Chapter 6: The Secret Keepers
The years had a way of blurring in the Stark Mansion, a luxurious, high-tech bubble where the biggest problem was usually Tony accidentally setting off a minor explosion in his lab. Adama, now a precocious eight-year-old, felt his two lives, past and present, fully coalesce. He was Adama Stiels, son of Iron Man, twin brother to Morgan, but he was also still Adam, the fanboy with a System and a universe of spoilers in his head. And it was time to share. Not with just anyone, of course. Only with the one person who truly got him, who saw past the sarcastic quips and into the strategic mind beneath: Morgan.
They were in their shared playroom, a sprawling space filled with everything from advanced robotics kits to classic board games. Morgan, already a pint-sized engineering marvel, was meticulously disassembling a drone, humming a tune Tony had probably composed on a whim.
"Morgan," Adama began, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "I need to tell you something. Something... big."
Morgan paused, her tiny screwdriver hovering over a delicate circuit board. She looked up, her eyes, so much like Tony's, sharp with immediate curiosity. "Bigger than Dad's new 'self-cleaning' suit that just exploded in the laundry room?"
Adama cracked a small smile. "Significantly bigger. This is... universe-altering big. Potentially." He took a deep breath. "Remember when I made that toy car fly? The one that ended up as modern art on the wall?"
Morgan's eyes lit up. "Yeah! You said it was 'magic.' I still think it was."
"It wasn't magic, not exactly," Adama clarified, choosing his words carefully. "It was... a System. A very, very complicated, very powerful System that's bonded to me." He hesitated, then decided to go for broke. "And I'm not exactly from here. Not originally. I... died in another world, and then I woke up here. With this System."
He braced himself for disbelief, for questions, for a trip to the nearest child psychologist. But Morgan, being Morgan, simply tilted her head. "Another world? Like, a parallel dimension? Are there other versions of us there?" Her mind, already trained by Tony's fantastical theories, jumped straight to the scientific implications.
"Something like that," Adama said, relieved. "And the System... it helps me. It gives me Luck Points, which I can use to do things. Like get these." He extended his hand, and with a subtle mental command, the shimmering, ethereal outline of the Crown of Gravity appeared on his head, followed by the Panacea Stick materializing in his palm, and the faint, almost invisible shimmer of the Coat of the Ascended around his shoulders.
Morgan gasped, not in fear, but in pure, unadulterated awe. She reached out a tentative finger, touching the Crown. It felt solid, yet intangible. "These are... real? And you can just... summon them?"
"Yep. And they do things. The Crown lets me manipulate gravity. The Stick heals anything. And the Coat... well, it makes me fast, agile, and invisible." He demonstrated, vanishing and reappearing beside her, making her jump.
"Whoa!" she breathed, then frowned. "But... why? Why you? Why us? What's the 'System's' purpose?"
"Ah, the Stark pragmatism. Always cutting to the chase."
"It's about... luck. And changing things. The System rewards me for altering or resolving major plot events in this world. It's like... this whole universe is a story, and I'm here to make sure it doesn't go completely off the rails, or at least, that the good guys win with fewer casualties." He explained the concept of Luck Points, the Oracle's Gaze, and the Luck Save feature, simplifying it for her young mind but not sugarcoating the stakes.
Morgan listened intently, her brow furrowed in thought. "So, you know what's going to happen? Like, the future?"
"Most of it. I have to be careful not to change too much, or the System gets grumpy. But I can nudge things. Protect people. And I need help. Your help."
She looked at the artifacts, then back at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You want me to be your partner? Your... secret agent sidekick?"
"More like my strategic genius, my moral compass, and the only person I trust with this," Adama corrected, a genuine warmth in his voice. "We're a team, Morgan. Always have been."
A crisp, silent message popped into Adama's mind, a subtle hum that only he could perceive.
[System Mission] Mission: Recruit and train Morgan Stark. Reward: 100 Non-Permanent Luck Points.
"Well, that was easier than I thought. Maybe the System just likes a good sibling bond."
Morgan nodded, her eyes gleaming with determination. "Okay. So, what's first? Do we stop Dad from eating too many cheeseburgers? Because that's a public health crisis waiting to happen."
Adama laughed, a genuine, unburdened sound. "Not yet, but good idea for a side mission. First, we train. And then, we figure out how to be the best secret heroes this universe has ever seen."
They spent the rest of the afternoon in the playroom, not playing with toys, but discussing strategies, the ethics of interference, and the sheer, exhilarating potential of their new, shared secret. Morgan, with her sharp mind, immediately grasped the implications, already brainstorming ways to integrate technology with Adama's powers. The golden cage of the Stark Mansion suddenly felt less like a prison and more like a highly advanced, very secure, secret base.