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Pepper and Tony had become aware of the Transcendent Souls in the five years they’d been raising Morgan together.
But a day late and a dollar short.
To say Tony had been upset to find out there’d been someone he could get help from all that time, rather than being dismissed at every turn, would be the understatement of the century. When they found out, some of the Avengers had tried to blame Sharee and the other (former) Transcendent Souls. Sharee wasn’t having any of that though.
‘Yes!’ she snarked. ‘Because it’s not like the information was being suppressed or anything!’
Before he went and did it, the Transcendent Souls (who’d come along to help) had told Tony, ‘If you put that thing on, you won’t survive it.’
‘I know,’ Tony had said.
Upon returning to Earth, they’d attended Tony’s funeral before most of them went back to their various homes. Sharee and Reuben were American, so they stuck around. In the meantime, the members of the Avengers who’d been exiled suddenly found themselves without the human shield that was Tony.
Rogers, who’d taken off after the funeral, was very easy to track. Eventually, he came back to the S.H.I.E.L.D.-provided lodgings with the others and they hid out there. As whiney as they were being – somehow having gotten the idea that she would fill Tony’s “role” – Pepper thought they were finally beginning to appreciate what Tony had done for them. Well...the one’s that’d stuck around. Both Barton and Lang had returned to their respective families, for good this time.
Barnes had submitted himself to the authorities, having decided that it was more important to give justice to all those who died by the Winter Soldier’s hands than it was for him to retain his freedom.
Despite Steve’s attempt to hand the mantle of Captain America over to him, Sam had retired from superheroing, having come to realise just how wrong he’d been about Tony and what could have been avoided if he’d just listened to him; trusted him. And Pepper knew that because of the apology letter she’d received from him. He still had to answer for his part in Lagos, Bucharest, and Germany, but the likely sentence he’d receive was what he was doing anyway.
Then Rogers called in because something had upset Wanda.
‘We’ll go,’ Sharee had said. ‘You’ve got better things to do than see what’s upset tender bottom.’
So the two of them headed out.
***
When they walked in, they found Bucky sitting on the found steps, clipping the nails of his remaining flesh arm.
‘What’s up?’ Sharee asked.
Bucky glanced up. ‘Oh, Wanda lost her powers.’
‘Is that all?’ Reuben asked.
Sharee and Reuben looked at each other as a thought occurred to them.
‘Yeah.’ Bucky nodded his head. ‘She’s acting like it’s the end of the world. I told Steve if she was that dependant on it, it’s not a good thing. I mean, you guys were totally cool when you lost your powers.’
‘In her defence, I suppose it helps that we knew why we’d lost them,’ Reuben mused. ‘I guess we better get in then.’
‘Right.’ Sharee flicked her phone out as the two of them walked in. She hit speed-dial and called her sister.
‘Why did you lose your powers?’ Bucky asked.
‘The Transcendent Souls were intended to keep all six Infinity Stones from being gathered and used by one person.’
‘So it’s like being sacked when you can’t do your job?’
‘Pretty much.’
Sharee hung up as the two former Transcendent Souls walked in. Hill was waiting for them in the lobby. She sighed. ‘So, who called Potts?’
‘Rogers,’ Sharee and Reuben said in unison.
Hill sighed again and shook her head. ‘I don’t know why he thought it was her problem. Sorry about this.’
‘No sweat. We might have an answer once my sister gets back to me.’
Hill nodded and turned to speak into an intercom before she led them into the building and into the elevator. As they travelled up, Sharee and Reuben were both on their phones. They muttered between themselves.
‘You think?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘But Earth again?’
‘Tony?’
‘...Possibly.’
‘Oh, well. As long as it’s not us again, I’m not complaining.’
Hill looked curious, but she said nothing.
The moment they stepped into the room, though Rogers shot across and grabbed Reuben, slamming him against the wall. ‘What happened?’ he demanded.
Reuben barely flinched. He did look down at the thick arm, pressed over his collarbone, with a quirked eyebrow though. Then he looked up at Rogers and lifted his hands. When he pushed, Rogers stumbled back. Steve’s eyes widened. Sharee walked over to Reuben and looked at his collarbone. She quirked an eyebrow.
‘I thought you lost your powers,’ Steve said.
‘I did, but super-strength was never one of my powers,’ Reuben said. ‘That was Joel and Toby.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You have lost yours.’
Steve froze. ‘That’s impossible!’
‘Not really.’ Sharee wandered over and plopped down in the nearest seat. ‘Erskine initially invented the formula for the serum in 1942. You were injected a year later. When he invented it, he was surrounded by Nazis and, I can say with absolute certainty, in proximity with the Tesseract. If he used it as part of the formula to create the serum, that would make your enhanced state an Infinity Stone power.’
‘How do you know for sure?’ Carol Danvers asked.
‘Because in my last life, I was a German,’ Sharee said. ‘It was public knowledge that after Erskine fled with his family to Switzerland in defiance of Hitler, that Obergruppenführer Johann Schmidit was sent after him. And, as we all know, he had the Tesseract in his possession at that time.’
‘And how does this explain why the powers are suddenly gone?’ Fury asked, completely ignoring Wanda Maximoff in the corner, glaring at everyone in the room.
‘Just waiting on confirmation first.’ Almost as if she’d planned it, Sharee’s phone went off. She answered it. ‘Shauna?’ A paused. ‘Thank you. That’s exactly what I wanted to know.’ She hung up.
‘It is?’ Reuben asked.
‘It would appear so.’ Sharee turned to them. ‘As I’ve no doubt you’ve noticed, random people all over the world have suddenly gotten powers and then, just as suddenly, lost them.’
‘Yeah, we’d noticed,’ Fury said. ‘You know why?’
Reuben nodded. ‘It’s happened before. A long time ago.’ He smirked. ‘How do you suppose we were picked out as the Transcendent Souls?’
Danvers nodded. ‘So, the Soul Stone is somewhere on Earth, and it’s trying to find new guardians. Which means the ones that actually keep their powers we wouldn’t hear about.’
‘Yes,’ Reuben said.
‘How does that explain what happened to me and Wanda though?’ Steve demanded. ‘The Space Stone was in the Tesseract, and she got her powers from the Mind Stone! It’s completely different!’
Sharee looked over her shoulder. ‘Not really. An Infinity Stone is an Infinity Stone. The rule is the same for everyone, Soul Stone empowered or otherwise: you abuse it, you lose it.’
‘We didn’t abuse our powers!’ Wanda insisted.
Reuben scoffed. ‘Tell that to the people that you mind-whammied to avoid getting recognised while you were on the run.’
‘Or the taskforce team from Bucharest,’ Sharee said.
‘Or the Wakandans you used as “cannon fodder” to try and save one guy who was fully willing to sacrifice his own life for the good of the many.’
‘Or basically anybody who ended up as collateral damage in one of your fights.’
Steve’s jaw worked a bit.
‘Did they really do all that?’ Carol asked Fury.
‘Yup.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Steve finally insisted.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Reuben said. ‘Unless you’re referring to you losing your powers because the Soul Stone doesn’t accept your reasoning.’ He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. ‘In which case, yes, it is fair. When people, adults and children alike, abuse a privilege, it is accepted practice to take that privilege away.’
‘Just like we had one purpose and one purpose only for our powers,’ Sharee added. ‘Failing that, we lost them. You could argue that wasn’t fair, because we didn’t even know there was a problem before the decimation, but that won’t change a damn thing. The Soul Stone is looking for new guardians and it stripped your powers while it was at it.’
‘I thought it already did Earth,’ Hill said.
‘Our best guess,’ Reuben told her, ‘is that, because he was wearing the Infinity Gauntlet at the time and he matches the criteria, Tony was picked as the first of the new Transcendent Souls.’
‘Stark made the criteria?’ Wanda demanded. ‘How did—’
‘With this attitude,’ Sharee cut her off, ‘I’m surprised he brought you back. I certainly wouldn’t, and I was a Transcendent Soul.’
Wanda drew back as if she’d been slapped.
Steve sighed in disapproval. ‘Be fair. She just lost her powers.’
‘So did we,’ Reuben said. ‘And we’re not whining over it.’
‘When can we expect to get Stark back?’ Fury asked.
‘That depends,’ Sharee said. ‘On how long he stays in stasis, and if we’re actually right.’
Carol smirked. ‘So, the long and short of it is: the Soul Stone is looking for new Transcendent Souls and anyone empowered by an Infinity Stone is subject to its judgement.’
‘Pretty much.’
***
The Soul Stone sought out new souls.
It only had one. This one had gone above and beyond, as the Terran expression went, and it was now Transcendent. All that was required was to teach the soul his new purpose. The good news was that this one had become aware of the Transcendent Souls in life; he understood what was expected of him.
And he did not want it, as the last batch of Transcendents had not.
He did not want it, but he would accept it.
But what should his first power be? Hmm.
An engineer with a genius-level intellect. A man who had been controlled mostly through emotional manipulation. His empathy was too strong. With that in mind (so to speak), the Soul Stone reached down inside itself and plucked out the desired superpower. Never again would this one, currently known as Tony Stark, be subject to the whims of others. Soon, he would bear another name unto himself.
And the power?
Control Negation.