Chapter 73 : One Lightning, Multiple Reaction (Part 1)
New York, Brooklyn, 6:50 AM – Steve Roger's POV
The air had been getting colder for ten minutes, but I chalked it up to New York being New York—weather that changed its mind every other hour. I'd come to the Brooklyn Memorial to clear my head, walk the perimeter, try to make sense of the last week. Natasha and Clint followed a step behind, "babysitting," though none of us said the word out loud.
Clint kept scanning the rooftops, hands buried in his pockets like he was out for a casual stroll. Natasha walked with that easy, predatory calm she never quite turned off. I could feel both of them tracking the same details I was—the shift in the air pressure, the way the wind started pushing against us instead of around us.
I paused near the memorial wall. "You two feel that?"
"Yeah," Natasha answered immediately. Too fast to be casual.
Clint exhaled, watching his breath fan out more than it should have for late afternoon. "Temperature's dropping harder on the east side. Doesn't feel like a front."
It didn't. The cold settled differently—not gradual, not drifting in from the river, but falling straight down. Like someone flipped a switch above the city.
I looked up.
Clouds were forming far too quickly, folding over one another in tight spirals. Dark. Dense. Intentional. The kind of thing I'd seen only a handful of times, and never without Thor being involved.
A warning pricked the back of my neck.
Wind surged down the street, sharp enough to sting. Leaves and bits of trash skittered across the pavement. People slowed, confused, phones already out. And then the sky went from overcast to night-black in less than a heartbeat.
"Something's wrong," I said.
Natasha's hand moved toward her hip. Clint shifted his weight, stance subtle but ready. The three of us stopped walking at the same moment—muscle memory, shared training, decades of instincts syncing perfectly.
Then the world split open.
A bolt of lightning tore across the sky—no, through it—bathing the entire borough in white-blue light. Not a flash. A sustained blaze, bright enough to turn shadows into silhouettes and make the memorial stones glow like polished steel. For several seconds the city was frozen under it, held in a light too intense to be natural.
Thunder followed a heartbeat later.
Not a rumble.
A detonation.
Windows rattled. The pavement under my boots shook hard enough that I shifted my stance automatically.
Then my instincts kicked in fully.
"Move," I said.
No need for more than that.
We pivoted as one and headed for the SUV parked half a block down, the one S.H.I.E.L.D. insisted we take on these "routine" field days. The wind was worse now—sharp, unfocused, carrying a chill that felt like it came from higher than the cloud line. It pushed against us as we jogged, tugging at jackets, stinging exposed skin. The sky above kept flickering with residual light, like the storm couldn't decide whether it was finished striking.
People were already gathering at corners, pointing phones upward, half shocked and half entertained. They didn't understand the difference between a show and a warning.
We cut past them.
Clint reached the vehicle first and yanked open the rear hatch. "This is not a normal thunderstorm," he muttered, already pulling out his quiver, swapping in the heavier composite shafts.
Natasha slid into the back seat, popping open a black case. "Thermal's useless," she said. "Air temperature's unstable. We'll need wide-spectrum scans."
I rounded the driver's side, hand brushing the SUV's metal. It was cold. Too cold for how long it had been sitting in the sun earlier.
I opened the door. "Gear up. Fast."
Natasha tossed me my field harness—compact, streamlined, not the full combat loadout but close. Clint strapped his quiver tight across his back, checking tension on each arrow. Nat recalibrated a portable sensor, eyes flicking between the screen and the sky.
The thunder rolled again in the distance, longer this time, deeper—like the city itself was groaning under the weight of what was coming.
I took a steady breath and slid the harness into place.
The storm wasn't natural. The cold wasn't natural. And that lightning… it was unmistakable.
Thor was out there.
Or something that wanted to challenge him.
"Everyone ready?" I asked.
Three clicks answered me—Natasha chambering rounds, Clint locking his bow, me securing the last strap.
I stepped back out onto the pavement, scanning the horizon.
"All right," I said quietly. "Let's move toward the strike point."
And the three of us advanced into the deepening storm.
New York, Harlem, 6:50 AM – Jean Grey's POV
The cold is the first thing that claws at my focus—not the ordinary chill of winter, but something sharp, instinctive, almost predatory. It rolls off the creature in pulses, each one brushing against my mind like a whisper of ice. It doesn't think in any pattern I recognize. No language. No intent. Just instinct built from stone and frost, reacting more than acting… yet something inside it pushes back when I reach out.
Wolverine is closest to it. Of course he is.
He's already half-buried in motion, claws carving molten lines through its ice-hardened surface. Each strike is met with a crack like frozen metal buckling. His mind is a furnace—hot, direct, focused entirely on the next hit.
Left flank, I nudge mentally.
He shifts instantly.
Cyclops stands just behind me, hand steady on the dial of his visor. His thoughts tighten into a sharp, disciplined beam of concentration. He's choosing a frequency that won't explode the creature outright—just push it back, control the field. A commander's precision.
Storm hovers above, suspended in spiraling wind. She's struggling—not with her power, but with the resistance in the air itself. The atmosphere answers her, but sluggishly. As if something else is pulling the weather toward another state entirely. A colder one. A crueler one.
Colossus holds the front.
He positions himself between the creature and the civilians sheltered behind torn concrete barriers, his body steel-bright under the dim sky. Even in that armored form, I feel the shock of cold strike him. His jaw locks. Frost curls along his shoulders.
"Is… too cold," he mutters, breath fogging like steam off metal.
Then it drops again.
Fast.
The wind sharpens, flinging shards of ice that sting even through the telekinetic layer I'm maintaining around us. The sky darkens in seconds, like someone is pulling the sun into a pit.
"Storm?" I ask.
This is not mine, she answers, voice tight with tension.
Then the world becomes light.
The lightning doesn't fall so much as detonate, flooding the battlefield in a single impossible burst. For several heartbeats, everything is visible in perfect, brutal clarity: the creature's towering, jagged silhouette; the shifting mass of rock and ice; the unnatural frost spreading from its presence.
Colossus reflects the flash like a living mirror.
Then comes the thunder.
Not a sound—an impact. The ground shudders. Buildings vibrate down to their frames.
A psychic shockwave slammed into me at the same instant. Not from the being in front of us. No—this mind was bigger. Fiercer. A presence brushing the edges of my awareness like a storm recognizing another storm, vast and alien.
Colossus planted his feet deeper into the frozen ground, steel muscles tensing. Cyclops raised his visor instinctively, shielding against whatever invisible force pressed in. Wolverine's claws clicked as he snarled, bracing against the impact, and Storm's eyes widened, a gasp escaping her lips—not from fear, but from recognition, from sensing the raw scale of a consciousness threading through the atmosphere.
Whatever had hit us… Whoever had hit us… It wasn't the thing we were fighting. Not really.
The thing in front of us still shifted, icy and semi-formed, instinct-driven. But we didn't hesitate.
We couldn't linger. Not now.
I felt the decision ripple through the team. Colossus squared his shoulders, signaling the need to hold and contain. Cyclops adjusted, lining up his optics for precision. Wolverine's growl sharpened, ready for the decisive strike. Storm's hands flexed, wind and ice bending to her will, controlled but impatient.
We needed to end this quickly. Clear the field. Remove it before it distracted us—or before it reacted in some way to the larger threat we could already feel pressing behind the scene.
No extended engagement. No wasted energy. Efficiency. Coordination. Focus.
We moved as one, intentions clear: neutralize the immediate threat, fast and clean, and then turn every ounce of our power toward what was coming.
Time to finish with the fragment. And prepare for the storm beyond it.
New York, Manhattan, 6:50 AM – Susan Storm's POV
The cold woke me before the light did.
Not just a mild draft — a real, biting cold that crept along my arms and settled in my lungs when I breathed. I reached to the other side of the bed without thinking, hoping for the familiar warmth of Reed's body.
Nothing. Just ice-cold sheets.
A bitter exhale escaped before I could stop it. "Of course," I whispered into the empty room. "Off chasing another equation while I freeze alone. Again."
It wasn't anger, not exactly — more a tired, hollow sting. The kind that comes from repetition, not surprise.
I sat up fully, rubbing my arms as the silence pressed in. The Baxter Building usually hummed softly with constant systems — gravity stabilizers, environmental regulators, Reed's endless experiments. But now everything felt strangely muted, like the entire floor was wrapped in insulation.
Still shivering, I tapped the embedded nightstand display. The screen flickered, then streamed external sensor data in pale blue:
Temperature drop: 11°C → –5°C in 48 seconds. Barometric pressure: falling fast. Atmospheric ions: erratic, rising.
My breath stalled. "That… shouldn't be possible." Reed's absence grew sharper in that moment, more pointed. He should've been the first to tell me.
A faint vibration trembled through the floorboards. Outside, the wind gathered abruptly, slipping from a gentle push to a harsh whistle scraping across the glass. I stood and stepped toward the window, watching the sky shift with unnatural speed — clouds swallowing the horizon like they'd been waiting just beyond visibility.
The building seemed to tense around me.
Then, everything stopped.
The wind froze mid-howl. Even the low lights felt suspended, like the air itself was bracing.
The lightning struck.
A single vertical lance of blinding white tore through the darkness, turning the room into a negative photograph. The Baxter Building lurched under the impact; the windows quivered so violently that instinct overrode thought. A curved shield shimmered to life around me, scattering reflections of the lightning across its surface.
Thunder followed a heartbeat later, a deep, visceral force that rattled the air in my lungs and made the floor jump.
I lowered the shield slowly. The cold that seeped back into the room felt heavier, denser, almost intentional.
Reed was out there. And whatever caused this… he wouldn't stay away from it.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed my suit, forced my expression into something steady, and ran for the door.
I sprinted through the quiet halls of the Baxter Building, the chill biting at my exposed skin. Each step carried urgency — measured, controlled, but unrelenting. By the time I reached the main lab, I wasn't alone. Reed was there, eyes scanning the latest readings, face pale under the fluorescent glow. Johnny hovered nearby, arms crossed, flames flickering faintly around his fingertips, ready yet cautious. Ben's bulk filled the doorway, metal form tense, eyes narrowing as he registered the sudden drop in temperature.
"We need to move," I said, voice clipped, practical. The words were more command than suggestion. Reed didn't argue — his mind already leaping forward, calculating the anomaly's reach and intensity. "Something massive just entered the city," I added, gesturing toward the console where the sensors screamed.
Johnny swore under his breath, the heat from his body pushing back some of the unnatural cold. "Looks like we've got a winter apocalypse on our hands," he muttered, tension clear in the way he bounced on the balls of his feet.
Ben's metal form didn't shift, but his stance tightened, feet planted firmly. "Whatever it is," he rumbled, voice low, "we hold the line. People first."
I nodded, taking in the team, feeling the pulse of their readiness. The storm outside wasn't just a weather event anymore. It was a threat — external, unpredictable, and potentially devastating.
I flexed my fingers, sensing the familiar tingle of my force fields responding instinctively to the air around me. "We go together. No one splits off. We assess, contain, and move fast."
The team readied themselves, each member taking up their role automatically. Reed adjusted his sensors, Johnny flared lightly to illuminate the path ahead, Ben shifted forward to shield, and I centered, energy humming along my skin.
Outside, the city had transformed under the lightning strike — shadows stretched, structures vibrated, and the air carried that same unnatural chill. Whatever had come through, it wasn't finished.
We were ready. Together.
And we would face it.