Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Stark Residence, LA

  –Tony Stark–

  “Like I said, you go shove your head up where the su shine, Fury. I am not helping you,” He said in the video chat that Pepper had just dumped on to him in the middle of his work in the b. Apparently, Fury had pulled many of his favours with Pepper to make sure that the meeting happened and he only agreed because Pepper told him to but nowhere was it written that he had to be o him.

  The sigh nation and frustration that escaped Fury’s mouth was like music to his ears. Sweet sweet music that didn’t help o in lessening the regret he felt with how he handled Jack’s case. Sure, he lied about his amnesia but he was still, in the end, a kid and he had just put him o list of the biggest military in the world.

  Uncle Sam was known for many bad things but if there was ohing that they could be ted on, it was the fact that they always got their enemy. In the rare cases where it looked like Uncle Sam had lost trol of the situation, it was only because of the higher-ups holding back the army otherwise there robably nowhere in the world where one could hide from the might of the US military. Such was the might of the Military-industrial plex that ehe hegemony of the Uates of America. Knowing that the President had ordered for no expeo be spared in taining this hreat was something that made his ay rise day by day. It had been 3 days since Jack had fled the hotel and in the process, broken a dozen different Aviation ws. That’s what they were using to decre him a criminal, not that they would need a reason but it always helped their sce if they did have proof of a crime itted. Not that it would matter if the matter ever made it to court. They were in denial of Jack being a minor but ohe matter came to light, there would surely be protests ireet against trying him as an adult no matter the dubious circumstances surrounding his powers.

  “Stark, again,” Fury’s tired voice spoke from the ptop in front of him, “Is there any way you track him? We o get to him before anybody else does?”

  “And then what, Fury? What if you do get to him? What will you do then? Even if I do believe your words, what’s stopping your superiors from kidnapping him right from under your eyes or better yet, order you to do it yourself? What then, Fury? Would you do it or would you rebel?” He s Fury and then took in a deep breath because he had just let the anger get the best of him.

  The silence he received from the other side was damning. “I thought so,” he muttered and he smmed the ptop shut.

  God, what a shit show. There were probably a dozen different requests from all the different three-letter agencies requesting his help in log the hreat to US democracy. The media was as usual doing its best to fan the fmes in that regard but the fact that Jack just fled and did not eh any of the military assets present in the viity meant that it was a little harder for the Media to just bme him for everything. The only thing was the damage done from all the windows shattered because of the soni he left in his wake which was an easy fix for him. He wrote a cheque, and instructed Jarvis to make sure that everyoher got their brand-new windows installed ot pensation. That shut up all of the cm building owners who went ba their days ohey got the money and that was that.

  All the data that he had on Jack was sealed away in a server that was located somewhere deep in the sea or even in some iceberg, for all he knew. He was very specifi g that part in Jarvis. One of his magnum opus, if you will. The ability to create pseudo-random code by dozens of different natural and man-made phehat happen around the world and then basing the algorithm on a pattern using those events. It could be the interval between those events, their sounds verted into binary, or even their colours or a number of other parameters. Based on that algorithm, Jarvis decided on the pce to store the Bck Box server that he had. That pce too was ged based on that algorithm at seemingly random intervals. Now, if someone had plete access to Jarvis’ source code and resent when he coded that thing so that person would know just what the source pattern was, then there was a ce that it could be cracked but that was based on the assumption that Jarvis had not taken that code and upgraded it to kingdom e.

  Then there were the readings he had gotten from the base that had burned down. He did some digging and found out that they were experimenting on something in that base. It was a colborative effort from the Military, SHIELD, and a dozen different private panies, for what, he could only guess.

  Super soldiers.

  God, when would the world move away from flesh and blood soldiers, no matter how enhahey might be? No matter how strong, smart, blonde, and just absolutely perfect Steve Rogers was, he could kick his ass with ease, even with the Mark II. There was nothing exceptional when it came to Captain America if he thought about it in the modern text but if they were able to e up with someone like Ja a b?

  The mere thought of that was terrifying enough. A mass-produced army of Jack’s power level would be disastrous for everyone, even the US military, no matter how delusional they might be to realise that. Despite the impressive powers that Jack’s shields had, they were certainly not equipped to handle Nuclear onry aainly not equipped to hahe aftermath of those nukes.

  He would have loved to get to the bottom of that base if not for the multiple warnings he had gotten from his tacts in the Army, warning him to stay away from Jack sihe military was of the opinion that the Hulk was multiplying somehow. Some of the more eous theories suggested that Bruce Banner had somehow transfused his blood with that of someone and that someone was Jack. He had s the mere thought of that despite not having the DNA of Jack because he knew, with almost certainty, that Jack roduct of the experiments do that adian base that was no longer on the map. In the span of his bringing Jack to the US and Jack being discovered, the base had been pletely destroyed and covered with Snow. It would seem that the adian gover worked fast in c up their shitshows.

  He had chosen to take a step back from the eter, not only due to the warnings from his tacts but also from Pepper who was of the opinion that Jack would be more than capable of handling the threats ing his way if he acted smart and stayed away from urban areas and used his powers to a minimum, thereby camoufging him from the military sers. Also, she was sure that Fury would know about Jack being captured as soon as that happened and Fury would do something about it.

  He was 90% sure that Fury was the reason none of the agencies in the world were about to find even the shadow of Bruce Banner. He could uand why though. Bruce being in the middle of an altercation was the sole reason the Hulk was triggered and in all the fights that he was able to get the footage of, he had noticed one peculiar thing. The Hulk, as fearsome and rampaging as it was, never hurt a civilian or someone who was not in his way. That meant that the Hulk was not some mindless beast but someone who responded in kind to the threat it was subjected to.

  He sighed and closed his eyes, letting them rest from the torture that he subjected them to, every day. Despite his siderable advances in the dispy field, there was not much he could do to mitigate the limitations that came with age. He could uand the thoughts of politis and the other rich people who wao live forever and hold on to their powers for a longer period of time and holy, with what he had seen of Bruce, he robably the closest thing to an Immortal that he had seen but he was not that tempted. Sure, having fewer growing pains as he aged would be that was just a part of living life that he had to accept. He didn’t want to bee like those monsters in human skin in the pursuit of a longer life. He was tent with what he had and would be fine being a rickety old man with a killer sense of humour. With all his wealth, creature forts would be a finger snap anyway.

  “Anyways, Jarvis, bring up the ss of Jack’s shields. I think I got it. We should be able tthen the projected repulsor barrier by at least 15% if we imitate the same energy structure,”

  “Affirmative, sir…..”

  _________xx_____

  At the same time, Kamar-Tak, Kathmandu

  –Jack Sullivan–

  This sucks. So Hard.

  He panted and gasped as he did the same katas as all the apprehat he aired with. The A One had given him a bracelet that increased the pressure on his body so much that he robably weaker than an average adult at this point, despite being a literal Super Soldier. She had said that it would help train his CHI to not be in imbah his Gamma Energy and Power ic.

  Ah yes, the Power ic. Acc to his spotty iowledge, Power ic e of energy that was uo Gactus as he was the being that would bring about the Big Bang of the universe after the iable heat death of the current universe. Apparently, his barriers were somehow made of the same stuff. Those barriers were then covered in Gamma Energy that his body produced acc to his demand and then there was CHI which was there in his body in excess quantity because of the Super Soldier serum that was used on him. The A One had been very forthing with informatiht up until he asked her about the specifics of his experiment where she shut up and asked him to joiraining that was mostly reserved for unpowered newbies, not someone Awesome like him who could lift a car with a thought.

  He was not moronic though. He realised the meaning of the training soon enough and within a day of training, he had already learned how to open portals using his bare hands. The energies already present inside his body did present a challenge which is why he had to focus very hard on the pd evehe portal that opened was barely enough for him to fit his arm through but hey, progress rogress.

  Acc to the A One, with enough mastery of the Sling Ring, one could open portals with just a wave of their hands and even employ portals as a on in their arsenal. It was just a shame that the event horizon of a portal would cel out depending on the density of mass and energy it enters.

  So no Thanos killing easy mae, sorry HISHE.

  He had also figured out a way to stop his sed skin from appearing on reflex. Now, he could activate it on demand and theivate it with some effort as well. , he was w on activating that skin on only specific portions of his skin instead of his entire body.

  He had almost 10 months to train himself and he was sure that Kamar Taj was the best pce to be for that. Not only did he get trained i of hand-to-hand bat by Mordo himself, but he was also trained in fighting hard and brutally by Kaecilius. He knew what fate awaited both of them but sihey were useful to him at the moment, he did nothing to dissuade them from their probable future.

  Their heads were still getting away from their bodies if they met otlefield as ehough. Mama raised no coward aing them go instead of solving the problem ond for all, if you knew what was going to happen ter on, was definitely cowardice for him.

  He had tried getting his hands on some artifact but so far he had no luck. He passed his downtime, which arse sidering the absolute ton of books he had to read, and he practiced with his powers. Acc to the A Ohe eldritch structs that each master made had varying levels of strength, based orength of the Sorcerer casting it. Iirety of Kamar Taj, only the A One, Mordo, Kaecilius, Wong, and a dozen other oldies were able to create structs that could give his barriers a challenge. He had tried it with the A One and was successful in cutting through her barriers but the only reason he was able to do that was because of that Power ic c through his barriers.

  In their spar, he had seen that all of the green energy surrounding his barrier had been stripped away by her spell but the core structure of the barrier remained which was then deflected by another one of her spells. God, she was s.

  So, he practised with his barriers with all that he had. He was not sure of any major events that happened between now and the Invasion of New York so he was wary of venturing out and missing out on precious training time. He had decided to spend the time leading up to the CHitauri invasion with his training so that wheime came, he would be all ready with a power-up.

  He had eaihe thought of stopping Loki and preventing the Invasion if that was in his powers anyway, but the A One had stopped that train of thinking in its tracks. Acc to her, that invasion must happen and it was a fixed point in history that would shape the world for turies to e. She had then gotten all scary and then threatened him that if he tried to stop that from happening, she would have to hunt him down as a time criminal and he had stopped thinking about that from that point onward.

  So, no stopping Loki from opening the portal. The best thing he could do was reduce the casualties or prevent them altogether. He knew he could not save everybody but one could hope.

  He had thewo goals for himself -

  Be strong enough to stop the Leviathans and their energy ons with ease.Be able to create multiple barriers at the same time.Pilot the barriers to evacuate citizens without being in the viity, i.e., increasing his spatial awarehe task was tall but he was determio do it. After all, ora hour spent training could mean the life ah of someone 10 months ter.

  So, he went back to training. Despite his muscles protesting with all their might, he picked himself back up a back to training, even as the mere act of perf the katas left small craters oraining floor, due to the sheer weight he was subjected to.

  Word t - 2716

  P*treress - #24

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