While the night in Harlem had been a symphony of destruction, Aryan's mind was playing a game of grand strategy on several boards at once. Even as he sat in the leather interior of the luxury sedan, speeding away from the carnage with Sharon and Wanda, his consciousness was split. Before he had even fully secured the Abomination in the pocket dimension, his Omega Precognition had highlighted another opportunity hidden within the chaos: Dr. Samuel Sterns.
Deep within the bowels of a makeshift university laboratory in Harlem, Sterns was undergoing a transformation that was as much intellectual as it was physical. His cranium was expanding, the bone plates shifting with a grinding sound, his synapses firing at speeds that would melt a normal human brain.
The clone stood over Sterns, watching the man's skin pulse with a sickly green light. Too early to talk, Aryan thought through the neural link. But just the right time to pack.
Using the dimensional storage of his private realm, the clone systematically stripped the room. Centrifuges, high speed servers, vials of Banner's irradiated blood, and even the loose scribbles on napkins, everything was swept into the void with a wave of a hand. The evidence of the military's failure and the seeds of future super science disappeared into the ether.
"Red Queen," Aryan ordered silently from his car miles away, his physical eyes watching the city blur past. "Scrub the digital footprint. I want this room to be a ghost."
"Surveillance archives purged," her voice chimed in his ear. "University server backups were corrupted. Redundancies deleted. As far as the world knows, this laboratory never existed."
Minutes later, Sterns' eyes snapped open. He sat up on the cold floor, his head throbbing with a new geometry. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound died in his throat.
The hum of his machines and acrid smell of chemicals had vanished. He was sitting in a hollowed out shell of a room, stripped to the drywall.
"This… this isn't possible," Sterns whispered, his voice trembling.
"If you walk out that door, Samuel," a voice drifted from a shimmering blur in the corner, "the military will be waiting. They'll pin the Abomination on you. You'll spend the rest of your life in a high security cage, and they'll harvest that magnificent brain of yours for parts."
Sterns stiffened, his hyper sensitive mind instantly calculating the probability. The stranger was right. The graph of his future ended in a cell. "Who are you?"
"Someone who appreciates your potential," the blur replied, the voice distorted by the stealth field. "I'm offering you an island. A place where the budget is infinite and the ethics are… flexible. Work for me, and you keep your mind. Refuse, and you lose everything."
Sterns didn't even hesitate. His curiosity outweighed his fear. A dimensional gateway opened like a swirling vortex of grey fog. The scientist stepped through, disappearing into a private paradise where his laboratory was already waiting for him, reconstructed to the last bolt.
The clone lingered for a moment, sensing a new presence approaching the hallway outside.
The door kicked open. Natasha Romanoff slipped into the room, her pistol drawn, her movement silent as a shadow. Her eyes darted across the empty space, expecting a scientist, expecting data, expecting something.
She frowned, holstering her weapon. She walked to the center of the room, her gloved hand touching a spot on the floor where a massive server rack had sat only seconds ago.
Behind her, the invisible clone walked past, the air shifting slightly, but she noticed nothing.
———
Aryan stood by the window of his office, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, looking out at the city that was waking up to a new world of monsters. A forgotten cup of coffee sat on his desk.
The door swung open. Sharon Carter walked in, looking sharp despite the late night, a thick folder tucked under her arm. Her eyes scanned him, noting the stillness.
"Please tell me you slept," she said, her voice a mix of professional concern and personal curiosity.
Aryan didn't turn around. "Define sleep, Sharon. If you mean 'shut my eyes and travelled to the dream realm,' then no. If you mean 'remained stationary for four hours to recharge metabolic functions,' then also no."
She sighed, walking over and leaning against his desk. "That's not encouraging."
Wanda followed shortly after, her hair slightly damp from a morning shower, her coat half buttoned as if she'd rushed to the office the moment she woke up. She stopped when she saw the two of them, the tension in the room light. "Oh good," she said lightly, trying to mask the residual adrenaline from the night before. "I didn't miss the post apocalypse briefing."
Aryan turned then, and a genuine smile touched his face. "We decided to keep it informal."
"By informal, he means pretending Harlem didn't become a gladiator pit for radioactive nightmares," Sharon said, sliding the folder across the desk. "The news is calling it an 'incident.' A 'localized structural failure.' It's a joke."
Wanda studied him, her head tilted. She walked closer, her green eyes searching his face for cracks in the armor. "You're… different today, Aryan."
He raised an eyebrow, meeting her gaze. "Different bad, or different tolerable?"
"Tolerable," Wanda said, a soft smile blooming. "Maybe even pleasant. You look like the weight of the world is actually sitting comfortably for once."
Sharon smirked, catching Wanda's eye. "Careful, Wanda. Compliments might go to his head. He'll start thinking he's charming."
"Unlikely," Aryan said, his voice dropping into that smooth tone. "I've just had worse mornings. Waking up to a city that is still standing and coffee that isn't poisoned counts as a victory in my book."
Sharon's expression turned serious as she leaned over the desk, dropping her voice. "Alright. Officially, today is damage control. But unofficially, Aryan, you owe us an explanation. You stayed so calm in that car. It wasn't just 'corporate cool.' It was like you knew exactly how the fight was going to end."
Wanda nodded, leaning forward too. The two women formed a united front of curiosity. "We're not asking for your secret files. Just… how? How do you not panic when the world starts tearing itself apart?"
Aryan took a slow sip of his cold coffee, his gaze drifting between them. The truth remained behind his teeth.
"I wasn't calm," he said eventually, choosing a truth that fit. "I just didn't see the benefit of panicking out loud. Panic is a luxury for people who have someone else to fix their problems. I've spent a long time being the person who has to do the fixing."
Sharon considered that, her agent's mind deconstructing his words, looking for the lie but finding only a pragmatic philosophy. "Are you always this composed? Or did you just pick it up at CEO school?"
"I'm experienced at surviving bad days, Sharon. When you've seen enough of them, the roars get quieter."
Wanda's expression softened. She reached out, her fingers grazing his sleeve for just a second. "Most people would have cracked. They would have run. But you stayed steady for us. Thank you for getting us out of there."
Aryan met her gaze, his sapphire eyes clear. "Anytime, Wanda. Truly."
Sharon checked her watch, breaking the moment with a professional cough. "The media is circling. The Department of Defense wants a statement. Everyone wants to know why Umbrella's satellites were the only ones that didn't go dark during the blackout in the sector."
"They won't get answers today," Aryan said, standing up and pulling his jacket back on. "Umbrella sticks to its own timeline. Let the world guess."
Wanda stood, gathering her things to head to her department, but she paused at the door, looking back at him. "You're a very strange man, Aryan Spencer. But I think I'm starting to like 'strange.'"
He smiled as she left, then turned to Sharon. "Progress is slow, Sharon. Don't expect me to start telling jokes in the elevator just yet."
"I'll take what I can get," Sharon laughed, following Wanda out.