Dr. Banner, usually the most cautious man in the room, seemed to have fallen into a trance. His hand was inches away from the Space Stone, his pupils dilated as the raw, cosmic frequency of the gem hummed against his very DNA.
Suddenly, a blinding burst of golden light erupted from Leander's chest. It wasn't an attack, but a protective pulse—a kinetic barrier that slammed into Banner's outstretched arm. The force was gentle but firm, propelling the scientist back several steps.
Banner blinked, the glazed look in his eyes snapping back into focus. He took a shaky breath, stumbling as his heels caught on the edge of a rug.
Leander closed his palm over the jewel, a faint, knowing smile on his face. "Dr. Banner, I thought you of all people would know better than to touch the glowing space rocks. What if this thing decided it didn't like your internal passenger? It could have teleported you to the center of a black hole, and I wouldn't even have a map to find you."
The stone in his hand pulsed once, a deep, rhythmic blue. As Banner watched in awe, the translucent, cubic shell of the Tesseract—which had seemingly vaporized during the explosion in the portal—began to reform from the inside out. Shimmering planes of blue energy materialized, surrounding the jewel until the familiar cube was back in Leander's hand.
"So the containment field wasn't destroyed," Leander murmured, looking surprised. "It just... retracted. It's part of the stone's defense mechanism."
As the cube solidified, Leander felt the weight in his hand shift. It was heavier now, vibrating with a wild, untamed energy. Suddenly, a jagged bolt of blue lightning arced from the cube, coiling around Leander's forearm like a serpent. The sheer spatial pressure was immense, the energy threatening to tear the atoms of his arm apart.
"Ah!"
Leander didn't scream in pain; it was a shout of pure, adrenaline-fueled delight. He could feel his body "digesting" the excess spatial leakage, his cells drinking in the power.
Click.
The elevator doors at the far end of the room slid open. Tony Stark walked in, his arm around Pepper Potts. They froze at the sight: Leander standing in the center of the room with golden wings spread wide, lightning dancing across his arm, and a very confused Bruce Banner looking like he'd just seen a ghost.
"Leander?" Tony's voice was uncharacteristically soft.
Pepper smiled, though her eyes were wide with shock. She reached back and quietly closed the door to the penthouse, ensuring no staff or wandering agents would see the light show.
"Hey, Pepper. Tony. Good to see you're both in one piece," Leander said. He flexed his fingers, and the Tesseract's outer shell dissolved once more, the core jewel returning to its raw form. With a fluid motion, he pressed the stone back against his spine.
The gem sank into the energy construct of his wings. A massive wave of blue brilliance surged through the metallic feathers, making them look like they were forged from starlight and sapphires. The "custom placement" notification in his mind flickered, the compatibility creeping up from 18% to 19%. It wasn't much, but he could feel the Space Leap ability stabilizing, the cooldown feeling more like a heartbeat than a timer.
"Was that... the essence?" Tony asked, walking forward. The cocky swagger was gone, replaced by the intense focus of a man who had just seen the future. "The Tesseract was with you the whole time?"
"It's what brought him back, Tony," Pepper said, joining them. "I'd call it a lucky charm, but looking at Leander's arm, it looks more like a curse."
"Don't tell Nick Fury," Leander joked, though his eyes remained serious. "I really don't feel like explaining to the one-eyed man why I have a cosmic artifact embedded in my back. He'd probably try to charge me rent for the airspace."
Tony sat down on a designer armchair, looking uncharacteristically somber. "Killian is handled. The Mandarin is a myth. But this whole mess... it opened my eyes. I've made a lot of mistakes, Leander."
"You? Making mistakes?" Leander teased.
"Even gods mess up," Tony shot back with a dry grin. "Usually right around the time they start creating humans. But tell me—what's out there? What did you see?"
Leander leaned back, his wings slowly retracting into a faint shimmer. "Earth has been on the radar for a long time, Tony. We're not some big secret. But we are insignificant. To the cosmic empires, we're a backwater rock with a funny atmosphere. Except for Loki, nobody's really bothered to look twice at us."
"That's comforting," Tony muttered.
"Don't get too comfortable," Leander warned. "Aliens have been visiting Earth for decades. There's a lot of history hidden in the shadows. But since New York, the truth is out. People don't feel safe, Tony. They know the sky can open up at any moment."
"I've already been looking into SHIELD," Tony started, his voice dropping an octave. "Something feels off with their internal security. I—"
Suddenly, Leander bolted upright. His eyes glazed over for a second, his wings snapping open instinctively.
"Leander?" Tony stood up, his hand hovering over his wristband, which instantly morphed into a localized Mark 42 gauntlet. "What is it? Internal sensors aren't picking up anything."
"Someone's calling me," Leander whispered. In the back of his mind, a familiar, deep resonance was vibrating—a signal from the far reaches of the system. "I have to check this out. I'll be back."
A hazy, blue spatial mist began to envelope him. He paused, looking at Tony and Banner. "If I'm not back in an hour... tell my aunt I'm just helping you with some 'science stuff.' Don't let her worry."
Before Tony could argue, Leander vanished.
Tony stood in the empty room, waving his hands at the spot where the boy had been. "Great. Just great. I'm the billionaire, and I'm the one stuck making excuses for a teenager. I should have stayed in the meeting with the senators!"
Deep Space, Near the Oort Cloud.
The jump was jarring. Leander reappeared in the silent, freezing vacuum of space. He spun around, his wings glowing brightly to provide thrust in the weightless environment.
Who's there? he thought, projecting his will into the void.
He turned, and for a split second, his heart stopped. A massive, golden-yellow eye, the size of a city block, was staring directly at him from a few meters away. The sheer scale of the creature caused Leander to tumble backward, his thrusters firing frantically to put some distance between him and the entity.
He stopped several thousand meters away and realized what he was looking at. It wasn't a monster. It was the Starry Sky Giant—the Red Whale.
"Red Whale? You... you called me?"
A powerful, rhythmic thought-wave entered Leander's mind, warm and ancient. The gargantuan creature nudged its head slightly, its bioluminescent skin shimmering in the dark.
"What's the problem? Is there another raiding party?" Leander asked.
The Red Whale didn't answer with words. Instead, it swung its colossal tail fin, revealing a massive object it had been shielding beneath its body. It was a meteorite, an irregular, pitted sphere about eight hundred meters in diameter, hurtling toward Leander with the force of a mountain.
Leander didn't dodge. He flew forward, his hands out. As he made contact, he used his magnetic control to bleed off the kinetic energy, bringing the multi-million-ton rock to a dead stop. He landed on the surface, his boots finding purchase on the cold, dark stone.
"What is this? A gift?"
The Red Whale drifted closer, its thoughts a mixture of pride and hunger. Master... a meal for you.
Leander laughed, looking down at the rock. Then, he looked closer. He ran a hand over the surface, and his eyes widened. The "stone" wasn't stone at all. It was metallic. But it wasn't iron or nickel. It was Vibranium. Pure, unrefined Vibranium.
He did a quick mental calculation. This single meteorite contained more Vibranium than had ever been mined in human history—possibly a quarter of the entire subterranean reserve of Wakanda. It was a billion cubic meters of the most advanced metal in the known universe.
"Red Whale," Leander said, his voice echoing in his own mind. "Do you find these often? This is... this is priceless."
No, Master, the whale projected. These are rare. I have only eaten maybe two hundred in my life. The largest was ten times this size. But this one... it tastes the best. I thought you needed it.
The whale paused, its massive eye flickering with a strange, apprehensive light. I think the Master needs to improve. If you can raise your control level... if you reach two hundred and fifty points... you can finally...
The thought-wave cut off abruptly, as if the whale had reached a boundary it wasn't allowed to cross.
"I can do what?" Leander pressed, his heart pounding. "Red Whale, what exactly do you know about my abilities? What happens at two hundred and fifty?"