10) [ Gus ] Suffer the Little Children

The dark haired little girl looked across the table at me.

She had to be all of four years old, but her ice blue eyes were sharp, calculating.

“Can I have your bacon Uncle Gus?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Then without breaking eye contact, I speared my last slice of crisp, slightly seared brown salted pork onto the end of my fork, slid it through a smear of yolk on my plate, and held up it between us.

“No.”

Watching my niece, Mary, named for her maternal great grandmother as a form of insurance in case the Four ever caught up with my sister, I saw her sniffle with the corners of her eyes beading up even as she reached out with her powers to try to entrap my bacon so that she could shove it along a ramp towards her mouth as soon as I tried to place it into my own.

I smirked at her, the first thing her mother had taught me that morning was how to sense the interaction of cosmic rays and all the various forms of matter and energy, as well as the psionic force of our constructs, my own as well as others.

Such as the projection of the little girl who was probably at least as good at seeing them as I was, even if her powers were weaker.

At least for now, who knows how a third generation cosmic ray induced power inheritor would develop over their adolescence?

“Your tears do not move me little girl, and you’ve already had two slices of bacon. If your father wanted you to have more he would have given you more.”

I made a ball of force near her belly and stretched it out sharply to nudge her in her side, before twisting it around startling a giggle out of her, and giving me the chance to quickly scarf down my bacon.

After all, I had only gotten two slices as well, despite my protests to the man sitting with us at the table in the breakfast nook that I was much larger, and it was the first bacon I had ever gotten to eat.

At least in my new body.

Kerwin Korman was fully read in on who his wife of five years was, as well as everything he needed to know about his newfound brother in law. The children of Susan Richards and Victor Von Doom. As well as being the reincarnations of people from what Lucy had explained to him was an alternative version of his world that was a lot quieter than this one where people flew around and had to deal with an alien invasion every couple of years.

Ker was pretty chill about it since he had been a costumed villain at one time who had gotten into a few fights with Captain Marvel, back when she had been Ms. Marvel.

He had shown me a picture of his old outfit as the Destroyer and shrugged as he rubbed at his arms. “At least I got out of the business before it killed me, although I came damned close.”

As best as Lucidia, or Lucy, could figure out, our old world and this one were linked, but both real.

She had explained her theory to me on the drive into the city. Boise, that is, a nice quiet city in which nothing involving Metahumans, aliens, or the supernatural ever seemed to happen.

Lucy had made a lot of effort to keep it that way.

The theory she had come up with for the existence of this Marvel universe was one of two possibilities.

Possibility One, the world we came from was higher up in the nature of multiple realities, and the Marvel universe changed according to the whims of the writers back on our Earth.

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Possibility Two, the Marvel universe was independent but mutable, and its constant changes were somehow picked up on by the generations of the writers of comic books back on our old world.

Number two appealed to me more, mainly because it meant that I didn’t have to have my life shaped by some guy who wanted me to live in interesting times, as in the supposed Chinese curse, while they were safe and sound over in another reality.

Instead, I might have a free hand to write my own destiny.

Just as my new older sister had.

But more.

Not that I didn’t approve of her choices, as if she needed my approval, in the life she had made for herself, but, as she put it from seeing the look in my eyes. “Yes, it’s a boring normal life, even if it’s more like one you would have seen on TV than something real.”

I had to nod in agreement, as we rode along on horseback on her six hundred and sixteen acre ranch.

She had money, a lot of it, and lived like it. Twenty four hour armed security, a mansion, a in ground Olympic sized pool, a full on site live in staff, and a private stable. Everything money could buy.

Along with her almost short, lightweight, dark complexioned, older blue eyed husband, with his evil genius goatee and shoulder length graying dark hair. Korman was a man who was successful in his own field as a designer of high end prosthetic limbs, and the two of them had a lovely little girl with her father’s coloring, and what looked like her mother’s more robust build.

Along with her grandfather’s brains and her grandmother’s powers.

I had asked her if she knew her daughter would inherit our powers. “I checked it to confirm, but I could already sense the comic rays collecting into her early in the second trimester. And without both parents having powers, her powers were inherited without variations as they did for the two of us. Her powers will just be another advantage she has in life, not the cause of some ongoing storyline that drags on about her hating being different until she learns to accept them.”

My sister had explained that to me with a subtle note of anger, which told me she damned well knew how easily things could change now that I had made her times more interesting.

A half mile or so from her home, she dismounted and tied off her horse near an old adobe building that looked long abandoned. Turning to me she took the reins of the near white stallion she had told me was named Mellow Yellow.

Mary had named him.

She sighed. “I’ve prepared my arguments.”

I took the reins back from her and tied off my ride. “I’m ready to listen.”

We took a walk, and she made her offer.

Ten million dollars to fund my own start up, or to support me while I attended college, anywhere in the world. A chance to enjoy being young, and applying my mind to either making my fortune, improving the world, or both.

“I met Kerwin while I was going to school to get my doctorate. But you don’t actually have to go and earn a degree to enjoy life, there are plenty of nice people your age anywhere you want to go. You could live the rest of your life without any fighting, not getting brutally beaten up on a regular basis, or dying heroically. Just a nice life, free from drama, in your new body, with endless opportunities.”

I held up my hand, and she gave me a moment to give her offer its due consideration.

“Perhaps, in any other world…”

She glared, “It’s not that bad. I’ve had six quiet drama free years since I woke up in that tube, and nothing has reached out to get me.”

I stared at her, she began to look nervous as she asked, “What?”

“According to the Creche, you were terminated nine and a half years ago and Mary is at least four, did you get pregnant in your freshman years at school?”

She blinked and began to look like she was in pain. “No… I finished school in two years, then we got married, it was another year before… Mary just turned four…”

Her hands were shaking, and I could sense waves of her power washing out from her, almost like a form of radar.

I turned away from her. “It got you didn’t it, moved you forward in time so we were closer to each other in age when I came out. With a cute little niece to make me want to protect your safe… life. The creche now probably even says we aged at three times normal speed so that you only hatched out six years back.”

Dam it. “Did I do this, pull you into my story, by making my big declaration?”

Lucy clenched her fists. “Not you, Doom. This story started the moment he set up his damned protocols… and sending you away won’t stop anything. It would just leave me alone against whatever is hitting my house right now. Because of course, some storyline would start while we trying to have a serious talk during a leisure activity.”

She vanished from sight, with layers of force appearing around her and another effect happening inside her that seemed to reinforce her body.

“Catch up.” then she launched herself on a column of force back towards her home, her force shields shaped into an airfoil.

“...would have been nice if she had taught me how to reinforce my body like that for high speed acceleration.”

Although it did look like it locked her whole body down to the point she couldn't move a muscle while doing that, it was still a nice trick.

Fortunately, my armor, which had been following me along a few miles up and away was only a few seconds and a phone call away.