Faraway Home Chapter 1-Prologue
Disclaimer: Do not own, this is, in finest Marvel tradition, a What If story. Based in part on the Planet Hulk storyline of comics. WARNINGS: Cursing (c'mon, it's Tony), and fuzzy, comics science.
Tony Stark, billionaire inventor of Stark Industries, floated through space in a custom shuttle, trying to track the most elusive traces of his friend, Dr. Bruce Banner, also known as the Hulk.
He'd found the original planet Richards had sent the Hulk's shuttle to, and was in orbit around that green, green world.
"Anything, JARVIS?" he queried his AI, who was scanning for gamma radiation. Tony rubbed tiredly at his face, scratching through the months' thick growth of beard covering his chin. He'd never let it grow so wild before, not since Afghanistan. It made him feel like a mountain man, scruffy and unclean.
"I detect no signs of Dr. Banner, or his alter ego, sir. This planet remains untouched by any creature other than the ones already native there," the crisp, British accent of the AI normally soothed Tony. Right then, he was only frustrated at the lack of results.
"Dammit Banner! Where the hell are you?" he snarled, pounding a fist against the spaceship's console.
"Sir, I have detected a wormhole anomaly approximately 5 light years away. I cannot be sure from here if it is stable," JARVIS volunteered on the heels of his outburst.
"Plot a course K, and drop another message capsule. Fucking Fury got it wrong. Tricky Dicky the Stretch can suck it too. Hulk never made it to his prison planet. Tell Rogers to make the break, and whatever he breaks on the way out, I want pictures." Tony stood up from the console, and pilot's chair, and headed to the back of the main deck. "I guess we need to restart the sleep chamber. Oh, send a separate capsule to Pepper. She needs to employ Plan Delta for the company. Hope the LMD is up to the task."
He palmed over a door sensor, and walked through the opening to the rear of the craft. Not built to his usual preference of sleek lines and flashy tech, it was cobbled together, part relic from the early Soviet days of space flight, and part nightmare from a 1960s sci-fi book.
A pair of metal tubes dominated the far end, one with a clear lid standing up at an angle, revealing the cushioned interior. The other remained shut and dim.
Tony walked to that tubular contraption, and sat on the edge. "Wake me when we get there, J," he ordered, swinging his legs up into the capsule, and laying back into the mattress.
"Of course sir. Sealing Cryotank One, now," JARVIS replied triggering the programs that controlled the cryotank. The lid slowly lowered over Tony's prone form until it was able to lock into place.
Tony was injected with a sedative, rendering him unconscious before the tube was slowly filled with a mix of liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen,* quickly cooling and ultimately freezing his body to halt the aging process while the shuttle traversed the stars. Even under warp** power, it took time to travel to different solar systems.
Tony was preserved, lights all over the flight cabin turned off as JARVIS took full command of the shuttle's helm and input the commands to leave the pastoral planet's orbit, the solar system it existed in, and went to warp. The AI calculated a 15 year window to the new coordinates at the shuttle's best possible speed.
* - I did the best I could looking up cryogenics. It's an inexact science, still best fitting speculative fiction novels. This is a comic book universe, so the things we believe aren't yet possible, are very possible.
** - Warp flight – faster than light. What else are you going to call it?
Final AN: This story balances on the premise found in Planet Hulk, a comic series out of the pages of Incredible Hulk from 2005, starting with the 4-issue series called "Peace in Our Time". Our story's canon remains valid through "Armageddon", and I won't tell you where it diverges, as that's revealed in the story itself. Won't you join me on this ride? It promises to be fun, and short! (This time)