4 Timeskip

"Son, wake up. Your girlfriends are here." I awoke to the sound of my father knocking on my door.

"Huh? I don't have any girlfriends..." I stated groggily as I sat up.

Despite all of my seemingly infinite power, I still enjoyed sleeping in every now and again. I waved away my grogginess with my standard 'morning cleanup' manipulation, which automatically washed my body, brushed my teeth, combed and cut my hair, and washed my face. This was all so that I didn't have to waste any time on it in the morning and could sleep in an extra thirty minutes or so.

I waltzed over to my closet and opened it up, getting a full view of myself in the mirror. I was decently tall for a 15-year-old, being 5 foot 10 inches (~178 cm). My maximum would probably be about as tall as my father at 6 foot 2 inches (~188 cm). I was extremely handsome, courtesy of a pill I'd created that granted me a beautiful face, and I was also very muscular.

The muscle was something I actually didn't grant myself. Despite the fact that I easily could. I worked out now more as a hobby than anything else. Even 'I' needed something to do else I get bored of life and become some sort of evil elder god out of sheer ennui. I did cheat, however, on my diet. I have a constantly active field around me at all times that transform any and all food that enters my stomach into a highly concentrated nutrient slurry that my body easily breaks down and absorbs for maximum nutritional value. I made it like this so I can still enjoy eating unhealthy foods while gaining an impossible good physique.

I smiled as I pulled a tight-fitting black t-shirt over my upper body and some blue jeans. I looked like a model jumping straight out of the page of a magazine but paid it no mind as I opened my door and quickly ran down the stairs to greet everyone.

"Morning Jean. Sam." I replied as I saw them sitting on the couch, watching the TV.

"Ah, good morning Damian," Jean responded, her eyes lingering on me for just a second longer than they should before returning to her front.

"Can't believe you'd keep two beauties waiting on you, Damian." Sam teased as she gave me a once over.

"What can I say, perfection takes time," I said, giving her a pose.

Sam and Jean both chuckled for a bit before my mom came in with a protein shake in my bottle. "Here's your breakfast Mr. Bodybuilder." She said half-teasingly.

Despite the fact I can eat anything, I still drank these to keep up appearances. I could just throw up a perception filter to make it so that none notices the contradiction, but I felt like messing with other people's perception of reality for no reason other than selfish gain, was wrong. Sure, for villains and other undesirables, I'd totally do it to them, but if I didn't draw the line somewhere then I'd just end up as a hypocrite when the time came for me to be a hero.

Yeah, I wanted to be a Superhero. Let's be honest, only a psychopath wants to be a villain and only angsty teens want to be an anti-hero. I'm not an evil person, so I'd have to really force myself to be a villain. It's not like I can't get whatever I want without resorting to crime anyway.

Furthermore, I don't want to be an anti-hero because why would anyone actually WANT to be a good guy with a bad reputation in real life? You get none of the benefits of being a hero who people love and look up to, as well as the marginal protection of the government so they can spend less on their policing budget, but you also get all of the drawbacks of having to constantly run away from superheroes and law enforcement who could aid you in your heroics. Any bad guy you take in would probably immediately get released because a 'villain' attacked them in their own homes and tied them up for the police and it'd be your word, as a perceived villain, against theirs, a normal civilian (innocent until proven guilty).

I also wasn't going to just sit around and let the world do its own thing. In addition to it being incredibly boring, I was also skeptical about whether or not I could survive something like the snap if Thanos or anyone else got the infinity gems like in the comics and MCU.

I took a big swig of the protein shake before giving my mom a kiss on the cheek, which sent her off back to the kitchen to finish making herself and dad breakfast. I leaned over the couch from behind, resting my weight against the backboard and watching the breaking news that was being played out.

"In other news, Stark Industries CEO, Tony Stark has gone missing in the middle east earlier today, after giving a personal demonstration for the military for his latest and most high-tech weapon to date. Some sources claim that he was captured by terrorist forces working for the Mandarin. The White House has released a statement saying that everything possible is being done to locate Mr. Stark and reiterating that they don't work with terrorists." The newswoman reported.

Jean turned to look at me. "Are you going to call that woman and sell some of your stock in them?" She asked.

"Nah, I'm going to buy it up. Most likely everyone's going to be selling right now, so I can probably get about 30% of the company's shares out of it." I commented.

"I still don't like the fact that you invested so heavily into a weapons company." Sam chimed in. "Couldn't you use that money on other companies that don't kill other people?"

"I could, but only Stark Industries has a working and commercializable fusion reactor." I replied.

"Oh yeah, the Arc Reactor that everyone said was going to revolutionize the energy business but never went anywhere with," Jean said with a frown.

I chuckled. "Yeah, it seems the people at the top only wanted to secure the patent before anyone else but actually wanted to focus primarily on weapons sales," I stated.

That was half-true. Obediah Stane funded the research project to 'shut the hippies up' about how much CO2 Stark Industries produced when making their products and didn't expect it to actually succeed using Howard's research notes. This isn't public knowledge, but he also tried to miniaturize it to replace the nuclear powerplants in US Navy Ships, but when the costs kept going up without anything to show for it, he canceled the project.

"Sorry girls, I'm going to go make a call." I told them.

"Uh, huh. Tell that woman I said hi." Jean said in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Come on now. Emma isn't a bad woman. No need to get jealous. She already said she wasn't going to pursue me." I said, giving Jean a pat on the head.

Jean smiled a bit before responding. "Yeah, but that was before you hired her to be your financial advisor and made millions." She responded.

"I doubt she cares about something like that, besides, don't you read those gossip magazines? She's with Luthor apparently." I responded before walking out of the room and into the backyard.

I pulled out my cellphone and dialed a my contact named 'Frost'. It rang for a few moments before being picked up. "Hello, Damian. I'm assuming you saw the news?" Emma Frost responded.

"Yup. Buy up every bit of stock that goes on the market." I gave her my order.

"You know this is a bad trade right? I know you were right about a bunch of stuff before, and now have a monopoly on the internet business, but this one is just straight up, a bad trade." She gave me some council. I could almost feel her narrowing her eyes from here. "Unless you know something more that you'd like to tell me."

"Stark isn't dead. He'll be back after a few months, and he'll be dedicated to quitting selling weapons when he does." I responded.

"Mmm... Did you have anything to do with that?" She asked in a slightly accusatory tone.

"Nope. Not that I could convince you otherwise." I quipped.

"It's fine. I believe you. You haven't lied to me yet. Also, the government's trying to break up our company again. Waving around the Anti-Trust Act. Thought I should let you know." Emma Frost finished.

"I'm on it," I replied, snapping my fingers and making the case against us disappear from everyone's minds and records.

"Thanks." She said before I hung up.

I had been busy the past Ten Years I've had my powers. I met Emma Frost while she was still in college and got her to work for me. When I first appeared in her dorm room with my offer, she laughed at me and tried to use her Telepathic Powers to mind-control me to leave, but when they didn't work, she took me much more seriously. A brief trip to the blue side of the moon, unlocking her secondary mutation, and manifesting a pile of gold bullion the size of a monster truck in front of her as starting capital worked to sufficiently terrify her into accepting my offer.

She was a smart girl. Rather than piss off the reality warper while simultaneously giving up on the biggest opportunity of her lifetime, she decided it was better to accept my offer. I still had her join the hellfire club, as access to their resources would be useful in the future, but she primarily works for me now.

For the most part, all I have her do is work for me as my 'face'. I was too young to trade stock myself or legally start a business, so she did all of that for me in her name. I'd call her whenever there was an opportunity to make a ton of money or when I needed her to do something for me. I was able to use my previous life's knowledge of popular companies to invest in or outright buy numerous companies when they were still small and integrate them perfectly together into a singular framework. A little reality manipulation here and mind control there and we found ourselves with a monopoly on the emerging internet marketplace.

Some of the companies we bought were Google, Youtube, Reddit, Discord, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Valve, Mojang, and Twitter. By combining all of these companies into a singular ecosystem and giving much-needed improvements to some companies we were essentially able to monopolize the internet in its entirety. Websites like Twitch were never able to compete since I started Youtube Live first and gave it all of the things that made Twitch popular, like a better chat system, super chats, etc.

Furthermore, I wasn't a total dick about monetization or anything. For Youtube creators, they were able to keep 90% of the revenue from ads and 100% from donations. There was only a single $100 annual payment to access all of Netflix's catalog as well as get free shipping on Amazon. We won the streaming wars before they even began, as I had Emma buy up the rights to stream all the media company's libraries of shows now and in the future. This was before they even knew what streaming was, so they easily signed away the rights permanently for the amount of money we offered which was about a quarter of their annual revenue. Everyone could now watch everything from classic Disney movies to anime to cartoons to True Crime on one platform and there were literally no competitors.

It wasn't just the internet that Luciel Holdings had monopolized. I had Emma round up some of the most intelligent people I knew about from Marvel and DC to work for the company, so we are a leader in the tech space too. I introduced smartphones before Apple and patented the touch-screen technology too, so no one could compete. We were the first to implement cloud storage and commercial use of AI Assistants. Luciel Holdings was even the first to introduce an affordable, fully electric car in 2005, courtesy of Forge's work. We partnered with the Baxter Building to create batteries that didn't require charging for a full week of constant use which we used on smartphones and cars, and we even had Tony Stark himself design the casing for the phones and body for the cars to be military grade in terms of how durable they are.

In short, I was VERY rich, but I kept most of that a secret, as I didn't want to cause myself too much trouble in my day-to-day life. I did eventually tell Jean and my parents and Jean told Peter, MJ, Gwen, and Sam, with my blessing.

I totally stole Harry Osborn's status of 'the rich friend' in the group, but it was fine. They were all good people, so they didn't treat me any differently, though I'm always the one buying when we go out to eat or to the movies or something.

'Damn Teenagers!' I cursed in my mind.

"Come on, Damian! We're going to be late! The trip to Oscorp is today." Jean said, poking her head out of the back door.

"I know, I know," I said as I walked back into the house, getting ready for the next step of my life, being a superhero's friend.