After that, a week slipped by almost unnoticed.
It was now late April 2010. On the surface, the world appeared deceptively calm. No alien invasions were making headlines, no gods wielding hammers were storming through cities, and no purple-skinned maniacs were collecting cosmic stones to reshape reality.
To the average citizen, the only "superhero" making waves was Iron Man—flashy, arrogant, and impossible to ignore with his gleaming red-and-gold armor lighting up the skies.
But Luke knew better than to trust appearances.
Behind the scenes, Tony Stark was battling a silent, far more insidious enemy—palladium poisoning. The arc reactor embedded in his chest, which had saved his life, was now slowly poisoning him with each use. Every time he donned the Iron Man suit, he was inching closer to his breaking point.
Luke didn't need classified data from a S.H.I.E.L.D. hack to know this. Before all this, back on Earth, he was a devoted MCU fanboy.
He had watched Iron Man 2 , and he wasn't simply a casual observer; he lived for the lore and the deep weaving of the heroes' stories.
2010 was, without a doubt, a pivotal year.
Two major events loomed large in Luke's memory
Tony Stark's groundbreaking scientific breakthrough—the creation of a new element to replace the toxic palladium in his arc reactor. That discovery wouldn't just save his own life; it was a catalyst that propelled the entire MCU into a new era of technological and scientific marvels.
The infamous battle between the Hulk and the Abomination tearing through Harlem. That fight wasn't just destructive chaos; it marked the first time the public got undeniable proof that there were monsters and forces beyond human comprehension roaming the Earth.
From Luke's vantage point, Tony was still a few weeks away from his "aha" moment in the lab. The true storm was about to erupt in early May at the Monaco Grand Prix.
In less than ten days, Tony Stark would be swapping champagne flutes in the VIP room, all smiles and bravado. But the celebration would be short-lived.
On the racetrack, he would find himself face-to-face with Ivan Vanko—a Russian ex-con hellbent on revenge, armed with electrified whips powered by his own kinetic technology. The man the world would come to know as Whiplash.
Luke smirked deeply, the name rolling off his tongue like a dark prophecy. "Ivan Vanko… Whiplash… "
The Harlem incident was set to unfold not long before or after the Monaco showdown—time in the real world wasn't always linear or predictable, and Luke knew this better than most.
In a universe as complex as the MCU, anything could happen, and the order of chaos rarely sticks to a script.
As for helping Tony Stark? Luke didn't give that a second thought. The man was essentially a magnet for trouble and paparazzi, not to mention the relentless shadow of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tailing him day and night like loyal watchdogs.
And Nick Fury… well, the one-eyed spymaster whose very presence meant the end of all things private. Luke didn't hate the guy, but he knew better than to invite that kind of attention. Once Fury set his sights on you, privacy was off the table forever.
Luke wasn't remotely ready for that kind of spotlight—or the endless bureaucracy and surveillance that came with it.
But the Hulk–Abomination fight was a different story entirely. That was the kind of chaos Luke thrived in. That was jackpot material.
If he could snag even a single drop of gamma-charged blood—whether from the Hulk or the Abomination—the EXP rewards would be astronomical.
Luke wasn't just talking about thousands or millions; he was imagining numbers so large they threatened to push his power into whole new levels. Fifty million EXP? A hundred million? The system's generosity might extend even beyond that if it recognized just how valuable that blood truly was.
Gamma Blood was basically a cheat code in the MCU. It carried abilities that defied logic: superhuman healing, immense strength, skin almost impervious to bullets and explosions, and endurance that made tank shells bounce like harmless rubber balls. The kind of raw, primal power that could reroute genetic code itself.
Sure, this MCU's Hulk wasn't quite the top-of-the-line rage beast from the comics—the version where "the angrier you get, the stronger you become," almost limitless in fury.
But even here, the Hulk was a walking juggernaut, capable of tearing down entire city blocks without so much as breaking a sweat. He could punch through skyscrapers, shrug off missile strikes, and leap across rooftops in a single bound.
Then, there was the Abomination—a terrifying mirror to Hulk's power. While not quite matching Hulk's legendary strength, the Abomination was still a monstrous behemoth, lethal and relentless.
After all, Luke reminded himself, even the blood of Alexander Corvinus—the original immortal —had granted him "only" around 200,000 EXP.
But Hulk blood? That was a whole different league.
The easiest way to get Hulk's blood?
Find The Leader.
Well… not exactly "The Leader" yet. Right now, he was just an ordinary human—scientist and genius—the same man Bruce Banner had turned to in The Incredible Hulk movie, desperate for a cure to his monstrous condition.
This man had handled Hulk's blood before, even kept samples stored away for research. If Luke could track him down, he wouldn't have to risk playing suicidal referee between Hulk and Abomination during their inevitable clash.
There was just one glaring problem.
Luke didn't know the guy's real name. Or what he looked like. He wasn't a flashy hero or a beautiful woman, so of course Luke had forgotten the scientist's name. All he remembered was the villainous moniker: "The Leader."
Yeah. That definitely makes things tricky.
It meant Luke's search would be completely blind—a maddening needle in a haystack the size of New York City itself.
So for now, all he could do was be patient. Watch the shadows. Wait for the moments when the clash was about to erupt. And when it did, he'd have to swoop in fast—before S.H.I.E.L.D. mobilized and locked down the entire area, shutting down any chance to grab that precious gamma-charged blood.