Marvelous Mutations

[Ding! Congratulations to the host for participating in a core Marvel plot: Iron Man vs. Iron Monger. You have received 5 plot points.]

Just as the yellow Camaro tore away from the battlefield, the familiar mechanical voice echoed in Luke's mind.

Five plot points in one shot!

His grin stretched ear to ear.

Counting the points from meeting Steve, his total had now jumped from 6 to 11.

"Only 9 more," Luke muttered gleefully to himself. "Almost at Level 4!"

He sat up straight, clapped his hands, and said with enthusiasm, "Alright, Bumblebee, let's go meet my idol, Peggy Carter!"

Without so much as a beep of confirmation, the Camaro accelerated like a lightning bolt.

Instead of following normal traffic, Bumblebee turned sharply, drifted onto a side street, then zipped into a narrow alleyway. The tires didn't skid, every movement was calculated, smooth, confident.

Steve gripped the seatbelt and braced himself. "Wait, wait, why aren't we on the road?!"

Sharon, meanwhile, clenched the edge of her seat and said through gritted teeth, "We're... going through alleys now?!"

Luke chuckled and reclined back like he was in a limousine. "Relax, guys. He knows where to go."

That part, at least, was true. Bumblebee had already hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database and pulled up Peggy Carter's hospital record the moment Luke said her name.

...

Inside the car, silence hung thick in the air, except for Luke's occasional hum as he tapped curiously at the console, poking glowing panels and flipping switches like a child with a new toy.

"Hey! Could you not touch random things inside a sentient robot?" Steve snapped, beads of sweat on his forehead.

Luke laughed. "C'mon, what's he gonna do, swallow us?"

"I mean…" Steve looked genuinely concerned. "Can he?"

Bumblebee's voice suddenly came through the speakers, chipper and amused:

"Don't worry, Captain. Though technically, I've already eaten you, I'm not programmed for digestion."

Steve let out a strangled cough. Sharon stifled a laugh, finally breaking her tense silence.

"Oh my God…" she muttered, rubbing her temple. "I can't believe this is real."

"Believe it," Luke said smugly. "You'll have to get used to it now that you work for me."

...

Back at the battlefield, Tony Stark slipped away silently, his armor hissing with exhausted energy. He said nothing to the crowd, just stared once more at the spot where Bumblebee had stood, then launched into the sky with the last bit of energy left in the reactor.

The real storm, however, wasn't behind him.

It was online.

Within minutes, footage of the transforming Camaro exploded across every platform, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, encrypted boards, even dark web chatrooms. Clips spread like wildfire: the transformation sequence, the sword slicing through Iron Monger, the landing.

And the photo.

The moment that truly detonated the internet.

A tall, golden-haired man stood next to the Camaro, clean-cut, blue-eyed, muscular. Dusty as if he had also participated in the battle, staring off stoically like a walking myth. Nobody would have guessed he was even more lost than everyone else at that moment.

The internet paused for half a second.

Then exploded.

"WHO IS THIS GUY???"

"Is he the Robot's owner?!"

"He looks like a model for vintage patriotism."

"My grandma just texted me 'Is that Steve Rogers?'"

It didn't take long before amateur sleuths found him.

The man matched perfectly with photos from old war posters and newsreels.

Captain America.

Not a cosplay.

Not a wax figure.

Him in the flesh.

Someone even dug up a memo from the website of the Captain America Memorial Hall, dated just days ago:

"Ongoing operation to recover the frozen body of Captain Steve Rogers from beneath the Arctic glacier."

Normally, no one visited that boring website. But now?

It was trending #1 worldwide.

…

Elsewhere in the digital storm:

"Who owns that Camaro?"

"Where did it come from?"

"Is this alien tech?"

"Are we at war with robot cars now?"

Even respected scientists began weighing in.

"Such a level of mechanical transformation exceeds all current Earth engineering," said one MIT robotics professor in a televised interview. "We are likely dealing with extraterrestrial materials."

The government, of course, said nothing.

Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Not the White House.

They didn't even try to deny it. They knew it was pointless.

The public was too far gone.

Meme pages turned Steve into the latest internet boyfriend, with countless women swooning over his picture.

Fan theories popped up like mushrooms in a rainforest.

And lost in all the noise?

The other major incident of the night:

"New York military base destroyed by three green monsters, nearly 100 soldiers dead."

At any other time, this would have shaken the world.

Tonight?

It barely made the bottom of the news feed.

Why?

Because Captain America was alive, and a Camaro had turned into a 20-foot robot and killed a man with a glowing sword.

The world was changing way too fast.

…

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