*Chapter 145: Make New York Great Again (Part 2)*

Tony's only comfort right now is that his girlfriend, Pepper, has become an "Extremis Superwoman."

“By the way, where did you find Miss Gwen Stacy? Her research has been a big help for Pepper,” Tony asked.

Atreus raised a hand, and Helen handed him a small drink. After taking a sip, Atreus responded, “Picked her up from Oscorp.”

Funny enough, while Tony is a genius in engineering, he’s pretty terrible when it comes to biotech.

After Pepper was injected with the Extremis virus by Aldrich, Tony was obviously worried she might explode like other failed subjects.

In his desperation, he happened to find Gwen, a geneticist with a decent reputation. Only then did he realize her lab was fully funded by his good buddy, Atreus.

While Gwen didn’t cure Pepper, she at least stabilized her condition so she wouldn’t turn into a molten warrior whenever she got emotional.

After a bit of off-topic banter, Tony got to the point. “Rebuilding New York requires a lot of funding. Interested in buying some shares?”

Atreus almost blurted out Trump’s classic line, but stopped himself and instead said, “You mean, make New York great again?”

Tony paused for a moment, then smiled. “Not a bad slogan. How’d you come up with it?”

“Uh, just popped into my head,” Atreus awkwardly admitted, feeling a bit guilty for stealing the slogan.

“Alright, we’ve got the slogan. How much are you willing to invest?” Tony’s eyes gleamed as he stared at Atreus, the wealthy magnate.

“I’m a Gotham guy. Wouldn’t it look bad if I extended my reach into New York?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because it wasn’t you who bought shares in Stark Industries, right?”

Cough cough! Atreus, feeling the sting of losing money, gave a playful slap on the back of the culprit next to him. “It’s all your fault I’m going broke.”

“Waaah!” Flora, humiliated in public, gave him a pitiful look.

Tony had to admit, seeing Flora’s reluctant and humiliated expression softened him up.

Then suddenly, Tony had a realization.

Wait, didn’t this girl injure his buddy James?

And wasn’t she a town-destroying force?

So, no problem here.

Actually, Tony misunderstood one thing: Flora wasn’t unwilling to be loyal to Atreus. She just didn’t like doing non-warrior tasks while being labeled under the “Western Division” when she was breaking down Kryptonian occupational barriers.

If she were sent to fight, she’d be the fiercest one out there, undisputed vanguard.

Feeling a bit pressured by Tony’s gaze, Atreus reluctantly said, “Fine, I’ll buy some land near Gotham and build a house. How about that?”

“Thanks, buddy,” Tony said with a big laugh.

In modern society, trust is everything.

The key is *confidence*.

If people trust you—whether it’s land or the dollar—it has value.

If they don’t trust you, even the dollar can turn to worthless paper.

New York had been hit by two waves of alien invasions in less than six months. Even though it used to be the largest city in America in terms of population and economy, the repeated disasters made investors hesitant—who knows if a third wave of aliens might come and destroy the place?

Nobody wanted to invest in rebuilding just to have it all torn down again.

Insurance companies wouldn’t even cover wars, let alone alien invasions.

Only a certain time traveler knew that nothing major would happen in New York for a while—at least nothing that would level the whole city.

“Just so you know, I’ll start by investing five hundred million and see how it goes.”

Atreus didn’t expect that by the afternoon, the Daily Planet published an exclusive by famous reporter Lois Lane: “Make New York Great Again—Famed Investor and Heir to the Wayne Group, Atreus Wayne, Joins the New York Rebuilding Project! The total investment is estimated at $30 billion, with an initial investment of $500 million.”

Atreus’s eyebrows twitched when he saw the headline.

“Did I just corrupt Superman’s wife? This headline is as dramatic as clickbait! When did I say I was investing $30 billion?”

Atreus’s complaint made the Canary sisters giggle uncontrollably.

Clearly, Tony had leaked the news.

Atreus wasn’t going to flip out over a small goal like this and ruin his friendship with Tony.

This basically confirmed the exaggerated private investment plan.

Rebuilding can’t succeed with just the government shouting about it—it requires heavyweight financial backers to make it happen.

Stark Industries had to start the rebuilding since they were based in New York and had been affected, so they had to help themselves.

Someone as famous as Atreus, a notorious Wall Street sniper, was the true trendsetter.

Everyone on Wall Street knew Atreus had billions of dollars in cash just sitting around.

Even if the total investment was $30 billion, it didn’t mean all the money had to come from Atreus. If he made a big move, there were plenty of investors on Wall Street willing to follow suit.

Wall Street is a place where stories make money. If the story is good, the company goes public, and there are plenty of gullible stockholders ready to jump on board.

If Atreus was making a move, did that mean there were huge profits to be made?

Wall Street went into a frenzy!

For months, New York hadn’t seen any major investments, and many businessmen were quietly planning to abandon the city. After all, capital isn’t charitable—it has no borders. If New York wasn’t profitable, no one was going to throw money at it.

At this critical moment, Atreus swept through the city government’s public land auction with $100 million and snatched up the best lots—since the original owners had gone bankrupt and still owed the city-backed loans, the land was seized and auctioned.

Then Wayne Group suddenly announced the launch of a Kryptonian spaceship research project, with the research center located on the newly acquired land.

It was all too coincidental to believe.

Wall Street wolves had every reason to suspect Atreus had made a shady deal with the New York City Council—trading his support for the rebuilding project in exchange for getting his hands on a relatively intact Kryptonian spaceship.

Despite the large-scale invasion of the Chitauri, with all their impressive weaponry, the only tech left behind were small hovercrafts and laser guns, which contributed almost nothing to Earth’s technological advancements.

Bioweapons and Leviathans couldn’t be reverse-engineered by Earth’s scientists.

The real prize for advancing space technology was the Kryptonian spaceship.

But Kryptonian ships were extremely rare!

One mothership got sucked into a black hole and was annihilated.

Two others went to the other side of the planet, one was taken by a certain someone, and the last one was the ship that Atreus "killed" Flora on.

He’d handed it over to his wild dad.

As soon as this news broke, Wayne Group’s stock price soared by 128% in just a few days!

It was a revolutionary leap in alien technology!

Only Bruce Wayne nearly had a fit, almost disowning Atreus.

"You gave me an empty spaceship shell?!"

(End of Chapter)