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Phase 3: Changing world I
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Part 5
=SI=
Seattle Children's Hospital
Washington State, US
Many small, tedious details usually don't make it in the movies. They're boring, so why not skip them?
Real life is never so convenient. Even with support, highly paid lawyers, my name, and money to throw around, it still took time to straighten everything out. Someone without my advantages might have spent weeks dealing with the mundane bureaucracy. The expense in time and money might have been ruinous.
Even in my case, cold-blooded pragmatism dictated that what I did for a child I didn't know was better used to strengthen my position. The US government and SHIELD did their best to turn SI inside out during the investigation. This wasn't time for sentimentality or distraction.
I found myself not caring. Hannah both tore open a gaping wound in my chest I didn't even want to acknowledge was there and was perhaps the only thing that could fill it.
Yet, part of me rebelled at all the lost time. Four days. I could have been creating designs that could change the future. I could have used my influence to speed up and aid in the ongoing investigations.
Instead, I brooded, plotted, and dealt with mundane concerns.
What happened to Hannah couldn't repeat itself. I used that fact to focus my tired wandering mind.
The playboy billionaire Tony Stark was someone people thought they could mess with. Some felt that they could simply kill me and dared to use my daughter. This would change. It had to! I didn't have the raw power to protect Hannah. I had to leverage all my other assets to do it.
People called me the Merchant of Death in either contempt or hatred.
It was time to live up to that mantle and make it mine.
Only one thing didn't change. Fusion energy was something I needed. It was a building block. After that…. I closed my eyes, thinking about weapon and armor designs that could be practical to replicate. Better materials too.
I also thought about how to begin building myself a loyal army.
=SI=
Hannah awoke on the fifth day in the hospital when I was considering how to bring her home safely. My house in California was out of the question. It was too vulnerable.
I still had my parents' mansion and paid people to maintain it. The place was the closest thing to a fortress I could think of in my grasp on short notice. It would have to do.
My daughter's eyes snapped open, and her head darted around in panic. She whimpered and kept looking wildly.
"Hi there…" I smiled wanly. Her eyes were indeed my mother's.
Hannah's gaze froze on me, and she stilled. I could feel her fear and desperate need.
"Granny?" She asked in a thin voice.
"I'm sorry."
A six-year-old child shouldn't worry about people dying. The universe didn't care. People like me didn't particularly care until it struck close to home.
Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head in denial.
"I want Granny!"
I slowly raised my hand and touched her shoulder. Hannah froze and whimpered until I gently channeled emotions and concepts through the Force. Warmth, reassurance, care, and safety. She slowly calmed down.
Soon a nurse and Hannah's attending Doctor came in and bid me to move out of the way.
Fuck pragmatism. Whoever else even thought about hurting my daughter was going to burn.
A bit later, I was outside the room, listening to the Doctor list what had to happen. Therapy, obviously. No shocks and further scares if at all possible. A regimen of vitamins and minerals to help Hannah's recovery.
Gently trying to explain to her who I was and that her grandmother was gone. Arranging and attending said grandmother's funeral, before bringing Hannah home.
Other mundane details, like straightening up the paperwork around her eventual discharge. Ensuring I had all the necessary documents for her future doctors and therapist when we went to New York, visiting Hannah's house to pick up various documents about her, perhaps some familiar toys and clothes. Ordering lawyers to deal with any inheritance from her grandmother. Securing Hannah's chool transcripts, arranging to pull her out of her current school, and eventual transfer when she was ready and when I found a safe enough school.
There were many boring details, yet several were essential. Some were more important than others. Lawyers could deal with many of the details but not all.
The lack of sleep did me no favors over the next few days. They were mostly a blur, with specific highlights burning themselves in my mind.
Hannah's heart-wrenching denial and eventually understanding that she would never see her grandmother alive again. Her confusion and anger when we got to explain I was her father, who she had never met. That ensured Hannah didn't want to talk with me and glared every time I visited her while she was still in the hospital.
The first bright spot came after visiting her home – an apartment near the largest mall district in Tacoma. My daughter was a Harry Potter fan. She had a stuffed dragon on her bed.
That was all I could readily recall from that particular trip. We got back to the hospital with a trunk full of documents, toys, and some clothes. I picked up the dragon too, which was a wise choice.
Bringing it to Hannah had her perk up and feel joy for the first time since awakening from her catatonic state. As soon as I gave it to her, she grabbed it and hugged the stuffing out of it.
=SI=
It rained during Rose Robert's funeral. There were a handful of friends and coworkers present. Mrs. Roberts was an auditor working for Tacoma's local tax collection agency. That wasn't a job that got you too many friends. The benefits were great, or so I heard.
Hannah didn't stop crying all the way through. Even if she began to tolerate it slowly, my presence did little to reassure or calm her down.
The inevitable SHIELD-supplied security detail did little to help in that regard. Hannah kept flinching every time a stranger even looked her way. That did little to improve my mood.
It didn't help that Romanoff, of all people, kept curiously staring at us every time she was a part of our security detail.
=SI=
Two days after the funeral, we finally left Tacoma behind. The past two nights were decidedly unpleasant. If it wasn't for Romanoff and the SHIELD security, I was sure I would have torn off the spine of at least a couple of paparazzi trying to get close to us. The constant hounding from journalists did Hannah no favors. The flash of cameras every time we had to go somewhere – usually from the hotel to the hospital for final checkups before leaving, terrified my daughter.
I wondered if my new security could get away with shooting such pests on sight when we got home.
The second time Hannah relaxed and almost smiled was after we boarded the plane and reached cruising altitude. She pressed her face to one of the portholes and watched the sky with wonder and delight. She brought her stuffed dragon up and started babbling happily to it.
That was a good sign, right?
=SI=
Part 6
=SI=
Stark Mansion
New York, US
It's been years since I was last here. This place brought back memories, and not all of them were pleasant. Howard Stark's ideas of parenting were questionable at best. Mom, on the other hand…
"It's a bit much, isn't it, Hannah?"
My daughter looked around the vast entrance hall, which could double up as a big ballroom. Her wide eyes darted over marble, polished wood, and golden ornaments.
Whoever claims the US doesn't have royalty or palaces, for that matter, doesn't know what they're talking about. For most intents and purposes, my parents were royalty in the US and weren't alone in that regard. I knew of a few dozen mansions, and mesonet's in New York alone that rivaled ours. I had to visit many of them for all kinds of tedious functions with my parents.
After their death, I did my best to escape that world.
"It looks like a dragon cave!" Hannah declared and looked at me. "Dragons!" She waved her stuffed dragon around.
"Your Norbert's the only dragon here now." My lips twitched at that. I recall a few people calling my mother a dragon when they thought no one could hear her. It wasn't meant as a compliment, either. "Let's find a room you like."
I had to find someone to raid a store with Harry Potter paraphernalia, especially stuffed dragons.
"Too many steps! I don't like them!" My daughter grumbled while we were halfway through the stairway to the second floor. "It's not like Hogwarts! They aren't moving!"
Adding an escalator was always an option. Besides, it might make my father roll in his grave, which is always a bonus.
"We can't have you stumbling down moving stairs. Norbert might be able to fly away, but you can't yet."
"I'm a witch! I'll fly on a broom!" Hannah was cutely serious at that.
Fuck Harry Potter.
"One day, I'll get you flying, love, I promise." Certainly not on a broom, though. If I had some off-the-shelf repulsor components, I might be able to kludge together a flying broom. It would be more suicidal driving such an abomination than a regular speeder bike, and those got tons of people killed every year.
In the end, Hannah chose my old room, though she grumbled about not having enough Harry Potter stuff.
=SI=
Late that evening, after I tucked Hannah into bed, it was time to get to work. Money and connections talk. That was how I got a meeting with a prospective chief of my future security detail. I got over what Jarvis and Rhodey could give me about the man on the flight here. He was a former Delta Force, medically retired due to a busted knee.
He got together with a few buddies, and they used their retirement benefits and savings to establish a small private security company in New York state, which employed combat veterans. Usually, people they either served with or got good recommendations from friends still in the military.
On paper, Major Ian Woods was beyond reproach, and his small agency was on the US government's list of vetted contractors. That was why Woods just arrived and had to get through my current SHIELD-provided security detail.
I met him in my father's office. It was weird sitting in Howard's chair. Natasha leaning on his sacred desk might have made him scoff in indignation. Then again, I remember Aunt Peggy doing the same, but she was a special case.
A SHIELD Agent escorted Woods in. The Major was a large man with clearly defined muscles still visible under his black suit. He stopped mid-stride and stared at Romanoff.
"Mr. Stark, are you aware who you have in your office?" The man shifted from a relaxed gait favoring his right leg into a ball of energy ready to pounce.
"Nowadays, this is Agent Portman, officially working for Homeland Security. If she wanted me dead, she had an ample opportunity to do it and get away clean."
"My fame keeps preceding me," Romanoff grumbled.
"You managed to be one of the most infamous assassins of the last fifty years despite that, Ma'am." Woods carefully noted.
"And now she's here to keep me alive and point out any obvious hole in my security. Which, in turn, is why you're here, Major."
"I'm all ears, Mr. Stark. Various people I hold in high esteem recommended I listen to your offer." Woods kept glancing between Romanoff and me. He didn't relax either. "Some of them sounded quite impressive with you."
"Everyone wants a piece of me nowadays. Let's speak plainly, Major. Recent events convinced me I need a large and competent security detail for my daughter and myself. I'm looking for a competent Chief of Security."
"I have training and experience in breaching highly secure locations and establishing security for locations and VIPs." Woods didn't boast but instead merely stated facts.
"From what I hear, you aren't someone who could simply be bought to look away or betray his employer."
"I am a patriot, Mr. Stark. There are some things money can't buy."
He sounded as if he believed it. I couldn't detect deception, but instead, there was a wall of stubborn pride around Wood's mind. Huh, Rhodey and his contacts might be right about this one.
"That's good. Not to be blunt, your Aegis Security, as it stands, is too small to get the job done by itself. I will need multiple security teams to cover at least their shifts, accounting for sick time, vacations, recovery from injuries, and such. Further, at least two heavy assault teams as quick reaction forces at a minimum."
"Do you expect to fight a war, Mr. Stark? Only a few people in the states have this kind of security. VIPs like the President and the VP come to mind."
"A week ago, a commando strike team took my daughter and, in the process, murdered three Homeland Security agents. When we went to get her back, a second commando unit arrived minutes after we assaulted the compound the kidnappers held us. They were all highly trained and committed. That's the kind of opposition my security would have to deal with in the future."
Woods's eyebrows tried to vanish in his short-cropped black hair. He glanced at Natasha, who nodded.
"They were as good as strike teams go," Romanoff confirmed.
"You've pissed off some powerful people with a lot of reach, then. That's not the kind of operation I would expect anyone but a state actor to be able to execute in the US."
"With what I have on my mind inventions-wise, I'll be pissing off many people and organizations by destroying their business models and revenue streams over the next few years. My security teams will have to earn their pay, which will be nothing to sneeze at. "
"Two questions, Mr. Stark. First, what do you mean by we, when telling me about recovering your daughter? Second, please elaborate on what you would want from my company and me if I agree to become your Chief of Security."
"To answer your first question, you'll have to sign a few NDAs. Regarding the second, you might not like some of the details. Due to various practical reasons, I would need my security detail as either a division of Stark Industries or a PMC under my control. In that regard, if we reach an understanding tonight, I would like to acquire your agency. You'll still be in charge of it and have access to my assets to vet additional personnel and procure all the necessary equipment. Among other things, my security would be responsible for a few critical locations: this home and a future Stark Industries HQ in New York, among other things. Further, I will be drawing volunteers to test military equipment. Then they will be among the first outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment when it becomes available. That is one of the reasons I would require highly vetted combat veterans as a part of my security detail."
Woods kept asking for clarification on various points. At the same time, I countered with pointed questions to get a better read of his character.
By midnight we had a preliminary verbal agreement. In a few days, we would meet again, accompanied by teams of lawyers, to straighten up all the necessary details.
With this, I would have the core of my future private army. Naturally, winning and cementing their loyalty to me would take time. It was good that I didn't intend to take over the world with said army anytime soon.
It was time for some shuteye, for tomorrow would be another busy day. I would have to vet a competent therapist for Hannah and go over possible future schools in the area for her. Finally, it was high time to sit down with Jarvis and start designing everything I would need.
=SI=
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