4

16 HOURS EARLIER

THURSDAY

Tony squinted into the darkness. "Sorry, do I know you?"

"I know you." The man spoke in a gravelly American accent. "Fortunately, you don't know me nearly as well."

"You said we've met?" Tony stepped sideways, his hand still gripping tightly to the gun. He was slowly moving in a wide circle, trying to see the head in front of the computer monitor from a different angle.

The man chuckled. "Like you'd remember that."

"Try me." Tony narrowed his eyes in the dark. With the sharp contrast of light between the shadowed silhouette and the bright computer screen, it was hard to make out any facial details.

"My name's Jason King. We met five years ago."

"Trip down memory lane, okay. Let's see. . . 2012?" Tony thought for a minute. "You know what, you're right. No idea. Let's see, I'm guessing you're a. . . hacker?"

The man snorted and gestured around to the darkened Avengers Tower. "Good guess."

"It's a gift." Tony tilted his head up, indicating the person sitting in front of him. "So how'd you get into my tower?"

King spread his hands. "It's a gift," he repeated mockingly.

Tony smiled politely through gritted teeth and silently gauged the best way to get some real answers. He tried another angle. "Nothing too difficult for HYDRA, I suppose."

His goad had the desired effect. The man's entire demeanor changed as he stiffened in his seat. "We're not HYDRA."

"Some ghost-zombie division of SHIELD, then?" Tony guessed. "Rising up through the ashes of the tragically fallen empire? Fury's gonna burst out of a coat closet any second now, I know it," he muttered to himself, glancing around.

King stood sharply, both fists pounding heavily on the desk in front of him. "We were SHIELD," he growled. "Before HYDRA cracked us in half." He took a breath and straightened up. "We were one of Fury's secret weapons. One of his many, I should say, secret weapons.

"We were called Fury's Circuit. There were eight of us – eight of the best hackers on the globe. We could have jacked into news stations, we could have cracked open the Internet – hell, we could have torn down White House with a few keystrokes, had we been given the order."

"Definitely sounds like you're the good guys so far." Tony moved forward another step, carefully navigating around the table.

King cut himself off. "Trying to get a profile, Stark?"

"God no," Tony responded dramatically. "Then I would know the face of the criminal I'm going to put in jail for breaking and entering my tower."

"Actually, it's not a bad idea at all. I think I'd like you to know who bested you."

Hot white lights suddenly snapped on all around the room. Two bright lamps had been aimed directly at Tony's eyes, and he flinched away with a startled cry. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the large purple blots swarming at the center of his vision.

Tony could hear King moving around to the front of the desk, and footsteps walking up to him. Blinking rapidly, he tried to look up at King's face. "Always love putting a face to the v–"

Boots kicked the backs of Tony's knees, and he fell forward onto the floor. Shock jarred up his spine. "Gah!" he gasped, surprised more than anything else.

The gun in his hand was yanked out of his grip, and both arms were twisted behind his back. Two men stood behind him.

"Okay. Wasn't expecting that," Tony grunted honestly, grimacing in pain. At least his vision had returned to normal. He looked up, and his eyes met King's.

The man stood taller than Tony – not a a surprise, really – and wore what looked like SHIELD gear. He had a narrow face, intense white-blue eyes, and a scar running along his jaw. His hair had been buzzed off, leaving behind only the faintest shadow of grey hair.

"Funny, how you heroes are always shorter in person," King smirked.

A corner of Tony's lip twitched in irritation and he didn't reply.

"Stand him up," King ordered.

The two men hoisted Tony up, and he scrambled to get his footing. Pain shot up from his twisted ankle, and he sucked in a breath.

"Gotta say, that was well done," Tony admitted when he got his breath back. "Nice little maneuver there. Good job, fellas," he complimented the two men behind him. He turned back to King. "But when did a group of computer hackers become full-fledged field agents?"

King's face darkened, his voice lowering. "When HYDRA reduced SHIELD to rubble."

Tony audibly sighed. "Alright. Spill."

"When Widow released those files to the world, all of SHIELD's dirty little secrets came to light that day. And the Circuit? Well, we had this sick curiosity. Like we had to know how bad things could have been. So we got to work. Few people knew how to really destroy a SHIELD file's firewall like we did. We started hacking, decoding, decrypting, deciphering. We started reading everything we never knew." King looked up and met Tony's eyes, and his irises blazed blue. "Didn't like what we saw."

"Let me guess," Tony said. "HYDRA had gotten their fingers into more than a few pies?"

"They were like a virus," King said hollowly. "They were everywhere. There wasn't a single division within SHIELD that hadn't been infected. Mass murderers were heads of departments. HYDRA assassins had given us orders to kill – for all we knew, the deaths they ordered us to cause we caused were just collateral damage. The more we decrypted, the more our faith in SHIELD crumbled to nothing."

"Moving story," Tony said after a moment. "Really. I'm touched. So, let me fill in the blanks, here – you all jumped ship, moved back to your parents' basements, reconsidered some things, and then bided your time until you had the perfect opportunity to ruin my evening?"

King didn't rise to the bait. Instead of replying, he gave Tony a calm smile. "We decided to fly under a different flag." He unpinned a badge from his chest and held it out to Tony. "The Hacker's Enforcement of Law."

The emblem was similar to the original SHIELD logo, but the eagle's beak was turned the wrong way, and instead of solid outlines there was only a skeleton and skull against a background of black. The words Hackers' Enforcement of Law circled around the top half of the badge.

"HEL," Tony said, reading the acronym imprinted along the lower half of the badge. "Catchy. I think, though, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're missing another L there?"

The man chuckled deeply as he drew the badge back and pinned it back to his chest, just above his heart. In a low tone he spoke to the two men behind Tony. "Get his gun, let him go."

The hands gripping Tony's arms released, and he took a step forward. Rubbing his wrists, Tony looked back at King.

King glanced backward at Tony as he walked back to the table. "You're just like I thought you'd be, Stark."

"Always happy to live up to expectations," Tony smiled back, mock-politely.

"I will say one thing, though," King added, almost as an afterthought. "Your security wasn't even close to what we had expected."

Okay, okay, so maybe you were right just this once, Happy. I can hear the 'I told you so' already. Tony's lip twitched in irritation. "We were. . . unforeseeably understaffed," he muttered.

"'Understaffed'?" King repeated with a snort. "That's an understatement. There wasn't a single soul in the building when we came in – except, of course, for your AI."

"Which brings me to my point, thank you–" Tony jutted his chin at King – "you killed JARVIS. I'm gonna kick your ass."

"That's the name of your Artificial Intelligence interface?" The man gave a nod of admiration. "That's a nice piece of tech, Stark. Real nice. I'm impressed."

"Ah," Tony said, raising his eyebrows, "so you want my tech." He tilted his head to one side in a nod. "Okay, fair enough. Tell you what, though? Do yourself a favor, next time just burgle what you want and don't bother actually meeting face-to-face. I mean, clearly security isn't an issue for you."

King smirked. "Damn right," he said. "But I have my team here for something greater than common theft. We don't want your tech – we want one of your toys."

Tony gave a deep, tired sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Look, if you're gonna start speaking in riddles, I'm just going to go back downstairs and get a drink –"

"I don't want your tech, Stark," the man repeated, leaning forward, "because right now I need one of your toys." He placed a folder on the table and slid it forward, open-faced. Tony slowly took a step forward and glanced at the folder.

His muscles seized as he saw the photographs.

They were all of Peter.

King gave Tony a smile. "It's all gonna be very simple, Stark," he said. "All you gotta do is bring him to me."

A/N: WE'VE HIT A THOUSAND VIEWS! Holy cow, you guys are amazing. :D Thanks again for the reviews, follows, and favorites! Each one makes me ridiculously happy. :3 And I have good news – the next chapter will be posted on Monday! See you then!