The Sage of the Mind

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 91 [May 2011]

Manhattan

–Axle Riddle–

Okay. So this was odd.

He was, in real time, able to see how Steve Rogers, THE Super Soldier's body worked because Fury, in his infinite wisdom had seen it fit to bring Steve into Manhattan, and unconscious to boot as well.

IT really rubbed him the wrong way when it was revealed in the movies that Fury had kept Steve in a small base in the middle of Manhattan, with Times Square just in walking distance because really, he should have been held in a tightly guarded base with nowhere to go, otherwise how else could you hope to contain an actual super soldier, much less the heartthrob of the American Military.

Then again, it made sense that storing the Captain in any military base would just result in unnecessary chaos.

In his situation, in this timeline, he could understand because Steve needed to be kept safe, not just from outside forces but insider forces as well and what better place to keep him safe than Manhattan? The safest place in the world.

Still, he should have a talk with Fury about this.

"Um, Excuse me? What are you guys doing? I am pretty sure that carrying a dead body sealed in a container is against some law, I just have to find the law." His paper avatar said as it manifested in its chibi form in the middle of the car, where Coulson, the ever unflappable Coulson was sitting, right alongside the casket like structure which was probably responsible for keeping Cap under.

It was kinda creepy that Coulson looked very happy to just be present in the moment, with the Captain America sleeping right beside him as a sleeping beauty.

Coulson didn't scream out loud and aside from a minute flinching, there was no indication that he was surprised.

"I hope there won't be any kissing involved, Agent Coulson because I will call the cops on you," He snickered at the insinuation, and then slowly sat his paper avatar down on the casket while Coulson merely deadpanned at him.

"Need I remind you that you are currently sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment, housing someone who is literally priceless," Coulson said as he took a magazine, rolled it up, and tried to swat away his paper avatar.

Ofcourse, it was moot since the magazine was just stopped a mere cm away from his chibi avatar but the sentiment remained. You don't just swat away his emissary while being in his city.

If it were anyone else, there would have been severe repercussions.

"Alright, not that this has not been entertaining, can you tell me where you found the still alive Captain America? Or were you guys just keeping him in the basement? Waiting for the right time to unleash him into the world?" He asked Coulson because he had to maintain the facade of not knowing anything.

He was aware of the fact that his tussle with the One BElow All had not gone unnoticed and there were probably hundreds, thousands of pictures taken of his floating self back then, from all angles and devices.

Hundreds of analysts must be on the case, to figure out the identity of the Invisible Man, so he was not going to take any chances and bring any suspicion on himself. 

"That is classified. What I can tell you is this, Director Fury believes that Captain America will be safest in Manhattan, where no outside entity has any influence." Coulson reminded him and he had to agree.

It was true, he didn't even let NYPD run any of their agendas in the city, let alone Feds or SHIELD or HYDRA, or as he likes to call it, SHIELDRA. 

"So, how are you planning to wake him up? Where will he live? Who will be his handler? What is he supposed to do? Will he live a civilian's life? What is Fury's goal here?" he asked all the reasonable questions in rapid fire, leaving Coulson no time to reply.

"I am afraid all of that is classified. I am not at liberty to speak. Director Fury will be the one who will be debriefing you about the whole situation." 

Very well.

"Alright, but please tell me you guys are not going to use that tacky hospital setup to fake the 40s?" He asked Coulson who cringed at the mention.

"You are! Oh my god, that is hilarious. Who suggested the idea?" 

"Look, it was the best way we could get Captain Rogers awake as soon as possible and into your domain as soon as possible."

Yeah, that made sense.

"Alright, just make sure that he doesn't threaten everyone around him. I'll make sure that he is safe, as I always do. Don't kiss him, Coulson," he took one last parting shot and left the SUV, the shredded papers conveniently falling in Coulson's hair and staying there.

"So, Bruce, how was the latest scan from Betty?" He asked Bruce, who didn't even flinch at the arrival of the chibi paper avatar, right on his dining table as he was having his lunch, some sort of Chicken salad, if he was seeing correctly.

"Hmm? Oh, that, we just scanned her yesterday and we found traces of unknown metals in her body. I was scared at first but the metal refused to show up on scans, absorbing all energy projected within, so we realised that it was just Vibraniumi." Bruce forgot about the lunch and immediately began explaining animatedly to him.

Most of it went above his head but he understood one thing. Betty still had trace amounts of that Vibranium fibres in her body, not enough to extract them in any meaningful way but enough that her body was still getting affected by the CHI, so she was still getting stronger.

He was unfortunate enough to witness one of their bedroom bouts, now that both of them had shed their mortal coils to evolve into greater, stronger lifeforms, they were free to break their beds as many times as they wanted, and their walls, and even their flooring.

Yeah, it was a lesson well learned, to respect their privacy, so he created a designated zone for them and just told them to do their business in that zone only. He couldn't just block out their entire apartment because Bellina was there and she needed to be protected.

"So, all good, then?" He asked Bruce who blinked and realised that he had just given him a six minute lecture on Vibranium and how it seemingly perfectly fused with the Human body, to enhance it completely.

He was sure to bring that up during his meeting with the Wakandan embassy next week. It was going to be nice, to let them be the ones who were clueless for one. 

"And how is the SCIENCE! Life treating you, Dr.Banner?" He asked Bruce even though he knew the answer to that question.

Bruce was just awarded his latest PhD, along with Betty as well, on their revolutionary work on Gamma Radiation and its effects on biochemistry, something that was just there when they looked into the data Stark had gathered for them, during Betty's pregnancy.

Now, while the entire world probabl;y knew about Bellina by now, they didn't know if Betty was superpowered or not, because she had never used her powers publicly.

Privately? Bruce's bones had been broken more times than he could count, only for his body to flash green and heal all the damage.

Bruce was somehow finding a middle ground in the process of turning into the Hulk. Even if, say, a hole was ripped into Bruce's heart, he would then turn green and by the time he was the giant Hulk, all his injuries would be gone.

He was triggering that sequence of early healing but not letting the transformation reach its final stage. It was quite clever and the experiments he did to reach that level were not something he could envision the canon Bruce doing.

So, even without doing much, they now had a much stronger and clearer in mind Bruce, which should translate into a much meaner killing machine Hulk, a strong Betty who should be at par or even stronger than Luke Cage, a smarter Tony who had a taste of Vibranium and probably will have something built by the time 2012 rolled around.

All the while, he continued to grow into his powers, creating safe pockets where people could be stashed during the invasion, all the while the Chitauri had no idea what was about to hit them.

Or what they were about to hit.

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