The final chapter of my fic but not the end of the series. I'd like to thank anyone who has read this fic even if they dont leave reviews
Any Marvel heroes and places that have appeared in this fic are not my property, the only things I own are my OC's Aeon, Hellfire, Red Wing, Ultimate, Gothica, Brute and Tito and Faith
Marvel Universe: Becoming a Hero
Chapter 13: The Aftermath
Name of Casualty Cause of death
Rocket Men units 1, 2 and 3 Crushed by Fin Fang Foom
Scarlet Spider number 2 Thunderbolt blasted through chest
Puck (Eugene Milton Judd) Frozen and shattered by Ultimate
Hawk-Owl (Jack Danner) Beheaded by Ultimate
Quasar (Wendell Elvis Vaughn) Vaporised by Hellfire
Colleen Wing Suffocated under building rubble
Misty Knight Neck Broken by Ultimate
Box (Madison Jeffries) Unknown possibly died in Box explosion or when Ultimate flew through the armour
Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart) Impaled by Ultimate
Flatman (Val Ventura) Cut in half by Ultimate
Rocket man unit 5 Vaporised by Hellfire
Nick sighed as he put the list that had been written on the table. He was alone in his office, the lights were dim since it fitted Fury's mood right now. As supervisor of the operation he was responsible for sending letters to the families of the many agents and soldiers that had been lost, not only was that hard enough but he had to tell some families that their father or their sons had been secretly vigilantes or heroes. The deaths of those heroes had affected many that had known them, Mr Immortal was particularly distraught and had been spending many nights drinking, Val had been one of his best friends and one of the first Great Lake Heroes. Alpha Flight had returned to Canada with less members than they had expected to return without, Logan had also spent a night drinking in a bar with James Hudson and Walter Langkowski. There was a service for the heroes as well though not many showed up for the event, Nick had only counted most of the Great Lake Heroes, himself, Steve and Tony and Sven and his friends.
Though things weren't all gloom and doom, Wolverine was leaving Alpha Flight to help train a new Generation of X-men, Beast was still joining the Avengers and the list of volunteers had grown mainly thanks to Aeon's efforts:
Captain AmericaIron Man
Wonder Man
Captain Marvel
Beast
US Agent
Ant-man
Wasp
Spider-Woman
Steel Spider
Hawkeye
Mockingbird
Firebird
Goliath
She-Hulk
And of course the Black Widow would be joining the team, as a S.H.I.E.L.D Representative as well as a second in command should something happen to Cap.
"Nice costumes!" Shang-Chi chuckled. It was sort of an official Defenders meeting at the Sanctum and the group beheld the new costumes that the former Scarlet Spider's and Arachne wore. Jessica's was a red and yellow body suit with a spider design on her chest, she no longer wore a full-face mask but a mask that covered her eyes and she had also dyed her hair black. The one who would keep the name Scarlet Spider no longer had the spider leg devices on his back but wore instead a Red spider suit with no web designs, a sleeveless blue top with a black spider on the back and chest as well as a belt that held numerous web or spider theme gadgets as well as impact webbing capsules strapped to his wrists. The final clone now wore a black suit that covered all but his mouth, he had a silver spider design on his chest and shoulders and he now wore a harness with steel spider legs on the back.
"Where did you get the Doc Ock harness Scarlet?" Daredevil out of costume as the blind lawyer Matt Murdock asked.
"Please I'm not red anymore, call me Oliver Osnick or if I'm wearing this the Steel Spider" He grinned.
"Oh please tell me you didn't think of a corny name too" Danny Rand asked the Scarlet Spider who shook his head.
"I couldn't think of a good one so I decided that I'd take the names of the people who raised Peter, the first name of his uncle and the Maiden name of his aunt, call me Ben Reilly from now on" Scarlet Spider removed his mask revealing his now dyed and cut blonde hair.
"Cool I should probably tell Peter when I meet him that he looks better as a blonde" John chuckled carrying a tray with coffee mugs on it. Through Sven John had started a small friendship with the alter ego of Spider-man. The three even met up in costume to discuss the three joining the Avengers although in the end only John decided he would mainly because Captain America had invited him.
"Hey John show us the shield again?" Ben asked taking a mug and gulping most of the coffee down. "Dude at least we know you throw a shield better than you can make coffee"
"Oh shut up!" John said dropping a small bundle of cloth on the table, he unravelled the cloth revealing a round blue and red shield similar to Captain America's if not smaller and missing the white star.
"So Jess, Ollie and John are joining the big boys in the Avengers, Ben's going to teach the New Warriors a thing or two and Shang's taking a break to work on his relationship with Maya, I tell you things don't get as much better than this" Danny said leaning back on his chair.
"From now on I'll be going by the name Spider-woman and the other one will call herself Spider-girl" Jessica said sitting on one of the chairs that Wong had laid out for her.
"I don't think girl fits her" Dan said and most of the men in the room nodded their heads while Jessica sighed
"What about you guys any plans?" Ollie asked the Defenders and most shook their heads.
"Moon Knight's apparently going back to his solo career" Dr Strange said.
"How's Spector doing any way?" Shang-Chi asked.
"Well we had to remove what was left of his kidney, so now he's only got one and a scar on his chest to go with it, we actually thought that he would go into a coma but it seems he's recovered quite quickly though he will have to watch his stomach when he goes on patrols" Strange explained pouring himself a glass of wine.
"Actually I've been thinking of joining my good friend Luke Cage in Heroes for Hire Inc, after all with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight killed by Ultimate I think Luke needs some help in terms of members right now" Dan said.
"John's becoming an Avengers, Danny a mercenary and Ben a reality TV star what next?" Matt wondered.
"Actually it's official the New Warriors reality TV show is cancelled simply because Night Thrasher and Speedball said so, a lot of the old members have returned like Darkhawk and Turbo and I'm joining up as a New New Warrior" Ben said laughing.
"Well I suppose a toast is in order Defenders, to the future!" Dr Strange raised his glass above the table and the other former Defenders tapped their cups and glasses against his.
"Hey guys do you know where Tigra and Tarantula went?" Jessica asked and the others merely shrugged their shoulders.
The Reilly residence, basement"Thanks for letting us stay here Sven" Miguel said as he sat on one of the old couches that still lay in Sven's basement.
"No sweat, besides who knows what kind of tests Nick Fury would have his scientists do on you if you stayed at the Triskelon" Sven said turning on the TV that he had set up.
"Yet another report about the whole Mandarin thing" Miguel sighed.
"Yeah, not too many people showed up at the service we had for them, although Xavier and a few of his students came, I'm sure everybody would of cried if Morph didn't lighten the mood" Sven said. He put a small dish filled with milk on the floor and Tigra crawled out of the shadows sniffing at it.
"I still don't get why she's staying here now" Miguel muttered.
"Maybe Doc Strange threw her out" The boys turned their heads to see Faith standing at the stairs. "You left the back door open so I thought that I'd invite myself in, where's your mom and sister I thought that since most of the schools had been trashed in the attack they'd be here"
"Well my moms gone to get coffee with a few of her friends and the runts with one of her friends, so that's given me plenty of time to turn my basement into an unofficial lair for Aeon and a living quarters for Tarantula and Tigra, I've got my costume hidden under one of the floorboards"
"Really let's see it!" Faith said excitedly. Sven though at first surprised pulled up one of the loose floorboards revealing a black case. He opened the case and removed from it his new costume imagined by Sven but designed by Janet Van Dyne as a favour for saving her life at one point in the battle. The costume was basically a light grey suit with blue accents, a blue circle on the chest with a grey A in the middle and blue parts on the shoulders and Shins, he also had blue elbow length gloves and grey boots as well as a grey and blue mask with blue eye lenses, the mask covered his face but not his hair.
"Cool, you must have described it real well for Van Dyne" Faith said gazing at the costume and wondering what Sven would look like with it on. "So how's your training in Stark Tower going?" she asked.
"After I fought Ultimate Tony decided to test me again out of sight of S.H.I.E.L.D agents, anyway I've pretty much lost my ability to mimic other super powers though I do have residual power left from when I mimicked Red wing, anyway I can lift 30 tons, I'm just as fast and agile as Spider-man and with my energy generation powers I can momentarily turn myself into energy and move at great speeds, sort of like a teleport you see" Sven explained.
"Anyway Calvin just got out of Juvy and we were planning on going to the mall and by that I mean you two taking a detour at the arcade" Faith said smiling.
"Oh yeah I remember now, I've been so busy lately with trying to get Fury off my back though no doubt he's still got people following me around anyway Tony assures me that if any super villain or agent spies on my home he'll know about it" Sven said. "Well see you later Miguel and remember if you and Tigra sense my mom coming just hide in a box or on the ceiling ok"
"Later dude and it was good to see you again Faith" Miguel said.
New York City streets"THIS IS JUST TOO FUN!!" Spider-girl yelled as she and Spider-man swung across the city towards the Baxter Building. Spider-girl had sort of become Spider-man's unofficial partner in crime fighting, since Turbo and She-Hulk were joining the New Warriors and Avengers respectively. Spider-man had also offered to be a teacher of sorts for the rookie Spider-girl and teach her how to use powers that were essentially identical to his own. The Fantastic Four family had gone back to normal without many changes, Reed was still tinkering with god knows what in his lab, Sue was still trying to get her boyfriends attention and Ben and Johnny were still at each other's throats.
"JOHNNY!!" The Thing roared walking into the kitchen with whipped cream on his face.
"I would of thought the first time made you more alert" muttered Sue under her breath since it was a prank her brother and tried on Ben Grimm before. She turned her head as she heard a tapping on the window and smiled as she saw both Spider-girl and Spider-man. She pointed to the roof and the two began climbing the building.
"Don't kill Johnny yet Ben his friends are here" Sue said in a mock loving mother tone.
"So Spidey why didn't you decide to join the Avengers?" Spider-girl asked her mentor.
"Well saving the world will mostly get in the way of my work here on the streets what about you?"
"The same" She lied, it was partly a reason why she didn't volunteer another reason was because they already had a Spider-lady on the team and she couldn't resist the chance to work closer with Spider-man. She was embarrassed to say but she was actually becoming quite attracted to her partner.
"Um Spider-girl are you all right?" Peter asked blushing behind his mask since he was well aware that the girl was admiring him, and sure Peter liked Spider-girl but he was in love with Gwen and he wasn't about to let anything ruin that. A few minutes passed and Johnny finally flew out of the FF's hanger with his uniform and himself on fire.
"So Spidey what's the deal I was just in the middle of a good tussle with the ever lovable orange Thing" Johnny said smirking.
"We heard on the radio that a few of my rogue's gallery have broken out again, so we wanted to invite you to crash their little crime party with us"
"Hey guys two's a date and three's just crowding" Johnny said.
"Which it's why we invited She-Hulk as well, she's waiting down stairs for you to carry her to the fight" Spider-girl smirked before jumping off the building followed by Spider-man who saluted his body as he fell.
"Oh well I needed to get on another date anyway" Johnny sighed.
The mallSven, Faith and Calvin had mostly spent five hours doing their usual routine.
"Man I'm glad the fighting didn't get anywhere near the suburbs" Calvin said.
"So how are things at home Calvin?" Sven asked.
"Things have changed only a little bit, my father's ranting even more now and he hasn't spent any time away from his basement lab, only to rant about how much of a jackass he is and how this creation of his is going to solve all our money problems" Calvin explained causing Faith to giggle a bit. "It's come to this point now where he's just another guy in his basement trying to be great, he wants to create the next Captain America, or something greater" Calvin lowered his head his face filled with a mixture of anger and sorrow.
"Hey don't get down Calve, I mean sure he's a bit of a loser right now but if he's working hard then he should turn things around" Sven said patting his best friend on the shoulder.
"Nothing ever dampens your spirits eh Sven" Calvin said smiling.
"Nope not until the day I die" Sven grinned.
"Well I've got to go and get some dinner to take home, so I'll probably see you guys later" Calvin said walking towards the store and waving goodbye to his friends.
Sven and Faith left the mall together and walked in the city streets. They passed an alleyway but stopped when they heard a whisper.
"Pssssst! Sven in here!"
Sven and Faith looked curiously at the dark alleyway before they walked in. Faith gasped as none other but Spider-man dropped into their line of sight, he was hanging off of a web line connected to the roof of the two buildings.
"What's up Spidey?" Sven asked.
"Don't worry Faith I know who you are and what Sven does in his free time" Peter said to calm the shocked Faith down. "Anyway most of my Rogue's gallery is on the loose and I thought it would be a good moment for a team up"
"Who have you got so far?"
"She-Hulk, Human Torch, me and Spider-girl!"
"Ok I cant go, four's a double date and five's a crowd besides I don't have my costume with me" Sven sighed.
"Lucky for you I bought it with me" Faith said reaching into her bag and pulling out the Aeon costume.
"Your real quick!" Sven said rubbing his head.
"Well all's we need to do is invite another female hero and it'll be a triple date" Spider-man joked.
"I don't think so Aeon's spoken for" Faith said smiling as she kissed Sven on the cheek causing him to blush redder than Peter's costume.
"Thanks Faith" Sven said putting most of his suit on but when he was about to pull his mask on Faith jumped at him and softly kissed his lips.
"For luck!" Faith smiled and Sven held his blush back just long enough to smile and put his mask on.
"Time to go to work" Aeon said as he jumped onto the building where other heroes were waiting.
The heroes swung, flew and leapt across the city and Aeon smiled under his mask, everything had changed for him, he personally knew some of his greatest heroes, he was a hero himself and he had finally started a relationship with Faith.
'Well Sven this life is dangerous, complicated and sometimes just plain weird but at the same time it's rewarding, a learning experience and of course you'll get to meet some amazing people, this much I'm sure of that this is just the beginning'
"YAAAAHOOOOH!!!" Aeon yelled at the top of his lungs. Though he had seen both excellent and terrible things Sven wouldn't of changed his present or past for anything. Things had changed on this Earth; heroes not just costumed or super powered had died for what was right, for the ideals of justice, hope and safety and Aeon was willing to live for them!
An apartment somewhere in the cityThe Black Widow sat on her bed wearing just a night coat; her leather suit had been thrown on the floor along with her S.H.I.E.L.D badge. She put the glass of wine she held to her lips gulping it down and a devious smile crossed her lips as she answered her cell phone.
"Romanoff here!" She said. There was a short pause before she spoke again "As you expected Hydra pursued the boy, but their hired thugs are all dead now thanks to Frank Castle…no Fury has no idea what's really happening in S.H.I.E.L.D, the board of directors still have the Mandarin's child soldiers in custody apart from the ones that called themselves Hellfire, Red Wing, Gothica and Brute…yes as you suspected the public thinks that all of the child soldiers are back to normal even Fury thinks so, the fool has been in S.H.I.E.L.D for years and he still cant tell the difference between a LMD and the real thing the board of directors are planning to use them for something big but I'll investigate what they are up to as promised…don't be so silly of course no one suspects me I am the greatest spy in the world after all…no sir S.H.I.E.L.D didn't find the Mandarin's rings…you mean the clan of assassins that Elektra leads…yes I have recovered the list that you wanted…no sir Modok disappeared after the battle along with his notes, I'd like to discuss my pay now…thank you sir…oh yes Mr Stark and I have been getting close and it wont jeopardise my mission…please I cant settle for just the rich playboy the devils just a form of entertainment…as we agreed I'll continue to watch S.H.I.E.L.D until you begin your plan…goodbye for now sir" Natasha slowly hung up the phone and smiled to herself bringing her glass closer to her lips until her phone rang again.
"Oh for crying out load!" She cursed picking up the phone and putting on her best voice. "Hello…why its wonderful to hear from you again…yes I did watch the boy as I promised he's actually a spitting image of you handsome…of course I've watched them too they're fine…no as I promised Fury knows nothing of our deal nor do the board of directors…very well I keep on watching both of the children, always a pleasure to hear from you Project Energon…very well as you wish, goodbye Mr Reilly!"
Marvel Universe: Becoming a hero! The end of the Beginning!
That's the end of that but as you probably guessed it's not the end of Sven's or the other heroes story. Probably some time in October I'll begin work on the sequel story Marvel Universe: Heroism and also read my X-men fic Xmen: Academy X since it ties in with this and the sequel fic. If your eager to see Aeon then he'll be featured in the X-men fic alongside Calvin Rankin. Please read and review with what you thought of the fic and feel free to criticise, also for the future if you want to see any Marvel hero that didnt appear in the fic or if you want heroes from the casualty list back then I'll see what I can do in the sequel!