The room was silent. Only the soft hum of the air purifier and the glow of my laptop screen broke the stillness. I sat at the edge of the bed, leg still braced but healing, and let the reality sink in.
It's 2005. I'm twenty, in the body of Alexander Stem.
He was a spoiled heir, a drinker, a scandal-maker. Now I occupy his life—as a man who needs more than money. I need influence. I need power people respect. I need strength.
Because even if I control billions, in this world, it won't matter when gods like Thor or Loki step in. Or someone like Thanos. Shadows inside SHIELD, remnants of Hydra—they're already skirting power. I can't rely on wealth alone to bend their will.
I closed the laptop. Pulling my sleeve up, I looked at my skinny arm. Bony. Weak. It felt wrong holding the name Stem and having nothing of substance underneath. If I'm going to build influence, I start with what I can control.
Alexander opened a fresh notebook and began writing.
He understands what he was dealing with — not just the past, but the future.
The year is 2005.
Tony Stark hasn't been kidnapped yet. The Mark 1 suit doesn't exist.
The Avengers Initiative is probably just an idea in some folder inside SHIELD.
But Hydra still hides inside it.
Thanos is out there, somewhere.
That future wasn't a distant fantasy anymore. This was real.
He closed the notebook and leaned back in the chair, staring at his reflection in the dark glass of the balcony door.
The first thing that had to change… was his body.
It started in silence.
The morning after Cain agreed to help, I deleted every app and distraction from my phone. No press releases, no party invites. I ghosted the world. The headlines about Alexander Stem dried up. Rumors circled about rehab, overseas clinics, even death. But I didn't care. Let them speculate.
For twelve months, I didn't exist.
Not to them, anyway.
The Training
The first few weeks were hell.
My muscles tore and screamed. My lungs felt like they were lined with barbed wire. Running? I couldn't manage half a mile without cramping up. Cain made sure I ran anyway.
We started with the basics: daily runs, strength work, and boxing drills. I'd wake up at 5 a.m., jog through the private estate grounds with ankle weights, then hit the private gym Cain had outfitted. There were no machines. Just free weights, steel bars, sandbags, ropes, and a heavy bag. Old-school, brutal, and honest.
Cain was always there, silent and watching. If I slowed, he pushed. If I broke form, he corrected me. He wasn't the talkative type—but he never missed a beat. I learned quickly he wasn't just a bodyguard. He was ex-military, ex-intelligence, and a ghost in combat circles. And now, he was mine.
After the first month, I wasn't vomiting after workouts anymore. My endurance increased. My chest and arms thickened. Veins began showing on my forearms. The skinny, spoiled shell of Alexander began to fade.
Cain made a call. Trainers started arriving. Not from LA or New York—but Israel, South Korea, Brazil. No names I could find online. Some didn't even speak English. But when they moved, it was like watching instinct take form. Precision. Fluid violence.
From one, I learned Krav Maga—close combat designed to end fights in seconds. From another, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu—how to choke a man unconscious or dislocate a joint using leverage, not strength. Then came the Muay Thai instructor. Elbows, knees, clinches—weaponizing the human body.
The sessions were long and cruel. I bled. I lost teeth. I had fractures, sprains, bruised ribs. But I kept going. Pain became part of the routine.
The Body
By month six, the mirror didn't show a playboy anymore.
My jaw was sharper, leaner. My shoulders were broader, posture upright. My hands—once soft from disuse—were thick with calluses. My abs carved themselves out from the discipline. I wasn't a bodybuilder. I didn't want to be. But I looked like someone who could take a punch—and deliver one that mattered.
The transformation was noticed—at least by Cain.
"You're not there yet," he'd say when I dropped a guy in sparring. "But you're not a joke anymore."
That was the closest thing to praise he ever gave.
The Mind
But I didn't just build my body.
I trained my mind with equal violence. Cain insisted on it. "Strength without control is noise. Intelligence is what turns it into threat," he said one morning, handing me a Mandarin textbook.
"Why Mandarin?" I asked.
"Because they're everywhere," he replied. "And Arabic. Because no one expects a rich American to speak it."
I studied every night. Two hours minimum. Flashcards. Tutors. Immersion. Some days I'd do mock conversations for an hour straight, repeating phrases until I could argue in both languages. My pronunciation sucked at first. By month eight, I was holding full conversations.
And not just language.
Cain introduced me to firearms.
The range was a remote facility under a false name, licensed privately through one of my shell companies. He brought out pistols, rifles, submachine guns—taught me stances, trigger control, reload drills, and blindfolded disassemblies. We shot in rain, heat, even night—until I could put three bullets through a target's chest in under two seconds from a cold draw.
He tested me constantly. Pop quizzes on military tactics. Escape drills. Blindfolded nav walks with GPS cut off. I was building muscle memory—not just to fight, but to survive, evade, and control chaos.
The Silence
The world didn't hear from Alexander Stem for a year.
No Instagram posts. No headlines. No scandals. Just static. People assumed I was in rehab, or off on another binge overseas.
The truth? I was carving out a new identity, one set apart from my father's shadow. Not a public one. Not a flashy persona.
But a version of myself that could walk into danger—and come out alive.
And Cain? He didn't baby me. But the longer he spent around me, the more his approach shifted.
He still barked orders. Still pushed. But I'd catch him watching—not evaluating, but considering. Like something in him was starting to believe in what I was doing. Maybe he didn't say it. But it showed—in the way he stopped reporting every injury to my father. In the way he started throwing harder punches during sparring, knowing I could take them.
He never called me "sir." Just "kid," or sometimes "boss." But the respect was there. Earned, not given.
One Year Later
I didn't become a superhero.
I didn't unlock hidden powers or discover I was secretly enhanced.
But I became dangerous.
I could bench 240, deadlift over 300. My run times were down, my reaction time up. I could fight, escape, shoot, and speak three languages with fluency. I knew how to build an alibi, trace an email, disappear from digital maps.
And most importantly—I knew who I was. Not the old Alexander. Not some clone of his father. But something sharper. Focused. Quiet.
The world still didn't know I existed.
But soon, they would.
And when they did, I'd be ready.