Disclaimer - I don't own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——
DoorMan #113
Gulmira, Afghanistan[May 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
Huh, it would seem the Army was a lot less forgiving this time, probably because of the previous incident of encountering him? Because the second they were in range, he was peppered by high calibre bullets that continued to ping off of his orange onesie.
Tony was flying low, and the pilots seemed to let him be. Seeing that all the heat was on him, he told Tony, "You should leave. I'll keep them occupied."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure. I am just not sure if destroying government property like this will worsen the image they have of me or if they already think I am to be destroyed, so it doesn't matter if I destroy some jets or not."
"...Be careful," was all he heard Tony say before the man began moving in the opposite direction, towards the port they had come from. Halfway through, the pilots must have realised it as well because one of them began slowing down and turning around.
He grinned as a well timed Air blast put him directly in the path of the F-22 Raptor. He flew side by side with the cockpit, wagging a conjured finger at the pilot, in a disapproving manner. The finger was enormous as well, so no way they did not get his message.
He had expected the comms piece Tony gave him to stop functioning but apparently, the man did not make garbage as a voice garbled in his ear.
"Unknown bogie, cease this. I repeat, unknown bogie, cease this. Identify yourself. I repeat, Identify yourself. You are in restricted airspace, please identify yourself." ON and on it went, repeated over and over again. As if they were not the ones who had shot first and asked questions later.
Time to inform them that though, "Uh, am I audible?" He made the best impression of a corporate employee, a middle manager level employee, in a Video Conference.
"Unknown bogie, identify yourself." The static increased for a second before a real voice began speaking.
"I thought the government had a shared database they used to keep track of threats like me? I suppose it would be too much to ask you to look up Mysterio on your database. Also, for your kind information, your people shot bullets at me first before asking any questions. So, no, I will not cease this, as your automated voicemail so eloquently put it." He quipped at the man, taking yet another evasive manoeuvre, one that got him very close to one of the jets.
Since he was cruising right alongside them, they could not afford to use guns or missiles on him, lest the most expensive case of friendly fire occur here. Meanwhile, he had conjured two giant hands, waving at both the pilots.
After a minute or two, he could no longer sense Tony, and hoping that he got far enough, he decided to cut his losses. He was getting bored here since he did not truly wish to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government property and he had no further way of trolling them.
So, with one last wave, he crushed the earpiece and dumped the remains in the air, before, with a sudden lurch, he rocketed straight up, watching the pilot curse as she looked up. At the speeds they were going, the sudden change in vector was felt even by him.
As he called on Jin'Ya, he flew into the clouds, into the purple portal and then immediately smacked himself on the roof of the portal room, despite his last moment attempt to use an Air Cushion.
Well, good news, the Air Cushion worked and bled off a considerable amount of the momentum he had behind him but certainly not all of it, as he punched a hole into the ceiling's first level of enchantments, making him stick to the ceiling with his neck.
With a sigh, he mentally checked in on his connection to the wards before dispelling the layer of protection he had partially punched through, freeing him from that embarrassing position, dropping him on his legs, thankfully.
Despite his brisk response, Jin'Ya's laughter echoed through their mental link. He cut that off with a grumble, fully aware that Jin'Ya had committed that to memory and was someone who could create a perfect holographic recreation of the moment with ease, essentially an always on video recorder and projector with nearly unlimited storage.
Despite the rocky ending, a smile tugged at his lips as he shed his orange onesie and dragged it to his workshop to check on the damage. Today, had been nice. A nice change of pace as well as an opportunity to interact with his childhood heroes.
____xx____
"So, you believe that whatever DNA you were able to get from that," He gestured to his mutated hands which were more akin to lumps of flesh than hands, in distaste, before continuing, "Can help you resolve the issues with Extremmis?"
They were in the Extremis meeting with Bruce and Maya. According to the conservative timeline they had forwarded him, they were on track to have the healing version available to him by 2011, which was perfect because a year was more than enough time to get it mass produced and available for the Chitauri INvasion, not like he intended on that being a major event in terms of loss of life.
Bruce nodded, "In simple terms, yes. What we took from your hands was not so much as DNA but something else entirely. We have not been able to decode much of it, due to a lack of compute units here but with what we have seen so far, we can confidently say that if we program Extremis to use that DNA to rewrite the patient's DNA, the Healing effect will–"
"Excuse me," He stopped Bruce right in his very excited tracks, "Did you just say you intend to rewrite the patient's DNA?"
Bruce hesitantly nodded, "Yes, for Extremis to use the properties of a specialised trait of DNA, we will have to rewrite the patient's DNA."
"So, we will end up having a bunch of clones of each other? What are you talking about? I thought the healing Extremis shot was a one and done deal, with the end result only being a healed person, with no changes to their DNA whatsoever." He asked them, confused.
Bruce gained a look of realisation on his face before waving his hands in denial, "No, I am not talking about that. We are going to program a way to get that trait installed in their DNA. Once the Extremis' job is done, the trait will go dormant, like the millions of dormant traits we have in our DNA. Functionally, they will remain the same."
"And can you guarantee that no changes will occur in their progeny, after they had been treated with Extremis once?"
Maya interjected here, "Virtually zero chances of that trait becoming dominant just because it was passed down but even then, we will be conducting extensive testing before we can even begin human experimentation. Once again, for that, we need the extra compute so that we can get the simulations done much faster and–"
"Okay, I get it." He stopped her tirade about the new computers once more. There was a new generation of computers they needed, which was fine, but since they were new and shiny and desired by virtually every single research company on the planet, getting them without raising any suspicion would be…difficult.
"Huh," He said to himself as he had an epiphany. He did have a blank check from Stark that he had yet to cash in.
Even if Stark bugged the equipment to hell and back, they were going to be in the Red HEarth, a complete black box when it came to transmitting any signals, with the entry and exit point being the Portal Room.
Plus, he knew that all of Bruce's research ran on air gapped systems anyway, the man being paranoid enough about data breaches. Combined with the new micro enchantments he can do to siphon off all heat generated by the compute units, Bruce and Maya should be getting a pretty hefty boost in terms of computational powers.
Yup, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed plausible. Plus, Tony's stuff would be wayy better than anything he could get on the black market in China anyway since those guys would overcharge him a ton just for the anonymity and no questions asked conditions.
Speaking of anonymity, he turned to Bruce who was looking at him expectantly. "Yes, I will get you all the compute that you need. For now, I am so sorry to ask you this after months of being here but…would you guys like to go on a trip?"
"Trip?" Maya asked him, confusion colouring her tone.
"Yes, trip," he said, "With a complete disguise. All expenses paid, to most parts of the world. A week long vacation. Sauna, massages, anything you need."
Now, both of them were looking quite robotically at him, as if he had something astonishing. Granted, he had not mentioned it for all the months they had been here but he had been clear since day one, that Bruce was not a prisoner, he could leave any day he wanted.
Did they not believe him?
Shrugging internally, he let the matter be. "Just let me know a week before so I can make the arrangements for you. Bye!"
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