Author's Note: Been wanting to do a fic about the avengers initiative for a while now, and after binging My Hero Academy I feel like I've got the tools I need to do it. So Read, Review, Favorite, Enjoy and lemme know what y'all think.
Chapter 1: MVP and Mainframe
"It is never a good thing when a country goes to war."
A stack of news papers were tossed onto the back of a delivery truck, the front page read 'Superhuman Terrorist Attack In Stamford Connecticut! 600 dead including 60 children!' above a areal shot of a town with a massive crater in the middle of it.
"It usually starts with a single act of violence."
Another paper dated not too much later showed Captain America and Iron Man trading blows with each other, the caption above read 'Captain America declares war on America.'
"The worst is when we fight among ourselves. When brother fights brother. And those that they are sworn to protect suffers for it."
A third stack of News paper's revealed a new figure joining the fray, a big green one, ripping through both sides of the conflict 'The Hulk Returns to Earth! Civil War is put on hold.'
"Often times, war also ends with a single act of violence, one strong enough to convince people the ones fighting that they finally need to stop the violence."
A final stack of papers, cut apart and and put into a scanner by a mechanical armored hand, the image of the paper appearing on a holographic screen. 'Civil War Ended! Registration Act Amended! Hero Association founded!'
"But war changes people, often without compromise. And when it is over, things will never go back to the way that they were before the war started."
The clipping was put into a file by the mechanical hand as the set of black and gold armor continued to review information.
"I didn't even know you had a brother let alone a nephew." The armor turned it's head to face the opening door, where two individuals walked into the lab, one a red haired woman in a grey business suit holding a clipboard, and the other a man in his thirties with a finely trimmed beard and a triangle shaped emblem on his chest which glowed blue.
"To be fair neither did I, my Dad made stupendous efforts to hide him, going so far as to secretly adopt me to serve as a shield against the public eye." Tony Stark, more commonly known as Iron Man, stated walking up to the black armored individual. "Pepper, this is Howard."
"Is this him? Why did you let him put on one of your armors?" The red haired CEO, commonly known as Pepper Potts, asked gesturing to the armor with a look of scrutinized fury on her face.
"My apologies Ms. Pott but I am not wearing the armor." The helmet glowed blue briefly, divided into dozens of diamond shaped plates before retracting into the suit leaving only a oval capsule behind. "I am the armor."
Pepper looked shocked by the unceremonious revelation before the helmet put itself back into place and resumed looking through the archives.
"Mr. Stark, can we talk for a moment." In that moment, Tony knew he was in trouble. Pulling the armored hero aside Pepper glared at him coldly. "Would you like to explain what is going on here?" Pepper asked glaring with displeasure.
"Arnold, my brother made him. His mind, digitized into a robotic body he's living vicariously through him." Tony stated a bit of a sad look on his face.
"And why does Arnold need to live vicariously?" Pepper asked cocking a brow suspiciously.
"Because he's been confined to an iron lung for his entire life." Pepper was surprised once more, before she let out a sigh.
"Fine. Fine. So did you talk to him about it already?" Pepper asked her authoritative tone indicating that she accepted the AI.
"I've been compiling information about potential recruits into the initiative program, including myself." Howard pulled up another file and opened it, revealing a series of video clips featuring different people caught in extraordinary positions of heroics. "I've compiled a short list of potential recruits." Howard pulled up a holographic folder and passed it to Tony.
"Putting the initiative program under the direct control of the government would cause more problems then what they would solve. In that case, it's better that we find a way of policing ourselves." Tony stated looking through the file that Howard had given him. "So when any government thugs come to you demanding access to this list?"
"Deny them vehemently, and if they insist, delete it immediately." Howard replied in a dull machine tone.
"Good. What about construction of the campus?" Tony asked in a interested tone of voice.
"As you instructed, the town which surrounds the blast sight has been bought up by Stark Industries for dollars on the penny, the survivors should be able to live comfortably." Pulling up a image, people were using sprayers on the buildings which reduced them in size dramatically. "The original buildings are being cleared away using Pym particles." Once a section of buildings were cleared away, workers moved in new construction, a massive school like building, huge fortified metal walls. "The buildings are made from secondary adamantium miniatures which have been enlarged to full size buildings using Pym Particles, full filling key requisites being cost effective, durable, and if need be modular." As buildings were being taken down and put up several key points were highlighted, dorm rooms, the main building, security walls, a stadium the list continued to grow as the people inside continued to work.
"Have you decided on your classmates yet?" Stark asked cocking a brow suspiciously at his 'nephew'.
"Hard to say, as I under stand it I'll have to put together a class of twenty people, including myself, that means that I have to identify nineteen candidates for the program. My mental age is approximately that of a sixteen year old, so I'm trying to pick out candidates from that age group." Mainframe held his metal chin as he thought about the situation. "Nineteen out of a potential two hundred and fifty recruits." That was how many people that the initiative had to recruit to fulfill it's proposed plan to put one five man team in fifty out of fifty two states in America. The reality of the matter is that after the majority of the mutant population in America had moved to San Francisco which had declared itself off limits to the registration program they were massively short on potential recruits. Even then just being a mutant didn't mean that someone qualified for the program. "This will be hard."
"Maybe a little bit of fresh air will help to clear your head?" Tony suggested cocking a over confident brow.
"I am mechanical, the air quality doesn't affect me." Howard replied in a obvious tone of voice.
"Not what I meant. Perhaps if you actually met the people you are profiling you will get a better idea on who you're trying to recruit." Tony replied friendly.
"Do you have any thing in mind?" Howard asked tilting his metal head.
"As it so happens there's been a guy in the news lately that we wanna head hunt. You mind coming with us?" Tony asked cocking a interested brow.
Stark had left his robot in his car, he probably should have figured that he would try to build something for this so called 'initiative.' Mr. Choicenut never expected that someone would show up at his school asking to make his students super heroes, and he certainly didn't expect someone with this much bad press attached to him.
"Mr. Stark..."
"Tony please." Tony stated sitting rather leisurely in a chair in front of the principal's desk.
"Tony. Given the young man's attachment to your old associate..."
"Michael Ian Van Patrick..." Stark stated producing a file with a picture of a athletic young man with red hair. "Great grandson of one Doctor Abraham Erkstein, lead scientist on project Rebirth which administered a serum to a exceptionally frail volunteer known as Steven Rogers enhancing him to the peak of human physical perfection and creating the war hero who would go on to be known as Captain America." Stark put the file away before putting his hands together and putting on the same face which gave him a one up on a hundred negotiations during his time as the CEO of Stark Industries. "Tell me something, do you know why he was never mass produced? Why the Government never mass produced people in possession of peak human stats? The answer is quite simple really, a combination of the US Government's obsession with secrecy and a German assassin thoroughly destroyed every trace of the formula. And yet, you seem to believe that it found it's way into the hands of Erkstein's grandson, young Michael's father who then committed the thoroughly irresponsible act of utilizing the formula on his own son Michael, thus young Michael's potent athletic abilities are not the result of his own hard work but rather through the use of a super soldier experiment. I'll be blunt, you're a moron."
"Excuse me?" The principal looked rather offended by Tony's words.
"While I do believe the two are connected, I do not believe that the formula itself is responsible." Tony thought about the situation carefully, if someone did find the Super Soldier Serum formula then they would probably try to sell it on the open market, or try to find a way of profiting off of it, reading through young Michael's file again Tony learned that he was a proliferate user of Isometric exercises and his parents were the heads of a organic food farm. Based on this combination of impressively healthy things Stark could make a educated guess about what information Michael's father inherited from his grand father. "In any case. If you don't want him we'll take him, after the way you've treated him I don't see him showing you any nostalgia." Tony stated as he got out of the office.
Howard was looking through Michael's file, physical stats of a olympic level athlete, captain on the school's every sport team including the football team, the chess club, swim team and fencing, in one notable instance he appeared to sit on a imaginary chair for two solid hours after one of his classmates pulled it out from under him in a prank, and the only reason he moved was because class had changed. By his second year in high school he was already promised a scholarship to the university of Kentucky, then they found out who his great grand dad was, and in spite of numerous blood tests, piss tests and other tests to the contrary they revoked those scholar ships on the grounds that he had been doping himself and was now at risk of losing his numerous trophies, medals and awards that he had accumulated over the years. Hearing the bell for the end of school ringing Howard looked out the window to the see the students come out for the day. Michael was easy to spot, the combination of his bright red hair and the fact that everyone present was going out of their way to bore holes into his head made it massively easy to find the young man. A group of people whom based on the jackets that they were wearing were members of the school's football team had approached him.
"Tom. Congratulations on your promotion to quarterback." Michael stated his tone laced with a hint of sarcasm.
"Oi some loser who has to dope himself up to make it on the team has no right to talk to us about not being on it!" The Football players circled around Michael looming menacingly.
"You guys don't want this fight." Michael warned in a hard tone.
"Oh I think we do."
The leader of the thugs, named Tom, threw a single punch at Michael's face, Michael caught the strike and pushed it off to the side, followed up by landing a strike to his opponent's chin that bent his head back to a unhealthy direction. One of Michael's classmates tried to hit him from behind, but Michael tilted off to the side dodging the strike, before expertly grabbing the arm, twisting it around and cracked it over his should before finishing off the opponent he wasn't even looking at with a judo throw onto Tom as he was about to attack again. Two more of the foot ball players tried to sandwich Michael between them, Michael crouched low, allowing the two idiots to bounce their heads off of each other, and attempted to slam his elbows into the two brutes only to be halted by the hardness of football armor. Switching to plan B Michael hooked one of his opponents with his foot and pulled the other off of his feet with his hands, Michael twisted the second individual's foot around and followed up by landing a kick to the first one's head.
"Michael you idiot!" Michael turned around to face the students who had idly stood by and watched as he was about to be crushed. "It's bad enough that you juiced! But now you just took out half the foot ball team too!"
"I defended myself." Michael stated as he stepped over the broken forms of his former compatriots.
"Yes you did." Howard walked passed the student body, many of whom moved out of his way out the sheer shock and awe of it, as he walked up to Michael he held out a single armored hand. "I was wondering if we could have a word about something."
"Ever heard of a guy named Captain America?" Michael asked cocking a brow.
"Test subject in world war two super soldier program in which he was the only successful subject, subsequently went on to become a war hero putting a end to the Nazi threat winding up frozen in a iceberg for sixty years as a consequence before being found and thawed out by the avengers..."
"Not to mention the part where he ruined my life thereby making me swear off super hero's for the rest of my existence." Michael added before turning around and stepping into the street. Only to be pulled back at the last moment by Howard as a car, with armed men in ski masks inside, being chased by three police cars nearly ran him over. "Hello misplaced aggression."
Immediately everything that Michael knew about this block, from where construction was happening, where traffic would be the heaviest, the traffic light schedule, and he immediately set to work. Michael ran across the street into a ally way and up a fire escape all the way to the roof of a building, and Howard followed him, the power of flight gave him a huge edge in that regard. Michael stopped as the cars were about to pass by and Michael's response was to jump off of the side of the roof, and land through the sun roof of the car being chased quickly finding himself in the back seat between two armed thugs.
"Hey." Dropping that greeting both men pulled out assault rifles on Michael. The young man responded by grabbing both guns at once and jamming them into the sides of each other, as if daring them to fire, before pulling on both men elbowing, punching, head butting, basically hurting them in any way he could without actually letting go of the guns they were in the middle of a tug o war over. Finally the driver seemed to take notice of their struggle and point his hand gun over his shoulder aimed directly at Michael. Michael grabbed the driver's wrist, twisted the gun out of his hand before jumping through the sun roof, climbing over the side of the car, and making his way to the driver's side of the door where he shot the window out with two bullets, used the gun as a makeshift set of brass knuckles, climbing into the driver's seat on top of the driver's lap and stomping down on the breaks, thus bringing the chase to a halt.
"Step out of the vehicle with your hands up!" The police stopped a short distance away from Michael and seemed fond of gesturing threateningly towards him with guns and squacking at him through a microphone. As Michael was getting out Howard flew over them and landed between the police and the reckless disgraced athlete.
"Easy there officers, he's with me." Howard turned around to face Michael. "Isn't that right?"
"Sure." Michael stated shrugging his shoulders, and at that point as the two of them walked away. "You drink Lemonade?" To Michael's question Howard retracted his helmet. "Riiight. Maybe a glass of anti-freeze for you."