May 22, 2014

Despite my best attempts, I am not the Marvel Wiki. So I cannot remember literally everything that has to do with Agatha Harkness, not without rereading it a couple of times. Still, I did know a lot, enough to tell her the basics.

“New Salem is long behind me,” Agatha said when I described the place.

“But it’s not done with you,” I argued. “Or at least, it wasn’t done with you in one universe.”

New Salem was a magical community hidden away in Colorado, Harry Potter style. When the Salem witch trials went down a few magic-users decided it was best to keep out of sight of mortals. It’s why they named it New Salem. To remember why they swore to stay away from normal humans.

Couldn’t blame them, to be honest.

Agatha used to run it in the original comics until she left. Actually…

“Why did you leave New Salem, anyway?” I asked her curiously.

“That dimensional viewer of yours never told you the reason?” Agatha asked with a hint of amusement. When I shook my head, she chuckled. “Well, I’ll be keeping the reason to myself then.”

“Awww,” I grumbled.

Well, that still left that little magical community in existence. Which was honestly one of many.

“Still, you should be careful,” I said as earnestly as I could. “In the world I saw New Salem in, Nicholas-”

“My son?” Agatha seemed startled.

“Yeah. Nicholas Scratch. He ends up convincing the whole town that you told the world about them-”

“Never!” she spat out the word with a special kind of anger. “I would never break my promise! The mere idea that they would believe such tripe…”

“Your son was apparently really convincing. He managed to get them to convict you for the crime. But a team of superheroes came to save you because you were… taking care of their son…”

I said that part slowly because something was falling into place in my head. And I guess Agatha realized that too, because she was staring at me. So was Ebony, who hopped off my lap to land on the table between us.

“...That was why you decided to work for those heroes. Because you knew you might need help from them. After all, their son was a reality warper. But those heroes don’t exist yet here. The closest equivalent we have is Wanda.”

Agatha continued to meet my gaze.

“And between her and Fantasma, if New Salem does come to kidnap you for a trial, the three of you can kick a lot of ass. But if they succeed in that… The Winter Guard, Avengers, and Grapplers will do whatever they can to get Fantasma and Wanda back.”

Agatha sighed. “That is true. But I really am here to help those two. The girls have incredible potential. What you’re saying is a potential beneficial side effect at best.”

“You need to tell them,” I said immediately. “If you don’t, they’ll end up attacked without having any reason why-”

“I will tell them what is necessary, and nothing less, young man,” Agatha said. “You may have a lot of information, useful information. But I was alive when your ancestors were still hitting each other with sticks. You would do well to remember that when attempting to order me around.”

“I’m advising, not ordering!” I scowled at her. “Ms. Harkness, you don’t have to tell them everything, just let them know you have enemies that might try to get to you through them, and you’ll be training them to be ready for that. Fantasma and Wanda have been in a bunch of brawls, and they know they’ll have a lot more to contend with purely because of their jobs. They can handle knowing their teacher has a few problems following her around.”

“...I will consider it.”

“If you don’t, I’ll just tell them myself.”

“Impertinent child… If you know of New Salem, what other societies exist in the multiverse?”

Just like that. She took what I had to say, considered it, then rolled on.

I scowled at her again. Well, I’d said my piece. I’d ask Fantasma about it later, confirm if Agatha had told or not. For now, I continued.

“Okay. So besides New Salem, I know there’s Kamar-Taj, with the Ancient One. Maria is trying to find some way to contact them, actually.”

“She’ll have trouble with that,” Agatha scoffed. “The Ancient One is a good sorceress, but she has no love for the outside world.”

“...So the Ancient One isn’t an old Asian man with a long beard?” I asked, befuddled.

Agatha blinked. Then she chuckled. Then she flat out laughed, her shoulders shaking. “Oh my, no! Carriers of the title have been male however.”

“Title?” I blinked. “Most universes, the Ancient One is a single guy.”

“Your information is beginning to seem less impressive,” she noted with some annoyance in her voice.

“It’s accurate for the multiverse,” I shrugged. “Besides, I’ve been right about most stuff. Even when something surprises me, I tend to know a lot about it. Like Dormammu, or the Mindless Ones.”

“You know about them?” Agatha said.

“The Mindless Ones?” When she nodded, I shrugged. “Those living magical engines of unstoppable destruction, bipedal one-eyed rock dudes who got created by Plokta? Used by wizards and warlocks to kick the asses of everyone they face. I have a whole section of one of my journals dedicated to finding a way to beat them, and most of those pages are ‘Piss off Bruce Banner’.”

“...The ones I know of are very different,” she said slowly. “...Do you know how to summon the ones you know of?”

“Ya, we don’t need those showing up,” I scoffed.

Even when I said that, I didn’t like the gleam in Agatha’s eyes. God, what sort of can of worms had I opened up?

------

After a long talk with Agatha about the Scrier, Dormammu, and dozens more magical and cosmic threats, I felt like working on other projects. Thinking about the galactic threats capable of snuffing out life in the blink of an eye made me stressed out.

Nat and I stood in the middle of a construction site, watching as one of the workers walked by in a Ridley, one of the mech suits Tony and I had made for lifting heavy objects like it. Sammy was yelling in the distance, while an architect gave some guidance to a group of workers.

“This seems to be going well for you,” Nat noted. She was wearing her usual leather casual outfit, though she’d gone for a darker red shade than usual. “How many levels will it have?”

“Four. Bottom will be a bunker though. Worst case scenario, in case the world blows up.”

“You mean that literally?” Nat asked.

“Yep. We’re basing a lot of this on old SHIELD contingencies. We were planning for everything we could. Might not work for actual planetary explosions,” god, the fact that was a possibility still made me want to punch someone. “But it’ll be nuke-proof though. And zombie-proof, alien-proof, some cosmic god-proof… Course, even with me cheating using Jury Rigg and Tony putting everything he’s got into it, we can’t make guarantees. But I’m doing my best with what I’ve got.”

“It does look like you’ve been putting a lot of work in,” Nat said, looking at one particular section, a place that would become the future armory. “What is the plan for all this, anyway?”

“Make it a secondary base in case of the worst. An Avengers Mansion kinda thing, someplace we can work from in secret,” I looked over at a certain someone walking over to us, and couldn’t help the grin on my face. “Heya, X. What do you think so far?”

My favorite robot bud walked over, his metal form glittering in the sunlight. His blue eyes spun in his head while he took in everything around him. When he spoke, it was with his usual Southern drawl.

“Well, they’re following the schematics. I reckon we should be done on schedule. Including the ‘extras’.”

“Extras?” Nat looked at me.

“What, you thought I wanted to build this place with regular concrete and steel?” I smirked. “You may have taught me the art of kung fu, but Tony taught me the art of overdoing things. Plus, this is supposed to be the backup facility, but it’s really my own personal base. I’m a nerd, what kind would I be if I didn’t trick this place out as best as I could?”

Nat looked around for a moment. “Well, I can understand that.”

“Good. Cause I’d really like you, Clint, and any other superspy you can think of to find any way you possibly can to infiltrate, destroy, or otherwise make my new super cool base into rubble.”

“I was already planning to do that,” Nat said with a Cheshire smile. “As a friend, of course.”

“Of course you were, you scary, scary sensei of mine,” I said fondly. “X, you’ve been running the variables on what could happen if, say, Bruce’s crazy future self decided to show up an attack, right?”

Nat stared at me like I’d gone insane. Well, I wasn’t willing to explain the Maestro problem, considering it wasn’t going to happen without a lot of crap going wrong that was unlikely.

“I have,” X said, his eyes glowing and dimming with each word. “I’ve been calculating dozens of scenarios, everything that I could think of based on current, predicted, and fictional threats.”

“Fictional?” Nat asked.

“Oh yes, darlin,” X said while looking around. “Considering all the scenarios, the Avengers are more than likely to find facsimiles of fictional problems we have yet to contend with.”

Nat looked over at me skeptically. I sighed.

“Well… in another superhero universe, they end up fighting fairy tale monsters and legends,” shout out to the Queen of Fables from DC Comics. “Dragons are a thing, actually Thor confirmed that even before I met Hauzer. And you never know when another Rio Incident will send demons and monsters to us.”

Nat nodded at that. “But, if the way this construction looks proves anything, you aren’t going to keep anything important in this part of the facility, are you?”

“...Let’s just say I’m taking my queues from other buildings like this. Sammy’s been making it look like this is all some fancy millionaire making his own clubhouse.”

“Isn’t it?” Nat teased.

I scoffed. “Billionaire, Nat. Millionaire is so last decade.”

She rolled her eyes. Yeah, it sounded cooler when Bruce Wayne said it.

“By the way, X, how has it been, returning to New York?” I asked my bud.

“Uneventful. In point of fact, things have been relatively calm for me. The Savage Land was far more strenuous.”

“Strenuous,” I blinked. “What happened?”

“Mostly dinosaur attacks,” X said in way too casual a tone. “The wildlife had some trouble adjusting to our presence. They attempted to reestablish territory. We were forced to push them back. Non-lethally, of course. Except for Kraven, who killed a Tyrannosaurus Rex and is working on mounting it on his mantle place. And then, there was the army.”

“Army?” Nat and I said at the same time.

“Only a small army,” X reassured us. “Several villages of Lizard-Men who doubted Gresh’s claims that we were willing and able to defend ourselves. The Savage Avengers dealt with it.”

“‘Savage’ Avengers? I thought you were joking about that,” Nat said to me.

“Gresh doesn’t know the difference between a joke and a suggestion,” I couldn’t hide my exasperation.

“He does still have an ‘A’ painted on his chest,” X noted.

“Still, sounds like we missed a fun adventure,” I tried to picture it in my head for a moment.

“Oh yes. Seeing Ka-Zar and Kraven fight back to back was quite interesting. I’ll show you my recordings later.”

“Thanks man,” I said honestly. I looked down at Black Widow and remembered something. “Oh. Uh, Nat. You knew that the new teacher you suggested was Ares.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I did,” Nat said with a sigh. “Honestly, I’m glad he ended up so reasonable.”

“For a given value of reasonable,” I mumbled. “Why did you recommend him then? If you thought he might end up more like his mythological self?”

“Fair question. First, because my contact in the Greek Military shared his psychological profile,” Nat bit her bottom lip, smudging her ruby red lipstick a little, before continuing. “He was more stable than initial reports suggested. Then, Thor came to me.”

“Thor?” I asked, surprised.

“He’s been worried about you. He said he’s never been a teacher, but you needed one, and Heimdall recommended Ares.”

“Heimdall recommended- Seriously!?” I gaped at her, stunned.

“That’s what he said,” Nat said.

“Well… guess he’d know better,” I mumbled to myself. Heimdall, what the hell are you up to these days, man? Really needed to meet that guy soon.

“Thor is supposed to talk to you soon though. He’s just taking care of a storm off the coast of Malaysia,” Nat said casually.

“It’ll have to wait, then,” I said, looking around the future base rising around us. “I’ve got more work to do.”

“I don’t envy you. Swamps are terrible for my hair,” Nat ran a hand through her long red locks.

“Nat, did you have a supercool spy mission in a swamp?”

“You wouldn’t believe the places I’ve had spy missions in.”

------

About an hour later, I was in a quinjet with one of BRIDGE’s newest Directors. I wasn’t piloting, which meant I got a chance to get to know her.

Pretty much forced to, honestly.

“-based on this new data, we have so much more knowledge on the nature of the spiritual realm! For years, experts would dismiss theories like this as simple nonsense, more for folklore or historical specialists, but now it turns out we have been pioneering an entirely new scientific frontier! Isn’t that incredible!”

I blinked slowly, my brain slowly catching up to the storm of information that had hit me. A whole lot of theories on mental and physical realms beyond our own, the spiritual relationship Thor, Ares, and Sandráss had with ‘domains’ and ‘concepts’, the difference between Fantasma and Wanda’s powers and what that means about the mercurial nature of magic, and a slew of reports on Agatha Harkness.

It was like Fitz-Simmons had a kid that was obsessed with magic, and applied every bit of that genius to understanding and comprehending it.

“It really is pretty damn cool,” I agreed, looking her over.

Doctor Pandora Peters was a PHD. Not sure in what field, but she was definitely smart enough for it. She was American, like me, with dark brown skin, curly black hair held in a ponytail at the base of her skull. And in a super predictable turn of events, she looked like an actress from my world. Genelle Williams, specifically, who I only remembered because I used to watch Warehouse 13.

She was wearing a blue button up shirt, black slacks, and had some ink marks on her collar that she hadn’t noticed. She was rifling through textbooks at high speed while constantly working on her laptop at the same time. Pandora also seemed frustrated.

“You okay?”

“No!” she typed faster. “Due to the nature of my research, many of my best resources have no documents on the internet I can go to for quick searches. I’m having to type many of these by hand. It’s been a good way to refresh my memory of the old texts, but it’s so time consuming.”

The last two words were said with a hint of disgust.

“I mean, if you want, I can make you something to scan books and turn them into PDFs?” I asked.

“No,” she was still typing frantically, flipping through the textbook at her side quickly. “This is fine. I hate how time consuming it is, but the benefit of refreshing my memory on these books outweighs that. I just wish Miss Harkness would let me speak to her! Or Thor! But they’re both so busy!”

The last was said in a wail of pain. “You’ve spoken with her, right!? What’s she like?” she said, brown eyes sparkling with eagerness.

I thought about that. “...Foreboding. Terrifying. And really fucking smart.”

“Just like I imagined,” she whispered under her breath. She sounded more excited than scared.

“Isn’t she supposed to be meeting you soon?” I asked, confused. “Agatha mentioned she wanted to meet the Director of WAND to prepare them for the job, and, well, that’s you-URK!”

Pandora grabbed my hands, squeezing them hard while staring at me with wide eyes. “Really!?”

“Y-Yeah! That’s what she said anyways. Pandora, my hands-”

She let go before I could move, grabbing her textbook and stuffing it into her backpack, focusing entirely on her laptop.

“Oh, I have so many questions to add to the list! Okay, I have enough on the possibility of the existence of the Fae realms, as well as the concept of the Akashic Records, so I should also add something about the relation of different myths to each other. Oh, I should confirm how ritual magic works, there’s been some debate about that, so-WAIT! More importantly, there’s the common idea that Merlin and other figures from the lore of Camelot are fictional, but recent discoveries in EnglandleadmetobelieveotherwisesoI’llhaveto-”

And she was off again. Wow.

W.A.N.D. was the latest division of BRIDGE. The Wizardry, Alchemy and Necromancy Department. Maria and Fury had been planning on building it slowly, but the discovery of Man-Thing had made it a necessity. Well, less the big swamp monster, more the Nexus of all Realities.

...The Nexus could connect to other parts of the multiverse. All other ones.

The thought consumed me as the quinjet continued to fly, Pandora speaking to herself at high speed.

------

When we got to the airfield, Sam Elliot was there waiting for us. Well, the Sheriff who looked a lot like him. The pilot spoke to me before I got off.

“I’ll be here waiting for you if you like, sir?” the young BRIDGE soldier said.

“No, it’s cool. I can fly myself,” I said with a shrug. “I only came on the jet to make sure Pandora got here safely. Go ahead and head home if you want.”

She grinned and nodded. “Thanks sir. Have a good day.”

“You too,” I watched the pilot practically skip back into the quinjet before turning to look at the Sheriff and Doctor talking. Seriously. Sam Elliot. That was really damn trippy.

Not just that, but young Sam Elliot, which was so weird. He still had his famous stache though.

“Sheriff Daltry?” I asked, walking up to the pair.

For an insane moment, I thought he was going to tell me about the Dude. Instead he smiled and held out his hand, taking mine in a firm shake.

“That’s me. You’re that shapeshifter, right?” Daltry said.

“I am. You’re here to take us to the new base, right?”

Daltry nodded with a hint of a smile on his lips. “And I suppose you’ll want to meet Manny.”

“Manny?” Pandora and I said in unison, blinking.

Daltry chuckled. “Well, Man-Thing is a hard name to say in public. So I’ve been calling him Manny.”

“That’s oddly cute,” I mumbled to myself.

Pandora, on the other hand, had bigger issues in mind. “You’ve seen him, right!? What is he like? I have reports from Coulson’s team, but I’d really love your take! For example, what does he smell like? What would you describe the feeling he induces when he’s near you? Can he even be described as ‘he’, in your opinion? What about-”

“Calm down, miss,” Daltry said, looking a little overwhelmed. “You’ll get a look at him for yourself soon enough.”

“But I’d much rather hear your thoughts ahead of time!” Pandora said earnestly. “When it comes to magical research, the impressions they have on people are important to know. I’m dealing with things of a psychic nature after all!”

The last part was said with a lot of happiness. More than I thought was called for.

“Ah…” Daltry looked at me. I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll tell you all I can in the car. You can ride in the front.”

“Great!” Pandora lifted her bag onto her shoulder and rushed for his jeep, while Daltry and I followed.

“How are you the normal one between you two?” Daltry whispered to me. I figured I’d put things into context for him.

“My gamma girlfriend and I had a sparring match with a god of war yesterday, and I drank a milkshake with a witch this morning before meeting up with my assassin teacher and robotic buddy after. Now I’m talking to the sheriff of a town with a certain swampy secret defending another secret. Trust me, normal went out the window the second the Earth got made.”

Daltry stared at me for a full twenty seconds before grumbling to himself and walking around to the driver side door of his sheriff’s jeep.