IdleMuse0307
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The Old Hydrokinetic (MCU AU) : #21
🕑 Added 2025-07-05 19:31:03 +0000 UTCDisclaimer - All the usual Yada Yada Yada. I don’t own any rights to any characters in this fic save for my OCs. Don’t sue me.
Anywho, without further ado - read on.
Earth-6161 [May 2012]
Manhattan, New York
–Tony Stark–
“What the f*ck just happened?!” He shouted, almost hysterically, as he lay down on the ground, inspecting his chest and the removed Arc Reactor, as if it were a dream his brain had conjured up in the last moments of his death. An experience that most people mistakenly called as heaven.
There was a moment of silence between them as Cap finally said, “We won.”
And just like that, all the tension left his body as he collapsed on the ground, “Argh, let’s not do this again, ever.”
There was a round of chuckles and he joined in as he looked at the ruined parts of his suit, the ripped apart Arc Reactor that was still functioning and then, his gaze went to..
“Hey! What happened to him?” He pointed at Banner, snapping upright, not feeling tired in the slightest, at least physically. Mentally? It was a whole other story.
Thor waved him off, “Not to worry. Banner is safe, he is just sleeping.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, just to be safe before collapsing once more on the hot pavement, the heat not even bothering him a little bit as he continued to admire the clear blue sky, without the giant gaping hole in the sky, with pitch black darkness on the other side.
No, it was not even the darkness that worried him, no, it was the things that hid in the darkness, that made darkness their home, that worried him. Flashbacks of his brief time on the other side of that portal came to mind as he struggled to shake those dreadful thoughts off his mind. Looking at the semi-relaxed members of the team around him, he said, “I don’t know about you guys but my doctor says that I need to eat a ton of food after my surgery, especially the impromptu miracle that I just went through. You know what? Let’s all take a vacation, not together, but let’s take a couple of months off to relax, on me? Alright? Pick any destination that comes to mind.”
Cap, leaning on his shield, which was being used as a cane, replied, “Job’s not done yet.”
He sighed in misery and then took the offered hand as he was pulled up from the ground. He looked down, suddenly feeling quite embarrassed about the unisuit but he did not let it show on his face as he said to Cap, “Yeah, I suppose so. But after that? It’s beaches and margaritas, Baby! Jarvis?” He said and in the end, spread his arms wide apart, and looked around him.
He swore to all that was holy that he heard literal crickets in the background despite them not being a thing in Manhattan and he was pretty sure that even something as dumb as insects would have fled the region.
His eyes twitched as he heard Barton chuckle and mutter, “Performance issues?” He was about to give them a piece of his mind before he heard the sound of repulsors begin activated as he turned around, just in time for a piece of metal to slam into his chest with an audible thump, with parts expanding around it to form a full Iron Man suit around him in seconds.
Huh, he wondered why he was not pushed back this time. During their initial testing, the final prototype would send him skidding back a couple of feet, even if he was bracing himself against the blow. Now? Now, he barely knew that the suit was coming, was completely unprepared and despite that, he barely moved at all.
Hmm, something to think about later on. For now—
“Avengers! Assemble!” Huh, it does feel nice to say it. It has a nice ring to it. He offered both his hands to the Spy siblings, and Thor chucked Bruce on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and held onto Cap with the other hand as they both rocketed up and dropped down on the penthouse, where dear ol’ Loki was resting against a wall, awake and looking at the city in a daze.
“Are we sure Weber didn’t knock a screw loose in his head?” He mockingly whispered to Romanoff who just elbowed him as he flew up to secure the Tesseract, and the sceptre, only to find them missing. The only evidence of the portal machine being here was a spherical hole in the roof with trace amounts of Gamma Radiation in the background.
“Holy Sh*t!” He swore as he immediately dropped down from the roof and landed right in front of Thor who just slapped Loki right across his stupid face, which made the man gasp and then snap upright.
Ugh. He’d hoped that Loki would stay unconscious for a while longer but apparently, that kind of silence was a luxury he would not get, for now. Also, they had other pressing matters to attend to.
“Guys! The Cube, it’s missing. So is the sceptre.”
“Weber.” Cap said, “She took it.”
“Jarvis? Get me footage. Motion data. Gamma radiation. Anything.” He said out loud as a series of holo screens manifested themselves in front of the bar as a projected keyboard appeared on the counter.
Working his magic with his fingers, he made sure to remind Thor, “Thor, I hope you have something to restrain your brother. We would not want to call Weber again to grab him.”
The threat worked as Thor hastily took something from his back and slapped it on Loki’s hands as a small cube somehow turned into a full sized hand cuff, with glowing squiggly lines on them. Hmm, nano tech and something else.
Something to analyse later on.
Jarvis cycled through every single byte of data available to him locally, then moving on to other public sources but due to Weber conducting a mass evacuation procedure, there was not much user generated footage that otherwise would have existed due to the dumb people who would risk their lives for views online.
Then came the satellite data, overlapped with residual Gamma Radiation consistent with the Tesseract and the sceptre. Jarvis was able to swipe that data from the SHIELD helicarrier and was able to apply that filter on Stark Industries' Satellites. It helped that this time, they only had to scan a really small area with higher precision, not the entire planet, to get a rough location on the Cube.
“There!” He pointed at the screen as Jarvis mirrored his current display, showing a split second footage from one of the overhead satellites, showing a blurry shape appearing on the roofing for a split second, before the consistent Gamma Radiation disappeared and in its place, a massive amount of the same energy as the one they detected when that massive cloud of water descended upon the city, appeared.
“So, she took both of them?” Romanoff asked and then Barton scoffed, “Can you blame her?”
“Clint,” Romanoff tried to chide Barton but he was on board with that, “No, he’s right. After all that has happened, I wouldn’t trust the government with the Cube, not in the right mindset anyway. Why not let the WMDs remain with the biggest WMD we have ever seen? I see no reason why she would ever use it. She seemed plenty powerful and aloof without it.”
“Tony, you know we can’t do that. The government–”
“Is not the one who should be playing with mind controlling forces. I, for one, know that that woman would like to be as far away from humans as possible. What use would she have for a mind controlling weapon?”
“The Tesseract belongs to Asgard and no one, not even mortal witches, however powerful they may be, can come in Asgard’s path.” Thor rumbled, aggressively and he winced as he remembered what happened the last time Thor tried to tango with Weber and he definitely did not want a repeat of that.
Judging by the barely hidden responses from the rest of the team, they did not either. So, the onus fell on him to play the devil’s advocate.
“Alright,” he raised his hands in a placating manner, the holoscreen disappearing with a discreet gesture, “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I am sure that we can talk it out with Weber. Hell, I bet she would even give it to you. Last I heard, she was very against humans tinkering with it so if you can just take it away from our grubby mortal paws, she will most likely give it to you.”
Thor nodded and stepped back, relaxing a bit.
He continued, “But for that to happen, we need to talk with her, calmly. I am sure SHIELD can reach her. Now, I hate to ask but the sceptre? Can she keep it? Because I don’t think she will be ready to hand over both of them. I don’t think that's how negotiations work.”
“Yeah,” Thor nodded, “Yeah, she can keep it.”
“Great. Now, Jarvis? Can you put the One-Eyed Pirate on hold please? I, for one, am famished and Jarvis, being the dear that he is, has already placed an order for us in a nearby restaurant. Only a couple of minutes away.”
“How? Weber should have already swept away most people from here.”
Jarivs then chimed in, “ETA - 8 minutes. By flight.”
Ohhh.
Better wake up Bruce, then.
