Chapter 2: Growing Pains
POV: Clark (age 7)
The Lucky Penny sat warm against Clark's palm as he lined up his shot. Across the playground blacktop, Tommy Kowalski squinted in concentration, his own quarter balanced on his thumb.
"You're going down, Collins," Tommy announced with the swagger of a seven-year-old who'd won the last three coin tosses. "Nobody's luck's that good."
"If only you knew."
Clark smiled and flipped the penny into the air, watching it catch September sunlight as it spun. The artifact's power hummed through him like a tuning fork, gentle but insistent. For a brief moment, as the penny reached its apex, he could feel the probability waves rippling around him. Heads. It would be heads.
It always was, when he needed it to be.
The penny hit the asphalt with a tiny metallic ping. Heads.
"Son of a—" Tommy caught himself before Mrs. Peterson could hear. "That's like, the tenth time in a row!"
"Lucky guess," Clark said, scooping up both quarters. The penny disappeared back into his pocket, warm against his fingers.
Around the schoolyard, other kids were starting to notice. Whispering. Pointing. Clark Collins, the weird kid who'd gotten "sick" in first grade and come back different. The kid who always won bets, always found lost lunch money, always somehow knew when to duck before a dodgeball hit him in the head.
"Clark's got a rabbit's foot or something," he heard Jessica Martinez tell her friend. "My sister says he collects weird stuff. Like, really weird stuff."
"Five artifacts and counting," Clark thought, fingering the Ever-Full Canteen hidden in his backpack. "And I'm just getting started."
He'd learned to be careful. That first mission—sneaking out to Central Park, finding the lost girl Sarah Chen by following the penny's pulls, returning her to her frantic parents—had taught him the value of subtlety. The system gave him power, but it was the kind of power that drew attention if he wasn't smart about it.
So he was smart. He won coin tosses but lost occasionally to keep people from getting suspicious. He found lost things but claimed it was "just luck." He helped people in ways that looked accidental, coincidental, natural.
The artifacts helped. The Lucky Penny for probability manipulation. The Warming Gloves that kept his hands steady in cold weather. The Returner's Coin that always came back to him when thrown. Small things. E-tier. But enough to make him feel like he was building toward something larger.
The system agreed.
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 4]
[STAMINA: 125/125]
[NEW ARTIFACT DETECTED]
[SCANNING...]
Clark blinked, pretending to scratch his eye while the text scrolled past his vision. Seven-year-old eyes that had learned to hide too much, too fast.
[ARTIFACT TYPE: E-TIER]
[DESIGNATION: TRUTH SEEKER'S MARBLE]
[LOCATION: ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH, BROOKLYN]
[MISSION: HELP THREE TROUBLED SOULS FIND PEACE]
[TIME LIMIT: 72 HOURS]
[ACCEPT? Y/N]
Church missions were tricky. They usually involved helping people with problems too big for artifacts to solve directly. But the rewards were always worth it.
Clark focused on "Y" and felt the familiar click.
"Hey, Collins!" Tommy was gathering his friends, clearly planning something. "Bet you can't guess what number I'm thinking of!"
"Actually, I probably could if I really tried. But that's exactly the kind of attention I don't need."
"I don't read minds, Tommy," Clark said, shouldering his backpack. "I'm just lucky with coins."
"Yeah, right. My dad says nobody's that lucky. Says you're either cheating or—"
"Or what?"
Tommy's face went red. "Nothing. Forget it."
But Clark had heard this before. Other parents whispering about the Collins kid. How he'd been normal until that weird episode in first grade. How he'd started finding things, winning things, knowing things. Some called it luck. Others called it something else.
The word freak floated around the edges of their conversations like smoke.
"They're not wrong," Clark thought as he walked away from the coin toss crowd. "I am a freak. Just not the kind they're thinking of."
POV: Clark (age 12)
The Ever-Full Canteen materialized water like magic, which technically it was. Clark handed it to the homeless veteran, Marcus—different Marcus, not his father—and watched the man's weathered face crease with surprise.
"Damn thing's heavier than it looks," Marcus said, hefting the artifact. "And cold. How's it so cold?"
"It keeps things fresh," Clark said. "Forever, actually. And it'll never run empty. But I can't tell you that without sounding completely insane."
They sat on a bench in Prospect Park, Clark officially "at soccer practice" but actually finishing up his latest mission. The Truth Seeker's Marble had led him to seven different people over the past four years, each one carrying pain like a stone in their chest. Marcus was the seventh. A Vietnam vet whose nightmares had cost him his family, his job, and finally his home.
"Kid like you shouldn't be hanging around places like this," Marcus said, but his voice was gentle. "Where are your parents?"
"They think I'm playing sports." Clark pulled a sandwich from his backpack—peanut butter and jelly, cut diagonally the way Sarah did. "Want half?"
"I'm not a charity case."
"I know. It's just..." Clark searched for words that wouldn't sound patronizing. "My mom always packs too much. Says I'm a growing boy."
Marcus studied him for a long moment, then accepted the sandwich half. They ate in comfortable silence, watching pigeons peck at crumbs near the pond.
"You're an odd duck, kid," Marcus finally said. "Most twelve-year-olds don't sit with old bums in the park."
"You're not a bum. You served your country."
"That was a long time ago."
"Doesn't stop being true."
The Truth Seeker's Marble pulsed warm in Clark's pocket. This was it. The moment where he either helped or failed.
"My friend's dad works for the VA," Clark said carefully. "Says they've got new programs. For housing, job training. Might be worth checking out."
Marcus's laugh was bitter. "Kid, I've been through the system. It's all red tape and broken promises."
"Maybe. But what if it's not? What if this time is different?"
"What if you take the canteen and let it give you hope? What if the water tastes like possibility instead of despair?"
Marcus took another sip from the canteen, and something in his posture shifted. Subtle. Almost invisible. But Clark had learned to read people's reactions to the artifacts. The Ever-Full Canteen didn't just provide water—it provided what the drinker needed most. For some, that was healing. For others, it was clarity.
For Marcus, it seemed to be hope.
"Maybe I'll make a call," the veteran said quietly. "Been thinking about it anyway."
[MISSION COMPLETE]
[REWARD: TRUTH SEEKER'S MARBLE ACTIVATED]
[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: DETECT LIES]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +250 XP]
The marble grew warm in his pocket, its power settling into his awareness like a new sense. He could feel the truth of things now, the weight of honesty and deception in people's words.
"Thank you," Marcus said, and the marble confirmed what Clark already knew—the gratitude was real, unfiltered, from the heart.
"Take care of yourself," Clark replied, standing to leave. "And keep the canteen. It's yours now."
"Kid, I can't—"
"Sure you can. Call it a veteran's discount."
Clark walked away before Marcus could argue, leaving the man with an artifact that would keep him fed and hydrated while he found his way back to the world. It wasn't a perfect solution—no artifact was—but it was a start.
And sometimes, starts were enough.
POV: Clark (age 19)
The NYPD psychologist's office smelled like coffee and industrial carpet cleaner. Dr. Helen Reyes sat across from Clark, his file open on her desk like an autopsy report.
"Let's talk about the incident with the evidence locker," she said, pen poised over her notepad.
Clark shifted in his chair, the Interview Jacket—his newest D-tier artifact—humming with nervous energy. The thing was supposed to help him read people, but it also made him hypersensitive to emotional undercurrents. Right now, it was telling him that Dr. Reyes was skeptical, concerned, and more than a little annoyed.
"I told you," he said. "I noticed the locker was improperly secured. Basic observation."
"From across the room. Through a crowd of other officers. While facing the opposite direction."
"Okay, when she puts it like that, it does sound impossible."
"I have good peripheral vision."
The lie-detecting marble in his pocket grew warm. He was lying, and the artifact knew it. Worse, Dr. Reyes seemed to sense it too.
"Clark," she said, setting down her pen. "In your three months at the academy, you've demonstrated uncanny situational awareness, solved problems before anyone else noticed them, and somehow avoided every surprise inspection and random drill. Your instructors are calling you either the luckiest cadet they've ever seen, or the most suspiciously prescient."
"I prefer lucky."
"So do I. But luck doesn't explain knowing that Officer Martinez was about to slip on wet stairs he couldn't see. Luck doesn't explain finding evidence that seasoned detectives missed. And luck certainly doesn't explain your ability to predict weather changes with ninety-eight percent accuracy."
The Interview Jacket was practically vibrating now, feeding him every micro-expression on Dr. Reyes's face. She wasn't just suspicious—she was building a case.
"Maybe I'm just good at pattern recognition," Clark tried.
"Maybe. Or maybe you're seeing things the rest of us can't see."
"And there it is. The question I've been dreading."
Dr. Reyes leaned forward. "Clark, I need you to be honest with me. Are you experiencing any unusual sensory phenomena? Hallucinations? Voices? Objects or lights that others can't see?"
Clark felt the weight of sixteen artifacts in his apartment, hidden in a false bottom drawer like a secret he'd die protecting. The Tracking Compass that never pointed wrong. The Warming Gloves that had saved him from frostbite during winter training. The Swift Step Shoes that let him run faster than humanly possible.
All of them glowing with soft golden light that only he could see.
"No," he said. "Nothing like that."
The Truth Seeker's Marble burned against his leg. Liar.
Dr. Reyes wrote something in his file. Her pen scratched like fingernails on glass.
"Clark, you're a good kid. Smart, dedicated, clean record. But the NYPD can't have officers who operate on... unconventional information sources. It's a liability issue. Do you understand?"
He understood perfectly. They thought he was either crazy or crooked, and either way, he was done.
"Am I being dismissed from the program?"
"You're being given a choice. Undergo a full psychological evaluation—the kind that takes weeks and leaves no stone unturned—or withdraw voluntarily."
"Weeks of tests. Brain scans. Questions I can't answer without revealing everything. They'd lock me up or study me like a lab rat."
Clark looked at Dr. Reyes, her face kind but implacable, and made the only choice he could.
"I'll withdraw."
She nodded, unsurprised. "I'll process the paperwork. For what it's worth, I think you'll make a fine investigator someday. Just... maybe not in an official capacity."
As Clark left the academy for the last time, his instructors' voices echoed in his memory:
"Kid's either crazy or on drugs."
"Or maybe just special."
Special. That was one word for it.
POV: Clark (age 21)
The office in Hell's Kitchen was a monument to optimistic desperation. Clark sat behind a desk bought at a police auction, surrounded by filing cabinets that contained exactly three case files and a lot of empty space. The sign on his door read "CLARK COLLINS, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR" in letters he'd painted himself.
Outside, rain drummed against windows that hadn't been cleaned since the Carter administration. Inside, Clark practiced looking professional while eating ramen from a cup and wondering if he'd made a terrible mistake.
His phone rang. The actual landline, because this was 2008 and he couldn't afford a decent cell plan.
"Collins Investigations."
"Is this the guy who finds things?" The voice was female, middle-aged, nervous.
"Depends what you're looking for."
"My husband. I think he's... I think he's not where he says he is."
Clark pulled out a notepad that was mostly empty and tried to sound like he knew what he was doing. "Name's Clark Collins. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"
Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Helen Patterson sat across from his desk, wedding ring twisted around her finger like worry made solid. Her husband of fifteen years had been "working late" three nights a week for the past two months. She'd called his office. They said he left at five-thirty every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
"I just need to know," she said. "Is he... is he with someone else?"
Clark looked at her—really looked, the way the Interview Jacket taught him—and saw the truth written in the lines around her eyes. She already knew. She just needed proof.
"My rate is two hundred a day plus expenses," he said, which was cheap for a PI and expensive for his current financial situation. "I'll need a retainer."
"How much?"
"Four hundred. Two days upfront."
She wrote the check with hands that shook slightly. "How long will it take?"
Clark palmed the Tracking Compass from his desk drawer, felt its weight and warmth. "Not long. I'll have answers for you by Thursday."
Following Mr. Patterson turned out to be the easiest four hundred dollars Clark had ever earned. The Tracking Compass led him straight to a motel in Astoria, where Patterson was indeed not alone. Clark took pictures, documented times and dates, and tried not to feel like a vulture.
When he delivered the evidence to Mrs. Patterson, she looked at the photos for exactly thirty seconds before closing the folder.
"Thank you," she said, writing him a bonus check. "You saved me months of wondering."
"I'm sorry it wasn't better news."
"Better to know than to guess." She stood, gathered her purse, and paused at the door. "Mr. Collins? You're good at this. You found him faster than I thought possible."
"I'm motivated by rent money."
She smiled—the first genuine smile he'd seen from her. "Keep this up, and you won't have to worry about rent much longer."
After she left, Clark sat in his empty office and looked at the bonus check. Five hundred dollars. Enough to eat something other than ramen for a week.
The phone rang again before he could deposit it.
"Collins Investigations."
"Yeah, I heard you're the guy who finds people."
"That's right."
"I need you to find my daughter. She's missing, and the cops ain't doing shit."
Clark pulled out his notepad. "Tell me everything."
By the end of the week, he'd solved two missing persons cases, tracked down a stolen car, and helped a grandmother locate a nephew who'd disappeared into the city's homeless population. Word was spreading through the kinds of communities that needed private investigators: the desperate, the overlooked, the people who fell through the cracks of official help.
"Weird but effective," his clients started calling him. It wasn't the reputation he'd planned, but it was honest work that paid the bills.
More importantly, it was preparation. Every case taught him something about the city, about people, about the kinds of problems that would matter when the world learned it wasn't alone.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[EXPERIENCE MILESTONE REACHED]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 15]
[NEW DETECTION RANGE: CONTINENTAL]
[MAJOR ARTIFACT DETECTED]
Clark looked up from his filing, heart suddenly racing.
[ARTIFACT TYPE: B-TIER]
[MULTIPLE SOURCES DETECTED]
[LOCATION: STARK TOWER, MANHATTAN]
[SCANNING...]
Outside his window, the lights of Manhattan glittered like promises. Somewhere in that maze of glass and steel, Tony Stark was building the future.
And Clark's system had just noticed.
"Seventeen years," he whispered to the empty office. "Time's up."
His phone rang again, but this time, the caller ID made his blood freeze:
STARK INDUSTRIES HR.
Clark stared at the phone for three rings, then picked up.
"Collins Investigations."
"Mr. Collins? This is Virginia Potts from Stark Industries. We have a situation that requires... unconventional investigative techniques. Are you available for consultation?"
Through his window, Clark could see Stark Tower rising like a spear against the night sky. Inside it, somewhere, artifacts were waiting. B-tier. Real power. The kind that could change everything.
"It's starting. The real game is starting."
"Yes," he said. "I'm available."
"Excellent. How quickly can you be here?"
Clark looked at his empty office, his hand-painted sign, his desk full of small cases and smaller dreams. Then he looked at Stark Tower and the future waiting inside it.
"I'm on my way."
He hung up, locked his desk, and stepped into the rain. Seventeen years of preparation, of building skills and collecting artifacts and learning to be something the world had never seen.
Now it was time to find out if it had been enough.
Behind him, his office waited in darkness. Ahead, the tower blazed with light and possibility.
Clark Collins, private investigator, walked into the night. When he emerged, he'd be something else entirely.
The system hummed in his mind like a promise. Or a threat.
Time would tell which.
+1 CHAPTER AFTER EVERY 3 REVIEWS
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
To supporting Me in Pateron .
Love [ In Marvel With Artifact System ]? Unlock More Chapters and Support the Story!
Dive deeper into the world of [ In Marvel With Artifact System ] with exclusive access to 25+ chapters on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $5/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes like [ Game Of Throne ,MCU and Arrowverse, Breaking Bad , The Walking dead ,The Hobbit,Wednesday].
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
👉 Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!