Felix exited Sublevel B4, hands in his pocket. Luke was being kept down there for 24/7 surveillance. He skipped down the corridor, opening the elevator and ascending to the lobby. There she was. As always.
Czarina, sitting behind the sleek receptionist desk, red hair cascading like a slow fire over her shoulders.
"You owe me dinner," Czarina said.
Felix laughed. "Right, right, I do. Do I?"
"Mmhm. Give me a minute to get ready." The redhead packed up and soon joined him in his exit. "So, how did the talks go?"
"Very enthusiastic. Dr. Vaselli did studies into the human body and its possible interactions with impossible environments. She gave me plenty to mull over."
Czarina believed Felix was talking to scientists around the world to get one step closer to her goal. It wasn't difficult to convince since he really was going around the world and using Herbie to forge documents. Czarina was a super spy; alas, even a super spy of her calibre could be fooled by a supercomputer super AI.
He took out his phone and fired off a quick message to Yuri:
> Getting a ride with someone else. Cancel the car limo
He followed her to a black vintage Camaro parked across the street.
"I'm driving," Czarina said, "if you don't mind."
"Suit yourself."
The car started and they were off. They weaved through the arteries of nighttime New York. Felix stared out the window. A year ago, the city had been broken—ravaged during the Creature Z attack, neighborhoods turned to warzones. But today? Today, things were better. Lights were back on. New bridges were under construction. Restaurants semi-full. Life returning.
But not all of it.
Some streets still sat in shadow. Murals painted on wreckage. Holes in brick walls patched by plywood and prayer. A city alive and scarred. There were some things and people that would never come back. Even after a year, the death toll was being counted.
Prompted by the rebuilding of a nearby highway, Czarina asked, "Didn't you buy some of these highways?"
"Mhm. Me and Osborn both. People pay the tolls which go to us and the government."
The Camaro slowed as they approached a fenced-off entrance near 18th Street–IRT Lexington Avenue Line, long abandoned, overgrown with rust and graffiti. They got out.
"Shitty parking, don't you think?"
Czarina smirked. "Trust me, stealing this car is near impossible."
"If you say so."
Czarina led him down a fenced stairwell and past the broken turnstiles. The underground subway was abandoned. He could feel the wind blowing from where the train should have come. Their destination was the men's bathroom. At the second toilet, she opened up a wall tile, pulled a pipe out of it, and twisted it to the right, then left, then right again.
Clunk.
The toilet and the tiled wall in front of them slid open, revealing a narrow hallway illuminated by flickering LED strips. The pipe had been a lever.
"After you," Czarina said.
Inside, it was nothing like the derelict station above. This hidden room, an old command terminal from the 1960s, had been converted into a cross-dimensional lab. Cables ran along the ceiling like veins. Metal scaffolding surrounded a half-complete portal, a circular gateway of black alloy, dormant at this present moment.
The technology in this place was old. No electricity was connected to it either, until Czarina repowered it. Czarina went on to replace and upgrade the wires and buttons here. 1960s shit wasn't going to cut it. As for Felix, he had built the frame, a mix of tech from Oscorp and fragments of Reed Richards' old notes and everything new he was learning.
Czarina—Natasha Romanoff, or rather a Natasha, not from this Earth—stood by the terminal console connected to the portal. She touched the edge of the complicated keyboard gently.
"So, the question is, did you find anything applicable to our situation? You can teleport bananas so far. That's a start. After all, humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas."
Felix snorted. "That's a myth. It's more accurate to say that we share about 50% of their protein-coding genes. This means that the genes responsible for building and functioning proteins are similar, but not necessarily identical."
"I'm the super spy, I regurgitate."
Felix began typing. "I've mostly calibrated your dimensional signature and tracked temporal offset."
"By sacrificing my clothes."
"I can't just use you, that would be too risky. How many times do you have left from your dimension?"
"Four knives, a M17 pistol, three bullets, spy gum—"
"Spy gum?"
"You chew for ten minutes and it turns into something solid enough for lock-picking. For emergencies. We keep behind our teeth."
"Super spy. Right." Felix hummed and typed on the terminal. The monitor was small and in green and black. Quite old and yet ironically easier for Felix to narrow in on.
"It's missing something," Czarina stated, eyes sharp. "You think it's the Pym Particles."
"I know it is," Felix replied, promptly stopping. "I've stabilized the quantum tether but the miniaturization anchor won't hold. Pym Particles regulate space between matter layers. Without it, the portal can't lock onto your origin reality long enough to pull you through."
"Is there not a scientist on this Earth with understanding of Pym Particles?"
Reed did.
"No. Not anymore." He inhaled. "And no Hank Pym here either."
The first thing Czarina did on this Earth was going to the creator of the Multiversal Super Collider on her Earth: Hank Pym. Except there was twenty-thousand, three-hundred and twenty-seven Hank Pyms in the United States alone. None of them met the credentials necessary for discovery and understanding of Pym Particles. No PhDs, no grand thesis, no criminal charges for potential experiments, nothing. The super spy couldn't find anybody that could possibly bring her back home, except Felix.
He was the closest and even then, it was a struggle.
Natasha nodded, solemn, before smiling and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You've gotten me closer than I thought was possible. The technology of this Earth, from my estimations, is sixty years behind. Maybe more. To get this far with what you have…thank you, Felix."
"Don't thank me yet—" His phone buzzed. Felix frowned. His Advanced Lens were already telling him who was messaging him.
His mother. He read the message. Sigh. Just in case, he checked his phone. A second sigh.
"Do you mind if I cut this session short?"
"Something wrong?"
"Family emergency," Felix said.
"Do you want me to drop you off?"
"No need. I called in Yuri. She'll be here in fifteen minutes."
"Are you sure—"
"It's fine. I made it a fifteen minute walk for a reason. It'll be fair."
Czarina watched him and his retreating back. Felix pulled on the lever and the bathroom opened up to him again.
A third sigh. Yuri was a fifteen minute walk. That wasn't the issue though.
'I'll have to take the jet.'
***
His personal jet, Daedalus, cut across the quiet skies above the Rockies. With its stealth systems active and noise suppression engaged, not even the birds scattered as it broke through cloud cover and descended into a private strip of land behind the Rattlesnake Mountains of Montana.
His parents' new retirement home was in Missoula, Montana. It was a thirty-four hour drive from New York but for a jet, it was hardly two hours. Perfect for emergencies, which this was to some extent. It was a flat strip just outside South Avenue West, near Big Flat Road, a quiet area where the land stretched wide and flat, framed by forested hills and grazing deer.
Felix stepped off the ramp, wearing a dark-brown coat and his work clothes underneath. At the edge of the strip, a black limo waited. He left Yuri back in New York. This limo here was driven by Herbie.
Felix sat inside in silence. Rattlesnake Mountains were four miles from Missoula. Nothing special.
The road curved through tall pines and scrub grass until it emerged at the edge of a long, open meadow, bordered by wooden fences and a dry creek bed. There sat the house.
A two-story ranch-style cabin, rebuilt from scratch with sustainable materials, polished cedar siding, black steel roof, and solar panels hidden beneath rustic overhangs. Anonymous. Near impossible to track. A broad wraparound porch framed the front, complete with two rocking chairs, and planters full of herbs his mother still insisted on growing herself. The place looked like a retirement fantasy—but it had security systems that rivaled a SHIELD outpost.
Felix had made sure of that.
He'd bought the property outright, had a hundred robotic Herbies work on it, and personally oversaw the tech install. No more retirement homes. No more beige linoleum and sterile halls.
This was for them.
The car rolled to a stop. Felix adjusted his cuffs and turned to the driver.
Gravel crunched underfoot. Felix wasn't a farm guy. Never raised in that kind of environment. His father was, supposedly, in his early childhood. A soft breeze carried the smell of pine and distant chimney smoke. He walked up the three wooden steps to the door. A long breath. He knocked twice.
There was a shuffle inside. The door creaked open and there she was.
His mother.
Wearing a soft blue cardigan, her silver-streaked hair tied back in a loose bun, eyes bright even through the fog of worry.
His mother looked at him—tired, fragile, and older. Much older. Time sure did pass.
"Felix," his mother said, her voice as warm as he remembered. "Ohh, dear, you didn't have to come."
"Is he okay?"
"Oh, yes, of course."
The living room was lit only by the soft amber glow of a table lamp and the fireplace. Raw wood was thrown inside. The rest of the house was quiet. There wasn't anybody to come over anyway. His mother had stepped out to prepare tea, always needing to do something, even when the tension was thick enough to chew through.
Felix dropped down in the dark armchair. Across from him, lying half-sunken into the living room couch, sat his father.
The resemblance was inescapable. Older, rougher, but the same sharp brow line, the same slope of the nose, the same thoughtful, narrow eyes. Hair black with streaks of gray and brown. It pissed Felix off just seeing it. At the time, he tried to ignore it. Even now, he did, that echo of hair and its meaning.
The man looked up from his glass of water and exhaled slowly.
"It wasn't a heart attack," his father said gruffly. "Just heartburn. Damn chili." The fire cracked once. Cue the scoff. "You flew all the way here for that?"
"I didn't come for you," Felix said flatly. "I came for her."
A bitter little smile tugged at the old man's mouth. "That tracks."
Another silence. Felix leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"I don't like you."
"Pfft. Yeah, right."
Felix's eyes shifted for a moment before returning to him. "You're right. I hate you so much."
The smile vanished. His father sat back, jaw working slightly. "Why? Because I made you study?"
"Because every night, I couldn't do anything but study. Every night, it was the same screaming and shouting and breaking shit. Always talking about Stark or some big head and telling me I had to do something right when I got out of high school. I hated the way you grabbed my shoulder and shook me, smiling."
"I didn't hit you, did I? Did I?" his father snapped. "Then you should be thankful. Be grateful for what you got."
This time, it was Felix that snorted.
His father looked away, rubbed his face with a hand that had grown more wrinkled since the last time they'd talked like this.
"You're more like your granddaddy—my father—than me," the old man said. "He was a tough bastard. Came back from the war, fucked any lady he wanted, and hit and raised me how I like. You have his eyes. I promised myself not to raise you that way. I told myself you'd be an intellectual."
"His eyes." Felix snorted again. "And what happened to him?"
"Heart disease," his father said flatly. "Runs in the family."
"That's not what I'm talking about."
"Could never settle. He was a cheating bastard, that one, so he decided to fuck off and become a priest. By the time I got myself some money, he wasn't interested in it. Too knee-deep in the Church until his heart failed him. See, that's why I married your mother. Lots of virility in her family."
Felix grimaced.
"I meant it in a scientific sense," his father said, tone dry, like that somehow made it better. "Strong bloodline. No diabetes, none of that. I checked her father and her father's before her. All died after the age of ninety. Do you know how lucky you are?"
Felix looked back to the fire. The roared softly, warm and full. Unlike this room. Unlike this man.
"Ha. Last time we met, you could barely make eye contact. Now you're this badass? You think you can say whatever you want. You know, I don't have to like you. I raised you, I did my job."
"Acting like a maniac while doing a job gets you fired from a job. The only reason you didn't was because you worked for Stark."
"Ohh, the days!" His father laughed and slapped the couch. "Those were the days."
"You would be nothing without mom."
"Pfft. You know how it was back then. You think they'd let a woman order them around? Especially Stark? The moment he caught wind of her, he'd take her to her room and bend her over." Felix grimaced and his father kept barking. "Felix, you and your whole generation and every freedom they have has been on top the shoulders of us who have truly suffered. You…ha. You're nothing!"
Extremis chose to ever so slightly change his DNA and hair colour to match more of his father for one reason alone: it deemed his blood superior to his mother's. That, more than anything, pissed him.
Felix rose to his feet and that shut him real quick. "Things have gotten better for most people. But if you think our generation hasn't suffered, then your brain is emptier than I thought."
"Hahaha! You really sound like my daddy, don't ya? What are you going to do next, hit me? That'll drudge up some memories!"
Felix stared down at at him.
Suddenly, it felt like it was his first time actually seeing his father. This man…was hollow. He tried to laugh it off. He tried to play the arrogant, modern man playing at the edge of criminality and villainy. He tried to be gray.
But in the end, he was just…hollow.
"You should get some rest."
"Haa?" The elderly eyebrow raised up high. "Gonna run off?"
He wasn't talking to Felix. He was talking to a man that was long, long gone. His mother finally arrived with the tea.
The first thing Felix asked was this: "Has he gone to the doctor?"
"What the hell are you—"
"I'm talking to mom. Mom?"
"T-that's…we haven't gone yet. It's quite far from here."
"I left you behind a car, didn't I?"
"Oh yes, the self-driving one! We use it for groceries!"
"Great. You should take him. They'll prescribe some meds."
His father's nostrils flared. "You fucker, are you saying I'm crazy!?"
"I don't have to like you," Felix said. "I'm just doing my job as your son. That's all. Right now, like this…I can't talk to you. You named me after my grandfather, didn't you?" Right on the dot. Felix could tell by the glare. "I've never met him, never known him, and will never be him."
His father's face of raw rage did not leave. It stayed there, stunned and confused and not knowing what to express other than hate. Felix thanked his mother and drank the tea.
"Thank you, mom. I'll be going."
The front door swung open behind Felix. His mother followed close behind, slower now, her hands folded in front of her like she was holding something invisible and fragile. At the porch steps, she reached up and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.
"I hope you do better," she whispered. "Not for us. For you."
Felix held her gaze. The same steady, deep-set eyes she gave him since childhood. Except today, he doubted he saw all of him like she did before.
"I can take you anywhere," Felix said quietly. "You don't have to stay here."
His mother smiled softly. "It's not a prison, Felix. It's peace."
"But if you wanted…" He paused, watching her, trying to read the lines of her face. "Anywhere. A vacation. A month. A year. Your own place. Name it."
Her smile turned wistful. "I always wanted to go back to the Bahamas."
Felix blinked. "Yeah?"
"I went there on my honeymoon," she said, her eyes drifting to a memory miles away. "Met a close friend. Someone I always meant to find again someday. We lost touch."
Felix nodded slowly. "Do you remember her name?"
"Yes. Sophia Palmer."
"Height?"
"H-height?"
"I'll search for you. I can do that. I can do almost anything."
"Felix…" His mother was speechless. "I-I can't really remember. Maybe my height?"
"Your height. So five-foot-six. I'll get back to you," he said. "Give me a couple days."
His mother looked like she wanted to say more, but didn't. She just nodded and patted his arm, her eyes misty but steady. "I know you will."
At the end of the gravel drive, the car he gifted his parents and the limo he used to come here. The doors opened automatically. He stepped inside and rolled down the window as the engine hummed to life.
His mother stood at the porch steps, hand raised in a soft wave. She looked proud. And tired. And hopeful. From the door behind her, Felix caught a glimpse of his father's silhouette. He stomped off when he saw the limo.
The house wasn't registered and neither were the credit cards he gave to his parents. If, by some miracle, his identity was exposed, nobody could find them. Nobody could use them as a weakness.