Brendon King was done hiding.
Not just behind cloaks, aliases, or projections — but behind the shadow of greater names. He had gone toe-to-toe with Justin Hammer, dismantled him, and walked away stronger.
Now it was time to build.
And to build properly, he needed shields.
The Visit to Stark
This time, Brendon didn't approach Tony Stark like a nervous startup hopeful. He didn't shuffle papers or hide the steel in his voice. He walked into the Stark Tower lobby dressed sharply, hair trimmed, shoulders squared. A man, not a boy.
The secretary raised an eyebrow. "Appointment?"
Brendon smiled faintly. "You'll want to tell him it's Brendon King."
Minutes later, he was face-to-face with Stark in his penthouse workshop — the man fiddling with a half-assembled gauntlet, sunglasses perched lazily on his nose.
"Kid," Tony said without looking up. "You're back. Didn't think you'd have the guts after last time."
Brendon leaned on the railing, gaze steady. "I didn't have the guts last time. Now I do."
That got Tony's attention. He glanced up, smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. "Someone's been drinking confidence shakes."
Brendon ignored the jab. "I'm building something. A community. Not just a company, not just tech. A movement. But movements attract enemies. I need protection — legitimate protection. Shields, contracts, partnerships. I need you."
Tony snorted. "What makes you think I don't have enough headaches? The military's on me every other day, SHIELD's always circling, and I've got a weapons-free mandate to babysit."
"Because," Brendon countered, "this buys you time. You put your name on my project, Hammer 2.0 types won't dare touch it. And when the time comes—" His tone dipped, deliberate. "—and you're in trouble, I'll be there. Count on it."
Tony froze just a second, sunglasses hiding his eyes. The words landed heavier than Brendon expected.
Finally, Tony chuckled. "You're playing a long game, aren't you?"
"Better than pretending to live in the short one."
For once, Tony didn't have a quip ready.
"I'll think about it," he said, turning back to his gauntlet.
Brendon left without pressing. He'd said enough.
Nirvana
While Stark mulled, the world caught fire.
The app Brendon had quietly seeded — Nirvana — exploded.
At first, it was a curiosity. A new platform with a clean interface, a countdown timer, and cryptic promises of "the next renaissance." Then word spread. Bloggers, influencers, small creators — they flocked in. Posts multiplied. Groups formed overnight.
It wasn't just scientists or engineers. Musicians shared compositions. Teenagers scribbled notes on urban farming. Painters uploaded drafts of community murals. Aspiring med students swapped theories about prosthetics.
Nirvana wasn't just an app. It was a spark.
By week three, it had millions of downloads. By week four, it was a global conversation. And Brendon, quietly watching, made sure the servers never buckled.
Not because they were ordinary servers.
Alien Foundations
Beneath the public gloss of tax returns and company ledgers, Brendon's true infrastructure thrummed.
Greymatter's schematics. Upgrade's touch. Diamondhead's lattices.
Servers built on crystal matrices that could store ten times the data of conventional silicon. Cooling systems that never overheated. Hardware optimized with alien precision, disguised under the veil of "R&D expenditure" and "experimental fabrication costs."
The books were airtight — Alicia and AEGIS made sure of it. Every dollar accounted for. Every receipt legitimate. Ironclad.
Investors thought Brendon was just clever with numbers. In reality, the hidden surplus funneled quietly into what Brendon simply called:
Hero Time.
A war chest. A private budget to fund Morpher — his upgrades, his contingencies, his future.
No one questioned it. No one could.
The Answer
It wasn't until the last week before Nirvana's official launch that Tony finally called.
Brendon answered in his workshop, half expecting another brush-off. Instead, Tony's voice came through sharp and casual, like he hadn't made the kid sweat for weeks.
"Alright, Brendon King," Tony said. "You've got yourself a handshake. Collaboration. Officially shielded under Stark Industries. You build your renaissance, I'll slap some iron plating on it. Just… try not to blow up the world, yeah?"
Brendon exhaled, a weight lifting from his chest. "Thanks, Tony. You won't regret it."
"Yeah, yeah. Everyone says that. Just don't make me clean up another Hammer mess."
The line cut.
Brendon leaned back, staring at the Omnitrix on his wrist. For the first time in weeks, he felt the path forward not just clear, but bright.
Stark's POV
Tony set his phone down and leaned back in his chair, staring at the skyline.
The kid had changed.
A year ago, he'd been a wide-eyed tinkerer with too much coffee and too many ideas. Now he walked in sharp, words like blades, talking about movements and legacies like he actually believed he could pull it off.
And maybe he could.
Tony didn't say it out loud, but in the quiet corners of his mind, he admitted: Brendon King was the first kid in a long time who actually reminded him of himself.
Maybe sharper. Maybe hungrier.
And maybe, just maybe, dangerous in all the right ways.