Inside the Avengers Compound dining hall, the atmosphere was far from romantic.
It was pure unadulterated high-calorie gluttony.
Satoru Gojo was currently sitting at the head of a long table, surrounded by empty plates, crumpled wrappers, and at least three empty boxes of premium donuts Tony had flown in from the city.
"You're going to have a heart attack," Tony Stark said, leaning against the counter while nursing a cup of iced black coffee. "Or at least develop a very expensive case of diabetes. I don't think your sorcery protects your arteries, Gojo."
"My brain needs the glucose, Stark!" Satoru replied mid-bite into a chocolate eclair. "Besides, I'm growing, I need the nutrients."
"I forgot," Steve Rogers noted, sitting across from him. He looked at Satoru's messy pile of wrappers with a look of amused disbelief. "You're like… what, sixteen?"
"Also, sweets aren't exactly 'nutritious', Gojo."
Satoru swallowed the rest of the éclair and pointed a finger at Steve. "Spot on, cap, spot on. But in spirit I'm older, and since I'm older by spirit, my metabolism is basically a ferrari."
"That's not how it works." Tony murmured.
Satoru ignored that as he wiped a smudge of chocolate from the edge of his blindfold, then sat back and let out a satisfied exhale.
"Alright, I'm done here," Satoru said, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. "That was a solid appetizer."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Appetizer? You… You know what, I'll just zip it."
Satoru chuckled.
"Work hard, eat hard," Satoru said. He shoved his hands into his pockets, his expression turning a bit more focused. "I'm heading out. I should go see that World Council and find out why they're so obsessed with me. If I don't show up, they'll just keep bothering you guys."
"You sure you don't want a lawyer?" Tony asked. "I have a few on speed dial."
"Nah, I'm good," Satoru waved a hand as goodbye. "I've got the best defense team in the universe: Me."
Then, he opened a portal and went inside to fetch that General from the dimension he sent him to and get the coordinates of where this World Council is.
"He really comes and goes as he wished, huh?" Steve said with a wry smile.
…
[ Triskelion, Washington D.C. ]
The lobby of the Triskelion was bustling with agents and officials until Satoru strolled in through the automatic doors.
He looked completely out of place in his casual jacket and blindfold, the Mind Stone glowing with a regal golden-yellow light.
Two heavily armed guards immediately moved to intercept him. They didn't recognize him, but their instincts were screaming that this teenager and based on his weird attire was oddly dangerous.
"Stop right there," one of the guards commanded, extending an arm to block his path.
Satoru didn't even slow down. He brushed past the arm with a light, dismissive push.
To the guard, it felt like being shoved; he and the other guard were sent tumbling back several steps, their boots squeaking against the polished marble floor.
"Hey! What the—"
Satoru stopped in the center of the lobby and flicked his wrist.
A ring of orange sparks snapped into existence behind him, and General Thaddeus Ross was spat out, landing face-first on the floor with a heavy thud.
"General Ross?" an agent shouted, rushing over.
Ross scrambled to his knees, his uniform wrinkled and his face a terrifying shade of purple. He looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.
Satoru shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around the lobby with a bored expression. "Yo. I heard your bosses wanted to have a chat. I'm here, so tell them to come out."
He went to a nearby chair and sat there with his hands in his pockets.
Swish!
Dozens of weapons were drawn, but no one dared to pull a trigger. Satoru just stood there, humming a tune under his breath.
Ten minutes later, after a frantic series of phone calls and high-level security overrides, a trembling secretary led Satoru toward the elevators.
Ross followed closely behind, fuming silently.
The elevator climbed to the top floor, opening into the main meeting room of the World Security Council.
The room was dim, illuminated only by five massive floor-to-ceiling screens showing the silhouettes of the council members.
Satoru walked right to the center of the room, pulled out the chair meant for a high-ranking official, and sat in it backward, resting his chin on his arms.
"Alright, old-timers," Satoru started, with his voice echoing across the room. "You wanted to talk? Go ahead. I'm all ears."
General Ross just stood at a dark corner, waiting for his opportunity to speak whenever he gets the chance.
The silence in the room stretched for a few seconds before the central screen flickered to reveal council member Alexander Pierce. He leaned forward with his hands steepled.
"Councilors, if I may," he began, his voice carrying the smooth diplomat's edge he was known for. "Mr. Gojo, I'm Secretary Alexander Pierce. I appreciate you coming in. Most people with your... profile... tend to wait for us to send someone before they show their face. That too, with occasional hiccups of resistance."
Satoru tilted his head, giving a mock-respectful nod. "Let's just get on with it, Secretary. There's no need for coercion between us."
"A pragmatic approach," Gideon Malick's silhouette spoke from the leftmost screen.
His voice was gravelly, carrying the weight of old, hidden power. "But pragmatism doesn't account for the fact that you possess the Scepter's core, a weapon that should be within the people of Earth should have on its grasp."
"Am I not a 'people' of Earth?" Satoru scratched his head with a finger. "Or are you implying I'm an alien? I'm pretty much human."
"Is that so?"
"Very much so." Satoru nods.
Pamela Hawley, the U.K. Representative, leaned into her camera, her expression stern. "That is a deflective statement, Mr. Gojo."
She continued. "We'd like to discuss the disappearance of a capital city. You claim to have 'moved' Novi Grad. To where? Under whose authority? By British and International law, you have committed an act of mass abduction."
"'Moved' was a figure of speech," Satoru explained simply. "It's more like I destroyed it when Ultron was the only one on it besides me."
"Destroyed it?" Alexander Pierce's voice went sharp. "Our intel suggests otherwise, Mr. Gojo. You don't just destroy a city without leaving behind trillions of tons of rubble. There isn't even a pebble left in that crater. If you destroyed it, where is the debris?"
Satoru shrugged. "Deleted. Erased. Gone. Poof. Does it really matter? The result is the same. No meteor hitting Earth, no millions of deaths. You're welcome."
But then… he paused and then caught on to something.
He let out a short, dry laugh that resounded around the room.
"Oh," Satoru said and a humorous grin split across his face."I get it now. You don't actually care about the 'mass abduction' or the legal status of the city as you've shown and claimed."
He stood up, then casually paces slowly in front of the screens.
"I actually almost missed it. Ultron used a massive amount of Vibranium to build that… whatever thing he built that made the city fly, didn't he? Trillions of dollars' worth of the rarest metal on Earth, just sitting there in the crust of Novi Grad."
Alexander Pierce's expression didn't change, but the silence from the other councilors seemed to have proved his point.
"You aren't mad that the city is gone," Satoru continued, stopping in front of Councilor Rockwell's screen. "You're mad that payday is gone. You wanted to 'audit' the site and strip-mine the rubble under the guise of an investigation. But since I deleted the whole thing, you've got nothing to snatch."
"Is it?" Satoru turned back to Pierce. "Secretary, you look like a man who hates losing an investment. Tell me, if I brought the city back right now, would you give the Vibranium back to the Sokovians to rebuild their lives? Or would it find its way into a dark room with no-one the wiser getting a glimpse of it again by hook or by crook?"
Pierce responded smoothly, not showing anything. "Vibranium is a controlled resource of extreme tactical importance. For the safety of the world, it cannot be left nor given to anyone not supervised by the council."
"Safe in your hands, but a threat in mine," Satoru summarized. He leaned in close to the camera lens. "Here's the cold hard truth for ya: The city is gone. The Vibranium is gone. And if you keep looking for it in my pockets, you're going to find something a lot less shiny and a lot more permanent."
He stood up straight and dusted off his jacket. "I'm bored. Conversing with old geezers with an overinflated dose of hubris is always such a bore, why did I even bother. But, now that I've came, I'll begone now."
He turned his back on the World Security Council, walking toward the center of the room where a spark of orange began to form.
"Wait! We aren't finished!" Councilor Hawley demanded.
"I am," Satoru chirped, waving a hand over his shoulder. "If you want to talk about actually helping people, call Stark. If you want to talk about money... don't call me."
He stopped, then glanced back with an upward tilt of his head.
"If you push the Avengers just for the sake of making me come here again, I won't be following decorum. You'll be met with a very pissed Satoru Gojo, got it?"
He didn't even bother with General Ross that tried to say something.
He stepped through the portal leading to Kamar-Taj and vanished, leaving the 'most powerful' people on Earth staring at an empty chair.
...
[ Author's Notes ]: I know... This chapter is boring, but I deemed it necessary to add. This shows that despite his strength, Satoru can still be reasonable... Well, in his own way at least. Who can even change Satoru's whims? It's just hard to understand him at all. I'm barely understanding his complex eccentricity.
Stone me?
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