Page 41 of Mane Rival in Store by Milly Taiden

First-edition Marvel. A dozen issues, sleeved in archival mylar, arranged by publication date. The collection was modest by the standards of Magnus Holt’s vault—no six-figure grails, no museum-tier rarities—but it was personal in a way that vaults weren’t. These editions had been acquired by a kid from Washington Heights who’d fallen in love with superheroes and carried them through a Wharton scholarship and a banking career and a marriage to a law professor who had found the collection in year one and never said a word.

Rune’s lion went quiet. The particular quiet of recognition. Another man who loved this world and hid it behind a polished exterior.

“This one.” Harrison lifted an edition from the cabinet. A 1966 Fantastic Four #52—first appearance of Black Panther. The cover was vibrant, the paper sound, the grade visually strong. “I bought it when I was fourteen. Saved up for six months. The bodega cashier thought I was buying cigarettes because I hid the bag on the walk home.” He held it out. “Is it real?”

Rune took the edition. His hands moved before his brain gave permission—tilting it toward the desk lamp, running his thumb along the spine, checking the staples and the binding with the muscle memory of twenty years. Harrison watched him the way clients watched surgeons.

He turned to the interior pages. Held them to the light. Set the edition down.

“It’s genuine. Beautifully preserved—whoever stored this knew what they were doing.” He looked up. “In today’s market, it’s worth between forty and fifty thousand dollars.”

Harrison’s eyes went wide. Then flat. Then wide again. His mouth opened. Closed. His hand went to the back of his neck—the gesture of someone who had spent thirty years valuing assets and had never applied the methodology to the thing he loved most.

“Fifty thousand,” he repeated.

“At auction. Private sale could run higher depending on the story. The personal acquisition story adds value—a fourteen-year-old saving for six months is exactly the kind of narrative collectors pay a premium for.”

“¡Dios mío!” Harrison took the edition back. Held it with new hands—the grip of someone who had spent decades treating his collection as a secret indulgence and was now holding a piece of it that was worth more than his first year at Wharton. “Vivienne is going to—” He stopped. Corrected course. “Vivienne doesn’t know about this collection.”

Rune regarded him with the neutral expression he deployed when presented with a statement that was obviously, transparently, comprehensively untrue. “Of course.”

“She has never mentioned it.”

“Understood.”

Harrison studied him. The banker’s assessment, the father’s measure, and beneath both, the recognition of someone who loved comics and had spent years pretending he didn’t, meeting another man who loved comics and had built an empire around it.

“What about this one?” He reached into the cabinet. Pulled out an Amazing Spider-Man #129. “First Punisher appearance. I got this at a garage sale in ’89. Five dollars.”

Rune took it. Tilted it toward the light. And somewhere between Harrison’s Wharton diploma and the locked cabinet, the lion receded and the collector surfaced—not the alpha performing composure, not the CEO navigating a social minefield, but the version of himself he recognized from empty stores at closing time and vaults underground and the back office at three in the morning, with spectrographic data and a cold cup of coffee.

They went through the entire collection.

Edition by edition. Harrison asking questions with the eagerness of a man who had spent thirty years wondering and had never had anyone to ask. Rune answering with the thoroughness of someone who had spent twelve years burying this part of himself in public and had forgotten how good it was to let it surface in a room that smelled like leather, old paper, and Dominican coffee.

They lost track of time. When they emerged from the study fifty-three minutes later, the dining room had been cleared, the Brunello was nearly finished, and the women were arranged in the living room with the collective expression of people who had been waiting precisely this long and were not surprised.

Vivienne, from the sofa, wine in hand: “He won over my husband with comic books.” A sip. “I’m not sure if I’m impressed or concerned.”

Lark, cross-legged on the floor with a cup of coffee and her phone in her lap, looked up at Rune. Her curls were loose around her face. Her shoes were off. The emerald dress pooled around her legs, and the candlelight from the dining room caught the gold in her earrings and the brightness in her eyes, and she was looking at him with an expression he’d never seen from her—not teasing, not challenging, not the business mask or the witty deflection.

Tenderness. Unguarded, specific, aimed directly at him.

“You were in there for an hour.” Her voice was soft. “Was the collection good?”

“Exceptional.” He meant Harrison’s editions. He meant the room. He meant the family that filled a brownstone with noise and scrutiny and food and love, the father who hid his passion in a locked cabinet and the mother who guarded the secret like a vow, the brother who protected with theater, and the best friend who protected with observation.

He meant all of it. He didn’t say all of it.

Oliver’s phone chirped from across the room. He checked the screen. Grinned. “Update for the group chat: Lion King spent an hour in Dad’s study. Dad is now calling him ‘mijo.’ Mom hasn’t cross-examined anyone in forty-five minutes. We may have lost her. Send backup.”

“Oliver.” Vivienne’s voice carried the mild warning of someone who had raised two children and a legal career simultaneously and was unimpressed by both.

“It’s journalism.”

“It’s family dinner.”

“Same thing in this house.”