General Ross had not been a happy man lately.
The meeting had ended twenty minutes ago, and half the room was probably still congratulating itself for stealing portions of a problem they barely understood. Washington, the Army, private contractors, intelligence handlers, research divisions, and every uniformed parasite with ambition had all tried to take a bite out of the temporary enhancement serum. Ross had gone in wanting control and came out with three vials a week.
That was not enough for the pace he wanted, but it was enough to keep the researchers working and to allow them to focus on analysis and replication. Yet, not enough to stop the entire programme from being swallowed by men in suits who had never chased anything bigger than a budget line.
Ross stood in his office, both hands braced on the desk, and stared at the morning reports without actually reading them. The serum samples sat in a secured transport case behind him, already logged, signed for, and moved twice because nobody in the building trusted anyone else not to steal them.
He was hunting the biggest blight on mankind after all.
The Army had made one decision correctly, at least. They were not going to provoke Noctis directly, not yet. The man already had a poisonous relationship with SHIELD, and that alone had nearly turned the country into a daily circus. Mutants were still protesting in cities, politicians were still pacing in front of cameras, and foreign services were sniffing round the product like starving dogs round meat. If they leaned on Noctis too hard, he could leave the country, take his business elsewhere, and sell his little miracle to whoever had the nerve and the cash.
Ross did not like being held hostage by a man selling temporary monsters in glass. He liked it even less because the product worked like a charm.
He turned to the window, looked out over the base, and ground his jaw once.
They had posted soldiers around the St. Regis to watch the traffic in and out and get a better sense of the trade flow. The orders were not to arrest him, touch him, or spook him, but simply to watch, count faces and uniforms, note the sort of men who arrived looking weak and left looking greedy.
It offended Ross to take that posture with a mutant. Still, offence had to wait behind utility. He would find a way to make the bastard work under him. One way or another.
The thought stayed with him as he turned back to the desk, opened the transport case, and looked down at the three vials. Clear liquid. Clean glass. Nothing dramatic about them until they went into the bloodstream and started rearranging what a body could do for half an hour.
Ross picked one up and held it to the light.
"You're mine eventually," he muttered.
There was a knock at the door.
He set the vial back in place and shut the lid.
"What?"
An aide stepped in, kept his posture straight, and held out a folder.
"Field update from the hotel perimeter, sir. Army observers confirm continued heavy traffic. Civilian, military, private, and at least two foreign diplomatic vehicles in the last twelve hours."
Ross took the folder, skimmed the first page, and felt his irritation sharpen into focus.
"Any movement from Noctis himself?"
"Routine, sir. He is going through his daily sales. No sign he's preparing to travel."
Ross nodded once.
The aide said nothing. Smart man. Ross tossed the folder back onto the desk.
"Keep observing him. No interference, contact or freelance heroics. If somebody under my command spooks him and he vanishes, I'll bury the paperwork in their spine."
"Yes, sir."
The aide withdrew.
Ross looked at the case again. Three vials a week was an insult, but it was also a start.
-
At Alkali Lake, Colonel William Stryker had spent more than two months expecting a second hit and had grown steadily more alarmed.
Two guards and multiple mutant test subjects had vanished with them. Then the electronic mishaps had started. Cameras failing. Systems skipping. Power interruptions that never quite became enough to stop the work for long. Stryker had treated each one like the opening move of something larger, but nothing followed. No direct assault. No new breach. No further extraction.
That had almost annoyed him more than an attack would have.
So he had increased security, doubled patrols, rotated code access, hardened transport routes, and kept operating.
He captured new mutants. He broke them down. He catalogued what could be used and discarded what could not. The work steadied him in the same way prayer steadied a zealot.
Then the serum appeared. It offered temporary enhancement to strength, speed, durability, and healing, with a limited duration but very real results. The source was a mutant, which made the whole thing feel like an insult to God delivered in a test tube.
Stryker had wanted to take Noctis immediately.
He had read the first briefs and imagined the facility space, the containment, the sequencing, the extraction, the tissue response, and the autopsies if required. Then the order came down to stay off him. Higher command wanted quiet handling. Multiple generals had made the same calculation Ross had.
Stryker hated waiting, but he understood hierarchy when it was useful.
The samples he received were tested exhaustively through blood chemistry, molecular scans, contaminant profiling, carrier analysis, residue behaviour, tissue response, controls, and repeat trials.
Nothing extraordinary showed up.
That was the infuriating part.
The liquid looked ordinary. It behaved well. Then a soldier drank it and became something else for a while.
Stryker stood behind reinforced glass and watched one of the men in the test chamber drive a metal plate clean off its mount with a strike that should not have been possible from an ordinary human frame.
The soldier's chest pumped harder. Sweat rose fast. His movements sharpened. He hit again, then again, then slammed his shoulder into the wall with the sort of force that made one of the technicians flinch.
The tech at the monitor swallowed.
"Strength output is peaking across the board, Colonel. Reflex response is elevated. Recovery markers, too."
Stryker folded his hands behind his back.
"And the serum profile?"
"It's a healthy juice, sir."
That answer had been repeated so often it was beginning to sound like an act of disrespect.
He watched the soldier finish the run, stagger slightly as the clock wound down, and then drop to one knee, breathing hard but otherwise intact.
It was a troublesome combination, Stryker thought, with regeneration or high-end healing, telekinesis, product creation, market reach, and public noise all sitting in the same file.
The Noctis file had only deepened his annoyance. SHIELD's material on the man read like a warning label written by frightened professionals. Healing or regeneration had been confirmed. Telekinesis had been added later. Public influence was growing. Civilian popularity was real. He could not simply snatch the mutant without consequences now.
That made the situation tactical.
Stryker looked at the chamber, then at the reports stacked beside the monitor.
If he could not move directly, he could still move sideways.
Ross was a soldier, ambitious, hostile to monsters, and already obsessed with another enhanced abomination. More importantly, Ross had reach. Combined reach solved many moral problems.
He reached for the phone on the desk.
"Get me General Ross."
--
By the time Tony Stark arrived at the St. Regis, Lucius had already finished most of the day's selling and was enjoying the slower portion of the afternoon, when the army boys were replaced by the merely wealthy.
Tony walked through the lobby like a man who knew the room would notice him anyway and saw no point pretending otherwise, carrying the sunglasses, confidence, easy money, and lazy focus that made people think he was less observant than he really was.
He stopped by the waiting area outside the office Lucius had appropriated for business and looked at the next man in line.
The client was middle-aged, wealthy, nervous, and carrying the expression of someone about to spend an irresponsible sum to solve a deeply embarrassing problem.
Tony leaned slightly towards him.
"How much is your place in the queue worth?"
The man blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
Tony took out his wallet.
"Your place. In the queue. I want it, you want money, and life is short."
The client looked him over, recognised him, and recalculated his afternoon.
Tony named a figure.
The man hesitated for less than two seconds before nodding.
Sebastien turned just in time to see Tony already moving towards the office door.
"Sir, if you would just give me a moment to inform Mr Noctis."
Tony opened the door anyway.
"No need. I like surprises."
He stepped inside before the butler could physically stop him without losing employment.
Lucius looked up from behind the desk and blinked once.
Then he smiled.
"If you wanted priority service, Stark, all you had to do was admit you missed me."
Tony shut the door behind him and took the chair opposite without waiting.
"Your butler works too slowly. Also, you owe me for the man outside. I practically funded his self-respect."
Lucius leaned back.
"To what do I owe the pleasure, Stark? Another fruit basket? Another attempted burglary? A confession of love?"
Tony ignored most of that.
"Any reason you're buying Stark Industries shares like you're trying to eat the company from one corner?"
Lucius folded his hands.
"Well, I'm a simple man."
Tony raised his eyebrows.
"Sure. Let's pretend I believed that for even a second." He gestured for him to continue. "Try again."
Lucius gave him a mild shrug.
"I enjoy money that keeps arriving without needing to be milked from idiots one vial at a time. There, brutal honesty. You should treasure it."
Tony looked at him for a moment.
"I hold sixty per cent. Obi has ten. The rest is the market, and you've already swallowed a large chunk of that. Are you planning to keep going?"
"I am." Lucius's answer came easily. "I want the shareholder seat, the influence, and the entertainment. Also, I'm an engineer, and I dislike being left out of interesting machinery."
Tony had not expected the last part to be stated so plainly.
He leaned back in the chair.
"Care to show what you have in mind?"
Lucius glanced at the door, then back at him.
"Sure. Come sit next to me. Let's finish the queue first, and then I'll show you something interesting."
Tony looked at the clock, then at Lucius, then shrugged.
"I did technically pay for the privilege."
He got up, moved around the desk, and pulled another chair close enough to share the paperwork space without pretending the arrangement was normal.
Lucius raised his voice just enough to carry.
"Sebastien, send the next one."
From outside came the butler's perfectly controlled answer.
"At once, sir."
Tony settled in beside Lucius, looked over the tidy stacks of notes, appointment slips, and the sort of quiet cash flow that made regulators sweat in their sleep.
"You know," he murmured, "this is the strangest investor meeting I've had, and I did survive a board session with Obadiah."
Lucius gave him a sidelong look.
"Then your standards are even lower than mine."