"I'm pretty sure Spider-Man isn't even a thing yet," Adrian said, staring at Sophia over a plate of reheated dinner. "Why the hell am I suddenly Batman?"
"You're not Batman. You're barely employed."
Sophia slid a folded piece of paper across the table. It was a handwritten note in block letters, crude and unmistakably threatening.
"Mr. Kowalski owns the bodega two blocks from the diner," she explained. "He's been supplying us cut-rate produce since before the invasion because he likes Grandma Petrova's borscht recipe. Someone's shaking him down. He found that under his register three days ago."
Adrian scanned the note.
PROTECTION IS EXPENSIVE. NEXT WEEK, DOUBLE. OR THE FIRE MARSHAL FINDS SOMETHING INTERESTING.
"This is a police problem," Adrian said. Though even as the words left his mouth, he felt how hollow they sounded. "I fight cursed spirits. Ancient dormant furnace monsters. Murder-packs with tactical awareness. I don't do..."
He gestured vaguely at the paper. "...extortion."
"The police are stretched so thin that half the precincts are running on National Guard overflow," Sophia said flatly. "Mr. Kowalski filed a report. Nothing happened. He's scared, Adrian. He has a wife and two kids upstairs, and some thugs with gasoline decided his shop was fair game."
Adrian rubbed his temples.
She's right. And my Six Eyes could tell in four seconds whether the guy is actually in danger.
"Fine," Adrian sighed. "I'll look into it. But I'm not becoming the neighborhood's general-purpose crime fighter. I have a dormant threat to train for and an ecosystem of increasingly clever monsters trying to kill me."
"Nobody's asking for a career," Sophia said, grabbing her jacket. "Just help one bodega owner who makes really good pierogi."
The next evening, Adrian found the shop tucked between a laundromat and a shuttered nail salon. A hand-painted sign read KOWALSKI'S in cheerful red letters that clashed with the thick tension inside.
Mr. Kowalski was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, gray-stubbled and exhausted. He restocked canned goods with the mechanical motions of someone who hadn't slept in days.
Through his Six Eyes, Adrian read the tension in the man's shoulders instantly. Bone-deep, genuine fear.
Okay. Sophia wasn't exaggerating.
Adrian bought a bag of chips he didn't want, lingering long enough to map the store's layout, then slipped out.
He didn't have to wait long for the threat to show up.
Three nights of patient surveillance from a fire escape across the street revealed the pattern. A crew of five young men, none older than twenty-one, rotated through the block on an informal patrol.
It was amateur hour. They carried themselves with the brittle bravado of kids who realized that post-invasion chaos created opportunity—and opportunity meant shaking down defenseless shop owners.
This isn't HYDRA. It's just five opportunistic punks capitalizing on a broken system.
The realization complicated things.
Adrian had braced himself for something that justified lethal force. Instead, he was watching five human, fallible kids making terrible choices.
I can't just pulverize them like a cursed spirit. But Kowalski still doesn't deserve to watch his life's work burn.
On the fourth night, they finally made their move.
Two of the thugs slipped through the alley toward the back door while the other three loitered near the front as lookouts.
Adrian dropped from the fire escape, landing between the two extortionists and the back entrance with a heavy THUD.
Both of them froze mid-step.
"Wrong shop," Adrian said. His voice was level and calm. No cursed energy crackled along his skin. Just a very tall, dangerously composed stranger standing in the dark.
"Who the hell are you?"
The nearest guy—lanky and nervous—reached toward his waistband. The Six Eyes immediately outlined the weapon: a folding pocket knife.
A knife. Not a gun. Small mercies.
"Someone who'd genuinely prefer you both walk away right now," Adrian said. He didn't move an inch. "This shop belongs to a guy with two kids. He's lost enough this year, same as everyone else."
"You don't know anything about—"
"I know you're barely twenty," Adrian interrupted, his tone deliberately conversational. "Three months ago, you were probably worrying about rent and a part-time job, not running a protection racket. Something broke in this city and you saw an opening. I get it. But I'm asking you, once, to find a different line of work."
The knife-carrier hesitated, his bravado crumbling under Adrian's quiet certainty. His partner was already taking slow steps backward.
"And if we don't?" the first one asked, his voice laced more with uncertainty than aggression.
Time to set the boundary.
Adrian let a faint, controlled thread of blue energy flicker across his knuckles. It didn't flash dramatically—just a quiet, terrifying crackle of raw power.
"If you don't," Adrian said softly, "I stop being patient. And you really don't want to see what that looks like."
The knife lowered. The bravado shattered completely.
"This ain't worth it, man," the younger one muttered, tugging his friend's sleeve. "Let's go."
They turned and bolted. Adrian watched from the alley entrance as the three lookouts scattered in panic, the entire "racket" dissolving into five terrified kids sprinting in different directions.
No violence. No blood. Just a threat that realized it was outclassed.
[NO EXP AWARDED. ACTION CLASSIFIED: NON-CURSED CONFLICT RESOLUTION]
Adrian chuckled bitterly.
Of course. The system doesn't give points for doing the right thing.
Adrian kept watch for the rest of the week to make sure they wouldn't return. They didn't. When he walked past the bodega three days later, Mr. Kowalski's posture was visibly lighter.
That evening, Sophia joined Adrian on the fire escape, handing him a steaming mug of tea.
"Kowalski's fine," she said, leaning against the railing. "I stopped by after my shift."
"They won't be back," Adrian said, taking a sip. "It was just five scared kids taking advantage of the neighborhood. I talked them out of it. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"I showed a little cursed energy at the end. Diplomacy with a visual aid." He offered a tired smile. "No fight required."
Sophia studied him quietly. "You didn't hurt them. Even though you could have ended it in three seconds."
"They aren't cursed spirits, Sophia. They're just people making bad choices in a broken city." Adrian stared out at the Queens skyline. "I can't treat every threat the same way. Spirits get erased. People get a chance to make a different choice."
Sophia nodded softly. "That's a good line to draw, Hayes. Keep drawing it."
"I intend to," Adrian said.
Two blocks away, Mr. Kowalski locked his front door for the night without checking the register three extra times. He had no idea who had stepped into that alley—only that the dark felt a little less dangerous than it had a week ago.