Mystique stepped out of the shower, steam curling behind her like a soft fog. She wrapped a towel around her body, humming along to the music pulsing from her speaker. The beat was smooth, and before she knew it, she was swaying her hips, towel-twirling her hair dry with lazy rhythm. For once, the world wasn't ending. It felt good.
Then came the knock.
She blinked, glanced at the door, and frowned. "Who the hell—?" She opened the door.
One of Tony's delivery bots rolled in, holding a bouquet. In its other mechanical arm, a small box of chocolates.
"Delivery for Miss Raven Darkhölme," the bot chirped.
Mystique's eyebrow arched. "That's new."
The bot extended its hands. She took the gifts. Then the bot rolled out. She closed the door and shifted her attention toward the flowers. There was a small holographic projector. She pressed the button, and Tony's image flickered to life, standing there with that familiar grin.
"Hey, Raven," his holographic self said. "So, I figured since you basically overworked yourself for the past few days, you deserve a little downtime. Thought maybe you and I could go for a drive tomorrow. Nothing fancy. Just two friends—long road, bad jokes, maybe a couple of cheap hot dogs from a questionable vendor. You know, real quality time."
He paused, his grin softening a little. "Only if you want to, of course. No pressure. Not a date or anything. Just… a break. We both earned one."
The hologram flickered out.
Mystique stood still, bouquet in hand, the music still playing faintly in the background. Her chest felt warm, her lips curved without her meaning to.
'He actually sent flowers and chocolates,' she thought, a small laugh escaping her. No one has ever given her flowers before. 'God, he's such a dork.'
She sniffed the flowers before setting the bouquet gently on the desk beside the bed, the chocolates next to it. Then she let herself fall backward onto the bed, arms spread wide, towel still barely hanging on.
'He wants to get to know me better,' she thought, burying her face into the pillow. 'Just two friends, huh? Sure, Tony.'
A muffled laugh escaped her, soft and a little shaky. 'I want to tell him. Tell him I like him too. But how do you tell someone like Tony Stark that? He's got women like Natasha, Yelena, and Sue. They are smart, strong, beautiful. And me? I'm the shapeshifter who hides behind other people's faces... and blue. Though he said he likes my natural form.'
She rolled onto her side, staring at the flowers across the room, her smile growing despite herself.
'Still,' she thought, 'it feels nice to be seen.'
Mystique hugged the pillow tighter and whispered into the quiet, "Yeah, Tony. I'd love to go."
...
[Meanwhile...]
[Horizon Island – Testing Range]
A row of targets stood at the far end: metal plates, drones, and a few unlucky scrap bots that had volunteered for "retirement."
Tony stood at the control station with his shades on, coffee in hand, watching Frank Castle load a new rifle that gleamed with faint blue light along its spine.
"Alright, Frank," Tony said. "This baby's got enough punch to turn a tank into vapor. So try not to sneeze while holding it."
Frank checked the scope, pulled the charging lever, and gave him a quick look. "You sure it won't blow up in my face?"
Tony grinned. "Eighty-nine percent sure."
"Comforting."
Frank squeezed the trigger. The rifle roared, but instead of recoil, the gun emitted a focused burst that cut through the first target like a laser through paper. The next three targets behind it went down seconds later, each one sizzling with residual energy.
Frank lowered the weapon, eyes narrowing. "Clean shot. No kick. What's the range?"
Tony tapped on his wrist display. "Based on my estimates, it can maintain integrity past ten kilometers. Beyond that, the beam destabilizes. But for a man who likes close combat, I'd say you're in overkill territory."
Frank gave a rare smirk. "Overkill's my comfort zone."
"Yeah, I noticed," Tony said dryly, setting the cup down and walking toward a crate beside them. "Now, this next one's a little more your style."
He opened the case to reveal a set of grenades, each one lined with tiny, glowing veins inside a transparent shell.
"Mini singularity cores," Tony said. "Compact, controlled implosions. No collateral damage outside a ten-foot radius. They suck in everything within the blast zone and leave the ground spotless. I call them 'Polite Grenades.'"
Frank raised an eyebrow. "Polite."
"Yeah," Tony said. "They clean up after themselves."
Frank took one, studied it, pressed the button, and lobbed it toward a decommissioned mech husk about fifty meters away. The grenade landed, pulsed once, and collapsed into a blinding blue sphere that vanished as fast as it appeared. When the air cleared, the mech was gone, leaving a small crater.
Frank gave a side nod. "Not bad."
"Try the sidearm next," Tony said, pulling a smaller weapon from his belt and tossing it over. "I tuned that one for precision. You can switch between kinetic, plasma, and pulse modes. Think of it as a Swiss Army gun."
Frank caught it, aimed at a hovering drone, and fired a rapid burst. The first shot disintegrated the drone. The second ricocheted off a nearby rock, curved mid-air, and blew another target apart.
He looked at the gun, then at Tony. "Curving bullets now?"
Tony shrugged. "Just a little physics manipulation. Don't ask me to explain it over beers."
Frank holstered the gun. "You've been busy."
Tony turned back to the console. "It's either that or therapy. Guess which one's cheaper."
Frank chuckled, but it faded when he noticed Tony staring at one of the screens.
"You good?"
Tony's gaze stayed on the data feed showing energy readings from Russia. The two massive spikes hadn't moved. "Yeah," he said, though his voice carried that thoughtful edge. "Just making sure the world stays quiet for a little longer."
Frank followed his eyes, reading the tension between the lines. "You think it'll stay that way?"
Tony exhaled. "It never does. But for now, we get to prepare instead of react."
Frank nodded, picked up the rifle again, and chambered another round. "Then let's keep preparing."
Tony smiled faintly. "That's the spirit, Punisher. Let's make the next apocalypse regret showing up."
Frank aimed downrange. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
...
[Evening]
The air smelled like ozone and scorched metal. Frank and Tony stood amid smoking targets, empty ammo crates, and shattered drones.
Tony tossed a data pad onto the workbench, its surface covered in glowing diagnostics. "Alright, Castle. That's every toy in the box. I've got enough data to rebuild half the armory."
Frank wiped his hands with a rag. "Good. Because I'm keeping this one." He patted the new handgun at his hip.
Tony gave him a look. "You're stealing from the world's most generous weapons maker?"
"Borrowing," Frank corrected. "You said it yourself—field testing."
Tony sighed. "Yeah, fine. Just don't pawn it or lose it."
The moment hung quiet for a beat before Frank's comm buzzed. He checked the line. "Emma. What is it?"
"I've found one of the Hand's main strongholds. Deep in the ruins of Kyoto. They're moving something big. I could use backup," Emma replied.
Frank's expression hardened. "Send me the coordinates."
"Already did," she replied. "And Frank? Be quick. They're not alone."
He closed the line and turned to Tony. "I'll handle this."
Tony nodded. "Be careful."
Frank gave a nod as he suited up. The nanites gushed out of his gloves and formed his black armor. The repulsors flared to life, and within seconds, he was a streak of blue light cutting through the dusk.
Tony watched until the glow vanished over the horizon. "That man needs a vacation," he muttered, shaking his head.
He turned back toward the lab, the lights adjusting as he entered. Holo-screens sprang to life around him, each displaying streams of energy diagnostics, thermal graphs, and magnetic field readings from the day's tests.
He rubbed his jaw. "Not bad. Power output stable, no meltdown risk, and the targeting AI didn't fry itself this time. Progress."
He poured another coffee and started skimming through the calibration results. Halfway through, something caught his attention. A faint spike in one of the weapon's spatial field readings. It wasn't large. Just barely detectable. But it was consistent. Every time a weapon fired, there was a microsecond distortion in local space-time, like the brief twitch of a wormhole trying to open.
Tony leaned closer. "Well, that's interesting."
He ran a simulation. The data reconstructed the distortion—tiny folds in space, repeating with each energy burst. The pattern formed a chain reaction, perfectly aligned with the weapon's power output curves. His eyes widened as the model took shape.
"You've got to be kidding me," he whispered. "It's been right there the whole time."
He started pacing. "If I can stabilize that distortion, anchor it to a fixed coordinate, and sync it with a controlled energy burst..."
He stopped. A slow grin spread across his face. "Teleportation."
...
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