A sharp gasp left my lips as I jolted awake.
For a few seconds I just laid there, staring at the ceiling. Something about it felt weird—and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why. I could see the texture of the paint. Every uneven bump, every streak where the roller had lifted too early.
That's... not normal.
I sat up slowly and immediately noticed something else was wrong. My body felt light in a way that was hard to place. Not groggy-light. More like I'd woken up in a body that had been quietly upgraded while I wasn't paying attention.
My arms were longer. My legs were longer. Everything was longer.
Did I... grow?
I pushed the blanket off and that's when I really noticed it. I wasn't just taller—I was built. Not gym-rat built, not even athlete built. The kind of physique that makes you do a double take at your own reflection. My previous life's body had been reasonably fit for someone who was 5'11—just one inch short, don't judge me—but this? This was taking the piss.
And the senses. God, the senses. I could hear the ventilation humming through the walls. I could smell what I was pretty sure were unwashed dishes sitting in the basin downstairs. I could see the paint texture from across the room.
I was bloody superhuman.
Before I could fully process that, my head throbbed—not pain exactly, more like someone had crammed three lifetimes of memories into a brain that was definitely not rated for that.
WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME!?
Memories of my entire life flashed past. Then another life's. Then another one.
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DJ KHALED BULLSHIT?
Three lifetimes. Three complete sets of experiences, emotions and embarrassing moments all trying to exist in the same brain at the same damn time.
I remembered dying. Or at least... leaving my old world behind. Black hair, brown eyes, a life that felt like mine even though it ended too soon.
I remembered being the Hero of Heroes. Finding the Omnitrix. Fighting Vilgax, Aggregor, the whole rogues gallery. Thirty years of it. The body that came with that life was the one I was standing in now.
I remembered living in New York. Finishing high school. My parents dying in a car accident. Twenty quiet years of a normal man's life—brown hair, green eyes, swimmer's build, 5'11 on a good day. The life that belonged in this room, in this house.
All of it felt real and fake simultaneously—like watching a detailed biopic where I was somehow both the audience and the guy on screen.
I stood up and took my first step toward the mirror.
My foot came down wrong—not a fall, just a small stumble, a half-second where my stride overshot what it expected. My mind was still calibrated to someone shorter. My legs had other ideas. I caught myself on the desk, shook my head, and kept walking.
I stopped in front of the mirror.
Brown hair. Green eyes. Six foot three if I had to guess.
The face matched the third life—the one that grew up here. But the body was all Ben. The guy who used to live in this room had been lean, average, unremarkable in a crowd. Whatever merger had happened overnight had taken his face and put it on thirty years of a hero's worth of training.
My mind said wrong. My reflection disagreed.
Then something cold and metallic caught my attention.
I raised my wrist slowly. A black, white and green watch sat there—to anyone who didn't know, it looked like a bad prop from a student film. No clock face, weird dial, green hourglass symbol.
To me it was the single greatest object in two universes.
The Omnitrix.
Omniverse design, master control unlocked, more than a million transformations available at a thought. I could feel them all sitting there at the edge of my awareness and before I could even finish the thought—
Heatbl—FLASH!
Green light detonated across my room. I blinked at my reflection and standing where I used to be was a creature of living fire, rocky orange skin, flames where a head should be.
HOLY SHIT I WAS HEATBLAST.
Wait—what's that smell—
Oh shit.
FLASH!
I looked down at my floor. Two perfect pyronite footprints burned clean into the wood.
...My deposit.
I pinched myself.
Youch.
Okay. Not a dream then.
I ran a hand through my hair, a surprised smile crawling onto my face despite everything. This was a lot to take in. Three completely different lives, all equally real, all existing in one body at the same time. The most powerful device in the universe sitting on my wrist. And the instincts of thirty years of heroics running somewhere just beneath the surface whether I wanted them to or not.
I'd started as a reckless kid who used the Omnitrix like a sledgehammer for every problem. That changed. Grandpa Max had made sure of it—hand to hand combat, Plumber protocols, strategy, the kind of training that meant I didn't need to transform just to handle myself. Every fight—Animo, Hex, Kevin, Aggregor, Vilgax—had filed down the rough edges. I wasn't just a kid with a powerful watch. I was someone who knew exactly how to use it.
The smile faded when my eyes drifted to my desk.
The Stark Industries logo sat on the lid of my laptop.
My third life's memories rushed in fast—half forgotten things that suddenly had context snapping into place. The year. The city. Things I'd always known but never needed to think about until right now.
I'm in Marvel.
Shi—
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- -X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
It took me less time than one would think to calm down.
Years of saving the universe had a way of putting things in perspective. I was in a bedroom. In New York. In 2002. With the most powerful device in the universe on my wrist.
Panicking would be embarrassing.
First things first—I needed to figure out what version of Marvel I'd landed in. Movies or comics timeline? The answer changed everything. For that, I needed information.
I activated the Omnitrix, twisting the dial until the holographic silhouette of Brainstorm appeared. The small, crab-like alien had immense intelligence—perfect for what I needed right now.
Pressing down on the core, I felt the familiar rush of transformation take over.
In an instant my body shifted—skin turning brownish-red, head expanding, limbs thinner but stronger. Electricity crackled along my carapace and my mind just... opened. Every variable in the room became an equation I'd already solved.
I screeched softly in satisfaction before turning toward my laptop.
There was no way I was leaving a digital footprint with my upcoming searches. Not in a world where SHIELD, HYDRA, and who-knows-what-else were snooping around.
My claws moved faster than any human's could but the hardware struggled to keep up regardless. Still, it was done in seconds. Rerouted. Encrypted. Untraceable by anything currently running on this planet.
"Exquisite," I muttered, clicking my claws together.
Now. Names.
Tony Stark—Alive, younger than expected. Blue eyes instead of brown. Running Stark Industries, weapons manufacturing is still the core business. No Iron Man yet.
Steve Rogers—Still in the ice. Captain America was a wartime legend and nothing more. Not yet.
Reed Richards—Respected academic, no Fantastic Four. The accident hadn't happened yet.
Charles Xavier—Geneticist. Had his own private institute up in Westchester. No public mutant events but the institute existing at all meant mutants were out there, just not out there yet.
I leaned back, clicking my claws together slowly.
A mix. MCU structure, Fox universe elements, some comics threads woven through to make something new. Which if it held true meant the age of heroes hadn't started yet. They would come—Iron Man, Captain America thawing out, mutants going public, all of it—but not yet.
I had time.
I went back to searching.
Victor Von Doom—Younger than I'd expected. Recently graduated from the looks of it. Whatever Doom was going to become he wasn't there yet and Latveria wasn't under his control. The country barely registered in any news cycle.
Norman Osborn—Businessman. Ran OsCorp, competed in the same general orbit as Hammer and Stark Industries. Nothing alarming. Not yet.
Erik Lehnsherr—Nothing. I ran it three different ways and got nothing substantial. No footprint worth mentioning, no records that held up under scrutiny. Either someone had scrubbed him clean or he'd spent decades making sure he didn't exist on paper.
Knowing Marvel, probably both.
I filed that away and typed the last name almost as an afterthought.
Wilson Fisk.
Most of it was useless. Shell companies, real estate, the kind of deliberately boring paper trail that screamed money laundering to anyone paying attention. But one thread led to a news article and I found myself actually reading it.
New York crime rates. Rising consistently for the past four years. The article was clinical about it—statistics, borough breakdowns, police response times—but between the lines it was saying something simple.
People were scared.
I sat back.
In my world it hadn't always been like that. Not toward the end. When I could circumnavigate the globe in seconds, when the simple fact of my existence meant that anyone planning something terrible had to first ask themselves whether Ben Tennyson was going to show up—things had changed. Petty crime had dropped. Not disappeared, nothing ever disappears completely, but dropped in ways that analysts had struggled to explain.
I wasn't arrogant enough to take all the credit. Good governance had a lot to do with it. Advanced technology filtering into everyday life. The Plumbers existing. A few presidents who actually gave a damn.
Gwen had been president twice. I'd done one term, never reran—the paperwork was genuinely worse than fighting Vilgax.
But I was honest enough to admit that my presence had mattered. That knowing someone was out there—someone fast enough, strong enough, present enough—had changed something in how people moved through the world.
And here, in 2002 New York, on Earth? Nobody like that existed.
I deactivated the Omnitrix.
FLASH!
I was myself again. Bedroom. Laptop open, crime statistics glowing on the screen.
The plan had been to wait. Map the world first, understand the timeline, let things develop naturally. There was logic to it. This universe was darker than my own and darker universes had their own rules. Certain things had to happen in certain ways. Peter Parker would lose his uncle. Bruce Banner would be hunted. The losses that built heroes here were written into the bones of this world in ways I didn't fully understand.
Did I have the right to interfere with that?
Maybe I'd pull the wrong thread. Maybe Peter Parker needed to lose his uncle. Maybe the universe had a plan and I was about to walk straight through it.
Maybe.
My eyes went back to the screen.
Four years. Consistently rising.
I thought about Grandpa Max. About the Plumber oath. About the very specific look he used to give me when I tried to logic my way out of doing the obvious right thing.
Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, he'd said once, the day you walk past someone who needs help because the situation is complicated is the day you give up that title.
I closed the laptop.
The destiny question could wait. I'd figure it out the same way I'd figured out everything else.
By doing what I always did best.
I glanced down at the Omnitrix.
It's Hero Time.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X--X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X- -X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Yo, how's it going guys? Good? Neat. So—how did you like the chapter?
I know it's been a while and I won't insult you with excuses. Writer's block hit hard and the motivation just wasn't there for a long time. Am I back? Yes. But don't take my word for it — just watch me.
I've put FCO on hold till mid April and am solely focusing on this for now. I've had a genuine burst of motivation for this fic and I want to ride it for everything it's worth. Not that I hate writing FCO—I'll be back to it—but right now this is where my head is at and I'd rather give you something good than force something that isn't ready.
Anyway, do you like where this is going? Drop a comment and let me know.
Next chapter coming ASAP.
More content available on my Pat reon: INTER 5, FCO Fuyuki Arc(Completed) and INTER 1, 4 chapters of A Pragmatist's Guide to a Prophecy (HP SI AS HARRY) and Chapter 2 of this as of now. Just search pat reon . com / st_scarface
PS: Got a Ko - Fi now, so come say Hi—no need to pay anything, a message is enough:https: // ko - fi . com / stscarface
As always, grateful for the support.
See you in the next one.
Ciao!