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Seto Kaiba had always known that he was different, even before his and Mokuba’s parents had died. From the day he was born, Seto could hear electricity flowing through wires, and could ‘talk’ to every electrical item in the house. His parents had never understood, they just thought that he had imaginary friends, but Seto
knew
. He knew that it wasn’t his imagination, he’d known since he was four, when he’d taken apart the TV and put it back together, better than before.
He was what was now being called a ‘Technopath’, someone who could communicate with all technology. Even worse, he was the only one in the world. There had been others, but SHIELD (and HYDRA) had hunted down all of them and killed them all. They were considered too dangerous to be left alive, there was nothing on any network that could be hidden from a technopath indefinitely. Both organisations were all about secrecy and hidden agendas, neither one could risk people who were able to blow the whistle on them. He’d kept his abilities very quiet, studying every subject he needed to explain away his rapport with technology as learned skills.
The only person he confided in was Mokuba, his younger brother was the only person he could trust to keep his abilities a secret. Even when the Avengers made their debut, Seto kept quiet; SHIELD was still a problem andthey, had control of the only well known superhero team. And he still held his tongue when SHIELD fell, the news was full of HYDRA still being around while the skies were full of Iron Man and his Iron Legion trying to save every burned SHIELD agent that he could. Seto contacted the other billionaire’s AI to offer his own help. It was gratefully received and Kaiba Corp’s IT department were put onto trying to secure the SHIELD files and sensitive data onto UN provided servers. He avoided being at his company for a while, the amount of data and electronic information flooding through the building gave him an immediate and near constant migraine.
He’d flown to New York a few times where he’d met with Miss Potts rather than Dr Stark, the older man being far too busy to spend longer than a couple of hours in New York, and those hours were spent sleeping or quickly scarfing down a meal. Seto found that he rather like Stark Industries’ CEO, she was a wealth of good common sense and he rather hoped that they would be able to work together in the future. JARVIS was another being that he encountered while he was there. The AI had quickly realised Seto’s abilities but had agreed not to say anything as the secret did not endanger his creator or SI’s secrets. Seto found that JARVIS intrigued him and he rather liked the idea of an electronic being who he could interact with and not be seen as insane. JARVIS agreed to ask Dr Stark to send over his notes on AI creation.
Seto was waiting for the elevator that would take him up to Miss Potts’ office for a meeting with her and Dr Stark about a collaboration between SI and KC when he met some of the Avengers. FRIDAY had alerted him to Miss Potts running late from another meeting, outside of SI headquarters but that he was to wait in her office and Dr Stark would meet him there. A throat cleared behind him and he turned to see Steve Rogers stood behind him with a stern look, flanked by his two lackeys from the SHIELD data dump.
“Who are you and what are you doing here? I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask you to leave to ensure the safety of the Avengers. This is Avengers Tower after all.” The tall blond said, trying to loom over Seto (despite the fact that they were the same height) while his lackeys attempted to look menacing. Seto quirked an eyebrow.
“And yet, Stark Industries operates from this premises. As it happens, I have a meeting with Miss Potts and Dr Stark about a business matter.” He replied. If possible, Rogers attempted to look even more stern.
“What business?” He asked, his lower lip jutting out, making him appear like a petulant child.
“That is none of your concern.” Seto had never given into bullies, and that was all Rogers and his little band were. He’d heard from Miss Potts about how they treated Dr Stark, like he was dirt on the bottom of their shoes, while he simply took their abuse. They lived off his money and generosity, all the while demanding more and more from him. He could work himself to death to meet their demands and they would still not be happy or respect him. They beat him down simply for having designed weapons in the past, as if being a legal weapons designer was worse than being a lab experiment, an assassin or a HYDRA operative.
“I must insist, it’s for the safety of everyone. Keeping secrets is what led to SHIELD being infected by HYDRA.” Rogers was looking disapproving now while Romanoff seemed smug. Seto had little doubt that she recognised him, SHIELD had tried to put moles in his company after all. Most of them hadn’t made it more than 5 feet in the door but they’d still tried. Romanoff had been one of them and she had gotten further in than the others. She’d tried to seduce him which was her mistake, that was how she’d been caught before she’d gotten any information for SHIELD.
“Considering it’s not
Avengers
business, I
have to insist that I remain silent. It’s bad business practice to speak of potentially lucrative business in an area that anyone can walk in off the street to. That’s just inviting corporate espionage, isn’t that right Ms Romanoff, or is it still ‘Natsuko Rokuda’? I doubt it, the Japanese name will stand out as obviously fake with how you currently look.” Seto couldn’t help himself, he
had
to rub it in that she had failed and been made by her mark. Rogers looked angry, as did Romanoff while the other one looked confused. But before any of them could speak, Miss Potts’ voice from behind them stopped any sort of response.
“Ah, Mr Kaiba. I apologise for being late, but you know how business meetings can be. I had expected you to be in my office already.” She smiled, shaking his hand firmly.
“I was accosted before I could make my way up.” Seto replied with his own answering smile.
Miss Potts turned on Rogers and his companions with a level glare.
“I do hope that the three of you will desist in trying to interfere with SI business again, I would have to pursue legal action if you caused any financial hardships.” She said cooly. Rogers was trying to pull his ‘aw shucks’ routine but both Seto and Miss Potts ignored him in favor of heading to her office.
From then on, there was always one of the Avengers hanging around in public areas whenever Seto visited New York. It seemed they were concerned with the idea that Seto would speak out against them, despite his reluctance to do so. Several times, he found the words to denounce them on the tip of his tongue, but he always stopped himself with the remembrance of how much Tony cared about them, Wanda Maximoff notwithstanding. The closest he came was telling Tony that it wasn’t illegal for him to take a break from Avengers stuff, allowing concern for his friend (and when had
that
happened?) to colour his tone. Tony always smiled sadly and told the younger man that he had a lot to make up for, and this was his way of paying for his past as a weapons designer. After a while, Seto had to leave it, clearly he wasn’t going to change Tony’s mind.
Seto impatiently waited for the lines of code on the screen in front of him to finish loading. This day had been a long time coming, but he was nearly ready to welcome his first AI into being. After the events of the Ultron crisis, Tony had wanted to pull out of having anything to do with creating another AI, reasoning that he’d created Ultron. But Seto had soon set him straight:
“Tony, you
do
realise that nobody outside of the US believes you to be responsible for Ultron’s creation, right? Not even Sokovia thinks that, despite what that little witch would have everyone believe.” Seto sighed, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Tony stared at him, wide eyed.
“But I originally made the AI that Ultron hacked…” Tony said quietly and Seto sighed.
“Ok, let’s put it another way. Say one of the latest Duel disk upgrades that I’m working on is hacked by an outside source and programmed to trap people in the games while killing them. This was only able to happen because someone else managed to manipulate me into letting the outside source within my firewalls. I took every precaution possible to ensure that the upgrades would be safe but the hacking still happened. Who’s to blame?” Seto asked and Tony looked pensive.
“The person that manipulated you and the outside source.” The older man replied and Seto let a smile grace his face.
“The same situation applies here, Maximoff manipulated you into bringing the Mind Gem into the tower and it hacked your technology. You have so many protocols and safeguards to try and stop that from happening but in the end the Gem was able to get past them because it was something that you'd never experienced before. It’s not on you. Anyone that says it is is an idiot!” Seto said fiercely. Tony didn’t have an argument for that.
After that conversation, Tony continued to give Seto his help with programming his own AI, although he still had depressive bouts, normally occurring whenever one of the Avengers poked their heads into the lab to ‘check in’ (but Seto knw that it was really to watch them and try to intimidate the pair of them into stopping). Seto was just glad that he’d managed to contact Shadi for help protecting his mind from Maximoff, despite the smug attitude of the spirit. She’d tried to break into his mind several times, throwing violent tantrums whenever she was unable to. She’d even gotten Rogers to try and bully Seto into giving up his protection although throwing Pegasus under the bus and blaming his brief spell being trapped in the Shadow Realm for the protection being there in the first place stopped that attempt. Even Rogers had to concede that having some form of protection to stop that happening again was wise and that the fact that it blocked Maximoff’s powers from affecting him was “an unfortunate side effect” in Seto's words. He tried not to be too smug at having beaten Rogers at his own game.
But now, after months of hard work, his AI was about to come online. He’d spent time carefully crafting her holographic form and couldn’t wait to finally meet her. The code finished loading and he eagerly watched as the tall and slim figure of a woman materialised, her white hair and blue eyes shimmering in the ‘light’. Everything about her was perfect, even the faint green lines of code running across her pale skin where it was visible from under the simple cream shift she was wearing.
“
Hello sir, what would you like me to do?
” She said and he couldn’t help the grin spreading across his face. He could
feel
her, and it was
glorious
!
“Hello Kisara.” He replied and she smiled at her name. “Let’s begin shall we?” And thus he began to long process of teaching her how to be her own sentient being.