Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00129. Taking care of a future villain.

While Hank and his team continued to explore the quantum realm in search of his wife. Theo went back to work on a project he was neglecting for the past couple years. He originally planned to build a massive complex in Brooklyn to act as Vibe's headquarters. But buying up all the land took a while and only a month ago the last property was purchased. 

Even though the area he wanted was mostly industrial and warehouse space near his fathers business. A lot of people didn't want to sell at first even when he offered them more than the property was worth. For anyone who didn't want to sell for a reasonable offer, Theo did some research. Most of them just wanted more money because they thought the property was worth more. But most of those properties were owned by large companies, so Theo did the only reasonable thing and stole the properties instead.

It wasn’t hard to do either since the companies were so big the properties just disappeared into nothing like the company never owned them in the first place. The people who knew about the properties first hand? Theo sent a clone to hide the memories about each property. With Theo taking that route, he was able to claim about sixty percent of the area he wanted.

As for the rest of the properties, Theo paid out the owners the asking price plus thirty percent. A few argued for more when they realized someone was buying up all the property in the area. So Theo dealt with those people on a person to person basis. If they were decent people he would gladly pay them more. For the people who weren’t, Theo would take the property for market price or less. Depending on how bad of a person they were, would depend on how much Theo would give them for the property.

The two people Theo found to be slumlords, well they ended up losing all of their properties and disappeared never to be seen again. Theo was planning to transfer the properties to a family member, but everyone close to them wasn’t much better. So Theo took over the properties, found a good company to manage them and then sunk a bunch of money into fixing up the buildings outside of the area he was going to demolish. He also helped move the tenants from the area he was going to demo to other buildings he was fixing up.

As for the area in Brooklyn that Theo bought up, he ran into one small issue. Most of the buildings in the area he bought up, had current tenants that needed to be dealt with. All of them had some form of lease or rental agreement for at least a year or more. So Theo went to each of them with clones and offered a cash incentive to close out their lease agreement. He even offered to cover the moving cost for them if they agreed. Most of them took the offer but there were a few who didn’t want to move their business.

When Theo looked into the few holdouts, all of them were older and just liked the area they were in. So Theo went to each of them and offered to buy out their businesses. At first they didn’t want to sell, but Theo pointed out that when their lease agreement was up, they would have to move no matter what. With that all but one person agreed to sell their business to Theo and he didn’t low ball them either. They were all just hard working people with a small business, so Theo paid them three times what the business was worth. 

As for the last hold out, they didn’t want to sell because the business was a front. With its location close to the water, it was used for smuggling. Freighter ships would come into port in New York and before the ship was searched, they would off load certain cargo onto a small boat. That boat would then cruise across the harbor over to Brooklyn and enter an old sewer tunnel which went underneath the building in question. It was a pretty smooth operation and if Theo wasn’t trying to clear out that whole area for his project, he never would have found it.

It didn’t take long for Theo to take care of the whole operation, just a few clones over a week and Theo caught everyone involved with the operation. They mostly smuggled drugs, but they would also move cash, stolen art and a few other things sometimes. As for dealing with the underlings involved, it depended on how bad they were. The few he found that were just trying to survive and hadn’t done anything serious yet, he gave them a second chance.

For the people Theo considered bad, he just loaded them up with a bag of drugs and then put them under a genjutsu that made them think they were going to deliver it to a client. The client was a police station. As for the ring leaders, well they were all pieces of work. So Theo made sure they disappeared and took over anything they owned and sold it for a quick profit.

Since all of that was now completed, Theo needed to start his next step of the project. He needed to demo all of the buildings and he knew just the person for the job. Adrian Toomes, he was currently running a small salvage company, which he used to support his wife and young daughter. He also had the potential to one day become known as the villain named the vulture if Theo wasn’t careful. So Theo figured the best way to stop it was to help the guy out. Theo's first order of business was to use his Ezekiel persona and set up a meeting with Adrian at one of the buildings he purchased in the Brooklyn area.

The morning of the meeting, Adrian woke up a little groggy to the smell of breakfast being made. He smiled to himself. Doris, his loving wife, got up early again to make sure he had something for breakfast besides a cup of coffee. After getting ready, Adrian went to the kitchen and found his wife and daughter. His daughter just finished setting the table as his wife finished cooking.

Adrian moved towards the coffee pot as he said, “How are my lovely ladies doing this morning?”

Doris turned off the stove as she said, “We’re good. How’re you? Did you get enough sleep?”

As Adrian poured himself a cup of coffee he said, “I’ll be fine after some coffee.”

“Dad, look what I drew in class!” His daughter Elizabeth said as she pointed to the fridge.

Adrian glanced at the picture and smiled before he said, “It’s beautiful hunny. Now come here and give me my morning hug.”

Adrian set his coffee down and then picked up his daughter in a hug. Afterwards he gave his wife a hug and said, “Thanks for making breakfast.”

Doris kissed his cheek before she said, “Your welcome. Now let's eat. You have a big day today meeting with a potential client.”

As Adrian sat down he said, “It’s just a meeting. I doubt much will come out of it.”

Doris shook her head as she said, “You have to think positive thoughts and positive things will happen in return.”

Adrian couldn’t help but smile. His wife always said that, but so far it didn’t help. They were barely scraping by as he tried to get his small business off the ground, while his wife worked a full time job. But he wasn’t one to argue with his wife, since she was one of the smartest people he knew. He nodded his head and said, “Alright sweetie, I’ll only think positive thoughts about the meeting.”

“Good.” Doris said before they started to eat breakfast and shared some small talk. After breakfast, Doris took their daughter to school and Adrian headed to Brooklyn for his meeting with his potential client.

Ezekiel was seated on the steps of a building with Shisui chatting as a beat up quad cab truck pulled up. On the side of the truck was the company name, ‘Toomes Salvage’ with a phone number. The man who stepped out of the truck was wearing a set of coveralls and looked like a younger version of his movie counterpart.

As Adrian came around his truck he studied the two young men seated on the steps of the building. Both of them looked familiar to him but he just couldn’t place them. As he moved towards them, Ezekiel stood up and extended his hand as he said, “Mr. Toomes, I’m Ezekiel and this is my assistant Shisui. It’s nice to meet you.”

As he shook each of their hands Adrian said, “It’s nice to meet you too. And just Adrian is fine.”

Adrian took a quick glance at the building as he asked, “So what can I help you with?”

Ezekiel smiled as he said, “A few things actually. Let's head upstairs and I’ll show you what I want to hire you for.”

They didn’t really talk as they moved to the top of the building and came out on the roof. Near one edge of the roof was a set of sawhorses with a piece of wood laid across them making a table. Once they neared the makeshift table, Shisui pulled out some papers from a tube that was resting on the table. As he started to roll them out Ezekiel asked, “Adrian, how would you feel about expanding your business?”

“Expanding my business? How big is the salvage job you have?” Adrian asked.

Ezekiel pointed to the paperwork on the table as he said, “Well salvage is only one portion of the job. The main portion of the job would be demolition, but you could also run salvage on it.”

Adrian looked down at the paper and realized it was a map of the area and every building was marked with an X for demolition. After taking a few moments Adrian looked up at Ezekiel and said, “I think you called the wrong guy.”

“Did I?” Ezekiel glanced at Shisui as he asked, “It said Toomes Salvage on his truck right?”

As Shisui nodded his head, Adrian said, “Look, I appreciate the offer. But I really think you have the wrong guy. I only do salvage and even if I wanted to run just salvage on this operation. I only have two employees, my truck and a trailer.”

Ezekiel nodded in understanding before he said, “So you just need to hire more staff and buy some equipment.”

“It’s not that simple. I don’t have the money to do that and no one would give me a loan to do something like that.” Adrian said.

“Hypothetically, if you could get a loan. Would you want the job?” Ezekiel asked with a smile.

“Of course I would.”

Ezekiel nodded before he asked, “What about the demolition, would you do it if you had the men and equipment?”

Adrian glanced at the map again before he said, “I don’t see why not. But that would never happen. You're talking about millions of dollars just for the equipment and tools. Then the business license, special work permits for the demolition work and then enough money to pay the employees for a job that could take at least a year.”

“So what, like ten or twenty million?” Ezekiel asked.

Adrian kept looking at the map as he nodded and then said, “Maybe a little less, but ya.”

Ezekiel smirked as he said, “Well then I guess we have a deal.”

Adrian’s head snapped up and he looked at Ezekiel as he asked, “What?”

“We have a deal, I’ll have a contract drawn up for a loan and the project I want you to do by the end of the day.” Ezekiel said as he smirked.

Adrian was dazed as he asked, “You're joking with me right?”

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “No, I’m not.”

“Why?” Adrian asked.

“Why what?”

Adrian glanced at the map again as he asked, “Why are you offering something like this to me? You could go to any company and they would jump at the chance to bid on this job.”

“Because, I did my research. You might not have a big company yet, but everyone who you’ve worked for has nothing but good things to say about you.” Ezekiel said before he smiled again.

“And you know what that tells me?” Ezekiel asked.

“That I do good work?”

Ezekiel nodded as he said, “That’s one part of it. The other is it’s only a matter of time before your business grows a lot bigger. I’m offering you a way to do that sooner. The question is are you willing to do it?”