chapter 4 I like my weapons how I like my music: Heavy and Metal

Something I hadn't expected: apparently Extremis can't cure me of my sea sickness.

Combined with the fact that my innards were comfortably resting at a temperature hot enough to melt steel, 'projectile vomit' suddenly becomes a far more dangerous expression.

Still, at least Extremis kept me from feeling like absolute shit, and the journey towards South-Africa was progressing relatively quickly.

However, as there is virtually nothing to do inside the hold of a cargo ship, I was mostly stuck with either eating, sleeping or getting prodded and poked by Sterns, who took the opportunity of having me in a position where I had nowhere to run to in order to perform a whole battery of tests.

While uncomfortable (Sterns has seemed to have developed quite a fondness for the pike he claims is a syringe. He keeps stabbing me with it), the tests were very informative.

Turns out that the Hulk-blood and the Extremis serum not only played nice with each other, they apparently worked on top of each other, due to the different ways they used to enhance me. The effect was a multiplication instead of a sum.

Extremis basically supercharged my muscles and organs, raising the temperature of my body to ridiculous extremes, while giving me super strength and regeneration (it was why the lithe Extremis woman had been able to match me blow for blow, despite the fact that I was twice her size and wearing power armour).

Hulk-blood enhanced me in a different way, as it made my muscles and bones not only larger, but immensely denser as well (the Hulk and Abomination had become so durable that bullets simply bounced of their skin).

So, baseline human + Hulk-blood = Big, though human who is strong enough to bend steel.

Baseline human + Extremis virus = Strong, regenerating human running quite a fever.

With me, things were somewhat different.

Extremis didn't have to work with ordinary, puny human muscles, but with muscles enhanced by Hulk-blood to be larger and denser than normal, which on their own made them plenty strong already.

The result?

Supercharged, superheated Hulk-enhanced muscles. Basically, I was stronger than any human injected with Hulk-blood, and I was capable of reaching higher temperatures than any human enhanced by Extremis.

As was made clear to me when I started bench-pressing one of the shipping containers, the veins in my arms glowing brightly in the dim belly of the hull as my bulging muscles exerted themselves in lifting multiple tons of steel and cargo.

It wasn't effortless, but considering the container weighed in at somewhere around 3 tonnes, I should either be wearing power armour for this or be squashed flat like a bug. Instead, I had been lifting the container for half an hour now, the massive regeneration keeping my muscles from tiring, though probably not indefinitely.

Briefly, the urge to find someone to test my strength against overwhelmed me when I lifted the container with the ease that I did (or rather that I managed to do it at all), the haze that came over me right after injecting myself with Hulk-blood rushing back with some familiarity, but I was quickly snapped out of it when I realized that the heavy hitters on the Avengers can probably lift 10 times that.

And there are beings out there who are even stronger than they are.

That quickly cooled my enthusiasm (figuratively of course, considering the Extremis-fuelled volcano that now seemed to live inside of me), but I quickly came out of my funk by experimenting with my new powers.

I had never realized that breathing fire could be so fucking awesome!

I felt like a dragon or something, and (much to Sterns's annoyance) I kept the rest of the journey randomly spouting great bursts of flame, then grinning like a loon at my newfound status as living flamethrower (which are awesome on their own. Having one in your throat only multiplies the amount of awesome to critical levels).

Sadly (sarcasm much?) our wonderful sea-trip had to come to an end as we made port in Cape Town, South-Africa (and no matter what Sterns tells you, I did not end up on my knees kissing the ground, tearfully thanking it for not moving so damn much. I already destroyed the pictures so there's no proof).

Still, we had finally made landfall, on the 16th of August, 2011, which gave me around half a year to finish Step 5: get money, while also completing Step 7: take Ulysses Klaue's stuff.

Unfortunately, I still had to actually find Gollum. Fortunately, I had Google Maps, and I knew that Hulk fought the Hulkbuster-armor in Johannesburg, so I could just find the nearest beach and start looking there for Klaue's derelict ship. Unfortunately, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and taking a plane there was out of the question.

Most unfortunately though?

Johannesburg is an inland town: there are no shores anywhere near it.

When I discovered that I spent a good twenty minutes roaring in anger, fire literally spewing from my mouth as I cursed the producers of Marvel Studios for not doing their goddamned research before making their movies (then again, I only discovered the problem just now, so was being a tad hypocritical, but at the moment I didn't care).

Eventually I calmed down enough to realize that whatever I was going to end up doing, I couldn't stay hidden inside the cargo ship forever (especially since they had begun unloading it), so my best bet was to simply make my way to Johannesburg, and then use a outwards spiralling search-pattern to find Klaue.

But first, I had to get off this ship.

Getting on the ship had been surprisingly easy: in the dead of night, when the only people present were exhausted firemen trying to contain the hellish nightmare the pier I had fought on had turned into, I came in with sealed boxes with our equipment inside from underneath the water (I had almost forgotten that since I had salvaged most of my armour from the Navy model drone, it also doubled as a submarine), then put those boxes inside the containers that I knew where meant for Cape Town (which were easy enough to find, as most shipping manifests were shockingly easy to get to if you had a motivated, hyper-intelligent genius on your side). Then, when they were scheduled to be shipped out, me and Sterns simply hid ourselves inside one of them and presto, we were on board a trans-Atlantic voyage.

Now, we simply did the same but in reverse.

During the day, the containers (and therefore, us as well) were offloaded from the ship and stacked onto the harbour, waiting for their further distribution by train or truck or whatever other mode of vehicular transportation.

When night fell, I kicked open the door of the container I had hid in, and started ripping open the doors of the units in which I had stuffed Sterns and the rest of our stuff. While I began loading everything in a single container, Sterns went off to find us a truck which we could borrow for an unspecified amount of time, without asking (stealing is just such a harmful word, you know?).

While Sterns went off to procure our transportation, I kept on working as fast as I could, trying to get everything done before someone (dockworkers, drugdealers, hell, maybe even a few spies. In this universe, anything was possible) could show up and notice us.

Which is of course, the exact moment someone did show up.

It was a group of four men, and judging by their shifty expressions, lack of protective gear, and the way too fancy suitcase the guy in front was carrying, cuffs linking his wrist to the handle, I could tell they had just as much right being here as I had.

Which meant, none at all.

Thankfully, I was standing in the shadows cast by the container I was currently stuffing to the brim with advanced scientific equipment, so the dealers (of what exactly I didn't bother to think about) could only see a giant silhouette.

Turning towards them (making sure my features stayed hidden in the shadows) I focused on willing the heat in my eyes to increase, which as Sterns had told me, made them glow up like a pair of overheated coals.

"You saw nothing. Keep moving." I growled, trying to do the Christian Bale version of Batman while I spoke (which meant that I sounded like I sprinkled gravel over my cereal every morning).

However, when combined with their already existing nervousness, it appeared that my deep rumbling voice, glowing hellish eyes and massive shadowed frame sufficed to get my meaning across, and resolutely not looking my way, they hurriedly walked onwards, towards whatever nefarious meeting they had planned.

I paused in my work long enough to keep an eye on them until they turned a corner and were out of my sight, before I hurriedly finished my work, trying to get all of it done until either they regained their courage or until someone else showed up who proved to be less easy to scare off.

Thankfully, I was almost done when those dealers showed up, and within three minutes everything was packed up and ready to go. It took another two minutes for Sterns to show up (as he had never driven a truck before, his arrival was heralded by the sound of an engine and gearbox, slowly being tortured to death).

Hitching up the container to the truck was somewhat of a hassle, but between my super strength and Sterns's intellect (not to mention several Google-searches and YouTube instructional videos) we got it done right as the dawn hesitantly shone its first lights upon the shore of South-Africa, as we drove off into the remains of the night.

Like I said, it's a fourteen hour drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and every time it was Sterns's shift to drive again (which always made me feel slightly guilty towards the engine of our truck) I spend pouring over maps we had liberated from whatever tourist info centre we came across.

During those long sweltering hours on the road (or at least, Sterns kept complaining that they were sweltering. I barely even registered temperature anymore, always feeling comfortably warm) my mood kept getting worse and worse as I realized how truly fucked I am due to the MCU-producers not knowing their topography.

Because there is no such thing as a shore near Johannesburg, I now had no idea where to go look for Gollum other than in an ever widening search pattern. Finding Ulysses by just going around and looking for him would take ages, and while I had some time before Loki showed up, I wanted to be back in America well beforehand.

So, after getting rid of the map in frustration (it burned up in my hands after my realization that it was absolutely useless in helping me find Klaue made me nearly burst into flames, which annoyed Sterns to no end as he now had no idea where we were going), I spent the rest of the trip to Johannesburg (a full six hours of either staring out the window, or trying to keep the old truck going after the abuse it suffered under Sterns's inexperienced driving) sulking about my problem, plotting and dismissing hundreds of idea's as how to get my hands on that shiny Vibranium.

It was only due to the efforts of some misguided idiots that I finally found my answer: we were being carjacked.

Or at least, that was the intention of our would-be robbers. We were still about an hour out from Johannesburg, finally hitting asphalt again, when out of the underbrush on either side of the road sprang three beat-up cars. They quickly sped up, two riding in front of us, two on either side of the cabin, and two behind us.

There was a lot of shouting involved, and guns being waved, and while Sterns was clearly panicked by the violent demands for us to stop the truck, I couldn't help but grin, a deep thrumming in my veins suddenly roaring up in anticipation.

Foolishly, I dismissed the feeling as merely being the effects of adrenaline kicking in.

"Sterns. Stay down. I'll handle it."

Taking a good look at the thuggish looking brutes waving around pistols and machine guns, the scientist simply gives a jerky nod, before slamming on the brakes, killing the engine and diving underneath the dashboard (in the process almost making the cars behind us slam into the container, and given the fact none of them wore seatbelts I could see the criminals getting thrown around their cars when the drivers were forced to slam on the brakes as well. That should teach you: always wear your seatbelt).

As we all come to a stop in a great cloud of dust, a lean guy jumps out of the car on my side of the cabin, waving around a machine gun while yelling at me to open the door or else get my brains splattered across the ceiling.

I make no reaction to show I had even heard him, sinking a little further down in my seat instead. This clearly infuriates the car thief, as he runs up to the cabin, hand outstretched to the door handle, ready to rip it open-

BLAM!

-right as I kick it straight off its hinges, sending it (and with it, the would-be mugger) crashing back into the car with enough force that it completely crumples around the impact, killing both the thug and the driver, and at the least knocking out the occupants on the other side of the car. There's no moral hang-ups this time; these people wanted to rob and maybe even kill us, so I currently don't feel like holding back.

In the shocked silence that follows, I jump out of the truck, sprinting towards the two cars at the front of us with a speed that would put a cheetah to shame. Heat is starting to build up inside me, and even though I can't see it, I just know my eyes are lighting up like gateways to Mephisto's bedroom.

Within seconds, I reach the car on the right, and in a beautifully executed Spartan kick, slam my booted foot at the top of the frame where the front and back door meet. The car nearly tips over from the force of my blow, and before it can settle back down, I reach into its belly and lift it straight from the ground.

By now, the four thugs in the other car have gotten out, two on either side of it, but due to their shock they have yet to open fire, a mistake for which they pay for with their lives. I throw the car at the two guys on the left side of the other vehicle, with enough speed that it catches them both and then keeps on flying for about 10 feet, before it comes crashing down and slides along another 5 feet, reducing them to mangled corpses.

While this is happening, I have already ran towards the remaining two would-be thieves, vaulting over the boot of their car before nailing the guy in the front with a sweeping kick that slams into his chest, which blasts him into his accomplice with enough force it shatters both their bodies.

As I straighten up, I can hear a staccato of thundering bursts, before the car I'm standing behind let's out groaning shrieks of metal as its body is pierced bu bullets, a few cutting through the air next to my ear with whizzing sounds. Apparently now the rest have caught on, opening fire with their machine guns and pistols, the truck completely forgotten in their rage and panic.

I quickly duck behind the car, before grabbing the underside and with a heave, throwing it on its side. Then, I pick it up by the axels and using it as a battering ram, charge for the guys on Sterns's side of the truck.

However, between the larger distance between this group and the one I had just disposed of and the way dragging the car is slowing me down, I don't manage to actually catch any of the guys (three this time), instead ploughing into their car with my makeshift shield, totalling both vehicles with an ear-deafening crash.

They had to jump out of the way from my charge though, and were more disoriented than me from their sudden tumble in the dust and the bang that had just gone off right next to their ears, so I still have the initiative.

I turn towards the two guys on the right, and before they can point their guns at me, I leap towards them, grasping each head in one of my hands, before I bring them together like I'm trying crack a couple eggs for my omelette.

Though I prefer my omelettes with a bit less brains, thankyouverymuch.

As I straighten however, a gunshot rings out behind me, and pain explodes in my lower back.

Intellectually, I knew that apart from a headshot (and maybe even then) I had nothing to fear from small-arms gunfire, as I could survive it. Still, knowing that you're going to be fine after getting shot, and actually getting shot I discovered are two vastly different things.

I might have screamed, but if I had, then the noise was drowned out by a further six gunshots barking across the battlefield, each shot hammering into my back with enough force it felt like I was getting punched by the berserker Extremis woman all over again.

The shots throw me towards the ground, as I land on my hands and knees in whatever remained of the ex-car thieves heads, pain and heat flaring all over my back, even as bits of grey matter stick to my pants and shirt.

But with the heat, comes rage.

That urge to let loose, to truly test my strength, that ever-present itch that had been at the back of my skull ever since I had taken part of the universe's most infamous rage-monster into myself flared back to life again, roaring to finally be unleashed.

And so I let it.

As the soon-to-be dead man hesitantly approaches my hunched form, I suddenly yell out in rage, the temperature inside me reaching extreme new heights, my shirt catching fire in a great ball of flame as I do, revealing my ridged spine and raised ribcage as its ruined scraps slowly fall off my torso onto the stained dirt.

Straightening myself, feeling the bullets stuck in my back being pushed out from their entry wounds while also slowly liquefying, I turn back towards the idiot who shot me, flames dancing around my torso, the air shimmering around my body as tarmac melts underneath my feet.

The guy has just enough time to swallow and lift the gun towards me, before I'm suddenly right there, my white-hot glowing hand shooting forwards, fingers outstretched, slamming through his ribcage and emerging through his back, though there is no blood as the massive wound was immediately cauterized, the beast inside grinning with glee at its kill.

Lifting the corpse stuck on my arm, I turn towards the two remaining cars at the back of the truck (I could see the muzzles of their guns flashing, I could hear the shots ringing out, I could feel their bullets impacting my flame-wreathed from. I just didn't care), before reaching back like a pitcher at a baseball game. Then I throw the guy I had turned into a shish-kebab at the car on the right, sending him straight through the front window and into the boot.

That was apparently too much for the guys in the remaining car, as they stopped shooting, jumped in and tore off without even looking back. The other criminals weren't so lucky, as I had just broken their car, so they were stuck with me.

With desperate eyes they glance at each other, before resuming their shooting at my flaming form, yelling as loud as they could to mask their own fear, all the while slowly backing away as I advance, trying to keep some distance between my white glowing fists and their vulnerable bodies.

It was useless.

The beast inside me was raging to its heart's content, but I was still there, and I subtly reminded it that we also had a ranged option. And with that, I stop, opened my mouth, and breathe the biggest flame I had ever seen in either life so far (and between the two lives I've had, I've seen Rammstein in concert five times, so that's saying something).

With my massive body also came massive lungs, and I kept up my flame throwing for a full five minutes, long enough for all the screams to die out. When I ran out of breath (and enemies to fight) the inner beast (which I was surprised to find I even had, as I had chalked up my more aggressive impulses to my own changed personality, rather than an internal alter-ego) subsided and I got control over my body again.

And promptly threw up.

The smell of burned flesh is horrible, yet was everywhere around me. The feeling of a human being dying underneath your hands is somehow worse, yet I kept picturing the man I had shoved my arm straight through, over and over again.

I fell to my knees on the ruined road (some small, numb part of me noticing I was naked again) simply staring at the vision of hell that was before me.

That I had created.

Dimly, I heard the remaining door of the truck open, before hesitant footsteps approached me.

"Michael? Michael, what's going- oh Jesus!"

I could hear the scientist retch behind me, but still I didn't move from my kneeling position, noticing that I'm not crying. Whether that is because my tears keep evaporating, or because I'm still in shock I don't know, and frankly, at the moment I don't care.

"Michael? What the hell happened?"

It takes a monumental effort before I managed to work my jaw enough to from words, and when I finally manage to, they surprise both Sterns and me as well.

"I lost control."

Because that's what all this was. This was what happened when a superhuman (a category which as of this year, suddenly includes me) loses control: others die.

I had never been a fan of DC's 'no killing rule', especially when it came to irredeemable psychopaths like the Joker, nor did I ever really buy into the whole 'humans hate/fear mutants' that the mutant storylines were based on (people somehow cheer for the Avengers, but hate mutants, while some Avengers aren't even human at all? Where's the logic in that?) but looking at the devastation around me, which I caused because I became angry enough to lose control?

I got it now. When people could do things like this, especially when they get angry, you cannot help but be afraid. Because even without superpowers, humans were capable of doing horrible things after just one, really bad day. Throw in superpowers, and the damage people could do to each other would monumentally increase.

This wasn't supposed to happen though. Not to me. Not in a Self-Insert. Those were all wish fulfilment stories, a little bit of mindless fun. Become friends with your favourite superhero, shag your celebrity crush(es), be adored by your allies, feared by your enemies and all that.

'Except, you chose to do none of those things, did you?' a tiny voice (either my conscience or Ant-man) whispered inside my mind.

"Michael? What are we going to do?"

Sterns's hesitant voice dragged me from my morose contemplations, and feeling as if my head was made out of lead, I raised it enough so I could look him in the eye, exhaustion filling every part of my being.

"We're going to go with my original plan. Before all… this happened. We ask them where we can find Klaue."

"Do you think they know where he is?"

"If they don't, they'll know someone who does."

/

Turned out that Sterns and me were both right, the guys who were left alive (five men, out of a group that started out with roughly twenty or so) didn't know where Klaue was, but they did know someone who probably did.

Some small-time weapons dealer, who bought from the massive stocks that Klaue and his like had on hand, and sold them in turn to the various gangs in and around Johannesburg, like the one that had tried to rob me.

Getting the location had been easy enough. While they all feared the weapons dealer enough to not snitch on him to the authorities or rival gangs and the like, they feared me on a whole other level.

What came after was significantly more difficult though.

"What are you going to do to us?!"

It was one of the survivors, yelling at my back as I turned away to walk towards where Sterns already has the truck ready to go. Looking over my shoulder at the desperate man (who flinches when my glowing eye sets on him, cradling his shattered leg with a grimace of pain) I briefly stand still in order to think about his question.

What was I going to do with them?

The smart thing to do would be to quickly kill them. If I let them go, then best case scenario is that they grab more weapons and friends and come back to try again, or worst case scenario is that they blab about me and my abilities to the wrong people (which at the moment includes just about everyone, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are at the top of the list, and they definitely will find out).

On the other hand, I have definitely had my fill of killing (my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh), and the thought of disposing of these defenseless men as well makes me vaguely ill.

Before I could make a decision either way, I suddenly remember the car that got away from me, probably three men inside. So, cat's already outta the bag, no need to kill these guys as well since containment is no longer an option either way.

I realize I'm rationalizing, and that it's probably a bad idea, but I can't bring myself to care with the stench of burnt human still filling my nose.

So all I did was shrug at the man, turning away from him and his friends, walking towards where Sterns is waiting.

"I'm not gonna do anything. Just forget you ever saw me and don't get in my way."

And with that, I jumped into the cabin, and Sterns drove off, towards where the next lead to Ulysses Klaue and his Vibranium is located.

/

Finding the arms-dealer's hideout is easy with the directions the carjackers gave me. Getting in is even easier. It's located in the back of a whore house, with your stereotypical goons one either side of the door, which is probably locked from the inside with a heavy bolt, a small flap allowing for someone to give a passwords or something.

I just walk up without saying anything, ignoring the warning scowls the guards send my way, smash the head of one goon (they're pretty big. I'm bigger) into the wall, kick the other one in the knee, then knee him in the chin, before I kick the door into the hideout, taking mortar and the bolt with it.

As I step inside, shocked silence greets me.

All around the room are stacks of cash, crates filled with weapons and ammo, while a dozen or so guys are seated on ratty couches or at dingy tables. They were all either playing cards, video games, or with the half-naked women in their laps, and the scent of drugs is an almost physical thing, hanging in the air.

Some slowly reach towards their guns as the people inside regain their footing, the women clearly not knowing whether to scream or go hide in a corner.

All movement is halted as I remove the ratty blanket I had thrown over myself as a makeshift cloak in order to walk the back-alleys of Johannesburg relatively unseen. However, as I throw it off myself, I show them just how huge my muscles are, the raised ribcage jutting out from my skin, the glowing pulses in my chest showing my heartbeat.

"Anyone here by the name of Mandingo?" I rumble, my voice and expression clearly conveying just how done I am with all of this shit, and someone better answer me within the next ten minutes or this part of Johannesburg goes up in flames.

A tall guy with dreadlocks warily steps up, an Uzi (or at least, I think it's an Uzi. I wouldn't know, I've never really been a fan of guns) grabbed securely in his hands, his fingernails blackened from filth and drug abuse.

"I am Mandingo, freak. What the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you want?" he spits, but I can clearly see through the front he's putting up for his gang.

If he wasn't terrified of me, he would've already shot me for being in his secret hideout uninvited.

Completely unbothered by the multitude of weapons that are within reaching distance of some of the worst scum in South-Africa, I take a few slow, measured strides towards Mandingo, until were about an arms-length away from each other.

Even from this distance, I'm looming over the arms dealer, who has to crane his neck a little to look me in my burning eyes, something he clearly has difficulty with. Most of them do, I notice, the dim lighting of the hideout throwing my glowing veins and pulsing heartbeat in high contrast.

"I want Ulysses Klaue."

That clearly takes him by surprise, as he briefly forgets his fear.

"What the fuck? Fuck no! I ain't telling you fucking shit, you motherfu-"

Faster than anyone can react, I've reached out, my massive hand closing around his throat and lifting him high above my head, making his feet dangle way above the floor. Immediately I hear the sounds of hammers being cocked but I ignore them, instead heating up my hand just the tiniest bit.

Immediately, the sounds and smells of burning flesh fill the hideout (I have to force myself not to hurl as an image flashes before my eyes of my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh) Mandingo screaming bloody murder.

"Tell your men to stand down. Now."

"Stand down! Stand the fuck down assholes!"

As the men lower their weapons I drop Mandingo to the floor, letting him smack down with a meaty sound as he keeps writhing in pain from his burned neck.

"I'm gonna ask you again. And this time, you're going to tell me everything I want to know. And trust me, Mandingo: their ain't gonna be a third time."

I bend down, grabbing the wailing dealer by his dreadlocks, hauling him up so I can look him in his blood-shot, panicked eyes.

"I. Want. Ulysses Klaue."

"All right! All right! I'll tell you! He's down at the Three Rivers, near Eikenhof, just South from here!" Mandingo screams out in a panic, any thoughts of keeping his dignity in front of his gang forgotten after his near-death experience.

Unfortunately I don't know where that is.

With that realization, I drop him to the floor again and straighten up, looking over the other gang members, who are all looking at me with a combination of wariness and anger. I look back down at the whimpering Mandingo, before I make my decision.

"I'm taking you with me."

And with that, I grab him by the neck (making him cry out again, this time cursing me, my ancestry, and the ancestry of the goat my mother has apparently lain with in order to conceive me. Or something like that, I don't really bother with listening) and turn around, making my way towards the exit, before I pause as my gaze falls on a duffel bag filled to the brim with cash.

I bend down, zip it up and sling it over my shoulder.

"And I'm taking this as well."

One of the bigger grunts opens his mouth in anger, the grip on his gun tightening, but I suddenly twist towards him, my eyes nearly bursting into flame with the heat I'm channelling through them, making him stop in his tracks, fear flashing over his face.

Tracking my hellish gaze over the other occupants of the room, I challenge all of them to try and stop me.

None of them do.

"You ever speak of me to anyone.... you ever so much as hint that you know I exist.... I will know. I will track you down. I will find you. And I'll shove my hand in your stomach and set you on fire from the inside out. Do we have an understanding?"

As I finish delivering my threat, I force heat to rise to the surface of my skin instead of just my eyes this time, and in response veins all over my body and face start flaring up as if it were lava flowing through them instead of blood, the temperature inside immediately becoming sweltering in response to the amount of heat I'm putting out. Making sure to look everyone in the eye who doesn't appear stuitably cowed already, forcing them to back off after staring them down, I finally feel somewhat secure that they won't go blabbing about me the moment I turn my back, though I can't tell how long their silence will last.

And so, with a cash-filled duffel bag over my shoulder and with a cursing and spitting arms dealer in my hand, I turn my back on Johannesburg.

/

As Sterns and me are walking up to what Mandingo assured me was Klaue's base I was surprised to find that it wasn't a ship, before I kicked myself for forgetting the timeline (Klaue only gets the boat in 2015 I remember now).

So looking for the non-existent coast had been a bad idea from the start, as the weapons merchant wasn't even based there yet.

It's yet one more thing that hammers home to me that, while I had abhorred Mary Sues in my previous life, not being one now sucked in the extreme. Just one more mistake that I really cannot afford to make, because this world isn't like my old one, because this is a world of Gods and Monsters and I'm just a nerd trying to get through it all alive.

The hide-out is apparently a warehouse that seems to have been abandoned decades ago, graffiti on every wall and most of the windows smashed in.

Basically, it looks like crap.

I turn a sceptic eye on Mandingo, who visibly gets nervous under my scrutiny.

"This is the place?"

"Yeah man, I swear man. This is where that fucking Klaue is, I come here all the time to do my business man." The arms dealer hurries to tell me.

"Really. All the time, you say. Then you go first."

"What?"

And with that, I grab him by the back of his stained shirt with one arm, reach back, and throw him through the front door, which yields under the criminal's impressive momentum in a wonderful shower of wood splinters.

Ignoring the pained groans from Mandingo and the panicked shouts from inside, I step into the warehouse, Sterns making sure he stays behind me, which is rather easy to do as I am almost twice his size.

What greets me are several mountains of crates, cashes, storage units an even a few cubicles.

Oh, not to mention well over a dozen gun barrels.

I'm not worried however, as this time, I'm wearing my armour, fully kitted out with every weapon I could fit on it, which means that I outgun all of these men combined.

Hell, my tank gun alone would be enough to take out most of them, but I'm keeping that one as an ace up my sleeve for now. I don't know what Klaue will do, or what kind of toys he has, so better be safe than sorry.

I'm done making mistakes.

"Well, what's all this then?" A voice comes out of one of the cubicles, and as I hear the sound of an office chair rolling, Gollum himself peaks around the corner, one eyebrow raised in questioning, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, what seems like a Desert Eagle in the other.

Walking forwards, my boots clanking on the bare floor with metallic slams at every step, I ignore his henchmen training their weapons on me as I walk further inside.

"Meneer Klaue. Ik heb een voorstel voor je." (Mister Klaue. I have a proposition for you.)

The Belgian man is clearly surprised at my Dutch, but even though he grins at hearing the closest thing to his mother tongue in what is likely decades, he remains wary.

"Really? En wat voor voorstel heb je dan, waarvoor het blijkbaar nodig is dat je mijn voordeur intrapt?" (And what kind of proposition do you have, which apparently requires you to kick in my front door?) Klaue asks, arrogance lining his voice, though he seems to take me more seriously as he realizes I'm in power armour, standing up and putting away his bottle of Jack.

Sterns taps me on the shoulder, and as I tilt my head to show that I'm listening, he hesitantly asks a question.

"Mr. McCole, what are you two saying?" he whispers, though in the vast space of the warehouse this is useless, his voice rebounding of the bare walls.

"I just told him that I had a proposition for him, he wondered what kind of proposition involves me kicking down his door." I reply, not bothering to keep my voice down, before I turn back towards Gollum, who seems to be amused at our byplay.

"Het soort voorstel dat ons allebei schatrijk zal maken." (The kind of proposition that will make the both of us extremely rich) I say to him, trying to catch his interest by promising him riches.

"Aha." Klaue grunts, and his disbelief is almost visible as his gaze tracks my armour from my boots up to my helmet, finally resting on the turret of my tank gun that sticks out over my shoulder.

"Is dat Stark's speelgoed dat je daar hebt?" (Is that Stark's toy you have there?) he asks about my armour.

"Als je mijn voorsteel aanneemt, dan kan het jouw speelgoed worden." (If you accept my proposition, it can become your toy.)

Again a tap on my shoulder, and as I turn back towards Sterns he clearly looks uncomfortable with being the only person in the room who doesn't understand what's going on.

"What are you saying now, Mr McCole? I don't like the way he looks at us. Or rather, at the armour."

"I just told him that if he accepts my deal, the armour is his."

Ignoring Sterns's outraged sputters behind me (for all the he claimed that as a geneticist he had no business helping me build power armor he rather acts affronted at the thought of losing something he has invested days of work into), I turn back towards the Belgian arms dealer, who I can tell is really intrigued by the possibility of getting his hands on Stark's latest tech.

The arms sector took a historically large hit when Tony Stark pulled Stark Industries out from weapons manufacturing, and despite people like Hammer trying to jump in and fill the gap, people all over the world only hungered even more for Stark tech, which had just become even more exclusive.

What is it they say about artists? The best thing they can do for their art is die?

As far as people like Ulysses Klaue were concerned, that's exactly what happened, and the thought of getting his hands on post-Iron Man tech was clearly catching his fancy.

"Ik neem aan dat er bij zo'n mooi aanbod ook een heftige prijskaart is inbegrepen. Wat moet je ervoor hebben?" (I assume that such an atractive offer also includes a heavy pricetag. What do you want for it?)

At his question as to what I want in return for my armour, I simply grin, hands outstretched in a grand gesture, as if I was a showman presenting my greatest prize.

"Vibranium. Alles wat je hebt." (Everything you have.)

At that, Klaue's expression immediately closes off, and in a flash he has trained his hand cannon on my helmet, his thugs quickly following his example.

"Geen sprake van. Het is niet te koop. Wegwezen met dat kut harnas van je, of ik blaas een gat door je kop!" (Absolutely not. It's not for sale. Get your fucking armor out of here, or I'll blow a hole through your head!)

This time, I almost expect Sterns's tapping on my shoulder, the scientist looking extremely worried at the amount of guns that are now pointed in our direction.

"Michael! What the hell did you say? What the hell did he say?!"

"Oh, I told him that I wanted all of his Vibranium in return for the armour, he told me it isn't for sale and that I should leave before I get a hole shot through my head."

"Aha. I see."

"In dat geval zal ik maar gaan. Maar voordat ik vertrek, mag ik misschien nog één ding zeggen?" (In that case I'll leave. But before I do, may I just say one thing?)

Frowning at my request to say one last thing, Klaue makes a 'get on with it' gesture with the cannon in his hands.

"Oke, je hebt waarschijnlijk wel eens gehoord dat wij Nederlanders grappen maken over Belgen, toch? Nou, zeg maar wat je van deze vind: Hoe vermoord een Belg een vis? Hij laat hem verdrinken!" (Alright, you have probably heard that us Dutch folk enjoy making jokes about the Belgians, right? Well, tell me what you think of this one: How does a Belgian kill a fish? He tries to drown it!)

Other than a snort from one of the goons surrounding me and the furious expression on Klaue's face, there's no reaction at all, besides the frantic tapping on my shoulder from Sterns, whose clearly freaking out about the look Gollum is sending us.

I head his question off before he can ask it, not taking my eyes off the infuriated weapons dealer.

"Before you ask, I just insulted both him and his entire people."

"What?! Why?!"

"I thought it was funny."

"What are we going to do?!"

"You are going to duck."

"What?"

"Now."

And with that, Sterns hits the floor as I activate the submachine guns hidden underneath the plating on my arms, which are still outstretched in my showman pose. The moment Sterns ducks, I fire up all the repulsors on the left side of my armour, and as I get hurled around in a circle I keep my fingers on the triggers, gunfire spraying out in twin cones of death, taking down everyone who wasn't fast enough on the uptake to duck alongside Sterns (Klaue and two others are the only ones left alive, not to mention Mandingo, who seems content to simply lie very still were I threw him).

As I come to a stop in the classic hero pose (by accident this time, as I'm extremely dizzy and I almost fell down before I managed to catch myself in a way that at least looked cool), one of the guys that ducked in time, nails me in the head, making my helmet jerk back as the bullet glances off in a shower of sparks.

My panicked response to being literally shot in the head is to blindly fire in his direction until I hear a cry of pain and a wet smacking sound.

Standing up straight, I see Klaue looking at me (or rather, my armour) in something close to amazement before he unloads his clip with a snarl. I let the bullets ping off my armour until I can hear his gun click empty, before I slowly approach him.

The last guy alive throws away his gun and backs away as I turn to look at him. For a moment both me and him stand absolutely still, before my tank gun suddenly swoops low and takes aim at him, prompting a small "oh god" and a wet stain at the front of his pants.

"You saw nothing. Leave."

Giving a hurried nod, the hardened mercenary high-tails it out of the warehouse, not even looking back once at his former employer.

I step up to Klaue, hauling him to his feet with one hand (the new model of my armour leaves my hands free, making his eyes dart to the glowing veins with surprise, even as he starts sweating at that much heat so close to his face.

"Je Vibranium, Klaue. Alles wat je hebt."

He growls at my demands for his hard-earned(stolen) miracle metal, but he refrains from antagonizing me, the combination of his feet dangling of the floor and the heat steadily burning his shoulder keeping him from spouting off.

"Of wat? Arresteer je me?"

I almost chuckle at his idea of me arresting him, before my other hand glows white and comes up in a cutting motion, severing his arm just below the elbow. I drop him to the ground (more to keep the smell, my hand piercing through a man's torso, the fire from my arm searing his flesh, from getting to me, but it hopefully comes across as callousness instead) where he lies screaming in pain, clutching at the cauterized wound.

I shut him up by placing my armoured boot on his chest, and pressing down slightly, which causes his eyes to fly to my helmet.

"Dat kan het laatste stukje zijn van jezelf dat ik verwijder, of het eerste. Jouw keuze. Waar is het Vibranium, Klaue?"

Between the option of his arm being either the first or the last piece I remove from him, the weapons dealer is quick to choose the latter. Directing me to the back of the warehouse, at the bottom of a small mountain of cashes and other crates, Klaue, who is looking decidedly bleak from shock, points out the largest crate.

"Daarin."

I grab the crate by its sides, before ripping it from underneath the larger stack, not caring when it comes crashing down like a bad game of Jenga, my eyes glued to the box in front of me. Without ceremony, I rip open the lid with my bare hands, and there it is.

The metal I have crossed an ocean and a country for, a journey during which I had evolved to a new form and during which I had a minor existential crisis.

All there, neatly packed in tubes, right in front of me.

Vibranium.

"Step 7: Complete."

/

AN: Step 7 is complete, but at great cost. Not only has my anonimity basically shriveled up and died a painful, ignoble death, I have also begun to question my role in this story I'm in. Or rather, what kind of story I'm in, or if I'm even in a story at all. The line between what's real and what's fictional blurs with each passing day. On the other hand, with what I took from Mandingo as well as what Klaue has squirreled away here is enough to keep me and Stein going for a while, though it's no permanent solution. Step 5 is still in progress.

Fun Fact: The Hulk was originally meant to be gray. However, due to the printers giving each different panel a different shade of gray, it was decided that he should be green instead. The run during which the Hulk was gray instead of green was later explained as being a completely different alter-ego of Bruce Banner, called Joe Fixit.