"Whatever happened to laying low, Charud?" Fury said in that leaden voice he seemed to use whenever he wasn't actively pissed off.
"Don't blame me, I'm not the invincible over-God who decided to chuck me out over the Indian ocean." I said, digging into my ear with a pinkie and flicking something out onto Fury's desk just to watch the vein in his head pop out further.
"One among many things I have to discuss with Odin." He said. Shit you really would, ya bastard. Wait. I mouthed off to Odin too. I'm such a badass. My grin must have made Fury even angrier, because he gripped his desk firmly and stood up from it, glaring at me over it as if trying to bore a pair of holes in me. "As of this moment my temper is extraordinarily short with regards to you. I'm dealing with a great number of problems, all of which seem to swing back to you in some way."
Something clicked, and I frowned. "This isn't just about New York, is it?"
He slowly sat back down and mastered himself. "Not directly. I've been seeing some... movement within SHIELD itself that my gut tells me isn't natural. Much of it seems to revolve around you, especially after New York. I'm not going to lie to you; there are a lot of people out there who are increasingly uncomfortable with you reporting directly to me."
"They don't like you having your own nuclear option. After New York it's become clear that their ability to escalate beyond what I can match is... limited." I reasoned, slipping my hand into my pocket.
"Something like that." Fury said, his face becoming unreadable as he looked me over. "You're an unknown factor, even among all the other Avengers. After that other Saiyan showed up things got even more complicated. Not many people got to hear that conversation you had with him on the subject of contract loyalty." He said, tapping his fingers. "They're starting to wonder if there might be another invasion in store for us."
I floated back, crossing my legs beneath me and drifting, as I did often now when I was thinking. "Hmmm... they may have a point."
He glanced at me sharply.
"Not from my people. At least I don't think so. I spoke with an Asgardian who's an expert in these things- man by the name of Heimdall. According to him, after our planet was destroyed, the few Saiyans who managed to escape or who weren't on planet when it happened scattered across the cosmos. Stateless refugees, pirates, and mercenaries mostly. I'm sure Prince Vegeta has some grand ambitions, if he can gather up all the remaining Saiyans he'll... actually he'll probably get himself killed taking on somebody too strong for him." I shrugged. "But there are worse things out there than Saiyans... and if they come here, your planet will fight them about as well as a bug fights a windshield."
"Freeza." he said simply.
"Freeza crushed my planet. Easily. All by himself. He could literally have done it with one hand tied behind his back. And I'm not even sure there aren't others, even more powerful than him, lurking out there. I've heard stories, legends about things that would kill Freeza just as easily as he could kill you. Demon machines, Majin, Gods of Destruction. Sorry to be the one to have to tell you, but if Thor is right, and fucking around with the cube has turned the eyes of the galaxy on you, then you are going to have a bad time."
Fury's fingers were clenched again. It must have been hell for him; a man so used to being on top of it all, to feel powerless. I could empathize, somewhat. "So, you have any suggestions for what we should do about it? Because I'm listening."
I grinned. "I might have some ideas. You take care of SHIELD. Just call me if you need someone's head busted; in the meantime... call the team. And get me a gym somewhere rural. Mountainous preferably."
---------------
"You want me to build a spaceship." Tony said, brows furrowed.
"Actually I want you to build a lot of spaceships. Like, an absolute fuckton." I replied. The plane we were riding was what put me in mind of the question. It didn't just have his name on it, it was a Stark original, with prototype repulsor engines, all electric. Very nice.
"You... do know that Stark Industries is deeper into the red than ever right? That would be courtesy of you, blowing up what was supposed to be our new corporate HQ, thanks again for that by the way. Besides, building even one rocket-"
"Not interested in a rocket. I want a space ship. A real one, if you please."
"...And what exactly makes you think that I can make that happen? I mean, Okay, of course I've thought about it, what engineer hasn't? I have a few theoretical designs for repulsor engines that should work in a vacuum, but..."
I slid a slip of paper across the table toward him, and he paused in his monologue to look down over it.
"Your handwriting is atrocious."
"I'm aware." I said.
"... Are these actually right? You know I didn't figure you for a math wiz, no offense."
"I'm not. But every saiyan scout has to understand at least some of this in order to repair our pods if we end up stranded on some hostile alien planet." Actually that had come as a shock to me too; when I started thinking about the math that went into the construction of the engines... it all just started coming to me, easy as arithmetic. "I probably couldn't build an engine from scratch, but I know enough about how they work."
"And you've just been sitting on this? Charud, I'm offended. I thought we were friends."
"Kiss my ass Tony. Anyway, this isn't everything anyway; it's just the gravity polarizer. On a pod, that's enough. They're really light, and the onboard stasis system will keep you alive for years in there without any trouble, but for a real ship, it's not going to be enough. I need you to do your genius thing and figure out how to make this work."
Stark furrowed his brow and whipped a pen from his pocket, tapping it on the paper and making a few notes in the margins; partly just to translate my chicken scratch. "...This thing here, the graviton beam deflector."
"Yeah, you need that, or it'll just crush your ship down like a can at the bottom of the ocean."
"It uses this... energy shield thing. That's your limiter."
"Yeah. It's a power hog; the more intense the gravity distortion the more power the deflector takes up. Even with a perfectly efficient engine you're limited to less than fifty percent of your power output being used for propulsion, even if you ignore the power you need for life support, weapons, etc."
"Yeah, I'm familiar with the concept of active compensation." He said, staring at me flatly. "Let's say though that you had something that could disperse the gravity wake without needing active power input."
My mind snapped immediately to the conclusion. "Okay... I'll ask him, but... Actually. Where did your dad get that stuff anyway?"
----------------
The facility that Fury found for us turned out to be in the Appalachians, which was fine, if you liked trees. Which I did, a lot! It was less fun if you liked fast internet; but Tony had a satellite connection that actually worked, which was a wonder to me, having experienced the wonders of rural internet plenty before. Seeing everyone together without Loki's influence was surprisingly uplifting. Thor wouldn't be joining us until later, but I didn't begrudge him some time to catch up with his lady friend.
I'd forgone the usual armor and wore a set of loose, tough canvas pants and a muscle shirt; now that I had an actual physique to show off; and besides, the humidity was killer. Most of the others had something similar, I'd advised they pack for an outdoor workout. Steve, of course, looked like he was born in it; Nat made it look sexy, as she would everything up to and including a burlap sack with holes cut in it, and Banner... actually he was the only one who wasn't sweating, not even a little.
"I'm sure you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today." I said, hands on my hovering knees.
"I'm wondering how long you've been waiting to use that one actually." Tony said, mopping his brow.
"All my life. Now, who's ready to learn how to fight?" I grinned.
There was a long beat where the professional soldiers, spies, and Banner all exchanged looks. Nobody laughed, but there was plenty of bemused grinning. Nat, of course, figured it out immediately, and held up one hand, a little bead, red as blood, forming above her hand and glowing brightly. "He means like this."
"Points to the lady! Not quite exactly though. I wouldn't dream of telling you how to use your Ki; I'm no expert myself. All I'm here to do is to give you a little nudge, and show you a few ways to maximize your potential."
"Not that I don't appreciate the chance Charud, but... I'm not certain that being about whether being able to do that stuff would do for me." Steve pointed out carefully.
My grin stayed in place. "Well, what would you say if I told you you were already doing it?"
"Uhh..."
"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that that shield doesn't behave like any other piece of metal you've ever seen?"
"I figured it was just because it was made of vibranium."
"EHH!" I made the sound of a wrong-answer buzzer. "Sorry, that might help, but unless that thing is straight up magic, it's not moving that way. Unless you make it move like that. Ki is the power of the body moved by the intention of the mind. Whether you're throwing a punch, throwing a shield, or firing an arrow." I nodded over at Clint, who looked intrigued, fingering his bow carefully.
"All of you, Tony excepted-"
"Hey!"
"Are exceptional examples of human warriors. You all have the potential to become masters of Ki. If you can do that, you can break past your limits, and there's no telling what you'll be able to do."
"Question! I'm not exactly sure why I'm here then. Would really prefer to be practically anywhere else to be honest." Tony piped up.
"Yeah... I'm going to second that. I'm not really sure I like the idea of potentially making the Other Guy even stronger than he already is..." Banner said nervously.
"Well, a simple answer is that we won't know you can't do it until you try. For the rest... Tony, I'll need your help building more training equipment. And Bruce, I think that if you give this a try, you might find it helps your little green problem. One way of understanding Ki is as a mastery of our capacity to do violence. You have an amazing well of power inside you; like the atom, it can be used for indiscriminate destruction, or if it's directed carefully, for constructive purposes. I think mastering your Ki could help you."
He stared at his hands for a few moments, then turned to me. "Did it help you?"
I grimaced at the accusation, and the silence stretched.
"Bruce..." Steve began.
"No. I deserve that. I failed to account for the possibility that the Oozaru might be unleashed without a real full moon. That was stupid. I knew that it could be activated artificially, but I was still cocky. I'm not going to run from that. What happened was my fault. But I WILL control it. I give you all my word, I will never hurt this world like that again."
"So you're saying you'll pick some other way to do it then." Nat quipped, breaking the tension a little.
"Ha ha ha. Okay midgets, anyone chickening out, get on the plane. The rest of you... put these on." I said, offering them some backpacks. "You're delivering milk today."
"Uhh... to who? The nearest town is like fifty miles away." Tony pointed out.
"Yup. You'd better hurry or you'll miss dinner."
