Sorry once again for the mashup, a dishonest mistake on my part. I'll make sure to check regularly for any other mistake. Thanks to Abbabby123 for pointing it out.

The following days rolled by with me doing nothing more than research and study in a repeating cycle.

I sometimes left the house for fresh air and sometimes I found myself at Charlie's and spend some time talking with Natasha and Yelena. Both of them decided to work at the bar and I still didn't know why they decided on that.

Yelena was 15 this year, but with them being spies and all that, faking an identity was just like breathing to them.

With all the time I spent coming to the bar, I had hoped that Charlie would remember me but then again I only worked here for like two months before ghosting for two years, not to mention that I looked completely different than I did two years ago. The difference was like that of pre and post Captain America Steve Rogers.

The days went by with little to no difference which was something I dearly appreciated.

Since I wasn't making headway with the program I was trying to create, I focused most of my time on training my abilities.

Somehow I had been able to get the ice form of Bobby Drake and also the fire form of Johnny Storm. It was just a situation of multiplication and division.

I didn't use the fire form since… well it burned my clothes a lot. Like every time.

It did make controlling the elements way easier so I wasn't complaining much.

Electricity on the other hand was very hard. It was like swinging a slippery snake, no a fish. It was bound to leave your control and then mess up everything around you.

When I reviewed all the fights I've had to so far, they were either too close or my abilities were too diverse for the enemy to keep track with.

Sure, I was stronger than most of the opponents I've faced so far but there would come a time when I would be rendered helpless in front of a terrifying foe. It was a fact that I acknowledged.

There was always going to be someone stronger than me. Especially in this universe.

It was for this fact that I took the training of my abilities to a new level.

Combining elements.

So far, I've gotten various degrees of… failure. It was so jarring that I was forced to stop that facet of training. It was just impossible that I could very well feel it.

Besides, I didn't know what would happen if you mix fire and water conceptually. I couldn't form the results in my mind which was one of the reasons why I didn't have any form of progress.

Fire and water had way too many concepts in both of them. Different religions and teachings had how they described fire and water and all those concepts stuffed inside just two elements made true mastery of them impossible.

All the superheroes I knew who could produce fire or lasers only used them for burning and cutting, also flying. My point is, if that was all I could think of fire, all my fire would do was burn and if I tried to add water to it… then.

So instead of trying to fuse two elements, I tried using one to influence another of my ability. This was a more successful venture as it was something I had already done before, although to a smaller scale.

Using my body's electricity and amplifying it, I was able to spread out my senses in a way that my superhuman body could never do. It was what I used against the Sentinels back in Moscow and also at Lake Alkali.

Electricity increased my active sensors by folds while also decreasing the capacity of the lower passive minute ones but this problem was solved as all I did was let my brain focus on every part of my body and I easily bypassed the thin field stopping small impulses from travelling to my brain. While it wasn't a power up, it was a huge qualitative increase.

With the electricity part taken care off, what I then used in influencing it was my supercharged brain waves.

Using the energy in my body to amplify the reverberating power of my brain waves, and then combining it with my bio-electricity I was able to create a small imperceptible room with myself at the epicenter that I could directly influence.

It was like a zone or domain where I was always at my best. It boosted my reflex and sensory abilities and also made manipulating my abilities easier.

I felt that I could fight without my eyes anytime I expanded my senses with this application. It was like a rave, but I was the only one invited as well as being the host.

I was elated by the prospects of this discovery because it was the first time I had been able to use my brainwaves to directly affect the surroundings. Maybe with more training I would be able to use only my brainwaves to affect things rather than intertwining it with another ability.

The only downside of this ability was that psychics and any other arcane master would be able to sense the psychic field around me because that was what it was basically. Meaning they could disrupt it, but then again it didn't have any disadvantageous effect on my abilities.

While these findings didn't have any attack potential to them, it was an entirely different case when using it in conjunction to others. They were multipliers to my ever increasing arsenal.

All I could say was that my training paid off in full.

Then came the business.

Marky was over the moon when we made over a million dollars but was just as stumped after he realized he just sold 57% of the company to me. He didn't let it get to him since he thought I'd sell it when the time came.

Due to Facebook's monumental success, Fmail also started gaining traction. I was also debating whether to release ViewTube now and with the Christmas holiday by the corner gave me the thumbs-up.

Sure there were other apps which had the same function as ViewTube but none of them had the easy accessibility that mine had. And also dark mode. In fact that was my selling point.

The company would run on its own with Mark at the helm until I decided otherwise, which Mark seemed to know and was doing a very good job to make me not think otherwise. It was funny seeing him work that hard but was also understandable because the company was essentially mine since I had higher shares than him and also most of the aesthetics of the app came from me and while he could pull a smart ass move and try to break free, Facebook would still be mine while he'd have to start anew and at the same time try to give it the same popularity as its predecessor had.

Apart from that, I also had a program hidden in the Facebook servers that alerted me of any change, which in fact was an anti-embezzlement ping. No one was stealing anything from me anytime soon. I've been too poor for far too long to let something like that happen.

So while Mark ran around as the face of Facebook and got all famous with connections and shit, I'll just be chilling and fighting whatever the universe, or whoever brought me here, throws at my face.

Life is good when you know how to get what you want.

Apart from what was happening in my daily life, I had also called Fury to see if he could help me track down Ulysses Klaue.

Although I wanted nothing more to do with Wakanda and most of the main characters of the Marvel-verse, there however were some pretty little things scattered around the planet that no one would miss if I took a few… or a truckload.

I had important use for the Vibranium ore… Well everyone did, but then again I was the one getting it. I figured I could use it to make Bucky's new arm and given that the Lake Alkali base was sunk underwater I would have to find a new source of Adamantium.

While I would never try to fuse Adamantium with my skeleton, its denseness however was very important to me. In my personal opinion, I'd rather choose Adamantium than Vibranium. Although the latter does indeed have some nifty tricks like its shock absorption and redirection, it still wouldn't do to make a full weapon out of it.

But Adamantium was different. The denseness of the material alone and the fact that it could not be remolded after casting was such a priceless feature. Although Vibranium would be the go-to ore for a suit of armor, unfortunately I wasn't looking for a suit of armor, but I would reconsider if it came in a custom-made tuxedo or designers.

I wanted an axe while Bucky needed an arm. Mine was solely for attack while Bucky's could function in versatile ways… I mean it was an arm. It was the very definition of versatile

As far as I know, Dr. Myron MacLain was already dead which meant I couldn't know the formula for Adamantium since Proto-Adamantium was a fluke and also the fact that it was a top secret of the US.

And that's where HYDRA comes in.

They already had a place where they stored some Adamantium but according to the files, it was a really small amount that's why I was not already on my way to hike it out.

I could leave Ulysses Klaue alone for a while since no one was coming for his ass anytime soon and it would stay like that for more than a decade, but then again itchy fingers. I could just turn off that emotion off but that would just be mean to myself.

Fury for his part was highly skeptical about me looking for a notorious arms dealer but the perks of knowing a super spy was the fact that he could turn his one good eye and let me do my thang.

I was still waiting for council to do something stupid but I doubt they'd want to do it now anyway since the tension was still high in S.H.I.E.L.D according to Fury and I also doubted they were fools. Sure they were to me, but that could just be my bias since I hate the government, and there was no way they could get that kind of position if they were all not above a certain level of competence.

I took my mind off the council for now and went back to thinking about what kind of features I wanted my weapon to have.

Uru was a no-go since, well since I have no hope of getting it, and also the fact that I couldn't use magic since Uru without some kind of magic would just be a really strong weapon but the plus side was that runes and other magical matrixes could be carved into it. But the bummer of it all was that not everyone could wield a weapon made of Uru.

Any weapon made of Uru was a top-tier weapon which also made the prerequisite more strict. So rather than thinking of an ore I had no current hope whatsoever to get, I'd rather think of what I could find with some plane tickets and a bus ride.

Though my metallurgy was coming in hand since I had started working on some few things in a little room I built in my backyard since I very well couldn't study a subject like metallurgy without practice so I had been working on some small things during my free time. It helped a lot in getting my thoughts in order or just forgetting about somethings which was what I was currently doing.

It would be a good idea to mix in some Vibranium with the Adamantium structure of my axe like what I wanted to do for Bucky since I would also be using the axe for defense as much as I would be using it for offense and having it shock absorbing property would enable me to tank stronger attacks that I couldn't defend against.

The reason I was pushing for the weapons was because the fight with the Sentinels had me seriously under-armed and then the fight with Doom. While I could always use my fist, having a weapon was just a good way to cleave through nuisance.

If I had a strong enough weapon during the battle with the Sentinels then we wouldn't have waited until Stryker blew up the dam.

And talking about Stryker, well he's dead.

Although there might have been an argument between me and Fury about whether killing him was a good idea and giving the smug look he was giving me and the shit that was happening, happened, I just couldn't take a chance and let Fury's oily hands get him to work on some weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D which prompted me to laser a hole through his chest.

Fury might have been mad, he still was, but like I'd been saying for a long while – I didn't care.

Sure Fury was a friend but that wasn't enough of a clearance for me to just let him go with someone who clearly had a massive hate for metahuman kind. What does he think would happen when the aliens come? Giving Stryker alien tech was just dooming the world.

Definitely I had to kill Stryker.

Steve was okay with it, dude was a soldier. His entire life was about killing racist enemies so there was no objection there.

Bucky… was Bucky. His face was impassive, making him seem like he didn't care what happened to the dude… which he didn't.

Hell, Fury didn't care about whether the guy lived or died. His only care was the weapon prospects they would have had if he was taken into S.H.I.E.L.D but a reminder from me about the council and he was lost for words for a minute.

There was nothing stopping the council from playing 'King of the castle' now that Pierce was gone, and all they needed was an order to Fury and they'd have Stryker relocated since some of them were his benefactors.

While Fury was fighting a cold war with the council, he still couldn't directly disobey a direct order, backed up by votes, from the council. Doing that would just flip back whatever advantage he had and then find himself inside a black site or dead.

Although he was still sullen about what I said, he was at least smart enough not to argue over a dead man.

With Stryker gone, I didn't have to worry about the Sentinels because unlike Days of Future Past, it was not a government approved program but rather one based on illegal dealings. And due to the fuck up in Russia, there was no way the metahuman community wouldn't fight back if such a thing was revealed to the public.

Russia had been a hotspot for riots and metahuman protest after the Sentinel Massacre, such that some mutant friendly countries started name-calling them because of the barbaric acts that was performed on Russian soil which most of the higher-ups were privy to. There would have been no way such an army of racial-killing robots would have been made if at least someone of vast authority didn't give them the go ahead or shielded them.

With all this I should have been able to rest but unfortunately I still had to keep an eye out on things.

First of all was the Phoenix who I was still keeping a flimsy hope of it not coming to pass. But hopefully I had nothing to do with it.

Second of all was Dr. Doom.

I honestly didn't know where to start with this guy. For all I could tell, Doom currently had his sights on me and the Phoenix but which had his most priority was something that I would like to know.

With this being the Marvel-verse, all it would take is just a few days to a few months before he would attain unbelievable power. An herb here, a stone there, a relic down below or a weapon up up above. It was just that simple.

I mean, look at Thanos in the Infinity War movie. All it took Thanos was just two days to go from an everyday-but-slightly-stronger Eternal to a Universal being capable of matching the likes of Galactus. So yes, it is very well within my right to be worried about what Doom was doing.

Maybe I should just go learn magic? I had been putting off this thought for a while now because… Well because I didn't want to. I knew what I was, an outsider. And given the mysteriousness of the Ancient One, whoever they were in this universe, I wouldn't be too surprised if they already know of my life… and death. So yes, the reason I haven't gone to the Sanctum Sanctorum was because I haven't yet seen the need but my present options were very limited and I didn't have the luxury I once had in choosing my power path.

While the Masters of the Mystic Arts of the Sanctum weren't that strong… like really that strong, heck most of them were no different from a normal humie, but what set them vastly apart was the versatility that magic and the arts gave to them. From a normal neurosurgeon with broken hands to being capable of standing up against universal entities.

Magic really earned its place as the most versatile of powers.

Okay that's it! Add learning magic to the to-do list.

With plans for my weapons and learning magic added to the list, I left my smithy.

…

"You are doing that thing where you are thinking too much." A glass was placed in front of me but I didn't raise my head at the redhead who did it.

This was one of the few places where I could unwind and just watch normal humans going about their day only thinking of the next payday.

Ignorance truly was bliss.

If they knew what kind of powers laid aground on this blue planet and the threats that laid outside of it then I doubt they'd be this carefree. Even if I told them that half of the population would be wiped out in 15 years, I doubt they'd take me seriously. Though they'd laugh – that's for sure.

"You are doing it again." The same familiar voice brought me out of my musings and this time I finally decided to humor her by picking up my drink and gulping down the whole thing and waited for a refill.

Natasha just gave me her trademark sultry smile and refilled my glass.

"Remind me again why you are still working at a bar?" It really did baffle me for a bit since I was sure she could definitely pull off working at almost anywhere except maybe some high-leveled establishments.

"What can I say? Free drinks or just waiting for someone to buy me one." She said it in such a low voice that the dude next to me stilled on his stool and I could catch his subtle, not really, glances at Natasha as she leaned towards me.

"I would say you already have much of those every single day." I said as I sipped from my refill. I wasn't actively trying to resist whatever Natasha had going on since all of our talks always had a flirty atmosphere but I just wasn't feeling it. I was sure 99% of men would fall or get interested since she was one hell of a conversationist, even I would if it were the me from two years ago and further. But it was just a lack of interest. Not in her, but just about anyone. I didn't feel like I was ready for a relationship with all the shit I had going on and I'd have to get a somewhat stable life before I was ready to put myself out there.

"True. But most aren't impressive." She said as she served a customer.

"Then why don't you try stop being picky?" I always enjoyed this type of back and forth we had. I didn't know what really was the reason. Whether it was because she was that good at talking or that she was the first… friend? I didn't know what our relationship was but she was the first female I could have such pointless talk with. Ororo and I had talked a few times and while I could call her a friend, our conversation wasn't really about how unimpressive the guys trying to hit on her were. Ours would most times settle around certain topics and while I definitely could talk to Ororo about a lot of things, it was not like I could meet with her in a bar almost everyday.

"But a girl's got to be focused right? Wouldn't want to be played and hurt by the wrong guy just because she let someone in you know." She threw me a quick glance over her shoulders and got on with her work.

Yelena wasn't here yet, maybe she went out because she and Natasha ran the same shifts.

"But you know you're gonna have to give someone a chance right?" I did a double take as I said that and looked at her to see her sporting a seductive-smug smile. Don't know what that smile was but it was definitely what was crossing through her face. She'd being leading me on with the conversation, like always.

"I'm giving him one." She whispered and I could practically feel the gaze from the dude at my side but I ignored whatever he was trying to tell me with his eyes and just shook my head.

It had gotten too flirty and pink for my taste so I just turned and focused on the game some people were watching.

"So what are you doing out here?" She still didn't leave me alone even after that which made me sigh.

"Can't a man come get a drink when he feels like it?"

"You could, but I doubt someone like you is lacking a drink at whatever cabinet you have at home." She said and refilled my glass again. "Which means you either came here to unwind or catch the atmosphere."

"Is that your way of building up a character profile? It's spotty." I scoffed.

"Like I said. Someone like 'you'." The way she laid emphasis on the last word earned her a raised brow from me and nothing else.

"And is there any reason why you would want to build a character profile on me?"

She paused to look at me for a while before she answered. "Yes." It was short and concise and if I wasn't already aware of her identity and skillset, then I would have showed some type of reaction. But then again I didn't care even if she was so I just shrugged and asked nonchalantly. "What for?"

She went back to working the bar and answered but I could feel the slight pause she had before she did. "Just to be sure." I could feel her full attention on me but once again I didn't react. I didn't know what kind of game she was playing but I'd appreciate it if she kept it nonlethal. Wouldn't want to lose my second female friend.

"You know you could always ask what you want to ask." I said. I wondered why people always like to beat around the bush when they want something.

She stopped at that and stared at me while I kept watching the game.

"I'm just… trying to understand you I guess." She said but even I could tell that she was unsure by what she said.

"You are confused."

"Excuse me?"

"You're confused." I repeated.

"And what do you mean by that?" She asked with her arm folded under her bust.

"It's exactly what I said – you are confused. Or putting it more apt, you don't know what to do when presented with so many options." Sure she could build profiles and investigate backgrounds but she wasn't a shrink. I could see the interest in her eyes which she didn't know was showing anytime I came to the bar, not for me obviously, but for being someone who knew who she was. And seeing as I was able to have a somewhat normal life after all the killing and all, she wanted to know how. But I doubt she knew.

She had been raised to be an assassin, someone who could live different lives at the drop of a costume, but that was under order, under duty. She was to take the path that was most efficient when undergoing her missions that she didn't have the thought to stray or try to enjoy things herself which were not part of her directives.

But now, not only did she not have any orders but also she was given her freedom in a day. All the choices she couldn't make or didn't think of making were presented to her at once and because she wasn't used to choosing herself, she picked up where she was most familiar with – a bar. A place to gather information and also to lower the inhibitions of targets.

She acted subconsciously.

These were things I had hoped someone had pointed out to me in my past life because if they did, then I was sure that I wouldn't have lived such an empty yet ephemerally fulfilling life.

"… And you know so how?" She asked.

"Simple. Because I was once like you. Having all the options one could ever had and I chose to be nothing. Do nothing."

"You don't look like nothing to me." She said earnestly but I couldn't help but hear it sarcastically.

"Bet I don't. But I'll bet you that you wouldn't have hesitated to kill me if you saw me 2 years ago." I let out a mirthless chuckle.

"What changed?"

"The world did." She was confused by that so I turned to face her.

"I found out that I was a meta. A late blooming one. HYDRA caught me and tortured me for two years. Poisons, fire, ice, cut and gun wounds. They inflicted it all on me just to see how I healed from it. Tried brainwashing but I just blew up their base and went from there. And now here I am." I told her. What HYDRA did to me was no longer a touchy subject that I tried to run from. It was a lesson, that was all it was at this point.

"I still don't understand. How does that help me."

"It's simple. Natasha, what do you want to do?"

She looked at me with a hurt expression as if telling me not to poke at that particular wound harder.

"Start small. If you wanted to try cardio for the hell of it or just show off your flexibility to others, do it. For now… just wing it is what I'm trying to say. You don't need much planning at this stage. Try anything new that you didn't have the chance or option to do before. Hell, date a loser, steal some kids' candy, crash a cop's car, promote gun violence…" She burst into a fit of laughter as I said those words which also made me laugh for a while. "It's simple really. Just a small step is what you need, and if you can't find it anytime soon you can always visit me. I have two lazy bums at home who are out of time and way too old to be young despite the irony."

The grateful expression on her face was worth my day. But then…

"Really bold there tiger. Inviting me to your house like that without even a dinner date. I'm afraid I'm not that cheap." She winked at me and sashayed off to pour some drinks.

"Really?! I thought we were having a moment Nat?"

She turned to me with a raised brow before a real smile graced her lips this time. "Oh we were!"

"Damned redheads."

"Damned redheads." We both spoke at the same time.

Yeah, it was definitely worth it.

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