The rain had started hours ago. Soft at first, like whispers from the clouds. Now, it was relentless—thin blades of water slicing through the New York night, pooling in the cracks of the sidewalks and washing away yesterday's sins.
Elias Mercer stood in the alley, barefoot, drenched, and small.
No—he wasn't supposed to be small. He wasn't supposed to feel the cold like this, or the weight in his chest that didn't belong to a child. He was supposed to be thirty-two, a physicist, a tactician, the mind behind Project Helix. But that life had ended—violently, in the roar of an energy cascade. He remembered the pain, the light, the quiet after.
Now he was here.
Reborn.
He didn't know how. Only that it had worked. Consciousness—his consciousness—had been transferred, uploaded, maybe even rewritten into this new form. But something was wrong. This wasn't his world. There were signs—graffiti, newspaper headlines, even the shape of the skyline. A twisted version of Manhattan, half-familiar and yet...
Wrong.
Then he saw the flyer: "Howard Stark's Son to Speak at MIT" — dated 1994.
Pre-Iron Man. Pre-Avengers.
Elias Mercer had not just been reborn. He had been sent back—and not just in time, but into the fictional realm of the Marvel Universe. One where gods flew through wormholes, a boy from Queens would become a spider, and a purple tyrant would snap his fingers and rewrite the cosmos.
And he was just a kid.
Lightning arced across the sky. He didn't flinch.
People passed by the mouth of the alley without seeing him. A child alone in Queens wasn't enough to slow them down. He didn't call out. What would he say? That he used to be a man with three doctorates and a top-secret security clearance? That he remembered black holes and war simulations and artificial intelligence? No one would believe him.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe this world wasn't meant to believe him yet.
Footsteps stopped. He tensed, ready to run—though where, he didn't know. But instead of another pedestrian hurrying past, a voice reached through the rain like a warm blanket.
"Hey… sweetie? Are you okay?"
He turned. A woman stood there, umbrella in one hand, grocery bag in the other. Young. Not much older than twenty-five. Short brown hair stuck to her face, her coat soaked through from walking too far in weather like this. Her eyes were the color of soft ground after rain—tired, but kind.
She stepped closer, kneeling beside him.
"You're freezing," she whispered.
Elias stared at her, squinting through the water running down his face. That voice… it sounded so familiar. Not from his old life, but from this one. From comic panels and screen scenes. Gentle. Warm. Always worried, always caring.
"…Aunt May?"
She blinked, confused.
"How did you—?"
He didn't answer. He just looked away. The name had escaped before he could stop it.
She glanced around. No other adults. No parents frantically searching for a lost child. Just this strange little boy with haunted eyes and no shoes.
"Do you have a name?" she asked gently.
"…Elias," he said, after a pause. Then, on instinct, "But people used to call me Ash."
"Ash," she repeated. "Well, Ash… I'm May. You can come with me for now. Just until we find out what happened, okay?"
He nodded. Slowly. Wordlessly.
She gave him a small smile and reached out her hand. He took it—not because he trusted her yet, but because for the first time since waking up in this broken reality, someone saw him. Not as a ghost. Not as a science experiment. Just as a boy in the rain.
---
They walked for twelve blocks through the wet silence. May didn't ask many questions, which surprised him. Most adults would've. But she just let him walk beside her, holding her hand tightly, her umbrella shielding both of them from the sky.
Her apartment was modest. Clean but cluttered. Photos of her and a man—tall, kind eyes, probably Uncle Ben—lined the shelves. The scent of cinnamon tea lingered in the air.
She handed him a towel. Then a dry hoodie.
"Bathroom's down the hall. Water's warm. Don't worry—I'll find you something to eat after."
Elias said nothing. He stepped into the bathroom, staring at the mirror. A child's face stared back.
Dark hair. Soft cheeks. Same eyes, though. Same mind. Same memories.
But different now. Entirely different.
He turned the shower on, sat on the floor, and let the water run down over him until the numbness faded.
---
Later that night, May watched him sleep on the couch, curled under a borrowed blanket, one hand tucked beneath his cheek like a child who still trusted the world.
"He's not like other kids," she whispered to herself.
And she was right.
Because in that quiet corner of her living room, a boy who once built machines to fold spacetime was already planning his next move.
He had been reborn into the Marvel Universe.
And nothing would ever be the same again.