A few feet away, Gloria Pritchett was gesturing passionately with a perfectly manicured hand, her thick Colombian accent echoing down the aisle. She was wearing a stunning, brightly colored dress and towering heels, looking completely out of place in a grocery store but entirely unbothered by it.
Beside her, Claire Dunphy looked like she was running on three hours of sleep and pure anxiety. She was aggressively inspecting a jar of organic marinara sauce.
"Gloria, please, keep it down," Claire hissed, glancing around. "And frankly, I think you're overreacting. It's just a dog. Phil bought a life-sized cardboard cutout of Darth Vader last week and put it in our bathroom. I had a minor heart attack at 3 AM."
"A cardboard man is not a dog that steals your husband's affection, Claire!" Gloria countered, throwing her hands up.
I walked past them, intending to mind my own business, but as Gloria turned to emphasize her point, her elbow caught a massive, precarious display of imported glass olive oil bottles stacked at the end of the aisle.
The display shifted. Gravity took over.
Claire gasped, her eyes widening as the top three glass bottles tumbled forward, hurtling toward the hard tile floor.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. My NZT-enhanced neural pathways processed the trajectory, the weight, and the velocity of the falling bottles in a fraction of a second.
I didn't even break my stride.
I simply reached out with my left hand. My reflexes, honed by the Super Soldier Serum to absolute biological perfection, moved with blinding, fluid grace. I snatched the first bottle out of the air by the neck, pinned the second against my chest with my forearm, and caught the third just an inch before it shattered against the tile, my knee dropping smoothly to lower my center of gravity.
I stood back up, the movement completely silent and effortless, and calmly set the three bottles back onto the display, rearranging them so they interlocked securely.
"Excuse me," I said softly, my tone polite and entirely even.
Gloria and Claire were frozen, staring at me with wide eyes.
"Did... did you just..." Claire stammered, pointing at the olive oil display and then at me. "How did you catch those?"
"Lucky reflexes," I replied smoothly, offering a small, disarming smile. "The displays here are notoriously unstable. You have to be careful."
Gloria stared at me, her dark eyes narrowing slightly as she took in my appearance—the lean, dense muscle structure visible beneath the henley, the absolute stillness of my posture.
"Dios mio," Gloria muttered, blinking. "That was like watching a ninja. A very handsome ninja in the cheese aisle."
"Gloria!" Claire hissed, her face flushing, before she looked back at me and squinted. "Wait. Are you... Arthur? The new guy who bought the Miller place? Phil's new neighbor?"
"Inherited, but yes," I nodded, shifting my shopping basket. "Arthur Hastings. We met yesterday morning. Phil's rocket."
"Right! The rocket catcher!" Claire threw her hands up in exasperation. "Of course. Phil said you were into tech, not... whatever that was."
"I play a lot of tennis," I lied effortlessly. "Keeps the hand-eye coordination sharp. It's nice to see you again, Claire. And you are?"
"Gloria Pritchett," Gloria said, offering a bright, dazzling smile as she extended her hand. "I am married to Claire's father, Jay. He mentioned he met you this morning. Said you knew how to fix a sprinkler. In my book, a man who can fix things and catch flying glass is a good man."
I shook her hand gently. "A pleasure, Gloria. Jay seems like a practical man."
"He is stubborn as a mule, but yes," Gloria laughed.
"Well," Claire sighed, rubbing her temples. "Thank you for saving us from paying for forty dollars of imported olive oil, Arthur. We'll let you get back to your shopping."
"Have a good day, ladies," I said, giving a polite nod before turning and walking down the aisle.
I could hear their hushed whispers long after I was out of earshot.
"Claire, why didn't you tell me the new neighbor looked like an underwear model?"
"Gloria, please, I am a married woman, and he's probably ten years younger than me."
"Looking is not a crime, Claire. And did you see how fast he moved? Jay pulls a muscle getting out of his recliner."
I let out a soft, silent huff of amusement. The sitcom dynamic was exactly as advertised. It was loud, chaotic, and entirely harmless. It was the perfect background noise for the empire I was building.
By the time I returned to the fortress, the sun was beginning to set, casting long, golden shadows across the pristine hardwood floors of the living room.
I put the groceries away, letting the microbot swarm handle the organization of the pantry while I walked down into the basement.
"Atlas," I called out, setting my keys on the workbench. "Status report on Pearson Hardman."
A holographic projection flickered to life in the center of the room.
"Mr. Specter has been highly efficient, Arthur," Atlas reported. "The three Delaware LLCs—Hastings Innovations, Aegis Holdings, and Zenith Logistics—have been fully incorporated and insulated with multi-tiered offshore blind trusts. We are now legally invisible."
"Good," I nodded, unbuttoning the collar of my henley. "Have Aegis Holdings purchase a commercial warehouse in an industrial sector of the city. Somewhere quiet, with heavy truck access. We need a delivery point for raw materials. I can't have eighteen-wheelers dropping off titanium and vibranium precursors in a suburban neighborhood without the PTA calling the police."
"Searching for suitable commercial real estate now," Atlas hummed. "Purchase will be completed by tomorrow morning. Sir, with our legal and physical foundations secured, what is the next primary directive?"
I leaned back against the workbench, looking around the subterranean space. I had the AI. I had the swarm. I had the vehicle. I had the body.
But I was still a Tinker. The itch to create, to pull something impossible from the ether and bend reality to my will, was a constant, low-level thrum in the back of my mind.
"Defense," I said quietly.
If this universe contained S.H.I.E.L.D. tech—which my power had confirmed when I built the car—then it meant there was a wider, potentially volatile world outside of the sitcom suburbs. I didn't want to fight in it. I didn't want to be an Avenger or a vigilante. But I refused to be a victim if the chaos ever spilled over.
"Atlas, isolate the workshop network. Absolute blackout protocols."
"Engaged."
I closed my eyes. I didn't want an Iron Man suit; it was too bulky, too flashy, and required a dedicated armory. I wanted something elegant, something that I could carry with me at all times without anyone knowing.
I thought of the Extremis armor concept, but stripped of the painful biological rewiring. I thought of the Black Panther habit—nanotechnology housed in a single piece of jewelry that could deploy over the body in a fraction of a second, absorbing and redirecting kinetic energy.
I layered the concepts in my mind, adding the localized gravity-manipulation of a Mass Effect biotic amp, just to give myself absolute control over my immediate environment.
The power rushed in. The knowledge exploded behind my eyes, vast and terrifyingly complex.
I opened my eyes, the blue light of the reactor reflecting in my pupils.
'Let's build a ring.'