Interlude: In the Widow's Web
I watched as Tony interfaced with Armin Zola's databanks, streams of data flickering across his HUD as he tore through the primitive defenses with casual efficiency. Whatever passes Zola had once considered cutting-edge barely slowed him down. Lines of code unraveled, permissions collapsed, and one by one the barriers fell away as Tony issued quiet commands for JARVIS to begin a full sweep of everything stored inside.
We wouldn't be able to digest all of it at once. There was simply too much—decades of rot compressed into cold, digital memory. Tony made it clear, though, that JARVIS would flag anything critical, anything we needed to see with our own eyes before we brought Director Fury into this and started dismantling HYDRA cell by cell. No half measures. No surprises left buried in forgotten folders.
The truth of it all settled over me like a weight.
It was an unpleasant revelation, to say the least. HYDRA—the very organization SHIELD had been created to oppose—had been embedded inside it from the beginning, growing quietly, patiently, feeding off its resources and authority. How many times had I stood shoulder to shoulder with SHIELD agents, trusting them implicitly, never knowing who among them answered to a different master? How many people I respected, people I might even have called friends, were traitors wearing familiar faces?
The thought made my stomach twist.
I was grateful—deeply, selfishly grateful—that Millicas had already confirmed Clint wasn't one of them. I didn't know what I would have done if he had been. Clint wasn't just a teammate. He was family. I loved him like a brother, and the idea of having to confront him as an enemy, of being forced to put him down, was something I refused to contemplate for more than a heartbeat.
And then there was the other thought. The quieter one. The one that cut deeper.
How many missions had I carried out for SHIELD—missions I believed were meant to atone for the things I'd done in the Red Room—had actually served HYDRA's interests instead? How many operations framed as necessary evils or strategic necessities had furthered their agenda instead of dismantling it?
If they never tried to recruit me directly—and they hadn't, I was certain of that; I would have known—then they must have been satisfied with the level of control they already exercised through SHIELD itself. I'd been a tool without realizing it, a weapon pointed wherever they needed, all under the comforting illusion of redemption.
That realization unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
It wasn't just betrayal. It was the possibility that even my attempts to make things right had been twisted into something ugly, something I never would have chosen if I'd known the truth.
"Hey, are you okay?" Millicas asked, his hand coming to rest lightly on my shoulder.
The touch was gentle, careful in a way that made it worse. Not possessive. Not commanding. Just… concerned.
That was another thing. I cared about him. I cared in a way I never thought I would—or even could. I was the Black Widow. An expert spy, a trained manipulator, a seductress by design. I had taken hundreds of lovers for the mission. I had played at affection, intimacy, even love, whenever it served an objective. Faces blurred together after a while, emotions compartmentalized and discarded as soon as they were no longer useful.
This was different.
I could feel it in the way my attention kept drifting back to him, in the way his presence grounded me even as everything else fell apart. The concern in his voice mattered. His hand on my shoulder mattered. And that terrified me more than any gun ever had.
Because I could also tell it wasn't natural.
That realization should have set off every alarm I had. It should have had me pulling Clint aside, reporting directly to the Director, laying everything out no matter the consequences. Even if they couldn't do anything to Millicas—and they couldn't. Not really. They didn't have the same supernatural awareness I now possessed, and I could feel how much stronger he'd become in the month he was gone—SHIELD should have known. Clint should have known. They should have been given the chance to prepare, to plan, to develop whatever countermeasures they inevitably would.
So why didn't I?
Why didn't I say anything? Why didn't I blow the whistle the moment I realized something was wrong?
I knew the answer. I had known it for a while. And admitting it to myself scared me more than any HYDRA secret ever could.
Whether it was an effect of the Evil Pieces or something he'd done with the Mind Stone, he had bound me to him. Not just in body or duty, but in loyalty. In affection. In something that felt dangerously close to love. He made me loyal to him. He made me love him.
And I let it happen.
Worse, I didn't fight it.
Like a teenager with her first crush, I couldn't bear the thought of disappointing him. The idea of betraying him—of seeing that look of hurt or betrayal in his eyes—felt unbearable. So I stayed silent.
That was why I stopped feeding SHIELD information they could use against him. I still gave them something. I had to. Anything less would have raised suspicions, and suspicion was dangerous. But I curated it carefully, stripped of anything actionable, anything that could genuinely threaten him. Just enough truth to seem honest. Just enough lies to keep him safe.
It was almost funny, in a dark, bitter way.
I had spent my entire career subverting people—men and women alike. Turning their trust, their desire, their loyalty into tools. And now I was the one being subverted, wrapped so neatly in someone else's influence that I barely recognized myself anymore.
The only consolation I had was that Millicas didn't actually want to hurt SHIELD. Not really. If he did… I didn't know if I could stop him. I knew, deep down, that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to try.
And that realization lingered, cold and heavy in my chest.
I wasn't sure what disturbed me more—that I felt this way at all, or that I couldn't even summon disgust or anger at the fact that my feelings might not be entirely my own.
It wasn't full control. I could tell that much.
I was still myself. I could still think, still question, still choose. I wasn't a puppet with strings wrapped around my wrists, wasn't marching to silent commands whispered into my skull. Whatever influence the Evil Pieces exerted—or whatever residue of his power lingered around me—it was subtler than that. A pressure, not a shove. A nudge, not a command. My thoughts were still mine, but when they branched, the paths that led toward him felt smoother, warmer, easier to walk.
That knowledge didn't comfort me nearly as much as it should have.
I knew I was still at least a little free, because I was angry with him.
Not furious. Not enough to want to lash out or hurt him. But the feeling was there, sharp and persistent beneath everything else. The longer I was bound to him, the more my feelings for him deepened—and the more a certain, very obvious oversight gnawed at me. What might have been brushed off as nothing before now felt like a splinter lodged under my skin.
He hadn't meant it. I was sure of that.
Which somehow made it worse.
So I decided to address it.
"Follow me," I said, keeping my voice even as I gestured toward the back of the room.
I didn't lead him far—just far enough that the others wouldn't immediately notice us stepping aside, but close enough that our absence wouldn't raise questions. Tony was buried in Zola's data, Steve stood rigid and silent a few steps away, and Clint's attention wason the screens. No one was watching us. No one was listening.
Still, habits like mine didn't die easily.
Better safe than sorry.
I lifted my hand, focusing inward, drawing on the demonic power that now felt as natural as breathing. I'd been practicing this particular effect ever since I'd learned to properly shape my energy—something subtle, precise, meant for moments like this. Power flowed through my fingers, invisible but tangible, and a barrier blossomed around us.
The air shimmered faintly, just enough to blur outlines and bend light. Anyone glancing our way would see nothing more than a harmless distortion, like heat haze. Sound wouldn't carry clearly. Lips couldn't be read.
Privacy, devil-style.
Millicas watched the effect form with open curiosity, his expression relaxed, almost amused, as if we were stepping aside to share a joke rather than something heavier.
"What's up?" he asked, leaning back against an old server rack, metal creaking softly under his weight.
The casualness of it made my irritation flare just a little brighter.
"What's up is that you made me a devil and then ran off for a month to seduce Loki," I said, keeping my voice level and sharp at the same time. Bluntness was the only way to deal with him; Millicas hated dancing around a problem, and I wasn't in the mood to soften the edges. "And don't pretend you didn't sleep with her."
The strange part was that the thought didn't sting the way I expected it to. If anything, it sent a faint, unwelcome thrill through me. I knew what he'd said about devil relationships, about harems and eternity and how different things were in his world, but I hadn't expected this new, burgeoning love to be so… unjealous. The realization unsettled me more than the imagined betrayal ever could.
He scratched the back of his head, eyes flicking away for a moment, and at least had the decency to look chastised.
"Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that. It was only meant to be a couple of hours, but things happened."
"I can imagine," I replied dryly. "They must have happened a lot to hold you up for an entire month."
He shook his head immediately, a little too quickly.
"It wasn't like that," he said.
I almost laughed. I'd heard that line a hundred times, from men caught cheating, lying, or trying to wriggle out of consequences. For a split second I braced myself for excuses, half-truths, and justifications.
What startled me was how my mind framed it. Cheating. That was the word that surfaced first, unbidden. Another part of me noted, with clinical detachment, that I didn't truly see it that way. We weren't in a relationship. Not really. And if I was honest with myself, what bothered me wasn't that he'd slept with someone else—it was that he'd slept with Loki specifically.
"I did sleep with Loki," he admitted, meeting my eyes again.
That counted for something. At least he didn't insult me by denying it.
"But I was only in Asgard for a day," he continued. "The rest of the month, I was busy with something else."
"Which is?" I pressed, folding my arms.
He hesitated.
The pause was brief, but it was enough to make my patience snap. I let out a slow breath, the sound sharp in the quiet bubble of the barrier.
"You said you wanted a second-in-command who wouldn't abuse the trust you placed in them," I reminded him. "I can't be that person if you don't grant me that same trust."
He went still, the casual posture draining away. For a moment he looked genuinely conflicted, then he lowered his head.
"You're right," he said quietly. "I want us to enjoy each other's company. And that means no secrets."
The sincerity in his voice made it hard to stay angry. Harder still to ignore the fact that, despite everything, I wanted to hear what he had to say next.
"I grabbed another Infinity Stone," he said.
For a heartbeat, everything in me went still.
"What?" I hissed, instinctively lowering my voice even though we were sealed inside the barrier. My pulse spiked, a familiar, ugly mix of anger and fear tightening in my chest. "Why would you do that? You told me how dangerous they are."
He actually laughed. Not nervously. Not defensively. Just a small, almost sheepish chuckle.
"Yeah," he said. "I got to experience that firsthand."
That did nothing to reassure me.
"Let me tell you," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck, "being full of more demonic power than your body can handle isn't fun."
My jaw tightened. "What happened?" I asked, the words clipped, the concern bleeding through despite my effort to keep it under control.
"I grabbed the Power Stone and tried to connect to it."
I stared at him, my expression going flat as my mind raced ahead of his words. The Power Stone wasn't just a battery. It wasn't a tool. It was raw, primordial energy given form. He told me that much.
"I got pulled into the stone," he went on, far too casually. "Connected to all energy in the universe. If it wasn't for the other stones, I probably would've gone insane. Or died."
I didn't react. I couldn't. Years of training kicked in, locking my face into something neutral while alarms screamed in my head. Insane. Dead. Either outcome would have been catastrophic—and he was talking about it like a bad workout.
Then he added, as if it were an afterthought, "I had some help from Galactus."
I blinked.
"I'll tell you about him later," he said quickly, apparently realizing that name alone might warrant a pause. "Long story short, he's a nigh-omnipotent cosmic devourer."
I continued to stare at him, unblinking, my brain very deliberately refusing to process that sentence.
"And he helped me learn how to control the connection," Millicas finished, as though this were all perfectly reasonable. "I'm using it to keep my reserves full and speed up my training. Haven't touched the amplification aspect yet, though."
He hesitated, then added, "I kind of blew up a planet by accident, so I'm being careful."
There it was. The part that finally broke through my composure.
"A planet," I repeated flatly.
"An empty one," he said immediately. "Morag. No casualties."
That was supposed to make me feel better. It didn't.
I leaned back against the server rack, folding my arms slowly, grounding myself in the cold metal beneath my palms. A month. He'd been gone a month, and in that time he'd acquired another Infinity Stone, merged himself with cosmic energy, spoken to Galactus, and erased a planet from existence.
And somehow, impossibly, he was standing in front of me, intact, apologetic, and worried about my feelings.
Part of me wanted to yell at him. Another part wanted to grab him and make sure he was real. A third, quieter part simply catalogued the implications and tried not to think about how far beyond any contingency plan he now was.
"You're unbelievable," I said finally.
Not an accusation. Not praise.
Just a statement of fact.
"I know," he said, smiling in a way that was almost shy.
It was an annoyingly beautiful smile. Open. Earnest. Completely unguarded.
I pushed the thought aside before it could take root and focused on what actually mattered.
"You need to trust me if we're going to be a team," I said, holding his gaze. "Otherwise, how am I supposed to trust you?"
I very deliberately did not think about the fact that I already did. Completely, irrationally, and without him ever earning it in a way I would normally accept.
He exhaled slowly, shoulders slumping just a little. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm… not great at this leader thing."
"I can tell," I said, unable to keep the amusement out of my voice.
And I meant it fondly.
The more time I spent around him, the clearer it became that he wasn't complicated at all. There was no grand ambition driving him, no carefully layered schemes or hunger for power. He wasn't trying to save the world, or rule it, or reshape it in his image. He drifted. He reacted. He followed whatever felt right in the moment.
More than anything else, he wanted company.
Not followers. Not servants. People. A close-knit group he could laugh with, argue with, rely on. A family that wouldn't age, wouldn't drift away, wouldn't leave him alone after a few short decades. Eternity was a long time to face by yourself, and I could feel just how deeply he feared doing exactly that.
"Why don't you tell me who your next recruits will be?" I suggested. "You said you had a few ideas. Maybe I can help you sort through them."
His eyes lit up immediately, the shift in mood almost instantaneous.
"There are two I'm pretty much locked in," he said. "I'll only give up if I really can't convince them. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff."
With a casual gesture, he summoned an illusion between us. Two figures took shape out of shimmering light: twins. The man—Pietro—was frozen mid-motion, body angled forward as if caught at the start of a sprint, a faint blue aura clinging to him like displaced air. The woman—Wanda—stood beside him, red, mist-like energy curling around her hands, subtle but unmistakably dangerous.
"Wanda is what's known as the Scarlet Witch," he said. "She's an extremely powerful spellcaster. Or she will be. Her powers are still dormant, but the Evil Pieces should awaken them."
"You want her as your Bishop," I said, already seeing the logic.
He nodded. "In terms of raw versatility and potential, her magic is arguably better than devil magic. The problem is…" He hesitated. "She's had a hard life. She's not exactly stable."
I studied the illusion more closely, the way the red energy clung to Wanda like something half-alive.
"But that's not a dealbreaker," he continued. "Therapy helps. And having an immortal family she can attach to—without the constant fear of losing them—would help even more."
I glanced pointedly at the illusion's wardrobe. The corset was… very tight.
"It helps that she's very attractive," I noted dryly.
He didn't even pretend to be embarrassed. "I did say I wanted a harem."
"I'm not complaining," I replied. "Actually… I think I might enjoy that."
Bisexuality had been carved into me in the Red Room, conditioned until it was instinct. My body had been a tool, and I'd been taught to use every part of it without hesitation or preference. That part of my life was over now—but the tastes it left behind hadn't vanished with it.
I still enjoyed the company of women.
Even if, given the choice, I preferred men.
"Right," he said, the excitement in his voice unmistakable as he leaned more comfortably against the server rack. I couldn't pretend I didn't feel some of it myself. "Pietro is another matter."
"Not into men?" I asked lightly.
"I don't swing that way," he replied without hesitation. "But that isn't the problem."
"What is?" I asked, folding my arms and giving him my full attention.
"Pietro would make a good Knight," he said. "Especially once his own super speed fully awakens. Reflexes, combat mobility, hit-and-run tactics—he's practically built for it." He paused, expression turning more thoughtful. "But if I'm being honest, I'm only bringing him in because he and Wanda are a package deal."
That made sense immediately. Most brothers wouldn't react well to someone swooping in and offering their sister power, immortality, and a new life—especially not without them. And Wanda, from everything I knew, wouldn't abandon Pietro even if it meant turning down something she desperately wanted.
"There's another issue," he continued, his tone growing more subdued. "When they were children, their parents died when their house was hit by a missile. A Stark Industries missile."
"Obadiah," I said instantly. Tony—even the reckless, younger Tony—would never have signed off on something like that knowingly. But Stane? That fit far too well.
"Or HYDRA," he shrugged. "I don't really know yet. But until I can prove it wasn't Tony, they probably won't be willing to join. Not when I'm openly associated with the Avengers."
"And if it was him?" I asked, watching him closely. Not accusing. Just probing.
His answer came without hesitation, and the shift in his demeanor was sharp enough to be chilling.
"Then I'll delay their recruitment until I'm ready to deal with the fallout of killing Tony," he said, his voice flat, stripped of its usual warmth. "I'd rather not. I really would. But I'm not a hero, and my peerage comes first."
There was no bravado in it. No anger. Just certainty.
"I'll try to convince them that Tony only owned the company," he continued. "I'll help them track down who actually gave the order. I'll do everything I can to avoid that outcome." His gaze hardened just slightly. "But if it comes down to it… I'll side with them."
The words hung between us, heavy and unavoidable.
In that moment, I understood something important. He wasn't cruel. He wasn't reckless. But once he decided someone was his, he would burn the world before letting them be wronged again.
And that, more than the Infinity Stones or demonic power, was what made him truly dangerous.
"Anyone else?" I asked once the moment passed, deliberately nudging the conversation away from murder and moral calculus.
And just like that, the tension evaporated. The man who had just calmly discussed killing Tony Stark slipped back into the Millicas I'd been getting to know—easygoing, thoughtful, almost boyish in the way he approached things.
"There are a few in this universe," he said, rubbing his chin as he thought it through, "but no one I'm really counting on accepting."
He glanced at me, a small, fond smile tugging at his lips.
"Yelena and the other Widows are skilled," he continued, "but with you as my Queen there isn't much of a point in getting any of them."
I felt a faint, warm twist in my chest at that—not pride, exactly, but a sense of being chosen. Not as a tool, not as an asset, but as something irreplaceable.
He paused, eyes unfocusing slightly as he sorted through possibilities.
"There is Aldrich Killian," he said at last.
"The CEO of AIM?" I asked, genuinely confused. "Why him?"
"His company is developing the Extremis virus," he explained. "Think of it as a better version of the Super Soldier Serum Steve got—but with control over your body's temperature precise enough to melt steel, plus some pretty decent regeneration."
I stared at him, incredulous. Something that could rewrite the global balance of power, topple governments, and start wars was being described with the same tone someone might use to talk about a software update.
"And you're just… not interested?" I asked.
He shrugged.
"I don't know how it would interact with devil bodies," he said. "So I don't think I'll go for it." He waved a hand dismissively. "It's not like I can't get better regeneration eventually, given enough time. And the rest of the enhancement is pretty insignificant for us."
For us.
The words landed with quiet weight. Super strength, heat generation, accelerated healing—things entire nations would kill to possess—reduced to footnotes because, in his mind, they simply didn't matter in the long run.
It was strange. Terrifying, even. But there was also something oddly reassuring about it.
He wasn't chasing power for power's sake.
He was thinking long-term. Eternity-long.
And for better or worse, he was already planning that eternity with me in it.
"I doubt Doctor Banner would accept the offer," he said, sounding more resigned than disappointed. "So as tempting as it would be to have the Hulk as a Rook, that plan's a dud."
I could see the appeal even without him spelling it out. A being who grew stronger the angrier he got, with durability that bordered on the absurd and strength that scaled into the ridiculous. As a devil, with infinite time to grow and refine that power? It would have been terrifying.
"But he wouldn't go for it," he continued. "And honestly, I can't blame him. He's spent his whole life trying not to be defined by the Hulk. Offering him a deal that ties him permanently to another source of power probably sounds like a nightmare."
He sighed and rolled his shoulders.
"Thor wouldn't accept it either—and Loki would probably blow a fuse if I recruited him," he added dryly. "So that only leaves Hela."
"Hela?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Thor and Loki's eldest sister," he said. "Currently sealed away because she didn't want to stop conquering the Nine Realms."
Then his mouth twisted, sarcasm bleeding into his voice.
"It's not like Odin raised her in war or used her as a weapon her entire life or anything," he said. "Clearly she was just a bloodthirsty psycho who came out that way on her own."
I snorted despite myself.
He shook his head, the humor fading into something more thoughtful.
"Even if I was willing to piss off Odin for her," he continued, "she wouldn't submit. Hela doesn't follow. She rules. And I'm not interested in forcing someone like that into a peerage."
"That's probably for the best," I said honestly. "What about other universes?"
Even as the words left my mouth, the weight of them settled in. Other universes. Not as a theory, not as speculation, but as places we would eventually visit. People we could meet. Lives we could change—or ruin.
He didn't seem fazed by it at all.
"I definitely want a healer," he said immediately, no hesitation whatsoever. "While I do plan to get us all regeneration eventually, having a dedicated healer is far too important to ignore."
There was a quiet seriousness to his tone now, the kind that only came out when he was thinking about survival rather than power.
"Regeneration is great," he continued, "but it doesn't fix everything. It doesn't help if someone's soul is damaged, or their mind is broken, or they're taken out faster than their body can recover. A healer gives us margin for error. Insurance against bad luck."
I studied him as he spoke. This wasn't greed or ambition talking. It was foresight. The kind that came from understanding that immortality didn't mean invincibility—and that eternity was only worth having if the people you cared about survived to share it with you.
For someone who claimed he wasn't good at leadership, he was already thinking like someone who intended to keep his people alive at all costs.
"Who do you have in mind?" I asked, already half-expecting the name to mean nothing to me.
Given the way he'd been hopping between gods, monsters, and sealed cosmic threats, I doubted his idea of a reasonable candidate lined up with my frame of reference at all. Still, he was clearly enjoying himself now—talking through possibilities, weighing strengths and weaknesses—and I had to admit I was enjoying the conversation too. There was something oddly grounding about it, like watching someone sketch out the future in real time.
"My first pick is Shoko Ieri," he said.
At the sound of the name, another illusion bloomed into existence between us. It was subtler than some of the others he'd shown me—no dramatic lighting, no heroic pose. Just a woman standing there as if caught mid-moment.
She had brown hair, cut simply, framing a face that looked perpetually tired in the way of someone who worked long hours but hadn't yet been broken by them. Her features marked her clearly as Asian, and she wore a white lab coat thrown casually over a shirt and jeans, more practical than professional. Her eyes were the most striking part—not sharp or intense, but warm, quietly observant, and carrying the kind of weary kindness that came from seeing too much suffering and choosing to help anyway.
"She is what's known as a Jujutsu Sorcerer," he explained. "They take the negative emotions produced by humanity and use them as cursed energy to perform various superhuman feats and special techniques."
I frowned slightly at that. "So… fear, anger, despair? That kind of thing?"
"Exactly," he said. "Everything people would rather not feel. It accumulates, festers, and they weaponize it."
I glanced back at the illusion. She didn't look like someone who dealt in curses and negativity for a living.
"I take it her technique is healing?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"I'm actually not sure what her innate technique is," he admitted. "Or even if she knows what it is herself."
That caught my attention.
"What she can do," he continued, "is use Reverse Cursed Technique. She takes negative energy and inverts it into positive energy—something that can be used to heal."
His tone shifted slightly, becoming more deliberate, like he was explaining something rare and precious.
"RCT is extremely difficult to learn," he went on. "Even among sorcerers, most never manage it. Using it on yourself is one thing. Using it on others is exponentially harder."
He gestured toward the illusion.
"She can do it naturally."
I felt my eyebrows rise.
"It's good enough to regrow limbs in seconds," he said. "Organs, nerves, anything. And more importantly—" his voice lowered a fraction "—it can heal soul damage."
That made me look at the illusion again, really look this time. At the tired eyes. The relaxed posture. The faint, almost invisible smile that suggested dark humor and quiet resilience.
Healing the soul.
I tried to imagine wounds that deep being mended so casually, the kind of damage that no amount of time or physical recovery could normally touch. Trauma. Corruption. Things that left scars even gods struggled to erase.
And here she was, standing there in jeans and a lab coat, looking like someone who might offer you coffee before stitching your soul back together.
If this was his first pick, I was starting to understand his priorities.
"Another choice is Tsunade Senju," he said, and the illusion shifted again.
This time it resolved into a blonde woman wearing a loose green haori over a grey kimono, the fabric hanging open just enough to be practical—and to do absolutely nothing to disguise her frankly ridiculous bust. She stood with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly how dangerous she was, one hand resting on her hip, expression caught somewhere between bored and perpetually irritated. There was a weight to her presence that had nothing to do with her appearance, the kind of gravitas that came from long experience and longer survival.
"Really?" I asked drily, my eyes flicking from the illusion back to him.
"She is actually a really good doctor," he said at once, a little too quickly, clearly anticipating that reaction. "She's the greatest healer of her world."
I raised an eyebrow but let him continue.
"In her universe, everyone uses chakra," he went on. "It's a supernatural energy source that lets people do things like spit fire, walk on walls, and create solid clones of themselves."
That… put things into perspective.
"She would be great at dealing with unusual injuries," I said slowly, the implication clicking into place. Anyone who routinely treated people mangled by elemental attacks and reality-defying techniques would be well-equipped to handle whatever horrors our future held.
"Exactly," he said, relief clear in his voice. "She's dealt with poison, soul-adjacent damage, catastrophic trauma—things that would be impossible to treat with conventional medicine."
He hesitated for half a second, then added, "Plus, she has a technique that we might be able to learn. It makes her nearly immortal as long as she has energy."
My attention sharpened immediately.
"And," he continued, warming to the subject now, "she can amplify her strikes with chakra to the point where she hits harder than the Hulk."
I glanced back at the illusion, reassessing her entirely.
"You could recruit her as a fighter too," I pointed out. Near-immortality paired with that level of raw strength would make her terrifying on the battlefield. "And there's no such thing as having too many medics."
He nodded, expression thoughtful, clearly already weighing the implications.
Behind us, Tony continued to sift through HYDRA's dirty little secrets, holograms flickering as files were opened, cross-referenced, and torn apart piece by piece. Names, facilities, shell companies, black sites—an entire hidden war laid bare in cold data and glowing screens. Every so often his jaw would tighten, or his hands would still for just a fraction of a second, and I knew he had found something particularly vile. Soon, we would be ready to strike. And this time, there would be no half measures, no survivors slithering back into the shadows. We would make sure HYDRA was gone for good.
But until that moment came, my attention stayed on Millicas.
I kept listening as he talked, letting him walk me through his thoughts, his plans, his maybes and what-ifs. I asked questions, poked at weak points, suggested alternatives. Sometimes I challenged him outright, forcing him to justify a choice or admit when something was more about emotion than strategy. Other times I simply helped him organize what he already knew, turning raw ideas into something sharper, more deliberate.
He took it all seriously. Every word. Every suggestion.
And I realized, somewhere along the way, that this wasn't just idle conversation. This was trust. This was him letting me into the space where decisions were made, where futures were shaped and lives irrevocably altered.
If that was what being his Queen meant—standing beside him while worlds were weighed, helping him choose who to save, who to recruit, and who might one day have to die—then I found I was okay with that. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Castly, Daimon Agafo, Rubén Martínez and 871 othersCyrusFallenJan 2, 2026NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 8 – Burn Away the Rot New View contentCyrusFallenNot too sore, are you?Jan 4, 2026Add bookmark#221Chapter 8 – Burn Away the Rot
"Motherfucker!"
I watched as Fury broke the World Security Council's Chief Secretary's nose.
The punch came out of nowhere—no warning, no speech, no hesitation. One moment Alexander Pierce was opening his mouth, likely to demand explanations or invoke authority, and the next Fury's fist slammed into his face with a wet, cracking sound. Pierce went down hard, chair clattering backward as he hit the floor, blood instantly pouring over his lips and chin, staining his expensive suit a dark, ugly red.
Any comeback Pierce might have had to the Director of SHIELD marching into his office in the Triskelion and punching him in the face without a word died right there. Fury followed him down, moving with the kind of controlled fury that only comes from betrayal, pressing the cold barrel of his sidearm directly against the man's forehead.
"You are a fucking traitor," Fury growled, each word clipped and venomous. "HYDRA scum."
"Nicholas, what are—" Pierce tried, voice thick with blood and shock.
Fury hit him again.
The second blow wasn't as explosive as the first, but it was just as decisive, snapping Pierce's head to the side and cutting him off mid-sentence. He groaned, hands coming up weakly, more out of instinct than hope.
Needless to say, Director Fury wasn't happy.
Whatever skepticism he'd had when I first told him that HYDRA had wormed its way inside SHIELD had evaporated the moment Tony dumped the full data haul in front of him. Zola's files hadn't just implied corruption—they'd mapped it, catalogued it, laid it bare in cold, merciless detail. Cells, contingency plans, kill lists. Decades of infiltration hiding behind Fury's own organization.
Learning that SHIELD—the institution he had dedicated decades of his life to building and defending—was rotten to the core had hit him harder than any bullet ever could. Seeing familiar names, people he had trusted, people he had promoted, sitting comfortably among the traitors only made it worse.
He'd been in the middle of a briefing with STRIKE when we told him.
That was when Brock Rumlow reacted.
The moment the truth hit the room, he moved fast—too fast for someone who was supposed to be just another elite operative. His hand snapped to his side, producing a sleek, ugly piece of sci-fi-looking hardware, and he tried to put a hole through my head.
It probably wouldn't have worked. I'd been bulletproof even before my encounter with Galactus.
But this was the MCU, and even in a relatively grounded universe, super science was absolute bullshit. I wasn't taking chances.
Before Rumlow could finish pulling the trigger, I was already on him. One instant he was aiming, the next he was airborne, launched across the room like a rag doll. His hand shattered under my grip, bones crunching audibly, the weapon crumpling into useless scrap as it was torn from his grasp. He slammed into the far wall and collapsed in a heap, screaming.
Behind me, Natasha moved.
She didn't rush. She flowed.
One moment she was there, solid and focused at my back, and the next she blurred from everyone's sight but mine. She slipped through STRIKE like a shadow given form, precise strikes landing with almost casual grace. Gentle taps that weren't gentle at all—wrists snapped, knees folded the wrong way, shoulders dislocated before anyone even realized she was among them.
In seconds, the room was filled with groans, bodies on the floor, and the unmistakable sound of bones breaking.
HYDRA had been exposed.
And Fury was done pretending this was anything less than a war.
JARVIS was going through SHIELD's systems, Tony finally giving his AI the green light to stop pretending it was just another assistant and show exactly how advanced it truly was.
Firewalls collapsed in seconds. Redundant security layers, legacy safeguards, human-designed contingencies that SHIELD had trusted for decades all failed one after another, peeled apart with surgical precision. JARVIS didn't brute-force his way in—he flowed, exploiting gaps no human mind could track fast enough, rewriting permissions on the fly, ghosting through encrypted channels as if they had been left wide open.
And then, using Zola's own access codes, he slipped even deeper.
HYDRA's systems weren't separate so much as buried—parasitic architectures hidden inside SHIELD's infrastructure, dormant until called upon. JARVIS found them all. Every shadow server, every black site database, every contingency plan meant to activate when the world burned. He mapped them, catalogued them, and quietly locked them down.
Thanks to him, we could finally put our plan in motion.
If we started by attacking every HYDRA cell at once, they would scatter. Disappear. Vanish into safe houses and shell corporations like rats fleeing a sinking ship. And none of us was willing to let them get off that easily.
So we went for the head.
Even as Fury dragged Alexander Pierce away—bloodied, furious, and very much alive—toward what promised to be a long and extremely thorough interrogation, JARVIS was already several steps ahead. Within minutes, he had created a perfect deepfake of Pierce. Voice, facial microexpressions, posture, even the subtle hesitations the man used when lying to subordinates—it was all there.
To HYDRA, Pierce never left his office.
Natasha moved quietly, efficiently, slotting the unassuming device into Pierce's computer. It looked like nothing. A piece of outdated hardware, easily overlooked. The kind of thing no one would question in a building full of legacy tech.
That was the point.
The device gave JARVIS full access to the local systems—the truly sensitive ones. The data HYDRA didn't trust to networks or satellites. Information stored physically, deliberately isolated, on machines that "couldn't be hacked" because they weren't connected to anything else.
They hadn't planned for someone who didn't need a connection.
By the time anyone noticed something was wrong, it would already be far too late.
Steve was already en route to the Siberian facility with Tony and Clint, chasing a lead that mattered more to him than anything else: Bucky.
I'd been worried about that conversation. About the tension that had been simmering between Steve and Tony ever since the truth started coming out. But once they had time—real time—to process everything, to talk without the world actively ending around them, they managed to find common ground.
Not forgiveness. Not yet.
But understanding.
They agreed to bring Bucky in together. Steve would be there to help his old friend, to ground him, to remind him of who he used to be. Tony would be there for closure. For answers. And once Bucky was safe, once the truth was fully laid bare, they would track down who gave the order that led to Howard and Maria Stark's assassination.
And then Tony would have his revenge.
I half expected a boy scout like Steve to object. To argue. To insist on justice over vengeance.
But I underestimated him.
Steve Rogers was a good man—but he was also a soldier. He understood loss. He understood orders. And he understood what it meant to live with a wound that never healed.
In that moment, he understood how Tony was feeling better than I ever could.
"Systems breached," JARVIS announced calmly, his voice echoing from the computer speakers as the screen flashed through a rapid sequence of installation windows—code scrolling too fast for any human to follow—before settling back into the familiar SHIELD home screen, pristine and utterly unaware of how compromised it now was.
"Well," I said, breaking the brief silence, "that was easy."
Natasha shot me a look that managed to be both fond and annoyed at the same time. It was subtle, the kind of expression most people would miss entirely, but I caught it. I wasn't sure if she was being more expressive for my benefit or if I had simply gotten better at reading her. Probably both. I knew I wouldn't be able to sense anything she was actively trying to hide—she was far too skilled for that—but she'd clearly lowered some of her walls around me.
That was new.
After I trusted her with some of my plans for the future, really trusted her, something had shifted between us. Before, she treated me the same way she treated the rest of the Avengers: reliable coworkers, capable teammates, people she'd trust with her life but not her heart. Professional. Controlled.
Now there was something else there.
Not quite love—not yet—but there was a softness in her eyes when she looked at me, a warmth that hadn't been there before. And I found that I liked it more than I expected to.
Sleeping with Natasha had always been part of the plan. I wasn't going to pretend otherwise. She was a gorgeous redhead in a tight leather catsuit, lethal and confident and utterly aware of the effect she had on people. I was never not going to take my shot there. But feelings? That was different. I'd assumed we'd end up friends with benefits at best. Comfortable. Enjoyable. No complications.
Especially since I knew the binding would eventually make her fall in love with me.
Now, though, I wasn't so sure things would stay that simple.
I was starting to wonder if there could be something more, something real that existed alongside the supernatural pull. Feelings were never my strong suit, and the idea of navigating them while also adding more women to my harem sounded like a logistical and emotional nightmare.
And yet.
Natasha didn't seem put off by the idea of sharing me. If anything, there was a glint in her eye that suggested she might actually enjoy the dynamic. The thought surprised me—and, to my annoyance, intrigued me.
Am I a hypocrite for being perfectly willing to kill any man who tries to touch my women, while being completely fine with them sleeping with each other?
Probably.
Do I care?
Not even a little.
Strangely, thinking about Loki didn't stir the same emotions at all. She was undeniably beautiful—dangerously so—and I'd enjoyed our night together far more than I'd expected to. I'd enjoyed her company too, the sharp wit, the way our conversations felt like a duel disguised as banter, each of us probing for weaknesses and deliberately stepping over lines just to see what would happen. There was a thrill in that, in matching her word for word and watching her smile when I didn't flinch.
But that was all it was.
Attraction. Enjoyment. Maybe friendship, in a strange, sharp-edged way. Nothing deeper. No pull in my chest, no quiet sense of rightness the way I felt around Natasha. And I was fairly certain Loki felt the same. Whatever we'd shared was real enough, but it was also fleeting, a moment rather than a foundation.
Still, a part of me couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if I'd followed the path Frigga was so obviously nudging me toward. If I married Loki. If I tied myself to Asgard not just politically or strategically, but permanently. The thought lingered longer than I expected.
Then reality asserted itself.
Even if I were the kind of person willing to make that level of compromise—and it would be a far greater compromise now than it ever could have been when I was human—that path was closed. A marriage between beings like us wouldn't be symbolic or temporary. It would last millennia. And I wasn't staying in the MCU forever. I wasn't about to choose my first world as the place I retired, bound by vows that would outlast entire civilizations.
That line of thinking led me somewhere else entirely.
Retirement.
Or at least the idea of it.
Eventually, I would need a home base. Somewhere stable. A place I could retreat to when things went sideways, or simply exist when I wasn't jumping from crisis to crisis and universe to universe. A place that was mine.
Realistically, I had two options.
I was already planning to buy the We Will Meet Again perk as soon as I could, which meant I'd be able to return to any world I'd previously visited. I could pick one and settle there properly. Build a power base. Maybe even take it over outright, reshape it into something that suited me perfectly. Or, failing that, become powerful and influential enough that the end result was the same without the formal conquest.
But that sounded exhausting.
Power attracts attention, and attention attracts people who want things. Followers. Petitioners. Desperate souls begging for help, favors, miracles. I'd had enough of that kind of noise already. The idea of spending eternity managing other people's problems held very little appeal.
There was also the issue of timing. Until I had a few more worlds under my belt—real options to choose from—I was effectively stuck. The MCU was relatively safe for me at my current level of power, especially considering how quickly I was growing stronger, but it was also a universe where apocalyptic events happened with alarming regularity. Invasions. World-ending weapons. Mad gods with messiah complexes. If I stayed, I'd get dragged into it sooner or later.
The temptation was there, though. To linger. To nudge Tony in the right direction, help him uplift humanity just enough that they could defend themselves without gods or devils stepping in every time the universe sneezed.
But temptation wasn't a plan.
For now, waiting was the smarter move. Seeing what other worlds had to offer. Finding a place that felt less like a battlefield on a timer and more like somewhere I could actually call home.
Alternatively, I could go with my second option.
With enough credits, I could invest heavily in the Pocket Apartment. I already planned to make it my primary place of residence while I was active in the field as soon as I could afford it, but there was nothing stopping me from committing fully. Going all in.
At its most basic level, it was little more than a college student's apartment—cramped, functional, the kind of place you tolerated rather than loved. With more investment, it could become a proper home. Then a luxury residence. Then a mansion, complete with sprawling grounds, private facilities, and even its own beach. And if I kept going, if I truly poured resources into it, the scale stopped being architectural and started becoming astronomical.
An entire solar system.
The sheer scope of it was absurd. It would take a truly colossal amount of credits, far more than I had now or would have anytime soon, but the end result was hard to argue with. A domain that was entirely mine. Completely isolated from the chaos of the multiverse unless I chose otherwise. Accessible only to those I personally allowed inside.
Safe.
There would be space—real space. Not just for training rooms and laboratories, but for living. For leisure. For indulgence. For doing whatever I felt like doing without worrying about collateral damage, nosy governments, or cosmic entities taking offense. And while having children was the furthest thing from my mind right now, I wasn't naïve enough to pretend it would never happen. If it did, I wanted them to grow up somewhere peaceful. Somewhere they could have a genuinely happy, carefree childhood, not one shaped by constant crisis and looming extinction events.
Of course, it wasn't perfect.
Unlike settling in an established world, a pocket domain wouldn't come with its own ecosystem of exotic resources. If I wanted vibranium, kyber crystals, chakra-infused metals, cursed tools, or any other specialized material, I would have to bring it in myself. The same went for power systems. Nothing would exist there unless I deliberately imported it or built the infrastructure to support it.
It was freedom, but it was also responsibility.
There was also another consideration—one I didn't have a clean, rational justification for beyond the fact that it appealed to me.
I wanted an army.
Not because I wanted to conquer worlds or rule over empires. That didn't interest me. But having an army—powered soldiers equipped with super-technology, loyal to me and trained to operate as a cohesive force—would be useful. There would always be problems that couldn't be solved by me and my peerage alone, no matter how strong we became. Situations where numbers mattered. Where holding territory, evacuating civilians, or fighting on multiple fronts at once was unavoidable.
An army wasn't about domination.
It was about options.
And at the scale I had in mind, a single solar system wouldn't even come close to being enough.
The thought lingered in the back of my mind as I watched the data scroll across the screen, JARVIS quietly tearing through layers of security that had been considered unbreakable for decades. There was nothing for us to do right now but wait, and waiting had a way of letting thoughts wander.
"Hey, Nat, what do you want to do?" I asked, breaking the silence. "In the future, I mean."
She shot me an incredulous look, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow rising.
"You want to talk about this now?"
I shrugged, keeping my tone light. "It's not like we're doing anything. JARVIS is the one doing the hacking."
"Director Fury could come back at any time," she pointed out, her gaze flicking instinctively toward the door. "We're supposed to be keeping watch."
"So?" I countered. "Our senses are more than good enough to hear anyone coming long before they see us."
She hesitated, weighing the argument, then gave a small nod. Fair enough.
"I don't know," she said after a moment. "I always planned to stay in SHIELD until one of my missions got me killed. I didn't really see the point in planning for the future."
Grim, but in her line of work, painfully reasonable. For someone like Natasha Romanoff, tomorrow was never a guarantee, and long-term dreams were a luxury spies didn't often allow themselves.
She exhaled softly, her expression shifting, growing more distant and contemplative.
"But now," she continued, "with all of eternity at my fingertips… I'm not sure."
I nodded slowly, understanding more than I let show. Immortality didn't just give you time—it forced you to confront what you actually wanted to do with it.
"I've been thinking about building up a power base," I said. "I don't know where yet, or what shape it'll take. But I want a place that's ours. Somewhere stable."
She turned fully toward me then, a small, almost tentative smile touching her lips.
"Ours?" she asked.
The word hit harder than I expected. I felt that familiar tightness in my chest again, the one I kept pretending wasn't there. I fought the urge to blush and failed only by sheer force of will.
"Well, yeah," I said, trying to sound casual. "Somewhere we can settle. Relax. Enjoy ourselves. No missions. No handlers. No one telling us what we're allowed to be."
Her smile softened further, something warmer and more genuine than the practiced expressions she wore so easily.
"I think I would like that," she said.
There was a small pause afterward, the kind that carried weight. Not hesitation exactly—more like the moment when a thought finally crosses the line from abstract to possible.
Then she spoke again, softer this time.
"I think I want children."
Her hand drifted down, resting lightly over her stomach as if the idea itself needed anchoring, something physical to make it real.
"I couldn't before because… well, you know," she continued. The words were simple, but everything behind them wasn't—the Red Room, the surgeries, the choices taken from her before she was old enough to understand what they meant. "But now, I would like to be a mother. To raise them the way I wish I had been raised."
There was no bravado in her voice, no irony or deflection. Just quiet certainty, fragile and earnest in a way that felt far more intimate than any confession she'd ever made to me before.
I smiled, the expression coming easily, and after a brief hesitation stepped closer and pulled her into a hug. For a heartbeat she stiffened, instinct flaring before emotion caught up, but then she relaxed against me, her arms coming up in return.
"That is a wonderful goal," I said quietly. "And I'm sure you would be a wonderful mother."
I meant it. More than that, I could see it—her fierce protectiveness, her patience when she chose to be patient, the way she learned people inside and out. A woman who had survived what she had and still wanted to build something gentle out of the future wasn't someone who would fail at that.
As I held her, though, a familiar knot tightened in my chest.
I was still hesitant to tell her everything. About the Waifu Catalog. About the nature of my power, the structure of my existence, the fact that my life wasn't just unusual but fundamentally artificial in ways that would change how anyone saw me—and themselves in relation to me.
I trusted her. I knew she was strong enough to handle it. She'd roll with the punches like she always did.
But it was still a massive truth to drop on someone, especially after a moment like this.
So I made myself a promise instead.
Once HYDRA was dealt with. Once the Red Room was finally burned out at the roots. Once the immediate fires were extinguished and she had room to breathe.
Then I would tell her everything.
I owed her that much.
"Thank you." She said softly, looking into my eyes. "And I think you would be a great father."
I wanted to make a joke. To deflect, to lighten the moment, to say something flippant and safe. I wanted to admit—half-laughing—that I wasn't ready, that the idea of being responsible for another person's happiness terrified me more than any god, monster, or cosmic threat ever had.
Back when I was human, I had chosen to be child-free for a reason. I'd been raised to understand what parenthood actually meant—not the idealized version, but the real responsibility of it. The permanence. The knowledge that every failure, every moment of weakness, could leave a mark on someone who didn't ask to exist. That weight had always scared me.
Logically, a lot of those concerns were outdated now. Becoming a devil changed the rules. The Catalogue changed them even more. Resources, safety, time—things that once made parenthood daunting were no longer problems in the same way.
But logic didn't erase instinct.
Old fears didn't vanish just because the universe had gotten bigger.
All of that ran through my head in the space of a heartbeat—and then reality reasserted itself.
Natasha was still in my arms.
I could feel the warmth of her body through the thin layers of fabric, the subtle rise and fall of her breathing against my chest. She hadn't pulled away. If anything, she was closer now, relaxed but present, grounded in the moment.
I looked down at her and met her eyes.
The green there wasn't guarded or calculating. It held something softer, something open. Hope, maybe. Or trust. Whatever it was, it made my chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
My gaze drifted, unbidden, to her lips. I was suddenly acutely aware of how close we were, of how quiet the room felt despite the hum of machinery and distant activity. For a brief, suspended moment, the world narrowed to just the two of us.
I leaned in without quite deciding to.
And then a voice cut through the moment, sharp and unavoidable, shattering the fragile bubble we'd been standing in.
"Pierce is taken care of," Fury said, his voice cutting through the room before he even crossed the threshold.
Natasha moved instantly.
One step back, smooth and unhurried, her posture settling into professional neutrality like a switch had been flipped. Whatever had almost happened vanished from her expression without a trace. If someone had been watching closely, they would have seen nothing but an agent at ease in a secure room.
I was… less convincing.
I straightened a fraction too quickly, my focus snapping back to the present with all the subtlety of a gunshot. If Fury noticed the tension still lingering in my shoulders or the way my attention lagged half a second behind, he didn't comment on it—but someone like him absolutely clocked it.
Note to self: work on multitasking.
Because if a moment of closeness was enough to make me miss Fury's approach, that was a problem.
To be fair, it had been one hell of a distraction.
Fury's single visible eye flicked between me and Natasha, sharp and assessing. The pause stretched just long enough that I was certain he was about to say something—some dry remark, some pointed observation. Then Natasha smoothly redirected his attention, saving me from whatever interrogation might have followed.
"JARVIS is already in their systems," she said, gesturing toward the monitors. "Soon we'll have the identity of every HYDRA agent, both inside SHIELD and out."
"Good," Fury said, nodding once.
Before anything else could be said, the speakers crackled to life.
"Sirs, we have a situation," JARVIS announced. The screens shifted, lines of data scrolling rapidly. "Mister Stark has encountered a Hulk-like enhanced individual in the Siberian facility. Records identify him as Emil Blonsky—codename Abomination. Previously captured by the United States Army following the Harlem incident two years ago."
I frowned.
"What is the Abomination doing there?" I asked. I didn't remember him showing up ever again after the first Hulk movie.
Fury didn't answer immediately.
But his heartbeat did.
It sped up just enough to give him away, the subtle spike betraying tension he couldn't hide from me. I exhaled slowly, already piecing it together.
"…You pulled him out of wherever the Army was keeping him," I said flatly. "You planned to use him as a weapon against me, didn't you?"
Silence.
Fury's posture shifted, weight settling into his stance in a way that suggested he was prepared for things to turn ugly. His hand hovered just close enough to his weapon to make the intent clear.
I studied him for a moment, genuinely curious.
What exactly was his plan if I did decide to attack him?
I could move fast enough to kill him before his nervous system even registered the threat. And outside of whatever classified super-tech he had stashed away, there wasn't much he could do to actually hurt me.
The thought didn't make me angry. Just tired.
I really needed to get my hands on regeneration.
Durability was great—being nearly indestructible was reassuring—but it didn't cover everything. All it took was one weird energy, one exotic effect, one ability that bypassed raw toughness, and I'd be dead before I could react.
For a fleeting moment, I almost regretted not choosing Riser Phenex as my Possess target. Phenex Immortality would have solved a lot of problems.
Almost.
But the Power of Destruction was just too strong to pass up as an offensive option. And regeneration… regeneration could be sourced elsewhere.
I just had to survive long enough to get it.
"You are an uncontrollable enhanced with abilities we barely understand," Fury said evenly, every word measured, "and enough power that nothing short of a nuke can hurt you."
He was still working off my Battle of New York performance. That much was obvious. I almost laughed at the thought of how badly outdated that estimate already was. If he knew I'd grown at least an order of magnitude stronger in the last month, his contingency plans would probably involve orbital bombardment and prayer.
"Fair enough." I shrugged, genuinely unconcerned. "Honestly, I expected you to do something. And you didn't know HYDRA was inside SHIELD, so I can't exactly blame you for them getting to Blonsky."
It would have been easy to get angry. Easier still to feel betrayed. But what would that accomplish?
Fury was always going to look for a counter to me. From his perspective, it would have been irresponsible not to. I had made it abundantly clear that I wasn't under anyone's command, that I cooperated because I wanted to. A man like Fury didn't trust goodwill alone, not when the fate of the world might be on the line.
And besides—Blonsky?
Someone who lost to the Hulk wasn't exactly keeping me up at night anymore.
"Mister Stark, Captain Rogers, and Agent Barton are currently engaging the target," JARVIS reported. "However, they are experiencing difficulty. Records indicate that Blonsky has been further enhanced using an unstable compound designated Extremis."
That made me pause.
Now that was different.
Extremis changed the equation. Regeneration, explosive thermal output, enhanced strength—stacked on top of what Blonsky already was, that pushed him from nuisance to something worth paying attention to. Not a real threat to me, but dangerous enough that Tony and Steve could get hurt if things dragged on.
"Tell them I'm teleporting in," I said.
The decision was immediate, instinctive. No hesitation.
I turned toward Natasha and Fury, already forming the spell circle beneath my feet.
"I'll be back to pick you two up once I'm done there," I said. "Until then, stay safe."
Fury gave me a sharp nod, already recalculating plans in his head. Natasha met my eyes, calm and steady, completely unafraid.
She nodded once—confident, trusting.
That was the last thing I saw before the world folded in on itself and the teleportation circle flared to life, carrying me halfway across the globe toward a monster who had no idea just how far out of his depth he really was. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Burtill, Daimon Agafo, Rubén Martínez and 776 othersCyrusFallenJan 4, 2026NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 9 – Of Devils and Abominations New View contentCyrusFallenNot too sore, are you?Jan 5, 2026Add bookmark#286Chapter 9 – Of Devils and Abominations
The Siberian countryside was strangely peaceful.
All around me stretched an endless expanse of ice and snow, smooth white plains broken only by jagged ridges and half-buried rock formations. The cold was absolute, the kind that would gnaw straight through human flesh in minutes—but to me it was almost pleasant, a clean, bracing chill that sharpened my thoughts instead of numbing them. Each breath crystallized faintly in the air, dispersing in slow, delicate clouds.
Above it all, the night sky was a deep, cloudless blue-black, unmarred by city lights or industrial haze. Stars burned with startling clarity, distant and innumerable, their light sharp enough that my enhanced vision could pick out subtle variations in color and intensity. It felt untouched. Ancient. Like the world had briefly reverted to something older and quieter.
For a moment, I let myself simply stand there and take it in. No alarms. No orders. No monsters. Just the frozen edge of the world and the vastness of the sky above it.
Then the world shuddered.