The ambient noise of the restaurant—the clink of silverware on porcelain, the low hum of jazz, the murmur of the Manhattan elite—seemed to die at the edge of their table. Ethan Kane sat perfectly still, his hands folded over a linen napkin, watching the realization dawn on Peter Parker's face.
Across from him, Peter looked like he had been struck by a physical weight. His eyes darted from Ethan to Felicia, then back to the plate of untouched sliders. Felicia, by contrast, was leaning back, her gaze sharp and predatory. She wasn't shocked by the scale of the money or the audacity of the plan; she was measuring the kid behind it.
"So everything you're doing," Peter whispered, his voice cracking. "It's not for anything like justice. Not for the city, but rather yourself."
"No, I'm doing it for the people I care about, Peter," Ethan corrected gently. His voice was steady, devoid of the teenage nervous energy he usually projected. "Justice is a luxury for people with power. Survival is a prerequisite for all. In two months, when the Exemplars awaken, the heroes will barely be able to contain them. The resulting natural disasters will kill millions, Peter. I'm simply making sure we and those we love aren't among the casualties. Ask yourself, is that so wrong? While I understand it is selfish, I also planned shelters to be available for people of this city, because I knew it'd be important to you."
Ethan felt the familiar thrum of Forge's intuition in the back of his mind. It wasn't just a power anymore; it was a lens through which he saw the world. He looked at the restaurant and didn't see decor—he saw structural stress points, egress routes, and the precise electrical frequency of the hidden security cameras. Then, as his mind started to see how best to improve the building, he shifted his attention. He looked at Peter and saw the micro-tremors in his hands, the dilation of his pupils.
"And the woman, Sarah Kinney?" Peter pressed. "The girl... Laura. You rescued them just to put them in another lab? My God, Ethan, she's a child."
"You misunderstand me, Peter. While Laura can be considered a miracle of bio-engineering. I have no intention of doing anything to her," Ethan said, his tone softening but remaining firm. "My lab—the Ilithyia Institute— will have nothing to do with her. It's simply a job for her mother to work at. I even included in the contract I gave her that she's able to quit as she pleases. I have no intention of holding the woman or her daughter hostage. You might say this is harsh, but Laura is of no importance to me. I don't have any plans for her. She'll just be a normal girl who has a bedroom, has a garden, goes to school, and has a mother who isn't being forced to cut her open. She will be safe from the Facility because I have erased their existence from the digital world. Do I want her mother to work in my lab? Yes. However, that's simply because I value her skills in the field, and I believe she can take my company to new heights. No other reason."
He turned his gaze to Felicia. This was the tightrope. He was telling Peter the truth because Peter needed to see he had no malicious intent—even if his intent was a cold, pragmatic one. But Felicia... Felicia saw the gaps in his reasoning. You could say she saw the 'Luc Moreau' persona beneath the 'Ethan' mask. She saw the cruel, heartless kid who wouldn't lift a finger if it didn't serve him in some way or another.
"You sound very convincing, kid," Felicia murmured, her green eyes narrowing. She reached out, her gloved finger tracing the rim of her wine glass. "Using the 'Isaac Maddox' identity to buy the shelters, then the 'Luc' identity to handle wetwork. It's a very neat Trinity you've built for yourself. But you're still hiding the most important part."
Ethan didn't blink. "And what's that?"
"The 'How'," she said. "Your sixteen-year-old boy's appearance might trick Peter, but not me. I don't care how much you know about the future. Things like… what did you call them, Genesis Cradle and Machine Cells, right? Siphoning fifteen billion dollars? That's not just knowledge. That's... something else. You talk like you've been doing this for decades. How old are you, and how can you do all this?"
Ethan smiled, and for a moment, he let the mask slip just a fraction—only for her. He let her see the exhaustion, the ancient weight behind his eyes that didn't belong to a teenager. He wanted her to know there was a secret, but he wanted her to think it was a burden he carried for them.
"I've had to grow up very fast, Felicia," he said quietly. "When you see the end of the world coming every time you close your eyes, you don't have the luxury of being a child. So, the only answer I can give you is I don't know. I stopped counting at some point."
He reached into his pocket and pulled two of his new phone creations—the one forged with his own hands and Forge's genius. He slid them across the table toward Peter and Felicia.
"Here I made these for you two. Look at the files inside. Don't take my word for it. Look at the satellite imagery of the only Octessence totems I've managed to find. Look at the energy readings I've intercepted from Australia. I had to hack into a Stark satellite, but I managed to collect some data. Look, Felicia, I'm not asking you to trust me; hell, I'm not even asking you to like me. I'm asking you to help me save as many people as possible. I can do many things, but I can't do this alone. So, please, I'm begging you, help me."
Peter picked up the phone, his thumb scrolling through the encrypted data. The sheer volume of information was staggering. It was a roadmap of the events of the upcoming global apocalypse, meticulously documented.
"Why tell us now?" Peter asked, looking up.
"Because the board is set, Peter," Ethan said, leaning forward. "The opponents' pieces are set, and they make their first move soon. I don't have the luxury of hiding things from you anymore because I need your help. You're the heart of my plan, Peter. We need allies for this, and sadly, being social is not my strong suit."
Felicia laughed, a sharp, melodic sound. "That's an understatement. Ethan, I doubt you see anyone as an equal to consider any of them friends. In the end, aren't Peter and I just pawns on this board of yours?"
"No, you're the queen and a knight. Sadly, even a chess genius could win with only three pieces. So I'm asking my friends for help, that is all." Ethan replied as he met Peter's gaze, his expression shifting from a tactical overview to a quiet, focused intensity. "Peter, you have something I don't: the trust of people who can actually shift the tides in our favor. You've worked with the Avengers, with the Fantastic Four, with the Sorcerer Supreme. I need those connections."
Peter stared at the phone in his hand, his mind racing through the technical data Ethan had provided. "You want me to call in favors? Ethan, Tony Stark doesn't just take meetings because a 'friend' has a feeling about a prophecy of the future. And Doctor Strange… he's the Sorcerer Supreme. He deals with mystical threats every day. If this was as big as you say, wouldn't he already know?"
"He'll know something is stirring, but he won't see the full picture until it's too late to stop it," Ethan countered. "He doesn't even know that principalities Balthakk and Watoomb are part of this. Oh, I'm probably saying things you don't understand. Principalities are higher beings that witches and sorcerers draw power from, meaning Strange draws power from them. If you go to him, if you show him the signatures on that phone, I assure you he'll listen. Same with Stark. If you tell Ironman that a global-scale kinetic event is coming in sixty days, he'll start investigating on his own. He's a futurist, Peter. He's just as obsessed with the 'next big thing' as I am."
Peter sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Strange and Ironman… maybe. I can try to get a message through. But if you're looking for a heavy-hitting army, we should probably go to the X-Men. But as you saw what it was like when we took Paige and Amy to the Mansion last time."
Peter looked at Felicia, then back to Ethan, his voice dropping. "Professor X is missing, Ethan. The school was a mess of nerves. Cyclops and Jean are running themselves ragged just trying to keep the student body from panicking while the senior teams are scattered across the globe looking for Charles. They won't help us. They can't help us right now. Their house is on fire."
A slow, deliberate smile spread across Ethan's face. It wasn't a smile of amusement, but of a man who had finally reached the chapter he'd been waiting to read.
"I happen to know where the Professor is, Peter."
The air at the table seemed to chill. Peter froze. "What? How? Jean is one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet, and even she can't find a trace of him."
"Future knowledge. The reason Jean can't find him is that he isn't being hidden by a mind," Ethan explained, leaning in. "He's being held by a machine that knows exactly how to dampen a psionic signature. He's being held at Alcatraz by Cerebro, the machine he uses to boost his power, which actually developed a mind of its own. Xavier is being used as a biological battery to power Cerebro's global reach. We need to rescue him because the Professor's mind, if boosted by a modified Cerebro, could stop the God-Machine should we fail."
Ethan tapped the table. "If we find him, we can save the Professor, and in return, you get the X-Men's full support for what's to come. It's the ultimate win-win. But I can't walk into that stronghold and make them listen to me, Peter. I need you to help me rescue the man."
Peter's jaw set. He hated being moved like a piece on a board, but the chance to save Charles Xavier and prevent a global disaster was a pull he couldn't resist.
Ethan then turned his head slightly, his eyes landing on Felicia. She had been quiet, watching the exchange like a spectator at a high-stakes poker game.