A Chance Encounter

"Fucking shit!" Ethan cursed as he tried to control his flight pattern. People think flying was easy once you become a Kryptonian or even a Viltrumite. But, three decades worth of experience not flying can become a hinderance to this, just as Ethan was experiencing.

After escaping the dungeon, he had decided to fly out of Earth and into space, but he had greatly underestimated just how much his former life as a human had a hold on him. Before bursting through the atmosphere, thinking of space had made him become quite...scared! This had led him to hyperventilate a little making him change his course abruptly and start heading to land.

The land was blazing past him as he flailed in the air, trying to control his flight only to end up diving head first into a sand dune, creating a crater equal to an intercontinental missile explosion. He had never been to a desert before but he was already hating it, with sand ending up everywhere.

"Superb flying, Ethan," he sighed to himself as he pulled himself up, riffling his hair to shake out the sand in them. He dusted his prisoner robes before looking up to the sky. "I have the ability to fly out into space but my human experience is limiting me. I'll be a laughing stock if this is known." He then looked around at the expanse desert before scoffing.

"The desert sun might actually do me good," he joked to himself before floating out of the crater he had created.

'No need to be in a hurry to leave this please. The desert sun shines brighter than the place you are aiming to go. A few days here can be worth a month there,' the same voice that woke him up said in his head.

"Who are you?" Ethan asked, warily. In Marvel, especially in Marvel, it was never a good idea to hear someone talking to you in you mind. That was 99% telepaths or gods wanting to fuck with you. People like Moon Knight can attest to that.

'I am your solar suit. You asked for it to be a symbiote so your wish was granted,' the voice answered him before a red and blue liquid oozed out of his body and take form of the solar suit he was most used to with the addition of a red cape behind him.

"How are you santient?" Ethan asked, not willing to admit the suit looked too cool.

"We are in a symbiotic relationship, remember. That means your knowledge is mine to gain, especially when your mind is so unguarded while asleep. Before you ask, no, I am not like Venom and the other symbiotes. My only function is to provide you with solar radiation, making you stronger while I receive housing. No mind or body control for me," the suit assured him. Ethan sighed in relief, especially after knowing his suit was not part of Knull's creations. Knull was a difficult being to fight, especially being ammortal, a being of the Void, being neither dead or alive.

"So, it appears you might know where we currently are," the suit mused.

"We are in a universe that calls itself Marvel. It's different from our universe but just as dangerous. We need to tread carefully before we are strong enough to carry our weight," he answered the suit. Picking up an incoming sound, he scrunched his brows as he tried to zone in on it. A TV series called Legion helped him here as he imagined a knobs in his mind in which the first represented the background noises while the second one was the sound he was looking for. Tuning down the first knob made him contrate on the sound coming from the second knob and turning up the second knob made him hear it clearly.

"Gun fire," he said. While been untrained in the method of identifying the model of guns in relation to their mode of fire, his super hearing would definitely know if a gun was been fired. There was also the sound of machine parts whirling like...a robot?

"That can't be right," he said with a frown. He took to the sky, stopping after he reached a height of 500m. He then used his telescopic vision and looked at the direction all the hubbub was coming from.

There, he saw a mountain side cave that had been turned into a military base. Outside the cave were tents and shelters with ammunition of all kinds. There were four tanks in operation, a fuel tank, water tank and latrines. Armed militia were going back and forth in sorry states as they were opening fire to a crudely made mechanical armor. The armor had a propane tank exposed to the bullets as if the creator was insulting their aim. But what made his eyes widen in shock was seeing the familiar glow on the armor's chest.

"Ark reactor!" he exclaimed. He immediately knew who the creator of this armor was. "Tony Stark!"

"Is he someone important?" the suit asked.

"Important?" Ethan asked, a little too sharply. "I forgive your ignorance, but yes, he is someone of great importance. And he is also our ticket to the rest of the world unhindered."

"What good would that do? We can just stay in the sun for the rest of our long lives," the suit tried to dissuade him.

"You don't get it, do you? We are in a universe where anything is possible, especially if the mutant race are a thing. A pissed off mutant can turn out to be reality warper with enough juice to wipe out the universe. I'ld rather be privy with the day to day goings on Earth rather than wake up one day with the universe gone," he told the suit before speeding towards the gunfight. He didn't tell the suit that he was having a need boner over the possibility of this Stark being Robert Downey Jr.

Reaching the mountain side in just a three minutes, he waited in the clouds, watching the fight go on. The moment he was waiting for arrived when the armor took to the sky and sped off to the distance. He smiled to himself as his eyes turned red.

"My first kills will turn out to be terrorists. I'm truly patriotic," he hypocritically said. Laser beams shot out of his eyes and to the militia below him.

The militia were just catching their breath when the beams hit, bisecting one of them in half diagonally. This stunned them into stupefaction, but their attacker was not one to wait around. The beams moved fast, reaping several lives in seconds. Spurring into action, the survivors tried to get to cover but they were not fast enough. He heard someone shouting at them, pointing to the sky which made them all turn towards him and start firing at his position.

Feeling quite sadistic, he decided to stay still and crush their hopes. The bullets ricocheted off him in sparks as he smiled down at them. This was truly what felt to been powerful, having the power to kill someone with just a thought. Quickly, he drew himself out of his delusions as he remembered why exactly he was doing this.

'I'm here to buy time, not become a sadistic psychopath,' he reminded himself. He then turned to the tank and fired his beams at them, destroying those monsters of war. Then the fuel and water tanks before flying through the mountain, making it collapse onto itself and he was gone.

'I need to keep myself in check, having this too much power just as suddenly will lead to undesirable circumstances,' he thought to himself as he traced where the first Ironman armor would have landed. 'There!' He saw the scrap metal and the unconscious body of Tony Stark laying in the sand.

"This will be easy," he chuckled to himself, slowly landing next to him. "And he also looks like RDJ, that's a bonus." He fought the intrusive thought of cutting his hair for the black market, picked him up onto his shoulders and walked off.