In MCU with One for All -Chapter 12

Disclaimer - All the usual Yada Yada Yada. I don’t own any rights to any characters in this fic, save for my OCs. Marvel owns them. Don’t sue me.

Earth - 16969 [MCU AU]

Bangkok [2008]

–Jamie Bell–

“Here you go, sir. Please let us know if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” He thanked the staff at the hotel and after dropping his bag on the floor, just jumped on the bed. Sighing in contentment, his eyes drooped as he gave up on freshening up and just surrendered to the blissful darkness of sleep.

GASP!

He awoke with a gasp, as the flashes of that fight came back to him. He looked around the room, and sighed as he rubbed his forehead. It has been hard, since the day he had to see someone lose their lives because of an incident he could have prevented and if not prevented outright, then could have become stronger to save them.

Jumping off the bed, he saw that it was 2 in the morning, so he slept for 6 hours which was much better than last time. He usually only slept for about 7 hours everyday so this time, it was much better. The other day, back in his Vancouver home, he could barely sleep for 2 hours before the nightmares woke him back up.

Making coffee for himself, because, yes, he had booked a relatively high class hotel for his stay here, courtesy of his life’s savings being pretty redundant now that he was enrolled at Kamar Taj, and had a cool relic of his own, just to cement things in his mind. Sipping on the bitterness of the coffee, he looked out the balcony windows, at the perpetually awake city that was Bangkok.

The heavy sound of exhausts from the modified car scene that only woke up after midnight was audible all the way to the 17th floor. People were still on the streets, and there was still traffic on the roads.

Something that he was hoping to become a habit was the automatic absorption of Dimensional Energy while standing still. He really hoped that the rate of absorption would increase, perhaps matching that of his life force absorption because if things went at this rate, he might never be able to cast the really heavy spells, and would be forced to rely only on portals and Eldritch summons, which was honestly not bad when he thought of his arsenal just a couple weeks ago but now that he had a taste of what he could really do, he wanted more.

Classic human tendency, really.

Gulping down the rest of his coffee, he closed the balcony doors and got ready. He had a reservation for two nights in this place and the place that Kamar Taj’s contacts got him was not going to be empty until the day after tomorrow so might as well explore the place a bit.

Getting ready, he looked at himself in the mirror and smiled at himself. All things considered, he had kept himself in good shape and he looked fairly young. He gave himself a 6.5/10 any day and with a little cleaning up, he could easily go up half a point, reaching a decent 7/10.

Taking his wallet, he decided to go on a walk because sleeping was out of question at this point and since the city apparently had much to offer even this late, might as well make the most out of his booking.

His first international trip, officially. Yay!

“Thank you,” He thanked the doorman and exited the hotel lobby, taking in the sights. People walking the streets, entering restaurants, and into cars of all sorts. Some high end taxis of some sort then?

Taking a deep breath, he checked his phone, and seeing that it was charged, he picked a random direction and began walking. Obviously, the training never stopped so the DImensional Energy absorption was being worked on, in the background.

Opting not to take public transport, he instead chose walking because he had missed his exercise regiment for the time he had to pretend to be injured back in Vancouver. He had shed the disguise the moment he had finished Immigration here in Bangkok since there was no one who would look for him and even if they did, nothing he did was illegal, and apparently, as it was demonstrated to him, Kamar Taj had their hands in many pies which held control over what was legal or illegal in many parts of the world.

As he walked, and apparently got out of the central part of the city, he ran into people of varying ethnicities, usually with a pretty girl on their arm. In one instance, a heavily drunk gentleman had two girls, one on each arm as they walked, giggling and laughing.

Didn’t need to have two degrees to know what they were about to do.

That was kind of all he saw actually. The first one just made it click in his mind and then, for every second or third man he saw, the situation was the same. Middle aged or some men even more than that, drunk and in the company of a woman many years or even a few decades younger.

He actually knew that Bangkok had kind of a reputation but to see it with his own eyes was a different thing. Or maybe it was his fault for getting out at such late nights because if he was not wrong, Thailand had some pretty cool car manufacturing, Toyota mostly, so there must be office spaces as well in this city.

And it showed as well, as most of the cars on the street were some variation of Japanese cars. Cars, taxis, commercial vehicles, vans, and more bore the logo of the Japanese automotive giant.

He stopped as his phone beeped, an alarm he set for 2 hours. He checked his phone and yup, it was 4.30 right now. Might as well head back then. Taking one last look at the people around him, he sighed and turned around.

He needed to hit the hotel gym, which was pretty well specced out, considering that most hotel gyms had a ton of cardio machines and no weights.

______xx_____

It was nice that by the time he was done with his workout, he was right in time for the complimentary breakfast, which was actually nice this time. All the time he had stayed at a hotel before this, they had a really crappy breakfast. Maybe it was a thing with cheap hotels?

Nevertheless, he was full as he had enough food for him to last throughout the day. Apparently, they were going to contact him today, the people who were going to give him a house on rent.

Well, he said rent but what they were going to do was create a pretty solid paperwork trail of me living in said residence, and then once there were enough sightings of him moving about the city in the city’s cameras, store cameras, and more, he could come and go as he pleased, because the entire enclave where he was going to live was a Sorcerer Family property so using Magic was not a problem.

Kamar Taj had a really strong presence in Asia, both in terms of rumours and sightings as well as having a financial hold in multiple countries. Must be nice, to have an absolute advantage, in terms of foresight as well as in terms of power as well.

After all, having a single Sorcerer in the family who could defend it gave that exact family a lot of leverage, at least a hundred years ago. Now, it was all about money anyway, which these families had accumulated over the years.

Completely full, he entered his hotel room, only to find it completely tidied up, just as new. Hmm, he did not have the Do Not Disturb tag on when he left, did he?

He then just collapsed in the bed, and started browsing through the TV channels. He had all the Local Ones and some English movie channels, along with Pay-per-view movies and TV series, something that he was not inclined to pay for, so outdated English movies it was.

Snuggling deeper into the pile of pillows, he watched the same old romcom, silently absorbing Dimensional Energy as he thought of the events of the past week. 

They were, in a word, brutal. There was no other way to describe what he had been through.

Having said so, this was nice, a day of relaxation after all that mess. He could not really sleep back in his home in Vancouver, and he wondered if he could sell that property if he really liked living here.

He mentally noted to inquire if Kamar Taj had property buying and selling services, which they probably did, as he slowly drifted to sleep. 

A nice heavy workout, followed by a nice meat heavy breakfast, followed by a chilled Air conditioned room with blacked out curtains.

Ah! The Best conditions to nap, for the entire day.