For a while, everyone had assumed that once Drex Valen became director of the Sword Bureau, he would settle down a little.
Instead, he dropped another bombshell.
A life restoration device.
The announcement stunned not just America, but the entire world.
"Gentlemen," Drex said during the broadcast, his tone calm and direct, "some children are born without the ability to see this world. Others never hear the voices around them. And many more lose those abilities because of accidents. I have visited disabled orphanages before. I have seen children abandoned by their own parents simply because they were born with defects. Even when they grow up, they are still made to feel lesser than everyone else."
Drex's promotions were never especially sentimental.
That only made them hit harder.
"So I spent a long time developing this life restoration device. It can treat most congenital sensory defects, as well as many disabilities caused by accidents later in life. Starting today, Blade Technology Industries will provide this service for disabled children."
His eyes remained steady on the cameras.
"Let them see light again. Let them hear the beautiful sounds of this world."
People with disabilities had always been pushed to the margins of society.
Ignored.
Overlooked.
Forgotten.
But once reporters from the Global Daily, acting under Drex's direction, tore away the world's fake compassion and exposed the ugly reality beneath it, people finally understood just how many lives were quietly harder than their own.
The effect was immediate.
The global suicide rate dropped by five percent.
That happened because some people who had been standing at the edge of the abyss looked back and saw others enduring far worse, yet still struggling to live.
It moved them.
Human beings were intensely social creatures. Pain spread easily. So did hope.
A lot of them decided they did not want to die after all.
Instead, they found a new reason to keep going.
To spend their lives fighting for those who had never had a voice.
"Drex, you're a genius," Natasha Romanoff said seriously.
Compared to Tony Stark, who had recently become more and more reckless and indulgent, Drex's genius seemed to serve something larger than himself.
More useful.
More meaningful.
Natasha meant it sincerely.
At this point, Drex seemed almost inhumanly brilliant.
Drex gave a small shrug. "You're only realizing that now?"
To him, this was little more than a side project.
But to disabled children, it was a future.
He did not mind giving people hope.
The world was better with more of that and less despair.
He had come to the Marvel world. He might as well actually do something with it.
Otherwise, what was the point of his being here at all?
If Tony Stark and Reed Richards were not going to use their genius for anything truly worthwhile in the original story, then Drex would simply do it himself.
Natasha looked at him for a moment, then shook her head slightly.
"No. You're a real genius."
"Mm." Drex nodded. "Keep praising me."
Natasha sighed, but she was smiling.
Arrogant as he was, Drex Valen was still strangely irresistible.
And now, more than ever, he had the kind of presence people associated with great men. The kind that left a room feeling smaller after he left it.
Tony Stark had seen the actual condition of the world's vulnerable populations after Drex exposed them.
All those global charities over the years.
What exactly had they been doing?
Tony had always assumed superheroes were just about fighting crime and saving the world.
But Drex had just shown him that the role was bigger than that.
Much bigger.
"...Damn it," Tony muttered, staring at the footage. "I lost to this guy."
Then something hot and sharp lit up behind his ribs.
If Drex could do it, then Tony had no excuse not to.
"Drex can pull this off," Tony said under his breath. "There's no reason I can't either."
He had already started thinking about designing his own life restoration device.
Nick Fury watched the same broadcast in silence.
He was beginning to have trouble reading Drex Valen at all.
At first, Fury had believed Drex was a businessman who only cared about profit. That had seemed obvious enough when Drex agreed so quickly to transform the Superhero Association into the Sword Bureau.
Once Fury had taken the role of executive deputy director, his orders had been clear: slowly erode Drex's influence from within and eventually replace him.
He had been working on that too.
After all, he had the authority to do it.
And yet Drex had just made another move Fury could not easily categorize.
Why?
"What is he after?" Fury narrowed his eyes. "Public approval?"
He had never been shy about assuming the worst about people, including men he trusted, like Coulson.
But if he really thought about it, without Drex, most of the world would never even have noticed this vulnerable group of people in the first place.
Most people were too busy surviving.
Too busy working.
Too busy entertaining themselves.
Too busy drowning in their own pain.
They barely had time to think about anyone else.
If Fury had Drex's intelligence and power, would he have thought about disabled children?
He had to admit the answer was no.
He would have used that intelligence and power to build more facilities, more bases, more control points for S.H.I.E.L.D., all in service of global balance.
Compared to that, disabled children and other vulnerable groups were tiny concerns.
Yet Drex had chosen the one thing that truly cut through people's defenses.
Not abstract peace.
Not politics.
Not some hollow slogan about global stability.
This.
The capitalists did not understand why Drex was willing to lose money just to make noise.
The head of the conglomerate that had once given Drex an oil field certainly did not understand it.
He called Drex directly and demanded to know why he was wasting his time on a life restoration device instead of developing a real cancer cure.
"Drex Valen, if you keep neglecting your actual work, I'll make you pay for it!"
The man, Stave, spat the threat through clenched teeth before hanging up.
Half an hour later, Stave was arrested in his own home.
The charge?
Threatening the director of the Sword Bureau.
That was the world they lived in now.
Drex Valen was at the height of his power, and a mere conglomerate head thought he could threaten him?
Did he think they were still living in the outdated age of old capitalism?
This was the age of superheroes.
The Stave conglomerate was immediately seized by Drex.
Officially, it was confiscation.
In practice, it simply became World Serpent funding.
The oversight division objected.
Drex responded by presenting abundant evidence that Stave had threatened him, the director of the Sword Bureau.
What more did he need?
It was only a verbal threat, yes.
But did someone with more authority than Hoover himself really need stronger proof?
No.
Even without evidence, Drex could have destroyed Stave whenever he pleased.