CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE—Late December, 2039
Victor Von Doom let the heavy velvet curtain drop to block the weak sun and barren trees outside, frustration clear on his face until he hid it with his metal mask. Time for a poker face, an inscrutable visage of power, a way to keep his true feelings from Annihilus.
A small crash sounded from across the room.
"Imbeciles," he snapped at the twin lackeys shifting around the comms device.
Doom's kingdom was a miserable place in the winter, but it was much worse while surrounded by incompetence. The idiot on his right kicked a broken stool leg to the side, trying a different table. Latveria suffered in disrepair for decades before Victor seized power and capitalized on allegiances too tenuous for the rest of the world. The aging furnishings of his castle reminded him of how far his country had left to go.
No matter how many unsafe inventors and questionable investors he brought in, Latveria deserved better. It deserved the best. He deserved the best.
And he would get it, everything he ever wanted, if these two would just pay attention!
"The creature will want to know why his ships are floating around our outer belt like dust in the wind and you two—" Doom zapped Left's hip and Right's shoulder with a surge of electricity, apologies skittering across their identical lips "—can't figure out how to—"
The projection flickered into the wide, larger-than-life figure of Blastaar's lion head. The general grunted and stepped aside.
Victor opened his arms wide. "Annihilus! Finally, we see you—"
The sound of hissing clipped a brutal tone through the speakers.
"Right. That's understandable." He let the screeching continue for a moment, thankful his pained face was covered. "Slight setback. But if you hear me out, we have a bit of an opportunity here."
The response startled him.
"What weapon did this, Doom?" Annihilus's deep, resonant tone rang with an echo from inside his exoskeleton.
"Ah, I see the collar is fixed." He waved for one of the lackeys to hand him the control for the projection. "Not a weapon so much as an overly ambitious runt of girl who—"
"Control your world or I will."
The grating of the creature's voice sent a shiver down Doom's metal spine. "This—" news coverage of Samantha Stark filled the screen "—is the one who destroyed your ships but—we have a two birds, one stone situation—because she is also currently distracting all the other nuisances who held up progress on your arsenal." Doom expected pushback. He expected to argue the whole, incidental existence of the girl. He expected an order to wipe her away, but when the sound of static hummed, he minimized the footage to find Blastaar and Annihilus huddled in whispers.
In a language Doom did not understand, Blastaar barked a command behind him. At least six soldiers sprang into action. Now why couldn't he find help like that?
The creature returned closer to the screen, starting slowly.
"That—" a thin leathery digit extended towards the projection "—is the Lost Daughter of Thanos."
"Well, no, it's actually that annoying Iron—"
Another hiss stopped Doom. A small, acid-green-haired, blue-skinned troll thing raced to hand Annihilus a long vial. Victor's interest piqued when the vial was inserted into the creature's projector. Apparently, that was their form of flash drive. His idiots would break those too easily.
In what looked like the zoomed-in chaos of a sand storm, an image formed. Two figures fought.
"After the great betrayal of Thanos, when half our force was gone and the remainder scattered, my Lieutenant followed an anomalous signal to find this…"
The lumbering, grainy bulk of the Titan beat someone to the ground.
Doom tried to explain. "Ah, I see, lots of human women look similar, but this girl was not alive then. Our lifespans—my god."
The sand shifted closer, detailed in sepia tones. It was her. The Stark child became slowly covered by armor. The Titan's arm dropped, detached and dripping, in front of her. She gave a glove of Infinity Stones to another beside her. She cradled the other as they died. The armor released, and it had a face of its own, a face Doom recognized. Samantha Stark jumped up and turned to the sky. The image cut off.
Doom stood speechless, considering the implications. He considered as the screen cleared and Annihilus handed the vial back. He considered as the troll scurried off. Doom especially considered when he glanced down at his control, grateful to be recording the communication.
"Bring the daughter into the arsenal," Annihilus ordered.
Doom's head spun. He could salvage this. He had to salvage this. As casually and firmly as he could, Victor drawled, "I can make that happen."
She would certainly be useful. That was clear from how Annihilus jumped at the opportunity. It wasn't ideal and wouldn't be easy. In fact, there was no assurance that the girl would properly fold into their plan. However, she didn't have to. The girl just had to be leveraged, and the armor…
Yes, he could use this in several ways. Excellent. His smile remained hidden, but the joy radiated off of him. Doom loved to play with people, loved to move them around the board they had no clue they were on, loved to sacrifice them for the greatest gain. Everyone was a pawn in a game only he knew they were even playing. Games within games. Victories piled high on the losses of others.
"I will make it happen," Doom reiterated to the waiting alien.
"Good. She repays us in blood." Annihilus, though his features—much like Doom's—could not show it, seemed pleased enough to stand straighter, walking off and leaving Blastaar to grunt a goodbye before the feed blacked out.
Doom tossed his neck to crack his spine. He would need something to separate Samantha Stark not only from her father but from all the Avengers, something to make her distrust them as much as the world distrusted her now, something plausible and outrageous. He had just the thing.
The dark-haired lackey cowering in the corner hustled to remove the projector. Doom kept the control tablet in hand, walking over to the low desk in the corner, plugging a fresh, metal flash drive into the side to transfer the footage.
"A moment, imbecile." Doom lifted a finger to halt the man at the door. "Have the defector brought to my table." He scowled at the sight of dirt under the nail. Really? What had he come to?
Victor placed his mask on the desk before pocketing the flash drive and sauntering out. Two birds with one stone indeed. This was an opportunity, however, to put a newly acquired pawn on the board, a fresh piece, one still being carved to his liking, one from the special set he kept down below. All things should be so useful.
In the halls, the fixtures were all stained glass, wrought iron, and petrified traditionalism suspended in air circulated only by the bodies within. Stale. Everything around him fueled Victor's push toward modernization and domination. All resources were devoted to updating the infrastructure outside these walls and the technology in their hands. His people loved him for this; seeing their dilapidated castle reminded them of how much King Victor sacrificed for them. He was the Latverian people's pioneer, their mastermind, digging them single-handedly out of decline, with the dirt under his nails to prove it.
Long ago, after he returned from exploration with the Fantastic Four, he donned the metal mask like his own armor—always on because he was always ready to fight. In reality, it preserved his vanity, covering the damaged flesh beneath.
The grime coating the beautiful, high windows of the dining hall made candles a necessity, but Doom welcomed the ambiance, complete with a trickle of water from a natural spring on the south wall. The entire castle had been laid out to showcase the magnificence of the feature cascading down for six meters before diverting down to the kitchens.
The raven-haired attendant placed a tray of cold meats and cheese before the king and stepped back, just out of reach for the candelabra's glow. Good. I'm eating. I don't need to see that face.
All Victor had tasted for years was metal. All food was wasted on him, but he still had to eat.
The alloy pads of his fingers tinked on the china with each bite until the vanishing seam of the servants' door split open to reveal another raven-haired attendant. She pulled the defector in tow out of the dark.
"Thank you, Tori," Doom mumbled, startling the woman into a bow.
"Your majesty," her voice shook back. She heaved her charge forward to stumble into the light.
Victor tinked another rhythm into the tray. "Mr. Sommerson."
A probationary prisoner of sorts, the young man hunched over the high back of the chair adjacent Doom, keeping his head down, breaths shallow.
"How are you getting on with your mentor? Progress?" Victor barely cared, but small talk was the sort of thing that kept captives on their toes. Games within games. Pawns revealing their purpose. The defector held a modicum of value anyway the king planned to use him, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. A piece on the chessboard he hadn't thought vulnerable just opened up to attack.
Doom patted his palm on the seat, and though the cushion made no noise, the uncharacteristic kindness of the gesture startled all three standing. Tori recovered first and pulled out the chair.
Lucas, almost toppling without the support, eyed the food. "He seems obsessed with his new assistant. The android. It's—" he pulled at the excess fabric around his waist, collapsing in the old chair "—uncomfortable."
"Hmm." Jealousy. Tedious but useful, especially considering the circumstance. "Help yourself," Victor motioned, neither moving the tray forward nor offering a glass for the decanter between them. He popped a cube of cheese into his mouth. Bland.
"You're an ideas man, yes?" Doom slid over the memory stick. "I have here—" he wiggled his fingers over the offering to indicate an equivalent kind of sustenance "—something in need of…development. Luckily, I am certain you are the right man for the job."
He expected glinting eyes and wide smiles. He expected gratitude. As king, Doom was often disappointed. He forgot no one else could see the game being played. No one could see his genius.
The young man rang cracked, shaky hands in his lap, clothes sagging loose on his shoulders. The material left most of his arms bare, but the defector wasn't allowed outside. Lucas didn't need to survive the cold; he needed to work. He tilted to look over the tray of food again with sunken cheeks, voice weak. "Can you just tell me what you want me to do?"
Victor's blood boiled.
He slammed a fist onto the table, bellowing, "I want you to notice the world around you. That shiny new assistant? It's the girl Stark's artificial minion. You wouldn't be in this uncomfortable situation without its interference!"
Victor threaded his fingers together, delighted by the shrinking of his audience at the sheering sound of alloy veins. Even Tori let out a faint whine. Lucas hung his head low to his chest.
Imaginations as barren as the trees outside…
"Time to get vengeful," he started quieter, deeper. "Time to get vicious. I am giving you a gift. Remember what she has driven you to…and make her pay for it."
The starving face rose in alarm, his dark eyes teetering between desperation and determination.
Doom stood, pleased with himself. "Oh, and Defector? You answer only to me. Your mentor need not know of this."
The scrape of the chair when Lucas lunged for the food was audible.
Doom turned to dark-haired, familiar-faced Tori. "Take him back down when the plate is empty. He has twenty-four hours. You bring his work directly to me."
The servant nodded, bowing and stepping back to clear Doom's path.
Yes, Victor loved to be the king in all ways.
The jostling of the camera cut into the awkward quiet of the room. One man faced a dozen and, as usual, would be filmed doing it. Tony, despite all the coaching Pepper had put him through in the last days, was in a mood.
"Can you remove your sunglasses for the glare, Mr. Stark?"
It was an innocent enough question, but Tony was braced for a different type of acquiescence.
"No."
The aid shrank, adjusted the equipment as best he could, and pressed record. She sat behind the other prop people surrounding Cushing and the two other Council members—the English speakers, obviously. How would they fit the translators into this clown car, too?—when the pens started clicking over piles of papers and files. Everything was there for show.
A whole forest died for your theatricals, Bobby, Tony continued to critique the lopsided room in his head. He couldn't say any of it out loud. Today, his job was very simple: take the blame.
Shouldn't be a problem. Blame Tony. Robert Cushing Jr. always blamed Tony. He'd hated Tony since returning from the Snap. The feeling was mutual. Tony never much liked Cushing Sr. either, but at least that one stayed out of Tony's way and was even fun at times, always up for a celebratory drink (or two) after a mission. Several nights saw the bottom of a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue between them.
Senior would be ashamed of Junior now.
It wasn't enough to make Tony remove a safety program. It wasn't enough to make Tony retire. It wasn't enough to make Tony's daughter look like a murderer on television. It would have to be enough to shame Tony Stark. Whatever Cushing asked, Tony was responsible. Samantha didn't know.
Because she actually did not know. Tony had made sure of it. That was his choice.
The shiny, glass table mirrored Junior's shiny, balding head. Speaking of glare… Tony glanced away.
Twenty-odd years after allocating this side of the top floor to conference suites, he realized it was far too bright. But if he replaced the window panes to sit at an angle with the UV polymer—nope. Focus. It may have been his natural state to be the center of attention, but it was not a natural Stark state to accept pushed up the bridge of his yellow-tinted Armanis, swiveled to angle himself out of the sun, and yanked at the hem of his suit vest in a chair with great lumbar support. He made a mental note to compliment Director Hill's addition.
The pen clicked again.
"As you know, Mr. Stark," Cushing began casually, "this is not a formal deposition or an interrogation, but please answer the questions to the best of your ability."
Tony's eye twitched as the Senator's uncharacteristic civility.
"Do you know why we are here today?"
This guy doesn't have a clue. Tony cracked a smile. "World peace?"
One superfluous person snorted, smacked by their seat neighbor. Cushing snapped and reached a hand out to his assistant behind him, producing yet another folder to flip through.
"Let's begin."
First question: a did-you-know about the night he spoke at Harvard. Easy. Tony didn't know, and neither did Sam. Next: another easy one, a yes-or-no. Oddly, Cushing nodded, satisfied with Tony's brief responses.
Tony watched the flipping papers, the moving stacks, wallowing that his usual strategy of cockiness and calling them ass clowns was cut off at the legs. He could not give Cushing a clue— could not dazzle this group with the sheer amount that they did not understand—because that would only make things worse.
They continued. Judging from the questions though, Cushing had accomplished less in his cumulative seventy hours of interviews with everyone from Tyrone Johnson to Sharon Rogers than Tony had in his consecutive seventy-two-hour sleepless bender before the Christmas following the Chitauri attack on New York. Cushing barely mentioned anything that hadn't already been reported on the news. That felt unjustifiable, even for Junior's batting average of intelligence. Something was wrong, and Tony yanked at his vest in annoyance. What am I missing?
Sure, most of those interviewed would offer as little as possible to implicate Lil'Sam, but most would not lie to the Accords Council. Cushing had more—a lot more. He'd seen Mistress, seen Samantha fly, and seen Pepper burning ruby red right there on the lawn outside that bright window. Why wouldn't the Council want to know about all of that?
The camerawoman tapped a command on the screen, and the lens refocused. Wider. Narrower. Another several softball questions, and suddenly, Tony sat bolt upright in the chair, searingly uncomfortable.
Cushing didn't want to shame Tony. He didn't want anything from Tony at didn't intend to try Sam for any crimes; they wanted her to sign. The voice from across the table was monotone, relaxed in a way that screamed "I've already won," and Tony had fallen right into the trap.
Tony panicked. He gripped the arms of his chair and breathed through a tight chest that hardly felt like his own. Every answer now had to make Sam look useless. That was the only way. She couldn't be recruitable. She couldn't be their weapon, another asset to be ordered across the globe—hell, the galaxy—at the drop of a fancy name plaque. Samantha belonged with her family, not that sniveling bureaucratic twerp and his prop people. Alaska might not be far enough away.
Cushing paused to shuffle about a few files, purposefully and dramatically sorting them, shaking his head before moving a folder to the taller pile off to his left then scooting the short stack to rest right in front of him. Tony raced to reorganize his thoughts, suppressed a surge of nostalgia for Senior. Junior didn't drink. Junior was 100% zero fun. Junior was a royal pain in the political dynasty.
Junior wouldn't get on with it. "Bobby" just faffed about with papers while Tony squirmed, itching to turn the tide with his next answer.
"And," Cushing drawled, droppings his pen, "looks like that's all for now." He handed the short stack to his assistant, smiling. "We'll break for the holidays. We have a lot of evidence to go over." The taller pile slid across the glass to emphasize its weight. One of the other Council members ticked off a few lines of the paper in front of her and packed up her stuff. Several of the others against the wall started smiling and chatting in low tones. The camera was switched off and disassembled.
The Council had made up their minds. None of the questions, none of the answers, none of the blame mattered.
Tony sat stunned, reeling, wheels shrieking smoke as he screamed internally. He didn't know how to fix it. What was he supposed to do now? Let his teenager sign on to being an Avenger? This was the scenario that hid out in the darkest corners and spooked his other nightmares.
Like an automated drone, he stood himself up, slipped his arms into his suit jacket, and shrugged the fabric and indecision into their well-worn grooves at the base of his neck. Heavy. Tony felt as heavy as if he'd touched down on a planet with twice the gravity of Earth.
All the others left. Cushing's assistant held the door, waiting for his boss who pointed a finger-gun at Tony.
"Ah, yes, we…gave Kamar Taj permission to let you see Samantha in the Mirror Dimension. Merry Christmas." The glare of Cushing's smile flashed, equally nauseating to the glare from outside.
Tony inventoried those implications while his body floated in a fog with one necessity, to leave. Just outside the conference room, he saw Pepper talking to Natasha at the end of the hall and felt his frown deepen.
A solid hand encased his shoulder.
"Do you know what would be—" Cushing licked his thin lips "—very valuable to the Council?"
So this is it. This is what he wants. Tony turned and squared his body towards the Senator.
"What…makes her so special." Cushing's eyes flicked back towards Pepper. He released his grip and brushed the jacket sleeve in mock primping. "Enjoy that family of yours, Stark. Never know how long you have, huh?"
Cushing flashed another dazzlingly fake smile and walked off with his entourage.
Tony bit his tongue so hard he tasted copper, yet the weight on Tony's chest fluttered a little lighter. If I give them Extremis, they'll leave us alone. Tony had failed to protect his daughter, his wife, and his whole family for long enough. He'd protected this stupid virus for too long.
Pepper flashed a soft but stern look his way. Tony buttoned his jacket, smoothed a lapel, and stood tall before closing their distance.
Pep whispered something and gently squeezed her friend's arm. The Widow's expression betrayed the faintest concern, a rarity for even Tony to see.
"Natty," Tony teased, hoping to chip off some pressure from his chest. "What happened? Bruce accidentally get into the caffeinated tea?"
Natasha wasn't amused. She only met his eye from a low angle as her body shifted away from Pepper but walked away without another word.
Tony peaked over the rim of his shades. "What now?"
Pepper collected herself, eyes scanning the space around them with a constructed, serene expression. "Something I'm handling—" she took his hand gently "—And Cushing? How'd that go?"
Tony only offered a tight smile, running his other hand over his beard. "Handling it."
"That well, huh?" The red lipstick was back, pristine and polished over her strikingly youthful lips. She laced her fingers through his and turned them back towards the living quarters. Pep sighed. "At least Steve and Sharon got off ok."
Tony squeezed back, more unsure than ever about what to do next. "At least we get to call the wizards."
A/N: Thanks for hanging in there while I do all these rewrites, guys! I really appreciate it.