Chapter 191: Reunions

9th March 2012, New York City

(Tony Stark POV)

The video showed three redheaded women briefly speaking to the Morrigan after she used the scepter to close the portal. The staff in Morrigan’s hands disappeared soon after. The footage started to be corrupted when she held the Tesseract in her hand.

Rogers was the first to speak up, “who are they?”

Fury responded, “we call them the crimson roses. They’re a group of mutants, who travel the world, saving people. One of them is Wanda Maximoff, a very powerful reality manipulator according to our sources, another is Jean Grey, the most powerful telepath and telekinetic on the planet, and finally, our Jane Doe, we’ve never been able to identify her properly other than the name Rose. What little we know about her powers is that she’s a healer and a teleporter, although the extent of both abilities remains unknown. We have been tracking them for years, hoping to recruit them, but were unsuccessful. Their connection to Morrigan is troubling.”

Tony immediately noticed that Fury was doing his best to rile the rest of the team up against the Morrigan, “Why are you so set on fighting her? She did nothing wrong so far, and Earth is full of mutants everywhere. She might be older than Thor, but she hasn’t broken any laws, as far as we know,” Fury’s face was immovable, but Tony noticed a small flash of irritation in his eyes, “so that’s what it is. You’re worried because she’s an unknown, someone you didn’t recruit, and the public will still consider her one of us.”

“You’re damn right it’s because she’s an unknown. We don’t know anything about her, and what little we got from Thor was basically stories that showed how merciless she was. We don’t know anything about her character, her values, her ambition, only that she was worshiped by the Celts for committing massacres.”

Thor didn’t look happy with this answer, “Fury, I will not join a foolish and suicidal campaign to fight a being that has done me or my people no wrong. Midgard just survived an invasion, and while I would say that it was because of our might as a team, if the invasion force hadn’t come through a portal, this planet would have fallen. The Morrigan played a vital role in securing this planet’s future. I do not believe that it’s in our right to hunt her down.”

Tony added, “Jarvis made a few calculations and you do realize that Thor and Morrigan, alone, killed around eighty percent of the invasion force. Thor, by blocking the portal, and Morrigan, by killing whatever slipped past him. And, that’s not counting the fact that she was the one that helped Jarvis build the weapon so quickly, and was the one that defeated Loki. Not to mention that, she was also the one that found out how to close the portal. Face it, Fury, this woman, death goddess or not, probably lowered the number of casualties and property damage by a factor of a hundred, and that’s low balling it. It will take a month at most to get everything fixed up, and the low number of casualties means that SHIELD will be able to recompensate the families of the deceased, since they’re the ones that messed up by playing with something that they didn’t understand.”

Fury looked like he sucked a lemon but nodded in acceptance. Tony continued, “But going after her, even with the entire might of SHIELD, you’d lose. And I don’t mean the fight, maybe you could take her, I don’t know for sure, but the fight would be public, and the only thing that people would see, is armed soldiers attacking the hero who saved New York from a nuke. You’d lose all credibility and no one would want anything to do with your organization. And if you do decide to say ‘fuck it’ and attack her, you can count me out.”

Thor stood up, “Me as well.”

Cap nodded, “I’m not going to fight against someone who fought beside me.”

“HULK NO HURT SHADOW LADY”

Barton sighed, “I’m out. She probably saved my life and gave me enough arrows to see the invasion through.”

They all looked at the last member of the team who nodded, “Sorry, Fury.”

The director of SHIELD sighed in exasperation and shook his head, “I don’t want to do this either. I don’t trust her, and if I could, I’d take her out, but the manhunt the council is insisting on is ridiculous. They had files on every single one of you, and probably on every single super powered person on this planet. Having one, this powerful, just appear out of nowhere scares them. They tried to do the same with the Crimson Roses, but with Grey’s telepathy that seemed to get past their anti-telepathy protections, and Rose’s teleportation, they’ve been unable to do anything even if they found them. Pierce, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of the World Security Council, has been getting a lot of shit with how many times they escaped.”

They all stood in silence with this, and Tony spoke up, “So, we’re not going after the Morrigan. You do all realize that it’s a moot point if she’s dead, right. I’m pretty sure she took a nuke head on, I don’t think anyone could survive that.”

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“Do not underestimate the power of Lady Morrigan, Stark.” Thor replied.

“Speaking of power, what are we going to do with the Tesseract, now? And Loki, for that matter?”

Thor answered without batting an eyelash, “Both Loki and the Tesseract return to Asgard with me.”

Fury held his hand, “Hold on a minute, the Tesseract has been SHIELD property for over seventy years now.”

Hulk who had by now started to shrink back into Banner without anyone noticing – a very impressive achievement – snorted, “You’re joking right? You have no idea what it even is, other than it’s powerful. You prodded at it, letting the entire galaxy know that you have it, something that’s apparently worth starting a war over, and almost got our entire planet invaded in the process. If you actually learnt how to harness its energy, you’d probably destroy our entire star system. I vote for Thor taking the cube.”

Fury wasn’t having it, “This is not up for debate, and your vote is meaningless. SHIELD is taking both the cube and Loki.”

Thor snorted, “Outside the fact that your imprisonment of Loki would be worthless considering how short-lived human lives are. Believe me, Odin will punish him far more severely than you will, and for far longer. As for the Tesseract, it was left on Midgard for safekeeping, and you have misused it. Father has ordered me to return it to Asgard to be locked away in his vault.”

“I can agree for Loki’s imprisonment, but the cube is staying.”

Thor was obviously starting to get irritating, “Alright, let me put it another way. Your security council, tried to kill not one but two princes of Asgard, two sons of Odin, one of them sent to help you solve the situation, and you tried to kill them, after the situation was dealt with. This can easily be considered an act of war. As restitution for this act, I demand that the Tesseract and Loki be returned to Asgard, to be dealt with as the All father sees fit. I recommend that you take this deal, a war with Asgard will present your doom, easily, and I quite like this planet.”

The situation was tense for a few minutes, but Fury clenched his fists and nodded, “Alright, you win. The Tesseract and Loki are yours, but I don’t want your brother stepping foot on this planet anytime soon.”

Thor chuckled, “Don’t worry, Father’s punishments tend to take some time. You will probably not see him again in your lifetime.”

Fury nodded, turned and left, Hill at his heels. Damn that guy can be an asshole sometimes. But being the director of SHIELD, he would have seen some messed up things, especially with the number of mutants steadily increasing. Still, even when the director of SHIELD left the building, there was still some tension left in the room.

Tony straightened up, “Alright, with all the dry stuff done with, let’s celebrate. We fought aliens, and we won. I say we hold a party. I hear you Asgardians like that…”

The god of thunder leant back and let out a huge bellow of laughter that immediately released the previously tense atmosphere, “Yes, us Asgardians are quite well known for our feasts. I remember one, after fighting some fire demons who tried to invade Vanaheim, with a few friends, we got so drunk in our celebration that we dared Loki into seducing a Vanir High Born who turned out to be a very powerful witch. She cursed him by turning him into a toddler and locking his form. That was a very funny decade. You should have seen when he tried to fight, he was so clumsy. Even mother refused to remove the curse, since she said that he looked adorable.”

The laughter that followed that story from everyone remaining in the room, was enough to diffuse whatever doubts in Tony’s mind about this team. They might be mismatched and most of its members were messed up in so many ways, Tony included, but he could work with this. This had the chance to be a spectacular team that would do a lot of good in the world.

“Oh, that was a good one. I haven’t heard that one before. I’ll ask your father for a bit of dirt after we talk.”

The voice came from the other side of the room. Everyone turned around in surprise, and Romanoff even had a gun in her hand. Tony was surprised to see a very familiar pair of green eyes looking at him.

(Jasmine POV)

(Right after the New York invasion)

After faking my death, I teleported to the last place Selene and I lived in, Sayre Mansion. I arrived right in front of the door, and I immediately used the wards to find out that Selene wasn’t there. I brought out the bracelet that I was wearing and pulsed through it.

This little piece of jewelry was without a doubt a piece of art. It’s connected to both of our souls and will continue to let the other feel the other’s heartbeat. It's without a doubt one of the most impressive magical achievements ever created, by anyone, ever. The trick wasn’t the fact that it worked that made it so impressive, it was the fact that it worked no matter where you were. I resonated both our souls, together, and created a link, through Limbo. Limbo exists everywhere in the multiverse, it’s the same realm, everywhere, meaning that both myself and Selene were able to tell if the other was alive, and listen to each other’s heartbeat no matter where one of us ended up.

We had tested it by having the both of us be in different disconnected pocket dimensions, and we were still able to feel our heartbeats.

Immediately after I pulsed magic through my bracelet, I felt an incoming teleportation, and was immediately engulfed in a hug.

I immediately hugged my beloved back, and heard her muttering, “I’ve missed you, Morrigan.”

“I missed you as well, Selene.”

We stayed like this for what felt like an eternity, until Selene asked me, “What happened, where were you? I tried scrying for you, but I got nothing.”

I nodded, “That doesn’t surprise me. As for what happened, it’s a long story. I ended up finding out a few unpleasant things. Future Wanda’s little reality breaking time travel attempt was planned out by someone, by our enemy. I found him, the being that has been trying to kill us for so long, the being that I’ve been fighting for so long. It’s bad, Selene, really bad. I don’t think I can beat him, especially when he used Wanda to travel back in time, to have another chance at beating me. He laid a trap, and he almost killed me. I was able to scavenge a draw out of our confrontation by tricking him. But this is beyond anything I ever faced before.”

Selene looked shocked by my proclamation, “What? Who is it?”

“Selene, we’re fighting a cosmic entity. More specifically, a cosmic entity called Entropy.”