Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #26
Above the Canadian Wilderness [January 19, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
"Ready to experience freedom, Dr.Banner?" He asked the good doctor as they were in a clearing nearby, in a cloaking field cast by Jin'Ya. The Dragon was annoyingly good at almost everything. Sure, he could cast the cloaking field as well but he could only block out sounds, visuals, and heat. The Dragon stops everything from leaving the field, maintaining such flawless stealth that no Masters of Kamar Taj could see through it with only the Ancient One being the exception.
It made sense in her case because she was probably just as old as the old fuck floating beside him, what with the amount of time she had mentally experienced as part of her time dives.
"Um, what is happening?" Dr.Banner asked him and instead of giving an explanation, he just thrust his right hand in one direction and began rotating. The portal gods did not favour him today so the portal took more than 7 tries before a small sized portal was open and another three rotations before the portal resembled a human sized opening to the Portal Room on Red Hearth.
"What?!" He heard Dr.Banner whisper before Jin'Ya, in his purple light form, drifted into the portal. He gestured for Dr.Banner to do the same who did so, but not before rubbing his eyes, cleaning his glasses, and pinching himself two times to confirm whether it was real or not.
He jumped through the portal as soon as Dr.Banner was inside, not trusting the portal's integrity in the slightest. He was really going to have to work on his portals because this was just disgraceful. Being a potential city wrecking person having command over original spells rivaling that of old Eldritch powered ones and yet unable to form a normal planetary portal in an instant.
It was disgraceful, in a word.
He heard the telltale signs of the high calibre machine guns receding back into their panels as soon as the Portal was closed and all the people were identified. It also had a provision that if both he and Jin'Ya were to exit a portal at the same time then it would also ignore anybody else travelling with them.
It was logical since if someone could mind control both him and Jin'Ya at the same time, then they were doomed anyway.
"Where are we? And did you just create a localised wormhole? How? Where did you hide the machinery required to do so? Or is it located here, in the destination? How do you even power it?"
Aaand there it was, the barrage of questions.
"Dr.Banner," He interrupted the man from unloading his entire inventory of questions on top of him in the middle of the Portal Room, "Why don't we save the questions for later? I had to leave in the middle of something very important to come to rescue you. So, any questions, can you leave it for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? In the meantime, I'll give you a basic tour and then you can explore on your own. Come,"
He hurriedly explained to the man as Jin'Ya turned back into his floating lizard form and floated out of the portal room while the plebeians walked on their two legs. Turning a nasty glare at the dragon, "You know it wouldn't hurt if you happened to use the body you so zealously protect. Muscle atrophy is a thing, you know, even in mystically enhanced magical reactor bodies."
The dragon merely scoffed and ignored him, turning on the spot to head to the other elevator. Snorting at the lizard behaviour, he nudged Dr.Banner to the other elevator.
"Wh-Bu–He–How?" Yup. No answers for no fully formed questions.
"I'll explain it all later on. For now, let's get you a basic tour," He punched the button on the elevator for the rooftop, the best palace, in his opinion.
"Where are we going? Why does it say Red Desert as the name of the rooftop?" Dr.Baner asked him and that was a very quick observation. Well, if someone was on the run from the military for weeks, if not months, then it made sense that they would have exceptional observational skills.
"I am sure you'll love it, Dr. Banner. It's my favourite place here." He grinned as the elevator, the fastest one he could buy, dinged as they reached the designated floor.
"Follow me," Then they had to go through a room where all the barbecue stuff was kept before he opened the door and reached…this.
An endless expanse of red, with huge mountains and sandstorms raging in the distance. Leaning on the railing, he looked back to see Dr.Banner looking very pale and pointing at the scenery in front of them with a trembling hand.
"Haha!" He always wanted to do this. Alas, he did not have anyone he could shock and the ones that knew about this place had seen planets and stars form and die, so this was nothing to them. For a normal human being, this was awesome.
"I-is this M-Mars?"
"Yup. We are in a secret facility built on Mars. If you wait a couple of months, you might see the Mars Rover pass by. Its docking station is just nearby." He commented even as he enjoyed the view.
"I don't believe it. You can do interplanetary teleportation? Who are you guys?" He grinned at the man as he gestured at the door. "I can give you a tour and give you basic access so you can visit this balcony anytime you want. For the meantime, let me show you your quarters, and where you can get your food,"
"O-okay," the man said, clearly dazed at the whole chain of events.
"These are your quarters. Since no one lived here, they were only cleaned once a week but since you are here, I will see what I can do about regular cleaning," He said as they walked into a medium sized room, that had a King sized bed, a large workstation, sofa, walk-in closet, attached washrooms, and a TV in front of the Bed. All of this, obviously stripped of anything that could be used for tracking purposes.
"Wow, this is…a lot."
"Yeah, well, you are my guest for the time being, the first one actually, and I would like for you to be comfortable for reasons other than the obvious," Referring to the man's green giant angry problem.
"Anyways, the kitchen is on the lower levels. This is your access bracelet. You can use that until we can get your biometrics installed in the system. Currently, you only have access to this floor, the kitchen, and the balcony. Once I have time, we'll see about getting you a laboratory built. Until then, you have unrestricted Internet access but please don't do anything that might give away our location. Nobody would believe you anyway but please be careful."
"Okay," The man said, still checking out his room and fiddling with the bracelet at the same time. Clearly, Dr.Banenr needed some time to process all of this and he was also running out of time to reach his Earthen Bachelor Pad.
"I'll see you around, Dr.Banner. You are completely safe here," With that parting comment, he punched in the portal room on the elevator control panel and got out of the elevator, to see Jin'Ya already there, waiting for him.
"Let's go," He said and entered the portal, opened by Jin'Ya obviously.
Damn the Portal Gods.
...….
.....
With a yawn, his eyes snapped open, right on the dot as the alarm clock began beeping a second later. Gently slapping the alarm, he got up from the bed and looked at the sunlight filtering into his apartment. It was nice that his place had a lot of natural lighting, which really helped with proper sleep regulation.
If only he did not have so much stuff to do and only 24 hours in a day, he might have had a really great sleep schedule to match.
"Jin'Ya, any complications?" He mentally asked since they left in quite a hurry last night and that must have created tons of questions for Shuri and the Wakandans.
"No, nothing on their end. They believe every suggestion I put into their minds and Shuri actually forbid anyone from bugging your apartment. I believe she has an interest in you if you get what I mean. Honestly, why don't you humans just mate? I don't understand this song and dance before the damned thing."
He groaned as he brushed his teeth, "Just Shut up…", All he received in return was a madman cackling.
He had quite a few things to do before he had to leave for LA. Already, he had received the flight tickets as well as the accommodation access, and he was not even packed yet. He still had to go to Ta-Lo, complete the negotiation process, and make sure that Wakandan War Dogs did not just assassinate him in the middle of the day simply because he was getting closer to technology that their princess cracked years ago.
Aside from that, once he got to LA, Jin'Ya was going to tail Tony but that was stuff for later. Ah, he hated it so much that he could not simply write down what stuff he had to do because of security issues. Even if he did enchant it mystically and then encrypt it, there was no guarantee that some avatar of a reality warping Demon Lord could not break through everything, read through the future stuff, and wreak havoc on the universe.
It was safer to keep it in his mind but also, so inconvenient for him since it just cluttered his mind.
Taking the egg tray that was delivered to his doorstep everyday by a local store, he kept 10 in the pot that was set to boil for 15 minutes to get that nice hard boil egg.
Now, all that was left was to get freshened up, eat his eggs, get the freelance work backlog cleared out a bit, and then head to the gym since he actually had to keep appearances otherwise it would be hard to justify his build and strength.
A towel hung over his shoulder, he was heading to the washroom when the doorbell rang. Furrowing his brows, he extended his senses and found that he could not sense anything. Discarding the towel, he cycled CHI through his body and discreetly summoned a tiny door on his palm, just in case he needed to blast away whoever it was, before walking towards the door.
Jin'Ya not warning him meant that he was probably safe but paranoia was the way of life, according to Fury sensei and that man lived through enough world ending events for multiple lifetimes.
Slowly opening the door, he relaxed immediately as there was no intruder trying to get into his apartment.
No, it was…"Old Man Wong!" He exclaimed, going in for the hug.
"Don't! Put this in the fridge," Old Man Wong stopped him before handing him a bag of groceries.
"Aww, you do care about me." He said in a sing-song voice as he closed the door with his foot and put away the groceries.
"There's chicken in there. I believe you know how to make one," Wong said as he plopped himself on the sofa as if he were the King.
Playing into the vibe, he bowed deeply, "Your wish is my command,"
Oh, this day was starting much better than he had expected it to!
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