Chapter 36 : Air Jail! (Patreon)

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 36 [December 2008]

–Axle Riddle–

“The truth is…..I am Iron Man,” 

He watched as Tony Stark outed himself as Iron Man on live TV, despite having the same note as he did from Coulson. Well, nice to see that canon has not been derailed all that much despite his existence.

To be fair, the circumstances that led to Tony becoming Iron Man were so far removed from his area of operations, that the chances of him having some sort of influence on it were downright negligible.

Now, all he had to do was dodge the board meetings until he gained his freedom and that was going to be simple enough because, on paper, he didn’t really own all that much of Stark Industries. But, if one looks beyond the norm, one will find that he and his various financial entities own just about 11% of Stark Industries. 

Now, that number, while nowhere near the majority, gives him more than enough power. He was now the second largest individual shareholder of Stark Industries, right after Tony Stark himself, who owned over 50%, as of today. He had been buying up everything that people had been offloading, probably waiting for the day he would gain the majority before he could make some sort of major announcement.

Now, he watched as Tony made the briefing announcement turn into some sort of product placement as he unveiled revolutionary new ideas regarding…clean energy. Huh, that was new.

Tony was apparently talking about a new alloy he had designed that allowed for spikes in power delivery in the power grid. That usually happens when one uses a solar energy mixture in the power grid capacity. Wow, that was…revolutionary.

The king of figures Tony was talking about, it would probably lead to massive savings in transmission losses, with or without clean energy. Not to mention, the base was aluminum, for some reason. That meant that the recyclability of this alloy should be through the roof.

Damn, what a shock to the scientific world then, he thought to himself, as he sipped his coffee, clad in his pajamas.

Well, it was the weekend and he didn’t really like working on the weekends. Obviously, that didn’t count his second mind working overtime to make sure that Manhtanna remained a safe place.

Though he wondered what would happen to it once he left, that was a question for the future him and he loved using that tactic to get himself in trouble. Ah, good times.

Well, nothing to be worried about. He would get more than enough chances to leave this city. He could fake his death during the New York Invasion fiasco. He could finally reveal himself and then pretend that he overused his ability and died in the process.

Maybe the Ancient One would be amenable to making sure that the illusion stuck?

Or would he have to stay in this place until Spider-Man and his team (hopefully) took charge of the city’s protection? If he remembered correctly, there was a group of people, just like the Avengers but more street level and less alien level.

Yeah, the Defenders. But that was far off in the figure because he could see Rand Enterprises being run by someone who didn’t have the enhanced constitution of Danny Rand.

He could sense Pops’ barber shop open with customers brimming, sharing stories and laughter. The sight of it unconsciously brought a smile to his face. Man, he loved the way Pops lived his life. A convicted ex-criminal successfully turns his life around.

He mentored the current generation of youngsters and those youngsters went on to become gang leaders, but they didn’t forget Pops and his kindness, thus, the creation of a neutral zone in Pops barbershop.

He was not going to let Pops die this time, especially not due to some drive-by, because some gangster couldn’t be patient enough for his target to leave Pops’ shop before killing him.

Hmm, he could not sense Luke Cage or anyone resembling that level of density anywhere in his range so it would be safe to say that the team-up he was expecting was just not in the cards right now.

Maybe once his range expanded again, he could try searching for Miss Jessica Jones. She should be active around this time….per...iod.

SHIT!

He totally forgot about Jessica Jones and that bastard Killgrave. Well, he didn’t know at what point in time they met but he would have to stop that from happening. That single event, that single meeting…broke Jessica Jones and it was part of his duty to prevent that from ever happening.

He mentally noted it down and advised his second mind to be on the lookout for Jessica Jones, after imprinting the image that he remembered of her in the MCU.

She could be changed for all he knew but his second mind was already tasked with identifying those with abnormal physiques due to the scans everyone goes through. Weirdly enough, he could not, for the life of him, scan the bodies of those that use magic.

After questioning, he realised that dimensional energy flows through their bodies at all times, in small amounts, which allows them to shrug off minor divination as well as scanning spells.

His powers must have registered as scanning spells to them then. Still, it chipped at his ego a bit that his powers were being stymied by a basic protection that was only capable of stopping low level spells.

No worries, he had other, bigger fish to look for.

It was the next day. Banner had the entire night to himself. He was sure that he must have calmed down by now. So, it would be safe to approach that apartment once again.

And, it was safe. It was actually wholesome to watch Betty cook scrambled eggs for Bruce as he snored away in his bed. He had never seen Bruce sleep that peacefully in his bed.

Obviously, the state of the apartment left much to be desired and if he were the landlord and the owner of all the furniture, he would be pissed. Fortunately, the owner was someone else, and that someone else didn’t mind losing money as long as he was provided protection and assurance that his heart would not stop beating as long as he was in the city.

Oh yeah, he made that deal with the old, scared of death, billionaire. He could do that as well. Flood his presence in the vicinity and then gently force the heart to beat artificially, making sure that that person would not die even if their heart failed to beat. This billionaire had a rich family history of heart failures in their middle age but this one had made it to 65 so he didn’t know what was worrying him so much.

He looked as Betty served breakfast in bed to Bruce whose eyes snapped open as if he had been awoken from a rather good dream, and after confirming that Betty was actually with him, he smiled with tears in his eyes as they both kissed.

Eugh, Romance.

He rearranged the strewn about furniture in the living room, making sure to make enough noise to alert Banner. The result was obvious, breakfast in bed forgotten, Banner jumped in front of Betty, shielding her with his body as he slowly came out of his bedroom. 

As soon as he saw the mess of floating objects in his living room, he relaxed. The furniture, too, as if caught in its tracks, froze for a moment before continuing on.

He rang the table on top of which the notebook was kept. Not a pen and paper notebook but a digital one. Banner had set this one up for him. 

Two keyboards hooked up to a single screen, allowing him to chat with him without revealing his location.

“Had fun, Dr.Banner?” He teased Bruce, gladdened to see Bruce flush up to his ears as he looked at Betty who was sitting behind him. The elevated heart rate, relaxed body told him one thing and one thing only.

Bruce Banner needed Betty Ross if he was to ever become one with the Hulk.

“Yeah, I did. Thank you for bringing Betty here. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Bruce typed out and after seeing that, Betty awwed at Bruce and they started kissing again.

Okay, okay, no need to get burned by a loving couple expressing their love.

That was what he thought in the beginning but the small kiss was evolving into something steamy and he was not comfortable with that so he gently separated both of them and lifted Betty up in the air, her legs flailing about.

“Air Jail,” He typed out on the screen before Betty was floated out straight into the bathroom.

“O-Okay, I get it. Whooo!”

“Dr.Banner, I don’t need to alarm you but we need to talk. You can’t live your life like this, hidden away from everyone. You need control and unfortunately, one of my contacts didn’t come through. But, I did get into contact with an agency that could help get you a pardon, provided you work with them,”

“...Not as muscle but as brains.” He added hastily after seeing Bruce tense up at the mention of a government agency. Yeah, that was a bad move on his part. His history with the government would not allow him to trust anyone.

“Are there any other options?” Bruce typed out, looking rather despondent as he looked at the bathroom, where Betty was showering, probably. He didn’t look there, he was not a pervert.

“...There is but I don’t know if you would prefer it. After 2012, a host of other options will open up to me. If you can stay in my domain for four more years, I can help you control the Hulk in less than 1. That is a promise from me,” He said after thinking about it for a bit.

Four more years, hidden away in the city would be a bit much, even for Bruce but he had hope, seeing today. If Betty stayed with him, it would be much more bearable for him to live in the shadows.

“I understand if this is very heavy for early in the morning. Unfortunately, I am out of options at the moment and did not want to give you false hope. You can live in that apartment for as long as you want, with Ms.Ross ofcourse. Ah, there’s the daily delivery of your groceries.”

“Ah, for your information, I have cut off your apartment from my surveillance regime so I will not understand if you are calling for me if it is not dire and you are not turning green. I will check in with you tomorrow morning. Until then, enjoy the cake I sent, it’s blueberry flavoured.” 

He cut off that part from his range after that. Good lord, the situation was busted.

Well, nothing he could do about it for now.

The Army had not come knocking yet, so that was good. Besides, he was sure that even if they did come, they would not come in tanks and guns blazing, they would send in specialised extraction teams. 

Stealthily they would carry out that operation and unfortunately, that was never going to happen.

“Hmm,” He chuckled as he saw the same Random Beautiful Agent 1, staying in the same safehouse, once again, in her PJs.

Didn’t she learn anything from last time?