Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 16: Not that kind of Doctor

It took nearly two weeks for the hype about Rush to die down. Anyone who hadn't been there to experience her—me—all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Thor had returned eight days ago after his talk with Heimdall (incredibly nerve-wracking) and informed everyone, me included, that Heimdall had confirmed that I was not of this universe, having witnessed the event from Asgard but also unable to track the entity that had come through. Hi, also me. Like wheew, that one could have been a doozy. He had been keeping tabs on rushes of speed that was similar but couldn't see fully due to the speed. Eventually, he'd concluded that I was not dangerous and had merely kept an eye out on the off chance that he was wrong. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, he was unable to see the identity of the entity—hello, me again—because of the universe origin clause in multiverse physics. Multiverse physics were primarily for speedsters, as the largest group of very few that can access the multiverse, primordial beings and their agents being the only other groups.

The universe origin clause went something like this, a speedster from a universe in which that speedster is always late will not suddenly be on time should they travel to a new universe. Ergo, the new universe's law or rules would not effect an agent that originated from outside the law. Superior Ironman would still be evil in any universe where regular Ironman or any of the other variants were delegated "good" and that worked in regards to every universe law. I still hadn't figured out the law difference between my universe and this one, they were too similar on the grand scale for it to be obvious. But this universe was unique—to the ones I'd visited anyway—in that I had no doppelganger here. So there was the possibility that "my" non-existence was part of that law. I suppose Stan Lee could've said, "this universe has enough trouble, I don't need a speedster to create more," and nixed all the proper speedsters that could have accessed the multiverse. It was a thought. Eventually I would stumble across it, because I wasn't effected by the laws of other universes, that tended to be how these things worked. Either I would do something that went against their laws and be seen as super unusual or they would do something that I couldn't because of my universe restrictions. Knowing my luck, it would probably happen at the most inconvenient moment too.

Where was I going with this? Oh right. Bruce had finally convinced Tony to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and that meant that my nightly regular was no longer in need of service. Problem with that though, was my body didn't understand that on like a molecular level. I used my speed intermittently throughout the day to fastpass my way through normal length naps and overcompensated for my lack of normal sleep like that for so long that my body no longer registered the need for eight hours of sleep a night. In fact, I could say with fair confidence that I didn't actually remember what my room looked like. Remember that? Yeah, me neither. I wasn't even sure if I had ever been shown which room it was, Fury had mentioned something about rooming next to or with the God of Mischief, I couldn't remember which.

I wasn't tired yet, so that was a later problem. I could make myself a coffee to pass the time, the caffeine had no effect on me if I used regular espresso, don't tell the coffee gods though, they wouldn't like it. I made myself a pot of tea instead and sat down to read the last chapter of a book on applied quantum mechanics, written by Hank Pym, and moved on to a book about thermonuclear astrophysics, written by Erik Selvig and Jane Foster that had a surprising number of citations from Bruce Banner and many of his respective articles. He was a genius after all, and with seven PhDs, kind of unnecessary, they weren't like trade school certificates after all. But then again, I had two myself from my research into superluminal particles back in my universe, one in particle physics and another in mechanical engineering, my dad and Uncle T helped facilitate that research until it was no longer safe to continue.

Anyway, I was reading the book on thermonuclear astrophysics when Bruce wandered into the common area that I was sort of inhabiting. "Can't sleep?" I prompted.

"Oh, uh, yeah, it just weird going to sleep after Tony, you know?"

"I get what you mean, I'm the one who gets paid to make his coffee."

"Right," Bruce sort of laughed at that, "mind if I . . . ?" He gestured to the teapot.

"Go for it. Sugar's in the drawer on the right, creamer in the fridge."

"Thank you. What is it you're reading?"

"Selvig and Foster's thesis on thermonuclear astrophysics."

"Light reading then." I did not know Bruce could be so charming, no wonder Nat liked him so much, now I had suspicions about why she had really learned conversational science bro stuff.

"Yeah, they have some interesting prepositions, I'm curious to know if their research led to any breakthroughs in the understanding of superluminal particles and hypotheses about matter traveling at FTL speeds."

"You know about particle physics?"

"I double majored in it and mechanical engineering and minored in computer science." I may have downgraded my degrees but I couldn't outright say that I was a genius with super speed thinking.

"That's rather impressive for your age. If you have the credentials, then why are you acting as our barista?" A little black cat jumped into my lap, apparently Lokitty had heard and wanted to join us.

I didn't mind so I poured him his own tea saucer and stroked his long furry back as I answered, "I needed something different from my old life. My uncle and my dad were all I had and they both died three years ago in the same event and I just . . . I couldn't keep doing the same thing without them, so I moved here. I had nightmares for a while and as a way to keep myself awake, I got really addicted to caffeine. Becoming a barista was just an easy way to enable that. Then Tony walked in one day and we connected, he just kept coming back and one day he said 'coffee is chemistry,' like how stupid is that? But it worked, I'm not nearly as addicted as I used to be. Then further down the line, he asked if I wanted to work for him and I said yes. The rest is history."

"That was . . . a little unexpected."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bruce, I know you're not that kind of doctor, you're just really easy to talk to." Lokitty mrowed on my lap and stretched, I think that was an agreement? Not sure actually, cat language was less difficult when the cat wasn't also a god, not that regular cats recognized that they weren't, but you know.

"No worries, Jesse, and I wasn't—you can talk to me. Most people are either too timid because of my green side or they want me to fix them, which gives me anxiety. You're neither so I don't mind. If you want a professional, we do have a therapist on hand trained to deal with Enhanced people, Bucky sees her every week, Cap goes regularly to deal with his new century stuff, Tony started going after Angel died, I see her just in general, and all of us go after particularly hard missions."

If I did go, I wanted to go as myself, no holds barred, multiversal speedster and everything. I wasn't there yet, but getting there, soon hopefully. "One day. I'm just not—well, you know."

"Ready yet?" He suggested, I nodded in confirmation, "I get that, but is there ever a time that you know you'll be ready?"