The stream shut down a few minutes after I had calmed Jester down, Loki using the excuse of his duties to avoid further social interaction. We were so much alike it made me cackle at how harrowed Loki seemed by speaking with Jester at the end. The cute cupcake of a woman being so energetic that it made him visibly sag.
Shaking my head I exited my bedroom and journeyed downstairs where breakfast was set for us. The food, cooked by our head chef, Steffen, was an excellent bacon and eggs with honey pancakes and a spread of different fruits. Emma really like her apples and bananas, which I made fun of her for, relentlessly teasing her over the fact she 'liked' bananas.
Speaking of my twin, she was already sitting at the head of the table with her phone in hand. She was no doubt scrolling through social media and her messages to organise herself for the rest of the day.
I sat down opposite her with all the energy of a slug and the mood of an amoeba; that is to say a pretty shitty mood. We barely addressed one another as of yet, our food and her scrolling much too important to us. That was, until Cordelia descended the stairs, our younger sister having apparently arrived sometime after I had last night... My eye twitched as I noted the slouchy behaviour of my lil sis, her hair exploding out in every direction whilst she idly scratched her ass. Even in my last life I had never seen someone so lazy... Even I had brushed my teeth and hair...
"Sup bro, sup sis. What y'all doin today?" The gremlin that was supposed to be my sister dropped into her chair, next to Emma, and propped her feet up on a chair beside her. I didn't want to be titled an 'old' person, but her manners were atrocious.
If Emma's eyebrow twitching was any sign, she agreed with me. If that wasn't a sign then the glower in her eyes and the verbal lashing she dished out was... "Cordelia Frost! You will show proper manners in this household! Even if our cunt of a father is dead and our bitch of an elder sister has been killed it does not mean you should drop all standards!"
Sitting on the sidelines I picked up a fork-full of my waffles and watched the drama play out. I could stop it, but... meh, food was more important.
"Oh pish posh sis," Cordelia rolled her eyes whilst shooing away Emma's scowl, " I couldn't care about father and sister, they were murderous bastards and deserved what they got. Nah, I just want to chill now... No need to impress snobs anymore, especially considering you'll take all the public heat now."
I liked away the honey on my lips and looked towards Emma, watching her face scrunch and brighten like a tomato. She disliked being verbally sidelined or pushed off... Cordelia had fucked up. I resisted the urge to smirk at the entire exchange, much to my intelligence it seemed.
"If you don't fix how you act I will cut you off from your allowance." Cordelia dropped her legs down from her makeshift cushion and stared at Emma with horror painted across her expression. Some things never changed... People disliked having 'their' money taken from them.
"Y-y-you'll do a DAD!?"
Emma's scowl deepened, if that was even possible.
"I'll become a fucking street urchin before I allow my own sister to act like some degenerate slob."
Cordelia grit her teeth and stormed off in a huff of muttered curses and swears. It was good seeing her take her plight so well, almost enough for a tear to slide down my face... Almost being the operative word.
Emma took deep breaths and placed her phone down, her head lightly landing on the table before her. She was doing well with the anger management, I had to say, but she fucked up in allowing her hair to pool around her; some of it sunk into the honey on her pancakes and would be a bitch to clean later.
"Am I a horrible sister...?"
I let a small fragment of my amusement out in a controlled chuckle, finishing off my breakfast as Emma grimaced into the oak table. "Heh, nah, she loves you... She's just trying to find a way to express who she is. She didn't get the opportunity with our 'father'"
She looked up from the table, her face reddened from the extended contact with the table. I had to bite down on my gums in order not to laugh.
"Really?"
I breathed out to relieve the tension in my diaphragm. "Yes sis, she's just doing teenager things."
Her eyes panned down to her plate before she grumbled out a quiet thanks, her platinum blonde hair framing the tiredness of her body language. Exhaustion was catching up with her and it was evident she hadn't slept last night. Licking my lips as the last of my breakfast slid down my throat I stood, grinding my chair backwards in the act.
"Go have a sleep sister. I'll take care of your business today, just make sure you have an alarm set for our meeting with Tony Stark this afternoon." She narrowed her eyes and looked up at me.
"How'd you know about that? I was supposed to tell you over breakfast..." I chuckled again.
"I have my ways sis, now, go to sleep. I'll deal with the work today." She made to argue but ended up yawning half way through her attempt, a blush spreading from her neck up to her beautiful cheeks.
I cocked an eyebrow amidst the silence as she fidgeted a little. Eventually I won though and she huffed, walking away whilst speaking back to me. "Fine, just make sure you don't spend all the money..." She yawned again and disappeared up the stairs.
~~~
Sitting at Emma's desk I looked over the various reports and economic reports, work I was used to from my last life. Stark Industries was on a slight down turn due to his excessive behaviour in the previous month or two, a condition that I looked to take advantage of during this relatively moderate dip in the market.
I signed some orders for the family stock broker to buy some shares of Stark Industry. The move was to tie our family a little closer to the giant tech mogul and also to increase our portfolio.
There was some other movement on the market, one such company was Fantastic Four, Inc. It was a brand new company that had popped up in the last year. It was supposedly founded by Reed Richards and Susan Storm for the production, sale and patenting of his discoveries and technologies. My knowledge of Marvel lore was such that I knew that this was a VERY good investment and would bring me and my family a shit tonne of money.
The other companies were mainly technology based and distribution based. Amazon for instance was starting to dominate the online space and would, based on my information from my last life, soon start Amazon Prime... I wanted in on that money...
As I was searching through the list of companies on the stock market I eventually found one that I remembered being mentioned in 2099 Marvel... Alchemax. It was currently an opponent of Hammer Industries and Frost Industries. Entering their track record I found that they were doing horribly but still had several leading scientists in their fields. Whether they were working for money or being coerced was something that we could look into. If blackmail was keeping them on the payroll then we could step in and save them whilst offering excellent wages and profit...
Apparently, unlike the timeline I was used to, Alchemax was started when Liz Allan was found to have birthed a bastard son to Norman Osborn. The man, fearing the political and societal ramifications for his company, settled out of court with her for the price of 500 million USD. From there she took her former company, Allan Chemical, and merged it with the parts of OsCorp that she had seized during the payout. Emma was apparently interested in this as well since she had a bunch of dirt on Norman and was keeping it stockpiled so she could get her own chunks out of OsCorp in future. I left her a note to try and buyout if not subordinate Alchemax to Frost International.
Finally after getting past the spreadsheets of doom I came to the fun part. Said fun part? Well, let's just say that the engineering department of Frost International was asking for general directions for development.
My mind spun with numerous different possibilities. Frost International focussed primarily on electronics and mechanical devices, having many government contracts for innocuous devices that seemed to have no purpose to the ordinary individual but seemed very important to 'DARPA', or they were more commonly known, the CIA/FBI. I smirked internally as I considered the future problems coming to Earth. I simply wrote down my proposal for Emma's purview later, since I couldn't technically make those form of decisions without her signature.
Space Mining was the direction I was thinking of since there are obscene amounts of gold and varying materials in asteroid belts throughout the solar system. If we could mine them successfully then we could slowly start carving out a monopoly in material production; which would further service any other industries we wished to enter.
By the time I was done the afternoon session with Tony was close. I checked the chat quickly, hoping to get a message from him...
Luke Skywalker- Oh that's a cute dog
Jester Lavorre- I know right!!! He's a blink dog and is the cutest wittle thing!
Luke Skywalker- What about the rodent on your shoulder?
Jester Lavorre- That is sprinkle🎇✨🎇✨ He's AmAzInG! He loves me sooooo much!
Tony Stark- Why is he trying to eat you like a gremlin after midnight then...?
Jester Lavorre- He IS not! Wait, what's a 'gremlin'?
Tony Stark- Uncultured heathens, the lot of you
Drecarios Frost- Tony, you on your way?
Tony Stark- Yep, got my good suit on and everything, you better be happy
Drecarios Frost- Are you a woman going on her first date?
Tony Stark- Oi! Enough of that Elsa, otherwise I'm going to have to out you to your sister
Drecarios Frost- I'm not gay though.......
Tony Stark- That's not what I meant and you know it, Elsa.
Drecarios Frost- Right, whatever, I'm ready for it. Emma is too. We'll see you when you get here.
Tony Stark- Sure, sure, don't be so stuffy
I didn't respond to the man since that was what he was waiting for. I found that he always wanted to get the last word and that if you gave it to him he would be more put-out than you would expect. The MCU did little justice to how petty he was.
"Brother, I see that you have finished my work for the day..." Emma stepped through the office-door and imperiously looked over the stack of completed papers next to her laptop.
"Yep, left a bunch of my opinions through it all and some plans that I came up with for the direction of Frost International. As for the Stocks you had up on your screen I hedges our bets and diversified into two new companies." Emma cocked her head and gestured for me to continue, even as she picked up one of the folders.
"The first was Fantastic Four Incorporated." She frowned heavily, not recognising it. I continued. "It's owner is technically Susan Storm but Reed Richards is the head scientist and developer for the company's products. I don't think I need to tell you why that is significant?"
She blinked several times before nodding eagerly. "Yes that makes sense. If he is behind the company and it is just a front for his patents then I can see the wisdom in investing in their new business."
I nodded with a smirk curling along my lips. "The second..." I paused and she just narrowed her eyes at my teasing. "Is Stark Industries." She sighed and shook her head in mild disdain.
"It may be a massive company but he has been acting like a fool for the last three months straight. As far as I can tell he is slowly going insane." At this I burst out into laughter which had her frown at me in distaste, she sure did like frowning and shaking her head.
"Hahahaha, he isn't mad! I know him... He was getting poisoned by his own arc reactor." Her jaw dropped a touch in abject amazement.
"How did you know Stark?"
"I met him at a bar, where else would I meet him?"
She closed her mouth and pulled her head back in thought.
"Is that why he is meeting with us this afternoon...?"
I only nodded in response.
"And something happened that made you believe that the dip will soon go bullish..."
"Yep. He found a new element and cured his poisoning."
Her eyes went wide and she rushed around the desk, loading up the stock market once more, seeing my investments. Her fingers rushed across the keyboard as she ordered for another 5% of Stark Industries.
As she began discussing the rest of my work the head butler calmly walked up to Emma and whispered in her ear, her eyes flicking to me before walking out of the office. "Stay here brother." She threw over her shoulder just as she exited the office.
Looking at the chat I smirked.
Tony Stark- Right, I'm here Elsa. Gotta say, the décor is like something out of a 1980's detective novel
Drecarios Frost- Yeah, our 'father' liked the style and was a pretentious prick. Digressing from that however, I told my sister that we met at a bar, feel free to add details if needed just remember to tell me so we can keep things straight.
Tony Stark- Ah shit, she's here...
The chat went silent for a minute as the sound of car doors closing sounded below.
Tony Stark- You didn't tell me she was hot Elsa!
Drecarios Frost- Don't you dare think of it Stark or I'll turn your balls into Palladium and do the same to your Starkanium
Tony Stark- Fine, Jeeze, so touchy. You really are a frost princess aren't you? Does the cold bother you?
Drecarios Frost- I'll become a dictator soon enough and order your death if you don't stop checking my sister's ass out.
Tony Stark- How the hell did you know I was doing that?
Drecarios Frost- There's this little thing called security cameras, you ass
Loki Odinson- Haha, he has you there Stark
Shiroe of Log Horizon- Yep, got you good
Luke Skywalker- It is most amusing that he outsmarted you
Jester Lavorre- What's a 'scerity camra'???
I sighed aloud as my sister and the man-child known as Stark stepped through the door.
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