I was currently revisiting my not-so-glorious past time of hanging around parks and playgrounds.
Well, this was definitely worse.
I'd found the school easily enough; there was no need to call on Hellfire or do any particularly impressive investigative work. All it took was some consideration of what I knew of Peter Parker. He lived in Queens and would currently be middle school age.
It didn't take long after that to go through some local schools' Facebook pages to find an image of the young Peter winning a science award.
Yeah, okay, I'm probably a creep at this point.
I'd been sitting on a bench in the park adjacent to the school for about twenty minutes before the afternoon bell rang, releasing a horde of kids onto the street.
With my Sharignan active under a pair of sunglasses, I spotted him almost immediately.
Skinny, brown hair, and an overly bulky backpack. He walked slightly apart from the other groups of kids.
Anyway, I hadn't come here to be a creep; I wanted to test something I was curious about.
Clearly, different targets had different 'inherent values.' The amount of FP I got from major characters was way above what I got from terrorising randoms on the street.
And amongst those major characters, it seemed there were ranks between them.
Just by unsettling Tony Stark by dropping Yinsen's name, I had racked up a whole five-thousand points.
I guessed that the 'value' of Tony Stark was higher than that of other characters, which meant scaring him net me more fear.
So I was curious as to how exactly this value was judged.
Spider-Man was a huge hero, probably the biggest hero Marvel had in terms of sheer popularity, but his importance in the MCU wasn't exactly close to a character like Tony Stark.
Did character popularity affect the score? Or was it purely based on plot importance?
Well, there wasn't much use in thinking about it for now.
I watched him for a minute, as if expecting he'd do something special.
Well, right now he was just a kid.
A kid being bullied.
Three kids, all physically larger than poor Peter, began following him with intentions clear as day.
I stood up, walking over at a relaxed pace.
The tallest one shoulder checked Peter from behind hard enough to knock him over onto the pavement. Peter picked himself up without saying anything.
This probably wasn't the first time this had happened to him.
Another one of the bullies had taken Peter's backpack, emptying its contents onto the pavement as I approached from behind.
"..."
As my shadow covered them, they turned their heads behind, seeing me.
The effect was immediate.
I didn't do anything in particular; it wasn't like I had to. Being an adult was enough to scare them, not to mention my robust frame.
The backpack dropped, and all three left without a word. They didn't run, rather opting to walk with the swiftness of three children who knew they had been caught doing something wrong.
Peter stared at them before looking up to me.
"Thanks," he said, with a slight wariness.
I picked up a nearby book and handed it to him.
"Don't mention it."
[Scared off three bullies! +9 FP]
[Made Peter Parker feel uneasy! +25 FP]
"Tsk." I clicked my tongue.
Peter looked at me with slight confusion, but I ignored it.
Clearly, he was of higher value than the three nameless bullies, but I guess he didn't properly 'count' as Spiderman yet. The system was judging him by his current state without factoring in much of his future potential.
I filed that information away, ready to leave the scene.
"Uh- Hey."
I turned around.
Peter had his backpack on, books retrieved, looking at me with an expression that had shifted from wary to curious.
"What's your name?... Sir."
I looked at him strangely for a moment.
It was an undeniably weird question to ask at the current moment. A normal kid would just accept that he got lucky because an adult showed up and go on with their day.
'Well, maybe it's a main character thing.'
Weren't they supposed to have some kind of golden halo?
"Varis," I decided to answer.
He nodded slowly, seeming to think something before turning around and walking off.
I shrugged my shoulders, not particularly sure what to make of the situation.
---
Whilst I was lazing around at home, I received a call.
As soon as I picked up, the other side began.
"Someone breached our database last night."
I furrowed my eyebrows in slight confusion.
"What does that have to do with me?"
"Because the breach was performed to find a file on you."
Hearing that, I frowned.
"Weren't you supposed to have delet-"
Fury cut me off mid-sentence.
"I wiped the file. The deletion log is a different matter. Someone on my end kept it intact deliberately."
I went quiet for a moment, honestly surprised by the fact that Fury had openly admitted his own incompetence.
"So, you've got a leak."
I planned to be of no help regarding HYDRA for the time being; that card would be drawn later on.
"That's my problem to deal with. Right now, I want to ask what exactly you did to earn Tony Stark's personal attention."
He didn't hide the exasperation in his tone.
The fact that Stark hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D. to get information on me wasn't very surprising.
"Before that, what did he find?"
"He found partial traces of the Marcus Alexander identity."
That was fine with me. That fake identity was pretty much as useful as dirt.
Fury remained silent on the other side, clearly expecting me to answer his earlier question.
"Well, I attended one of his events, the recent clean energy summit."
"You-"
Fury cut off, making various sounds of exasperation.
He probably realised that he had no real room to scold me. I wasn't an agent under his command, constantly having to act as he approved.
"...What did you say to him?" He finally spoke.
"Nothing in particular. I doubt he thinks of me as an enemy; he's probably just curious."
"Curious, huh? Do you know how dangerous a man like Stark is when he's curious? He's going to keep digging until he finds something." He raised his voice in irritation.
"Let him. Not like he'll find anything more than he already found."
The other side went silent for a while, but I swore I could hear some heavy breathing.
"Next time you decide to piss off a very capable billionaire," he paused, "Give me a little warning, yeah?"
"Yeah, fine."
Fury cut the call rather abruptly after that.
I wondered if any major issues would come for Tony after this. Right now, he was a S.H.I.E.L.D. consultant, but that probably wouldn't last for long if he thought he had the right to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. whenever he felt like it.
"Oh well, not really my problem."
Fury would probably be able to handle it.