Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

Chapter 28

-x-x-x-

One of the downsides of the Chi Pills was that sleep became largely optional, and when you were kept as busy as Natasha and I were, that meant getting to spend the night with my girlfriend was a rarity that didn't occur anywhere near often enough in my opinion. Which is why I had taken shameless advantage of Scorch's little appearance this morning to justify scrubbing her scheduled missions tonight. It was just relatively routine infiltration work thankfully.

While we were recovering in bed Natasha said: "Not that I'm complaining Octavian, but what made you decide to scrub my missions for a date night?"

I smiled some and kissed her on the shoulder "Can't a guy just take his girlfriend out to dinner on the rings of Saturn because he feels like it?"

She pushed herself up on one arm and smiled slightly as she said "He could, but you wouldn't. There are never enough hours in the day for all that we have to get done, and neither of us is the type to get offended over the mission coming first."

"Ah what hopeless romantics we." I joked.

"I'm Russian, what's your excuse?" she shot back.

I smiled and said, "I'm Russian in spirit?"

She laughed for a bit but as she settled down I said "More seriously, I have a top priority assignment for you starting tomorrow. Scorch just went hot."

She shot up and said "I didn't get the memo about him showing up in holding, why did you decide to put him in the black cells? Bruce and Maya are going to need access to him."

I gave a frustrated sigh as I leaned back and closed my eyes "Because I didn't grab him."

She looked almost offended at my reply and asked "Why not? He's the last piece of Extremis."

"I'm aware, believe me, I am fully aware." I sighed and wrapped an arm around her before pulling her close "But it's what you said, Banner and Maya are going to need access to him. What do you think Bruce would say if we dropped off an innocent kid in his lab to be experimented on for our benefit?"

She winced and said two words "Hulk Smash."

I chuckled lightly and kissed her on the top of the head "Yes, Hulk Smash. Maya would probably get over her misgivings, she is too focused on making Extremis work to care about how exactly that is done. But Bruce? Maybe if I could sell it to him as actually being necessary to humanities survival, but he is way too smart to buy that argument."

"Morality is a pain in the a.s.s," she mumbled.

"No, that's my d.i.c.k." I shot back, earning a slap to the c.h.e.s.t for my comment, before continuing "I cleared your schedule because I want you to recruit him. Everything we can find on him is already being assembled and I have a full Thorn team keeping an eye on him at all times, but you are going to have to study him and figure out the approach. We need his honest and sincere help."

"Pity, I would rather just dose him with Killgrave and strap him to the table. But I understand, it shouldn't be too difficult," she said.

"Me too Nat, me too. Granted we don't actually know how Killgrave would react with his biology. It's not the recruitment that has me at loose ends though, and don't worry about the timetable too much." I replied, when he looked at me in incredulity I shrugged slightly and explained "I had one of the spy drones take almost a liter of his blood once he fell asleep, it's waiting in Maya's lab with a bow on it. She and Bruce should be able to get started with just that."

"Ah, so what has you worried?" she questioned.

"What I do with Scorch after we get what we need. We won't be able to just kill him or stuff him in stasis, not after we go to all of the trouble of making sure he volunteers and is all helpful. We can't let him out of our control, he will know too many of our secrets. The preliminary personality profiles indicate that he would be a pretty horrible fit with any of our groups. And he is going to be the first test subject for Extremis so we are going to be looking at a Captain America who can throw fireballs. Oh, and there is always the potential that Extremis could seriously upgrade his fire's level of power." I explained before saying "So tell me Nat, what in the hell are we supposed to do with a super soldier pyro who wants public recognition and fame?"

She was silent for a moment before saying "You sure we can't just kill him? Maybe call it destructive testing to figure out the limits on the Extremis durability."

"I wish, we have some truly repugnant child s.e.x slavers slated for that phase of testing. I'm half tempted to con him into being our first agent out in the greater universe and get Alkasha to drop him off on some out of the way alien world somewhere." I answered.

"Enough about Scorch, we will deal with it as it comes." she answered before changing the subject "How is our political maneuvering coming?"

"Well enough, that Obama is going to win is an easy guess even without future knowledge and we have a number of people well positioned to become part of his administration. I do have a sitting Senator who could do with a tragic, and not so suspicious, death. His challenger is one of ours and this close to the election, the Senators death should result in an easy win for our girl. The file has already been uploaded to the black server." I answered, thinking about all the maneuvering going on with the election and expected change in government. We were going to need the political support when everything went public, and that meant getting our people in place and ready.

I could feel her fingers twitch as she accessed the server that was buried under a random asteroid and whose only connections to anything else were the specialized enchanted com relays that only she and I had. None of the others needed to know about all of the dirty work.

"Not a problem, he will have a heart attack in his sleep tomorrow. Although I do wonder what the others would think if they knew you had me killing "innocent" politicians to advance our aims." she answered after reviewing the files.

"Exactly what I was just thinking, and they would be needlessly angry. It's why they don't ask and we don't tell." I said.

"True. Now, enough work talk," she said before deciding that it was time to engage in my favorite kind of physical activity.

When I entered the Extremis lab the next morning Maya seemed to teleport over as she gave me a huge hug. "Thank you! Thank you! This is amazing."

"I'm glad you liked it, but how far can you get without Scorch on site?" I asked as I returned the hug.

Bruce answered for her "We will be able to strip out most of the genes that we know aren't responsible for his ability. Those responsible for hair color and the like, but until we have him in the lab to run some tests and can figure out exactly what his body is doing we won't be able to find the key."

I nodded, not surprised, "Well Natasha has gone to recruit him, he should be onsite within a few days to a week or so."