Upon the Void Throne, Thanos gazed down at his two daughters.
He and Gamora, and Nebula, had been apart for a long time now. Gamora he had dispatched to search for the whereabouts of the other Infinity Stones. Nebula, long ago unable to endure Thanos's torment any longer, had left him of her own accord.
Once, Thanos had been utterly indifferent to Nebula's departure. She and Gamora were close in age, yet she fell short of Gamora in every conceivable way. In fact, every time Nebula lost to Gamora, Thanos would perform some new bodily modification on her; to this day, a huge portion of Nebula's body had been replaced with machinery, but even then she was still no match for Gamora. One could say Thanos was profoundly disappointed in her, so when Nebula left, he cared not one bit—like a man whose rooms overflow with gorgeous, splendid toys carelessly misplacing a patched-up, mended doll covered in stitches. He did not care at all.
But after suffering a defeat in war, Thanos now lacked right-hand lieutenants to help him command the Black Order and the Chitauri armies. Gamora could fill that role. As for Nebula…
"My daughter, I hear you've grown rather close with the Kree, Ronan, as of late?"
Thanos descended from the Void Throne and half-knelt before Nebula. His towering form enveloped her like a nightmare, making her quiver uncontrollably with fear. As a father, that his own daughter's first sight of him brought not joy but terror made Thanos feel a touch of sadness. He admitted he had indeed favored Gamora somewhat, but those modifications he had performed on Nebula were for her own good; he was helping her become stronger. Nebula simply proved too disappointing, forever unable to catch up to Gamora's pace.
But now, it no longer mattered. What Thanos needed now was not a docile daughter but an army that could bring him victory.
The Accuser Ronan would make a fine dog, he thought. However, the Kree Empire was one of the three great empires of the cosmos, and Ronan was the de facto master of its military. Even Thanos would find it hard to make him submit. This had nothing to do with sheer force; Ronan himself was simply not the type to bow to power. Nebula knew this all too well. Forcing down her fear, she laid the situation out clearly for Thanos.
"There's no need to worry about that," Thanos said calmly. Truth be told, if Ronan were the type to kneel at the slightest pressure, Thanos would have looked down on him. "I know Ronan's parents died at the hands of Xandar's new Nova Corps. He's always wanted revenge, but the Kree Empire forbids it."
As Thanos spoke, he rose and turned toward his other daughter. "Gamora, have you found any intelligence on the Infinity Stones?"
Singled out so abruptly, the distracted Gamora was instantly flooded with dread. She froze for a second, then quickly recovered and lowered her head. "I have not, Father…"
"I am very disappointed."
Seeing his daughter's expression, Thanos's face showed disappointment. But it was not her failure that disappointed him—what saddened him was that Gamora had lied to him. Still, with a pressing need for capable hands, Thanos did not intend to expose the lie just yet. He would wait until she brought him the Power Stone. "I have already learned the whereabouts of the Power Stone through a premonition. It is now called the Orb, hidden in ruins on a certain planet. Find it, and deliver it into my hands."
He then turned back to Nebula and spoke in a tone that brooked no refusal. "Inform the Kree Ronan: if he is willing to fight for me, the Black Order can conquer Xandar for him."
—
Earth. Plasmius Building.
After leaving H.A.M.M.E.R., Bant rushed straight back to Plasmius without pause. This stone-collecting operation couldn't rely on H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Avengers alone; the Sky Guild also had to field a team. As such, on his way back he had notified all the Plumbers to assemble in the basement for a meeting. By the time he arrived at the company, Harry was already there. Connors, Otto, and Banner had also temporarily set aside their research and come to the underground conference room.
"Where are Peter and our four reservists?" Bant asked.
Harry set his helmet on the table, leaned back in his chair, and grinned with undisguised schadenfreude. "Peter got dragged off by Uncle Ben and Aunt May to play tutor to the other two newbies."
Bant: ???
"What happened?"
Harry then gave a quick rundown of what had gone down while Bant was away. As fellow reservists, Uncle Ben and Aunt May had hit it off with Wanda and Quicksilver almost immediately. Shortly after, Wanda and Quicksilver inadvertently revealed in conversation that they were functionally illiterate. After some careful questioning, Ben and May discovered that these two nineteen-year-olds hadn't even finished middle school.
How could that be allowed?! The Parkers, who had always placed education above all else and raised two geniuses, simply would not stand for it. They insisted Wanda and Quicksilver had to go back to school. Wanda and Quicksilver did wish they could grow up carefree like normal kids, but at their current age it was no longer appropriate to squeeze into classrooms with children. So they could only stress that, outside of training, the twins had to make up for basic knowledge. Not that they needed to be highly educated, but at the very least they couldn't be illiterate.
To be fair, Uncle Ben and Aunt May weren't highly educated themselves, but that was due to the limits of their era—they had lacked the means, not the brains. So now, they themselves had thrown themselves into supplementing their own knowledge as well. This meant they needed a teacher. Plasmius had three scientists, but asking them to drop their critical work to play tutor would be far too thoughtless. So Uncle Ben thought of Peter—academically outstanding, and still a high schooler.
"I think it's great," Otto said cheerfully. "Now that your uncle and May have been injected with the serum, their brains will also be developed to some degree. Those two kids are plenty smart too. I'm not saying they have to become scholars, but a little more knowledge can always be put to use in combat."
Banner nodded as well. "The three of us have ten doctorates between us. Having two elementary-school-level degrees here really drags down our average educational level." He had always held that only Hulk needed to be the dumb one.
"Alright, we'll wait for them," Bant said.
Although Uncle Ben's group of four likely wouldn't take part in this operation, since this was the Sky Guild's first relatively formal mission briefing, Bant still wanted to gather a few extra hands.
Soon after, Peter walked in, looking a bit irritated and not particularly happy. He deliberately strode ahead of the others, not letting Uncle Ben and May pick up on his mood. When he saw Bant, Peter took several deep, forceful breaths, and only then did his brow finally ease a little.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, it's nothing…" After taking his seat, Peter glanced back, slightly irritable and full of self-reproach, toward Uncle Ben and the others still on their way. After confirming they were out of earshot, he muttered quietly, "That Wanda and Quicksilver… the stuff is so simple, and I don't get why I have to explain it a dozen times and they still don't understand. They're just too dumb!" Having someone to vent to, Peter poured all his frustration out in one breath. But almost immediately he realized he had misspoken. He lowered his head, his face full of guilt. "Sorry… I shouldn't talk about them like that. They didn't have the chance to go to school from a young age like we did… I don't know what's wrong with me, I just keep feeling so irritable…"
Peter sighed, brought both hands up, pressed his palms against his cheeks, and rubbed hard, forcing the emotions down.
Bant knew. He was being influenced by the symbiote. Though the symbiote currently attached to him wasn't quite the purely evil villain from the earliest movie, skewing closer to the Lethal Protector incarnation, it was still Venom. Having previously bonded with Deadpool, it was now riddled with personality defects—bloodthirsty and violent, arrogant and quick-tempered, spewing filthy curses…
"Don't worry, it might just be puberty," Bant said, patting him on the shoulder. He was well aware of the change in Peter, but right now, the symbiote still needed him—Spider-Man—to balance out its personality.
Shortly after, Uncle Ben and the others sat down as well.
"Peter, why did you walk so fast just now?" Aunt May asked. "I was hoping you'd become friends with Pietro and Wanda."
"It's nothing, I was just… almost late," Peter fobbed her off.
Right then, Bant cut in before Aunt May could continue and officially began the meeting. Aunt May might be his elder, but when it came to work, titles came first—a security officer was a security officer. He laid out the entire plan from start to finish.
The moment he finished, Quicksilver shot his hand up first and declared loudly, unable to hold back, "I'm in!" Young guys like him yearned to do big things, and the cosmic stage felt like exactly the right fit. Wanda also wanted to join the mission. She worried that if she didn't prove her worth, Bant might abandon her and she would be thrown right back into that miserable life in the mire.
But Bant shook his head and refused them without ceremony. "No. You're too weak."
At those words, Quicksilver folded his arms in immediate displeasure. "I'm already very strong. At the very least, I'm a bit stronger than this guy." He pointed at Harry.
Harry: ???
"Don't you think that's a little too offensive?" Harry raised an eyebrow. He had indeed fought Quicksilver before and had been caught off guard by his near-sonic speed, but that didn't mean he couldn't beat him. The Green Goblin armor was packed with tech weapons more than capable of killing him.
"Maybe. But reservists have to become full members before they get a chance to deploy," Bant said. In his view, Quicksilver, unlike Peter and Harry, had zero experience fighting aliens. And this fight over the Stones might very well run straight into Thanos. Bant had to be responsible for their lives.
/-\
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