“Yeah, because you’re a jealous, greedy, anti-social, and paranoid idiot who would never do it himself. You’d rather see it all lost forever rather than anyone else profit from it, so I took the steps to make that Not Happen,” Dynamo replied without an ounce of shame. “Mr. Hill clears it through Dynamic Engineering and watches the money. I just analyze the stuff and patent it.

“It turns out your stuff is just as easy to identify as Stark’s, once you know the markers, so I was pulling shit out of confiscated gear from Powered and what-not in every direction. SHIELD lets me file the patents and sell the tech in return for having full access to said patents for their own use, since they can’t understand most of it, anyway.”

“But, but-!” he protested, clenching his fists. SHIELD had access to his tech?! He wanted to throw up at the very idea.

“But what? All that stuff is at least two years behind anything you use, and by the age of some of the stuff I’ve looked at, ten or more. We’re still selling conduit lock designs you made up twelve years ago, eesh! Although I admit the design is good, you really should go back and look at them with new materials. Uh, there’s like fifteen consumer electronic firms that really like them, however. They’re pretty cheap and easy to make for household stuff, although they don’t work for anything miniaturized.”

Dynamo wasn’t asking for forgiveness, that was plain. Having a feeling he was going to ram into a steel plate trying to face her down, he looked at Mr. Hill. “The money?” he finally asked.

“It’s in the Fixit Fund.” His words were punctuated by a loud snore from the Juggernaut, still sleeping on the other side of the room. Everyone ignored him. “We took the earnings, paid the taxes, deducted a management fee for ourselves, and stuck the rest in a fund for you, when you finally got your head out of your ass.”

“He’s got arrest warrants in forty-two countries. You sure we want to do this?” Dynamo asked aloud, and Fixer felt a perverse pride and concern together, which confused him.

“It’s his money. Whether he can spend it is his problem. We can’t just give it to him or it’ll be confiscated, and if he washes it again, he’s gonna lose half to two-thirds of it. There’s ways to shuffle some expensive stuff around and have him steal it if he wants to, but that’s a lot of value to ship somewhere and leave lying around...”

The Fixer’s bulging eyes were staring at the nine-figure Fund in front of him in disbelief after it and the list of holdings came up on the holo. “What?” he managed to blurt out despite himself, gaping at it.

“We’ve kept it decently invested. You’re a partial shareholder in our reconstruction and E-Metal endeavors, too, although we’ve not gone public yet, so the value is approximated according to due conservative estimates,” Mr. Hill stated gravely, his face so dire the most risk-averse of bankers would have been impressed.

“You can probably tack on another twenty million,” Dynamo hinted dismissively, “but, conservative estimate. Not really trying to go public.”

He pointed at it repeatedly despite himself. “From MY patents?” he had to ask.

“Your older stuff is, unlike Reed Richards’ stuff, more suitable for practical engineering. It works out to be a year or two ahead of the research curve here in the States. I have to admit you’ve a knack for practical application tech that Richards lacks, and Stark tends to overlook... except he’s your single biggest licensee for his consumer electronics and home products division, so there’s that,” Dynamo informed him.

Ebersol stared at the nine digits again in shock despite himself. He’d never had a problem making money, as there were always people scrambling for tech, and he’d done plenty of jobs for above-the-board companies if the pay was good and the stuff was interesting enough.

But there was money, and then there was THIS.

“So, what if I want to take it all?” he asked, pointing at it again.

Mr. Hill just shrugged. “I can liquidate eighty percent of the stuff within a week, I reckon, and the rest within a month ta three months. However, that is not small potatoes. It is clean money in the system, and it will be tracked,” he warned Ebersol grimly.

“If you want to try your standard washing and purging tricks through the system using the twenty-three accounts of yours we know of,” said accounts, with the correct names, numbers, and banks attached, popped up on the screen in front of him at Dynamo’s handwave, making Ebersol nearly jump out of his skin, “we estimate you’re going to lose at least forty percent right off the top. Then the governments tracking where it’s going are going to find some of it, and they’re going to grab up to half of the rest.”

Something in Norbert’s face twitched. He wasn’t a slave to money, but they were right: it was a LOT of money to try to move and make disappear in the system. “What... what was the gross?” he had to ask.

Mr. Hill just grunted, and the display switched to a display of incoming revenues from various sources, rolling and adding up over time as they kept going up and up and up.

Norbert realized he was one of the wealthiest inventors in the United States. He didn’t know whether to be shocked, overjoyed, dismayed, or just not believe it.

The one had turned to a two, followed by eight other numbers. He compared the two, figured the income taxes, and realized they’d only charged him ten percent or so. As management funds for supervillain bankrolls went, it was bloody cheap, and since without them the balance would have been exactly zero, double cheap!

“So, I can do whatever I want with it.” He still couldn’t believe it. It was better than the lottery, because the money was still coming in!

“I don’t fuck around with money.” The words were so grim and hard Ebersol almost shat himself at the reverb in Mr. Hill’s voice. He held up his hands to placate Mr. Hill instantly. The glowering gaze nailed him for another heavy breath or two, then lifted with a grunt. “What the fuck ever. It’s your money, Ebersol. Get it outta my damn sight, I don’t give a shit.”

Norbert suddenly had the feeling he was missing the opportunity of a bloody lifetime. Over one hundred million dollars of investable, clean assets were sitting right in front of him!

Hells, he didn’t need to take a job for the rest of his life if he didn’t want to. He could retire, buy his own island and a harem, and live like a king for decades if he desired.

That sounded terminally boring and he was sure he’d shoot himself within a month if he tried it, but he could do it!

“Well, what would you recommend I do with it, Mr. Hill?” he asked cautiously, surprising even himself. “You seem to have more experience in this area than I do,” he admitted, somewhat reluctantly, but working commodities and options was a time suck he had better things to do with, and the rest of finance was too boring and slow most of the time.

Dynamo left to get them something to drink at a wave of Hill’s hand. His authority over her impressed Norbert despite himself. There wasn’t the slightest resistance to what was effectively a dismissal.

The looming brute didn’t look like an intellectual at all, but he felt like a force of nature, and Norbert couldn’t help but respect that.

“Schmot Guy.” The two words came out with wary respect and bitter scorn as the gray eyes fixed on him. “Get this straight, Ebersol. I’ve run inta every single Schmot Guy of rep on the planet by now. I’ve worked for everyone from Mechanar to that crank Doom the FF hate so much. You all got a better way, yer all smarter than all the rest, you all know more, better, an’ faster.

“Most of you are clawing after money like everyone else, living in shitty locations surrounded by fancy tech you don’t really use, always ready ta run if the law finds you, or someone you screwed comes looking for you, or someone else looking ta recruit you for something arrives, or someone else just wants ta shut you up for something you done for ‘em.

“You bury yourself in your goddamn tech ‘cause without it, you got nothing. Yer peers want ta stomp you or bury you, so you got no friends; you can’t trust yer lovers, and you’d rather have sex with a doll than a woman, anyway.”

Norbert tried really hard not to blush. He did have a sex doll in Dynamo’s colors...

A very long arm reached across the table and plonked him on the head with a stony finger. “You got the brain, boy. Come clean. Get out of your holes, walk in the sun. You can do it, yer smart enough.

“I know you got problems with your morals, most of you Schmot Guys do. You want to make stuff and build stuff that’s exciting, and damn what all else people say about it or what it’s used for. I unnerstand that.” His fingers clenched, and his knuckles cracked loudly enough to make Norbert flinch. “I feel the same about my fists.”

The Fixer got the weirdest look on his face as he considered that. His love for tech was like... love for smashing things, breaking things with fists?

Well, if he considered monomolecular edges, energy beams, and all manner of explosives, which were the most exciting things he got to play with, he supposed it really wasn’t all that different, especially the amount of property damage he could do.

“Yer problem is yer on SHIELD’s blacklist, which can be kind of limiting. Lucky, they don’t have automatic arrest authority here in the States, so guess what? They don’t matter unless you set foot outside the States.

“So what you need ta do is clear your record here in the States, and operate above the board so you can enjoy being rich, and you can REALLY start bringing it as a Schmot Guy.

“You got two ways ta do that. One is ta buy back your skin, an’ the other is ta leave this Fixer shit ta working out of country, an’ make yourself a new identity.

“Keep going the way you are, you’re gonna end up run over by a Schmot Guy more ruthless than you, or you’re gonna have ta go big, which I can tell you got no patience fer.” Mr. Hill sat back, folded his huge arms, and stared at Norbert as Dynamo returned with a bottle for him, and a tall glass of something for Norbert.

He sipped at it cautiously, despite himself, and his eyes lit up. “Whoa! This is like fifty-year scotch and Energize Me together!” he blurted out.

“You want a cigar?” she asked knowingly, and he blinked at her.

“Yeah... yeah, actually I do!” he said, looking at the numbers on the holoscreen again.

Mr. Hill grunted, opened his coat, and pulled out a cigar case. He took out one of the extra-long and extra thick cigars, pinched it in half, and handed it over calmly. Norbert took it, and, a little wide-eyed, puffed on it as Mr. Hill lit it with a match he struck off his own chin.

“This is a good cigar,” Ebersol muttered, shocked again as he pulled it out and stared at it.

“Girl soaks it in something,” Mr. Hill said, waving casually at Dynamo as he thumb-popped the cap on his Dealer’s Best. “Advice on where ta put yer money,” Mr. Hill muttered, thinking. “Shit, boy, you are yer own best investment, I know that about Schmot Guys. You should get yourself a decent lab, hire some engineers, and start designing production tech. I can see that would bore you all ta shit, but you’d have ten digits inside five years, I reckon.”

“Might beat Dillon to it,” Dynamo agreed, also kicked back with a bottle of something fruity in her hand. “If we could get a production system for that microwave accumulator of Jenkins going, that’s like making gold, too.”

“Dillon? Jenkins?!” He could barely believe it. He knew Electro was working with Hill making room-temperature superconductors and making a mint at it, but the Beetle?!

“Making E-metals is just a seed enterprise,” Mr. Hill grunted, now puffing on the other half of the cigar contentedly. “We sold a slew of the stuff ta the aliens on that ship, and got some alien tech in exchange.” Fixer’s eyes lit up, and Mr. Hill caught it. “Schmot Guys,” he muttered without force. “The real money is in superconducting transistor chips and designs thereof.” He solemnly pointed at Dynamo with his cigar. “Guess who just got done traipsing over alien ships and getting design schematics on computers twenny, thirty generations ahead of ours?”

Ebersol almost choked on his drink. The Tribal stuff was already a couple decades ahead of anything in the States, and look what it could do. If they could make stuff a generation or two past that... Hells, even AT the Tribal level would be awesome...