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Tony Stark's Malibu Villa
Night
Tony entered his villa to find a figure silhouetted against his floor-to-ceiling windows, back turned, looking out at the Pacific.
"I am Iron Man," the stranger quoted, his deep voice carrying across the room. "You think you're the only hero in this world?"
The man turned, revealing himself—African American, completely bald head gleaming like polished marble, a black eyepatch covering his left eye. He looked like he'd stepped out of a spy thriller.
"We know a finite amount," the man continued, "but the universe is infinite."
Tony's hand instinctively moved toward the arc reactor in his chest. "Who the hell are you? And more importantly—Jarvis, what are you doing? How did someone break into my house?"
This shouldn't be possible. His villa had layers of defensive systems, all controlled by Jarvis. Unauthorized visitors should trigger alarms, automated defenses, maybe even a repulsor cannon or two. Yet this man stood in his living room like he owned the place.
Jarvis remained conspicuously silent.
"I'm Nick Fury," the intruder said, stepping into the light. "Director of SHIELD."
"Oh." Tony relaxed fractionally but kept his guard up. SHIELD—Coulson's organization. The ones who'd helped cover up the Iron Monger incident. "And you broke into my house because...?"
"I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "The what now?"
Fury launched into his pitch—a team of remarkable people, coming together to fight the battles humanity couldn't. Gods, monsters, threats from beyond Earth. Tony listened with increasing skepticism.
"So let me get this straight," Tony said when Fury finished. "You want me to join your boy band of superfreaks?"
"I want you to consider the possibility that you're not the only special person on this planet," Fury replied. "And that someday, you might need backup."
"I'll think about it," Tony said, which was his polite way of saying 'absolutely not.' "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
After Fury left—through the front door this time—Tony immediately turned to his workshop. "Jarvis, full diagnostic. Now. That cyclops wannabe got past your security like it wasn't even there."
"My apologies, sir. Director Fury appears to have used SHIELD override codes that I was not programmed to reject."
"Well, we're fixing that right now. Nobody gets unauthorized access to my house. Nobody."
Tony spent the next three hours upgrading Jarvis's security protocols, closing every backdoor SHIELD might have installed.
Las Vegas
The Bellagio Casino
Two Days Later
Marcus walked through the casino floor, taking in the familiar sights and sounds. Slot machines chiming, dealers calling, the desperate hope and crushing disappointment playing out at every table. He'd been here before, in the Chronicle world, but this was different. This was home.
He needed money—serious money—to start his company. He could ask Tony, but that would raise questions. Better to handle this himself.
Marcus spotted an opening at a high-stakes dice table and slid into the seat, placing a single hundred-dollar chip on the felt.
The other players—men in expensive suits betting tens of thousands per roll—looked at him with barely concealed disgust.
"Are you lost, kid?" one of them sneered. "The penny slots are that way."
Another laughed. "Hundred bucks? What is this, amateur hour?"
Marcus ignored them, nodding to the dealer. "Let's play."
The dealer, a professional who'd seen everything in twenty years on the Vegas floor, recognized something in Marcus's eyes. Confidence. Absolute, unshakeable confidence. This wasn't some tourist about to lose his lunch money.
The dice rattled in the cup. To everyone else, they were hidden, random, unpredictable.
To Marcus, with his telekinetic senses extending through the cup, they might as well have been sitting on the table. He could feel every surface, every edge, every possible outcome.
"Big," Marcus said, pushing his chip forward.
The dealer revealed the dice. Big.
Thirty minutes later, Marcus had turned one hundred dollars into one hundred thousand.
The dealer was sweating now, hands shaking slightly as he prepared the next roll. In thirty years, he'd never seen anything like this. Perfect prediction, every single time.
Another thirty minutes. One million dollars in chips sat in front of Marcus.
The other players had stopped sneering. Some were following his bets, riding his streak. Others just watched in awe as he called every roll perfectly.
The pit boss had already called upstairs. In the security room, cameras focused on Marcus from every angle, looking for any sign of cheating. They found nothing. No devices, no accomplices, no sleight of hand. Just a young man with extraordinary luck.
"Sir," a smooth voice said beside Marcus. A middle-aged man in an expensive suit and wire-rimmed glasses stood there, flanked by two security guards built like linebackers. "I'm the casino manager. A player of your caliber should be in our VIP room."
It wasn't really a request.
Marcus smiled, wrote down an account number on a napkin. "Transfer one million to this account. I'll take the rest in chips."
The manager nodded, maintaining his professional smile even as his jaw clenched. They escorted Marcus to a private room—ostensibly for high rollers, really for problems they needed to contain.
The new dealer was a specialist, the casino's best. The other players at the table were shills, house players meant to drive up bets and manipulate odds.
It didn't matter.
An hour later, Marcus had five million.
The specialist dealer, who'd never lost a rigged game in fifteen years, looked like he might faint. He'd tried everything—loaded dice, sleight of hand, even electromagnetic manipulation of the table. Nothing worked. Marcus called every roll, won every bet.
"Enough," the manager finally said. He pulled Marcus aside, speaking quietly. "We'll give you ten million, total. Cash, check, wire transfer, however you want it. But you need to leave. And you're banned. Every casino in Vegas will have your photo by morning."
Marcus shrugged. "Fair enough."
They escorted him out in a limousine, delivered him to the Wynn. He had what he came for.
The Next Week
Marcus hit every major casino in Las Vegas.
The Wynn: Three million before they caught on.
Caesars Palace: Four million, escorted out politely but firmly.
MGM Grand: Two million, banned within an hour.
The Venetian: Five million over two days before security arrived.
By the end of the week, he'd accumulated thirty million dollars. His photo was posted in every casino security office from Vegas to Atlantic City. He was on every blacklist, every warning bulletin.
Some casinos had tried dirty tricks. A drugged drink here, a rigged game there, once even a mugging attempt in a parking garage. Marcus's telekinesis handled it all. Toxins isolated and expelled from his bloodstream before they could take effect. Would-be attackers suddenly finding themselves unconscious, unable to explain how they'd been knocked out by empty air.
A sniper had even taken a shot at him from a hotel window. Marcus had felt the bullet coming, deflected it with a thought. The shooter found his rifle mysteriously jammed, his scope cracked, and a overwhelming compulsion to leave town immediately.
In the world of ordinary people, Marcus was essentially untouchable. Ten tons of telekinetic force, controlled with surgical precision, made conventional threats meaningless.
JFK Airport
New York
Marcus walked through the terminal, a simple backpack over his shoulder, looking like any other young traveler. The thirty million dollars existed only as numbers in carefully distributed accounts, clean and untraceable.
He'd won it fair and square—if you considered using telekinetic powers to read dice fair. The casinos made billions yearly off desperate gamblers. He'd taken a tiny fraction of that, and they'd banned him for being too good at their own game.
Now he had what he needed. Startup capital. Enough to build something real, something that didn't depend on Tony's charity or anyone else's goodwill.
Marcus stepped out into the New York morning, already planning his next moves. He returned to New York with thirty million dollars.
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