Sarah Kim burst into the Red Hook warehouse at 9 AM on a Tuesday, wild-eyed and clutching a tablet like it was a life preserver. David looked up from reviewing structural plans with Patricia, immediately on alert. Sarah was unflappable by nature, whatever had rattled her was serious.
"We have a problem," Sarah announced, then noticed the other people in the warehouse. "A private problem."
David nodded to Patricia, who smoothly dismissed herself. Marcus materialized from somewhere, the man had a talent for appearing when needed, and checked the warehouse perimeter before closing the doors.
"We're secure," Marcus confirmed. "What's wrong?"
Sarah pulled up something on her tablet, hands shaking slightly. "I was doing my monthly review of emerging biotech companies, looking for investment opportunities. Standard due diligence, reading their published research, checking their patents, following their funding."
She turned the tablet to show them. "This is Vanguard Biogenetics. Small startup, based in Connecticut. They're working on advanced gene therapy, trying to cure genetic diseases. Noble goal, impressive team, but here's the thing, their funding structure is weird."
"Weird how?" David asked, leaning in to study the screen.
"Weird as in deliberately opaque. Multiple shell companies, offshore accounts, funding sources that don't make sense for a biotech startup. So I dug deeper." Sarah's fingers flew across the tablet. "And I found connections to several other companies, all seemingly unrelated, all with similar opaque funding structures."
She pulled up a network diagram that made David's chest tighten. Dozens of companies connected by thin lines, nodes in a web that extended across multiple industries, biotech, defense contracting, private security, pharmaceutical, materials science.
"This could just be a venture capital firm's portfolio," Marcus observed.
"That's what I thought at first. But look at the pattern of research." Sarah highlighted specific nodes. "This company is working on regenerative medicine. This one is developing advanced prosthetics. This one specializes in performance-enhancing compounds. This one does psychological conditioning. Taken individually, they're unremarkable. But together..."
"Someone's trying to create super soldiers," David finished quietly.
Sarah nodded. "That was my conclusion. And when I tried to trace the funding to its source, I hit walls. Serious walls. The kind that suggest serious resources and serious desire for secrecy. David, I think this might be a government program."
"Or something worse," Marcus said, his expression grim. "Did you cover your tracks when you were investigating?"
"I'm not an idiot, Marcus. I used VPNs, proxy servers, the works. But if someone's monitoring these companies and looking for unusual interest... they might have noticed the queries."
David's mind raced. This could be the super-soldier program that created Captain America, though that was supposed to have ended with Dr. Erskine's death. Or it could be one of SHIELD/Hydra's black projects. Or something else entirely that his imperfect knowledge of the timeline hadn't accounted for.
"We need Sofia here," David decided. "Marcus, can you get her? And make sure we're not being surveilled."
Marcus was already moving, phone out, speaking in low tones.
David turned back to Sarah. "How confident are you in this assessment?"
"Eighty percent. The pattern is clear, the funding structure is suspicious, and the research directions all point toward human enhancement. But I can't prove it's a government program versus a very well-funded private effort."
"Either way, it's not something we want attention from." David studied the network diagram more carefully. Some of the company names tickled his memory, but he couldn't place them precisely. The MCU had dozens of shadowy organizations and black projects; trying to identify this specific one from fragmentary information was nearly impossible.
Sofia arrived twenty minutes later, looking significantly more awake than anyone should at 9 AM after the night she'd apparently had. "Marcus said code red. I brought my serious laptop."
The "serious laptop" was a heavily modified machine that Sofia claimed was basically unhackable. David suspected she was right, the woman was absurdly talented.
"Show her what you found," David instructed Sarah.
Sofia absorbed the information rapidly, her fingers already moving across her keyboard. "Oh, that's interesting. That's very interesting. Sarah, you're right about the obfuscation, but you missed something."
She pulled up another diagram, even more complex. "These aren't just connected through funding. They're connected through data sharing. See these network traffic patterns? These companies are exchanging research results, creating a distributed research program where no single entity has the complete picture."
"Why structure it that way?" Sarah asked.
"Plausible deniability," Marcus said immediately. "If any individual project gets exposed, it looks isolated. The pattern only emerges if you can see the whole network."
"Exactly," Sofia confirmed. "And there's more. Some of this traffic is going to government servers. Not directly, it's bounced through proxies, but the endpoint IPs resolve to Department of Defense networks."
David felt cold. "Can you identify which department?"
"Working on it." Sofia's fingers flew. "These traces are old, months, maybe years, and deliberately obscured. But give me a few hours and I can probably narrow it down."
"No," David said sharply. Everyone looked at him. "Sofia, stop. Right now. Close those connections and wipe your queries."
"David, "
"Now, Sofia. We're backing away from this immediately."
Sofia looked like she wanted to argue, but something in David's tone stopped her. She executed a series of commands, closing connections and clearing logs. "Done. But why?"
David chose his words carefully. "Because we're not equipped to handle this. If this is what we think it is, a government program creating super soldiers, then investigating further makes us a threat. We become people who know too much, and people who know too much about classified programs have a habit of disappearing or having unfortunate accidents."
"So we just ignore it?" Sarah's voice was sharp with frustration. "David, if someone's running human experimentation, "
"I didn't say ignore it. I said we're not equipped to handle it. Not yet." David looked at each of them in turn. "We're builders, not investigators. We're not a intelligence agency or a watchdog organization. Trying to expose or interfere with something this big, this protected, would destroy everything we're building and probably get us killed in the process."
"Then what do we do?" Marcus asked quietly.
"We file it away as information we have but can't act on. We stay alert for connections to our work, if any of these companies approach us, we decline politely and document everything. And we focus on what we can do: building capacity to help people, whatever's coming."
The frustration in the room was palpable. These were good people who wanted to fight injustice when they saw it. Telling them to stand down went against their instincts.
"I know this is hard," David continued. "But we have to be strategic. Picking fights we can't win doesn't help anyone. It just removes us from the board." He paused. "Sarah, I trust your judgment completely. If you think this is dangerous, I believe you. But the correct response isn't to charge in, it's to be aware and cautious."
Sarah nodded reluctantly. "I don't like it."
"Neither do I. But sometimes the smart play is to know when you're outmatched."
After Sarah left, still unhappy but accepting, Sofia lingered, her expression thoughtful.
"You know what this is," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I have suspicions."
"Are you going to share them?"
David considered carefully. "Not yet. Maybe not ever. Some information is dangerous to have."
"That's not trust, David."
"No, it's not. It's protection." He met her eyes. "Sofia, there are things I know or suspect that I can't explain how I know. Sharing them wouldn't help you, and might put you at risk. I need you to trust that I'm making that call for good reasons."
Sofia studied him for a long moment. "You're a frustrating person to work for, you know that?"
"I've been told."
"But I do trust you. For the record." She stood, gathering her equipment. "Though someday, when this is all over, you're going to tell me everything. And I mean everything."
"Deal."
After everyone left, David and Marcus stood in the warehouse, the silence heavy.
"That was Hydra," Marcus said quietly. "Wasn't it?"
David's head snapped toward him. "What makes you say that?"
"Process of elimination. A secret program that big, that well-funded, with that level of government access and that much obsession with super soldiers? Limited options. And I've heard rumors, things people shouldn't talk about but do anyway, after enough beers, about shadow organizations within SHIELD."
Marcus was sharper than David had given him credit for. Or maybe David had been too obvious in his reactions.
"If it is," David said carefully, "then we're even more outmatched than I suggested. And we're definitely not equipped to fight them."
"No," Marcus agreed. "But we should probably plan for the possibility that they might take an interest in us eventually. An organization building alternative infrastructure, operating with unusual effectiveness, led by someone who seems to know things he shouldn't..."
"We look suspicious."
"We look interesting. And interesting organizations attract attention." Marcus moved to the tactical map. "I'm going to develop contingency protocols. What we do if we detect surveillance, if someone approaches trying to infiltrate, if we're compromised. We need plans."
"Nothing violent," David warned. "If it comes to that, we've already lost."
"Agreed. But we can have escape plans, dead drops, ways to preserve what we've built even if we have to scatter." Marcus paused. "David, how bad is this going to get? What aren't you telling us?"
David looked at his friend, because that's what Marcus had become, despite David's efforts to maintain professional distance. The man deserved some truth.
"Bad," David said quietly. "I don't know all the details, and some of what I suspect sounds crazy. But we're heading toward a period of serious instability. Multiple threats, some of which are already in motion. The best I can do is prepare for aftermath and try to build something that survives."
"But you're not going to tell me specifically what threats."
"I can't. Either you'd think I'm delusional, or you'd believe me and the knowledge would eat at you. Either way, it doesn't help."
Marcus absorbed this. "Okay. I can work with 'unspecified serious threats requiring preparation.' That's not that different from my mindset anyway." He moved toward the door, then paused. "For what it's worth, David, I think you're doing the right thing. Building instead of fighting. Creating instead of destroying. Even if I don't know exactly what we're preparing for, I believe in what we're building."
"Thank you," David said quietly.
After Marcus left, David stood alone in the warehouse, staring at the tactical map covered in markers representing their growing network. Thirty-two properties now, across five boroughs. Fifteen more in planning. Hundreds of people employed directly or indirectly. Thousands of people served.
It felt substantial. It also felt desperately inadequate.
David's phone buzzed. A news alert: "Billionaire Tony Stark Announces He's Iron Man."
David pulled up the video, watching Tony's famous press conference, the moment he discarded the lie and owned his identity. It was iconic, a turning point in the MCU timeline.
It also meant they were accelerating toward the major events. Tony was Iron Man. Thor would arrive soon. The Avengers Initiative was probably already in motion, even if the team didn't exist yet.
And Hydra was out there, embedded in SHIELD, running experiments, planning their endgame. Sarah had nearly stumbled into their web. They'd been lucky she'd been careful, and luckier still that David had recognized the danger fast enough to pull back.
But luck ran out. Eventually, someone would notice what the Foundation was building. Someone would ask uncomfortable questions. Someone would decide they were a threat or an opportunity, and then David's careful invisibility would shatter.
He needed to be ready for that. Needed contingencies, protocols, ways to protect his people and preserve their work even under scrutiny.
The clock was ticking: eighteen months until the invasion.
David pulled out his phone and started a new note, titling it "Operational Security Review." It was time to get serious about protecting what they'd built.