Lucius finished business with his ever loyal customer base, then performed the polite theatre required by living in a neighbourhood full of pretending. He nodded at the drivers, pocketing bills so crisp they might have just slid off the press, and smiled at faces that looked too healthy for how desperate they sounded.
His new neighbours tried again. Two women, both young, both hot enough to distract. One waved with a tray of cookies. The other leaned near her fence line and winked at him.
Lucius gave them the same fake warmth he gave everyone. He was selling miracles and selling himself as harmless. That meant being friendly, not being honest.
He walked inside, closed the door, and let the smile die.
He went straight to his bedroom, crawled under the sheets like a soldier retiring from war, and stared at the ceiling in silence. The blackout curtains sealed the room in pitch darkness, his sanctuary. He loved them for one reason only: they shut out the bugs he was certain lurked beyond the walls, the listening devices and hidden eyes. In the dark, at least in this room, his privacy felt intact.
He turned invisible, then teleported.
The world snapped, and he stood on his own front porch again. He crossed the small gap to the house on his right, stopped at the door, then teleported three steps forward and landed inside.
The air smelled like perfume and new furniture. Whoever had bought the place had money and no taste. He heard a woman's voice from the living room, sharp enough to cut through the quiet.
"No, sir," she insisted into her phone. "He did not even look twice. Yes, sir, I put on provocative outfits. He might be gay, sir."
Lucius froze.
It was not the word itself. It was the implication. If the watchers believed that story, they would change tactics. They would send different bait. Different pressure. He could survive pressure. He hated losing control of the narrative.
He snapped back to his bedroom.
He sat up, stared into the dark, then swore once, low and serious.
He got out of bed, took a fast shower, and dressed like he had an appointment with his own ego. Clean shirt, fitted trousers, proper shoes, the kind that made a man look expensive and worth mugging.
He opened his laptop and started searching for Escort services.
He picked a woman who looked similar enough to his neighbour that the bitch would choke on her own coffee. Copper hair. Big eyes. A body built to be noticed.
He booked two hours. Two hundred per hour.
He stared at the number and felt his soul tighten in a place he did not know existed.
He started to mutter about making sure they would pay, then stopped.
In his endless wisdom, he had not waited to learn who the neighbour was talking to. SHIELD, HYDRA, IRS, FBI, or some other alphabet disease. He had heard the word gay and reacted like a teenager with something to prove. Pride was cheaper than patience, and he kept buying it.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
The Nokia beeped, he opened it.
Sender: UNKNOWN.
MORON.
Lucius slid the screen down.
He did not argue. He did not ask for clarification. He accepted the verdict.
A knock distracted him.
He stood, still irritated, and walked to the entryway with the mood of a man ready to insult a delivery driver.
He opened the door, and his bad mood vaporised. As simple as that.
The woman on the porch looked like she had been designed by a man who hated self-control. Copper hair framed her face in soft waves. Her eyes were large enough to report her as an alien. She wore a coat that implied there was something underneath worth paying for.
She leaned forward slightly.
"Aren't you going to invite me in, babe?" she purred, her voice soft as a feather.
Lucius stared for half a second longer than he should have.
He told himself he was not a simp. He told himself he was strong-willed. He told himself he was the last bastion.
He stepped aside.
"Come in, sweetie," he replied, voice smooth. He was not making decisions with his spine at that moment.
She walked past him, and the perfume followed, sweet and aggressive.
Lucius closed the door and locked it.
He reminded himself that this was a counterintelligence operation. A very expensive one. A humiliatingly expensive one.
She glanced around the sitting room, then at him.
"Name," she asked, business first.
"Lucius," she smiled.
"Daisy," she offered her clearly fake name. Lucius did not believe her for a second. Nor did he care about her name.
-
Across the street, the agent who had filed her report on the target's baffling disinterest stood at a window with her phone pressed to her ear and her mouth slightly open.
The woman stepped inside. The door shut.
The agent's eyes narrowed.
"That woman could pass as my sister," she muttered, and the words came out bitter enough to stain the glass.
Her gaze snapped back to the target through the gap in the curtains. He had looked gobsmacked for a moment, then he had stepped aside fast and malleable as cotton candy.
So he was not gay after all.
"Then why," she hissed, and her voice sharpened. "Is she supposed to be his girlfriend. There was nothing in his file about that."
She forced her breathing steady and spoke into her phone with a tone that tried to sound professional.
"I am updating the report," she said. "We have a new variable. An unknown female came in as she belonged."
-
Washington, D.C.
Phil Coulson sat at his desk in the Triskelion, read the latest surveillance summary, and felt his patience grind.
Two weeks of watching, two weeks of entry teams, two weeks of listening devices and camera placements, most of them were already located.
Nothing.
No empty vials. No ingredient waste. No residue. No production site. Just a man who sold miracles and smiled like a banker.
His phone rang.
He answered without hesitation.
The agent's voice came quickly.
"Sir, the target's girlfriend arrived an hour ago. From the listening devices still active, we can deduce the target is not gay for sure."
Coulson stared at his desk.
Noctis did not have a girlfriend.
They had pulled his file from childhood to the latest grocery shopping. They had mapped his habits like he was a hurricane.
"Send photos," Coulson replied.
"I am sending them now, sir."
A ping hit his inbox.
Coulson opened the images.
The woman was close enough to the agent's face structure that he understood the earlier bitterness. Similar eyes. Similar cheekbones. Different hair and posture.
He glanced at the agent's file photo on his screen, then back at the photos.
"Is she your relative?" Coulson asked.
Silence, then a growl.
"No, sir."
Coulson focused on the photos a moment longer.
"Find out who she is," he replied.
"Yes, sir."
Coulson ended the call, stood, and walked to Fury's door with the report already forming in his head.
He knocked.
-
Back in Queens, Lucius had the best three hours of both his lives combined.
He did not romanticise it. He did not pretend it was love. It was stress relief and ego repair, and he accepted both like medicine.
He tested the LSP halfway through because he refused to waste opportunities. The potion worked like a charm. Energy snapped into his muscles, heat under skin, the subtle certainty that he could keep going without feeling like his body was bargaining against him.
Daisy stayed another hour after the booking ended, free of charge.
Yet he had already paid.
That was the sour note of the day. Paying for something that should have been free in a universe full of smoking hot people felt like an insult.
Still, it was worth it.
When she finally left, she kissed his cheek. That might be the only sincere act other than her new walking style, of course.
Lucius locked the door behind her and stood still.
He felt satisfied; he also felt petty.
It was time to learn who the neighbour had been reporting to.
He went to his bedroom, turned invisible and snapped to the house on his right.
This time, he did not waste a second.
He stepped into the living room, then followed the sound of a keyboard.
The woman sat at a desk, shoulders tense, phone beside her, laptop open. She was doing a background check on Daisy, and a clean logo in the corner of the screen answered his question.
SHIELD.
Lucius stared at it and felt his smile sharpen.
So that was the sir.
He watched her type Daisy's name, taken from her agency, then watch the results fail to match anything real.
Lucius leaned closer, close enough that if he was not invisible, she would have felt his breath.
He imagined SHIELD's budget; he imagined his four hundred.
He was going to make sure they would pay what he had paid, with interest.
-
At the Triskelion, Fury sat behind his desk and looked like a man who had not slept properly in years. Mutants, Inhumans, Mutates, aliens, and Stark kept setting his day on fire, and every new briefing arrived as another match struck close to his face.
Coulson stepped in with steady calm and placed a file on the desk.
Fury's eye flicked up.
"So," Fury asked, voice flat. "What do we have?"
Coulson did not sugarcoat it.
"After watching him for over two weeks, we have nothing," he replied. "Multiple entry teams searched and found nothing in the house. No production traces. No discarded vials. We are also quite sure he is aware of the monitoring."
Fury's fingers tapped the file once.
"And he still sells," Fury replied.
"Yes," Coulson answered. "Which means production is happening somewhere else, or it is not happening the way we understand production."
Fury leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.
He needed that man's talent. He needed it for his operators. He needed it for the world.
He opened his eye again.
"We can approach him directly," Coulson added.
Fury stared at him.
"Do you think you can recruit him?" Fury asked directly.
Coulson held his gaze.
"I will do my best, sir. It is better if we can control the variable."
Fury's mouth tightened.
He thought about the red vials. He thought about the yellow ones. He thought about how easy it would be to turn a miracle into a weapon.
"Good," Fury said. "Go there and contact him. I want him with SHIELD, Coulson. Make sure it happens."
Coulson nodded.
"Understood, sir."
He turned and left.
Fury sat alone again and stared at the file.
Lucius Noctis.
A name that kept appearing in the meetings of the high society. He hoped the young man would accept the invitation.