Up and Away(SI MCU)

[Proman]

It was the rain that woke me up, it felt like I had been shoved into a heavy shower while still being in my regular clothes. On top of that, I was lying face down in a rather dirty puddle, my mouth wide open and my tongue tasting the muck.

"Fuck!" I shot up, my dripping wet hair slapping me in the face. Surprised, I tried to blink out the water from my vision, throwing out an arm to hold onto a nearby wall when black spots started to fill my sight and the world started to spin around me, causing me to lose my footing.

Because of the spots that filled my vision, the only thing that I could use to tell where I am was the sound of cars roaring past me at a subdued speed I'd expect from a busy street. There were also some yells coming from people, basically, should people be speaking to each other loudly.

"God," I groaned as my sight returned. A searing ache hit my head like a bullet was going through it. "What did I drink last night to cause this?"

It looked like I was in some alley, in someplace that I didn't recognize at all.

I closed my eyes as the light from the street suddenly hit, telling me that it was some point during the day rather than night. With another groan, I spat out the muck from my little time with that puddle I was surely standing in by now.

It wasn't long until my balance was righted and I could stand on my own without the world feeling like it was falling down around me. It was then that I had a sudden thought, why is it sunny… when it was raining just seconds ago.

It was then the showering started once more, the sun getting blocked by the dark clouds that were no doubt above me at this very moment. For the first time, I looked up, seeing the tall buildings that surrounded me being basked in beams of light coming from behind the gaps between the rain clouds.

"I've no idea where I am," I spoke suddenly, my head peeking out of the alley to see the people that we're walking on past me. "Which city is this? Ain't Dublin."

The Irish Capital had buildings with a different sort of architecture, the streets were designed with a different sort of pavement that was flatter, that was greyer. The number of tall buildings as well was a sign that really highlighted that this was some other country, Irish cities didn't have many buildings of this size.

I glanced up the street finding that while crowded, it wasn't overly busy for such a wide place. At the corner of the street, I spotted a newspaper stand, I got an idea.

It only took a few seconds for me to get over there, a loud jangle in my pocket telling me that I had plenty of change to buy a paper. I put a smile on my face, trying to keep it natural as I strode up to the man at the stand.

My heart started to race, I didn't like the stare this man was giving me, it even caused me to shiver a little bit. Though that could've been just how wet my clothes were from the rain.

"Sup," Speaking absentmindedly, the man at the stall repeated the phrase back to me. I threw my eyes to the papers down below, finding the New York Bulletin staring at me with its' bold title page. I didn't even look to the main image or the head title, just the dates that were listed on top of the title.

May 2nd, 2008.

"This the latest paper?" I asked the man, for the first time letting my eyes meet his.

"Yeah, what of it?" he responded, only briefly looking down at the papers, though I'd imagine that he'd be seeing it all upside down.

"2008?" I raised a single eyebrow, twisting my head to the side so I could give the man a side glance.

"Yeah 2008," Now it was the Newspaper Stand Man's turn to glance at me funny, something that caused me to feel more than a little self conscious. "You feeling okay man?"

Licking my lips while scratching the back of my head, I could feel my heart start to race at the sudden thought that entered my head. Had I gone mental?

"Yeah, just gone on a bit of a binge last night, just woke up with a headache. So I'm just washy…"

Which was when I finally looked at the image on the front of the New York Bulletin… with the words written across it…

"Iron Man is Tony Stark, the CEO moonlighting as an international vigilante, is he a hero or a danger?"

I couldn't believe what I was reading, it was like someone had been playing a joke on me. Had Disney buying out Marvel lead to some bizarre New York theme part of Disney land where everyone stays in character?"

"Insane ain't it?" his voice brought me back out of my thoughts, causing me to sharply glance at the people walking around me, searching for some end to the streets that didn't look like a real city. "Stark thinks just because he has money and some fancy armor that he can take the law into his own hands, it's ridiculous."

"Yeah," Was all I could muster up, picking up the paper and throwing the man a few coins that I had on me, only letting the size of them tell me what they were, no doubt overpaying the man. I walked away, ignoring the man's call for me to return for my change.

My attention was too caught up in the article in front of me, talking about what the CEO of Stark Industries had gone through in the last few months, about how he was kidnapped, about how he escaped the adductors. It went into further details, but basically it repeated a lot of the Iron Man movie, barring the personal interactions.

Including how the "I am Iron Man" scene only happened yesterday.

If this was a prank, then I've pissed off someone with a lot of money. But I don't know what I could have done to Elon Musk?

There was a splash from a car hitting a nearby puddle that hit the lower half of my left leg, causing me to moan out loud quietly. Only the sudden growl from my stomach and a rather severe cramp stopped me from cursing out my life at the moment.

Before I could even think about what to eat my eyes caught a glimpse of a rather large sign saying all you can eat… 7.50 Dollar.

The windows of the place were red-rimmed, the door a blue shade that clashed with that red horribly. Something that I hadn't thought possible before now, at least to my understanding of color-coding.

The place was called Joey's or something like that, I honestly couldn't be bothered to read it properly, I was just so hungry.

"Stomach, you're about to become full." I grinned while walking forward through the doors of place, some family-owned place from the appearance of it. The inside seemed to say the same to me as well, so I walked forwards towards the buffet table… when an arm came out, stopping me only barely in my tracks.

"For such a skinny guy you sure are train-like," This man told me, his face having on it a slight smile that masked the grimace I could see form in his eyes along with the slight scrunching of his nose. It looked like I smelled bad. "It's the fee upfront, sir?"

I took a breath, letting my eyes take in the man before. He was just a normal slightly overweight guy in a shirt and pants.

"Right," As I reached through my pocket's looking for the jingling of spare change to help me find where exactly I'd put the money in coat pockets. From, the by now rather peeved expression that seemed to take over the other man's face, I knew that he wouldn't like me standing up looking for the money for much longer. "Found it!"

In a rush a nearly threw the tenner onto the man's waiting hand. A sigh of relief leaving my body as I came to realize that I hadn't even checked what I had on me before this. I was super lucky that It was an American Dollar and not… like a Pound or even a Euro note.

My eye was drawn onto the plates of pasta, some kind of cheese mix, so I grabbed a large bowl and filled it to the brim. Letting the smell of the freshly cooked Italian food enter my nostrils. Usually, I wasn't the kind of person to eat food like this, but as it's been said… hungry is the best sauce.

I found a free table and started to down my meal as if I hadn't been eating right for the past few months. I was actually eating too fast as it turns out, the food got stuck in my throat, causing me to cough and punch at my chest.

Eventually, I noticed the water jug on the table and so filled the nearby glass.

A good gulp was all I needed.

"You okay?" Glancing up, I found it was the man from before that had spoken, actual concern was etched on his face.

"Yeah, " Replying sheepishly, I rubbed the back of my head. "Just ate my meal too fast, I'll be careful from now on."

It was only when the man gave me a slow nod, turned and walked away from me that I dropped my hand from the back of my head. That was when I noticed something odd, my hair was far longer than I'd ever remembered having it; like it hadn't been cut in about a year.

Which was concerning only because I've never let my hair grow past my ears before.

"What the fuck?" I whispered, bringing my hand over to cover my mouth. Taking another bite of my meal, hoping that it would stop me from doing that thing when I start to talk out loud when I was, in fact, trying to just think.

I let my heart race, let my right leg start to bounce under the table. I was sure that this was a dream, it made no sense to be stuck in New York, with the right currency, while both somehow being in the past and having grown out my hair.

Suddenly my arm brushed up against a chest pocket as it made way towards my face to pinch my nose. When I felt what was there, my leg stopped bouncing, my heart froze. Chuckling lowly, I crept my hand into the pocket grabbing the newly revealed phone and wallet that I had somehow not noticed in my blind panic.

I looked at the phone first, it was the model that I had in secondary school. A Samsung C3050, an old sliding phone from before Android took over, which annoyed me, mostly because if I really was in the past then even this phone might be too new for me to use with the current phone operators.

Still, I slide the phone up to enter in my home number, making sure to add the digits needed to call it when out of Ireland. That was when I got the dreaded reply from the phone.

"We're sorry; we are unable to complete your call as dialed. Please check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you."

With my anxiety acting up more every second, I slid the phone back to disengage the call. My hands coming up to my eyes as I rested my head against my palms and my elbows against the table.

I let out a low breath, trying to calm my racing heart while my mind told me that there was a chance that my phone just wasn't covered in this country. Though the chances of that were low when I'd already been carrying US Dollars.

"What'll I do now?" I whispered, pulling lightly on a small section of my long hair at my fringe. To keep my anxiety from acting up once more, I started to think about the situation in hand from a detached point of view, like I was playing an RPG.

First, it was obvious that no matter what the Paper said earlier, that at least six months had passed since I could last recall, my hair told me that. But the more worrying thing was that I couldn't place the date I was taken at, not what time it was in the school year even. The only concrete thing I could say was that it was Leaving Cert year. Meaning that it should be 2012.

Was I even at school still when I was taken?

I looked at my reflection on the handle of the fork I'd been eating with and found that I'd gained some stumble along my jaw, that I'd grown as far as to grow a small mustache even, something that I hadn't managed while going to school.

"Maybe it's been more than six months?"

"What's been?" The voice spooked me, causing me to jump in my seat just a tiny bit. "Sorry," I turned to face the speaker, their apology for scaring me seemingly sincere sounding enough for me to take it at face value.

"It's fine, I was in my own world," Taking in this new person in front of me, I didn't think much of her other than she was around that age I'd been thinking I was, 18 and that she was huge. Not in a fat way, but that way I'd expect out of soldier, like she was ready to wreck some shit up. She was wearing something of a jumpsuit and looking like they'd just come from a run, and given that it was raining, that meant she was soaked.

"Pat," I held out a hand to shake.

"Louise," She sat down on the chair across from me, not shaking my hand. Which given my state of dress… and how I woke up in a puddle, I don't blame her, I wouldn't shake me hand either.. "Hope you don't mind me sitting here, all the other tables are full."

I took a quick look around the room, finding that I'd somehow not noticed earlier the other tables being full.

"I'm told that it's a free country," I moved my eyes back to my food, seeing that the plate was nearly empty. "Can hardly stop you. You've already sat down and look like you could defenestrate me with one hand."

I tried to keep my tone light as if the day hadn't bothered me but I was sure that some of my shakiness got through. The only thing that I could hope for was that the girl put it down to me looking homeless.

Homeless could mean that I'm coming off drugs… not sure why I wanted that.

"Always wanted to try it," she shrugged, a slight grin on her face. "Just never found a reason to."

"Sorry, but I don't plan on giving any reason," I took a few more bites from the pasta in front of me. Watching as Louise took a comic out of her bag, I found that I couldn't recognize it, but that's not saying much given that I only really read a handful of DC titles. "Whacha reading? If you don't mind?"

"Hyperion: Judgement Day," She raised a single eyebrow in disbelief if I was reading her face right. "You're not a comic fan?"

"Sure… just more into the Irish comic scene," I lied back, trying to think of a reason why I didn't know the comic. Though, really I hadn't needed to and that was more likely to lead to more issues than solutions.

"There isn't an Irish scene for comics," Louise responded, her expressionless amused than it had been before. "I should know, been to Ireland before."

"Exactly, hence my lack of comic knowledge," I recovered instantly, giving her a hammy wink from my left eye. Something that did cause her to let out a small giggle, something that seemed to ease the tension that I'd caused earlier. "Tell me about Hyperion?"

"You don't know about Hyperion?"

"Just general stuff, last of his race, sent off to Earth by birth parents," I shrugged, watching as Louise actually twisted her ponytail, squeezing the water out of it and letting it hit the ground. "Raised to be a good little American, but that's about it."

"You've got the right of it," She told me, her eyes reaching towards mine as I leaned back into my chair. "Except for the odd issue that modern-day comics have where it just can't stop making evil alternate timeline versions of him."

"Gets boring?"

"Gets boring," Louise nodded, her eyes coming back to read the pages down below. "And makes being a fan really hard at times."

"I've got a question?" I asked while reaching for the last few forks of my meal.

"Good, because mine's what's the question?"

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one, using my left hand I forced my fringe out of eyes. Honestly, I hadn't expected that I'd be laughing like that so soon but it could've been due to mania setting in. I'm told that people eventually fall into that when they go mental.

"You know where the nearest phone booth is?"

"Yeah, it's around just down the block," Louise pointed out the door and to the left. I could tell that she was kind of confused by this response. "Why, is your phone not working?"

"Must have broken it," I shrugged, standing up and hearing the squeak of my shoes on the floor below. "Got some calls to make, maybe I'll see you around sometime?"

"Maybe."

---

The phonebooth I found was old, it was rusted in some places. The glass that made the walls were broken in the sides, the shards had been gathered up and gotten rid of a long time ago from the lack of any surrounding the booth. The phone itself though?

That was glistening clean, with glowing blue buttons and two green neon swirls for both the mic and the speaker. It was like someone had put a brand new phone in but for some reason didn't bother with replacing or even just fixing the rest of the booth.

I think that I spent over ten minutes going over the phone booth, trying to figure out several things. First, how to use a payphone, since I've never actually used one before in my life. The second, was it broken or did I just not know how to call people internationally with it?

I checked the device over, finding no fault in any part of the slick machine before me. Couldn't even understand the damn blasted thing.

"What's wrong with it?" Growling, I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. "This shouldn't be so hard, it's a fucking phone!"

Stamping my foot down hard the phone booth's floor… I heard a rather loud crack spread from my feet. I flinched, closing my eyes hard enough that I would be surprised if they disappeared into the recess of my sockets.

"Just what I need." I opened my eyes and stared at the ground that had dared to break because I put my foot down on it too roughly. "To be arrested for destruction of public property."

That was when I noticed the sign I was standing on, a crack running through the form of what looked like a steel sign saying: "Out of Order."

Taking a deep breath, I was about to turn around and leave the booth… till it started to ring, the chime an alien sound to my ears, like something I'd expect a xenomorph to make before leaping at their prey.

"It's ringing?" I glanced left, I glanced right, hoping that someone would run up and reveal that it was for them, because the only other option was that someone was watching me at this very moment. That was when… the numbers on the phone changed into letters, going from a soft blue to a sinister green.

ANSWER THE PHONE

My heart skipped a beat, my mouth dropping in surprise. So I picked it up, letting the speaker touch my ear slowly while letting the mic come to be about a cm away from my mouth.

"Hello?"

There was no response, not even the sound of heavy breathing to signal that someone really was on the other side of the call. But there was an odd electronic whine on the other end, something that was sending a chill that crept up my spine.

"Listen carefully," The voice was distorted, making the voice unrecognizable barring that upper-class style accent. "There's an alley to your left, go down it. If you do not, people will die."

"Wai-" I was interrupted by a click and then another electronic whine that told me that they'd hung up on me. I glanced back to the number pad, the symbols once more becoming normal lettering. It was only then that I finally looked down the alley, watching as a very suspicious-looking man walked down, looking like some mix of a terminator or Kyle Reese with the large coat that could hide weapons.

I knew that it was a bad idea to walk down there, especially in a city like New York, and having already been told that there was trouble about to go down there. It was just I couldn't help but wonder what exactly was going to happen down there? Would it answer how I got here? Why I was here?

But there is just as likely that it was some sort of trap, laid by the people that had put me here. I don't know why they'd let me go and then set up a situation to recapture me. It could be to let me panic, see how I'd react.

This all could be some kind of sick experiment.

Deciding to take a chance on it, I walked down the alley with a keen eye for any funny business. It was a massive alley, at least to my small-town sensibilities, so much so that I could probably have a game of soccer comfortably here with two full teams. At the center of the alley, two guys were standing all their lonesome.

One was a black man, at least close to middle-aged, with a close beard, wearing a black coat with his hands stuffed into the pockets while a plaid shirt was barely peeking out from beneath. Also on his face, I could see the thick black rims of his glasses.

The other man was in a large beige coat with a tall collar covering the bottom of his face. While the other man had dark hair this one's hair was red, with the grey creeping up from the roots, giving him a far older appearance dispite the fact that his face had fewer wrinkles than the other man.

They hadn't noticed me, or at least I was far enough away that they didn't take any heed that I was here. It was odd looking at them though, as if I could see them better than I would normally from this distance, even making out the lip movements that the black man was using as he talked to his friend.

But I didn't know how to read lips, so that was useless to me.

That was when I heard the screeching of a pair of tires, causing me to snap my head away from the two men. It was another pair of men, one riding on the back of a motorbike while the other one drove it, this time wearing all black and with helmets that obscured their faces from view.

My heart metaphorically exploded in my chest as the one with their hands free raised up a gun, some sort of automatic weapon from what I could tell. Without thought, I screamed, my left arm reaching out as if it would warn the pair better.

"LOOK OUT!"

But the first two men were turning to face me rather than the oncoming threat aiming at them with each passing second. Adrenaline must have started to rush through my veins as the world slowed down and even though I knew it wouldn't make a difference, I ran towards the duo as fast as I could.

My feet slammed into the pavement with loud clacks as the world blurred around me, the muzzle from the gun flared.

But the sound of the gunfire didn't come yet, instead, it slowly moved in the air. It was like a miracle from the Lord himself, letting me slam into the two non-motorbike riding men though letting the bullet hit my body.

"Shit," I swore rolling on to me side as the world sped back up and the motorbike ran off into the distance. My hand went to the newly made hole in my jacket, trying to keep the blood that would no doubt be pouring out of the bullet wound. "Fuck."

"Jesus Christ!" The white man of the two men I'd saved swore as well. His hands came down to hold mine, the one already covering the hole. "You going to be okay kid?"

His words broke me out of a haze, letting me realize something important.

"I feel fine?" I replied, confused by my own statement, my hand pulling away from my jacket, much to both men's horror, to reveal that there was no blood. "Did they miss?"

"No," The greying-red-head answered, his now free hands coming up from the ground to showcase something trapped between the sleeves of his coat. "The bullet flattened against your skin."

None of us spoke for a while after that, not sure if it was because they were as gobsmacked by this as I was or if they were just waiting for me to speak up about how such a thing was possible.

"Holy shit? Am I bulletproof?"

I must have worn an expression that was far too expressive for the two men not to take the connotation that my words gave. The black man took his friend to the side.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, keeping his mouth close to the other man's ear. "The kid is okay, but we need to get out of here," his eyes glancing over to me. "And with what this kid just did… he needs to get out of here, before someone calls the cops about the gunfire."

The white man sighed, his eyes briefly looking at me.

"Fine, but I can't take him, Ben," he said, revealing the black man's name as Ben as he started to walk away. "Ain't got anywhere to put the guy and I've got my own family to take care of. "

I'd noticed that the redhead looked almost regretful as he left like it was painful for him to turn down trying to help the man that saved his life. At least that was what impression I got off the man, I could've easily been wrong.

"Right," Ben smacked his lips together, grabbing my attention as he did so. His left hand came down to lift me to my feet, then nearly pushing me forward as a loud set of sirens started blaring "We need to get out of here."

I followed along with the man, not making a single noise as I did so. Too shocked at what was happening to question this man dragging me out of the alley with a grimace on his face.

"You know," he grunted, his eyes glaring. "You could start moving, I'm not the best guy around to be lifting a fully grown man."

"Sorry," I muttered, making sure that I was actually following along with the man rather than being carried by him. Glancing at his face I couldn't help but think that the man was oddly familiar to me like I'd seen him somewhere… I just couldn't place where?

"What's your name kid?" Ben asked me, his tone light as we changed from walking at a fast to a slow pace away from the scene. I pondered the man's question carefully, thinking about the answer with all that I currently knew in mind.

"Pat," I said, continuing the lie I'd told the young girl earlier. " Pat Doyle, and you?"

He paused mid-step, his eyes glancing at mine like he was surprised that I hadn't recognized him. Meaning that my familiarity with the man would have easily been placed on him being some kind of famous person, which would at least explain that drive-by earlier.

"Suppose your not a big print man?" Ben asked me, resuming his strut alongside me with a small confident grin. "I'm Ben Urich, a reporter for the New York Bulletin."

"Thought you looked familiar, must have glanced over your paper at one stage or another," Saying this I noticed that Ben was now fully taking in my appearance, I think for the first time. Looking at my disheveled clothes, my dirty face and even the unkempt hair Ben seemed to have decided something.

"You homeless?" There was a light air to his tone, like what he had asked me wasn't a big deal. I couldn't disagree, part of me was deeply ashamed that I was in such a state that someone could even make such an assumption… but then… it did seem to be true.

"Yeah, woke up homeless a while ago," I replied, letting my eyes drop to my dirty shoes. Looking at the dirty stains that littered the surface, stains that I wasn't used to seeing. My mind still questioning how I'd gotten into this state. "Don't actually remember when I got to this state though."

Ben cast a glance towards me again, one that started out amused and slowly shifted into one of concern and sympathy. Eventually, he patted me on the shoulder, trying to give some small measure of comfort.

"It's been a tough year for a lot of folks," he said, his tone serious, from what I could recall, mostly because the Financial Crash would've happened recently, and even years after it, it was still affecting my family. "You ain't got any family that could help out?"

"No," I shook my head, thinking of the people that I hadn't tried calling yet but realizing that I didn't actually know any of their numbers. I'd never really needed to call other people and given that lack of any real response from the numbers that I had, thought that it might be better not trying. "I've been by myself for the last four years."

It was really just a guess based on the length of my hair and counting backward from the last year that I could remember with any real detail.

"You don't have anywhere to stay then," Ben continued, this time muttering to himself rather than asking me a question. We continued walking towards some destination, Ben eventually hailing a cab that the two of us stepped into. It was only then that he spoke once more. "You can stay with me, I've got a guest room in my apartment."

I wasn't sure how to take that, I could tell that he hadn't made that offer all that lightly, he'd tried finding somewhere else for me… not sure why he didn't offer to take me to some sort of shelter though.

"You offer hobos a place to stay often?"

"Just the ones that save my life."

It didn't take long for us to arrive at the apartment building, just twenty or so minutes which was a surprise to me, given that it was such a busy city. It wasn't a bad apartment either. It was clean, lacking any graffiti or any other kind of markings that would tell me we were in gang territory.

It was as we entered the door to his apartment, on the second floor, that Ben broke the silence that had enveloped us since that brief conversation in the cab's backseat.

"Doris!" Ben called out, his voice loud but soft. "I'm home… and I've got a guest."

There was a rather loud sigh from a room nearby, a small black woman walking out from behind a wall. Her face had a rather annoyed expression on it as if Ben had angered her.

"Ben," Doris moaned, throwing her hands down. "What have I told you? If someone's coming over, I need to know in advance or I won't be able to cook enough food for dinner."

"I'm sorry, it was rather sudden," he responded sheepishly, his shoulders making a shrugging motion. "Guy's helping me with a little something, nothing that'll cause any trouble but… as you can see," Ben pointed over at me, his arm waving up and down my frame showcasing the rather dirty state I was in. "Kid needs a place to stay… you ok with that?"

Doris gave me a look, her eyes staring into mine with such an intensity that I couldn't help but look away from her. I was now only looking at the woman from the side of my vision, glancing as her expression softened even as her eyes stayed piercing.

"First… he takes washes and you lay out some clothes for him."

With those words, Doris turned around and left the hall. Ben moved to face me again, a slight apologetic grin on his face as he ushered further into the apartment and stopped at a brown door.

"Showers in there," he said, his other hand pointing at a radiator to the side. "I'll leave clean clothes that should fit outside."

That was when I was left alone, truly alone for the first time since waking up in that alley this morning. Alone and with a real mirror, looking at my face, I noticed that my face had aged by years since the last time I had a good look at it.

The hair that I used to guess my age previously seemed to be the least noticeable signifier. My face, while clean of spots, was now covered in dirt from the street, in some of the cheese and pasta sauce that I'd eaten earlier. I'd lost all the baby fat that I was known for during secondary school, my cheeks looking like I'd lost a full stone.

Even though I could tell by the sound of my footsteps that I'd gained about two stone.

I could make out the back of my hair, peeking out from the sides. I'd somehow lost my infamous cow's lick that I had holding up my fringe for most of my life. If I didn't know better, I'd wouldn't be able to tell that I was the same person anymore.

It was only the shape of my nose, the shape of my eyes, and the small scar that I had above my left eyebrow from picking at a chicken spot that came together to form my unique face. Suddenly, a knock at the door shook me out of my thoughts.

"Hey," Ben's voice came through the brown door, light and full of cheer. Something that did a great deal to put me at ease, which only meant that I felt numb… rather than shocked. "I've left some clean clothes out for you, they might be a bit short on you, but they're at least clean."

"Thanks," I replied, robotically, while I turned on the electronic shower. "I really appreciate you doing this for me," Speaking louder to overcome the sound of the shower. "Not many people would."

"Hey, you did me a massive favor, the least I could do is help you get back on your feet."

And so I was once more left alone, this time I didn't dwell on my thoughts but instead focused on washing the dirt of New York off.

---

I got dressed in a plaid shirt, the sleeves of which were barely enough to reach my wrist, and a pair of jeans that were somehow too tight but just about long enough for my legs. The only real issue I had now was just how long my hair had become, with it cleaned the damn thing straightened out and was over my eyes now.

Blocking me from seeing anything if I didn't swipe it the side.

"Mr. Urich!" I spoke, only slightly loud. "I'm out now. Where should I put my dirty clothes?"

"There's a basket by the bathroom door!" Ben yelled back, his voice coming from a room down the hall. I put the clothes where he mentioned and went off towards where his voice was coming from.

"Hey," I said as I approached the frame of the door, a jaunt in my step that felt like it hadn't been there in a long time. "Thanks again for doing this for me, I've been in a bit of a spot of late and really needed the help."

After my eyes caught Ben, I took in the rest of the room. What I found was like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, there were playing cards set up on several wooden boards attached to the furthest wall. Each one had a name, with a red string poked into the center of one and into another.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Ben told me, sitting on a chair with his left foot resting on his knee. "Tell me, what is someone like you doing living on the streets?"

"Someone like me?" Was my response, feeling confused by the statement.

"You're young, powerful," he pointed at me, his index finger pointing at me as if it would prove his point. "You're also obviously an Irish National based on your accent. So I don't know why you're living on the streets of New York."

I explosively sighed, my whole body seemed to sag as my earlier thoughts came to mind once more. Spotting a free seat across from Ben I took it before shitting my eyes and rubbing my forehead to get the hair out of my eyes once more.

"You'd have a much better idea of that than I would at this point. One day, I was just studying for my leaving cert and then…" I clapped my hands together, causing the man to jump. "Bamm, I woke up in an alley with my face in a puddle and about four years added to me face."

"You have amnesia?"

"And I'm bulletproof now," I sighed once again, something that I was doing a lot lately. "That's a recent thing."

"They could be linked," Ben scratched his chin, turning his chair around to face his desk and grab his notes. "Some sort of super-soldier experiment, like with the Hulk."

I let the name drop of another Marvel superhero go, not wanting to draw any attention to the fact that it was a surprise that he was treating a fictional character like they were real. Because I had my own bombshell to drop.

"The last time I checked, it was 2012," That caused Ben to spin around in his chair, facing with this expression that fused disbelief and confusion into one perfect blend. "Now, it's 2008."

Ben suddenly licked his lips, taking his glasses off his face with his left hand while he once more scratched at his chin. It was only after a few seconds had passed that Ben spoke again, it was after his black-framed glasses touched the table that he said something.

"If you weren't bulletproof I'd think you were just crazy," he gave me another small smile while reaching over to pat me on the shoulder. "I'll help you get to the bottom of this Pat."

And with those words, relief filled my heart. It felt like the first time for hours… I could breathe again.

"Thanks."

"Hey, don't thank me, you saved my life," he responded, putting his glasses back on his face and removing his tie from around his neck. "And there's a story here, one that needs to be discovered. That's interesting…."

---

Author's Note: This isn't a new story of mine. Just thought that I'd be posting it here with its real title since I don't need to worry about people not recognizing it as the Blueman reboot. Just continuing to post my work in more places. Thought that this would be the one to focus on uploading here since I'm working on an update and the story isn't as big as Different Dish.

Different Dish is so big that it's a bit intimidating to post elsewhere, just wouldn't be sure how to work that out.

 

[Proman]

It was the smell that woke me up this time, the smell of bacon being fried on a pan. It was a homely smell, reminding me of when me Dad would get lazy and cook us all the same meal. Which was still cooking for six people, me, my sisters, and him but it was him that called it lazy.

"I'm up," I grumbled, rising from the bed as the door swung open.

"Wow," Doris went, her brows raising up as I started to rub the sleep from my eyes. "That's lucky timing, didn't think anyone could be such a light sleeper."

Stretching I threw the blanket up in the air, rolling off the bed before it could fall back on me. When it the bed again, it landed in a neat manner with only the lightest of creases on the quilt would let anyone know that I hadn't remade it properly.

"Mighty feat," she remarked, still standing at the doorframe with a rather amused expression. "But don't show off," her expression morphed into a shaper one, "Make your bed like a normal person. All it takes is one drunken night and you'll slip on a shoe you didn't know was there, break your back and then what will you do?"

"Change me name to Igor, I suppose," I replied, grinning slightly at the woman as she made her way out of the room to let me get dressed but not before letting out a yell before the door closed behind her with a soft click.

"Breakfast is ready on the table, so help yourself!"

I took a moment to take a real look around my current lodges. It was a small room, with a single wardrobe and a long mirror that stood beside that. Next to a singles' bed was a bedside locker, the red color of which contrasted against the blue sheets of the bed like flame sitting on top of the water.
I put on a green plaid shirt, something I wouldn't have even glanced at years ago as something that I'd wear. But I found that it suited me well enough now, at least with the broader shoulders that I'd gained since last trying one out in my early teen years.

On a small lad it was the type of outfit that led to bullying.

I was walking towards the room door with a small jitter to my steps when suddenly there was a flash in my eyes, somehow the world became nothing a series of blues, reds, yellows oranges, and even a few purples. Quickly losing any sense of balance, I could feel my body twist sideways as it fell down, I only barely managing to grab hold of the door in time to stop from smashing into the floor.

Closing my eyes in an attempt to stop the sights before me but it did nothing. Instead, I was forced to take in all the colors, finally giving me enough time to really grasp what I was seeing, that the colors were mostly people shaped, moving in the ways people would.

I could make out the shapes of two people on the same floor as me. The first was a man standing by a really red surface, frying something I think. The other was a woman, bending down to pick up something off the floor from another room nearby.

I think it was Mr. and Mrs. Urich?

Blinking hard again, the world shifted back to normal, like what I'd just experienced was a fever dream of a stressed mind. But I knew it was something else, I knew that it was another power. First I'm bulletproof and then I can see using thermal imaging?

Did I get the brick package?

It seemed likely, especially given I think I'd used some form of super speed or enhanced temporal perception yesterday.

"Freaky," I pulled open the door, walking towards where I had seen the two. "Wonder how many more powers I'll get," I wonder if I could leap tall buildings as well?

My ears twitched, picking up a greeting shared between the two.

"Hello, handsome," Ben said, the contentment clear in the pitch of his voice.

"Hello, gorgeous," Was her response, her voice telling me that this was a tradition between the two. Something that they just did. I wondered what the story behind it was, but I don't think I know them enough to ask them that yet.

Pulling around the corner I entered the kitchen, with both of my hosts having by now sat down at the table. There was a third spot, one set on the other side for me, already full of rashers and other fried food that I wouldn't usually touch… but I was hungry enough that it didn't matter.

"Morning," I spoke, nearly a whisper as I gingerly sat down on the chair as if it would suddenly teeth and go to bite me. I waited for the automatic response of morning from the two before asking the question on my mind. "This… mine?"

I asked while pointing down on the plate in front of me, failing at keeping a certain level of meekness out of voice.

"Of course, it is," Doris spoke, smiling at me like I was a fool to think otherwise. "I'd hardly let you use our shower, sleep in our guest room and then… not let you our food."

I chuckled lightly, grabbing at the fork and knife, then chowing down on the food like I was a hippo that hadn't seen food in a decade. As I shoveled the food into my mouth, I could hear an odd sound, like the kind that came from machines smashing into the ground.

But when I stopped eating in an attempt to figure out where the sounds were coming from, the sounds quietened. Like they were never there to begin with… that was when I noticed both Ben and Doris looking at me with wide eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing," Ben leaned onto his hand, rolling his eyes as he did so. "Just hadn't thought that there was such a thing as a human trash compactor, seems I was wrong about that."

That was when it hit me, I was the one making those noises… as I was eating.

"Sorry about that," I replied, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks even while my eyes fell to my now empty plate. Looks like finished it without noticing. "I don't know what came over me."

Ben just nodded at me, dropping his own fork onto his empty plate, picking it up, and placing it into the sink that was behind him before holding out his hand for me to pass over my own plate. It was with a small smile that Doris stood up, walking toward the sink, something that meant Ben had to lean his chair forward to allow.

Suddenly I was taken in by the odd calmness to the room, by this homey feeling that I… I'm not sure that I'd felt in years. My heart skipped a beat as the two slowly smiled at each other with just the tiniest twists to their lips that reminded me of home.

So in engrossed with the idea of their interaction I failed to notice Ben stand up and tap me on the shoulder.

"Yeah," I blinked, coming out of my own world with the same kind of energy that a sloth would use to speak. "Sorry I was in my own little world."

Ben just gave me a look, nodding his head just a little while his hands came up to take his glasses off and wipe them off with a piece of cloth that he had in his left pocket. Once he was done, he motioned for me to follow him with a wave of his arm.

We left the apartment by the time he spoke again.

"You feeling okay?" Mr. Urich asked me, his voice soft and quiet in contrast with the harsh buzzes of the New York street that we were walking along.

I wasn't used to the busy city streets yet, the constantly yelling, the never-ending series of cars, of buses, and all assortment of vehicles that rushed past us with their horns blaring. It all still took me by surprise is all.

It felt like a dream at times, one of those dreams where all the information I could glean from the area around me became too much focused on anything for longer than a second. Not without being in danger of walking into someone.

"Yeah… just still a little bit shellshocked is all," I responded, kicking up a can lift on the path, managing to hit it into a nearby garbage bin. "Not used to this level of weirdness is all."

"Yeah, I don't know if there's anyone that would be," Ben replied as he stopped in front of a black car, it wasn't a model that I recognized but it looked to be at least three years old. "Get in, I've got something to show you."

"You've got a car?" I asked, shocked but still going inside the vehicle. "Why did we have to use a cab yesterday?"

"Doris needed to borrow it."

"Huh," I let any conversations topics I had lull into the back of my mind, just decided to enjoy the drive to wherever we were going. It was only after what felt like half an hour at least that the conversation actually picked up again, this time Ben starting with a statement that I hadn't expected him to.

"I've been looking over some of the things you've said," he said, his hands shifting around the steering wheel so he could make a right turn. "And I can't help but wonder if you've made a mistake."

"Mistake?"

"Yeah," his eyes briefly swept over to me before going back to the road. "We're assuming that your powers are something that you got when you were abducted, from the abducted. I'm just pointing out that… could be wrong."

"Think I'd noticed being super tough," My reply with far more emotion than I intended to, sounding rough when I really didn't feel all that angry. I was more depressed than anything else, more drained. It felt like I needed something to pick me up.

Some excitement.

Suddenly Ben pulled into a parking lot, stopping the car in a spot so it was alone on a row of empty parking spots. As he got out, I went to follow him, closing the door much harsher than I ever intended to but thankfully not so hard that I'd worry about breaking it.

"Maybe they got you," Ben spoke again, continuing his line of questioning that I'd almost thought dropped seconds ago. "Maybe you panicked, maybe you'd always had these powers and only needed to be stressed to unlock them? All I'm saying is that we don't know that the people that took you, also were the ones that gave you powers."

"That it could have happened afterward," Nodding I let my eyes peer at the tar-black ground. "Given that I've seemed to have lost years of my life. That's sensible enough."

"Exactly, the combined trauma robbing you of your memories. But there are still some leads that we can follow, ones that… " Ben trailed off as he spotted another car coming into the park, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make out who exactly had arrived. "... are connected to a story that I'm already working on."

Ben's frown turned into a smile as the older redhead from yesterday stepped out of the newly arrived car. A hard grimace on his face as he walked towards us with his hands in his coat's pockets.

"O'Reilly," Ben said, his tone low while his eyes roamed at the pockets with only a small amount of concern. "It's good to see that you could make it," With a hand extended and a serious expression over their faces, the two shook.

"Well… we need to move quickly," O'Reilly replied, his eyes only looking to me for a single moment before coming back to Urich. "Is the kid trustworthy?"

As they stopped shaking hands, I was going to respond to O'Reilly with a snipe at his age, maybe something about his greying hair but Ben beat me to making any sort of noise by making a loud chuckle.

"That any way to thank someone that saved our lives yesterday?"

"That's how I keep that life," Was the redhead's response, dry but somehow with plenty of heat to spare. "Constantly vigilant, for all I know, the kids' a plant that's here to find what I told you."

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

"It's nice to meet you again, Mr. O'Reilly," The young man held his hand, something that caused Jim to roll his eyes. "I'm Pat, Pat Doyle."

The older man could hear the accent, could tell just by the way the younger man's tongue rolled that he was dealing with some direct from Ireland.

But that didn't give Jim anything else to work off, so he just stood there and stared at the outstretched hand, letting awkwardness sink into the air as the seconds passed by. Eventually, the redhead decided to throw a bone to the young man, but with an old Irish spin. His hand grasped around the boy's and he shook it none too gently, rolling fingers around his knuckles… or at least attempting to.

"Jesus, you've got a strong hand," The older man let out with a pain-filled grunt, his hand hurting on the immovable object that was Pat's hand.

"Have you forgotten that I'm… like super durable?" Pat stared at Jim, his eyes blinking a sort of innocence that the older man would expect out of a young child. Something about the way he stared at him, his eyes piercing but lacking any real sting.

"Nope," Jim wheezed, trying to play off his actions. Letting go of Doyle's hand with only a small grimace to show that he was harmed at all. "Just showing you a real Irish handshake."

"Reminds me of home," Pat winked, something that Jim hadn't expected, with a small grin on his face. It caused the older man to take in the lad's features once more, especially now that Doyle was both clean and wearing clothes that didn't look like they'd been found in a swamp. "Everybody failing to intimidateme, next thing will need to do is have a few blokes ask me if I think I could beat them in a fight."

"That happen a lot in Ireland?" Urich asked, his face too amused for what should've been a serious meeting for Jim's taste.

"More than you'd think," The youngest among them shrugged, brushing some of his overly long hair out of his eyes. "But less than you'd fear. So… what's the situation?"

Jim glared at the lad now, his blue eyes staring dead into the brown ones that Pat had. He waited for some response, for the younger man to shift his eyes away, to show some kind of weakness. But Doyle gave away nothing at all.

"Pat," Urich sighed out, causing the lad to turn and face the man, saving Jim from losing a staring contest. "A bit more decorum, please."

"Right," The newcomer said in such a polite tone that Jim almost didn't notice the almost inhuman way the man didn't blink. Something that Doyle had been doing fine for the last few seconds, but it seemed to have caught up with him since then. "Sorry about that Mr. O'Reilly."

"It's fine," he ground out, his teeth grinding together from the stress. "You're right to rush anyway, never know if someone we won't like will arrive. So… has Urich told you the situation?"

"Nope."

"Well," Jim reached into his pocket, grabbing at a loose cigarette that he then brought to his lips. "See… I'm a man that works for a certain group, one that has its business in the seedy side of the world-"

"Irish Mafia," Doyle interrupted him, causing Jim to freeze while the younger just kept nodding his head rapidly. "Got it."

"Right then," he sighed out once more, something that Jim noticed Urich found amusing. "Well, my bosses have paid off certain people, I don't have any names, but they're high off in the police, in the mayor's office, the D.A and they've even hinted at having a man on the inside of the FBI."

"Must be have something big in mind if they're doing all that?" Doyle questioned, his eyes lifting up to the sky suddenly, a motion that was too much of a jerk to have been a normal reaction to anything going on.

"It's human trafficking, selling young girls to the highest bidder, sometimes even young boys," Jim explained, taking in a deep puff from his cigarette before blowing out a science fair volcano's worth of smoke into the sky. "Not something that I thought we'd be involved in when I was a young boy."

"That why you came forward to Mr. Urich?"

"Yeah, Jim's conscience is a bit too big for the life he lives," Urich spoke up, though his voice was light in tone, his face was as serious as the subject truly demanded of him.

"I've got my own girl, I can't stand the thought of someone taking her from me," Jim felt the need to explain. "And so I can't condone doing it to other people."

"See… I'm guessing that there's a problem here?" Doyle questioned, letting the heel of his left foot grind into the ground in a swirling motion. "Otherwise Mr. Urich would've just released all this to the papers."

"Right in one," Urich responded, snapping his fingers together as he did so. "See I can't print any of this without proof, something to corroborate Jim's story. Sadly, he can't come forward with his name or anyone's name and while he could give the location the girls are coming through…"

"Still have only the word of an anonymous source?" The youngest amongst them scratched at his nose, not enough to break skin but only enough that the nose moved back and forth slightly. "What about pics?"

"Tried to get them past my editor but he ain't going to bite on them without a source that can name themselves."

"Video evidence?"

"Hey," Jim erupted out, his voice showcasing how annoyed he was by the idea of it. "You know how much trouble it was to get some pictures of the place, I've made no secret that I'm against it. It would be far too suspicious for me to carry a camcorder."

"How about the old fire trick?" Jim's respect for the idiot went up a few notches with such a ballsy suggestion. "Start a fire, say you heard gunfire, some girls screaming, would get both firefighters and some cops down there to look at things."

"Too risky to the girls in there," Urich came to shut down that idea with the reason they'd decided against it. "And especially when the fire would need to be somewhere that the gang left guarding wouldn't able to deal with themselves before the fire brigade gets there."

"So… what about a different kind of disturbance?" The younger man started to pace before them. "I could go in there, make a lot of noise when they start shooting me… you can call in the cops."

"And you'll get away how?" Jim found himself asking before Doyle let out a wide smile, bent his legs, and then… leaped up. At first, the Irish Mafia member wanted to scoff at the other man but that was before he the magnitude of the leap truly entered into his mind as Doyle sailed more than a full story high only to land without making more noise that one would usually make hopping from one leg to another one.

"How about like that?" Doyle grinned at the now gapping duo.

"You're some kind of freak aren't you?" The redhead moaned, scratching the bottom of his chin with his left hand.

"Probably," The younger man shrugged. "Thought that with a super tough body, I'd get the strength to match."

"As you see, Jim," Urich started to speak, using familiar tones and terms of address in order to seem like he was more Jim's friend than he actually was. A kind of manipulation that O'Reilly could more than respect. "Our young friend here has the capabilities to get this done."

"But not the outfit," Doyle drawled out, his grin widening just ever so lightly. "Don't want them to be able to pick my face out in the future, makes doing things a normal guy would do a bit of trouble if I got to deal with the Irish Mafia out for my blood."

"Right… that's not actually bad thinking," Jim said, his own face stretching into a smile. "I've got a few things that I think you could use."

---

("Patrick Doyle")

I'd gotten into the back of O'Reilly's car, driving me towards the docks. This was when I saw exactly what he thought I could use.

"This isn't as cool as I thought it would be," I sighed out, looking at just what Mr. O'Reilly thought I could use. It was a simple blue hoodie, the strings that should've been on the side were cut off, roughly if the strands on the side were to be believed, there was also a black ski mask. "I was thinking of something… more inspiring?"

"What were you thinking that I'd have some Stark shit?" O'Reilly laughed at me, the noise familiar to me in the accent at least when compared to the ones that I'd been hearing recently. I found American laughter foreign to my ears, which it was. "Ain't getting any of that as poor as I am."

"No, but like where's the cape?"

O'Reilly looked me like I was some oddball for wanting something so fundamentally essential in the Super Hero business. The greatest of heroes wore them, except WonderWoman but she'd got the boobs that I never have… hopefully, that is.

I do exist in a comic verse now, Gender Bending could happen to me.

"You've read too many comics, kid," Jim scoffed, his voice nearly breaking out into a laugh on top of that. "A Cape will just get in the way of what you'll be doing."

Ah, another one of those 'no cape' freaks, it is a shame that so many people don't understand the purpose of the cape. The ever-lasting symbol of power, of hope and many other details. Why a good cape can make you appear much bigger than you are, lets people either be fearful of your presence or hopeful from your silhouette.

"This will just have to do," I replied, pulling the jumper over my shirt while adjusting to make sure that the plaid would be unnoticed underneath. "I never thought I'd be the mask sort-" It was at that point that I felt a pair of gloves slap into my face. "You could have thrown them to me, rather than at me."

"It's more fun this way."

He wasn't the only one to chuckle from that, the car filling up with the sound of my own oddly deep ones. It wasn't until we were about ten minutes away from the docks when I'd finally decided to put the mask on my head.

It felt pretty weird, scratchy like it was made from some sort of cotton. Though I would've expected it to block some of my ability to breathe, it didn't really. This was a good way to keep my identity secret...

...but it wasn't for me.

How can I give someone a reassuring smile if they can't see me mouth?

"Why would that matter?"

"Was I speaking out loud?" I responded to O'Reilly's question with my own and a frown to go with it. It wasn't like I needed the man to tell that he'd heard me, just his reactions seconds ago told me that he had. "Sorry about that, just anxious about the whole thing."

"You run your mouth off when stressed?" he replied, barely turning his head to the side so he could see me better. "Not the best sort of quirk to have in this line of work."

"Keep your eyes on the road," I blurted out, tucking in the collar of the shirt while glancing around the car. It was only then that I really thought about what O'Reilly had said. "Line of work?"

"Yeah, you're basically going all vigilante," I could see O'Reilly's grin from the reflection of the rearview mirror. It was this cold, proud but amused expression on his face that kinda made me want to punch him right in the gob. "Running your mouth will only get you killed."

That was a good point, especially in this world that has Iron Man and the Hulk in it. That means people like General Ross, it means organizations like SHIELD and… evil spy organizations… like that one with the Nazi's in it. I was particularly interested in not having their attention on me as long as possible.

"I'll take that in mind," Eventually I replied, leaning back on my seat and shutting my eyes for a little bit, letting the darkness of the evening fill my sight. Somehow the day had passed without me noticing it, which was a good thing since I needed to strike at night to get those girls free.

But I couldn't help but feel that I was wasting the day away staying inside this rather slow-moving car. Well, the slowness was more due to the traffic than anything else.

"I feel like such a stereotype in this getup," I leaned forward once more, letting my arms hit the back of the shotgun seat. "Look at the Irish lad in the ski mask and then… I walk in there'll be gunfire."

"Figuring that the Irish Mafia will think that we're being attacked by the IRA," O'Reilly rolled his eyes, another action that I saw due to the rearview mirror. "That's a funny image, but not going to happen. We're more likely to supply them, and that would mean it would more likely be UVF but that isn't likely given your accent."

The UVF is otherwise known as the Ulster Volunteer Force. They're basically the inverse of the IRA, even as far as wanting the inverse goal of keeping Northern Ireland in the UK… but that's not something that I want to go into much detail on, since I don't want to think about two terrorist organizations all that much. And much of their actions had calmed down by the time I was four.

Anyway, given the conflict was mainly in Northern Ireland, my pure Western Ireland accent was a sign I wasn't in either of the group. Though the accent and region of origin isn't really a guarantee, just a slight indicator.

"Right," I eventually replied to O'Reilly, nodding at the man while closing my eyes once more. It might have been that I didn't notice the car coming to a stop, or at least didn't think it meant that we'd come to my destination.

"This is your stop," O'Reilly told me, causing me to glance around the area. "I can't be seen dropping you off so close to the Docks. Would get me into a spot of trouble."

I didn't verbally answer, just opened the car door and stepped out onto the path before me, a crane near the docks in clear sight up ahead. Before I could make a single step forward, I felt a hand come out and tap me on the shoulder.

"Kid," Turns out it was O'Reilly from the sound of his voice. "When you're getting out of there, don't go back to Urich's. Instead, I've set up a place over a block west from his place, just tell the lady on the front desk that Jimbo sent ya."

With those words, I waited for the car to drive off, before I started to walk towards the docks with my hood up and my eyes staring straight ahead. Every step that I took caused my heart to race faster, every breath I took caused my mind to conjure up some issues with my plan.

What if I'd only been lucky and I'm not bulletproof? What if my big leap was a magic gust of wind shooting me up into the air?

All these issues, all of them unlikely in a world of superheroes. No, it was far more likely that I had at least 90's Superboy level durability. Something that I was about to be to the test as I come up to the thick metal-plated gates that separated the docks from the streets.

"I wonder if that's normal?" I asked, rapping on the gate with the knuckles of my right fist. Something that I found odd was how even though I knew I was super-durable, I could still feel how cold the metal was. Would've thought that being this tough would make me immune to that sort of thing.

"Hey!" A voice yelled from the other side, causing me to hop in fright. "I swear if you fucking kids don't stop banging on that gate, I'll come out and not even your own Ma would be able to recognize ya!"

"OI!" I yelled back, deciding to mess with the man. "This is the Police, Detective Stabler," There was a gasp from the other man, something that put a smile on my face. "Open up, we've gotten reports of gunfire coming from the docks, we need to check it out."

"This is private property," He said back, his voice trembling slightly but not giving away much else. "We're just practicing."

Oh, that is a poor lie.

"Going to need to see some papers about that," I leaned my back against the gate, hoping that the man wouldn't check with any cameras that could see me. "Can't just take your word on it, even on private property, ya need a permit to place shooting in an open area."

There was a period of silence, but then the man started yelling once more.

"Ya don't look like any pig? In that hoodie I doubt it's standard-issue," he asked, his voice tinged with so much suspension. "And ya the same name that the detective from SVU has? Don't tell me that you're Catholic as a well?"

"And I bet you've never met anyone named Rodgers? Who worked in the army? I replied back, getting bored with the game already, it made me wonder how much I could scare them by breaking the door down. "And clothes… that's just what's called plain clothes, used so suspects don't know they're being tailed."

There was a scratch of metal, the sound of the gate unlocking through what sounded like a series of electronically controlled locks. Something that I took advantage of as I squeezed my eyes together, thankfully activating my thermal vision and letting me see the trio of men holding up a few meters behind the gate, hands clearly holding up some automatic weapons.

I just smiled and leaped over the gate before it could fully open. There were some exclamations of what the hell before I fell beside them…

"Hello, boys," I said, wiping my arm across their rifles so fast that none of them actually managed to pull the trigger before the guns were smashed against the wall, the resulting gunfire hitting harmlessly into the ground. "The man in blue is here."

I let the three guys jump back in fright before I decided to lightly, for me, smack them away by the shoulder. The gasped in my pain, something that did nothing to mask the sound of more guns cocking behind me.

"Take the fucker out!" Another man yelled out, this time I didn't manage to turn around before they opened fire on me, the bullets hitting into my back feeling like hail hitting my skin. While I could feel my clothes start to gain holes, start to rip, I couldn't find it in myself to care, not since none of them were even bothering to aim for my head.

That meant I didn't have to worry about my face being identified.

"Guys!" I yelled out, trying to be heard over all the gunfire I was still soaking up. "You do realize that I'm bulletproof!" Making my way towards them slowly, it was only as I was within a few meters of the men when they stopped firing.

"He must be wearing one fancy vest!" One of them yelled, taking the butt of the gun and then whacking me across the face with the barrel. It was an interesting sensation as it hit my jaw like I'd been to the dentist and was numbed.

There was a loud crack, then the rifle fell to pieces.

"So…" I cracked my neck slightly. Letting them hear the bone pop and watching as their faces went white. "What's in the back?"

I didn't even bother to wait for a response, instead, I just blew through the crowd of mafia goons in front of me like they were nothing but a bunch of bowling pins. Their groans echoed out throughout the docks even as I made my way towards some cargo containers.

There were about fifty of them on the docks themselves, it looks like they were still working on unloading the containers from the ship nearby, the crane still had a hook on to another one at the moment, but it looked like due to all the commotion that I'd made, the operator had thrown themselves out of it.

Once more I concentrated and let my vision turn thermal once again. I looked around the area, searching for the heat sources that should've been there if the girls were in one of them.

It didn't take long before my eyes had taken note of all the containers on land, finding them empty… except for the one that mooed… but I doubt that the cow shapes inside that one were fakes. Though they were females. If there weren't any girls on the docks, that meant that they could still be on the ship.

"This night just gets longer," I mumbled, my eyes having spotted the next ship over before I could even bend my knees. "Is it odd that I can't see any more ships nearby? Isn't this meant to be a docking area? How isn't this as suspicious as hell."

Suddenly my ears started to ring, a loud kaboom going off beside me. It was the first time that I'd felt pain since I got here, taking me off my feet and splattering my blood over the concrete ground as if I was nothing but a normal person.

"Proper paperwork punk!" I heard a strong Irish bogue yell down at me, their voice coming in and out of focus as the world above me swirled. It didn't last for long, just long enough for the man to come into my view,n their big brown beard thick with grey strands. "Did you think that you could just walk in here and take what was ours?"

He shoved the barrel of a shotgun into my face, one of those expensive shots guns that I've only seen in video games.

"Now, you're going to squeal about who told you about our cargo," It was then the man slapped me in the face with the barrel, something that didn't go as planned for the man. The metal bent in the shape of my jaw rather than smashing it in.

Suddenly the pain in my side was muted, I could even feel the strength in my body return to a state where it was like I'd only been scratched.

"Wha-" Before I got a chance to flip back to my feet, I could only watch as the butt of a clearly empty pistol snapped into my only successful attacker's nose, crushing it in a splatter of blood that rivaled my own from moments earlier.

I rolled back as a man dressed in black dropped down from one of the cargo containers. His clothes were simple, looking close enough to sports gear that I wouldn't be surprised if it was true but they were painted black to mask the white lines that would usually be there. His face had some sort of self-made half mask, covering his eyes from view and looking like it was made of two parts, a white layer of cloth with a black one on top of it.

"You make too much noise, too many risks," The Man In Black told me, his voice low and breathy like he was trying to do a poor job to make it. "You could've gotten both yourself and those girls killed."

I ignored him, not out of any inherent lack of respect for the man, it was obvious that he was here for the same reason I was and meant that I had to give the man some respect. No, it was instead out of how my attention was completely taken by the popping noises that I could hear coming out of my back.

It was the shotgun pellets being pushed out by the regeneration that my back was currently undergoing.

There was a twitch from the man's eyes, another from his nose and that told me all that I needed to that he'd noticed what just happened. That was only a little suspicious, it's possible that he'd seen the pellets hit the ground but from the way his mouth gaping in surprise, I think he could actually hear the same thing that I did.

"As you can see-" The Man in Black scoffed openly as I said this for some reason. "-ain't nothing that can hurt me. How did you learn about all this?"

My rapid change of tone and no doubt I deflected his insult towards me, seemed to take him off guard. That was If his body tensing was other to be believed.

"I overheard some goons talking about some merchandise," I could sense the air quotes in that sentence even if the man hadn't made any. "Taking about how they might be allowed to take some of the juicy desserts home to bake with… yeah, they mixed their metaphors."

"Eugh," It didn't matter, I got what the man was saying, and while disgusted with it, I couldn't be any more glad that O'Reilly thought that this was the one criminal enterprise that he wouldn't allow his group to engage in. "Well… that is an image that I will never get out of my head. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome," The Man In Black smiled, cheerfully at that. "I try and please."

"As nice as this conversation is, we do get some girls to find don't we?" I wasn't an egotist, I didn't care about doing this solo in any way, so if this guy can help me find the poor girls then it was always going to be something that I'd welcome. "Any idea if they're on those ships?"

The Man In Black simply nodded, waving his arm for me to follow him as he turned his back to me and started to walk towards the larger of the two ships. It was the one without the crane connected to one of its cargo containers. It also wasn't the most impressive ship that I'd ever seen in my life, it was rusty in places and the paint on the edges was peeling off but it was large enough to hold over a hundred cargo containers.

Definitely, the first place that I'd have looked for the girls after the docks themselves.

"Found them.," We both suddenly spoke at the same time as our feet hit the ramp leading to the ship. My head turned to face his, while he seemed to turn his ear to hear my next response better.

"Seems like I'm not the only one that is special," I sniped, grinning at the rather unamused stare I could sense the other man was giving me from underneath his mask. "Come on, I-" I stopped, my thermal vision spotting a man around the corner, with a rather oddly shaped object on his back.

"What-" My fellow vigilante was interrupted, but rather me or even himself stopping mid-sentence, no it was instead the man from around the corner, jumping around his hiding spot and letting loose a spray of flame from a flamethrower he'd been carrying.

There wasn't any thought for my own safety, instead, I just threw myself in front of the flame, shielding the Man In Black's body with my own. I could feel the heat of the flames, but not like they were a roaring flame, instead, it felt like a radiator that was just starting to warm up. Hot but not enough to burn me.

With lighting fast reflexes the Man in Black threw something from his left hand, smacking the man on the nose and causing him to point the nozzle of the flamethrower upwards. Acting fast, I went in the flames dispelling from my back as I crushed the shaft and ripped the weapon off the man before throwing it into the water.

A single kick to the downed man's head, not from me if that was the case there would be no head and the man was out cold.

"Flameproof as well? What are you just invincible?" My fellow vigilante asked, resuming the walk towards the cargo container that the girls were no doubt being held in. I could feel my ego being enlarged by the rather astounded tone the man now had. But at the same time, there was this tone of... hesitancy from the man.

As if he didn't entirely believe what I'd bounced.

"Only when the weather allows," I joked, no doubt confusing him with my little in-joke. I followed along with the man then, waiting till we got to the container before shoving myself in front. "If I may?" I asked, putting my hand around the lock of the cargo doors.

The Man In Black nodded, which was when sirens started to blare out, something that seemed to spook him but that I'd been expecting for some time now.

"You go, I've got my own way out of here," I told him, ripping off the lock and swinging the doors open, much to the shocked gasps of the people inside the room. "Come on now, everything's going to be fine," I said, keeping calm soothing tones even as the young girls started to shiver in fear. "Some men are going to come by… just tell them the truth about how you got here and everything will be okay."

They didn't move, just stayed huddling in the corner of the container, filthy and pale. My heart went out to the young women that were shoved into this container for weeks, I'd be as scared by some stranger with a mask in their position.

It was also possible that they didn't speak English, but I'd hope O'Reilly would've told me that.

Turning around, not finding the Man in the Mask, much to my relief, and walked till I was visible at the edge of the ship. Standing on top of the railing and spotting the cop cars gathering just outside the gates. I took in a deep breath, waited for them to make their way inside the docks… and then;

"HEY ASSHOLES! THERE'S A BUNCH OF GIRLS HELD INSIDE ONE OF THESE CARGO CONTAINERS!"

I could spot them all shifting their lines of sight, all aiming their pistols right at me, could even hear them yell at me to drop to the ground and freeze. But I ignored them, and the rounds that they shot at me, instead I ran to the other side of the ship, the side facing the water.

And leaped over the side of it after taking another deep breath.

---

(Louise)

"Becca, how about that favor you owe me?" Louise wandered up to the other girl, her much larger stature letting her tower over the girl. Louise wasn't wearing the standard school uniform for a girl, which was a pinafore instead she was wearing the male uniform. preferring the pants to the skirt.

"Louise," The much smaller Becca, who was dressed in the normal uniform for girls, greeted. "No, hello, how are you?"

"Come on," The taller of the two griped, her eyes rolling in her head as she loosened the tie around her neck and popped open the top button of her shirt. "I got ya in with Rick didn't I!"

"Shh," Her classmate went, her face going red and her eyes looking up and down the street. "You know that I'm not meant to be dating boys, Dad would kill me."

"And probably him, too," Louise laughed, letting her eyes close as she leaned her head back. "It would be a shame if your dad found out."

There was a sort of awkward silence that descended between the two, something that wasn't helped as Becca started to glare up at her friend before scoffing and attempting to walk ahead of her.

"I can't believe that you're blackmailing me."

"Don't think of it as blackmail," The Redhead interceded, her smirk lightly spread across her face as she easily strides to the other girl's side, walking along with her. "Think of it as fun insurance. You… cover for me, I'll cover for you."

"You know you used to be such a cute kid," Becca sniped, her brow furrowing while her eyes glared at the very steps that the other girl was taking. "Then you hit your growth spurt and started to hit the gym. Now you're shaking me down like our dads would be."

"Hey now," Louise was taken back, her mouth widening for what was obviously a mock shock expression. "I've yet to hold anyone upside down off a building and shake them for their money."

"It's only a matter of time," Becca now stopped in the middle of the path, turning around and standing on her tippy toes. "I've gotta eye on you."

The two stood their ground, glaring at each other for several seconds… till the two broke out into giggles. Louise threw her arm over her smaller friend's shoulder, bringing the girl in for a side-hug.

"Fine, fine," Becca sighed, breaking out of the hug and walking into a bus that stopped nearby. "Mom's going get a dig out of making a fool out of yours anyway."

Louise smiled and waved goodbye to her friend as they parted ways. It wasn't long till she'd crossed several roads, made past another two bus stops, and then finally called in a taxi.

She didn't bother to talk to the taxi driver, just handed him a card with an address written on it and the word, mute. The driver simply nodded and drove her to the address, not a single question asked, though he did play so rather horrid music… country music. Not something Louise enjoyed when it was half-distorted by a wonky antenna. When Louise finally arrived at the destination, she felt her heart, churn in the pit of her stomach. she wasn't meant to come here and felt guilty about it.

See her Pop had set up a lot of prepaid motel rooms throughout the city, mostly within the same area. There were some tensions going at home that meant he wasn't always coming back at night, or even during some of the days. It didn't actually bother all that much since her parents had been doing this sort of thing since before she was born. They'd been separated six times, but it never lasted more than a month. It was never even that heated.

But Louise did miss her Pop, the man just wasn't around as much as she liked. So she'd make sure to wander in at times to the motels that he'd rented out, telling her Mom that she was spending the night with one of her school friends. None of them would tell her Mom that it was a lie, and her Mom didn't get with any of their mothers. They'd lie to her just for the glee that they'd feel whenever Louise's Mom was fooled.

A little white lie that Pop never turned her in for, but one that he told her to stop doing. Something about it wasn't always safe thanks to is business friends… which was absurd… because those creep bags could harm her if they tried.

The part about being mean and disrespectful towards Mom was more impactful, something that she'd agree with but Louise just wanted to visit her Pop.

She walked through the motel doors, heading to the desk jockey with a bored expression on her face. Trying to act all casual like and said;

"Jimbo sent me," She blew a wad of gum into a bubble, letting it pop before bringing it back into her mouth. "What's the room number?"

The desk clerk, someone of gender that Lousie wasn't actually sure, just looked up to her in surprise. There was a moment that they looked down at their books, puzzled and that gave Lousie more than a little concern.

Did she pick the wrong time? Was Pop at a different motel? This was the one that the online banking site claimed that he'd paid with one of his aliases.

"Room thirteen," The Clerk told her eventually, causing Louise to breathe a sigh of relief as one of their eyebrows lifted up slightly as if she was accessing the Senior Highschool student and comparing her to someone else… and maybe checking her out, Louise wasn't sure. "Here!"

The Clerk threw keys, letting the O'Reilly girl catch

"Right," Louise moved forward, untying her school tie while shoving it into her bag afterward. She was going to a Catholic School, one of the best in the state, Pop wanted her to feel at one with their religion. That meant terrible school uniforms were the standard there.

Something that annoyed her, long skirts and dress shirts weren't something that Louise found to be appealing.

It wasn't long before she was standing at the thirteenth door, listening to the sound of somebody moving about in there. Louise placed a key into the lock, hearing the click and the startled what coming from the other side that brought a smile to her face.

"Hey, Pop," She walked in, spitting out the wad of gum into the trashcan by the door. "Do you think...that… " Louise trailed off at the sight before. Instead of her aging father she saw was a rather unusual sight.

The rather upper body of a man that was soaked to the bone otherwise, his ripped and torn up jumper drenching the carpet enough that she noticed that massive wet stain spreading through the area.

"You ain't Pop."

"I fucking hope not."

---

Author's Note: This needed heavy revising, much more attention than I had thought it needed. Now, I need to revise the other sites versions of this chapter too. If you think this is bad now, it was much worse before I got around to this pass of it. I'm decently ashamed of this, so if you spot any more mistakes I've left in make sure to point them out to me.

Anyway, I'll be posting daily, or as close to it as I can personally manage while also writing the latest chapter for this story.

 

[Proman]

(Ben Urich: A Few Minutes Ago)

Ben waited inside his car, taking a drag from his cigarette before blowing it out the window like one of the old detective films that he'd grown up watching as a child. He didn't smoke often, not since he was a young twenty-something kid, trying to take on the world.

But every now and again, he decided that he needed just one… which usually became two, which became three and so on and so forth. It usually stopped after the first day, as Doris never liked him smoking and when she found out that he'd been smoking again, she gave him a look. Then he'd give up smoking again. Ben was just waiting for the right moment to strike, the right moment to silently call in the other reports, them and the news networks that could get here the fastest. All to make sure that they couldn't cover up the trafficking of young girls going through this dock.

The idea was when Ben heard the sirens of the cops, he'd call them in. Simple enough idea.

"I just hope the kid doesn't get a big head," Ben murmured, squashing the cigarette into the car's ashtray. "There are more ways to kill a man than just shooting," It wouldn't be something that the reporter would like to be responsible for. "Just what I need, the kid to be drowned."

It was taking longer than it should've. Ben could already hear the gunshots ringing out from the docks. Someone should've called the cops already. It put Ben on edge, made him feel jumpy, and caused him to keep an eye around for signs of trouble.

But then it happened, the sirens rang out, police cars zooming on past him in blurs of red, white, and blue.

"Showtime," Ben hit the send button on his burner phone, sending a mass message that would start the media frenzy. Then he put his foot down, following after the cars as they made their way towards the docks. Though, keeping himself from getting too close to the cars, getting ready when they went to form a perimeter around the dock entrance. Something that they did with expert precision just mere moments later with barely a screech from their tires.

"Hello," Urich erupted from his car with a smile on his face. "Officers, mind giving me a statement?"

"Oh god," A detective groaned, one hand holding his head as if it was in pain while the other smoothed out the creases in his suit jacket. "Who tipped off Urich?

That question only brought a series of shrugs from the other officers around him.

"Detective Blake," Ben grinned, waggling a finger in a playful manner as he walked up to a barrier that the officers had just placed on the ground, having taken it from the trunk of their cars. The Reporter didn't bother to try and get around it, he wasn't stupid, he knew the rules. "We both know that I don't need to be tipped off to follow the sound of gunfire."

"Well stay back, just-" Blake's rebuke was interrupted by the sound of what amounted to a parade of news crews, reporters, cameramen and the rest of those folk arrived. It was sidling van doors that created the majority of the noise. "Oh fuck's sake."

"Listen folks!" Blake's partner, a black man by the name of Hoffman, yelled out, grabbing the non-police officers' attention. "Stay back, far behind the barrier or we can't protect you. We won't be taking any questions, we're still just accessing the situation."

Sadly for Hoffman, his exclamation didn't stop the entirety of the reporters on hand, barring Urich himself who just leaned back and smiled at the situation, from screaming a barrage of questions that only grew into in odder questions. Some of which caused even Ben to raise a brow.

"Is it true that you Detective once shoved a banana up you-" That question was halted by the sounds of gunfire restarting once more, as well as a deafening explosive that went off.

"And so it starts," Urich murmured to himself, his eyes staring as the police broke down the front gate of the docks, allowing him to catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure near the back of the docks, standing on the edge of one for the two boats were docked. The seasoned reporter only took out a single notepad, jutting down a few notes about the night before walking back to his car with a large smile on his face.

---

("Patrick Doyle": Moments Ago)

The water hit my skin with a refreshingly cool sensation, but nowhere near as cold as it should've been for this time of night. But it was cold enough that I wasn't surprised that it brought a small amount of shock to my system, sending shivers up my spine as I drove deeper into the water, hopefully letting me go unseen by anyone looking into the water from the docks. I was swimming much faster than I'd ever managed before, probably faster than any regular human could've without some enhancement of the mystic source or being some sort of alien from beyond this realm.

It wasn't even ten minutes before I'd managed to swim out far enough that I couldn't hear the sounds of the police anymore, so I slowed down and made my way towards a public peer, the darkness of the night masking my figure as I crept out of the water. When I was proper out of the water, I attempted to shake off as much water as I could from my body. Sadly, I could feel that I was so tired that I wasn't really able to shake off much water before I decide that I should just cut off my losses.

I had expected to pull a dog and shake out of the moisture from my clothes given how fast I was.

"Fucking water," I groaned, my fingers pinching the ruined fabric that made up what used to be a hoodie. The water seeped out, not a lot of water but at least enough to let me know that I needed to change clothes as fast as possible, otherwise, I couldn't help but hope that the motel that O'Reilly picked out had a change of clothes. I ripped the mask off my face before throwing it behind me, not even waiting for the sound of it splashing before I started to jog off. it didn't take long for me to get to the motel that O'Reilly had told me about.

But it was as I made my way there that I noticed that some people were looking at me oddly, I looked down towards my feet, the attention causing me no small amount of anxiety… which was when I noticed what I thought they were staring at. My clothes had a series of burns and holes that made me appear more like a stripper than some jogger. In fact, the hoodie was barely holding together, strings of burnt blue were the only thing that held the top of the hoodie to the bottom of it.

The anxiety must have given me a sudden boost of adrenaline as I'd reached the motel much faster than I'd thought I could. It lead to me to the obvious realization that at least some of the people who were giving me looks weren't really giving me odd looks, so much as they were peering at a blur that was running by. It was especially evident when I turned around and saw how run down the new pair of runners I'd been given had gotten, their soles were nubs.

"Hope that no one noticed me," I groaned, grabbing at my shoulders and hearing the squash of the wet fabric. How odd it was that my clothes were still wet when I was supposedly running as fast as some cars? "The last thing that I need is someone managing to take a pic of me running around in speed mode."

Deciding that it wasn't worth the time that it would take up, and feeling exhausted as well, I went into the motel, finding the lady sitting at the front desk within seconds. I tapped at the bell, drawing attention from her in the form of an unamused eyebrow raise.

"Sorry," I shrugged, rolling my shoulders and giving her a slight grin. "I just couldn't resist ringing the bell, ain't done it before."

"Riiiiight," The woman enunciated the word oddly, lengthening it till it became a parody of itself. "Do you have a reservation?"

"Jimbosentme," I replied, in a manner that I thought was smooth but was, in fact, just me saying the words so fast that anyone that could hear it just ended up confused. "I said. Jim-Bo Sent-Me!"

"Oh," She nodded, her eyes fell to the book in front of her, then she took her left hand and opened it. I let my eyes drag over to the clock, hoping that it would tell me the time. Sadly, the damn thing was frozen. "Room thirteen," The lady said, interrupting my thoughts and my eyes fell back to the woman. "That's down the hall."

I sighed, closing my eyes for just a second as I let my legs drag me towards the thirteenth door. Opening the door with a single hand, I heard the carpet smush under my feet, the water from my soaked pants having slid down onto my shoes.

"Fuck," Mummering I kicked the sneakers, letting them hit the floor next to the bed with a moist slap. I flinched, finding the noise gross and very off-putting. Then I carefully started to peel off the soaked hoodie.

Which was when something rather unexpected happened.

"You're not Pop?" A young woman's voice caused me to spin around, my eyes wide as we both took in each other's bodies. I recognized her as the girl that I'd met yesterday, Louise. A girl that was much too old for me to be her dad… I hope?

"I fucking hope not!"

"Wait… Pat?" Lousie asked, leaning forward without actually getting any closer to me. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" I replied, confused by the rather bizarre question for someone that barged into my room. Took some balls, let me tell ya, "What are you doing here?"

Louise's face went through several expressions that I wasn't even sure of, one of them looked close to surprise, another one looked like anger before finally shifting to something that I thought was an embarrassment

"I thought this was Pop's room," She said, not bothering to shuffle her eyes away from the half-naked body. There was an odd quirk from one of her brows, almost like something that I'd expect from the Rock. "Clerk must have given me the wrong room, thought it would be funny or something."

While she checked me out, I noticed something about her that I hadn't before. She was pretty tall, like I wasn't a small man, standing at 6'2" but she was at least two to three inches taller than me. Impressive I suppose, but not at all indicative of any accomplishment on her part. Just good genetics.

"What's his name?" I asked, curious about the subject but I also had this tiny bit of suspicion that if the clerk had pointed her this way, that her dad was someone that I knew.

She didn't talk for a bit, instead just closing the door and walking around to the other side of the room.

"It would be O'Reilly, Jim."

"So you told the clerk that Jimbo sent you?"

Louise let out a noise from her nose, I think it would be called a snort. Something that I'm pretty sure meant that she was suppressing a chuckle or a giggle. Something that may have been against her image but I didn't know her all that much, I'd need to spend more time around her to be sure of that.

"Oh, so you're a friend of Pop," she sighed as if disappointed with me. "So you some sort of junior member? Certainly, sound like one."

I've never been asked before if I was part of the Irish Mafia, or the Kitchen Irish as I would soon learn, which made this a unique experience, in a day of other unique experiences this somehow felt like it was something more interesting. Probably because I could be lit on fire and shot at any other day. And I hoped that I wouldn't be asked if I was part of the mafia often.

"Nah, O'Reilly's just helping me out," I replied, making my way towards the bathroom. "He found me just after I left that place we met at," I grabbed a towel, rubbing off the excess water fast enough that I wouldn't have to be put under the stare of a young girl while soaked to the bone. "Some moron nearly ran him over, I shoved him out of the way. O'Reilly offered me this place to stay."

"Thank god," I heard her groan, jumping on the bed with a loud thump. "Pop would kill me if he found out that I'd managed to interfere with his boss's business." I loudly chuckled something that Louise seemed to hear right away if her response was anything to go by.

"What's so funny?"

"What… not going to kill ya if you reveal to strangers that he works for the Irish Mafia?"

"Nah, Pop just works for the Kitchen Irish," Louise said, from the sound of her voice, she was speaking into the pillow. "They're a loose series of mobsters, connected to but not really part of the Irish Mafia families."

"Is there really a difference?" I found a dry set of clothes sitting on the cardboard under the sink. "Irish descended mobsters are mobsters of Irish descent, no matter how they arranged the organization."

"Gotta say, a potato is a potato."

"That's just ancient Irish know-how there."

When I came back into the other room, dressed in a simple black tracksuit that I'd been left. My hair having been completely dried by the towel seconds beforehand as I took in how my bed was completely overtaken by the teenage girl.

"So what made you think your Pops would be here?" I asked her, taking the chair by the door, sitting with my right foot on top of my left knee. Jitters took over the limb beneath, shaking the one above all the while.

This wasn't just a nervous tic, it was something called stimming. It was an instinctual action that I couldn't control.

"Look, it's none of my business," I course-corrected my approach with the girl, obviously there's something with her dad that I shouldn't be asking about. "Forget I said anything, though I imagine that you should be getting-" Once more the door clicked open, this time with male O'Reilly entering the room with a rather alarmed expression.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked, his teeth grinding with such force that I could hear how they were losing calcium by the second. The thing that actually worried me was the way his face flushed a furious red; furious being the operative word. "Louise!"

"Yo, Pop!" Louise lazily raised a hand but still laying down on the bed. There wasn't a single inch of her body that seemed to be concerned with the fact that her dad was enraged at the sight of her being here. Which in fairness…

… if I found my daughter alone, sitting on the only bed, with a man who'd been homeless the day before. I would be pissed too!

Suddenly the elder O'Reilly sighed, the timbre heavy in the air as he looked to me. I couldn't decipher what the look on his face meant, but I would assume it was something to do with how spent he felt dealing with a teenage daughter.

"Louise… what have I told you about doing this?"

"Don't get caught and shakedown some gobshites along the way?"

"Louise."

"Right… right," Louise rolled off the bed, sending me a wink along the way. Very slowly the young girl walked over towards her dad, something that highlighted once more that she was pretty tall compared to most people that I've met in life, which included her father, who seemed to stand under six feet himself. "See you later Pat! We've gotta chat some time!"

In all her rush to leave, or rather lack of rush, I don't think Jimbo noticed the rather odd bit of paper that she left on the bed. The one with her mobile number written on it.

"So… " I trailed off when the O'Reilly Patriarch turned to glare at me. "How're those local sports teams?"

---

(The Man In Black)

He took a deep breath, letting the sound bounce off the room, letting him head right to the sink without any issue from running into something. The world had been on fire since he was a child, ever since the accident, it only took a while to notice it.To take advantage of it.

Stick had told him that he had gifts.

But Matt had never met anyone else besides Stick that had gifts of a similar nature. For years, he thought the two of them were alone in the world of girt, of pain. Today showed him that there were more people with gifts; gifts that made his own seem mundane. The gifts this man had made Matt Murdock feel small.

"Matt, you're back!" He heard his friend and current roommate's voice from the other room, but he had smelled the liquor from his breath, the cheap cologne that the fellow law student liked to use to mask the smell of his clothes when he didn't have the time to properly wash them "I thought that you were going to be gone for the weekend?"

"I got back early, Foggy," Matt replied, keeping his voice soft, even as his friend neared the bathroom door. "Got some unexpected help and got everything done early."

"I tolda that I would've helped you," Foggy whined drunkenly, slurring his words and suddenly turning towards his bed. Matt could hear the carpet decompress from his friend's weight lifting off it before Foggy even landed on the bed. "Now couldn't I have helped instead of some stranger?"

Matt was sure that Foggy meant how and not now, but he didn't feel the need to correct his friend.

"Oh, they didn't offer," The blind man between the two started to explain. "In fact, the guy was already doing the deed for me, and I forced my help on him."

"That's nice," Foggy mumbled into his pillow, his voice breaking against the soft fabric. "But next time I'm going to help ya… whether or not you want it or not… "

Matt smirked, grabbing his toothbrush so he could start to clean his teeth. It was only when he had finished, changed into his pajamas and sat on his own bed, that he spoke once more.

"You're a good friend."

"Good? I'm the greatest friend," Foggy wasn't above correcting Matt. "Not just good. THE BEST!"

"You're the best."

---

(????? ?????)

A clean suit, well-kept hair, glasses and a face clean of any sign of facial hair marked the beginning of what was a rather nondescript if well-dressed, man. He was one of the Boss's most trusted men, the man that got things done or at least arranged tasks to be completed.

Quietly.

Sometimes… even deadly.

He was sitting in a limo, watching a flat-screen showcasing the news of the evening. The breaking news at that, a bunch of girls, blind ones that were found at the docks, shoved into cargo containers like they were animals.

But that wasn't the only thing of interest, it seems that some of the docks were being run by the Irish Mobsters that currently were in power of the criminal element of Hell's Kitchen. Obviously, the two were connected.

And the final thing, a man in blue was rumored to have been seen taking gunfire like he was a tank; even being lit on fire at one stage. A ridiculous rumor no one seemed to take seriously, except for the fact that there was a vigilante wearing blue that beat them up.

Currently, he was just being called the Blueman.

"Yes, sir," He spoke into a phone, one that looked like something that would only see the mass market within the next ten years, perhaps something that only high-ranking government officials would be using. "It's been taken care of, the relationship between the Kitchen Irish and Madame Gao's group will be strained by this loss. It should leave her open for you to negotiate for the Russians to take over the trade."

The Boss said something in return.

"O'Reilly?" The metaphorical right hand of the Boss said, not so much in question to the man on the other end of the call but as a question to himself. "He's trustworthy enough, the man has his morals but… put some pressure on his family and he'll fold."

More words were said by the Boss, something that would vaguely sound like a threat to anyone else hearing it, but the man wearing the glasses knew it was just the tone of voice that the other always used. He was polite but had trouble speaking in a manner that didn't come off as threatening when certain topics were being discussed.

After all… Wilson Fisk didn't need to threaten anyone.

He just ended any threat to his goals. No warnings were needed.

"No, I don't know who Mr. O'Reilly sent in there but I can find out if you want?"

"That… won't be necessary," Fisk replied, for the first time the driver of the limo could hear his voice. "I'm sure that once we've brought him into the fold, O'Reilly will eventually hire the man again."

"Mr. Wesley," The Driver spoke up for the first time, interrupting the man's rather important conversation. "We've arrived."

"Ah, thank you," James Welsey replied, before returning to his conversation on the phone. "I'm afraid that I've arrived sir and will have to cut this call short. Once I've finished things up here, I'll call in."

"Remember, we take this slow," Fisk warned his right-hand man. "No need to make too many waves yet."

---

(Patrick Doyle: The Next Day)

The night before had ended with a rather quiet talk with Jim O'Reilly about how exactly I knew his daughter. Now thankfully the man didn't become that stereotypical angry dad that wanted to kill all males that came into contact with his daughter, at least the ones that were not family, so he did let me explain the full story of that to him.

And so he left me with a note telling me where to meet up with Urich again. Some cafe down the road, think it was called Brennans or something.

"You did good work, kid," Ben told me, sitting across from me in a booth near the corner of the room. "Real good, not a single person died, though some of them may not walk again… " he trailed off, his hand coming to rest under his chin as if a thought had struck him. "Maybe try and work on that, it wouldn't be good if you get mugged by some fool and you accidentally break him in half."

There was an image for you, accidentally doing Superboy-Prime, as in what he did to the Teen Titans that time they as a group decided to just throw themselves at the Superman-level being… and most of them didn't have durability as a power.

"On that," I said, agreeing with him. "So… what do I do now?"

Ben took a long gulp from his drink, while I dug into a toasted ham and cheese sandwich waiting for him to respond. I could feel my heart start to race as my ears started to pick up the sounds of the city going around me, the noises were far louder, far clearer than anything else. For a few seconds, I tried to down it all out.

"Pat," Ben's voice suddenly overpowered the rest of the noises, letting me return to normal. "You okay?"

"Yeah, suddenly gained super hearing," I said, nonchalantly finishing off the sandwich with a single large bite and then swallowing it in that same motion. "This is rather terrifying, wonder what new power I'll get next. I kinda hope it isn't flight… I've got a phobia of heights."

"But you were leaping small buildings yesterday," he replied, his tone a mix of amusement and confusion with his index finger pointing directly at me. "What… now that you're fireproof, do you have a phobia of fire as well."

"Nah, I've a phobia of water, though," I grinned at him, something that he mirrored with one of his own. "So swimming is out of the question."

"You'll never make a good reporter if you don't get over those sort of fears," Urich's grin was a small proud thing, especially as he reached inside his jacket pocket. A folder of papers slapped onto the tale with enough force that they slid over to me. "And you'll need these."

I slowly peeled over the folder, revealing a mix of I.D cards, birth certificates and a lot of other sorts of papers that meant that I was who I said I was. Utter proof that I was both an American and an Irish citizen.

"This is a lot," I closed the folder, sliding it back to Ben, who was the only one between the two of us that had a jacket big enough to even carry the damn thing. "Why?"

He didn't speak for a few seconds, instead, his eyes just roamed about the room, as if he was collecting pieces to a puzzle that I couldn't hope to understand. I continued to watch as he took off his glasses and wiped them with the fabric of his shirt till they were sportless to my eyes, it was only when the glasses returned to the ridge of his nose that he spoke once more.

"You saved lives," Urich said lowly. "You've been given power like no one else in the world. First thing you do with it?" he asked, but I couldn't bring myself to answer, sensing that it was rhetorical. "You've decided that you'll use it to help people. I'm doing this because your sort of power worries me and maybe now that you've seen that you can work outside the law without consequences… maybe that will be how you think things should go."

I couldn't deny the rush that went through my body last night, the raw emotion that churned through me like a drug. It could be addictive to me, nothing could stop me from going after every gang, every criminal enterprise, and every mugger… nothing could hurt me.

"I think it's time that you learn how to use people, the public's opinion, and a journalist's ability to expose corruption to stop the big guys, to help people, " Ben continued, standing now to deliver the documents right back into my hands. "or this is where we end this, you go on your ways and I go my ways but no matter what, I'll help you find out what happened to you… It's up to you."

Our eyes meet and I watched as he held out his left hand for me to shake.

"What do you say?"

I smiled.

"When do I start," Grabbing his hand, we shook and I could tell that this was the start of a beautiful friendship.

 

[Proman]

(Ben Urich: November 3rd 2008)

"Ben!" A short white man, with a balding head and a large brown beard, and a set of black glasses sitting low on his nose, walked into the reporter's office, his face apologetic as he did so while his hand held a folder. "I have something that could be right up your alley."

"Oh," Ben replied to his boss with a raised brow, suspicion doing so along with it. "I'd love to see what you think would be up my alley, Ellison."

It was kind of a game that his Editor liked to play with him at times, trying to force soft assignments down his throat. Ben couldn't really tell if he was trying to keep him safe by stopping him from making too many enemies or if Ellison was just trying to protect the paper from lawsuits resulting from his rather intrusive investigations.

"Well, I remember that you've been in a stint of looking into… the more weird occurrences as of late," Ellison sat down on Urich's desk, close enough to support his weight but far enough from anything that he could rudely be sitting on. "And well, some of our contracts have managed to leak a rather odd series of electrical blackouts near Lower Manhattan. Now normally, this wouldn't be news worthy, to easy boring explanations for it… but it seems that the suits are keeping it suppressed. Anything being hid isn't worth hiding"

Urich leaned back, his eyes jumping to the computer monitor where his latest story about how someone was poisoning the water supply. It was an important story, one that he'd feel guilty about just shelving to check out some leads that mightn't pan out.

But he did owe it to the kid to keep checking up on it.

"I'm interested but not super interested," he found himself sighing, slapping his hand against his forehead and rubbing it. "It sounds like there's a story there… but I can't devote any time to it. Anyone free to look into it?"

"Nope, that's why I brought it to you," The other man apologized, shrugging his shoulders. "I just can't spare anyone, they all got their assignments," Ellison stood up, turning his back and making his way out of the room. But before he managed to open the door once more, Ben's voice interrupted.

"You know, Doyle could go down there and look around," Ben offered, raising his hand from his voice to point out of the window, right at the man pushing around a cart of office supplies. "After all, we both know that these sort of cases usually end up being nothing."

"It would be an easy assignment to cut his teeth on," The Editor mused, scratching at his chin. The man had been meaning to give the kid a bigger role at the paper, especially given how much the young man's writing has improved over the last few months. "You think he's up for getting into people's faces? He's pretty shy."

Ben scoffed, his face breaking out into a wide smile.

"You and I both know that it takes all kinds out there," It was a gentle correction, something that was only possible because of how the two respected each other. "Sometimes the polite guy gets more out of people than the one that is all up in their faces."

"It's not just being polite… the guy's very passive."

"Well, good thing then that he'll call in if he feels like he's in over his head."

Ellison chuckled, opening the door just a crack and then leaning outside of the room.

"Hey, Doyle!" he yelled, grabbing the young man's attention in a way that caused Doyle to hop slightly from fright. "Get your butt in here, I've got something to ask."

Doyle walked into the room, leaving the equipment he was carrying down on a nearby empty table. He was neater than he'd been when Ellison had first met him, where before he had long unkempt hair on his head, so long that in fact, it had reached his shoulders. Now his hair was short, a neatly brushed side style that was nothing if not completely average.

"Yes, sir," Doyle said, closing the door behind him as he stood before both his mentor and his boss. "Did you have something that you needed me to do?"

"Yeah, Ben's just convinced me to hand you an assignment," Ellison watched as Doyle tragically vibrated on the spot, his mouth spreading into a large smile as he heard the news. Something that both the Editor and Urich knew would happen, the kid had been chomping on the bit to get such a thing. "So there are some blackouts going on in Lower Manhattan, I need you to check them out."

"Lower Manhattan?" Doyle responded, tapping his foot and rubbing his chin with his thumb and finger. "That's a rather large area for blackouts, it's surprising that I've not heard of it before?"

"Some suits are suppressing the information," Ben supplied, his hands tapping at his keyboard as he returned to writing his story. "Not sure why, we're not even sure whether they work for a company or the government."

"So it could be nothing but an electrical company trying to cover their asses?"

"Yup," Ellison grinned, popping his lips. "Just the kind of story to cut your teeth on."

"I'm on it!" Doyle ran out of the room, nearly running into the closed door as he did so. It wasn't long till the young man was out of the two older men's sight, much to the amusement of the reporter of the two… and the worry of the Editor.

"I hope the kid knows what he's doing," Elisson sighed, having second thoughts about what he'd just allowed to happen.

"Don't worry about it," Ben spoke up once more grabbing his boss's attention before he could leave. "I've taught the kid everything that he knows."

"That's what I'm worried about," Ellison rolled his eyes, leaving the room finally. Something that brought a smile to Urich's face as the man started to work on the Water story once more because he knew that the kid was going to be just fine.

After all, it wasn't like there was much in the world that could take him out.

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

"Where is that girl?" Jim sipped from his coffee, letting the pleasant sensation that it brought to bear ooze through his body. The man had called off smoking a few months ago, something that his wife and little girl were rather happy for, not to mention his wallet was much heavier for it.

The man had only gotten greyer over the last while, his daughter had graduated from high school and had very little interest in heading off to college to at least a year. instead, she was looking for a job, which only bothered the older man given the increase of violent crimes in the area as the Kitchen Irish began to struggle against the Russians for control over certain aspects.

"Pop!" Louise's voice broke through over a crowd coming out of an office building. Dressed in what could only be described as business casual, with pants rather than any sort of skirt, the girl didn't like the idea of a perv managing to sneak a look up there when the opportunity arose. "It looks like I didn't get it."

"Why not?" he responded, the guff in his voice coming from holding back the rage that he could feel building in his heart. Not that Jim let his temper get the best of him with his daughter, but the feeling never went away. "What did you do this time?"

"Me!" she let her pitch go higher and her hands to her mouth in mock outrage. "I think that you'd find that it was him… the world's biggest asshole interviewer… that caused the issue. Wanted me to wear a really short skirt, started to ogle me," With her eyes close, Louise shrugged her shoulders. "I think I'm the victim here."

"Right," The older O'Reilly rolled his eyes. "See, I'd believe you if it wasn't for one rather big issue with this whole story."

"Yeah, and what's that?"

"This is apparently the fourth time that this has happened… today alone."

Louise paused in her steps, waiting for her Pop to catch up to her a few meters from the car that they had arrived in. The sounds of the busy streets, with the speeding cars and the passing people, just added to the embarrassment that she was feeling at the moment.

"Well, I ain't got the best track record is all," At the rather unamused stare that Pop was sending her way caused her to sink in on herself, though that didn't mean Louise wasn't still towering over her father like a basketball player would against a jockey. "Look… Pop, these office jobs just ain't… me."

"And what would be you?" Jim's unamused stare morphed into one that showcased intrigue. "Just as an example, it would make finding a job easier."

"I want to be out there!" Louise waved her arms, spreading out and nearly hitting the people that were walking by, something that went unnoticed by the redhead. "With people watching and the-"

"No… You ain't going for either wrestling or boxing," Her father told the young girl flatly, his unamused stare returning once more.

"Why not?" Louise said, walking the last few meters from the car, sitting on the hood with all the petulance of a small child.

"Because you got banned from both for drop-kicking people at the regionals. You're banned from competing."

Louise opened her mouth, a retort ready on her lips but then froze, thinking about it.

"Fair enough," she said, shrugging once more. "But I still say that all it takes one plastic surgeon and a few of the right people paid off, then I'd make it through all right."

While usually, such a sentence would send any responsible father exploding with outrage at the thought of his little girl engaging in such dangerous practices. Jim knew that she was just trying to rile him up, it was something that the O'Reilly girl liked to do since he left the Kitchen Irish peacefully about two months ago.

Mr. O'Reilly opened the driver's side door, signaling to Louise to get inside herself with an absentminded hand wave. Eventually, the young girl rolled her eyes hopped off the car, made her way towards the passenger seat… till a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Miss," Came the smooth voice of a rather well-kept businessman. The glasses on his face glinting in the sunlight, while Jim got out of the car once more, his face slightly pale from the very sight of him. "But I need a word with your father?"

The girl didn't even get the chance to respond before Pop stepped in.

"Louise, get in the car, I'll be there in just a second," Louise didn't even bother to argue, just slowly nodded at her Pop and got into the car. When she was inside. Jim and the glasses-wearing man walked a few steps away from the car, out of earshot. "Mr. Wesley, I didn't expect to see you so early in the morning."

"I know that you like to keep our meetings private and the Boss understands that," Wesley pushed his glasses up closer to his eyes, keeping a small polite smile on his face even well his eyes hardened. "But this couldn't wait, by meeting you like this, it leaves no phone calls and no trace other than visual that we met."

"It's fine, just unexpected." Jim knew the deal, small fry like him couldn't complain, would make him unfavorable to the type of boss he now worked for. "What can I do, sir?"

"We need to get a hit… on a rather hard target," Wesley took a glance around, seeing that there wasn't anyone that could overhear. "Sean Leary."

Jim took in a deep breath, his eyes widening while dropping to the ground, there was a measure of absolute dread that exploded over his face. He was familiar with the man, he'd known him since he was young, since before Louise was born, the man had even saved his life at one point.

"Is there a problem?" The Right Hand to the most powerful man in New York at the moment asked him, it was like a shark smelling blood in the water, the danger was clear in the air.

"No, just surprised that he'd piss off the boss," Jim explained, scratching his neck in wariness. "Sean would usually be what I'd call, risk-averse."

"Sadly… he's looking to talk," Wesley explained, something that alarmed Jim. "About the Boss, it seems that he's found out about his identity."

"And how did we find out about this?"

"He went to the wrong detective, thought the man was clean, but he was one of ours," There was a tired sigh from the man like he had to deal with this mess and was just sick of it. "Man's gone to the winds, we're sure he's still in the city but… well, we're sure that with your prior knowledge of the man, you'd find him easier than any hitman we could hire."

"Pop!" Louise poked her head out the side of the car, her arm high in the air. "Come on, we're going to be late."

The two men shared a stare before nodding and going on their own ways, one to make more deals, to deal with more problems, and the other to get his girl home… and then to handle a problem that he'd never hoped to have.

---

(Patrick Doyle)

The months had been kind to me, I had a decent job as a would-be reporter in the Bulletin, I had a new apartment, and I even moonlighted as something of an anti-mugger at times. I wasn't really looking for crimes to stop, just out and about testing my ever-increasing speed and my ever-increasing strength. I wasn't the Flash or anything but I've managed to catch a few bullets in some of the more deadly situations I'd found myself in.
Though not without flattening most against my palm, mostly because I didn't manage to actually match the trajectory in the right way to grab it perfectly.

I was now faster than the majority of cars now, so that was neat. And I think that I was strong enough now to pick up and throw a tank at people. Though thankfully I haven't needed to test that little factoid yet.

I didn't just get an increase in those powers but also gained the ability to see more of the visual spectrum. I now had X-Ray-like sight, something closer to old comics idea of X-Ray vision rather than what the name implies, and it also I've got a telescopic vision that I could switch into a microscopic vision. Now, at this very moment, I was trying to figure out where to start with this assignment. Like obviously I was sure that I should start in Lower Manhattan but that was a rather large area to search. The first place that I thought to look in was the local power plant.

That got me nearly nowhere at all since there was nothing wrong with anything in the building, no faulty wires, no dead bodies, animal or otherwise, in any of the conductors. But it wasn't all a bust, with a little hemming and a little babbling, I managed to get one of the workers to give me an address. This address should've been where the blackout to started from.

It was a rather large apartment building, littered with a slew of people coming in and out like there was some kind of sale going. I watched from outside, just checking to mark all the entrances and exits mentally. I found an older lady, a kindly-looking one that was out walking her dog. Since she came out the front door of the place, I assumed that she was living there.

"Miss," I called out, grabbing her attention while adjusting my collar. "If I may have just a moment of your time."

The woman didn't look happy, in fact, she seemed downright annoyed at me. I would have to use all my small-town charm to get what I needed out of the lady. Which wasn't a lot of charm, just the smudge that I hold in reserve.

"Wha you want?" She asked me, her eyes glaring at me through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.

"Oh… I'm s-sorry if I bothered you, my name's Pat Doyle," I pulled at my collar, drawing in on myself as if her harsh tone had bothered me, a calculated act but not one that I didn't feel. "See, I just got my first assignment at the Bulletin and… "

I trailed off, keeping my eyes low but my head high enough so tI could still keep her in the corner of my vision. There were a few seconds that the lady looked taken back by my rather meek display, then her expression turned to one of guilt.

"The Bulletin?" She eventually asked, seemingly having changed her mind about how she wanted to interact with me. "That's a rather big name paper, what sort of assignment?"

"Oh, I'm just looking into," I opened a folder I had resting in my left hand, fumbling with a sheet that I brought up with my right before handing it to the lady with deliberate slowness. "The blackouts that happened about a week ago in this building. I was just wondering if you knew anything?"

"Anything?"

"Y-yeah," I stammered. "You know odd noises at night, people that shouldn't be around…. Or just look weird around the place."

"There have been some people in suits the other day," The old lady started, puffing up her lips in thought. Eventually, she frowned, her eyes looking up and to the right, something that, if I remember right, meant that she was recalling something rather than making something up. "From what Betty told me-"

"Betty?" The sound of that name, was something that I knew from childhood, though I heavily doubted that she was Betty Ross. A woman that smart, that connected, wouldn't be living in a joint like that.

"The young girl who lives in 5B, poor girl, she only moved in about a month ago," The lady, who I realized I'd yet to get the name of. "Always getting into arguments with her fiancé, but that's not important. These suits, I'm not sure who they work for, but I've been told that they were around for the blackout."

"T-That's good to know," I reached into my pocket, drawing out a notepad and pen, missing me expensive android phone, scratching in some names and a time period. "And i-if I may be so bold, Miss… what's your name?"

It was important that I get her name, if only for collaboration later on.

"Lenard, Regina Lenard," She told me as she crouched and rubbed the top of her dog's head. The animal barking happily and wagging its tail, it wasn't a small dog so I wasn't sure if the woman needed to bend down to do this. "I live in 5C, just next door to Betty, sometimes I even take the girl in when her fiancé starts taking out some things on the poor girl."

That ran plenty of alarm bells in my head and solidified that this wasn't Betty Ross. No way that she'd be in an abusive relationship, not with General Ross as her dad. That man wouldn't stand for that sort of thing happening to his little girl. Her boyfriend/husband would've found himself at the end of a firing squad.

"Thanks for the information miss," I handed her a piece of paper with a number on the paper. "If you see anything else, do you mind giving this number a ring?" at her rather disbelieving expression; "I just mean if you remember anything else or if you see anything that 's odd."

"Shouldn't I call the cops?"

"O-o-of course," I stammered out, this time it was genuine. "I just mean that you could give me a heads up for stories that you might think needs to be told, just the odd things. You know?"

The woman nodded, eventually turning with the lead in her hand and I let the dog and their owner work off.

It didn't take me long to decide that I needed to meet this Betty as well. Maybe she'd seen something that Regina wasn't told about. After all, such a kind old lady didn't need to know anything dangerous, if I was this Betty, I certainly wouldn't tell her anything about that. The door to get into the apartment complex was empty, not a single person passing through the door, so that meant I needed to be buzzed in.

"Hope I can find more of that small-town charm," I grumbled, looking at the list of apartment numbers, finding the button for the 5B apartment. "Hello, Miss, I'm with the New York Bulletin, just looking to do a piece on what's it's like to live in the area. One of those odd things that the editor loves doing at times, may I come in?"

I said it with such a rushy voice like I was suddenly terrified that the woman would attack me on the other side of the buzzer.

"Ok," The voice that I could only assume that it was this Betty woman. "I'll buzz you in."

I went through the door and up the stairs slowly, not wanting to spook the woman by getting up there as supernaturally fast as I could. Most of the time, I'd stay away from using any such a speed in an open place but in an old building like this, I could afford to blitz past the hallways.

It took only two minutes to reach the fifth floor, something that I'm sure was a fast time but the layout of the stairs meant I could just leap over several sets of stairs without issue, cutting the time it would take by around half.

I came to Betty's door, a grin on my face, and ruffling my shirt to make myself seem more like I was one of those people that were just exhausted by life. Knocking on the door, I waited for her to answer patiently, faking needing to huff and puff.

When she opened the door, I wasn't so much taken back as I was confused. From the words of that old lady with the dog, I woulda thought that poor Betty was nothing if not meek housewife… but this woman was a tall blond, not as tall as Louise or even me but she looked to be as built as her.

Just leaner.


"How can I help you?" The woman pushed up some glasses, some oddly shaped glasses. From my own experiences with lenses the one on her face looked to be fake, since they didn't actually have a curved surface, at least not enough that it would help you with seeing better. They were good fakes though, mind from a type of glass I wasn't familiar with... not that I was super familiar with glass types.

Curious and curiouser.

This woman was too good to fall for any acts.

"Hello, I was the guy at the door buzzing, with the New York Bulletin?"

"Right that was you," Betty shook her head, her long blond hair casting shadows over her eyes. "Sorry, you just got up here a lot faster than I thought possible."

"I've been told that I'm a guy that's always in a hurry," I joked, deciding that honesty would get me through the door better than the 'all-shucks' act would. "Means that I'm at least early to everything that I need to be at. Anyway, if I'm allowed to get straight onto business, I'm looking into the recent blackout, that started in this building."

Betty blinked, her face scrunching up suddenly in that way I'm sure said that she was taken back by what I'd just said.

"Thought that you said it was about how life in the area is like?" she responded, opening the door and waving me into the apartment.

"It's the same thing," I shrugged, letting the shoulders roll as I entered the main living room of the apartment. My eyes glazed over at the sight of pictures, most of them of what I could only assume was her fiancé and the woman herself. They were such obviously overly sweet pictures that I'm not sure a couple decades in would be able to get naturally, never mind newlyweds. "The two tie into each other perfectly, miss."

"Please sit down," She motioned to a chair, a soft-looking green thing with yellow crowns. "What do you want to ask exactly?"

"Just the usual stuff, did you see anything odd, where you home for the blackout?" I smiled, letting my teeth shine through it as I thought it would do well for getting the girl to take my questions. "Those sort of things. The standard mix of nonsense and average questions."

"Right," she took a deep breath. "Well, in order, I didn't see anything, I was home for the blackout but my fiancé wasn't."

"Good," I took a look around the room, my vision shifting through all the available avenues to showcase what this very suspicious person had to hide from me. To hide this action, of me staring around the room oddly, I took out my notepad, scratching down what the woman had told me as I had with the old dog lady outside. "And how long have you lived in the area?"

"Been here for about a year," she told me, and oddly if I hadn't been told that she'd been here for only a month, I wouldn't have been able to tell she lied. Betty's heart rate was normal and I couldn't figure out if the sweat on her brow was normal or a sign of deceit. "The only issue seems to be the electrical power seems to go out, but that's not a massive issue this time of year. The building has a gas boiler for heat, so I don't have to worry about the winter cold."

"Right, makes sense," I nodded seeing past the woman and into the room on the other side. I could see three people, surrounding computer monitors, One was a tall man with a dark skin tone and black hair, another one was a plain white male, clean-shaven and his hair brushed back. "And where is your fiancé? I wouldn't mind hearing his opinion about things?"

"Oh," Betty let out, fake surprise on her face, something that I probably wouldn't be able to tell if I hadn't been told. "I'm afraid that he's out, off to his job."

"And where's that… if you don't mind me asking? I leaned forward, tapping the notepad to one knee while doing the same with my pen, letting the ink from it stain my knee.

"He's an office clerk for Hammer Industries customer services," the lady explained, plastering on a smile on her face that told me that Betty was going for the whole butter wouldn't melt in her mouth approach. "He works late hours but a few days a week."

"I see," I wrote down some nonsense on the paper, trying to make sure that I looked like I was finishing up. "Well, I won't take up any more of your time, if you think of anything just give a ring to the Bulletin offices and ask for Doyle, I'm the only Doyle in the building."

I left the room, trying to seem like I was being casual when I was sure that it really just seemed like I was running away from her. It was odd then if you were to learn that this was just how I naturally was, even if I was really calm on the inside, I seemed to be a panicked mess at times. I needed to force meself to act any other way. Unless I was in disguise, that seemed to draw my confidence out.

But I slowed down once I left the apartment, focusing on listening to the room that I just left with only the vaguest hint of trouble doing so.

"What do you think?"Betty asked another person, her accent shifting ever so slightly. Sadly I wasn't familiar with American accents yet, so I only could tell it was different but not exactly where it had come from but I could tell it was still an American one. "Guy on the up and up??"

"Not sure," A male voice spoke up, his voice was distorted, I could make out every word he was saying but I could tell the gist of it. It was only his last few words that were truly clear to me. "... looks like there's no sign of him before six months ago."

My heart leaped deep into my chest, it was more than a little suspicious that they could pull up this much info about me in such short notice, hell it was downright magical. Who could they be to get that much info?

I decided to create some distance between me and those guys.

But I couldn't leave the apartment just yet. If those guys had the ability to monitor the rest of the building like I'm assuming they can, then that means that me leaving the place before talking to anyone else would just make me look more suspicious. And it would add a few more povs, which would be good to have.

So I made sure to talk to a random swath of people in the building. Making it seem that openly talking to Betty was just due to happenstance, rather than picking her out from everyone else in the building. Otherwise, they might find out about me before I can find out about them.

I'd just gotten through several doors, talked to about three people, gotten some of the worst responses to my questions that I'd ever had, one guy started to talk about his pooh... yeah let's move on from that. Then my knocks went unanswered for three more doors. I'd decided that this door here, 4D, would be the final one. Whoever lived here would be the last person that I'd interview today.

Gently I knocked on the door, right on the metallic 4D symbols.

"Just a second," A woman inside yelled, her voice making her sound older than I was but not so old that she could be my grandmother. Maybe my mother if she had a real early teen pregnancy and… this is an odd comparison so I'll stop here.

I tapped my foot, absentmindedly, as I waited for her to answer the door.

When the door did open I was surprised by the length and the sheer frizziness of the lady's black hair. It reached the midpoint of her back while also framing her face. She was also wearing a large set of black goggles that hung around the neck like some sort of accessory.

"Hello, Mrs.?" I let the question hang in the air.

"Oh no, it's just Miss," She bashfully replied, batting her eyes at me. They were squinty like she needed glasses but couldn't wear her goggles at the same time. It was a odd mix when speciality googles existed, it could've meant that she needed a new prescription lense for them though. "Miss Octavius, Olivia Octavius but my friends call me Liv."

Octavius? Related to Dok Ock or just a coincidence? I think that I could've found another lead for who caused their blackouts.

The thought went through my mind for a second… and I didn't like it, but it seemed that I'd found a cradle robber… eww.

"Liv then?" I smiled from just one side of my mouth, not showing off my teeth. I even went as far as to angle my head and lean onto a wall, an act that brought no small amount of disgust bubbling up inside of me.

"Yes, call me Liv," Liv smiled at me, her eyes continuing to roam up and down my form. I wasn't really sure if this was because she needed glasses or if she just found me so irresistible she couldn't stop them from taking my body in. "I'm not good with formality I'm afraid."

Holding out a hand the two of us shook, then I got down to business.

"Neither am I, call me Pat."

"Oh, I will," Her eyes ran up and down my frame, something that I found odd.

"So I'm working for the New York Bulletin," I said, repeating the line for what felt like the millionth time. "Just a simple piece," I leaned my neck over the corner, my eyes barely peeking over her body so I could see inside her room, my eyes shifting in the visual spectrum so I could find what I wanted. "On what it's like living in this area and… if anything strange has happened recently?"

"You're talking about those folks in the suits and sunglasses at night," Liv said to me, her hand going into her pocket and pulling out a pair of glasses that she wiped off her shirt. There was this shift in her tone, in her body language, where before she was casual, almost flirty. Now, Liv was subdued, nearly whispering. "Yeah, I've noticed them snooping around."

That was the first person that didn't just hear about these guys from that old dog lady or didn't mention them like Betty.

"Any idea who they are? What they're here for?" I asked, taking out a notepad, ready to write down her answers.

"Oh, some secret government agents," she shrugged, with a level of nonchalance that I found super impressive. Especially given the topic on hand. "I've seen the type before, though I can't recognize what branch these spooks belong to."

There was a gleam in her eye, something that told despite her rather pleasant demeanor that this woman wasn't really to be trusted.

"And in less conspiracy theory territory, what is it that you do-" I stopped, my ear twitched telling me that there was a person coming down. I spun around, letting me see Betty turning around the corner.

How interesting.

"Miss Betty." I smiled, keeping my arms wide and what I thought looked to be inviting. Betty was looking much like I'd expect from someone that had eaten something really sour, with her lips scrunched up into a small circle. "What can I do for you?"

She glanced at her feet, an action that I could tell was a ruse, just from her heartbeat alone. It was far to steady for someone to be that nervous. But it was a good act, one that would've fooled me if it wasn't for my powers.

"No," Betty eventually stuttered out, rubbing her arm near the elbow, looking as meek as I'd ever seen anyone has been. "It's just that I just remembered that I…. did see some guys in suits the another day, they were asking about the break-in on the… fourth floor?"

"Yes, I recall the same," Olivia chimed in her finger nearly up to her nose in terms of positioning. "They were very rude, wanted to check my apartment out without any probable cause."

"That's not too odd," I said, scratching my shoulder while keeping my eyes firmly on the Doctor of the three of us in the hall. "There are some pretty rude cops around, not saying crooked or anything… because I can't legally say that… but I can say rude."

Liv giggled something that seemed to shock Betty if her face was anything to go by. I couldn't help the grin that overcame my face, enjoying confusing this badly hidden plant by any means necessary.

The fizzy-haired woman turned around, about to return to her apartment.

"Olivia!" Betty suddenly yelled out, something that actually managed to take me off guard. "Wait up, I've been meaning to ask you about a thing."

There was an odd break where neither one of them spoke, Liv seemed to just want the woman to ask her whatever the subject was. But I could tell that the silence on Betty's end was due to her just thinking up something on the spot rather than having something to ask the Doctor.

"Fine," Liv responded, her eyes rolling while she leaned on the frame of her door. "Just make it quick, I don't want to waste too much time, I've got experiments that need finishing."

It was said with such a harsh tone that I nearly felt sorry for the taller woman of the two, but then I remembered that she was a plant, maybe even here to spy on this Doctor here and her experiments.

It was hard to tell but I could feel that I was getting closer to the reason that the blackouts were happening.

"What's your field if you don't mind me asking?" I decided to pipe in, it was time ti ay on some charm. Maybe that would get me inside her apartment. Get a better look around than just peering through more than two layers of walls. "I've always had an interest in scientific studies. It's an area I hope to report on for the Bulletin in a year or so."

"Oh, really?" Liv smiled, one that reminded me of that time that I saw a tiger eating in a zoo. "In that case, it's fields, several doctorates and PhDs in multiple scientific fields, but currently my research deals with spatial events, manipulations, and transportation. It's all theoretical at this stage, so I ain't got anything practical in regards to projects but that's most of the work in science right now."

"Oh, man that sounds so exciting," I vibrated, my body-hopping up and down with genuine joy. What a suspicious person to be in New York… when I've been transported from one universe to another. "I'm assuming that you're in the design process for some sort of low voltage but powerful magnetic field generator?"

"Yes, actually I am," Her smile tightened. An act that could mean she either finds me cute in trying to talk about the subject or she's getting annoyed with me. "But finding the current materials is a hard thing."

"And the price is no doubt an issue if you weren't Stark and his unlimited bank account, since he could just pour money into an upscaled model first and then downsize it," I shrugged, keeping my eyes up in thought about this situation. "That way you could generate a stronger field without needing to miniaturize the design first."

"You certainly know a bit about it," her smile was wide and full of joy as if she was excited that I was at least somewhat knowledgeable about the subject. It was only then that I saw her cringe like she'd left a sour-sweet in her mouth and it only now came back up on her. "Oh, I'm sorry, Betty what was it that you wanted to ask?"

The sudden turn around caused the other woman, who'd turned silent, to jump up silently in fright Another act, as I could hear that her heart rate once more stayed steady and calm. I wondered briefly if this woman could be shaken at all.

"Grant wanted to know if you wanted to meet up for a coffee or a drink sometime," Betty smiled, something that would charm other people but Liv just seemed to be annoyed by the woman's existence. Perhaps the Doctor could tell the same thing that I could? "We just thought it was time to get to know all our neighbors."

"No, thanks," The black-haired woman shook her head, her googles jangling from side to side. "I'm far too busy to leave my work for too long."

The two stared at each other like they were silently daring the other one to break character and reveal their true nature before they broke out into a fight that would end all life in the world as we knew it.



"So… young, beautiful, and smart," I interceded, grabbing the attention of the two in hopes that I could charm my way inside the apartment. "You impress me more with each passing second.

While Betty looked like she was about to gag, and rightfully so that line was terrible. Liv giggled, her hand coming up to her mouth to disguising the action poorly, briefly reminding me of some sort of Saturday morning cartoons where they had an episode focusing on crushes.


"Now, flirting won't get you anywhere," There was a sly smile, one that invited me for something that… that I'm not sure I wanted.

That was when I heard a quiet buzzing in the air, something that Liv didn't seem to notice but from the way that Betty's face twitched, I could tell that she could hear it. Meaning that it was a signal for her.

"I think I'll just leave the two of you… alone… so you can… get to know each other better."

It was with that the woman left, finally leaving me alone with the Doctor once more, something that she seemed to be really happy with. Like creepily happy about if her rather Joker-like smile was anything to go by.

"Would you like to come in for a drink?"

She asked, her eyes inviting me inside for something much more than a drink. And while super uncomfortable with the idea of doing certain actions… with this woman, I also needed to get inside her apartment.

I needed to see what the Doctor was doing.

So I followed her inside and sat down on her couch when I came to a realization.

This was never a situation that I'd thought I'd be in. Sitting on a couch with an older woman, her smiling at me seductively while twirling a piece of her hair around her finger. We were facing each other, my smile had become rather shy,

"So you've heard about me," She whispered, her eyes peering at from her glasses. "But what can you tell me about yourself?"

"I'm an open book," I held my arms out wide, with one of them going over the back of the couch. "Ask me anything you want?"

"You from Ireland or just have the heritage?"

"Yup, I grew up in the Irish countryside," I told her, trying to be as truthful as possible. Since from what I can tell, my actual home didn't seem to exist, in its place was just a series of fields. So what I said was true from a certain point of view. "Out in the fields, went to school in a nearby town. Learned what I could, I had a massive issue in trying to find myself in my late teens. Got very lost, ended up in New York."

"Metaphorically lost, you mean?" Liv asked, me, a single brow raised paired with a smile that would melt butter.

"Yeah," I nodded, placing my head against the back of the couch. "At first, I was looking to become a programmer, then I went for a lawyer, then it was business. But none of those were for me."

"You dabbled a lot then?" At my rather questioning expression sent her way, the Dok continued. "From what you were saying outside, you seem to have a great understanding of physics for someone that didn't study it."

Between all this, Liv had stood up walking to the fridge and pouring out some sort of drink into two glass, wine glasses but the drink wasn't wine. It was pretty early in the afternoon for a stiff drink, but it didn't matter to me anymore.

I couldn't get drunk anymore.

"Oh, I took the subject for my Leaving Cert, which is close to what someone would study in their first year of college-level," I shrugged smiling at Liv while the woman handed me one of the glasses in her hand. The Doctor then sat down taking a sip out of her own drink before going back to smile at me. "So while I ain't an expert, I can nod along and get the gist of what your experiments are about."

And I did, but it was mostly since I was comic book nerd as well, so a lot of the odd technobabble that wouldn't make much sense to actual well-learned men, I could sieve through it all and use my limited knowledge of science to understand what was going on.

"I'm impressed with the Irish Education system," She wiggled her eyebrows, trying to be charming but only ending up with me holding back a rather large laugh.

"Don't be," I chuckled, taking a large gulp of the beverage in front of me, Tasted weird, but not alcohol weird… in fact, I couldn't put my finger on it. I'd never had anything like it. "I'm self-taught, the system's good but the resources were crap."

"Well then," She leaned in close to me, her breath smelling like what I would imagine the scent of science would. "You impress me more with every second."

Suddenly, I could feel the liquid start to shift through my body, like it was some sort of foreign invader entering my body so it could take over. My super immune system quashed the foreign-ness from my body before it could do any damage.

Or at least before it could affect my behavior.

That was when I started to notice just how leery the woman had become. Her stare made me feel like I was some sort of meat. It also told me something that I should have known, don't go into some stranger's apartment and drink whatever they hand you.

I needed to make up for lost time now, so once more concentrated hard, letting my sight cycle through all the visual spectrums that were available to me. What I saw in the next room over blew my mind.

It was like something out of Stargate, a large circle that seemed to be made from some sort of metal, one that I didn't recognize it but that wasn't saying much. I've not had much chance to study the chemical make-up of various metals.


The rather severe study of the next room was broken when the Doc placed her hand near my chest. I knew that I needed to make a choice, make a decision on what I would do… but I really didn't want to. It was like butterflies had started to swarm around in my chest while a black hole was eating at my stomach.


Then my ringtone started, something that actually brought me an incredible amount of joy.


"Sorry," I said sheepishly at the rather peeved expression she threw my way, but that was only on the outside, on the inside, the butterflies that had been building up in my stomach stopped dead. "It's the boss, I've gotta take this."

I stood up, pushing her hand away from me, before walking to the other side of the room and placing the phone at my ear before pressing the answer button.

"Hello Motto," I said, referencing something that was far too old even in 2008.

"Pat..." Lousie's voice broke through the speaker, sounding rather relieved. The two of us had kept in touch, much to her father's annoyance. Though we were just friends and she hadn't seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that I was moonlighting as a vigilante yet. "You're such a nerd."

The sentence was said in a fau-Valley Girl accent, one that Louise knew caused me to cringe each time I heard it. I swear that the only reason that the girl used that accent was to bother me in life. But I was happy that this cougar time was interrupted that I could ignore it.

"What?" I said, faking a confused tone while on the phone, something to mislead Fem-Dok into thinking that I was questioning someone on the other end. "Down to the office now? Well, if it's the way it's gotta be Mr. Elission."

"Am I saving you from someone that you don't want to talk to?" My younger friend giggled, while her father started to yell in the background, something about some parking tickets he had? "Should really get pagers so you can panic button me."

"Not really something that I've considered," I said, not when even the current model phones can already use email that was. Also considering that I'd only need that when I was panicking, not something that I would even think to use in that state. "But I understand, what was the address of the contract?"

"Just come back to my house," She replied, sounding like it wouldn't bother her to meet with an older guy back in her home. Hell, I'm not sure Louise could be bothered. "Mom likes you, thinks that you're cute."

And now I wondered if Louise's mom, not currently separated from dear old dad, had also been flirting with me. I would hope that Lou would tell me if she was… though knowing her she might find it funny or disgusting.

With her, it was a flip of the coin.

"Fine," I waved my concerns away, it didn't matter. Not if it could get me out of here. "I'll meet you there." Hanging up, I turned my face into a frown, an attempt at seeming disappointed at being called away.

"I'm sorry the boss is calling me in, what's me to go over research with some of the other reporters,"

"That's your job?"

"I've only been on the job for about six months," I shrugged closing my eyes while walking towards the door. "So any assignments are secondary to my other role as an assistant."

"That… is a shame," She licked her lips, another action that creeped me out. Especially as her tongue peeked out and touched her chin. There was just something wrong about this woman, I just couldn't put my finger on it. "Maybe… when my experiments reach the next stage. You'll want to interview me?"

It was as her finger popped the top button in her shirt that I decided that waiting any longer might be a dangerous idea... for certain parts of me.

"We'll have to see," With my hand on the door handle, I opened it and left as quick as a breeze. There was no way to hide my groans as I started to walk away, keeping my pace under control so I wouldn't accidentally blitz off in a blaze of super speed.It was only as I turned back to stare at someone stepping off the elevator that I noticed that there was something wrong with this building. Because I could no longer see that odd device in the Doctor's apartment.

 

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle)

I paced around the room, my feet hitting the floor as if they were as light as a feather. It was like I wasn't really on the floor but instead was hovering over by mere centimeters. Which I was, but that was both beside the point and because Mrs. O'Reilly didn't like to hear people bounce against the floor above her head.

"You know," Louise drawled, lazed out on her bed, I wasn't looking at her but I could imagine that she was rolling her eyes at my rather stressed-out state. "Most guys would be ecstatic about a mature lady coming onto them like that."

"Well… most mature women don't try and roofie you," I mumbled, trying to get it out there but not wanting the attention that such a statement would get. It didn't help that I wasn't really sure that was what the Doc had been trying to do, it might have just been a really strong drink that she'd given me. I'd never been drugged before, so it was possible that what I felt wasn't the date rape drug.

But sadly for my attempt at getting that statement out unnoticed, Louise's ears peeked and she jumped, grabbing me by the shoulder and bringing me down to the bed. Her eyes stared right into mine, searching for something that I couldn't be sure of.

"Lay that on me again," Louise, the low growl in her voice reminding me of a dog that had just been kicked. "This time louder."

There was a tension in the air, something that in the few months I'd spent around the girl wasn't normal. Usually, Louise went around with the same sort of attitude that I've only seen in surfer dudes in old 90's shows.

"I think she tried to drug me?" I eventually folded, though this time I made sure to phrase my statement as a question. Since it was more indicative of what I knew than what I had actually said.

"No... you said that the Doc had tried to roofie you," She corrected me, swinging around and away from me so she could take out her laptop. "That's different, that's a crime, we need to call the pigs on her ass and put her away."

You know it was odd how someone that grew up with a mafia-isk father would have such a hard moral line. It was like finding out that Santa ran a gambling den... just in inverse here.

"And say what?" I shrugged, watching as she started to type away at her laptop with a decent level of proficiency. "The drugs didn't work on me because of a fluke?"

Louise sighed while blowing her long red hair from her face. She'd not been for me keeping my abilities under wraps, saying that it's pointless since it wasn't like I was going out there and being an active vigilante.

I didn't correct her since I hadn't done any repeats of the docks incident, instead focusing on learning under Ben or hanging out with Louise, much to Jimbo's annoyance.

"No... but you could... " She trailed off, her hands coming back down to slam on her laptop's keys. "... fuck you and your secret superpowers."

This was one of the continuous topics between the two of us, that I was hiding my powers at all.

"I'm not sure that it matters," I told her, getting off her bed and sitting instead on a computer chair that Jimbo, as I've come to call Mr. O'Reilly, had gotten with her desktop. Because she really needed both a laptop and a desktop. "She's probably the reason for the blackouts that have been plaguing Lower Manhattan recently."

"Probably?"

"Yup," I nodded at her, bending down to turn the desktop on with a single press of a button. "In fact, I need to do some research on her, mind if I use your computer?"

"I'm pretty sure possible rapist is a bigger crime than being reckless with experiments."

Even though Louise said this, the redhead still nodded consent to my use of her computer.

In most other cases I'd agree with my younger friend, rapists are a kind of monster that needs to burn in a special kind of hell, they're kind are ones even Satan himself should find too evil to be let around the normal denizens of Hell. Even just discussing it made me sick to my guts.

"Sure, in most cases," I said, continuing the line of conversation. "But here we got multiple cases of endangerment, illegal experiments, and even then it's likely that if the Doc would roofie someone she just meets, then it's likely that she's-"

"-actually managed the deed with other people." Louise finished for me, her chin coming to rest on my shoulder as I brought up a list of Doctors with the name of Olivia Octavius from the American Association of Degrees. Not sure if that's an organization that existed on my Earth. "That's smart, a list of crimes that will put her away for the rest of our lives, never mind hers."

"Exactly," The names appeared on the screen as I said these words, a total number of thirteen people were registered by that name. Further limiting the scope of the search, I added the modifier of two or more degrees. "Found her, seems that she used to work for Stark Industries till recently."

Something that I found somewhat surprising, to be honest. It wasn't till six months ago that the company pulled away from weaponry to focus more in areas that Apple and Tesla had been the leaders in. It looks like Dr. Octavius had been an early hire to help with the new direction the company had taken... only to be let go in a month and a half working there.

"Doesn't appear to be a reason listed for it." I mused something that brought Louise out of whatever thought she'd been having since I started to take in the information. "I wonder how hard that will be to get from Stark Industries?"

"Depends on whatever agreements she had prior," My friend said, her hand going for her Blackberry phone before glancing at me with a sly smile. "If she was let go because the experiments weren't going the way she wanted or if it was something she did on the job... it could be covered under an NDA. Might make getting the info hard."

Slightly impressed, I leaned back into the computer chair, my eyes closing for a moment, and let meself think on the approach that I'd need to use to get the information if that was so. There was very little chance that I could sneak in, my skills in that arena were comparable to a bull in a china shop of nothing but red plates.

"Well, only one way to find out," Louise winked at me, handing me her phone, the device making that wonderful dialing tone that was made whenever calling someone. "Go get them."

"Wait, wha-" My exclamation of surprise was interrupted by the call being picked up, something only annoyed me because I knew that if I had called them myself I would've been forced to hold.

"Stark Industries, public relations desk, how may I help you?" The phrase was said with a mix of a dull dry tone that lacked any enthusiasm for life and the accent of a Southern Belle. The fusion of what I considered to be an upbeat accent with a depressing tone just went on to highlight how my day had been going. Mixed.

"Yes, m-my name is Patrick Doyle," I replied, in that sort of anxiety-filled manner that only someone that's been overworked by an office staff would notice. Something that I hoped the woman on the other end would pick up on. "I work for the New York Bulletin and was looking into a certain former employee of Stark Industries."

"I see," She murmured on the other side of the line, her lip audibly being chewed. "This for some sort of story?" It was oddly asked like the woman was fishing for something, maybe wanted to see if there was anything in this for her.

"Not directly, I was investigating a series of odd events and had a discussion with Doctor that was fired from your company in the last few months," I explained, hoping that being honest but loose with details would get better results than being coy. "Just checking in to see if this woman is even reliable as a source... or is someone I needed to look into."

I was being as subtle as a Brickhouse being dropped on a witch. But sometimes that is what is needed.

"Well... I'm going to need a name before I tell you what I can, even former employees are under NDAs."

It was like we had thought, but hopefully, this help desk lady will be able to... help me with some details at least. So I took a breath, for some reason looking both ways, much to Louise's amusement, and spoke;

"Doctor Olivia Octavius."

There was what I could only describe as a beat of silence on the other end of the line, stretching out the tension that I could feel gather in my arms and pushing it through my chest. I wasn't sure what it meant, but it was another thing to add to my list of things that caused me anxiety in life. Awkward silences over the phone, at least in person I would be able to gauge their expression but on a phone, I'm stuck with silence.

"From what I can see," The woman eventually said, the silence finally breaking as her voice was accompanied by the sounds of mechanical keyboard strokes. "The Doctor was let go because she got into an argument with Mr. Stark... where she said... and I'm quoting here... It would only kill like three people... Mr. Stark didn't like that."

I could certainly see why you wouldn't want her to have access to the resources that Stark Industries could grant her if that was her idea of safe.

"What about... allegations of a more... intimate nature?" I asked, my heart racing and my palms started to itch.

Another beat of silence from the other end of the phone, this time it was broken by a gasp of shock.

"There's nothing on file," She said, her hands typing out much faster, making me wish that I could see what the hell was on her screen. I could hear a conversation on the other side going now, all in harsh whispers and worried tones. "What brought this question on?"

"I met her."

My rather droll-sounding reply caused the lady to give out a sigh so full of relief that I'm sure that we could bottle it to reduce the need for helium.

"Well there doesn't seem to be any... but if you want I can kick this upstairs, just leave a number and I'll get back to you with anything we have off file."

With that, she hung up before I could leave her with a number, what an actual bitch. I turned to look at Louise, who'd been standing close to overhear the whole conversation. She was standing now, her form towering over me while having a single eyebrow raised in amusement.

"What do you think the good Doctor's Would only kill three people experiment was?" Louise asked, picking up a red jacket and throwing it on with the same care that I'd expect from someone that wanted to tear their clothes rather than wear it. "Let's find out."

I was left alone in her room for about twenty seconds, just sitting there silently waiting for the computer to turn off. It didn't really matter if the youngest O'Reilly got far from me unless Louise magically became the Flash. I doubt I was going to have many issues with catching up with her.

But still, there was something… wrong. I could feel myself being watched.

I'd tread carefully from this here on out.

---

(Betty)

She didn't have to wait for long till her partner stepped into the apartment, his body covered in sweat as if he had just run a marathon. Betty couldn't help but giggle at the state her companion was in, it was cute to think that the man felt so threatened by her that he needed to go out and prove himself superior.

A notion that he was soon going to find was… wrong.

"You know there are easier ways into a girl's bedroom than scaling the outside of the building," Betty snarked, her grin wide and cat-like. "And here I was thinking that Octavius was the perve."

He didn't speak, finding that as long as he never lowered himself to her level of snark he could complete his duties and retain his sanity. If the man knew he could get away with it he'd kill her himself and burn the body.

"You know the strong silent type doesn't really match your file," The woman remarked, walking around the man till she was standing on behind him. One of the things that her gaze found was the sidearm strapped to his leg, a standard nine-millimeter pistol, something that brought a frown to Betty's face. "Side-arms were meant to be left here."

For the first time since he returned, the man snapped to attention his own frown soon to follow as he turned around to face Betty.

"And I said that I wouldn't go into the Doctor's apartment without some protection," His reply lacked any true heat in tone but his eyes told Betty all she needed to know. Grant was mad that she dared to question any of his decisions.

"Listen to me," She said lowly, her teeth grinding into a snarl as she tore the gun from his side. "The idea was not to bring anything metallic, she might have set up an alarm system-"

"And I checked before going in, there was nothing there-"

"-That could've wiped her computer systems as you got close," Betty continued, ignoring the man's rather childish attempt at interrupting her. The older woman was far too professional to be taken aback by such actions. "Then where would we be?"

Grant just glared at her, even as she sat back down on a comfy chair, her left foot on the coffee table while her right was draped over it. She knew that this would cause him to crack up a bit, the level of nonchalance that she was showing around Grant obviously grated on his nerves.

Usually, she wouldn't engage in such behavior but this was a different time and there was something really wrong with the way that Grant carried himself, the way that his smiles never went to his eyes. The way that his voice never went under a certain octave.

This guy was wearing a mask, one that Betty wanted to tear off and shove down his throat.

"It doesn't matter, we've got the information that was on the drive," Grant eventually replied, his voice small but clear. "And the target is still unaware of our presence here."

"And the bugs? Did you plant those as well?"

Grant scoffed, something that the man had been doing a lot since he'd been assigned to work under Betty. The two just weren't compatible with working together on such long-term missions, which would've surprised their superiors given how similar they were. On paper, they were the perfect pair, maybe they could even be the next Barton and Romanov…

… reality just didn't want to follow through with that idea.

"Of course, I did," Eventually he spoke up, but only after Betty glared at him for around thirty seconds. "I'm a professional, I know how to get the job done. I don't need to be babied."

"Well," Betty replied, elongating the word so it came out as sarcastically as possible. "Our techies in the other room haven't gotten a signal from that apartment. So you must've screwed up somehow."

There was an icy chill in the air, something that seemed to be from the fact that the window was still open from Grant climbing in. What wasn't from the open window was the thick tension that filled that air, especially as the two started to get closer to each other, as they started to circle around each other as if they were about to engage in mortal combat.

"Hey, guys we've found... out… why… " One of the technicians entered the room, trailing off as their eyes saw how the two were looking for some brawling. "What's going on?"

Suddenly it was like someone had turned a valve, released all that built up the pressure into the outside world and the two agents were transformed. Instead of being near ravenous human beings, ready to tear each other from limb from limb, the two looked to be the best of friends.

"Nothing," they spoke together as if they were synced by some cosmic force, even continuing on to their next sentence. "What have you found?"

The tech just raised a brow, examining them like they were part of the puzzle they were here to solve.

"Turns out the good Doctor has somehow managed to shield her apartment," he said, laying a laptop down on the coffee table, a schematic of an apartment layout visible on its screen. "We're not sure how exactly, starts with just lead lining in the walls but then turns to high tech stuff, but-"

"And you're sure she's not just found the bugs and disposed of them?" Betty asked, bringing up the far more likely scenario with the air that one would use when asking if the other person had left the oven on.

"Oh no, see we're getting some signal from the bugs but they're muted," The smallest of the people here explained, his finger pointing at a series of red dots that littered around design plans. "So we're not going to be able to spy on her right now but if she opens the front door… then we're going to see some action."

She didn't even bother to look at Grant's face, knowing that he'd be wearing that smug grin of his. Something that would've meant she'd break the facade of professionalism that was put up and shove his teeth down his throat.

"Well, that just means we need to get her out of the building," Grant spoke, his arms crossed against his chest while his mouth stretched into that grin Betty so hated.

"Sounds like you've got an idea?"

"Arson."

---

(Patrick Doyle)

"Making my way downtown," Louise sang, much to the annoyance of those walking past her, which was to my own amusement. You wouldn't think that someone that was as physically built as Louise would be into randomly singing while walking down the street. "Walking fast," She continued a smile on her face, which grew as more confused people were passed. "Faces pass and I'm home-bound."

But at over six feet and with arms like tree trunks, I wouldn't like to be the asshole who thinks that it would be smart to make a comment.

"Why that song?" I asked, stopping the girl in the middle of the street, people now just walking around her as they continue their journeys. Louise didn't bring herself to answer right away, instead, she just stared at me with a dull but amused expression on her face.

"People just put on funnier faces when I pick songs like that," she shrugged. "No one looks at the sport star physique and goes… " Louise trailed off, obviously trying to remember the name of the person that sang that song, then she clicked her fingers together. "Vanessa Calton."

"I would've thought that they'd make faces simply because the over six-foot-tall red-head is singing in the middle of the street."

"Sure but there's a funnier look when it's something cringy."

Louise didn't seem to have that high of a threshold for cringe, especially if such a vanilla song was what she thought cringed was.

There wasn't any response after that, Louise just decided to return to our walking. Though this time it was without singing anything from Vanessa Calton. See we were heading towards a Stark Industries owned Laboratory, the only one currently active in the city.

The head man himself was on a bit of a spree currently, shutting down weapon research facilities but only replacing them with labs researching other things when they'd finally gotten another project off the ground. The biggest reason this wasn't a massive PR disaster for Stark was that there weren't any layoffs because of it, the personnel were simply given extended holidays or transferred to other departments.

Not that there wasn't a big scandal going at the moment. Some guy with energy whips had attacked a formula one race that Tony Stark had gotten himself into, the CEO had nearly been assassinated… but that only seemed to increase Stark Industries' reputation.

All this meant that in New York there was but one Lab that could've had Doctor Octavius on staff.

"We're here," Louise said, zipping her jacket up and stepping behind me. The lab was in an odd place, the building used to be an apartment complex, something that I would've thought meant that there couldn't be much in the way of dangerous experiments, something about public safety.

But if the Doc had been working here when she claimed that her experiments would kill at most three people? Then I'm going to say that some shit might be here.

"What's the plan?" I asked her as we stared at the doors to the building, the Stark Logo acting as a beacon to our eyes.

"Go in the front, tell whoever's manning the desk something… and just make a lot of noise," She told me, her voice low and her mouth now close to my ear. "I'll sneak in and get a look into their project files, see if we can't find what we're dealing with."

With those words, Louise walked away from me, a grin on her face telling me how much she was looking forward to this.

"Am I sure I'm the reporter?" I asked, feeling confused at the events happening. Making my way through the front door, the thing slid open for me before I even get within arms' reach of it as my mind continued to churn out ideas.

How could I distract them? Fake a heart attack?

No, that would only lead the guys to call an ambulance and I would hate to be the reason why someone else didn't get theirs in time.

Act crazy? Start throwing chairs around? Maybe speak gibberish at the same time?

No, while it could work out to get them to call security, it's also something that could get their guard up and get in the way of Louise sneaking in. This would need a gentler hand than such direct methods.

My plan set, I walked towards the man sitting at the front desk, his smile clearly painted on while his eyes were staring out blankly towards the wall nearby. The glow of their computer screen was hitting their face in such a way that I could tell it had gone to screensaver from the light shine.

"He-he-hello," I stuttered out, twisting my foot on the surface of the floor as if I was a character out of Oliver Twist and letting my eyes fill with tears. It was time for a performance. "M-mister, I s-seem to be l-lost."

"Oh," the man raised one of his rather grey eyebrows up, his eyes shifting over to look at me in better detail. But I didn't let our eyes meet, deciding instead to let mine drop to the ground. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, instead of humming, and underneath that I could hear the sound of a button depressing under his desk. For some reason, this guy found me very suspicious and was calling security.

"Where do you want to be?"

My mind froze, having not really considered the answer before now but I could use this to my advantage.

"Ah… hum," I went, letting my tongue rise to the roof of my mouth to create a lot of gibbering noises. Adding to my guise I started to scratch the back of my head, rubbing the skin beneath my hair with just enough force to be believable. "Yeah, I know that I wanted to be… in a residential neighborhood a-and p-people pointed towards this d-direction but now I'm worried that I'm in the wrong place…"

Letting the sentence trail off, I continued to nervously grind the heel of my foot onto the ground. Not with all that much force, only enough to make it look convincing to this man's eye.

"What seems to be the problem?" A Newly arrived man piped in, a Stark Industries security uniform on his body, as he adjusted a baton that was fixed to his waist and gave me a passing glare before his eyes fell to his fellow employee.

"Nothing Frank," The sitting man of the two waved his security guard friend off. "Just a false alarm, the kid was afraid that he'd gotten lost. But I wouldn't worry about it, the building was an apartment complex a few years ago, but Stark bought it out, the idea being you could work and live in the building. It only took a year's worth of renovations. "

"S-so. I'm in the right place," I heard my phone beep, signaling that I've just received a text. Didn't need to check it to know that it was Louise, telling me that it was safe for me to back off. "And by which I mean that as in the area… not this building."

The rest of my sentence was said in a rush like I was trying to win a contest for who can speak the fastest. It only added to my performance of being a meek, nervous foreigner not sure of where things were in the big American City… something that was only mildly true.

I wasn't sure where things were in the big American City. Somehow even a grid-based city like this was hard on my mind. Thank god for Super Speed.

"That's right," he nodded to me, his hand turning to the security guard, the guy the man had called Frank. "Why don't you show him out?"

The two of us, as in Frank and me, shared a brief glance, a period of time where I had dropped my meek act but only for a second. Something that the guard hadn't noticed, as far as I was aware.

"Sure, that would be nice," I replied, getting in there before the guard could either accept himself or deny the request. "And again, I'm sorry for bothering you guys."

"It's fine, sir," Frank replied, his thick New York accent nearly causing me to laugh out loud now that I'd noticed it. My mind almost brought up the phrase I'm walking here! because that was the kind of thing that I'd expect from that sort of tongue. "Just glad we could help."

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

The O'Reilly father hadn't wanted to get in involved with this sort of work. At least not when he started his criminal career two decades ago, as a young man looking to make a quick buck to help his ailing mother. Jim had stayed away from drugs, he'd stayed away from… the more mature enterprises and he never touched… whacking people.

But as he moved away from his prior connections, he moved away from belonging to the Kitchen Irish. Jim found that his morals were being tested in ways that not even the Mob had forced him. No one had said anything about prostitution yet… but now?

O'Reilly was about to engage in an act that almost hit the same cord inside him.

So with a heavy heart, he walked into a pub, one open even into the early hours of the morning. There weren't many people there, on the outside of the place, not yet but the Irish liked to operate from this place, so there were always at least some people there. Hiding in case some rival came in thinking that they could take on the Kitchen Irish.

But the former member knew that none of that mattered, it wouldn't make a difference for what he was about to do.

"Sean," Jim yelled out, his hands in his coat pocket as he approached his former boss or at least the man that he used to report to. O'Leary had been the guy that brought him into this life, not by threat but by a promise of a better life. "We need to talk."

There was dread in his voice, something that Jim couldn't hide no matter how much he tried.

Sean O'Leary was only a few years older than Jim but his hair had greyed much more thoroughly. Where O'Reily's red hair was freckled grey, the older man's was the inverse, with red flecking grey. On Sean's chin was a massive beard, oddly lacking any flecks of grey at all but Jim knew that his old friend liked to dye his beard.

The man only wore suits, the cheap kind that had patches at the elbows, the material that would never even bother to match the color of the rest of his jacket. The browns and blacks clashed in a way that made O'Leary one of the more recognizable figures in Hell's Kitchen's crime scene.

"If it isn't Clean Jim!" O'Leary grinned, his blindingly white teeth contrasting against his dirty attire. "What are you doing back in these parts, thought you wanted out of the game?" he continued, referring to the excuse O'Reilly had used to get out of doing any more jobs for the Irish groups. "Don't tell me, you missed the life?"

Jim scoffed, shaking his head, absentmindedly thinking about how it was impossible to miss what he never lost.

"Something's come up," Jim explained, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as Sean waved him to follow into the back of the bar that he'd been sitting in. Back into an area that they wouldn't be overheard in.

"What's the issue?" Sean asked him, his tone light and rather casual. Normal for their interactions of the past, but it wouldn't be after today. While Jim would've loved to get into some light banter with the man, but when it came to things of this nature anytime to beat around the bush. He just wasn't that sort of guy. It would leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"You've gotten a hit put on you," It was such a cold sentence, something that caused Sean's ever-present smile to falter on his face. "Seems a certain up-and-comer doesn't like how you've been talking, afraid that your loose lips will bring him some unwanted attention."

O'Leary wasn't the highest of Made-Men with the Kitchen Irish but he was someone that they relied on for a lot of information. Who to bribe, who to stay away from, and even who the players were

Sean didn't speak, he just turned his back to the younger man, his hands grabbing onto a set of glasses that were stacked next to two cans of beer. The only sound that was made was the crack of the cans as the elder mobster poured them into the glasses.

It was only after chugging down a full pint that Sean spoke once more, voice thick with a seething rage.

"Did he send you, laddie?" The glass cracked under the pressure of his hand, only enough for an audible creek to move through the air. "Send you to get rid of me? Before I can find out his name?"

"Why? You close?" Jim deflected, the hand in his pocket fingering the handle of a revolver. It wasn't like he wanted to use it, the father of one just needed to look out for his own. Sadly that meant doing jobs like this for beings like Wilson Fisk.

"You wouldn't be here if I wasn't, close," Over Sean's voice, Jim could hear the sound of the door creaking open behind him, telling the man that he had some company. But it didn't bother him, in fact, he'd been expecting it for some time. "You tell Fisk that we don't appreciate his like thinking that he can just walk in, take over our turf and make himself out to be some sort of boogie man."

O'Reilly should've been surprised that the other man had known he'd started to work for the new crime lord, but he couldn't really bring himself to be. O'Leary had ways of knowing things that you didn't want him to, no matter how hard you tried to keep it from him.

It was the sound of four footsteps that told O'Reilly just how many people were surrounding him at this very second. Without taking a second to think about it, Jim turned, angling himself so he could see both the two men who'd just arrived and Sean on the other side of him.

"Will I tell him that?" The former co-worker glared at the men to his side, causing all but Sean to flinch back in fear. "I'm here as a favor to you, Sean. Ain't no reason to be calling a bunch of no-name goons into our private talks."

"Why? Because Fisk won't like me spilling his name to everyone that wants to hear it!" O'Leary shoved his finger into Jim's chest, the sharp shape pressing against a bandage the man hid underneath his shirt. "Because you didn't think we'd find out that you spilled the beans on the dock job a few months ago!"

It started slowly, from deep inside his chest, something that Sean wouldn't have expected from the relatively younger man, not with how the man had been holding himself over the years. But over the next few seconds, Jim O'Reilly started to laugh, it was a deep and energetic laugh that sounded more like it came from a clown than a career criminal.

A slap rang out in the room as flesh hit flesh, O'Leary's hand smacking into the redhead's nose with enough force that crimson started to spill out like a leak from a water tower.

"Don't think because we let you out that you can come in and disrespect me, laddie," Sean warned him, wiping the red from his own hand with a cloth that had been on the nearby counter. "I was making deals, killing folks, and running things around here before you were a sparkle in your pop's eye and don't think that wife or girl of ours are off-limits to my wrath, Laddie."

Jim spat out a wad of blood onto the floor, coating the ground in a thick glop of red. The sounds of cocking guns came from the two men on his sides, neither of which had spoken yet, only aiming right for the father of one's head with flat expressions

"I came here to give you a warning, maybe help you fake your death," O'Reilly said, his hands shaking as fury started to raise throughout his body. "I ain't no killer but I can't accept someone that would threaten my famil-"

"I was your family!" Sean interrupted him, slamming a fist down on the wooden counter with enough force that the glasses left there crashed to the ground. "I brought you into the life, I made you the man ye've become, and now you've made me a fool-"

Jim didn't let his old friend finish the sentence, instead, he just ducked beneath the guns and rolled into the men's feet, causing them to trip onto the ground in a hard crash. Before they could even attempt to rise to their feet once more, O'Reilly took out his revolver and shot two bullets into the back of their heads.

Killing them instantly.

But O'Leary was not a passive man, instead of cowering in the corner of the room he threw himself into a tackle, ramming into Jim's stomach with enough force that the gun was flung from his hand and their heads snapped against the tile floor. Sean managed to get to his knees, launching a fist out towards Jim's head.

He barely managed to move his head just slightly to the right, causing the punch to hit into the floor instead. The fingers snapped, Sean's mouth flung shut barely holding back the scream of pain that the older man let out before Jim's boot smashed into his chest and walked him away with all the force of a truck.

Sean's head snapped against the edge of the counter, the loud crack signaling the state his neck was left in.

The doors to the room were practically broken as a barrage of people started to barrel in, causing Jim to let out a large sigh as he stood to his feet once more, letting the four new men surround him in a semi-circle. Each one of them held a weapon, some bats, and some of them were holding pipes.

"Guys… didn't Sean teach ya?" he muttered, stepping forward just enough that his left foot was beside the leg of a nearby stool. Another stool within reach of his right foot. "Ya don't use pipes, we're a classier sort of operation."

None of the men spoke, some seemed to be surprised at the still body of Sean, who could do nothing but gurgle at the world around him.

As the first of these new attackers came towards Jim, the man kicked up the stool, catching it in one hand and banging it against the man's skull. The wood exploded around the room, causing splinters to fly outward, forcing the rest of the men to cover their eyes with their forearms.

Leaving them wide open for O'Reilly to swipe out the leg of the second, nick their baseball bat, and ram that into the heads of the final two. Knocking them all out all in a single string of combat that belonged more in a video game than it did in reality.

"Sean," Jim's voice was much smaller now like he was suddenly feeling a great deal of pain. "This isn't what I wanted, but you've forced me down this path," Using a subdued pace, he picked up his revolver once more, making sure to pop a single cap into the foreheads of all the men here, leaving O'Leary for last. "I'm sorry that it's come to this."

"Such a waste."

---

(Louise)

You wouldn't be able to tell due to her size, but Louise was actually very good at sneaking around. It came from how much she liked to get out of the house to explore the neighborhood when she was young but her Pop had thought it was far too dangerous.

Which it would've been for any other girl, but the O'Reilly girl was far too much for any thug like that to handle. Even when she had been a small child.

The building was what she expected from an apartment complex turned science lab. It didn't have as many corridors as it would if it were designed as a lab complex first. The width of the halls though was obviously expanded at some point, to let lab equipment by without accidentally getting struck.

It was either a holiday season that plenty of the lab workers here shared… or it was because there were meant to be no active projects here at the moment. Something that the deserted state of the halls seemed to confirm to her.

A bit risky in security terms given the kind of information that would be on the computers but Louise was sure that anything dangerous would've been wiped from their drives ages ago. At least that would be how her Pop would handle it. Personnel files, on the other hand, would still be accessible through a network.

Louise managed to get inside one of the computer rooms, with no cameras in sight. while her eyes roamed the room the door behind her creaking as she found herself surrounded by a series of machines that were far more advanced than anything she'd ever seen before.

"Well isn't this… wizard," she muttered to keep her voice low, just in case there were any security sensors that get activated by sounds over a certain volume. Those sorts of things couldn't be too sensitive, if they were it would only pick up noise from the outside. It would've caused too many false alarms otherwise.

With a slow, deliberate set of steps, Louise sat down next to one of the many Stark computers. A grin on her face as she spotted the open USB ports that were on the device. Something that she expected and had come prepared for. It took one click of the power button to turn the device on, another hand coming out to plug in a USB stick, an LED on the back flashing green as the computer booted up. It went against many people's perception of her, but Louise wasn't some kind of jock, just because she was big and jacked up.

That was something that Pops had insisted on, wanted to know that she could protect herself from any thug.

But she wasn't a computer expert either, this little device that she was using came from a contact her Pop had made… well, the guy's fifteen-year-old son. Kid was a hardcore hacker, no doubt soon to be arrested for hacking the CIA or the NSA before he's twenty-two. All she usually had to do was to ask nicely. Miles was easy like that, only needed a smile and the guy folds like wet paper, though he wasn't to be trusted at all, He was a bit of a fleck. The device was a neat little thing for those without a genius-level intellect.

It would simply back through the password protection on the computer, giving her administrator access to all the functions, all the files that she'd need to figure what kind of person this Doctor was. As her eyes scanned through the display in front of her, Louise released something very quickly.

That for someone that told Pat she was studying dimensional fields and travel and other junk. The woman's actual main focus had been in robotics, mostly cybernetic interfaces but other areas were something that the Doc also excelled at. The spacial studies were but an afterthought, something she had read about but not researched directly…

… till the month of her leaving. Where she apparently wanted to force Stark to shift the nature of her research, away from cybernetic limbs for prosthetic purposes and toward technology that would be better suited towards dimensional and spatial manipulation.

"There's a shift that doesn't make sense?" Louise mused, twisting a lock of her red hair with her index finger. She copied over what little files she could, nothing that had any tech blueprints or even research notes but it did have her psych profile.

One from before she was hired and another from before she left. There wasn't any mention in the file that actually claimed Octavius had been fired, just that the Doc left their employ. But that was normal with big names like her, people didn't like to sully the reputation of such great people. No, it was the difference between the first psych profile and the second that worried Louise, to say the least.

"Pat's gotta read this."

It was only the jangle of the door's handle that let the girl know that she needed to duck down to the ground, getting under the desk she was sitting by and allowing Lousie to duck in her legs so anyone peeking along the ground wouldn't spot them.

"Someone must've forgotten to turn off their computer?" Some male voice said, causing Louise to grimace under the table. This was not something she'd actually planned for, the young girl had expected to get in and out of the room, hell even the building without nary a camera even spotting her. But a guard coming in while she was at the computer? That was something that could force her to use rather noticeable force.

"Damn lab rats," the man growled, his footsteps clattering in the otherwise quiet room. There was a level of frustration that Louise remembered her Pops using once or twice, whenever he'd been in a particularly messy job. "Think with such big IQ's they'd know to turn off da computers."

The guard seemed to have issues with the h's in his words, making think sound like tink.

The young girl could tell that the man was heavy, his steps echoed off the ground with so much force that the floor audibly creaked from his weight alone. It reminded Louise of that time she saw an albino step on a cat, something that killed the little thing with a wet crunch.

Louise was still very disturbed by that.

"Now, let see here," As his feet came into her view, the man spoke once more, acting casual enough that Louise knew for sure that he hadn't caught on to her hiding under the table. "Wha was the button-" His voice suddenly cut off, alerting her to his interest being raised by something.

Without waiting to see if he had sported a stray leg from under the table, Louise threw her body at the man's legs. Knocking him to the floor with enough force that it wasn't a surprise when he broke through the desk behind the one they were at. Wood shattered into the air, falling down onto Louise's hair before she managed to rise back to her feet. The guard suddenly groaned rolling to his stomach so he could push himself up, not knocked out as she'd hoped but mildly dazed would at least let the girl try a follow-up attack to end things.

"Sorry," Louise mumbled, bringing her hand down to a spot on between the man's neck and his shoulder and squeezing down. Instead of putting the man to sleep, it only caused him to scream out in pain. "Shit!"

"D-did you just try to-" before the guard could even finish his statement Louise brought her hand down hard on his head. A loud crack that rang out was followed by the man finally crumbling to the ground.

"Vulcan Nerve grip, yeah I did," Louise sheepishly grinned while shaking her right hand, the limb stinging from making contact with the now unconscious man's skull. "Thought it would work."

Now with a guard down, Louise knew that there wouldn't be much time till someone else came to check upon him. Deciding to hedge her bets, she grabbed the USB drive from the computer, nicked the man's security guard jacket, draped it around her head and hopped over his still body as one would garbage.

Sprinting forward, she went out the door, leaving the thing wide open as she made her way back to the window that had been her entrance point. The sounds of steps coming from around the corner caused her to stop dead in her tracks and throw herself into a nearby closet, letting the brush of a mop hit in the face.

Louise counted to ten, keeping her ear to the door so she could hear the sounds of the steps as they moved past her. When they stopped, slowly the girl opened the door, peeking out from behind the door, seeing that their backs were turned to her and slowly moving out.

Only to run into a man walking in the opposite direction from her, knocking the O'Reilly girl to the ground.

"Sorry about that miss," The man spoke, his large hands helping her back to her feet. "I should really be watching where I'm going… wait, you new-"

Louise kicked the man in the back of the leg, causing him to stumble, giving her time to snap her elbow right against the man's jaw, stopping him from shouting out in pain. opening the closet door and shoving him in so fast that by the time the man could even let out a groan the door was already shut.

It wasn't long before Louise was jumping out of the first story window, landing in full view of the camera the Stark building had pointed in that direction, something she had been careful enough to hide from the first time but now had caught her leaving. But even that she had accounted for, ducking her head down and throwing the security jacket over the lens.

It was only then that Louise made her way around the front of the building once more, peeking in and finding that was still talking to the guy manning the desk and a single security officer. His face was something that the O'Reilly girl found funny in particular because it looked as if Pat was surprised that he was able to keep making stuff up this fast and make it believable.

The guy should've been an actor rather than a reporter.

But Louise could tell that her friend wouldn't be able to keep that up for much longer, the red on his face was a sign that he was running on mental fumes.

"This looks like a job for me," she muttered, walking through the door with a smile on her face. It wasn't long before her hand was touching his elbow, causing him to jump in fright. "Bae, this is where you've been."

Louise had said this with a sweet, Texan accent that she learned from her brief summer spent there a few years ago. Pat's response was to turn to her, mouthing the words that she'd just said, focusing on the bae part of the sentence. She tried to send a message with her eyes or at least mentally to him, kind of hoping that telepathy would be a power that he'd randomly get, just like that time he sneezed and turned his drink into an ice cube.

Pat hadn't even noticed and had gotten his tongue stuck on it, one of many reasons she was friends with this super-powered Irishman. It was all the powers of Hyperion were given to one of the Three Stooges.

"Of course, you'd sniff out the only science Lab this side of Manhattan," Louise teases, pinching his right bicep with two fingers but only lightly. Pinch too hard and she'd break her fingers. "I swear."

"Linda!" Pat responded, his face regaining some of its natural colors. "How did you know that I'd be here?"

And once more, Louise was impressed by his acting chops.

"Could smell the scent of Irish charm from a mile away, honey." She smiled, turning to face the two Stark Employees, both of them seemed to have rather short smiles on their faces. They believed the act. "Sorry, if he bothered you. He's so easily lost when he finds something he hadn't expected."

"No, I'm not," he responded, huffing visibly and turning his face away with a frown. It was such a good performance that Louise almost brought it.

"Bae, you've got lost just two weeks ago buying milk in a small convenience store because you were confused that they were selling tapes, made you think it was the wrong store."

Pat rolled his eyes, making sure that they all caught the movement before he finally gave his rebuttal with a smug grin.

"Who sells cassettes anymore, I don't know anybody with a VHS player-"

"You do, in fact, you've got two. One in a TV and one standalone," Louise interrupted him, a large playful smile on her face. She just couldn't stop herself from enjoying this little game, mostly because parts of it were true.

Pat really did have two VHS Players.

"I told you that's for data transfer material that isn't in print anymore," Pat whined, stomping his feet down to the floor. "I can hardly find another copy of the Power Ranger Movie, it's a dead IP."

That news had oddly upset Doyle a few weeks ago when he learned that the show had been canceled after the Movie. Disney apparently brought them out and they hadn't been interested in making anymore, just sitting on the rights, rerunning the show and selling the toys.

"But not a good one."

Before Louise could continue this charade, the two security guards from before ran into the lobby. One with their nose running red with blood, the other with their head as the point from which the blood was coming from.

"It's you!" The one with the bloody nose yelled pointing his finger at the two of them.

She could feel her heart leap into her chest, her mind turning blank as they glared at her, stepping forward with daggers in their eyes.

"Who?" Pat spoke up, stepping forward himself, his expression something that she'd expect from an upset child rather than an adult. "Me? I've been here the whole time."

"Not you, her!" The smaller of the newly arrived guards growled. "She snuck in here and attacked us."

"Linda just got here," The Irishman said in the same way that a child would when they're first told the truth about Santa. "And she came through the door behind us, I think you've got your story confused."

"Kid's right," The worker from behind the desk piped in. "She's just walked through the door. Unless she'd gotta teleporter in her coat pocket then I don't see how she got around here that fast."

"You even see the girl's face?" Asked the one guard who'd already been here when Louise arrived, his hands going into his pocket.

The two bloody Stark employees looked to each other, before the taller of the two, the one that Louise had shoved into the closet stepped ever closer to them, a grin on his face and his finger now high in the air. While it was always good to see someone come out of there, the O'Reilly girl really wished he'd waited just a few more minutes.

"No, but she was wearing the same clothes as your little girlfriend!"

Pat scoffed, throwing one of his arms over one of her shoulders and bringing her in for a hug.

"I got those clothes off a rack of a dozen of the same," he lied, raising an eyebrow and glancing over towards the two men he had been talking to earlier as if he was asking for help. "Are you saying that if I had been wearing them, you'd excuse me?"

The guards who'd shouted the accusation seemed taken back by his rather heated tone, while the one closest to the front desk stepped between Pat and the other two.

"Look, guys how about we let these two go and we'll look over the security footage," He said, keeping his tone calm and his hands up. "I can vouch that these two had nothing to do with this."

"I'm tired." Pat suddenly spoke, leaning his head down onto her shoulder. Which was that far given how close in height the two were. "Can we go now?"

Before Louise could even utter a word, the calm security guard spoke up once more.

"Of course, have a nice day kid."

With that Louise practically dragged Pat out of the building, a massive grin overtaking her face as they left sight of the building. But it didn't last for long, because soon she remembered that she had something that Pat needed to see in her back pocket.

---

Author's Note: Bit late, but you know it goes at times. lol.

 

[Proman]

(Jim O'Reilly)

Louise wasn't home when Jim got back, something he was glad for. The father didn't want to let his little girl see the blood that he was covered in. He'd told her that this sort of thing would no longer happen, that no longer would Louise come home to see her dad battered and bruised. But it had always been a lie.

Jim placed his coat on a rack, only yelling back a response to his wife when she yelled hello to him. Instead of going to meet her, Jim went towards a bathroom under their stairs. It was a small cramped room barely containing a sink, a toilet, and a shower inside. The father wasn't very hurt, just a couple of bruises, the real reason he needed to be in here was to wash off other people's blood from his fists, from his face and to let him change into a clean set of clothes that Jim had kept here in case of emergencies like this.

Jim could hear the sound of the front door opening, the sound of footsteps hitting the ground lightly telling him who had come in even before he heard their voice.

"Pop, Mom!" Louise yelled out, her voice a tone that set Jim on edge. The kind of false cheer that just didn't fit with his daughter's attitude most of the time. It didn't help the man to get over his current dour mood. "I'm back home!"

That line caused Jim to glance at his watch, noting the time was early in the morning, making the last time he'd seen his daughter the day before. Meaning she was out all night… and came home clearly upset. Without further notice, he got changed into fresh clothes as quickly as possible. Practically ran out of the room with a frown on his face so fierce that lions would whimper in fear at the mere sight of him.

"Louise," he said, while into the living room where both his wife and little girl were sitting on a couch. Jim made sure to keep his voice low and soft despite the rage he'd been feeling. If Louise was upset about something, it wouldn't do "What do you mean that you're back home…?"

Louise just sighed, turning to her other parent and pointing back towards Jim as if this was proving some imaginary point.

"I thought you told him?" she asked her mother, crossing her legs while leaning back into the coach as interacting with Jim was exhausting. "Mom, I so can't deal with this right now."

"Don't you be talking like that to me, Louise Mary O'Reilly" Jim's wife growled, her face frowning at Louise as she leaned in closer to the girl. It was then that the woman did something that the man hadn't expected from her. "But maybe your father could explain where he was all last night? Would that explain why he doesn't know where ya been?"

The two turned to Jim, frowning so sharp that they could cut diamonds with their lips. The only male figure in the room could feel the tension rise in the air like he was being judged as a hypocrite.

"Hey, I was just checking," Jim spoke, his hands raised in surrender. "She's an adult, not like she needs my permission to go out all night. I was only asking."

"But not answering," Louise responded, her eyes glaring sharply up and down his form. Search for something that would break the man's calm exterior. "Where were you last night, Pop?"

He stumbled in his words, causing him to stammer slightly under the raw unimpressed stares of his family. Jim was hoping that he could deflect away from this line of thought but it seemed that his daughter was far too smart for that sort of trick… anymore.

"I was called in by my new boss, had an errand that he wanted me to run," The O'Reilly patriarch shrugged, keeping his eyes on his daughter as to not give away any sign of weakness. "It was further than I thought it would be so I just crashed in the office."

Wesley had set up Jim with a cozy cover as head of security for a small firm that the true boss had acquired through more legitimate means that usual. Given him both a good excuse to be beaten and to be out of his own home for long periods of time.

It also gave him his own office.

"Was there a break-in?" Louise asked, her eyes focusing on a spot on his knuckles that while clean of blood still had rather cut skin.

"Ah, yeah but it was only some kid," Jim replied smoothly, perhaps too smoothly if Louise's eyes somehow managing to narrow even further was a sign but his little girl didn't bother to call that out. "Got cut when the kid jumped the wall and I tried to chase after him. Boy didn't get to steal anything, even if he did manage to get away. So the boss was more than happy with the result."

It was a smoke lie, one that he didn't even need to come up with, other than the situation itself, of course. You see mainly Jim's boss was happy with how the last night's job went even if he would've rather it done with less notice. Fisk wasn't ready yet for even the criminal underworld to know that he was planning for a big play in the near future.

"Huh," Jim's wife leaned forward the grey of her brown hair cascading down her bare back as her revealing top was on full display, it was the woman's usual style. Something that a girl much younger than her would wear going out for the night. "That's good, a kid isn't too dangerous?" she said as if she was asking a question but rather than waiting for a response to that, she continued on with more. "He didn't have a knife, did he?

"Mom, if he had a knife, Pop's old ass would have more than just a few knuckle scratches," Louise sighed, throwing her mother an exasperated look. The father was a bit insulted that his own daughter seemed to think that some kid with a knife could take him out but Jim wasn't in the mood to get into an argument with anyone right now.

"Now that we've got where I was out of the way, let's move onto where you were the whole night?"

Louise turned her head down, her eyes staring at Jim's feet as if it was some kind of bullseye that the girl was about to hit with a cannon. Her cheeks were so red that if the color was any richer then he would've thought that she'd done her make-up badly.

"I was at… Pat's."

Jim didn't speak, he just waited for his daughter to continue, to elaborate that point on with other names. Perhaps even mentioning how she had other friends that also stayed there the night but it never came. When Jim was finally ready to express his displeasure with the idea that his daughter was staying overnight at a man's apartment, that was when his wife intruded once more.

"There's an innocent guy if there ever was," She giggled, something that caused Jim to glare at her. "Oh come on, Jim," The woman continued, having noticed the glare and found much amusement from it. "The guy is barely a predator, kid couldn't hurt a fly, can't even bring himself to shout a dog off him… worried about scaring the creature."

She was referring to the time that Pat had met Louise and her mother on a walk-in Central Park, the young man wanted to see the sights of such a large park. Something that he didn't have much experience if his amazement was anything to write home about. While there a labrador decided that it liked his shoes, and tried to run off with them. Pat wasn't very good at trying to get them back from the dog.

This was in spite of being much faster than the small creature.
"Sam," Jim responded to her, speaking her name for the first time of the day, his tone stern. "I don't care if the kid's a living saint or not, I'm just not comfortable with the idea of Louise spending the night alone with some man. She could at least invite another friend."

The woman shared a look with each other, but unlike usual it wasn't one of annoyance or even anger, which were the typical responses Jim got whenever he made statements like that. No, it was instead a shared expression of worry, of an awkward anger one wouldn't have when they've only heard something stupid.

"What?" Jim asked slowly, his eyes shifting from one to the other hoping one of them would break first.

"See… it's not me who we should-" Before Louise could finish that sentence, his phone rang, the loud buzzing cutting the girl off before she could get to the meat of the conversation. Normally when Jim was talking with people who were using such serious tones, he'd ignored it but he knew from the ring tone alone who this was.

And you didn't ignore Wilson Fisk when he called you directly.

"I'm sorry, gotta take this," Jim explained standing up and walking out of the room as fast as he could. The father walked all the way to the kitchen, his ear pressed up to the phone while his free hand hit the answer button.

"Mr. O'Reilly," Fisk said the words in his own typical fashion, he was constantly out of breath. "I regret to inform you that some of my contacts have discovered that your former associates have put a bounty for you, only twenty-thousand, they're not interested in having you dead… yet," Jim felt his heart leap into his chest, even though he knew that this could happen, he hadn't expected it so soon. "But I have need… of your services in the future. So just in case of any unforeseen obstacles, I shall send you to my tailor, prepare for Wesley to pick you up tomorrow morning."

With those words spoken Wilson Fisk hung up, causing Jim to let out a sigh, one that was more from regret than from relief. Fisk wasn't someone that liked to talk to underlings, at least not for more than a few simple words. The fact that he had spoken directly to him at all, told O'Reilly more than one thing. Jim rubbed his jaw, scratching his chin with enough force that there was an audible noise as his nails made contact with his beard.

"Pop?" Louise spoke, causing her father to jump in shock at her rather sudden appearance in the kitchen. "You okay?" her face was shifted into a deep frown, one that only showcased concern. "You look like a ghost just popped out of the wall and attacked you… it's not Grandpa is it? Back from the dead to haunt you for taking all of his money?"

"What?" Jim blinked, taken aback by that rather odd non sequitur Louise just shown his way. "Your Granpa's still alive and money? Guy's not got a penny to his name? What are you talking about?"

"Could've just died," The young girl smiled, the rather dark attempt at humor now apparent to her old man. Jim chuckled slightly, not because the joke was funny but because it at least worked at taking his mind away from the news he'd just received. "Then the money would've came from the life insurance."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that," The father shook his head, placing his phone down on the kitchen counter with a nonchalance that should've only existed when a parent's child didn't have sticky fingers. "Me Dad's probably going to outlive all of us at this stage."

It was then a thought entered his head, something else that could distract him from the mistake he had made yesterday in trying to warn Sean. What was she going to say not a minute ago?

"So what were you going to say earlier?" he asked, walking around his young girl and reaching into their fridge to grab a cold drink. "Sounded pretty dang important."

"Dang? Really, Pop?" Louise rolled her eyes at him, leaning back onto the counter and slyly sliding the phone into her pocket. "It was about Pat… "

When she trailed off this time, Jim couldn't help but feel the air start to thicken from the tension that was building. He turned around to face her once more and her eyes were looking to the ground, giving off the vibe that while not ashamed, Louise wasn't sure if she should tell me whatever it was.

"Look… if something happened," he laid his hand on her shoulder, giving her the softest smile that he could. "You can tell me, I would never judge you."

"It's not about me," she responded, still acting much too meek for his daughter but then Louise looked back up to Jim with a sad expression, one that the man never liked to see on her face. "Pat was investigating some blackouts, found a lead, went to talk to her and-"

It was then that Louise went into detail, though talking so fast that Jim needed to tell her to slow down to elaborate on some parts but eventually Jim managed to get the idea that she was truly trying to get across.

"And you're saying that his reaction about this is subdued?" Jim asked, deciding to try and cut towards the part of the story that seemed to bother the girl the most. "I'd expect him to be really angry."

"So would I!" Louise threw up her hands, exploding with emotion and motion that knocked Jim's hand off her shoulder, which was something the father was more used to seeing from her than the rather dour mood she'd been displaying prior. "But I guess since it didn't work on him," she frowned, shoving her arms under her armpit. "Pat just doesn't get that the woman was trying to-"

"Let's not say that out loud," Her father interrupted, placing his hand once more on her shoulder. "It's only working you up more. How about I have a talk with him? See if I can't get him to open up, maybe bring it up to Ben."

That seemed to actually calm her down, Louise sagged down and closed her eyes.

"Thanks, I'm just a bit worried that he's holding in his rage-"

"-and with his power… imagine just what kind of carnage he could unleash if he was to break."

---

(Pat Doyle)

"Jam Donut," I stared at the thing before taking a bite out of the pastry with great gusto. The jam exploded across my lips, causing me to lick the strawberry goodness, "I love them, thanks Ben!"

We were sitting outside of a cafe, enjoying a quiet lunch while discussing the developments that had been uncovered by the retrieval of Doctor Octavius' personnel files. Since it seemed to be a break breakthrough Ben had decided that he'd treat me to a meal and we'd talk over that. Ben himself sat at the opposite end of the table from me, his left hand tapping away at the table while his right slowly brought his cup of coffee to his lips. It was a light blend, while a heavy coffee drinker Ben kept the heavier stuff for late nights working.

"Sounds like a dangerous woman," he said, tapping a folder containing the Doctor's files while setting the drink down on top of it. "Especially if not even Tony Stark would keep her on."

There was an insult, though one that I didn't understand at the time.

"I thought he's calmed down since the whole Iron Man reveal?" I questioned, finishing the donut off in a single bite and then wiping my sugary hands off a tissue that was part of the table's arrangement before shrugging at the other man. "I've only heard of one drunken binge, for him that's amazing!"

Ben chuckled with a smile as if he was enjoying my naivety like someone would when they found a puppy biting their tails. He leaned forward, his eyes staring into mine while also humming up a jaunty tune.

"Listen," he eventually told me, wagging a single finger at me. "The man can have the best of intentions, but as his hard-partying last night proves, it ain't so easy to change yourself."

"Hard-partying?" I asked, lifting a brow. "Just when I thought he was turning things around, what did he do this time?"

"Partied in his Iron Man suit," Ben informed, his face much more serious than it had been just seconds earlier. "Apparently his military friend got his hands on one of the other suits, the two briefly fought and then Colonel Rhodes even managed to run off with the thing… according to my sources."

If I had been drinking, this would've been a spite take moment.

"That's worrying," Was my response instead, dragging the file out from Ben's hold. "And hopefully something that I won't have to deal with later."

"What plan on getting into a fight with the US Military?" he whispered to me, trying to keep this part of the conversation away from curious ears.

"Heck no, I'm just worried about mech suits getting passed around to Police Units in the future," I informed him, remembering briefly the stories of military hardware getting passed to such units in my own universe, one where there wasn't the chance of a Hulk dropping in on you. Here, Some Police Units will be chomping at the bit to get their hands on this stuff, especially if the American Government spends as much on their weapons as I think they will. "Things will only escalate if that happens."

From there I realized that we had gotten off-topic, so I brought things back to what started this discussion.

"So from what I've gotten from her profile is that the Doctor's ego has gone through the roof," I said, running through the details out loud with Ben, an exercise that he started with me to help me work through things. The idea being that he'd ask me simple questions or to elaborate on somethings to get me truly thinking about the details and how they connect. "The Blackouts started in her building, though it's likely since they no longer happen in that apartment that the Doc's either shielded the place or has taken them to another building."

"Have you asked around about the times she leaves the building and they intersect with later blackouts?"

"Yeah, none of the other tenants I've asked notice her leaving around the same time blackouts. So I think the most likely idea is shielding the apartment."

"Good and you got any proof other than conjecture?" Ben asked, pointing his finger at me while taking a final gulp of his coffee. "Because remember, we can't print conjecture. Especially since we don't know what she's doing to cause the blackouts."

"Oh," I blinked, surprised by that statement since it was obvious. "She's trying to break through to other dimensions… maybe even another universe."

This time it was Ben's turn to blink, even going as far as to take off his glasses on rub on the bottom of his shirt. The older man only finally started to talk once more after he coughed, then open and shut his mouth several times.

"You know… isn't she a… and not... " Ben trailed off, his eyes searching for something in mine before he sighed. "You know if you weren't standing before me, I wouldn't believe you. So you think that this is the one, that Octavius is the one that brought you here?"

It was my turn to let out a sigh, one that was much heavier than the one Ben had let out. It would've been so simple if that was true if this woman was the one to have brought me here. The idea had some merit, her experimenting with multiple

"I don't think so," I shook my head, letting the finger on my right-hand twirl around the wood grain of the table. "At least not on purpose and even that wouldn't explain my powers."

"I've said before, it mightn't be connected."

It was something that Ben brought up early to me when I'd arrived to this world, that it was possible that my powers and my arrival to this world weren't connected. The only real issue was that I never really believed it unless I'd gotten the powers before arriving here and just didn't remember it but that seemed far too convenient for my liking.

"Maybe," I said instead of revealing to Ben what I really was thinking. It wouldn't do me any good to get into an argument with the man. "But that's what the next stage of my plan is for!"

"Really, you've actually made a plan?" There was a massive chuckle from the man since he knew that the previous plan I had in getting information was just straight asking for it.

I feel that he won't be impressed with this one either.

"I play to her ego," With my hands out wide and my eyes close, as if I was Randy Orton, proud of myself far more than I probably should be. "She seems into me, I go in with a hidden camera, Louise will be remotely viewing and taking a few still pics along with a video. I just need to have her show me her experiments, tell her that it… will… "

"Turn you on?" Ben grinned, chuckling once more and causing me to light up bright red, at least from what I could tell from the heat rushing up my cheeks.

"Y-yeah."

"I don't know," Ben spoke, his hands waving to catch my attention proper. "Sounds risky if the woman really is as smart as she says."

"Come on, she's off her rocker," I replied, grinning as I leaned forward slightly. "That's gotta take some of those IQ points down, and she's horny for… The P."

With my own thumb pointing at meself at the end of that sentence, Ben couldn't help the barrage of laughter that came out of his mouth.

"Okay, Cassanova," he said, once calming down from his fit but not before he knocked his fist against his chest, trying to cause pain in an attempt to stop it. "But please remember that this is the woman that tried to drug you. You don't know how strong some of the stuff the Doc's got access to is nor what drinking some of that would do to you."

Oh, allergic reactions. Hadn't actually thought of that; in fact, now I wondered what it would be like to drink milk. I'd been allergic to it before arriving here, a certain protein in it anyway. It was likely that I'd gotten over it, it wasn't uncommon for someone with my specific allergy to grow out of it.

But testing that wasn't something that I wanted to risk at any stage of my life. Milk was far too evil for me to ever take that chance.

Suddenly, I felt the air shift, the ground starting to crackle and burst with noise. My reaction speed, far above human norms, allowed me to grab Ben and move a few meters to the left while a pair of claws erupted from the concrete, destroying the table we had been sitting at but only showering tiny chunks on the innocent bystanders.

"Well, that's earlier than I would've thought," I grumbled, waiting for the familiar form of Doc Ock to raise from the hole in the street. But instead what I got were a metal sphere with a single red eye glaring down at me attached to four tentacles with the claws at the center of a rather chrome-looking body.

"Jesus!" Ben yelled out, reacting as a normal person would to a robot coming out of the ground. "We need to get out of here!"

"Yeah… " I trailed off walking away from the man and watching as the robot turned to keep me in its sight, "Not going to work for me."

I threw my jacket off and started to unbutton the top of my shirt, revealing the blue sports-top I'd been wearing underneath and slipping on a blue mask.

"So party time?"

The glaring red shot out a beam at me, one that I was forced to take head-on, in lieu of letting the innocent people around me getting hit by it. With my left palm, I shielded myself from the beam striking my chest, letting it instead grind against the palm and feebly try to push me back.

"A repulsor?" I couldn't help but question out loud. It was a cool weapon type to use, from what I could remember from the Iron Man animated series that is, having either two modes or two types. One was a non-lethal concussive style thing, something that would only push things away with large doses of force, and the lethal one that was closer to a laser, cutting through things. With my durability and strength, it was hard to tell what variation I was dealing with right now.

My contemplation of what kind of repulsor this was left me wide open to one of the robot's claws slashing down at me. Once more I was fast enough to move before it was able to hit me, letting the beam strike the spot in the ground that I'd been standing on.

"Oh," I waggled my finger at the bot, grinning madly. "So close, try again."

Using the seconds that I had before the robot tried something else, my eyes scanned the robotic tentacles with as much of a zoom function that I may as well have been using a microscope. It wasn't long before I noticed something really odd.

"Stainless steel?" Before I could regain my bearings, my ears picked up the sound of the servos whirling up. This gave me just enough time to respond so I could grab one of the claws mid-swing and tear off the blade portion. Then I threw it right into the single eye of the robot, causing it to collapse in a boneless heap.

"Huh," I took a look around, glancing at the bewildered and frightened people who were staring at me and the robot as if we were about to explode at any moment. "Thought that would take longer."

Which was the moment that two more sets of claws burst from the asphalt around me and caught me in their grip. The metal groaned as it pressed against my body, cutting the clothes but not having the ability to get through my skin.

"Spoke too soon, didn't I?"

---

(Olivia Octavius)

"YES! I HAVE CAPTURED THE TARGET!" Liv yelled out, throwing a hand up into the air and taking her hands from the controls. "Though, I'm now out of kitchenware," she said, thoughtfully scratching at her scalp while peering over to the empty draws laid out on the floor. "Looks like it's plastic folks for me for the next few weeks."

This is what happens when you need robots quickly and already spent your funds on other projects prior to this.

In front of the woman sat a large computer monitor, showcasing the capture of the now masked Pat Doyle in between the claws of two of her robots. In her manic glee, the woman didn't even notice how unconcerned the man was, just that she had succeeded in capturing him.

"Now I can verify the odd readings of this young man my equipment gave me yesterday," she muttered, continuing to grin as the Doctor weaved her fingers together like she was Mister Burns from the Simpsons. "Not to mention that trick he did to defend against the repulsor."

That was something Liv just needed to know.

Without waiting for anything else, she typed away at the controls, signaling for the robots to return to her, not to the apartment mind you, but to a lab/base that she'd set up near a sewer access tunnel. Hopefully, that would mask her involvement long enough to… dissect the body. That would give all the materials that she'd need to conduct experiments. Doctor Octavius hummed as she stood to her feet, very slowly making her way around the room to pick her things. A coat, her normal glasses, not her goggles as she usually wore, and a pair of sneakers with red stripes.

"Oh… the things that I do for the-" Whatever speech the woman was about to give to the empty room was interrupted by a series of loud, rushed knocks to her front door. Liv rolled her eyes and sneered at the air as she turned around and made her way towards the object that had offended her.

There were more knocks, these far louder than the last set before Liv ever reached the door.

"Coming!" Dr. Octavius yelled, holding back the groans the woman could feel trying to escape from her throat. When she finally opened the door the scientist couldn't manage to keep the noise inside and groaned out; "Oh, it's you."

The man's name was Grant, a tall enough man, good looking, well built. But so obviously a spy that it made her head hurt. He thought himself so charming too, Liv wasn't sure she'd seen a spy so dumb that they thought their cover as a newlywed would be helped by flirting with the target. But Grant seemed to think he was charming enough to pull it off and truthfully the Doctor had to agree. He was both charming enough and hot enough to pull off the seduction angle...

… if she hadn't already had his employers hacked years ago and therefore had access to the man's file.

"Hello, Liv," he smiled, his shiny white teeth and chiseled grin sending chills down her body, not due to attraction but instead disgust at his blatant attempt at charming his way into her apartment. "Looks like there's been a fire up a few floors, we've been called out for safety."

The Doctor searched the man over, looking for the signs that he was lying. Not that she expected the spy to be so easy to read, just that this was a lie so easily proven false that she was surprised he tried it.

Since the fire alarm hadn't gone off.

As she raised her right hand to point to the ceiling and mention this fact… the fire alarm actually started to ring out. When Liv looked up briefly and then back to Grant himself, she found him grinning, all sly like as if it wasn't possible that he'd set that up. But it wouldn't matter if the man and his group were given access to the apartment right now.

"Well… that's bad, I'll just have to make haste out of the building, right?" The rather swift shift in her tone from the first half of the sentence to the second seemed to bother the man but since Grant was getting what he asked for, there wasn't anything he could say to that. Else the spy would only worsen the Doctor's suspicions.

So Olivia left Grant standing in the hall, closing her apartment door but not locking it as she made her way to the nearby stairwell. When she reached the floor below, she pushed a button on her watch… starting a timer.

"That should get rid of those flies," Doctor Octavius giggled, making the rest of the ways downstairs knowing that things were going better than planned. In under an hour, her spy problem will be out of the way. In under five hours though?

Then she'd have a prime specimen and her greatest experiment would commence.

"It's good to be me."

---

(Matt Murdock)

It wasn't luck that he'd been there for the robot attack, he'd been following the man from the docks for about two weeks. Noticed his rather unique nature after running into him, of course, one would think it's hard to find a man that Matt had never seen the face of but the soon-to-be Lawyer was an old hand at that…

… given he was blind.

Though it had been only luck that he'd run into the man a few weeks earlier, even overheard that his name was Pat. And today was one of the days that Matt's schedule seemed to coincide with the mysterious vigilante's, something that he had planned on finally using to meet with the guy once more.

But then robots erupted out of the ground, the first getting taken out easily by the blue vigilante but then when a pair arrived and grabbed him from underneath the street. It seemed to be too much for the superpowered man so he was dragged into the sewers by them.

"And I really liked this suit," Matt couldn't help but mumble, digging out the cloth he kept on hand for his half mask and trying it around his face, he'd already been near an alley so it was easy for him to change into his black gear and store his normal clothes behind a garbage bin. Luckily for him, they wouldn't be collected for another two days so Matt could afford to leave his things there. Without needing to look around for one, Matt was able to find a manhole leading to the same sort of service sewer tunnel that the robots had dragged Pat into, his senses telling him that the two were connected by a passage only a few feet ahead.

Murdock knew that it would be hard to keep up with the robots, their long mechanical legs meant they wouldn't have to worry about slipping or stamina like Matt would but at the same time. The blind man also knew from the sound and shapes of the legs that they'd be slowed down by the small size of the tunnels, especially given that they needed to keep their prey locked down.

In fact, Matt could hear the whirring and clicking of their innards even now, telling him that there wasn't much distance between them. Moving as fast as he could, the blind vigilante sprinted through the tunnels, using all the training he'd been given to move silently, just in case the robots had the capability to hear him coming.

But he also made sure to not go too fast, it wouldn't be good to be caught by running into them before they reached their destination.

There was some light talk echoing from the walls, the sound of Pat attempting to make light conversation with his capturers.

"You know… it's neat being captured by such famous people," he spoke, much to Matt's confusion. "But crime isn't the answer guys, I know the reboot of the War Of the Worlds re-cast you guys and it's made income hard to come by, but that's no excuse for damaging public… and probably private, properties."

There was a chime from one of the bots, something that almost sounded like a response to the man's words.

"Hey now!" Pat griped, his voice flat. "I didn't insult your mother."

Another chime.

This time there wasn't another response till they reached another sewer access point about an hour later; something that Matt could tell only due to the noises from the street that could be heard nearby. There was a clang of metal on metal, the sound of a sliding door opening to reveal a hidden room, one that the blind man hadn't bothered to pay any real attention to.

"You know this isn't more than like a five-minute jog from where I'd been?" Pat asked, the confusion in his voice sounding genuine to Matt's ears. "Wouldn't a base like somewhere further away be better? Police will be searching for you guys, this close, it would be easy to track the stainless steel robots."

There was another series of chimes, this time each robot made their own before Pat responded once more with the air of someone that stubbed their toe lightly rather than having been abducted;

"You can at least try," he whined while Matt pressed his ear against the now-closed entrance to this secret sewer base. "I mean, you don't even have any of those really cool-looking electrical balls or cylinders that shoot lighting. What kind of half-arsed secret evil lab have I been taken too?"

Matt had to give his fellow vigilante this at least, Pat was fearless.

It was at that moment that his ears perked up as the sound of shoes hitting against the cold concrete floor started to emit from the secret lab. Whoever this person was, it was a woman, not too tall, not the fittest person he'd ever met but she certainly would be someone that could defend themselves from a mugger.

"Ah, Mr. Doyle," she spoke, using smooth almost flirting tones, tinged with just a smidge of danger. Matt knew that he couldn't wait out here for long, so ran his fingers along the walls, searching for a way in beside the one that had been revealed.

"Ah… kinda hot science lady… good to see you, I'd wave but I'm a bit tied up at the moment."

"Cute," The woman responded, right as Matt found a vent, something that seemed to lead to the inside of the room. It was large, something that told him that this place needed to be kept cool for some reason; which given Pat called it an evil lab would make sense if the equipment needed to be kept below a certain temperature.

"Do you know why I brought you here?" The Robot's Creator spoke, her hand tapping against some rectangular object in her hand. Matt couldn't be sure from this far away if it was a tablet but the reverb that came from it at least seemed to imply that it was.

"..." Strangely Pat didn't respond, a first since this situation had started Matt noted. But the blind man could hear the other man's heart start to race, he could even hear as Pat started to open and close his mouth a few times.

It seems he was tongue-tied.

"Silence won't stop what's about to happen."

"Well, Doctor… I don't think rape is the best answer for a dry spell."

This caused Matt to pause, and from what he could tell, it also caused the Doctor to pause mid-step. He let the sentence give as much pause as it did the Doctor, instead of shuffling forward with even more urgency than ever, dragging himself up as the vent shifted positions towards the ceiling.

"I'm not going to rape you," her voice shrilly passing through the air. "I'm-"

"-I know that you might think that I want it," Pat interpreted her, causing her stance to tense up, and her feet to squirm in place. "But even for guys, no means no."

Matt barely managed to stop the chuckle that threatened to erupt from his mouth, something that would have revealed his location to the people in the lab. He could imagine that his fellow vigilante was grinning madly… or scared shitless if this wasn't the other man playing around here.

"I'M NOT GOING TO RAPE YOU!" She ended up screaming at the man. This declaration coincided with Matt arriving at the vent cover directly above the woman, waiting for his time to act.

"Oh, thank god," Pat sighed, leaning his chin against the steel of the robot. It seemed that the man had realized exactly what the woman had claimed she was going to do. "I… mean… how dare you!"

"Please," The woman scoffed, her head shifting upwards, causing Matt to gently shift back from the vent cover. It wasn't like he needed to see the woman after all. "I assumed an alien-like yourself would've realized that he'd be noticed eventually. Truly this was inevitable."

"Oh, I did," Pat admitted brazenly, much to Matt's surprise. "I just didn't expect it to be by some lady operating out of a sewer, thought that it would be the US government," There was a large sigh from the man like he hated speaking about the subject. "Gotta ask though, why do you even need to dissect me? What does that actually get you, Liv?"

"Data on what it takes to survive dimensional travel," Liv revealed, her hands coming up to stroke her robotic creations like one would a dog. "While I've managed to send small mechanical beings through the bleed between universes fine. Any organic material is shredded… then I met you. Your body gives off all the same energy readings that my sensors have read when passing through the Bleed. You appear tough enough to survive the transition."

"Wouldn't a living subject get you better data?"

"There's some data that I can only get from literally picking at your brain."

It was then that a dead silence dominated through the room, stopping Matt from getting into position for his eventual ambush of the woman. If he moved too much now, then he'd only get himself caught by the woman.

"There… " Pat attempted to speak only to trail off. It was obvious to Matt that the man was buying time, time that the Doctor was more than happy to give the man.

"There what?" she responded, leaning closer to Pat, given the hidden vigilante time between the movement and words to move back to the grate. "Go on, I can tell you're just dying to ask something."

"Haha," the man responded dryly. "What made you shift focus? I'd read that your main interest was cybernetics, not… inter-universal travel?" he said the term like it was a dirty word, something forbidden and not meant to be talked about. Which given that he was apparently an alien, Matt could presume it could be where he's from.

"Oh, why don't I just say divine intervention and leave it at that."

Before Pat could even bother to question what that meant, and Matt could tell he wanted to from heartbeat alone, there was a loud buzzing noise that echoed throughout the room. It reminded Matt of the sound that an electric cooker or stove would make once their timers would run out.

"Left something in the oven?" Pat mocked, then Matt could oddly hear him suck in a large portion of air like the bots were crushing and he needed to gasp for it… but there wasn't a single motor moving from what he could hear, what was he doing?

"Of course not," she scoffed, her steps marking her position for Matt as Liv made her way towards a console, something that seemed to be cobbled together from laptop parts mixed with an old office desktop. "It's just Phase One is about to start."

"That's your apartment building?" Pat's voice finally sounded truly shocked, so much so that he even let go of the breath he had been holding in.

"Yes, see I'm testing if the building being sent over helps to shield people on the trip, even if it doesn't there's plenty of data to be had from sending over so much material at once," Liv replied to him as if he was asking a question, rather than being shocked.

"My god, you are a mad scientist."

"I'm not mad-"

"-Fine, you're an angry scientist."

"Ignore him, Liv, he's just like the kids in high school," she whispered to herself, so low that Matt was sure those with unheightened hearing couldn't hear her. Then the woman took a deep breath and gathered herself up to speak with a far more sinister tone. "This isn't just about the potential data this experiment will gather but it will also remove those pesky SHIELD Agents that were spying on me."

"Those two were SHIELD Agents?" The captured man exclaimed, sounding more shocked than he'd been about anything else.

"You didn't know?" The Doctor gloated, the glee in her voice vibrating off the walls of the lab. This was a woman that took pleasure in being smarter than all those around if given the chance she'd relish showing it off.

"I knew that they were spies but… " Pat clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. "I thought SHIELD Agents would be better at spying, they couldn't even fool me."

"In any case, those Agents will be disposed of in another hour."

It was as she was shrugging that Matt made his move, bursting out of the vent and fling his walking stick right at the woman's throat, before sprinting after it. Sadly for the blind vigilante his senses couldn't warn him in time of the set of tentacles that sprouted out of her back, the first one whacking away his stick while a second tried to impale him.

It was only a miracle that a rogue gust entered the room and flung Matt out of the path, slamming him into a wall.

"What the hell?" Liv whined, stamping her foot on the ground. "I had him."

Before Matt could really think of how he was saved, Pat blew hard on the robots that surrounded him, icing them over before flexing his muscles and shattering his way out of their grip.

"My babies!" The Doctor yelled something that seemed to have brought a smile to the formerly captured man's lips.

"That's what you get for making them out of stainless steel."

"I was improvising!"

---

("Betty")

"Well, isn't this an odd place for a kid," Betty snarked, walking around a couch while a rather tall redheaded girl rooted around in the cabinets of Octavius' apartment. The non-SHIELD intruder turned around slowly, almost naturally to Betty's eyes as if she truly belonged here.

Of course, since Betty'd been monitoring the building for a few months now, she knew that this girl had never been here before.

"Well… this is an odd place for someone that lives two floors up to be," The girl responded smoothly, not missing a single beat and even going as far as to smile at Betty. Sadly this meant Betty couldn't afford to let this charade go on much longer. Her superiors had given her a deadline.

"Right, I don't have time for this," Betty reached into her chest pocket and pulled out a wallet, showcasing an I.D, and badge. "The names Bobbi Morse, Agent working for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

"That's a mouthful," The girl replied, tapping her foot along the floor, her body language alone telling the Agent that she hadn't dropped her guard. An interesting response to being told that a government agent was confronting you after you've broken into an apartment.

"Don't believe it?" Morse couldn't help but ask, buying time for the rest of her team to arrive just in case this kid had some trick up her sleeves. Bobbi had heard the rumors about that woman with super strength in Europe or that girl from a few years ago that survived a car crash and came out with the same, so with those two in mind, Bobbi wasn't interested in taking any risks.

"Never heard of that mouthful of an organization," she shrugged, not bothering to say out the full name and stepping a few more feet towards the Agent. From what Bobbi could see, the ripped state of the young girl could make a fight between the two tougher than the girl's age would suggest. "And I've seen enough fake badges that look legit that I don't trust any."

Bobbi couldn't help but groan, it seemed that she'd been saddled with a street smart child burglar. Thankfully for her nerves, the buzzing sound from her earpiece signaled that her companions were just waiting for the all-clear sign.

Which meant that it was much safer to do this.

"What's your name?" Bobbi asked, having pulled out her gun and pointing towards the young girl. There wasn't any sort of nervous reaction, not like one would expect from a teen getting a pistol pointed at them.

"Lois," The clear lie didn't do anything to help with the tension that the woman could feel building up in the room. Like a powder keg, one wrong move and the girl would blow. "So what's an agent like you doing here?"

For just a second Lois's face flinched as Bobbi glared, revealing that a lot of this behavior was a mask to keep Bobbi from seeing how scared the young girl was. The Agent lowered her gun, though keeping her limb ready to bring it back up.

"I'm asking the questions here," Bobbi claimed, finally taking in the appearance of this Lois in full detail. The girl was too well dressed to be a burglar, at least one that would rob from this apartment. "What are you here for?"

Lois just stared at Bobbi, something that the Agent was more than willing to accommodate. As the door swung open and Grant came walking in, something that caused the youngest person in the room to actually step into a fighting stance.

"Come in at a bad time ladies?" Grant grinned, having taken note of the gun but not bothering to draw his own. "Because I can come back when you've gotten everything sorted out."

"Shut up, Grant," The fellow Agent mumbled, leveling a glare at the man. "Just prep the room for the techies."

"How about this," Lois spoke up suddenly, eyeing Grant like he was dirt Bobbi had dragged into the room. "Quid pro quo, you tell me what you're looking for, maybe I help you and I just leave."

Bobbi glanced around the room, noting that the girl mustn't have been here longer than a few minutes at most. Though the secret agent did find it impressive that Lois had even gotten into the building without her people spotting her.

"Fine," Morse sighed, something that if the groan from Grant was any indication, her current partner didn't agree with. "We're looking into Miss Octavius for dangerous experiments and having a procession of illegal materials."

There wasn't much more Bobbi could divulge to the young girl than those details, her being a civilian and all.

"Well… in that case," Lois nodded her head towards a door, one that once had a steel bolt covering it but now it hung limply in the air. "Might want to check out that door."

Without even being given the order, Grant was already on his way, his own side-arm raised in the air in case of any traps left there by the good Doctor. Slowly he opened the door, his face morphing into something close to utter awe and confusion.

"What the hell!" Grant exclaimed, causing Bobbi to slowly shift positions till she was standing next to him, though keeping the young redhead in her side vision. "Is that a Stargate?"

"Huh," she couldn't help but tilt her head at the sight of a very Stargate-like object, the only difference being that it was segmented rather than being one whole unit, and its size only being around six feet in diameter compared to the twenty feet. "It is."

Sadly for the agents, before they could even attempt to approach or more likely call on tech support to check the device over first. It started to strobe red and lift into the air, spinning around at ever-increasing speeds. Eventually splitting apart and blasting out of a window nearby.

"That can't be good."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Bobbi couldn't help but growl, her head popping out of the window to watch as the segments started to circle the entire apartment building. "Here I was thinking the spinning device made by the dangerous scientist was a good thing."

---

Author's Note: Hello true believers, it is I, Pro-man! And I am here to bring you another chapter from the dept of my inane mind! It will bring together characters that you didn't even conceive of! Or maybe I'm just hyping things up a bit much and you should just take things as they come rather than as I want them.

Also, just a kindly reminder, just because someone says or thinks something, doesn't make it true.

This is a tough chapter to write, but enjoyable all the same. Now we see the mind of Doc Ock in this world, while at the same time getting a tiny hint at why she's the way she is. Don't think that you'll guess why by the way, none of you can because the hint is a very obscure reference to a single sign in a not too well-liked comic.

You'd never guess what, the character's not usually referred to in that way.

 

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle)

I liked to gamble, mostly because while I knew I was smarter than the average person, I also knew that I wouldn't even break the top hundred smartest people in this world, hell I wouldn't have done so well on my own Earth as well.

Now I didn't gamble with money, I wasn't that dumb.

I gambled with my life.

Which isn't as big of an issue now as it was when I was young.

The second that I'd been caught by the robots, an idea leaped into my head; just let them carry me off to the big bad's base, it's no big deal. These guys are constructed from stainless fucking steel, there's as much a chance that they'll overheat as actually harm me. And my gamble paid off, I was taken to the Ock's lair… I just hadn't expected the man in black from the docks to magically show up as soon as trouble starts. Hadn't expected that I'd need to save his ass either but that was fine.

More hands-on-deck was always welcomed.

"So what-" Before I could finish that sentence, one of the Doc's claws opened up, revealing a dark red glow that soon exploded out towards me like a raging fire out of the back of a rocket heading towards the moon.

So I punched it.

It turned out that the blast had been far more solid than one would've thought, the impact from my fist was enough to fling off into the ceiling, cracking and burning the concrete as if it was plastic. Sadly for me, I'd failed to take into account the electrical wiring that was routed above us, the blast neatly cutting through and causing it to fall into halves around me, sparkling as it had been part of Thor's hammer.

I didn't take heed of it, letting it slap against me back… which…

"FUUUUCK!"

… hurt, causing my body to leap forward while I waved my arms ahead.

"I have you now-" Doc Ock said, her grin wide and her tentacles shooting forward in an attempt to impale me on their claws but it wasn't to be. Instead, they clanged off my body, bending back as my right fist whacked the woman in the chest.

Going back first, the Doctor slammed into a table, breaking it in half and leaving her groaning in pain. The Mechanical limbs on her back were in bits, metal plates sliding along the ground till they reached my feet.

"Sor-" I cut myself off before I could finish the automatic apology. "I mean… oh… yeah!"

"Smooth," The Man in Black spoke, standing up with a hand holding what was no doubt a rather sore back, from having been smashed into a wall by the force of my breath not a minute prior. "She might be a sewer genius but she ain't never accounted for the fumbling of a super-powered alien."

"Hey," Mocking a frown, I placed a hand on my chest, imitating a really insulted baron. "I do not fumble… I stumble. Big difference."

Taking a glance at my fellow vigilante, for as little of that sort of act I've ever done, I decided to take a peek under his mask. My vision cut through the layers of cloth that made his mask, letting me take a peek at the handsome enough man that was beneath. And more importantly, the eyes that were staring blankly at the world in front of him.

Even with my limited knowledge of Marvel Superheroes, which mostly came from the old 90's X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons, I knew that there were very few blind superheroes living around Hell's Kitchen. So that meant this was Matt Murdock, DareDevil.

"Sure there is," He smirked, walking closer to the still groaning Super-Villain and poking at her with his foot. Eventually, as his head pretended to scan up and down the woman's still body, Matt sighed.

"I'm sensing a problem here?" I said, walking towards a desk that hadn't been broken by anyone's body. There was a computer on it you see, a laptop to be more exact, something that I could use to figure out how to stop her plan of sending her neighbor into the voice between universes. "Fuck."

"Yeah, I'm not good with computers either, " Matt spoke, seemingly having predicted this problem before it even came to my mind to look at the computer. The thing was password-protected, and I doubt either me or the blind man could break the security that Octavius would use. "There's only one thing we can do."

There was a low hiss to his voice at that last sentence, causing me to turn back to face him limping close to the woman. Not liking the implications alone, I stalked forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"What's your plan?"

He turned his head, not like a normal person would to see a person as they were talking to them but instead Matt was leaning forward so his ears were facing me in just the right way that I was between the two of them.

I wonder if he was having issues reading my heartbeat? Was my body too dense? Did the beat sound different from other people's? I could hear others and my own too, but I usually drowned it out due to how distracting hearing my own heartbeat was. I didn't analyze it.

"There's only one person here that knows that password for that computer," he said eventually, one of his hands coming up to point at the device, almost lazily. "Her," With a rapid turn, his other arm pointed to the downed Octopus. "And from what I heard, if we don't figure out how to stop her experiment a lot of people will die."

"Right and that's fair and all," I shrugged, walking around him till I was standing between Matt and Octavius. "But that doesn't answer my question, what are you going to do?"

"I think you know," Matt replied, his voice low, his tone hard.

I sighed, closing my eyes and rubbing the bridge of my nose rapidly for a few moments of time that lasted longer for me than it would for anyone else in the world. This was a tough spot… but even then, even with what was at stake here.

Couldn't condone it.

"Torture isn't reliable enough nor do even have the time to break someone," I placed my hand into my pants' pocket, rooting around in there for a second to pull out my phone. The other vigilante took this time to walk around me, an action that I preempted by walking in step with him, keeping him on my right side, while Octavius was on my left.

"We don't have time for anything else unless you've got a computer genius on speed dial? I don't see how we stop this from happening," It was said sarcastically, and while I didn't have a number for such a man, Louise did.

"I've got ya there," I said, holding up the phone, pretending that I didn't know that Matt was blind and therefore wouldn't be able to tell what was in front of him. "Calling her now."

The phone rang, the tone filling my ear as I waited for Louise to pick.

"Hey, L," I spoke quickly, not letting her get the first response. "Someone can overhear, Codenames only."

There was a large intake of breath, audible to anyone at either side of the call.

"I'm not calling you, Lugh."

"Yes," I grinned. "Yes, you are."

"Why am I, L, but you get to be named after a god?" Louise asked me, her tone annoyed.

"Because you're smarter than me?" I replied, trying for the buttering her up approach in getting her to call me Lugh.

"Anyway, I need a hand," she started, seeming to drop the subject,

"Well… so do I?" There was a rather annoyed sounding sigh that came from her lips Then a few seconds passed before Louise continued.

"Is it life or death?" She asked, causing me to glance over to the screen in front of me, sweat actually forming on my brow from the anxiety this was causing me.

"Yup."

"So is mine."

That was bad news.

---

(Lois otherwise known as Louise)

She finished explaining and finished listening to the life and death situations that the two had found themselves in. The only good thing that Louise was sure that came from this was how they were dealing with the same problem, just at different ends.

Sadly, Pat was on the wrong side of this problem.

Nothing he could smash his way out of where he was.

"Right, get here," Louise said, having ignored the pit that she could feel gathering in her stomach. Her hand unconsciously rubbed the area as if trying to push the feeling down deeper into her body. "I'm pretty sure that you could just smash the devices."

"I don't know," She could hear how Pat was scratching at his neck as he was deciding between two options that were just as bad as each other. "I… think it would be a good idea if I didn't destroy the tech that is possibly… radioactive?"

Louise didn't even miss a beat at this news, turning to the agents that were huddled by the windows. The man, Grant, was still pointing his gun at the younger woman, something that annoyed both Louise and his partner Bobbi Morse.

"Hey, you guys' got anything like a Geiger Counter?"

The two agents briefly glanced at each other, Grant appears to be the most confused by the question while Bobbi simply reached into her back pocket and threw out a yellow gameboy-looking device.

"Why do you have that?" Grant asked, clicking his tongue and shutting his eyes together from confusion.

"We're monitoring a scientist with access to dangerous materials," Bobbi responded, her tone indicating a level of heat that Louise took time to note down, not wanting to take any action that would escalate this sort of mood. At least not in this situation. "I've got a lot more than a Geiger counter on me."

Its screen lit up in a dim blue glow that barely managed to create a viewable image. The numbers were zero, as Louise had expected, it would make sense that someone trying to hide the beginning stages of their work like Octavius was, would keep away from any power source that could be easily detectable.

"Nope." Louise then spoke back into the phone. "Seems that yo-"

It was at that moment that the room shook once more, the sounds of screaming started to emit from the streets below them. The cause of this outbreak from the people outside was shown to the occupants of the apartment when two large claws struck the sides of the nearest window, digging into the frame and throwing it out to the street below.

Without any hesitance, Louise was thrown to the floor by Grant, while Bobbi opened fire with her nine-millimeter pistol at the joints of the robot that was rapidly ascending up the side of the building. As it passed the red glowing eye peered inside, showcasing its massive size, almost the same you'd expect out of a mini-van or a larger car. This was something that the two agents noticed and diverted their fire towards but like before the rounds bounced off harmlessly.

Harmlessly to the robot, but for Grant, not so much. Gunfire ricocheted back at the SHIELD Agent, hitting him in the thigh and causing him to fall to the floor in pain.

"Fuck," The man growled, looking angry at himself for even trying to damage the machine with such small caliber weapons. "Fucking hell, need a medic."

Bobbi stopped her own assault, rolling to the ground and pulling off her jacket, she wrapped the cloth around the wound, putting pressure on it. Then she looked back towards the robot, who by now had resumed its trek up the building, and pressed against a spot on her jumper.

"This is Agent Morse, I need a bus," The older woman spoke into her jumper, using the term that many police officers are taught to use when referring to an ambulance. Calling it a bus was just faster. "I repeat, I need a bus, Agent is down, requesting a bus and heavy grade reinforcements."

Louise couldn't hear the response that was no doubt on the other end of that call, but she was almost sure that heavy grade reinforcements would be a welcome treat. But rather than flying the US colors, she'd prefer if her backup was… bluer.

"Lugh," Louise found herself growling at going along with such a name but knew that it wasn't the time that argument. "You gotta get here, we're being attacked by a robot with tentacles and claws."

---

(Pat Doyle)

"You know… I think she's in trouble," I spoke, acting dumb since the phone has finally ended. The act was for the Doctor, I could tell that she was now awake, something that the woman was attempting to hide by leaving her eyes shut, I wanted her to think that I was dumb.

At least when it comes to non-science matters, since that ship sailed back when I had first met her.

"You don't say," Matt smiled awkwardly, seemly not sure how to take such a statement. He shifted his stance, leaning on his right foot solely, in his hand now was a steel pipe, something that, due to my focus on the phone call, I hadn't noticed him picking up. "Sounds like you should hurry over there, I'll deal with things on this end."

I knew what that meant and that style of 24 operations didn't sit well for me. So I leaned in, coming close to his ear, trying to think of some line that would convince him not to do what i could he wanted.

"Matt… I wouldn't do anything that would end up pointless."

It was his eyes, though they were blank they didn't lack expression, turns out that even becoming blind didn't train out the way people are expressive when caught by surprise.

Before doing anything, like leaving what amounted to a normal human with one of the smartest people in the world, I scanned the room with my collection of visionary powers, checking for traps, though finding none, and eventually finding a taser hidden in a nearby drawer. I moved fast, pulling the thing open, grabbing the taser, and bluing back before anyone could even figure out that I moved.

"This," I said, handing him the taser. "Is what I want you to use to take her out if it looks to get up. I don't want to come back and see blood splattered back over this place… from either of you."

With that warning given, I ran off in a burst of super speed that at this point in time I doubt that anyone could match. Knowing that I had wasted some time trying to intimidate the soon-to-be Daredevil, I pushed myself forward, pushed myself to move faster than I'd ever had before. Moving at such high speeds that I was surprised that there wasn't some sort of sonic boom while also committing to turns in the roads that even the best drivers wouldn't attempt at such speeds.

The world around me was a blur of colors, though not as much as I thought it should be, just the same amount that I'd expect from someone that turned around too fast. When I finally made it to the front of the apartment, I was breathing heavily, the strain that I placed on my stamina only just hit me as I stopped. But I wasn't so much exhausted as I was out of breath, having not used proper breathing as I had been reading.

I looked up, which only meant that I was hit in the face by a rather powerful beam. The force took me off guard, shoving me to the ground with a crash while the searing heat of the beam started to eat through the cloth mask with minor resistance, leaving me with half a mask covering my face.

By the time that the attack faded and I stood back up, I could feel the left side of my face burning, while the city air hit against the hot skin that was now revealed to the world.

"Shit," I swore, my hands clenching as I glared up at the biggest robots that I faced this evening, standing tall on the roof of the building. It was at least big enough to fit three people inside it, so it was little wonder that its weapons packed a bigger punch than those of its smaller brethren.

This time I was watching as the beam started to charge up, managing to move out of the way and letting the red splash against the concrete, smashing it up but not doing much else. I bent my knees, but before I could even attempt the leap at the mechanic menace, an explosion from the other side of the thing caused it to shift forward from the pressure of the impact.

There was no waiting for me though, I leaped up into the sky, my powerful legs propelling me higher than should've ever been possible, letting me reach the robot within a single second.

It was also then that I realized that it wasn't just the robot's large size that set it apart from the others that I've faced, it was also the materials it was built with. Where those earlier ones were made from stainless steel, a decision that even now confuses me, this was made from tougher metal, stuff that I'd never personally seen since getting my powers. But that wasn't important in this case, my fist impaled it all the same. I could feel the wires contained within sizzle and spark against the skin of my knuckles even as I continued to rise higher into the sky, the robot now being carried with me.

I could hear a woman yell from below me something along the lines of "Jesus Christ!" as I started to near a spinning metal donut a couple of dozen meters above the apartment building.

It was then that something odd happened.

The robot and I… bounced off nothing, several meters away from the device and being flung off into the city below.

"Oh, fucking come on!"

---

(Matt Murdock)

It wasn't like Matt wanted to commit such an act, in fact, it would weigh heavy on his conscience, it would even leave a dark stain on his soul. But that didn't mean he wouldn't. It just meant that he understood that for many what he was about to do was wrong.

"You can stop pretending," he warned the woman, snapping his foot against her chin and sending Octavius tumbling to the side and off the broken pieces of the desk. "You're not fooling anyone."

The Doctor giggled, delighted about something that the vigilante could only guess at as she rolled onto her back once more, her bloody grin facing the sky, at least according to the blind man's sense of smell.

"Oh!" she said, continuing to giggle along the way. "Not five minutes without your blue comrade and you already start the torture. How dangerous."

Showcasing how much self-control Matt had, he didn't let how much inner turmoil he had with this action show on what little of his face that someone could see. Instead, he just set his mouth in a frown and pressed the activation button on the taser, causing it to spark.

"Well, a taser that's going to get me talki-" Before the Doctor could finish her gloat, Matt stabbed the taser into her chest, the woman convulsed on the floor, her head hitting hard against the concrete and causing a wet thwack.

Matt waited for Octavius to stop groaning in pain before he spoke once more.

"Willing to talk now?" he asked, his voice coming out as a low growl as he leaned in closer to the Doctor, his masked face nearly pressing against her goggled visage.

"Did you know… the letter J is the only letter that doesn't appear on the periodic table?"

Before the masked vigilante could even respond to the rather random fact thrown way a tentacle shot out of the Doctor's back. Matt barely managed to roll out away from it, the sparking mechanical limbs scraping across the floor as the claws sliced through the outermost edge of the man's skin near his shin.

Red splashed against the floor, pouring out of the flesh wound as the man was a wrestling blading.

"I'm sorry… did you think that I'd just sit down and take it while you tortured me?" Octavius questioned, her form rising as the lower two tentacles lifted her up, a third one shutting out in front of her body while the fourth only twitched, hanging loosely from her back.

Broken and sparking.

Matt took a second bend his leg experimentally, ignoring the sting of the wound and testing to see if there was any give to it. There wasn't.

"Thought you might," he replied, hopping from one foot to another while grinning. The taser sparked to life as Matt's senses took in the whirling of servos that operated the limbs, the blind man could even make out the noise as one of them spluttered and nearly petered out. "If your taste in outfits is any indication."

Of course, the man couldn't even tell the color of her clothes, being blind and all.

"Says one color Charlie," The Doctor mocked, a snap of one of the claws singling that she'd grabbed something behind her. Some sort of remote control if Matt was able to perceive the object right. "How about we shift away from fashion… and onto the final countdown!"

With a press of a button, the displays around the room flashed till they were showing the numbers counting down… 10:00… 09:59 and so on and so forth… something that Matt wasn't able to see… given that he was blind, but Octavius didn't know this.

"You have ten minutes to try and get the password off me," There was a clatter of metal in the air, allowing Matt to move out of the way in time to avoid the grasp of the Doctor, rolling under their reach while also advancing forward.

Matt avoided the loose wires that were still sparking with power as he jabbed the taser in between the metal plates that composed the tentacle nearby. He could feel the heat explode off the mechanical limb as it spluttered to the floor. But sadly for the vigilante, his taser exploded in his hand, it was only luck that let him fling the device away with only minor injury to the hand holding it.

Octavius simply raised a brow, her smile deadly even as she had lost another tentacle.

"A somewhat equal exchange," She let her two remaining tentacles shift her down to the ground, letting them hang freely in the air. "But I think you'll find that I have more limbs to lose than you do!"

With a crackling laugh, Octavius' tentacle shot out claws at the man. This time though, Matt's foot kicked up a plank of wood shielding him from the danger and allowing him to use his injured foot to smack the attack back at the woman.

But a tentacle snapped at it, having somehow gained a new set of claws within the seconds this all took place. Then the Doctor sent the remaining tentacle in a swipe that nearly took out Matt's legs, only for him to leap over it before using his good hand to throw the sparkling cable he'd picked up at some stage at the woman.

Octavius didn't even have time to scream as the cable made contact with her forehead, the electrical energy surging into her with such force that her skin burned. Unlike when such a cable had stuck someone earlier that evening, this event lasted longer and also had a greater effect on the target.

The Doctor slumped to the floor, limp as a doll.

"Well, that didn't go as planned."

---

(Bobbi Morse)

"Well, that wasn't a total bust," Bobbi spoke, her eyes watching as the blue blur and the large robot fly into the distance cityscape. She threw down her compact missile launcher. "Got rid of that mechanical menace at least," there was a rush of movement from the roof exit, causing her to turn her head to face the incoming young Lois.

"Seems your backup went double KO with that robot," Bobbi motioned towards where the duo had flown off to. "Good for us," The older woman continued, her eyes now focused on the objective ahead. "It means that efforts can be focused on the real threat."

"Not at all concerned that there was a man that can leap tall buildings and punch robots hard enough for it to go two or three miles?" The younger asked, a brow raised. Bobbi thought that the girl had potential, she might even make a good agent with how cool she was under pressure.

"More concerned by the possible forming vortex of death above us right now."

"Fair."

The two women glared at the device with glares that would cause seasoned marines to wet themselves. They needed to stop it now before it was too late and it fully activated. They glanced around them, looking for something that could be used, but found none.

"Where's your backup?" The younger of the two asked, her eyes peering over the side of the roof with a questioning glance.

Bobbi couldn't help the scoff that erupted from her, though glad that she no longer needed to mask her reactions to keep up the appearance of a meek housewife. Even in such a tense and dangerous situation, this was a breath of fresh air for the agent of SHIELD.

"Not everyone's got someone who makes sports cars look slow," she eventually replied, her hand coming down to the ground, examining some scorch marks that Bobbi could deduce the origin of. "Look at this."

At the rather stern tone, the order had been given, the young Lois bent down to see the marks herself. She hummed thoughtfully, her eyes glancing back up to the spinning donut above her. It was familiar to the young girl, something that she recognized but her mind couldn't grasp just where she'd seen this before.

"Looks like a burn mark," Lois remarked, her eyes inspecting the circle pattern that made its form. "And from the looks of things, whatever caused it went straight up-" Suddenly, she stopped herself as if her mind realized something that didn't make sense. "It could be the donuts-"

"Donuts?" Bobbi stopped, blinking at the, to her, random phrase.

"The thing in the sky," The redhead groaned, sounding annoyed by even being asked that. "Anyway, I was saying it could be the donuts but that wouldn't work with how fresh the marks are, see we saw those things fly out the window. So these marks wouldn't be here if it was them… also looking at them. It seems that there's no visible sign of propulsion."

Bobbi was impressed, if not with the girl's vocabulary, at least with her deduction ability.

"Means we should keep an eye out," The SHIELD Agent informed her, bringing back out her pistol and checking the chamber. "We won't be able to do anything about the device till reinforcements arrive. We lack the firepower."

The redhead stood back to her feet, glancing at the people that had started to surround the building at the ground level. It was only a few dozen people but there were already a hundred people living in this apartment complex. it was worrying given the deadly threat that they were facing. It was something that Bobbi had already accounted for though.

The sounds of police sirens foretold their arrival, with an efficiency that surprised many of the onlookers as they set up a perimeter, pushing the crowd back till they were too far to make out the people looking out of the complex's windows.

"They're your backup?" Lois asked, her nose scrunched in a display of annoyance. "Not knocking New York's Finest, but they ain't got the firepower to take out that thing above us."

It was then they both heard it, the whirling sound of a helicopter coming towards them. The two looked to the left, taking enough steps back till there was room for the copter to land down on the roof. Bobbi stalked forward, as the door slid open to the vehicle to reveal a white man in a suit, his hair on the start of a receding style that marked his age as older than the female agent.

"Did you bring what I asked?" Bobbi glanced at him, even as a trio of agents hopped off the copter and ran inside the building with a stretcher between their arms. "Because there'll be some hell to pay if you haven't."

"Ma'am," The unnamed man nodded, his head bowed in respect. "We're just here for Agent Ward and weren't cleared to bring in heavy grade weaponry."

Bobbi couldn't help the groan that came out of her with that statement, it was bad news.

"Then we need to ev-" Before Morse could even finish her order, the gun in her hand was launched into the ground, so hard that it imprinted on the concrete. It was not only her handgun but one of the other agents, even the helicopter started to groan from the stress that was now pressing down on it.

"Get out of there!" Bobbi yelled, even as the pressure started to increase so much that she was brought to her knees. But it was too late, the pilots struggled, they could only slowly move their arms toward their belts when the window exploded into bits onto them.

Blood erupted out of the cockpit as all those left on the roof could do nothing but stare in horror.

---

(Pat Doyle)

I had a new thought.

Was this what Goofy felt like in those old sketches?

I felt like I should be yelling out that scream of his, the one that goes like Yaaaaaaa-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooey! due to the way I bounced off the device.

These were the kind of thoughts that went through my head as I was implanted into the roof a parked car, smashing through the whole thing and causing the engine to explode into a fiery mess. Something that only seemed to affect the top half of my outfit, burning what remained and revealing both my face and my upper body to any that caught sight of me. That wasn't the worst part though, no if that was the case I could still live with it,

The worst part was the robot was still moving around.

"Great, now I'm reenacting the Incredibles," I muttered standing out of the wreckage of the car and slapping my hand against the flames that were gathered over my form as if they were dust. "Hopefully, this is the first fight against the robot and not the second one that Mr. Incredible had."

And my comparison was accurate enough, it was a big round robot with four tentacles and a single red eye, though in this case, I should've amended that to its late eye. While the other bots that I had faced had a look that I could compare to silver or steel, this one looked to be painted black or at least the outer case of the machine was made from black material.

The screams of the world around me was like something out of Godzilla film, terrified people, babies woman, and one very shrill man off in the distance, add to all that the ones that were still driving in their cars, panicking as they drove backward. All of them were like some of the worst kind of music to my ears.

Dubstep.

Of course, they all had good reason to be screaming like that, the robot was flailing madly, obviously blinded by losing its eye, tentacles, and claws swiping through the air. Cutting through street signs but luckily missing innocent people's heads by mere cms. Then I saw a young man, around my age, in fact, cowering in fear as swipes came ever closer to him. Moving in a flash of speed, I caught the swipe that was actually going to cut through the man's head.

Much to his shock, if the gasp was anything to go by.

"Hey, dude," I spoke up, not really having any real plan to speak but feeling the need to say something to get him unfrozen. "Get moving," I said, grabbing hold of another tentacle as it came down on me. "I only have two arms!"

"R-right, thanks, man," The young man muttered, his steps clattering along the ground as he ran off like a headless chicken.

It was then that I decided to try that trick I had done to the other robots, blowing on the limbs that I had trapped in my hands with my freeze breath. Instantly the metal gained a white sheen, frost forming like someone had hit frost forward on a cold winter night. Then I kicked up, whacking the mechanical limb with enough force that it cracked into two. Letting go of the one that I had kept in my grip, I watched in silence as it fell over, the loss of one of the limbs wasn't something that it had expected and therefore it lost balance within seconds.

This didn't make the robot any less dangerous to anyone that went near it. In fact, it only seemed to increase the frenzy that its remaining limbs jerked around in the air. Dodging each swipe that came my way, I blew once more on the robot, this time focusing on its body. Right into the hole created by the broken eye socket, without any concern for my own safety I shoved my fist and with it, my whole arm into the machine.

It didn't take long for the movement to die out, and so I took a step back, taking in the destruction that had been caused.

"Not too bad," I found myself shrugging. "Honestly, I would've thought that it would be worse."

By the time I realized what I had done, it was already too late. The robot in front of me exploded into a fireball that made the still burning car seem as if it was a match and this was the fireplace. Sadly, this time I was prepared. I could hear myself scream out in pain, blood seeping down my chest as my hand came up to my face, trying to stem the bleeding the only way that I could. My hand drew back as another sharp surge of pain went through my body, I'd been stabbed in the face by a chunk of metal.

Without thinking about it, I pulled out the metal, if it was just a thorn that I had been struck with. The blood that poured out from this was oddly subdued. Something that my limited medical knowledge told me wasn't meant to be the case. Still, the world around me was blurry for a only a few moments, coming back into focus when someone steadied my body by letting me lean on them for support.

"You okay?" The man that I had only just saved asked me, his face red from either fear or exertion. I noticed the blood on him but knew without even asking that it wasn't his. "Do I need to get you to a hospital."

I looked around, spotting the blue hoodie around his waist, while also seeing Doc Ock's device still spinning high above the apartment complex but with added red glow that worried me so much that I wasn't sure how to react to it at the moment.

"Hey," he spoke once more, his free set of fingers snapping in front of me like they were trying to get the attention of a slow dog. "Sta-"

"Don't worry too much," I shook him off, feeling the wound on my forehead close up within seconds. "It'll take a lot more than some steel to take me out," My left hand started to wipe away the still fresh blood that was dripping from my face, letting my would-be savior see the normal forehead that occupied the space. "I've got this all under control."

I took a few steps forward before my sight was nothing but blue, a hoodie had been thrown over my head from behind. I turned around quickly, looking at the shrugging form of the man, he had a sheepish grin.

"Just to keep some dignity," he told me, winking while his eyes roamed around my chest.

Looking down, my entire upper body was exposed, black soot covering large parts of otherwise pale skin and the majority of what was left of my pants. Speaking of which, my pants were less like suit pants, which they had been, and more like a pair of dirty three-quarter lengths. I opened it up, finding the size of it to be rather comical compared to the size of the man that had thrown it. He was only about 5'8 while I was 6'1, meaning that any hoodie of his shouldn't be large enough to be used as a blanket.

"It's my brother's," he explained.

Not interested in finding out more, I leaped forward, flying high above any buildings while tying the hoodie around my neck and letting it flow back as if it was a cape behind my back. I landed on the roof across the street from the apartment complex, finding that my air time had been shorter than I expected.

"Not a big deal," I rubbed my sooty hands together, ridding myself of some of the stuff. "I can get there from here."

And so I jumped… managing to only reach half the distance before I fell to the ground, hitting it like I was an anvil. Asphalt and concrete were thrown up into the air as something became apparent.

"Am I lighter?" I asked, waving my hands around in the air, testing the weight of the limbs as they traveled. "I am-"

"HEY!" Someone yelled, beeping their car horn. "Get out of the way!"

I looked over to find it was a cop, one of many that were huddled around the building. It seems that they had made a perimeter around the place, something that suited me fine.

"Sir!" The policewoman continued to yell at me, somehow unconcerned with either my state of dress or the fact that I had dropped down from the sky. "I need you to step behind the barriers."

"Sorry," I mumbled, walking over to the sidewalk with a little grin on my face, finding that part of my day the oddest somehow, but also the most amusing.

There wasn't much time if any to analyze the situation further, so I jogged in place and then ran at the side of the building as fast as I could. My feet hit the concrete and I made my way up the building with ease, it was like I was running normally on the ground.
But things got more difficult the further up the building that I went, so I went faster, so fast that there were chunks of concrete and glass falling off the building. It didn't take me long before I was within arms reach of the building.

"Up, up," I chanted. "And-"

So knowing what I was about to do, and feeling an increased resistance as I ascended the building, I timed it so my hands would reach out and pull myself up at the same time that I went for a leap.

"-AWAY!"

As if I was from the very comics that inspired this universe, or had been inspired by this universe depending on who you ask, I shot at the Doctor's device like I was a cannonball. Suddenly I felt free, even with the wind biting at my arms and the pressure increasing around my body like weights were dropped on my head. None that mattered, it was like my body had been supercharged, only getting faster as I got closer to the device.

And then I hit it.

Ramming right through the metal as it spun around as if the material was only paper. The resulting explosion felt as if someone was using a hairdryer on me.

Nothing that concerned me.

---

(Louise)

Louise could do nothing as her body continued to press down onto the roof of the complex, something that intensified with each passing second. The feeling reminded her of gum being slowly stomped by a large boot, just the act of something squishy being flattened. The only thing she could do was roll over to her back, letting her peer up to the sky. Revealing the red light that was being emitted from the center of the science donut.

"Got… any… ideas… agent?" Louise struggled to talk, her chest straining in order to expand, and was moving too fast when it compressed.

"Working… on… it," Came the reply from the older woman, her own body still facing down. From what Louise could see, Morse was actually trying to get to her feet, her arms shaking as she tried to gain some leverage to stand up.

Thankfully for them, while the window of the helicopter had been broken, the vehicle itself was in good enough condition for Bobbi to lean on, letting her slowly stand to her feet. It was a stance without any real strength to it as if a stray breeze would tip her over. Soon Bobbi started to inch her way towards a radio, one of the two that were on the helicopter but also the only one left intact since the front of the vehicle exploded. Sadly for the woman, the floor of the copter was covered in blood, causing her to slip and fall hard.

"Fuck," Bobbi growled as further attempts to raise to her feet were impeded when her limbs started to slip and slide around the floor, making her fall down several more times. It continued until the Agent was out of breath. "God damn it!"

Louise couldn't stand to just stay where she was and do nothing. But since she couldn't get up, as she lacked anything to brace herself on, the young woman managed to roll over till it was possible to imitate the same action that the SHIELD agent had done moments prior. Struggling against the pressure forced down upon her by the experiment going on above them, Louise pressured, she heaved and even stepped on Morse. Much to the Agent's annoyance.

"S-sorry… I am so close," Louise could feel her knees buckling and voice stuttering while her hand barely managed to inch slowly towards the radio… that was when things become light once more.

The roof lit up in the light of a massive explosion, only the smallest of metal chunks raining down onto the area. The two women stuck in the helicopter could feel the pressure lift as if they had lost a massive weight on their shoulder, the helicopter shielding them from the metal rain of death. The two could only glance outside the copter, watching as a shadow fell over them, gaining in size worryingly as the seconds past… that was until a whooshing noise went by, the shadow disappearing in a flash of movement that the two didn't have any words for.

Especially as the sun masked the form of a figure, holding aloft in his mighty hands a large chunk of metal, about the size of a person's head while cloth flowed behind him in the breeze.

"Whoa," Louise couldn't help but gasp as Pat floated down to the roof, gently placing the metal chunk down. She took in the state of his appearance, the torn, burnt clothes, the soot covering his face. "You need a shower."

Pat seemed to ignore this, instead, he posed with his hand on his hips, the movement showing Louise that he had not found a cape but instead the arms of a hoodie that had been wrapped around his neck had melted into his skin.

Another thing that he ignored.

"Hello, ladies," Pat grinned, his white teeth contrasting greatly against the dark soot that otherwise covered his mouth. "I hope that you've had a good day… or at least an exciting one. Mine's been explosive… to say the least."

Louise could feel the stares of the two remaining SHIELD agents, digging into her back as she was the one saying embarrassing things like that. The young woman couldn't help the groan that escaped her mouth and the sight that accompanied him.

"This… is Lugh?" Agent Morse asked, having picked up the name from Louise back when she had called Pat. Something that Louise found to be unfortunate since… why that name? She really didn't want the guy to be known by a god's name.

It couldn't lead to anything good.

"Sadly," Louise confirmed for the Agent.

"Thankfully the good Doctor's device worked based on the manipulation of gravity and magnetic fields," Lugh started to explain as if he had been asked. "So simply piercing those fields with either enough force or enough mass was the only way that I could think to end this experiment."

Louise couldn't help but glance at him, she'd seen some of the scematics that such tech must have been based on, and while she was nowhere near smart enough to claim to understand what the majority of terms used even meant, the redhead was sure that what he described wouldn't have worked with a man of his size, he'd need to be twice the size at least. But she wasn't going to say otherwise while they had governmental viewers.

"Is there anything else that I can do for you lot?" Lugh spoke, his voice coming out as scratchy due to him attempting to mask his natural voice. It was meant to sound deep but he'd failed at that goal. "Because I've gotta bounce, I need -."

"You know that soot isn't a good disguise… right?" The female Agent snarked, her grin and her eyes had knowing shine to it.

Usually, Louise would expect to see some panic form in Pat's eyes, some sign that he was surprised by being asked any questions, frightened that someone would ask him anything not just something to do with his powers or his origins… but anything at all. For such an invincible man… Pat could be frightened by his own shadow.

"Ain't nobody going for a disguise, Agent" he winked, turning his back starting to walk towards the edge of the roof. "I'm openly Lugh. I'll see you around Betty!"

With those words Lugh bent his knee, the air rippling visibly before he launched off into the air. The sight was incredible as if gravity itself had written him a free pass and Pat was just allowed to glide in any direction, the hoodie billowing behind him as if he was wearing a flag. The only thing about this magnificent display that ruined it was a whisper, the one that Louise swore she could hear being carried by the wind.

"No capes?" Pat said, his tone mocking. "Utter hack."

Louise wasn't sure she ever needed to know what he was referring to.

"This epic exit is going to be ruined when he realizes that we know where he lives," Bobbi whispered into Louise's ear. Something that girl had expected since Pat had been at this apartment interviewing people only the other day.

"No idea what you're talking about," Louise shrugged, her hands going into her pocket as started to make her own way towards the roof stairwell. "I'll be going no-"

"Ah!" Agent Morse stood close to Louise, her finger pointing up into the air. "Just one more thing, miss Lois?"

"Yeah?"

"Just removing a letter from your name doesn't make for any better of an alias than soot does a disguise."

---

(Matt Murdock)

It was only as Matt was finishing tying up Octavius when a whoosh rang out in his ears and suddenly Pat was standing beside him once more, his body reeking of smoke and gasoline as if he'd been set on fire a few times but from the lack of any open wounds… Matt was sure he wasn't injured. Even if the smell of blood told him the man should've been.

"Managed to remove her harness yet?" he asked, nonchalantly pulling fabric from his skin, any wounds sealing up near instantly.

"I don't know how it works," Matt found himself replying, his body still on guard if the woman woke up once more. "Worried it would kill her."

"Yeah, better leaving it for the authorities to remove," Pat walked around the body, his head moving up and down, letting Matt know that he was inspecting Octavius, though in what capacity the masked vigilante wasn't sure.

It could be either in worry for the woman's new injuries or concern that her remaining mechanical limbs snapping back to life.

"It might need surgery from the look it," The soot covered man mumbled, his hand rubbing away the soot stuck to his chin. "The woman drilled it into her spine or at least something like that. Seems that there are a few computer chips, circuit boards, maybe to translate normal neural commands for the cyborg parts."

"You study?"

"No… I'm making shite up as I look at her body," Pat chuckled, his hand slamming against his stomach as he did so. There was a casual vibe to the man's stance, one that hadn't been there the last time the two had met, earlier in the day. "Estimating based on what little science I know. It's not hard when you can see what I can."

"And what can you see?

"Everything."

Confidence seemed to ooze off the man if it wasn't for the display of power and durability that he'd seen, Matt would've claimed that man had a massive ego. But given the circumstances, it was more like Pat's ego was smaller than it could've been. There was a phone on the wall, one that was only brought into focus when the brunt vigilante walked over to it, picking it up with dirty soot-filled hands. Matt would've warned him about fingerprints but he had a feeling that he didn't care too much.

"How about you make your way out of here," The Alien told him. "I've got some calls to make-"

"So you're an alien?" Matt interrupted him, not willing to leave this topic alone for any longer.

"I… am."

"Heard a pause there," The smaller of the two couldn't help but point out. "What's that about?"

"It's complicated," Pat sighed, finally letting his shoulder slump and his voice waver. "Look how about you just meet up with me later, just ask for Pat over in the New York Bulletin's offices. It'll give me some time to think and then I'll let you in on a few of my secrets."

"Only a few?" Matt joked, taken aback by his willingness to be open.

"Hello, police," Pat spoke up, causing Matt to jump up slightly from the sudden shift in tone. The Irish-sounding Alien shifted accents, not majorly, it still sounded Irish but it had shifted pitch and annunciation enough that it was obviously a different accent. "Yeah, I've gotta situation here, this woman attacked me with sum claws, managed to pull me into this kinda lab, a place's a bit messed up and I'm a bit lost, do you think-"

Matt didn't wait around to hear the end of the conversation, instead, he booked it out of the room and back down the sewer, only absentmindedly checking his phone along the way. Revealing a rather embarrassing factoid that he hadn't noticed in all the excitement when the phone yelled out:

"Four… Missed calls… from… Foggy."

He couldn't help the sight that came out of his mouth then.

"Foggy's going to be pissed."

---

(Pat Doyle)

It was hours later, I'd managed to get away in a burst of super speed just as the police were breaking down the back exit of Octavius's lab, I'd made sure to snap off the remaining two tentacles from her back just in case she woke up and attacked them. Now I was back in the office, after getting a change of clothes and assuring both Ben and Louise that I was more than fine, and that flight was a new superpower that I had gotten only seconds before… and if they were hearing reports about me crashing into the side of buildings then it was all lies.

It was only me here, as far as I was aware at least, something that let me type on my computer as fast as I could, without moving faster than the computer could register that is. Writing a story up that was much closer to a personal essay, revealing some details that I wasn't yet sure I wanted to reveal to the public and in another document writing down the story from the perspective of someone that only knew the story from witness accounts and adding in parts of Octavius's personnel files that had been given to me by an anonymous source.

That was when I heard him come in.

"You need to work on your stealth if you want to sneak up to me," I told him, spinning around on my chair to see the visage of a rather Ultimate Marvel-looking Nick Fury, smirking at me.

"And if I wanted to sneak in here, you'd never known I was there till it was too late," he replied, walking closer to me with his hands nonchalantly being held behind his back, my visionary powers allowing me to see that there was nothing held between them.

"What can I do for you… Mr.?" I asked, playing dumb. I couldn't tell with the single eye he had, whether Fury had just blinked or winked at me but I wasn't going to assume.

"Fury," he revealed, maybe not realizing that I already knew who he was and did for a living. "Director Nick Fury of SHIELD and I would like to have a talk with you… Lugh."

 

[Proman]

(Ben Urich)

Ben walked through the offices, heading past the cubicles and toward his room. Excitement ran through his body, there was nothing like a good scoop on the front page to brighten his spirit. Usually only using the paper to bring down a scumbag, exposing who they really were to the world where they would otherwise get away with their crimes would bring him this much joy.

But not today.

Today, he was just as happy to read the headline of the Bulletin.

Gods Among Us!

A strong enough article, though one that was only on the front page from the strength of the information gathered, rather than any elegance that it was written with. To the experienced eye of the seasoned reporter, there were some aspects that Pat needed a lot of work on since it was far too wordy and not didn't have enough introspection on the topic on hand.

But for a first story, it was good.

The article dealt with the appearance of another individual of superior ability, revealing themselves to the world. About how Lugh joined the ranks of Iron Man and the newly revealed War Machine as defenders of mankind, how Lugh protected the city from the rampaging menace of former Stark employee Oliva Octavius. It even went into detail about the nature of her plot, in a dumbed-down way so the average person understood what Octavius was going to do.

Ellison had only just decided to give this story the front page over the events of the Stark Expo, which had been relegated to the second page. The near end of the world was a bigger story than Stark needing to shut down some Hammer Tech illegal mishap.

It was only as he sat down at his desk, ready to type out his own front-page story for the next day that Ben realized something odd, the older man couldn't recall seeing his young apprentice in the office. Pat hadn't been home last night but that wasn't odd for a young reporter writing up their first story to sleep in the office overnight so they could meet the morning edition. So Ben hadn't thought much of it.

But he wasn't at the office either?

That was slightly worrying, especially given the story's connection with some sort of government agency. Before Urick could even step back to his feet, ready to march over to Elison and ask if he'd seen the young man, his office door opened, revealing the Editor walking in as if he had sensed that there were questions for him.

"Hey, good that I've caught you coming in so early," The Editor spoke, his brown beard being rubbed by nervous hands. "Kid ran out of credit on his phone, so he wanted me to tell you he's found another story and is chasing some leads."

"A story?" Ben couldn't help but be confused, his hand reaching for the phone on his desk, even as his mind wandered about the odd speed of the whole event, after having such a big story, Pat's first story in fact, what could've gotten his attention? What story needed him to leave so quickly?

"Didn't tell me what, just that it was low risk, low time investment," Micheal shrugged, not bothered by the fact one of his employees hadn't told him what he was investigating. "I was thinking that the kid was fine, he only wanted to visit a single place."

"Did he tell you where?"

---

(Pat Doyle: Greyburns College)

"H-hello, I'm a Mr. Pat Doyle, working for the New York Bulletin," I bent and twisted my leg, attempting to be as anxious as possible, looking down a notepad that was in between my hands.

"And how may I help you?" The lady manning the front offices of the Greyburns College campus asked me. The woman had obviously felt a little sorry about how nervous I was, making peeling out any information from her easy.

"I was looking for a Professor… " I trailed off, grimacing while rifling through page after page. "Samuel Sterns, see I am writing this article, a p-puff piece more than anything, about his research into the use of… " Trailing off once more, I brought my eyes up to the sky. "G-gamma Radiation for curing diseases."

The woman grimaced slightly, her hand twirling a single strand of her hair till it was loose.

"I-is something the matter?" I asked, feigning concern due to the woman's rather severe reaction, when in fact, I was actually already suspecting that people weren't going to exactly like the man. Especially if Sterns was the man I'd suspected.

"Nothing, nothing," she responded, rapidly shaking her head, before biting her lip and scrunching her eyes together. It was plain to see that she was struggling to hold something back. "It's just-" her voice pitched higher, "-he's eccentric."

I chuckled lightly, adding just a tiny bit of nervous energy so the woman thought I was put off by what she just said.

"I-I'll be fine, just be prepared to call me doctor if I come back with any extra limbs."

The joke seemed to go over fine, the woman giggling before pointing me in the right direction. It seems that I was in luck, Sterns was in his lab right this second working on some kind of stunning breakthrough that was dazzling the world. Which was concerning, considering the last time I heard those words for a scientist she tried to send her apartment complex into the Bleed between universes and maybe going for another major story so soon, especially given that Octavius hadn't even been arraigned yet, was a bad idea.

But once the lead was pointed out to me, I couldn't help myself but explore where it took me.

It didn't take long before I found myself knocking on the door of Professor Samuel Sterns. I waited for a few seconds, waited for the man to respond… but he didn't. So I knocked harder, this time adding a yell.

"Hey, Professor Sterns! Are you there?" My powerful ears could make the sounds of the man suddenly snapping up, waking from a slumber that he had no doubt fallen into while working late into the night. From the sounds of objects rolling along the ground, I didn't even need to look through the walls to know that papers, pens, and pencils were knocked off the man's desk.

"Coming!" Sterns responded, his voice familiar to me in a way that only nostalgia could be. "I'm coming, you'd think that I'd learn by now not to fall asleep on my desk, it just ain't good for my back."

From the tone of the voice alone, the man sounded far more homely than I would've expected from someone that could eventually become the Hulk villain the Leader. It was then that he actually opened the door. He was close to middle age, if not actually middle-aged, and was a tubby man, but not overly so. I also towered over him with ease, Sterns must've been only 5'6. He had recently shaved and I could tell from how his eyebrows didn't match his hair that it had been died to mask aging.

His clothes were closer to something that I'd expect from someone going to College, rather than someone teaching at one. His pants were three-quarter length jeans, while his torso had on Grayburn College t-shirt with blue cloth jacket over it.

It was then I realized why he looked so familiar.

He looked and sounded like Tim Blake Nelson, a man I was personally most familiar with due to his time in the movie adaptation of Holes, playing Dr. Pendanski, the camp counselor.

"Oh, hello," he exclaimed, his eyes wide in surprise. "I'd thought you were one of my students, looking for me but I don't recognize you."

"I'm actually a reporter for the New York Bulletin, Professor," I informed him, scratching my arms. "I had a few questions about Gamma Radiation for an article and was hoping that I could ask you a few questions and use you as a source?"

The man searched me up and down, his eyes inspecting me as if his eyes were capable of peering through lies. Which was fine by me, I'd not been lying.

"Of course," Sterns smiled, the door opening up follow and the man beckoning me to follow him inside the lab. "I'm always willing to help anyone with an interest in science. Come in, come in."

I followed him in, watching as the man seemed to vibrate with excitement, my eyes taking in the lab that he worked in. It wasn't exactly a Stark grade lab, nothing in here spoke of comic book super science but it was also better than the sewer lab that Octavius had been using.

I'd give it a 7/10.

"So… the questions?" Sterns spoke, bringing me out of my thoughts regarding the nature of labs.

"R-right," I stuttered, honestly a little taken back. "See there was a report of a man dying due to drinking a soda-"

"And that involves gamma radiation?"

"It's what the Coroner's report claims," I replied, looking at a few notes that I'd made about the subject. "It caught me attention because it's odd and I do like looking into odd things. So I was wondering how such contamination could've happened, international goods are screened for radiation and the like… so what could've hidden it?"

Part of me was curious but another already had a brain blast moment. Gamma radiation and South America, I'd seen the 2003 Ang Lee Hulk film, which ended with Banner hiding out down there, so that was my current guess.

Sterns was just to back up my guesses.

"It would have to be in a very specific form," he told me, walking around the island, where a beaker filled with what looked like blood. "If the soda had been irradicated, it would've been picked up, as you've explained. So I'd think that the gamma radiation only started to emit once it hit the man's body."

"Kinda like a chemical reaction. One chemical is inert till it's exposed to another?"

Sterns nodded, his eyes glancing down to the beaker.

"So I'd imagine that in this case, there's a patient zero?" I asked, pausing to scribble down some notes, letting my tongue peek out of my mouth as I did so.

"What makes you say that? Wouldn't the man we're talking be said patient zero?"

I walked around the same island, following him with a lazy sort of energy, letting him take two steps for every one step that I made.

"Nah, see the issue here is that if the soda was the Gamma Source, it doesn't make too much sense that there'd only been one victim… right?"

"Yes," Stern's head nodded, his eyes tightening in focus. "It wouldn't make much sense."

"What sort of chemicals would cause this reaction?"

Sterns frowned, his hands grasping together as I watched him contemplate the idea over a bit. Suddenly he lit up, his eyes going wide, it was my first time watching someone having a true eureka moment.

"What if it's not just the deceased," he started, his excitement expanding with every second that passed. It seemed that Sterns enjoyed the thought experiment if nothing else. "What if there was a period of time where whatever contaminated soda didn't get caught by Goods and Service because it wasn't producing gamma radiation."

"I don't understand?" Truly I didn't, the bottle from what research I'd done, would've been only opened by the deceased. It would've been contaminated before it had been sealed.

"I imagine that our patient doesn't just produce radiation but contains it, as long as it stays within his body. It's inert-"

"But," I interrupted him, thinking that I'd managed to catch the idea he was throwing my way. "Given time away from patient zero, it becomes active again, deadly. Toxic."

"Exactly!"

"How'd this guy gain this extraordinarily useful ability."

"I… can't be sure," his eyes rolled up to the ceiling, full of theories on this subject that would rattle the mind of the layman. "But a Professor Betty Ross-" At this stage he had picked up some of his own notes, showing them to me. "She has made a primer, it is like a bacteria that's designed to reduce or suppress the effects of gamma radiation on the human body. The research never went anywhere but... I think I know why now."

I scribbled down some more notes. Now to actually get some answers that could even potentially calm the normal Joe on the street.

"So now that we've gotten that horrible tragedy out of the way, what can we do to protect ourselves from future incidents?"

"It's hard to say, I can't imagine that this will happen more often," he replied, his eyes glancing over to a side door, a place that was shut from view. "Patient Zero must be dead if he was only able to contaminate one bottle of soda. Perhaps he was killed in some accident?"

If it wasn't for the fact that he kept glancing at that side room, I would've believed that he didn't know much else. But he was just too nervous. With that sign, I took a peek with my visual powers, finding the room was filled to the brim with blood samples, labels given to each with a series of numbers for each… and the alias of Mr. Green.

"I wouldn't think so since if someone had dropped dead from gamma radiation in South America there's no way it would only be one person."

"How do you there aren't dozens of unreported deaths due to gamma radiation in the area?" Sterns asked, his tone polite but his integrity as a man of science obviously making him check that I'd done some research before coming to him.

"Oh… that's a good point," I admitted, shuffling through my notes. "That's why I looked into it. The level of radiation in that one bottle was so toxic that the root incident of radiation would need to be so severe that Chernobyl would look small. It would spread to the entirety of Brazil. They just don't have the capability to contain such an event."

"That would be more than a dozen deaths, millions would've died."

"And more than any corporation could ever hope to cover up," I placed a finger on my lips, trying to make it look like I was thinking about this, rather than having this answer handed to me early. "Which is why it's more likely that patient zero moved in from somewhere else, already irradiated but immune to the lethal effects somehow."

At that statement of mine, I could tell Sterns was a tiny bit confused by what I'd said. Not that I could blame him, I was never good at making up off-the-cuff conclusions.

"S-sorry, I just mean such a person would need to be still alive," I started to twirl one finger around in the air, leaving the pen away from the notepad for the first time since I'd entered the room. "If they could contaminate a single bottle of soda but not more, that would mean they could safely handle being that irradiated. Can you imagine the scientific breakthroughs that could be made with such a man and studying his immunity?"

This bit of news seemed to catch Sterns's attention, the man practically lit up, his face breaking out into a smile that few could match. I watched the man, careful to keep his arms in view as he moved away from the island once more, just in case Sterns tried something.

"We could cure virtually every disease," he muttered, his voice just high enough for me to know that this was something Sterns had told himself before. I could see why the lady had called him eccentric, it seemed that he was ready to bounce off the walls.

"I'd also heard reports of a wild animal attack in the bottling factory that I've traced the bottle back to."

That was another moment, another moment where I could tell that my statement confused him, I could even see the man mouth the words back, as if he was testing the truth of them with his mind.

"Yeah, I don't believe it either, especially due to the accounts of it throwing a forklift," I turned a page on my notes, showing the page to the other man. I'd made sure to write down the size and model of the forklift, just to make sure I didn't get the next part wrong. "At first I didn't think much of it, sounded like it could be true… but I can't find a single mammal large enough that lives in that region of the world that could… well… throw a forklift."

I chuckled a little bit, something that Sterns followed nervously.

It was then that I turned another page, showing him a list of animals that I'd crossed off, including a reason for why they couldn't have done it. Sterns hummed, placing a pair of glasses on his face, I presume that it would be for reading the list better but it could've been to lure me into thinking that he needed them but I could tell that the lenses were faked, just from the way light shined through.

Either that or the man had the lightest prescription that I'd ever seen.

That was also possible.

"I have limited knowledge of the animals that live in that area," he admitted, his eyes scanning the page. "The plants I know more about but I would think your right… there's none that could throw a forklift around that factory."

"Which is why I think it's Patient Zero… "I trailed off, trying to find the right tone in my head for what I was about to say. "But more importantly your alias was noticed, Mr. Blue. So I know you've been in connect with our patient zero, Mr. Green. "

From the way he stiffed, I knew that Fury had given me a great lead last night. It was good to have done some research on those events about the soda myself before coming over.

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

Jim wouldn't have placed the Boss's tailor to live in a run-down part of Hell's Kitchen, a place that only former cons trying to make a fresh start on the right side of the law would live in since they'd not have many resources to live in better accommodations.

So he knocked on the garage door, his hand hitting the steel with what could only be called a dull thud, echoing throughout the building in front of him. He could barely make out the other sounds that were being made in the garage, like heavy workbenches being pushed off to the side, so a person could work on past them.

"Coming!" A man on the other side yelled it was the kind of voice that O'Reilly expected from a tailor, soft and meek. It helped the former Irish Mobster build an image of the man on the other side.

He'd be a small, meek man, someone that wouldn't be out of place in an old fashion hatter's shop. Maybe he'd have a fine taste clothes himself, a neat suit, and maybe monocle so he could analyze threads of the suits that the man would craft. Perhaps he'd be an elderly man, having been involved in crafting suits for decades. This would be a man of meticulous detail, someone that should be nearly OCD in their level of care for this craft. Jim could imagine a futuristic garage, nearly perfectly white, looking like that room from Willy Wonka with the Chocolate Bar being teleported through a tv.

It was at this moment that the door slid open and revealed what the man truly looked like.

His size rivaled Pat's or Louise's, but only rivaled, standing at around 5'11 and built like a tank. His head was bald and his face only had the barest beginning of a beard, like just hadn't time to shave in the last few weeks.

"H-hello," The Tailor spoke, his voice stuttering, wavering in a way that no man like him should be. It was as if he was terrified of Jim. "Are y-you Mr. O'Reilly?

"Yeah, I am," Jim said, rolling his cigarettes in his pocket, his hands needing something to do. This was not the kind of man that he'd been expecting to see, nor was he acting according to his physical type.

And the older man had learned that things not looking right was something to be concerned about.

Without any further talk between the two, Jim followed the man into the garage while his eyes started to roam the workshop in the garage. It wasn't white, though it wasn't unclean, instead the entire place seemed to look like the normal backroom of a tailor's.

There were fabrics and materials that Jim recognized, regular cotton, nylon, those sort of materials. But then there was an odd row of materials, stuff that the man had never seen before…

… though given Jim had never been interested in that sort of thing, so it didn't mean much.

On the edge of the far-most table, Jim spotted a newspaper, today's paper with Pat's first-page article. Besides that paper, were a series of sketches, first of a logo of some sort of sun and the others were people with hooded capes in many different tight-fitting jumpsuits.

"Fan… of that new hero?" Jim found himself asking, trying for some sort of conversation that would fill up the dead silence that dominated the workshop.

"Y-y-yeah, " The other man stuttered, his eyes falling to his feet. Truly, Jim was starting to worry that this man was far too meek to be working alongside a crime boss. "It's exciting to hear about a real superhero in New York."

"Given the pictures I've seen, the guy should look into getting a new tailor," The former Mobster thought, his eyes glancing at the new designs. "Maybe he'll run into someone half as good as you are?"

The tailor didn't say anything in response to that but the small smile on his face told Jim that if the blue hero came to him, it would make the tailor happy. Eventually, the man motioned for Jim to stand on a podium. The older man didn't need to be told that it was so he could get accurate measurements, this was going to be a custom-designed suit so those were needed, something that would only be worn by him… and according to Mr.Weasley… bulletproof.

Not resistant… but proof.

The former Mobster decided not to try and fill the silence the second time, not wanting to distract the man while he was taking his measurements. Sadly for his goal of silence, Jim's phone rang…

"Ring, ring, ring, Banana phone!" It screamed, causing the Tailor to leap back, frightened briefly by the sudden noise. Jim apologized quietly, evenly as to help calm down the meek man. "I've got a feeling, it's so appealing-"

"Hello," Jim answered his phone, motioning for the Tailor to continue his work measuring him for the suit.

"Pops!" Louise spoke up, excited about something, which was always something to be concerned about because his little girl could get into trouble in a Convent. "I've got some great news, guess who just got a job offer?"

"Pat?" he couldn't help but joke, his smile small. "Story was so good that the Bugle snapped him up with a big offer."

"No."

"Your Mom's threat of getting a job and kicking me out of the house has finally come true?"

"Pops," Louise whined, the voice loud enough that Jim was sure the Tailor could hear him. "Come on, stop playing around, you know that it's me that got the offer."

"It's me? Mario!"

"You are horrible."

"Horribly funny?"

"I'm hanging up now."

"..."

"I got a job offer over at a Stark plant," Louise gave up attempting to have her father guess. "Going to be put in with the security forces. Much more exciting than some crummy office desk work."

"You didn't apply to work at a Stark plant" Jim found himself blinking, confused with the development since he'd been with her when they were applying for jobs. "Why did they off-"

"Whoa!" Louise interrupted him, her voice high pitched in an oh shit, I've said too much sort of way. "Will you look at the time, Pat's calling my name. Will that poor man ever learn to tie his shoes?"

The echoing ring of the phone told the father all he needed to know.

"She hung up on me!" Jim growled clenching his fist in rage. "I tell ya, ever since she could go outside by herself that girl has caused me nothing but trouble."

"Not going to hurt her are ya?" The continuing meek tones of the tailor still took the father of one off-guard. Especially when such a tough-looking guy only seemed to have the ability to have soft expressions.

"Nah," he found himself cajoling the younger man, realizing at last that this was a special individual. Someone that should be handled with a soft touch. Jim wouldn't get anywhere by scaring him, and he didn't even want to know what Fisk would do to him if that happened."I'm just saying thing out loud. My Louise, great girl, good morals, and a tough fighter… just too reckless. Makes me worry is all."

The tailor nodded while his hands held a piece of fabric against Jim's arm. The man seemed to be stuck in deep thought, like he was trying to decide whether something was important, weighing up choices and the risks that would come with it.

At least that was what Jim guessed the tailor was thinking. For all he knew, the man was thinking about how soft a puppy was.

"How about I make her a dress…" Jim couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at such a statement, something that the tailor seemed to take heed of as he trailed off. "... or a suit?"

Jim's face broke out into a wide grin, his eyes staring right into the tailor's as he struck out his left hand suddenly.

"What's your name, son?"

"Melvin."

---

(Pat Doyle)

"Well… I just don't… b-but… " Sterns stammered and trailed off, his hand had started out the sentence pointing high in the air, now curled downwards as if the man lost strength with each second. "So.. you're saying that I'm on a watchlist now?"

Sterns wasn't turning out as I'd expected from what little I knew of him from the Hulk animated series. Far more naive, far less arrogant than I'd ever expected from someone most famous for having an ego far larger than his own rather large green head. Maybe in this world, it would be the gamma radiation that makes him go off the deep end. Rather than just increasing his intelligence and enabling him to craft mad schemes for world domination.

"Yeah, the US Military plugged your alias into the SHIELD watchlist," Which was something that I really think needs to be blown wide open. I mean it is very easy to abuse if SHEILD can just monitor everyone like that, not to mention makes me really uncomfortable. "Caught your last talk with Dr. Banner."

"And… that's bad?"

"Yes, it's very bad," I sat down on one of the many stools that were placed around the room. "Think of it this way, all the cures, all those advances in perfecting humanity that you're so excited for? Ross only cares about weaponizing it, of his fame, of how he can make his daughter's ex suffer and advance his own career in a single swoop. You'll be locked up and thrown away for the rest of your life."

It seemed that those words got to him. At least, Sterns seemed torn about the topic now, it was hard for even me to tell if it was because he disliked the idea of weaponizing his research or it was because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life behind jail bars.

"What can I do?" he asked this so earnestly, with such a sorry on his face that I couldn't help but be taken in by it. If I was honest, there was only one thing for him to do.

"Give me a copy of all your research notes," I started to count fingers, one for each step of the plan that I was detailing to him. "A sample of the blood that I know you've got, and then we burn the rest of the stuff, make it seem like an accident."

"And then I'm off the hook?"

"Then they can't prove that you've done anything but involve yourself in roleplay online."

Suddenly the door was knocked, instantly I moved to the wall closest to the door, making such quiet movements that whoever was on the other side couldn't possibly have heard me move unless they were named Murdock. I held a finger towards my lips, making sure that Sterns could see the action. So he could know to keep quiet. Then I peered through the wall, easily spotting the man and a woman, both brunettes, neither all that tall.

From what I could see they didn't have weapons, nor did they have any badges that would reveal they were from any government agencies. With this in mind, I nodded to Sterns, letting him know that it was okay to open the door.

"Hello?" The college professor meekly answered the door, his eyes were the only thing that those from the outside could see.

"It's good to finally meet you, Mr. Blue."

Unlike Sterns, I didn't recognize the man from anything else. Something that made it hard to figure out who exactly it was… till Sterns said the alias that Fury had kept from me.

"Hello… Mr. Green?"

Doctor/Professor Bruce Banner, who held both titles with his many degrees entered the room with a friend, a beautiful woman who I could only presume was Betty Ross. Something that caught my attention was that even though Banner was well-groomed, clean and from what I could tell was in good health, he was jumpy, his eyes searching the room and glaring at me when he found me standing at the wall.

"Who's this?"

I walked into the center of the room, making sure that my eyes were staring at his feet rather than his face. It was a simple way of acting meek, just keep my head down and lick my lips once or twice, add to that scratching me limbs and you got a nervous wreck.

"Pat Doyle," I held out my hand, waiting for the other man to shake it but it never came. Instead, it was the good Doctor's lady friend that shook hands with me, and instantly I could tell she was from the higher class of society, simply due to the soft touch of her skin.

"Professor Betty Ross."

I let an excited smile stretch over my face, allowing my true feelings for this moment to shine through the mask I was wearing. This was an epic moment for me, the Hulk was one of my childhood favs going up and meeting the real-life Bruce Banner was something that I adored.

"You're Professor Ross?" I said, hopping from one foot to the other before bounding down, stopping the bouncing and pointing my finger at Banner's rather stern face. "And that makes you Professor Banner?"

I could hear a beeping noise start to increase in intensity, going faster and faster over time. There wasn't a lot of mystery since his watch was also flashing red. Ms. Ross's hand came upon his shoulder, calming him down and bringing the watch back to its mute state.

"What are you doing here?"

I could tell that I needed to act fast, or my only chance to interview Banner would be gone.

"I-I've managed to follow some bread crumbs, with the help of someone that didn't like Ross getting away with his behavior… the General, not the Miss," I explained rapidly, due to the rather cross look that I'd seen appear on Banner's face. "And so I went looking, managing to piece things together and came here."

"Which means Ross can't be far behind," Banner mumbled, a tired sigh escaping from his lips. Truly this was a man that was mentally exhausted by the whole game with Ross.

"Look, while Sterns sets up the test for curing you," I started to search over my body, feeling my pockets and even going as far as to pull them inside out. It wasn't long before I showed the man the old school-type recorder I kept on my person. "We talk and reveal to the world just what kind of man General Ross is."

"Why should I trust you? We've never met before."

"Look there's nothing that I can say that will make you trust me," I started, finally making sure to stare at Banner right in the eye. "But I became a reporter because I wanted to reveal the corrupt, to show how they truly are to the world. I want to bring Ross from his dark shadow of being a True American Hero, a patriot, I want to cast light on him and reveal to the world that he's a bully that uses his power to advance himself and his interests. Who'll do anything not to protect Americans," I raised my arms into the air and brought the recorder onto the table in front of me. "But to destroy whatever he sees as a threat, whether or not they're American Citizens or even if they've ever committed a crime, just the potential of a threat is good enough for him."

"My father-"

"Attacked a university campus, using weapons that by all accounts were never tested, he used a drop-ship to shoot the place up, nearly killing you," I interrupted Betty with a passion that I'd been hiding from them, causing her to go silent once again. "Hell, my sources say he's back to experimenting on live soldiers, making superhumans once more, another crime that he'll go unpunished for. General Ross is one of the most morally repugnant men that I'm aware of in the coat of this country's military service," I turned back to Banner, who'd kept his face neutral since I started my speech, but I think he was coming to my side. My hand was now itching to start recording and my was face pleading for him to consent. "Help me cast a spotlight on this shadow, reveal Ross for who he is."

Banner replied, after a few seconds of staring at me, with one word.

"Yes."

---

Author's Note: This is a short but important chapter, also the most technobabble chapter that I've ever written. Don't look too much into the science of what I've written above, it doesn't work but should make enough sense. As long as you don't take it literally. I only use Like a chemical reaction as a figurative matter.

Also the first time meeting between Blueman and Bruce Banner and... a Mr.Blue. One thing that I noticed about Sterns in the film, is that while lacking in some ethical boundaries but he's not evil, he has noble goals.

A man just has a bad case of the mad scientist bug.

 

[Proman]

(Betty Ross)

Part of her wanted to stop the interview, the interview that would destroy her father's career…. but Betty knew that the General would deserve it. He'd committed many crimes over the past few years, many times abused his power to control her, to advance his career, and as the attack at Culver University was just proof of how far he'd fallen. Innocent lives didn't even factor into things for him.

"And that was when the dropship was called."

"From what I understand the ship was brought down by the Hulk," Doyle spoke, leaning in close to the mic on the table. "Due to the suppression of the events, I'm not sure if there was any loss of life from the attack?"

"I wouldn't know… when I'm it… " Bruce sighed, not having the strength to finish the sentence and allowing his hands to pull at his hair nervously. Betty slid to the stool next to him, grabbing his hand and giving it a tight squeeze. A small smile appeared on his face, the tension drained like steam in a sauna. "When I'm the Hulk, it's like a drunk blackout. I can't recall anything I do like that when I wake up."

"And you… you both say that the General never informed you two on the true nature of the project that you were working on," The reporter made circles in the air with his hands, as if it somehow illustrated his point. "How dangerous was this? Ignoring the illegal nature of super solider projects in the current world climate."

"Very dangerous," Betty found herself interjecting. While this was mainly an interview with Bruce and Doyle, the younger man thought that adding her own input to it would be good for adding legitimacy. "Without knowing the results other groups were aiming for with the project we didn't have a hope with making any adjustments."

"And given that this all involved radiation that was potentially lethal."

It was obvious to Betty that Doyle wasn't ignorant of science. He was informed enough that he knew some of the questions that needed to be asked. But not enough to know what exact terms always meant, anything more complicated than a College Freshmen's level of understanding was above him. But only meant that Bruce and she needed to coach him a little just before starting the interview.

Before there was another question coming out of the Irishman's mouth, Sterns burst into the room, his eyes wide in excitement.

"It's ready!" he yelled, running back into the lab with the same energy that one would expect from a child Christmas morning. They paused the interview for the moment, they'd already gotten a few crimes that her father had committed out of the way first thing, just in case the General's forces get here sooner than they feared.

So they prioritized the cure over the interview.

The three of them moved fast, catching up with the Professor as he ran around the cramped room, as the operating table in the center took up so much space. Pat stood out of the way, in the one empty corner of the room. Betty moved to help Sterns strap Bruce onto the table.

"Now, I do want to remind you, not to get your hopes up too much," Sterns spoke, his hands lifting up a large tube of liquid, the supposed cure. "Even if this works in this instance, there's no way to know if this will be permanent. It could even kill you given the levels of toxicity we're playing with it here. "

"I understand," Bruce replied, his eyes though were still full of so much hope that it almost broke Betty's resolve not to give him constant hugs, just to reassure him. It would be too much, too fast. "Just do it."

The straps were the first thing that they did, fastening them before attaching the needed instruments to the temple of the gamma-powered superhuman's forehead. Betty glanced back to Doyle, noting his intense gaze towards Bruce. It reminded her of her father's stare, it wasn't hostile but it had the same style of prepared readiness that one would expect from someone that had been trained to anticipate danger at any moment.

It was a bizarre contrast from the eccentric and passionate reporter that she'd been speaking to. Almost like the man had a switch in his head that turned him from naive and kind of goofy, to serious at a moment's notice.

"Now, this might sting."

As Sterns said this, he pushed a button down on the console nearby, initiating the first phase of the process. This involved inducing an episode, meaning turning Bruce into the Hulk. In a slow, painful-looking process compared to the more rapid transformation that they'd usually come to. Bones snapped up, muscles expanded as his skull did the same. His skin gradually started to change in tone, going from a normal, if slightly tanned, caucasian to bright emerald green.

Sadly the restraints were designed for a normal man, they started to bulge and snap as Banner transformed, the operating table compressing slightly under the increased weight of the man as the process continued.

Sterns went to start the next phase, applying the cure, but it was too soon.

"No!" Betty found herself yelling, stopping Sterns in his tracks. "There's more."

Out of the corner of her eye, Betty could barely make out Doyle stepping ever closer to the table, his hands coming out of his pocket and rising till they were just above his waist. As if he was getting ready to stop the Hulk if he went on a rampage. Obviously, the reporter hadn't researched Bruce to the fine detail that he wanted people to believe.

When the Hulk started to snap his remaining restraints, Betty was ready, practically leaping on top of the emerging emerald giant. Keeping her voice low, she spoke soothing words that seemed to calm the Hulk, if only briefly.

"Sterns!" Betty yelled once more, keeping her eyes staring into the Hulk's own. "Do it now!"

While that little event happened, Betty didn't see Doyle's head snap in the opposite direction. His face snarling and his ears metaphorically pricking up. Before the reporter yelled out.

"We've got company!"

Betty nearly glanced back to the reporter but instead continued to look down below, as the green face of the Hulk started to sink, his skin returning to the normal color of a man belonging to his race. It wouldn't matter if her father brought the entire armed forces in here, not if Bruce was cured. She could hear the door in the other room be kicked in, so hard in fact that the wood and glass that were part of it shattered as it hit the opposite wall. Doyle moved fast, charging into there with nary a concern on his face, the door closing shut on the way behind him.

The resulting gunshots told Betty all she needed to know… that was till there was even more gunfire.

Being the daughter of a general, Betty recognized the caliber of the gun, if not the exact model. It was a standard-issue 9mn pistol. Letting her count the number of shots that were fired so she could tell when it was going to run out. Of course, she knew it only takes a second to replace the magazine. Which gave them some chance, given Bruce was now knocked out and no longer the Hulk beneath her body. As fast as the woman could, she stepped down from Bruce's body, who was still squirming beneath the few bindings that remained.

It was at the end of this process when Doyle was thrown back through the lab door, smashing onto the ground and sliding them across the surface till he reached the leg of the table. A man came out, Betty recognizing him as the man from before, the one that had tried to take the Hulk on his lonesome.

It was a surprise that the man was on his feet and not in a hospital bed.

"No," he whispered, his face curling up into a fierce snarl as his eyes caught the sight of Bruce on the operating table. "No! You won't rob me of a rematch!" The Soldier threw himself forward, coming at Bruce with his combat knife held out.

But just as he was within a single inch, suddenly Doyle stood up, pulling the soldier up into the air by the ankle and slamming him down into the floor with so much force that blood splattered into the air. Bruce came to his senses at this moment, the jerk of movements drawing Betty's eyes away from the amazing scene that had just transpired. This meant that she missed the sight that both Bruce and Sterns saw… bullets popping out of Doyle's head and hitting the floor with only the lightest of pings.

"Incredible!" Sterns yelled,

"We don't have much time," Doyle spoke, spitting out a wad of blood onto the still form of the soldier. "Sterns with me, Banner and Ross need to leave now," Nearly slipping on the bloody floor, the reporter threw a heavy overcoat towards Bruce. it was bigger than the scientist, hopefully, would disguise the ripped pants and lack of top. "The rest could get here in any second."

Silently, Betty helped Bruce to his feet, shoving his arms into the coat with little force before letting him lean his weight onto her shoulders for support. It wasn't long before they were making their way out of the room. Betty turned around to thank the reporter… only to find something odd. Doyle was trying to swallow his recorder, the device not properly fitting in his mouth. At least, not with the plastic bag he had wrapped around it, the air in there bubbling up and stopping it from going past his front teeth.

Betty decided that she didn't need to thank him yet.

"You'd think that someone like him would've heard of USB Drives at this stage," she couldn't help but wonder out loud.

---

(General Thaddeus Ross)

"Blonsky!" Ross screamed over the radio, the other man clearly being heard on the other side throwing his own radio off his ear and to the ground. It was only the cameras they had looking at the building that allowed him to see the former royal marine sprinting towards the building moving at a far faster rate than any man had any right to.

"That's our taxes running off," One of the technicians muttered, his voice going unnoticed by the General as frustration caused the man to growl loudly.

With that same sort of energy, Ross grabbed his own pistol, yelling out for their entire forces to move in now. While it wasn't how he wanted, the General knew that thanks to Blonsky going off like this, it was the time to act now. Before Banner had a chance to transform into the Hulk again.

There was a clinical precision to the movements of the General as he made his way towards the building. Usually, he wouldn't put himself so close to the frontlines, not because the man wasn't willing to take the same risk as his men, but because he knew with his advanced age, his place was no longer on the frontlines. Ross's experience in leading men now mattered more than his experience in killing men.

But when it was his daughter at risk, Ross was willing to risk death.

It only took a minute and a half to reach the lab of Dr. Sterns, where it had taken Blonsky twenty seconds. The door had been broken, barely hanging onto the frame by a single hinge on top. They surrounded the entry into a side room, tranquilizers at the ready for Banner. Ross took note that Blonsky was nowhere to be seen, even though there was a clear sign of a struggle, given the number of bullet holes the General could make out around the room. But it was then that his eyes caught the trail of blood that lead to the side room.

With a hard kick, they all went into the room…

"Hello, there," Dr. Sterns said in response to this, his expression a nervous smile, while a twenty-something brunette man sat on a nearby operating table, his own face staring down at the unconscious Blonsky beneath his feet.

"Are you after this man, sir?" The unidentified male asked, pointing down at Blonsky, his face just as nervous as Sterns's. "Because if you're not, I swear, this isn't what it looks like."

"And what does it look like?"

The youngest man among the group glanced around the room, an act that Ross couldn't help mirroring, taking in their surroundings with a far more analytical eye than he would usually use. There were shards of broken glass all over the place, chemicals were dripping from shelves. There were even large machines, with equipment that reminded the General of electrical shock therapy.

"Doesn't this look like an evil lab?" The young man shrugged, bringing Ross's attention back to him. From the rather peeved expression on the doctor's face, it seemed this insulted Sterns's feelings.

"We don't have time for this, where is Banner?" Ross held his pistol right between the smart mouth's eyes, something that caused him to visibly flinch. "I don't want this to get messy, son."

"Banner?" he responded, his eyes shifting towards Sterns as if asking him a question. "No idea who that is."

"Mr. Green!" Ross screamed, his face heating up from rage. "Where is Mr. Green."

"But… I am Mr.Green."

---

(Doctor Sterns)

Sterns felt that he was lucky to be placed in interrogation with Doyle. This was likely done because the military was short on time, but it also spoke to him of the sheer illegality of the events going on here. General Ross didn't want this to get out. Just like Doyle had expected. Even down to how they were handcuffed to the table. Honestly, any plan that involved getting handcuffed just made Sterns nervous.

"Tell me, how do a college professor and a reporter meet?" It was the General doing the job, interrogating the two of them with a harsh glare. The room they were in was another back room in the college, a storage room if the doctor's memory wasn't failing him.

With a single light source set up in the room, no doubt some part of a mental trick that they use to mess with people.

"W-well," Doyle started, stuttered and gasping his hands together with a nervous energy that Sterns had only seen from freshmen or seniors after cramming all their studies into a single night for a test the following morning. It was an impressive act. "I was r-researching things for an s-story. An elderly man… "

His fingers turned pale as he trailed off, they were intertwining and rubbing against each other to cause this effect. Doyle even let his line of sight fall to the floor, his eyes now staring at his shoelaces as they blinked rapidly.

"... well," he eventually picked up, seemingly gaining confidence as he started to speak. "He died from gamma radiation, something that I was told he picked up from drinking soda. Now, I wanted to write an article on this, weaving this into one on the dangers of gamma overall. So I looked for someone online. Found some forums, spoke to a few people and Mr. Blue here came up."

Sterns noted that it was a good idea, use his online alias like this. Dangerous, because it brought attention back to him, which was something Doyle said would be bad in this situation. But it did do a decent job in making the alias sound more innocent than his involvement with Banner implied... legally that is.

"That's convenient," Ross replied, "Sterns this-"

Doyle did something odd, something that was out of the character that he seemed to like playing. He openly scoffed, even rolling his eyes into the air.

"Something funny, Doyle?" Ross asked, the door behind him, opening up to reveal a female soldier, dressed in green camo walking in to sit beside the General. Sterns could barely make out the badge stretched on saying, Major Kathleen Sparr.

"Why is it convenient?" Doyle spoke, his grin sharp, his finger now pointing at the center of the table they'd been cuffed to. There was a odd amount of anger there, for what was an otherwise innocent enough phase. "Is it convenient that without any justification that I've been confined, not for anything resembling wrongdoing… but because you found a generic ass alias online? That's not convenient, that's inconvenient… and a waste of time."

"How'd you know that we found you by that alias?" Major Sparr asked, a single brow raised as if she'd caught him out.

Doyle wriggled a finger at the general, suddenly being far too cheeky for his own good. It also wasn't part of the plan, they were meant to act scared and feeble.

"The General here, he opened with it."

Doyle seemed to take pleasure in changing his mannerisms every few seconds. One stage he'd be a nervous wreck, next he'd be an expressionless face, and now he was a smug ass. Sterns wasn't sure if this trick would put the two off their game. But he hoped.

The Major sighed, glaring slightly at her superior, but only from the corner of her eyes. Meaning that Ross didn't spot it. It was something that gave Sterns a small amount of hope that the General wasn't just going to lock him away in a cage somewhere. Not if there were some people working for him that would squeal on him at any rate.

"So… you two are saying that it's a coincidence?" Ross asked. "That the two of you are here, where we have images of a wanted fugitive entering the building then?"

Doyle glanced towards Sterns, and for a second the older man was taken back by the raw smugness that the reporter started to show. Because the man leaned back into his seat and stared Ross right into the eye and said;

"Yup."

Ross slammed his hands onto the table, causing Sterns to jerk back in fright, the general snarling at the pair before roaring out, causing two reactions. The first came from Sterns once more, the man letting a whimper out as he tried to cower away from the military man. And the other was Doyle, nonchalantly whistling as he placed his hands into his pockets.

"Do you think this is a game?!" The General continued to roar, his face growing ever redder, even as he grabbed the reporter's collar and lifted him up, his nose just an inch away from the other man's. "You've both committed treason against the United States, that's an executable offense."

Doyle scoffed once more.

"Please, we wouldn't be held in a random room in Greyburn College if you could pin something like that on us."

Sterns gulped, the noise loud in the oppressive silence. Doyle was walking a thin line, it wouldn't be good if the General decided to Blackbook kill them in this room, maybe he'd even pin it on Banner.

"You seem sure of yourself," Ross returned, letting go of Doyle's shirt, something that allowed the reporter to smooth out the creases caused by the interaction. "You think yourself invincible."

There was an unsaid threat left lingering in the air, something that Doyle ignored, instead he focused his attention on the major.

"Tell me, has Ross here committed a lot of illegal activities at late? Seems like the type when he's doing plenty of black ops stuff this… really he shouldn't be allowed to," Doyle shrugged as he sat back down, the woman staring at him as blankly as she could, though Sterns could see how she bit the inside of her mouth to keep herself from talking. "Especially given his failure rate at… well, life."

"You seem to know a lot about me," Ross held up a hand, stopping Major Sparr from speaking out. "Where did you get your information from? Who's your source?"

"You are."

There was a beat of silence, one where the Major couldn't help the smile that lit her face up, while the General couldn't help when another growl passed through his lips. The man had made that noise so much now that Sterns couldn't help but wonder if the General hadn't had some work done on himself.

"What?" It was a flat response, well as flat as one could make it at least when coming off a growl.

"Every time I open my mouth, you give me just a little more information," The reporter began to explain. "Every question you ask doesn't just tell me a little bit more about this whole incident, it tells me more about you."

"I doubt it," Was the General's only response. "More likely you're just taking random shots in the dark."

"What about this, you came here because of an alias getting triggered," Doyle pointed at Sterns but never stopped staring at Ross. "This alias belongs to a fugitive, one that you've been tracking for some time if your demeanor is to be trusted."

"Does this have a point? You're just repeating what I've told you back to me."

"You're right, but it's also why I know you're such a failure."

Ross snarled, his fist tightening on the table, an event that seemed to go by unnoticed by the reporter, who went on to explain the failure further.

"You've been chasing this one man, whoever it is doesn't matter, but what… he's just always out of your grasp. The entire might of the US military behind this operation and you can't catch a guy that spent his life behind a desk? You ever think that you're just a dumb jock preten-"

The punch that happened next took Sterns by surprise, causing the man to yelp and nearly fall off his chair, his fear rising with each passing second Doyle didn't respond to this. Instead, he just rotated his head lazily around.

"You sure that you're a general?" Doyle asked, his chin lazing on the palm of his right hand, the links of his cuffs staining enough that Sterns felt the need to kick the other man under the desk to stop him from snapping the thing into pieces. "Seems more like a hotheaded ensign."

"Watch your mouth, punk! I was serving this country before you were a glint in your father's eye," Ross said, rubbing his bruised knuckles while glaring at the unresponsive form of Doyle, who only took in a deep breath and kept his eyes closed.

"I'm pretty sure that my Dad was older than you."

"You might think I can't just kill you and throw you in some hole but-"

The door to the room was knocked on, interrupting Ross from making his threat and causing the door to shake as if the person on that side were running from the hounds of hell. Stern could see Doyle open his left eye only slightly before a wide tooth-filled grin took over his face.

"I said that I was not to be disturb-"

"General Ross," A blonde woman, dressed in a suit and wearing a pair of dark sunglasses entered the room. There was a small but polite smile on her lips. "I'm agent Bobbi Morse, of SHIELD, I'd ask that you'd release both Mr. Doyle and Dr. Sterns."

"On what grounds? We have jurisdiction on this matter."

It was the Major that brought this up, due to Ross not even bothering to speak. Instead, he continued to stare right into Doyle's grinning visage, as if seeing a challenge in the younger man's eyes that the General couldn't stand to see unbroken.

"Fortunately, you don't," Agent Morse nodded, handing the Major a white sheet of paper, Sterns couldn't make out most of what was on the sheet, just the US and SHIELD crests that were marked on the corners. "The second that you used SHIELD assets without informing my agency this became a SHIELD matter. So once more, I'd ask that you release the two into my custody."

There was a tense few seconds of silence, one punctuated with Ross sending each and every person in the room a powerful glare. Major Sparr placed a hand on the General's arms, there was a loud aggressive sight that came from Ross's lips after that, before he reached into his pocket and threw a pair of keys down onto the table.

"Oh, I don't need that," Doyle said, raising his hands with an evil grin on his face. With a cling, the cuffs fell to the table, not broken but having already been unlocked. "See I nicked the key off you when you ruffled my collar and even put the damn thing back in before you noticed."

Ross's mouth dropped open as Doyle picked up the key and released Sterns. The two of them walked after the Agent of SHIELD, an agency that Sterns hadn't heard of before now. That was something that set him on edge, given Doyle's behavior overall during this. Like he'd expected it. Had Sterns walked in from one government operation run by a General obsessing with putting away his daughter's boyfriend, to one where a man had handed him over to a shadowy spy organization?

"That was fun," Sterns said, as they stepped into the female's car. The two of them turned to him, Doyle having let out a massive sigh of relief, while Morse turned to face the doctor. "Can my cells be away from his, he kind of scares me?"

---

(Emil Blonsky)

He woke up his head… feeling fine. One would think that having it smashed against the floor of a lab that the former marine would awake with his head-splitting, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, he woke up with his nose blocked, and from what he could tell…

… the blockage was merely dried blood that had crusted around the top of his nostrils.

Blonsky stood up fast, ignoring how heavy his head felt or how his vision swarm. Instead, he blew hard out his nose, holding one side close so the most force could be concentrated through one nostril. A blob of blood ejected out of his nose and splattered against the floor.A medic took notice of the man now standing, the former marine having been taken to the command bus to get treatment for his injuries.

"Blonsky, you-" Before the unnamed man could finish his sentence, Blonsky took the tray from his bed and smacked him in the head with enough force that it caused the man to be imprinted in the metal. With a thud, the medic fell down.

"Get out of way," Blonsky could feel his body sweat, could feel parts of his arms twitch and bulge in time with the beat of his heartbeat. There was a threat, he could feel one nearby, Blonsky knew he needed to deal with it.

Deal with all the threats.

But he couldn't do that, do it like he was now.

He needed more power… but the biggest issue was Blonsky wasn't sure where he'd get more power. It was unlikely that Ross would be willing to let him have another injection of the serum, Blonsky could tell from the sound of his voice, from the way that his body sweated and tensed. The General would only think of him as a junky.

But it was more than that, it was the thrill of the fight. The raw challenge before him.

It was then that Blonsky recalled just how he ended up in this bed, the man that he shot, the man that got up from that like it was nothing. A realization churned through his mind.

"Another one," Emil smiled, pulling off his military gear as he began to get dressed into civies. "If I get him, I get more."

It was a simple enough concept to grasp, someone with that level of physical prowess couldn't have been a normal human. The man must have been a super soldier just like him. It would make sense that Banner would try and meet with a fellow like that, someone that could help him keep under control while trying out the cure.

But now Blonsky needed to find out where this new man was, who he was, and how he got his amazing powers. Then once he had the secret and gained the power for himself, the former marine would finally get the fight he needed; the fight he desperately deserved. Oh, how Blonsky burned to be tested, how he burned to force himself to higher levels of power, all the while showcasing how his superior experience and skills would allow him to overwhelm those with a slight power advantage.

It was as he put on his t-shirt that Blonsky felt his vertebrae cut through the thin material of the shirt, ripping further as it came down to his waistline. Growling softly, Blonsky grabbed a jacket instead, deciding that his enhancements would more than makeup for being a bit chilly. Blonsky threw two such shirts over his own, before grabbing a tacky jean jacket nearby and buttoning it up as tight as the clothing could be. It was the cap that he grabbed on his way out that didn't fit him at all, it only hung loosely around the top of his head.

Slowly, Emil made his way out, managing to get around the few patrols Ross had left nearby with the use of both his superior stealth training and his newly received prowess letting him move in ways and with such speed that no one would think that a person had just passed them. Soon, the former marine managed to disappear into the night, into the city crowds. Ross wouldn't realize till later that his new pet project had gone AWOL. Something that wouldn't help with the General's mood when he saw the evening edition of the New York Bulletin.

Rage seemed to be the theme of the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project.

---

(Pat Doyle)

This was not how I thought my morning would go. It was meant to be a simple in and out before anything really happened. Then reveal to the world just what kind of man we were dealing with General Ross, ruin that son of a bitch's career and even make my own career seem all that brighter. What I hadn't expected was puking my guts out in the back of a secret agent's black sedan to get the recorder I shallower to hid it from General Rose earlier.


"I mean it was insane," With my head down between my legs and my mouth open into a plastic bag, I couldn't see Sterns as he said that, but I could hear him moan on about it from his seat beside the driver of this little vehicle. "We had a plan and he didn't even stick with it. Doyle's there provoking the man. Given what both Banner and Dr. Ross were saying about the General, I'm surprised that we weren't killed and put into an unmarked grave."

"Hey," I groaned, a plastic bag having passed painfully through my mouth at last. Meaning, I could finally stop inducing vomiting to get the damn thing, "Ross isn't capable of killing me… you on the other hand… "

"How is that meant to be reassuring!" Sterns yelled, his face red and his body hopping up and down on his seat. I laughed, winking at the man as he turned around to face me. I noticed that Morse was grinning in the rearview mirror, probably finding the byplay between us funny as she drove us to…

"Where are we going?"

Sterns had another fit of yelling at this, I wasn't sure exactly what he was saying probably something about gambling and lives? Not sure, I wasn't really listening to the man at this stage; instead, I waited for the SHIELD Agent to actually reveal something to me.

"I'm taking Sterns to a safe house for a week," Morse spoke, her eyes clearly on the road before us. "Then after that… Fury has an offer for you doctor." Sterns didn't say anything to this; in fact, I couldn't tell if he was excited about the idea or if he was still angry that I plan on the anger game with Ross.

"And I?"

"You?" she responded, her left brow quirking up and her lips gave me a sweet smile. "You get to go home, write that story that the director seemed to have led you to."

There was something odd about the situation. Something that I couldn't put my finger on. Maybe it was the way that Fury seemed to want Ross taken out of the picture, at least in terms of influence. Maybe it was the ease that he'd given me information. I'd known from the beginning that he was using me, but when I've been given such a juicy target to take down. How could I've resisted taking a bite out of it?

What I didn't know was… what had Ross done to piss off Fury?

The Director of SHEILD wasn't the kind of man to shy away from doing the same deeds that Ross was about to get hung out to dry for. If anything I knew about Fury from the Ultimate Marvel line applied here, and given his appearance, it seemed likely, then I couldn't let him know that I suspected that he knew that I knew that he was using me. Let him think he was one step ahead of me.

I was fast enough for that not to matter.

"So what's in the bag?" She asked, glancing at the bag of sick that I held in my hand. This was something that I wish she hadn't done because if she hadn't mentioned it I would've been able to ignore the horrid smell of the puke bag in my hand. "I mean, I know it's a recorder but what did you record?"

I glanced at the mirror, her eyes meeting mine for a few seconds while the two of us gauged the other. There was a moment where I became worried that she was going to crash due to staring at me for far too long.

"I'm calling it the Banner/Ross Interview: The Truth of a Patriot."

To her credit, the woman didn't flinch, nor did she grin at this news. Instead, Morse wore a carefully crafted bland expression that betrayed nothing of her feelings on the matter, neither positive nor negative.

"That's a big story," Morse replied, her eyes returning to the world in front of the car while her hands tightened around the steering wheel. From his spot beside the woman, Sterns stared at me mouthing words that I didn't quite get. "Your second in two days, you certainly don't wait for the ink to dry, do you?"

"The truth doesn't wait for anyone, Agent," I replied, leaning back and closing my eyes. There was only one issue with the last two days of events as far as I was concerned… I hadn't let myself sleep at all. I was too busy researching things through the night, too busy connecting the dots together so I could produce a story that Ellison would accept, with evidence and dates, with the tape I had now, that meant I had more than conjecture. "You gotta grab it and push it to the spotlight. So all the world will know and no one can deny."

But even the current story would be hard for the man to accept. There was a lot of flak that the paper could get from me bad-mouthing someone as celebrated for his long time serving the country. Even if he had been a major, talking about one of American's patriots like this would get push back from both sides of the media.

Most left-leaning and right-leaning media companies didn't like people calling on the military like I wanted to do.

But I was sure I could wear the man down to publish the story. It was just too big of a story for him to ignore, it was bigger than the Ock Story, if only because of how high-ranking Ross is, how much influence, and how many lives and resources he'd wasted hunting down an otherwise innocent man.

My eyes closed for what only felt like a second, but as I knew from how the sounds of the world outside the car passed us by that it was for longer than that. I'd fallen half-asleep, it was sort of embarrassing but I've learned from a long childhood with a lisp that there were far worse things.

"This is your stop," Morse spoke, her voice softly waking me from my sleep. It seemed that I'd been asleep for around an hour if we'd gotten to the Bulletin in such a short time, though I'd say given how traffic usually is, it could've been two hours.

Before I could open my mouth, my ears perked up, the sound of an engine roaring filling them. It was too late for me to warn anyone about this. The crash that came flipped the car over as the door next to me was hit with so much force that I felt it.

The world swarm around, the lights blending together in a soup that I could only describe as nauseating. Shutting my eyes tight in an attempt to combat this feeling, the next thing that I could make out was the sound of someone breaking apart metal above me. It was then that I could feel a hand, cold, clammy, and sweating like a pig, pick me up by the collar.

I was pulled up and out of the car, letting me feel the blood pouring out of my forehead, a cut split open there.

"I've got you now, punk," A man spoke, his voice unfamiliar but the one thing that I could make out was the pain the speaker was obviously in, it was strained and sounded out of breath as if the man couldn't breathe right. To my inexperienced ear, it sounded like a person who was jonesing for a fix, an addict that was looking for just one more dose of their fave.

Have I been taken out by a druggie?

"Tell me," he said, pulling my eyes open with two of his fingers. This revealed that the attacker was Ross's pet super-soldier. Emil Blonsky, something that Fury had warned me about. "Where did you get your juice from? Russians? No, maybe some kind of Irish attempt to replicate Captain America?"

Huh, was hoping that I hit him hard enough that he wouldn't remember that I had super strength.

Before I could even try to speak, his hands wrapped around my throat, squeezing tightly and hard. Blocking my airflow and causing me to gasp more out of shock than pain but it at least worked to block my airflow, but not to cause me pain. Something that confused me… but not something that I had time to ponder on.

Acting without much thought, I punched him in the chest, causing the soldier to be flung back into his car, smashing the windshield with so much force that it was shattered into tiny pieces, the shards digging into his skin and his blood pouring out onto the front seats of the vehicle. I wiped my own blood from my face, something that seemed to combine with my wounds sealing to return my sight to normal. My heart rate slowed back down to normal, my head stopped arching and I took a deep breath, letting oxygen fill my lungs.

I turned around, moving to the wreck of Morse's car with steady but slow steps.

"Hey, you guys ok!"

"Yeah!" Morse was the one to reply, her face popping out of the open side window before she dragged herself out of the car, her hand coming down to pull Sterns out as well. "I'm fine, but the doctor should go to a hospital, he's is pretty cut up."

"That-" Before I could finish the sentence, I heard a gun cock, my body spinning around so fast that the coming bullet was moving in slow motion, allowing me to try something that I'd always wanted to try.

"Yoink!"

Much to the surprise of the already healed and upright Blonsky, I dropped the bullet of his 9mn pistol to the ground, letting him see the near-perfect condition projectile roll across the asphalt. I could make out the excitement of a forming crowd along the sidewalks, from the cars that had stopped in the road, trying to not run into either the wreckage or me and Emil.

"I don't believe it?" he whispered, looking to his gun, before firing off every round left in the clip. Twelve rounds were fired in rapid succession, each one accompanied by a wave of my hand, letting him see how each seemly disappeared before I let them all drop into a single pile of bullets.

"Believe it!" I held up a fist in front of my face, watching him throw the gun to the ground before running over to me with a yell.

I hadn't expected him to be so fast, but I still weaved around his kicks, his punches, and even a headbutt with ease that only seemed to anger the man further. But sadly for what I was now hoping would be an easy ride, my punch was ducked, his body rolled back so when his legs kicked out, I'd flip over him. Thankfully, the ground and I had come to an agreement with each other, so instead of crashing into it, I floated a few inches above the ground and stamped out my momentum, then touched down on the ground and flipped back to my feet.

"So do-" Instantly, I was knocked back, an explosion ranging in my ears. This time, there was no pain, I was only knocked onto my back, my coat being ripped apart by the mix of heat and motion of sliding along the asphalt.

I looked up to find Blonsky holding a grenade launcher, the barrel of the gun smoking at me while he smirked, his eyes almost bulging out of his sockets with excitement. Before he could get off another grenade into my face, a few rounds were fired into his weapon.

It was Agent Morse, her sidearm aimed perfectly, and so it took only two rounds hitting the chambers before the whole thing exploded in Blonsky's hands, red chunks and smoke flying everywhere around us.

When it finally cleared… Blonsky was somehow still alive, though groaning from his position on the ground, his limbs were wrecked messes that I couldn't even have begun to describe.

 

[Proman]

"Well ain't this a mess," Fury's voice echoed out of her phone and into her ear, the tone one of mildly contained disappointment. Bobby was briefly annoyed, it wasn't like this was the typical setup that SHIELD Agents were used to dealing with. People like Blonsky didn't grow on trees, so there wasn't really anyone with the experience needed to deal with them.

"Sir, I can exp-"

"I don't blame you agent, Blonsky going off the deep end like that wasn't exactly on the itinerary."

"Still his physical prowess was far beyond what I was told Ross's project had ever reached," Agent Morse added, her voice still low. "I wouldn't mind being able to move like that in my late 40s."

Fury's sudden chuckle brought her away from the potential daydreams of Captain America-scale feats.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," The Director warned. "Blonsky was cleared by SHIELD before this, we were thinking of bringing him on to train students in the academy. The serum that Ross used on him… it's made him far too unstable."

"Sterns actually has some ideas about that, sir," Morse responded. "He thinks that some of the research that he's done on Banner could be used to replicate Blonsky's results without those… berserk issues."

"We're going to leave that up to the Eggheads in the labs to discuss for now," The man replied, his bland tone hiding the excitement that he truly felt for the idea. "For now, just keep the man from creating a Hulk dog, We don't need another disaster in New York City."

Suddenly the man shifted gears in the conversation, his tone taking on the far more professional-quality he known for.

"What's your reading on the kid?"

That was the main reason behind letting Doyle find out about Banner and Ross's current situation after all. To see what he'd do, while at the same time putting the checks that SHIELD thought that they could use against him if he turned out to be dangerous in more than just his potential for destruction.

"Doyle's pretending that he's not bothered by being revealed. But it's obvious that he'd prefer if the attention wasn't on him, So we don't have to worry that he's another Stark."

"But he also still published the article on Ross," Fury added. "It was pushed back to page 2, but it will ruin the man. No amount of favors is going to get him out of this hole. That's not the most casual of responses toward a man that he didn't know."

Fury left it unsaid that the page 1 story was about Doyle himself, it hadn't revealed much other than how he had woken up with these powers one day and how he was disinterested in abusing them. Denying the alien angle that

"He doesn't like bullies." She responded simply before adding her own feelings on the matter. "I don't blame him, neither do I."

The two of them remained silent, there was a rush of movement coming from the streets around Bobbi, the woman staying alert all throughout the conversation for any sign of danger, just as she was trained for.

"Still his new public life will be more hectic for our would-vigilante, you think the kid's up for it?"

"I don't think he'll like it but thanks to us, his other secrets have been covered up. So he only has to worry that people know all about his powers and not… his mysterious arrival to our little neck of the woods."

"I'll notify the Council that I've gotten a candidate for the Avengers program all lined up. I had been worried after Stark, that I wouldn't be able to get a single man cleared for the duty."

"Would they even let an Alien join?" The Agent questioned, using the commonly held theory among those Agents that knew about Doyle's existence since before his true reveal to the world. The World Security Council members currently on the board weren't the most accepting of outside factors.

"Who says that I'll tell them," In response to Fury's words Morse quietly laughed. "Now, I'll be out of contact for the next few days. Something's come up that needs my personal attention. If you need any back up or further orders then contract Coulson, he's returning from New Mexico."

With that, the call ended leaving the Agent to return to her safe house where Dr. Sterns was still complaining about his current lack of a lab, something about how the young Doyle's durability had sparked a remarkable idea.

Bobbi didn't really care about any of that, she just didn't want Sterns to go out and get himself noticed by the wrong sorts. That would just be what she needs, the man to get himself picked up by some criminal organization in an attempt to create more Hulks, or at least Hulk rats, which he had apparently created briefly, after having transformed into a green monster once, they returned to their forms before dying.

Sterns was the picture of a mad scientist, so Morse was only too happy that SHIELD had gotten their hands on him before someone like Ross had. The world didn't need an army of Hulks.

---

(Ben Urich)

It wasn't the paper title that he had expected the day before, proclaiming that the Bulletin had a super-powered reporter working for them. Since there weren't any cases of Doyle using his powers, that could be proved to him, so the kid's secret dock work that started his vigilante remained a secret. So it wasn't a complete disaster, just a pain in the ass.

"Doris," he called out, stepping into his apartment with a light step. "Honey, I'm home."

"She ain't here, gone out to the shop!" Pat's Irish accent was on full display as Ben rounded the corner and entered the kitchen. "Not sure what Doris needed but maybe she just wanted some air?"

Mrs. Urich was the type of person that loved to take long walks out on the New York streets, the kind of person that would pop the window of a car open so she'd get the wind blowing in her hair no matter the weather, barring the worst that New York had to offer. Luckily for them, the area that they lived in was one of the calmer ones, though with the number of paparazzi hanging about in the neighborhood it was oddly even safer than before.

Not many people wanted to try mugging someone or holding up while they could get caught on some camera.

"Right," Ben sighed, picking up the kettle from one of the worktops and pouring water from the tap into it. It wasn't long before he was sitting down at the table.

The two fell into a comfortable silence until a thought crossed Ben's mind.

"So you got any plans today?" The man smirked. "Hanging out with that young… redhead friend of yours?"

Pat simply shook his head, his eyes roaming around the room as if there were other people that could be listening in on their conversation. For a second Ben actually became worried about that possibility, if the young man with the power to see through walls appeared to be worried then… wouldn't it be safe to assume that there could be invisible people or bugs in the apartment?

Soon that worry disappeared as Pat leaned forward in his chair and spoke.

"Nah, I was thinking of checking on Doctor Octavius's arraignment today," Doyle responded instead, scratching his chin as he started to eat a ham sandwich.

"Expecting trouble?" Urich found himself amused at the level of threat that the young boy seemed to think that now unarmed woman still had. From what he knew about the justice system, with that woman's level of skills, Octavius wouldn't be allowed even a plastic fork.

Never mind the materials she'd need to break out.

"Let's put it this way," The younger man waved his arm out in a circular motion in front of Ben's face as if he was describing the action of a madwoman by hand signs. "I'm not a hundred percent sure about this… but from what I know, her experiment could've ended all life on this Earth."

Ben was lucky that there was a table so close to his hand, otherwise, he'd be down one less cup. The very idea that his young friend proposed was insane… but not any more insane than a young man from another universe with extraordinary powers showing up one day and saving his life to top that off.

"How did you figure that out?" Ben's curious mind couldn't draw up the will to stop himself from asking the question.

"It's simple physics, the Bleed between universes isn't too dissimilar to the void of space," he started to explain, his hands shoving the sandwich into his mouth and devouring it within a second. "The lack of anything else means once there's a hole that connects normal space with the Bleed… well, we're a balloon and she wanted to poke a hole in it."

"So… like a black hole?"

"I think so," Doyle shrugged. "To tell the truth, her calculation and theories are more than a little bit more advanced than I can understand."

It was an admission that caused Pat to flinch slightly as if it was painful to admit or more likely, the science involved in the task was so confusing that he found it annoying. With Doyle, either one could be true. By the time Doris came back from the store, Doyle was already out the door and off to the arraignment. Ben's mind bounced to Doyle's newfound fame at this point, wondering how the kid would grow from being forced to reveal himself to the world.

Urich was just glad that the kid wasn't going to go around in that costume he'd made. It was more than a bit embarrassing.

---

(Dr. Olivia Octavius)

She took a deep breath, letting the musty air of the holding cell fill her nostrils. It was a wet place, Olivia could smell the mold that was growing on the ceiling, a health risk someone of her mind would've never allowed if they'd had been any choice.

"Ah, is the big bad, Doc Ock scared that her arraignment has arrived?"

Her cellmate started to tease, some small-time moron that had been caught shoplifting a few days before. With all the ruckus that New York had been going through in this past week, it wasn't surprising that there were a few Defence Lawyers ready to represent her, so Olivia had gotten to know her cellmate, Anne, very well.

A grade F moron, if there ever was one.

"So my eyes are closed and you think that I'm scared?" Olivia was annoyed, the other woman hadn't shut her mouth in hours. "Next you'll think snores are a sign that I'm in pain."

"You making fun of me, Doc?" The Scientist could hear the bed above her squeak as Anne moved to glare down at her. "Because for a woman without her special arms, you sure do talk smack!"

With that Anne leaped from the top bunk, the loud noise forcing Olivia to open her eyes and give the woman a hard stare.

"If I was making fun of you, I'd make fun of the way your left eye squints more than the right, and how you smell like eggs if they were put into a jar of mayonnaise and left out in the sun too long."

"That's it!" Anne rolled up her sleeves but stopped at the combination of the Doctor's sudden smile and her hand raising up. "Saying sorry won't stop what I'm about to do to your skinny ass!"

"Oh, no I'm not saying sorry. I'm just warning you to take a step to the left… things will be less messy if you do that."

Olivia's left hand was out in the air, pointing Anne towards a section of the cell that wasn't bathed in the sunlight of the window. The small-time criminal didn't even have the time to shrug before something crashed through said window and splattered her remains around the room.

"I did warn you," Olivia sang, getting off of her bed and walking towards the large metal cylinder that had killed the other woman. She wiped the blood from her glasses with the sleeve of her prison uniform. "But it seems that you… are just another person too stupid to recognize my brilliance."

As she came within a foot of the device, it opened up, tentacles springing out of the surface and attaching to her spine in a smooth motion. There were only the smallest flinches that formed on the woman's face as the tentacles started to snap away at the air around her. It was only then that the station's sirens started to wail, signaling the coming guards that were running down the hall at this very second. She turned towards the device quickly, knowing that a single lucky bullet could be the end for her.

"The fools underestimated the power that my advanced science has granted me," she opened a panel, a blinking light awaited her vision, along with a series of buttons that the woman pressed so fast that one would wonder about the possible mistakes she could make.

Olivia had this backup plan in mind the moment that her tests and experiments had reached beyond the theory stage, knowing that the ignorant world would never accept the risk needed to progress. So it was good that she'd sent off the pod before her main plan had failed. A smarter person would've known the scorch marks on the roof of her apartment couldn't have come from the experiment but thankfully for her, neither the SHIELD Agents nor the powerful alien named Doyle realized this.

It was as the guards came into view, their pistols drawn and their voices screaming at her to stand down… that the Doctor finished inputting the commands on her device. The resulting action appeared to be an explosion so big that it took out the guards and left no trace of either the cell or the deadly Doctor Octopus, only a massive hole where they once were.

But miles away, the sound of metal cracking against the pavement of rooftops could be heard ringing out. The Doc was on the loose once again.