My OC, Wendy Deavor, is introduced in this chapter. I imagine both her and Oya being portrayed by Amanda Seyfried, since they're related. And, is it wrong to use poor Ultron as a shoo-in for Elastigirl, or should somebody else take over? Leave your opinion in the comments!
Russian Translation:
Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон.=Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car.
Доброе утро, Солдат=good morning, soldier
Я готов отвечать=ready to comply
У меня есть для тебя миссия. Санкционируй и Извлекай. Без свидетелей.=I have a mission for you. Sanction and extract. No witnesses.
Отлично, Солдат=well done, soldier
1991, a Hydra base in a snowy landscape. A man enters a bunker and removes a red book marked with a black star.
A technician raised a cylindrical chamber, revealing Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier. "Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон." the man, Vasily Karpov, recited from the book.
"Я готов отвечать." replied the Winter Soldier.
"У меня есть для тебя миссия. Санкционируй и Извлекай. Без свидетелей." commanded Karpov.
Night. A car is driving down a dirt road alone. The Winter Soldier is waiting at the side of the road with his motorcycle. As the car passes, the Winter Soldier follows. He comes alongside the car and disables it. It slams into a tree. The Winter Soldier brings the motorcycle back around and climbs off. He walks to the car trunk and rips it open, revealing a silver case containing several blue packets—recreations of the Super Soldier serum.
Back at the Hydra base
"Отлично, Солдат." said Karpov.
(cue The Incredits by Michael Giacchino)
Bad Ideas Gone Wrong Productions Presents:
We Stand Together Or Not At All
Directed by:Leyenar Oh
Starring:
James Spader as Ultron
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Amanda Seyfried as Wendy Deavor and ?/Oya
Scarlet Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Elizabeth Olson as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
Paul Bettany as Vision
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon
Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine
Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa/Black Panther
Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter
Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Daniel Brühl as Helmut Zemo
Alfre Woodard as Miriam Sharpe/Screenslaver
William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross
Random Japanese actors as the Sengoku Avengers
Zenzenzense-RADWIMPS
やっと眼を覚ましたかい それなのになぜ眼も合わせやしないんだい？
「遅いよ」と怒る君 これでもやれるだけ飛ばしてきたんだよ
心が身体を追い越してきたんだよ
君の髪や瞳だけで胸が痛いよ
同じ時を吸いこんで離したくないよ
遥か昔から知る その声に
生まれてはじめて 何を言えばいい？
君の前前前世から僕は 君を探しはじめたよ
そのぶきっちょな笑い方をめがけて やってきたんだよ
君が全然全部なくなって チリヂリになったって
もう迷わない また１から探しはじめるさ
むしろ０から また宇宙をはじめてみようか
どっから話すかな 君が眠っていた間のストーリー
何億 何光年分の物語を語りにきたんだよ けどいざその姿この眼に映すと
君も知らぬ君とジャレて 戯れたいよ
君の消えぬ痛みまで愛してみたいよ
銀河何個分かの 果てに出逢えた
その手を壊さずに どう握ったならいい？
君の前前前世から僕は 君を探しはじめたよ
その騒がしい声と涙をめがけ やってきたんだよ
そんな革命前夜の僕らを誰が止めるというんだろう
もう迷わない 君のハートに旗を立てるよ
君は僕から諦め方を 奪い取ったの
前前前世から僕は 君を探しはじめたよ
そのぶきっちょな笑い方をめがけて やってきたんだよ
君が全然全部なくなって チリヂリになったって
もう迷わない また１から探しはじめるさ
何光年でも この歌を口ずさみながら
One day, creatures from beyond space came through a portal in the sky and and attacked New York City. The alien monsters, called Chitauri, were strong and armed with powerful weapons that were years ahead of human technology. They were assisted by Loki, a godlike being who had prepared the way for their attack. With an enemy army that overwhelming, New York should have been crushed. But that was not what happened. Instead, when that day came, a day unlike any other, Earth's Mightiest Heroes found themselves united against a common threat.
That day, the Avengers were born.
They defeated the Chitauri, saved New York and, without a doubt, all mankind. The world recognized the Avengers as heroes. The Avengers were easy to admire:
Captain America, a legendary Super Soldier from another time
Iron Man, a genius billionaire inventor who had created his own robotic armor
Thor, a valiant warrior from the golden realm of Asgard
Black Widow, a spy with expert-level training
Hawkeye, a trusted government agent and the world's best archer
And the Hulk, a Goliath-like raging monster
But the world's love affair with the Avengers was not without complications. Not long after what became known as the Battle Of New York, Captain America discovered that SHIELD, the U.S. Intelligence Organization that brought the Avengers together, had actually been used as a front for a terrorist group called Hydra. Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD in the organization's very beginnings. Captain America was able to expose Hydra and send its agents running, but only after bringing down three massive floating warships called Helicarriers—which crashed into Washington, DC. The devastation was enormous. Later, the Hulk, who had saved so many in New York, went on an unexpected rampage in the South African city of Johannesburg. Hulk destroyed several city blocks before his own teammate, Iron Man, used special Hulkbuster armor to contain him. On top of that, Tony Stark, the man inside the Iron Man suit, and Bruce Banner, the human identity of the Hulk, created a rogue robot called Ultron. Tony had intended for Ultron to become Earth's ultimate defense against more attacks by the Chitauri or more powerful aliens—did he? However, due to evil outside influence, Ultron became a killing machine and attacked the entire planet. Tony's creation was determined to drive human beings into extinction. The Avengers chased Ultron and his newly created robot army across the globe. Their final showdown devastated a small Baltic country called Sokovia. Because of the events in Sokovia and everything that went before it, the world was no longer willing to accept the Avengers as model heroes, and wanted a plan of action to avoid future destruction. It didn't help public perception when the team's lineup drastically changed. Thor returned to his home of Asgard. Bruce Banner suddenly disappeared, never facing any real consequences for what the Hulk did in Johannesburg. Hawkeye, Clint Barton, went into retirement and focused on spending more time with his family. Even Iron Man seemed less involved with the team. So, Captain America and Black Widow started training a team of new recruits, made up of heroes the public had a harder time trusting—
Scarlet Witch, a Sokovian refugee who possessed strange magic-like abilities
Vision, a synthethic humanoid created by Ultron out of vibranium
War Machine, a former air force colonel, armed with a modified version of the Iron Man armor
Falcon, a former air force member, armed with a specialized winged jet pack
And then, there's always supporters—most of them children and teenagers—who still believed in the Avengers, no matter what. Wendy Deavor was one of them, and as the CEO of yet another tech industry, she would do everything in her power to help the heroes, even if her parents died during the Battle Of New York, leaving Wendy in charge of Devtech, which meant that she could finally get to support the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, who were now a team. She had witnessed a portion of the Avengers face off against a villain known as Crossbones in Lagos, Nigeria, and she had instructed her driver to follow Falcon.
"Excuse me, Mr. Wilson?" asked the driver.
"Sorry, but I'm not really supposed to be here." Sam replied.
"Which seems wrong...doesn't it?" the driver said.
Try to remember,
The kind of September,
When grass was green...
"Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father." said Maria Stark.
"Who's the homeless person on the couch?" Howard Stark joined in.
A young Tony Stark, wearing a Santa hat, staggered in and chuckled. "This is why I love coming home for Christmas…right before you leave town." he said.
"Be nice, dear, he's been studying abroad." said Maria.
"Really, which broad? What's her name?" asked Howard.
"Candice." replied the young Tony.
Howard pulled off Tony's hat, and said "Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday."
"Okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. I will plan my toga party accordingly. Where you going?" asked the young Tony.
"Your father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway." said Maria.
"We might have to make a quick stop." Howard added.
"At the Pentagon. Right? Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary." said the young Tony, and Maria stopped playing the piano.
"You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man someday. I'll get the bags." said Howard, then walked out of the room.
Maria stood up, and said "He does miss you when you are not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together. You know what's about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it."
Howard walked back in, and the young Tony told him "I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could." Maria leaned in to kiss Tony on the cheek, and when she leans back, an older Tony Stark was standing in the background. Howard and Maria walked out, leaving the two Tonys. "That's how I wished it happened. Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF. God, I gotta work on that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to…clear traumatic memories. Huh." said the real Tony. He then blew on a candle and everything around him shimmered, then started to dissolve. It's a hologram. "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport… or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief, but…" The engineer took off his glasses, and continued. "Plus, 611 million dollars for my little therapeutic experiment? No one in the right mind would've ever funded it." It was eventually revealed that Tony was standing in front of a large crowd. A sign reads MIT Alumni Honors:Tony Stark. "Help me out, what's the MIT mission statement? "To generate, disseminate…and preserve knowledge. And work with others… to bring it to bear on the world's great challenges." Well, you are the others. And, quiet as it's kept… the challenges facing you are the greatest mankind's ever known. Plus, most of you are broke." The crowd chuckled, and Tony said "Oh, I'm sorry. Rather, you were. As of this moment…every student has been made an equal recipient of the Inaugural September Foundation Grant. As in…all of your projects have just been approved and funded."
The crowd broke out in applause and cheering.
"No strings, no taxes… just reframe the future! Starting now." said Tony, before exiting the stage with a "Go break some eggs." The telepromter above the audience read "Now I would like to introduce the head of the foundation:Pepper Potts".
LATER...
"Wow. Wow. That uh…That took my breathe away. Oh, Tony! So generous. So much money! Wow! Out of curiosity…will any portion of that grant be made available to faculty? I know, "Ooh, gross," but hear me out. I have got this killer idea for a self-cooking hot dog. Basically, chemical detonator embedded…" exclaimed a MIT professor, but Tony wasn't listening.
"Restroom's this way, yeah?" he asked.
"Yeah. Embedded in the meat shaft." replied the professor. After talking to his assistant, Tony walked into a quiet corridor, loitered by the men's room, then glanced back at the stage door before walking towards the elevator. A woman in sober clothes was also waiting. Tony stopped and turned his back to the wall.
"That was nice, what you did for those young people." said the woman.
"Ah, they deserve it. Plus, it helps ease my conscience." replied Tony.
"They say there's a correlation between generosity and guilt. But if you've got the money…break as many eggs as you like. Right?" said the woman.
Tony narrowed his eyes, half smiled, then turned to face the elevator. He looked surprised to find the button unlit and pushed it himself. "Are you going up?" he asked.
"I'm right where I want to be." replied the woman, then dug around in her handbag, only to be stopped.
"Okay, okay. Hey! Sorry, it's an occupational hazard." Tony apologized.
"I work for the State Department. Human Resources. I know it's boring…but it enabled me to raise a son. I'm very proud of what he grew up to be." said the woman, and shoved a photo at him. His name was Charlie Spencer. You murdered him. In Sokovia. Not that it matters in the least to you. You think you fight for us. You just fight for yourself." Tony shook his head, speechless.
"Who's going to avenge my son, Stark? He's dead…and I blame you."
While they got ready for bed, the television was still running. With people's smartphones and security cameras and even satellites, the news station had covered the scene from every angle, showing over and over again how Crossbones had killed himself, and how Wanda had thrown the explosion right into the building where relief aid workers had been trying to do their job. King T'Chaka of Wakanda had said, "Our people's blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent, is no victory at all.".
It was devastating.
"How was your talk with Wanda?" Tony asked as he walked out of the bathroom. He was naked, save only for his boxer briefs. His eyes immediately snapped to the giant television hanging on the wall across from their bed. Ian was already fast asleep in his room, and the rest of the team had settled down as well.
"I don't think I got to her," Steve replied. "She's still in shock."
"Reasonable," Tony said.
"Vision's with her now."
A huff. Tony sat down on his side of the bed, his eyes still trained on the television. "He's so gone for her."
"So gone," Steve agreed. He got up from the bed, stripping out of his clothes. Dropping them haphazardly, he padded naked about the room, looking first for his sleeping shorts and then for a few small tea lights they sometimes left burning at night.
When Steve turned around, however, his eyes stuck on Tony's face. He didn't just look troubled at what he was seeing on the news channel, he had that closed-off expression he often sported when he was trying to shield his own emotions. It was a similar expression to the one Tony had worn when he'd been poisoned with the Palladium. The one when he was trying to keep something to himself. His eyes were carefully blank, but behind that—hopelessness and grief, coupled with a final, glomming ounce of determination to find a solution to face the unbeatable odds.
"What happened?" Steve asked and the sudden question had Tony startle.
"What?"
"What happened with you," Steve repeated. "You look… I don't know. Is it about Lagos?"
Tony looked down, bit his lower lip, and took a deep breath. Which meant he was gathering his emotions, ready to stamp them down as far as they would go. "Let's talk about it later," he said, confirming Steve's thoughts.
"Did something else happen? I never asked you how your presentation went."
And that was a dead-on, if the little twitch in Tony's face was any indication.
"Don't do that," Steve interjected before Tony could say more. "Just because I messed up today, you don't have to keep your troubles to yourself. We've been over that: You're not less important than me. So I'm asking again: What's wrong?"
Tony sighed, heavy and loud, showing Steve exactly what he thought of his needling. He did reach behind himself, however, and produced his tablet out of nowhere. He flipped through whatever apps he had running and eventually threw the tablet on the mattress so Steve could reach for it.
There was the picture of a young Afro-American boy, one of those photographs that were likely printed in a yearbook.
"Who is that?" Steve asked.
"Charles Spencer," Tony answered. "His mother walked up to me after the presentation. Showed me this." He paused. Smiled. "Charlie's a great kid. Computer engineering degree. 3.6 GPA. Had a floor level gig. An Intel plan for the fall."
Steve glanced at the happy young man once more before he lowered the tablet. He had a sickening feeling he already knew where this was going.
"But first, he wanted to put a few miles on his soul," Tony went on. "Before he'd park it behind a desk. See the world, maybe be of service. Charlie didn't go to Vegas, he didn't go to Paris or Amsterdam. No, he decided to spend his summer building sustainable housing for the poor. Guess where."
"Sokovia," Steve filled in, his voice soft.
"Sokovia," Tony agreed. "He wanted to make a difference, I suppose. I mean, we won't know because we dropped a building on him while we were kicking ass."
Steve sighed, walking over to his own nightstand and putting the tablet down there. "What do you want me to say?"
"That you get it," Tony said, not quite angered, but Steve could hear the sharp undertone in his voice—the frustration. "Sokovia was on me, Steve. Lagos on Wanda. There's no need to beat around the bush. And you have to see that we need to be put in check."
Steve stared at Tony, taken aback by those strong words. They'd been tiptoeing around the issue for months, long before Ian's birth. They had meetings with new institutions like the ATCU, meeting Phil and his agents, debating on how they were going to handle new task forces like the Watchdogs that had decided to keep the enhanced humans in check, no matter the costs.
Tony had never quite spoken against the parties trying to invoke restrictions on the Avengers, but he had never uttered an affirmative word either. Now, it seemed, he'd made up his mind.
"Steve," Tony said softly. "If we can't accept limitations, we're boundary-less, we're no better than the bad guys."
He frowned. "Limitations? I'm not sure what you mean—we can't put our own failures on other people's shoulders. If we fail, it's something we have to face as a team."
Tony's calm expression began to fall. There was open sorrow in his gaze now that had Steve's insides tremble with confusion. Were their opinions really that different and he just hadn't noticed?
"Sometimes your principles really make you blind to other people's needs," Tony whispered.
"I am thinking of their need. I'm saying we need to figure out a way to keep ourselves in check."
Tony smiled helplessly, throwing both hands into the air. "That is like asking a political system to keep itself from becoming corrupt. There's a reason why every federate nation has a countercheck-system."
"I would agree with you if there weren't things well beyond human imagination threatening the world. You and I, we both have seen what is out there. We have seen what kinds of evils are waiting to dig their claws into Earth. And as long as we are our only defense system, we need to be able to do our work as we see fit."
They held each other's gazes for long moments, before Tony broke the connection. He pulled both knees towards his chest, and settled his head down on them.
Meanwhile, Sam stared at the ID card given to him. "Deavor...Wendy Deavor..."