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BONUS CHAPTER
"What absolute freaks."
Tony stared at Hulk and Abomination—both rippling with grotesque muscle mass, faces twisted into something barely human. His chest felt tight inside the suit. These two were walking natural disasters, and he'd seen enough collateral damage today to know just how wrong this could go.
That was why he hadn't rushed in after the helicopter went down. Help them? Sure. Get himself paste-ified by a stray punch? Hard pass.
From what he could tell, the green guy—Hulk—was on their side. The puke-yellow monstrosity? Definitely team evil.
Now Hulk was down, temporarily at least, sprawled at their feet. Abomination's head swiveled, taking in the scene with those cold, reptilian eyes.
Betty and Ross were struggling out of the mangled helicopter wreckage, both bloodied and limping. When Abomination's gaze swept over them, they froze—pure animal terror on their faces.
Then those eyes landed on Marcus and Tony.
Unlike the others, neither of them flinched. They just stared back at the monster like he was something they'd scrape off their shoe.
Abomination's lip curled. He couldn't see fear in their expressions, and that pissed him off. Here he was, the most powerful thing on this street—hell, Hulk was literally eating dirt because of him—and these two ordinary men weren't even intimidated?
"Two insects," Abomination snarled, his voice like grinding stone. "Since you're not afraid to die, let's see how long that courage lasts!"
He roared, swinging the massive industrial chain overhead. The links—each as thick as a man's arm—whistled through the air as he whipped it directly at Marcus.
The chain cut through the air with a sound like a jet engine.
"Shit!" Tony's faceplate snapped down instantly. "Marcus, move! I can't—"
He launched forward, repulsors charging. Buy Marcus time. That's all he could do. Because Marcus, for all his weird confidence today, was still just a regular guy, and that chain would liquify him.
Behind Tony, Marcus just... shrugged.
If he didn't act now, the next few seconds would end with Tony getting smashed into his Chevrolet like a tin can, and frankly, he liked both Tony and his car too much for that.
Time to stop pretending.
Marcus raised one hand.
WHAM.
An invisible shockwave rippled through the air.
"...the hell?"
Tony, halfway through his intercept course, realized the chain had stopped. Just... stopped. Frozen mid-swing, two feet from his faceplate, the links trembling but completely motionless.
He turned his head.
Abomination held one end of the chain, muscles straining, face twisted in confusion.
Marcus held the other end. With one hand. Casually.
Well—not exactly holding it. Tony's helmet display flickered as it tried to analyze what it was seeing. Marcus's palm wasn't actually touching the chain. There was a gap, impossibly thin, like the metal was suspended a fraction of an inch from his skin.
"What... what the hell just happened?" Tony breathed.
The handful of survivors scattered around the street stopped running. They just stood there, gaping.
Abomination stared at Marcus like he'd just sprouted wings. "This is impossible!"
He yanked on the chain. It didn't budge. Marcus held it—somehow—with one hand, like it weighed nothing.
"Jarvis," Tony said slowly, "analyze this. How much force would it take to stop that chain?"
"Calculating, sir." A pause. "Minimum ten tons of force to arrest its momentum. To remain stationary as Mr. Reed currently is, a minimum of twenty tons."
"You've got to be kidding me."
Because Marcus looked... normal. Same height as Tony, maybe a bit leaner. Nothing about him screamed walking hydraulic press.
"Sir, I should note—Mr. Reed doesn't appear to be using pure physical strength. I'm detecting an unknown energy field on his body's surface."
Tony zoomed in with his HUD's high-res camera. There it was—a faint shimmer around Marcus's hand, like heat distortion. His palm never actually made contact with the iron links.
"What is that?" Tony muttered.
"Insufficient data to provide an answer, sir."
Tony looked at Marcus. "You want to tell me what the hell this is? Because you definitely didn't mention you could do... that."
"Recent development," Marcus said, not taking his eyes off Abomination. "I'll explain later."
Then he locked eyes with the monster. "You know, you were having fun beating on Hulk a minute ago." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—not friendly. "How about I return the favor?"
Marcus's hand tightened around the invisible force gripping the chain. Then he pulled.
Abomination, three meters tall and built like a tank, lurched forward with a startled grunt. Off-balance. Helpless.
Marcus was already moving.
He closed the distance in a blur, and his fist—small, human-sized, almost comically inadequate—drove straight into Abomination's bald skull.
CRACK.
The sound echoed off buildings.
Abomination's head snapped back. His entire body went airborne, three hundred pounds of mutated muscle and rage lifting off the ground like he'd been hit by a truck.
"AAAAGHH!"
He flew backward, crashed into the street twenty feet away in an explosion of concrete and dust.
Marcus lowered his fist, shaking out his fingers casually. Like he'd just knocked on a door.
The street went dead silent.
Tony's jaw would've hit the ground if his helmet wasn't in the way. "Okay. Okay. What the—"
He couldn't even finish the sentence.
Abomination lay in a crater, one side of his face blurred and swollen. A fist-shaped indentation—maybe four inches across—was stamped deep into his skull. Blood and spit leaked from his mouth as he groaned, barely conscious.
The visual didn't compute. Marcus's fist next to Abomination's head was like comparing a cat's paw to a human face. How the hell...?
Marcus dusted off his hands, looking relaxed. Almost bored.
"Jarvis?" Tony said faintly. "Did that just happen?"
"Yes, sir. Confirmed impact force exceeds twenty tons concentrated into approximately ten cubic centimeters. The resulting pressure... well, sir, it's quite extraordinary."
"Extraordinary. Right. That's one word for it."
Abomination rolled in the crater, groaning. His head felt like it was splitting open—like his brain had been scrambled inside his skull. Everything hurt. His vision swam.
When had he last felt pain like this?
Marcus flexed his fingers, satisfied. Three months since returning from that other world. Three months of pushing his abilities further, refining his control. His telekinetic output had plateaued around twenty-five tons—thirty if he overclocked it, though that left him drained.
For regular use, he kept it at a comfortable twenty.
And the precision? That was the real trick. He could compress his telekinetic field down to the width of a human hair now—point-one millimeters. The density at that scale exceeded diamond.
That was why he could punch Abomination without breaking his own hand. A paper-thin shield covered his entire body, every square inch capable of withstanding twenty tons of force. If he concentrated his defense on one side, he could tank over a hundred tons.
Defense first, offense second. That was how you stayed alive.
"Dude." Tony stepped up beside him, staring at Marcus like he was an alien. "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen. How'd you do it?"
The envy in Tony's voice was palpable. This was his kind of power—raw, direct, undeniable. No fancy suit required.
Marcus had spent a long time thinking about his cover story. He'd checked—carefully—what existed in this reality. It was a weird fusion of MCU and Fantastic Four elements, but no X-gene. No mutants.
But there were Inhumans.
Perfect.
"You ever look into Inhumans?" Marcus said.
"Inhumans?" Tony frowned behind his mask. "Like... what, aliens?"
"Sort of. Ancient genetic experiments by the Kree. They've got a hidden city, the whole nine yards. Some of them have had their DNA lying dormant in the human population for thousands of years." Marcus shrugged. "Sometimes it activates. Random chance, weird circumstances. I got lucky, I guess."
"Lucky," Tony repeated. "You call punching a three-meter monster across the street lucky?"
"Better than getting punched by the three-meter monster."
Tony couldn't argue with that.
And if anyone tried to use anti-Inhuman measures against Marcus in the future? Well, they'd get a nasty surprise when none of it worked. A little misdirection never hurt.
Marcus glanced at Abomination, still groaning in his crater. Then at Hulk, starting to stir a few feet away.
(End of Chapter)
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