them normal-sized, the third one worryingly large.

"On the silver stick, is a database filled with all the names of the Hydra agents that I know the identity of. It consists mainly of the leaders, so don't expect to roll up the entire organization when you cross everybody off the list: they're bound to have grunts in all kinds of places. You'll need to be thorough." McCole said seriously, holding up the usb.

"Now, on the black stick is a program me and my friends have written. If you end up going to Camp Lehigh, then you'll need to insert this stick into the computers there. It will destroy the computer system, which is incredibly advanced, though the tech is somewhat outdated at this point. This step is essential if you want to defeat Hydra."

"Why. What's at Camp Lehigh?" Peggy asked as she stepped closer to Steve, steeling herself in order to not reach out to him and touch him, to convince herself that, yes, he was still here, still real, still alive.

Judging from the small twitch she saw him make when she got close to him, she knew that Steve was going through something similar.

"At Camp Lehigh, you'll find many of the answers you seek. You'll find the man who rebuilt Hydra from within the shadows. At Camp Lehigh, you'll find… Arnim Zola." McCole said with a dramatic pause, clearly enjoying the role of quest-giver.

"What? Zola? How!?" Steve said in shocked voice, and Peggy mirrored his reaction.

Zola had been captured in 1945, and had been in his forties even then, which would make him well over a hundred years old by now, which explained Steve's shock. But Peggy was surprised for another reason: forty years ago, the scientist had been diagnosed with an advanced stage of lung cancer, and had died not long afterwards.

She was prepared to call McCole out on it, but the knowing grin he sent her way halted her in her tracks. Because what was she going to say? People don't come back from the dead? You can't be ninety years old and still be in the prime of your life?

The world had always been a weird place (she should know that better than anyone) and in the past seventy years it apparently had gotten weirder still. Zola surviving… it was unbelievable.

Unbelievable…. but not impossible.

"He uploaded his mind into a massive complex computer system, then allowed his physical body to die. This stick will enter his code and shred it from the inside out, essentially killing him. For good, this time." McCole explained with a proud smile, but Peggy could tell he was lying about something.

She just couldn't put her finger on what exactly.

"And the syringes?" Peggy asked with narrowed eyes.

"These two are for the both of you and are filled with something I like to call the Brain Booster. It's based around the same principles that reversed the effects of your Alzheimer's, Mrs. Carter. What this will do is grant you eidetic memory, advanced computing abilities, and increased information observation and assimilation speeds. Basically? You'll understand a lot more, a lot faster, and you'll never forget it." McCole said with a grin, wiggling the two smaller syringes back and forth as he spoke.

She could see Steve's eyes widen in surprise as McCole told them the abilities the serum would grant, but she already knew that he wouldn't go for it. Steve had volunteered for the Supersoldier Serum, because that had been the right thing to do, because he was friends with Dr. Erskine, and because he wanted to serve his country.

Accepting a serum which changed your brain from a stranger is just not something that Steve (and most people, honestly) would do, not matter the promised benefits.

Peggy on the other hand…

Looking back on her life, there were such large parts of her memory that were just… fog, especially in her later years. The possibility that it would return haunted her ever since McCole had healed her. To have something that would make her unable to forget ever again…

Not allowing her troubled thoughts to show through her voice, Peggy lifted an eyebrow as she inclined her head at McCole's hand.

"And the third syringe?"

"Now this one is for you specifically, Mrs. Carter. It's the Supersoldier Serum."

"What?!" Steve called out in shock again, his hands balling into fists as he intently stared at the behemoth across from them, who just gave a massive grin in response.

"The Supersoldier Serum, Captain. I have managed to reverse engineer it. Don't ask me how I got a sample in the first place, I'll never tell you. I'm not giving you any of the enhancements that I, or the people of Titan Solutions have. I believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. are the good guys, I really do. But I don't trust you with the power that I've gained for me and my people. Given that you have an ample amount of Supersoldier right there already, I can at least give you this. You're going to need it." McCole explained, walking up to them and offering her his hand.

"Peggy, what are you-" Steve started, but she quickly shut him up by softly placing a hand on his arm (which just ended up sending jolts of lighting coursing through her body again) as she turned to look at him in determination.

"Steve. I'm taking the enhancements. If you think that I'm ever going to let you to go off and fight without me ever again, then you've got another thing coming mister. From now on, I'm standing by your side, but in order for me to do that, I'll need to be your equal. This would let me keep up with you, and there's nothing you can say that would keep me from you-"

Peggy was interrupted mid-rant when she felt his lips softly cross over hers. Within moments the entire world fell away as she threw her arms around the broad shoulders of the man who had been nothing more than a half-forgotten memory for the past few decades.

As she melted into his chiselled form, clinging onto each other like a couple of love-sick teenagers, she couldn't help but smile widely into the kiss, her hand coming up to softly go through his golden hair.

'It took seventy years. But it was worth the wait.' She thought blissfully to herself, the world forgotten in her moment of happiness.

It would take time, a lot of time, before she and Steve had fully healed from their respective ordeals: he from suddenly finding himself in the future, with everyone he once knew was long dead, and her from regaining her youth and having to reconcile the life she had built since Steve saved the world with the man himself.

But she was convinced that they could work through it together eventually and was, for the first time in a long while, looking forwards to the future.

"Uhh, guys? Guys? Right… I'll just put the stuff over on the coffee table then…? Ok."

//

Eight hours after the Massacre
The man stood on the balcony of his building, overlooking the glistering lights of New York City as it prepared to welcome the New Year tomorrow evening. The hustle and bustle of the city that never sleeps was a soothing balm to his senses, and he simply enjoyed the feeling of the wind crossing his bald scalp.

The peaceful moment was broken however, when he heard the door to his balcony open, soft footsteps approaching him. Irritation welled up inside him before it was quelled somewhat by his own willpower and the voice of the newcomer.

"Sir. She's here to see you now."

Turning around to face the speaker, the enormous man gave a quick nod, his face set in a determined frown.

"Thank you Wesley."

Giving a quick nod at his bosses' words, Wesley turned back and opened the door, allowing a small, hunched over old lady to shuffle onto the balcony, her walking stick tapping against the stone with her every step.

"Madame Gao. A pleasure." Fisk said in his characteristic voice, approaching the woman who only reached his waist, and yet was one of the most dangerous people he had ever dealt with.

"Fisk Zhǎnglǎo zhù nín huānyíng." (Mr. Fisk bids you welcome) Wesley immediately began to translate.

Halting in her tracks, Gao's eyes snapped towards him, fixing him in place.

"Wǒ yào gēn Fisk Xiānshēng sīxià tányītán." (I will speak with Mr. Fisk in private.)

For a moment, Wesley's lips pressed together in a thin line as he gazed at the biggest heroin dealer in New York (and probably the world, though nobody was entirely sure). Then his assistant's eyes flitted towards him, and Fisk gave him a slow nod.

"It's alright Wesley. Thank you. Take the rest of the night off, go get some sleep."

It was clear that his assistant disliked leaving his boss alone with such a dangerous adversary, but dependable as always, Wesley simply gave a short incline of his head to him, and offered a small bow to Madame Gao, before he briskly left.

As the door fell closed behind his most trusted ally, the aged lady turned to peer him with intelligent eyes, a slight smirk on her wrinkled face. Walking over towards the table in the middle of the balcony, Fisk extended a meaty hand to one of the luxury seats.

"Qǐng. Zuò xià." (Please. Take a seat.)

Shuffling over towards the chair, Madame Gao sank into the soft pillows with the creak of ancient bones, keeping a keen eye on him as she did. Not wasting any time, Fisk took a seat across from her, clasping his hands in front of him.

"Nǐ xiǎng tán shéme shì, Gao Nǚshì?" (What is it you wanted to speak about, Madame Gao?) Fisk asked in a rumbling voice, getting a tight smile from the heroin dealer.

"Please Mr. Fisk, let's talk in English. You're pronunciation is horrible. Who taught you?" Madame Gao asked him with a smirk, and Fisk wisely decided not to point out just how heavily accented her own English was.

"A private tutor…" Fisk said softly, prompting a scoff from the ancient woman across from him.

"Bah! You should have his fingers removed."

Putting aside what he should or shouldn't do to the people in his employ, Fisk sat a bit straighter in his chair, towering over the aged lady even as they were seated.

"Madame Gao. What is it, that you wanted to, speak to me about?"

Narrowing her eyes at him, Gao placed both of her wrinkled hands on top of her cane.

"It is thanks to us, that the weaponry given to the gangs of New York by Ulysses Klaue, has found its way into your hands. It is thanks to us, that the other gangs are weakening themselves in this battle they are waging against each other, and the police, which will allow for your expansion, Mr. Fisk."

"And I am, grateful, for that, Madame Gao, to both you and your friends."

"Yes. And it is good to be grateful to the hand that feeds you. But gratefulness, is quite useless to us, unless it's backed up by action." Gao said sharply, and Fisk finally knew why the old lady had decided to visit him in the dead of the night.

He knew that by partnering with the Hand, he'd owe them favours, especially after they made sure that those Wakandan weapons eventually found their ways into his hands.

He just hadn't expected them to want to cash in on those favours so soon.

"And what action would the Hand wish, for me to undertake." Fisk said, weighing his options.

"Your men have advanced weaponry, thanks to us. They have advanced armour, thanks to your connections within the police. Now it is time to use them."

"You want me to launch an attack? On whom?" Fisk asked, though he had an idea already.

"The demon known as Michael McCole. We had not expected our last attack to have such little effect on the creature, but at least we tore down his building and killed some of his people." Gao said easily, as if she was talking about something utterly mundane, like trimming the hedges.

'So that was you. I suspected it the moment I saw people from Cottonmouth and Colon working together. Just how aware are they that they are puppets on your strings, I wonder.' Fisk thought to himself, though he was careful to keep any of them from showing on his face.

"Like you said, the man personally was hardly affected by the attack. And there's no building left to destroy. Why would an attack now change anything?" Fisk asked carefully, loathing the idea of throwing away perfectly good equipment on a fool's errand.

"Because, McCole will act out of anger. He knows we exist. He knows who we are. He will try to strike back. The Hand asks that you, who has profited so much from all this chaos, to block his strike. Bring the demon to his knees, and your debt to the Hand shall be considered, to be paid in full. You'll become a full partner to us, Mr. Fisk. There are very few people in the world that can boast such a status, and they are all at the heads of organizations, far older than yours." Gao said imperiously, her soft voice showing hidden power as she spoke.

Still, Fisk could spot the slightest cracks in her impressive façade.

'They're rattled. They're clearly uncomfortable with the lack of anonymity, and they didn't expect McCole to come out of their surprise attack unharmed, just like his lawyer, apparently. All this, is just to ask me to be a meatshield between them and the wrath of McCole.'

This… yes, he could definitely work with this.

"Of course. My people are yours to command, Madame Gao" Fisk said, as he gave a short bow with his head.

No need to tip her off to the fact that they most definitely wouldn't be. But let them figure that out for themselves when McCole reduced them to stains on the ground. The criminal scum of New York was tiring itself out as the Hand guided them into taking their new weapons for a test run. He practically owned the police. Only the Hand now remained as a serious contender to him, and they had just pissed of one of the most powerful beings on the planet.

In the end, he alone would stand tall above the dregs of New York.

"Will my men be asked to perform assassination attempts as well? They would be willing, of course. However, we do not possess the fabled skills of the Hand…" Fisk trailed off when Gao suddenly held up her hand, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

"You must work on your subtlety more, Mr. Fisk. That attempt to try and figure out if we were behind the beheadings today was painfully obvious. If you wish to stand on equal footing with the Hand, you'll need to be able to conceal your thoughts better." Gao said sternly, and Fisk easily kept his grin from showing on his face as he adopted a chastised expression, once again bowing his head.

"I see. I apologize. I shall vow to work on it more, in the future."

"See that you do. You have great potential Mr. Fisk. Your handling of events these past weeks is proof of that. To anyone else, it would seem as a great coincidence that, no matter what happens in the chaos of this city, it always comes to benefit you in the end." Gao said, standing up from her chair with creaking joints, clearly making an end to this conversation.

Fisk rose with her, and as he towered above her, he turned around in order to look at the vibrant lights of the greatest city on earth, a grim smile coming to his face as he clasped his hands behind his back.

"A coincidence? No Madame Gao, there is no coincidence. After all…" Fisk trailed off, looking over his shoulder to see that he was now alone on the balcony, the aged lady nowhere to be seen.

Turning back to the amazing skyline, Fisk allowed his small smile to grow into a full-blown grin, his eyes gleaming with thoughts of the future.

"… I am this city."

//

AN: More comicbook!Fisk here than MCU!Fisk, but D'Onofrio (while absolutely brilliant) has a distinctive way of speaking that's nearly impossible to capture in written form. I ended up cutting an entire POV from this part of the Interlude. Originally it was going to be Tony, but while we would learn how he reacts to Michael, it doesn't necessarily add anything vital. And considering we're dealing with a serious case of Arc Fatigue here, I cut it entirely. Then I wanted to replace it with a conversation between Pierce and Whitehall, where Pierce berated Whitehall for acting so openly, while all they need to do is lay low and wait for Project Insight to start. It had some good stuff, but again, it wouldn't really impact the plot (it was more relevant to Peggy/Steve's story, instead of Michael's), so I was merciless and I cut that out as well. Also, good news! I've found a way to mush the last two chapters of this goddamned Arc together in a way that fits, it has a power-up for Michael (we went far too long without one) and I've got an ending I can't get out of my head for the past two days, which means that by the next chapter we can finally leave this Arc behind us! Yay!

Fun Fact: After the Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal, Captain America became so disillusioned with the US government that he became "The Nomad", donning a costume which ditched the stripes and stars.

As always, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to my wonderful Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn, Daniel Dorfman and ReaperScythe! Thanks so much for your support, it really does mean a lot to me!

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 17: YEAR OF THE DRAGON​

December 31st, 2011 01:03
"C'mon Burstein, just get on with it."

"I'm really not sure about this, Michael. Look, it's one am right now, why don't we all just go back to our beds and sleep on it a bit more?"

"Look Noah, trust me on this, alright? What-"

"If you're going to ask 'what could possibly go wrong' I'll walk through that door, right now."

"Of course not, I know better than to tempt fate like that! No, I was going to ask, what makes you think this isn't a good idea?"

"Where do I even begin?" Burstein asked with a deep sigh, as he let himself fall down on the couch in my hotelroom.

Steve and Peggy had left a couple of hours ago, Peggy having taken both the Supersoldier Serum and the Brain Booster right then and there, while Steve declined the Brain Booster. He offered that he take it with him in order to think further about it, but I shut that down hard.

I had no trouble enhancing people to the point that they'd become a real problem for my enemies, without truly becoming a threat to myself, but I wasn't just going to give S.H.I.E.L.D. enhancements on a silver platter.

They had Captain America working for them for a couple of years before their fall, and they hadn't managed to reverse engineer the serum, meaning that they probably wouldn't be able to reverse it from Peggy's body either, with the same applying to the Brain Booster.

As for Peggy herself, taking the Supersoldier serum had toned her up, giving her the body of a top athlete, but there weren't any drastic changes like Steve had gone through. The Brain Booster caused that familiar wide-eyed look that all people enhanced with it got, gazing in wonder as they first experienced the new way their mind interpreted the world around them.

Sending them on their way with the sticks in their pockets and with Peggy staring with a wondering look at everything in her surroundings (including an amusingly long glance at Steve), I had dug up the research me and Sterns had done on Jessica's blood and called up Burstein to my room, though my mind kept lingering on the two supersoldiers that I had sent away.

One stick did in fact have the database with names on it like I had told them (minus a few scientists that I wanted to get my hands on myself, like Whitehall, for instance). The other one, on the other hand…

I had long ago realized that my human body was unlikely to handle the strain of becoming omnipotent. The various enhancements I had given it had gone a long way in me being able to handle far more power than a baseline human would (between my durability and regeneration, I feel fairly confident I can handle at least one Infinity Stone, though probably not for any prolonged amounts of time) but it was unlikely to be enough.

At some point, it was very likely that I'll need to build myself a better body.

Now, who did I know that had successfully moved his mind from his body to another medium, and just so happened to be at a location that I had just sent two supersoldiers to?

The stick would enter Zola's code, that much was true. But after that, it wouldn't shred it: it would copy it, or at least as much of it as its data storage capacity would allow (which was a lot). There was so much I could learn from how Zola had cheated death, it would be a shame to just allow him to blow himself up.

Oh, he was a real Nazi bastard (he had joined both the S.A. and the S.S., before even joining Hydra) and I was definitely going to kill him.

But not before I had squeezed every last drop of knowledge that I could from him.

"Look, Michael. There's a reason why we held off with enhancing Jessica." Burstein began tiredly, snapping me from my musings.

Half-turning on the couch, he gave me a grave look.

"We still don't know exactly what her energy field is, not to mention how it would interact with other powers. It's keyed into her genetic structure-"

"Which is precisely why it will work on me." I interrupted, getting an inquisitive look from the tired scientist.

"We can't enhance Jessica with any major DNA-altering serums, because those serums might have unforeseen consequences and might interact with the sequences that are responsible for her powers. But my DNA has already been changed. We know which sequences need to be altered in order to give me her powers-"

"We don't know. We suspect, we hypothesize, but we don't know, Michael. The same dangers that apply to Jessica apply to you as well! For all we know, you might get the powerfield, and then Extremis sets it on fire!"

At this point, Burstein had jumped up from the couch and was pacing in front of the full-length windows.

And he was right too.

My DNA had already been altered, meaning that we could make targeted changes in its structure, mirroring those made in Jessica's genetic template, as opposed to the massive overhaul Jessica would experience from, say, the Extremis virus.

The end-result was equally unpredictable though.

Still, my mind had been made up. This was the whole reason why I had approached Jessica in the first place.

I would not be denied flight.

"Burstein." My voice cut through the worried mumbles of the pacing scientist, who looks up at me with resigned eyes.

"I did the research. Sterns did the research. You did the research. This is going to work."

"But why now?! Michael, we just took the biggest hit in our lives, why are you taking this risk now? Can't you at least wait until we have a proper base, proper facilities-"

"Noah."

At my unyielding voice, the scientists falls silent, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he walks over to the large coolbox that had been sitting in the middle of the room.

"Very well."

And with those morose words, he unclasps the lid, before removing several vials of liquid, multiple syringes, and a Vibranium needlepoint, which will be placed on the syringes so they can pierce my skin.

As he's unpacking the equipment that he'll need, he looks up at me from the corner of his eye.

"You know that, even with these tips, it's going to take someone with superstrength to actually punch through your skin, right? I'm not strong enough to apply the sufficient amount of pressure."

Giving a slow nod, a plan starts to come together in my mind as I grab my phone from the nightstand (just a regular one made of plastic), quickly dialling a now familiar number.

There are only two rings before the phone is picked up.

"Hogarth here. Who is this?" comes a gruff voice, but not at all tired or sleepy, despite the late hour.

"Hello Jeri. Michael here. Can you come by my room please? I need your help with something, and while you're here, I want to discuss something with you. It involves our mutual dislike for a certain appendage."

"… I'll be there in twenty minutes."

//

Eighteen minutes later, Jeri Hogarth knocked on my door, clad impeccably in her suit and with the most determined look on her face I've ever seen on her.

"Come on in." I say as I walk back into the room, hearing how Jeri closes the door behind her, soft steps following behind me.

"What did you want to discuss Michael?" Jeri asks, only lifting an eyebrow when she spots Burstein carefully bustling around in the impromptu lab he set up in the living room, but otherwise not reacting to the strange sight.

"I'm going to cripple the Hand." I say bluntly, and now Jeri's second eyebrow joins the first one as it is lifted in surprise, right before she gives me an impressive scowl, both eyes flaring up with the familiar hue of Extremis, which I administered to her the moment after the clean-up of my former HQ had been completed, restoring her eye.

"Only cripple?" she asks coolly, but I can hear the hate in her voice.

"Sadly, yes. There are five leaders of the Hand, each called a Finger. There are currently four Fingers based in New York, but the fifth one, Sowande, is currently a warlord in Africa, and for the moment out of our reach." I explain, deepening the scowl on Jeri's face even further.

"The four in New York. Who are they, and how are we going to kill them?"

"They are Madame Gao, Bakuto, Murakami, and their leader, Alexandra Reid."

"Alexandra Reid? The name sounds familiar…" Jeri muses, getting a nod from me.

"She is one of New York's upper elite, the 1% of the 1%. I'm not surprised you know about her." I explain.

"Meaning she'll be hard to get to." Jeri concludes as she crosses her arms.

"I've given Sterns a call, he's trying to track her down as best as he can, but who knows how long it takes until he can give us a location, like her home address or something. So while he's doing that, we'll focus on the ones that we do know how to get to."

"I assume this is where I come in?" Jeri asked as she leaned against the back of the couch.

"Yes, you'll be focusing on drawing Madame Gao out of hiding. She's a heroin dealer, and works out of several sweat shops in the shittier parts of New York. Very difficult to track down: since everything's illegal and off the books, there's no paper or digital trail to follow, at least not fast. Which means we make her come to us."

"And just how do we do that? I hope you're not going to suggest breaking up her drug trade or something. I'm not against taking drugs off the street, but that's going to take ages." Jeri said with a frown.

"No, we go after something far more valuable. You see, Gao has been using Rand as the infrastructure for her distribution. So we go after the man who controls Rand."

"You want to go after Ward?" Jeri asks gobsmacked, clearly taken off guard that the company where she started her career at as a lowly intern was now used to facilitate a drug smuggling ring.

This was the main reason why I had decided to specifically enlist Jeri in my plan. Because of her history in Rand, she had the biggest chance out of all of my other contacts to swiftly set up a meeting with the young CEO, besides myslef of course, but I would be busy.

The fact that the woman was itching for payback was also a boon.

"No. We go after the man who controls Ward. We go after Harold." I say with a sly grin, which only widens when I see Jeri's confused, disbelieving expression.

"Michael. Harold has been dead for seven years."

"Nope. He died seven years ago, that much is true. But the Hand resurrected him, and he now controls Rand from the shadows, telling his son what to do." I reveal, and for a moment it seems as if Jeri wants to scoff at the sheer ridiculousness of the statement.

But then the events of the last 24 hours catch up to her, and the words die in her throat.

For a moment, she's silent and the only noise in the room is the soft tinkling of glass and instruments as Burstein is diligently working in his little lab.

"The Hand… they can really… can they really do that? Bring someone back from the dead?" Jeri asks in a small voice, completely at odds with the stone cold lawyer I've known her as.

I immediately catch on to her hidden question, and I don't have to fake my sympathy as I walk over towards her, laying a hand about as large as her head softly on her shoulder, making her look into my softly burning eyes.

"No. Not anymore. They need a special substance in order to do it, but they've run out, or they will very soon. A single dose allows a person to come back from the dead, again and again, but each time they do, there's… less, that returns. They go mad. They'll kill the ones closest to them first." I say to Jeri, who closes her eyes in acceptance.

It was something that had been bothering me for a very long time actually. Harold Meachum died and came back multiple times on just a single treatment with the Elixir. The tale that Yang, leader of the Triads, told Ward about a man from his great-grandfathers village also indicated that the farmer kept coming back from the dead multiple times.

So why were the Fingers so dependent on the Elixir, if it kept bringing people back multiple times?

My current theory was that when left to its own devices, the Elixir would bring the bodies back at least a couple of times, but the mind kept breaking down bit by bit. You needed a fresh shot of the Elixir to keep your mind intact when you resurrected, or at least, that was the theory that I was currently working under.

Which meant that I had to assume that if I killed the Fingers, they would be able to resurrect on their own, though a bit less sane than before.

Meaning that I would need to be… thorough.

"So what's the plan then? I put pressure on Ward, he leads me to Harold and then Harold leads me to Gao?" Jeri asked, and I shook my head.

"Almost. Yes, Ward will give you Harold, but he wouldn't be able to point you in the direction of Gao. We'll need to make her come to him. Harold is forced to work for them, and he's chafing under their rule. You need to convince him that, not only are we willing to kill the Hand, we're fully capable of it too. Make him antagonize the Hand enough that Gao will show up to set him straight."

"What if she realizes that it's a trap? What if she sends her underlings, instead of showing up in person?" Jeri put forwards, but I waved her concern off.

"If she does, then all she will have done is give us more leads to her location. Everybody talks. Eventually."

I can hear Burstein pause at my ominous words, before he continues working in silence, but if Jeri's unsettled then she doesn't show it, her face on of utmost determination.

"Fine. That's Gao. What about Murakami and Bakuto?"

"Finding Bakuto is going to be relatively easy. He has a student here in New York, and a dojo somewhere nearby. I don't know the exact location of the dojo, but I do know where the student is. I'll take care of her, while you take care of Harold." I explain, getting a nod from Jeri.

"And this Murakami?"

"One of their most enigmatic members. His lieutenant and at least one of his corporations are based in New York, but from what I know about him personally, he spends a lot of time in Japan. There's every chance that he's not in New York right now. So I've got Sterns looking for any mention of his man instead, Nobu Yoshioka."

Getting told that yet another leader of the Hand might be out of reach clearly annoys Jeri, so I easily placate her growing anger.

"There was no chance of us killing the Hand in a single blow, Jeri. They are too widespread for that, they have too many connections. But Alexandra is in New York, and we will get our hands on Gao and Bakuto, giving us a lead to her. With those three taken out, only Sowande and Murakami remain. Murakami never did much care for the other Fingers and I can see him choosing to remain in Japan indefinitely. I don't know much about Sowande, but if he's in Africa, he'll inevitable have to deal with Wakanda, and immortal or not, that's going to be difficult enough for him that he won't focus on New York. That leaves their forces here in enough disarray that Hydra will be able to mop up their grunts."

"Hydra?" Jeri asks with surprise, getting a nod from me.

"Those six people that got assassinated? Those were Hydra agents. There will be a backlash, but I've managed to move certain people in places that will put pressure on them, meaning that they'll focus on their own anonymity first and foremost, severely reducing their striking power. But the disorganized remains of a hidden ninja-organization? Hopefully, pitting two weakened forces against each other like that will cause for mutual destruction."

That clearly pleases Jeri, who gives me a tight smile as her eyes begin to burn with vicious anticipation.

With the basics of a plan in place, I turn towards Burstein, who I can tell has only been pretending to be busy for a couple of minutes in order to give me and Jeri some privacy as we contemplated murder.

"Is everything ready?"

Giving a brisk nod, the disgruntled scientist walks over to Jeri, a row of five syringes held neatly in a little rack.

"Michael, sit on the bed please." He asks without much warmth in his voice, clearly still not on board with the risky procedure I'm forcing him to do.

Following his instructions, I watch as he explains to Jeri which syringe she needs to inject me with in which order and on which place on my body, switching out the Vibranium tip with each shot.

Without much fuss, Jeri accepts the first syringe, places the Vibranium tip on it, and jams it unceremoniously into the side of my neck, drawing a surprised grunt from me. She repeats the process twice more, before she's forced to stop, the point of the Vibranium glowing a worrying red.

Without saying a word, Burstein takes the glowing tip from Jeri's outstretched palm with a pair of tongs, before he drops it in a metal tray filled with water, which bubbles and hisses when he lowers the Vibranium needle in it.

Handing her another Vibranium tip, Jeri quickly finishes up the final two shots, and just in time as well, because I've been feeling progressively worse and worse with each passing second ever since the first injection.

As the room starts spinning, I can hear the muffled voices coming from Burstein and Hogarth, but I put them out of my mind as I drag myself towards the bathroom, uncaring that my hands are digging deep furrows into the walls as I try to grab a handhold.

Suddenly I can feel someone lifting me up, and lolling my head to the side, I can see the lithe form of Jeri as she slings my arm over her shoulders, carrying me towards the bathroom.

I crash to the tiles in front of the toilet bowl (shattering them as I do) and before I can stop myself, I'm throwing up, feeling like absolute shit. As the worst wave of nausea finally passes, I manage to open my eyes somewhat, staring forlornly at the ruined remains of the toilet in front of me.

"Huh. I didn't know you threw up lava." I can Jeri muse, before I'm hurling again.

Eventually, I'm just completely spent, and Jeri drags me towards the bed, which Burstein has covered in several Amber Armor sheets. For a moment I'm confused, until I notice that I'm steaming.

I'm heating up more and more, and my sweat immediately evaporates. My bathrobe is already charring in places. If I had lain down like this, then there's a very good chance that I've would've set my room on fire in mere minutes.

As I drop down onto the bed with a pained grunt, even as Jeri strips my bathrobe from me (given that she bats for the other team, there's nothing I got that she's all that interested in, and Burstein is a medical professional so he just ignores it with practiced ease), I try to feel the changes occurring in my body.

Ever since I had taken all those Heart-shaped Herbs, I had an unparalleled feeling of my body, feeling it down to every single muscle fibre. It was what had given me my new sense of superhuman agility and balance, but now I was using that sense to try and feel out just what the hell was happening to me.

And it wasn't good.

The changes in my DNA were happening alright, but my body was fighting it, my healing factor seeing the changes as foreign and as such as something that needed to be repelled and fixed.

'No! No, it's alright, let the change happen! For fuck's sake, this is my body! Listen to me!' I roar inside my mind, over and over again as I try and force my body to stop fixing me.

Slowly, oh so very slowly, I can feel how the heat in my body starts to die down. I can feel how my body stops fighting the changes in my DNA as it obeys my command. It increases the nausea ten times over, but so far, every procedure I had performed on myself was accompanied by absolute agony, so I could deal with some nausea.

Far away in the background, I can hear Burstein talking to me in an urgent tone, but his voice is muffled and I can't make out the words. So I wave him off with a weak twitch of my arm, as instead I keep focusing inwards, trying to guide my body into accepting the changes, forcing it to stop fighting with all of my willpower.

Slowly, my vision starts to darken, and even as I can feel something settle inside of myself, I drift off into unconsciousness.

//

December 31st, 2011 7:56
The first thing I hear is snoring. I'm pretty sure it's not me, considering that I'm currently in the process of waking up, so with monumental effort, I open my eyes (it feels as if someone replaced my eyelids with lead or something) and look around me.

It takes a few moments before I recognize my surroundings, but eventually everything comes back to me. The fact that I'm lying in a hotelroom, because my HQ was reduced to rubble due to an attack by the gangs using Wakandan weaponry, so I killed them and then I wanted to go after the Hand, so I had Burstein enhance me-

As that last thought crashes into my brain, I shoot up straight in my bed, only vaguely noticing the leather sheets underneath me. I immediately try to replicate what I had done early this morning, trying to 'look' inwards into my own body.

There's definitely… something.

My senses had been enhanced by the various serums inside me, but they had skyrocketed ever since the Heart-shaped Herb, especially my sense of self. And I could sense there was power inside me.

I wasn't sure what this power was (was it chi? My weird-ass soul? Extremis, maybe?), or even whether it was something new, or something that had always been there.

I needed to test this. A strength test wasn't really possible here (punching through a wall or something was something that I had been capable of for some time now, and there was nothing in the hotel that could have strained my previous level of strength), so in order to see if the procedure was successful or not, I'd have to determine whether or not I could fly.

But how to go about it?

Should I go to an open clearing, jump as high as I could and then try to miss the ground on my way down? I could also of course just go to the roof of the hotel and then jump off the building, figuring it out on the way down. Even if it turned out that I couldn't fly, the fall would maybe hurt a bit, but I'd be fine in moments anyways.

I was drawn from my musings by the door to the room opening, and after a few moments, Jeri Hogarth entered into my field of vision, two coffees held in one hand, and a paper bag in the other.

With barely a glance, she tossed the bag onto the couch, which gave a disgruntled 'oomph!'. For a moment, I just sleepily blinked at the suddenly sentient furniture, before I saw Burstein work himself to a sitting position, holding the bag in his hands as he blearily picked out a donut out of it.

As he began munching on it with a vacant stare, I was drawn from my own sluggish musings as I saw Hogarth standing by the side of the bed, one coffee held out to me.

"Good, you're awake."

Accepting the coffee with a tired grunt, I try and wash away the disgusting taste lingering in my mouth, even as I try to blink the grit from my eyes.

"So did it work?" Jeri's voice cut through my sluggish thoughts, forcing me to look up at her as I took another sip from my coffee, only now noticing an ache going through my entire body, all the way from my skin to my bones.

"Only one way to find out."

About a an hour and a half later, Burstein and I (Jeri went off to secure a meeting with Ward Meachum) are standing in the middle of a grassy field in the middle of nowhere outside New York, with the scientist still blinking away the sleep in his eyes.

I on the other hand am fully awake now, having spent the time trying to go over my body as the pain slowly started to fade. There was definitely some sort of power inside me now, so all I had to do was draw it out until I was surrounded in a field, just like Jessica naturally was.

As Burstein's computer has finished booting up, the scientist gives an almighty yawn, before visibly shaking himself.

"Alright Michael, this is Test One: Unpowered Flight. Ready when you are." Burstein says behind the foldout table which is covered in laptops, measuring equipment and camera's.

Closing my eyes and widening my stance somewhat, I dig deep inside myself, but it's a slow going process.

The Heart-shaped Herb has given me unparalleled senses, but this is a two-edged sword. I can clearly feel the energy inside me (how is it produced anyways? No! Focus, Michael!), but I can also feel the snow crunching underneath my boots, the wind smoothly crossing over my scalp. 'Looking' further inside myself doesn't just give me sense of the energy, it also allows me to feel my own heartbeat and how my muscles in my legs are coiled.

It takes nearly fifteen minutes before I finally get a 'hold' of the energy-

"Yes!"

-which slips through my grasp the moment my intense focus fades even the slightest amount due to my excitement.

It takes only thirteen minutes the next time I try to grasp the energy inside myself, and this time I can hold it for about five minutes, before I can hear a bird chirp in the distance and I lose it again.

Slowly but surely, it takes me shorter and shorter amounts of time to get to the new energy inside me, and I can keep it in place longer and longer. Eventually, after nearly forty-five minutes, I feel that I've gotten a good enough grasp on it, that I open my eyes.

Seeing this, Burstein sits a bit straighter in his plastic chair, pulling down his scarf as he gives me a questioning look. Giving a nod of my own, I bend at the knees, keeping my focus inwards…

And then I jump.

The snow around me is blasted back as I rocket off into the air, cratering the ground underneath me and tearing up great chunks of dirt. After about six stories, I can feel my momentum lessen, but I keep my will focused solely on the energy inside myself.

And then as I slowly start to descend, I pull.

I'm so focused on sensing inwards, that it takes me a couple of moments before I realize something very important.

I haven't hit the ground yet.

Opening my eyes against the gales of wind surrounding my body, I gaze in wonder as I see the clouds rapidly approaching me. Looking down, I can see the ground falling away, a wildly gesturing Burstein becoming smaller and smaller.

Leaning a bit to the side, I start falling away to the side, before I try to adjust my course by leaning to the other side, which throws me into a dizzying spin.

Turns out, steering is going to take a bit of practise.

Coming to a sudden halt in the hair by just going spread-eagled and focusing all of my thoughts on STOP, I'm just hanging there, slightly out of breath as excitement starts to bubble inside of me, eventually coming out in great bellows of laughter.

I'm flying.

It wasn't the first time, as I had done it a few times in the first couple of versions of my armour, but I hadn't done it very often and it was a completely different kind of feeling.

Flying in my armour had felt as if I had strapped a go-kart to my body and was then stuck in a never-ending rollercoaster.

But this…

It's difficult to put into words, but try to imagine swimming. But there's no resistance around you, no effort, no weight. You're just floating there, in absolute freedom.

Hearing faint shouts coming from the ground far below me, I focus back on the tiny Burstein, who is still waving excitedly at me.

Drawing from my experience flying my kit bashed Iron Man suit, I slowly float over until I'm hanging in the air a couple of feet in front of Burstein, above the crater I made during my jump, at an altitude that would put me at the same height as some of the shorter skyscrapers in New York.

And then I cut the power.

Immediately I start plummeting like a rock, and a laugh escapes me as I feel like I'm in one of donut-things you see in amusement parks, only a thousand times faster and more exhilarating.

In only a couple of seconds I've descended to the ground, my booted feet slamming into the ground with a thunderous crash, producing a shockwave of dust and air, nearly bowling over Burstein who's standing not twenty feet away from my impact zone.

Stepping outside of the second crater I've made (and besides a slight stinging feeling in my ankles which is gone in seconds, I'm completely unharmed), I turn towards Burstein with the biggest grin of my life on my face.

For a couple of moments, the scientist just stares at me with an open mouth, before he slowly leans over to his laptop, pressing a single button.

"Test One… success."

//

December 31st, 2011 10:38
Standing in the shade of a large tree on the edge of a small park, hood up, cap on my bald head and sunglasses in front of my burning eyes, I keep watch on the door of the building across the street from me, meanwhile reading a text that Hogarth sent me.

-Got meeting w/ W.M. Will update. JH.-

As I hear the door open, I slide the piece of plastic into my pocket as I watch in thinly veiled amusement as a bunch of sweat covered children slowly trickle outside, going off on their own ways, either alone or in groups of two or three.

When the last kid has left, I bend at the knees, before shooting off into the sky, making sure that I don't produce any shockwaves or loud noises, before landing on top of the now empty building.

It's amazing, just how little humans think about ever looking up.

Making my way over to the stairwell, I quickly descend a few floors, before I come to the right one. As I walk further into the hall, my eyes fall on a door with a logo painted on its dark wood.

Chikara Dojo.

The smile that crosses my face is completely void of warmth, before I school it in into a more inviting expression. Giving a quick knock, I can hear footsteps approaching the door, before it's swung open, and I focus on the little woman in front of me.

"Hello, Miss Wing. May I come in?"

Even as I talk, I take an step forwards, but unlike literally everybody else I have ever used this tactic on, little Miss Wing doesn't even so much as flinch, even as we now stand face to chest to each other.

"No. You may not. Leave." She says clearly and stone-faced, her eyes staring unwaveringly into my burning ones.

I had expected for the spitfire to be a bit difficult to handle, but I hadn't expected this level of hostility right off the bat.

Taking yet another step, which means that we're almost touching each other right now, I loom in the doorway, a smile still on my face though my eyes are now burning like hellish embers, and judging by the way she tenses her muscles, I can tell that she knows I'm losing my patience.

"I'm afraid I must insist. May I come in."

It wasn't voiced as a question, and Colleen knows that she can't stop me from just literally walking over her, so she grudgingly takes a step back into her dojo, giving a short jerk with her head.

"I can call the police on you, you know." She tells me as she walks over to stand in front of me again, her arms crossed in front of her.

"You could, yes. You're not going to, however." I admit easily, as I close the door behind me.

"Oh? And why is that?" she asks me sarcastically, though her sneer falters when I turn back to face her, and she sees my face as I allow a bit of my real emotions to leak through into my expression.

"Because you don't want the police here, Miss Wing. Because if they do, it's not just me they'll be asking questions, but you as well. There will be many, of course, but I think my favourite one would be 'how exactly did you first come into possession of this dojo?'." I rumble as I slowly approach the martial artist, who quickly moves backwards, matching me step for step.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Colleen says quickly, but her widened eyes tell me that she's rattled by the covert reference to her sensei.

Well then, let's see what overt shall accomplish.

"Miss Wing. Where is Bakuto's hideout?"

At the name of the man who taught her everything she knew, Colleen freezes in place, her eyes widening in surprise and fear.

"I… I don't-"

"Do not lie to me, Miss Wing. If you've been following the news lately, then you can understand that I'm in a very bad mood. I know the Hand was behind the attack. I know that Bakuto is one of the five Fingers. And I know that he has a compound somewhere in the vicinity of New York, where he takes in the lost souls of this world, so he can brainwash them into perfect little soldiers at his leisure. The only thing I don't know is where the fucking thing is. You do."

Her face goes white as I reveal my knowledge, and her eyes dart to where her bedroom is, where she keeps that white katana of hers. Both of us know that it won't do her any good against me, but it's a warrior's instinct to have a weapon in hand when facing an enemy.

And the moment I dropped her sensei's name, I became an enemy in her eyes.

Now, back in my old life, I thought that Colleen Wing was a pretty badass character, both in the Defenders show, as well as in Iron Fist (though I had always felt that she lost a lot of her badass-status the moment she hooked up with Danny and started playing second-fiddle to him). There were even a few rumours floating around that she would make an appearance in the second season of Luke Cage, but I switched universes before that came out, so I never found out whether those rumours were true or not.

The point is, as a character, I rooted for Colleen because I thought she was a badass lady.

But she wasn't a character anymore.

Right now, she was an obstacle.

"I'm going to ask this only once, Miss Wing. If you refuse to answer, or if you lie, then I'll stop asking. I'll start demanding instead. And I can guarantee you, you will not like it when I am forced to demand something." I growl lowly as I keep advancing on the young woman, even as her back hits the wall of her dojo.

Looming over her, I bend down until our eyes are on the same height, and I will mine to burn even brighter, until they're filled with a hellish glow which Colleen is forced to look away from.

"Where. Is. Bakuto."

For a few moments, her mouth opens and closes, and it seems as if she's about to give him up after all. Then I can spot a subtle twitch in her stance, and I know that she's made her choice.

Too bad it's the wrong one.

With her skill, and with how close I am leaning in, there's no way for me to dodge her strike, and her elbow slams into my left eye (figures someone trained by the Hand would spot that single weakness from the news coverage of the fight) and as I instinctively rock back despite the fact that I'm not hurt all that much, she uses the opening to dash towards her living room.

Blinking my eye a couple of times until it's fully repaired itself in a few seconds, I turn towards her living room as well, and with a few quick strides I'm standing inside it. Spotting what is likely her bedroom, I stomp towards it, throwing open the door with a loud bang.

For a moment, I look in surprise at the empty room, before I spot movement from the corner of my vision, right as Colleen descends towards me from the top corner of the room she had been hiding in, her blade out and flashing in the low light of the room.

Annoyance flashes within me when I notice that she's again aiming for my eye, but I have a bit more space to move in now, so I dodge the strike simply by turning my head, allowing the katana to scrape uselessly across my temple.

Taken off guard (when you spend your entire lifetime honing your skill with the blade, you're inevitably thrown for a loop when it just bounces off your target) Colleen doesn't quite manage to turn her charge into a smooth roll as she had intended, and instead stumbles when her bare feet hit the floor.

I react even before she's made contact, and my arm comes around in a wide swing, catching her in the ribs and throwing her into the wall. I didn't put that much strength into it, but it's still enough to break her bones.

As she's lying there on the ground, gasping for air, I kneel down next to her. My eyes fall onto the katana she's still grasping in her hands, and slowly I reach out and grab it by the blade. I effortlessly start moving it from her grasp, even as her eyes widen in fear and she tries to hold onto it with all her strength.

She fails.

Casually, as if I don't feel any resistance at all, I remove the blade from her hands and examine it as I hold it up to eye level.

"Here's something that I don't get about the katana: why do people like it so much? Iron melts at 2800 °F, yet the tatara in which katana are forged can only reach 2600 °F, meaning that traditional blades are filled with slag inclusions, making them brittle. And then a blacksmith folds it over and over, and ends up beating all the carbon out of the steel. They only have one edge with which to cut with, and not really much of a spearing point, like longswords have. So why the fascination with them? I'll freely admit, I am guilty of it myself, I think they're cool as shit, but as far as blades go? The katana is pretty… weak." I muse to myself (fully aware that what I'm saying is only half-correct, but I'm trying to rile the woman up), as I grip the tip and the base of the blade between my fingers, and slowly start to apply pressure.

As the blade visibly starts to bend, Colleen forces herself to sit up a bit straighter, her hand outstretched as she pleads with me.

"P-please… d-don't…" she gasps out, but I am unmoved as I easily keep bending the blade further and further, ignoring the dark red blotches that slowly start to stain her white shirt.

Am I an evil bastard for doing this?

Yeah, pretty much. After all, it wasn't Colleen who attacked me. But at this point, she's part of the organization who did, and my only link to Bakuto's hideout.

I am willing to do far, far worse.

"Where is the hideout, Miss Wing. It won't take much more effort from me to shatter this heirloom, and then I'll be forced to focus on… breaking something else."

I bend the blade a bit further.

Colleen Wing was a proud, strong-willed woman who could handle herself in a fight, and who was trained by some of the most evil bastards on Earth. Everyone breaks under torture, eventually, but I wasn't sure where Colleen's threshold was, though undoubtedly it would be very high.

It would most likely involve doing massive, permanent damage, and while I had no qualms with going that far (though my respect for her as a character meant that I'd rather not have to), it would both involve a lot of time and a lot of screaming, which would inevitably draw attention.

But going after her heirloom?

That might hurt her more than any damage I inflicted on her body.

"P-please…" she begs again, crying now.

"I understand, Miss Wing. You feel that you owe the man. It is to be expected. He gave you your skills, he gave you this dojo. But what is the price for that? The Hand owns you, Miss Wing. They owned your soul the moment Bakuto decided to make you his, and he spent your entire life training your body into something that would be of use to him. You think you are unique? That he cares for you? He is millennia old, Miss Wing. There are countries, civilizations, that are younger than he is. Do you think that in all that time, there had never been another? That there had been no one else, who he cherished, who he trained, who he gave what they craved the most? Do not be foolish, Miss Wing, we both know that you are not that naïve. But have you never wondered about the other ones? The ones that have come decades and centuries before you? About what happened to them? Either they died young, on the blade of his enemies, or his own. Or they grew old, their souls still his, but with bodies that were useless to him. You know what kind of man he is, do you really think that he would keep around something useless? Those too fell on his blade. After millennia, only he remains. The man is incapable of love, Miss Wing. He is a monster." I tell her in a soft voice, going after every psychological weak point that I can think of.

I bend the blade a bit further. It's visibly straining now.

"P-p-please…" Colleen sobs, crying openly at this point.

"This can all go away, Miss Wing. I will leave, and I'll take down the Hand. You have built a pretty good life for yourself. Help me in safeguarding that life. Help me make sure that you will never again have to lie awake at night, fearing a knock on your door, and hearing that the Hand wishes for their perfect little soldier back, fearing that you'll have to stain this sword with innocent blood. Help me. Where. Is. Bakuto?" I whisper, leaning in a bit further to the crying woman.

As she stares up at me with broken, helpless eyes, I know that I've won.

Victory tastes like ash in my mouth.

//

December 31st, 2011 12:23
I was floating in the air just below the clouds, a tiny speck against an endless sky as I looked at the Compound below me. Several buildings, scattered around a few open fields, and surrounded by forests on all sides, with only one road leading to a tiny village a few miles back.

It had taken me an hour and a half, flying at my top speed (I felt that with just a bit more speed and training, I could break the sound barrier, but I wasn't quite there, yet) before I reached the Hand Compound, and from this far up, it just looked like a regular university campus.

Despite the snow covering everything, there were still a fair amount of people out and about, which made sense considering they were receiving training from hell in order to be moulded into the Hand's next generation of weapons.

Even from this far up, I can still see individual people, though it's impossible to make out any features. For now, I don't have to. I patiently wait until I see a large group go out into the snow covered field that lies in the centre of the compound, as they all go through what appear to be warm-up stretches.

They go through a couple of synchronised movements, before I spot movement coming from the far side of the field and I spot a single figure walking towards the front of the large group, pacing a bit back and forth as he observes the assassins in training.

Descending a couple of hundred feet, I confirm my suspicions: right there is Bakuto, one of the five Fingers of the immortal Hand.

I cut the power.

Plummeting down at breakneck speeds, I can't fully suppress my worry. I'm (fairly) sure that I'll survive this, but this is the highest I've ever fallen, and it's definitely going to hurt. I'll probably break a few bones, but my worry is more centred around how many I'll end up breaking, and how long it'll take to fix them.

And then I can't worry any further because HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT MOTHERFUCKING HURTS WHY THE FUCKING FUCK DID I THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA, FUUUUCK!!

The familiar heat of Extremis immediately kicks in, and the pain quickly fades to a background noise as my legs (and would you look at that, I only broke every single bone in both legs, yay me) start to knit themselves together.

Despite the horrific impact, there's of course not a single scratch on me.

As I fully straighten, I am reminded why I thought this was a good idea, as the dust cloud around me finally begins to settle.

I had aimed at roughly the middle of the large group of would-be ninja's, who were centred around the middle of the courtyard.

Except where they had stood, there was now a massive crater, bits of debris and… human falling down around me.

Quickly jumping out of the ten feet deep massive hole, I land on the edge of the upturned earth, seeing whatever people that weren't reduced to bits by my meteor impact strewn around the courtyard, those closest to me either dead or unconscious, and those further away shakily working themselves back to their feet.

Amongst them is Bakuto.

Even as he painfully straightens, I dash forwards in a straight line, shouldering two of his students out of my way with enough force to send them flying. Bakuto has just enough time to widen his eyes, before my enormous hand closes around his skull.

I don't make any demands. I don't make any threats. In fact, I don't say anything at all.

I just start squeezing.

As I can see him screaming, I'm a bit confused at first, before I finally realize what's wrong.

He doesn't make a sound.

Thinking back on it, I haven't heard a thing ever since my impact. Guess I busted my eardrums or something. It doesn't really matter, they'll regenerate themselves any moment-

"-AARRRGGHHG!!"

See?

Dropping the panting Finger to the ground, my boot descends on his left knee with a dry crack, and once more a scream comes from the immortal asshole. I repeat the process with his other knee, before I feel something pinging off the back of my helmet.

Even if the Hand knew that it was me, and for whatever reason decided to report this attack to the authorities, they couldn't prove it if I kept my identity hidden, and didn't display any of my fire powers. After all, Michael McCole didn't wear advanced armour, and he certainly couldn't fly.

The only reason that I hadn't worn the armour when I went to visit Colleen was because it would've been too conspicuous, and it was difficult enough already to sneak around with my size (though I had made sure that nobody had seen me enter her dojo). Some very creative threats were hopefully sufficient in keeping her from stepping to the police, but she was something that I would need to find a way to deal with, preferably without killing her.

Turning around, I see three men running out of one of the buildings, firing automatic rifles at me as they fan out. Almost laughing out loud at the sheer uselessness of their attack (I shrugged off Wakandan weaponry bare-chested, the fuck did they think those peashooters were going to do to me?) I simply raise one of my arms, the massive gauntlet concealing a Hammer-tech machine gun.

A few quick bursts later, and my would-be attackers are dead.

Feeling something impact my shin through the thick cargo pants I'm wearing, I can see Bakuto's wide-eyed gaze as he looks from the small tanto he has stabbed me with, to my featureless helmet glaring down at him.

Bending down, I quickly snatch the hand with the knife in my own, before I crush it with about as much effort as it would've taken a human to snap a toothpick.

Ignoring his renewed cries, I look up as over a dozen new people run into the courtyard, some of them adults wielding machine guns, some of them youngsters wielding swords or just their bare fists.

While the people trained here were on the young side, I rationalized to myself that I still wasn't breaking my 'no killing kids' rule, given that most of the people here were either eighteen or over, and were all trained killers.

Still, other than the group I had just crushed with my impact, I wouldn't exactly go out of my way to start killing the brainwashed youngsters here.

But those security people, that were even now opening fire on me, their bullets flattening on my metal armour or indestructible leather duster?

Now they were fair game.

It was a matter of moments for my on-board targeting system to high-light the adults wielding machine guns.

It took even shorter to lift my arms, and squeeze the triggers.

The sound of gunfire was deafening, but a few seconds later every single security guard was down on the ground, riddled with holes.

Try resurrecting from that, bitches.

Leaning down again, I grip Bakuto by his shoulder (the one connected to his unbroken arm) and snap that too, making him scream again.

"Sensei!"

The voice is young, and as I look up, I can see a woman run towards me with tears running down her face, a katana held high above her head. In the moments it takes for her to cross the ruined courtyard at her deadsprint, I idly wonder how old she is.

Eighteen? Nineteen? Certainly no older than in her early twenties.

Only a few years younger than I was.

As she reaches me and swings down the sword in a powerful strike, I simply put my hand in the path of her blade. My greater strength combined with my durability means that the sword nearly goes flying when she strikes my unorthodox defence, and just for a few moments, I can see she's taken off guard, her stance unbalanced.

"Olivia, NO!" Bakuto roars out, his trained eye catching the same thing that I did, but he's powerless as my hand shoots out, slapping her hands to the side, wrenching the blade out of her grip.

Unarmed, she tries to back off, but she's too slow as my hand darts forwards and closes around her throat. Reeling her in, I raise her high above the ground, noticing that all the other students are frozen in position, even as more security forces are approaching.

Tilting my head downwards, until the faceplate is gazing at the writhing Bakuto, I speak my first words since my arrival, the modulator making my voice unrecognisable.

"Where is Alexandra Reid, Bakuto?"

"W-what…?"

"Wrong answer."

And with that, I break Olivia's neck.

"NO!" Bakuto screams out in real anguish, as he tries to reach out to her, but both his legs are broken, one hand is busted and the other arm is useless below the shattered shoulder.

Carelessly I toss the body to the side, before I lift my gauntleted arm at the crowd of ninja-in-training and the dozen new security guards. As I loosely aim in their direction, some of the students let out screams of fear, even as the older ones stand tall with the security forces, gripping their weapons a bit tighter.

"Tell me where Reid is, and I'll let your people live, Bakuto."

"D-don't…" he starts, murder in his eyes even as blood dribbles down his chin, but I just give a slow shake of my head as I ignore the bullets fruitlessly flattening themselves on my form.

"Wrong answer."

"NOOO!"

And I open fire, taking down the security guards and a couple of the students. Quite a lot of them take off running, but a surprising number stays behind, dashing towards the machine guns of the fallen guards.

Bakuto is screaming at me now, cursing me out in several dozen languages at once, but I ignore it, simply upping the pressure of my foot on his chest until I cut off his air supply. I keep it up until he goes blue in the face, before I lift my foot a bit, allowing Bakuto to take a couple of coughing gasps of precious air.

"You obviously care about these people. You care about this place. Do you care as much about Alexandra?"

With that, the backplate of my armour, which I wear over my duster, and which is connected to the breastplate of my armour by two thick metal clamps going over my shoulders, and two more going under my arms, shifts some panels, before a dozen red tips become visible.

"Where is Alexandra Reid?"

"I… I c-can… p-please, d-don't…" Bakuto tries to gasp out, but I just slowly shake my helmet in a ponderous gesture.

"Wrong answer."

And even as Bakuto's face shifts from a pained expression to a horrified one, the missiles in my backplate shoot upwards, thin trails of smoke behind them, before they angle downwards and slam into the largest building with enormous explosions, throwing people in the vicinity to the ground.

"NO!" Bakuto screams yet again, but this time it's different from the previous ones.

This time it's more broken.

Lifting my boot off his chest, I kneel in the mud next to his head, leaning downwards a bit (ignoring as one very brave and stupid young man tries to perform a flying knee on me, shattering his leg in the process, while I barely even budge).

"Come on Bakuto. What do you owe Alexandra? What has she sacrificed for you, that would force you to sacrifice everything here? And make no mistake Bakuto, I won't stop until I've destroyed everything you even vaguely value. I'll rip apart every building here, I'll kill every student present. And if that's not enough pain you're willing to endure for some conceited woman who never even remotely cared about you, then I'll start tracking down everyone else. I'll kill everyone you have ever trained, and everyone that even shares a drop of blood with them. Every place you have ever enjoyed visiting, I'll reduce to dust and ash, and all the while Alexandra Reid sits on her throne, laughing at your misguided loyalty, at your useless sacrifices. Because in the end? I'll kill her too." I threaten, and the only thing I don't mean in that whole evil monologue is that I'll kill the bloodrelations of his former students, as they are innocent in all of this mess.

Still, it gets the job done, as his feverish eyes finally settle on my blank faceplate.

He's clearly struggling, his pride warring against his survival instincts, but eventually the screams of the dying around us tips him over the edge, this whole attack too sudden, too powerful for him to formulate a direct response to.

"M-mansion… M-miami… K-K-Killian…" he manages to wheeze out, and the blood in my veins feels as if it's turned to ice.

"Wrong answer." I bit out harshly, before I straighten, aiming both arms at the people running around the burning main building.

"NO! No, I s-swear!" Bakuto coughs, and it's only the desperation in his voice that makes me hesitate.

"You're lying. He's dead." I hiss at him, picking him up from the ground by a fistful of his hair, prompting another pained cry from the broken immortal.

"Yes… b-but A.I.M…. the… the projects… M-mandarin… works for… us.." Bakuto haltingly says in between rattling breaths of air.

"No, Hydra backs A.I.M." I say with a growl, but doubt starts to settle in the back of my mind.

I killed Killian, yes, but Killian gone didn't mean that the think tank just… stopped working or something. I just hadn't paid them any thought, because Sterns' genius managed to use Killians stable body to already give me Extremis, meaning that A.I.M. was pretty much useless to me.

"Yes… Hydra b-backs A.I.M…. b-but… but Mandarin… works… for us…" Bakuto manages to gasp out with a grin on his bloodied face.

"I told you, the Mandarin is dead! I should know, I killed him!" I snarl as I bring Bakuto closer to me, but all he does is weakly chuckle at my visible anger.

"You… Y-you know… n-nothing…"

At his mocking tone, I see RED, and with a roar I draw back my hand holding onto his head, and throw him as hard as I can at the nearest building, sending him through the solid brickwork. I'm flying right on his heels, smashing through the outerwall with ease, as I look down on Bakuto's broken body.

Broken… but still alive.

Floating over towards him, easily crossing the debris, I point one of my gauntlets right as his head, and as I see his eyes twitch in my direction I give out a low growl.

"This is the end for you Bakuto. You, and everything you have worked so hard to build. And there won't be any coming back from the dead this time, asshole. I'll make sure of it."

And with those words I open fire for a full fifteen seconds, until all that remains of Bakuto's head is a smear on the ground. I hear a roar of anger coming from outside the building, and looking over my shoulder, I see an adult rip the pin out of a grenade, before throwing the thing at me (I suddenly realize that the reason they stuck to those machine guns instead of bringing out something with more power, was because they didn't want to get Bakuto caught in their attack, something that now of course isn't an issue anymore).

Shooting forwards, snatching the grenade out of the air as I go, I come to a stop in front of the man just as he straightens form his throw. I can see his eyes open wide in shock at my sudden closeness, before that is replaced with fear as my free hand grabs the back of his head.

I ram the grenade in his mouth, knocking out a few teeth as I do, and keep both my hands in place, easily ignoring his frantic struggles.

A few seconds and a gory explosion later, and his struggles have ceased altogether.

I shoot upwards into the sky again, before I hover a couple of hundred feet above the compound. Once again, the panels on the backplate of my armour shift, revealing two dozen missiles this time.

The remainder of my entire payload.

Targeting every single building below, I unleash hell from above, ignoring the screams coming from the mortals as they die in droves.

As Bakuto's life's work goes up in flames and comes crumbling apart under an onslaught of explosions, I angle myself towards New York, and blast off with enough speed to push back the low hanging cloud cover.

//

December 31st, 2011 14:30
Sitting in my hotel room (after profusely apologizing to the owner of the hotel for the damages I did to both the wall and the toilet) I wait until Jeri texts me the end results of her meeting with Harold Meachum.

Ward had given up his father pretty easily, especially when Hogarth subtly hinted that it was unlikely that Harold would live through the night. At first she had been unsure about telling the man that his father would die, but the hopeful look in Ward's eyes told her that I had been right in advising that action all along.

As I knocked back a bottle of complementary vodka (not that it would really have any effect on me, but I hardly cared at the moment), I sat on the couch, staring at the laptop in front of me, Bakuto's words haunting me.

The screen showed a satellite image of Killian's mansion.

"He's lying. I killed the Mandarin when I killed Killian." I muse out loud, though only in a barely audible whisper, because I don't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. (or anyone else, for that matter) to not have bugged my room.

Was my meta-knowledge wrong somehow? When I saw Banner a year ago, I saw Mark Ruffalo, instead of Edward Norton, and had concluded that reality retroactively edited itself. Was this something similar? Had a new movie come out in my home universe that changed the rules of the game somehow? If so, why didn't I know about the change, like I did with changes like Rhodey's or Banner's appearance?

Had I been here too long?

It was an endless loop of questions, with no end in sight, until I was thankfully snapped from my musings by my telephone giving out an alert. Looking over, I saw it was a text from Hogarth.

-F.N.Stein is in. His place, 57th Street 19:00. Be there. JH.-

I don't know what Harold plans to do in order to piss off Gao to such a point that she's willing to come to his place to smack him down personally, and frankly, I don't quite care.

At this point, while a total bastard, Harold is still pretty stable (for as much as you can call a guy who murdered his best friend stable, that is) so I trust him enough to find something that'll work, like undermining Gao's infrastructure for her heroin trade within Rand.

Every option Gao takes at this point will end badly for her. Either she does nothing, and Harold gets away with his subordination, quite probably damaging her drug smuggling operation.

Or she sends her goons, in which cases I'll just get her location out of them.

Or she comes in person, in which case I'll get confirmation on whether what Bakuto told me was a lie or not, and Alexandra's location either way.

The moment I think that, my phone goes off, and taking the call, I can hear Sterns on the other end.

"Hello, Michael, this is Sterns. How's things going over there? Burstein told me the procedure was a success, but that you and Hogarth have begun your counterattack against the Hand?" the scientist asks, completely unbothered about discussing such things over the phone.

Then again, this is Sterns, I wouldn't be surprised if he somehow managed to triple encrypt our line, or something similar.

If he thinks we're secure, then I trust that we're secure.

"Hi Sam. Yeah, the procedure is a full success. Once we got a new base, we can run tests on my body and use the data to give Jessica more powers, if she wants them. How's Radcliffe coming along?"

I can tell that my friend picked up on the fact that I omitted anything about the Hand counterattack, but after a soft sigh he lets it go.

"Yeah, Radcliffe is extremely excited to come work for us. You should've seen his face when I told him about the Brain Booster… the man is brilliant Michael, I can only image what he'll be capable of once he's working for us."

"That's good. That's very good. You find anything on Reid?"

"Uhh, yeah, her name popped up a couple of times during my searches. Mainly in relation to philanthropy, or awards or big events, stuff like that. Nothing private, and I do mean nothing. No home address, no nothing. But I did find something else."

"Yeah? What?"

"Well, she was supposed to go to this fancy New Year's Eve party? And by fancy I mean, Tony Stark levels of fancy. But here's the thing, she called it off just an hour ago, and she hasn't been seen since. Weird huh?"

"Yeah. Weird." I reply absently, my eyes fixed on the Miami mansion on my laptop.

"And Murakami?"

"The same deal, except his name pops up even less. There are people and corporations that are tied to him, but the man himself is a ghost. I got a bit more luck with tracking down his second in command, that Nobu guy? Yeah, from what I can tell, he's just a regular business man, nothing about him or his accounts really screams 'ninja' if you know what I mean. But he did get checked into a private hospital yesterday. I managed to hack their files, but his charts only state severe trauma."

"Right. Murakami is out of our reach then, for now. I've got an idea where Reid is, I'll have confirmation tonight. As for Nobu, I guess this confirms that Jeri fought him off. We'll see how he can be dealt with discreetly, but for now he's not going anywhere, so he's not a priority. When can you get back to New York?" I ask, my mind on the meeting tonight.

"Tomorrow morning, at the earliest. We might make it there very late tonight. It's only about a five hour drive, since Harper wants us to stick to the inroads as much as possible, but Radcliffe does have business he needs to take care of first, before we can leave. So we all just kind of settled on sticking it out here for New Year's and then make it back tomorrow." Sterns explained.

"That's fine, Sterns. Don't worry about it, take your time, and stay safe. I got things covered over on my end."

"Do you? Michael, do you really?" I hear my friend ask earnestly, and had it been anybody else, I would've turned off the phone right there and then.

But this was Sterns.

The first real friend I made in this universe.

The guy I dragged to another continent with me, who has kept me alive to this point, who made me what I am.

"I'm being honest, Sam. I know what I'm doing. I don't like it. I don't like any of what I've done, or what I'm still going to do. But I am doing it Sam. The Hand won't live to see 2012." I say with utter conviction, getting another sigh from my friend.

"Alright. Alright fine. Just… just don't forget who you are, alright Michael? You aren't exactly a saint, but you're not a monster. Don't let those ninja-maniacs turn you into one, you got it?" Sterns asks seriously, prompting a small smile from me.

"Yeah. Yeah I got it Sam. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. We'll see you… next year." Sterns says with a laugh, and I can't help but join in at the bad pun.

"That's the lamest joke in history, and you know it." I reprimand him, and I can just imagine his shrug, even over the telephone.

"Eh, it made you laugh so I'll take it. Take care Michael."

"Yeah, you too."

And with that I hang up, gazing out the windows at the skyline of New York. Glancing at the time, I notice that I've still got a couple of hours until the meeting with Gao, and since I don't want to be stuck with any more mental dilemmas, I set an alarm for 18:30 and go to bed.

Sleep does not come to me.

//

December 31st, 2011 19:06
Gao is late.

Of course she is, it's the oldest powerplay in the book, but I still can't stop the irritation rising within me.

Glancing to my side, I can tell that Hogarth is feeling the same thing, her new youth combined with her shades (she learned her lesson about eyes being a weak spot after the botched assassination) making me feel as if I'm standing next to Trinity.

Looking to my other side, I can see Harold Meachum almost successfully hiding his nerves as he stares at the door at the other end of the hall, a big revolver in one hand, the other rubbing his chin.

Looking back ahead again, I can't quite contain a slight sense of amusement from coming over me.

'Here I am, standing in a penthouse, waiting for an ancient ninja, with Trinity on one side, and Faramir on the other. My life is so, so weird.'

As I finish that strange thought, there's a ding coming from the hallway, before the door is slowly pushed open, both my companions tensing besides me.

Briefly I wonder whether I should've brought in any more of my people, but I quickly decide that leaving them to guard the salvage from HQ and a recovering Susan was the better option, considering that I alone should be enough to face anything the Hand could throw at me.

And then there's no time for any further thinking, since the door has opened fully and inside strides the hunched over from of Madame Gao.

I'm surprised that she's showed up in person, and I'm immediately on my guard.

If she's confident enough in her safety to come here herself, then she's got some kind of ace up her sleeve, especially if what I did to Bakuto made its way back to her somehow.

My wariness increases when she doesn't seem surprised to see me and Jeri standing next to Harold, merely giving out a condescending smile and a shake of her head.

"Come now. Surely you couldn't believe that I wouldn't see this trap for what it is? Young Harold, threatening me as he did? He does not have the spine for it." Gao says slowly, smirking at the man beside me.

I see his jaw clench and his fingers tighten on the gun in his hand, but he doesn't raise it in her direction, though he doesn't avert his eyes either.

"You seem rather unbothered by our trap, Gao." I rumble, bringing Gao's rheumy stare back my way.

"It is because I did not see merely a trap. I saw, an opportunity. When you become as old as I am, you learn how to turn situations, into an advantage. All you need for that, is some friends."

And with that, ninja burst through the door behind her, around thirty or something judging from a quick glance. It's not the ninja that bother me though.

It's not even the six people that burst in after the ninja, wielding Wakandan weaponry and wearing the Amber Armor that I sold to the police, only painted a uniform black.

No, it's the three people slowly walking in behind them, clad in civilian clothing and appearing unarmed.

Their eyes are glowing.

Looking from the three Extremis enhanced to Gao again, I scowl in anger at her smirking expression.

"So Bakuto was telling the truth. You do have an in with A.I.M. somehow."

Gao gave a small, unconcerned laugh as she takes in my words, the ninja fanning out further in Harold's penthouse, the Extremis guards walking up towards her, while the paramilitary looking guys take up position by the door.

"Of course we do. We have an in, everywhere. That foolish young Mandarin. He has wanted to be a part of the five Fingers for so long now, ever since he was a little boy. He's one of Alexandra's little pet projects, I believe. It's even in the name of his organization: Ten Rings, a gift, to the Five Fingers. Such a sweet, naive little boy."

"So the Mandarin is real." I growl out, the realization that my meta-knowledge was wrong like a punch to the gut, not helped at all when Gao starts laughing again.

"How little you truly know of the world, young McCole! Yes, I know who you are, no helmet can hide the rage in your heart, the fury in your eyes. It doesn't matter. After tonight, your interference in the business of the Hand shall be put to a stop." The old lady says with an air of certainty, though she's taken off guard when it's my turn to laugh.

"Yes. Yes it is. But not because of the reason you're thinking of. No, after tonight, my business with the Hand shall be at an end… because after tonight, there will be no more Hand."

And without warning, I raise my arms, and start gunning down the ninja closest to me, while Jeri immediately starts shooting her pistols as well. What she lacks in accuracy, she makes up for in enthusiasm, and I can tell that each shot is more accurate than the last. Harold is visibly startled by the sudden violence however, and it takes him a few moments to gather his wits, but the he too starts firing.

The counteraction of the ninja is immediate, as they start swarming us, but that is where they run into a glaring problem.

Bringing a knife to a gun fight is just a plain bad idea.

My fully automatic fire cuts them down in droves, and while they do manage to close the distance to Jeri due to her slower firing rate, it does exactly shit for them, considering they can't even cut her.

The moment her clips are empty, she manages to snatch one of her attackers' swords straight out of his hands by the blade (swordsmen just don't expect their targets to put their hands towards their cutting edge), and starts butchering those that get too close to her, her ferocity and sheer strength meaning that she manages to cut down a couple of them before they treat her as the threat she is, and back off a bit.

Harold, meanwhile, is nearly dying of fright.

Apart from a rather nice headshot on a ninja that was about to run at him, splattering the assassin's brain all over the wall and floor, he has made only two more kills, and the ninja are almost upon him.

I can feel his hand tugging on my trenchcoat, and as I look over my shoulder at him (getting a brace of shuriken against my breastplate as I take my attention of the ninja in front of me) I can see the desperation in the man's eyes.

"You have to protect me! That was the deal!" he almost screams as he frantically looks between the approaching ninja and me.

With a growl, I stop firing with my right arm, instead grabbing him by his head.

"This one is for Wendell and Heather." I growl out, making Harold's eyes widen in fear, before I hurl him down at the ninja with enough speed, I manage to crush the bodies of at least six of them, with Harold ending up as nothing more than a mangled ruin of a corpse.

All of this took place in the span of only a handful of seconds, and we've only taken out about half of Gao's ninja forces. The more dangerous threat are the Extremis people surrounding her and judging by her scowl, she knows it too.

"Well?! What are you waiting for?! Kill him!"

All three of them give out arrogant grins at that, cracking their necks, and one of them even punches his open palm.

What a douche.

As I prepare myself for an entirely different kind of fight, I finally notice something.

The paramilitary types haven't fired a single shot yet.

Gao realizes it as well the same moment that I do, as she turns around with a shout already forming on her lips, but it's too late.

As one, the six paramilitary guys step forwards, each aiming at the back of the three Extremis people in pairs, and open fire.

The one on the left is dead instantly, as his head simply… disappears.

The other two survive a bit longer, though one is missing a fairly large part of his skull. The one in the middle is still fairly intact, having turned at the last moment, meaning he only misses part of his face and throat (which, while extremely painful, weren't lethal to an Extremis user).

However, the pair that killed their target on the first go add their fire to the pair that's still shooting at the Extremis user that they forced to the ground, reducing the upper part of the man's torso into one giant gaping hole, even as the last pair keeps on shooting at their own target, forcing him back with each shot.

As all six people focus their fire on a single target, he too dies, his head and torso simply gone.

The ninja react immediately, however, and half of their remaining forces break off from me and Jeri in order to attack the betrayers. Again the slaughter began as the ninja fell before my machineguns, though Jeri was having difficulty killing her own attackers.

They couldn't hurt her, but neither could she hit them.

Giving a wide swing with her stolen swords (already with more skill than when she first picked up the blade, thanks to being surrounded my masters of the sword from which she's learning even as she fights), she forced one of the ninja to back away a bit too closely to me, and before he can dodge, I've grabbed him by the back of his loose shirt, lifted him over my head, and thrown him into a ninja that was about to behead one of the attackers, making the two slam into each other with a series of wet snaps.

The paramilitary guy gives me quick nod before moving back into formation with his team, their superior weapons and indestructible armour making sure that they're dealing quickly with their own share of ninja.

Quickly looking over at Jeri's side, I simply aim my machine gun in her direction and open fire, killing her attackers in a spray of bullets, though Jeri gives me an annoyed glare when one impacts her in the side of the head, knocking her glasses of.

Because there's no such thing as friendly fire when you're immune to bullets.

Gao quickly realizes that with her heavy hitters taken out by her other heavy hitters, she doesn't stand a chance against me, and turns around to quickly make her way out, though the paramilitary guys bar the way.

I'm about to intervene, before I can sense that she's doing… something.

Then without warning, her hand shoots out, and all six grown men are thrown clear off their feet, some of them impacting harshly against the wall behind them. It's clear that the chi attack took a lot out of her, but Gao still tries to run towards the exit.

'Oh no you don't.'

And with that, I fly forwards, catching Gao by the back of her head. Not stopping, I angle downwards, and before the old lady can even shout in alarm, I've ploughed her head into the floor.

Lifting her in the air by her head, I turn her towards me, before I can feel that weird thing she did just before-

WHAM!

-yep, there it is, that weird shoving motion again, though this time she does it against my chin, probably in an attempt to snap my neck or something. While she does manage to move my head to the side, the chi blow doesn't really affect me any worse, though my HUD is shot to shit.

Removing the helmet (she knows my identity anyways) I fix Gao with a burning glare, though the old lady stares defiantly back at me, even as blood flows freely down her face.

"I will tell you nothing. You think you have won? That with just me and Bokuto, the Hand will fall? We have existed for centuries, we have people in every position in every society you ignorant child! The Hand will rebuild, and everything you own, and everything that you are will be reduced to ash! You will never win!" she hisses at me, though her speech is slurred and barely understandable.

A closer look tells me I've broken her jaw in multiple places and she's lost quite a few teeth.

"For someone who will tell me nothing, you sure talk a lot." I growl back at her, making her shut up, though she glares at me with murder in her eyes.

"I know that Reid is in the A.I.M. mansion in Miami right now. And as you've just told me, while A.I.M.'s research is funded by Hydra, the front that they intend to use, the Mandarin, is actually loyal to you. How close to the mark am I, Gao?" I rumble, and while the aged leader remains silent, the hatred in her eyes just increases.

"Given that you're not laughing and calling me ignorant, I'll just assume that I'm right on the money here, shall I?"

I can tell that the evil old bat wants to spit in my face, but with her broken jaw it's impossible.

"In that case, you are of no more use to me. Goodbye Gao. For good this time."

Amazingly, the immortal manages to lift her chin in defiance at me, her eyes sparking with determination.

"Do your worst, demon. Death has no hold on me: I will return." She spits, blood flowing from her lips.

Placing both of my hands on either side of her face, I bring her in a bit closer, until I'm looming over her, her body fixed in place as I gaze down at her.

"Not from this you won't."

And with that, I open my mouth wide, and unleash a tidal wave of fire on the old woman. Her shrieks persist only for a couple of moments, before they slowly start to die down, though her body keeps twitching.

I keep this up for a full three minutes (absentmindedly noting that I'm not even slightly out of breath) and as I stop and the glare slowly fades away, I see that all I'm holding is a charred skeleton.

With a disdainful sneer, I throw it to the ground, making it fall apart into ash.

A retching sound brings me back to reality, and I turn around to see Jeri throwing up in a potted plant. A shuffling from behind me brings my attention back towards the six people that betrayed Gao.

They're clearly nervous as I look at them, and at least two seem to be torn in between opening fire on me, or running away. After a few silent moments, in which I simply look at them and they nervously shuffle around, one of them (the leader, presumably) steps forwards, removing his helmet.

He's a harsh faced man, clearly a veteran of some sort, and when he looks at me, his expression is a mix of fear and respect.

"What the hell was your part in all this?" I ask tiredly, making the man swallow uncomfortably, before he straightens somewhat, and gives me a professional nod.

"Mr. Fisk sends his regards."

//

December 31st, 2011 23:13
Once again I'm hovering high up in the air, though this time I'm concealed by the cover of dark clouds. Below me is the mansion of the late Aldrich Killian in beautiful Miami.

And the front lawn is littered with bodies.

I can make out people in both tactical gear and in ninja garb.

Seems like Hydra didn't appreciate that a rival organization had gotten their claws into their private project.

Slowly floating downwards until I'm flying over the house itself, I can hear the sound of battle going on inside, and I spot yet more bodies, illuminated by the fire that's spread all over the mansion itself and the grounds around it.

Judging by several scorched parts where I can make out the shadows of skeletons, it seems that more than a few Extremis subjects went critical here.

Whose side they were fighting on is anyone's guess by now.

A roar and a high-pitched scream tear me from my examination of the ground, and quickly flying over to the other side of the mansion, I'm treated to a very unusual sight.

And considering the way my life's turned out, that's saying something.

Because running out of the mansion, bare feet slapping against stone, is a terrified woman I immediately recognize as Dr. Hansen. And running behind her, having just crashed through the front wall, is Alexandra Reid.

Or what's left of her, at least.

Clearly, something is wrong with the woman, considering she looks more like a…. like a…. honestly, she looks like someone took the corpse of a woman and a dragon, and then crudely stapled the two together, and then set the whole thing on fire.

Wreathed in flame, Alexandra was easily twelve feet tall, het arms were taloned, her legs digitigrade and she had an honest to God tail that was about as long as she was. Her human flesh was cracked in places along her body, with black, burning scales visibly pushing their way outwards, as if something deep inside the woman was clawing its way out, which was especially pronounced across her back (oh, god I can see her spine!) and her hands and feet.

As for her face…

It's only my long familiarity with Sigourney Weaver's face that allows me to recognize her, but fuck has she become ugly. Her nose is burned away completely, much like on a skull, her teeth are long and needle like, and her eyes…

Well, sometimes I describe my eyes as 'burning' as an analogy, meaning that they're just glowing very brightly with a reddish hue.

Her eyes are… actually burning.

I have a few theories as to what the fuck actually happened to the leader of the Hand, but the answer to all my questions is currently terrified out of her mind and running for her life, so I do the only logical thing in this weird scenario.

I rocket towards the dragon-Alexandra hybrid shoulder-first, slamming into her with a crash that produces a shockwave that cracks the tiles underneath us and throws Dr. Hansen clear off her feet.

As Alexandra is launched back into the mansion (taking out even more of the wall) I turn around and float over towards where Hansen is working herself to her bleeding knees.

As she gazes up in wonder at me, I extend one of my enormous hands, a reassuring smile on my face.

"Come with me if you want to live."

'God I've always wanted to say that line!'

For a few moments, Hansen just stares at me completely gobsmacked, but a roar from inside the now thoroughly ruined mansion snaps us out of our respective reveries.

"Now, please!"

Giving a quick nod at my shout, Hansen claps my hand, and I immediately lift off high into the sky, ignoring Hansen's startled shriek. And not a moment too soon, since a black-scaled, clawed hand punched through the roof of the mansion, and Alexandra makes her way outside, a man in ninja gear hanging in her malformed maw.

His agonized screams are cut off with a nauseating crunch, before Alexandra drops her former subordinate as her flaming eyes track my flying form. The roar she lets out is a weird mix between the sounds Susan makes, only deeper, and a woman's shriek.

Then she opens that teeth-filled maw of her, and I can feel that same twisting of power that I sensed coming from Gao when she used her chi attack, as a gout of flame easily twenty feet long comes leaping from her throat, the edges tinted in colours that I didn't even know existed and can't quite remember afterwards.

I'm starkly reminded of the breath attacks of the Abilisk the Guardians fought in GotG Vol. 2 and I give out an annoyed growl as realization sets in.

"What?! What is it! What the fuck was that?!"

"She can channel chi."

"I don't know what that means!"

Swinging her upwards, I shift my grip so I'm holding her in the classic bride position as we both look down as Alexandra makes her way back into the burning mansion, gunfire and screams increasing in intensity as she does.

Something tells me that the Hand and Hydra aren't exactly bothering with fighting each other anymore.

"Chi. The energy force of life. A form of magic, though using an internal power, instead of channelling universal or interdimensional energy." I explain absentmindedly as I try to track the slaughter going on inside the ruin.

"What! That's… that's…"

"Nonsense? Look lady, I'm a flying dude with superstrength who literally just flew in to save your ass from a human-dragon abomination thing. Are you really going to argue with me about whether magic is real or not? Now?"

Conceding to my irrefutable logic, Hansen falls silent, before I give her a nudge.

"What the fuck happened?"

"Well, first A.I.M. was backed by the government, right? I didn't care at first, Killian always took care of that side, but after he died, people started contacting me. Demanding things I couldn't possibly deliver. Extremis was still unstable, but the people on the other end of the line, who actually controlled A.I.M., they didn't care. They wanted to use the faulty subjects as suicide bombers, or some sick shit like that, and they brought in this guy, this freak. Calls himself the Mandarin, he's a terrorist or something, but he also told me to call him Trevor, he plays up this whole terrorist act, and I had to just make more. And then today, this woman rings the doorbell out of nowhere, and when the Mandarin sees her, he gives this order in some strange language, and the people he brought in start shooting at the people the backers had brought in and people were dying, and then this lady had her ninja enter the building! She ordered me to enhance her with Extremis, but I told her that it would probably kill her, and she just hit me and started yelling about having freed herself of death or some shit like that, and then there was gunfire again, and she ordered the Mandarin, or Trevor, or whatever the fuck his name is to buy her enough time for her ascension, and that if he did he'd rise with her or some shit like that and he just bowed and went 'yes, mistress' and went off and started fighting whoever the fuck attacked us now and then the bitch started hitting me again, telling me she was running out of time so I injected her but something went wrong-"

"Dr. Hansen!"

My shout snaps her from her shocked babbling, and her wide eyes settle on mine as her breathing slowly starts to even out a bit.

"When you injected Alexandra, the woman, what happened? What turned her into… that?" I ask, my question punctuated by another roar/shriek coming from within the mansion.

At my question, Hansen's eyes widen even further, and she clings so desperately to me I can actually feel the pressure.

"There's… something… inside her already… and it wants out…" Hansen whispers in such a horrified voice I can't quite keep a shiver from travelling up my spine.

'So I was right. The Extremis had some sort of reaction with the Dragon substance already in her body. After centuries or even millennia, I imagine her body is completely infused with it… and considering Extremis', well, extreme regenerative abilities…'

"What are you going to do?" Hansen asks me in a worried tone, her eyes still filled with terror, while her hands are fisted into my duster in a deathgrip.

"I'm going to kill her."

As I say it, there's a terrified scream below, and we can clearly see a man thrown clear through the wall of the mansion. It's impossible to tell whether he was with the Hand or with Hydra, due to the fact that he was on fire.

And missing the upper part of his torso.

"Can you?" Hansen asks me in a soft whisper, and I briefly wondered the same thing, before I steeled myself.

I faced the Panther Goddess Bast. No mortal had managed to ever halt me in my tracks, not even when armed with futuristic technology and with the element of surprise. In one day I had done more damage to the Hand than they had experienced in centuries, and even now my allies were moving against Hydra. I had a fucking dinosaur as a pet and the man who made the Abomination as my best friend.

I could take a mutant dragon abomination any day of the week.

"Sure." I reply, before slowly descending down to Killian's private beach, which is thankfully only littered with a few bodies, in contrast to the slaughterhouse that the mansion itself is and the grounds surrounding it.

Setting her on her feet, I prepare to fly off again, but Hansen's hands on my arm keep me in place. Turning towards the scientist with a questioning look, Hansen holds onto me with a panicked expression.

"Don't just leave me here!"

For a moment, I debate what I should do with her. I already have Extremis, so I don't really need her. On the other hand, this woman laid the groundwork for one of the most powerful enhancements in the MCU setting, as a baseline human. If I had her working for me on the Brain Booster…

However, the thing that eventually made my decision for me were Sterns' words to me on the phone. While I didn't feel guilty about my actions today, I did feel like shit about them, mostly about what I did to Colleen, but the sound as I snapped Olivia's neck came to mind as well.

It would be nice to just do a good thing today.

"Don't worry, alright? Stay here, you'll be safe. I'm gonna kill the dragon, then come back and take you with me, alright? You know who I am right?"

"Y-yeah. Uh, yeah, you're McCole. You run Titan Solutions. Or, I mean, you used to, ehm-"

"Yeah, whatever, listen, after I kill the dragon, you'll come work for me, alright? No more shady backers, or terrorists, or ninja turning into dragons anymore, ok? If you want I can even keep you a secret, and tell the world that you died here, so those assholes that tried to control you won't go looking for you, alright?" I press her, getting a hesitant nod from the scientist.

"Fine. Yeah, fine. Just don't leave me here."

"I won't. Promise."


And with that, I bend at the knees, before I blast off into the night sky, blasting sand away in my take-off. I rise out high above the mansion, before I angle myself forwards, and rocket towards the burning building.

I crash through the roof, two floors and three walls before I find myself in the burning remains of what once was the main room of the mansion. Everywhere I look I see bodies, bullet holes and even the occasional claw mark.

A burst of gunfire and an ear-splitting roar coming from the floor above me and to the my right clues me in on the location of my target, and I'm off like a rocket, smashing through the ceiling, coming up right underneath Alexandra. Wrapping my arms around her ripped-apart body I don't stop, carrying her through another two floors, before she manages to kick me in the stomach, sending me through a wall.

As I straighten from the mangled remains of the table I had crashed into, I can see Alexandra's misshapen face glare at me through the hole, and once again I sense her gathering something, before she unleashes yet another burst of chi-powered fire.

It's the first time since I've enhanced myself with Extremis that I feel heat crashing into me. As I open my eyes, I stare at my hands, which I had instinctively thrown up in front of my face.

They're burned.

Only slightly, like when you're accidentally brush against a hot frying pan or something, but still.

I'm supposed to be fireproof.

"So this is the power of chi, huh?" I muse to myself, and then I can't muse anymore, because Alexandra crashed into the room, making long swipes with her arm.

I dodge the first two, but as she comes with a swipe to my left side, I turn into her strike, balling my fist (already healed of course) as I tried to mimic what I felt Gao and Alexandra do, funnelling the power that I've felt since this morning into my attack.

Before her clawed hand can reach me, I punch outwards, hitting her in the crook of her elbow.

The blow is accompanied by a rush of wind, and it harshly twists Alexandra to the side as it nearly tears her arm off completely. Not wasting any time, I shoot forwards, punching her in the chest as hard as I can, sending her crashing through two walls and straight out of the mansion.

I briefly look at my fist, as I can tell that that one wasn't fuelled with power as the other one had been, this one using just using my raw strength. I didn't even know if the other punch had been fuelled by proper chi, or by the same energy field that gave Jessica her powers.

Or maybe the changes in her DNA allowed Jessica to naturally draw on her chi? But then where does the flight come from-

Once again I'm taken off guard because of all of these new questions when Alexandra bursts into the house again, this time managing to catch me in a bearhug as she sends us crashing to the floor below us.

Her head (a disgusting thing, it looks like someone cut off Sigourney Weaver's face, and tried to stretch it over a skull that was decidedly non-human) darts forwards on a neck that's far too long, and her jaws close around my shoulder.

She draws back almost immediately though, a mix of a wail and a roar tearing from her throat as she broke her teeth on my indestructible coat, even as they are visibly growing back. As close as we are now, I can definitely see what Hansen meant: underneath what remains of her skin, something is clearly shifting and growing, and in some places, it rips apart the skin, showing lava-like blood and flesh that resembles fiery embers, though they have a yellowish glow.

I'm torn from my morbid stare as Alexandra's arm (completely healed, I notice) descends towards my head, impacting with an almighty shockwave and a sound like a thunderclap, snapping my head to the left.

Feeling a wetness inside my mouth, I realize that the bitch made me bite my own tongue!

As she rears back for another strike (probably chi-fuelled like her fire is, considering the strength behind that last punch) I knee her in the side with enough force to throw her clear from me, something giving way with a wet snapping sound.

Quickly righting myself, I dash towards the abomination before it has a chance to recollect itself (which probably won't take long, since apparently it has a pretty decent healing factor, though thankfully nothing on my level) and I unleash a flurry of punches, each one hammering her deeper into the floor, and each one snapping something underneath her skin.

After a few moments of this, there's an enormous groan going through the entire house, before the floor gives way underneath us. I'm fine, as I just hover in place, but Alexandra starts falling with the rest of the debris, covered in glowing blood.

I almost chase after her, before her tail passes me, and acting on instinct, my hands lash out, grabbing the appendage hard enough that I'm tearing loose some scales, showing more of that burning flesh underneath.

With Alexandra shrieking below me, I rocket upwards, the floors of the mansion easily breaking on my body as I fly upwards in a straight line, before I finally smash through the roof, both me and Alexandra completely covered in flame.

As I keep climbing, a trail of fire following us in our wake, I can spot fireworks erratically dotting the sky around us. Putting it out of my mind, I give an enormous heave, and throw Alexandra even further upwards.

As the flaming abomination hangs in the air, I rocket up past her, before I come to a halt myself. Quickly turning around, I start flying down to the falling Alexandra. Her flaming eyes settle on me, and she lets out an enormous wall of fire at me, but I just grit my teeth and come out the other side, slightly singed, but very pissed off.

And then I crash into her once again, slamming both my arms around her twisting form, and I pour on even more speed, the mansion below us rapidly growing in my view.

And then we're crashing through the roof again, though I just keep powering onwards. We slam through every floor as if it isn't even there, before we finally hit the ground floor, crashing hard enough that everything in the room is slammed into the walls (bodies, furniture, survivors), the fire is snuffed out, and the entire mansion is shaking on its foundations.

In the middle of the room, at the epicentre of our crash, lies the broken form of Alexandra Reid, but judging by the slight twitches her head is making and the hellish glow that's only growing stronger underneath her skin, along with that disgusting shifting, she's not dead yet.

I intend to rectify that.

Straightening the fingers on my right hand, I heat it up as hot as it can go, until it's emitting a glaring white glow, air shimmering around me. I then plunge my hand into the centre of Alexandra's chest, drawing an agonized shriek from her as I easily pierce through her breastbone.

As she struggles to counterattack (and those twitches are definitely getting more pronounced, meaning that's she's rapidly healing) I repeat the process on my left hand, before I stab it down as well, right into the gaping wound my right hand is making.

Again she shrieks, and I'm fairly certain that she's busted both my eardrums, considering everything sounds muffled, dominated by an annoyingly high pitch, while I can feel something wet drip from my ears.

Still, I power through it, and with a roar that's even louder than hers, I rip my arms to the side with all of my strength, ripping apart Alexandra's chest, causing her to thrash around in agony. The inside of her… it looks nothing like the insides of a human. Not even an Extremis-human. There's glowing cancerous looking growths everywhere, and everything burns with that yellowish glow, or is in fact, literally burning.

But there's one thing that's familiar.

Sitting a bit to the left of the hollow inside her chest I can spot her heart beating. It doesn't look human (for one it's glowing so brightly I have some difficulty looking at it) but it's definitely her heart.

Ignoring the thrashing of the abomination beneath me, I pull back my right fist, once more heating it up as far as it can go, but now also fuelling all of the power inside of me into it, just like I felt Gao and Alexandra do. Everything I have inside of me, I push towards my fist, and I can tell it's working when it's suddenly manages to glow even brighter still, the air wavering around me like an aura of sorts.

By now, Alexandra's spine has healed enough that she can lift her head and her right hand, and as she moves her head towards my face in a flash, teeth filled maw opened wide, I roar again, punching down with all of my strength.

"THIS IS FOR PHINEAS, YOU BITCH!"

Once again, the mansion shakes down to its very foundations, while the room is filled by a flash of heat and blinding light.

As the light fades, I look down at what used to be Alexandra.

There's nothing but some charred ribs where her torso was, her legs, arms, and head completely disconnected from each other. Alexandra's decapitated head looks at me in a mix of hatred and shock, before slowly the taut skin of her face goes slack, those flaming eyes dying out, revealing empty sockets.

Slowly, all of her remains lose that hellish glow, as her skin starts to grey into an ashy colour, flaking off here and there.

Alexandra Reid is well and truly dead.

As I stand up, I briefly think that the fighting has renewed itself as I hear something like gunfire, but as I tiredly let my head fall backwards, seeing the nightsky through the massive hole in the mansion above me, I realize it's just enormous amounts of firework going off.

January 1st, 2012 00:01
"Happy New Year…" I softly mumble to myself, before a glow from the corner of my eye catches my attention.

As I lift up my clenched fist, I gaze at it in wonder.

Now, ever since I enhanced myself with Extremis, I had gotten somewhat used to parts of my body glowing at times. But that was usually in a reddish-orange hue, unless I actively tried to burn as hot as I could, in which case it would be a blinding white.

But this yellow glow?

Yeah, that was new.

//

AN: Oof, this chapter was a bitch and a half! I had to rewrite it. 'How much of it?', I hear you ask. Well, my dear reader, here's the answer: ALL OF IT. See, I had this awesome showdown planned between all of the Hand and Michael at Midland Circle, but as I was almost finished with it, I realized a very important thing: Midland Circle doesn't exist at this point in the timeline. So instead of just Michael vs Hand, I had to split up the Hand in their individual parts, which is why this chapter is just way too long. But I didn't want to cut it, because I promised this would be the final chapter in the Hand Arc, and gosh darn it all to heck, I kept my promise! Not all too happy about certain parts (especially Gao's part feels rushed) but I've been writing non-stop for two days straight now and it's currently 1am, so if they feel rushed, it's because they kinda are. No worries, when my fingers stop hurting (and I'm not joking, they actually do hurt a bit, due to holding them in my cramped, weird-ass typing position for nine hours straight), I'll go back into the chapter and catch any spelling mistakes, and probably rewrite some parts of it. Possibly link some music for the battle scenes, since that was pretty well received the last time. Feel free to recommend songs that you think would make a good fit. For now, enjoy!

Fun Fact: The X-men character Dazzler was actually created to serve as a multi-media cross-promotion between Casablanca Records and Marvel Comics. She was originally planned to have a real life equivalent with a record and a movie, but both ideas were dropped when disco started falling out of fashion, though the fictional character persists today as a part of the X-Men.

As always, all of my thanks to my wonderful Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn, Daniel Dorfman and ReaperScythe, with a very warm welcome to Miu! Welcome to the club and thank you all so much for your support, it really does mean a lot to me!