TGS - #5

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L.A.

–Jack Sullivan–

"Yawn," He woke up with a yawn which was also accompanied by a long full body stretch that was supremely comfortable. He would argue to the ends of the world that this was the best way to wake up, by stretching your body. Due to the modifications done to his body, he didn't exactly need that much sleep. It had barely been 4 hours since Stark had left and he was already feeling completely refreshed with just that amount of sleep. It was both nice and sad in a way. Nice because sleeping less while getting the same amount of rest would be something akin to a dream for most working-class people and also sad because sleep is something that he enjoyed immensely. Sleep is one of the few things in the world that are sacred and enjoyed by everyone. He foresaw very little sleep in his future life and that saddened him a bit. Yesterday, he was a lot more mentally taxed than physically exhausted and thus, had fallen asleep in this ridiculously comfortable bed.

As was the norm with high-end hotels, it came with a weighted comforter that was absolutely perfect along with an ungodly amount of pillows, one of which he was spooning in his sleep. Happy with his inanimate sleeping partner, he threw the pillow to the other side of the massive-sized bed he was sleeping in and hopped onto his feet in a feat of athleticism that would have had his old body wheezing and grunting in pain because of all the old joint pain that had accompanied him well throughout his late 20s. 

With a sigh, he stretched once again and admired his physique in the human-sized mirror that was installed in the bedroom. God, he loved this place. If he could, he would choose to just live here. It was that good. He could see his abs and noticeable cuts in his muscles.

Whistling, he thought of all the ladies he would woo once he entered the dating scene. Unfortunately, he was sure that it would have to wait for a while because of his baby face. Because he might have the body of an Adonis, he had the face of someone who had just hit puberty and had not finished going through it, keeping him at the awkwardly illegal age of 14-15 years old. Going after girls of that age would make him a pedophile and going after girls his own age would most likely end with the ladies in jail so unfortunately, the dating scene was a no-go for him.

"Bummer," He muttered to himself and then went about his day, using the fancy toiletries provided by the hotel to do his business.

__________xx_________

"Thank you," He tried to ignore the looks his server was giving him as he continued to absolutely destroy the pasta they had given him. There was already a tower of plates on the table in front of him as the drawbacks of having an enhanced body finally caught up to him. He was particularly heavy on the meat, evidenced by the multiple steaks that he had devoured in a short span of time. Once again, he wondered if he shouldn't have just ordered room service but then he was reminded of his identity or lack thereof and then went back to scarfing down food that would have been enough for a family of 4, for a day.

"Mr.Sullivan?" He looked up mid-slurp from the noodles he had ordered to look at a gentleman wearing the stereotypical driver's uniform. Swallowing the noodles, he asked, "Yes?"

"I am Ned, I will be your driver for the day. I was told you have an urgent appointment with Mr.Stark?" His words made his hands pause from where they were inching toward his next plate. He sighed and looked forlorn as he told the server to clear the dishes and bill them to his room. Ned took his coat, which was entirely unnecessary but it was a part of the ensemble that Jarvis had left for him in the room so he had gone ahead with that, and then they headed towards the limo. And what a limo it was. It looked just like the average run-of-the-day limo but once he went inside, it was like he had entered a whole other world. Plush massage chairs along with a full bar and TV already running for him. He looked at the phone that Stark had left for him yesterday and started scrolling through the news, the habit of doom scrolling refusing to leave him even after traversing through universes. He was not a fool. He was aware that this phone was bugged all the way but he did not use it to search for anything nefarious. Just general public information that, hopefully, Stark should not be able to make sense of.

Apparently, all the companies were still there, Stark, Oscorp, Hammer, and more. Wakanda was still a third-world country and it also told him the time period he was in. It was May 1, 2011. That gave him roughly a year to prepare for the events that surrounded the beginning of the endgame. The event that exposed humans to the truth that only a select handful of people knew. The confirmation that they were not alone in the universe and their neighbours were not all friendly and neither were they stone-wielding Neanderthals. They were hyper-evolved civilisations capable of destroying Earth multiple times over without even breaking a sweat.

Hmm, he noted that the limo was not as silent as it was advertised back in his home universe but it could just be his enhanced senses giving him more information than was normal for regular humans. He could also sense the minute vibrations of the different speed breakers and even the minute potholes that remained to be a hard problem for human civilization in every universe. "Aha, the good stuff," He exclaimed softly once he found the good wine in the bar of the limo and promptly just pulled the lid and started drinking straight from the bottle. It felt so nice to do so knowing his body would just filter out the toxins nearly instantly, allowing him to enjoy the wine without getting drunk. Ah, that was also conversely a sad thing. If he wanted to get drunk, there was no possible way other than procuring some wine from off-world markets.

"We have reached, Mr.Sullivan," He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice them reaching the Stark residence. Well, he did notice the car slowing down but he didn't register that as them reaching Stark's home. He exited the car to see the absolutely sprawling area in which Stark had built his house in. It was the iconic house he had built into the cliff and was also seaside, creating a magnificent view that could not be topped by many things outside of Stark himself. Perfect level of opulence for a man who had everything and would have even more in the future, if the memories of the man he had in his head ever turned out to be true.

He took one look at the same rectangular platform that he had first met in Greenland and nodded to Ned, who took the car away. "Lead the way," He said, feeling silly talking to a rectangular rock but he knew that Jarvis was listening all the same. The rock nodded and then turned around and floated away. He promptly followed suit. He took the time to take in the various things that assaulted his senses once he started taking the long walk to Stark's living room. The smell of nature and the smell of metal was something that he had long become used to. It was the smell of something burning that piqued his attention and it was not coming from the building but from somewhere behind him. He chose not to point that out because he did not want to out himself as being enhanced, not that Stark did not have an inkling of an idea already.

"This way, Mr.Sullivan," Jarvis' voice filtered through the ceiling speakers as he went downstairs through the stairs that led straight to Stark's basement. He soon reached the glass doors that separated his lab from his living space.

He was about to knock on the door before it opened up by itself. He gingerly took a step in and saw the absolutely chaotic way that Stark had kept his stuff in. He was sure that even here, there was some sort of order to it that only Stark and probably, Jarvis knew about. 

"Ah, Jack, right on time," Stark emerged from behind him, only this time he was prepared for it because his enhanced senses managed to inform him about the door opening and somebody stepping down on the stairs, unlike yesterday night when the suits' came with state of the art stealth technology that managed to suppress even their minuscule scents of metal.

"Mr.Stark," He offered his hand for a handshake but Tony just placed a pizza box on his hand before moving on to the center of the lab where a huge screen awaited him, creating something like a central console of sorts. He shrugged and just opened the pizza box, delighted to see it was Margarita pizza, his favourite. He immediately began munching on it as he followed Stark to his battle station, as it were. He was curious as to what Stark had to show to him. Once he had had enough rest and food in his stomach, he had realised that Tony must have measured the strength with which he could move around his barriers, and seeing that it managed to break apart high-strength alloys, it must be a lot and that filled him with hope because he did not want to be stuck on the defensive duty only. That would be, while heroic enough, plain boring and a little dangerous because even someone with absolute defense will not win if they don't have at least an average amount of offense in their cards.

"So, what can you tell me about what happened last night?" He asked Tony once again. With a soft, "Ah!" Tony swiped on his screen which created a hologram in front of him, showing a video feed, probably from the cameras from his hidden suit, showing the scene of him ripping apart one of Tony's suits hands. There was a graph that showcased the amount of force the suit's servos were exerting along with the repulsor arrays to stop his shield from escaping its grasps. The feed ended with the suit being damaged. 

"Congratulations, little guy. You are officially the second-hardest hitter on the planet. Well, that I know of," Stark said and then added after a little pause.

"How hard?" He questioned Stark, already aware of the hardest hitter on the planet. The Hulk. He was curious how he compared to the Green rampaging giant.

"Well, I couldn't exactly get an exact figure but at a very minimum, more than a couple dozen tons. The moment I lost count was about 38 tons. I was able to get that figure only because of magnetic arrays in my suit that held onto the arms before that too failed." Stark said as he tried to explain to him the complicated mechanisms he had installed in his suit to make sure that it never failed in its basic integrity.

"Wow! The number one must be an absolute beast to beat even that figure," He fake exclaimed.

Tony snorted as if he had thought of a particularly funny joke that only he was privy to. "Yes, he does hit much much harder than you do," He added in the end slowly.

"Ah, yes. I have something for you. I have devised a course where we can test your powers and then figure out your limits. Then, we can move on to training so that you can improve them. You should have just hit puberty so hopefully, your powers should grow with you."

Ah, Stark was still under the assumption that he was just a kid when in reality he was almost 31 years old, the same age in both his lives. Interestingly, maybe his body was actually reverted internally as well. He might have to test that out as well and who better to do it than in the lab of Tony Stark, the man who could make even an Infinity Gauntlet, something that only the Dwarves of Nidavellir, had the privilege of making.

With that in mind, "Okay. I have a couple of other tests in mind as well. You see when I woke up this morning…" 

They went on with their conversation, unaware that Jack had already appeared on SHIELD's and by extension, HYDRA's radar as someone with no identity coming in contact with their POI[Person of Interest], i.e. Tony Stark. It was only a matter of time before they tried to approach him once they realised that he truly did not exist in any database known to man.

Meanwhile, Jack had the bare bones of a plan forming in his mind that could lead to Thanos being stopped but he had to be incredibly careful. After all, it wouldn't do for him to save Humanity from an outer existential threat only for it to crumble from within, just like his society was about to. He had seen plenty of signs and he would do everything in his power to make sure Humanity had a much stabler conversion to a developed planet rather than the handful of developed countries that adorned its brown patches of land.

Word Count - 2321

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