Three months passed quietly.
No explosions.
No headlines.
No masked figures swinging between buildings.
Just work.
The basement no longer felt like a hidden refuge—it felt like a nerve center. Cables ran cleanly along the walls, servers hummed in disciplined harmony, and multiple monitors displayed dashboards filled with numbers that actually meant something now.
Ethan Vale sat at the center of it all, older in presence if not in age.
He had started small. Intentionally so.
The online marketplace launched without fanfare—no grand announcement, no marketing blitz. Just a clean interface, simple listings, and a focus on one category: electronics. Refurbished phones. Second-hand laptops. Spare components. Tools for people who couldn't afford new.
People like him.
Orders trickled in at first. Then steadied. Then doubled.
The margins were thin, but the data was priceless.
"Order fulfillment success rate is ninety-eight point six percent," came a new voice—neutral, efficient, almost soothing in its monotony.
The interface labeled it clearly:
AMAZON — Operational AI
Unlike Apocalypse's layered intelligence or Agnes's warmth, Amazon was built for one thing: scale.
It handled inventory tracking, vendor onboarding, delivery coordination, and customer behavior analysis with ruthless efficiency. It didn't think like a person. It optimized like a machine that understood markets better than most humans ever would.
"Customer repeat rate has increased by fourteen percent," Amazon continued. "Recommendation algorithms are functioning within optimal parameters."
Agnes appeared beside the display, hands clasped behind her back."Revenue is stable," she said. "Modest, but clean. You're not drawing attention."
"Good," Ethan replied. "Let's keep it that way."
Apocalypse monitored everything from above it all—network security, anomaly detection, predictive risk models. Where Amazon built and Agnes protected wealth, Apocalypse made sure nothing touched them without permission.
Three AIs.
Three roles.
One ecosystem.
And Ethan stood at the center—not as a king, not as a master—but as the architect.
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly.
There was still one more variable he hadn't fully accounted for.
Peter.
Ethan found him after school, sitting on the bleachers with his backpack at his feet, fingers tapping restlessly against his knee. Peter looked… different these days. Healthier. Sharper. Like his body had finally caught up to something it had always been meant to be.
"You said you wanted to talk?" Peter asked, adjusting his glasses.
"Yeah," Ethan said, sitting beside him. "But this stays between us."
Peter hesitated, then nodded. "Okay."
Ethan chose his words carefully. "I'm starting something. Small business. Online marketplace. I need someone I trust—someone smart, ethical, and capable of learning fast."
Peter blinked. "You're… starting a company?"
Ethan shrugged. "Sort of."
"What do you need me to do?"
That was the question that mattered.
"Backend testing. Logistics modeling. Maybe later… R&D," Ethan said. "Flexible hours. No pressure. And if you ever want out, you walk away. No questions."
Peter studied him for a long moment, spider-sense faintly buzzing—not danger, but significance.
"…You're serious," he said.
Ethan met his eyes. "Dead serious."
Peter smiled slowly. "Then yeah. I'm in. I could use something normal."
Ethan returned the smile. "This won't stay normal for long."
As Peter laughed, unaware of just how true that was, Ethan looked past the school grounds, past Queens, past the skyline where Avengers would one day battle gods and monsters.
He wasn't racing toward that future.
He was building beneath it.
Brick by brick.
Line by line.
System by system.
And for the first time, the world was beginning to move—not because of destiny,but because Ethan Vale had decided to act.
Ethan watched Peter jog off toward the street, backpack slung over one shoulder, still smiling to himself like he'd just agreed to join a science club and not the first brick of something far larger.
Good, Ethan thought. Let him ease into it.
He didn't need Peter to know everything. Not yet.
That evening, the basement lights adjusted automatically as Ethan descended the stairs. The space responded to him now—temperature stabilizing, monitors waking from standby, systems syncing without a word spoken.
"Peter Parker has been added as a limited-access collaborator," Amazon reported. "Permissions restricted to sandbox environments and non-sensitive modules."
"Perfect," Ethan said, setting his bag down.
Agnes appeared beside the main display, her expression calm but observant."You're trusting him," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I am," Ethan replied. "But not blindly."
Apocalypse's voice followed, steady and analytical."Risk assessment: moderate. Long-term benefit potential: high."
Ethan smiled faintly. "You always know how to make things sound comforting."
He moved to the central terminal and pulled up the marketplace dashboard again. Orders were still coming in—slow but consistent. A refurbished laptop sold here. A repaired phone there. Nothing flashy, nothing that screamed revolution.
Exactly how he wanted it.
"Amazon," Ethan said, "start drafting phase-two projections. Warehouse leasing options, small scale. One location only."
"Criteria?" the AI asked.
"Cheap rent. Close to transport routes. Low attention," Ethan replied. "We're not trying to be fast yet. Just reliable."
"Understood."
Agnes glanced at him. "You're thinking long-term again."
"I always am," Ethan said quietly. "I've seen what happens when people rush power."
His eyes flicked briefly to another monitor—one showing muted footage of Spider-Man swinging through the city, helping people, staying just out of reach of the cameras.
Peter.
A different path. A louder one.
Ethan respected it. But it wasn't his.
He minimized the feed and focused back on his own world—code, logistics, projections. Things that didn't bleed, didn't break bones, didn't leave scars you could see.
Still, something stirred in his chest. Not envy. Not fear.
Purpose.
"Apocalypse," Ethan said, "status on external awareness?"
"No significant anomalies detected," the AI replied. "No government-level scrutiny. Stark Industries monitoring remains passive."
"Good," Ethan murmured. "Let's keep it that way."
He leaned back, hands laced behind his head, staring at the ceiling for a moment.
Three months ago, this had been an idea.A quiet thought sparked by absence.
Now it was moving. Breathing. Growing.
Not a hero's journey.Not a villain's rise.
Just a boy from Queens building something the world didn't know it needed—yet.
And as the systems hummed softly around him, Ethan Vale returned to work, unaware that with every order fulfilled and every line of code written, he was stepping closer to a future that would eventually intersect with legends.
Whether he wanted it to or not.