Fury had known Marcus for years—decades, really, if you counted all the times their paths had crossed. He'd seen the man do incredible things: fight impossible enemies, travel between dimensions, train heroes who went on to save the world.
But Marcus had never explicitly stated he could destroy the entire planet.
Until now.
The casual admission hung in the air like a sword suspended by spider-silk. Fury's mind raced through scenarios, contingencies, threat assessments. If Marcus decided Earth needed to go, what could they possibly do? Call Carol back from deep space? Assemble every hero on the planet?
It wouldn't matter. Not against someone who could fight Celestials and win.
"You're thinking too hard about this," Marcus observed, watching Fury's expression with amusement. "I can hear your brain overheating from here."
"Just running calculations," Fury said, trying to sound casual. "Old habit."
"I'm not a murderer, Nick." Marcus waved one hand dismissively. "You don't need to test me or figure out how to neutralize me. I have exactly zero interest in destroying Earth or harming anyone on it. You're safe."
He started walking down the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the metallic space.
"Besides," Marcus added over his shoulder, "if I wanted to destroy the planet, I wouldn't announce it first. I'd just do it. The fact that we're having this conversation should tell you everything you need to know about my intentions."
Fury fell into step beside him, matching his pace. "That's... surprisingly reassuring."
"I'm a surprisingly reassuring guy once you get past the cosmic horror aspects."
The comment was delivered so deadpan that Fury almost laughed. Almost.
"I haven't seen you in years," Fury said, changing subjects. "You going to tell me where you've been? What you've been doing?"
Marcus glanced at him. "You want a full debriefing?"
"I want to know if I should be worried about whatever universe-ending crisis you just left behind bleeding into our reality."
"Fair question." Marcus navigated the ship's corridors with the ease of someone who'd been here countless times, despite the renovations. "I dealt with a zombie outbreak in a parallel universe. Consumed the entire reality, promoted my armor, sent the survivors somewhere safe. Standard Wednesday."
Fury processed that. "You consumed an entire universe."
"A zombie universe," Marcus corrected. "Important distinction. Everything was already dead or dying. I just... recycled the biomass."
"That's horrifying."
"That's efficient." Marcus paused at an intersection, then turned left without hesitation. "You asked what I've been doing. Now you know."
Fury filed that information away under 'Things That Make Sleep Difficult.' "Anything else I should know about?"
"Visited some other dimensions. Checked on friends. The usual interdimensional tourism." Marcus stopped walking and turned to face Fury directly. "But since you're fishing for information, let me give you something useful: In all my years of travel, across all the universes I've visited, I haven't met anyone who reminded me of you."
"Should I be flattered or concerned?"
"Both," Marcus said with a slight smile. "You're uniquely paranoid, Nick. It's honestly impressive. Most people would have cracked under the weight of all your suspicious thinking by now."
"Paranoia keeps me alive."
"It does," Marcus agreed. "But it also makes you exhausting to be around. So if you're done interrogating me, I'd like to visit Howard and Maria without you calculating my threat level every three seconds."
Fury considered arguing, then decided against it. "Fine. But for the record, I think you've changed."
"I have," Marcus acknowledged. "I've gotten stronger, more experienced, more... settled, I guess. I know what I am now. What I can do. That makes me less volatile but potentially more dangerous."
He resumed walking. "In the past, you were a hairy braised egg. Then you lost your hair and became a bare braised egg. Now you're a wrinkled braised egg. See? We've both changed."
The comparison made Fury's mouth twitch despite himself. "Braised egg. After all these years, you're still calling me that."
"It's a term of endearment."
"It's insulting."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Fury shook his head, but something about the banter felt... normal. Despite everything—despite the multiversal chaos, despite Marcus' casual admission of planet-destroying capability—this felt like old times.
"Braised eggs are still useful," Fury muttered. "Even wrinkled ones. I'm still protecting this planet, still manning the first line of defense."
"I know," Marcus said, and there was genuine respect in his voice. "That's why we're friends, Nick. Not close friends, but friends. You never stop fighting for Earth, even when the odds are impossible."
They walked in companionable silence for a while, navigating the ship's intricate layout.
The corridors gradually changed as they went deeper into the vessel. The sterile metal gave way to something greener, more organic. Vines crept along the walls. Moss provided natural cushioning underfoot. The air grew thick with the scent of growing things—earth and chlorophyll and life.
Then they rounded a corner, and the corridor opened into something extraordinary.
It looked like someone had transplanted an entire botanical garden into the heart of a spaceship.
Everywhere Marcus looked, there were plants. Not the carefully manicured arrangements of a traditional garden, but wild, exuberant growth that seemed barely contained by the available space. Trees stretched toward ceiling-mounted grow lights. Flowering vines cascaded down walls in riots of color. Vegetables grew in raised beds alongside exotic specimens that probably didn't exist anywhere else on Earth.
The biodome Howard and Maria had created was thriving with almost aggressive vitality.
"Howard! Maria!" Marcus called out, his voice carrying across the green expanse.
He could sense them already—his awareness extending beyond normal perception to track living beings in his vicinity. They were about fifty meters ahead, tending to something in the western section of the garden.
There was a rustling sound, then two figures stood up from among the plants.
Howard and Maria Stark emerged from the foliage looking exactly like farmers tending their crops. Both wore practical work clothes stained with soil. Howard had dirt on his nose. Maria was carrying a watering can that looked handmade from recycled materials.
They looked healthy, vibrant, and genuinely happy.
"Marcus!" Maria's face lit up with genuine delight. She set down her watering can and hurried over, brushing dirt from her hands. "You're back!"
Howard followed at a more sedate pace, but his smile was just as warm. "Didn't think we'd see you again so soon."
"About that," Marcus confirmed. "Time gets weird when you're traveling between dimensions."
Maria reached him first and pulled him into a hug without hesitation. Marcus returned it, careful not to squeeze too hard. Human bodies were fragile even when enhanced with longevity serum.
"After all these years, you're still so young," Maria said when she pulled back, studying his face. "Meanwhile, Howard and I keep collecting wrinkles despite the serum."
"The serum slows aging, it doesn't stop it," Howard added, joining them. He extended a hand, which Marcus shook firmly. "But you? You look exactly the same as the day we met. Not a day older."
"My situation is... complicated," Marcus said with a slight smile. "Let's just say I merged with some cosmic forces that consider aging a bit beneath them."
Maria laughed. "Of course you did. Why would Marcus age normally when he could become cosmically ageless instead?"
"It seemed like the practical choice at the time."
Howard gestured toward a seating area deeper in the garden. "Come on, let's sit. You can tell us about your travels while we catch up."
They walked through the botanical wonderland, and Marcus took the time to really look at what Howard and Maria had built. The garden was more than just aesthetic—it was functional. Food-bearing plants grew alongside decorative ones. Water recycling systems integrated seamlessly with irrigation. Every plant seemed chosen for maximum efficiency.
"This is impressive," Marcus said honestly. "You've created a complete ecosystem."
"We've had time to perfect it," Maria said with obvious pride. "When you gave us this ship to work with, we decided to make it feel like home. And for me, home has always had gardens."
They reached the seating area—an open space where trees formed a natural canopy and furniture grew directly from living wood. The chairs and table had been cultivated over years, shaped through careful pruning and bioengineering into functional forms.
Marcus ran his hand over the armrest of a chair. The wood was smooth, warm, alive. "This is your work, Howard?"
"Genetic modification combined with accelerated growth hormones," Howard confirmed, settling into his own chair with a satisfied sigh. "Maria designed the aesthetic, I handled the bio engineering. Took us three years to get the first pieces right."
"It's beautiful," Marcus said, meaning it.
They sat together in the dappled shade, and for a moment there was just comfortable silence. Fury remained standing slightly apart, observing but not intruding.
Then Howard leaned forward, his expression shifting to something more serious. "I need to ask you about something. During the battle with Thanos' army, there was... a presence. Something massive that appeared when you were fighting."
"Arishem," Marcus supplied.
"Right. The Supreme Celestial, you called him." Howard's hands moved unconsciously, sketching shapes in the air. "Marcus, when he appeared, every piece of monitoring equipment I had went haywire. Sensors stopped working. Cameras couldn't focus. It was like reality itself was rejecting our attempts to observe him."
Maria added, "We were watching through the drones Howard sent to help. One moment we could see everything clearly. Then this... being appeared, and suddenly our view was nothing but static and distortion."
"Arishem exists on a different scale than most life," Marcus explained. "He's not just physically large—his presence affects reality itself. Your equipment wasn't malfunctioning; it was being overwhelmed by stimuli it wasn't designed to process."
"Like trying to capture the sun with a disposable camera," Fury muttered.
"Exactly." Marcus leaned back in his chair. "Want to hear the full story?"
"Please," Howard and Maria said simultaneously.
Marcus took a breath and began. "Arishem the Judge is the Supreme of the Celestial race—essentially the leader and progenitor of all Celestials. He seeds life throughout the universe, but not for altruistic reasons. Those seeds are literally that: embryonic Celestials planted inside viable planets."
Maria's expression shifted to horror as understanding dawned.
"The Celestials use living planets as wombs," Marcus continued. "They need a world teeming with life—billions of souls generating the energy necessary for a Celestial to mature. Earth qualified, so Arishem placed a seed here millions of years ago."
"And when the Celestial is born?" Howard asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.
"The planet is destroyed," Marcus confirmed. "The emerging Celestial breaks through the crust like a chick hatching from an egg. Everything on the surface—every person, every city, every ecosystem—is obliterated instantly."
Fury's jaw tightened. "You're telling me Earth was a ticking time bomb this whole time?"
"Pretty much. The Celestial embryo has been growing in Earth's core, feeding on the energy of human civilization. Every war, every birth, every moment of triumph and tragedy—all of it was food for something that would eventually destroy us."
"Past tense," Maria noted. "You said 'was' and 'has been.' Not 'is.'"
Marcus smiled. "Good catch. I dealt with it."
"How do you 'deal with' a god-embryo living inside the planet?" Howard demanded.
"Very carefully," Marcus said. "I went into the Earth's core, found the Celestial seed before it could fully mature, and destroyed it. Completely. Burned it out of existence with Void energy."
The casual way he said it made the achievement sound simple. But Howard was a scientist—he understood the implications. The pressure at Earth's core was millions of atmospheres. The temperature exceeded the surface of the sun. And Marcus had just... gone there and fought a divine entity.
"Then Arishem showed up to find out why his seed had stopped transmitting," Marcus continued. "He was... displeased."
"I imagine 'displeased' is an understatement," Fury said.
"I made a deal," Marcus said simply. "I gave him back the Celestial seed as proof of what happened. In exchange, he gave me information. Locations of other Celestial seeds in the universe, their maturation timelines, weak points in their security."
"Why would he do that?" Howard asked.
"Because I offered him something more valuable than Earth: the opportunity to recover other seeds that had been tampered with or damaged. Apparently, I'm not the first being to object to the whole 'using planets as incubators' thing. Several species across the universe have learned to detect and sabotage Celestial seeds before they mature."
Marcus's expression turned calculating. "Arishem would rather have information about those rebels than punish one planet. So we made an exchange. He leaves Earth alone permanently, and I provide intelligence on beings who might threaten other Celestial seeds."
"You're working with a Celestial?" Fury sounded scandalized.
"I'm in an information-sharing arrangement with a Celestial," Marcus corrected. "Big difference. I tell him things that might be useful, he doesn't obliterate planets I care about. Mutually beneficial."
The explanation settled over them like a heavy blanket.
"The universe is a dangerous place," Fury muttered.
"More than you know," Marcus agreed. "The Celestials are just one threat among thousands. And honestly? They're not even the worst ones."
Howard ran a hand through his gray hair. "That's... concerning."
"It's reality," Marcus said. "Earth is advanced by your standards, but in the grand cosmic scheme? You're children playing with building blocks while adults fight wars with weapons you can't even conceptualize."
He held up a hand before anyone could protest. "That's not an insult—it's just fact. Tony's nano-suit is incredible technology by Earth standards. On some planets, it would be revolutionary. But in many interstellar civilizations? It's baseline equipment. Standard issue for soldiers."
"That's a depressing thought," Maria said.
"It's a motivating thought," Marcus countered. "Because it means you have room to grow. Potential to unlock. Earth's civilization is young, which means you haven't hit your ceiling yet."
Howard nodded slowly, processing the information with a scientist's methodical mind. "And the parallel world situation? How does that fit into all this?"
Marcus shifted in his seat, preparing for the longer explanation. "Right. The multiverse. This gets complicated, so bear with me."
He waited until everyone was focused, then began.
"There's a place outside normal space and time—a nexus point called the Citadel at the End of Time. It exists in the void between realities, and its purpose is to maintain the timeline. Or rather, to maintain one timeline—a single, sacred version of events that's allowed to proceed uninterrupted."
"Wait," Fury interrupted. "One timeline? You're saying there's supposed to be only one reality?"
"No, there are infinite realities," Marcus clarified. "But most of them are isolated, kept separate by barriers that prevent crossover. The Citadel's job was to identify timelines that posed existential threats—branches of reality that could grow into something dangerous—and prune them before they became problems."
He paused. "The person in charge of this was called Kang. He was... let's say he was a unique individual. Someone who understood time in ways that would make Doctor Strange jealous."
"Was?" Maria caught the past tense.
"He's dead now," Marcus confirmed. "Killed by someone who objected to the whole 'pruning realities' setup. And without Kang maintaining the system, the Citadel collapsed. The pruning stopped. All those carefully separated timelines started drifting, touching, bleeding into each other."
Howard leaned forward, fascinated. "That's why we have three Spider-Men."
"Exactly. I managed to separate most of the timelines that were only lightly entangled—pulled them back to their proper places in the multiverse. But some timelines are so thoroughly knotted together that I can't untangle them without causing more damage."
Marcus gestured vaguely. "Those timelines are now in contact, which means people and objects can cross between them. Usually it happens at weak points—places where reality is already thin."
"Hence three Peter Parkers meeting each other," Howard concluded.
"Hence a lot of people ending up in the wrong universe," Marcus agreed. "The good news is that it's manageable. Strange and the other can probably figure out a way to send everyone home. The bad news is that until they do, you're going to keep getting visitors from parallel worlds."
The explanation hung in the air as everyone absorbed the implications.
"The multiverse is breaking apart," Maria said softly.
"Not breaking," Marcus corrected. "More like... merging. The borders between realities are becoming permeable. It's chaotic and dangerous, but it's not necessarily apocalyptic."
"Unless we get unlucky," Fury said.
"Unless you get unlucky," Marcus agreed. "If a particularly nasty version of someone crosses over—an evil Superman, a corrupted Sorcerer Supreme, a Thanos who actually succeeded in his goals—then you'll have problems."
"Another cheerful thought," Howard muttered.
Marcus grinned. "I'm just here to provide context, not comfort."
He reached into seemingly nowhere and withdrew several objects. They materialized on the table with soft clinks: sleek devices made of unfamiliar materials, each one humming with barely perceptible energy.
"Speaking of context," Marcus said, "I brought gifts. Consider them insurance policies."
Howard immediately leaned in to examine the devices, his scientific curiosity overwhelming his caution. Maria and Fury did the same, though more carefully.
"This is technology from a civilization that calls itself the Firstborn of the Gods," Marcus explained. "Though you might know them better as the Protoss—a race of beings with incredible psychic power but relatively fragile bodies."
He picked up one of the devices—a circular disc about the size of a hockey puck with intricate circuitry visible beneath its translucent surface.
"Their solution to the fragility problem is this: personal energy shields that provide powerful defensive capabilities through self-repairing energy matrices. When you're hit, the shield absorbs and disperses the impact. When damaged, it regenerates automatically by drawing power from the environment."
"Fascinating," Howard breathed, his fingers itching to take the device apart. "How does the self-repair function work?"
"Crystalline matrices that channel ambient energy—electromagnetic radiation, thermal variance, even kinetic vibration—into regenerative patterns. The shields essentially heal themselves using whatever power sources are available."
Marcus set the Protoss device down and picked up another—this one more substantial, with a metallic sheen and geometric precision that suggested alien manufacturing.
"This is Kryptonian technology," he continued. "Different approach, same goal. The Kryptonians had a much smaller population than the Protoss, but they compensated with incredibly comprehensive technological development. Everything from basic tools to god-tier weapons, all engineered to different tiers of complexity."
He activated the device with a touch. A shimmer of almost-invisible energy spread around it, creating a sphere of protection.
"What you're seeing is a kinetic dampening field—it doesn't stop attacks, it reduces their momentum to manageable levels. A bullet becomes a gentle push. An explosion becomes a strong wind. It won't make you invincible, but it will keep you alive through most conventional attacks."
Fury's eye gleamed with professional interest. "Can they be mass-produced?"
"No," Marcus said flatly, cutting off that line of thinking before it could fully form. "The Protoss technology requires rare materials and advanced manufacturing techniques you don't have access to. Even if I gave you complete schematics, Earth doesn't have the infrastructure to produce these in quantity."
He forestalled Fury's next question with a raised hand. "And before you ask—yes, I could give you some. Enough for key personnel, critical operations, maybe a few dozen units total. But that's it. These aren't going to outfit your entire agent network."
"What about the Kryptonian technology?" Howard asked, always looking for alternatives.
"More accessible," Marcus admitted. "The Kryptonians designed their tech in tiers specifically so different advancement levels could utilize it. The lowest tier is basically what you can already manufacture with minor modifications. The highest tier would require you to completely revolutionize your understanding of physics."
He tapped the Kryptonian device. "This one is mid-tier—complex enough to be effective, simple enough to be producible with your current capabilities. Given time and resources, you could probably create a few hundred units per year."
"That's more promising," Fury said, his tactical mind already calculating distributions and priorities.
"It is," Marcus agreed. "But there's a catch."
"There's always a catch," Maria said with a slight smile.
"The Kryptonian technology requires a power source more advanced than anything Earth currently produces. You'd need to integrate arc reactor technology at minimum, possibly artificial sun technology if you want optimal performance."
Howard and Maria exchanged glances.
"Tony's arc reactor could work," Howard said thoughtfully.
"And Dr. Otto's artificial sun could provide the energy for manufacturing facilities," Maria added. "If we could convince him to collaborate..."
"He's already working with Tony," Marcus noted. "Those two are thick as thieves, trading theories and schematics. I'd bet they could solve the integration problem in a matter of weeks."