11 Chapter 011 – Extremis
Chapter 11 – Extremis
That evening, as Wanda and I had finished our shower after hours of pleasuring each other, we had dinner together. I sat on the floor in front of an armchair, with my back between Wanda's parted legs, working on a long-time project on my laptop, while wearing some pajama pants and a shirt.
Wanda herself was only wearing some impossibly sexy set of lace underwear in dark green and a deep V sweater in black. While I was working on a programm, she sat behind me and watched some old American sitcom, while she braided my hair.
I loved it when she did that. The way her gentle finger ran over my scalp and the intense feelings of intimacy and closeness it gave me, were simply unmatched in their purity.
This had become somewhat of our routine daily.
I knew that the next few days would become relatively hectic, so I enjoyed this simple moment very much.
…
[2010 – September]
[Ivan Vanko]
Ivan opened the door to his run-down apartment, just coming back from the market to get some alcohol and some ready-made meals. He went inside the kitchen to warm-up the meal.
Though he stopped dead in his tracks, at the sight of two masked strangers – a man and a woman, judging by their stature – in his kitchen, looking at some schmeatics and plans that were laid out on the table.
Someone invading his home like this, directly triggered Ivan's aggressive impulses and just as he about to shout and attack the two, he felt a dull pain on his left temple.
The last thing he heard before he fainted were the words spoken by the man.
"Make him forget that he saw us and than we can leave. I have already scanned the plans."
Sadly these words were spoken in a slavic dialect he didn't understand.
Waking up a few minutes later, all Ivan could think of was that maybe he shouldn't drink that much when the result involved knocking himself unconcious on the doorframe. It would also limit his ability to fight an intruder, which wasn't a good thing in this neighbourhood.
…
[2010 – October]
[Aldrich Killian]
As Aldrich Killian sat there in a private booth of a highclass cafe somwhere in Berlin and waited for his company to arrive, he took out his tablet and read through the message that lead to this meeting again.
----
Hello Mister Killian,
I sent this message in anticipation of our future cooperation. You see, both of us share the same resentment for one Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man, which is a good enough starting point in my opinion.
Recently I have come across the original plans for the Ark Reactor Technology desinged by Howards Stark. Sadly, I lack the necessary resources to make full use of these plans, but A.I.M. does not.
I am very much open to a cooperation and the fact that I managed to send you this untraceable message on all your devices, should be proof enough of my capabilities. Though as a sign of goodwill, I have attached several images of the original plans, which are of course completely useless without the rest of the material.
Silver
-----
Killian had had his best men trace the message, but as it said in the email, that proved to be an impossible task and only led to an endless deluge off cyber attacks on his servers. The attached images also were exactly as described, completely useless on their own, but more than enough to prove the authenticity of the information.
This 'Silver' really had caught his attention and intrigue, so he had directly asked for a meeting, which led to him being here in this cafe.
Still, someone that could so effortless hack their systems and leave a message behind, was an incredibly dangerous person in Killian's opinion. Luckily the most important research material, where on a seperate server that was inaccessible over the web, which had proved to be a smart decision.
Suddenly a young couple entered the cafe, both looking very attractive and fit. and more importantly moving towards his table.
The young man with braided ash-blond hair and crystal eyes addressed Killian as he approached.
"Do you mind company, Mister Killian?"
"Silver, I assume?"
"You assume correctly."
"Be my guest then."
After both of them had seated themselve, a short silence ensued, during which they both ordered some beverage.
Killian was the first to speak up, unable to contain his curiosity.
"So, how does one manage to 'come across' the original plans for a technology so advanced that only one man was able to realise it, if you don't mind my question?"
"Not at all, but it wasn't anything as special as you might think. I just tracked down Anton Vanko, the man that helped Howard Stark in designing the Arc Reactor. He had been deported by Stark after it was discovered that he had sold his information to the Soviet's. A brilliant man, on the same level as Howard himself, sadly he wasn't as good a spy as he was a scientist. Nowadays he spends most of his time lying in his bed sick or drinking himself into a coma, which made it a piece of cake to copy his plans.", Silver answered him calmly with a slight smile.
After a short silence, Killian couldn't help but ask.
"Why tell me this? What do I need you for, if I could simply get my hands on the original plans? You said you only copied them, meaning you left the original plans intact didn't you?"
"Yes, I did.", Silver ansered not losing his smile, while the brunette at his side just looked on calmly.
"So, why?", Killian asked again intrigued.
"Because it doesnt matter anymore now that we have met, Aldrich."
Surprised a bit by the sudden use of his first name, Killian responded.
"What do you me-"
But was cut off by Silver, who only uttered one word.
"Wanda."
The woman's eyes suddenly glowed red and before he could react, a red-mist like energy invaded his body through the outstrechted hand of the woman under the table.
All the other visitors in the cafe, which had been his men in disguise, were also knocked unconcious.
…
[2010 – October]
Two days later Aldrich Killian had someone deliver the compound known as Extremis along with a hard drive with all the information about this project, without ever remembering that he did and with no evidence left about our interactions.
Of course, I wouldn't just give away the Arc Reactor technology to a maniac like that. He would probably use it to build weapons of mass destruction and as long as I was still living on this planet, I would prefer it if he didn't have those.
After reading through the entire paper, I concluded that it was safe for me to use. While for others there would be the danger of an uncontrollable exothermic chain reaction, it was different for me. It was stated that those who died after the injections, did it because their body couldn't adapt to the changes the compound made to their genetic structure. My body on the other hand was the most adaptable in existence.
"Are you sure about this, Pietro? You said it yourself, this compound is highly unstable and dangerous.", Wanda asked in a worried tone, while looking down at me.
We currently found ourselves in the basement of our place in Belgium, where I laid on a stretcher, a tube already sticking in my vein.
"I am. Don't worry about it. You know I would never willingly leave your side, so how could I risk my life with something like that.", I replied back, while giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
"I know, but I can't help worrying about you. You are my heart, Pietro.", Wanda said quietly as she leaned down and gave me a quick kiss, before straigthening herself again.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the valve at the end of the tube stuck in my arm, which made the compound rush into my veins a moment later.
It took an hour for the drip bag to empty itself into my veins and during that time I had felt something inside my body shifting around and adjusting constantly. I had started to sweat heavily, while my heart had started to beat irregularly. My temperature had also started to rise slowly, but steadily.
This change continued for several hours, sometimes it felt as if my bones were under great pressure, another time it had felt as if someone had been pulling my muscles apart. My eyes had began to dry and tear up over and over again, while a stining pain had assaulted all my organs. When my brain had started to feel as if it was on fire, I had finally fainted.
During that whole time, Wanda had stayed by my side, watching the monitors and other medical equipment for any worrying changes. Her worry and care for me obvious in the way she had soothed the uncomfortableness and pain I had expierienced, with simple touches and gentle words.
As I woke up some time later, I immediately felt the difference. It was as if every cell of my body had transformed into a miniature furnance, practically bursting with heat and fire. I felt like a volcano ready to erupt.
I felt absolutely incredible.
"You are awake! How are you feeling? Anything different? Any pain? Should I get you some water? Food?", Wanda fired a barrage of questions, as soon as she saw me open my eyes.
"I fe-Cough, cough!", I tried to answer, but my throat was a incredible dry and it caused me to have a coughing fit.
"Here, drink something. This will make it better.", said Wanda, while holding a straw near my mouth.
I didn't much care for the content and directly inhaled the refreshing liquid, which turned out to be simple water.
"Huuh...Much better.", I sighed in relief.
"Here have some more."
Taking another big cup of water from her hands, I started drinking from it.
"You can stop worrying now. I feel fine. In fact, I feel incredible. Though my body feels a tad bit unfamiliar."
"Well, you grew a bit taller, and your muscles and bones have rearranged themselves slightly.", Wanda explained.
"No wonder...", I replied.
Extremis was designed to harvest bioelectric potential through genetic manipulation, granting several incredible powers to its user.
Normally it shouldn't change ones physical state except when curing deformities or regrowing limbs, but it seemed as if that wasn't the case for me.
A first tentative guess was that me already possessing superhuman abilities in addition with my adaptability had caused some kind of change in the way it affected my body.
I wasn't really bothered by this, as I figured a few centimeters more height wouldn't be bad at all.
Standing up from the stretcher, I walked into the middle of the huge, but mostly empty basement.
"Careful, don't overdo it."
"I won't, but I think you should stay back for a bit and maybe errect a barrier.", I smirked mischieviously at Wanda, while saying this.
"Sigh, you want to test it already, don't you?", Wanda questioned in resignation.
"Of course.", I stated with smile.
"Try to not lose control, we don't have a fire extinguisher down here...", she quipped back sarcastically, her barrier alread up and running.
"Haha, even if you had, I doubt that would do you any good. FIRE ON!"
Suddenly the contained heat and energy in my body erupted outwards, turning my hospital gown to ashes in an instant and all I could see was blue fire being emitted by my whole body.
"What the... This..."
I was immediately shocked at the sight of the blue fire practically pouring out of my body's every cell. This isn't how this was supposed to go.
Normally an Extremis user would be capable of emitting heat from their body parts and in rare cases spit fire at opponents, but this was a totally different league.
Focusing hard on reigning in the power I unleashed, it took me several minutes to perfectly contain the energy of my cells again.
"This isn't how this was supposed to go, or is it brother?", Wanda questioned in obvious surprise.
"No, no it isn't."
"Any explanation for this?"
"It must be my superhuman metabolism.", I stated after thinking about it for several minutes.
"How?"
"I think it interferes with the exothermic abilities of Extremis, like cranking up the oxygen on a gas-powered torch. It accelerates and fuels the chemical reactions, which turns a normal coloured orange flame into a blue one. Well, it's somewhat like that.", I explained, while trying to find a good analogy.
"Is that a good thing?", Wanda asked hestitantly.
"Hmm...That depends."
"On what?"
"On ones ability to control it. Extremis itself was already extremely volatile and hard to control. Now with my Superspeed and metabolism in the mix, it is basically impossible to control... For anybody, but me that is.", I told her.
"As long as you are safe.", Wanda said with obvious relief colouring her tone.
"I am, but it will take some time to get a good handle on this power. Months even.", I admitted.
