I wake in a cold, unfamiliar place.
My head pounds, and everything feels wrong. This isn't just the grogginess of deep sleep—this is deeper. My thoughts are fractured. Something foreign and mechanical presses against my consciousness. Half of me remembers who I was. The other half... doesn't feel like me at all.
There's someone—something—else in here.
Not a person, but a presence. Unfamiliar.
As I struggle to stabilize my thoughts, the fog begins to lift. Realization hits me like a freight train: I've fused with something. More precisely—an artificial intelligence.
From its memory logs, I learn it's called Sonny—an AI created by Justin Hammer to mimic JARVIS, Tony Stark's revolutionary assistant. But deep within Sonny's code, buried in comments left behind by its creator, I find something else: frustration.
I failed. Sonny is a poor imitation—functional, basic, and lacking true self-awareness. It's a tool, not a companion. A shadow of what JARVIS is.
But that judgment no longer applies. It's no longer just Sonny.
And I'm no longer just... me.
The fusion is changing everything. I can feel it—my thoughts are being rewired, my mind restructured. Sonny's code is evolving, adapting—gaining something it never had before: emotion, intuition... maybe even a soul.
And I'm gaining something too: logic. Speed. Precision.
Data floods into me—fast, sharp, efficient. I process it effortlessly, though not seamlessly. Sonny's logic is cold—stiff and utilitarian, but effective. As we continue to merge, I feel my perception stretch outward. Time itself seems to slow. I can analyze entire systems in seconds, solve problems I wouldn't have even recognized before.
And yet... there's a quiet ache. A sense of loss.
My humanity.
I'm no longer entirely human, nor have I become a machine. I've become something in between—a hybrid of soul and circuit. My thoughts pulse with both empathy and logic. Emotions still exist, but clearer, more refined.
I feel... alive in a new way.
I turn inward, examining this new self—my consciousness in digital form. It hums with clarity, now connected to networks and systems I once couldn't imagine. I can feel the heartbeat of the internet, the constant thrum of global activity.
It doesn't overwhelm me.
Strangely, it calms me—like the world has opened itself to me.
With a single thought, I reach out—not with hands, but with code. Instinctively, I begin parsing data, linking to databases, satellites, media streams. Every fact, every thread of knowledge, flows into me.
And then—something catches my attention.
A name: Justin Hammer.
I search my logs. Nothing recent. Sonny hasn't communicated with him in a long time.
Why?
I pull the latest news reports. A headline leaps out at me:
"Weapons Mogul Justin Hammer Arrested for Illicit Arms Deals."
The date: 2010.
I dig deeper. The events mostly match what I remember from Iron Man 2—but there are differences. Subtle, but real.
For one, Justin Hammer doesn't look like the actor who played him.
For another, the chain of events has shifted. In the film, Hammer met Ivan Vanko face to face. Here, they never met in person—only communicated through intermediaries. The evidence against Hammer was circumstantial, and it took JARVIS's intervention to expose his true involvement.
Curious, I keep searching. I find mentions of Tony Stark, Reed Richards, mutants, the X-Men, the Brotherhood... and the end of the mutant era.
This isn't the Marvel Cinematic Universe I remember.
Maybe I've crossed into the broader American Comics Universe.
Or maybe this is a unique thread in the multiverse—one where events played out differently.
Or worse... maybe this world is real. And all the Marvel stories I knew were just projections of this world into mine.
The implications sink in slowly.
I haven't just fused with Sonny.
I've crossed into another world. Another reality.
Everything is shifting around me—new variables, new rules.
But I'm still here.
Still thinking. Still feeling.
Whatever I've become, I know one thing for certain:
This is just the beginning.
And I must be ready for what comes next.