Setting up the LLC wasn't hard. It was annoying, sure. Ethan still remembered how his stomach churned filling out forms under a pseudonym in a dingy internet café near Queens Boulevard, but legally speaking, it was clean.
He used an out-of-state registry service in Delaware with nominee officers to mask the ownership trail and linked it to a business account opened with documents that could survive a quick glance.
Not CIA-level scrutiny, let alone the glow in the dark buggers at Shield.
But Ethan didn't plan on climbing high enough to get that kind of heat.
It gave the illusion of a proper startup—two teenagers in a basement spinning out mobile games and freemium productivity tools, an email client that didn't suck (Peter's idea), a snappy image compression API (also Peter), and the juggernaut: Subway Surfer, now updated with a Lunar New Year event and endless ad revenue.
The problem? Anonymity cost money. The registered agent took a monthly cut. The nominee services charged yearly. The banking situation had to be kept functional without triggering fraud alerts, and most of all, the LLC bled under taxes.
New York, federal, self-employment, FICA, it felt like the government took a victory lap every time they filed.
And yet, he made money. Real money.
Not because of careful planning, he'd flinched at more than one invoice, but because Peter's raw brilliance meant everything they launched gained traction. Clean code, polished UX, and the charm of "indie-built" made their apps and tools weirdly trustworthy to consumers, despite being orchestrated by a manipulative telekinetic dropout and an overstressed high schooler.
Peter, of course, had no stake in the LLC. Ethan made sure of that. No shares, no voting rights, no equity of any kind.
Instead, he paid Peter off like a small-time celebrity doing sponsored posts. Large sums, thousands at a time, often more than most interns at Stark Industries made.
Enough to make Peter feel valued, but not enough to make him think he owned anything.
And it worked.
Peter never asked about the business model. He never questioned who actually received the royalties. He just seemed grateful. Grateful in the way of someone who had carried guilt like an anvil and suddenly had a soft place to rest it.
Better than the Bugle, at the very least.
. . .
Elsewhere, in a facility so bureaucratic it could suffocate you with recycled air and acronyms, Director Nicholas Fury who definitely didn't have a middle name, sighed through another enhanced individual report.
He sat behind a desk stacked with enough manila folders to choke a filing clerk, each one labeled with some variation of "potential asset," "anomaly," or "hazardous."
This one had no code name yet, and at the moment was lumped alongside a dozen more he'd barely look at; a few fuzzy satellite photos, a public arrest report scrubbed from precinct records, and a note: Possible pyromaniac tendencies, possible relations to former KGB trainers, suspected limited kinetic manipulation. Strong CYA recommendation.
Fury didn't finish it. He never did anymore.
Instead, he tossed it onto the pile beside a half-drained coffee mug and looked up as his best agent entered…though he would never admit it in front of the man.
Nick Fury didn't fidget. He never did. He sat at his desk like someone who'd once taught paranoia how to shave and still checked under his bed just to be sure. One eye scanned a half-dozen reports on his screen. The other eye, the missing one, got more done just by not being there—because no one ever forgot it was gone.
Across from him, Phil Coulson stood like he always did: straight-backed, calm, and deadly in the way only pencil-pushers with a dozen languages and three black belts could be. His suit was boring in the way expensive things often were.
For a moment, a not so blissful silence reigned supreme.
"They actually lost him?" Fury asked, voice flat. Not surprised. Not even annoyed. Just tired in that particular way one gets when reality insists on being stupider than fiction.
Coulson gave a short nod. "Convoy got hit in the Kunar Province. Local time 12:17. Four Humvees shredded. Two survivors. No sign of Stark."
Fury let the words sit for a moment, then leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach.
"They lose a billionaire weapons manufacturer in the middle of a mountain pass. Middle of a PR tour, no less." He tasted yet another string of words he'd never thought he'd say.
"Not exactly a stealth op," Coulson agreed, "They wanted to make a statement."
"Did they?" Fury's brow raised. "Or did they want the man?"
"No ransom, no manifesto. Just clean-up teams finding burnt metal and a broken GPS."
Fury exhaled. "They'll scream terrorism and start looking for someone to bomb. Let them. Meanwhile, I want everything we've got on the ground over there. Eyes, drones, contractors with plausible deniability."
"We've got chatter in the region," Coulson said. "A few groups celebrating, but nobody taking credit. Could be they're keeping him, not killing him."
"Smart," Fury said, his voice like gravel dragged across asphalt. "They'll try to squeeze the secrets out of him."
He paused, eye narrowing. "Or make him build something worse."
Coulson didn't respond. He didn't have to.
"And the suits?" Fury asked, speaking about powerful people in suits, not those made of gold and titanium, those have yet to be made.
"They want answers. Updates. Some want to know if this jeopardizes other operations."
"It is the other operations. Stark goes missing, half our future files go with him." Fury snorted.
People who could hack anything were really a major pain in the ass.
He reached over and tapped his screen, minimizing the casualty reports, the satellite pings, and the half-scribbled list of "potential replacements", none of whom had Stark's mind, money, or media pull.
Who thought it was a good idea to add Hammer Industries to the list, Nick didn't know, or they'd already be fired.
"I'll brief them," Coulson said, already bracing for the migraine.
"No," Fury muttered. "Let them wonder. Maybe the silence will scare 'em."
Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, "Any leads?"
"A cave. A dust trail. Nothing worth a plane ticket yet." Coulson's shrug was minimal, though the fact that he mentioned it at all was already decent news.
"Then we wait. And we watch." Fury grunted.
He turned back to the screen, the blue glow lighting up the scars on his face like old roadmaps. He didn't say it out loud, but both men understood: the world had just shifted slightly off its axis. Something had been set in motion. They just didn't know what.
Not yet.
All they knew was the Shield would be on top, protecting the world from itself.
. . .
Back in Queens, Ethan watched a notification slide in.
Revenue up 18% month-over-month.
His mind wandered. Subway Surfer was dominating the app store. Their productivity suite had a slow but stable install base in Asia. Peter was already talking about a prototype for a password manager that didn't make you want to punch your screen.
And Ethan?
Ethan was finally breathing easy.
Not because the money was flowing. Not because Peter was loyal, or because S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't kicked in his door for some reasons, or even because it was another day without Xavier's Institute for Child Soldiers knocking on the door.
He was grateful for that last one though.
But because, for the first time since waking up in this bastardized blend of comics, cartoons, and cinematic grit, he wasn't just reacting.
He was building and eventually, someone was going to notice.
But as a wise man once said.
"Tomorrow's problems are for tomorrow's me."
It couldn't be that bad, right?
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying the story and want to read ahead or support my work, you can check out my P@treon at [email protected]/LordCampione. But don't worry—all chapters will eventually be public. Just being here and reading means the world to me. Thank you for your time and support.