Because Abigail had let me in, had opened the door herself, everything was altered—improved. Out in public, she was perfect: crisp and streamlined, every S.W.O.R.D. protocol and poker face. But behind the scenes? She crumbled. Not just physically, but mentally—like one who is famished for control but too tired to continue pretending she possessed any of it around me. I'd flipped something inside her, something she hadn't expected, maybe even suffered from. But she couldn't resist.
Obviously I cheated. My Ledger—Irresitable Dominance. It wasn't subtle. It wasn't supposed to be, at least for everyone who had no knowledge of it. But knowing she was under its influence didn't make her any less valuable. Or tempting.
Now she was my key to the entire Baxter Building without an FF on my back. Not a back door, not a break-in—no, I had something better than that. A flesh-and-blood contact with clearance and a motive for keeping me on board. She glided through security like it didn't exist, and I followed in her shadow like nobody was going to challenge me. She thought she was in charge. That was the trick.
She then called me up to the roof one afternoon. She stood with her arms folded, the cityscape behind her like some over-the-top espionage movie backdrop. There was a flicker of a teasing smile on her lips. "Conquest," she stated, voice so silky but edged, "you've proved yourself to be quite the,... asset." It was the word itself that fell like a trigger. In me the Butcher's Voice laughed—dark and satisfied. It had been speaking softly in the back of my throat for weeks now: Push. Press. Open her up. And she was shattering now, offering the second phase of my scheme as an offering.
"Stark wants to see you," she declared, her gaze unreadable.
For one moment, gravity had been turned around. As if I'd been climbing up the mountain and just caught sight of the peak. My face locked in place, even as adrenaline was already buzzing beneath the surface of my skin. The Voice surged higher and stronger, booming with turmoil, possibility, repercussions.
I half-smiled. Played the role. "Seriously?"
She rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Well, I hope you didn't think you'd be a guest at Mr. Fantastic forever now did you, Conquest."
The Voice did not like this. The Voice whispered disgusted thoughts. I ignored them.
"You've been... helpful" she went on, conveying more than one thing in her voice. "And we can use all the help we can get."
The wind whistled across the roof, raw and cold. I did not notice much. A fire burned within me—satisfaction, hunger, drive. I suppressed it under a measured nod.
"When?" I asked, as if it were any other meeting.
Inside me, I was ten steps ahead already.
Abigail glanced at her watch, the edges of her mouth twisting into that small, self-satisfied smile she always wore when she thought herself ahead of the rest. "Now, darling," she breathed. "The helicopter's waiting."
I stalked her in silence, footsteps echoing down the back tunnel into the landing pad. Rotor blades sliced the air like the clang of an alarm bell. The Butcher's Voice stirred within me, low and famished—talking the way it always did of the devastation I could unleash when I insinuated myself into the trust of SHIELD. But the gale tearing at the outside air had nothing to do with the hurricane raging within me.
Getting closer to the chopper, Abigail bent toward me with her mouth near the edge of my ear. "Remember," she whispered, "play it cool." She breathed warm into my ear, her fragrance clean and crisp—too refined for the floor of the battlefield, too deadly to be comfortable. I nodded being unnoticed, kept myself loose and easy.
The flight to the Helicarrier was a blur of wind and preparation. I barely registered the clouds racing past the window. The Butcher's Voice filled the silence, presenting me with futures: alliances broken, systems overrun, power taken. Every tick of the clock drew us closer to the beating heart of the machinery of SHIELD. And I was already weighing how to dismantle it.
The moment my boots landed on the Helicarrier deck, I released a breath—not of fear, nor of wonder, simply... acceptance. It was huge and clean and breathtaking in its scope. A flying monolith held together with steel and ego and the illusion of control. There lurked the mutter of the energy matrices humming under the floor, the hum of surveillance overhead, the threat of weaponized secrets waiting. It was beautiful in its exposedness.
Abby moved with determination in her steps, sharp and assured. Her heels landing with the same rhythm as the beat of my heart. Tick. Tick. Tick. We passed by agents—skeptical stares and short greetings. The Butcher's Voice ridiculed them for being so blind, but I kept quiet and let the cover do its work. Illusion was the target. Let them believe I was here on string.
And we entered the conference room and there he was—Tony Stark.
He slumped behind his desk, which screeched with excess, surrounded by screens buzzing with information and vanity. He looked just as expected: tired, arrogant, handsome. He didn't get up when we arrived—naturally. He jerked his head towards me with the friendliness of someone you might meet in the break room for coffee. "Conquest," he stretched the word out, "and Miss Brand."
"Tony," I said in an easy, smooth tone. I sat down facing him and allowed my eyes to sweep the room—swift, but direct—before returning to his. The Butcher's Voice whispered warning: watch out for this one; Stark is deadly. But I wasn't in need of the warning.
Stark tilted his head to one side and smirked at me. "You're looking... less intimidating than usual."
"And you look like someone who hasn't slept since the Cold War finished," I answered back. A subtle shot across the bow, relaxed enough to sting without issuing an ultimatum.
He chuckled. "Running the world's most advanced clandestine network doesn't qualify for PTO." His gaze narrowed a point further.
"Still. I found time for you." He leaned back, hands behind his head, legs crossed as if this were any other Tuesday.
"You've been a surprise, Conquest. Helpful. Cooperative. That's… not what we expect when a powerful entity drops on our doorstep." His eyes flicked to Abigail, then back to me. "I suppose Brand has a way of getting the best out of people."
The Butcher's Voice snarled at the insinuation, but I did not let it get to my face.
"I adjust," I replied with a subtle shrug of the shoulders. "It is what I do." My voice didn't shake. No bluff, no blarney—quiet confidence only.
"Well, we could use someone of your... abilities," Tony said with the smirk never really leaving his lips. "You're an official S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant as of now." He slid the badge over the desk—shiny metal reflected by the merciless overhead lighting. Its inscription: Marcus Daniels.
I looked at it briefly. The title. The role. The subtle fiction stamped on something real. It was not a cover, it was an offer. A seat at the table. My hand rested on the metal, hard and cold, grounding me in the seriousness of what this implied. "I accept," I said firmly, my voice unshakeable, as a quiet tempest raged beneath my skin.
Tony's now more alert eyes scanned me like a scanner. "Good. Your first mission, Marcus," he tested out the name, "is to aid us in managing a... situation." He nodded towards the screens humming in the background—grainy video of Manhattan, smoke, people scrambling away from the camera, something impossible transpiring.
"Invaders," he explained. "Heroes lost in time. Captain America, Namor, the Torch, the boy with the metal arm. Returned and disoriented."
I kept my eyes on the screen. That title—Invaders—meant something. Phantoms of a time that had passed, stirred up by something unnatural. "They don't seem like they're here to reminisce."
"They aren't." Stark answered flat-out. "Someone has been messing around with the Cosmic Cube, it seems." His fingers paced back and forth over the desk as if trying to outpace the fear. "D'Spayre. A demon who feeds on grief, using the Cube to stir up sorrow so potent, it bent reality itself. And all it took was the collective wish of a grieving nation to bring Captain America back. But the Cube didn't know when to stop—it brought them all back."
It stopped me short. A demon manipulating emotional energy, twisting hope into rebirth. The potential was monumental. Dangerous. Delicious.
My strategic half stepped in. Stark needed someone who wasn't afraid of that kind of madness—someone flexible, unburdened by sentiment or nostalgia. The kind of person who knew how to bend a situation without it shattering. "I see," I said, putting the badge in my jacket. "I'll be ready for the debrief."
Tony nodded, never quite losing that air of detached confidence. "Brand, introduce him to the rest of the team. I'll catch up."
My head was reeling as Abigail and I walked the corridors of the Helicarrier. The gleaming metal, the streamlined craftsmanship—it was so... tidy. So open. I sensed something, bubbling beneath the surface. Not destruction, exactly. Just change. The kind that came dressed in turmoil.
We entered the briefing room, and from the looks, I could see that I wasn't quite welcome. Yet. The Avengers stood or sat in relaxed positions of readiness, but every single one of them turned towards me when I entered the room.
And then I saw her.
Jessica Drew.
Spider-Woman.
Not only beautiful—striking. Air was drawn around her, rich and powerful in its own right and without having to exert itself. I caught the sidelong glances of the agents around us—she commanded attention without requesting it which was the nice way of phrasing it. They were simply leering at her big ass cheeks. The largest I'd seen so far. The voice at the back of my mind stirred itself, less now like the devil and more like primal instincts.
But that was later.
For now, I had to sit in the room.
Spider-Man—Peter—spoke up first. Nervous tension, the all-too-well-known tone that tried to camouflage anxiety with irony. "So, uh… Conquest, huh? What's your deal?
I grinned, but only partially so. "Quite straightforward," I replied. "I am here to help."
The silence that followed was thick and thin at the same time. I could sense the probing. The doubting. Like every gaze in the room was a probe hunting the weakness in my armor.
Wolverine's claws were not out, but they were close to the surface. Carol Danvers looked at me like a missile on target. Luke Cage had his arms crossed, not menacing, but ready. Always ready.
And then Stark entered the room, as suave as ever, the Arc Reactor burning brightly in his chest like a badge of honor. "Okay, team," he announced matter-of-factly with a sharp, commanding voice. "Conquest here is going to help us with our time crisis."
The Avengers looked at one another, and it wasn't strategic silence—it was skepticism. The sort that took up residence in the bottom of your stomach and made each shared glance feel like recrimination. Spider-Woman crossed her arms, making no effort to conceal the poison in her tone. "What makes you think you can trust him?" she bit out, eyes cutting as though she already knew the answer and didn't like it.
Tony didn't blink. He set his metal hand on the table with a soft clank, a gesture and a warning. "Strange vouches for him," he said, as if that was the final word. His voice was even, but with steel in the background. "And to be honest, we need all the firepower we can get."
I almost smiled. Strange had vouched for me? News to me—and probably Strange, as well if Stark had been lying. But I obviously didn't say otherwise. I stayed even-keel and neutral instead, kept things on track. "Like I said," I answered, attempting to maintain as even a tone as possible, "I am here to help. Just tell me where you want the hammer to fall."
Tony wasted no time. He whirled back to the screen, fingers dancing across controls, and the Manhattan hologram burst into being, a glittering map of stress and disaster. "We've got a likely location," he announced. "Subterranean. Below us. D'Spayre's been keeping the Cube there."
The Cube. I heard it once and shivered with an upsurge of longing rather than of fear. I could sense what it could do if paired with the Ledger. A million doors in my mind and each one darker than the last one following it. I hardened my face to stone. No tells. Just a hero in a room full of gods.
The New Avengers beside me shifted, a little but perceptibly. Their bodies didn't budge, but their eyes did. They didn't trust me—and who could blame them? They weren't mistaken.
Tony stood up, reactor blazing blue in the dim light, casting long shadows that seemed important. "We go in hot," he said, voice tense. "We get the Cube. We stop D'Spayre. Tonight, we put an end to this."
There were nods across the room. Costumes creaked, metal banged, power buzzed. Every single one of these individuals was a living weapon—and me? Yeah, I was something special. She-Hulk approached me, looming, powerful, confident in the way only those people who are completely certain of what they are capable of ever manage to be. She slapped me on the back, and it was like being hit by a friendly truck. "Okay, Marcus," she said, smiling. "You're with me."
The Butcher's Voice in my head did not appreciate that. It disliked being named Marcus—disliked anything that felt like control. But She-Hulk? It was pleased by her. The power emanating from her. The way her strength enveloped her like a scent. There was something there that could be used.
I gazed at her with an eyebrow raised. "Did Stark put you up to this?"
Her smile was languid but her eyes were open. "Why would he?" she answered back. No denial. No admission. Just this silky, drawn-out playfulness that kept you guessing whom was stringing whom along.
She edged closer to me, her words almost inaudible above the hubbub. "I've heard of you. The man with enough power to shatter Earth with a punch." She spoke as if compelled to confirm it for herself.
The Voice laughed in my mind, low and hungry. It didn't care why she was interested in the partnership game. It just liked that she was. I shrugged, attempting to get into the casual groove. "I guess I should be flattered" The problem was, I wasn't sure how to deal with this sort of attention, let alone from She-Hulk. The only way I usually got this sort of female attention was if I was the Judge himself.
When the briefing came to an end, the Helicarrier rumbled more fiercely, the engines roaring through steel bulkheads like menace. The personnel snapped into place as disparate parts of a living puzzle. The Voice seethed now, foaming for destruction. I breathed deep and tried to keep it back on its leash.
"Stick with She-Hulk," Tony instructed me with barely a trace of nonchalance. He produced the same unreadable Stark gaze—half poker face, half x-ray. "Not that we don't trust you," he appended as though the qualifier fixed the original statement. "But this one is a wild card. And you're... new."
New asset, I heard him think, although he did not utter it. The Voice tensed, yet I did not flinch. "Yes, sir," I replied softly.
She-Hulk walked beside me as we walked down the corridor. She moved with elegance, more than one would imagine given she could knock down skyscrapers. I trudged along like a war machine by comparison. "Don't fret, Marcus," she said, winking at me. ""I'll make sure you don't blow anything up by accident."
The Voice rolled its eyes metaphorically. Babysitter, it scoffed. I didn't complain, though. Stark wasn't doing anything wrong. If I was going to earn their trust—or at least get them to leave me alone—I had to cooperate even further then I've had so far.
We boarded the Quinjet and the wind screamed around it as if the sky itself was warning us away. The city looked like an offer or threat from down below us. The Voice went silent as the air filled with the scent of turmoil—its way of praying.
The others debated strategy, throwing ideas back and forth like veterans. I remained quiet. Not due to a lack of something to say—but because I recognized the threat was not that which was beneath.
It was me.
As we touched down, boots on concrete, I was on edge. The city pulsed with tension, the kind you could smell. There was fear all around. It was sweet.
That's when it struck me. I had forgotten about Abigail.
The Voice stirred itself with excitement at the thought of her all alone in the Helicarrier. Afraid of what she had unleashed. It declared her fear to be sweet-scented. But I kept the thought back—pushed it into the shadows. Because now I needed to focus. Because now I was among them.
The hero. At least... for now.