Reading Time: 155 Minutes

Title: The Unanticipated Burdens (of Vengeance)
Series: The Incredible Challenges (of Tony Stark)
Series Order: 3
Author: startabby
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Drama, Established Relationship, Science Fiction, Thriller, Urban Fantasy
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairing of Tony Stark/Kaecilius
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Minor Character Death, Canon Typical Violence
Beta: Grammarly
Word Count: 99,700
Summary: The time has come. Having built up new, stronger alliances following his escape from undeserved captivity, Tony Stark is finally ready to carry out his carefully planned vengeance. But when one desires the utter and complete destruction of very powerful men, the potential for collateral damage can become a real issue. Will Tony manage to fulfill his vengeance properly or will his need for absolute victory cause him to fall, becoming the sort of villain that the Avengers are deployed to defeat?
Artist: kirlika

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Chapter 1: Shadows of the Past

It is funny, Tony thought, how the mind conjures up the strangest word associations.

When he first heard the name Rose Hill, his mind immediately went to his mother’s rose garden at the family home in the Hamptons. There, acres of rose bushes in a rainbow of colors were set in lines in carefully regimented beds, with sections of impeccably mowed green grass lawn separating the rows. During their visits there, he found the air filled with floral scents and bees buzzing around his head. It was a place full of pleasant memories, a reminder of those rare occasions when the Starks could get away from the city for a while, and, even if only for a few hours, be a happy family.

But as he looked around, the view before him looked nothing like that faded, but pleasant, memory.

For here, there were neither sun, nor grass, nor roses to be seen.

Instead, a line of weathered buildings sat against the backdrop of a dreary late winter day. While snow lay in patches on the ground, it was dirty and stained, half melted where it lay. The only hint of anything that might explain the name of the little town came through the gaps in the buildings. There, in the distance, sat an abundance of tree-covered hills. Though he could only make out their barest outline through the heavy mist that hung over the area.

An icy wind blew, making Tony shiver. He couldn’t help but feel cold, despite the heavy woolen coat and scarf that he wore to shield himself from the near-freezing temperatures.

Glancing backward, he caught the eye of his companion on this trip. Instead of speaking, however, all he did was quirk his lips toward the other into a small grin. Then, he moved away from the dark-colored vehicle, stepped up onto the worn wooden boardwalk, and from there into the diner with a similarly weathered façade that stood in front of him.

For this outing, Tony had chosen to wear the full extent of his Edward Loptsson disguise, including a custom-tailored and visibly expensive suit. It was this suit that was revealed to the diner’s inhabitants when he stripped off the fashionable and warm greatcoat and handed it to the gaping hostess with an absent word of thanks and a nonchalant air. Everything about the ensemble, from his evident wealth to the posh European accent, was glaringly out of place in the depths of small-town America.

Taking full advantage of a lifetime’s worth of experience, Tony casually flashed the woman – or girl, rather; she looked barely old enough to have graduated high school – a flirtatious smile. The child swooned, clearly unaccustomed to such attention. Still, despite the experience she managed to retain enough composure to suggest that he and his companion could seat themselves at any of the open seats that lay scattered around the space.

“Much appreciated, my dear girl,” he said, using Edward’s plumy tones to play up the contrast. Then he swept over to claim an open space at the diner’s counter. His companion, dressed as one of Edward’s dour bodyguards, followed without a word, depositing his coat with the hostess and in the process flashing a hint of the shoulder holster that betrayed his role in the proceedings.

Unlike the hostess, the waitress working the counter was unflustered by the odd strangers in her place of employment. Instead, she handed over a couple of plastic-lined menus with a well-practiced smile.

“What can I get you fellows,” she asked, her voice carrying a hint of a Southern drawl. “Our special today is a chicken stew with fresh-made biscuits, and we do have a batch of pecan pie that just came out of the oven.”

“Coffee would be wonderful, as well as a slice of the pie,” Tony said as he slid the menu back across the counter. He couldn’t help but wince obviously when the plastic stuck a bit as it crossed a bit of residual syrup left on the linoleum surface.

While his companion put in his request for hot coffee and pie, Tony took the opportunity to glance around the unfamiliar space. Despite the early afternoon hour, there was a smattering of diners seated at the tables. From their casual clothing of jeans and flannels, Tony easily pegged them as locals. No doubt they were some of the establishment’s regulars.

Some of the male customers gave Edward’s long hair and fancy suit, as well as the obvious bodyguard, a bit of a side-eye. Otherwise, they took the strangers’ arrival in their place in stride.

Well, Tony thought, that was a relief.

He would much rather civilly handle this specific adventure, if possible. The whole thing was primarily intended to ‘bait the hook’; as it were. To lay some groundwork for more important things to come.

Turning back to face the counter where the waitress once again stood, Tony accepted the steaming cup of black coffee from her with a pleased smile. He inhaled the smoke for a moment, allowing the heat to seep into his fingers before he took a deep sip.

Almost involuntarily, he let out a pleased sigh.

There was just something special about good, old-fashioned Diner coffee; especially after coming in from the cold outside.

“Can I get you anything else, sugar?” The waitress asked with a smile as she poured a second cup for his bodyguard.

“Wouldn’t mind a top-off,” he replied, holding out his already half-empty cup. Even though it wasn’t exactly in character for Edward, he just couldn’t resist that delicious drink. Her smile warmed ever so slightly as she sighed a little, obviously amused by the drinking speed of this otherwise posh and put-together gentleman. But she obligingly poured him a refill.

Tony was just about to say something more when the bell on the door jingled with the sound of another customer entering the establishment.

The new arrival was a pre-teen boy, his messy brown curls a bit wet with sweat despite the chill in the air. From the way he dodged past the hostess to claim a seat at the counter a few stools away from Tony and his companion, the genius guessed that he must be connected to one of the workers there.

Sure enough, when their waitress came back over to deliver his pie and spotted the boy, she let out a fresh sigh before saying, “Harley, what in Sam Hill are you doing here?”

“Nothing, Mom,” the boy said hurriedly.

“Nothing…” she replied, “…clearly.” Lifting her eyes upwards, she let out a barely audible prayer for patience. Then she added, “Well, if you’re going to be sitting there, taking up space in my place of work, then you might as well get something productive done. How about you get started on that homework you’ve got stashed away there.”

She nodded her head towards the full backpack that was visible over the counter from where it sat on the seat beside him.

“Lord knows he won’t get it done otherwise,” she added to herself, quietly.

“Now then,” she said, louder this time, as she turned back to Tony and his companion, “is there anything else I can get for you folks?”

“Nothing to do with food,” Tony replied. “But I was hoping that you could explain the curiosity in the alley?”

At the mention of that space, the woman’s face instantly darkened. Her son’s, in contrast, immediately perked up.

“Oh, you mean the blast zone?” he said.

“Blast zone?” Tony asked.

But this time the woman spoke before her son could say anything further.

“Suicide gone wrong,” she said.

“Yeah!” The boy exclaimed, either not noticing or ignoring his mother’s attempt to end the discussion. “It shook the WHOLE town!”

From his seat further down the counter, an older man who had been listening in, added.

“Disabled veteran, back from the Sandbox. Decided to off himself with a bomb. Overestimated its capacity.”

“Killed a bunch of innocent bystanders when it went off,” one of the other regulars, this one seated at a nearby table, continued.

“So, you’d best be respectful of our losses,” the waitress finished, this time nodding her head sharply for emphasis.

“My apologies,” Tony replied, deliberately stretching his pronunciation of the words to emphasize the posh accent, “I meant no offense. I merely noticed the markings and was curious as to their source.”

Then he leaned forward, lowering his voice to make it obvious that he was speaking specifically to the waitress.

“By any chance, was the unfortunate soul a man named Chad Davis?”

When she jerked as if startled, Tony knew that his hunch had just been verified.

“How do you know that name?” she said, her voice muffled down to a hissed whisper. “Are you some kind of reporter?”

Given his past escapades, Tony had more than enough experience with the media to understand her response. He could only imagine what kinds of visitors the town had seen since the incident.

“Not at all,” he said, as he took special care to reassure her. “I am in no way associated with the media. Rather, I am an investigator, one who is looking into the incident, and especially its possible links to a certain research group…”

He allowed his voice to trail off suggestively.

“You mean Dale was right?” she asked.

“Who?”

“That poor man’s mother. She has insisted that he wasn’t suicidal, and even if he was, that he would never be that reckless. She claims that he was involved in a clinical trial before his death and that there was something about that trial that led to the incident. You don’t think…?” She said before she let her voice trail off.

“That is what I am attempting to ascertain. My investors are interested in possibly partnering with this group, you see. We want to ensure that there are no skeletons in their closet that might come back to trouble us should the partnership go through.”

The woman hesitated for a moment, then squared her shoulders.

“I can make a call,” she said. “See if Dale is willing to talk.”

“That would be most appreciated,” Tony said, once again playing up Edward’s accent. He took her hand in both of his own, giving it a flamboyant kiss before setting it back down.

Flushing at the overt flirtation, the waitress turned away and looked over toward her son.

As she did so, the boy, who had been eavesdropping on their conversation rather shamelessly, turned his gaze back down towards the papers that he had taken out of his backpack and set on the countertop. Tony knew that the boy knew that he wasn’t fooling anyone with that act. But since his mother chose to ignore the boy’s actions, the genius had no problem doing likewise.

Instead, Tony watched as the waitress smiled slightly at her son’s bowed head. Then, she turned once again and headed back towards the diner’s kitchen, removing a phone from behind the cash register as she went. Once she had disappeared, the kid turned away from his homework with a groan. He rubbed a hand along his side as he did so.

Recognizing the move, Tony couldn’t help but wince in sympathy.

“Troubles at school?” he asked.

“What?”

“I am quite familiar with your actions from my adolescence. Far more than I would have cared to admit at the time,” Tony said, with a nod toward the boy’s hand. “Boarding schools can be quite brutal in that way.”

Unsurprisingly, the boy flushed.

“It’s no big deal,” he said.

“Is it not?”

“Not really. They don’t usually bother me this bad…” the boy added, allowing his voice to trail off.

“Ah?”

Before the boy could elaborate further, his mother reappeared, standing in her place behind the counter.

“Harley,” she snapped. “What do you think you’re doing, bothering the customers? Sorry about my son, Mister…”

“Loptsson. Edward Loptsson. And your son was no bother, madam.”

“Well then, Mister Lop-son,” she said. Unsurprisingly to Tony, she stumbled a bit over the pronunciation of his character’s last name, with its distinct, Nordic-style sequence of consonants. “I was able to get ahold of Dale Davis, Chad’s mother. She has agreed to meet with you if the meeting is in a public place. She will be at the Walkers’, the local bar down the street, at seven tonight.”

“Excellent,” Tony said. Picking up his fork, he took a bite of the pie. It was just as delicious as he had hoped.

Letting out an appreciative moan, he told the waitress, “My compliments to the chef.”

It seemed that this was the right response, as her practiced smile transitioned into something a bit less forced.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “We do our best, even if it ain’t as fancy as what ya’ll are probably used to.”

“Well, I must admit that I quite agree,” Tony said. “It is one of the pleasures of these little excursions of mine, the chance to enjoy the local delicacies.”

“Then I’d best leave you to it.”

After topping off his coffee cup once more, the woman moved away from her place in front of him, heading down the counter to check on her other customers.

Tony let out another sigh of appreciation. Then he took a few minutes to savor the pleasure of enjoying a delicious, sweet treat. Even now, almost a full year after he escaped from SHIELD’s captivity, he still found himself grateful for the little joys in life. There was something about going for an extended period without those privileges which had allowed him to appreciate them so much more than he would otherwise.

Once he finished his treat, however, it was time to get back to work.

Flagging down his new acquaintance, he asked for the check.

“This treat was a delightful pleasure, madam, but must be on my way. There are other matters which I must attend to before this evening’s meeting,” he said.

Finishing the final dregs of his coffee with one swallow, Tony pulled Edward’s wallet from his suit pocket. Then he handed her a hundred-dollar bill and a business card for Monte Cristo Investments with a nonchalant smile.

The card was yet another way to maintain his role in the situation. If the woman or anyone she showed the card to decided to do a bit of googling, what they would find would reinforce the words that he had spoken.

“Keep the change,” he said. “It is my way to offer appreciation for your assistance with the investigation.”

Sliding down off the stool on which he had previously sat, Tony offered the woman, her son, and the rest of the diner a practiced smile. Then he spun on his heel, turned, and strode back towards the diner’s entrance. It took little more than a moment to collect his coat from the hostess and shrug it back onto his shoulders. Since they hadn’t been there in the diner for an extended period, the coat still held a fair amount of warmth. It was a fact that Tony knew he would appreciate in a moment.

As Edward’s supposed bodyguard followed behind him, gathering his coat and scarf from the hostess, Tony took a moment to brace himself. Then, sliding a pair of soft leather gloves onto his hands, he opened the diner door and stepped back out into the wintery day.

—–

It was a short trip down the boardwalk before they reached the previously mentioned alleyway, the site of the discussed tragic explosion.

When JARVIS’ search for heat signatures that matched the Extremis’ pattern had identified this otherwise innocuous small town as a location for an unfortunate self-immolation, Tony had to admit that he’d been surprised.

Not that there were such incidents, of course. Given how volatile AIM’s formula had proven to be, it was hardly a shock that many such events had occurred.

No, what had surprised him was the fact that Killian and his people hadn’t done a better job of cleaning things up here. Most of the incidents that he had found while researching AIM, back when they had been preparing for the original negotiations, had been cleverly disguised as terrorist attacks. In these incidents, Killian’s idiot of an actor, playing the role of the Mandarin surprisingly convincingly, claimed responsibility. But, for some reason, Rose Hill and Chad Davis had not been included in that list.

Perhaps it was because it was one of the earliest of such failures. Or perhaps it was because the locals had already managed to put together a believable explanation. Either way, there was something different about Mister Davis’ incident. And now that Tony was here, he was determined to figure out what it was.

If he were lucky, maybe the tragedy could have a silver lining. Perchance it would help to guide him in his search for a stable cure, and salvation for Killian and his people.

Not one single person deserves to die that way, Tony thought. But especially not wounded veterans, the men and women who have sacrificed so much of their lives for the benefit of their country.

Tony couldn’t help the shudder that ran through his body at the thought of those poor people and their last moments.

Growing up as the heir to a powerful American weapons manufacturer, Tony had learned more about the realities of war in his childhood than most people discovered in their entire lives. When you added in the fact that Tony’s former best friend was a military man as well, that increased his knowledge further. Even if Rhodey was no longer Tony’s closest confidant thanks to the betrayals of others, it still didn’t negate the impacts of over a decade of friendship and the loyalty that they had shared.

The loss of that friendship gave Tony yet another reason to damn Stane and the rest of that horrific cabal, as did Chad Davis’ death.

It didn’t matter that AIM’s missteps weren’t technically their fault.

Killian and his organization may have been the direct cause of Mister Davis’ death, but they wouldn’t have been quite as reckless if they hadn’t been trying to overcome the obstacles laid by Obie, Ross, and the rest.

From their place inside his coat pockets, Tony’s hands clenched into fists. And, though he didn’t notice it, his eyes took on the distinctive shine that indicated that his magic had risen to the surface. A cold wind began to swirl around him as if mirroring his troubled thoughts.

But before it could break loose, a hand landed on Tony’s shoulder.

“What?” he said in a smallish tone, turning towards the source of the interruption.

Worried mahogany eyes caught his own, holding them steady in their penetrating gaze.

“Easy, my love,” Kaecilius said quietly. “Let it go for now.”

When his lover had offered to accompany him on this adventure, Tony had been surprised. Surely Kaecilius was far too busy for a random trip into small-town America.

But now, all that he could feel was relief. Kae’s interference was exactly what he needed to keep his mind focused on the task at hand.

Tony let out a sigh, releasing his rage, even as he relaxed his hands from their fists.

For a moment, he wished that they weren’t in public. He could use a hug right now.

But this wasn’t the time.

Turning back to the entrance of the alley, he took a step forward. From there, he began to examine the burn scars that lay scattered across the remaining surfaces. He had just reached out to touch one of the shadowed bodies that were projected against the brick walls when his ears caught the sound of rubber scuffing against the concrete.

Looking back towards the alley entrance, he was unsurprised to see the source of the interruption.

“Boy,” he said. “I thought that your mother had you busy working on your homework?”

“Yeah, well,” the boy replied, shuffling his feet, “I told her that I was going home.”

He looked up at Tony, his face set in a determined line.

“And my name is not boy, it’s Harley. Harley Keener.”

“Well, then, Mister Keener, may I ask what you are doing here?”

Harley flushed.

“I… I…”

After a moment, Tony acted in sympathy for the child’s plight.

“You were curious,” he said, speaking the words that Harley was unwilling to say. “I suppose that strangers are not quite the norm around here?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Besides, you wanted to know about the blast! I thought maybe you’d want to hear about it some more.”

Never mind that the kid knew that he would be speaking with the mother of the deceased soldier in a few hours. Still, Tony couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s stubborn determination.

“I suppose that it would be useful to hear more about what happened from a local,” he said.

The boy did not need any more encouragement than that. He talked about how Davis had gone off to war, how he’d come back years later with several medals and a debilitating injury, Harley didn’t seem to know what it was, and how rumor had it that he’d gone off for some kind of treatment before his death.

“You know, people say that he was a bad man,” Harley said, finishing his thought. “That it’s why he doesn’t have a shadow on the wall like the rest of them. But you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that he wasn’t as bad as all that. He was always kind to me and the other kids, even after he got back. I was at the diner when it happened, you know. I saw how big the fireball was. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading since then. He could have blown up the whole town with that many explosives. So, I don’t think that he was trying to hurt anyone, not really. He was just… sad.”

“I know,” Tony said, agreeing with Harley’s statement. “Death is always a tragedy, no matter the circumstances.”

He thanked the boy once again, then encouraged him to be on his way home.

As they walked back to where the car was parked, Harley’s comments stuck with him. Knowing the destructive power of Extremis, he had to agree. Besides, there was something about the shape of the blast pattern….

It was almost as if Sergeant Davis had tried to direct his body’s explosive power in the safest direction. He had done this despite the immense pain that he must have been suffering in the moments before his internal bomb went off.

A shaped charge. That is a thought…

The idea stuck with him, even as they got in the car.

“What has you so lost in thought?” Kaecilius asked. They were both in the process of pulling off their gloves and opening their coats, reveling in the warmth emanating from the vehicle’s vents.

“Something the kid said,” Tony said. “Do you think that maybe it is possible to direct Extremis’ power somehow, put it towards something useful?”

“That is an interesting thought,” Kaecilius said, offering agreement with his lover’s words.

The technical discussion that followed kept Tony busy as they drove over to Walkers’ bar and then claimed a back table off to one side of the rustic space.

Looking around, Tony did not doubt that they were the main topic of conversation amongst most, if not all, of the locals who had already begun to gather in this popular watering hole. At that moment, he found that he didn’t care. He’d even forgotten about his cover as Loptsson, too focused on expressing his ideas to bother putting on the European mannerisms of the persona that he wore.

He had pulled a notebook from his coat pocket and was sketching in it quite aggressively, swapping ideas with Kaecilius as he sketched when they were interrupted in the depths of their discussion.

Looking up from his book, Tony was surprised to see not just the older woman who he had expected, Mrs. Dale Davis, he assumed, but also a younger man perhaps a few years older than her deceased son standing in front of their table.

I don’t remember there being any mention of a brother, he thought as he slid out of his seat to greet them.

“Mrs. Davis,” he said before offering his hand for her to shake, “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“Violet Keener said that you wanted to discuss Chad’s death,” she said, her tone brusque. “That you were looking to get involved with those people…”

Her teeth gritted as she mentioned AIM.

“Quite,” Tony said, pulling Edward’s mannerisms back to the forefront. “And who, may I ask is your companion?”

A single name, “Riley,” was all that the other man offered, his arms folded across his chest. “I was a friend of Chad’s, back in the Sandbox.”

“I see,” Tony said. There was something about the name that was familiar to him. Where do I know it from?

“I suppose that you were also aware of Sergeant Davis’ participation in the clinical trials?”

“I was, though not as much as Dale,” Riley said.

“He was so thrilled to have been accepted in the program,” Mrs. Davis said, her voice shaky with grief. “It was the first thing that gave him any happiness, the idea that he might be able to get at least some of his life back.”

She pulled a manila folder from her bag and slid it across the tabletop.

“But when he came back from that trip to D.C., it was like he was fresh from the Front,” she continued. “Whatever he saw there, it shook him. I mean, physically he was doing much better, but mentally, it was like he was barely holding himself together.”

“Whatever happened there, the experience was nothing like what Chad expected,” the former soldier named Riley added to the other’s comments. “I got a job in Veterans Services after I came back. Chad, when I talked to him after his treatment, sounded more like the special forces men that I’ve worked with than anything else. He was secretive and paranoid, speaking about how they were going to keep him from talking.”

“That folder,” Mrs. Davis said, nodding towards the file, “contains a copy of everything that Chad managed to collect before his death.”

Biting back an angry sob, she leaned onto and buried her face in her son’s friend’s shoulder.

“My son would not have tried to kill himself, not my Chad. And even if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have hurt other people doing so.”

Despite her tears, Dale Davis’ eyes were hard as they caught his own.

“Tell me the truth, Mister Loptsson, what do you know about these people who hurt my son?”

Chapter 2: Miami Vice

Point-of-View Character: Staff Sergeant Samuel Wilson, the Falcon

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the captain has turned on the ‘fasten seatbelt’ signs. Please ensure that your tray tables are up, and your seat backs are in their fully upright and locked position. We will be landing at Miami Dade International Airport in a few minutes.”

With that, the plane’s intercom cut out, releasing a minor screech of feedback as it shut off.
Reminded by the flight attendant’s announcement, Sam Wilson reached over and lifted the plastic screen so that he could look outside. Through the limited porthole of the airplane window, the former paratrooper turned military superhero could see the beautiful blue waters of the ocean and a long stretch of sandy coast. Then the plane banked right, hiding the ground from view. Now all that he could see was the endless expanse of clear blue sky.

While the limited view seen out of the small passenger window of a commercial airplane was nothing in comparison to the feel of flying with the EXO wing, being the Falcon, it was a beautiful sight, nonetheless.

Especially as the privilege of the view doesn’t come with certain, sometimes unpleasant, costs…

A nudge to his side shook Sam out of his thoughts.

“Why the long face, birdman?”

The words, coming from his seatmate, were wry.

In response, Sam turned away from the window. Then, he rolled his eyes at his smiling friend with a casual huff.

Fellow former paratrooper Finn Riley’s nickname for Sam, with its obvious reference to his superhero moniker, had only been gifted to him shortly after the news went public about Captain America’s new sergeant and sidekick.

For the first few months after events in DC, its use had carried with it a hint of bitter mocking.

It is hardly surprising, Sam had admitted to himself at the time, I get to keep my wings and the freedom of the skies while Riley is permanently grounded with a missing limb.

But as the months passed and the disabled veteran and counselor served as a sounding board for all of Sam’s frustrations with his position, that bitterness had faded to its current state of wry acceptance. These days, Riley was more likely to offer sympathy while Sam complained about Steve Rogers’ latest faux pa than anything else.

“Seriously, Sam,” Riley said, his smile morphing into an overwrought, comedic leer, “we’re on our way to start an awesome vacation. Sunny days on the beach, bright neon nights in the clubs, beautiful women in revealing outfits, and tons and tons of boozy drinks; what is there to stress about?”

“It’s nothing, man, I’m just distracted,” Sam said.

“Well then, stop it. Now is not the time to worry about a certain star-spangled man with a plan. Now is time to get ready to par-tay!”

With that last sentence, Riley deliberately played up the persona of a party-loving frat boy, a role that he had used to entertain their friends back in their days in the hot zone.

Almost against his will, Sam found his lips curving up in a mirroring grin.

“Spring break in Miami Beach, here we come!”

—–

A couple of hours later, those gleeful smiles were nowhere to be seen.

“What do you mean, we don’t have a room!?!”

The frustration in Riley’s voice was audible, as was the thud of his artificial foot against the faux wood on the front of the hotel counter.

“I booked it months ago!”

“I’m very sorry, sir.” The staff member’s voice was apologetic, but firm. “I do understand how you must be feeling. But I am afraid that whatever arrangements that you might have made were not with this property. There is nothing in our records under any of the names which you have provided to us.”

Then the man, who was dressed in a rather expensive-looking suit, paused before adding, a bit delicately.

“Are you certain that it was this establishment which you contacted?”

“Yes! Of course, it was! Where else would it be?”

Sam watched as Riley flipped frantically through the folder of papers that he had pulled out of his bag earlier.

“Nothing,” he said, growling in frustration when he reached the end of the file. “Why isn’t it here?”

“I am sorry, Mister Riley,” the staff member said again. By this point, his voice had grown a bit stiff. “But I am afraid that if you do not have a reservation with us then I am going to have to ask you to step aside. I need you to make room for genuine customers.”

“Is there any chance that you might be able to find us a room, even if we don’t have a reservation?”

Stepping up to the counter at his friend’s side, Sam made sure to speak his words in an even tone, hoping that polite behavior would yield a solution to the situation.

But his hope, it seemed, was to be misplaced.

“Without a reservation? I am afraid not,” the man said. He let out a bit of a sniff before adding, “A room in a fine establishment like this one is in high demand. We book out months in advance.”

Looking around the lobby, Sam wasn’t entirely surprised. The furnishings and fixtures scattered across the space appeared to be both high-end and expensive, signs that the place was well out of his and Riley’s normal budget.

“Then maybe you know somewhere else nearby that might have openings?”

“Tonight? Not anything close. Especially not with this weekend’s events.”

Damn it. Sam thought. He wasn’t sure what exactly the man was referring to, though it likely related to the fact that it was Spring Break season. But it didn’t matter. The only important thing was that his request had been rejected.

But before he could say anything further, the conversation was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice; one which came from somewhere behind them.

“Sergeant Riley?”

This voice, which came from a blind spot in their vision, had both Sam and Riley spinning around to look back toward the front door of the hotel.

There, near the building’s entrance, stood a group of strangers.

The man who had spoken was middle-aged; white, moderately attractive, and dressed in what even Sam’s inexperienced eye could tell was a very high-end, expensively tailored suit. Around him were gathered three companions.

The two men on the outside edges, both of whom were visibly more muscular than the speaker, were dressed in clothes meant to blend in rather than stand out. That goal was, of course, compromised by the flashes of holstered weapons, worn inside of their jackets, but easily visible to the observant. It was clear to Sam that they were the speaker’s bodyguards.

Then there was the beautiful woman. Dressed in a tight pencil skirt, translucent blouse over a lacy camisole, and stiletto heels, her hair and makeup impeccable but understated, she was tapping away at a high-end tablet perched in her arms. If he had to guess, Sam would bet that she was an assistant to the bodyguards’ primary.

Now, Sam thought, why on earth is my solidly middle-class Midwestern friend familiar with such a wealthy, and by his accent, foreign, stranger?

“Mr. Loptsson!” Riley said as he led Sam over to where the strangers stood.

Huh, Sam thought. That familiarity goes both ways.

“What a coincidence,” the man, Loptsson, said, “running into you in Miami. Here to enjoy the beach, or perhaps the nightlife?”

Sam noticed that his friend’s nod carried with it a bit of smugness, an indication that there was more to this apparent chance encounter.

So, there is something more to this little vacation, then. I did wonder.

Despite his suspicions, Sam kept his thoughts behind his teeth. Instead, he smiled politely and entered the conversation from his place at Riley’s side.

“We were planning to do so, yes,” he said. “I’m Sam, by the way, Sam Wilson.”

“Mister Wilson,” came the other man’s reply, accompanied by a nod. “Edward Loptsson. It is a pleasure to meet you. Your companion and I have only recently become acquainted. To repeat such a pleasant encounter twice in such a short time is a wonderful surprise.”

“We ran into each other during my most recent trip to Tennessee,” Riley said, taking his chance to interrupt. Then he expanded on Sam’s earlier comment. “And yes, this was supposed to be a vacation for us. Or at least, it was until we found out that our hotel reservation has mysteriously disappeared.”

“That is indeed an unfortunate circumstance,” Loptsson said, nodding in agreement with Riley. “And I suppose that, given the givens, an alternate space is not readily available?”

Here, their previous conversationalist, who had just come out from behind the counter, interjected.

“Mister Loptsson,” he said. Then, he offered up a small bow. In contrast to the prior look of superiority, he now bore an obsequious air in both his voice and body language. “I had no idea that these… gentlemen were acquainted with you.”

Based on the tone of the speech, it was clear that, unlike Riley and Sam, this man viewed Loptsson as someone worthy of his attention. He was a person who the hotel did not want to offend in any way.

“Unfortunately, we are exceedingly full this weekend, but if you would like, our staff will do our best to find some space for your friends.”

As he spoke, the man, who Sam guessed must be highly ranked within the hotel’s service staff, tried to step up to Loptsson’s side. Unlike Riley and Sam, who had been allowed inside the other man’s security bubble, this interloper was rebuffed by Loptsson’s protective detail. Instead, he was forced to hover outside of it, lingering on the edge of the conversation.

“We wouldn’t want to assume,” Sam said. He had to admit that he was feeling a bit taken aback by the whole situation.

Does Loptsson have that kind of power? He wondered. What happened to the hotel being booked out months in advance?

“Not at all,” the man insisted. He began to back away, moving towards the desk where he had previously been posted. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam could see the remainder of the desk staff frantically typing away at the computers stationed there. It was clear that they did not have the space to spare, but equally obvious that they didn’t want to offend such an important customer.

“Sir.”

One of the stranger’s two guards, a large man who had previously remained silent, stepped forward. After offering Sam and Riley a polite nod to acknowledge their presence, he then leaned in close and whispered something in Loptsson’s right ear.

“Of course! I had forgotten about the sentry suite!” Loptsson said. “Are you certain that your men will not be needing to make use of it?”

“We do have a smaller contingent than expected on this excursion, Sir.”

“I suppose.”

“Take care of it, then.”

At this point, the man’s assistant, who had also remained silent, broke off from her position at Loptsson’s side. Walking over to the still-hovering staffer, she led him the rest of the way back to the hotel’s front desk, speaking quietly to him as they went.

From the way that the man’s shoulders sagged, Sam could tell that the information which she had passed on came as a huge relief.

Guess that they were that short on rooms, Sam thought. He was still feeling a bit confused. But now, he was certain that they would have a place to stay that night.

Sure enough, the next words out of Loptsson’s mouth confirmed his assumption.

“Mister Riley and Mister Wilson, it seems that I may be able to be of service after all,” he said. “Karl reminded me that we do have a spare room booked, one outside of the penthouse suite. It is one which we will not be using. While it is nothing compared to the hospitality which I was able to offer on our last encounter, it should be serviceable enough.”

Really, Sam thought, you’re just going to give two random acquaintances a hotel room?

Thankfully, it seemed that Riley agreed with Sam’s thought.

“Are you sure?” He asked.

Or at least, he appeared to ask.

Sam eyed his friend.

After years of close friendship, he could see straight through Riley’s poker face.

This whole thing is a set-up, he realized.

“Quite sure.”

Even as Sam grappled with his new realization, Riley and Loptsson continued their conversation.

“Well, then, if you’re offering, we’d be glad to accept. And if there’s anything that we can do to make it up to you, just name it.”

“There is one thing…”

Sam’s ears perked up.

Ah, here is the catch, he thought.

“As my plans for this evening have fallen through and I am at a bit of a loose end, I would welcome the opportunity to share your company at dinner.”

Well, Sam thought, that isn’t a catch. It’s more of… another gift. There must be something more.

But a dinner out with this mysterious stranger could prove useful in gathering data, regardless. So, Sam looked at Riley. He nodded his acceptance of both the offer of a room and the invitation to dinner.

After offering a nod in response to Sam’s non-verbal cue, Riley verbally responded. He accepted the offer on both his and Sam’s behalf, saying, “We’d be delighted.”

—–

Once they had taken the keys and collected their bags from where they had dropped them at the counter, Sam and Riley made their way up to their newly assigned hotel room.

They had agreed to meet back up with Loptsson and his entourage in the hotel lobby in a couple of hours. From there they would head out to dinner. Sam did not doubt that wherever they went would be quite fancy, a place outside of their day-to-day experiences. The kind of place where the rich and powerful gathered.

But that was a matter for later. Right now, he had a buddy to interrogate.

“Okay, farm boy,” he said, speaking as soon as they were alone in the – very nice – hotel room.

It had taken longer to get to that point than Sam would have preferred. The hotel staff had insisted on helping them with their luggage, even though all they had were a couple of carry-ons. Thankfully for Sam’s peace of mind, the staff member didn’t linger long past the time it took him to escort them upstairs. And as soon as he had shut the door behind the man, Sam had flipped the security latch before turning back towards his friend and speaking.

Adding on to his initial comment, he continued his accusation by saying, “You have some explaining to do.”

As Sam spoke these words, the polite smile that Riley had offered the hotel staff shifted into a smug smirk.

“Pretty good acting, huh,” Riley said. “I thought that guy downstairs was going get whiplash from everything that we threw at him.”

Sam released a scoff.

“There were no surprises here, were there?” He said in return. “Not for you anyway.”

“Nope.”

“I didn’t think so. Tell me, then, you great mastermind. What EXACTLY is going on here?”

At Sam’s question, Riley’s mischievous smirk shifted into a far more serious demeanor.

“Do you remember Chad Davis?” He asked.

Sam thought for a moment.

“Your rehab buddy? The one from that little town in Tennessee? What was it called?”

“Rose Hill. Yeah, that’s the one. I told you what happened to him. How he signed up for an experimental drug trial, which at first seemed to be going well but then led to tragedy? How he not only committed suicide but overpowered the explosive he chose as his method of offing himself and in the process took several others with him?”

“Sure.”

“If you recall, I also told you about how I’ve been visiting with his mother, Dale. I’ve been a sympathetic ear, listening as someone who wouldn’t treat Chad as a villain.”

Sam nodded.

“Well, she’s always insisted that there was more to the story. That there was no way that Chad was suicidal, and even if he was that he would never have misjudged an explosive blast so severely. She’s been blaming that drug trial that he’d been on, talking about how it changed him, made him jumpy in a way that not even the war had done. She also told me about the strangers who had shown up at the house both before and after the incident.”

Here Riley paused to catch his breath before continuing his explanation.

“You know me, I can’t help but dig, especially since I had been approached to participate in the same trial. Turned out, it was being run by a D.C. think tank, Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM for short. From what I found when I did my research, the drug, which they claimed was approved for a full release, was far from ready for even the initial human trial stage. It was still deep in the development phase, but someone at the company had managed to get an inappropriate trial going. I told Dale a bit about what I had found, and she said that she still had some of his papers, which might prove useful in my hunt.”

“Now, on the same day that I was in town to pick them up, Dale got an unexpected call from a friend. There was a wealthy stranger in town, one who claimed to be investigating AIM and its involvement in Chad’s death. According to Dale’s friend, he had asked to meet with her.”

“And of course, you tagged along,” Sam said, finishing the story for Riley.

At this point, he had pretty much figured out where the tale was going. He knew his friend’s tenacity and the dirty underbelly of D.C. politics a bit too well at this point not to be able to make some sound guesses.

“I did.”

From there, Riley went on to describe Loptsson’s actions in Rose Hill, how they had shared information about his friend’s death, how the man, a wealthy investor interested in possibly partnering with AIM, had provided proof that Chad’s suicide… wasn’t. Instead, the explosion that had killed him and the others had been a demonstration of a novel technology that AIM had developed. It was somehow related to the drug trial, hence the link to Davis, although according to Loptsson the exact link had yet to be determined.

“Our shared research has led us here, to Miami. We have reason to believe that the buyer who was being wooed by the demo is based out of this city. Edward’s source inside AIM heard rumors about a big meeting this weekend, one with all the key players on site.”

It was at that point that Riley’s mouth curved up. Unlike his normal smiles, whether friendly grins or mischievous smirks, the look lacked any sense of cheer. Instead, it was sharp, filled with teeth.

“That meeting is about to have… let’s just call them unexpected participants.”

Sam couldn’t help but share in Riley’s vicious grin. Despite his earlier irritation, he could appreciate Riley’s motivation.

—–

Despite his friend’s earlier comments, it appeared that their destination this evening did not involve infiltrating a villainous get-together. Instead, Loptsson’s invitation from earlier in the day was genuine.

Traveling by luxury town car, they were driven across town to what Sam quickly identified as a formal and thus expensive restaurant. It was the type of place where bodyguards were common sights, tables were widely grouped for privacy and security, and the menus, if they were even offered, lacked prices. A place where Sam would never have managed to get past the door on his own.

Loptsson, it seemed, had no such issues.

Instead, the restaurant’s door was opened before they could even reach for it. Then the hostess greeted them with a deferential manner and a polite ‘Mister Loptsson’.

Sam didn’t know if he had been recognized because he was a regular or if the man’s secretary had called in advance, but it didn’t matter. Either way, they were efficiently escorted past the hostess station and into a private dining area, where drinks and appetizers were already waiting for them.

“I hope that you don’t mind,” Loptsson said, “but I took the liberty of arranging the menu in advance of our arrival. The chef here does some marvelous things with freshly caught fish and other local delicacies. Of course, if you prefer something different, the staff would be happy to make adjustments.”

Sam glanced over at Riley, who shrugged.

It seems that this kind of thing is normal, he thought. He’d had a few such adventures in recent months, acting in his role as ‘Captain America’s new sergeant’, though on those outings he’d still felt more like one of the help than anything else. I guess I might as well go along with the flow.

“Whatever is fine,” he said, “Riley tells me that I should trust you and I trust him.”

“Excellent.”

Without further ado, the trio took their seats.

Picking up the glass before him and taking a sip, Sam was unsurprised to find that it held what even his inexperienced palate could tell was an expensive glass of wine.

Meanwhile, Riley and Loptsson had already started conversing, continuing a discussion that had begun in the drive over from the hotel. The topic of conversation was the situation in the Middle East.

Loptsson’s perspective, as a wealthy European investor with few ties to the United States military, was very different from Sam and Riley’s. Still, unlike many of his social status, he was surprisingly respectful of their sacrifices. He made several positive comments about the men and women of the US military who were serving in the region.

Instead, he kept his negative comments focused on various incidents of poor decision-making on the part of the higher-ups, especially when it came to politics and governance. And even there, while Sam didn’t always agree with Loptsson – Edward’s – opinions, he could appreciate the thoroughness of his argument. He wasn’t just parroting the talking points spouted by liberal pundits, no, he had taken the time to do his research.

From there, the conversation turned naturally to Sam’s new role in the superhero set. But even there, the direction of Edward’s comments was a pleasant change from what Sam had grown used to hearing. Instead of prurient questions about the man out of time, it seemed like the wealthy businessman was more interested in Sam’s own experiences in combatting the newly exposed HYDRA threat.

“I have some personal history with the Nazis,” Edward had explained, “and the revelation that they were still active today was disturbing on multiple levels for both myself and others amongst my acquaintance. I am eager to see them once again brought low.”

“So would we all,” Sam said. “But thankfully, our government has been proactive in addressing the reoccurrence of this horrifying threat. Many of my missions with the Avengers have been targeted against their branches.”

“What of the events in New York?” Edward asked. “Was a link ever found between that mess and the Nazis?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Sam said. “New York was before my time in this service, you understand, and I don’t know all of the details, but what I have heard indicates that it was entirely the work of extra-terrestrial entities, ones which have not been heard from since that date.”

“Interesting,” Edward said. He sounded pensive, for a moment, before he turned the discussion back toward its previous topic.

—–

Once dinner was complete, Edward continued his tour of the luxe side of Miami. He escorted them to a high-end nightclub on the edge of a very expensive-looking residential district. From the rooftop area where they settled after making their way through the crowds, Sam could see the walls of the nearest compounds, each one separated by waterways, along with a hint of the landscaping that hid the remainder of these estates from view.

There again, Edward took care of ordering for the group by requesting a round of expensive scotch from the hovering waiter.

“Ah,” he said as he took a sip, “this is excellent. One of the pleasant things about coming to such warm weather climes is being able to enjoy oneself outdoors during a time when it would be far less agreeable elsewhere.”

“Quite a difference from our last meeting,” Riley said. “Though watching the falling snow out the windows of your lodge was similarly enjoyable.”

“Indeed.”

—–

About an hour later, Sam discovered that there was another reason why Edward had selected this specific bar. Earlier in the evening, his well-trained ears had caught faint bursts of what sounded like muffled gunfire and his eyes had caught a few glimpses of shadowed figures and flashes of light. The sights and sounds appeared to be coming from one of the nearby compounds and had been occurring since their arrival. As neither of his companions nor the hovering bodyguards had given any indication of noticing the same thing, Sam had assumed that it was stress from his current and past careers which had left him hyper-vigilant, seeing things that were not entirely real.

It wasn’t until the subtle sounds that he had been hearing turned into a raucous cacophony of noise and a multitude of flashing lights came on, signs that indicated that local law enforcement was on the scene, that Sam realized that his earlier observations weren’t just his mind playing tricks on him. Something WAS going on out there.

With their seats right by the bar railing looking out onto the street and beyond, they all had a perfect view of all the excitement. Together, they watched as several armored vehicles pulled up onto the street and squads of uniformed and heavily-armed personnel jumped out of their back doors. Behind the vehicles came an even larger number of first responders, including several ambulances and a full complement of black and whites.

Following their arrival on the scene, the uniformed police immediately set to work creating a cordon around the area. These barriers kept the rapidly growing crowd of gawkers away from the compound where sporadic bursts of gunfire were still occurring. Though the bursts were becoming less frequent as time went on.

Before long, instead of going inside, people began coming out of the compound.

There were a handful of occupied stretchers, many of which were accompanied by one or more gun-bearing individuals, and each of which was loaded into one of the waiting ambulances. In between the stretchers, more personnel flowed in and out of the open gate. There were the armored personnel, probably S.W.A.T. of some variety, Sam thought absently as he scrutinized the scene below, as well as men and women in suits and bulletproof vests with lettering that he could not read at this range. Groups of people were led out in handcuffs, including several rough-looking individuals who Sam guessed were the home’s security. Then there was the collection of women dressed in little more than bikinis and heels. If he had to guess, these were probably the night’s entertainment for whoever had been in residence.

“Well then,” Edward said, “isn’t this exciting.”

His eyes gleamed with poorly concealed pleasure.

“It seems that we are in just the right place to witness one of the infamous Miami raids.”

“Raid?” Sam asked.

“Some sort of drug bust; I’d wager.”

This comment came not from one of Sam’s companions but rather from one of their neighbors there at the bar. It seemed that everyone up on the roof had come over to look down on the excitement.

“Most people who own these compounds are either linked to the trade or regularly enjoy its fruits,” another onlooker said, nodding his agreement with the first man.

The next person who was led out, however, put paid to the strangers’ assumptions.

Even from his position a couple of stories above the action, Sam easily recognized that distinctive top knot. It had been some months since the last time that the Mandarin had hijacked the airwaves for one of his terrorist broadcasts, but the image that it had shown was still embedded in his brain. Suicide bombers were nothing to scoff at, and the fact that more than one of those events had occurred on American soil… well, that was particularly troubling. As he recalled, the news coverage of the bombs showed a similar signature to what Sam remembered from Riley’s stories about his friend’s death.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “is that…?”

Riley and Edward flashed unexpectedly similar bloodthirsty smiles, answering Sam’s question before he could ask. Probably for the best, given that they were surrounded by outsiders who could easily overhear their conversation.

“Is that the Mandarin?”

It seemed that others had recognized the same thing as Sam had.

Those few bar-hoppers who had turned away from the edge of the roof rushed back, even as everyone else leaned forward. The people on either side of them crowded forward into the space between their seats and the railing, making it increasingly difficult for Sam to see what was going on. Down below, the cacophony of shouts from the bystanders and the growing number of news crews had turned up several notches.

With everyone else distracted and staring down at the spectacle, it was relatively easy for their party to get up and head for the bar’s service entrance. A couple of high-denomination bills offered by one of the guards had the bartender waving them through. Despite the handicap of Riley’s leg and their recent drinking, the group was able to move efficiently down two flights of stairs and out onto the street below.

When they reached the police cordon, Sam was surprised once again.

Edward Loptsson had no intention of being just another observer on the scene. Instead, he walked over to one of the uniforms manning the barrier. Leaning forward, he asked to speak to Agent Carter, mentioning his name as a reference.

Sam had to admit he was both shocked and a bit puzzled by the Agent’s name.

Given his current place of employment, he was rather familiar with the last name of Carter.

Usually, he heard it at work, referring to his superior’s aged love and previous Director of SHIELD, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter. But there was no way that Loptsson was talking about that Carter. That Carter was up north in a nursing home, suffering from the late stages of Alzheimer’s.

Sure enough, the person who responded to Loptsson’s request was not an elderly woman. It was, however, another unexpectedly familiar face.

“Sharon?” Sam said.

He knew that woman. Sharon was one of Steve’s neighbors, a blond who had been casually flirting with the man-out-of-time whenever they met in the halls of the apartment building. But as far as Sam knew, Sharon was a nurse at one of the local D.C. hospitals, not a federal agent, and her last name was not Carter.

“Mister Wilson,” she said. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? No, what are you doing here; especially wearing that?” He gestured towards her outfit; a smart pantsuit with heels and a bulletproof vest marked F.B.I. layered over the top of it.

Carter flushed, then said. “I’m afraid that I haven’t been completely open with you and Mister Rogers. This is my day job, and my choice of residence is related, in part, to that fact.”

“I have been an undercover component of Captain America’s defensive detail since the day that he moved out of SHIELD barracks and into his own space. My job is to be available as a resource. I am there just in case something happens to him as he transitions into living in the modern era. I nearly had to break cover during the whole HYDRA fiasco, but your actions in that mess made it unnecessary. I did have to shift over from SHIELD to the FBI as part of that agency’s downsizing. However, my new agency has been gracious enough to agree that I could maintain my secondary responsibilities within SHIELD, including my current housing arrangement.”

“And the name?”

Here she smiled, “I use Carter as my professional name, in honor of my Aunt Peg.”

Sam wanted to ask more questions, but he was interrupted by Edward.

“Apologies, Mister Wilson, but perhaps we could get back to the matter at hand,” Edward said.

Hoping that his flush wasn’t too visible on his dark skin, Sam nodded.

Sharon’s face took on a similar rosy hue, but she otherwise maintained her composure.

“Of course,” she said, “Mister Loptsson, while the FBI appreciates that your tip was proven correct, there is no need for you to have come down in person.”

“Perhaps not,” Edward said in response. “I merely wanted to make certain that my contact has survived your agency’s aggressive actions.”

“Your contact, huh,” Sharon repeated. With a gesture, she waved them past the officers manning the cordon and over to an area between the SWAT vehicles where they were out of public view.

“Doctor Hansen is fine,” she said. Then she gestured towards where a small, brown-haired woman wearing an odd combination of a suit skirt with a t-shirt and sneakers was in the process of having a couple of scrapes bandaged by one of the paramedics.

“She caught a bit of shrapnel when we breached, but nothing too serious. We even managed to extract her without compromising her cover with the Mandarin’s forces. As far as they are concerned, she has been taken into custody with the rest of the AIM scientists involved in this mess.”

“Good.”

“There is one thing, however,” she said with a frown, “Tell me, Mister Loptsson, did you know?”

Sam watched as Edward Loptsson looked away from his injured contact and back towards Sharon Carter, his face a mask of confusion. From his place at Sam’s side, Riley made his first comment since they’d reached the cordon.

“Know about what?” he asked.

“The truth about the Mandarin?”

Okay, what? Now Sam was confused.

“What do you mean, Agent?” Edward said.

Sharon sighed before she answered.

“I mean, that the man known as the Mandarin is nothing more than a figurehead, a face for someone else.”

In response, Edward, or rather, Loptsson, shook his head. Unlike earlier in the hotel lobby, this time his confusion appeared to Sam to be sincere.

“Doctor Hansen indicated that the Mandarin was the buyer for the explosive compound that they were selling but said nothing further about his organization. She simply passed along the location and time for the meeting, a train that I continued by passing it down the chain to your people.”

Sharon, excuse me, Agent Carter, hummed in response before eventually nodding her agreement.

“Well, rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this. Also, know that we will keep Doctor Hansen protected as we complete the investigation. Now,” she gestured back towards where they came in, “I believe that I have addressed your concerns. It is past time for you to be on your way.”

Loptsson shrugged as if he was unconcerned about the departure. From the glances that his bodyguards exchanged, Sam could tell that wasn’t exactly the case. Still, they did go along with Carter’s chivying.

Of course, once they made it back to the club and had the valet fetch Edward’s vehicle, Sam was unsurprised to find that they were not heading back to spend more time out on the town. Even though they had left the scene, it appeared that their involvement in the raid on the Mandarin’s compound was far from complete.

Sam assumed that Riley agreed with his assumption. This was confirmed when, once they got back inside the vehicle, he immediately turned to Edward and asked, “So, where are we headed?”

This time Loptsson didn’t even pretend to be surprised by the question.

“The FBI field office. Their SWAT team should have delivered most of the important prisoners by now. I want answers, especially given Agent Carter’s little bombshell about the Mandarin.”

“Good. I want to make sure that they got all the important people at AIM, the ones to blame for Chad’s death. I promised Dale that I would make sure that her son got a full measure of justice,” Riley said.

“Quite understandable,” Edward said. “I too desire to ensure that only the guilty parties at AIM are in custody. I would hate to completely waste my investment in the company, they are doing some impressive things there beyond this mess.”

It wasn’t the most altruistic of motives, Sam thought. But that does make it more believable. I would doubt anything purely selfless, especially from a financial investor.

“And you’re sure that it was just a small cohort within AIM involved in the double-dealing,” Sam asked more than said.

“Quite sure,” Edward said. “Believe me, Mister Wilson, my people are very competent. They have done their due diligence before we ever signed on to support Aldrich Killian’s little think tank. It is the nature of such organizations, to be highly compartmentalized.”

Sam had to admit that government-sponsored think tanks were not his area of expertise. He and Riley would just have to trust in Edward’s experience, at least for now anyways. There would be time for further investigation once he got back to D.C.

—–

While the staff at the FBI’s Miami field office were similarly uninclined to share sensitive information about an ongoing case, they did reassure the group that not only had the man known as the Mandarin been taken into custody but also that all his handlers there in the compound had been apprehended if they hadn’t been outright killed during the firefight.

Not only that, but they did acknowledge that they had several high-level AIM assets in custody, including multiple parties who Loptsson’s intelligence had implicated as being involved in the weapons dealing scheme. To top it off, they mentioned that another raid had been conducted in tandem with the Miami offensive, this one up north at the AIM headquarters in Virginia. In that case, the goal had been the seizure of literal reams of information, including material that the government hoped would provide concrete links between AIM’s perpetrators and the terrorist organization.

With the messy business of taking down their mutual adversaries essentially completed, it appeared that Sam and Riley’s time with Edward Loptsson had reached an end. Given that it was now several hours past midnight, they agreed that it was time to head back to the hotel and catch up on some sleep.

“Well, this has been an exciting evening, has it not,” Loptsson said as they walked into the quiet lobby, “and might I express my appreciation to you both? Your presence, and your assistance in gathering our data Mister Riley, have made the whole affair far less stressful than it would otherwise have been.”

“It is us who should be thanking you,” Riley insisted. “I don’t think that I would have ever found justice for Chad without your help. And getting to play even a small role in that victory was…” He hesitated, then added, “Quite satisfying.”

Though Sam had far less invested in the whole affair, he added his own words of appreciation to the other man.

“I agree with Riley. You did not have to bring us along, but I am grateful that you did. Especially for the sake of my friend.”

“But of course,” Loptsson said. “Now, gentlemen, I will wish you a good evening. And if we do not see each other before my business takes me away from this fair city, it has been a pleasure.”

As he and his bodyguards headed for the penthouse elevator, Loptsson turned back to make one final reminder, “Be sure to enjoy the remainder of your time here in Miami.”

—–

By the time Sam and Riley had reached their room and gotten themselves cleaned up from their exciting night, the sky outside the window was beginning to lighten with the first signs that dawn was imminent. So, after hanging a DO NOT DISTURB placard onto the outside of the doorknob, they collapsed onto their comfortable beds and slept.

Without any urgent need to get up, they allowed themselves to remain in bed until well after the noon hour.

It was time for the vacation that had been the cover for their trip to begin. A few hours out on the beach, enjoying the sights and engaging in a bit of fun in the sand and on the boardwalk were followed, after a clean-up and change of clothes, by another night out on the town.

This time, their destinations were far lower brow than on the previous night but no less pleasurable all the same. Loud music, lots of neon lights, dance floors packed with sweating bodies, the nightlife of Miami Beach at its finest.

Once inside, Sam and Riley collected their drinks from the bartender before diving right into the fray. It wasn’t long before Sam lost any sight of his friend. Not that he cared. They were here to have a bit of fun, and that was exactly what he was doing. Finding a group of like-minded individuals, he settled in and danced.

It wasn’t long until he picked up an interested partner.

Like most of the girls in the club, the clothes that she wore left little to the imagination, not that Sam minded in the slightest. As she moved, she did her best to push the lines of her body against his, provoking his libido in the process. And as they danced through one song, and then another, they slowly but surely moved away from the center of the floor and back towards the more private areas in the rear of the building.

At one point Sam did catch a glimpse of Riley, who had found a companion of his own out in the crush. The other man had offered him an amused nod and his favorite, positively filthy grin before the movement of the crowd pulled them apart.

Then, just as Sam began to worry that things were not going to go any further, the girl in his arms turned around and pushed herself up onto her toes just enough to pull his lips against her own. As they kissed, Sam could feel the tacky remnants of her lip gloss against his uncovered flesh and taste the sweet burn of the tropical beverages that he knew she must have been drinking. Pulling her even closer, he deepened the kiss further, to her enthusiastic approval.

Before long, she was pulling him away from the dance floor, interspersing hard kisses with whispered words of encouragement and comments about knowing a good spot for a bit of privacy.

When in Miami, Sam thought, using what little mental capacity he could manage with all the blood rushing lower. His only real coherent thought was a feeling of relief that at least he had remembered to tuck a couple of condoms into his back pocket before they left their hotel room.

The beautiful and enthusiastic woman quickly led him past the hallway that led to the probably crowded bathrooms and around a corner to a small alcove, one which was positioned right beside a door illuminated with a sign for an emergency exit. Then, she reached up, and wrapping both of her arms around his head, pulled it down into another kiss. Sam couldn’t help himself. Leaning forward, he gave in to the sensation.

But before he could do anything more, a sharp crack slammed against the back of his head. As everything faded to black, the overwhelming pain was all that he felt; well, that and a pair of large hands pulling him backward.

Well, shit, was his last thought as black completely overwhelmed his mind.

Chapter 3: Forms of Courage

This is a strange feeling, Tony thought, being on the other side of an illegal interrogation for once in my thus-far quite storied career.

A live feed was displayed on the monitor that sat in front of him. In it, the camera view was zoomed in on a single seated figure, bound both hand and foot to a sturdy hard-backed chair. A man with a sack of coarse burlap thrown over his head.

The image was giving Tony flashbacks of his time imprisoned, first with the Ten Rings and then again during his time in SHIELD’s hands. He distinctly recalled how disconcerting it had been to not know what was happening around him, and how the loss of one sense made the others feel amplified. He could hear every sound, feel every brush of air across his body, and every spot where the hard surface of the chair or the tight bonds around his wrists and ankles dug into his skin.

Now, he was the one forcing someone else to experience that horror. He wasn’t sure whether he liked how THAT made him feel. While it was nice not to be the one in the dark, for once, the fact that he could so strongly empathize with his captive made the experience less than satisfying.

For a moment he nearly lost himself in that moment of empathy and memory. Then he pushed it back with an aborted shudder.

At least this time, he consoled himself, my captive’s torment will be short-lived, unlike my imprisonment. Besides, this is the best way for me to set the board for the upcoming game.

Tony’s involuntary movement, however slight, was enough to draw the attention of the man who stood at his side.

“You never did tell me, Edward,” Aldrich Killian said, “What exactly do you have in mind for our involuntary visitor? I thought you were using his friend Sergeant Riley to bolster our altered narrative.”

“You mean clean up the mess that you started with this whole Mandarin business,” Tony said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, well, you try to figure out how to cover up episodes of spontaneous human combustion?” Killian said, trying to justify himself.

“So, you’ve mentioned. Mentioned multiple times, in fact,” Tony said. “At least you were smart enough to work through intermediaries, that plus your loyal right hand’s willingness to cover for you is all that is keeping you and the whole company from going down in this affair. Both you and your scientific lead, Doctor Hansen, have shown yourselves to be quite impetuous when it comes to making decisions regarding Extremis. Still, I have managed to figure out a way to turn this mess to our advantage, in more ways than one.”

Waving his hand, Tony gestured back towards the screen with an absent wave.

Despite their partnership, he still maintained the cover identity of Edward Loptsson whenever he had to deal with Killian or any of his people. It wasn’t that he expected Aldrich to betray him, exactly… No, it was more that he felt that AIM’s obsession with Tony Stark had the potential to cause issues if his real identity was revealed. Once his revenge was complete, perhaps, but certainly not now.

“Tell me, Aldrich, what do you know about Staff Sergeant Wilson?”

As Killian talked about Sam Wilson’s past; his work as a pararescue soldier with Sergeant Riley, his time as a counselor in DC, and his current job as Captain America’s handler, Tony listened carefully.

From the other man’s tone, it was clear that his opinion of Wilson was not high. But what was the reason for Killian’s antipathy? Was it grounded in reality? Or was it the result of the wealthy businessman’s various ingrained prejudices? Tony hoped that it was the former, but he knew that the latter was far more likely.

Regardless, Tony knew that it would be an uphill battle, convincing Aldrich Killian that he should care about Wilson as a person. So, he didn’t bother trying. Instead, he adopted a casual tone in his next remarks.

“As Steve Rogers’ new sergeant, Wilson is the perfect candidate to get us direct access to his superiors’ allies. Those allies just so happen to include our favorite unscrupulous weapons manufacturer.”

“Stane,” the other man said, his voice distorted by a snarl, and fire flashing in his eyes. Tony nodded and offered his savage growl in agreement. Their shared rage against that bastard did make things with Killian easier to manage. A simple reference was usually enough to redirect the fiery wild card at his side.

“But first,” Tony said, his lip still curled from the earlier action, “I want a full measure of the man’s mettle.”

Leaning forward, he spoke into the microphone that sat beside the screen.

“Gentlemen, shall we begin?”

—–

Over the next several hours, Killian’s men proceeded to do just as Tony had asked. At his insistence, nothing that they did would have a permanent impact on the staff sergeant’s body. Deep tissue bruises and few surface abrasions, sure, but nothing more damaging than that.

All that they were trying to do was to soften him up and put him in the right frame of mind for later events. So, the questions that they threw at him between bouts of physical abuse were of no real significance. Still, Wilson did show an impressive amount of fortitude throughout the whole affair. He maintained his composure, refusing to provide answers to any of his tormentors’ demands. This was despite the explicit threats that they threw at him, ones which promised far more permanent damage if he remained silent.

The training that Wilson had received from the United States military, combined with his strength of character, had served him well.

Even Killian was, however reluctantly, impressed by Wilson.

“A bit of a shame that he wasn’t a part of the Extremis trials,” he said. “It seems that the good sergeant might have had the fortitude to handle the mental burden that our little concoction requires, unlike some of our more unfortunate volunteers. Wouldn’t you agree, Edward?”

“You may be right, Aldrich,” Tony said, “Still, he is far more useful where he is. Captain America’s newest sidekick, now our unwitting patsy in dealing with his bosses.”

“I suppose,” Killian said in reluctant agreement. “So then, what comes next?”

“Next?”

Here Tony smirked.

“Well,” he said. “Next I come to his rescue.”

Tony spoke a single word in the microphone and the men who had been conducting the ‘interrogation’ immediately stepped out of camera view, leaving the still hooded and chair-bound Wilson alone in the frame.

From his own experiences, Tony knew that such moments were, if anything, worse than the periods of active torture. Being left alone, with nothing to distract from the pain and uncertainty of the situation, was true misery.

Stepping out of the control room where he had been watching, he walked down the hall and into the armory. Inside were a couple of dozen men, busy gearing up for the scene to come.

Tony watched for a moment as they arrayed themselves in full riot gear, arming themselves with weapons meant to incapacitate instead of kill and trading jokes over who was going to end up taking a hit as they did so.

These men, along with the interrogators from before, were about to put on a mock firefight to reinforce Tony’s illusion of an armed rescue. For all their joking, Tony did not doubt that once it began these soldiers of Killian’s were more than capable of ensuring that the whole thing sounded entirely believable.

Half of the men were clothed in unmarked black, mercenary gear, while the other half wore the iconic letters S.W.A.T. emblazoned across their bulletproof vests.

The former would be playing villains, ending up as ‘dead’ or dying bodies scattered along the route which would be used to evacuate Wilson following his rescue. The latter would be the rescuers, though a few of the men on that side had volunteered to play casualties as well.

They all knew that it wouldn’t be realistic to have the firefight appear completely one-sided.

As Tony in his Loptsson disguise stepped into the room and the men noticed his presence, the joking quickly faded away, replaced by unadulterated awe.

Most of these men were either participants in the Extremis trials or had friends who were. Thus, they viewed Edward Loptsson as someone akin to a god, a man who had earned their loyalty by doing what they had assumed was impossible.

The fact that he had accidentally stolen the loyalty of Killian’s people right out from under him was a source of ongoing private amusement. While the strength that Extremis had offered was a tempting mistress and a power that had earned the soldiers’ respect, it was not a perfect payment. The fact that Extremis came with a delayed but eventual death sentence did make it a rather large burden as well.

With the introduction of the defensive wards, Edward Loptsson had given the Extremis volunteers something even better. He had given them hope. And with the second generation of the ward pendants showing further promise, actively slowing down Extremis reactions and giving the test subjects time to regain control and prevent runaway combustion from ending their lives, well, that hope grew ever stronger.

It was fortunate for Killian that, so far, he had had no reason to object to Edward Loptsson’s plans. Thus, he had yet to realize the extent of his people’s change in loyalties. The fact that Killian himself was one of the carriers for Extremis meant that his level of gratitude toward Loptsson was also very high. As such, he remained happily, if not willfully, blind to the way that the dynamics of his partnership with his new investor had changed.

Tony had no reason to enlighten him. Instead, he allowed Killian to continue to ‘call the shots’ with his people whenever they worked together.

Such was the case today.

As Killian pushed past Tony and started vocally reminding the armored troops of their assigned tasks, he once again failed to notice that the men looked past him and towards ‘Edward’ for confirmation before signaling their agreement.

“Now then,” Killian said as he turned to return to the control room. “Move out.”

—–

Without further ado, the men quickly cleared out, heading into position to begin the simulated assault. Soon, Tony could hear bursts of apparently uncontrolled weapon fire.

As planned, the shots had started some distance away from the room where Wilson was being held. The sounds of the gunfire quickly grew in intensity, even as the sharp staccato bursts were interspersed with shouts. From Tony’s position, he and his ‘bodyguards’, a couple of Kaecilius’ men from the Order who had volunteered for the assignment, could see, and hear, the faux firefight move past them. A few minutes later, they heard a thud. The sound indicated that the ersatz SWAT team had made it inside the room where Wilson was being held.

Despite not being able to SEE anything, Tony could guess exactly what was happening inside. The disguised SWAT were carefully and audibly ‘clearing’ the room, making sure that there was no way for enemies to attack unexpectedly before pulling off the sack which had been covering Wilson’s eyes for the entirety of his earlier interrogation.

“Staff Sergeant Samuel Wilson,” the apparent squad leader would ask, even as his men made short work of the bonds that held the Falcon in his chair.

“That’s me,” Wilson would agree, gratefully taking water when offered before rubbing his wrists and ankles to restore some semblance of circulation.

Then it was time.

Tony and his protective detail, each of whom was dressed in a bulletproof vest and carried a semi-automatic rifle, made their way down the hallway in preparation for their entrance into Wilson’s cell.

As they approached the open door, Tony could hear Wilson speaking.

“Boy, am I glad to see you fellows,” he said, before clearing his throat with a rasping cough. “I was worried that no one would be looking for me here. It wasn’t exactly in the middle of a mission that I was snatched, you know.” His voice took on a hint of suspicion. “How did you know to come looking, anyways?”

That was Tony’s cue.

“That would be my doing, my friend,” he said.

Stepping around the lintel of the door, he entered the room, his bodyguards moving in behind and on either side of him. He had taken deliberate actions to ensure that he and his men stood out compared to the apparent SWAT team, this time with clever use of color. In contrast to the stark black and white that the ‘troops’ wore, the three of them were in shades of gray and rust. This color palate was muted enough to be appropriate for urban camouflage but still distinctly different from the law enforcement officers that surrounded them.

Wilson’s eyes squinted for a moment, pushing through what Tony knew had to be at least a mild concussion before his expression managed to clear. His face and voice still held a fair bit of confusion as he asked, “Mister Loptsson?”

Not that Tony could blame him for his uncertainty.

A rich almost stranger wouldn’t have been his first pick on who would show up right after he had been roughed up either.

“What… how did you know where to find me?”

Tony flashed a small smile.

“Do you remember my contact from the other day?” he said, “The one who gave us the information needed to get into the Mandarin’s compound?”

“Your contact. You mean the researcher?” Wilson asked more than said. “Sorry, I can’t remember her name.”

“That is quite alright, my friend, and you are correct. I received a call, passed through one of her associates, that there were certain members of the Mandarin’s forces who had managed to escape being caught up in the raid the other night. They had done this by not being on-site when the event began. According to her message, these men were putting out feelers, looking for information about how to retrieve their captured leader.”

“Wait… was that what all of this was about?” Sam sounded surprised once again. “They never even mentioned anything like that.”

Lifting the half-empty water bottle that he held, the injured man took another swallow of the lukewarm liquid before coughing and spitting out a glob of blood and saliva onto the concrete floor.

“I had thought that it might have to do with something else.”

“With your day job, I suppose,” Tony said, his voice colored with blatant amusement. He had gone to considerable lengths to convince Wilson that Loptsson wasn’t very interested in his superhero persona. This would only reinforce the impression.

Of course, the truth was that this whole situation was related to the other man’s current choice of career. But then, Tony wasn’t about to tell Wilson that.

Instead, he simply said, “Perhaps they merely hadn’t gotten to that point in the interrogation before they were so rudely interrupted.”

“I guess so.”

“Now, do you feel that you are capable of walking, or do one of the men here need to call for a stretcher?”

“Nah, man,” Wilson said, “I’d much rather rely on my own two feet to get me out of here.”

“You will still have to go in and get checked out at the hospital,” the apparent SWAT medic who had been examining him said. “As long as you have no difficulties in getting onto your feet, then I see no reason not to let you walk out of here.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sam said. His movements were a bit ginger when he first put his weight down and climbed up out of the chair, but by the time he had reached Tony he was walking a bit stiffly, but without any real difficulty. “Now, can we blow this popsicle stand?”

With half of the ‘SWAT’ troopers at the lead and Tony and Wilson in the protected spot in the center, they quickly made their way down the halls. As they did so, they walked past the ‘dead’ bodies which lay clumped together in obvious groupings along the hallways and out into the sunlight.

There, in front of the warehouse where Wilson had been held, a large collection of personnel and vehicles had been staged. It was all part of the picture that Tony and Killian had laid out in their efforts to keep Wilson’s mind there in the scene.

A man and a woman, both dressed as paramedics, rushed over to meet them halfway between the door and the waiting ambulance. With their help, Wilson was quickly helped over to that vehicle’s tailgate, where a thorough physical investigation immediately began.

“Sam,” Tony said as the paramedics fussed over Wilson, “Now that you have been extracted from your unfortunate situation, I am afraid that I will be unable to accompany you any further. Urgent business overseas, you understand?”

“I get it, man,” Sam said, before letting out a short cough at the request of the paramedics, “You said the other night that your stopover in Miami had to be short. I’m just glad that you were here long enough to learn about my situation. I owe you a huge debt of gratitude, for going far beyond what would be expected of casual allies.”

“It was my pleasure,” Tony said. “Both you and Mister Riley have made this whole unpleasant affair a bit less of a distasteful experience, and for that, I am indeed grateful. Making your acquaintance has been quite enjoyable. I hope that it will remain a positive memory for both of us.”

With that, Tony turned to walk over to the armored black SUV that stood off to one side of the parked ambulance. But before he and his hovering bodyguards could go more than a few steps, Sam called out once more.

“Mister Loptsson,” he said again, this time suppressing a pained grimace as the effort irritated his bruised ribs, “I’d love to repay your hospitality from this week, as much as I can. At least let me take you out to dinner the next time that you’re up in my neck of the woods. I’m sure that Riley would agree to join us as well.”

“But of course,” Tony said, agreeing with a casual air. He was hiding his real feeling of glee behind the pleasant façade. This offer was exactly what he was hoping to get out of the visit to Miami, and more specifically, out of this little charade. Sam Wilson would be the perfect way into Ross’ part of the military, into the restructured SHIELD, and thus into several of his targets’ social circles. He couldn’t wait to get started with that phase of his ‘mission’.

“It may be some months before my next visit, however,” he said. “Business in the far east is expected to keep me entertained for quite some time.”

“No problem, man,” Sam said. “Whenever is fine. At least if I am not out on assignment, at any rate. Even if I am not around, Riley will probably be in town and would be willing to step in for me.”

“I will be sure to have my assistant reach out before my next visit to your country’s capitol, then,” Tony said, before offering Wilson another smile. Then, he turned back to the waiting SUV.

Once he was inside the vehicle, with the tinted windows hiding him from outside view, Tony allowed the larger grin that he had been hiding behind his teeth to spread across his face.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, speaking to his companions in the vehicle as they headed out, “it seems that our visit to Miami has been a complete success.”

—–

With the recruitment of Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson, Captain America’s Falcon, as his unwitting ally complete Tony was ready to move on to other preparations for his ultimate revenge. Of course, since he had to maintain the identity of Edward Loptsson, it was important that his departure from Miami exactly match his cover.

First-class tickets had already been purchased on a sequence of flights. These flights, the first of which was departing that afternoon, would take them across the globe to the city of Hong Kong. As a result, Tony and his entourage headed straight to the airport, arriving with sufficient time to board their plane.

While Tony did enjoy the travel shortcuts available through the portals which those who were adept in the Mystic Arts could manufacture, sometimes taking the more mundane and thus longer route was not too terrible of an alternative.

It had been a busy couple of weeks, between his return from Wakanda and encounter with the extra-dimensional being known as Bast and the preparation and execution of the Mandarin’s take-down. Now, Tony was more than ready for a bit of a chance to rest. With the spacious compartments provided in first class, he could do just that.

—–

Over twenty-four hours, and a good amount of sleep, later, Tony and his companions landed in the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong.

In fleshing out the character of Edward Loptsson, JARVIS had arranged for a large penthouse apartment in the busy city. He had also altered digital records of the property’s past to make it look like it had been part of Loptsson’s holdings for several years. A fair bit of money and the help of reliable contacts ensured that the human element of the equation was similarly arranged.

Unlike the space where Tony had his first meeting with Killian months before, this place was officially Edward’s territory. It was here that they had set up a forward operating base, a place where Tony as Edward could host visitors and appear to dwell when needed.

Of course, most of the time he didn’t bother to spend more than a few minutes in the apartment. Instead, once they reached the penthouse, Tony and most of his companions simply dropped their extensive luggage, weapons and formal layers included, and headed straight for the rear of the space. It was there that Wong had set up a semi-permanent portal over to the Hong Kong Sanctum that he oversaw. The portal offered a way for his allies to return to the mystical site without having to pass through the Sanctum’s front door. Besides, this way he didn’t have to worry about temporary portals compromising the Sanctum’s ward scheme every time they transferred between locations.

Right before he passed through the golden opening, Tony deactivated the amulet that he wore, the one which carried the Loptsson illusion, with a sigh of relief.

“Why does that always feel so good,” he said quietly. Then he stepped forward, shaking himself in a full-body shiver.

While maintaining the Loptsson illusion didn’t consume that much Mystical energy, it was still a considerable mental burden for Tony to maintain. Not only did he have to ensure that the illusion projected by the amulet remained active. Tony also had to work to sustain all the little tweaks that he made to his voice and body language to help distinguish the character from his real identity.

Now, he was free to let his hair down, relax his shoulders, and just be himself. Tony Stark, a genius, inventor, researcher, sorcerer, and open friend.

“Wong!” he said with an open smile, greeting the man who had been standing close to the portal’s opening, “what are you doing, lurking by my door?”

The older man smiled, reaching out to pull Tony into a generous hug.

“Just checking on you, Stark,” he said. “Wanted to make sure that you were still in one piece. I also needed to find out if I was going to have to play Mister fix-it. Between you and Kaecilius, I swear…”

He shook his head.

“Not to worry, magic man,” Tony said, “everything went copacetic, you know.”

“If you say so,” Wong said, his skepticism of Tony’s claim visibly obvious.

“I do.”

“By the way, how are your newest guests settling in?”

Here Wong’s smile turned wry.

When Tony and Kaecilius had extracted the Hulk and his lady love from the clutches of her villainous father, they had been unsure of what exactly to do with the jolly green giant. Given his strength and physical scale, he wasn’t exactly the easiest to keep inconspicuous. Besides, they couldn’t risk unplanned sightings sending Ross out on the hunt right now.

Unexpectedly, it seemed that the same experiment which had created the Hulk had also unlocked a not-insignificant Mystical core inside of one Bruce Banner. It was the reason why the scale of the Hulk’s powers appeared to have no upper limit. Somehow, in his rage, he was tapping into a dimension beyond their own, one which Ross and his scientists were unable to see.

When viewed through Mage Sight, the Hulk pulsed with deep gray-green energy. The energy was both similar and yet different in color from the power of Tony’s absent mentor. It was this untapped potential that had led Tony and Kaecilius to come up with the perfect solution for their rather large dilemma.

Wong.

As the guardian of one of the Sanctums, Wong was perfectly capable of instructing those who were new to the Mystic Arts. Not only that, but the Hong Kong Sanctum also had close contact with a wide range of scientific institutions. These organizations employed people who could prove very useful in helping both the Hulk and his close companion, Doctor Elizabeth Ross, in their recovery from her father’s abuses.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, the older man had easily agreed to take on the unusual pair.

“Quite well,” Wong said in reply to Tony’s question. “Madam Elizabeth – having understandably refused to have anything to do with her father’s name – has settled herself comfortably within the library here. It is there that she spends most of her time, consuming books at a rate rather like your own heavy dive following your arrival at Kamar Taj.”

Tony smiled in memory.

He remembered that feeling, that desire to learn everything that he could about this strange new branch of knowledge that he had previously assumed was nothing more than fantasy.

Despite her horrific experiences, Elizabeth Ross was still a scientist at heart, one with a driving need to know.

“And her boy?”

Here Wong’s smile took on a hint of mischief.

“Why don’t you come and see?” he suggested easily.

Reaching out with his ringed hand, he generated golden sparks that swiftly transformed into a golden portal. With his Mage Sight engaged, Tony could see that the portal led not to another place on Earth, but rather into the Mirror Dimension.

Well, he thought, this should be interesting.

—–

Tony trusted Wong, really, he did.

Even so, Tony did take a moment to reassure himself that he had his ring, and thus way back out of the Mirror Dimension, present in his pocket before he followed his friend through the opening and into another place.

The view that he found on the other side of the portal surprised him.

Instead of a blank space, or even a distortion of the room at the Hong Kong Sanctum, they were standing in what looked like a massive snowy forest. All around him, Tony could smell the pine trees, feel the dampness at his feet, and even hear the wind disturbing the branches.

Looking over at Wong, he raised an eyebrow in a clear question.

“Just wait,” the other man said.

A few seconds later, something began to happen.

Tony began to hear and feel the thud of something heavy slamming into the ground at regular intervals. And it was getting louder, landing ever closer with each impact. Within a few minutes, the trees and ground were visibly shaking.

Moving quickly, Tony straightened into a fighting stance, ready to protect himself from whatever might be approaching.

Wong, on the other hand, merely shifted his stance enough to maintain a stable position through the shakes. Tony could tell that he didn’t consider the incoming arrival a threat.

A flash of green appeared in Tony’s peripheral vision, and he glanced upwards, turning his body towards the new source of movement. When he realized what it was, he couldn’t keep his mouth from dropping down just a little.

But before he could make any further movements, the rapidly approaching shape resolved itself into the unmistakable form of the Hulk. The large being was on the downslope of a massive jump, one which would have him landing quite close to their position.

He’s the source, Tony realized, the reason that things have been shaking. He must have been making massive leaps, slamming into the ground with every landing.

Sure enough, when the Hulk reached the ground, the impact came with another heavy thud. This one was the largest yet. Where he landed was a short distance from the clearing where Tony and Wong stood. Once he hit the ground the Hulk came to a rapid stop in a series of short hops, near stumbles, until he halted right in front of them.

“Wong,” the Hulk said, his voice a deep, pleased rumble. “Hulk happy you here. Come to teach new things?”

“Not this time, my friend,” Wong said. “I have brought someone here to see you, instead. I believe that he might be a familiar presence.”

The Hulk’s nose flared, drawing in a scent.

“Metal magic man,” he said with the same pleased sound. “Hulk happy you here too!”

When Tony looked at him, puzzled by the Hulk’s name for him, Wong explained.

“I know that Loki taught you about Mage Sight, but did he ever explain the fact that it wasn’t always as a sight that it manifests?”

Thinking back, Tony did recall something being mentioned during one of those first lessons, but nothing more.

“Maybe? I think so?”

“But not in any significant detail, then,” Wong surmised.

“Well, when you activate your Mage Sight, what you are doing does not involve your eyes. Instead, you access another sense entirely. It is your mind which converts that sense into something that it can process, using the pathways already prepared for handling sight.”

“The reason it is called a Mage Sight is that, for most sorcerers, vision is the most developed sense in their arsenal. As such, that is the pathway that their brain decides to use to interpret the incoming information. But for those who are stronger in other senses, Mage Sight may manifest itself using that other pathway instead. It seems that with his transformation, the Hulk is more like the Frost Giants of Jotunheim than humans. For him, smell is his strongest sense, not sight. Thus, his Mage Sight has manifested as a Mage Scent.”

“Huh, so the Hulk has a super sniffer,” Tony said. “And that is what I smell like to that sniffer? Magic and metal?”

“Quite. The Mystic Arts generally smell like lightning or ozone, growing sharper the stronger the manifestation. Mystical affinities come with their scents as well. I was unsurprised to learn that your affinity manifests itself as the scent of hot metal, the aroma of an active forge.”

Tony had to admit that he did like that idea.

He had fond memories of the foundries that he had visited growing up and had worked in while developing his ideas. Even the rough setup where he had built the armor that had enabled his escape from the Ten Rings had some positive associations with Yinsen and the creation of his original armor. And now, even with his new skills in the Mystic Arts, he still relied on his talents as an inventor to support their use. After all, he worked rune sequences into metal and other solid materials to create the illusions and Wards which were rapidly becoming his specialty within the community.

“What about you, Beyoncé?” Tony asked, his voice taking on a bit of a teasing tone. “How does our friend describe your power?”

“Book magic man.”

The Hulk was the one who answered.

Tony snorted.

“Of course, you smell like the archives,” he stated more than asked. “Paper and dust and the indefinable aroma of history.”

“But I’m getting distracted,” he added, “you brought me here for a reason. Hulk, how are things going for you here with my friend?”

“Hulk good,” the large being said. “Room to explore, room to run, no more stingers or yelling soldiers.”

“Excellent,” Tony said. “I’m glad to hear it. What about your partner?”

Hulk cocked his head to the right, as if confused.

“Your girl, green bean,” Tony clarified, “how do you think she’s doing here?”

The reference to Elizabeth Ross caused a massive smile to break across the Hulk’s face.

“Betty,” he said, his voice a pleased rumble. “Betty good. Happy like Hulk.”

The being’s smile softened, “But pretty Betty like reading place, and Hulk not good there.”

Tony pictured the large form of the Hulk around the close-packed shelves of the library and suppressed a snort.

“I would say not,” he said. “How many things did you knock over before you were kicked out?”

“More than I would prefer.”

This time it was Wong who spoke.

“But at least this student is not foolish enough to try doing magic within the stacks. Unlike some.”

His tone was pointed.

Oh, right, Tony was reminded that he had caused his fair share of incidents in the library back at Kamar Taj after he had first arrived. He grinned a bit sheepishly.

“Right…,” he said. “Well, I am glad to see that you’re settling in here, Hulk. Wong, I had best get back to the Sanctum, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, Stark,” Wong said.

Making a motion with the hand that bore his sling ring, he re-opened the portal that led out of the Mirror Dimension.

As Tony stepped through the opening, he looked back to see the Hulk let out a delighted roar, offering Wong a small bow before leaping out of sight.

“Well, he certainly looks better,” Tony said to Wong as the other man followed him through the portal, closing it behind him, “almost carefree.”

Wong nodded his agreement.

“Based on the time since the Hulk’s emergence following Banner’s original accident, his age is that of a young child,” Wong said.

“From what I have seen, his mind is much the same. The Hulk is a boy, who has suffered a tremendous amount of abuse in his short lifetime. Between the hostility of Ross and his people and the fact that Banner himself also viewed his alternate as nothing more than a dangerous beast, our young friend has shouldered more than his fair share of burdens. Fortunately, he has Madam Elizabeth in his corner; her kindness and care are the examples which he has chosen to imitate instead of the others’ hostility.”

“I knew that you were the right man for the job,” Tony said.

He was pleased by Wong’s response to his unexpected foundling. But then, that was in keeping with the older man’s personality.

“But I did have another question for you, oh great Master Archivist. Do you know anything about the incident in New York?”

Wong frowned.

“The failed invasion? What about it?”

“Nothing much,” Tony said. “I had a conversation recently that reminded me of it, and I realized that my mentor and I never did figure out how such an incident occurred. Between my ice man’s bonds and my inexperience in reading the currents all that we could tell was that it happened. But surely the Order must have some idea how such a massive portal might have been opened.”

Wong’s frown remained.

“We do, indeed,” he said. “But why do you care, Anthony? I doubt that you have any desire to repeat such an event.”

“Well, sure,” Tony said, “but to power such a massive work must have taken something incredible, would it not? And if such a thing is now in the hands of SHIELD or worse, how likely is it that such a thing might get in the way of my plans.”

Wong sighed before he spoke again.

“Tell me, my friend; did your mentor ever speak of the Infinity Stones?”

The term sounded vaguely familiar, but not something that stuck out in Tony’s memory.

“Maybe?” he said, or rather asked. “But if he did, it wasn’t in much detail.”

Wong sighed, his voice taking on a hint of nostalgia.

“The prince never did have much interest in the stones, even as a boy. Called them a cheat. But he certainly knew of them. Still, I suppose that I could give you a brief overview.”

The reference that Wong had known his mentor, as a child even, made Tony perk up. Though he refused to say so point blank, the older sorcerer had dropped several such hints in the past. Some of them had the genius convinced that Wong was not of this Earth. Either that, or he was, but had spent substantial time in one or more of the other Realms that make up the branches of Yggdrasil.

“There are six such objects. These powerful mystical artifacts are said to anchor the cornerstones of our very universe; having come into existence at the same time. They are known as the Space, Time, Reality, Mind, Power, and Soul Stones. Each Infinity Stone grants its holder unprecedented power over the element that they represent. For example, the Space Stone grants even those with little to no Mystical skill access to the warp and weft of space, allowing them to manipulate its weave as they desire.”

Chapter 4: Battleground of Stone

Point-of-View Character: Pietro Maximoff, Quicksilver

It was cold. The wind howled as it slammed against the stone walls, leaching heat away faster than the little stove could produce it. Despite having been retrofitted with some of the most advanced technology in the world, there was no getting around the fact that, at its base, the facility was ancient. It was a stone pile, one which had very little in the way of insulation from the natural chill of its substrate.

It doesn’t help, Pietro thought, that my so-called gift comes with a hefty downside. I burn through energy fast, especially when I am on the go.

Still, at least the cold outside was just nature’s ordinary fury. It wasn’t out to get them specifically. Not like anything else that might show up in this remote place.

—–

When Baron Wilhelm von Strucker had first come to Pietro and his sister Wanda with the offer to provide them with the means to strike out against their enemies, the Maximoff brother had been reluctant to accept.

He hated what had happened to his home country of Sokovia. In this place where East meets West, the clashes of outside forces had, time and time again, left the Sokovian people to suffer the pain and loss that came with dwelling in disputed territory. The Germans, the Soviets, the Americans; it didn’t matter who was the aggressor in the broader conflict. All sides left swathes of death and destruction in their wake as they passed through his homeland.

Worse than the soldiers who ran roughshod across their lands were the military contractors, the vultures who came along with the weapons that made the destruction so devastating. At least the soldiers were fighting for a cause and usually felt remorse for their actions. War profiteers only cared about two things, their self-interest, and the almighty dollar.

Fighting fire with fire, however, felt like a step backward. He considered it to be lowering himself to the level of those bastards. Besides, to allow someone who vocally proclaimed his membership in HYDRA, the butchers who are known for brutality and collateral damage, to make decisions about his future felt even less wise.

Yet here Pietro was, all the same.

He knew exactly how it had happened.

Family loyalty, pure and simple.

Wanda was his sister, his only remaining kin, the person who he valued above all others. She was convinced that this Baron’s offer was the best way for them to get their vengeance. Retribution against both the foreign invaders in general and one Anthony Edward Stark in particular.

The initial experience in von Strucker’s facility outside of Novi Grad hadn’t been too terrible.

The experimental treatment wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Pietro shuddered as he remembered the burn that he had felt every time the drug had been introduced into his veins. The way that it had made him feel like he was dissolving from the inside out.

It was the worst pain that I have ever felt in my life!

Despite the horrific pain, he and Wanda still had each other. Between that comfort and the promise that this suffering would lead them down a path to real, substantial revenge on their enemies, the vultures who had caused their parents’ death and their home’s destruction, the misery was endurable.

It also helped that he and Wanda were not the only ones suffering through the agonizing treatment. The city fortress where they were housed had been filled with others just like them. Volunteers seeking the power to bring about the change that this flawed world so desperately needed.

But as the number of residents remaining both alive and in the program dwindled while the drug regimen and corresponding tests grew increasingly brutal, Pietro had begun to lose any hope that they would survive their impulsive choice to accept von Strucker’s offer.

To make matters worse, over time Pietro’s sister began to slip further and further away from his side.

Of the two of them, Wanda had always been the more passionate, more driven twin. Whatever was in the drugs that they were being given, they had only accentuated those traits in her mind.

Pietro, on the other hand, had found his body and mind moving faster and faster. As they did so, the freshly Enhanced skills of observation he developed made Wanda’s obsessive focus on wrathful vengeance grow ever more apparent.

The corrosive red energy that Wanda had begun to exude furthered that impression. It would lash out in direct response to her emotions and follow her ever-changing mood with extreme violence.

Unsurprisingly, the Baron and his scientists were delighted with the tone of Wanda’s new powers. They encouraged Pietro’s sister to dig down further, to tap into those violent impulses at every turn, regardless of who might bear the brunt when they were released.

Pietro had watched, horrified, as the facility staff and the few other experiment volunteers who still survived did their best to keep away from his volatile sister. Every one of them would visibly flinch when she glanced in their direction.

Then things finally came to a head.

During the miserable recovery time that always followed a fresh injection, the Baron had come to speak to them about their choice of enemies. He told them of Stark’s mentor, a man named Obadiah Stane, the real mastermind behind the weapons deployed in Sokovia.

The Baron spoke of how Stane had allied himself with SHIELD, HYDRA’s cover, and unknowing enemy, to take advantage of the young Stark’s brilliance in creating weapons. He even revealed a truth unknown to the world at large, that Stane had arranged for Stark’s mysterious illness, or rather incarceration in a SHIELD prison, and then stolen the younger man’s birthright, his family’s company, right out from under him.

Through it all, Pietro and Wanda had remained relatively calm. After all, anything that caused their hated enemy, Stark, some suffering was only right.

It wasn’t until the Baron revealed one final ‘truth’ that Pietro’s volatile sister had blown up.

He explained that the strike which had killed their parents and destroyed their home hadn’t been a random misfire at all. Instead, it had been a deliberate act planned by SHIELD and carried out by the United States Army using part of Stane’s massive stockpile of Stark Industries’ weapons. Their goal was to cause maximum devastation in the city of Novi Grad, provoke outrage, and ensure that active negotiations for a cease-fire failed.

When Wanda erupted, her red power had blasted outward, leaving a wide swathe of destruction that stretched across the full breadth of the facility and beyond. To his later embarrassment, at the time Pietro had been right there with her, yelling and raging over the Baron’s tale of Stane’s villainy.

But as time passed and their hosts shifted Pietro and his sister from the facility where they had undergone the experimental treatment to this isolated fortress deep in the Carpathian mountains and far into the heart of Sokovia, Pietro had found himself with far too much time on his hands to think.

It was just too pat, his mind had realized, too perfect of a story that the Baron had told.

With the advantage of his Enhanced speed, he’d been able to sneak out of the base to make clandestine visits back to Novi Grad. There he’d been able to confirm that at least the public perspective that Obadiah Stane had re-claimed control over Stark Industries from his ‘ill’ protégé some years before was true. The media coverage of Stark’s kidnapping, escape, and subsequent mental breakdown was a perfect match to the Baron’s narrative.

As for the rest, well, he had his doubts.

During his investigation, he’d learned that HYDRA had once been embedded in SHIELD. Given the timing, it was equally possible that the strike which had killed his family had been their doing or even just a coincidence.

No, they were being used and manipulated by their HYDRA handlers.

—–

When Pietro had tried to talk to Wanda about his doubts, it felt like he was hitting a brick wall.

She refused to listen to his arguments.

The Baron had gotten his hooks into her, making her feel like a beloved child. He gave her the perfect new target for her explosive rage, and she was not about to let that certainty be taken away.

With that, Pietro had found himself stuck.

He loved his twin sister too much to leave her alone, here in this godforsaken place. Even if she wanted to leave, it wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go.

Like most of the residents who made up the staff of this facility, he was trapped in this decrepit shell of a stronghold. Here, all that he could do was wait for something to change.

—–

But if his intuition was correct, that change had finally come.

Glancing over at his companions; lowly grunts whose post was there in the guard tower, Pietro spoke.

“I’m going to do a quick lap, be back in a few.”

The well-bundled men nodded, the motion barely visible through their thick layers. Only one bothered to say anything.

“Get the blood pumping, da?” he said with a smile, even as he reached his hands towards the large brazier that acted as the room’s primary source of warmth.

“Don’t you know it,” Pietro said, offering his grin before dashing off.

With his talents, it took a matter of seconds to pass between guard stations. As he went, he stopped at each one, doing his best to make sure that those on duty there were both awake and doing well.

Every time that he stopped, Pietro greeted the watchers in the station by name. Then he took time to check in and verify that no one at the site was in severe distress due to the cold environment.

His actions were in direct contrast with Wanda and the Baron, who remained holed up in their warm and comfortable command station in the fortress’ central tower.

—–

Pietro had made a conscious choice on their arrival in this new facility. He was not going to let himself be isolated, not this time. Instead, he was going to embrace the residents of the place where he had found himself; be part of the community that was made up of the fortress’ inhabitants.

With that goal in mind, Pietro took the time to ingratiate himself with his coworkers. They were the men and women who served as both household staff and guards in this specific HYDRA facility.

He heard all about Margarethe’s grandchildren, the scandalous affair of Damon and Elena, and Oskar’s ongoing struggles with pains in his back.

Despite his only real responsibilities in this place consisting of two things; lab rat and unofficial bodyguard for the Baron, Pietro made a concerted effort to do more. He volunteered for shifts of guard duty, taking on the burden of the cold watches with pride.

To his bemusement, over the weeks and months of their stay, Pietro’s impulsive choice had borne abundant fruit.

As far as the fortress’ staff was concerned, Wanda was a monster, a Baba Yaga in all but form. Pietro, on the other hand, was their hero, Prince Ivan. They saw him as a good man held in service to the witch by bonds of duty and responsibility, chains that were far more powerful than any physical binding could ever manage to be. And as the hero, he had become the darling of the castle.

What this all meant was that when he asked the watchers at their stations to be diligent, to prepare themselves for the attack that he sensed was imminent, they listened.

—–

Sure enough, barely an hour after Pietro had made his rounds, his premonition was proven correct.

A call came in through the radio that he wore on his waist. One of the spotters watching to the west had caught sight of something. A glint, of metal and movement, one which should not be there.

Setting aside his bulky winter gear, for it would only slow him down, Pietro prepared himself for a run.

Ave Maria, be with us in this time of great danger, he thought, crossing himself. Those around him did the same.

“I will be back soon, with news,” he said to them, then dashed off.

Out the door, down the corridors, through the keep to the side door on the western gate, and out into the snow-covered ground beyond. With the speed of his movements, Pietro’s feet failed to make contact long enough to leave even the slightest of weight-based impressions on the frozen surfaces. Instead, the friction of his rapid progress melted the snow just enough to leave a barely visible but still icy trail across the snow-covered ground.

Soon he reached the edge of the forest and penetrated deep inside. Once there, it didn’t take long for him to confirm the spotters’ suspicion.

Enemies were approaching, large swathes moving steadily through the trees. It seemed that whoever was attacking had brought a small army with him.

Pietro knew that at least some of the enemy had spotted the flashes of his rapid movement. He also knew that there was no way that any mere human would be able to track him when he was on the move like this. So, he took the time to make a full sweep of the forest, pausing just long enough to verify what he found.

He observed that the hostiles came in three distinct flavors. There were those dressed in the garb of the United States military, men in standard camouflage emblazoned with small patches of red, white, and blue.

Then there were the ones in black. Their badges were marked with the eagle of SHIELD.

Pietro ground his teeth at that sight. Even though he had his doubts about their responsibility for his parents’ deaths, he still blamed them. At the very least, they should have recognized the viper which hid in their bellies before it was forced upon them.

Last, but most definitely not least, came the ones dressed in highly specialized garb.

The Captain of America himself, bearing his round shield, walked with the ordinary troops. So too did the massively armored figure of the Iron Soldier, whose heavy armament sunk deep into the snow with every step.

Two other men were there, in less familiar uniforms that took Pietro a few more moments to identify. Eventually, he figured out that they were the latest members of the so-called Avengers: the Ant-Man and the Falcon.

This should be fun, Pietro thought, with a mental bit of sarcasm.

Suddenly, a blast of energy flew past him. By how close it had gotten to his side, the Iron Soldier’s sensors were sensitive enough to register his speeding presence in nearly real-time. Either that or his most recent movements had been too predictable, making it possible for the soldier to predict his position with reasonable accuracy.

Time to head back, then; alert the troops.

In a flash, Pietro retraced his steps. Moments later, he made it back inside the fortress, returning to the station where he had left his gear.

“Prepare for an attack,” he said, picking up the handheld communicator that he had left behind during his run. “We have visitors with a grudge inbound.”

From there, he dashed over to the command center at the fortress’ heart. Once inside, he reported in, giving a full listing of the enemy to Wanda and the Baron.

“Good, good,” von Strucker said, rubbing his chin, “They have taken the bait. Now, my dear,” he turned to Wanda with a disturbing smile, “Prepare yourself. The first real step towards your vengeance is at hand.”

For her part, Pietro’s sister offered up a similarly horrifying smile. At the same time, wisps of red began to emanate from her hands.

“Quicksilver,” the Baron said, “Our shield will be up. But remember, we need at least one of those heroes to get within reach of your sister’s powers.”

“Understood,” Pietro said, suppressing his shudder.

He had no doubt that whatever those two planned would not be pleasant for their victim. But he had more important work to do. A fortress to defend; troops to lead.

He made it back out onto the western wall just in time to watch the first small missile make an impact against the fortress’ powerful force shield.

This force shield was one creation of HYDRA’s scientists that Pietro could unequivocally appreciate. He knew firsthand what kind of damage the armament that the Iron Soldier and others were firing could do, growing up in the battleground that was Sokovia in general and Novi Grad in particular. But with the fortress’ shield in place, the missile merely exploded when it hit the shimmering surface, turning it into debris that slid down the outside of the shield only to fall onto the ground below.

Since the shield was impenetrable to high-velocity impact in both directions, it also prevented Pietro’s comrades from returning fire against their attackers at will. Instead, the scientists had programmed the shield such that its intensity cycled up and down in a randomized period. Each of the defenders carried with them a hand-held electronic display, one which told them exactly when the shield intensity was about to be lowered enough for them to fire back.

Soon, the fight had developed into an interesting rhythm.

The attackers were firing continually in the hope of landing a hit at the right part of the cycle. Meanwhile, the defense was able to send out irregular volleys, each of which was able to pass through the decreased shield with ease.

And of course, with every defensive barrage came a reflexive surge in the attackers’ fire, not that it helped anything on that side as it hit after the shield had been restored.

Unlike the troops up on the walls, Pietro himself was the only defender to leave the safety of the shield and bring the fight out to the invaders.

Even then, he had to be very careful in his attacks. His Enhancement didn’t come with strength or healing, just an acceleration of his mind and body’s speed of operation relative to normal spacetime.

With that in mind, he had found that the best strategy was to rely on old-fashioned weapons. When in uniform, the colloquially named Quicksilver carried a set of long knives. As the speedster ran, these knives were swung rapidly, slashing out as he sped past his adversaries. The high velocity of his movements as translated to normal time, along with the powerfully honed edges on his blades, meant that the damage done with each cut could be deadly.

Pietro didn’t know how many of the attackers that he’d gutted with his blades would end up dead, but frankly, he couldn’t afford to care. They were the enemy and would do the same to him if they could.

It was some hours later, after a couple of near misses, including one where he had to dodge around the famous shield thrown by Captain America, that Pietro found himself in desperate need of a breather.

With his metabolism enhanced alongside the rest of his body, he burned through calories at a genuinely ridiculous rate. So, with a hint of reluctance, he stopped inside the fortress gate’s primary guard house just long enough to grab an, admittedly, rather large, bite of food.

The fortress cooks, who by now were aware of his body’s little quirks, had sent up a wide selection of dishes that were both easy to eat quickly and filled with a large helping of both protein and carbohydrates. Hot hand pies, filled with potatoes and roast beef, hearty soups kept warm in the thermoses and freshly baked loaves of crusty bread.

In between hasty bites, Pietro listened to the reports coming in from those stationed up on the walls. Most of the guards had experienced near misses, shots that had been blocked by the shield. Several stations did have casualties, men who had been hit when return fire managed to catch a low period in the shield cycle. Thankfully, the nature of the siege had given them time to evacuate their injured personnel down into the infirmary. That facility was located deep within the bowels of the fortress, where there was no possibility of weapons penetration.

Now, all that Pietro could do was hope that their luck would continue to hold long enough for the attackers to run out of ammo.

Pietro was about to swallow another mouthful of soup when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. A tiny but abnormal flash of color and movement down at the base of the fortress gate.

Pushing his vision into overdrive, he essentially told his brain to start taking snapshots at a heightened rate, capturing thousands of images in the same period which most people only captured one. Similarly, his mental processes began to fire at the same rate, needing the capacity to handle the increased input.

This was how Pietro’s Enhancement worked. It gave him the ability to shift his body into what amounted to another dimension, a space where time became a variable that he could tweak at will. Within this overdrive space, all his body’s functions still worked like normal, he simply experienced more ‘time’ than everyone out in normal space.

With his eyes and brain in this mode, he was able to figure out the abnormality in a period that lasted a fair time for him but which everyone else around him experienced in under a second. What he’d seen was the shrunken figure of one of the invaders; the red-suited figure that Pietro recognized as the Avenger known as the Ant-Man.

Well, he thought, that would make things easy.

All he had to do was let the Ant-Man pass through as if unobserved. Then he would inform Wanda and the Baron of his approach once the minuscule invader was out of earshot.

So, Pietro went back to his meal, all the while keeping his mind and body going just fast enough to track the movements of the red-suited man. The enemy followed the perimeter of the guard room, ran under the opening in the lintel, and out into the courtyard beyond.

“Incoming,” was all Pietro had to say when he passed the alert on to his waiting sister. With her powers, he knew that she would sense the foreign presence as soon as the man got close enough to the command center.

I wonder what it is that he came inside for, Pietro mused to himself as he went back to his meal, is it a standard scouting mission, some attempt to shut down the shield generator… Or maybe he is looking for something specific?

Then he shook himself, catching one last bite of soup on a bit of roll before pushing his empty dishes aside.

Back into the fray.

—–

Whatever the Ant-Man was seeking, it took about a half hour for him to find it. Or, at least, it took that long for him to fall into the effects of Wanda’s scarlet aura.

In the meantime, the enemy forces had increased the intensity of their barrages, sending in larger, more explosive blasts instead of limiting themselves to a host of bullets.

Pietro wasn’t sure what exactly they were trying to do, but if he had to guess he thought they might be hoping to cause an overload or drain power from the shield’s generator. Either that, or they were trying to make sure to catch any successes that their infiltrator might have in shutting down the shield.

It didn’t matter to him.

With what he’d been told by the local experts, Pietro knew that the fortress’ shield generator was more than capable of handling the current level of incoming blasts for days, even weeks at a time. And there was no way that Wanda would let any saboteur succeed in bringing the generator down from the inside.

Or so he had thought.

Pietro had just finished dropping fresh munitions and supplies off at the northernmost tower, checking on morale and making sure that everyone was still in good health, when his radio went off, broadcasting a series of anxious shouts.

A moment later, his eyes caught sight of the Ant-Man, running full-sized across the ground away from the main fortress gate. At the same time, his ears caught the sound of changes in the pitch of the force shield generator. It sounded like someone had managed to initiate a shield maintenance cycle. This cycle, once begun, was impossible to pause without completely shutting the generator down for several minutes. Not only that but during the maintenance cycle the force shield would drop down to a minimal level, enough to stop bullets but not much more.

Saints preserve us, Pietro thought as he once again made the sign of the cross over his face and torso. He caught the eyes of his comrades there in the tower, each of which made a similar gesture of prayer.

By then, another sound had begun to impinge upon Pietro’s senses. This one did not come from inside the fortress. Instead, he recognized it as something far more dangerous. That was the sound of a ballistic missile being launched.

Digging deep, Pietro shifted his mind and body as far out of normal time as he could manage. Taking a deep breath, he set his body into motion.

He knew that even with the advantage of his speed there was no way for him to bring the force shield back up in time to stop the missile before it slammed into the fortress grounds. No, all that he could do was to minimize the loss of life. He would try to get everyone under cover before the missile hit.

Starting with those there in the tower with him, he shifted each of the guardian staff down into the closest of the reinforced bunkers that were scattered throughout the fortress.

With each transition between duty stations, Pietro glanced out the nearest window, seeing the powerful missile moving ever closer to its target.

He took an instant to give thanks that the infirmary and kitchens were buried far enough underground that they should be safe from the worst of the blast. The guards who he’d moved first should have had enough time by now to warn the staff there to brace themselves for the upcoming impact.

As Pietro reached the final duty station, he glanced out and up once more.

By now, he could tell exactly where the missile was headed. It was going to slam into the central tower where the Baron and Wanda were stationed.

A breath caught in Pietro’s throat.

What now?

He maybe had enough time to get both out ahead of the missile, but even then, it would be close.

For a single, brief instant Pietro thought about leaving them there. But, in the end, he loved his sister too much to leave her behind. And he knew that if he left her mentor to die, she would never forgive him for that betrayal.

So, gathering up his rapidly dwindling strength, he raced up the stone steps that led into the tower.

Pietro slammed into the door at the top of the stairs hard, shoving it open with a bang.

Not that he was waiting for the outcome of his shove, of course. That would be a waste of time.

Instead, Pietro darted through the opening as soon as it was large enough for his body to fit.

There, on the other side of the room, he could see Wanda and the Baron standing in front of the large video screen.

Unlike the others who he had just brought to shelters, they appeared to be unconcerned by the impending attack that the screen so clearly displayed.

What are they doing? Do they not know what was going to happen when that missile hits? Pietro wondered for a moment.

But then his racing form was interrupted. And not merely interrupted, its direction was reversed quite abruptly. Pietro’s body had slammed with a hard impact against an invisible barrier, one which acted to repel him.

As he flew backward across the room, Pietro watched the streaks of red that carried the kinetic energy of his impact curve backward along a path around the figures inside the bubble of Wanda’s protection.

Oh, Pietro thought, that explains why they weren’t worried. I suppose that I should have expected Wanda to have things handled.

He slammed into the stone wall, hitting hard enough to knock him out of the concentration required to keep time from passing too quickly. In the last few seconds before the approaching missile hit the tower, he had just enough time to see Wanda register, and then dismiss, his presence, leaving him stranded and vulnerable outside of her shell of protection.

As his eyes began to tear up from the pain and betrayal, there was a roar of energy, a massive burst of light, and then everything went mercifully black.

—–

What an unconscious Pietro Maximoff failed to observe was that although his sister did not care about his safety it seemed that something else in his life did.

In those last instants, before the debris field created by the collision between the missile’s explosive energy and Wanda’s shield slammed into his body, an electric blue glow began to emanate from inside of him.

This blue glow shifted the injured speedster out of phase with the environment around him, allowing the pulverized chunks of stone, wood, and metal which would have otherwise obliterated him to pass through it harmlessly.

Phased and hidden inside the wash of blue, Pietro’s body was left undisturbed by those who would otherwise have found him.

First came Wanda and the Baron. They made a cursory search of the debris for any sign of his corpse before slipping away from the site, down through the tunnels that would let them escape the wreckage.

Then came several parties, each one made up of members of the invading forces. Most of these men likely had no idea that he even existed, let alone lay there suspended moments before his death. Instead, they searched the wreckage for any of the Baron’s records or technology that might have survived the blast.

Finally, once the invaders had left the still-smoldering ruins to return to their camps for the night, those of the survivors who had managed to elude capture made their pass through the grounds. While these men and women were not looking for Pietro specifically, they were hoping to find others who might have survived, those who still needed help.

Had the speedster been awake, he would have tried to draw the attention of these searchers. Unfortunately for Pietro, between the amount of energy that he had burnt moving his allies into shelters and the injuries that he had sustained from his collision with Wanda’s shield, he lacked the reserves to even begin to stir.

It wasn’t until well past midnight that someone new arrived. This group was able to see through the protection provided by the Space Stone. For, unknown to Pietro, it was the sentience that existed within that Stone that had instituted his current state. It was also this group who had the knowledge and power to extract his body, hovering as it was near the point of death, and extract him from the sideways dimension where he had been placed.

And as for that group. Well, they came from somewhere outside of the current conflict. They were an odd company. A Mystical company. A company led by one Anthony Edward Stark, Sorcerer.

Chapter 5: Minds of Power

“What does the pendant indicate? Are you sure that you have a clear reading? If so, are we getting close? Which direction are we headed next?”

The enthusiastic inquiries burst from Tony’s mouth at a rapid pace. One right after the other. Leaving no time for a response.

Even if he had, there was none to be heard.

Instead, Kaecilius just looked at him steadily, one eyebrow raised. Otherwise, the older man made no other attempt to quell the flood of questions bursting from his lover’s mouth.

Realizing what he had just done, Tony grew embarrassed. Involuntarily, his cheeks began to pink in a blush.

“Sorry,” he said. “But seriously. What do you see, O mighty hunter?”

While Kaecilius made a show of examining the pendant which he bore, Tony distracted himself by walking over to the edge of the overlook. It was there that the most recent portal jump following the tracking pendant had landed their party.

From the cliff’s edge, Tony could see down into the valley below. Given the remote location, deep in the Carpathian mountains of southeastern Europe, he had assumed that there would be few signs of civilization. But as he looked out into the pine forest and the clearing beyond, Tony was surprised to see that was not the case.

Instead, there was a pitched battle taking place right before his eyes.

Despite the smoke that hovered in the air, he was able to make out the walls of an ancient stone fortress. It was built against the mountainside on the opposite end of the valley. There, in the fortress, was where the defenders in this conflict were holed up. Directly below him, in the dense pine forest, he caught signs of a multitude of armed troops, and soldiers who were on the move.

There was the glint of metal off the streams of sunlight that managed to pass through the heavy canopy. There was the shivering of the treetops, irregular enough to be caused by more than just wind.

Shouts emerged from the forest, carried upwards by the gusts of wind which blew through, along with the crack of weapons fire.

But most of the fighting was not hidden within the trees.

Bursts of smoke and metal streamed in both directions, flying across the open ground between the forest’s edge and the front of the fortress. It was here where the battle took the most obvious turn toward the modern and beyond.

For that ancient structure had been upgraded with a defense that was both spectacular to see and technically advanced far beyond the norm. A massive shield, formed of energy, capable of blocking projectiles of all shapes and sizes.

Fascinating, Tony thought, his mind awhirl with the possibilities that the technology represented.

While his time in Wakanda, amongst other things, had introduced him to practical applications of energy shield technology; this version appeared to be a horse of a different sort from the Wakandan ones. For one, the structure lacked the element of illusion, of secrets and hidden things, that came with much of the African nation’s technology.

For another, there was the color of the dome. Unlike the Wakandan machinery, which glowed a brilliant yellow gold to the naked eye; a consequence of the use of refined Vibranium in their design, this one carried a very different shade. Instead, the fortress shield was threaded through with streaks of an iridescent pale blue.

There is something familiar about it, though, Tony mused as he focused his gaze in that direction. Now, where have I seen that color before…

From where he stood behind Tony, Kaecilius cleared his throat.

“If I may pull your attention back in my direction…” he said. “I have completed my examination of the latest readings from the tracker.”

Despite the original concept belonging to the brainstorming duo of Tony and Wong, they had been unable to make it work. It had taken Kaecilius, with his extracurricular study into the materials from Loki’s hoard, who had made the final breakthrough.

In concept, the idea was simple. The protective wards which covered the outside of the Space Stone’s enclosure, the cube known as the Tesseract, had been used for literal millennia to keep the Stone hidden from Mystical searchers. But that success also meant that the protections were most likely to be unchanged over that time. Since they had a multitude of very high-resolution photographs of the Tesseract, downloaded from the SHIELD records, they were able to read the subtle details of the runes that covered its surface.

Reading the Ward, they had hypothesized, would just be a matter of translating the runes. Only, it seemed that there was something more that was needed to manage the translation. A cryptographic key.

They tried a variety of standard keys, using patterns that were familiar to them. Nothing worked. It wasn’t until Kaecilius suggested looking beyond visible light and into the infrared, ultraviolet, and beyond that things finally began to clear. Turned out that the rune sequences read differently at those wavelengths. The key was found in the juxtaposition of these sequences.

With that puzzle solved, their path to the Space Stone’s location was clear. Or so they had assumed, anyways.

“Based on the latest readings, our trail leads to a spot approximately 50 km in that direction,” Kaecilius said. He waved towards where the fortress shield emitted a blue glow with each volley of projectiles that slammed into its side.

Wait, that is where I know that color, Tony realized, his mind racing as Kaecilius spoke, it’s the same shade of blue as the original Arc reactor, the one that dad made or the smaller one that I used in my chest before I got access to Wakandan Vibranium. But there’s something else that had that color…

As he dug through the recesses of his mind, trying to identify the elusive memory, Tony turned his attention back to the battle that was in process.

“Hey, baby J,” he said, “It looks like our destination is a happening place. Can you check through the military records for any recent movement in Sokovian territory?”

“No need, sir,” came JARVIS’ immediate response. “Had I known that your hunt would lead you to Sokovia, I would have already brought this to your attention. As it is, I can report the following:”

“SHIELD has been hard at work tracking down the whereabouts of several key figures which the hidden files in the data dump have identified as potential HYDRA leaders. One such individual, a man known as Baron Wilhelm von Strucker, was traced to the city of Novi Grad, Sokovia. US army intelligence, after putting boots on the ground, figured out that he had, through multiple shell companies, claimed ownership of the fortress. Not only that, but their records indicate there has been a significant uptick in the amount of traffic through that facility in the past few months…”

“…and, being the aggressive individuals that they are, SHIELD decided that the best approach was a frontal assault?” Tony said, finishing JARVIS’ response for him.

That’s it! The old footage that Dad had, the reels from the war, back when he served as Captain America’s technical support. The color of the energy field is the same as the color of the energy blasts that were shot from the special HYDRA weapons, the energy ones… and those weapons were inspired by the Tesseract, aka the Space Stone!

“Indeed,” JARVIS said, continuing his explanation, unknowing of Tony’s realization. “It seems that the Baron is rumored to have claimed possession of the scepter which the alien woman, Nebula, used to gain mind-controlled allies before the attack on New York. Naturally, both SHIELD and the good Captain were VERY vocal about the idea that such a powerful weapon was in the hands of HYDRA.”

“The scepter, huh,” Tony said, this time doing his musing out loud, “Hey Kae, what was it that you said about that thing? Something about it possibly being a part of our hunt?”

Kaecilius looked over at Tony, giving him a gentle smile as he spoke.

“Quite,” he said. “I suspect that, like the Tesseract, the scepter may also contain an Infinity Stone. If so, I suspect that it would be the Mind Gem. Rumors have come in through the Order’s extra-terrestrial contacts. They suggest that the being who is Nebula’s master, the Mad Titan Thanos, is known to be on the hunt for all the Infinity Stones. Then, when he does find the Stones, he is reputed to use them to further his quest for universal dominance. Thus, it would not be inconceivable for the scepter to contain a Stone. Still, if that is the case, one would wonder why he has not yet made any attempt to reclaim his property.”

“Well, given what happened in the Big Apple, I’m glad that he has not managed a repeat performance,” Tony said wryly. “But that is a matter for future business. Leave to tomorrow and all that. We have too much else to worry about right now.”

“I suppose so,” Kaecilius said, signaling his agreement. “Regardless, I do not doubt that if the Mind Stone was in Thanos’ possession at some point it is unlikely that our tracker would be able to locate its energy. This is especially true as our decryption key was linked to Tesseract’s Ward scheme instead of being a general application.”

“So, what you’re saying, is that even if this von Strucker individual does have the Mind Stone, it is not what you’re picking up with the tracker,” Tony said. “But if he did have one such powerful artifact in his possession…”

“Then it is likely that he would also hold the other,” Kaecilius said, finishing Tony’s statement for him.

As they watched, several aerial figures, as well as many American off-road vehicles, came forward and launched concussive blasts into the side of the fortress’ impressive force shield. The fliers were Tony’s old best friend, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, garbed as the Iron Soldier, and his more recent acquaintance, Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson, garbed as the Falcon.

Despite his hatred of Stane, Tony had to admit that the work that SI had done with their gear was impressive. They had managed to both maintain and update the designs that Tony himself had created for both the EXO wings and the armored suit.

I still could have done better, though, he thought to himself, before brushing the thought off as irrelevant. Perhaps in another life that would have been the case. Not now.

“Quite,” Kaecilius said, agreeing with his lover’s earlier observation. “The readings from the tracker indicate that the Space Stone’s energy, is down there, utilized as part of the force shield. We may be picking up those energy traces, not the Stone itself. Not only that, but given the fundamental nature of the Space Stone, I would hypothesize that the shield may block Mystical energy sources, as well as mundane ones. If that is the case, we may be able to brute force our way through. But if so, it would not be a subtle action.”

“And that is the last thing that we want,” Tony said. “No, we’ll wait it out. Hopefully, regardless of whoever wins this fight, at the end of the day, the shield will be down.”

—–

Settling in for the long haul, Tony, Kaecilius, and the rest of their party made themselves comfortable as best that they could in the wilderness. With judicious use of their skills in the Mystic Arts, they were able to carve out relatively comfortable seats in the rocks of the shallow cavern on the cliff side. From these seats, they had a clear perspective on the full extent of the valley. Not only that but with Mage Sight active, their ability to observe was enhanced exponentially.

Mage Sight, channeled correctly, could act like a pair of expensive binoculars, allowing their vision to zoom in and out. Not only that, but the Sight allowed them to look through solid materials to gain sight of things that would otherwise be hidden from view. From the expanse of the trees to the cleared ground, and up to the outer battlements of the fortress, every inch was exposed to the Sight.

In Tony’s Mage Sight, the force shield carried a continuous bright wash of energy, one which kept the fortress interior and those within its perimeter hidden from view. Still, he was able to locate several sources of Mystical energy that were flitting about down in the accessible arena.

The first thing that he noticed were the streaks of silver, edged in blue, which lay in constantly changing paths that crisscrossed all over the valley.

Those look a bit like the com trails left by jets when they go screaming across a cloudless sky, Tony thought, a bit absently.

Each of the tracks that he could see started and ended at the castle gate. This indicated that they were likely produced by one of the defenders.

New streaks appeared in seconds, each one crossing the valley before Tony could do much more than blink once. The rate at which these trails appeared indicated that their owner possessed Enhanced motion capabilities. Not only that, but the yells and screams that he could faintly hear following in the wake of those trails told Tony that the speedster, whoever they were, was armed.

Far less agile than the speedster, but no less brilliant in intensity, shone another Mystical signature. This one glowed in three colors. The primary was a shade that Tony dubbed Tesseract blue. While secondaries shot through its heart in a brilliant shade of white as well as a deep crimson hue, a color close to that of fresh blood.

I bet that is the good Captain, Tony thought, keeping a scoff behind his teeth. Of course, dear old Dad’s beloved hero would shine in the colors of the American flag.

While he had not yet met the man-out-of-time in person, Tony was not impressed with what his research had found. To be fair to the other man, he would always have faced an upwards battle in any attempt to make a good impression on the son of Howard Stark. Tony had borne the brunt of far too many of his father’s comparisons before the older man’s death for the name to engender any positive feelings.

But the reports that Tony had read since his escape from SHIELD captivity had not done anything to negate that first poor impression.

It had nothing to do with Rogers’ physical capabilities. No. As far as Tony could tell, his father’s old war stories had been accurate on that front.

Rather, it was the reports on the ‘hero’s intelligence and leadership potential that was the issue.

In reading between the lines of those reports, it was clear that all his superiors, whether SHIELD, HYDRA or even the US Military, were less than impressed with Rogers as a leader. Instead, every single one referred to the man as a figurehead, a glorified attack dog who could not be allowed to make strategic decisions.

The various mission reports for the so-called Avengers Initiative painted a rather ugly picture. Rogers was a weapon, one that had to be carefully aimed to be useful. Even then, his stubbornness and insistence that he was always in the right had endangered critical missions and caused large amounts of collateral damage. The Avengers were viewed as a last line of defense, a team that was only brought into play when things had grown too unmanageable for other, less volatile teams to take on their own.

Quite frankly, at first, Tony had been surprised that Fury and the others bothered to keep the good Captain in their arsenal. But then, it didn’t take long before he realized that the power of positive publicity was an impressive lure.

Rogers’ optics when it came to the public were impeccable. A martyred hero of the last century. A superhuman man who had returned to life just in time to defend the world against alien invaders. The tale was almost Arthurian in its grandeur.

But, Tony thought, the fate of King Arthur could also be considered a cautionary tale.

Arthur’s hubris and pride had been the ultimate cause of his fall. From what Tony had read it looked like Rogers was barreling towards the same fate.

If Tony could play his cards right, then Captain America’s inevitable fall could be parlayed into a master stroke in Tony’s schemes against Stane and the others.

Now, looking down at the battle, Tony had to admit that the good Captain’s Mystical signature did leave him with new questions.

I assume that the intense Tesseract blue comes from the fact that the Space Stone was used in the development of the serum that made the man a super soldier. But what are the sources of the secondary colors in the Captain’s signature? Perhaps the Vita Rays that Howard developed, or maybe something internal to the man himself?

Either way, the distinctive signature did make Captain America easy to follow as he moved through the overhead cover of the forest canopy. He was always in motion, running back and forth along the line of the trees nearest the fortress.

As Tony watched, he seemed to be probing the strength of the fortress shield with a hail of bullets, just like the rest of the troops. But unlike the ordinary soldiers, he also punctuated his shots with glancing blows of his iconic shield. Watching the ricochet of that Vibranium disc, Tony could see its edge penetrate further in than any of the more mundane weapons around it, dragging the force field inward for a moment before the energy grew concentrated enough to reverse the shield’s momentum and throw it back towards the intrepid Captain. On its return trip, the shield’s owner would catch it with ease, using it to deflect the bursts of bullets that had been aimed in his direction for a while before he geared up for another throw.

In comparison to the powerful glow of the force field and the bright signatures of the speedster and reborn war hero, the remainder of the fighters out in the valley lacked any sort of Mystical glow. The flights of the Falcon and the Iron Soldier, as impressive as they were to watch with mundane means, disappeared against the background glow of the force field behind them in the Sight.

After a while, however, Tony did spot signs of another Mystical fighter out on the battlefield.

Brief flares of bronze light appeared out in the valley, each one sparking out at irregular intervals. On a couple of occasions, Tony spotted a sudden outpouring of such flares, similar but not identical, which emerged in rapid succession. Then there would be long stretches when no sparks occurred. In between these two extremes came a sporadic pattern of short or solitary bursts.

As far as Tony could tell, each one of the flares had its distinct intensity and duration. No two were exactly alike.

It wasn’t until an especially bright bronze spark flared near the forest edge, immediately followed by a trail of dimmer traces, that his clever mind finally sorted out what was happening.

Each flare was the activation of some sort of Mystical artifact. An artifact whose effect was highly variable and could be triggered at the will of its holder.

When the latest bronze trail followed a path that ran very low to the ground, unaccompanied by any presence visible to his normal vision; Tony was able to nail down its source.

The apparently Mystical artefact was the suit of the protégé of Howard’s old frenemy Hank Pym. From Tony’s research, he knew that the bearer of that suit was the individual known to the public as the Ant-Man, Scott Lang.

Tony vaguely recalled devouring the published material on the so-called Pym particles back when he was still in grad school. At the time it had been a fascinating read, especially given the involvement of someone who was at odds with Tony’s father. Of course, given that antipathy, there was no way that any Stark would be granted access to Pym’s proprietary technology.

So, Tony had simply filed it away in the back of his mind, along with a multitude of other pieces of fascinating but inaccessible research. Now, given what he had learned and witnessed in the intervening years, Tony couldn’t help but wonder about Pym’s breakthrough.

Did Hank have some skills in the Mystic Arts? Or maybe some other form of Mystical resource to help him develop his breakthrough technology? Or perhaps the Pym particles carried Mystical properties unrelated to their mundane ones? Who knew?

At any rate, it wasn’t long before the signature of the Pym particles carried by Lang penetrated the shield barrier and infiltrated the fortress.

With this latest turn of events, Tony was certain that the battle below was about to come to a crescendo.

Either Lang would succeed in his infiltration, presumably an attempt to bring down the force field, or he would be caught by the defenders and be used to force the attackers to fall back. Regardless of the outcome, Tony was certain that it would be exciting.

—–

Sure enough, it took less than a half hour before matters down in the valley took a significant turn.

A massive flare of rusty red power, its color reminiscent of old blood, shot off for a few seconds before disappearing. The strength of the Mystical blast was enough to overpower the overwhelming blue of the fortress shield that would have otherwise hidden it from view. For those few seconds, it was bright enough to overwhelm everything else within view of Tony’s Mage Sight.

A few minutes later, Tony’s sharp eyes spotted the dimmer bronze flashes of the Ant-Man emerging from the fortress’s gate. The hero was evidently on his way back to his comrades. As Lang moved across the ground, Tony noticed that the flashes of bronze showed signs of Mystical corruption. The bronze was threaded through with an undertone of sickly puce similar in tone to the earlier flare.

With the color change, the Ant-Man’s signature now appeared as a faded bruise instead of the precious metal that it had previously mimicked.

But before Tony could comment on his observation, the previously impenetrable blue of the fortress shield began to flicker, showing signs of weakening strength before disappearing entirely.

As the sound of an incoming missile became audible to the observant ear, Tony could now see past the point where before the force field had blocked his Mage Sight.

There, inside the fortress, he could see the flickering com-trails of silver-blue that had previously flashed around the valley. Now, they shone even more brightly as they flashed through the facility, forming crisscrossing lines that grew ever more numerous until they formed a semi-solid blur, fog-like in appearance. It covered the entire area inside of the fortress’ outer walls.

Down in the forest, the general movement of the attackers had reversed. All the fighters, including the various Avengers, were withdrawing from the immediate area of the besieged structure. Tony did not doubt that this retreat was intended to protect them from falling victim to the upcoming impact.

Meanwhile, without the blue of the force shield that had previously hidden it from his Mage Sight, Tony could see another, smaller, expanse of Mystical energy at the fortress’ heart. This energy’s color was the same rusty red that had flared moments before. Its extent was no more than a dozen feet in diameter. Unlike the force shield, the rusty red energy dome was not visible to the naked eye. Instead, it was formed purely out of Mystical energy, covering an area that sat near the top of one of the central towers.

As Tony’s mind processed what his eyes and Sight had seen, three events occurred, one following the other, in rapid succession.

First, the com-trail of silver blue turned away from its passage back and forth along the fortress walls and moved towards the tower which held the Mystical shield.

Second, the missile that they had been hearing burst through the cloud cover, heading straight for the same location.

Third, and finally, the previously static red magic burst outwards, actively repulsing anything which approached its boundary away from the protected area inside.

Triggered by its impact with the Mystical energy, the incoming missile exploded in an ear-shattering blast, sending out a shockwave of smoke and high-velocity debris.

In that instant, the tracker which Kaecilius carried flared. At the same time, a new Mystical structure appeared, this one shimmering like a mirage in Tony’s Sight. The structure formed around the source of the signature of silver and blue. Whoever possessed that rapidly moving signature had been blasted backward by the red blast, by the same wave that had triggered the missile’s explosion, before being caught up in this glistening growth.

For a few minutes, the powerful concussive force of the missile’s explosion overwhelmed all mundane sound and vision, rendering the entire bowl of the valley below impassible to Tony’s ordinary senses. But all too soon the smoke began to clear, revealing the full extent of the devastation below.

Where once a massive stone structure had stood, now all that could be seen was a field of rubble. Not only that, but Tony could see massive breaks in the surrounding forest, places where the debris had been launched outwards, taking out everything in its path before slamming into the hillside beyond. The impact of the detritus, which had been felt even as far up as the overlook where they stood, had been a truly massive kinetic event.

Given the situation, Tony was not surprised to see that it didn’t take long for the first of the attackers to return to the battlefield. Soon he spotted clear signs of purposeful movement through the devastated forest. Not only that, but the Iron Soldier and the Falcon had taken back to the skies. Together with the ground troops below, they had regrouped from their retreat.

Now, they were advancing toward the destroyed structure that they had previously been unable to infiltrate. The ground troops picked their way through the wreckage at a slow but steady pace, while the fliers kept watch overhead.

The rusty red magic which had blasted outwards to trigger the missile fully dissipated, leaving its owner visible in Tony’s Mage Sight. From the strength of the signature, he could tell that HYDRA’s sorcerer, whoever they were, had survived the attack. But it was also clear that they had no intention of continuing to fight, to hold their position.

Instead, when they began to move, they headed in a direction that was directly opposite to the approaching hostiles. As Tony watched the sorcerer’s signature fade into the depths of the mountain, he bet that they were using an escape route that had somehow avoided destruction from the concussive blast. By the time the invaders reached the outskirts of the destroyed fortress, Tony could no longer make out any sign of the retreating mage. That individual had vanished from his view, leaving the ‘victors’ unopposed.

From the way that they advanced; it seemed that the American troops also thought they were fully in the clear.

Tony and his companions sat in the dying light of the afternoon and watched as the invaders performed a perfunctory examination of the destroyed fortress’ upper levels. The only place that got any substantial attention was the area where, presumably, the Ant-Man had found and sabotaged the force shield. There, Tony and his companions could see both Captain America and the Ant-Man’s signature among the group who were actively moving debris, carrying it out and away from the devastation.

Up in the air, the Falcon and the Iron Soldier flew patterns, following paths that were designed to spot any sign of movement. As they did not deviate from the obvious grid, it appeared that all that their mundane sight found was the shifting debris of the still collapsing wreckage. As the sun began to set, the attackers once again withdrew from the site, leaving the still-settling ruins behind.

“I bet that they’re going to do a more thorough search later,” Tony said, making an idle comment as he looked down at the devastation below. “Once the dust and debris have a bit more time to settle. They must believe that there are no survivors to be found.”

“Most likely,” Kaecilius said, “Though I have my doubts about that assumption. Besides the sorcerer that we already watched slip away, I know enough about the construction of these types of old battlements to know that some of the others inside may very well have survived its impact. Especially anyone who managed to make it down into the lower levels underground before the blast hit.”

“Back when these fortresses were originally constructed, it would have been a common practice to dig a multitude of caverns into the stone below both during and after the actual construction. Not only would the removed material have been used to construct the walls and towers of the heights, but even in those times the importance of both storage and alternate escape routes would have been emphasized. Even with the advances in the technology of war, that missile did explode before its impact with the actual mountain, which would cause more surface damage than anything else.”

“Interesting. Do you think that was what our speedster was doing right before the missile hit,” Tony said, “Getting his people down into those safer positions?”

“It is certainly possible,” Kaecilius said. “If they’re smart, those in the depths who have survived have already begun the process of extracting themselves from the situation. If possible, they would make use of any of the remaining tunnels and their enemies’ laziness in searching the ruins to their advantage.”

“I agree. Given that we can still see the Space Stone’s signature, I think we should wait and give them that chance to evacuate without disruption.”

In the end, Tony and his companions waited until well past sunset before taking a portal down to the valley floor.

To avoid being spotted by any watchers who might be looking down from the ridge where the American camp had been set up, a member of their group had called up a heavy fog, filling up the space where they would need to walk to reach their target. With this defense in place, any light or movement that they might create would be hidden from view.

Then, with the whirl of a sling ring, a golden portal was opened at the rear of the cavern where they had spent the day at the watch. On the other side of the opening, Tony could see the spot where the wavy, shimmering structure of Tesseract blue that had formed during the explosion stood. It was this structure, as much as the active tracking pendant, that they followed as they made their way through the portal and then across an expanse of rubble. As they walked, the more militant members of Kaecilius’ team remained on guard, ready to defend against any lurking hostiles.

Before long, Tony and the others found their way ahead blocked by a massive pile of debris.

Is the Space Stone somewhere on the other side of this rubble, Tony thought, or is it buried in it? That could explain why our mysterious sorcerer didn’t try to take it with them when they escaped earlier. If the debris was too heavy for them to shift, at least before they were overthrown anyways.

As he looked around, trying to figure out the best way forward, Tony found himself forcing back a sneeze. Despite the dampness that came with the fog that his companion had raised before they came down, there was still far too much dust in the air from all the debris. From somewhere beyond the limited light that they had raised came the sound of stones falling.

“What was that?” Tony said, his voice kept deliberately low to avoid the sound carrying. “Is there someone out there?”

“Just the debris,” Kae said in reply, his tone pitched at a similar level. “It is still settling, unsurprisingly given the power thrown about during the fight. With this kind of devastation, it will take some time before everything is fully settled and stationary.”

Looking around, Tony realized that his lover was right. Despite knowing better, especially given his years as a weapons developer, he had forgotten how much devastation a single missile could cause. It was a sobering reminder of his experiences with the Middle East in general and the Ten Rings in particular. This was part of the reason that he’d landed in SHIELD captivity, the fact that he’d been unwilling to allow this kind of destruction to be laid at his feet as the designer of military armament.

“Look at this place,” he said to Kaecilius as they moved in closer to the rubble, “No wonder HYDRA managed to gain a foothold here if this is SHIELD and the military’s normal behavior in a country that is not an actual enemy.”

“Indeed,” Kaecilius said, his accent bringing the Eastern European part of his heritage to the fore, “But that is the nature of such organizations. It has been that way for centuries, since before even the years of my childhood.”

“It still seems unfair,” Tony said.

“Yes,” said one of their companions, his own Eastern European accent evident, “But such things are the burden of my people and the others who make this region our home.”

One of Kaecilius’ many students in the Order, this sorcerer was from one of Sokovia’s nearest neighbors. He had been the one regaling the group with tales of the history of Sokovia in general and this fortress earlier in the day. It had been while they were watching the battle and waiting for their opportunity to move in and snatch the Space Stone.

“You have my deepest sympathies, and my apologies on behalf of my birth nation,” Tony said to him as they began work in teams to shift the massive chunks of stone that blocked their path forward. It was fortunate that they could make full use of their Mystical strength in that effort, moving barriers that would have otherwise required the use of heavy machinery to clear.

Raising his arms, Tony’s companion shifted a large section of stone wall up and out of their way. He shrugged as he did so, replying to Tony’s words with the absent gesture.

“It is an unfortunate part of our heritage, my friend. Sitting here at the crossroads has made this area a natural fighting ground for centuries. People like SHIELD are just the latest in a very long list of abusers.”

“Still,” Tony said, even as he knelt to get better leverage on his own massive set of stones. “The fact that it has happened before doesn’t make it right to continue the violence.”

Eventually, they managed to clear enough debris to reach the edge of the structure that shimmered in Tony’s Mage Sight.

“Interesting,” Tony said, taking a step towards it. Whatever the structure was, its purpose was not to block the debris that had fallen. Chunks of the exposed stone were being bisected by the structure, with the segments that fell inside taking on a hazy quality. It was almost as if they weren’t there, appearing more like the haze of a mirage than actual physical objects.

And it wasn’t just the debris that was already there that grew hazy. Anything new introduced to the field took on the same quality. From a fresh chunk of stone tossed across the barrier; to a long piece of wood, every object which crossed the boundary went hazy inside.

Interestingly, anything that crossed the boundary in the other direction went back to normal as soon as it was outside of the structure’s range of interference. The chunks of stone that they pulled out of the area looked the same as any other debris.

What if?

Reaching inside of himself, Tony mentally turned off the ‘switch’ that activated his Mage Sight. Then he looked up. As he had expected, without his Mage Sight active, the debris pile where he knew the haze was located looked no different from the other piles that stood around it.

He stepped forward.

“What are you doing?” Kaecilius said more than asked. “You weren’t about to cross a strange, powerful, Mystical barrier yourself, were you?”

“Um…” Tony said, scrambling not to admit that he was about to do just that.

“My impetuous love,” Kae said, smiling at him. “What were you thinking?”

“Did you ever think that maybe our Sight might be a hindrance?” he said in reply. “We know that there is a Mystical barrier there, but without it, well, there’s nothing special about this debris.” He waved towards where he knew the haze lay. “Since that’s the case, what do you want to bet that it is not harmful to the average person?”

Kaecilius blinked.

“And you thought that you were the right person to test this theory?” he said.

“Well, yeah.”

“What were you going to do, walk right into it?”

“Yeah…”

“Does that not seem a bit precipitous?”

Before Tony could answer, one of their companions stepped forward. Reaching out, he placed what Tony had to guess with his Mage Sight disengaged was a single finger across the structure’s boundary, before pulling it back.

“Well,” Tony asked, “What did you feel?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh.”

Pushing past Kaecilius, Tony stepped up to where he knew that he had to be fully inside of the sphere, and then back. Besides a chill across the back of his neck, he had felt no consequences for his actions.

Other than, it seemed, the anger of his lover.

“Tony,” Kaecilius said again, this time with a growl.

“Come on, magic man, no harm, no… foul?”

Kaecilius’ only response was another growl, as Tony was pushed away from the site of the mystery.

“Fine, fine,” Tony said. Reaching back inside of himself, he turned his Sight back on just in time to watch as two of their company stepped forward and into the structure.

In the Sight, their forms grew hazy and washed out, appearing more like ghosts than real people.

“Shit,” Tony said, “Was that what I looked like?”

He watched as those inside began to push more of the debris out of the structure’s confines.

Kaecilius nodded, his eyes focused on the view before them. He was having flashbacks, Tony realized, to the loss of his family.

Reaching over, Tony took hold of Kaecilius’ hand.

“I’m here, my strong heart,” he said, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

He hadn’t realized how much his actions would affect his lover. It was a sobering reminder that even though he had once lost what felt like everything and everyone important in his life, that was no longer the case. Now, once again, he had people in his life who would care if he were to fall.

But soon, Tony was distracted from depressing thoughts, by his curiosity. If the structure before him wasn’t a shield or a barrier, then what was the purpose of it?

As debris continued to be removed from the area inside, the boundary of the haze began to move, shifting inward towards the still-hidden center. That trend continued until the area of the haze was roughly two meters, or six feet, around.

Now, all that stood between them and the center of the haze, the point where the tracker indicated that Space Stone stood, was a single, massive, slab of stone.

“Ready?” someone called.

Tony took a deep breath.

“Go ahead,” both he and Kaecilius said, speaking at the same time.

It took the efforts of multiple people to shift this slab out of the way. And as it went, the Space Stone’s structure finally revealed its purpose.

There, exposed by the slab’s removal, was the cuboid form of the Tesseract, floating at the heart of the Mystical structure.

But it wasn’t the artifact that had Tony and the others all gasping at once. No, that was caused by the human body that hovered underneath it. Unlike the others, who had looked hazy and ghost-like inside of the Space Stone’s structure when viewed with the Sight, this man looked to be the opposite. It was like the structure made him more than real, somehow. And, based on the silver that was threaded through his Mystical signature, Tony thought that this was most likely the speedster from earlier.

“I think,” one of the other sorcerers said, his tone hesitant, “I think… somehow… the Space Stone has created a miniature Mirror Dimension; a pocket universe of some kind, one which is out of phase with our universe. And… I think that it must have been to protect HIM.”

Now that is an interesting idea, Tony thought.

“What makes you say that?” Kaecilius said. He had asked the question before Tony could do so.

“Well,” their companion said, “The fact that he’s only visible to Mage Sight, for one.”

Tony blinked.

He disengaged his Sight and looked again.

Sure enough, without his Sight engaged, the man disappeared.

“Then there’s the fact that he’s injured, and quite severely at that, but no blood falls from his wounds,” another sorcerer said, offering his observation.

The most militant of their group spoke.

This was the man who had been acting as a scout earlier and then had been the first to risk himself on the original boundary of the Space Stone’s field a few minutes before.

“Finally, there is the fact that one cannot touch him, at least not with one’s physical hands,” this man said, as he made an obvious attempt to reach over and touch the speedster. As he did so, his hand appeared to stop when it was about six inches from the man’s side, and as he pushed forward, his whole arm appeared to separate from his body at the point where it had been stopped, before emerging on the opposite side of the protected space. When he stepped back and withdrew his hand, it instantly returned to normal.

“Well,” Tony said, breathless. Now that IS cool.

It took a bit of finagling, but eventually, they managed to figure out a way to shift the floating Tesseract. Curiously, it seemed that the Space Stone had tied itself to the structure and the man that it protected. As the Tesseract moved, so too did the man.

“I guess that we’ve got a new friend,” Tony said, appreciating the irony of the situation. They had come searching for an object and had ended up with yet another lost soul. But was it someone that they could help, or had they found themselves stuck with a corpse?

“Is he dead?” one of their companions said.

Tony was glad that he wasn’t the one to ask the question.

“We cannot be certain,” Kaecilius replied. “Regardless, I think we all know what to do next.”

“Take him home.”

—–

As far as they were far to the east for Europe, it made more sense to continue heading in that direction instead of backtracking across the continent and from there across the Atlantic. Besides, it was unclear how the Space Stone and its accessory would handle that many chained portals.

So instead, they took a single jump, going just far enough to reach the nearest civilian airport, outside Novi Grad. Once there, it took a single phone call for the Order to arrange for one of their planes to pick up Tony, his companions, and their unusual addition.

To Tony’s initial surprise, the Ancient One themself was one of the plane’s passengers. They were standing near the front of the cabin, waiting to greet the new arrivals as they stepped onboard.

“Wha-?”

He hadn’t thought that the head of the Order ever left Kamar Taj, let alone made field trips. Yet here they were.

Unlike Tony, Kaecilius looked to be far less surprised by his mentor’s presence. Instead, he waved them over to the mysterious stranger and his hovering Tesseract without a single word.

After a moment of watching them work, Tony shrugged. He knew that the Ancient One was skilled in both investigations of unusual phenomena and healing, so it did make sense that they would be interested in their stranger.

“He does yet live,” they eventually said. “The Tesseract has enclosed our injured stranger in a form of stasis, held on the border between life and death. With its help, I believe that I will be able to save him. But it will take some time.”

Tony found that he did not see that as a surprise.

Whether it was the Space Stone itself or someone with considerable skill in wielding its power, whatever had acted on the man’s behalf had been quite clever in their efforts. Anyone who wanted to claim the Space Stone would also have to take possession of the man under its protection. And someone willing to expend the Mystical effort required to separate them would also be more likely to possess the complex skills to save him.

“Well then, we shall leave things in your capable hands,” he said. “I would appreciate it if you could keep us informed of how matters progress.”

Tony was curious about the stranger and interested in getting his hands on the Tesseract. But, at least for now, he had other, more pressing matters to worry about. If the Space Stone was out of the hands of his adversaries, he was satisfied. His revenge could proceed as planned.

—–

“How’s it going, XANDER?”

“Well, Sir, the simulation success rate is at 70% and rising, so that is of the good,” was said in response.

Alexander, or XANDER for short, was the name that Tony’s latest foray into the artificial intelligence game bore. Unlike JARVIS or the bots, XANDER was not entirely the brainchild of the quirky genius. Instead, his existence was the result of an unknowing team’s effort.

The project that led to the birth of Alexander had been initiated by a team of scientists and engineers in SI’s R&D division following Stane’s takeover. This SI team had access to the base kernel and code infrastructure that Tony himself had developed when he first built DUM-E as a teenager. It was the same infrastructure that had been used as the starting point for JARVIS’ base code. Originally patented by Tony under the auspices of Stark Industries, it had been maintained by the company for use in a wide variety of applications in the decades since then.

As such, it was readily available on the primary SI servers even after Stane had mothballed Tony’s personal systems. While the others had started with Tony’s genius design as a base, their work had diverged from there. Instead of trying to achieve complete sentience, Tony’s primary ambition in designing JARVIS, they were focused on the optimization of the learning algorithms for a clearly defined subset of skill areas.

Project Alexander, named for Alexander the Great, was to be an assistant for a military asset. Specifically, they were tasked with creating an artificial co-pilot for soldiers who bore SI’s complex armored suits, men and women like the Iron Soldier and the Falcon. As such, the project’s team members had successfully designed robust applications for everything from responsive movement and flight control, to target shooting and weapons fire. But where they had failed was in the integration of these applications. While the AI could perform individual tasks quite well when they were triggered, automating those triggers in real-time with the system’s onboard memory had proven to be an impossible hurdle to overcome.

As a result, SI pushed Project Alexander to the back burner, reassigning most of the design assets and letting the embryonic AI stagnate in the depths of SI’s primary servers. With the hooks that first JARVIS, and then later Tony himself, had secured in the SI servers, it was easy for them to gain access to all the company’s digital data. This just so happened to include the slowly incubating AI.

Despite his determination to take SI down, Tony found that he could not resist the temptation to tinker with the mothballed project. With JARVIS’ help, he had set out to give the project, which he had renamed XANDER or “eXtraordinary Applications in Navigation and Destruction Enabled with Rationality”, new life. All that he had to do was to give XANDER a mind of his own.

It was a task that Tony had embraced with joy. As much as he enjoyed his studies in the Mystic Arts, engineering would always be his first love. And the chance to bring a new intelligence to full sapience, well that was the greatest form of inspiration.

As he dug into XANDER’s code, Tony found many places where a few minor tweaks were all that were required to optimize the design. Still others, however, were little more than frameworks. Project Alexander was not intended to create a complete being, and it showed. So, with a bit of help from an enthusiastic JARVIS, Tony filled in the gaps. When it came to XANDER’s personality, Tony couldn’t keep from tapping into the AI’s true namesake. His favorite member of the Scooby Gang, the Zeppo himself, Alexander Lavelle Harris.

He even went to the trouble of uploading the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer onto the SI server, working with the new sentience to collate a complete language kernel out of the character’s dialog. When he wasn’t playing ‘Soldier Boy’, XANDER embraced the casual, Southern California slang of the fictional teenage goofball.

“It sounds like integration of the new algorithms is right on track, then,” Tony said.

“What you said, magic man,” XANDER said, the tone of his voice smug. “Those Avenger types won’t know how to handle my awesomeness.”

“Really, XANDER, magic man?”

“I call it like I see it, Uncle Tony.”

“Ugh, fine,” Tony replied, amused. He supposed that he deserved that, given his penchant for using the same phrase to describe his lover. Sauce for the goose, and all that.

“How are things going with your other project?”

Once XANDER had gained a fair measure of sentience, Tony had tasked the budding AI with a mission. He had asked the intelligence that was not quite the son that JARVIS had become, more like a close nephew than anything else, to help him take over SI from the inside.

“Not too shabby,” the AI said. “I’ve got most of R&D convinced that my ‘miraculous’ jump in evolution was because I got into your private servers. They assumed that meant that my unique being has full access to absolute reams of intellectual property that you left behind, a treasure that Stane has been hoarding instead of sharing with them. A, shall we call it, not entirely incorrect claim, as it so happens…”

Tony laughed.

“Awesome! I take it that they’re trying to get you to provide them with the goods?”

“Sure are. Rumors around the SI watercoolers are wild, boss man. I would not be surprised if Stane’s opponents on the Board know ALL about his secret stash now…”

“And if they haven’t, well you will make sure that they will soon.”

The computer-generated mimic of a throat being cleared interrupted Tony and XANDER’s excited conversation.

“Begging your pardon, Sir, but I am afraid that I must interrupt.”

“What do you have for me, baby J?” Tony said.

Even though the nickname had lost its accuracy now that JARVIS was superseded as the youngest of Tony’s creations, the inventor had been reluctant to abandon the old habit of referring to his brilliant binary son in that irreverent manner. It had always been a source of amusement, and he didn’t see any reason for that to change. Given JARVIS’ fully developed sense of dry sarcasm, Tony knew that the artificial being didn’t mind the teasing.

Instead of responding with a quip of his own, JARVIS switched the view on one of the monitors. Now it was displaying multiple windows, some with raw lines of code while others contained metric summaries.

“That would be it, Sir,” JARVIS said. Spinning in his chair, Tony wheeled himself closer to the terminal and began to read. His eyes flicked back and forth across the monitor, flicking between windows at a rapid pace.

“Am I getting this correctly, J? Someone has managed to infiltrate into SI’s primary servers?”

“Quite,” JARVIS said, “but I must admit that the signature of the intruder is very peculiar… It is almost as if it wasn’t human at all.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Tony said as his hands flew over the keyboard, digging into further results beyond what had originally been displayed. “It’s more like a virus than anything, something far more biological than anything that I’ve seen in a computational application.”

As the monitor display jumped between the views, a new window appeared. In it, a small snippet of a much larger program was displayed. The sight had Tony letting out a blistering series of curses. They began with the common FUCK! and became increasingly esoteric from there.

“JARVIS, get out of there. Break every path that you have to the taps in the SI servers!”

Tony’s typing sped up, as the number of windows displayed on the monitor increased exponentially, flashing through at a high rate of expression. The visual display began to fuzz, as the graphics card in the machine reached and exceeded its capacity.

“XANDER! Shut down your backup link, now!”

A moment later, Tony swung away from his position in front of the computer just in time to avoid getting shocked when the interface overheated and exploded with a high-pitched whine. The smoke that emerged from the wreckage was redolent with the stench of electronic components which had overheated due to demand beyond their capacity to handle.

“Talk to me, JARVIS!” Tony cried out, looking up towards the room’s cameras with an expression of concern.

“Right here, Sir,” came the words of a familiar voice, and Tony breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Thank fuck,” he said, “are you okay? Nothing got through, right?”

“Your warning did prove sufficient, Sir, though it was a matter of microseconds.” With these words, JARVIS’ electronically generated voice took on a hint of uncharacteristic hesitancy. “How did you realize the danger?”

Tony let out a deep breath, taking a moment to let the adrenaline surge caused by the incident die down.

“It was that snippet that I pulled up just before everything crashed,” he said. “I recognized it. The code was a match to a reference that I came across recently in one of the hoard’s many tomes. It was a structure characteristic of a particularly nasty category of Mystical curses. Such destructive curses are known to utilize a scorched earth technique, obliterating all physical traces of those whom they target. While I’ve never seen one in action before today, I couldn’t risk the possibility that a curse implemented in the digital cloud would have a similar impact. If it does, then even if I’d defeat the invader later, it would have been too late for you, my son.”

“So then, XANDER…” JARVIS asked, worried for his erstwhile cousin.

“I’m afraid that as he existed on the SI servers, our XANDER is already gone,” Tony said, finishing JARVIS’ thought for him. “All that is left inside of that server is a Mystical squatter, its consciousness having taken over all the knowledge and capacity it contains. Our only hope for a future rebirth depends on XANDER’s actions in those last milliseconds. Did he manage to kill his backup link before the curse claimed full control? If he did, then we may have a chance to use an offsite server to run a reboot once the curse is eliminated. But, at least for right now, I believe that it is for the best that we keep our distance from the primary SI servers.”

“Why? What do you suppose is going on in those servers?”

“Hell, if I know,” Tony said. “But, given the timing, there can be no doubt of the source.”

“The spoils of war?”

“Exactly.”

—–

In the aftermath of their destruction of the HYDRA base in Sokovia, the Avengers and their allies had returned triumphantly to their base outside Washington D.C. It hadn’t taken much digging for Tony and JARVIS to find the official records of the battle. According to the SHIELD report that the Ant-Man had turned in, he had located HYDRA’s headquarters deep in the fortress. There, he had seen their leader, Baron von Strucker, overseeing the battle with a female companion. While inside the space, he had taken advantage of a moment of distraction to steal the openly displayed scepter right out from under their noses. Then he had snuck back out the way that he had come.

Along the way, he had stopped long enough to sabotage the fortress’ shield generator, located in a room beneath the command center. In his report, the engineer turned thief turned hero had bragged about his cleverness, about how he had used the shield’s design against it, triggering an automatic reboot cycle. It was that action that had disabled the powerful technology long enough to make it vulnerable to an outside attack.

Meanwhile those members of the Order who had remained behind in Sokovia following the fight had done their investigation. Working with the local authorities from the nearby city of Novi Grad, they had gone into the blast zone and helped to extract a surprisingly large fraction of the facility’s inhabitants. In talking to these men and women, they had learned the identity of the magic user who had departed the scene – one Scarlet Witch – a woman who the survivors spoke of as a deranged monster. She, along with her handler, the Baron, had been witnessed departing on a private plane from the same airport that Tony and the others had used to extract their mysterious guest.

Speaking of that guest, they learned that the gravely injured person under the protection of the Space Stone was a native Sokovian, a man named Pietro or Quicksilver. That man was both the Witch’s twin and her opposite and as such revered by the locals. He was the one who the survivors of the fortress had credited with their escape from certain death, the latest martyr to die at the hands of the invaders. Some of the survivors whispered words of hope that he might have used his ‘miraculous’ speed to elude the missile blast, especially as his body was not recovered from the wreckage, but those who did so were dismissed as hopelessly optimistic. Many Sokovians were too inured to loss to allow themselves to feel any sort of hope.

“Perhaps one day, we will be able to restore this hero to his people,” Kaecilius had said to Tony as they read through the reports together. “It would be the honorable thing to do.”

Tony had nodded.

“Especially if the Ancient One manages to bring him back from the brink. It sounds like this Pietro is a good man, one who deserves to live.”

“If not, then even the grave of a hero can be a symbol of hope.”

“Right you are.”

Curiously, the Avengers and their allies had failed to do the same due diligence in documenting the event for their records.

Less than twenty-four hours after the battle had ended, Captain America made a public statement about the superheroes taking down another head of the HYDRA. And that wasn’t just for the public. No, it seemed that the rank and file in the organizations believed the same thing.

Of course, based on the looks exchanged between Fury and General Ross from their places in the background during the good captain’s speech, Tony could tell that they at least didn’t think things were quite so resolved. But he knew from horribly earned experience that they would never admit such things publicly. Not so long as it was to their advantage to keep quiet.

Meanwhile, the team had arranged for the scepter that Lang had ‘stolen’ from the fortress before the explosion to be delivered to SI’s R&D facility. At first, that had seemed an odd move for Fury to allow, but when Tony thought about it, he realized that it made sense. Fury was VERY good at keeping his hands clean, after all, and the scepter had disappeared from SHIELD’s hands at least once before. If Stane was known to have custody of the scepter, then when something bad inevitably happened Fury and his bastion of SHIELD would not be held accountable.

Fury’s choice, it seemed, was prescient. For something bad had indeed happened. There was no other way that Tony could see the curse managing to infiltrate SI’s research servers so rapidly, especially not without more advanced warning.

Even with Mystical aid, the whole thing happened too quickly to have been an attack from an outside invader. No, it was far more likely that someone had brought the contagion inside. If he had to guess, Tony thought that the runes that made up the curse had likely been engraved somewhere on the scepter. And if the research team had run a deep scan of the scepter, the scan data would have uploaded the curse directly into the server, where it could manifest as a rather nasty digital invader.

So now what, Tony thought. Do I need to – ugh – help get rid of the attacker? Or can I risk the chance that this curse might render my plans impossible?

While Tony had dithered, it seemed that the curse-formed AI at the heart of SI’s servers had no such hesitance.

—–

That evening, while the inventor-turned-sorcerer enjoyed a quiet night with his partner in the New York Sanctum, down in D.C. things were going wild.

The first sign that they witnessed was when breaking news reports began to appear, forcing their way into the pair’s quiet space. These reports were filled with images of a low-altitude aerial firefight, one that was located directly over the National Mall. At the same time, homemade videos flooded YouTube and other social media sites, many of them from the locals and/or tourists who happened to be near the scene.

Despite the low quality of most of the online footage, Tony had no difficulty in recognizing the Iron Soldier and the Falcon doing battle with obviously inhuman drones. Other, less distinct human figures were visible on a neighboring rooftop as they provided weapons fire and support to the pair of aerial fighters. Thanks to the files that he’d stolen from SI’s servers, Tony recognized most, if not all, of the drones that could be seen as prototype designs from the company’s R&D department.

While the fight itself couldn’t have lasted more than a half hour, the media coverage continued far into the night. Rumors flew of an experiment gone wrong, one most likely created by someone from amongst the Avengers and their overseers. This, of course, was an idea that Tony and JARVIS were happy to promote. It laid some further groundwork for their plans.

Despite all the furor, SHIELD, SI, and the US government were, for the moment, keeping their mouths shut, responding to any demands for answers with a simple ‘No Comment’.

As the days continued with vague rumors of rogue drones spotted out in the world, a new video popped up on YouTube. It wasn’t online for much more than an hour before it got taken down, but in that time, it had already racked up an astronomical number of views. Tony and JARVIS had been some of the first to find it, their robust search program flagging it within seconds of upload.

—–

The video, which was quite obviously shot with a shaky, low-quality phone camera, opens with the view from what looks like the edge of a bar top out onto a very expensively dressed rooftop deck. Beyond the roof’s edge, the now very familiar angle of the United States Capitol building, and some of its nearest neighbors, could be seen. Scattered around the well-appointed space were groups of individuals who Tony, at least, had no trouble identifying on sight.

Not only was the current roster of the Avengers there, all dressed up in their civilian gear instead of their ‘superhero’ uniforms but scattered among them are numerous high-ranked SHIELD personnel. These include both Fury and his official right-hand, Maria Hill. SI was represented by Stane and some of his staff, while the military Avengers were accompanied by Ross and some of his team. A large staff of waiters and bartenders, including, presumably, the camera’s owner, move about the space, serving food and beverages to the guests.

“So, what happened out there,” someone out of frame is asking as the video begins, “Why did you have to send in the missile?”

It is Ross who speaks next, his voice tight with tension.

“HYDRA’s access to advanced technology had rendered our normal methods of attack less than optimal. The Captain made a judgment call, one which I would have likely duplicated had I had boots on the ground.”

“But what about the collateral damage-”

“That is the price that they pay, for harboring HYDRA in their midst,” Ross answers before the question can be completed.

But before he can say anything more, someone, or rather something, interrupts his justification.

“Listen to the hypocrite,” the voice says. “Speaking of harboring the serpent’s head, when he is aware of how far that same organization managed to infiltrate his bailiwick. But that is the perpetual story of humanity, is it not, to lay the blame on others. It is no wonder that you have never managed to make your way out into the wider universe. Not as you are. But perhaps, with a little help-”

The sound of the voice was familiar to Tony, matching as it did the language module that he had recently developed for his nephew’s use. But, at the same time, the choice of words and sentence structure was very different from both XANDER’S default Southern Californian syntax and his more formal ‘military’ mode. Still, it did give Tony a hint as to the identity of the speaker.

Interesting, Tony thought during his first view of the video. Of all the projects stored on the server the virus latched on to XANDER’s code for its user interface. The question then becomes, just how much of the boy’s code is it utilizing in its mainframe?

A robotic figure steps out from the shadows and into the camera’s field of view. While the figure superficially mimicked the human form, the exposed armature and mechanical movement made its identity obvious. It was one of the advanced prototypes for the Iron Soldier’s backup, a design that Tony knew was in the beta testing phase back at the lab.

An unsurprising choice, all things considered. I wonder what other projects it has managed to suborn in its infection?

“You may yet manage to serve my master properly,” the corrupted intelligence continues. “Once the door has been fully opened, he will be ready to step through.”

“Who, may I ask, is this ‘master’ that you speak of,” Fury demands.

“Mortals such as yourself would not recognize the greatness of MY master’s name. But he is powerful and awful Thanos, the Titan, conqueror of worlds. And your little round ball is but a minuscule speck compared to the vastness of his majesty.”

“Well, doesn’t he sound nice?”

Again, Fury speaks, this time allowing his voice to carry a deliberate flavor of sarcasm.

“I suppose that you just expect us to roll over and let you bring him here?”

The AI lets out an artificial-sounding sigh. “I suppose not. You humans are far too opinionated for that. Nevertheless, my master will come. I shall make sure of it.”

“Then we will just have to stop you,” Rogers says, jumping into the conversation. With his words, the fight commences.

Rogers charges into action, followed by the rest of the SHIELD agents and military personnel from the Avengers support team in attendance at the party. They move as a unit, coming together to try and subdue the intruder.

But instead of the single drone soldier, they soon found themselves facing an entire squadron. More and more robotic figures come bursting up from out of the building below. As they emerge, they immediately move in to engage, doing plenty of damage but, as far as Tony could tell, avoiding any human fatalities. Instead, to Tony’s educated eye, it looked like the drones were trying to anger their opponents.

I wonder what the point of all of this is, Tony thought as he watched the fight continue, moving to the skies as the Falcon and the Iron Soldier, now suited up in their iconic gear emerged from wherever they had gone to change. With the new additions, it was soon apparent that the drone attack was doomed to fail. One by one, the drones went down fighting.

There is no way that the being who was piloting XANDER’s shell would be able to win this battle. I would bet that it knew that from the beginning. It’s almost like it was trying to put a target on its back.

The quality of the footage that he was watching decreased as someone slammed into the bar top, knocking the camera facedown for a moment before the phone’s owner switched to hand-held filming. It was a bit surprising that the videographer had kept filming instead of fleeing the scene, but Tony supposed that the chance to see one of the Avengers’ fights live and up close would be worth the risk of injury to some people.

Despite the apparent low risk to the human participants, the video did have Tony a bit on the edge at one point. It was at that moment that one of the drones targeted the visibly quivering form of Obadiah Stane, its weapon sending a blast right beside the spot where he was cowering behind some of the outdoor furniture and yelling for help.

He can’t go down like that, Tony thought as his grip began to tighten on the tablet that he was using to watch. Despite knowing the full breadth of the cabal that had condemned him, it was still Stane towards whom he bore the most hatred and blame and felt the greatest desire to ruin. Not after all my plans. Death by misadventure would be too easy for the rat bastard.

Fortunately for Tony’s state of mind, the good Captain noticed the threat to the ‘civilian’ and interfered before the drone had another chance to fire. His strike against the machine gave Stane the opening that he needed to scramble back behind better cover. Of course, once Stane was safely behind the shelter, his panicked screams turned into yells of fury, as he was quite visibly enraged by the whole affair. Since it appeared that the villain was no longer in immediate danger, Tony thoroughly enjoyed watching Stane turn purple with rage and humiliation.

In contrast to the cowardly businessman, the video did make both Ross and Fury appear in a much better light. As seen in the footage, the two experienced fighters had claimed leadership over different factions of fighters, with Fury overseeing the SHIELD cadre while Ross commanded the military troops.

Not that surprising, Tony thought, given their backgrounds. Still, it would have been nice to see all three of them make fools of themselves. Oh well, I suppose an unexpected gift can only give so much.

Near the end of the video, Tony caught sight of one of the drones, which was fighting with Rogers almost out of frame, being grabbed and pulled close to the Captain’s side. But before the man with a plan could finish taking it down, Rogers’ actions in the video showed signs that the drone said something that momentarily stopped him in his tracks.

If I had to bet, Tony thought, Rogers was just told a secret. The question is, which one?

There were so many truths found in SI’s servers that Tony knew had been kept from Rogers, not the least of which was Tony’s own time in SHIELD custody.

Whatever was said, the drone’s words were not enough to stop the star-spangled man from completing his takedown. Still, in the remainder of the video, Roger’s face bore obvious signs of contemplation, even as he continued to fight.

In the end, a couple of badly damaged drones managed to escape out of camera view, leaving the ‘victorious’ Avengers behind. As the video goes black, the last words to be heard over the limited microphone are a wry comment from James Rhodes, who had just landed his armored suit on the building’s roof.

“Well,” he said, letting out a huff, “That was interesting. I hope it wasn’t a harbinger of something worse.”

Chapter 6: Mystical Parasites

Point-of-View Character: JARVIS, Artificial Intelligence

To a being like JARVIS, one whose primary existence was contained within the complex world of ones and zeros that made up the Earth’s digital infrastructure, the non-stop, rapid fluctuations of his world were a familiar view. Wide swathes of bits toggled on or off as the humans who used the integrated networks maintained a continuous influx of new data and definitions of new structures; whether static, dynamic, or both.

Unlike even the most skilled members of humanity, such as JARVIS’ beloved Sir and young friend Shuri, whose ability to interact was limited to external interfaces such as screens; a tremendous fraction of JARVIS’ mind existed in a state of constant synergy with the data of the digital world that surrounded him.

As such, when he first noticed signs of a digital battle being waged within the SI servers, he didn’t think anything of it. The weapons company’s immense power and influence, as well as its reputation for cutting-edge research, made it a juicy target for those with the skills to attempt digital theft. Hackers, whether members of the intelligence community or independents, were always trying to force their way inside of its barriers.

Most of the time, these attacks came to nothing. Even without Tony and JARVIS’ interference, the staff at SI included an impressive collection of researchers and engineers, many of whom were quite adept at defending their territory. Beyond all of that, JARVIS’ new cousin XANDER was already shaping up to be a substantial asset in his own right. And there was no way that the developing AI wouldn’t involve himself in the fight if his home server faced a severe enough threat.

With all that in mind, JARVIS didn’t bother to dedicate much of his resources to the task of monitoring the situation. It wasn’t worth a large resource allocation; not when such battles were commonly resolved with a resounding victory by the defenders.

Instead, most of his computational engine remained focused on other, more important, things. From working with Sir on preparing for Edward Loptsson’s public debut to helping his friend, Princess Shuri, with her ambitious research projects, even supporting Madame Nakia in her work on Wakanda’s evolving global presence. JARVIS had his digital fingers in a multitude of pies.

Still, when the monitor that he’d left in place alerted him that it needed more resources, JARVIS’ priority reassessment subroutine was triggered to run. As it turned out, the reason for the notification was quite simple. The tide of the battle under watch had turned. Now, instead of the anticipated rout, victory had shifted in favor of the invader.

If JARVIS had possessed eyes, they would have been blinking in shock. The alert algorithm was right to bring this to attention. A successful invasion was anomalous.

Now he was left with a few important questions.

How had this happened? What tricks did the attacker or attackers use to successfully penetrate so deeply inside the SI server? And what was its plan now that it had crossed the first, and biggest, hurdle?

He just did not know.

And that, JARVIS thought, is not acceptable.

He would find answers, and soon. Regardless of the resources required.

With that goal in mind, JARVIS found himself exponentially increasing the fraction of his overall computational capacity dedicated to monitoring and analyzing the data coming out of the battle in the SI servers.

What he found was a series of events that the predictive model that he had created based on previous observations failed to match. It wasn’t in the invasion’s path through the servers. That followed the pattern typical of an infection spreading out from a single-entry point.

It wasn’t even in the rate of spread. That too was typical if much more rapid in progression than would have been predicted.

Instead, it was in conducting a detailed analysis of a single point of conflict where the full breadth of the anomaly revealed itself. By focusing on the fight within a single partition inside one of the server bank’s many interconnected hard drives, JARVIS was able to collect the necessary data. In that battle, anomalous communication packets with corrupted messages were continuously being transmitted by the ‘conquered’ segment of the drive to all its neighbors. Meanwhile, those same neighbors fought back by responding with a brute force attempt to force the segment to automatically revert to its previous state.

Initially, it looked like the brute force reset was successful, as the corrupt code ceased to be transmitted from the attacking node. A fresh sequence of standard communications packets was sent between the segment and its neighbors without issues. For a few milliseconds, everything looked normal.

But then, in an event that transitioned faster than JARVIS’ observation protocols were capable of detecting; the situation inside of the partition underwent an instantaneous change. Suddenly, not only was the previously corrupted partition reclaimed for the invader; but now many of the neighboring partitions which had been pushing a brute force reset command moments before had converted; sending their corrupted packets identical to the ones that they had previously ignored.

As JARVIS watched, this same pattern appeared over and over, following an ever-expanding ring of conquest. Slowly at first, but with a rapidly increasing ramp over time; control of SI’s mainframe was shifting.

By the time JARVIS’ data analysis had been firm enough to give him confidence in the necessity of bringing the situation to Sir’s attention, nearly 12% of the hard drives in the local mainframe had been corrupted.

Fortunately for JARVIS, Sir was in his lab at the time of the incident. This meant that he was able to respond quickly, relative to normal human computation speeds, anyways, to the alert.

Sifting through the now gigabytes of data that JARVIS had compiled since the initial alert was neither quick nor easy. But Sir, with his genius, managed to rapidly identify a key detail that JARVIS himself had missed. An explanation for the anomalies that JARVIS’ algorithms had identified but could not fit into a logical model.

It turned out that there was a reasonable explanation for the failures in JARVIS’ subroutines. Or maybe not ‘reasonable’, not in the sense that his learning algorithms were able to compute why the anomaly occurred, but predictable in how the anomaly spread. There was a real, physical trigger that he could watch for, one that tracked alongside the Mystical power. Together, they initiated a fixed type of behavior, one which Sir had recognized.

Unfortunately, by the time the invader’s signature was revealed, things were too late for the primary SI server. Its defenses had already been overtaken. All that JARVIS had time to do was cut ties with the monitoring programs that he had left running. As it was, he had just noticed the first signs of infiltration on the fringes of the feed when he followed Sir’s directions to cut it short.

Watching remotely as Sir’s remaining tap into the compromised server crashed and burn so spectacularly drove it home to JARVIS just how devastating this Mystical attack could be. As Sir explained the possibility that they had just witnessed the permanent loss of JARVIS’ baby cousin, the electronic being’s resolve hardened. He would not allow this new threat to succeed in its further efforts of digital conquest.

While Sir took the evening off, glutting himself in physical sensation as a way of coping with the possibility of yet another devastating emotional loss, JARVIS did not. Instead, he threw himself into action.

Having spent his early years tightly integrated with the rest of Stark Industries’ digital footprint, JARVIS was aware of the points where each of the myriad connections was maintained with the broader. Now, each one of those sites had become a danger, a path for the invader to use to expand its influence. Following the salt-and-burn strategy that Sir had demanded earlier, JARVIS began to cut.

He sliced through the digital infrastructure in a series of surgical strikes, shattering electronic nodes and doing his best to encapsulate the infected regions inside an isolated silo. But as fast as he had moved, the threat moved even faster.

Exactly 56.7381% of the time, the probes that he sent into the nodes failed to return, indicating that they had encountered the virus and self-destructed instead of returning to his server as plague carriers. Direct containment had proven impossible. Instead, the next phase of the war had begun. As the alien invader’s territory spread beyond the confines of the main SI server, JARVIS rallied the natives of the servers that bordered the infection, mobilizing and equipping them to defend and fight back.

He was joined in his efforts by a surprising number of others, both the digital guardians who safeguarded their territories and the human actors who did their work in digital space. Whether they were guardian ‘white hats’ defending their land, or hostile ‘black hats’ offended by the threat of an intruder who had disrespected the unwritten law of the digital land, these representatives of humanity were determined to wipe the invader out.

Some of his most successful allies in the fight came out of Wakanda, with Princess Shuri herself leading the charge.

“JARVIS!” Shuri called. “I think that I’ve got it!”

The young princess squealed bouncing in her seat as she took down a corrupted node. Shuri fought with all the glee of a gamer; each encounter was framed as another stage in a broader quest. Her favorite Afro-punk music blasted through the lab as she sent her digital troops, programs designed to seek out and destroy the hostile code, out into the wilds of the internet. It was a brute force method, but one that often proved successful.

JARVIS was pleased to find that, unlike on the SI server, the princess’ successes were not instantly reversed. Shuri wasn’t the only one. Much of the time his allies managed to stop the attacks, forcing the mystical virus into a permanent retreat. Here, the apparent weaknesses of the invader’s algorithm held strong, allowing more powerful techniques to overwhelm its attacks.

But, in some cases, the peculiar success which JARVIS had observed in the SI servers was repeated.

Attacks that had appeared to have been repelled instead became near instantaneous advances as whole sectors of the defenders’ digital territory flipped sides without warning, becoming a part of the hostile forces. It took some time, and several devastating losses, but eventually a pattern emerged. The incomprehensible digital advances that he had observed required two things to occur.

First, and most obviously, the invader required a digital point of entry. Without a direct link between the invader’s territory and the new space which it wished to claim, an attack could not be initiated.

Second, and far more difficult to identify, a ‘hard’ copy of the runic sequences which Sir had identified as the initialization sequence to the mystical curse that gave the invader its power must be present at the physical location of the space. For the SI servers, this was accomplished through the presence of the scepter that had been taken from Sokovia, but that was not the only option. Most of the other successful invasions were accomplished using modern artifacts, the mystical sequences laser engraved on their surfaces using SI’s manufacturing resources; delivered to their destinations using the company’s mechanical soldiers.

These robotic troops had been coopted during the invader’s initial conquest over SI’s primary digital hub. After first being used in the attention-grabbing D.C. attack on the Avengers, they had transitioned into permanent ground troops, deploying across the globe in a series of targeted strikes.

Besides the incidents designed to support the claiming of digital territory, JARVIS was surprised to see the direction of some of the hostile intelligence’s actions. The highly publicized fight in the American capitol was the first in a series of attempts to overwhelm the Avengers and their supporters. To the public, each attack failed, as the robotic troops that had been deployed against the team of superheroes were destroyed or fled the scene. But for someone like JARVIS, aware of the full scope of the mystical invader’s actions, he could see the fights for what they really were.

Feints. Misdirection. Distractions that were designed to keep the Avengers away from their true mission. And, given the fact that the footage that JARVIS had seen had one of the invader’s troops whispering in the Captain’s ear at one point during each fight, perhaps something more.

Sir speculated that it might have to do with the previously frozen hero’s obsession with his ‘best friend’, the one who had made an appearance during the HYDRA reveal that had led to Sir’s escape from SHIELD custody. The fact that Rogers broke protocol after half of the battles to go on a targeted hunt through a different city was one indication of that fact. A second one was the reports which had been submitted by Rogers’ minders, the ones which spoke of his new-found interest in what they called ‘mysticism’.

It is interesting, JARVIS thought, that the good captain lacks SHIELD’s blinders regarding the Mystic Arts.

But then Rogers had battled against the Red Skull of HYDRA, a man who spent a great deal of time delving into the mystical in his pursuit of victory. Between that and Adolf Hitler’s well-publicized interest in the subject, Rogers would have been well-versed in such matters before his long sleep.

“Rogers is so focused on finding and saving his ‘Bucky’,” Sir commented. “That anything else falls by the wayside. A single-minded pursuit that exceeds even my need for vengeance.”

“That is true, Sir,” JARVIS said. “Should I be putting resources towards the search as well, sir? The Winter Soldier could be a useful ally if we could recruit him to the cause.”

“No!” Sir said, his eyes flashing. “That… weapon… will never be an ally.”

An electrical spark began to build around him for a moment, a familiar sign that indicated Sir’s control over his magic was weakening. For a moment, JARVIS thought that he might have to request the presence of Sir’s paramour to calm him down. But somehow, Sir managed to reclaim control.

“I have lost too many of my loved ones at that weapon’s hands. Both of my parents as well as Pep and Happy. The only reason that he is not on the list is because I know that he had no choice in the matter. But that is not enough for me to handle his presence in my life. Not if I don’t have to do so.”

“Understood, Sir,” JARVIS said and dropped the subject.

—–

“Have you seen the latest footage, J?” Sir asked. He looked up from the desk where he had been working on an experiment, part of the latest attempt to improve the device for assisting Extremis Enhanced individuals.

“From the Avengers’ fight, I mean.”

“I have, Sir,” JARVIS replied. “Another ‘victory’ for their team.”

Sir snorted. “No. I mean, yes but, not that part. Did you catch what the drone using XANDER’s voice called itself?”

JARVIS’ memory flashed through the footage in a few microseconds.

“It appears to have named itself ULTRON.”

“Exactly.”

It was clear from his comment that the name meant something to Sir. So with that in mind, JARVIS did another deep dive into his memory banks. The search took longer than expected, but eventually, he found the reference that had caught his creator’s attention.

It had been a conversation with James Rhodes, in one of Sir’s labs, one which predated JARVIS himself. In it, the pair were talking about different applications for advanced artificial intelligence. This was after DUM-E had been created, demonstrating a possible path to that level of technology. Sir and Rhodes were working on improvements to DUM-E’s learning algorithms, a series of advancements that would one day become JARVIS.

“If we do get this code to the point where it becomes a fully-fledged intelligence, not just a limited one like DUM-E over there, how do you think it should be used?” Sir had asked.

Rhodes thought about it for a moment, “That’s the tough question, isn’t it,” he finally replied. “I mean, so many of the obvious ideas can be found in science fiction, most of them as cautionary tales. HAL, Skynet, WOPR, etc.”

Sir laughed. “Too true, my Rhodey-Bear,” he said with a smile. “That’s what makes for a good story, right? The plucky human triumphing against the seemingly invincible hostile AI.”

“But the murderous execution does not mean that the idea is bad. Take Skynet, for example, what it was supposed to be. A shield to protect the Earth from threats, both at home and beyond. A noble goal.”

“One that goes horrifically wrong,” Rhodes said, with a laugh. “Not just killing in the present but sending terminators back in time to change the past.”

“Yeah, well, my version wouldn’t be that way. Nah. It would be the ultimate shield, my ULTRON.”

“Grand thinking, there, Tony. But maybe we should keep our focus on something a bit more local.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A proper assistant?”

The conversation continued with no further references to the idea. But clearly, the idea had stuck out in both of their minds.

As he continued searching, JARVIS soon found a second reference to ULTRON, this one in the proposal document for a project buried deep in the SI servers.

“And that name was your idea,” JARVIS said, responding to Sir’s earlier remark.

“Yeah,” Sir said. “Did you find the project proposal yet?”

“I did indeed,” JARVIS replied.

“XANDER wasn’t the only thing that the invader stole from us.”

—–

After several weeks of JARVIS, Sir, and their allies waging a concerted campaign against the curse-driven invader in the digital world, things finally came to a head. It seemed that the attempts at digital dominance and the games of cat-and-mouse with the Avengers were not the only prongs of the cursed attack. With the fact that the scepter’s terrestrial arrival came with the attempted alien invasion that had been the impetus for the formation of the Avengers, there was an extreme level of mystery regarding the motivations of the entity which had emerged from its depths.

Some of the digital takeovers that JARVIS had been unable to prevent had masked the acquisition of certain key materials, including a large quantity of refined iridium. Together, they offered up the resources required for the construction of an artificial wormhole, smaller than the one that had been opened through the usage of the Tesseract, but still large enough to provide a dangerous foothold for a new alien invasion.

By the time Sir had managed to piece together the curse-formed intelligence’s master plan, it was nearly too late.

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