"Ethan!" Ethan was lounging on the sofa, enjoying a warm cup of tea Yuriko had just brought him, when he heard a soft, almost hesitant voice.
He looked up to see Katie walking toward him.
One hand rested gently on her belly, her cheeks flushed with a mix of excitement and shyness.
"I'm pregnant," she said quietly.
Ethan choked on his tea. "Pfft—cough, cough! What?! How—? I mean, when did that even happen?"
Katie's face dropped, hurt flickering in her eyes. "So... you don't want to be responsible?"
"No, no! That's not what I meant at all!" Ethan jumped up, panic creeping into his voice. "Of course I'll take responsibility. I just—wasn't expecting this."
"Then will you marry me?" she asked, eyes shimmering.
Ethan froze. "Of course I will... I just... I mean, I don't have a ring right now—"
Before he could finish, the door burst open with a loud crash. A girl with blazing red hair stormed in and grabbed his arm.
"No time to explain! Get in the car—we have to save the world!"
Ethan gawked at her. "What the hell is happening?!"
Behind him, Katie had somehow produced a gleaming hatchet pulsing with ominous dark energy.
"Ethan," she said sweetly, her tone not matching the look in her eyes, "who. Is. She?"
"I don't know! Katie, please—put the axe down! I swear, I have no clue what's going on. And also... why are you holding Stormbreaker, that thing shouldn't exist ye—AH!"
Ethan jolted upright in bed, heart pounding.
He glanced around—no glowing axes, no redheads, no furious girlfriend.
Just the quiet hum of his room.
"A dream... thank God." He wiped the sweat from his brow, still rattled. "That's what I get for going full couch potato these last few days."
Things had been too calm lately.
The mutant community had gone quiet, lying low under the radar.
Fury hadn't even checked in personally—he'd just sent Coulson to poke around a month ago.
Not even bothering to pick up Bucky for questioning.
So Ethan had actually gotten some rest for once.
And maybe, just maybe, that downtime was making him too comfortable.
He shook his head. "Dreams with magical axes... what even is my life."
Just then, the hum of a chopper cut through the silence.
A blinding white searchlight swept across the windows.
"What now?" Ethan muttered, quickly throwing on a hoodie as he headed out of the room.
Katie and Yuriko emerged from theirs, eyes sharp and alert.
A loud bang echoed through the house.
Katie reached for the kitchen knife on the counter. "Are we under attack?"
"Doubt it," Ethan replied calmly. "I'm friends with S.H.I.E.L.D. and people from underground networks. No one's that dumb."
He glanced at the knife. "That said... could you put that down? Had a weird dream. Not vibing with sharp objects right now."
Before anyone could answer, the door burst open with a bang.
A tall, dark figure stood silhouetted by the hallway shadows.
Ethan stepped forward, squinting to make out who it was.
Then the searchlight swung over, landing directly on the intruder—
—and their forehead suddenly burst with a blinding flash of light.
"Fury, it's you?" Ethan called out, squinting into the glare of the helicopter's spotlight. He had recognized the man's silhouette through the blinding light. "You seriously show up at my door in the middle of the night without a warning? What's the emergency this time?"
"No time to explain," Fury barked, gripping Ethan's arm and pulling him toward the waiting chopper. "Get in. We've got a world to save."
"Seriously?" Ethan grumbled as he stumbled into the cabin. "You drag me out of bed without context, and now I'm in a helicopter because you said so?"
Fury ignored the tone. "Ever heard of the Tesseract?"
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "You mean that cube Red Skull was using back in World War II? The one that's supposedly an endless power source?"
"That's the one," Fury said with a nod. "We recovered it during a deep-sea salvage op. Along with... a certain frozen super soldier."
Ethan let out a low whistle. "And you decided it was a good idea to poke at something more dangerous than nukes. Nice."
"You think I don't know the risks?" Fury said, rubbing his forehead. The exhaustion in his voice was clear. "But you know how things are. With all the threats Earth faces, S.H.I.E.L.D. has to be ready. And that means finding power strong enough to fight back."
Ethan folded his arms. "So let me guess. You played with the cube, and now things have gone sideways."
"This morning, everything was stable. Then I asked Coulson to check on the research—just routine stuff. Next thing I know, he's sending an SOS."
Ethan just stared at him.
"Don't judge me," Fury muttered.
Ten minutes later, the helicopter touched down at a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. research base. Coulson was already there waiting, wearing his usual suit and shades.
"How bad is it?" Fury asked as soon as he hit the ground.
Internally, he was already bracing himself. Coulson had a talent for delivering bad news wrapped in calm professionalism.
"Sir, it's bad," Coulson said. "But the worst of it... we're not even sure yet."
"You brought Ethan," Coulson added, giving the mutant a respectful nod. "Smart call. His vector manipulation might be the only thing that can stabilize the energy signature."
"Cut the flattery," Ethan replied. "Start from the top. What exactly happened?"
"Dr. Selvig detected a surge from the Tesseract about four hours ago," Coulson began. "But here's the strange part—"
"Don't tell me he ran unauthorized tests," Fury interrupted.
"He didn't," Coulson said quickly. "He wasn't even in the lab. The cube activated on its own."
Fury's jaw tightened. "What's the energy output now?"
"We can't say. It's exceeded all known parameters. Our instruments can't even get a read on it. And it's still climbing. Selvig tried to shut it down, but it's not responding."
"Evacuate the base," Fury ordered grimly. "Now."
Ethan's expression turned grave. "Evacuation won't change much. Unless we're planning to hop on a space ark and leave Earth behind, we're not outrunning this."
He paused, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. Even without touching the cube, he could feel the warped pressure building beneath them. Space itself was bending in unnatural ways. "If that energy leaks out... the best-case scenario is humanity gets knocked back to the Stone Age."
When Ethan and Fury stepped into the underground research center, the first thing they saw was the Cosmic Cube, glowing faintly as it hovered at the center of a complex instrument setup.
"Doctor, this doesn't look as catastrophic as you made it sound," Fury said, glancing toward the older man in the lab coat—Dr. Erik Selvig, a name that had come up often since Thor's last visit to Earth.
Dr. Selvig didn't even blink. "Oh really? Then maybe you should look up."
Fury tilted his head—and immediately tensed. Suspended near the ceiling was a massive energy sphere, nearly ten meters across, pulsing with chaotic light.
"Okay," Fury muttered. "I see your point."
"That thing's the result of our last experiment," Selvig said, gesturing casually. "If it gets out of control, it'll probably vaporize the entire facility. But honestly, it's not even the biggest problem. The Cube's acting up."
Fury narrowed his eyes. "Acting up how?"
"It's become unstable. More active than usual. It's not responding to any of our controls."
"Did anyone try unplugging it?" Fury asked, half-serious.
Selvig chuckled dryly. "Director, this isn't a flat-screen TV. The Cube is a power source beyond anything we've ever handled. It's capable of wiping out the entire solar system. Our tech isn't even close to being able to control it. It's already emitting interference and low-level radiation."
Fury instinctively took a few steps back. "Radiation? What kind?"
"Gamma. Low-energy, but still—"
Fury's hand moved to his pocket where he kept his ever-present tube of sunscreen.
Not because he was vain, but because somewhere deep down, he believed even a little preparation mattered.
Maybe someday it would help him shed the nickname of 'the unlucky one.'
He pointed toward the unstable orb above them. "Ethan, think you can do something about that thing before it turns us all into vapor?"
"I'll try," Ethan replied, already lifting off the ground, his coat flaring behind him.
He reached out toward the seething energy sphere, narrowing his eyes.
Through his enhanced perception, he could see the wild, twisting currents inside the orb.
His job now was to guide them—ease the internal clashes before they cascaded into full-scale destruction.
But just as he was beginning to stabilize it, the Cosmic Cube pulsed wildly.
"Ethan, what's happening now?" Fury called up.
"How should I know?" Ethan snapped, clearly straining to keep the energy orb in check. "The Cube's going haywire and messing with the energy structure. If we don't release some of this power, it's gonna blow this whole base sky-high."
Just then, Dr. Selvig's voice cut through the tension. "Director! I've found something important. The Cube—it's distorting local gravity and space fields. I think it's trying to open wormholes."
"Wait—wormholes, right?" Ethan's hands froze mid-air as his mind raced. "You're saying it's connecting to other points in space? We can release the pressure to the other side, instead of here."
But while the Cube surged with power on Earth, somewhere deep in the cosmos, another story was unfolding.
In a dark chamber on a far-off world, a figure knelt before a massive throne. Behind him, an alien army stood ready.
"The Cosmic Cube has been activated," the kneeling figure said, voice echoing in the vast hall. "It's on a primitive world called Earth. The humans there have no idea what they're doing. They don't even understand the Cube's simplest functions."
A second voice—low, commanding—responded from the shadows. "Our allies will lead the charge. The Chitauri army will follow."
As the commander of the Chitauri stepped down from the throne's dais, his gaze turned toward the lone figure leaning casually against a pillar.
It was Loki of Asgard.
He smirked, eyes gleaming with mischief and ambition. "I want Midgard," he said simply, his voice as cold as it was certain.
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Word count: 1721
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