"This guy was absolutely living his best life," One Piece Elric said, shaking his head with a grin that was somewhere between disbelief and genuine respect.
He reached his hand out toward, The others followed one by one, each handshake filling in another piece of the picture, until all four of them were standing there with a perfectly clear view of exactly how Kevin Levin had been spending his second life.
A villa. An actual underground villa.
Sleeping in past noon every single day without a care in the world. Gaming sessions that started after dinner and ended somewhere around four in the morning. No schedule, no obligations, no one knocking on his door expecting anything from him. Just comfortable, uninterrupted, gloriously pointless freedom.
"Bro," One Piece Elric said, the grin sliding off his face and replaced with something considerably more flat. "You're twelve."
"Thirteen actually," Kevin said, dropping onto the floor cross legged like he'd been sitting there all along. "Almost."
"You're living like a retired mob boss."
"I prefer independently wealthy entrepreneur," completely unbothered, "but sure."
"You have genuinely nothing going on."
"That's kind of the whole point, yeah."
One Piece Elric opened his mouth, and Kevin could already see exactly where it was heading before a single word came out. There's a specific look people get when they're about to tell you that you're wasting your potential, and One Piece Elric had it written all over his face.
"Before you say it," Kevin cut in, holding up one finger, "I already know what's coming. What about Gwen, what about going on adventures with Ben and having big heartfelt alien fights and growing as a person." He delivered the whole thing in one flat, completely rehearsed breath. "I've already had this conversation with myself. The answer is no."
One Piece blinked. "That is literally word for word what I was going to say."
"I know. Because I would've said it too." Kevin shrugged. "Still no though." He leaned back on his hands, settling in comfortably. "Look, I don't think you guys are fully understanding my situation here. Why would I go out looking for trouble on purpose? What exactly would I get out of that? I'm not a masochist. I don't enjoy getting punched by aliens."
"It wouldn't even be that much trouble," One Piece Elric said, still not letting it go. "You've already got the powers, you've already got yourself set up nicely —"
"My universe," Kevin started, in the patient tone of someone explaining something for what feels like the hundredth time, "is a likely the prime one, Ben there is genuinely good kid with a strong moral compass who is already out there doing the whole hero thing. Enthusiastically, even. And honestly good for him, I mean that sincerely." He tilted his head. "The point is he's handling it. Most of the threats that show up in my world get dealt with by him before I even have to think about them. I don't have to do anything except exist and let him work."
"Okay, but what about the stuff he can't handle?"
"Then it's above both our pay grades," Kevin said simply. "If Ben can't deal with it, that means it's universe ending. And if the universe is ending, I'm dying regardless of how heroic I decided to be beforehand. So I'd genuinely rather spend whatever time I have left playing video games in a nice house." He paused. "It's just logical."
Another silence. The Marvel version slowly turned to look at the others with an expression that very clearly said he didn't want to admit that made sense but it kind of did.
"Okay but hear me out," One Piece Elric said, visibly rallying. "What if you just absorbed something seriously powerful and skipped the whole problem entirely. Like Way Big. Or a Celestial Sapien. Get your hands on that kind of DNA and you wouldn't need to worry about any of it."
"I'm going to stop you there," the Marvel version Elric said, stepping in before Kevin could. "We're not gambling on that. Forget whether the absorption would even work — convensing a Celestial Sapien in the first place could take hundreds of years of waiting around for the right moment. Nobody wants that."
"I was only saying Way Big though," One Piece Elric said, quieter now.
Kevin exhaled, long and slow. "You think I haven't thought about Way Big?"
"I've thought about Way Big. A lot. Obviously I want Way Big, who in their right mind wouldn't want Way Big." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost tired about it.
"The problem isn't wanting it. The problem is everything that comes before getting it. I'd have to actually build some kind of decent relationship with Ben first, which means undoing the impression I already left on him when I absorbed his watch. And look, ten year old Ben was not subtle about how much that annoyed him. Kids that age hold onto stuff like that." He shook his head. "And then there's Max. His grandfather. Former Plumber, seen everything, trusts nobody new until you've proven yourself about fifty times over in a row. Getting him on my side alone would be a whole separate project."
He let that sit for a second before adding, "While I had a perfectly comfortable villa waiting for me at home, I had absolutely no motivation to deal with any of that. But," he glanced around at all of them, reading the room, "if you guys actually need it, I'll make it happen. It'll just take a little time."
The change in the room was immediate.
One Piece sat up like someone had flipped a switch. The others leaned in just slightly, almost without noticing they were doing it. Something lit up behind all their eyes at the exact same moment, that particular kind of light that only shows up when someone says something that connects directly to a childhood dream you forgot you still had.
"Need it?" One Piece said, and the grin that took over his face was absolutely enormous. "Bro. Who didn't grow up wanting to be Ultraman."
Kevin looked from face to face. Same expression on every single one of them. He let out a short laugh despite himself. "Alright. Way Big goes on the list."
"No rush though," the Marvel version said, pulling the energy back down to something more measured. "Seriously, don't go making enemies out of the protagonist just to speed things up. Way Big is strong, no question about that, probably stronger than Isshiki when it comes down to it, but it's not like getting it tomorrow suddenly changes everything overnight. It's got its own drawbacks too. Just work at your own pace and get there naturally."
Kevin nodded, looking more relaxed about the whole thing now that nobody was telling him to go fight crime immediately. "Yeah, that works."
"Besides," He added, and now his grin shifted into something a little different, something that had a specific kind of mischief behind it, "we all kind of forgot something didn't we."
He let it hang there for just a second.
"I am in a mutant universe right now."
The words dropped into the room quietly. Then they settled, and the weight of them started to spread.
"Kevin's power absorbs genetic data," the one piece version said slowly, like he was following the thought as it formed out loud.
"Which means mutants," One Piece said.
"Are completely on the table," Marvel version finished, his voice easy, like he was confirming something obvious.
The silence that followed was a completely different kind of silence from before. The thoughtful kind. The kind where nobody speaks because everyone is too busy privately imagining the same enormous, slightly staggering list of possibilities all at once.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at the three of them with an expression that had quietly shifted somewhere along the way from mildly inconvenienced to genuinely, unhurriedly interested.
"So," he said, spreading his hands open like a man presenting a very generous offer. "Tell me what you want."
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