The Mad Marsh - MCU AU (Non-SI) : Chapter 3

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Disclaimer - I don’t, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.

Manhattan (2010)

–Peter Parker–

“Peter! There’s the guy you follow on the TV again.” 

“Coming, Aunt May!” He shouted as he shut his school work and bounded down the stairs excitedly because there was only one person he had told Aunt May about who could be on the TV and be recognisable enough for Aunt May of all people to inform him.

He almost tripped on the stairs but steadied himself at the last moment and jumped into the living room, colliding with the old rattly sofa set. The impact was forgotten and he ignored his Aunt May fussing over him as his eyes were glued to the TV, showing Iron Man, so cool! And Marshman!

The source of his inspiration for months now. He had scoured the internet for whatever he could find about the man and as far as he and the rest of the world knew, there was nothing they could find about the man aside from the fact that he popped up suddenly a year ago and proved his island, floating island! Invincible to any damage by intentionally setting off a nuke right next to his island.

“So cool!” He beamed as he climbed onto the sofa and jumped in place, all excited as the live stream was being telecast on every channel, as Marshman gave the IRON MAN a tour of his island, something the world had never seen before.

“First off, the landing pad. Eh? Eh? Nice, right?” Marshman said as he gestured towards a strip of green that went as far as the camera could capture. “Cool!” He resisted the urge to move from his spot to call Ned because there was no way he was going to miss even a single second of this.

Ned would understand, it was probably the only reason the home phone was not being bombarded by calls from Ned. 

The lawn or garden, whatever it was, was adorned with plants and trees he had never seen before. Some of them were clearly glowing and some had truly odd structures, like a flat rectangle that faced upward and had a single stalk that went into the ground.

“What is that supposed to be?” he squealed as Iron Man had the same doubt as he did and the livestream shifted to Tony Stark floating next to the odd plant. 

The camera panned once again to Marshman who had a giant smile on his face as he replied, “Aha! I see that you have uncovered the very first attraction, the first generation of plants that will soon start popping up everywhere on the planet.”

“What?”! Iron Man exclaimed, with urgency, and he could understand why. Even as young as he was, only recently turned 11, he knew that it was illegal to just introduce species in places where they were not native, as it could result in ecological imbalance that could actually cause real harm to millions of people.

He struggled to understand why Marshman, his idol, would try to do something so harmful?

His questions were answered a moment later, “Oh, don't worry about that. The tree cannot reproduce on its own. Now, Tony, I am sure you have some sort of socket for external data transfers. Why don't you try connecting to the tree’s trunk? Come on, try it.”

His excitement knew no bounds as Aunt May brought him hot chocolate, his favourite!

“Hot Chocolate and Marshman? Sweet!”

Aunt May chuckled as she sat right next to him, “I’m glad you like it. So, what are they talk–”

“Hush! Hush! Marshman is talking!”

He could see, in the video feed, Iron Man using a wire that appeared from his firearm and plugging it into the trunk of the small tree/planet. “Whoa!” He exclaimed as the wire seemed to sink into the trunk. 

“What the BEEP!” “Language! There’s kids watching!” Marshman chided Iron Man.

“Is this for real?” Iron Man said and then floated up above the plant, looking straight at the rectangular top of the plant/tree.

The camera panned to Marshman who was standing with something in his hands and was looking at the camera with a smirk on his face, his head bobbing up and down as if he too was really excited. “Yup! Those are the sixth generation organic solar trees, subsisting on nothing but carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sunlight, nitrogen from the air, and a little bit of petroleum waste products, like plastic. Ofcourse, soil is needed but that is mostly for anchoring purposes rather than providing any nutrition!”

His glasses fell off as his mouth remained open at the explanation.

“Peter! Be careful!” He fixed his glasses and looked at Aunt May who remained unaware of exactly what would happen if what Marshman was saying was true.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the TV, only to see a black screen. It switched to a woman telling them that the broadcast had been paused due to technical difficulties.

RING RING

He hopped over to the telephone and squealed, without even knowing who was on the other end, “Dude!”

“Dude!”

“Dude!”

“Dude! I knew they were going to cut the broadcast!” Ned exclaimed.

“I know, right?” He agreed as they both began talking about the potential of what Marshman had shown the world, and this was supposed to be the first thing. 

“He said he was going to plant these worldwide? How is that going to work?”

“Who knows but it’s Marshman! If it's one thing we know about him, it’s the fact that he is going to do it!” He gushed as he began drawing the tree from memory on one of the notepads.

Soon, both Ned and Peter, were lost in the throes of SCIENCE!

In the background, May Parker, shook her head watching her nephew happily chatter away with his friend and took the half finished cup of Hot Chocolate.

“Kids these days!”

______xx____

Around the world, pandemonium ensued as Marshal Robinson, the single most powerful man on the planet, essentially, declared the upending of multiple global high value industries, by introducing a single product, depending on the energy output from that tree.

All around the world, corporations, countries, and more conveyed emergency meetings, just so they could decide how to tackle this newest threat.

One thing was for certain, Marshal had just begun and the world was going to be a wildly different place once he was done with it.

Beginning with the stream. All around the world, TVs shut down the stream and yet, the countries that essentially controlled the internet found that it had slipped from their control and the only way they could stop the flow of information was to physically destroy the infrastructure, something that was not only wildly impossible but would also result in a destroyed world, setting them back decades.

All around the world, all non essential monitors connected to the internet began displaying the stream, resuming the feed exactly where the TVs cut it off. Every single phone, laptop, tablet, Smart TV, Billboards, Fast food Displays, Car infotainment units, and Movie screens all began displaying the feed with an option to exit the feed.

Marshal Robinson was on a mission to reveal the secrets of Marshland to the world and no one was going to come in his way!