[A/N]: The Second goal of the week is 400 Power Stones for 2 more Bonus chapters. If you're enjoying the story, drop a stone, leave a comment, and show some love.
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The Helicarrier shuddered five thousand feet above the Atlantic as Jay's body materialized with a sickening thud against the deck plating. His fall through dimensional barriers had been both eternal and instantaneous, time losing meaning as he crossed from Earth-9602 back to his native universe.
Blood leaked from his nose and ears while his consciousness flickered like a candle in wind. The fight with Lady Death, the judgment by cosmic entities, the strain of wielding the Life Equation while reality itself tried to reject him, all of it had shattered his body. Even Darwin's perfect adaptation struggled to keep pace with the cascading failures in his system.
Through the haze of pain that turned his vision white, Jay felt Tether pulse on his finger. The rainbow light had guided him home through dimensional barriers, pulled him toward safety, toward Domino.
"Jay? Jay? Oh God, oh Jesus, you're not breathing right, why aren't you breathing right?! What happened?"
The familiar voice cut through the fog. Jay's vision cleared slowly, bringing Domino's face into focus. Her scarlet-tinted eyes were wide with worry, pale skin flushed, black and white hair falling across her face as she cradled his head in her lap. The black patch over her left eye seemed darker than usual, or maybe that was just his failing vision.
Jay tried to smile and failed, managed something that might have passed for a grimace. "Hey, gorgeous. Sorry I'm late for dinner."
"Don't!" Domino's voice cracked while her hands moved across his body with shaking fingers, assessing damage that seemed endless. "Don't you dare try to joke right now! Your ribs are caved in, I can feel them moving wrong under my hands, and there's blood coming from places blood shouldn't come from! What the hell happened? Who's powerful enough to do this to you?!"
Jay wanted to explain about Death herself, about cosmic judgment from the Living Tribunal, about the Death Stone now tucked in his pocket. But his mouth wouldn't form words, his tongue too thick and dry and his throat closing around syllables that wouldn't come.
Domino had never felt this kind of fear before. She'd seen Jay take hits that would kill normal people, watched him shrug off damage that should have been fatal. But this was different. He was broken in ways that went beyond physical injury.
Her powers flickered to life instinctively, quantum manipulation surging through her body without conscious direction. Crimson strings materialized from her fingertips, reaching for Jay's broken body.
"I've never done this before," she whispered, more to herself than him. "But fuck it. We're not losing you today."
The strings wrapped around Jay like a spider cocooning prey, thousands of them materializing until they covered him completely, each one seeking out damage at the quantum level. His biology was impossibly complex, a patchwork of stolen powers and adaptive evolution.
But Domino's luck guided her with precision that bordered on precognition, probability manipulation working in tandem with quantum understanding. Forcing unlikely outcomes into certainty: bones clicking back into place, blood redirecting back into veins, cells suddenly remembering how to live.
The crimson cocoon pulsed with light. Inside, Jay's torn clothes mended as if time reversed, fractured bones knitted with sounds like branches breaking backward, exhausted powers began to stabilize as Darwin's adaptation finally caught up and worked in concert with Domino's manipulation to drag him back from oblivion.
Not to his peak because that would take too much even for Domino. But enough to function and survive.
The cocoon dissolved and Jay gasped as air flooded his lungs. His body still ached in ways that suggested weeks of recovery ahead, his powers still felt depleted, but he was alive and conscious and able to move.
"Dom!" he breathed, reaching for her with trembling hands.
She pulled him into a hug that probably hurt his healing ribs, but neither of them cared because he was alive in her arms. "Don't ever do that again. Whatever the hell you did, wherever you went, whoever you fought, don't ever fucking do it again or I swear to God I'll kill you myself."
"Can't promise that," Jay whispered against her hair while breathing in the familiar scent of gunpowder and jasmine. "But I'll try harder to not die."
They stayed like that for long minutes, wrapped in each other finding comfort in shared warmth and the simple fact of being alive together.
"Ahem."
The polite cough shattered their bubble. Jay and Domino looked up to find Steve Rogers and Maria Hill standing a respectful distance away, both trying very hard not to look uncomfortable at interrupting an intimate moment.
Steve's expression carried concern. "Jay. Glad to see you're... recovered. We need to talk about what's happening out there."
"Where have you been?" Hill added, her tablet clutched in one hand. "Fury wants answers. We've got reports of Sentinels attacking major population centers on every continent, and then you just appear out of nowhere on our deck looking like you went twelve rounds with the Hulk. Who's even powerful enough to put you in this state?"
Jay sighed, carefully extracting himself from Domino's embrace and standing on wobbly legs. His vision swam briefly before stabilizing. "It's complicated. Very complicated. And it's going to take a while to explain properly."
"We've got time," Steve said firmly.
"Do we?" Jay gestured at the Helicarrier around them, at the organized chaos of SHIELD agents running emergency protocols. "Because I'm pretty sure there are more pressing concerns right now."
Hill held out her tablet. "Then maybe you should see this first."
Jay took it, his hands still trembling slightly as he activated his Technoforming. The screen showed news feeds from around the world, multiple windows displaying the same nightmare from different angles.
Sentinels by the hundreds, maybe thousands, tore through major cities across the globe. The robots moved with terrifying efficiency, their adaptive systems learning from each encounter. Heroes fought desperately on every front while civilians ran for their lives, and the death toll reached a terrifying cap.
And through it all like stars falling in daylight, golden motes of light descended like rain from a cloudless sky.
Jay's exhaustion evaporated, replaced by cold focus. His plan for Gaea's gift was working. But people still died. The Sentinels killed innocents faster than temporary heroes could save lives.
"Fuck," he breathed, scrolling through casualty reports. Tens of thousands dead already, many more injured as heroes were overwhelmed.
Steve cleared his throat. "Jay, people are dying, and thousands are already dead. Can't you just bring them back with a snap like you did in New York?"
Jay took a deep breath, forcing down his anger, and turned to Steve. "My reality warping is exhausted, Steve. The fight I just had, the entity I faced, burned through everything I had and then some. I can't just snap my fingers and fix this, not without potentially burning myself out completely and becoming useless for whatever comes next. And trust me, something always comes next."
He turned to Domino while reaching into his pocket and pulling out a stone that seemed to swallow light. The Death Stone, modified by Didi to be less corrupt but still pulsing with wrongness, made the air around it feel colder.
Domino's quantum senses screamed warnings the moment she laid eyes on it. The power radiating from that stone made the Infinity Stones look like children's toys. This was death itself, crystallized.
"Jay, what the hell is that?" Her voice came out higher than intended, and she took an involuntary step backward.
"The Death Stone," Jay said quietly. "Compensation from Lady Death herself. It's been modified by someone called Didi to be safer for mortals to use, given a gentler aspect of death. But it's still one of the most dangerous objects in existence."
Pushing towards Domino's hands.
"And you want me to use it?" Domino's voice rose slightly. "Are you insane? Have you suffered brain damage on top of everything else?"
"I'm exhausted, not insane," Jay corrected, smiling to ease her worry. "My reality warping is shot. My adaptation is barely keeping me upright, and every other power I've got is running on fumes. But you? You've got quantum manipulation that can bend reality at the fundamental level, and probability manipulation that can ensure the best possible outcome. You're the only one who can do this safely."
Jay took her hands gently, the Death Stone pulsing between their palms. "Dom, I wouldn't ask if there was another way. But people are dead, thousands of them and many more will die. And the only way to bring them back is with this."
Domino stared at the stone while her reflection looked back at her from its dark surface.
"Fuck," she whispered. Then louder: "Fuck! Fine. But if this kills me, I'm haunting your ass forever. I'll be the most annoying ghost in history, moving your stuff around and making spooky noises."
"Deal. I'd expect nothing less. But first, let's ease citizens' minds."
Before Steve or Hill could protest, before either of them could voice the dozen objections forming, Jay reached out with his remaining power and connected to the Helicarrier's communication systems. Technoforming spread through circuitry like lightning through copper, branching outward beyond the ship to every satellite in orbit, every cell tower, every screen capable of receiving a signal.
Across the world, broadcasts cut out mid-sentence. News programs stopped mid-word and social media feeds paused.
And then Jay's face appeared everywhere.
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