The Idea of a Hero Organization

The robbery at the Stark Group had caused a stir around the world.

News outlets ran story after story, and television channels replayed the footage without end. Then Tony Stark admitted at a press conference that he was Iron Man, pouring fuel on an already raging fire.

Ryan sat on his sofa, remote in hand, flipping from channel to channel.

Every station was talking about superheroes. People from all walks of life weighed in, and most of them offered praise and support.

Ryan knew why. After the war, people desperately needed heroes to soothe their fears. Annie and Stark's actions had come at exactly the right time.

Governments also hoped superheroes could steady the public and calm the situation. They added their weight to an already heated topic. Ryan did not even need to push it along: Annie and Stark were drawing more attention than anyone else, nearly as much as Captain America had during World War II.

The United States had spent seventy years promoting Captain America's deeds. Even if this wave of attention proved temporary, it showed how highly ordinary people regarded the two of them.

But that attention was both an advantage and a danger.

They had been lifted into the spotlight overnight. They had no time to build a lasting reputation and not enough heroic deeds to prove themselves. If someone set out to smear them, they could fall just as quickly.

Words could kill. Having once run the Haulers Group, the biggest force in the cultural sphere, Ryan knew that better than anyone.

A person could shrug off criticism from one, ten, or even a hundred people. But when thousands, tens of thousands, or the whole world turned against them, only someone with the unshakable resolve of a saint could endure it. Anyone else might