The Sage of the Mind

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don’t mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 50 [August 2010]

–Axle Riddle–

He snorted as he got into a Cab and sped off to his apartment, the one that was undoubtedly tagged by Jarvis to be surveilled 24/7. After all, he was one of the few people who could become a thorn in Pepper’s side once Tony was dead, at least that is what Tony must have thought.

The man was a giant baby. He would live, no worries about that.

He was currently holding Tony Stark kind of hostage as he wanted to get his opinion on the existence of the Invisible Man and all that he entailed.

Back in Central Park, he used the same tactic he did when he didn’t want to scare people off by doing his neat trick of generating sound out of nowhere. Unfortunately, that voice was scarier than what most people could handle.

So, the classic text-to-speech software work around it is for now.

“Greetings, Mr.Stark. What brings you to the Big Apple, aside from the stalled Tower project you were working on?” He asked Tony.

Tony leaned back into the bench, trying to get comfortable but he could see that he was deeply uncomfortable with the situation he had landed himself into. His muscles were tense and his heartbeat was rising. 

He was…scared.

“Mr.Stark, rest assured, I am not here to hurt you.”

“Oh, then I can leave right now if I wanted to?”

“I just wanted to have a chat before you leave.” He tried to defend himself. This was going horribly. Stark was way too defensive right now.

“No, Thank you. Make an appointment like the rest of 'em” Stark said before he got off the bench in a single move and marched past the phone that was floating mid air. 

At the same time, he could feel a fully assembled Iron Man suit enter his sensing range, on a trajectory aimed directly at Central Park.

“The Palladium…” Tony stopped right in his tracks at the word, “--It’s killing you, isn’t it?”

The phone then floated back in front of Tony who looked at it with wariness and caution. The speed of the suit coming in here increasing as Jarvis must have sensed Tony’s distress.

“H-How do you know that?”

“I know a lot of things. Also, you should know that I can scan things down to a very minute level the moment they enter Manhattan. As such, I can see the gunk in your bloodstream even now,”

“I see. Well, I am not going to beg for your aid or something. So, what’s it gonna cost me?” Tony tried to project a nonchalant stance but he knew that he was desperate for something. Something to help him live out a normal human lifespan. 

Too bad, Tony was someone who had a fate, and humans with their own grand fate rarely lived to old age. It was an ugly truth but it was the truth.

Except, he was here now and he would not let his childhood favourite heroes to become the punching bag of the universe’s will.

“I can do many things, Mr.Stark but that is even beyond my powers. I cannot cure you–”

Tony’s face closed off as he began processing his statement before he could hear the end of it.

“---but I can help alleviate the symptoms.” He said as the parcel from the base finally reached Central Park, through his very own fastest delivery system, i.e., flying through the air.

“What do you— Who- HEY!” Tony said as he stumbled back and removed the needle that was stuck in his neck. 

The suit suddenly activating all the repulsor arrays and weapons suite before presumably aiming everything at him because Jarvis detected a threat to his creator.

He merely glanced in the direction of the suit, freezing it in place with his powers as it had entered Manhattan’s airspace by now. He then willed for it to slowly come closer. He could feel its servos straining to make some movement, any movement but his powers were absolute in this space and as such, he was able to shut down the servos as well.

“That should keep your head clear for quite a while as you work on solving your problem,” He said over the sounds of Tony vomiting out Dark Blood over to the side, the lithium dioxide doing its trick.

For some unknown reason, he remembered the name of the compound that Romanoff gave Stark when she revealed her secret identity as a spy. So, he used his handy dandy Russian Billionaire cash and ordered it. He then confirmed the scenario with Bruce who confirmed that it would work with Palladium poisoning and also that no element on the Periodic table would work aside from Palladium, for the power core in the Arc Reactor.

He was the person who had reverse engineered a freaking Arc Reactor without any schematics or anything. Well, Randall did help too but from Randall’s own words, Bruce did most of the heavy lifting anyway.

“Oh, And–” He said as Tony's suit finally reached him, bound in his ethereal grip as it was, “--Here’s your suit back,”

He finally let go of the suit and realigned the servos back to their original position as the suit immediately unfurled around Tony Stark and then wrapped around his form once he was done vomiting.

“WHAT.THE.FUCK. was THAT?” Tony’s voice boomed out of the suit once he turned around before he broke into a coughing fit.

“That, Mr.Stark, was lithium dioxide, one of the few things capable of stemming the Palladium poisoning of your system.”

“Great, I just need a crateful of them then,” 

“--Let me finish, you overgrown man-child. That can only stem the symptoms and never treat the root cause. You will have to do something about the PAlladium in the Arc Reactor. That is just a temporary solution, one that will only make you feel better but won’t actually do anything to cure you. Remember that,”

“Crystal clear. Quick question before I leave you to your scary stalking duties. Did-”

“Bold of you to assume I am not doing my duties even right now, Stark,” He had quite a fun time interrupting Stark mid sentence as he liked to do to other people.

“...Like I was saying, did Banner help you with this? Because there is chatter all over the military comms about the Hulk taking refuge in Manhattan under your umbrella,”

“And what if it is?”

It was weird how even through the armoured plating, he could actually feel Tony’s grin. “Nothing. Just making sure that one of my SCIENCE! Bros was fine, that’s all. If that is all, O’ Almighty benevolent peeper, I will take your leave,” Stark said, bowed mockingly, and then blasted off, ruining what was perfectly good overgrown grass.

People these days have no respect for nature, overgrown lawn as it was anyway.

The phone was then summarily crushed into fine pieces, the dust of which was then swept away by a gust of wind he had generated.

He wondered how things would go because Tony was still not out of the red but at least his mind would be much clearer as he was now. Hopefully, he doesn’t perform the same stunts he did in the movies where he let Rhodey get a suit.

His attention was brought to Bruce who was watching TV.

“Yes?” He asked Bruce as he formed words using sand. Betty had the brilliant idea of doing that to reduce E-waste where it was unnecessary. The sand was mixed in with a color that contrasted with the white light being emitted from the plate on which the sand was resting.

As such, he formed words with the sand and then it was immediately visible because of the contrast ratio.

The couple had multiple such frames hung in all the rooms and in various corners for him to communicate with. They also added an aesthetic vibe to the place, as Betty would say.

Bruce pointed at the news which showed Tony Stark’s Iron Man blasting out of Central Park. News reports theorised that Tony Stark was here to meet the Invisible Man.

“Why is that idiot using that suit even with the Palladium poisoning?” Bruce almost yelled as he pointed at the TV once again, showing that Tony was using the very energy intensive flight function of his suit.

“I don’t understand the way the minds of geniuses work, Bruce. More importantly, the dose worked but it is not a cure. We will see to that problem when the time comes. Besides, with the Stark Expo in Queens, he is bound to come here eventually. I will see what we can do then, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Speaking of the Expo, would you and Betty like to go? Only on the first days,” He hastily added after Bruce deadpanned at thin air.

“Look, I know that your range extends to Queens as well but we both know that it is not as…powerful as it is in Manhattan. I don’t think it's wise of me to endanger not just Betty but all the innocent people there, on top of the Drone attack that you said would happen there. So, no, I am happy staying in Manhattan. Besides, I have a lot of places left to visit.”

“....Fine,” 

“Just next weekend, we have a date planned for the entire day, from morning yoga to the full body massage at night. I am looking forward to that.

I have started looking forward to just dinner with Betty because it’s not just dinner, it's dinner with Betty, you know?

I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to experience normal life. It is more than I could ever ask for. I just don’t want to do anything that could risk things.”

“....I understand,” he said before receding from the apartment.

Damn, didn't think Bruce felt like this.

Still, this was good. It meant that Bruce had finally moved on from his fixation to “fix” himself and was finally allowing himself to enjoy the good things. 

When will he get that, he wondered to himself as he resolved himself to another long day of crime stopping and moping about his future partner even though he made no effort on his part to go out and meet new people.

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