Chapter Text
Pepper is in a meeting when the Kryptonian broadcast goes live. It’s supposed to be a relaxing meeting; it’s supposed to be enjoyable even, because Pepper likes Lucius Fox. She’s worked with the man for decades, both as business rivals, business partners, PR fire-fighters, and un-official superhero wranglers.
The news isn’t even on in the meeting room. It’s only when Pepper’s phone starts buzzing an emergency alert and Fox’s gaze becomes fixed on something over her shoulder that she realizes something is wrong.
Chris from finance knocks on their door and pushes it open even as Fox rises gracefully to his feet and Pepper turns to see what the distraction is. “You guys are going to want to see this,” Chris says, and they all go to join the employees gathering in the kitchenette.
“Citizens of Earth,” the man on the screen says. The Kryptonian - he looks human, but the more she looks the more Pepper feels that something is just ... off. And it’s strange, because she’s seen Superman, she’s met Clark Kent a handful of times and never considered him anything more (or less) than human. But this man ... she can’t quite suppress the shiver that runs down her spine.
“We have come to secure your surrender; the means by which we do this is up to you. Will you submit to your Kryptonian superiors? Will you allow us to heal your civilization, to heal your people and your planet? We have asked Earth’s leader to show themselves, to answer our proposition. Your leader has not come.”
At her side, Fox pulls out his phone and starts rapidly texting someone. Pepper feels like she should probably be doing the same, but she can’t pull her eyes from the screen (how many times has she watched the world crumble from the other side of a screen?).
“We must be gracious. We must come in good will, and assume that you as a species have accepted our proposal. Should the humans decide to accept our presence, they will be assimilated into our society and given a place within our bright new world. Should they stand against us, they will be annihilated. We understand that this is a turning point in your history, so we will be lenient. You have one Earthen week to give us your answer.”
The screen flickers. The screen cuts to black, the Kryptonian’s face shuttering out of focus, and then the screen goes black a final time before switching on to a different man, a human. Pepper’s breath catches high in her throat, and in the silence of the room at Stark Industries you could hear a pin drop.
“You want to come colonize Earth? You want to play house, you want to play God? Well I’ve got news for you, Zod. Earth is already occupied, and we’re at full capacity. No room for tyrants, overlords will be exiled.”
On the screen is another face, a face the entire world knows but Pepper knows best. Tony Stark faces the world head-on, and doesn’t blink.
“You don’t have to wait three days, because I’ve got an answer for you right now. Go. To. Hell.”
Tony’s hacked the visual feed, but the Kryptonian’s audio is still functioning; Zod’s voice rings out, dry gravel over Tony’s firm eloquence. “Then you will be annihilated,” he says. “And you have seven solar days to change your minds.”
The broadcast stops. The TV switches to the channel it had been on previously, where a pale show host and a gaping guest are both trying to gather themselves in front of a live camera. The room is still silent as a grave, so Pepper turns and walks back into the meeting room before pulling out her phone and swiping up her speed dials.
When she first met Tony, she tried to talk sense into him. It took years for her to accept him for who he was; it was years before she figured out that there was really only one person who was better than her at getting Tony to change his mind.
Fox slips into the room after her. “Kind of hate to say this,” he says, still texting furiously, “but I’m glad I’m not the one having to clean up the mess on this for once.”
Pepper raises an eyebrow, but before she can respond her call is answered.
“You saw the news,” Bruce growls, and Pepper doesn’t bother to hide her sigh.
“Yes. You’re on top of this?”
“I will be at your house within the hour. Is Fox there?”
“Yes,” Pepper says again. “I’ll put him on.” She passes the phone to Fox, and smirks. “Here. Now it’s your problem.”
Morgan leans over, hands carefully poised in the water as she slowly steps forward, intent on her prey. She holds her breath, completely still, and then - she lashes out, hands flying together and scooping up to bring the ribbon-like leech out of the water.
She holds the writhing thing in her cupped hands and wades back to shore, where she had a small bucket full of black slithering blood-suckers.
“They’re really good,” she reassures the cattails as she wades back into the muck. “They taste just like licorice, all the other kids at school eat them.” Then Damian will scoff and tell her to show him, and she’ll pout and say I’m allergic to licorice.
“I’m allergic to licorice,” Morgan practices, then straightens as an explosion echoes from the direction of the house. A light wind tickles her hair, just as smoke begins to drift up from behind the row of pines.
Morgan stares for a moment at the twisting column, then slowly steps out of the water and starts making her way up the pebble-strewn shore. It’s just an explosion, she tries to reason with herself. Daddy was experimenting, and DUM-E got excited. But she can’t quite manage to squash the ball of anxiety forming in her stomach, and she quickens her pace as she steps onto the soft needles under the trees.
There’s a hole in the roof of the garage. The sprinklers are on, and the steel shutters have slid down to cover all the doors and windows of the main house.
“Daddy?” Morgan calls uncertainly, stepping out from under the trees. No one answers, and she hops a tiny step closer to the garage. “Daddy?”
The only answer is the wind, and the sound of something breaking and clattering to the floor.
It’s okay, Morgan reassures herself. She can be brave. She can be strong and sneaky just like Damian, she can walk into her own house and find her dad. And besides: it’s just a little explosion. And Jason isn’t afraid of explosions (she can be like Jason). It’ll be a game, Morgan decides nervously. Hide and seek, and the floor is lava.
Morgan twists her watch to activate her blaster, and trots over to crouch beside the porch steps.
It takes her five minutes to decide that there’s no one here. She’s not sure where Daddy went; she’s not sure if there were any villains involved, but if there were they are no longer here either. She creeps into Daddy’s workshop as the sprinklers shut off, staring wide-eyed at the scattered tools and upturned chair, and feels something like dread settle in her stomach.
She thinks that if she started crying now, Damian might not tease her for it after all.
“Miss Morgan,” FRIDAY’s voice comes from what’s left of the ceiling, and Morgan jumps so high she’s surprised she doesn’t hit her head.
“FRIDAY!” Morgan squeaks, recovering herself. “FRIDAY, are you okay? What happened, where’s Daddy?”
“I cannot locate Mr. Stark,” FRIDAY says. “I have contacted Ms. Potts. She would like you to go to the porch and wait there for Mr. Wayne.”
“Okay,” Morgan says, voice small. Batman’s coming. Mommy knows about the explosion and FRIDAY doesn’t know where Daddy is and Batman is going to come get Morgan. Which probably means that she’s going to stay with Damian, which means that she’ll need a sleep-over bag.
“FRIDAY, can I go inside and get my backpack?”
There is a brief pause, and then FRIDAY says “I have disabled the barrier on the front door.”
Morgan keeps her blaster activated as she creeps up to her room. The house is dark, despite it only being the afternoon, and the silence of the empty house makes Morgan feel jumpy. It makes her feel scared to run upstairs, it makes her check the corners and keep her bedroom door open, and she doesn’t like it one bit.
She packs her favorite clothes in her favorite backpack, because she thinks that it might be a long time before she can come home again. She tucks Superman’s doll into one of the waterbottle holders (not inside, dolls need to breathe too). She pulls on her favorite jacket and her fluffiest pair of socks and her blue sparkly rain boots, and then she runs back downstairs (feeling a little braver, a little safer) and into Mommy’s office.
Morgan isn’t supposed to know about the secret button which releases Mommy’s suit. But then, there are a lot of things Morgan isn’t supposed to know. She presses the button, then lifts Mommy’s helmet from the stand in the wall. “So you aren’t alone here,” she tells FRIDAY. “I’ll take you with me.”
Next is the kitchen, where she climbs onto the top shelf and pulls down a full container of cookies. Then the entryway, where she digs up the Rain Day Jar and empties its contents into her backpack. And then it’s down to the lake to retrieve her bucket of leeches and finally to the backyard, where she fills her pockets with poison ivy.
Ten minutes later, Morgan feels much safer as she considers her gathered supplies. She’s ready for anything now; she’s prepared to face Batman and Mommy and Damian, and she’s prepared to figure out exactly what happened to Daddy.
When assassins are after you, you have to hide, Damian had instructed her, and Morgan trusts Damian. So instead of staying on the porch like Mommy told her to, she trots over to her old playhouse and crawls inside to wait.
Some nights, patrolling the shadows and battling in the neverending war on crime, Bruce thinks that Gotham will kill him. He thinks that a sane man would have given up years ago; a man with even a single ounce of self-preservation would have thrown his hands up and turned away. Normal people would (and do) call Gotham a lost cause.
Bruce isn’t normal. He is sane and he does pride himself on his self-preservation, but he also prides himself on his optimism (and it is optimism, even if Dick always insists that Bruce needs to lighten up). He believes that Gotham can be saved, and he believes that he can make a difference.
And then Tony will go and do something like this, and Bruce knows that it won’t be Gotham that will be the death of him; no. It will be Anthony Edward Stark.
Alfred connects to the comms just after he’s crossed the state border. “Master Bruce, I have Pepper Potts on the line for you. I believe you will want to take this.”
“Pepper,” Bruce greets, as Alfred connects them. “I’m fifteen minutes out.”
“You need to get there faster,” Pepper tells him, and Bruce tenses at her tone. “FRIDAY just informed me that there was an attack on our home - Tony was taken, and Morgan is there on her own.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Bruce growls, and increases his speed along the interstate.
This isn’t the first time Tony has been kidnapped. Somehow, Bruce still hopes it will be the last.
He sees the smoke first, a thin trail spindling up and dispersing in the light breeze. It’s not enough to signify a fire; just damage, just evidence of heat vision perhaps. Bruce skids up the driveway, spraying gravel all over the peonies as he slams on the breaks and leaps out of the car.
He isn’t Batman right now. He’s Bruce Wayne, and he has never wished more that he could pull out his mask midday and wrap himself in shadows. This isn’t a scene for the Prince of Gotham; this place belongs to the Batman, and even as he stalks forward Bruce can feel the tightness rising inside him, a twisting fury which he has only felt a few times before.
Perhaps if he were a more merciful man, he would be thinking of what the Kryptonians might do now that they have Tony Stark. But he sees the ruined garage, Tony’s tools and projects scattered haphazardly behind shattered windows, and he sees that thin wisp of smoke meandering up to a blue sky, and Bruce can only see what has already been done.
Bruce is not a merciful man. He never has been.
He’s just turned to the porch, his gaze going to the shadows cast by the mid-afternoon sun, when there’s the sound of small feet pattering across soft needles and he turns to see Morgan Stark approaching from a small wooden shack beneath the pines. Her hair is blowing about her face, and she has a purple sequinned backpack hanging heavy against her shoulders. There’s a yellow bucket clutched to her chest, and as she approaches Bruce can see water sloshing inside.
“Morgan,” Bruce says.
“FRIDAY said you were here to get me,” Morgan whispers. She reaches up to tug on her lip, and when Bruce meets her gaze he sees a strange resignation there. Some fear, yes, perhaps some tears held tightly back, but there’s a determination there as well, and it’s something Bruce recognizes.
“Are you hurt?” Bruce asks. He steps forward, kneeling before the girl and holding out an arm invitingly. Morgan drifts closer, but she doesn’t initiate contact and after a moment Bruce lets his arm fall.
“No.” She hesitates. “Daddy doesn’t have his Iron Man suit.”
“No,” Bruce agrees. He stands, turning back to the ruined workshop. “He doesn’t.” He steps forward, eyes going over the wreckage: to the idle observer, it might appear that one of Tony’s projects had simply exploded in his face. To Bruce’s trained eye, it is evident that the attack was carried out by Kryptonians - three of them, if he is correctly interpreting the scene.
“You’re Batman,” Morgan whispers. Even though there’s no one else here - even though it’s just the two of them, Bruce’s eyes still dart around at the admission. “Are you going to rescue Daddy?”
Did you come to help me find my mother?
The memory comes out of nowhere, hot winds and dry dust and Jason, watching him with a guarded expression in the streets of Beirut. He stares at Morgan, and he can feel his heart rate picking up, he can feel his nails where they’re digging into his palms.
There’s smoke swirling through the air behind him, curling up to disappear with the wind.
“I’m here to take you away,” he finally manages, and Morgan’s face falls (just like Jason’s had, before Bruce told him the truth). “Then - I will find Tony.”
He’ll find Tony, and he’ll find the Kryptonians who thought it was a good idea to kidnap Bruce’s best friend. In the short time he’s been here he has already formed three individual plans, and he knows that at least one of them will work. (He swore it would never happen again, he swore he wouldn’t be too late - and now look, the scattered tech, the ceiling torn away -)
“Okay,” Morgan says, and this time when Bruce offers his hand she leans into it, still clutching her bucket in her arms. There’s something black and writhing within, but Bruce is more focused on the scene before him; something catches his eye, flashing in the low light of the sun.
It’s Tony’s walking cane. Bruce gestures at Morgan to stay where she is before he picks his way through the workshop, lifting Tony’s cane from where it’s fallen to the floor. He examines it for a moment, face carefully blank, before making his way back to where Morgan is waiting for him.
“Get in the car,” he tells her, his voice rough. Morgan obeys, climbing into the back and pushing her backpack onto the middle seat before pulling the seatbelt across her chest.
They’re halfway back to the manor before Bruce has calmed his mind enough to focus on the moment and, more specifically, the little girl in the back seat. He glances in the rearview mirror, studying her; she still has the bucket wrapped in her arms, her forehead resting against the window as she watches the trees fly by. At least she doesn’t seem too distressed; it occurs to Bruce suddenly that she must have been trained for a situation like this. Tony Stark’s daughter must know that this is a dangerous world.
“Morgan.”
She startles, her gaze flying up to meet Bruce’s in the mirror. “What?”
“What’s in the bucket?”
Morgan hesitates, then looks down at her lap. After a minute her gaze returns briefly to his before she turns away, staring out the window.
“I’m allergic to licorice,” she says at last, clear and concise. It’s a tone that Bruce knows well and he decides that, for his own sanity, he doesn’t need to know more.
Ned doesn’t quite know what he was expecting when he messaged the Kryptonians. Well. That’s not true. He was kind of expecting an explosion (of the computer variety). He was maybe expecting Boston to be plunged into a dead-zone by a massive alien EMP, or for the Kryptonians to start raining fire on the state of Massachusetts, or for their secretary to respond and say that sorry, they needed the leader of Earth, not some random guy in a chair from MIT.
What he was really expecting was for Doctor Strange to portal into his room and start telling him off for recklessly practicing his portals.
Hello, Ned Leeds. My name is Jor-El. It is fortuitous that you have contacted me outside the main frequency. We must keep our correspondence well hidden; the fate of this world rests upon your shoulders.
Ned stares at the green words blinking into existence on his screen. He blinks. He blinks again. And then he has to take a minute to just sit there and breathe ( not hyperventilate, no sir, Ned is breathing normally).
Then he sits forward and starts typing a reply. Hello Mr. Jor-El sir. I am a third year undergraduate at MIT, top of my class and grand master in competitive coding. I have worked alongside Avengers on multiple occasions, and Dr. Stephen Strange will be happy to provide you a reference of my character. I am at your service, sir.
He checks for spelling. He hits send.
Maybe this is it. Maybe today is the day Ned becomes a superhero. He’s never really aspired to be anything more than the behind the scenes guy - he’s never felt the need to be anyone other than the guy in the chair. But what if, a small part of him whispers. What if you could be more?
Ned has never exactly had the ambition to be anything more than perfectly happy, but if the opportunity is presented to him on a metaphorical golden platter, he will quite happily take the chance.
I have done a small amount of research into the technological capabilities of your species. If you could obtain access to a physio-auditory-visual message processing system, we might communicate in an easier manner.
Ned switches tabs to his chat with Barbara. DO YOU HAVE A PHYSIO-AUDITORY-VISUAL MESSAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM?
Ned waits two minutes, during which time he takes several deep breaths. Then he texts FRIDAY. Does Mr. Stark have a physio-auditory-visual message processing system?
Mr. Stark has a prototype PAV-MP system in his workshop, FRIDAY replies.
Can you please send me a picture? Ned writes, and as soon as FRIDAY sends the image through Ned raises his sling-ring and makes a portal straight to Tony’s workshop in New York.
This is not the time to be cautious. This is the time to make big portals and save the world. This is the time to be an Avenger. Although Ned’s not quite sure who he wants to avenge yet -
Tony’s workshop is a mess. As Ned steps through the sparkling portal, computer and charger clutched to his chest, he’s greeted by a sharp wind to the face courtesy of the large hole in the ceiling. There are precious experiments and odd tools and miscellaneous parts scattered around the large room, the explosion seeming to be centered around a toppled chair and shredded metal work bench in the center of the room.
“FRIDAY,” Ned squeaks, as the portal fizzles out behind him. “What happened - do the Avengers know?”
“Mr. Stark was abducted by three Kryptonians,” FRIDAY informs him from the ceiling. “Ms. Potts and Mr. Wayne have both been informed, and Miss Morgan is currently in the care of Mr. Wayne.”
“Oh,” Ned says. After a brief hesitation, he steps forward over a pile of scattered wing knuts, and starts setting up his laptop on a table that doesn’t look like it’s been shredded by literal lasers. “Well. I can help. Can you connect me to the - the PAV-MP system, please?”
It takes about half an hour to get everything properly set up. Ned has to fix a few wires which somehow got crossed, but he understands the theory enough that he’s pretty sure he got it right, and by the time he flips the little on switch of the device and plugs it into his laptop he’s nearly vibrating with excitement. Because this is it. This is the day that Edward Leeds makes contact with an alien species, all on his own.
The lens on the PAV-MP machine flickers, rays of light shooting upward into a vaguely humanoid shape. Ned has half a second to panic as he realizes he doesn’t actually know whether or not this particular alien can be trusted, before Jor-El is standing before him in Tony’s wrecked workshop.
“Ned Leeds,” Jor-El says gravely, hands folded within the long sleeves of an ornate gown. “We meet face to face. I am gratified to meet a human as courageous and resourceful as you, and hope that our collaboration may be a fruitful one. May Telle’s wisdom guide us, and may Yuda’s four moons protect us. I fear we have a great task before us, if we are to have any hope of saving your planet.”
Oh my god, Ned wants to say. He wants to shout his excitement, he wants to throw both fists into the air in victory, he wants to catch this on camera so that he can show his Lola and all his friends exactly how awesome Kryptonian technology is. But Ned is no longer sixteen years old. He knows how to conduct himself in a professional manner, so instead of bursting into the thousands of questions he has for this man not of Earth, he says “Yes sir, whatever you need, sir, I’m ready. Sir.”
God he wishes Barbara could see this.
“My people have come to your planet in the hopes of colonizing it for their own,” Jor-El says, and he conjures the image of a strange space-ship that looks like a jagged bullet. “This is a World Machine; with it, they aspire to terraform your world into a new Krypton, find the Codex which contains the molecular coding of our entire civilization, and from here repopulate the galaxy. I cannot begin to describe to you the devastation this would bring; although perhaps you do understand. You would have lived through the Infinity Annihilation, would you not?”
“Yes,” Ned says, mind racing as he steps forward to study the images Jor-El has conjured. “Yes - Thanos, the Blip. I was there. I mean, I wasn’t, I was blipped, but - yeah. I was there.”
“Then you understand the seriousness of our predicament,” Jor-El says, sounding pleased. He conjures a hologram of the Earth. “One day ago they delivered an ultimatum - that your people must surrender, or five cities around the world will be forfeit. We must stop them; working together, we must sabotage their attempts to overtake this world and save the people they wish to destroy.”
“Yes,” Ned agrees. “Absolutely.” He kind of feels like he should be writing some of this down -
“I cannot allow my people to drive another race to extinction,” Jor-El continues. “I will not stand by as another civilization is brought to ruin.”
“I know people,” Ned says. “I know the Avengers and the Justice League, and Oracle knows people overseas as well. Don’t worry, sir. This isn’t new; We’ve faced greater odds than this, and we’ve fought, and we’ve won. We can do it again. Sir.”
Jor-El smiles at him, and Ned feels as though he has been graced by the light of a brilliant sun. “Very well, then,” Jor-El says. “Let us get to work.”