Everyone seemed exhausted as they dined at a local shawarma restaurant that somehow avoided the chaos of the Chitari invasion.
A man and devil garb Stubbled through the door "Room for one more?"
That day the world knew of The avengers and they also knew that they weren't alone when or where maybe just maybe somebody would attack again.
-
With the help of Natasha, Barton quickly regained his sanity. They went back to working for shield like nothing happened.
Once Tony realized Matt had been trained by Auggie, he invested heavily in his law firm enough funding to keep them running pro bono for years, if that's what they chose. It was the least he could do.
Peggy and Steve, now expecting a child, were preparing to settle down. No one knew what it meant for two super soldiers to have a baby but whatever came, they were ready to face it together.
Tony buried himself in his work, obsessed with designing tech that could stop whatever was coming. He didn't know what that might be, only that the storm on the horizon was real.
Bruce decided to return to college for a psychology degree, hoping to better understand his condition. Maybe even do some hero work on the side. Science and action his constant companions.
Thor had planned to use the Tesseract to return home, but it had been destroyed. Just as he began to accept a new life on Earth, a woman appeared.
She had flowing white hair, a regal presence, and lightning flickering in her eyes. "Door of the realms, I beseech thee open. For I am Storm."
The air shimmered, the color spectrum bending. For a moment, the world shifted blue. A portal opened, revealing a clear window to Asgard. Thor stepped through, his brother beside him. Until next time.
Meanwhile, Arden watched the arrivals from his dimension increase. It unsettled him. What if he was a threat what if his presence invited something worse? He began to search for something anything that could block, contain, or counter hostile races... maybe even the friendly ones. He needed control. He needed answers. He needed to understand what being a Chronobit truly meant.
-
At the exact moment of the portal opening to Asgard any other fracture appeared in the sky as a meteorite fell from it. On it was a glowing green rock. It landed in Avalon California on a small frozen lake.
A boy no older than 15 walked out onto the ice in search of such a wonder of the universe. Only to fall in he tried as he might to get back to the surface but no matter what he could try he was stuck until next morning.
Keepers from the ice looking as though dead from frostbite hail blue skin frosted lips dad looking eyes.
First He lit a fire and within 10 minutes it was out but the strangest thing was that it was now made of ice his skin looked better but the fire was gone. He still felt like this was going to keep happening so he wandered the farm looking for anything that might help him stay warm.
Until eventually he stumbled on to a pig pen accidentally touching his pet pig Beauty she froze in a matter of minutes. He didn't take his hand off once as he felt the peace of being warm but afterward remorse is all he felt.
After that the boy would search for anything besides and living tissue to sustain his warmth eventually finding matches and car batteries to be the best use of heat keep him warm.
He tried going to school like normal but matches were too inconspicuous people noticed even if slightly and so he had to come up with a better plan.
-
As this happened a certain company began to be aware of the boys condition about how he could always stay cold never heat up.
This particular condition was very good for them as they had come up with a viable super soldier serum centipede but due to its volatile Island heated nature most subjects exploded before they could even figure out what the effects were.
This made the boy the perfect subject for further research and development of the centipede.
Eventually, they came for him.
The company that had been watching quiet, hidden, precise descended on Avalon like shadows. No sirens, no spectacle. Just a black van, a handful of agents in thermal gear with three letters on the back A.I.M, and one boy, cornered while trying to scavenge jumper cables from an abandoned garage.
He didn't even fight. He couldn't. Not because he was weak but because he was tired.
They took him to an underground facility far from Avalon. Cold. Clinical. Bright lights and steel walls. But the cold didn't bite here. Instead, they brought heat controlled, weaponized, ready for tests.
At first, he thought they wanted to cure him.
They didn't.
They wanted to use him.
Project Centipede had been a failure for years. The serum was a miracle on paperstrength, regeneration, heightened senses but its volatility was lethal. No one could contain its internal heat. Not until he arrived.
Where others burned from the inside out, he absorbed the excess. Neutralized it. Stabilized it.
For the first time, the Centipede Serum didn't kill.
It worked.
-
Arden, fresh off the Battle of New York and still trying to understand what it truly means to be a Chronobit, began investigating a strange meteor event in Avalon. Seeking guidance, he reaches out to Annie she had become a true SHIELD legend from the '70s and '80s. But she's gone dark.
He caught wind of it through SHIELD chatter a place called Avalon, a boy, and heat signatures that didn't make any sense. Arden couldn't let it go.
She'd been out of the game, but no one left the game completely not even her. Arden turned to the one man who always knew where to look: Auggie.
After a trail of burned IDs and hush-money payoffs, they found her. Prague. She wasn't hiding. She was hunting. With Blade.