Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel. Only Stella and the plot are mine.
The Fourth Hour.
Owen fell to the ground, his hands enveloped in clear, arcing energy. He panted as sweat poured down from his hairline. His eyes glistened as he looked around, fearful, lost.
Thor's hand fell to his side, his mouth still open after screaming out towards Stella. He looked at the super villain and saw his manic eyes had locked onto the vat, the still standing vat.
Owen looked down at his hands, trembling and white hot, "It...didn't work."
He clutched his head as the headache forced him to the ground. Supporting himself on his elbows as he leaned down on his knees, he fisted his hair in his hands, "I...I..."
Halfheartedly, Owen shot out another beam of dissolving energy. It spread over the vat and disappeared, the vat remaining intact. He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side as the headache overtook him.
Thor climbed to his feet and rushed forward, disregarding the fallen villain and stepping over him.
"Friend Stella!" He called. "Please tell me that you are unharmed. I...you must be unharmed," he begged of the silence in the room.
Two dainty, tiny hands slid out from underneath the tarp on top of the vat and grasped the lip of the giant 'bathtub'. Bits of plaster floated down from the fingertips. Familiar silvery grey eyes peeked out, wide and frazzled, and locked onto Thor's equally as wide eyes. Unruly, light pink, curly hair spilled over the side as Stella lifted her head further above the lip.
Thor smiled widely. She was alive.
"You are unharmed! Thank the Norns, Stella." He whispered again to himself in relief, "Thank the Norns."
"Is..." It was still her tiny, unsure voice, "Is it over?"
Thor looked down to Owen, still panting and half conscious on the ground, "I believe it to be so."
"M-mother..." Owen babbled out. "My mother..."
Stella climbed the rest of the way out of the vat and hurried over to him. Thor made a move to stop her but refrained from going through with it. That was Stella. Easily forgiving, always wanting to help. Never mind that the man had been out to kill her just moments ago. He needed help now and Stella would always be the first to offer.
Thor watched as the pink haired woman crouched down next to the former lab technician, dried plaster falling off of her uniform as she moved. She helped him into a sitting position and Owen looked at her with surprise written all over his face. He blinked at her multiple times, his hands limp at his sides.
"You...why?" He asked.
Stella smiled at him, at Owen, no longer Molecule Man, and looked past the jagged scars on his face. She sat in front of him Indian style and leaned forward. In her typical, inquisitive fashion, she squinted her eyes and gave him a wry smile.
"Have you ever seen Harry Potter?"
Owen blinked, his jaw clenched in confusion. He looked to the god standing nearby and the Asgardian shrugged, his hard look telling him to answer or else. Owen snapped his head back to the pink haired woman and nodded quickly.
She smiled, happy with his answer, and told him, "Well, the character Draco Malfoy didn't turn out to be so bad, now did he?"
Owen remained silent.
Stella leaned back, pushed herself up to a standing position, and held out her plaster-debris covered hand to Owen.
"Sometimes good people can be misguided." She looked at Thor, "Because what is in there is what separates you from the people who do harm," she pointed to Owen's chest with the hand she wasn't holding out to him. Thor smiled faintly, remembering those words to be the exact ones he had told her all those days ago in Stark Tower.
"But, I did do harm," conflict rose behind his eyes, "I still...want to."
"Then you should take my hand and I will make sure that you do not do such things," she said pointedly.
He made no move to take her hand and she frustratedly ordered, "Take my hand, damnit!"
Owen snapped to attention and grabbed her hand while Thor let out a loud chuckle. The Man of Iron had truly rubbed off on Friend Stella.
The god stepped forward, "Now, former Man of Molecules. You will take down these forcefields and let these people go. You have caused enough damage in this city. You have frightened enough people."
Owen was shaking as Stella gripped his forearm. He blinked rapidly. The headache from earlier had jumbled up his mind so badly that he didn't know left from right. He wanted to be bad, but he wanted to be good. Good. Bad. Good. Bad. WHAT WAS HE?!
"Gah," he gripped his hair. "My head- ahhh."
Stella barely caught him and held him up as he awkwardly fell towards her. She faltered on her feet before propping him up fully.
Inside Owen's head raged a thousand feelings. Memories flew past him in flickered images. He could make out the gentle smile of his mother and the warm feeling of being in her presence surrounded him. Then he could see the destruction he caused, the people he killed. He...he had killed people. And he had liked it.
He had wanted to kill Stella, to destroy her. He wanted her to be blasted so far into oblivion that there would be no hope of a star ever coming close to being able to rebuild her. He had hated her with every fiber of his being. He had made it a point to put her down, tell her she was a freak. And here she was...helping him. She...she wanted him to be okay.
There was still someone out there who wanted Owen Reece to be okay.
His tired eyes lifted to Stella's silver ones, "Thank..."
His mind finally cracked.
Owen slumped in Stella's arms and the both of them fell to the ground. With alarmed eyes, Stella glanced up at her friend. Thor looked equally as confused and crouched down. He lightly slapped the sides of Owen's face. The man did not wake up.
"He will not wake," Thor said.
"Is he breathing?!" Stella was frantic.
"I do not kn-" The factory shook violently.
Stella's eyes widened further, "What was that?!"
Thor pushed off the ground and ran to the nearest window. He peered out, "The forcefield has not moved! Some other force must have caused the blast. But what device could have-"
They both gasped and turned to each other, exclaiming out an answer at the same time.
"The generator!"
Steve had made the horribly idiotic decision of grabbing Bruce around the shoulders as the third hour came to an end and the floor above them came crumbling down. But then again, back in the day at boot camp he had thrown himself on a grenade that he thought was live but turned out to be a dummy. But now, in this situation...Steve was pretty darn sure that he was the dummy.
Bruce writhed underneath Steve as the captain struggled to contain the scientist. A slab of ceiling tile had slammed down onto Steve's back which wasn't comfortable, even for a super soldier. He tried to shake it off of him while still maintaining his hold on the doctor, but the dang piece of plaster just sat on top of the two.
Great, Steve thought. Taken down by a ceiling tile.
"Get. Off. Me." Bruce snarled out, his skin turning dangerously green. Steve could feel the scientist's muscles expanding underneath his own. Well, this was not good.
"Dr. Banner, you need to stay calm. Please don't do this. If that generator is destroyed then we can't-"
"I DON'T CAR-AAAAAAAAHH!"
The next thing Steve knew was that he was being thrown through a wall...again. Thankfully this one was glass, but he wondered if anyone ever stopped to think of just how painful crashing through glass was. He picked a shard out of his bicep before scrambling to his feet. People had to have known. Glass hurts.
He turned his trained eyes on the lab before him. He had been thrown out into the hallway and now had a pretty good view of the damage that the blast and now the huge green rage monster had done.
The room was a wreck. Wires hung from the ceiling - what little ceiling had remained - and sparks flew everywhere. Machines lay toppled over on their sides, papers were everywhere, things were beeping and blipping. It was a mess. And to top it all off? Steve's eyes locked onto a large hole in the wall - a large Hulk sized hole.
The super soldier ran into the lab and peered into the hole. The shape of the Hulk went on for miles. It was almost comical, almost. It reminded Steve of the cartoons he used to watch where the character's body imprint would be left in the wall after he had quickly fled the room. However, this was no cartoon and an unstable and extremely angry Hulk was on the loose.
"Uhh, Fury," Steve held his mouthpiece to his face, "we got a problem."
"Could it be any worse than the fact that Stella and Thor aren't answering, Captain?" Fury's voice asked back.
Steve's heart dropped. He sighed, "Well, no. But...Hulk is here. Well, not here. He's...somewhere."
"Banner changed?"
"Yes, sir."
"Shit. Find him, Captain!"
"On it, sir."
Steve took off in a run in search for Bruce.
As he left the lab, the generator gave a charging up sound, the transmitting end working up to becoming a brilliant blue glow.
The crowd in the lobby ran towards the windows, the forcefield pressed up against the now glass-less fixtures. They stared in horror mixed with wonder.
Clint and Natasha were hot on the group's heels.
"Stand back!" Natasha yelled. "Barton"
Clint tried to contain the group and move them away. Natasha craned her neck over the heads of the crowd in front of her and noticed the forcefield had weakened but remained in place. Stark Tower gave a low rumble from its foundation, causing the Black Widow and the expert archer to share a panicked look. Why did that keep happening?
Natasha gritted her teeth, "I don't like babysitting."
Clint nodded in agreement. He didn't like it either. A quick survey of the room showed him two free agents who hadn't been assigned to the security room or who hadn't been trapped on the upper floors before, well, time elapsed.
"You," he barked out to one of the idle agents. "Watch these guests. Do not let them out of your sight."
The agent's nod was all Clint had to see before he yanked Natasha by the arm and pulled her towards the staircase. She didn't even ask questions as she blindly followed him up what seemed like hundreds of steps until they reached Stark and Banner's lab.
Clint brought himself to an abrupt stop in the doorway, taking in the state of the lab. Natasha nearly crashed into his back.
"Barton, what- oh. no."
Both agents stared forward with panicked looks as the particle generator pivoted on its rotator stand and pointed straight towards them. The generator powered up, a 'peeeeeeew!' sound screeching out much like that of Iron Man's pulsars. Blue light swarming with waves of deep blue and white began to glow in the barrel of the machine as Clint, in what seemed like slow motion, threw one arm around Natasha's shoulders while the other came up to shield the side of his head. He turned both of them sideways and they threw themselves onto the ground.
"Keep your eyes closed!"
Tony took the stairs two at a time, Fury hot on his heels.
"What do you mean 'Banner changed'? Tony called down to the director.
"He Hulked out, Mr. Stark," Fury grunted. "Captain Rogers couldn't stop him."
"Damnit, Steve," Tony mumbled as he jumped up the steps faster. "I don't want a stupid cube anymore. Take it off the wish list! Take it off!"
"We're gonna be putting our lives on that wish list if we don't stabilize that machine. No doubt the lab has fallen apart by now. Can't imagine the generator is in good shape."
Tony pulled out his phone and almost tripped up the stairs. He tapped in a few codes while trying to focus on ascending the staircase.
"High gamma readings coming from the lab, Fury," Tony told the man behind him. "It's not Molecule Man doing this though...it's...it's something else."
"What the hell." Fury's mind was racing. "What now?!"
"I don't know, man! Something's making that generator go coo coo for gamma puffs, though!"
"We have to get that forcefield down and we gotta do it now." Fury yelled up. "We have nearly three hundred civilians in the lobby!"
Tony tapped on his phone some more, "Yep. Been working on it. Still trying."
They reached the lobby level and looked around for Clint and Natasha. All they saw were hysterical guests, a dangerously close forcefield, and a couple of S.H.I.E.L.D agents whose pay grades were definitely too low for them to be responsible with such a task.
"They're not here!" Tony said of Barton and Romanoff. "We gotta get to the lab!"
They burst through the stairwell doors mere flights underneath of Clint and Natasha who had entered the well just moments before.
"Move, move, move!" Fury yelled out to Tony as the two ran up the stairs.
"Please, don't let us be too late," Tony said to no one in particular. He looked up at the sky, "You hear that, Odin? Or whoever? Work your Asgardian mojo and save our asses!"
"He's not gonna answer your prayers, Stark. Now climb faster, damnit!"
"If I had my suit then I'd already be up there!"
"Jarvis!" Fury screamed. "Get the damn man a suit!"
"Uhhh, sir?" Jarvis called through the intercom system, unsure of who to listen to.
"JARVIS!" Tony screamed out as the building began to shake and rumble again.
Clint and Natasha had just reached the lab.
Fury and Tony crashed through the doors and into the hallway of the lab's floor.
Steve rounded a corner and came face to face with the a giant, green mass.
The generator turned.
Clint and Natasha fell to the floor.
Fury and Tony were thrown back from the force of a mighty rumble.
The Hulk swooped his arms around Steve and shielded him with his entire body.
The generator fired and Stark Tower began to fall.
Quick update for you guys :] I'm proud of myself for getting this out today. More time to work on the next one...which I am going to apologize in advance for. Just...just everybody get tissues, okay? I'm not excited for it, but this is where I've wanted the story to go from the beginning. I just didn't know I would become so emotionally attached.
That wasn't meant to be a spoiler, just a warning. Don't read too much into that or else you'll all pass out. And I need you all with me! Have faith and trust me on this one!
All will be explained in due time.
I also hope you guys could follow each segment of this chapter and how the characters played catch up with each other. Each segment took place at the same time to show how they all ended up during the blast.
Your reviews are still wonderful, and I'll take them while you still like me! Much love to every single one of you! You're all beautiful, remember that.
Stay tuned! *blows half-hearted party blower* Woo...
xx Nikki