14 February 2008
Tony Stark stood over a row of vials on one of his lab benches and looked personally insulted by reality.
The yellow ones sat in a neat line beside the reds. There was nothing dramatic in the design. No Stark grade engineering. No impossible circuitry. Just vials filled with liquids that, according to every piece of equipment in his lab, amounted to fruit, honey, and the universe making a joke at his expense.
He dragged a hand down his face and glanced at the clock.
Valentine's Day had started for him at one minute past midnight and had remained busy ever since. Five women, all of whom had left his house better compensated than emotionally affected, and every yellow vial had kept him moving with the kind of energetic certainty that would have embarrassed ordinary pharmacology. The red ones had dealt with the more delicate mechanical complaints afterwards. He had pistoned from midnight till evening, annoyed, and deeply offended that a chemical engineer in Queens was apparently beating centuries of human vanity with apples and bananas.
Tony picked up one of the yellow vials and held it to the light.
"Banana and honey," he muttered. "That is breakfast, not a miracle."
JARVIS said nothing, which meant he was wisely avoiding commentary on his employer's Valentine's schedule.
Tony set the vial down and opened Lucius Noctis's file again. The same face looked back at him. A young and brilliant mind. Unremarkable in a way that usually meant dangerous or boring, and Tony had no patience for either.
Chemical engineering graduate, with dead parents and a small house in Queens. Money accumulating too fast. According to JARVIS, he gained at least two hundred million. No visible history of cults, black market biotech, or desert monasteries.
Nothing.
He wanted to know more. He wanted a proper conversation, the kind where Tony Stark asked the questions and reality stopped insulting him for ten consecutive minutes.
He checked the date on his upcoming itinerary and cursed under his breath.
His Jericho demonstration was only a couple of days away. Stark Industries' crown jewel needed his face attached to it, and the board would panic if he skipped the theatre.
He tapped the file once.
"After I get back," he told the silent room. "Then we'll meet the smoothie wizard."
He took another red vial, rolled it between his fingers, and gave up trying to feel superior at least about these potions.
Even what Happy had paid was starting to look cheap.
-
At the Triskelion, Nick Fury had reached the end of his patience and was now examining what lay beyond it.
The answer, unfortunately, was still paperwork.
He stood over a table scattered with purchase records, field reports, surveillance updates, and expense summaries that had begun to resemble a personal insult. Every day, SHIELD sent people to buy LHP and LSP from Lucius Noctis. Every day, Noctis sold no more than five vials to any single buyer. Every day, the total cost went up because the bastard had decided SHIELD deserved a premium for annoying him.
Worse, when Fury had attempted something as basic as lying about who the buyers were, Lucius had caught it. Not guessed or suspected. Caught it. The result had been another fifteen per cent added for the week, as if SHIELD were a badly behaved restaurant patron being punished with compulsory service charges.
Maria Hill stood on the other side of the table, one hand resting on a folder. Coulson stood near the wall because he had the good sense to look like furniture when Fury was in this mood.
Fury picked up one page, read the latest number, and dropped it again.
"He charged us more for lying," Fury said.
Hill did not move.
"He did," she replied.
"He knew we were lying."
Coulson finally spoke. "We believe he can read surface thoughts, sir."
Fury's eye narrowed.
"So he is a mutant."
"We can confirm telepathic capability," Coulson replied. "Whether that is the full explanation remains open."
Fury let out a short breath through his nose. That was enough for now.
He had indulged the kid's little retail empire long enough. He needed control, supply, and an end to being billed like a private addict by a man in Queens with excellent cheekbones and no institutional respect.
He tapped the table twice.
"Today is the last day we pay full retail," he said.
Hill opened the folder.
The team was ready. Non-lethal preference. Telepath countermeasures. IRS charges were prepared and waiting. Asset seizure language drafted so dry it could strip paint. Search authority arranged through people who would not ask too many questions and would stop asking altogether once SHIELD leaned properly.
Fury looked at the file and felt his temper improve by half a degree.
"Bring him in," he said. "Use the tax route. If he wants to act like a businessman, we treat him like one. Hill talks to him after custody. I want every room turned over, and every wall opened if necessary."
Coulson shifted slightly.
"Sir, if he disappears before the operation is complete, we lose the only stable supply of both potions."
Fury looked at him.
"Then do not let him disappear."
Hill closed the folder.
Coulson said nothing further; he disagreed and had accepted that the disagreement was no longer useful.
Fury's mouth hardened.
Noctis would become a controlled asset or a prisoner over IRS charges. He was free to choose.
--
Lucius finished his morning sales and closed the door on the last customer with a mood that had improved by several percentages.
No bank transfers today.
Everything had come in cash.
He moved through the house, collecting envelopes and bundles, then slid them all into inventory with practised ease. It was cleaner that way. Safer too. Numbers in a bank account could be frozen by men with signatures. Notes in another dimension required more effort.
He was ready for the Array of Convergence.
He had put it off long enough.
He chose the forests south of Alkali Lake as they were remote, cold, and unpleasant, which made them ideal. Nobody respectable wanted to be there on Valentine's.
He chose a clearing large enough to work in and spent the first half hour clearing snow, broken branches, and stones with telekinesis. The array needed room, symmetry, and a surface that did not sabotage him. White breath left his mouth in steady clouds. Pine trees stood around the clearing like silent judges.
The array was demanding sacrifices. Four of them, to be precise.
Lucius considered his options and, as an upstanding citizen, decided to collect participants from the streets. The South Bronx supplied what he needed with depressing efficiency. Passed out junkies and a dealer who agreed after a short dialogue.
Three of them were kind enough to be unconscious already when he found them. The fourth needed assistance, which Somnus Draught provided in a clean and civilised manner.
He teleported them into the clearing and placed them in the outer circles with the same care a priest might use when arranging ceremonial candles.
He finished the last symbol, stepped to the central rune, and clarified his intent in silence.
Everything under the racial category, every acquired ability. All of it will become innate skills of his, regardless of whether he clashed with sentinels or collared; they will not be affected.
He drew in a breath, looked at the four figures around him, and spoke the word.
"Convergence."
The array answered.
The lines sank inward, as if the entire pattern turned its focus onto him alone. The bodies in the outer circles dried with impossible speed, flesh pulling tight, then collapsing into dust so fine the wind could have carried it if the array had allowed movement.
Lucius felt the change immediately. Everything shifted.
Teleportation no longer felt like pulling a lever. It felt like stepping. Invisibility no longer sat on him like a cloak. It sank into his nature. Telepathy spread outward with a calm reach that made nearby minds appear at the edge of his awareness like lights in fog. Telekinesis tightened, cleaner and sharper, no longer something he directed through effort so much as something his body understood.
He stood in the centre of the array and inhaled slowly.
It felt like he was controlling his powers through a joystick before. Now he was in direct contact and control.
No, it was better than that. Now it was in the bones.
He tested the range without moving. Minds flickered at the edge of his reach over three miles. Simple and instinctual ones were animals. Humans felt more complicated. Telekinesis spread through half that range with crisp certainty. Teleportation, however, felt obscenely broad. The world no longer seemed divided by distance. He felt he could teleport to any location on the globe.
His immediate safety problem had just been solved. He summoned Bob and opened the spells.
The pages shifted under his fingers.
He skipped the basic toys. Fireball, lightning strike, and neat little destructive tricks belonged to people who needed to feel dramatic. He wanted branches, not leaves. Systems, not sparks.
After some minutes of searching the ever-changing pages, he found what he wanted.
Fire Manipulation - 10,000 Souls.
Lucius stared at the amount. "This is a scam," he muttered. "This is an EA-level scam."
Not only had he failed to receive the Sentry serum, but now he was apparently expected to purchase magic one spell at a time, like downloadable content for psychopaths.
He turned pages backwards with more force than necessary and found something lower on the ladder.
Lightning Bolt - 50 Souls.
That, at least, was affordable.
He still did not enjoy being used as an instrument of murder, naturally. He, a pure soul blessed by holy fire and guided by divine virtue, had principles.
He paused.
Then he shrugged.
No, he did not give a shit.
This life suited him. It was 2008. The MCU had barely started stretching its legs. The X-Men side remained a mess of timelines, labs, dead children, and men with perfect speeches about coexistence. He had addresses for Essex's facilities, more money than he trusted, and now an internalised telepathy that offered something even more valuable than range.
A tranquil mind.
A mind calm enough to remember what Eternals were and where they were.
"Their time has not come," he murmured.
With a casual effort, he cleared the traces of the ritual using telekinesis. It was slightly destructive in a way he chose to call educational.
Then he turned invisible and rose into the air.
Below him, the clearing looked undisturbed, as if four lives had not just been converted into a cleaner metaphysical filing system.
He gazed down at the place where he had stopped being easily classified.
Homo Superior was not enough now, and Wizard was an expensive profession.
A supreme being, he thought, and then snorted at himself.
Just like Admiral General Aladdin.