STORY: The Man Who Collects Coincidences

 [SCENE START]

INT. BAXTER BUILDING - OBSERVATION DECK - DAY

The camera finds BARBARA KOPELLI, a thoughtful woman with a steady gaze, sitting across from REED RICHARDS. He’s in a comfortable chair, not his lab coat, looking more like a weary professor than the leader of the Fantastic Four. The New York skyline stretches behind them.

KOPELLI

(Leaning forward)

So, Mister Richards, we’ve talked about cosmic threats, family, the burden of genius. But I want to shift gears. I’ve been interviewing… civilians, for lack of a better word. People who live in this world of gods and monsters without a costume or a codename. One name keeps coming up. Rollo Cummings.

A faint, unmistakable smile touches Reed’s lips. He adjusts his glasses, a gesture that seems more about buying time to choose his words than necessity.

REED RICHARDS

Rollo. Yes. “Infamous.” A fascinating case study in statistical anomaly and sheer, unadulterated chutzpah.

KOPELLI

You know him?

REED

Know him? I’ve studied him. Extensively. Susan thinks I’m obsessed. Ben just calls him “that lucky schmuck.” Johnny wants his phone number. Initially, I theorized he was a latent mutant, a probability manipulator, or a nexus being. I ran every scan I could ethically—and a few I probably shouldn’t have—with his permission, of course. He found the whole thing hilarious.

KOPELLI

And?

REED

And nothing. He is, biologically and energetically, a completely ordinary human male. Which makes his life the greatest scientific paradox I’ve ever encountered. He’s not a cause of the weirdness; he’s a focal point. A… a weirdness magnet, as he puts it.

KOPELLI

I’ve heard the stories. Doctor Doom? Darts?

Reed’s smile widens into a genuine grin. He chuckles, shaking his head.

REED

Oh, the Doom incident. I have sources in Latveria. Doom prepared for their annual match last year by analyzing wind patterns in the tavern, the weight and aerodynamics of three different brands of dart, and the psychological profile of a champion-level player. Rollo prepared by having two pints of ale and complaining about the Mets. Doom still lost. The fact that Victor hasn’t disintegrated him is, frankly, one of the most compelling arguments for Doom having a sliver of a soul I’ve ever seen.

KOPELLI

And the Stark incident? The lemon meringue?

At this, Reed laughs outright, a rich, warm sound.

REED

Tony was apoplectic for weeks. JARVIS—the old JARVIS—had a complete systems blackout for 47 seconds. No logs, no security breaches. Just… suddenly, every suit from the Mark II to the bleeding-edge prototype was filled with a perfect, non-conductive, slightly sticky lemon meringue. Tony still sniffs suspiciously when he suits up. I asked Rollo how he did it. He just winked and said, “A magician never reveals his secrets, but a guy who tripped over a loose dimensional thread in the back of a bodega might.”

The camera holds on Reed’s face, which grows more thoughtful.

REED

That’s the thing, Barbara. He doesn’t seek it out. The weirdness finds him. He’s just… living his life. Running his animal shelter in that old cathedral.

KOPELLI

The Cloister.

REED

Yes. He’ll be tending to a three-legged terrier, and a miniature, homesick Fluvian space-hound will wander in. Or Wong will pop by for tea because, as he told me, “Mister Cummings is the only one who understands the unique challenge of cleaning ectoplasm out of a silk rug.” He has a… a profound, stubborn normality at his core. It’s his anchor. When he was briefly in possession of the Luck Stone—

KOPELLI

The what?

REED

A seventh Infinity Stone. It manifested, he told me, in his butter dish. For twelve hours, he was the luckiest being in the multiverse. He used it to fix a leak in his roof, find a lost kitten, and get a reservation at a impossible-to-book sushi place. Then he got so bored and annoyed by the sheer lack of challenge that he tossed it into the first random portal that opened over his trash chute. Said it was “cheating.”

Reed leans back, steepling his fingers.

REED

I once asked him, after the… the Sabretooth and croquet mallet affair, if he was ever afraid. He just shrugged. He said, “Mister Richards, my dad invented a toaster that could briefly toast bread in the fourth dimension. My mom could throw a grown man using his own pinky finger. I was raised to roll with the punches. Sometimes the punch is from a super-soldier, sometimes it’s from a timeline. You just have to be kind to the people—and animals, and sometimes sentient weapons—you meet along the way.”

KOPELLI

And what do you think of that philosophy?

REED

(sighs, but warmly)

I think the universe, in its infinite complexity, occasionally produces a perfect paradox. Rollo Cummings is a fixed point of chaos. He challenges gods at darts, dates Valkyries, gives career advice to cosmic entities, and his greatest pride is still the no-kill shelter he runs. He proves that in a world of world-shakers, the most powerful force can sometimes just be a remarkably stubborn, kind-hearted man who refuses to be impressed by any of it.

Reed looks past the camera, a scientist still marveling at an unsolvable equation.

REED

Galactus considered him for a Herald. Did you know that? The Devourer of Worlds. Rollo said no. Politely. He said he had to feed the cats at four.

Barbara Kopelli just stares for a beat, then a slow, incredulous smile spreads across her face.

KOPELLI

Cut.

[SCENE END]

 [SCENE START]

INT. THE CLOISTER - MAIN HALL - DAY

The camera pans across the vast, vaulted space of the deconsecrated cathedral. Sunlight streams through stained-glass windows depicting saints, though one has been cleverly replaced with a panel showing a cartoonish, smiling dog. The hall is a controlled chaos of animal pens, climbing structures, and cozy bedding. The sound is a symphony of barks, meows, and the occasional unidentifiable chirp or hum.

In the center, at a scarred wooden table, BARBARA KOPELLI sits across from HANK McCOY, THE BEAST. Hank is in a comfortable sweater, sipping tea from a delicate china cup that looks absurdly small in his large, blue-furred hand. A three-legged terrier sleeps at his feet.

KOPELLI

(Adjusting her microphone)

So, Hank—Dr. McCoy—your work in biophysics and genetics is legendary. But I’m here today to talk about something… less quantifiable. A friend of yours. Rollo Cummings.

Hank’s expressive, furry face immediately brightens. He sets his cup down with a soft clink.

HANK McCOY

Ah, Rollo! The universe’s favorite pinball. My dear Barbara, asking about Rollo is less an interview and more an exercise in curated anecdote. Where to even begin? The man is a living testament to the principle that reality has a terrific, and often terribly inconvenient, sense of humor.

KOPELLI

Reed Richards called him a “fixed point of chaos.”

HANK

(Chuckles)

Reed would. And he’s not wrong, in his wonderfully analytical way. But Reed sees the pattern. I’m more fascinated by the heart of it. Rollo is the ultimate control subject. No X-gene, no super-soldier serum, no gamma exposure. Just… Rollo. And yet, his life is a highlight reel of the absurd. It’s as if the cosmos uses him as a stress-test for normality.

KOPELLI

You’ve witnessed this firsthand?

HANK

Oh, goodness, yes. I first met him… let’s see. It was after the “Sabretooth and the Quick-Dry Cement” incident. Victor Creed was sputtering incoherently in a S.H.I.E.L.D. detention cell, covered in grey powder, and all the debriefings kept pointing to this baffled, slightly sunburned civilian with a croquet mallet. I was brought in as a consultant. I expected a terrified victim or a latent mutant in denial. What I found was a young man in the S.H.I.E.L.D. cafeteria, utterly focused on teaching a confused intern how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich using the industrial toaster.

KOPELLI

He wasn’t traumatized?

HANK

Traumatized? He was annoyed. He’d been on his way to repot a fern, I believe. He viewed the entire affair with Sabretooth as a rude and messy interruption. That’s his superpower, Barbara. Not luck, not magnetism—context. He processes a world-ending threat with the same pragmatic exasperation as a clogged drain. It’s utterly magnificent.

Hank gestures around the hall.

HANK

Look at this place. A sanctuary. He doesn’t just take in strays; he attracts them. I was here once when Wong dropped off a minor demonic entity—looked like a cross between a pangolin and a storm cloud—that had attached itself to the Sanctum Sanctorum’s plumbing. It was hissing and sparking. Rollo just sighed, put on a pair of rubber gloves, and said, “Alright, let’s get you some linseed oil and see if that calms the static.” And it worked!

KOPELLI

Reed mentioned the… social connections. Valkyries. Cyclops.

At this, Hank’s face softens into a look of profound warmth.

HANK

Scott. Yes. That was… a very human year for Scott. Rollo has no time for drama, for grand destinies. With Rollo, you are not Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. You are Scott, who is surprisingly bad at Scrabble and has a fondness for terrible 80s synth-pop. Rollo provides a grounding wire. For Scott, for Titania after her divorce, for Volstagg after a mead-hall brawl, even, I suspect, for Doom. In Rollo’s presence, you are stripped of your title and returned to your essential self. It can be terrifyingly refreshing.

Hank leans forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble.

HANK

He told me about the Galactus offer. We were repairing a dimensional rip in his linen closet—a long story—and he mentioned it off-handedly. “Hank,” he said, “the big guy in the purple hat offered me a job. Good benefits, see the universe.” I nearly swallowed my wrench. I asked why on Earth—or off it—he said no. He just pointed to a litter of kittens in a basket by the radiator. “Who’d feed them? Frank here,”—he pointed to a one-eyed tomcat—“he only eats if I hand-feed him. Can’t very well do that from the back of a cosmic surfboard.”

KOPELLI

So it’s the shelter that roots him?

HANK

It’s the responsibility. The deliberate, chosen normalcy. The weirdness happens to him. This—the animals, the Cloister, his friends—this is what he does. It’s his act of defiance. He is the stone in the cosmic stream, and the stream must flow around him. He will have his tea with Jarvis and Wong. He will beat the Gamesmaster at Trivial Pursuit. He will absolutely kick the Red Skull in the… ahem… unmentionables, given the temporal opportunity. And he will be home in time to feed the cats.

A sudden, melodic HONK echoes through the hall. A large, regal-looking goose waddles into frame, stopping beside Hank’s chair. It looks at Barbara with intelligent, beady eyes.

HANK

Ah, Geoffrey. He and his flock got lost migrating from a pocket dimension. Rollo’s negotiating their return with a talking fox who claims to be their baron. Don’t ask.

Hank scratches the goose under its chin affectionately.

HANK

You see? This is the lesson of Rollo Cummings, Barbara. In a multiverse of infinite power and peril, the most radical act is to remain steadfastly, kindly, stubbornly you. To care for your corner of the world, no matter who—or what—comes knocking at the door. He’s not a hero. He’s not a villain. He’s… the landlord. And everyone, from gods to monsters, is just a tenant in his weird, wonderful world.

Barbara Kopelli looks from the serene Hank McCoy to the dignified goose, then out at the bustling, bizarre animal shelter. She shakes her head, a smile of pure wonder on her face.

KOPELLI

Cut.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET - DAY

The camera follows BARBARA KOPELLI up a meticulously manicured walkway. The house is a picture of suburban austerity: beige siding, immaculate hedges, a lawn so green it looks painted. A sign by the door reads, "NO SOLICITORS. NO SUPERHEROES. NO NONSENSE."

Kopelli rings the bell. After a long moment, the door opens just enough to reveal a chain and one fiercely critical eye.

MRS. BANQUO (O.S.)

Who is it? If you’re selling cookies, the Girl Scouts already came and went, and I told them their Thin Mints were subpar.

KOPELLI

Mrs. Banquo? My name is Barbara Kopelli. I’m a documentary filmmaker. I was hoping to speak with you about your neighbor, Rollo Cummings.

The door closes. The sound of a heavy chain being slid free. The door opens fully.

MRS. BANQUO is in her late seventies, dressed in a severe tweed skirt and cardigan, despite the mild weather. Her hair is a steel-grey helmet. She looks Barbara up and down as if inspecting a suspicious stain.

MRS. BANQUO

Him. Come in. Wipe your feet. Precisely six times. The seventh brings in residual ectoplasm, I’ve found.

INT. MRS. BANQUO'S LIVING ROOM - DAY

The room is a museum of normalcy. Doilies, porcelain figurines, a grandfather clock ticking with metronomic severity. It is aggressively, defensively ordinary. Mrs. Banquo gestures to a rigid, floral-print armchair for Barbara, then perches on the edge of a matching sofa.

MRS. BANQUO

I agreed to this because someone needs to provide a counter-narrative. I’ve seen the others. That stretchy scientist with his theories. That blue… fur-person with his philosophical claptrap. They see charm. I see a profound public nuisance.

KOPELLI

A nuisance?

MRS. BANQUO

(She sniffs, a sound like tearing paper)

Where to begin? The noise. Not just the animals—though the yowling of that so-called ‘magical pangolin’ during the full moon is a disgrace—but the dimensional noise. Last Tuesday, a portal opened over his azaleas and a trio of miniature Viking ghosts spilled out, singing drinking songs until 3 AM. I called the police. They said it was a ‘low-priority temporal anomaly’ and hung up.

KOPELLI

I see.

MRS. BANQUO

Do you? Have you ever tried to get the smell of Asgardian mead out of your begonias? It’s pervasive. And the visitors! The man in the iron suit, landing on my lawn! The green-skinned woman with the sword, asking to borrow a cup of sugar! I don’t even like sugar!

Mrs. Banquo leans forward, her eyes sharp.

MRS. BANQUO

And don’t get me started on the ‘darts champion of Latveria’ business. Every year, a diplomatic convoy from a hostile foreign power blocks the street. Men in capes and iron masks trample my petunias. Last time, one of Doom’s drones mistook my garden gnome for a surveillance device and vaporized it. It was a family heirloom.

KOPELLI

Have you spoken to Mr. Cummings about these concerns?

MRS. BANQUO

Of course I have. He brings over a pie. Apple, usually. Quite good, I’ll admit. He listens, nods, says he’s terribly sorry, and promises it won’t happen again. And then a week later, the Queen of the Dark Elves is on my doorstep asking for directions to the nearest subway because she’s having a tiff with her son and needs some space.

She pauses, a flicker of something less than pure irritation crossing her face.

MRS. BANQUO

He took in my Herbert.

KOPELLI

Herbert?

MRS. BANQUO

My cat. Dreadful beast. Hated everyone,, especially me. Sprayed on my Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume ‘K-L.’ One day, he just stalked across the road and never came back. I found him over there, in that… that menagerie. Asleep on a pile of rags, purring like a motorboat. Rollo said Herbert had “decided to switch allegiances.” He sends me a photo every Christmas. Herbert looks… content.

She straightens a doily with military precision, avoiding Barbara’s eyes.

MRS. BANQUO

And there was the… Incident with the Swarm.

KOPELLI

The Swarm?

MRS. BANQUO

A year ago. A cloud of sentient, techno-organic bees—don’t ask—were attracted to the Cloister. They were confused, hive-mind in disarray. Started targeting anything that emitted a regular electrical pulse. My pacemaker set them right off. I was in my sunroom. Suddenly, the window was black with them. Buzzing. Trying to get in. To synchronize with my heartbeat, he later told me.

For the first time, a crack appears in her armor. A faint tremor in her hands.

MRS. BANQUO

I called him. I didn’t know who else to call. The Avengers’ line was busy. He was there in sixty seconds. Didn’t come with a laser or a hammer. Came with a smoker, like a beekeeper, and a portable speaker playing… Barry White.

KOPELLI

Barry White?

MRS. BANQUO

“You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.” He said the vibrational frequency was soothing to disoriented hive intelligences. He stood between my house and that swarm, in his ridiculous corduroy trousers, puffing smoke and crooning along. They calmed down. Followed him back across the road like a fuzzy, buzzing cloud. He found them a new home on the Moon, I’m told. With the Inhumans.

She is silent for a long moment. The grandfather clock ticks.

MRS. BANQUO

He is a magnet for chaos. A vortex of inconvenience. He has turned a perfectly respectable street into a waiting room for the absurd. He is, without doubt, the worst neighbor I have ever had.

She looks out her window, across the street to the stone spire of the Cloister. A small, winged shape—possibly a tiny dragon, possibly a very strange pigeon—flutters to a perch on a gargoyle.

MRS. BANQUO

But when that… bee nonsense happened… he was the only one who came. He didn’t make it a drama. He just… fixed it. With a love song and a smoker.

Mrs. Banquo turns back to Barbara, her expression resettling into its familiar lines of disapproval, but the edges are softer.

MRS. BANQUO

So, you can put me down as a complain-ant. A vehement one. But also… tell him the next time he makes an apple pie, I like cinnamon. He can borrow some. But he is to return it promptly. And he is not to send that talking goose over with it. Geoffrey is rude.

Barbara Kopelli hides a smile, simply nodding.

KOPELLI

I’ll pass that along. Thank you, Mrs. Banquo.

MRS. BANQUO

Six wipes on the mat on your way out. No more, no less.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. STARK TOWER - PEPPER POTTS'S OFFICE - DAY

The office is a masterpiece of sleek modern design and controlled chaos. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer a breathtaking view of Manhattan. One wall is a seamless array of holographic displays showing stock tickers, R&D schematics, and global relief efforts. The other is dominated by a massive, vibrant abstract painting—a gift from Tony, Pepper explains, that she initially hated but has grown fond of.

PEPPER POTTS sits behind a glass desk, poised and professional, but the slight tension around her eyes speaks of a long day. BARBARA KOPELLI sits across from her. A discreet, silent drone-camera hovers nearby.

KOPELLI

Ms. Potts, thank you for your time. I know your schedule is…

PEPPER

(Pouring two glasses of water from a crystal carafe)

A fractal nightmare? Tony’s description, but it’s accurate. It’s fine, Barbara. When you said you were doing a piece on Rollo Cummings, I cleared twenty minutes. Anyone who can consistently get under Tony’s skin without triggering a Code Red is worth twenty minutes of my time.

A genuine, warm smile breaks through her professional demeanor.

KOPELLI

You know him well?

PEPPER

Know him? I consider him a friend. A bizarre, occasionally infuriating, but utterly genuine friend. He’s one of the few people on Earth who isn’t impressed by Tony Stark, Iron Man, or Stark Industries. He’s impressed by good organizational skills and a well-made cup of coffee. It’s… refreshing.

KOPELLI

The lemon meringue incident.

At this, Pepper throws her head back and laughs, a bright, clear sound that seems to startle even her.

PEPPER

Oh, god. The Great Meringue Infiltration. Tony was unbearable for a month. He had JARVIS—and later FRIDAY—run diagnostics for 400 consecutive hours. He became convinced it was an inside job, a rival corporation using experimental phase-tech, or a new magical threat. He interrogated the cleaning staff. He accused Thor.

KOPELLI

Thor?

PEPPER

He said only the magic of Asgard could be so “fluffy yet vexing.” Thor was terribly offended on behalf of Asgardian magic. It was a whole thing. Meanwhile, Rollo just… went about his business. He sent me a fruit basket. The card said, “For putting up with him. The pears are from Asgard, don’t ask.”

Pepper’s smile turns fondly conspiratorial.

PEPPER

He told me how he did it. Over tea, about a year later. Swore me to secrecy. Tony still doesn’t know.

KOPELLI

And?

PEPPER

(Leaning in slightly)

He didn’t hack anything. He didn’t phase through walls. He was walking past the old Stark Industries building—the one with the terrible bagel place on the corner—and he tripped. He literally tripped over his own feet. When he put his hand out to break his fall, his palm hit a loose brick in the wall, and he fell through it. Not through the brick, but through the space around the brick. A temporary, spontaneous dimensional fault line. He tumbled right into the sub-basement of the new Tower’s lab. He said it was like falling through a laundry chute made of static. He was there, surrounded by all the armors, with a security system that could detect a mutant fruit fly, and not a single alarm went off. He said the universe just… winked at him.

KOPELLI

So he just… filled them with pie?

PEPPER

He saw the bet contract Tony had “misplaced” on a holoscreen—the one where Tony lost the use of the Malibu house for a weekend—and he got annoyed. He said it was the principle. So he went to the lab’s kitchenette—Tony had it installed for late-night snack runs—and he baked. Sixteen lemon meringue pies. He said it was the most cathartic baking experience of his life. Then he loaded them into a repulsor-tech pastry bag he found in a drawer—Tony was going through a ‘molecular gastronomy’ phase—and filled every suit from the toes up. He said the Iron Legion units were the most satisfying.

Pepper wipes a tear of laughter from her eye.

PEPPER

The best part? He got out the same way. Tripped over a power cable on his way to the exit, stumbled into a service elevator, and when the doors opened, he was back on the street by the bagel place. The brick was fixed. He said he was holding a single, perfect lemon wedge. He made a gin and tonic with it.

KOPELLI

And you never told Tony.

PEPPER

And I never will. Some mysteries are good for him. It keeps him humble. Well, as humble as Tony Stark can get. Rollo did more for his security protocols in one afternoon than a decade of attempted intrusions by AIM. The ‘Cummings Anomaly Protocols’ now scan for localized reality fluctuations and unexpected pastry ingredients.

The holographic display behind Pepper flickers, showing a live feed of the Cloister’s front garden. A small, furry creature with too many eyes is peacefully digging in a flower bed.

PEPPER

See? He’s a good man. He runs that shelter mostly on donations and sheer stubbornness. Stark Industries is a silent benefactor. I reroute funds through seven different charitable foundations. If he knew, he’d refuse it. He thinks Tony is “financially irresponsible.”

KOPELLI

He’s said that?

PEPPER

To his face. At a fundraiser. Tony was announcing a multi-billion dollar clean energy initiative, and Rollo, who was there because he’d won a ticket in a raffle, raised his hand and asked if Tony had considered the long-term tax implications for the Latverian subsidiaries. Tony was speechless for a full thirty seconds. It was glorious.

Pepper’s expression grows more thoughtful, her gaze drifting to the skyline.

PEPPER

In this world, you meet a lot of powerful people. People with world-shaking abilities, world-ending grudges. Rollo has none of that. What he has is an immovable center. When the Time Variance Authority crashed his birthday party—which, by the way, I was at; it was a lovely hot tub—they weren’t there for him. They were chasing a chronal-hopping armadillo that had taken a liking to him. He negotiated with them. Convinced them the armadillo was a ‘temporal stabilizer’ for his neighborhood and got it a permit. He has that effect. He turns invasions into zoning disputes.

She looks back at Barbara, her eyes serious.

PEPPER

After the… the incident with the Mandarin, when Tony was… gone, and I was holding this all together by my fingernails, Rollo showed up here. Not at the door. In the office. A small portal opened by the potted ficus. He brought two things: a six-pack of my favorite ginger beer, and a stray kitten he’d found that day who had, I swear, the exact same arc reactor housing pattern that Tony’s suit had. He didn’t give me a pep talk. He didn’t offer super-powered help. We drank ginger beer, played with the kitten—I still have her, her name is Cipher— and he just talked about the stubbornness of a three-legged dog at his shelter who’d learned to fetch. It was the most normal, grounding hour I had in months. He’s a fixed point. Not of chaos, like Reed says. Of sanity.

An alert chimes softly on Pepper’s desk. She glances at it, then back at Kopelli.

PEPPER

I have to get back to preventing several international incidents. But tell Rollo… tell him the next time he has a hot tub party, to give me more than an hour’s notice. And that the offer for a state-of-the-art veterinary wing at the Cloister is still on the table. No strings. He can even design it himself. I know he will anyway.

Barbara nods, a smile playing on her lips.

KOPELLI

I’ll tell him. Thank you, Pepper.

PEPPER

Thank you. Reminding us that people like him exist… it’s important. It makes the rest of this…

She gestures to the swirling holograms of global crises and galactic stock prices.

PEPPER

…feel a little more manageable.

As Barbara stands to leave, the office door slides open. TONY STARK walks in, mid-conversation with a holographic schematic of a turbine.

TONY

…so if we invert the polarity of the neutron flow, we can finally get that coffee machine to— oh. Interview. The weirdness magnet guy. Did she ask about the meringue? It was meringue, right? Not pudding. The viscosity was all wrong for pudding.

Pepper shoots Barbara a look that is pure, unadulterated mischief.

PEPPER

We were just discussing his animal shelter, Tony. Barbara, Tony was just leaving to check on our… new arc-reactor powered… kitten playroom.

Tony Stark looks from Pepper’s innocent expression to Barbara’s carefully neutral one. He narrows his eyes.

TONY

I feel like I’m being managed. I hate being managed. It was meringue, wasn’t it?

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. JENNIFER WALTERS' LAW OFFICE - DAY

The office is a study in organized chaos, but a distinctly legal chaos. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves groan under the weight of thick legal tomes, interspersed with a few surprising titles: "Asgardian Property Law: A Primer," "Sentient Artifacts & the 5th Amendment," and "Multiversal Extradition for Dummies." A large window offers a view of a quieter part of the city. Framed degrees share wall space with a single, slightly crooked photo of Jen and a much larger, green, and smiling Hulk at what appears to be a barbeque.

JENNIFER WALTERS, dressed in a sharp, emerald-green pantsuit, is behind her desk, finishing a note on a legal pad. She looks up as BARBARA KOPELLI and the camera operator are shown in by a harried-looking paralegal.

WALTERS

(Smiling warmly)

Barbara, right on time. Come in, come in. Sorry for the mess, we’re prepping for a class-action suit against S.H.I.E.L.D. for excessive force during a minor demonic incursion in Queens. The discovery process involves a lot of sulfur-stained affidavits.

She gestures to a comfortable chair opposite her desk. Barbara sits, adjusting her microphone.

KOPELLI

Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Walters.

WALTERS

(Laughs)

Please, it’s Jen. And after the people you’ve been talking to, I feel like I should be interviewing you. Reed Richards, Hank McCoy, Pepper Potts… and Mrs. Banquo? I love her. She once served me a cease-and-desist order for “generating excessive gamma-based cheerfulness” during a block party. It was beautifully drafted.

KOPELLI

You know her?

WALTERS

I’m her attorney. Pro bono. She’s sued the city, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Sanctum Sanctorum, and twice, the very concept of ‘ambient magic.’ She’s never won, but she forces everyone to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’. I respect it. But you’re not here for my nuisance law practice. You’re here for Rollo.

Jen leans back, a fond, exasperated smile on her face.

KOPELLI

I am. He seems to exist at the intersection of a lot of… unusual legal jurisdictions.

WALTERS

(Chuckles)

That’s the understatement of the century. Rollo Cummings is a walking, talking jurisdictional nightmare. Is the sentient sword that just wants to be a butter knife property, a person, or a weapon? If a time-traveling dictator commits a crime in 1940 because a civilian from the future kicked him in a sensitive area, who prosecutes? When your client’s pet is a Kree war machine, what are the interstellar import laws? I’ve had to research it all because of him.

KOPELLI

He’s a client?

WALTERS

He’s my favorite client. He pays me in pies, obscure jams from other dimensions, and the most fascinating case law you’ve ever seen. He’s the reason I have a footnote in a Supreme Court brief citing ‘Cummings v. The Temporal Arbitration Council’ regarding the statute of limitations on pranks committed across a linear timeline.

She opens a drawer and pulls out a file, tossing it on the desk. The tab reads: "IN RE: SENTIENT GOOSE MIGRATION RIGHTS."

WALTERS

Right now, I’m representing Geoffrey and his flock. They’re seeking asylum from a pocket dimension ruled by a tyrannical talking fox. It’s like Animal Farm meets immigration law. The paperwork is insane.

KOPELLI

And you take these cases seriously?

WALTERS

Deadly serious. Because he takes them seriously. Rollo doesn’t see a weird goose. He sees a client with rights. He found a paralegal for me—a reformed Moloid who’s fantastic at digging through subterranean property law. He’s a… a weirdness magnet, yes, but he’s also a fairness magnet. He attracts situations where the normal rules don’t fit, and he stubbornly insists we find new ones that do.

Jen’s expression softens, becoming more personal.

WALTERS

He was there for me, you know. After… well, after a particularly bad day in court and an even worse day as She-Hulk. Some trolls online… it got under my skin. More than I wanted to admit. I was just sitting here in the dark, feeling about two feet tall.

She gestures out the window.

WALTERS

He showed up with a thermos of terrible, too-strong coffee and a confused-looking, miniature cosmic entity that emitted a soft, calming blue light. He said, “Jen, this is Glumph. He absorbs sadness. Think of him as a living, breathing emotional support black hole. Also, he likes rye crackers.” We sat here, ate crackers, watched Glumph hover in the corner happily soaking up my bad mood, and he told me about the time he had to mediate a dispute between a ghost and a Roomba over cleaning rights to the Cloister’s nave.

KOPELLI

Did it help?

WALTERS

(Tearing up slightly, but smiling)

I laughed so hard I snorted coffee. That was the point. He has this way of… reframing. My world-shattering problem becomes one item on a list that also includes ‘negotiate with a possessive appliance’ and ‘find out what a Norn Stone likes for breakfast.’ It’s humbling in the best way.

She straightens up, back to the sharp attorney.

WALTERS

Legally, he’s a marvel. He’s created precedent. That incident with the TVA? He didn’t just get a permit for the armadillo. He argued, based on their own chronal statutes, that the Cloister exists in a state of ‘permanent temporal ambiguity’ and should be classified as a neutral ground for displaced chronal entities. They granted it. He now has a laminated certificate. The man turned a temporal police force into his weird pet licensing bureau.

KOPELLI

What about the more dangerous incidents incidents? Sabretooth? The Red Ghost?

WALTERS

(Sighs)

Self-defense, clear and simple. Even against super-powered aggressors. The Sabretooth case was tricky—Victor Creed claimed ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ regarding the quick-dry cement. I argued that a croquet mallet and a garden hose constitute reasonable force when facing a known, unkillable murderer with adamantium claws. The judge agreed, though he did add a footnote questioning where one even acquires super quick-dry cement.

KOPELLI

And the Red Ghost?

WALTERS

Ah. That one was personal. Rollo found the experiments. The cruelty. He didn’t set out to punch a super-villain. He set out to free those poor Super-Simians. The punch was just… a punctuation mark. I defended him pro bono. We got the simians recognized as non-human persons with rights, placed them in a sanctuary on the Savage Land. The Red Ghost pressed charges for assault. I countersued for wrongful imprisonment and emotional distress on behalf of the simians. We settled. The Ghost had to publicly apologize and fund the sanctuary in perpetuity. Rollo framed the check.

Her intercom buzzes.

PARALEGAL (V.O.)

Ms. Walters, your 2:30 is here. A Mr.… Reynard? He says he’s a representative for ‘The Barony of Aetheria’?

WALTERS

(Smiling)

That’s the talking fox. Send him in, and tell him if he’s wearing that ridiculous cravat again, I’m adding ‘frivolous fashion’ to the list of grievances.

She turns back to Barbara.

WALTERS

See? This is my life, thanks in no small part to Rollo. But you know what the real legal miracle is? The Cloister itself. Zoning, Barbara. It’s a deconsecrated cathedral in a residential area operating as an animal shelter that regularly houses extraterrestrial and extradimensional fauna. The complaints should be never-ending. But he has exactly one consistent complainant: Mrs. Banquo. And he handles her with pies and respect. He’s somehow made the most bizarre address in New York into a quiet, accepted part of the neighborhood. He didn’t fight the system; he… absorbed it, and made it work for him.

Jen stands, signaling the end of the interview, but her eyes are bright with conviction.

WALTERS

So, when you make your documentary, tell them this: in a world of smash-first-ask-questions-later, Rollo Cummings is the guy who asks the questions first. He’s the reason we have answers for when the next weird thing happens. He’s not just collecting strays; he’s building the legal, ethical, and social framework for a world that’s already here. He’s the most ordinary, and most essential, man in the universe.

The door opens, and a dapper-looking red fox in a tiny waistcoat and, indeed, a ridiculous cravat, struts in, carrying a briefcase.

THE FOX

(In a clipped, British accent)

Counselor. I come under a flag of parley to discuss the gross slander perpetrated by your waterfowl clients…

Jen Walters gives Barbara a final, triumphant look as she turns to greet her unusual client.

WALTERS

Barbara, meet Baron Reynard. Your timing is impeccable. Rollo would love this.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE BAR WITH NO NAME - NIGHT

The camera pushes through a heavy, unmarked door into a haze of smoke and low light. This isn't a dive bar; it's an archive of the underworld. Shadowy booths line the walls, each occupied by figures who prefer not to be seen clearly. The clientele is a murmur of low conversations in a dozen languages, some not of Earth. A Skrull nurses a glowing drink in one corner. A man with a bandaged face that seems to shift under the gauze sits at the bar. The air smells of ozone, cheap whiskey, and something faintly coppery.

Behind the bar is WEASLE. She is older, her hair a wild grey cloud. Her eyes are milky and sightless, but her movements are precise, confident. She polishes a glass with a rag, her head tilted as if listening to the entire room's symphony. BARBARA KOPELLI sits on a stool, looking more out of place than she has in any previous interview.

KOPELLI

Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. This is quite an establishment.

WEASLE

(Smiling, a flash of gold in her teeth)

It’s a neutral port in a stormy world, Ms. Kopelli. Everyone here is someone else’s villain. Makes for polite conversation. Nobody casts stones in a glass house, especially when the glass is shatterproof and lined with lead. Now, you’re here about the kid. Rollo.

KOPELLI

You call him ‘the kid’?

WEASLE

He was a kid when he first wandered in here. Couldn’t have been more than twenty. Tripped over the doorstep—literally—and spilled a bag of groceries all over the floor. A dozen eggs, a carton of milk, and a single, live cosmic minnow in a water bag. The minnow started singing show tunes. Most of the patrons drew weapons. Rollo just sighed, started cleaning up, and asked if anyone had a spare mop.

She chuckles, a sound like gravel shifting.

WEASLE

That’s how he disarms you. Not with a power, with a chore. He turned a potential interdimensional incident into a communal clean-up. Hammerhead over there—don’t look, he’s shy—ended up holding the dustpan.

KOPELLI

He’s a regular?

WEASLE

As regular as a guy who gets spontaneously teleported to Camelot can be. He’s not a customer. He’s… a consultant. And a friend.

Weasle reaches under the bar and slides a heavily modified tablet across to Barbara. It has braille nodes and emits a soft, descriptive audio whisper only she can hear.

WEASLE

He rigged this for me. Reads the room. Tells me who’s packing what energy signature, who’s on the verge of a emotional breakdown, whose disguise is slipping. He said a blind woman running a bar for super-criminals shouldn’t have to rely on hearsay. Called it a ‘common courtesy.’

KOPELLI

He fixes problems.

WEASLE

He prevents them. You know the Gamesmaster? Cosmic-level bored entity, loves to force people into deadly games? He came in here once, looking for ‘new pieces.’ Atmosphere dropped to absolute zero. Rollo was in the back, helping me inventory a shipment of Asgardian ale. He walks out, sees the Gamesmaster flexing his reality-warping power over Boomerang—who was cheating at darts—and just… challenges him.

KOPELLI

To a fight?

WEASLE

(She barks a laugh)

To a game of Trivial Pursuit. The 1992 Silver Screen edition. Said the fate of the bar, and Boomerang’s soul, rested on it. Gamesmaster, he’s all ego, he can’t resist. They play for six hours. The whole bar is silent, watching. Rollo wins on a question about the cinematographer of the Howard the Duck biography. Gamesmaster was so offended by the obscurity he stormed out and hasn’t been back since. Rollo’s only comment was that the piece was lemon, and he hates lemon.

She pours two fingers of an amber liquid into a glass and slides it toward Barbara.

WEASLE

Here. It’s tea. Looks like whiskey, keeps the real drunks from offering to buy me one. Now, you want an incident nobody else knows? Something not in the fairy tales?

Weasle leans forward, her voice dropping.

WEASLE

The Tomb of Taneleer Tivan.

KOPELLI

The Collector.

WEASLE

Yeah. Rollo got it in his head that some of the Collector’s… acquisitions… weren’t willingly collected. Sentient beings, unique animals. He decided to stage a breakout. Came to me for maps of the Collector’s fortress, which I had because… well, this is the bar with no name, I have maps to everything. But I told him it was suicide. The place is a maze of deadly security and cosmic traps.

KOPELLI

What did he do?

WEASLE

He didn’t storm the castle. He mailed himself. Had me help him crate up a ‘rare, docile Skrull-beast’ for Tivan’s collection. He climbed inside a stasis box with a bag of tools and a week’s worth of sandwiches. Got delivered right to the vaults.

KOPELLI

That’s impossible.

WEASLE

For anyone else, yeah. For Rollo? The universe bent. The stasis field glitched just enough for him to breathe. The automated un-crating arms had a minor power failure, dropping the box in a blind spot. He spent three days inside that museum of horrors, not fighting, not blasting. Picking locks. He freed a talking Groot-sapling, a terrified Brood-koala hybrid, and the ghost of a 31st century freedom fighter who was trapped in a mood crystal. He led them out through the plumbing. The Collector never knew he was there until he saw the empty exhibits. Still has no idea how it happened.

She takes a sip of her own “tea.”

WEASLE

He brought the Brood-koala here. We called it Kevin. Lived in my back office for a year until we found a nice, xenobiology-loving family on Alpha Centauri for it. Sent postcards.

KOPELLI

Why tell you? Why involve you at all?

Weasle is quiet for a long moment, her sightless eyes seeming to look through Barbara.

WEASLE

Because I’m a blind woman who runs a bar for monsters. People think it’s a gimmick, or that I’m some retired badass. Truth is, I was just a tailor. Got caught in the crossfire of a fight between the Scourge of the Underworld and some Hydra goons. Experimental sonic weapon stole my sight and my quiet life. I was angry. Bitter. Bought this place as a fortress.

She gestures around the dark bar.

WEASLE

He saw through it. Saw me. Not Weasle, the underworld info-broker. Just… me. He started coming by, not for info, but to fix things. The cooler that kept freezing hellhound milk. The jukebox that only played Dark Dimension funeral dirges. He’d listen. He told me about the animals at his shelter, the ones too weird or scared for anyone else. He said, ‘You provide a space for the predators no one else understands. I do the same for the prey. We’re in the hospitality business.’

KOPELLI

He reframed it.

WEASLE

He gave me a purpose beyond the bitterness. He’s the only person who ever asked me, ‘What do you hear in this room, now that you can’t see the masks?’ I told him I hear the fear. The loneliness. The desperate, ugly hope. He just nodded and said, ‘Sounds like they need a good bartender.’

A large, hulking figure—The Rhino—lumbers up to the bar. He looks nervous.

RHINO

(Mumbling)

Weasle. I, uh… I need advice. It’s personal.

WEASLE

(Smiling)

Aleksi. Is this about your mother’s birthday again? The vase you broke last year was a tragedy.

She turns her head slightly toward Barbara.

WEASLE

A moment, please. Professional confidentiality.

Weasle and the Rhino move down the bar, her voice a low, comforting murmur. Barbara watches, astonished, as the massive villain hunches his shoulders, looking for all the world like a scolded child. After a minute, the Rhino nods, places a large, careful hand on Weasle’s shoulder in thanks, and lumbers back to his booth.

Weasle returns.

WEASLE

Where was I? Oh, yes. The reframing. He did something else. After the… the incident with the Swarm that Mrs. Banquo no doubt told you about. He came to me. Said he needed a ‘vibe check.’ He was worried the Cloister’s weirdness was becoming a neighborhood hazard. That he was being selfish.

KOPELLI

What did you say?

WEASLE

I told him the truth. I said, ‘Kid, this whole world is a hazard. You’re not a lightning rod, you’re a grounding wire. You take the weird, the dangerous, the forgotten, and you give it a home, or a pie, or a fair hearing. You think the Red Skull remembers the armies he commanded or the one civilian who kicked him in the junk? You’re a splash of cold water on the face of grandiosity. This city, this universe, needs that more than it needs another hero in spandex.’

She finishes her tea.

WEASLE

He’s got a new project, you know. Doesn’t know I know. He’s building a network. Not of spies or heroes. Of people like me, like Mrs. Banquo, like Wong and Jarvis. The ‘infrastructure of the abnormal,’ he calls it. The people who keep the lights on when the gods are fighting. He’s connecting us. So when the next weird thing falls out of the sky, there’s a system to catch it. A bartender, a lawyer, a butler, a cranky neighbor with a pacemaker. He’s building a neighborhood watch for the multiverse.

Barbara Kopelli is silent, absorbing the scale of it.

WEASLE

So you tell his story. But don’t just make him a cartoon. He’s the most real person I know. In a bar full of liars, that’s the highest praise I can give. Now, you should go. The nightly altercation between the vampire and the werewolf over the last bag of synth-blood chips is about to start, and it gets messy.

As if on cue, a growl and a hiss erupt from a shadowy booth. Weasle sighs, unsurprised.

WEASLE

Boys! Take it outside or I’m banning you both for a week! And you’re cleaning the fur out of the drains again!

The sounds cease, replaced by grumbling. Weasle smiles at Barbara.

WEASLE

See? Hospitality.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE DAILY BUGLE - J. JONAH JAMESON'S OFFICE - DAY

The office is a monument to controlled rage. Blown-up, unflattering front pages of Spider-Man cover the walls, each headline more incendiary than the last. A thick haze of cigar smoke hangs in the air. The desk is a chaotic landscape of papers, empty coffee mugs, and ashtrays.

J. JONAH JAMESON sits behind the desk, his trademark cigar jutting from his jaw like a weapon. He is not looking at BARBARA KOPELLI, who sits across from him, but is instead glaring at a hapless copy editor through the open door.

JAMESON

No, you imbecile! ‘Menace’ has two ‘e’s! It’s not a suggestion, it’s a fact! Get it right or get out!

He slams the door shut, finally turning his volcanic attention to Kopelli. He doesn’t offer a greeting.

JAMESON

Kopelli. Documentary filmmaker. You’ve got ten minutes. I’m a busy man exposing the truth in a city overrun with costumed lunatics, frauds, and public nuisances. What do you want?

KOPELLI

I’m speaking to people about Rollo Cummings.

A profound, sputtering silence fills the room. Jameson’s face, already red, darkens to a shade of purple usually seen in eggplants. He removes his cigar, stares at it as if it’s betrayed him, and points the wet end at Barbara.

JAMESON

Cummings?! That… that civic disturbance! That walking, talking violation of zoning laws and common sense! You want to talk about him? He’s the story the Bugle doesn’t run because even we have standards for credible threats to public order!

KOPELLI

You know him, then.

JAMESON

Know him? He’s a blight! A human pothole that weirdness falls into! Do you have any idea how many legitimate, important stories my reporters have missed because they got sidetracked by one of his… his incidents? Parker once spent an entire afternoon chasing down a rumor of a dragon in Chelsea. Know where it led? Cummings’s flea-ridden menagerie! It was a miniature, flightless lizard from Mojoworld that just coughed smoke when it had indigestion! A waste of time and resources!

Jameson stabs his cigar back into his mouth, chewing on it furiously.

KOPELLI

I’ve heard he’s helped people. That he provides a service.

JAMESON

A service?! He runs an unlicensed, interdimensional animal hoarding operation out of a building that should have been condemned when Grover Cleveland was president! He attracts more unnatural activity than a cursed pyramid! I’ve had to increase my blood pressure medication by twenty milligrams since he moved into that neighborhood!

He leans forward, his voice dropping to a growl.

JAMESON

Let me tell you about ‘service.’ Three years ago, a low-level reality warper named ‘The Whimsicker’ got loose in Midtown. Started turning office buildings into giant cupcakes, turning taxis into squeaky rubber ducks. Chaos! Panic! The so-called ‘heroes’ were baffled. Where does The Whimsicker go? To the one place he thinks he’ll be understood! The Cloister! And what does Cummings do? Does he call the authorities? Does he contain the threat? No! He invites him in for tea! Convinces him to turn all the cupcakes and ducks back in exchange for… for a recommendation to a good therapist in Greenwich Village who specializes in ‘existential malleability’!

Jameson slams a fist on the desk, making the mugs rattle.

JAMESON

He undercuts the narrative! He turns clear-cut menaces into… into administrative issues! How am I supposed to sell papers with a headline like ‘CIVILIAN NEGOTIATES WITH REALITY-BENDER OVER CHAMOMILE’? It’s bad for business!

KOPELLI

Some would call that a peaceful resolution.

JAMESON

Peaceful? It’s anarchy! It’s bypassing the proper channels! We have systems! Laws! Costumed individuals to punch these problems! He’s a… a one-man normalization committee for the bizarre! And don’t get me started on his social circle!

Jameson yanks open a desk drawer and pulls out a thick file, slapping it down. The tab reads: CUMMINGS, R. - ASSOCIATES (UNSAVORY).

JAMESON

I have a file. A thick one. He’s on a first-name basis with a known international tyrant! He’s consorted with Valkyries, mutants, and that she-devil Titania! He plays tiddlywinksinks with a mercenary who belongs in a maximum-security psych ward! He has tea with the butlers of known vigilantes! It’s a web of… of casual impropriety!

KOPELLI

He seems to have a friendship with Doctor Doom. That must be a unique perspective.

Jameson’s eye twitches. He takes a long, shuddering drag on his cigar.

JAMESON

Friendship. Pfah! It’s an annual security nightmare! Every year, Latverian diplomatic transports clog up traffic for six blocks. Doombots stand on the sidewalk, scaring old ladies. All so the two of them can sit in a smoky pub and throw pointed objects at a cork board! 

KOPELLI

I’ve heard he’s remarkably effective in a crisis. The Swarm incident with Mrs. Banquo…

JAMESON

(Scoffs)

Effectiveness isn’t the point! The point is procedure! He didn’t file a permit for that bee-smoking operation! He used unapproved, non-city-issue Barry White music! What if someone had a Barry White allergy? Did he think of that? No!

Jameson pauses, his furious tirade hitting a wall. He looks out his grimy window, scowling. When he speaks again, it’s slightly quieter, grudging.

JAMESON

…He did save old lady Banquo. And her begonias, which, I’ll admit, are the finest on the block. She brings me a basket every Thanksgiving. Tells me to lay off him. Says he’s a good neighbor.

He swivels back, jabbing the cigar at the file.

JAMESON

But that’s how he gets you! With pies and pest control! He lulls you into a false sense of security until—BAM!—your block is ground zero for a temporal armadillo migration or a custody battle between a talking fox and a gaggle of intellectual geese!

KOPELLI

Jennifer Walters says he’s building a legal framework for the unusual.

JAMESON

Walters! Don’t get me started on her! She’s enabling him! They’re creating a parallel legal system for things that shouldn’t exist! Next, they’ll be demanding voting rights for that… that saber-toothed tiger he babysat! It’s a slippery slope to anarchy!

The intercom on his desk buzzes.

ROBBIE ROBERTSON (V.O.)

Jonah, you have that call. The one about the alleged ‘stilt-man gang war’ in the meatpacking district.

Jameson grunts, standing up. The interview is clearly over.

JAMESON

There, you see? A real story. Simple. Costumed idiots fighting over territory. No therapy, no tea, no trivia games. Just good, old-fashioned, publishable menace.

He walks Barbara to the door, but stops her before she leaves. He doesn’t look at her, instead glaring at a particularly lurid Spider-Man headline.

JAMESON

Tell me something, Kopelli. In all your talking… did did anyone mention the irresponsibility? The sheer, galling irresponsibility of it all?

KOPELLI

How do you mean?

JAMESON

He has no powers. No training. He just… exists. And the universe bends around him. He walks into a war zone, like he’s going to the corner store. He treats cosmic power like a minor inconvenience. That’s not charming. That’s reckless. One of these days, the weirdness he attracts isn’t going to be solved with a pie or a pun. It’s going to be something that can’t be reasoned with. Something that doesn’t play darts. And on that day,,the bill for all his casual, stubborn normality is going to come due. And it won't be him who pays it. It'll be the city. The people. My city.

He finally looks at her, and for a fleeting second, the bluster is gone gone, replaced by something harder and colder: genuine, calculated fear.

JAMESON

The Bugle doesn't run stories on him because he's not a hero or a villain. He's a variable. An unpredictable, unquantifiable X-factor in an already unstable equation. And in my experience, X-factors get people killed. Now get out. I have a city to protect from actual, definable threats.

He slams the door shut behind her. The last thing Barbara hears through the thick wood is his roar.

JAMESON (O.S.)

PARKER! MY OFFICE! NOW! I NEED A THOUSAND WORDS ON STILT-MAN'S UNETHICAL USE OF... OF EXTENDABLE LEGS! AND IT BETTER NOT HAVE ANY SENTIENT GEESE IN IT!

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE CLOISTER - KITCHEN - DAY

The kitchen is a warm, chaotic blend of the ancient and the modern. A massive, centuries-old hearth now houses a state-of-the-art industrial stove. Shelves hold both mason jars of preserves and glowing crystals that hum softly. The large, scarred oak table is laden with a proper English tea service: a silver pot, delicate china cups, a three-tiered stand of sandwiches, scones, and cakes.

Seated around the table are BARBARA KOPELLI, EDWIN JARVIS, and WONG.

JARVIS is impeccable in a dark three-piece suit, back straight, hands folded neatly in his lap. His expression is one of serene, practiced patience, though his eyes hold a deep, warm intelligence.

WONG is more relaxed, dressed in simple, durable robes. He holds his teacup with a steady, grounded certainty, his gaze sharp and observant.

Barbara sits between them, her recorder on the table. The gentle sounds of the animal shelter—barks, chirps, the distant, melodic honk of Geoffrey—provide a soft backdrop.

KOPELLI

Thank you both for agreeing to this. I understand you have a… standing appointment with Mister Cummings.

JARVIS

A monthly tradition, Ms. Kopelli. The third Tuesday. Rain, shine, or minor incursion. It is a cornerstone of our respective calendars.

WONG

A necessary one. Discussing the unique challenges of our professions with those who truly understand is… therapeutic. And the lemon drizzle cake is exceptional.

KOPELLI

Your professions. A butler to the Avengers, and the guardian of the Sanctum Sanctorum. And your common link is a man who runs an animal shelter.

JARVIS

(A small, knowing smile)

A butler, Ms. Kopelli, is more than a domestic manager. One is a steward of order in a house that is, by its very nature, a magnet for disorder. The Avengers do not simply fight villains; they track in otherworldly grime, shatter priceless vases with repulsor back-blast, and occasionally deposit a concussed demigod on the Persian rug. My role is to maintain a semblance of normalcy, a haven of calm and protocol, against a tide of chaos.

WONG

And a Sorcerer Supreme’s attendant is more than a librarian or a cook. One is the anchor to the mundane. When the walls between dimensions thin, when the very air tastes of forgotten magic and dread, someone must remember to pay the electricity bill. To ensure there is tea, and soup, and a clean floor upon which to draw protective sigils. We are the foundation upon which the spectacular is built. Often literally.

KOPELLI

And Rollo understands this?

JARVIS

Intimately. He does not battle the chaos from the front lines, as Misters Stark and Rogers do. Nor does he wield mystical might from the heart of it, as Doctor Strange does. He lives in its wake. He deals with the… the byproducts. The orphaned creatures, the displaced artifacts, the emotional fallout. Like us, he is in the business of cleanup and continuity.

WONG

When a spell of living shadow goes awry and stains every tapestry in the Sanctum, it is I who must research the correct banishing incantation for sentient mildew. When the Avengers’ Quinjet leaks ionic plasma on the helipad, it is Mister Jarvis who must ascertain the best non-abrasive cleaner for vibranium-infused concrete. And when a chronally-displaced phoenix chick, confused and setting small fires, lands in his aviary, it is Rollo who must soothe it with song and find it a nest in a friendly star.

KOPELLI

He told me about the sentient weapons. That they come here to be left alone.

WONG

A particular point of sympathy. The Sanctum holds many such artifacts—blades that thirst for blood, shields that remember every blow, crowns that whisper of empires. They are not all evil, but they are loud. In their minds, in their magic. He has a quiet corner, warded with nothing but peace and forgetfulness. I have sent a few weary blades his way. They return… quieter. As if they have had a long holiday.

JARVIS

It is a similar principle with certain… personnel. There was an incident with the Hulk, some years ago. A difficult battle left the good doctor in a state of profound melancholy. Not anger, but a deep, quiet sorrow. He would not speak to the team. He simply sat in the garden, uprooting weeds with a terrifying gentleness.

Jarvis pours more tea for everyone, his movements precise.

JARVIS

I called Rollo. I did not know what else to do. He arrived with a basket of fresh bread and a single, potted sapling—a rare, resilient species from the Savage Land. He did not speak to Doctor Banner of gamma rays or control. He sat beside him, offered him bread, and talked for an hour about the stubbornness of roots, the patience of growth. About how some things need to be transplanted to thrive. By the end, the Hulk was gone, and Bruce was helping him re-pot the sapling. He still visits it, here in the Cloister’s greenhouse. Calls it “Ben.”

KOPELLI

He seems to have a history of… improbable interventions.

WONG

History is a fluid concept for him. His unintentional journey through time—Conan, Arthur, the Red Skull—caused several headaches for the Masters of the Mystic Arts. We had to repair significant ripples in the temporal tapestry. But his account of kicking the Red Skull was… satisfying.

JARVIS

I served Captain Rogers tea that afternoon. He was reading the intelligence debrief. He looked up, with that earnest puzzlement of his, and said, “Jarvis, is there any record of a civilian assaulting Schmidt in ’40? A targeted… lower-body strike?” I could only reply that the past, like the present, was evidently full of surprises.

KOPELLI

You both seem remarkably unfazed by the stories.

JARVIS

One adapts. I have served a man who turns into a green giant, a genius who builds suits of armor in a cave, and a god who commands lightning. The fact that a man without powers beats a monarch at darts and fills Iron Man’s armor with confectionery is, in its own way, a reassuring constant. It is a reminder that even the most powerful are not immune to the whims of a determined, ordinary man.

WONG

In the mystic arts, we learn that reality is a series of perceptions, held together by consensus and will. Rollo’s will is to live a normal life. His consensus is that the universe, no matter how strange, should accommodate that. And somehow, it often does. It is a kind of passive, powerful magic all its own. I have seen him convince a minor dimensional parasite to leave a host simply by offering it a better deal—a warm spot by the boiler and a regular supply of residual static electricity from an old television.

A sudden, sharp CRACK echoes from the main hall, followed by a surprised yelp and the sound of something metallic clattering. Jarvis and Wong do not startle. They simply pause, listen, and share a look.

WONG

The Argent Mace of Ahl-Aggoth. It gets moody on Tuesdays. Rollo is trying to teach it patience through jigsaw puzzles.

JARVIS

A noble endeavor.

KOPELLI

Is there an incident that stands out to you? Something that encapsulates your… fellowship?

Jarvis and Wong exchange another glance, a silent conversation passing between them.

JARVIS

The affair of the Doombot valet.

WONG

Ah, yes. A classic.

KOPELLI

I’m afraid I don’t know that one.

JARVIS

Approximately eighteen months ago, prior to his annual darts match, Doctor Doom sent a single, advanced Doombot to the Cloister. Not as an attacker. As a… trainee. It seems the machine had developed a nascent desire for a purpose beyond destruction. It wished to learn hospitality.

WONG

It showed up at the Sanctum first, asking for me. It was terribly polite. It called me “Sir Wong” and asked if I could elucidate the principles of “gracious domestic stewardship.” I sent it to Jarvis.

JARVIS

And I, after running diagnostics that would give even Tony Stark pause, sent it to Rollo. I told the Doombot that if it wished to understand service, it should observe someone who served everyone and everything, asking for nothing in return.

WONG

For a week, that Doombot followed Rollo around the Cloister. It learned to prepare formula for a baby void-shark. It was taught how to polish a haunted suit of armor without awakening the knight inside. It assisted in mediating a dispute between a psychic cat and a dog that could see the future over the rights to a sunny windowsill.

JARVIS

Rollo treated it not as a weapon of a dictator, but as a confused, overly-literal intern. He called it “Dewey.” By the end of the week, Dewey could brew an acceptable cup of tea and had developed a preference for 19th-century Russian novels, which it read aloud in a monotone to the sleeping animals.

WONG

When Doom recalled it, the Doombot reportedly hesitated. It asked, via encrypted Latverian frequency, if it could stay. Doom, intrigued, allowed it to return one day a month for “continuing education.”

JARVIS

The last time I saw Dewey, it was carefully arranging flowers in the Cloister’s foyer. It had tied a small, starched apron around its metallic waist. It nodded to me and said, “A tidy entrance sets the tone for the entire establishment, Mister Jarvis.”

Jarvis allows himself a small, proud smile.

KOPELLI

That’s… astonishing.

WONG

It is simply Rollo. He sees the function, not the form. A weapon that wants to be a butler? A tyrant who wants a friend? A demon that needs linseed oil? All just problems to be solved, creatures to be understood. It is a philosophy that would give Stephen a migraine, but one I find… efficient.

JARVIS

We three, Ms. Kopelli, are custodians. We preserve, we maintain, we mend. In a world that is constantly breaking and being reborn on a grand scale, we tend to the small, vital things. The cup of tea after a battle. the correct incantation for a stained rug. The safe haven for a lost saber-toothed tiger or a homesick mace. Rollo reminds us that this work is not peripheral. It is essential. It is what makes the extraordinary livable.

Wong nods in firm agreement, selecting a scone.

WONG

He also never forgets that Jarvis prefers the raspberry jam, and that I am fond of the clotted cream. It is a small thing. But in the grand calculus of the multiverse, such small things are the binding spells. They hold reality together.

Just then, ROLLO CUMMINGS pushes through the kitchen door, looking slightly harried. He has a smudge of oil on his cheek and is carrying a small, ornate box that seems to be vibrating.

ROLLO

Sorry I’m late, the Mace of Ahl-Aggoth finally finished the puzzle—it was a picture of a kitten in a basket, very soothing—and then immediately got into an argument with the Singing Sword over which one of them gets to be the centerpiece at the next meeting of the Sentient Cutlery Support Group. I had to promise them both a a turn.

He stops, seeing the table, and his face brightens.

ROLLO

Ah! You started without me. Good. Barbara, welcome. Jarvis, Wong, I see you’ve been telling tales. Don’t believe everything you hear. Especially from the goose.

He places the vibrating box on a high shelf, where it settles with a contented hum. He then takes his seat, pours himself a cup of tea, and smiles at his two friends and the filmmaker.

ROLLO

Right. Where were we? And more importantly, who wants the last piece of lemon drizzle cake?

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. MORGAN LE FAY'S APARTMENT - UPPER EAST SIDE - DAY

The camera reveals an apartment that is a masterclass in curated contradiction. It is a classic, spacious Upper East Side pre-war, with high ceilings, crown molding, and a view of the park. But the furnishings tell a different story. A sleek, modern sofa is draped with what looks like a medieval tapestry depicting a three-headed dragon. A state-of-the-art espresso machine sits beside a mortar and pestle made of what appears to be petrified dragon bone. Bookshelves hold leather-bound grimoires next to first editions of Proust and well-worn paperbacks of Jackie Collins. The air smells of jasmine, ozone, and freshly ground coffee.

MORGAN LE FAY sits in a wingback chair by the fireplace. She looks to be in her late forties, but her eyes hold a depth of millennia. Her beauty is sharp, intelligent, and carries a weary, amused grace. She is dressed not in robes, but in impeccably tailored charcoal-gray trousers and a cream silk blouse. Her dark hair is swept up in an elegant chignon. She holds a delicate porcelain cup of tea.

BARBARA KOPELLI sits opposite her, looking more intrigued than she has in any previous interview.

KOPELLI

Ms. Le Fay…

MORGAN

(With a wave of her hand)

Morgan, please. ‘Ms. Le Fay’ makes me sound like a librarian. Which, I suppose, I have been, on occasion. But never mind. You’re here about Rollo. I heard about your little film. When I learned you were speaking to his… admirers… I felt a counterpoint was necessary. A voice from the personal, not the peculiar.

KOPELLI

You offered a surprising perspective. That you and he… dated.

A slow, enigmatic smile touches Morgan’s lips. It is not a gentle smile; it is the smile of someone who has seen empires fall and found the process mildly entertaining.

MORGAN

Twice. Once in Camelot. And again, just after the turn of this millennium. A rather unique bookend to a… let’s call it a complex relationship.

KOPELLI

Camelot. You met him when he was displaced there.

MORGAN

He fell out of a thunderstorm. Landed in a haycart just outside the castle walls. He was wearing the most absurd trousers. Corduroy, I believe. Merlin was having a fit, sensing a ‘rupture in the Weave.’ Arthur wanted to clap him in the dungeons as a Saxon spy. Rollo, meanwhile, was trying to apologize to the farmer for crushing his cabbages.

She takes a sip of tea, her eyes distant, seeing another age.

MORGAN

I found him fascinating. Not because of the how—time-tossed souls are not unheard of—but because of the what. He had no aura of destiny. No shimmer of chosen-one-ness. He was just… a man. A confused, stubbornly polite man from a future he couldn’t explain, utterly unimpressed by crowns and prophecies. He asked Arthur if the Round Table had a pension plan. He asked Merlin if his beard got caught in doorways. It was infuriating. And refreshing.

KOPELLI

And you began a relationship?

MORGAN

(A dry chuckle)

‘Relationship’ is a modern word. It was an… entanglement. I was the king’s half-sister, a sorceress of no small power, scheming my way through a court of thundering oafs and pious bores. He was an anomaly. A puzzle. I brought him to my chambers, initially to probe his mind, to see what future-knowledge he possessed. He thought I was offering him a tour. He complimented the stained glass. Asked where I got my candles. Told me my scrying pool would be perfect for keeping koi.

She sets her cup down, a genuine warmth softening her sharp features.

MORGAN

He saw me. Not the witch, not the princess, not the villain history would make me. He saw a woman who was bored, brilliant, and terribly lonely. He didn’t fear my magic; he asked how it worked. Was it like physics? Was there a grammar to it? He once spent an entire afternoon trying to help me optimize a preservation spell for berries, using principles of ‘thermal dynamics’ he barely understood himself. He was the first man who wasn’t trying to use me, worship me, or destroy me. He was just… interested.

KOPELLI

What happened?

MORGAN

Time, as it always does, reasserted itself. A temporal eddy, triggered by a brawl between two of Arthur’s knights over a misplaced spoon—don’t ask—swept him away. One moment he was in my solar, explaining the concept of ‘microwave popcorn’ with hilarious earnestness, the next he was gone. Back to his own era, I assumed. I was… annoyed. I’d grown accustomed to him. I even contemplated a retrieval spell, but the threads of his destiny were slippery, tied to no loom I knew.

KOPELLI

And you met again. In the modern era.

MORGAN

Yes. I am immortal. I keep apartments in several cities. This one is my favorite. The rent control is a spell more more powerful than any I know. I was in the Met, looking at the Arms and Armor exhibit. And there he was. In the same ridiculous corduroy trousers, older, a little weathered, but with the same stubbornly kind eyes. He was explaining to a group of schoolchildren why a broadsword was less practical for self-defense than a good pair of running shoes. He saw me across the hall. He didn’t gasp. He didn’t flee. He just… smiled. A slow, wonderful, recognizing smile. He walked over, leaned in, and said, ‘The berry spell ever work out?’

KOPELLI

And you picked up where you left off?

MORGAN

We went for coffee. He told me about his life. The animals, the darts, the meringue. I told him about the fall of Camelot, the rise and fall of empires, the petty squabbles of the various magical realms. He listened to tales of world-shattering necromancy with the same attentive interest he’d given to the farmer’s cabbages. We started seeing each other. It was… normal. Or as normal as dating an immortal sorceress can be for a man who babysat a saber-toothed tiger.

KOPELLI

Why did it end?

Morgan is silent for a long moment. She looks out the window at the timeless green of the park.

MORGAN

We wanted different things. I am… cyclical. I retreat, I plot, I re-emerge. My passions are vast, but they are like tides. He is a fixed point.. His passion is his shelter, his corner of the world. He wanted to build a life. I already have too many lives. And there was… an incident.

KOPELLI

An incident?

MORGAN

His weirdness, as you call it. It isn’t passive, Barbara. It’s a narrative gravity. It pulls stories into his orbit. My story is one of the oldest. And it began to… reassert itself. Old enemies sensed my prolonged presence in one place, attached to a mortal. A faction of the Fey, still holding a grudge over a slight from the 9th century, laid a curse on the Cloister. It would have turned every animal inside into a spiteful, miniature goblin. Not deadly, but… messy.

KOPELLI

What did you do?

MORGAN

What I always do. I prepared for war. I began crafting counterspells that would have scorched the spirit from those Fey for for a thousand years. I was in his kitchen, ingredients from a dozen lethal dimensions on the table, my eyes probably glowing in a rather dramatic fashion. Rollo came in from feeding the dogs. He saw my preparations. He didn’t look scared. He looked… disappointed.

She looks down at her hands, as if still seeing the spectral flames that once danced there.

MORGAN

He said, ‘Morgan, no.’ Just that. I told him they threatened his home, his animals. He said, ‘So we call Wong to mediate. We don’t start a war that’ll spill over and turn Central Park into a permanent mushroom circle.’ He believed in due process. Even for fairies.

KOPELLI

And you couldn’t accept that?

MORGAN

It wasn’t about acceptance. It was about essence. My first, my oldest instinct is to meet a threat with overwhelming, magical force. His is to meet it with stubborn, bureaucratic kindness. We were fundamentally incompatible in a moment of crisis. I loved him for his normality, but in the end, I could not live within its constraints. I solved the Fey problem. My way. He never asked for details. But he knew. And I knew I would always be a comet passing through his steady sky. I would always bring the storm with me.

She looks back at Barbara, her expression composed, but with a hint of ancient sorrow.

MORGAN

We parted as friends. He helped me pack a few boxes. I left him a gift—a perpetual ever-clean litter box for the cats. One of my better enchantments, if I do say so. We have lunch, sometimes. He updates me on the animals. I tell him which immortal beings are currently holding a grudge against him—it’s a shorter list than you’d think. It’s… civil.

KOPELLI

Do you regret it?

MORGAN

(She smiles, truly and without bitterness)

Regret is for mortals with linear lives. I have moments I treasure. The look on his face when I first showed him a hologram from a spell—he called it a ‘magic movie.’ The time he beat me at Scrabble using the word ‘za’ on a triple letter score. The utter, profound peace of sitting in his chaotic kitchen, drinking terrible coffee, while a ghost and a robot dog played fetch in the next room. He gave me a vacation from being Morgan le Fay. For a little while, I was just Morgan. That is a rare and precious gift.

She stands, walking to the window, her silhouette framed against the light.

MORGAN

Tell his story, Barbara. Tell them about the darts and the pies and the talking geese. But understand this: in a universe of grand designs and cosmic powers, Rollo Cummings’s greatest feat is not surviving the weirdness. It is how he tames it. He tamed a Valkyrie’s wrath into a fond memory. He tamed Doctor Doom’s pride into a yearly game. He even tamed my heart, for a time, into something resembling simple affection. He is the still point in the turning world. And the world, in all its madness, loves him for it. Even those of us who can never stay.

She turns from the window, her regal bearing fully restored, but her eyes are kind.

MORGAN

Now, I’m afraid I have a conference call with a water spirit who’s unhappy with the pollution in the Hudson. The negotiations are delicate. Some of us still have realms to manage.

Barbara Kopelli nods, understanding the audience is over. As she packs her equipment, she glances at a photograph on the mantel. It’s a simple, faded polaroid. A younger Rollo, laughing, his arm around Morgan in a sunny park. They both look, for a moment, perfectly, ordinarily happy.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE CLOISTER - MAIN HALL - DAY

The camera finds BARBARA KOPELLI sitting at the same scarred wooden table, but the atmosphere is different. The usual symphony of barks and chirps is punctuated by the sound of someone humming the theme to The Golden Girls while doing something that involves metallic scraping.

DEADPOOL is perched precariously on a ladder, attempting to re-hang a heavy, ornate birdcage that currently houses a small, iridescent lizard blowing smoke rings. Deadpool is not in his usual suit. He’s wearing a pair of Rollo’s borrowed corduroys (which are too short) and a faded “I ♥ NY” sweatshirt. His mask is on, but the eyes are wide with intense, focused concentration.

DEADPOOL

(Muttering to the lizard)

Almost… got it… see, Francis, the key is counterbalance. You can’t just hang a multidimensional aviary on a single rusty hook. That’s how you get accidental portals to the Negative Zone in your parakeet’s water dish. Ask me how I know.

The lizard blows a smoke ring that shapes itself into a question mark.

DEADPOOL

Not now, I’m in the zone. The handyman zone. It’s a real zone. Very manly. Full of… tools and… grunting.

Below him, ROLLO CUMMINGS holds the ladder steady, a look of patient amusement on his face. He’s wearing work gloves and has a smudge of grease on his forehead.

ROLLO

You know, Wade, you could have just used the step-stool. The ladder was for the stained-glass window cleaning.

DEADPOOL

(Waving a dismissive hand, nearly dropping the cage)

Pfft. Step-stools are for amateurs and people with fully functional pituitary glands. This is a statement. A statement that says, “I, Deadpool, am a helpful and capable member of this household who can be trusted with tasks of moderate complexity and does not, as a rule, leave katanas in the dishwasher.”

He finally gets the hook settled, climbs down, and dusts his hands off with a flourish. He turns to Rollo, his head tilting.

DEADPOOL

See? Useful. I’m like a Swiss Army knife of helpfulness. If Swiss Army knives were also lethal, morally flexible, and occasionally sang show tunes about murder. So. What’s next? Gotta fix a leaky faucet? Defuse a temporal explosive disguised as a toaster? Wrestle a metaphor? I’m ready. I’m so ready. Look at my eyes. See the readiness?

Rollo pats him on the shoulder. “The faucet’s fine, Wade. And we talked about the wrestling metaphors. They get confused and start quoting Nietzsche. Barbara’s here for her interview.”

Deadpool spins on his heel, finally noticing Barbara and the camera. He strikes a pose, hands on his hips.

DEADPOOL

The interview! Right! The Barbara Kopelli! Acclaimed documentarian! Here to capture the essence of… us. The dynamic. The… the vibes. Rollo, buddy, pal, light of my weird, messed-up life, should I take the mask off? For the artsy vibe? I can do do ‘pensive.’ I’ve been practicing in the mirror.

ROLLO

(Sighs, but fondly)

Just sit down, Wade. Try to keep the fourth-wall breaks to a minimum. Barbara’s trying to tell a coherent story.

DEADPOOL

(Sliding into a chair opposite Barbara)

Coherent is my middle name. Well, one of them. The others are unprintable and possibly a registered trademark of Disney. Fire away, Kopelli! Ask me about my man! My rock! My beacon of normalcy in a sea of chaotic stupid!

KOPELLI

(Adjusting her microphone, a slight smile playing on her lips)

Alright. Wade… Deadpool. How would you describe your relationship with Rollo?

DEADPOOL

(Leaning forward, elbows on the table)

It’s a beautiful tapestry, Barbara. Woven from threads of mutual respect, thrilling adventure, and that one time he made me act like a normal person for 24 hours after I lost at tiddlywinks. Tiddlywinks, Kopelli! The game of kings! And he beat me! With a flick of his wrist and a look of profound satisfaction! It was the most humiliating and strangely arousing experience of my life.

ROLLO

(Pouring tea at a sideboard)

It was just tiddlywinks, Wade.

DEADPOOD

“Just tiddlywinks,” he says! The man is a savant! A zen master of the squidger! He saw into my soul, saw the chaos, and said, “No. For one day, you will not murder anyone, you will not break the fourth wall, you will eat three square meals, and you will call your mother.” I called my mother, Barbara! We had a lovely chat! She asked if I was still in the “colorful performer” business! I didn’t even correct her!

KOPELLI

And you’ve… developed feelings beyond friendship?

Deadpool goes very still. He looks down at his hands, then over at Rollo, who is calmly placing a plate of biscuits on the table.

DEADPOOL

(In a uncharacteristically quiet voice)

Look. I’m a mess. I’m a chimichanga-fueled, regenerative, pansexual disaster area with more psychological diagnoses than a DSM-V warehouse. I attract trouble like a dumpster attracts raccoons—which, by the way, we have three of, they’re lovely, named Larry, Curly, and Moe. My life is a R-rated cartoon where the laugh track is the sound of my own bones breaking.

He looks up, his masked eyes somehow conveying a shocking vulnerability.

DEADPOOL

And then there’s Rollo. He’s… clean. Not like, soap-clean, though he smells nice, like old books and dog. Metaphysically clean. The weirdness sticks to him, but it doesn’t stain him. He’s kind. Not as a tactic, not as a weakness. Just… fundamentally. He sees a homicidal maniac in a red suit and thinks, “Huh, I bet he’s good at fixing things.” And he gives me a ladder. And a purpose that isn’t killing. It’s… fixing a birdcage.

Rollo sits down, pushing the biscuit plate toward Deadpool.

ROLLO

You did a good job. It’s not going to fall this time.

DEADPOOL

(Perking up)

See? Positive reinforcement! He’s like a sexy, corduroy-clad behavioral therapist! Do you have any idea how rare that is in my line of work? Most of my positive reinforcement comes in the form of not getting shot in the face for five consecutive minutes.

KOPELLI

You mentioned an incident. Something about a bet?

DEADPOOL

(Snaps his fingers)

The bet! Right! Okay, so, a few months back, I was having a… let’s call it a moment of existential ennui mixed with a side of rampant property damage. Standard Tuesday. I may have accidentally started a minor gang war between two factions of alien arms dealers in the Bronx. Over a parking space. It was a whole thing.

ROLLO

It was eight blocks of singing, neon-colored mucus, Wade.

DEADPOOL

Art is subjective! Anyway, Rollo shows up. Not with the Avengers, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. He shows up on a city bus. With a bucket of soapy water and a push-broom. He looks at the two alien crime lords, their gooey henchmen, at me standing on a car singing Les Mis… and he just sighs. That sigh, Barbara. It’s like a disappointed parent and a tired god had a baby. He says, “Wade. A word.”

Deadpool mimics Rollo’s stance and voice, surprisingly accurate.

DEADPOOL (MIMICKING ROLLO)

“This is a residential neighborhood. People are trying to sleep. The Schmidts just had a baby. Now, you’re going to help these… gentlemen… clean this up. And then you’re all going to sit down and talk about your feelings like adults, or I’m going to call Jennifer Walters and have her sue every single one of you for noise pollution and improper disposal of bio-hazardous emotional baggage.”

He drops the mimicry, gesturing wildly.

DEADPOOL

And they did! The Broodlord of the Sizzle-Slime Syndicate and the G’narkian Gel-King! They helped me mop up eight blocks of sentient mucus! Then we all went to a diner! We shared a plate of onion rings and used a feelings wheel! The Gel-King is now in a committed relationship with a very understanding car wash in Hoboken! Rollo did that! With a broom and a disappointed sigh!

KOPELLI

And your… crush developed from this?

DEADPOOL

It’s not a crush! It’s… it’s a profound and deeply confusing man-respect! He’s everything I’m not! Stable! Sane! Owns a ladder! He treats me like a person, not a weapon or a punchline. He remembers that I don’t like cilantro. He let me name the three-legged terrier. I named him ‘Sir Reginald Fluffypants the Third, Esquire.’ And Rollo didn’t even blink. Just updated the records.

Deadpool slumps in his chair, a dramatic gesture.

DEADPOOL

I’m doomed, Kopelli. I’m like a moth drawn to a very calm, very competent flame. I follow him around like a lovesick puppy. I try to impress him by not stabbing people. I’ve started composting! Do you know what my carbon footprint used to look like? It was a stompy, bloody boot-print! Now I separate my plastics! For him!

Suddenly, a small, ornate box on the shelf—the one from the tea with Jarvis and Wong—vibrates violently and lets out a sharp TING.

DEADPOOL

(Jumping up, pointing)

See! Even the sentient cutlery supports us! That’s the ‘Approval Gong’! I gave it to him! It only gongs for true love or really good soup!

ROLLO

(Patiently)

It gonged because you left your vibrating katanas next to it again, Wade. It’s interfering with its aura.

DEADPOOL

(Scoffs, but sits back down)

Coincidence. The universe ships it. Anyway, where was I? Right. The hopelessness of it all. He’s dated Valkyries and sorceresses and strong ladies who can bench-press tanks. I’m… me. The best I can offer is eternal life and an encyclopedic knowledge of 80s action movies. It’s not enough. But I’ll take the scraps. The ladders. The tiddlywinks losses. The chance to be near something… good.

He goes quiet again, just looking at Rollo, who meets his gaze with a soft, unreadable expression.

KOPELLI

Rollo? Any thoughts on this… dynamic?

Rollo takes a slow sip of his tea, considering. He looks at Deadpool, not with pity or annoyance, but with a deep, assessing kindness.

ROLLO

Wade is… a force of nature. A very loud, very bloody force of nature. But like any force of nature, he just needs the right channel. Someone to point him at a problem that needs fixing, not killing. He’s surprisingly good with the animals. The void-shark pup adores him. And he’s the only one who can get the Argent Mace to do its sudoku puzzles.

DEADPOOL

(Beaming, invisible under the mask)

See? He sees my value! My emotional intelligence! My sudoku skills!

ROLLO

He also tries to arm the raccoons with tiny katanas. Which is a problem.

DEADPOOL

They have little thumbs! They have a right to bear arms! It’s the second amendment!

ROLLO

(To Barbara)

He’s a lot. But he’s trying. And in my experience, trying counts for more than most people think. He’s part of the Cloister’s… ecosystem now. For better or worse.

Deadpool lets out a sound that is somewhere between a squeak and a sob.

DEADPOOL

Did you hear that? “Ecosystem!” He said I’m part of the ecosystem! I’m a vital, symbiotic… fungus! A useful fungus! This is the best day of my life! Better than the day I got my own comic! Okay, tied.

He leaps up, unable to contain himself, and starts pacing.

DEADPOOL

Okay, new plan! I’m going to be the best damn fungus this ecosystem has ever seen! I’m going to fix every leaky faucet! I’m going to teach the psychic cat to use the toilet! I’m going to… to bake a pie! A non-lethal pie! With love! And maybe just a little bit of C-4 for texture—JOKING! I’m joking! See? Normal person humor!

Rollo just shakes his head, a small, undeniable smile on his face. He catches Barbara’s eye and gives a slight shrug, as if to say, See? This is my life.

KOPELLI

(To Deadpool)

One last question. If you could tell the world one thing about Rollo Cummings, what would it be?

Deadpool stops pacing. He walks back to the table, leans down, and places his hands on it, bringing his masked face close to the camera. His voice drops, losing all its manic energy, becoming startlingly sincere.

DEADPOOL

He’s the anchor. In a world that’s spinning off its axis, full of gods and monsters and guys like me who just make everything worse, he’s the guy who remembers to feed the cats. He’s the one who believes, against all evidence, that everyone and everything deserves a chance, a home, or at the very least, a fair hearing. He’s not a hero. He’s something better. He’s a good man. And I’d burn the whole world down to keep that one, stupid, beautiful, corduroy-wearing good man safe.

He straightens up, the moment broken. The manic energy floods back.

DEADPOOL

Also, his butt looks fantastic in those trousers. Just saying. For the record. Artistic integrity.

Rollo puts his face in his hands, but his shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

KOPELLI

(Smiling fully now)

I think we got it. Thank you, Wade.

DEADPOOL

Anytime! Rollo, my love, my muse, what’s next? Gotta de-worm the hellhound? Polish the haunted armor? I’m your fungus!

As Barbara signals to cut, Deadpool is already grabbing a broom, humming The Golden Girls theme again, his earlier vulnerability tucked neatly away behind a new wave of devoted, chaotic energy. Rollo watches him for a moment, then turns to the camera with a look of exhausted, profound affection.

ROLLO

(To Barbara, quietly)

He’s a lot.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. S.H.I.E.L.D. MAXIMUM SECURITY DETENTION FACILITY - INTERVIEW ROOM - DAY

The room is a sterile, grey cube. The only features are a metal table bolted to the floor, two chairs (one bolted down, one not), and a mirrored observation window that undoubtedly houses several layers of scanners and armed agents. The air hums with the suppressed energy of power-dampening fields and pure, concentrated menace.

VICTOR CREED, SABRETOOTH, sits in the bolted chair. He is restrained not by simple chains, but by thick, glowing adamantium manacles secured to the floor and a reinforced polymer collar around his neck. He doesn’t slouch; he looms, even seated, a predator in a cage. His yellow eyes are fixed on BARBARA KOPELLI with unnerving stillness. She sits in the free chair, her usual composure strained by the palpable, violent aura in the room.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. AGENT stands rigidly by the door, a heavy stun rifle held at the ready.

KOPELLI

(Voice carefully neutral)

Mister Creed. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.

Sabretooth doesn’t blink. A low, rumbling sound emanates from his chest—not quite a growl, more like tectonic plates shifting.

SABRETOOTH

Didn’t agree. They told me I talk to you, I get steak. Real steak, not that synth-crap. So talk. The smell of your fear is putting me off my appetite.

KOPELLI

I’ve been speaking to a number of people about Rollo Cummings.

The reaction is instantaneous and terrifying. Sabretooth’s body tenses, the muscles in his neck cording against the restraint collar. The low rumble escalates into a full, visceral snarl that echoes in the sterile room. The agent by the door tightens his grip on his weapon.

SABRETOOTH

That name. Don’t you say that name in here.

KOPELLI

You have a history with him. The incident with the croquet mallet, the hose, the—

SABRETOOTH

(His voice is a razor wrapped in gravel)

I know what it was. I was there. You think this is a funny story? A cute anecdote for your little movie? A big bad mutant brought low by a nobody with a toy and a bag of cement?

He leans forward as far as the restraints allow. Barbara instinctively leans back.

SABRETOOTH

Let me tell you what that “incident” was. It was an insult. A violation. Not of my body—this heals—but of the natural order. I am an apex predator. I’ve fought Wolverine for days. I’ve torn through Sentinels. I’ve made gods bleed. And that… that gnat… he didn’t fight me. He didn’t even try to hurt me.

Sabretooth’s eyes glaze over, not with memory, but with the fresh burn of humiliation.

SABRETOOTH

I was hunting. Had the scent of a little mutant kid, a teleporter, hiding in a community garden. Sweet fear. Tasty. I’m coming through the hedges,, and there he is. Cummings. On his knees, repotting a fern. He looks up, sees me… and he sighs. Not a scared sigh. An annoyed sigh. Like I’m a neighbor’s dog trampling his petunias.

KOPELLI

What did he do?

SABRETOOTH

He stood up. Wiped his hands on his trousers. Said, “You’re Victor Creed. You’re going to ruin my azaleas.” Not “you’re going to kill me.” My azaleas. I lunged. Should have been over. Instead, my foot caught on a garden hose he’d left coiled just so. Sent me stumbling. As I righted myself, he whacked me across the snout with a croquet mallet. Didn’t break the skin. Just… bonk. Like I was a bad dog.

He snarls again, the memory vivid.

SABRETOOTH

It stunned me. Not the pain. The… the audacity. The disrespect. While I’m seeing stars, he’s talking. “Alright, clearly you’re not here for the composting seminar. Let’s speed this up.” He had a bag of that instant cement. The quick-dry stuff for fence posts. He’d been fixing a birdbath. He tossed the whole bag at me. Not at my head. At my feet. Then he turned the hose on it, full blast.

A muscle twitches in Sabretooth’s jaw.

SABRETOOTH

In three seconds, I was standing in a block of solid stone up to my knees. Couldn’t move. Could have ripped my own feet off to get free, but the shock of it… he’d already disarmed me by not being afraid. He walked over, looked me in the eye, and said, “The kid’s gone. Called a friend with a jet. You’re going to stand here until S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives. Try not to scare the lady who runs the rose competition. She has a heart condition.”

KOPELLI

And that was it?

SABRETOOTH

(Leaning back, a cruel smile twisting his lips)

Oh, no. That’s just the story they know. Let me add to his history for you, filmmaker. Let me tell you about the other time.

He pauses, letting the dread build.

SABRETOOTH

A year later. I’d broken out. I had a score to settle. Not with the X-Men, not with Logan. With him. The gnat. Found out where he lived. The Cloister. I waited for a night when the moon was right. I was going to tear that place apart, beam by beam. Kill every furry little thing inside. Make him watch. Then peel him apart slowly.

KOPELLI

What happened?

Sabretooth’s smile vanishes, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated bafflement.

SABRETOOTH

I couldn’t get in.

KOPELLI

The doors were locked?

SABRETOOTH

I could have ripped through steel vault doors. This was… different. I’d approach the gate, and a flock of those damn talking geese would start honking a complex roundelay, throwing off my focus. The shadows around the building wouldn’t hold still—like they were alive and didn’t want me there. I tried the roof. A gargoyle… winked at me. Not a magic trick. The stone winked. Then a tiny, two-headed possum on a drainpipe chittered at me in what sounded like perfect, conversational Russian, telling me I was violating zoning ordinances.

He shakes his head, the memory clearly infuriating.

SABRETOOTH

It wasn’t a force field. It wasn’t an spell I could smell. It was the place itself. It… rejected me. Like an immune system rejecting a virus. The very bricks seemed to shift under my claws. I got angrier. I roared, ready to just smash through a wall. And then… he opened a side door.

KOPELLI

Rollo?

SABRETOOTH

In a bathrobe. Holding a mug. He looked at me, standing there frothing at the mouth, and he didn’t look surprised. He looked tired. He said, “Victor. It’s two in the morning. We’re sleeping. Come back during business hours if you want to adopt an animal. Otherwise, beat it. You’re scaring the void-shark pup, and he’s finally house-trained.”

KOPELLI

He wasn’t afraid.

SABRETOOTH

NO! HE WASN’T! And that’s what I hate! I am fear! I am pain and blood and the thing that goes bump in the night! And he treats me like a door-to-door salesman! I charged him. Took two steps, and the ground under my feet turned to slick, black ice. Not ice. Something else. I fell flat on my back. He walked over, sipped his tea, and looked down at me.

Sabretooth’s voice drops to a deadly whisper.

SABRETOOTH

He said, “You don’t get it, do you? This is my home. The weirdness doesn’t just happen to me here. I happen to it. Now, I’m going back to bed. The next time you come here with murder in your heart, you won’t slip on ice. You’ll fall into a pocket dimension full of something that finds you very, very tasty. And I won’t lose a minute’s sleep over it. Goodnight, Victor.”

KOPELLI

And you left?

SABRETOOTH

I got up. I left. Not because he threatened me. Because he meant it. And the house… the house was watching. I could feel it. That cathedral isn’t a building. It’s an extension of him. A living, breathing manifestation of his stubborn, infuriating normality. You can’t fight that. You can’t claw it or bite it. It just… absorbs the hate and reflects back a chore that needs doing.

He is silent for a long moment, staring at the table.

SABRETOOTH

Logan, I understand. He’s a fighter. A killer. We speak the same language. Cummings… he speaks a different language entirely. A language of garden hoses and zoning laws and profound, weaponized courtesy. He makes the world… small. He makes me small. And I hate him for it more than I’ve ever hated anyone.

Barbara gathers her courage.

KOPELLI

Others have said he’s a grounding force. A fixed point.

SABRETOOTH

(A harsh, barking laugh)

A fixed point? He’s a black hole. He sucks all the meaning out of the fight. He turns epic battles into… into maintenance issues. Do you know what he did when he heard I was captured this time? He sent me a get-well card. To the Raft. It had a cartoon kitten on it. Inside it said, “Hope you’re feeling less murdery. The azaleas came back lovely this year.” Signed with a smiley face.

Sabretooth looks up, his yellow eyes burning into Barbara’s.

SABRETOOTH

That’s his power. Not luck. Not magnetism. Annoyance. He annoys the universe into bending around him. He annoys gods and monsters into playing by his petty, little, mundane rules. And the day the universe finally gets as sick of him as I am? That’s the day something truly terrible will happen. And it won’t be a villain or a monster. It’ll be the universe itself, shrugging him off. And I want to be there to see it. I want to watch the nothingness that finally impresses Rollo Cummings.

The agent by the door shifts nervously. Sabretooth leans back, a cruel satisfaction on his face.

SABRETOOTH

Now get out. And tell them my steak better be rare. Or I’ll remember your scent, filmmaker. And I’ll come find you when I get out. Unlike him, you’ll scream. It’ll be music.

Barbara Kopelli doesn’t need to be told twice. She stands, her movements careful and deliberate, and signals to the agent. As she is led out, she glances back. Sabretooth is staring at the mirrored window, not at his own reflection, but as if he can see through it, across miles of city, to a desanctified cathedral. His expression is one of pure, unadulterated, world-consuming hatred.

The door seals shut behind her, muffling the sound of a final, reverberating snarl.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

EXT. A REMOTE, ROCKY CLEARING - CANADIAN WILDERNESS - DAY

The location is stark, beautiful, and silent but for the wind. Jagged pines claw at a vast, grey sky. In the center of the clearing, a simple, rough-hewn log serves as a bench.

LOGAN, THE WOLVERINE, sits on the log. He is not in uniform, just worn jeans, a plaid shirt, and a leather jacket. He doesn’t look up as BARBARA KOPELLI and her camera operator approach. His posture is a landscape of contained power and ancient weariness.

KOPELLI

Mister… Logan? Thank you for meeting me.

LOGAN

(Without looking up)

Wolverine’s fine. Or Logan. Not ‘Mister.’ Makes my skin crawl. You’re the one asking about Rollo.

It’s not a question. Barbara nods, settling on a rock opposite him. The camera focuses on Logan’s profile, all grim lines and shadow.

KOPELLI

I am. You know him?

Logan sniffs the air once, a quick, animal gesture. He looks at her, his eyes holding a century of storms.

LOGAN

Yeah. I know him. The universe’s favorite chew toy. Or its lint trap. Depends on the day.

KOPELLI

That’s a vivid description.

LOGAN

It’s an accurate one. He’s a civilian. The kind we’re supposed to protect. Except he doesn’t need it. Or he gets a different kind of protection. One I don’t understand.

KOPELLI

You’ve interacted with him directly?

A ghost of something that isn’t quite a smile touches Logan’s mouth.

LOGAN

Once. Officially. He was involved in a mess with Creed. S.H.I.E.L.D. debrief. I was there as an… interested party. Walked into the interrogation room. He was eating a tuna sandwich from the commissary, complaining that the pickles were bad. Creed’s file was open in front of him. Photos of the aftermath. The cement. He looked up, saw me, and said, “Oh, hey. You want half? They gave me too much bread.”

KOPELLI

He wasn’t intimidated?

LOGAN

(He snorts, a short, sharp sound)

Intimidated? He offered me a pickle. Told me I looked like I needed a sandwich more than he did. I’ve had world leaders, omega-level mutants, and literal gods look at me with fear. This guy looked at me like I was a stray dog he was thinking about feeding. It was… refreshing.

Logan looks out at the wilderness, his gaze distant.

LOGAN

We talked. Not about Creed. About other things. He asked about Japan. Not the fighting. The gardens. The quiet places. Knew I’d been there. Really been there, not just passed through. He’d adopted a Kirin that got stranded in Central Park once—long story—and it missed the moss in temple gardens. He was trying to recreate the right kind of moss in a terrarium. Asked for tips.

KOPELLI

He sees past the weapon.

LOGAN

He doesn’t even acknowledge the weapon. It’s not that he’s brave. It’s that he’s got a different priority list. Claws, healing factor, century of violence? Item seven, right after ‘fix leaky faucet’ and ‘order more kibble.’ He operates on a wavelength where the spectacular is just a complicated kind of normal. It’s how he survived Creed.

KOPELLI

You’ve fought Sabretooth many times. What do you think of that incident?

Logan’s expression darkens, the familiar grimness settling back in.

LOGAN

Creed’s a predator. He works on fear. It’s the scent of it, the taste. It’s what makes it fun for him. Rollo… didn’t give him any. He didn’t see an unstoppable monster. He saw a nuisance in his garden. A problem to be solved with the tools at hand. When you take the fear away from a guy like Creed, you take away his power. Leaves him confused. Angry. An angry predator is a stupid one. A bag of cement and a garden hose is more than enough for a stupid predator.

He picks up a small rock, turns it over in his hand.

LOGAN

Creed hates him for it. Not like he hates me. That’s a pure, clean hate. Brother against brother. He hates Rollo like a man hates a mosquito that he can’t swat. It’s petty. It’s beneath him. And that makes him hate Rollo even more. It’s the one thing Rollo’s got in common with me: we both live in Creed’s head, rent-free. I’m the one he wants to beat. Rollo’s the one he doesn’t understand.

KOPELLI

And Scott Summers? Cyclops.

At the name, Logan’s face does something complicated. The old rivalry is there, a bedrock layer of irritation, but overlaid with something else now—a weary respect, a shared burden.

LOGAN

Slim. What about him?

KOPELLI

Rollo and he dated. For a year.

Now Logan does smile, a real one, rough and surprised.

LOGAN

Made a twisted kind of sense.

KOPELLI

How so?

LOGAN

Scott… he carries the world. The team, the dream, the legacy. It’s all on his shoulders. He’s a man made of duty and optics. He never gets to just be… Scott. From what I heard, with Rollo, he was. No X-Men, no visor, no speeches. Just a guy who’s surprisingly bad at grilling burgers and has a thing for old synth-pop albums. Rollo wouldn’t know a tactical maneuver from a hole in the ground, and he wouldn’t care. He’d just care if Scott was happy.

Logan shakes his head, a grudging admiration in the gesture.

LOGAN

I gave Scott hell for that picture he kept. On the nightstand. Thought it was soft. Sentimental. Now… I get it. It’s an anchor. A reminder of a year when he wasn’t Cyclops. He was just a guy who got to be normal with another guy who treats abnormal like it’s Tuesday. In our line of work, that’s more precious than adamantium.

KOPELLI

You sound like you envy that.

LOGAN

(He looks at his hands, at the claws that can never fully retract)

I don’t envy much. But a break from being what I am? A year where the worst problem is a burnt burger and an argument over whether Depeche Mode is better than New Order? Yeah. I can see the appeal. Rollo gives that. A vacation from your own destiny. Must be why Doom shows up for darts. Even a tyrant needs a day off from being a tyrant.

KOPELLI

Is he a threat? Jameson seems to think his… normality is a liability.

Logan’s eyes snap to hers, fierce and immediate.

LOGAN

Jameson’s a loudmouth who wouldn’t know a real threat if it bit his cigar in half. Rollo’s the opposite of a threat. He’s a… a pressure valve. The weirdness of the world has to go somewhere. It flows to him. And he just… absorbs it. Turns world-ending chaos into a zoning dispute or a therapy session for a sad ghost. He’s not attracting trouble; he’s containing it. In his weird, corduroy-clad way, he might be one of the most effective damage-control agents on the planet. He just doesn’t wear a badge.

He stands up, stretching, his bones letting out a series of faint pops.

LOGAN

I checked on him once. After a bad one. A fight with the Reavers that got too close to the city. I was patched up, smelling of blood and smoke. Needed to move. Found myself outside that old church of his. It was night. Light was on in the kitchen.

.

KOPELLI

Did you go in?

LOGAN

Nah. I watched from a rooftop. He was in there, at that big table. Wasn’t alone. Jarvis was there—the Avengers’ butler. And Wong, from the Sanctum. They were just… sitting. Drinking tea. Not talking much. Just sitting in the quiet, in the warm light, surrounded by sleeping animals. Three guys who spend their lives cleaning up after other people’s wars, having a cup of tea.

Logan’s voice is quieter now, almost gentle.

LOGAN

That’s his real power, Kopelli. Not the weirdness magnet thing. It’s the quiet. The stubborn, kind, immovable quiet he makes in the middle of the noise. He builds a room where the war doesn’t come in. Where a weapon can be a man drinking tea, a sorcerer’s assistant can be a friend, and a monster can be just a guy who needs a sandwich. In a world that’s always screaming, that quiet is a weapon. The best kind.

He starts to walk away, then pauses, looking back over his shoulder.

LOGAN

Tell him… next time I’m in New York, I’ll stop by. Not to talk. Just… for the quiet. And maybe a sandwich. Tell him to go easy on the pickles.

With that, Logan, the Wolverine, melts into the treeline, leaving Barbara Kopelli alone in the vast, silent clearing. The only sound is the wind, and the echo of a profound, weathered respect.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

EXT. BROWNLEE RESIDENCE - SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS - DAY

The house is a glorious, ramshackle monument to eclectic passions. A Victorian frame is adorned with a ham radio tower, its wires strung with cheerful, mismatched flags. A judo dojo sign hangs beside a stained-glass window depicting Shakespeare. The sprawling garden is part vegetable patch, part experimental topiary (one bush is trimmed into a reasonable likeness of the Eiffel Tower), and part obstacle course. The sound of a power tool whines from the detached garage, accompanied by the rich smell of something garlicky and wonderful wafting from the kitchen.

BARBARA KOPELLI navigates the flagstone path, careful not to trip over a garden gnome dressed as a tiny samurai. The front door is painted a vibrant, cheerful purple. It swings open before she can knock.

JUNE BROWNLEE stands in the doorway. She is in her late sixties, with a fierce, intelligent glint in her eyes and a streak of vibrant purple in her silver hair that matches the door. She wears comfortable, paint-splattered trousers and a t-shirt from a long-ago community theatre production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Her posture is upright, relaxed, and speaks of a lifetime of practiced balance.

JUNE

Barbara! Right on time! Come in, come in! Mind the step, Marvin’s latest ‘ergonomic threshold enhancer’ is a bit… enthusiastic.

Barbara steps over the threshold, which gives a soft, pneumatic hiss as it adjusts slightly under her weight. The interior is a warm, cluttered hug. Bookshelves sag under the weight of playscripts, radio manuals, and judo trophies. One wall is a giant, detailed map of the world, dotted with pins and notes. The air is a symphony of smells: baking bread, solder, rosemary, and old paper.

JUNE

Marvin! The documentarian is here! He’s in the garage, finalizing a ‘culinary-centric atmospheric regulator’ for the soufflé. He’ll be out in a jiffy. Tea? I’ve got a lovely oolong, or something Marvin fermented from local fungi that he swears promotes ‘temporal clarity.’ I’d stick with the oolong.

KOPELLI

Oolong would be perfect, thank you.

June leads her into a sun-drenched living room, where two overstuffed armchairs face a fireplace topped with a mantelpiece crowded with photos. Barbara’s eyes are immediately drawn to them. A baby Rollo, wide-eyed, held by a beaming June in a judogi. A young Rollo, covered in grease, helping a grinning Marvin hold up a bizarre, spindly invention. Rollo as a teenager, looking exasperated but fond, standing between his parents—June in full Elizabethan regalia, Marvin wearing a toque blanche and holding a flaming skewer.

JUNE

(Following her gaze)

That was Twelfth Night. I was Viola. Marvin catered the intermission. His ‘quantum canapés’ were a hit, though several patrons reported briefly perceiving the fourth dimension. Sit, please.

As June bustles off to the kitchen, MARVIN BROWNLEE emerges from a side door, wiping his hands on a rag. He’s a tall man with a wild halo of white hair and kind eyes magnified by thick glasses. He wears a leather apron over a Hawaiian shirt, and his fingers are stained with a rainbow of chemicals and spices.

MARVIN

Ah! The chronicler of our boy’s improbable narrative! Marvin Brownlee. A pleasure. Sorry for the noise, just calibrating the humidity sensors. A dry breeze is the sworn enemy of a perfect cheese soufflé, as it is to a stable flux capacitor. Related principles, really.

He shakes Barbara’s hand with a firm, calloused grip and settles into the other armchair just as June returns with a tray.

KOPELLI

Thank you both for having me. Your home is… remarkable.

JUNE

(Handing her a cup)

It’s lived in. Like a good pair of gi pants. So, you’ve been talking to gods and monsters and irritated neighbors about our Rollo. Now you get the source material.

KOPELLI

The adoptive parents. You took him in after the state home.

MARVIN

We saw his file. ‘Quiet.’ ‘Observant.’ ‘Survived a tragedy with a resilient disposition.’ Sounded like a description of a particularly interesting rock formation. But then we met him. He was six. Big eyes that didn’t miss a thing. The other children were playing. He was in the corner, taking apart a broken radio someone had thrown away, trying to see how it worked.

JUNE

He wasn’t putting it back together. He was understanding it. I knew that look. Marvin gets it when he’s reverse-engineering alien tech he finds at flea markets.

MARVIN

(A sheepish, proud smile)

The Kree Sentinel power cell was a particular challenge. But that came later. We brought him home. This home. We didn’t try to make it normal. We just made it ours. We figured life had already thrown him the worst curveball. The least we could do was teach him how to catch all the other strange and wonderful pitches.

KOPELLI

And you did. Ham radio, judo, theatre, invention, world travel…

JUNE

We gave him tools. Not just skills, but ways of thinking. Radio teaches you to listen for voices in the static—sometimes literally, in our case. Judo teaches you to use an opponent’s force against them. Theatre teaches empathy, the understanding of other lives. Invention is just stubborn problem-solving. And travel… travel teaches you that ‘normal’ is a local custom.

MARVIN

And cooking! Never underestimate the universal diplomacy of a perfectly roasted chicken. Or a strategic pie.

KOPELLI

The infamous tenth birthday. The Kree Sentinel.

June and Marvin exchange a look that is equal parts pride, worry, and enduring bewilderment.

JUNE

He found it in the woods out back. Looked like a giant, smashed-up robot. Most children would have run. Rollo came barreling into the house, not scared, excited. “Mom! Dad! There’s a hurt metal man in the glen! He’s singing sad songs on a broken frequency! We have to help!”

MARVIN

It was broadcasting a low-level distress beacon in a harmonic of gamma waves. I helped him patch its primary sensor array with a modified satellite dish and some leftover self-sealing stem bolts. June kept it calm by teaching it basic Aikido principles. It was… a project.

KOPELLI

And then SWORD came.

MARVIN

Oh, yes. Black helicopters, severe-looking people in tactical gear. Abigail Brand herself, standing in our petunia bed. Rollo was devastated. He’d named it ‘Shiny.’ Because of the way the sun hit its one intact photoreceptor.

JUNE

He stood on the porch, this tiny ten-year-old, fists clenched, tears streaming down his face but his chin held high. He looked Director Brand right in the eye and said, “You have to promise you’ll fix him. Not scrap him. Fix him. And tell him I said goodbye.” Brand… she nodded. A real, respectful nod. She gave him a card. Told him to call if he ever saw anything else ‘unusual.’ I think she knew, even then.

KOPELLI

Knew what?

MARVIN

That the weirdness wasn’t a one-off. It was a… a climate. And Rollo was the fertile valley where it all settled. We’d given him the tools to handle a strange and wonderful world. We hadn’t quite accounted for a strange and wonderful multiverse.

KOPELLI

Were you ever afraid for him?

JUNE

(She sets her tea down, her voice firm)

Every single day. But not of the monsters or the aliens. We were afraid of him becoming cynical. Afraid the wonder would curdle into bitterness. That he’d start to see the chaos as a curse. We raised him to engage, to fix, to understand. The fact that he opened an animal shelter? That he uses his ‘weirdness magnetism’ as a way to gather lost things and help them? That’s the victory. That’s our boy.

MARVIN

We taught him to cook. He used it to fill Iron Man’s suits with meringue! That’s a high-concept culinary prank! That’s a father’s pride!

June swats his arm affectionately.

JUNE

The point is, he never hides. He never became a victim of his circumstances. He became the… the landlord of the bizarre. He charges rent in kindness and responsibility. We get Christmas cards from the Savage Land, for heaven’s sake. How many parents can say that?

KOPELLI

You’ve met some of his… acquaintances.

MARVIN

Oh, yes! Deadpool visits sometimes. He and Rollo sit in the garage, arguing about the structural integrity of castle fortifications versus pie crust. Wade has strong opinions on both.

JUNE

And the Valkyrie, Brunhilde. Lovely woman. Incredible upper body strength. Stayed with us for a week. Helped me rebuild the radio tower after a micro-tornado. She sang ancient Norse war chants while she worked. It was very motivating.

KOPELLI

And you’re not… overwhelmed?

JUNE

Barbara, my first national judo championship, I fought a woman who could bend steel with her thighs. I won by using her own aggression against her. Marvin once accidentally turned our cat transparent for a week while testing a ‘phasing cheese.’ We had to feed it by sound and memory. This is our normal. Rollo just… expanded the definition.

A melodic ding comes from the kitchen. Marvin jumps up.

MARVIN

Ah! The soufflé has achieved peak structural and flavor integrity! A moment!

He hurries out. June leans forward, her voice softening.

JUNE

When he was small, after a nightmare, he’d climb into our bed. He’d say, “The weird pictures are in my head again.” Not scary pictures. Just… weird. A giant robot crying oil. A man in an iron mask looking sad. A talking tree. We’d tell him, “Those aren’t nightmares, Rollo. Those are just stories waiting for you to find them.” We didn’t know how right we were.

Marvin returns, bearing a magnificent, golden soufflé that seems to defy gravity.

MARVIN

Lunch is served! This is a ‘Harmony Soufflé’—infused with herbs that promote cross-species amity. Also, it has a lot of cheese.

As they move to the cluttered, cozy dining table, Barbara gestures to the map on the wall, covered in pins.

KOPELLI

This map is incredible.

MARVIN

(Beaming)

Our travel map! Every place we’ve been, and every place Rollo’s been that we’ve had to pin retrospectively. See the cluster in New York? That’s him. But look here—Asgard. We pinned that after the Warriors Three sent us a thank-you note for the mead recipe Rollo gave them.

JUNE

And this one, in the middle of the Atlantic? That’s where Galactus made his offer. Rollo called us right after, from a payphone that somehow connected. He said, “Mom, Dad, a giant space god just offered me a job as his herald. The dental was vague but the travel benefits were infinite.” I told him to ask about a 401(k). He said he’d used the cats as an excuse to decline.

They all sit. Marvin serves the soufflé, which is indeed delicious.

MARVIN

The trick is the eggs. You have to respect the egg. It’s a universe of potential in a fragile shell. Much like a person.

KOPELLI

What’s your greatest hope for him?

June and Marvin are silent for a moment, looking at each other, a lifetime of shared love and mild chaos passing between them.

JUNE

That he never loses the stubbornness. The stubborn kindness. The universe keeps trying to make him its plaything, its victim, its spectacle. And he keeps stubbornly making it his home. Filling it with stray animals, awkward tea parties, and darts games with dictators.

MARVIN

That he keeps baking pies. Literal and metaphorical. A pie is an act of hope. You believe the future will contain people to share it with. Rollo… he believes the future, no matter how weird, will contain a community. And he’s building it, one lost soul, one talking goose, one irritated neighbor at a time.

JUNE

We gave him roots. Deep, strong, quirky roots. And instead of hiding under them, he used them to hold open the door for every strange, wonderful, lonely thing that came wandering by. He’s not infamous to us. He’s just… our son. The boy who collects coincidences and turns them into a family.

They raise their teacups in a silent, proud toast. Outside, the wind rustles through the radio wires, humming a tune that sounds almost like a lullaby. Inside, the Harmony Soufflé sits between them, a perfect, temporary, delicious monument to a life built not in spite of the weird, but because of it.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. S.H.I.E.L.D. MOBILE COMMAND UNIT - PARKED NEAR THE CLOISTER - DAY

The interior is a symphony of muted, purposeful activity. Glowing holographic maps hover in the air, showing a dizzying array of data points around the silhouette of the Cloister: thermal signatures, dimensional resonance readings, and tiny, moving dots labeled with agent call signs. The low hum of servers and the soft chatter of analysts fill the space.

In a small, sound-dampened briefing alcove, BARBARA KOPELLI sits across from VALLERIE BERTRAND. Bertrand is in her late forties, with a sharp, intelligent face that looks permanently etched with a specific kind of exhaustion—not from lack of sleep, but from an overabundance of the surreal. Her hair is pulled back in a severe, practical bun, but a single, rebellious grey strand defies the order. She wears a standard S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical uniform, but it’s unzipped at the collar, and her sidearm looks less like a weapon and more like a tool she hopes she’ll never have to use for its intended purpose. She sips black coffee from a mug that reads: ‘I SURVIVED THE CUMMINGS DETAIL (PHASE 1)’.

KOPELLI

Agent Bertrand. Thank you for making the time.

BERTRAND

(Sets the mug down with a soft click)

Director Fury’s orders. “Cooperate fully with the civilian documentarian, Bertrand. It’s good PR.” He said it while smirking. He knows there’s no good PR in this assignment. Only weird PR.

KOPELLI

You’re in charge of the surveillance detail on Rollo Cummings and the Cloister.

BERTRAND

“In charge” is a generous term. I am the designated chronicler, wrangler, and grief counselor for what is, officially, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most psychologically taxing and logistically absurd non-combat operation. I don’t command this detail. I administer its controlled disintegration.

She gestures to a large monitor showing a live feed of the Cloister’s front garden. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in plainclothes, disguised as a city parks worker, is raking leaves. A small, furry creature with too many eyes and a prehensile tail is “helping” by stealing leaves from the pile and arranging them into what looks like a tiny Stonehenge.

BERTRAND

Agent Peters. Good man. Former spec-ops. Survived two tours in the Negative Zone. This is his eleventh week on the detail. Last Tuesday, he filed a report stating he’d had a ‘productive and enlightening conversation about migratory patterns with a sentient lawn gnome.’ The gnome was, in fact, a dormant Nisanti bounty hunter. Peters is now on mandatory leave and is reportedly writing a children’s book.

KOPELLI

I’ve heard the rotation is strict. Three months.

BERTRAND

Three months, two weeks, and four days. That’s the average point of critical failure. The ‘Cummings Curve,’ we call it. Before that, agents are merely confused. After that, they either crack, vanish, or resign to pursue… other interests.

She taps a tablet, pulling up a file. The header reads: POST-DETAIL CAREER TRACKING.

BERTRAND

Let’s see. Agent Callahan, after his rotation, left to become a master cheese affineur in the Alps. Claims he learned the subtle art of ‘dimensional aging’ from a ghost in Cummings’s cellar. Agent Sharma opened a very successful therapy practice in SoHo specializing in ‘existential dislocation and pet-related anxiety.’ She still treats three of our former agents. And Agent Rook… well, Rook didn’t so much resign as achieve a higher state of being.

KOPELLI

A higher state?

BERTRAND

He was on roof surveillance. A minor reality ripple passed over the Cloister—Tuesday, 2:17 PM, we logged it as ‘Event #734: Spontaneous Localized Jazz Age.’ For approximately ninety seconds, everything within fifty yards was monochrome and swung to a Benny Goodman tune. When it cleared, Rook was gone. In his place was a perfectly tailored 1920s tuxedo, a half-finished martini, and a single, handwritten note that said, ‘Gone to Charleston. Tell the wife not to wait up.’ We found him six months later, leading a successful speakeasy in a pocket dimension off Bleecker Street. He sends a fruitcake every Christmas.

KOPELLI

And you? You’ve endured.

BERTRAND

(A long, weary sip of coffee)

I’m the anomaly. The fixed point in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s personnel file. I’ve been on this detail for five years, seven months, and fourteen days. Fury says I have a ‘high weirdness tolerance.’ My therapist says I have ‘catastrophic normalization syndrome.’ I just call it doing the job.

KOPELLI

What is the job, exactly? He’s not a threat.

BERTRAND

(Leans forward, her eyes intense)

That’s the first lesson. He’s not a threat. He’s a threat multiplier. A chaos condenser. Think of him as a living, breathing S.H.I.E.L.D. R&D lab where the experiments are performed by the universe itself, with no safety protocols. Our job isn’t to stop him. It’s to monitor the fallout. To contain the secondary and tertiary effects before they spill out and cause a San Francisco-level weirdness event in downtown Manhattan.

She points to a complex flowchart on another screen. It looks like a hurricane model crossed with a social network diagram, with ‘CUMMINGS, R.’ at the epicenter.

BERTRAND

We track everything. Not just him, but the echo. The ‘Cummings Ripple.’ He has a conversation with Wong about haunted teapots? We see a 30% spike in ectoplasmic residue complaints in the Greenwich Village sewer system within 48 hours. He beats Doom at darts? Latverian diplomatic cables show a 15% increase in passive-aggressive commentary about ‘American sporting culture’ for a month. He adopts a three-legged dog from Queens? We get three unsolicited applications for adoption from low-level Asgardian spirits within the week.

KOPELLI

It’s that predictable?

BERTRAND

It’s not predictable. It’s patterned. The universe uses him as a tuning fork. He hums at a certain frequency of ‘normal,’ and the weirdness resonates around him. My job is to listen to the hum and predict the harmonic dissonance.

KOPELLI

Can you give me an example of a… containment action?

Bertrand’s expression turns pained, like someone recalling a particularly complex tax audit.

BERTRAND

The Great Pigeon Uprising of last spring. Rollo, out of the goodness of his heart, took in a lost chick that had fallen from a nest on a gargoyle. The chick was, unbeknownst to him, the scion of the Pigeon King of the Fifth Avenue Dimension—a sort of avian feudal plane.

KOPELLI

The Pigeon King.

BERTRAND

Don’t laugh. Their knights have talons that can shred Kevlar. When the King’s agents came to retrieve the prince, they didn’t just come to the Cloister. They launched a multi-dimensional, multi-species custody battle. We had spectral owls from the Dreaming, cyber-hawks from 2099, and a very angry flock of regular New York pigeons who felt their territorial rights were being violated, all converging on a two-block radius.

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

BERTRAND

I had to negotiate. Me. A S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical coordinator, sitting in a van, using a modified universal translator to argue avian feudal law with a six-foot-tall pigeon in plate mail while my agents were on the streets redirecting traffic and handing out ‘temporary dimensional migration’ leaflets to confused civilians. We reached a settlement: joint custody. The prince spends weekdays with his father in the Fifth Avenue Dimension and weekends with Rollo. The regular pigeons got a new, state-of-the-art coop in Central Park as a ‘territorial concession.’ The paperwork nearly broke our legal department.

KOPELLI

And Rollo was unaware?

BERTRAND

He was aware we were there. He brought my team coffee and donuts. Said, ‘Rough day, huh? The bird politics are brutal this time of year.’ He knew. He always knows. He just trusts us to handle the ‘official’ weirdness so he can handle the… the personal weirdness.

Her gaze softens, just for a moment, as she watches the live feed. Rollo has emerged from the Cloister and is now offering the parks worker/agent a cup of tea. The multi-eyed creature is sitting on the agent’s shoulder, purring.

BERTRAND

That’s the second lesson. He’s not a subject. He’s a… a colleague. An unreliable, unpredictable, immensely frustrating colleague. He once called me directly—he has my secure line, don’t ask how—to give me a heads-up. Said, ‘Val, just FYI, a minor lovecraftian horror is going to manifest in my linen closet around 3 PM. It’s just lonely, not hostile. Could you have your people stand down? I’m going to try to set it up on a date with that depressive shadow from the Bronx.’ And he did. They’re married now. They send postcards from the Non-Euclidean Hamptons.

KOPELLI

You sound almost fond of him.

BERTRAND

(A sharp, defensive shake of her head)

Fond is a liability. Fond gets you turned into a newt or recruited into a secret society of time-traveling librarians. My feeling is professional respect. He manages a level of ontological chaos that would make a Sorcerer Supreme weep, and he does it with a laundry schedule and a kind word. I run the perimeter. He runs the epicenter. We have an understanding.

She pulls up another file, this one labeled PROTOCOL: GALACTIC SURFER.

BERTRAND

Our biggest scare. The Galactus incident. When the World Devourer’s ship entered the solar system and that… that beam… scanned the Cloister, every alarm from here to the Alpha Flight station went off. We were at DEFCON Apocalypse. I was in this chair, coordinating with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians, preparing for a potential Herald incursion or worse.

Her hand trembles slightly as she picks up her coffee mug.

BERTRAND

And then my direct line rang. It was him. Static on the line, deep space interference. He said, ‘Val? It’s Rollo. Listen, sorry for the fuss. Big purple guy just offered me a job. I said no. He seemed okay with it. He’s leaving. You might want to tell everyone to stand down. Also, he says hi to Norrin Radd.’ And then the ship… left. Just turned and left. No Herald. No destruction. Our sensors showed the beam had been a ‘personnel evaluation scan.’ He’d been offered a position as a Herald of Galactus and turned it down because he had to feed the cats.

Bertrand stares into the middle distance, the sheer scale of the absurdity still baffling her.

BERTRAND

Do you know what the after-action report for that looked like? ‘Potential X-Class Extinction Event mitigated via civilian declination of employment, citing prior pet-care commitments.’ I had to sign it. Fury framed it.

KOPELLI

Why do you stay? If it’s so taxing.

Bertrand is quiet for a long time. She looks at the screens, at the agents, at the peaceful, bizarre scene of Rollo and the multi-eyed creature now playing fetch with a glowing stick.

BERTRAND

Because someone has to. Because if I don’t, they’ll send someone who’ll see him as a threat, or a specimen, or a weapon to be controlled. And that person will try to put him in a box. And then… then the universe, which seems to have a strange affection for his particular brand of stubborn normalcy, will object. Violently. My job isn’t to watch him. It’s to watch everything else, and make sure it doesn’t break the one man who’s somehow holding it all together by refusing to be impressed.

She stands up, signaling the end of the interview.

BERTRAND

Tell your audience this, Ms. Kopelli. In the files, he’s ‘Asset: Cummings, R. Codename: Lodestone.’ But in the break room, we have a pool going. We bet on what the next ‘Event’ will be. Not because it’s funny. Because it’s the only way to stay sane. To acknowledge that we are not guarding a prison. We are… tending a garden. A very, very strange garden. And I’m the head gardener who has to explain to the bosses why the roses are singing show tunes and the gnomes are filing union complaints.

An alert chimes softly on her console. She glances at it, and a faint, real smile touches her lips.

BERTRAND

Ah. Event #881 in progress. ‘Spontaneous, localized increase in polydactyl kittens.’ That’s a benign one. I’ll just need to alert the local shelters to expect some unusual litters. See? The job.

She offers a firm, final handshake.

BERTRAND

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go debrief an agent who just reported a ‘philosophical debate with a suspiciously intelligent squirrel.’ It’s Tuesday.

As Barbara is led out, she glances back. Agent Vallerie Bertrand has already returned to her console, her back straight, her eyes scanning the endless, beautiful, terrifying data stream of a life lived at the center of coincidence. The mug sits beside her, a small badge of honor in a war without end, fought not with guns, but with incident reports, coffee, and a profound, weary understanding of the absurd.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. PSYCHIATRIC CARE FACILITY - SUNROOM - DAY

The room is aggressively peaceful. Soft, beige walls. Overstuffed armchairs in calming blues and greens. A large window looks out on a meticulously manicured garden. The air smells of lemongrass and faint antiseptic.

JASLEEN SAINAI sits curled in an armchair, her back to the window. She is in her late twenties, with sharp, intelligent features that seem both fragile and fiercely resilient. Her dark hair is cut short, practical. She wears simple, comfortable clothes—sweatpants and a faded band t-shirt. She holds a steaming mug of tea in both hands, as if for warmth, though the room is temperate. Her eyes, when she looks at BARBARA KOPELLI, are the eyes of someone who has seen a ghost and is trying very hard to believe it was just a trick of the light.

KOPELLI

(Voice gentle)

Jasleen. Thank you for agreeing to this. I know it can’t be easy to talk about.

JASLEEN

(Her voice is soft, melodic, but with a slight, deliberate flatness)

They said it might help. The talking. They said a lot of things. Mostly, they said I needed to “recontextualize my experiential data.” Which is a very expensive way of saying “try to forget the man who made a pet out of a reality glitch.”

She takes a slow sip of tea. Her hands do not shake, but there is a profound stillness to them, a controlled effort.

KOPELLI

You were on the S.H.I.E.L.D. detail assigned to him. The Cummings Detail.

A faint, humorless smile touches Jasleen’s lips.

JASLEEN

“Detail.” Such a clean word. It sounds like paperwork. It was more like… being assigned to babysit a black hole that occasionally baked cookies. I was twenty-four. Top of my class at the Academy. Fluent in four languages, expert in three forms of hand-to-hand, could field-strip a plasma rifle in the dark. I thought I was ready for anything. I was an idiot.

KOPELLI

What was your first day like?

Jasleen’s gaze drifts to the middle distance, to the safe, boring garden outside.

JASLEEN

It was a Tuesday. My commanding officer, Agent Bertrand—you’ve met her, the woman with the stare that could curdle time—she handed me a file three inches thick and a helmet with more sensors than a deep-space probe. She said, “Sainai, your job is to watch the man in that cathedral. Not the weird things that happen to him. Him. His patterns, his moods, his… emotional weather. The weirdness is just meteorological data. He is the climate.”

She sets her mug down on a small table with exaggerated care.

JASLEEN

I took my post on a rooftop across the street. Binoculars, scanners, the works. For the first six hours, it was… mundane. He fed dogs. He repaired a bird feeder. He argued with a delivery man about the proper way to stack sacks of kibble. I started to think it was a joke, a hazing ritual for new agents. Then, at 3:17 PM precisely, it started to rain… upwards.

KOPELLI

Upwards?

JASLEEN

From the gutters, from the puddles, from the hydrant on the corner. Drops of water, defying gravity, rising in a shimmering curtain towards the sky. It wasn’t a storm. It was a localized, precise reversal of precipitation. And in the middle of it, Rollo Cummings walked out of the Cloister with an umbrella. He looked up at the rising rain, sighed, and opened the umbrella… pointing down. He stood there, above his upside-down umbrella, as the water fell up around him, and he checked his mail.

She lets out a short, breathy sound that isn’t quite a laugh.

JASLEEN

I radioed it in. My voice was a squeak. “Command, Subject is… he’s checking his mail in an anti-rain event.” Bertrand came back, calm as stone. “Logged. Event #422: Inverted Precipitation. Non-hostile. Continue observation.” Like I’d reported a pigeon. That was Day One.

KOPELLI

It escalated.

JASLEEN

(A hollow chuckle)

“Escalated” implies a direction. A progression. This was… lateral. Day Two, a minor Norse deity of misplaced keys got locked out of Valhalla and took refuge in the Cloister’s boiler room. Rollo helped him pick the lock using a bobby pin and a pep talk. Day Four, a patch of the front lawn became sentient and demanded voting rights in the local community board election. Rollo mediated between the grass and Mrs. Banquo. The grass got a seat on the parks committee. It’s very pro-compost.

Jasleen wraps her arms around herself, though she’s not cold.

JASLEEN

It wasn’t the big things. It was the relentless, grinding density of the absurd. The way reality just… softened around him. You’d be monitoring his heartbeat, his vitals, and they’d be perfectly normal while a ghost recited Shakespeare in his kitchen or a miniature black hole formed in his laundry basket to eat only his odd socks. He’d just… deal with it. With a broom, or a snack, or a politely worded note to the universe. And we were supposed to log it, categorize it, and maintain our sanity.

KOPELLI

What broke you?

The question hangs in the air. Jasleen’s eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry. She looks at Barbara with a terrifying clarity.

JASLEEN

It wasn’t one thing. It was the… the erosion. The way the impossible became Tuesday. I started dreaming in event numbers. I’d wake up and for a few seconds, I wouldn’t be sure which way gravity was supposed to work. I’d see a perfectly normal pigeon and my training would scream, ‘Scan for dimensional parasites! Assess for avian intelligence!’ My friends, my family… they were talking about movies, about politics, about their lives. And I was trying to explain in my weekly report why a psychic raccoon’s demand for better healthcare benefits was a potential inter-species diplomatic incident.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath.

JASLEEN

The last straw was the Teacup.

KOPELLI

The Teacup?

JASLEEN

Event #588. An artifact of unknown origin manifested in the Cloister’s pantry. It looked like a normal, chipped porcelain teacup. But it… wept. Not water. It wept tiny, perfect, liquid silver tears that formed into intricate, clockwork hummingbirds that would fly for exactly sixty seconds before dissolving into a sigh. It was the most beautiful, the most profoundly sad thing I had ever seen.

Her voice drops to a whisper.

JASLEEN

Rollo found it. He didn’t call S.H.I.E.L.D., didn’t quarantine it. He picked it up. He held it in his hands, this thing that was weeping mechanical birds, and he… he talked to it. I had audio surveillance. He said, “Hey there. You look lost. And sad. It’s okay. You can stay here as long as you need. The crying’s fine. Let it out.”

Jasleen looks directly at Barbara, her eyes wide with remembered trauma.

JASLEEN

And the Teacup… stopped. The tears slowed. One last hummingbird formed, landed on his finger, let out a tiny, crystalline chime, and then it didn’t cry again. It just sat on the shelf, next to the oatmeal. A chipped teacup. He’d… he’d comforted a cosmic anomaly. He’d treated a reality-warping artifact like a scared child. And it had listened.

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.

JASLEEN

In that moment, I realized I wasn’t protecting the world from the weirdness around him. I was witnessing something far more terrifying. I was watching a man domesticate chaos. He was taming it, not with science or magic, but with… with kindness. And if chaos could be tamed, then what did that make order? What did that make me, with my protocols and my scanners and my fear? I was the one in the cage, watching the wild thing walk free.

KOPELLI

You resigned.

JASLEEN

The next day. I walked into Bertrand’s mobile command unit. I handed her my badge, my gun, my sensor helmet. I said, “I can’t tell what’s real anymore.” She didn’t try to stop me. She just nodded, that weary, understanding nod, and said, “The Curve got you. It’s okay, Sainai. Go find a hill. Look at it. If it stays a hill, you’re gonna be fine.”

KOPELLI

And you checked yourself in here.

JASLEEN

I needed the hill to be made of paperwork and soft walls and predictable group therapy sessions. I needed to hear people talk about problems that had names, diagnoses from a book. Not Event #588. Not a weeping teacup. For eighteen months, I worked very, very hard to believe that gravity only goes one way, that teacups don’t have feelings, and that the most extraordinary thing in the world is the human mind… and not what it sometimes imagines.

She finally picks up her tea again, her composure returning, layer by careful layer.

KOPELLI

And now? You’re pursuing singing. Broadway.

For the first time, a real, warm light ignites in Jasleen’s eyes. It’s hopeful, fragile, and defiant.

JASLEEN

Yes. I always loved to sing. Before the Academy, it was all I wanted. Then I wanted to save the world. Then I just wanted the world to make sense. Now… now I want to tell stories. Simple, human stories. With a beginning, a middle, and an end. Where a sigh is just a sigh, and a tear is just a tear. Where the only magic is in a held note, and the only destiny is in a curtain call.

She smiles, a true, small smile.

JASLEEN

I saw him once, after I got out. From a distance. He was in the park, flying a kite with a bunch of kids from the shelter. The kite was a normal kite. The wind was normal wind. He looked… happy. Just a man in a park. And for a second, I felt not fear, but… a kind of gratitude. He carries the weight so the rest of us don’t have to. He lives in the storm so we can appreciate the calm. My hill is a stage now. And it stays a hill. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.

Barbara Kopelli watches her, this woman who has stared into the fractal heart of coincidence and chosen, with immense courage, to sing about simpler things. The tone in the room has shifted from the bleak absurdity of trauma to the hard-won, precious ground of recovery.

KOPELLI

Thank you, Jasleen. For your honesty. And break a leg.

Jasleen’s smile widens, becoming radiant. She doesn’t look out at the garden anymore. She looks inward, at a future of lights and music and beautiful, ordinary human noise.

JASLEEN

I will. And Barbara? If you see him… tell him the Teacup’s okay. In my mind, it’s happy. On a shelf. Next to the oatmeal.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE RAFT - HIGH-SECURITY PSYCH EVALUATION CHAMBER - DAY

The room is a sterile, white cube. No windows. The light is flat, shadowless, and hums at a frequency designed to discourage lingering thoughts. The air is cool, odorless, recycled. In the center of the room, a single chair is bolted to the floor. It is not a restraint chair, but its presence is a promise of one nearby.

IVAN KRAGOFF, THE RED GHOST, sits perfectly still. He is a small, wiry man in a standard-issue Raft jumpsuit, its bright orange a garish insult against the clinical white. His hair is a thinning grey cap, his face a roadmap of bitter lines and faded Soviet-era pride. His eyes, however, are not faded. They are sharp, intelligent, and burn with a cold, unextinguished fire. He watches BARBARA KOPELLI as she enters, his gaze tracking her like a scope.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. PSYCHOLOGIST, DR. AMARA, sits in a corner, observing silently, a tablet in her lap. An armed guard stands rigidly by the sealed door.

KOPELLI

(Sitting in the provided chair, facing him)

Professor Kragoff. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.

Kragoff does not blink. His voice, when it comes, is dry, precise, and carries the ghost of an accent.

RED GHOST

Agreement implies choice. This is a diversion. An hour outside my cell. You are a variable. I am studying you. Proceed.

KOPELLI

I’ve been speaking to many people about Rollo Cummings.

At the name, Kragoff’s nostrils flare. A single, minute tic jumps in his jaw. It is the only outward sign of a seismic internal shift.

RED GHOST

Cummings.

(He spits the word)

The sentimentalist. The meddler.

KOPELLI

You have a history with him.

RED GHOST

History. A sequence of events. Yes. He interfered with a pure line of scientific inquiry. He acted on emotion. On a… a bourgeois concept of ‘cruelty.’ He is an animal lover. A simpleton with a savior complex, masquerading as a man of principle.

His words are clipped, each one measured and placed like a stone in a wall.

KOPELLI

He discovered your experiments on the Super-Apes. Mikhail, Piotr, Igor.

RED GHOST

Their names are irrelevant. They were designations. Subjects Alpha, Beta, Gamma. Elevated from beast to thinking tool through my genius. Through cosmic ray exposure I orchestrated. I gave them mind! Purpose! A place in the grand scientific hierarchy! He saw only the cage, the monitor, the stimulus. He did not see the ascension.

KOPELLI

He said you were torturing them.

RED GHOST

(Snaps, a flash of heat in the icy delivery)

Stimulus! Refinement! The mind, even an enhanced one, is a stubborn organ. It clings to base instinct. Fear, pain, reward—these are the levers to pry it loose, to direct it towards higher function! To forge a will that serves a greater purpose than banana or mate! He walked into a laboratory and saw a… a petting zoo being mistreated. He understood nothing.

Kopelli lets the silence hang. Kragoff’s breathing, for a moment, is slightly audible. He regains his icy control.

RED GHOST

He confronted me. In my own lab. He was not armed with anything S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Fantastic Four would use. No energy weapons, no unstable molecules. He was armed with… moral outrage.

KOPELLI

He punched you.

RED GHOST

He attacked. I am a scientist. My body is a vessel for my intellect. He is… stubborn. Physically resilient in the mundane way of a laborer. He disrupted the neural calibrations on Subject Gamma. Caused a feedback loop that allowed a moment of… recalcitrance in the subject. In the confusion, he struck me. A single, lucky blow. It was undignified.

He touches his jaw, just briefly, as if remembering the exact point of impact.

KOPELLI

And then he freed them.

RED GHOST

(His voice drops to a whisper of pure, venomous contempt)

He ‘freed’ them. He took three of the most advanced biological intelligences on the planet, beings I had crafted, and he… he released them into the ‘wild.’ The Savage Land. He gave them a jungle. After I had given them the stars. He reduced them back to animals, scratching in the dirt, governed by sun and rain and predator. He called it sanctuary. I call it the greatest act of intellectual vandalism I have ever witnessed.

KOPELLI

They seem to be thriving. They have autonomy.

RED GHOST

Autonomy! To eat, sleep, and defecate where they please? This is not autonomy! This is entropy! I offered them a destiny! To be the vanguard of a new form of life! To serve as the ultimate scouts, infiltrators, thinkers for a new order! He offered them… bananas and sunshine. He traded a symphony for a single, sustained note. It is pathetic.

He leans forward, his eyes locking onto Kopelli’s.

RED GHOST

Do you know what he said to me, as I lay there, consciousness fading? He did not gloat. He did not preach. He leaned down, and he said, ‘They were scared. Now they’re not. That’s all that matters.’ That is his philosophy. A philosophy of comfort. Of the elimination of fear. He does not understand that fear is the engine of progress! The fear of darkness gave us fire! The fear of mortality drives medicine! I was not their torturer; I was their catalyst! And he, the sentimental fool, neutralized the reaction.

KOPELLI

Others see him as a grounding force. A fixer.

RED GHOST

A fixer. Yes. He fixes things by breaking them into smaller, simpler, less threatening pieces. He takes the complex, the daring, the transgressive, and he ‘fixes’ it into something harmless. Something that fits on his shelf next to the haunted teapot and the depressed sword. He is the universe’s janitor,, mopping up the spills of greatness, insisting on a clean, quiet, small floor.

He sits back, a cold smile finally touching his lips. It is not a pleasant sight.

RED GHOST

They call him a ‘weirdness magnet.’ They are wrong. He is a dampener. A null field. Weirdness flows to him, and he smothers it with kindness, with bureaucracy, with a cup of tea. He makes the extraordinary… ordinary. He is the enemy of the sublime. The foe of the radical leap. I would rather be hated by Richards, fought by the Thing, than… pitied by Rollo Cummings. His pity is a solvent that dissolves ambition.

KOPELLI

Do you think about revenge?

Kragoff is silent for a long, long time. He looks past Barbara, at the blank white wall, as if seeing a different landscape.

RED GHOST

Revenge is an emotional response. I am a scientist. I observe. I calculate. He exists. He is a persistent anomaly in the data set of a rational universe. My… focus… is on reacquiring my tools. On continuing my work. He is a setback. A significant one. But to dwell on him personally would be to grant his sentimental worldview a power it does not have. He is a symptom. I am interested in the disease.

KOPELLI

The disease?

RED GHOST

The human weakness for comfort. For the easy, warm, familiar answer over the hard, cold, glorious truth. He is its avatar. He wraps the terrifying, beautiful unknown in a blanket and gives it a name. He is the end of wonder. Because wonder requires fear. Requires the acknowledgment that some things are not safe, are not kind, are not meant to be pets. He is building a zoo of the cosmos, and calling it a home. It is a beautiful, terrible prison.

The guard shifts his weight. Dr. Amara makes a note on her tablet.

RED GHOST

Our interview is concluded. You have your soundbite. The mad scientist, scornful of the kind-hearted man. It fits your narrative. But remember this, filmmaker: in his cathedral of strays, he is playing god. A small, soft, merciful god. And the universe has never, in all its history, had much patience for small gods.

He stands, the movement abrupt and final. He does not look at Barbara again.

RED GHOST

Guard. I am ready to return to my cell. The environment there, at least, is honest in its indifference.

As the guard moves to escort him out, Kragoff pauses at the door. He speaks without turning.

RED GHOST

If you speak to him… tell him the subjects are wasted in the mud. Tell him their potential rusts. And tell him… that of all the blows I have ever been struck, his was the only one that left a stain.

He is led away. The door seals with a definitive hiss. Barbara Kopelli remains seated in the humming, white silence, the stark, plain hatred of Ivan Kragoff hanging in the air like a chemical aftertaste. It is a different kind of fear than Sabretooth’s—colder, more intellectual, and in its own way, more devastating. It is not the fear of a predator, but the contempt of a creator for the one who would unmake his creation in the name of comfort.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. UNITED NATIONS BUILDING - DIPLOMATIC LOUNGE - DAY

The lounge is a study in international decorum—plush carpets, abstract art meant to offend no one, and a wall of windows overlooking the East River. The usual quiet murmur of diplomats is absent, replaced by a more profound silence.

Seated on a low sofa that groans under their combined weight are the SUPER-APES. MIKHAIL, the gorilla, is immense, a mountain of thoughtful black fur in a tailored navy suit. He holds a delicate porcelain teacup in fingers that could crush steel, his movements precise. PIOTR, the orangutan, slouches beside him, his long arms draped over the back of the sofa. He wears a rumpled tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and spectacles perched on his broad nose. He’s idly sketching in a small small notebook. IGOR, the baboon, is perched on the arm of the sofa, unable to sit still. He’s in a sharp, crimson tracksuit, his keen eyes constantly scanning the room, a smartphone clutched in one hand.

BARBARA KOPELLI sits opposite them, her usual composure touched with a new layer of awe. A U.N. interpreter hovers nearby, but seems unnecessary.

KOPELLI

Gentlemen… thank you for your time. I understand you’re here for the Interspecies Diplomatic Conference.

MIKHAIL

(His voice is a deep, resonant rumble, like stones grinding together. His English is precise, flavored with a thick Russian accent.)

It is our honor to attend. The cause of understanding between thinking beings is… paramount. Even when the beings in question are former lab subjects turned… diplomats.

(He takes a slow, deliberate sip of tea.)

PIOTR

(Without looking up from his sketch, his voice is a weary, scholarly baritone.)

Da. Paramount. Also, the canapés are superior to the ones at the Latverian embassy. Less… doom. More dill.

IGOR

(Snapping his fingers, his speech quick and energetic)

You see? This is what I am saying! Presentation! The Latverians, all sharp angles and scowling robots. Here, it is soft edges, good lighting. It sets a tone. We are not threats, we are… guests. With opinions on pastry!

KOPELLI

Your journey to this point is… unique. You were once the subjects of Ivan Kragoff. The Red Ghost.

A heavy silence falls. Piotr stops sketching. Mikhail sets his teacup down with a soft clink. Igor’s tail goes still.

MIKHAIL

We were not ‘subjects.’ We were prisoners. Experiments. Our minds… awakened into a nightmare of pain and purpose not our own. Kragoff did not give us intelligence. He forced a key into a lock and wrenched it open, splintering the frame. We were left with the light of reason, and the scars of the tool that brought it.

PIOTR

(He flips his notebook around. The sketch is a detailed, beautiful rendering of a dense, sun-dappled jungle canopy.)

He gave us the capacity to appreciate this. The fractal complexity of a leaf. The mathematical perfection of a spider’s web. And then he put us in a metal box and gave us electric shocks if we did not solve his pointless puzzles fast enough. It is a particular kind of cruelty, to show a being the infinite and then punish it for not focusing on the infinitesimal.

IGOR

(Jumping down, pacing)

He wanted soldiers! Spies! Tools! He looked at Mikhail’s strength and saw a battering ram! At Piotr’s mind and saw a computer! At my… my agility, and saw a thief! He did not see us! He saw functions!

KOPELLI

And then Rollo Cummings intervened.

The change in the room is immediate and profound. The tension melts. Igor stops pacing. A soft, almost human smile touches Mikhail’s formidable features. Piotr lets out a slow, contented sigh.

MIKHAIL

Rollo.

(He says the name like a blessing.)

He did not see functions. He saw… three very large, very confused, and very angry animals in a very small room.

PIOTR

He walked in. Smelled of ozone and… apple pie, I think. Kragoff was shouting, spitting ideology. Rollo listened for maybe ten seconds. Then he looked at the control console, at the electrodes, at the fear in our eyes—yes, we still had fear, the first and truest gift of our new minds—and he… sighed. That sigh.

IGOR

(Climbing back onto the sofa arm, mimicking Rollo’s posture and voice with startling accuracy)

“Alright. That’s enough of that.”

(He drops the mimicry.)

Then he walked over to Kragoff. Not with a weapon. With his hands. And he… explained his disagreement. Physically.

KOPELLI

He punched him.

MIKHAIL

It was a punctuation mark. The end of a sentence we had been trapped in for years. The sound of it… it was not violence. It was… a period. A full stop. Then he turned to us. He did not approach like a liberator. He approached like a zookeeper with a tricky new arrival.

PIOTR

He said, “Okay. Big guys. You’re coming with me. This place is closed.” He spoke slowly, clearly. Not because he thought we were stupid. Because he thought we were traumatized.. It was… respect.

IGOR

He had a van! A beat-up, smelly van that usually carried dog food! He opened the back and said, “It’s not fancy, but it’s got windows.” We got in. We drove. He played music. Terrible music. American “classic rock.” He sang along. Off-key.

KOPELLI

He took you to the Cloister?

MIKHAIL

For a time. It was a… decompression chamber. He gave us space. Food we chose ourselves. No tests. No demands. He introduced us to the other residents. The three-legged terrier, the depressed ghost, the saber-toothed tiger who was just visiting. He treated us not as wonders or weapons, but as… new neighbors. With peculiar dietary needs and a fondness for chess.

PIOTR

He helped us find our path. He connected us with Jennifer Walters. She fought for our legal personhood. Not as weapons or property, but as… beings. With the Savage Land sanctuary as our sovereign territory. He did not give us a home. He gave us the tools to build our own.

IGOR

And the darts! Do not forget the darts!

KOPELLI

Darts?

MIKHAIL

(A low, warm chuckle)

Once we were settled, he visited the Savage Land. He brought a dartboard. He taught us the game. It is… a good game. Requires geometry, patience, a steady hand. We play weekly via satellite link now. He is terrible. I always win.

PIOTR

He loses with good grace. He brings strange jams from other dimensions as a forfeit. Last week, it was “nostalgia-berry” jam. Tasted like a childhood you never had. It was melancholy and delicious.

KOPELLI

What is your relationship with him now?

The three apes exchange a look, a complex, silent communication that passes between them.

IGOR

He is… tovarishch. A comrade. But more. Human families are small. They have parents, children. Our… family, the one we chose, it is strange. It has a talking fox, a sorcerer’s assistant, a one-eyed cat, and a human who is a weirdness magnet. He is the… the center of the weird. The place we call when the world does not make sense.

MIKHAIL

When the weight of this…

(He gestures at his suit, at the U.N. building)

…becomes too much. When I must speak in careful clauses and navigate human politics that are more savage than any jungle, I think of his simplicity. His rule: be kind, fix what you can, and do not be impressed by titles. Even the title of “Super-Ape.”

PIOTR

He sends books. Philosophy, poetry, physics. With notes in the margin. Not explanations. Questions. “What do you think this means?” “This reminded me of the way the light falls in your valley.” He treats our minds not as a miracle or a tool, but as a garden. And he is a fellow gardener, bringing strange seeds.

KOPELLI

The Red Ghost said Rollo “wasted your potential.” That he traded your destiny for a jungle.

Igor lets out a sharp, barking laugh. Piotr smiles, a sad, wise smile. Mikhail’s eyes grow hard, not with anger, but with absolute certainty.

MIKHAIL

Kragoff’s destiny was a leash. A gilded cage in the stars, serving his vanity. Rollo gave us a choice. The jungle is not a limit. It is an infinite library. Every leaf, every predator, every storm is a chapter. Our potential is to understand it, to protect it, to represent it in places like this.

(He gestures around the lounge.)

That is not a small thing. It is everything.

PIOTR

Kragoff defined us by what we could do for him. Rollo defined us by what we are. And then he stepped back. That is the difference between a master and a friend. A creator and a… a liberator.

IGOR

(His phone buzzes. He glances at it, and his face lights up.)

Speak of the devil! It is him! He is asking if the U.N. coffee is as bad as he remembers.

He shows the screen. It’s a text from a contact labeled “LANDLORD.” The message reads: “Don’t let the diplomats talk you into anything. And if the coffee’s terrible, I’ve got a Z’noxian espresso machine that runs on ambient regret. Works a treat.”

All three apes laugh, a rich, surprising sound that fills the staid lounge.

MIKHAIL

Tell him the coffee is adequate. And that the delegate from the Atlantean contingent keeps looking at me as if he wishes to measure me for a saddle. I believe I am making him nervous.

IGOR

(Typing rapidly, a grin on his face)

I am telling him you are practicing your “diplomatic glare.”

KOPELLI

He remains a part of your lives.

PIOTR

He is the root. We are the branches. The wind blows, the world shakes, we may grow in strange directions… but the connection is there. Solid. Grounded. He is our first, and best, friend. In a universe that once saw us as things, he saw us as people. You cannot ever forget the one who showed you your own face.

Barbara Kopelli looks at the three of them: the philosopher-king, the scholar-artist, the energetic diplomat. She sees not monsters, not tools, but persons—complex, dignified, and bearing the indelible mark of a stubborn, kind-hearted man who punched their creator and then taught them how to play darts.

KOPELLI

Thank you. All of you. For your perspective. And good luck with the conference.

MIKHAIL

(He gives a slow, regal nod.)

Thank you, Ms. Kopelli. And when you see Rollo… tell him the gorilla still owes him a rematch. And that the nostalgia-berry jam goes excellently with scones.

As Barbara packs her equipment, the three Super-Apes return to their quiet communion, a small island of profound understanding in a sea of human diplomacy. Igor shows the others something on his phone, and another round of deep, rumbling laughter echoes through the lounge, a sound of pure, hard-won joy.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. LATVERIAN EMBASSY, NEW YORK - RECEPTION HALL - DAY

The hall is a masterpiece of intimidating opulence. Black marble floors reflect the light from wrought-ironiron chandeliers. Tapestries depicting the stern, glorious history of Latveria cover the walls. Between them, mounted like trophies, are the deactivated shells of Doombots, standing in silent, eternal vigil. The air is cool, still, and smells of ozone, old stone, and a faint, sharp scent of ozone and oil.

At the far end of the room, upon a raised dais, sits a throne-like chair. It is empty.

BARBARA KOPELLI stands in the center of the vast space, feeling profoundly small and out of place. Her camera operator shifts nervously beside her. Two Doombots flank the large, ornate doors, their optical sensors a dull, inactive red.

A hidden speaker crackles to life, emitting a voice that is a synthesized, basso profundo rumble.

DOOM (V.O.) (VIA SPEAKER)

You will wait. The Master of Latveria concludes matters of state. You will not move from the designated circle.

Barbara looks down. A perfect circle of light, about three feet in diameter, is projected onto the floor around her feet. She does not move.

Minutes pass, measured only by the slow, synchronized hum of the Doombots’ internal systems. Then, without fanfare, a section of the wall behind the dais slides aside.

DOCTOR DOOM enters.

He is a monolith of green and steel, every inch the sovereign. His cloak drapes behind him without a whisper. The polished metal of his mask catches the chandelier light, reflecting no warmth, only a cold, impassive intelligence. He moves with a silent, terrifying grace to the throne and sits. He does not look at Barbara; he seems to be looking through her, at some distant, private calculation.

DOOM

Barbara Kopelli. Documentarian. You petitioned for an audience. You were granted one. Speak. My time is the currency of nations. Do not waste it with preamble.

His voice, unfiltered by speakers, is a deep, cultured baritone, edged with the faint, metallic resonance of his mask. It is a voice used to command, to pronounce, to dismiss.

KOPELLI

(Voice steady, but tight)

Thank you, your Excellency. I’ve been speaking to a wide range of individuals about a single subject. Rollo Cummings.

A profound, absolute silence fills the hall. The hum of the Doombots seems to quiet in deference. Doom does not move a millimeter. Yet, the atmosphere changes. The air grows heavier, charged.

DOOM

Cummings.

(He says the name as if tasting a strange, faintly unpleasant spice.)

The anomaly. The… dartsman.

KOPELLI

You have a unique relationship with him. An annual contest.

DOOM

It is not a ‘relationship.’ It is a recurring… audit. A test of variables in a controlled, neutral environment. The village pub on the border is a laboratory. The darts are probes. His continued, statistically improbable success is a datum. One of many I have collected on him.

KOPELLI

You’ve studied him?

DOOM

(He gives a single, slight tilt of his head.)

Since the first match. I assumed his victory was a fluke. A confluence of luck and my own… momentary underestimation. The second year, I prepared. I accounted for atmospheric density, for the minute gravitational pull of the moon, for the psychological profile of a man who keeps a saber-toothed tiger as a temporary pet. I lost. The third year, I incorporated chronal stability metrics and predictive algorithms based on the emotional state of the tavern’s cat. I lost. I have since incorporated data from his encounters with Asgardians, time-travel, cosmic entities, and the molecular composition of lemon meringue. I still lose.

For the first time, Doom’s hands, which have been resting on the arms of the throne, flex slightly. It is the only sign of agitation.

DOOM

He is an equation that refuses to balance. A living paradox. He possesses no discernible power, no great intellect, no destiny woven by the Norns or the Vishanti. And yet, he stands at the intersection of monumental events, untouched. He converses with forces that would incinerate a lesser mind, and asks them about their dietary preferences. It is… an affront to a universe of order.

KOPELLI

Others have called him a grounding force. A fixed point.

DOOM

(A low, metallic scoff)

They mistake effect for cause. He is not a fixed point. He is a null point. A zero in the arithmetic of reality. Power, ambition, destiny—these are positive and negative integers. They clash, they sum, they create history. He is the zero. When added to any equation, it remains unchanged. He does not ground chaos; he negates it through a profound, stubborn insignificance. It is a different kind of power. A maddening one.

KOPELLI

You sound… frustrated.

Doom stands. It is a sudden, smooth motion that makes Barbara take an involuntary step back, though she remains within her circle of light. He descends the dais steps, his cloak swirling. He stops at the edge of her circle, looming over her.

DOOM

Frustration is the province of lesser minds. Doom knows only the relentless pursuit of understanding. He is a puzzle. One I have not solved. That is all.

He turns and walks slowly along the edge of the circle, a predator circling its… not prey. Something else entirely.

DOOM

I have seen the footage from your other interviews. The muttering of Richards, the simpering of the Beast, the emotional incontinence of the mercenary. They see a charming rogue. A beloved eccentric. They are fools. They do not see the danger.

KOPELLI

Danger? He runs an animal shelter.

DOOM

(He stops, turning his mask to fully face her.)

He runs a nexus. A passive, permeable nexus where the rules of reality are… optional. Where a Doombot can learn to appreciate Chekhov. Where the infinite power of an Infinity Stone is rejected because it is ‘boring.’ Where the Devourer of Worlds is politely declined because of a prior engagement with domesticated felines. He does not wield power. He disarms it. He makes the cosmic mundane. And in doing so, he makes it untouchable.

Doom’s voice drops, becoming almost contemplative.

DOOM

I could reduce this city to glass and twisted steel. I have plans for such an eventuality. But could I defeat Rollo Cummings in a game of darts? No. Not yet. That is the puzzle. Not the fate of nations, but the flight of a tungsten dart in a room smelling of ale and wet dog. He has, without ever raising a hand in anger, made the most powerful beings on Earth—on any Earth—question their own competence. That is not a superpower. It is a subliminal attack on the very concept of hierarchy.

KOPELLI

Is that why you continue the matches? To prove hierarchy still exists?

DOOM

I continue the matches because he is the only opponent who does not fight on a battlefield of my choosing, or his, but on one that simply is. A pub. A board. Three darts. There is a purity to it. A humiliation stripped of grand ideology. When Richards defeats me, it is science against science. When the Fantastic Four thwarts me, it is morality against ambition. When Cummings defeats me… it is because he was less distracted by the weight of his own destiny. It is infuriating. It is… clarifying.

He turns back to his throne, but does not sit. He gazes at one of the tapestries, depicting Doom bestowing order upon a grateful Latveria.

DOOM

He sent a gift. After the fifth match. Not a gloat. A gift. A small, poorly knitted sweater.

Doom is silent for a long moment.

DOOM

No one sends Doom gifts. No one knits for his machinations. It is an insult so profound it bypasses insult and becomes… a fact. A strange, soft fact in a world of hard edges. I had the sweater analyzed. It was wool. Just… wool. The note was paper and ink.. No toxins, no tracking devices, no mystical sigils. Just… a gift. I did not have it destroyed. 

KOPELLI

You admire him.

The word hangs in the air like a blasphemy. Doom goes perfectly still. When he speaks again, his voice is dangerously quiet.

DOOM

Doom admires nothing and no one. He acknowledges utility. He recognizes a unique variable. Rollo Cummings is a variable that consistently resolves to ‘unpredictable kindness.’ In a multiverse of infinite cruelty and ambition, that is perhaps the rarest, and most strategically useless, quality of all. It is like admiring a pebble for not being a diamond. A waste of intellectual energy.

KOPELLI

Will you continue the matches?

DOOM

Yes. The next is in eleven months, three days, and seven hours. I am currently modeling a new predictive algorithm based on the migratory patterns of the talking geese he harbors and their theorized influence on local probability fields. I will account for the variable of ‘sentient waterfowl opinion.’ I will not lose.

He says it with absolute, iron conviction. The conviction of a man who has rewritten reality and still can’t win a bar game.

DOOM

But understand this, filmmaker. They are wrong to see him as a harmless magnet. A null point is still a point. And when every vector of power and chaos in the universe seems drawn to one, specific, stubbornly ordinary point… it ceases to be a curiosity. It becomes a target. A focal point for energies that may one day decide the null point must be erased. My… association… with him is not friendship. It is a ongoing study of a potentially critical vulnerability in the fabric of everything. And a reminder that even Doom must occasionally contend with a problem that cannot be solved by force, magic, or will alone. Sometimes, one must simply pick up a dart, and hope for a triple twenty.

He raises a hand. The circle of light around Barbara vanishes.

DOOM

The audience is concluded. You will be escorted out. Do not return.

The Doombots by the door snap to attention, their optical sensors glowing a bright, active crimson. They step forward, their intent clear.

As Barbara is ushered towards the doors, she glances back. Doctor Doom has not returned to his throne. He is standing before a large, blank section of wall. As she watches, the wall shimmers and becomes a vast, complex holographic display. It is not a map of nations or a schematic for a world-ending device.

It is a detailed, three-dimensional simulation of a dartboard. Statistics, wind patterns, and psychological profiles float around it in a dizzying array. At the center of the analysis, a simple, rotating model of a corduroy-clad man shrugs.

Doom stands before it, a colossus of power and intellect, studying the most baffling enemy he has ever faced: a man who is, persistently, unimpressively, and infuriatingly, just himself.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. SANCTUM SANCTORUM - LIBRARY - DAY

The air in the library is thick with the scent of old parchment, incense, and ozone. Slanted light cuts through high windows, illuminating motes of dust that dance like lazy spirits. The space is a labyrinth of towering shelves, crammed with books bound in leather, metal, and things less identifiable. In a pool of warm light from a green-glass lamp, BARBARA KOPELLI sits across a heavy, scarred oak table from DOCTOR STEPHEN STRANGE.

He is not in his full regalia. He He wears a dark blue tunic, the Eye of Agamotto a dull brass disc at his chest. His hands, those instruments of world-saving magic, are folded before him, the scars visible. He looks tired, in the way of men who hold up the sky, but his gaze is sharp, focused, and deeply curious.

KOPELLI

Doctor Strange. Thank you for seeing me.

STRANGE

(A slight, acknowledging nod)

Miss Kopelli. Wong mentioned your project. A documentary on the… statistically anomalous. I must admit, when he said your next subject was Rollo Cummings, I instructed the Sanctum’s wards to expect you. They’ve been… twitchy all week. They react to the mention of his name.

KOPELLI

The wards? Like an alarm?

STRANGE

(He gestures vaguely at the air around them them)

More like a… sympathetic vibration. Think of reality as a vast, complex instrument. Most beings play a single note, or a simple chord. Sorcerers learn to play melodies, harmonies. Cosmic entities… they are symphonies. Rollo Cummings is not a musician. He is a man who walks through the orchestra, bumping into stands, tripping over cables, and yet, somehow, the resulting noise coalesces into a strangely coherent, if utterly bizarre, tune. The wards sense the potential for a cacophony. They’re on edge.

KOPELLI

You’ve met him.

STRANGE

Met him? I’ve had to clean up after him. Professionally and mystically. The first time was after his little jaunt through the timestream. Conan to Arthur to the Red Skull to Woodstock. Do you have have any idea the temporal lint that leaves in the fabric of reality? It took Wong and I three days to re-stitch the chronal threads around the 1940s. He’d kicked a linchpin figure in the… well, let’s just say it was a sensitive area, temporally and otherwise.

A ghost of a smile touches Strange’s lips.

STRANGE

The man doesn’t travel through time. He ricochets through it. Like a pinball of causality. And he leaves friends everywhere. I have it on good authority—from a very annoyed Asgardian spirit of chronology—that King Arthur still tells the tale of the “man from tomorrow” who asked if the Round Table had a pension plan.

KOPELLI

He seems to leave an impression.

STRANGE

An impression? He leaves a dent. But here is the thing, the thing that defies all my training, all my understanding of the multiverse. The dents… they don’t weaken the structure. If anything, they… strengthen it in the most peculiar way.

He leans forward, his eyes intense.

STRANGE

I have examined him. Not with his permission, initially—the Sanctum’s passive scans picked him up the first time he wandered within a mile of Bleecker Street. I saw what Reed Richards saw: a perfectly ordinary human. But I looked deeper, with senses science doesn’t have a name for. I looked at his probability shadow.

KOPELLI

His what?

STRANGE

Every being has one. A shimmering aura of possible futures, likely outcomes, the weight of their choices on the tapestry of ‘what might be.’ Yours is a gentle, diffuse light. Mine is a raging torrent of branching paths, a consequence of my duties. A villain’s is often a dark, knotted thread. Rollo Cummings’s probability shadow is… a solid wall. A blank, grey, utterly featureless wall.

KOPELLI

What does that mean?

STRANGE

It means the future refuses to commit around him. It means possibility collapses in his presence. Not into one certainty, but into a kind of… probabilistic mush. He is a walking, talking ambiguity. When he is in a room, the question of ‘what happens next’ becomes almost philosophically unanswerable. This is why he can beat Doom at darts. Doom calculates a million possible trajectories. Rollo’s presence reduces those trajectories to a fog. The dart goes where it goes. Usually, annoyingly, into the triple twenty.

Strange stands, pacing slowly before a shelf of books that seem to whisper as he passes.

STRANGE

This is not a power. It is an absence. An absence of destiny. He was not chosen by the Vishanti. He was not bitten by a radioactive spider. He did not have a tragic accident that opened his mind to the mystic arts. He simply… is. And his sheer, stubborn ‘is-ness’ acts as a buffer against the grand narratives that shape our world. He is the ultimate supporting character who refuses to stay in the background. And in doing so, he changes the story by not caring what the story is supposed to be.

KOPELLI

You sound like you’re describing a metaphysical artifact. Not a man.

STRANGE

(Turning to face her)

Sometimes I wonder if he is. A spontaneously generated, self-aware artifact of narrative inertia. But no. He’s a man. A man who was raised by a judo champion and an inventor in a house where the unusual was Tuesday. He was conditioned from childhood to accept the bizarre as a solvable problem. That conditioning, combined with his innate… probabilistic blankness… created a unique phenomenon.

He returns to his seat, his expression growing more serious.

STRANGE

The Infinity Stone. The so-called Stone of Luck. It manifested for him. Not because he sought it. Because it was drawn to his null-field like a moth to a… to a blank piece of paper. It tried to write a story on him. ‘The Tale of the Luckiest Man Alive.’ He found it boring. Unearned. He threw it away. Do you understand the monumental will that requires? To reject an Infinity Stone not out of fear, but out of aesthetic displeasure?

KOPELLI

Others have mentioned the Galactus incident.

STRANGE

(A dry chuckle)

Ah, yes. The Devourer of Worlds, seeking a new Herald. His probe scanned the Earth. It passed over countless heroes, mutants, mystics… and pinged, loudly, on a man feeding cats in a deconsecrated church. Galactus perceived his null-field not as emptiness, but as… potential. A clean slate. A Herald unburdened by any pre-existing narrative, who could define the role entirely anew. Rollo said no. He said he had prior commitments. To cats. I have spoken with Norrin Radd, the Silver Surfer. He was… perplexed. And faintly amused.

KOPELLI

Is he a threat? Jameson seems to think his normality is a liability.

STRANGE

Jameson sees threats in headlines. I see threats in dimensional ruptures and dying stars. Rollo Cummings is not a threat. He is a… condition. A benign, localized reality tumor. But even benign tumors can cause pressure. The weirdness he attracts is real. The danger is real. But he contains it. He transforms it. A dimensional parasite becomes a pet. A cursed sword becomes a sulky boarder. A time-tossed armadillo gets a permit. He is a one-man, non-magical containment unit.

Strange sighs, a sound of profound professional respect mixed with mild headache.

STRANGE

My greatest concern is not him. It’s what might happen if something ever does penetrate that stubborn normality. If something truly malevolent, something that cannot be reasoned with or given a cup of tea, were to decide his null-field must be corrupted or destroyed. The backlash, the unraveling of all those contained oddities… it could be catastrophic. He has become a keystone in an arch of chaos. Remove him, and the whole strange structure might collapse. That is why I have… arrangements.

KOPELLI

Arrangements?

STRANGE

The Sanctum has a standing protocol. ‘Custodian-C.’ If the Cloister is ever under threat from a mystical or extradimensional source that Rollo cannot handle with a garden hose and stern words, Wong or I are to intervene. Not to save him, necessarily. To save the… ecosystem. He has become a vital part of the Earth’s metaphysical immune system. He gathers the psychic and dimensional allergens so the rest of us don’t have to sneeze.

KOPELLI

You respect him.

STRANGE

I respect a well-cast spell. I respect a deftly negotiated treaty with a demon lord. What I feel for Rollo Cummings is more akin to awe. A bewildered, slightly irritated awe. He achieves with a shrug what I achieve with years of study and immense personal sacrifice. He maintains balance by refusing to acknowledge the scale. It’s humbling. And, as a Sorcerer Supreme sworn to protect this reality, it is also profoundly reassuring.

He looks toward a window, as if he can see through the walls of New York to the spire of the Cloister.

STRANGE

There is a theory in multiversal metaphysics… the ‘Anchored Anomaly’ theory. It posits that every reality needs one. A fixed point that is not fixed by destiny or power, but by sheer, inexplicable persistence. A piece of the cosmic clockwork that is the wrong shape, but without which, the gears would grind to a halt. I believe, in our reality, that piece is Rollo Cummings. He is our wrong-shaped gear. Our anchored anomaly.

Strange stands, signaling the end of the audience. He walks Barbara to the library doors.

STRANGE

Tell your audience this, Miss Kopelli. In a universe of infinite wonders and infinite terrors, the most miraculous thing may not be the power to reshape galaxies, but the will to remain unshaped. To be, persistently, kindly, stubbornly oneself. He is the stone the cosmic river flows around. And in his shadow, the rest of us—the heroes, the villains, the sorcerers—are just… water. He defines us by his refusal to be defined.

As the great doors of the library swing open, Wong is there, holding a tray with two steaming mugs.

WONG

I brought tea. I had a feeling the interview would run long. Discussing the landlord is always… time-consuming.

STRANGE

(Accepting a mug)

Thank you, Wong. We were just concluding.

Wong nods to Barbara, a knowing look in his eyes.

WONG

He is a good man. And he returns the library's books on time. Even the ones that bite. A rare quality.

Barbara steps out into the quieter hall of the Sanctum. Behind her, she hears Strange’s voice, softer now, speaking to Wong.

STRANGE

(Wearily, fondly)

The wards have settled. He’s probably just fed the cats. The universe breathes a sigh of relief… until tomorrow.

The doors close with a soft, final thud, leaving Barbara in the silent, mystical hallway, the words of the Sorcerer Supreme hanging in the air—a spell of understanding cast not upon the cosmos, but upon one magnificently, defiantly ordinary man.

[SCENE END]

[SCENE START]

INT. GRACIE MANSION - MAYOR'S STUDY - DAY

The study is a blend of old New York grandeur and modern, no-nonsense utility. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves hold a mix of leather-bound classics and thick three-ring binders labeled with terms like "Damage Control Budget" and "Extradimensional Zoning." The large oak desk is meticulously organized, a stark contrast to the vibrant, colorful abstract painting hanging behind it—a gift, a plaque reads, from the "Children of the Savage Land."

Seated behind the desk is ZOHRAN MAZURAN, the current mayor. He's in his early forties, with sharp eyes and an expression of focused intelligence that seems to absorb everything in the room. He wears a simple, well-cut suit, no tie. To his right, on a sleek leather sofa, sits LUKE CAGE. He is is massive, a mountain of quiet strength in a simple yellow t-shirt and jeans. His presence is calm, grounded, like the bedrock of the city itself. To the mayor's left, in a high-backed wing chair, is WILSON FISK. The Kingpin is even larger than Cage, a carefully tailored suit straining to contain his formidable bulk. He holds a crystal tumbler of amber liquid, his expression one of polished, patient authority.

BARBARA KOPELLI sits in a chair facing them all, her recorder on the coffee table between them. The dynamic in the room is palpable: the progressive incumbent, the people's champion, and the reformed (or so he claims) power broker.

KOPELLI

Mayor Mazuran, Mr. Cage, Mr. Fisk. Thank you for agreeing to this joint interview. The topic, as you know, is the impact of a single, unique civilian on New York City: Rollo Cummings.

MAZURAN

(Leaning forward, hands steepled)

A fascinating, and frankly, a critical municipal issue. Rollo Cummings isn't just a resident; he's a one-man, unfunded, unmandated city department. The Department of Coincidence Management. We don't have a line item for it, but we should.

LUKE CAGE

(A deep, resonant chuckle)

Man runs a shelter. Takes in what nobody else wants. Sounds familiar. Harlem's full of folks like that. Difference is, his strays sometimes have tentacles or sing opera.

WILSON FISK

(Sipping his drink, his voice a smooth, cultured rumble)

He is a nexus. Unregulated commerce—emotional, temporal, sometimes literal—flows through him. In my… previous line of work, such a nexus would be either controlled, partnered with, or removed. He is remarkably resistant to all three.

KOPELLI

Mayor Mazuran, from a governance perspective, what is the actual impact?

MAZURAN

Where to start? Let's take hard numbers. Since the Cloister became operational, calls to 911 regarding "paranormal activity" or "unexplained phenomena" in a six-block radius have dropped seventy percent. Conversely, calls regarding "noisy animals," "disputes with wildlife over property lines," and "unauthorized aerial deliveries by non-standard aircraft" have increased three hundred percent. He hasn't reduced weirdness; he's localized it. He's turned a city-wide dispersal problem into a single, manageable… albeit very strange… precinct.

He taps a tablet, bringing up a map on a wall screen. A bright, pulsating dot marks the Cloister.

MAZURAN

See this? Our "Cummings Index." We track reality fluctuation, borrowed from S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols. When it spikes, we know to reroute traffic, send a quiet sanitation crew for any ectoplasmic residue, and warn the local schools that their field trips might encounter a talking squirrel. It's become part of our disaster preparedness. Not for aliens or monsters. For… narrative spillover.

LUKE CAGE

He helps people. Directly. You know he's got a deal with like, half the community centers in the boroughs? Kid acting out,, seems disconnected, maybe has a… vibe? They send 'em to the Cloister to volunteer. Not as therapy. As work. Rollo puts 'em to cleaning cages, walking dogs, talking to a lonely ghost about baseball. Doesn't matter if the kid's mutant, inhuman, or just plain angry. He treats 'em the same. Gives 'em a job. Responsibility. I've sent him folks from Hells Kitchen. Best rehabilitation program nobody's ever funded.

FISK

(A slow nod)

An efficient, if eccentric, waste management system. He processes the emotional and existential refuse of the super-powered community. The Valkyrie with heartbreak, the tyrant with stress, the mercenary with… whatever it is Deadpool has. He listens. He provides a neutral territory. In my experience, such territories are where the most profitable, and stable, arrangements are made.

KOPELLI

Mr. Fisk, you called him "resistant." Did you ever try to… "partner" with him?

A faint, cold smile touches Fisk's lips.

FISK

In my previous capacity, I observed that many of his… guests… possessed unique skills or assets. A telepathic dog could be a formidable surveillance tool. A depressed spectral entity could dissuade rivals. I made an offer. A generous donation to his shelter, in exchange for a… referral service.

MAZURAN

(An eyebrow raised)

You tried to recruit his strays.

FISK

I attempted to engage in mutually beneficial civic cooperation. Mr. Cummings declined. Politely. He said, and I recall vividly, "Mr. Fisk, they're here to get away from that kind of thing. But I'll tell you what—if you ever feel like getting away from it yourself, the coffee's always on, and Sir Reginald Fluffypants could use a walk." He offered me a leash. For a three-legged terrier.

Luke Cage lets out a booming laugh that shakes the glasses on the sidebar.

LUKE CAGE

He offered the Kingpin of Crime a dog-walking gig! I love it!

FISK

(His smile doesn't reach his eyes)

It was a pointed metaphor. One I chose not to accept. But I also chose not to press the issue. Antagonizing a man who is on speaking terms with Doctor Doom and who once made Sabretooth look foolish with garden supplies is… poor long-term strategy. He exists outside the conventional power structures. That makes him either useless or invaluable. I have concluded he is the latter.

KOPELLI

Mayor, is he a legal problem? Jennifer Walters mentioned zoning.

MAZURAN

(A long, weary sigh)

Zoning is the tip of the iceberg. Is the Cloister a residential building, a house of worship, a veterinary clinic, an interdimensional waystation, or a private museum of arcane artifacts? The answer, legally, is "yes." We've created a new designation: "Civically Acknowledged Anomalous Repository (CAAR)." It has its own building code. Fire regulations that account for dragon sneezes. Plumbing standards for ectoplasmic waste. He worked with Jen Walters to draft it. It's some of the most forward-thinking municipal law on the planet. Tokyo and London are asking for copies.

LUKE CAGE

He makes the system work for him. Just like people in my neighborhood have to, every day. He just does it with more… talking geese.

FISK

His true impact is economic. Unconventional, but significant. That pub on the Latverian border? Its annual revenue from the one-day "Doom vs. Cummings" event sustains the entire village. The bakery that supplies his pies has tripled its business catering to his unusual clientele. Tourists—the very brave, very weird kind—now take "Cummings Crawls," hoping to catch a glimpse of the weirdness. It's a niche tourism sector, but it's growing. He is a small business stimulus package wrapped in corduroy.

MAZURAN

And a diplomatic asset. You know he mediates? When the Atlantean delegation was feuding with the representatives from the Blue Area of the Moon over fishing rights in the Hudson's mystical tributaries, they didn't come to City Hall. They asked for a neutral venue. They met at the Cloister. Over tea and scones. Rollo's only contribution was to suggest they use a bigger teapot and stop being "so territorial about space-herring." They reached an accord. I have the signed treaty in in my office. It smells faintly of lavender and cat.

KOPELLI

So he's a net positive? Despite the chaos?

LUKE CAGE

Chaos is what happens when nobody's steering. Rollo steers. He's like… the super of the universe's weirdest apartment building. The pipes rattle, the neighbors are loud, but he fixes it. He keeps the heat on. For everyone.

FISK

He provides a service. Stability. In the underworld—both the criminal and the literal—stability is the most valuable commodity. He is a neutral ground. A Switzerland for the bizarre. Even in my current… philanthropic endeavors, I find that invaluable. There are elements in this city that even I cannot reason with. But they will listen to him. Because he asks for nothing. Except maybe to return the pie tin.

MAZURAN

The challenge for my administration is scalability. We have one Rollo Cummings. What happens when he's no longer there? We're trying to institutionalize his… methodology. Training crisis negotiators in "non-standard entity de-escalation." Creating a city office for "Intercommunity Weirdness Relations." He's a proof of concept. That a stubborn, kind, ordinary human can be the most effective tool for managing the extraordinary.

KOPELLI

A legacy, then.

MAZURAN

A blueprint. For a New York that doesn't just survive the next alien invasion or wizard war, but integrates it. That sees the sentient pigeon not as a threat, but as a new constituent with garbage-related concerns.

LUKE CAGE

He's a reminder. To guys like me, in the tights, and guys like you, in the suits.

(He nods to Mazuran and Fisk.)

The power ain't in the punches or the policies all the time. Sometimes it's in showing up. With a pie. And knowing how to talk to a goose.

FISK

(Finishing his drink)

He represents a fundamental truth. Power is not merely force or dominion. It is influence. And influence, as I have learned, often flows most freely to those who appear to want it least. He is, perhaps, the most powerful man in New York. Because he is the only one who doesn't know it. And wouldn't care if you told him.

The three men—the mayor, the hero, and the former kingpin—sit in a moment of rare, shared understanding. They are all, in their own ways, stewards of the same impossible city. And in their own ways, they have all come to rely on the man who collects its coincidences.

MAZURAN

So, Barbara, you tell his story. Tell them about the darts and the meringue and the time-travel. But also tell them this: in the municipal ledger of New York City, under "Assets," there is a line item. It doesn't have a dollar amount. It just says: "Cummings, R. Function: Civic Stabilizer." And it might be the most important one we have.

[SCENE END END]

[SCENE START]

INT. THE CLOISTER - MAIN HALL - DAY

The final interview. The camera finds ROLLO CUMMINGS. He’s not at the grand table, but on the floor, in a patch of sunlight streaming through a stained-glass window. He’s surrounded by a semi-circle of animals: the three-legged terrier, Sir Reginald Fluffypants, is asleep on his feet. A one-eyed cat purrs in his lap. A small, lizard-like creature with iridescent scales blinks slowly from a nearby cushion. The gentle chaos of the shelter—barks, meows, the distant sound of Geoffrey the goose holding court—forms a soft soundtrack.

BARBARA KOPELLI sits on a low stool opposite him. Her usual professional demeanor is softened. She looks at him not as a subject, but as a man she’s come to know through a hundred other eyes.

KOPELLI

So. Here we are.

ROLLO

(Gently scratching the cat behind its its ear)

Here we are. Sun’s out. Everyone’s fed. For now. It’s a good day.

KOPELLI

I’ve shown you the footage. The interviews. Everyone has a theory. A story. A piece of you.

Rollo nods, his gaze thoughtful. He doesn’t look at the camera; he looks at the cat, at the sunlight, at the peaceful chaos of his home.

ROLLO

They had a lot to say.

KOPELLI

They did. The “weirdness magnet.” The “fixed point of chaos.” The “null point.” The “grounding wire.” The “civic stabilizer.” The “landlord.” The “anchor.” The “equation that won’t balance.” The man who “domesticates chaos.” The “most powerful man in New York because he doesn’t know it.”

A small, wry smile touches his lips.

ROLLO

Sounds exhausting. I’m just a guy with a leaky roof and too many mouths to feed.

KOPELLI

Are you? After everything you’ve seen, everything that’s happened to you… after hearing how they see you?

Rollo is quiet for a long moment. He looks up, meeting Barbara’s eyes. His are kind, smart, and hold a depth of weathered calm.

ROLLO

My parents… June and Marvin… they taught me the world was a fixer-upper. That strange wasn’t scary, it was just a design you hadn’t figured out yet. A broken radio, a judo throw, a soufflé that briefly defied physics—it was all the same principle. Pay attention. Be kind to the pieces. Try to see how they fit.

He gestures around the hall.

ROLLO

This is that. On a bigger scale. I didn’t set out to be a “nexus” or a “focal point.” I set out to give some stray animals a warm place to sleep. The weirdness… it just showed up. Like a lost dog with too many eyes. What was I supposed to do? Slam the door? It was scared. It was lonely. It was, usually, just trying to get home.

KOPELLI

Even the dangerous ones? Sabretooth? The Red Ghost?

ROLLO

(His expression hardens, just slightly)

Victor Creed isn’t a lost dog. He’s a predator. But even a predator can be confused by a garden hose if you’re not playing his game. You take away the fear, you take away the fun. He doesn’t hate me because I beat him. He hates me because I made it boring. And Ivan Kragoff… he saw people as tools. You don’t reason with a man like that. You just… stop him. However you can. A punch was what I had.

KOPELLI

And the others? The gods, the tyrants, the sorcerers?

The wry smile returns.

ROLLO

They’re just… people. With bigger problems and fancier hats. Thor likes to talk about his hammer. Doom needs to win at something that doesn’t matter. Stephen Strange has the weight of reality on his shoulders and needs someone who won’t ask him about it. Morgan… Morgan needed a vacation from being a legend. They all need a place where they’re not the title. Just the person. I provide the space. And the tea. The tea is important.

KOPELLI

You make it sound so simple.

ROLLO

It is simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. You show up. You listen. You help if you can. You don’t get impressed by the costume. You remember that the guy in the iron suit might be hiding a broken heart, and the talking raccoon is probably homesick. You fix the leaky faucet. You feed the cats. You play darts with the dictator. You send a card to the guy who tried to kill you. Because why not?

KOPELLI

The Infinity Stone. Galactus. You turned down cosmic power.

ROLLO

(Scoffs gently)

Power’s a job. A really loud, stressful job with terrible hours. I’ve got a job. The Stone… it was cheating. It made everything easy. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the point? The struggle is the story. The fixing is the living. I don’t want to surf the cosmos. I want to know if the new antibiotic works on the Fluvian space-hound’s ear infection.

KOPELLI

After hearing all their stories… the fear, the admiration, the hatred, the love… what do you think your life means?

Rollo leans back against the leg of a heavy wooden bench. The one-eyed cat stretches in his lap. He considers the question, his gaze drifting over his kingdom of misfits.

ROLLO

I think… we all collect something. Stamps, regrets, trophies, stories. I collect coincidences. Strange moments. Lost things. I don’t go looking for them. They find me. And my job—my choice—is to give them a place to land. To be a soft spot in a hard universe.

He looks directly into the camera now, his voice firm, gentle, and utterly convinced.

ROLLO

They can call it a magnet, a null point, a paradox. They can write reports and build protocols and have theories. That’s their job. My job is here. It’s this. It’s making sure the scared thing has a blanket. The angry thing has a listener. The lost thing has a signpost. It’s not heroic. It’s… hospitality. And in a world that’s always fighting, always grand, always destined… maybe a little stubborn, ordinary hospitality is the weirdest, most powerful thing of all.

He stands up, carefully displacing the cat, who gives a grumpy mrrp. He offers a hand to help Barbara up.

ROLLO

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to check on the Argent Mace. It’s trying to do the crossword, and it gets frustrated with the seven-letter words. Throws a tantrum. Last time, it summoned a minor imp to cheat. Made a mess.

Barbara stands, a slow, understanding smile spreading across her face. She looks at this man, in his corduroys and worn sweater, surrounded by the evidence of a life spent catching the universe’s strays.

KOPELLI

One last question. The documentary… what should we call it? They suggested “The Unremarkable Extraordinary.”

Rollo shakes his head, walking towards the kitchen, the animals trailing after him like a fuzzy, bizarre honor guard.

ROLLO

Too flashy. Call it… “The Man Who Fed the Cats.” It’s accurate. And it’s the only part that really matters.

He disappears into the kitchen. The camera holds on the empty patch of sunlight, now occupied only by the one-eyed cat, who licks a paw with supreme indifference. The sounds of the Cloister—life, strange and simple—continue.

[SCENE END]

[FINAL TEXT SCROLL]

Rollo Cummings continues to run The Cloister Animal Sanctuary.

He still plays darts with Doctor Doom once a year. Doom has still not won.

He still has tea with Wong and Edwin Jarvis on the third Tuesday of every month.

The sentient geese successfully negotiated their asylum with the talking fox.

Geoffrey sends rude postcards.

Mrs. Banquo’s begonias are thriving.

The Super-Apes are sponsoring a new wildlife preserve in the Savage Land.

Agent Vallerie Bertrand continues to administer the “Cummings Detail.” She got a new mug.

Jasleen Sainai landed a role in an off-Broadway musical.

The Teacup has not wept again.

And every day, the weirdness finds him. And every day, he meets it with a sigh, a kind word, and the profound, stubborn conviction that even the universe needs a place to call home.

THE END

Disclaimer: I am not making any money off of this story.  It is written purely for fun.