The world found Tony Stark…though it's really Tony Stark who found the world.
The news spread like wildfire, the media had the mother of all orgasms, the stock market convulsing with glee. Stark Industries surged by 28% before the first bell even rang.
By noon, Ethan Cain was richer than most of his teachers, a handful of senators, and probably that one smug dad from Long Island who kept bragging about his investment gains at every PTA meeting, making sure to mention his lakeside house in Maine.
The numbers kept going up and up, to the moon some would say, though it was starting to slow down a bit, he could still see another thirty percent raise before the stock would stabilize.
Ethan stood in his room, staring at his screen in dead silence. Then, with the blankest expression imaginable, he clicked.
Sell. All.
Stark Industries stocks and all affiliated sub-companies, gone in a blink, followed by all companies he invested in after their losses due to deep partnerships with Stark that were also seeing a meteoric rise through simple osmosis.
Sold. All of it. Every share he'd scooped up when the company dipped during Tony's disappearance, every scrap he'd bought while telling his parents it was "just school project stuff", converted into cold, beautiful numeric cash.
Magnificent.
And then, just as the market stabilized and the hype crescendoed, Ethan clicked again.
Short. All. Of. It.
It was, by every traditional definition, a stupid, reckless, absolute-degenerate play. He was betting against the golden boy of American military innovation on the very day he came back from the dead.
His phone rang ten minutes later.
"Ethan." His broker's voice was pinched, nervous. "Tell me you misclicked."
Ethan sat calmly at his desk, eating an apple like nothing mattered. "No misclick."
There was a pause on the other end, seconds where no brain activity was detected on either side, as one tried to figure out the kind of bullshit he was hearing, wondering if Ethan was on drugs.
"...You're shorting Stark Industries."
"Correct."
"You're shorting Stark Industries... the day Tony Stark is found alive."
"Yes."
"After selling your entire position, which was already up more than 240%."
"Also yes."
"You realize this is—"
"A completely irrational move based on market euphoria and blind optimism? Yep."
Another pause.
"Ethan," the man said carefully, like one might talk to someone holding a grenade with the pin half-out, "you're betting your entire profit... that the most beloved billionaire in the country will immediately say something to tank his own stock."
"Yup."
"You have no way of knowing that."
Ethan leaned back in his chair, the apple still crunching between his teeth.
"Obviously," he said, grinning.
And he did. Not because he could see the future, but because he'd seen the future. Cosmic-insider-trading at its finest. He'd watched Iron Man back home more times than he cared to admit. He knew the script. He knew what was coming.
He knew that there was a bugger desperate to buy all the stock he could to enact his take-over, despite the current spike.
He knew Tony was in fact insane enough to tank his stock, and with a smile too.
He just had to wait.
And hope he didn't somehow change the world so much that Tony lost his character development and was still clueless about the fact that supplying the world's biggest bully with weapons might have some unforeseen circumstances.
So was he worried that he just lost all of his financial power? The wealth he spent his entire life gathering, one independently remunerated vigilante raid at a time, every guilt-induced Peter exploitation, all the hours spent cooped up in front of a computer instead of relaxing with Gwen.
All for a chance to make way more.
. . .
That night, Tony Stark stood in front of the press looking like a ghost in a thousand-dollar suit. Cameras flashed. Journalists shouted. Pepper stood behind him like a lighthouse in the storm, before Obadiah abducted him (metaphorically this time,) in an effort to make as many bucks out of this situation.
"I never got to say goodbye to my father," Tony said, voice low and hollow. "There's questions I would've asked him. I would've asked him how he felt about what his company did. If he ever thought about the lives ruined because of it."
A pause. Then the flood.
"Effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons division of Stark Industries."
It was like someone detonated a bomb. Not in some foreign oil-rich country—in New York, on Wall Street, in your mom's retirement funds.
The stock plummeted.
Ethan's short exploded in value.
His phone rang again within seconds.
"Ethan." His broker's voice was strangled. "What the hell just happened?!"
"I told you to wait."
"YOU JUST—YOU DOUBLED YOUR NET WORTH."
"Technically, I quintupled it. You're welcome."
"I—why didn't you tell me?! I would've shorted too!" He said, despite Ethan actually doing the darn short being as big an advice as he could give.
"Because you would've tried to stop me." He said smiling widely despite his broker's financial panic.
A beat. Then the line went dead.
Ethan sat alone in his room, surrounded by glowing screens, and looked at the number at the bottom right corner of his trading dashboard:
$5,087,448.27
He felt… weird.
Not euphoric. Not victorious.
Lightheaded.
His heart beat slower, like his body didn't know what to do with this. This was more than he could emotionally process. He tried to smile normally instead of looking like a crazy person.
Failed.
Then, without hesitating, he clicked again.
Buy.
Stark Industries. Again.
He bought back in at the bottom.
It wasn't about loyalty. It was because Tony Stark was many things, but unprofitable wasn't one of them. The company would survive. It would pivot. And now it was undervalued.
The screen updated. Ethan's cash dwindled—but he was still a multimillionaire, barely.
His phone rang again.
He didn't even answer. He could picture his broker hyperventilating into a paper bag.
. . .
Business on the personal front was going well too. Not as dramatic as his glorified financial gambling, but stable.
He and Peter had launched a few new apps—clean, addictive, free-to-play games with unobtrusive ads and subtle, manipulative reward loops that were set up just right to make some future micro-transactions possible when the user base was stable.
Ethan marketed them to kids, to moms and bored students. Peter coded them like a wizard. They got a few features on the app stores. Then came the downloads. Then the ad revenue.
Nothing huge. But steady.
Ethan paid Peter monthly by now. Hired a second dev from a coding forum under a fake LLC. Bought a decent customer support contract. Upgraded the hosting plan, hired an actual accountant.
It wasn't sexy. But it made money.
And with money came freedom.
He flew his parents to Hawaii for the first time ever. His mom cried when they landed. His dad wore socks on the beach and insisted on comparing every pineapple to the ones in the supermarket back home. They sent him photos of them in a luau, their ridiculous hotel suite, and came back as a pair of happy parents who forgot to whoop his arse for the Harlem Incident.
He was banking on them never remembering, literally.
Next would be Scotland—his dad's dream trip. They'd go to castles, drink way too much tea, and drive on the wrong side of the road without dying.
And next? Switzerland.
Neutral, quiet, expensive Switzerland.
Ethan booked them two weeks in Alps, no time limit. No reason.
Well. One reason.
Because when the sky splits open and the aliens come pouring through, Zurich is going to be a hell of a lot safer than Manhattan.
Maybe they'd get snowed in.
Maybe they'd be in a bunker sipping hot cocoa while the rest of the world exploded.
Maybe Ethan would sleep better at night knowing that if anything ever went wrong, his family was safe, tucked away somewhere the Avengers probably wouldn't even notice.
He didn't know what the future held, not anymore.
But sometimes?
It sure felt like he could cheat it.
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.