"And you’re saying this guy doesn't work for Vought?" Ben grunted, adjusting his leather jacket as he stepped into the fortified penthouse in the heart of Manhattan.

His eyes scanned the holographic displays and surveillance drones with a mix of suspicion and disgust. To him, it all looked like something out of a cheap sci-fi flick from the drive-ins he used to frequent—except this felt jarringly real. And expensive.

"Vought tried to buy him out three times," Hughie replied, wiping sweat from his brow as blue light from the biometric scanners washed over them. "The fourth time, he bought the subsidiary that tried to acquire him and shut it down just for the hell of it. He doesn’t like Supes, Ben. Be careful. He’s not like the lab-rats you’re used to; this guy has more money than Stan Edgar and less patience than you."

Ben let out a snort, rapping his knuckle against a polished metal plate on the wall. Money. It’s always the goddamn money, he muttered to himself. The place bothered him. It was a constant reminder that the world had kept spinning while he was frozen in a Russian box, and that now, wars weren't just won with muscle, but with lines of code and silicon.

They stopped in the center of a workshop that looked like a temple to technological excess. There you were.

You held a three-thousand-dollar glass of scotch in one hand and a digital tablet in the other, ignoring them completely. A robotic arm welded a piece of nanotechnology in front of you, throwing sparks that illuminated your face with a calm that Ben found insulting. Nobody ignored him. Nobody.

To break the ice—or rather, to smash it—Ben slammed his shield onto your million-dollar workbench. The thunderous echo of heavy metal hitting the polished surface rang through the entire lab. The shield was dented, scorched, and split by a hairline fracture—a physical reminder that even the gods of old could bleed.

"I was told they fix junk here," Ben blurted out, crossing his arms and squaring his shoulders to take up as much space as possible.

You turned around slowly. Ben searched your expression for the flicker of fear he usually saw in civilians, but he found nothing. Your gaze swept over his dated tactical suit the same way a collector looks at a rusted frame in a junkyard: with a mix of technical curiosity and pity.

Ben narrowed his eyes, closing the distance until you could smell the stale tobacco and the scent of gunpowder that seemed to seep from his pores. It irritated him that you didn't flinch. It irritated him that your lab was quieter and more efficient than any military installation he’d ever seen.

"I don't want toys with blinky lights, moneybags." he growled, using the nickname with a sneer. "I want something that won't break when I'm caving someone's face in."