TITLE: Iron Maiden - Days of Future Past
DISCLAIMER: The Marvel Cinematic Universe characters and everything from Earth-199999 belongs to Marvel under the umbrella of The Mouse of Doom, ahem, sorry, Disney... anything from other Marvel Universes / dimensions / timelines belong to their respective comic creators… basically, if you recognise it, it isn't mine... Please don't sic SHIELD on me, I'm just here for the fun.
Stark Mansion
10880 Malibu Point
Malibu
California
February 1st, 2010
"Alright, what am I looking at here?" Tony asked curiously, idly looking down at the papers that Pepper had left on his workshop table for him to look at. "Valencia?" He asked curiously. "Spain?" He raised an eyebrow as he looked back at Pepper now.
"I checked with Morgan, that's where the Stark International Towers are in her time," Pepper explained. "It's monumental, nearly twice the size of the tower you've got planned for New York."
"I'm glad I'm confidant enough in my masculinity so as not to feel emasculated by that," Tony quipped, picking up the papers curiously. "Alright, port city, excellent for international meetings and shipping. Huge airport nearby, private and public, OK, yeah I can see why you'd decide on this place." He said with a nod as he catalogued off all the various attractions in Valencia.
"I think we should start looking at it now," Pepper said firmly. "If we're going to start branching out into medical and boosting the aviation division, the international market will increase SI's portfolio tenfold over the first year. By the time we're ready to launch the cybernetic prosthesis, we'll be in a place where we can offer them globally and really make a difference."
"Hnh," Tony nodded absently, still flicking through the papers and running down thoughts in his head. "I like it. It's a good staging point to move the aviation division as well. Launch the first flights from Valencia to the rest of Europe, then branch out to different countries from there." He mused aloud as he took note of Valencia's modern looking airport.
"I'll approach the Spanish government, we're probably going to be looking at months worth of discussions and planning before we can start looking seriously at reorganising things." Pepper pointed out.
"I figured," Tony gave a small smile at that. "Get them on board and I'll fly out personally to talk to them. You and Morgan as well obviously." He said with a nod as Pepper took the file back off of him.
"You should look at Morgan's details for Stark Avionics as well." Pepper pointed out.
"Oh?" Tony raised his eyebrow at that. "Spain as well?"
"Actually the history was quite fascinating. We... I, I mean, in the future, bought out an abandoned international airport to convert to the avionics division." Pepper explained.
"An abandoned international airport?" Tony repeated, trying to make that make sense in his brain. "In Spain?"
"Ciudad Real Airport," Pepper confirmed. "It's still open now, but losing money fast. Millions per week." She explained. "According to Morgan's files, it goes bankrupt in two years in early twenty twelve. It's about a hundred and fifty miles south of Madrid, but a fully functional airport with everything already set up?" She pointed out.
"Sounds perfect," Tony admitted, musing over the thought in his head. It'd probably be a costly outlay, but if they were going to look at Spain properly in the future, having a huge complex that was already built and structurally sound would make for a great investment to move the new avionics division into, and then build up from there. "JARVIS, log that, keep an eye on the airport, financials, everything. Let me know what's going on with it."
"Do you even speak Spanish?" Pepper asked curiously.
"Not fluently," Tony shrugged. "I'll brush up before things get serious." He said with a casual glance over to where Morgan was happily sat at another workbench, manipulating something around on one of her holographic screens and talking animatedly with the purple AI that was standing next to her. "I'm going to take the mansion offline tomorrow. Remodelling. Security upgrades, the whole nine yards." He explained.
"Morgan's influence?" Pepper asked, following Tony's eye to see what Morgan was concentrating on.
"A bit," Tony admitted. "I want to get her security enhancements locked in place before SHIELD start poking their nose around again. Once I've got the mansion sorted, I'll upgrade SI's servers to her standard. That should increase cyber security a few thousand percent. The hardware won't be up to scratch, at least not for a while, but security and encryption will be beyond anything anyone else could even dream of."
"That would make me feel better," Pepper smiled at that. Ever since she'd heard a few snippets from Morgan about how SHIELD and The Avengers took advantage of Tony before, she'd wanted to up the security around SI to make sure they wouldn't have to deal with any problems with SHIELD agents sneaking in again. "Tony... the purple AI... FAITH?"
"Hmm?" Tony nodded, gesturing for her to carry on with her question.
"Why does she have a body?" Pepper asked curiously. "I understand it's another AI like JARVIS right?"
"A lot more advanced, and you know how much it hurts for me to admit that... but basically, yeah." Tony nodded in agreement. "I guess it just makes her more personable. Having a body that can help you out with things, something to focus on when you're talking instead of just talking into microphones or sensors." He mused aloud. "The hard light systems are definitely going to be installed once I've got the hang of them. We've got them hooked up around here in the workshop for now, but I want them everywhere once we've got the manufacturing on them figured out."
"Hard light?" Pepper asked, not having heard that term before.
"Solid, like a force field." Tony grinned, seeing Pepper's astonished look. "Yup, FAITH can pick things up, help with everything she needs to. She could probably give you a hug and it'd feel... honestly I don't know how it'd feel, probably more rigid than a person, more like a mannequin I'd guess, there wouldn't be any give or flex in her form, I don't think there would be anyway, I haven't even looked at..." He trailed off, shaking his head. Not wanting to get into theoretical high energy physics with Pepper right now. "Yeah, she'd be solid enough."
"That's... I don't even know how that sort of thing would be possible." Pepper stammered out, staring over at the purple AI in a new light now.
"The physics of it are pretty high end, and the power requirements are obscene." Tony smiled in agreement. "Apparently I started experimenting with it for force fields in twenty eighteen, then developed it from there." He explained. "Morgan was the one that brought it into the AI's and gave them bodies. It's mostly used for laptops and phones and things like that in the future apparently." He said with a small shrug. "I've thought of a few other uses that I'd love to experiment with, but getting it working is going to be a bigger pain than arc technology."
"We can't develop this technology now?" Pepper asked.
"Not a chance," Tony snorted in amusement. "We might be able to copy some of the projector designs, but the circuitry and processing power? It'd be the size of a car." He shook his head. "We're going to need some serious improvements in silicone fabrication, transistor design and power management before we even start looking at things like that."
"Right," Pepper grimaced at the thought.
"It's like if I took a tablet computer back thirty years into the past," Tony explained. "Back in the eighties they might be able to copy some things. The screen maybe? Touch capabilities, things like that. But the actual processor, the memory, storage and battery? It'd be so far beyond their capabilities in the eighties it'd be like magic." He smirked at the thought.
Pepper nodded at that, picturing their modern technology being shown to someone from the nineteen eighties. It would definitely seem like magic to them, just like Morgan's technology was so far beyond anything they could hope to equal with their own.
"What are we going to do about the public?" Pepper asked, flicking her eyes back to Morgan and then to Tony, seeing the similarities more and more as she watched them work.
"You mean her coming out party?" Tony smirked, continuing when Pepper nodded at him. "I figure the Expo will be the best time. Make it public and get it out internationally at the same time. That'll keep SHIELD from thinking they can squirrel her away, and get her face linked to the Stark name at the same time."
"It'll be a controversy no matter what we do," Pepper grimaced at the thought. "She's twenty six, you would have had to been her father at fourteen."
"Not exactly a stretch given what the media already think of me," Tony commented off hand. "They'll piece that together and run it as a scandal, and won't look any deeper."
"There is that," Pepper nodded, not that anyone would actually believe Morgan was their daughter from the future. A scandal involving a fourteen year old Tony getting someone pregnant was far more believable, and the tabloids would fan it without question. "There'll be questions about her mother though. We can't exactly say that I'm her mother." She pointed out when Tony looked at her.
"Step mom publicly, mom privately," Tony said after a moment's pause. "Hey, kiddo. What you working on over there?" He asked, calling out to Morgan then walking over, checking that Pepper was following him over to where Morgan was still fiddling with something on her screens.
"Tweaking an EXO-Seven design that always bugged me," Morgan said, flicking a few different screens around that showed extremely advanced technical schematics. "I was thinking about what you said about backup for the New York thing, and these things always looked like they could work better than they did."
"Are those wings?" Pepper asked, staring at the schematics and trying to make sense of them.
"Yeah, they were called Falcon wings originally. Gliders basically with a low powered thrust pack." Morgan explained. "Paratrooper style stuff, but I always hated the design. Might be because the new Craptain had a pair that you updated for him, but they always bugged me." She pointed out with a small smirk to Tony.
"OK, owch, and secondly, obviously not my best work." Tony defended himself. "Like I'd even put any effort into anything that was going to be used under Rogers' brand." He explained with a derisive snort.
"Fair," Morgan nodded. "I figured spreading the wings to a four split design would give better lift and manoeuvrability, if I offset the weight by adding a repulsor core it would up the flight speed and manoeuvrability by about a hundred and thirty percent." She explained.
"Sounds good, send it over to my workspace and I'll take a look in a minute," Tony mused, looking at the designs with a critical eye. "Thinking Air Force?" He asked curiously.
"Yeah," Morgan smiled. "There's not going to be any weapons packed in, but some good armour would add better rigidity for flight without compromising agility." She mused, flipping around the design a few times before zooming the image out so she could get a better look.
"They look like angel wings," Pepper commented, looking at the design curiously.
"I like it," Tony grinned. "Angels, they'd be perfect for search and rescue teams. Give them a few weapons and they would really help out on the streets during the invasion. Keep us focused on the big problems while they take care of civilians."
"That's what I thought," Morgan grinned, editing the workflow project name and changing it to Angels. A silvery white colour scheme would look amazing on the wings and really give the whole look a friendly and approachable design rather than intimidating or fearsome.
"Send it over, get a prototype fabbed up, see how it handles." Tony mused. "Arc power?" He asked curiously, eyeing the thruster pack nestled squarely between the two larger wings.
"More like an AA battery version of one," Morgan snorted in amusement. "Half a gigawatt, if that. It'd take about half a gram of Starkanium to run one of these for a year. If one of them gets damaged or stolen, they can't exactly use it for anything else."
"Good enough," Tony nodded. "We'll have to knock up some contracts for the Air Force, no tinkering, SI property, the usual proprietary stuff." He mused. "I might have some fabric armour designs that can work with those too, give it out as a full kit rather than seeing what monstrosity the Air Force actually cobbles together."
"Flack jackets and BDUs?" Morgan smirked at him. "Carrying rifles and sub machine guns strapped to their belts? Not exactly an angel image." She pointed out with a laugh. "I've got some bits that might work too, but I'd have to get a particle accelerator set up first. Prismatic base, start synthesising everything we need." She nodded when Tony looked at her. "We'll need it anyway to start synthesising Starkanium, I can think of a dozen other projects that I could use it for."
"Alright, we'll put it on the list for when we're re-modeling," Tony nodded absently, still looking at the design blueprints that Morgan was working on. "But some decent sensor tech in some gauntlets, forearm only that can be latched to the wings for support and flight stabilisation? That could work and would be a godsend to the search and rescue idea." He pointed out.
"I was thinking sensor packs on the arms, gyroscopic, the basics really. Link it to the wings for control, that'll leave the arms free instead of being latched on. The extra control over the wings would definitely be handy." Morgan explained.
"It looks good," Pepper smiled confidently. "Once you know it's working, I'll set up a meeting with the Air Force, see if we can have a full display ready for the Expo."
"Oh these'll be show stoppers," Tony grinned, mentally picturing a full squad decked out in silvery white wings, flying across the Expo like a choir of angels. "I was thinking about the invasion." He said suddenly, causing Morgan and Pepper to look at him curiously. "We know the exact date it's going to happen right? Down to the hour?"
"Yeah?" Morgan asked, tilting her head to the side and looking at Tony for the rest.
"We organise something at the old base on Long Island. Make a spectacle out of it. Everything we could use for the battle. Angel suits, any planes, everything." Tony explained. "Make it a full weekend thing or week thing or whatever. Then when the invasion hits..."
"There's already a ton of backup waiting right next door," Morgan grinned, seeing where Tony was going with his plan. "Uncle Eightball would be there too so we wouldn't need an excuse to have him around as well." She said happily.
"Exactly," Tony grinned. "Which reminds me, I still need to see your specs for the best War Machine we can put together." He said, looking to Morgan now. "Not nanotech, but the best we can do with what we've got."
"Right, I'll figure it out." Morgan frowned, contemplating the problem. "I should be able to get the rail-gun sorted out easily enough, but sorting the armour out... metallurgy was never my thing."
"Send over what you've got and I'll take a run at it," Tony smiled reassuringly at her. "You know more about nanotech and cybernetics than I'm ever going to, so I can pick up the slack on armour and everything else." He added with a grin.
"I'll leave you two to it then," Pepper smiled fondly, seeing the two very obviously happy with the work they were doing.
"Hang on," Tony said, gesturing for Pepper to stay around. "Kiddo, you know we were talking about using the Expo to announce your... you know, you?" He asked. "You had any more thoughts about it?"
"I don't really care one way or the other," Morgan shrugged absently, swiping her screens away and spinning around on her chair so she could focus on her parents. "I didn't exactly have any plans for it, but I get that having my name out there will stop a ton of questions."
"And it'll bring quite a few more," Pepper pointed out. "People aren't going to question the link to your father much, the tabloids..."
"Yeah, I remember," Morgan smirked, rolling her eyes. "What? I had the internet growing up. I mastered hitting the back button at record breaking speeds a few minutes after I discovered what search engines and dad's name could bring up."
Tony grimaced at that, not wanting to imagine what sort of things the internet could have shown her. Pictures, videos, and 'tell all' tabloid stories from women that he'd spent the night with. Yeah, the internet was a horrific minefield that was probably responsible for a lot of Morgan's mental scarring growing up.
"Right," Pepper nodded, seeing Tony's expression. "But they are going to have questions about your mother."
"Oh," Morgan frowned. "I won't be answering them or giving interviews, so..." She trailed off with a shrug. "They'll probably make up stories no matter what I say anyway right? You always warned me about talking to the press or going to war with them, so I don't really care what they say, never have." She said bluntly.
"Looks like future Pep got you schooled on the media pretty well," Tony grinned at her. "She's right though, they're going to be flooding stories and questions around, you sure you can handle it?"
"Yeah yeah, nothing I haven't seen before." Morgan smirked. "I've been the Stark Princess all my life, they're not going to say anything I haven't heard before. Let them have their gossip columns, I've got more important things to worry about."
"Like alien invasions, magic marbles, and psychotic witches," Tony nodded, he could see why annoying tabloid gossip didn't even rank on Morgan's problem list when it involved things like that.
"Right," Morgan grinned.
"Anyway, we're thinking of using the Expo to launch everything. Get your name out there, publicly rebrand SI to Stark International, show off as much advanced tech as we can. Rebrand the entire Stark name as far from weapons as possible."
"Makes sense," Morgan nodded happily, swinging around on her chair and standing up. "Mom always had good deals with other countries through the UN, we had deals with them for armour, trade agreements, tech, everything." She explained. "I worked with them a lot for disaster relief and everything else, it was easier getting clearance for different countries than just doing my own thing."
"That's a good idea," Pepper nodded in agreement, looking at Tony. "Playing nice with the UN would go over SHIELD's head completely, and it would cut off a lot of the plans you said the Senate had to get their hands on the Iron Man tech."
"Huh," Tony frowned as he considered that.
"I always worked with them," Morgan shrugged. "Better to have them on side early so we can get some backup when the shit hits the fan." She explained with a grin. "It'll shut up a lot of people as well, and piss SHIELD off, which is always a bonus." She smirked at that. "Once the accords come in, the superhero legal system, it'll be a hell of a lot easier if we're on the top floor already."
"Point," Tony laughed at that, anything that pissed SHIELD and Fury off was definitely a winning combination in his book, and Pepper and Morgan weren't wrong, having the UN on side would definitely help with a lot of things, not to mention outfitting the UN volunteer troops with search and rescue kit, along with anything else he could come up with, would definitely bolster SI's reputation around the world.
"Alright, see if we can talk to Spain first, if we can get a good date in to approach the UN council at the same time, we can do it all under the radar before SHIELD starts getting wind of anything." Tony nodded. "Why did Pepper, the future Pepper I mean, why Spain?" He asked curiously.
"I think there were a few reasons," Morgan mused as she leaned back casually. "It's away from America, which was definitely a good thing with all the Rogers apologists and sycophants, and all the political bullshit going on there, and with SHIELD, SWORD, whatever they were calling themselves back then, they were trying to steal as much Stark tech as they could, so mom sealed as much as she could away until the new SI buildings were ready."
"Good move," Tony nodded in approval, happy in the knowledge that Pepper had done the right thing for both his daughter, and his company, when the worst had happened.
"Spain was, is, one of the countries that didn't sign onto the SHIELD legislation. China and Japan didn't, Russia obviously didn't. Afghanistan and a few dozen other countries refused as well. I guess Spain was the best option and was signed on with the UN to stop American politicians from pushing anything too far." Morgan explained. "Destroying SHIELD properly is still part of the plan, but being in a country outside of their jurisdiction where the government can push for sanctions if the American government tries to remake it under a different name?"
"It makes sense when you look at it like that. Having a main SI building in Spain would definitely take a lot of Senate pressure off of SI. They'd know how badly the economy is linked to SI, and if we pulled out entirely, it would be disastrous for the economy and employment. The politicians would know the figures on that, I'd bet that's why they're trying to get you to sign over the Iron Man technology to the government again and bring SI into longer contracts." Pepper mused with a frown. "Have you two actually eaten anything yet?" She asked knowingly, looking between the two and their various workstations, seeing the puzzled and slightly guilty look on both faces. "I'll order in, I know this is important, but you still need to eat."
"Yes mom," Morgan grinned over at her, getting a slightly startled look from Pepper before she smiled back.
"Yes mom," Tony parroted, causing Pepper to roll her eyes at him. "We need to start clearing out anyway, the new server racks and wiring will be here tomorrow to start remodelling."
"Then you can finish up for the day and help me with the mess of contracts coming in from SI," Pepper said, turning to Tony with a flat look. "And don't think I don't remember everything FAITH told me about my future. Becoming CEO now would not be a good idea, I'm not against it, but we need to work on public perception first before making big changes like that."
"Fair," Tony said after a beat, accepting that Pepper was right on that.
"Which means you need to take control properly and deal with the spiralling that Obadiah's vacancy has left." Pepper pointed out. "Do your records have anything about stock projections and problems with SI coming up before the Expo?" She asked, looking to Morgan now.
"Should have," Morgan frowned thoughtfully. "Once we've got the place up to date, well, up to dad's date," She smirked at her dad's hurt expression. "I'll wire one of my QSI's into the mainframe permanently. Might need to do a bit of work on FRIDAY and JARVIS to get them to work together and access the system properly, but I should be able to get FRIDAY linked up easily enough so you can use your old watch to pull up anything you need."
Pepper paused at that, thinking of the watch and bracelets, along with that solitaire diamond ring that Morgan had given her from her future self. She'd very carefully not asked about what happened to her future self, knowing that she wouldn't have given up her wedding ring so easily or let her daughter plan this ridiculous time travel jump in the first place.
"Send me FRIDAY's code over, I'll see what I can do to bring JARVIS up to date. Your security patches are great, but JARVIS is my baby, I want to do everything myself." Tony said, catching Morgan's eye.
"Will do," Morgan smiled over. "I got to tweaking FRIDAY's code when I was back in the future, she's at least up to FAITH's standard now, but she'll need a bit more work to get her compatible with the systems back here. I've been looking at the emitter tech as well, I might be able to work some soft light emitters into the remodelling, hard light's definitely out of the picture for now, but holographics and sensor linked emitters? Doable."
"Sounds good," Tony grinned happily. "Send the code over to my main servers, I'll take a look."
"I'll have JARVIS call you when food is arriving," Pepper sighed, seeing more and more how Tony and Morgan were uncomfortably alike in their single minded work ethic. "I'll be upstairs going over the Expo plans. We're going to need to make it bigger than ever with all of your ideas."
"Double it, double everything." Tony smiled widely at the thought. "We'll make everything back within a month if my projections are right."
Pepper nodded, knowing he was right. With the knowledge and schematics that Morgan had about battery technology alone, SI would be making millions. If they included medical technology, bionic replacement limbs, phone and computer technology. It wouldn't be billions, but trillions. World wide.
They could afford to make a big splash with the Expo this year, and she would make sure it was felt around the world.
5016 80th Ave
Storm Lake
Iowa
United States
Flying to Iowa was always a pain, she suspected that was why Clint chose the state for his 'out of the way' farmhouse when there were much more reasonable alternatives out there.
After all, who actually comes to Iowa willingly? And out to Storm Lake? It was stuck right out in the ass end of nowhere, with barely anything around it. Hell, the nearest town was Cherokee, with a whopping population of just over five thousand.
She hated it, every single thing about Iowa. The only reason she would ever give this farmland be dammed state a second thought was Clint, Laura and the kids that lived here.
Getting a flight out to Des Moines International meant two different stops before she finally reached her destination and could hire a truck... an honest to God truck because there weren't any sensible cars left, before the long drive out from Des Moines up to Storm Lake.
On the one hand, she had to give Clint points for actually having a hide away that nobody would actually expect, or even go looking for. But on the other hand, every single time she was forced to make this journey she imagined Clint knowing about this torture and laughing. And that made her want to hit him, repeatedly.
Natasha Romanoff was not a farm person, she was not a pick-up truck person. All she could imagine driving along the dirt roads were horrible American stereotypes living out here, and she'd learnt her lesson about trying the radio several trips ago. Nope, that led to nightmares and she wasn't about to relive the horror of getting home grown country and western music stuck in her head again any time soon.
She was sure that was against the Geneva convention laws, inhuman suffering or something similar. It was a torture beyond anything she could dream up.
She wasn't even due to come out here and visit for a few more months, and wouldn't if that damn USB stick hadn't shown up in one of her hidden dropboxes. She could count on one hand the amount of people that knew about those drops, Clint and Fury were two, the two others weren't in the US anymore and she was pretty damn sure at least one of them was dead.
The fact someone had left it there for her meant it had been left by someone that knew her extremely well. A single plain white envelope with one unique tear on it, a mark that meant it had been left by Clint. Nobody else knew that little tell, it was something they used to prove messages had been left from each other, and not an impostor trying to feed them false information.
That same envelope was folded up in her chest pocket now, securing that all important USB drive for her trip up to the Barton farm.
She'd watched the video five times before heading to the airport out of New York, she'd memorised each impossible frame. Every tell, every nuance that came from the impossible Clint on the video. The words were secondary, the body movements, micro-movements in the face and the way he spoke.
It was Clint on the video, she was certain of it. Allowing for a thirty or forty year shift in behaviour, everything matched. The video Clint was at least twice his age, with silver cropped hair, a few scars that he didn't have now, and a weariness that spoke of many things that he didn't actually verbalise. There was a tightening around his eyes, an unease when he spoke of a few people. People called Wanda, Rogers, Sam and Fury. The last surprised her, as far as she knew Clint trusted Fury with everything, but the story told in the video explained more than a few facts that she didn't like.
No, she didn't like the story being told by the future Clint one bit. There were annoying specifics that could only be the truth. The way Clint spoke about the future where Fury wiped out any record of her existing. How she'd died trying to save the world, only for Fury to erase her efforts so that the American government lauded everything on Captain America.
She hated the fact Clint actually had post cards that he showed on the video. The statue of liberty holding up that famous shield had made her eye twitch, and the story about HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD right from the start had had her gripping her table in fury.
How many of her missions had actually been HYDRA missions? How many assassinations? She'd joined SHIELD to try and change her past, to become better than who she'd been and wipe out all the red in her ledger. Only that hadn't been the case apparently. According to the future Clint both Fury and SHIELD slash HYDRA had used her. Used her guilt against her and then tossed her away like a disposable tool when they were done with her, never to be spoken of again.
That had angered her enough to visibly show. She knew dying for the cause was part and parcel of being a SHIELD agent. It was something she'd accounted for and knew was likely coming. But dying for the wrong cause, to be erased and to have all her efforts count for nothing?
No, that would not do.
The video was very specific in hints as to what she should do. Break away from SHIELD. Never trust Wanda, Rogers, Fury or Sam. She only knew one of those names, but assumed that the other three would become relevant in time. The future Clint had outright begged for her to kill Wanda the first chance she got.
He mentioned things that gave her hope as well. That Yelena was actually still alive, when she thought she was dead. That she could still make a difference and change the future, if she trusted the right people this time. And that she could have a family one day, that Stark knew how to reverse the procedure that the Red Room had put her through.
There was a lot of hope there, almost enough to counter all the horrific things that Clint had spoken about.
The video had been a good ten minutes long, and clearly edited in some parts. Bits had been cut out, sliced and censored in a professional manner. She didn't know if it was Clint's work or someone else's, she doubted it was Clint as he didn't get along with technology at the best of times, so either he had someone else edit the video, or it had been censored by someone else before delivery.
She had to wonder what had been cut though. There was incriminating evidence there of plenty of things. SHIELD and HYDRA being among them, but Clint also spoke about alien invasions. Someone called Thanos, a 'snap' that wiped out half of the population, including Clint's own family. They'd fixed that in the future apparently, but the shadow in Clint's eyes told her that he'd let the dark in far too deep during that time.
No, the video was real, she was sure about it. It was a lifeline from the future telling her how to change her life. The future Clint had mentioned he was sending a video to himself as well, which had spurred her to take the really annoying trip out to the Barton farm, as it was much easier than waiting for Clint to try and track her down.
The fact that time travel apparently existed was a worrying notion. Or rather, it would exist in the future. There were enough hints in Clint's video that she'd got the idea that it was Stark that had invented it, and that was believable in itself, if a slightly terrifying thought.
But that just left more questions. Why only a video? A message? Why didn't the older Clint come back in time to warn them in person? Obviously someone had come back in time, someone that Clint had entrusted with these USB sticks and had trusted to make sure these envelopes got to the right place. So why them and not Clint?
There were far too many unanswered questions, and that annoyed her.
She could only hope that the video Clint received had more answers, or at least more information. Breaking away from SHIELD was a risky proposition at the best of times. Made even more risky by the fact they were apparently infested by HYDRA.
It was certainly possible, but risky to a level that she wouldn't suggest it until Clint's family were secure somewhere else where SHIELD couldn't find them. Laura and the kids had moved before when their identity had been threatened, it wouldn't be an issue. But ensuring they couldn't be tracked by SHIELD as well as Clint's numerous enemies? That would be a challenge.
She was still planning that challenge as she passed the wooden gates that led into the Barton farm, driving up the dirt track she allowed a small smile on her face as she saw Clint coming out of the farmhouse to come and see who it was.
He was carrying six weapons that she could note, two close to his hand, and a long knife in his hand with a tea towel over his shoulder. A disguise that he'd been cooking no doubt in case it was neighbours or civilians driving up, but as soon as he recognised it was her in the truck the disguise vanished and he used the tea towel to clean off the knife he was carrying before sliding in away behind his back.
"Nat," Clint nodded, a small smile creasing the corner of his lips as she got out of the truck, slamming the door shut with annoyance after she climbed down from it's oversized drivers seat. "Didn't have anything in your size?" He quipped with a twitch of his lips.
"Fuck you," Natasha answered, her eyes quickly flicking around to make sure Laura and the kids weren't anywhere in the vicinity.
"We're on leave," Clint said, looking at Natasha dubiously. "Did you..." He trailed off when she pulled out the white envelope, holding it up for Clint to see. "You got one too then."
"You?" Natasha asked, replacing the envelope in her pocket.
"Yeah," Clint nodded wearily. "Don't know what to think about it." He admitted. "You believe it?"
"Yes," Natasha parroted. "There's things only you know. Literally, only you. It's real, I'm certain of it."
"Shit," Clint grimaced, obviously going over everything that had been mentioned in the video that he didn't want to believe. "I didn't want to believe it all."
"HYDRA? Aliens? The end of the world?" Natasha nodded in agreement. "He give you a list of targets too?"
"People not to get within ten miles of without a full cache of weapons and a shoot to kill mentality? Yeah." Clint nodded, rubbing the back of his head. "Fury?" He asked, causing Natasha to nod in agreement. "Wanda?" He asked. "Don't know anyone called Wanda, unless we're counting Jamie Lee Curtis and the fish?"
"Probably not," Natasha smirked at that. "But she was on my list too. You practically begged me to double tap her in the head as soon as I met her."
"I got the same feeling, only with more explosions and incinerate the body afterwards. Basically make sure she'd deader than dead with nothing to recover." Clint frowned. "An up and coming big bad then?" He asked.
"Likely," Natasha nodded. "Two more?" She asked.
"Three," Clint said, causing Natasha to tilt her head curiously. "Rogers?"
"He was on my list too, but I only got four." Natasha clarified. "I know a few Roger's, but no Rogers." She explained with a frown. "My money's on the famous one he showed in the postcards."
"That's my bet too," Clint nodded. "Steve Rogers?" He frowned, shaking his head. "We can't trust Captain America?" He asked, not liking the sound of that one bit.
"I never would," Natasha said plainly, like it wasn't even up for debate.
"You didn't grow up reading his comics," Clint pointed out.
"Propaganda, stories for children." Natasha shrugged. "How much is the real Rogers and how much is just lies from World War Two? Stories made up to bolster America's reputation?" She asked. "I'm Russian, we never liked Captain America."
"That's fair I guess," Clint sighed, sagging slightly. "Sam?" He asked.
"No idea." Natasha shook her head. "Too much of a common name to narrow it down. Could be male or female, from a hundred different countries." She pointed out. "Your future intel sucks." She added with a smirk.
"Yeah, I kinda hate myself already for that one." Clint admitted with a grimace.
"Who's your last one? Because that was all four of mine." Natasha asked, tilting her head curiously and wondering what this last name could be, and why it was on Clint's list and not hers.
"Thaddeus Ross?" Clint asked. "Never heard of him."
"No," Natasha frowned, shaking her head in agreement. "Warning or to kill?" She asked.
"Take out ASAP." Clint replied. "Apparently I'm to be sure about it, but make sure it can't be traced back to me in any way."
"I'll take care of it." Natasha said without hesitation. A single target could easily be taken out by a hundred different ways that would lead investigators away from linking it to anyone like Clint. She guessed his future self simply meant don't use arrows or anything similar, but she could think of dozens of other methods that would tie back to Clint as well, she'd just have to make sure there was sufficient evidence pointing to someone else. "Anything else in the video?"
"Just the stuff that made me think it was fake in the first place," Clint admitted, shaking his head when Natasha looked at him curiously. "He said to trust Stark, and not to betray them this time."
"Them?" Natasha asked, catching on to the plural. "I only know one Stark." She pointed out.
"Maybe he gets married," Clint shrugged. "Apparently we didn't trust him last time, and things got fucked up." He said with a frown. "Think Stark got a video too? From future me?"
"No idea, can't see why we'd be the only two people who got them. There has to be other videos out there." Natasha considered the question before turning her attention back to Clint. "Why would we be in a position to trust or betray Stark?" She frowned at the question. "I can't see Stark joining SHIELD, not even with that new armour of his." She pointed out. "Fury wouldn't put up with his attitude or showboating."
"He would if it kept people focused on Stark and away from him and SHIELD." Clint argued. "It'd be the perfect cover. Look over here at the attention whore while SHIELD carry on in the shadows like nothing was wrong."
Natasha nodded automatically at that. It was a viable plan, keep everyone looking at the famous name and it would leave SHIELD slash HYDRA to do whatever they wanted while nobody was paying attention to them. It made sense, and would certainly fit Fury's methodology.
"Trust Stark. Don't trust Fury." Natasha commented, tilting her head as she spoke the words aloud. "Doesn't feel right. Feels like the opposite of what I know."
"Maybe that's why someone had to invent time travel to fix everything." Clint smirked. "Think those red rift things are as bad as he made them out to be?"
"He didn't mention anything like that in my video." Natasha frowned. "Watch both?" She asked, picking out the envelope again. "Laura and the kids?"
"Work and school, they won't be back until after four." Clint nodded automatically to Nat's plan. "We've got about five and a half hours to figure this out."
"Five and a half hours to figure out why time travel exists, why we can't trust Fury, and how we should break away from the biggest covert intelligence agency in the world." Natasha commented with a small tilt of her head. "I'm going to need coffee."
"Lots of coffee," Clint nodded, gesturing for her to follow him into the farm house so they could figure this mess out together, like they'd always done. "And we need to confirm this is all real before we do anything. Get into the SHIELD servers, find proof of HYDRA there. IF we can confirm this is real and not a hoax, we get the hell out and vanish."
Natasha nodded at that. Conformation was good. She was nearly certain that the videos were real, there was nobody else but Clint that could have known the things mentioned so casually in the video, but getting conformation would definitely back up her decision.
She would be wary though. Wary of SHIELD, and wary of Fury. She was certain the videos were real, and she was going to take their warnings to heart.
Stark Mansion
10880 Malibu Point
Malibu
California
February 2nd, 2010
The next day work began on the Stark mansion, with both Morgan and Tony going over blueprints long into the night.
There were deliveries all day, fibre optic cabling, an industrial fabricator, updates to the power system, an entirely rewired electrical system. Everything was redone from the ground up, and done directly according to Morgan's specifications.
Even Tony had been impressed at some of the changes, and while there was nothing physically different about the mansion on the finished blueprints, it was all only skin deep. Underneath the security system and electronics were a true thing of wonder, and he actually pitied anyone that actually tried to breach them.
The entire mansion network had been updated to a new fibre optic standard, with JARVIS running the entire thing while Morgan promised to get FRIDAY sorted out as their next big upgrade. He hadn't actually had the chance to integrate FRIDAY into the systems yet, but after seeing the code that Morgan had sent over from her servers, he'd been seriously impressed at the future AI that was apparently JARVIS' direct 'daughter'.
The fact that FRIDAY was integrated deeply into his future nanite suits made making her the main AI for SI and his suit use the obvious choice. JARVIS would strictly be for the mansion, research and development, and administration. His updated code would cover all of that easily and would make him accessible throughout the mansion and networked into FRIDAY and FAITH whenever he needed.
His workshop had expanded greatly, and the new server farm on the basement level, while not up to Morgan's standard, would be more than enough for the next year until he could get the proper new fabricators installed at SI and start working down to the proper equipment that Morgan needed to jump start SI into the next millennium.
The full sized arc reactor in the sub-basement was perfection given form. It supplied more power than he'd ever thought possible, it would power the entire mansion for centuries without making a dent in the core. Giving him clean and constant power for his workshop, fabricators, private servers, the mansion itself and everything else.
Morgan had already torn apart the fabricator that had been delivered and made some pretty heavy custom pieces that had really done a number on it. He wasn't entirely sure what it was capable of now, but it was definitely going to be the new standard once he'd got his hands on it and gone over all of Morgan's upgrades with a fine tooth comb to understand them properly.
Next to the server farm was the prismatic accelerator, along with an absolute mountain of raw materials that could be converted into Starkanium. He'd gone over the specs a dozen times and was still in awe of the element he'd discovered. He'd publish it properly in the next few weeks when he had a bored moment. Shaking up the scientific community was always a good source of amusement.
Things were definitely going well, while Pepper had focused on SI and been looking more into Spain and deals with the European countries, they'd made amazing progress on making the mansion into something that was nearly up to Morgan's standards, and it had been an interesting time spent together where they'd actually bonded while working, slinging sly jokes and quips at each other while sarcasm and wit was the main course.
It was definitely a step forward, but every evening when Pepper came to check on them and make sure they were eating properly, they'd become more and more of a family. Things were still slightly awkward between Tony and Pepper, on Pepper's side really, as Tony had quite happily fallen into his flirtatious nature around her, something that Morgan had walked in on a few times before making her usual sarcastic remarks and fleeing the room.
For Tony, focusing on the work, knocking through walls, rebuilding the electrical system, and building a security system with teeth were all just ways of keeping his brain active. Keeping his thoughts away from alcohol and the urge to grab a drink every evening.
Every day was a bit harder, and a bit easier at the same time. The fact there wasn't any alcohol in the house was definitely a bonus, but he found himself looking for all the different non-alcoholic drinks he could find, even trying strange ones like grenadine and some truly odd concoctions just to find new flavours and something with a kick that could replace his urge for a good bourbon.
But overall, things were going well. They had a viable plan. The mansion was starting to take shape again. And Morgan had 'dumbed down' a metric shit-ton of technology that could be pushed into production over the next year or so, some focused on bringing SI upto her level of technology, others focused on consumer products like phones, tablets, computers, scanners and medical gear.
SI was going to have entirely new departments soon, medical and cybernetics being just the two biggest ones. From everything he'd seen there were huge advances in MRI and scanning technology that would save billions of lives. The cybernetics would be a world shattering piece of news when they announced it, and he was chomping at the bit to speak to Rhodey... Eightball, and see about getting some veterans willing to come forward and be the new faces of the replacement limbs line.
It was going to be huge. Twenty ten would be the year of the Stark, he was going to make sure of it. And if him, Pepper and Morgan weren't featured on Time's front cover this year, he'd eat his suit. One of the red and gold ones at that.
AN: It's shown in both the movies, TV shows, and comics that there are countries in the MCU that aren't part of SHIELD and are outside of their jurisdiction... Fury mentions a few of them in the comics but it's never expanded on... in the MCU it seems SHIELD tries to claim to be a world wide agency, while only operating in select countries that welcome them, and being housed and funded solely in America while answering to some nebulous 'world security council' that seems to have more American politicians on board than anyone else.