TGS - #78

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Avengers Tower[May 2015]

–Jack Sullivan–

He was still in his stealth form as he slowly made his way toward the now repaired Avengers Tower. It was only the Avengers' Tower for namesake because the original members of the Avengers didn't really live there, save for Tony himself.

Pepper used to live there but even she moved out permanently to LA, to be both closer to Stark Industries HQ as well as to be away from the centre of attention of every single evil force out there.

The Spy twins popped up from time to time but for the majority of their time, they were either in pseudo retirement on their farm with their hidden family or running missions for Coulson in secret, with the underground SHIELD that was still running around.

They had a little funding issue recently but he was able to secure another round of funding in the form of a little space exploratory fee, collected from NASA as well as a coalition of private companies who were more than willing to throw some money at his face to get them to various points in the solar system.

One guy from NASA almost fainted when he was told that he could create portals that led straight to a ruined remnant of a very advanced civilization, right in their solar system. Ofcourse, the ruined landscapes of Titan were off limits for civilians. Because most of the world's governments knew of the fate that befell the very advanced civilisation, either through Tony himself leaking the footage or through the US making the information available to its allies.

Thor was off somewhere, gallivanting god knows where with no return in sight. Bruce was…the less said about him the better.

Actually, that was one of the reasons why he was back in NYC so early. He wanted to meet Tony, get his measure on the thing he was about to do, and also, get an update on how the tracking for the Scarlet Witch as well as QuickSilver went.

It still kept him up at times to know that a realised Scarlet Witch was out there, with a speedster no less. Natural speedsters could do a lot of damage before anyone even knew that they were under attack. Currently, Wanda was the most dangerous but it was only because he knew that there was no way he would be able to blitz them and take them out without making a huge fuss.

The very existence of Pietro prevented that. The man was probably stuck to his sister like glue. A sister who was capable of warping reality as if it were her bitch.

He didn't know what the Ancient One was thinking, calling off the wartime wards, and telling the Masters that the emergency was resolved.

It was very much not resolved but aside from giving him a slight boost, courtesy of that impromptu ritual, there was nothing she had done on her end to hunt down Wanda.

That was inexcusable in his opinion, no matter what her greater good instincts were telling her.

Absentmindedly, he found himself right above the Iron Man landing pad built on the penthouse of the Tower, made specially so that Tony could take off his suit in style, without missing a step. A mechanical engineering marvel, made with Aeronatural grade precision, just so that the man could have his badass looking entry and exit.

Oh yeah, it worked both ways now. Previously, it could only take off the suit but now, Tony has figured out how to put on the suit through the spinning rims as well. He had the distinct privilege of seeing Tony get hit in the shin by one of the suits' parts because it was not properly calibrated at the time.

It worked flawlessly now though, obviously.

"Good Afternoon, Mr.Sullivan,"

"By the Stan Lee!" he exclaimed out loud as a floating bobblehead appeared right in front of him, showing Jarvis in his chosen avatar. It was of a posh British fellow with a white moustache and a no nonsense face, set in stone.

Tony had gone silent the first time he had seen the face but has since then accepted it and moved on.

"Hello Jarvis, I see that you have been making exceptional progress with your anti stealth measures." He dispelled the spell and landed on the balcony of the penthouse.

"Thank you, Mr.Sullivan. I believe that I have become capable of unravelling tier 1 illusions with a 99.982% certainty. Certainly, Tier 3 illusions like the ones cast by the Scarlet Witch are still beyond me but I hope to get there someday." Jarvis explained as his bobble head floated behind him, the cartoonish appearance actually invoking a sense of calm in him.

Huh, British guys really were the best to become butlers, it would seem.

If only he was an eccentric billionaire with money to throw around and daddy issues in spades, he could have hired a British Butler, or more like a British nanny for himself as well.

But oh well, he was a (mostly) well adjusted individual with no daddy issues to speak of, differentiating him from the costumed Billionaires.

"Where are the others?" He went inside and used his barrier to summon his favourite non alcohol drink inside the penthouse, strawberry Quick, and sat his ass down on the very comfortable sofa that just made his form sink into the cushions.

He was not just big but dense as well, so him sinking into the couch was not a surprise. The surprise was the instant message function that activated as it enlarged most of his body and only left his body from the neck up exposed and not being actively massaged.

"Sir is on his way. Ms. Romanoff is on a mission with SHIELD. Mr.Barton is on his mandated time off. Ms.Sparkles, as you have instructed me to call her, is currently coordinating rescue efforts in Puerto Rico after a small localised earthquake hit the city of San Jose and its surrounding areas, resulting in multiple landsl–"

"Jarvis? Video feed, please?" He said as he instantly stood up from the sofa, the words ringing some bells in his mind.

The orange bobblehead disappeared and a small blue rectangle appeared in front of him, and a video feed quickly appeared on top of it. IT showed the earthquake originating from a very shallow point in land, with no discernible tectonic origin in sight.

"Shit." He muttered as he opened a portal.

"Jarvis, have Tony meet me in San Jose. I will go stabilise the situation as much as I can. Tell him to bring in Space rated suits because the environment will not be suitable for him," He said and without waiting for Jarvis' reply, flew into the portal at breakneck speeds.

He almost crashed into the ground but stopped himself at the last moment.

"Sparkles, where is Coulson? I know he is here somewhere, even after I warned him about the pretty blue aliens." He opened up his comms channel and asked Maria Hill.

He couldn't believe he had forgotten about the Inhuman stuff in the Agents of SHIELD TV Sow. In his defense, that show was later retconned to not be canon but it would seem that it was canon here.

"One day, I am going to kill you for starting that nickname. Until then, maybe the alien city can do the job for me. I have sent the coordinates to you. Careful, the city itself is hostile, as far as I know. HYDRA, despite your best efforts, still survived."

"Ah, Sparkles, I know you love me too much to kill me. Also, I know about HYDRA. We did kill HYDRA during the Helicarriers, no, this HYDRA is another branch. Leave it to me, you don't worry your pretty little sparkly head about it."

He giggled childishly as he heard expletives being shouted from the other end of the comms. Apparently, the name Robin Sparkles had taken off, among every single agency that Hill had to work with, courtesy of Jarvis using it, and as a result of that, Tony using it as well.

And considering that Tony was officially employing her, he had quite a bit of power to introduce her to all his connections. It was quite fun to mess with her, he had to keep himself ready for bullets that could fly any time both of them were in the same room for extended periods of time.

He shook his head, his face slowly morphing into one of grim determination as he received the coordinates. Huh, it was close by, but only underground.

Well, it made sense. The Kree built the city using volcanic stones, what with the advantage offered to them by their advanced technology.

"Time to embrace my roots," He muttered to himself, knowing the fact that the only reason he was chosen for the ill fated experiment where Gamma Blood, Super Soldier Serum, and liquified Terrigenesis crystals were pumped into him was only because he held strong Inhuman blood in him.

He also knew what happened in the shows and the probable cause of the whole localised Earthquake. Skye, or Daisy Johnson had probably awoken her Inhuman heritage. Well, another responsibility on his plate then.

He really wished he had some other civilisation he could turn to, for discretion as well as advanced sciences, other than Wakanda. Talokan was an option but he did not know much about Namor's rule and he would not risk anything without having a complete measure of Namor.

Half the reason he trusted T'Challa was because he knew that he could upend and destroys Wakanda at a moment's notice. That confidence made sure that T'Challa stayed in line. Nothing of that sort would fly with Namor. That madman might just pit his kingdom against the surface in a doomed attempt for world domination.

That would just result in him being responsible for global genocide.

Thoughts rapidly passed through his mind as his barrier continued to drill him straight to Coulson.

His barriers were already spread all around him, traversing miles within seconds to transmit all the information back to him.

He perked up as his barriers finally picked up something. Smiling, he crashed through a thick layer of stone and right into the form of one bulked up dude right as he was about to smash his fist into the face of one very pretty agent.

Silence reigned in the cave as he stood atop a very struggling, almost rabidly, person who had, get this, completely black eyes with red eyeballs. Shrugging, his barriers knocked the person out.

"Hi!" he smiled at the assembled agents here. He could recognise the iconic duo, Fitz and Simmons, along with Coulson and Melinda May.

There was a collective sigh of relief all around them as the pretty woman who almost had her face bashed in, pushed him. He let her because the person below was suitably restrained, on top of being unconscious. His body was odd. It was covered in a very thin energy layer.

"So, Mr.Sullivan, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Coulson, as usual, was unflappable as he stepped forward and shook his hand.

He rolled his eyes at that, "Nothing much, Coulson. Just heard that you were in a bit of trouble. The evacuation is coming along nicely, I assume. Sparkles told me," He added in after everyone looked at him weirdly.

"Ah.." Everybody nodded as if that made completely sense. He could imagine her screaming bloody murder at him. What was even funnier was that Hill was from Canada as well, from a historical line of government agents, and since Canada and the United States had quite an exchange program when it came to spies, it could be said that spying was in Sparkles' blood.

"Now, where is the entrance to the city?" He asked Coulson and he could feel the entire team tensing in response. He rolled his eyes internally. What was he? Some sort of villain?

"How…do you know about that?" 

He was about to reply but Melinda May cut him off, "Screw that, we have no time. We have one of our team members and a contractor–"

"That just means contracted assassin." He couldn't help but interrupt, and then raise his hands in surrender after being subjected to her glare.

"-As I was saying, two of the people that came with us have descended into the city. We have no reliable means of getting to them. Your help will be greatly appreciated." She stated all of that in a very professional, no nonsense way, and he had to admire her metaphorical balls for it.

He took a long look at Coulson and then nodded, "Alright. If it's alright with you, please step inside." He gestured to the now created platform that floated slightly above the ground. Everyone took one look at the still restrained dude on the ground and the woman standing guard behind him. He sighed and twitched his fingers, enveloping the dude and then having him stationed on the platform.

The woman glared at him for some reason and then stomped on the platform as well. Then, one by one, everyone else stood on the platform as well, save for…

"Get on, Coulson. We are going to go through the defenses. I can't guarantee that you won't be hurt." He said as he looked over the hole that led straight into darkness. He waved his finger as a barrier punctured the roof and entered the hole as if it was a bullet.

"Careful! Mack entered and he came back….like that," Coulson warned him. That had him give Mack as Coulson called him, a once over. He would have to see what was wrong with his brain and the role of that energy field around him.

For now, though? He had an ancient Kree city to conquer and quarantine. It would be awesome to just transport the entire thing to the Mirror Dimension and then to somewhere on Mars or something.

This way, it could be preserved so that they could better understand its tech. Also, if the KRee did show up somehow, he could totally kick their asses as well. Bonus points if he could meet Danver and befriend her as well.

She seemed like a no nonsense rigid person but overall someone who would fight on the good side of things.

"Alright, better get in before we get another one of those." He raised his eyebrows at Coulson as another shock hit their location, making dust fall from the ceiling.

Coulson nodded as he stood on the platform, the entire thing turning into an impenetrable cube on command.

His barriers already having explored his entry point, he just plowed through the thousands of years old artificial formations, probably older than even Pyramids, as he reached the Ancient Kree City, left behind by Rogue Kree so that future Inhumans could awaken here.

"Whoa!" Fitz exclaimed behind him as they looked at the now rapidly lighting up city. It was as if the city was waking up, with the symbols' lighting on the ground in a slow breathing manner.

They brightened and dimmed in sync around the entire city.

The city itself was huge, like unreasonably huge. But the architecture was such that everything led to a single place, some sort of dome structure in the middle.

His neck snapped towards the dome as he immediately flew towards it, the cube left behind. The members were safe behind his barriers but Daisy Johnson was not.

She was sat down on her ass, cradling one probably broken arm and blasting apart what looked like tree vines with her only functional arm, blood rapidly pooling beneath her. 

Both of the combatants paused and looked at him as he manoeuvred through the temple, wouldn't want to destroy important archeological findings, and then watched as he brought down his barriers on the vine and isolated the entire thing.

"Do not Fear. For I AM HERE!" he landed with his hands on his hips, a cosmetic spell making him shine golden.

Daisy took one look at him and….fainted.

Rude.

Word Count - 2731

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