"Me too?" Tony asked in surprise.
The idea that a supernatural power could somehow be shared or experienced by someone else sounded unbelievable to him. Abilities like that were the stuff of comic books, not something you could casually hand to another person.
"Of course," Ethan Blake replied with a wide grin.
The smile looked a little strange, but Tony didn't think much about it. His mind was already racing with excitement at the thought of experiencing a genuine superpower.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Tony said eagerly. "Let's do it."
He even bounced lightly on his feet a couple of times, as if warming up for the experience.
Ethan watched him with an amused expression. Tony Stark looked like a kid about to ride a roller coaster. Ethan wondered whether he would still be that enthusiastic once the experience actually started.
Ethan raised one hand slightly.
Tony immediately lifted off the ground.
"What—oh… that's awesome!"
Tony let out a high-pitched shout of excitement as his feet left the floor. His arms flailed slightly while he floated helplessly in midair.
Then Ethan rotated his wrist.
Tony's body began spinning.
At first it was slow, almost gentle, like a gear beginning to turn.
Tony laughed loudly. "This is incredible!"
But the spinning quickly accelerated.
Faster.
And faster.
Tony's excitement didn't last long. As the rotation speed kept increasing, his expression began to change. The world around him blurred into streaks of color, and his sense of balance vanished completely.
The human body simply wasn't designed for that kind of motion.
Within seconds Tony stopped laughing.
Within another few seconds, he was desperately trying not to scream.
Ethan allowed the "Tony Stark model gear" to spin for quite a while before finally lowering his hand.
Tony dropped back onto the ground.
The moment his feet touched the floor, he staggered to the side and collapsed against the cave wall. A second later he leaned over and started vomiting violently.
Nearby, the doctor watched the entire scene with wide eyes.
Just moments earlier he had been slightly envious of Tony getting to experience a superpower. Now he silently thanked every force in the universe that he hadn't volunteered.
After several minutes, Tony finally recovered enough to stand upright again.
"Seriously… what the hell," Tony groaned while wiping his mouth. "That's the experience you were talking about?"
Ethan tilted his head slightly.
"What else would it be?" he asked.
Tony stared at him, speechless for a moment. Technically, he had agreed to try it without asking any details, so there wasn't much he could complain about.
Still, the scientist in him quickly shifted focus.
"Telekinesis, right?" Tony said thoughtfully. "Is it some kind of biological field? Maybe neural energy interacting with matter? Or are you using consciousness directly to interfere with physical systems?"
Ethan shrugged casually.
"I have no idea," he said. "It's like asking why humans have five fingers instead of four. It's just instinct."
Of course, he wasn't about to explain that the ability originally came from staring at a mysterious cube for years while training.
Tony studied him for a moment.
"Alright," he said eventually.
Seeing that Ethan clearly wasn't interested in discussing the details, Tony decided not to push further. Instead, he changed the topic.
"Hey, Ethan," he said, "since when does the FBI handle international rescues like this? Shouldn't saving me be the CIA's job?"
Tony knew the difference between the agencies.
The FBI focused primarily on investigating federal crimes inside the United States, protecting national security domestically, and dealing with internal intelligence threats.
The CIA, on the other hand, specialized in gathering and analyzing international intelligence. Operations outside the country were usually their territory.
Tony had been kidnapped overseas.
Logically, the FBI shouldn't have been involved.
"I wasn't acting for the FBI," Ethan said calmly. "I was hired."
"Hired?" Tony blinked.
He immediately began guessing.
"Pepper?" he asked first. "Or Rhodey? Maybe Obadiah?"
"None of them," Ethan replied.
Tony frowned.
"Not them? Then who?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. "Who else would want to rescue me?"
Ethan couldn't help feeling slightly speechless. Tony Stark clearly understood that his personality didn't exactly make him universally beloved.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Ethan said.
Tony paused.
"S.H.I.E.L.D… that sounds familiar," he muttered while thinking. "I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before."
He tried recalling where the memory came from, but nothing clear surfaced.
"Whatever," Tony said eventually with a shrug. "I can't remember. But thanks for saving me, man."
"You're welcome," Ethan replied casually. "S.H.I.E.L.D. paid for it."
Tony nodded approvingly.
"Well, then this S.H.I.E.L.D. organization seems pretty decent," he said. "Let's get out of here. I'm completely sick of this place. I haven't had a proper shower in two months, and Pepper would probably kill me if I walked into the house like this."
Ethan hesitated slightly.
His expression turned a little awkward.
"I think… we might need to stay here a while," he said.
The problem was his teleportation ability. At the moment he still couldn't bring other living people with him when teleporting. If he could, he would have already returned to the United States with Tony and the doctor instantly.
"Why?" Tony asked in confusion.
"I came here alone," Ethan replied.
"Alone?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "You wiped out an entire camp of killers by yourself? Actually, that makes sense if you've got superpowers. But how did you even get here?"
Instead of explaining, Ethan simply lifted himself into the air with telekinesis and hovered casually inside the cave for a few seconds.
Tony's eyes lit up.
"That's incredibly convenient," he said. "Why not just fly us back?"
Flying had always been one of humanity's oldest dreams.
Unfortunately, Ethan shook his head.
"You two are too heavy," he said bluntly. "It's easier to wait here."
Technically he could carry people with telekinesis, but it would be extremely inconvenient. He would have to carefully control the flight speed while constantly protecting their bodies from the stress of high-speed travel.
Even reaching the nearest American military base would take at least five or six hours.
Waiting for rescue was simply easier.
Tony sighed.
"Alright. How long are we talking about?"
"Maybe two or three hours," Ethan said. "Or four or five."
He wasn't completely sure.
If S.H.I.E.L.D. dispatched a team directly, the response might be quick. They had secret bases scattered across the world, and their facilities usually kept Quinjet aircraft ready for deployment.
But if S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to notify the United States military instead, the rescue would take longer.
"Fine," Tony said reluctantly.
There wasn't much else he could do anyway. Walking back across the desert on foot obviously wasn't an option.
After lying on the ground for a while out of boredom, Tony suddenly sat up and looked at Ethan.
"Hey, man," he said. "You probably don't make much money working for the FBI, right?"
Ethan raised an eyebrow.
Tony grinned.
"How about working for me instead?" he continued. "Personal bodyguard. Five million dollars a year."
The kidnapping had shaken Tony more than he liked to admit. After surviving something like that, he was suddenly far more conscious of his own safety.
And Ethan's abilities were exactly the kind of protection he wanted nearby.
"I already have a bodyguard named Happy," Tony added. "Great guy. A little overweight and talks too much, but you two would probably get along."
He casually draped an arm around Ethan's shoulders as if they had known each other for years.
Ethan didn't react to the gesture.
Instead, he simply smiled.
"On the first day you disappeared," Ethan said calmly, "I invested a lot of money shorting Stark Industries stock."
He looked directly at Tony.
"Want to guess how much I made?"
....
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