From The Ashes - 016 (Patreon)

[A/N: Hey guys, sorry for my sudden abscence but there was a personal emergency that I had to deal with, which took up my time in the last two days.

Everything is resolved now though and I also settled on a new schedule that I will share with you after I get a good night's sleep in.

Enjoy! And a lucky start for the coming week!]

Chapter 016 – Deal, Departure

[2012]

Remembering that I took away the Chitauri corpses and weapons exactly to exchange them for some benefits, I still thought how exactly I should handle this situation for a moment before coming to a decision.

I looked at Fury after making up my mind, the other Avengers present staying put as they looked on quietly as well, I stated: “They are indeed intact.”

"That is fortunate.", nodding in acknowledgment of my words, the spymaster continued, "Then I would like to ask you to hand them over to SHIELD, Mr. Hatahle, so they can be used to develop more effective countermeasures for eventual future attacks."

“Hand them over?”, I repeated slowly, “You mean give them to you without being compensated in any way?”

Lightly shaking his head, Fury countered: “There will naturally be a form recompense.”

"For example, as far as we understand, you are not a legal citizen of this country nor any other country on Earth. This is something that can be easily rectified."

“We can also provide you with a place of your own where you can stay, either in this city or any other place in the country.”, he added, “Naturally, your living expenses will be taken care of.”

Not answering for a moment, I just looked at the Director, his offer not sounding very appealing in comparision to the riches that I could gain if I just sold the Chitauri corpses and weapons to the hightest bidder.

My desire for wealth though was hardly worth mentioning as I only saw money as a way to ensure convenience. I had no interest in adorning myself with uselessly expensive luxury goods. Living a simple life of peace and quiet sounded much more appealing to me.

However, I didn't really care about being an illegal citizen. After all, nobody could stop me from coming and going as I pleased, nor did I think that they would be stupid enough to ask me to leave the country considering the power that I had.

I might be a threat but I was also a kind of insurance in the government's eyes. As even if they could not control me, they could certainly try and use my power the next time an alien race tried to invade.

Fury's offer to handle my expenses was also just his way of making sure that he had some kind of surveillance over my whereabouts and doings.

On the other hand, becoming a legal citizen and not having to take care of my living arrangements by myself would certainly make things more convenient.

I also didn't really care about their surveillance.

Like Banner, I was an individual too dangerous to provoke so they would most likely just leave me alone while keeping tabs on my whereabouts.

What I did not like was the fact that if I accepted the deal with Fury, not only SHIELD but also HYDRA would gain access to the Chitauri weaponry and carcasses. But since I had already decided to not change the timeline to have some measure of control and insight about the immediate future, I could only accept this outcome as something unavoidable.

“I accept.”, I finally answered after thinking about it for a few moments, “Prepare a warehouse somewhere and I will give you some of the Chitauri carcasses and weapons.”

Fury didn't seem to care about the 'some' in my reply as he nodded again, a serious look on his face.

“I will arrange for it immediately.”, he said before continuing, “Your legal documentation will also be taken care of.”

…

From there everything proceeded rather quickly, which I welcomed since I had plans to take Thor and Loki back to Asgard on this same day, seeing no reason to delay doing so.

There was no urgent need to find a place to live on Earth for now, not to mention that it wasn't something that hard to arrange with SHIELD's help. Finishing my business with Asgard on the other hand was a priority.

I was anticipating getting my hands on a dwarven-forged weapon as I favoured fighting with one more than fighting without one, despite the memories in my mind giving me incredible bare-handed close combat skills. I also looked forward to trying out the swordsmanship of Marco's home planet.

In the end, those were simply personal preferences even though I suspected that a dwarven-forged artifact might also help me in condensing and focusing the incredible power that I now carried within myself. I wasn't looking for a weapon to imbed the Infinity Stone into, after all, just one that could withstand its power.

It was only half an hour later when Fury informed me that there was an empty warehouse outside the city that could be used to temporarily store the Chitauri weapons and bodies. I naturally didn't just travel there to deposit the promised goods.

Instead, I spread my senses with the help of the Space Stone, ignoring any kind of distance and obstruction before just waving my hand and filling up the warehouse.

It wasn't a very difficult thing to do considering that even my Observation Haki could nearly span over the whole city.

I also left a lot of Chitauri weaponry behind for Tony on some of the empty levels of the Stark Tower. This was partly to repay him for the night and partly because I really had no other use for them.

He might though, and maybe someday in the future this show of goodwill might be able to tip the scales in my favour.

After all, I wasn't a prophet, I was just weighing the pros and cons of this action and realized that I would most likely benefit from doing this in the best-case scenario. In the worst case though, this investment would just not payout.

Since I was sure that SHIELD might very well hire him to help analyze the Chitauri weaponry anyway or at least give him access to it, I wasn't providing him with any destructive weaponry that he couldn't get his hands on by himself. The decision was thus a rather easy one.

And when the sun slowly reached its peak, I was standing on top of the Stark Tower, the other Avengers having already said their goodbyes while I had a small bag on my back filled with the clothes given to me by Pepper and the legal documentation promised by Fury.

…

“Ready?”, I calmly asked the Argardian Prince, looking over his armored figure as he held onto his legendary hammer with one hand while the other was tightly holding onto his muzzled and chained brother's upper arm.

"We are.", Thor replied without hesitation, no fear of any kind in his demeanor or mind.

I wasn't sure if he trusted me this much or if was just that confident that he could survive even if I tried something funny. Maybe it was both, or maybe he was just a bold yet naive fool.

I didn't know which was true but his behaviour made me admire him somewhat as I understood something.

He was brave not because he was simple-minded. No, he just seemed simple-minded because he was incomparably brave.

Plans, schemes, strategies. It wasn't that the Prince of Asgard didn't understand the importance of those, he just didn't bother wasting his thoughts on them. Instead, he faced life with the spirit to embrace the unexpected, never once hesitating or thinking of retreating.

What he was lacking in wisdom and forethought, qualities that a good King needed without exception, Thor made up in pure stubbornness and boldness.

From this point alone, I could see that he wasn't meant to be a ruler. He was an adventurer, a warrior whose path should have led him to the myriad worlds beyond Asgard.

No matter his flaws, of which he undoubtedly had many, his indomitable will to push forward was indeed deserving of my respect.

“The rest depends on you, Phoenix.”, he added with a half-serious nod, anticipation and yearning for his home thick in his eyes.

He had taken to call me that after he had heard people on the news do the same. Since the general public didn't know my name, they had come up with this epithet, or rather my hero title.

Not bothering to correct him since I knew that he wasn't big on names, I just shrugged it off as Marco's memories had given me a bit of resistance to being called that.

Nodding in acknowledgment, I closed my eyes for a moment, visiualizing what I had seen of Asgard in the movies and letting the Space Stone guide my mind in the right direction, all space in this reality only a single step away with the cosmic ingot.

Blue light setting my eyes aflame, the right side of my chest erupted with space-altering cosmic energy wrapping around the three of us in a gentle miniature storm as I had locked onto the magical floating continent that was Asgard.

And a moment later, the three of us were swallowed by a cloud of dark fog, disappearing from Earth under the watchful eyes of the other Avengers.