Random art and a reminder to vote with your power stones!
Dante queued up Dexter on Netflix and cracked open a can of Coke. He took a long sip and tried to focus on the screen, trying to tune out the droplets of water, every shift of water against skin, but his mind kept filling his imagination. His senses were dialed to a frequency that made ignoring his girlfriend on the other side of that bathroom door impossible, unless he used Biokinesis.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. The moment with Natasha on the Quinjet had left him wanting more, which would have worked out with Felicia and Laura tonight, then Gwen's evolution happened and changed all his plans for the night. Rejecting Gwen was the right call, yet it also left him miserable. He had no idea what a round of sex would do to a body already rewriting itself from the inside out. One spike of adrenaline or one flood of hormones might ruin everything.
He couldn't leave, either. She had asked for comfort. Walking out would make him the very type of boyfriend he despised.
"Oh, man…"
To distract his mind, he took out his phone and looked through his gallery, only to end up staring at the celebration picture Emma had captured the night of Norman Osborn's death. He could only smile for a moment before Emma's grinning face made him put his phone away.
He relaxed his posture and watched Dexter give his introduction on a boat. Just when he started to feel immersed, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. An unknown caller. He considered ignoring it for a moment but decided against it. Too much was happening in his life to be skeptical of an unknown caller.
"Dante speaking."
"I hope I'm not interrupting your sweet time with Emma, Ghost-Spider, Black Cat, your bride, or whoever happens to be clinging to you at the moment." The voice on the other end was full of sarcastic charm that only one man on the planet could have. "Though statistically speaking, it's Emma."
"Stark," Dante said with a chuckle. "You're not interrupting anything. I'm watching TV all by myself."
A beat of silence followed, which was the rarest commodity in any conversation with Tony Stark as he never ran out of words to say.
"You? Alone? On a night like this?" Tony seemed to be in disbelief. "See, this… this is why this hero gig will never work out. Take me, for comparison. I hit a major milestone, I celebrate with beautiful women, expensive wine, and a standing ovation from a bunch of corporate jerks. You save the city and people want your head on a pike for property damage. It's poetic, really. In a tragic kind of way."
Dante blinked. "They are blaming me?"
He had assumed the public would be grateful this time. Or at the very least, not go after him. The Brood invasion had been contained with minimal civilian casualties as Sinister had been interested in killing his allies. Still, facts were facts, and the fact was his team had accomplished a feat that should've earned them a plaque.
"Who else are they gonna blame?" Tony asked, clicking a pen again and again. "There's a vocal minority convinced the whole thing was your scheme. Bring in the aliens, let them wreck a few blocks. When everyone is scared shitless, you'll swoop in and look like the second coming of, well, you know who."
"They got conspiracy theories about me?" He couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity. "You believe them, Tony?"
"Me believing won't change anything, but I'm on your side. Just to clarify." Tony chuckled along. "Usually, Emma swoops in and does her whole ice-queen PR cleanup to shut the critics down. She didn't do it today. What happened? Is she tired of covering your asses?"
Emma might have just forgotten after downing a few too many drinks. As the main reason for her shift, he couldn't exactly blame her.
"People are always bitching about something. It won't change anything for me," he said. "Did you call to check up on Emma?"
"Heh. Just wanted to remind you of the public shenanigans." Tony let out a sigh on the phone. "I wanted to call earlier but figured you'd be having an after-party with the gang. Who knew you'd be sitting there alone?"
"Ghost-Spider's in the shower. So technically not alone."
Tony was quiet for a moment. "You bastard, I knew you were lying… Well, I'm glad I didn't call five minutes later," he said, probably smirking on the other side. "Dante, is the alien bug problem over? Like, over over?"
"For now." Dante took another sip of Coke. "They might come back."
The call went quiet for a few moments, just long enough for Dante to register the shift. Tony had called to inquire about the Brood since he had personal and professional reasons, for his own safety, and for his arms manufacturing business. The Broodlings' layered defense of endoskeleton and exoskeleton rendered modern firearms useless. Tony would already be sketching new effective weapons against alien threats and selling them.
Building something extraordinary, achieving unmatched success, and profiting massively from it—that was current Tony Stark's operating philosophy. Whether those weapons might be repurposed for something else wasn't his concern. Not yet at least.
'Afghanistan can't come soon enough.'
Dante hoped Tony had finished his projects by the time he got put in the cave.
"That's… to be expected," Tony said. "Anyway, Dante, are you free for a sit-down sometime this week? I have a special project that could use extra… counselling."
Dante shook his head. "This week's packed. I can't even see my daughter. I'll try next week."
"You have a daughter? Since when?" Tony asked in a surprised voice. "Who did you have it with? Is she bench-pressing SUVs already? I'm asking purely for science."
"She is adopted," Dante said. "What's the progress on my projects?"
"I've been a bit swamped with other projects. I'll shoot you an update when we've got something worth showing."
"I guess I'll see you next week, Stark."
"Alright, champ."
Dante dismissed the call and drained the last of his Coke before crushing the can with a satisfying crunch. He tossed the can into the trash across the room and scrolled through his contacts, stopping on a name.
Emma Frost.
The woman who loved him passionately. The woman he couldn't make happy. What gutted him most was their circumstances. Staying near him hurt her, but she had to stay close to him, and every moment near him was a reminder of what she wanted but couldn't have.
He was her sun, and she was burning.
'What can I even do?'
He was drawing blanks in his mind since he had never dealt with such a situation in life. The approach he had used to convince Gwen wouldn't work on Emma. She wouldn't compromise. She wanted all of him or none of him, and the fact that "all" was already distributed among others.
"Things would be so easier," Death whispered in his mind. "If you let go of your moral restraints and let me 'convince' them."
"Death, you got something helpful to say, or are you just here to goad me into becoming a tyrant?"
"I have something helpful. Whether you believe it or not is a separate matter."
"At this point, I'm open to trying anything."
"Spike her drink and—"
"Stop right there."
Death's chuckle echoed around him as shadows converged and manifested into her figure. She was lying on the bed, her head resting on his lap. "Consult Silvija. She might have some advice for you."
Her suggestion made sense the more he thought about it. Silvija and Emma were both prideful, brilliant, ruthless, and competent businesswomen who had built their empires on their own. If anyone knew how to convince Emma to, well, stop being stubborn, it might be Silvija.
"All paths lead the first wife, huh?"
"Second," Death corrected, looking up at him with a stern look. "First place will always be mine, Companion."
He smirked and stroked her hair. Silvija would say no to Death's face without flinching if she were here. That's how fearless love had made her.
Death took his hand and guided it to her breast. "They've been… full without your attention. When will you—"
"Tomorrow night," he whispered, barely resisting the urge to ask Death to have a session in her realm. "Felicia, Laura, and you."
Felicia was a freak, so it wouldn't bother her. Death had already gotten used to sharing the bed with Felicia. An addition of Laura wouldn't matter much for her. As for Laura, she wouldn't mind it as long as he was there. He was the person she cared most about.
Death's eyes glimmered with unconcealed desire. "I'll look forward to it."
She disappeared without a trace, leaving him alone with his phone, his TV, and his concerns over Emma and Psylocke.
He looked toward the shower and frowned. The fifty-three-minute episode was halfway done, yet Gwen was still in the shower. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't think twice, but circumstances hadn't been normal ever since he came to this universe. Not to mention he was dealing with an evolving Spider-Totem.
He closed his eyes and allowed Biokinesis to check on Gwen's safety. Her heart rate was elevated while everything else seemed to be stable.
'Just what is she doing in there?'
A sudden knock at the door yanked him away from his worries. "It's me, big sis Illyana. Can I come in?"
"Yes."
The door swung open, and his train of thought briefly derailed.
Illyana Rasputina stepped into the room wearing a tight black sports bra and matching black tight leggings. Long honey-gold hair spilled in heavy waves down her back and over her shoulders, bangs cut straight across a face that looked almost too pretty for the things it had survived. However, the tiny scars on her toned and sculpted midriff was the evidence of her childhood being forged in Hell's flames under a Demon King.
This was his first time seeing her out of her eldritch armor. She would have looked like a completely normal woman, not a mutant sorceress, if not for the two spikes coming out from both sides of her head.
She scanned the room with a quick sweep, then visibly relaxed. "Phew. I thought you'd be naked in bed with Gwen or Felicia. I'm not in the mood to walk in—" Her ice-blue eyes turned toward the bathroom, where the shower was still running. She arched an eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No fun to interrupt." He shifted over, making room for her. "Wanna hangout with us?"
Illyana glanced at the TV screen. Michael C. Hall's face stared at her as he stretched a pane of plastic wrap. The expression she made suggested she would rather sleep than watching Dexter with him and Gwen.
"We can put on whatever you like."
"Trust me." The Russian in her vowels made it sound like a threat instead. "It is the furthest thing a thirty something lady would watch."
"Oh, animated stuff?"
Her eyes flickered for an instant, the micro-reaction serving as more than enough of a confirmation. "I love comics and anime. There's nothing weird about being into animation."
What he described was normal in 2026. Here in 2008, the cultural needle hadn't quite moved yet. Cartoons were still "for kids" in the eyes of most adults.
Illyana's posture loosened, her shoulders releasing a tension she probably didn't realize had made her stiff. As straightforward and violent as she was, she was also one of the most sentimental women in the world. Darkchylde served as a living proof of her innocence.
She walked over and sat beside him. Their shoulders brushed against each other as she leaned closer to take the remote from his hand.
"If you laugh," she said in a menacing voice, switching channels. "I will do something horrible to you."
He smiled. "Am I supposed to be scared of a girl who can't spell magic correctly?"
She turned to him and groaned, "Kitty already made fun of me for—" she paused, a pained expression crossing her face, which was gone quickly. "Magik is tougher than Magic. Makes me unique as hell, don't you think?"
"Do you miss her?"
She looked to the front and crossed her legs. "I thought you could read women."
"The consequences of suppressing feelings, I feel like you're the last person on Earth to need that advice."
She dropped the remote and closed her eyes. "It'll go away with time."
Decades of her life had been spent finding a way to return to this universe. He could understand her fear of wanting to return but not having the courage to go through it.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll go there together. If your stepping discs fail, I'll bring us back here. I promise."
Not only was she the little sister of his only male friend, but she was also the only woman giving her all to prepare for future disasters. He'd feel like an embarrassment for himself if he didn't do such a small favor for her. Besides, he was quite interested in traveling to another universe.
She turned, looking at him with a complicated gaze. "Are you sure about it?"
"Hundred percent. Also," he said with a grin. "Illyana is a way tougher name than Magik."
She chuckled. "Thank the Dark Lords I'm in a good mood."
"Or what?" He asked with a smile. "We both know how our last battle ended with you in tears."
"Screw you." She slapped the remote on his lap and stopped channel-surfing. "That reminds me… I need you in Limbo. Come."
Her Russian accent wrapped around "Come" made the invitation sound more suggestive than it had any right to be.
The running water in the bathroom cut off abruptly, then the door cracked open. Gwen's head poked out, her blonde hair plastered to her temples. "Yana, can I tag along?"