Lucius landed in the warehouse with the invisible man half dragged behind him, zip ties biting into the man's wrists hard enough to leave angry grooves. The place looked the same as last time, damp with an old rot.
"Vanisher, may his soul rest in peace, did a good deed by showing this place," he murmured.
Lucius was pretty sure the one he caught was Fade, not Camouflage. Fade kept trying to slip out of sight in short, panicked flickers. It never fully worked. Flour still clung to the man's jacket and hair, and the zip ties did not care whether the wrists were visible.
Lucius shoved him toward a chair that looked one argument away from collapsing.
"Better to show yourself, bud," Lucius said. "I do not want to shoot you. It stains everything, and I hate cleaning."
The air wavered, then a middle-aged man resolved into view with white hair, pale skin under grime, and red eyes that looked wrong in a way Lucius respected. The man held himself like a mercenary who had lost the advantage but refused to look scared.
"There," Lucius replied in a friendly tone. "Was it hard?"
Fade's mouth twisted.
"You got a talent for being a pain in the ass," he snapped. He sounded like someone who had done ugly work for cash and still believed the world owed him.
Lucius crouched to tie the man's ankles with the good-quality rope he used on Vanisher, trying to do it one-handed while keeping his pistol aimed and ready in the other. The chair squeaked under Fade's shifting weight. He moved his feet just enough to be unhelpful, then watched Lucius struggle like it was entertainment.
Lucius fumbled, cursed under his breath, tried and failed again.
Fade snickered.
"You serious?" he asked. "You kidnap people, and you cannot even tie a damn knot."
Lucius stood slowly and stared down at him as if Fade had proudly announced he could not count.
"You know what," Lucius replied.
The pistol came up, and the shot cracked through the warehouse.
Fade's knee lit up with pain, and he fell off the chair, screaming as he hit the dirty floor. He rolled, then rolled again, trying to outrun the sensation in his own leg. His hands clawed at nothing. His leg jerked like his nerves were trying to climb out of his skin.
Lucius watched him for a moment with a smile. "Didn't know you had such moves."
He started to beatbox a broken rhythm. After some time, he stopped.
"This is much easier," Lucius said. He loved solutions that did not require fine motor skills.
"I do not know why I was trying to tie your feet with one hand."
Fade spat a string of profanities, then tried to straighten the leg and screamed again when the joint refused.
Lucius dragged the chair closer with his foot and sat, ignoring the way the wood complained.
"So," Lucius asked like they were discussing rent, "what is your name?"
Fade stared up, sweat already beading at his temples.
"What the hell is wrong with you," he snapped. "I was already bound. Why did you shoot me?"
Lucius blinked once.
"How was I supposed to tie your feet with one hand," he replied. "You want me to grow a third arm."
Fade's breathing came rough.
"You could have asked me to help or stay still," he spat.
"I could," Lucius replied. "But you laughed. That was the part where you made a choice."
Fade stopped rolling, not because the pain stopped, but because he realised rolling did nothing except grind dirt into his face.
Lucius waited two beats.
"Name," he repeated.
Fade swallowed hard.
"DiLorenzo," he said. "My name is DiLorenzo. Now are you going to bring a doctor, or are you just collecting screams for fun."
Lucius nodded like he had received useful customer feedback.
"Sure," he replied. "In a moment."
He stood and walked around DiLorenzo, measuring the floor with his eyes and counting steps. The array needed clean lines. Chalk did not like dirt and the warehouse was mostly dirt.
"For now," Lucius added, "do not move or I will shoot you again. Are we clear."
DiLorenzo's jaw flexed once. He nodded.
Lucius pulled chalk from his inventory. DiLorenzo's eyes tracked it.
"The hell is that," he muttered.
Lucius ignored the question and started drawing.
The circle came out clean; he should think of a better way to deal with this circle. Maybe draw them on large papers and keep them in his inventory; he did not want this to become routine. His hand moved like it had practised for years. The symbols settled into place with quiet certainty, and the air around the circle felt slightly thicker, like the warehouse resented being used again for the same thing.
DiLorenzo tried to turn his head to see the markings.
Lucius stepped in close and pressed the muzzle to the man's temple.
"What did I tell you, DiLorena?"
There was no heat in the warning. That was the unsettling part.
"DiLorenzo, my name is DiLorenzo not DiLorena." he corrected.
"That's a nice name, DeLorenzetti." Was his answer.
DiLorenzo froze. The zip ties bit into his wrists as he strained against them, then he stopped when he realised it achieved nothing.
Lucius finished the last mark, stepped back, checked the circle once, checked DiLorenzo's position, then dragged the manby his jacket an inch to centre him properly.
DiLorenzo's breath hitched.
"You are crazy," he said.
Lucius smiled. "I am productive."
He took his place at the first symbol and lowered his voice.
"Sacrifice."
The world went wrong for a heartbeat. Sound dulled, the air paused, and even the rats stopped moving like the universe had held its breath.
Lucius focused on what he wanted. He did not get poetic about it, because this was not a prayer. He wanted invisibility that worked, invisibility that made tails and even electronics useless. At least this was what he remembered from the comic books. Fade had a superior invisibility.
DiLorenzo started to come apart in the same way Vanisher did. There was no blood, no gore, just erasure like a screen being wiped pixel by pixel. The scream cut off mid-sound, and the body vanished as if it had never existed.
The zip ties vanished with him.
Lucius exhaled once and brought Bob from his inventory.
The grimoire appeared in his hand. He opened to the first page and found the new line sitting there with the smug calm of a well-paid hoo.. well manared person, yes. A very well-mannered one, indeed.
Invisibility.
A smile crept across Lucius's face.
"Good girl," he murmured.
He started erasing the markings with his shoe, scraping chalk into grey dust.
Something snapped through the air and hit his forehead. A used zip tie bounced to the floor. Lucius flinched, then stared at the plastic.
The entity was vengeful.
He rubbed his brow and cleared his throat. "All right," he said to the empty warehouse. "Message received."
He wondered what DiLimoncello was doing now, wherever the sacrifice went, and decided he did not care as long as the ability had arrived intact.
He practised while he cleaned.
He focused on the new skill and willed it on. The warehouse did not change, but he did. His hands vanished first, then his sleeves, then the outline of his body softened until there was nothing but empty air and a faint refusal of light to settle.
He waved at a rat to test the line between invisible and imaginary. The rat did not care. He approached the creature and flexed his leg for a good kick. Still, the rat stood where it was unaware. The kick came fast and good, the rat flew with a squick and hit the wall with a satisfying thud. Lucius nodded to himself.
He turned the power off and watched his hands return.
He tried again, slower this time, controlling it like breath and timing the shift so he could feel the edges. He kept going until he could trigger it without the same small pressure behind his eyes and without the instinctive urge to hold his breath.
When it finally sat under his skin as it belonged there, he finished wiping chalk away, sent Bob to inventory, and looked around the warehouse.
The second best thing about the sacrificial ritual was that it took the spilt blood of the victim with it. At least it did for him in his experiences.
He smiled.
This was a good day.
--
Malibu.
Tony Stark lay on his back in a bed that cost more than most people's houses, staring at the ceiling as he had already moved on. He was breathing a little heavier than usual, but his mind had drifted to what he actually cared about: Stark Industries, the Jericho line, contracts, and numbers with commas.
The blonde reporter slid out from under the sheets and headed for the bathroom with confidence.
Tony watched her go, her hips moving in a mesmerising dance. The red handprint was still there; his signature as he slammed for the last time and released himself.
She paused in the bathroom doorway and glanced back with a smile that looked like a knife with lipstick.
She sighed lightly, "I cannot believe Tony Stark cannot measure up to an eighty-year-old billionaire."
Tony's smile froze, and he sat up.
The sheets shifted, and cool air hit his bare ass. He was suddenly irritated. This could only be an insult. There was no way on earth for an old fuck to outmanoeuvre him.
He walked into the bathroom.
She stood by the sink, lipstick slightly smudged, expression innocent, like she had not just tried to stab him with a sentence.
Tony leaned against the door frame and let silence stretch until she blinked.
"That was a joke," she added.
"A joke," Tony repeated.
She smiled too fast.
"You were incredible," she said, sliding into flattery mode.
Tony listened for ten seconds and felt his irritation harden into curiosity. She was panicking, not because she had offended him, but because she had said something she should not.
He stepped closer.
"Who is the eighty-year-old billionaire?" Tony asked.
Her smile wobbled.
"Tony," she tried.
"Do not," Tony replied. "You just compared me to an old man in my own bedroom. Own it."
She sighed, rolled her eyes, then tried to recover.
"It was nothing," she replied. "Just gossip."
"Gossip has names," Tony replied.
She hesitated, then shrugged as if she did not care.
"You want a name," she said. "Fine. It was a joke at a party. Some old guy, some finance dinosaur. I do not remember. People talk."
Tony nodded slowly, filed the tone, filed the deflection, and watched her finish fixing her face.
When the front door finally closed behind her, he walked straight to his lab.
The lights came on as if the room respected him more than people did.
"JARVIS," he called.
"At your service, sir," the AI replied.
Tony flexed his fingers once.
"Find who that reporter has interviewed lately," Tony said. "Filter for old billionaires."
"Understood," JARVIS replied. "Would you like me to include recent medications of the old billionaires in the search parameters?"
Tony's eyes narrowed as he glanced at a muted news clip on one screen, red vials and yellow vials and people talking about miracles like they were buying stock.
"Yeah," Tony replied. "Do that too."