Manipulations Behind the Scenes

An explosion rocks the busy streets of downtown New York. People yell and scream as they run in all directions, trying to make it out of the conflict zone as multiple Super Villians duke it out with the Spider Family in a setpiece climactic battle.

"Stay still for a moment while I line up my shot," Kraven calls out as he takes aim with his rifle and fires off a shot at Spiderman.

By a hair's breadth, the agile hero avoids the metal slug as it flies through the air and embeds itself into a wall of a building behind him. "Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather not know what it feels like to be Swiss Cheese!" he says, shooting a taser web at Kraven's face, temporarily blinding the hunter as he cries out in shock before falling unconscious.

"Got you now creep!" Shocker screams as he lines up his fist with Spiderman's body and lets rip a concussive blast.

Despite the danger, Spiderman doesn't dodge and instead swings into the attack taking it head-on. The concussive strike makes contact with his suit but is seemingly absorbed and deflected from the vibranium weave without even slowing him down, leaving nothing but a high-pitched ringing noise in its wake. Spiderman then swings into the Shocker, feet first, landing a solid double kick to his face, rendering the supervillain unconscious as he flies through the air and lands against a wall of a nearby building.

There is a clicking sound, as a pistol's hammer is pulled back and the muzzle of the handgun is pressed against the back of the Spider's head. "Sorry kid, nothing personal but the bounty on you and your little lovers' heads are too good to pass up," Deathstroke mutters before moving his finger to pull the trigger, only to be stopped by webbing coming from his left side, tying up his arm and pulling him into the waiting lariat of one of the Spiderman's two partners, Spinneret.

"Sorry, but he's mine." She quips as she catches the twisting body of Deathstroke by the face and proceeds to bury it into the asphalt floor below them, rendering the master assassin unconscious.

"Thanks, Red." Peter, in his Spiderman persona comments. "I see you had no problem, 'putting him down'..." he quips to which MJ rolls her eyes.

"I'm glad you guys are having an easy time of it, but can I get a little help? I'm about to be Lunch for a T-Rex!" Gwen, in her Ghost Spider suit, calls out and jumps over the massive jaw of Dinosaurus as it bites a long-since abandoned city bus in half.

"I'm on it Ghost!" Peter calls out and begins running up to the monster, jumping into the air in an attempt to land on its back, only to be grabbed out of the air by the Vulture.

"Not so fast, Insect. We have business to settle first." The Vulture cackles before flapping his mechanical wings and taking off into the sky.

"First of all, Spiders are Arachnids, and second of all, sorry guy, you're not my type! I only date people whose faces don't look like a bleached raisin!" Spiderman quipped as she squirmed under the Vulture's grasp for a moment. After realizing he couldn't escape via brute force alone, Peter put both of his hands on the Vulture's armored legs and used his Venom Blast power to deliver 50,000 volts directly into his enemy.

"Gyaaa!!!" The Vulture screeches in pain for a moment before falling unconscious and losening his grip on Peter, allowing him to escape. Unfortunately, the two are currently hundreds of feet in the air and descending fast.

Peter quickly twists his body m-air to get into a better position and releases a large amount of webbing, forming a large net to catch the falling unconscious villain before cupping both of his hands together over his head and taking aim at the half-dinosaur trying to make a mid-day snack out of his girlfriend. As he increases his speed and falls toward his target, he begins twirling, winding himself up to deliver a devastating blow, hopefully knowing the genetically engineered villain out cold.

"What caused the dinosaurs to go extinct!?!" He yelled out, getting the beast's attention. It turned to look upwards just in time to have Peter's entire body and weight put into a downward strike directly on his skull, rattling his brain and stunning the creature greatly. "A Meteor... Punch!" Spiderman said as he landed into a roll to kill his momentum.

"Come on babe, even I found that one weak." Ghost Spider commented as she slid under Dinosaurus' legs and webbed them together on her way through.

"What can I say? I was sorta right. I mean, it was something that fell from the sky after all!" he said as he walked over to her while shrugging his shoulders.

Dinosaurus wavered for a moment before shaking his large head to clear his drowsiness, eyeing the two spider people he despised so much. He let out an angry roar before trying to take a step to charge them, only to have his feet caught in Gwen's webs, causing him to fall forward, flat on his face. There is a loud boom sound as the ground beneath his massive body cracks and appears to almost give way but holds strong. The two spiders hi-five at the tag team takedown as they stand over their conquest.

"Hahahahaha!" A maniacal laughter is heard from above as dozens of pumpkin bombs begin to rain down on the two spider people, though they remain standing still and unflinching. "Decided to give up to the Hobgoblin eh? Smart choice!" He said as the bombs continued to fall towards them, but they didn't move.

Just then, the small and invisible threads that were spread throughout the battleground all come together as Spinneret gave them a pull, revealing the trap. All of the bombs were grouped together into a single net before being spun around and thrown back up into the air at the shocked Hobgoblin. They exploded just a few meters away from his face, knocking him off of his hovercraft and sending the villain into a waiting spider's web.

The next instant, Spinneret swung down and into the middle of the street, next to her boyfriend and harem-sister. "Well Tiger, what'd you think?" She asked him in a sultry voice.

"I think this suit is bulletproof but not boner-proof and I desperately need it to be." He quipped, which earned him a light slap from the in-costume Gwen.

...

I sit back in the chair this instance of my body is in and smile, looking at the other person in the room who was also watching the video of the fight. "So, how about it?" I ask.

"They are extremely well trained and kept property damage to a minimum." Fury responds thoughtfully.

"Right? Not to mention their teamwork was flawless and resulted in the capture of 6 Super Villains who've been giving SHIELD the run around for a while." I commented.

Fury scowled for just a moment before returning to his usual stoic self. "Fine. You'll have permission from SHIELD to begin construction however, I want SHIELD Agents to have access to the locations mentioned in the file for oversight and inspection purposes." He answered.

I gave a small nod of appreciation to his request. What I had proposed to him was the creation of multiple sites around the world for various reasons. A few of the locations, especially those in the US, would be prisons for Super Villians who'd easily escape a normal prison otherwise and couldn't be kept in the Helicarrier the whole time. Others would be logistical hubs for my future Super Hero Organization. A few research bases dotted around in Europe. And a few were to be training facilities for superpowered individuals. Currently, I was using footage of the Spider Family's latest bout with this universe's Sinister Six as an example of initiates who'd completed their training already, and how effective they were at their mission.

I called the whole thing Project Overwatch. The official name of the organization I was creating hadn't been decided yet though. I didn't want it to just be called the Justice League or Avengers, or whatever, as it would represent more than just a superhero organization. I was also planning to turn it into a pseudo-mega-conglomerate. We'd combine the Baxter Building, Stark Industries, Wayne Industries, Star Labs, Luciel Holdings, Queen Industries, and many more organizations which were run by superheroes or their associates. This would give us the economic and political leverage needed to bring about actual change in the world on a global scale to reduce inequality, fight poverty, and uproot corruption while also ridding the cooperate world of harmful or immoral business practices. This was because, in my opinion, being a 'Hero' shouldn't just be about being the guy who can punch the lights out of the person robbing a bank, it should also be about never allowing people to be put into a situation where they'd NEED to rob that bank, to begin with.

Fury knew that too, or at the very least was paying lip service to my ideals. He had known about what I was planning for a long time now, as I didn't particularly try to hide the fact I was slowly building up to this. The only difference was that, now, I had everything in place to begin moving out of the planning stage and into the stage where I'd start working to make it happen. From his perspective, I was too far along to stop me and he knew he couldn't even if he tried. It was going to happen whether he helped me or not, and all he could do was delay the inevitable, so he was on board with my plan provided I allow some SHIELD oversight. I accepted this because it was expected. I didn't NEED SHIELD's help with this, but having them on board would make things smoother initially. Besides, I was planning to use the whole 'Hydra infiltrated SHIELD' event as an excuse for cutting ties with their oversight in the future anyways while poaching all of their talented non-Hydra agents and scientists.

I also think he has a suspicion about the true nature of my abilities, as he was less hesitant to my suggestions nowadays, even if they would ultimately go against the interests of what the 'Council' would want. After all, if a reality warper wants something from you, he's going to get it one way or another, so better to cooperate and not end up erased from existence and replaced by a padzy version of yourself. I liked that he was realistic about it too, though the chance he was probably trying to come up with a way to neutralize my powers should it become necessary didn't slip my mind.

"Cecil, get in here!" Fury called out.

I turned my body to the sliding door as it opened with a satisfying few clicks and an older white man walked in. His hair was greying and so were his eyes. A large scar ran down the right side of his face and into his lips. He wore a dark suit with a small grey SHIELD pin and a red tie. "Yes sir?" He asked.

"I'll be assigning you to be SHIELD's representative in Damian's Project Overwatch. His company has already acquired the land permits to start construction. You'll help him to see it through to its fruition and without any 'outside' influences." He ordered, warning about possible infiltrations from hostile actors

"Got it." Cecil nodded in acknowledgment of his mission before turning to me and holding out his hand for me to shake it. "Cecil Stedman. Head of the Superhuman Relations Department for SHIELD, though I guess that title's out of the window." He said with his gravelly almost monotone voice.

I took his hand and shook it back. "Damian Luciel, Miricle. It's not a problem, though I didn't know there WAS a Superhuman Relations Department in SHIELD," I said, looking at Fury for an answer.

"It's something new I created a few days ago before you came to me with Project Overwatch." Fury sighed, shaking the folder I gave him earlier. "Technically there are only a few agents working on it right now, so a pivot to your project which basically does the same thing, came at just the right time for the sunk cost fallacy to not kick in. Almost like it was planned to be that way..." He commented, giving me a look.

I smirked at the implication that I waited to propose my plan until after he had already set aside resources and personnel that would be useful to get my project off the ground but before they could be spent on what they were originally aiming for. I decided not to answer his speculation and instead gave Cecil a copy of the folder for Project Overwatch along with a second folder. I did the same for Fury, where I gave him a new folder that I hadn't shown previously. I waited for them to both receive them and begin skimming it before addressing both men.

"In the next few months, there is going to be an invasion by extradimensional beings. It will be small-scale, only limited to about 20 cities around the world will suffer an attack. Normally it would have been relatively easy to take care of it with a military response under normal circumstances, however, I know for a fact that various superhumans are going to come out of the woodwork to fight back against the occupiers, so the military won't get its chance." I was giving them ample warning by giving them these documents. They contained a list of the names of cities they'd invade, a range of dates, the force composition of the invader's military, a list of their commanders and special units, as well as a detailed explanation on how their technology worked. I was doing this mostly to limit civilian casualties, not because I needed help in stopping it.

This wasn't something I'd orchestrated. I'd simply used my powers to see when the next attack on earth would come, so I could start the recruitment phase of Project Overwatch, and it turned out to be the Flaxxan Invasion. Despite the Flaxxans I remember being significantly weaker than the ones who were going to attack now. They were going to be much more coordinated and well prepared for their assault in this world, targeting multiple cities, not just one like in the show. Also, it appeared as though the time dilation of their dimension wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the 'Invincible' comic series, only being about a month per day rather than several years. In exchange for this, however, it seemed they were a lot tougher, enough to give some of the weaker versions of Parademons a run for their money.

Normally, I'd use my powers to keep invasions like this away from the Earth. I did so in the past and would probably do so again I the future, but THIS attack was just too perfect an opportunity to give up. An enemy too strong for the average citizen to defeat, but enough for the police to put up a good fight against and for superheroes to shine as they saved the day, showing off their superior strength, intellect, abilities, etc. At the same time, the attack was on a small enough scale that, while it will cause considerable damage, it won't inflict vast casualties. An event impactful enough that it will bring together most of the superhumans and superheroes with a NEED to work together as a team to repel them, leaving them receptive to my idea of a shared organization of people like themselves without leading to any significant or lasting damage to the world.

As I said, it was too perfect.

Fury immediately stood up from his chair as he looked over the information I gave him on it. I was going to use SHIELD's response to the crisis as a good way to bring them into the public light, like after the invasion of New York like in the MCU. They'd be the initial 'oversight' for my organization, then eventually fall away with the Hydra Inultration Incident, when my own organization would have had enough time to build up trust with the population to not require anything more than ceremonial oversight anymore, which will allow us to act much more freely.

"Damn it, Damian! We need more time to prepare for something like this than just a few months!" Fury angrily shouted.

"Not necessarily. It's going to happen regardless of how much we prepare for it. The best we can do is try to keep the damage to a minimum and look for the most benefits in this situation as we can. For example, if you were caught flat-footed, then chances are you wouldn't be able to keep alien tech out of the hands of the black market, but since I warned you now, you'll have a much better chance of containing it." I reasoned.

Fury glared at me but said nothing. He knew I was right. When there isn't anything that can be done to prevent a disaster, all you can do is try to mitigate the risks to civilians and minimize the damage. I was doing the same and decided to turn the disaster into a recruitment tool for superpowered individuals to join my faction.

Cecil grunted hearing my response but also understood it. He looked between the two files I gave him about my planned organization and the invasion and became visibly stunned for a moment before glaring at me. I could tell we weren't going to get along well, but oh well. With my piece said, I left my card for him on the table and walked out.

.~.~.~.

A/N: I'm taking suggestions for names for the superhero organization/conglomerate.