Marvel: Pure Superpowers, No Side Effects Throughout
Chapter 44 Sokovia
After the private jet leveled off, Ivy unbuckled her seatbelt, didn't lean toward Lynn, and simply tossed a folder across the aisle.
The pages scattered, revealing Norman Osborn's itinerary and a satellite map of the clinic.
"Rescheduled,"
Her voice had little fluctuation,
"Landing at six this morning, private charter, didn't take commercial."
Lynn picked it up and glanced at it:
"You stood me up, so I went to eat somewhere else, perfectly reasonable."
"Reasonable?"
Ivy took off her sunglasses, revealing a pair of chilling amber eyes,
"You still have the scent of lemon on you. Gwen Stacy's shampoo, supermarket drugstore brand."
Lynn closed the folder:
"How much is the intelligence fee?"
"No charge this time."
Ivy leaned back against the seat, crossing her legs,
"Collecting a favor. You owe me a proper meal, not fast food."
"Deal."
"Don't agree too fast,"
Ivy twitched the corner of her mouth,
"I'm a picky eater."
Before the plane landed, the two didn't speak anymore.
The freight elevator was in the clinic's backyard, and Ivy's hacking tool swiped open the access control.
The door opened, and a fishy, sweet scent of formalin mixed with metal surged out, making one's throat tighten.
The hallway sensor lights lit up with footsteps and went out with footsteps.
Ivy followed half a step behind Lynn, clutching a silenced pistol with her index finger resting against the trigger guard.
Basement level two, laboratory.
Behind the glass wall stood a row of culture pods, human-like silhouettes soaking in green liquid, their skin gleaming with an abnormal sheen.
Ivy glanced at it, her brow furrowing tightly:
"Norman's 'medical tourism' is treated quite thoroughly."
"The cross-species serum added a catalyst,"
Lynn stared at the pod label,
"Hydra's. He's not here to cure an illness, he's here to mutate."
A loud noise came from the end of the hallway.
The sound of a metal door being warped by impact.
Footsteps.
Fast, heavy.
Lynn pushed Ivy behind a load-bearing pillar:
"Stay put."
He went up to meet them himself.
Three people rushed out from the corner.
Black combat suits, metal arms, greyish eyes.
Winter Soldier's style, but newer, younger, with more exaggerated muscle lines.
The leader was a short-haired woman with a scar on her face from her brow bone to the corner of her mouth.
Seeing Lynn, with zero-frame startup, she threw a punch toward his face.
Lynn sidestepped, that punch blasting into the wall, chunks of concrete flying off.
He smoothly cut into her inner guard, elbowing her ribs. The woman let out a muffled grunt, her knee driving toward Lynn's lower abdomen.
Lynn pulled in his abdomen, that knee brushing past, and he gripped her shoulders, slamming his forehead toward the bridge of her nose.
The woman tilted her head to dodge, her movements faster than Bucky's.
The two Winter Soldiers behind her pounced simultaneously, one grabbing his leg, the other applying a chokehold.
Lynn jumped up, kicked off the wall with both feet, and flipped over the tops of the two men.
Landing, he grabbed the back of one's neck, pressed him to the ground, and followed up with a knee strike smashing into the spinal joints. The man let out a muffled grunt, collapsing to the ground and not moving again.
The one with the chokehold crept up from behind, his metal arm tightening around Lynn's neck.
Lynn counter-grabbed the opponent's wrist, sank his body, and executed a shoulder throw, hurling the person over his head and smashing them into the glass wall.
The culture pods shattered, spilling green liquid all over the floor.
Ivy poked her head out from behind the pillar, her muzzle pointing at the short-haired woman:
"Left!"
The short-haired woman had already pulled out a dagger, holding it reverse-grip, and thrust it toward Lynn's flank.
Lynn's Spider-Sense exploded, sidestepping in advance. The blade sliced through his shirt, drawing another line of blood next to his old wound.
He frowned, gripped her knife-wielding wrist, and twisted—with a snap, the dagger dropped to the ground.
A sweeping kick brought her down, his knee pressing onto her chest.
Lying in the green liquid, the woman stared at him with greyish eyes:
"Mission... failed..."
"Your generation,"
Lynn panted,
"Can't even change your lines?"
He knocked her out and tore off her communicator.
Ivy walked out from behind the pillar, pointing her muzzle toward the end of the hallway:
"Over there. There's movement."
At the end of the hallway, a heavy metal door was being warped from the inside by impacts.
With every impact, a section of the door bulged outward.
Lynn stood up, pushing Ivy back:
"Go. The freight elevator."
"Who's inside?"
"Norman."
The door collapsed with a crash.
Norman Osborn stood within the doorframe. His suit was split open, his skin turned grey-green, his veins protruding like black tree roots, his eyes were golden vertical pupils, and his breath carried the smell of sulfur.
He looked at Lynn, then at Ivy, making a rattling sound in his throat:
"Stark... you've come too... perfect... together... treatment..."
He initiated an instant attack with zero-frame startup.
Faster than all previous Winter Soldiers.
Just as Lynn's Spider-Sense exploded, Norman was already in front of him, swinging a heavy slap across.
Lynn raised his arm to block, his entire body sent flying horizontally, slamming into the load-bearing pillar and denting its surface.
Lynn tumbled to the ground, coughing up a mouthful of blood. The cracks in his ribs were rapidly repairing under accelerated self-healing, but Norman's strength exceeded expectations.
Ivy fired. The silenced pistol fired three rounds, all hitting Norman's chest.
The bullets embedded themselves as if hitting rubber. He looked down, reached out, and dug the bullets out—the blood was green.
He turned toward Ivy, his vertical pupils constricting:
"...Traitor."
"Norman, snap out of it. It's me, Ivy."
"Ivy..."
Norman tilted his head, then smiled, revealing distorted teeth,
"...Food."
He pounced toward Ivy.
Lynn bounced off the ground, cutting horizontally in front of her, slamming his shoulder into her body and shoving her three meters away.
Norman's claws brushed past Lynn's back, tearing his shirt to shreds, five bloody scratches instantly oozing blood.
Lynn turned around, facing Norman, and assumed a fighting stance. Blood trickled down his back.
"Norman,"
He said,
"Can you still hear me speaking?"
Norman tilted his head, his vertical pupils devoid of human light:
"...Purge..."
"Fine."
Lynn moved his shoulders, his joints cracking,
"Then I'll beat you until you reboot."
He met him head-on.
Norman threw a punch toward Lynn's chest. Lynn didn't retreat, taking it head-on, and smoothly gripped Norman's wrist, twisting his body in an attempt to hoist him up with a shoulder throw.
But Norman was too heavy, like an iron block taking root. Lynn only managed to yank him slightly off-center before the reaction force numbed the webbing between his thumb and index finger.
Norman's other hand grabbed toward Lynn's throat.
Lynn tilted his head, that grab leaving five bloody scratches on the side of his neck. He smoothly cut into the inner guard, landing a succession of punches against the opponent's ribs.
Thud, thud, thud, like beating a drum, but Norman only swayed and grinned.
"...Ticklish..."
"Shit."
Lynn took a step back.
Ivy rushed to the nearby terminal, plugged the communicator in, and frantically hammered away at the keyboard:
"Give me thirty seconds, I can hack into the ventilation system and release sleeping gas!"
"You only have twenty seconds!"
Norman turned toward her, attracted by the sound.
He abandoned Lynn and walked toward Ivy, every step leaving dents in the metal floor.
Lynn pounced from behind, locking his legs around Norman's neck, exerting force from his waist and abdomen to try and bring him down.
Norman reached back to grab Lynn, but Lynn stuck to his back like a spider, his fingers gripping Norman's zygomatic bone and jaw, exerting force in opposite directions.
"Ten seconds!"
Norman flailed wildly, slamming into the wall and crashing into the culture pods.
Glass shattered, splashing green liquid all over the two of them. Lynn's fingers were cut, blood mixing with the green liquid and dripping down, but he didn't let go.
"Five seconds!"
Ivy slammed the Enter key.
The ventilation system roared, and white gas poured down from the ceiling vents.
Norman took a breath, his movements lagging for a moment, and his vertical pupils began to scatter. He let out an inhuman howl, dropping to his knees, clutching his head with both hands, his fingernails clawing bloody marks into his deformed scalp.
Lynn slid down from his back, panting heavily, pulling Ivyto his side and covering her mouth and nose:
"Hold your breath. This stuff works on ordinary people too."
The two retreated to the freight elevator entrance.
Norman knelt on the ground, his howling turning into groans, and then into snores. His massive body crashed heavily to the ground, kicking up a splash of green liquid.
The elevator door opened.
Lynn pushed Ivy in, followed her inside, and leaned against the car wall, the bloody scratches on his back burning with pain.
He looked down at his hands, his knuckles covered in blood.
Ivy leaned against the other side, her hair damply plastered to her face, but her eyes looking at him were startlingly bright:
"...Your back, do you need stitches?"
"No. Accelerated self-healing, half an hour and it'll be fine."
"Then within that half hour,"
Ivy pulled a small hard drive from her bag, shaking it slightly,
"I copied Strucker's experimental logs. Howard Stark's name appeared seventeen times in it."
Lynn's gaze fixed on her face.
The elevator ascended, the lights flickering on and off across their faces.
"Seventeen times?"
He asked.
"Seventeen times."
Ivy shoved the hard drive back into her bag, "The last remark:
'Gene source sample, stored in the Stark Industriesunderground vault, authorization: Tony Stark, or DNA matcher.'"
Lynn didn't speak.
He watched the light seeping through the crack in the elevator doors, recalling what Tony had asked him in the safehouse:
"Who on earth are you?"
The elevator door opened.
Ivy walked out first, turning back to look at him:
"Let's go. This flight hasn't landed yet."
Chapter 45 Inheritance
When the plane landed at JFK Airport, Lynn's phone had vibrated seventeen times.
He sat by the porthole, the wound on his back still itching.
Accelerated self-healing had stitched the five bloody scratches left by Sokovia into pinkish-white marks, like a few centipedes crawling on his shoulder blades.
Ivy sat on the other side of the aisle, her trench coat buttoned to the top, looking down and swiping on her tablet.
She didn't speak, but Lynn caught a glimpse of CNN's breaking news push on the screen.
Norman Osborn, confirmed dead.
The official cause of death was "overseas medical malpractice",
but the accompanying picture showed the ruins of a clinic in the suburbs of Sokovia, with glowing green culture fluid flowing all over the ground, like someone had overturned a whole bucket of cheap matcha.
Lynn didn't click on it.
He turned his phone over and placed it face down on the small tray table.
"You've become the murderer."
Ivy didn't raise her head, her voice as light as reading a menu,
"At least Harry Osborn thinks so."
"Harold Theobald Osborn,"
Lynn corrected her,
"Norman's only son, twenty-two years old, MIT dropout, majoring in bioengineering, minoring in paranoia. I've seen him once, at Oscorp's annual meeting, standing in the corner, looking at people like they were in a culture dish."
"Now the culture dish has blown up,"
Ivy finally looked up, her amber eyes shimmering with a cold light,
"His dad died at your hands, do you think he'll send you a thank-you letter?"
"I didn't kill Norman."
"You beat him into a green-skinned toad, and then Struckerdelivered the final blow. To Harry, is there a difference?"
Lynn didn't answer.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, picked up the equipment bag from under his seat, and walked toward the cabin door.
Ivy followed closely, her high heels tapping crisp sounds on the metal pedals.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to Stark Industries,"
Lynn said,
"Before he gets ready, I have to weld my own door shut first."
Stark Industries, three levels underground, in front of the vault door.
Tony leaned against the wall, spinning a laser pointer in his hand, the red light sweeping back and forth across the metal door.
There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he had been punched twice, but he was as mentally excited as if he had just chugged five cups of espresso.
"You guys finally decided to come back?"
Tony glanced at Lynn, then at Ivy, twisting the corner of his mouth,
"I thought the two of you were going to open a bed and breakfast in Sokovia."
"Norman is dead,"
Lynn threw the equipment bag on the ground,
"Harry is getting ready to take the blame."
"I know."
Tony pressed the communication button on the wall, the screen lit up, playing a recording from twenty minutes ago.
In the footage, Harry Osborn stood in the lobby of the Oscorp headquarters, wearing a black suit, his blonde hair combed meticulously, his face as pale as if he had applied three layers of foundation.
The reporters' microphones were almost poking against his chin.
"What project was your father conducting in Sokovia?"
Harry didn't look at the reporters.
He stared straight at the camera, his pupils dilated greatly, like two glass marbles soaked in formalin,
exactly like his dad before the mutation.
"My father went to get medical treatment,"
Harry's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing against sheet iron,
"Someone didn't want him to be cured. Someone sneaked into his clinic, sabotaged his treatment, and then... killed him."
"Who are you referring to?"
The corners of Harry's mouth pulled into a stiff arc, not a smile, but a twitch of facial muscles:
"Stark Industries. A certain shareholder who has frequently contacted Oscorp's laboratories recently. I will find out. I will..."
He didn't finish speaking, turned around, and left.
But in the last two seconds of the recording, he turned his face slightly toward the camera, and his lips moved silently.
Lynn understood the lip-reading.
"Just you wait."
Tony turned off the screen, spinning the laser pointer a circle between his fingers:
"Lynn, you've been called out by name. That kid looks even more passionate than Norman, and is probably already sharpening his knife."
"Let him sharpen it,"
Lynn walked up to the vault door, "Open the door first."
Tony put away the laser pointer and pressed his thumb on the scanning area.
Lynn pressed on it too.
The red light flashed for three seconds and turned green.
The hydraulic lock hissed to relieve pressure, and the heavy metal door slid open.
The inside was smaller than expected.
A refrigerated cabinet, a titanium alloy file box, and an old photo of Howard hanging on the wall.
In the photo, the man was holding young Tony, smiling like an ordinary father.
Tony picked up the file box, his hand trembling unusually.
He opened it, and the yellowed experimental records popped out, Howard's handwriting as sharp as carved by a knife.
Project ADAM.
"Found it,"
Tony's voice was dry, "
You weren't an accidental pregnancy, nor an illegitimate child.
You are an embryo pieced together from Dad and Mom's stem cells, but there are seventeen pairs of chromosomes here... that do not belong to any known human database."
He turned the tablet toward Lynn.
On the screen was a string of gene chains, with several glowing blue sequences embedded in the spiral structure,
like a virus, like a parasite, like some kind of forcibly plugged-in cheat code."
Ivy leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms:
"Strucker calls it the 'Code of God'. They thought Norman went to Sokovia to cure his own illness, but actually he went to compare it—
He wanted to confirm whether your DNA could truly be compatible with all serums without collapsing."
Lynn stared at the screen without speaking.
"So the Winter Soldier mistook you for Howard?"
He asked.
"No,"
Tony looked up, his gaze as complex as an overturned palette,
"You look more like his dad than he does. You are the optimized version, the 'Perfect Stark' Dad wanted to create, except even he didn't know what kind of damn thing was mixed into this perfection."
Lynn reached out and pulled a handwritten sticky note from the bottom of the file box. In Howard's handwriting, the last line read:
"If Adam awakens, the World may be reconstructed. Use with caution. Do not trust gods."
Just as he folded the sticky note and stuffed it into his pocket, the entire building suddenly darkened for a second.
The moment the emergency lights came on, the alarm blasted.
"Stark Industries is under attack by unidentified flying objects,"
Jarvis's voice drifted from the broadcast, as calm as reporting the weather forecast,
"Quantity twelve, model is Oscorp's modified gliding drone. Recommendation—"
"Shut up, I know."
Tony cursed and shoved the file box back into the vault,
"That kid Harry started up in 0 frames."
Lynn turned and walked outward.
"Where are you going?"
Tony shouted.
"Upstairs,"
Lynn took off his coat, revealing the black tight combat suit inside,
"Welcoming guests."
Stark Industries main entrance square.
Twelve gliders hovered in the air, with glowing green paint, like a swarm of crazed dragonflies.
Underneath the belly of each craft hung miniature missiles, their warheads glowing with an abnormal fluorescence—
it was Norman's cross-species serum modified version, mutating anyone who touched it.
Harry stood on the rooftop opposite, not wearing a suit, but changed into a dark green combat uniform, stepping on a single-soldier glider board.
He carried a metal canister in his hand, with Oscorp's serpent logo printed on the body.
"Leon Stark!"
Harry's voice blasted down through the amplifier, carrying electronic noise processed by a voice changer,
"You killed my father! You destroyed everything of his!"
Lynn walked out of the door, stood on the steps, and looked up at him:
"I didn't kill him. He mutated, I just knocked him down."
"Liar!"
Harry raised the metal canister,
"He just wanted to survive! And you Starks are always high and mighty, never taking other people's lives seriously! Tony Stark builds weapons to kill people, what do you build? Monsters?"
Lynn didn't argue.
He looked at Harry's red eyes, knowing that reasoning at this time was useless.
A young man who had just lost his dad and injected an unstable serum had only one word left in his brain:
Smash.
"Then smash away,"
Lynn said in a low voice, then raised his volume,
"Jarvis, close the door. Clear the square."
The first glider swooped down, and the missile unhooked.
Lynn moved.
Spider-Sense exploded in the back of his head, like someone had pricked him with a needle.
He lunged sideways, the missile grazing his shoulder and slamming into the ground, exploding with a roar, chunks of concrete spraying all over him.
The Impact made his eardrums ache, but the bone density from the Fifty-Fifty Serum carried him through; he just swayed a bit and didn't fall.
The second and third ones swooped down simultaneously.
Lynn grabbed a metal roadblock on the ground and smashed it out with a full swing.
The roadblock spun into the air like a frisbee, precisely cutting into a glider's propeller. With a creak, that thing plummeted into the flower bed trailing black smoke.
Harry watched from the rooftop, his pupils contracting. He pressed the remote control, and the remaining eight gliders launched missiles simultaneously, creating a barrage coverage.
Lynn didn't run.
He rushed forward against the missile swarm, and at the moment before being hit, he was like a streak of black lightning, turning low against the ground, leaping up, grabbing the landing gear of a glider with both hands, using his waist and abdominal strength to flip his whole body onto the back of the craft.
"The stability is really poor," he cursed, punching a hole into the cockpit's circuit board.
Sparks exploded all over his face, and the glider lost control and fell. He jumped down three meters above the ground, rolling to dissipate the force, and knelt on one knee.
Missiles exploded in a chain behind him, the air wave pushing him forward sliding two meters.
Tony rushed out from the door, carrying a portable armor glove, just about to throw it to Lynn when Lynn raised his hand to stop him.
"No need,"
Lynn stood up, patted the dust off his knees,
"I'll handle it."
He looked up toward the rooftop.
Harry was no longer there.
The glider board roared out from the smoke. Harry stepped on it, gripping a metal baseball bat wrapped in high-voltage current, smashing it down at Lynn's head and face.
Lynn didn't dodge.
When the bat fell thirty centimeters above his head, the Spider-Sense mapped out the optimal trajectory—
He sidestepped, letting the bat brush past the tip of his nose. The high-voltage current scorched a lock of his hair, and he smelled a burning stench. Then his hand clamped onto Harry's ankle and yanked downward.
Harry fell off the glider board, and Lynn jumped up following him, driving his knee into Harry's lower abdomen.
The two of them slammed into the ground together. The concrete ground cracked.
Harry coughed up a mouthful of blood, but was still smiling. He gripped that canister of serum, his thumb pressing above the nozzle.
"Mutate together,"
he panted, his eyes frantic,
"How about it? A Stark turning into a monster must make great news."
He pressed the nozzle.
The moment the serum mist sprayed out, Lynn's palm was already covering the nozzle.
The liquid sprayed all over his hand, dripping down between his fingers, glowing green with a pungent chemical sweetness.
Lynn looked at Harry, his gaze unchanged. He clenched his fist, and the serum squeezed out from between his fingers, dripping onto the ground and corroding a few small pits.
"I'm immune,"
he said,
"Forgot to tell you, your dad used me as a culture dish for comparison. This stuff is useless on me."
Harry froze.
He looked at Lynn's hand, soaked in serum yet completely unchanged, the frantic look on his face slowly cracking into a dazed, childlike confusion.
"...Why?"
"Because your dad wrote the code wrong,"
Lynn said,
"and I happen to be a bug."
He raised his hand and chopped the side of Harry's neck with the edge of his hand.
The young man rolled his eyes, went limp, and the metal canister in his hand rolled to the ground, clanking.
The glider swarm lost control, crashing down from the sky one after another like dumplings.
Tony walked over, looking at the debris and smoking pits all over the floor, and then looking at Lynn's hand still dripping with green liquid, his Adam's apple moving—
"...You're alright?"
"I'm alright."
Lynn shook his hand, droplets splashing onto the ground and sizzling with smoke,
"But he's not. The serum has already entered his blood, just not in a large amount.
Send him to the hospital, or send him to S.H.I.E.L.D.; Furyshould be very interested in a live sample."
He bent down, picked up the metal canister, and examined the serpent logo on the body.
"Norman wanted to create a god,"
Lynn said,
"His son wanted revenge. In the end, what they created was still a monster."
Ivy walked out of the door, holding a tablet, her expression not looking too good:
"The news has blown up. Harry Osborn attacked Stark Industries, and the live videos are spreading like wildfire online.
Your trending search term right now is #StarkShareholderTearsApartDronesBarehanded#."
"Is the heat high?"
"Very high."
Ivy twitched the corners of her mouth,
"Natasha just sent a message saying Fury wants to see you.
And Hill, she said someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D. proposed putting you under 'protective custody', on the grounds that you are a walking biological weapon."
Lynn tossed the metal canister to Tony, turned around, and walked into the building.
"Let them come,"
he said,
"I just want to ask, does protective custody provide meals."
Chapter 46: Escort
The transport convoy assembled in the back alley of the Triskelion.
Three black SUVs, bulletproof glass, run-flat tires.
Harry sat in the back row of the middle one, his hands cuffed with an electromagnetic lock, his face as white as paper, but his eye sockets tinged with an abnormal bluish-black.
Lynn leaned against the front of the car, not wearing a suit, having changed into a black jacket.
Fury walked over, his single eye narrowing into a slit:
"He won't eat, drink, or sleep, and just keeps drawing."
"Drawing what?"
"Sketches."
Fury handed over the tablet,
"Strucker's main hive, and this Cassandra. He keeps muttering that only you can understand it."
Lynn glanced at it. The screen showed a chaotic mess of lines, like an anatomical diagram of neural synapses, with a curled-up human figure at the center, wrapped by countless fine threads.
The label was in Russian: Cassandra.
"I don't know Russian."
"He does."
Fury said, "And he says that the thing inside your body shares the same origin as Cassandra. Lynn, what on earth are you?"
"A diner."
Lynn handed the tablet back,
"Now, I'm going to coax him into eating."
He pulled open the car door and sat in the back row.
Harry raised his head, his pupils greatly dilated like two glass beads soaked in formalin.
He clutched a pen in his hand, scratching back and forth on the seat leather.
"You're here,"
Harry's voice was hoarse,
"They all don't believe me. They only believe instruments and data. But I know, you felt it, right? That thing is singing in your blood."
Lynn looked at him without answering.
There was a fresh wound on the back of Harry's hand, gouged out by himself, glowing with a greenish light beneath the blood scab.
The serum was modifying his cells.
"Singing?"
Lynn asked.
"Humming,"
Harry tilted his head, as if listening to a distant static,
"Like bees. Cassandra is waking everyone up. You, me, and those metal-armed puppets. We are all her swarm."
The convoy started.
Lynn saw from the rearview mirror that Hill was sitting in the front passenger seat of the lead car, and Natasha was riding a motorcycle at the tail of the convoy.
Ivy didn't come, saying she had to "audit the accounts."
The convoy got on the elevated highway. The sunlight was dazzling, and the traffic was sparse.
The Spider-Sense suddenly exploded.
The skin on the back of Lynn's head felt like it was being pricked by needles, and a dense stinging sensation darted from his cervical vertebrae to the top of his head.
He reached out abruptly, pressed Harry's shoulder, and pushed him down under the seat.
"Get down!"
Zero-frame startup.
The guardrail on the side of the elevated highway burst apart with a bang, and three gliders swooped down. Hanging under their bellies were not missiles, but grappling hooks.
The grappling hooks plunged into the roof of the middle SUV, the sound of metal tearing as grating as fingernails scratching a chalkboard.
Winter Soldier 2.0 rappelled down from the gliders.
Three of them, in black combat uniforms, with metal arms and grey, hazy eyes.
But they were sturdier than before, with green blood vessels twitching beneath their skin.
Green Goblin serum enhanced version.
Hill in the lead car pushed open the door and pointed her pistol upward:
"Ambush!"
Natasha's motorcycle engine roared, and she drew a submachine gun from behind her waist, firing single shots.
The bullets hit Winter Soldier's chest, splashing blood, but they only swayed a bit, as if bitten by a mosquito.
"Serum-enhanced,"
Natasha cursed in the communication channel,
"Aim for the head!"
Lynn kicked open the car door, dragged Harry out, and pinned him behind a wheel.
A Winter Soldier 2.0 landed in front of him with a zero-frame startup, its metal fist smashing toward Lynn's face.
Lynn sidestepped, and that punch blasted into the road surface, sending asphalt flying.
He smoothly cut into the opponent's inner circle, elbowing the ribs, which felt like hitting a rubber tire.
Winter Soldier 2.0 didn't retreat, backhanding a grab toward Lynn's throat. Lynn leaned back, and that grab left five bloody scratches on the side of his neck.
"Quite strong,"
Lynn cursed, hooked the opponent's wrist, twisted it, and used the leverage to slam him to the ground.
Winter Soldier 2.0 adjusted its posture in the air, kicked the ground with both feet, and landed steadily like a cat.
Another Winter Soldier 2.0 pounced on Harry.
Harry shrank behind the wheel, clutching the pen in his hand, and suddenly started laughing maniacally:
"They're here! Cassandra's swarm is here!"
Lynn picked up a shattered piece of guardrail from the ground and swung it hard, hurling it over.
The fragment spun like a frisbee into the back of Winter Soldier 2.0's head, and the person lunged forward, their metal arm scraping a string of sparks on the ground.
But the third Winter Soldier 2.0 had already grabbed Harry, dragging him out from behind the wheel.
The electromagnetic lock was still on Harry's wrist; he stumbled as he was dragged, but was still laughing:
"Take me away! Take me to Cassandra! I want to see her!"
"You won't get to see her,"
Lynn's voice came from behind Winter Soldier 2.0.
He jumped up, locked his legs around Winter Soldier 2.0's neck, exerted force from his waist and abdomen, and hung upside down on its back.
His fingers hooked into the shoulder joint of the opponent's metal arm and twisted in reverse—crack. Hydraulic lines burst, and green serum mixed with coolant sprayed out, splashing all over Lynn's face.
Winter Soldier 2.0 knelt down, and Harry fell to the ground.
Lynn slid down from its back, and before he could steady himself, a scream came from the other side of the elevated highway.
Peter Parker.
He was wearing a crude red and blue suit that he sewed himself, with loose threads still showing on the outside.
He stood on top of an abandoned taxi, shooting web-fluid from his hands, trying to snare a glider, but the web stuck to a lamppost and yanked him flying away.
"Shit—"
Peter's voice changed pitch as he flailed around in the air and then smashed toward the ground.
Lynn rushed over.
The second before Peter was about to hit the ground face-first, Lynn caught him, and the two rolled together to dissipate the impact force.
A large hole was worn through the knee of Peter's suit, revealing the bleeding flesh inside.
"Who are you?"
Lynn put him down and asked.
"I... I..."
Peter stuttered, pushing up his glasses,
"I'm... your friendly neighborhood..."
"Neighborhood my ass,"
Lynn said,
"Does Gwen know you're out strolling dressed like this?"
Peter's expression froze.
He looked at Lynn, his gaze shifting from panic to something sharp and prickly:
"You... how do you know Gwen?"
"I know more than you do,"
Lynn pushed him behind the guardrail,
"Stay put. Don't move. This isn't your scene."
"What's your relationship with her?"
Peter didn't move, his voice raising,
"You were with her last night, weren't you? I saw the location on her phone, Stark Industries' hotel! You—"
A glider swooped down, a missile unhooking.
Lynn's Spider-Sense exploded; he shoved Peter down, and the missile exploded grazing their scalps, the shockwave flipping Peter three meters away, burning a hole in the back of his suit.
Lynn got up, patted the dust off his knees, and walked toward the glider.
He jumped up, grabbed the landing gear, punched a hole into the cockpit circuit board, and then jumped down, watching it plunge into the river.
He walked back to Peter's side.
Peter lay on the ground, panting heavily, his gaze scattered, but still asking:
"Who... who on earth... are you?"
"Leon Stark,"
Lynn squatted down and looked at him,
"Your girlfriend's... shareholder."
Peter's face twisted.
He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white, but his suit was too severely damaged for him to even have the strength to stand up.
Lynn stood up and walked toward Harry.
Harry was pinned to the ground by Natasha, still laughing, green blood oozing from the corners of his mouth.
"Cassandra is waiting for you,"
Harry looked at Lynn, his pupils contracting to the size of needlepoints,
"She has been waiting for you for a long time. Ever since the day you were born, she has been waiting."
Lynn didn't speak. He bent down, pulled the pen out of Harry's hand, and then punched him in the temple.
Harry rolled his eyes and passed out cold.
Hill walked over, her muzzle still pointing at the sky:
"The transport vehicles are totaled. I've called in a helicopter, arriving in five minutes."
"What about him?"
Lynn pointed at Peter.
"Who?"
Hill frowned, looking at the red and blue figure behind the guardrail,
"That... cosplayer?"
"Gwen's friend,"
Lynn said,
"Send him to the hospital, or send him home. Don't let him wander around out here again."
Hill raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask further. She waved her hand, and two Agents walked over, hoisting Peter up.
As Peter was dragged away, he kept looking back at Lynn, his eyes mixed with anger, jealousy, and a sort of blankness after being completely crushed.
Lynn turned around, walked to the edge of the elevated highway, and looked at the glider wreckage on the river surface.
His phone vibrated.
Gwen's text message:
"We need to talk."
Hill stood beside him, glanced at the screen, retracted her gaze expressionlessly, took out another phone from her pocket, and swiped it twice:
"I intercepted this. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s encrypted channel; your communications are under my jurisdiction now."
Lynn looked at her:
"You sure like to meddle."
"A Deputy Commander's duty,"
Hill said, her voice as flat as a steel plate,
"protecting important assets from being... interfered with by personal feelings."
She stuffed the phone back into her pocket and turned to command the scene.
Lynn looked at her back, then looked at the river surface, muttering to himself:
"So what."
Chapter 47: One Last Time
Gwen sat at the foot of the bed, her blonde hair still wet, as if she had just taken a shower.
She was wearing that black tight-fitting knit sweater with frayed cuffs, and there was a dark stain on the knee of her ripped jeans, probably picked up at the bar last night.
Lynn leaned against the window, without turning on the overhead light.
"Where is Peter?"
Gwen cut straight to the point.
"Safe."
"Safe?"
Gwen stood up and took two steps closer to him,
"He went out dressed like that last night, didn't return to the lab this morning, and his phone location disappeared. And you're telling me he's safe?"
Lynn looked at her:
"He was wearing a red and blue tight suit, swinging on the viaduct, and almost got blown down by a missile.
I handed him over to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s people, and right now he should be at some secret medical outpost or his aunt's house. I can't manage every single detail."
Gwen's eyelashes trembled slightly:
"He... is he hurt?"
"Scrapes. Mostly his ego."
Lynn paused,
"He asked me what my relationship with you is."
"How did you answer?"
"I said, I am your shareholder."
Gwen froze for half a second, then suddenly let out a laugh with a hint of desolation:
"Shareholder. Good, very good."
She walked up to Lynn and looked up at him.
The distance was very close, and he could smell the lemon scent in her hair, along with a lingering trace of tequila.
"I received a text message,"
Gwen said,
"It showed as delivered, but you didn't reply. I thought you didn't intend to see me."
Lynn frowned. He thought of Hill's interception phone.
"I didn't receive it."
"Liar."
"Hill intercepted it,"
Lynn said,
"She is now the S.H.I.E.L.D. Deputy Commander and my communications censor."
Gwen's expression changed.
She raised her hand and punched him in the chest, not heavily, but with a fierce urge to vent:
"You people... always treat people like chess pieces. Peteris, and so am I."
Lynn grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer:
"You aren't."
"Then what am I?"
Lynn didn't answer.
He lowered his head and kissed her.
Gwen stiffened for a second, then responded.
Her kiss had a biting edge to it, as if she wanted to leave some sort of mark on him, or wipe something away.
Her hand slid in through his collar, her fingernails scratching a red mark on his back.
"One last time,"
Gwen panted, her lips pressed against his chin,
"This time, we are even. I don't owe you, and you don't owe me."
Lynn looked at her, his blue eyes shimmering with moisture in the dim light:
"Are you sure?"
"Sure."
He didn't speak again, raising his hand to turn off the light.
In the darkness, there was only the rustling sound of clothing friction and suppressed breathing.
Gwen acted as if she wanted to exhaust something, her movements urgent and fierce, but in the end, she lay on his shoulder, her voice shattered beyond recognition, her fingernails sinking into his flesh, yet it felt like a cry for help.
After a long while, Gwen propped herself up, picked up her clothes from the floor, and put them on one by one.
With her back to him, her voice regained its calmness, and even sounded a bit cold: "We're even."
Lynn lay on the bed, watching her button the last button of her knit sweater, pull open the door, and walk out. The door clicked shut softly.
The room quieted down.
He stared at the ceiling, and after about thirty seconds, suddenly raised his hand to cover his eyes, muttering to himself:
"So what if I'm a Cao-style scoundrel."
His phone vibrated at that moment. Hill's name flashed.
He answered it, his voice carrying a post-event languidness:
"Hello?"
"Harry Osborn's mutation has accelerated,"
Hill's voice was like a steel plate,
"He just tore open the medical pod's titanium-alloy door with his bare hands and killed two guards. Fury wants you to come over immediately."
Lynn sat up, blood still rushing to his head:
"Did he mention Cassandra?"
"He did. He said Cassandra is summoning the swarm, and you are the Queen Bee."
Hill paused,
"Also, Gwen Stacy just left the hotel, I saw her downstairs. Are you two done talking?"
Lynn looked at the creases on the bedsheets and her hair tie dropped on the floor.
"Done talking,"
He said,
"We're even."
"Then why was she crying?"
Lynn's fingers stopped on the hair tie.
"... Hanging up."
He hung up the phone, picked up the hair tie, and tossed it into his pocket.
Outside the window, New York's sky was gray and murky.
Chapter 48: Swarm
The iron door of the medical station crooked to one side, blood seeping through the crack, sticking to the soles of the shoes, making a sound with every step.
Lynn walked in, Harry sitting in the center of a pool of blood, his dark green jacket ripped open, his skin a grayish-blue, and his blood vessels crawling like black tree roots from his neck to his face.
He clenched a piece of shattered glass in his hand, dipping it in blood to paint on the floor — — a curled-up human figure, countless fine threads entangling it, and a string of coordinates.
Sokovia. Abandoned nuclear power plant.
"You're here,"
Harry didn't look up, his vertical pupils staring at the blood painting,
"Cassandra has been waiting for you for a long time."
"What are you waiting for me for?"
"To upload you."
Harry tilted his head, the corners of his mouth twitching into a deformed arc,
"You are the last piece of the puzzle. Only when the Queen Bee returns home is the Hive considered complete."
"What about the others?"
"Tony Stark. Maria Hill. Natasha Romanoff."
Harry said word by word,
"And that kid wearing the red and blue tights.
If they go, they'll just be nourishment for the swarm."
Lynn squatted down, looking him in the eye:
"What if I don't go?"
"You will go. Because you're curious. You're curious about what kind of monster Howard really created. You're curious about why you are a bug."
Harry raised his hand, his fingertips dipping in blood, and pointed toward the center of Lynn's brow.
Lynn didn't dodge. The blood was as cold as ice.
"Three days later, a total lunar eclipse. That's when the signal is strongest.
Miss this time, and you wait another seventeen years."
Finished speaking, Harry rolled his eyes and fell straight down, splashing a circle of ripples in the pool of blood.
Lynn stood up and wiped the blood on his forehead.
Footsteps came from behind.
Tony walked in, his suit unchanged, carrying a portable armor case in his hand, his face as white as paper, but his eyes frighteningly bright.
"I heard it,"
Tony put the case down on the ground,
"Three days later, Sokovia. I'm going with you."
"No need."
"I call the shots."
Tony kicked the case open, and the armor plates snapped open,
"I'm your brother, and that old bastard used me and Mom's stem cells to create you. For this case, I have the right to attend."
He fastened the armor plates onto his body, his fingers trembling.
Pepper Potts pushed the door open and rushed in, her high heels clicking loudly on the ground.
She was clutching a tablet in her hand, her hair uncombed and messy.
"Tony Stark,"
She slammed the tablet directly onto the console,
"Are you going to throw your life away again? The Board of Directors just suppressed it, the stock price just stabilized, and you're running off to Eastern Europe dressed like a tin can?"
Tony didn't stop, continuing to buckle his chest plate:
"I have to go. That's my brother."
Pepper abruptly turned her head to look at Lynn, her gaze scanning him from head to toe like an X-ray.
She had seen him two months ago at a Stark Industriescocktail party, when she thought he was some distant relative looking to scam money.
"Your brother?"
Pepper sneered,
"Two months ago you hadn't even acknowledged him, and now you're going to risk your life for him?"
"Two months is long enough."
Tony fastened the last shoulder piece, and the reactor lit up with a cold blue light,
"Pepper, step aside. There's no negotiating this."
"I'm not negotiating with you either."
Pepper picked up the tablet from the ground and shoved it into Tony's hands,
"The backup restart protocol for Jarvis 2.0, I wrote it last night.
If the main AI gets hacked, use this to restore factory settings. Don't die yet, I haven't gotten my year-end bonus."
Tony was stunned for a moment, looked down at the tablet, and the corners of his mouth twitched:
"...Didn't you say you were going to resign last night?"
"Changed my mind."
Pepper turned around and walked over to Lynn.
She was half a head shorter than Lynn, but her aura was like she was looking at a disobedient intern.
"You,"
Her index finger poked against Lynn's chest, with quite a bit of force,
"Take good care of him. The reactor in his armor's chest has a design flaw; it will melt if the overload exceeds 300%. Don't let him play the hero, he only knows how to blow up fireworks."
Lynn nodded:
"I'll try."
"Not try, guarantee."
Pepper retracted her hand, standing with her arms crossed,
"If he loses a single hair, I'll strike you from Stark Industries, and by the way, transfer all those messy shares of yours to the NYPD pension fund."
"Got it."
Pepper took one last look at Tony, turned and walked out, stopping at the door without turning back:
"Tony, come back alive. You promised to accompany me to that French restaurant, and the tickets are already booked."
Tony fastened his mask, his voice coming out from inside, muffled:
"...Definitely."
The door closed behind Pepper.
JFK Airport, private tarmac.
The quinjet's propellers were preheating, the wind blowing so hard people could barely stand steady.
Hill stood at the cabin door, dressed in a black combat suit, her short hair flying in disarray.
She saw the dried blood mark on Lynn's forehead, her brow furrowed slightly, but she didn't ask.
Natasha leaned against the landing gear, spinning a tactical dagger with a beaming smile:
"Yo, bringing family along? Did the Deputy Commanderagree?"
"I didn't agree,"
Hill's voice drifted over from the wind,
"But Fury approved it. Tony is accompanying as a technical consultant.
If anything happens, S.H.I.E.L.D. is not responsible for collecting the body."
Tony let out a sneer from inside the armor mask:
"Thanks, I bought myself insurance."
Lynn lifted his foot to board the plane.
The Spider-Sense exploded.
Overhead, a red and blue figure swung down from the terminal roof, web sticking to the nose of the aircraft, the whole person dangling and swaying in mid-air.
Peter Parker. The knees of his battle suit had patches on them, and the eye areas on his mask were painted with crooked black patterns,
which he painted himself.
"You! Get down!"
Peter pulled the web with one hand and pointed at Lynnwith the other,
"Where is Gwen? She was with you last night, and then she disappeared! Her phone isn't going through,
and she's not going to the lab! What did you do to her?!"
Lynn stood at the cabin door, looking down at him:
"She went home."
"Liar!"
Peter aimed his web-shooter at Lynn's face,
"She cried! I can feel it! You bullied her, didn't you?
Just like you bully everyone else! You think that just because you have money and armor, you can casually—"
"Peter."
Lynn interrupted him.
Peter froze.
It was the first time Lynn called his name.
"Gwen is an adult,"
Lynn said,
"She made her choice.
You can disagree, but you can't settle accounts on her behalf.
Now move aside. I'm going to stop a monster that's mutated even worse than you.
If you really want to help her, go back to Queens, watch her father, and don't let the NYPD get dragged in to throw their lives away."
Peter's shooter was trembling.
He hung in mid-air like a kite blown out of shape.
Five seconds later, he released the web, landed on the ground, and took two steps back.
"...I'll find out the truth,"
Peter's voice lowered, carrying a shattered viciousness,
"If I find out you hurt her..."
"What will you do?"
Tony chimed in from the cabin door,
"Glue his slippers with web?"
Peter looked up at Tony, glanced at Lynn again, turned and ran toward the edge of the terminal, leapt off, and disappeared behind the roof.
Natasha whistled:
"That's not funny."
Lynn didn't laugh.
He touched his pocket, where Gwen's hair tie was still clenched.
After the quinjet took off, Hill threw the tablet computer to Lynn.
"Gwen Stacy,"
Hill's voice was as flat as a steel plate,
"Twenty minutes ago, she contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. through NYPD internal channels, requesting to become a temporary consultant for the Cassandra project.
The condition is that her father doesn't participate in the investigation, and..."
She paused.
"And what?"
"And, she wants to interrogate you personally."
Hill looked at him, her grey-green eyes bottomless,
"About last night, what on earth you two talked about."
Lynn put down the tablet and looked out the porthole.
Tony was buckling his armor gloves nearby without raising his head:
"So what? You've already been reborn, you want it all. Just an interrogation, what are you afraid of?"
Lynn muttered to himself, his voice so soft only Tony could hear:
"...I'm done for."
Chapter 49 Total Lunar Eclipse
The quinjet landed in the wheat fields on the border of Sokovia.
The cabin door opened, and the night air poured in, carrying the scent of soil and distant pine needles.
Tony was the first to jump down, his armor joints emitting a slight hydraulic hiss.
He turned back and reached out, wanting to support the person behind him, but Lynn had already landed past him, moving half a step faster than him.
"You're always like this,"
Tony withdrew his hand, pushing up his mask to reveal a sleep-deprived face,
"Making me look slow."
"You're slow to begin with,"
Lynn was checking the tactical watch on his wrist,
"With two hundred pounds added to the armor, it's a miracle Jarvis calibrated it well enough not to crush you into the dirt."
"Thanks for the compliment, sir."
Jarvis's voice drifted out from the armor, urbane and polite,
"Though Mr. Stark did indeed take an extra zero point three seconds during landing."
"Shut up, Jarvis."
Hill followed down, her black combat suit fitting snugly, with two rows of magazines hanging at her waist.
When she landed, her knees bent slightly, making no sound. Natasha came out last, carrying a long case, slinging it over her shoulder, her red hair sweeping back and forth in the night wind.
"So,"
Natasha put down the case, drawing two modified submachine guns from inside,
"What's the plan? Rush in, blow up the reactor, and then go home for a bath?"
"The plan is in three steps,"
Tony raised a finger,
"First step, I hack into their main control and find Strucker's location.
Second step, you guys clear the field. Third step, Lynn goes to have a heart-to-heart talk with him and persuade him to surrender."
"A heart-to-heart talk?"
Hill raised one eyebrow,
"Are you sure?"
"Not sure,"
Tony shrugged, the metal plates on his armor shoulders clicking,
"So I brought a backup plan."
He pulled a small iron box from the side pocket of his armor and shook it, the soft sound of pills colliding coming from inside:
"Pepper gave it, said it was chocolate, but actually it's high-concentration caffeine.
She said if I'm going to die, I at least have to die awake."
Suddenly there was a static sizzle in the channel, and a girl's voice cut in:
"Mr. Stark, according to S.H.I.E.L.D. regulations, privately carrying undeclared food into a combat zone violates Article 17 of the logistics regulations."
It was Gwen.
Her voice carried a bit of electronic static, obviously accessed via a remote terminal.
Tony paused for a second, looking at Lynn:
"You gave her the channel password?"
"Fury gave it,"
Lynn said,
"She's a consultant for the command post now."
"Consultant,"
Gwen's voice paused,
"Mainly responsible for watching someone to make sure he doesn't mess around."
"I don't mess around,"
Lynn said.
"Last night you..."
Gwen was halfway through when the sound of flipping paper came over the channel, and she changed the subject,
"Thermal scans of the reactor perimeter show no living people.
But there are biological signals on the third underground level, many of them, overlapping together, like—"
"Like a beehive,"
Natasha took over, already checking her weapon's safety,
"We know."
"Be careful,"
Gwen said, her voice dropping lower,
"The frequency of those signals is changing, like they're breathing in sync."
Hill pressed her earpiece:
"Received. Keep the channel clear."
She looked up at Lynn, her grey-green eyes very bright in the dark:
"That wound on your forehead, get it treated."
Lynn touched it, the bloody mark left by Harry, which had already scabbed over:
"It's fine."
"Get it treated,"
Hill repeated, pulling a disinfectant wipe from her waist pouch and throwing it over,
"I don't want to write in my report that an Agent died of a wound infection during a total lunar eclipse."
Lynn caught the wipe and wiped his forehead. Tonywatched from the side and suddenly chuckled.
"What are you laughing at?"
Hill asked.
"Nothing,"
Tony waved his hand,
"Just think your S.H.I.E.L.D. benefits are quite thoughtful. Got any wipes? I'm sweating inside my armor."
"No."
"Never mind then."
The nuclear power plant looked like an abandoned steel church, its cooling towers casting long shadows in the moonlight.
There were no lights, no guards, and the heavy doors were wide open, like a mouth waiting for people to walk in.
Tony walked at the very front, the scanning light on his armor's palm sweeping across the ground:
"No mines, no infrared. Too clean to be Hydra's style."
"Because they don't need to,"
Lynn said, "The entire building is Strucker."
Jarvis suddenly spoke up:
"Sir, I detect low-frequency electromagnetic waves, the frequency synchronizing with human brainwaves. I suggest disabling external audio reception to prevent—"
Before the words finished, the nuclear plant's broadcasting system sprang to life.
It was a man's voice, very gentle, carrying a bit of an old-school broadcasting accent, like a late-night radio show host:
"Welcome, everyone. I am Strucker. Or, you may call me Cassandra's butler."
Tony's armor stiffened for a second:
"Jarvis? Trace the signal source."
"Unable to trace, sir.
The signal is coming from all speakers inside the building, playing simultaneously."
Strucker's voice echoed in the empty hall with a slight echo:
"Don't bother, Mr. Stark.
Your AI is cute, reminds me of Howard's early work. Crude, but full of ambition."
"Thanks for the compliment,"
Tony sneered,
"Much better than this crappy broadcast of yours."
"Lynn,"
Strucker's voice suddenly shifted, like a spotlight shining on Lynn,
"You've come. I've waited too long, so long that I've forgotten the meaning of time.
Do you still have Harry's blood on your forehead? That kid, too impatient, always opening gifts early."
Lynn didn't raise his head, his gaze falling on the ground. There was a thin line of blood there, stretching all the way from the door deep into the reactor, like a guiding thread.
"You want me to walk in?"
Lynn asked.
"I want you to come home,"
Strucker said, his voice carrying a bizarre gentleness,
"Howard brought you over from 'the other side', placed you in Maria's womb, making you think you were an ordinary person.
But you never were. You are the bridge, the key, the Queen Bee. And I, am merely the gatekeeper of the Hive."
Hill and Natasha looked at Lynn at the same time.
Natasha's look asked "What did he say",
Hill's look asked "Is it true".
Lynn didn't answer.
He followed the bloodline and took three steps forward.
"Stop,"
Hill said.
Lynn didn't stop.
Tony reached out to grab him, his armor's fingers just touching Lynn's shoulder when all the lights in the hall suddenly blazed on.
Not ordinary incandescent lights, but blood-red emergency lights, dyeing the entire space in a dark red glow.
On the broadcast, Strucker's voice changed, blending with a female, synthetic harmony, like two people speaking at once:
"The total lunar eclipse has begun. Six minutes. Lynn, walk to the core, I'll show you a gift. The true heritage Howardleft for you."
"What heritage?"
Lynn asked.
"Where you came from."
A young voice suddenly broke into the channel, carrying panting and current static:
"Gwen? Are you in the channel? I heard you! Where are you?"
Peter.
Gwen's voice panicked instantly:
"Peter? How did you get in? This is an encrypted channel!"
"I hacked into the NYPD satellite, and then hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s backup relay station,"
Peter's voice carried a bit of smugness, and a bit of grievance,
"I'm almost at the nuclear plant! Don't you guys go in, that place... that place smells wrong!"
"Smells?"
Natasha raised an eyebrow.
"My senses... have become stronger,"
Peter panted,
"I can smell something rotting inside, yet it's alive.
Like a whole supermarket of expired meat breathing at the same time."
Tony rolled his eyes, his armor mask clicking shut:
"Great, now our team has a flying spider nose.
Jarvis, recalculate the combat plan."
"Plan updated, sir. Suggestion:
Have Mr. Parker enter through the cooling tower vent, his build is suitable for duct work."
"I am not suitable for ducts!"
Peter shouted in the channel,
"I... well, I might be suitable."
Gwen's voice cut back in, regaining her composure:
"Peter, listen to Jarvis. Enter through the B-3 vent, which connects to the reactor cooling layer where the swarm signal is weakest."
"Do you care about me?"
Peter asked.
"I'm working,"
Gwen said, but her speech sped up a beat,
"Don't die."
Hill pressed her earpiece and looked at Lynn:
"We're out of time. What do you plan to do?"
Lynn looked at that line of blood, its end being a heavy lead door,
with a palm print scanner on it, glowing with a faint blue light.
"He invited me,"
Lynn said, "Then I'll go."
"I'm going with you,"
Tony said.
"No,"
Lynn turned back, looking at Tony's mask,
"You stay here and keep the channel clear.
If I lose connection, use Pepper's protocol to reboot Jarvis, and then blow up this place."
"Sounds like last words,"
Natasha said.
"Not last words,"
Lynn smiled faintly, very softly,
"It's a backup plan."
He turned and walked toward the lead door.
Tony shouted from behind:
"No matter where you came from, remember to come back! I still have to ask you about the DNA thing!"
Lynn didn't turn back, raised his hand,
and made an "OK" sign.
The lead door slid open automatically as he approached, revealing a downward-sloping tunnel inside, with incubation chambers embedded in the walls, each chamber floating with a humanoid outline, their skin glowing with a faint green light.
Strucker's voice came from the end of the tunnel with a chuckle:
"Welcome home, Lynn. Four minutes until the total lunar eclipse. Enough for us to have a nice chat."
Chapter 50 Queen Bee
At the end of the corridor was a circular cabin.
Strucker sat in the center, or rather, his body grew out of the console.
Connected to cables and pipes below the waist, like a tree grafted onto steel.
He looked up, saw Lynn walking in, and a smile appeared on his face:
"Punctual. If Howard saw what you look like now, he would be very proud."
Lynn stopped, his gaze sweeping across the screen behind him:
"You must be Strucker? Thinner than in the photos."
"The photos were from ten years ago,"
Strucker looked down at his semi-mechanical body,
"Now I don't need to eat, just electric current. Saves a lot of trouble."
Tony's voice came through the broadcast, accompanied by the clicking sounds of armor joints:
"Lynn, can you hear me? Jarvis said you entered a signal dead zone, but I hacked into their backup power channel."
"Hey, did this old guy plug himself into an outlet?"
Strucker raised an eyebrow:
"The eldest son of the Stark Family, still running your mouth."
"Thanks for the compliment,"
Tony said,
"Where's my brother? Is he alive?"
"Alive,"
Lynn spoke up,
"And a bit bored. You called me here just to show off your weight loss results?"
Strucker was momentarily stunned, then laughed out loud.
The laughter echoed in the cabin, carrying a genuinely amused undertone:
"You're more... relaxed than I imagined. Good, the integration will be easier this way."
He pressed a button.
The screen lit up, showing an old recording.
Howard Stark.
Wearing a lab coat, standing in some ice field laboratory, holding a sealed tube containing glowing blue liquid.
"This is the ADAM sample,"
Howard in the recording said,
"Not from Earth. Not human. But it chose us... or rather, it chose me."
Strucker looked at Lynn:
"Do you understand? You weren't manufactured, you were discovered."
"Howard found a fragment in the North Pole, sealing this gene inside."
"He brought it back to the human world in his own way,"
"And placed it in your mother's womb, making you think you were the son of the Stark Family."
In the channel, Gwen's voice cut in with professional calmness:
"From a biological perspective, if that gene has high adaptability, it would actively fuse with the host's DNA rather than being passively cultured."
"Lynn, your blood sample..."
"Gwen?"
Peter's voice suddenly popped up, accompanied by gasps and the light clatter of metal collisions,
"You're in the channel? I heard you! I just fell out of the ventilation duct,"
"And flattened a... uh, mutated security guard? He had six hands!"
"The six-handed one is a Type B mutant,"
Gwen immediately switched modes,
"Peter, his weakness is at the joints of the third pair of limbs, where there is no bone protection."
"Received!"
Peter's web-shooter made a swishing sound,
"Hey, Miss Natasha, leave the one on the left to me!"
"Don't block my trajectory,"
Natasha's voice carried a smile,
"Kid."
"I'm not a kid, I... Whoa!"
Hill's voice cut in, steady, but with gunfire in the background:
"Stark, perimeter clearance progress is 70%. What's the core situation on your end?"
Tony:
"I'm watching home videos. Howard, I really didn't expect you to have this kind of vlog."
Lynn stared at Howard's face on the screen.
That face overlapped with the photo in his memory, yet was somewhat different.
Younger, more exhausted, with a kind of... awe in his eyes?
"So,"
Lynn spoke, his voice bland,
"I'm an alien bastard?"
"You are the bridge,"
Strucker said, "The connection point between humanity and a higher existence."
"Cassandra needs your gene to complete evolution."
"As long as you let me connect to your neural interface and upload your consciousness sample, all of this can end. No fighting, no death."
"Sounds like a pyramid scheme,"
Lynn said.
"What?"
"I said,"
Lynn stepped closer,
"Your pitch sounds like those people calling to sell financial products. Just invest a little and you can achieve immortality. I've heard better versions."
Strucker's expression froze.
He clearly didn't expect this reaction.
In the channel, Tony snorted with laughter:
"Bro, I'll treat you to a big meal when we get back. Your mouth is sharper than mine."
"Mr. Stark,"
Jarvis gently reminded,
"The energy reading of the reactor core is rising, evacuation is recommended as soon as possible."
"No rush,"
Tony said,
"Let him chat a bit more."
Strucker took a deep breath,
If that semi-mechanical body could still breathe.
He stretched out his hand, revealing a neural interface probe in his palm, glowing with a dim blue light:
"You don't believe me, it doesn't matter. But you'll believe this."
He slammed it towards Lynn's temple.
Lynn didn't dodge.
The moment of contact, a current surged in.
Strucker's eyes lit up, as if power had finally been connected:
"It's starting... Cassandra, record his brainwave frequency..."
But the next second, Strucker's expression changed.
His mechanical arm began to tremble, sparks emerging from the interface, as if the circuit was backfilled with high voltage.
"Not right... What is this... Why is your consciousness devouring..."
Lynn stood in place, his expression calm. He felt something awakening inside his body, not a system, but something more primitive, like genetic instinct.
It was rejecting external invasion, like an immune system attacking a virus.
"Sorry,"
Lynn said,
"I'm probably... incompatible."
Strucker let out a miserable scream, his mechanical arm bursting apart from the interface.
His entire body popped out of the console, crashing to the ground, cables twitching like severed umbilical cords.
"Backlash,"
Gwen said quickly in the channel,
"His AI core is collapsing! Tony, you can cut off the main control now!"
"Received!"
Tony's fingers danced across the armor's keyboard,
"Jarvis, inject Pepper's chocolate protocol"
"I mean, restart protocol!"
"Executing, sir."
The lights in the cabin began to flash frantically.
Strucker lay flat on the ground, half of his face still maintaining a human expression, the other half already revealing the metal skeleton underneath.
He looked at Lynn, his voice broken:
"What... what on Earth is inside you..."
"I don't know,"
Lynn said honestly,
"But I guess Howard installed a firewall for me."
He turned and walked out.
"Wait!"
Strucker rasped,
"Cassandra has already remembered you... She will watch you in every place with a signal... You can't escape..."
"Then let her look,"
Lynn didn't look back, "I don't charge admission."
In the corridor, Hill and Natasha had already fought their way in, followed by Peter.
Peter's battle suit was tattered, but he was dragging a huge metal pipe in his hand.
"Lynn!"
Peter dropped the pipe,
"Are you alright? Gwen was dying of worry!"
"I wasn't dying of worry,"
Gwen's voice in the channel immediately corrected,
"I was analyzing data. Strucker's core collapse will cause the reactor to melt down, you have six minutes to evacuate."
"Six minutes?"
Natasha checked her ammunition,
"Enough to brew a cup of coffee."
"Then brew it while running,"
Hill turned around,
"Tony, where are you?"
"Helping you open the door,"
Tony's voice came from ahead, standing at the corridor entrance, his armor's palm pressed against the control panel,
"Jarvis says the meltdown sequence has started, but I can delay the cooling valve closure... about three minutes."
"Then run!"
Lynn gave Peter a shove,
"You lead the way, spider nose."
"I'm not leading the way, I... Okay, I'll lead the way!"
Peter shot a web, swinging ahead, guiding everyone through the complex pipeline area.
Hill and Natasha guarded the rear, accurately picking off the pursuing mutants.
Lynn and Tony were in the middle, the armor's searchlights cleaving through the darkness.
"What happened just now?"
Tony asked as he ran,
"How did that old guy suddenly blow up?"
"I rejected his friend request,"
Lynn said,
"And then his server crashed."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Gwen's voice rang out in the channel, carrying a hint of relieved lightness:
"The exit is three hundred meters ahead. Peter, there's a crack in the left pipe, don't crash into it."
"I see it! I... Whoa!"
Peter indeed crashed into it, but the web timely stuck to the opposite wall, dragging him back.
He rubbed his nose, his voice muffled: "Thanks for the reminder, Gwen."
"Watch the road earlier next time."
The moment everyone rushed out of the nuclear power plant gate, a dull roar came from behind.
The shockwave gave them a push, Lynn and Tonysimultaneously tackled Hill and Natasha down, while Peter used a web to grab a steel bar and steady his footing.
Looking back, the cooling towers collapsed like melted candles, flames licking the edge of the lunar eclipse in the night sky.
Tony sat up, his armor covered in dust:
"Jarvis, make a note. This operation, codename: Family Reunion."
"Recorded, sir."
Hill pushed away Lynn's hand, stood up by herself, and patted the dirt off her combat suit:
"Don't tackle me next time, I can dodge."
"Definitely next time."
Natasha stretched, throwing her submachine gun back into the case:
"Lynn, good performance. I'll treat you to a drink when we get back."
"I'll treat,"
Lynn said,
"Consider it a team-building exercise."
Peter took off his mask, revealing an overly young, dust-covered face.
He looked at Lynn, his gaze complex, but without hostility:
"Uh... thanks."
"You're welcome,"
Lynn said,
"Next time don't fall out of the ventilation duct, the commotion is too big."
"I'll try."
In the channel, Gwen's voice rang out for the last time, carrying the rustle of current like a gentle breath:
"Welcome back. The interrogation... starts tomorrow."
Lynn smiled, looking up at the sky. The lunar eclipse was receding, its edge revealing silvery-white light once again.
What he didn't know was that the moment he turned his head, a trace of dim blue flashed deep within his pupils, like a star sinking into the deep sea.
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