[2011 – September]
Nearly a month and a half had passed since we came to New York. More than a month ago we had also found a house that was to our liking near the western side of Manhattan.
It was an old factory building with brick walls.
It was pretty run-down and only a few weeks on the market, as the previous owner had gone bankrupt. At that time the building had mostly been used as a storage space. Its price was still pretty steep, thanks to its size and location, amounting to nearly four million dollars.
The building had three floors, an accessible roof and a large basement. Pretty much perfect for our needs, so I signed the paper the day we had taken a tour around the building.
That same night, I hadn't slept, instead together with SILVER I had drawn out a whole plan about what had to be renovated and how it had to be done. Another million, of which a large part had been stuffed down the throat of the authorities, and four weeks later the place was ready for us to move in.
The end result was pretty similar to our studio in Belgium with the top floor being living space and the middle floor a training space, as was the ground floor. The basement was for research and engineering stuff. The roof had also changed a lot. Now it was basically one big terrace with wooden flooring. A part of the terrace had been covered and equipped with a sauna and a hot tub.
I liked an open floor plan, so the only really walled-in room were the bathroom and our bedroom, the rest was like one big space.
The furnishing had of course been decided by Wanda, as I didn't really care about that, while she did. Still, spending time with her 'quality-checking' the new furniture had been a great pleasure.
It was currently afternoon and I was just relaxing after nearly eight hours of rough physical training.
Resting on an enormous leather-couch, my head placed on Wanda's midsection as she gently brushed through my hair with her fingers.
She was reading a book at the moment and seemed pretty absorbed in it, listening to some music via headphones while she did so.
I had a bowl of coins next to my hands, from which I grabbed a coin from and tried to throw it at another bowl across the room. I had placed a few of those bowls all around the room as potential goals.
Missing the shot, I picked up another coin and threw it at another target.
I did this until I had no more coins.
"I'm empty, love. A little help, please.", I said to Wanda, while I turned my head slightly and gave her bare abdomen a kiss.
Looking up from her book, she gave me a gentle sigh and with a quick move of her hand all the thrown coins returned back to me. Her hand going back to brushing through my hair, as she was already back to reading.
Leaving another kiss on her midsection, I went back to my trickshots.
While that may look like I was just passing some time, I was actually training my eye-to-hand coordination and accuracy. Two incredibly important skills when it came to combat. And thanks to my growth skill, I got better with every coin.
It truly was the greatest and the most valueable one of my abilities. One of the best parts of that kind of training was also that I didn't have to actually go and pick up my projectiles, as Wanda loved me enough to indulge my lazy side.
As I went back to throwing coins almost absentmindedly, I got lost in my thoughts.
A few weeks ago, I had already succeeded in reverse engineering Stark's repulsor technology, along with pretty much everything else I had planned to do. Which was great news for my little science project, but as I thought about visiting the Army base in New Jersey, called Camp Lehigh, I realized a rather big problem.
I had originally planned to go there and confront Armin Zola's mind in the abandoned base. The servers there were very much guaranteed to have almost all of HYDRA's information on it, as they were confident in Zola's ability to protect their sensible data.
It was that data I was after, especially research data and scientific knowledge. While HYDRA was a group of power-hungry fanatics, they undeniably had had some very bright heads in their midst.
What I had realized, was the fact that should I go to the base and destroy Zola, I had no idea what kind of chain reaction that would result in. Maybe HYDRA would even rapidly advance their plans to take over SHIELD and than some more.
It was an utterly unpredictable future and before I had both the Mind Stone and the Space Stone, I did not plan to change the events in the timeline that much, as I simply did not know what kind of butterfly effect an action such as that could have. So I did what I had to do, which was nothing in this particular case.
After the Avenger's events had taken place though, Zola was free game and I definitely planned to get my hands on some juicy research data. I also found him to be quite the creep and wanted him gone, but that was secondary.
In the meantime, I had SILVER tasked with gathering learning materials for biochemistry, nuclear physics, mathematics, biology and genetics. I planned to study all of them excessively, taking full advantage of my growth skill and secure myself a base of knowledge that would allow my little project to come to fruition as soon as possible.
Of course I wouldn't dare to neglect my training, as personal power still was my priority. Getting faster, stronger and more durable, while advancing my control over my Extremis-related exothermic abilities.
There was one thing in particular that I had to learn no matter what and that was flight.
Not being able to fly was a disadvantage against flying opponents and restricted my speed to the ground-level. I already knew how to achieve flight with my current set of abilities and Extremis was the key, or more accurately my fire was the key.
Using the Iron Man suit as an example, I could theoretically use my flames like the suit used its repulsors to enable its wearer flight by propulsion. My flames just had to be dense enough and big enough – quantitatively speaking. which wasn't a real problem as they already reached that criteria.
My problem at the moment was control. To fly, my control over the fire had to be near impeccable and that over a longer span of time. And not just to avoid myself nosediving, but also for me to not completely destroy my surroundings.
My flames heat was no joke, their destructive powers were incredible.
But realistically speaking, it shouldn't take me more than half a year to be able to take to the air and once I succeeded, it would just get easier from there.
Growth, truly invaluable.
…
[2011 – October]
Sitting on a comfy leather armchair with Wanda drapped lazily over my body, we both looked at the TV screen attentively. At the moment a live-feed was on screen about the happenings the Culver University somewhere in Virginia.
A green titan could be seen facing off against several armored vehicles and foot soldiers of the SOCC, a Task Force specially created to deal with the Hulk.
It seemed during an interview of some professor on campus the fight broke out and the station decided to boradcast the events live.
"So this is the Hulk?", Wanda asked a bit unimpressed.
"Yep, that's him. He isn't the smartest fighter as you see, but he is the perfect Berserker. The angrier he gets, the more powerful he becomes.", I explained in a light tone.
"Within a certain limit, I guess?", she inquired.
"Yeah, but I have no idea where that limit lies. Still, you are a powerful witch and that makes you his worst nightmare. He may have a powerful body, but his mind is fragile and easily influenced, like that of a child."
"Hmm.", she hummed in response, resting her head back on my chest, silently watching the Hulk decimate the army troops.
I really didn't care about these dead soldiers. They had chosen to live by the rules of combat, which meant that when they fought, they should be fully prepared to lay down their lives. They were no longer innocent, and therefore of no concern to me.
I lived by my own code. Whenever I involved myself in any event, I would take care to not harm innocent bystanders. If I didn't involve myself in an event, then the lives of the people weren't my responsibility.
I had no intention whatsoever to go around and save people at the expense of my own time and effort. I had no interest in being a hero.
I tried to keep my own karmic slate as neutral as possible. Not because I believed in karma, but simply because I thought that to be the right thing to do. And like every other living being, I acted on my own beliefs and thoughts.
"That is Emil Blonsky?", Wanda asked.
"Yep, that is he. The arrogant douche that had just gotten himself pancaked against a tree.", I replied sarcastically.
Giving off a short laugh that rang beautifully in my ears, she continued.
"Well, I suppose we will see how dangerous he really is soon enough, won't we?"
"Mhmm. We certainly will.", I replied, my eyes shining in anticipation.