Asgard – The Healing Chambers
The air still hummed with the residual energy of Odin's failed confrontation. In the Healing Chambers, Jane Foster lay in a magically-induced stasis, the Aether's crimson energy flickering uneasily beneath her skin. Eir and her assistants had just begun their evening rounds when the space at the foot of Jane's bed warped.
It wasn't a Bifrost, or a flash of light. It was a silent, seamless transition, as if a piece of another reality had been slotted into place. Sam Jackson stood there, his presence causing the magical wards in the room to flicker and die. The healers froze, their golden magic sputtering out.
Sam paid them no mind. His eyes were fixed on Jane. He approached the bed, his movements economical and precise.
"Wha— Who are you?!" Eir managed, her voice a mixture of outrage and fear.
Sam didn't answer. He placed a hand on Jane's forehead. His touch was not gentle, but clinical. The Aether within Jane, sensing a power greater than its current vessel, surged in response. Crimson light erupted from her, but it didn't throw Sam back. Instead, it flowed into his hand, drawn out like poison from a wound.
Jane's body arched off the bed, a silent scream on her lips as the ancient power was violently extracted. The liquid reality streamed out of her mouth, her eyes, her pores, coalescing above Sam's palm into a swirling, violent orb of crimson light—the Reality Stone, freed from its fluid prison for the first time in millennia.
As the last of the Aether left her, Jane collapsed back onto the bed, gasping. Her eyes fluttered open, bleary and confused. They focused on the man standing over her, holding the source of her torment as if it were a trinket. Her scientific mind, even addled by trauma, made the connection. The CEO. The reclusive genius.
"Sam... Jackson...?" she whispered, her voice hoarse. "The... Atlas...?"
Sam glanced down at her, his expression unchanging. "Your contribution to science is noted, Dr. Foster. Rest now." He closed his hand, and the Reality Stone vanished, not into a pocket, but into a fold of space only he could access.
He turned to leave and found Frigga standing in the doorway. The Queen had felt the disturbance, the sudden absence of the Aether's malevolent signature. She saw the terrified healers, the exhausted Jane, and the man who had saved her life days before. Her eyes were wide, not with fear, but with a dawning, terrifying understanding.
"You," she breathed. "You took it. You confronted my husband... and you won."
Sam met her gaze. "A transaction was completed. The asset has been secured. The Realms are safer for it." He gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod. "The debt remains, Queen Frigga. But the interest has been paid."
Before she could form a response, the space around Sam simply inverted. He didn't vanish in a flash or a puff of smoke. One moment he was there, and the next, the space he occupied was empty, as if he had never been there at all. The magical wards in the room slowly flickered back to life.
Frigga stood frozen, staring at the empty space. She had seen gods and monsters, but she had never seen someone simply un-exist from a location. The quiet, her husband had called it. It was more terrifying than any roar.
---
Atlas Biotech – Penthouse
Sam reappeared in his lab, the transition as silent as his departure. The Reality Stone materialized in his hand, pulsing with untamed power.
"AetherLink."
"I have," Sam confirmed, placing the Stone on a reinforced analysis plate. "Initiate two new projects. Designation: Aegis Vault."
"A containment system for the Reality Stone. It must be able to withstand and channel its reality-altering properties without degradation. Use the data we acquired from the Dark Elf scans on dimensional phasing. I want it isolated in a pocket reality of our own design."
"Second project," Sam continued, his voice dropping, becoming colder and more purposeful. "Designation: Infinity."
The air in the lab seemed to grow still.
"The Aether is not a singular anomaly. It is one of six. The Tesseract, the Scepter, the Power Stone on Morag, the Time Stone with the Ancient One, the Soul Stone on Vormir. I want a comprehensive, multi-phase strategy to locate, acquire, and secure all six Infinity Stones."
He looked at the swirling red Stone on the plate. "Thanos seeks them to impose his will upon the universe through genocide and terror. A crude, wasteful application. I will collect them to impose order. To silence the chaos. To build a universe that cannot break."
"Leave the Tesseract for now. Let Fury think it's safe. Our first priority is the Power Stone. Its location is fixed, and its guardians are long dead. It is the simplest to acquire. Begin drafting plans for a deep-space vessel. We're going to Morag."
Sam picked up the data-slate for the Aegis Steward, the household robot. It seemed almost laughably small now. He was no longer just building a company or an army. He had taken the first tangible step towards a goal that would make gods and titans tremble.
He was building a gauntlet for the universe itself. And he would be the one to snap his fingers.