Fury exhaled slowly, his one good eye narrowing. "Sounds less like evolution and more like controlled chaos."
"Controlled chaos is evolution," Max countered, smirking faintly.
The pod curved upward onto a mag-rail, climbing above the chaos. The higher they rose, the more the city changed. The streets below bled into orderly plazas, markets into glittering malls, and rusted neon signs into pristine holograms. The air even smelled different—cleaner, filtered.
The contrast was stark, and unmissable.
Bruce muttered under his breath, "So the higher you climb in society, the higher you literally live."
"Bingo," Max replied.
Finally, the convoy leveled out on a high-rise district: a gleaming sprawl of skybridges and crystalline towers, hovering gardens lit by soft bioluminescence. The pod doors opened to a blast of cool, conditioned air, carrying none of the grit or noise from below.
Natasha stepped out first, scanning the environment like a predator. "Different world entirely…"
Max adjusted his coat and glanced at them with a faint smirk. "Welcome to the Sovereign District. My home turf."
The pod whispered to a halt on a private docking tier, suspended thousands of feet above Horizon's steel arteries. A shimmering platform extended like the tongue of some vast beast, lined with runes of security code. The moment Max stepped out, the entire platform pulsed with recognition—his Prime Sovereign signature bending the very infrastructure to his will.
The Avengers followed, their boots clicking against the polished synthstone. They felt the weight of eyes on them immediately.
Dozens of residents and officials moved through the tier, each in tailored robes or sleek augment gear, their bodies humming with subtle implants. They all turned to look—first at the Avengers, then at the floating identification sigils above their heads.
Low Resident.Low Resident.Low Resident.
Every one of the team bore the same humiliating tag. The holographic glyphs shimmered above them like brands.
Natasha's eyes narrowed. Clint shifted uncomfortably, muttering under his breath, "So much for blending in."
The crowd's whispers slithered through the air like knives.
"Low Residents? Here?""How are they even permitted on this tier?""They must be… pets. Look—he's with them."
Because when their eyes finally slid from the Avengers to Max, everything changed.
His sigil wasn't just visible—it was blinding. Prime Sovereign. The fractal crown hovered over him like a burning halo, bending every gaze, forcing every bystander to dip their heads in instinctive deference.
No one dared question his right to walk these halls.
And so the Avengers' shame became sharper. They weren't seen as guests, not as equals. They were tolerated—because they were with him.
–––
Max led them through a skybridge into his residence, and the transition was dizzying.
The mansion was less a house and more a fortress of elegance. Walls of crystalline alloy shifted with faint ripples of code, constantly reshaping into art or transparency depending on his mood. A vast atrium opened ahead, lined with cascading light-gardens that grew flora engineered to glow in soft blues and golds. A pool ran through the floor like a river of mercury, its surface rippling as drones skimmed across to deliver trays of fruit and drink.
Avatars—AI attendants in human guise—materialized in polite bows, each flickering with soft blue fractals where their faces should be. "Welcome home, Prime Sovereign."
Steve paused just inside the entrance, taking it all in with a soldier's eyes. "This isn't a home. It's a citadel."
Max shrugged casually, tossing his coat to an attendant that wasn't even solid. The hologram caught it, digitized it, and whisked it away. "Home, citadel… semantics. When you're Prime, your house reflects your rank. This one was… custom built."
Bruce adjusted his glasses, peering at the walls as algorithms shifted through fractal equations across their surface. "This place is alive. It's… thinking."
"Correct," Max said, pouring himself a glass of pale golden liquid from a decanter that had materialized out of thin air. He sipped, then waved at them. "Relax. The system's bound to me. It won't bite—unless I tell it to."
The Avengers reluctantly followed into a lounge. High-backed seats of morphic alloy molded themselves to their bodies as they sat, though the glowing sigils above their heads still marked them as Low Residents.
And the servants noticed.
The AI avatars, the cybernetic staff, even the flesh-and-blood attendants—they all spared the team fleeting glances. Not hostile, not mocking—simply aware. A Prime Sovereign had brought low-caste drifters into his sanctum. That was unusual enough to burn itself into the household's memory.
Natasha sat with perfect stillness, her posture regal despite the brand glowing above her. Clint, on the other hand, slouched, muttering, "Feels like walking into a country club with the wrong shoes on."
Max smirked over his glass. "Get used to it. Here, you're measured at a glance. Rank is currency, reputation, law, and survival all wrapped into one. You want better treatment? You climb. Simple as that."
Fury leaned forward, voice gravel. "And if we don't climb?"
Max's smirk thinned into something colder. "Then you stay Low. Forever. Low Residents can live their whole lives without seeing a Sovereign district, let alone stepping foot in one. They work the factories. They scrape the gutters. They die young, and no one notices. That's the baseline. That's the price of not moving forward."
The silence that followed was heavy, almost suffocating.
Clint finally broke it, leaning back in his morphic chair. "Can't you give us… I don't know, a rank promotion? Bump us up the ladder so we don't look like a pack of lost tourists?"
Max swirled the golden liquid in his glass, the glow of his Prime Sovereign mark casting long shadows across the crystalline lounge. "Can I?" He smirked, eyes flashing. "Of course. One word from me, and those little glowing brands above your heads could change overnight."
For a second, hope flickered in Clint's eyes—until Max tilted his head and added, voice smooth but merciless:
"But…" He raised his glass in a mock toast. "…you'd be nothing but paper tigers. Titles without teeth. Hollow. And trust me—here, in Horizon? That gets you killed faster than being Low."
The hope drained instantly. Clint muttered something under his breath, staring off to the side.
Steve frowned, lips pressed together, saying nothing. Natasha's eyes narrowed just slightly, weighing the words, though her expression stayed calm.
***
Support me at
patreon.com/boring_world
It's 22 chaps ahead