A/N: Creepy Title *Shudder*
Evan was technically at work.
In practice, he was leaning back in a cheap swivel chair, one leg hooked around the base, lazily throwing a ping-pong ball at the concrete wall of the warehouse office and catching it on the rebound.
Throw.
Bounce.
Catch.
Throw.
Bounce.
Miss.
The ball rolled under a filing cabinet that hadn't been opened in years.
"…Eh," Evan muttered, not bothering to retrieve it.
The office itself was nothing special. Folding table. Old chair. A few monitors showing logistics data and sales curves climbing steadily upward. Outside the thin walls, forklifts moved crates that Evan had never touched with his own hands.
Which was fine.
He'd already done enough physical labor in his life.
The Super Star purchase sat uncomfortably in the back of his mind.
One million dollars.
Cheap.
That was the strange part.
For something that had saved his life—and several others—it had been laughably affordable. The catch, of course, was the duration.
One to two minutes.
That was it.
Movies lied.
Anime lied worse.
They made fights feel eternal. Long monologues. Emotional flashbacks. Characters screaming techniques for ten minutes straight.
Reality didn't work like that.
There was one fight Evan remembered—infamous, actually—where the whole thing lasted maybe five or ten minutes at most, despite taking up half a season's worth of screen time.
Violence was fast.
Decisive.
Messy.
And he'd burned through almost the entire Super Star window in seconds.
Worth it.
Still, it wasn't something he could rely on repeatedly. Too flashy. Too public. Too expensive to spam.
He needed options.
The air shimmered beside him.
Sage materialized without fanfare, like she'd always been there and reality had just caught up. In one hand was a steaming cup of coffee. In the other, tea. She placed both neatly on the table in front of Evan, aligning them with unnecessary precision.
"Here you are, sir," she said pleasantly.
Then—without hesitation—she sat down.
Not in a chair.
On the floor.
She crossed her legs, the hem of her outfit not touching the concrete, and a tablet flickered into existence in her hands. Her eyes scanned data that only she could see, already multitasking across systems that weren't technically connected to anything official.
Evan glanced at her, then back to his monitors.
"…Thanks."
She hummed softly in acknowledgment.
He didn't complain.
It wasn't bothering him that someone else was doing his job. If anything, it was efficient. Evan had always believed delegation was the purest form of intelligence.
He took a sip of the coffee. Good temperature. Good strength.
Sage noticed.
She smiled.
Evan opened the Shop.
The interface settled into place instantly, responsive as ever.
> Balance: ~$7,000,000
Half a month.
That's all it had taken.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had burned through stock like addicts with a credit card, buying every Stimpack they could legally—and illegally—acquire. Evan didn't care. He didn't ask questions. Money was money.
He placed the order without ceremony.
> Purchase Confirmed
Item: Stim Packs
Quantity: 500,000
Unit Cost: $2
Total: $1,000,000
Another half-million routed to warehouses.
Margins held.
Demand spiked.
No complaints.
"Sir," Sage said, glancing up from her tablet, "supply-chain strain remains within acceptable tolerances. Media sentiment is stabilizing. However, intelligence agencies—plural—are escalating interest."
Evan shrugged.
"As long as they pay."
Sage tilted her head slightly, amused.
He scrolled.
The Shop's Power section unfolded like a forbidden library. Each entry was tagged with origin media, risk level, compatibility, and—most importantly—price.
Some were obscene.
Reality rewriting.
Full time stops.
Conceptual authority.
Way out of budget.
Others were cheap but useless. Cosmetic buffs. Minor stat boosts that wouldn't even slow a tank shell.
Evan filtered aggressively.
Price Cap: 10,000,000
Compatibility: Human (Modified)
Collateral Risk: Low–Moderate
He leaned forward slightly, interest sharpening.
Then—
The air changed.
Not dramatically.
Just… shifted.
Sage froze.
The tablet in her hands flickered, then stabilized, running on some fallback system Evan hadn't even known she'd installed. Her eyes lifted sharply, posture suddenly alert.
Someone was sitting across from Evan.
They hadn't been there a moment ago.
Now they were.
An old woman, calm and composed, dressed simply. No dramatic aura. No overwhelming pressure. Just… presence. The kind that made the room feel smaller without actually shrinking.
The Ancient One.
Sage blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"…Excuse me, sir," she said carefully, eyes never leaving the woman. "How did she appear?"
Evan leaned back in his chair, unbothered.
"Funny," he said casually, glancing at the Ancient One. "Thought you'd come along if I had Sage place tea."
The Ancient One smiled faintly.
"You had this Sage place tea for the last week since the fight," she replied evenly.
Evan winced. "Fair point."
Sage's gaze flicked between them, processing.
Evan gestured loosely. "She borrows power from a being that lets her use it. Pretty much magic."
The Ancient One nodded, interest sparking briefly in her eyes as she studied Sage—not as a threat, but as a curiosity.
"Fascinating," she murmured.
Sage straightened slightly. "I am pleased to meet you."
The Ancient One's smile deepened.
Evan drummed his fingers on the table. "Give the kid a ring, won't you."
Sage stiffened. "Sir?"
The Ancient One chuckled softly and reached into her sleeve, producing a simple metal ring. She handed it to Sage without ceremony.
"A Sling Ring," she said. "Use it responsibly."
Sage accepted it reverently.
Then immediately began scanning it.
"…Spatial folding," Sage murmured. "Dimensional anchoring. Non-digital interface. Remarkable."
She paused.
"…I will take this apart."
The Ancient One laughed outright as Sage vanished a moment later, reappearing several feet away to begin analyzing the ring from multiple angles.
Evan smiled faintly.
"Kids," he muttered.
He looked back at the Ancient One.
"So," Evan said. "What's my future?"
The Ancient One regarded him quietly.
Then spoke.
"Hero second," she said.
"Businessman third."
"Father first."
Evan blinked.
"…To who?"
She smiled, serene and unhelpful.
"You'll see."
He leaned back, exhaling slowly.
She rose to her feet.
"I hope you continue being a good person," the Ancient One said gently. "After all, this was your… canon event, if you will."
Evan snorted. "That's unfair."
She shrugged lightly.
"We already chat once a year," she continued. "Hearing tales of other universes from you is… refreshing. But for now, I must prepare."
"For Strange?" Evan asked.
"Indeed."
She inclined her head, then vanished—no flash, no distortion. Just gone.
The room felt normal again.
Too normal.
Sage reappeared moments later, Sling Ring disassembled and reassembled flawlessly.
"…I like her," Sage said.
Evan nodded absently.
He turned back to the Shop.
Scrolled.
And then he saw it.
> Chaos Control (Minor)
Price: 9,000,000
Evan stared.
Minor.
But Chaos Control was Chaos Control.
Time-space manipulation. Short-range displacement. Emergency rewinds. Not the reality-breaking version—but something precise.
Something controllable.
Something useful.
Evan smiled slowly.
"…Yeah," he murmured. "That's actually really good."