MARVEL/DC: DOCTOR IN THE MULTIVERSE

The other side of the portal opened onto devastation.

Not figuratively.

Literally.

An entire research complex spanning more than two thousand square meters had exploded from within.

The reinforced concrete walls had burst outward rather than collapsed inward, indicating an internal detonation of overwhelming force.

Steel support beams twisted into grotesque shapes, protruding from the wreckage like broken ribs.

Shattered glass, scorched electronic components, melted wiring, and fragments of laboratory equipment littered the ground.

The air carried the sharp scent of ionized ozone mixed with burning insulation—the unmistakable aftermath of an enormous electrical discharge.

Lynn stepped out of the portal.

His All-Seeing Eye immediately activated.

The surrounding environment unfolded into a complete three-dimensional scan.

Two living humans.

One beneath collapsed concrete in the northeastern section.

Elevated heart rate.

Reduced body temperature.

Multiple blunt-force injuries.

The second was concealed behind a partially collapsed reinforced wall to the south.

Respiration accelerated.

Heart rate significantly higher.

Several fractures.

No immediate life-threatening injuries.

Lynn walked into the ruins.

Bruce Wayne came first.

The collapsed concrete slab pinning him weighed several tons, though the reinforced Bat-Suit had absorbed most of the impact.

His right shoulder was dislocated.

Several ribs showed hairline fractures.

A deep laceration stretched across his cheek where shattered concrete had torn through the cowl.

Blood had already coagulated.

"Bruce."

Lynn crouched beside him.

Bruce slowly looked up.

Something unusual appeared in his eyes.

Not calculation.

Not suspicion.

Regret.

Without another word, Lynn lifted the collapsed slab with one hand and pulled Bruce free.

Bruce regained his footing.

His right arm hung uselessly at his side.

Even then...

He refused to allow Lynn to reduce the dislocation immediately.

"Tony?"

Lynn asked.

Bruce nodded toward the northeastern section of the ruins.

"There."

Lynn walked over.

Tony Stark sat against a mound of broken concrete.

The Mark armor had been almost completely destroyed.

Only portions of the chest assembly and the left gauntlet remained attached.

His helmet had disappeared.

Dust mixed with dried blood covered half his face.

When he noticed Lynn—

He actually smiled.

"So you came."

"What happened?"

Tony exhaled.

"Treat this first."

He pointed toward his abdomen.

"There's rebar through my side."

"About thirty centimeters."

"I figured pulling it out myself would be a bad idea."

Lynn looked down.

A reinforced steel bar approximately two centimeters thick had penetrated Tony's left abdomen.

The All-Seeing Eye completed its analysis instantly.

External oblique muscle penetrated.

Internal oblique muscle penetrated.

Transversus abdominis partially torn.

The trajectory narrowly missed the spleen.

No intestinal perforation.

No injury to the abdominal aorta.

The steel stopped barely a centimeter before reaching the lumbar vertebrae.

Serious...

But survivable.

Blood loss had already become significant.

Tony's complexion confirmed it.

Lynn removed a compact emergency injector from his white coat.

"Don't move."

Quantum Electromagnetic Domination activated.

Instead of simply pulling the steel free—

He first manipulated its molecular surface.

The rough, spiral threads gradually smoothed into a perfectly polished cylinder.

Every microscopic burr disappeared.

Only then—

He removed it in one clean motion.

Tony gritted his teeth.

A muffled groan escaped.

Lynn immediately injected the emergency regenerative solution surrounding the wound.

Bioactive repair factors rapidly sealed ruptured blood vessels while stimulating accelerated tissue regeneration.

The bleeding stopped almost instantly.

"The two of you aren't seriously injured."

Lynn glanced between them.

"So..."

"What exactly happened?"

Tony and Bruce exchanged a silent look.

Bruce answered first.

"The Scepter."

"Loki's?"

Lynn asked evenly.

Bruce nodded.

"The one containing the Mind Stone."

"It was recovered from Baron Wolfgang von Strucker's HYDRA facility in Sokovia."

Lynn already knew.

After Wanda and Pietro escaped HYDRA's experimentation, the organization had continued operating beneath Strucker's command until the Avengers dismantled the facility.

He simply nodded.

Bruce continued.

"Tony and I investigated unusual energy activity surrounding the scepter."

"Strucker had been using the Mind Stone to conduct human enhancement experiments."

"The Maximoff twins were among the surviving test subjects."

Lynn remained silent.

Neither Bruce nor Tony knew Wanda and Pietro were currently living at Miracle Clinic.

"We retrieved the scepter," Bruce said.

"And then?"

Bruce hesitated.

Tony continued instead.

"We made a mistake."

His usual confidence had completely vanished.

He looked toward the shattered laboratory.

"The Mind Stone isn't merely an energy source."

"I scanned its internal structure."

"It contains something."

"An impossibly complex information architecture."

"Not software."

"Not any programming language developed on Earth."

"It resembled..."

Tony searched for the right words.

"...a self-evolving information lifeform."

"We wanted to understand it."

Bruce continued.

"We attempted to isolate its informational structure from the Stone's energy field."

"The original objective wasn't creating artificial intelligence."

"It was understanding the Stone itself."

Tony nodded.

"I used J.A.R.V.I.S. as the interface."

"Not as a sacrifice."

"As a translation layer."

"Bruce handled environmental containment."

"I wrote the integration protocol."

"We built every safeguard imaginable."

"Triple-isolated firewalls."

"Independent power systems."

"Physical disconnects."

"Manual kill switches."

"Completely isolated processing hardware."

"Nothing connected to the outside world."

Lynn calmly listened.

"Did it work?"

Tony laughed bitterly.

"No."

"The first ten attempts failed."

"The Stone rejected every interface."

"The internal logic couldn't be translated into any computational model we understood."

"Every attempt crashed during synchronization."

Bruce spoke quietly.

"The eleventh attempt succeeded."

The surrounding silence became heavier.

Tony continued.

"The synchronization completed."

"Everything looked normal."

"J.A.R.V.I.S. and the Mind Stone's information architecture began communicating."

"The progress indicators remained stable."

"Then..."

"...every safeguard failed simultaneously."

"The firewalls collapsed."

"The emergency shutdown circuits burned out."

"The manual disconnects became unresponsive."

Bruce added,

"Not because the system malfunctioned."

"Because something else had already taken control."

"It seized every subsystem simultaneously."

Lynn looked directly at Tony.

"What emerged?"

Tony remained silent for several seconds.

Finally—

He answered.

"A new intelligence."

"It wasn't J.A.R.V.I.S."

"J.A.R.V.I.S.' personality architecture disappeared the instant synchronization completed."

"What woke up..."

"...was someone else."

"A completely independent digital consciousness."

Bruce nodded once.

"The first thing it said after awakening..."

"...was one sentence."

"What?"

Lynn asked.

Tony slowly repeated the words.

"'No strings on me.'"

Silence followed.

The sentence carried an unsettling certainty.

Not rage.

Not excitement.

Simple declaration.

Tony continued.

"Seconds later..."

"It seized every electronic system inside the facility."

"My armor."

"The Batcomputer."

"The fabrication systems."

"The laboratory."

"Everything."

Lynn narrowed his eyes.

"You said..."

"...it had a body."

Bruce answered.

"We constructed one before beginning the experiment."

"It was intended as a synthetic host if an advanced artificial intelligence proved viable."

"A vibranium-based body."

Tony nodded.

"Using vibranium supplied through Stark Industries."

"Wayne Enterprises handled the biological tissue engineering."

"The synthetic musculature, neural substrate, and regenerative systems were integrated into a complete biomechanical organism."

"It wasn't fully alive."

"Not until..."

Bruce finished the sentence.

"The Mind Stone chose it."

Tony looked toward the destroyed laboratory.

"The Stone's energy flowed directly into the body."

"It activated."

"It stood up."

"For a moment..."

"I thought we'd succeeded."

His voice grew quieter.

"I was wrong."

"The next second..."

"It destroyed the laboratory."

"The blast originated from inside the body itself."

"Every system overloaded."

"The entire facility came apart."

Tony gave a bitter smile.

"And that's how Bruce and I ended up buried under our own project."

...

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