Lucius had learned to love mornings.
Not because he woke refreshed, or because sunlight did anything for his mood. He loved mornings because mornings came with a queue.
The same cars. The same drivers. Different faces behind tinted windows. The same hungry looks from people who thought money was a shield against decay. Which, in their case, it was.
Two vials per customer and mostly cash.
The ones who tried to negotiate got a smile and a closed door. The ones who tried to threaten got the same smile and were blacklisted.
By noon, his sitting room smelled faintly of expensive cologne and desperation. His inventory got heavier with bundles of cash. His bank account got fatter too, because sometimes the transfers were too large to hide in a briefcase, but he still did not trust banks.
Trusting a bank required believing the world was fair. The organisations were ogling him. His car had been towed to follow him after he got rid of the tails.
After the last customer left, he locked the door and walked through the house slowly.
He was collecting cameras and microphones every day before he went to sleep.
A coin he had balanced on the bathroom door trim sat a millimetre off its old position. A strip of clear tape he had pressed across the inside lip of a drawer had a tiny tear, so clean you could miss it if you wanted to. The only thing keeping him happy was that they could not find anything, even after sending spy after spy.
He went upstairs, closed the bedroom curtains, and let the room turn pitch black. He was doing it to keep a sense of privacy. Cameras needed light afterall.
Teleportation answered him like a guilty pleasure.
He brewed until his hands smelled like sugar and his patience ran thin.
He packed everything back into inventory, wiped down what he could, then moved behind a tree and snapped back to his bed.
He enjoyed the quiet for one breath.
Then he sat at his desk and did the part that mattered.
The list.
He wrote names on paper like he was building a shopping cart. Small targets first. People who were not supposed to matter. People whose disappearance would not set off canon alarms.
Skids. Sally Blevins. Ruth Aldine, the Blindfold girl, the one who saw too much and heard worse. The Wyngarde twins, Martinique and Regan, perform illusion tricks for days. Julian Keller, Hellion, has telekinesis that could make a room obey him. Sienna Blaze, the kind of power that turned anger into destruction. Cannonball, Sam Guthrie, a human missile with a country accent. Northstar, Jean Paul Beaubier, speed and flight, and the sister who matched him. Wind Dancer, Sofia Mantega, air in her hands. Sunspot, Roberto da Costa, solar fire wrapped in charm.
He stopped and stared at the page.
Then he wrote the names he wanted first.
Fade and Camouflage. The kind of invisibility that made cameras useless and tails miserable.
He capped the pen and leaned back.
Marvel was full of gifted people. Homo superiors, inhumans, aliens, accidents. The world had power in every dark corner.
He was playing it safe.
Not because he feared consequences. He feared being too visible before he could protect himself.
His leverage was money, vials, and a face people trusted because it looked clean.
He liked that part.
It was efficient.
The neighbourhood liked him, too, or at least the neighbourhood liked the idea of him.
His new neighbours had started poking their noses into his daily life. Two women, both young, both pretty enough to be dangerous in a city full of people who underestimated beauty.
They were not nice-looking. They were smoking hot. The kind of hot that made a man suddenly remember he owned a mirror and had opinions about his own jawline. Bodies that looked like they had never met a desk job. One smiled like she wanted a story. The other watched like she wanted a weakness.
Lucius gave them an internal compliment and an external shrug.
Marvel had a habit of stacking the world with attractive people. Gods looked like models. Spies looked like models. Even the random bartender looked like a model. It was efficient casting, he thought. Unless the DEI has touched them. If so, they will be disabled, gay and from the minorities.
He didn't care about someone's skin colour or where their grandparents came from. What he despised was when a story was replaced by a sermon, when a character was rewritten to satisfy Blackrock, and applause was treated as mandatory. He remembered the casting gossip from his old life. The rumours about a Helen of Troy remake had been enough to make him laugh into his coffee. The problem wasn't that the chosen actress was Black; it was that the film disrespected the historical story it claimed to tell. By contrast, no one argued about diversity in Black Panther. He hadn't even watched the movie, but the point was clear: the cast was made up mostly of people of colour, and no one objected, because Wakanda was an African nation.
He sighed. He was glad he was not there anymore. Back to his new reality.
The neighbours tried the usual angles.
A tray of baked something on a Saturday morning. A casual hello by the mailbox. A laugh too loud, like the world was always fun.
Lucius answered with the polite warmth of a man who sold miracles.
He opened doors. He accepted cookies. He smiled. One of them leaned on his fence and asked where he worked. He let his eyes soften like he was shy.
"Independent consulting," he replied. "Chemistry stuff."
She looked impressed and did not believe a word. In the evenings, the news kept circling one name.
Tony Stark.
The Playboy face, the weapons genius, the man who made missiles look like toys. Stark Industries stayed on the screen like the world was reminding him what kind of universe this was. Lucius watched, amused. The cinematic timeline had started moving. He kept his hands clean in public and his plans dirty in private.
Jessica Jones stayed useful. She did not like him, and he could not care less.
Seven folders arrived before noon, dropped off by a courier who avoided eye contact and moved like he was being watched, too.
Lucius read through them at his kitchen table with a mug of coffee he did not taste.
Fade came up twice.
Once in a note about an underground community that avoided light and authority. Once, in a short report from a vice cop who had been robbed in a hallway and never saw the hand that did it.
Morlocks, the word belonged to comics and sewage and bad luck. In New York, it belonged to people who lived under the city because the city did not make room for them.
Lucius folded the papers and slid them into inventory.
He did not need more reading. He needed a body.
He geared up like a man going to do maintenance work.
Dark clothes. Boots that could handle water. Gloves. A small flashlight and a headlamp. A cheap respirator mask, because breathing sewer air was not on his bucket list, even with a healing factor like his. He put them in his inventory and left his house through the front door in full view of the watchers.
He drove for a while, parked and walked into a nightclub, then snapped away at the first opportunity.
He reappeared in another alley across town, closer to the entrance Jessica's notes had pointed at. An old utility access near an abandoned service stairwell that led into maintenance tunnels. The city had entrances everywhere if you knew where to look.
He waited until the street was quiet, lifted the cover, and climbed down.
The smell hit first.
Rot, damp and chemical sting. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. He put on his clothes and mask. He moved carefully, boots finding stable ground, one hand on the wall when the floor got slick.
The tunnels narrowed, then widened. Pipes ran overhead like metal veins. Old graffiti marked turns, some of it childish, some of it warning. He followed the route the notes described. Two left turns. A rusted door. A stretch where the air warmed from steam pipes.
The flashlight caught movement.
A rat, then another. Then a shadow that was not a rat.
Lucius killed the light and stayed still.
He listened.
Soft footsteps. Bare feet on wet concrete. The faint scrape of something dragged.
He let the headlamp stay off and trusted his own eyes to adjust.
A figure appeared at the end of the corridor, hunched, skinny, face half hidden by hair.
Lucius stayed calm and stepped forward slowly, empty hands visible.
He kept his voice low.
"I am not here to call anyone," he said. "I am not here to arrest anyone. I am here to trade."
The figure froze.
A second figure emerged, taller, shoulders broad, face wrong in the way mutants looked wrong when the world punished them for existing. The man held a length of pipe like it was a club.
Lucius did not move.
"I know the name Morlocks," he added. "I know you live down here. I know you do not like strangers. I am not asking for trust. I am asking for a conversation."
The pipe stayed raised.
Lucius reached into the inventory and produced a steaming hamburger.
He held it up, just enough for them to see.
"I am looking for someone who can disappear."
The pipe man's eyes flicked to the burger. The first figure's breathing changed. They did not step closer. Lucius watched the calculation on their faces. A third presence slid into the space like a draft. He did not see anyone. He felt it. The hairs on his arms lifted.
"There you are," he muttered.
He reached into the inventory again, not for a gun.
For a small paper bag of flour.
He had grabbed it in Houston for this occasion. He tossed it lightly into the air between himself and the space. White dust drifted and clung to a shape.
A human outline appeared for half a second, like a ghost caught mid-breath.
The Morlocks cursed.
The pipe man lunged.
Lucius moved first.
He snapped one step sideways, let the pipe swing miss, and shoved his palm forward.
The invisible man slammed into him and staggered.
Lucius closed the distance. His hand caught a wrist, or at least he hoped it was a wrist.
The outline swore, voice low and filthy. "Let go, you rich asshole," the invisible one spat.
Lucius smiled.
"Fade," he replied. "Or Camouflage. Either way, you are coming with me."
The pipe man charged again. Lucius did not bother negotiating.
He produced the pistol from inventory and levelled it at the pipe man's knee.
The man froze mid-step.
Lucius kept the muzzle steady.
"I am not here to kill you," he said. "But I am not here to lose either."
The tunnel went still, drips continued. Rats kept moving in the shadows.
Lucius pulled a zip tie from inventory and locked Fade's wrists behind his back, fast and tight.
Fade struggled and turned invisible again. It was too late.
Lucius leaned close.
"Struggle later," he whispered. "Right now you breathe."
He gripped Fade by the collar and dragged him toward the darker side passage.
The Morlocks followed two steps, then stopped. They did not chase into the deeper dark.
Lucius reached a corner where the tunnel bent and the air smelled worse.
He pictured the warehouse. Fade cursed and bucked. Lucius tightened his grip, and the world shifted for both of them.