Morning in the Alpha Complex didn't so much begin as continue. The building slept like a cat—one ear open, a low purr under the concrete—and by the time I wandered out of the top-floor apartment, it was already loud with useful noise. Metal kissed metal. Breath counted beats. Somewhere below, a timer chirped like a bird that got drafted into the Marines.
I leaned over the rail to watch the spine of the place work. On the first basement level, Alpha-05 spotted 06 under a squat bar so heavy the steel bowed a little, the plates humming at the bottom of each rep. 06 still had that new-soldier eagerness to overdo; 05 countered it with a quiet, relentless metronome—"down… pause… up"—until the motion smoothed into something a joint could trust.
On a taped-off lane near the freight elevator, Alpha-04 drilled rifle manipulations with a metal rod standing in for a long gun (range rules: no live fire above the second basement). He ghosted through positions like he had a secret understanding with gravity. Every transition stopped exactly where it should, like the floor had magnets buried under it.
Halfway up the stairwell, Alpha-03 was running flights, not fast so much as inevitable, his boots whispering the same message to each step: remember me. The concrete would. It always does when 03 decides to teach it a name. At the landing, he turned, went back down, and started again. 03 treats endurance like a language—speak enough of it and people hear you even when you're silent.
The silence on the top floor, of course, was occupied by Alpha-02, who appeared in the doorway of the gym with his hands behind his back like a school inspector and looked at my half-hearted warm-up as if it were the opening argument to a case I was destined to lose.
"See?" I said, kicking out into a push-up and immediately regretting every decision that led to this moment. "I train."
"Effort minimal," Alpha-02 observed, without malice. The man can turn two words into a full performance review.
"Rude," I panted. "Accurate, but rude."
I did thirty minutes of penance that looked like push-ups, kettlebell swings, and life choices, while the Spartans flowed around me in a choreography that would make an orchestra jealous. Sweat got acquainted with the rubber mats. Somewhere a fan clicked. My stubborn knees complained softly, like they remembered a past life where mornings meant coffee and email and not eight soldiers treating time like clay.
On the cooldown bench, catching the breath I definitely wasn't running out of, the System chimed in the back of my mind like a polite cashier.
Points available: 500.
Convenient. I smiled to no one.
"System: summon clone—designation Alpha-09."
Blue light unfurled in the corner, the kind of glow that looks like a thought deciding to be a person. It condensed into another tower of intent: same height, same bone structure, a fresh set of edges waiting to be sanded by practice. Raw. Quiet. Unrefined. Every new Spartan carries the same odd weight, like a pronounced pause at the end of a sentence. Then they breathe, the pause becomes a person, and the room decides where to put him.
He saluted. "Commander."
"Welcome to the circus, Rookie," I said, standing. "You're Alpha-09. Don't worry, you'll toughen up fast." I flicked my chin toward Alpha-04. "Congrats—you're a dad again. Teach him not to embarrass us."
"Acknowledged," 04 said, already scanning 09 for telltale posture lies—shoulders that think they're low but aren't, knees pretending they don't care.
09 fell in beside him, posture copying perfection like a photocopier with opinions.
The basement door slammed open. Alpha-01, 02, and 03 came up the last steps in formation, the air around them recalibrating to make room. They'd been topside—Midtown watch or a quick patrol loop—and when those three come home early, it's either because the city behaved or because it didn't.
"Already back?" I asked. "What'd you do, scare New York into good decisions?"
"Visitor. Civilian. Requesting audience," Alpha-01 said.
"Civilian—this early?" I wiped my palms on a towel. "We're not even open. Did we start charging admission?"
Behind them, a different rhythm on the stairs—too light to be a Spartan, too hesitant to be a cop, the cadence of someone deciding at each step whether to turn around. He appeared in the doorway: brown hair, hoodie two sizes north of ambition, sneakers with scuffed laces, and a backpack hugged to his chest like a parachute for emotional support.
Peter Parker, the kid from Hell's Kitchen. The one with curiosity for eyes.
I smiled. "Well, well. If it isn't the kid from Hell's Kitchen. Peter Parker, right?"
He froze on instinct, then nodded. "Y-yeah. That's me."
"Took you long enough," I said. "What's it been—two weeks since Alpha-01 smacked those thugs off you?"
He went pink from neck to ears. "I—I know. I wanted to come sooner, but—" He glanced at 01, at the wall of Spartans, at the stairwell like it might decide to be a door again.
I waved it away. "Relax. You showed up. Good enough. Come on." I patted the bench. "Sit. You look like you might faint, and my insurance doesn't cover teenagers doing swan dives."
He sat like a grenade with the pin back in. Up close he was all elbows and quick eyes, a high schooler's nervous energy welded to something hungrier. The backpack had a science-club pin catching the light; neat. It fit him.
He took in the room—the racks, the mats, the whiteboard covered in a week of programming—and then the Spartan wall behind me. "They're… all with you?"
"Every single one," I said. "Try not to feed them after midnight. It voids the warranty."
Alpha-02's eyebrow, which rarely expresses anything beyond yes, I see the world, lifted a millimeter. For him, that's a spit-take.
"So," I said, friendly as coffee. "What brings you to the Alpha Complex, Parker? Besides wanting another look at Alpha-01 demonstrating how to fold criminals like laundry."
He cracked a smile despite himself, then looked straight at 01. "I just… wanted to thank you. I mean all of you, but—" His gaze clung to Alpha-01 the way you cling to the first moment you felt safe after not feeling safe for a while. "You stopped them like it was nothing. They had knives, and you didn't even—" He groped for the right adult word and picked the right one anyway. "You weren't scared."
"Commander's order," Alpha-01 said, the rumble of a truck turned into a sentence. "Assist civilian."
Peter blinked at me. "So you told him to help me."
"Of course," I said. "Kid your age getting jumped? Not on my watch." I shrugged so the moment wouldn't grow teeth. "Plus—it scores points. Win-win."
"Points?" he echoed, that scientific brain snagging on the hook.
"Figure of speech," I lied, because you don't explain your HUD to a fourteen-year-old who still believes the world is fixable with a good science fair project.
He looked down at his shoes and said, quiet but steady, "No one has ever done that for me before."
"No one's ever noticed you?" I asked, and his shoulders made the answer even if his mouth didn't.
"Not like that."
"You'll get noticed," I said, letting a grin creep in just so the weight of the line wouldn't crush the room. "Trust me. You're the kind trouble finds."
He squinted like he felt a riddle forming. Good. Peter Parker loves riddles he can solve. He'd hate the ones he can't.
I clapped my hands once, turning the atmosphere from sentiment to sweat. "All right. You came to thank us? Thank us properly."
"Properly?"
"Do a set," I said, pointing at the mats. "Earn your keep. That's how you thank Spartans."
His eyes went dinner-plate wide. "What? I—I can't—"
"Relax," I said, already getting up. "I'm not handing you four hundred pounds and a prayer. Baby version. You'll live. Probably."
He glanced at the wall of muscle, swallowed like bravery tastes a little like nausea, and nodded. "Okay. Just… don't laugh if I fall."
"No promises."
We started with a warm-up that looks like nothing on paper and feels like regret in motion: hip hinges, band pulls, a little shoulder flossing, ankles that needed more love than any teenager suspects. The mat smelled like rubber and disinfectant, the honest perfume of places that get better one painstaking centimeter at a time.
"Push-ups," I said, dropping to show him the frame. "Hands under shoulders, straight line from heel to head. Don't crane your neck like you're trying to kiss the floor."
His first rep was exactly what you'd expect from a high school kid who pays attention in class but not to his scapulae: hips sagging, elbows flaring like he was trying to take flight. Alpha-02 tapped between his shoulder blades with the toe of a boot—no weight, just communication—and Peter straightened instinctively. Funny how fast people listen when the feedback is unarguable.
"Better," I said. "Terrible, but better."
"I—am—trying," he said between reps, which is a better sentence than I can't.
"I know," I said, letting a grin slip. "That's why it's funny."
We moved to a hollow hold that taught his core what the word core actually means. He trembled like a light in a storm and didn't quit. 03 ghosted by, dropped a water bottle next to him without ceremony, and continued up the stairs like he hadn't added a kindness to the room.
"He adapts," Alpha-03 said from the landing, voice even as rainfall. That's 03 for high praise. Put it in a frame.
"Hear that, Parker?" I said, and he tried to sit taller while lying on the floor. "You managed to impress a Spartan. Rare thing—almost never happens. Don't let it go to your head. You're still weak."
He groaned into the mat and laughed anyway. That laugh has edges made for future heroics; it'll fit the mask he doesn't know he'll wear.
We worked planks, then a farmer's carry with light plates. Alpha-04 drifted over long enough to nudge his grip in an inch, the kind of micro-correction that makes the difference between carrying and compensating. "Thumb toward the seam," 04 said. Peter adjusted, and the tremble moved from sloppy to strong.
Alpha-05 watched 06's barbell from the corner of his eye and still managed to flip Peter a towel when he finished the carry. "Hydrate," 05 said, and the room nodded back on his behalf.
Fifteen minutes later, Parker collapsed to a sit on the mat, chest cranking like a bellows. I tossed him a fresh water, then another because teenagers are camels with snark. He drained half of it in a single, heroic pull.
"That was way harder than gym class," he said when air and dignity returned enough to make sentences.
"Welcome to Spartan life," I said. "You got the baby sampler. My guys would have had you crying at five minutes."
He smiled around the rim of the bottle. "That's comforting."
"It is," I said, and meant it. Few places tell you the truth about your limits and then stick around to make those limits bigger.
Peter's eyes kept bouncing—whiteboard, pull-up bars, the old chalk line where we'd measured jumps last night. Curiosity is his second pulse. He took everything in like a camera that improves what it captures. If I'd given him an hour and a notebook, he'd have drafted a plan to reorganize the dumbbell rack by grip geometry and then apologized for overstepping.
"We done?" he asked, that hopeful teen boy tilt in his voice that says please say yes, I might die.
"For now." I offered a hand; he took it and got hauled up by a friendly truck. His palm was warm, the kind of warm that comes from trying. "There's more where that came from if you keep showing up."
"I don't—" He hesitated, recalculated, told the truth. "I want to."
"Good," I said. "Just so we're clear: you don't owe us anything. You don't owe me anything. You showed up to say thanks; you sweated; that's plenty."
He hugged the backpack like it was part of him. "I just… after you helped me, I felt like I should—"
"Listen, Parker," I said, tone sliding off jokes into something that might pass for adult. "You're a kid. You don't pay us back by finding more trouble to get rescued from. You pay us back by not needing rescue when you can help it." I thumbed at the door. "New York can be a lot. Keep your head up. Learn what you can. And if you really want to thank us…"
His eyebrows climbed. "How?"
"Bring pizza next time." I grinned. "Membership fee."
He blinked, then cracked a real laugh, the kind that squeaks at the end because his lungs were still on strike. "All right. Deal." He glanced at the assembled Spartans, then back to me. "Uh… what kind?"
"Surprise me," I said. "But if you show up with pineapple, 02 will put you through footwork drills until you cry."
Alpha-02 didn't say I will out loud—he just let the moment be undeniable.
Peter nodded solemnly, as if he'd just been handed a sacred quest—retrieve the pie, avoid the wrath of footwork. He slung the backpack, took one long look at Alpha-01, and swallowed the last of his fear.
"Remain safe," Alpha-01 said, the kind of benediction that makes a room feel smaller because the world outside it just got bigger.
"I will," Peter said, and he meant it like he wanted it to be true.
He started for the stairs.
"Hey, Parker," I called, and he glanced back over the rail. "Door's open— for thanks, not for recruitment. You're not a soldier. You don't audition. You visit. You leave. You live your life."
He blinked, surprised by a line he didn't know he needed. "O-okay."
"Good man. Now go be late for something mundane. It'll make you interesting."
He snorted, gave Alpha-01 an awkward little salute that wasn't a salute, and disappeared up the stairs, sneakers squeaking, the building swallowing him and then letting him go.
The door swung shut. The basement breathed again.
"Well, boys," I said, watching the stairs like they might keep a secret if you stared hard enough. "Looks like we've got a fan club."
"Untrained. Potential present," Alpha-02 said, as if he were logging a weapon system he wasn't allowed to touch.
"Exactly," I said. "He makes me laugh. That's good enough for me."
"Boundaries," Alpha-03 said, which is his way of reminding me where the line is before I have to trip on it.
"Already drawn," I said. "We don't recruit children. We don't arm children. We don't plan around children. We protect children." I pointed at the mats. "Now go terrorize someone who signed a waiver."
They went. Alpha-04 turned back to 09, tapping his own jaw—relax—and 09 unclenched a fraction. 07 mirrored without being told. 06 waited for 05's nod before adding plates like he'd learned what patience buys. The room resumed its useful storm.
On the mezzanine, I leaned against the rail and watched New York leak in through the vents. A siren stitched a block together six stories up. Street vendors argued in multiple languages over territory that was really heat and hope. Somewhere a S.H.I.E.L.D. sedan existed just enough to remind us of Nick Fury's one-eyed curiosity. Somewhere else, Matt Murdock finished a brief and a bruise. The MCU thrummed like a symphony warming up.
I checked the System—reflex, habit, addiction, pick a word.
Points available: 0.
(Summoning Alpha-09 had burned the last five hundred. Fine. Worth it.)
Assists queued: 0.
Training logged: +3 hrs (Rookie Conditioning, Civilian Engagement—Non-Combat).
Public Sentiment (Local): Warm curiosity.
Risk (Legal/PR): Manageable if pizza arrives.
I snorted. Even my invisible blue numbers had jokes now.
On the range level, Alpha-04 set 09 to dry-fire rhythms while Alpha-05 ran breath ladders with 06 and 08—in for four, out for six, box patterns that teach brains how not to shout when the room does. 07 stood at the stairwell, jaw loose on purpose, the lesson from last week finally sinking from surface to bone.
"If Coulson asks," I told the ceiling, "we call today community outreach. If Fury asks, we call it nothing to report and let him be mad about it."
Alpha-01 appeared at my shoulder without sound. He does that. He doesn't mean to; we have rugs and everything.
"Civilian: Parker. Assessment," he said, because he knows I think better when I say it out loud.
"Hard to measure," I said. "Smart. Curious like it's a job. Humor under pressure. Hates feeling useless, which is both a strength and a liability. Moves like a kid who hasn't figured out that his center of gravity is not a suggestion. He's going to get noticed by the wrong people eventually."
"Protection," Alpha-01 said.
"Awareness," I corrected gently. "We don't tail a kid. We don't become the headline we're trying to prevent. If we cross him again—and we probably will—we keep an eye out without making a cage."
Alpha-01 nodded, which in his dialect means you made a rule; I will enforce it. He glanced toward the sunlit stairwell as if the city might carry our promise upstairs.
"Pizza," he said, and for the first time all morning, I laughed loud enough to make 02 glance over.
"Yeah," I said. "Let the record show: I have ethical clarity and priorities."
The rest of the day developed habits.
We rotated rookies: 09 shadowed 04, learning how to carry a long shape through a small space without turning into a liability. 08 mirrored 03's calm in the hallway, hands relaxed, eyes busy. 07 ran a tire on the roof and returned without clenching his jaw even once like he'd personally won a minor war. 06 surprised himself with a clean set of five at a weight that used to flatten him; 05 surprised no one by pretending he wasn't proud.
I handled admin—which, despite the MCU's thirst for spectacle, is what keeps small empires from becoming small tragedies. We checked perimeter cams for blind spots. We drafted ROE v1.1: addendum on civilians under eighteen (no names logged, no footage saved beyond 24 hours unless a crime demands it; no contact initiated by us unless safety requires). We taped it to three doors. We worked out a buddy rotation for Midtown so a rookie always stands where a veteran can see him.
I ran a hand over the whiteboard and thought about Peter Parker's laugh when I told him to bring pizza. It echoed in the space like something that would grow into a story whether it wanted to or not. Spider-Man hadn't happened yet; the Avengers were still a recruitment pitch and an error message away; S.H.I.E.L.D. was a polite ghost that knocked before haunting. This was the season for rules. For tone. For the habits that would keep us honest when the sky turned purple and aliens decided to add Fifth Avenue to their sightseeing tour.
Near dusk, I took the bus keys down, walked the back lot, and checked the Alpha Express out of habit. The three SUVs flanked it like punctuation. The bus smelled faintly of rubber and metal and the stubborn detergent that refuses to admit defeat. I thought about nine seats in economy, that toddler who cried when Alpha-03 tried to be small, the way the flight attendant had looked at us like we were a math problem that violated Euclidean geometry. New York had been loud enough to swallow us. Good. Let it swallow, not choke.
Back inside, I found Alpha-02 drafting the next day's training in block letters neat enough to hang in a museum. He'd included a line item—Civilian courtesy drill (greetings, door etiquette, crowd shoulder angle). I underlined door etiquette and wrote Peter Protocol next to it. 02 didn't smile, but his pen paused a fraction. We understood each other.
We ate together on the second floor because the first floor was full of dumbbells and the top floor is mine. Pasta mountain for the rookies, protein with vegetables for the veterans, a soda for me that had no nutritional value and maximum moral one. The building felt like a ship you'd trust in a storm.
After dinner, I took the roof with 01. The city's night opened like a circuit board: windows as diodes, sirens as pulses, Jumbotron glow from Times Square baking the clouds faintly pink. A helicopter prowled a grid night-shift. A couple argued somewhere within earshot in a language neither of us spoke and both of us understood.
"Good day," I said to the skyline, the building, the System, myself.
Alpha-01 didn't answer. He didn't need to. His silence said: the line held; the rules held; the city breathed; we learned; we'll do it again tomorrow.
On the way back down, we passed Alpha-04 reminding 09 to keep his thumb off the imaginary safety unless the imaginary range was hot. "Habits," 04 said. "They are who you are when you don't have time to be who you want." For 04, that counted as poetry. 09 nodded like he was memorizing a prayer.
I hit the couch. The System surfaced like a screensaver.
Points available: 0
Training logged: +6 hrs (Rookie Mentorship; Civilian Conditioning; Dry-Fire Fundamentals)
Assists: 0 (not counting one teenager's morning made safer)
Public sentiment (block radius): Warmer
S.H.I.E.L.D. watchfulness: Constant, tolerable
Risk: Pizza selection error may trigger footwork drills (02)
I closed my eyes and let the fizz of the day settle.
We didn't save the world today. We didn't have to. We tuned a fortress, sharpened rookies, split a squad, handed three men to the NYPD who didn't have to draw their guns, and told one kid from Hell's Kitchen that help isn't a fluke and safety isn't a mistake you owe the universe for later.
Some days in the MCU look like lightning and portals and gods getting their toys back. Some days look like push-ups, planks, paperwork, and a pizza promise.
Both days build the same future.
"Pineapple is banned," I told the ceiling, just to be safe.
From the hall, without looking in, Alpha-02 said, "Confirmed."