The smart play was to stay hidden.
That's what I told myself as I sat in my penthouse three days after my awakening, nursing an expensive bourbon and staring at my laptop screen. Marcus Cole's bank accounts showed eight million in liquid assets, another twenty million in stocks and property. Comfortable, but not enough. Not in a world where Tony Stark could buy countries and Hydra had infinite resources.
I needed more money. More resources. More *power*—the mundane kind that came with wealth and influence, not just the supernatural kind in my head.
Which meant I needed to test my abilities on actual people.
The thought made something cold settle in my stomach. I'd spent the last three days avoiding direct human contact, ordering food through delivery apps, making excuses to the building staff. Because using my power on a person wasn't like controlling a spider. It was crossing a line I couldn't uncross.
But this wasn't my old world. This was Marvel. A universe where playing fair got you killed. Where being weak meant being prey.
I drained the bourbon and made my decision.
Bernard Chen was a hedge fund manager who worked in the building next to mine. I'd found him by skimming the surface thoughts of people in nearby offices, looking for someone with access, minimal ethics, and just enough paranoia to be controlled without arousing suspicion.
Bernard was perfect. He was embezzling from his clients—small amounts they'd never notice—and lived in constant fear of getting caught. His mind was already primed for manipulation.
I found him at an upscale bar in Midtown at 7 PM, tie loosened, second martini in hand. He was thinking about his mistress, wondering if his wife suspected anything. The guilt was there, but buried under layers of rationalization.
I slid onto the stool next to him.
"Rough day?" I asked casually.
He glanced at me, dismissive. "You could say that."
"Bernard Chen, right? I've seen you around. I'm Marcus." I extended my hand.
He hesitated, then shook it. The moment our skin touched, I *pushed*.
His mind opened like a flower, and I slipped inside.
It was overwhelming. A lifetime of memories, fears, desires flooding into me all at once. I felt his love for his daughter, his resentment of his wife, his terror of going to prison, his desperate need for validation. Every shameful thought, every secret, laid bare.
I could rewrite him completely. Make him forget his family, his crimes, his entire identity. Transform him into a loyal puppet who'd do anything I asked.
The power was intoxicating.
Instead, I went surgical. I found the nodes of memory related to our conversation and *adjusted* them. When we'd met. How I'd impressed him with market insight. The growing trust he felt toward me. I planted the suggestion that I was someone he could rely on, someone who understood him.
Then I withdrew, letting go of his hand.
Bernard blinked, his expression shifting to warmth. "Marcus! Good to see you again, man. I was just thinking about that tip you gave me last week. Made a killing on those tech stocks."
I smiled. We'd never met before last week. He'd never given me any tips. But in his mind, we were old friends.
"Happy to help," I said smoothly. "Actually, I wanted to run something by you…"
By midnight, I had access to Bernard's accounts and client list. By the following morning, I'd used his credentials to set up a series of untraceable offshore accounts. By the end of the week, I'd siphoned $500,000 from various sources—money that would never be missed, taken in amounts too small to trigger any alarms.
Bernard would never know. More importantly, he'd never care. I'd adjusted his mind so that any discrepancies would seem like simple clerical errors, nothing to worry about.
It was almost too easy.
But it also taught me something important: I needed to be more careful than I'd thought. The first time I'd touched Bernard's mind, I'd nearly lost myself in the flood of information. If I wasn't disciplined, I could end up drowning in other people's thoughts, losing track of which memories were mine.
So I practiced.
I developed techniques. Mental walls to keep other minds at bay. Filters to sort through thoughts without being overwhelmed. A system for categorizing the information I gathered. I rewrote parts of my own neural architecture, granting myself perfect memory recall, enhanced processing speed, and emotional regulation.
Within two weeks, I'd turned myself into something more than human. Not physically—yet—but mentally, I was operating on a level that would make Stephen Hawking look like a slow learner.
And I'd made my first million dollars through corporate manipulation, insider trading, and strategic blackmail of people who'd never remember meeting me.
The original Marcus Cole had been directionless. But I had direction now.
I was going to build an empire in the shadows of the Marvel Universe. And once it was strong enough, I'd step out of those shadows and make sure no cosmic threat, no Thanos, no Celestial would ever be able to touch me.
But first, I needed allies. Real ones—people who chose to be with me, not because I'd rewritten their brains, but because we shared genuine connections.
Starting with someone who could teach me how to move through the criminal underworld of New York without getting killed.
I needed a thief.
And I knew exactly where to find one.