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Chapter Text

Tony visited his Aunt Peg every Sunday.

He usually brought a book with him because often she didn’t notice he was there and she rambled on. Most of what she rambled about were incidents in her past. Tony had learned all about Whitney Frost that way. And Jason Wilkes. Tony kind of wished he’d gotten the chance to meet him. Other times, she was more introspective.

‘I know it was the right thing to do,’ she was currently saying. ‘But I do feel bad for Tony.’

And apparently completely unaware he was the one sitting here. ‘Why?’

‘Well, I made him hate his father for no reason.’ That statement made Tony freeze. ‘I know they already had a bad relationship. If I could have covered it up another way without lying to Tony, I would have. Unfortunately, the most believable lie was that Howard was drunk.’

Her words came back to him. ‘I’m sorry, Tony. He got behind the wheel, drunk. He crashed the car and killed both of them.’

Was he now hearing that she’d lied to him that day? Tony forced his voice to remain composed. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, there was somebody else involved.’ She nodded her head, somewhat dismissively. ‘Whoever it was, he shot the tyres out of their car. That’s why they crashed. I looked at the bodies. The assassin bashed Howard’s face in – his skull was completely caved in. Maria was strangled. That’s why we nailed the coffins shut for the funeral. It was a pity we had to lie to Tony.’

‘Why did you lie to Tony?’ This time there was a distinct shake in Tony’s voice.

Peg didn’t notice. ‘If it was known that they were murdered, there’d be an enquiry. Why were they killed? I couldn’t have anyone finding out about S.H.I.E.L.D., now, could I? I especially couldn’t risk Tony finding out where a chunk of his fortune goes and withdrawing it. We needed the money.’

Tony slapped his book shut. ‘I have to get back to work.’ He couldn’t stand to be in the room with this woman a moment longer.

‘Well, thank you for visiting.’

‘No problem.’ Tony bolted out of the room.

***

There were two engineer modes on Tony Stark: procrastination and “something-terrible-just-happened-and-this-is-the-only-way-I-know-how-to-handle-it”. The first one had Tony coming out of his workshop to see Rhodey, go party, or look for a flavour of the night.

This was the second one.

Pepper strode into the mansion and headed straight for the workshop. ‘JARVIS?’

‘Yes, Miss Potts?’

‘Has Mr. Stark been down in the workshop since Sunday?’

‘He hasn’t left at all.’

‘But he wants me to come down?’

‘He has discovered something quite…distressing, Miss Potts. It requires urgent attention. I recommend we be prepared to make one phone call to the FBI, one to the CIA, and one to Lt. Col. Rhodes.’

With a frown, Pepper headed down to the workshop. What could be so awful that the two major intelligence agencies of the world would need to be notified? Rhodey, it was obvious. He was Tony’s best friend so he’d need to be called for moral support. Pepper descended the stairs and looked through the glass into the workshop. Tony was sitting at his workstation, glaring at the monitors.

Pepper keyed in the access code and stepped in. ‘What’s going on?’

Tony looked up at her. ‘I won’t be visiting Peggy Carter anymore.’

Oh. She’d died? That must’ve been why Tony locked himself down here for three days. Rhodey had said he’d been despondent for ages after his parents died, and then angry. The original Jarvis had apparently dealt with all the arrangements. ‘Who’s taking care of the funeral?’

‘She’s not dead.’

That pulled Pepper up short. ‘Then why aren’t you seeing her again? I thought she was the only family you had left.’

‘So did I.’ That was a tone she’d never heard from Tony before. Tense, with a trace of hurt running through it.

‘Tony, she has Alzheimer’s,’ Pepper said. ‘What could she have possibly done that was so horrible you’re cutting contact with her?’

Tony quirked a finger at her, indicating she should come over to him. Pepper walked around the work desk and to Tony’s shoulder. Tony then folded his arms and nodded to the screens. Pepper looked at them. The first thing she noticed was that Tony had hacked into some website with a falcon silhouette insignia and S.H.I.E.L.D. stamped across the centre of it. Underneath, the acronym was extended: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. The data Tony had pulled up made Pepper freeze in shock.

‘Oh, my God…’

Tony had a very good reason to be pissed off.

‘Hm. Do you know dad funded them?’ Tony inclined his head. ‘They’re still using my money. Why don’t we contact the legal team and find out if they can actually do that?’

Pepper nodded and pulled out her Blackberry.

***

The door was answered by Tony Stark’s redheaded PA, Pepper Potts. She led them into the house and into the living room where she picked up the evidence, which had been stacked into manila folders. The two flicked them open and started rifling through them. There was even a USB stick, which was sure to be stacked with even more evidence.

‘This is all of it?’ CIA Agent Harper asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ Pepper said.

FBI Agent Shawn nodded and flicked his folder closed. ‘We’d like to talk to Mr. Stark as well.’

Miss Potts nodded. ‘This way, gentlemen.’ She led them through the mansion and into a large gym located in the back room. There was a large boxing ring set up in the middle of the room. That was where the billionaire was. Tony Stark had a couple of bandages wrapped around his hands as he beat the living daylights out of a boxing bag that was being held steady by a larger middle-aged man.

Of course, in his situation anybody would be angry – far better it be to take it out on an object designed to be punched.

There was another man there, in military uniform – an African American. Lt. Col. James Rhodes if they weren’t mistaken. He was sitting back and watching this with a severe look on his face. He turned his head as they walked in and stood up. Then he called, ‘Hey, Tones.’

Stark stopped and turned around. He looked at them, took a deep, and then came over to the barrier of the ring. ‘I guess you two want to know how I found out.’

‘That is our main concern, yes,’ Agent Harper said.

‘The simple answer is: from Aunt Peg.’

‘Aunt Peg?’

‘Not my real aunt,’ Tony said. ‘But I’ve known Peggy Carter all my life.’

Peggy Carter, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. at its inception until she was forced into retirement. Agent Harper frowned. ‘You’re saying your parents were involved with S.H.I.E.L.D.’

‘Dad, mostly, it turns out.’ Tony hopped down from the ring. ‘He became friends with Peg in World War II. When she turned the SSR into S.H.I.E.L.D. it was with dad’s money. Looks like she took advantage of dad’s ignorance of how intelligence agencies are supposed to work, which is how S.H.I.E.L.D. can now operate the way it does. It was all on dad’s dime.’

Harper and Shawn looked at each other. S.H.I.E.L.D. had existed since the 1950s, and it had always left a bitter taste in the mouth. The rest of the intelligence community had hated them, not because they were better – they weren’t. It was because while everyone else was in the public eye, and subject to scrutiny, S.H.I.E.L.D. had operated in the shadows – unseen and unmonitored – and could do whatever they damn well liked. Now it looked like Director Carter, who always been considered somewhat arrogant, had gotten into this position by manipulating her friendship with a millionaire.

Tony went on. ‘And they thanked him by covering up his and mom’s double murder.’

‘And Carter just told you this?’ Agent Shawn asked. ‘After lying for years?’

‘To be fair, she didn’t realise it was me she was talking to.’

Agent Harper paused. ‘Doesn’t Carter have Alzheimer’s?’

‘Which is why I was dubious about what she said at first,’ Tony said. ‘I considered she might have just been rambling nonsense. But, on the other hand, she could not have been. So I picked up on the organisation she mentioned and I went looking for solid evidence.’ Tony nodded to the folders. ‘That’s what those are.’

‘Did Ms. Carter give you any indication of her reasons, Mr. Stark?’ Agent Shawn asked.

‘Yes,’ Tony said. ‘Her first reason was that she didn’t want it investigated and led back to S.H.I.E.L.D.’

Both federal agents nodded and rolled their eyes.

Tony went on. ‘The second reason was that she didn’t want to risk me pulling Stark Industries’ funding from the S.H.I.E.L.D. coffers.’

Agent Harper nodded. ‘May I then recommend you hold out on that until we have a solid case against them and we can charge them?’

Tony just nodded.

‘Anything further to add, Mr. Stark?’

‘Yes,’ Tony said. ‘There were three people who claimed to have seen dad crash the car, including my EO. Not a single one of their testimonies measure up to that.’ He pointed to the folders. ‘I want an explanation.’

‘You’ve spoken to your EO?’ Agent Harper asked.

‘He just reiterated his old story.’ Tony shook his head. ‘I know it’s not true, though. I want answers – the real ones.’

***

Rhodey sat in the Stark Mansion living room with Tony, Pepper, and Happy. He’d been pretty pissed off when he’d heard. It was even worse to arrive back here and find it was true. What kind of friend was Peggy Carter? You didn’t cover up your friend’s murder, lie to his 17 year old son, and then claim it was for the greater good.

Then, this was just the icing on top of the cake!

‘You know that stuff technically belongs to you, right?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Yes, it does, platypus,’ Tony said. ‘And I’ll be suing for their return.’ He turned to Pepper. ‘Add that on the list of things for Legal to do once the report comes out, Pep.’

Pepper was typing furiously on her Blackberry. ‘Already done.’

‘Good.’ Tony clicked and the holographic screen appeared in front of them.

‘What’s this?’ Happy asked.

‘Well, the CIA and FBI apparently don’t like S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as every other intelligence agency in the world.’ Tony smirked. ‘The reason for that is because while they are all subject to scrutiny, S.H.I.E.L.D. can go around doing whatever they like with no consequence because nobody knows they’re there. The rest of the intelligence community is quite looking forward to sticking them in the public eye like this.’

‘As they would be,’ Rhodey said.

‘I know, right?’ Tony chuckled. He sobered up. ‘Anyway, but because they’re accustomed to completely ignoring the law, both the CIA and FBI are expecting that once this starts, they’ll try to weasel their way out. These are the agents they think Peg’s successor, Nick Fury, is going to send after me.’

Pepper leaned over and picked one of the folders up. ‘Phillip Coulson. Displays clear signs of sociopathy – actual diagnosis unconfirmed.’

‘You’ll find a lot of them are like that,’ Tony said. ‘Their actions, methods, and behaviours have led every other intelligence agency in the world to consider them potential sociopaths or psychopaths. Either way, they all have aspects of antisocial personality disorder.’ He tapped the pile. ‘I don’t know if they’re trained that way or if they’re picked out for those traits.’

‘They’re probably picked out for them,’ Rhodey said. ‘You know, you can lead a horse to water…’

Tony nodded. He rifled through the folders and picked out one. ‘This is the one they actually want me to worry about. He flicked it open.

‘Natasha Romanoff?’ Happy asked. ‘Sounds Russian.’

‘It is Russian,’ Tony said. ‘She was originally part of a top secret Russian spy program called the Red Room and is the current Black Widow. Turns out from 1946 until he was engaged to my mom, the Black Widows went after dad a lot. There were no less than five sent after him.’

‘So they’ll probably send this one after you,’ Pepper guessed, getting a good look at her profile.

Tony nodded. ‘Apparently, they’re not too good at using their creative juices. S.H.I.E.L.D. have a grand total of three tricks: manipulation, seduction, and violence. That’s it.’ Tony shook his head. ‘Hell, by the time the last one came around, dad had taught himself to recognise the Black Widows.’ A statement appeared on the screens in front of them. ‘Look at this. Dad actually got so mad about it that he gave a statement to somebody. I’m not sure who, though. Would’ve had to be somebody outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. or we wouldn’t have it.’

You can always tell, the quote read. They saunter up to you, skirt hitched up, at least an inch of cleavage showing, glossy lips, flicking their hair, batting their eyelashes and getting well within your personal space. If they do play “hard to get”, then the key to it will generally be you showing them what they want to steal. And whatever they’re wearing you can bet it’s gonna both be form-fitting and push their jugs out.

‘Really?’ Rhodey asked. That was the oldest trick in the book! ‘They still do this?’

‘I checked,’ Tony said. ‘Romanoff certainly does.’

‘Hm.’ Rhodey shook his head. ‘No creativity. So we’re expecting some attacks when this all goes to hell?’

‘Yup.’ Tony reached under the coffee table. ‘Seeing as the report’s going to be released tomorrow, I made these. They’re linked to JARVIS and there’s one for each of us.’ Tony opened the box and handed out the wristwatches inside.

‘What do they do, besides the obvious?’ Pepper asked.

‘They beep if a registered S.H.I.E.L.D. agent comes within range,’ Tony said. ‘And I know for a fact that all of their agents are registered. They also send out a pulse if they move towards you in any kind of violent manner. The pulse will blow the agent across the room. If there’s a second attack, they get electrocuted.’

Rhodey chuckled and clipped his on. ‘Nice.’

Chapter Text

A classification screen appeared on the TV. A male voice spoke over the top of it. ‘The following program contains images that will be distressing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.’

The news station’s theme music sounded and a studio was shown with an attractive middle-aged woman sitting at the news desk. ‘Good afternoon, I’m Sandra Cablet, and welcome to this half-hour special investigation report on the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark. While it is true that the Starks were known to have died in a car accident eighteen years ago, new evidence has come to light which we will now explore.’

An image of a darkened street appeared behind her.

‘To begin with, we will observe this video tape, procured by a joint FBI and CIA investigation into the allegations.’

And the entire world watched, starting with the United States of America, as the crime was finally exposed. They watched as an unidentified motorcyclist shot the tyres out of the Starks’ Lincoln, causing it to crash, and then bashed Howard Stark’s face in, despite him begging for his wife to be helped, and they watched as Maria Stark was strangled. It escaped no one’s notice that Howard Stark had recognised his killer.

The scene returned to the reporter. ‘As you can see, it seems that the popular theory that Howard Stark was drunk behind the wheel was, in fact, an elaborate cover-up. Howard and Maria Stark were murdered in cold blood.’ She paused. ‘As Maria Stark was strangled, the only evidence would have been on her flesh. With Tony Stark’s permission, however, Howard Stark’s body was exhumed and examined by the forensic team of the FBI. We were able to interview the head forensic pathologist a few days ago.’

The scene changed to the interviewer speaking to a man of about 64 or 65.

‘Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Dr. Borren.’

‘Thank you for having me, Mrs. Cablet,’ he said.

‘You examined Howard Stark’s skeleton before it was returned to ground?’ the interviewer asked. ‘What did you find?’

‘Howard Stark’s skull had been reconstructed before he was buried, especially around the nasal cavity,’ Dr. Borren said. ‘If Mr. Stark had indeed crashed, the only thing he could have smacked his head on was the steering wheel. The broken bones in his face, however, are not the kind that would result from a high-speed impact of the face to the steering wheel. Instead, the acquired video shows a much more accurate picture of what occurred. Any coroner should have seen that he had been intentionally bashed in the face by another person.’

‘Why do you think they didn’t?’

‘The most likely reason was that the coroner was paid off.’

The scene flicked back to the studio where the news reporter sat at her desk. ‘The joint investigation has, thus far, been able to learn that the Starks were killed due to Howard Stark’s involvement with an organisation that, until now, has been completely hidden from the public: Strategic Homeland Enforcement, Intervention, and Logistics Division, otherwise known as S.H.I.E.L.D. They were formed in 1953 from the Strategic Scientific Reserve – the SSR – which was founded specifically for World War Two. In the post-war era, the SSR found themselves becoming increasingly redundant. At this time, the famous Peggy Carter was an agent who decided to reform it into something new. She did so by seizing on her friendship with Howard Stark and she used his money.’ She paused and glanced down at her notes. ‘While Howard Stark was claimed to be a founding member and one of the leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. all evidence gathered by the CIA indicates that he had no real power or authority in the organisation. He was not informed of any missions and seemed to spend most of the time either giving the agents money or transport or working in the science labs. It would appear that, to them, he was essentially a “cash cow”. After the break, we’ll explore the reasons why S.H.I.E.L.D. and Peggy Carter decided to pass off the double murder of Howard and Maria Stark as an accident.’

***

Tony looked over as the commercials started. ‘Now.’

Pepper nodded and hit the button which gave Legal the signal to begin procedures.

The first thing to go would be SI funding.

***

‘Okay, let’s talk about intelligence agencies,’ Conan O’Brien said. ‘Generally, they’re pretty good to have around. They take care of national security, hunt down terrorists, and basically take care of the big things the police aren’t equipped to handle. Yup! Intelligence agencies are all about protecting the people…Then you’ve got S.H.I.E.L.D.’

There were chuckles in the audience.

‘Let’s take a look at what S.H.I.E.L.D.’s done since its inception.’ Conan started counting off on his fingers. ‘Peggy Carter lied to her friend, Bank-Account—I mean Howard Stark, and used his money to create an organisation that no one knew about.’ He leaned back and sighed wistfully. ‘Must’ve been great. No one was watching, so these guys could do whatever they wanted. I had that kind of power, I’d go more for pizza. They decided to ignore every law under the sun, but to each their own, you know.’ He paused and shuffled the papers on his desk. When he spoke again, his voice was casual. ‘But you’d think they’d realise concealing a double murder is going too far.’

***

‘How the fuck did they get that tape before we did?’ Fury demanded as he stormed into his office.

Maria Hill and Phillip Coulson followed him.

‘No idea, sir,’ Hill said, ‘but we do know it wasn’t doctored.’

Fury only managed to keep himself from growling from his years of discipline. His cell phone beeped again but he ignored it. Now that they knew S.H.I.E.L.D. existed, the world was calling for them to come forth. Why had they hidden? What were they afraid of? What did they have to say for themselves? It was a waste of his time. He could see why Carter didn’t want them in the public eye.

‘Where did the leak come from then?’ Fury demanded.

‘We don’t know yet,’ Coulson said. ‘But we do have an additional problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Stark Industries is suing us.’ Coulson pulled out his clipboard and flipped it open. ‘They also apparently found out they were funding us. They’ve withdrawn their funding about half-way through the initial news report and now they’re suing us in a civil court for the return of Howard Stark’s inventions and research – you know, that stuff we took after he died. Apparently Tony Stark found out we have it, and he thinks it belongs to him.’

Well…if you wanted to be technical it did. That was why Howard’s will did a Houdini. They only thing they hadn’t taken was Howard’s home computer, but there’d be nothing of interest on that which they didn’t have. Fury scoffed. ‘He can try all he likes he ain’t gettin’ shit. We’ll send Romanoff at him. Black Widows had a lot of success on Howard when he was Tony’s age.’

***

‘There are a lot of people who cast doubt on Tony Stark,’ Dr. Phil said to his audience. ‘The reason for this is because he went looking for the information based on the ramblings of a woman with Alzheimer’s. The argument is that she was a delusional old woman and nothing she said should be taken seriously.’

He pointed directly at the recording camera.

‘Well, I am here to tell you that is wrong! Alzheimer’s isn’t a disease of delusion. It’s a disease of degeneration. The brain is breaking down in the skull. The victims of Alzheimer’s are not having delusions. Their minds are not creating memories. In fact, quite the contrary. As the disease progresses, they’re losing memories. If an Alzheimer’s patient admits to a crime, it can’t be brushed aside. It needs to be taken seriously. That is exactly what Tony Stark did.’

***

Tony sat at his work desk watching the newsfeed. One in particular drew his attention. There were people all over the world going to their nearest Stark Industries building to lay down flowers. Everywhere was absolutely carpeted with them. Tony didn’t recall people caring this much when they’d actually died.

The door to the workshop opened and Tony looked up to see Pepper walk in.

Tony smiled. ‘You look tired.’

‘We’ve been carting flowers in all day,’ Pepper said. ‘Oh, and they took Obadiah into custody today.’

‘Hm.’ Tony glared at the screens. ‘Go quietly, did he?’

‘Nope. They had to taser him.’ Pepper frowned. ‘I had no idea he was so violent.’

‘Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘FBI sent me a personality profile on him just ten minutes ago. Look.’ He clicked and the profile appeared.

Pepper read it and drew back in surprise. ‘So he’s a confirmed psychopath?’

‘Yeah. Get a few people to search his office for me.’ Tony narrowed his eyes. ‘Preferably people who found him unsettling.’

‘Sure.’ Pepper pulled out her Blackberry and began typing. ‘How are you holding up?’

‘About how you’d expect.’ Tony leaned on the desk. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘About…?’

‘Dad, mostly.’ Tony sighed and sat down. ‘We used to clash an awful lot. He wasn’t around most of the time and I translated that into him not wanting to spend time with me. I was a kid when he died. I had no idea about S.H.I.E.L.D. and I just found out why too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Dad didn’t want me anywhere near them.’ Tony’s lips tugged upwards at the thought of it. ‘He actually had an ultimatum with Peg, cause apparently she wanted to enlist me since I was four.’

‘Four?’ Pepper demanded.

‘Apparently, building a circuit board at that age makes you great killer-assassin material.’ Tony shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned. Really, it had terrified him when he’d found that tidbit. To think, he’d actually felt safe around that woman! ‘Dad told her if S.H.I.E.L.D. went within ten feet of me, he’d yank the funding.’

‘…So your dad was protecting you all that time.’

‘Yeah. It’s really made me re-evaluate him.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I wonder what he was like away from my childhood perception of him. Now, because of them, I’ll never know.’

Pepper reached out and rubbed his back in a gesture of comfort. Tony smiled gratefully at her. She was the only woman he’d ever met, aside from his mother, who he respected. She was the first girl who hadn’t been interested in his fortune at all. Her, Happy, and Rhodey were all the friends he’d ever need in the world. For a few minutes they stood like that.

‘Oh, right, before I forget.’ Tony clapped and flicked a new screen up. ‘Look whose decided to grace us with her presence.’

Pepper looked. ‘Natalie Rushman? Really?’

‘Yeah. Apparently this is normal. I looked up the Black Widows they sent after dad. Dottie Underwood was really Darya Utkin. Sarah Peterson was really Sonya Petrov. Yvette Spooner was really Yulia Sokolovsky. You get the idea.’

‘No creativity,’ Pepper muttered. She looked up at him. ‘So what’s your plan?’

‘Let’s weave the web around the spider.’

Chapter Text

Obadiah sat in the interrogation room, staring at the door.

His hands were handcuffed together, but he was confident he could manipulate his way out of this. The charge was something to do with bearing false witness. All he had to do was come across as a totally honest and compliant man. Besides, he had Tony Stark on his side. He’d made sure to be close enough to Tony that the boy would pay him out of any trouble he might be in.

The door to the interrogation room opened. Obadiah affected a startled look. Inside, though, he was hissing with glee as Tony entered the room followed by Pepper Potts and two security guards. This was it. The cuffs would be off shortly and he could go on as usual.

Obadiah was surprised, though, when Tony spun the other chair around, propped one foot on it and leaned an arm on his knee. ‘Hello, Obie.’

‘Tony,’ Obadiah gave him a nervous smile, ‘I’m sure you’d like an explanation for this.’ He lifted his cuffed hands. He had one lined up too. ‘You see, they think…’

‘I know exactly what they think,’ Tony said in a tone Obadiah had never heard from him. Howard, yes, but never Tony. ‘We had a nice little chat.’ He paused. ‘A few nice little chats, actually. There’s just one question I’d like to ask, Obie. Why did you lie?’

Shit. Obadiah put his most convincing earnest expression on. ‘I didn’t lie, Tony. I’d never lie to you.’

Pepper arched one eyebrow at him.

‘Mm-hm.’ Tony looked up at the security camera and nodded. ‘Then explain this.’

There was a TV mounted to the wall above them and it flicked on. A tape began playing and, as he realised what it was, Obadiah felt the first etchings of doubt beginning to creep in. What the hell were those damn idiots thinking recording that?! His mind raced as he tried to think of a way out of this. ‘Tony, I had no idea!’

‘Really?’ Tony asked doubtfully. He held his hand out and Pepper handed him an old newspaper. Tony opened it and set it down in front of Obadiah. ‘So this isn’t you claiming to have seen the accident?’ He pointed to the line where Obadiah’s quote had been written. ‘This isn’t you claiming that the car spun out of control before anyone knew what was happening?’

Oh…shit. How was he going to talk his way out of this one? If he had more time he could think of some explanation, but he’d had no time. He was just suddenly in a spot he hadn’t anticipated. Of course, if those damn fools hadn’t gone and recorded the assassination this wouldn’t have happened.

Tony shoved the chair aside and leaned on the table. ‘You weren’t there, Obie. You lied. And I want to know why.’

Obadiah said nothing. There was nothing he could say that would make him look better. He just affected the most shocked look he could. That ought to do it. Pepper laid a hand on Tony’s shoulder. He took a deep breath. Times like this Obadiah considered that Pepper was to Tony what Maria had been to Howard.

‘Never mind,’ Tony said. ‘I know why.’ He took the clipboard that Pepper handed to him. ‘See, after you were arrested we went through your office.’

…Not good.

‘Seems you’ve been selling off our defective and out-of-date stock to the highest bidder.’ Tony fixed him with a hard glare. ‘You know, the stuff that should have been stripped down and put back into the production line. You’ve been doing it for years. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Dad, who built the company up from the ground without your help, had begun to get suspicious. So when HYDRA approached you, wanting something from dad, you made a deal with them to assassinate dad.’

Obadiah stared Tony down. ‘You have no evidence.’

‘Actually, I do,’ Tony said. ‘Or rather, the CIA does. Seems HYDRA were so full of themselves they recorded everything – including that conversation. It was found in the same place the assassination video was – the neglected HYDRA archives in Ukraine.’ Tony’s eyes narrowed. ‘You wanted dad dead. Mom was just collateral damage. It also made it easier for you to use me. You know what you’re gonna do now?’

Tony didn’t give him a chance to answer.

‘You’re going to tell these nice federal agents who the killer was and who you were talking to in that conversation.’

Enraged, Obadiah lunged at Tony, aiming to grab his throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen! He wasn’t supposed to get caught red-handed! The guards suddenly shot forward as Tony stepped back and Obadiah had two guns in his face. He glared at Tony as the boy cast him one withering look as he led Pepper out of the interrogation room.

***

Fury strode into the room, leading several of his S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in. The CIA and FBI had organised a meeting. The damn fools had left themselves wide open. It was something to do with their concealing a double murder. It didn’t matter to Fury. He’d deal with these insolent bastards first, and then he’d deal with Stark.

After all, the kid was just an immature playboy throwing a temper tantrum.

Stark was nothing to them.

Sure, the publicity would be hard to get away from, but this was S.H.I.E.L.D. First, he’d deal with these idiots – permanently if need be – and then he’d put Stark in his place. He’d known that Carter rambled on, but to think she’d actually rambled on at Tony about the one thing he should never have known. Maybe she needed to be moved to a more secure location.

Fury stepped into the room, and froze. The two men, respectively the Directors of the CIA and FBI, sat at a table on a podium directly in front of them. Surrounding the podium was a set-up like a press conference. The room was full of reporters and photographers.

Director Coombes of the FBI stood up. ‘Director Fury, I trust you’ll forgive the audience. Mr. Stark suggested, for fair procedures, that the Press might be beneficial to have in the room with us. If you’ll take your seat, we might begin.’

The Press also made it impossible to overpower them.

Fucking Stark!

***

Natasha followed Potts down into the Stark Mansion. It had been frustrating, but she’d finally managed to get in. She’d get into Stark’s system and get his funds back into S.H.I.E.L.D. where they belonged. All she had to do was get his trust, and that wouldn’t be too hard.

The first step, it turned out, was easier than she’d been expecting. All she had to do was slip one of her “superiors” a little pill that made her violently sick when she was supposed to go to an important meeting. Natasha had then filled in. With that, she was handed some paperwork and sent to Stark Mansion.

Too easy.

They walked into a room where Tony Stark was leaning over a computer. Potts stepped forward. ‘Miss Rushman, Mr. Stark.’

Tony Stark turned around. ‘Ah.’ He gave her a wide smile and looked her over. His eyes lingered on her legs and then her cleavage. Easy.

‘Good morning, Mr. Stark.’ Natasha stepped right into his personal space and handed him the paperwork. ‘I’ve been sent to deliver this.’ She made sure to bat her eyelashes and brush his hand as she handed the paper to him.

Stark chuckled and moved back, leaning against the desk. He slid the envelope open and read what she’d handed to him. Natasha hadn’t bothered slipping it open to have a read herself. It’s not like what was in there was important to her. When Stark looked up, she made sure to flick her hair.

‘Hm.’ Stark smiled pleasantly as he set the paperwork down. ‘Rushman, huh? Got a first name that goes with that?’

Natasha affected surprise. ‘Uh…Natalie.’

‘Natalie Rushman,’ Stark mused. ‘Tell me something, Natalie Rushman. Do you recognise any of these people?’ He clapped and five holographic screens appeared behind him. That was some impressive tech. S.H.I.E.L.D. would benefit from it. She might have to coerce it out of him. Then Natasha looked at the faces on the screens.

For the first time, she began to worry. ‘I’m afraid not, Mr. Stark.’

Actually, she did. All five women had been previous Black Widows. They spanned from 1946 until 1957. And those ones specifically had, at some stage, been sent after Howard Stark. The last one Yvette Spooner, or Yulia Sokolovsky, had been the only one to be unsuccessful because Howard Stark had suddenly been spoken for and turned out to be entirely faithful to Maria Collins Carbonell.

She’d also been the only one whose career was ended by a civilian.

‘Hm-mm.’ Stark picked up the paperwork and flicked it open. ‘You sat in for one Charlene Harris in Legal, didn’t you? Why?’

‘She came down with a stomach bug,’ Natasha said.

‘Yes, vomiting everywhere.’ Stark clicked his tongue. ‘So much so, she had to be admitted to hospital for dehydration.’

Natasha then affected a concerned look, but she really didn’t care. Sacrifices had to be made. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Really?’ Then Stark’s pleasant smile was suddenly gone, and a blank look was in its place. ‘Because you gave her a cup of tea before she got sick. The hospital staff did a blood test and found a narcotic in her blood stream.’

Shit. Natasha’s mind raced. ‘I have no idea what happened, Mr. Stark.’

‘No, I think you do,’ Stark said. He clapped again and Natasha was stunned to see her own S.H.I.E.L.D. profile pop up. ‘See, when it became apparent I’d be crossing lines with S.H.I.E.L.D., the CIA gave me a bunch of profiles of agents they considered likely to be sent after me to get access to my money again. And you, Natalie Rushman, were right at the top of the list.’ He inclined his head. ‘Or should I say Natasha Romanoff?’ He smirked. ‘Or, even better, Natalia Romanova.’ Stark chuckled to himself. ‘Geez, you Black Widows sure are predictable. The best one was probably Dottie Underwood – first time she went after dad she went by Ida Emke. None of this boring keep-the-same-initials-but-localise-the-name bull.’

Natasha was glaring at him by now. He’d been warned? He had her profile? That meant he’d let her into the company! Why would he do that? Unless…unless he was setting a trap. Natasha knew what she’d done to Harris was illegal. It was under some manslaughter or OH&S law. She didn’t actually know and she really didn’t care.

‘The authorities have been called,’ Potts said behind her.

Natasha kept her glare firmly on Stark. ‘You think you can just arrest us? This is S.H.I.E.L.D.!’

‘Arrest you?’ Stark suddenly looked amused. ‘Of course not. I’m not a police officer, a federal agent, and I have no warrant. I have no authority to arrest you.’

Natasha smirked.

‘However,’ Stark went on, turning his back dismissively – foolish move, ‘I am also a private citizen of these United States. I am in charge of a Fortune 500 company where you have caused grievous harm to one of my employees in order to gain access to me. I have the legal right to have you arrested.’

Natasha charged forward, one hand going to one of her many hidden knives. She was going to wipe that smug smirk off his face and replace it with one of terror. He was nothing compared to her! Just some narcissistic playboy born with a silver spoon in his mouth. She’d worked hard for everything she had and she was the best in the business. He’d give them back that money, and he wouldn’t have a say in it.

Tony glanced over his shoulder, unimpressed. Before Natasha made contact, she suddenly felt her body being propelled in the opposite direction from where she’d been aiming. She saw the wall heading for her, almost in slow motion, and then the world faded to black as she impacted with it.

When she came around, her arms were restrained and she was strapped to some kind of gurney outside the mansion. A few guys in suits were hanging around. She recognised them. FBI. She tried to move, but the binds on her were too tight. She did however, notice the media crowd outside the gate, snapping photos of her and she glared at them hard.

‘Pepper!’ Starks’s voice got her attention. Natasha looked over to see him walking away from one of the FBI handlers and over to his PA. ‘See that Ms. Harris’s hospital bill is paid for in full and then book her a two-week spa resort vacation. Then add some compensation in just for good measure. She shouldn’t have had to suffer for this.’

‘Yes, Mr. Stark.’ Potts said as she and Stark went back into the house.

What the hell just happened?

***

‘I’m glad that’s over,’ Pepper said as they walked in. ‘This spy business has really been a pain to deal with.’

‘Afraid it’s not over yet.’ Tony took Pepper through to the computer he was leaning over when she brought Romanoff in. ‘Look what I found.’

‘What is it?’ Pepper asked.

Tony lifted a box of some sort that was plugged into the computer he was using. It looked like something out of an old-style computer. As it turned out, it was. ‘It’s the hard drive from dad’s old computer. When S.H.I.E.L.D. took off with his stuff, the computer was the only thing they left alone. I guess they thought there’d be nothing interesting on it. Boy, were they wrong.’

‘What’s on it?’

‘A whole bunch of stuff,’ Tony said. ‘The most interesting thing is a folder with my name on it.’

Tony scrolled down until they came to a folder with “TONY” written underneath. Tony clicked on it. There was a collection of data in there. Pepper looked at the headings of the files. Most of them pertained to either SI or S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘So your dad always intended you to know about S.H.I.E.L.D.?’

‘Yup.’ Tony scrolled down again, this time to the bottom, and he clicked on a file labelled “WILL”.

Pepper read over it. ‘So much for “left no instructions”.’

‘I know, right?’ Tony grinned.

Pepper smiled and stepped back to send a message to Legal.

JARVIS spoke up for the first time since before Romanoff walked in the door. ‘Sir, I have just received a priority message from the Joint CIA/FBI Investigation Unit.’

‘Yeah?’ Tony asked. ‘What is it?’

‘It seems that Obadiah Stane has escaped.’

Tony and Pepper both looked up in alarm.

Chapter Text

‘While looking through the hard drive from his father’s old computer, Tony Stark discovered a digital copy of Howard Stark’s Last Will and Testament. At the time of their deaths, it was believed that Howard and Maria Stark had left no instructions as no Will could be found. The contents of the Will indicate that S.H.I.E.L.D. may have removed and concealed the hard copy due to the following statement.’

Text appeared on the screen and a male voice read it: At the time of my death, all Stark funds into Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division are to be frozen until such a time when Anthony Edward Stark has gained access to the databanks in their entirety and decided whether to continue funding or to withdraw funding.

‘The Will also states that all stocks, properties, and investments previously owned by Howard Stark now belong to Tony Stark.’

***

Tony was amazed, really. There was so much stuff of his dad’s that S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken off with, and that wasn’t including his scientific endeavours at the time of his death. Some of this stuff was almost as old as Stark Industries itself was. Tony looked at FBI Director Coombes.

‘I expect they tried to hide some stuff from you.’

‘Of course they did.’ Coombes rolled his eyes. ‘Nice job finding that inventory, by the way.’

Yet another thing that was on the hard drive.

‘Write that down.’

‘Pen to paper, boy.’

‘Write it down, Tony.’

One thing dear old dad had always been big on was recording everything. It left something to be said about him. He practiced what he preached. Everything Howard had been working on, everything he owned, at the time of his death was on a list on the hard drive of his computer.

Tony sighed. ‘Any sign of Stane?’

‘I’m afraid not. He must’ve created a network over the years. He’s completely disappeared.’

Tony pressed his lips together. ‘All right. Thank you.’

***

Pepper worked through SI’s business of the day. Criminal charges were done. Now it was time for SI’s civil charges. Legal thought they could get them on criminal charges too. The figure which S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken from SI without authorisation, or rather the figure which S.H.I.E.L.D. had stolen from the company, was staggering. It was going to take them years to pay it back, and Pepper had a good feeling they’d resist coughing up.

It would seem that Tony’s generosity was hereditary. Pepper looked down at the Louboutin shoes on her feet. They’d been a gift from Tony. That was something he’d always done. He’d buy his friends things to make up for his screw-ups or, sometimes, just because he felt like it. It was sad to think he did this because it was the only way he knew to show affection. Likely, it was something his father had done.

Pepper had known that. She had never been so pretentious as to think she was owed the money Tony spent on her. The same could be said for Rhodey and Happy. They both knew Tony didn’t have to spend all that money on them. He chose to, and it was a gift. It would now seem, though, that his father had not been as fortunate.

Howard had clearly paid for everything while he was alive – for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and SI. Obadiah, his “friend” in the company, had helped himself to any amount of money and, when that wasn’t enough, he’d started his illegal backdoor dealings. And Carter’s S.H.I.E.L.D., then Fury’s without Tony’s knowledge, had been 85% funded by the Stark fortune.

They all took the money like they were owed it.

Records were discovered, while S.H.I.E.L.D. was being combed through, of interactions Howard had with various members of S.H.I.E.L.D. command. Several psychologists from both the FBI and the CIA had looked at them and agreed that Howard had been the victim of several abusive relationships which incorporated clear guilt-tripping.

And if Obie had treated Howard the same way he treated Tony – by steam-rolling issues, trying to make himself out to be the good guy, and guilt-tripping him at every available opportunity – well, that meant he wasn’t safe from it at SI either. In fact, it looked like the only healthy relationship he had was with his wife.

Tony had said he was always fighting with his dad, but he had a valid excuse. He’d been a moody teenager. He’d been a moody teenager who didn’t understand why his dad was snappish and practically never home. If he’d been given time, Tony would have grown out of it. He may have even noticed, at least with Obadiah, and questioned it.

It was extremely hard to see abuse when you were the victim.

***

Tony sorted through his dad’s old stuff.

It was odd, really. How hadn’t he noticed that so much crap had gone missing? The sense of entitlement Carter had to snatch the whole lot was astounding. How had he never noticed this personality in her? Maybe it was a Stark thing. His father certainly never had noticed either.

Quite a few things in here caught his interest. For instance, when he found the original blueprints for the Arc Reactor, he was surprised to find another name next to his father’s: Anton Vanko. Which led to the question: who was Anton Vanko? There were a few clues in the chest where he’d found the blueprints. Eventually, though, Tony had to ask JARVIS.

‘Find out who Anton Vanko was.’

JARVIS came back with the answer only an hour and a half later.

‘Anton Vanko was a Soviet scientist who claimed to defect from the USSR,’ JARVIS said. ‘Under this belief, your father entered a partnership with him. They created the prototype Arc Reactor. However, Dr. Vanko turned out to be lying and attempted to make off with the prototype for Russia. Had the device been smaller, I’d imagine he’d have been more successful.’

‘So what happened to Vanko?’

‘He was extradited back to Russia and then abandoned by his government,’ JARVIS explained. ‘He is recorded to have become a violent drunk after the fact. He does have a son, a handful of years older than you, sir, who appears to be trying to gain access to American soil. I would recommend preparations.’

‘Yeah,’ Tony mused. ‘Don’t want to be caught with our pants down, do we? I mean, if it’d gone the other way I’d want revenge too.’

‘Except I believe your father had another job to fall back on,’ JARVIS remarked.

Tony smiled bitterly. ‘Not a healthy one from what we hear.’

‘True.’ Some of the sass entered JARVIS’s tone. ‘But it seems the Arc Reactor was the one time your father put his foot down. Apparently, Director Carter felt entitled to the piece of technology and was quite put out that your father wouldn’t give her one.’

‘What the hell would S.H.I.E.L.D. need an Arc Reactor for?’ Tony demanded.

Howard’s voice was suddenly projected from JARVIS’s speakers. ‘What the hell do you need an Arc Reactor for?’

Tony snorted in amusement.

Continuing his search, it was another few hours before he opened a case that contained an old film reel. Curious, Tony had gone looking in the storage room. There were some things that hadn’t been taken which he’d brought with him when he moved to Malibu. One of those things was an old film projector.

Setting up the film projector took a few more seconds than he was happy with but, frankly, he hadn’t been expecting to need it. Grabbing a chair, Tony sat down and started playing the old film. At first, it just seemed like a rehearsal film that his dad had made back in the 70s. 1974 specifically, Tony noticed when he looked up at the sound of his name. His father was yelling at his 4-year-old self, who had just pulled something off of the model of the Stark Expo and then bellowed for his mother to come and get him. Tony frowned. He didn’t remember it, but it was just so typical for…

Tony stopped that thought as he watched an SI employee pick his younger self off and leave. I’m falling into old habits again, aren’t I? He needed to think of it from his father’s perspective. The first thing was that he looked tired. The second thing Tony had to remember that in those days, film techniques were still fairly young. There was no editing anything together and splicing took more than just hitting a few buttons. Any screw-ups meant starting all over again. Now imagine a little kid comes in looking for your attention while you’re trying to do that.

Man, all of a sudden Tony didn’t blame his father for snapping.

Suddenly, his father – on the film – spoke his name again, but this time it was softer and more affectionate than Tony himself had ever heard. Tony looked up. ‘You’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I’d put it on tape for you.’ He gestured to the model. ‘I built this for you. I was limited by the technology of my time but someday you’ll figure this out. And, when you do, you’re gonna change the world.’

Figure what out? Was there something in the Expo he hadn’t known about it?

Then Howard’s final statement caught his attention. ‘…out of all of that, my greatest creation…is you.’

***

‘Are you sure about this, boss?’ Happy asked.

‘Yup,’ Tony said. ‘Dad always wanted to branch out of the weapons business, but he never could. If Stane wasn’t guilt-tripping him, Carter was demanding new weapons or upgrades on the weapons they already had. Now that those two headaches are out of the way, I figure we see if we can pull it off.’

‘Military’s not gonna like it, Tony,’ Rhodey pointed out. ‘I mean, you got a point seeing as Howard was kinda strong-armed into staying in the weapons business after World War Two, but the military’s still not gonna like it.’

‘I’m not abandoning their contracts,’ Tony said. ‘I’m just trying new things on top of that. Just tell them that now that I’ve burned off the leaches, I’m bored.’

Rhodey chuckled. ‘You know what’s sad? They’d actually believe that.’

‘Well, the military is one thing,’ Pepper said. ‘But what about the board?’

‘Well, seeing as half the board have been fired for compliance with Stane’s backdoor dealing, the other half have actually been behaving themselves.’

Pepper raised an eyebrow. ‘And the stockholders?’

‘I’m an eccentric billionaire,’ Tony said. ‘It’s my company and I can do what I like with it. If they’re worried about the stocks dropping, tell them I’m gonna finish something dad started in the 70s. That should calm them down.’

Pepper sighed. ‘And if they ask why he stopped?’

‘Tell them dad often had ideas that technology couldn’t keep up with, and this was one of them.’ Tony turned his head. ‘Oh, Rhodey-buns.’

‘What is it?’

Tony pulled something out of his jacket pocket. ‘Look at this.’

Rhodey opened it up and let out a low whistle. ‘The blueprints for the Arc Reactor?’ He frowned. ‘Who’s Anton Vanko?’

‘A Soviet scientist who pretended to defect, helped dad build the Arc Reactor in the 60s and then tried to steal it back to the USSR.’

Happy snorted. ‘He tried to take off with the Arc Reactor? That thing is massive! And what’s it weigh? A few tonnes? How’d he expect to get it out of the country?’

‘No idea, but that’s how dad caught him.’ Tony shrugged. ‘Turns out he had a son too, who wants to reclaim the Arc Reactor. From the S.H.I.E.L.D. files I hacked on Ivan Vanko, he’s not exactly mentally stable.’

‘Keep an eye out for him?’ Rhodey asked.

‘Precisely. Now…’ Tony walked over to the middle of the room and yanked the sheet off of the model on the large table. ‘…let’s see what we can do here.’

‘The old Stark Expo?’ Rhodey asked as the other three gathered around.

‘Dad hid something in here,’ Tony said. ‘I’m gonna find out what. If that means I have to set up the whole Expo all over again, I will.’

Chapter Text

3 Years Later – 2008
Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn’t work out the way I wanted it to

I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time and it doesn’t work out the way I wanted to

It’s like I concentrate real hard and it just doesn’t work out

Tony looked up at the screen. ‘Give me an exploded view.’

The image on the screen shifted. ‘Compression in Cylinder 3 appears to be low,’ JARVIS told him.

‘Okay.’

Behind him, Pepper keyed in the access code and opened the door. The music turned off and he only heard Pepper’s voice on the phone. Tony didn’t look up from what he was doing. ‘Please don’t turn down my music.’

Pepper hung up. ‘You are supposed to be halfway around the world right now.’

Tony began talking before Pepper finished her last word. ‘How’d she take it?’

Pepper shook her hair out of her eyes. ‘Like a champ.’

‘Why are you trying to hustle me outta here?’

‘Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and half ago.’

‘That’s funny. I thought with it being my plane and all, that it’d just wait for me to get there.’

‘Tony,’ Pepper interrupted him. ‘I need to speak to you about a couple of things before I get you out the door.’

Tony paid the interruption no mind. He did, however, move and sit on the front tyre of the Hot Rod he was working on and turned his attention to the redhead. ‘Doesn’t it kind of defeat the whole purpose of having your own plane if it departs before you arrive?’

‘Larry called,’ Pepper told him pointedly. ‘He’s got another buyer for the Jackson Pollock waiting in the wings. Do you want it? Yes or no?’

‘Is it a good representation of his spring period?’ Tony asked.

‘Um…No,’ Pepper corrected him. ‘The Springs was actually the neighbourhood in East Hampton where he lived and worked. Not “spring” like the season.’

‘So?’ Tony asked in the middle of her explanation.

She knew what he was asking. ‘I think it’s a fair example. Um…’ She pondered for a moment. ‘I think it’s incredibly overpriced.’

Tony stared for a moment. ‘I need it.’ He stood up and walked past her. ‘Buy it. Store it.’

Pepper smiled and made a note. ‘Oh, yeah. When you get to Afghanistan, there’s gonna be double guards.’

Tony stopped and looked back. ‘Why?’

‘Stane has been seen in the area.’

Tony nodded and tapped the watch on his wrist. He continued walking over to the kitchenette in the workshop. Pepper followed.

‘Okay. The MIT commencement speech…’

‘Is in June.’ Tony interrupted her, exasperated. ‘Please, don’t harangue me about stuff that’s way, way down…’

It was Pepper’s turn to interrupt him. ‘They’re haranguing me, so I’m gonna say yes.’

‘Well, deflect it and absorb it,’ Tony said. ‘Don’t transmit it back to me.’ He picked up a coffee cup and walked back over.

They had now moved on to talking over each other. Amazingly, to an outsider, they heard every word the other said.

‘Well, I need you to sign this before you head off.’

‘What are you trying to get rid of me for? What, you got plans?’

This time, Pepper didn’t speak over him. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’

A strange look crossed Tony’s face. ‘I don’t like it when you have plans,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘I’m allowed to have plans on my birthday.’

‘It’s your birthday?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew that.’ Tony squinted. ‘Already?’

‘Yeah,’ Pepper said whimsically. ‘Isn’t that strange? It’s the same day as last year.’

‘Well,’ Tony said, quickly signing off on the papers with his free hand, ‘get yourself something nice from me.’

‘I already did.’

‘And?’ Tony looked like an eager puppy.

‘Oh, it was very nice.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Very tasteful. Thank you, Mr. Stark.’

‘You’re welcome, Miss Potts.’

She took the pen back. Tony drowned the coffee and handed her the cup. He then walked up out of the workshop to get ready for his little trip.

***

‘For three hours,’ Rhodey grouched. ‘For three hours you got me standing here.’

‘Waiting on you now,’ Tony said flippantly. ‘Let’s go. Come on. Wheels up. Let’s rock and roll.’

Hogan just dropped off Tony’s bags and then departed from the plane. He was the SI Head of Security, but he’d have no real job in Afghanistan. That was for the military. Soon, they were in the air. Rhodey, still annoyed at being made to wait, sat back with a magazine.

‘What are you reading, platypus?’ Tony suddenly asked.

‘Nothing,’ Rhodey muttered.

‘Come on, sourpatch,’ Tony said. ‘Don’t be mad.’

‘I’m not mad. I’m indifferent, okay?’

‘I said I was sorry.’

Rhodey finally looked up. ‘You don’t respect yourself, so I know you don’t respect me.’

‘I respect you,’ Tony insisted.

‘I’m just your babysitter,’ Rhodey said. ‘So, when you need your diaper changed, let me know and I’ll get you a bottle, okay?’

Tony suddenly turned to the attractive female attendant – and wasn’t that the only kind of attendants he had? ‘Hey, heat up the sake, will you?’ She smiled, nodded, and went off. Tony turned back to Rhodey. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘No, I’m not talking—We’re not drinking!’ Rhodey insisted. ‘We’re working right now.’

‘You can’t have sashimi without sake,’ Tony said as if it was a piece of wisdom.

‘You are constitutionally incapable of being responsible!’ Even as he said it, Rhodey knew it was a lie. Three years ago Tony had shown himself not only capable of being responsible, but thorough, methodical, and ruthless.

Sure, S.H.I.E.L.D. still stood, but not in the capacity they had before. 85% of their funds were gone and the world watched their every move with intense scrutiny and deep suspicion. Obadiah had been caught red-handed and now was constantly on the run from the law. And the Black Widow – one of the most accomplished spies in the world – she had spent 6 months in prison getting out to find her face was known, all her aliases were known, and her methods were known.

All because these people had crossed Tony Stark.

Afghanistan
‘Is it better to be feared on respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?’ Tony stood before the United States and allied Afghani military and addressed them. ‘With that in mind, I humbly present the crown jewel of Stark Industries Freedom Line. It’s the first missile system to incorporate our proprietary Repulsor technology.’ Tony paused for dramatic effect. ‘They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how dad did it. That’s how America does it. And its worked out pretty well so far.’

Watching, Rhodey smiled to himself. Three years ago, Tony had learned to respect what his father had done for him. Three years ago, Tony had been able to release the bitterness surrounding Howard’s memory – the misconception that the “accident” had been Howard’s fault. Tony now viewed Howard’s memory through the eyes of an adult rather than a child. There was a stark difference.

Rhodey winced. No pun intended.

‘Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain,’ Tony said, ‘and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won’t even want to come out of their caves.’

A series of smaller missiles were launched. The point of this, Rhodey knew, was to contrast and compare regular missiles to this one. Then the actual missile itself was launched.

‘For your consideration,’ Tony said, ‘the Jericho.’

Ever the showman, Tony slowly lifted his arms.

The explosion was magnificent.

***

‘Hey, Tony.’

Tony leaned out of the humvee as his best friend walked over. He couldn’t resist a crack. ‘I’m sorry, this is the fun-vee. The hum-drum-vee is back there.’

Rhodey cracked a bit of a grin. ‘Nice job.’

‘See you back at base.’ Tony pulled back into the humvee as Rhodey went off to his own transport. Soon enough, they were moving again. Tony only had one problem with the trip as they went. Everyone was too quiet. Sure, he was used to people being in awe of him. He hated it when they were so in awe they were scared to speak though.
‘I feel like you’re driving me to a court martial,’ Tony said. ‘This crazy! What did I do? I feel like you’re gonna pull over and snuff me. What?’ He looked at the kid next to him. ‘Not allowed to talk?’

The kid was fighting off a grin, but still said nothing.

‘Hey, Forrest!’

‘You can talk, sir,’ the kid said.

‘Oh.’ He glanced out the window again. ‘I see. So it’s personal?’

The driver spoke up. ‘No, you intimidate him.’

‘Good God, you’re a woman!’ He legitimately hadn’t noticed that before she spoke. ‘Honestly, I couldn’t have called that. I’d apologise, but isn’t that what we’re going for here?’

Forrest grinned and the older guy turned around.

Tony went on. ‘I thought of you as a soldier first.’

‘I’m an airman,’ she said.

‘You have an actual-actual bone structure there. I’m kinda…having a hard time not looking at you now. Is that weird?’

The soldiers in the hum-vee with him cracked up laughing.

Tony grinned. Ice successfully broken. Forrest tried to hold it down again. Tony looked at him. ‘Come on. It’s okay, laugh. Hey!’

‘Excuse me, sir, I have a question to ask,’ the guy in front said.

‘Yes. Please.’ Tony was just glad they weren’t silent anymore.

‘Is it true you went twelve-for-twelve with last year’s Maxim cover models?’

Tony took off his sunglasses. ‘That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict, but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins.’ He paused. ‘Anything else?’

Forrest lifted a hand.

‘You’re kidding me with the hand up, right?’

‘Is it okay if I take a picture with you?’

‘Yes. Yes, very cool.’

Forrest eagerly moved over and pulled a camera out of his pocket. He handed it to the guy up front. As the kid moved next to Tony, he put up a peace sign. Tony spoke as the older guy started winding the camera. ‘I don’t wanna see this on your MySpace page.’ He glanced over and decided to have a bit more of a joke. ‘Please, no gang signs.’

Forrest immediately put it down.

Tony glanced at him. ‘No, throw it up. I’m kidding.’

He grinned and put it back up.

‘Yeah, peace,’ Tony said. ‘I love peace. I’d be out of a job with peace.’

Forrest chuckled and then spoke to the guy up front. ‘Come on. Come on! Just take it. Don’t change the settings.’

Suddenly, an explosion went off right in front of them. The three soldiers cried out in alarm. The car came to a standstill. Fear gripped Tony. The airmen around him started yelling nonsensically. He couldn’t decipher any of the words, or what they meant. His eyes stared out the front windshield as he pressed his back against the seat.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. His only response was more nonsensical yelling. They all grabbed their guns. ‘Where are you going?’ Happy would never leave his side if he was here.

The woman went to jump out of the vehicle and was immediately shot. The guy in front yelled something, but Tony didn’t understand a word of it. Then he jumped out. Forrest, next to him, grabbed his shoulder and pushed him down and wrestled with his gun. Tony hugged the divider. His heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest. He knew, if he was here, Happy would either cover Tony with his own body or pull him out to better cover.

Cause, let’s be honest: this thing is fully exposed on the side of the road…Shit!

Tony looked out the front. He could see the older guy opening fire on someone from across the hood. A bullet hit the windshield. The glass cracked deep. ‘Ah!’ Tony flinched back against the seat in fright.

Forrest finally got the ammo in. ‘Right.’ He kicked the door open and hopped out.

As he slammed the door shut, panic seized Tony. ‘W-w-wait! Jimmy, don’t—’ Don’t leave me alone!

‘Stay in!’ he barked through the window before he turned and headed off. Suddenly an array of bullets was released. Tony flinched against his seat again, jamming his eyes shut. Forrest fell back, dead. The entire vehicle shook. Something like dust fell onto him. Tony’s eyes skated around. The guy at the front was gone, doubtlessly dead by the front tire.

Pepper’s words suddenly came back to him: Stane has been seen in the area.

But what good would killing him here and now be? Stane was completely cut off from the company. He was out and gone and there was nothing to be said or done about it. Hell, Tony had even put quite a few assurances down to ensure Stane could never lay his mitts on Stark money ever again.

There was one thing Tony was sure of now, though: he had to get out of here!

Tony kicked open the door and jumped out of the humvee. He immediately flinched back into the vehicle as a mortar went off. But Tony didn’t stop. He ran from the road, seeking better cover than the exposed wasteland. As he ran, Tony saw some rocks that looked good enough to offer ample cover.

Something exploded behind him and Tony rolled over the rock. He came to rest against it and panted for breath. He didn’t know where Rhodey was, but he wished he’d been with him. Rhodey would…Tony couldn’t even finish the thought. He almost felt like crying.

Oh, God…Pepper…Tony scrabbled for his cell phone. He yanked it out of his suit pocket and flicked it open. He started typing in Pepper’s number. Suddenly, he was interrupted as something hit the ground next to him. Tony twisted his head…and froze. A shell had landed – definitely defective stock because, written along the side was “Stark Industries”.

Leftovers?

Tony scrambled backwards but too slow. The shell detonated. Tony was lifted clear into the air and thrown back. He hit the ground and gasped for breath, but the most noticeable pain was in the front of his torso. Tony blinked, dazed, and then looked down. His white shirt was quickly soaking with red patches that kept growing. Tony grabbed at the material and ripped the shirt open.

The bullet-proof vest he wore underneath had done nothing to protect him from bomb shrapnel. The world slowly began to fade around him. A feeling of dread welled up. Was he going to die? Even as he lost his battle with consciousness, a single name drifted across his mind.

Pepper…

Chapter Text

With a start, Tony woke up.

Where am I? All Tony could see around him was darkness. There was discomfort in his nasal cavity. Reaching up for it, Tony found an IV line. Acting on pure instinct, he took a hold of it and pulled. The sensation of the tube was strange…unpleasant, a dragging up his oesophagus. When it finally came free, Tony gasped. He tossed it aside and looked around.

There were some things on a crate next to him. Reaching out blindly, Tony scrabbled for one of them. His motor functions must’ve been off because what he was reaching for – felt like a glass – was knocked from the crate instead. A sound suddenly got his attention.

There was a man a short distance away. Tony couldn’t see him clearly, though. Fear churning up his gut, Tony rolled towards the crate again. Maybe there was something on the crate he could use as a weapon. Something pulled at his chest though, stopping him from getting close enough.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ the man said.

He rolled back and looked down. There were bandages wrapped around his chest, but the wires going under weren’t medical ones. They were cables. Tony followed them up first to where they were attached to a car battery which sat on an old table of some kind. Tony grabbed the cables and followed them down to the bandaged. Panting in anxiousness, adrenalin pumping through him, Tony tore the bandages open. As they came out of the way Tony saw where the cables were going.

There was a large metal contraption imbedded right in the middle of his sternum.

***

Yinsen whistled as he cooked. He was just waiting for Stark to collect himself. He knew how overwhelming this could be. It was not like when he had been taken. Stark did not know who he had been captured by, or why it had been done, and he had been grievously injured in the process. Yinsen had no such complications when they took him prisoner.

Stark was sitting up by now, staring at the reflection in the mirror he now held. ‘What the hell did you do to me?’ he finally demanded.

‘What I did?’ Yinsen laughed softly. ‘What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could but there’s a lot left, and its heading into your atrial septum.’ He picked up a small specimen tube and stepped towards the billionaire. ‘Here, want to see? I have a souvenir. Take a look.’ He tossed the tube to Stark.

Stark, for his part, caught it one-handed, so his hand-eye coordination had recovered.

Yinsen turned back to his cooking, allowing Stark to absorb what had happened to him. ‘I’ve seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead, because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs.’

‘What is this?’ Stark asked, gesturing to the device in his chest.

Yinsen’s voice hardened. ‘It is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it is keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart.’ He finished with a curt nod.

Stark shifted uncomfortably and zipped up the jacket he was wearing, concealing the magnet from view. He then looked around and his eyes focused in on something. Yinsen turned his head to look. Ah. He’s spotted the security camera. He turned back to him.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Smile.’

Stark didn’t. He instead continued looking around.

‘We met once, you know,’ Yinsen told him, hoping to distract him, ‘at a technical conference in Bern.’

‘I don’t remember,’ Stark said.

Yinsen grinned at the memory. ‘No, you wouldn’t. If I had been that drunk, I wouldn’t have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits.’

‘Where are we?’ Stark asked softly.

Before Yinsen could answer the viewing panel on the door was slid open and an unpleasantly familiar voice – Bakaar – barked orders at him. Fear shot through him. Yinsen grabbed Stark’s arm and pulled the other man to his feet. ‘Come on, stand up! Stand up! Just do as I do!’

The door opened and the guards came in, heavily armed.

Stark stared at the guns. ‘Those are my guns…’

‘Do you understand me?!’ Yinsen guided his hands up to his hand. ‘Do as I do.’

Bakaar stepped forward, arms spread wide with a rolled up bit of paper in one hand, and a mock-friendly smile on his face. As he did not speak English, he instead spoke in Arabic. When he finished, he waited. Stark gave him a blank look. He did not speak the language – and why should he? Few westerners went out of their way to learn Arabic. English was the language of business. The languages Stark would know aside from his mother tongue would be European rather than Middle Eastern.

Bakaar turned to Yinsen in annoyance and barked out an order.

‘I’m being told to translate,’ Yinsen told Stark. ‘He says “welcome, Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America”. He is honoured.’

From the look on Stark’s face, he didn’t appreciate the sentiment.

Bakaar went on talking.

Yinsen translated. ‘He wants you to build the missile. The Jericho missile that you demonstrated.’ Bakaar handed him the rolled up paper and Yinsen showed the photograph to Stark. ‘This one.’

Stark stared at the picture intently. It only took a moment before he lifted his eyes back to the terrorists. The set in his jaw told Yinsen what he was going to say before the words left his mouth. He remembered that this was a man who had exposed, sued, and completely defeated a shadow organisation that had thought itself invincible. He was not the sort of man who would be cowed by anyone.

No, not even terrorists.

‘I refuse.’

Bakaar may not have understood English, but Stark’s tone was enough of a translation.
They were hauled out of the cell, Stark grabbing and clutching the battery as they went. Yinsen watched with a heavy heart as Stark’s head was continuously and forcefully dunked into a barrel of cold water. That was the very least of what they did to him. By the time they were led outside, Stark blinking at the sudden sunlight, Yinsen could see the rumours – that Stark was a soft rich-boy with a silver spoon in his mouth – were greatly exaggerated.

There was an impressive strength to him.

Most would have buckled under the pressure by now.

Bakaar led them into the encampment, Stark being pushed roughly by one of the insurgents. Stark said nothing as they walked. He just looked around, eyeing all of the weapons bearing his name. He did not look surprised, but merely annoyed. Was it three years ago that Stark had found an long-serving underling backdoor dealing out of his company? Stark knew how they’d gotten his weapons.

And he clearly didn’t like it.

Bakaar finally spoke, short and clipped.

‘He wants to know what you think,’ Yinsen said.

‘I think you got a lot of my weapons.’ The anger in Stark’s voice could not be missed.
Bakaar began circling around Stark, speaking loudly. He was trying to make Stark feel powerless. The expression on Stark’s face, however, did not leave that impression. Stark did not move from the frown. He did not look scared as he had when he had awoken.

Yinsen translated. ‘He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho Missile. He wants you to make a list of materials. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you are done, he will set you free.’

Bakaar came to stand in front of Stark. He inclined his head as if Stark was a particularly stupid animal. He then put his hand out. It was laughable really, in different circumstances. Stark was recognised and celebrated internationally as one of the most brilliant minds of the century.

Stark then put on a smile easily recognised in the business world and shook Bakaar’s hand. ‘No, he won’t,’ he said.

Yinsen agreed. ‘No, he won’t.’

Stark then looked up, to where Raza stood.

One of the most brilliant minds of the century.

***

The two men sat in front of a small fire.

Tony was curled up, staring into the flames. A beanie on his head and a jacket hugged tight around his frame. Yinsen sat across from him. He’d put a peaked cap on his head but otherwise wore his dirty three-piece suit. Yinsen was leaned forward, trying to get his point across.

‘I’m sure they’re looking for you, Stark,’ he said. ‘But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life’s work in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the Great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?’

‘Why should I do anything? They’re going to kill me, you, either way. Even if this is Stane’s attempt at getting me killed and taking my company, I’ve got failsafes in place. He won’t get it. Regardless of that, I’ll probably be dead within a week.’

‘Well, then, this is a very important week for you, isn’t it?’

***

Tony knew he was in a dream.

The walls had not looked so tall since he was a small child. And he walked through his childhood home. He trotted to one door in particular and pushed it open. Inside, his parents sat in expensive chairs, in front of a gated fire in the hearth. As he stepped in, his mother lifted her eyes from her knitting and his father lifted his eyes from the contact in his lap.

‘Come here, Tony,’ Howard said, setting the contract aside.

Tony had trotted over. His suspicions on his age here were confirmed when his father picked him up and sat him on his lap.

‘Listen to me, Tony,’ his father said. ‘Stark men are made of iron. We are forged in fire. We bend but we don’t break. You’re in trouble now, but you can get out of it.’

‘I can?’ Tony heard himself ask.

‘That’s what this is for.’ Howard tapped Tony’s forehead. ‘You’re a genius, Tony. Your biggest strength is your brain. The base is strategically located. No one will find you. No one will save you, so you have to save yourself.’

Tony opened his eyes.

***

Tony began his work. ‘If this is going to be my work station, I want it well-lit. I want these up. I need welding gear. I don’t care if it’s acetylene or propane. I need a soldering station. I need helmets. I’m gonna need goggles. I would like a smelting cup. I need two sets of precision tools.’

Tony started his work. As he did, he started feeling his way through the situation. He needed to know all of the resources at his disposal. He’d be damned if he let Obadiah Stane have the last laugh. His entire focus was on getting back home; back to Pepper and JARVIS and Rhodey and Happy.

‘How many languages do you speak?’ he asked his cellmate.

‘A lot, but apparently not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian.’

‘…Who are these people?’

‘They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings.’

***

‘You know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process.’

‘Ya ha.’

***

‘Don’t need this.’

***

‘What is that?’

‘That’s palladium. 0.15 grams. We need at least 1.6, so why don’t you go break down the other 11?’

***

The creation began to take shape. He needed help with some of it.

‘Careful. Careful, we only get one shot at this.’

‘Relax, I have steady hands. Why do you think you’re still alive?’

***

Then Tony remembered. ‘What do I call you?’

‘My name is Yinsen.’

‘Yinsen. Nice to meet you.’

It threw him for a second. ‘Nice to meet you too.’

***

Finally, it was finished. Tony looked down at his creation. A blue glow was cast upon his face. It was perfect. Tony took some time to admire his handiwork. Dad would have been proud. For years leading up to his death, he’d talked about miniaturising the thing. Yinsen wandered over and looked over his shoulder.

‘That doesn’t look like a Jericho Missile,’ he remarked.

‘That’s because it’s a miniturised Arc Reactor,’ Tony said. ‘I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart.’

‘But what could it generate?’

‘If my math is right, and it always is, three gigajoules per second.’

‘That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes.’

‘Yeah, or something big for 15 minutes.’ May as well show him. Tony pulled out the plans. ‘This is our ticket outta here.’

‘What is it?’

‘Flatten them out and look.’ Tony did it himself, arranging them to show Yinsen the plans they went together to create.

‘Impressive.’

***

Tony felt a lot better with the Arc Reactor in his chest.

He and Yinsen sat down to play Backgammon with improvised parts. Tony looked up at the other man. ‘You still haven’t told me where you’re from.’

‘I’m from a small town called Gulmira. It’s actually a nice place.’

‘Got a family?’

‘Yes, and I will see them when I leave here. And you, Stark?’

‘No. Not anymore.’

‘Even now? So…you’re a man who has everything, and nothing.’

Tony smiled awkwardly.

***

The next morning, they began work on their escape plan. They built and welded. A metal suit of armour was coming together. Tony supposed it had always been too much to hope that they could build the whole thing without getting noticed. As they’d finished the body frame, the panel slid open and Bakaar barked orders.

Tony and Yinsen put down their tools, turned around, and put their hands on their heads. Unlike last time though, it was not Bakaar who led the men in. No, he didn’t come into their cell at all. The man who came in was a tall and thin bald man with a disdainful expression.

This was the true leader of the Ten Rings.

Chapter Text

The bald man looked around a moment before he said one word. ‘Relax.’

Slowly, curiously, and suspiciously, Tony lowered his arms from his head. The bald guy wandered forward. He pulled down the collar of Tony’s shirt to observe the Arc Reactor. Tony’s gut clenched. If the guy ripped it out, he’d go into cardiac arrest. Then, as if it was just an idle curiosity, the man began to wander about the cell.

‘The bow and arrow once was the pinnacle of weapons technology,’ he said. ‘It allowed the Great Genghis Khan to conquer from the Pacific to Ukraine. An empire twice the size of Alexander the Great and four times the size of the Roman Empire. But today, whoever holds the latest Stark weapons rules these lands.’

Too bad he wasn’t getting any.

‘And soon it will be my turn.’ He turned, sneering at Tony. He then strode back over to Tony. Stark men are made of iron. Keeping his face carefully blank, Tony did not move nor respond as the man came to a stop right in front of him and glared at him hard. After a moment, he spoke in one of the tongues.

Yinsen responded, sounding nervous.

The bald guy stepped away from Tony and began stalking towards Yinsen. He spoke again. As he circled him, Yinsen answered. Tony watched warily. The bald guy said something else. Two men came up behind him and forced Yinsen to his knees. Tony’s gut dropped. The leader walked over to the fire and picked up a red hot poker. The bald guy stepped forward and said something else. Yinsen protested something.

Tony still remembered the blistering sting of that method on his skin.

‘What does he want?’ Tony demanded.

The bald guy said something else.

‘What’s going on?’ Tony tried again.

The bald guy ignored him again and made a demand, advancing on Yinsen. Yinsen continued trying to reason with him, Tony imagined. But this guy clearly had more than a few screws loose. He yelled at him. Yinsen repeated whatever he’d said before, beginning to sound desperate.

Without thinking about it, Tony took a few steps forward. ‘What do you want? A delivery date?’

Suddenly Bakaar reappeared, yelling and putting a hand up. The insurgents not holding down Yinsen turned their guns on him. Tony may have been shit at social interaction, but he could still read the cues. They were scared of him. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have reacted so strongly to him moving towards their leader. And not one of them dared pull the trigger. They still needed him.

It was a small advantage, but it was an advantage.

Tony had made a career out of capitalising on advantages; it was one of the things his father had managed to drum into his thick head. ‘I need him. Good assistant.’

The bald guy glared at him. As he dropped the poker Tony knew he’d won – for now.

‘You have til tomorrow to assemble my missile.’ That said, the bald guy brushed out with a disdainful sneer.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

But now they had only a night to assemble the suit into a functioning defence. The two of them worked tirelessly. They were running short on time as they finished. Tony strapped up his hands and pulled on anything heat-resistant that he’d been able to find and gather over his time in this place. Yinsen strapped Tony into the suit.

‘Okay?’ Yinsen asked. ‘Can you move?’

Tony tested it. The suit was heavy, but he was still mobile.

Yinsen nodded. ‘Okay, say it again.’

‘41 steps straight ahead. Then 16 steps, that’s from the door, fork right, then 33 steps, turn right.’

They were interrupted when the panel was slid open and something was yelled into the cell. Yinsen froze.

‘What?’ Tony muttered.

‘He’s speaking Hungarian. I don’t…speak much of it.’

‘Okay. Just say “Stark dolgoztat. Ha abbahagyom, akkor nem kapja meg a rakétáját időben”.’

Yinsen paused, but turned and repeated what he’d been told.

The panel was then slid closed after a moment and they were left alone again. Yinsen returned to work. ‘You speak Hungarian?’

‘When I was a kid, our butler’s wife was Hungarian. She taught me the language.’

Yinsen nodded as he fastened the last of the joints and began to power up the suit. ‘So what did you just have me tell them?’

‘You said “Stark has me working. If I stop, you won’t get your missile in time”.’

They both suddenly heard the yelling.

‘What’s that?’ Yinsen asked. ‘It’s Hungarian again, but…’

‘This other guy didn’t buy it,’ Tony said. ‘They’re coming in.’

The bolt slid across.

KA-BOOM!

The entire doorway exploded in fire as they tried to open it. Why they thought they could put Tony in a room with this many of his explosives and expect him not to toss a bomb at them, he had no idea. But now they had to worry about the rest of them rushing in. Still…Tony didn’t have a good view.

‘How’d that work?’ he asked.

‘Oh, my goodness.’ Yinsen leaned over to look. ‘It worked all right.’

Tony smiled in grim satisfaction. ‘That’s what I do.’

Even now, though, the tension was mounting. They needed more time for the suit to charge up. Yinsen moved around, trying to speed up the process. He was as anxious as Tony was. They also had to ensure the suit wouldn’t fall apart under any circumstances.

‘Every other hex bolt…’ Tony mused, reaffirming his original design.

‘They’re coming,’ Yinsen pointed out.

‘Nothing pretty. Just get it done. Just get it done.’

‘They’re coming.’

Yinsen moved around and looked at the screen which told them the progress of the suit’s power-up.

‘Make sure the check-points are clear before you follow me out, okay?’ Tony said.

‘We need more time.’ Yinsen spoke quietly and then turned to Tony. ‘I’m going to buy you some time.’ He turned and ran.

‘Stick to the plan!’ Tony called. ‘Stick to the plan! Yinsen!’

But Yinsen was gone, scooping up a gun from a dead guard as he went. Tony heard the gunshots. He couldn’t move anywhere yet though. The suit still needed to charge. It was taking energy from the hideout to do it. Tony couldn’t do anything until the suit’s power was ready to go. After what seemed like an eternity, the lights dimmed and the suit activated.

Tony pulled the metal helmet on.

Watching as two of the insurgents stepped in, looking like they’d been pushed, Tony waited. They split and wandered around, looking for him. One of them stepped closer, closer, close enough. Tony lifted one arm and activated the flamethrower. The insurgent in front of him was lifted clear off his feet and thrown across the cell. The rest of the insurgents, including a large group of them outside, opened fire.

Really? You thought I didn’t think of that?

The bullets bounced off the metal shell of the suit. Tony walked in the thing, as heavy and awkward as it was, through and out of the cell. He stepped through the door and knocked them all aside before continuing on. Following Yinsen’s instructions to the exit, Tony walked. Two insurgents came mindlessly charging down the tunnel. They went down too.

There was a sense of vindication in Tony as he moved through the hideout. These guys had illegally bought his weapons to terrorise innocent people and attack the soldiers said weapons were supposed to protect. They had kidnapped him and tried to intimidate him into building a missile for them. Tony Stark did not react well to people who tried to push him around – especially not people who thought they could terrorise him.

He came to the fork and blew back the next obstacle. Tony turned right. The insurgents were now just running away from him. They ran down the tunnel and through the door, slamming it shut. Unfortunately for one guy, he got trapped on the other side.

Tony advanced, not allowing mercy to cross his mind.

***

Yinsen lay there, dying but happy.

The sound of the heavy armour approaching was good. That meant it had worked and Stark had a hope of getting out of here alive. The men had all long-since fled past him. Even as he covered his wounds, Yinsen knew there was really moot point. Still, the sandbags were as comfy a place as any to die.

‘Yinsen!’ Stark’s voice was muffled by the armour as he moved over as fast as it would allow him.

Yinsen looked up, and immediately saw Raza, the Ten Rings leader, aiming a grenade launcher at Stark’s back. He called out a warning. Stark stopped and turned. The billionaire jerked back as the grenade was launched at him. In other circumstances, it would have been funny. The leader of an insurgent group having aim that bad. It didn’t even come close to hitting Stark, and the grenade exploded off to the side.

Stark lifted his arm and the panel in the arm slid open. A missile shot out. Yinsen was under no allusions that Stark had missed. He’d seen the man aim when throwing things in their captivity. No, he intentionally hit the wall behind Raza. The wall caved in and Raza screamed as he was buried.

Stark knelt down next to him. He lifted the faceplate.

‘Stark,’ Yinsen said.

‘Come on,’ Stark insisted. ‘We got to go. Move for me, come on. We got a plan. We’re gonna stick to it.’

‘This was always the plan, Stark.’

‘Come on, you’re gonna go see your family. Get up.’

‘My family’s dead,’ Yinsen said. ‘I’m going to see them now, Stark.’

Stark froze, but then he swallowed.

‘It’s okay. I want this. I want this.’

Stark gave him a tight smile. ‘Thank you for saving me.’

‘Don’t waste it,’ Yinsen said with his last breath. ‘Don’t waste your life.’

***

The remaining insurgents waited, all of them with their guns trained to the entrance of their hideout. They waited. Movement. All off them opened fire. Still, the suit of armour with Stark inside continued to advance. They shot until they’d emptied their guns. Still, he stood there.

‘My turn.’

Flames exploded from Stark’s arms and he lifted them to extend over them. The men screamed and scrambled, some of them catching fire. All of the Stark Industries weapons in their possession were somehow detonated. They tried to gather themselves and fight back. One insurgent found a weak point when he managed to sever one of the exposed wires in the back of the suit and render a leg inoperable.

Just when they thought they may have an advantage, flames spurted out of the feet of the suit and Stark was propelled off the ground. In a blazing inferno that ripped apart the rest of the insurgents, he exited the mountains in a rocket-propelled leap that took him right into the desert.

Tony Stark had escaped.

***

Captain Carol Danvers had gone to Command School with Lt. Col. James Rhodes.

In the military, he was one of her closest friends. He was one of the few that had not added “for a girl” either explicitly or implicitly onto any congratulatory statements for her achievements. When she had the incident which gave her the powers she now wielded, he had been the one to help her. The military had wanted to study her powers – putting it very nicely.

Rhodey had called his friend Whom The Military Did Not Want To Piss Off and they’d both protected her. They’d both manoeuvred her into the position she was in now. Who knew that many alien races went poking around looking to take over the planet? Carol was, at present, the only one on the planet with the power to stop them.

So, when Tony was kidnapped by violent insurgents, Carol had instantly responded to Rhodey’s pleas for people to help him look. It had been three months and he still wasn’t giving up on him. That kind of friendship was very rare. Then again, Carol knew Tony. She was one of the few women he hadn’t hit on – though she had come to suspect it was because Tony thought Rhodey might be romantically interested in her.

Carol didn’t know if she was imagining it, so she tended to ignore it.

On this day, as she flew over the Afghani desert, she actually saw something different. A figure came rocketing out of one of the mountain ranges and plunged back down to earth. Carol changed her course and headed for where it’d landed. When she came to the area, she saw a lone figure struggling out of armour of some kind.

As she descended, the figure looked up and confirmed his identity.

Tony Stark lifted an arm and gave her the peace sign. Carol smiled to herself and spoke into the comm. ‘Marvel to command. Marvel to command. I’ve located Tony Stark. Repeat: I’ve located Tony Stark.’ She shot off the coordinates and touched down. ‘You’re a hard man to find, Tony.’

Tony sighed and shrugged off the last of the armour. ‘How long’s it been?’

‘Three months.’ Carol knelt down to help him. She pulled a canteen of water from her utility belt and handed it to him. As he guzzled the water down, she checked he was all right. Nothing seemed broken or fractured, but there was a rather unsightly device implanted deep in his chest. Carol used the heat-resistant clothes he had to shield him from the sun.

‘What happened in there?’ she asked.

Tony told her as they waited. Carol made a note to drop by Gulmira and see what she could find about this Yinsen fellow. She had to fire on some insurgents when they dared come out of the mountains. Well, they wouldn’t be back out. With her powers, she wasn’t firing with bullets.

The choppers arrived after what seemed forever. Carol watched as they landed. They’d brought a medic with them. Rhodey was the first to depart and come running across the sand. He slowed to a walk as he approached. Carol was deeply amused with the first line he uttered.

‘How was the fun-vee?’

Tony began chuckling, almost sobbing.

Rhodey knelt down in front of Tony. ‘Next time, you ride with me.’

The quiet sounds Tony was making began to sound like sobbing now. He just about collapsed on his best friend’s shoulder. Rhodey wrapped an arm around his shoulders and let his friend vent out his emotions. Carol had never understood the relationship and perhaps she never would.

Chapter Text

Pepper stood with Happy as they watched the plane land.

After the fiasco three years ago, Tony, Pepper, and JARVIS had sat down and discussed how S.H.I.E.L.D. might try to get Tony’s money and what Stane might try to do with both of them now outed. While no one doubted Stane was responsible for this ordeal, S.H.I.E.L.D. was opportunistic.

Within 24 hours, S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried to sneak someone into accounting. JARVIS had picked the spy up instantly and he hadn’t even gotten past the first stage of job application. Over the past three months S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried several other approaches, and Pepper saw exactly why clichéd spy covers were clichéd. She swore S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried every single one of them.

Pepper, as they’d discussed, had been handed the interim CEO position. She’d run the business as she always did and coordinated with JARVIS. As Tony had said when she raised questions about her suitability for such a role: it wasn’t that different from what she did normally.

While she’d been holding down the fort at home, Happy taking as much of the burden from her as he could, Rhodey had gotten as many people as he could to search for Tony. She’d nearly burst into tears when he’d called and said Captain Danvers had found him.

Pepper hadn’t been around when Captain Carol Danvers had gotten her powers, but she sure as hell heard about it. Tony had gone in, on the request of Rhodey, had used just about all of his sway with the military to prevent to poor woman from becoming a glorified lab rat.

Carol herself was a good friend of Pepper’s now, and one of the few women she could really relate to.

Pepper now watched as both Tony and Rhodey walked down, Tony having to lean on Rhodey as they walked down. She smiled watching Tony turn down medical aid. It meant he was okay. He was okay and he was home. As soon as he came to the flat ground of the airstrip, Tony let go of Rhodey and walked over to her.

‘Hm,’ he said. ‘Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long-lost boss?’

‘Tears of joy.’ It was so easy to fall back into old habits. ‘I hate job hunting.’

‘Yeah. Vacation’s over.’ He moved past her.

‘Welcome home, boss,’ Happy said.

‘Thanks, Hap.’

Pepper and Tony climbed into the back of the car while Happy got in behind the wheel.

‘Where to?’ Happy asked.

‘Take us to the hospital, Happy,’ Pepper said.

‘No.’

Pepper looked over at the genius. ‘Tony, you need to see a doctor.’

‘I don’t need anything,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve been in captivity for three months. There’s only two things I want. The first is an American cheeseburger.’ He looked at her. ‘And the other...’

Pepper figured what he was going to say. ‘That’s enough of that.’

‘It’s not that,’ Tony said, surprising her. ‘I gotta get home and finish synthesising dad’s element.’

Pepper looked back at him. ‘Now? Shouldn’t you rest first?’

Tony sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. Pepper’s admonishment of him was cut off when she saw the blue glow. Happy spun around in the front seat, brow furrowing in concern. Tony pulled his shirt out of the way, showing them the circular device buried right into his chest. Pepper’s breath caught in her throat. That looked...so painful.

‘What...is that?’ she asked softly.

‘A miniaturised Arc Reactor,’ Tony said. ‘When I was captured I got a load of shrapnel blasted into my chest. The Reactor’s powering a magnet that’s keeping what’s left of it from entering my heart. However, the Reactor’s powered by palladium, which is liable to leak into my bloodstream.’

‘And that’d cause heavy metal poisoning,’ Happy said.

‘Is your dad’s element really your only option?’ Pepper asked. In the circumstances, it made perfect sense that he’d want to go home and get on with it. Heavy metal poisoning, from the bits and pieces she knew of it, was not something anyone wanted to suffer from. Even logic said it wouldn’t be pleasant – bits of heavy metal going through your blood stream; everywhere there was blood there was metal. It would wreck havoc on the body, especially on the brain.

‘Yes,’ Tony said. ‘Happy, drive. Cheeseburger first.’

Happy turned back around and started the car.

Tony waited until they pulled onto the road. ‘There is one more thing.’

‘What’s that?’ Pepper asked.

‘While I was there, I noticed they had a lot of our stock.’ Tony scowled. ‘And they didn’t seem nervous about using it either. I think they’re still getting a steady supply somehow. I want to shut down the weapons division until we work out how.’

‘It shouldn’t be possible,’ Pepper muttered, flicking out her Blackberry. ‘I’ll reassign the men in the weapons division to other divisions until we work it out. Should I send a report to the CIA while we’re at it?’

‘Good idea.’ Tony buttoned up his shirt again. ‘Well, you know the drill.’

Pepper cracked a grin.

***

STARK INDUSTRIES PRESS RELEASE – MAY 4, 2008

Following the kidnapping and subsequent retrieval of Mr. A. E. Stark this company has discovered that our armaments are still somehow falling into illegal hands. The Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) has been informed and it is for this reason that Stark Industries will be temporarily shutting down the weapons division, effective immediately, until the issue has been properly resolved.

Mr. Stark has stated, “I saw American soldiers being attacked and killed by the very weapons I created to protect them. The insurgents were using them far too liberally for them to be running short on the weapons. I have considerable reason to believe these weapons are still being sold through illegal means. As removing the culprits from the company was clearly not enough to stop them, the production of the weapons will be temporarily stopped.”

Mr. Stark is currently recovering from his ordeal in Afghanistan and will be unable to comment further for a number of weeks. For all enquires, his Personal Assistant, Miss Virginia Potts, is still available.

Mr. Stark has promised to take full responsibility for this disaster.

***

Happy stepped into the house, the Chinese Tony had ordered in his hand. He walked over to the massive hole in the floor and looked down. ‘You right down there, boss?’

‘Yeah.’ Tony hopped over some of his obstacles. ‘Turns out most of dad’s problem was he needed the Hadron Collider technology. They hadn’t invented it back in the 70s.’

‘You got it then?’

‘Yup.’ Tony lifted a new Arc Reactor for Happy to see. It was much like the first one, except this one had a triangular shape in the centre instead of a circular one. Then again, Happy wasn’t an engineer. He didn’t have the faintest idea if that was a design choice or if it had something to do with the elements that powered the things. ‘JARVIS is just running a few more tests and then we can pop it in.’

‘And then I presume you’ll fix the house.’ Happy looked around. ‘Pep would have a fit if she saw this.’

Tony chuckled and put the new Arc Reactor down again. ‘How are things going, by the way? Find out how they got the weapons?’

Happy nodded. ‘Yeah, seeing as they’re not taken from the company, the CIA think they’re stolen in transit.’

‘Wonderful,’ Tony grumbled.

Afghanistan
An armoured truck pulled up to a temporary camp.

Obadiah Stane stepped out of the truck and walked into the camp. He walked up to a bald man with severe scarring on the side of his face. ‘New look?’ he asked, sounding annoyed.

‘You can attribute this to Stark,’ Raza snapped.

‘Well, if you’d killed him like we agreed, you wouldn’t have lost half of your face.’ He allowed Raza a moment to stew. ‘Tony’s method of escape?’

‘We have the plans.’ Raza scowled. ‘We’d have the suit itself but a witch whore kept us from chasing after Stark.’

‘You mean Captain Marvel.’ That’d been the first annoying thing Tony had ever done. Obie’s partners had wanted to get their hands on her, had intended to use the military’s paranoia to do it, but in stepped Tony Stark. It had been the first time he’d ever ignored Obie, and that had cost HYDRA a powerful weapon – perhaps even more powerful than the Asset. ‘Well, where is it?’

‘You promise to provide this for us?’

‘Of course. All we need is the plans.’

Malibu, America
Tony almost smiled. It’d taken more than a day to get the walls, floors, and windows fixed. Still the Arc Reactor had been completed and Tony had created a brand new element. He was calling it Starkanium. All he had to do now was find its full capabilities.

But Tony had something to work on. Don’t waste your life. As a kid, his mom had always said “you make a mess, you clean it up” and if this wasn’t the biggest mess he’d ever made...So Tony had to clean it up now. The suit he’d made in Afghanistan was perfect. He just needed to refine it with proper equipment now.

The CIA hadn’t been...sure of the idea, but they hadn’t been totally against it either.

Tony knew they were more concerned about a civilian putting himself into the line of fire. On the other hand, they’d been talking to him for three years. They’d seen him put himself out in order to personally capture the Black Widow, one of the most deadly assassins in the world at the time. They knew they couldn’t stop him, and there was no law expressly prohibiting him from taking responsibility for his weapons ending up in terrorist hands.

They did have stipulations that he would please get someone else a suit if he was going through with this – someone who preferably was not a civilian. Tony’s suggestion of Rhodey had been approved. So, first Tony would design his own suit, and then he’d design a more user-friendly one for his best friend.

So Tony started work.

‘JARVIS, you up?’ he asked.

‘For you, sir, always.’

‘I’d like to open a new project file. Index is Mark II.’

‘Shall I store this on the Stark Industries central database?’

‘Forget it. I don’t know who to trust right now. Til further notice, why don’t we just keep everything on my private server?’

‘Working on a secret project, are we, sir?’

‘Don’t want this to wind up in the wrong hands.’ Tony manipulated the hologram in front of him. ‘Maybe mine, but it could actually do some good.’

Over the next few weeks, Tony worked tirelessly. He perfected his work and tested his creations. He ended up with a lot of bruises and scrapes. But he was trying to build an extremely sophisticated suit. The wires running through it had to be like the nerves of a human body. They had to respond to threats if the armour itself was ever pierced. It had to be able to endure all manner of artillery.

Afghanistan
Obadiah viewed the plans in interest, tuning out Raza with mild disinterest. It looked simple enough to put together. If this took Tony three months in a cave with a box of scraps, it ought to take them even less time. This would be the perfect weapon and HYDRA would greatly benefit from this business.

Honestly, Obadiah should have had the boy killed back when he’d had his parents killed. It would have been easy to step up and become CEO of the company then. All he would have needed was to get all three Starks travelling somewhere together and they all would have died.

(But Tony was younger than his parents – fitter. Who was to say he wouldn’t have managed to save all three of them?)

Tony had been a teenager, just a child. He might’ve run, Obie knew but he doubted it. For all his flippant attitude, Tony was just not the kind of boy who would abandon his parents, or indeed anyone, to an assassin – not even to save his own life. Tony would have died with them and he wouldn’t have this problem now.

(But Howard always carried tools in his back seat, where Tony would have been sitting. There’s nothing saying he wouldn’t have grabbed one and used it to disable the Asset’s metal arm. If not for that, the Starks would have had an actual hope of surviving.)

But, at the same time, if Tony died back then, they wouldn’t have this weapon now.

‘Mr. Stane.’

Obadiah turned around. Raza was dead on the ground, his neck snapped. Obie smiled. ‘We’ll build this,’ he said, ‘and then take Tony Stark out with his own invention.’

‘And Pepper Potts?’

Obie nodded, somewhat regretful. ‘It’s a pity he had to involve her. I would have preferred she lived.’

Malibu, America
Pepper walked down into the workshop with a box and a mug of coffee for Tony. He was doing something or other. She’d been notified by JARVIS about the power-suit Tony was refining. She didn’t like the idea, but she couldn’t exactly argue with his reasoning. He and his father had made a mess, no matter how unwittingly, and now it was Tony’s responsibility to clean it up. At least there were plans for Rhodey to get one too. Tony would have someone they all trusted to watch his back. ‘How’s it going? That looks kinda dangerous.’

‘This is a flight stabiliser,’ Tony said. He hit a button. ‘It’s completely harmless.’

Suddenly the stabiliser activated and Tony was thrown back. Pepper spun around and blocked her ears. She turned back around when the crashing noises stopped. Tony was lying, dazed, in a series of collapsed shelves.

‘I was not expecting that,’ he said.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Tony stumbled to his feet. ‘Did you need me for something?’

‘Well, the military found out about this suit thing.’ Pepper shrugged. ‘I guess the CIA reported it to them. They want to know why only one suit for one pilot.’

‘Tell them I’m extremely paranoid about my stuff being misused, so the only pilot is going to be someone I trust. If Rhodey wasn’t in the military, they wouldn’t be getting a suit at all.’

Pepper nodded.

Chapter Text

Tony was walking back into the workshop with an icepack pressed to his head. He walked past the table and picked up the coffee mug. He took a drink...and paused. What was in the box? Pepper had brought in a box with the coffee, and he’d only just noticed the note on top that said “For Tony”. Reaching over, Tony pulled the note from the top and unwrapped the brown paper to find a glass display box. Inside was his old reactor. Pepper had had it framed and boxed. Around the edge, she’d left a message.

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.

A slow smile crept onto Tony’s face. She’d been utterly disgusted in having to help him swap the two reactors over. He’d told her to toss this one, but instead she’d had it set in glass. Trust Pepper to set something up like this and unexpectedly make him feel better about what he was doing.

Tony picked up the old Arc Reactor and carried it to the edge of the workshop, where it was less likely to get knocked by something and damaged. With brand new vigour in his step, he got back to work. The suit was almost ready for its first field test. And then he could start working on Rhodey’s suit.

***

‘They say these new radar technologies are superior to the human eye,’ Rhodey said to a group of young cadets. It hadn’t passed his notice that they were all African-American like him. He didn’t know if command did that to make them feel more comfortable or if there was some unconscious racism happening somewhere in the workings of the brass. ‘But in my experience, nothing beats the pilot’s instincts and intuition.’

Noticing Tony had walked in and was wandering over, Rhodey quickly set them to work on their training and turned to meet his friend. ‘Hey, man. You’re looking better.’

‘Thanks,’ Tony said. ‘How’re things from your end?’

‘Military’s a bit grumpy, but everyone’s pitching in to find how the weapons are being stolen despite the security.’ Rhodey raised his eyebrows. ‘So, what’s this I hear about a power-suit?’

‘We gotta come up with a better name for that,’ Tony said.

Rhodey chuckled. ‘So how’s it going?’

‘I’ve got the Mark II finished,’ Tony said. ‘I just gotta give it a few test runs so I can iron out the kinks. Then I can work on yours.’

‘Sweet.’ Rhodey chuckled. ‘Brass is still annoyed about the “one suit” thing, but you know. They’re also annoyed about the “one Captain Marvel” thing.’

Tony grinned. ‘So how is Carol?’

Rhodey pressed his lips together. ‘We’re just friends, Tony. Like you and Pepper.’

Tony gave him a sceptical look but dropped it. ‘I hear something about her shooting into the upper atmosphere?’

‘Read, you mean.’ Rhodey rolled his eyes good-naturedly. ‘It’s a bit hush-hush, but I guess it’s more of those things they call a Situation 51.’

‘That’s a bit unoriginal, isn’t it?’

Rhodey laughed.

***

Tony had taken to reading his father’s files in his downtime. Because of how little of that he had, he was still working through them. He sat at his computers, looking for an unchecked file. He found one that got his interest: CORE AGENT PROGRAM. Clicking on it, Tony suddenly found his screens filled with the profiles of about 15 female agents.

A typed-up message appeared on the screen in front of him.

Peg once would have considered this detestable, Tony; something that didn’t even bear thinking. As she got older, though, she became more and more ruthless and unscrupulous. I remained blind to it, until she expressed interest in you.

In this file are 15 girls that Peg had trained from diapers to be her most powerful agents.

Most of these little girls were the daughters, nieces, or family friends of agents who Peg could talk into it. A few were just little orphaned or abandoned girls that S.H.I.E.L.D. found on the street. Those that had parents who would miss them...well, those parents were told that their daughters were attending gymnastics or ballet class. The girls were taught to call it that too.

It was Peg’s answer to the Black Widow Program.

She told herself she was better because she wasn’t taking these girls away from their parents; she wasn’t killing anyone to cover it up. She told herself that she was better because they still had a normal childhood – given a certain definition of normal. Those of us who wouldn’t let our kids anywhere close to her all kept quiet for the same reason.

The pride of the bunch was Agent 13. Peg’s niece through her brother – Sharon Carter.

***

Obadiah Stane glared in frustration at the behemoth in front of him. The shell was fine. The wiring was fine. There was just one admittedly large problem. He turned on the engineer and towered over him. ‘Tony Stark built this and got it working in a cave – WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!’

‘Well, I’m not Tony Stark,’ the engineer said. ‘If you could get it near an Arc Reactor I’m sure it would work, but it needs a power source.’

Arc Reactor...well, that gave him two options.

***

Tony stepped into his house, a wide grin on his face.

He knew going to that party would be a good idea. He hadn’t been expecting to see Pepper, but she’d given him the perfect excuse to ditch S.H.I.E.L.D.’s favourite lackey, Coulson, and avoid his questioning. Apparently, the guy couldn’t take a hint. Funny. Tony had thought “piss off” was hint enough. Pepper had been reluctant to dance with him, until she’d seen Coulson and realised why he was asking her to dance. Then she went with him.

Following that had been an amusing conversation on his social security number. They’d then escaped to the balcony, leading to the event that had pasted this silly grin on his face.

Pepper had nearly kissed him!

Funny, he’d never had this reaction to an actual kiss. He was a playboy, for crying out loud! He had his fun and then he moved on. In this case, though, it was Pepper. She’d stood by his side for ten years. She’d supported him through countless bouts of childish petulance and reluctance, and through the events that had changed his life.

Tony plopped down onto his couch.

Odds were Pepper wouldn’t believe Tony was really interested. She never had before – not that he’d tried very hard since the early days. Convincing her he was would take time. The first step, of course, would be giving up his playboy lifestyle. No more dates, no more one-night stands. Just cut all that out and send the message that he was ready for a committed relationship.

Five months ago, the thought would have terrified him. Now...it didn’t seem too bad. He thought back to the relationship his parents had. Even back then, Tony had denied his father loved him but he never denied he loved his mother. From information Tony had found out, his dad had been the same back in his youth. It gave that last conversation a whole new angle.

‘Be nice, dear. He’s been studying abroad.’

‘Really? Which broad? What’s her name?’

Was that his father attempting to connect with him in the scant few minutes he actually had?

JARVIS suddenly spoke up, instantly yanking Tony from the metaphorical Cloud 9. ‘Sir, it appears someone is attempting to hack my servers. Instigating Protocol 3.’ Then he went silent.

Tony was on his feet in an instant. Protocol 3 would go out instantly, but it would take time for anyone to arrive – especially at this time of night. Call it paranoia, but Tony walked to a personalised cubby hole and pulled the gun out from inside. Quickly checking the gun, Tony moved around to a higher vantage point.

Was it S.H.I.E.L.D.? Was Coulson trying to break in with a bunch of agents? They seemed the most likely candidates for this. On the other hand, there was one other enemy that Tony had out there – well, he was connected to a much larger group, but still...He was a possibility too. So Tony waited, hoping to God that this invader would try and sneak in through the doors and not the windows.

When he came in, Tony saw he had nothing to worry about. The fat oaf wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting up to the window, never mind in through it. Tony aimed his gun and cocked it, drawing the invader’s attention up to him. The wide-eyed shock was very satisfying to look at. It was amazing. All these years, and the idiot still underestimated him.

‘Hello, Obie. You forget how to use the doorbell?’

Chapter Text

‘Tony,’ he said, a flash of annoyance crossing his face. ‘I thought you’d be down here.’

‘Obviously.’ Tony inclined his head. ‘So, tell me something Obie. How did you get out?’

‘I have friends, Tony.’

‘So you are fully affiliated with HYDRA.’ Tony slid his free hand into his pocket. ‘It wasn’t a one-time thing.’

‘No, we made an agreement years ago.’

Tony’s eyes narrowed. ‘And Afghanistan? Don’t happen to have any idea what happened there, do you?’

Stane smiled, in an extremely unsettling way. ‘We’d been watching you ever since you ousted me. Afghanistan was the perfect moment to strike. All I wanted was a chance for some revenge. I couldn’t take control of the company anymore – Pepper certainly proved that – but I could still destroy you.’

He was being very liberal with his information. Made Tony think there was someone sneaking up behind him.

‘And what did HYDRA get out of me getting killed in Afghanistan?’

‘They had an interest in your company. It’s a pity you had to involve Pepper.’

Tony’s hand tightened around the gun. ‘What about Pepper?’

The next thing he knew, there was a sharp sting, most notably in his chest. Then he was suddenly face-down on the floor, body aching like when he was refining the suit. Even with the sudden shift, Tony knew what had happened. He’d been zapped from behind. It’d not only sent him flying but also affected the Arc Reactor for a second. But Tony was an engineer and he’d thought of that. That was why this Arc Reactor had a kind of defibrillator that restarted his heart if anything stopped it.

But, in the meantime, Tony had to recover from his short cardiac arrest.

Stane was rushing at him, aiming for the Arc Reactor. He wouldn’t get it. Sure enough, he felt the watch in his wrist vibrate slightly as it recognised violent intent and the pulse activated. Stane barely got close enough to get to the Arc Reactor when he was suddenly thrown back and across the room. His hand had definitely been going for Tony’s chest. Tony’s mind rushed over the possibilities and landed on the only reasonable conclusion. He watched Stane through slitted eyelids as he was helped to his feet by some other guys in camouflage gear – HYDRA, I bet.

‘What the hell was that?’ Stane demanded.

‘It happened to Romanoff too,’ one of the other men said. ‘He must be wearing something.’

Tony didn’t worry about them thinking of the wristwatch. Tony had always worn them and it was done so much it was clichéd. Stane would consider it to be something much smaller. He almost smirked when he heard Stane say exactly that. But Tony was pretending to be unconscious or dead – he wasn’t sure which. People often did dumb things without thinking about it, and these types would just say “whoops” if they accidentally killed someone.

‘Ah, don’t worry about it.’ The guy waved it off. ‘We can just use the one at the factory. The suit’s there anyway.’

Tony quickly calculated where they would have to have been working in the factory to have been in there without anyone noticing and notifying him.

‘Someone’s coming in!’ Another man ran into Tony’s line of sight. ‘We’ve gotta go.’

Stane moved off first. ‘Make sure you don’t leave Tony alive.’

Tony would have smirked. He knew if they went to use their guns, JARVIS would fry them. Protocol 3 had him appear to be shut down while he notified a list of people to the home invasion and ensure Tony’s safety until the authorities could arrive. As JARVIS didn’t, he assumed the one left behind to “take care of him” had picked up the gun Tony had been holding.

‘What?’ The guy suddenly began cursing the gun. ‘Oh, fuck this!’ The weapon hit the floor.

Suddenly, JARVIS shot. The guy cried out and went flying. Chest still aching, Tony pushed himself up. He looked at the guy, who was now completely stunned. ‘Nice design, isn’t it? I put a DNA reader in the trigger so if anyone else tried to use it against me, the trigger would lock up.’

That was how he’d refined the security of the suit.

The doors opened and the FBI streamed in, followed by Rhodey. The agents surrounded the HYDRA grunt and held him at gunpoint. Rhodey rushed over. ‘Tony, are you okay?’

Tony spun around. ‘Where’s Pepper?’ he demanded.

‘She’s fine,’ Rhodey said. ‘She’s taking some agents to the factory so they can slip in quietly and surprise them.’

Tony pressed his lips together. ‘That’s not gonna be enough.’

***

‘So that’s it?’ Rhodey asked as the bots put the suit onto Tony.

‘My one,’ Tony said. ‘I’ve tested everything else except how battle-ready it is. I guess this’ll have to be that test.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘How’d he manage to build his own suit anyway?’

‘Only way I can think is if he got his hands on my schematics for the rudimentary one Carol found me in.’

The helmet slid over Tony’s face and he took off.

***

Pepper moved quickly, leading the FBI agents to the factory. She slid her key card across the access panel and the door opened. As she led them through the quiet building she was unconsciously thinking the same thing that Tony was. The only reasonable place for Stane to be was an area of the factory that had been under renovations. For some reason, it hadn’t been touched in two or three months.

With a company as big as SI, and his own project, Tony hadn’t stopped to check on it and see why nothing was happening. It was now clear they should have done it long ago. Pepper led the FBI agents through the renovation area and saw it really hadn’t been touched. Beyond it, she was hardly surprised to see a fully set-up lab. For now, it was quiet and dark.

The agents passed her and began looking around, guns drawn and movements cautious. Pepper let her eyes drift across this lab that should not be here. Her eyes were drawn to a dark corner. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. There was something there. One of the FBI agents noticed where she was looking. He pulled a flashlight from what Pepper expected was a hidden utility belt and flicked it on, pointing it at the dark corner.

There was something there. It was...it was a behemoth. There was no other way to describe it. The eyes lit up and it surged forward. Pepper felt herself pushed towards the door as the agents all turned their guns on the behemoth. She ran. She knew it wasn’t her place now. She was a civilian and this was a danger-zone. She was best to get out of the area.
As she stumbled out of the door from the factory, though, she heard a loud crash. The behemoth that no doubt contained Obadiah Stane landed heavily in front of her, blocking her path. Pepper gasped and stumbled back. Her heart felt like it was pounding in her throat as one of the arms lifted and pointed at her. A repulsor began to glow in the barrel mounted to the top of it.

‘Miss Potts,’ Stane’s voice came out, distorted by the speaker, ‘you’re fired!’

The specially-made watch on Pepper’s wrist began to vibrate. But could the watch emit its pulse before the repulsor beam was released. The distinction between the two alternatives sent her heart skyrocketing even further.

Pepper’s panic was cut off when something suddenly sailed into the behemoth and threw it away from her. She watched as a much smaller, but much more agile, suit began to engage the behemoth in combat. That must be Tony! The thought didn’t sit well with her.

Tony, in the red and gold smaller suit, drew Stane up the side of the factory. Despite the fact that he had to know the FBI had already had the area evacuated and blocked off the roads to and past the company, Tony was making extra sure no one would get hit by drawing Stane up to the roof.

In the meantime, Pepper’s heart was slowly calming down. Adrenalin was still pumping through her veins as she tried to wrap her head around the fact that she had nearly been killed. She was half-convinced she had just had a heart attack as she staggered backwards until she hit a wall. Now she had a completely different reason to worry.

Tony...

Chapter Text

Tony landed on the factory roof.

Stane landed right behind him. He turned around and the billionaire watched in mild amusement, but mostly irritation, as a hatch opened and a small missile flicked out. It was things like that which really showed why people needed Starks to do their dirty work. Incompetent twits. Tony dodged the missile launched at him by Stane’s copycat armour and activated the repulsors and hovered overhead.

‘Impressive!’ Stane bellowed from where he stood on the top of the factory. ‘You’ve upgraded your armour! I’ve made some upgrades of my own!’

The metal creaked and clanged as it shifted and moved. Steam shot out from his feet and he lifted into the air. As the steam shot out, it covered the area in a thick fog-like density. He lifted into the air slowly. It seemed by turning the original into that heavy monstrosity, he had traded in speed for strength.

‘Sir, it appears that his suit can fly,’ JARVIS said.

‘Duly noted.’ It was time to see what other weaknesses it had – besides the obvious. ‘Take me to maximum altitude.’

The suit flew up. Stane followed him. Tony was surprised, however, when Stane passed the 200-meter mark from the top of the factory. Actually, it was 200.64 meters. The jets on the behemoth’s feet flashed once and then spluttered out. Stane’s suit suddenly dropped down, plummeting back to the factory roof. That’d leave a sizable dent for him to have repaired later.

‘JARVIS, what just happened?’ Tony asked, stopping in midair and turning around.

‘Scanning.’ Jarvis didn’t take long. ‘It appears his suit is powered by the Arc Reactor in the factory, sir. As he came out of range, he lost power.’

‘Huh.’ Tony was amused, he’d say. ‘He hasn’t tested it, has he?’ And he didn’t trust Stane down there by himself. He began to descend himself.

‘It would seem not, sir.’

Tony landed on the roof and looked around. The scanners quickly located Stane’s suit. He was out of earshot as he waited for the suit to charge up again, using the Arc Reactor. That would explain why he’d tried to steal Tony’s Reactor. He’d wanted a mobile power source. As it so happened, Obadiah was purely a businessman. He may have thought he had the weapon, but it was only as good as its energy source.

‘JARIVS,’ Tony said, ‘get ready to switch the factory to emergency back-up power.’ He then shifted to Pepper’s Bluetooth. ‘Potts.’

‘Tony!’ Pepper sounded relieved. ‘Oh, my God! Are you...Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Tony said. ‘Listen, I just found out how Stane’s suit is working. He’s using the big Arc Reactor in the factory. He’s recharging now, so I don’t have long. The good news is he can’t go far beyond 200 meters of the Reactor.’ He smiled to himself as he heard Pepper speak to someone else.

‘So what are you going to do?’ She spoke into the Bluetooth again.

‘Know what happens when you overload a machine’s power source?’

‘It fries the circuits?’

‘It fries the circuits.’ The readings flashed across the screen. ‘Hold on, he’s coming again.’

‘Tony!’ Pepper’s cry was drowned out by Stane jumping up in his suit and bellowing, ‘Nice try!’

Tony spun around and shot a repulsor blast at him and, as it hit, Stane’s armour stumbled back. Leaping forward, Tony punched Stane’s suit in the mask. It was far too large for Stane’s head to be there, but he needed to break that thing – that was not even mentioning the glaring weakness in the suit.

Suddenly the behemoth’s hands closed around Tony, catching him in a crushing grip. Tony struggled for a moment. However, his suit had been designed for all kinds of pressure. Stane had obviously built his for strength and strength alone. Its endurance wouldn’t be too good. Tony lifted a hand to the mask and pushed. In the arms, he had a series of weapons which would screw up Stane’s interface.

Sparks flew and Stane only managed to hold on for a fraction of a second before he was forced to let go as his own interface turned on him. Tony bounded out of his grip as Stane groaned in annoyance and shook his head. He soon seemed to recover himself. ‘Very clever, Tony.’

Tony peered around the corner he’d slipped behind. He reinitiated contact with Pepper. ‘Potts.’ He kept his voice at a whisper so Stane wouldn’t hear him.

‘Tony!’ her voice came through the receiver again.

‘We’re gonna have to overload the reactor and fry all of Stane’s circuits,’ Tony told her. ‘With the place surrounded as it is, Stane won’t be able to get away again.’

‘Well, how are you gonna do that?’ Pepper asked.

‘You’re gonna do it,’ Tony said. ‘Go to the central console. Open up all the circuits. When I get clear, I’ll let you know, and you’re gonna hit the master bypass button. It’ll fry him, and everything up here.’

‘Is he gonna die?’

‘It’s a possibility.’

There was a little more muttering on the other end of the line and Tony guessed she was talking to the FBI agents about the plan. The next thing he heard from her was, ‘Okay...I’m going in now.’

‘Make sure you wait until I’m clear from the rooftop,’ Tony said, moving away as Stane came closer.

Stane looked around the corner as Tony slipped behind him. Then Tony leapt onto his back. His hand wrapped around the cord that was the suit’s most glaring weakness. Stane growled as he tried to shake him off. But he was a massive, slow-moving behemoth. It was easy for Tony to keep his balance. Sorry, Obie, he thought insincerely. Rule one of engineering: never leave wires exposed. ‘This looks important.’ He yanked the cord out, tearing wires along with it.

Stane’s mechanical hand wrapped around Tony’s head and threw him from his back. The helmet came off – luckily, or he’d be dead. Tony slid across the glass ceiling of the main control room and looked down. Pepper was doing exactly what he’d told her to do. There were federal agents standing on the periphery of the room. The mechanical whirring made Tony look up again and he saw Stane was opening the suit so that he could see again.

‘I never had a taste for this sort of thing!’ he called across to him. ‘But I must admit, I’m deeply enjoying the suit!’ He crushed Tony’s helmet and tossed it down by Tony’s hand. Tony looked down at the helmet and then back up at Stane as he stomped along towards him. ‘You finally outdid yourself, Tony. You’ve made your father proud!’

Tony’s mind flashed back to Howard. A hundred things Tony had been too young, too naive, too ignorant to understand. The love he’d never seen as a child was now palpable as an adult. My father, he thought, pushing himself up, was proud of me from the day I was born. He glanced down through the glass as Pepper’s voice still reached him.

‘It’s ready, Tony! Get off the roof!’

Stane extended an arm and released machine gun fire on him. Tony lifted his arm, and two panels extended outwards, protecting his head from the bullets. But Stane wasn’t aiming for him. The glass beneath him shattered and gravity took hold. Tony only just barely managed to catch himself on the framing of the glass ceiling. Pepper screamed as the glass fell over her. Tony hauled himself up.

He briefly considered shooting away, but he couldn’t leave Pepper here by herself. Stane decided to then shoot the rest of the glass out. Tony didn’t know whether he knew Pepper was down there and was trying to scare her away, or if he was just trying to scare Tony as much as he could before he killed him. Pepper didn’t scream this time. She just covered her head. There was so much noise, Tony didn’t know if she even made a sound.

‘Tony!’ Pepper called.

Stane apparently didn’t hear her. ‘How ironic, Tony!’

Tony looked back up at him, trying to work out what he was talking about.

‘Don’t think I didn’t notice what you were doing!’ Stane called. ‘Trying to rid the world of your father’s weapons, you gave it its best one ever!’

‘Pepper!’ Tony called for her to hit the button.

Or maybe Stane just didn’t care. ‘And now...I’m gonna kill you with it!’ Stane fired a missile.

Tony flinched away, but it was a horrible miss.

‘You ripped out my targeting system.’

Was it his fault Stane was an idiot? Not that he was complaining. That meant Stane would have to get closer. Tony called down again as Stane began that expected advance. ‘Time to hit the button!’

He saw Pepper step up to the button and look up at him. ‘You told me not to!’

‘Hold still, you little prick!’ Stane tried again. And missed again.

‘Just do it!’ Tony yelled.

‘You’ll die!’ Pepper yelled back.

Stane fired again, missed again. This one was closer though. Tony dropped down, hanging by one arm. ‘Push it!’

Pepper hit the button. She covered her head and ran. The Arc Reactor began to overload. Electricity sparked out of the machine and snaked its way through the entire room. Tony hauled himself up again and jammed his eyes shut, waiting to see if he would live or die. His body was suddenly propelled up and Obadiah Stane screamed. He then slumped forward and fell into the hole he made. The whole thing came apart as he plummeted into the core of the Arc Reactor. A fiery explosion followed and Tony flinched away. He felt himself slipping into unconsciousness but one thing pulled him back.

‘Tony!’

Pepper...

Chapter Text

‘Miss Potts.’

Pepper turned and frowned when she saw who was approaching her. ‘Mr. Coulson, this area is restricted.’

‘I need to speak to Tony Stark,’ Coulson said with an air of assumed authority.

Pepper blocked his way. The words on his profile rang in her mind: sociopathic, detached personality. There was nothing really proving it, but the behavioural patterns pointed in that direction. She folded her arms and tapped a button on her watch as she did so. Over the years, as he found out more about S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony had added a few more features on the watch – such as a security call button. ‘If so, you’ll need to make an appointment.’

Coulson didn’t even look annoyed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have time, Miss Potts. I need to speak with Mr. Stark right now.’

‘I’m afraid you’re overstepping your authority, Mr. Coulson,’ Pepper fired back with all the professional coldness that had made her so feared and respected in the industry by Tony’s business associates and rivals alike. ‘Mr. Stark has just fought off a third attempt on his life and he won’t be amicable to S.H.I.E.L.D. entering his buildings without using the proper channels.’

Coulson gave something like a friendly smile that looked a bit nervous. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Potts.’

Pepper felt the watch on her wrist vibrate and then she turned her head as two men were thrown back by the pulse. She had been expecting something like that. She looked back at Coulson as the security guards entered the hall behind him, led by Happy. Finally, there was emotion on his face: shock. He twisted his face as the guards grabbed his arm. Pepper watched as he was escorted out of the building by the guards. A couple of more came in to deal with Coulson’s men. Pepper turned and continued on her way.

‘You all right, Pep?’ Happy asked.

‘I’m more worried about Tony, honestly,’ Pepper said. ‘I think we’re doing this too soon.’

Happy nodded. ‘Well, the sooner we get it done, the sooner it’ll be over with.’

Pepper nodded and moved on.

***

Tony was scanning through the paper. He liked the front page, mind. ‘Iron Man. I like it. Strictly speaking, it’s not iron though. It’s a gold-titanium alloy. But Iron Man...I like it. It’s catchy.’ He closed the paper and looked up at Pepper who was currently covering up his wounds from the previous night with make-up. ‘So what did the feds say?’

‘They agree with you on the matter,’ Pepper said. ‘Apparently, the public loving to hate you makes you a special case. You’ve been making all this noise about cleaning up your own mess. If they don’t see you personally stepping up, you’ll get called all-talk. If you do show that you’re actively doing something about it by being Iron Man, though, they won’t have anything to pick on. PR agrees with them, strangely enough.’

‘Stocks?’

Pepper nodded. ‘You’d think the quality of your tech would be enough to kill that, but our stock-holders apparently want to see the CEO holding himself accountable to the company.’ She stepped back. ‘Make-up’s done.’

Tony stood up and Pepper helped him into his suit jacket. ‘You know, I finally found out why they called my mom a trophy wife.’

‘Really?’ Pepper asked, brushing off his shoulders. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Dad used to sleep around as much as I do,’ Tony said. ‘Mom was always figured as just the woman he decided to settle down with when his looks started to go.’ He turned around to find Pepper’s eyebrows had climbed up to her hairline.

‘Is that what you’re gonna do?’ she asked, straightening his tie.

‘I said that was what they thought,’ Tony said. ‘Never said I believed it. I think dad just got sick of sleeping around.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I’m starting to.’

Pepper paused, but only for a second. ‘Are you sure that’s got nothing to do with the Reactor in your chest?’

‘It might. I don’t know.’ Tony smiled at her. ‘Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?’

Pepper smiled and dropped her eyes. She made a show of checking his cufflinks. Tony smiled as he watched her. There was a knock on the door and they both turned. Happy stuck his head in. ‘You’re on, boss.’

‘All right.’ Tony reluctantly stepped away from Pepper. ‘Let’s get this over with then.’

Pepper handed him a pair of sunglasses and he flicked them on. He walked out and past Happy. The camera flashes immediately began. Tony walked over to the podium. He leaned on the lectern and waited for the flashes to die down. ‘Good morning. I’m glad to see such a turn-out. Of course, I imagine you’re all anxious to hear about the Iron Man that was seen fighting at my factory last night—Don’t interrupt me, Miss Everhart. I’m about to explain it.’

Christine Everhart shut her mouth with a displeased twist of the lips.

‘When I escaped from captivity in Afghanistan a few months ago, I did so by building a rudimentary suit of armour with a flamethrower and low-level flight capability,’ Tony explained. ‘I made coded plans which only contained half of what I was doing and, quite regrettably, I had to leave it in the cave. It turned out that my captors were working in conjunction with my former business partner, Obadiah Stane, who took the plans and made a rather crude version of the suit.’ Tony twisted his lips. ‘The red and gold suit you saw was my own refined version. Last night, Mr. Stane made a second, and then a third attempt on my life. The fight on the roof of the factory was the third attempt.’

‘Does this mean that you were there?’ one journalist called.

‘Of course,’ Tony said. ‘Iron Man is me.’

The room exploded with questions.

Tony raised his hands. ‘Easy! One at a time, ladies and gentlemen! I am trying for transparency here. I will also ask you to sit and listen to the rest of this before the floor opens for questions.’

The journalists sat back down and quietened.

Tony went back into his speech. ‘When I returned to the States, I expressed my desire to refine the suit I’d invented in Afghanistan and use it to remove my weapons from the illegal hands they have fallen into. The FBI and CIA agreed on the condition that I create another suit for the use of someone who is not a civilian, like myself. I have chosen, for this, Lt. Col. James Rhodes.’ He clapped Rhodey on the shoulder. ‘That suit is under construction but, based on the fact that Mr. Stane had threatened the safety of my employees in the factory, I took mine for its first field test run last night, as I knew Mr. Stane had a similar suit.’ He paused. ‘The floor is now open for questions.’

Hands shot up like lightning.

This was gonna be a long press conference.

***

‘...So, just like that,’ Carol said, ‘Stane’s actions showed the military why you’re being so picky with who uses the suit.’ She took a bite of pizza. ‘The sort of damage he did when he was limited to a particular area scared them – especially considering how much more damage could have been done with a mobile power source.’

Rhodey nodded. ‘So it did HYDRA more harm than good. If he’d have survived, I doubt they’d have hauled him out again.’

‘How’d you two get out of trouble for that, by the way?’ Happy asked.

‘Apparently, Stane was too dangerous anyway,’ Tony said. ‘He tried to kill the same person three times, he was a psychopath on a power-trip, and he was dealing with terrorists. The big guns had decided he was safer if he was dead anyway. If he survived, they were going to slide him into a court that would’ve sentenced him to death. We saved them the trouble, so they just swept the whole thing under the rug and called it an accident.’

Rhodey chuckled. ‘Intelligence agencies!’

‘Well, at least they would’ve given him a fair trial,’ Carol remarked. ‘Hell, a trial at all! We’ve already removed 239 people from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s custody who were never going to get one. Some had been in there for years. Mr. Murdock and Mr. Nelson have been a tremendous help in the circumstances.’ She nodded to Tony. ‘Nice job finding out about that, by the way.’

The Raft. Yet another thing his father had left on the hard drive.

‘How did the Raft work, by the way?’ Pepper asked.

‘It was in International waters,’ Carol said. ‘And it was sitting in a radar blind spot. If Howard hadn’t put the coordinates down for Tony then we still might not know it exists.’ She chuckled and shook her head. ‘I think your father was in a tight spot. Anything he might do, or try to do, would endanger his family. Maybe that’s why he raised you in the public eye. He was relying on you to put your foot down.’

Tony smiled.

Chapter Text

2012 – 4 Years Later – New York City
The lights came on, displaying the massive “STARK” across the side of the building.

‘How’s it look?’ Pepper asked.

‘Like Christmas, but with more...me.’

‘We’ve gotta go wider on the Public Awareness Campaign. You need to do some press. I’m in DC tomorrow, working on the zoning for the next two buildings.’

‘Pepper!’ Tony groaned in annoyance. ‘You’re killing the moment! Remember? Enjoy the moment.’

‘Get in here and I will.’

Tony landed on his new platform. As he walked along it, the robotic machine he’d developed removed the suit from his body. As he did, JARVIS spoke up. ‘Sir, you asked to be informed if S.H.I.E.L.D. began initiating their Avengers Initiative.’

That had been something Tony had found from hacking. Just a month ago, Steve Rogers had been found in the Arctic – frozen but very much alive. He’d been immediately scooped up by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Tony hadn’t been surprised, as they likely wanted to use him as a weapon. Time to see how good this “inherent sense of right” is, he’d thought. Tony and JARVIS had kept an eye on the situation.

Rogers had been immediately added to a S.H.I.E.L.D. program called The Avengers Initiative. They’d already picked out who they wanted – and Tony himself was on that list. It was also highly suspicious that the dear old Black Widow, Romanoff herself, was a member, along with the highest-clearance level sniper they had. What they were on the line-up for was clear as day.

Tony’s main concern, upon seeing the line-up, was a particular civilian scientist.

‘What’s happened?’ Tony asked.

‘Agent Romanoff has been dispatched to retrieve Dr. Banner.’

That was what he was afraid of. Tony frowned. ‘Why now?’

‘I’m searching the records as we speak, sir.’

‘Keep me posted,’ Tony stepped inside the penthouse and walked over to Pepper.

Pepper watched the readings intently. ‘Levels are holding steady, I think.’ She chewed her bottom lip.

‘Of course they are. I was directly involved.’ Tony walked over and tossed his earpiece on the table. ‘Which brings me to my next question: how does it feel to be a genius?’

‘Well, I really wouldn’t know, now, would I?’ Pepper remarked, turning to face him.

‘What do you mean?’ Tony asked. ‘All this...’ He gestured with a circular motion of his forefinger. ‘..came from you.’

‘No. All this came from that.’ She tapped his Arc Reactor.

‘Give yourself some credit,’ Tony said. ‘Please.’ He rubbed her forearms. ‘Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself...12% of the credit.’

‘12%?’ Pepper’s voice dropped into that “are you kidding me” tone.

‘An argument could be made for 15!’ Tony quickly amended.

‘12%?’ She scoffed as she walked over to the table where the champagne was waiting. ‘My baby?’

‘Well, I did do all the heavy lifting.’ Tony pointed out. ‘Literally! I lifted the heavy things. And, sorry, but the security snafu – that was on me too—’

‘Oh!’ Pepper made an exaggerated sound as she pulled out the bottle of champagne.

‘My private elevator!’

Pepper poured out the champagne. ‘You mean our elevator?’

‘It was teeming with sweaty workmen,’ Tony pointed out. He sat down with her. ‘I’m going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren’t I?’

Pepper handed him his glass. ‘Not gonna be that subtle.’

‘I’ll tell you what. Next building is gonna say “Potts” on the tower.’

‘On the lease.’ They clinked their glasses.

‘Call your mom. Can you bunk over?’

Pepper laughed.

‘Sir, I have the information you requested.’ JARVIS suddenly interrupted them.

‘Good,’ Tony said.

‘What happened?’ Pepper asked.

‘Our little spider went to retrieve Dr. Banner.’

Pepper’s expression darkened. ‘Why?’

‘It seems that S.H.I.E.L.D. were building weapons with something called the Tesseract, a device of unknown origin...’

Tony nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Dad based the Arc Reactor off of it.’ He scowled. ‘Building weapons with it, huh? Last people who did that were the Nazis.’

‘Indeed, sir. A man identified as Loki appeared with a sceptre of some kind. He used it to put S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents Barton and Selvig into a sort of trance and stole the Tesseract to parts unknown. All data points to Director Fury having decided to activate the Avengers Initiative in order to retrieve it for his project.’

‘Naturally.’ Tony huffed. ‘Did you say “Loki”? As in “Norse God of Mischief”?’

‘It would appear so, sir. Two years ago, S.H.I.E.L.D. encountered Thor and Loki who, all evidence suggests, are from another dimension or realm. My conclusions are that the Norse Gods are really interdimensional beings who learned how to cross the barrier and were taken for Gods by primitive man.’

Tony nodded. ‘That makes a lot more sense than actual Gods.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ve uploaded the data to your personal computer.’

Tony sighed and stood up. Pepper followed as he walked over to the computer and accessed the files JARVIS had just added. Tony scanned through the data and then flicked the holographic screen out. Data on all six intended members, including Tony himself was displayed in front of them.

Tony looked over at Dr. Banner’s file in particular.

‘Why would they add a couple of professional killers to this team?’ Pepper asked.

‘To keep the rest of us under S.H.I.E.L.D.’s control,’ Tony said. ‘One manipulates you to keep you loyal. And, if you start to stray and, you know, think for yourself, they kill you.’

Pepper pressed her lips together. ‘So what are you gonna do?’

‘I gotta get Banner outta there,’ Tony said. ‘Probably been a while since he’s had human contact that didn’t jump a foot in the air when he got startled. Loki’s bound to show up again. And what’s the bet they send old Cap after him? All I gotta do is wait.’

‘You don’t think he can take him?’ Pepper asked.

‘The man’s just woken up from a 68-year nap, and I’m not dead sure “peak human condition” measures up to...well, that.’ He gestured to Thor’s profile where the Asgardian’s feats of strength were on full display.

Pepper nodded in acquiescence. ‘I’ll fly to DC tonight.’

‘Tomorrow!’ Tony insisted.

‘You have homework,’ Pepper told him. ‘You have a lot of homework.’

‘Well, what if I...didn’t?’ Tony turned to her.

Pepper looked back at him. ‘If you didn’t?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You mean if you finished it?’

Tony nodded.

‘Well, um...then...’ She leaned up and whispered in Tony’s ear.

Tony’s jaw dropped. When she pulled back, he nodded. ‘Square deal. Fly safe.’

Pepper smiled and kissed him.

***

Pepper looked at her phone as it went off. Heading to Germany. Love you. Tony. She smiled and tucked her phone as she and the employees coming with her. Her own PA, Karen, handed her a folder and Pepper flicked through it, checking over what needed to be done again.

There was another reason Tony doubted Steve Rogers could take on Loki.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had offered him no counselling, no integration programs, and had made no effort whatsoever to acclimatise him to the 21st century. They regarded the man as a weapon and nothing more. It made Pepper pity him, to be honest. The last thing he knew, it was the middle of the 40s, and suddenly he’s in the very different 21st century with no friends, no real allies, and S.H.I.E.L.D. were the ones to scoop him up. The man was just going to be thrown out with no preparation.

Oh, well, if he was everything they said he was he’d get himself out of that one. Pepper just hoped Tony could extract Dr. Banner.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s interest in the physicist was what got Tony’s attention. Tony had watched numerous pieces of footage of both Bruce Banner and the Hulk. He was convinced that the Hulk was not the mindless beast that he was presumed to be. And Dr. Banner certainly needed help. The man had been on his own since the Hulk had been born, and that wasn’t good for any human.

Pepper boarded her plane.

***

Germany
Steve was eager to get back into the fold.

Steve was a hero, and this was what he did. S.H.I.E.L.D. had dropped him off and given him some kind of earpiece which allowed him communication with them. Natasha had said “it’s like a radio, but it fits in your ear”. He was quite happy to leave all the technology issues to S.H.I.E.L.D. – like he used to with Howard.

Who, it turned out, was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., along with Peggy.

When he arrived on the street, he was met with the sight of a large group of people being forced to kneel before the guy Director Fury had called Loki. One man, however, was refusing to kneel. As he quickly approached, Steve heard the conversation that was going on between the bad guy and the civilian.

‘Not to men like you,’ the civilian said. He was an older man. Steve wasn’t sure if he was foolish or brave. It didn’t matter anyway.

‘There are no men like me,’ Loki said.

‘There are always men like you.’

Loki smiled and lifted his sceptre. ‘Look to your elder, people.’ He pointed it at him. ‘Let him be an example.’

Steve jumped in front of him as Loki shot something from his sceptre. He used the old shield, which S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten back for him, to deflect the blast. The man stumbled back behind him. When Steve lowered the shield, he saw that Loki had stumbled as the blast had been reflected right back at him. Steve stood up straight.

‘You know,’ Steve stepped down the steps and approached Loki, who was now glaring up at him, ‘the last time I was in Germany, and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.’

‘The soldier!’ Loki stood and chuckled. ‘A man out of time.’

‘I’m not the one who’s outta time.’ Steve heard the helicopter behind him.

Natasha’s voice came over the PA. ‘Loki, drop the weapon and stand down!’

Loki fired at them. The chopper dodged. Steve threw his shield. It bounced off of Loki’s helmet. The crowd of people bolted. Steve caught his shield and landed a punch in Loki’s face. Generally when he did that, his opponent went flying – the only exception being the Red Skull. Loki, though, didn’t even stagger back a step. He swung his sceptre down at Steve. Steve blocked with his shield, but Loki spun the other end of his staff and knocked the shield aside.

Steve was jabbed in the gut.

He was then thrown back, but Steve quickly recovered himself. This guy wasn’t like the Red Skull. He was far more powerful. But Steve was still confident that he could beat him. Steve was a hero. He took down tyrants and bullies. Steve tossed his shield at Loki again. This time, however, Loki deflected it. Steve went to hand-to-hand combat. He held his own for a few seconds before he was knocked across the pavement again.

As he tried to push himself up, he felt the sharp end of the staff press against the back of his head. ‘Kneel!’ Loki hissed.

Steve knocked it aside. He jumped up and rounded a kick at Loki. Loki quickly recovered though. Loki caught him by the neck and threw him. Steve hit the ground again. Then something bizarre happened. A melody-less, tuneless kind of music with the vocalist shouting rather than singing came through his earpiece.

What is that?

A man’s voice – unfamiliar to Steve – came through. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Agent Romanoff,’ he didn’t sound sorry, ‘but my old grandpa was born in this city. Afraid I don’t like some guy tearing it up.’

In the next instant, something shot out of the sky. It seemed to be a red and gold suit of armour. The person inside – because Steve had seen pictures of the thing, and it was quite different in real life – lifted a hand. Loki was hit by a beam of light of some kind. He was thrown back into a set of stairs.

Iron Man landed on the ground in a half-crouch, leaving cracks in the pavement. He straightened up and extended both arms. One had the palm open and a light glowed from within – probably another blast like the previous one. The other was a down-facing fist. A gun of some kind extended out from the top of the wrist. More small guns came out of the shoulders. All aimed for Loki.

This was Howard’s son.

Nobody had been able to explain why Howard’s son – who was just an engineer and a businessman like his father – had decided to put on a suit of armour and play hero. All they told him was that the kid had been raised to always be the centre of attention. So Steve figured it was an ego thing. Steve had questioned why Howard had let his child grow up like that.

‘Howard didn’t really have a choice,’ Fury told him. ‘The Press just loved following the kid around everywhere he went. Anytime he did anything, it was front-page news. It’s the reason why he never joined S.H.I.E.L.D., really. He just draws in too much attention.’

And, yeah, Howard couldn’t be blamed for that.

‘Make your move, Reindeer Games,’ Tony Stark said.

Steve retrieved his shield and stepped up next to him. Part of him was annoyed. He had the situation under control. He would have found a weakness eventually. Loki would have worn out before he did. Still, Howard’s son had helped him and he had been raised correctly.

Loki’s body glowed gold and all the unnecessary gold faded off of him. He raised his hands in surrender. It could have been Steve’s imagination, but that seemed almost too easy. Howard’s son tucked the weapons away and lowered his arms as the plane flew down again. Tony Stark seemed oblivious. ‘Good move.’

Steve addressed the billionaire. ‘Mr. Stark.’

The helmet turned slightly. ‘Captain.’

But Steve wasn’t happy at being upstaged.

Chapter Text

Triskelion, New York
Thor hadn’t been expecting S.H.I.E.L.D. to have already apprehended Loki, but that was how he met the Captain and Son of Stark.

It was only when they returned to the base that Thor, having observed Stark make several of their phone calls and appear to be delegating and organising, that he was able to ask and discovered that Son of Stark was, in fact, a Noble. He owned several estates all over Midgard, ran what was essentially a small empire, and was responsible for the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. In this century, that translated to the men and women under his care would work for him. In return, he would give them the money they needed to survive: to live in their homes, to acquire food and garments, and to pay for whatever else they needed.

Thus, Son of Stark was a Noble – or a jarl as they were called in Asgard.

That was why Thor didn’t protest again when Son of Stark strode by him and tapped his arm with the remark. ‘No hard feelings, Point Break. You got a mean swing.’

However, as Son of Stark walked around the command room, Thor noticed his spine was stiff. This was generally the mark of a man surrounded by enemies. Why should he feel such a thing in this place? Thor made a note to go to Heimdall after this battle was won and ask. It did seem such a curious thing to be wary here.

‘Also,’ Son of Stark said, continuing what he’d been speaking of, ‘means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants.’ He looked around, and then pointed. ‘That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn’t notice, but we did.’ He then looked at the screens. He then covered an eye looked at the screens in front of him and then turned around, lowering his hand. ‘How does Fury even see these?’

‘He turns,’ one of the women stated.

‘Sounds exhausting.’ He started manipulating one of the screens. ‘The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source, of high energy density.’ He turned back around. ‘Something to...’ He made a motion with his hands. ‘...kick-start the cube.’

The woman spoke to him again. ‘When did you become an expert in thermo-nuclear astro-physics?’

‘Last night,’ he said without missing a beat.

The woman turned her head, as if impressed...or curious.

He then went on with his explanation. ‘Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect.’

Dr. Banner spoke up. ‘Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet.’

Son of Stark grinned and walked over to him. ‘Finally! Someone who speaks English!’

‘Oh, is that what happened?’ the Captain asked, evidentially as lost as Thor himself was.

Thor did watch in amusement though as Son of Stark greeting Dr. Banner by acknowledging both his work, and some kind of “green rage monster”. It was most curious how many in the room froze up at such a statement. Son of Stark ignored them though.

Then the conversation turned to Loki.

Dr. Banner chuckled. ‘He really grows on you, doesn’t he?’

‘Loki’s going to drag this out,’ the Captain said. ‘So...Thor, what’s his play?’

‘He has an army called the Chitauri,’ Thor said. ‘They’re not of Asgard, nor any world known.’ He turned to face the Captain. ‘He’s to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.’

‘An army?’ the Captain asked. He looked at Agent Romanoff. ‘From outer space?’

Dr. Banner pulled the spectacles off of his face. ‘So he’s building another portal? That’s what he needs Eric Selvig for.’

‘Selvig?’ Thor asked.

‘He was an astrophysicist,’ Dr. Banner supplied.

‘Is he your friend?’

Agent Romanoff answered that one. ‘Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours.’

‘I want to know why Loki let us take him,’ the Captain stated. ‘He’s not leading an army from here.’

‘I don’t think we should be focusing on Loki,’ Dr. Banner said. ‘That guy’s brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.’

Thor stepped forward. ‘Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is an Asgard. And he is my brother.’

‘He killed 80 people in 2 days,’ Agent Romanoff stated with a flat voice.

That few? ‘He’s adopted.’

***

Bruce was relieved when he and Tony – he’d said to call him Tony – could move to the lab.
‘You know, you should come to the lab in my Tower,’ Tony told him. ‘It’s Candy-land.’

‘Thanks, but,’ Bruce chuckled. ‘The last time I was in New York, I kind of...broke Harlem.’

Tony gave a tight smile and walked to the other side of the screen Bruce was using. He knocked the data aside. ‘I read all about your accident,’ he said. ‘That much gamma radiation should have killed you.’

‘So you’re saying that the Hulk...the Other Guy saved my life? That’s nice.’ Actually, now that he mentioned it...he was right. If the Hulk hadn’t come into existence in that moment, Bruce would currently be worm food. ‘It’s a nice sentiment. Saved it for...what?’

‘Guess we’ll find out.’

‘You may not enjoy that,’ Bruce remarked.

‘And you just might.’

The two of them continued work. Bruce had to say, he enjoyed working with someone who didn’t think he was liable to hulk-out and attack at any given moment. Even that brief interruption by Steve, who seemed determined Tony was an immature kid playing around was of little concern. Steve had only been back a month so he possibly didn’t know about the events of 2005.

Made Bruce wonder why Tony chose to come here.

When Fury came in, Tony deflected his attention from Bruce by asking, ‘So why wasn’t Marvel brought in?’

Fury looked like he’d smelt something nasty. ‘Captain Danvers is not qualified for the Avengers Initiative.’

Tony cocked an eyebrow. ‘So, the one person on Earth with actual experience with alien invasions is not qualified to deal with an alien invasion?’

Bruce frowned. He’d never heard of this person, but it was clear Fury had. Tony was right. If there was someone with experience in alien invasions, then that was the first person you should call for an alien invasion. A group of super-powered people was one thing, but they had no experience in these things.

‘Mind your business, Stark!’ Fury snapped.

‘Sure.’ Tony turned and flicked something on the computer. ‘So what is Phase 2?’

Fury looked like a vein in his forehead was about to burst when Steve walked in a slammed a gun of some sort on the table. ‘Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. using the cube to make weapons. I’m sorry; the computer was moving a little slow for me.’

Fury walked over to him. ‘Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This gun does not mean that we’re—’

‘I’m sorry, Nick!’ Tony interrupted him and turned his computer screen around, showing the blueprints for the very weapon Steve had laid down. ‘What were you lying?’

‘I was wrong, Director,’ Steve said as Thor and Romanoff walked in. ‘The world hasn’t changed a bit.’

‘Did you know about this?’ Bruce asked Romanoff.

‘Don’t you want to think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?’ Romanoff asked.

Bruce scoffed. ‘When I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed.’

‘He’s manipulating you,’ Romanoff stated.

‘And you’ve been doing what exactly?’

‘You didn’t come here because I batted my eyelashes at you.’

No. He came here because he wasn’t give a choice. ‘Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy.’ He walked over to the screen and turned it towards himself. ‘I’d like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.’

‘Because of him,’ Fury pointed to Thor.

Thor looked confused. ‘Me?’

‘Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grunge match that levelled a small town,’ Fury said. ‘We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned.’

‘My people want nothing but peace with your planet,’ Thor stated.

Fury turned on him. ‘But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And you’re not the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched. They can’t be controlled.’

A tick took up residence in Tony’s jaw.

‘Like you controlled the cube?’ Steve asked.

Thor stepped forward. ‘Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.’

‘Higher form?’ Steve asked.

‘You’ve forced our hand,’ Fury stated.

‘No, they didn’t,’ Tony said.

Chapter Text

Tony had all the attention in the room. ‘You saw guys with bigger guns than you, and you got scared. It’s a nuclear deterrent, cause that always calms everything right down.’

Fury glared at him. ‘Remind me how you made your fortune, Stark.’

Tony smirked. ‘During World War 2, if you’d care to remember.’

‘I’m sure if he’d have thought of it first, Stark would be neck-deep—’

‘Wait, wait, hold on.’ Tony interrupted him. ‘How is this now about me?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Steve’s eyes narrowed. ‘Isn’t everything. They told me about how you abandoned Peggy to throw a temper tantrum.’

Bruce wouldn’t call it a temper tantrum. Tony’s eyes narrowed and his expression went cold. He looked every bit the dangerous businessman he was purported to be. ‘Abandoned? Peggy Carter abandoned me long before I had enough of her.’

Steve got in his face. ‘You take that back.’

Tony didn’t back down, though. ‘She covered up my parents’ murder and then left me alone to deal with it. And that’s not even mentioning what she did when they were alive.’

Bruce noticed the look on Thor’s face become outraged.

‘You parents died in a car accident,’ Rogers snapped.

‘No.’ Bruce felt the need to intervene. ‘No, Rogers. There’s video evidence.’ Bruce remembered when he’d seen that on TV. He and everyone else in that small diner had frozen up in shock as they watched Howard and Maria Stark get murdered on a back road in the night. The video had been followed by a public call for any information regarding their killer.

Rogers glanced back in annoyance.

‘Look at this.’ Thor shook his head in disgust. ‘I thought you were more evolved than this. You have performed one of the worst transgressions upon any living beings. You seek control, and yet your cause chaos.’

‘That’s his M-O, isn’t it?’ Bruce remarked.

Fury looked over, annoyed.

‘I mean, what are we, a team?’ Bruce shook his head. ‘No, no, no. We’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re...’ He shrugged. ‘We’re a time bomb.’

‘You need to step away,’ Fury stated.

‘Why shouldn’t the guy let off some steam?’ Tony asked.

‘You know damn well why!’ Steve snapped. ‘Back off!’

‘I’m starting to want you to make me.’

‘Yeah.’ Steve sneered and began circling him. Bruce didn’t like the look of it. It looked like the guy’s legend was just that: a legend. ‘Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off and what are you?’

‘Genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist.’

‘I know guys with none of that worth ten of you,’ Steve said. ‘And I’ve seen the footage. The only—’

‘What footage?’ Tony interrupted him.

Steve sneered but didn’t answer. ‘The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you.’

‘I think I would just cut the wire.’

Steve sneered and looked around. There was enough condescension in his expression to drip. ‘Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero.’

‘A hero?’ Tony scoffed. ‘Like you? You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.’

Rogers, then, attempted to pick a fight. ‘Put on the suit. Let’s go a few rounds.’

Tony smirked and walked away. He grabbed his jacket. ‘You know, actually, I’m gonna do what mom always told me to do when some jackass is trying to pick a fight: I’m gonna walk away.’ He looked over. ‘You coming, Bruce? Captain Marvel ought to know what to do about this staff. She got her powers from exposure to Kree tech.’

‘I think I will.’ Bruce grabbed his own jacket.

Tony grabbed the staff and twirled it.

Everyone but Thor flinched back. Instead, he stepped forward. ‘Would you mind if I were to accompany you?’

‘Not at all,’ Tony said, leading both Bruce and Thor to the door. ‘Have you ridden in a car before, Point Break?’

‘I have.’

‘Stark!’ Fury barked.

‘You want me, you know my number. Oh, JARVIS,’ Tony sing-songed the last bit as he passed the sceptre to Thor.

‘Of course, sir.’ A British-accented voice came from above. The door closed behind them and sealed the others inside with a reinforced door that was apparently there.

‘A servant?’ Thor asked.

‘Something like that,’ Tony agreed.

It must’ve been the AI Tony was famous for building and owning. JARVIS spoke up again. ‘Sir, I have already informed Captain Danvers and Lt. Col. Rhodes of the situation. They are currently heading for the Tower. Shall I also inform the federal authorities?’

Tony nodded. ‘Good idea. Tell them to clear any area of civilians where there’s a reactor.’

***

Thor followed Son of Stark and Dr. Banner out of the elevator and into a large set of rooms in the Tower. Thor sat down on the couch. Son of Stark walked over to an area where there was food as several transparent screens appeared and Dr. Banner returned to work. Son of Stark brought over some soda for them to drink whilst they waited on his friends to arrive. It was despicable to think that S.H.I.E.L.D., who had seemed concerned with the safety of their world, had covered up murder, and denied the victims justice.

‘Are you sure Loki will be all right in there?’ Thor asked.

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Son of Stark said. ‘He clearly intended to get captured so it ought to be part of his plan.’

Bruce gave a light nod.

‘So then why did the Captain keep pressing the issue?’ Thor asked.

Son of Stark gave a light smile. ‘I’ll be honest. Not a lot of people know much about him. He’s more of a living legend over anything else.’

‘And,’ JARVIS added in, ‘I have just found records that indicate he scarcely completed a week of boot camp.’

Dr. Banner bit back a chuckle. Son of Stark let out a low whistle.

‘Boot camp?’ Thor asked.

‘It’s what we call basic training,’ Son of Stark said.

Oh, that was very bad indeed.

Suddenly Dr. Banner turned from the screen he was at. ‘Tony, should this be happening?’

Son of Stark walked over and took a look. ‘No.’ He looked up.

‘What is it?’ Thor asked.

‘There’s something going on up on the roof,’ Tony said. ‘JARVIS?’

‘Col. Rhodes and Cap. Danvers are only a moment away, sir,’ JARVIS said. ‘The figure on the roof is alone and identifies as Agent Selvig.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ Son of Stark said.

A moment later, as promised, two people landed. One of them wore a suit much like the one Son of Stark used. As he walked along the platform, a series of machines removed the suit from him, revealing a man who was clearly a soldier. The second person was a blonde woman who landed on the balcony and seemed capable of self-sustained flight.

‘Tones,’ the man said. ‘Do you know you have somebody on your roof?’

‘Yeah,’ Son of Stark said. ‘What say we see what they want?’

Chapter Text

To be greatly honest, Bruce wasn’t surprised.

Without Selvig building the device on top of the Tower, the invasion never happened. Instead, Captain Carol Danvers, otherwise known as Captain Marvel, had, with her experience in alien invasions, worked out how to reverse the effects of the sceptre – a second tap to the chest just reversed the effects. The poor man was currently down in the lounge, having a stiff drink.

When Loki, having broken out of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s HQ, arrived he found himself having to deal with his brother, Iron Man, Iron Patriot, and Captain Marvel. The Hulk hadn’t been needed. The invasion had been thwarted and that was that. Tony had then given Thor back the Tesseract and the sceptre and they left, with Loki in shackles. Thor had promised to see if he could find the identity of the Starks’ killer in Asgard.

Apparently, there was a seer up there who “saw all”.

Tony extended an invitation to Bruce to live in the Tower. Over the next few weeks, he even built a Smash Room for the Hulk. They’d also gotten quite a few annoyed phone calls from Steve Rogers. There was no apology for his harsh statements towards Tony – statements that held absolutely no grounding in truth – but most of it seemed to be reprimand for “not working with the team” and “not telling me what you were doing”.

Tony, quite amusingly, had actually called some guys in the FBI and asked them to do a profile on Rogers. Bruce also saw the profiles on the various S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents that Tony already had. He wasn’t overly surprised to see words like “sociopathic” and “suspected (insert word here) personality disorder”. The one on Steve that came back a few months later was even more amusing.

“Displays signs of the Dunning-Kruger Effect”.

“Apparent need to be praised constantly”.

“Lacks empathy”.

“Capable of critical thinking skills, but is seemingly reluctant to put effort into using these aforementioned skills”.

Thor returned to share some bad news with Tony. ‘Heimdall did look for the assassin,’ he told Tony. ‘However, there have been a few obstacles.’

‘Such as?’ Tony asked.

‘The first is the time which has passed since the deed was done,’ Thor explained. ‘If we were closer to the event, he would be able to see much clearer. The second problem is in that the man he sees is a different man to the one who actually committed the crime.’

‘Hm.’ Tony frowned. ‘Could be the guy who hired him to do it.’

‘Aye, that was Heimdall’s conclusion.’

The Avengers were otherwise formed, but without Bruce, Tony, or Thor. Bruce knew that Fury only wanted him so he could control the Hulk. He only wanted Tony so he had access to his genius, his resources, and his vast fortune. (Everyone had heard about that.) And apparently, though not surprisingly, the people of Asgard considered what S.H.I.E.L.D. had done to the Starks to be the height of dishonour.

So Thor wanted nothing to do with them.

The Avengers consisted of Rogers as the leader, along with Romanoff, Barton, and a few others. They were known to disappear to other countries. They’d smash everything up and then just saunter back to the Triskelion. Then they couldn’t understand why people were yelling at them and suing them for damages.

Yet another reason S.H.I.E.L.D. would have wanted Tony.

Bruce himself actually enjoyed being in an environment like this. He was back in a lab, with a room made especially for the Hulk, and working with people who weren’t afraid he was going to kill them: Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, and Carol. It turned out the Hulk liked them too. On the few occasions he did end up Hulking out, not a single one of them had been hurt.

‘He just goes straight to the Smash Room, usually,’ Tony said when he asked one day. ‘Every so often, though, he helps me work out just how strong he is.’

‘He’s fine with that?’ That had surprised Bruce.

‘Apparently.’ Tony had chuckled. ‘Anyway, it seems like his strength is directly related to his anger. The angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. Which means, as long as he’s conscious, there is literally no limit to just how powerful the Hulk could become. That cell they had prepped for him—’ They both knew it was there. ‘—would have done nothing to contain him.’

That was simultaneously amusing and terrifying.

Then, one day, Carol walked in with a thick document. ‘Have you seen these?’

Tony looked up from his computer screen and walked over. ‘Are these those super-human regulations I’ve heard about?’

Apparently, with the Avengers blundering about the place, the world had become nervous. They went where they wanted, answerable only to S.H.I.E.L.D., whom didn’t have the best reputation. The United Nations had begun drafting up a set of checks and balances for every enhanced individual across the planet.

‘This is gonna take a while to get through,’ Tony remarked. ‘It’s still heavily underdeveloped, but I think I can see what they’re doing.’

‘What’s that?’ Bruce asked.

‘They’re trying to get every other enhanced to fall under this,’ Tony said. ‘That way they can put pressure on Fury to put the Avengers under it too. This is the whole world – or close to it – saying that they’re scared of the Avengers.’ He looked at Carol. ‘How’d you get your hands on it so soon?’

‘My CO wanted me to have my two cents,’ Carol said. ‘Seeing as I work under a chain of command already, I’ve become the poster child for the fact that super-humans can be reasonable and law-abiding citizens. They want as many as they can squeeze in.’

‘It’s a UN document?’ Bruce asked.

‘Yes,’ Carol said. ‘They want us to look over it and make as many amendments as we can. If the enhanced community is going to agree to these, we need to make them amendable to the minds of any super-human.’

‘With just us?’ Tony asked. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

Over the next few weeks, Tony took several copies of the draft out and got them back, all marked with amendments and questions. They were then negotiated on in the UN with Tony, Carol, and Rhodey speaking on behalf of the enhanced community. It turned out that Tony had worked out who most of the superheroes running around the city were – and if he hadn’t, he went to them while they were out and about and explained the situation.

When Bruce had to give his cousin, Jennifer, blood and she became She-Hulk, she got in on it too. He really should’ve seen that coming. (Hell, he shouldn’t have been able to give her blood because his contained damn gamma radiation!) Thankfully, though, her transformation was far more controlled and less destructive.

As a lawyer herself, Jennifer joined the other three was able to give more amendments and more compelling arguments to the UN panel for the amendments they wanted.

When Bruce had been in the Tower a few months (word had certainly got around), he was surprised that he received a visit from Betty Ross. Her father was being unusually quiet. She was suspicious and so was Bruce, and so was Tony. A quick look by JARVIS and they found out that he was trying to weasel his way into the negotiations by becoming Secretary of State, which meant kissing the President’s ass and framing a few people for certain crimes to get them out of his way.

So, in concern for the President’s safety, the FBI (who Tony had contacted to call in a favour) had found and released Ross’s illegal operations to the public.

Bruce nearly laughed at the look on his face when Thaddeus Ross was carted off.

Chapter Text

New York – 2014 – 2 Years Later
It started with a phone call from Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D., who actually had something important to say.

Tony’s response? ‘Oh, that dumbass!’ Maria said something else, and Tony amended. ‘Dumbasses, then.’

All over the world, S.H.I.E.L.D. buildings exploded as a result of Steve Rogers’ “brilliant” plan, taking out everything within the immediate vicinity. Debris rained on unsuspecting civilians and countless people died. Every single person on the S.H.I.E.L.D. database was suddenly exposed online and endangered.

Tony called the CIA and FBI first and then he focused on the people that could still be saved. JARIVS contacted every civilian in danger and had them evacuate to the nearest SI, FBI, or CIA building for protection. Rhodey, Carol, and several other military leaders began negotiations to extract those agents who were in enemy territory when the information was dropped. Pepper worked on damage control. As a physicist, Bruce couldn’t do much but he helped Tony where he could.

‘So how are we looking?’ Bruce asked, coming down into the workshop, where Tony and Hill were working through all the data they possibly could.

‘Pretty good, actually,’ Agent Hill said. ‘We’ve saved over 60% of agents and civilians. And Romanoff was just arrested.’

‘What about Rogers?’ Bruce asked.

‘Disappeared to parts unknown since his old BFF showed up,’ Tony said.

‘BFF?’ Bruce asked.

‘James Buchannan Barnes, better known as Bucky,’ Agent Hill reported, seemingly habitually. ‘He was a Sergeant in the 107th during World War 2. He and Rogers grew up together and he was listed as the only friend Rogers had back then. While Rogers was officially the leader of the Howling Commandos, in reality Barnes was. While he wasn’t the ranking officer, he was the only one Rogers would listen to.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I observed the same problem on the Avengers Initiative. Rogers didn’t listen to any opinions that differed from his own and he had no patience for waiting on reconnaissance.’

‘Turns out this guy was the only one who could give him a dissenting opinion he would listen to,’ Tony said, ‘and it didn’t always work.’ He was still scanning through the files.

‘Less than a day before Rogers crashed into the Arctic, Barnes fell from a train travelling across a cliff top in Austria,’ Hill explained. ‘He was presumed dead. He just showed up as the Winter Soldier, an assassin cited as the most deadly in the world.’

Tony glared at his computer screen as if it personally offended him. ‘And he was brainwashed. Wouldn’t you know it?’

‘Brainwashed?’ Bruce walked over and looked at the screen. ‘Oh...’ The information on the screen was exactly what Tony had been looking for since 2005. ‘Where’d you find this?’

‘S.H.I.E.L.D. data-dump,’ Tony said. ‘The actual HYDRA bits.’

‘So what are you gonna do?’ Agent Hill asked.

Tony looked over. ‘Rhodey and Carol are already on their way in, with the feds.’

***

Bucharest, Romania
Bucky had only been slipping around the city a week, slowly getting his bearings back – but he could still hardly remember his own name – when he heard his name called.

‘Sergeant Barnes?’

Bucky’s heart rate skyrocketed. He spun around, reaching for the gun that he knew wasn’t there. He was faced with two people, both in military uniform. The African-American man, if his foggy memory served him, was a Lieutenant Colonel. The blonde woman wore Captain’s bars on her shoulders. They were American. American...

‘My name is Lt. Col. James Rhodes,’ the man said. ‘I am joined by Captain Carol Danvers. We’ve been sent to apprehend you by Tony Stark.’

At the word “apprehend”, Bucky took a step back. Then he heard “Tony Stark”. It took a moment for the name to click – and the reason for him to want Bucky apprehended. ‘...Howard’s kid?’

‘Yes,’ Col. Rhodes said.

Howard’s kid...Bucky saw that night all over again. The car crashing...Howard falling out, dragging himself across the dirt, begging for whoever was there to help his wife. The look on his face when he realised that no, this was an attack that was only half-done; when he recognised him. The sound of Howard’s wife screaming her husband’s name, the feel of her throat closing under his hand. The woman had been so terrified or horrified that she couldn’t even move to try and push his hand away.

He’d liked Howard; had looked up to him. None of that had mattered in the end. He’d still killed him. He couldn’t break the conditioning, even after Howard called him by name – the first one to do so in over 50 years. And he’d left Howard’s kid an orphan. Now, Tony Stark had come to collect the justice his parents had been for so long denied.

Bucky raised his hands in surrender.

Col. Rhodes nodded. A man in uniform came over and put him in cuffs.

***

Bucharest Police Station
Rhodey looked through the viewing glass. Barnes was sitting there, offering no resistance. He would soon be extradited back to America, where he would be psychologically evaluated and tried for his crimes as the Winter Soldier. In all honesty, Rhodey expected him to be found “not guilty” on the grounds of insanity or, at most, “guilty of manslaughter on diminished capacity” if they really wanted a guilty verdict.

Tony had initially suggested it, once he found the information. If Barnes wasn’t as “cured” as Rogers had insisted to Hill he was (when she’d been able to catch him), having Carol there would protect the baseline human agents that had originally come to apprehend him. Rhodey was there as back-up. But Barnes had come without a single word of complaint and without putting up anything of a fight. As they stood there, Jennifer Walters was in the room, talking to Barnes. She’d agreed to take his case.

‘I spoke to Agent Preston,’ Carol said. Agent Preston was the CIA’s field commander for this mission. ‘The profilers doubt Rogers’ story.’

‘Everyone does,’ Rhodey said. ‘Friendship is all very well and good, but I doubt it can break the effects of brainwashing.’

Carol nodded once. ‘So do they. From what they got from Barnes himself, he was put on the machine fairly regularly.’

‘So there’s a cycle.’

‘And they think Rogers got to him at the end of it, when the brainwashing was weakest.’

‘So less about the friendship; more about the timing.’

‘Exactly.’ Carol looked at him. ‘Why didn’t they call Tony about Project Insight anyway? It was a tech problem and he’s the tech guy.’

‘When Hill asked, she got a bunch of excuses,’ Rhodey said. ‘When Tony asked, both Rogers and Romanoff made cracks about his ego I’d say it’s about their own egos.’

‘They burned thousands of people over their egos?’ Carol demanded.

‘Yup.’

They both looked in again as Jennifer stood up and walked out of the room. She walked over to them. ‘Sgt. Barnes has given me the name of the man who sent him to kill the Starks.’

Rhodey frowned grimly. This was what they’d been searching for. This was the information Tony had sought for nine years. ‘Who?’

‘Vasily Karpov.’

***

Cleveland, Ohio
The front door, back door, and windows were kicked in.

The single resident leapt up and reached for his gun. He was quickly surrounded by several FBI agents and restrained though. The gun fell uselessly onto the ground. He growled and struggled. His hands were cuffed behind his back. It was only when a man came to stand in front of him that he looked up. He saw the man was wearing a suit.

‘Vasily Karpov, you’re under arrest.’

***

Stark Tower, New York City
‘So, what about the Agents?’ Pepper asked, bringing Tony has coffee.

‘If they past all our psych tests, we’re hiring them,’ Tony said. He wrapped an arm around her as she sat down. ‘Turns out they weren’t made entirely of sociopaths. That was mostly just the guys in charge.’

‘Maria Hill?’

‘She was an exception, like dad.’ Tony chuckled. ‘While dad was funding them and giving them all their toys, Hill is scary-efficient. They didn’t want to lose her. Fury bought her loyalty with high clearance levels. Turns out, she’s neurotypical.’

‘Rogers?’

‘Well, he’ll run out of S.H.I.E.L.D. funds soon. His new buddy, Wilson, got arrested for grand theft.’

‘The wings?’

‘The wings. Barnes will finally get the help he so desperately needs and then they’ll try him.’

‘Sharon Carter?’

‘Absorbed into the CIA, where she can be watched far more easily. All the other Core Agents were also absorbed by either the CIA or the FBI.’

‘Barton?’

Tony clicked his tongue. That had been a surprise. Clint Barton had a family – a wife and two kids. They’d been endangered in the info-dump. JARVIS had contacted and moved them in the nick of time. When Barton, on a mission at the time, found out, he’d suddenly had a complete change of heart in regards to Tony.

‘Signed onto the FBI.’ Tony sighed. ‘He’s a bit paranoid these days, and no one blames him.’

‘Karpov?’

‘He’ll get the same kind of trial they wanted to put Stane through. CIA’s already verified it. It’ll be publically released tomorrow and the whole country will be baying for his blood. With their discovery in S.H.I.E.L.D., everyone’s checking their own ranks for HYDRA, so they can’t help him.’

‘So it’s over?’

Tony smiled.

Chapter Text

‘Jonathan Sandler. 1973. I buried him in a ditch 400 meters and 24° south-east of where his car would’ve been found.’

‘Allison Weston. 1959. She had evidence of HYDRA’s existence, so I shot her and burned her Manhattan apartment building down. Made sure she was incinerated with the evidence.’

‘Cameron Trent. 1986. He was going to introduce a new bill that my handlers didn’t like. So I broke his neck and made it look like he’d fallen down the stairs and landed badly.’

All over the country, the families of the Winter Soldier’s victims finally had questions answered. They finally learned the truth. Missing bodies were recovered. Corpses were recovered. Bodies were exhumed and re-examined. Despite how difficult it was to do, it was the best thing that Bucky had done in over 70 years.

***

2016 – 2 Years Later
Steve Rogers stared at the document in front of him. He then looked across the table. Tony Stark sat there with a four others. The only one at the table he recognised was Bruce Banner, who sat between Tony and a woman in a business suit. Two others in military uniform sat on Tony’s other side. One of them was coloured, like Sam – No, the correct phrase now is African-American.

Steve pushed the thick document in front of him away.

‘Is that a no?’ Tony asked. ‘Because without signing this document you forfeit all legal rights to continue in the capacity of a super-hero.’

Steve levelled a disapproving look at him. ‘The Avengers exist to protect the world—’

‘Yeah, let’s review, shall we?’ Tony cut him off. ‘Romanoff is currently sitting in prison for espionage and terrorism.’

‘She didn’t do anything wrong!’ Steve insisted. All of his attempts to discover where she was being held had failed, but he didn’t doubt Tony knew.

Tony ignored him. ‘Barton dropped into semi-retirement in 2014. The new guy you added, Sam Wilson. He’s currently sitting in prison for grand theft!’

‘He was helping me!’

‘Those wings belong to the United States Air Force,’ the blonde woman snapped. ‘Just because he knew they existed, it did not give him rights to them, Mr. Rogers.’

‘Captain,’ Steve sharply corrected.

The...African-American man looked at a file in front of him. ‘No, Private at best. Seems you only completed a few days of boot camp, just shy of a week. You also never went to Command School.’

‘There was a war on! We didn’t have time for red tape!’

Bruce cracked a grin. ‘You think just because there’s a war on, they’re gonna peel back the regulations?’ He shook his head. ‘If anything, they’ll be enforced far more strictly. They want trained and competent people in charge in war zones. You were a publicity stunt, Rogers.’

Steve clenched his jaw. Suddenly a voice came from above, British-accented and sounded strangely like Howard’s old butler. ‘Sir, footage of a bombing has shown the Winter Soldier on the scene.’

Steve’s gut dropped. Bucky! He had to get to him without Tony getting wise.

‘Isn’t he still in the hospital?’ Tony asked, almost carelessly.

‘I have just confirmed as much, sir, yes.’

Steve stood up and strode out. He never heard Tony say, ‘JARVIS, tell the staff they may have a certain super-human blundering in before the day is out.’

Steve rushed out of the building and called Sharon. Within the hour, she met up with him. ‘He’s being held at the Manhattan Psychiatric Hospital.’ The word “psychiatric” sent Steve’s blood cold and he rushed to get him out. Shock therapy and straightjackets...

When he arrived at the hospital, there was a lack of people as he tore his way through, looking for Bucky. But they seemed to enter hallways behind him. He ended up grabbing an orderly and extracting the information. Then he ran into the back part of the hospital. He kicked down doors. At the last one, he was surprised to hear Bucky’s voice, calm in a way it hadn’t been since the 40s.

‘I know for a fact that you can’t afford to pay for that door, punk.’

‘Bucky!’ Steve walked over to him. Bucky was just sitting on a chair at a desk. He was surprised to see there was no straightjacket. ‘You remember me?’

‘Of course I do.’

Steve reached for his arm. ‘We gotta go! Someone framed you for a bombing and they’re coming to arrest you!’ He was startled when Bucky knocked his arm away.

‘There’s a little thing called an alibi, Stevie,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in here for two years. It is physically impossible for me to have gone and bombed any place.’

‘Two years?’ Steve remembered what Tony had said and scowled. ‘Tony put you in here.’

‘No, the state put me in here,’ Bucky said. ‘But Tony pays for it. Really, he shouldn’t have to.’

‘You’re fine with this?’ Steve demanded. ‘You’re fine with Tony paying for electric shock!’

Bucky looked at him funny. ‘Steve, how long since you were thawed?’

Steve was thrown off by the random question. ‘Uh...4 years.’

‘And you still don’t know that electro-shock therapy is outlawed?’ Bucky asked. ‘They don’t do it.’

‘What?’ Steve quickly recovered himself. ‘But he still has you in a loony bin! It’s internment, Bucky!’

‘Psychiatric hospital, punk.’ Bucky frowned at him. ‘I spent over half a century being consistently brainwashed. Mental health has come a long way since we were running around Brooklyn. This isn’t internment. It’s treatment.’

‘Treatment?’ Steve demanded. ‘You said you’ve been here for two years.’

Bucky lifted his eyes, as if exasperated. ‘Listen, HYDRA’s brainwashing took one to two decades to become successful. Then I was under their control for the better part of the last century. This is not going to be a quick fix. This will take years of therapy to fix.’

‘Yeah, but Tony—’

‘You got a problem with Tony, punk? You liked his dad okay.’

‘Well, Howard was a lot nicer than Tony.’

Bucky smirked. ‘Not according to a behavioural science documentary.’

‘...What?’

‘Bunch of Harvard students made a documentary comparing Howard’s behavioural patterns and Tony’s at the same age. They’re basically the same person.’

‘No, they’re not. Tony’s a self-involved playboy.’

‘And how much contact have you had with Tony?’

‘I met him about a month after I woke up,’ Steve said.

‘Yeah, I read the incident report.’ Bucky frowned at him. ‘You knew him for all of four hours and you thought you could judge him.’

‘He disrespected the senate...’

‘When they tried to take possession of his intellectual property. Tony had the right to protect it, especially when they were taking statements and videos out of context to make him look bad.’ Bucky scrutinised him. ‘I may not have met Tony, but I did kill his parents—’

‘No!’ Steve insisted. ‘That wasn’t you! It was HYDRA!’

‘If you want to be specific, the order was given by Vasily Karpov, who is currently sitting on death row for that and all the other murders he orchestrated.’ Bucky narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t say it wasn’t me because the fact makes you uncomfortable. I may have been the weapon, but it was still my hands that killed them.’

‘That’s not your fault!’ Steve insisted. Why couldn’t Bucky get that?

‘That doesn’t make a difference to them.’ Bucky inclined his head. ‘I heard you told Tony that I was worth ten of him.’

‘Well, you are!’

‘No, he’s worth ten of me.’ Bucky stood up. ‘I killed his parents and he still decided to help me.’

‘Tony doesn’t know,’ Steve said. And he didn’t have to know. Sure, there was supposed to be a videotape, but he wouldn’t have actually seen Bucky’s face clearly enough to know it was him.

To Steve’s surprise, Bucky started laughing. It was like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Soon, though, he recovered himself. Bucky straightened up. ‘You think Tony doesn’t know? He knows. He’s known since 2005, when Peg ran her mouth off.’

‘...What?’ Steve froze. Tony had known? The whole time?! ‘Peggy told him?’ The last question came out of his mouth. His voice definitely did not hit a high pitch.

‘From what I heard, she rambles a bit with that Alzheimer’s and she’s not always aware of who’s in the room, listening. Now there’s always someone in there. And the more she talks, the more her reputation dips.’

‘So that’s why people slander her?’ Steve demanded. ‘Tony blamed her for it?’

‘Slander?’ Bucky asked. ‘Slander nothing. I know what I did to Howard and his wife, and I know she would have looked at the bodies. She intentionally concealed it.’

‘Peg’s wasn’t like that!’

‘I know you had the hots for her, Steve, but Peg did that. Tony had the right to be angry, especially with how long she and Howard had been friends.’

Before Steve could think of anything to say to that – there had to be something! – he heard something and spun around. There were uniformed men with guns coming at them. He pulled his shield back to let it fly. But suddenly the shield was yanked out of his hands. Steve looked over his shoulder. Bucky tossed the shield behind him.

‘You’re in enough trouble as it is, punk. You want to add “negligent homicide” to the list?’

***

2029
The prisoner was brought into a room, handcuffed, with bars keeping him from one half. On the other side of the bars, there were four armed guards. One of the guards pushed a door open and said something. Vasily Karpov watched as a well-known brunet billionaire walked in. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I was 17 at the time.’

Karpov cocked his head. ‘I hope you don’t expect me to feel guilty.’

Tony Stark scoffed. ‘Of course not. You did this to more than just my parents. Why would you feel guilty?’

‘Then why are you here?’ Karpov asked.

‘Because I wanted to look in the eye the son-of-a-bitch that took my parents away from me when I was just a kid,’ Stark said. He inclined his head. ‘I could go into detail about what’ll happen to your body when they give you that lethal injection.’

‘But you won’t.’

‘I won’t. I bet you already know. So I’m just gonna look at you, and be satisfied that the next place you go is your deathbed.’

‘And the next place you go?’ Karpov asked.

‘Home.’

***

Long Island, NY
Tony Stark approached a set of headstones, made of marble and with gold leaf engraving.

HOWARD ANTHONY WALTER STARK
AUGUST 15 1917 – DECEMBER 16 1991
REST IN PEACE

MARIA COLLINS STARK
FEBRUARY 12 1931 – DECEMBER 16 1991
REST IN PEACE

‘They can now,’ Tony said softly.

The small child next to him looked up. ‘Why now, daddy?’

Tony smiled down at him. ‘Because murdered souls can only rest when they receive justice.’ He didn’t know where the idea came from – likely an incentive to solve murders – but it was a pervasive one.

Whether it was true or not didn’t matter to Tony. The ordeal, with Karpov’s execution, was finally over with. The man responsible for his parents’ brutal deaths had been punished with the full power of the law. All those who had sought to cover it up had been punished both in a court of law, and in the court of public opinion. Bucky...well, he could hardly fault the guy for being tortured and brainwashed. Even so, there was still a small irrational part of his brain that still refused to meet the man; be in the same room as him.

But now...Tony could live out his life with Pepper, and his parents really could Rest in Peace.