{Chapter: 211 - The Reunion and Beyond}
"How… how are you here? What is this place?" she asked, looking around again.
"Things are a bit complicated," Aiden said softly, lifting her chin so her eyes met his. "To put it simply, I brought you here to restore your ability… and to keep a promise."
"A promise?" Claire blinked, her expression softening.
"That I'd find you again," Aiden said with a gentle smile. "And that when I did… you wouldn't have to be afraid of being hurt. You'd be with someone who truly sees you."
Her cheeks turned pink at his words, and her eyes shimmered. For all her regeneration and bravery, Claire had always craved stability — someone who looked at her not as an experiment, not as an anomaly, but as a girl who just wanted to be understood. To be loved.
"I… I can feel it again. My ability. It's really back," she whispered, glancing down at her hand in awe. "I thought it was gone forever."
Aiden nodded. "It's back because you are. This version of you, strong and whole."
Claire reached up and brushed her fingers against his cheek. "You kept your word."
"I always do," Aiden said. He leaned in and kissed her — not with hunger, but with warmth and assurance. A kiss that spoke of reunion, of something that had waited patiently to bloom.
When they parted, she stared into his eyes for a long moment, then smiled. "So what now?"
"Now," Aiden held Claire's cheeks with both hands and asked her to look at him. "Do you believe me?"
"I believe you!" Claire looked at Aiden and said seriously without even thinking.
"That's good, I will show you a new world when I meet you next time!" Aiden leaned forward and gave her another loving kiss.
Claire nodded solemnly, a quiet strength in her eyes. "I'll be waiting."
With one last glance, he sent her out of the fighting arena. The system shimmered, and Aiden followed suit, returning to the hotel room he had left behind in the real world.
The lights were dim. Dust coated the corners — clearly, someone had been living here in his absence, though just barely.
He looked around with a small smirk. "Still warm…"
But there was no time to linger. Aiden used his location ability and quickly locked onto the people he needed to check on — Daisy, Clarice
Natasha, and others. Their energy signatures pinged one by one into his mind's eye.
"Let's start with Daisy," he murmured and vanished in the next blink.
---
Meanwhile, in Daisy's Room
Daisy Johnson had just finished drying her hair, dressed in simple black sweats and a tank top, ready to collapse onto her couch. The apartment was quiet — unusually so.
Until it wasn't.
She turned and gasped, nearly knocking over her tea when she saw someone standing by her window.
"Aiden?!" she blurted, startled. "How—? What—? When did you—?"
"I missed you too, dear," Aiden said smoothly, stepping forward with a grin. He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her temple.
"You scared the hell out of me," she said, half-laughing, half-exasperated. "You vanish for weeks and then just reappear in my room like a ghost."
"I'm not a ghost, Daisy," Aiden murmured. "But I am haunted. Haunted by how much I wanted to be back here with you."
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now. "You're impossible."
"But charming."
"And late."
He pulled her close. "Then let me make it up to you when I return. I still have things to do."
"Let me guess — missions, powers, another trip into the unknown?" she teased, though there was a hint of longing in her tone.
He caught her hand gently, their fingers intertwining. Aiden leaned closer, his voice soft and promising.
"Soon, you'll come with me."
Daisy's eyes searched his, the glimmer of hope hidden behind her otherwise confident demeanor. "Promise?"
He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers in a slow, loving kiss.
"Promise," he whispered.
She smiled faintly, but there was a trace of something deeper in her eyes. Longing. Frustration. Devotion.
Then she sighed, shaking her head slightly, as if brushing off her own worries. "It doesn't matter. I know you have something to do, but... did you know? Jemma has powers now. And I was thinking... maybe if I had something like that too, I could help. Stand beside you, not just follow behind."
Aiden could feel the yearning inside her even without words. Her thoughts echoed in his mind like a song she hadn't meant to share. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and replied earnestly, "Trust me, you will. Just give me a little more time."
He hesitated, studying her face. It was the face of someone brave enough to run headlong into danger, but still soft enough to crave belonging.
"I have to handle something first," Aiden said. He leaned down, kissed her again, slower this time, more intense. Then he smiled against her lips. "I'll come back. And when I do, I'll show you the stars."
Daisy flushed, breath caught in her chest, and could only nod as he stepped back.
Then he vanished.
She blinked. He was there one second and gone the next. She reached out to touch the air where he'd been. Still warm.
—
Seven months ago, in the chaos of the Battle of New York, Phil Coulson had been mortally wounded by Loki's scepter. That moment had been erased from public memory, replaced with cover stories. But Aiden knew the truth.
Coulson hadn't died.
He had been sent to a classified facility known only as the "Guest House," where the drug GH.325 – synthesized from an alien corpse – was used to revive him.
Aiden's target: the drug.
It was powerful, potentially dangerous. But in the right hands, it could change everything. He wanted it for the future.
After leaving Daisy, Aiden shifted time and space and appeared in New York. But instead of arriving six months after the battle, he realized something was off.
He stepped out onto a sidewalk in a small town. Across the street, a familiar face sat in a quiet diner—Phil Coulson. Pale. Exhausted. Bandaged.
"How is he here?" Aiden muttered. He glanced at a newspaper a man was holding nearby. Time froze as Aiden took it from his hands and scanned the date.
"The Battle of New York was two months ago... Damn."
He had miscalculated.
Correcting his trajectory, Aiden bent space time again and reappeared in New York—but this time, he was precise. First, he confirmed the date. Then he homed in on Coulson's exact location.
He appeared inside the dim, sterile facility. The smell of chemicals and metal was strong. On the table lay Phil Coulson. His head was open. Machines prodded his nerves and brain.
Two scientists stood over him.
"Who are you? How did you get in?!"
Before panic could rise further, time stopped with a snap of Aiden's fingers.
He walked between the frozen doctors, amused by their expressions of shock and terror. With a faint smile, he touched their temples gently, erasing the last one minute of their memories.
Then, he disappeared.
Returning to the correct timeline, he made his way deeper into the facility. There, beside humming machinery and a biometric safe, he found it.
GH.325.
He tucked it safely into his personal dimensional storage. Then, following coolant lines and oxygen feeds, he located the vault that held the alien corpse.
With a quiet creak, the containment unit opened. Inside was the body of a Kree—blue-skinned, towering even in death. Tubes ran from its body to the surrounding systems.
"So this is where it all came from..." Aiden whispered. "The beginning of Inhuman evolution on Earth. And the root of the chaos to come."
"It is said that the Kree created Inhumans so the drug has no side effects on Inhumans like Daisy. But unlike her, Phil is just a normal human, so I'm afraid he will soon turn mad from the side effects."
He stored the corpse with care, knowing it could hold immense research potential. Then he vanished again, reappearing aboard his personal ship.
---
Aiden collapsed onto the bed. He felt drained.
Shifting through time and space wasn't just magic—it was exhausting, taxing his body down to the marrow. Even with his augmented physiology, it left him feeling hollow.
He laid there, sweat cooling against his skin, breathing in silence.
"When I used to watch Nakamura on TV... he made it look so damn easy," he muttered to himself, chuckling. "Guess it could be because it's a very complex world, with its timeline being even more complex, with protectors. Or it's just that fiction doesn't show the fatigue.."
"I don't expect it to use so much energy."
Still, ten minutes passed, and his strength began to return. Slowly but steadily, he was healing.
After all, his physical fitness is different from Hiro's. Although his energy consumption is large it'll recover quickly and his body is more suitable to cross time and space.
His mind wandered everywhere.