Power of Hercules in MCU - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Awkward Explanations and a Fragile Truce

The first sign was a subtle shift in the rhythm of breathing beside him. It hitched, then deepened, followed by a soft, almost inaudible sigh that was different from the unconscious exhalations of deep sleep. Rudra’s entire nervous system, already stretched taut as a bowstring, vibrated with renewed alarm. His eyes, still fixed on the impassive, glowing panel only he could see, darted instinctively towards the girl.

Gwen Stacy was stirring.

Her blonde hair, a chaotic halo on the pillow, shifted as she moved her head, a slight frown creasing her brow as if surfacing from a complex dream. Her eyelashes, long and dark against her pale skin, fluttered. Any moment now, those eyes would open. Eyes that belonged to the daughter of New York City’s Chief of Police. Eyes that belonged to the girlfriend – or, as of last night’s revelations from his predecessor’s memories, very recently ex-girlfriend – of Flash Thompson, a jock not known for his understanding or temperate reactions.

Panic, a cold, nauseating wave, washed over Rudra. The Hercules Method panel, still hovering obtrusively in his field of vision, offered no solutions for navigating THIS particular minefield. ‘Level 0’ felt like an overstatement of his current social capabilities. He felt like Level Minus Ten, Digging a Hole.

Gwen’s eyelids slowly peeled open, revealing irises the color of a summer sky, initially hazy and unfocused. She blinked, once, twice, a sleepy vulnerability in her gaze. Her lips parted in a silent yawn. For a blissful, fleeting microsecond, she was simply a girl waking up, beautiful and serene in the early morning light.

Then, her gaze drifted, finding him. Finding Rudra, propped up slightly on one elbow, staring at her with an expression that he could only imagine was a perfect portrait of a deer caught in oncoming, high-powered, police-issue headlights.

The sleepiness vanished from her eyes as if doused by ice water. Recognition dawned, swiftly followed by a wave of dawning horror that mirrored what he had experienced not long before. Her breath hitched in a tiny, almost silent gasp. Her blue eyes widened, darting from his face to the rumpled sheets, to the unfamiliar (to her, in this context) ceiling, then back to him, a silent inventory of a situation rapidly coming into sharp, unwelcome focus.

She moved, a sudden, instinctive reaction, pulling the white sheet higher, clutching it to her chest like a shield. The movement was quick, almost convulsive, and it spoke volumes of her shock and embarrassment.

“Oh,” she breathed, her voice a mere whisper, husky with sleep and disbelief. “Oh, my god.”

Rudra froze. His mind, a supercomputer running catastrophe simulations, cycled through a dozen disastrous scenarios. Captain Stacy storming in. Flash Thompson kicking down the door. A lifetime of awkwardness at Midtown Science High. The only useful advice his predecessor’s memories offered was a vague sense of ‘be cool,’ which was currently as achievable as sprouting wings and flying to Asgard.

He should say something. Apologize? Explain? But how could he explain a situation he himself hadn’t truly participated in? The Rudra who had made the choices leading to this moment was… gone. He was just the bewildered inheritor of the consequences.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by the distant, muted sounds of the city slowly coming to life outside the window. Gwen’s gaze remained fixed on him, a whirlwind of emotions swirling within those blue depths: shock, regret, a dawning flush of mortification that crept up her neck and painted her cheeks a delicate pink.

It was Gwen who finally broke the agonizing tension, her voice still little more than a breath, but laced with a desperate need to take control of the spiraling situation.

“Um…” she began, then hesitated, swallowing visibly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Rudra managed, his own voice sounding rusty and unfamiliar. Eloquence, it seemed, had also failed to transmigrate with him.

Gwen closed her eyes for a brief moment, as if gathering her strength, then opened them again, a new resolve hardening her gaze, though the nervousness still flickered there. “Look,” she said, her voice a little stronger now, though still quiet, “about last night…”

Rudra braced himself. Here it came. The recriminations, the accusations, the ‘what were you thinking.’

But Gwen’s next words surprised him. “I… I owe you an apology. Or, maybe we owe each other one. This… this was a mistake. A really, really big mistake.” She winced, as if the words themselves tasted bitter.

She took a shaky breath, the sheet still clutched tightly. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t myself last night, Rudra.” She used his name – this Rudra’s name – and it sent a strange jolt through him, a reminder of the identity he now wore. “I saw Flash… with Liz Allan. At the party.” Her voice tightened, a raw edge of hurt and anger surfacing. “He was… he was all over her. On his birthday. After everything.”

Rudra listened, his expression carefully neutral, though internally he was a mess of conflicting sensations. The memories he’d inherited supplied the visuals to her words – Flash, smug and entitled, Liz Allan’s feigned reluctance. He could almost feel the echo of this Rudra’s sympathetic anger on Gwen’s behalf, the protective instinct that had, in part, fueled their connection.

“I just… I lost it,” Gwen continued, her gaze dropping to the rumpled sheet between them. “I was so angry, so hurt. And I’d had way too much to drink. We both did.” She looked up at him then, a plea for understanding in her eyes. “When we started talking, you were… nice. You listened. And I just… I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted to… I don’t know, get back at him? Feel something other than miserable? It was stupid. So, so stupid.”

Rudra remained silent, letting her speak. He could see the genuine distress in her face, the shame warring with a defensive pride. She was trying to make sense of it, to frame it in a way that minimized the damage, both to her reputation and her self-esteem.

“This isn’t me,” she insisted, her voice gaining a note of desperate conviction. “I don’t do this. Hook up with people I barely know. Especially not when…” She trailed off, but he knew what she meant. Especially not when her father was George Stacy, and her ex-boyfriend was Flash Thompson. The potential for scandal, for gossip, was enormous.

She took another deep breath, clearly steeling herself. “So, here’s what I think. Last night… it was a one-time thing. A stupid, alcohol-fueled mistake on both our parts. It didn’t mean anything, and it can’t happen again. Ever.” Her eyes were intense now, searching his face for agreement, for a sign that he wouldn’t make this more complicated than it already was. “We just… we forget about it. We go back to how things were. We barely know each other, anyway. We can just… not know each other again. Okay?”

Her proposal hung in the air. It was an out. A clean break, or as clean as something like this could ever be.

A wave of profound relief washed over Rudra, so potent it almost made him sag. She wasn’t blaming him entirely. She wasn’t hysterical. She was, in her own way, being incredibly pragmatic, trying to salvage the situation with the least amount of collateral damage.

The memories of the original Rudra whispered a faint protest – a flicker of the crush this boy had harbored for Gwen, a ghost of the genuine connection they’d briefly shared amidst the party’s chaos. That Rudra might have hoped for more, might have been hurt by her dismissal of the night as meaningless.

But he, the transmigrator, felt none of that. He felt a profound sense of detachment from the events of the previous evening. It hadn’t been his choices, his emotions. He didn’t know Gwen Stacy, not really, beyond the fictional character he’d read about. And frankly, he had far bigger, far stranger, cosmic-level problems to deal with – starting with the glowing blue box that was still stubbornly claiming a piece of his visual real estate.

“Okay,” Rudra said, his voice surprisingly steady. He met her gaze, trying to convey sincerity and reassurance. “I understand. It was… a crazy night. A mistake. And it won’t happen again.” He paused, then added, hoping it sounded right, “And it stays between us, of course.”

Gwen’s shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly, a visible release of tension. A small, grateful smile touched her lips, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Okay,” she echoed softly. “Good. Thank you.”

The fragile truce established, an awkward awareness of their surroundings, and their distinct lack of clothing, descended upon the room once more. The air, though no longer crackling with imminent confrontation, was thick with embarrassment.

“I should… I should go,” Gwen said, her gaze flicking towards the door. “Before my dad… before anyone wakes up.” Her father. Captain Stacy. Right. Rudra felt another jolt of second-hand panic.

“Right. Yeah,” Rudra agreed, a little too quickly.

Gwen carefully, and with as much dignity as one could muster while clutching a sheet to their chest, began to extricate herself from the bed. Rudra, in a belated attempt at gentlemanly conduct, averted his gaze, focusing intently on a particularly uninteresting patch of wallpaper on the opposite wall. He could hear the rustle of sheets, the soft padding of bare feet on the carpeted floor.

He risked a quick glance. Gwen was standing now, the sheet wrapped around her like a makeshift toga, her blonde hair tousled and falling around her shoulders. She looked vulnerable, young, and utterly out of place in this clandestine scenario. Her eyes scanned the room, locating her discarded clothes on the armchair.

The process of her getting dressed was a silent ballet of averted gazes and heightened awareness. Rudra kept his eyes mostly fixed on the wall, or the ceiling, or the ever-present Hercules panel, occasionally stealing a peripheral glance. He saw her snatch up her underwear, her jeans, her blouse, turning her back to him as she quickly pulled them on. Each rustle of fabric, each quiet sigh, seemed amplified in the stillness of the room.

He, too, was acutely aware of his own nudity beneath the sheet. He felt an absurd urge to also get dressed, but his clothes – or rather, this Rudra’s clothes – were somewhere on the floor, and moving seemed like it would only escalate the awkwardness. So he stayed put, a reluctant king on a throne of rumpled linen, wishing the floor would swallow him whole.

Once dressed, Gwen ran a shaky hand through her hair, trying to tame it. She looked more like herself now, more composed, though the flush still lingered on her cheeks. She slung her handbag over her shoulder.

She turned back to face him, hesitating by the door. “So,” she said, her voice low, “we’re… we’re good then? School on Monday… it’s just… normal?”

“Normal,” Rudra confirmed, nodding. He tried for a reassuring smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace. “Like it never happened.”

“Right,” Gwen said, a finality in her tone. She gave him one last, lingering look – a complex mix of regret, relief, and something else he couldn’t quite decipher – then quietly opened the bedroom door and slipped out, closing it softly behind her.

The click of the latch was deafening in the sudden silence.

Rudra remained motionless for a long moment, listening to the faint sounds of her footsteps receding down the hallway, the quiet snick of another door closing somewhere in the apartment.

Then, with a groan that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul, he flopped back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. A massive, bone-deep wave of relief washed over him, so potent it left him feeling weak. He’d survived. He’d survived the single most awkward morning-after scenario imaginable, in a new body, in a new universe, with a girl who was a major comic book character.

The lingering scent of vanilla and floral perfume hung in the air, a subtle reminder of Gwen’s presence. The room felt strangely empty now, charged with the residue of their hushed, desperate conversation.

He was alone. Truly alone, for the first time since waking up.

His gaze drifted back to the glowing panel, still hovering patiently.

—

Level: 0 (0/1)

Skill: Hercules Method Lv1 (0%)

—

The immediate crisis of Gwen Stacy had been navigated, however clumsily. The truce was fragile, built on mutual embarrassment and a desire to avoid consequences, but it was a truce nonetheless. Now, however, the larger, far more bewildering realities of his situation crowded back in, demanding his attention.

He was Rudra Sharma, but not the one he knew. He was in a world that was both familiar and terrifyingly new. And he had, apparently, been gifted – or cursed – with a power system from a brutal, violent comic book.

He let out a long, slow breath. The sun was definitely up now, casting brighter strips of light around the edges of the blinds. A new day. A new life. And a hell of a lot of questions. Starting with: how in the world was he going to get out of Gwen Stacy’s apartment without running into her father, the Chief of Police? And where were his clothes?

Small steps, he told himself. Small, manageable steps. First, find clothes. Then, escape. Then… then he could start figuring out what the Hercules Method, Level 0 (0/1), actually meant for his continued, and highly improbable, existence.