DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: "Has he lost his mind? - Can he write or is he blind? - Is it conceit or is it gall; That Marvel and Paramount owns it all? - Or if he's sued that will he fall? - Is he alive or is he dead? - Has he trademarked thoughts in his head? - We'll just leave this here: No money was made; So he's in the clear!"
PITHY STATEMENT RELATING TO THIS CHAPTER: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." – Dwight D Eisenhower – American 5-Star General and Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe during WW II and later the 34th President of the United States – 1890-1969
LAST UPDATED ON: 03-22-2020
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CHAPTER THREE – ACTION PLAN
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LOCATION UNKNOWN, AFGANISTAN, DATE UNKNOWN, 2010 – EARLY MORNING
Riri woke to find an arm around her stomach and a warm body snuggled up against her.
In another life, Riri would have been furious with herself because she had broken her number one vow she had made when she agreed to the intern work at Stark Industries. That being under no circumstances whatsoever would she allow Tony Stark into her bed. For that matter, into her car, onto her dorm floor, against any wall, in a closet or on a desk.
Yet that was Riri Williams 1.0. The original out-of-the-box polymath genius who strove to one day be seen in the same lights as Gates, Hawkings and Jobs. Or, in more in line with her work, the Starks (at least Howard and Tony) and Reed Richards. That Riri Williams had been a spunky black woman with an amazing afro and the brains and attitude under it that had pushed her past into the realm where the giants of science made the changes which shaped the world.
Yet in the dark and dirty cave somewhere in Afghanistan, Riri Williams 2.0 had been born. She wasn't an upgrade but very much a different animal. Previously Riri 1.0 had seen through the eyes of a prodigy, one who lived for the science and the beauty of innovation.
Now Riri 2.0 saw that science without caution, morality and awareness brought about terrible things. She might have hit Stark upside the head during a recent discussion when he brought up the movie Real Genius because unlike the characters in that movie, she had known full well she was making weapons. Yet she saw the parallels of her life to those students shown in that campy comedy.
Riri 2.0 had also seen things which would have horrified her old 1.0 self. Dr. Fazli, dead with a bullet in his head, gone these last three weeks. Then Raza had brought in two technicians taken from an Indian telecom company to help speed things along. Neither had lasted more than a week. One had tried to rush the door during an inspection while the other had tried to attack Bakar with a make-shift shiv. Riri couldn't even remember their names now and this weighed upon her.
Worse was now Professor Yinsen lay on his cot but wasn't sleeping; he was dead. His cancer had finally claimed him. Thus it was just her and Stark. A man Riri 1.0 had despised even as she admired his brilliance and inventiveness. But to Riri 2.0, Tony was her last link to her old life as well as her only hope of escape. Like her, Riri knew that the Anthony Stark who had slapped her ass prior to leaving the Jericho demo was just as dead as Riri 1.0 was. What was left was a man burning with inner demons which drove him night and day.
He was also a man she finally admitted could be charming and she'd never denied that he was a handsome specimen of the male variety. But it wasn't any charm which led her to them a night of urgent sex were both parties seem to struggle to affirm they still were alive. It was simple she was a woman, and he was a man, and neither might live for much longer. They both needed to be needed and to reassured.
Riri idly stroked the back of Tony's arm. Her first time with a man and it had nothing to do with love or desire but of the real need to be comforted. Riri had never been a touchy person even though her mother hugged people at the drop of a hat. Yet the feeling of Tony's skin against hers had filled a void in her.
Not that she felt any sort of love for Tony. She knew enough psychology to realize what she and Tony had done had been played out a million times before when men and women went through terrible times and the simple act of sex would help to quiet their fears, if only for the moment.
Riri looked up at the security cameras. Neither of them had paid it any mind. Let their jailors get their jollies. It would distract them from the last and most critical phase of Project Iron Man as they had labeled their work. As Tony had hoped, her taking up the late Dr. Fazli's work along with her own had been the cover they needed when testing many of the components of the Iron Man armor.
She knew they were probably grasping at straws as so much could go wrong. Yet what had been gnawing at her for awhile and what kept her awake now was what would happen to Tony. She at least, would be wearing the armor. She at least might be able to rocket to safety (if the boots didn't just detonate and blow her legs off) but Tony? What were the chances she'd be able to carry him to safety? Or that they might shanghai a vehicle and manage to outrun any Ten Rings pursuit.
Riri 1.0 might have easily talked of kill ratios but Riri 2.0 was desperately afraid that by some miracle the Iron Man armor worked as hoped, she alone would be the one to escape. After seeing first-hand the brilliance of Tony Stark in action, she cursed the Ten Rings that they might snuff out one of the greatest minds of the century.
There was, however, enough of Riri 1.0 left to feel anger that the Ten Rings might snuff out her chance to show that she too was one of the greatest minds of the century.
OoOoO
LOCATION UNKNOWN, AFGANISTAN, SIX DAYS LATER, 2010 – MIDDAY
Bakar leered at here even as he eagerly waved some of his men forward to take the missiles and modified artillery shells on her workbench, "I see that your entertainments have yielded great results."
Riri affected a bored look even though she was impressed given this was better English than they normally got out of him, "I'm glad I've been so entertaining. I'm sure it beats any quality time you get in the goat pen."
Bakar's leer turned to a frown and his hand was halfway poised to strike her before he made an angry gesture at her and stalked off after his men. It seemed to Riri that the cell door clanged shut harder than normal.
"Good one there Ririster but I'm better Bakar is probably more into boy dancing," Stark said as he resumed his place at his workbench. Riri quickly joined him. They had little time to spare as they had learned by trial and error that the best time to do the riskiest part of their work came right after an inspection or pick-up.
"Yeah well I'd rather not dwell on what is going on at the other end of that security feed when we're doing our thing," Riri said tightly. She forcefully compartmentalized the times Tony and she had sex because it was the only joy in her life and she refused to let the Ten Rings taint it.
Yet an hour later by the clock on the late Professor Yinsen's desk, Riri looked at the simulation which had finally ended on her laptop which somehow had survived the attack and been a boon to all of them during captivity. While she and Tony could do some amazing math in their heads, Yinsen had needed the computerized help.
She checked the code again, ran the simulation again and again the results were the same. "Tony, I think we got it."
Stark looked over but his face showed no excitement. Fatigue had etched lines in his face; Riri doubted would fade if they managed to escape. "Show me," Tony said simply.
She ran the simulation a third time. Tony made a face and started to stroke his beard. His eyes while still fixed on the laptop were unfocused. Riri felt good that Tony hadn't asked to see her code. Having one of the smartest men on the planet accept your work without question gave her a thrill. If only this thrill was happening back at MIT or in her Stark Industries lab!
After five minutes Tony finally nodded, "Well then, I guess that's it then. Project Iron Man is a go. We better get cracking; tomorrow is going to be a very busy day."
OoOoO
Riri reached out and stroked Tony's cheek as they lay facing each other in their conjoined cots, "Will you tell me what you're thinking?"
Tony looked up and met her eyes before pursing his lips but said nothing.
"Come on Tony, it's you and me and the ghosts in here tonight. I can tell something is eating you," Riri said gently. It had been obvious that even in their frantic bout of lovemaking that Tony had been distracted. Surprisingly Riri felt detached from it all and had no trouble focusing on the man old enough to be her father. Maybe she realized deep down that the chance this was the last night of her life made it easier to not think about her own fears.
Tony sighed, "Well I'd like to say that I'd like to thank you for the last week. As you no doubt will be unsurprised to hear, I've bedded some fine women in my time. Some actually meant something to me. But I have to say this last week was new."
Riri frowned, "Oh God Tony, don't tell me that you love me."
Tony looked surprised before smirking, "What? Oh for frak's sake, no! No Twu Wov and Mahwaige are not on the horizon. I just mean that yes, the sex was great and yes, we're under pressure so that makes hay of everything. But I just wanted to say that it's been nice. It is very rare that any women I've taken to bed can keep up on the science end of the pillow talk."
Riri chuckled, "Not sure if that's really a compliment or not, but hey; I'll take it." Riri tilted her head as her eyes narrowed, "But I'm sensing there is a rest of the story thing going on."
Tony gave a ghost of a smile, "Again you show why you're different from my normal bed-warmers. Most just want something of mine whereas not only are you perceptive but other than this fine hunk of man flesh, you don't ask of anything."
Riri rolled her eyes, "It took staring evil and death in the face to get me to break my promise never to sleep with you, Mister Stark."
Tony laughed softly, "Yeah well I totally deserved that and more. But yes, you're right. Tomorrow is a big day and I have a lot more life to look back on and have regrets. I regret never being able to explore some things with my grandfather. He and I were close when I was a kid and his death really was a blow. I never got to make peace with my father. If anything I went out of the way to piss him off."
Riri frowned even as she wriggled slightly as Tony used a finger to circle the flesh around the ARC generator in her chest. Her breasts seemed to be a lot more sensitive ever since its implantation and his touch sent shivers down her spine. "Well from what I've heard and read your dad was a Class A asshole. Like in the realm of Senator McCarthy assholedom. Funny given how your grandfather comes across in the histories like Don Draper crossed with Albert Einstein. No offense."
Tony shook his head, "None taken. Dear old dad was a piece of work. Hated commies, hated hippies, hated liberals and probably hated puppies for all I know. I saw more of my nannies than I did of my dad. Even my mother had a hard time getting away to make time for me. Quite frankly I think either Mom tricked dad to get pregnant or he felt that an upright, patriotic guy like him needed a family picture on his wall. So yeah, not a lot of lost love. Still, now I wonder what drove him to be like he was. I mean Grandpa Howard was great and Grandma Maria was one of the sweetest women I've ever met."
"Well from what I read, she seemed to take Eleanor Roosevelt's lessons to heart. I mean the biography I read of her made it look like she was destined to be nothing but a socialite and eye-candy on some rich guy's arm," Riri said thoughtfully.
Stark smirked, "Oh Grandma was a fire-cracker. She looked all demure and dazzling in her minks and pearls, but she was a barracuda at heart. She and Aunt Peggy got a lot done behind the scenes. Heck, I doubt Stark Industries or SHIELD would be where they are today without my Grandma. She was the Dolly Madison of her day, that's for sure. Of course being eye-candy on her sugar daddy's arm pretty much what Katherine Stark was all about. Even when she tried, Mom seemed lost when it came to being a mother."
Tony's face suddenly fell into sadness.
"What is it?" Riri asked.
Tony didn't say anything for a minute but then sighed, "Oh it just hit me again that if things go badly tomorrow that there is another person I'm going to feel bad for not being able to say goodbye to personally. Both Aunt Peggy and Jarvis probably kept me from being murdered by my dad when I was a tear-away kid."
Stark suddenly laughed, "It was kind of like the comics. Jarvis was my Alfred and if it wasn't for him, I'm sure I'd be skulking around in a dark suit at night and beating people up in alleyways. But Jarvis was always so calm and caring. At least I was there with him when he died."
"But Peggy Carter isn't and her life seems to be about outliving everyone she loves," Riri said softly. The former Agent Carter was a legend in Stark Industries and there were many pictures and inspirational posters of her. Unlike the trite business phrased ones normally seen in a typical corporate office, those from Peggy Carter resonated as history had shown her to have walked the walk. Riri was honored that she had been able to meet the woman once when she first got into MIT when most kids were still in high school.
For all she had a long, successful life, Riri had felt the sadness around her. That sadness of losing the one thing which had truly mattered to her back on the fateful day in World War II.
Tony sighed again, "I feel like I'm letting her down. She always stood up for me. She also pushed me to think about what I was doing. I realize now that she was trying to get me to really look at what I was inventing. I'm worried that I won't get the chance to tell her in person that she was right."
Tony's look of sadness morphed into one of determination, "And I guess that brings me back to your original question. Yes, I have been distracted. I need you to promise me something; something really important. Fazli was right about us; we've helped create more suffering in a world that really doesn't need any help from us. I want to ensure that that won't be the sum of my life if things go the way they easily could tomorrow. To keep that from happening, I need your help."
Riri didn't like the fatalism in Stark's voice but she understood it. There were just too many things which could go wrong in their escape plan. Planning for failure was critical. "What do you need me to do?"
Tony reached over to his desk on his side of the bed and fumbled a bit to get the rickety side-drawer open. He pulled out a small silvery bag, about the size of a tobacco bag. It had frayed fabric attached to it like it had been ripped out of something. He opened the zipper and pulled out a flash drive. Riri recognized it as one of Stark's own personal terabyte drives he had created almost on a whim. The other item was an odd teardrop yellow gem embedded into a small module. The entire thing was small, only a bit larger than a half-dollar piece.
Tony held up the flash-drive, "This has all my good-byes and last wishes on it. Fazli and Yinsen recorded theirs as well."
Riri looked startled, "Where was I for this?"
Tony shrugged, "Sleeping. You did a lot of that after the second operation if you remember."
Riri nodded, "Okay so what's with the other thing?"
Tony shook his head, "No, this flash drive is the most important thing. It cannot fall into anyone's hands. You get it to Stark Industries and open it when you're with Pepper. Oh and maybe Jennifer Walters given how as she's probably the lawyer Pepper is going to rely on for all the hell to pay this drive is going to kick up."
Riri nodded at that. She'd met the short woman a few times. She had a no-nonsense air to her. Of course Riri figured she had to be on top of things given who her cousin was. Riri herself had to deal with a cousin who was in prison for running a chop shop in Baltimore. Yet that paled to what Jennifer Walters had to go through given her cousin had destroyed quite a bit of Harlem with his bare hands.
Tony looked thoughtful as he rotated the drive between his fingers. Riri almost sighed as recognized how similar to a scene using a coin in the movie Aliens. It amazed her how Tony could make a reference to a film without even saying anything!
Finally Tony said, "Beyond all the personal and Stark Industry stuff, there is a file labeled Genesis I want you to open in my personal lab. I've given instructions for Pepper to give you access. Once there, call up JARVIS and have him open the file. He'll brief you more fully on what to do next and how this little gem here relates. This is really critical stuff, Riri. If I don't make it, you need to ensure this gets done and nobody, not even SHIELD gets wind of it."
Riri watched as Tony put the two items back in the bag. She motioned to it, "What is that anyway?"
Tony smiled, "Oh something I created one day. It's a special pocket I have lined in most of my suits. The fabric will protect things like the flash-drive from magnetic energy, an EMP burst and the like. It also doesn't show up on things like airport scanners."
Riri nodded, "That's handy."
Tony put the little bag in the desk. Riri noticed that one of their racks they hung some of their equipment on kept the security camera from seeing what Tony had done. During their time in the cave, all of them had worked to find out what they could do to minimize what the watching guards could see.
Tony turned back to her and smiled, "So that's what I've been thinking about. A lot is riding on that little bag. So now that's out of the way, how about another round of rumpy-bumpy?"
Riri pouted and she demurely put an index finger on her lips. "Well I don't know, Mr. Stark, I do have my reputation to think of," she said in a mock Southern Belle accent.
Tony just raised an eyebrow till both laughed before embracing and kissing each other almost violently. Soon their bodies were moving against each other much to the glee of the watching guards. None of which had noticed what Tony had pulled and returned from the drawer.
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LOCATION UNKNOWN, AFGANISTAN, THE NEXT DAY, 2010 – MIDDAY
"We're not going to make it," Tony said in a surprisingly calm voice even though Riri suspected his ears were ringing from the explosion which had taken out the Ten Rings men at the door just as much as hers were.
"The suits powering up, Tony. We'll make it!" Riri said even as her heart fell. She had seen that look on Stark's face before. It was the same look he had when he had threatened Raza the night Dr. Fazli had been killed.
Tony shook his head, "No, when they made that video with me, I got a look at this complex and I know there are a lot of bad guys on their way. I need to buy us some time."
He quickly made his way over to the men who lay on the floor outside their cell. After a quick, "Aha!" he returned and jumped up on a box near her right armored leg. Tony then surprised her when he kissed her and then with a devilish grin said, "For luck!" before dashing out the door.
Soon enough she heard him yelling even more movie quotes along with gunfire.
Riri could only mutter, "Idiot nerd-boy!" as she mentally urged the power-up procedure to hurry up.
OoOoO
Riri flipped up the facemask and cursed the tears which were beginning to form. "Tony! Stay with me! We need to stick to our action plan."
Tony chuckled and coughed up blood in doing so. He was lying on a pallet of rice obviously stolen from some U.N. relief convoy or maybe even a refugee camp. "Riri honey, this was always part of the plan."
Riri's eyes narrowed, "Bullshit! I'm getting you out of here! Besides Miss Potts will kill me if you die on me!"
Tony shook his head, "No! Listen to me Riri; you've got to get that bag back to Stark Industries. JARVIS will help you do what needs to be done, what I've always knew was in the cards. You still have a potentially winning hand but it's time for me to cash in my chips."
Riri tried to move Tony's arms away from the wound in his gut but Tony grabbed her arm and winced in pain, "Riri! Fazli was right; I've got a lot to atone for and if you don't get back home, well all my death is going to accomplish is an incandescently awful drop in Stark Industry stock. Do this for me, Riri. Don't waste your life like I did. You still have time to change. I know you look up to me and my grandfather, but the truth is all of us Starks suck at living. Don't be like us, Riri; don't waste your life like we did. Don't run from life and be a lab-rat, Riri…"
Tony began to hack up more blood and she could hear shouting coming from the mouth of the cave.
Stark obviously made a great effort to bite back the pain, "Get that gem to JARVIS Riri. If anything we did together meant anything, do this for me. Do it for yourself and…"
Tony began to cough some more. Riri leaned forward to get as close as she could, "And what? Tony? What?"
Tony rasped a bit before saying, "And go, be fab. Be Iron Man and kick ass…and may the Force be with you..."
And with that last nerd quote, the light went out of Anthony Stark's eyes forever.
Riri reached out and like with Dr. Fazli, closed her mentor and lover's eyes. Then with a growl she slammed down her faceplate and made her way to the mouth of the cave. To greet her was a group of Ten Rings fighters, a motley collection from all around the Middle East and Central Asia. The opened fire on her immediately.
While the noise from the impacts was painfully loud, Riri just stood there and took the hail of bullets without flinching. She wanted them to see she was invincible. Within moments the men facing her were out of ammo. Yet instead of quickly reloading, the men looked at the metal figure before them in confusion.
This proved their undoing as Riri snarled, "My turn" and cut loose with her arm mounted flame throwers. She had vowed to the memory of men who had died in that cave to help make the world a safer place and to do less harm. However Riri had no problems taking the lives of the men who had terrorized so many.
Soon she was walking among the camp directing jets of fire into the ammo and weapons piled high under camouflage nets. Many of these were weapons she herself had worked on. Many still in shipping crates clearly labeled as being from Stark Industries. It didn't matter to Riri; she burnt them all.
In fact she was so intent on destroying every weapon, she probably would have died when the bulk of the weapons exploded. Ironically a Ten Rings fighter opening up on her with a 12.7mm DShK heavy machine gun. Almost identical to the American .50 cal, the bullets were a definite threat compared to the mostly 7.62mm rounds which had earlier been shot at her.
The pain and noise of the impacts broke Riri out of her rage state. Her anger quickly turned to concern as she knew the heavier rounds were a very real danger. She knelt and fumbled with the activation switches on her boots. She prayed that Murphy's Law wasn't about to go into effect given how many things could go wrong with the flight system. Beyond her boot jets simply exploding, the next biggest danger was them failing to ignite together. She stood and murmured, "To infinity and beyond!" almost as a prayer.
Yet in an explosive burst, both jets correctly boosted her into the air. This boost was further compounded when the munitions began to explode. This cascaded into an enormous fireball which Riri was amazed she emerged from alive given the heat which penetrated the armor. She knew she would have at least 3rd to 2nd degree burns on her hands regardless of her protective gloves.
Those burns, however, were of secondary importance as Riri quickly took stock of her situation. Her knowledge of ballistics kicked in as she desperately tried to determine her airspeed. With no instruments, Riri was almost literally flying blind given how the protective lenses on her faceplate were smeared with soot from the explosion. She had little time to try and learn how to adjust her flight especially given how Stark himself had said without any sort of propulsion systems in her arms to help her keep her flight stable, all course adjustments using just her legs could result in simply going into a death spiral into the ground.
A death spiral Riri felt she was already in as she fought to keep from spinning out of control. The math was flashing in her mind's eye and she didn't like the results. She attempted to stop her roll with bringing one leg up, but this caused her to jink badly to one side.
In seconds the G force of the spin was too much for her and she blacked out.
XxXxX
20 KILOMETERS SOUTHEAST OF WOR MAMAY, PAKTIKA PROVINCE, AFGANISTAN, AUGUST 7th, 2010 – MIDDAY
Afghanistan in war time held many sights. Some terrible, some uplifting, most simply of the mundane. Yet the dunes of Paktika province, almost on the Pakistan border had a sight rarely seen anywhere in the world.
Erik Lehnsherr, known to the major intelligence agencies as Magneto, hovered over the dunes searching. Luckily there was little of note among the dunes, so he was able to send out pulses of magnetic force to search for that which brought him to Central Asia. Ironically it was a technique he had adapted from Sean Cassidy during their time together working with SHIELD. He doubted the Irish mutant would be thrilled to learn of this given Cassidy was one of Xavier's X-Men.
Magneto wasn't sure what he would find in this desolate part of the world. Emma Frost had only said she had been getting an odd reading from the region through Cerebra over the last month or so. While he despaired at Frost's name for their version of Xavier's adaptation of Hank McCoy's original concept, Emma had proven its worth time and again. It was a constant battle to reach a new mutant before the locals killed them, an intelligence agency got them or worse, Xavier's X-Men got to them first.
In truth Magneto never felt the X-Men were his enemies. They were simply misguided as Charles was misguided. Both men had retreated to the shadows after the Cuban Missile Crisis and worked to further their own goals. Xavier had return to his ancestral home in Westchester and created both his school to continue his further his goal of peaceful coexistence along with removing the X-Men from CIA control.
Magneto, however, hadn't initially planned to do anything similar. Certainly Erik had been meeting other mutants even before he had met Charles. The telepath had never twigged to the fact that Erik had already been involved with mutants. Only his thirst for revenge against Karl Schmidt had kept him away from his retreat in Wundagore and his two twin children for as long as it had. Even after the Cuban Missile Crisis landed him more followers, Eric had scores to settle going back to World War II. Too many Nazis had escaped justice for his peace of mind.
It was during such a seek-and-destroy mission that he accidentally stumbled one of the newer HYDRA bases in South America which changed everything. After he bested Baron von Strücker, he had ended up with a literal stack of Nazi gold. With these funds, he retreated to Wundagore to create his New Order on the advice of Irene Adler, a precognitive mutant who helped looked after his children. She had prophesied that HYDRA was a threat to the entire world, mutant and human alike.
So began a long time of his New Order sparring off against the X-Men. While working at cross-purposes, both groups worked to at least keep mutants out of the hands of various governments, security organizations and the ever-growing HYDRA. Charles still had ties to the CIA but this was more of a way to keep an eye on the organization and the US government in general. Too many programs existed to recreate the Super Soldier program and mutants were often seen as a way to jumpstart that process and needed to be protected.
Magneto's spies learned that the CIA had their own reasons for keeping the covert arrangement with Xavier going. The Agency saw Xavier and his X-Men as a potential weapon against the multinational SHIELD. He also knew from other spies that SHIELD's tactical director, Nicholas Fury had assisted Xavier at various times. This usually took the form of looking the other way after certain events.
Magneto himself thought it was because Fury was astute enough to realize that it was in his best interests, and that of SHIELD's, to downplay mutants existence. Of course this policy had been approved by Director Pierce who Erik knew was the Supreme Hydra. Given the aims of the Hellfire Club and Workshop cells within HYDRA, it was obvious that HYDRA had its own reasons to keep things quiet.
It helped all of the covert parties involved that both the American and Soviet militaries had buried what had really happened that day in Cuba when Erik and Charles last faced each other. Of course both sides had gone back and increased their work on their own Super Soldier programs to use against the meta-powered that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
Few knew, however, the secret that both he and Charles had discovered. One fateful encounter between his New Order and the X-Men had led both to be almost destroyed by an insanely powered being who called himself Apocalypse. It was only through Charles almost fusing his mind with Erik's that allowed him to fend off Apocalypse long enough for both teams to escape. Magneto would have fallen (and Charles with him even if only there mentally) if it hadn't been for the intervention of a trio of Eternals.
It was there that both Erik and Charles had learned the real truth about what they were. Many scientists had taken to calling mutants the "Children of the Atom" but they couldn't be more wrong. Mutants had been around long before the first atomic tests. Throughout human history, so-called mutants had worked to remain in the shadows of myth and legend. Gave themselves the name names like the God-Gifted, the Secret Ones or taking on whatever mythology would work.
Many a mutant had played the role of a Fae or hobgoblin back in the day. They hid themselves to protect themselves not only from the fearful humans, dangerous Magicals, but mostly from the dreaded Eternals. If humans feared mutants, mutants had learned to fear the immortal Eternals. The ones who always had stepped in whenever any mutants had banded together to work to create a life of their own which had also meant with humans as their slaves.
Erik's first (and so far, only) brush with the Eternals showed him why they were so feared. Just three of them, Ikaris, Thena and Phastos had broken the host of warped beings Apocalypse had unleashed on the New Order and X-Men. Then they had made short work of Apocalypse himself, regardless of the being's boasting of his 'limitless' power. But while Apocalypse had been defeated, his taunts and the replies back from the Eternals had revealed the truth.
It had been shocking to learn where the Eternals and mutants came from. That their respected people were all the product of experiments done to sentient races throughout the universe by the god-like beings called the Celestials. Each race would have some uplifted to perfection where another group would be experimented on, given unpredictable DNA sequences. These "deviants" would either stabilize and thrive or die off.
The Eternals had cast Apocalypse down before when he tried to take over ancient Egypt. They had hoped his exile would teach him humility. This time they obliterated him completely. Then to both his and Charles' surprised, they had merely warned the pair that they were watching and would deal with them if either mutant attempted the same domination against the normals.
Charles had returned to his body which was attached to Cerebro back in Westchester. Magneto himself beat a hasty retreat before the Eternals changed their minds. Neither leader ever revealed what they had learned. Both seemed to understand that such knowledge wasn't something the general population was ready for.
Much later, a Kree sleeper agent Mystique had captured by accident, had told him how his people were fighting a war against the Skrulls. These Skrulls were not only shape-shifters but had been their race's Deviants. Ones who had risen up to supplant their Eternals and normals.
This information solidified where he and Charles had parted ways in another fundamental way. He felt mutants (he hated the galaxy wide term of Deviant) were fated to be like the Skrulls and use their abilities to rule their kind. Charles felt that the Skrulls had managed it because they all shared the same power. Earth mutants continued to exhibit new powers and while some had been passed on into another generation, it was rare. Thus Charles felt humans were still very much needed as a baseline to breed into until mutant DNA stabilized more.
Erik didn't dispute this. As Magneto, however, he felt that the humans could be the underclass their powerless DNA seemed destined for. However, Erik had seen first-hand that mutants could be just as worthless as any normal human. So to him, it was about power. The true elite were those who could rise up and strive to dare to be more than ordinary. They would be the ones exalted over the common masses.
Because of this, Erik had delved into the creation of mutates to see if mutants and human DNA could be merged in various ways. This could 'upgrade' worthy normals as well as hopefully stabilize the human genome earlier. While the Eternals were powerful, the Skrulls were proof that they could be beaten. For all his hatred of HYDRA, Erik had his two most trusted agent infiltrated to the highest level of both the Hellfire Club and Donald Pierce's Workshop which both did similar experiments.
Erik let the winds push him southward as he continued to send out slight pulses of his power even as he smirked. Oh how he wished he could see the looks on the faces of the Black and White kings of the Hellfire Club to say nothing of Pierce's face if they knew that not only did little they did escape his notice, but many of their accomplishments were products of Magneto's own New Order scientists like Henry Wyndham. Erik would cheerfully reap the benefits of the money and work of others, especially when it built of work the New Order had secretly slipped them.
Suddenly Magneto felt a pulse, almost a ping, of magnetic resonance coming toward him. Intrigued, he rose higher and was startled to see some form of what at first seemed to be a rocket but quickly resolved itself to be what looked like a flying suit of armor.
A suit of armor out of control and rapidly heading for a messy impact on the dunes.
Now even more intrigued, Magneto reached out with his considerable power and caught the armor to stabilize it. As it happened, seconds later the armor's boot jets sputtered and went out. He quickly canceled the armor's momentum and then gently lowered it onto a relatively flat outcropping of rock jetting up out of the sands.
Landing next to the armor, Magneto knelt and assessed what was before him. While crude, he was impressed at what he saw. Yet what really drew his attention was the glowing circle at the center of the armor's chest. It seemed to call to him if that was the right way to describe what he felt. He pulled out a small scanner which Henry Wyndham had developed to assist in his evolutionary experiments. Amazingly the energy signature seemed to mimic the energy signature of a mutant.
Even more surprising is the scanner told him the energy was similar in nature to the Stark ARC reactor operating at their main plant in Pasadena. Magneto wondered if Frost had ever mentioned that the plant gave off any sort of reading which Cerebra could detect. Had she seen this effect before, checked the location and realize it wasn't a biological effect?
Magneto carefully used his powers to remove the helmet and was met with another surprise. He recognized the young woman under the iron mask. He had had his eye on Riri Williams for a long time. Was she a genius in the class of Tony Stark or Reed Richards or was her intelligence boosted by mutation like his own Alec Thorne's mind was?
He knew that Ms. Williams had disappeared along with Stark. It was apparent that the young woman had somehow created this amazing, if crude, armor and escaped. Magneto stood and pulled out a communicator (another invention of Thorne's) and selected a specific number. After five minutes, the communicator beeped.
"Can you talk Unus?" Magneto asked.
"Yes, I told them I was going to get some coffee; what's up boss?" replied Angelo Unuscione, better known among some circles as Unus the Untouchable. Many people in those same circles would be shocked if they discovered the man was currently embedded as a contractor at CENTCOM forward headquarters in Doha in Qatar. Magneto had many such spies throughout the world.
"Good! I've made a rather interesting discovery in southern Afghanistan. Has anything odd been tracked from there?" Magneto asked.
"Huh, we were just looking at that. Got a thermal bloom at a mountain location thought to be a Ten Rings base and then a ballistics track. People were freaking out for a minute, let me tell you! But the track went off the screens pretty quickly," Unus replied.
"Yes I'm in the area now. Are any assets being sent to investigate?" Magneto asked as he knelt back down to assess the young woman's condition. It was apparent she was merely unconscious, probably from the G sheer and would probably wake soon.
Unus hesitated, "I'm not sure but it sounded like it when I left. You want me to push for one if they haven't?"
"Yes, there is a rather interesting twist on the damsel in distress for them to find. One that I think still needs to be out in the open rather taken off the board as it were," Magneto replied.
"You got it boss; I'll get right on it. Oh, while I've got you; I got a sniff that Romanoff may be investigating that Russian camp we think might be holding some mutants or at least dodgy genetic experiments. I've got my feelers out, but your SHIELD contacts might know more," Unus said.
Magneto smiled, "Good! Let the Black Widow do the leg work for us. I will pass this rumor on. Hopefully it will turn out to be true. It is always a pleasure when SHIELD can do our job for us. Magneto out." Erik smiled to himself. Given the warning the Eternals had given him, he had worked hard to get others to do things for him so as to lessen his involvement. After witnessing firsthand what just three Eternals were capable of, he didn't want to see what a concentrated strike might look like.
Dismissing such gloomy thoughts, Magneto turned off and stowed the communicator. He then used his powers to move the iron-clad woman onto the dunes and began to methodically work to make it appear as if she had survived a crash.
After this was done to his satisfaction, he again rose into the air and quickly moved away from the 'crash' site. Focusing his power in a way he rarely used due to a lack of control, Magneto sent a jolt of electro-magnetic energy towards the young woman. Just enough to wake her. She wouldn't last in the sun for long. However awake, she'd easily survive till rescue.
Magneto rose higher and flew away faster on the currents of energy his mutant powers generated. He would stick around long enough to generate some localized pulses which get the attention of the search helicopters he knew Unus would ensure were on their way. Given how close they were to the Camp Sharana, the American base in the area, he knew he wouldn't have to wait for long.
Contrary to the perception that Erik knew many intelligence agencies had of Magneto, he had nothing against Homo Sapiens in general. They would serve their purpose in the coming New Order. Besides, someone like Riri Williams was to be cherished. While it might turn out she was indeed a mutant, it made no difference in the end. She was a brilliant intellect regardless of the why. Sadly too many of his own followers were special only in their mutation. Many, Erik would cheerfully eliminate if he could somehow transfer their mutation to someone more worthy of the genetic gift they often squandered before they became part of his New Order.
So Magneto kept up a passive pulse of electro-magnetic energy to detect the on-coming rescue choppers and wondered what might be in store for the young genius in the future. Destiny had said that change was coming and Erik knew that Irene Adler's power of precognition were rarely wrong. Erik looked down at the woman who was beginning to stir. Destiny had made a passing reference to someone with an iron heart in a few of her prophetic states. Magneto couldn't help but think he was seeing the fruit of that prophecy beginning to wake on the dune below.
XxXxX
A/N: Well I'm sure that ended differently than most of you expected. Given how I'm not bound by trademarks, besides having the Iron Man movie play out with Riri instead of Tony, we'll also see a lot more of the expanded Marvel Universe interacting with elements of the movie. Oh, and Tony Stark may be dead but he's not out of the picture yet!
Dramatis Personae – For those who don't know their comics well enough to catch every character reference.
Howard & Maria Stark: Pretty much as in movie canon except to make the timeline work, they are Tony's grandparents.
Morgan & Katherine Stark: In canon, Morgan stark is Howard Stark's nephew via his brother Edward Stark. In this fic, he's Tony's dad. If I go with anything from CPT-A: Civil War, it would have been him killed by the Winter Soldier…but I'm probably not going to do that.
Agent Peggy Carter: Pretty much the same character seen in the movies and the TV series.
Edwin Jarvis: Howard Stark's butler and frequent ally to Agent Carter. We'll learn a lot more about the relationship between Jarvis and JARVIS in later chapters.
Jennifer Walters: Cousin to Bruce Banner and later becomes the She-Hulk in the comics. And yes, she is canonically a lawyer!
Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto: Jewish child whose mutation is triggered in a concentration camp and later augmented by the experimentations of Klaus Schmidt. Would later be contacted by Charles Xavier and would work with CIA. However, I'll be fiddling with the events shown in X-Men: First Class significantly so don't take that movie as canon as many elements will be drastically changed.
Emma Frost: Telepath and former associate of Klaus Schmidt. Now works in Magneto's New Order and she mirrors Charles Xavier's role as mutant finder and school headmistress.
Charles Xavier: Telepath and leader of the X-Men. As mentioned above, going with the movie version of working with the CIA even though canonically Charles had ties to the FBI.
Sean Cassidy: Irish mutant who generates sonic energy. Even though as an X-Man, Sean worked was technically under CIA authority, he would later become a SHIELD agent. After retiring as an active agent, he began working as a surrogate father and care-giver for young, at risk mutants at a facility run by his wife, Moira MacTaggart-Cassidy in Scotland.
Moira MacTaggart-Cassidy: While not mentioned yet, I'm going with the comic Moira and not the CIA version as seen in X-Men: First Class movie.
Henry Wyndham: In comics, he is the High Evolutionary with a weird back-story. Here I've adapted him to be a mostly normal evolutionary scientist. Technically he is a mutate as his enhanced intelligence comes artificially. His canonical base in Wundagore mountain is the New Order's main base. While he will have uplift experiments, instead of his New Men, Wyndham will be mostly working on mutates of the like Magneto had in the Savage Land.
Alec Thorne: In canon, part of Gamma Flight the initial training group of the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight. Had a TERRIBLE codename as "Smart Alec" given his mutation boosted his intelligence. He is sort of the Forge equivalent for Magneto.
Angelo Unuscione/Unus the Untouchable: In canon, part of Magneto's original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Has the power to create a defensive shield. Works as a spy in CENTCOM forward headquarters in Qatar under the cover of a contracted intelligence analyst.
Irene Adler/Destiny: An elderly mutant with the power of precognition. Long time mentor and friend of Raven Darkhölme and part of the original second iteration of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Raven Darkhölme/Mystique: Forget what you know about her. The movie really screws this character up. When you first see her, it's obvious she's a little older than Charles but then magically ends up younger and by the end of the film has seemingly regressed to a teenager relative to Charles. However will mostly go with the movie version of her leaving with Magneto. She because his main infiltrator and spy given her metamorphic abilities.
Agent Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: Going to fiddle with this character to help tie her to the Red Room Academy seen in the Agent Carter series. There is a lot more going on with her than it seems. However unless I do the Avenger follow-up, probably won't see much of her. Plus, if I do the Iron Man 2 type version, her part as covert agent inserted at Stark Industries will be taken by Sharon Carter. Also, any Banner/Romanoff shippers out there, well just no; it's not going to happen.
The Eternals: Given I haven't seen anything related to the MCU Eternals, I have to go with my own comic knowledge of them. I think even though the Neil Gaiman Eternals story was the last one I read with those characters; I'm basing most of my thoughts on them from the 12-part Eternals mini-series. I'm thinking that while Magneto and the X-Men haven't met them, that there may be enclaves of mutants that sort of mimic the Deviants. So maybe Lemuria is in the Savage Land and the whole Roman enclave where Magma was from, was just a place where a bunch of mutant/deviants hung out to hide from the Eternals.
