In MCU with One for All - [Prologue & Chapter 1]

Prologue - 

What happens when the dreams of a fan are finally fulfilled? Chance to isekai with a power from his wildest dreams?
Marvel with the power of One For All?

Dreaming of the power to part clouds, to be invincible, to have 7 other hidden powers, to get them all and fulfill his dream of being a hero.

Alas, the person working in the office of ROB failed to mention a few things. No stockpile, so no mind boggling physical strength. No other quirks, so no hidden powers.

No way for an existing body to have natural powers so no way to stockpile specific powers quickly.

Very early on, Jamie realised that his powers were a dud and then he, as best as he could, moved on with his life. Knowing that his powers would be, at best, mid tier even after decades of working hard broke something in him as he trudged along in the life that was given to him.

This is the story of a 40 year old reincarnated person with superpowers and a penchant for no nonsense life.

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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 m

Earth - 16969 [MCU AU]

Vancouver, Canada [2008]

–Jamie Bell–

“We don’t get earthquakes, we don’t get hurricanes. We don’t get earthquakes, we don’t get hurricanes.” He repeated the saying as if it was a mantra as he removed the snow from his car. Living in Vancouver sure had its perks. Cheap hydro electricity, welcoming people, and…that was it. The snow…was not one of them, neither was the cold.

Sure, public transit was okay, there was a nice amount of greenery everywhere but all of it was overshadowed by how expensive the damn place was. If he didn’t already own his house, had a job that paid decently, and was in zero debt, he would hate this place.

Putting his shovel back into the shed of his house, he locked his place and entered the car. It took a while but his 2002 Honda Civic finally breathed life into its own engine with a reassuring thud before the noise became refined. The car was…meh and he preferred it. That way, if anything actually happened to it, he could be like ‘Eh’ and just shrug it off.

Wincing in pain as his back began acting up again, he leaned back into the seat and switched on his powers, releasing some of the heat energy stored in his body, heating up not just his body but the car as well. Ah, the sweet release from the cold was so worth it his windshields fogging up. Thank god that his upstairs tenants leave for work early in the morning, otherwise it would get harder to explain all the weird stuff that happens around him.

The first few times, he almost burned down his old man’s truck but after having it for nearly 3 decades? He could control the output without even thinking.

Leaning back on the headrest, he put the car in reverse and headed for his job in Surrey. His job was completely boring, so to speak. He was a software developer at a medium sized bank nearby. A very boring job where he was a part of a very small IT operation and that suited him perfectly well. The pay was nice and combined with the rent he got from the nice tenants, life was trudging along nicely.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick, he thought of how his life had come along.

He was 39 now about to touch the tabooed 40 number within a few months. He had no parents, no siblings, no cousins, no grandparents, nothing. No blood relative to name, or at least that's what he concluded after giving up a fruitless search that spanned across years. He had a commercial property in his name downtown that gave him a decent income, he took good care of his body, made sure he ate healthy, and went on dates, well at least tried to.

Something told him that a single white male in his late 30s with not many accomplishments to his name was not a very hot catch in the dating community.

He might have tried harder had he been in his early 30s or even his late 20s but all of his 20s went into caring for his parents, and by the time he got out of the haze of depression, he was already in his mid-30s with no will to even touch the dating pool anymore. 

He blinked as the heat in the cabin became a little too much as he switched off the heating in the car. No need to waste gas when he could use his stockpile of stored heat. He had gone on a vacation to Hawaii last year and the stockpiled heat and sunlight from the 11 days of beach vacation was still available to him.

His powers, they were not really worth mentioning, not when compared to the likes of Tony’s big brain and more importantly, his money, or Thor or Hulk or any number of other superheroes on the planet. 

When he first got his powers, he had been barely 5 and had been very excited to finally take the first step into becoming a superhero. Reality swiftly kicked him in the shin as young Jamie realised that his powers were not flashy or shiny or capable of helping him in any way.

Sure, absorbing sunlight was very fun but then came the sunburns. Absorbing electricity and watching that “box” of energy fill up was very exciting but the electric burns, as well as the scolding of a lifetime he received when his father received the electricity bill? Not fun, at all.

Soaking up kinetic energy from impacts? Very exciting since he hoped to turn it into full kinetic absorption someday but then came the subtle injuries from ramming his small body into places far too many times.

Being a reincarnator came with its perks, being smart in school, having a good understanding of technology that had yet to be invented, having emotional maturity not seen in peers, and so on. That same maturity told him that his powers, the powers he was so excited about, were a dud, mostly.

Sure, if there was no penalty for absorbing any type of energy then he probably would have done something absurd, like drain Vancouver’s grid dry of energy or jump into some volcano to absorb all the thermal energy, or move somewhere near the equator and stay in the sun naked without sunscreen.

In a way, he could see how naive and idiot he had been when he asked for this specific power, not even pausing when he was told that the power would be blank and there would be stipulations since they could not give him a singularity level quirk right out of the gate.

Yes, he met the ROB or at least someone from his office and he asked for the one power that many people would ask for, since it seemed so OP. Alas, he made the mistake of not reading the source material completely otherwise he might have known what a power “One For All” actually was.

Scanning his ID at the entrance gate, he drove his car into the parking lot, took his laptop bag, and entered the elevator.

Smiling as he felt the subtle echoes of electricity humming all around him, he slipped on his earphones and listened to some white girl music, his favourite kind as he tried to ignore the buzz all around him. The second he stepped into his department, he paused for a second as he relaxed into his seat.

The reason for that was the sun bulbs installed into their office, on his behalf, obviously. He had been working in the same place with the same title for the past decade, so when he asked for some light bulbs, he got the light bulbs, in the next budget cycle, of course.

The warmth of the light and the familiarity of his workspace put him at ease, despite the absolute butt load of tasks that were yet to be done. It was the same story every day. He was the overworked, middle aged, talented software developer who was happy to work his mandated 8 hours, finish his 20 minute commute, and then be free to do whatever he wanted to do.

They couldn't fire him because where else were they going to find someone capable of doing half his work for the same salary? 

In return, he asked for some peace and quiet, which he got, as his department's office was right next to the paper archive section, where nobody visited.

Soaking in the light, he basked in its warmth as he thought of what he would have for dinner. Today was Monday, so today was cheat day.

He might spring for some spicy wings later on, depending on his mood though.

For now, though, he was a worker bee, happy to work as a cog in the capitalist machine with the meagre money he received in return.

……

…..

Waving at his co-worker, who returned it half-heartedly, he scanned his belongings at the exit of the office, and then entered the parking lot. Sighing in exhaustion as he didn’t feel like going all the other way just to get Wings, he decided to order in and go straight to his home. He didn’t do a lick of workout on Mondays since it was the day he had decided to end in a happy note because objectively it was the worst day of the week.

Having to come to work after the weekend was the worst, and yet, he had gotten used to it.

He was not really looking for any excitement these days. Those days were behind him, actually, those thoughts ended the moment he saw his dad’s bald head, after all the chemo had destroyed his body inside out.

Dad passed away in ‘95 and mom followed soon after. Dealing with their sicknesses, finishing school, and then getting a job after getting a recommendation from one of his father’s old friends, took out most of his adult life. Heck, Mr.Daniels who got him his current job passed away soon after, in ‘99.

He used his powers sometimes, to heal any broken bone or a paper cut but aside from that, the most use he got out of his powers was when he used the stored electricity to run a heater in his bedroom when the grid was knocked out because of some freak accident.

His powers…they were weird. Very odd, so changed from the original quirk that he would hesitate to even call it One For All.

The original OFA came with a physical factor, enhancing the user to such a level that matching the Hulk in physique seemed possible. But the one he got gave no such boost.

All it could do was absorb all sorts of energy, given that his squishy mortal body could handle it. So, no touching live wires to absorb energy meant for cities.

The only thing he could do without any limits was absorb CHI. Absorb the very life force of living beings on the planet and then store it in one of the unlimited containers he seemed to have, to be used later on.

So far, he had only used it to absorb the life force from trees. He didn't do it to trees in plain view, no, that would be stupid.

He regularly hiked in forests all the time and half the reason for that was the absolutely gigantic trees in the forests. He experimented with his powers and made sure to go every few months to absorb just a tiny bit of CHI from the vast pool of CHI that the trees possessed, and making sure not to target the same trees consecutively.

So far, that strategy had worked and as a result, he had the biggest stockpile of life energy in OFA. Unfortunately, the massive amount of CHI did not make him the Iron Fist or All Might.

Neither did it stop or halt his aging. He did not have any super strength or any enhanced physical attribute, no healing factor, nothing. All it did was give him the ability to heal his wounds back to the state it was before he was injured.

It didn't matter how much CHI he tried to pump into his body but aside from healing any wounds he might have suffered recently, the CHI did jack shit.

He pulled up in the driveway, seeing that the tenants had already arrived. Seeing no reason to disturb them, he quietly entered his house and after freshening up, changed into his PJs.

“Yes, 1 order of Chicken Wings with hot Sauce and 1 large order of fries.” He ordered Wings from his favourite place and after setting down his phone, he descended into the basement.

See, even if his powers were nearly worthless and he had already accepted that he would never be able to become a superhero or even an accomplished regular person, he still loved using his powers.

Knowing that he could not take energy directly from the grid, he had installed solar panels on the roof and had given the tenants an excuse that they didn't work at all and he would repair them sometime.

The real purpose of them was the battery in the basement that is charged from the meagre amount of sunlight that Vancouver receives throughout the year. He had hooked the battery up to a conducting rod that he had installed in the bedroom.

Seeing that there was some charge in the battery, he rushed up to his bedroom and took hold of the conducting rod, flinching minutely at the small tingly sensation as the electricity stockpile was filled in OFA.

Not wanting to be discovered, he refused to absorb energy from the grid itself.

From his memories, he knew that while it was portrayed that SHIELD had most of its focus on the States, he knew that it was a global agency and monitored the world for any discrepancies.

He couldn’t imagine anything good waiting for him in SHIELD's custody hence he kept his distance from the grid.

Over the years, he had developed a nice resistance to getting shocked but that was in the realm of possibility of an average human. Nothing superhuman.

Sighing in disappointment as the battery drained far too soon for his liking, he hid the conducting rod under the bed and went back to the living room, waiting for his order.

Such was an average day in the life of a reincarnated individual stiffed, both in life as well as the power he received.

A/N - Some Sunday random thoughts coalesced into a story..

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