Michael Reed's life was shit.
Not the dramatic kind of shit. Not the interesting kind that made for good backstory in movies. Just plain, boring, everyday shit that piled up so quietly he barely noticed until he was drowning in it.
He was twenty-three. He worked at a grocery store stacking shelves for nine bucks an hour. His apartment was a studio that smelled like mold and the neighbor's cooking. His mattress was on the floor because he never bothered buying a bed frame. He ate instant ramen four nights a week and called it dinner.
His parents were gone. Dad left when Michael was six. Mom died of cancer when he was nineteen. No siblings. No relatives who gave a shit. He had a small circle of friends, and even that was generous because most of them only called when they needed something.
The one good thing in his life was his room.
It was a mess, sure. Manga stacked against the walls. Blu-ray cases everywhere. Posters of anime series and Marvel movies covering every inch of wall space. He had a decent laptop and a secondhand TV and that was enough. He spent most of his free time watching stuff. Reading stuff.
Fate/Stay Night. Fate/Zero. Fate/Grand Order. He knew the lore front to back. Every Servant. Every Noble Phantasm. Every summoning ritual detail that Nasu ever put to paper.
MCU too. Every film. He'd read the comics as a kid. He knew Civil War was coming in theaters next month. He'd been excited about it for a year.
That was Michael. A broke, lonely, anime-loving nobody who found meaning in fictional worlds because the real one gave him jack shit.
His one friend was a guy named Danny.
They'd known each other since high school. Danny was charming. Funny. The kind of guy who made everything look easy. Michael liked him. Trusted him. That was his mistake.
Michael never knew Danny owed money to the wrong people. A lot of money. And apparently someone decided Michael's life insurance payout — which Danny had somehow forged his name onto two years ago — was enough to cover the debt.
Michael didn't know any of that standing on the subway platform that night.
He was tired. Double shift. Feet killing him. He was thinking about rewatching Fate/Zero when he got home. Maybe episode fifteen. The one with Rider and Waver on the rooftop.
Danny was standing right beside him.
"Hey man," Danny said.
Michael turned to look at him.
Danny pushed him.
Hard. Two hands flat on Michael's chest. Michael's sneakers squealed against the platform edge and then there was nothing under him and he was falling forward onto the tracks and the headlights of the incoming train were very bright and very close and he thought —
Oh.
That was it. Just oh.
Then the train hit him.
He didn't feel it. That was the strangest part. He expected pain. White hot agony. Something. Instead it was like someone just turned a channel.
One second the train was filling his entire vision.
The next second he was lying face-up on grass.
Michael blinked.
Blue sky above him. Actual blue sky, afternoon sun, and the smell of cut grass and something metallic in the air. Birds somewhere off to the left. Wind moving through trees he couldn't see.
He sat up.
His grocery store uniform was still on. His shoes were still on. He wasn't dead. He wasn't bleeding. He felt completely fine, which made no fucking sense at all.
There was a book in his lap.
Old. Leather cover, dark brown, no title on the front. Heavy for its size. He picked it up with both hands and it fell open on its own to the first page.
The text was in English. Clean, printed letters, like someone had typed it out.
Book of Summoning.
You have been chosen as a Master.
The Heroic Spirits await your call.
Michael stared at the page for a long time.
He looked up. In the distance, past a treeline, he could see the unmistakable Manhattan skyline.
His brain put it together slowly and then all at once.
The skyline was wrong. Not wrong-wrong. Just different. No Stark Tower. Actually wait — there was a Stark Tower. And there was something attached to the top of it.
The Avengers logo.
Michael looked back down at the book in his hands. He opened to the next page. And the next. Summoning circles. Catalyst requirements. Servant class breakdowns. Mana transfer mechanics. Every detail laid out clean and exact, like a manual.
He knew this system. He'd spent years reading about this exact system.
His hands were shaking slightly as he turned another page.
He was in the Marvel Universe. The book was real. And if this was what he thought it was — if the timeline matched — Tony Stark and Steve Rogers were about three weeks away from tearing each other apart.
Michael closes the book carefully, tucks it under his arm, and starts walking toward the city.