New York had a new religion and Tony Stark was its loudest prophet. For weeks the city had been wrapped in the neon halo of the Stark Expo—billboards cantilevered over avenues, glossy ads on subway cars, thirty-second spots during every broadcast. Everywhere I looked: his smirk, the gleam of an arc reactor, catchphrases about "the future." If you were alive and vaguely conscious in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you heard the sermon.
I watched the hype cycle from the top floor of our building, nursing coffee and letting highlight reels autoplay. Stark in the Mark suit. Stark shaking hands with dignitaries. Stark promising clean energy, smarter weapons that were "no longer weapons," responsible defense, irresponsible swagger. Same old Tony; different venue.
"Field trip?" I asked 01 without looking away from the TV.
"Might as well see the circus in person." He didn't blink, didn't emote—just gave that fractional nod Spartans use instead of punctuation.
We took the bus across town like tourists with absurdly good posture. Only four veterans came with me—01, 02, 03, and 04. The rookies stayed home; 05 had the clipboard and the unenviable job of running drills. Someone had to guard the fortress and keep 06–08 from trying to "help" by rearranging concrete with their shoulders.
The Expo grounds were everything a billionaire showman would design if you told him "theme park" and "World's Fair" in the same sentence. Holograms rippled across the walkways, kiosks pitched miracles, and a small army of salespeople smiled with their teeth and their quotas. Kids chased churros; venture capital chased exits. The Stark Pavilion dominated the skyline—a chrome cathedral drowning every neighbor's budget in light and sound. LED banners rippled with the arc-reactor logo. If subtlety had ever been invited, it had RSVP'd "lost in traffic."
We found a spot near the back of the main concourse with good sight lines and bad attention. That's the sweet spot with Spartans: tall enough to see, quiet enough to be forgotten until someone needs a wall.
The house lights dropped, the speakers kicked, and the stage vomited fireworks. A hot red spotlight knifed through the haze. Iron Man descended like a rock star whose band was physics. He landed center stage in a boom of bass, micro-thrusters feathering dust, and the helmet irised open to reveal a grin worth a billion dollars and a congressional hearing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome… to the future!"
He knew how to work a crowd. Jokes, crowd-work, one-liners about safer skies; a flex of repulsors; name-drops that made defense contractors fidget and teenagers scream. Say what you want about Tony Stark—he never forgets the camera or the mirror.
"Subtlety isn't his thing," I murmured to 01.
He said nothing—per policy and personality.
Stark pivoted to a demo—something about new power routing, a safer micro-grid, the arc reactor rebranded as a friendly neighborhood battery. The music softened, the patter turned earnest, and the stage crew rolled out a sleek oval track for some kinetic theater. The screens stitched a real-time HUD across the arena; influencers raised phones like offerings.
Then the tone snapped.
Movement at the far end of the track. A tall man, lean as a wire and twice as angry, walked through the strobe—orange sparks crawling around him like fireflies that had learned new swear words. He dragged electrified whips that left molten commas on the asphalt, and his scars read like a manifesto. Even at a distance, even through the haze, I knew the type: a man who had turned a grudge into an engineering discipline.
Ivan Vanko.
Whiplash.
The screaming started near the front and spread backward in a wave—confusion up front, panic in the middle, stampede at the edges. Stark's smile died on cue. He pivoted, clocked the threat, and moved like a man who'd rehearsed worst-case scenarios between cocktails.
"There's the stupid moment I was waiting for," I said, setting my drink on the ground.
Whiplash's first whip cracked high, carving a show car cleanly into two shiny halves. The second whip slashed low, spitting sparks, igniting someone's marketing budget, and sending security into an overmatched flinch. The air smelled like ozone and bad decisions.
Stark dove—not for the sky, but for the future of luggage. He snapped open a metal suitcase, triggered an origami miracle, and the Mark V wrapped around him with the world's most expensive "ta-da."
"Stylish," I allowed. "Flair points."
"Hold," I told the Spartans, low and crisp. "This is his fight. We step in only if he fumbles or civilians get cooked."
They nodded as one, heads tracking the same target, heart rates steady enough to shame monks.
Iron Man charged. Repulsors flared. Whips sang. Metal screamed. The crowd became a physics problem—thousands of bodies attempting to occupy the same exit. Stark learned quickly; Vanko learned faster. Sparks sprayed like comet tails. The whips licked anything too slow to duck.
A crack arced too close to our area; the energy splash hissed along a rail and kissed a vendor cart. A pocket of people flinched, compressed, and a kid let out the kind of shriek that cuts through brass and bravado.
"Fun's over," I said. "03, clear civilians. 04, hold a perimeter. No bystander gets fried. 02—float. Intervene if something lethal slips the net. 01 on me."
They moved at once—the ground plan re-drawn, the mission swapped, the rhythm unchanged. 03 waded into the pocket like a tide moving the shore, voice level and hands sure as he peeled families away from the fence and pointed them down safer lanes. 04 stepped into the space the panic had left, forming a moving wall with nothing but his presence and a hand outstretched—a stop sign you don't argue with. 02 drifted at their edge like a shadow that had found discipline; anyone who stumbled found themselves gently righted by a two-hundred-plus-pound rumor.
Back on the track, Stark figured out the homework problem. He stopped trying to power through the lashes and started playing chess with the arc-reactor rig strapped to Vanko's chest. The Mark V wasn't built for marathon brawls, but it was made for stubborn people with short tempers; it kept him alive until he could get smart. Feints. Cross-angles. A snap to the harness. The shine went out of Vanko's whips like a short day at a bad job. He sagged, smoking; you could almost smell the end of the monologue he'd practiced on the plane.
Security swarmed now that it was safe to show up. The crowd, in the reliable way crowds do, flipped from terror to triumph like a switch. Phones up. Chants. A thousand status updates in a thousand variations of "Iron Man just saved my life ;)."
"Didn't need us," I said.
"Victory achieved," 02 added, as if reading the scoreboard more than the room.
"You can admit it—you wanted to jump in," I told them, because I never miss a chance to poke a statue.
Predictably, no response.
We stayed long enough to make sure the human tide was flowing toward exits instead of against them. 03 sent the last cluster of shaky parents toward a side corridor with an emergency egress map; 04 guided a lost senior citizen to her friend and returned her purse with a nod that said nothing and meant everything. A camera caught us in three-quarter profile; whispers traveled with the speed of gossip and the shape of a myth. "Who are they?" "Private security?" "Stark's new thing?" "S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
I jerked my chin toward the perimeter. "Our work here is done. Stark got his applause; nobody died on our side; I didn't spill my drink."
We peeled away without a flourish—no capes, no quips, no press availability. I let the crowd's curiosity draft behind us; attention is a currency, and sometimes the best way to spend it is to walk away counting it.
Phones followed anyway. People love a mystery they can frame. "Are those Avengers?" "They're too coordinated." "Spartans," someone guessed wildly, and I almost laughed. Not Olympus, kid. Halo.
Back at the fortress, the elevator doors opened into comfortable silence. 05 had the rookies lined up in the basement when we came in; sweat slicked their temples, and the air smelled like rubber mats and effort. He'd been running point the way he liked it—tight, relentless, unforgiving of sloppy ankles.
I gave the recap from a crate like a foreman at shift change. "Cliff notes: Stark put on a show, Whiplash crashed the party with glow sticks, Iron Man took the bow. We stepped in for civvies, not for clout. The mission was containment and protection—no escalation, no headlines with our name in them."
Ding.
Points earned: 500.
Reason: Civilian protection at Stark Expo.
I didn't grin. I didn't have to. The System's blue overlay in my mind pulsed once and settled, cool and professional as ever. The scoreboard nudged in our favor; the tree shook and coins fell.
"See?" I told the room. "Paid to stand around. Best gig ever."
The rookies pretended not to smile. 05 didn't pretend. He didn't smile.
Night found me on the roof under a sky that never really got dark. New York at this height looks like a motherboard—traces of light, blinking nodes, energy humming in patterns you learn to predict. The Stark Expo's glow painted the horizon like a second sunrise. Somewhere out there, S.H.I.E.L.D. was building a whiteboard with our silhouettes circled on it. Somewhere further, Tony Stark was explaining himself to Pepper Potts and a dozen lawyers with excellent watches.
"Not bad," I said to 01, who had been a statue until I spoke and resumed being one after. "Stark got the spotlight. We kept the city safe and scored points."
"Progress steady," he said.
He wasn't wrong.
The thing about the Stark Expo is it's designed to make you forget there's a world where people don't clap when lights turn on. The morning after the incident, every news cycle replayed Stark's suitcase trick as if the camera had followed him home to brush his teeth. We let the media gorge itself and stayed out of the buffet line.
Still—no plan survives the first contact with celebrity. Word that "the tall guys in plain clothes" had moved a few families to safety turned into posts, then threads, then shaky screenshots with circles drawn in neon pink. The fandom brain trust did what it does best: speculated with confidence and facts that fit their favorite theories. "Not S.H.I.E.L.D.—no badges." "Not Stark—too low-key." "Mercs?" "Avengers beta program?"
We ignored it.
The rookies ran drills hard enough to make the concrete consider suing. 03 and 04 rotated perimeter sweeps through the neighborhoods near the complex, quietly discouraging opportunists who thought a ten-story building with new locks looked like a question instead of an answer. 02 handled equipment audits like a man who'd invented standard operating procedures and was now personally offended that anyone else wanted to use them.
The System sat in the back of my mind like a benevolent accountant. 500 points isn't a fortune, but it's proof the strategy works: help named characters if you can; help civilians whenever you see them; avoid making a mess someone else will bill you for. If the MCU were a game—and don't think I haven't noticed how often it feels like one—then our build was finally synergizing.
By afternoon I had the footage. Not the official Stark cut. A compilation of phone videos, each from a different angle: the whip crack, the sparks, the close-ups of fear that turned into awe when the Mark V hugged Stark's frame like it loved him. A dozen angles of 03 moving families out with the gentle inevitability of a tide. 04 standing in a gap with a hand up and a face that said please and a body that whispered try me.
I watched it once, then again. I wasn't in any of them for more than half a second. Good. I prefer my legend in the plural.
That evening, with the city humming its perpetual lullaby, I collected 01, 02, 03, and 04 and took them somewhere human. Rooftop, fold-out chairs, cheap takeout. I don't do speeches, but sometimes leadership is just occupying space next to the people who'd walk into fire when you ask.
"You executed cleanly," I said between bites. "Minimal kinetic force, maximum effect. No broken bones on bystanders. No headlines with the words 'unidentified paramilitary group' and 'lawsuit' in the same paragraph."
"Avoided escalation," 02 agreed.
"Crowd mismanaged by event security," 03 observed, clinically correct.
"Adjusted," 04 added—his entire after-action report in a single word.
"Exactly." I took a drink and let the carbonation sting my throat. "Iron Man can fight. We already knew that. But the MCU tends to forget that it's not just gods and geniuses; it's crowds. And crowds are fragile. Today you were the breakwater."
We lapsed into companionable silence. 01 watched the horizon the way mountains watch weather.
"You wanted to go hands-on," I told him without accusation.
He didn't pretend otherwise. "Parameters clear. Stark capable."
"Good read," I said. "We're not here to steal the movie. We're here to make sure the extras get home."
He turned that over, then nodded. For Spartans, that passes for a warm hug and a personal essay.
My phone buzzed with a notification I'd set up for myself: inevitably, a Stark Expo spokesperson had held a press conference to assure the public that everything was under control. The clip autoplayed. A grin. A spin. A promise of increased safety protocols. No mention of a tall man named Vanko, or of a suitcase that turned into a skin-tight miracle, or of four Spartans deflecting panic with posture.
Perfect.
If Tony Stark wanted to be the story, he could have it. Stories come with gravity. I'd rather keep my orbit.
The debrief with the rookies came with diagrams. 05 projected the Expo layout onto a wall and had 06–08 walk me through their would-have maneuvering if they'd been on site. Their routes were good; their timing was ambitious; their understanding of power-arc spread was theoretical at best.
"Electric arcs love low resistance," I said, marking a line through the map. "Metal rails. Puddles. Benches. Don't herd people into a pretty corral just because it looks like a fence. You want breaks in the flow, not bottlenecks."
07 asked a question about using tables as shields. 03 answered by flipping a table, bracing, and demonstrating how to make a temporary barrier that's more than decoration. 06 offered a counter-example, and 04 corrected his footwork with a tap and a shake of the head.
"Good," I said. "We're not just strong. We're clever. That's the brand."
If S.H.I.E.L.D. had a satellite pointed at our building—and I would have put serious money on at least one—they got a beautiful picture of a basement where nine men arranged themselves around hypotheticals and argued about better ways to do the right thing.
Let them watch.
Let them take notes.
Let the Avengers wonder where we came from when they eventually compared stories and realized a handful of rescues share a signature: quiet, efficient, never sticking around for the encore.
Later, I ended the day where I'd started it: with a skyline and a thought that wouldn't leave. The Stark Expo shimmered like a promise.
In another life, another timeline, I might have taken the stage. Sold the future to anyone willing to clap. But that's Tony's part in this shared universe, and truth be told, I prefer the role I've carved out: the crossing guard with a strategic mind and a private army; the guy who nudges fate so the right heroes keep their headlines and the right people make it home for dinner.
"You're thinking," 01 said, which for him is a paragraph.
"Dangerous habit," I said. "Keep it between us."
He didn't smile. None of them ever did. But I could imagine it.
The Expo would keep buzzing. The fandom would keep speculating. Whiplash would trade a cell for a stage again before long—villains with grudges always do. And we'd be there, in the shadows of someone else's spectacle, ready to pivot from "hold" to "go" the moment a child shrieked and a whip cracked too close.
"Damn right," I said to no one in particular.
The city answered back in sirens and light.
And somewhere a blue overlay in my mind glowed like a small, steady star: 500. Not a jackpot. But proof.
Progress steady.