Chapter 78 Messing with the Script

Chapter 78 Messing with the Script

It had been three days since the event the media dubbed, 'The Clash of Iron' and Harry was extremely grateful for Link's online intervention. Videos of Harry punching the Mandarin while shining with the silhouette of a golden dragon around him had nearly gotten him tagged with the name 'Dragon Fist,' but through the use of direct hacking and thousands of fake online profiles, Harry's chosen identity of Obscurus was properly portrayed with the rationality it was because he was 'obscure and mysterious.' Harry spent a lot of time afterwards properly praising Link for his good work.

Tony did not receive the same treatment of course and was given the unimaginative title of 'Iron Man,' while the martial arts wielding mech they faced together was unceremoniously dubbed the 'Martial Mech.'

Harry actually didn't have a problem with being called Dragon Fist, but he was worried they'd change it to something else when he displayed his non dragon chi related capabilities and he was moderately concerned with leaving his fate to the mercy of the internet, even if he pretty much owned it at this point.

Somehow or another, there were over one hundred and fifty videos of the battle from various people and even more impressive, no one had died. Even the agents that the Mandarin sucker slammed into a wall were only 'grievously injured,' not dead.

This wasn't entirely a coincidence as Harry had been generating a Muggle Repelling field from the moment the fight started and everyone in the area suddenly decided they had to be somewhere else when they were a certain distance from him. Of course, the field was not foolproof and the camera on the Brilliance phones that a lot of the witnesses had were quite good at long range.

During the Shield interview that followed, Harry gave a lot of details mixed with lies about what he did and how the tech he used did it. Harry also shutdown every attempt to request a sample of said tech and had been asked at least a dozen times for a sample of the poison he used on the Mandarin. The request wasn't surprising as the records recovered from the site of what the poison did to Khan and what Stane had to do to keep him alive were as thorough as they were terrifying.

When Harry finally had a chance to check the man's corpse, tech, and rings, he found a couple of things he hadn't expected. The first was that Khan was using his Matter Rearranger Ring to solidify the poison in his blood which was then filtered out by machines built into him. That would have solved the issue for most poisons, but Basilisk Venom is magic in nature and was impossible to solve using such means. Rather than saving his life, it would be more accurate to describe it as a method to indefinitely prolong his death until they found a better method or cure.

Because the Matter Rearranger Ring was used in such a manner, it was limited in what else he could do doing the fight which was why he only used it to fix the damage and speed himself up in short bursts at times.

Besides the corpse, Harry learned several things about the magic rings when he played with them for the first time. The first was that they allowed for Teleportation. The Mandarin never used this against Harry in their first match and he couldn't use it in the Mech fight because the teleportation would not bring the mech, thus using it would rip him out of his life support system. The Mech itself was also only about a fifth of the way finished which was why the only combat capabilities it had were physical attacks and the use of the rings.

Harry returned to New York by Plane the following day since he couldn't, visibly, stay in L.A. for so long. After scheduling a dozen or so meetings he left the west coast and returned home in time to watch Tony's press conference on TV the following morning. Stark stood at a podium with a set of cue cards obviously given by Shield as to 'what happened' and Stark followed the script as well as can be expected by tossing the cards and saying on live tv, "I am Iron Man."

Harry certainly had no intention to give a repeat performance of that little reveal. In fact Harry's involvement had been kept out of the event entirely so the Media had no idea he was anywhere near the area during the fight and was even more clueless that the Martial Mech's main goal was to kill him first and that everyone else was simply getting in the way.

Obscurus 'kindly' gave Khan's corpse to Shield shortly afterwards so they could waste their time playing with it. The Basilisk Venom was useless if removed from the body when Khan was alive or dead so no one would be able to dip their knives in Khan's blood and poison people with Basilisk blood through second hand exposure. Magic Poisons don't work like that.

One thing of interest however was that Khan wore gloves under his rings making his hands look normal. When the human skin gloves were removed, it showed that Khan's hands were scaled, a sign of the corruption of the Dragon aspect the rings had and probably one of the reasons he lived so long.

After spending some time studying the things, Harry could only lament at the fact that the rings were ridiculously crude. Of course, these were power sources from an alien ship that a man fashioned into wearable rings decades ago, so Harry's judgement might have been a bit harsh. In either case, the rings barely showed off a fraction of the power source's true capabilities, but even with that, the Mandarin was able to maintain his status as a titan of his era.

Rather than use them himself, Harry had a much better idea for what to do with the rings. He'd start on that project next month.

As for Khan's death, the story that the CEO of Khan Industries had died 'from an unfortunate fall' would break later, delayed just to make sure it wasn't obvious that the Martial Mech and Gene Khan weren't one and the same. There would be people who easily guessed of course, but it would be less obvious to the public.

However it was not all good news. Someone had died that day while Harry was fighting the Mandarin with Tony while protecting Pepper and Coulson. Not in L.A., but in New York. Harry found from Link about an hour after the fact that Peter Parker's uncle, Benjamin Parker, had been killed in a mugging. Because it happened while Harry was already using the Time Turner, there was nothing he could do about it. The same Time Turner couldn't be in three places at once so he couldn't lend it to someone to do the job either.

Thus Harry found himself on a dusty roof high above the glittering streets of New York. The lights from the city far outshined the cloudless sky so only the brightest stars were visible to those who took the time to look up at them.

On this roof, sitting on the edge dangling his feet, was Peter Parker. Without preamble, Harry strode over and sat down next to his friend.

Peter was more than a little confused when someone sat next to him and then surprised to see who it was, but neither emotion were well represented on his face as he lacked the emotional energy to properly feel them, much less display them.

Harry got straight to the point and said, "After Jade moved in, I started teaching her magic."

This obviously caught Peter off guard. He was unable to stop himself from asking, "Magic? Like real Magic? With spells and stuff?"

"Yup. Turns out she's very talented. When she found out how talented she was, she was really excited. Then I told her the trade off. In this world, the more a person is capable of carrying, the more the weight of the world will naturally fall onto their shoulders. Other than living in a cave, there is no way around this. A big rock makes a bigger splash than a small rock. The only way a big rock can avoid making waves is to not move. Otherwise, every action will have far greater consequences compared to when they were weak. This is true at all levels. From a child growing into an adult, to a teen becoming a mutate and gaining superpowers."

Peter immediately blurted out, "Wait, you know?!"

Harry rolled his eyes and answered, "Wanda, Jean, and Rogue are all mutants and I literally invented Metaphysics from scratch. You think I wouldn't recognize a mutate when I see one? Especially one with energy signatures like yours."

Peter calmed down a bit after that. Wanda was on TV and outed herself as mutant and Harry's girlfriend, so he knew that one. Rogue and Jean were both nice and them being mutants wasn't a big deal either. Considering all the stuff Harry had done, Peter felt a little embarrassed that he thought he could hide it.

After a few more moments of silence, Peter said, "Uncle Ben told me the same thing. With Great Power, comes great responsibility." Peter slumped down and muttered, "It's all my fault he died."

Harry asked, "Because you didn't stop the dude before he did the deed or because you were in the area and didn't save him?"

Peter slouched down even further and after a few moments, quietly answered, "Both."

Harry shook his head and said, "You're not alone in this city. A lot of people were there and didn't stop him or save your uncle either. It's not your job to save people or stop criminals. You just feel this way because you have a lot more strength than a normal person."

Peter got a little offensive and said with an ever increasing volume of voice, "But you said it too! My actions have greater consequences! I could have stopped him! He walked right past me after robbing a store earlier! I did nothing to stop him when I could have and then he killed my Uncle Ben! It was Me!"

"You're over simplifying things. The Police should have been called right after that store robbery and caught the guy. If they did, Benjamin Parker would still have been with us. Why didn't they stop him or save your uncle? Was it because the store clerk didn't call them? Was it because they were delayed? Was it because they decided not to come? Was it because they didn't have the manpower? Was it just because of bad luck?"

Harry let that sink in for a bit and stated once more, "You feel responsible because you have more strength than a normal person. If that's the case, I'm responsible too. I'm older, richer, smarter, and more handsome than you are. With all the resources at my disposal I'm one of the most powerful people in the world. With all that power, I didn't save your uncle. How am I not responsible?"

Peter said, "You were on the other side of the country, how can it be your fault?"

Harry said, "And you can't see into the future and are not responsible for catching robbers. How can it be your fault? Look, having more strength just means you have more options. The choices you make have greater consequences because you can reach further. It's not a nice thing to hear, but only the weak can stay ignorant and peaceful."

Peter frowned at Harry's response and asked, "Why are you here Harry? This isn't exactly a great pep talk."

Harry stayed silent for a few more moments while looking up, trying to distinguish the stars hidden behind the glare of the city lights. "I want to give you a choice Peter. Right now you don't have one. As long as you have this power, you'll find yourself naturally drawn into events with far reaching consequences. You're too smart to claim ignorance on the consequences of what you do in those events, so you won't be able to avoid taking a certain path."

Harry turned away from the sky and looked at Peter. "Consider this the crossroads. I've worked with Dr. Hank McCoy and know plenty about genetics. I once offered to remove the powers of the Fantastic Four, and eventually they declined and decided to keep their powers. I'm going to make you the same offer. If you want, I can return you to how you were before. You'll be a small rock once more. Your actions or lack of actions won't make any great difference in the grand scheme of things so you won't hold any responsibility for it."

Peter remained silent for about five minutes after that. Eventually he asked with a bit of hesitation, "You wouldn't... look down at me for giving this up?"

Harry asked, "Would you look down on a woman who gave her kid up for adoption because she didn't feel she could handle the responsibility?"

"What?! Of course not!"

Harry nodded, "Same thing. It is better to give up a responsibility if you are certain that things in general will be worse off if you have those responsibilities."

Harry wasn't being entirely accurate of course. If a good man gives up great responsibilities, the world would in fact be worse off for it. And someone with Peter's intellect would be a big rock regardless.

However Harry didn't want to see Peter end up in a situation where he believed he had no choice but to use his strength. Harry had spent centuries watching television and knew there was only one way for that to end. With the person doing a half-assed job with the responsibilities forced upon them probably getting a lot of people killed.

So, by giving Peter a choice, it also meant that the responsibilities were no longer forced. By giving Peter the option of giving them up, it meant Peter was actively accepting the responsibilities if he decided to keep them. Actively accepting responsibilities was an entirely different mentality compared to being forced to accept them.

Harry had nothing against Peter's Uncle Ben, but forcing responsibilities on those with strength is a recipe for drama and disaster.

After a few more moments of silence, Harry said, "To change you back, I need some DNA from before whatever happened to you. I can even store some of your blood right so if you want to regain this strength later, when you're older and ready for it, that'd be an option too."

Harry then got up and said, "In either case, drop by when you've made a decision. If you decide to keep your strength, you'll need training and Jade and the rest could use a new punching ba-, I mean sparring partner."

Peter turned around quickly and asked, "Why are you offering this to me?"

Without turning back Harry answered, "Because we're friends Peter. Don't worry about the future so much. If the sky falls, giants like me will be there to hold it up. Of course, if you want to become a giant too, I'd appreciate the help of a friend."

With that Harry left and returned home. He already knew what Peter would choose, but there were a lot of reasons Harry wanted to give him the choice. The biggest one was that he disliked when people were forced to follow a script that forced them to suffer.

He'd seen it before with Reed, Susan, Johnny, and Ben. He'd seen it with Stark. Events beyond their control had altered their lives and shifted them to another path. If Harry hadn't helped, Ben would have been stuck in his rock form and Reed would have felt responsible. If he hadn't been there for Stark, Yinsen would have been killed by weapons manufactured by Stark International.

And now there was Peter, the teen who got powers and was being bluntly forced by a conveniently placed code of conduct to use those powers lest he feel responsible for every tragedy that occurs from his lack of action.

Harry remembered his own script. He was tossed into a cupboard and left to explode. His death had caused the return of the Triwizard Tournament and the Tournament had caused the return of Voldemort. Had Harry not returned, Voldemort's return would have likely caused the Magical community to go too far and get exterminated or forced into a war. Was that a part of the script?

Harry still didn't consider himself a hero, but he certainly didn't mind considering himself a meddler. Meddling with the scripts he finds and ripping up the pages which force people to suffer was something he would never grow tired of.

He'd saved Jean, Rogue, and Wanda from their own scripts. Jean wouldn't become an unstable deity. Rogue could feel the warmth of another's touch. And Wanda wouldn't become Cthon's avatar. He'd saved Logan's daughter and that daughter's mother. He'd saved ForgetMeNot and a lot of the X-Men from their scripts.

There were scripts he couldn't do anything about of course. Charles was in a way, his own worst enemy, and one day, he'd have to deal with the consequences of his choices. The best Harry could do was to get as many people out of the blast radius as possible when that occurred.

And though Harry was able to save Yinsen, he wasn't able to save Uncle Ben. The fate weavers who killed Harry so long ago had taken another life to move their script along. If it was a good script, he wouldn't mind letting it play out, but if it was anything else, he'd take action. That's what tonight had been about. Though indirectly, Harry was showing Peter the script of what his life had been written to be and asking him if he still wanted to play the part. If so, then Harry would assist and do his best to edit out the shitty parts. If not, then he'd shred the script himself.

Of course, ripping a script to shreds was not a simple thing to do from the outside. The easiest way to do so was from within. The plan's he'd set up were coming together and soon he'd have the opening he needed. As the old saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.

Peter showed up a week later asking for training and Harry took him down to the basement.

"Alright Peter, so what happened and what can you do?"

"Umm, I was bitten by a spider at Oscorp. I didn't even see it until it was already biting my hand. It ran off and I felt really bad. I left and took the bus. I almost passed out but made it home and to bed. Then I woke up like, well, this," he finished gesturing at his muscles and abs.

Harry nodded and then placed something against Peter's arm which took some blood before Peter even noticed. "Hey! Ow."

Harry gave a teasing grin and took the sample over to a home built analyzer and turned the thing on. It continued running for about five minutes while Harry made various adjustments to the system to get specific readouts on specific points.

While doing so, Harry asked, "So what changes are there, besides the obvious."

"Umm, well, I can stick to walls with my fingertips, I'm a lot stronger and faster, I can even lift up a car and if I really try, I think I can outrun one. I can react really fast too, like really fast. And I get these weird vibes when something dangerous is about to happen near me before it happens."

"Anything else?"

"Well, I mean, I can kinda turn invisible and shock people with a touch, like a taser."

The machine finished displaying the results, though only in a way Harry could read. Harry said, "Well, according to these readings, you are still mutating and in less than a year, will turn into a sixteen foot tall, hairy eight armed spider monster."

"WHAT?! OH My GOD!"

"Just kidding."

Peter collapsed and started breathing heavily. After a few moments he said, "don't... Don't Do that!"

Harry chuckled. "Consider it punishment for being an idiot. People who think they've got cancer don't wait to go to the Doctor's office and if I hadn't pushed you, did you have any intention of checking your condition anytime soon? I'm only half joking by the way, you won't turn into a spider monster but from what I can see, it was a very near thing. You barely lucked out."

Peter's hyperventilation certainly did not improve from Harry's admission.

Harry let Peter calm down while going over more of the data and once Peter was back to mostly normal Harry said, "It looks like that spider somehow got a taste of Susan Storm's blood along with a cocktail of other things I'm not the slightest bit surprised Oscorp is playing with. These mixtures though don't fall under the parameters of any purpose I can think of so it was probably just exposed to something by accident and surprisingly, didn't die."

After a few more rounds of keyboard typing, Harry said, "The wall crawling thing looks to be a supercharged version of static cling. You can stick to pretty much any solid surface, though if you got zapped with electricity it wouldn't work for a bit and it definitely won't work on wet surfaces. The invisibility thing looks like a weaker version of Susan Storm's power, and the electric discharge you can emit from your fingertips comes from the same source as the static cling, but stronger. Your muscles have gained arachnid protein markers which gives you a spider's relative strength and reflex speed, but those markers also make you vulnerable to pesticides, specifically Ethyl Chloride which is harmless against humans."

After a few more keystrokes Harry continued, "As for the danger precognition, that doesn't seem to come from your DNA, but something else."

"How do you know?"

"Because there isn't anything in your genes which can cause precognition. If it's not coming from you, then it's being given to you. As for the details, I'll need to look into it a bit more."

Harry had a few ideas but nothing conclusive. Being bitten by a genetically altered spider should have resulted in either nothing happening, Peter getting sick and getting better, Peter dying, or Peter turning into a monster. Harry wasn't joking when he said how near of a miss it was. Threading the needle doesn't come close to describing it and for Peter's sake, Harry wouldn't tell him. But instead, Peter had acquired a mostly stable set of enhanced super human abilities while being marked with the essence of the spider.

Harry recognized outside interference when he saw it. It was similar to how when Harry himself died, others intervened to make what should have killed him into something that remade him. Something intervened with Peter to make him into what he was and guided the outcome with the lowest possible likelihood to the surface.

That being said, it didn't matter too much. Peter had chosen this path willingly, so Harry wouldn't inhibit Peter's growth into a Spider Totem. In fact, it gave Harry a chance to study the Web of Destiny. The web connected all Multiverses together and could be used to travel from one to another. It meant that others could use this web to find their way to this world, but it also meant Harry could use it to make a roadmap to other universes.

After getting Peter's abilities checked, he needed to check his skill. Harry activated the Hard Light combat system and threw Peter at it. Since he could sense danger before it happened, he'd probably survive.

Miles away, the Director of Shield felt a chill down his spine. The last week had not been pleasant for a number of reasons. Two reasons really. Harry Potter and Tony Stark.

He tried to meet the billionaire at his home and even tried to be sneaky about it. Thanks to the investigation, Shield had access to Stark International files which included the Override codes for Stark's home security so Fury tried to disable it and walk in, wait for Stark, and make an entrance like the badass spy he was.

That didn't work out. Jarvis's security was disabled for a moment, and then re-enabled in some kind of failsafe program Fury knew wasn't there two days ago. With that, he lost his element of surprise and Tony simply simply called him an intruder.

Fury ignored the remark and informed Tony of the Avenger's initiative and that he'd stay in touch. If having to deal with Stark was bad enough, the news that broke the following day would have gotten Fury fired if it weren't for the fact that there was no one who could replace him.

The World Class Criminal known as Magneto had taken over a small island country and had applied for U.N. membership. All the paperwork was signed, dated, and filed in its proper place. And not a single person in a single intelligence agency on the entire planet saw it coming.

Fury had to try very hard not to destroy his own office when he saw the details of Magneto's new nation. Every single citizen, more than ten thousand people, was an awakened Mutant, and with the exception of authorized visitors, the island was for Mutants only.

Fury spent a total of twelve straight hours getting reamed by every member of the World Security Council for not having seen this coming.

They had nothing. The island was insular so when the entire internet in and out of the island stopped working last week, no one noticed or cared. Heavy cloud cover last week stopped any passing satellites from seeing anything.

Fury wouldn't be surprised if that application had been viewed by a million lawyers at this point and even the most creative of them could only conclude that it was completely legitimate. As long as the U.N. charter was followed, there was no law preventing outsiders, or in this case, non mutant outsiders. There was nothing illegal about it because no one had ever thought to pass a law to prevent such a thing. With a change in citizenship, as long as Magneto held the status of Leader of this island, he could not be prosecuted for his past crimes and held diplomatic immunity. If he went to a country and committed terrible crimes, the best the country could do was bar him from entry.

That however was not what ticked Fury off the most. No, it was the name of the island. He'd heard it before. Genosha.

Fury had not been amused at Potter's 'prank' of bringing armed Goblins into a classroom. The footage of that class was corrupted so Agent Morse had to submit some paperwork about what happened for Fury to review. He had in fact checked to see if Genosha was real, but found it was a tiny country no one cared about and passed it off as another prank. It was always a prank.

And apparently, that was what Potter wanted them to think.

If that wasn't enough, every agency wanted Potter's tech and access to that poison he used on the Mandarin. Potter nearly ended a World Class Criminal with a small knic and were it not for the combined resources of Khan Industries and Stane's personal accounts, Khan would have died long ago. The tech Potter used was heavily documented by Coulson and the fact that Coulson could use it meant it really was tech, not a magic trick. At least that one piece was.

If all of that wasn't enough, everyone wanted to find Obscurus and get that armor and those damn rings. Stane was in custody but he wasn't exactly doing anything besides demanding a lawyer. Fury had mixed feelings about those rings. He knew that the right people could do a lot of good with tools like that, but also knew that the wrong people could do a lot of damage with them too. With Obscurus taking everything, both possibilities were off the table and it didn't look like the demon mask wearing martial artist needed them either. Fury was told what the man said about those things being as bad as the One Ring and the pictures of the scaled hands of the Mandarin were clear evidence the man wasn't talking out of his ass, but that didn't stop everyone and their grandmother from salivating over the things.

At this point Fury was running low on options. Coulson's interactions proved that Potter didn't have any problems with a direct approach, but it was also the weakest type of approach. I need you, not the other way around, and you know it. That's what a direct approach meant.

However Fury needed answers. He needed that tech. He needed to get in touch with Obscurus. It was time to pay the piper. It was time to meet Harry Potter.

*Author's Note*

For those who had no idea where this story is really going, this chapter should answer a couple of questions about Harry's motivations and aims.

Sorry for not saving Uncle Ben, but there is a big difference between Tony not saving Yinsen and Ben Parker dying. Tony already has a lot of blood on his hands while Peter is an innocent. Best I can do is make sure he doesn't kill everyone he comes into contact with.