We got the good guys, and now we got the bad guys. Someone go grab the popcorn!

ComiCon 2013, Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucas, New Jersey, March 2, 2013

Author's Notes: Shop Class Surgery-time!

More than a few fanfics have implied or straight out said the horrific concept of the Winter Soldier's metal arm and what it might mean/do to Bucky. I'm going one step further. You're getting an inside look. Literally.

This week was a tough one; second COVID shot (with all the funness of the side effects) during a heatwave while at finals week, and I still managed to bang this chapter out.

And happy Canada Day and Independence Day!

Reed Nathan Richards found himself working alongside a tech prodigy like himself dressed like Miss Marvel. While working on the most advanced robotic arm he had ever seen that was also attached to a human being that was dressed like Captain America. Being watched over by someone who was said could actually talk to animals that was impersonating the Black Widow.

The sixteen year-old young man was in hog heaven, nerd heaven, geek heaven, and a few more thrusted into that.

Reed had gone to ComiCon for the most obvious of reasons; it was ComiCon! It was pretty dang hard to be a teenager and not like comic books, superheroes, cartoons, and the fact that real living versions of Gods and Titans actually walked the Earth. He had seen all the Supermans, all the Batmans (even the one from the 60's), and all the Justice League of America cartoons. Then there were the ones that weren't quite as popular but still fun, such as WildK.A.T.s, Gen13, and of course Spawn. ComiCon contained all that and more; people dressed like comic book characters, like video game characters, like cartoon characters, and hilariously one couple who passed themselves off as Agent Mulder and Agent Scully. One could find Star Trek, Star Wars, Predator, and even Alien amongst the many people within the expo that was the center of the known universe for the imagination. Writers, drawers, pencilers, actors, voice actors, that and more all came. It was a fanboys' and fangirls' dream come true.

This year, it was different. This year, people dressed like real superheroes.

Living in Brooklyn, Reed was dead-set on going to ComiCon… and got himself a great deal more than he bargained for.

Face-to-face with the Avengers. In which he somewhat knew one of them from before.

Kamala Khan worked at his side as they looked at the cybernetic arm of one James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes, an elite soldier and famous hero from World War II, a part of the Howling Commandos led by none other than Captain America. Bucky (as he insisted he be called) sat at a chair with his arm on Reed's folding plastic table that he had been using to display his Microbot Project on the hopes of catching the eye of a few potential investors. Instead, Bucky had his arm on it as if he were getting a tattoo (they even rigged up a cloth partition to disguise what they were doing), except that his left arm was completely made of metal; osmium steel, in fact. Kamala had told him the story of how supposedly HYDRA had attacked them at Sinatra Park (some park in Hoboken, evidently) with the ability to jam their cell phones as well as possibly tracking them due to what she suspected could be in Barnes' arm. Richards didn't need to ask the obvious question; the arm was HYDRAtech, no doubt. It wasn't like someone snuck in while the veteran was sleeping and shoved a jamming device and a tracking device without him knowing of it. None of the three Avengers were saying exactly how Bucky ended up with a limb that was completely cybernetic, not merely an arm wrapped with metal. He didn't doubt they knew, but they weren't saying. That didn't bode anything well.

Well, they did try to take over America with flying ships and a bunch of Anti-Avengers. Supposedly they hadn't thrown in the towel yet.

"Okay, the first thing we need to do is to open it up." Kamala said as she looked to Reed, and then the various tools that they had between them. Reed, thankfully, had a good many precision tools and more than a few electrical tools with him for his Raspberry Pi, his microbots, and just because it was certainly easier to buildings with tools than without. Kamala didn't have much in the way of tools on her, but she did happen to have a highly-advanced cell phone that was completely clear and yet worked with a touch. She called it an iStark to explain how she got it in a word. "Do you know how they did it?" That question was aimed at the ninety-three year old man sitting at the table that looked to be in his late-20's to early-30's.

"They started at the shoulder blade and worked their way down." The former soldier replied, his tone not exactly thrilled. That told Reed more than he needed to know, but he was just going to go with it. "There's a small point at the top of the shoulder. There's some kind of double-sided screw that helps remove the housing. Then there's more attachment points. Not sure what kind of screwdrivers or wrenches they used."

"Jesus, they did this to him?" Reed whispered to Kamala, gulping at the thought. When Bucky had first arrived, he was dressed head-to-toe just like Captain America (the Halloween costume made by The Avengers Foundation, which was a near-replica of the real thing). Now he had a part of his top off, exposing the left side of his chest and the entirety of his upper arm. The scar tissue and obvious damages were horrific; burns, scars, old healed wounds, the skin twisted and malformed what looked to be a dozen times over. And the skin that met the metal was red and inflamed, not like a sunburn but more like recent surgery. Not that he was a medical doctor by any stretch of the imagination, but he could only imagine that the skin was rubbed raw, reacting to whatever was next, or… or underneath. Kamala was looking at it too, her face faintly horrified at what she was seeing. It was pretty obvious that Bucky didn't show off.

"They did a lot of things to him, Reed. Which is why I'm making sure he doesn't end up back in their hands." His counterpart replied softly, Kamala's hand went to the sight of the scarring and inflamed tissue, touching it gently. "Bucky… have you told anyone about this? Steve? Nat? Mum?"

"No." The soldier's tone was dead. It was pretty obvious that this wasn't a subject that he wanted to get into. Kamala's wince was hard enough to hear.

"Bucky… this shouldn't be happening! If you had told me…" The young woman said to the veteran as Reed looked at the small point at the top of the shoulder cuff where it looked to be a small point where two strange-looking nuts were connected. "If you had told me, I would have helped you. At the least, get this HYDRAtech off of you and out of you. Give me a month and we can have an arm like this for you that isn't causing you pain and injury. One made by friends, by people who believe in you. They wanted a weapon; what we want is something more."

"I know." Barnes replied, his right hand gently taking Kamala's and giving it a soft squeeze. "Right now, get the junk out of it, and then we can look at options later after we get out of this trap."

"You'd better believe it." Kamala looked up to Reed, who was now looking at the screwhead to see what would fit into it. "Let me guess, some sort of strange wrench or screwdriver?"

"Looks like a triangular slotted nut, but small. Like, less than a 5mm wrench. Perhaps a precision one? We're going to have to shave a wrench down to fit this." The young man replied as he pulled out the wrench in question, one with a standard six-sided slot. "Could be worse; could have been a multi-pronged odd star set that would be next to impossible to shave down."

"Did you say triangular? I have something similar!" The Pakistani-American woman replied with a smile as she reached into her messenger bag and pulled out one of her few tools. "Tony makes his own tools, and he uses odd-shaped screw heads so its more difficult to disassemble his tech. He's been doing that for a decade or two, I think." It made sense; Tony Stark use to make the most advanced and most precise weapons in the world. No surprise, he didn't want anyone figuring out how. "Y'know… Tony said that he got the idea of using unique-shaped tools from his father, and I just happen to have a tool that matches this slot…"

"You think Howard Stark made this?" Reed asked, making Bucky look over sharply at them. Neither of them noticed as Kamala fit the strangely-shaped wrench head onto the odd-shaped nut… and it fit perfectly.

"Nobody has anything this precise or anywhere close to it." The young woman reasoned as she turned the nut slowly. "HYDRA was inside SHIELD, and Howard Stark founded SHIELD and ran its technology division for decades. Perhaps he made one on a false order, the project was scrubbed, and the working prototype was written off as demolished but HYDRA took it for themselves. They did that with the Battleships and Aircraft Carriers during the Civil War, so why not steal other tech? It certainly avoids having an R+D department or a budget they need to procure without any return investment. Find the best tech, steal it for their own, kill the inventor to tie up loose ends and ensure they have the monopoly. That sounds right up their alley."

"It does." Barnes replied softly, making Reed look at him for a moment, seeing the dark face the veteran had. "I didn't know Howard made this. I was more or less out of it when they attached it to me."

"I would hope so. I can't even imagine that procedure. A-ha!" Kamala exclaimed as she pulled out the first nut. "Looks like this is a telescoping ring where the nuts keep the metal cuff tight and flush with your body. Loosening it should mean that it will slide down, slide up, or slide off. It would have to if they wanted to refit it, repair it, check up on it, or upgrade it." Kamala looked a little horrified by what she said as she looked to the man she was practically crawling on top of and leaning over his shoulder. "Sorry, Bucky, I mean…"

"There's a difference between someone who wants to use and someone who wants to help." The ninety-three year old replied. "And the sooner you rip out that HYDRAtech that they're using to jam us and track us, the better."

"Alright. I've got the anchors off. Reed, ready to see how this comes off?"

"Yep." Actually, he wasn't. It was one thing to pull apart and put back together a laptop, a desktop, or some electronic device. This arm was more sophisticated than anything he had ever seen, and it was attached to a man. But if it did have a tracking device and there were people actively tracking it, then people would be in danger…

…Kamala would be in danger.

Nearly a year ago, during the Tri-State Area Science Competition, Reed Richards had been one of the candidates for the Roosevelt Academy; a magnet High School in which entrance was done by passing a rigorous scholastic exam. At a young age, he had been identified as having a higher intelligence quotient than his peers, and Reed thrilled at the intellectual challenges presented to him. The Tri-State Area Science Competition was a means to pit himself against like-minded (and similarly-intelligent) peers of his age outside of Roosevelt Academy that he had already surpassed, to find friendly but realistic competition with school-aged children that were like he. Hundreds of students with hundreds of projects had attended the three-day long challenge, and Reed had been working on a concept that put damn near all the other projects to shame. Not that they were bad, but none of them were inventive; they were newer concepts of the same thing, a few shinier components or perhaps a new look to something tried-and-true. Reed had gone all out and created something only spoken of in science-fiction novels and barely touched in science-fiction movies; miniaturized computerized robots that could be programed to complete simple tasks at a much faster rate than a man. He had created the micro-robot, or the microbot. A few hundred had went with him to the Competition held at Columbia University to show off that he could recreate safety devices, simple tools, and even engineering feats within a few seconds, completely negating the need for a tool belt, extra material to build, or even his hands.

It was at the Competition that he met his match in a young woman from New Jersey named Kamala Aisha Khan.

In those three days, when the judges looked at each project as well as having the students demonstrate, Reed found himself visiting Kamala, the spunky young woman inventing something utterly new, like he had. Instead of engineering, she had gone for holographic imaging to thwart the commonly-used senses of sight and sound to fool a person into thinking that something was there when it really wasn't. Holographic technology was brand-new, but generally limited to a singular spot, needed intense programming, and really not good enough to trick even the common man. Kamala had blown everything out of the proverbial water by making projection drones that copied a person's figure and replicated it, giving it motion and sound. It had been beyond wild, especially as he watched her hold a book reading and eating cereal at the same time like a ventriloquist and his dummy save the two images were several feet apart, not even touching each other.

Reed had been stumped and even guessed the wrong Kamala; she hadn't been eating cereal like most everyone thought, having replicated a cereal and a bowl along with image cloned self.

He had been amazed, stupefied, and even humbled.

Reed's project, sadly, hadn't captured the imagination of the judges like Kamala's had or many others. While he had been able to replicate tools, simple designs, and even a chair he could sit on, they had thought it cute… but that was it. He hadn't even placed in the top ten amongst the competitors. Like he had with Kamala's demonstration, the young woman had watched his, amazed by what he had done. Unlike the judges, the young woman from New Jersey had seen the worth and value of the microbots, already imagining what hundreds of thousands could do if a few hundred could make a chair in seconds. In those three days, Reed and Kamala had hanged out pretty much constantly, looking at other projects while swapping stories, sharing little life details, and even exchanging social media addresses and phone numbers; the first time a girl had ever done so with him. He had been smitten pretty hard.

When he hadn't even made the top ten of the Tri-State Area Science Competition, he had been crushed.

A year of building more microbots, improving their design and programing language, creating a better receiver/transmitter, and a whole deal of practice, Reed was set to show what he could do. It was absolutely no secret that Kamala had fully become an Avenger, and it was well-known that she was discovered at that very same Competition he had met her at. Anyone with an elevated IQ had realized that the Avengers were scoping out science fairs, mathletes, STEM shows, and MoMA centers. Reed wanted that chance, that recognition, that way to the top.

He hadn't texted Kamala or answered her invites back because of depression, working on his microbots like a madman, and the chance to meet her again as an equal, not as a failure. But according to the young woman, those invites were a lot more than just to meet up again. Reed had to admit that, despite his intelligence, he was probably an idiot. Especially when it came to women. He just didn't get them, and he was highly uncomfortable trying to talk to a women when they seemed to only exist in packs, friends walking in school halls together, nearly impossible to engage just one. And whenever he did get an opportunity, he began to mumble and stutter out of nervousness.

Kamala had been different.

When she met him at the Tri-State Competition, she had seen his project and immediately gushed over it. At first, he mumbled and stuttered, but after a few minutes of talking with her, finding out similar likes and their love of building and creating with their hands, that went away. The two of them practically spent three days hanging out, even after the Competition hours when the students were bivouacked at a nearby hotel since students were coming from all over New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They had raided the slurpie machine at a local 7-11, tried one-up'ing one another on who had more comics and memorabilia, and shared written fanfics and Facebook trolls together. It wasn't that Reed didn't have friends; he did. But none of them were like Kamala (admittedly, all his friends were guys like him, and most notably they were all guys, too). Kamala was smart, funny, gushed over the same things, challenged him to Jeopardy, showed off her hardly-vanilla laptop, and… well… she was a young woman.

Even Reed couldn't deny that he had gotten bitten pretty bad.

Not even being placed in the Competition had been a blow; Reed had wanted to stand out, but it was more than just that. While he was happy that Kamala had won, it was that he had felt like a nobody afterwords. He had met this smart, funny, attractive young woman that was so much like him but also so much more… and he didn't have anything to show for himself. Kamala had swept the competition with her Freeform Light Holographic Projection Drone, and the judges had passed upon his microbots as if they were a toy. He had felt like an incredible failure, and Reed had sank into depression, ignoring Kamala's calls and invites.

Now, today of all days, she was here, right next to him, asking for his help. Needing his help. In a big way, at that.

You can do this, you were meant for this, that little inner voice inside of him said, the one that had him upgrading his laptop computer with components not necessarily made for laptops, that had him tearing down and rebuilding electronics in better ways, that had him creating new and wild concepts. That voice had taken a real hit after the Competition, buried in the wallowing despair of defeat and failure. Reed had been working on his microbots because he had to do something; something to make him noticed, something that would push him ahead of the pack. He did it not for fame or for fortune (those would be nice, but that wasn't it). No, he did it because it thrilled him, and he knew that he could come up with something that could change the world.

And perhaps, just perhaps, he would get a second chance with someone who would see him as an equal, someone who could understand that thirst and passion like he had.

And today of all days, when Reed had gone to ComiCon to enjoy the expo and to garner attention for his invention, she had showed up asking for his help.

Reed promised himself he wouldn't fail a second time.

The first piece of Bucky Barnes' shoulder came off, the outer shell made of dense osmium steel sliding up slightly to where it came off its pivot points and simply detached with ease. It was obvious that it was made with proper removal in mind; it would have easily resisted any attempt at being pried, bashed, sawed, grinded, or wedged off. The genius of it was the unusualness of the connecting piece to keep it on, and then the ease of how it came off of its osmium steel locking joint. With a simple opening act in which the piece rotated ninety degrees like a flap, it came off in Kamala Khan's hands as she set the piece on the plastic table beside her, and her dark eyes saw what was laying beneath.

"Holy shit." The young teenager gulped at what she seeing, her eyes going wide as she looked over to Reed Richards, who was going pale as well. They had thought the worst was the scar tissue of the shoulder surrounding the joint where flesh met metal. They were wrong. They were very wrong.

"My God, the supporting structure is going into his body." The young man beside her whispered in fascinated horror, the both of them seeing what HYDRA had done. The arm was most certainly a replacement, but where the original damage had been hadn't been at the shoulder, that was certain. Most amputees had something remaining of a limb if removal was a necessity due to damage, infection, illness, or other means. But the removal of Bucky's left arm was total; there was nothing past the shoulder cuff. Nothing of the Humerus bone remained, the upper arm bone just completely gone. Instead, a metal rod was attached to an interesting looking rotating joint meant to mimic the movement of the shoulder joint known as the Glenoid Cavity where the Humeral Head was attached to the Synovial Ball and Socket Joint with ligaments, muscles, and connecting tissues. Instead, a sophisticated metal joint had been drilled into the Glenoid Cavity and looked to be attached to the Coracoid Process just above the joint, bolted into the bone itself with some sort of metal sleeve. The Acromion Process and the Acromioclavicular Joint were also tied in, forgoing their natural organic ligament and muscular attachments and replaced with metal. What was worse was that the bones were partially exposed.

"Oh, Bucky…" Kamala whimpered a little where she saw reddened, badly-healed, slightly-infected, and too-pale flesh covering where sun and air were never meant to touch. The section she was looking at should have been a man's arm. Instead, she was looking at a sophisticated joint that was a multiaxial pivot meant to rotate forward and backward, upward and downward, spin front and back, all the movements of a normal arm. The synthetic joint had at least three pivots that Kamala could see, nearly gyroscopic in complexity and sophistication. And it seemed to be lubricated with some sort of white substance that seemed too thick to be oil.

That was just the shoulder joint. It most certainly did not get better the deeper she examined.

After removing the upper arm sheath with the same tool, Kamala could see that the Humerus bone was a metal rod, more osmium steel by the look of it. But it was surrounded by a hydraulic system that very nearly boggled the Pakistani-American teenager. Yes, hydraulics could be pressurized for a great deal of power, but generally the pumps were powerful, the energy required to pressurize that level of force was certainly sizable, and the tubing was thick and usually not that flexible. In Bucky's arm, it actually took Kamala a few moments to realize that there were in fact hoses in his prosthetic arm, just that they were far smaller than any kind of hydraulic hose she had ever seen. A standard forklift hydraulic hose was generally two inches in diameter for one of the smaller vehicles. These ones were perhaps a centimeter in diameter, and didn't seem to be of belted rubber like the industry standard. Instead, some sort of flexible plastic hose about the thickness of a Number Two pencil was seen cording its way through the 'meat' of Bucky's arm, well over a dozen braided and corded through the length of the arm, almost reminiscent of the bicep and tricep muscle it replaced. The thin hoses looped up the arm and around the metal shoulder joint, held in place both around the multiaxial joint and the poor flesh of Bucky's torso. It looked like it was tied to the same metal that had been fused to his bones.

The young woman had to wipe the tears from her eyes before taking several photos with her iStark phone, appalled at what she was seeing. This was a man who was revered as the epitome of an American hero for decades, who had fought alongside Captain America and his legendary Howling Commandos, who had given his life for his country in the greatest war the world had ever known. Amongst the Greatest Generation, the name James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes was one taught in school to children for his heroism, his valor, and his sacrifice. America hadn't forgotten the man who was a part of that legendary tip of the spear who fought not only the Nazis, but HYDRA as well, liberating concentration camps, destroying strongholds, and saving the world.

And then some assholes went and lopped his arm off and replaced it with a monstrosity.

"I think I found the jamming device." Reed said quietly, point to an object embedded inside the many hydraulic hoses of the upper arm of Bucky's prosthetic arm. While it didn't look like MilTech immediately, Kamala knew that once the housing of such devices were removed, it was like any other electronic device; circuit boards, connections, power supply, and programming point. The young woman remembered why such devices were phased out of the military years prior; thermal radiation burns on soldiers wearing the WARLOCK Ice above their armor and uniform from the high-gain frequency modulation. And this one was planted inside Bucky's arm! "It's tied to whatever is powering his arm, I think. I don't see a separate power source anywhere in the bicep or tricep area. Do you?"

"No, this would need a good deal of voltage and wattage to run." The young woman told her counterpart. The WARLOCK Ice ran off the same battery that military radios ran off of, which were large twelve volt lithium-ion batteries. That would be impossible to miss considering they were about the size of a small brick and weighed a few pounds by themselves. Obviously the device was running off of… whatever powered Bucky's hydraulic system. Kamala was almost afraid to see what it was, or worse, where it was located. It seemed that the electrical wiring harness was neatly integrated with the miniaturized hydraulic hoses, running right next to them. What was worse was that they, too, were much smaller than the common eighteen gauge insulated copper wire one saw on most electronic components. Despite what Hollywood movies showed, just snipping judiciously was a terrible idea. And the wires were running around the hydraulic cables.

One bad snip could disable Bucky's arm. Or worse, possibly blow it off. Prophets knew what kind of sinister crap HYDRA had put into it.

"Okay, we need to isolate the wires, run them to the device, and see which one involves which." Kamala began, looking up to Bucky, who was a little interested in what was going on while Doctor Doreen Green stood at the 'opening' of their little cover, playing door guard. "These wire may actually be important to your arm, so we can just start cutting. There might even be false wires to cause a feedback or… prevent tampering. Meaning boom. Do we have some alligator clips and extra wire?"

"Yeah, but these wires look fragile. Like, twenty-eight gauge wire." Reed replied with a worried tone. Kamala could see that the ultra-thin wire that didn't even look properly insulated did look rather fragile. How they held up during combat operations was beyond her. "An alligator clip might be too strong and snap the lead off. And even then it's going to be a hodge-podge of loose bypasses and ugly, hasty work. I've got a soldering iron, but…" Yeah, but. But it might be too hot and melt the wire or the hydraulic line, or anything else that this highly-sophisticated arm had been crafted with to prevent tinkering or tampering.

If it had been built by Howard Stark during the Cold War Era, it was a very serious likelihood even if it just happened to be a prototype that had been written off for whatever reason before it had been installed into James Buchanan Barnes. Even Tony built into his weapons anti-tampering devices, and generally the more damaging the device, the more damaging the anti-tampering prevention device. Usually by blowing up the idiot trying. Kamala was trying not to think of that as she pulled out her sketchbook from her bag and started doodling a hasty electrical plan with what she could see along with the inclusion of the hydraulic system. It really was an elegant design of sophistication and craftsmanship, and having worked with Tony, the young woman could one-hundred percent believe that this arm had been made by none other than Howard Stark. How it came to be the only one might be in question, but the artistry of it wasn't. Not only did Howard build technology and weapons for America (and SHIELD), but he built in failsafes and tamper-protection into many of the more dangerous designs. Just cutting a wire could render the arm completely inert, or turn it into a cloud of supersonic shrapnel inside a highly-populated expo center.

They had to get that jamming device out. That was without question.

Shop Class Surgery, Kamala thought to herself, remembering the pun Tony once told her that she had found highly amusing at the time. But right now it was incredibly accurate; she would be performing a shop class version of surgery on a prosthetic arm attached to a man. And like the game of Operation, touching something wrong would lose her the game (potentially… probably… her life). While was not at all looking forward to a potential death, the thought of being captured by HYDRA was a much worse prospect, not to mention a fate she highly considered less ideal. Doctor Doreen Green could very well be right; Kamala herself could very well be HYDRA's intended target. Were Bucky and Doreen very good at what they did? Yes, yes they were. Being superpowered people certainly elevated them well about just about every unaltered or unpowered human being on the planet. Yet both had been defeated by Clint Barton, the Hawkeye rendering Doctor Green unconscious with a headbutt (and subsequently freeing her from HYDRA's control) and even taking Bucky out of the equation while on the Lemurian Star by using an exploding arrow to toss him out to sea. Actually, Clint had defeated the both of them as well as her sister Jessica Drew, and had nearly defeated Jessica twice; incredibly impressive for a man with literally nothing more to him than great training and highly-impressive archery skills. Bucky and Doreen, while great, were defeatable. It was even possible that an unenhanced person could do the deed if timed right, lucky, or carried the right equipment. After all, a normal man had brought down the Winter Soldier, the Beastmaster, and Venom, after all.

Kamala in HYDRA's hands would be so much worse.

Ever since she had been a summer intern to Avengers Tower, Kamala Khan had access to a great many devices and tools in the laboratory known as the SCI/TECH Department, be it physical objects and computing devices. At first, the young woman was mentored for the summer months and given a regimented allotment of what she could use and what materials she could acquire, first to fabricate and upgrade the Miss Marvel Project beyond a few store-bought drones and electronic devices. When Tony came up with PROJECT: MATILDA, to create a plane for the Avengers that could go anywhere in the world, taking-off and landing by any means (though generally that meant repulsor technology and Arc Reactor technology), Kamala had offered her own proprietary invention to enhance it further; to create a place that could disappear by looking like anything else… or just going invisible. She had worked alongside Tony and several other members of the SCI/TECH Department to create the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III that would later be known as the Gungnir, modifying the military cargo aircraft into a mobile tactical deployment vessel capable of flying into any scenario undetected while carrying the Avengers and whatever they needed for whatever mission they happened to have. It was during the project that she learned how to create the repulsors that Tony Stark had invented to replace the propellers of the airplane, had even helped fabricate the Arc Reactors that the Gungnir used, and helped develop the Combat Information Center suite that hosted a rather vast communications suite, very high-speed internet connectivity (even in the sky at cruising altitude), piggybacking military communication satellites for satellite imagery, holographic projection screens for tactical assessment, and uploading a Natural Language Program named the Oracle Binary Intelligent Wikia Analytical Network, or OBIWAN.

It didn't stop there. Far from it.

Kamala had proved her intelligence, inventiveness, and helpfulness to Jennifer Walters and was able to get both Miss Walters and her parents to agree that she could continue her internship during the school year for a few days a week as long as she maintained her grades, coming to the Tower on Friday evening after jumu'ah, or Friday prayer, and staying until early Sunday afternoon. She had done much during that time; she had helped rearm the Avengers with more sophisticated technology and means than what they already had, she had invented the actual Hoverboard from Back To The Future II (Jenn was looking into pricing and development), she had invented the electric bicycle that didn't need pedals (again, something that would be going public in a few months), and helped put a monster back into his place (in which Kamala knew Kevin Thompson was sent to a watery grave even if everyone politely didn't tell her at the time, she got that). Many in Avengers Tower innocently teased her about being the next Tony Stark, but in many ways they were right; she was being brought up much like Tony had been by his own father, Howard Stark.

Tony had mentored her not only in ways to create and how to expand her own capabilities… but also the mistakes he had made in the past concerning his own parents and his views of his own father as well as what he had done later in life to teach her how to be better than he had done. Stark hadn't wanted her to merely create weapons or military tech toys for a nation that already had some of the very best gadgets, devices, and means in the world, earning herself the same fell reputation he once boasted about. Tony was about helping mankind, ushering in a new age, the same thing his own father promised for decades and bore fruit with the Space Program, the hilariously named STAR WARS Program (yes, it actually existed! Laser satellites in space!), and the M-1 Abrams battle tank amongst many other innovations. Yet Tony said that Howard envisioned a future that would have put sci-fi movies to shame, his ideas greater than the technology he had available. Tony wanted to continue that dream, to help mankind evolve further, his eye on three things; clean energy production, denuclearization, and space exploration.

And the fifteen year old selected by her achievements in a science competition had become the protege to the Iron Man and revolutionary designer that had been the industry leader in so much for decades, groomed to do the same thing.

That writing was most obviously on the wall; without it being officially announced, Kamala Khan was Tony Stark's spiritual successor and heir.

After the HYDRA Uprising and the Second American Civil War, Kamala officially became an Avenger, voted for and approved unanimously by the six original ground team members, five original support members (being Virgina 'Pepper' Potts, Harold 'Happy' Hogan, Doctor Jane Foster, Doctor Erik Selvig, and Darcy Lewis), with its CEO officiating the meeting just prior to Jenn's release from Walter Reed Hospital. The big issue was the most obvious one, her age, and it had been addressed by several members as a cause of concern not because of her maturity level, but the fact that most people would see her as a kid and certain levels of access would be alarming for the public at large. Regardless, Kamala had been granted full unrestricted access and membership, the same as any of the original team and support members.

The other issue concerning her age was her vulnerability.

Kamala, like any fifteen year old, had to go to school that put her in the same location at the same set of times five days a week like clockwork; the perfect intelligence for a snatch-and-grab. Being at school also meant that she was, more-or-less, left without a means to defend herself since it wasn't allowed for anyone save authorized security personnel to have any kind of hurtful or damaging object, even things such as mace or a taser. Yes, Kamala had a few means on her to help her escape, but if things got physical she would likely be screwed. One of the Avengers was always near Coles Academy High School when the teenager was present (usually, it was one of the Iron Man suits ran by JARVIS fitted with the Miss Marvel Project to cloak it on-hand and usually on the roof of the school, everyone blissfully unaware), and there was an alert system to (Kamala wasn't the only one who had such things, but being the youngest and a minor, she knew she would be the most looked-out after, which she understood considering what happened to her parents right in their very own home). Kamala was grateful that she was given both fair treatment but also the ability to be a kid for as long as possible.

There was no doubt that the Avengers were walking targets for a variety of people for a variety of reasons. Kamala, celebrated for her youth and accomplishments at such a tender age, was no exception.

It should have been no surprise that HYDRA would pick the young woman who had hurt them thrice and likely worse than Captain America ever had for acquisition.

Simply put, the Pakistani-American teenager couldn't end up in the hands of the organization that was once a Nazi advanced research and scientific development program that invented blaster rifles and mega-tanks back in the Forties with a plot to bomb every capital in the world for global domination. If HYDRA took her and 'poked' her with the Scepter, Kamala would tell everything she knew with a word. She would spend the next three months describing everything in detail. HYDRA would never get her to invent anything for them (if anyone needed a lesson in giving military technology to an inventor, they only needed to look at the history of how the first Iron Man suit was made to realize how bad of an idea that was), but that wasn't necessary. No doubt the squid had their own little science teams. No, Kamala would be ten to twenty years of catch-up in a short period of time, everything from repulsor technology, Arc Reactor technology, various ChiTech discoveries, energy sources, holographic technology, Pym Particle technology, advanced computing, material crafting, the strengths and weaknesses of the Avengers (both Tower and personnel), family members, friends… she could be the nuclear weapon against her family while handing out next-generation concepts and designs for HYDRA to muck things up again. The Prophet only knew what else they would do with her, but Kamala didn't doubt it would be anything remotely close to being pleasant. Especially after she blasted HYDRA's dirty little secrets all over the internet after getting a good number of their membership killed both at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Triskhelion. She probably topped their shit list over even her Mum and Cap!

Her capture… it couldn't happen.

The world would suffer if it did.

Doctor Doreen Alleen Green (DVM) was standing Shylock. Eight years of college at the University of Michigan's Veterinarian Program and a very-professed animal lover… reduced to being a door thug. It was amusing, actually as the auburn-haired woman stood at the partition 'door' of the stall that was rented out by one Reed Richards, another teenage genius inventor who just so happened to be at the same ComiCon as they were at. While she had known the young man for a grand total of twenty minutes, listening to Reed and Kamala talk nerdy to each other and getting to work on Bucky Barnes' arm showed her quickly that the kid was about from the same bolt of cloth as Kamala was. The stall merely had a couple of cubical-like walls surrounding it so the attendees of ComiCon didn't see a very well muscled man with half his shirt off having an operation being done on his highly-advanced autonomous prosthetic arm. The last thing that the three of them needed was a crowd or an audience when they were suppose to be on the sly from HYDRA and its goons.

She knew the squid was there. A little birdie told her… literally.

Thankfully, the Meadowlands Exposition Center was a very large building. It was easily twice the size of a Super-Walmart, probably even three times that size, and it seemed that just about square foot was being used for the comic convention. Whatever the population was on the inside, from the attendees, to the those running the stalls, concession stand operators, expo staff, security, and who knew who else, the number of people within was enormous. It looked almost impossible to walk the 'paths' in between the tables and stalls of ComiCon at any other speed beyond a crawl, and trying to go faster would have someone pushing their way through and creating a ruckus. Kamala had been right; this was probably the best hiding spot they could reasonably find in a short period of time, they were practically anonymous, and trying to find them within a ComiCon while dressed up as Avengers would be sheer insanity. Yes, there likely was a tracking chip in Bucky's arm (HYDRA had followed them to the Meadowlands), which meant they could probably get within a good distance of where they were at. General GPS precision was something like ten meters… but in the chaos of ComiCon, that would be a difficult find. And Doreen suspected that there was probably only one tracker receiver amongst the HYDRA Operatives; more would potentially mean someone could lose a device and possibly reverse that access or even potentially discover more about the organization. So the men who had been sent by them (she had 'seen' through the eyes of several birds and a few dogs a large group of men huddling together before entering ten minutes prior) would either have to split up to find them, or come at them en masse and highlight themselves.

Doreen kept an eye for such disruptions and men wearing jackets to keep their military-oriented paraphernalia disguised. The crowd worked in her favor for that, too.

So Doreen stood Shylock while Kamala and Reed 'operated' on Bucky's arm, the two teenagers thick-as-thieves as they pulled off the osmium steel plates that covered and protected the internal mechanics of the advanced prosthetic that turned a Super Soldier even deadlier. She could overhear their conversations as they worked, the sounds of horrified discovery at what they were finding. A part of her knew that had to likely be the case, Doreen feeling a very real chill in her heart when Reed mentioned how the metal supporting structure of Bucky's arm was literally going into his flesh-and-blood body. Honestly… it made perfect sense. How else would it stay on? The Doctor knew of at least two fights between Bucky and Cap, one on the Lemurian Star and the other at the bottom of a bunker at Camp Lehigh, when the veterans duked it out harder than likely literally anyone had ever fought before save when Jennifer Walters faced Emil Blonsky. Doreen had seen that arm in use probably two dozen times before being rescued from HYDRA's tentacles on the Lemurian Star, Bucky, Doreen, and Jessica Drew often used to clean up leaks and those who found tidbits of what was going on due to how human they looked. She had a pretty good idea of its capabilities. Or so she thought.

Even now, HYDRA wasn't willing to let them go. Damn them. Fuck them.

Doreen's hazel eyes kept her hazel eyes on the crowd as she stood guard, seeing dozens of people passing by the covered partition without even a mere glance, too enticed by all the memorabilia surrounding them, the costumes, and the general atmosphere to even pay attention to the woman dressed up as the Black Widow. The ones who did look at her generally were guys who took an eyeful of the costumes' rather provocative display of cleavage, their eyes never really scoping out her face which was framed by the red wig she wore. But she was hardly the only eye candy around (and nowhere near the Gold Medal for slutty attire). Hell, no one even recognized that the gun and holster on the crap belt the costume came with was an actual legitimate firearm, her Glock Safe Arms Model 19 semi-automatic pistol along with her three extra magazines ready if necessary. For now, she was blissfully anonymous and the station where Reed and Kamala worked on Bucky's arm not even noteworthy. So far, so good.

"L-Ladies and gentlemen…" The Meadowland Exposition Center's intercom system spoke up, a man's voice overriding even the loud din of voices of the convention attendees. "Welcome to this year's ComiCon, where in a moment, we will be featuring the main event of the day."

"That's weird." Reed Richard's spoke up as Doreen looked back for a moment, seeing the young man using a pair of tweezers inside of Bucky's arm to move something while Kamala operated a pair of wire-cutters. "The main event's literally on the other side of the Expo. And it's like an hour and a half early. Plus they don't use the PA system to announce these things."

Doreen's head turned to look at Bucky, and the Veteran's eyes met with the Veterinarian's. They already knew.

"Today," the man's voice spoke up once more, "we have a special surprise for all of you attending here, especially that of our special guests. We would like to welcome you to the one, the only…

"The Mandarin."

Enter The Mandarin, ComiCon 2013

If Trevor Benjamin Slattery was anything, he was a showman; he was born for the stage.

Like many British youth growing up in Post-War England, theater and cinema was a wonderful thing with such names as Lawrence Olivier, dreaming of doing Shakespeare. For nearly thirty years, he had been doing plays and musicals in West End London with a theater group, doing everything from King Lear to even more modern works. But theater was a fickle business, waxing and waning, and unless one got awarded one of the more recognizable accolades, one was practically unknown. Getting older and fewer jobs coming to him, Trevor found himself getting deeper into debt and finding ways to make more money.

It was then that he became a shemp; an impersonator made to be someone else for a certain period of time. Usually for criminals or wealthy men who needed an alibi.

Surprisingly, that work was readily available and well-paying. His older age was actually a boon as most wealthy men were in their fifties or even older, and make-up and wardrobe was hardly a mystery for the theater actor. While he still did plays when he could get picked up, Trevor Slattery found himself doing more darker plays and acts for men with money and the need to be in two places at once. A body-double, as it were.

It was this gig that got him picked up by an American Think Tank known as Advanced Idea Mechanics in 2007.

AIM, like many tech firms catering to the American Government at the time, was deeply immersed in military contracts and technology thanks to the on-going War On Terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem was that with the election season coming up and a junior Democrat Senator from Illinois gaining steam in the polls for the Presidential election with the promise of pulling out of those two nations, many a company who had been enjoying over half-a-decade of military contracts and government money were seeing the end of the line where budgets weren't so deep and contract approvals would drop. The Chief Financial Officer, Aldrich Killian, surmised that the problem was that there was no villain for the world to hate to justify a continuing conflict. Saddam had been captured, tried, convicted and executed. His family and ministers had met a similar fate. The Taliban had folded easily during the invasion of Afghanistan, and while there were names, none of them were big or important. And though Osama bin Laden hadn't been captured or killed, he also hadn't been seen since prior to September 11th, either.

There were no wolves to fear.

So AIM created one… and Trevor had been selected to become the next Big Bad Wolf.

After Stark Industries dissolved its own weapons division following the kidnapping (and self-rescue) of Tony Stark, Advanced Idea Mechanics thrusted itself into the game triple-fold to make up for the new spot for the Government's go-to golden child for military contracts, wrestling that dominion with Hammer Industries. AIM was creating several new developments to appease the military, but the Think Tank knew it needed something to sweeten the deal; it needed someone bad enough to sell the weapons to solve the problem.

Thus, the Mandarin; a conglomeration of several different terrorists around the world to create a new face of terror and fear… with attacks to match it and a face to proclaim its responsibility.

The Mandarin had been born.

Trevor, for his part, knew the basic concept of what AIM was doing; creating a new threat to continue the conflict with terrorism and the Middle East to continue the war and destabilize the region to where terrorism would literally be nothing more than just poor farmers and illiterate locals with little to no power to do anything. Like any endeavor, such things required financing, but financing required a return investment, such as success or a strong message. Writers had been hired to create that message, make-up artists brought in to create a look, wardrobe selected to outfit a persona, and then an actor to be the very image of the Big Bad Wolf. Slattery knew that every work, no matter what, needed an antagonist, and the best of heroes must be faced by the most nefarious of villains. And though people remembered heroes well, there were villains who made their mark on history, real and fictional, that defined the very fight. When he was hired for the part and told (in a general broad sense) what he was to do, Trevor signed up. The pay was very substantial (it was nearly ten times what he made in a year), most everything would be gifted to him in one form or another, and he would be living in the very lap of luxury for what amounted to a few days work a month. It was hardly a blip on his conscious.

It was the Mandarin who took responsibility for the attack on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 2008 that made him a name known throughout the world… and strangely enough, what got that junior Senator from Illinois elected President, too.

AIM had a plan, and it was bold one. The military didn't just buy weapons; it needed proven weapons. It was great when someone made a weapon on a computer screen and showed how it would work. Nothing wrong when someone built a prototype and showed its functionality in a lab. But at the end of the day, the military and the government needed to know just how well it worked; that new weapon needed to undergo a great deal of tests, and then it needed to go kill a man. What AIM did was make prototypes and have them 'stolen' by the Mandarin to arm his forces with, and then the American Government would buy those very same weapons wholesale so as not to be outdone without little pesky things such as safety tests or stress tests. And it worked; brilliantly. To make that work, Trevor took responsibility for said actions on Al-Jazeera with interviews. He made propaganda videos and posted them on a wide variety of websites, including YouTube. He was photographed shaking hands with the Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. There were training videos of him at terrorist camps training alongside other jihadists. He did a monthly podcast that one could buy on iTunes.

In less than three years time, it was Trevor Slattery who was the spiritual success to Osama bin Laden, most especially after bin Laden's death in May of 2011. The Mandarin became the most feared, most hated, most infamous man in the world. His messages were listened to by terrorist groups ranging from the Taliban, Al-Quada, Islamic State, the Levant State, Hezbollah, Famas, the Palestinian Liberation Front… the list went on.

Most days, he was Trevor Slattery; a wealthy actor living in a mansion in Miami with an Aston Martin Vanquish, a horde of women practically tripping over themselves to meet him, the best drugs that money couldn't buy, bodyguards and personal assistants to attend to him. But on same days… he was the Mandarin, like a very reverse version of Bruce Wayne and Batman.

Wealth, prestige, women, drugs, he had it all. Trevor ate at fancy restaurants he didn't have to wait to enter. He got invited to parties where booze and cocaine were practically handed out. He drove his Aston Martin down the beaches to see all the women in in their bikinis and never had a problem getting a few to come back with him. The life of wealth and taste, of hedonistic pleasure and allure; he had all that. And with his other persona, his darker half, he had something more; power. His words reached millions. He condemned and inflamed, he criticized and objected, and people all over the world hanged abated with their breath. When he became the Mandarin, men feared him, wouldn't even look him n the eye out of sheer respect and fear of that power, where a word would have a man dead and the evidence cleaned away, where men would kill for his favor. Trevor Slattery, that boy who dreamed of taking the West End stage as a lad, played the greatest role in the entire world, the biggest joke, the most amazing con.

And it all came crashing down just a few months ago thanks to an over-achieving mechanic with hardware store tools and a bag full of gag gifts.

Trevor Slattery was arrested on December 14, 2012, on the cusp of the Second American Civil War. The thing was that Anthony Edward 'Tony' Stark had pretty much killed almost every witness of who and what Trevor was, and the paper trail that AIM had was long, convoluted, and subjected to a hasty purge when the Presidential assassination attempt failed. To save his own skin, Slattery had sold only a small portion of his story; that of the actor merely playing a part or a role, benignly faking innocence to the overall plot. Tony, the arrogant son of a bitch, bought it hook, line, and sinker; he might have been a genius, but Trevor was an actor, and a damn good one. All the Miami-Dade Police actually had on him was drug possession charges (that he couldn't deny) so he sold them another part of the story; AIM had been keeping him eyebrow deep in blow, booze, broads, and bucks. That was all true, and the case against him would be a lengthy one with little sense of victory because no one could prove that he was actually the Mandarin or the one behind the attacks. He was a mere face-man, a shemp, just a role. The police, even the FBI, had nothing. And they had bigger problems to worry about with the HYDRA Uprising and the aftermath of the Second American Civil War.

Trevor Slattery walked out of jail just last week when someone posted his bail. And offered him a part to play.

It was a part called revenge. And the man who once had it all but now had nothing was more than willing to play it.

The role, surprisingly, wasn't much different for HYDRA as it had been with AIM. HYDRA was the new boogieman, but it needed the focus to shift away. Anything done now would be suspected to being tied to their organization, so they needed a name; one that wasn't a part of them (at least that anyone was aware of), one with notoriety. Bail had been posted and Trevor Slattery was taken in by HYDRA. And what they wanted was the Mandarin; the face that once rattled the world. Broke and without much hope of beating a potential prison sentence, Trevor accepted… but he had his druthers, too. He wasn't interested in whatever plan HYDRA had; he could care less. What he wanted was personal; revenge on those who took away all that he had worked for. So he he would play the part, but he would have his own say in things.

What he wanted was one of HYDRA's pet little assassins; his to control and do as he pleased. Give him that, and Trevor would give the world the Mandarin once more. What Trevor got was a notebook written in Russian with words inside that would control a man once named the Winter Soldier; HYDRA's deadliest tool.

That would do. That would do very nicely.

When the phone call came indicating that the strike would happen today, Trevor donned on his persona within the 2012 Ford T-Series Transit light commercial vehicle, wearing his hair back in a topknot, his beard combed out, wearing sunglasses, and his signature hooded robe. Only the former Lieutenant Commander of SHIELD's STRIKE Team DELTA, Jack Rollins, seemed to be aware of the difference. Everyone else in the eighty-man crew was under the impression that the Mandarin was the real deal, that he was the Mandarin, and he would fucking kill them if they so much as looked at him funny. That suited Trevor just fine, the role fitting him like a glove. He felt powerful once more, in charge, terrifying. HYDRA was willing to play ball, and Slattery was willing to play ball. All he wanted was to see Tony strung up without his suit and left screaming as the Mandarin took everything away from him that he held dear. HYDRA was certainly okay with that.

But everything had gone carked, and now he was in a ComiCon with a bunch of wannabes dressed in cheap costumes, passing themselves off as pale imitations. The former Shakespearian actor snorted at the sight. But he wasn't here to look at the comics, the fans, the pretty girls in tight revealing clothing, or the flashy expo. He was here for one thing and one thing only.

To make an entrance.

While the rest of HYDRA's goons went scouring the enormous building stuffed filled with tables and people, Trevor took his own path along with four HYDRA thugs issued to him, maneuvering himself not to find the Avengers, but to flush them out. He had to admit that the plan to hide out in a ComiCon were something like a third of the people were dressed up as Avengers was a stroke of genius, likely the idea of Kamala Khan. It was possible that HYDRA would find them, but the thick crowds would mean only a few of HYDRA's thugs would get to them… and be obliterated. James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes was not only a celebrated war hero from World War II, but according to the Avengers, Incorporated website, was also the unwilling recipient of the Super Soldier Serum as well as having a fully-functional metal prosthetic arm. There was also Doctor Doreen Alleen Green, a Veterinarian that HYDRA had changed somehow into someone who could talk to animals and shapeshift into some large woman/feline hybrid. A few men with guns wouldn't stop them, not by a long shot.

Something else was needed. A monkey wrench, as it were. And he had something in mind.

Trevor worked his way not through the crowds to find the Avengers, but instead to the main stage; his place. These expos usually had events and VIP's, so there would be a host of some kind, as well as the ability to talk to the crowd. That was the thing that Slattery needed as he found it after about ten minutes of walking through the crowded venue of the Meadowlands Expo Center with four men behind him as he threaded his way towards the rear of the stage, years of doing theater had him figuring out where he needed to go… and who he needed to see.

The hooded figure found the Master of Ceremonies readily enough, surrounded by three assistants and what looked to be a gaffer as he was issuing orders. Trevor wasted no time as he looked to one of the thugs behind him.

"Young pretty women make the best hostages."

While the thugs moved quickly to secure someone, nobody noticing until too late that something was amiss when the screaming began, Trevor went right up to the MC and grabbed him by his collar, bringing him close.

"Mouth."

"W-wha…?" The forty year old man sputtered, feeling something poking in his belly where Trevor planted a Colt 1911A .45 caliber pistol at his navel.

"Your mouth. Open it." Trevor spoke again in slow drawl, in the voice of the Mandarin. The man nervously opened his mouth as his assistants backed away while Trevor slid the barrel of the .45 into the man's mouth, making him gag slightly. The four HYDRA thugs were already on scene with four hostages, four young pretty white women who were somewhat dressed in superhero paraphernalia (and in one case, only somewhat dressed period). "For this evening's entertainment," the Mandarin began, "I want all of you to march on stage while you," he poked the MC in his slightly-overweight belly, the man whimpering around the gun barrel, "give me microphone and access to the the Expo's PA system. Or I shoot one of these pretty little girls and you get to listen to her scream." The man gulped and nodded with the pistol in his mouth bobbing, pointing at a nearby table with a soundboard and a classic wireless microphone.

"Good. Turn on the PA and we'll get this show on the road."

Author's Notes: This is my version of Ben Kingsley from Sexy Beast playing the Mandarin.

WildK.A.T.s, Gen13, Spawn? - While everyone knows of DC and Marvel comics, there are, of course, other comic book companies. Image and Dark Horse are some of the bigger ones, not to mention Archie Comics (yes, Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica). Today there are dozens of independent publishing companies, but Image and Dark Horse came to be when artists from DC and Marvel left (proprietary issues, for the most part) in which Todd McFarland went and made one of the most famous non DC/Marvel comics, Spawn while Frank Miller created comics such as Sin City and 300.

Raspberry Pi - A credit card-shaped computer device meant for projects and simple coding. You can build a laptop out of one for about $150.

The WARLOCK "Shortstop" Program - Anti-remote control devices that were originally meant to detonate RC devices (IED's) before a unit reached them (which is what the Red/Greens did) and later iterations snowed radio frequencies to prevent detonations (in which the WARLOCK Duke does). Essentially, this is an advanced jamming device as it does stop cellular devices (cell phones, beepers, pagers, garage door openers… I've personally seen this).

Is there a Mandarin? Iron Man 3 implied that the Mandarin was around the same status as Osama bin Laden; the leader of a world-famous terrorist organization, the Ten Rings (who was responsible for Tony's kidnapping in IM1). Since Aldrich was dead intent in ruining Tony's life, I've implied somewhat through this story that he was responsible for more than just the events of IM3 (the collusion of Obie Stane, the kidnapping attempt, and I've thought about him even maestroing something with Hammer that would have led to IM2, such as Ivan Vanko's entrance into Monaco). Aldrich was more or less the Mandarin behind the scenes, so I wanted something that matched it. Likewise, Trevor was there behind the scenes too (though not directly involved). Since the Mandarin and Iron Man are usually butting heads, I wanted Trevor to have a bit of a history with Iron Man even if not actually knocking heads.

Trevor is the face Mandarin. Attacks by the Ten Rings (AIM funded and fueled) were blamed on him (or he took responsibility) but got onto the real shitlist with an attack I made for this story; an attack on the Democratic National Convention (this is where the Democratic nominee for President is voted in generally) that gets the Mandarin the notoriety. He isn't the brains… but he's also a Shakespearian actor, so he might know a thing or two about plot twists. But I wanted to describe who/what the Mandarin was because I wanted a good villain.

So there is no Mandarin… but Trevor Slattery is the Mandarin (not just some cracked-out actor from West End London, that was a 'get-out-of-jail-free' bid).

Shemp - A Hollywood term, it actually comes from the Three Stooges. When his brother Curly passed away, Moe asked his brother Sam Howard (known as Shemp) to join him and Larry. Sadly, due to Curly's popularity, Shemp was seen as a 'scab' (replacement), and the term 'Shemp' was born; a re-cast.

I really wanted to delve into what Bucky's arm was, the hint of how it might work and its operations, who might have invented it, that kind of thing. Many a fanfic have implied what its means and construction (or attachment) might imply, but I wanted to give an inside look. Literally. Also, you would think standard tools wouldn't be used. I like the thought that Howard and Tony have their own handmade unique tools to prevent tampering and proprietary theft. Makes sense.

Yes, Reed has a crush on Kamala. That should have been pretty obvious. LI? Perhaps.