Morning seeped through the cracked blinds in pale-gold bars, striping the kitchen table and turning my half-eaten bagel into modern art. New York was already fully, aggressively awake—horns leaning on themselves, a dog choir arguing with a street sweeper, the language roulette of sidewalk life spinning at high speed. On my screen: headlines, rumor threads, and low-grade chaos. Petty thefts on the West Side. A turf dust-up brewing in Hell's Kitchen. A Midtown thread claiming "enhanced sightings" that read like someone mistook a parkour reel for an Avengers B-cut.
Nothing world-ending. Perfect field-work weather.
Alpha-01 stepped in first—tall, steady, the room's gravity quietly re-calibrating around him. Alpha-02 followed a beat later with that ledger-in-a-person posture, then Alpha-03, gaze observant enough to count breath as evidence. They didn't speak. They never need to—eight months from now, some Harvard body-language nerd will write a thesis on how my boys communicate in shifts of weight and micro-tilts. For now, I have the cheat codes.
"Legs itchy?" I asked, lifting my coffee that tasted like regret with optimism notes.
Alpha-01 angled his chin half a degree. Spartan for yes.
"Good," I said, pushing back from the table. "Today's simple. You three hit the streets. Nothing flashy, nothing that lands us in a S.H.I.E.L.D. slideshow. No weapons unless necessary." I held up a finger. "Capture only. We're not doing the Punisher routine. Midtown's a buffet—Times Square, Bryant Park, the whole tourist artery. Take a lap, pick what looks tasty, and keep it clean. If you need backup, call. Otherwise? Handle it."
"Capture only," Alpha-02 echoed, filing the rule where rules live in him.
Alpha-03 nodded once. Alpha-01's knuckles flexed like a promise.
"Everyone else—basement," I called down the stairwell. "Training block."
Boots came like thunder tuned for concrete. Alpha-04 arrived with 07 in his shadow; Alpha-05 followed with 06 and 08. The rookies had that tightness new metal gets before it finds its temper. I clapped once.
"Today's about sharpening edges," I said. "04 and 05, you've got the wheel. Drill them until they hate the alphabet. I'll float—spot checks, adjustments, mild abuse. Don't expect me to love conditioning; my knees are sentimental."
"Confirmed," Alpha-04 said, already picturing stances in doorways.
"Acknowledged," Alpha-05 added with succinct doom.
"Make them sweat," I grinned.
We split at the lobby—my three ghosts for Midtown, the rest down two flights into the Alpha Complex's beating heart. Basements in New York usually smell like secrets; ours smells like work. The first level hummed with plates and breath. The second, with safe pops and the clicky metronome of laser-cartridge resets. Above us, ten floors of bare apartments that weren't bare anymore. Windows lighting up like vertebrae at night.
Steel, Stance, and Small Corrections
The gym woke like a storm you want to be inside. Bars kissed knurling; collars snapped home. Alpha-04's voice cut in clean, annotation without ego: "07—guard higher. Elbow stays married to the rib. Reset." He could teach a wall to parry.
On the other side, Alpha-05's circuits would have made the Devil ask for a warm-down. "06—breath on the concentric. Drive through the heels. Rack. "Again." He had a way of stripping wasted motion off a person without stripping their confidence. New strength fits better when someone tailored it.
Which left 08 with me.
We squared on the mats. He mirrored Alpha-03's stance—compact, efficient, just a hair too careful. He's a quick study—if Alpha-03 moves like punctuation, 08 copies the commas first.
"Good frame," I said. "Now solve someone who doesn't move like your mentor."
I feinted left, tapped his guard, let him feel me be wrong—angle odd, rhythm impolite. He didn't blink. Nice. He jabbed—straight, honest, fast enough to tell my forearm a story. I caught, pivoted, and laughed.
"Easy, tiger. Commander bruises last longer; HR paperwork is boring."
He reset. Silent. Focused. Perfect.
We moved. He chased, cut, corrected. He learned to love the breath between beats—the place most rookies rush and veterans live. When he got greedy, I punished the opening lightly. When he got timid, I crowded his feet and forced a decision. Improvement isn't a straight line; it's a stubborn spiral with better view each loop.
"07," Alpha-04 called across the room, "jaw unclench. Shoulders drop. Hips do the work." 07 exhaled and the motion smoothed by a centimeter. Fight enough, and a centimeter becomes a life.
"06," Alpha-05 said, racking plates. "Last set. Don't chase the number—chase the form." A nod. A cleaner squat. The bar traveled as if it finally trusted the person under it.
Hours rolled like drumlines. Sweat made chalk paste, pastes made handprints, handprints made progress. I gave 08 a mid-round shove to test his ankles and got a solid recovery step for my trouble. "Not bad for your first week of existence," I told him, and he didn't smile but the corner of his focus warmed.
I heckled generously, because morale by irritation is still morale. "Come on, 06—my fictional grandma lifts faster."
"07, you're scaring cockroaches at best; aim for raccoons."
"08, keep swinging like that and you're buying lunch."
No one took the bait. The silence was half the sport. You learn more about a fighter by the jokes they don't answer than the ones they do.
We broke at midday. Water hissed down throats. The room smelled like iron, salt, and the tang of gun oil drifting up from the range. The rookies' chests rose like bellows; the veterans looked like they'd just finished reading a manual.
"Not bad," I said, slumping against the wall. "You're still rough, but you're yesterday's rough sanded once. Keep going and—maybe—maybe you won't embarrass me on patrol."
Alpha-04 tipped his head at my still-heaving chest. "Commander requires conditioning."
"Oh, I'll keep myself alive," I said. "You machines handle the heavy lifting. I'm the charming one."
Alpha-05 handed 06 a towel—small kindness disguised as logistics. "Continue after recovery."
"See?" I told the rookies. "No mercy. Count yourselves lucky I'm not the one programming your circuits."
07 blinked once—his version of I hear you. Progress.
Pop, Paper, and Patterns
We shifted to the range where the second basement snapped with controlled, safe pops. No live rounds in city limits—not since we wrote Rules of Engagement v1.0 and taped them to three doors. Laser training cartridges ticked hits; paper ate holes politely. Alpha-04 adjusted 07's grip by millimeters: "Thumbs forward; don't strangle the gun." Grouping tightened by an inch. That inch saves headlines later.
Alpha-05 shadowed 06 through a draw sequence that made choreography look lazy. "Clear, join, press, reset. Again." 06's shoulders learned to stay low while his intention learned to stay high.
08 stood at the mark. Feet set. Breath reset. Press—beep. Press—beep. Each beep a little less surprised by itself. I stepped behind him. "Not bad," I said. "At least you're hitting paper."
He reloaded without looking away and kept going. Good. Paper today, people never.
We finished with a de-escalation block: words first, hands second, pride not at all. Alpha-03 led because his voice can turn a room down without dimming it. "Praise before redirection," he told the rookies. "Names before orders. Choices before consequences." He's a poet who pretends not to be.
Midtown, in Three Scenes
While we rewired reflexes in the basement, my Midtown trio rewired a couple of bad days topside.
Scene One: Times Square, Noonish.
A boost crew ran the classic tourist distraction: map, bump, bag disappears into a swarm of novelty T-shirts. They didn't plan for Alpha-01's ability to be everywhere a fraction sooner. He didn't sprint; he vectored. Shoulder into the route, soft as a door closing. The bag changed hands mid-complaint. The thief blinked and met Alpha-02, who said, "Stop. Hands visible. We're neighbors." The man, surprised to be respected, made the second best decision of his day and complied. NYPD got a neatly zip-tied delivery and a video file labeled ASSIST—CIVILIAN PROPERTY RETURN.
Scene Two: Bryant Park, Lunch Rush.
Pay-to-play toughs tried to shake a food cart for "protection." The vendor had more backbone than sense; it was about to go sideways. Alpha-03 slid into the pocket between them and time. "Good food, bad choices," he said, smile almost convincing. The talkers talked. The hitter sized up 03 and found bad math. When he swung, he learned a gentle physics lesson: wrist redirected, elbow guided, body brought to ground as if by suggestion. No broken bones. Plenty of broken momentum. They were still complaining when a patrol car rolled up to applause and a free kebab.
Scene Three: 49th and Harried.
A small child drifted from his mother's hand into a tourist river. Alpha-01 flowed sideways, didn't pick him up (scary), but knelt to the boy's eye line and held out a hand. The boy placed his palm into a safe version of the world and was promptly reattached to a grateful parent. No fanfare. No footage. The best kind of point score.
I didn't see those scenes in real time, but I know my men; I've watched enough "before" to infer the "after." Later, their body-cam footage would confirm the shape of the day. In that moment, the only confirmation I had was the way the air felt lighter when they stepped back into the building.
Gifts on the Floor
We were an hour into the afternoon block when the stairwell gave me a familiar rhythm—one you feel in your ribs before your ears agree. Alpha-01, 02, 03 entered with calm that made the floor feel like it had always intended to be under them. Each carried a tidy bundle of duct tape and poor decisions.
They set three men down gently—the way you place groceries you don't want to burst. Midtown toughs, armed, now edited. Scrapes on knuckles, cheap pistols bagged, no blood where it didn't belong.
I arched a brow. "Gifts. What'd you bring me?"
"Street gang. Armed. Neutralized," Alpha-02 said, as if he were reciting inventory.
"No civilian casualties," Alpha-03 added, which is the only statistic that matters.
I crouched by the nearest bundled man and gave him my friendliest grin. "Wrong streets for that noise. Lucky for you, my guys don't kill." He attempted a muffled curse—textbook vowel work through a gag; points for enunciation.
Ding.
The System ticked with the satisfaction of a turnstile—Assists logged: 3. Civilians affected: 12. Media risk: Low. It wasn't Thor-level jackpot, but steady income keeps the lights on.
"Wrap them for NYPD and stay for the applause," I said. "We like our handoffs clean."
Alpha-01 nodded toward the front. Coulson wasn't on the sidewalk, but an unmarked sedan that smelled like him was. Good. If we were going to be the city's unofficial doormen, I wanted the polite ghost in accounting to keep signing off. Our ROE v1.0 had toes in both worlds—neighbors and suits. Keep it that way.
Alpha-04 used the intercom voice he reserves for logistics: "Bag and tag. Cameras archived." The rookies fell into the workflow, learning that good policing is as much paper as it is presence. Alpha-05 logged serials and timestamps. 06 and 08 ran water to the men who'd wanted to hurt strangers an hour ago because rules are about us, not them. 07 stood on the tape line watching the door like learning is a posture.
An officer knocked—two taps, pause. We opened. "Delivery," I said, cheerful. "No shipping required." Paperwork swapped, nods traded. Our neighbors wore blue today; we wore gray; the handshake stayed human.
Neighborhood Math
Evening stretched long and orange through the stairwell windows. The rookies' legs were rubber; the veterans looked like statues that had learned not to gloat. The gym clanged softer. The range beeps faded. The building did that thing I love—exhaling into ready.
We debriefed around folding tables Alpha-04 had squared to a centimeter. Chili bubbled in an oversized pot because feeding Spartans is an exercise in bulk math. Steam fogged the windows. The neighbor with the tomato plants took a bowl she didn't want to admit she wanted.
"Lessons," I said, tapping my spoon like a gavel.
"Words worked twice. Hands once." Alpha-03 said. "Praise before redirection remains effective." He glanced at 08, who'd handled a mouthy witness earlier by saying thank you for the description before asking for the actual description. It had landed.
"Group split was efficient," Alpha-02 added. "Recommend two-man buddy pairs for Midtown—rotate rookie shadow." He had the matrix already drawn inside his skull.
"07 jaw clench persists," Alpha-04 said, not unkindly. 07 unclenched. "Improved under breath cues."
"Hydration," Alpha-05 put in. "Rookies under-hydrate during range work." He slid water across the table, problem and solution in one motion.
"Media," I added. "If a camera asks for a sound bite, it gets a neighbor story or a no comment—not a Spartan myth. We are not content. We are context."
We ate. We wrote our future in sentences that didn't need capes. We cleaned as if Nick Fury were about to run a white-glove test (he wouldn't; he'd just stare until the dust left out of shame).
Small Stakes, Real Cost
I showered off the chalk and took stock in the mirror that has never once told me the whole truth. A bruise bloomed along my forearm where 08 had gotten enthusiastic. My knees were fine; my pride was better. The building hummed like a ship in calm water.
We are very good at winning. It's not hard to get intoxicated by ninety-second victories that end with zip ties and points. But the cost runs quieter: the rookies' fatigue that can turn into sloppiness if I let ego write the schedule; the neighbor who decides to cross the street instead of say hello because eight broad-shouldered silhouettes look like a headline waiting to self-fulfill; the NYPD lieutenant whose patience has a budget I don't see.
I walked the floors with Alpha-01—not because I had to, but because command is a living thing and you feed it by witnessing. Alpha-02 and 05 were doing a slow strength warm-down, bars moving like apologies to joints. Alpha-03 had 06 and 08 in the hallway working breath ladders—box breathing in four counts, out in six, the kind of boring that keeps hearts slow when they should be fast. Alpha-04 was labeling a shelf with an accuracy that made the shelf blush. 07 stood guard at the stairwell, jaw unclenched on purpose.
We didn't talk much. We didn't need to. The complex had become a machine that believes itself alive.
The Return of Midtown, Annotated
When Alpha-01, 02, 03 had dropped their "gifts," they'd also dropped context. After chili, they unspooled more detail at my request. You can learn a lot about a city by the pieces it gives you to hold.
Midtown toughs had been running a small racket: courier package intercepts on foot, snatch-and-pass in a crowd. They weren't Wilson Fisk level; they were the first brick in a wall if left alone. Alpha-02 laid out their route tree on a napkin, each arrow a potential error. "We removed three nodes," he said. "The network collapses or re-routes. We will watch for re-route."
"We'll watch," I corrected gently. This is New York City; "we" includes the beat cops, the bodega owners, the dog walkers, and the old guy who sees everything because he waters his sidewalk at the same time daily.
Alpha-03 added the human layer. "Second man obeyed when called by name." He had gleaned it from a girlfriend's shout across the crowd. Names matter; anonymity is cowardly brave.
Alpha-01 described the feel of the block in words that were shapes: tight, bright, fidgety. He notices textures more than facts—the thing you remember when you need to step where the ground won't betray you.
We logged it all. We always do. If S.H.I.E.L.D. ever asks—politely—we have receipts. If Nick Fury knocks again and wants the version with fewer jokes, I'll print it double-spaced with timestamps.
Night School
The city outside our dirty windows tripped into that glitter that makes tourists forgive the rats. Somewhere, Stark was ignoring whatever aviation regulation he'd just offended. Somewhere else, Matt Murdock was wiping blood from his lip with the same hand that would sign a brief before sunrise. Spider-Man was still a rumor in a high school, a question mark on a screen. The Avengers weren't a team yet; they were an accident waiting for a reason.
We weren't a team either, not officially. But we behaved like one: rules posted, drills logged, neighbors greeted, points earned responsibly. Small heroics in the margins of a universe addicted to comets.
I took the couch with a soda and a view that equates to power if you're generous and delusion if you're not. The lights made a scoreboard out of the skyline.
Eight Spartans training.
Three bad men processed without a headline.
Zero bodies.
Zero civilians hurt.
One kid and a cat still in the same apartment.
A city that did not notice us enough to fear us.
Progress.
Alpha-01 drifted to the window and stood with me, both of us pretending to watch traffic when we were counting something else: choices we made today that we can make again tomorrow.
"Good day," I said to the glass, to the room, to the squad, to the version of me who woke up in a cracked ceiling and said fine, I'll be the problem and the solution.
Alpha-01 didn't answer. He doesn't need to when the answer is the room itself.
Somewhere on my desk, the System glowed a quiet ledger—no jackpot, just steady credit: Assists: Midtown (3), Civilians Affected: 12, De-escalations Successful: 4, Training Hours Logged: 18. The numbers meant upgrades down the line—another rookie someday; a training package sooner. We'll get there. Slowly. Right.
I finished the soda and let the fizz burn the back of my throat into a kind of truth.
Splitting the squad had done exactly what I wanted: widened our circle, tightened our craft, and reminded this MCU city that not every help comes with a theme song.
Zip ties are lighter than a body bag. Paperwork is cheaper than PR. A clean handoff is sexier than a dramatic speech. And a good day in New York is one where the only thing we break is a sweat.
Tomorrow, we'll do it again. Different corner, same rules. Maybe a bigger problem will find us. Maybe a smaller one will become big if we ignore it. Either way, we've got a fortress, a bus, three SUVs, basements that hum, and a Man With the Eye who has decided we are worth the calories of attention.
We'll be ready.