Chapter Text
A bright swirling portal opened in a back alley. I walked through the portal with practiced ease despite the disorientation and dizziness that sometimes came with it. As it closed, I looked around. “Okay, David, where are you this time?” I asked myself. My name is Charles David Hall. I was a man of many talents, one of which was always attracting trouble. It’s why I have another name: S-Class.
A work name, if you will, for a dangerous line of work. I am a “hero,” as some would say. I use my powers, of which I have a few, to save people. And I could tell I was going to be going to work a lot sooner than I thought I would. I saw a beautiful Asian woman running away from a couple of guys. At least one looked like a cyborg of sorts. “Hero time,” I said as one of them broke the windshield of the car she was trying to escape in.
“I think the lady doesn't want to go with you. So take my advice: No means no.” I grabbed the one on the hood of the car. Using super strength, I hurtled him fifty feet in the air, landing on the other one some distance away. I turned to look at the girl in the driver's seat of the car. I offered her a smile before opening the door of the police cruiser she was trying to drive off in.
“Hi there, pretty lady.” The voice I used was mildly comical, and she smiled despite the fear I could hear in her head. “Would you like a hand?” I offered her my hand, and she took it, stepping out of the car and finally making sure she had her backpack safe and sound with everything still inside it.
“Who are you?” There was no fear in her voice, which made me see how tough she was.
“In this situation, you can call me S-Class.”
“S-Class? What the hell is that about? Are you a sports car fan or an anime nut?” I smirked at her mouth but noticed the pair of attackers getting to their feet.
“I’m an anime nut, 1000%. But I can go into the proper intro when we are a safe distance away from ugly and uglier.” I nodded to the pair of them.
“I have to get to the airfield,” she muttered more to herself than to me. She looked around for a way to run.
“Allow me, ma’lady.” I grabbed her hand and teleported us to the nearest rooftop. Then again and again. Short jumps that were never in a straight line but heading to the same destination. The airfield I had gotten from her mind. And eventually we popped right beside a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III that looked like it had been modified to be a mobile command center for S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Skye?”
“How’d you do that?”
“Who is this guy?”
“Where is Ward?”
The questions came at us in rapid-fire succession, and I missed a few. And a few were just the same question asked differently by a different person waiting to get these answers. That’s when I spotted him.
“Coulson? Agent Phil Coulson is that you?”
“How do you know him?” I recognized the speaker instantly. It was Agent Maria Hill. Both were S.H.I.E.L.D., which checked with the mobile command center.
“Complicated, Agent Hill. And gets more complicated the more I travel. Okay, so mutant mean anything to you?” They stared at me blankly. “Apparently not. Got a biochemist with you at any chance?”
“As luck would have it, we do. But we need to get out of here like five minutes ago. Ward is HYDRA. And he and Mike are probably on their way here to figure out where we went and HOW WE GOT HERE,” said the beautiful Asian woman I had saved before, staring at me with a smile that was alluring and hard to read at the same time.
Easy David. You don’t want to fall for someone that easily again. I chastised myself as I followed her into the plane. The others eyed her in confusion as she led me around, showing off tech and gadgets like a kid showing her favorite person everything that mattered.
* * *
After we were firmly in the air again, I sat in a chair as I allowed a woman by the name of Jemma Simmons to draw my blood. Skye, the woman I had saved, was smirking at me as I winced when they inserted the needle. “You can throw a man fifty feet in the air, but a little needle hurts?”
“IT STUNG LIKE A BITCH!”
“Baby.” She stuck out her tongue, and I mock-glared at her. The ease with which we spoke to each other was like we had known each other all our lives. It was freeing for both of us. And a little terrifying at the same time for both of us.
“Okay, why would taking your blood help you explain who you are?” Agent Hill asked.
“It won’t. Blood isn’t the end goal. The end goal comes in when she looks at my genes in 5, 4, 3, 2…”
“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE NOT HUMAN!” Jemma said after a glance at my genes.
“Right in one. It is easier to see under a microscope. Our physiology is the same. We can share blood, with risks at times. And breed. Because while we are different ‘species,’ we haven’t truly gone through speciation where we are TOO different. Just one gene is truly different. The X-Gene. It allows the human body to take on, sometimes, monstrous powers.”
“Speciation?” Hill asked.
“It’s the moment when two species that share a root ancestor can no longer see each other as the same species. When that happens, blood can not be shared, kids can not be had, and physiology is completely different.” I explained. “I’m not human…but enjoy the benefits of being born from humans.” My gaze lingered on Skye a little too long before I shook my head a little.
Jemma was stunned into silence. So was everyone. Except Skye, who was smirking like a Cheshire cat. Then she shook her head a little too, wiped the grin from her face, and looked serious at the screen. “So what are you then, Mr. Not Human?”
“Homo sapiens superior, or simply Homo superior…a pretentious scientific name, I know. I didn’t pick it. It was picked by a madman…whom I have fought with and against. It just stuck…a little too well, in my honest opinion. Names Charles David Hall; call me David. But my codename is S-Class. Originally DNAnimal. My mutant power allowed me to turn into animals by controlling my DNA.”
“Sit, Ubu, sit.” Skye teased.
“Points for getting it right; it IS Ubu, not BooBoo…but why didn’t I leave you there?” She stuck out her tongue again.
“I…I’ve never heard of such a thing. S.H.I.E.L.D. has never heard of such a phenomenon. How is this possible?” Jemma stammered out.
“Not surprised, to be honest. Sometimes in some universes mutants just don’t exist.”
“Wait, back the truck up.” Skye was thinking about something I said I could tell. “You said you have the power to turn into animals. And your original codename was DNAnimal because of it. But now it’s S-Class…and I saw you use super strength…”
“Long story. But my original powers are locked away from me by my skeleton.” I popped my adamantium claws like those of one of my mentors with a snikt. The room gasped and stared at the sudden appearance of six deadly weapons they wouldn't have thought to look for.
“My entire skeleton was coated with adamantium. A very hard metal that, when turned into a blade, is impossibly sharp to the point that it never needs to be sharpened. Because no material in the world can damage it or wear it down. My bones can’t change anymore because of it. So I can only add to them. Wings, tails, and gills.” I sighed.
“I was given new powers that allowed this to be grafted onto my bones without killing me beforehand. One of my powers is super strength. Another allows me to open portals to other universes. I am an Omniversal traveler because of that.” Skye knew there was more to the story but she didn’t push it.
“How did they-” Jemma started before Skye nudged her and shook her head saying drop it. Jemma looked at Skye with raised eyebrows but did as her friend asked and dropped it for now.
I was silently thankful for Skye’s nudge. I was NOT ready to tell that story to strangers, even if I knew other versions of some of them. “When this happened, I had very little to no control of my new powers. Especially the power to create a dimensional wormhole. This allows me to travel the Omniverse.”
“You keep saying the Omniverse or Omniversal…isn’t there just the multiverse?” Fitz, their tech and science expert, asked.
“You sweet summer child,” I smirked. “There are layers to this shit.”
“The universe is where we are. Every atom around us is the universe we live in. Sometimes a universe can be a seed. That seed grows a mighty tree of multiple universes. This is the multiverse. But then there is the fact that every inevitably happens. Meaning that your favorite show you watch? That happened somewhere. Every cartoon you loved? Somewhere Bugs Bunny is asking, ‘What’s up, Doc?’ to a hunter. This brings me to the Megaverses.
“Megaverses are collections of multiverses and universes that are born in the same manner. These overlap, to the best of my understanding. Still learning this shit. And probably will be still learning for the rest of my life. But I know that they are split into groups like books, movies, TV, etc.
“Ours, for the record, is comics. The seed that birthed the multiverse, and yes, we are from the same multiverse, was born from a comic book company known as Marvel, formerly known as Timely Comics. When they published such hits like…Captain America. That one exists here, I take it. Usually he does, so I went with the safe bet. So we are part of the Marvel Multiverse. And no, this particular universe is NOT comics-based. You’d notice. Well…I’d notice; you would think it’s normal.” I smirked. “The rest is self-explanatory. The Omniverse is everything. Every atom that can, will, and does exist is the Omniverse.”
“All of this is how I know both Agent Maria Hill and Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. The initials are always the same but stand for different things sometimes. What’s it here?”
“The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” Coulson said with a sad tone, which made me search his mind with my telepathy and find out the HYDRA secret in this worlds S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Well…fuck…HYDRA are vermin. They should be wiped the fuck out. Telepath. Saw the face, went digging, found the HYDRA surprise. Sorry about the digging.” I looked down, ashamed of thinking that of Coulson. Skye saw that and wanted to know what I was thinking even more but knew not to push.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, looking at him trying to make it up to the man I know Coulson should be.
“Why?” Hill asked, looking at me skeptically.
“Because I owe a Phil Coulson my life. And I’ll be damned if I can help one and didn’t.”
He nodded as if he made up his mind about me. “Find her.”
“Who?” He pulled up a picture off their hard drives. An Asian woman near his age.
“Know her?” I shook my head.
“Not a Marvel Wiki Page, Coulson. First time meeting a Fitz, Jemma, and Skye…at least I think. Shit gets weird when identities get changed or warped…don’t ask but happens far too often for my liking. Anyway, name please.”
“Melinda May.” I concentrated on the name and the photo. If I were Professor X, I would just need the photo, but while I’m strong enough to search the planet with a combination of astral projection and telepathy thanks to the number of powers I have. I wasn’t, but a child next to him. Finally finding her and smirking in bemusement.
“She’s in a cemetery…digging up a grave…your grave, apparently, going by the name on the tombstone. And she’s trying to shut me out. Are you sure mutants don’t exist here? She is a pro at blocking a telepath. She’s putting up firewalls, locking me out of parts of her brain…naturally! I am the impressed. I could tell her an address to go to meet us, but pretty sure she’d just ignore me and hunt me down like she was Liam Neeson and I kidnapped her child. Coulson, you’re on!”
“I don’t know who you are or how you are in my head, but that is a dangerous place to be,” she grumbled.
“May, is that…did you just connect our brains?”
“Coulson? Did who just do what?” She stopped what she was doing, holding the flash drive she dug up from the grave that had been Phil Coulson’s.
“Short version: a man with power made a mental long-distance telephone call with minds. And the bill is only going to be a kidney. Or your firstborn. Haven’t decided.” I teased.
“May, ignore him. We are coming to you. YOU RUN INTO WARD, RUN; HE’S HYDRA!”
“Ward…Ward is HYDRA? How deep did the covers go? I picked him personally for your team, Coulson. Which is why I am here digging up a flash drive that might have answers for you about TAHITI on it. And getting stars because I am digging up a grave.”
“Yeah, I know. We will talk about that later when the Bus and everyone on it is in a new base. Fury did love having secret bases for secret bases.”
“New base?”
“A longer story that involves Hill. Which is why I knew about your visit to my grave before David did. Just didn’t know if you were still there. Stay there and stay safe.”
He turned to face me. “Thank you. I hate to keep you from trying to get back to your home.”
“I’ve been back a few times. I couldn’t control it in the beginning. Now I can. I’m just looking for something in the Omniverse. I don’t even know what anymore. I thought I did, but…it ended badly. I’m close though; I can feel it.” My gaze landed on Skye again, who blushed and smiled and shook her head. “So I’m here as long as you need me.”
* * *
“Wondered where the demon went.” I walked up to a cubby hole in the cargo hold where she was tucked away on a laptop.
“Not a demon, Homo doofus inferior.”
“I didn’t pick it!” We smiled at each other.
“I don’t think I’m ready to start something new…” we said at the exact same time. We stared at each other before laughing.
“It’s not me, it’s you.” I teased, and she swatted my arm with a laugh.
“Truth?” I asked as I sat down next to her.
“No lie to me.” She nudged me.
“I thought I was looking for exactly what you thought I was looking for. I thought I found it. Ended so badly. Bad enough for me to actually just up and leave. Not just the relationship but the universe. Your turn!”
“Liked a guy. Great sex…well, fair sex. Then he sold secrets to the highest bidder. I am about free information. Not…that bull. Moved on. Started to fall for another guy. Killed a man because he learned he was HYDRA. Same man you threw Mike Peterson at, btw. My guy picker is broken.”
“But you didn’t have to leave the universe because of it…so you lost this I Suck At Dating tournament. Bob, tell her what her consolation prize is.” She giggled at that.
“How is it so easy to talk to you?” we asked at the same time again. And then laughed.
“I could never be this open when I was growing up,” she sighed.
“Same. But for a different reason. Mutants aren’t exactly looked upon with favor back home. Some human women don’t want the chance to have a ‘Mutie’ for a child.” She looked at me, confused. “Racial slur.”
“Some women are stupid. I wouldn’t mind, I think. To have a child with powers.”
“You say that now. But what about when your kid comes out with a tail, or is living gelatin, or has dog ears, or…can turn into a deer…”
“Long story?”
“Yeah. I feel like I will tell it one day, just not today.” I shook my head. “So your story is you dated badly and want a home?”
“You sound like a shrink.”
“Counselor.” I corrected. “I went to college and got an assortment of odd Majors and Minors. Double Minor in Cryptozoology and Technical Mechanics. And a Double Major in Paleontology and Psychology. Became the counselor at my school. Helping other messed-up mutants who are feared and hated.”
“You any good at it?”
“Mildly,” I smirked at her. “Though I don't want to start something; I feel my three friends are going to have their say soon enough.”
“Three friends?”
“Fate. Destiny. And God. When we think we CAN’T handle or CAN’T do something. One of, if not all of, these three friends of mine throws just that in our faces. To show that we CAN.”
“True enough.” We smiled at each other as we began talking about some of the most random subjects. Why tomatoes are a fruit, how weird some anime is, the perfect ice cream cone. All the while laughing and nudged each other the entire night.