Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the sole property of their creators and associated companies. I make no profit off of this whatsoever and have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write fanfic because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I would greatly appreciate it if no legal action were take against me because I can promise what would be taken from me would not cover even a tenth of the legal fees.

One Month Later, Robin's Island, The House of Alexander Kent, Late Afternoon

Xander's POV

Two days, five hours, thirty-two minutes, he thought as he wrote it down on an often used pad of paper. Not bad. After a month of practice and God knows how many environmentally friendly plastic cups.

It'd been the day after Fury had left him to his own devices that he'd started training his hands to be able to grasp something without crushing it instantly. Whoever Fury had hired to stock the place had filled the cabinets with glasses, mugs and a few cheap plastic cups, so obviously that person hadn't been aware of his abilities. It'd been with that in mind that he'd carefully used each cup doing his best to make sure that he didn't crush it.

The cups had lasted about a week. That'd meant getting a drink was rather difficult.

So he'd hopped onto the boat of the same person who'd taken him and Fury to the island, an 'understanding' had been reached for regular trips, and gone to town. There he'd managed, with an obscene level of caution, to purchase an entire garbage bag full of cheap plastic cups with some money he'd found on a table in the house. It'd been dicey and one of the dollar bills had wound up slightly torn but, other than that, his trip had been without incident so he didn't have to worry about blowing his cover. Since that day he'd had to make three more trips but it looked like he was finally beginning to see results since his latest cup had managed to last over two days before he'd crushed it. Going over what'd happened in his head, his best guess was that he'd been distracted by what he'd seen on television and it'd affected his control.

The television was voice controlled as well as by remote control and, while it'd taken a couple of tries, he'd gotten enough of the basic commands down pat to use it. He'd been relieved to find out that the majority of the shows, movies and people he'd used to watch in VR world existed out in the real world as well. That touch of familiarity, of home, had done wonders for making him feel comfortable in his new place but it hadn't been all familiar things on the television. For one thing there was a subject making the news on a fairly regular basis and the media was treating it with some pretty extreme sensationalism.

Mutants.

According to some of the more professional news people, mutants were people who had something called the x gene in their DNA and it gave them superhuman abilities. Super strength, super speed, telepathy, energy blasts and control of the elements were just a few of the abilities he'd heard spoken of on the television. For the most part the TV shows and news broadcasts focused on the destruction, death and injuries caused by mutants who went on a rampage in a populated area. It seemed like the general consensus that they were lawless individuals that were a threat to normal people everywhere. A few news people tried to present a more objective point of view, portraying mutants as people who suddenly found themselves with powers they couldn't control, and that at their core were as human as everyone else. Unfortunately for every one objective story that saw airtime, there were twenty that hyped up the fear and destruction angle in order to get better ratings. After sifting through the bullshit and the sensationalism, it was his opinion that mutants were a lot like Buffy was with her Slayer Calling: They were people that got powers dumped in their lap that they had never asked for and a stigma that they couldn't escape.

The ones that made the news were likely the ones that, like him, couldn't control their powers thus leading to a lot of property damage, as well misassumptions or those that thought their powers put them beyond and above ordinary people. Problem was that when people were afraid they tended not to care about the story from the point of view of the thing they were scared of but instead wanted the thing dealt with. Naturally the media used mutants as a way to boost their ratings or up their readership but he blamed that on the people in charge rather than those just looking to make a living. After all there wasn't much you could do to get the truth out when your boss was threatening to not only fire you but also blacklist you from the news industry for life. The ones who managed to get the truth out, even though it cost them their careers, were the true reporters, heroes, who valued the rights of the people over themselves.

There were still a few stories about the Avengers every once in a while but those news stories were more focused on debates on the concept of superheroes than on the individual members of the team. Personally he didn't mind since it meant in a few more months the people would forget about the Avengers individually and only remember them in a general sense. Sure, he was the least mentioned member of the team during the initial storm following the invasion but he'd still gotten into some pictures and video clips. Fortunately most of those were blurred or of such low quality that aside from a basic description the people of the world had nothing else to go on. Some might think that somehow a little too much of Nick Fury's spy guy paranoia had rubbed off on him but he thought it was justified to make sure the public completely forgot about him before he stopped keeping both eyes peeled.

On the plus side, being cooped up on the island had given him plenty of training time for his powers and, while not crushing cups was a part of that training, there were other things he worked on. For one thing he had to practice keeping his movement speed within human norms or else he'd be pulling doors off hinges and people's arms out of their sockets. The way he'd practiced was by tying some metal cable to a branch on one of the trees outside and then practice pulling on the cable. If he wound up pulling the branch off, he'd failed, but if he managed to pull and just made the metal rope taut, then he'd succeeded. He made sure not to choose branches that looked like they'd come off easily but he stayed away from those that looked like it'd take a pickup truck to pull them off. He needed to come as close to a human arm as he could with the branches he chose so that he could ensure that his training didn't go to waste.

In this exercise he was managing nine successful pulls out of twenty so he was still a ways away from being safe to pull on doors or pull people to their feet.

I'm lucky that the doors had an auto-open option included in the house's voice command stuff, he thought as he got up to get another glass as well as something to clean the Pepsi off the floor. It'd be a bit of a pain to try to reattach all of them myself.

Not that he got cold or anything anymore.

He could still feel whether something was hot or cold but he no longer thought it was possible for him to catch a cold from a draft or start sweating with the temperature got above thirty Celsius like normal people. He'd tested the theory by putting his hand into a roaring fire but, aside from a comfortable sensation of heat, he hadn't felt bothered at all by it. It left his mind boggling when he tried to imagine just how hot or just how cold an environment he'd have to enter in order to feel temperatures like he used to.

Or, rather, how he'd felt temperatures in either Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D's VR world.

Even over a month after he'd been brought into the 'real world', he couldn't quite make himself understand that all that he'd ever known was make believe. After all, it wasn't out of the question for some spell or demonic ability to somehow trick him into believing that Fury and everything else was 'real'. When you got right down to it, a person's sense of reality was determined by what your mind and your senses told you was real all of which could be manipulated somehow. Was some demon or mage putting the mental whammy on him? As much as a part of him would like to think so, he didn't see the point in stuffing him into a fictional world like this one and making him a hero in training. Plus, as much as he might like to think otherwise, he knew he wasn't a big enough member of the Scoobies to warrant something this thorough. Sure, he was a friend of some powerful people but, unless his mind was coming up with most of this, something he doubted, it'd take some serious planning to conceive a world with this much detail then submerge his mind in it.

So until he was told otherwise or he found evidence to support the idea, he'd believe that THIS was the real world that he'd be living in for the rest of his life.

He was just reaching for another cup when a sound he had not heard before reached his ears and this made him pause because it didn't sound like any boat motor he'd ever heard before. Deciding investigating this anomaly was far more interesting than resuming his training, he moved out of the kitchen and a minute later entered the open air outside of his house. It didn't take him long to find the source of the sound but the sight he saw made him wonder if Nick Fury hadn't underestimated his former employers a bit.

Descending from the sky with a small cargo container hanging beneath it was the civilian version of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook.

He was almost ready to make a run and then a swim for it when the container shifted just enough for him to get a good look at it.

On the side of the metal box were the words 'Stark Enterprises' painted on just like it was on countless billboards and the few wooden crates he'd lifted back at Stark Tower. Instantly his apprehension and concern about capture vanished only to be replaced by amazement at the man's lack of subtlety. There had to be groups of people on the mainland who could see the chopper coming in for a landing and if any of them had binoculars they'd see the Stark Enterprises logo. That'd lead to some questions but fortunately what he'd ready of 'Alexander Kent's' history plus the cover story Fury had told him his first day on the island would help. After all he could just say that the 'official' owner of the island had ordered some choice upgrades for the island from Stark Enterprises and they had just been flown in. So long as no one identified Tony Stark in particular he'd be able to sell the excuse no problem.

Then again keeping a low profile wasn't something that his teammate did very well so perhaps it'd be a good idea to come up with a better cover story.

The Descending Chinook, Virginia 'Pepper' Potts' POV

"Couldn't we have waited until AFTER sunset to do this?" she asked as she waited for the helicopter to land. "We're drawing an awful lot of attention to this island and I don't think Fury put Xander here to become the center of attention."

"And miss the look on the kid's face?" Tony asked, looking at the vid feed from the chopper's cameras on his transparent I.T interface. "Not happening."

She partially rolled her eyes at her boss and boyfriend's words, wondering if he'd ever mature before realizing that there was a better chance of the sun giving off cold rather than heat tomorrow than that. It was annoying, sometimes it was infuriating, but it was also one of the qualities that she occasionally found amusing so she'd tolerate it when necessary.

Thinking back to how this all started, she had to wonder at Tony's possible motivations for moving all this hardware to Xander's new place. For that matter she wondered how her boss had managed to find the place at all given that she'd bet good money that Fury had done his best to keep the info off the record. The possible answer for the latter was easy enough to deduce: when her boyfriend had gone to help S.H.I.E.L.D deal with the leftover Chitauri tech he'd hacked their systems. AGAIN. Then he probably pieced together enough clues to track down a list of likely possibilities before settling on Robin's Island leading to this little visit. While the inventor of the Iron Man armor was more at home in his workshop or at a club than playing detective, he was by no means incapable of deducing the truth from various pieces of information. The moment he'd convinced himself that he'd found Xander's new home, he'd given her a list of things to get and said that it was time to give the young man a house warming party.

She'd been alarmed for a moment, fearing that her boss would go overboard and turn it into one of HIS parties, but he'd seen the look on her face and promised that it'd be just them along with a few close friends at most.

Believing him, for the time being, she'd gone off to get the items on the list and fortunately they were your typical bachelor pad items, only some of which were expensive. A state of the art entertainment set up, including a satellite dish with all the channels paid for until next year, a luxury recliner chair with all the add-ons and a closet's worth of clothes that she'd purposely made sure wouldn't stand out amongst the usual middle class crowd were just a few of the things she purchased. When she'd told him she'd gotten everything over the phone, he'd told her to meet him at his private airfield and, when she'd asked him why, he'd told her it was a surprise. That had caused her to be a bit worried but she'd just shrugged and driven to the airfield as she'd been instructed. It was only when she'd arrived that she'd seen the small metal cargo container with the company logo being fitted with cables that she suspected something ridiculous was in the works.

It'd only taken a little while to load all of her purchases onto the Chinook and, once done, they were in the air carrying the cargo container beneath them.

Now, though, coming in for a landing she waited warily for the contents of the metal rectangular box to be revealed so she could determine how much overboard her boss had gone.

As she watched the hatch to the helicopter lower, she found herself grinning when Xander's head appeared since it looked as though he was doing, well all things considered. Tony might've been oblivious to it but she'd been able to see all too well the signs of a person afraid of the power he'd been given as well as lost in a world not quite the same as the one he knew. She didn't know where he came from and, though he looked just like every other young man on the planet, the things she had seen him do said otherwise. Was he a mutant? Was he a super soldier? Was he like Thor? She didn't have the answers to those questions but she had decided that it wasn't what he could do that mattered, but who he was as well as who he wanted to be.

"Well, I'll say this for you Tony: you sure know how to make an entrance," Xander said with a familiar smile. "Kinda puts a dent in the whole secret identity thing I was going for, though. I'm pretty sure that everybody in town saw the chopper land here and your name on the box is pretty hard to miss."

"Not really. Louie and I go way back, believe it or not," Tony said, completely unconcerned about the consequences of his actions. "If anyone asks, just tell them that I was paying back a debt from a bet I lost."

"What kind of bet?" Xander asked with amused curiosity.

"That I'd be able to convince Natasha to do an Avengers photo shoot for MAXIM," Tony replied, sounding thoughtful about the idea.

"Sounds right," Xander said with a smile at the image. "So what's in the metal box?"

"A surprise that'll have to wait until later," Tony replied before turning to the boxes and bags that filled much of the helicopter's interior. "Right now we have a few housewarming presents to carry in and set up. I have to warn you, though, I don't do manual labor for free."

"Oh, really?" Xander asked with mock thoughtfulness. "So what'll I owe you?"

Instead of answering out loud, her boyfriend walked over to the young man and whispered it into his ear, so all she had to go by was her former roommate's expressions. Shock was the first expression she identified, soon to be followed by reluctance before finally settling on pessimistic acceptance.

"Fine. Just remember that if anything happens to me, I'm expecting you to come in like the cavalry." Xander said, sounding like he very much expected it to go that way in the end.

"Don't I always?" Tony asked, sounding like he genuinely believed what he was saying.

"I guess the important thing is that you believe that." Xander said with a bit of incredulity in his voice.

"You two can trade quips later," she said, deciding to move things along to something a little safer. "Let's get this stuff inside and unpacked."

She'd be lying if she said she wasn't a LITTLE curious about what her boyfriend had said to Xander but, remembering the numerous exploits she'd had to do damage control on, she figured it'd probably be best she didn't know until the last minute.

Between the three of them they managed to get everything off of the chopper and into the house in a little under an hour, with the setting up of the electronics taking less than half an hour with Tony in charge. In between boxes she took the time to look around and found that the interior of the house was nice and kind of reminded her of her Aunt's beachfront cottage. Nothing fancy but it felt… comfy, homey, like a pair of sneakers you'd broken in and preferred to wear when given a choice. She supposed it only made sense that the place would be worn in, given that Xander had probably spent a great deal of time in it. She'd already seen garbage bags full of broken glasses and, when she'd asked the young man about it, he'd told her that he'd been using them to master his superhuman strength. Tony, of course, had made a comment about how environmentally unfriendly the method was but Xander had come back and said that every cup was biodegradable. There had been a few other signs of the young man's control problems with his strength in the form of cracks and impressions on various surfaces but it wasn't as bad as it could've been she supposed.

"Thanks for all this, Tony," Xander said as they sat in the living room with drinks in hand. "You didn't really have to but I appreciate it."

"Hey don't mention it!" Tony said with his usual martini in hand. "What're teammates for? Besides, I have a feeling that things are going be a lot more fun with you around."

She couldn't help but roll her eyes at that because she'd found out the hard way that a few days before Xander had moved out, he'd gotten a peek at her undergarments using his X-ray vision. Her boyfriend had found out and, once he'd wormed the details out of the young man, he'd used innuendo and seemingly harmless phrases to hint at what he'd known. Some of it was subtle while other parts of it… the parts that tipped her off to the truth… were about as subtle as a hammer between the eyes, but that was just Tony's style. Once she'd caught onto the truth, her boss had divulged who he'd gotten the info from but she didn't hold it against Xander. She had a pretty good idea of when he'd gotten a look and, judging from how he'd been acting at the time, she was certain it'd been accidental.

Tony makes it sound like Xander's a weekly TV show, she thought with a bit of bemusement. Still, I suppose that a show about a young hero in training might be worth tuning in to see.

"I am so glad I can help ease your boredom," Xander said with a roll of his eyes and a rueful smile.

They all had a good laugh but then a speculative look entered her boss' mind that had her worried.

THAT look usually meant trouble for her, a field day for the media and the usual bout of juvenile fun for her boyfriend that often landed him in hot water.

"Well, not that it hasn't been fun helping you make this place a little more comfortable, but what do you say we get on with the main event?" Tony said, sounding like he was looking forward to the main course of the evening.

"What do you mean?" Xander asked, sounding both interested and wary at the same time.

Five Hours and Three Clubs Later, Xander's POV

The New York City Penthouse Executive Club

"You're evil!" he muttered as he did his best to keep his eyes on his plate rather than the rest of the room. "I thought we were getting along but this is cruel and unusual punishment!"

"What do you mean?" Tony asked with a face that was the picture of innocence. "I just thought that after a month of being cooped up on your little island retreat you'd like a chance to unwind. You didn't have a problem with the last few places we visited."

"Gee whiz! Why would that be?" he asked rhetorically with a bit of sarcasm. "The 'Boom Boom Room', despite its name, was basically a place that screamed 'money' and was decorated with filthy rich in mind. The 'Jane Ballroom' reminded me of Uncle Rory's basement barroom and was a little subtler about what class it catered to but still money is that place's dominant language. The 'Westway' was wilder and less formal but a little more my speed since it reminded me a lot of a club I went to back in high school. THIS… this is something I have no experience in."

It was the truth and, after reviewing what'd happened the last four hours, he was pretty much sure that this was the rich man's true destination from the beginning. The night had begun easily enough with a trip to the 'Boom Boom Room', where he had felt out of place amongst the rich, but both his friends had helped navigate the social currents. The food had been pretty good but he'd steered clear of the booze since he didn't want to find out the hard way how his alien body reacted to it. Still, the meal had at least helped show him that his control over his mouth muscles was good enough that he didn't wind up eating his utensils along with his food.

The 'Jane Ballroom' had been better, with features so similar to what his Uncle Rory had put together in his basement but there'd been a few celebrities that he'd instantly recognized. Tony'd introduced him to a few but fortunately he wasn't famous enough for any of them to pay much attention to. Some of the ladies had given him a once over thanks to the clothes Stark had insisted he wear, which served to indicate how chiseled his body was at the moment. He was lucky that he hadn't been caught very well on film during the invasion because, with only Tony's praises to work with, it didn't keep the attention of others for long.

The Westway had been the one place that he'd really felt like he could enjoy himself because it reminded him a lot of the Bronze, albeit with a lit up dance floor. People didn't wear clothes that would take him a year's worth of paychecks to purchase, the stuff offered at the bar was what he was used to and the music being played had a good beat to it. All in all it'd been the one stop he'd felt the most comfortable in but it'd also been the place where Pepper had decided to call it a night at since she hadn't built up Tony's stamina for partying. As for him he wasn't feeling all that fatigued so when the billionaire had suggested one more place before turning in for the night.

He should've known he'd try something like this when his conscience, also known as Pepper Potts, disappeared from the sight.

It'd started out innocently enough with the two of them pulling up to the curb at the rear of a decent building that Tony claimed was the hottest club yet. When he'd asked why they were going in the back way, the billionaire had told him that this way would help them avoid the crowd out front as well as the possible newshounds that'd gotten wind of their night on the town. It had made sense since he'd left with his friends without using the hair color changing comb Fury had provided or putting on the realistic-but-not-real glasses. So, without any hesitation and trust in Stark's clubbing experience, he'd followed the man in the back door and didn't say a thing when one of the club employees bumped into them. Tony had smooth talked them through the faux pas of being in an employee only area and allowed the employee to guide them to the area where customers were supposed to be. He'd been fine with that…

…right up until he'd entered the customer area to find out it was a 'gentlemen club', aka strip joint.

From what he could tell, the male to female ratio of club employees was definitely slanted strongly towards the female side of things, with every single one of them being knockouts. The bartender and waitresses he didn't really have a problem with since, while their 'uniforms' definitely flattered them, they mostly covered more skin that it showed. True, while some dresses were backless, others had a plunging neckline or a top half that put their chests up for inspection, but it was still something he could see Cordy wearing, so he was cool with it. No, the thing that had him focusing on his plate at the moment was the 'entertainment' happening on the various stages arrayed throughout the room.

Strippers

Female strippers

Female strippers with looks that could easily put them in showbiz if they wanted.

Now if people knew the whole story behind him, they'd wonder why he was acting like an inexperienced virgin at the moment, considering Anya and the Fabulous Ladies nightclub in Oxnard. The answer to that was fairly simple: he was beginning to really accept that none of that had ever happened. All of it had been VR make believe, meaning that he was essentially still a virgin and had only been doing the equivalent of making do with porn since puberty hit. As any guy worth the name could tell you, having the real thing within reach was way different than a picture in a magazine or an image on your television. When you put it together, it was understandable that he was probably beet red at the moment while doing everything he could to keep his eyes away from the ladies doing their thing on stage.

However the thing that had him peeved at Tony was the fact that, unlike the billionaire, he didn't have a certain, cold hard fact at the front of his mind. Stark probably looked at the female employees of the club and either remembered some of the flings he'd had with them or could entertain the idea of future flings with them but that wasn't the case with him. Unlike Tony, who had his relationship with Pepper to keep his libido from getting out of control, he had something much simpler: fear. He had the fear of accidentally hurting one of these women if his control over his super strength slipped up at the wrong moment. His control might be improving but he had no illusions of what'd happen to that control if he started getting hot and heavy with a girl. Even petting or groping could lead to problems if he was sufficiently distracted at the time, so it wasn't hard to imagine how bad it'd go if he went past first base with a woman. He held onto the hope that one day he'd have control enough to be able to experience that kind of relationship with a woman but, at the moment, that wasn't an option.

SO that basically meant that sitting in a place that was essentially designed to fan a man's libido was quickly becoming a form of torture for him.

Eventually he just had enough and had to get out of there before something happened, like one of the ladies noticing how he was behaving and choosing to do something about it up close and personally.

"Well, I think I've had enough clubbing for tonight, Tony," he said, trying not to sound too snippy. "I think I'm going to head back home. You should probably turn in to since I doubt Pepper'll be in a good mood if she finds out you've been here."

Then before the guy could come up with some kind of argument in favor of staying or some witty one liner, he walked away from the table, heading for the front entrance of the club. He figured if he found a secluded enough alleyway close by, he could get enough of a running start to have his super speed turn him into a blur and that'd keep him safe until he got back home. He worried for a moment that his abrupt departure might've hurt Tony's feelings but then he remembered that the rich guy never let anything bother him for very long. The guy might be in a relationship with Pepper but he was still the same basic thrill seeking party goer he'd been before and that meant letting things roll off him came naturally.

If necessary, he'd make it up to Tony at some later date.

As he exited out into the night air, he had to admit that the nickname 'the city that never sleeps' really fit New York City. Even this late at night the place was still lit up like a Christmas tree and the traffic on the sidewalk didn't really look all that much different from how it was during the day. As he turned right and began to casually walk down the sidewalk in search of a suitable alleyway he wondered what it'd be like going to ESU. It'd be different since, back in 'Sunnydale', he had not possessed enough money or good enough grades to go to college with the rest of the Scooby gang, resulting in his getting into the construction business. It'd be weird but hopefully by the time he had to set foot on campus he'd have sufficient control over his powers that he could mingle with the student body and not send half of them to the hospital.

If Willow were here, she'd tell me to start thinking about what courses I wanted to take or maybe even start studying now to get the jump on things. Might not be such a bad idea considering that this world isn't a perfect match for the one I've been living in all my life.

This would be his big chance to make a good first impression and not be slammed into the 'loser' category from the very beginning. If he studied hard enough before his first day, he'd make a good first impression on his teachers getting them on his side, so long as none of them were like Snyder. However, when he thought of how he'd present himself to the other students, he realized that he might have to make himself out to be a timid and average person so no one'd suspect him of doing the superhero thing.

That was the one thing he'd decided within the first week that he'd keep doing no matter what it took. Just like back in his old VR life, it wasn't in him to stand by and do nothing when someone needed his help and, since he was a member of the team known as the Avengers, it meant he had responsibilities to live up to with them. Unlike some of them, though, he had no intention of letting the whole world know who he was and would do what he had to do in order to maintain a secret identity. Partially it'd be because he knew he'd want some privacy sooner or later and partially because he didn't want to risk Hyrda showing up at his front door looking to reclaim him. That meant keeping his hero personae different enough from his civilian personae that no one would even consider that Alexander Kent and… whatever his codename would be, were the same person. Since he couldn't shape shift (as far as he knew), that meant changing his body language, the way he talked and his personality to something that wasn't hero material.

"LET GO OF ME!" came a female scream through the night.

I'll work on the whole Alexander Kent thing tomorrow.

Two Streets Over and One Block Down, A Little Bit Earlier

This is the last time that I let mother set me up on a date, she thought as she struggled to free herself from Jason's grip.

It had been one of few things her mother had ever managed to convince her to do and that was mostly because it would've been too much trouble for her if she'd refused. She'd always been a free spirit and that had always caused her mother the occasional stress headache but nothing really had ever come of it before aside from her credit cards being frozen for a few weeks. This latest confrontation, however, had been different because not only had there been witnesses but it'd make things difficult for her at ESU if things went the way they usually did. Therefore, in an effort to avoid that, she'd agreed to a blind date with the plan being to be somewhat polite to whomever her mother had chosen but never show any real interest. She had no intention of obliging her mother and getting a boyfriend in order to 'settle down' and be more like the daughters all of her mother's friends had. Those girls were all style but no real substance, with futures as either some man's arm candy or baby maker, neither label appealing to her in the least. It would just be this one date and then she'd go home to her mother and say that Jason was a 'nice young man' but that he just didn't capture her interest enough for another date.

Now, though, it looked as though she would have a decidedly less favorable report to make to mommy dearest.

The evening had started off normally enough with dinner at a passably high class restaurant, with her date following the gentleman rule book to the letter. It was predictable but at the same time nice since it was probably as close to being treated like royalty as she was ever going to get. Then they'd gone to a movie but that was where things had begun to take a sour turn when Jason had made some subtle attempts to feel her up. Too bad for him her past bad dates had made her all too aware of what parts of her body men found most interesting, so she knew how to recognize his intentions. At first she'd simply repositioned herself in order to make it harder for him, hoping that he'd get the message and back off. Unfortunately the man couldn't take a hint but thankfully the presence of other theatre goers had been enough to keep his attempts low key and therefore manageable. When they were walking back to her car Jason had done something truly unforgiveable when he pulled her into an alley and forced a kiss on her lips.

She'd acted on instinct but that didn't mean that she wouldn't still have done it had she taken some time to think it over: she slapped him across the face.

HARD.

Naturally he hadn't taken well to being told 'no' and that pretty much brought her to the present, with him becoming more and more forceful in his efforts to get what he no doubt thought she owed him.

"LET GO OF ME!" she yelled before reaching up and raking her nails across his face.

"Aaahhhh!" Jason cried out in pain as he reflexively brought both hands up to his face. "You BITCH!"

"And there's more where that came from!" she growled, refusing to show any fear. "I don't know what you think you're entitled to or who you think I am but I am NOT some cheap date that'll put out after only one night! Hell, I don't even like you! I only agreed to go out with you because my mother insisted. Now are you going to show some basic decency and back off or do you me to scratch your eyes out?"

"Neither, whore!" Jason growled as he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. "I'm getting what I want and you're going just lay there and take it!"

"Oh yeah? How do you figure that?" she asked incredulous at the jerk's prediction.

Her answer came in the form of a puff of air and a stinging sensation in her arm that caused her to look down. Sticking out of her arm was a small dart of some kind but, before she could think on the matter more, her whole body seemed to suddenly relax from the tip of toes to the top of her head. It reminded her a lot like that one time when she'd been younger and had her wisdom teeth taken out because, when she'd woken up afterwards, she'd been unable to stand. In fact she'd been wheeled to the car in a wheelchair because her legs were so unreliable and it'd lasted until later that night.

This was different. This time it wasn't just her legs that refused to do what she told them to do but her arms as well because, no matter how hard she tried to push herself into a sitting position, her arms refused to move. She tried, BOY did she try, but the best this did was cause her limbs to twitch, as though she was asking them to do more than they were capable of.

"Don't bother trying to move," Jason said with a leer as he advanced towards her. "That little cocktail I just shot you with is a nice combo of muscle relaxants and just a touch of a paralytic drug. I use it on stuck up whores like you won't open their legs up like they're supposed to. Been pretty effective so far. Let's see how things go with you."

"Let's not and say we did."

With supreme effort she managed to angle her head just right so she could look towards the unknown voice and what she saw gave her a glimmer of hope. Standing at the entrance of the alleyway was a young man that looked to be about her age, dressed in clothes that obviously were meant to see the inside of a night club. With short brown hair and kind brown eyes, she prayed that he would do more than just talk the talk.

"Beat it, asshole!" Jason growled, only half turning to meet the newcomer. "This doesn't concern you!"

"I'm making it my concern," the stranger said a voice that was as hard as stone. "Now you've got ten seconds to make tracks before I kick your ass and leave you here for some lonely hobo to get lucky with."

"We'll see who kicks whose ass!" Jason yelled before charging the newcomer.

What happened next was both curious as well as amusing.

As she'd half expected Jason threw the first punch but with almost comical ease the stranger evaded the blow and, no matter how hard the asshole tried, not a single blow came close to making contact. However it was after a minute of this exchange that her hero apparently got tired of it and a burst of speed that rendered her savior a blur as he went from in front of Jason to behind him. Then, with the lightest of nudges, send Jason slamming into the wall of the alleyway so hard the bastard bounced off of it before falling to the dirty ground unconscious. She couldn't see if there was any serious damage from where she lay but at a guess the fool wouldn't have to worry about anything worse than a concussion.

"Idiot," the stranger muttered before he walked over to her.

Watching him kneel own next to her, she momentarily felt fear and became worried that the man intended to take advantage of the state she was in. However this proved groundless because, instead of aiming his hands at someplace inappropriate on her person, he reached for her purse that lay on the ground by her side. Did he intend to rob her?

"Just so you know I'm not trying to rob you," he said as though reading her mind. "I'm just looking for some I.D with your address on it so I can get you home. I'd ask you directly but seeing as how you aren't cursing the air blue, I'm thinking you can't speak."

He was right on all of his assumptions.

It took him a bit of time to rifle through her purse but eventually he found her driver's license. "Well Felicia Hardy, as much I've been looking forward to the idea of carrying a woman across the threshold, this isn't quite what I had in mind." He picked her up off the ground, "At this point I'd usually ask you to hang on tight but since that's impossible I'll say 'enjoy the ride'."

The world blurred and wind blew against her face like she was riding a motorcycle at full speed without a helmet.

It was FUN!

Robin's Island, A Little Over an Hour Later, Xander's POV

Hope she's alright, he thought as he walked towards his house from the docks. I don't know what that asshole shot her up with but, if her heartbeat was anything to go by, it wasn't immediately life threatening.

Once he'd arrived at the young woman's home he'd considered knocking on the door and waiting for someone to open it but then he'd realized a lousy possibility. What if the people inside thought HE had paralyzed Miss Hardy with some drug? It'd be the way his luck tended to run more often than not so, deciding to stay on the side of caution, he'd simply propped her up against the side of the door, rang the doorbell twice and then disappeared in a burst of super speed. It'd looked like a fairly wealthy place but he hadn't spotted any security cameras or security personnel, so he figured his face was safe along with his identity. True, it was a bit paranoid to think that just anyone could access government files and run a search on his face in order to ascertain his identity but a modest level of paranoia was healthy in his opinion.

It was then that a few things caught his attention and made him wonder if he was missing something.

First was the fact that the small metal cargo container that Stark had brought with him in his Chinook was gone but this only reminded him that he'd never seen the inside of it. The next anomaly was the fact that in the sand and some parts of the area in front of his house he could see signs of quite a bit of foot traffic, as well as what looked like wheel tracks. He didn't remember any of them using a wheeled device earlier when they'd been unloading the stuff in the interior of the Chinook hours ago and that was mostly because his superhuman strength made the usual wheeled tools unnecessary. However it was the final source of strangeness that had most of his attention and that was an odd glowing quarter circle keypad next to the front door. He knew for a fact that it hadn't been there when they'd left so he could only presume that it'd been installed sometime after Stark, Pepper and him had left.

I wonder what it is, he thought once he reached the front door and knelt partially to get a better look at it. Kinda seems like what Stark has in the Tower but why would one of those be here?

Deciding to see if it was real rather than Tony's idea of a practical joke, he reached out, staying in control of his super strength while he did so, and touched the central icon on the transparent glass-like quarter circle.

"Welcome home, Mister Kent," said a disembodied woman's voice.

His naturally honed Sunnydale instincts instantly had him taking a full step backwards while looking everywhere for the source of the voice. Disembodied voices usually meant either ghosts, an invisible demon or someone spying on him from hidden cameras and none of those options usually boded well for him. Then a thought occurred to him that he hadn't considered due to his instinctive response to the voice: this set up was an awful lot like J.A.R.V.I.S back at Stark Tower. According to Tony, he'd created the artificial intelligence in honor of his deceased butler Edwin Jarvis and was intended to be as close a match to the real thing mind-wise as possible. Considering the panel by the door and the voice that probably came from some concealed speakers, it was a good bet that something similar had been done here.

"Uh…yeah. Who are you?" he asked, uncertain how to move things along.

"My designation is 'Just One Cute And Sexy Technical Assistant', however you may call me Jocasta," the woman's voice replied in a polite manner.

Definitely the sort of name Tony'd come up with.

"Well, thanks for the welcome home, Jocasta," he said as he walked up to the door and carefully opened it. "It's been a long night."

"Indeed. Based on the information available to me you have been gone for four point three hours," Jocasta said never losing her simulated politeness. "Given statistical averages for males your age, it is likely that you must be quite fatigued. Is there a specific time you wish to be awakened at?"

Thinking about the question for a moment, he knew he'd need a minimum of seven hours of sleep if he expected to get anything done but, since he felt like spoiling himself, he'd give himself a little longer. "Wake me up in nine hours. I'll need to get up then so I can get some training done."

"Understood," Jocasta said in a casual tone of voice.

Something tells me that Tony did a rush job on this A.I. he thought sitting down on his bed. She has all the personality of a rock. At least with J.A.R.V.I.S he has the dry British wit thing going for it.

Still, he'd at least wait for a few days to see if she could really pull off the whole assistant thing before calling Tony to see about either an upgrade or a software patch. Sure, he knew he didn't specifically NEED an assistant to have a personality presuming that Jocasta could do the job her name implied but he figured why should he get a pre-emotion chip Data type A.I when he could get something with a little more emotion. He wasn't expecting something completely human because even J.A.R.V.I.S came off as a little simulated at times but anything would be better than a machine pretending to be a person and doing a piss poor job at it.

Still, I don't want to come off as ungrateful or anything, he thought as he took off everything but his shirt and his boxer shorts. Tony's known me for all of a week and even then it was just the odd time around the tower or on the heli-carrier. For him to put one of his self-programmed in my home, buy all the usual bachelor stuff for me AND take me out for a night on the town… that's more than I ever expected from him.

Indeed, the sort of gifts he'd received from Tony Stark and Pepper Potts yesterday were things usually associated with family or very close friends. They were not the sort of actions you'd do for someone you'd known for less than a week, so it would be good to go to the gift givers complaining about the most expensive gift of the lot not showing enough emotion or personality for his liking. He needed to wait until he had more legitimate grievances like it not doing its job properly or frequent glitches making it useless before he could slip in a suggestion for a personality upgrade. If Tony was too busy or didn't feel like reprogramming Jocasta to be more… human, then he'd make do with what he had. It wouldn't be the first time that he or the Scoobies had been forced to accept what they had instead of getting what they needed so he'd manage.

Well, enough of those thoughts. Time to get my beauty sleep.

Three Weeks Later, Outside the Kent Home on Robin's Island, Afternoon, Xander's POV

"How was that, Jocasta?" he asked after he'd finished the motion with his right arm.

"The movement of your right arm was zero point three five percent faster than the average human," Jocasta replied through the speakers hidden around the outside of the house.

"Could your average person tell I wasn't human if they saw me move at that speed?" he asked, personally believing that the difference was no small to be perceived by normal human eyes.

"Unlikely. Even a human whose vocation requires extremely keen eyesight and the ability to perceive fast moving objects would not be able to perceive the difference," Jocasta replied promptly like a personal assistant would. "However it is possible that a computer analysis of video camera footage might be able to highlight the difference."

"Would they need to be top of the line cameras or just the type most middle class businesses would have?" he asked, hoping that it was the former.

"If you are concerned that the cameras present on ESU campus might be able to perceive your superhuman abilities, you need not worry." Jocasta said with a voice implying confidence. "The cameras present in ESU are meant for general observation of both students and faculty only. They do not possess sufficient resolution to be able to detect such a small difference in speed."

"Let's hope so," he said as he thought of the possible ways things could go wrong. "The whole Alexander Kent identity thing hinges on the fact that no one puts two and two together and figures out I have super powers. If they do then it won't be long before they try and figure out if I'm one of the Avengers or some other hero from the newspapers."

"Given the fact that you have not appeared in a heroic capacity since the invasion of New York City by the Chitauri, it is unlikely that they would be able to make the connection in the beginning," Jocasta pointed out as he began to make his way to the back door of his house. "With the additional measures made available to you by Nick Fury, it would take a fairly remarkable demonstration of your abilities in order for them to make the connection between your civilian and hero identity."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he said as he punched in his access code.

It was something that the female A.I had asked him to come up with after that first night as a means of ensuring the security of the house. Considering it would be the place where he'd be stashing stuff from the hero gig when he wasn't on patrol, it only made sense to make sure people couldn't just walk in without his say so. Sure, he'd do what he could to hide the things that needed hiding but no one could predict the future so contingency plans were the smart way to go. He just hoped that all the tricks he'd seen Giles use to hide objects that were too dangerous to leave out in the open would work, otherwise he'd have to find someplace else to store them.

Given his limited resources he didn't want it to come to that or he'd be forced to consider a couple of Spike's requirements for an acceptable hovel.

Once he was inside he looked at his cabinets and smiled at the real glasses that lay within rather than those cheap ones he'd been forced to use until he'd gotten his super strength under control. There were still a few rare instances where he messed up but that was usually when he was either still half asleep or seriously startled by something. Considering he didn't plan on sleeping in any of his classes and it took quite a bit to startle him into losing his control, he felt secure in the belief that his strength was no longer an issue. Add to that the fact that he had his movement speed pretty much locked down and that left only one thing he'd need to work on before he could say he was ready for ESU.

His civilian personae 'Alexander Kent' needed to be born.

Just like every decent comic book superhero he'd ever read about, he needed to have two masks if he was seriously planning on doing the hero thing. One would be his normal self, no alterations needed, while the other one would be what he'd use to throw off anyone trying to do a little identity math. The only question, would he be his usual self when he was out doing the hero thing or would he be his usual self when he was plain old 'Alexander Kent'. Personally he thought that he should be his normal self when under the spotlight as his hero self since he wouldn't have to worry about slipping up quite as much. When added to the fact that most students, be they high school or university in nature, tended to worry about their own problems first before even considering those around them and that provided him with more leeway.

With that decided he needed to figure out what sort of person Alex would be and how it would set him apart from Super-Xan.

It'd probably be best to aim for something like original Willow from the VR world, he thought as he sat down in the recliner chair in the living room. Timid, avoids confrontation, thinks no adult in a position of authority could be bad and treats learning like I usually do Twinkies.

It might be a bit of a stretch with that last quality but he was pretty sure he could fake it well enough to fool others.

Turning on the TV, he then began to think on what courses he'd like to take that would be interesting enough that he'd be motivated to apply himself in class. The possibilities were too numerous to count so he needed a single goal, a single objective, to separate the helpful with the useless. Being an Avenger would likely take up a great deal of his time and, if he was being realistic, even back in the VR world fighting the good fight took priority for him. That meant that he should probably choose courses that would be of most use to him in that area but, sadly, it wasn't like universities had 'super heroing 101' as an option. No course he could think of would be of use to him in the physical side of being a superhero so he'd have to work on the mental side of it. What kind of smarts did a superhero need in order to save the day? Being able to make sense of evidence at a crime scene would probably be a plus so that probably meant biology, chemistry and perhaps forensic science. Seriously geek stuff but he couldn't count on the NYPD to just tell him what their lab boys found out and no one he could easily get in touch with had experience in those areas.

That'll help me make sense of what I find but what about finding the perp, he thought as he turned on the TV. I'd need a way to make friends in law enforcement and probably the courts while not making people think I'm up to something.

It was then that the answer appeared right in front of him when the afternoon news came on.

JOURNALISM!

If he became a news reporter for either a newspaper or a TV station, he'd be able to hear lots of things just sitting in the same room with the other members of the staff. If he was lucky he could learn things from some of the more experienced members of the staff and, through his job, assuming he got good enough, he could make contacts with both the police and the District Attorney. That would go a long way towards helping him know who the players in NYC were as far as criminals went, as well as alert him to any places where he could be of help. So what courses would he need to take?

Hmmm… probably English lit, psychology for understanding people and that probably means sociology as well. He tried to remember all the course names Willow had mentioned before going to UCCS. I can probably ask the people at ESU what'd be good courses for someone who wants to be a journalist.

"In other news, the costumed hero Spider-man saved twelve people from transit bus that had been involved in an accident on the George Washington Bridge. According to sources in the nearest hospital, the driver suffered a sudden heart attack while driving the vehicle, almost causing it to go off the bridge and into the river," the news anchorwoman said from behind her desk. "Several other motorists were taken to hospital due to minor injuries but thankfully there was no loss of life. Many of the passengers praised Spider-man for his heroic deeds and that is a stark contrast to the villainous picture often plastered on the front page of the Daily Bugle."

That's putting it lightly! he thought as he remembered some of the headlines on the front page of the Bugle. To hear them talk about Spider-man, you'd think he was a neo-nazi war criminal or something.

It hadn't even been two months but in that time there'd been enough news stories on the web head that he got a pretty clear picture of who the guy was. He was a hero and an underappreciated one at that. While some newspapers and TV stations gave the blue and red clad man a fair shake, the Daily Bugle and its allies spoke with quite the loud voice, it was said that, in New York City, it wasn't the quality of the reporting that got the most attention, but whoever spoke the loudest.

Considering the set of pipes Jameson has, I doubt anyone could speak as loud him.

He honestly didn't know how anyone could take anything that man said seriously with the way he ranted on camera. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could tell the man was using his newspaper to throw out his own personal point of view, regardless of the facts. How could they trust a single word put out by the Daily Bugle with someone as emotionally compromised as Jameson was? Sadly people still bought the man's newspaper regardless of the tainted words on its pages. One thing was for certain, though, and that he was NEVER going to work for the man after he got the necessary journalism skills. He might have some experience putting up with self-centered dictators thanks to Snyder but that didn't mean that he was willing to go through that again. Flutie had been nice but Snyder had been a grade A asshole and it had given him one more reason to get out of High School as quickly as possible.

He had no intention of working for such a person for the rest of his life.

Maybe I'll go work for whoever the Daily Bugle's greatest competitor is, he thought with a small smile. If I do a good enough job there, maybe they'll smarten up and oust Jameson and put someone more impartial in his chair.

Then again he'd probably have to make the competitor THE number one newspaper in the city before that happened so perhaps he should simply be content with humiliating Jameson with the truth first.

He could move onto the other stuff once he'd made a name for himself.

Five Weeks Later, The Courtyard of Empire State University, Mid-Morning, Xander's POV

Dammit! I'm so nervous I didn't even bother to pop open that other suitcase Fury left for me. he thought as he proceeded to the administration building. Hopefully it'll wait.

Contrary to what some might think, it wasn't his first day of university that was making him nervous because to him, ESU was just another school except this one came with a hefty price tag. Unlike elementary school or high school, where it was required by law that they teach him, ESU came with a yearly tuition fee that had to be paid or he'd get kicked out. Sure, according to Jocasta, he had enough money to pay for eight years of tuition but it was still a school with a price tag and to him that was the only real difference with high school. With that kind of mindset he wasn't overly worried about how he'd do in class or whether he'd graduate in the end.

No, his reason for being nervous came strictly from the question of whether or not he'd manage to fool everyone with his 'Alexander Kent' routine.

For the last five weeks he'd been practicing how his civilian personae would act using a combination of body language training, speech pattern training and altering his voice a bit. With Jocasta there to help him out he was able to get the hang of it a lot quicker than he would've had he gone at it alone. With her access to the internet, along with several other notable databases, she was able to locate quite a bit on acting as well as the elements most people unconsciously used to identify someone. With her scrutinizing his words and actions he was able to make swift progress until she declared that there was less than a two percent chance that someone would think his normal self and 'Alexander Kent' were the same people.

However meeting the approval of an A.I that he'd developed a familiarity with and fooling a large group of people were two different things, so he decided he'd go over his disguise and hope that the reviewing of these facts would be enough to calm him down.

At the top was of course the techno comb that Fury had shown him the first day on Robin's Island that turned his hair from its usual dark brown to a golden blonde. Using this tool he'd made sure to change the color of every visible patch of hair on his body, including his eye brows and arm hair. Sure, that might have been overkill but he didn't want to take any chances since someone might spot the difference and that'd get them thinking in the wrong direction.

Next came the glasses with rims that wouldn't stand out but weren't invisible either. The lenses in them would do nothing to interfere with his eyesight but rather were altered in such a way so that people looking at him would think he had eyes that were a darker shade of brown. So long as he was careful to close his eyes or keep others from getting a good look at them if his glasses were knocked off, no one would see the truth.

His clothes he made a compromise between geeky and acceptable because there was no way in hell that he was going to pretend to be Andrew Wells or the Jonathan Levinson whenever he left Robin's Island. He was going to pick something more tolerable and less likely to paint a target on his back for the jocks and VIPs of ESU to take shots at. That was why he'd wanted something close to how Willow was shortly after Buffy came to town because, while he'd be timid looking enough to blend into the background, he'd also be mainstream enough in his clothes that it wouldn't be hard to make friends. The clothes he wore were a size or two too big but that was by design since it'd serve to hide his chiseled body from sight and add to the blending process.

All in all the entire disguise was well thought out and approved by Jocasta so, unless he came across someone truly perceptive, the odds of him being discovered through his appearance was slim.

As for his behavior he would be modeling it on the same type of Willow as his clothes, even including her babbling if a situation got too exciting or he drank something high in sugar. He doubted that he'd be able to match Willow's enthusiasm for learning but he'd do his best to come as close as he could for the purpose of pulling off his grand act.

I can do this! I can do THIS! he thought to himself as he climbed up the steps to the front entrance of the administration building. Just finish up the paperwork that'll make me a student officially then head to the first class on my schedule.

Fury had handled most of the paperwork himself but had left the option of the courses open for whatever he decided he wanted to take. It'd been a bit of a close call since some of the classes were fairly popular but he'd managed to get all the ones he needed for a career in journalism, as well as the know how to analyze crime scene clues. All that was left was a few papers to sign as well as a few financial details so that the university would be able to extract the tuition fees directly from his bank account.

It'll take me half an hour at most and that's only if there's a line.

However, when he turned the last corner, he found that the line was quite a bit longer than he'd thought it'd be and perhaps enough to make him late for his first class if the people ahead of him proved too obstinate with their paperwork. With a sigh he fell into line with the others and waited for his turn to enter the admissions office. It seemed to take forever and, with every glance at his watch, he feared that he'd be late for his first class making a terrible first impression on the professor. Mentally he began to construct an appropriately Willow method of acting when he finally did enter the classroom. He figured babbling mixed with a bit of clumsiness would do the job well enough even if it would likely cause the entire class to laugh at him.

He was used to being laughed at by his peers and, if it served to make them dismiss him as a potential hero of the city, then he could take it.

It was as he reached the halfway point in the line however that something happened that he just knew was going to cause him trouble. Walking down the hall like he owned the place was a young man in his late teens that just screamed 'JOCK' and the arrogance he'd come to expect from athletes showed when the guy ignored the line up entirely. Instead the carrot top jock walked straight towards the door to the admissions office with the clear intent of going to the head of the line rather than waiting his turn. If this had been Sunnydale High School, he'd have spoken up and told the asshole to get to the back of the line but that wasn't something that third year Willow would have done, so he kept quiet.

That didn't stop him from hoping that someone else would step forward though.

"Hey! There's a line up here!" came a young man's voice from a few places ahead of him. "Get to the back!"

This caused the jock to stop and turn but, instead of looking like he was about to intimidate the speaker into submission, the arrogant young man had a look of contempt on his face.

"Maybe losers like you have to stand in line but, for the guy that's going to take ESU to the nationals, I can just walk right in." the jock said, clearly looking down on the speaker.

"Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you, EUGENE?" asked the young man's voice with emphasis on the jock's name.

Apparently Eugene Jock-boy not like his name spoke for all to hear.

With stormy steps, the newest ESU athlete crossed the distance between him and his heckler until they were almost nose to nose. Angling his head just a bit, he could see that the heckler was about his height with messy hair and while the guy had the look of a former geek that label was likely a year or so discarded.

"Do you really want to go there, Puny Parker?" Eugene asked with an obvious threat in his voice.

"We're not in high school anymore, Flash," Parker, said sounding like he wanted to avoid a fight. "You're not the top jock on the block here. Just get to the back of the line and wait your turn."

For a moment it looked like things might erupt into a fight but, surprisingly enough, 'Flash' backed down before storming to the end of the line. It was a bit of s surprise but, seeing the eyes of Parker as the young man settled back into the line, he knew why. There was no fear in those eyes. No insecurities that would've given the jock the idea that he could make 'Puny Parker' back down or beg for forgiveness. It was his experience that bullies only preyed on those that they knew would crumble at the slightest sign of confrontation or were too weak to put up much of a fight. By looking at Eugene with no fear or insecurity, the jock was unable to find an opening to press his advantage leaving only retreat as an option. Whether or not some repercussions would happen later or not was debatable but he figured that it was safe to say Flash would wait until there were few or no witnesses around before trying something.

If he could, he'd like to be there to make sure things didn't get out of hand but that'd all depend on his class schedule. As much as he wanted to be the good guy, he couldn't afford to miss classes or at least not until he'd earned sufficient brownie points with the professors that they'd let it slide.

Six months at least, he thought as the line moved forward three steps. I submit a couple of glowing papers, pass a few tests and maybe say something smart in class once a week. Piece of cake!

Then he remembered that he'd only done as well as he had back in Sunnydale High School because he'd had Willow around to tutor him.

He doubled his estimate.