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).

  Knowhere [An unknown amount of time after the Chitauri Invasion]

  –Jack Sullivan–

  Ugh. It felt as if someone was simultaneously poking hundreds of little needles in his head as he slowly stirred back to sciousness.

  sciousness?

  His eyes snapped open and then immediately closed due to the unreasonably bright lights it was subjected to. He immediately abahat avenue and sought out the sensory input data he usually got from his barriers and immediately frowned as he felt….nothing.

  His panic rose as he could not feel anything. Not his barriers, the weird energy that made his barrier, and not even the ever-present, ever-flowing river of dimensional energy he had inside of him. His panic rose several more degrees when he realised that he could not feel his limbs, in fao limb could be moved.

  “Ah! I see that our colle has woken up,” A slimy voice spoke up as he hesitantly, cautiously opened his eyes, and upon seeing that it didn’t immediately send a spike of jumbled senses up his brain, opehem further.

  What he saw was…not inspiring his fidence.

  In front of him was Tivan, also known as the Collector in the wider gactic circles, standing just outside his gss cage, looking at him with an appraising eye.

  He then looked him straight in the eye and said something to the pink woman standing beside him, wearing a colr, designatiatus as a sve. The woman heard his words and then pressed a button oablet.

  The sed that happehe mask on his face wore off, as he slid out of the gss tube that tained some slimy weird, not-good, liquid that g to his skin. He arently pletely submerged in it, sidering the stiess that he could now feel on his face.

  “Wele to the coller.Jack Z. Sullivan or should I just call you, The Green Guardian of Earth?” Tivan stood there, overlooking his prone form with a mog smile on his face.

  “Take him. Make sure he is dressed properly for the initiation. We wouldn’t want my colle to be sullied now, would we?” He spoke to the pink woman standing beside him in a very threatening tohe sequences of not doing the task to his wishes very evident. All the while his smile and eyesight never left him.

  His mind worked furiously, trying to make sense of the hot soup he had just nded himself into.

  The st thing he remembered before waking up here was….

  “AGH!” He shouted as a sharp nce of pain assaulted his brain, making him see stars for a moment. He couldn’t even move his body to do anything about it and his powers refused to work even as two robots of some kind came and lifted him, the paiurning with increased fervor as his neck just hung there limply.

  The st thing he saw before darkness overtook his vision was the pitying look on the pink woman’s face as she pressed a button oablet, closing the doors behind him.

  Wait? Pink woman.

  That was…C.a.rina

  The ime his sciousness returned, he didn't make any movements at all. He stayed absolutely still and was relieved to find that he could feel his body now. He tried accessing his powers….

  “Hgnh,” He grunted in pain as electricity coursed through his entire body and nur electricity as well. No, no normal electric current could make his body seize up like that.

  “Refrain fr to make unauthorised movements, Subject TGG,” A monotonous voice droned from above him as he watched the ceiling speaker with a generic white ceiling.

  He shot up, rubbing his nely to pause as his hand hit metal instead of the usual skin or even his barrier.

  Well, that expiuff. He was screeewed.

  “Hello? Is anybody there?” He tried speaking to the voi the ceiling and was disappoio receive no answer. He had tried using his powers and the result did not amuse him. He was no masochist so he did nain, knowing that the result would be the same.

  So, this was the collector’s museum thehought as he leaned on the gss of his prison, looking at the lines of thousands of different spes, most of them aliens with an occasional pnt mixed iween. It would seem that while the shock colrs did stop him from using his powers, passive enhas that he had received over the years were not blocked or rather, could not be blocked.

  That expined his enhanced vision, though his hearing was not w here. It was as if the pod he was in was pletely airtight such that no sound came in and out of the pod.

  There were no obviously sharp objects to use as a on. No obvious door, aside from the gss window in front of him that he was sure was strohan any door ba Earth. He was also reasonably certain that a being as old as the Colleust-have teology capable of barrig every single pod even if, by a stroke of luck, someone mao escape.

  Well, sidering that this pce was not in rui meant that Thanos had not yet e here to collect the Reality Stone, assuming that Asgard had indeed handed over the Reality Stoo him.

  He had to figure out how he reached here and how much time had crossed sihe st time he remembered being oh,

  Why couldn’t he remember anything about what happened oh and how he reached this godforsakehe st time he tried to do so, he felt pain beyond anything he had ever experieriking at his mind. Even now, the dull throbbing of that headache disced him from going further on that route of inquiry.

  Anywho, the only oh the answers who might give him the time of day was a, the pink woman who was responsible for the day-to-day administration of Tivan’s colles. She was also a sve but oh a signifitly longer leash thaher colles of Tivan. He could not find anything that could help him break out from the inside.

  Maybe, she could do something from the outside to help him. He only needed a couple of seds with his powers and he could y waste to this entire operation. In the movies, Tivan was just old. That’s it, no energy manipution, matter manipution, iergy, or anything of the sort that was normally afforded to the Elders of the Universe. At least that's how it was in the ics but in the movies, he was just some super-rit dude who had mao gather resources beyond anyone simply by virtue of being early to the game.

  With nothing else to do and not finding any possible way to unicate with anyone, he did what he thought best. He sat down on the bed, a very fortable bed at that, and begaating.

  Now, he khat he could not access his powers but the way his powers worked was different from others. Most enhanced people o stretch their muscles, and practice with their powers to attain a higher level or a higher level of trol. They o practice with their barriers in real life, making sure that the amount of power they exerted was imprinted on their physical bodies, allowing them to draw forth the heightened level of power a bit easier the ime.

  His powers, oher hand, were somehow limited only to his strength of imagination and thus, he could train while not even using his powers. Yes, that was somewhat broken, please nerf! But that was what he had and he was not going to sit around, wasting time, while Thanos and the bads are out there doing god knows what.

  He will have to at least ascertaiimeline and if he was even in the same year or not. Tivan would never give him the time of day because he was now firmly in his colle, someone who ever escape because Tivan’s prison, or rather, his colle as he called it, had never been broken into or broken out of.

  His best bet was someone under him who had outside knowledge as well and the only person who fit the bill was..

  “Um, are you alright?” He was broken out of his meditation as a weirdly garbled voice spoke from the speakers.

  He raised an eyebrow and looked at the speakers.

  “Ah! I am sorry. Is the transtor not w?” He heard shuffling noises before the voice returned, much clearer this time.

  “Hello! Who is this? Where am I? Why am I imprisoned?” He stood up from his bed and asked in rapid-fire the most important questions.

  “Uh, I am a. You are on Knowherer and you are noart of the best colle in the universe,” She answered with what were clearly rehearsed answers.

  Well, there was no way she would give out useful information like this. No, that would be too easy now, wouldn’t it?

  “Why am I held prisoner? Isn’t this against the w?” He said in a mad, frantie while internally, he tried to make sense of what was happening. Somehow, the Collector had deemed him, a human, worthy of being a part of his sick colle. Now, it was not the ics collector who roamed around with his colle on a huge ass ship and also had pods where the aging of the beings inside was essentially halted, but it was the Collector all the same.

  All iterations of that fellow had extremely high standards for his colles. It would not be wrong to say that he only collected stuff that there was only one of. He had even read, even though it might have been fanon instead of , that the Collector was actually responsible for ending multiple races because he wahe spe he had to be the st one or something. Also, he sometimes employed space meraries to attack small species and the only a single oo be delivered as part of the Collector’s colle. He was literally obsessed with having stuff that nobody else had.

  But that didn't ahe question though– Why him?

  He knew for a fact that he was not the sole human and would not be the sole one for a long long time. Long after he was dead, there would still be humans in the universe. They were way too spread around to kill.

  So, why?

  “Ah, Collector,” He heard a speak in a paone before there was a shuffling noise before he had to plug his ears with his palms because the voice was so loud in his room. He would have been fihere would have been no perma damage due to his enhanced stitution but his enhanced senses were a double-edged sword in situations with overwhelming sensory inputs.

  “Greetings! I am the Collector and you are my addition to my precious colle. I uand if you are disoriented by your rather rough travels across the gaxy so let me clear up the air for you, as you Earthlings like to say. See, I have been practig my lingo for you. Haha,” He heard Tivan speak as he settled down on the ground, pretending as if the loud noise was disturbing him, even though it was tolerable at best.

  “Oh, poor Earthling. Maybe the healing procedure was not thh enough, a?” he heard the man mutter through his enhanced hearing before a seemed to grunt in…Pain?

  Oh, this bastard!

  No, he had to stay calm. He will get his ce. There was no way he could allow scum of his ilk to stay free. But for that to happen, he had to get free, and as powerful as he was, he didn’t think that it ossible to get out of the colr before it would zap him into unsciousness.

  His powers usually also worked subsciously, proteg him from any harm but his powers were not activating even after all the threats.

  Maybe something to do with what happened oh.

  “Ah, I apologise for the short interval. Now, where was I? Ah, I was talking about the rather explosive entry that you made, Mr.Gamma Human,” A hologram popped up in front of his bed, right on the rgest wall of the pod he was in, projeg the rather smug face of oaivan who was holding on to a golden mic of all things.

  His hologram then zoomed out to show his finger poiraight at him, “You, Mr.Gamma Human are one of a kind. The amma being on your p is not a human, but a God, and my treaty with the Omnipotey forbids me from interfering iter of Gods which leaves me with just you,”

  What? He was a Gamma Human. He was enhanced with the blood of Emil Blonsky who himself was enhanced by the blood of Bruce Banner, so teically, he was a Gamma Human.

  But what was this about Bruce being a God?

  He was brought out of his thoughts as a small shock of lighting stung at his neck.

  “Ow!” He cwed at the colr as he gred at the proje of Tivan who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

  “Listen to ME when I am talking to you,” Tivan said as he gred at him.

  He wisely kept mum as he was in a disadvantaged position at the moment. No resources, no powers, no idea of his location and he didn’t even know if anybody was looking for him, and even if they were, aside from Thor, nobody else had the resources to mount a rescue operation for him.

  Basically, this sucked major balls.

  “Now, where was I?” As if a switch had been flicked, his face went from angry gre to stage face as he tio drone on about the situation and how he was found by him.

  The aspect of supervilins where they droned on and on about their master pn was a godsend (Vishanti-send?) because it allowed heroes(petent oo use that against the vilins themselves.

  So, why were the questions only piling up as Tivan bbbered everything about how they found him?

  Apparently, he was found floating in outer space, bathed in energies predating the universe itself. That was odd.

  Predating the universe meant the Infinity Stones and aside from a quice at the Time Stone when he had visited Kamar Taj ages back, he had not been in close proximity with any Infinity Stone.

  The about the state of his body when the energy storm had subsided had him looking over his body at once. Apparently, everything below his stomach was simply shredded to bits as his heartbeat was slowing down, leaking out precious lifeblood by the sed.

  Tivan had been curious about the energy storm so he had sent a vessel to iigate and was very surprised to find someohat mao survive being in that energy storm, however badly it might have gone.

  He had therieved him and after seeing that he was one of a kind, how he ascertaihat he did not know, he romptly dumped into one of the healing pods that the Collector had handy, probably for simir situations he must have entered when finding the st pockets of different species.

  “Oh, but that did not work. No, Gamma Human, you needed more than mere healing fluid. You needed ....”

  Tivan then droned about something called as Primed C-fluid and while that was gross to think about, it was something that surprised him as well. Primed C-fluid was just refined spinal fluid from the Celestial corpse that made up Knowhere. Apparently, that was the ultimate healing fluid for exceptionally strong beings of the universe. Shogly, Odin too was the recipient of a vat of this fluid that he must have used to heal himself some time ago.

  He had been shocked that something like this existed when something that Tivan said entered his mind.

  “What did you say?”

  “Ah, the human speaks. Sihis is the first time, I will five it but do remember that I don’t like being interrupted,”

  He swallowed his indignation at being treated like this. Just let him free and he would show the collector who was the bigger fish in the pond then.

  “Yes,” He ground out with difficulty, and judging by the self-satisfied smirk on the Collector’s face, he k too.

  “I was talking about the ve fact that everyone on your phinks you're dead. After all, while that Chitauri Invasion was successfully repelled, they did lose you, arguably their best fighter. This works out best for me obviously. Nobody’s going to look for you and that saves me a lot of hassle dealing with the stragglers, you know….”

  Tivan tinued but his mind had been frozen ever since he talked about the Chitauri Invasion.

  It was all ing ba.

  The Invasion, Wei, Loki Defeated, the Sceptre skewering him, the absolute burniion because of the Tesseract barrier, then saving Stark with his st dash, and then, Natasha closing the portal, and then…nothing.

  The st thing he could remember was the dull feeling of the sceptre stabbing deeper before his blurry vision was filled with shades of green, blue, and yellow before he seemingly died.

  Only he didn’t.

  Probably because of the Tesseract’s energy, he arrived here, oher end of the gaxy, right in the domain of one of the gaxy’s most evil people, vulnerable and dying.

  Ah…Lady Destiny, thy art a heartless bitch.

  Huh, bitch, he giggled as he thought of the word.

  Hmm….Why is the fletting closer?

  THUD!

  Word t - 3026

  If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

  I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.

  A/N - Yikes. Jack survived but he lost some part of his memories. He won’t regain them instantly, obviously. The st part about his brain basically going *hehe slooooo* art of a wider problem influenced by the Mind Stone’s energies mixed into the energy storm which then mixed in with his powers and body.

  His barriers too will be different from his previous ones.

  He won’t get out of the prison instantly. You guys will see once his colr is removed.

  He will spend a little time which will help him expand his horizons in the wider os instead of being limited to just Earth.

  Also, he is strong yes but not OP so him being bound like this is uandable because even Thor and Hulk were bound by the Grandmaster, another Elder of the Universe (it is a thing in the ics, don’t know about the MCU)

  Speaking of the MCU, what do you guys think of RDJ ing back?

  To me it feels like, in Deadpool sensei’s words, THEY WILL MAKE HIM WORK TILL HE’S 90.

  It just feels like they were failing and scrambling for ideas a back to the drawing board and found the old one where RDJ’s name was written in bright red colour.