Extremis c 10
XXX
"Did you feel that?" Tony's whole body stood in alert. That was definitely an explosion. "FRIDAY what was that?" He asked while turning toward the center computer. As information popped up on the holographic screen he felt Hank rush beside him.
"Midland Circle has fallen. From the satellite images it appears to have been completely demolished." FRIDAY stated.
"FRIDAY look for possible cause. Is it Mutants?" Hank asked as he inspected the images carefully. It looked like the foundation itself has fallen. A sinkhole? A mutant that can control the ground…?
"My analysis is explosives. From the debris it is highly probable that multiple C4s have been placed along the strategic locations."
"Why did it fall underground? That appears to be a sinkhole." Tony asked this time.
"I do not have a conclusive answer." FRIDAY stated after few moments of silence.
Ok there's a first for everything. Before Tony could do anything else his phone began ringing.
"Tony! I felt this extreme earthquake! Is it mutants? Karen told me it wasn't natural? Should I take a look?" Tony had to hold the phone away from his ear due to loud shouting from the other end of the connection. He took a deep breath. Oh Peter why were you always so eager to jump into the middle of danger?
"No! Don't go anywhere near that shake. FRIDAY can't analyze what happened there yet. I don't want you anywhere near it do you hear me? I'm sending Vision. Peter come to the tower immediately."
"Tony but…"
"No buts! Come back here now!"
"Tony wait! There's something you have to see! I think I'm looking at Cap…" Tony could feel the extra load of stress that sentence brought to his head. Apparently it wasn't just him who heard Peter as he also heard groans from Hank.
"What is he doing here?" Hank angry muttered as he turned on Peter's feed. Tony just waited silently. Well… that was definitely Rogers but who was he holding… ?
"Uh… So what should I do?" Peter asked.
"Make contact. The guy on his back seems to need medical attention." Tony answered. "And I have a feeling they might have answers to what that shake was all about."
"Ok!" The teen replied before he quickly swung from where he was.
Both Tony and Hank watched the feed as Peter made his way.
"He only brings trouble you know" Hank stated next to him.
"I know."
"He's only here because he thinks he can take care of the mutant problem" Hank stated again
Tony sighed. "I know."
"He doesn't know any of the problems we've been facing and going to make more trouble for us."
"Hank I know. I know" He answered as he felt more tired then he felt in a long time. "I know… But he's here. It better for us to know where and what he's planning then letting him run on his own."
The other scientist scoffed. "Rogers only makes trouble wherever he goes."
"I know you're still angry at him for Scott's incident. But Hank, Scott is alive. We have so much things to take care of. Plus he might be of help." Tony explained.
"You think Rogers is going to be any help? A random person you pick up from streets will me more useful than him!"
"I'll take care of him." Tony stated. "I'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid?" He didn't sound confident even to his own ears.
Hank didn't looked convinced as he gave Tony his best glare.
"Trust me Hank."
"I'll never trust a Stark. Never."
Tony chuckled at the older scientist's response. Oh he hoped he was right about brining Steve back to the tower.
XXX
Peter swung down and gently landed in front of the previous Captain America. (Do I still call him Cap? What am I suppose to call him now?)
Steve came to a sudden stop as he came face to face with Spiderman. "Spiderman." He nodded as he greeted the masked hero.
"Uh… Cap! No wait… Rogers…? No, no, no…. Steve…?" Steve watched as the teen in front of his struggled to find a title to call him. He sighed.
"You can call me Steve." He said and questioned. "Did Tony send you?"
"Well that's a yes and a no. I was going to go check out the big shake nearby when Tony forbade me. Which you know was totally uncool. I can take care of myself you know. And viola I saw you and the man you're carrying. Then I told Tony. And He said I should go and help you and the man. And by helping I mean bring you both to the tower for medical help. Which you know the guy you're carrying clearly needs. So here I am!" Peter finished with a big swirl of his arms.
Steve took a moment to comprehend all he heard from the teen. "So Tony wants me to come back to the tower?" Was that good idea? The vigilante clearly didn't want to be identified. But on the other hand the tower had top medical facilities… And… He trusts Tony.
Steve smiled. "Let's go."
XXX
Tony and Hank watched as Steve joined Peter. Tony turned towards Hank when he heard the older man growl.
"He's really coming." Hank said as he stomped all around the lab
"He's really coming." Tony repeated. How long has it been? A year? Or was it a year and a half? "FRIDAY prepare Steve and his guest a room."
"Got it Boss."
Tony sighed loudly when he heard more stomping. "Hank! It's better this way." He explained again.
"Doesn't mean I have to like it! No cross that. I hate it! How can you even think this is going to work? Steve Rogers doesn't listen to anybody but himself!" Hank yelled finally exploding on Tony.
"Hank." The younger man felt a headache beginning to form as he rubbed his eyes.
"Steve Rogers?" Both scientist turned when Hope came into the lab. Hope frowned when she felt the tension between the two men. Her frown deepened when her father didn't answer her and instead stomped towards his desk. She raised her eyebrow in a silent question to Tony.
"Steve's back in town. I told Peter to bring him to the tower. So now Hank is mad at me." Tony briefly explained. Tony expected Hope to explode on him like her father. He wasn't expecting the response he got.
Hope smiled. "Really? That's good. Better for us to know what he's doing here than running around cleaning up his messes." Tony's eyes widened in surprise. Even Hank turned his chair around to stare at his daughter.
"Right? I can't believe you agree with me!" Tony felt ecstatic and pointed at Hank. "Mr. Grumps was yelling at me at what a horrible plan this was! Ha Hank! Even your daughter agrees with me!" Tony childishly exclaimed and laughed louder when Hank snarled in response.
"Boys. We have way to many things to do to waste precious time arguing about Steve Rogers." Hope quickly walked towards the center computer and typed and brought up a blueprint. "I think I finally made a breakthrough with Scott's situation." As she talked both Tony and Hank came closer to examine her work.
"You think we can travel to the other universe by going in between the Quantum?" Tony asked.
"Yes. I believe that Extremis strengthened the Pym Particles and Scott was able to become small enough to go through the quantum and into the other dimension. Extremis's healing properties must have kept Scott's cells stable enough for the pass through. It's amazing really." Hope explained as the computer displayed what she said.
After looking over Hope's blueprint in silence Hank questioned. "Do you know what caused the implosion?" Hank brought up the data he had been collecting since Scott's apparent death. "I tried many situations but never managed to cause an implosion yet."
"That's the thing dad. It wasn't an implosion. None of this made any sense because we were so focused on the implosion. What happened that day wasn't that. The extremis was highly unstable when Scott accidentally enlarged it. Scott thought that it was going to explode. So he threw that shrink disk according to Sam. But Extremis was rebooting itself!"
"And it took the form that it made first contact with! Pym Particles!" Tony finished for Hope excitedly.
"Yes!"
Tony brought up more data on the monitor. "That's where it didn't make sense to me! I didn't understand why our defense programming didn't kick in and stabilize Extremis. We mistakenly thought Extremis imploded because it didn't stabilize in time. But the defense programming did work. What looked like a implosion was all the Extremis shrinking everything it touched!"
Hank finally had a small smile and began typing away vigorously. "I've been going at this totally wrong. Hope, oh Hope! We can bring Scott home!"
XXX
"Scott you're annoying me!" Tony yelled at the only adult in his room.
Scott pretended to not hear the teen genius as he continue to throw a bouncing ball at the wall across from where he sat. He was bored.
"Scott!" Tony yelled again as he furiously caught the ball in midair.
"What?" Scott yelled back.
"Don't you want to go back home? We need to figure this out! And I can't do that if you are moping around! Come here and help me."
"Ugh how? I don't understand half the things you say. I was a Computer engineer. NOT AN EVIL SCIENTIST!"
"Are you calling me an Evil Scientist? You know what? I don't take offense to that statement. If I wanted I can take over this world after all. But right now that's not what I want. What I want is to figure out how to send you back! And you aren't helping!"
Scott whined and flailed around the floor. "I want is to go home. I want to go hooommmeeee"
Tony rolled his eyes. He always knew that he was smarter than most adults. But watching a full grown man acting like a 5 years old was really something else. "Can you just turn small again?"
"Arrgggg! Last time I shrunk I went back to Jurassic period. And let me tell you the movies got dinosaurs wrong. Before that I landed in the middle of the sea. Before that I was surrounded by bunch of mirror like things. And before that…"
"I know! You told me this a million times. But without exact coordinates within the quantum we can only do this by trial and error." Tony tried explaining once more.
"Who know how many universes there are? Now I'm not even sure if the first one I travelled to was even mine." Scott complained. He really wasn't sure anymore. Hank seemed to recognize him. But how can he be certain that was his universe when there were millions?
"No. I'm certain that was your universe. You DNA reacted like an anchor to your own universe."
"Then why I can't I go to my universe again if my DNA is an anchor? It doesn't make sense!"
"I think it's because your DNA mutated. Your DNA has no connection to your own universe anymore." Tony sighed "If only we can find another anchor that connects my universe to your this would be so much easier."
Both of them sighed once more in defeat. Why was universe hopping so difficult?
"Wait… DNA anchor? If there is a person from this universe that's in my universe will that person's DNA work as an anchor?" Scott jerked upright and asked the teen.
"T'Challa!" The two of them shouted together.
"I can't believe I didn't think of him before!" Tony exclaimed
"Well Tones you can't always be the smartest person in the room" Scott replied with a smirk.
Tony lightly glared at Scott "Well we might have a solution but this brings up another problem." He stated.
Scott groaned "More problems?"
"Wakanda is gone. Everything disappeared when Wakanda fell to Latveria. I don't know how we are going to get any T'Challa's DNA sample."
They both sighed again. It was a problem after problem. Silence filled the room before Scott suddenly asked.
"But why did Wakanda fall to Latveria? Their defense was one of the best ever. I mean their whole nation had Vibranium embedded everywhere."
Tony shrugged. "Don't know. Doom called an all out war. And without T'Challa the nation was already in a turmoil. Even with Vibranium I guess it was useless by that point."
"Why is your universe all grim and gloom?" Scott groaned out.
"Hey your universe isn't better. I mean a civil war between Heroes? A world where the good guys fight each other instead of the bad guy?" Tony quipped back.
"At least we have Heroes!"
"No point of having Heroes if they are useless like you!"
Scott sighed. Tones was right. He knew very well. He had one of the most advance suits in the world and all he did was mess things up. Hank's and Hope's hard work all wasted on someone like him. Sigh.
Noticing Scott's despair the young teen tried to cheer him up. "Hey I'm kidding. You're not totally useless. I mean you make excellent dinosaur bait."
Scott smiled. "Hey don't remind me. Those dinosaurs were scary."
Tony smiled back. "We'll figure this out. You're definitely going back home!"
Scott felt encouraged as he watched his young friend return to his computer. Even in this terrible situation, at least he wasn't facing it alone.
XXX
A hooded figure walked away from the bustling Midland Circle unnoticed.
The Hands failed. Not only did they fail, but they failed very loudly. He had worked so hard to keep this secret but all the explosion definitely would have called the attention of the Sorcerer Supreme. He would have to move before the Sorcerer realized he was here. Plus he would also have to find other relics now that the dragon bones were useless. It might be time to check out the mystery trees of Brazil.