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Chapter 44: Long Night
🕑 Added 2025-08-17 04:03:41 +0000 UTCThe night air felt different somehow. Jay walked hand-in-hand with Domino down Fifth Avenue, their footsteps echoing off the sidewalk as they left the Baxter Building behind. The streetlights cast long shadows, and every few blocks, someone would recognize them from the endless news coverage.
"Hell of a second date," Domino said, her voice carrying that trademark sardonic humor, but Jay caught the undertone of concern.
Jay shrugged, still processing everything that had happened. The weight of exposure sat heavy on his shoulders. His mind kept cycling through the reporters' questions, the flash of cameras, the way Frank Castle had looked at him with desperate gratitude while his family lay bloodied in the grass.
A middle-aged woman approached them tentatively, wringing her hands. "Excuse me, are you... the Doctor? From the news?"
Jay nodded, forcing a tired smile. "That's me."
"My daughter," the woman's voice cracked slightly, "she's been in a coma for three months. The doctors say there's nothing they can do. Could you...?"
Before Jay could answer, a younger man jogged up, slightly out of breath. "Dude! Holy shit, you're him! You know Iron Man, right? Can you get me his autograph? My girlfriend would lose her mind!"
The requests came faster after that. An elderly man with obvious arthritis begged for relief from the constant pain. A teenager wanted to know if Jay could cure his acne. A mother pushed forward with her son in a wheelchair, tears streaming down her face as she pleaded for just five minutes of his time.
Jay's danger sense prickled as the crowd grew larger, voices overlapping in a desperate chorus of need and want. He started to respond to the wheelchair-bound boy when another voice cut through the noise like a blade.
"Mutie freaks!" someone shouted from across the street. "Get the hell out of our city!"
The crowd went quiet for a moment, heads turning toward the source of the hostility. Jay felt Domino's grip tighten on his hand. But he stayed calm, processing it all with the detached analysis his stolen mental processing from Sage provided.
This was exactly what he'd expected. The public revelation meant exposure to both the desperate and the hostile. He'd played the part of the naive, emotional healer during the interview perfectly—someone driven by compassion. It would make future enemies underestimate him, see him as a bleeding heart rather than someone who'd thought through every angle.
But it also meant dealing with the inevitable drawbacks. The [Challengers] perk would bring random fighters looking to make a name for themselves by taking down the famous healing mutant. And [Rivalry] meant some organization would eventually target him. The question wasn't if, but when and how prepared he'd be.
"Come on," Jay said quietly to Domino, gently extracting them from the crowd. "Let's get you back to your hotel."
They walked the rest of the way in uncomfortable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. When they reached the elegant lobby of Domino's hotel, she turned to face him, those mismatched eyes studying his face with careful intensity.
"You could come up, after today's circus, I figure we both could use some normal human contact," she said, her voice carrying invitation and challenge in equal measure. "Might be nice to decompress after the day we've had. I've got a bottle of wine that cost more than most people make in a week."
The offer hung in the air between them. Jay felt the pull of it—the promise of warmth, of forgetting about the complications swirling around his newly public life for just a few hours. But it was too soon; his mind was already racing ahead, cataloging all the preparations he needed to make now that his identity was blown wide open.
"Rain check?" Jay said, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles that made her eyes flutter slightly. "I need to get some things sorted before tomorrow hits."
"Again? Just remember, honey—luck's a finite resource, even for someone like me. Don't bank on having infinite chances." Domino murmured, but there was understanding in her voice. "Go handle your business, honey. But don't think this gets you out of a proper third date."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Jay replied, meaning every word.
Back at the Apartment
The smell of Max's pizza hit Jay before he even opened the apartment door—that perfect combination of cheese, sauce, and whatever magical combination of spices Max used that made every other pizza in the city taste like cardboard by comparison. Jay's stomach growled audibly as he stepped inside to find Bobby waiting with enough boxes to feed a small army.
"My hero," Jay said with genuine gratitude, dropping onto the couch beside his friend. "You know me too well."
Bobby's weathered face creased into that familiar grin and cackled, that rough Brooklyn laugh that always made Jay feel more grounded. "Eat up, kid. Got a feeling it's gonna be a long night ahead of us."
Jay dove into the first slice like a man who hadn't eaten in days, thanks to his heavy-eater drawback. Healing three people with extensive gunshot wounds had burned through his energy reserves faster than a Ferrari burned through gas. The cheese and carbs hit him like salvation.
Between bites, he pulled out his phone, dreading what he'd find. The notifications were endless—missed calls, text messages, voicemails, and email alerts.
Former clients offering ten times his usual rate just for a consultation. Hospitals begging for him to visit terminal patients. Media outlets requesting exclusive interviews. And then, buried in the mix, some truly bizarre requests that made him question humanity's collective sanity.
One message in particular made his stomach turn—a detailed request for sperm donation from someone who claimed they wanted to "propagate the healing gene for the betterment of mankind." Jay deleted it so fast he nearly cracked his phone screen, his appetite suddenly gone.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, deleting message after message. "People are fucking animals."
Two messages stood out from the digital cluster. The first was from Professor Xavier, politely but urgently requesting a meeting at the mansion for "critical matters that affect the broader mutant community." Jay already knew what that conversation would be about—the implications of his public reveal, the attention it would bring to other mutants, the delicate political balance Xavier was always trying to maintain.
The second was from Nick Fury, and it was exactly what Jay expected—creative profanity mixed with practical concern. Fury had arranged a new fake identity for him, complete with backstory and documentation, but warned that other government agencies would be digging deeper now. The message ended with a grudging acknowledgment that Jay "owed him big time" for the cleanup work.
"Fury's just a big black bald tsundere, isn’t he?" Jay said, scrolling through the director's colorfully worded concerns.
Bobby's expression sobered, the humor draining from his scarred features as he nearly choked on his beer, coughing through surprised laughter. "Kid, you got a death wish talking about Nick Fury like that?"
"He likes me," Jay said with a grin. "He just won't admit it."
But Bobby's expression grew more serious. "Jay, you know what this means for the network, right? Now that you're out there in the spotlight, people might start connecting The Doctor with Power Broker one way or another."
Jay nodded, already three steps ahead in his planning. "I know. That's why we need to move fast on a few things."
Jay leaned back on the couch, his mind already working through the implications and contingencies. The [Unmasked] drawback meant this exposure was inevitable—the question had always been when and how it would happen. At least he'd been able to control the narrative somewhat, presenting himself as a compassionate healer rather than letting someone else define him.
"Bobby," Jay said, his voice taking on the focused tone that meant he was switching into planning mode, "I need you to arrange a meeting with the Morlock leaders. Soon as possible."
Bobby raised an eyebrow. "What for?"
"They need to know the truth, and it’ll be better if it comes from me.” Jay pulled up his calendar on his phone. "And remind me—the procedure's in two weeks. I need you ready to handle things if something happens to me."
"Whoa, hold up." Bobby set down his beer, his scarred face creasing with concern. "What procedure? And why are we talking like you're going somewhere?"
Jay was quiet for a moment, considering how much to reveal. Bobby had been his anchor in this world for as long as he was here, the one person he trusted completely. But some truths were harder to digest than others.
"The enhancement I've been planning," Jay said carefully. "It's... big. And potentially dangerous. If something goes wrong, you need to be ready to keep the network running without me."
Bobby's face went through several expressions—confusion, concern, then a flash of anger. "Jay, things are good right now. Real good. Why risk it all for some upgrade you might not even need?"
"Because this world's more dangerous than you know," Jay replied, his voice carrying weight Bobby rarely heard. "Why do you think I prepare for every scenario? Why do you think I've got contingency plans for contingency plans?"
Bobby slammed his beer down harder than necessary, foam sloshing over the rim. "You're always saying you got some big secret," Bobby said, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Some truth you can't tell me yet. Then you keep putting it off, dancing around it like—"
"Because," Jay interrupted, then laughed despite himself, "you're right. I do keep putting it off."
Bobby leaned forward, his weathered hands clasped together. "So talk. What's got you so spooked that you're planning like the world's ending?"
Jay looked at his friend—really looked at him. If anyone deserved the truth, it was Bobby.
"Your worldview," Jay began slowly, "how's it changed over the past decades?"
Bobby snorted. "That's a hell of a question. Let's see... first, Captain America shows up, this perfect soldier from World War II, slapping Hitler. Then mutants go from urban legend to front-page news. Then we get the Fantastic Four turning into rubber and rock after a space mission gone wrong. Iron Man builds a suit that makes him basically a one-man air force."
He paused, taking a long pull from his beer. "Used to be the weirdest thing in my day was drug dealers with better weapons than the cops. Now every week there's some new impossible thing on the news. World's gone completely insane if you ask me."
"That's not even the tip of the iceberg," Jay said quietly.
Bobby stared at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Jay stood up, pacing to the window. Manhattan sprawled out below them, millions of people living their lives with no idea how fragile their reality really was. How many threats existed just beyond their understanding.
"Think of reality like a tree," Jay said, turning back to Bobby. "Each leaf is a universe—a complete world with its own history, its own people, its own version of events."
Bobby's expression shifted from confusion to concern. "Jay..."
"The branches," Jay continued, "those are themes or timelines. Similar worlds clustered together. And the trunk..." He paused, meeting Bobby's eyes. "The trunk is whatever created it all. God, the creator, the One-Above-All. Pick your name."
"Kid, you're starting to sound—"
"I'm not from this universe, Bobby."
The words hung in the air like a confession. Bobby went very still, his beer halfway to his lips.
"I'm what you might call a tourist," Jay continued, his voice gentler now. "Someone who fell between the leaves and landed here. Everything I know about your world, I learned after I arrived. Your history, your heroes, your threats—I have witnessed it all in different forms in different worlds while falling between the branches.”
Bobby set down his beer very carefully.
"That's..." Bobby's voice was hoarse. "That's fucking impossible."
"So was Captain America," Jay pointed out. "So were four people getting cosmic powers from space radiation. So was a guy building a flying metal suit in a cave. Impossible's gotten a lot more flexible lately."
Bobby was quiet for a long moment, processing. Jay could practically see the wheels turning—all the little inconsistencies in Jay's behavior, his uncanny knowledge of things he shouldn't know, his preparation for people that seemed to cross our path out of nowhere.
"That's why you knew about the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and especially about Fury," Bobby said slowly. "How you always seem to be one step ahead.”
"Something like that."
"Jesus Christ, Jay." Bobby rubbed his face with both hands. "How long?"
"Months. Same as you've known me."
More silence. Jay waited, letting Bobby work through it at his own pace. This was the foundation of everything—if Bobby couldn't accept this truth, then everything else Jay needed to prepare for would be exponentially difficult.
"So what else?" Bobby asked finally. "If you're from somewhere else, if you know things... what's coming that's got you so scared?"
Jay settled back onto the couch, suddenly feeling every bit of exhaustion from the day's events. "That's a much longer conversation, my friend. And like I said—it's gonna be a long night."
Bobby reached for another beer, popping it open with more force than necessary. "Well then," he said, his voice carrying that familiar Brooklyn determination, "better order more pizza. And Jay?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you wanna drop a bombshell like that, maybe lead with it instead of spending months dancing around it like a nervous kid asking me to prom."
Jay laughed. Some things, at least, never changed. Bobby was still Bobby—practical, loyal, and capable of finding humor even when his entire understanding of the world and his friend had just been turned upside down.
"Fair enough," Jay said. "But settle down, Bobby. We're just getting started."
Tonight, two friends sat in a room filled with pizza boxes and bears, finally ready to discuss the full scope of what was coming.
By morning, Bobby would know about Galactus, about the Phoenix Force, about cosmic threats that made street-level problems seem quaint. He'd understand why Jay couldn't simply be content with healing people and running a small network. He'd learn that in a multiverse of infinite possibilities, the only constant was that someone had to be ready for the worst-case scenarios.
The multiverse was vast, dangerous, and full of threats one couldn't even imagine.
It was going to be a very long night indeed.
Comments
Gemaxter
Looks like the cosmic cat is out of the bag.
