The discharge turned out to be surprisingly fast and businesslike. They carefully disconnected me from the medical cocoon, removed the sensors, and pulled out the IVs. The doctors worked with silent efficiency. They showed me to the shower and provided me with new, clean, nondescript clothing. I felt fresh and renewed. In a way, that was true. I was new.
I left S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hospital wing and followed the agent assigned to me, Agent Coulson. He was surprisingly serious. No jokes, no small talk. He was just a statue in a perfect suit, leading me to the parking lot. We got into a nondescript Chevrolet sedan and smoothly pulled away. A short burst of my spiritual sonar confirmed what I already knew. A tight S.H.I.E.L.D. convoy was following us.
Speaking of the sonar, for all its usefulness, it was fundamentally flawed. The key problem was that it was an active system rather than a passive one. You had to turn it on. At the cafe, I'd relaxed and hadn't expected an attack. I should have focused on developing passive perception from the very beginning. That would have prevented the Purple Man from catching me off guard. A passive ability is a constant background load on the brain. I could have been out for days adapting to the continuous information flow. If only the system would give me a manual for awakening Observation Haki. That would be true, passive, cheat-level awareness.
Alongside my reflections on early warning systems, I took my smartphone from my inventory and opened the news feed. It was October seventh. In two days, it would be exactly one month since my isekai arrival. Too much had happened, and it had all been too dense, too fast. And that was only what concerned me directly. How much more had remained off-screen? This was no coincidence. This was calibration. They had shoved me into this world not randomly, but into its hottest, most pivotal phase.
What worried me was that, in many Marvel variations, the key characters handled things just fine on their own. But this world was different. It was stronger. Here, Clint Barton was a full combat meta. Spider-Woman was destined to grow strong enough to defeat the local Kraven single-handedly. Fury's first priority was strengthening, not endless political scheming. If this world, with all its enhanced heroes, still needed a cheater like me, then the danger ahead was hard to imagine. Previously, that would have terrified me. Now, I felt a thrill of anticipation. It was a complex, unsolvable problem. It was the perfect challenge for the new me and for my future company.
Stark was still kidnapped in Afghanistan. Three days after the Jericho demonstration, the Ten Rings had claimed responsibility. The tracks of fate for the key characters seemed impossible to stop. The comments beneath the news surprised me with their gloating.
PeaceAboveAll: Serves this death merchant right. Maybe now, sitting in captivity, he'll understand, if only for a second, how people live in the countries he's buried under his weapons. #NoMoreWar
JustAnIdea_: Purely hypothetically, could we kidnap all the arms barons? Ten Rings, if you're reading this, I can make you a list.
Karma_Is_Real99: He gets kidnapped IMMEDIATELY AFTER demonstrating a new super missile? LOL, karma never misses. #StarkUnlucky
ArmoryGeek: I don't understand what that presentation was even for. The Jericho missile is a technological curiosity. Why do we need it when multiple rocket launcher systems like the Grad have existed for ages and work perfectly? This is just showboating. It's Stark showing off. I think the Ten Rings kidnapped him to teach him some humility.
Steel_Skeptic: The Jericho is absurd? Stark is showing off? You must be typing from another planet where the Soviet Grad is the pinnacle of technology. Comparing the Jericho to the Grad is like saying a solar calculator is better than a quantum computer. The Jericho is a compact, smart cluster missile that launches from anything and hits a bullseye. The Jericho is the Lamborghini of weapons, and your Grad is a Zaporozhets that gets stuck in the mud.
And there were dozens of similar comments. Stark wasn't well-loved by the public. With that in mind, another question arose: should I save him, or not?
The answer was obvious. Sorry, Tony, but this was your origin story. It was your baptism by fire, and you had to walk through it yourself. In theory, I could pull him out, possibly even without leaving my lab. But objectively, it wasn't worth it. Beyond Stark's gratitude, I'd be unlikely to gain anything tangible. I'd end up neck-deep in problems, and I'd violate the sacred canon of the Marvel Universe. I'd just send an anonymous tip about Obadiah Stane once Tony returned.
The next news item concerned Victor von Doom's coronation. His father, Werner, had abdicated, and on October 5, his son ascended to the throne of Latveria. In his official photographs, he cut a classic figure: a heavy iron mask and a green hooded cloak. He had grown taller and bulkier. Questions arose. The official explanation blamed an unsuccessful space expedition led by Reed Richards for altering his physiology; the mask served to hide the disfigurement. Reed Richards unveiled the Fantastic Four, proposing that cosmic energy could usher humanity into a new era. Ben Grimm looked like a sideshow attraction.
As expected, commenters reacted. Some dismissed the PR stunts with skepticism. Others celebrated. The world met the news with a mixture of awe and cynicism.
I glanced at the navigator and noted we had about five minutes until we reached our destination. We pulled up to a service entrance of an office building in Midtown.
The perfectly white acoustic ceiling of the hospital ward had been his universe. Dr. Stephen Strange lay there, thinking with regret. He dissected every second of his life with surgical precision. The mistakes had accumulated. One mistake, behind the wheel of his Lamborghini at a hundred miles per hour in the rain, had cost him everything.
The brunt of the damage had been to his hands. The nerve tissue was devastated. The bones had been shattered, but at least those could be repaired. The critical nerve bundles in both hands had been torn and crushed. An eleven-hour operation and titanium pins had restored enough function for household tasks, but left him with a severe, uncontrollable tremor. His fine motor skills were gone. A neurosurgeon's work demanded jeweler's precision. Any tremor at all would end his career.
The most humiliating part was that no one in the world could help him. American neurosurgery was the best in the world, and he stood at its pinnacle. He ran through the names: Nikolai Rostov, Nikolai Burdenko, Alexander Konovalov. But he'd clashed with some of them at a surgical summit. Then there was Ho Yinsen, a brilliant surgeon in regenerative medicine, but he had vanished. He couldn't rely on anyone else.
There had to be a way to heal his hands. It had to exist. He would find it, at any cost.
//=================//
"Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;
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3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = CHAPTER 160
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