Marcus Daniels could swallow any current that touched him—electric surges, brain waves, even the flicker of bioelectric static that turned people into corpses. But he was still human, and human systems had limits. That ceiling gave Coulson's team their angle: feed him more energy than he could handle until his body shut down. Take him alive.
Coulson's rule was simple: fix the man if you can, don't kill him unless you have to.
When the Op wrapped, Coulson walked over to Bob. "You want to tell me why you look wiped?"
"Wiped" didn't cover it. No demon walked away from a faux-angel feather unscathed. He wasn't Mephisto. But with that vow burning into his skin, he couldn't say it. Not unless he wanted to test the penalty clause.
Bob rolled his shoulders, pitching it casual. "Seeing Daniels hit too close. He's a monster. I'm… the same. No memories, just missions, violence, more missions. Maybe that's all I am now."
Coulson clapped his shoulder, steady. "You're not a monster. You're my teammate. You were S.H.I.E.L.D. before, too. It's just—"
"—just that I lost half my body to a grenade," Bob finished with a crooked smile. "Med team saved me, scrambled my head, now the files say I forgot everything. You and everyone else have told me eight hundred times. I've read my own file until the pages peeled. Still feels like the procedure turned me into something else."
"Maybe I've been piling too much on. You want leave? Go fish somewhere quiet?" Coulson offered.
"I'll pass." Bob rolled his eyes. "Last time I went fishing there was a medical team hiding in the bushes. Made me feel eighty with a nurse on call."
He turned for the exit—better to put distance between himself and Coulson before the seams showed.
"Have you seen Austin?" Coulson asked behind him, light but pointed.
Bob paused, then turned back with practiced confusion. "Sir… who's Austin? Old friend of mine?"
Coulson smiled, small, unreadable. "Never mind. Get some rest."
Bob slid into the SUV and shut the door.
Across town, Fury rewound the security feed for the fifth time: Li Ming stepping into a Portland alley from nowhere, strolling past the theater like he owned it.
Li Ming hadn't been thrilled either. He knew Fury watched him. He didn't know Bob and Coulson were inside until too late—and by then, half a dozen cameras had his face. Agents you could wipe. Cameras didn't blink.
"Besides being tired, anything off about Bob?" Fury asked over comms.
"Nothing obvious," Coulson said. "Director, are we sure Austin met Bob? He might've just walked by."
"I trust my gut." Fury's voice was flat. "Ten bucks says Austin already made contact. He hands us resurrection tech, then just happens to show up near a target? Bob's drained. Either he ducked into a corner to… work off stress, or Austin hit him. I want to know what was said, and if they're cooperating."
Coulson hesitated. "Want me to bring Bob in for a psych eval? Austin can hypnotize."
"We'll do it," Fury said. "This time with someone who can tell if their own brain's being toyed with."
"Yes, Director. Do you want me on Austin's trail in Portland?"
Fury drew a breath, exhaled, eyes narrowing at the feed. The alley was empty until—blink—Li Ming stepped out like reality had spawned him.
"Man's got something like a wormhole in his pocket," Fury muttered. "How do you 'hunt' that? He doesn't even carry a phone. Can't ping him by satellite. I'm starting to think he walked out of a tree with a stone axe."
Coulson frowned. Fury cut him off with a sigh. "Do you know what it costs to keep tabs on a man who can drop into your bedroom whenever he wants?"
A knock hit the door. Fury killed the call. "Bring Bob in," he ordered. "Come."
Maria Hill entered, set a folder on the desk. "We've got a problem. Tony Stark is missing."
Fury blinked. With Stark, "missing" usually meant a weekend with a model, not a crisis. "Which woman this time? Weapons wunderkind does enjoy a disappearing act."
"This is different." Hill tapped the file. "Afghanistan. After demoing a new weapons platform, he left by jeep. By the time the military got there, the convoy was ash. Bodies, wreckage, no Stark. Whoever hit them wanted him alive."
"Afghanistan," Fury murmured, scanning the file. "You sound more hopeful than I like. Who else knows?"
"It's already too loud to contain," Hill said. "Expect front-page headlines by morning."
"Figures." Fury rubbed his temple, tossed the file back. "Find him. Fast." He picked up the phone. "Coulson—urgent op."
—
Back in the RV, Li Ming finished dinner and cracked open another book. Half his library was still untouched, and he read slowly on purpose. Magic wasn't a treadmill; misread one line, and you weren't singed—you were vapor.
This time the pull paid off: a formula for a weakened mana tonic. One-tenth the strength of the proper brew, with dizziness on the side and a hard no-repeat window. But the ingredients? Common. Grocery-store common.
Speed beat grind. A bottle could do in hours what meditation did in months.
He jogged into the herb ward and handed the recipe to Kreacher. "We got these?"
Kreacher glanced at the list, then at a pile already sorted. "Aside from the mundane auxiliaries, everything is stocked."
Perfect. Li Ming grinned. "Prep the arcane stuff. I'll fetch the rest." He opened a portal to Portland.
Kreacher was already setting out vials by the time Li Ming returned with paper bags.
Three months—and a mountain of wasted stock—later, Li Ming held up his first viable vial. The liquid glowed cobalt.
He took a cautious sip. Drowsiness hit like a warm tide. Textbook onset.
He waved, and Kreacher popped a sun umbrella into the sand. Li Ming sprawled on a beach chair, letting the tonic settle under desert UV.
Kreacher brought a fruit platter, then squinted at the horizon. "Master… someone is walking toward us."
—
Tony Stark made himself a promise: next time he left the house, he was checking a farmer's almanac, a horoscope, something. Today had been cosmically unlucky.
He'd only come to Afghanistan to dazzle the brass with his toys and bask in his own genius. Instead, he got ambushed by a pack of terrorists.
Dying on the spot? Fine—tragic headline material. Saved by a doctor? Also fine. But living thanks to a car battery jammed into his chest? That was brand damage. Hard to flirt with a generator blinking under your sternum.
Then came the cave. The terrorists' brilliant plan: lock Stark underground and make him build them a missile with nothing but wrenches and wire. He told them missiles, no; nonsense, maybe. Their answer was a beating. Message received—his life was in other people's hands.
So he used those hands. First he made something better to keep the magnet from killing him: a power source slim enough to pass for grimly elegant jewelry. Then he "built their weapon."
Only it wasn't a weapon. It was a suit.
Fortunately, these particular warlords couldn't tell a missile from a meat grinder. They didn't notice their "weapon" riveted into a metal torso. Three months later, Stark walked out in a roaring exhale of fire.
Outside, more guns. Fine. Outnumbered, outgunned—blow the ammo dump and live to build another day.
The prototype flew. Badly. Briefly. When the power sputtered he hit the desert hard, leaving smoke and footprints across the sand.
He ran. He thirsted. He ran more.
Then—an RV. Just sitting there, in the middle of nowhere.
A mirage. Had to be. But it sat exactly where he was heading, so he ran toward it anyway.
Closer… stranger. The air around it shimmered like heat-haze trapped in glass. Under a massive beach umbrella, a man lounged on a deck chair with snacks. Beside him stood… something. Not a kid. Not a little person. Something else.
"Master, someone's coming," Kreacher said.
Li Ming opened one eye. His RV wore a repelling charm—nobody ordinary should even see it. But the figure kept walking, sunlight bouncing off a glow in his chest.
Tony Stark. Of course. That lamp in his chest wasn't just life support—Li Ming had seen it shrug off the Mind Stone itself. A charm like this? It laughed.
Stark walked straight into the RV wall, face-first.
Li scratched his head, trading a look with Kreacher. "Mr. Stark… didn't you see the RV?"
Stark's head throbbed—not from the hit, but from the hallucinations he figured he was having. An RV in the Hindu Kush? A man with a butler-thing? He'd been underground too long. Stress fracture in the psyche.
But the hallucination healed his bruises. Cuts closed. Pain ebbed.
"Basic healing," Li said lightly. "External only. That thing in your chest—" he pointed at the arc reactor "—isn't a one-wave fix."
Stark stared at Kreacher, then the impossible space inside the RV. "Spatial expansion?" he asked, voice dry.
"If that's the term you like," Li said, shrugging. He picked up a staff from the corner. "Point me to the nearest militia nest. My pets are getting hungry."
Stark rubbed his forehead. Healing spells and impossible interiors he could half-file under maybe. But talk about "pets"?
Before he could argue, Kreacher stiffened, ears twitching. "Master, engines. Cars approaching."
Li's smile sharpened. He swung the staff and stepped into the sun.
--
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