Chapter 1: Shadows of Legacy
In the sprawling, fortified Stark-Wayne estate on the edge of New York-Gotham, Alex (Alexander Stark-Wayne), as he insisted on being called grew up in a world that felt both impossibly vast and suffocatingly close. Born in 1987 to Elias Stark, the overshadowed younger brother of Howard Stark, and Helena Wayne, the fiercely intelligent sister of Thomas Wayne, Alex was a child of two legacies: Stark Industries' technological empire and Wayne Enterprises' shadowed crusade for justice. The estate itself was a testament to this merger a labyrinth of high-tech labs and gothic architecture, where Stark Tower's sleek lines met Wayne Manor's brooding spires, connected by subterranean tunnels that hummed with SHIELD's secrets.
Alex was no ordinary child. From the moment his infant eyes opened in a SHIELD medical bay in 1987, fragmented memories of another life flickered in his mind. Images of movie theaters playing Marvel blockbusters, late nights reading DC comics, marathons of Anime, and endless hours grinding through Games . He wasn't just born; he was reborn. Reincarnated into a world he recognized as a chaotic blend of Marvel and DC, though the darker undercurrents of The Boys - Vought's Compound V and its superhuman pawns remained unknown to him, as did the sinister Court of Owls, a shadowy cabal woven into Gotham's history and secretly aligned with Hydra's machinations.
This is a fanfiction multiverse, he realized as a toddler, piecing together the clues. Uncle Howard's building arc reactors, Aunt Martha's talking about Gotham's crime rate, and SHIELD's got my parents on speed dial. Tony's my cousin, Bruce too. I'm in deep. But unlike the protagonists of the isekai stories he'd devoured, no system or cheat code greeted him at birth. No glowing interface, no cosmic guide. Just his own wits and a nagging sense that he had to prepare for what was coming.
By age 5, Alex was already a prodigy in his own right. He'd inherited his father's knack for engineering, sneaking into Elias's lab to tinker with circuit boards when no one was looking. His mother, Helena, a SHIELD operative with a medical background, taught him the basics of hand-to-hand combat in secret training sessions, disguised as "family games." Alex soaked it up, driven by his past-life knowledge of the threats this world held like Hydra's conspiracies, the Joker's anarchy, maybe even gods like Darkseid if the multiverse leaned that far. The Court of Owls, though, was a name he'd heard only in whispers, dismissed as a Gotham urban legend, unaware of their Hydra ties lurking beneath the surface.
His cousins, Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, both eight years older, were his idols and enigmas. Born in 1979, they were 13 in 2000, Tony a cocky teenager already designing prototypes that made SHIELD's engineers jealous, spending weekends at the estate dazzling Alex with half-built gadgets and sarcastic quips. Bruce, quieter, was often away at boarding schools or martial arts retreats, but when he visited, he'd challenge Alex to chess matches that doubled as lessons in strategy. "Always think three moves ahead," Bruce would say, his eyes hinting at a darkness Alex recognized from comics but couldn't yet place.
The world outside was a pressure cooker. New York-Gotham pulsed with tension heroes like Superman patrolled the skies, while SHIELD tracked whispers of rogue experiments, unaware that Vought's Compound V was already seeping into the streets, creating unstable supes, or that the Court of Owls was funneling resources to Hydra's global schemes. Alex, still a child, pieced together what he could from overheard conversations and news reports. He knew the broad strokes of his cousins' futures: Tony's path to Iron Man, Bruce's transformation into Batman. But he also knew their parents' fates loomed Thomas and Martha Wayne's murder in an alley, Howard and Maria Stark's "accident" orchestrated by Hydra. Could he change it? Should he?
At 8, in 2003, tragedy struck on schedule. The Waynes attended a gala in Gotham, and Alex, stuck at home with a nanny, felt a chill when the news broke: Thomas and Martha gunned down in an alley, just like the comics. Bruce, now 16, was there, his life shattered. A month later, Howard and Maria Stark's car crashed in a fiery explosion, officially an accident. Tony, also 16, drowned his grief in whiskey and blueprints. Alex, too young to act, burned with frustration. His meta-knowledge screamed that these weren't random Joe Chill might've been dosed with something, and the Winter Soldier's shadow loomed over the Starks' deaths. But he had no proof, no power.
Unbeknownst to Alex, his parents, Elias and Helena, weren't idle. As senior SHIELD operatives, they'd used experimental tech to save both couples, placing Thomas, Martha, Howard, and Maria in suspended animation in a hidden vault beneath the estate. Quitting SHIELD to manage Stark Industries and Wayne Enterprises, they guarded this secret even from their son, fearing the consequences of exposure in a world where Vought, Hydra, and the Court of Owls vied for control.
Alex, unaware of this truth, threw himself into training. By 14, in 2007, he was splitting his time between a private academy, where he aced science and math, and the estate's labs, where he built crude drones under Elias's distracted supervision. Helena taught him to read body language, to spot lies—skills he honed watching SHIELD agents during their visits. He didn't know about the system yet, didn't know that his 14th birthday would change everything. For now, he relied on his past-life knowledge, plotting how to survive a world of gods, monsters, and capes.
But the multiverse was watching. Somewhere, a supe with a chilling smile monitored the Stark-Wayne legacy, and in the estate's depths, four frozen figures dreamed of awakening.