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Manhattan [May 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–It had been over a year since the fateful Johannesburg incident. Regretfully, it had taken him quite a bit to wake up from the coma that the ritual put him in.
In that time, thankfully, the Ancient One had already made contact with Wakanda, Tony and the others, so the world knew of what had happened in that fight. They were given an abridged version but at least they were informed, sparing the world from mad politicians trying to ignite world war 3 by recklessly labelling enemies and launching nukes at them.
Tony and the others had been very grateful for his return because of the ever increasing pressure that was being mounted on them by the world's governments. THe pressure would not have been much but the strongest members of the Avengers, were all either off world, hiding from the world in shame and guilt, or in a ritualistic healing trance, or coma.
Tony really shined under the pressure, actually turning around and handling the situation like a pro, instead of using his snark in the wrong places. He was also sure that Tony had already developed countermeasures just in case the world turned on the Avengers but thankfully, the time never came.
Because the first thing he did when he woke up was go to Wakanda, meet the King and tell him how thankful he was for the support that was provided to him, and promised to support T'Challa and Shuri in their rule over Wakanda, making the man sag in visible relief.
It was as if it was one of his life's goals and seeing them completed while he was still alive was a huge burden off his shoulders.
Next stop was Avengers Tower, something that was possible only because of his new and shiny sling ring. Well, that was a bit of a lie because the new ring was all basic brass, not enchanted by the extra enchantments that the Ancient One had developed. The non enchanted version, unfortunately, did not come with the design choices that the Ancient One made when she probably made the damn thing in the first place.
The sheer relief on the Avengers' face was nice to see. After that, he patrolled the skies of New York for exactly one day and one night, making sure that criminals, and law enforcement alike saw his face, and confirmed that he was still alive before he moved on to his next city.
As he found out in the course of the two months he had done his little global tour, he had quite a lot of fans in virtually every single city on the planet. Every city that he had chosen to camp in, had given him a very warm welcome.
Barring some protests, by some bad eggs that he was not going to focus on, the campaign that he had undertaken with no support whatsoever had been received warmly. In fact, some people began demanding some sort of schedule but knowing the pitfalls of letting people gather in a city without giving the city time to prepare was a recipe for disaster. Also, he was kind of winging it, all the way.
For example, he spent way more time in New Delhi, just trying the sheer amount of food they had on offer, dealing with a couple of hooligans masquerading as godmen, and then moving on to Bangkok.
Ahem, after having a little bit of fun in every place, he moved on to the next, never really letting a pattern form.
In less than two months, the world's mood about him had turned from frantic apocalyptic harbinger to just some superhero who traveled the world and did goofy things. He had debated whether to open a social media account or not but chose not to because he simply did not want to be exposed to the cesspool that was the internet, any more than he had to.
Could you even imagine the amount of targeted ads and content he would receive? From all factions trying to influence his thoughts alone.
Hell, he imagined some company reaching unicorn status just by claiming to help influence the thoughts of the Jack Sullivan, through the power of social media. And they were already doing it anyway, trying to influence his followers–he would not go so far as to call them diehard fans– by misquoting or just outright lying about whatever he may or may not have said.
He had a very nice time while commuting back to Kamar Taj and then to the city he was currently guarding. All the time he spent reassuring the people of the planet that he was still alive, there were government hounds trying to get his attention every step of the way.
He obviously ignored them all until TOny himself called him for a meeting with the President. Obviously, he could not ignore that.
So, he made sure that the meeting was contingent on the President getting the ball rolling on the SHIELD replacement that he was betting on. SWORD was the obvious replacement because of the name already being thrown around in the various alphabet soup agencies.
SWORD was also supposed to be given the command of the Helicarriers, once the agency was not on paper.
He had made sure that it was written into the fine print that he would only have to hand over the Helicarrier control once SWORD was fully formed. Last he heard, they were still searching for the Director and also for a suitable committee to oversee it.
He was going to be on the committee. Only he, none of the other Avengers were going to be on it, something regarding conflicting interests, especially because Tony was trying to make sure that the Avengers brand was separate from any governmental organisation.
Axle was not really sure how that was going to work out for the Avengers in the end, once they screwed up because while going solo without any oversight made it so that they didn't have to answer to snoozy politicians, it also made them vulnerable to the attacks of the same politicians.
Politicians who ultimately held the power of the public in them, no matter how much they strayed away from that principle in private, only to wave the flags of democracy in public.
He sighed and made sure that the car's inhabitants were safe as he made sure that the engine explosion was contained in one of his barriers, allowing him to safely evacuate the entangled family within.
"T-Thank you! Thank God!" he smiled and waved at the cloud, even as he sped away from the city, his shift done for the day.
His smile faded as he reached sufficient altitude and dove into one of the clouds that appeared in his vision. He dove into the clouds but never came out of the clouds, for the many satellites that were tracking all his movements, including Stark.
He came out of a closing portal, straight into a veritable utopia, of sorts.
He took a deep breath and smiled at the clean, crisp air of the mountains. One of the very few mountains in all of Wakanda, actually.
He made sure that he made plenty of noise and was visible to all the sensors littering the property so that he didn't startle the inhabitants of the cute little cabin in front of him. Well, there was a cabin but it was just a front for a highly advanced lab underground that Bruce inhabited.
"Hiya Soldier, how's the new hand?" He asked Bucky in a highly jolly voice as he looked at the new Vibranium nanite hand that Shuri had gifted Bucky on his suggestion. It was, in a word, overkill but he figured, why not?
The man had suffered enough.
"He is cooped up in the lab. He comes up sometimes but never to talk," Bucky helpfully informed him while he handed over a bag of new snacks that he had found on his tour around the world.
It was a small thing that he did, bringing tastier outside food to Bucky so that he could get a taste of the outside world. He didn't know what to do with Bucky so he did this.
After all, getting someone good food was the best way of telling them that they were thought of.
"Have fun," He saluted Bucky who was about to chop down even more firewood for some reason, despite having the option to install the Wakandan comfort package, basically having a fully functional Spa inside your home without ever needing any staff to man it.
He entered the cottage and was immediately assaulted with the smell of meat being cooked. Savoring the scent, instead of heading into the kitchen, he whirled around and entered the oddly clean, fully metallic door, that reeked of technology, in a cabin that would not look out of place in some remote corner of the world where the most advanced piece of technology would be a radio.
The door opened up for him, showing a very futuristic staircase that led straight down, fairly deep actually. He sighed at both the metaphorical and physical distance that Dr.Banner had put between himself and civilisation, out of guilt for the events that transpired totally out of his control.
Looking at the letter in his hand, he hesitated giving the letter to Bruce but then he thought better of it. It was not a decision that was in his hands, he was really just the messenger here.
Walking down the stairs, he had to go through no less than three other authentication procedures, each one checking for something unique, something that cannot be replicated by anyone else. How Bruce made technology capable of scanning his barriers along with their shapes as a method of authentication was beyond him.
In the end, he reached the final door, which was once again, very much deep in the Earth. THe door also suspiciously looked like one made out of Vibranium.
He sighed and clicked on the red button on the side of the door, which opened the door with a hissing sound of the atmospheric pressure being released. Seriously, the place was very deep inside the mountain. It was as if Bruce wanted his base wanted his lab to be at the base of the mountain, just from the inside of the mountain.
"Dr.Banner?" He popped his head inside and asked out loud, wondering where the wayward Doctor was. Last time he was here, the layout of the laboratory was not as it was now. It had changed radically. For one, it did not have a fish tank, a very large fish tank taht housed a fish that looked like a Shark but it had 3 mouths, filled with very sharp teeth.
It was also very green.
My god, what has that man been doing? And more importantly, why has no one in Wakanda stopped him yet?
He kept both of them here because he knew that, even with all his powers and knowledge, there was nothing he could do about the mental states of both the people. That was why he had entrusted them to Wakanda, and he remembered telling T'Challa explicitly that both of them needed extensive mental help, and it would be best if that was done as quickly as possible.
It had been almost two months since that conversation and still, here he was, staring at a Hulk-ified Shark of all things, being kept as a pet.
He sighed explosively and just started walking in a direction, spreading out his exploratory barriers in every direction to find the man of the hour. In the meantime, he was going to make sure that Bruce was not doing anything disastrous down here, like trying to clone himself or god forbid, trying to cure himself.
His face took on a thoughtful frown as he thought of the Vibranium nanites that Shuri would develop in the future. Combined with what Tony had created as well, he supposed that a temporary solution to stop Bruce from Hulking out could be developed but that was a stop gad measure at best.
Sure, in the canon timeline, Bruce would go on to reconcile both his sides and turn into the Professor Hulk, combining the best of both worlds, with Bruce's mind and Hulk's physique, but who knows if that would happen or not.
The nanite solutions might work if Bruce wanted to actively hamper the Hulk but once Bruce himself let himself go completely, well, then there would be no stopping the Hulk, even if all of humanity put itself together.
He wandered the halls as he came across multiple closed off areas, most of them flashing the red symbol, warning anybody from entering but being who he was, clad in barriers all the time, he made the mistake of entering one of the chambers and had to immediately duck out of the way of a laser that swiped across his head, a suspiciously green laser, that immediately sizzled once it made contact with the force field that was on the door.
After that, he just stopped exploring and concentrated on finding the mad Scientist and was somewhat grateful that he found Dr.Banner in the dining room, making dinner with his headphones still around.
He seemed to be having fun, dancing to tunes that only he knew of, making dinner for himself, but he knew as well as anyone else that depression came in many forms, and just because someone was laughing did not mean that their mind was not drowning in bad thoughts.
He couldn't believe the man didn't know he was inside his home, sad as it was that the man had built his entire life down here, isolated even from a veritable super soldier.
He gently increased the glow on his barrier. The effect was immediately Bruce abruptly stiffened before turning around, his face not one of anger, or confusion but one of abject fear.
His heart cracked a little at that look. The strongest man on the planet, and what had happened to him?
He shook his head and raised his hand at Bruce with a waving gesture, "Hello, Bruce. How are you? I thought you knew I was coming,"
Bruce practically melted in relief as he turned around and turned off the stove, "Oh, thank god, it is you. I thought someone had snuck— You know what, I am just glad you came," He said while immediately sitting down on the nearby dining table.
"Yeah, I was just wondering how you were doing and I just didn't think that you would just make your very temporary living quarters in the lab, into permanent ones,"
Bruce beamed, "I know, right? It took some time but hey, with Wakanda's resources, I was able to make this place, all on my own, made with Vibranium interlocking panels all around that are automatically activated once they sense Gamma Energy above a certain level. Neat, right?"
"Yeah…Neat," That was not how he would put it in his mind but he didn't know how to handle this entire conversation. Bruce was smiling but it was fake, like he had practiced it, his face set into the same set of smiles every time.
"So..Listen, I have something for you. I don't know if it will help you or not but…here goes," He said and shoved the letter into Bruce's hands.
"..Wh-what's this? You didn't have to get me anything, you know that." He tore open the envelope as he spoke, "Oh, a letter. From…Betty," Bruce's smile fell as he looked at the name of the sender on the letter.
"I'll be waiting for you just outside..or upside. Whenever you're ready," He said awkwardly and left the lab, making sure to keep a barrier in the room just to make sure that Bruce did not take any drastic steps.
Sure, he knew that he literally was incapable of dying but that did not mean that the psychological trauma of trying to kill oneself was washed off. The mind remembers everything.
He came out of the lab, as the lab door closed behind him with a hiss, and found himself standing in front of Bucky who was sitting on the couch, watching TV…while his hand, the nanite one was actually detached from his body and was currently floating a bottle of beer towards him with what looked like miniature repulsors on its body.
The hand actually seamlessly floated back to the empty sleeve and attached itself to Bucky, who without pausing raised the Beer bottle towards him.
"Beer?"
He looked at the spectacle in front of him and thought that atleast one of the two people here was somewhat stable, though his bar for that was pretty low.
And he had to wait here until Bruce was ready to talk anyway.
So, might as well watch the game.
"Yeah, sure," He shrugged and grabbed himself an ice cold beer, unmarked as it was probably from Wakanda, and sat down on the very comfy chair beside Bucky.
"So, who's playing?" Popping open the beer cap with his finger, he leaned back into the chair.
"No freaking idea," Bucky shrugged.
He shrugged. Might as well, he had no idea who was playing what from what country.
"Ah," He sighed in relief as the cold liquid helped calm his nerves at seeing Bruce's condition.
It was really pitiful and he would do all he could to make sure that Bruce atleast turned out to be somewhat mentally stable.
Something that looks to be almost impossible without outside intervention.
And what better intervention, than from Betty Ross, Bruce's one true love?
Word Count - 2986
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