chapter 3 Turning up the heat

Night has fallen over New York City, and I'm bent over one of my tool tables with my dissembled armour lying on front of me, a scowl on my face, one of my canines gleaming in the light provided by stolen Stark Expo lamps.

"I didn't think this through."

While my new body was absolutely amazing, and I still marvelled at the sheer strength now at my disposal every time I flexed one of my numerous bulging muscles, there were some unforeseen drawbacks.

Or rather, there were some drawbacks that I should have foreseen.

The biggest one was that stealth was now significantly harder than it used to be.

While I might still be able to sneak around under the cover of night, ploys such as the one I used to infiltrate the Stark Expo were now completely out of the question, which was a bummer because that operation had been the most fruitful endeavour of my admittedly short career of a super thief/scavenger.

Another drawback was that I now no longer fitted in my armour.

The armour for which I had braved discovery by S.H.I.E.L.D., the armour for which I had stolen, lied and cheated my way around, adrenaline rampaging through my veins for months on end in order to get the parts I needed, the armour which I had made during countless sleepless nights, pouring over Stane's blueprints until my head hurt, trying to make sense of the advanced technology of this different universe.

And I no longer fitted inside.

Of course, it wasn't as if the possibility hadn't crossed my mind, but I had always brushed it off, simply thinking I'd pull my armour apart and build it bigger.

But I had forgotten to take into account the new size of my primary manipulators, otherwise known as hands. The Iron Man armour was filled to the brim with cutting-edge electronics and robotics, and all of it was smoothly hidden underneath the interlocking plates of the armour.

Where my hands now had difficulty reaching.

There were two minor lights in the crushing, all-consuming void of my despair (slight over exaggeration there): one, I had a hyper intelligent scientist on hand, though getting him away from his own projects in order to help me with rebuilding my armour was a herculean task of its own (I'm a geneticist, not an engineer! I have a degree!) and two, I found that I could ditch some of the electronics.

The Iron Man armour was so powerful, much of its inner workings were designed solely to keep its wearer safe from itself (the torso of the armour could technically rotate 180°, which the average human body could not). Much of this was focused around the servos, making sure they didn't rip a limb off whenever you lifted your arm, or in order to take its own weight so that the wearer wouldn't be crushed like in those 'Object vs. Steel press' that were becoming popular on YouTube these days.

This wasn't as much of a problem for me however (though I kept the function that would keep my torso from suddenly turning the wrong way as that seemed like a nasty way to go), which allowed me to strip much of the inner shells from the armour.

Ironically this ended up making the armour a lot lighter, which in return allowed me to strip even more as I could easily handle the weight of the armour, even after I enlarged the plating to fit over my body (as I was now about the same size as the Hammer drones this was made surprisingly easier than making my original armour had been, as I didn't have to resize the plating this time).

Tony's armour was as much cutting-edge technology as it was a piece of art. Stane's armour had a military, rough look to it. Vanko's original armour, the one in Monaco, had a prison-made appearance (in as much as you could call it "armour").

Mine somehow looked even uglier.

Thick plating across the torso and limbs, with a robust frame (one more reminiscent of the one used by Matt Damon in Elysium than anything Marvel-like), my armour looked like it was made from stolen materials and put together in a shed.

Which is exactly what it was.

However, it did have one major advantage over the other armours, as it had something that none of them had.

Me.

June had already turned into August by the time I finished rebuilding my armour, but when I put it on I couldn't quite contain my glee at the sight that greeted me from the cracked full-length mirror I had stolen during one of my nightly scavenger runs around the city (and I do mean runs: I didn't know my exact top speed, but I had managed to keep up with New York traffic easily, and cleared the spaces between buildings with a single bound. Parkour had become my bitch in the month since my transformation).

The armour, with its thick plating and rough framework, had a no-nonsense, utilitarian vibe to it on its own, but when strapped to my hulking, 7 feet tall frame, it became downright menacing, aided by the new helmet I wore, modelled after the one Crossbones wears during his brief fight with Cap in the Civil War-movie.

This armour, unlike the one I had worn when I had picked up Sterns and Banner's blood, was filled to the brim with all the weapons I could fit on it, which included the Infantry tank gun and the Navy missiles from the Hammer drones.

In short?

I looked Bad. Ass.

But while it was extremely satisfying to see my finished armour after the months of blood, sweat and tears I had poured into rebuilding it, I was still stuck with one of the unforeseen drawbacks after my transformation, which brings us back to my brooding form as I sit at one of the worktables.

I had my transformation on the 12th of June 2011, only recovering on the 14th. The next Step would involve Loki's attack on Midgard. The problem however, was that that would only occur on May the 4th, 2012.

So what now?

I briefly contemplated killing Ulysses Klaue and taking his stash of Vibranium which he has squirreled away for some time now, but he's hiding somewhere in South-Africa, and is probably being watched.

Besides the logistics of actually getting my butt to South-Africa undetected, there's still the fact that even if I had Vibranium, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

I'm no metalworker and neither is Sterns, so trying to make a new armour out of the miracle meteorite-metal is out of the question. I briefly entertained the notion of lining my bones with Vibranium, but I don't think my healing factor is strong enough to keep me alive through the operation (I can heal small cuts within a few hours, while a broken bone takes about a day, which I discovered by accidentally dropping the mostly intact Navy drone on my foot. Wolverine survived getting shot in the chest with a cannon during the Civil War and he almost didn't make it through the bonding-process).

I could use the Kree-blood that S.H.I.E.L.D. has hidden away, as Hydra has proven that it can bestow humans with a sweet regeneration factor, but given that it is inside a secret base I don't even know where I should begin to go look for it.

Extremis on the other hand… Killian already has the formula, the only problem is that it has a chance of blowing up the recipient. I, however, am an already enhanced human with a (slight) healing factor, so I might survive the virus (which isn't a virus at all, but that's neither here nor there).

Then again, the two serums might also decide to not play nice with each other and blow me up, but thankfully, I have one of the foremost experts in human engineering right here in my storage unit.

Getting out of my funk, I straighten up and turn around on my chair, grinning as I call out to Sterns who's hovering over a microscope, engrossed in his own experiments of trying to use whatever happened to his brain as the basis for a cure for Alzheimer's (if he suggests experimenting on monkeys I'll pull the plug. No Planet of the Apes for me, thankyouverymuch).

"Sterns!" I rumble, my voice a deep bass that would probably be able to rattle windows should I yell at the top of my lungs (which I did when I dropped that Navy-drone, but as the storage unit didn't have any windows I couldn't tell. Scared the crap out of Sterns though).

The aforementioned scientist looked up at me with a sigh, clearly annoyed at being once more pulled away from his own research, fixing me with an impatient glare.

"What is it Mr. McCole? I've introduced a reagent to the chemicals saturating my bloodstream and I should be able to see a reaction at any time now." Sterns says hurriedly, as I stand up and with a few great strides cross the distance between our desks, placing my massive fists on either side of his microscope as I loom over the mutated scientist.

"How would you like to run tests on a serum which unlocks the hidden potential within the human genome?"

The answering grin is all the response I need.

//

Finding Killian is surprisingly easy: I just looked him up on LinkedIn.

Since AIM has yet to reveal that they're an evil organization, they are still very much in the open, with advertisements, contact info and they even have their own website (it's pretty sleek, to be honest). All of it is available to the public.

Except for where they are located.

A quick search gives me nothing, no home address for Killian, no locations of any headquarters, not even a shipping address. All contact is done through the internet, and when you manage to set up a meet, then one of them will come to you, not the other way around.

This complicates things somewhat.

I know that in November, one of Killian's test subjects (given that most of them are disabled veterans they might even be victims of Blonsky's rampage) will explode, and the media will label it as a suicide bombing, which Killian will enforce by "creating" the Mandarin in January of 2012 (still the dumbest reveal in MCU-history to date, really dropped the ball there Shawn Black, though I love your Lethal Weapon movie).

This gives me something of a window to try and track down Killian, but that is also more complicated than I'd like for it to be because of one very big problem.

We're running low on funds.

Much of the material for my armour I had managed to steal during my time working at the Expo and even afterwards, getting my hands on tools and the like had been rather straightforward.

Nothing about Sterns' equipment could be called straightforward.

When I took him and the Hulk-blood, all that he had been able to put in the duffel bag was most of his research and the blood itself, and almost none of the equipment, as it was either too delicate or too massive to take with us.

During the few days of chaos after the fight between the Hulk and Abomination I had managed to sneak into the College a few times and take some of the smaller machines (thank whatever deity is willing to listen that I hadn't gotten rid of my janitor-disguise yet) but after clean-up had mostly been organized we had to find an alternative.

Like I said, Sterns' massive intelligence managed to find some ways around our less than stellar equipment but he still needed something to work from, and despite the fact that both of us had withdrawn our lifesavings (in his case just in the nick of time, as his assets were frozen a few hours later) the equipment I had to buy for him was a massive drain on our monetary funds.

There was also the fact that due to our mutations (the brain is the most energy intensive organ in the human body and Sterns' had just doubled in size, while I had almost doubled in size in general) we ate a lot.

Like, seriously a lot.

So, as it stood, I neither had the time nor the resources to sink into a wild goose chase for AIM and their exploding goodies.

After giving it a lot of thought (which included many sleepless nights simply staring at the ceiling above my bed while my legs from the calves down hung over the edge) I had a tentative course of action.

Step 5: Find a source of income that at the very least will keep me and Sterns fed, and hopefully pay for the equipment we need.

Step 6: Track down AIM, or track down the subject which will explode in November, depending on which I find first.

Step 6a: In the case of finding AIM first, burst in, kill everyone that is trying to stop me (they are exploding villains which means that on the emotional trauma versus killing people scale, they are in the safe zone. For me, of course. They are very much not safe), steal their research and serum and unleash the intellect of Sterns on it, then inject myself with a version of Extremis that won't end with me as a new coat of paint on the walls, floor and ceiling.

Step 6b: In the case of finding the "suicide bomber" first, find a way to either subdue him, or get a piece of him to bring back to Sterns if I'm too late, let him try and reverse-engineer it and then inject myself with a version of Extremis that won't end with me as a new coat of paint on the walls, floor and ceiling.

I was really hung up on that last bit, finding it crucial to my plans.

Sterns was less concerned about it.

//

It was the first week of October, when, while I was perched on the roof of one of the high-rises in Manhattan, trying to scout out the building that at one point would be the headquarters for one Wilson Fisk (what? He had money, I had none, this was as close as I could get to being Robin Hood), I had an epiphany which struck me with enough force that I nearly lost my footing.

On the one hand, I had Killian, who was trying to unlock the dormant parts of the human genome (probably courtesy of the Celestials, but honestly who could tell?) in order to promote massive regeneration, while trying to keep his test subjects from blowing up.

On the other hand, I had Sterns, who was trying to reverse-engineer whatever process his brain had gone through in order to find a cure for Alzheimer's, while trying to keep his test subjects from rising up in a revolution against all humans.

Killian had money to spare.

Sterns (and by extension, me) were struggling with funding.

And just like that, the solution to both Step 5 and Step 6 presented itself to me.

//

"Hello? Yes, this is Michael McCole from McCole Solutions speaking. I was wondering if I might speak with Dr. Killian please? Yes, I'll hold."

I'm once again on the roof of the high rise looking out over Wilson Fisk's headquarters (still haven't seen him yet, so I don't know whether or not he is in New York already, though I know he becomes active somewhere in 2014), my booted feet dangling over the edge as I wait patiently with a burner phone against my ear. I'm uncomfortable with using my real name while talking with a supervillain over the phone, but there's no way in hell these guys can't preform a decent background check so using a false name would only raise alarmbells with them if I tried to fool them like that.

Not that there was much to find honestly; after leaving the Angel Guardian Home in Brooklyn at the tender age of eighteen, having immediately gotten his GED on his birthday, Michael McCole had lead a wholly uninteresting life (though the keen observer would note the oddity of someone who concistently scored the highest marks in computing class never seemed to be able to hold a steady job despite the overabundance of tech-companies in the city).

Suddenly the cheerful tune I had been listening to ends, and a voice that can only be described as oily worms its way into my ear.

"Ah, Mister… McCole. How intriguing to get a call from you at such an hour. What can I do for you?" Aldrich Killian, founder of AIM and the mcu-villain with the weirdest name (given that some of those villains are aliens, that's saying something) murmurs through the phone.

"Greetings, Dr. Killian. ('Greetings'? 'Greetings'?! What's next brain, 'Salutations on this fine morrow to you as well'?!) I was hoping to discuss a business proposition with you."

A short silence falls between us, while a few errant birds coursing along the New York City skyline look at me in confusion.

"I must confess, I get many business propositions these days. Why should I concern myself with yours, considering you claim to own a business which doesn't exist?"

Found that out did you? No matter, the front was never meant to stand up to intense scrutiny, it just had to appear real enough to warrant me an audience with the guy behind the "Mandarin".

"Because technically, I don't exist either, Dr. Killian."

That I can tell gets his attention. It's not true of course, since there are a few records of me, but considering I woke up in this universe in an orphanage as a newborn baby with nobody knowing who had left me there, my documents were rather bare, and easily altered once I left.

"Me and my associate know about the research you have been doing Dr. Killian. While others might find your subject somewhat… explosive, we consider ourselves fans of your work." I quickly press on, though I know I'm treading on dangerous ground by tipping him off to the fact I know about Extremis.

This time the pause is longer and when he speaks again, the smooth oiliness is gone from his voice, instead replaced by a barely contained fury.

"What do you want, Mr. McCole. I find myself getting impatient."

"I believe we can help you stabilize it."

"And why should I trust your claim? I have never heard of you or your organization, and I have no clue how you came by any information regarding my own… research."

"But I bet you've heard about Erskine and his super soldier formula. And I'm willing to bet you've heard about the Abomination which ravaged Harlem."

Again there's silence on the line, longer than all the others combined and I'm beginning to worry that I chased him off, that I might have pressed too hard-

"You have Erskine's formula?" he breathes into my ear in excitement, making me feel dirty enough I briefly take the phone away from my head with an expression of disgust on my face before I reply.

"We've cracked it, Doctor. We have managed to recreate Erskine's masterpiece. But I'm afraid that in doing so we have nearly exhausted our meagre funds. Which is why we were hoping to approach you with our offer. You see-"

"So, this about money then?" Killian cuts me off (rude!) before continuing, arrogance and disdain easily showing through his voice.

"Never mind, of course it is, it always is. You have some of the original sample left, I hope? Your offer is useless to me if I first have to unravel whatever botched experiments you have performed with Erskine's miracle."

That gets a rise out of me (probably his intention in the first place I later reflect) and I reply in my coolest voice, trying to get across that I'm not someone he should try and mess with.

"I assure you, Doctor, that merely because we require more funds, does not make us any less competent scientists." (Technically I wasn't a scientist at all, so there's hardly a way for my competence to decrease) "We wished to approach you because you possess money while lacking morals, but there are other such organizations out there who would kill in order to fund us, especially considering we possess a live specimen, fully enhanced by Erskine's formula, whose physical traits outstrip anything on record about Erskine's first, and only, subject: Captain America."

Once again his voice returns to one of breathy excitement, making disgust roil through my stomach.

"You possess a live enhanced subject?"

"Dr. Killian, you are speaking with him right now." I cannot help but grin.

Sure, I'd rather not have revealed that we had a super soldier on our side, as it was likely to make him warier of me and decide to bring more muscle to our meet, but at least this way I was absolutely guaranteed that he would agree to a meet in the first place.

I can almost hear Killian salivating on the other end of the phone, before he manages to give his reply in a smooth voice, though I can still pick up the sheer excitement the man is feeling right now.

"Meet me at the Red Hook Marine Terminal in the New York harbour, this Friday at seven. We'll discuss any further business ventures there. Don't be late."

And with that, the Mandarin hung up on me.

With a savage grin, I rip the phone to shreds with my bare hands, before letting the pieces scatter on the wind. With a slight grunt, I get to my feet, before making my way down the high-rise, jumping from one ledge to the other, my superhuman body easily absorbing the shocks of my 10-feet drops.

As I'm descending, I open up a secure channel on my earpiece.

"Ah, hi there Mr. McCole. What's up?" I hear the cheerful voice of Sterns, who has been in a good mood ever since I managed to get him a centrifuge for his experiments (bought for cheap at a lawn sale, of all things).

I'm about to make his mood even better.

"Sterns? He fell for it."

Slightly manic laughter is all the response I get.

//

"So why are you up on one of the warehouses instead of where you said you were going to meet with Dr. Killian?" Sterns asks me over my earpiece, as the visor in my new helmet zooms in on the walkways between the story high mountains of containers that line the pier.

"Because, Sterns, he's going to betray me." I absent-mindedly answer him, trying to keep a lookout for any suspicious activity (considering this were the docks of New York and I knew absolutely nothing about shipping of any kind, this included just about everything).

"Oh. How do you know that?"

"Because if he wasn't planning on betraying me, we wouldn't be having a meeting at the docks at night. He would've wanted to meet at a restaurant or club or something else high-end and fancy."

"I see. Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm gonna betray him first, of course."

"Right. Of course."

And with that, our conversation is put on hold, because I spot three black sedans with blacked out windows slowly drive up the pier in an orderly column.

Now, if I were a villain, I would show up with my own crew, have some veiled dialogue with Killian that would hint at higher machinations before he would reveal his intent to betray me, upon which I would unveil my plans to betray him in return.

If I were some masked vigilante on the other hand, I would stay up here, trying to listen in on Killian as he would meet with another villain, until I (or rather, my sidekick) would inevitably screw something up, leading to our discovery, which would lead to either me kicking my way to freedom or being captured and tied up waiting for rescue by my allies.

If I were a hero of this cinematic universe, I would go in with a funny quip, and beat everybody up in an awesome choreographed display of action with generously applied slow-motion at key moments (me jumping, me scowling, me punching someone, you get the drill), after which someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. would show up in the stinger with some ominous message that would be the hook for my next adventure.

Unfortunately for Killian, I was none of these things.

Taking aim at the centre car, my Infantry tank gun swoops low, takes aim at its target and unleashes hell.

Unlike Hollywood would want you to believe, cars don't regularly explode at the slightest hint of damage, and even in the most extreme cases will simply go up in flames rather than explode.

Under my tank gun, created by Ivan Vanko, placed onto a platform designed by Tony Stark and weaponized by Obadiah Stane?

The car ended up shredded

I didn't bother holding back on my lethality, since I was counting on Killian bringing some of his Extremis subjects with him after knowing that I was a super soldier of Steven Roger's calibre (even seventy years after he went under the ice, he's still held as the pinnacle of what a soldier could achieve).

Given the extreme regeneration Extremis allowed, I could simply blow this pier to bits and still expect at least some of the subjects to be alive. Even if they didn't there probably would be enough of them left intact for Sterns to work with.

I'm proven correct when one of the doors is kicked straight off the car, a glowing and smoking form falling out of the mangled remains of the vehicle. I'm surprised to see that it's Killian himself as I had half suspected he might not even show up to the meet in person.

Seems that the possibility of seeing a real-life Erskine enhanced human made him forgo his cautiousness.

About a dozen men and women in tactical gear pour out of the remaining cars and rush towards the downed Killian, who despite being alive is clearly very much hurt as he is unable to stand on his own and he remains bent almost double, holding both arms (or what's left of them anyway) pressed against his abdomen which is sporting more holes than is medically advised.

Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Just as the first of Killians' security team reaches him, hand outstretched to take him by the arm and drag him to safety, I unleash the shoulder-mounted guided missiles taken from the Navy model, which slam into the car column in a series of deafening explosions, which shakes the entire pier down to its foundations.

By the time the dust settles, only Killian himself (who looks even worse off now) and three others remain alive (one of them only in a technical sense as they now only have one limb attached to their torso).

Wanting to get this over with, I activate the repulsors in the legs of my armour and take off in a graceful arc, landing in the classic superhero pose (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, it just feels awesome, you know?) on the edge of the scene of destruction (the residual heat of the explosions, not the mention what the Extremis enhanced humans are giving off, is too hot for me to handle right now) and take aim with my wrist mounted machine gun (courtesy of the Air Force model) at one of the men still standing.

While he sees me aiming at him, he's obviously still dazed from the explosions (there's blood running out from both ears and his nose and his eyes don't focus on anything) and he makes a stumbling half-step before my bullets tear into him, slamming him against the burned out husk of one of the cars.

With his torso a bloody mess and with half of his head gone, I'm confident he's finally dead, so I turn my machine gun on the other one-

"TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD!"

-only to apparently have miscalculated the time it took for her to recover, as made clear to me by her running up to me, grabbing my arm and crushing the armour underneath her glowing hands.

I can already feel my arm starting to burn due to the frankly amazing amount of heat that is pouring off the woman's hands, so I quickly slam the armoured fist on my free arm straight into her midriff, lifting her off her feet and sending her hurling across the melted asphalt of the pier and into one of the car wrecks, her hands ripping away some of the plating as she goes flying.

Not underestimating her again I take aim with the coil laser in my undamaged arm salvaged from the Navy model and open fire-

SLAM!

-only to get a mangled car door thrown into my face with such force it cracks my helmet.

She hasn't gotten away unscathed however, as she is now missing everything below the elbow on her left arm. Seeing that clearly triggers something within her, because she lets out a grief-filled howl of pain, before charging at me like a wild animal.

Unable to use most of my weaponry at such a close range, I instead shift my arm from her to the stumbling form of Killian (Extremis is truly amazing, since apparently the massive holes in his abdomen have already scabbed over) and nail him in the back of his knees, nearly blowing one of his legs clean off.

And then I have to focus on the woman again as she slams into me, making me stagger despite my near tonne of weight, before she kicks me in the stomach with enough force that flame bursts from the impact.

Had I still been a baseline human, then that blow would've probably finished me then and there, armour or no armour.

As it is, I immediately retaliate by kneeing her in the chest, feeling some of her ribs snap under my mighty blow (though the heat nearly scorches my skin and I can hear her bones setting themselves).

In her berserker rage the woman doesn't even seem to notice the grievous injury, and instead unleashes a flurry of blows with her feet and one remaining arm. Due to her lithe form and greater speed I am forced to block most blows instead of dodging them and the longer her attack goes on, the hotter it's getting, several parts of my armour taking on the dangerous dull glow of metal that's getting heated.

While her rage has put me on the back foot, it has also given me an advantage. With how much heat she's giving off, striking me is far less effective than if she were to try and grapple with me, since then heat-transfer would be much easier and she could just cook me inside my armour.

Of course, the moment I think that, things are starting to go wrong.

As I give a punch of my own, the woman manages to dodge, grab the arm with her remaining hand, place a foot on one of my knees and pushes off, pulling herself up over me-

"BURN ASSHOLE! BURN!"

-and just like that, she had both legs wrapped around my neck, where my armour is thinnest.

Already I can feel my skin burning, while the delicate electronics in my suit are starting to short out. I'm panicking at this point, and in desperation I reach up, grabbing her in her sides hard enough to actually dig my armoured fingers into her flesh (and getting my hands burned because of it) before I slam her with all my might into the ground hard enough to leave a crater.

Even though I heard her pelvis and ribs breaking, she doesn't loosen her grip and the healing only seems to increase the heat even more.

I'm getting desperate, especially since I can feel my thoughts starting to dim despite the incredible amount of pain that I'm in. I need to get her off before she literally melts my brain. Unfortunately, I'm too far gone to really have a plan (I just rear up and slam her down again, and even though she gives out a scream of pain she doesn't let up) so I let my fight-or-flight instinct kick in, no longer shutting out the primal roaring that had been thundering around in the back of my brain ever since the fight begun, instead letting it rush to the fore.

My body is clearly faster on the uptake than I am, since it immediately decides that since fighting hasn't worked, flight is the course of valour (or maybe not valour but at least survival, which is far more important than valour anyway) and before I really know what I'm doing I've activated the repulsors in my legs and back and take off with a blast that almost dislodges the mad women lodged around my throat.

Almost, but almost isn't good enough.

Slamming into (and almost straight through) one of the thick pillars of the cranes standing on the pier turns out to do the trick though.

Probably because I could hear her spine turn to splinters this time.

Extracting myself from her broken form, I rip off my helmet, taking grateful gulps of fresh, uncooked air in what feels for the first time in my life. Amazingly, even with her spine practically gone, the woman is still alive, glaring at me with a literally burning gaze filled with hatred.

"You… really… need to die." I gasp out, that sudden vicious side of me slowly slinking off into the depths of my conciousness, tired from the fight, before I grab her head with my ruined arm, my glove covering her face.

Briefly I can see one of her eyes peering through my fingers in alarm, but then the whine of the repulsor spools up and I avert my gaze. I keep firing until I can no longer feel her struggling and the scent of cooked flesh becomes too much to bear.

I let go of her head (resolutely ignoring the way some of her clung to the metal of my glove) and make my way back towards where I ambushed Killian, forcing myself to not look back.

As I reach the cars I can see that Killian is actually capable of walking again, though the damage seems to be getting to him as he falls down a lot, and doesn't seem to have a sense of balance anymore, nor does he hear me approaching him from behind (and weighing in at a tonne, slightly less now that the berserker woman destroyed parts of it, I'm not exactly quiet).

The sole Extremis enhanced I didn't have to fight is lying a few feet away from where I left him, having apparently tried to drag himself away from danger with his one arm and the stumps that are growing out of what remains of his legs. He hears me coming and lets out a choked scream of fear, but it seems that Killian really has lost his hearing as he doesn't give any indication he even registered his teammates' plea for help.

As I stand next to the downed Extremis subject, he glares up at me in a combination of tear-filled fear and hatred-fuelled anger. I half expect him to either beg for mercy or try and fight me even in his condition, but he seems resigned to his fate, as all he does is spit at my feet (the spit sizzles, my mind absently notes) before he glares at my uncovered face.

"Come on then, you fuck. Get it over with! Come on, do it! Do-"

I blow his head off before he can continue.

In a daze, tired, burned and in pain, I make my way towards where Killian has once again fallen on his face onto the still burning asphalt. I don't bother with a quip, or some clever boast, or even a monologue on how smart I am and how powerful I'll become with Extremis.

I don't say anything at all, simply opening up a compartment in the banged up plating of the armour on my torso, bringing out a syringe (one of many, most of which are broken. Which is why I brought so many to begin with) and jam it without ceremony in Killian's neck.

In order to subdue Extremis, preventing Killian from breaking free and murdering me while Sterns tries to fix the serum, I've given his system something to fight.

A flu shot.

Well, something a bit stronger than a flu shot, but it works on the same principle.

I've given him a combination of every vaccine me and Sterns could get our hands on, malaria, polio, chickenpox, you name it, we put it in a bottle.

By giving him essentially neutered versions of diseases, I make sure I don't accidentally kill him, while also making sure he can't recover too much of his strength. It's very likely that Extremis will (literally) burn through the diseases but by then Sterns will probably have whatever he needs from Killian's body.

Almost immediately the heat coming off of Killian starts to lessen, while the bright glow on his abdomen and knees start to dim, pulling 'inwards' so to speak. He gives a pitiful groan of protest, but having been shot with a tank gun, guided missiles and a coil laser has clearly taken its toll and he falls unconscious.

Picking his limp body up, I sling it over my shoulder and activate my repulsors (my hearing picks up sirens approaching) and blast off before the authorities, S.H.I.E.L.D. or a hero can show up, making my way towards my lair (storage unit) in a roundabout pattern that will hopefully throw off any tails I might have picked up.

All in all, my ambush of Killian has taken roughly fifteen minutes.

Behind me, the crane that I slammed into comes crashing down with a tortured groan of warping metal.

//

My landing at the storage unit wasn't exactly dignified (nor could you really call it a landing per se. Crash was more accurate) but at least it alerted Sterns that I have arrived as he almost immediately pulled open the door in order to let me in, gazing in shock at my and Killian's burned forms.

"Jesus Michael! You look like shit, what the hell happened out there?"

Throwing the still unconscious Killian to the ground, I started stripping off my armour, not bothering with neatly packing it away like I usually do, instead being content with just letting the plates drop to the floor.

I gave a tired groan of pain as I bend down to unclasp the plating around my leg, as I answered the hovering scientist.

"There were complications. Extremis is… stronger than we thought. One of them managed to get a couple of good hits in."

"A couple of good hits? That's what you call that? Michael, I don't know if you realize this, but you look like you jumped on a barbecue!"

"Just… shut up. Please? Do you have something for me too drink? Something cold please."

Grumbling a bit, Sterns nevertheless does as I asked, handing me a water bottle which I nearly emptied in a single gulp. As I finished the first bottle he's already back at my side with another, a damp cloth in his hand.

Taking both items with a murmured thanks I tried to clean myself up as best I could, though I stayed away from my sore neck and shoulders, quickly making my way through another four bottles.

When I laid the (now dry, but still cold) cloth on my burned neck, Sterns spoke up again, having done a quick check-up on Killian.

"This might be a problem, Michael. I'm willing to bet your fight drew the attention of this S.H.I.E.L.D. you mentioned a couple of times, and that's not even taking into account the sheer amount of evidence you've left behind. People are going to know that Extremis, or at the least something like Extremis is out there, and that a guy in stolen Stark and Hammer armour took them out."

"Just… say what you want to say, Sterns. I'm… tired, right now. All I want is to shower and sleep for a week." I mutter at the pacing scientist, and even though I'm slouching against the wall, I'm still taller than him, forcing him to glare up at me when he responds.

"What I'm saying is we might not have a week. Too many eyes are on New York, we have to accept that we might need to leave, or risk getting found out."

I glanced up from the floor at Sterns, before giving a glance around the storage unit we were in. It was getting cramped, even with the hole I punched to the adjacent unit I had also rented the moment the previous owner signed off on it. I was making more and bigger impacts, and though I enjoyed relative anonymity, between my mutations and the shitstorm at the docks, after tonight moving around freely was definitely out of the question.

I needed to lay low. I needed to remain free at least until May 4th, 2012. Steps 7 through 9 would (hopefully) make sure I'll never again have to worry about S.H.I.E.L.D. shadowing my every move.

But where to?

As I glanced around, my eyes fell on the poster I made when I first started out, detailing the timeline of the mcu as closely as I could remember it. It is a far cry from the orderly and crisp diagram it started out as, covered in crisscrossing lines, post-its and coffee stains as it was, but one word stands out to me.

Vibranium.

Earlier I had decided that getting to Ulysses Klaue was too inconvenient, between not knowing how to get to him in the first place and the fact that I couldn't really do anything with the metal should I get my hands on it.

But now…

Now I had a man with one of the greatest healing factors in the world in my shed, and the docks are in complete disarray.

I'm willing to bet that some of the cargo there will eventually end up in South Africa.

"You're right Sterns. You're absolutely right." I mused aloud, though I don't take my eyes of my timeline schedule, plans flying through my head at ever increasing speeds.

"I am? I mean, of course I am! But why?"

"Sterns, listen to me. Here's what we're gonna do…"

//

Have you ever been inside the hull of a cargo ship as a stowaway on a transatlantic voyage?

Let me tell you from (newfound) experience: it's extremely uncomfortable.

Especially when you're 7 feet tall and with a build that would give a grizzly bear self-esteem issues.

In other news: turns out that even in this life, I get seasick ridiculously easily.

Yeah, this trip was quickly shaping up to become one of the most unpleasant experiences in my new life, and considering my life up till now had involved multiple cases of near-death and transformations painful enough I had torn my vocal chords, that's really saying something.

I was sitting with Sterns in one of the cramped spaces between the endless rows of shipping containers, a small electric lamp placed between us being the only source of light, a small briefcase resting besides Sterns our only luggage (or visible luggage anyways, as most of our equipment is stashed in the various containers around us).

"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Mr. McCole? It's just that… well, considering last time…"

"I'm sure Doctor. Just make sure you get somewhere safe after you've administered the serum to me." I say, trying to project an air of implacable heroism, though it is diminished somewhat by my green complexion (thankfully it's not a side-effect of the Hulk's blood, though at this time it's almost preferable over the week-long bout of seasickness I've been dealing with).

Giving me a sceptical once-over again, Sterns shook his head in defeat, before opening the case, which held the same enormous syringe he used to turn me into the hulking brute I am now (while I wasn't overly fond of the massive needle, anything smaller would fail to penetrate my thickened skin), once again filled with a reddish substance.

Killian had been a treasure trove of information for Sterns in order to work with the Extremis serum, since the AIM leader had been the very first subject and because of that was technically the most stable subject as well, given that he had survived the longest of all Extremis enhanced individuals without going 'kaboom!'.

Between the unusually stable reaction between his genetic code and the serum, and the extensive bloodwork Sterns had performed on me both before and after my transformation, the hyper intelligent scientist had enough data to work from in order to create a serum which would (probably) not kill me in the process. We had been underway for about a week, and Sterns had been working on perfecting the serum day and night, though he spent a lot of time complaining that hadn't been able to perform enough substantial work on the serum for it to be 100% safe, since most of the equipment needed for that was hidden inside the shipping containers, so I had to make do with what we already had. Sterns refused to inject himself with a serum he wasn't absolutely sure wouldn't kill him, and concidering his mutation dealt with brains and intellect, without giving him a noteworthy healing factor, I could understand that, even if I ignored his pleas to wait a few more months.

Still, the risks were substantial, and this time we didn't have a controlled environment like the storage unit during my first transformation.

Basically our plan boiled down to him stabbing me with the syringe, and then running like hell, hoping I didn't burn a hole straight through the hull of the ship, making us all sink to the bottom of the ocean (though if the serum turned out to work I might just be able to survive that).

"Right, I'm ready Doctor, apply- MOTHERFU-"

Damn, that still hurt like a bitch, bastard didn't even wait for me to finish before shivving me again with the sword he tried to pass of as a needle.

Still, the Doctor quickly became the least of my worries as I heard his footsteps hurrying away across the metal grating, as I seemed to start burning alive from the inside.

The pain from my first transformation was nothing, compared to this.

The pain from the burns I got fighting the Extremis woman was nothing, compared to this.

There was no pain in the world imaginable, which could compare to immolation from the inside out.

If there was one positive to finding myself suddenly in hell, it was the fact that I locked up before I could start screaming, and blacked out after a few minutes (though it felt more like an infinite amount of lifetimes).

//

"Hey there, Michael. Try to lay still, huh? Everything's fine, everything's gonna be just fine…"

The soft whispers of Sterns slowly dragged me from the dark void of unconsciousness I had been blissfully drifting in after escaping the pain. One of the first things I felt was heat. I knew that it should be far too hot for me, way past the point of 'burning up with fever' and right into the area of 'setting things on fire', but it felt… right somehow.

Comforting.

Groggily opening my eyes, it takes a while before the blurry, unfamiliar surroundings make sense to me again. As everything slowly becomes sharper, I see Sterns crouched next to me, his misshapen face looking at me in a combination of excitement and worry.

"You, my friend, are a true medical wonder." The scientist softly laughs, gesturing at my body.

Oddly, I feel a breeze across my torso, and as I look down I quickly realize why: I'm completely naked, with only a blanket across my lap protecting my modesty. The air is filled with the stench of burned synthetics and cotton, and surrounding me are blackened scraps which once upon a time were my clothes, having been burnt straight off my body by the heat of my transformation.

What grabs my attention isn't my state of undress, or the state of what once used to be my dress. No, what draws my attention is the red glowing veins running through my limbs and the glowing spot on the left side of my chest, which pulses with regular intervals.

I'm staring at my own heartbeat.

Trying something, I focus on my hand, willing the heat to move towards it, to increase, to burn. As I do so, the veins start to burn even brighter, and my hand quickly starts glowing, the air shimmering around it from the heat it's giving off.

With a grin, I place my hand flat against the shipping container next to me, watching as the metal first starts glowing, before slowly beginning to sag where I'm pressing against it.

Turning back towards Sterns, who's looking at the display of my new powers in awe, I let out a giddy laugh, unknowingly showing off the reddish glow at the back of my throat, as if it were the mouth to some hellish furnace, my eyes literally burning with glee.

"Step 6: Complete."

//

AN: Step 6 is completed, though at great cost as I have probably drawn the attention of major players in the mcu-universe. The changes I'm starting to make are getting bigger, I'm getting kind of worried for how much longer my meta-knowledge remains relevant, as it remains the most powerful tool in my arsenal. Step 5 remains a problem however. I'll need to see how to fix it after taking out Klaue, though selling Vibranium is out of the question. Not only do I need it far more than anyone else, it's also likely to bring Wakanda down upon me like a ton of bricks.

Fun Fact: Iron Man was created by Stan Lee as a challenge to create a hero no one should like and force people to like him.