"Ordinary?!"
Nick Fury's one good eye twitched as Heisenberg delivered his self-introduction with unsettling calm.
Even though the words were vague, the subtext wasn't lost on the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Former planetary leader. Possible traitor. Secret-laden immortal.
More importantly—an ancient lifeform over 18,000 years old.
For context, Steve Rogers had just thawed out after being frozen for a mere seventy years, and that alone sent ripples through world politics.
But this guy?
He called himself "ordinary."
Fury's jaw tensed.
Ordinary? You shrug off lasers like mosquito bites. You walked through reinforced vibranium-alloy doors like they were tissue paper. You're not just a goddamn alien, you're a living relic from a world that collapsed under its own gravity—and you're bulletproof.
Fury clenched his fists.
"Right," he muttered. "You're just a regular ol' Kryptonian. Sure."
Trying to regain composure, Fury straightened his coat. "I think I've got a rough idea of your... situation. I'm Nick Fury. You may already know that, but I'd prefer we do this formally."
Heisenberg gave a noncommittal nod. "I'm Heisenberg. Pleased to meet you."
Fury tilted his head, a subtle motion that never boded well. Heisenberg grimaced.
Too much sass in that stare. Too much suspicion.
Before Fury could speak again, Heisenberg stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder—firmly, like a man greeting a lesser being.
"You wake up in a prison built by your own kind, after eighteen thousand years. You're surrounded by aliens pointing guns and shouting orders. How would you feel?"
He looked Fury dead in the eye.
"To me, you're just ambitious, noisy creatures with too many flags and too little perspective."
Fury kept his voice even. "Earthlings can be friendly."
"So can I," Heisenberg shrugged, "as long as no one screws with me."
He strolled to the window, the late-afternoon sun pouring through the S.H.I.E.L.D. base's reinforced glass. Arms outstretched, he basked in it.
"You know, Nick... your planet's gravity is, what—forty, fifty times lighter than Krypton's? I think I could fly here. Actually fly."
Fury raised a brow. "Flying's a common fantasy down here. Maybe you really can. But let's take it one step at a time. You're new here. Try living here first, before soaring over it."
Heisenberg waved dismissively. "The future's for sheep trying to adapt to a world full of predators."
He turned his head slightly, eyes glinting with disdainful mirth.
"I'm a lion, Nick. And lions don't adapt—they rule."
Then he said it—final, dismissive, absolute:
"Don't mess with me."
BOOM!
With a single explosive leap, Heisenberg launched himself through the ceiling window. The shockwave shattered concrete and steel below, sending Fury stumbling back.
The Kryptonian rocketed upward, breaching the sky in seconds, climbing past 2,000 meters in the blink of an eye.
The roaring wind had no effect on his skin—but his clothes?
His shirt flapped violently, buttons ripped clean off. He winced.
"Damn it," he muttered. "Should've gone with the tights."
He recalled laughing at Superman's costume once, back on Earth Origin.
But now, speeding through the air at three times the speed of sound, his swinging shirt collar slapped his face like an angry ghost.
No cape, no streamlined gear. He was powerful, yes—but sloppy.
He wasn't flying, not yet. Just gliding from a mighty leap. Still, even in descent, he had to concentrate to stabilize his trajectory.
As he dropped from over 2,600 meters, he carefully adjusted his limbs to manage the descent.
He wasn't Superman. He wasn't here to play messiah.
But even he wasn't cruel enough to land like a meteor in the middle of a crowd.
If, when he landed, he had crushed too many civilians to death...
Heisenberg thought to himself grimly.
"I doubt I'll be having any good dreams tonight."
He adjusted his posture mid-fall and directed himself toward a more open area—a park in Manhattan, New York.
In the next ten seconds, he crashed into the bronze sculpture of Franklin D. Roosevelt at an angle. The impact shattered the sculpture completely, and he continued falling, carving a seventeen-meter-long trench into the earth. The tremor and thunderous noise lasted more than three seconds.
Luckily, Manhattan had already been evacuated.
Otherwise, he might've accidentally crushed 20 or 30 of the city's less tolerant citizens...
"Ahem! Dust... choking me to death!"
Heisenberg coughed and rose slowly from the wreckage.
A fall of just over 2,000 meters barely left a mark on him. His body was fine—but the plume of dust irritated his lungs.
"Guess I really need to fly. If I keep crashing like this, who knows—maybe even Kryptonians can get pneumoconiosis..."
He chuckled at his own joke, then launched himself upward again.
This time, he used more strength, punching straight into a cumulonimbus cloud. The air and moisture parted in his wake as he soared to over 8,000 meters—above the storm layer.
"This is insane! It's too thrilling not to be human! I'm done with being human, haha!!"
With a roar, Heisenberg shot across the sky like a missile.
But flight still eluded him. After a few hundred meters, he began to lose control again and started falling.
Facing the sky as he plummeted, he muttered:
"Something's missing. I don't feel the weight of my body anymore... so why can't I stay airborne?"
He twisted around mid-air to face the ground again.
Then he grinned.
"No matter. I'll just keep trying."
Boom!
He crashed again, forming a small crater roughly six meters in radius. This time, his landing zone was the outskirts of New York—still within view of a few bystanders who hadn't fully evacuated.
Yet none managed to capture his face—he flipped the moment he hit the ground and launched himself into the sky once more.
"Fly, damn it! I knew it wasn't impossible! I've got this!"
At 3,000 meters, he steadied himself, then accelerated forward like an arrow through the sky.
A thunderous sonic boom exploded behind him—he had finally broken the sound barrier.
"In the DC universe, General Zod learned to fly within minutes. And now—I'm faster than him!"
Heisenberg's words came out in ecstatic bursts—he could barely contain his excitement.
Decades of being human... and now, even for a moment, to be Kryptonian...
"Incredible!!!"
BOOM!
He vanished in a flash, moving so fast that even satellites tracking his heat signature lost him.
---
Elsewhere—Top Floor, Stark Tower, Manhattan
Tony Stark stared at the now-static monitors in disbelief and slowly shut down the tracking feed.
"What the hell... That guy's jumping height is at least thirty times the Hulk's, and his speed... he makes Thor look like a golf cart!"
Still stunned, Tony collapsed into a sofa and took the glass of whiskey handed to him by a robotic arm controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.," he said after a sip, "is my armor officially obsolete?"
"Sir, technological progress has always been step-by-step. You are on the right path."
"Yeah, but these aliens start the race halfway to the finish line. I'm still lacing up my boots while they're flying laps!"
Tony set the glass aside and stood up, heading toward his lab.
The current plans for the Mark III suit were scrapped instantly in his mind.
He needed a new generation. Mark IV—designed specifically to counter Kryptonians.
He may be human, but he never lacked the will to improve. No alien was going to outpace Tony Stark forever.
---
Meanwhile—S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ
Agent Maria Hill entered Nick Fury's office with a coffee in hand—and froze.
The reinforced floor was cracked. One window had completely blown out. Dust hung in the air.
Nick Fury stood calmly and took the drink from her, downing it in one gulp.
"This," he said grimly, "was the first lesson from the Kryptonian: never assume you understand how he thinks."
He pointed to the damage.
"One jump. Eighteen million dollars of reinforced tech. Useless."
He slumped into his chair, then paused.
"Tell me, Hill... do you think nukes would work on him?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I doubt we want to test that theory."
Fury nodded slowly.
"If it fails, we'll have used our biggest stick... and he'll know we've got nothing left."
There was a tense silence.
Then, he resumed.
"What about the Hulk?"
"Natasha's already on it. If anyone can reach him, she can."
"Professor Selvig?"
"Working on weaponizing the Tesseract. Progress is accelerating."
"And Stark?"
"He's taken all our files on Heisenberg—who he's dubbed the 'Elder of Krypton'—and asked to activate the Avengers initiative immediately."
Fury leaned back.
"Good. Everything's moving. But I still feel uneasy."
He opened his eyes.
"Hill—track Heisenberg's movements constantly. Assign Agent Barbara to make initial contact. Once the Hulk situation is stable, Natasha will back her up."
"Understood."
"Also—reach out to Jane Foster. We need to contact Thor. I want to know what standing Krypton has in the larger cosmic order. If they're criminals... better they fall here than we let them go unchecked."
"Got it."
Fury exhaled, but his tension didn't ease.
"One more thing. Lock down all data about Heisenberg. No other organizations—no governments, no labs, no backdoor think tanks—no one gets access. We don't need diplomatic incidents ruining what little chance we have at communication."
Hill nodded firmly.
As she left, Fury stared at the ceiling.
"As long as Heisenberg only deals with S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe—just maybe—we can keep things stable."
But in his heart, one chilling thought echoed:
"Is S.H.I.E.L.D. even mine anymore?"