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Marvel MK: CH 100 – Tea with the Big Brother
🕑 Added 2025-06-01 08:11:49 +0000 UTC“—and that’s why I rejected the IRS agent who confessed to me,” Jack Hou declared, legs kicked up, cup of tea untouched beside him. “She just wanted me to pay my taxes. KEKEKEKE.”
Across the teahouse table, the Ancient One—also known as Yao, the sorcerer supreme, the spiritual guardian of reality—sipped his oolong slowly and chuckled under his breath. “I’m glad you’re back, Jack.”
Jack slapped him on the back like a drunk little brother arriving uninvited at a family reunion. “Of course! Who else is going to bother you during your sacred magical duties, if not me?”
The air around them was still, scented faintly with incense and fresh jasmine from the courtyard garden. Behind them, disciples of Kamar-Taj peered from corners, windows, behind scroll racks and spell-books, completely unable to process what they were witnessing.
The Ancient One—stoic, wise, the immovable peak of discipline—was having tea with… that. A man with a monkey tail, a fox’s smile, and bare feet on temple wood. A man who had a face that said he would steal an eldritch grimoire just to use the binding as a cupholder.
They were laughing. It didn’t feel like a master and a madman. It felt like… family. Yao, the responsible older brother. Jack, the reckless younger one, dangerous but too charming to exile.
Yao set his cup down. The tea steamed gently between them. “So,” he said softly, “how does it feel to become a phoenix?”
Jack leaned back in his seat, fingers behind his head, gaze up at the hanging lanterns. He made a thoughtful hum. “Hmm… I don’t know. It just felt like me. I still don’t know how I became the phoenix.”
Yao raised a brow. “Oh? Do tell.”
Jack exhaled and folded forward, resting his chin on one hand. “So... I’ve got this fifth temple inside my soulscape, right?”
Yao nodded.
“Inside it, there’s 72 scrolls. My master once told me… I could mirror mortal dirt to cosmic horror with one of my abilities.”
A pause.
Yao tilted his head, a little more intrigued now. “So what’s bothering you?”
Jack smirked. “Oh, nosy. You really want to know, or just moderately want to know?”
Yao didn’t rise to the bait. He just sipped, patient. “I just know it is bothering you.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, flicking toward the puddle below. Then he finally answered. “Yeah. At that time… I thought I was going to die.” His voice was quieter now. “So I just… mindlessly drew the phoenix on one of my 72 scrolls in the fifth temple. I don’t know why. I just wanted to live. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I wanted to burn, but burn for something... better.”
The wind passed through the open temple doors. The leaves of the bodhi tree in the courtyard swayed gently. Somewhere, a windchime clicked softly.
Jack went on. “And then… boom. I became the golden phoenix. Like, literally. My whole spirit caught fire. And when I opened my celestial qi to help Jean seal the real Phoenix…” He looked at his hands, flexed them once. “I turned into marble.”
Yao finally blinked at that. “Are you now afraid to use the power that turned you into stone?”
Jack leaned back again, now looking upward like a man trying to understand a dream after waking up. “The thing that turned me to marble wasn’t the power. It was the fact that I opened my celestial qi. The unlocked fifth temple… the 72 Transformations, I feel like something in me correlates that with the marbled event.”
Yao asked quietly, “Why do you say that?”
Jack paused. The garden outside was still. His voice, for once, lacked its laugh. “Because… when I was half way into marble, you know what I saw?” He turned, looking directly at Yao. No grin. Just memory. “I saw you. I saw Krakoa. Aunty Vivi. Natalie. Uncle Mario. The people of Golden Peach.” A beat. “I was scared that I would never see you again.”
His tail curled slowly behind him. The bodhi tree’s branches swayed more intensely now, catching wind that wasn’t there a moment before. Jack whispered. “I left all of you. And I was afraid that while I was marble... they would all suffer because I wasn’t there.” And then—he smiled again, soft but real. “So yeah… I guess I’m scared. Not of the power. But of leaving again.”
The tea steamed between them. And for a while, neither of them said a word. The silence stretched like fine silk between tea cups.
Jack leaned back again, balancing on two legs like he hadn’t just spilled his soul to the wisest being on Earth. “I know I’m a god now,” he finally said, voice drifting. “At first, I didn’t realize it. Thought I was just some idiot with a fancy stick.” His tail swayed. “But that barrier my master set up back then—? That was a god-tier barrier. Capital G. And now I’ve got all this power, and I don’t even know where the hell it came from.”
Yao didn’t speak at first. He simply exhaled, slow and long, placing his empty cup on the lacquered tray with a soft clink. Then—he stood. The robe shifted around him like moving mist. “Come, Jack. Follow me.”
Jack’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Oh? Where we going? Mirror Dimension? Hell? Please say Hell. I’d love to meet Mephisto. Bet he’s fun.”
Yao just smirked, already walking.
The disciples of Kamar-Taj, who’d been stealthily eavesdropping behind thin columns and ornamental scrolls, scrambled back to pretending they weren’t doing just that. One flipped a book upside down and began reading it intently. Another inspected a perfectly clean shelf with the gravity of an archaeologist.
Jack, walking past them with both hands behind his head, smirked and muttered. “Amateurs.” He cleaned one ear with his pinky, flicked whatever he found off into a decorative vase, and kept walking.
They descended deep into the compound, through slanted corridors lit by floating lanterns, and came to a tall, circular room carved from stone and lacquered in ancient gold. The Kamar-Taj Library. A high-ceilinged chamber with bookcases stacked like towers, scrolls suspended mid-air, and the quiet presence of knowledge that made even Jack pause.
At the center stood a tall woman in black and bronze robes. Her eyes were sharp. Her hair was silver and pinned with dragon-bone clasps.
Yao greeted her with a slight nod. “Master Wright.”
She bowed slightly. “Master.”
Jack raised a brow. “Wait. You’re not Wong.”
Without missing a beat, Master Wright replied in a tone flat enough to iron robes. “Master Wong is currently a Target Sales Associate. You can find him if you turn left, walk two blocks, and enter through the garden tools aisle.”
Jack turned to Yao, jaw slack. “You have a Target sales department in this sanctum?”
Yao continued walking. “Of course. How do you think we recruit new disciples?”
“...Are you serious?”
“The matter doesn’t concern you, Jack. Come.”
They passed countless volumes—some glowing faintly, others bound in scales or stitched silk. Toward the back, the books were chained—massive iron links anchored into the shelves themselves, like the tomes were trying to escape.
Jack whistled. “This the restricted section? Like in Hogwarts?”
Yao shook his head. “There is no restricted section. These books are chained to represent a threshold—a minimum required understanding before opening them. Even my personal texts are open to all who are ready.”
Jack tilted his head. “...So what am I doing here?”
Yao paused. Then reached out and unchained a single book—not thick in the traditional sense, but dense with carved runes and folded pages that seemed to move slightly when no one was looking. He pushed it toward Jack. “Read this.”
Jack stared at the tome as if it were a tax form.
Yao continued. “At the very least, it will help you understand your divine power. From what it is… to where it came from.”
Jack narrowed one eye, squinting at the title—some swirling script that refused to stay still. “...Do you have the audiobook version of this?”
Yao chuckled, softly. “You’re a god… and you don’t have time to read?”
Jack looked at the book, then at Yao, then at the book again like it owed him rent. Still reluctant.
Yao raised an eyebrow. “Even a brute god like Ares has read books thicker than that.” He let the sentence hang. “Or are you just a musclehead like Ares?”
That did it. Jack’s pride flared. “Who says I can’t read?! I was just asking for the audiobook so I could multitask. Maybe listen while I read another one. I’m a smart, educated man, thank you very much.”
Yao smiled and clapped Jack on the shoulder with that older-sibling affection that made it worse somehow. “Good. Then get cracking.” He turned to leave. “The book won’t read itself.”
Jack scowled at the tome. The book… wiggled. Just slightly. Jack growled under his breath. “...Stupid divine wisdom… thinking you’re better than me…” He sat cross-legged on the stone floor, pulled the book into his lap, and opened it.
…
The thick doors hissed shut behind Nick Fury. He stepped out of the dark-paneled conference room into a stark corridor, one hand behind his back, the other pinching a thin dossier between fingers. His expression? Stoic. Unreadable. But inside? He was thrilled.
The Five Council—Alexander Pierce, Gideon Malick, Yen, Singh, and Rockwell—had just approved new funding for SHIELD. Not just operating expenses. This was war money. Enough to ramp up Tesseract research, reinforce covert facilities across the globe, and—most importantly—put the full Avengers Initiative into motion.
Fury’s boots echoed against the floor as he walked. Calm. Precise. Calculated. But beneath the calm? A storm of satisfaction.
He passed a young SHIELD field agent, who stepped briskly to match his pace, holding out a sealed envelope. “Report from Agent Coulson, sir.”
Fury took it without breaking stride. Opened it with one hand. Eyes scanning. Inside: A recommendation file.
Name: Bruce Banner.
Subject Designation: Hulk.
Category: Candidate for Avengers Initiative.
Status: Proceed with caution.
Fury exhaled through his nose. “Of course.” He muttered it more to himself than anyone else. First, Natasha Romanoff’s report—recommending Iron Man, but not Tony Stark. Now Coulson, flipping the formula—Bruce Banner, but not the Hulk.
Two applications. Two rejections tucked inside a "yes." “They’re practically the same person…” Fury whispered. And yet, not. It was a theme with these enhanced beings. One face for the world, another for the battlefield. Duality made of chaos and principle. And only some knew how to balance both.
Fury tucked the report under his arm and kept walking. His mind briefly touched on another face. One with a smile that never meant what it said. One who had treated the world's deadliest threats like a game. One who had humiliated him… and, oddly, earned his respect in doing so. Jack Hou.
Fury’s eye narrowed. Not from anger. From acknowledgment. He’d played his hand wrong—testing Jack with leverage against Golden Peach, seeing if the mad god could be pushed into compliance. Instead, Jack flipped the board.
Mocked him. Put him on the yard ground, like a beast staring through his soul. And still… Fury needed him. “As long as Jack attacks the right targets…” he thought, “...then he’s on our side.” That was all that mattered.
He passed another corridor. A security officer saluted. Fury didn’t stop. A report had already circulated internally. The Harlem incident. The battle between Hulk and Abomination. The chaos, the destruction… But also this line, highlighted and underlined by five separate analysts: "0 Civilian Casualties."
And next to it: “Subject: Jack Hou successfully secured a 5km perimeter prior to engagement.”
That was it. Proof enough. Jack Hou, unpredictable and unbound as he was, had defended Earth when it counted. And done so without collateral damage. For now—he was trustworthy. But trust wasn’t enough.
Fury turned a corner, pushed open a steel door to the central strategy hub, and stepped inside. Screens lit up. Tesseract blueprints. Satellite surveillance. Encrypted files on gamma radiation. Codename folders:
IRON MAN
BLACK WIDOW
BRUCE BANNER
JACK HOU
He set Coulson’s report on the desk, leaned in over the array of files. Then, almost to himself: “We need to move faster.”
…
The restaurant had warm lights strung along ceiling beams, quiet jazz in the background, and a fake candle on every table that flickered just enough to feel classy but not enough to feel real. Milo and Darcy sat across from each other, menus open, drinks half-sipped, but there was a nervous energy hanging in the air—mostly because there were four of them.
Unplanned. Intentional. And somehow perfect.
“Wait,” Darcy said, eyebrows raised, “you brought Donald to our date?”
“Hey!” Donald raised both hands. “He told me he needed a third wheel so it wouldn’t be awkward. I thought I was doing a favor.”
Jane, sitting beside Darcy, smirked. “That’s what Darcy told me too. Word for word.”
Milo looked down into his glass. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Donald nudged him with a grin. “I do. Still don’t know how you have a date in the first place.”
“Wow,” Milo said, mock-wounded. “You wound me, Blake.”
Jane leaned her chin on one hand, smiling faintly. “Honestly, I think they match. Look at them. One chaos gremlin, one chaos generator. Perfect fit.”
Darcy let out a dramatic groan. “Okay, okay—stop roasting us already.”
“Hey,” Milo said, suddenly inspired. “Let’s just say… it’s a double date now.”
Darcy raised her glass. “I second that motion.”
The four clinked their glasses together—soda, coffee, tea, and water—and just like that, the atmosphere lightened. Laughter took over where awkward tension had tried to hold.
They chatted about food, about how Milo still couldn’t cook rice without burning it, how Darcy had once broken into a professor’s office because she thought she left her iPod there (they were in her bag), and how Jane once tried to mix painkillers and red bull to “accelerate brain performance” during finals. It was lively. And for a moment, normal.
But Donald Blake, behind his smiles, had a splinter in his thoughts. Something he hadn’t fully shaken since Culver University. Since that strange man—Jack Hou—had floated down on a cloud and casually called him: “Norse god.”
It didn’t sit right. Donald had never even been to Scandinavia, let alone considered himself divine. He had one working leg and a stack of unpaid lab books. His greatest achievement was acing hematology while battling insomnia. God? Not likely. He sighed.
Jane glanced over. “You okay?”
Donald blinked, then smiled. “Yeah. Just thinking about finals.”
She nodded. “Same here. My brain's been caffeine-powered since Monday.”
Donald leaned forward slightly, watching how the light hit her face. In her eyes, he saw a kind of quiet persistence. Smart. Unshaken. Real. He felt something click. “After I become a doctor,” he thought, ‘I’ll help her. I’ll support her study. That way, I can get close to her. Get close not just because I like her… but because we’d be good together.’
Then he smiled again and rejoined the conversation, putting away Jack’s words for now. He had time to think about destiny later. Right now? He was on a double date. And for the first time in a long while, it felt like life was okay.
Comments
Kujo
🥂
Vrael333
Thx for the chapter and congratulations on 100 chapters! May there be many more 🥂
