Jack had watched the video a few times now, and it still didn't make any sense.
He sat in the dim glow of the hideout's monitors, the footage running again on the screen in front of him. It was playing on a loop. Thinking about the issue, and due to the heat, he was sweating, so he removed the helmet, put it on the table, and sat on the side, massaging his forehead.
"Take a deep breath," he told himself out loud.
He did. Then another.
"A little better now. But how is this possible?" he muttered, eyes drifting back to the paused screen. "It was an organization name he picked from the Ben 10 show — the Plumbers. I made it up to fool S.H.I.E.L.D. and used that as an imagination project — a future goal, something to build toward. And now there's an organization with the exact same name that appeared decades ago and took Peter's parents."
He stared at the logo for a long moment.
"RedQueen," he said, straightening up slightly. "Can you find where the file was originally uploaded? And search the internet for anything related to them — any news, any clue, anything at all."
[Yes, Master. Initiating search.]
He pushed off the table and started pacing slowly, running through every scenario he could think of. It was the only thing that kept his head from spinning out completely — moving and thinking, one foot in front of the other.
Scenario one: this world had Ben 10 elements woven into it somehow. But that didn't hold up. He'd spent weeks searching online after arriving in this universe, and there hadn't been a single reference. No alien tech. No Plumber sightings. Nothing. And Natasha — someone who worked for a global intelligence organization and knew things most governments didn't — had shown no recognition at all when he told her the name Plumbers. So if the Plumbers were operating openly enough to have left a file like this, she would've known something — or did she simply not have knowledge of it?
Scenario two: it was just a coincidence. Different organization, same name. An honest mistake — both names matched.
He stopped pacing and shook his head slowly.
"No," he said quietly. "That's not it. The name 'Plumbers' in Marvel — there's no chance someone else created an organization with that name. I can't even believe this myself."
He looked down at the Omnitrix on his wrist, turning it over slightly in the low light. And then the idea hit him, fast and clean and almost ridiculous enough to be true.
He stopped.
"What if…"
His eyes dropped to the Omnitrix.
"…I'm the one who created it?"
he said aloud. "What if I went past using an alien's power like Clockwork and I built it?"
The thought sat there, uncomfortable and strangely plausible at the same time. Because honestly? He wanted to believe it. He really, genuinely did not want to find out there was some entirely separate organization operating outside. That felt a lot more dangerous than a time loop theory.
"But why would I go to the past?" he asked himself. "And when?" He thought about it. There were options. Tony's time machine — the one the Avengers used — maybe he'd use that in the future. Or an alien power, like he first thought. But why? Was there some future crisis so difficult that he'd need to go back? . As he was thinking through them one by one, RedQueen's voice cut into his thoughts.
[Master, I completed the search. I was able to trace the file's server location, but I was unable to find any additional information through public channels. The events in the recording occurred approximately twelve years ago, so there is not much information from that time period available online. There is very little trace left.]
Jack let out a slow breath. He wasn't surprised. If he had built the Plumbers himself — or if someone else had done it carefully — they wouldn't have left breadcrumbs. If anything, the video surfacing at all felt less like a leak and more like something intentional. Like someone wanted him to see it.
"No point in chasing it right now," he said, more to himself than to her. "I'll get more information as things move forward. Until then, don't think like a paranoid — let future Jack handle it." He exhaled. "I'm leaving it alone."
He glanced back at the screen one more time.
The good news was that Peter's parents had been taken by the Plumbers—they hadn't died in the plane crash like Peter believed.
Seeing the video on the computer, Jack thought, "And someone wanted me to know this."
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