Stan Lee was Stan Lee: born in 1922, passed away in 2018—a comic-book artist who'd also served in the military, and who loved slipping in cameos in the movies tied to his creations.
Skyl had met Eru Ilúvatar before. That supreme being would occasionally take on Tolkien's appearance—honestly, these creator-gods all seemed to have plenty of free time. Marvel's creator-god was the One-Above-All (the One Above All), and Stan Lee probably wasn't the One-Above-All in its complete form—more like a piece of it.
Stan Lee was clearly more playful than Ilúvatar. He liked living as an ordinary person.
The old man warmly grabbed Skyl's hand and said the "magic trick" earlier had been beautiful, and asked if Skyl could teach him a couple moves so he could entertain his little granddaughter at home.
Skyl thought: You old man run around the universe—what planet is "home," exactly?
He didn't refuse. He and Stan hit it off, and Skyl decided to visit his place. Tony, meanwhile, was still trapped in a swarm of reporters. Skyl didn't wait for him—he took the old man and the woman accompanying him, climbed into the carriage, and left Stark Industries Headquarters.
Stan lived in Brooklyn, in a quiet neighborhood, in a warm, simple two-story house—nothing different from most middle-class homes in the city. If he was "playing" a rich man, he should've been living like one. He wore a high-end tailored suit, and his companion looked like an A-list socialite, yet the house itself was modest to the point of plain.
Stan just chuckled, completely unbothered. He said goodbye to his companion, invited Skyl inside, and even invited the driver and the female assistant on the carriage.
"No need to worry about them," Skyl said, exhaling lightly.
Pop.
The horses, the carriage, the servants, the beauty—everything shattered and vanished like a mirage.
"Fun!" Stan clapped along enthusiastically.
The first floor had a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and storage. Upstairs were three bedrooms, plus a workroom that doubled as a study; even the attic was used for storage. The decor was simple and old-fashioned. The walls were mostly wood framing and drywall, with mediocre soundproofing. Stan said he liked hearing the outside world anyway—and besides, he was old and half-deaf, so it didn't matter.
The moment they stepped inside, heavy thudding came from upstairs. A pretty girl suddenly darted out at the top of the staircase. She was nearly six feet tall, with a bit of baby fat still in her cheeks and clear, childlike eyes. The second she spotted Skyl, she yelped—then bolted back upstairs.
Skyl smacked his lips. "That's your granddaughter?"
"Yep. Eight years old this year."
"Eight?" Skyl laughed. "Where'd you find her?"
Stan went pale. "Don't you dare tell her that. Gali will be heartbroken." He repeated himself several times, only relaxing once Skyl promised.
"Stay for dinner," Stan said, deciding to show off. "I'll make meat-sauce lasagna—the kind Garfield eats. Feel free to look around. Don't be shy."
Skyl took a slow lap around the living room and noticed a display cabinet with toys inside. In this era, superheroes weren't very active yet—Iron Man hadn't officially debuted, the Hulk was still a wanted man, and Captain America was still asleep under the ice. And yet the cabinet already had Avengers figures, the whole lineup. There were even three different Spider-Man figures.
Skyl had no intention of touching any of them. If he did, he might end up slipping into a different point in time.
After finishing the first floor, he climbed the creaking old wooden stairs to the second-floor hallway. The girl from earlier peeked out of her bedroom, saw Skyl, immediately shrank back, and shut the door. She was clearly shy around strangers.
Skyl didn't recognize "Gali" as any kind of role, but he could sense the powerful energy signature inside her. Beneath that sweet, sheltered exterior was something terrifying—likely a universe-level essence wrapped in a child's skin. As a weak, miserable human mage, Skyl had no desire to provoke a monster like that.
He passed Gali's bedroom and headed for Stan's workroom.
The door was open. Inside, two bookshelves ran along the right-hand wall; the left-hand wall held display shelves and a few plants.
Directly opposite the door was a drafting table. The curtains were wide open, and warm sunlight poured in. A thick stack of paper and an old fountain pen sat on the table, both washed in a clear, golden glow that made them look almost holy.
Skyl leaned in.
The first pages showed Tony piloting the first, crude Iron Man armor—something like the Mark I—escaping a terrorist base. The bulky, hand-built suit looked like a firecracker launching into the sky, dragging a thick trail behind it as explosions chained across the ground, flames blooming upward.
Skyl flipped to the next page. Tony was crashing into a desert. Not far away, a portal opened, and a young man dressed like a wizard stepped out. In Tony's speech bubble: Hey! You there—the guy coming out of that door! Help!
After that came panels of the wizard talking with Tony. Then the two of them crossed the plane of reality itself and met the cosmic entity known as Eternity. One panel zoomed in hard on the moment Eternity stared into Tony—like a close-up meant to show a link forming between them.
And then came Tony's daily training at Kamar-Taj.
It was drawn with surprising tenderness—capturing the mindset of a playboy stepping into the mystic arts for the first time, the fear and frustration, the gradual discipline, the growth and change.
In Tony's long inner monologue, he reflected on the string of misery he'd just lived through.
He realized he wasn't some untouchable man floating above consequence. Stark Industries' missiles weren't just "taking out bad guys"—one day, one of those weapons could land on his own head. Every dollar he'd earned from the arms business was stained with blood that would never wash off. Tony wasn't Iron Man yet, but he'd already made his choice.
Skyl kept flipping pages and saw a scene of him and Tony squatting by the curb, eating sandwiches, debating the idea of pulling a "vanish-and-reappear" stunt at the memorial.
The final page was only a rough outline. The first two panels showed Skyl talking to Stan Lee. The rest was still blank.
Skyl looked down at the old fountain pen on the table, lifted it, and weighed it in his hand. Inside and out, it was an ordinary pen—no magical aura, no spirit, nothing.
And yet it was basically Harold's purple crayon, except it was a fountain pen: whatever you drew with it would inevitably become real.
A high-risk object, no question.
Ilúvatar had the Grand Symphony. The comic creator Stan Lee had his pen. Different forms, same creation-level power.
Skyl tried drawing a line, but the ink had run dry. He refilled it with just a little, then started filling in the blank panels—drawing the meat-sauce lasagna Stan was about to make. Then he exaggerated it shamelessly, layering on dramatic strokes until it glittered with gold, like some absurd, glowing masterpiece that had escaped from a ridiculous Food Network fantasy.
"What are you doing?" a girl asked from the doorway, sounding oddly casual.
Skyl turned his head. Gali—the "eight-year-old" giant of a girl—was pressed to the doorframe, staring at him with nervous intensity while chewing on her thumb.
"I'm helping with dinner," Skyl said with a smile.
Gali grinned in a dopey, food-obsessed way. "When will it be done? Grandpa's cooking is awful. With you helping, it'll finally be edible."
Skyl chatted with her, asking about her life. He learned she almost never went outside—not because she wasn't allowed, but because she was scared of being bullied by the neighborhood kids.
"Grandpa makes me stay home. The boys on the street always come looking for me. They even pull my hair." Gali tugged at her long, deep chestnut hair. She was sweet-faced and pure-looking—no surprise people noticed her. But if anything truly awful happened to someone her age, whoever did it would be a child predator—someone who deserved to disappear from society forever.
Skyl comforted her. "Don't take it to heart. You'll make friends someday. Once you've got friends looking out for you, you'll be able to go wherever you want."
"Friends don't matter. I want to go all over the world and eat good food." She shut her eyes and daydreamed. Her stomach growled loudly. "Ugh… I'm starving."
Before the last word even settled, several beams of golden light shot up through the floor and speared into the sky. A dense, layered aroma punched through the walls like a flashbang for the nose, detonating against every scent receptor in the body.
Gali and Skyl both inhaled sharply.
A tidal wave of flavor rolled through them, lighting up their nervous systems like a flood of bright white light. Excitement surged, joy overflowing with nowhere to go—so intense it felt almost euphoric.
An unbelievable dish had been born.
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