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LA

–Jack Sullivan–

It was the morning after Stark had called him in to test his powers. He had been very reluctant to do anything other than stay in that comfortable bed and munch on chips and dip while watching TV.

“Ah, that’s the stuff,” He moaned in absolute delight as the flavours just exploded in his mouth. Even this bootleg butter chicken, which was just a pale imitation of the real stuff found in Northern India, was enough to absolutely bamboozle his taste buds. He was just glad that he had the presence of mind to order it for room service this time instead of going to the restaurant below and making an absolute fool of himself. So, there he was, with 5 servings of butter chicken and Naan, absolutely going to town on that stuff when he realised something.

“Hmm,” He hummed to himself and then continued to feast on the stuff in front of him. He realised that, after becoming a super soldier of sorts, he had been enhanced in more ways than one. For one, he stubbed his pinky on the way out of his bedroom and had, on instinct, begun jumping around in pain, only to realise that the pain never came and his pinky was absolutely fine. Now, he was no masochist to test if he could heal wounds faster by cutting himself or worse, burning himself but he was pretty sure that had he done that, it would have confirmed his theory. He had been enhanced in every way beyond what Steve Rogers was. He still had no idea about the experimentation they were doing to him in that base and neither did Jack. He was an absolutely loyal soldier to the cause and had not even questioned why his superior had ordered him to strip and then strapped him into a very shady-looking mechanical contraption. So, it was pretty much left to him to find out the extent of his enhancements by fumbling around. He still could not go out in public yet because Jarvis was still working on an iron-clad identity for himself which was a load of bullshit if he had ever heard one. It was clear that it would take no time for a digital entity like Jarvis to create a very strong identity for him and yet, they were stalling. For what? He did not know but at least the hotel bill was being charged to Stark’s credit card and thus, it was a balm to his soul as he continued to feast on hundreds of dollars worth of food for every meal.

He might have to bring that super soldier thing up in his next meeting with Stark. It would be very beneficial for him to find out the limits of his body to better prepare for everything. Honestly, getting access to SHIELD training will be the best option because they must have some sort of handbook to train any enhanced people they might have recruited into their workforces. The practicality of doing that however stayed his hands. No doubt SHIELD might help him immensely but the chances of the HYDRA within SHIELD exploiting him were immense, despite his apparent age being that of a minor. Fury might hesitate to do so but Pierce would definitely not care about pesky things like morals before tasking him with assassination missions..

No, being with Tony Stark would be the best option as he did have the resources to arrange private training for himself and would be the best shield when SHIELD came knocking. In return, all he had to do was act as a shield for him whenever it was required, something that he planned on doing anyway. He had already chosen the hero life or at least the good samaritan life anyway so he planned on going on that path full steam, no hesitation. With that in mind, he stared mournfully at the Butter Chicken as he debated calling Stark with his request when his eyes lit up as he had a brilliant idea. He shoved the piece of Naan in his mouth and said out loud, “Jarvis?”

His gambit proved successful when his phone’s screen lit up with a faint orange glow as a voice piped up from its speakers, “Yes, Mr.Sullivan?”

“Aha, I knew it. You were spying on me all this time, weren’t you, Jarvis? In your face, Stark!” He pointed at the phone triumphantly, spittle flying from his mouth as he pointed out the very obvious as Stark himself had given him this phone and it was very clear that there were some caveats with the free perks.

“I had assumed that it would be very obvious to you about the fact that we cannot let an unsupervised superhuman out into the world, was it not?” The very dry voice of Jarvis came out through the speakerphone and the TV speakers as an orange blob appeared on both the screens.

“Ha ha, very funny, Jarvis. I just wondered if you can get a message to Tony from me?” He chuckled wryly and asked him, all the while as he continued to shove in as much food as he possibly could in his face.

“Certainly. Sir is busy at the moment otherwise he would have connected to this call himself,” Jarvis replied.

“Very well, tell him that I have noticed some odd things about my body and believe that my powers may have enhanced my body to a certain extent and I would like to test that,”

Jarvis took a beat to reply despite him knowing that Jarvis could reply to a hundred such conversations at the same time and feel no pressure on his processing power at all.

“I see. That is certainly interesting and I will inform sir about it. In the meantime, Sir has advised you to remain indoors and feel free to take advantage of the room service. He will call you when he has something for you. Room service is on its way with a small wardrobe of your size,”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He beamed at that news. It had been getting a little sparse in the apparel department. “Thanks, Jarvis!”

“You’re welcome. Feel free to call upon me if you have any more queries. Good day, Mr.Sullivan,” Jarvis said and the screens of both the TV and his mobile turned back to normal though he was not foolish enough to believe that Jarvis’ presence had completely receded. He must be listening in on everything in the background.

“Ah!” He sighed in contentment as he looked at his flat stomach despite him demolishing all that food. He was finally feeling full after eating enough food to feed a family of 5. God, his metabolism was so messed up. It would have been the worst situation if he did not have the big fat wallet of Tony Stark to fund his food otherwise he would have eaten through any money he might have acquired on his own. If things went the same way, the salary that Tony promised to him might also not be enough. Ah, he will figure that out when the time comes. He can afford to live in a slightly unsafe neighbourhood because of his powers if the rent comes out to be low.

He went to the window and looked at the street below, as cars and people continued to pass by, unaware that a storm was on the horizon, and in less than one year, the worldviews of the majority of the people on the planet were about to change. Taking a deep breath, his eyes flashed green as his skin turned green as he activated multiple barriers behind him, in the living room. He looked back and pressed the button to activate the shaders that covered the entirety of the windows that dominated an entire side of the living room, allowing natural light to filter into the room.

He plopped himself down on the sofa and looked at the dozen barriers that had manifested in front of him which he then manipulated to become smaller and larger, practicing his powers in this way. He had no real way of practising the weight-lifting powers of his barriers as they were already absurdly high and doing that might bring undue attention to him. For now, all he did was manifest multiple barriers and then try to manipulate them. He had noticed something when he used multiple barriers at once that were out of his direct field of vision. They gave him some feeling about crashing into each other or crashing into walls, allowing him to manipulate them properly, without it looking like a blind person was piloting them. He was sure that someday, he would be able to form complex shapes from his powers, allowing him to create incredible constructs like a car or even a robot mecha suit.

That would be so awesome! Alas, as he looked at the dozen barriers whose shape did not go beyond simple ones like square, rectangle, and circle, he sighed in resignation. It would be a long time before he would be able to make something more than a four-barrier shape, resembling a car, let alone something as monstrously complex as a robot.

But! He would do it. No matter how hard, arriving in a robot suit of your own powers would be so awesome and he wanted to experience that no matter what. Sweat appeared on his forehead as he continued to practice with his powers, quite aware that Jarvis was spying on him through the cameras but what he did not know was he was also practising with micro barriers. For example, he had multiple barriers sitting right underneath him, creating a grid of sorts that lifted him just above the couch, allowing him to practice that aspect of his powers.

He could imagine that being necessary someday because with the speed his barriers could move about, creating a razor-thin barrier and then accelerating it to the speed of sound would make a hell of a sword, allowing him to cut through nearly anything without any hindrance. Hell, it might even be able to injure the thick skin of Thanos or even Hulk, well, before their body healed that damage in real-time.

As was the norm with his power usage, the body armour had appeared on his skin, making him appear completely green to any would-be observer. It was really a second skin, indistinguishable from real skin. It was also incredibly tough. Stark had shot a point-blank repulsor at him and the shield did not even flinch. He was not exactly happy with Stark but at least it gave him the peace of mind that conventional weaponry would not be able to harm him very easily.

Combined with his ability to fly unaided, escaping from any would-be pursuers without them having any specialised equipment to contain him would be very easy. That alone gave him incredible peace as it would help him sleep at night.

_______xx_________

The building in front of the hotel, LA

–Phil Coulson–

“Sir, you need to see this,” He blinked the sleep out of his eyes as one of the people on his team had found something in this stakeout. Somehow, somebody had gotten close to Stark without them having a single clue about it. That person also did not have a digital presence at all.

“Yeah, coming,” He muttered and got up from the makeshift bed. At times like this, he was reminded of the unfairness of the world. There he was, their target lounging in the five-star penthouse suite without a care in the world with all the luxuries imagine available and there he was, having to sleep in something that could hardly be called a bed.

“What do we have?” He asked and was rewarded with the information that only worsened his headache.

It would seem that Tony Stark had gotten tangled with someone who was not just someone with powers, he also had powers that were emitting the same energy signature as that of another troublesome individual. If both of them had anything in common, things had just gotten a lot more complicated than he had thought. This mission just went above his pay grade for now.

“Spoof his energy signature. We don’t want other parties snooping around before we are ready to do so. Also, find a way to fit us into Tony Stark’s schedule. We need to get to the bottom of this,” He ordered his team before heading out of the makeshift office. He needed to talk to Director Fury about this. Unfortunately, he was a little busy with Project PEGASUS at the moment and he had issued strict orders to not disturb him for the next three days.

He would have to try and get a meeting with the man himself but judging from past experiences, getting a meeting with Tony Stark was a pain but it was even more painful dealing with the man himself. It was a good thing that it was he who was assigned to this mission. If it was someone else who ended up presenting a strong front to Tony Stark, they would have lost any hope of an amenable meeting.

He just hoped that having Pepper Potts in the meeting might help mellow out the more…eccentric tendencies of Stark.

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Word Count - 2255

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