Satoru's eyes snapped open.
The first thing he registered was the vibrating metal roof of a SHIELD lifeboat. He was lying flat on his back on the metallic floor.
He slowly sat up and immediately felt his stiff joints. It's like they had been dipped in concrete and left to dry for an hour, but he could move. The drawback from using Unlimited Void: Nihility was still there, a dull constant throb in his brain, but it was manageable. He only used the technique for a short amount of time, after all.
'Could've been worse,'' Satoru thought.
"Whoa, easy there."
Satoru turned his head. Steve Rogers was crouching a few feet away, steadying a shaky elderly woman. He looked at Satoru with a look of pure bewilderment. "Thor caught you. He said your heart had stopped, what was that about?"
"It probably did," Satoru said, his voice a bit dry as he stood up. He shook out his arms, wincing at the stiffness in his shoulders. "My heart just needed to reboot, it usually does that."
Steve blinked, his brow furrowed in deep concern. "Usually? Gojo, people don't usually need to 'reboot' their hearts."
"What can I say?" Satoru shrugged. "Manifesting 'nothing' takes a lot of 'something', not that you would understand."
"I don't." Steve laughed.
"Well, just know that physics is a jealous mistress." Satoru stretched his stiff arms and legs.
"Physics is currently in the corner crying because of you," Tony suddenly made his presence known as he stepped into his view from the other side of the lifeboat.
He tapped a tablet on his hand, and a hologram of the empty sky over Sokovia appeared. "Fury is losing his mind. The World Council is calling. They want to know where the city went. I told them you handled it, but 'handled it' usually implies there's scrap left to count. You didn't leave a single atom behind, kid."
"You may call me a perfectionist, Stark," Satoru quipped, rolling his neck until it popped. "Tell Fury to be happy he doesn't have to pay a janitorial crew to sweep up an entire city."
Tony let out a weary laugh while shaking his head. "Janitorial work. Right. You're lucky the UN doesn't have a fine for disappearing real estate."
Steve, however, wasn't laughing. His eyes moved from Satoru's face down to the teenager's pocket, where a faint yellow glow was pulsing through the fabric of his pants.
"The stone, Gojo," Steve said, his voice dropping into a serious tone. "We need to talk about what happens next with it."
Satoru reached into his pocket and pulled out the Mind Stone. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, letting the golden light wash over his palm as if it were a common marble. "Oh, this? It's pretty, don't you think? I'm keeping it as a souvenir for my travels."
Steve's brow furrowed. "It's not a trophy. It needs to be in better hands, somewhere secure where it can't be used to hurt anyone else."
Satoru raised a single eyebrow, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "Better hands? Who? Yours, Cap? S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, or what's left of it? or who? Avengers?"
"It is a power beyond your understanding, Gojo," Thor's voice boomed as he ducked his head to enter the crowded lifeboat, his cape dragging on the floor. He looked at the stone with a mixture of reverence and dread. "The Mind Stone is one of the six Infinity—"
"Infinity Stones, yeah, I know," Satoru interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "Ancient artifacts, capable of rewriting existence and immense power. I've seen and heard enough from someone to go by, Thor."
He didn't mention that they have the Time Stone too. He doesn't trust them enough to give out that kind of information.
Besides… he wanted to keep the Mind Stone to himself, because he has some use for it.
He looked around at the three of them, the soldier, the god, and the inventor, and his smirk sharpened into something colder. "And believe me, it's already in the best hands. Because let's look at the track record of the 'better hands' you're talking about."
He began to count off on his fingers. "First, we had Thor's brother. By the way, nice family you got there, running around with this in a stick, brainwashing people and trying to turn New York into an alien parking lot."
"He's adopted," Thor interjected quickly, his expression pained.
"Still counts as a point," Satoru shrugged. "Then, we have Stark. Who took this same 'dangerous power,' didn't tell anyone, and used it to accidentally bake a genocidal toaster that just tried to turn the planet into a bowling ball. Honestly, you guys should be thanking me for cleaning up the mess you literally built."
The silence that followed was heavy. Tony looked away with his jaw tight, while Thor and Steve shared a grim and frustrated look. They knew he was right, which only made his arrogance harder to swallow.
Steve took a breath, trying to keep his voice level. "Gojo, you've done a lot for us today. More than we could have asked. But we can't just let someone walk away with a weapon capable of mass destruction."
"I'm not just someone and to me, it isn't a weapon," Satoru said, pocketing the stone and turning toward the opening ramp as the lifeboat finally docked. "You can take it if you want, that's if you can."
Steve stepped forward as if to stop him, but then hesitated, looking at Satoru's trembling hands and the sheer weight of the power radiating off him. "We'll discuss this more when we're on the ground."
'No, we won't,' Satoru thought, his smirk returning as he stepped out into the hangar and approached the back of the lifeboat.
On his way, he saw Clint Barton slumped against a crate, while Natasha Romanoff stood guard over a pale and unmoving Pietro Maximoff. Wanda was kneeling by her brother, her fingers trembling as they hovered over his blood-soaked suit.
'Hmm,' Satoru thought for a moment, before he decided to walk over.
The group went silent as Satoru approached. Clint and Natasha silently rested their eyes on him, but Satoru walked right past Natasha and knelt beside Pietro.
Wanda lifted her head from between her crossed arms and saw Satoru, her face pale and streaked with soot.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words died in her throat as Satoru placed a steady hand an inch above Pietro's riddled chest.
"Well," Satoru murmured, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the hangar. "He's still alive. Barely. Lucky for him, I still have some gas left in my tank."
A soft glow began to radiate from his palm.
Wanda watched, her breath hitched and her eyes slowly went wider as the bullet wounds in Pietro's torso began to knit themselves back together. Shredded muscle reformed, skin sealed over without so much as a scar, and the deathly pallor of his face was replaced by a faint flush.
Pietro's chest heaved as if his body was relieved of the pain.
Satoru pulled his hand back and stood up, casually dusting off his haori.
Wanda's hands hovered over her brother's now-whole chest. She looked up at Satoru, her lips trembling, unable to find the words.
"Thank you," she finally whispered, her voice cracking with a mix of relief and sheer gratefulness. She immediately turned back to Pietro, checking his pulse and his face with a gentle touch.
Natasha stepped back, relaxing her guarded posture. She exchanged a look with Clint, who let out a sing-song whistling on his position on the crate.
"You can heal too? Kid, just what can't you do? Regardless, thanks for the save," Clint gave Satoru a genuine, albeit exhausted, nod of respect. "I owed the quick twin one, it would be a let down if he died and I can't pay up."
"I'm a man of the people, glad to be of service," Satoru sarcastically said, he didn't know what happened, but he can get the gist of things from Clint's words and Pietro's condition. "Now, you got a chance,"
"Yeah…" Clint muttered, looking over at Pietro, who was starting to stir.
Natasha stepped forward with genuine curiosity in her weary eyes.
"I believe we haven't officially met," she said, extending a hand toward him. "Natasha Romanoff."
Satoru reached out and took her hand, giving it a brief, firm shake. "Satoru Gojo. But you probably already knew that while I was 'resting'. You can call me, Gojo."
"So… question, are you a wizard? A magician or what?"
"Not exactly, no," Satoru let out a short laugh. "We call ourselves sorcerers."
"Sorcerers," Natasha repeated, her eyes narrowing slightly as she processed the term. "I've heard that one before… in fantasy movies, where an old bald monk would chant a lot followed by glowing circles. You don't seem like the type for chanting."
"Because I'm not," Satoru said, adjusting the crimson bands over his eyes. "Too much effort for too little result. I prefer things my way, and believe me, what you've seen in the movies regarding the chanting are only for novices back where I came from."
"Is that so?" Natasha raised a tempting brow. "And, where exactly is 'where you came from'?"
"It is so." Satoru answered her first question then gave her a simple cheeky smile. "I came from Disneyland, I work there performing arts and crafts for children."
He could feel Natasha trying to be subtle on her queries to dig some information about him. But, he had been around the block long enough to catch on, he's not new blood.
He can't blame her though, from what he knew, she's a spy. Prying for information is in her nature.
As the small group stood in the corner of the hangar, a tug at the hem of Satoru's haori made him pause. He looked down. A little girl, no more than seven, was standing there with wide, watery eyes. She was clutching a small, crumpled object in her tiny hand.
"Thank you, magic man," she whispered, holding it out. It was a half-melted, slightly squashed chocolate bar.
Satoru blinked, actually caught off guard for a fraction of a second. He took the chocolate with a careful hand, his usual cocky mask softening into something genuinely surprised. "Thanks, kid. I was actually just about to complain where the sweets are at, you're a lifesaver."
The girl giggled, her fear finally ebbing away.
Satoru smiled, then asked. "What's your name?"
"Illyana." The girl with blond hair bubbled her name with clasped fingers.
"Well, Illyana. Where's your paren—"
"I'm so sorry!" a frantic voice suddenly called out.
A woman rushed over, scooping the little girl into her arms. She was wearing a thin silk blouse that looked like it had been thrown on in a massive hurry during the evacuation; the fabric was pulled tight, and the hectic scramble had left her looking a bit disheveled and revealing.
"I—I'm so sorry!" she stammered, looking embarrassed as she clutched her daughter. "I… I was looking for some clothes and didn't mean for my daughter to disturb you."
She's still visibly shaken from what had happened. Well, it has only been about an hour or so since hell went loose on their city.
Satoru stood up and gave a slow, amused shake of his head. "Don't sweat it. It's been a long day for everyone. Glad you two made it out in one piece."
Then, with a snap, a blanket appeared in the air and landed around the woman's shoulders. That should help.
"Thank you!"
The mother gave a quick, sheepish nod and hurried away toward the medical processing area. Satoru looked down at the crumpled chocolate bar in his hand, then at Natasha and Clint, who were watching the exchange with varying degrees of amusement.
"What?" Satoru asked, unwrapping the chocolate. "I told you, I'm a man of the people."
Natasha crossed her arms with an amused look. Clint chuckled on the crate where he sat.
Just then, Pietro let out a sharp gasp on the floor, his eyes snapping open. He scrambled to sit up, his hands instinctively clutching at his chest where the holes used to be. Wanda was on him in an instant, her hands framing his face as she shushed him in rapid Sokovian.
The speedster blinked, looking at his sister, then at the pristine fabric of his shirt, then up at Clint. "I... I was dead. I felt it."
"Not quite, but close, luckily for you," Satoru said, looking down at him with a lazy grin.
Pietro stared at him, breathless and confused, before Wanda pulled him into a fierce, sobbing hug.
Satoru watched them for a heartbeat, then turned his gaze toward the far end of the hangar. He could feel Nick Fury approaching, accompanied by Maria Hill, Steve, and Thor.
'Well, looks like the chicks had complained to their mother hen,' Nick was likely coming for the Mind Stone. Satoru thought. 'Just when are they gonna let it go?'
"Duty calls," Satoru sighed, finishing the last of the chocolate. He gave a casual wave to Nastasha, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro. "Try not to miss me too much while I go negotiate my paycheck. Romanoff, tell Stark if he wants to have a group study regarding the portal thing he's curious about, I'll wait for his call."
"I'll pass it along," Natasha said, watching him walk away with a thoughtful expression. 'Wait… He didn't leave a number. Does Stark already have it?'
…
[Author's Notes]: Daily chapter drop (One each): Monday → Sunday.
Powerstone Goal (When including the DCD and this goal is met, there'll be two chapters released when Sunday arrives): 1,000 Powerstones
Advanced chapters & show of support: Patreon.com/Shiriai