David's apartment in Queens was unremarkable: a fifth-floor walk-up in a building that had seen better decades, with neighbors who minded their own business and plumbing that groaned in winter. The rent was cheap enough not to attract attention, expensive enough not to mark him as desperately poor. Perfect camouflage for someone trying to be invisible.
The inside told a different story, but only if you knew what to look for.
At first glance: a cluttered bachelor pad. Secondhand furniture, take-out containers in various stages of decomposition, architectural magazines stacked in precarious towers. A studied mess that suggested someone too busy working to care about domestic order.
But the laptop on his desk was military-grade, encrypted by Sofia's careful hands. The filing cabinet in the corner had a hidden compartment containing multiple passports, emergency cash in various currencies, and a go-bag stocked for rapid evacuation. The seemingly random arrangement of furniture actually optimized defensive positions, a trick Marcus had taught him, born from years of combat.
And in the bedroom closet, behind a false wall David had constructed himself, was his workshop.
It wasn't large, maybe six by eight feet, but it was his sanctuary. The walls were lined with notebooks filled with architectural sketches, some mundane, others revealing the true scope of his vision. A workbench held models of buildings, both existing and planned, each one a meditation on form and function. And on every surface were artifacts of his gift.
A chunk of concrete from the Henderson Community Center's foundation, practically humming with the intention David had poured into it during construction. A steel beam from the Red Hook warehouse, stronger than its dimensions should allow. A piece of rebar from a housing development in the Bronx, bent into an impossible spiral that nonetheless felt perfectly balanced.
These weren't trophies. They were calibrations, experiments in understanding the limits and applications of what he could do.
David sat at the workbench now, 1:30 AM, unable to sleep despite the exhaustion pulling at his bones. Before him lay a blueprint for the next major project: a twelve-story mixed-use development in the South Bronx. On paper, it was just another building. In David's mind, it was a fortress disguised as affordable housing.
He'd spent months designing it, layers within layers. The ground floor would house retail and a community center. Floors two through four: medical clinic, legal aid office, educational center. Five through twelve: apartments priced for teachers, nurses, first responders, people who served the community but couldn't afford to live in it. Standard enough.
But the invisible architecture:
Foundation reinforced to withstand not just earthquakes but explosive force. Not enough to attract attention from building inspectors, David was very good at dancing right up to code without crossing it, but enough to stand firm when most buildings would crumble.
Interior layout designed to facilitate rapid evacuation, with multiple exits and fireproof stairwells that could double as shelters. Again, technically code-compliant, but thought through with a paranoia that would seem excessive if anyone noticed.
Structural elements placed to create natural defensive positions. Load-bearing walls positioned to segment the building into defensible zones. Windows sized and placed for maximum sight lines.
And woven through it all, the intangible thing David could do: intention made manifest. When he worked on a building, really worked on it, pouring his focus and will into the materials and design, something shifted. The building became more than the sum of its parts. People felt safer there. Communities coalesced more naturally. The structures endured.
It wasn't magic. David had tested that theory extensively, and whatever he could do didn't match the MCU's definition of mystical power. It wasn't Asgardian sorcery or Doctor Strange's reality-warping. It was subtler, more fundamental.
The best analogy he'd developed: he was like a gardener who could slightly improve soil quality. The plants still had to grow naturally, still needed water and sunlight, still followed botanical laws. But they grew a bit stronger, a bit healthier, a bit more resilient. And over time, those small improvements compounded into something significant.
His phone buzzed, startling him from his thoughts. A text from Sofia, time-stamped 1:47 AM: Stop working and go to sleep. I can see you accessing the shared drive.
David smiled despite himself and typed back: Pot, kettle, black.
I'm young. I can survive on caffeine and spite. You're old and need your beauty sleep.
I'm thirty-two.
Like I said. Old.
He could picture her in her apartment in Williamsburg, probably surrounded by empty energy drink cans and three monitors displaying code. Sofia had been his second recruit, found on a dark web forum where she'd been exposing security vulnerabilities in major corporations' databases. Not for profit, just because their sloppy security offended her principles.
David had reached out carefully, expecting to be ignored or mocked. Instead, Sofia had responded within an hour: "If you're FBI, you're really bad at this. If you're serious about building something, I'm listening."
Three years later, she was the Foundation's digital backbone, and David trusted her implicitly.
Another message appeared: Real talk though. The infrastructure you're asking me to build, encrypted comms, secure data storage, anonymous financial transactions. It's starting to look less like a nonprofit and more like a spy network.
Is that a problem?
No. Just want to make sure you know what you're creating. This kind of infrastructure attracts attention. The wrong kind.
David frowned at his phone. Sofia was right, of course. The more capable they became, the more they'd show up on radar. Government agencies, rival organizations, criminal elements, everyone paid attention to new power structures.
Noted. We'll need protocols for that. Can you draft something?
Already working on it. Now seriously, go to sleep.
David set down his phone and rubbed his eyes. The blueprint blurred in front of him, lines and numbers swimming together. He should sleep. Tomorrow, today, technically, was packed: morning meeting with a potential contractor, lunch with a journalist writing a puff piece about urban renewal (carefully controlled message), afternoon site visit to a project in Brooklyn, evening call with investors James had lined up.
The life of someone building a secret empire was surprisingly banal most of the time. Lots of meetings. Mountains of paperwork. Endless small decisions that accumulated into larger outcomes.
But sometimes, late at night when the city finally quieted, David let himself think about the big picture. About what he was really doing and why.
In his old life, the memories were fading now, three years of new experiences overlaying them, he'd been obsessed with the MCU. Not just as entertainment, but as a thought experiment. What would you do if you found yourself in that world? How would you survive? How could you make a difference when you were surrounded by gods and monsters?
Most power fantasies went straight to combat. Get superpowers, join the Avengers, punch bad guys. Simple. Satisfying. Juvenile.
David had always been more interested in the aftermath. After the Chitauri invasion, who cleaned up? Who helped people traumatized by watching aliens pour through a portal in the sky? Who rebuilt the destroyed buildings? After Sokovia fell from the sky, who took care of the refugees? After Thanos snapped his fingers... who held society together when half of all people vanished?
The heroes saved the world. They deserved credit for that. But someone had to help the world stay saved.
That was David's vision: build infrastructure that could survive catastrophes and help communities rebuild after. Create networks of support that didn't depend on superhuman intervention. Establish systems that empowered ordinary people to take care of each other.
It was ambitious. Probably impossible. But David had the benefit of foreknowledge and a gift that, while not flashy, was perfectly suited to the task. So he was going to try.
His eyes drifted to a photograph pinned above his workbench. The original David Chen with his parents, taken maybe a year before they died in a car accident, leaving their son with crushing debt and no safety net. The boy in the photo looked happy, unaware of the tragedy waiting in his future.
David touched the photo gently. He'd inherited this body and this life, merged with a soul that couldn't bear the weight of existing anymore. He owed it to that boy to make something meaningful from the second chance they'd both received.
"I won't waste it," he murmured to the photograph. "I promise."
Finally, he forced himself to bed, lying in the dark and running through tomorrow's schedule, prioritizing tasks, anticipating problems. The mental exercise usually helped him sleep, creating the illusion of control in a chaotic world.
Tonight, though, his mind kept returning to Marcus's question: What happens when the people in power notice what we're doing?
David didn't have a good answer yet. But he had two years to figure it out.
Outside, Queens slept uneasily, millions of dreams unfolding in the dark. Somewhere in Manhattan, Tony Stark was probably still awake, building something brilliant and dangerous. Nick Fury was planning for threats he couldn't fully articulate. Hydra agents were reporting to their secret masters, patient and malignant.
And in a modest apartment in Flushing, David Chen, architect, planner, man with too many secrets, finally drifted into uneasy sleep, dreaming of buildings that could stand against the storm.