Chapter 3 – L.A., Bring Me Your Kingdoms
Burbank looked like a lie from the air—neatly gridded, palm trees pretending wind didn't exist, studio lots glinting like polished teeth. The jet dropped through a marine layer that made the world feel private for three seconds. When it broke into sun, Louise squeezed Ivar's hand without looking away from the window.
"You ever notice how every place that tells stories wears sunglasses?" she asked.
"I notice who takes them off in shade," he said. "Those are my people."
The tires chirped. The cabin clapped for a pilot who did not need clapping. Ivar craned to see the terminal and, beyond it, the billboard faces big enough to shame gods. Half of them advertised shows he would buy. The other half advertised sneakers men bought when they wanted to run from themselves.
Louise had booked a car that looked like it had learned humility in a former life. They climbed in, windows down, California air heavy with jacaranda and old ambition. The driver had the radio tuned to an AM station where an announcer with a cartoon voice said words like "blockbuster" as if he were tasting them for salt.
"Mr. Teller?" the driver asked, catching Ivar's eyes in the mirror.
"Ivar."
"I read the thing," the driver said. "My niece—she's twelve. She wants in. The preorder. They sold out in my city, but—"
"Pull over," Ivar said gently.
The driver looked at him like he was either trouble or charity. He signaled anyway. Ivar typed on his phone, then held it over the seat: a Northern Star confirmation with the driver's name in the shipping line and Total: $0.00. "Tell her it's from you. And tell her to beat you."
The driver's eyes went glassy. He raised a hand to hide it, failed, then nodded three times like he was remembering how to nod. "I'll tip you," he said, a sentence that made no sense.
"You already did," Ivar said. "You trusted me with the wheel."
He sat back as the car slid into traffic, trading speed for the illusion of it. Louise watched his profile for a beat that valued honesty over compliments. "Keep doing that," she said.
"Buying consoles for drivers?"
"Making the storm personal."
"It's expensive."
"It's fuel."
He smirked. "You sound like my accountant."
"I sound like your anchor."
"Same thing on good days."
They rolled under an overpass tagged with letters ten feet high and 2 a.m. urgent. Somewhere, a man pushed a cart piled with aluminum cans that flashed like fish scales. Somewhere else, a woman in sunglasses talked to a man in another car without moving her mouth. L.A. likes to pretend it's a thousand separate rooms. It isn't. It's a party where everyone thinks they're the host.
"Stan first?" Louise asked.
"Stan first," Ivar said. "Then the CW for dinner. We'll sketch the DC map on a napkin and let them call me a heretic."
"And Fox?"
"Fox will hear the thunder," he said, "and ask if it's for sale."
"Fox always asks that."
"They'll ask it louder today."
The car turned into a low-slung office park that looked like a magic trick had been performed here once and the building had never recovered. The receptionist smiled the way veterans smile at rookies who don't know the rules yet. "He'll be right in," she said.
He was. Stan Lee didn't enter rooms, he blessed them. Big glasses, energy like a prank you couldn't get mad at, the aura of someone who had invented a verb and then watched other people conjugate it poorly.
"Kid," Stan said, hands out. "You brought the storm."
"I brought the anchor," Ivar said, stepping aside so he could present Louise like a good idea.
Stan kissed Louise's knuckles as if chivalry had never been misused. "Any man who leads with gratitude is teachable," he told Ivar. "Come."
The office smelled faintly of paper and effort. Framed covers looked down: a chorus of capes, masks, fistfights that could fix the world if only ink could bruise. There was a couch that had been a couch to important decisions. Stan sat first because he was a king; he motioned for them to sit because he was not a tyrant.
"So," he said. "Say it like you mean it."
"I want Marvel," Ivar said. "Whole catalog. No partitions, no licensing labyrinths that turn art into jurisprudence. Spider-Man in the same world as the X-Men from day one. Fantastic Four as the spine of science, not a punchline. Street-level stories that keep it honest. Cosmic arcs that remember gravity. And I want to price tickets so a kid who saves change in a jar doesn't need to break the jar to go."
Stan smiled like he'd been waiting. "You talk like a man trying to marry the girl at the prom in the middle of the prom."
"Why wait until the gym is empty?" Ivar said.
"Because some men mistake music for forever," Stan said. "But you—" He tilted his head. "You sound like a man who keeps dancing after lights."
"I don't stop when the lights go off," Ivar said. "I learn the room in the dark."
Stan laughed, delighted. "You'll need that. Because son, Marvel's not a toy store. It's a city. It has plumbing you'll never see, neighbors you'll never like, cops who think they own the street. You want to move in? You need more than rent."
"I know," Ivar said. "I want to buy the block. Clean the pipes. Throw a party. Invite the neighbors who've never been invited, and tell the cops the noise is lawful. I'm not here to make a sequel. I'm here to make a world."
Louise watched the volley: men playing truth like racquetball, the ball whistling, sting blooming each time it hit the wall. She interjected at a seam. "And he wants a woman at the center who isn't there to decorate the male redemption arc," she said. "He's casting me as Rogue."
Stan's eyebrows climbed like climbers. "Well," he said. "I see your storm knows manners."
"Rogue is power and consequence," Louise said. "Contact and loneliness. She's a thesis."
Stan's eyes warmed. "And you're a reader," he said. "I like that."
"Will you sell it?" Ivar asked. He wasn't rude. He was direct. There's a difference if you use your eyes like an apology and your mouth like a knife.
"I don't own the whole city," Stan reminded him, hands opening in the old showman's gesture that says this is bigger than my hands. "I own the soul. The papers are held by men who like paper. But souls move paper when they're stubborn. And I can be very stubborn."
"What if those men don't move?" Ivar asked.
"Then you make them," Stan said pleasantly. "Not with lawyers; they've got more. With oxygen. Make the world want it so loudly those men look small for saying no. That's power. I invented a few heroes. You can borrow the cape."
"Borrow?" Ivar said, eyes amused.
Stan grinned. "Rent to own."
They hammered details the way only three people who understood spectacle and spreadsheets could: valuation without insulting history; how to protect creator equity while building stadiums; a carve-out for experimental imprints that would never recoup and always matter; the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. plan—a TV backbone that would actually connect, not pretend to; a Phase One that wasn't a timid proof of concept but a declaration: Iron Man, Spider-Man Begins, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Future Foundation, all within three years, all cross-lit with cameos that meant something.
"And tickets," Ivar said. "I want a low-price tier at every theater we can strong-arm. Weeknights, matinees, partner with schools. A kid should be able to see herself fly without stealing."
"You're going to make some men very angry," Stan said.
"I specialize."
Stan's gaze went soft the way old men's eyes get when they are seeing an earlier room layered over a current one. "Kid, when I was your age, I wanted to conquer a wall. I thought if I knocked it down, freedom would rush in like air. It didn't. Turns out—" He tapped the desk. "—freedom is heavy. You have to carry it. You ready?"
"Yes," Ivar said, and Louise nodded like a second signature.
Stan stood. "Then bring me a term sheet that respects ghosts. I'll lend you my pen."
He shook Ivar's hand, shook Louise's with a gentleness that made her throat tight. At the door, he added, "And one more thing."
"Yes?"
"When you do an old man a cameo," Stan said, eyes twinkling, "don't make me a guy who dies in the first ten minutes."
Ivar laughed. "You're indestructible."
"I eat cereal labeled with exclamation points," Stan said. "Now go steal a network."
They left buzzing in a way caffeine approximates and awe perfects. Outside, the sun had lengthened into that late afternoon LA glow that makes everything look like it believes in itself. Ivar exhaled a laugh that sounded like a chain falling off an old gate.
"You didn't explode," Louise said.
"I almost did at 'ghosts.' "
"You almost always do."
He looked at her sidelong. "Next stop—the CW. Ready to start a fight with canon?"
"Born ready."
They drove fifteen minutes and fifty years into a restaurant that had served the same steak to ten thousand men who thought they were about to be immortal. The head of programming waited in a booth that forgave neither posture nor lies. She had a jawline that could cut contracts and eyes that had seen pilots die in focus groups like flocks of birds in glass.
"You're fun," she said without standing. "Sit."
"Permission to commit heresy?" Ivar asked.
"Permission to pay for it?"
"Yes."
"Proceed."
He slid in opposite. Louise sat beside him because where he drew maps, she calibrated compasses.
"Television universes are divorced," Ivar said. "And the kids noticed. You sell me a Bat here and a Bat there and then pretend bats are territorial. They're not. They're communal. I want the Arrowverse—Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends—tied by design to Titans and Doom Patrol. I want Constantine smoking in the witty corners and Lucifer buying him a drink in the same bar. I want crossover to be a verb, not a holiday."
The programmer sipped water as if hiding whiskey in it. "Legal is a mess."
"Then call me your plumber," Ivar said. "I'm buying the pipes. Your board can stop telling you 'no' when I tell them I swallowed it."
She kept a poker face like a nun keeps a vow—serious and useful. "What do you want from me?"
"Greenlights. Early. We'll bring showrunners with spines. I'll give you season-laced crossover scripts that thread harmonics, not just ratings stunts. And I'll give you Batwoman with a face that sells magazines and chaos."
She raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Megan Fox," Ivar said.
Louise didn't flinch, which is how you know a woman is both secure and a weapon. The programmer blinked because she'd expected a safer name.
"She can do menace and grace," Ivar said. "Sexy without apology. She'll annoy the right men. And Batwoman should annoy the right men."
"You dating her?" the programmer asked like a surgeon pricks a bruise.
"I'm casting her," he said. "I date in the quiet places. And I keep my anchor out front." He nodded to Louise. "Also—Zatanna. Season two."
"Of who?"
"Yes," he said.
She almost smiled, then shackled it. "On paper this is a logistics riot."
"On screen it's a party," he said. "And viewers like parties."
"Budgets?"
"Reasonable on paper, generous on screen. We'll build sets that serve two shows in one lot. Share crews. Share bad guys. Treat a network like a city, not a hallway."
"And your long game?"
"A Crisis event that isn't a marketing apology. One where the rules matter and the emotions cash."
She drummed fingers once. "Dinner's on me if you make me believe before dessert."
Louise slid a folder across: a map that looked like a subway diagram if subways traveled between tones. Color-coded arcs: Arrow (grit), Flash (hope), Supergirl (aspiration), Legends (anarchy), Titans (coming of age with knuckles), Doom Patrol (lovely weird), Constantine (occult noir), Lucifer (slick sin with redemption tax). At the junctions, small stars: Batwoman perched atop Arrow/Flash; Zatanna connecting Constantine/Titans. Tiny notes: Courtney Ford—recurring.
The programmer read in silence for two minutes that stretched like wire pulled taut. Then she closed the folder, placed her hand flat on it like a notarization, and said, "If you buy me out of two contracts that have been my migraine for a year, I'll let you be my migraine for five."
"Deal," Ivar said.
"And if Megan says no?"
"She won't."
"How do you know?"
"She hates cages," he said. "This is a rooftop."
The programmer finally let herself smile, and it made the lights softer. "Fine. Bring me paper. Bring me one show bible that makes a worse executive cry. Bring me a list of directors who know how to shoot night without losing color. And bring me a promise."
"What kind?"
"That you won't leave when the first season's hard."
"I don't leave," he said. "I double down."
They shook hands. Hers was cool, dry, absolute. She looked at Louise. "You'll keep him from making something brilliant and unwatchable?"
"I'll keep him from making something watchable and empty," Louise said.
"Good," the programmer said. "I can buy brilliant. I can't buy soul."
When they left, the restaurant exhaled as if someone had decreased the barometric pressure. Ivar held the door, which is not a small thing when your head is a hurricane.
On the sidewalk, his phone flashed a name that meant old money that had learned to grin only with its teeth.
FOXB: You made noise. Come upstairs.
"Fox," he said, and Louise's eyes sharpened a fraction.
"Make them come downstairs," she suggested.
"Tempting," he said. "But I like taking stairs two at a time."
They drove to an address that had a fountain out front and the ethics of a fountain. Security checked his ID with a look that implied he was not the first Teller to be looked at like that. The elevator made a sound like a polite predator. On floor twelveteen (which normal people call fourteen), a man in a suit that fit like a decision shook his hand with a press that measured confidence like a blood pressure cuff.
"Mr. Teller," he said. "We hear you want to save us."
"I want to buy you," Ivar said. "Saving is a side effect."
The conference room had glass on three sides and a view of an old sign that spelled a word people thought meant dream when it actually meant real estate. Three board members sat in chairs that had outlived better men. A fourth member stood, staring at his phone as if it were about to declare independence.
"You're young," said the woman at the head. She was sixty if she was anything; she wore pearls like brass knuckles.
"I'm loud," he said.
"Same thing in this town," said the man who hadn't looked up yet.
"You've made friends," Pearl Knuckles said. "And enemies. We like both. We prefer our enemies to be other people's."
"Convenient," Ivar said. "I make mine portable."
"Why Fox?" Pearl asked.
"Library," he said. "Muscle memory. A logo that still triggers the right dopamine. A studio that knows how to build pipe, even when it forgets what to pump."
"What do you do with a brand that old?" Glasses asked.
"Make it wicked young without making it stupid," Ivar said. "And give it a spine made of television that speaks to the same universe as its films. You've been playing silo because the last century taught you to. The next one will punish you for it."
"And your relationship to news?" Pearl asked, voice turning complicated.
"I make none," he said. "No appetite. I'll take the entertainment arm if you must amputate. I'll take the whole if you want a cleaner operating room. But I won't hold a microphone I don't sing into."
Pearl's eyes flicked, a chess piece sliding three squares invisibly. "You price us like a raider, we won't answer the phone."
"I'll price you like a partner with debt," he said. "And I'll make it attractive enough your lawyers ask if you have a duty to say yes."
"You don't have the cash," said the fourth, finally glancing up.
"I have a storm," he said. "And storms attract boats that want to cross quickly."
Pearl almost smiled. "Show us your harbor."
He slid a one-pager across the table: not a full offer—he wasn't rude—but a thesis that smelled like inevitability. Northern Star acquires Fox Entertainment Group; retains production infrastructure; spins up integrated franchises; merges distribution tech with studio pipeline; leverages gaming platform into transmedia with real teeth. At the bottom, a line they'd either mock or memorize:
The future is not vertical. It is concentric. Own the circle.
Pearl read, reread, then set it down as if it might stain. "We are listening," she said, exactly the language of the email, with the tone of a woman who had left meetings to win wars.
"You'll try to play me against other bidders," he said.
"Obviously."
"I'll let you," he said, and the men blinked. "And then I'll win because I'll give the public what they want before the paper is dry. You'll look like geniuses for recognizing weather. Everyone eats. Nobody drowns."
"You don't sound like a CEO," Glasses said, baffled and a little excited.
"I'm not," Ivar said. "I'm a conductor. The orchestra is hungry."
They did not shake hands because this was not a handshake meeting. But when Ivar and Louise left, Pearl watched them go with the expression of a woman who had recognized a younger predator and decided to throw it a steak to see how it fed.
In the elevator, Ivar let his head bump the mirrored wall. "I hate rooms that smell like cologne and asset classes."
"You like them," Louise said.
"I like winning in them," he admitted. "Different thing."
They stepped back into a night that had decided to be summer. L.A. had put on her sequins. People were practicing becoming themselves in public.
"Call Megan?" Louise asked.
"I'll text her," he said. "A call makes it a chase. A text makes it a door."
He typed:
You, rooftop, cape. Tomorrow 3 p.m. I'll bring proof it won't be a cage. —I
The dots pulsed almost immediately. Rooftops are cold, Megan wrote. Bring a fire.
He sent back a star and a location and the word Always.
They took the long way to the hotel because it's illegal to go to bed before you let a city talk to you. On a corner, two kids did a skateboard duet that made gravity laugh and then apologize. At a crosswalk, an old man told a joke to a woman in a green dress and made her tilt her head back to show the moon her teeth. An ambulance wailed without asking permission. A billboard for a show he didn't own yet glowed like permission he would not ask for.
In the lobby, under a chandelier the size of a mistake, Ivar and Louise sank into two chairs built to make money look comfortable.
"How's your heart?" she asked.
"Clawing the inside of my ribs," he said. "In a good way."
"How's your head?"
"Picturing a title card that says MARVEL STUDIOS without anyone flinching when X shows up in the next shot."
"How's your appetite?"
"Carnivorous."
She laughed. "We did it."
"Not yet," he said. "We set the fuse."
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Tomorrow," he echoed.
He reached for her hand. She gave it. They sat in a good silence. The lobby piano player chose a standard and then reharmonized it with chords that felt like corners turning.
His phone vibrated against the table. White Blouse Investor: Audit positive. Tranche two wired at open. Also—good luck tomorrow. My kids are insufferable about your console.
He sent a heart because sometimes weapons look like kindness and sometimes kindness is the only weapon that matters.
Another buzz. Stan: Bring your map. I'll bring mine.
He looked at Louise. "We're borrowing a pen."
"We're signing with our blood."
He made a face. "Metal."
"Accurate."
They went upstairs and spread the day across the bed like a crime scene they were proud of. She brushed her teeth while he made a second list on hotel stationary because he liked the feel of heavy paper under a heavy plan:
Stan meeting: term sheet rev 1, creator equity language, AoS slate, Rogue position, Phase One timeline.
CW dinner follow-up: Batwoman (Megan), directors list (night lens), legal mud pre-scrub, Titans/Doom Patrol pilot trades.
Fox: data room wishlist; partners who like speed; leverage numbers from console (live unit count in corner of every slide).
Legal letter wall: bathroom curation continues.
Open Play: 1000 units shipped by week's end. Target: hospitals that smell like bleach and hope.
He put the pen down and turned off the lamp. The city hummed under the blackout curtain like a computer doing work while it slept. Louise's breathing evened. He did not sleep. He curated silence and found, somewhere under the adrenaline, something that felt alarmingly like peace.
At 3:06 a.m., his phone buzzed once with a text from a number he hadn't saved because he didn't want to frighten it away. Courtney: Heard you're building something wild. I'm tired of tame. If you need someone who doesn't mind bleeding for a scene, I'm awake.
He smiled into the dark. Tomorrow, he typed back. We draw you into the map. Then he added, because he had learned to say it when it was true: Thank you for trusting the weather.
He slept for an hour that felt like two. He woke with a heart that thought it was a drummer. He showered, and the water hammered him like applause. He checked the console counter remotely—095,004—and grinned like a man who has stopped apologizing for wanting everything.
Louise tangled her hair into a knot and slid into a white shirt that made simplicity a weapon. "Ready?" she asked.
"For what?"
"For the day that makes the last two matter."
They walked out into a morning that looked the same as any other morning and was not.
Downstairs, the driver from yesterday waited with a grin that made his cheeks try to remember how to be boys. "My niece," he said, unprompted. "She didn't sleep. Thank you."
"Tell her to pick a game where she can beat adults," Ivar said.
"She already did," he said. "She said she's going to be a rogue."
Louise's eyes found Ivar's. It wasn't fate. It was good work finding its echo.
"Let's go," she said.
"To Stan," he said.
"To maps," she said.
"To buying the storm a bigger sky," he said, and the car took them toward an office where a man who had once drawn gods would agree to let a child from Charming become one.